We are almost halfway through the year. In no particular order, my top 5 favorite screenplays of the year are:

Dune 2

Wicked Little Letters

The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare

The Fall Guy

Challengers

Over the next few days, I will discuss each of these screenplays in detail. I will examine what the screenwriters did right, what they could have improved on, and why the screenplays were integral to the film’s success.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga kicked off the Summer Blockbuster season with a whimper over Memorial Day weekend. Does it portend a down summer at the box office? Only time will tell, but Director George Miller, who has made a career of smashing cars in the desert presented us with a film that did not match the intensity of its predecessor. While it had moments of greatness, and is overall pretty likable, the overall film missed out on several opportunities while still being too long.

Furiosa was somehow too much while also being not enough.

It was too much on the one hand by being too long. Coming in at two and a half hours, this film wasted the first hour by getting too lost in the exposition. Certainly, there were things that we learned in that first hour that were important, and things were shown to us that affected moments later in the film. But the first hour was inefficient at best and unnecessary at worst. I was thinking about earlier incarnations of the series like The Road Warrior (an hour and a half running time) and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (an hour and forty-five minutes), and I couldn’t help but think how this film would have been a lot more entertaining without all the back story and if it picked up when we first see Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy) as an adult.

The first hour wasn’t without its entertainment value. Chris Hemsworth as Dementus is great with his obsession for wanting to know where the land of abundance is that Furiosa came from. Miller showed Dementus and his team as a band of pirates sailing along the desert instead of on the high seas. They plundered and tortured like a merry band of scallywags in a manner that would have brought pride to Blackbeard himself. We then see that he has eyes on bigger prizes like the Citadel and Gastown, and he’s willing to play the long game to acquire them.

Meanwhile, young Furiosa leaves his clutches to join Immortan Joe (Lachly Hulme) in the Citadel, but she unwittingly draws the eye of Joe’s horny son, Rictus Erectus (Nathan Jones). This pushes her out of the inner circle and towards Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke), who teaches her how to drive the war rig so she can eventually try to find her way back home.

Lost in the exposition

This is all too much plot and not enough story. As I like to tell screenwriters when I evaluate their screenplays, the plot is what happens, and the story is why we care. We spent the first hour of this script getting detail after detail, but we never got any reason to care about what was happening. This is an inherent problem with prequels because we know that Furiosa isn’t ever going to find her home. However, we do know from Mad Max: Fury Road that she wants to steal the brides and bring them to safety. Other than the last shot of the movie, we never get any of what motivates her towards that in this film.

That’s my big takeaway from Furiosa. The plot is all about her and what she wants. She would have been a much more effective hero with that as her outer goal, but also the problem of seeing the mistreatment of the brides and wanting to rescue them. Giving her that more altruistic need would have made the audience care about her a lot more and would have made the film a lot stronger, especially in the first half.

Once we get to the second half of the film, and Miller gets into his sweet spot of blowing stuff up, the movie gets a lot more entertaining. It’s a ride movie and it’s a popcorn movie, and it’s worth seeing in the theater if you haven’t seen it yet. But don’t worry too much about getting there late.

I was shocked by Civil War. I wasn’t shocked by a riveting story about a once-powerful nation torn asunder by internal strife that escalated into mass violence. I wasn’t shocked by a portrayal of a broken political system that led a once-content population to violently rise up and kill its leaders. I wasn’t shocked by the proposition of white supremacist militias gaining military power from foreign actors to turn our country into a real-life version of The Handmaid’s Tale.

I was shocked at how underwhelming this film was.

Director and screenwriter Alex Garland did an interesting and (somewhat) understandable thing. He removed a political point of view from the story. This is understandable because the current state of the country meant that if he portrayed one ideological side or the other as being responsible for starting a civil war, he would lose half the audience before anyone even saw it.

While I understand the reasoning, I personally feel like that’s a cowardly way to make a film.

It’s also no way to tell a story because there are no stakes. While there are hints as to why there’s an uprising against the government, we’re never given clear reasoning. We don’t know what the motivation was for the insurrection. We don’t know what they want or how they will govern when and if they take over. That leaves the audience with no side to root for and no drama or tension in any battle scene. On top of that, the main instigators of the war are an alliance between California and Texas, which, for reasons that should be obvious, is one of the most unrealistic premises I’ve ever come across.

All that leads to a straightforward question: Who cares?

The main thrust of the plot has us following Lee (Kirsten Dunst), a grizzled veteran war photographer who has photographed some of the most heinous atrocities in some of the most violent confrontations of the recent past, and her correspondent partner Joel (Wagner Moura), who want to get from New York City to Washington, D.C. so they can interview the president (Nick Offerman) before the insurrectionists take Washington, D.C. and kill him. Before leaving, Lee’s mentor Sammy (Stephen McKinley Henderson) and super fan and aspiring photographer Jessie (Cailee Spaeny) hitch a ride along with them. Along the way, they encounter advancing rebel forces, military atrocities, and people who want to pretend this isn’t happening before arriving in Washington, D.C., for the climactic battle outside and inside the White House.

