When I found out that Jordan Peele had lost the 2018 Academy Award for Best Director to Guillermo del Toro, the first thought to spring to mind was that the distinction of "first black director ever to win an Oscar" was still very much up for grabs, which I jokingly put up on Facebook. I initially contemplated putting up a hashtag for Black Panther, but that seemed a little too fanboyish of me, so I thought better of it.
Then, this morning, I read that the ratings of this year's Oscar program were particularly low, to the extent that Donald Trump made one of his typically infantile tweets poking fun at Hollywood because of it (only to get Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel to point out that Trump is the most reviled president in U.S. history). It hit me pretty quickly: next year's Oscars could use a shot in the arm, and what better way to get it than from a worldwide conversation starter, particularly one that tackles issues of race from a perspective other than the whole "white man's guilt" dynamic? They already took a significant step in that direction by nominating Peele's surprise hit Get Out for Best Picture, even though they eventually wimped out of handing it the big prize.
As big as Black Panther is, the jury is still out, given how early it is in the year, on what kind of pull it can have on awards-giving bodies, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences most of all. It's more than just another blockbuster, though; as has been noted by many others, it's a cultural phenomenon.
But really, does being a movie du jour immediately make one Oscar-worthy? It didn't do anything for Patty Jenkins' Wonder Woman, after all, or Joss Whedon's The Avengers, or, for that matter, any other movie based on a comic book, including the movie that arguably got the Academy to expand the field of Best Picture nominees to as many as ten, Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. That's a glass ceiling comic-book movies have yet to shatter. As a fan of the genre, and of Black Panther, I'd have to recuse myself from answering the question of what makes a movie "Oscar-worthy" as I am hopelessly biased.
I would, however, like to invite attention to some of the Academy's choices for Best Picture. Titanic was a retelling of Romeo and Juliet,Shakespeare in Love was a gender-bending romantic comedy, Gladiator was basically a revenge movie, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King was an unabashed, unapologetic good-triumphs-over-evil fantasy, and Argo was a spy thriller that leaned pretty heavily on some racial caricatures and some pretty outrageous script contrivances towards its climax to generate tension. In short, anyone who thinks that Academy Awards are reserved only for barely-seen, profound reflections on the human condition would be wrong. If a movie hits the right buttons, the Academy can fall in love with popcorn flicks just as much as the next Joe Average does.
Black Panther has so much going for it other than having captured the zeitgeist, though. It boasts stunning work by history-making, Oscar-nominated cinematographer Rachel Morrison, gorgeous costumes by two-time Oscar nominee Ruth Carter, and prominent, if not quite ostentatious performances by Oscar winners Lupita Nyong'o and Forest Whitaker, as well as by Oscar nominee Angela Bassett. (Then again, Ben Kingsley was in Iron Man 3 and Anthony Hopkins was in Thor: The Dark World, so make of that what you will). And then, of course, there are the glowing reviews. In short, the Academy wouldn't have to rationalize nominating (or heck, even awarding) this movie, as it already ticks so many of their boxes, even on a superficial level. They'd just have to get over their allergy to comic-book adaptations, though they already took a step in that direction as well when they nominated the Wolverine sequel Logan for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Will the Academy nominate Black Panther for Best Picture and a bunch of other Oscars? Time will tell, and if history is any indication, probably not, but personally, I think they'd be fools not to do so, and they can almost certainly look forward to another dip in viewership ratings if they just trot out another passel of little-seen art flicks.
Oh, and he could have just been speaking tongue-in-cheek, but apparently Christopher Nolan feels the same way.
Tuesday, March 6, 2018
Saturday, February 17, 2018
So How About Those Twists? (Black Panther Edition...HEAVY SPOILERS)
Plot twists, usually at the end of the second act, are Marvel Studios' regular stock-in-trade nowadays, but three out of their last four movies have had relatively mild revelations. The "bombshell" that the villain Erik Killmonger was, in fact, the son of T'Challa's brother N'Jobu and therefore a legitimate heir to the throne was telegraphed pretty early on, though the revelation that N'Jobu's betrayal was motivated by his desire to fight for oppressed people of African descent everywhere gave the movie a very interesting new complexion. It meant that Erik Killmonger was less like Hela from Thor: Ragnarok and more like Magneto from the X-Men films. And the question posed was a valid one: why couldn't Wakanda lend its technology to oppressed black people the world over to help them improve their lot in life?
When T'Challa learns of Killmonger's existence, he comes face-to-face with the fallout of Wakanda's millennia-old policy of shutting out the outside world, and has a couple of really difficult choices to make. It's not unlike the opposing viewpoints of Charles Xavier and Magneto, which in turn were based on the opposing views of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Killmonger may have had his methodology wrong, but he asked the right questions: given that there are 2 billion black people all over the world suffering in poverty and subjugation, why is Wakanda standing by and doing nothing? Killmonger is of the Magneto persuasion, whereas T'Challa is more like Xavier, and for some reason, his solution to the problem he faced felt more satisfactory than Xavier's even though they're arguably similar approaches.
One thing about the "twist" that really gratified me was how T'Challa was able to confront T'Chaka for both his duplicity and his cruel abandonment of N'Jobu's son, who grew up to be the murderous Killmonger. This scratched a major itch for me as an MCU geek, because quite frankly I was really disappointed that Odin never had to face the backlash of his decision to conceal from Thor the fact that he had an evil, super-powerful older sister. Like T'Chaka does to T'Challa, Odin appears to Thor from beyond the dead, but unlike T'Challa, Thor basically begs Odin for help instead of calling him out for being a lying SOB. In his final afterlife vision, T'Challa really lets T'Chaka, and all of his ancestors have it for their selfishness, and the film is that much richer for it. There was something cathartic about that moment somehow.
Father issues, like story twists, are another staple of the MCU, whether it's Tony Stark's love/hate relationship with his dad, Thor's constant insecurity about living up to his father, or even Peter Quill's finding out that his dad is basically a god-like megalomaniac, and T'Challa, of the lot of them, did, for me at least, the best job of confronting his issues head on, though it probably helped that his relationship with his father was the least dysfunctional.
Speaking of fathers and sons, I'd like to take the time to heap even more praise on Sterling K. Brown's portrayal of the doomed Wakandan prince N'Jobu. I quite like how Coogler used a well-worn Marvel trope, i.e. the plot twist in a very different way. It's established early on that N'Jobu has betrayed Wakanda, but by saving the revelation of why he did it for much later in the film, Coogler gives that scene that much more emotional impact. One of my favorite sequences in the film is Killmonger's visit to the ancestral plane, where he speaks to his father. It was a heartrending, powerful bit of storytelling quite unlike anything I'd ever seen in a superhero movie.
Of course, the appearance of Bucky Barnes in the final post-credits scene did not exactly come as a surprise considering that it was in Wakanda where he voluntarily went into deep freeze at the end of Captain America: Civil War and considering further that he shows up, alongside a Wakandan army, in the Avengers: Infinity War trailer, but it was nice to see that the Wakandan way of healing his battered soul doesn't just consist of keeping him in a lab.
In truth, there's so much to unpack from this movie, which is shaping up to be an even bigger cultural phenomenon than Wonder Woman was last year, but these are the points that stuck with me the most. Oh, and I was happy that, unlike Woman Woman, with its ultra-generic climax, complete with her unbelievably corny "I believe in love" line, Black Panther actually managed to stick the landing.
When T'Challa learns of Killmonger's existence, he comes face-to-face with the fallout of Wakanda's millennia-old policy of shutting out the outside world, and has a couple of really difficult choices to make. It's not unlike the opposing viewpoints of Charles Xavier and Magneto, which in turn were based on the opposing views of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X. Killmonger may have had his methodology wrong, but he asked the right questions: given that there are 2 billion black people all over the world suffering in poverty and subjugation, why is Wakanda standing by and doing nothing? Killmonger is of the Magneto persuasion, whereas T'Challa is more like Xavier, and for some reason, his solution to the problem he faced felt more satisfactory than Xavier's even though they're arguably similar approaches.
One thing about the "twist" that really gratified me was how T'Challa was able to confront T'Chaka for both his duplicity and his cruel abandonment of N'Jobu's son, who grew up to be the murderous Killmonger. This scratched a major itch for me as an MCU geek, because quite frankly I was really disappointed that Odin never had to face the backlash of his decision to conceal from Thor the fact that he had an evil, super-powerful older sister. Like T'Chaka does to T'Challa, Odin appears to Thor from beyond the dead, but unlike T'Challa, Thor basically begs Odin for help instead of calling him out for being a lying SOB. In his final afterlife vision, T'Challa really lets T'Chaka, and all of his ancestors have it for their selfishness, and the film is that much richer for it. There was something cathartic about that moment somehow.
Father issues, like story twists, are another staple of the MCU, whether it's Tony Stark's love/hate relationship with his dad, Thor's constant insecurity about living up to his father, or even Peter Quill's finding out that his dad is basically a god-like megalomaniac, and T'Challa, of the lot of them, did, for me at least, the best job of confronting his issues head on, though it probably helped that his relationship with his father was the least dysfunctional.
