Bombshell (2019) film review

Year: 2019
Running Time: 109 minutes
Director: Jay Roach
Writer: Charles Randolph
Cast: Charlize Theron, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie, John Lithgow, Kate McKinnon, Connie Britton, Allison Janney, Malcolm McDowell, Josh Lawson, Ben Lawson, Liv Hewson

Bombshell opens in cinemas around the country on January 16, 2019 thanks to Studiocanal.

Jay Roach's Bombshell is the award season movie that is far from flawless, but the emotional punch it delivers and extraordinary performances by the leading ladies are enough to make one overlook it's sins. It is a film that feels as though it has been sugar-coated visually, but at the same time balances itself out with hard-hitting topics that will trigger many. The scandal at Fox News involving Roger Ailes is shocking by nature and the film could easily have relied just on the story for impact, but Bombshell ventures to be more than a film based on a shocking story and manages to get it right more often than not.

In what is a very left wing film about the infamous right wing television network, Bombshell is a film that will stir up confusing emotions in many people. Earlier last year the Showtime mini-series, The Loudest Voice chronicled the life of the larger than life founder of Fox News, Roger Ailes. The show earned incredible critical acclaim with Russell Crowe winning the Golden Globe for playing Ailes and indeed looked at the sexual harassment claims made against him, which were led by Fox and Friends co-host, Gretchen Carlson (portrayed here by Naomi Watts). Unlike the television series, Bombshell is a film about sexual harassment in the workplace with a focus on the women affected.

For those of us who are already angry at Fox News on close to a daily basis, Bombshell will do a great deal to encourage that anger. The film goes as far as to say that even people who work for the network are only there because no one else would hire them after they work for Fox. The Fox News painted here is an evil workplace that strives on scandal, both on air and off. The women are all instructed to wear as short skirts as possible when on air and are expected to laugh along while their male co-hosts make jokes (often sexist) at their expense. As we see at the beginning of the film, this also includes the then Republican Presidential candidate, Donald Trump, accusing then Fox darling, Megyn Kelly (incredibly portrayed by Charlize Theron) of "anger-menstruating". She is instructed not to retaliate, as it would not benefit the network's relationship with the Republican party. The overall negative view we get here of Fox News is extremely one-sided, but is also shrouded in truth.

The 2016 scandal involving Ailes was one of the first reported high-profile cases of ongoing sexual harassment in an entertainment based workplace. It is nothing short of horrific the rippling effect that these incidents had on the culture of the workplace and the individuals themselves. Bombshell brings to the forefront many of the toxic features of an environment where these events are taking place. It is shocking to see how these events are not only turned a blind eye to, but that they are also accepted as part of the culture and even quietly supported by other women who want to please their male superiors.

One of the questions that is often asked when people come forward with their stories of sexual harassment in the workplace is why they did not report it when it happened, and Bombshell certainly does not shy away from the answer to this question. Gretchen Carlson (played by Nicole Kidman) begins her journey to expose Ailes (John Lithgow) by herself, with the hope that others will come forward with their claims to support hers. Inside Fox, there are sharp whispers of women coming forward and the women in question are pounced upon with quiet threats of trouble if they do not support their boss. There is much to be scared of including loss of promotions, ostracization and even loss of their position in the company. The road to peace from sexual harassment is not a straight or smooth one by any means, as is demonstrated here. The emotional impact on the victims is also a very hard watch in this film. Margot Robbie plays Kayla Popisil (a young women who has grown up in a family who watch Fox News religiously), who is the subject to Ailes unwanted advances when she expresses her desire to progress further with Fox. Her portrayal of a victim of sexual harassment is harrowing and powerful, and shows how such an event can change a person and their view of the world.

Bombshell is first and foremost a film about sexual harassment in the workplace and second of all a film about the Fox network. Viewers of Fox will also be angered by the film, but not in the same way as those who are not fans of the network. Again, Bombshell does not paint the Fox environment or personalities in a good light, but one cannot deny that the characters are expertly cast and played. Charlize Theron completely disappears into her character of Megyn Kelly, and credit must be given to the hair and make-up department for making her look so incredibly similar to Kelly. However, it is not just the visuals that make Theron into Kelly. She completely personifies her in voice and mannerisms, as well as turning in a perfect amount of emotion and strength. Nicole Kidman also is terrific as Gretchen Carlson, a personality she already physically resembles and does not rest on this as the driving nature of her performance.

The downfall of Bombshell is that it tends to hover in between a Saturday Night Live episode and The Big Short. Roach employs several of the film-making techniques that Adam McKay used in his 2015 film, but with nowhere near as much ease and success. The editing of the film is irritatingly choppy throughout and several scenes could have been done without. It is a film which is rich in pop culture, which given the opportunity here means it can be a bit of fun and is given a bit of a glamorous exterior, meaning lots of beautiful women in beautiful clothes. These features almost fly under the raider, which is a good thing as there should be nothing fun about a film about sexual harassment.