Aside from the second act basically turning this into a road movie (click here to read why I’m not a fan of road movies), their goal is superficial and contrived. They hint at trying to get some important information out of him in the questions that Joel would ask the president, but those questions don’t provide any insight as to how we got here or where we could be going. Not only that, but it seems like they cut a significant scene along the way because things happen in the third act that either don’t make sense or don’t provide any emotional punch. We are given a surface-level telling of this story with no depth, drama, or actual conflict.

By the time we get to Washington, D.C., I’m asking the same question. Who cares?

This film required a brave director who could courageously make this film. A stance needed to be taken, and Garland, whether in his direction or his screenplay, needed to tell the story unapologetically from that point of view. If you think the current state of our government is leading us to a real civil war, make that case. If you believe there are specific leaders whose policies will accelerate that process, put it in the story. Would that have kept some people away from the theater? Probably. Would it have made the movie better and more compelling? Definitely.

A clear and definite point of view would have at least allowed the audience to care about what happened one way or the other. This film could portray a victory for some, and for others, it would be a tragedy. It should be a tragedy for everyone, but there needs to be emotional engagement for it to be a tragedy. Unfortunately, Civil War failed the one test it’s asking us all to pass.

It showed cowardice when it should have shown bravery.

 

In his feature directorial debut, Dev Patel gave us an action-packed feature with a lot of ultra-violence that also tried to delve into some contemporary social issues. Patel, who also penned the screenplay, created a film that felt like a mashup of his breakout film, the uber-dramatic Slumdog Millionaire, along with action films like Kill Bill, The Raid: Redemption, Rocky, and a splash of Hard to Kill.

The first thing that I will say is that I liked Monkey Man. It was wildly entertaining, it had a ton of action, some well-placed humor, and it also had some heart. It was trying to be more than an action film, but with that attempt came some mixed results. Sometimes action films just have to own what they are. If they’re two hours of escapism where you can watch death-defying stunt work, fight sequences that are choreographed as beautifully as any dance sequence, and indiscriminate killing of faceless lackeys who are only in the movie to increase the body count, and you own that and that’s all you try to do and are successful at it, I totally respect that and I will be on board watching your movie. Chances are, I’ll walk out of the theater satisfied and fully entertained.

However, if you’re an action film with all those elements and motifs, and you try to add a compelling story that has deep thematic elements and attempts to bring an emotional component to the film, you’d better nail it. Because if you miss, you’re left with nothing. The action won’t be entertaining enough to carry the plot, and the plot won’t be compelling enough to carry the action. Both components will feel out of place, and that is essentially what we have with Monkey Man.

Director Dev Patel gave us the kind of violent action we got in movies like The Raid: Redemption and Kill Bill. The violence was unapologetic, graphic at times, and often gratuitous, but more often than that; it was integral to the telling of the story. Screenwriter Patel also attempted to provide drama and thematic components similar to that of Slumdog Millionaire, but this is where the film fell flat. These elements felt tacked on like they didn’t belong in the movie. What’s worse is that Director Patel didn’t seem like he could decide what kind of movie he wanted to make, so he threw everything he could against the wall to see what would stick. Because the movie lacked focus, things that needed more explanation were neglected, and things that were less important got more screen time.

That said, Patel deserves a ton of credit for this film. Pulling his best Bradley Cooper impersonation, Patel starred in it and handled the directing and screenwriting. He also co-produced it, so this clearly had his fingerprints all over it. I hope that this is the first of many Dev Patel films where he directs and writes the screenplay, as I believe there was a lot of potential in this script and in the filmmaking.

The movie didn’t deliver the depth that it attempted to deliver, but it did deliver the action and entertainment value. It will be fascinating to see where Patel’s career goes from here.

And yet, it still follows them.

Wicked Little Letters was released this past weekend, and if you haven’t seen it—and judging by the box office numbers—you haven’t—it’s definitely worth your time. That’s especially true if you’re a fan of British humor. This movie feels like it’s got elements of Guy Richie, Edgar Wright, and Monty Python all rolled into a tight, offbeat whodunit that will make you think just as much as it makes you laugh.

Can we all agree that Olivia Coleman is one of the great actors of this generation? After spending most of her career plying her trade on the other side of the Atlantic, she had a breakthrough over here a few years starting opposite Emma Stone in The Favourite. That was the first time I can remember seeing her in anything, and all she’s done since is deliver one powerhouse performance after another. The reason this one is so striking to me is that it’s essentially an absurd comedy. That isn’t to say that you don’t get good acting in those kinds of films. There is often excellent acting in comedies. However, the depth of Coleman’s performance as Edith, the victim of these harassing letters who also lives as a spinster under the oppressive thumb of her abusive father, was so filled with pathos, emotion, and insanity that it stands out mightily in a crowd. Her various facial expressions, the tone of her voice, and the use of body language all create a character who is believable, relatable, and yet still emotional enough to pull you in so you can marvel at the fantastical nature of her personality. It’s stunning stuff.

