SYNOPSIS: In “Blink Twice,” a psychological drama directed by Zoë Kravitz, and now playing in theatres, disgraced tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum) invites cater waiter Frida (Naomi Ackie) to join him and his friends for an idyllic get-a-way on his private island. “Are you having a good time?” he repeatedly asks her as champagne flows, and she is… until, in the blink of an eye, she has a startling revelation.
CAST: Naomi Ackie, Channing Tatum, Christian Slater, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Haley Joel Osment, Kyle MacLachlan, Geena Davis, Alia Shawkat. Directed by Zoë Kravitz.
REVIEW: A dark psychological thriller with elements of rage, humour and danger, “Blink Twice” is a confident, if scattered, directorial debut from Zoë Kravitz. A violent riff on “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’s” memory erasing, it asks the question, Is it best to live with only good memories, burying the bad so deeply they never resurface?
A fantasy island trip gone wrong, “Blink Twice” takes a while to get where it is going, to let the Twilight Zone-ness of the situation sink in. It’s decadent and drug fueled, set to a soundtrack of dance tunes and King’s constant query, “Are you having fun?” Nothing matters except hedonism, and soon (NO SPOILERS HERE), but not soon enough, we find out why.
At this point “Blink Twice” flicks the switch. What begans as Jordan Peele style exploration of the ultra-wealthy, of the lingering, intergenerational effects of trauma and violence against women, becomes a revenge drama tinged with horror. After a long lead up, however, the transition feels rushed as the true cruelty of the party island, and the men who run it, is revealed.
Kravitz and co-writer E.T. Feigenbaum have a lot on their minds, but more isn’t always better. From the apology tours of cancelled celebrities and sexual violence against women to the price of trauma, white patriarchal privilege and gender disparity, it touches down on a litany of hot button topics. Add to that a private island with a Jeffrey Epstein vibe and a misbehaving billionaire and you have an overload of Twitter/X trending topics. With so much happening, “Blink Twice” feels like it is hop-scotching around its themes and doesn’t add much new to the discourse of any of them.
Still, as tightly packed as the movie is—no shrinkflation here—Kravitz keeps the pace up, nimbly navigating her way through to the film’s finale with style to burn. The direction trumps the storytelling, as Kravitz knows how to stage effective scenes that will entertain the eye and, perhaps even move you toward the edge of your seat.
She is aided by strong performances from the three leads, Ackie, Tatum and “Hit Man’s” Adria Arjona. Tatum is all charm as the romantic lead (for a while anyway) before revealing his true nature in a terrific turn-around for the character.
Ackie and Arjona enjoy the best-written roles and make the most of them. As Frida, Ackie (last seen playing the title role in “Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody”) is relatable as someone who finds themself in an unimaginable situation, before tapping into a newfound iron will.
Arjona takes a role that could have been one-note—a reality show warrior with her eye on the billionaire’s affections—and makes her multi-faceted, kick-ass and very funny.
“Blink Twice” doesn’t entirely work, but as a story about the nature of memory, it is memorable enough to earn a recommendation.
A very unusual thing happened when I saw Richard Linklater’s “Hit Man” at last year’s TIFF. After the movie’s best and funniest scene, one that shows the comedic chops and chemistry of leads Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, the audience burst into applause. It was a spontaneous, organic moment, the kind usually reserved for comedy clubs, not sold-out festival screenings.
Powell, who also wrote the script, plays Gary, a seemingly mild-mannered psychology and philosophy professor at the University of New Orleans. When he isn’t lecturing to bored students about breaking out of their comfort zones, he leads a quiet life, tending to his pet birds and two cats, Id and Ego.
On the side he works with local law enforcement as a sound technician, secretly recording undercover officer Jasper (Austin Amelio) as he entraps people who want to hire him to kill a spouse or a business partner.
When Jasper is suspended for bad behavior, Gary subs in.
Turns out, he’s a natural, and more importantly, it gives him an adrenaline rush he hasn’t felt for many years. With Jasper out of the picture, Gary dives in, wearing disguises to create a new hitman character for every meeting.
“I realized not everyone fantasized about the same hit man,” he says. “Every sting operation was a performance. And each arrest was like a standing ovation.”
When he meets Madison (Adria Arjona), a distressed wife who wants him to kill her husband, he immediately falls for her. In their meeting he gets her to stop talking before she incriminates herself, and soon, they begin dating. Trouble is, she knows him as self-assured badass Ron, not as the affable Gary.
Complications ensue, culminating in the above-mentioned applause-worthy scene, a mix of slapstick and the pure chemistry between Powell and Arjona, where they know the police are recording them, but continue their conversation as though they don’t.
Very loosely based on the true story of Gary Johnson, as written by Skip Hollandsworth in “Texas Monthly,” “Hit Man” is a rom com with some thrilling twists. Light and frothy, it’s anchored by a smart script that acts as a showcase for the lead performances.
Powell pulls off a full-on leading man turn as a guy who embodies an ideal by creating a role-playing fantasy of what a hit man would be like, based on the wants and needs of the client. It gives him a chance to show his versatility and step away from the bland leading man roles that have marked some of his most popular work to date.
