Not a very good week! But thankfully Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy delivered to some extent.
Babygirl
A high-powered CEO puts her career and family on the line when she begins a torrid affair with her much younger intern.
An elevated 50 Shades of Grey, except that I find 50 Shades actually better, more kinky and with at least the merit of being dumb enough to be funny. Here it’s trying to be an erotic thriller, but it doesn’t work in either aspect, and every scene that’s supposed to be vaguely sexy consists of the intern telling Nicole Kidman to do basic stuff like “sit there”, and she refuses, then ends up doing it anyway, trembling.
At no point can we really believe what’s happening on the screen, it’s simply subpar fanfic, and the worst thing is that it stretches its thin story painfully over 2 hours – I kinda wanted to die towards the end when you have yet another two-minute shot showing a character going through a door. You should have given the script to Verhoeven, he could have turned it into something a bit sulfurous that would have been more in keeping with the theme and atmosphere Babygirl wants to evoke.
On the plus side, it’s obviously Kidman who carries the film on her shoulders, and also the fact that it avoids male gaze (a lot more so than the Emmanuelle reboot, which was sold on this point). Still, it doesn’t save the project from being a dud.
Ah, and one last little detail, it’s stupid but the young guy made me want to slap him, I know he’s supposed to be a sex symbol but he looks like a douche to me, he’s like a Patrick Bateman fan who puts “dom” on his Tinder bio and then when you meet him he hesitate to spank you. And I’m supposed to believe that this guy is hotter than Antonio Banderas with a beard AND that Antonio Banderas would suck in bed? smh.
Quiche rating: 2/5
Captain America: Brave New World
After meeting with newly elected U.S. President Thaddeus Ross, Sam finds himself in the middle of an international incident. He must discover the reason behind a nefarious global plot before the true mastermind has the entire world seeing red.
Well, it was to be expected from the reshoots and postponements, but Captain America: Brave New World is a mess. There’s a clear lack of direction, it doesn’t know what it wants to be, and in the end it has no identity. It’s almost as if they’d forced themselves to put in a bit of political thriller because “it worked in Winter Soldier”, but without conviction.
There are no stakes, no character arc (apart for Harrison Ford, but his arc is pretty much complete by the start of the film), no thrills. I was pretty bored, even though I watched it in 4DX. In fact, it’s the laziest 4DX I’ve seen in a while, with almost no movement outside the action scenes, and effects that made no sense (such as orange smells in the middle of gunfights).
There are two or three things that keeps it from being terrible, though: Harrison Ford is clearly there for the paycheck, but it’s always nice to see him, as is Anthony Mackie and his little smirk. And director Julius Onah, admittedly not helped by the sometimes awful visual effects (there really are some disgraceful chroma key at the end), tries to offer something interesting, with a few zenithal shots and action scenes that let the action and choreography breathe a bit. Nothing crazy, but you take what you can get.
Quiche rating: 2/5
Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy
After the tragic loss of Mark Darcy, Bridget navigates life as a single mother to two young children, balancing work, family, and a surprising new romance.
Did we really need to offer a conclusion to the Bridget Jones saga? I don’t think so, but that doesn’t stop this fourth episode from trying to bring the series to a definitive close, with a widowed Bridget trying to find love again.
While Colin Firth’s absence may be a good idea, as it allows the movie to shuffle its deck a little, it also weighs down the project a little: Mad About the Boy doesn’t know which tone to adopt, between heavy (but moving) grief and sexy romcom. This leads to some major tonal shifts, which are certainly realistic, but don’t seem to match the mood of the other films.
I also regret the structure which, instead of pitting the two dudes against each other, switches from one to the other, which, once again, varies the formula but deprives the film of humorous situations. This also causes one of the two suitors to be less developed than the other, which detracts from the chemistry with our heroine.
Nevertheless, despite the often basic direction and editing that would have benefited from being much more energetic, I didn’t have a bad time. I laughed a lot (thanks in part to Hugh Grant, who is impeccable) but was also moved on several occasions. I grew up with Bridget Jones, so I can’t be objective, but this new movie gave me the comfort I was expecting. I now hope they’ll leave it at that.
quiche.cafe 
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