The difference between the 2017 “Suicide Squad” film starring Will Smith and this weekend’s sequel, “The Suicide Squad,” goes far beyond adding the definite article to the title. I accused the first film of “trying to echo the very movies it should be an antidote to.” You know, the self-important, self-absorbed superhero blockbusters that forgot to unpack the fun along with the story. “The Suicide Squad,” now playing in theatres, has some social commentary but it doesn’t forget the fun. Or the violence, daddy issues or anthropomorphic weasel.
There’s a lot happening in “The Suicide Squad.”
At the beginning of the non-stop 132-minute rollercoaster ride, cold-blooded government official Amanda Waller (Viola Davis) offers a selection of the world’s worst criminals a deal. the Join Task Force X, a.k.a. the Suicide Squad, work for her and, and in exchange she’ll reduce their sentences at the notorious Belle Reve prison. Stray outside the job, however, and a chip inserted at the base of their skull will be detonated, ending the mission forever.
Signing on for the mission to invade the (fictional) South American republic of Corto Maltese and steal and destroy a piece of alien technology from evil scientist The Thinker (Peter Capaldi), are a motley crew of supervillains.
There’s assassin Bloodsport (Idris Elba), patriotic vigilante Peacemaker (John Cena) who will kill anything or anyone in the name of peace, the neurotic “experiment gone wrong” Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), the dumb-as-a-stump fish-human hybrid Prince Nanaue (Sylvester Stallone), the rodent loving thief Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), the unhinged Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney), crazed criminal and former psychiatrist Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and field leader Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman).
Add to that TDK (Nathan Fillion), Weasel (Sean Gunn), Blackguard (Pete Davidson), Javelin (Flula Borg), Mongal (Mayling Ng) and Savant (Michael Rooker), and you have a dysfunctional “Brady Bunch” charged with saving the world, if a giant, telepathic alien starfish doesn’t get them first.
“The Suicide Squad” has many of the same features as a Marvel movie. The world is at stake, there’s an alien lifeform causing trouble, there’s villains and a team of outsiders with special skills who fight back. They may look the same on paper, and share blockbuster budgets, but DCEU’s “The Suicide Squad” is seedier; a sister from a different mister.
The kills are squishier and bloodier than anything seen in “The Avengers.” The sense of humour is more juvenile than “Thor: Ragnarok” and you’re not likely to find a cute rat with a backpack in “Black Widow.”
James Gunn has not forgotten his schlocky Troma Films roots. His resume includes a screenwriting credit for “Tromeo and Juliet,” and “The Suicide Squad” pays homage to “The Toxic Avenger.” That sensibility helps define the new Squad movie’s most memorable bits but Gunn also tempers the gross stuff with a certain kind of sweetness and some not-so-subtle social commentary.
When the characters aren’t in motion, kicking, shooting, punching, gouging or stabbing, they often engage in character work, explaining how and why life pushed them toward joining this unorthodox team. The stories are dysfunctional—being trapped in a box with live, hungry rats is the stuff of nightmares—but they create a bond between the Squad that is unexpected in a movie that, in the beginning anyway, values brutality more than empathy.
Built into the story of an invasion of another country are questions of US foreign policy and military integrity. Casting the likable John Cena as Peacemaker, a “hero” willing to do anything to protect his perceived ideology, is subversively brilliant. When one Squad member snarls, “Peacemaker… what a joke,” the line drips with meaning.
But don’t get the idea that “The Suicide Squad” has fallen prey to the foibles of the self-serious 2017 version. Gunn brings enough fun and absurd action to make the sonic overload of the second kick at the can equal parts silly and serious.
As “Joker” sweeps through Awards Season, scooping up a motherlode of Best Actor gold for Joaquin Phoenix, along comes the standalone story of the Clown Prince of Crime’s former female sidekick. “Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)” sees Margot Robbie revisit her unpredictable “Suicide Squad” character in an R-rated film that is part action, part comedy and all attitude. More in tune with the antics of “Deadpool” than the serious tone of “Joker,” “Birds of Prey” is a fourth-wall-breaking story that doesn’t feel like other superhero movies.
Picking up after the events of “Suicide Squad,” Gotham City has become a cesspool of crime. Batman has flown the coop leaving the city unprotected from the likes of crime lord Black Mask (Ewan McGregor). The baseball wielding Quinn has rid herself of her former “partner in madness,” the Joker—” I am so over clowns!” she says—and now travels with a new squad of vigilantes. “As it turns out, I wasn’t the only dame in Gotham looking for emancipation,” she says. Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez) come together to help Harley protect Cassandra Cain (Ella Jay Basco), a young pickpocket who had the bad luck of coming into possession of a diamond ebcoded with a valuable secret, a secret Black Mask desperately wants. “I’m back on my feet,” Harley says, “ready to embrace the fierce goddess within.”