Speaking of fathers and sons, I'd like to take the time to heap even more praise on Sterling K. Brown's portrayal of the doomed Wakandan prince N'Jobu. I quite like how Coogler used a well-worn Marvel trope, i.e. the plot twist in a very different way. It's established early on that N'Jobu has betrayed Wakanda, but by saving the revelation of why he did it for much later in the film, Coogler gives that scene that much more emotional impact. One of my favorite sequences in the film is Killmonger's visit to the ancestral plane, where he speaks to his father. It was a heartrending, powerful bit of storytelling quite unlike anything I'd ever seen in a superhero movie.
Of course, the appearance of Bucky Barnes in the final post-credits scene did not exactly come as a surprise considering that it was in Wakanda where he voluntarily went into deep freeze at the end of Captain America: Civil War and considering further that he shows up, alongside a Wakandan army, in the Avengers: Infinity War trailer, but it was nice to see that the Wakandan way of healing his battered soul doesn't just consist of keeping him in a lab.
In truth, there's so much to unpack from this movie, which is shaping up to be an even bigger cultural phenomenon than Wonder Woman was last year, but these are the points that stuck with me the most. Oh, and I was happy that, unlike Woman Woman, with its ultra-generic climax, complete with her unbelievably corny "I believe in love" line, Black Panther actually managed to stick the landing.
Friday, February 16, 2018
Seismic: A Review of Black Panther
directed by Ryan Coogler
written by Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole
It's hard to review Marvel Studios' latest cinematic offering The Black Panther without bearing in mind the storm of publicity it's generated for the last few weeks, but I am going to give it the old college try.
Following the violent death of his father King T'Chaka (John Kani) in Captain America: Civil War, Prince T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman), must now assume the throne of the sovereign African nation of Wakanda, the most technologically-advanced society in the world. T'Challa assumes a great burden considering that, as advanced as Wakanda may be, it has kept its secrets hidden from the world for thousands of years, masquerading as yet another impoverished African nation while keeping its scientific advancements and its deposit of the highly valuable and unique metal, Vibranium to itself. With the throne, therefore, T'Challa must therefore safeguard Wakanda and its technology, the development of which is overseen by his younger sister, the prodigy Shuri (Letitia Wright). He will rely on the counsel of the elders, of Okoye (Danai Gurira), the general of his military, the Dora Milaje, and his old friend W'Kabi (Daniel Kaluuya). In contrast, though, one of Wakanda's spies and T'Challa's ex-lover Nakai (Lupita Nyong'o) disagrees with Wakanda's millennia-old policy of keeping to itself, having seen the misery in the rest of the world, and feels there is much they can do to help.
Only one man from the outside, Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) has been able to steal Vibranium from Wakanda, which he was only able to do with inside help from no less than T'Chaka's brother N'Jobu (Sterling K. Brown) several years ago. With the death of T'Chaka, Klaue surfaces again for the first time in thirty years, this time allied with the mysterious Erik (Michael B. Jordan) who has terrifying plans for Wakanda and its technology. T'Challa brings Okoye and Nakai along to stop Klaue from selling (newly) stolen Vibranium in South Korea, but things go awry, and when long-held secrets are revealed, even the mighty Black Panther may not be prepared for what's coming.
After they basically revolutionized cinematic storytelling by pioneering the concept of the cinematic universe, Disney's Marvel Studios has been repeatedly criticized for playing it "safe," by adhering to specific narrative tropes, and while I respectfully disagree with it overall, this criticism isn't entirely without basis. One particular trope I agree with was that the persons of color in their movies, whether it was Don Cheadle's James Rhodes in Iron Man, Idris Elba's Heimdall in Thor, Anthony Mackie's Falcon in Captain America, Chiwetel Ejiofor's Mordo in Doctor Strange or Jacob Batalon's Ned in Spider-Man, were invariably portrayed as sidekicks to the white protagonist. It was getting downright embarrassing, especially after rival Warner Brothers/DC came out with the risible Suicide Squad, a film that featured African-American superstar Will Smith in the lead role, albeit as a bad guy turned good. With Black Panther, Marvel finally put to rest the notion that only white males can star as leads in their movies. I'm neither black nor American but the cultural significance of this film is not lost on me.
Still, as a fan of these films, my first question is whether or not the film is any good, and I'm quite happy to say that it is.
From the basics like the writing, acting and directing the film hits all the notes. I find it extraordinary that Ryan Coogler and his co-writer Joe Robert Cole have crafted a script that pays faithful homage to the comics from which the film is derived, yet at the same time builds an entire world here that doesn't require an encyclopedic knowledge of either Marvel's printed or filmed universe to make sense. It's particularly remarkable that, as the Marvel Cinematic Universe nears its tenth year anniversary, they are able to come up with a movie that can stand alone as well as this does, even though its connection to the bigger universe has already been established. Doctor Strange was the last such Marvel movie, but in that instance Stephen Strange had only just "entered the universe," whereas T'Challa has already been introduced to audiences and his fellow heroes. Recent Marvel hits like Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok cashed in on having other MCU characters appear in them, but this film stands proudly, almost defiantly on its own. In a way it mirrors the dilemma T'Challa, as the head of state of a very powerful nation, faces in the film: should Wakanda keep to itself, safe from those who would exploit its wealth, should it open up to the world and provide aid to those who need it, or should it use its wealth to arm those who have been oppressed for thousands of years? This movie is easily the most thematically ambitious of any Marvel production.
Even though there has yet to be a badly-acted Marvel film, it's worth noting that the cast of African-American, African-British and African actors led by Boseman, Nyong'o, and Gurira and a couple of "token" white British actors in Serkis (who first appeared in Avengers: Age of Ultron) and Martin Freeman (who reprises his "Civil War" role as Everett K. Ross), totally deliver the goods here. In particular, I was really happy to see Gurira, whom I had, prior to this film, exclusively seen as The Walking Dead's dreadlocked, katana-wielding bad-ass Michonne take to this new role like a fish to water. Sure, Boseman was excellent as T'Challa, but Gurira, Nyong'o, and the scene-stealing, wise-cracking Wright as Shuri demonstrate that you don't need to be an Amazon goddess to be a formidable woman in what has, up until this point, been almost exclusively a man's universe, i.e. the world of the superhero movie. I was not quite as sold on Michael B. Jordan's Erik Killmonger, even though there was clearly a lot of narrative investment in him, but to be fair he is a significant step up from the generic Marvel villain. Still, I'm sure Jordan is glad to have at least added one excellent Marvel movie to his resume to cancel out the utterly rancid Fantastic Four reboot he did three years ago. In contrast, I found Sterling K. Brown's turn as the tragic Prince N'Jobu to be both forceful and heartbreaking despite the very limited screen time the character had. It's so very calibrated, unlike Jordan's mostly unchecked rage; I haven't read a lot of reviews talking about it, but I feel it deserves a fair bit of recognition.
I do feel, however, that the cast feels a bit to bloated at times, with characters like Winston Duke's M'Baku serving more as a convenient plot device and even comic relief than a fully-fleshed out character. While veteran actors Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett do a creditable job filling out their roles as Zuri, the royal adviser and Ramonda, the queen and T'Challa's mother, again, for constraints of running time they feel more like archetypes than characters in their own right, though Whitaker has a powerful scene with Boseman deep into the film. W'Kabi, the character of Kaluuya, now a superstar in his own right thanks to his Oscar-nominated turn in Get Out, feels distinctly underdeveloped and I sometimes wonder if he has scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor. Still, I suppose with a cast this big, it was inevitable that people would get lost in the proverbial shuffle. It's impressive that the 31-year-old Coogler juggled as many performances as he did.
Apart from those aspects, the production is a showcase of everything that's made Marvel movies such enjoyable cinematic outings over the last decade, from the meticulously-realized sets to the eye-popping visual effects, and then some. It's worth noting that there have been some departures from Marvel's "house style." Cinematographer Rachel Morrison's palette of colors is bolder and warmer than the often washed-out colors favored by Marvel's frequent go-to-directors of photography Ben Davis and Trent Opaloch, and Ruth E. Carter's fantastically-realized costumes, while not necessarily "better" than frequent MCU costume designer Alex Byrne's lively superhero wardrobe, are definitely unlike anything we've ever seen before in one of these movies. Composer Ludwig Goransson provides a score that fuses brassy superhero fanfare with traditional, percussion-based African rhythms and electronic urban hip-hop, and even though I'm still partial to Michael Giacchino's trippy Doctor Strange score as far as MCU music goes, this film is, again, wonderfully unique in its musical signature. There's also some very impressive bone-crunching hand-to-hand fighting here, something that Marvel films have been pretty good at depicting on screen since Captain America: Winter Soldier.
