I briefly mentioned Ben Affleck's "Animals" yesterday, but I need to get more into it, because this thing, now streaming on Netflix, is one of the most baffling efforts I've seen from a serious director in a long time.
And yes, Affleck is a serious director. He made a Best Picture winner ("Argo") and three other well-reviewed movies ("The Town," "Gone Baby Gone," "Air"). I've never been a huge fan of his work, but critics have backed him for two decades now. "Live by Night" was the one real misfire. "Animals" is worse. It's the weakest film he's ever directed and it's not even close. At least with "Live by Night" you could tell he was trying.
It's been a rough weekend for Ben. "Animals," which co-stars Kerry Washington, Gillian Anderson and Steven Yeun, got hammered by critics, and honestly? They're right. 41% on Rotten Tomatoes. 31 on Metacritic. Ouch.
I watched it in a state of total bewilderment. It plays like a '90s TV movie of the week. A kid gets kidnapped on Halloween night, a mayoral campaign is falling apart, a marriage is imploding, and there's zero tension. None. How do you pull that off?
And how is Robert Elswit the DP on this? The guy shot "There Will Be Blood." He shot "Nightcrawler." Here it's flat lighting, bland color grading, lazy blocking. Basically the ultimate Netflix movie. Some of the drone shots look so weirdly clean and synthetic that I started wondering if they were even real. Then again, Affleck already admitted he used AI on this film, using tools from InterPositive, the startup Netflix bought from him for $600M, and he won't tell us where. So I spent a good chunk of the movie playing "spot the AI." Sadly, that was more fun than the plot.
Almost every character is paper thin. I was convinced the campaign manager, Yeun's character, or Anderson's mysterious fixer was behind the kidnapping. The movie sets them up as the obvious suspects and then just... forgets about them? Anderson comes off like she's one step ahead of everyone [SPOILERS AHEAD] and then she gets shot in the head because she randomly wandered into the middle of a shootout to see what all the noise was about. I'm not kidding. Yeun basically just nods for two hours. The villain's motive barely gets explored, so the big reveal lands with a thud.
Then there are Affleck's extended scenes speaking Spanish. Long scenes. Lots of them. At some point I realized the whole movie might exist so Ben could show us he speaks fluent Spanish. Fun fact: he wasn't even supposed to play the part. Matt Damon was busy shooting Nolan's "The Odyssey," so Affleck stepped in. He also wanted Jennifer Garner to play his wife, but she passed. Smart woman.
What really frustrates me is that "Animals" is exactly the kind of movie Affleck is supposed to be good at. Adult, mid-budget, great cast. So I keep asking myself, is this really what he wanted to make? Because it plays like it was made by someone who didn't give a crap how it turned out.
And then there's "the scene." You've probably seen it by now. A kid strapped into a wagon rolls down a hill, flies across a canal and lands perfectly in Affleck's arms. It's played completely straight. No irony, no wink. This is the guy who staged the Fenway heist in "The Town"! How did he sit in an editing room, watch this and say "yep, that works"? It's going to be the movie's defining meme, and deservedly so. Unintentionally hilarious stuff, straight into the cinematic time capsule.
I briefly mentioned Ben Affleck's "Animals" yesterday, but I need to get more into it, because this thing, now streaming on Netflix, is one of the most baffling efforts I've seen from a serious director in a long time.