A young journalist is invited to a remote retreat to witness the return
of a pop star who disappeared 30 years earlier.
Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Mark Anthony Green
Starring: Ayo Edibiri, John Malkovich, Rosario Dawson, Juliette Lewis, Murray Bartlett, Amber
Midthunder, Young Mazino, Stephanie Suganami, Tony Hale
GQ editor turned writer/director Mark Anthony Green's debut
Opus is the latest in a growing line of Wonkabes, movies
that take their setup from
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. In such movies (Saw,
Escape Room,
The Menu), a group of people are lured to the lair of an eccentric madman and
brutally punished for their perceived sins. The group usually features one
innocent party, the Charlie, for whom the Wonka surrogate has other
plans.
Opus might be the most blatant Wonkabe we've seen so far.
The Wonka stand-in here is Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich). In the
'90s Moretti was the world's biggest pop star before he retired at the end
of that decade, never to be seen again. The Charlie is Ariel (Ayo Edibiri), a struggling young writer at what must be one of the world's last
surviving music publications. Taken for granted and often overlooked at
work, Charlie is shocked when Moretti announces the release of his first
album in three decades and invites her to be part of an exclusive group
that will attend his album launch at his secluded desert compound. It's
often joked that Charlie's Grandpa Joe is an unscrupulous old codger who
leeches off his grandson, and Opus almost seems to play on
this idea by positing Ariel's obnoxious editor Stan (Murray Bartlett) as the Grandpa Joe figure, tagging along with Ariel and planning to
steal the limelight for her work.
At the compound it's established immediately that Moretti is a cult
leader who has surrounded himself by robe-wearing followers who obey his
every instruction. The cultists call themselves "Levelists" and have their
own bible, which contains creepy instructions like "Teach them young and
they will be yours," which reminded me of Hank Penny's politically
incorrect country hit 'Catch 'em Young, Treat 'em Rough, Tell 'em Nuthin'.
The oddness initially manifests as odd but essentially harmless rituals
like forcing the dinner guests to each take a bite from the same loaf of
bread as it's passed around the table, but then in classic Wonka fashion,
the guests are picked off and disappeared one by one, with only Ariel
sensible enough to realise something is rotten in this chocolate
factory.
That Wonka routine is all Opus has to offer. Green likely
intends to make some grand point about the cult of celebrity but his
script is too much of an unfocussed mess to get this across in any
discernible way. Moretti's motivations are similarly muddled, and even an
epilogue that forces Malkovich to attempt to explain what we've just
watched doesn't make things any clearer. Part of the fun of
Willy Wonka comes from seeing awful people get their just
desserts (no pun intended), but aside from Stan's treatment of Ariel, the
people who get violently dispatched here don't seem to have done anything
to even come close to deserving such grisly fates. It's established that
the first victim had some past dispute with Moretti, which makes us think
he's doing the Vincent Price shtick from
Theatre of Blood and killing off his critics, but the rest
of the group are sycophantic in their devotion to him.
Despite the involvement of the great Nile Rodgers in writing
Moretti's songs, it's impossible to believe that he was once bigger than
Michael Jackson. While Rodgers' compositions (co-written with someone
called "The Dream," sorry kids, I'm old) sound like real songs,
albeit with lyrics purposely designed to provoke laughs, you can't imagine
any of them being real world hits. When we're treated to "Dina Simone,"
Moretti's biggest hit of the '90s, it doesn't remotely sound like music
from that era.
Edibiri is wasted in a role that squanders her comic talents as she plays
the straight man to Moretti's clown. Malkovich is very much in Nicolas
Cage mode here, stunt cast due to his meme-worthy persona, but he's
undoubtedly the movie's biggest asset. Every time Malkovich is on screen
we wake from our slumber (even when he appears to be half asleep himself),
and the highlight sees the king of the slapheads lip sync to one of
Moretti's numbers while performing some hilarious dance movies. But
Malkovich is the one gimmick in a one-gimmick movie, and even his unique
persona can't paper over the striking lack of originality on display
here.
Opus is in UK/ROI cinemas from
March 14th.
