directed by J.J. Abrams
written by J.J. Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt
A bit of personal tragedy kept me from watching (and reviewing) this film immediately upon its release, but even though just about everyone I know has most likley seen the film by now I still want to write how I feel about it.
It's been several decades after the fall of the Galactic Empire. Out of the ashes of the old Empire, a new threat has emerged, the First Order, which has been cutting a swath of destruction across the galaxy in an effort to destroy the newly-reinstated Republic and restore the Empire. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker, the last Jedi knight and one of the architects of the demise of the Empire, has vanished. The First Order, headed by the mysterious Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) is in search of Skywalker, as is the Republic-supported Resistance, who have dispatched their best pilot, Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) to find Skywalker as well. Their searching brings them to the planet Jakku, where Dameron finds out crucial information before the First Order does, but thanks to ensuing chaos he is forced to store it in his trusty robot, BB-8, who then wanders the planet in search of someone who can help get him back to the Resistance. He finds scavenger Rey (Daisy Ridley). Meanwhile, a First Order stormtrooper named FN-2187 (John Boyega), horrified by what he sees during his very first combat mission, becomes the very first stormtrooper to break ranks, a decision that puts him on the path towards meeting Dameron, and later, Rey, but which, more importantly, puts him on a collision course with his former bosses, who are none too pleased with his decision. Amidst all of this, the question of where Skywalker has gone lingers and the threat posed by the First Order and their mysterious boss Snoke (Andy Serkis) looms large.
Given all that's been written about this movie I think it's fair to say that I won't really have anything new to say, especially since the criticism that this movie is basically a rehash of Episodes IV and V has been pretty much done to death by now. Like most people I still enjoyed the movie despite its almost slavish attempt to recapture the magic of the original series that George Lucas squandered with his widely-ridiculed prequels. Like Jurassic World, which played more like a remake of the original Jurassic Park than the direct sequel it actually was, this film borrows so liberally from the original trilogy of films it feels more like a retelling of the old story than its continuation, but the good news is that Abrams does it a lot better than Colin Trevorrow did (which is a little worrying considering that Trevorrow will be taking the director's reins for the third film). At least Abrams and his writers didn't commit some glaring narrative and logical gaffes to drive their movie forward (How did they get DNA from a water dinosaur from amber-encased mosquitoes? How is it so easy to start up a jeep that hasn't been used for two decades? And the list goes on and on...).
For me, what highlighted the shortcomings of this film was the movie that basically got Abrams the job of making it, or his 2009 reboot of the other wildly popular science fiction franchise Star Trek. That movie basically knocked my socks off when I saw it, because I had grown up with the Shatner movies and later, the ones featuring the Next Generation cast, and if I may be honest, Abrams' treatment of the property was a much-need shot in the arm. He basically reinvented the wheel, and the franchise was much the better for it, creative missteps of the follow-up, Star Trek: Into Darkness notwithstanding.
Here, whether it's due to the dictates of Disney or his own self-professed reverence for the Star Wars Universe, Abrams seems deathly afraid of introducing anything fresh to the franchise, though I do give him full marks for making Rey a full-blown action heroine instead of a supporting character. Sure, Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher, who appears here as a general) was a tough cookie in the day, but she always played second fiddle to Luke Skywalker (Mark Hammill, who also makes an appearance) and Han Solo (Harrison Ford, who likewise shows up). Abrams turns that on its head, even though he's effectively just gender-swapping Luke Skywalker with this film.
Apart from Ridley's Rey, though, Abrams has introduced some memorable if not necessarily compelling characters in Boyega's stormtrooper-turned-good-guy Finn and Isaac's Dameron. Finn being the only stormtrooper in the history of the movies to actually turn his back on what is effectively the Empire, to my mind at least, has the potential for being the most interesting new character of the bunch, provided the writers know what to do with him. Dameron is more of a traditional hero complete with wisecracks and a great aim, but Isaac plays him with such charisma I honestly think he could merit his own spinoff film. A minor quibble I have with Isaac is how strange he looks in his X-Wing pilot's helmet. Maybe I just don't like the design in general, though I am a fan of the tweaked design of the X-Wing fighters themselves.
Finally, my biggest beef with this movie has to be Kylo Ren, who was massively hyped in the marketing materials as some kind of Darth-Vader-level menace, but who, all exaggeration aside, turns out to be nothing more than a Darth Vader wannabe. I can say this without spoiling any significant plot developments here, and I have to say that the filmmakers taking over the franchise from Abrams, namely Rian Johnson and the aforementioned Colin Trevorrow, had better give this character some serious tweaking or he will be very difficult to take seriously as the trilogy progresses to its conclusion.
The good news is that this film hits all the notes that Lucas' ill-advised prequel trilogy missed. The bad news, as many have observed, is that it's still very much the same song. Still, as a kickoff to a brand new trilogy, Abrams and his writers could have done a lot worse. What's interesting now is if their successors can take the story into new directions, and I remain cautiously optimistic that they can and will.
8/10
Tuesday, December 29, 2015
Sunday, December 20, 2015
A New Take on a Modern Classic: A Review of The Little Prince
directed by Mark Osborne
written by Irena Brignull and Bob Persichetti
based on the novel by Antoine de St. Exupery
While the entire world is captivated by Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, I have finally found the time to review a brand-new adaptation of a somewhat different cultural icon, Antoine de St. Exupery's The Little Prince.
Directed by Kung Fu Panda director Mark Osborne, this film is the first ever animated adaptation of the classic novel, and faithfully reproduces the narrative, right down to de St. Exupery's wonderful, whimsical illustrations.
Given that the rather brief novel is inherently difficult to stretch out to a feature-length film, however, the screenwirters Irena Brignull and Bob Persichetti add another layer to the narrative.
In this film, the aviator/narrator of the book is a strange, lonely old man (voiced by Jeff Bridges) whose antics make him a difficult neighbor to live with, as a result the immediately adjacent house to his plummets in value and becomes the perfect residence for an upwardly mobile mother (Rachel McAdams) and her daughter (Mackenzie Foy), especially since it is near the exclusive prep school in which the mother wishes to enroll her daughter. The daughter lives a highly-regimented life with a very strict schedule designed to get her into the prep school, and at first, the old man and his eccentricities, such as an incident in which a propeller from his airplane smashes clear through the house wall, are an unwelcome distraction, but as the old man, in a peace gesture, begins to send the little girl paper airplanes which are folded up pages of a story with whimsical illustrations about a strange little prince, she changes her mind about him and, while her mother is off at work, befriends him. In the course of this friendship, she hears the aviator's extraordinary story about the time he was stranded in the Sahara desert, and met a strange little boy (Riley Osborne) who lived on an asteroid. It's a very interesting a story, to be sure, and before it's over the little girl discovers the importance of being a child.
For me, the tragedy of this movie (not the story) in this particular market is twofold: first, The Little Prince is not a particularly popular book in the Philippines, and second this film was destined to be overshadowed by the two tentpole films between which it was released: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II and Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. The American distributor of this film, Paramount Pictures, was somewhat cannier as they have scheduled its release for a relatively uncrowded March of next year. My children and I were among ten people in the movie theater at the time we watched it.
Whatever its eventual fate at the global box office, this is a masterfully-realized film, which is almost on par with some of Disney/Pixar's best output.
While the "modern day" framing device helps keep the story moving, it's the Prince's otherworldly adventures, and his interaction with the youthful pilot and his other colorful supporting cast like the Rose (Marion Cotillard), the Fox (James Franco), the Snake (Benicio del Toro), and the inhabitants of the various asteroids he visits (Albert Brooks, Ricky Gervais among others), that matter most, and Osborne's use of stop-motion to depict these scenes is wonderfully innovative and reminiscent of craft paper and contrasts wonderfully with the more "traditional" computer-generated imagery. The all-star cast of supporting actors disappear into their roles, and it was only at the end credits that I realized who they were, and it was equally impressive that Riley Osborne was able to hold his own. The director's choice of his son to dub the title-character raised my eyebrow at first, but to be fair the younger Osborne proved a very capable voice actor who captured the spirit of this timeless character. Mackenzie Foy, the actress behind the nameless "hero girl" is more talented than Osborne and has both more "voice time" and the arguably greater challenge of making her scenes, which are rendered with very little color and which are meant to depict a bland world in which what is "non-essential" is discarded, more engaging.
Notably, the movie challenges the ending of the book, which I'm sure many readers over the years have found anticlimactic, in the form of an interesting sequence that may or may not be a dream. Osborne the elder cleverly leaves it up to the audience to decide, though the actual ending of the film leaves no room for doubt that this is an thoroughly satisfying movie.
I don't claim to know St. Exupery, but I like to think he would love this adaptation of his wonderful novel.
9/10
written by Irena Brignull and Bob Persichetti
based on the novel by Antoine de St. Exupery
While the entire world is captivated by Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, I have finally found the time to review a brand-new adaptation of a somewhat different cultural icon, Antoine de St. Exupery's The Little Prince.
Directed by Kung Fu Panda director Mark Osborne, this film is the first ever animated adaptation of the classic novel, and faithfully reproduces the narrative, right down to de St. Exupery's wonderful, whimsical illustrations.
Given that the rather brief novel is inherently difficult to stretch out to a feature-length film, however, the screenwirters Irena Brignull and Bob Persichetti add another layer to the narrative.
In this film, the aviator/narrator of the book is a strange, lonely old man (voiced by Jeff Bridges) whose antics make him a difficult neighbor to live with, as a result the immediately adjacent house to his plummets in value and becomes the perfect residence for an upwardly mobile mother (Rachel McAdams) and her daughter (Mackenzie Foy), especially since it is near the exclusive prep school in which the mother wishes to enroll her daughter. The daughter lives a highly-regimented life with a very strict schedule designed to get her into the prep school, and at first, the old man and his eccentricities, such as an incident in which a propeller from his airplane smashes clear through the house wall, are an unwelcome distraction, but as the old man, in a peace gesture, begins to send the little girl paper airplanes which are folded up pages of a story with whimsical illustrations about a strange little prince, she changes her mind about him and, while her mother is off at work, befriends him. In the course of this friendship, she hears the aviator's extraordinary story about the time he was stranded in the Sahara desert, and met a strange little boy (Riley Osborne) who lived on an asteroid. It's a very interesting a story, to be sure, and before it's over the little girl discovers the importance of being a child.
For me, the tragedy of this movie (not the story) in this particular market is twofold: first, The Little Prince is not a particularly popular book in the Philippines, and second this film was destined to be overshadowed by the two tentpole films between which it was released: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part II and Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens. The American distributor of this film, Paramount Pictures, was somewhat cannier as they have scheduled its release for a relatively uncrowded March of next year. My children and I were among ten people in the movie theater at the time we watched it.
Whatever its eventual fate at the global box office, this is a masterfully-realized film, which is almost on par with some of Disney/Pixar's best output.
While the "modern day" framing device helps keep the story moving, it's the Prince's otherworldly adventures, and his interaction with the youthful pilot and his other colorful supporting cast like the Rose (Marion Cotillard), the Fox (James Franco), the Snake (Benicio del Toro), and the inhabitants of the various asteroids he visits (Albert Brooks, Ricky Gervais among others), that matter most, and Osborne's use of stop-motion to depict these scenes is wonderfully innovative and reminiscent of craft paper and contrasts wonderfully with the more "traditional" computer-generated imagery. The all-star cast of supporting actors disappear into their roles, and it was only at the end credits that I realized who they were, and it was equally impressive that Riley Osborne was able to hold his own. The director's choice of his son to dub the title-character raised my eyebrow at first, but to be fair the younger Osborne proved a very capable voice actor who captured the spirit of this timeless character. Mackenzie Foy, the actress behind the nameless "hero girl" is more talented than Osborne and has both more "voice time" and the arguably greater challenge of making her scenes, which are rendered with very little color and which are meant to depict a bland world in which what is "non-essential" is discarded, more engaging.
Notably, the movie challenges the ending of the book, which I'm sure many readers over the years have found anticlimactic, in the form of an interesting sequence that may or may not be a dream. Osborne the elder cleverly leaves it up to the audience to decide, though the actual ending of the film leaves no room for doubt that this is an thoroughly satisfying movie.
I don't claim to know St. Exupery, but I like to think he would love this adaptation of his wonderful novel.
9/10
Monday, November 30, 2015
A Dinosaur...Western?!? A Review of A Good Dinosaur
directed by Peter Sohn
written by Meg LeFauve, Peter Sohn, Erik Benson, Kelsey Mann and Bob Peterson
When Pixar started marketing its new film The Good Dinosaur a few months ago, the trailer called a lot of attention to the "what if" premise of the extinction of dinosaurs never actually taking place, paving the way for a world where humans and dinosaurs could co-exist. Unfortunately, apparently the only thing Pixar really wanted to do with that heady premise was turn dinosaurs into cowboys and humans into dogs. No, really.
As unlikely as this may sound, The Good Dinosaur while being a coming-of-age film about a young apatosaur, actually plays out, in terms of atmosphere, script and even music, like a Western.
It is the story of Arlo (voiced by Raymond Ochoa), the smallest of three dinosaur siblings born to a loving couple of dinosaur farmers (Jeffrey Wright and Frances McDormand). As Arlo and his siblings Buck (Marcus Scribner) and Libby (Maleah Padilla) grow, the two of them prove very capable around the farm, while he struggles with his chore of feeding the chickens largely because he is afraid of them. Both Buck and Libby are able to "make their mark" on the family's grain silo or put their footprints in mud alongside the marks of their parents, but Arlo, at the beginning of the film, has apparently not yet earned the right to do so.
Wanting to help his son, the father dinosaur comes up with a task for him: kill the creature that has been stealing grain from the silo. The task goes awry, and tragedy ensues as a rainstorm and flash flood hit. Arlo finds himself separated from his family and far from home. What follows is a journey of discovery, peril, courage and unexpected friendship.
Following their finest original film in years, Inside Out, perhaps there was some inevitability that their next film would disappoint, but even careful management of expectations could not dispel the distinct impression that Pixar made The Good Dinosaur more as a way of sharpening their technical skills than as the celebration of the art of storytelling that their very best movies are.
On a technical level, this film is utterly beyond reproach and I could swear that, time and time again, I was sure I was looking at an actual, filmed environment rather than an animated one.
In terms of story and character development, though, the film comes conspicuously short of the kind of excellence viewers have come to expect from Pixar, especially after their last, pitch-perfect movie. It leans on one narrative cliche after another, and while it effectively turns the premise of anthropomorphism on its head, there's nothing else about it that's particularly remarkable.
It really is a technical marvel, even though I wasn't particularly fond of the cartoony design of the dinosaurs. I realize that a more realistic look for them could have alienated children, who were quite clearly the target audience here, but the hyper-realistic environments, which even included meticulously rendered storm clouds and flood waters, seemed distinctly incongruous with the stylized characters. Pixar has done this before, of course; its characters have inhabited meticulously-rendered worlds like the retro-futuristic environs of The Incredibles or even the fantastic, Monte Carlo-inspired, European coastal city depicted in the narrative disaster Cars 2. The thing about this movie, though is that it takes realistic animated environments to the next level, and yet is content to tell a very ordinary story using some truly extraordinary techniques. Another technical achievement worth mentioning is Mychael and Jeff Danna's striking music score which, while reminiscent of some pretty conventional "western" themes, still manages to be emotionally resonant.
The movie trots out so many story tropes in succession that it gets rather tedious after awhile, though I'll readily admit I got a good laugh out of the "drug trip" scene in which the two main characters hallucinate after eating rotten fruit.
The "cowboy dinosaur" element was pretty novel, though, especially the scene where three tyrannosaurus rexes, who are this world's cowboys to the apatosaurus' farmers, ran; they basically galloped and it was pretty amusing to watch. Sam Elliott is always a treat, even when he's just lending his vocals, and he was quite well cast here as the patriarch of a family of t-rex cowboys.
This film takes the visual aspect of animated storytelling to another level, but unfortunately, this time at least, the more important elements of storytelling were left by the wayside, which is odd, considering how much doctoring the script underwent.
For my part, I hope that in Pixar's future movies featuring their patented brilliant storytelling, the environs are given this much detail. The viewing experience is much richer for it.
Incidentally, the short film that opened for this film, Sanjay's Super Team, which featured Indian deities as superheroes, was a lot more interesting than the main feature, and considering its distinctly Asian storytelling flavor it makes me wonder if Pixar isn't ready to take a significant step in a new creative direction. It was also given a sublime music score by Mychael Danna (sans brother Jeff) which hearkened back to his Academy-Award winning work on Life of Pi.
6.5/10
9/10 for Sanjay's Super Team
written by Meg LeFauve, Peter Sohn, Erik Benson, Kelsey Mann and Bob Peterson
When Pixar started marketing its new film The Good Dinosaur a few months ago, the trailer called a lot of attention to the "what if" premise of the extinction of dinosaurs never actually taking place, paving the way for a world where humans and dinosaurs could co-exist. Unfortunately, apparently the only thing Pixar really wanted to do with that heady premise was turn dinosaurs into cowboys and humans into dogs. No, really.
As unlikely as this may sound, The Good Dinosaur while being a coming-of-age film about a young apatosaur, actually plays out, in terms of atmosphere, script and even music, like a Western.
It is the story of Arlo (voiced by Raymond Ochoa), the smallest of three dinosaur siblings born to a loving couple of dinosaur farmers (Jeffrey Wright and Frances McDormand). As Arlo and his siblings Buck (Marcus Scribner) and Libby (Maleah Padilla) grow, the two of them prove very capable around the farm, while he struggles with his chore of feeding the chickens largely because he is afraid of them. Both Buck and Libby are able to "make their mark" on the family's grain silo or put their footprints in mud alongside the marks of their parents, but Arlo, at the beginning of the film, has apparently not yet earned the right to do so.
Wanting to help his son, the father dinosaur comes up with a task for him: kill the creature that has been stealing grain from the silo. The task goes awry, and tragedy ensues as a rainstorm and flash flood hit. Arlo finds himself separated from his family and far from home. What follows is a journey of discovery, peril, courage and unexpected friendship.
Following their finest original film in years, Inside Out, perhaps there was some inevitability that their next film would disappoint, but even careful management of expectations could not dispel the distinct impression that Pixar made The Good Dinosaur more as a way of sharpening their technical skills than as the celebration of the art of storytelling that their very best movies are.
On a technical level, this film is utterly beyond reproach and I could swear that, time and time again, I was sure I was looking at an actual, filmed environment rather than an animated one.
In terms of story and character development, though, the film comes conspicuously short of the kind of excellence viewers have come to expect from Pixar, especially after their last, pitch-perfect movie. It leans on one narrative cliche after another, and while it effectively turns the premise of anthropomorphism on its head, there's nothing else about it that's particularly remarkable.