“Birds of Prey” is a story of survivors, of feminism, of tough women out on the town and it is the most fun DC has offered up at the movies. The stripped-down story sheds “Suicide Squad’s” nihilistic nonsense in favor of empowerment and general kick assery.
It gets off to a slow start, establishing the characters and situation, but erupts in the last third with bombastic action choreographed by director Cathy Yan and “John Wick” fight maestro Chad Stahelski. Forget the CGI finales of the Marvel Universe, this is blood-soaked up-close-and-personal stunt action with a wicked sense of humour.
Robbie has a gleeful, cheeky commitment to the character that sets the tone for the movie’s 80s new wave kaleidoscopic aesthetic. With a habit of settling disputes with a baseball bat to the groin she isn’t a role model but is unpredictable, scrappy fun to watch on screen. Ditto McGregor who actually seems to be having fun wearing Black Mask’s hyped-up wardrobe after a series of movies that have left his charisma relegated to the backroom.
“Birds of Prey” is loads of fun but manages to weave some serious ideas about not needing men to survive into the chaos. Most of all, though, it feels like a welcome antidote to the monotony of so many comic book inspired films.
“Bombshell,” the new film starring Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman and a cast of thousands, is set at a time when dinosaurs roamed the earth. The T-Rex in the room in this story is Roger Ailes (John Lithgow), the chairman and CEO of Fox News. Much of the action is set in 2016 but the attitudes on display are positively prehistoric.
Ailes died on May 18, 2017, aged 77, but when we first meet him, he reigns supreme. He helped elected presidents, walked the halls of power with confidence and, most importantly for the purposes of this story, created the conservative cable news juggernaut Fox News. Specializing in covering stories that, according to producer Jess Carr (Kate McKinnon), “will scare your grandmother and piss off your grandfather,” Fox became Ailes’s mouthpiece to counter “liberal” CNN.
Ailes altered how Americans consumed the news, making stars out of Greta Van Susteren, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity and the two women at the heart of “Bombshell’s” story, Gretchen Carlson (Nicole Kidman) and Megyn Kelly (Charlize Theron). Kelly is one of the network’s biggest stars, an outspoken lawyer engaged in a war of words with then candidate Donald Trump. The feud was good for ratings, so despite his pro-Trump stance, Ailes allowed it to continue. Not as good for the ratings was Carlson, a former prime time anchor demoted to midafternoons following disagreements with her boss.
Eventually fired, Carlson levelled accusations of sexual misconduct against her former boss, alleging she had been fired for rebuffing Ailes’ advances. When the expected support from other women inside Fox who had been auditioned by Ailes with the words, “stand up and give me a twirl,” or “lift your skirt up higher so I can see your legs,” Carlson fears her allegations will fall on deaf ears.
On the insider Kelly weighs her options. Despite a “Support Roger” campaign from colleague Jeanine Pirro (Alanna Ubach) she bides her time before opening up about her own experiences.
The title “Bombshells” is a double entendre, referring to Ailes’ objectification of his on-air talent and to the accusations leveled against him, which sent ripples throughout the male dominated corporate world of news.
“Bombshell” echoes the story recently told in the mini-series “The Loudest Voice.” Both tell of a toxic workplace where one man ruled by intimidation, sexual harassment and micromanagement. “We have two, three and four donut days,” says Ailes’ executive assistant (Holland Taylor). “These aren’t donuts he eats. They’re donuts he throws.” His, “if you want to play with the big boys you have to lay with the big boys,” credo is dramatized in his interactions with Kayla Pospisil, a composite of several Fox employees, played by Margot Robbie. It was the days before #MeToo and the film does a good job of showing the apprehension some of the abused women feel about revealing their lurid treatment by Ailes.
At the film’s helm is Theron, with the aid of an incredible make up job, disappears into the role of Megyn. She pierces the icy demeanor of Kelly’s on-air persona to reveal a heroine torn between loyalty to a man she knows has done terrible things and doing the right thing. It’s tremendous work that humanizes a character often portrayed in the real-life press as a divisive figure.
