Julia Garner Archives | Deep Focus Review

The Fantastic Four: First Steps

Brian Eggert — Thu, 24 Jul 2025 18:24:40 +0000

Listen to the audio version of this review. The Fantastic Four: First Steps comes as close to greatness as MCU movies get. Accented by a dazzling retro-futurist style and strong characters played by a pitch-perfect cast, it adheres to the save-the-world formula found in many superhero movies: Planet Earth faces an impossible threat from outer space, and only the titular heroes can save us. However, instead of the flat digital environments and lack of distinct visual flair found in most movies of this ilk, there’s a wonderful alternate reality for audiences to explore, set in a version of the 1960s replete with spaceships, robots, and flying cars. The movie instills an instant desire to investigate this familiar yet unique world, something most MCU movies cannot claim. Rather than feeling like The Fantastic Four is more of the same, it feels alive and new—an inspired variation on a theme that, admittedly, has already been tackled onscreen but to subpar effect. With a terrific cast who embody their iconic characters and a visual energy that presents a refreshing alternative to the Marvel house style, The Fantastic Four is not only immediately engaging but also one of the MCU’s most satisfying offerings yet. […]

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Wolf Man

Brian Eggert — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 00:22:33 +0000

Universal Pictures continues its ongoing mission to recycle classic monster IP with Wolf Man, a project that, with writer-director Leigh Whannell behind the camera, had all the promise of becoming something great. After all, the studio already enlisted Whannell to tackle The Invisible Man in 2020—an inspired reconsideration of a mad scientist yarn, albeit from the perspective of a wife escaping a violent and oppressive relationship, with the abuser’s unseen behaviors captured in a perfect #believewomen metaphor. In a smart move, Universal has teamed with Blumhouse to produce lower-budget versions of these stories, countering expensive commercial failures from The Wolfman (2010) to The Mummy (2017). And working alongside co-writer Corbett Tuck, Whannell offers another unconventional take on an icon with Wolf Man. But the result is far less elegant or thoughtfully symbolic than his previous remake. Saddled by heavy-handed dialogue, thin characters, and a compressed timeline, this new iteration offers a few novel ideas and spends so little time developing them that the viewer may hardly notice its innovations. The result is disappointing and all the more frustrating because of its unfulfilled potential. Since Werewolf of London (1935) and The Wolf Man (1941) first popularized werewolf lore among the moviegoing […]

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Apartment 7A

Brian Eggert — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 22:02:34 +0000

(Natalie Erika James’ Apartment 7A will debut on Paramount+ on September 27, 2024.) I have reached my limit with this kind of movie. After seeing multiple examples this year and countless others in recent years, I can take no more of them. It’s the legacy sequel or, in the case of Apartment 7A, the prequel designed to capitalize on a classic. Here, the movie accounts for the events before what occurs in Rosemary’s Baby (1968). Part of the problem with these sorts of films is that they’re less interested in telling a story than filling in gaps, answering questions left by the original, and demystifying whatever mysteries remain about their predecessors. What frustrates me most is that, apart from some particulars, many of them resolve to tell the same story as the original, revealing that the events are part of a larger pattern. Many of them are capably made by indie directors hoping to prove their worth to studios and land a larger project next. And even though they boast confident direction and often feature memorable performances, they’re devoid of new ideas and serve only to reinforce brand awareness. Several franchises have engaged in this trend, mainly because studios want a […]

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The Royal Hotel

Brian Eggert — Sun, 16 Jun 2024 13:49:41 +0000

Every few years, a new movie warns us about the perilous conditions and dangerous people in the Australian outback. Most famously, Ted Kotcheff’s Wake in Fright (1971) finds a young British schoolteacher corrupted by hard-drinking locals into abhorrent behavior, including a revolting kangaroo hunt sequence. That same year, Nicolas Roeg’s masterful Walkabout considered Nature’s sublimity in the outback, though he made domesticity look even more treacherous. Elsewhere, it’s a location inhabited by backwoods psychopaths, such as the one in Greg McLean’s Wolf Creek (2005). But more often than not, filmmakers from George Miller (the Mad Max series) to David Michôd (The Rover, 2014) depict the hardened nature of the sun-baked terrain as post-apocalyptic, equating the dusty and unforgiving environment to what the movies would have us believe are its equally uncivilized inhabitants. Of course, this cinematic myth unfairly characterizes the outback and a segment of Australian culture. Then again, in the case of Australian filmmaker Kitty Green’s The Royal Hotel—a thriller about two female backpackers on a work-for-travel program, who accept an ill-advised job in an isolated mining town bar where they’re ogled and harassed by the boozy locals—there’s some truth to it. Green, working alongside co-writer Oscar Redding, based […]

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The Assistant

Brian Eggert — Thu, 28 May 2020 20:33:37 +0000

Kitty Green’s The Assistant is about Harvey Weinstein and his behavior that exploded into the #MeToo movement in 2017. But Weinstein exists on the periphery of this story, which takes place at an unnamed movie production company whose working environment mirrors the Miramax offices in Manhattan. The once-powerful and feared executive never appears, and neither he nor the company are ever mentioned by name, but everybody watching knows what it’s about. His muffled voice can be heard through walls or barking on a telephone. His presence, or lack thereof, is apparent from the crumbs on his desk, the half-eaten donuts left on a tray, and other remnants left behind in his office. He’s the subject of most conversations and unspoken looks exchanged between the lower support staff, who know about their boss’ dirty secrets yet choose to say nothing because to do so might threaten their opportunity to work in showbusiness. However, the film’s sharp, thoughtfully composed screenplay does not need to dwell on specifics; its portrait is not of Weinstein directly, but the psychological implications that come with abuses of power. Green’s film is told from the perspective of Jane, played by Julia Garner, who has only been on […]

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