I hesitate to use the tag of "best Marvel movie ever" that a bit too many critics have been heaping on this film, as I feel that this distinction still belongs in equal measure to the first Iron Man film and the first Avengers film, without either of which, this film would not have been possible. I will readily agree, however, that this film is an extraordinary piece of work and that it is, by far, the 10-year-old studio's most important one to date, and quite possibly the most likely to alter the cinematic landscape as we know it.
9/10
written by Ryan Coogler and Joe Robert Cole
It's hard to review Marvel Studios' latest cinematic offering The Black Panther without bearing in mind the storm of publicity it's generated for the last few weeks, but I am going to give it the old college try.
Following the violent death of his father King T'Chaka (John Kani) in Captain America: Civil War, Prince T'Challa (Chadwick Boseman), must now assume the throne of the sovereign African nation of Wakanda, the most technologically-advanced society in the world. T'Challa assumes a great burden considering that, as advanced as Wakanda may be, it has kept its secrets hidden from the world for thousands of years, masquerading as yet another impoverished African nation while keeping its scientific advancements and its deposit of the highly valuable and unique metal, Vibranium to itself. With the throne, therefore, T'Challa must therefore safeguard Wakanda and its technology, the development of which is overseen by his younger sister, the prodigy Shuri (Letitia Wright). He will rely on the counsel of the elders, of Okoye (Danai Gurira), the general of his military, the Dora Milaje, and his old friend W'Kabi (Daniel Kaluuya). In contrast, though, one of Wakanda's spies and T'Challa's ex-lover Nakai (Lupita Nyong'o) disagrees with Wakanda's millennia-old policy of keeping to itself, having seen the misery in the rest of the world, and feels there is much they can do to help.
Only one man from the outside, Ulysses Klaue (Andy Serkis) has been able to steal Vibranium from Wakanda, which he was only able to do with inside help from no less than T'Chaka's brother N'Jobu (Sterling K. Brown) several years ago. With the death of T'Chaka, Klaue surfaces again for the first time in thirty years, this time allied with the mysterious Erik (Michael B. Jordan) who has terrifying plans for Wakanda and its technology. T'Challa brings Okoye and Nakai along to stop Klaue from selling (newly) stolen Vibranium in South Korea, but things go awry, and when long-held secrets are revealed, even the mighty Black Panther may not be prepared for what's coming.
After they basically revolutionized cinematic storytelling by pioneering the concept of the cinematic universe, Disney's Marvel Studios has been repeatedly criticized for playing it "safe," by adhering to specific narrative tropes, and while I respectfully disagree with it overall, this criticism isn't entirely without basis. One particular trope I agree with was that the persons of color in their movies, whether it was Don Cheadle's James Rhodes in Iron Man, Idris Elba's Heimdall in Thor, Anthony Mackie's Falcon in Captain America, Chiwetel Ejiofor's Mordo in Doctor Strange or Jacob Batalon's Ned in Spider-Man, were invariably portrayed as sidekicks to the white protagonist. It was getting downright embarrassing, especially after rival Warner Brothers/DC came out with the risible Suicide Squad, a film that featured African-American superstar Will Smith in the lead role, albeit as a bad guy turned good. With Black Panther, Marvel finally put to rest the notion that only white males can star as leads in their movies. I'm neither black nor American but the cultural significance of this film is not lost on me.
Still, as a fan of these films, my first question is whether or not the film is any good, and I'm quite happy to say that it is.
From the basics like the writing, acting and directing the film hits all the notes. I find it extraordinary that Ryan Coogler and his co-writer Joe Robert Cole have crafted a script that pays faithful homage to the comics from which the film is derived, yet at the same time builds an entire world here that doesn't require an encyclopedic knowledge of either Marvel's printed or filmed universe to make sense. It's particularly remarkable that, as the Marvel Cinematic Universe nears its tenth year anniversary, they are able to come up with a movie that can stand alone as well as this does, even though its connection to the bigger universe has already been established. Doctor Strange was the last such Marvel movie, but in that instance Stephen Strange had only just "entered the universe," whereas T'Challa has already been introduced to audiences and his fellow heroes. Recent Marvel hits like Spider-Man: Homecoming and Thor: Ragnarok cashed in on having other MCU characters appear in them, but this film stands proudly, almost defiantly on its own. In a way it mirrors the dilemma T'Challa, as the head of state of a very powerful nation, faces in the film: should Wakanda keep to itself, safe from those who would exploit its wealth, should it open up to the world and provide aid to those who need it, or should it use its wealth to arm those who have been oppressed for thousands of years? This movie is easily the most thematically ambitious of any Marvel production.
Even though there has yet to be a badly-acted Marvel film, it's worth noting that the cast of African-American, African-British and African actors led by Boseman, Nyong'o, and Gurira and a couple of "token" white British actors in Serkis (who first appeared in Avengers: Age of Ultron) and Martin Freeman (who reprises his "Civil War" role as Everett K. Ross), totally deliver the goods here. In particular, I was really happy to see Gurira, whom I had, prior to this film, exclusively seen as The Walking Dead's dreadlocked, katana-wielding bad-ass Michonne take to this new role like a fish to water. Sure, Boseman was excellent as T'Challa, but Gurira, Nyong'o, and the scene-stealing, wise-cracking Wright as Shuri demonstrate that you don't need to be an Amazon goddess to be a formidable woman in what has, up until this point, been almost exclusively a man's universe, i.e. the world of the superhero movie. I was not quite as sold on Michael B. Jordan's Erik Killmonger, even though there was clearly a lot of narrative investment in him, but to be fair he is a significant step up from the generic Marvel villain. Still, I'm sure Jordan is glad to have at least added one excellent Marvel movie to his resume to cancel out the utterly rancid Fantastic Four reboot he did three years ago. In contrast, I found Sterling K. Brown's turn as the tragic Prince N'Jobu to be both forceful and heartbreaking despite the very limited screen time the character had. It's so very calibrated, unlike Jordan's mostly unchecked rage; I haven't read a lot of reviews talking about it, but I feel it deserves a fair bit of recognition.
I do feel, however, that the cast feels a bit to bloated at times, with characters like Winston Duke's M'Baku serving more as a convenient plot device and even comic relief than a fully-fleshed out character. While veteran actors Forest Whitaker and Angela Bassett do a creditable job filling out their roles as Zuri, the royal adviser and Ramonda, the queen and T'Challa's mother, again, for constraints of running time they feel more like archetypes than characters in their own right, though Whitaker has a powerful scene with Boseman deep into the film. W'Kabi, the character of Kaluuya, now a superstar in his own right thanks to his Oscar-nominated turn in Get Out, feels distinctly underdeveloped and I sometimes wonder if he has scenes that ended up on the cutting room floor. Still, I suppose with a cast this big, it was inevitable that people would get lost in the proverbial shuffle. It's impressive that the 31-year-old Coogler juggled as many performances as he did.
Apart from those aspects, the production is a showcase of everything that's made Marvel movies such enjoyable cinematic outings over the last decade, from the meticulously-realized sets to the eye-popping visual effects, and then some. It's worth noting that there have been some departures from Marvel's "house style." Cinematographer Rachel Morrison's palette of colors is bolder and warmer than the often washed-out colors favored by Marvel's frequent go-to-directors of photography Ben Davis and Trent Opaloch, and Ruth E. Carter's fantastically-realized costumes, while not necessarily "better" than frequent MCU costume designer Alex Byrne's lively superhero wardrobe, are definitely unlike anything we've ever seen before in one of these movies. Composer Ludwig Goransson provides a score that fuses brassy superhero fanfare with traditional, percussion-based African rhythms and electronic urban hip-hop, and even though I'm still partial to Michael Giacchino's trippy Doctor Strange score as far as MCU music goes, this film is, again, wonderfully unique in its musical signature. There's also some very impressive bone-crunching hand-to-hand fighting here, something that Marvel films have been pretty good at depicting on screen since Captain America: Winter Soldier.
I hesitate to use the tag of "best Marvel movie ever" that a bit too many critics have been heaping on this film, as I feel that this distinction still belongs in equal measure to the first Iron Man film and the first Avengers film, without either of which, this film would not have been possible. I will readily agree, however, that this film is an extraordinary piece of work and that it is, by far, the 10-year-old studio's most important one to date, and quite possibly the most likely to alter the cinematic landscape as we know it.
9/10
Sunday, February 4, 2018
Shock and Awe: A Review of The Greatest Showman
directed by Michael Gracey
written by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon
The life of P.T. Barnum, of which I admittedly know little, has been the subject of many works of fiction, both on screen and on stage. The latest iteration, a bombastic musical starring Hugh Jackman, paints his life in very broad strokes and offered (to me at least) a pleasant enough distraction from the stresses of life on a Saturday night.
