Astrophysicists should study how a 99-minute film can geometrically exist inside a 3.5 hour packet of time. László Tóth is right to remain silent in the epilogue; there was not much for him to say anyway, and I would rather watch him make loungers and shutters for hours on 70mm.

Can a filmic event also be a basic allegory about disillusionment in America, replete with an upside-down Lady Liberty and inverted Gershwin piano plinking? An outstanding performance by Guy Pearce as, well, The Brutalizer, commands attention…yet every line is forgettable.

And Corbet knows how to Get Shots; quarries, rigs, cisterns, banquet tables, dank rooms. But does a series of beautiful Shots constitute a filmic event, as miraculous as VistaVision is?

Still, an emotional soundtrack, thoughtful lighting and compelling scraps of narrative hoist me to “charmed,” with vexations dangling behind. (100% completed in September 2024, XSX) *B*
[4/4]

Reaching, gripping, and pulling your way past problems is fun exercise; belaying, swinging and wall running are a nuisance, a dog hair in the heel of such grandiose environmental storytelling. [3/4]

But, the rope seems at odds with Unreal, and character movement can struggle against the tiniest geometry—“serious immobilities,” Satie would say. [2/3]