You kind of look like a slutty Ebola virus.

Crazy Rich Asians

(2018)

(SPOILERS) The phenomenal success of Crazy Rich Asians – in the US at any rate, thus far – might lead one to think it's some kind of startling original, but the truth is, whatever its core demographic appeal, this adaptation of Kevin Kwan's novel taps into universally accepted romantic comedy DNA and readily recognisable tropes of family and class, regardless of cultural background. It emerges a smoothly professional product, ticking the expected boxes in those areas – the heroine's highs, lows, rejections, proposals, accompanied by whacky scene-stealing best friend – even if the writing is sometimes a little on the clunky side.

Rachel (Constance Wu, entirely appealing) isn't far at all from the Pretty Woman or Cinderella persona – excepting her being a successful NYU economics professor rather than a hooker or doormat, although her classes are equally fantasy land, bearing more resemblance to Now You See Me than anything actually higher educational – right down to riches-not-being-intrinsic-to-her-happiness-but-very-nice-all-the-same-thank-you when they come attached to a Prince Charming.

Unfortunately, the Princess Charming in question is probably the movie's biggest stumble. There's a gushingly romantic airplane proposal at the end – in Economy, naturally – during which he must bumble by passengers and profess his bottomless love. You can tell it's been designed for an Asian Hugh Grant, but Henry Golding's Nick is closer to the charisma-free rigidity of a Richard Gere (I see he's an ongoing presenter of The Travel Show for the Beeb, which kind of makes sense).

Nick's family are uber-rich, even by the standards of Singapore's uber-rich, which comes as a shock to Rachel, since he's been reticent about his background. She's as innocent in motive as they come, of course, which means being accused of gold-digging is an affront. Particularly callous accusations come from former girlfriends and hangers-on, but worst is Nick's formidable mother (Michelle Yeoh, on fine form, a relief after her pure wood showing in Star Trek: Discovery), repeatedly making it clear that Rachel isn’t good enough for her son. Inevitably, by the end of the movie she isn't exactly approving, but sufficiently accepting (and all thanks to game theory and a Mahjong match – no one overdoses on the tiles, fortunately – proof that in movies, one can apply one's degree to every aspect of one's life to remarkable effect).

As ever with such fare (see Rupert Everett in My Best Friend's Wedding, Charlotte Coleman in Four Weddings and a Funeral), it's a requirement for the eccentric best pal to steal the proceedings. I know I'm not the first to compare Awkwafina's Peik Lin Goh to Joan Rivers – I suspect every review has – but it undoubtedly bears repeating, as she throws off quip after quip with throaty gusto ("Chinese sons think their moms fart Chanel No. 5"). Awkwafina managed to make her presence felt in the crowded and mostly superfluous Ocean's Eight early in the summer, but here her only competition for attention is Nicos Santos' magnificently camp Oliver ("Your skin is so dry, it's hurting my face"); rather than vie, they bounce of each other in their scenes together.

Elsewhere, Ken Jeong is typically, excruciatingly OTT as Peik Lin's father, while others making an impression include Gemma Chan as Nick's gorgeous but cheated-on cousin and Ronny Chieng as another cousin with idiosyncratic attitudes towards raising and showing off his children (particularly when it comes to family portraits).

I mentioned Now You See Me, and I wonder if it's a coincidence that Jon M Chu directed the sequel to that film (along with G.I. Joe: Retaliation). He brings bags of confidence and visual panache to the table, and amongst the sumptuous (and decadent) locations, a glorious facility for tastelessness (to the extent I'm unsure if the massively expensive wedding is intended to just be repellently tacky or also kind of quite cool; "Is this a church? Or a paddy field?").

He commandeers a very witty opening sequence, in which Rachel and Nick’s presence in a public eatery – as they discuss going to his friend's wedding – finds their photos circulated via texting at express speed, finally reaching Yeoh, hitherto oblivious of Nick's girlfriend, who calls her son before they have even finished their cake (if only the Now You See Mes had an ounce of such explicability with regard to their magical feats). Another nice touch is Mandarin versions of English-language songs (Material Girl, Money (That's What I Want), Yellow, Can't Help Falling in Love), drawing attention to cross-cultural pollination, even as positions of class and heritage among the elites remain entrenched.

Inevitably, Crazy Rich Asians revels in affluence and superficiality while pronouncing that it isn't everything, since that tends to be par for the course with such fare (you can't really be a Disney princess without it: even for Shrek's DreamWorks one) and if the screenplay from Peter Chairelli (bloody Now You See Me 2 again) and Adele Lim is light on its feet in that area, it occasionally grinds its gears as it over-verbalises and over-explains what-I-am-feeling-right-now. Chu meanwhile, despite his zinging, energised approach, can't prevent the proceedings from dragging in places (perhaps a symptom of the writers straying from bouncing back and forth between the "serious" romantic plotlines and the crazy comedic asides).

The picture has offered further proof that Hollywood knows nothing about hit-making (it was financed independently but has been distributed by Warner Bros – Netflix's bid was rejected, which should probably be a lesson to anyone thinking going to them is a safe option; it may be, but it can also mean a very limited profile; see The Guernsey Potato Peel Society). As the first all-Asian American movie since The Joy Luck Club, no doubt the intervening quarter-century was littered with screenplays rejected by the gatekeepers on the basis they'd do no business. Of course, naysayers might argue its success is mainly attributable to following such a recognisable romcom template, but since when has that been bulletproof?