The story begins with a young Phineas Barnum (Ellis Rubin), the son of a humble tailor to a rich family, dreaming of a life of greatness. He takes a liking to Charity Hallett (Skylar Dunn) the daughter of the family for whom his father works, only to be sharply reminded of their vastly different stations in life. Just as Charity is sent off to boarding school, tragedy strikes, and Barnum, even as he diligently writes letters to the love of his life, scrapes by on a daily basis just to survive. For all of the challenges facing him, the adult Barnum (Jackman) wins the affections of the grown-up Charity (Michelle Williams), who marries him despite the clear disapproval of her parents (Fredric Lehne and Kathryn Meisle), and even bears him two lovely daughters Caroline (Austyn Johnson) and Helen (Cameron Seely). After Barnum is laid off from his clerical job following a tragedy in the company, he decides to gamble and takes out a huge loan which he uses to purchase an old museum. Unable to sell tickets to his wax attractions at first, Barnum then seizes on the inspiration of having living attractions instead of inert ones, and proceeds to hire "freaks" or people with unusual features or abilities from all walks of life, including, among others, the bearded washerwoman Lettie Lutz (Keala Settle), the dwarf Charles Stratton (Sam Humphrey), the trapeze siblings W.D. Wheeler (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and his sister Anne (Zendaya). His show sells like hotcakes, but members of "high society" including Charity's parents, continue to look down their noses at him and his troupe of oddities. Barnum, despite being an unqualified success, remains determined to win their approval, and he's willing to go to great lengths to get it, including recruiting high-society playwright Philip Carlyle (Zac Efron) and taking famed European opera star Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson) on tour across America, even though neither he, nor most other people in America, have ever heard her sing. To get what he seeks, Barnum is willing to risk everything, but will it all be worth it in the end?
Five years ago, Hugh Jackman lit up the screen as the cinematic iteration of one of theater's most beloved tragic heroes, Jean Valjean, in the adaptation of Les Miserables. As challenging as essaying that role may have been, he arguably had years of goodwill that the original musical had generated to help lift him up. Here, he was tasked with selling an all-new musical, with all new songs, to a generation of viewers preoccupied with other things, and I'll be darned if he hasn't done just that. He is mesmerizing as Barnum, and the film is aptly named if only based on his performance alone. He gets ample support from his cast, with Zac Efron performing a couple of numbers in a noticeably deeper voice than the one that made him famous to tweeners over a decade ago with the High School Musical movies, and with relative newcomer Keala Settle, in a star-making turn, belting out the film's signature song "This is Me."
A movie is more than a bunch of musical numbers strung together, though, and as a narrative the film stumbles several times. It's actually quite canny of Gracey, a first-time feature director, to keep things moving briskly and to drown virtually every scene in song, but even this tactic can't quite conceal the fact that with the exception of Barnum the characters are paper-thin and that the plot itself, a heavily fictionalized account of how P.T. Barnum founded his legendary, albeit recently defunct circus, is a patchwork of some pretty well-worn story tropes. Gracey and the Jackman-led cast do their darnedest to obscure the by-the-numbers scripting with some generous helpings of spectacle, and to their credit, they quite frequently succeed, courtesy of a lot of those very catchy songs.
My beef with this movie, though, was that even in putting clear emphasis in style over substance, the filmmakers still managed to fumble. There are two notable examples of this: in the opening number "A Million Dreams" which starts with the young Barnum singing to young Charity and then transitioning into the adult Barnum and Charity, the sound mixing felt glaringly off because, if I'm honest, it sounded conspicuously fake, and even had I not known that Ellis Rubin did not actually provide his character's singing voice, I would have suspected as much. The second was Rebecca Ferguson's sole song number as Jenny Lind, "Never Enough" which was irksome for the fact that Ferguson, who plays an opera singer in a freaking musical, doesn't actually sing her character's song herself. I found myself mystified by these creative decisions; in both the case of the young Barnum and Lind, these were pivotal and yet small roles, and it would surely have not have been that difficult to cast competent actors capable of acting during their smidgen of screen time and singing their single musical numbers.
With the Lind issue, in fact, I found it distinctly ironic that Barnum declares in the film that he wants to bring her to America because he wants to give people "something real" only for the filmmakers to give us a dubbed-over performance. It was almost as if his act of referring to himself as a huckster (though the real life Barnum was), was a sort of "meta" moment in the film.
Overall, though, I was still thoroughly entertained by this film, and if only for Hugh Jackman's fantastic charisma alone, as well as the show-stopping "This is Me" number. I think, though, that Jackman, and many of the talented cast members deserve a film that better showcases their talents as performers. Maybe in this day and age of the reinvigorated musical, courtesy of last year's La La Land and this very film, they will get exactly that.
7/10
written by Jenny Bicks and Bill Condon
The life of P.T. Barnum, of which I admittedly know little, has been the subject of many works of fiction, both on screen and on stage. The latest iteration, a bombastic musical starring Hugh Jackman, paints his life in very broad strokes and offered (to me at least) a pleasant enough distraction from the stresses of life on a Saturday night.
The story begins with a young Phineas Barnum (Ellis Rubin), the son of a humble tailor to a rich family, dreaming of a life of greatness. He takes a liking to Charity Hallett (Skylar Dunn) the daughter of the family for whom his father works, only to be sharply reminded of their vastly different stations in life. Just as Charity is sent off to boarding school, tragedy strikes, and Barnum, even as he diligently writes letters to the love of his life, scrapes by on a daily basis just to survive. For all of the challenges facing him, the adult Barnum (Jackman) wins the affections of the grown-up Charity (Michelle Williams), who marries him despite the clear disapproval of her parents (Fredric Lehne and Kathryn Meisle), and even bears him two lovely daughters Caroline (Austyn Johnson) and Helen (Cameron Seely). After Barnum is laid off from his clerical job following a tragedy in the company, he decides to gamble and takes out a huge loan which he uses to purchase an old museum. Unable to sell tickets to his wax attractions at first, Barnum then seizes on the inspiration of having living attractions instead of inert ones, and proceeds to hire "freaks" or people with unusual features or abilities from all walks of life, including, among others, the bearded washerwoman Lettie Lutz (Keala Settle), the dwarf Charles Stratton (Sam Humphrey), the trapeze siblings W.D. Wheeler (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) and his sister Anne (Zendaya). His show sells like hotcakes, but members of "high society" including Charity's parents, continue to look down their noses at him and his troupe of oddities. Barnum, despite being an unqualified success, remains determined to win their approval, and he's willing to go to great lengths to get it, including recruiting high-society playwright Philip Carlyle (Zac Efron) and taking famed European opera star Jenny Lind (Rebecca Ferguson) on tour across America, even though neither he, nor most other people in America, have ever heard her sing. To get what he seeks, Barnum is willing to risk everything, but will it all be worth it in the end?
Five years ago, Hugh Jackman lit up the screen as the cinematic iteration of one of theater's most beloved tragic heroes, Jean Valjean, in the adaptation of Les Miserables. As challenging as essaying that role may have been, he arguably had years of goodwill that the original musical had generated to help lift him up. Here, he was tasked with selling an all-new musical, with all new songs, to a generation of viewers preoccupied with other things, and I'll be darned if he hasn't done just that. He is mesmerizing as Barnum, and the film is aptly named if only based on his performance alone. He gets ample support from his cast, with Zac Efron performing a couple of numbers in a noticeably deeper voice than the one that made him famous to tweeners over a decade ago with the High School Musical movies, and with relative newcomer Keala Settle, in a star-making turn, belting out the film's signature song "This is Me."
A movie is more than a bunch of musical numbers strung together, though, and as a narrative the film stumbles several times. It's actually quite canny of Gracey, a first-time feature director, to keep things moving briskly and to drown virtually every scene in song, but even this tactic can't quite conceal the fact that with the exception of Barnum the characters are paper-thin and that the plot itself, a heavily fictionalized account of how P.T. Barnum founded his legendary, albeit recently defunct circus, is a patchwork of some pretty well-worn story tropes. Gracey and the Jackman-led cast do their darnedest to obscure the by-the-numbers scripting with some generous helpings of spectacle, and to their credit, they quite frequently succeed, courtesy of a lot of those very catchy songs.
My beef with this movie, though, was that even in putting clear emphasis in style over substance, the filmmakers still managed to fumble. There are two notable examples of this: in the opening number "A Million Dreams" which starts with the young Barnum singing to young Charity and then transitioning into the adult Barnum and Charity, the sound mixing felt glaringly off because, if I'm honest, it sounded conspicuously fake, and even had I not known that Ellis Rubin did not actually provide his character's singing voice, I would have suspected as much. The second was Rebecca Ferguson's sole song number as Jenny Lind, "Never Enough" which was irksome for the fact that Ferguson, who plays an opera singer in a freaking musical, doesn't actually sing her character's song herself. I found myself mystified by these creative decisions; in both the case of the young Barnum and Lind, these were pivotal and yet small roles, and it would surely have not have been that difficult to cast competent actors capable of acting during their smidgen of screen time and singing their single musical numbers.
