Mary Queen of Scots (2018)

Historical movies aren't really my thing —despite the fact that I loved my teacher, history was one of my least favourite subjects in high school— but I checked out Mary Queen of Scots anyway because one does not simply pass a movie starring Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie. And of course eye-candy in the form of Jack Lowden is always welcome. 

The film tells the story of Catholic Mary Stuart (Saoirse Ronan). Queen of France at 16 and widowed at 18, she returns to Scotland to reclaim her rightful throne. But Scotland and England are both ruled by her cousin Elizabeth (Margot Robbie), the Protestant Queen of England, and her claim to the English throne puts her on a collision course with Queen Elizabeth I.

A more or less compelling political battle of wits is what I was expecting, but what I got instead was a beyond tedious and "not so easy to follow because of all the double-crossing" plot filled with historical inaccuracies —this part of history was unknown to me but there were things so far fetched I checked for facts on Wikipedia—, Mary refusing to do what people advised her and Elizabeth crying. There are political intrigue and backstabbing, lots of both, but the story is not interesting, it's not engaging and I just didn't care because of the dull, inconsistent storytelling.

The characters are also pretty bland and uninteresting as they are poorly characterized, poorly developed and, for the exception of Mary, they don't even have clear motivations. They are just cartoonish characters that deserve absolutely no sympathy, especially Elizabeth who is presented as a weak, constantly whining woman. Not to mention the openly gay friend of Mary, or her gay husband.

At least there's the cast, part of it, that makes Mary Queen of Scots more bearable. Both Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie do a good job in the roles as they manage to make their characters slightly more interesting, and both doing a great job at hiding their accents, Irish the first, Australian the latter —I'm not sure though why Mary has a Scottish accent since she grew up in France. The rest though is quite a mess. It's not entirely the actors' fault as the script is quite poor but most of them give wooden performances or over-act like David Tennant and when they are actually decent, they are criminally underused like Guy Pearce.

Focus Features, Universal Pictures

The strong performances from Ronan and Robbie aren't the only good things about Mary Queen of Scots. The cinematography is quite breathtaking with plenty of beautiful scenery and locations rich in colour; the costumes are gorgeous; the makeup is very good.

Unfortunately, the writing is terrible, the direction is dull, and the casting of people of colour to play 16th century Great Britain aristocrats just doesn't feel right. If they wanted to make a politically correct movie, they should have gone with fictional characters. But I guess it fits the film very well if you consider all the inaccuracies.

 

Terminal (2018)

The fact that I haven't seen any promotion whatsoever for Terminal should have kept me away from the film. The fact that that it stars Margot Robbie and Simon Pegg who I both very much like, especially the latter, did not allow it. And here I am, struggling to write the storyline for Terminal as it barely has one. 

Basically, the film follows two assassins (Dexter Fletcher and Max Irons) who agreed to take on a high-risk mission for a mysterious employer, a fatally ill teacher (Simon Pegg) who wants to kill himself but does not have the guts to do it, a curious and crazy waitress (Margot Robbie) and a weird and creepy janitor (Mike Meyers). 

The lives of these people eventually intertwine and the outcome is a very, very predictable plot that feels dragged on and on forever. My wild guess is that writer and director Vaughn Stein has no idea what a proper noir/mystery story should be like. While there are some twists --actually, there's way too many of them--, their execution is terrible. They are delivered and explained to us through some dreadful dialogue lines. 

The characters didn't help with the effectiveness of the twists either. Having only five characters that are relevant to the story makes it pretty easy for us to guess who's who and how did they met in the past. Also worth mentioning is that every single character is as flat as a board. They are just a bunch of characters with dubious morals. They also are incredibly dull, and it's hard to care for any of them. 

The acting, however, is the aspect of Terminal that disappointed me the most. While she still is the best thing about this film, Margot Robbie overacts from start to finish in this and she is a little obnoxious as well. Not even Simon Pegg, who is criminally underused, nor Mike Meyers can save this.

RLJE Films, Arrow Films

Then there's this thing about Terminal that drove me insane. It's like the filmmakers couldn't decide whether they wanted to make a serious film, a dark comedy or one of those pathetic parody movies. Frankly, I don't know. 

It is visually stunning though, I'll give the film that. It's the futuristic neon, Blade Runner-esque cinematography many films have nowadays but it's beautiful nevertheless.