Some Thoughts on The Last Jedi

There was a time in December of last year when I considered having an opinion about Star Wars: The Last Jedi. But Star Wars has never really been my thing. It is my third favorite among the ‘Star’ science fiction franchises (behind Star Trek and Stargate). And though a generally entertaining movie, one that was not spectacular yet not completely undercut by its many flaws, it didn’t seem to merit more attention than I had already given it merely by viewing. But as I continued to notice the buzz around the film, the conflicting opinions of film critics and fans, the expanding presence of Star Wars as a cultural touchstone (something it had always been), a tendency in social media to dismiss legitimate criticisms of the film, and the recent suggestions by some that the film should be remade, I decided that examining The Last Jedi in context of these developments might be worthwhile after all.

There is an element of criticism directed at The Last Jedi that is totally lacking in any redemptive qualities, and this is the white, male fanboy determination that the latest round of Star Wars movies (The Force Awakens, Rogue One and The Last Jedi) represent some sort of cultural apocalypse due to the inclusion of protagonists who are other than white males. They aren’t even bright enough to say “we want to make our own Star Wars movie” as they prattle on about remaking The Last Jedi, a movie they apparently hated. We can dismiss these whiners without any consideration, and judge the adventures of Rey, Finn, Poe and Rose strictly on their own merits. Are these characters compelling on their own? Have the writers, directors and actors done them justice? It’s a mixed bag, as one would expect, but none of the flaws are inherently tied to the ethnic, gender or racial identities of the characters.

Still, it is an actual problem with the film that the characters lack much in the way of either development or consistency. But as I pointed out here, Star Wars really doesn’t do that. Rey, as the heart of the new trilogy, fares better than most in The Last Jedi, but seems to have lost some of her agency, ping-ponging between her relationship with Luke, and her attempts to get him to train her/help the resistance, and her relationship with Kylo Ren, first as a hated adversary, then as a possible redemption project, and finally as an adversary again. She’s either stuck on the island at the mercy of Luke’s obstinacy, or stuck on the Supremacy as a pawn of the conflict between Snoke and Kylo Ren, but she seems to have lost much of the initiative she had in The Force Awakens. She wraps strong, I guess, utilizing Jedi powers she hadn’t really been trained in to save the Resistance, but her character arc lacks impact.

When Finn awakens from his coma, his big character motivation is his obsession with Rey, finding her, protecting her, whatever. He meets Rose, another questionably motivated character, when he tries to desert a cause he only marginally ever joined. Do they need him? Why do they care? But because someone had to write something for Finn and Rose to do during this movie we get that abysmal journey to Canto Bight. Rose is partially motivated by the death of her sister (which we see in the film’s opening), but I’m not sure why she needed that extra incentive, given she was already part of the Resistance. Is refrigerating a female character more acceptable if it is done to motivate another female character? And apparently the only lesson she learned from her sister’s sacrifice was that making a sacrifice for the greater good is pointless, so she wrecks Finn’s moment at the end by knocking him off his suicide run at the mini Death Star.

Of the new characters, Poe fares the worst. He’s been part of the military structure of the Republic and the Resistance for years, but for some reason has no respect for the chain of command. So, he runs his little side op that eventually undermines Vice Admiral Holdo’s escape plan and gets some significant fraction of the remaining Resistance forces killed. Maybe that was the point of his character arc, don’t be a self-righteous douchebag. But once you make him that, you really can’t redeem him, can you? The opening scene of Episode IX should be the execution of Poe Dameron for treason. General Leia and Vice Admiral Holdo do a poor job of managing Dameron, and apparently enough other Resistance members that he is able to recruit them into his mutiny. Was this really the dumb story they wanted to tell? The actors do a fine job with the material that they are given, but much of that material is so poorly developed and downright stupid that no performance can make it good.

