Woah, he's giving that pig a piggyback.

Hunt for the Wilderpeople

(2016)

(SPOILERS) The accolades for Taika Waititi’s latest are of a piece with those for his previous picture, What We Do in the Shadows, in that they’re slightly over-effusive. Hunt for the Wilderpeople strikes unqualified gold with the odd couple relationship between Julian Dennison’s rotund juvenile delinquent Ricky and Sam Neill’s gruff bushman Hec, or “Uncle” as he objects to Ricky calling him. However, it’s less convincing when it comes to Waititi’s erratic comedy quality control. He’s more Paul Hogan than Monty Python.

Maybe such broadness of temperament is an Oz/Kiwi thing, or maybe it’s simply that Waititi’s always a draft or two from honing his material as precisely as he might. It could also be, without going all Mary Whitehouse on Hunt, that there’s a central awkwardness in what passes itself of as a family movie running a central plot motor wherein Uncle is accused of paedophilia (or being “a molesterer”). Even the Carry On… movies would have blanched at the scene in which Ricky is assumed to be describing how he was forced to masturbate Hec. Oh, those earthy New Zealanders and their loveable lewdness! If Victor Salva had been passing by the set, no doubt Waititi would have convinced him to cameo, just for added yuks.

There are jarring tonal shifts throughout, though, as the picture lurches from a poignant scene in which Hec loses Bella to Waititi delivering an indulgent (and not very funny) cameo as the minister at her funeral. Elsewhere, he seems fixated on lobbing us copious pop culture references (The Terminator, The Lord of the Rings, Thelma and Louise), but as randomly as Zuckers and Abrams rather than the at least germane manner Pegg and Wright would, while a stark rites of passage sees Hec putting down his beloved pooch.

It’s almost as if Waititi’s a little shy of letting the grounded, relationship side of the tale tell itself and feels obliged to pep it up in any way he can. Which is a shame, as this is definitely a case of less being more. It doesn’t help that, most of the time, the gags are verging on the second rate. At points too, he will compound this by feeding a character a line because it’s funny, not because they’d say it (Ricky’s “Too soon?” after suggesting Hec remarries), or allow a scene to pass purely because it’s been through his random reference generator (a vision of the ever-phallic ‘80s Flake advert anachronistically materialises before Ricky’s eyes when he meets Kahu, which can be added to the pile of inappropriate moments – if you were nursing the illusion this was a family movie). Generally, the sketch comedy routines are much more successful in the improvised vibe of Shadows, where hit and miss is par for the course. Here, his bungling social services worker (Rachel House) and redneck hunters tend to miss. Waititi even has Dennison administer a passing-out pratfall at one point, which indicates he’s been watching some kids’ TV for research too.

And yet, the Hec-Ricky relationship is genuinely touching (not in a Jimmy Savile sense, although that’s just the kind of gag Waititi would have cracked), and the early scenes with Rima Te Wiata as Bella succeed so profoundly in establishing her as a huge-hearted, kindly soul, that we’re entirely on board with these two lost ones making a fist of things. Sure, the template for Juvie Ricky just needing someone who will accept him and understand him is broad brush, but such uncynical sincerity is entirely appropriate for a kids’ movie. Just not the proliferation of child molestation jests.

Once the manhunt is well underway, Waititi loses focus on his trajectory rather, introducing Rhys Darby in one of his lesser cameos (I do like his bushman outfit, though) and a car chase that may have been a calling card to Marvel (although I’ve yet to be convinced of his blockbuster chops) but feels more like it’s there because referencing another movie is all he can think of for a big finale (which it doesn’t really need anyway).

Neill, who is also on board for Thor Ragnarok, has maybe his best big screen role since Dean Spanley, and it can’t be understated how much he makes Hunt for the Wilderpeople worthwhile for all its rocky passages, effortlessly inscribing it with heart and gravitas. Dennison makes up what he lacks in range and timing with enthusiasm, as the key quality is his strong chemistry with his elder. Maybe Waititi should take on a writing partner (I wonder if the better gags in Shadows didn’t come from Jermain Clement), to lend his screenplays that extra polish. Then he might make a really great movie. A majestical one.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

You were this amazing occidental samurai.

Ricochet (1991) (SPOILERS) You have to wonder at Denzel Washington’s agent at this point in the actor’s career. He’d recently won his first Oscar for Glory , yet followed it with less-than-glorious heart-transplant ghost comedy Heart Condition (Bob Hoskins’ racist cop receives Washington’s dead lawyer’s ticker; a recipe for hijinks!) Not long after, he dipped his tentative toe in the action arena with this Joel Silver production; Denzel has made his share of action fare since, of course, most of it serviceable if unremarkable, but none of it comes near to delivering the schlocky excesses of Ricochet , a movie at once ingenious and risible in its plot permutations, performances and production profligacy.

The Krishna died of a broken finger? I mean, is that a homicide?

