STACK #145 Nov 2016

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CINEMA REVIEWS

THE NEON DEMON

RELEASED: Now Showing DIRECTOR: Nicolas Winding Refn CAST: Elle Fanning, Christina Hendricks, Keanu Reeves RATING: R18+ Danish provocateur Nicholas Winding Refn hit the mainstream in 2011 with the superb L.A. noir thriller Drive , before falling victim to his own artistic indulgence with the tedious Only God Forgives , leaving some to ponder whether he'd lost the plot. His latest film, The Neon Demon, doesn't really have one to lose – Refn is even more focused on affectation and artifice, bombarding the audience with hypnotic and surreal visuals at the expense of narrative. It also moves at a glacial pace, but at least it's a feast for the eyeballs. This is hipster horror: a fashion house giallo set in a sinister L.A. that's as much an ode to Dario Argento and David Lynch as Drive was to Michael Mann. Refn's touchstones are Suspiria and Mulholland Drive, with Elle Fanning as the doe-eyed ingenue who has "that thing" required to make it big in the cutthroat modelling business. That's if she can survive sleazy photographers, a scumbag hotel owner (Keanu Reeves), and her jealous peers who want to devour her glamour – literally, given eating disorders include cannibalism. This isn't Zoolander , although Refn does make some valid points about the vacuity of the industry and its obsession with cosmetic enhancement. The Neon Demon is as super-stylish and artificial as the world it depicts, but like its predatory models, needs more meat on its bones. Scott Hocking OUIJA: ORIGIN OF EVIL RELEASED: Now Showing DIRECTOR: Mike Flanagan CAST: Elizabeth Reaser, Lulu Wilson, Annalise Basso RATING: M Maybe it’s all down to the success of The Conjuring or perhaps the latest wave of horror filmmakers just love Mad Men , but retro supernatural chillers are becoming a sub-genre in their own right. Hot on the heels of Conjuring spin- off Annabelle comes this prequel to the generally unloved Ouija , which, as the title suggests, is an origin story about the demonic mother and sisters who wreaked havoc in the first film. It’s 1967 and the recently widowed Alice Zander (Elisabeth Reaser) and her two daughters, cynical teenager Paulina (Annalise Basso) and her younger sister Doris (Lulu Wilson), are running séance scams to make ends meet. Paulina convinces her mother to spice up the act by using a Ouija board, and they are amazed to discover that Doris doesn’t actually need any tricks to use it: she seems able to communicate with the dead using the board. But are her conversations with her dead father and other souls she contacts real, or is a more malevolent spirit at work? Ouija: Origin of Evil is a big improvement on the first film – admittedly that’s not saying much – with director Michael Flanagan ( Occulus, Hush ) delivering some effective jump-shocks and young Wilson is a suitably scary possessed child. On the downside, it’s a lazily plotted affair and the ‘60s settings can’t disguise the fact that there's little in the way of genuine scares or frights. John Ferguson

JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK

RELEASED: Now Showing DIRECTOR: Edward Zwick CAST: Tom Cruise, Cobie Smulders, Danika Yarosh RATING: M

W hen he's not hanging from the side of a 747 as Ethan Hunt, Tom Cruise moonlights as the hard- as-nails hero of Lee Child's best-selling thriller series. A former army major turned drifter, Jack Reacher was introduced on the big screen in 2012, but you don't need to have seen Christopher McQuarrie's take on the ninth Reacher novel, One Shot – Never Go Back is an adaptation of the eighteenth Reacher book, so continuity isn't a concern. Cruise's Reacher is an arrogant, nuggety human battering ram Reaching for the clichés.

murdered soldiers in Afghanistan. Reacher also discovers he has a 15-year- old daughter (Danika Yarosh), who will of course be threatened or abducted for leverage sooner rather than later. Cobie Smulders, basically playing her S.H.I.E.L.D agent from Avengers here, is as tough as Reacher and a good match for Cruise. Throw the teenager into the mix and it's an instant dysfunctional family. We've seen this kind of espionage/ chase thriller a million times before. The hired goons trailing Reacher are the generic beards-and-sunglasses

RATING KEY: Wow! Good Not bad Meh Woof!

with a gimlet eye and a permanent scowl (some might say the perfect fit for Cruise); he's not really likeable but he gets the job done. Drop him into any situation and he'll come out fighting, and that's exactly what happens when he has to bust an old army colleague (Cobie Smulders) out of military prison after she's been accused of treason. Reacher has also been framed for murder, and the pair go on the run to clear their names and expose a conspiracy involving a big military contractor and a pair of

stereotypes, and there's even a rooftop showdown during a New Orleans Halloween parade. There's also never a sense

that Reacher is in any real danger, given he's capable of overpowering any adversary and escaping from any lock-up, busting heads with impunity. Jack Reacher: Never Go Back is enjoyable enough in the moment, but you'll have forgotten all about it by the time you reach the car park. Scott Hocking

FURTHER VIEWING: Jack Reacher

NOVEMBER 2016

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