I need to confess a bias of mine right from the start, by way of contextualizing a criticism: I love Apple TV+. If I was forced to choose only one streaming service to keep henceforth, I’m 100% serious — it would be the home of Sugar and Slow Horses. But while I’ve found enough Apple original movies on the streamer’s film side to keep me entertained, like the newly released Wolfs, Apple’s dalliance with theatrical distribution seems to have burned it so much that it’s pulling back — which, in turn, has fed into a narrative that the iPhone maker’s streamer is kind of in over its head.
Along those same lines, there’s at least an outside chance that director Steve McQueen’s upcoming World War II film Blitz for Apple, which stars Saoirse Ronan and takes place during the Nazi air raid campaign against London, will get the anti-Apple tongue-waggers fired back up again.
The movie, which is basically about a young boy trying to get back home to his mother (Ronan) during the bombing of London, more or less follows a formula that Apple has been executing on for a while now — to only sporadic success, if we’re honest. Generally, the formula is: Big-name director plus a huge production budget, sumptuous visuals, and (most of the time) a high-concept story of some kind.
McQueen wrote and directed Blitz (in theaters Nov. 1 and on Apple TV+ Nov. 22), which reunites him with production designer Adam Stockhausen (12 Years a Slave), costume designer Jacqueline Durran (Small Axe), and composer Hans Zimmer (12 Years a Slave), also with cinematographer Yorick Le Saux (Little Women) and makeup designer Naomi Donne (No Time to Die). The first reactions to the movie have also just leaked online, and they sound — disappointing, to say the least.
World of Reel has some of the feedback that came from a cast and crew screening that happened over the weekend. And while you’d think the cast and crew would have a rather positive bent toward the thing they just toiled over, that’s not the case here. A sample: “Well, that was disappointing. It’s not an awful movie, or a Joker type of disaster, considering the current discourse. It’s just that expectations for Steve McQueen films are high for me. And despite the compelling and touching story, it didn’t stick with me, and just left a forgettable imprint … Probably his first stain in what is an immaculate filmography for Steve.”
And another: “It breaks my heart to type this review. I wanted to love this movie, being Ronan and McQueen. So clunky. Generic dare I say. It was one of my most anticipated movies of the year, but sadly this is such a let down. It looked amazing but I was not impressed with much else about this film.”
I likewise see a bunch of two- and three-star ratings for Blitz on Letterboxd. In other words, it doesn’t seem like a good start for another big swing from Apple on the feature film front. As much as it pains me to say it, maybe Apple’s decision to pull back on its theatrical ambitions was a sound move. But I want to stress, again, this is not me slamming the service overall. If anything, this feels like a growing pains kind of situation, with Apple figuring out what works, what doesn’t, and responding accordingly.
