Matt Reviews: Stranger Things 2

WARNING: SPOILERS follow

Finn Wolfhard is back from fighting killer clowns to take on more eldritch horrors.

A year has passed in the town of Hawkins. Eleven is secretly being taken care of by Chief Hopper, though she longs to be in the real world to find out more about her past. A new girl arrives in Hawkins and creates a divide between members of our main party. Hawkins Lab is under new management, seemingly for the better. Nancy and Jonathan set their sights on blowing the whistle on what really happened to Barb to the entire world. Joyce is dating Samwise Gamgee. And poor Will, finally back from the Upside-Down, continues to have horrible visions of that place, and of a new monster that has set his sights on the boy. Evil has begun to spread through Hawkins once more.

Much like with the first season, the characters and the actors’ performances are really what make this show great. All of the actors – both child and adult – put their all into making their respective characters likeable and memorable. Sean Astin’s role as Bob was a standout for the season. He played such a nice, resourceful, charming dork of a character that I for the first half of the season, I was certain he was going to turn out to be a mole sent by the bad guys to spy on Joyce and Will. But no, they played it straight and made Bob an extremely likeable good guy, which makes his death all the more painful to watch. He was too pure for this sinful earth.

Steve was always a character I thought was underrated in the show. It would have been so easy to write this character as the jerk jock boyfriend of Nancy to showcase how much better of a love interest Jonathan is. But, surprisingly, they decided to make Steve a decent, likeable human being. Season 2 continues this trend by giving him a heartwarming old brother type relationship with Dustin and, by extension, the other kids. The fact that they make him the vulnerable one in his relationship with Nancy (how he’s actually the one who’s truly in love with Nancy, while Nancy is unsure of her feelings for him) is another pretty good subversion that makes Steve even more sympathetic.

These new Ghostbusters reboots are getting ridiculous.

The only main character that I think gets the shaft in the season is Will. Despite the fact that he’s actually in this season and not just a plot device trapped in an alternate dimension, his defining character trait still seems to be “suffering.” The other members of the party each have their defined roles – Mike is the leader, Dustin is the heart, Lucas is the hands-on one – but Will just seems to be labeled as “the fourth one.” I think the show tries to imply he’s the brains with his D&D character being called “Will the Wise”, but the season decides to focus more on his struggles with being possessed by a shadow monster than any characteristics. Don’t get me wrong, Noah Schnapp puts in some fantastic performances showing Will’s trauma. It’s just a shame that the same effort couldn’t be put into finally giving him some character traits.

The new additions to the paranormal are pretty neat, particularly the introduction of the Mind Flayer, who was a nice step up in terms of danger and gave the serious a more cerebral antagonist compared to the demogorgon. At first, I was a little disappointed that the primary antagonists wound up being just a bunch of demogorgons rather than some new monster from the Upside-Down, but then I realized what they were doing. The “demodogs” were an army of the same kind of deadly monster from the previous installment, serving a bigger and more dangerous enemy and showing how serious the stakes have gotten. You know what else that sounds like. The plot of Aliens, perfectly going along with the ‘80’s love letter the series is known as.

(Also, Paul Reiser – who played the businessman in Aliens – plays Dr. Evans here. Don’t know if that was intentional or not, but it’s a nice touch.)

Despite being a fan favorite from last season, Eleven’s storyline winds up being one of the weaker bits this time around. The stuff with her and Hopper is pretty good, as David Harbour and Millie Bobby Brown act really well off of each other and it gives Hopper a chance to raise another daughter that he (hopefully) won’t lose. The problem is that because Hopper is intentionally secluding Eleven from the rest of the world, her storyline becomes so disconnected from everything else. She doesn’t officially meet up with the rest of the kids until the last episode, meaning that her relationship with Mike can’t be explored to its fullest over an entire season.

This show has more red in it than the posters for The Last Jedi.

Despite the fact that Eleven was one of the main paranormal forces of the first season and basically responsible for everything that happened, she doesn’t actually get involved in the battle with the Mind Flayer until the very end, instead focusing her time on finding her psychic sister. Speaking of that, the season opens with showing that another one of the government experiment children is off robbing banks with her powers, yet that seemingly important plot point isn’t followed up on for seven episodes. When it is followed up, the episode has some character development for El, but ultimately, it winds up being filler and set-up for the next season.

