Amsterdam is really bad + a bonus review

Gillipedia Official Rating: It’s rumored Christian Bale simultaneously gained and lost 300 pounds for this role

Score: 4/10

          Amsterdam is packed tight with big names. Christian Bale, Margot Robbie, and John David Washington are the stars, but there’s also Michael Shannon, Robert de Niro, Taylor Swift, Anya Taylor Joy, Zoe Saldana, Chris Rock, Rami Malek, Timothy Olyphant, and Mike Myers. Throw in writer/director David O. Russell, and this movie has to be good, right? Well, I’m not sure if you read the full title, but the sting of all the names attached to this project still hasn’t worn off.

          Living in a post-WW1 world, Bale is an eccentric veteran doctor taking more morphine than he should, and Washington is a stoic lawyer that served with Bale and continues to work with him. A frantic Taylor Swift asks them to look into the death of her father—their old commander. They suspect foul play, then get framed for a murder, and now they’re on the run trying to figure out what in the world is happening. And to understand what is happening, we also watch what happened to our leads while they served and the nurse (Robbie) that takes care of their injuries, and how the inseparable pair becomes the musketeers instead.

          At over 2 hours long, it takes too long for the movie to find its groove. There’s also a pretty rapid switch about halfway through from trying to be a charming murder mystery to unfolding to a much larger plot involving the war as a whole. Yes, it does tie into some real events, but it is still jarring. The style of this film and Russell films in general is yes, the paragraph above is the main plot. But while characters walk between settings, they talk about what else is going on and the side plots reveal themselves—like Bale’s hapless marriage into an elitist family. We do end up wanting things to work out for the characters, but when the climax fizzles instead of bangs, trying to have the story culminate into one scene with all the characters coherently just doesn’t land.

          The biggest shortcoming for this film, however, is its tone. The genre listed first for this film is comedy. And let me tell you that the way this film is shot is some of the worst directing I’ve seen in a long time because there’s absolutely no comedic timing. There’s never enough setup, and the delivery is far too stiff for any joke to ever land. If I had to listen to Bale tell one more character that he is a veteran, I’d probably shoot myself. I think it’s a running gag, and it’s extremely annoying. And to be very clear, it does feel like this movie is trying to honor veterans which I really do appreciate, but Bale has to tell everyone he’s a veteran no less than 15 times during this movie. But I digress. Let me try to explain this comedy as simplistically as possible.  The most basic setup for a scene would be two characters talking to each other. Any film that gets widely distributed will have a setup something like a camera behind each character’s shoulder (over the shoulder) and a third wide shot showing both actors. To keep the flow of dialogue, sometimes the character speaking isn’t the face we see on screen because maybe the reaction to the dialogue elicits the emotional response we’re looking for. What happens with this film is a character says their line. Pause. Switch to other character. Character two now speaks and says their line. Nobody in the world has ever spoken in a conversation like this, it looks fake, it feels awkward, and no, it isn’t funny to watch. It blows my mind how this happened, but this is the stiffest dialogue I’ve seen since possibly the atrocious Mortdecai.

          If you have an underwhelming story and a comedy without much humor, maybe it can be saved by the acting? Bale is a frequent collaborator with the director (as is de Niro), and he is fully committed to his role; because of the film surrounding him, it doesn’t stand out, but he is dedicated. I’m most disappointed by Washington whom I loved in Tenet and BlackKklansman where I think he’s supposed to be the grounded character, but there’s just hardly any emotion in any of his lines. Robbie does the best of the three in my opinion, and Chris Rock delivers what humor there is. Shannon and Myers try to keep a running gag about bird watching, but it’s not funny from jokes one through five. Malek is pretty good, and Taylor-Joy leans in hard to her pompous character, but it feels like too much even though the exaggeration is added for “comedic” effect. And don’t come at me Swifties, but Taylor tries too hard, it feels like she’s in a play and not a movie. For what it’s worth, I squarely put the blame of my acting criticisms squarely on director Russell’s shoulders. I truly felt like I was watching the rehearsals for this film because it felt like they were still figuring everything out. I seriously can’t tell if some of the dialogue was just that bad, or was it an actor’s first efforts at improvising? These actors were not set up for success, and the final product suffers for it.

          I actually give high marks to the music. It has a very ethereal, dreamlike quality to it, and could’ve added depth to a better film. I would honestly nominate and very possibly win the score for an Oscar I think it’s that good, but this movie does not deserve to be called Oscar winner or nominated. It also breaks my heart to see that the director of photography is the goat Emmanuel Lubezki. Everything is shot with a very soft white backlight—also adding to that ethereal quality. Which is not inherently a bad thing, it just doesn’t really fit with this film. Or why we kept following characters from behind as they walked around. It was also slightly uncomfortable how much the film is shot from like waist height looking up at our characters.

          Amsterdam is really bad. I was enticed by all of the actors and actresses that I recognized and have adored in previous films. David O. Russell has also directed some great movies, including one of the best romantic movies of all time in Silver Linings Playbook. Apparently, this was enough confidence for the producers because this wasn’t a cheap film and appears to have bombed hard. As it truly should have too. You won’t feel bad or anything for watching this, but there’s just way better ways to spend two hours of your time. I do feel less bad about this movie flopping though because I guess Drake was an executive producer. Probably also why this movie sucks.

 

Spencer

Gillipedia Official Rating: Twilight star gets British. No, not actual British actor Robert Pattinson

Score: 4/10

          The only thing I knew going in was the film was supposed to be okay and elevated by star Kristen Stewart’s Oscar-nominated performance as Princess Diana. Knowing the slightly anxious quality of Stewart and the fact that this film’s entire aim is to focus on the mental strain Diana was going through at the time, this could be an interesting movie. It’s not.

          There’s not much that happens. The film does center around Diana and how there’s this mix of outside forces trying to control her life and herself trying to desperately control her own life despite what the royal family’s plans for her may be. And this concept isn’t a bad one. I think the execution is simply rudimentary. The issue is how flat the film is. It doesn’t feel like the anxiety, stress, and other mental illnesses ramp up enough, so we move from scene to scene without riding much of an emotional wave. Yes, later on we get some slight hallucinations, but we’re never punched in the face with stress, and this movie desperately needed some sort of jolt of emotions.

          Stewart isn’t the only other big name. He’s most recognizable to me from his days as Wormtail in Harry Potter, but famed British actor Timothy Spall is here, as is Sally Hawkins and her effortless smile and exuberant joy. The biggest side character, however, is the head chef played by Sean Harris. The film takes place over roughly a week, and during that time we hear Harris yell out the menu for the day every day. Sure, the food looks and sounds pretty good. And there’s a couple lines of dialogue during the film about the efforts of everyone involved with the making of the food, but beyond that, I didn’t get the point. Yes, I also get that the real life chef got to know Diana… but in a film already struggling to find that “it” factor, we’re slowed down even further by watching the kitchen. I don’t see a bigger meaning behind it except to make this feel more like a “legitimate” film by bringing it just under the two-hour mark.

          Despite Stewart’s efforts, I’ll be honest—I did feel like the whole time I was watching her try to do a British accent and never felt like I saw her get lost and absorbed into the character of Princess Diana. I also like the intentions of this film and its stress on mental health, especially on such a public figure. But from an actual storytelling perspective, the themes are far too light, and the scenes don’t have enough flavor. Whereas at least with Amsterdam you could see where the story was building up towards, there is never a far-reaching goal for our protagonist to aim for. Nothing to look forward to, no callbacks or foreshadowing with payoffs at the end. Spencer simply moves from scene to scene, relying on the laurels of Stewart, and it’s not nearly enough to carry this film.