cult film freak: EDGAR WRIGHT'S SWINGING FLASHBACK 'LAST NIGHT IN SOHO'

Thomasin McKenzie from LAST NIGHT IN SOHO Year: 2021 Rating: *12

In an otherwise ambitious, uniquely original horror/thriller mashup concerning a young female art student thrust back into the legendary Swinging Sixties of the titular Soho, London, Edgar Wright, the most creative director of the last twenty years, whose style is quick, to the point and ferociously clever, relies on lazy dissolves and cop-out fades, and even his usual Tarantinoesque jukebox of groovy deep-cuts all seem forced, vacant, uninspired...

And the two-tier story about our cute modern girl going back to the wild nightlife back in the day has absolutely no connection to each other, and neither seem either relevant or nostalgic... Added to that, the colors aren't vivid and robust like the counter-culture era, and with so much icky-green neon, from yesterday's nightclubs to today's raves, it all resembles Las Vegas in the 1990's... after you've lost...

Thomasin McKenzie from LAST NIGHT IN SOHO with Rita Tushingham

Meanwhile, Wright's antagonistic characters in other movies are ambiguous and interesting: For example, the jerk flatmate in SHAUN OF THE DEAD is a real guy that you actually kind of like; same with the goading "other team" cop creeps in HOT FUZZ or Simon Pegg's bitter college buds from THE WORLD'S END...

But here a group of student girl bullies are as one-dimensional as an Afterschool Special while our otherwise lovely focal point... Thomasin McKenzithe, basically their sole victim (and for no explainable reason), never feels part of a genuine stranger-in-a-strange-land adventure...

Thomasin McKenzie from LAST NIGHT IN SOHO with Anya Taylor-Joy

Visually she resembles a magazine model trying not to resemble a magazine model, and winds up with a standard-looking dolt who'd be better cast as the friend of a friend of a boyfriend: The only reason they hook up is because he's the one fella NOT a psychotic pervert... He does absolutely nothing to win her over but is simply there after she'd already given up on men, and they share ZERO chemistry together, as chums or as lovers...

Meanwhile phantom wild girl Anya Taylor-Joy, who our heroine's mirror-shadowing through the other-dimensional dream-land, is supposed to be a 1960's London version of The Black Dahlia combined with Sharon Tate combined with any name-that-forgotten-female-one-hit-wonder, but she too is as dull and cliche as everyone else on board...

Diana Rigg from LAST NIGHT IN SOHO

Which sadly includes the iconic veteran actors/actresses, all who'd starred in kitchen sink dramas from the era supposedly being celebrated here despite the uncomfortable bad-trip vibe throughout: From Rita Tushingham (A TASTE OF HONEY) to Terrence Stamp (POOR COW) to Diana Rigg (lots of stuff) they all, unlike the elderly lot in HOT FUZZ, have nothing to add and no real purpose...

In fact the entire story, from the new-girl set-up to the nightclub turned brothel murder-mystery to Wright lethargically returning to his safety net of zombie-monster jump-scares, is all but wasted space as if Woody Allen's MIDNIGHT IN PARIS wound up in a pretentious, drug-fueled Narnia... with zero magic and, overall, LAST NIGHT IN SOHO is a complete waste of time and money, for both the audience and the studio.