With the Lind issue, in fact, I found it distinctly ironic that Barnum declares in the film that he wants to bring her to America because he wants to give people "something real" only for the filmmakers to give us a dubbed-over performance. It was almost as if his act of referring to himself as a huckster (though the real life Barnum was), was a sort of "meta" moment in the film.
Overall, though, I was still thoroughly entertained by this film, and if only for Hugh Jackman's fantastic charisma alone, as well as the show-stopping "This is Me" number. I think, though, that Jackman, and many of the talented cast members deserve a film that better showcases their talents as performers. Maybe in this day and age of the reinvigorated musical, courtesy of last year's La La Land and this very film, they will get exactly that.
7/10
Monday, January 15, 2018
The Sequel Nobody Asked for...That Just About Everyone Enjoyed: A Review of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle
directed by Jake Kasdan
written by Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner
Having stayed away from the movies since the 2017 Metro Manila Film Festival put a two-week embargo on foreign movies starting last Christmas and just ending last Monday, I was happy to kick off the year with a pleasant little distraction in the form of Jake Kasdan's Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.
The story kicks off in 1996, just around the time the story of the original movie ended. Someone walking along a beach in New Hampshire discovers the Jumanji board game half-buried in the sand and takes it home, giving it to his son, a teenage video-game addict, who ignores it scornfully. Overnight, the game transforms into a video game cartridge. The next morning, the teen tries out the game, with weird and surprising results.
Twenty-one years later, in the same town, four high school kids, for various reasons, are punished with detention. The nerdy video-game nut Spencer (Alex Wolff) and his former friend-turned-football-jock Fridge (Ser'Darius Blain) get detention because the former was caught doing the latter's school paper, the rebellious Martha (Morgan Turner) gets detention for refusing to participate in physical education class and then insulting the teacher, while the self-absorbed Bethany (Madison Iseman) is punished for making a mobile phone call in the middle of her class and then giving her teacher sass about it. While the four are serving their sentence, which involves them removing staples from old magazines in the school's old storeroom, Spencer discovers an old gaming console with the Jumanji cartridge stuck in it. He talks the other kids into briefly playing the game with him, whereupon all four of themselves find themselves magically and mysteriously transported into the game itself, and into the bodies of their game avatars. Normally scrawny Spencer becomes all-around-hero Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), normally hulking Fridge becomes the diminutive zoologist-cum-weapons valet Mouse (mistakenly read as Moose) Finbar (Kevin Hart), the normally shy and reclusive Martha becomes the scantily-clad, ass-kicking bombshell Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan) and the normally slim and attractive Bethany becomes the bespectacled, portly map expert Sheldon "Shelly" Oberon (Jack Black). There, the four learn that to escape the game, they must win it, and that involves returning a jewel called the Jaguar's Eye to the massive Jaguar sculpture from which it was stolen by explorer Russel Van Pelt (Bobby Cannavale). This task will be easier said than done considering the perils that await them, including Van Pelt's armed goons, lethal wild animals, and Van Pelt himself.
Now, the original Jumanji was a curious thing; it had all the ingredients of an entertaining box-office smash. It was a fantasy movie that starred the late Robin Williams at the height of his box-office drawing power (two years earlier he had starred in Mrs. Doubtfire, which made, in adjusted dollars, the kind of money that is usually only reserved these days for Marvel and Star Wars movies). It featured a whole lot of computer-generated animals just two years after Jurassic Park had shown everyone how cool CGI monsters could be. It was directed by Joe Johnston (Captain America: The First Avenger), who knew his way around effects-laden, comedic blockbusters, having helmed the highly successful Honey, I Shrunk the Kids a few years earlier and who had spent much of his career working on the original Star Wars trilogy.
For all of that, however, it was a movie that can charitably be described as awful. Williams was painfully unfunny thanks to a script that can best be described as insipid, and the CGI was, in a word, grotesque. It looked like bargain-basement stuff, even for that era.
As a result, it was with a groan and eye-rolling that I greeted the possibility of a sequel, especially considering that it starred Hollywood's premier franchise inheritor/hijacker, Dwayne-"Journey-2-the-Mysterious-Island"-Johnson. What the heck was so compelling about the original that it even merited a sequel 22 years after the fact? It didn't even make that much money back in the day.
I have to admit, though, that the first trailer had me intrigued and that, unlike its progenitor, this film looked genuinely funny.
Having seen it, I can say that, while not all of the jokes hit home, and while some of them were a little overdone, this film was a genuine riot.
Unlike the first film, which was basically all about the peril that the characters found themselves in from scene to scene with the occasional forced laugh (and none of them courtesy of Williams), this movie gives its actors quite a bit of comedic material to work with by employing the classic body-swapping (or more appropriately body-displacing) story trope. Watching Dwayne Johnson play a nerd and Jack Black play a self-absorbed teenage girl was particularly delightful, even as Kevin Hart and Karen Gillan also entertained me, albeit to a lesser degree in their respective out-of-body roles. Of course, they went pretty broad with their performances, probably crossing boundaries of political correctness in some cases (probably mostly Jack Black's) but I doubt any but the most hard-boiled Social Justice Warriors will run after this movie, even though, with Gillan's skimpy outfit, it does kind of want to have its self-aware cake and eat it too.
Also, it's worth noting that the filmmakers noticeably stepped up the production value of this film, with this movie going on location (it was filmed in Hawaii) among other things. The CGI is still far from the top-of-the-line stuff, and the filmmakers notably resorted to the time-honored cheat of having most of the CGI take place during the night so as to obscure any flaws in the effects, but it was definitely an improvement over the awful work on display in the 1995 film.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that by itself, this movie isn't really all that exceptional. It's entertaining, it's funny, but it's ultimately fluff. It is, like I said at the outset, a pleasant enough distraction.
Next to the 1995 movie, though, this film is nothing short of a masterpiece. I'd actually argue that it deserves some kind of "biggest improvement over the original" award.
7/10
written by Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner
Having stayed away from the movies since the 2017 Metro Manila Film Festival put a two-week embargo on foreign movies starting last Christmas and just ending last Monday, I was happy to kick off the year with a pleasant little distraction in the form of Jake Kasdan's Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle.
The story kicks off in 1996, just around the time the story of the original movie ended. Someone walking along a beach in New Hampshire discovers the Jumanji board game half-buried in the sand and takes it home, giving it to his son, a teenage video-game addict, who ignores it scornfully. Overnight, the game transforms into a video game cartridge. The next morning, the teen tries out the game, with weird and surprising results.
Twenty-one years later, in the same town, four high school kids, for various reasons, are punished with detention. The nerdy video-game nut Spencer (Alex Wolff) and his former friend-turned-football-jock Fridge (Ser'Darius Blain) get detention because the former was caught doing the latter's school paper, the rebellious Martha (Morgan Turner) gets detention for refusing to participate in physical education class and then insulting the teacher, while the self-absorbed Bethany (Madison Iseman) is punished for making a mobile phone call in the middle of her class and then giving her teacher sass about it. While the four are serving their sentence, which involves them removing staples from old magazines in the school's old storeroom, Spencer discovers an old gaming console with the Jumanji cartridge stuck in it. He talks the other kids into briefly playing the game with him, whereupon all four of themselves find themselves magically and mysteriously transported into the game itself, and into the bodies of their game avatars. Normally scrawny Spencer becomes all-around-hero Dr. Smolder Bravestone (Dwayne Johnson), normally hulking Fridge becomes the diminutive zoologist-cum-weapons valet Mouse (mistakenly read as Moose) Finbar (Kevin Hart), the normally shy and reclusive Martha becomes the scantily-clad, ass-kicking bombshell Ruby Roundhouse (Karen Gillan) and the normally slim and attractive Bethany becomes the bespectacled, portly map expert Sheldon "Shelly" Oberon (Jack Black). There, the four learn that to escape the game, they must win it, and that involves returning a jewel called the Jaguar's Eye to the massive Jaguar sculpture from which it was stolen by explorer Russel Van Pelt (Bobby Cannavale). This task will be easier said than done considering the perils that await them, including Van Pelt's armed goons, lethal wild animals, and Van Pelt himself.
Now, the original Jumanji was a curious thing; it had all the ingredients of an entertaining box-office smash. It was a fantasy movie that starred the late Robin Williams at the height of his box-office drawing power (two years earlier he had starred in Mrs. Doubtfire, which made, in adjusted dollars, the kind of money that is usually only reserved these days for Marvel and Star Wars movies). It featured a whole lot of computer-generated animals just two years after Jurassic Park had shown everyone how cool CGI monsters could be. It was directed by Joe Johnston (Captain America: The First Avenger), who knew his way around effects-laden, comedic blockbusters, having helmed the highly successful Honey, I Shrunk the Kids a few years earlier and who had spent much of his career working on the original Star Wars trilogy.
For all of that, however, it was a movie that can charitably be described as awful. Williams was painfully unfunny thanks to a script that can best be described as insipid, and the CGI was, in a word, grotesque. It looked like bargain-basement stuff, even for that era.
