Critic After Dark

Digger (Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, 2026)

2026-10-08T14:13:14.947-04:00

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(WARNING: plot twists and story discussed in explicit detail!)

Digger for Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is arguably his most expensive production yet ($125 million officially); for Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise it's September.

The film has been described as 'obnoxious,' 'self-indulgent,' 'pretentious,' and-- possibly most hurtful-- 'delusional;' it's also been called 'brave.'

I like 'indulgent.' Cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki has lit and shot the film to look like the world's most elaborate stage production, complete with sets gargantuan enough to make Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark look like a modest high school musical, and miniatures with enough sprawl and detail to delight the most avaricious railroad collector (the spots that illuminate the knee-high trees and waist-high grassy hills have all the drama of a museum exhibit, the delicacy of a children's book illustration (pop-up of course); the showstopping ten-minute monologue that climaxes the middle of the film with its Greek chorus of European leaders baying for Digger's blood seethes with bloodlust, held back only by fear of the ceaselessly watching news cameras-- you get the sense that they hate the man not just for what he's done but for the freedom he represents as opposed to the restraint that they, being supposedly civilized, must show).

I'd call that climactic monologue both the film's highlight and its downfall. O I can see what Inarritu with Cruise as his braying mouthpiece was going for-- that Richard lll moment where the Duke of Gloster woos Lady Anne when she has every reason in the world to hate him, only instead of a beautiful widow he's facing a roomful of old men, and I see several problems with this scenario: 1) with Anne, Richard can use his sexual charisma despite (or because of) his deformity, and Anne's own grief against her (grief being perversely a potent aphrodisiac); 2) he's enjoying a one-on-one conversation with Anne, not trying to address a roomful of Andies at once; 3) he's been played by Laurence Olivier onscreen and Cruise, energetic and loud that he is, is no Olivier; and 4) Inarritu has worked on the monologue with a team of writers including himself, none of which are Shakespeare.

So that climactic monologue though well done-- or as well done as anything short of resurrecting both Olivier and Shakespeare can possibly accomplish-- doesn't work. The European leaders are at most distracted and at best confused, not converted; more to the point we're confused, and definitely don't feel converted. Both Digger and his president Compson (a hilariously decaying John Goodman) keep trying to 'control the narrative' when frankly there's no narrative to control; they have only so much time and so much resources to do what needs to be done and they waste time on trying to win over public opinion. Even more puzzling is the sense you're getting that Inarritu and Cruise are trying to win over our opinion by introducing a meta element, a narrative framework that forces us to step back and contemplate the larger implications: what is Digger here, a buffoon making us laugh or a psychopath preparing our doom? What is this telling supposed to accomplish, so many years after the fact? And-- I suspect-- Inarritu along the way is trying to sneak in justification for his stylized lighting and extravagant miniatures when really they don't need excusing, they're just a pleasure to look at onscreen.

Which goes to that other film Digger seems to want to emulate, Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove-- the sobering fact of which is that almost everyone (except for Sterling Hayden's Jack D. Ripper) comes off as so intelligent and reasonable within their human limits and they still they can't save the world. Right off they know controlling the narrative's a waste of time-- the bombers were already flying at failsafe point when they were ordered to execute Plan R; almost from the very start it's too late to stop. Digger and his superiors-- and the actor playing Digger and his producer-- don't seem to realize at what point of the narrative they're really on, and just drone on and on and on, on the finer points of meaning.

Kubrick with Peter Sellers as his barely-under-control constantly improvising mouthpiece saves the blather for after the end. He outlines a plan for survival for a select few of the rich and powerful, at the bottom of mine shafts, and his plan (as with almost everything else in Strangelove) seems so intelligently crafted and sanely presented it almost feels like a viable alternative-- you literally have to shake your head and yell at the screen: "President of a Mine Shaft? Is that all you're left with?" But the Doctor just drones on and on and on, the difference being it's the end of the film not the middle, and you literally have nothing left to do but wipe away a tear at the lilting voice of Vera Lynn, admire all the bursting bombs, leave when the lights go up (and yes I stayed for Digger's end credits, complete with final joke more clever than funny).

O I like the picture enough-- up to that monologue it's an excellent hour-and-change feature; the rest with all the metaphysical fiddling about feels more optional, something you can sit through if you like or stop to exit, go to search bar, type KUBRICK. And so it goes.

Resident Evil (Zach Cregger, 2026)

2026-09-24T13:09:50.739-04:00

Dying is easy; comedy, hard.

Of course I was going to check this out-- Zach Cregger's Weapons was one of the more interesting horrors of last year, Barbarians one of the more interesting horrors before that.