I tend to think the ultimate test of the romcom isn't so much how side-splitting it is as how invested you are in the characters – it's why Pretty Woman falls down for me, on both lead fronts, and why anything with Andie McDowell on one side of the equation comes up short (Four Weddings is fortunate that everything else is a winner). In that regard, Crazy Rich Asians gets it half right, which means, unless the sequel shifts focus, it will probably only be getting it half right again next time.

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

Comments

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

Prepare the Heathen’s Stand! By order of purification!

Apostle (2018)
(SPOILERS) Another week, another undercooked Netflix flick from an undeniably talented director. What’s up with their quality control? Do they have any? Are they so set on attracting an embarrassment of creatives, they give them carte blanche, to hell with whether the results are any good or not? Apostle's an ungainly folk-horror mashup of The Wicker Man (most obviously, but without the remotest trace of that screenplay's finesse) and any cult-centric Brit horror movie you’d care to think of (including Ben Wheatley's, himself an exponent of similar influences-on-sleeve filmmaking with Kill List), taking in tropes from Hammer, torture porn, and pagan lore but revealing nothing much that's different or original beyond them.

There's something wrong with the sky.

Hold the Dark (2018)
(SPOILERS) Hold the Dark, an adaptation of William Giraldi's 2014 novel, is big on atmosphere, as you'd expect from director Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin, Green Room) and actor-now-director (I Don’t Want to Live in This World Anymore) pal Macon Blair (furnishing the screenplay and appearing in one scene), but contrastingly low on satisfying resolutions. Being wilfully oblique can be a winner if you’re entirely sure what you're trying to achieve, but the effect here is rather that it’s "for the sake of it" than purposeful.

You can’t just outsource your entire life.

Tully (2018)
(SPOILERS) A major twist is revealed in the last fifteen minutes of Tully, one I'll happily admit not to have seen coming, but it says something about the movie that it failed to affect my misgivings over the picture up to that point either way. About the worst thing you can say about a twist is that it leaves you shrugging.

No one understands the lonely perfection of my dreams.

Ridley Scott Ridders Ranked
During the '80s, I anticipated few filmmakers' movies more than Ridley Scott's; those of his fellow xenomorph wrangler James Cameron, perhaps. In both cases, that eagerness for something equalling their early efforts receded as they studiously managed to avoid the heights they had once reached. Cameron's output dropped off a cliff after he won an Oscar. Contrastingly, Scott's surged like never before when his film took home gold. Which at least meant he occasionally delivered something interesting, but sadly, it was mostly quantity over quality. Here are the movies Scott has directed in his career thus far - and with his rate of productivity, another 25 by the time he's 100 may well be feasible – ranked from worst to best.

Well, you did take advantage of a drunken sailor.

Tomb Raider (2018)
(SPOILERS) There's evidently an appetite out there for a decent Tomb Raider movie, given that the lousy 2001 incarnation was successful enough to spawn a (lousy) sequel, and that this lousier reboot, scarcely conceivably, may have attracted enough bums on seats to do likewise. If we're going to distinguish between order of demerits, we could characterise the Angelina Jolie movies as both pretty bad; Tomb Raider, in contrast, is unforgivably tedious.

This is it. This is the moment of my death.

Fearless (1993)
Hollywood tends to make a hash of any exploration of existential or spiritual themes. The urge towards the simplistic, the treacly or the mawkishly uplifting, without appropriate filtering or insight, usually overpowers even the best intentions. Rarely, a movie comes along that makes good on its potential and then, more than likely, it gets completely ignored. Such a fate befell Fearless, Peter Weir’s plane crash survivor-angst film, despite roundly positive critical notices. For some reason audiences were willing to see a rubgy team turn cannibal in Alive, but this was a turn-off? Yet invariably anyone who has seen Fearless speaks of it in glowing terms, and rightly so.

Weir’s pictures are often thematically rich, more anchored by narrative than those of, say, Terrence Malick but similarly preoccupied with big ideas and their expression. He has a rare grasp of poetry, symbolism and the mythic. Weir also displays an acute grasp of the subjective mind-set, and possesses …

If you want to have a staring contest with me, you will lose.

Phantom Thread (2017)
(SPOILERS) Perhaps surprisingly not the lowest grossing of last year's Best Picture Oscar nominees (that was Call Me by Your Name) but certainly the one with the least buzz as a genuine contender, subjected as Phantom Thread was to a range of views from masterpiece (the critics) to drudge (a fair selection of general viewers). The mixed reaction wasn’t so very far from Paul Thomas Anderson's earlier The Master, and one suspects the nomination was more to do with the golden glow of Daniel Day-Lewis in his first role in half a decade (and last ever, if he's to be believed) than mass Academy rapture with the picture. Which is ironic, as the relatively unknown Vicky Krieps steals the film from under him.

Outstanding. Now, let’s bite off all the heads and pile them up in the corner.

Venom (2018)
(SPOILERS) A 29% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes can't be wrong, can it? To go by the number of one-star reviews Sony’s attempt to kick-start their own shred of the Marvel-verse has received, you’d think it was the new Battlefield Earth, or Highlander II: The Quickening. Fortunately, it's far from that level of ignominy. And while it’s also a considerable distance from showing the polish and assuredness of the official Disney movies, it nevertheless manages to establish its own crudely winning sense of identity.

Wasn't it her brother who murdered all those babysitters?

Halloween (2018)
(SPOILERS) Proof that you can keep going back to the same crumbling well and there'll still be a ready and willing (nostalgic) audience to lap up the results, at least for the first weekend. The critics seemed to like this sequel to the first movie, though, which expressly wipes out Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later – which also retconned out of existence everything aside from the first two movies. Mind you, the makers would do that, since both cover similar ground, while this Halloween ends up not being noticeably all that superior.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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