It really is a technical marvel, even though I wasn't particularly fond of the cartoony design of the dinosaurs. I realize that a more realistic look for them could have alienated children, who were quite clearly the target audience here, but the hyper-realistic environments, which even included meticulously rendered storm clouds and flood waters, seemed distinctly incongruous with the stylized characters. Pixar has done this before, of course; its characters have inhabited meticulously-rendered worlds like the retro-futuristic environs of The Incredibles or even the fantastic, Monte Carlo-inspired, European coastal city depicted in the narrative disaster Cars 2. The thing about this movie, though is that it takes realistic animated environments to the next level, and yet is content to tell a very ordinary story using some truly extraordinary techniques. Another technical achievement worth mentioning is Mychael and Jeff Danna's striking music score which, while reminiscent of some pretty conventional "western" themes, still manages to be emotionally resonant.
The movie trots out so many story tropes in succession that it gets rather tedious after awhile, though I'll readily admit I got a good laugh out of the "drug trip" scene in which the two main characters hallucinate after eating rotten fruit.
The "cowboy dinosaur" element was pretty novel, though, especially the scene where three tyrannosaurus rexes, who are this world's cowboys to the apatosaurus' farmers, ran; they basically galloped and it was pretty amusing to watch. Sam Elliott is always a treat, even when he's just lending his vocals, and he was quite well cast here as the patriarch of a family of t-rex cowboys.
This film takes the visual aspect of animated storytelling to another level, but unfortunately, this time at least, the more important elements of storytelling were left by the wayside, which is odd, considering how much doctoring the script underwent.
For my part, I hope that in Pixar's future movies featuring their patented brilliant storytelling, the environs are given this much detail. The viewing experience is much richer for it.
Incidentally, the short film that opened for this film, Sanjay's Super Team, which featured Indian deities as superheroes, was a lot more interesting than the main feature, and considering its distinctly Asian storytelling flavor it makes me wonder if Pixar isn't ready to take a significant step in a new creative direction. It was also given a sublime music score by Mychael Danna (sans brother Jeff) which hearkened back to his Academy-Award winning work on Life of Pi.
6.5/10
9/10 for Sanjay's Super Team
Sunday, November 15, 2015
Turning Back the Clock: A Review of Spectre
directed by Sam Mendes
written by John Logan, Robert Wade, Neil Purvis and Jez Butterworth
After three movies in which Daniel Craig channeled Jason Bourne when playing cinematic superspy James Bond, in Spectre, the latest (reportedly Craig's last) outing, he trades in the brass-knuckle brutality of Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and even Skyfall for a decidedly more traditional take on the character.
Following the events of Skyfall, Bond tracks down an Italian assassin to Mexico City, where he prevents a mass murder but causes an international incident in the process. This, however, is only the beginning, as the assassin, as Bond soon discovers after observing his funeral and meeting his widow (Monica Bellucci), is part of a much larger and more sinister organization than Bond could have ever imagined, one that has direct links to the villains he has faced since the very beginning of his career. As Bond investigates, he eavesdrops on a meeting presided over by Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz), a man with direct ties to Bond's past. In the meantime, MI6, which was physically destroyed in Skyfall, now faces complete annihilation with the arrival of C (Andrew Scott), a bureaucrat determined to replace the 00 program with electronic surveillance and drones, much to the irritation of M (Ralph Fiennes). These threats converge quite swiftly, and Bond soon learns from an old adversary of his, Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) the foe he faces is bigger than he could imagine, especially after they sic a larger-than-life henchman, Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista) on him. It will take all of Bond's skill, with a helping hand from M, Q (Ben Winshaw) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and even Mr. White's daughter, Dr.Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), to defeat Spectre, but will it be enough?
There are a couple of things clear from this particular film, probably the foremost being director Sam Mendes' fondness for the franchise and in particular the kitsch that characterized the earliest films. I suppose one could say he's earned the right to take the franchise in whatever direction he sees fit; whether or not one loved or hated Skyfall (and I happened to like it quite a bit) it was, hands down, the most globally successful James Bond movie ever. Also, the gritty approach doesn't always work out for the best, as the creative misstep Quantum of Solace showed. The thing is, I'm not sure "retro" was the way to go, especially since this appears to be Craig's swansong to the franchise.
The old Bond touches abound, like the tricked out Omega watch, the Aston Martin with an ejector seat and the indestructible henchman, to name a few. I was a little disappointed with the much-hyped Aston Martin vs. Jaguar duel; it lacked the intensity that a really good car chase should have. The thing is, considering that there was quite a bit of humor involved in the sequence I get the impression that it wasn't really played so much for thrills as it was for laughs. Maybe they had a deal with Aston Martin to show Bond's car drifting in slow motion so that audiences (and potential AM buyers) could get a good look at the product, even though the DB10 depicted here will never be sold in stores.
The good news, though, is that there are still generous helpings of well-executed action elsewhere in the film, like the incredible opening action sequence in Mexico City which was ushered in by one of the most extraordinary single, uncut shots I've seen in recent years as well as some pretty intense fighting sequences in Austria and on-board a train trundling across Africa. While James Bond films, especially the more recent ones, are cultural events of a sort, Mendes remembers that this is still, first and foremost, an action film, and in that respect, Spectre delivers.
The thing that disappoints a bit, though is that Bond films have, since Craig came on board, tended to be smarter than this, and this film feels like a bit of a step back, though I did appreciate the elegant Monica Bellucci in her glorified cameo, and even Seydoux as the feisty, sexy Swann. Fiennes, Winshaw and Harris all play their supporting roles quite well, and get their own action sequence, something unheard of in the Connery days, but Scott disappoints as C, and even more shockingly, Waltz fails to bring Oberhauser to the level of Javier Bardem's batshit-crazy ex-spy Silva, due in no small part to some rather weak scripting.
For example, I loved Silva's opening soliloquy in the scene in which he was introduced in Skyfall, telling Bond an anecdote about rats eating coconut, and quite honestly, Oberhauser doesn't have anything like that; rather, he spouts some generic spiel about conquering the world through information technology, with parts of his shtick even lifted from Silva's technobabble from the last film. It was all right, but I honestly would have expected more from Waltz, whose work I have enjoyed, even when he was just lending his voice to a cartoon character in 2013's Epic.
This isn't the strongest of the Craig bonds, but if nothing else, at least it wasn't the hot narrative mess that Quantum of Solace fell into after that stellar pre-credits car chase. If this indeed proves to be Daniel Craig's last outing as James Bond, it isn't the worst way he could have gone, but in my opinion he could have gone out so much better.
6.5/10
written by John Logan, Robert Wade, Neil Purvis and Jez Butterworth
After three movies in which Daniel Craig channeled Jason Bourne when playing cinematic superspy James Bond, in Spectre, the latest (reportedly Craig's last) outing, he trades in the brass-knuckle brutality of Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace and even Skyfall for a decidedly more traditional take on the character.
Following the events of Skyfall, Bond tracks down an Italian assassin to Mexico City, where he prevents a mass murder but causes an international incident in the process. This, however, is only the beginning, as the assassin, as Bond soon discovers after observing his funeral and meeting his widow (Monica Bellucci), is part of a much larger and more sinister organization than Bond could have ever imagined, one that has direct links to the villains he has faced since the very beginning of his career. As Bond investigates, he eavesdrops on a meeting presided over by Franz Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz), a man with direct ties to Bond's past. In the meantime, MI6, which was physically destroyed in Skyfall, now faces complete annihilation with the arrival of C (Andrew Scott), a bureaucrat determined to replace the 00 program with electronic surveillance and drones, much to the irritation of M (Ralph Fiennes). These threats converge quite swiftly, and Bond soon learns from an old adversary of his, Mr. White (Jesper Christensen) the foe he faces is bigger than he could imagine, especially after they sic a larger-than-life henchman, Mr. Hinx (Dave Bautista) on him. It will take all of Bond's skill, with a helping hand from M, Q (Ben Winshaw) and Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) and even Mr. White's daughter, Dr.Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), to defeat Spectre, but will it be enough?
There are a couple of things clear from this particular film, probably the foremost being director Sam Mendes' fondness for the franchise and in particular the kitsch that characterized the earliest films. I suppose one could say he's earned the right to take the franchise in whatever direction he sees fit; whether or not one loved or hated Skyfall (and I happened to like it quite a bit) it was, hands down, the most globally successful James Bond movie ever. Also, the gritty approach doesn't always work out for the best, as the creative misstep Quantum of Solace showed. The thing is, I'm not sure "retro" was the way to go, especially since this appears to be Craig's swansong to the franchise.
The old Bond touches abound, like the tricked out Omega watch, the Aston Martin with an ejector seat and the indestructible henchman, to name a few. I was a little disappointed with the much-hyped Aston Martin vs. Jaguar duel; it lacked the intensity that a really good car chase should have. The thing is, considering that there was quite a bit of humor involved in the sequence I get the impression that it wasn't really played so much for thrills as it was for laughs. Maybe they had a deal with Aston Martin to show Bond's car drifting in slow motion so that audiences (and potential AM buyers) could get a good look at the product, even though the DB10 depicted here will never be sold in stores.
The good news, though, is that there are still generous helpings of well-executed action elsewhere in the film, like the incredible opening action sequence in Mexico City which was ushered in by one of the most extraordinary single, uncut shots I've seen in recent years as well as some pretty intense fighting sequences in Austria and on-board a train trundling across Africa. While James Bond films, especially the more recent ones, are cultural events of a sort, Mendes remembers that this is still, first and foremost, an action film, and in that respect, Spectre delivers.
The thing that disappoints a bit, though is that Bond films have, since Craig came on board, tended to be smarter than this, and this film feels like a bit of a step back, though I did appreciate the elegant Monica Bellucci in her glorified cameo, and even Seydoux as the feisty, sexy Swann. Fiennes, Winshaw and Harris all play their supporting roles quite well, and get their own action sequence, something unheard of in the Connery days, but Scott disappoints as C, and even more shockingly, Waltz fails to bring Oberhauser to the level of Javier Bardem's batshit-crazy ex-spy Silva, due in no small part to some rather weak scripting.
For example, I loved Silva's opening soliloquy in the scene in which he was introduced in Skyfall, telling Bond an anecdote about rats eating coconut, and quite honestly, Oberhauser doesn't have anything like that; rather, he spouts some generic spiel about conquering the world through information technology, with parts of his shtick even lifted from Silva's technobabble from the last film. It was all right, but I honestly would have expected more from Waltz, whose work I have enjoyed, even when he was just lending his voice to a cartoon character in 2013's Epic.
This isn't the strongest of the Craig bonds, but if nothing else, at least it wasn't the hot narrative mess that Quantum of Solace fell into after that stellar pre-credits car chase. If this indeed proves to be Daniel Craig's last outing as James Bond, it isn't the worst way he could have gone, but in my opinion he could have gone out so much better.
6.5/10
Sunday, November 8, 2015
Jack Black in Glasses: A Review of Goosebumps
directed by Rob Letterman
written by Darren Lemke, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski
I was never an avid follower of R.L. Stine's popular Goosebumps series of young adult horror books, so I had very little invested in this movie going in, apart from rather expensive ticket which promised unlimited popcorn (and, to be fair, delivered). The movie actually doesn't adapt any of his books but follows the unusual (but not unheard of) narrative strategy of being set in a world in which people have read the books, with the author himself (played by Black) being a character in the story.
Black's Stine, though, is more of a supporting character in the story of Zach (Dylan Minette) a high school age youth who moves to a new town with his mother (Amy Ryan) following the death of his father. His only friends are Champ (Ryan Lee) and his mysterious neighbor Hannah (Odeya Rush), who turns out to be the daughter of the reclusive Stine. After seeing Stine shout at his daughter through their window on a number of occasions, Zach suspects domestic abuse is going on and calls the police. When Stine convinces the small town police that nothing is amiss, Zach takes matters into his own hands, tricks Stine into leaving, breaks into his house with Champ's help, and finds something he doesn't quite expect, and, without knowing it, unleashes something terrifying on the town from the very pages of Stine's books. He'll need the help of Hannah, Champ and Stine himself to stop the monstrous rampage that follows.
This film really doesn't have a whole lot going for it, from its Logan-Lerman-clone of a lead to its treasure trove of cliche characters to its bargain-basement, barely-better-than-TV-movie computer-generated imagery, but it does have something that I really got into: Jack Black acting completely against type. With a few tweaks and outright exceptions (like his family friendly turns in Dreamworks cartoons, and his Mexican wrestler in Nacho Libre), Jack Black has basically played the same guy since the year 2000, namely Barry from High Fidelity, so to see him change gears like this is a real treat. He doesn't play Stine with condescension or caricature but, surprisingly, gives him some genuine emotional resonance, even amidst the comedy that drives the film. It's nice to see Black star in a comedy without delivering the loudest performance. That distinction goes to Lee, though barring any star-making turns after this I don't really see him breaking out.
Also, the movie has a few worthwhile things to say about the importance of human relationships, though ironically enough it betrays it premise slightly as far as the obligatory love story is concerned.
I would not recommend for anyone to go out of their way to see this movie, but it is a decent enough time-killer.
6/10
written by Darren Lemke, Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski
I was never an avid follower of R.L. Stine's popular Goosebumps series of young adult horror books, so I had very little invested in this movie going in, apart from rather expensive ticket which promised unlimited popcorn (and, to be fair, delivered). The movie actually doesn't adapt any of his books but follows the unusual (but not unheard of) narrative strategy of being set in a world in which people have read the books, with the author himself (played by Black) being a character in the story.
Black's Stine, though, is more of a supporting character in the story of Zach (Dylan Minette) a high school age youth who moves to a new town with his mother (Amy Ryan) following the death of his father. His only friends are Champ (Ryan Lee) and his mysterious neighbor Hannah (Odeya Rush), who turns out to be the daughter of the reclusive Stine. After seeing Stine shout at his daughter through their window on a number of occasions, Zach suspects domestic abuse is going on and calls the police. When Stine convinces the small town police that nothing is amiss, Zach takes matters into his own hands, tricks Stine into leaving, breaks into his house with Champ's help, and finds something he doesn't quite expect, and, without knowing it, unleashes something terrifying on the town from the very pages of Stine's books. He'll need the help of Hannah, Champ and Stine himself to stop the monstrous rampage that follows.
This film really doesn't have a whole lot going for it, from its Logan-Lerman-clone of a lead to its treasure trove of cliche characters to its bargain-basement, barely-better-than-TV-movie computer-generated imagery, but it does have something that I really got into: Jack Black acting completely against type. With a few tweaks and outright exceptions (like his family friendly turns in Dreamworks cartoons, and his Mexican wrestler in Nacho Libre), Jack Black has basically played the same guy since the year 2000, namely Barry from High Fidelity, so to see him change gears like this is a real treat. He doesn't play Stine with condescension or caricature but, surprisingly, gives him some genuine emotional resonance, even amidst the comedy that drives the film. It's nice to see Black star in a comedy without delivering the loudest performance. That distinction goes to Lee, though barring any star-making turns after this I don't really see him breaking out.
Also, the movie has a few worthwhile things to say about the importance of human relationships, though ironically enough it betrays it premise slightly as far as the obligatory love story is concerned.
I would not recommend for anyone to go out of their way to see this movie, but it is a decent enough time-killer.
6/10
Monday, October 12, 2015
Top of His Game: A Review of The Martian (Mild Spoilers)
directed by Ridley Scott
written by Drew Goddard
While Ridley Scott has been a bit of a geek icon since 1979, when he rocked the world with Alien, I confessed I had not "discovered" him until I watched the multiple-Oscar-winning epic Gladiator, a film that basically blew me away. I enjoyed a couple of his movies after that, like 2001's gritty Black Hawk Down, and 2007's American Gangster, but by and large I did not really consider myself a fan, especially after I watched the underwhelming, yet much ballyhooed Prometheus.
With The Martian, however, he's pretty much won me over all over again.
Mark Watney (Matt Damon), a botanist, is part of Aries III, a manned mission to Mars led by Commander Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain). When a storm threatens the safety of their mission, the team which includes astronauts Beck (Sebastian Stan), Martinez (Michael Pena), Vogel (Askell Hennie) and Johannson retreat to their shuttle, but Watney is struck by flying equipment and lost in the storm, forcing Lewis and the rest of the team to leave him for dead. Watney does survive, and sets about the process of staying alive by maximizing his resources, particularly food and water at the Mars "Hab" or habitat, even growing his own food using existing potatoes and his own feces in order to buy him as much time as possible while he figures out his next move, the most sensible of which, of course, is to try and contact NASA. As it turns out, NASA, after a very public ceremony declaring Watney dead and burying him, is in the process of planning the next mission, when one of their technicians in mission control Mindy Park (Mackenzie Davis), looks at satellite photos directly above the Hab, and calls her boss, mission director Vincent Kapoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) to have a look. Kapoor concludes that Watney is alive, and he and several other high-level NASA officers, including fellow mission director Mitch Henderson (Sean Bean), Jet Propulsion Labs director Bruce Ng (Benedict Wong), NASA spokesperson Annie Montrose (Kristen Wiig) and NASA director Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels), who broke the erroneous news of Watney's death to the world, start putting their heads together as to what can be done to save him. Meanwhile, the crew of Aries III continue their forlorn trip home, unaware of their teammate's survival and unaware that they may yet be able to save his life. Watney's ingenuity and skills as a botanist count for quite a lot in helping keep him alive, but the clock is ticking.
This movie is the third astronauts-in-peril movie churned out by Hollywood in as many years, and while I missed last year's Interstellar, I can quite happily say that this film holds up quite well against the first film in this bunch, the very popular, award-winning Gravity. There isn't quite the sense of urgency about this film that characterized Gravity considering that Watney isn't plummeting to earth as Sandra Bullock's character was, but there is a genuine sense of the peril Watney faces, and because there he isn't plunging down to earth a large part of that is down to Scott's direction and his actors' ability to build tension. Compared to Gravity, a substantial portion of this film is basically a bunch of talking heads, or in the case of Watney, one guy talking to a camera, and it is therefore the actors' job to sell to the audience the notion that this man is in mortal peril, and to the full credit of Scott, his cast and his crew, they do a bang-up job, especially Damon.
Now, Mark Watney isn't the Fed Ex guy that Tom Hanks played in Cast Away, and Damon smartly steers clear of a performance that could really spill into schmaltz, and it was really a pleasant surprise to see how much humor both Damon and screenwriter Drew Goddard (a bit of a burgeoning geek god himself) were able to inject into the role. Anyone who's seen Matt Damon on talk shows would know he's a pretty funny guy, so he's no stranger to humor onscreen, but for him to convince the audience of Watney's dire straits while at the same time elicit some genuine laughs is a considerable challenge,and kudos to Mr. Damon for hurdling it. Speaking of Goddard and his geek credentials, geeks should flip at one particular metafictional (I hope I'm using the term correctly) reference in the film. Also, the fact that Sebastian Stan and Michael Pena are veterans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe makes it particularly amusing when a Marvel character is explicitly mentioned.
