Hunt for the Wilderpeople

 Year of Release: 2016

Director:  Taika Waititi

Screenplay:  Taika Waititi, based on the novel Wild Pork and Watercress by Barry Crump

Starring:  Sam Neill, Julian Dennison, Rhys Darby, Rima Te Wiata, Rachel House

Running Time:  101 minutes

Genre:  Adventure, comedy, drama

Troubled teenager Ricky Baker (Dennison) is constantly in and out of foster homes.  As a last ditch attempt, child services assign him to a couple who own a remote farm.  After a difficult start, Ricky eventually bonds with his new foster mother Bella (Wiata) but not so much with her cantankerous frontiersman husband Hec (Neill).  When Bella drops dead of natural causes, a grieving Ricky plunges into the bush to avoid being taken by child services.  Hec follows him, and the two embark on a life in the wilderness, as the target of a nationwide manhunt.    

As with the best of writer-director Taika Waititi's work this blends darkness and tragedy with warmth, hope and compassion along with laugh out loud comedy.  This film has added wilderness adventure.  It does take it's time to get going, but the constant quirky comedy of Waititi's world means that it never gets dull.  Julian Dennison is great as the streetwise but naive teen at the heart of the film, and there is real chemistry between him and Sam Neill's grizzled outdoorsman, who hides real heart and compassion deep down beneath a prickly, abrasive exterior.  Rachel House is hilarious as the child welfare officer who obsessively pursues Ricky, and compares herself to The Terminator.  Taika Waititi has a small role as the minister who conducts Bella's funeral service.  By turns funny, exciting and heartbreaking this film also has a point about those who don't fit into the world.  Ricky and Hec don't really have a place in the modern world, they just want to live on their own terms, but while Ricky can find a place for himself, it is harder for Hec, given his age and circumstances.  The two save each other in their own ways.  

  Julian Dennison and Sam Neill in Hunt for the Wilderpeople

Jojo Rabbit

Year of Release:  2019

Director:  Taika Waititi

Screenplay:  Taika Waititi, based on the novel Caging Skies by Christine Leunens

Starring:  Roman Griffin Davis, Thomasin McKenzie, Taika Waititi, Scarlett Johansson, Rebel Wilson, Sam Rockwell, Alfie Allen, Stephen Merchant

Running Time:  108 minutes

Genre:  Comedy-drama, war

Nazi Germany:  Johannes "Jojo" Betzler (Davis) is an innocent ten year old boy who is nevertheless heavily indoctrinated with Nazi ideology, and is an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth.  His best friend is an imaginary Adolf Hitler (Waititi).  Jojo discovers that his mother, Rosie (Johansson), is hiding a young Jewish girl, Elsa (McKenzie).  Jojo is scared to turn her in, and he and Elsa begin a tentative friendship.  

In the wrong hands this film could be in hugely bad taste, however it is by turns hilariously funny and absolutely heartbreaking.  The film is anchored by young actors Roman Griffin Davis and Thomasin McKenzie  who move from mutual fear and loathing to a kind of genuine friendship.  To Jojo, fascism is basically adventure, friendship and acceptance.  He has swallowed the lies hook, line and sinker, but he remains at his core, an essentially good hearted little boy, who just believes what he's been told.  When he meets Elsa he begins to slowly realise that Jewish people are not the demonic, supernatural monsters that he has been told they are.  Thomasin McKenzie is intensely moving as Elsa, whose safety depends on trusting people who she has every reason  not to.  She is a survivor, in constant danger, but she is also a normal teenage girl.  The familiar faces in supporting roles are all very good, with writer-director Taika Waititi as an idiotic imaginary Hitler, who moves from childlike best friend, to an increasingly threatening presence, as Jojo becomes increasingly disillusioned with Nazism.  Scarlett Johansson is hugely impressive as Rosie, Jojo's mother, torn between her duty to fight the evil that she sees around her, and her duty to care for her child.  The film has a child's eye view of it's events, moving from childlike adventure and flights of imagination to fear and danger.  The use of German versions of anachronistic songs by The Beatles and David Bowie adds an additional fantasy element.  The subject matter of the film places it in very difficult territory, but it navigates it with barely a misstep.  It is among the best and most moving films of the past few years.

