Nicholas Hoult Archives | Deep Focus Review

Superman

Brian Eggert — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 00:25:30 +0000

Listen to the audio version of this review. Punk rock may seem loud and nihilistic to some, but when it emerged in the 1970s, its performers aimed their angry sound at tyrannical mainstream ideologies. In particular, Iggy Pop, the Sex Pistols, Patti Smith, The Clash, and others sought independence from the traditionalism, religious dogma, and social norms reinforced by popular culture. Their aggressive sound and lyrics condemned authoritarian politics, questioning the systems of power that keep people under control. They sang about the oppressed rising up against—or at least flipping off—their oppressors. By now, you’re probably wondering why I’m writing about punk music in this review of Superman, writer-director James Gunn’s new feature about Krypton’s last son. Gunn’s highly entertaining summer release, which might just be my favorite Superman movie yet, looks at our world and considers where a morally upright hero like Superman would fit. Would humanity embrace him as a beacon of hope? Would his presence become politicized? In the end, Gunn acknowledges that, sadly, believing in the value of all life, regardless of politics or personal motivation, as Superman does, represents a rather punkish, outsider point of view, and he weaves that concept into his film. Along […]

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Nosferatu

Brian Eggert — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 21:08:58 +0000

Once again immersing himself in the history and folklore of old, Robert Eggers applies his fastidious knack for detail to Nosferatu, another of the filmmaker’s beautiful, haunting visions. He doesn’t rethink the tale from a contemporary perspective, as another filmmaker might. Instead, he transports the viewer into the past, inhabiting a specific place and time that can feel backward, superstitious, and rooted in mysticism. This has been his approach since his memorable debut, The Witch (2016), which established his interest in research, period-appropriate language, and avoiding anachronisms—aside from the presence of a camera, of course. Eggers continued in this vein with The Lighthouse (2019), his best film, which I initially undervalued, about two lighthouse keepers beset by isolation and seafaring lore. And while The Northman (2022), steeped in Viking violence and imagery, was considered a commercial failure, that didn’t stop Focus Features from also distributing his latest, another perfectly calibrated tale rooted in arcane fears and historicity, albeit shaped by Eastern European legends and themes of sexual repression. Nosferatu is also unique in Eggers’ career for rethinking an existing book and movie, whereas his earlier films used various historical writings as inspiration. Nosferatu is a remake that credits F. W. […]

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The Order

Brian Eggert — Mon, 02 Dec 2024 14:12:33 +0000

“In ten years, we’ll have members in the Congress, in the Senate. That’s how you make change.” That’s a line spoken by the head of a white supremacist group in The Order, and it’s chilled me to my core with echoes of today. Detailing a real-life investigation into domestic terror in the Pacific Northwest, Australian director Justin Kurzel’s thriller charts the activities of a neo-Nazi group that robs banks, armored trucks, and adult bookstores to fund their organization. Their ultimate goal: insurrection, revolution. Based on events that occurred in the early 1980s, this story has implications that reflect today’s political climate. Though, it’s already been the subject of other films, most notably Costa-Gavras’ engaging but dramatically absurd take, Betrayed (1988). In his confrontation with the violence in America’s past and present, Kurzel’s grim and disturbing treatment has the texture of cop thrillers from the 1970s, with spare, alienated characters facing horrible, real-life crimes. It’s an urgently germane and bleak look at a rotten facet of American identity, one that aligns with the filmmaker’s investigations of violence in his own country. From Black Legion (1937) to BlackKklansman (2018), many films have confronted how hate groups are hardly new developments in the […]

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Juror #2

Brian Eggert — Tue, 19 Nov 2024 06:15:02 +0000

Clint Eastwood considers whether America’s justice system still works in Juror #2. This is the 94-year-old filmmaker’s 42nd film as director, and it’s among his most conventionally told stories. The screenplay by Jonathan A. Abrams plays like a Capra-esque drama confronting a broken system. It’s a story about how twelve flawed, self-interested jurors decide one defendant’s fate. The court assumes these people can put themselves aside and perform their duties in full consideration of the facts. But if you’ve ever served on a jury before, you’ve probably noticed that jurors remain, well, people. They’d rather be at home, caring for their families; at work, earning a living; or anywhere but in a deliberation room, debating with eleven other strangers about the case. They bring that animosity, along with personal motivations and biases, into their decision-making process, rendering the jury far from objective. And even while acknowledging this, Eastwood resolves that the universe will right itself—if not in the courtroom, then elsewhere. Eastwood’s directorial career has been on a downswing over the last decade or so. Besides announcing his “last” screen appearance several times—on Trouble with the Curve (2012), then The Mule (2018), and most recently Cry Macho (2021)—many have speculated […]

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Renfield

Brian Eggert — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 00:27:24 +0000

Sitting down to write a review of Renfield, it’s challenging to avoid “suck” puns, given its vampiric nature. Other critics might amuse themselves by weaving “This movie sucks” or similar variations into their reviews. But I will try my best to avoid such shenanigans. Instead, I might say that the movie has been exsanguinated of life by filmmakers trying to cram too much into one movie. Or I could write that its comedic approach to Dracula drained the character of any scares. Yet, I won’t write “suck” because Nicolas Cage gives a genuinely inspired performance as Bram Stoker’s ghoulish creation—what must’ve been a dream-come-true role for the eccentric, showy actor. However, half of Renfield feels like an uninspired knock-off of What We Do in the Shadows, both Taika Waititi’s 2014 mockumentary and the excellent FX series. The other half is a gory shoot-em-up between the New Orleans cops and a local crime family. Smashed between them is a commentary on codependent relationships. Unfortunately, it attempts to be all of those things and does none of them well. “Sucks” would be too strong a word, but “uneven” and “misguided” might do. Nicholas Hoult stars as the long-suffering Renfield, Dracula’s manservant for […]