The Martian certainly isn't the technical tour de force that Gravity was, but perhaps that's a good thing as the minimalist visual effects really give the performers the opportunity to shine here. I would also consider it high praise for the VFX technicians that the effects shots that do feature in the film are quite unobtrusive and propel the story forward rather than call any attention to themselves. That, after all, is what effects shots are supposed to do. On a technical level, this film was, for me, beyond reproach.
This movie is one of those life-affirming affairs that feels like such a rare thing in a pop-culture environment in which a seemingly increasing number of people insist that movies cannot be good unless they're "dark." It feels somewhat ironic that this movie was given to audiences by a man who kicked off his career with some unrelentingly dark films like Alien and Blade Runner, but I think it's a pretty welcome change of pace for Scott and I quite honestly wouldn't mind seeing more movies like this from him.
9/10
written by Drew Goddard
While Ridley Scott has been a bit of a geek icon since 1979, when he rocked the world with Alien, I confessed I had not "discovered" him until I watched the multiple-Oscar-winning epic Gladiator, a film that basically blew me away. I enjoyed a couple of his movies after that, like 2001's gritty Black Hawk Down, and 2007's American Gangster, but by and large I did not really consider myself a fan, especially after I watched the underwhelming, yet much ballyhooed Prometheus.
With The Martian, however, he's pretty much won me over all over again.
Mark Watney (Matt Damon), a botanist, is part of Aries III, a manned mission to Mars led by Commander Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain). When a storm threatens the safety of their mission, the team which includes astronauts Beck (Sebastian Stan), Martinez (Michael Pena), Vogel (Askell Hennie) and Johannson retreat to their shuttle, but Watney is struck by flying equipment and lost in the storm, forcing Lewis and the rest of the team to leave him for dead. Watney does survive, and sets about the process of staying alive by maximizing his resources, particularly food and water at the Mars "Hab" or habitat, even growing his own food using existing potatoes and his own feces in order to buy him as much time as possible while he figures out his next move, the most sensible of which, of course, is to try and contact NASA. As it turns out, NASA, after a very public ceremony declaring Watney dead and burying him, is in the process of planning the next mission, when one of their technicians in mission control Mindy Park (Mackenzie Davis), looks at satellite photos directly above the Hab, and calls her boss, mission director Vincent Kapoor (Chiwetel Ejiofor) to have a look. Kapoor concludes that Watney is alive, and he and several other high-level NASA officers, including fellow mission director Mitch Henderson (Sean Bean), Jet Propulsion Labs director Bruce Ng (Benedict Wong), NASA spokesperson Annie Montrose (Kristen Wiig) and NASA director Teddy Sanders (Jeff Daniels), who broke the erroneous news of Watney's death to the world, start putting their heads together as to what can be done to save him. Meanwhile, the crew of Aries III continue their forlorn trip home, unaware of their teammate's survival and unaware that they may yet be able to save his life. Watney's ingenuity and skills as a botanist count for quite a lot in helping keep him alive, but the clock is ticking.
This movie is the third astronauts-in-peril movie churned out by Hollywood in as many years, and while I missed last year's Interstellar, I can quite happily say that this film holds up quite well against the first film in this bunch, the very popular, award-winning Gravity. There isn't quite the sense of urgency about this film that characterized Gravity considering that Watney isn't plummeting to earth as Sandra Bullock's character was, but there is a genuine sense of the peril Watney faces, and because there he isn't plunging down to earth a large part of that is down to Scott's direction and his actors' ability to build tension. Compared to Gravity, a substantial portion of this film is basically a bunch of talking heads, or in the case of Watney, one guy talking to a camera, and it is therefore the actors' job to sell to the audience the notion that this man is in mortal peril, and to the full credit of Scott, his cast and his crew, they do a bang-up job, especially Damon.
Now, Mark Watney isn't the Fed Ex guy that Tom Hanks played in Cast Away, and Damon smartly steers clear of a performance that could really spill into schmaltz, and it was really a pleasant surprise to see how much humor both Damon and screenwriter Drew Goddard (a bit of a burgeoning geek god himself) were able to inject into the role. Anyone who's seen Matt Damon on talk shows would know he's a pretty funny guy, so he's no stranger to humor onscreen, but for him to convince the audience of Watney's dire straits while at the same time elicit some genuine laughs is a considerable challenge,and kudos to Mr. Damon for hurdling it. Speaking of Goddard and his geek credentials, geeks should flip at one particular metafictional (I hope I'm using the term correctly) reference in the film. Also, the fact that Sebastian Stan and Michael Pena are veterans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe makes it particularly amusing when a Marvel character is explicitly mentioned.
The Martian certainly isn't the technical tour de force that Gravity was, but perhaps that's a good thing as the minimalist visual effects really give the performers the opportunity to shine here. I would also consider it high praise for the VFX technicians that the effects shots that do feature in the film are quite unobtrusive and propel the story forward rather than call any attention to themselves. That, after all, is what effects shots are supposed to do. On a technical level, this film was, for me, beyond reproach.
This movie is one of those life-affirming affairs that feels like such a rare thing in a pop-culture environment in which a seemingly increasing number of people insist that movies cannot be good unless they're "dark." It feels somewhat ironic that this movie was given to audiences by a man who kicked off his career with some unrelentingly dark films like Alien and Blade Runner, but I think it's a pretty welcome change of pace for Scott and I quite honestly wouldn't mind seeing more movies like this from him.
9/10
Saturday, October 10, 2015
Sandler Reinvented (Sort of): A Review of Hotel Transylvania 2
directed by Genndy Tartakovsky
written by Adam Sandler and Robert Smigel
While I would have loved to have spent last weekend watching the resurgent historical epic Heneral Luna, I found myself in a mall with three little girls too young to watch the R-13 rated movie and a lot of time to kill. In any event, I had been wanting to take my kids to see the film since the initial trailers, so this was as good an opportunity as any to go see it.
The Transylvania gang, including Dracula (Adam Sandler), Frankenstein (Kevin James), the Werewolf (Steve Buscemi), the Invisible Man (David Spade), and the Mummy (Keegan-Michael Key) are back, and Hotel Transylvania remains very much in business. Drac's daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) and her boyfriend since the end of the last movie Johnny (Andy Samberg) finally get married and make Drac a grandfather. Drac's joy soon turns to anxiety, however, as it becomes unclear whether or not little Dennis (Asher Blinkoff) has actually inherited any of his mother's and grandfather's vampiric powers. It also becomes an object of concern when Mavis, worried about her "non-monster" son, begins to think that living in a monster-free California, where Johnny is from, might be better for Dennis than living in Transylvania. Thus begins Drac's quest to coax his grandson's vampirism out of him as Mavis and Johnny leave for the U.S. to visit Johnny's parents, leaving Dennis with Drac and his friends, who have their work cut out for them.
I found the first movie reasonably entertaining with its combination of fun, if not particularly innovative designs on classic movie monsters and to anyone who enjoyed the first movie I am pleased to report that this is pretty much more of the same unpretentious silliness. It's pretty much trademark Sandler, but with less rude jokes (though the word "boobies" actually makes it into the script) and with a broader canvas, considering the things that cartoons can do which real people cannot, even when abetted by computer graphics. Sandler used to play a man-child who refused to grow up, here he plays (through voice acting) an old man trying to relive his youth vicariously through his grandson. In any case, the broad humor connected with me. I also liked little touches in the film like the vampire summer camp and the extensive use of youtube, though I found it kind of idiotic that the filmmakers could not decide whether or not vampires could be captured on camera, as they were in some instances and were not in others.
The sequel does have a kind of by-the-numbers feel to it, as can be expected from most sequels, but most importantly, they kept the fun, even if the movie really dipped into the nonsensical time and again. I'd be a complete hypocrite if I didn't admit I had a good laugh time and again. It's some pretty decent, if altogether silly fun.
6.5/10
written by Adam Sandler and Robert Smigel
While I would have loved to have spent last weekend watching the resurgent historical epic Heneral Luna, I found myself in a mall with three little girls too young to watch the R-13 rated movie and a lot of time to kill. In any event, I had been wanting to take my kids to see the film since the initial trailers, so this was as good an opportunity as any to go see it.
The Transylvania gang, including Dracula (Adam Sandler), Frankenstein (Kevin James), the Werewolf (Steve Buscemi), the Invisible Man (David Spade), and the Mummy (Keegan-Michael Key) are back, and Hotel Transylvania remains very much in business. Drac's daughter Mavis (Selena Gomez) and her boyfriend since the end of the last movie Johnny (Andy Samberg) finally get married and make Drac a grandfather. Drac's joy soon turns to anxiety, however, as it becomes unclear whether or not little Dennis (Asher Blinkoff) has actually inherited any of his mother's and grandfather's vampiric powers. It also becomes an object of concern when Mavis, worried about her "non-monster" son, begins to think that living in a monster-free California, where Johnny is from, might be better for Dennis than living in Transylvania. Thus begins Drac's quest to coax his grandson's vampirism out of him as Mavis and Johnny leave for the U.S. to visit Johnny's parents, leaving Dennis with Drac and his friends, who have their work cut out for them.
I found the first movie reasonably entertaining with its combination of fun, if not particularly innovative designs on classic movie monsters and to anyone who enjoyed the first movie I am pleased to report that this is pretty much more of the same unpretentious silliness. It's pretty much trademark Sandler, but with less rude jokes (though the word "boobies" actually makes it into the script) and with a broader canvas, considering the things that cartoons can do which real people cannot, even when abetted by computer graphics. Sandler used to play a man-child who refused to grow up, here he plays (through voice acting) an old man trying to relive his youth vicariously through his grandson. In any case, the broad humor connected with me. I also liked little touches in the film like the vampire summer camp and the extensive use of youtube, though I found it kind of idiotic that the filmmakers could not decide whether or not vampires could be captured on camera, as they were in some instances and were not in others.
The sequel does have a kind of by-the-numbers feel to it, as can be expected from most sequels, but most importantly, they kept the fun, even if the movie really dipped into the nonsensical time and again. I'd be a complete hypocrite if I didn't admit I had a good laugh time and again. It's some pretty decent, if altogether silly fun.
6.5/10
Sunday, September 20, 2015
Heneral Luna: The Most Important Movie Any Filipino Could Possibly Watch This Year
directed by Jerrold Tarog
written by Henry Francia, E.A. Rocha, and Jerrold Tayog
As Jerrold Tarog begins this film, he gets something very important out of the way: he declares, in no uncertain terms, that his film is a work of fiction for which he has borrowed liberally from actual history, and that certain events may have been tweaked to serve the greater narrative. With one stroke he addresses the history nerds in the audience, telling them quite categorically: "Just shut up and enjoy the movie." This is important because rather than a by-the-numbers retelling of history, this film plays out very much like a parable, one that every Filipino needs to see and hear.
After Three Hundred Thirty-Three years, Spanish rule in the Philippines is coming to an end, and to escape the humiliation of having been overthrown by its erstwhile subjects, the Spanish government is having a closed-door meeting with the new burgeoning imperial power, the United States of America. As they meet inside the walled city, Intramuros, the revolutionary government, led by President Emilio Aguinaldo (Mon Confiado) have a meeting of their own and try to decide what to do next. Antonio Luna (played masterfully by John Arcilla), the highest ranking general of the army of the revolutionary republic of the Philippines, believes that they are only swapping one colonial ruler for another, and advocates an attack on the Americans while they are still marshaling their forces, but cabinet members Pedro Paterno (Leo Martinez) and Felipe Buencamino (Nonie Buencamino) believe that the Americans have good intentions and are looking forward to doing business with them. In the end, the politicians prevail and no attack is carried out. However, when the American soldiers shoot a passel of Filipino soldiers a few months into their occupation, a full-blown war breaks out, leaving General Luna no choice but to face the military might of the strongest nation in the world. Luna, however, is no slouch; he knows that to beat the Americans, who are superior in both numbers and technology, he will need tactics, and thanks to his fierce intelligence and extensive education in Europe he knows exactly what he needs to do, which does not involve beating Americans on the traditional battlefield but basically wearing them down by getting them to throw more and more money at their war effort until they realize that colonizing the Philippines is too expensive an endeavor. As he strives to professionalize the Filipino army, Luna soon realizes his biggest problem, though, isn't the Americans but his very own countrymen, including officers from his own army like the arrogant General Tomas Mascardo (Lorenz Martinez) and the useless, lazy Captain Pedro Janolino (Ketchup Eusebio), neither of whom will answer to or even cooperate with him but will only take orders from the President himself. As Luna finds himself fighting a war on two fronts, one against colonialism and the other against parochialism and self-interest, he realizes there are precious few people he can trust, such as his loyal officers Francisco Roman (Joem Bascon) and Eduardo Rusca (Archie Alemania). Time is not on his side, and neither, it seems, is the very republic he is fighting to save.
The film, based primarily on a 1972 book by Vivencio Jose is a masterclass of direction, acting, cinematography, editing, music scoring, art direction and costume design, among others. Quite remarkably, in making this film director Tarrog wore several other hats as well. He wrote the film's script and music score and also served as film editor. His shot selection is utterly brilliant. On a technical level, this film is virtually beyond reproach, but for the occasional continuity gaffe and some seams in the special effects, and perhaps more conspicuously, some rather mediocre acting from the actors Tarrog and his crew got to play the Americans, whose onscreen presence is mercifully short, though somewhat pivotal. The good news, though, is that the Filipino actors are, for the most part, at the top of their game.
Arcilla, a veteran of both screen and stage, owns this film. The truth of it is that, in the hands of a lesser actor, with stinging lines like "you're like virgins believing in the love of a prostitute" or the much more important "our very worst enemy is ourselves," the character could have descended into caricature, a live-action version of the splash-panel editorial cartoons that regular newspaper readers are used to seeing. Arcilla, however, takes this role, with its tricky lines and incredibly difficult duality, and gives us a character who is both fierce and tender, both brilliant and, in the end, somehow naive of the evils of which his compatriots are capable, a flaw that ultimately proves to be his undoing. It's really such an outstanding performance, the kind, I believe, that will define Arcilla as an actor, and in the best possible way.
It is to the credit of most of the supporting cast that Tarrog and his producers have assembled that they do not simply blend into the background. Ramon Confiado imbues his Aguinaldo, quite clearly one of the central villains of the piece, with just enough humanity and hesitancy to keep him from being completely beyond redemption. There's even a pretty vivid flashback to the butchering of Andres Bonifacio in which Confiado gets to manifest pangs of the first Filipino president's conscience. Confiado's performance is creditable for bringing out the conflict in this character. In contrast, Epy Quizon's take on Apolinario Mabini was a little too saintly for my liking, thanks largely as well to the script, but he essayed the role well. I will admit I had some problems with Leo Martinez's Pedro Paterno, the greasy politician that felt a bit like a retread of his old "Manhik Manaog" character from the Mongolian Barbecue movie that I'm sure nobody remembers anymore (but which was actually pretty good), but considering his relatively small role I can get why Tarrog and his co-writers Francia and Rocha did not flesh him out too much.
Nonie Buencamino was a bit more surprising as the identically-surnamed Felipe Buencamino; this character is basically Luna's arch-nemesis throughout the film, and yet at the end of it all, he comes across as surprisingly human, even though he's still someone the audience will truly love to hate. What is remarkable about Buencamino's performance is that he, unlike Martinez' Paterno, does not come across as a con-artist or snake-oil salesman, but as someone with genuine, however misplaced, conviction. Projecting that on the screen was to my mind, almost as challenging as portraying Luna himself.
I could go on forever about how I admired this movie as a work of art, but ultimately what matters more is this film's message, which is basically about unity and selflessness in the name of one's country. The film is hardly subtle about its advocacy; its core messages are explicitly stated in the dialogue. In a day and age where people are bickering about how everything is the government's fault and how this politician is better than that one, Tarrog and his crew have shown some serious balls by daring just about everyone who watches this film, when complaining about the ills of society, to basically just take a good, long look in the mirror. Also, there are very few message movies that go balls-out on production value the way this film did, only to end on a complete downer.
Heneral Luna is hardly the first "message movie" to come along, and I sincerely hope it's not the last. I really hope this movie gets a revolution going, and not the kind with guns and murder, but the kind that involves EVERYONE--from the people government to the motorists on Commonwealth avenue to the urban poor--changing the way they think, and learning to truly love their country.
10/10
written by Henry Francia, E.A. Rocha, and Jerrold Tayog
As Jerrold Tarog begins this film, he gets something very important out of the way: he declares, in no uncertain terms, that his film is a work of fiction for which he has borrowed liberally from actual history, and that certain events may have been tweaked to serve the greater narrative. With one stroke he addresses the history nerds in the audience, telling them quite categorically: "Just shut up and enjoy the movie." This is important because rather than a by-the-numbers retelling of history, this film plays out very much like a parable, one that every Filipino needs to see and hear.
After Three Hundred Thirty-Three years, Spanish rule in the Philippines is coming to an end, and to escape the humiliation of having been overthrown by its erstwhile subjects, the Spanish government is having a closed-door meeting with the new burgeoning imperial power, the United States of America. As they meet inside the walled city, Intramuros, the revolutionary government, led by President Emilio Aguinaldo (Mon Confiado) have a meeting of their own and try to decide what to do next. Antonio Luna (played masterfully by John Arcilla), the highest ranking general of the army of the revolutionary republic of the Philippines, believes that they are only swapping one colonial ruler for another, and advocates an attack on the Americans while they are still marshaling their forces, but cabinet members Pedro Paterno (Leo Martinez) and Felipe Buencamino (Nonie Buencamino) believe that the Americans have good intentions and are looking forward to doing business with them. In the end, the politicians prevail and no attack is carried out. However, when the American soldiers shoot a passel of Filipino soldiers a few months into their occupation, a full-blown war breaks out, leaving General Luna no choice but to face the military might of the strongest nation in the world. Luna, however, is no slouch; he knows that to beat the Americans, who are superior in both numbers and technology, he will need tactics, and thanks to his fierce intelligence and extensive education in Europe he knows exactly what he needs to do, which does not involve beating Americans on the traditional battlefield but basically wearing them down by getting them to throw more and more money at their war effort until they realize that colonizing the Philippines is too expensive an endeavor. As he strives to professionalize the Filipino army, Luna soon realizes his biggest problem, though, isn't the Americans but his very own countrymen, including officers from his own army like the arrogant General Tomas Mascardo (Lorenz Martinez) and the useless, lazy Captain Pedro Janolino (Ketchup Eusebio), neither of whom will answer to or even cooperate with him but will only take orders from the President himself. As Luna finds himself fighting a war on two fronts, one against colonialism and the other against parochialism and self-interest, he realizes there are precious few people he can trust, such as his loyal officers Francisco Roman (Joem Bascon) and Eduardo Rusca (Archie Alemania). Time is not on his side, and neither, it seems, is the very republic he is fighting to save.