“Bombshell” is a torn-from-the-headlines story about the people behind the headlines that serves as a reminder of the importance of the #MeToo movement in shining a light on the kind of inappropriate behavior that placed women in peril in the workplace. Good performances, aided by makeup and prosthetics bring the story to vivid life.
I went to see “Pulp Fiction” on its October 1994 opening weekend at a 2:30 pm screening. I arrived at 2:15 pm, stood in line and waited. And waited. The shows were delayed because audiences weren’t leaving after the credits. They were sitting in their seats talking about what they had just seen. Months of hype in the newspapers and on shows like “Entertainment Tonight” ignited curiosity and the movie delivered, using a broken timeline, ultra-violence and witty dialogue to bend the idea of what a movie could be. Just after 3 pm the movie finally started. Later, mind blown, I didn’t stick around the theatre to discuss the movie with anyone. I ran to the box office, bought a ticket for the next screening and got back in line.
Quentin Tarantino’s new film, “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood,” doesn’t have quite the same impact as “Pulp Fiction” but it digs deeper, expanding on themes the director has spent a career exploring. “Pulp Fiction” was a seismic shift, a movie changed the face of 1990s cinema, while “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” is an allegory for changing times.
As the title would suggest “Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” has dark fairy tale elements. Set in sun dappled 1969 Los Angeles, it focusses on two almost down-and-outers, Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) a former series star now reduced to doing episodic television—“It’s official old buddy. I’m a has-been.”—and stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt), a self-described “old cowboy.” Both are on a race to the bottom in an industry they don’t understand anymore.
Next to Dalton’s luxury Cielo Drive home is a mansion owned by starlet Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie) and director Roman Polanski (Rafał Zawierucha), party place to L.A. luminaries like heiress Abigail Folger (Samantha Robinson) and hairdresser to the stars Jay Sebring (Emile Hirsch). As Dalton and Booth’s Hollywood era comes to a close, another is blossoming next door and further on down the road at Manson Family HQ and former western movie set Spahn Ranch.
There will be no spoilers here. I can say the various narrative shards dovetail together in a frenzy of grindhouse violence near the end, but “OUAT… IH” isn’t story driven as much as it is a detailed portrait of a time and place, the moment when the sea change was coming. Piece by piece Tarantino weaves together a nostalgic pastiche of b-movie tropes and expertly rendered sights and sounds to create a vivid portrait of a time and place. With the setting established, he plays mix and match, blending fact and fiction, creating his own history that feels like a carefully detailed memory play.
Pitt screaming down Hollywood Boulevard in a powder blue sports car is the essence of what the movie is about. The propulsive energy of Hollywood, dangerous, glamorous with the promise of ending up who knows where. The characters may all be headed for uncertain futures but an air of optimism hangs over the story. Dalton is down on his luck but when he realizes his neighbor is a world-famous director he says, “I could be one pool party away from starring in the next Polanski movie.” He’s a man out of time but still feels there might be a place for him in that world and that is the lifeblood of Hollywood, the city built on dreams.
One such dreamer is Tate. Robbie has a lovely scene as the actress enjoying her own movie in a darkened theatre. It does away with the stylized dialogue Tarantino is known for and instead focusses on the pure joy the character feels at watching her dreams come true on the big screen. It’s a lovely scene that speaks to the excitement of the first blush of success, untouched by cynicism in an increasingly cynical world.
“Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood” is unique in its feel. Tarantino has always been singular in his filmmaking but this one feels different. It’s clearly rooted in the b-movies that inspire his vision but here he is contemplative, allowing his leads—DiCaprio and Pitt in full-on charismatic mode—to channel and portray the insecurities that accompany uncertainty. The film is specific in its setting but universal in portrayal of how people react to the shifting sands of time. Funny, sad and occasionally outrageous, it’s just like real life as filtered through a camera lens.
Mr. Parker, my grade nine history teacher, believed in learning by rote. Once a day thirty schoolmates and I would assemble in his class and were invariably confronted with Mr. Parker in his black suit dusted with chalk from writing, in perfect script, three chalk boards worth of notes. “Write it down and learn it.” A mishmash of dates and names, his notes were detailed but ultimately did not bring the story to life.
Watching “Mary Queen of Scots,” a new historical drama starring Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie, I was immediately transported back to Mr. Parker’s class.
The convoluted tale begins in 1561 with Mary Stuart (Ronan) returning to Scotland being raised Catholic in France and widowed at age eighteen. She comes home to a world of intrigue. Her half-brother, the Earl of Moray (James McArdle) would seem to be an ally but holds resentment that he will lose his exalted place as King with her return. She also faces opposition from John Knox (David Tennant), a religious leader who brands the queen a harlot, unfit for the throne.