Luke Skywalker, of course, is another problem entirely. This is the character that accepted what Joseph Campbell referred to as The Call to Adventure way back before Star Wars movies had episode numbers. He joined Obi Wan on the journey to Alderaan. He initiated the rescue of Princess Leia. He blew up the Death Star. He followed Obi Wan’s instructions and sought out Yoda, who trained him in the ways of the Force. Then, upon learning that his friends were in jeopardy, abandoned that training to launch a one-man rescue mission. He joined with them again to rescue Han from Jabba the Hutt and volunteered to join the critical mission to Endor. He left that mission to protect his friends from Vader, and then facing the Emperor, invested his whole self into the belief that Darth Vader could be redeemed. Luke Skywalker was the ultimate optimist. Until The Last Jedi, when he just sort of gave up. And I might have bought that, if they had shown me why, but a few flashbacks to a burning temple and attempted murder don’t cut it. You have to earn such a drastic alteration of a character’s wants and motivations, and the producers of The Last Jedi come nowhere close to doing that. And even then, while you might have convinced me that he would abandon the Jedi Order, or the Republic, or the galaxy as a whole, I will never believe that Luke would not run to help the princess the moment that she called.

I don’t come to a property like Star Wars (or even Star Trek, Discovery producers) wanting my expectations subverted. I come wanting to watch a damn Star Wars movie. If you are going to subvert my expectations, you need to do a hell of a better job giving me something worthwhile. If you are going to have characters make uncharacteristic choices, you need to lay a foundation that explains the change. And don’t hide the competence of new characters to force me to identify with ‘heroes’ that turn out to be wrong. Vice Admiral Holdo driving that cruiser down the Supremacy’s throat was a spectacular display, but it didn’t make up for the missteps with her character made along the way.

If the producers of the new Star Wars films had really wanted to do something different they wouldn’t have fallen back on that old light-side/dark-side Republic/Empire dichotomy in the first place. Renaming the Empire the 1st Order and calling the Rebel Alliance the Resistance doesn’t really change the nature of the conflict. It doesn’t matter whether or not the discount Emperor calls himself a Sith or the Emperor or the Supreme Leader, he’s essentially the same guy, creepy old dude tempting force adept youngsters into joining the dark side. The fact that they are essentially just recasting the old conflict, the endless Star War of light against dark, proves that this is the only thing Star Wars can be about. So, trying to nuance some kind of Grey Jedi idea wouldn’t work anyway. Once the tension between light and dark, Jedi and Sith disappears, Star Wars doesn’t have anything to be about. If it did they could have left the Republic intact and have these new heroes face some other challenge. This is why Star Trek is the superior product. It can be about science, exploration, conflict, culture, communication and a myriad of other topics. Star Wars is and always has been just a cartoon about Good vs. Evil.

2001: A Space Odyssey - Crash Course Film Criticism

Who is Han Solo?

One of the best moments in the history of the Star Wars franchise comes at the end of what they now call Episode Eye Vee: A New Hope. Luke Skywalker, letting go of his dependence on technology and trusting the force to guide him in firing his proton torpedoes, come under the guns of Darth Vader’s tricked out TIE fighter, a moment that threatens to end both Luke and the rebellion forever. Just as Vader lines up his shot, a burst of weapons fire falls from above, destroying the escort fighters and knocking Vader’s ship against the trench wall, sending it careening out into space. The Millennium Falcon comes screaming out of the sunlight, Han Solo quipping “Your all clear kid, now let’s blow this thing and go home.” Luke fires his torpedoes and the Death Star explodes. Happy Ending.

Han Solo, pirate, smuggler, mercenary, having been paid off for his earlier efforts on behalf of the Rebel Alliance, had come back at the last minute to save the day. I never saw it coming. Of course, I was a kid. Maybe to someone with a more sophisticated sense of story and character it would have seemed obvious, but to me, at the time, it was just a great twist. Not an M. Night Shamalama Dingdong plot twist, but just a great twist on the evolution of a character that I thought I understood. Because Han Solo always was and always will be the coolest character in Star Wars. Han shot first. He smiled at the thought of overcharging some crazy old man and some naïve farm boy for passage to Alderaan. Han was the guy who shot up the console when his conversation on the detention level went south. He exchanged the wittiest banter with the feisty princess (who gave as good as she got), and teased Luke about the possibility of “a princess and a guy like me.” Han made it clear that he was in it for the money. Then he left. And I had no reason to expect that he was ever going to come back. 