The film, based primarily on a 1972 book by Vivencio Jose is a masterclass of direction, acting, cinematography, editing, music scoring, art direction and costume design, among others. Quite remarkably, in making this film director Tarrog wore several other hats as well. He wrote the film's script and music score and also served as film editor. His shot selection is utterly brilliant. On a technical level, this film is virtually beyond reproach, but for the occasional continuity gaffe and some seams in the special effects, and perhaps more conspicuously, some rather mediocre acting from the actors Tarrog and his crew got to play the Americans, whose onscreen presence is mercifully short, though somewhat pivotal. The good news, though, is that the Filipino actors are, for the most part, at the top of their game.
Arcilla, a veteran of both screen and stage, owns this film. The truth of it is that, in the hands of a lesser actor, with stinging lines like "you're like virgins believing in the love of a prostitute" or the much more important "our very worst enemy is ourselves," the character could have descended into caricature, a live-action version of the splash-panel editorial cartoons that regular newspaper readers are used to seeing. Arcilla, however, takes this role, with its tricky lines and incredibly difficult duality, and gives us a character who is both fierce and tender, both brilliant and, in the end, somehow naive of the evils of which his compatriots are capable, a flaw that ultimately proves to be his undoing. It's really such an outstanding performance, the kind, I believe, that will define Arcilla as an actor, and in the best possible way.
It is to the credit of most of the supporting cast that Tarrog and his producers have assembled that they do not simply blend into the background. Ramon Confiado imbues his Aguinaldo, quite clearly one of the central villains of the piece, with just enough humanity and hesitancy to keep him from being completely beyond redemption. There's even a pretty vivid flashback to the butchering of Andres Bonifacio in which Confiado gets to manifest pangs of the first Filipino president's conscience. Confiado's performance is creditable for bringing out the conflict in this character. In contrast, Epy Quizon's take on Apolinario Mabini was a little too saintly for my liking, thanks largely as well to the script, but he essayed the role well. I will admit I had some problems with Leo Martinez's Pedro Paterno, the greasy politician that felt a bit like a retread of his old "Manhik Manaog" character from the Mongolian Barbecue movie that I'm sure nobody remembers anymore (but which was actually pretty good), but considering his relatively small role I can get why Tarrog and his co-writers Francia and Rocha did not flesh him out too much.
Nonie Buencamino was a bit more surprising as the identically-surnamed Felipe Buencamino; this character is basically Luna's arch-nemesis throughout the film, and yet at the end of it all, he comes across as surprisingly human, even though he's still someone the audience will truly love to hate. What is remarkable about Buencamino's performance is that he, unlike Martinez' Paterno, does not come across as a con-artist or snake-oil salesman, but as someone with genuine, however misplaced, conviction. Projecting that on the screen was to my mind, almost as challenging as portraying Luna himself.
I could go on forever about how I admired this movie as a work of art, but ultimately what matters more is this film's message, which is basically about unity and selflessness in the name of one's country. The film is hardly subtle about its advocacy; its core messages are explicitly stated in the dialogue. In a day and age where people are bickering about how everything is the government's fault and how this politician is better than that one, Tarrog and his crew have shown some serious balls by daring just about everyone who watches this film, when complaining about the ills of society, to basically just take a good, long look in the mirror. Also, there are very few message movies that go balls-out on production value the way this film did, only to end on a complete downer.
Heneral Luna is hardly the first "message movie" to come along, and I sincerely hope it's not the last. I really hope this movie gets a revolution going, and not the kind with guns and murder, but the kind that involves EVERYONE--from the people government to the motorists on Commonwealth avenue to the urban poor--changing the way they think, and learning to truly love their country.
10/10
Saturday, September 5, 2015
A Truly Beautiful Mind: A Review of Inside Out
directed by Pete Docter and Ronnie del Carmen
written by Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley and Ronnie del Carmen
In this day and age of rampant video piracy, film distributors have decided to make it a point to release their "tentpole" pictures in Asia and other territories ahead of their release in the United States. Because of this, we viewers in the Philippines get films like The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Jurassic World, and Minions at the same time as, if not weeks ahead of, our counterparts in America.
This is not the case, for some reason, for films which are made by Walt Disney Pictures' Pixar Studios, whose films are invariably released here as late as two months after their release not only in the United States but in other parts of the world as well.This was the case with Inside Out, which, by the time it came out here almost two weeks ago, had grossed over $600 million in other parts of the world.
Well, the good news is that it was completely worth the wait.
The film is about five colleagues, Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Anger (Lewis Black) and Fear (Bill Hader), who have a very interesting job: they are the emotions of a little girl named Riley (Katlyn Dias). They live inside her mind and basically form her reactions to everything that ever happens to her in her life. Joy is the lead emotion in view of the fact that Riley lives a generally happy life in Minnesota. She loves her family, she has great friends, she's crazy about hockey, and life in general. Joy, for her part, loves her job, which mainly consists of pressing buttons on a console that causes Riley to react happily to situations in her life, and storing the memories of the events, depicted as glowing crystal orbs the size of bowling balls (to Joy and her colleagues), in the enormous landscape of Riley's mind. They transport these "bowling balls" via vacuum tubes. Each memory is the color of the emotion that triggered the reaction to the event, and most of them are yellow, the color of Joy. There are some exceptions, like the blue memories represented by Sadness' reactions, green memories triggered by reactions of Disgust, red memories triggered by Anger, and the purple memories triggered by Fear. Joy, however, is the dominant emotion, as she should be in a child's life. There are memories, and then there are core memories, which are necessary to making Riley...Riley. The core memories, in fact, power massive floating structures in Riley's mind that represent aspects of her personality. In the beginning of the film, all of the core memories are joyful ones.
Things change, however, when Riley's entire family moves from Minnesota, where she's lived all of her eleven years, to San Francisco.
Joy and her colleagues go about their business, but she notices that sadness has suddenly started touching yellow memories...and turning them blue. It's mildly irksome at first, but when sadness starts handling core memories, Joy intervenes, and the two of them, along with all the core memories, end up getting sucked into the vacuum tubes and sent out to where all of Riley's memories go, which is a massive city. They find themselves "miles" away from the control room, and they have to get there fast, or the floating islands that core memories power will fall into the chasm of Riley's forgotten memories, and Riley as everyone knows her will truly be lost. Time is not on their side as one by one the islands begin to collapse, but they may have an unexpected ally in Riley's one-time imaginary friend Bing Bong (Richard Kind) who has spent the last years wandering around the corridors of Riley's memories.
Meanwhile, back in central control, Disgust, Anger and Fear are basically running Riley's mind, and they're in a bit of a panic.
All of this, of course, is happening on the inside of Riley. On the outside, she is reacting to her friends moving on from her, to being the new kid at school, and to her dad being preoccupied with his business deals. The combination of Fear, Anger and Disgust dominating her mind is a dangerous mix, and looking back on her fond memories of Minnesota, Riley contemplates doing something drastic.
There is one word that sums of up what I think of this film: SUBLIME.
The notion of anthropomorphic representations of people's emotions isn't something Pixar came up with but I dare anyone to claim that anyone else has executed the concept with even a fraction of the inventiveness and meticulously-realized detail that Pixar have with this film.
I'll admit I wasn't particularly sold on the concept by the initial trailer, which was why this film truly blew me away; it took me quite by surprise. Pete Docter's and Ronnie del Carmen's vision of the inside of a person's mind, even that of a child, is utterly breathtaking, but Pixar being Pixar, they certainly weren't about to stop with a few stunning visuals. Sure, these emotions are all characters in a story, but each of them is a functional part of somebody's brain, and it became pretty clear that Pixar did their homework on how the brain works. Interviewing psychologists is one thing, though, but translating all of this information into story concepts that kids and their parents would embrace was quite another, and Pixar's triumph here was their visualization of the various concepts of the mind like abstract reasoning, subconsciousness, and a personal favorite of mine, dreams.
Of course, all of this was wrapped up in some generous helpings of humor, helped along by the sterling work of the voice cast headed by Poehler and Davis. Hader has long been a personal favorite of mine, and during the laugh-out-loud "dream" sequence he did not disappoint. I was also moved by Dias, the young actress who plays Riley, who was given the unenviable task of acting out all the emotions that had her mental avatars in a tizzy. Sure, this was just voice acting, and Pixar's CG did much of the heavy lifting, but Dias really went a long way towards helping me feel her character's inner turmoil. This movie was, for me particularly extraordinary because just about everything that happens outside of Riley's head is really rather mundane, and the fact that Pixar managed to depict almost everyday mental processes into some larger than life just really shows just how far ahead of the curve they are in terms of sheer creativity. Relative to their competitors, they really are operating on another level of storytelling.
Like the very best of Pixar's offerings, this movie has at its center a beating heart. For me it's right up there with Finding Nemo and the deeply moving three minute love story of Carl and Ellie in Up. Surprisingly, this isn't about fathers and sons or husbands and wives but about understanding one's self, and in a way learning selflessness. As strange as this may sound, this is actually a good movie to show at office team buildings or to teams before a big game; the egomaniacs in either of those groups will quite likely get the reference.
Sure, Illumination Studios may have raked in the big bucks with the broad humor and undeniable appeal of the Minions, but with this Pixar has just reasserted that it is STILL the absolute best in the animation business. At a time when studios are churning sequel after remake after reboot, it is utterly gratifying to know that something this fresh can still succeed in the marketplace.
10/10
written by Pete Docter, Meg LeFauve, Josh Cooley and Ronnie del Carmen
In this day and age of rampant video piracy, film distributors have decided to make it a point to release their "tentpole" pictures in Asia and other territories ahead of their release in the United States. Because of this, we viewers in the Philippines get films like The Avengers: Age of Ultron, Jurassic World, and Minions at the same time as, if not weeks ahead of, our counterparts in America.
This is not the case, for some reason, for films which are made by Walt Disney Pictures' Pixar Studios, whose films are invariably released here as late as two months after their release not only in the United States but in other parts of the world as well.This was the case with Inside Out, which, by the time it came out here almost two weeks ago, had grossed over $600 million in other parts of the world.
Well, the good news is that it was completely worth the wait.
The film is about five colleagues, Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Disgust (Mindy Kaling), Anger (Lewis Black) and Fear (Bill Hader), who have a very interesting job: they are the emotions of a little girl named Riley (Katlyn Dias). They live inside her mind and basically form her reactions to everything that ever happens to her in her life. Joy is the lead emotion in view of the fact that Riley lives a generally happy life in Minnesota. She loves her family, she has great friends, she's crazy about hockey, and life in general. Joy, for her part, loves her job, which mainly consists of pressing buttons on a console that causes Riley to react happily to situations in her life, and storing the memories of the events, depicted as glowing crystal orbs the size of bowling balls (to Joy and her colleagues), in the enormous landscape of Riley's mind. They transport these "bowling balls" via vacuum tubes. Each memory is the color of the emotion that triggered the reaction to the event, and most of them are yellow, the color of Joy. There are some exceptions, like the blue memories represented by Sadness' reactions, green memories triggered by reactions of Disgust, red memories triggered by Anger, and the purple memories triggered by Fear. Joy, however, is the dominant emotion, as she should be in a child's life. There are memories, and then there are core memories, which are necessary to making Riley...Riley. The core memories, in fact, power massive floating structures in Riley's mind that represent aspects of her personality. In the beginning of the film, all of the core memories are joyful ones.
Things change, however, when Riley's entire family moves from Minnesota, where she's lived all of her eleven years, to San Francisco.
Joy and her colleagues go about their business, but she notices that sadness has suddenly started touching yellow memories...and turning them blue. It's mildly irksome at first, but when sadness starts handling core memories, Joy intervenes, and the two of them, along with all the core memories, end up getting sucked into the vacuum tubes and sent out to where all of Riley's memories go, which is a massive city. They find themselves "miles" away from the control room, and they have to get there fast, or the floating islands that core memories power will fall into the chasm of Riley's forgotten memories, and Riley as everyone knows her will truly be lost. Time is not on their side as one by one the islands begin to collapse, but they may have an unexpected ally in Riley's one-time imaginary friend Bing Bong (Richard Kind) who has spent the last years wandering around the corridors of Riley's memories.
Meanwhile, back in central control, Disgust, Anger and Fear are basically running Riley's mind, and they're in a bit of a panic.
All of this, of course, is happening on the inside of Riley. On the outside, she is reacting to her friends moving on from her, to being the new kid at school, and to her dad being preoccupied with his business deals. The combination of Fear, Anger and Disgust dominating her mind is a dangerous mix, and looking back on her fond memories of Minnesota, Riley contemplates doing something drastic.
There is one word that sums of up what I think of this film: SUBLIME.
The notion of anthropomorphic representations of people's emotions isn't something Pixar came up with but I dare anyone to claim that anyone else has executed the concept with even a fraction of the inventiveness and meticulously-realized detail that Pixar have with this film.
I'll admit I wasn't particularly sold on the concept by the initial trailer, which was why this film truly blew me away; it took me quite by surprise. Pete Docter's and Ronnie del Carmen's vision of the inside of a person's mind, even that of a child, is utterly breathtaking, but Pixar being Pixar, they certainly weren't about to stop with a few stunning visuals. Sure, these emotions are all characters in a story, but each of them is a functional part of somebody's brain, and it became pretty clear that Pixar did their homework on how the brain works. Interviewing psychologists is one thing, though, but translating all of this information into story concepts that kids and their parents would embrace was quite another, and Pixar's triumph here was their visualization of the various concepts of the mind like abstract reasoning, subconsciousness, and a personal favorite of mine, dreams.
Of course, all of this was wrapped up in some generous helpings of humor, helped along by the sterling work of the voice cast headed by Poehler and Davis. Hader has long been a personal favorite of mine, and during the laugh-out-loud "dream" sequence he did not disappoint. I was also moved by Dias, the young actress who plays Riley, who was given the unenviable task of acting out all the emotions that had her mental avatars in a tizzy. Sure, this was just voice acting, and Pixar's CG did much of the heavy lifting, but Dias really went a long way towards helping me feel her character's inner turmoil. This movie was, for me particularly extraordinary because just about everything that happens outside of Riley's head is really rather mundane, and the fact that Pixar managed to depict almost everyday mental processes into some larger than life just really shows just how far ahead of the curve they are in terms of sheer creativity. Relative to their competitors, they really are operating on another level of storytelling.
Like the very best of Pixar's offerings, this movie has at its center a beating heart. For me it's right up there with Finding Nemo and the deeply moving three minute love story of Carl and Ellie in Up. Surprisingly, this isn't about fathers and sons or husbands and wives but about understanding one's self, and in a way learning selflessness. As strange as this may sound, this is actually a good movie to show at office team buildings or to teams before a big game; the egomaniacs in either of those groups will quite likely get the reference.
Sure, Illumination Studios may have raked in the big bucks with the broad humor and undeniable appeal of the Minions, but with this Pixar has just reasserted that it is STILL the absolute best in the animation business. At a time when studios are churning sequel after remake after reboot, it is utterly gratifying to know that something this fresh can still succeed in the marketplace.
10/10
Saturday, August 22, 2015
A Review of Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation
directed by Christopher McQuarrie
written by Drew Pearce and Christopher McQuarrie
Mission Impossible movies, like James Bond movies, are relatively simple affairs: there's a mysterious, megalomaniacal threat somewhere in the world, and Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt accompanied sometimes by his Impossible Mission Force, at other times just his buddy Luther, played by Ving Rhames, must hunt in down and neutralize it. The fun, of course, is in watching Ethan and company do their thing, particularly considering that it invariably involves high-speed chases, death-defying stunts and bone-crunching fight sequences. To wax cliche, it's about the journey, and not the destination.
That said, while the MI series has had its ups and downs over the course of five films (and counting), I personally feel the series received a real creative shot in the arm when J.J. Abrams (Star Trek, Star Wars Episode VII) took over the directing duties around ten years ago and produced the next couple of films, including this one. There's a bit more cleverness to the way Hunt and his friends take on the bad guys and the introduction of supporting characters like Simon Pegg's Benjie Dunn (who has quite a lot of screen time here) has really made the movies more entertaining overall.
In this particular installment, Hunt and his team take on the mysterious Syndicate, a collection of secret agents from all over the world who have either been declared missing or dead, who are apparently in the business of destroying governments. Led by the ruthless former MI6 agent Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), the Syndicate seems to perpetually be one step ahead of Hunt and his IMF, who are also facing the problem of having their budget cut off as Central Intelligence Agency Director Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) seems intent on demolishing them during Congressional hearings. Fortunately, however, Hunt and his team may have an unexpected ally in double-agent Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) who may or may not be an MI6 agent also fighting the Syndicate. Time, however, is running out.
Truth be told, after the inventive and entertaining Edge of Tomorrow which was basically Groundhog Day but with a sci-fi/action flavor, I'm vaguely disappointed that Cruise went back to his comfort zone, though to be fair he did try a number of different kinds of films between this film and his last MI film. The good news is that as well-worn franchises go, Cruise and his crew have done a great job of keeping things fresh with some tightly-filmed action sequences, the highlights of which include a really good motorbike chase scene and a death defying underwater sequence.
Cruise's Ethan Hunt and Pegg's Benjie Dunn see the most action here, though Jeremy Renner's William Brandt and Ving Rhames' Luther Stickell have crucial roles as well. I guess Renner was taking a break from all the action he saw in Avengers: Age of Ultron in which his character Hawkeye had a dramatically expanded role; he doesn't throw a single punch in this film.
Cruise, on the other hand, goes all out with his stunts here, and considering he's dangled from a cliff connected to only a thin wire in Mission Impossible 2 and did the same thing, except from Burj Khalifa in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, that's saying a lot. The very first sequence, featured prominently in the trailers and other marketing materials, has him clinging to the side of a flying plane. He apparently has ambitions of being the Jackie Chan of Hollywood.
McQuarrie, probably best known as the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects, has only directed two films previous to this one, Way of the Gun, and Jack Reacher (which also starred Cruise), both of which had a bit of a crime noir sensibility, which makes it even more impressive that he was able to handle this high octane affair with such panache.
