David R. Walker

Posts Tagged ‘David Corenswet’

Superman

Director: James Gunn

Cast: David Corenswet, Rachel Brosnahan, Alan Tudyk, Nicholas Hoult, Bradley Cooper, Nicholas Hoult, Michael Rooker, Wendell Pierce, Nathan Fillion, Pruitt Taylor Vince, Frank Grillo, Skyler Gisondo, Edi Gathegi, William Reeve, Milly Alcock

Running Time: 2 hours and 9 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

If it wasn’t for clever casting of the two main leads for Superman this film would have collapsed. In actual fact at some point the narrative caved in on itself in a horrific pastiche of social media, aliens, technology and monkeys on keyboards that for a moment I thought I wasn’t watching a superhero film.

Director James Gunn went from Guardians of the Galaxy to bringing his bizarre off beat style to Superman which in some parts of this film were just terrible and in other scenes just like a CGI car crash overtaken by malevolent artificial intelligence.

Fortunately James Gunn had two superb lead actors to take on the iconic role of Superman and Lois Lane in the form of the highly talented duo David Corenswet (Twisters) and Rachel Brosnhan (The Amateur). The towering and smouldering David Corenswet was brilliant as Superman and his journalist alter ego Clark Kent as he tries to save Metropolis from the evil grip of the megalomaniac and lethal Lex Luthor this time underplayed by Nicholas Hoult whose villain was just not villainous enough. In the scenes between Superman and Lex Luthor, it just comes off as two grown men fighting over a dog.

That’s the other good thing about the film which kids will absolutely adore. Krypto the dog steals the show as Superman’s canine companion. Who doesn’t love a hunk in a cape with a misbehaving dog?

Superman as a storyline was all over the charts, with strange allegorical conflicts happening elsewhere along with additional superheroes arriving as a back up army to assist the Man of Steel. The action at some point just reveal a vortex of chaos, saved only by some really beautiful scenes between Lois and Superman.

The onscreen chemistry between David Corenswet and Rachel Brosnahan is exact and endearing however the rest of the storyline is a chaotic mess. If they do a sequel to this film, please employ a decent scriptwriter.

The backstory of Superman as Clark Kent growing up in rural Kansas is only briefly touched upon in one sparkling pastoral scene between Clark and his adopted father Pa Kent played by Pruitt Taylor Vince (Constantine, Monster).  

Nicholas Hoult who was so brilliant in such art house films as Yorgos Lanthimos’s Oscar winning The Favourite is slightly lacklustre as a frustrated tech billionaire who will stop at nothing to destroy Metropolis and take over the world. Hoult must have got his villain inspiration from a younger version of Christopher Walken in A View to a Kill, except that Walken made audiences believe he was a psychopath. It’s all in the eyes.

Superman is going to make lots of money at the box office and while it is not a bad film, it is not brilliant either and with expectations so high, unfortunately the chaotic scenes outweigh the shining moments.

See Superman for David Corenswet and his dog. The cinema experience rests shakily on a shambolic screenplay which will appeal to some but not many. Audiences should look out for former Superman star Christopher Reeve’s son William Reeve as a TV reporter.

Superman gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and has its moments and it’s definitely not as good as Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. The best part about this cloaked drama is the ending.

Twisters

Director: Lee Isaac Chung

Cast: Daisy Edgar-Jones, Anthony Ramos, Glen Powell, Brandon Perea, Maura Tierney, Daryl McCormack, David Corenswet, Harry Haddon-Paton, Kiernan Shipka

Running Time: 2 hours and 2 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Minari director Lee Isaac Chung takes on a big budget blockbuster with the 2024 remake of the 1996 film Twisters with Helen Hunt and the late Bill Paxton.

The 21^st century version has a host of hot young stars including Daisy Edgar-Jones (Where the Crawdads Sing) as Kate Carter a meteorologist and Oklahoma storm chaser, Glen Powell (Top Gun: Maverick, Hitman) as the all American macho guy Tyler who is basically a hillbilly with a YouTube channel, Antony Ramos as Kate’s friend and suspected love interest Javi along with David Corenswet as Javi’s suspicious business partner.

With the exception of a brief scene in New York, most of Twisters takes place in Tornado alley in Oklahoma in the mid-west, with expansive fields and dangerous tornados that can crush a village in seconds.

Five years after Kate experiences a dreadful tragedy, Javi visits her in New York and begs her to return to Oklahoma for the Tornado season as she is a great storm spotter.

Kate relents and returns with him to the Mid-West where she meets a whole motley crew of storm chasers including the brash and boisterous Tyler, perfectly played with loads of Southern Charm by Glen Powell, whose ability as a leading man is proving exceptional in the 2024 film year with leads in Anyone But You and Richard Linklater’s film Hit Man.

Tyler has to contend with a prickly Kate, wonderfully played by a blonde haired Daisy Edgar-Jones as she deals with her past trauma, her ability to chase storms and her abrupt mother, a scene stealer by Golden Globe winner Maura Tierney (The Affair) who encourages Tyler to chase after her love lost daughter.

Speaking of love, it is a great pity that director Lee Isaac Chung did not focus more on the romance between Kate and Tyler.

Instead of sexualising his main characters, both of whom are gorgeous eye-candy, they just become a crazy couple trying to survive one tornado after another, a brutal force of nature that destroys with a vengeance rodeo shows, cinemas and whole villages. Oklahoma just gets ripped to shreds while the only character that has an interesting development is Javi as he fights off corporate greed to try and save Middle America.

As tornados destroy everything, Twisters doesn’t develop beyond the action sequences and the film just presents a series of characters caught in a bizarre world of dangerous storm chasing without any cathartic release. Audiences should look out for actor David Corenswet in Twisters, the tall handsome dude who has been cast as the new Superman in the DC Comics film coming out in 2025.

Besides the tornado wranglers, Twisters doesn’t offer anything more than a series of action sequences involving an angry mother nature while the characters drift helplessly in a storm.

Twisters is a great popcorn film but director Lee Isaac Chung should stick to family dramas and not be asked to direct Hollywood blockbuster films that need a huge box office return.

Twisters gets a film rating of 7 out of 10, saved by some awesome visual effects but doesn’t really develop into a gripping narrative. Recommended viewing if you love disaster films.