(This review is riddled with spoilers. Not that you’re likely to see this film. It spent only three weeks at the box office in spring 2019.) It does a great job of scene-setting an alien takeover of Earth from the vantage point of one neighborhood in Chicago. (As usual, the weather is sucky in the future and everyone’s clothes are dirty.) And John Goodman pulls the best going-out-with-a-bang move since Clint Eastwood in “Gran Torino.” Unfortunately, “Captive State” comes off as less a movie than a pilot for a Syfy Original Series. You know, “this is only the beginning.” Whatever.
Archives for posts with tag: D.B. Sweeney
If you took a Sunday newspaper op-ed on Chicago gang violence and tried to turn it into a feature-length motion picture, you would get something like “Chi-Raq” (2015). I don’t fault Spike Lee for trying. It’s a worthy subject and his idea of using the ancient Greek play “Lyisistrata,” in which women use sex as a weapon – withholding it until their men declare peace – is inspired. But as a movie, it seemed more like an unfinished work. Lee has a bunch of creative ideas he is trying to work out on film, but never develops any kind of narrative flow.
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