The thing about this movie is that it really is a case of not fixing something that isn't broken. It's a good thing in that it makes for an entertaining film viewing experience, but Cruise and crew don't really reinvent the wheel here, so there really isn't much by way of original thrills either. It feels that way after a while, too.
Still, this was good fun.
7.7/10
written by Drew Pearce and Christopher McQuarrie
Mission Impossible movies, like James Bond movies, are relatively simple affairs: there's a mysterious, megalomaniacal threat somewhere in the world, and Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt accompanied sometimes by his Impossible Mission Force, at other times just his buddy Luther, played by Ving Rhames, must hunt in down and neutralize it. The fun, of course, is in watching Ethan and company do their thing, particularly considering that it invariably involves high-speed chases, death-defying stunts and bone-crunching fight sequences. To wax cliche, it's about the journey, and not the destination.
That said, while the MI series has had its ups and downs over the course of five films (and counting), I personally feel the series received a real creative shot in the arm when J.J. Abrams (Star Trek, Star Wars Episode VII) took over the directing duties around ten years ago and produced the next couple of films, including this one. There's a bit more cleverness to the way Hunt and his friends take on the bad guys and the introduction of supporting characters like Simon Pegg's Benjie Dunn (who has quite a lot of screen time here) has really made the movies more entertaining overall.
In this particular installment, Hunt and his team take on the mysterious Syndicate, a collection of secret agents from all over the world who have either been declared missing or dead, who are apparently in the business of destroying governments. Led by the ruthless former MI6 agent Solomon Lane (Sean Harris), the Syndicate seems to perpetually be one step ahead of Hunt and his IMF, who are also facing the problem of having their budget cut off as Central Intelligence Agency Director Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) seems intent on demolishing them during Congressional hearings. Fortunately, however, Hunt and his team may have an unexpected ally in double-agent Ilsa (Rebecca Ferguson) who may or may not be an MI6 agent also fighting the Syndicate. Time, however, is running out.
Truth be told, after the inventive and entertaining Edge of Tomorrow which was basically Groundhog Day but with a sci-fi/action flavor, I'm vaguely disappointed that Cruise went back to his comfort zone, though to be fair he did try a number of different kinds of films between this film and his last MI film. The good news is that as well-worn franchises go, Cruise and his crew have done a great job of keeping things fresh with some tightly-filmed action sequences, the highlights of which include a really good motorbike chase scene and a death defying underwater sequence.
Cruise's Ethan Hunt and Pegg's Benjie Dunn see the most action here, though Jeremy Renner's William Brandt and Ving Rhames' Luther Stickell have crucial roles as well. I guess Renner was taking a break from all the action he saw in Avengers: Age of Ultron in which his character Hawkeye had a dramatically expanded role; he doesn't throw a single punch in this film.
Cruise, on the other hand, goes all out with his stunts here, and considering he's dangled from a cliff connected to only a thin wire in Mission Impossible 2 and did the same thing, except from Burj Khalifa in Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, that's saying a lot. The very first sequence, featured prominently in the trailers and other marketing materials, has him clinging to the side of a flying plane. He apparently has ambitions of being the Jackie Chan of Hollywood.
McQuarrie, probably best known as the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Bryan Singer's The Usual Suspects, has only directed two films previous to this one, Way of the Gun, and Jack Reacher (which also starred Cruise), both of which had a bit of a crime noir sensibility, which makes it even more impressive that he was able to handle this high octane affair with such panache.
The thing about this movie is that it really is a case of not fixing something that isn't broken. It's a good thing in that it makes for an entertaining film viewing experience, but Cruise and crew don't really reinvent the wheel here, so there really isn't much by way of original thrills either. It feels that way after a while, too.
Still, this was good fun.
7.7/10
Sunday, August 9, 2015
Jake Does a Jake: A Review of Southpaw
directed by Antoine Fuqua
written by Kurt Sutter
This title is a bit of a misnomer; the only similarity between Jake LaMotta, the real-life man whom Robert De Niro portrayed in the 1980 film Raging Bull, and Billy Hope, the fictional man whom Jake Gyllenhaal plays in the current film Southpaw, is that both of them are professional boxers. It was worth drawing the parallel (apart from the identical names) because it seems to me that the only reason this movie was made was for Gyllenhaal to take a shot at the Oscar glory De Niro's performance thirty-five years ago earned him.
Southpaw is the story of Hope, an undefeated prize fighter from Hell's Kitchen who starts the film on top of the world, having fought his way to the very top of the heap. Having accompanied him from his humble origins to the top is his lovely wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) with whom he has a lovely daughter Leila (Oona Lawrence), and the two of them are his whole world. Tragedy strikes, however, when the arrogant up-and-comer Miguel Escobar (Miguel Lopez), who yearns for a title successfully goads Hope into a fistfight (not the sanctioned kind) and the subsequent melee between the two fighters' entourages results in a horrifying death. Billy loses everything; his title, his money and even his daughter when the government deems him an unfit parent, and as a result he must fight his way back from the brink. Fortunately, he might have a little help in washed-out former boxer Tick Wills (Forest Whitaker), but it will take more than the bravado and brute strength on which he has gotten by so far. Billy will now have to learn how to box as he has never boxed before.
To be perfectly honest, I watched this movie for only two reasons: I was trying to sit out a terrible traffic jam and I wanted to hear one of the final film scores of my favorite film composer, the late James Horner. Not only was Horner's music among his less remarkable work, there was nothing else about the movie that was particularly compelling, either before, during or after the viewing.
As a boxing film, Southpaw commits the usual (and understandable) Hollywood sin of depicting modern-day boxing as simple brawling, with the fighters exchanging blows like their jaws and bodies were made of granite instead of trying to actually duck. This is actually made a plot point later in the movie, but it still doesn't make the depiction of fighting any less silly. Still, if they were going for utter hard-edged realism, audiences would most likely be treated to several minutes of clinches, ducks and backpedaling, which is what they saw during the last fight featuring a real-life undefeated boxer. Still, whether the film was justified or not in taking liberties with the reality of boxing, it ultimately brought nothing new to the table.
As human drama, the film is serviceable, and Gyllenhaal and Whitaker really sell the heck out of their characters' arcs, both as individuals and as an onscreen duo. Particularly impressive for me was Gyllenhaal's rapport with Lawrence, who played his daughter. The thing was, again, this wasn't anything that hadn't already been done before. The father seeking to be reunited with his daughter was done as recently as Ant Man, and quite frankly, that was a lot more enjoyable to watch.
The film isn't a complete waste of time; Fuqua certainly knows how to create atmosphere, and quite honestly I'd like to see what he could do with a less cliched script and a more compelling story, as the potential is clearly there. Also, I marveled at the makeup artists who not only did a good job of turning Gyllenhaal's face into hamburger, but in showing how boxing injuries to the eyes actually look after they've just started to heal. I doubt they'll win any award, but I think they deserve a shout-out.
Still, this was a movie I could just have easily waited to see at home, and had it not been for a traffic jam and the prospect of listening to one of James Horner's final works, I would have.
6/10
written by Kurt Sutter
This title is a bit of a misnomer; the only similarity between Jake LaMotta, the real-life man whom Robert De Niro portrayed in the 1980 film Raging Bull, and Billy Hope, the fictional man whom Jake Gyllenhaal plays in the current film Southpaw, is that both of them are professional boxers. It was worth drawing the parallel (apart from the identical names) because it seems to me that the only reason this movie was made was for Gyllenhaal to take a shot at the Oscar glory De Niro's performance thirty-five years ago earned him.
Southpaw is the story of Hope, an undefeated prize fighter from Hell's Kitchen who starts the film on top of the world, having fought his way to the very top of the heap. Having accompanied him from his humble origins to the top is his lovely wife Maureen (Rachel McAdams) with whom he has a lovely daughter Leila (Oona Lawrence), and the two of them are his whole world. Tragedy strikes, however, when the arrogant up-and-comer Miguel Escobar (Miguel Lopez), who yearns for a title successfully goads Hope into a fistfight (not the sanctioned kind) and the subsequent melee between the two fighters' entourages results in a horrifying death. Billy loses everything; his title, his money and even his daughter when the government deems him an unfit parent, and as a result he must fight his way back from the brink. Fortunately, he might have a little help in washed-out former boxer Tick Wills (Forest Whitaker), but it will take more than the bravado and brute strength on which he has gotten by so far. Billy will now have to learn how to box as he has never boxed before.
To be perfectly honest, I watched this movie for only two reasons: I was trying to sit out a terrible traffic jam and I wanted to hear one of the final film scores of my favorite film composer, the late James Horner. Not only was Horner's music among his less remarkable work, there was nothing else about the movie that was particularly compelling, either before, during or after the viewing.
As a boxing film, Southpaw commits the usual (and understandable) Hollywood sin of depicting modern-day boxing as simple brawling, with the fighters exchanging blows like their jaws and bodies were made of granite instead of trying to actually duck. This is actually made a plot point later in the movie, but it still doesn't make the depiction of fighting any less silly. Still, if they were going for utter hard-edged realism, audiences would most likely be treated to several minutes of clinches, ducks and backpedaling, which is what they saw during the last fight featuring a real-life undefeated boxer. Still, whether the film was justified or not in taking liberties with the reality of boxing, it ultimately brought nothing new to the table.
As human drama, the film is serviceable, and Gyllenhaal and Whitaker really sell the heck out of their characters' arcs, both as individuals and as an onscreen duo. Particularly impressive for me was Gyllenhaal's rapport with Lawrence, who played his daughter. The thing was, again, this wasn't anything that hadn't already been done before. The father seeking to be reunited with his daughter was done as recently as Ant Man, and quite frankly, that was a lot more enjoyable to watch.
The film isn't a complete waste of time; Fuqua certainly knows how to create atmosphere, and quite honestly I'd like to see what he could do with a less cliched script and a more compelling story, as the potential is clearly there. Also, I marveled at the makeup artists who not only did a good job of turning Gyllenhaal's face into hamburger, but in showing how boxing injuries to the eyes actually look after they've just started to heal. I doubt they'll win any award, but I think they deserve a shout-out.
Still, this was a movie I could just have easily waited to see at home, and had it not been for a traffic jam and the prospect of listening to one of James Horner's final works, I would have.
6/10
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
A Superhero Heist Movie: A Review of Ant-Man
directed by Peyton Reed
written by Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Adam McKay and Paul Rudd
As much as I have truly savored seeing the Marvel Cinematic Universe unfold since the very first Iron Man movie in 2008, I will admit that, after eleven movies, which include films I find utterly sublime, like the aforementioned Iron Man, The Avengers, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, I have finally started to feel a little fatigue set in, to the extent that at one point I was contemplating sitting out the MCU's twelfth film, Ant-Man.
More than just feeling tired of superhero movies in general and Marvel movies in particular, I was also one of the few film geeks who was put off by the fact that quirky British director Edgar Wright, who had basically devoted ten years his life to bringing this movie to the big screen, had left this film in a bit of a huff last year over "creative differences" with Marvel Studios. The trailer looked promising, though, and my kids were interested in seeing the movie, so partly out of curiosity and a sense of "duty" to my kids, I still went to see it, doubts notwithstanding.
I'm happy to say that I'm glad I overcame my misgivings and went to see the film; I had a really good time.
Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has just done three years for burgling, and has resolved to go straight for the sake of his daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Forston) to the extent that he even resists the enticements of his former partner-in-crime Luis (Michael Pena), at whose apartment he is now staying with two other "associates" Dave (Tip Harris) and Kurt (David Dastmalchian). Things take a turn for the worse, however, as Scott's employer lets him go upon discovering his criminal record, and Scott realizes that he won't be able to see his daughter until he gets on his own two feet. In a fit of desperation, he takes Luis up on his offer, which is to break into the vault of a rich old man away on vacation. As it turns out, that rich old man happens to be Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) creator of fantastic technologies, one of which shrinks humans to insect size while giving them extraordinary strength and the other of which enables people to communicate with ants. Pym, who actually allowed Scott to break into his house and steal his things, deliberately chose Scott because of the skill he displayed in one of his previous jobs, in which he burgled an ulta-rich one percenter who happened to have the most advanced home security system on the planet. Pym needs Scott to break into the facilities of the very company he founded in order to stop his former protege Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) from using technology derived from Hank's own inventions to create and sell a weapon of frightening power. Scott will have help from Pym, his reluctant(and highly-skilled) daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) and most importantly, an army of Pym's most useful allies: ants. Scott is reluctant at first, but agrees when he realizes the stakes, even if it means getting in way over his head.
The good news is that, even though Wright did not direct this movie, Reed does a job that can reasonably described as a couple of notches above competent, and even more encouragingly, Wright's fingerprints can be seen all over the film. The movie's a bit breezy and a lot more lighthearted than other MCU films, which says a lot considering that, with the possible exception of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, most Marvel movies have a certain buoyancy to them which, while making them fun to watch, also opens them up to criticism from people saying that they're pure fluff. The humor works differently here, though, in an Ocean's 11 sort of way.
Casting Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, while not quite as spot-on as the selection of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, was a clever move that paid off, as was the choice of making Lang the lead Ant Man and casting Michael Douglas as Henry Pym. What I love about these top-caliber actors like Douglas and, before him, Glenn Close, Robert Redford and Anthony Hopkins, is that none of them are slumming it in these roles for a paycheck, or just so they can say they were in a superhero movie. They all put in really engaging performances, and Douglas is no exception. Evangeline Lilly does a great job as Pym's firebrand of a daughter Hope, but ironically the filmmakers kind of shot themselves in the foot by creating such a strong female character and basically relegating her to a supporting role. Stoll's Darren Cross, while appropriately menacing, is like a few of the other the MCU antagonists that have come before him, yet another throwaway bad guy. Judy Greer, an actress whose work I enjoy, is utterly wasted in her second mom role this year. I was happy, though, about Michael Pena and the rest of the guys playing Lang's crew, who provide wonderful comic relief. Pena, in particular, is central to two of the film's most memorable sequences. The three characters kind of play up to ethnic stereotypes, but the actors playing them are having such a grand time of it that it's hard to begrudge Marvel this little indulgence.
What I had a little difficulty with, though, was the sequences basically tying Scott into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which felt shoehorned into the script. Yes, they work from the logic of the MCU and achieve the intended result, but they feel disruptive of the film's overall narrative flow. This was a film conceived years before there was a grand design to fit all of these things together, and it definitely feels like it. About the only MCU insertion that feels right is the part of the script demonstrating and explaining Pym's disdain for Stark (played here by John Slattery, rather than the more youthful Dominic Cooper). At least it clearly establishes why Pym wouldn't run to the Avengers for help.
The movie was fun, though not anywhere near Marvel's very best. Still, it's definitely worth 120 minutes of one's time and a couple of hundred pesos. As with most Marvel movies, I skipped the 3D on this one.
7.5/10
written by Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Adam McKay and Paul Rudd
As much as I have truly savored seeing the Marvel Cinematic Universe unfold since the very first Iron Man movie in 2008, I will admit that, after eleven movies, which include films I find utterly sublime, like the aforementioned Iron Man, The Avengers, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier, I have finally started to feel a little fatigue set in, to the extent that at one point I was contemplating sitting out the MCU's twelfth film, Ant-Man.
More than just feeling tired of superhero movies in general and Marvel movies in particular, I was also one of the few film geeks who was put off by the fact that quirky British director Edgar Wright, who had basically devoted ten years his life to bringing this movie to the big screen, had left this film in a bit of a huff last year over "creative differences" with Marvel Studios. The trailer looked promising, though, and my kids were interested in seeing the movie, so partly out of curiosity and a sense of "duty" to my kids, I still went to see it, doubts notwithstanding.
I'm happy to say that I'm glad I overcame my misgivings and went to see the film; I had a really good time.
Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) has just done three years for burgling, and has resolved to go straight for the sake of his daughter Cassie (Abby Ryder Forston) to the extent that he even resists the enticements of his former partner-in-crime Luis (Michael Pena), at whose apartment he is now staying with two other "associates" Dave (Tip Harris) and Kurt (David Dastmalchian). Things take a turn for the worse, however, as Scott's employer lets him go upon discovering his criminal record, and Scott realizes that he won't be able to see his daughter until he gets on his own two feet. In a fit of desperation, he takes Luis up on his offer, which is to break into the vault of a rich old man away on vacation. As it turns out, that rich old man happens to be Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) creator of fantastic technologies, one of which shrinks humans to insect size while giving them extraordinary strength and the other of which enables people to communicate with ants. Pym, who actually allowed Scott to break into his house and steal his things, deliberately chose Scott because of the skill he displayed in one of his previous jobs, in which he burgled an ulta-rich one percenter who happened to have the most advanced home security system on the planet. Pym needs Scott to break into the facilities of the very company he founded in order to stop his former protege Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) from using technology derived from Hank's own inventions to create and sell a weapon of frightening power. Scott will have help from Pym, his reluctant(and highly-skilled) daughter Hope (Evangeline Lilly) and most importantly, an army of Pym's most useful allies: ants. Scott is reluctant at first, but agrees when he realizes the stakes, even if it means getting in way over his head.
The good news is that, even though Wright did not direct this movie, Reed does a job that can reasonably described as a couple of notches above competent, and even more encouragingly, Wright's fingerprints can be seen all over the film. The movie's a bit breezy and a lot more lighthearted than other MCU films, which says a lot considering that, with the possible exception of Captain America: The Winter Soldier, most Marvel movies have a certain buoyancy to them which, while making them fun to watch, also opens them up to criticism from people saying that they're pure fluff. The humor works differently here, though, in an Ocean's 11 sort of way.
Casting Paul Rudd as Scott Lang, while not quite as spot-on as the selection of Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, was a clever move that paid off, as was the choice of making Lang the lead Ant Man and casting Michael Douglas as Henry Pym. What I love about these top-caliber actors like Douglas and, before him, Glenn Close, Robert Redford and Anthony Hopkins, is that none of them are slumming it in these roles for a paycheck, or just so they can say they were in a superhero movie. They all put in really engaging performances, and Douglas is no exception. Evangeline Lilly does a great job as Pym's firebrand of a daughter Hope, but ironically the filmmakers kind of shot themselves in the foot by creating such a strong female character and basically relegating her to a supporting role. Stoll's Darren Cross, while appropriately menacing, is like a few of the other the MCU antagonists that have come before him, yet another throwaway bad guy. Judy Greer, an actress whose work I enjoy, is utterly wasted in her second mom role this year. I was happy, though, about Michael Pena and the rest of the guys playing Lang's crew, who provide wonderful comic relief. Pena, in particular, is central to two of the film's most memorable sequences. The three characters kind of play up to ethnic stereotypes, but the actors playing them are having such a grand time of it that it's hard to begrudge Marvel this little indulgence.
