Perhaps there has been no quicker turn around on a horror trilogy and no better sustaining of pure excitement and anticipation than with the release of the third part of Ti West and Mia Goth’s X trilogy with Maxxxine, following on chronologically and character wise from the first film in the trilogy, following the prequel detour of sorts Pearl. However whereas X gave West a true crafts showcase exemplifying a fulfilment of both a statement of intent on the page and on the screen and whereas Pearl gave us a startling and for my money masterful horror character study… Maxxxine delivers a muddled, messy and terribly unsatisfying movie in its own right and a terribly disappointing conclusion to the trilogy I so very much loved the first two thirds of.
Now is Maxxxine bad as a film in its own right or simply just a disappointment, I unfortunately have to air more so to the initial. Maxxxine on a technical level and in its own right (despite the fact that it can’t have its own right because it would be largely undecipherable for anybody who hasn’t seen X) is by no means a terrible film, simply not a great one. West as a director here delivers in the ways that he has before, but misses here in regards to pace and plotting in ways that many of his previous filmic efforts simply have not. Here the plot builds to such a terribly predictable reveal that I spent the entire film hoping against hope that it would not be what I knew in the back of my mind it seemingly was going to be, but then this reveal itself no matter how shoddy on the page was then presented with such failing tension and such missing entertainment building to nothing. What follows (to start this review at the end) is a terribly unsatisfactory action set piece that feels so not of a piece with the rest of the film and the rest of the series that you begin to wonder the quality of the first two films in their own right. West has just so very much missed the mark with his intent it seems to make a film homaging Giallo and De Palma erotic thrillers and has instead made a film that is for the most part a painfully average detective action movie. When there are moments of horror and there are two I can note, West manages to procure himself his previous set of skills and brings us back into the fold with strength, but overall this feels very much like a filmmaker not of West’s calibre made a sequel based off the trailers for X and Pearl rather than the films themselves.
Then there is
the other major force in this trilogy, that of Mia Goth who has not taken part
in the writing on his film and perhaps it was her pen on Pearl that
could have brought this up a notch. Even her performance here feels somewhat
underplayed and a far cry from the virtuosic work we found her delivering across
X and Pearl. Now this is of course a film designed more so around
a mystery narrative rather than acting showcases, which in many was the first two
films could be seen as, but when the mystery narrative is this uninteresting
then you begin to long for the quality of the past. Much the same can be said
for the incredibly stacked cast beside Goth this time, with the likes of
Elizabeth Debicki, Kevin Bacon, Giancarlo Esposito, Bobby Cannavalle, Moses
Sumney and Michelle Monaghan all given either nothing to do or scenery to chew.
If it weren’t for the terrible plot and if it weren’t for the step back filmmaking
wise and if it weren’t for the overall disappointment of this up against the
first two films then perhaps my view of Maxxxine could be different, but
all these things are true and it is for me personally with major regret.
Maybe a solid 7/10 when all is said and done, but for now and for I feel always it will be more so a 6 or even a 5 when it comes to the complete thud that this has a trilogy capper. Now is this fair to level against the film? I think in this case, yes. For as much as Maxxxine is in some ways its own film it is so indebted to a far superior pre-cursor and so very much coasting off its fumes with very little of major worth to present itself. Both West and Goth who have delivered such excellence for my money in the prior two films seem to be on auto-pilot, now their auto-pilot, particularly in the case of Goth, is far stronger than a lot of filmmakers and actresses, but is still auto-pilot all the same.
P.S. This may be the biggest chasm between pre-watching excitement and expectations and final overall result disappointment I have had in a very, very long time. This was with remember me coming up against the initial disappointment critically and fan wise too. Will it be better on second watch? Possibly, even definitely I think. But on a first watch with the weight of the first two films behind it, Maxxxine is with supreme regret the most disappointing film of the year.
- Thomas Carruthers
0 Comments