Azrael

Modern silent movies are a tricky sell. Since spoken dialogue has been the standard in movies for almost a century now, silent movies now feel like a gimmick. A movie that chooses not to have dialogue backs itself into a corner from the start and has to justify its choice, both as a movie and within the movie, to not feel like it's either a hindrance or a gimmick the movie is hanging on. No One Will Save You, a movie I absolutely adore, managed to make it work by being mostly a one-actor movie, eliminating the need for dialogue by design. The A Quiet Place series is set in a world where any noise can bring about murderous aliens. Azrael takes the approach A Quiet Place does by making the silence a storyline component, but unlike that movie, there's not even whispering. What story you get is either gleaned by visual clues, or by the minimal text at the beginning that sets up the movie: it is post-Rapture, and some people have decided speaking is a sin, so they've removed their vocal cords, The story -- what story there is -- concerns Azrael (played by Samara Weaving). She is on the run from a cult of these people. They want to sacrifice her at the behest of their pregnant leader. And they all live in fear of a group of feral beings that look like humans covered in burns that have left their skin blackened, that eat flesh and drink blood. If you've come for story or character development, you've come to the wrong movie. Hell, this isn't even the movie for world-building or getting questions answered. Who or what are the burned beings? Why has the pregnant cult leader turned a hole in the wall into a symbol of profound spiritual import? Why does the cult want to sacrifice Azrael? You won't get answers, so if this bugs you, don't even bother turning on the movie. Azrael's very structure is to provide just enough setting for a kick-ass action-horror plot. This is a movie all about adrenaline and blood. In a way, it is a lot like the original John Wick movie. Certainly not in fight choreography, as this is far more scrappy and gnarly and realistic than the ballet-like John Wick, but in spirit, the two movies have a lot in common; you get just enough story sprinkled to justify a campaign of high-octane, pulse-pounding violence. One more common point between this and John Wick -- and I am referring specifically to the first movie here -- that I think is important to mention is that this isn't the story of some super-human that can brush off the damage. By the end of the original John Wick, he was barely standing, and Azrael is like that, but covered in way more blood. The damage here is most definitely cumulative, and when she has to fight through it, you can see it on Samara Weaving's face and in her eyes. In fact, she's only fighting for vengeance at the end of the movie; her whole fight for the first two acts is to survive and get away from these people. She doesn't have the brute strength to just bowl over people; she has to use cunning and strategy, and a little force of will, to save herself. Weaving understands the assignment here. She imbues Azrael with strength and determination, but also vulnerability and fear in the face of the horrors she's facing. That shouldn't be a surprise, she is the reigning top scream queen of the modern era, but this isn't just some copy-paste of a previous survivor character she's done. And all this is a sub-90 minute run time! It's a breath of fresh air when a movie doesn't overstay its welcome, and Azrael understands this. You get in, you get some crazy violence, and it wraps up. Bing, bang, boom. That's not to say the movie is perfect, though. The first two acts are caught in a cycle of Azrael getting captured and getting free repeating itself three or four times. I get that this is necessary to finally push her towards the offensive in the final act, but the cycle starts to wear thin. And even for a gorehound like myself, some of the blood spurting veers into the comically overboard. But on the plus side, it looks like it's all practical effects. That or they hid the CGI very well. Azrael is a challenging movie that requires you meet it where it lives. For a little while, I was struggling to really enjoy it, until I took a break and came back to it with a different frame of mind. Once I was ready to stop looking for what I want and was willing to just strap in and hold on, I found myself way more engaged. If you can do that, you'll find a pretty damned good way to spend 90 minutes.