What I had a little difficulty with, though, was the sequences basically tying Scott into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which felt shoehorned into the script. Yes, they work from the logic of the MCU and achieve the intended result, but they feel disruptive of the film's overall narrative flow. This was a film conceived years before there was a grand design to fit all of these things together, and it definitely feels like it. About the only MCU insertion that feels right is the part of the script demonstrating and explaining Pym's disdain for Stark (played here by John Slattery, rather than the more youthful Dominic Cooper). At least it clearly establishes why Pym wouldn't run to the Avengers for help.
The movie was fun, though not anywhere near Marvel's very best. Still, it's definitely worth 120 minutes of one's time and a couple of hundred pesos. As with most Marvel movies, I skipped the 3D on this one.
7.5/10
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Cinematic Junk Food: A Review of The Minions
directed by Pierre Coffin and Kyle Balda
written by Brian Lynch
When the animated film Despicable Me came out in 2010, it captivated critics and audiences alike with its inventive story of a supervillain adopting three little girls. What the makers of the film may not have anticipated, however, was how popular said supervillain's droves of tiny, overall-wearing, gibberish-speaking henchmen, collectively called the "Minions" would eventually turn out to be the most influential pop-culture figures with yellow skin since Spongebob Squarepants. After increasing the exposure of the Minions in the second film, the next logical step, in view of their popularity, was to give them their own movie, and so we have the animated film "Minions."
Minions is the story of a race of little yellow creatures that have been around since the dawn of time, whose overriding purpose in life is, as illogical as it may sound, to find and work for the biggest villain in the world. In the course of their lives, they work for such renowned bad guys as the Tyrannosaurus Rex, Dracula, and Napoleon Bonaparte, and always end up causing their bosses' undoing, as a result of which they end up living in an ice cave for over a hundred years, until one of them, Kevin (Coffin, who voices all other minions), decides to go out an find "the" big villain to whom all of them can devote their apparently eternal lives in servitude. Leaving the cave, Kevin, accompanied by fellow Minions Bob and Stuart sets out to find this "big boss" and their travels take them to New York City in the year 1968, where they learn while watching late-night television, that the supervillain they are searching for may just be in Orlando, a femme fatale by the name of Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock). They travel to Orlando and through a madcap sequence of events manage to impress her enough to get her to hire them, whereupon she gives them their big assignment: they are to steal the Royal Crown of England. While they will have at their disposal the gadgets of Scarlet's husband Herb (Jon Hamm), it wont be an easy task, but the Minions are always eager to please.
The paper-thin plot is barely enough to sustain the running time of a full-length movie, but the good news is that the slapstick involving the Minions is virtually non-stop, so all told it's still about eighty or so minutes of nice, mindless fun with topnotch computer-generated animation, all set to a totally groovy sixties soundtrack (though I also appreciated the familiar musical cue from the Despicable Me movies, which was also a staple of the mobile device game). Speaking of the game, it gets quite the shout-out from the filmmakers at the movie's climax.
That's the thing about this movie, though; one remembers things like the toys and the video games because unlike the quirky first movie, which was really about a middle-aged man becoming an instant dad for the very first time, this one, with its nonsensical plot and celebrity walk-ons really feels like a slickly-packaged product, designed primarily to sell related merchandise. It makes no pretensions about what it is and is not, but watching it felt like going on a junk food binge. It was a tasty treat in its own way, but not quite what I'd call a truly satisfying cinematic experience.
The kids loved it, and I was happy to indulge them, but I wouldn't let them watch movies like this on a regular basis for the same reason I wouldn't let them eat hotdogs everyday; it isn't really good for them.
6/10
written by Brian Lynch
When the animated film Despicable Me came out in 2010, it captivated critics and audiences alike with its inventive story of a supervillain adopting three little girls. What the makers of the film may not have anticipated, however, was how popular said supervillain's droves of tiny, overall-wearing, gibberish-speaking henchmen, collectively called the "Minions" would eventually turn out to be the most influential pop-culture figures with yellow skin since Spongebob Squarepants. After increasing the exposure of the Minions in the second film, the next logical step, in view of their popularity, was to give them their own movie, and so we have the animated film "Minions."
Minions is the story of a race of little yellow creatures that have been around since the dawn of time, whose overriding purpose in life is, as illogical as it may sound, to find and work for the biggest villain in the world. In the course of their lives, they work for such renowned bad guys as the Tyrannosaurus Rex, Dracula, and Napoleon Bonaparte, and always end up causing their bosses' undoing, as a result of which they end up living in an ice cave for over a hundred years, until one of them, Kevin (Coffin, who voices all other minions), decides to go out an find "the" big villain to whom all of them can devote their apparently eternal lives in servitude. Leaving the cave, Kevin, accompanied by fellow Minions Bob and Stuart sets out to find this "big boss" and their travels take them to New York City in the year 1968, where they learn while watching late-night television, that the supervillain they are searching for may just be in Orlando, a femme fatale by the name of Scarlet Overkill (Sandra Bullock). They travel to Orlando and through a madcap sequence of events manage to impress her enough to get her to hire them, whereupon she gives them their big assignment: they are to steal the Royal Crown of England. While they will have at their disposal the gadgets of Scarlet's husband Herb (Jon Hamm), it wont be an easy task, but the Minions are always eager to please.
The paper-thin plot is barely enough to sustain the running time of a full-length movie, but the good news is that the slapstick involving the Minions is virtually non-stop, so all told it's still about eighty or so minutes of nice, mindless fun with topnotch computer-generated animation, all set to a totally groovy sixties soundtrack (though I also appreciated the familiar musical cue from the Despicable Me movies, which was also a staple of the mobile device game). Speaking of the game, it gets quite the shout-out from the filmmakers at the movie's climax.
That's the thing about this movie, though; one remembers things like the toys and the video games because unlike the quirky first movie, which was really about a middle-aged man becoming an instant dad for the very first time, this one, with its nonsensical plot and celebrity walk-ons really feels like a slickly-packaged product, designed primarily to sell related merchandise. It makes no pretensions about what it is and is not, but watching it felt like going on a junk food binge. It was a tasty treat in its own way, but not quite what I'd call a truly satisfying cinematic experience.
The kids loved it, and I was happy to indulge them, but I wouldn't let them watch movies like this on a regular basis for the same reason I wouldn't let them eat hotdogs everyday; it isn't really good for them.
6/10
Saturday, June 27, 2015
R.I.P. James Horner
Earlier today, I found out that one of my very favorite film composers, James Horner, probably best known for having composed the music and theme song for James Cameron's Titanic, died in a plane crash. Of all the celebrity deaths I've ever heard of, this is perhaps the saddest for me, along with Robin Williams' suicide.
I grew up with James Horner's music. When I was eleven I watched Amblin Entertainment's An American Tail on Betamax. As utterly ridiculous as this sounds, I was convinced I was in love with the main character's sister after hearing her (and the main character), sing the song "Somewhere Out There" in the course of the film. I was, of course, captivated by the song (though oddly enough, not the pop version by Linda Ronstadt) and in particular by James Horner's contribution to that melody. He wrote the score, which permeated the film and, as performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, was simply haunting. It left a heck of an impression.
About four years later, Horner blew me away, perhaps a bit more this time, with the soaring choral music of the Civil War epic Glory, a story of African-American soldiers fighting for equality during the War between the States. That was when he became one of my favorite composers of all time.
My love for his music continued into the 1990s, thanks to an aunt who brought me extremely hard to find CDs from the United States. His first foray into the superhero genre, The Rocketeer, was as magnificent as the film itself was ill-fated at the box office, but I was also a fan of his less bombastic stuff, like the jazz-flavored music of Phil Alden Robinson's Sneakers. I also liked his work on Edward Zwick's Legends of the Fall, the film that arguably launched Brad Pitt's career but which I remember better for its sweeping, if slightly overbearing musical score, which featured seventy-five glorious minutes of Horner music being played by the London Symphony Orchestra.
Then he came up with, for me, some of the very best work of his career: the one-two punch of Apollo 13 and Braveheart, the latter of which got him the job that would seal his status as a pop-culture icon: Titanic. People tell me they still cry when they watch that movie, even 18 years after it first came out, and I'm willing to bet Horner's music plays a huge part in that.
Of course, while everyone else went back to their pop music after that, Horner geeks like me continued to follow his work; in particular I loved his music score for Martin Campbell's The Mask of Zorro, yet another foray into the action-adventure genre, the very next year.
Then, the 2000s came, and with it the superhero renaissance courtesy of the X-Men and Spider-Man, and while these films dominated the box-office landscape for the better part of a decade, Horner kind of fell under the radar for me, although he continued to work. He even snagged a couple of Oscar nominations in 2002 and 2004 for A Beautiful Mind and House of Sand and Fog, respectively.
When James Cameron's Avatar started breaking box-office records in 2009, of course I bought and thoroughly enjoyed James Horner's high-flying soundtrack, but if I may be honest, after over twenty years of enjoying this man's music I found myself recognizing a little too often the hooks, motifs and cues from his other work, which kind of affected my appreciation just the slightest bit, especially that four-note "enemy" motif that has featured in a lot of his film scores, and I started wondering if he'd run out of tricks. He had always been guilty of a bit of recycling (which, arguably can also be said of the likes of Hans Zimmer and even the heralded John Williams), but it struck me a little that he was doing it quite a lot in this music.
Horner then wrote the music for the remake of the 1984 film The Karate Kid, and while it was serviceable, it felt even more like a regurgitation of his previous work than Avatar did. He seemed to be in a bit of a creative slump.
Then Horner did something I had not expected him to do: he joined the Marvel Age, and wrote music for Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man. I had always associated the comic book movie genre with the likes of Danny Elfman, Alan Silvestri and Zimmer. Heck, even John Williams only composed music for the first Superman movie (though the theme still endures thirty-seven years later, even after Zimmer's rather clumsy attempt to create a new one); I hadn't figured Horner would be a fit for this, even though he arguably had some superhero work under his belt with the little-seen Rocketeer. Suddenly, a childhood dream I didn't even know I had was being fulfilled.
Better still, Horner's work on the movie truly surprised me. Yes, there were cues borrowed from his other work, but the Shakuhachi (Japanese wood flute) and four-note motif were nowhere to be found, and with the full-bodied brass that played Spider-Man's theme when he swung across a bridge after foiling a carjacker, Horner convinced me that not even John Williams himself could have done a better job of scoring this movie. Not just that; but more than just about all of the superhero scores, including the work of the aforementioned Elfman, Zimmer and Silvestri I had heard over the last ten years prior to this, Horner's music had an extraordinary emotional range. I loved the Peter/Gwen theme every bit as much as I enjoyed the superhero-ey stuff.
What really took me by surprise was the fact Horner poured so much character into what could have easily been treated as another paycheck. I mean, Webb wasn't one of his frequent collaborators like Ron Howard, James Cameron or Mel Gibson, so he could have rejiggered another of his lesser known scores from the 1990s and passed it off as something new. After all, The Karate Kid had been nothing but a patchwork of all his former score. It wasn't the case here, and quite frankly I found myself falling in love with Horner's music all over again, and not just because Spider-Man happens to be my favorite comic book character.
Immediately thereafter, however, he went into a long period of silence. The Amazing Spider Man came out in 2012, and for two years thereafter nothing came out with his name on it. Sure, there were rumblings of a series of sequels to Avatar, but considering that James Cameron is not in the habit of making a movie more often than every six years at best, assuming Horner would even work on the movies, they were a long way into the future.
Finally, this year, Horner was slated to work on not just one but three movies, including a rather promising drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal entitled Southpaw.
And now he's gone.
It saddens me greatly that someone whose music I grew up with has passed on, and arguably well ahead of his time considering that he was a sprightly 61 (for purposes of comparison, consider that John Williams is now 83 and still composing music), but what pains me more was that he went at a time when I was starting to rediscover him. I take some consolation that I can look forward to at least three more movies with the music of my favorite composer of all, the wonderful James Horner.
Thank you for the music and the memories, Mr. Horner.
I grew up with James Horner's music. When I was eleven I watched Amblin Entertainment's An American Tail on Betamax. As utterly ridiculous as this sounds, I was convinced I was in love with the main character's sister after hearing her (and the main character), sing the song "Somewhere Out There" in the course of the film. I was, of course, captivated by the song (though oddly enough, not the pop version by Linda Ronstadt) and in particular by James Horner's contribution to that melody. He wrote the score, which permeated the film and, as performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, was simply haunting. It left a heck of an impression.
About four years later, Horner blew me away, perhaps a bit more this time, with the soaring choral music of the Civil War epic Glory, a story of African-American soldiers fighting for equality during the War between the States. That was when he became one of my favorite composers of all time.
My love for his music continued into the 1990s, thanks to an aunt who brought me extremely hard to find CDs from the United States. His first foray into the superhero genre, The Rocketeer, was as magnificent as the film itself was ill-fated at the box office, but I was also a fan of his less bombastic stuff, like the jazz-flavored music of Phil Alden Robinson's Sneakers. I also liked his work on Edward Zwick's Legends of the Fall, the film that arguably launched Brad Pitt's career but which I remember better for its sweeping, if slightly overbearing musical score, which featured seventy-five glorious minutes of Horner music being played by the London Symphony Orchestra.
Then he came up with, for me, some of the very best work of his career: the one-two punch of Apollo 13 and Braveheart, the latter of which got him the job that would seal his status as a pop-culture icon: Titanic. People tell me they still cry when they watch that movie, even 18 years after it first came out, and I'm willing to bet Horner's music plays a huge part in that.
Of course, while everyone else went back to their pop music after that, Horner geeks like me continued to follow his work; in particular I loved his music score for Martin Campbell's The Mask of Zorro, yet another foray into the action-adventure genre, the very next year.
Then, the 2000s came, and with it the superhero renaissance courtesy of the X-Men and Spider-Man, and while these films dominated the box-office landscape for the better part of a decade, Horner kind of fell under the radar for me, although he continued to work. He even snagged a couple of Oscar nominations in 2002 and 2004 for A Beautiful Mind and House of Sand and Fog, respectively.
When James Cameron's Avatar started breaking box-office records in 2009, of course I bought and thoroughly enjoyed James Horner's high-flying soundtrack, but if I may be honest, after over twenty years of enjoying this man's music I found myself recognizing a little too often the hooks, motifs and cues from his other work, which kind of affected my appreciation just the slightest bit, especially that four-note "enemy" motif that has featured in a lot of his film scores, and I started wondering if he'd run out of tricks. He had always been guilty of a bit of recycling (which, arguably can also be said of the likes of Hans Zimmer and even the heralded John Williams), but it struck me a little that he was doing it quite a lot in this music.
Horner then wrote the music for the remake of the 1984 film The Karate Kid, and while it was serviceable, it felt even more like a regurgitation of his previous work than Avatar did. He seemed to be in a bit of a creative slump.
Then Horner did something I had not expected him to do: he joined the Marvel Age, and wrote music for Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man. I had always associated the comic book movie genre with the likes of Danny Elfman, Alan Silvestri and Zimmer. Heck, even John Williams only composed music for the first Superman movie (though the theme still endures thirty-seven years later, even after Zimmer's rather clumsy attempt to create a new one); I hadn't figured Horner would be a fit for this, even though he arguably had some superhero work under his belt with the little-seen Rocketeer. Suddenly, a childhood dream I didn't even know I had was being fulfilled.
Better still, Horner's work on the movie truly surprised me. Yes, there were cues borrowed from his other work, but the Shakuhachi (Japanese wood flute) and four-note motif were nowhere to be found, and with the full-bodied brass that played Spider-Man's theme when he swung across a bridge after foiling a carjacker, Horner convinced me that not even John Williams himself could have done a better job of scoring this movie. Not just that; but more than just about all of the superhero scores, including the work of the aforementioned Elfman, Zimmer and Silvestri I had heard over the last ten years prior to this, Horner's music had an extraordinary emotional range. I loved the Peter/Gwen theme every bit as much as I enjoyed the superhero-ey stuff.
What really took me by surprise was the fact Horner poured so much character into what could have easily been treated as another paycheck. I mean, Webb wasn't one of his frequent collaborators like Ron Howard, James Cameron or Mel Gibson, so he could have rejiggered another of his lesser known scores from the 1990s and passed it off as something new. After all, The Karate Kid had been nothing but a patchwork of all his former score. It wasn't the case here, and quite frankly I found myself falling in love with Horner's music all over again, and not just because Spider-Man happens to be my favorite comic book character.
Immediately thereafter, however, he went into a long period of silence. The Amazing Spider Man came out in 2012, and for two years thereafter nothing came out with his name on it. Sure, there were rumblings of a series of sequels to Avatar, but considering that James Cameron is not in the habit of making a movie more often than every six years at best, assuming Horner would even work on the movies, they were a long way into the future.
Finally, this year, Horner was slated to work on not just one but three movies, including a rather promising drama starring Jake Gyllenhaal entitled Southpaw.
And now he's gone.
It saddens me greatly that someone whose music I grew up with has passed on, and arguably well ahead of his time considering that he was a sprightly 61 (for purposes of comparison, consider that John Williams is now 83 and still composing music), but what pains me more was that he went at a time when I was starting to rediscover him. I take some consolation that I can look forward to at least three more movies with the music of my favorite composer of all, the wonderful James Horner.
Thank you for the music and the memories, Mr. Horner.
Friday, June 12, 2015
A Very Pleasant Trip Down Memory Lane: A Review of Jurassic World
directed by Colin Trevorrow
written by Derek Conolly, Colin Trevorrow, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver
I was not having a very good year in 1993 when I walked into Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park, but when I walked out after having seen the film I was significantly happier. It really was a fantastic film, the kind that gets me excited about watching movies in the first place. The sequel four years later was simply awful by comparison, and by the time the third movie in the series rolled around, this one no longer based on a novel by the series creator, the late Michael Crichton, I had lost interest and caught it on cable television instead of in the theaters.
I'm not entirely sure why I was particularly impressed by the trailer of Jurassic World, the latest installment in the Jurassic series, which I can confirm is a sequel and not at all a reboot (and even features one of the cast members of the very first movie) but suffice it to say, I went to see it, my expectations having been tempered by my disappointment with the second and third movies and several years' worth of cynicism and blockbuster fatigue. Maybe I just liked the feeling that star Chris Pratt was kind of channeling his Star Lord character from last year's Guardians of the Galaxy. Whatever the reason, I'm happy to say that for the first time since 1993, I enjoyed a movie with the word "Jurassic" in the title.
