Tag: David Jonsson

The Long Walk Review: Well, This was Depressing.

If you ask any Stephen King Fan what the name of the first novel he wrote is, I believe the majority would say Carrie.
However, while this was the first book King published, it was not the first he wrote.
No, that honor goes to The Long Walk, which was eventually released under the pseudonym of Richard Bachman.
Many decades after the novel’s release, we finally have our first adaptation, directed by Francis Lawrence, and, man, it is depressing.

Although often tragic, The Long Walk also has a beautiful message about brotherhood.

Set in a dystopian version of America, The Long Walk is a competition where 50 young men are chosen from 50 states to walk continuously at a pace of three miles per hour.
If they fall below the speed three times in three hours then, in the words of Mark Hamill’s villainous Major character, “You get your ticket.”
In simpler terms, you get your brains or guts blown out in a grim and gory fashion.

The deaths in this movie are unflinching in their brutality.

Joining The Long Walk this year is Ray Garraty (Cooper Hoffman, son of the late great Philip Seymor Hoffman), who has joined the life-or-death competition for very personal reasons.
However, over the exhausting days of his journey, he unexpectedly finds a close camaraderie and even brotherhood with his fellow walkers.
This makes the inevitable, gruesome demises of these characters all the more gut wrenching, leading to various emotional sendoffs. 

This does not stop the Major from glamorizing the deaths, making him all the more detestable.

Hoffman is excellent as Garraty, and every other actor in this film does a similarly great job.
There are two I want to highlight though.
The first of these is David Jonsson as Peter McVries, the man who grows closest to Garrity during The Long Walk.
Jonsson was one of the best parts of Alien: Romulus and this trend continues in The Long Walk.
The second actor I want to praise is Judy Greer, who plays Garrity’s mother and delivers some of the most gut wrenching acting of the film in her few scenes.

Even though she does not have much screentime, I would say Greer is the standout.

As I mentioned before, the deaths in this film are gruesome, made all the worse by how likeable the characters are.
Their deaths range from shocking, to abrupt, to heroic, to even one of the most undignified deaths I have seen put to film (trust me, you will know what death I am talking about when you see it).
All of this builds to a crushing ending, which diverts from the book, and leaves a lot to interpret. 

The film ending is a very different experience from King’s novel.

Personally, I liked the change and have my own interpretations of what it all means.
Overall, The Long Walk is one of the best films of the year.
It is full of great characters with fantastic performances, whose constant deaths get you emotional.
That being said, while The Long Walk is a great film, it is certainly not an experience which generates much happiness, so I cannot imagine myself rewatching it that often.
Still, if you are looking to be emotionally destroyed, The Long Walk is the film for you. 

Alien: Romulus Review: Great Moments Weighed Down by Nostalgia.

Despite being the most renowned sci-fi horror franchise of all time, the Alien sequels have yet to live up to the excellence of its first two installments.
This was something I hoped would change with Alien: Romulus.
Directed by Fede Álvarez, one of the best horror directors working today, the first teaser for the film truly gripped me, getting me more excited for an Alien movie than I have been in years.
So, the first chance I got, I made my way down to the theater and sat down to watch it.
Unfortunately, I left that theater disappointed.
That is not to say Alien: Romulus is a bad movie, don’t get me wrong.
But the film is simply no better than the many average sequels which came after Aliens.
There are times when the movie is great, but those moments are undermined by a lot of bad.

Romulus starts off well, but its issues become more apparent as the film goes on.

Set between Alien and Aliens, Romulus follows a group of young adults who board a deserted research station.
Consisting of Rain (Cailee Spaney), her android brother Andy (David Jonsson), Tyler (Archie Renaux), Kay (Isabela Merced), Bjorn (Spike Bearn) and Navaro (Aileen Wu), this group attempts to find a way to make a better life for themselves, only to be met with a brutal fight for survival as they encounter the most dangerous creature in the universe.
Out of every character in the cast, the best are definitely Rain and Andy.
Their bond is the highlight of the film, with David Jonsson being particularly great as Andy.

Jonsson makes Andy endearing, awesome, and off-putting at different points throughout the film.

As for the rest of the characters, they are fine.
A lot of them are just there to die horribly when things go bad.
Speaking of which, these deaths are really gruesome, with a lot of horrifying practical effects.
The effects for the Aliens are also top notch.
They have been mostly CG for the past few movies, so it was great to see Fede Álvarez return the franchise to its practical roots. 

Turns out the Alien is much more threatening when it is actually on stage with the actors. Who would have thought?… okay, everybody already knew that.

Along with the practical effects, the set design is also phenomenal, as is the sound design.
The soundtrack is nothing special, but it gets the job done.
All of these settings combine to create some truly great scenes, most notably with the Facehuggers.
Romulus presents the Facehuggers at their most terrifying, while also adding to the lore of how they operate in fascinating ways. 

The Facehuggers have not been this scary since Aliens.

All of this is great but, as I said earlier, the movie is weighed down by many problems, chief among them being nostalgia.
Whenever a franchise gets rebooted nowadays, the writers will often have characters repeat famous lines from earlier movies, even when those lines make no sense in the context they are repeated.
Romulus is unfortunately no different.
There is an action scene near the third act which is tense, inventive and one of the best scenes in the film… but then they have to weaken it by having a character awkwardly repeat a line from Aliens.    

This scene would have been perfect without the unnecessary callback at the end.

The issues do not end there because, without giving anything away, the movie baits nostalgia using CGI for one specific plot point, and it was just awful.
It looked so bad to the point of distraction, especially compared to the many great practical effects throughout the movie.
And then we have the ending.
Oh, boy, that ending.
Going into Romulus, I had heard that the ending was nuts and yep, it definitely is, but not in a good way.
It starts off well enough, being sufficiently creepy.
However, as the scene goes on, the threat just becomes goofy.
It felt like I was looking at something from a cheesy Resident Evil game rather than something from Alien. 

The third act will be divisive, I think. Some people will enjoy it, while others, like me, will not.

I can appreciate Fede Álvarez taking a big swing with his idea for the ending, but it definitely missed for me.
Not to mention this final threat feels extremely similar to an idea from a prior Alien sequel which already failed.
It is a shame that Romulus has all of these issues because, like I said, there are a lot of great things about this movie.
Rain and Andy’s bond is a highlight, the practical effects are amazing, and a lot of the horror and action scenes are intense.
It is all just weighed down by eye rolling nostalgia bait, extremely poor CGI at times, and a third act which just feels goofy and honestly too far removed from Alien.
Overall, Alien: Romulus is still a good movie, but best to temper your expectations before going to see it.