Lamb (2021), Titane (2021)

Lamb (2021). Director: Valdimar Jóhannsson. Cast: Noomi Rapace, Hilmir Snær Guðnason, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson. 106 min. Drama/Fantasy.

Titane (2021). Director Julia Ducournau. Cast: Agathe Rousselle, Vincent Lindon. 108 min. Horror/Sci-fi.

• Strangely, I saw these two bizarre movies, back-to-back in two days. Both are about a shocking offspring - Lamb happening in some desolate Scandinavian plain, and if you've seen the trailer (or ... read the movie's title), you have a good idea "what" the child is; Titane (last year's Palm d'Or winner) is in urban modern day France, but the surprise about what the offspring is is left till the very end (something to do with titanium?).  Especially with its nonchalant approach towards the more riveting moments, such as when we discover the nature of the child, or a final piercing image of a mysterious killer, I found Lamb more visually striking and lasting, but with a tepid or even failed message - on to what extremes people will go to have a child; while Titane, even with its more gruesome imagery, was much more palpable - possibly about the dangers of how we as humans are becoming "combined" with our machinery/smartphones, and losing all communicative skills (the heroine literally not verbalizing anything during the second half of the movie). Although Titane engaged me throughout, if I was to recommend between the two, I would go with Lamb - because aren't we hungry for great images?  

MoGo's rating (Lamb): 8/10

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MoGo's rating (Titane): 7/10

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Morbius (2022)

Director: Daniel Espinosa. Cast: Jared Leto, Matt Smith, Jared Harris, Tyrese Gibson, Michael Keaton. 104 min. Fantasy/Action.

• The 16% score on RottenTomatoes notwithstanding, I went into this hoping for some kind of Marvel superhero-Vampire horror merger. Not only was I disappointed on that front, I was disappointed on all fronts: there's nothing in this movie to make it memorable from the deluge of other superhero movies out there. 
• Michael Morbius is just another scientist (like Bruce Banner/Hulk, Tony Stark/Iron Man, Hank Pym/Ant-Man, Norman Osborn/Green Goblin, Curt Conners/Lizard, Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four, etc) who's poisoned by his own science and his ego to become a better/stronger/healthier creature, and ends up an anti-hero who finds a nemesis in another who's used the same poison (like Venom vs. Carnage, Black Widow vs. her sister, Wolverine vs. his brother, Hulk vs. Abomination, ...), leaving us with an ambivalent protagonist with all kinds of interesting story possibilities. But you can't ignore he's still more of the same.
• What mainly interested me was what I saw in the trailer: Michael Keaton's return as the Vulture, and a Spider-Man painting on a street wall. The former showed up only at the end of the movie; the latter didn't show up at all.

MoGo's rating: 5/10

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