As a result, it was with a groan and eye-rolling that I greeted the possibility of a sequel, especially considering that it starred Hollywood's premier franchise inheritor/hijacker, Dwayne-"Journey-2-the-Mysterious-Island"-Johnson. What the heck was so compelling about the original that it even merited a sequel 22 years after the fact? It didn't even make that much money back in the day.
I have to admit, though, that the first trailer had me intrigued and that, unlike its progenitor, this film looked genuinely funny.
Having seen it, I can say that, while not all of the jokes hit home, and while some of them were a little overdone, this film was a genuine riot.
Unlike the first film, which was basically all about the peril that the characters found themselves in from scene to scene with the occasional forced laugh (and none of them courtesy of Williams), this movie gives its actors quite a bit of comedic material to work with by employing the classic body-swapping (or more appropriately body-displacing) story trope. Watching Dwayne Johnson play a nerd and Jack Black play a self-absorbed teenage girl was particularly delightful, even as Kevin Hart and Karen Gillan also entertained me, albeit to a lesser degree in their respective out-of-body roles. Of course, they went pretty broad with their performances, probably crossing boundaries of political correctness in some cases (probably mostly Jack Black's) but I doubt any but the most hard-boiled Social Justice Warriors will run after this movie, even though, with Gillan's skimpy outfit, it does kind of want to have its self-aware cake and eat it too.
Also, it's worth noting that the filmmakers noticeably stepped up the production value of this film, with this movie going on location (it was filmed in Hawaii) among other things. The CGI is still far from the top-of-the-line stuff, and the filmmakers notably resorted to the time-honored cheat of having most of the CGI take place during the night so as to obscure any flaws in the effects, but it was definitely an improvement over the awful work on display in the 1995 film.
I suppose what I'm trying to say is that by itself, this movie isn't really all that exceptional. It's entertaining, it's funny, but it's ultimately fluff. It is, like I said at the outset, a pleasant enough distraction.
Next to the 1995 movie, though, this film is nothing short of a masterpiece. I'd actually argue that it deserves some kind of "biggest improvement over the original" award.
7/10
Sunday, December 17, 2017
So, How About Those Twists? (Star Wars: The Last Jedi Edition...HEAVY SPOILERS)
This is my third such piece, and I have to say that, immediately after writing a review from which I must withhold spoilers, it is incredibly cathartic to just express my thoughts on all the twists and turns that usually characterize big blockbusters. It'd be nice if people shared their comments and views as well, but writing the piece itself is fulfilling enough.
Such is the case with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which, honestly, really just features several different variations on one specific twist: almost no one's plans work out the way they want.
The Resistance's plan to escape doesn't quite work out, Finn's and Rose's plan to take out the First Order's tracking device doesn't work out, Snoke's plan to wipe out the Jedi doesn't work out, Rey's plan to turn Kylo Ren back to the light doesn't work out, and Kylo Ren's plan to turn Rey to the dark side and stamp out the Resistance doesn't work out either. What makes Johnson's storytelling so unique is that he actively makes it a point to subvert expectations, and he virtually telegraphs his intent when Luke Skywalker blurts out the line "this is not going to go the way you think!" Johnson recognizes, especially in the wake of the backlash against the first Star Wars sequel in over ten years, that the franchise was in dire need of some serious shakeups, and whatever one thinks of his approach, one cannot deny that for the most part, he's trying something different. I know this new approach to telling stories in the Star Wars Universe hasn't gone over well with everyone; the film currently has a 57% or "rotten" user rating over on the controversial review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, and at least one person I know says this movie makes him actually appreciate George Lucas' prequels. While that last statement made me throw up in my mouth a little, part of me does understand where this antipathy is coming from.
As a cultural touchstone, the Star Wars films, at least the original trilogy of films and the volumes of comic books and novels that they spawned between the 70s and the 90s, have left such an impression on the collective consciousness that they're basically the cinematic equivalent of comfort food. It's hard to mess with a recipe that everyone knows, like KFC's 11 herbs and spices or the Big Mac's special sauce, as no less than Star Wars creator George Lucas learned to the detriment of his reputation when he did the prequel trilogy at around the turn of the millennium. I suspect this is also why legendary producer Kathleen Kennedy, who is to the new Star Wars Universe what Kevin Feige is to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has kept all of her directors on a very short leash and has fired no fewer than FOUR directors from various Star Wars projects. If the stories are true, Kennedy rules the SWU with an iron fist that makes Feige's creative muscle-flexing over the MCU directors and writers seem absolutely limp-wristed. The bottom line is that messing with the formula can be a fatal mistake, which makes the fact that Rian Johnson's vision even saw the light of day a miracle of some sort.
For me, some of the attempts to subvert convention didn't work, but fortunately, most of them did. Johnson asked and answered one of the simplest questions that could be asked in the franchise: what if those crazy, virtually impossible plans the rebels are always hatching actually go awry? It also asks and answers the question: how far will the rebels go when their backs are absolutely against the wall, with a powerfully visceral moment that features Laura Dern's Vice Admiral Holdo making the supreme sacrifice to save the fleeing Resistance members.
Speaking of characters' swan songs, my hat goes off to Rian Johnson for giving Luke Skywalker a properly epic sendoff, as his confrontation with Kylo Ren and the First Order forces on the planet Crait, while brief, is utterly thrilling. Essentially, Luke saves the day, after all of the plans and ideas of the various characters have fallen by the wayside. It really was brilliant; having just successfully deceived Kylo Ren into thinking he was actually right in front of him when he was just projecting his consciousness all the way from Ahch-To, Luke has scored an unqualified victory, and his act of fading away while sitting still, amid a glorious sunset paying homage to his moment in Episode IV was a perfect ending for this character, especially when Rey describes his passing as a peaceful one. I'm sure hardcore Star Wars geeks picked up on the nature of Luke's appearance much sooner than we casual fans did, with Luke having cleaned up and everything, but for me, even knowing what was going on would have taken nothing away from the moment. So Johnson continues Abrams' tradition of killing off OT characters, but at least he does it with considerably more panache.
Now, regarding Luke's successor, Rey, there was something distinctly gratifying about the revelation that she is not in any way related to Skywalker, Kenobi or any other family that has left its stamp on this universe, and that her parents are so anonymous they're never even named but are described only as "junkers." Kylo Ren may have been a clear-cut bad guy by the film's end, but he was right in declaring that the overarching story needs new blood and that all of the old things need to be washed away, which is somewhat ironic considering his own heritage. Also, having Rey finally meet up with Luke and learn about the Force from him made her act of saving the day by clearing away the boulders all the more satisfying in a way that her curiously out-of-the-blue lightsaber fight with Kylo Ren at the climax of the first film simply wasn't. To me it felt more like she'd "earned" her hero moment this time around.
Also, it was deeply satisfying that the "evil emperor" wannabe Snoke was handily dispatched in this film, and that all of the protagonists, going into the last movie of this new trilogy, are in no way related to any of the Skywalkers. I also found it interesting that the entirety of the new iteration of the Rebel Alliance could basically fit in the Millennium Falcon. These are exciting new times.
Finally, I confess I have mixed feelings about Finn's and Rose's doomed mission to Canto Bight, the casino planet. Rian Johnson takes the opportunity to talk about social inequity by showing audiences a planet full of opulence and decadence, where people who have no problem selling weapons to both sides of the conflict go to spend their blood money. It's a wonderful conversation to start having, and it helps that the characters in it, Finn, Rose and even Benicio del Toro's DJ, are all persons of color. Elements like this are the driving force behind wars in the real world, not hopelessly broad concepts like "good" and "evil." The movie takes on a fascinating new complexion at this juncture. My problem with this, however, is, that this is a conversation that deserves its own full-length film, one that repaints the entire new trilogy in a shade of grey, the way Rogue One did for the original trilogy, with its decidedly more realistic look at the sort of things insurgents often do. All we get, unfortunately, is a subplot that bloats the film's running time, complete with a tacked-on romance, which feels all the more ridiculous considering that by the end of the movie, Rose has only known Finn for less than a day. I did like that Johnson gave some closure (or appeared to give closure) to Finn's arc with his former boss, Captain Phasma.
The very end of the movie, though, with the stable boy on Canto Bight showing the ability to manipulate the Force, however, shows that Rian Johnson is not done exploring his 'haves and have nots' concept. I hope Disney isn't, either.
The bottom line for me is that, even though not all of the notions brought forward by Johnson work, this series, now 40 years old, needs new ideas if it's going to stay relevant past Episode IX, especially considering a new trilogy is planned. This movie makes a strong argument that Rian Johnson is just the man to bring those ideas to life.
Such is the case with Star Wars: The Last Jedi, which, honestly, really just features several different variations on one specific twist: almost no one's plans work out the way they want.