Meanwhile in England Mary’s twenty-five-year-old Protestant cousin Queen Elizabeth I (Robbie, under an inch of make-up) has a certain amount of sympathy for her long lost relative. The monarch understand what it means to be a woman ruler in a world of men but her advisers, including her chief council William Cecil (Guy Pearce) see Mary as a threat who must be dealt with.
Cue the intrigue and sharpen those axes.
There is a lot going on in “Mary Queen of Scots.” Political backbiting, betrayal, toxic patriarchy, romance, more betrayal and equal parts empathy and cruelty are all on display, making an already expansive story—it spans roughly twenty years—feel overstuffed. Locations, dates and motivations blur as the courtly manipulations pile atop one another, leaving behind a nicely acted film that feels weighted down by an excess of intrigue.
Robbie and Ronan, rivals for the Best Actress Oscar last year, share just one scene, an historically inaccurate meeting that features the film’s best moments. As Mary shifts from pleading for sisterhood to imperiously claiming the crown of England for herself—“I am a Stuart, the rightful queen.”—there is more drama in those few minutes than in the film’s entire middle section.
“Mary Queen of Scots” has some admirable, timely qualities. Colour-blind casting—most notably through the work of Gemma Chan and Adrian Lester—Mary’s attitude toward the gender-fluid minstrel David Rizzio (Ismael Cruz Cordova) and the portrayal of Mary and Elizabeth as strong willed women are thoroughly modern and to be commended. It’s too bad the narrative machinations bog down what otherwise is a fine tale of political manoeuvring.
“I, Tonya” explores the seedy underbelly of a sport you didn’t think had a seedy underbelly. A darkly humorous look at the defining moment of figure skater Tonya Harding’s career, it’s a tale of death threats, broken blades and attempted hobbling.
Margot Robbie is Harding, an elite athlete who sums up her career with, “I was loved for a minute. Then I was hated. Then I was a punch line.” As a young child all she wanted to do was skate. A rink rat from age four, she began winning figure skating awards at a time when her friends were still learning cursive. Her embittered mother LaVona Golden (Allison Janney), the kind of person who stubs out her cigarette out in her mashed potatoes, is a punishing presence, pushing her relentlessly to be the best. “You’re not here to make friends,” she screeches when young Tonya pauses to say hello to a fellow skater. “That girl is your enemy.”
With the help of trainer Diane Rawlinson (Julianne Nicholson) Harding rises through the ranks, developing an aggressive and athletic style that sees her out skate most of her competitors to become the first skater to complete a triple axel combination with the double toe loop. Trouble is, her homemade costumes, Trashy Tonya nickname and hair trigger temper are not accepted by the skating establishment. “You’re not the image we want to portray,” she’s told. “You’re representing our country and we want a wholesome American family.”
To even the playing field husband Jeff Gillooly (Sebastian Stan) hatches a plan to unnerve Tonya’s biggest threat on the ice—Nancy Kerrigan (Caitlin Carver). What starts off as psychological warfare against a competitor snowballs into “The Incident,” a scandalous affair vaults Harding’s name into the headlines. On January 6, 1994, just six weeks before the Lillehammer Olympics, unbeknownst to Harding, a thug, hired by Gillooly’s friend and co-conspirator Shawn Eckardt (Paul Walter Hauser), broke Kerrigan’s knee as she walked through a corridor at Cobo Arena immediately after a practice session. “The Incident” made front page news and eventually saw Harding ousted from the sport she loved.
Director Craig Gillespie keeps the tone light and lively but presents Harding in a light never before seen. Framing her as an abused woman, first by her mother, then Gillooly and finally, devastatingly, by the press and the public—“You’re all my abusers,” she says directly to camera.—creates sympathy for a woman who has been widely vilified and mocked.
Robbie dons blue nail polish, perms her hair, chants her “It wasn’t my fault” mantra and hits a career high as the self-described redneck skater who had a shot at the big time. Bold and brassy, it’s a fourth wall breaking performance that could have slid into caricature but doesn’t. It’s a warts and all portrayal that doesn’t try and pull on your heart-strings or pander to easy theatrics. In Robbie’s hands Harding is still rough around the edges—“Nancy gets hit one time,” she complains, “and it’s life altering event.”—but “I, Tonya” looks beyond the Trashy Tonya image so often portrayed in the press to transform the punch line into a person.