Miami Blues (1990) (SPOILERS) If the ‘90s crime movie formally set out its stall in 1992 with Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs , another movie very quietly got in there first at the beginning of the decade. Miami Blues picked up admiring reviews but went otherwise unnoticed on release, and even now remains under-recognised. The tale of “blithe psychopath” Federick J. Frenger, Jr., the girl whose heart he breaks and the detetive sergeant on his trail, director George Armitage’s adaptation of Charles Willeford’s novel wears a pitch black sense of humour and manages the difficult juggling act of being genuinely touching with it. It’s a little gem of a movie, perfectly formed and concisely told, one that more than deserves to rub shoulders with the better-known entries in its genre. One of the defining characteristics of Willeford’s work, it has been suggested , is that it doesn’t really fit into the crime genre; he comes from an angle of character rather than plot or h

Well, something’s broke on your daddy’s spaceship.

Apollo 13 (1995) (SPOILERS) The NASA propaganda movie to end all NASA propaganda movies. Their original conception of the perilous Apollo 13 mission deserves due credit in itself; what better way to bolster waning interest in slightly naff perambulations around a TV studio than to manufacture a crisis event, one emphasising the absurd fragility of the alleged non-terrestrial excursions and the indomitable force that is “science” in achieving them? Apollo 13 the lunar mission was tailor made for Apollo 13 the movie version – make believe the make-believe – and who could have been better to lead this fantasy ride than Guantanamo Hanks at his all-American popularity peak?

The Illumi-what-i?

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022) (SPOILERS) In which Sam Raimi proves that he can stand proudly with the best – or worst – of them as a good little foot soldier of the woke apocalypse. You’d expect the wilfully anarchic – and Republican – Raimi to choke on the woke, but instead, he’s sucked it up, grinned and bore it. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness is so slavishly a production-line Marvel movie, both in plotting and character, and in nu-Feige progressive sensibilities, there was no chance of Sam staggering out from beneath its suffocating demands with anything more than a few scraps of stylistic flourish intact.

People still talk about Pandapocalypse 2002.

Turning Red (2022) (SPOILERS) Those wags at Pixar, eh? Yes, the most – actually, the only – impressive thing about Turning Red is the four-tiered wordplay of its title. Thirteen-year-old Mei (Rosalie Chiang) finds herself turning into a large red panda at emotive moments. She is also, simultaneously, riding the crimson wave for the first time. Further, as a teenager, she characteristically suffers from acute embarrassment (mostly due to the actions of her domineering mother Ming Lee, voiced by Sandra Oh). And finally, of course, Turning Red can be seen diligently spreading communist doctrine left, right and centre. To any political sensibility tuning in to Disney+, basically (so ones with either considerable or zero resistance to woke). Take a guess which of these isn’t getting press in reference to the movie? And by a process of elimination is probably what it it’s really about (you know in the same way most Pixars, as far back as Toy Story and Monsters, Inc . can be given an insi

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

You tampered with the universe, my friend.

The Music of Chance (1993) (SPOILERS) You won’t find many adaptations of Paul Auster’s novels. Original screenplays, yes, a couple of which he has directed himself. Terry Gilliam has occasionally mentioned Mr. Vertigo as in development. It was in development in 1995 too, when Philip Haas and Auster intended to bring it to the screen. Which means Auster presumably approved of Haas’ work on The Music of Chance (he also cameos). That would be understandable, as it makes for a fine, ambiguous movie, pregnant with meaning yet offering no unequivocal answers, and one that makes several key departures from the book yet crucially maintains a mesmerising, slow-burn lure.

I only know what I’ve been programmed to believe. But, of course, the same goes for you.

Raised by Wolves Season One (SPOILERS) Ridley Scott’s latest transhumanist tract is so stuffed with required lore, markers and programming, it’s a miracle it manages to tell a half-engaging story along the way. Aaron Guzikowski ( Prisoners ) is the credited creator, but it has the Ridders stamp of dour dystopia all over it, complete with Darius Wolski ( Prometheus ) cinematography setting the tone. Which means bleak grey skies, augmented by South Africa this time, rather than Iceland. Raised by Wolves is a reliable mix of wacko twist plotting and clumsy, slack-jawed messaging; like the Alien prequels, it will surely never be seen through to a conclusion, but as an agenda platform it’s never less than engaging (and also frequently, for the same reasons, exasperating).

You’re like a human mummy!

The Lost City (2022) (SPOILERS) Perhaps the most distressing part of The Lost City , a Romancing the Stone riff that appears to have been packaged by the Hollywood equivalent of a processed cheese plant lacking its primary ingredient (that would be additives), is the possibility that Daniel Radcliffe is the only viable actor left standing in Tinseltown. That’s if the suggestions at least two of the performers here – Sandra Bullock and Brad Pitt – are deep faked in some way, shape or form, and the other name – Channing Tatum – is serving hard atonement time. If the latter’s choices generally weren’t so abysmal and his talent in arears, I’d assume that was the only explanation for him showing up in this dreck.

Okay, just jump right into my nightmare, the water is warm.

Jerry Maguire (1996) (SPOILERS) I didn’t much like Jerry Maguire at the time, which I suspect is intrinsically linked to the fact that I didn’t much like Tom Cruise at the time. I’m still not really a massive fan of either, but the latter at least made an effort to rein in his most irksome traits subsequently. Jerry Maguire , however, finds him drawing on the same “bag of tricks” that mystifyingly transfixed his fan base a decade before in Top Gun . Bonnie Hunt suggested the toughest part of the role was “ playing a character that doesn’t like Tom Cruise ”. I wouldn’t have had that problem. I do not like Tom and Jerry.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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