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The Menu

Brian Eggert — Thu, 17 Nov 2022 09:05:34 +0000

The Menu is a dark, barbed comedy set on a remote island, the home to Hawthorne, an exclusive haute cuisine restaurant. The brainchild of world-renowned chef Julian Slowik, played with a sharp intensity by Ralph Fiennes, the cuisine doubles as conceptual art. For instance, Chef Julian serves a bread course with no bread. He tells mega-rich patrons, who pay $1,250 per person for over four hours of fine dining sensations, “Do not eat… taste, savor, be mindful.” The committed staff has sourced everything from the island, including freshly harvested seafood, aged protein, island-grown produce, and natural sweeteners from resident beehives. But between the blindly devoted kitchen crew and the way their chef demands absolute control over every detail of his gastronomic innovations—along with a mounting list of other eerie details—there’s something unseemly beneath Hawthorne. Watching the proceedings become ever more twisted is part of the fun. However, The Menu is best when it keeps the viewer guessing about what the chef would call its “ephemeral nature,” but it proves less compelling once it answers our questions. The film opens with know-it-all foodie Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) getting on the boat to Hawthorne with his date, Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), and mansplaining the […]

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True History of the Kelly Gang

Brian Eggert — Thu, 14 May 2020 20:16:16 +0000

Ned Kelly was the most famous bushranger, the name of nineteenth-century Australian outlaws and highwaymen who sparked the collective imagination of the oppressed masses. Just as Jesse James had become a folk hero in the United States, Ned and his gang became symbols of Irish rebellion against English authority, the colonial enforcers who kept a tight, dehumanizing leash on those who, like Ned’s father, were taken from Ireland to Van Diemen’s Land. After Ned shot a policeman to prevent the arrest of his brother for stealing a horse, he launched into a series of robberies and killings on the countryside that ended in 1880, when a band of law enforcement cornered his gang at Glenrowan, shot most of them down, and captured Ned. He was just 25 when he was hanged for his crimes, but his legend has carried through history like that of Robin Hood—a working-class hero defiant to the injustices of the establishment. But True History of the Kelly Gang has a curious relationship with historical fact. It reformats the Australian figure into a punk rock icon, complete with a sinewy, sexually ambiguous George MacKay who plays Ned Kelly like an Iggy Pop character. The story opens, as […]

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Dark Phoenix

Brian Eggert — Fri, 07 Jun 2019 21:51:59 +0000

X-Men movies have turned into a late-blooming child who refuses to grow up and move out of their parents’ basement. Most of their siblings have matured, gone to college, taken good jobs, and started families of their own. But aside from the occasional greatness that gives these Marvel Comics superheroes their due, such as Deadpool (2016) and Logan (2017), the series of ten-plus entries has been muddled by an inconsistent timeline, unfaithful characterizations, and underwhelming spinoffs since the 2000 original. Even rousing concepts like X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) squander their potential by trying to reconcile themselves with the mess that came before. The floundering state of the X-Men franchise has only worsened in the wake of Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox. It seems all of these characters and storylines are bound for a reboot under the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the future, leaving the few X-Men projects lingering under the Fox umbrella to feel utterly pointless. Such is the case with Dark Phoenix, an X-Men sequel that once again hopes to correct mistakes made in X-Men: The Last Stand (2006), the movie that notoriously killed off several beloved characters and underserviced a major storyline from the comics—namely, […]

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The Favourite

Brian Eggert — Mon, 10 Dec 2018 02:49:50 +0000

For Yorgos Lanthimos and his screenwriters of The Favourite, Deborah Davis and Tony McNamara, history is an interplay of observation and anachronism. Set during the early 1700s in the court of Queen Anne, the English costume drama is shot with extreme wide-angle lenses, giving the vast interiors, ornamented with immense tapestries and huge, ornate furniture, the look of a fishbowl enclosure into which the audience observes from a bemused distance. What unfolds is not a rigid or even Hollywoodized version of history; rather, the film uses history as a reflector, a platform for another discussion altogether. Whether The Favourite, about two women vying for the good favor of their Queen in a viperous competition, has something specific to say about modern-day politics, gender relations, or the female experience remains debatable. Yet its cynicism and critique of the royal classes, in all of their debauched and base behavior, putrid goutiness, and sexual inelegance, is a target that provides a timeless contrast between the regal setting and the depraved conduct. When a bunch of bewigged nobles toss oranges at a chubby, naked jester in a slow-motion display, one cannot help but think of that intentionally tasteless, ad-libbed joke that ends with the […]

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Equals

Brian Eggert — Tue, 19 Jul 2016 00:00:26 +0000

At some point before the oppressive dystopian future in Equals came into being, there were probably members of a reigning government who met to discuss forming a utopia. Someone in the room suggested that emotions should be legally restricted, avoiding the dangerous outbursts and war that led to their post-apocalyptic landscape. Certainly, there’s a degree of dark logic to limiting expression—our current world where the headlines contain an outpouring of hate crimes and terrorism could use a little less emotion and more measured rationality. But when the idea was proposed, everyone in the room should have hesitated and realized every utopia ultimately becomes a dystopia. After all, if there’s one thing every piece of dystopian fiction ever has taught us, it’s that people don’t like to have their emotions muffled, and they will ultimately rebel against it. And that’s just what happens in director Drake Doremus’ film, a story with more than a little in common with Logan’s Run or George Lucas’ early effort THX 1138. With his last two films, Doremus has explored forbidden or complicated romances. Take Breath In (2013), about a foreign exchange student who beds down with her host family’s father, or Crazy Love (2011), about […]

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