"A Haunting in Venice"

 ☆☆☆ 

There have been some pretty good Agatha Christie film adaptations over the years, and some pretty bad ones, and some truly awful ones (word to the wise: avoid 1985's Ordeal By Innocence at all costs), and Kenneth Branagh has made films that fall into both of the latter camps. Overwhelmed by unnecessary CGI, filled with performances that border on camp, and unhelped by overripe camera work, Branagh's first two Christie efforts were not good films.

The third time's sort of the charm, then, as Branagh returns as both director and star of A Haunting in Venice, which is an intriguing riff on one of Christie's lesser-known novels ("Hallowe'en Party") that is neither particularly faithful to or precious about the source work. It's mostly an entertaining diversion, but it sure does move like a lead brick sometimes.

Its terrible pacing is not helped by dark and murky photography, which would be appropriately moody if it weren't combined with directorial choices that mistake slow for atmospheric. As an Agatha Christie drawing-room mystery, A Haunting in Venice is filled with dialogue, narration and lots and lots and lots of flashbacks to things we can't possibly have known ... which usually are part of the fun, but this time bog the whole thing down with a dismal, glum air.

So, why in the world am I recommending A Haunting in Venice? Mostly because it's fun to see a labyrinthine mystery play out on screen, fun to see strong performers like Michelle Yeoh and Tina Fey chew up the scenery with necessary overacting, and fun to see such sumptuous production and costume design ... when you can make anything out. The whole affair is murky, both in plot and in physical appearance, but in the end as Branagh's Hercule Poirot susses out the shenanigans—this time involving one suspicious death, one outright murder, and a whole host of other nefarious deeds, all on Halloween Eve in the heart of Venice—it's one of moviegoing's core delights to see a good, old-fashioned murder mystery with a clever, I thought so! kind of conclusion.

Watching A Haunting in Venice takes some effort, but it's worth the extra work.

Viewed Sept. 17, 2023 — AMC Burbank 6

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"Oppenheimer"

     ☆☆☆½ 

The first time I saw Oppenheimer, in 70mm at a spectacular old movie palace, something was off. It might well have been me, but I came away feeling overwhelmed by Christopher Nolan's film—not in that sense of being overwhelmed by something spectacular and new, but overwhelmed as if I had been beaten into submission for three hours by a relentless, pounding score and rapid-fire editing that left me dizzy.

Now I wonder if part of my problem—which led me to not reviewing the film at the time, sensing I was missing something—was how I saw Oppenheimer. I'll never say no to seeing a movie projected on 70mm film, but that more standard cinematic version of Nolan's film felt claustrophobic and close-up. Now I understand why.

I've seen the film again in its "native" format of 70mm IMAX, and it's an entirely different experience. The story is still often confusing, the film still feels overlong and sometimes preposterously talky, and the non-stop score is still hypnotically distracting. Yet, opened up for the IMAX screen, particularly when Nolan has chosen to use the entire IMAX screen, that felt muddled and tight now feels free and at least mostly coherent.

Oppenheimer still bears all the hallmarks of being a Christopher Nolan film, and I'm beginning to realize a cinematic truth that Nolan and I aren't really on the same wavelength. He's so enamored by the mechanics of filmmaking that simple things like narrative cohesion aren't entirely important to him. At least in Oppenheimer the dialogue is almost always clear (something that's not often true in Nolan movies), and the story's non-linear structure works because if shorn of it, Oppenheimer might be tediously dull.

Most of the film is structured around three dialogue-heavy meetings: One in which J. Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy) has his security clearance revoked; one in which Oppenheimer, Lewis Strauss (Robert Downey Jr.) and other physicists meet to discuss the ramifications of nuclear arms; and a Senate hearing to confirm Strauss for a presidential cabinet post. It's hardly the stuff of mesmerizing drama, so Nolan mixes it all up with a more straightforward narrative of Oppenheimer's development of the team that created the first atomic bomb.

As in so many Nolan movies, the key to Oppenheimer is keeping up with the narrative time shifts, and this becomes slightly easier in the IMAX version, as Nolan uses both aspect ratio and black-and-white film to indicate different periods. There are double-crosses and triple-crosses and tales of espionage, and of course there's the development of the bomb itself, and the spectacular scenes involving the first Trinity tests. The history is portrayed by what we used to call an "all-star cast," an impressive roster of talent, some of whom get more screen time than others, and a few of whom feel terribly wasted, underserved by a screenplay that might have spent more time getting the words, thoughts and feelings as sharp as the visuals.

It all adds up to a film that is both more and less engrossing than it might have been if told more traditionally. Nolan's storytelling techniques make Oppenheimer a bit of a muddle sometimes—though its more confusing moments somehow seemed slightly more coherent on the massive IMAX screen—while his filmmaking techniques make the film an experience to be savored on the giant screen. IMAX really is the optimal way to see the film; Nolan's use of the format isn't a gimmick, even if it's unfortunately not easy to see the film in the combination 70mm film and IMAX he intended. If you're near one of the 30 movie theaters (in the U.S.) where that's possible, Oppenheimer is truly an event. If you're not, you may walk away wondering what all the fuss is about. 

Viewed July 25, 2023 (70mm) — Regency Village; and September 3, 2023 (70mm IMAX) — AMC Universal 16

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