“Hit Man” makes the most of that performance. As the disguises get nuttier and nuttier, and the plot more pretzel-shaped, director Richard Linklater finds a balance between Powell’s showcase work, the script’s big laughs and the story’s inherent tension. It could have gone south very easily, but Linklater pulls off a bit of a magic trick and keeps it hilariously humming along on all cylinders.
In “Morbius,” a new shared universe of films inspired by Spider-Man characters, and now playing in theatres, Jared Leto plays a doctor who takes the old phrase, “Physician, heal thyself,” a little too far.
Jared Leto is Dr. Michael Morbius, Nobel Prize-worthy biologist with a medical degree in hematology. His field of work is personal to him. Since childhood he and his best friend Milo (a preening Matt Smith) have battled a rare blood disease that drains him of his energy. As an adult Michael searches for a cure.
“I should have died years ago,” he says. “Why am I still here if not to fix this?”
He devises a cure, but it is it a cure or a curse? He will live, and maybe even thrive, but his life will be forever changed.
“I went from dying to being more alive than ever,” he says after going “batty.”
The cure has transforms him into a transgenic vampire, a being with superhuman strength and speed, heightened senses, accelerated healing “and some form of bat radar,” but none of the usual weaknesses associated with vampires. Bring on the garlic and crosses. But, like traditional vampires, he now must drink blood to survive.
“I have powers that can only be described as superhuman,” he says. “But there’s a cost. Now I face a choice, to hunt and consume blood or die.”
He chooses life, but his tolerance for artificial blood is lowering and soon he’ll have to break everything he believes in and drink real human blood, a choice he loathes.
Milo, on the other hand, chooses a darker path, pitting friend against friend. “All our lives we’ve lived with death hanging over us,” Milo says. “Why shouldn’t we enjoy life for a change.”
It can only be said one way. “Morbius” sucks… more than just blood. Likely undone by a PG-13 rating that must have shaved off some of, what could have been, effective horror elements, it’s a defanged vampire movie with no bite.
A generic story and dated special effects—the bullet time gag was fresh when we first saw it in “The Matrix,” but that was then and this is now—and the whole turgid affair culminates in a murky CGI climax that is visually hard to follow. You know where this story is headed, you just can’t tell what, exactly, is happening on screen.
Leto is the above-the-title star, but his bland work is over-shadowed by Smith who at least seems to be having fun as the bloodthirsty Milo.
There are two after credit scenes in “Moribus” that promise more stories with the batty doctor, but the franchise needs a serious transfusion before continuing the story.
When James Gunn isn’t ripping up the box office with big budget “Guardians of the Galaxy” movies he occasionally let’s his freak flag fly by writing smaller, stranger movies like “The Belko Experiment.” A grisly look at human nature, it’s a riff on the bloody Japanese cult film “Battle Royale” with brains and plenty of brain splatter.
It’s just another day at the office for Belko Industries workers. Housed in a monolithic building outside Bogotá, Columbia city limits, the non-profit company facilitates the hiring of American workers in South America. Today, like every day before, the workers answer phones, drink coffee, talk about their weekends and some even pass the time flirting.
It’s just like any other day except today new security at the front gate sent all the Columbian nationals home. Then an announcement came over the loudspeaker. “There are currently 80 of you in the building,” says a mysterious voice. “By the end of the day many of you will be dead. To survive you must follow instructions. First order: murder any two employees. Doesn’t matter how but there will be repercussions if there aren’t two bodies in half an hour.”
Some think it’s a company wide psychological test, others drift into paranoia. The workers soon learn there’s no place to hide. Surveillance is everywhere and the mysterious voice seems to have tabs on what everyone is doing. With nowhere to hide, nowhere to run panic ensues and the bodies start to pile up.
When a second announcement instructs the workers to kill thirty of the remaining staff it is every man or woman for himself or herself.
Will anyone survive? Will whoever is in charge allow anyone to tell the story of what happened? Well they work together or will they kill one another?
If blood splatter is your thing “The Belko Experiment” may appeal to you. It’s a gory, brain bursting (literally) exercise in nihilism that masquerades as an unfettered social experiment. Which is not to say it isn’t entertaining. For much of its running time it is a compelling cat-and-mouse game but by the time everyone is slipping and sliding on blood soaked floors I was left hoping for a bit more satire or social commentary and a little less sadism and plasma.
Before “The Belko Experiment” becomes all about the blood ‘n brains it does feature some interesting human behaviour by the varied and noteworthy cast. “The Newsroom’s” John Gallagher Jr. is voice of reason Mike who stands in stark contrast to the bloodthirsty survivalists Barry Norris (Tony Goldwin) and Wendell Dukes (“Office Space’s” John C. McGinley). A study in how far people will go to stay alive, it doesn’t offer many surprising answers—here’s a shocker, people will do almost anything not to be killed—but at a lean 89 minutes it’s brutally entertaining.
