The new movie “Companion” is unusual because it is good at surprising the audience within the entire first third of the film. The surprise is a spoiler alert, any reader of this blog might want to stop reading now.
The two main characters of this movie are Josh, played by Jack Quaid (the son of Meg Ryan and Dennis Quaid), and Iris, played by Sophie Thatcher. It turns out that the relationship between these two people is not real because Iris is a Robot with impressive AI abilities and intelligence, making her as real as any human woman. There is a company that manufactures robots for lonely people, including a portable control panel that controls every aspect of the Robot’s behavior.
Iris and Josh are invited to the mansion of a wealthy friend, who might be a Russian criminal. Then this story mutates into a murder, chase scenes, gory and violent scenes all about the worst parts of humanity that all of us possess. All of the technology and action scenes are done very well, making what would have been a run-of-the-mill horror action movie into one that is memorable.
The Rotten Tomatoes average rating is a too high 95%, with my rating 80% and a solid recommendation.
The new movie “Presence” plays like a combination of Poltergeist (1982) and any one of the seven Paranormal Activity movies released from (2009-2021). The most interesting fact about this movie is the very unusual way the director Steven Soderbergh shows scene transition, with the end of the scene, a few seconds of black screen, and then immediately into the next scene. This is a technique I have never seen before, and gives a very unusual look and feel to this movie.
This story follows the same basic idea as Poltergeist. When there is a person who passes away under corrupt circumstances, the person’s spirit is not able to ascend to where it would normally go and instead haunts houses, to either prevent another wrong or right the wrong that happened to them when they died.
Presence stars Lucy Liu as Rebekah in one of her few starring roles in recent years and Chris Sullivan as Chris, who was one of the main stars of the great television series, “This is Us”, which ran from (2016-2022). Liu and Sullivan seem very unlikely as a married couple, something even mentioned during this film. They have two children, both of them in their late teens within a very dysfunctional family with a large number of arguments and foul language, especially from the teenage son Tyler played by Eddy Maday. The daughter Chloe played by Callina Liang is in constant conflict with her brother with arguments that constantly escalate and the underlying cause is that Rebekah favors Tyler over Chloe.
Throughout this film, there are several scenes that include the presence of a ghost, that eventually forces the family to hire a professional medium – much like the plot of Poltergeist.
The dramatic ending is both mostly unexpected and well done, with a final ending scene that was impressively acted by Lucy Liu.
The Rotten Tomatoes ratings are a high 87% and I mostly agree with this rating, due to the different director techniques introduced by Solerberg and the acting.
One of the first things to recognize about the new Mark Wahlberg movie “Flight Risk” is that on all the movie posters there is a very small mention of director Mel Gibson. The reasons for this are because of Gibson’s drunken rant with police on July 28, 2006, which included anti-Semitic remarks and other offensive comments. Ultimately this incident 18 years ago derailed Gibson’s career in Hollywood. Gibson has had some comebacks over the years, most notably, directing the movie “Hacksaw Ridge”, released in 2016, arguably one of the greatest war movies ever produced. Considering this incident from 2006 and the ones that followed, it is rather remarkable that Gibson continues to work in the film industry.
The other issue I found unusual about this film is that Mark Wahlberg, who plays a small plane pilot who is a murderer working for a mob boss, shaved his head, with the idea that Wahlberg would look more evil if he was bald. Mark Wahlberg can play an evil person without being bald, so risking a shaved head for a movie (what if it does not grow back?) made no sense for this role.
The story of Flight Risk is a simple one. A former accountant for a Mob boss has evidence that can put him in jail. Unfortunately, this accountant, Winston, played very well by Topher Grace has tried to run away to Alaska only to be captured by an FBI agent Madolyn played by Michelle Dockery in a run-down Motel. Typical of Alaska, the only way to transport Winston out of the remote from where he was found to Anchorage is by chartering a small plane. This plane was piloted by a hit man hired by the Mob boss, Daryl, played by Mark Wahlberg. The first flaw here is when the FBI is involved they would hire their own pilot and use their own government plane, never risking what happened in this story. Once again Topher Grace seems to play himself in this story, recognizing him rather than his character, who is a nervous self-deprecating weak man.
After the first 15 minutes of this 87-minute movie is the interaction between the three characters as Madolyn figures out that Daryl is not the real pilot, and fights with him violently several times, eventually using her Tazer to subdue him. What follows is Madolyn figuring out via radio contact with her co-workers at the FBI that there is a mole that created this dire situation on this small plane that almost crashes into the mountains several times as Madolyn desperately tries to land with the help of an air traffic controller in Anchorage.
Overall, I thought this was a solid action movie with a believable plot and action scenes. This film does play like a typical January B movie release, but it will hold your interest throughout the 87 minutes.
I can only guess that the extremely low 21% Rotten Tomatoes ratings for this film are because of the ongoing hatred of Mel Gibson, with my rating 70% and a moderate recommendation for the acting and believable story and action scenes.
A Screenwriters Perspective: Current and Past Movies. 