Last Night In Soho (2021) At this stage in our life, we're long past our days of running to movie theaters to catch the latest releases.....
But we couldn't pass this one up for two reasons......
First it featured the ever stunning, other-worldly and insanely talented Anya Taylor-Joy, one of BQ's personal favorites....
Second, it featured the eternal, glorious goddess of TV, stage and cinema that we've worshipped since high school, Dame Diana Rigg......making her final film appearance before passing away last year at age 82.
How could we not rush out and see this movie?
Sadly, for producers who financed it, we think we're among the few who did.......there's much to enjoy here, but this film might've found a more instantly huge receptive audience on Netflix....
It's another gaudy, junky fanboy romp to add to the filmography of writer-director Edgar Wright ("Shaun Of The Dead", "Hot Fuzz", "Scott Pilgrim vs. The World", "Baby Driver") .
Wright functions as kind of the British Quentin Tarantino, pumping out film after film containing plenty of aggressive visual splash, but never bear any relation to the real world or the people in it......they only reference other movies that Wright gorged on, but that he's now amped up with his own style of comic book exaggeration.
"Last Night In Soho" throws in so much stuff gleaned from other movies, we could spend days pointing them all out. It's a musical, a fantasy, a ghost story, a zombie movie, a horror movie, a slasher movie.....a full buffet of crazy served up with a delirious enthusiasm that starts to wear you out after awhile.....
It's wrapped around the story of sweet innocent fashion student Eloise (Thomasin McKenzie), a naive countryside girl beginning her studies in the middle of bustling, busy London. Overwhelmed by dorm life and bullied by classmates, she seeks refuge in her own apartment......rented to her by a stern, elderly landlady (Rigg).
And then, like Alice Through The Looking Glass, Eloise finds herself transported to the swingin', red hot London of 1966, when England ruled the world in music, film and fashion. But in this past universe, her alter-ego is now the gorgeous, blond Sandie (Taylor-Joy), an ultra mod beauty trying to follow her dream of becoming a pop singer.
Sandie falls into the clutches of the sleazy, slick Jack (Matt Smith, a former 'Dr. Who') a supposed talent agent who's actually pimping for rich businessmen.......and from there, as Eloise bounces back and forth from her own current life to Sandie's, things take a dark, dark turn indeed........
That's as much as we should reveal, except to say that Edgar Wright stages all of this at a non stop fever pitch, played out against a soundtrack of 1960's Brit-Pop that never lets up for a second.
Wright only goes wrong here toward the film's third act, where it descends into full horror. The typical fright tropes (which we won't discuss, of course) become repetitious and quickly tiresome.....but the film pulls itself out of the mire with its absolutely bonkers BIG TWIST, which we admired for its way-over-the-top nutty conception.
Thomasin works overtime as the harried, exhausted and tormented Eloise, but it's Taylor-Joy, as always, whom we couldn't take our eyes off of.......(and neither, to both her delight and dismay, can any of the other characters around her....). Wright knows she's a born showstopper and we honestly couldn't imagine anyone else but her in this role......and that's the sign of a born superstar.
For fans of 1960's British cinema, even more bonuses pop up - Terence Stamp as a man of mystery who straddles both time periods, along with Rita Tushingham and 'Goldfinger' Bond girl Margaret Nolan (also in her last film role before her passing last year.)
And Dame Diana Rigg, in her final role, proves once again and forevermore that even amid the flash and dash and glittering set-pieces on view here, she's still ends up as film's best special effect all by herself.....and as riveting to watch as she was back when she was judo flipping villains on "The Avengers" and winning the wayward heart of James Bond.
A junky, empty headed movie? No doubt. But fun to watch for Taylor-Joy, Rigg and the visual fireworks? No doubt about that either.
Call "Last Night In Soho" a guilty pleasure if you must......we only know, with the minor exception of the overdone, worn out horror razz-ma-tazz, we had a blast watching it and not sorry at all for plunking down cash at the Multiplex..... 4 stars (****)
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