MaXXXine review
The team behind X and Pearl is back to finish their trilogy. Like it’s excellent prequel…some things are better off left in the past.
New movie reviews will not contain spoilers.
MaXXXine
Directed by Ti West
Written by Ti West
Starring Mia Goth, Elizabeth Debicki, Moses Sumney, Michelle Monaghan, Bobby Cannavale, Lily Collins and Kevin Bacon
MaXXXine Review
There’s a scene around halfway through MaXXXine that sums up the film as a whole. Maxine Mix (Mia Goth), sole survivor of X, is chased through a studio backlot by John Labat (Kevin Bacon), the P.I. hired to track her down. She ducks into the famous Norman Bates house to hide. On the outside it evokes the greatness and power of horror cinema at its best. On the inside…it’s empty. So it is with Ti West’s X trilogy capper.
Six years have passed since Maxine and friends ran into the murderous Pearl. She’s continued her career in the adult film industry…but feels destined for more. Her big break arrives at the same time her past catches up with her.
You can watch MaXXXine without having seen Pearl. Nevertheless, the X prequel hangs silently over the whole production. This may be a direct sequel to X…with zero focus on any character from the well-received prequel…but Pearl remains the unquestioned measuring stick for the series. MaXXXine falls very, very shot.
Part of that is unavoidable. Despite being played by the same extremely talented actress…Maxine isn’t nearly the character that Pearl is. Pearl is an all-time great horror movie antagonist. MaXXXine is missing that. What it has is style for days and a great cast. What it doesn’t have is a plot worth following or anything interesting to say. It’s like the Bates house. It looks imposing and important…but there’s nothing in there.
The biggest issue comes from the story itself. It takes place as the Night Stalker murders have gripped the area in fear. There’s another serial killer on the loose…and he’s targeting Maxine’s friends. This is played out as a mystery. The killer’s face is hidden…his leather gloved hands let us know he’s afoot. The problem is that it can only be one person. Everyone in the series is long dead aside from Maxine herself. If you’ve seen X you know who is looking for her. There’s no twist on this. It’s an odd choice in a story that barely makes any choices to begin with.
Goth is great, of course. She’s given far less to work with here. What she has is the question of how a final girl exists after she escapes. Even here, MaXXXine seems confused about what it wants to say. Target, avenger, detached bystander, traumatized victim. The movie meanders through how Maxine is dealing until it’s forced to make character choices. It’s not very interested in exploring the psyche of a survivor who finds themselves a target once again.
It’s not interested in commenting on the horror stories of the era it takes place in either. In fact, Aside from some decent shots at the casting process and a good look at the Hollywood sign…MaXXXine doesn’t have much to say about its setting. It serves the purpose of dangling Maxine’s dreams within reach…nothing more. There are some fun kills, of course. Ti West hasn’t forgotten how to make a good-looking horror picture. Some gore effects will surely make mainstream audiences squirm. They may even enjoy the predictable story that plays out. Fans of the first two stops on this trilogy train, however, will wonder what happened here.
Worst of all, Maxine’s quest for fame never feels fully integrated into the plot of the movie. She catches her break immediately. While she has to deal with ghosts of the past as she preps for the part…there is no parallel drawn between this and, say, the length’s Pearl would go to. A missed opportunity that would have been mitigated by a hard push in the opposite direction. That never comes either. Without Maxine giving a possessed push for stardom or, perhaps, giving us a glimpse of what Pearl would have been like had she ever gotten out…the movie, again, doesn’t choose much of anything.
Pearl felt important to the world X created. It deepened our understanding of that film and added emotional resonance to the series. MaXXXine does nothing for the overall picture. The thing it might best be compared with is El Camino. That Breaking Bad sequel movie gave us closure on the Jesse Pinkman character post finale. It was better than MaXXXine…but equally unnecessary as anything more than that closure. Perhaps West and Goth felt they owed Maxine Minx an ending. They really didn’t. At least not the one she gets here. Surviving X was a better finish than she’s afforded in MaXXXine.
Scare Value
Maybe it’s unfair to grade MaXXXine on the curve created by the previous two films in the series. It’s also unavoidable. This is an unqualified disappointment given the high quality of the series thus far. Mia Goth is still terrific. Ti West still understands how to make a striking horror picture. Simply put…the series had nothing left to say.
2.5/5
MaXXXine Link
In theaters now – Fandango
