In any case, “MaXXXine” is a love letter to Los Angeles film.
The third film in this unlikely trilogy (after “X” and “Pearl”) finds Mia Goth’s Maxine Minx in Hollywood in the 1980s. This is not a glamorous existence. She lives in a run-down apartment on Hollywood Boulevard and works around the clock in porn films (every man in town seems to recognize her) and in sex shops. As always, she is maniacally focused on one thing: becoming a star. And despite her sordid background, she’s been given a huge opportunity to star in a studio horror sequel. But her past haunts her and there’s a serial killer on the loose (“The Night Stalker”), both of which seem to be closing in, causing a body count and threatening to derail her big player.
We now know that Maxine will not let anything stand in her way.
Filmmaker Ti West, who also wrote the script, appears to be checking off a well-developed list of “LA movie” must-haves. He has a synthy nightclub scene, a shot of someone falling into a pool, a plaster cast scene and the obligatory costumed extras marching through a studio lot. West has also made sure to really use the city as a location, setting scenes in as many iconic places as possible: the Hollywood Forever Cemetery; The Chinese Theater, before it had the “TCL”; The Walk of Fame; A modernist mansion in the hills; The Bates Motel; And even a golf cart ride through the facades and old town of Universal’s west, which anyone who has taken the “studio tour ride” will recognize.
This is a film packed with great ideas, tributes to the likes of Brian De Palma and David Lynch, campy costumes and set design and memorable supporting performances: Elizabeth Debicki, regal as ever, but this time as a serious English author making ‘B-movies’ . with A ideas” in the Hollywood system; Halsey, utterly delightful as a prototypical brassy “best friend” from ’80s films (somewhere between Laura San Giacomo in “Pretty Woman” and Bess Motta in “Terminator”); Moses Sumney, a voice of the audience as a veteran video clerk with an encyclopedic Lily Collins, who has fun with accents as an emerging scream queen; Kevin Bacon, who also favors an exaggerated accent as a crooked private investigator; Giancarlo Esposito goes low class with a wild wig as a small-time agent/manager/fixer; and Michelle Monaghan and Bobby Cannavale as a pair of bickering homicide detectives.
What it isn’t is especially scary. There are several gruesome murders committed, and yet it all seems more like an overly self-aware horror satire than something that gives you any sense of fear or terror. It checks off the boxes, with gore and variety, but it doesn’t jump off the screen or get under your skin. Instead, it feels a bit routine. Maybe that’s the point? Maxine has seen a lot now and is difficult to rattle; Perhaps that fatigue has been transferred to the audience.
Goth is again compelling as Maxine, especially in a killer audition scene, but her character feels underwritten. She doesn’t get anything as meaty as the monologue at the big dinner table in “Pearl.” Although the camera is focused on her most of the time, the supporting cast seems to have more opportunities to shine.
The very silly climax also has the unintended consequence of diminishing much of what came before it. Is this what we were building towards? Perhaps West and his team leaned a little too heavily on the B-movie/video store aesthetic, wasting the promise of the world they created. And yet you forgive it a little, because as small as it is, and even if its predecessors might have been better, it’s still a good time at the cinema, best enjoyed with an excited audience.
“MaXXXine,” an A24 release in theaters Friday, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association for “strong violence, graphic nudity, gore, drug use, language and sexual content.” Running time: 101 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
