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Shelton Mason County Journal
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November 19, 2020     Shelton Mason County Journal
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lve lip, Thursday, Nov. 19, 2020 - Shelton-Mason County Journal Page A-29 THE DARK Two takes on sharing your body with aliens when two films are re- leased within the same window of time and offer dif- ferent takes on the same idea, like “Deep Impact” and “Ar- mageddon” tackling world-ending mete- orites in 1998, “Antz” and “A Bug’s Life” offering CGI comedies about insectsthat same year, “Dark City” pitting humans against inhuman ma- nipulators of reality in 1998 before “The Matrix” did the same in 1999, or “Mission to Mars” and “Red Planet” sending astronauts to our solar system’s fourth planet in 2000. Even within thiscategory of “twin films,” a matched pair that stands out for its . I parallels is 2018’s “Upgrade” and “Venom,” which is es- pecially notable for how the Blumhouse Productions film actually outperforms the Sony Pictures partnership with Marvel Entertainment in every way. If you’re a Spider-Man fan, you don’t need me to tell you who Venom is, but if you’re not, trying to summarize the character’s comic book origins is an exercise in futility. Like Cable of the X-Men franchise (also seen onscreen in 2018, in “Deadpool 2”), Venom was co-created during It’s always interesting the latter half of the 1980s by one of the artists who would go on to co-found Image Com- ics in 1992, so it’s not sur- prising that both characters have an appeal that could be described as “Peak I Nineties,” as ab- surdly muscular anti- heroes comprised of stylish graphic design elements and aggres- sive posturing. That being said, Marvel under Dis- ney’s ownership made me care about BOXLEITNER a talking raccoon and a walking tree in outer space with “Guardians of the Galaxy” in 2014, so I’d been waiting for a while to see what the Marvel Cinematic Universe could do with Venom,‘a character whom I loved when I was a teenager with admittedly ter- rible taste. The 2018 “Venom” film winds up being a decidedly mixed bag, although it’s un- questionably superior to the character’s portrayal in Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 3” in 2007. Tom Hardy, a fine ac- tor, carries off the physical heft required to play a con- vincingly comics-accurate Ed- die Brock, the man who even- tually bonds with the black alien symbiote tobecome Venom, although he does fall prey to Hardy’s frequent tendency toward overdone accents. By contrast, Hardy’s voice as Venom is exactly as I al- ways imagined the character, even if the film makes what I can’t help but consider a mis- take by completely divorcing Venom’s origins from Spider- Man, especially since Sony Pictures has the film rights to both Venom and Spider-Man. That being said, since Venom’s origins in the comics were defined by his hatred of Spider-Man, the film is forced to come up with a new take 'on the character, redefining Eddie Brock as a hapless but well-meaning would-be do-gooder who’s egged on to . embrace his dark side by the alien symbiote, who becomes an amusingly sinister life coach to the otherwise ordi- nary human whom he rou- tinely berates as “a loser.” Hardy has just enough skill as a physical comedian to make it look like an alien parasite inside of him is fling- ing him around like a rag doll, although he gets a big assist from the film’s CGI, since he falls well short of Bruce Campbell fighting his own character’s demon-pos- sessed hand in 1987’s “Evil Dead II” (which was also di- rected by Sam Raimi). In spite of its flaws, “Venom” still manages to be big dumb fun, with plenty of Easter eggs for fans of the comics, including Woody Har— relson in a" mid-credits scene, perfectly cast as a character whom fans will recognize as ideally suited for a “Venom” sequel. As for Blumhouse Produc- tions, it not only released “Upgrade” months earlier than “Venom” in 2018, but they also cast Tom Hardy loo- kalike Logan Marshall—Green in the lead role, and then proceeded to make a much smarter, more darkly comic film, as a direct result of not being tethered to any pre-ex- isting characters or concepts. The premise of “Upgrade” is deceptively simple, an updating of the Charles Bronson “Death Wish” films for the cyberpunk genre, in which Grey Trace (played by Marshall-Green), a relatively uncomplicated guy with a lov- ing wife, survives an attack by criminals who leave his wife dead, and him paralyzed below the neck. But when Grey receives an implant of an artificial intelligence called STEM, not only does he regain his mobil- ity, but he also acquires the combat abilities to hunt down the criminals who killed his wife, so he can seek his re- venge and discover what their deeper motives were. While Hardy elicits our amused sympathy as Eddie Brock, getting tossed around by the Venom symbiote, Mar- shall-Green is such an aston- ishingly nuanced and precise physical actor that he evokes a chilling sense of body hor- ror by conveying the dispas- sionate, robotic movements of STEM when it’s acting as Grey’s autopilot. Marshall-Green is ably assisted by Simon Maiden’s voice-acting as STEM, deliv- , ering the most unnervingly placid and low-key sarcastic line readings this side of Douglas Rain as HAL 9000 in Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” in 1968, as well as by the striking cine- matography of Stefan Duscio, who makes sure the camera remains rigidly oriented on Marshall-Green whenever STEM takes over Grey’s body during the fight scenes. Also notable’ are Betty Gabriel from “Get Out” as Detective Cortez, the mor- ally upright cop who’s hot on Grey’s tail as he murders his way through his wife’s killers, and Benedict Hardie as Fisk Brantner, a killer-for-hire whose own physical upgrades rival those of STEM (in Mar- vel terms, making him the Carnage to Grey’s Venom). All of this would already serve to make “Upgrade” a crackerjack little thriller, even before it unleashes its final sadistic twist on its audience, one that will leave you feeling unsettled long after the closing credits have rolled. 360-426-4707 - 182 S.E. Brewer Road 0 Shelton . . PEN?!” . ’ Plays are free but Space is limited; so” www.SkyLineDrive-ln.com Gates Open 6:00 pm. Show at 7:00pm Week of 11/20 -11/26 Friday Saturday 1 1/20-21 HONEST THIEF (PG-13) followed by THE EMPTY MAN (R) Sunday 11/22 THE EMPTY MAN (R) fol/owed by HONEST THIEF (PG-13) MONDAY TUE CLOSED STARTING WEDNESDAY "/25 CROODS: NEW AGE followed by DR. SEUSS' GRINCH