We always knew that Luke was going to be a dedicated warrior for the rebellion, that guided by Obi Wan and inspired by Leia he would fight against the evil of the Empire no matter what the cost. We always knew that Leia would continue to resist oppression, that she would defy tall men in grey uniforms for as long as she had a voice. We knew that Obi-wan would guide Luke on his journey, even after death. We knew Chewbacca would be forever loyal to Han. And we knew that Darth Vader would enforce the will of the Empire by any means necessary. But what exactly did we know about Han Solo? That he was for hire if the price was right, and that he was not interested in a hopeless rebellion that was likely to get him killed. He had the loot he needed to pay off Jabba and had gotten away scot-free. So why, exactly, did he come back?

Clearly Han had gotten closer to his new rebel friends than he was willing to admit. He had even offered Luke the opportunity to join his crew before he left. And no doubt Chewie had an opinion about abandoning the rebels that ran counter to Han’s first impulse, but it is unlikely that the Wookie would have been able to convince him to go back and help if Han hadn’t truly wanted to. And what did he say after knocking Vader out of the way, “let’s blow this thing and go home.” Han Solo was going home. And he stayed there. He never bothered to take the payment he had received for rescuing Leia to pay off his debt to Jabba. He helped the Rebels evade the Empire and establish a new base. He risked his life a second time for Luke when he went searching for him in the frozen wastes of Hoth. He made sure Leia escaped the Empire. He volunteered to lead a strike team down to the forest moon of Endor, a critical component of the Rebellion’s plan to destroy the second Death Star. Han Solo, a man literally named for his isolation and disconnectedness, was suddenly all in.

The swashbuckling space adventure had little time for character development. It was, for the most part, about moving from one moment of jeopardy to the next. So, we never got any deep insights about what drove these characters. The thing that made Solo more interesting than the others was that we didn’t completely understand his motivations. Was it true love for the feisty princess? A sudden increased antagonism for an Empire that harassed his smuggling operation? A genuine sense of investment in the Alliance’s plan to end oppression and restore the Republic? These movies didn’t have the time to answer such questions. Which was maybe for the best. The prequel films offered little in the way of deep insight when focusing on the emotional foundation of Anakin Skywalker’s transformation into Darth Vader. Sure, we got some superficial “reasons” to explain his descent into the Dark Side (his life as a slave, his mother’s death, his fear over losing Padme, and his sense of entitlement vis-à-vis the Jedi), but there was never any deep exploration of his character or motivations. And maybe Star Wars is incapable of doing such things.

Which brings us to Solo: A Star Wars Story, an opportunity to flesh out the character of Han Solo and give us some insight into his motivations. Just kidding. Star Wars still doesn’t do that. No, Solo doesn’t really explain anything about who Han Solo is. It mostly just shows us events from his past, events that he handles in a manner similar to his later self. We see him collect familiar items (his name, his blaster, his ship) and meet familiar people (Chewbacca, Lando, his ship), but it all seems like so much box checking wrapped up in a couple of dull heist sequences. The chemistry between Alden Ehrenreich and Emilia Clarke is 'meh' at best, so while we get the impression that all of the stuff they go through is important, they never make us feel anything about it. The performances are solid. The set pieces look good. If they weren’t so interminably long they might have even been entertaining. But at the end of the day we really didn’t learn anything new about Han Solo, making me wonder what the point of the film was in the first place.

Oh yeah. It was money. They did it to make money. It didn’t make enough, so they probably won’t do it again.

Movie Review: A Quiet Place

The first trailer that I saw for John Krasinski’s A Quiet Place did what all good movie trailers are supposed to do, put the movie on the list of films I wanted to see. The concept presented, one of people being hunted by an unknown predator who tracks its prey through sound, thereby requiring the characters to avoid speaking or making any noise, seemed to offer something more interesting and complex than the average horror thriller. But the finished product, while certainly competent and entertaining, tilts more toward the average than the interesting and complex.

A Quiet Place opens post-apocalypse, with a family of five rummaging quietly through a wrecked and abandoned store for medicines and supplies. On the way back to the farm the youngest child activates the world’s noisiest space shuttle toy and is quickly devoured by a creature. From there the film advances over a year, and finds the family living the peaceful life (literally) on their farm. The father, Lee Abbot (played by director Krasinski) works to maintain the farm and its defenses. In his spare time, he sends Morse code signals on various radio frequencies and works on fixing a hearing aid for his daughter. The mom, Evelyn (Emily Blunt) focuses on standard gender roles involving laundry, food and being pregnant, but she’s such a badass later in the film that it doesn’t matter. Daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds) is deaf (as is the actress) and feeling guilty about letting her brother keep a noisy toy without making sure he didn’t take the batteries. Son Marcus (Noah Jupe) does math and reluctantly learns survival skills. An array of video screens and whiteboards in the basement tell us little about the predatory creatures other than that they are blind, hunt through sound and are armored. When things get noisy, mayhem ensues.

