Fantasia 2017: Week 3 - The Final Lap

Normally, by the final week of the Fantasia Film Festival, I am trying to catch up on everything that I have missed in a long marathon run of the festival. Sadly, with work and the real world being a demise to my film viewings, I only got around to seeing two viewings. These are probably the two biggest Hollywood fare films that the festival offered up this year.

Atomic Blonde

Let's cut to the chase, Atomic Blonde has to be one of my favourite action films in a while, with a stylishly cool soundtrack of European synthpop hits. This is no surprise, as the film comes from director David Leitch, who was part of the directing team behind John Whick. Right away, I am going to have the John Wick 2 and Baby Driver soundtrack fans coming after me. The film stars Charlize Theron as a spy agent sent to Berlin Germany, against the backdrop of the East and the West divide, in order to retrieve information that left an agent dead. Her only contact is portrayed by James McAvoy, part of the British spy team stationed in Berlin. I could not get enough on how this action film was sleek, stylish, and had great performances, all set to a killer soundtrack—I saw it twice in one week. 

 

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, from director Luc Besson, has to be the richest CGI visual film seen on the big screen in a while, truly ambitious as the world that Besson has been tasked to recreate. Based on the French bande dessinée of the same name, we follow Valerian (Dane DeHann) and his partner Laureline (Cara Delevigne) as they undertake missions in means to restore order to an ever-expanding universe. As with anything, expanding the universe could mean wiping out another one, henceforth the strong colonialism overtones as seen in other science fiction films like Avatar. The world that Besson has created is extraordinary rich with characters, and the colour palette that demands to be seen on the big screen. 

 

As for this year’s dive into the film festival, I wish that I could have seen more, especially with the Fantasia audience that cheers on these films. The big highlights for me this year were the great films to come out of the documentary section, which is where I spent most of my viewing time. Another big highlight for me was seeing Terminator 2: Judgement Day for the first time ever, alongside of the Fantasia audience members. There are going to be some small and big roll outs of the festival in the coming months hitting theatres, that I hope to catch up with. In closing, thank you to the CJLO 1690 AM team for sending me to the festival again this year, and to the great staff at the Fantasia Film Festival that recommended movies. 

 

Remi's Fantasia 2017 full selection list 

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