In a movie full of showy roles Janney shines brightly. As the chain-smoking LaVona she’s a foulmouthed force of nature that belittles her daughter at every turn. “She skates better when she’s enraged,” she hacks. When its own style occasionally bogs the movie down Janney shows up like a bad penny to keep things interesting.
“I, Tonya” is “based on irony free, often contradictory interviews” with the main players in Harding’s life. As a result it’s messy, but this is a messy story about a woman who paid a heavy price for daring to be herself. Not conforming cost her everything but you get a sense, by the end of the film, it’s a price she was willing to pay.
Tired of good guys? The Captain Americas, ‘yer Iron Men or Wondrous Women? If their virtuous acts and heroic posing are wearing thin or not to your liking, along comes a crew of anti-heroes willing to bend the rules to protect the planet. “We’re the bad guys,” says Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), “it’s what we do.”
Based on the DC Comic of the same name, the Suicide Squad a.k.a. Task Force X, is a ragtag team of death row villains sprung from jail by a secret government agency run by ruthless bureaucrat Amanda Waller (Viola Davis). “In a world of flying men and monsters,” she says, “this is the only way to protect our country.” Waller’s counter-intuitive idea is to utilize their specific sets of skills—essentially creating mayhem—to quell large-scale threats against humanity. In return they are awarded clemency for their crimes. “I’m fighting fire with fire,” says Waller.
The all-star cast of baddies include assassin Deadshot (Will Smith), Harley Quinn, a crazed former psychiatrist with a love of beating people with baseball bats and Joker (Jared Leto), deadly boomerangist Boomerang (Jai Courtney), fire-conjurer El Diablo (Jay Hernandez) and the reptilian Killer Croc (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje).
To keep the baddies on the straight and narrow they are led into battle by righteous team leader Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman). Also they are implanted with micro-bombs to encourage them to do the right thing. Complicating an already complicated situation is the Joker’s plan to extract Harley from the group and the appearance of Enchantress (Cara Delevingne), an archaeologist possessed by an ancient evil force.
For the first forty minutes or so “Suicide Squad” is loopy fun. Zippy, it rips along setting up the story and the characters in an extended origin sequence that gives us all the information we need to understand the rest of the movie. It’s a catch-up that non comic book lovers will appreciate. It is also the strongest part of the movie.
When it gets down to the nitty-gritty of the team in battle against “non-human entities” the C.G.I. kicks into high gear, covering every inch of the screen, and “Suicide Squad” becomes considerably less interesting. Set to a classic rock soundtrack the large-scale action scenes are muddled, dark and rather generic, especially given the special skills of each of the combatants.
About the Squad. For a group of psychopaths they sure seem to be OK people. The worst thing they do—minus the wholesale carnage the government allows them to create—is go temporarily AWOL for a drink in between battles. Over cocktails they discuss life, love and motivations. There are rom coms with more edge.
Much has been written about Jared Leto’s commitment to the role of Joker, and I’m sure the stories are true—he apparently sent a live rat to Robbie and a dead hog to the crew—but it’s hard to see the payoff in his method. His take on the character is weird but not as wild as you might want, and considerably less present on screen than you might think.
Smith makes more of an impression simply through the sheer strength of his charisma. Like the rest of the team he isn’t given much to do but he makes the most of it. Robbie makes an impression in a dangerous and flirty role but her New York accent comes and goes with the frequency of a rush hour subway train.
The rest are placeholders, not given enough to do to actually be interesting and even when they are in action, it’s so dark it’s hard to tell exactly who is shooting/stabbing/punching who.
On the plus side “Suicide Squad” doesn’t take itself nearly as seriously as “Batman v Superman.” On the downside director David Ayer took a premise that gave him permission to go as far overboard as he wanted and yet the movie feels familiar, like it is trying to echo the very movies it should be an antidote to.
To prepare for his role in Suicide Squad method actor Jared Leto went full Joker.
“I had to be committed beyond belief,” he says. As the third Oscar winner to play The Joker, after Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger, he said, “We knew we had to strike new ground. There had been such great work we knew we had to go in a different direction.”
An adaptation of the DC Comics antihero series, Suicide Squad sees supervillains like El Diablo (Jay Hernandez) and Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) as well as Leto’s Harlequin of Hate perform perilous black ops missions in return for clemency. Director David Ayer describes it as a “comic-book version of The Dirty Dozen.”
