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The quaility of Duncan Jones’ first two films (Moon and Source Code) placed him on the map of
the most promising up and coming directors. Whilst Warcraft wasn’t anywhere
near to being a masterpiece it wasn’t the cinematic atrocity people claimed it
to be either, Duncan Jones was in great need of hitting the big time again.
However, it’s unlikely Mute is going to be the film to help him achieve that.
It seems a bit
cliché to describe any future set film to be greatly reminiscent of Blade
Runner, but the comparisons between Mute and Blade Runner are unmissable,
especially when you compare the representation of the futuristic cities and the
neo-noir plot. Although set in a
different country, Mute’s 2050s Berlin has many similarities to Blade Runner’s
2019 LA with its futuristic tech, bustling sex industry, and flying cars.
Berlin
certainly makes more a potentially interesting setting, acting as a East meets
West melting pot of immigration, but director Duncan Jones doesn’t make the
most of it. He focuses on a mute bartender’s, Leo (Alexander Skarsgård), quest
to find his missing girlfriend where the only link appears to be a pair of
surgeons, one of whom wants to escape Berlin for America with his daughter.
Whilst I
wasn’t greatly enamored with The Shape of Water, Sally Hawkins did show how
much power can be garnered from a performance with no dialogue. Skarsgård,
undoubtedly a good actor, is a little boring in this film showing nothing more
than rage tinged with occasional sadness. Still, he isn’t the worst performer
as a miscast Paul Rudd fails to carry his side of the story as he just wasn’t
threatening enough to be believable in his role.
Paul Rudd’s
gangster side story is where the most questionable aspect of the film arises.
The film’s highly odd depiction of a very dark subject matter is done is such a
blasé way that is has to be seen to be believed.
2/5
2/5
2/5
On the weekend of 04/02 there was some rather large sporting event
where two American football teams compete to wim a super bowl. Quite what makes
this bowl "super" is anyone’s guess, but the event is just as famous for dropping
major movie trailers during the half time show. One of the trailers dropped was
for another Cloverfield movie which was released on Netflix that very
night. Quite why Netflix suddenly dropped this bombshell on us was anyone’s guess,
but we weren’t complaining because we had something to watch that weekend. It
soon transpired that the reason why this was released with very little fanfare
is that is really isn’t very good.
The film’s only saving grace, with exception of one or two
good moments, was a superb, and emotionally raw performance from Gugu Mbatha-Raw.
Mbatha-Raw, all on her own, makes the entire film worth watching because you do
connect with her character (or what there is of her character) due to the her brilliant performance. The Interstellar like moment where she watches her family is a
generally engaging moment in a film where these moments were few and far
between. The performances of her fellow stars are fine but they may as well not
even be there because their boring cardboard cut-out personalities ensure they
don’t even make the slightest blip on the radar.
The Cloverfield aspects feel as though they were tacked on
to a random movie (which probably wasn’t very good anyway) which is let down by
clumsy exposition (we have these terrible scenes where the characters, via
voiceover, debate what to do next) and poor dialogue. The film is also a
horrible mismatch of deadpan humour (Chris O’Dowd’s character seems to have
rather blasé attitude
towards losing one of his limbs) and intense horror with neither really coming
to the forefront. The film, all in all, is a bit of mess, and randomly adding
aspect that would make it part of the Cloverfield franchise probably didn’t
help.
2/5
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