Paul Walter Hauser 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. […]

The post The Fantastic Four: First Steps appeared first on Deep Focus Review.

The Instigators

Brian Eggert — Sun, 04 Aug 2024 18:54:07 +0000

An ill-conceived heist goes from an initially lousy idea to a predictable disaster in The Instigators, a comedic caper centered around two dopes. Casey Affleck and Matt Damon play Cobby and Rory, blue-collar criminals enlisted by meager crime boss Besegai (Michael Stuhlbarg) to steal campaign contributions made to Boston’s corrupt incumbent, Mayor Miccelli (Ron Perlman). Why Besegai entrusts these two, along with the trigger-happy Scalvo (Jack Harlow), with such a high-profile crime is one of the many nonsensical aspects of this movie. Aiming for the sardonic buddy movie tone of Midnight Run (1988), director Doug Liman demonstrates no joy in his filmmaking, brings no dimension to his characters, and instills no intrigue into the story. The movie, enjoying a brief theatrical run before getting buried in its final resting place on AppleTV+, is Liman’s second streaming premiere this year after his silly but entertaining remake, Road House, for Prime Video. And despite the star-studded cast and talent behind the camera, The Instigators proves exceptional only for the degree to which it leaves no impression whatsoever. A movie like this is almost worse than an unmitigated disaster because when an experience is terrible or incompetent, at least I might have somewhere […]

The post The Instigators appeared first on Deep Focus Review.

Inside Out 2

Brian Eggert — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 01:36:57 +0000

Inside Out 2, the sequel to Pixar’s 2015 original, once again considers the human mind as a living machine overseen by a control room of emotion-based administrators. Pete Docter initially conceived Inside Out, one of the animation studio’s best, and his concept is a curious one, suggesting that a person lacks autonomy, even agency, over their life. Rather, the personified emotions operate our behavioral switchboard. At any moment, Sadness might pull a lever to cause their human to cry, or Anger might smash some buttons and prompt an outburst. These emotions work in a vast inner system, helping to develop their human’s personality by collecting orb-like memories and, occasionally, setting aside life-defining ones. But in this scenario, a person seems like nothing more than an empty automaton—a vessel overseen by a group of emotional controllers and other bureaucratic functionaries, all of whom vie for control based on their assigned roles, some more imperative than others. In a way, the idea borders on artificial intelligence, a computer-like mind not so much rooted in a free-thinking consciousness or sentience but dependent on the little people inputting stored data into our brains when it’s called upon. If the concept behind Inside Out implies […]

The post Inside Out 2 appeared first on Deep Focus Review.

Da 5 Bloods

Brian Eggert — Sun, 14 Jun 2020 15:16:48 +0000

Da 5 Bloods is another jolt of Spike Lee electricity. It crackles in every which way. The film feels volatile, yet its voice has undeniable power. In the story, four Black Vietnam vets return to the country that left them scarred by battle, and they search both for their squad leader’s remains and the millions in gold bars they stashed during their tour. Lee jump-starts conversations about American history, Black Lives Matter, Hollywood cinema, and the presidency of Donald Trump—subjects that were recently amplified by the George Floyd protests around the world. His approach is energizing and wildly playful, similar to his 2018 breakout, BlacKkKlansman, and before that Chi-Raq in 2015. The live wire quality of his filmmaking keeps us alert, unsure of what to expect next. Even though the film concerns thoroughly explored material, the “American War” in Vietnam, Lee blends his formal control with tonal experimentation. It would be easy to criticize his smorgasbord approach as unfocused, but as ever, there’s a genius behind his charged style. His jam-packed authorial signatures are all over Da 5 Bloods, and like his best films, it’s not easily processed or digested. It leaves us angry, moved, and often shocked. But Lee’s […]

The post Da 5 Bloods appeared first on Deep Focus Review.

Late Night

Brian Eggert — Sun, 16 Jun 2019 19:34:47 +0000

Mindy Kaling makes the move from television to features with Late Night, an indie comedy about the difficulty of female comedians making it in a traditionally male-dominated profession. In her first screenplay, Kaling draws from her time writing for The Office as the only female of color in the room. She also stars in the movie, playing an average nobody who, through a ridiculous set of circumstances, lands her dream job writing for her favorite late-night talk show hosted by Katherine Newbury, played by Emma Thompson. The show has been around for decades but has run out of steam and, predictably, Kaling’s inexperienced Molly Patel has just the comic chops to revitalize the show. Arriving after its Sundance premiere, where it incited a bidding war that ended in a $13 million asking price paid by Amazon Studios, Late Night bears a touch of rom-com convolution, like a low-key version of 30 Rock. The movie is also steeped in the female experience and a social consciousness that outweighs its humor. Kaling’s screenplay digs into issues of workplace gender and racial discrimination, but she doesn’t make women out to be mere victims. Katherine Newbury earned her place on the late-show circuit by […]

The post Late Night appeared first on Deep Focus Review.

BlacKkKlansman

Brian Eggert — Sun, 12 Aug 2018 20:25:20 +0000

Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman opens, by no coincidence, almost a year after the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, North Carolina, where hundreds of protesters from various white supremacist groups, many of them carrying swastikas or Ku Klux Klan imagery, demonstrated against the city’s order to remove Confederate monuments from public spaces. They shouted racial slurs against Jews and people of color, used the Nazi slogan “blood and soil,” and carried torches in a march for white supremacy. In the chaos, Heather Heyer lost her life after a member of the white nationalist movement drove his car into a crowd of counter-protesters. BlacKkKlansman is a subversive wake-up call to Americans—who love to declare their country the greatest in the world, despite the U.S. facing division, bigotry, violations of basic civil rights, and rampant intolerance from hate groups—to face the reality that their country does not supply liberty and justice for all, and instead remains in a state of crisis. By telling the true story of Ron Stallworth, a Black detective in the Colorado Springs Police Department who infiltrated the Ku Klux Klan, Lee’s undeniably political statement uses the semblance of a detective film to weave a thread through the Confederacy, the lasting presence […]

The post BlacKkKlansman appeared first on Deep Focus Review.

I, Tonya

Brian Eggert — Sun, 07 Jan 2018 17:06:03 +0000

“America,” muses Tonya Harding, “they want someone to love, but they want someone to hate.” In the infectious black comedy I, Tonya, Margot Robbie plays the disgraced American figure skater who, in the 1990s, achieved global infamy after being blamed for the knee-capping of her Olympic rival Nancy Kerrigan. Tonya became a villain to some, an anti-hero to others, but made headlines everywhere. Here, she’s portrayed as having the makings of an Olympic princess, but with all the tact of a backwoods survivalist. Nevertheless, Robbie, deglamorized for her role in frizzy hair and gaudy homemade costumes (none of which make her look like Tonya Harding, but no matter), delivers an outstanding and surprisingly empathetic performance. Craig Gillespie, the journeyman director behind the 2011 Fright Night remake and The Finest Hours (2016), treats these real-life characters with humanity, even while some of Tonya’s behavior, and the behavior of the people around her, border on caricature. More than a scurrilous and nostalgic tell-all of a wild 1990s scandal, Gillespie assembles an entertaining and often hilarious film about a failed underdog, and in doing so, critiques both the American media and public for manufacturing a pariah. Based on actual “irony free, wildly contradictory” interviews, the film begins with a series of […]

The post I, Tonya appeared first on Deep Focus Review.