‘Black Bag’ Review: The Couple That Spies Together, Rides or Dies Together

March 11, 2025

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What’s in the Black Bag?! (CREDIT: Claudette Barius/Focus Features)

Starring: Michael Fassbender, Cate Blanchett, Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, Regé-Jean Page, Pierce Brosnan

Director: Steven Soderbergh

Running Time: 94 Minutes

Rating: R for Adults Talking About Their Adult Affairs, as Well as a Few Bursts of Violence

Release Date: March 14, 2025 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: George Woodehouse (Michael Fassbender) and Kathryn St. Jean (Cate Blanchett) are a happily married childless couple. But it’s a little complicated because they’re both spies and therefore can’t exactly always be 100% honest with each other. But somehow they’ve managed to make it work! It perhaps helps that they carefully cultivate relationships with some of the younger employees at their agency, even if things do occasionally get a little (or a lot) messy. When Kathryn flies out for her latest covert meeting, it looks like she might be turning treasonous, or perhaps it’s all a setup. So how far will George go to protect his wife, and is anyone foolhardy enough to stand in his way?

What Made an Impression?: Confusing, Until It’s Not: I’ve long since given up on trying to understand the plots of espionage movies, and the beginning of Black Bag didn’t do anything to change my mind. Instead, it felt like an homage to Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? that had me going, “Did the trailer just straight-up lie about this movie’s plot?” But then after about 40 minutes of finely deliberate setup, screenwriter David Koepp and director Steven Soderbergh finally showed their hands, and they had me going, “Ah, there are the stakes.” I won’t delve too much more into this point because much of the pleasure of Black Bag is that “a-ha” feeling. But let’s just say that Soderbergh has demonstrated once again that it pays to figure out what you want to do ahead of time and then go ahead and execute that plan.
Scenes From a Marriage: Are George and Kathryn #couplegoals? I’d certainly be happy to see that conversation play out in the wake of Black Bag‘s release. They undoubtedly have each other’s backs, and they also consistently give each other the benefit of the doubt. But on the other hand, they leave a bit of a trail of destruction in their wake, although that might say more about their profession than it does about them. And though they don’t have any kids, you can kind of think of the characters played by Marisa Abela, Tom Burke, Naomie Harris, and Regé-Jean Page as their stand-in children. But that interpretation makes things go a little wibbly-wobbly, as it probably isn’t the best idea for parents to subject their kids to a round of polygraph testing. And yet, that is something that indeed happens in this movie. In conclusion, George and Kathryn’s ultimate suitability as a couple remains uncertain, but their turns as Spy Daddy and Spy Mommy are finely fulfilled.

Black Bag is Recommended If You Like: Leather and wine

Grade: 3.5 out of 5 Satellite Feeds

‘Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga’: How Can One Franchise Keep Up the Dusty and Metal Momentum?

May 22, 2024

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You’re driving me Furiosa! (CREDIT: Warner Bros. Pictures/Screenshot)

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Chris Hemsworth, Alyla Browne, Tom Burke, Lachy Hulme, Nathan Jones, Josh Helman, John Howard, Charlee Fraser, Angus Sampson, Quaden Bayles, Daniel Webber, Jacob Tomuri, Elsa Pataky

Director: George Miller

Running Time: 148 Minutes

Rating: R for The Bloody Violence and Grisly Gruesomeness of the Desert

Release Date: May 24, 2024 (Theaters)

What’s It About?: Imperator Furiosa was the breakout character of Mad Max: Fury Road, and now she’s got her very own prequel! Yes indeed, it’s time once again to return to the sandy, fiery post-apocalypse of the Australian Outback. Originally brought to life inimitably by Charlize Theron nearly a decade ago, the mantle of Furiosa now falls to Alyla Browne as a tween and Anya Taylor-Joy in young adult form. She grows up in one of the few areas in this wasteland where vegetation grows plentifully, but then she’s kidnapped into a life of servitude and forced to watch the execution of her mother (Charlee Fraser). She initially winds up in the clutches of the vulture-nosed warlord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) before getting passed over to big baddie Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), who’s happy to have her as one of his many brides. But her mechanical skills, slippery resourcefulness, lust for vengeance, and an unquenchable desire to return home ensures that her life won’t be quite so simple or quite so repressed

What Made an Impression?: Predictable, But Also Not Predictable: Mad Max is one of those franchises where continuity really doesn’t matter. Every single entry has been directed (or co-directed) and co-written by George Miller, but he’s never exactly felt bound by what he himself has established. Fury Road, for example, played more like a reboot rather than a legacy sequel (understandably so, considering its recasting of the lead role and the fact that it came out 30 years after the previous entry). So it’s a little surprising then that Furiosa plays similarly to Rogue One‘s place in the Star Wars timeline, insofar as it barrels right towards the point where Fury Road kicks off. But that’s not to say that Miller is doing anything obvious. It may be true this time that the continuity is more linear than usual, but the depth of imagination is still staggering. Miller doesn’t give us what we think we want, because he’s speaking an entirely different language than anybody else on the planet.
How’d He Do Dat?: I’m not sure if I’m fully enthralled by Furiosa’s world. Similarly, I admired Fury Road more than I adored it, and my initial reaction to this distaff follow-up is pretty similar. (Though I wouldn’t be surprised if I gradually start feeling a bit zestier). But I can say without reservation that I am absolutely in awe of George Miller’s nutty band of merry stunt workers. With all sorts of sand bikes, monster trucks, and precision-strike firearms, it’s hard to believe that everyone survived the production. (I pray that no terrible exposés emerge to reveal otherwise!) Fury Road already flame-threw the action adventure genre to levels never witnessed before, and Furiosa somehow manages to be even more relentless. It’s nonstop set piece after set piece, each one of them thoroughly thrilling, witty, and reality-altering. This is cinema, baby!

Furiosa is Recommended If You Like: Stunts, Stunts, Stunts, Stunts, and also Stunts

Grade: 4 out of 5 Prosthetic Arms

‘Living’ Review: Is It a…?

January 19, 2023

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Bill Nighy the Living Guy (CREDIT: Sony Pictures Classics/Screenshot)

Starring: Bill Nighy, Aime Lou Wood, Alex Sharp, Tom Burke

Director: Oliver Hermanus

Running Time: 102 Minutes

Rating: PG-13

Release Date: December 23, 2022 (Limited)

Before I saw Living, I’d never before ordered anything from the cafe at the Angelika Film Center in SoHo, NYC. But since you can take the cafe food into the theaters and I’m not a huge fan of traditional concession stand options, it was a no-brainer to finally change that! As for what I actually ordered – a piece of peanut butter cake – it sat a little heavy in my stomach. And that didn’t really pair well with the movie on screen. In general, that’s the case with an overly quenched appetite, but especially so this time, as Living is meant to be light on its feet as Bill Nighy tries to go off and have a laugh at life. Of course, in contrast the cancer diagnosis hangs heavy. So does this movie make me go “It’s a living!”? No, but in retrospect, maybe it should have.

Grade: 3 Shocked Reactions at a New Hat