The unfortunate truth about Bombshell is that considering it is a film about the victims of sexual harassment in the work place, it would have benefited from having a female director. Roach does a very good job with the film, but as this is a film about women, there was the opportunity to have had someone at the helm who could bring even more sympathy and perhaps even experience to the film. Nevertheless, Bombshell does captures the seriousness of the issue of sexual harassment in the workplace and through it's incredible performances, stirs emotions within you that make it hard to forget.

7/10

Snow White and the Huntsman (2012)

Snow White and the Huntsman

Year: 2012

Director: Rupert Sanders

Cast: Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth

Before I begin my review…

                Well, I guess right now in this world Snow White and the Huntsman is known to a lot of people as the movie where Kristen Stewart cheated on her boyfriend, Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson with her married director, Rupert Sanders. This is all pretty new news and a major subject of discussion in all the celebrity gossip magazines and websites at this present point in time.

                Let’s face it, Movie Critical is not a celebrity gossip site and I am not going to take this opportunity to make it into one. Personally, I don’t really care to write a huge article on who said what and who did who in this instance. I’ve pretty much summed up in the above paragraph the gist of what has happened so I am not really going to go into the whole debacle much more than that.

                The only thing that I am really pondering in this whole circus is, what will this do to Kristen Stewart’s career?

                Will it make her more popular (if that is at all possible as she is the highest paid female actress around at the moment) and turn her image into that of a sex symbol? Or will her image be tarnished by her bad girl ways?

                It’s hard to tell, scandals work in mysterious ways for stars. They can make your star rise or fall. I guess only time will tell. When Breaking Dawn : Part 2 is released in November, will we look at Edward and Bella differently knowing what happened in real life? Chances are probably not, but I believe there are some not very happy Twilight fans out there as a result.

Review

                Snow White is a story that has been told many times over, but never the same as Snow White and the Huntsman.

                Snow White and the Huntsman is the second Snow White film to be released in 2012 as Mirror Mirror starring Julia Roberts and Lily Collins was released earlier this year, but is completely different from its processor.  It is much darker and more of an action/adventure fantasy film than a fairy tale. The film itself is interesting to watch with some spectacular images, but lacks in the area of script and story.

                Like all Snow White stories, young princess Snow White (Kristen Stewart) has been banished to the tower by her evil stepmother, Ravenna (Charlize Theron) who has taken the post of Queen upon the death of her father. When Ravenna finds out that Snow White is now the fairest of them all, she sets out to kill her. Instead, Snow White escapes to the forest and the Queen sends in The Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) to bring her back to her. However, the Huntsman and Snow White join forces to destroy the evil Queen and win Snow White back her rightful throne.

                Snow White and the Huntsman is visually a very good film. The cinematography combined with visual effects make what you see on the screen extremely impressive. The battle scenes are well choreographed and intense. The visual effects are quite extraordinary, especially that of Ravenna’s mirror. The castle, town and forest also serve as spectacular backdrops to the story.

                However, the script lacks and the story suffers. This is a different version of Snow White than we are used to so the story needs to be entrancing and well defined. However, the script does not support the story and isn’t intense enough to keep the film interesting for its entirety.  Although the action sequences are great, they sometimes do slow the movie down and there are scenes where it feels like nothing happens which are just downright boring.

                Kristen Stewart is not the most convincing Snow White you will see. She plays awkward and unsure well, but is not as endearing and “the fairest one of all” as Snow White is supposed to be. However, she does have two scenes, one in a white dress and her first battle scene, in which she shows that she may well have it in her to be more versatile than she has been in her films recently.

                Charlize Theron is indeed the star of the film. She plays interesting evil so well and is actually very scary. She makes the film not really suitable for the typical children audience of a Snow White film. Chris Hemsworth is not at all bad. He is now part of the league of action stars at the moment so he is a good fit for the role of the Huntsman. However, he does have some great emotional scenes as well which add to his successful performance. On the other hand though, he and Stewart really have no on screen chemistry, romantic or platonic.

                It’s hard not to judge Snow White and the Huntsman as a “Snow White” film and not compare it to other films of its kind that have been and gone. Yet even if you don’t, its pro’s and con’s measure evenly with each other.

6/10

References
Fox News
The Internet Movie Datebase
Celeb Dirty Laundry

Prometheus (2012)

Prometheus

Year: 2012

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast:  Noomi Rapace, Charlize Theron, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce

Before I begin my review….

                Honestly, this review for Prometheus is probably one of the hardest reviews I have ever written.

                I’m not quite sure how to put into words why I have found this so hard to write, but my actual experience with the film was that I left not knowing how I am supposed to feel about it. Well maybe that is the wrong way to put it. I left the cinema and I wasn’t sure whether I liked the film or whether I didn’t like it. I needed time to gather all the information I had and pile it together to get an informed opinion. I really didn’t feel like I could write this review if I only half-heartedly believed that I liked it or didn’t like it. What good is a review when you are telling people “I’m just writing this review for the sake of writing a review because I really don’t know whether I like it or not so therefore I can’t inform you as to whether you should go and see this film or not”?