Does it deliver? Save you the suspense: yes, but how it delivers is I submit the question to ask.

Word is Cregger's a fan of the video games and wrote a spec script on his own, ready to convert to a standalone if his bid failed. But I remember Austin Abrams' dopehead in Weapons being the more easily relatable woozily resourceful consistently funny character in that picture, and I could totally see Cregger envisioning a spinoff based on his character, sending him running across the shattered landscapes of the Evil games.

Abrams is the MVP here-- the movie stays with him for nearly its entire length, and you really don't mind the quality time. He's Bryan, a gig delivery worker tired and trying to shake off some very real problems (the news his girl is pregnant for one) to focus on the job. So when he has just finished delivering after a long shift and a doctor offers him a last-minute run at double the pay, easily the most relatable moment in the whole movie (perhaps in all the movies I've seen recently) is when he swallows hard and says "I can do that."

"You have snow tires or chains?"

"Yeah yeah I got em."

"Are you sure? If you don't have snow tires or chains I have to find someone else."

"Hey-- no sweat."

I like him already.

Love Bryan's sadsack shambling, the way he fumbles and drops things, the way he keeps running up against padlocks-- easily the picture's funniest running (standing?) gag, not to mention Bryan's inexpert way of dealing with them. Cars swerving, cars crashing, car keys gone missing, solidly planted metal gates, infuriatingly high chainlink fences, electric fences (they're no joke, the current hurts like a sonfabitch), prominently displayed shotguns whose shells are always kept in the last drawer you look-- it's like this so-called 'postapocalypse' world is actually the real world only a notch more annoying.

Cregger employs Polish cinematographer Dariusz Wolski to light-- barely-- his landscapes; Wolski is a good pick, having lit (barely) Alex Proyas' moodily stylish The Crow (supposedly Detroit, but I've been to Detroit and it doesn't look as dank as the Wilmington NC locations the film was actually shot in) and Ridley Scott's dark comedy The Counselor, so if anyone can achieve the environments Cregger wants-- basements with fungus stained walls and a single flickering bulb, dim corridors ending in giant metal doors rusted shut, the occasional bright biolab with antiseptically gleaming lab equipment-- it's Wolski.

There are moments where Cregger shifts to first-person shooter mode, the gun barrel doubling as camera lens trained down one unlit hallway after another, angling downward to peer into yanked drawers looking for ammo or food or something to use. At one point Bryan pokes his head into the fridge (Why not check the freezer? I know folks that store ammo in their freezer), actually takes a moment to chug down a gallon of milk (gotta stay hydrated, and the protein helps)-- classic gamer move to replenish his stamina bar. Early on Bryan stands against a farm fence looking around, and what he sees has an eerie beauty-- the snowblanketed landscape, the brutal glare of arc lamps, the muffled silence; later he's scrambling away from the farmhouse front door when the creature, having assembled itself from a pair of corpses, finally introduces itself-- and introduces itself, and introduces itself-- a hilarious yet somehow evocative image, like something Hieronymus Bosch and Tom Six might collaborate on after chugging down a gallon of bad milk. Possible Cregger actually does confine himself to the kind of shots you'll see in the video game, but this doesn't look like a game, more like a well-photographed horror with flashes of brilliance-- possibly you have to be a player to recognize said shots.

There are moments-- Bryan's encounter with the little girl in the RV for one-- where his decency shines through (he keeps giving the girl reassurances he can't possibly deliver on) and it's crucial because that point onward he has you on his side, you know he really wants to do the right thing, even deliver that ridiculous cooler-bag mcguffin instead of tossing it aside and driving home to spend his last days with his girlfriend. He wants it all-- including yes the extra hours of double pay-- against increasingly impossible odds.

What Cregger's doing isn't anything new, is if anything as old as the silents. Referring of course to the thriller comedies of Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd, and Cregger fares best working in the margins of or adjacent to that hallowed comic tradition, ringing fresh changes on or totally new situations from this postapocalypse (I think I can say that even if the situation is only a few hours old). I'm thinking of Bryan at the barn ("ladder!") and Bryan in the truck facing the farm gate (actually the latter might have been inspired by Wile E. Coyote more than anything). When Cregger sets himself up for more direct comparison-- stealing, say, the climactic climb up the side of a building in Lloyd's classic Safety Last-- the momentum doesn't build, the previous gag doesn't set up for the next one, the viewer (as James Agee would put it) isn't really a victim being led "up this ladder of laughs by cruelly controlled degrees to the top rung, (which the comic) would then proceed to wobble, shake, wave and brandish... until he groaned for mercy." Cregger does his best, I'll give him that, but he's no Lloyd, much less a Keaton.