The best parts of the season are the beginning half and the very end. The first half has a lot of what made the first season great: a mystery peppered in with the supernatural. It makes us ask the questions of what’s going on with Will, what’s killing the pumpkins, and what’s up with the weird pollywog Dustin found. The second half starts to teeter a little in quality, but it picks up again in full force in the finale. All the characters are back together fighting the same battle, and we get those great character interactions that we came here for. Eleven’s using the full brunt of her powers to banish the Mind Flayer. Joyce is trying to exercise the Mind Flayer’s influence out of Will, despite the fact that there’s a chance she could kill her son. And Steve gets into a bloody fistfight with the new bully character while trying to wrangle a bunch of headstrong kids trying to go out on a suicide mission. The ending kind of goes on for a little long, seeing as how the monsters are defeated and the last fifteen minutes are devoted to the shenanigans at the middle school dance. But the very end hits you one more time with the revelation that the Mind Flayer is still out there watching Hawkins. Looks like bigger things are coming to Stranger Things next season.

Stranger Things 2 may not be as good as the first one, but it is still plenty good. The wandering focus is the real monster this season. Had Eleven actually met up with Mike at the school like she almost did and then stayed with the party, the season might have been stronger by bringing the main plotlines together more efficiently. Or maybe they could have had Eleven’s psychic sister and her crew of delinquents wind up in Hawkins and participate in the battle with the Mind Flayer. But this season’s still got the great characters we loved from the previous season, as well as a healthy dose of timely spookiness and a killer ‘80’s soundtrack. (In case my previous reviews of Kingsman: The Golden Circle and Baby Driver weren’t enough evidence, I love me some 1980’s jams.)

I feel like I’m a lot more lenient on this season that other critics have been, but I genuinely feel like the first half of the season and the finale are just as good as the first season. Maybe my opinions are just a little…upside-down.

I’m sorry. I was in a weird mood when I wrote this.

Final verdict: 8/10.

Now I can’t wait to see what Lovecraftian horror gets named after a Dungeons & Dragons monster next season. Season 1 had the demogorgon. Season 2 had the Mind Flayer. I’m expecting Season 3 to have Duckbunny.

Matt Reviews: Baby Driver

WARNING: SPOILERS, baby

So, what’s Matt’s excuse for not seeing a critically acclaimed movie in theaters this time?

Believe it not, I actually have a somewhat legitimate excuse this time. See, right when Baby Driver was coming to theaters, I was headed out for a week-long vacation to North Carolina with my family. Naturally, I wasn’t going to spend a portion of my highly valued beach time in a dark movie theater, but by the time I had returned to my hometown, Baby Driver was already gone from our dingy little theater. Keep in mind, this is also the same theater that didn’t show Django Unchained until a month after it had been released everywhere else, and even then only showed it for about a week.

But enough excuses. I’ve finally seen it, so let’s talk about Edgar Wright’s latest romp.

The movie centers on a young man named Baby (played by Ansel Egort), an expert getaway driver who constantly listens to music to drown out his tinnitus. He’s employed by the criminal mastermind Doc (Kevin Spacey), who employs him in different bank heists as his go-to driver for crews of colorful criminals (featuring the likes of Jon Hamm and Jamie Foxx). But then Baby falls for a waitress named Debora (Lily James) and finally has a purpose outside the criminal world. However, leaving this line of employment isn’t as easy as getting into it.

Let’s talk about the main drawing point of this movie: the music and how it relates to the actions on screen. In several of his previous movies, Edgar Wright employs a filmmaking trick where the characters’ actions sync up with the beats of the music. This is the same trick that he applies over nearly the entire movie. Any time we get to hear a selection from Baby’s kicking soundtrack, everything on screen in times perfectly to the music. From car horns to windshield wipers, from shot transitions to the movements and gestures of the characters, every action is driven by the music. In one of the opening scenes, a few of the lyrics to the song currently playing appear on walls and street posts as Baby is walking. It’s stuff like this that makes this movie so satisfying and cinematically engaging to watch.

"Nobody ever robs restaurants. Why not? Bars, liquor stores, gas stations;
you get your head blown off sticking up one of them."

As you can probably tell, music is a big part of this movie, and is one of the prevailing motifs. Baby’s entire life and character seems to revolve around his various iPods because his deceased mother was a musician, and listening to familiar music calms him down to help ease the pain of the past. It’s sort of like Star-Lord’s gimmick from Guardians of the Galaxy in a way, but it never feels like it’s intentionally trying to copy James Gunn’s shtick. Various characters – like Debora, Buddy, and a random post office worker – spit out meaningful song lyrics and music trivia, constantly giving you the feeling that Edgar Wright has created a world where music appreciation is hardwired into everyone’s DNA.  There are cameos from accomplished musicians like Paul Williams and The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Flea, and even our starring actor moonlights as a DJ in real life. It’s like Edgar Wright watched Reservoir Dogs, appreciated the “greatest hits of the ‘70’s” soundtrack, and made a movie that dialed this aspect up to eleven.

