'Lonely Planet' Fails to Impress Critics

         On October 11, 2024, Netflix released 'Lonely Planet', which failed to impress critics, earning a score of 27% on Rotten Tomatoes at the time of this writing. In the film, "A reclusive novelist arrives at a prestigious writer's retreat in Morocco, hoping the remote setting will unlock her writer's block. While there, she meets a young man -- what starts as an acquaintanceship evolves into an intoxicating, life-altering love affair." The ensemble cast includes Laura Dern, Liam Hemsworth, Diana Silvers, and Adriano Giannini. But what did the critics say?

       Adrian Horton of Guardian says, "These characters are all in some way aspirational, though not particularly admirable. Owen and Catherine repeat the phrase “new and exotic” about Morocco a few too many times for comfort – lamenting how travel does not actually take you far from yourself, while bonding over an impromptu visit to a local village. Owen makes a passing effort to interact with Lily; Lily barely hides how boring she finds him, and is clearly taken with Rafih (Younès Boucif), who “wrote that beautiful memoir about his time as a child soldier in Libya!” (lol). All three of them are at times oblivious and self-absorbed and they say laughably on-the-nose things, particularly as Owen develops a moral conscience about private equity screwing over a family-owned coalmine in West Virginia." Adding, "Yet Lonely Planet proves to be smarter and more attentive than its beach-read feint. The film features plenty of tourism-ad footage of Morocco, from Marrakech to Chaouen, that elevates it above the overlit Netflix canon. But it also undercuts its own exoticism with a short and effective montage of service workers at the retreat cleaning up beer bottles, trash and a discarded bra after the group’s nightly revelry. All the character flaws, paradoxically, give heft to a likable central romance between two easily dislikable people, who are filmed with a winsome naturalness, and blurred edges like their tipsy circling of each other. Both Dern and Hemsworth bring their requisite qualities (luminous, layered neuroticism, sad eyes and abs) to the pairing, which feels spiky, surprising and tender, up to and including a very female gaze-y sex scene on the dresser."

       Monica Castillo of RogerEbert.com notes, "Written and directed by Susannah Grant, “Lonely Planet” did not assuage any feelings of loneliness–it might even have enhanced them. After all the Hollywood movies featuring older men hooking up with younger women, we can’t enjoy an older woman developing feelings for a younger man without worrying about his fragile ego or watching her pursue him because he won’t go after her. The movie gets some ingredients right for its retro romantic comedy, but it lacks the fantasy that gets viewers to believe in an unlikely match: that magnetic attention when eyes meet and can’t look away from each other or the longing stares and stray thoughts about what would you do if you could only get closer to that person. “Careful, I could fall for a kid like you,” Katherine purrs before accidentally wounding her love interest’s feelings, but he has nothing to worry about. There’s not enough chemistry to burn up the screen, or even warm it up."

       Alyssa Christian of Next Best Picture was equally as unimpressed, stating, "Overall, “Lonely Planet” is a visually pleasing film that offers moments of charm to keep you engaged, but the romantic arc feels half-baked, and the supposedly shocking or surprising twists do not land at all. The beautiful setting and Toprak’s lush score do much of the heavy lifting, leaving the central love story feeling more like a diversion than the heart of the film. It is a perfectly forgettable romantic dramedy that happens to take place in (and was filmed in) an exotic locale."

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'The Killer' Reviews: "Woo is arguably the living filmmaker most determined to examine masculinity, and without a male relationship to dissect, it gives him the space to honor the femme fatale in her purest form"

         On August 24, 2024, Peacock released 'The Killer', which has received a mixed reception from critics, currently holding at 54% on Rotten Tomatoes. In the film, "Nathalie Emmanuel (The Fast Saga, Game of Thrones) as Zee, a mysterious and infamous assassin known, and feared, in the Parisian underworld as the Queen of the Dead. But when, during an assignment from her shadowy mentor and handler (Avatar's Sam Worthington), Zee refuses to kill a blinded young woman (Diana Silvers; Ma, Booksmart) in a Paris nightclub, the decision will disintegrate Zee's alliances, attract the attention of a savvy police investigator (Golden Globe nominee Omar Sy; Jurassic World franchise, Lupin), and plunge her into a sinister criminal conspiracy that will set her on a collision course with her own past." Read the full review round-up below. 

        BJ Colangelo of Slashfilm praises the film, stating, "As the titular killer, Nathalie Emmanuel has the impossible task of filling the shoes of Chow Yun-fat. Wisely, she and Woo do not attempt to channel Ah Jong, instead allowing her character Zee to thrive as something wholly unique. Woo is arguably the living filmmaker most determined to examine masculinity, and without a male relationship to dissect, it gives him the space to honor the femme fatale in her purest form. Emmanuel and Omar Sy as police officer Sey never reach the high-octane heights of Yun-fat and Danny Lee, but they're not trying to. Their alliance is an entirely different beast, but whenever the two stare each other down with guns drawn at eye level, it's a testament to Woo's unwavering commitment to blocking actors' physicality to tell a story beyond the script."

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        Jake Cole of Slant Magazine notes, "More pressingly, this remake is absent the far richer character development that made the original as much a melodrama as a shoot-’em-up. The 1989 film swiftly established and then complicated the relationships between the three main characters until it became difficult to separate platonic friendship, professional respect, and even romantic intrigue. Here, Zee, Sey, and Jenn are thinly sketched, with Emmanuel, Sy, and Silvers spouting their lines with perfunctory, plot-advancing flatness. Zee is especially baffling given the naïveté this seasoned assassin regularly displays, and compared to the more cynically aware triad politics of the original, Zee’s relationship with Finn is oddly docile and childlike, with the killer regularly asking for assurance that her targets “deserve death” with doe-eyed innocence."

       Fred Topel of United Press International says, "It would be impossible for The Killer to reinvent action in 2024 like 1989, but it is not meant to. Woo was developing a Hollywood remake for years. So it finally comes to fruition in a satisfying way simply for being a new Woo movie." Concluding, "Woo's technique inspired Hollywood to copy him when producers couldn't hire him in the '90s. It especially stands out in 2024 when so few mainstream films pay such close attention to staging."

       Nick Schager of The Daily Beast was less impressed, stating, "A mediocre remix that, for all its familiar elements, fails to improve upon a single aspect of its trailblazing predecessor." Adding, "The film’s script (credited to Brian Helgeland, Josh Campbell, and Matt Stuecken) complicates matters by revealing that Finn works for gangster Jules (Eric Cantona), who hired Zee for her opening gig in order to recover 100 tons of heroin that was stolen before he received it from a Saudi Arabian prince (Saïd Taghmaoui). The question of who’s backstabbing who, however, proves of little consequence, especially considering that Woo himself appears primarily interested in his vicious centerpieces."