My husband and I are big fans of the original Alien and Aliens and the one big thing I felt like we missed out on with Prometheus was I wanted to know more about the aliens which are in these films. If I looked at it that way, I was going to be disappointed. Ridley Scott has gone about Prometheus  from a completely different angle and really, as a stand alone film, I am very impressed.  So my initial thoughts were that fans of the original were going to be disappointed.

                Yet, many Alien/ Aliens fans really loved Prometheus. There is really a divided thought among all the sci fi fans out there. I guess the big thing is that Prometheus is very different compared to what people, including me, were thinking it was going to be. This is probably where the disappointment some people are experiencing came from. I see similarities between Prometheus  and Alien, but it is a different sort of blockbuster than we are used to. I use the word ‘blockbuster’ here because of the massive marketing and promotional activity surrounding the release of this film. The majority of blockbuster releases are action films, with the rest of them really being animation. Have you also noticed that many blockbusters happen to be sequels or prequels? Maybe many of us where expecting an action packed prequel, and it isn’t that.

                I believe that Prometheus is the thinking man’s sci-fi film. It does have some pretty spectacular special effects, but not really any action packed battle sequences. What Ridley Scott wants you to do is leave the cinema and keep thinking about the film long after you have left the car park. Considering I left and had to really dissect Prometheus, this worked with me!

                So bottom line is if you want action galore out of Prometheus and those terrifying aliens running everywhere throughout the film, open your mind a bit before buying your ticket. An open mind will get you many places.

Review

                Prometheus may well be the most highly anticipated movie release of the year. The question is, does it live up to the expectations installed in us by the crazy promotional campaigns you have seen at every corner and those expectations held by Alien fanatics?

                The answer is it definitely depends what you want out of the film and also if you like to be challenged mentally by a film.

                That is what makes Prometheus such a great one of a kind film. Ridley Scott may not have given some people the action packed Alien prequel which some people were expecting, but he has given us a science fiction that makes you contemplate some of the questions humanity faces going into the future with some pretty spectacular special effects and cinematography thrown in.

                In the future, a group of explorers travel on the vessel Prometheus to the far reaches of the galaxy to where they believe lies the key to finding out where the human race came from. However, when they arrive there, they realise that unlocking the secret to human existence also means unleashing danger on the human race in more than one form.

                The important thing to point out firstly is that Prometheus, even though it is a prequel to Alien, shouldn’t be approached with the mindset that it is going to be an updated version of Scott’s 1979 Alien. There are several links to the film, but it is better as a stand alone film than a link to the Alien films. It is almost as though Scott has just used the ship that is seen in Alien as a setting for a separate film that covers a whole set of new factors.

                What makes Prometheus so intriguing is that it is not merely a film about a ship travelling to an unknown planet and being met with their dangers. It is a film about the friction between faith and human engineering, that is, the belief in God creating human life vs the idea that humans and science are the creators. The way the film pans out with these two ideas is perfect as both sides are presented in the beliefs of the two of the main characters, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green). The films conclusion shows what these two ideas can result in as far as human behaviour is concerned.

                Scott does quite a good job in direction. The cinematography is extremely impressive as is the editing. The script by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof can tend to lack in parts and although the concept for the film is great, the script can let it down a bit.  Some things aren’t carried as well by the characters as they should be and there are still some questions left unanswered. Such as the depth and nature of Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) and Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce). Also Shaw and the “pilot” of Prometheus, Janek (Idris Elba) seem to form an unbreakable bond in about 2 minutes. One would think a relationship with a result like theirs would take a bit longer to form.

                Scott couldn’t have possibly assembled a better cast for Prometheus. The three lead actors are three of the best actors around at the moment and are all having a huge year thus far. Noomi Rapace has confirmed with this role that she has made the move to English speaking roles with brilliance. Her character goes through a transformation throughout the film from being almost timid to being a strong woman and her character development skills are stunning.

                Charlize Theron is very good as Meredith Vickers. She is a character who you know you should hate, but it is almost impossible too as she is just so good to watch as a hard woman.

                Michael Fassbender’s portrayal of the android, David is brilliant. He is such an interesting character. Yet, he is extremely disturbing. Peter O’Toole will never be seen in the same light again after David’s imitation of him. The character carries the “Is he a good guy or is he a bad guy?” tag which is possibly the most intriguing tag a character can carry.

                Guy Pearce is also very good and almost unrecognisable as the elderly Peter Weyland.

                Prometheus is a win for movie goers who like to be challenged in their thinking by a film, but like to have it done in as interesting a way as possible, not just in a film which consists primarily of two characters sitting on a park bench having a philosophical discussion.

                Just remember, stand alone film. Not an Alien with 2012 technology.

7.5/10

Sources
Itsfilm.com