MaXXXine, 2024.
Written and Directed by Ti West.
Starring Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Halsey, Lily Collins, Giancarlo Esposito, Kevin Bacon, Chloe Farnworth, Deborah Geffner, Sophie Thatcher, Cecilia Yesuil, Kim Charley, Rowan McCain, Susan Pingleton, Uli Latukefu, Ned Vaughn, Larry Fessenden, Marcus LaVoi, and Charley Rowan McCain.
SYNOPSIS:
In 1980s Hollywood, adult film star and aspiring actress Maxine Minx finally gets her big break. But as a mysterious killer stalks the starlets of Hollywood, a trail of blood threatens to reveal her sinister past.
MaXXXine was not conceived alongside Ti West’s X and Pearl. It’s an unshakable suspicion I had while watching this film that turned out to be correct (or perhaps something I knew, forgot, and then remembered from being baffled at what was happening on screen.) This third installment in the X-series is disjointed and hollow, desperately hoping to get by on 1980s Hollywood recreation flash, upbeat era-favorite songs, rather tame attempts at sleaze (severely toned down from previous installments, as if to chase a wider audience), and another gripping performance from Mia Goth.
Perhaps Mia Goth also should have collaborated on the screenplay once more, not just because Pearl turned out to be a devastatingly powerful portrait of repression and ambitions of fame, the porn industry during a time when most people nowadays probably didn’t know there was such a scene in the early 1900s, and a collapse of sanity brought on by trauma and shady men. And while I realize Mia Goth felt a closer connection to the Pearl character and didn’t actually contribute to the X screenplay, she still probably should have had a hand in this script because, as is, MaXXXine is a shapeless, structural mishmash that has nowhere near the thematic richness and insight of the first two films.
At one point, a character delivers a throwaway line about B-movies with A-ideas. It could easily be argued that X and Pearl were, yes, genre movies with resonant subtext. However, if that’s the case, MaXXXine is an A in terms of production design with a D- for ideas, content pulling from plot points and references from the other two movies, throwing everything at the wall, and seeing what sticks.
Set roughly six years after the darkly funny yet also sharp X (these movies once had characters with depth), Maxine Minx is in Los Angeles, now making the leap from porn to horror, prepared to one day be a star just like Halloween did for a young and talented Jamie Lee Curtis. The fictional movie she is working on is a sequel, and more interestingly, is helmed by a woman (Elizabeth Debicki), but, as we will get to, MaXXXine is preoccupied with several other plot points, largely forgetting to do anything of note with the concept of women trying to make it in a male-dominated field that was more concerned with what a lead’s breasts looked like rather than representation and empowerment. That’s also not to say it has to, but there isn’t much entertaining about the shoot unless one considers a cheap Bates Motel reference passable.
Instead, the fixation is more on an admittedly amusing cat-and-mouse game between Kevin Bacon’s scenery-chewing private detective, blackmailing Maxine’s future having come into evidence connecting her to some murders in X. He is also working for a Black Dahlia-like serial killer prowling around at night, with an MO for killing aspiring actresses and other women. Despite the occasional moment when Maxine notices that she is being stalked, prompting her to pummel the face of a slimy-looking Kevin Bacon, the narrative often keeps viewers at a remove.
Even when MaXXXine goes for an emotional sequence, it’s more confounding than anything since it comes from a character we have known for about 30 minutes with no real understanding of the bond the person shares with Maxine. Some detectives are also investigating the case (Bobby Cannavale and Michelle Monaghan), playing competent cop-comic relief cop, sometimes bizarrely pushing the proceedings into dramatic territory, insisting that Maxine can do the right thing and save lives. As for the grand reveal, it’s practically nonexistent if you have recently re-watched X or have it in your mind, with the character adding nothing to the story in its broad depiction of Satanic panic.
This comes from someone who adored both X and Pearl and thought that Mia Goth not being in the award conversation for the latter was criminal, further proving that the Academy has an unreasonable bias against the horror genre. Don’t worry, though, no one will be able to say that about MaXXXine; there are no scares here. There is also nothing inherently wrong with switching genres alongside time periods, but MaXXXine has no compelling story or ideas to explore. That’s not to say no one has their heart for this project, as the performances and craftsmanship are highly respectable, but it’s all style and little substance this time around.
To put a spin on a quote from the film, we will not accept a film we don’t deserve. If Ti West is going to continue the X universe (it is left open for more), audiences deserve better.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