Another recurring motif is Baby’s morality and how it fits – or doesn’t fit – into the criminal world he finds himself in. Throughout the film, Baby is shown to be a more upstanding guy than his criminal cohorts; he’s less willing to kill innocents and is visibly appalled when his teammates do. He’s constantly warned that this kind of attitude isn’t cohesive to this kind of life, and eventually he’s forced to kill with the murders of Bats and Buddy. It’s only here where everything takes a sharp nosedive into trouble, when Baby finally takes the advice of hardened criminals. But despite his generally upstanding morals, he was still involved with murder and robbery, and eventually turns himself over to awaiting police officers. However, the theme of morality resurfaces when all of the people he was nice to – including a few people he helped rob – testify towards his good behavior, and he’s allowed to be released on parole five years into his twenty-five year sentence. In short, the movie shows that even if you’re a relatively good egg in a nest full of vipers, you’ve still done wrong and have to face the music. But that also doesn’t mean your good deeds will go unsung and unnoticed.

The characters are all likeable and memorable, which is pretty much a staple for any good heist film. The film has the benefit of casting a bunch of actors I like – such as Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm, and Jamie Foxx – and they all put in the great performances they’re known for. Jon Bernthal (the Punisher from Marvel’s Netflix universe) appears in one of the opening scenes as a member of one of Doc’s heist gangs, but disappointing disappears from the film altogether. Assumingly he dies off screen given his “If you don’t see me again, I’m probably dead” quip, but it’s a shame that with such a star-studded cast, someone like him wasn’t given a bigger role.

Ansel Egort’s performance must have special note in this review since he doesn’t have a whole lot of dialogue in the film. Much of his character comes from his body language and other nonverbal actions. I don’t think we actually hear him utter a single (non-singing) word until we’re almost fifteen minutes into the movie, but by that point, we already know we like this kid. One of his most important relationships in the movie is with his deaf foster dad, and they have entire conversations comprised of sign language and facial reactions to show off both actors’ ability to convey emotions and dialogue nonverbally. (Although, given that one of the actors actually is deaf, it’s probably not entirely acting.)

Never has Edgar Wright crafted a better romance since Scott Pilgrim and Knives Chau.

The only character that lacks as much, well, character is Debora. Not that she’s incredibly uninteresting, but she’s not as fleshed out or entertaining as the rest of the cast. She’s basically your run-of-the-mill girl who has bigger dreams and wants to get out of this town. However, I did find her romance with Baby to be cute. They have some good scenes where they have some legitimately cute, adorkable moments with each other. Also, it’s a minor complaint, but her accent is kind of distracting and inconsistent, but that’s probably due to the British Lily James trying to put on a Southern accent.

The action is another highlight of the film. Edgar Wright’s other films tend to be comedies with some action, Baby Driver is a more action-oriented movie with comedic undertones. Wright really shows off his proficiency for this type of movie with fast-paced, exciting car chases and gunfights, while still maintaining the snippy dialogue and quick editing he’s known for. The ending fight is one big, balls-to-the-wall crazy car chase that takes Baby and Debora all over Atlanta as they’re running from the police and an insane Jon Hamm who keeps avoiding near-death experiences like he’s a freaking horror movie villain. And it’s all set to “Brighton Rock” by Queen. What’s not to love?

This movie was hyped to hell and back by everyone I talked to. And it is a very good movie. The action is thrilling, the characters are interesting, the soundtrack is jamming, and the dialogue is sharp and on par with any other Edgar Wright project. It’s also a really interesting premise to have a heist movie focus on the getaway driver instead of the actual heist itself. Every time one of Doc’s team goes in for a robbery, the camera always focuses on Baby in the car instead of the action inside. Even Doc discussing the plan of attack – usually a crucial moment in any heist film – is generally glossed over in favor of whatever song Baby is listening to on his iPod.

Admittedly, it’s hard not to feel a twang of disappointment after finally watching this movie, but that’s only because of how unrealistically hyped this thing was. It didn’t meet every single one of my expectations, but I still greatly enjoyed it.

But is he slow?

Final verdict: 8.5/10

Also, I sat through all of the credits for two reasons: to listen to the killer soundtrack, and to see if there’s a post credit scene of Jon Hamm surviving his final demise, Terminator-style.