As stunning as Coleman’s performance was, there was no shortage of fine acting from the rest of the cast. Jessie Buckley plays Rose Gooding, the hot-tempered, foul-mouthed, day-drinking, carousing Irish immigrant who draws everyone’s suspicions as being responsible for the letters due to a previous falling out she had with Edith. What’s great about her performance is that her outer mask of aggressiveness hides the inner vulnerability of a woman who is terrified of losing custody of her young daughter. The duality in the role required superb acting, and Buckley delivered.

Anja Vasan plays Woman Police Officer Gladys Moss. She’s the only one who suspects Rose is innocent, but due to her gender, age, and probably her race, no one, especially her superiors and peers on the police force, believes her. Her dogged determination and her ability to look beyond the emotional aspects of the case and focus on the facts make her the truest story of a hero. Vasan brings an understated quality to the role that somehow adds to that heroism.

Finally, Timothy Spall, as Edith’s abusive father, Edward, who drives the case against Rose, is an over-the-top yet aggressive and angry character who also has a vulnerability in that he doesn’t want his daughter to be a victim. He wants her to take the fight to the oppressor and unwittingly brings out the worst in Edith. It’s another remarkable performance in a film that is full of remarkable performances.

But what about this movie that broke the rules?

Director Thea Sharrock and screenwriter Jonny Sweet crafted a story that was not one that came close to fitting into the traditional idea of a dramatic 3-act structure. The film had an exceptionally long first act that made the story take a long time to get going. Even so, it never felt like it was dragging. Once the story did get going, the pacing picked up markedly, but the pacing never felt unbalanced. The screenplay did ultimately have all of the correct beats, but they didn’t follow the standard time frame as far as what pages they happened on. Normally, that would mean that the story would suffer, but they somehow made that quirk in the screenplay turn into a strength for the film.

The screenplay ended up being dramatic, funny, and irreverent. The screenwriting effectively added thematic components that brought depth to the script, along with the comedy that was more surface-level. All of that combines to create a film that the audience will be able to emotionally engage in as well as laugh at. The screenwriting and the direction took an offbeat route to create a complete film that hits all of the beats it needs to hit.

If you are an aspiring screenwriter or director, Wicked Little Letters is a good example of a screenplay and a movie that breaks the rules but weirdly still follows them.

Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is a film that held great promise. It was coming off a successful reboot of a beloved franchise. It reunited everyone who made the first one so successful, and it followed a similar structure of Ghostbusters 2, which made me feel like we should be getting, if not a great movie, at least a fun one. Instead, what we were given was a boring movie that felt like it was lazily made and lacked any emotional connections or any reason to care about what was happening. That’s not even the worst of it. The worst thing about Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is that it’s a comedy that is not funny.

Even though I wasn’t a part of making this film, the fingerprints of a studio movie by committee are all over the final version of it. I don’t know how much power director Gil Kenan had on set. He was one of the screenwriters, and he also wrote the screenplay for Ghostbusters: Afterlife. I don’t know how much control (or demands) the studio had on the project, but the lack of focus, the lack of direction, and the lack of humor only suggest that it was a lot.

I don’t really want to get into a rehashing of the mess that this movie was. I walked out of the theater after it was over just feeling kind of “meh” about it. I didn’t hate it. I didn’t love it. My first impulse was to give it a C-rating. But then my daughter and I recorded our podcast about it, which incidentally drops on Tuesday at 8 am Pacific. Click here if you want to check it out. As we discussed the film and I thought about it more, I began to get kind of angry. Ghostbusters, while not the greatest franchise of all time, is still a beloved franchise from the 80s. I was a teenager when the first Ghostbusters movie came out, and the original and its sequel were staples of my early movie-watching fandom.  The reboot from two years ago put the franchise on the verge of finding a new audience with this generation and presented itself with the rare opportunity to have a literal passing of the torch from the previous generation’s cast to the new generation’s cast.

And they utterly botched it.

The current stewards of the franchise derailed any momentum that was generated from the first movie by clinging to the nostalgia that helped propel Afterlife to being a hit. I can only guess that the test audiences who watched the film gave the highest scores to the scenes that brought back the surviving original cast members Dan Akroyd, Bill Murray, and Ernie Hudson. So instead of handing the reigns to current superstar Paul Rudd and up-and-coming stars Finn Wolfhard and McKenna Grace, they force-fed us more Akroyd, Murray, and Hudson, along with adding some Annie Potts and William Atherton. To be kind, they all look tired.

There were many frustrating things about this movie. They wasted Wolfhard’s Trevor. He literally has nothing to do in the movie, and the subplot of him trying to prove that he’s man enough to take care of himself goes nowhere. Paul Rudd’s Gary is equally impotent as a man trying to fill in as the father for the teenage children of his new wife. The filmmakers did nothing but bring surface-level attention to it. You can tell that Rudd is trying to give a good performance but knows he has little to nothing to work with. McKenna Grace gives what can best be described as a bored performance. She is a terrific young actress who must have been directed to bring no emotion to this performance because that appears to be what she gave.

This was a film in which the filmmakers threw a bunch of crap against the wall to see what would stick, and nothing did. As stewards of this beloved franchise, they have failed. They have taken what was a promising start and completely derailed it by not letting filmmakers make a good film.

This was a bungled mess and fans of this franchise deserved better.