Taika Waititi and Roman Griffin Davis in Jojo Rabbit
 

    

What We Do in the Shadows

Year of Release:  2014
Director:  Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi
Screenplay:  Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi
Starring:  Taika Waititi, Jemaine Clement, Jonathan Brugh, Ben Fransham, Cori Gonzalez-Macuer, Stu Rutherford, Jackie van Beek, Rhys Darby
Running Time:  85 minutes
Genre:  Horror, comedy

Wellington, New Zealand:  A documentary film crew follow several months in the afterlife of four vampires who all share the same house: uptight 369 year old Viago (Waititi) who vainly tries to maintain some kind of order, 879 year old former tyrant Vladislav (Clement), 183 year old young rebel Deacon (Brugh) and savage 8,000 year old Petyr (Fransham).  Aided by Deacon's "familiar" Jackie (van Beek), who aspires to become a vampire herself, the gang spend their time hunting victims and trying to avoid sunlight and occasional scuffles with the local werewolf gang led by "alpha male" Anton (Darby).     

Horror comedies are very difficult to make work, because there is the risk of the comedy overshadowing the horror, meaning there is no edge or drama to it, or the horror overshadows the comedy and makes it just bleak.  This however really works well.  It's filmed in the "mockumentary" style familiar from movies such as This is Spinal Tap (1983), or TV shows such as The Office or Parks and Recreation.  It pokes fun at various vampire tropes:  Vladislav is like a parody of Gary Oldman in Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) and Petyr, the most brutal and least human looking of the group, is obviously based on the vampire in Nosferatu (1926).  Much of the humour comes from how vampires would function in the modern day, and the problems of living with vampire powers (how do you look stylish when you can't see yourself in the mirror?, where do you go when you can't enter a building without being invited?)  The film is never really scary, but it is quite dark, there is no getting away from the fact that the vampires are killers.  The film is irreverent but celebratory of the vampire genre, and is fresher and more imaginative than any vampire movie for a long time.  Most of all it is genuinely and consistently funny.

The Fang Gang:  From left to right: Jemaine Clement, Jonathan Brugh, Ben Fransham, Taka Waititi, Cori Gonzalez-Macuer and St Rutherford in What We Do in the Shadows   

Thor: Ragnarok

Year of Release:  2017
Director:  Taika Waititi
Screenplay:  Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost, based on the comic-book character Thor created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby
Starring: Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Cate Blanchett, Idris Elba, Jeff Goldblum. Tessa Thompson, Karl Urban, Mark Ruffalo, Anthony Hopkins
Running Time:  130 minutes
Genre:  Fantasy, science-fiction, action, adventure, superhero, comedy

Two years after the events of Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), the Asgardian Thunder God Thor (Hemsworth) is hunting, unsuccessfully, for the powerful Infinity Stones, but is tormented by dreams of Ragnarok, the end of Asgard.  Returning home to Asgard, he finds his trickster half-brother Loki (Hiddleston) in charge and his father, Odin (Hopkins), missing.  With Loki's aid, Thor manages to track Odin down to Earth, where he reveals that he is dying and that his death will allow his first-born child, the Death Goddess Hela (Blanchett), to escape her imprisonment and seize control of Asgard. 

This is the third Thor movie, and the seventeenth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the shared universe centered on movies based on Marvel Comics characters.  This film is very light in tone, and often very funny, playing more as a comedy than a straightforward action adventure superhero film.  The cast all seem to be enjoying themselves, Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston are both very good comic actors and they bounce off each other very well, Cate Blanchett goes full on panto villain as the evil Hela, and Jeff Goldblum is hilarious as the intergalactic warlord, who rules a planet where Thor and Loki find themselves trapped on.  To add to the fun, Mark Ruffalo reprises his rule as the Hulk , and Benedict Cumberbatch has a brief appearance as Doctor Strange.  The film manages to balance the humour with enough drama to give scenes some emotional heft if needed, and sometimes comedy makes drama all the more affecting. The film is definitely too long,and the humour doesn't always land, but this is still a fun and funny comedy adventure.

Chris Hemsworth in Thor: Ragnarok