Leto immersed himself in the role to the point his cast mates didn’t know where the actor ended and the Joker began. Jai Courtney said, “Let’s put it this way. I haven’t seen him, since we started working, out-of-character.” Margot Robbie and Scott Eastwood, who is Leto’s friend in real life, both say the actor’s on-set behaviour scared them.
To create his take on the Clown Prince of Crime he mixed-and-matched influences from the Batman comic Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth along with shamans and Mexican cartels. “The Joker is fantastic because there are no rules,” he says.
The only rule Leto subscribed to was to never break out of character, whether he was filming or not. His conduct made headlines when it was reported that he gave the cast and crew some Joker inspired presents.
“He did some bad things, Jared Leto did,” said co-star Viola Davis. “He gave some really horrific gifts.”
Robbie, who plays the baseball bat-wielding villain Harley Quinn, received a love letter and a live rat in a black box. She kept the rodent, which she named Rat Rat, for the duration of the Toronto shoot because, “If Harley got something from Joker, she’d probably cherish it.” When filming was complete Guillermo del Toro adopted the rodent renaming it Vestuniano.
Will Smith, who plays sharpshooter Deadshot, was also sent a letter accompanied by a bullet and Killer Croc portrayer Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje received a “used” Playboy magazine.
Leto’s first day of the shoot gift was an eye opener. He missed the first few days of filming, so to let everyone know he was thinking of them he sent over a dead hog and a video of the Joker.
“Basically, what he said was, ‘Guys, I can’t be there but I want you to know I’m doing my work as hard as you guys,'” Adam Beach said. “The video he showed is in character. It blew our minds away. We realized that day, this is real.”
Viola Davis was spared Leto’s twisted gift giving. “I did not receive any personally, or else I would have got my husband, who was called ‘Headache Ball’ when he played football, and I would have said, ‘Take care of the Joker,’” she said.
Did his methods pay off? Seems so. Ben Affleck describes Leto’s performance as “genius” and Ayer declares, “I think it’s going to be hard for anyone to ever imagine anyone else as the Joker.”
Leto thinks his process was worth it. “Other people can show up and are genius but I did what I needed to do to deliver. And we had a good time with it.”
If you are not a Roald Dahl fan the term The BFG almost sounds like something you might call someone you don’t like.
If you’re familiar with the Dahl’s work, stories like James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda and Fantastic Mr Fox, you’ll already know The BFG stands for The Big Friendly Giant.
Just in time for the 100th anniversary of Dahl’s birth, Steven Spielberg brings the towering tale of an orphan girl who befriends a taller-than-tall giant to the big screen.
Mark Ryland, last year’s best supporting Oscar winner for Bridge of Spies, plays the BFG but he’s not the film’s only leviathan. Giant Country is filled with “cannybully and murderful” goliaths with fanciful names like The Childchewer and The Gizzardgulper.
They are the BFG’s brothers, behemoths so huge if six-foot eight-inch Cleveland Cavaliers forward Lebron James stood next to them he’d only come up to their ankle. They’re fearsome but Meatdripper portrayer Paul Moniz de Sa is quick mention, “There’s still a lot of joy in the giants.”
“We were going more for goose bumps,” says Michael Adamthwaite who plays the Butcher Boy. “The film does a good job of showing [kids] how to overcome that fear and finding confidence and being brave and standing up for what you believe in.”
Creating a world for the giants to inhabit involved groundbreaking technology to blend the live-action elements with performance-capture techniques. The richly detailed Giant Country, where swords are used as sewing needles and sailing ships double as beds, was brought to vivid life on soundstages in Vancouver last year.
“It was a big empty space and you had to use your imagination to feel the different elements,” says Daniel Bacon who plays Bonecruncher. “There was tape on the floor and it was explained that something would be here, and something would be there. We relied on Steven telling us and being very descriptive about what it would look like.”
“We also had the wonderful concept art to fall back on,” says Adamthwaite. “For all the locations there was a big concept art poster and then there was the virtual camera which is technologically way beyond my brain power, but it is so crisp and the technology has advanced so quickly that now we are at a point that even though we were in a carpeted room with tape on the floor we had the benefit of being able to look over to a large screen monitor and see these almost real time, almost full renderings of our characters.”
The result of the high tech work is a film that has so little to do with today’s kid’s entertainment it feels as though it’s a relic from another time, a singular holdover from a day before Minions gurgled and everything was awesome. Adamthwaite credits Spielberg for finding the right tone.
“While some directors may be pushing the boundaries of being cutting edge. He always sees the film through the audience’s eyes. He’s very aware and astute of what will work in terms of what the audience appreciates.”
