Mr. Alfredson directed the second movie as well, and his work is again essentially functional, limited to clumsy action sequences and television-ready conversations.
Baxter notes that despite their "clumsy model sequences, the films were often well-photographed in colour... and their dismal dialogue was delivered in well-designed and well-lit sets".
Narratives onscreen, onstage, and on the page are so often criticized for clumsy, nakedly expository sequences, but "Westworld" embraces obvious backstory.
This one occasions a dream sequence so clumsy and overwrought you want to avert your eyes.
That "Alex Cross" would present a challenge for any actor is evident from its clumsy opener, a chase sequence with Detroit cops and some disposable bad guy that is so visually nonsensical, so maladroit in its staging and editing (it's a fair guess that the editor didn't have many good choices to work with), that it looks as if the cops were shooting at one another.
At one point, he's chased by two American F-22s, and Favreau and his animators spin him around wildly in the air, but the sequence is more clumsy than enthralling.
The everyday entrance sequence remains a clumsy switchback route that entails overshooting the glazed prow of the building (only used for big events) and descending a staircase to what feels like a service entrance below.
John Brooks in particular looked to be creaking every time Honduras swarmed forward at pace, and found himself booked as he committed a clumsy foul in one particularly stressful sequence.
Told with heartbreaking honesty, the movie offers such passionate filmmaking that minor character issues and the clumsy aesthetics of Nat's vision sequences are easily forgiven.
Watching "Duet for Cannibals," with its clumsy sexual fantasias and its possible dream sequences, one understands that to be a good fantasist one first has to be a good realist.