The story picks up some 22 years from the time the first movie left off (and as odd as this may sound, actually seems to disregard the previous two sequels) and things are quite different now; Jurassic World is a fully-functioning theme park, the kind that Richard Attenborough's John Hammond set out to build in the first movie, and has been for several years now. As often happens with any long-running business concern, costs are escalating, and the woman running it, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) has been looking for ways to incease the "wow" factor, and as a result she and her higher-ups, including the theme park's owner, magnate Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan) have given the scientists, headed by Henry Wu (B.D. Wong) from the first film free rein to create the most badass new dinosaur they could imagine. Meanwhile, another new approach Masrani is taking is having ex-sailor Owen Grady (Pratt) actually train the deadly velociraptors that menaced the humans during the first three films, and to his credit, Grady seems to have done a pretty good job, much to the interest of the park's head of security, Hoskins (Vincent D'Onofrio), who has his own sinister plans for the raptors. Claire is so preoccupied with improving the park's attendance that she completely neglects her two nephews Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray (Ty Simpkins) who are touring the place while their parents (Andy Buckley and Judy Greer) lock horns over their divorce proceedings thousands of kilometers away. She leaves them in the hands of her equally indifferent assistant Zara (Katie McGrath). Unfortunately for just about every one of the 20,000 + human beings on the park, the Indominus Rex, the dinosaur that Dr. Wu and his cohorts have cooked up is bigger, meaner, and smarter than any other dinosaur, and in true Jurassic Park fashion, figures out a way to get out of its enclosure and cause all hell to break loose.
While I often bewail Hollywood's lack of originality given the proliferation of remakes, reboots, sequels and adaptations of existing material, Trevorrow makes this film work by paying effective homage to the original film, and a brace of other 80s and 90s science-fiction films, including James Cameron's Aliens. There's an overriding sense throughout the whole movie that the filmmakers know they aren't breaking new ground, so they try their very best to show their love for the original film and similar movies of the era, and by gum it works. There's a bit of investment in getting the audience to care what happens to the characters when the dino-poop hits the fan; the kids have to grapple with their parents' impending divorce, and their aunt's almost criminal negligence, Claire has to deal with, well, the greed of Jurassic World's shareholders, and Owen has to deal with the fact that while he seems to finally have achieved some kind of breakthrough in understanding dinosaurs (or at least velociraptors), no one else, save perhaps for Barry, one of the park's other wranglers (Omar Sy) seems to really care.
The humans are always peripheral in movies like this, though; at the end of the day their principal purpose is to serve as stand-ins for the audience so that they can feel they're in the thick of all the dinosaur-induced chaos, and to these humans' credit, they do a pretty good job. The real treat has always been the dinosaurs, and Trevorrow gets all of the important beats right, from concealing the big bad I-Rex (a jab, I imagine, at today's smartphone savvy generation) for most of the first act of the film, to dialing back the constant reliance on computer-generated imagery and giving animatronic dinosaurs some generous screen time, just as Spielberg did in the original. Still, the script calls for a lot of running, fighting and killing dinosaurs here, so heavy use of CGI is kind of a must, but at least Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) is very much at the top of their game here, no matter what the hipsters who love to bitch about CGI might say.
I also appreciated Michael Giacchino's unobtrusive music score, as well as his rather generous and very well-timed references to John Williams' regal theme.
It's worth emphasizing at this point that this film is nowhere near as good as the original, which set a benchmark for science fiction movies that stood for many years, but it's also worth emphasizing that it's not trying to be. Interestingly, like the first film, it also has something to say, though it feels more of a commentary about the greed of Hollywood than on the evil of messing with nature that was quite patent in the first film. There's some irony to that, considering that from one perspective this film may definitely be viewed as a cynical cash grab; a repackaging of a much older product to sell to newer audiences. There's even a loose end that is somewhat shamelessly left dangling so that Universal can pursue a sequel if the box office receipts justify one.
Ultimately, though, what matters is that the film, for all its flaws, is quite an entertaining affair. Trevorrow and his cast and crew have thrown together the best "Jurassic" movie since the original, and whatever success this film may experience when it opens worldwide is, to my mind, well-deserved.
(On a side note: I was somewhat amused by the fact that almost the entirety of the principal cast consists of actors who have starred in one adaptation or another of a Marvel comics property; Pratt, of course, was the lead in the aforementioned Guardians of the Galaxy, Howard had a supporting role in Spider-Man 3, Khan had a role in The Amazing Spider-Man, Simpkins had a pretty pivotal role in Iron Man 3, Sy had a small role in X-Men: Days of Future Past, and D'Onofrio was the arch villain in Daredevil. There were so many Marvel-movie or TV-show veterans around that if the Hulk had shown up at some point and started beating up the dinosaurs, he wouldn't have felt entirely out of place.)
The cast and crew have put together a solid, competent sequel to one of the most beloved Spielberg movies of all time, and while it wasn't exactly 1993 all over again for me, I had a really good time.
7.5/10
written by Derek Conolly, Colin Trevorrow, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver
I was not having a very good year in 1993 when I walked into Steven Spielberg's Jurassic Park, but when I walked out after having seen the film I was significantly happier. It really was a fantastic film, the kind that gets me excited about watching movies in the first place. The sequel four years later was simply awful by comparison, and by the time the third movie in the series rolled around, this one no longer based on a novel by the series creator, the late Michael Crichton, I had lost interest and caught it on cable television instead of in the theaters.
I'm not entirely sure why I was particularly impressed by the trailer of Jurassic World, the latest installment in the Jurassic series, which I can confirm is a sequel and not at all a reboot (and even features one of the cast members of the very first movie) but suffice it to say, I went to see it, my expectations having been tempered by my disappointment with the second and third movies and several years' worth of cynicism and blockbuster fatigue. Maybe I just liked the feeling that star Chris Pratt was kind of channeling his Star Lord character from last year's Guardians of the Galaxy. Whatever the reason, I'm happy to say that for the first time since 1993, I enjoyed a movie with the word "Jurassic" in the title.
The story picks up some 22 years from the time the first movie left off (and as odd as this may sound, actually seems to disregard the previous two sequels) and things are quite different now; Jurassic World is a fully-functioning theme park, the kind that Richard Attenborough's John Hammond set out to build in the first movie, and has been for several years now. As often happens with any long-running business concern, costs are escalating, and the woman running it, Claire Dearing (Bryce Dallas Howard) has been looking for ways to incease the "wow" factor, and as a result she and her higher-ups, including the theme park's owner, magnate Simon Masrani (Irrfan Khan) have given the scientists, headed by Henry Wu (B.D. Wong) from the first film free rein to create the most badass new dinosaur they could imagine. Meanwhile, another new approach Masrani is taking is having ex-sailor Owen Grady (Pratt) actually train the deadly velociraptors that menaced the humans during the first three films, and to his credit, Grady seems to have done a pretty good job, much to the interest of the park's head of security, Hoskins (Vincent D'Onofrio), who has his own sinister plans for the raptors. Claire is so preoccupied with improving the park's attendance that she completely neglects her two nephews Zach (Nick Robinson) and Gray (Ty Simpkins) who are touring the place while their parents (Andy Buckley and Judy Greer) lock horns over their divorce proceedings thousands of kilometers away. She leaves them in the hands of her equally indifferent assistant Zara (Katie McGrath). Unfortunately for just about every one of the 20,000 + human beings on the park, the Indominus Rex, the dinosaur that Dr. Wu and his cohorts have cooked up is bigger, meaner, and smarter than any other dinosaur, and in true Jurassic Park fashion, figures out a way to get out of its enclosure and cause all hell to break loose.
While I often bewail Hollywood's lack of originality given the proliferation of remakes, reboots, sequels and adaptations of existing material, Trevorrow makes this film work by paying effective homage to the original film, and a brace of other 80s and 90s science-fiction films, including James Cameron's Aliens. There's an overriding sense throughout the whole movie that the filmmakers know they aren't breaking new ground, so they try their very best to show their love for the original film and similar movies of the era, and by gum it works. There's a bit of investment in getting the audience to care what happens to the characters when the dino-poop hits the fan; the kids have to grapple with their parents' impending divorce, and their aunt's almost criminal negligence, Claire has to deal with, well, the greed of Jurassic World's shareholders, and Owen has to deal with the fact that while he seems to finally have achieved some kind of breakthrough in understanding dinosaurs (or at least velociraptors), no one else, save perhaps for Barry, one of the park's other wranglers (Omar Sy) seems to really care.
The humans are always peripheral in movies like this, though; at the end of the day their principal purpose is to serve as stand-ins for the audience so that they can feel they're in the thick of all the dinosaur-induced chaos, and to these humans' credit, they do a pretty good job. The real treat has always been the dinosaurs, and Trevorrow gets all of the important beats right, from concealing the big bad I-Rex (a jab, I imagine, at today's smartphone savvy generation) for most of the first act of the film, to dialing back the constant reliance on computer-generated imagery and giving animatronic dinosaurs some generous screen time, just as Spielberg did in the original. Still, the script calls for a lot of running, fighting and killing dinosaurs here, so heavy use of CGI is kind of a must, but at least Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) is very much at the top of their game here, no matter what the hipsters who love to bitch about CGI might say.
I also appreciated Michael Giacchino's unobtrusive music score, as well as his rather generous and very well-timed references to John Williams' regal theme.
It's worth emphasizing at this point that this film is nowhere near as good as the original, which set a benchmark for science fiction movies that stood for many years, but it's also worth emphasizing that it's not trying to be. Interestingly, like the first film, it also has something to say, though it feels more of a commentary about the greed of Hollywood than on the evil of messing with nature that was quite patent in the first film. There's some irony to that, considering that from one perspective this film may definitely be viewed as a cynical cash grab; a repackaging of a much older product to sell to newer audiences. There's even a loose end that is somewhat shamelessly left dangling so that Universal can pursue a sequel if the box office receipts justify one.
Ultimately, though, what matters is that the film, for all its flaws, is quite an entertaining affair. Trevorrow and his cast and crew have thrown together the best "Jurassic" movie since the original, and whatever success this film may experience when it opens worldwide is, to my mind, well-deserved.
(On a side note: I was somewhat amused by the fact that almost the entirety of the principal cast consists of actors who have starred in one adaptation or another of a Marvel comics property; Pratt, of course, was the lead in the aforementioned Guardians of the Galaxy, Howard had a supporting role in Spider-Man 3, Khan had a role in The Amazing Spider-Man, Simpkins had a pretty pivotal role in Iron Man 3, Sy had a small role in X-Men: Days of Future Past, and D'Onofrio was the arch villain in Daredevil. There were so many Marvel-movie or TV-show veterans around that if the Hulk had shown up at some point and started beating up the dinosaurs, he wouldn't have felt entirely out of place.)
The cast and crew have put together a solid, competent sequel to one of the most beloved Spielberg movies of all time, and while it wasn't exactly 1993 all over again for me, I had a really good time.
7.5/10
Saturday, May 30, 2015
Not So Much a Misfire as a Miscalculation: A Review of Tomorrowland (Mild Spoilers)
directed by Brad Bird
written by Damon Lindelof, Brad Bird and Jeff Jensen
Once upon a time, animator/storyteller/director Brad Bird could do no wrong in the eyes of film critics. While dis debut animated feature-film back in 1999, The Iron Giant, did not set the box-office on fire (and was, in fact, a bomb), it was quite well-received by film critics, and to date it has a highly enviable 97% "Fresh" score of review aggregator site rottentomatoes.com. When Bird started collaborating with Walt Disney's Pixar Studios, the results were magical: 2004's The Incredibles and 2007's Ratatouille were both critical and commercial successes, and both movies won Brad Bird an Academy Award. They certainly made me a dyed-in-the-wool fan. He then successfully made the transition to live-action filmmaking with 2011's Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, the best-reviewed film in the series and one of the highest grossing ones as well.
As a result, when it was announced that Bird was working on a top-secret, live-action project for Walt Disney pictures starring George Clooney, there was quite a bit of excitement generated among fans like myself and the filmgoing community in general.
Tomorrowland is basically the story of a secret community of cutting-edge innovators who live just beyond the fringes of our reality, sort of a secret society of geniuses.
The story begins at the New York World's in 1964, where an 11-year-old boy named Frank Walker (Thomas Robinson), presents his invention a rocket pack that doesn't quite work, to a stern judge named David Nix (Hugh Laurie), in the hope of winning prize money and getting the opportunity to improve his invention further. He is summarily rejected, but not before he has piqued the attention of Athena (Raffey Cassidy), a young child like himself who hands him a pin with a "T" and tells him to secretly follow her and the rest of the judges headed by the unpleasant Nix. Frank complies, and finds himself in a fantastical city in the sky filled with robots and wondrous flying machines. One such robot ends up tweaking his jet pack, and not a moment too soon as Frank falls from one of the sky-high towers and finds himself using the jet pack to save his life, and, with his impressive display, securing his place in Tomorrowland.
Over fifty years later, fifteen-year-old Casey Newton (Britt Robertson), is at the end of her rope; her father (Tim McGraw), an engineer for NASA will soon find himself out of work as the launch platform where he works is set for dismantling for no other cited reason than that "people are running out of ideas," and Casey does everything she can that doesn't involve violence to stave off the dismantling, including sabotaging the heavy equipment. Unfortunately, her activism brings her in trouble with the law, and as she is being released into her father's recognizance she discovers, among her things, a pin very similar to the one given to Frank at the beginning of the film, one that shows her a fantastic place every time she touches it. In her determination to understand what she is seeing, however, Casey finds herself in grave danger, and she'll need the help of Athena, and the now-adult Frank (George Clooney) to get herself out of it. One thing is clear; Casey has to find her way to Tomorrowland, before it's too late.
A little over a week after its worldwide opening, Tomorrowland, has apparently disappointed across the board with underwhelming box-office receipts and lukewarm reviews. Personally, I really enjoyed it, but I think I understand what the problem was.
Tomorrowland is a film fueled by a wonderful sense of nostalgia, and hearkens back to a time when people's image of the future was all about jet packs and space travel. Unfortunately, we're living in an age where moviegoers have been to several other worlds, courtesy of Star Trek, Star Wars and even Avatar, where they've seen wondrous things like dinosaurs brought back to life and finally, they've seen men don suits of armor that can fly and shoot lasers, all of which make Bird's (and co-writer Damon Lindelof's) visions of tomorrow look positively quaint. The truth is, most people have already seen too much, whether on the big screen, the small screen, or even their handheld devices to be impressed by what this film has to offer. Now, I happen to be a fan of the brand of nostalgia that Bird is peddling, but I totally get why not many other people are.
To sort of compensate for the general lack of oomph, Bird and Lindelof wrap the story in layer upon layer of mystery, and to the credit of Disney's marketing crew, they followed suit. The problem was that all of the mystery surrounding the narrative made people wonder just what it was they were going to see, and with that much expectation, especially considering Bird's track record, he was basically setting himself up to disappoint.
I disagree with the notion that people rejected this for being a "message movie" considering that the highest grossing film of all time Avatar, is one of the most hackneyed message movies ever, but I do agree that Bird could have taken a different approach to proselytizing. Avatar may have been preachy, but it gave audiences a heck of a ride while it was doing it. As someone who's given audiences some pretty spectacular action scenes in the past, one would think Bird could have pulled this off with a bit more panache.
So if there was so much wrong with this film, why did I like it? Well it still has quite a bit going for it, like Bird's gift for "retro-futuristic" visual flair, generous helpings of the humor and witty dialogue that made his best films as entertaining as they were, some excellently filmed action scenes apart from the disappointing climax, and some winning performances from his principal actors. The production design is wondrous to behold, though as I said, it really isn't anything new, and neither are the admittedly slick visual effects on display courtesy of Industrial Light and Magic.
Robertson is delightful as the lead; the scenes of her popping in and out of Tomorrowland are the centerpiece of the film's marketing (and of the film, to an extent) and she sells the heck of out of them. Clooney doesn't disappoint as the curmudgeonly version of Frank Walker, but the real surprise is how well Thomas Robinson, who actually resembles Clooney a bit, plays his younger version. Laurie makes the most out of a thankless role, as Nix, delivering the film's central sermon--er, message, at the climax. It's a terrible waste of a great actor, to my mind. For me, the breakthrough performance here was that of Cassidy as the mysterious Athena. It's hard to go into detail about her performance without spoiling a couple of surprises about her role, but suffice it to say that like Robertson, her role required her to do some pretty funny things with a straight face, and she pulled it off quite well.
This film is a bit of a hiccup for Bird, who really was on a roll for many years, though I hardly think it's set him on the same downward spiral that M. Night Shyamalan found himself on ten years ago.
I'm still waiting for him to come up with The Incredibles 2...
7.1/10
written by Damon Lindelof, Brad Bird and Jeff Jensen
Once upon a time, animator/storyteller/director Brad Bird could do no wrong in the eyes of film critics. While dis debut animated feature-film back in 1999, The Iron Giant, did not set the box-office on fire (and was, in fact, a bomb), it was quite well-received by film critics, and to date it has a highly enviable 97% "Fresh" score of review aggregator site rottentomatoes.com. When Bird started collaborating with Walt Disney's Pixar Studios, the results were magical: 2004's The Incredibles and 2007's Ratatouille were both critical and commercial successes, and both movies won Brad Bird an Academy Award. They certainly made me a dyed-in-the-wool fan. He then successfully made the transition to live-action filmmaking with 2011's Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, the best-reviewed film in the series and one of the highest grossing ones as well.
As a result, when it was announced that Bird was working on a top-secret, live-action project for Walt Disney pictures starring George Clooney, there was quite a bit of excitement generated among fans like myself and the filmgoing community in general.
Tomorrowland is basically the story of a secret community of cutting-edge innovators who live just beyond the fringes of our reality, sort of a secret society of geniuses.
The story begins at the New York World's in 1964, where an 11-year-old boy named Frank Walker (Thomas Robinson), presents his invention a rocket pack that doesn't quite work, to a stern judge named David Nix (Hugh Laurie), in the hope of winning prize money and getting the opportunity to improve his invention further. He is summarily rejected, but not before he has piqued the attention of Athena (Raffey Cassidy), a young child like himself who hands him a pin with a "T" and tells him to secretly follow her and the rest of the judges headed by the unpleasant Nix. Frank complies, and finds himself in a fantastical city in the sky filled with robots and wondrous flying machines. One such robot ends up tweaking his jet pack, and not a moment too soon as Frank falls from one of the sky-high towers and finds himself using the jet pack to save his life, and, with his impressive display, securing his place in Tomorrowland.
Over fifty years later, fifteen-year-old Casey Newton (Britt Robertson), is at the end of her rope; her father (Tim McGraw), an engineer for NASA will soon find himself out of work as the launch platform where he works is set for dismantling for no other cited reason than that "people are running out of ideas," and Casey does everything she can that doesn't involve violence to stave off the dismantling, including sabotaging the heavy equipment. Unfortunately, her activism brings her in trouble with the law, and as she is being released into her father's recognizance she discovers, among her things, a pin very similar to the one given to Frank at the beginning of the film, one that shows her a fantastic place every time she touches it. In her determination to understand what she is seeing, however, Casey finds herself in grave danger, and she'll need the help of Athena, and the now-adult Frank (George Clooney) to get herself out of it. One thing is clear; Casey has to find her way to Tomorrowland, before it's too late.