The climax inside Umbrella Corporation's top floor biolab is something of a letdown-- Abrams isn't really driving the mayhem and the poor scientists aren't skilled or distinct enough comedians to make us want to root for them, much less laugh at them. They emanate the distinct odor of flop sweat, poor performers strutting and fretting their final minutes on-camera long after the star has checked out-- tho the closing minutes do give us a heroically posed Bryan, ready for his upcoming sequel.

Pretty good for the most part, sadly doesn't stick the landing, doesn't resonate as much as Cregger' previous horror, still my favorite of his works (mainly for Cary Christopher's surprisingly poignant performance); not even sure I can call this the best of the franchise as I still hold affection for Paul WS Anderson's less arty versions (my favorite being Resident Evil: Retribution, complete with gorgeous fight choreography straight out of a '90s Hong Kong action flick). Afraid my verdict on the picture's finale is harsh but what can I say? I've been spoiled by the very best.

Resident Evil: Retribution (Paul WS Anderson, 2012)

2026-09-22T12:44:32.937-04:00

Poetry in motion

Surprised to see Dave Kehr interviewed on Movie Morlocks; was even more surprised to see that Kehr is a fan of Paul Anderson--W.S., not Thomas--and that he loved Resident Evil: Retribution.

Not a big fan, myself (thought Anderson's Death Race was a mere shadow of Paul Bartel's 1975 satiric original), but did like Soldier, Anderson's science-fiction remake of George Stevens' Shane which, taking its cue from Kurt Russell's expressionless title performance, had a sneaky understated sense of humor. If you gaze at the soldier's genetically impassive face for any length of time you start reading emotions into it, much like a Rorschach blot; I thought this both a clever parody of the action hero's traditional impassiveness and a surprisingly effective way to suggest soulfulness (?!) in a science fiction action flick (these soldiers may be genetically altered to minimize the impact of pain, guilt, shame but nevertheless they feel these emotions--and the fact that said emotions have been trained out of them and still manage to register suggest the power of these suppressed feelings). Later when you're more accustomed to their stylized (Bressonian?) acting you can read pages into their expressionless mugs: a mountain of sarcasm in a slightly raised brow, a floodplain of sorrow in a downturned mouth.

Several comments raised my brow in the Resident Evil interview--I suppose one can see Milla Jovovich's Alice being lead heroine as some kind of triumph for the feminist cause, but video games (and their big-screen adaptations) use sexy female protagonists (Lara Croft, anyone?) so often it's practically a cliche. Same with the Umbrella Corporation--faceless corporate villains are a classic trope in the genre, nothing truly innovative about their use.

Also a pity he needed to use Anderson to bash Joss Whedon's work. Whedon possibly lost some street cred with the ubersuccess of his The Avengers (he's establishment now, for better or worse), but I've always thought his writing sparkled (Cabin in the Woods) and his directing capable of continuity and flow (perhaps not necessarily in this multimillion production--though I'd cite Black Widow's escape early in the picture--but in titles like Serenity and the "Once More With Feeling" episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer). He can even do musical numbers, always a plus in my book ("Once More with Feeling," Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog).

Those points set aside, I can see Anderson's film being a continuation of what the Hong Kong filmmakers were doing in the '80s and early '90s; not so much Tsui Hark as John Woo, with his penchant for fetishized gunplay and stylized homoeroticism. Not a lot of development with relationships in this, homoerotic or otherwise, but plenty of development of action sequences, from handgun to automatic rifle to rocket-propelled grenade, with side trips into weighted chains and curved blades along the way. Plenty of actual as opposed to digitized stunts-- on occasion Alice will face a CGI creature, which she mostly disposes of with a brief strafing and a belt full of explosives; the real confrontations involve human adversaries doing non-digital kicks and spins, in knock-em-down-drag-em-out fights that recall (distantly but authentically) Drunken Master 2.

And they're dances; they're exuberant exhibitions of balletic motion, done with grace and skill; Anderson shoots them in such a way that the movements remain clear in your head, entire sequences glitter like elaborate jewelry in the mind (that glorious moment when, at the beginning of this Resident Evil, we get a slow-motion reverse-play recap of the ending of the previous Resident Evil). Astaire would approve, I think; Kelly too, though I suspect the one who would truly clap his hands in sardonic appreciation would probably be Bob Fosse. What can I say about Resident Evil: Retribution? Best dance movie I've seen in a while, easy.

9.26.12