As horror thrillers go, A Quiet Place is certainly above average. The characters don’t break any new ground, but are well-written, and within the confines of the script (it’s practically a silent movie) the acting is excellent. Emily Blunt may be out of John Krasinski’s league in a number of ways, but he manages to keep up. The characters make mistakes that put them in jeopardy but are not particularly stupid in the standard horror movie way. While you get the impression that the film might explore topics related to guilt, loss and the pressures related to being forced to live in silence, it spends the majority of its time being a creature feature. Although their origins are unexplained, once we get a good look at these things, they are not camera shy, and the design is effective. Tension is well-developed throughout, and some of the individual scenes evoke genuine dread and terror. While all stories tend to be composed of coincidences, there are more ‘what are the odds’ moments in this film than were likely necessary. But that may only be a problem if you think too much. Otherwise, even though it doesn’t deeply explore the psychological depths that the story offered, A Quiet Place is still a good movie and a great scare. B+

Movie Review: Hidden Figures

Of all the unsung heroes of America’s heroic efforts to win the space race in the 1960’s, few are as unsung as the African-American women who did the math that computers were not yet ready to do, calculating the trajectories and orbits of space capsules. With the publication of Margot Lee Shetterly's Hidden Figures, and now the release of Theodore Melfi’s eponymous film, the extraordinary story of the vital role these women played in launching American astronauts into orbit and toward the moon has finally been told.

Hidden Figures focuses on three of these women, each of whom would go on to long and distinguished careers with NASA, Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), a math prodigy from an early age, Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer), an unrecognized supervisor who becomes a computer expert, and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe), a young woman with the then unheard of ambition (for an African American woman) to become an engineer. Of course, in addition to actually doing the hard work required to get these jobs done, these women had to deal with the racism and sexism that was still a pervasive feature of American society in the 60’s. Johnson is the primary protagonist, and we follow as she is assigned to a work group that is trying to calculate the trajectory that will allow John Glenn to become the first American to orbit the Earth. Working with a group of people who barely recognize her existence, she manages to create the math that allows Glenn to succeed.

Hidden Figures has a rather light tone, which works well in telling a story about the triumph of intellect and hard work over prejudice, and highlighting the absurdity of rules that segregated restrooms and coffeepots. The performances are in line with the tone, but uniformly excellent. The leads have great chemistry, and Kevin Coster, Kirsten Dunst, Jim Parsons and Mahershala Ali all excel in supporting roles. Although never heavy handed, Hidden Figures deals honestly with the American legacy of racism and oppression, and shows how talented and capable individuals overcame that legacy to achieve great things. A-

Movie Review: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

With the release of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, the third coming of the Star Wars saga has broken the prequel curse placed on the franchise by creator George Lucas. And although none of the marketing for this movie ever used the P-word to describe it, the chronological setting, in advance of the events of the original Star Wars (later subtitled A New Hope), does indeed make the film a prequel. While this film does not reclaim the high-water mark Star Wars established with The Empire Strikes Back, it does prove that the new crop of producers are not likely to sink to the depths of Episodes One through Three.

Rogue One is the story of a McGuffin, those original Death Star plans that Princess Leia sent down to Tatooine inside the memory banks of R2D2 at the beginning of Star Wars, an event that pulled a farm boy named Luke and a retired Jedi named Obi Wan into the rebellion against the evil Galactic Empire. This film tells the story of how those plans were stolen in the first place. Jyn Erso (Felicty Jones), a criminal of some sort who was separated from her parents at a young age (when her father, Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), was forcefully recruited into the Empire’s Death Star project), is sprung from an imperial prison by the rebels and recruited into a mission to find her father. The rebels want some information on a rumored new super-weapon that the Empire is about to deploy. Some of them also want Galen dead for his role in the development of this weapon, but they don’t tell Jyn that. The path to the plans lead through a rebel extremist (and Jyn’s former guardian) named Saw Gerrara (Forest Whitaker), a rain soaked Imperial Base, and finally a planet that looks like Hawaii. We know somewhat how the story will end, because Star Wars.