A little over a week after its worldwide opening, Tomorrowland, has apparently disappointed across the board with underwhelming box-office receipts and lukewarm reviews. Personally, I really enjoyed it, but I think I understand what the problem was.
Tomorrowland is a film fueled by a wonderful sense of nostalgia, and hearkens back to a time when people's image of the future was all about jet packs and space travel. Unfortunately, we're living in an age where moviegoers have been to several other worlds, courtesy of Star Trek, Star Wars and even Avatar, where they've seen wondrous things like dinosaurs brought back to life and finally, they've seen men don suits of armor that can fly and shoot lasers, all of which make Bird's (and co-writer Damon Lindelof's) visions of tomorrow look positively quaint. The truth is, most people have already seen too much, whether on the big screen, the small screen, or even their handheld devices to be impressed by what this film has to offer. Now, I happen to be a fan of the brand of nostalgia that Bird is peddling, but I totally get why not many other people are.
To sort of compensate for the general lack of oomph, Bird and Lindelof wrap the story in layer upon layer of mystery, and to the credit of Disney's marketing crew, they followed suit. The problem was that all of the mystery surrounding the narrative made people wonder just what it was they were going to see, and with that much expectation, especially considering Bird's track record, he was basically setting himself up to disappoint.
I disagree with the notion that people rejected this for being a "message movie" considering that the highest grossing film of all time Avatar, is one of the most hackneyed message movies ever, but I do agree that Bird could have taken a different approach to proselytizing. Avatar may have been preachy, but it gave audiences a heck of a ride while it was doing it. As someone who's given audiences some pretty spectacular action scenes in the past, one would think Bird could have pulled this off with a bit more panache.
So if there was so much wrong with this film, why did I like it? Well it still has quite a bit going for it, like Bird's gift for "retro-futuristic" visual flair, generous helpings of the humor and witty dialogue that made his best films as entertaining as they were, some excellently filmed action scenes apart from the disappointing climax, and some winning performances from his principal actors. The production design is wondrous to behold, though as I said, it really isn't anything new, and neither are the admittedly slick visual effects on display courtesy of Industrial Light and Magic.
Robertson is delightful as the lead; the scenes of her popping in and out of Tomorrowland are the centerpiece of the film's marketing (and of the film, to an extent) and she sells the heck of out of them. Clooney doesn't disappoint as the curmudgeonly version of Frank Walker, but the real surprise is how well Thomas Robinson, who actually resembles Clooney a bit, plays his younger version. Laurie makes the most out of a thankless role, as Nix, delivering the film's central sermon--er, message, at the climax. It's a terrible waste of a great actor, to my mind. For me, the breakthrough performance here was that of Cassidy as the mysterious Athena. It's hard to go into detail about her performance without spoiling a couple of surprises about her role, but suffice it to say that like Robertson, her role required her to do some pretty funny things with a straight face, and she pulled it off quite well.
This film is a bit of a hiccup for Bird, who really was on a roll for many years, though I hardly think it's set him on the same downward spiral that M. Night Shyamalan found himself on ten years ago.
I'm still waiting for him to come up with The Incredibles 2...
7.1/10
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
Better the Second Time (Yes, It's Been a Slow Week for Reviewing New Movies...oh and SPOILERS)
Recently, I watched Marvel's Avengers: Age of Ultron for the second time, because my kids had not yet seen it.
This doesn't happen very often (almost never, in fact), but in spite of all of my issues with the movie the first time around, I found myself enjoying it significantly more than I did the first time I watched it. A lot of that is down to the fact that, unlike my first experience, I dispensed with the utterly s***ty 3-D conversion, which really hampered my first viewing experience, and went with good, old-fashioned 2-D.
I still noted some of the things I had gripes with, like Thor's somewhat disjointed subplot that explained the whole "Infinity Stones" thing and which still felt like a vague plug for his upcoming solo sequel Thor: Ragnarok, and the fact that Tony Stark was an even bigger egotistical prick than before, but I was able to ignore them in favor of what I really enjoyed about this film.
I'm obviously not going to review the film again, but I will highlight a number of things I really enjoyed about the movie, in ascending order.
5. Improved Fighting Skills All Around - In this day and age of blink-and-you'll-miss-it martial arts sequences, it was really gratifying to show that the Avengers' fighting skills, particularly those of Captain America and Thor, have actually improved since the first movie. It was especially cool to see them double-teaming the bad guys with a one-two shield and hammer takedown. This is a team movie, after all, and it's great that it actually feels like it. It never felt right to me in the early MCU days that Black Widow had a monopoly on all of the cool martial arts sequences, something Marvel remedied with the Captain America sequel, and here it was gratifying to see Cap not only kicking gratuitous ass from start to finish, but also punching well above his weight when, he took on, without hesitation, a much more powerful foe in Ultron. The gratifying thing about a lot of the fighting is how grounded and practical it feels; basically it looks like the actors really worked out and actually took part in the meticulously choreographed fighting rather than letting their computer-generated avatars do all the work, something that happened rather frequently in the CGI-infested Hobbit films. The promised Cap/Iron Man throw down in Civil War got a bit of a sneak preview here in act three of this movie, and I have to say I'm really, really excited to see it play out in Cap's movie, which is now being touted as a de facto Avengers sequel of sorts.
4. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch - Last year 20th Century Fox kicked off a bit of a "friendly" rivalry with Marvel Studios when it featured popular "Avenger" Quicksilver, played by Evan Peters, in X-Men: Days of Future Past. In that film, Quicksilver had a show-stopping display of his speed in the sequence in which he freed Magneto from his prison under the Pentagon, after which he was somewhat arbitrarily written out of the script, most likely because his further participation in the story would have obviated a lot of the narrative tension that follows, or in short, he could have solved everyone's problems. Well, as impressive (and humorous) as Bryan Singer's take on the character was, Joss Whedon's was superior in a number of ways. His overall look, starting with his costume, hewed much more closely to the comics than his Fox counterpart. His cocky personality and anger issues were a much closer approximation of the comic-book Quicksilver than the laid-back juvenile delinquent in Singer's film. Finally, MCU's Quicksilver was ultimately more heroic, saving dozens (maybe even hundreds?) of lives in Korea and later in Sokovia (and in the process, showing everyone what a dick Superman was in Man of Steel), and ultimately sacrificing his life to save Hawkeye's. Also, while he didn't have a protracted, money-shot of a sequence, his display of power was ultimately more impressive, and not only that, but his participation in the movie, from start to finish, makes more narrative sense.
The Scarlet Witch, who will be sticking around a lot longer (barring a Phil Coulson-like character resurrection for Pietro) was not quite as flashy, but she had some of the film's very best moments, such as her utterly creepy mind-control sequences, her primal scream of grief when she senses the death of her brother, and the utterly satisfying scene in which she rips out Ultron's "heart." It was great to know that she'll be part of Captain America: Civil War, which is actually a notable innovation from the original comic book series (from which Wanda was notably absent), and I can't help but feel, and hope, that the filmmakers there will play up her rage at Tony Stark, which has to have somehow been exacerbated by the fact that her brother was killed by Stark's creation.
3. Hawkeye's Turn to Shine - I was one with Jeremy Renner in feeling that Hawkeye, easily one of the most beloved Avengers from the comics, got the short end of the character development stick in the first Avengers film. While this was inevitable given how many characters Whedon had to juggle in what was then the most ambitious-ensemble themed big-budget movie ever, it still felt like a distinct disservice to such an important staple of the team. Well, Whedon made it up to Clint Barton, Renner and all of us fans in the best possible way, by giving him a healthy dose of back story, a wife (girlfriend?), kids and a lovely farm in the middle of nowhere, where the entire team spends some much needed down-time after a rather harrowing sequence of events. On top of that, he gets a lot of really juicy character moments in this movie, and even a not-so-subtle jab at the fact that his character spent the majority of the last movie mind-controlled. Renner has real affection for this character, and it shows. My favorite bit took place in the climax, where he basically talks Scarlet Witch into becoming an Avenger. Wonderful stuff.
2. Location, Location, Location - The last time I really enjoyed a superhero film's location shooting was when Batman climbed out of Christopher Nolan's version of the Lazarus Pit in The Dark Knight Rises and emerged in an incredibly exotic, ancient-looking city which, as it turned out, was somewhere in India. It gets tiresome seeing action movies set in America, which is what makes films like the Bourne series, with their varied locations, such a treat to watch. Well, it was nice to see Marvel finally getting in on the globetrotting action, with as many as four different locations for the movie, and with a significant part of the action taking place in a very old looking part of Italy that, amusingly enough, doubled for the fictional Eastern European republic of Sokovia. I say amusing because, back in Marvel's two-penny, half-penny days, the direct-to-video adaptation of Captain America was filmed in the genuinely Eastern European republic of Croatia, which doubled for all of the film's locations, including the United States. Well, here it's obvious that Marvel wasn't just after tax breaks or cheap labor; Whedon makes extensive use of what looks like a medieval fort for the staging of the action in Italy, and considering that huge chunks of the action also take place in Seoul, South Korea and Johannesburg, South Africa (more on that next), this film is ultimately much more global in scope than any Marvel movie that has come before it. The Johannesburg sequence, in particular, was a real doozy...
1. Hulkbusting Glory - When I reviewed this film, for all of my nitpicking, it was without reservation that I heaped praise on the Hulk/Iron Man fight in Johannesburg, going as far as to call it "iconic" and I totally stand by that pronouncement. Watching it again, without the piss-poor 3-D conversion was pure, unadulterated joy. In a film full of excellently-staged action sequences, this truly stands out. Whedon expertly dances along the line between fast-paced and coherent action, which says a lot considering that this fight could easily have degenerated into a Bay-tastic blur of flying fists and shredding metal, and it's gratifying to see that at all times during the battle, civilians' lives matter. No matter how hard it is, Tony Stark (but obviously not the mind-f****d Banner) does everything he can to make sure people are safe. The interaction of so many elements in this sequence, including real backdrops and actual extras, really sold this sequence for me and, I suspect, a lot of other people. This is the sort of sequence comic-book fans have been salivating for since "The Avengers" was first made into a movie, as evidenced by the fact that it was the single most prominent part of the film's marketing campaign, and to my mind it has completely and comprehensively lived up to the hype. There is nothing in any other action film (yes, I am being all encompassing here) that even comes close to measuring up to this battle. If there was any justice in the world, this sequence alone should win Industrial Light and Magic their nth Academy Award for visual effects, but even if it doesn't, to my mind, this is one of their greatest achievements as a visual effects house so far.
While it looks as though the new adventures of Mad Max are getting raves from critics, limited funds means I have to choose which movies I can watch, so I'm saving up for Brad Bird's Tomorrowland, his first new film in four years and his first original property in eight. It looks like an incredibly ambitious piece of science fiction, and its release (for me) cannot come soon enough.
For now, though, I was more than happy to take one more joy ride with Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
This doesn't happen very often (almost never, in fact), but in spite of all of my issues with the movie the first time around, I found myself enjoying it significantly more than I did the first time I watched it. A lot of that is down to the fact that, unlike my first experience, I dispensed with the utterly s***ty 3-D conversion, which really hampered my first viewing experience, and went with good, old-fashioned 2-D.
I still noted some of the things I had gripes with, like Thor's somewhat disjointed subplot that explained the whole "Infinity Stones" thing and which still felt like a vague plug for his upcoming solo sequel Thor: Ragnarok, and the fact that Tony Stark was an even bigger egotistical prick than before, but I was able to ignore them in favor of what I really enjoyed about this film.
I'm obviously not going to review the film again, but I will highlight a number of things I really enjoyed about the movie, in ascending order.
5. Improved Fighting Skills All Around - In this day and age of blink-and-you'll-miss-it martial arts sequences, it was really gratifying to show that the Avengers' fighting skills, particularly those of Captain America and Thor, have actually improved since the first movie. It was especially cool to see them double-teaming the bad guys with a one-two shield and hammer takedown. This is a team movie, after all, and it's great that it actually feels like it. It never felt right to me in the early MCU days that Black Widow had a monopoly on all of the cool martial arts sequences, something Marvel remedied with the Captain America sequel, and here it was gratifying to see Cap not only kicking gratuitous ass from start to finish, but also punching well above his weight when, he took on, without hesitation, a much more powerful foe in Ultron. The gratifying thing about a lot of the fighting is how grounded and practical it feels; basically it looks like the actors really worked out and actually took part in the meticulously choreographed fighting rather than letting their computer-generated avatars do all the work, something that happened rather frequently in the CGI-infested Hobbit films. The promised Cap/Iron Man throw down in Civil War got a bit of a sneak preview here in act three of this movie, and I have to say I'm really, really excited to see it play out in Cap's movie, which is now being touted as a de facto Avengers sequel of sorts.
4. Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch - Last year 20th Century Fox kicked off a bit of a "friendly" rivalry with Marvel Studios when it featured popular "Avenger" Quicksilver, played by Evan Peters, in X-Men: Days of Future Past. In that film, Quicksilver had a show-stopping display of his speed in the sequence in which he freed Magneto from his prison under the Pentagon, after which he was somewhat arbitrarily written out of the script, most likely because his further participation in the story would have obviated a lot of the narrative tension that follows, or in short, he could have solved everyone's problems. Well, as impressive (and humorous) as Bryan Singer's take on the character was, Joss Whedon's was superior in a number of ways. His overall look, starting with his costume, hewed much more closely to the comics than his Fox counterpart. His cocky personality and anger issues were a much closer approximation of the comic-book Quicksilver than the laid-back juvenile delinquent in Singer's film. Finally, MCU's Quicksilver was ultimately more heroic, saving dozens (maybe even hundreds?) of lives in Korea and later in Sokovia (and in the process, showing everyone what a dick Superman was in Man of Steel), and ultimately sacrificing his life to save Hawkeye's. Also, while he didn't have a protracted, money-shot of a sequence, his display of power was ultimately more impressive, and not only that, but his participation in the movie, from start to finish, makes more narrative sense.
The Scarlet Witch, who will be sticking around a lot longer (barring a Phil Coulson-like character resurrection for Pietro) was not quite as flashy, but she had some of the film's very best moments, such as her utterly creepy mind-control sequences, her primal scream of grief when she senses the death of her brother, and the utterly satisfying scene in which she rips out Ultron's "heart." It was great to know that she'll be part of Captain America: Civil War, which is actually a notable innovation from the original comic book series (from which Wanda was notably absent), and I can't help but feel, and hope, that the filmmakers there will play up her rage at Tony Stark, which has to have somehow been exacerbated by the fact that her brother was killed by Stark's creation.
3. Hawkeye's Turn to Shine - I was one with Jeremy Renner in feeling that Hawkeye, easily one of the most beloved Avengers from the comics, got the short end of the character development stick in the first Avengers film. While this was inevitable given how many characters Whedon had to juggle in what was then the most ambitious-ensemble themed big-budget movie ever, it still felt like a distinct disservice to such an important staple of the team. Well, Whedon made it up to Clint Barton, Renner and all of us fans in the best possible way, by giving him a healthy dose of back story, a wife (girlfriend?), kids and a lovely farm in the middle of nowhere, where the entire team spends some much needed down-time after a rather harrowing sequence of events. On top of that, he gets a lot of really juicy character moments in this movie, and even a not-so-subtle jab at the fact that his character spent the majority of the last movie mind-controlled. Renner has real affection for this character, and it shows. My favorite bit took place in the climax, where he basically talks Scarlet Witch into becoming an Avenger. Wonderful stuff.
2. Location, Location, Location - The last time I really enjoyed a superhero film's location shooting was when Batman climbed out of Christopher Nolan's version of the Lazarus Pit in The Dark Knight Rises and emerged in an incredibly exotic, ancient-looking city which, as it turned out, was somewhere in India. It gets tiresome seeing action movies set in America, which is what makes films like the Bourne series, with their varied locations, such a treat to watch. Well, it was nice to see Marvel finally getting in on the globetrotting action, with as many as four different locations for the movie, and with a significant part of the action taking place in a very old looking part of Italy that, amusingly enough, doubled for the fictional Eastern European republic of Sokovia. I say amusing because, back in Marvel's two-penny, half-penny days, the direct-to-video adaptation of Captain America was filmed in the genuinely Eastern European republic of Croatia, which doubled for all of the film's locations, including the United States. Well, here it's obvious that Marvel wasn't just after tax breaks or cheap labor; Whedon makes extensive use of what looks like a medieval fort for the staging of the action in Italy, and considering that huge chunks of the action also take place in Seoul, South Korea and Johannesburg, South Africa (more on that next), this film is ultimately much more global in scope than any Marvel movie that has come before it. The Johannesburg sequence, in particular, was a real doozy...
1. Hulkbusting Glory - When I reviewed this film, for all of my nitpicking, it was without reservation that I heaped praise on the Hulk/Iron Man fight in Johannesburg, going as far as to call it "iconic" and I totally stand by that pronouncement. Watching it again, without the piss-poor 3-D conversion was pure, unadulterated joy. In a film full of excellently-staged action sequences, this truly stands out. Whedon expertly dances along the line between fast-paced and coherent action, which says a lot considering that this fight could easily have degenerated into a Bay-tastic blur of flying fists and shredding metal, and it's gratifying to see that at all times during the battle, civilians' lives matter. No matter how hard it is, Tony Stark (but obviously not the mind-f****d Banner) does everything he can to make sure people are safe. The interaction of so many elements in this sequence, including real backdrops and actual extras, really sold this sequence for me and, I suspect, a lot of other people. This is the sort of sequence comic-book fans have been salivating for since "The Avengers" was first made into a movie, as evidenced by the fact that it was the single most prominent part of the film's marketing campaign, and to my mind it has completely and comprehensively lived up to the hype. There is nothing in any other action film (yes, I am being all encompassing here) that even comes close to measuring up to this battle. If there was any justice in the world, this sequence alone should win Industrial Light and Magic their nth Academy Award for visual effects, but even if it doesn't, to my mind, this is one of their greatest achievements as a visual effects house so far.
While it looks as though the new adventures of Mad Max are getting raves from critics, limited funds means I have to choose which movies I can watch, so I'm saving up for Brad Bird's Tomorrowland, his first new film in four years and his first original property in eight. It looks like an incredibly ambitious piece of science fiction, and its release (for me) cannot come soon enough.
For now, though, I was more than happy to take one more joy ride with Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
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