All Is True (2018)

The title of the movie, All is True, is a bit ironic.  I always wonder how much of any biopic is actually true.  You imagine that some liberties are taken.  For instance, the English sounds modern.  Granted, this is done to make it more relatable.  No one wants to wade through a thick Elizabethan accent.  I’m just saying that most people watching this title probably aren’t expecting total accuracy.  (It would seem that the title of the movie comes from an alternate title for Shakespeare’s play, Henry VIII.)

I’m not exactly sure what prompted me to see this movie.  There are a lot of options at the theater right now.  Why this one?  Why not rent a movie or read a book?  There is a part of me that’s trying to branch out from the movies I know I’ll like.  One of the advantages of a subscription service is that the ticket is basically paid for.  Rather than waste a spot, I figured I might like the movie.

About ten minutes in, I started to regret that decision.  The movie deals with Shakespeare’s life from the end of his career to the end of his life.  The fact that the Globe Theater burned down stopped The Bard from writing any more.  So, he returns home to Stratford-upon-Avon, where his wife treats him as a guest.  That’s how long he’s been in London.  Yes, he sent money home to support his family, but he missed a lot, like his son’s funeral.

The movie is about this absence, as well as the loss of his son and not having a male heir.  Shakespeare is portrayed as being progressive, but this is still a time when money was passed down to men.  There are several lines about which daughter might control the estate.  (Susannah is married, but only has one child, a daughter.  Judith is unmarried, but might get married someday and have a son.)

Summer is known for being the season of blockbusters.  I found this one a little lackluster.  I have Men in Black: International and Terminator: Dark Fate to look forward to.  Both promise to be exciting.  I could see many high school students dragged to see this by their parents and subsequently falling asleep.  (The parents and the students, to be clear.)

I don’t know that anything would have been accomplished by having Michael Bay direct it, though.  This is something that probably will be viewed by those with an interest in Shakespeare.  The movie is disjointed at first, but does come together later on.  This isn’t to say that it’s going to be for everyone.  I think most people will be correct in assessing whether or not they want to see it.  If you think you wouldn’t like All is True, I think you’d probably be correct.

IMDb page

Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

A few months ago, my mother found out about a program called Moviepass.  It allows you to watch movies, in a theater, for $9.95 per month.  It’s somewhat complicated and the details really aren’t important right now.  What’s important was that my parents and I all signed up last week.  Our first movie?  Murder on the Orient Express.  We needed something that we’d all agree on, which basically meant this or The Man Who Invented Christmas.

The movie is based on the Agatha Christie novel, as you might expect.  It starts with Hercule Poirot in Jerusalem solving a crime by proving it wasn’t any of the three main suspects.  He ends up on the Orient Express through a friend that works on the train.  It isn’t long before the train finds itself snowed in…and with a murder victim.

You’d think it would be easy.  The train is trapped between towns, making escape difficult.  It should just be a matter of figuring out who’s connected to the victim.  Well, it turns out that most of the other passengers had some connection to him.  You see, Edward Ratchett kidnapped a child who subsequently died.  If a suspect didn’t know the child, they at least knew someone who knew the child or the family.  What we get is a moderate procedural.  Poirot asks questions of the suspects and gathers clues.  At the end of the movie, he’s able to gather everyone together and work out the solution.

Having the movie on a train does make for cramped quarters.  Everyone has a room and a narrow hallway to pass each other.  This makes for the use of a few overhead shots.  There were also a few times where I noticed the use of a wide-angle lens.  (It tended to be evident as much with motion as it did with people sitting on the edge of the frame.)

The pacing seemed a little slow to me.  It’s not to say that it dragged at all, but there were times that I was wondering when the next bit of action was coming.  I don’t know that anything could have been cut.  It just seemed drawn out.  I think this has more to do with what I’m used to than anything else.  The accents tended to be more of a problem for me.  There were one or two scenes where subtitles might have helped, but it didn’t really stop me from following the movie.

I think this is one of those movies that most people will be able to judge for themselves whether or not they’ll like it.  Agatha Christie is well known, as are many of the actors.  There didn’t seem to be many surprises.  From what I’ve read, the movie follows the novel pretty closely with one or two exceptions.  I would say that if you do go to see the movie, it’s probably going to be either because you like Christie or you’re going to see it with a group, like I did.  Not being someone who’s read her work, I’d say that it’s middle of the road.  It’s enjoyable, but had it not been for Moviepass, I probably would have waited for this movie to become available on Netflix.

IMDb page