The Resistance's plan to escape doesn't quite work out, Finn's and Rose's plan to take out the First Order's tracking device doesn't work out, Snoke's plan to wipe out the Jedi doesn't work out, Rey's plan to turn Kylo Ren back to the light doesn't work out, and Kylo Ren's plan to turn Rey to the dark side and stamp out the Resistance doesn't work out either. What makes Johnson's storytelling so unique is that he actively makes it a point to subvert expectations, and he virtually telegraphs his intent when Luke Skywalker blurts out the line "this is not going to go the way you think!" Johnson recognizes, especially in the wake of the backlash against the first Star Wars sequel in over ten years, that the franchise was in dire need of some serious shakeups, and whatever one thinks of his approach, one cannot deny that for the most part, he's trying something different. I know this new approach to telling stories in the Star Wars Universe hasn't gone over well with everyone; the film currently has a 57% or "rotten" user rating over on the controversial review aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes, and at least one person I know says this movie makes him actually appreciate George Lucas' prequels. While that last statement made me throw up in my mouth a little, part of me does understand where this antipathy is coming from.
As a cultural touchstone, the Star Wars films, at least the original trilogy of films and the volumes of comic books and novels that they spawned between the 70s and the 90s, have left such an impression on the collective consciousness that they're basically the cinematic equivalent of comfort food. It's hard to mess with a recipe that everyone knows, like KFC's 11 herbs and spices or the Big Mac's special sauce, as no less than Star Wars creator George Lucas learned to the detriment of his reputation when he did the prequel trilogy at around the turn of the millennium. I suspect this is also why legendary producer Kathleen Kennedy, who is to the new Star Wars Universe what Kevin Feige is to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, has kept all of her directors on a very short leash and has fired no fewer than FOUR directors from various Star Wars projects. If the stories are true, Kennedy rules the SWU with an iron fist that makes Feige's creative muscle-flexing over the MCU directors and writers seem absolutely limp-wristed. The bottom line is that messing with the formula can be a fatal mistake, which makes the fact that Rian Johnson's vision even saw the light of day a miracle of some sort.
For me, some of the attempts to subvert convention didn't work, but fortunately, most of them did. Johnson asked and answered one of the simplest questions that could be asked in the franchise: what if those crazy, virtually impossible plans the rebels are always hatching actually go awry? It also asks and answers the question: how far will the rebels go when their backs are absolutely against the wall, with a powerfully visceral moment that features Laura Dern's Vice Admiral Holdo making the supreme sacrifice to save the fleeing Resistance members.
Speaking of characters' swan songs, my hat goes off to Rian Johnson for giving Luke Skywalker a properly epic sendoff, as his confrontation with Kylo Ren and the First Order forces on the planet Crait, while brief, is utterly thrilling. Essentially, Luke saves the day, after all of the plans and ideas of the various characters have fallen by the wayside. It really was brilliant; having just successfully deceived Kylo Ren into thinking he was actually right in front of him when he was just projecting his consciousness all the way from Ahch-To, Luke has scored an unqualified victory, and his act of fading away while sitting still, amid a glorious sunset paying homage to his moment in Episode IV was a perfect ending for this character, especially when Rey describes his passing as a peaceful one. I'm sure hardcore Star Wars geeks picked up on the nature of Luke's appearance much sooner than we casual fans did, with Luke having cleaned up and everything, but for me, even knowing what was going on would have taken nothing away from the moment. So Johnson continues Abrams' tradition of killing off OT characters, but at least he does it with considerably more panache.
Now, regarding Luke's successor, Rey, there was something distinctly gratifying about the revelation that she is not in any way related to Skywalker, Kenobi or any other family that has left its stamp on this universe, and that her parents are so anonymous they're never even named but are described only as "junkers." Kylo Ren may have been a clear-cut bad guy by the film's end, but he was right in declaring that the overarching story needs new blood and that all of the old things need to be washed away, which is somewhat ironic considering his own heritage. Also, having Rey finally meet up with Luke and learn about the Force from him made her act of saving the day by clearing away the boulders all the more satisfying in a way that her curiously out-of-the-blue lightsaber fight with Kylo Ren at the climax of the first film simply wasn't. To me it felt more like she'd "earned" her hero moment this time around.
Also, it was deeply satisfying that the "evil emperor" wannabe Snoke was handily dispatched in this film, and that all of the protagonists, going into the last movie of this new trilogy, are in no way related to any of the Skywalkers. I also found it interesting that the entirety of the new iteration of the Rebel Alliance could basically fit in the Millennium Falcon. These are exciting new times.
Finally, I confess I have mixed feelings about Finn's and Rose's doomed mission to Canto Bight, the casino planet. Rian Johnson takes the opportunity to talk about social inequity by showing audiences a planet full of opulence and decadence, where people who have no problem selling weapons to both sides of the conflict go to spend their blood money. It's a wonderful conversation to start having, and it helps that the characters in it, Finn, Rose and even Benicio del Toro's DJ, are all persons of color. Elements like this are the driving force behind wars in the real world, not hopelessly broad concepts like "good" and "evil." The movie takes on a fascinating new complexion at this juncture. My problem with this, however, is, that this is a conversation that deserves its own full-length film, one that repaints the entire new trilogy in a shade of grey, the way Rogue One did for the original trilogy, with its decidedly more realistic look at the sort of things insurgents often do. All we get, unfortunately, is a subplot that bloats the film's running time, complete with a tacked-on romance, which feels all the more ridiculous considering that by the end of the movie, Rose has only known Finn for less than a day. I did like that Johnson gave some closure (or appeared to give closure) to Finn's arc with his former boss, Captain Phasma.
The very end of the movie, though, with the stable boy on Canto Bight showing the ability to manipulate the Force, however, shows that Rian Johnson is not done exploring his 'haves and have nots' concept. I hope Disney isn't, either.
The bottom line for me is that, even though not all of the notions brought forward by Johnson work, this series, now 40 years old, needs new ideas if it's going to stay relevant past Episode IX, especially considering a new trilogy is planned. This movie makes a strong argument that Rian Johnson is just the man to bring those ideas to life.
Saturday, December 16, 2017
The Force is Strong with this One: A Review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi
written and directed by Rian Johnson
Over forty years after the release of the very first Star Wars, Disney/Lucasfilm releases the ninth film in the series, the highly-awaited The Last Jedi. It is, in many respects, a conspicuous improvement over its predecessor, though it's still not quite the best the franchise has ever offered.
Following the events of The Force Awakens, the First Order, led by the sinister Snoke (Andy Serkis), having laid waste to the leadership of the Old Republic, now seeks to wipe out the last vestiges of the Resistance, being led by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher). Spearheading Snokes' efforts to snuff out all resistance are General Hux (Domnhall Gleeson) and former Jedi-in-training Kylo Ren, a.k.a. Ben Solo (Adam Driver) who, as the film opens, are bearing down on the last remaining Resistance fleet as it evacuates its headquarters. The fleet escapes, but only momentarily, and at terrible cost. Leia finds herself having to deal with her ace pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), whose skill in the cockpit is matched only by how brash he is, a trait that could spell the difference between successfully escaping the clutches of the First Order and getting completely annihilated. Meanwhile, fellow Resistance fighter Rey (Daisy Ridley) is on a mission to the distant plant of Ach-to, where she attempts to recruit the last remaining Jedi, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to help the Resistance, and learn more about her mysterious past. Finally, former First Order Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) wakes up from the coma he fell into in the last movie, and tries to desert what he feels is a doomed Resistance, but fate has other plans as Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) a mechanic and the sister of a fallen Resistance fighter, stops him in his tracks by tasering him. In the ensuing conversation, he and Rose figure out how the First Order is able to track the Resistance, and devise a plan that involves finding a codebreaker (Benicio del Toro) on an intergalactic Monte Carlo and then sneaking onto Snokes' very own destroyer. Finally, Rey and Ren, mysteriously, develop a telepathic bond that enables them to communicate directly, even though great distance separates them, and this just may spell the difference between the Resistance falling to the First Order, or defeating it.
I'll readily admit that, while I enjoyed Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I was one of the many who felt that J.J. Abrams' film was, for all intents and purposes, a remake of the very first Star Wars movie, now called Episode IV: A New Hope. While it was, of course, a sequel, it was so hamstrung by Abrams' desire to show proper reverence to the original trilogy that it failed to bring anything truly new and fresh to the mythology. Rian Johnson's film is far from perfect, but quite significantly, it suggests that Lucasfilm has both learned from Abrams' mistakes as well as from the success of last year's spinoff film Rogue One: A Star Wars story.
For one thing, Johnson isn't afraid to take a movie that could have just as easily been The Empire Strikes Back, Mark II and instead go in a significantly different direction. I don't dare say more for fear of spoiling anything (and I'll have a separate post to discuss that). For better or worse, Johnson really puts his stamp on these characters, especially the newer ones like Rey, Ben Solo, Finn and Poe Dameron. He continues the threads that Abrams began, and enriches them significantly, at least in the case of Rey and Ben. Finn gets his own dedicated story arc, one that introduces a sort of love interest for him, and delves into his past as a stormtrooper, with a fairly satisfying payoff, even if the subplot does feel a little bloated. Dameron has a bit of an arc himself, one that brings him in direct conflict with General Organa and her subordinate Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) but while it has its interesting moments of tension, it still feels distinctly underwritten. Rey and Ben/Ren get the most character development, which is a welcome thing, considering how sparsely Abrams wrote their characters when he introduced them. Kylo Ren benefits the most; he gets a notable upgrade from the petulant Darth Vader wannabe he was in the first film of the new trilogy, which bodes well for the next (and last) film of this particular saga.
More importantly, however, Johnson avoids the one big mistake Abrams made in The Force Awakens, which was to give the old characters short shrift. Abrams royally screwed Han Solo, and I don't even mean by killing him. Abrams basically transplanted the Han Solo of the original trilogy into a new movie. Sure, he had white hair, wrinkles, and a lot of regrets, but he was still dodging people he'd outfoxed/swindled and basically acting like the guy that Obi Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker ran into in the very first movie. And honestly, Han died like a punk, something hardly befitting a character who is arguably the most popular hero of the original trilogy.
Luke Skywalker, who comes to prominence in this film, is another story. Johnson takes the fact that Kylo Ren was a product of Luke's training and absolutely runs with it. Luke isn't just a little older and grayer; the events of the last thirty years, especially the events that led to Ben Solo joining the First Order, have left him a profoundly changed man, and while it's easy to poke fun at the whole grumpy old man shtick Hamill puts on for much of his screen time, there's so much more to him than that, and it's evident not only from Johnson's script but from Hamill's acting. Yes, Star Wars fans, Mark Hamill, who managed to stain the entire franchise's most iconic scene with some awful line delivery ("Nooooo!!! That's not true!!! That's IMPOSSIBLE!!!") actually manages to ACT here. He doesn't exactly turn into Daniel Day-Lewis, but it is a remarkable step up from what we've seen before from him. And unlike Han, he gets a fantastic "hero" moment in the movie, as well as a stirring callback to one of the most iconic sequences of the first film which involved a sunset and a swelling John Williams score. THAT, Mr. Abrams, is how you do a proper hommage, not the copycat BS you sold us two years ago.
Speaking of John Williams, I was pleased to note that, whereas in The Force Awakens his music just felt like generic white noise, here he seems to have rediscovered what makes composing for these films so special; he doesn't just lean on the decades-old themes here but brings some new, if slightly familiar-sounding tunes to spice up the story.
I feel it's worth mentioning this film's astonishing production value; even though it should be a given, and even though the last two films under the Disney banner have both been very well-put-together, I'd like to acknowledge, having failed to do so before, how this new series of films really puts premium on things like location shoots and practical effects as opposed to George Lucas' CGI-infested clusterf**ks.
Ultimately, the film could have been trimmed a little bit, but as a narrative, it works quite well for the most part, and I can honestly say I enjoyed it just as much as I did Rogue One.
8.5/10
Over forty years after the release of the very first Star Wars, Disney/Lucasfilm releases the ninth film in the series, the highly-awaited The Last Jedi. It is, in many respects, a conspicuous improvement over its predecessor, though it's still not quite the best the franchise has ever offered.
Following the events of The Force Awakens, the First Order, led by the sinister Snoke (Andy Serkis), having laid waste to the leadership of the Old Republic, now seeks to wipe out the last vestiges of the Resistance, being led by General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher). Spearheading Snokes' efforts to snuff out all resistance are General Hux (Domnhall Gleeson) and former Jedi-in-training Kylo Ren, a.k.a. Ben Solo (Adam Driver) who, as the film opens, are bearing down on the last remaining Resistance fleet as it evacuates its headquarters. The fleet escapes, but only momentarily, and at terrible cost. Leia finds herself having to deal with her ace pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), whose skill in the cockpit is matched only by how brash he is, a trait that could spell the difference between successfully escaping the clutches of the First Order and getting completely annihilated. Meanwhile, fellow Resistance fighter Rey (Daisy Ridley) is on a mission to the distant plant of Ach-to, where she attempts to recruit the last remaining Jedi, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) to help the Resistance, and learn more about her mysterious past. Finally, former First Order Stormtrooper Finn (John Boyega) wakes up from the coma he fell into in the last movie, and tries to desert what he feels is a doomed Resistance, but fate has other plans as Rose Tico (Kelly Marie Tran) a mechanic and the sister of a fallen Resistance fighter, stops him in his tracks by tasering him. In the ensuing conversation, he and Rose figure out how the First Order is able to track the Resistance, and devise a plan that involves finding a codebreaker (Benicio del Toro) on an intergalactic Monte Carlo and then sneaking onto Snokes' very own destroyer. Finally, Rey and Ren, mysteriously, develop a telepathic bond that enables them to communicate directly, even though great distance separates them, and this just may spell the difference between the Resistance falling to the First Order, or defeating it.
I'll readily admit that, while I enjoyed Star Wars: The Force Awakens, I was one of the many who felt that J.J. Abrams' film was, for all intents and purposes, a remake of the very first Star Wars movie, now called Episode IV: A New Hope. While it was, of course, a sequel, it was so hamstrung by Abrams' desire to show proper reverence to the original trilogy that it failed to bring anything truly new and fresh to the mythology. Rian Johnson's film is far from perfect, but quite significantly, it suggests that Lucasfilm has both learned from Abrams' mistakes as well as from the success of last year's spinoff film Rogue One: A Star Wars story.
For one thing, Johnson isn't afraid to take a movie that could have just as easily been The Empire Strikes Back, Mark II and instead go in a significantly different direction. I don't dare say more for fear of spoiling anything (and I'll have a separate post to discuss that). For better or worse, Johnson really puts his stamp on these characters, especially the newer ones like Rey, Ben Solo, Finn and Poe Dameron. He continues the threads that Abrams began, and enriches them significantly, at least in the case of Rey and Ben. Finn gets his own dedicated story arc, one that introduces a sort of love interest for him, and delves into his past as a stormtrooper, with a fairly satisfying payoff, even if the subplot does feel a little bloated. Dameron has a bit of an arc himself, one that brings him in direct conflict with General Organa and her subordinate Vice Admiral Holdo (Laura Dern) but while it has its interesting moments of tension, it still feels distinctly underwritten. Rey and Ben/Ren get the most character development, which is a welcome thing, considering how sparsely Abrams wrote their characters when he introduced them. Kylo Ren benefits the most; he gets a notable upgrade from the petulant Darth Vader wannabe he was in the first film of the new trilogy, which bodes well for the next (and last) film of this particular saga.
More importantly, however, Johnson avoids the one big mistake Abrams made in The Force Awakens, which was to give the old characters short shrift. Abrams royally screwed Han Solo, and I don't even mean by killing him. Abrams basically transplanted the Han Solo of the original trilogy into a new movie. Sure, he had white hair, wrinkles, and a lot of regrets, but he was still dodging people he'd outfoxed/swindled and basically acting like the guy that Obi Wan Kenobi and Luke Skywalker ran into in the very first movie. And honestly, Han died like a punk, something hardly befitting a character who is arguably the most popular hero of the original trilogy.
Luke Skywalker, who comes to prominence in this film, is another story. Johnson takes the fact that Kylo Ren was a product of Luke's training and absolutely runs with it. Luke isn't just a little older and grayer; the events of the last thirty years, especially the events that led to Ben Solo joining the First Order, have left him a profoundly changed man, and while it's easy to poke fun at the whole grumpy old man shtick Hamill puts on for much of his screen time, there's so much more to him than that, and it's evident not only from Johnson's script but from Hamill's acting. Yes, Star Wars fans, Mark Hamill, who managed to stain the entire franchise's most iconic scene with some awful line delivery ("Nooooo!!! That's not true!!! That's IMPOSSIBLE!!!") actually manages to ACT here. He doesn't exactly turn into Daniel Day-Lewis, but it is a remarkable step up from what we've seen before from him. And unlike Han, he gets a fantastic "hero" moment in the movie, as well as a stirring callback to one of the most iconic sequences of the first film which involved a sunset and a swelling John Williams score. THAT, Mr. Abrams, is how you do a proper hommage, not the copycat BS you sold us two years ago.
Speaking of John Williams, I was pleased to note that, whereas in The Force Awakens his music just felt like generic white noise, here he seems to have rediscovered what makes composing for these films so special; he doesn't just lean on the decades-old themes here but brings some new, if slightly familiar-sounding tunes to spice up the story.
I feel it's worth mentioning this film's astonishing production value; even though it should be a given, and even though the last two films under the Disney banner have both been very well-put-together, I'd like to acknowledge, having failed to do so before, how this new series of films really puts premium on things like location shoots and practical effects as opposed to George Lucas' CGI-infested clusterf**ks.
Ultimately, the film could have been trimmed a little bit, but as a narrative, it works quite well for the most part, and I can honestly say I enjoyed it just as much as I did Rogue One.
8.5/10
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