Rogue One has the redeeming quality of being fairly smart for a Star Wars movie, much smarter than last year’s The Force Awakens, which treated the concepts of both space and time with singular contempt. Sure, it is still a space fantasy, but at least it all makes sense within the context of the Star Wars universe. Rogue One focuses more on the war aspect of Star Wars, and features harrowing sequences of ground, air, and space combat. The film introduces us to a whole cast of new characters, but fails to develop them significantly. For all of the dumbness and repetition, at least The Force Awakens had heart. There is a lot of fan service in Rogue One, and some of it may be pointless, but it wouldn’t have been a problem if the characters had been developed better. But for anyone who is a fan of the series, or just enjoys a good science fiction adventure, Rogue One provides plenty of entertainment. B

Where Everyone Has Gone Before

Much in the same way that Star Trek Into Darkness lacked any genuine darkness, so does the latest film in the rebooted Star Trek franchise fail to live up to its title. There is little new, or original, or beyond in Star Trek Beyond, but it does have the saving grace of not being quite as stupid as its predecessor. It also manages to have moments that are truer to the heart of the original Star Trek series than any in the two previous films. But while these moments are evocative of the original, they also lack much in the way of originality.

Star Trek Beyond opens on an Enterprise three years into its five year mission, and like the prime universe James Kirk in the episode The Paradise Syndrome, NuKirk (Chris Pine) has grown a little weary of his mission, so much so that he is considering transferring to a vice-admiralty position on a shiny new star base called Yorktown. In a scene mirroring one in The Wrath Of Khan (a film that the new productions have been obsessive about restaging one scene at a time) Kirk and McCoy (Karl Urban) have a drink and discuss birthdays and career options. In the original Kirk was lamenting the promotion that had taken him out of the center seat, while in Beyond it’s the captaining he wishes to escape. The film might have broken new ground with the introduction of Sulu’s (John Cho) new status as a gay man, but for Star Trek, that was on the cutting edge of promoting tolerance and acceptance of different people all the way back in the 1960’s, this could qualify as a case of ‘too little, too late.’

Word of a ship in distress leads Kirk and the Enterprise crew through an uncharted nebula to the planet Altamid, where they are attacked by a swarm of small ships that quickly rip the Enterprise into pieces, leaving most of her crew dead or captured. Kirk reaches the surface with Chekov (Anton Yelchin) and the alien captain who had requested assistance, while Spock (Zachary Quinto) and McCoy crash a swarm ship they had appropriated into a different location. Scotty (Simon Pegg), the only other crew member not captured by the aliens, runs into an orphan/scavenger named Rey Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) who promises to help him locate the crew if he will assist her with some engineering problems. Sulu and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) are prisoners of the alien antagonist, Krall (Idris Elba), who is looking for the component of an “ultimate” weapon that was stored on the Enterprise, and that Kirk was able to hide before leaving the ship.

The film follows each group as they overcome injuries and obstacles to reunite and figure out away to stop Krall. Quinto and Urban as Spock and McCoy prove the most adept at channeling the essence of the original characters. Jaylah leads Scotty to her home, the long lost Federation starship Franklin, which is repaired, and as the crew are reunited becomes a means of both escape and of thwarting Krall’s plans to use his new weapon against Yorktown. There are a ton of continuity problems with the Franklin that might annoy hardcore fans, but the real problem is how uninteresting the whole story is. There is a twist on Krall’s identity that doesn’t have much impact. His whole beef with the Federation is rather vague, and is not significantly clarified when we learn who he is. Elba does as much as he can with the part, but even with the twist there is not much to the role. Jaylah might have been a more interesting character if we’d not already seen an orphan scavenger with superior technical and fighting skills six months ago in another movie.

Of course by Hollywood Summer Tentpole Blockbuster logic the film has to end with massive property damage, this time inflicted upon the over-designed Federation Starbase Yorktown, the home to millions of beings. Yorktown looks very cool, but the station’s M. C. Escheresque design is neither practical nor likely possible. I won't spoil the resolution but nothing very original happens. Some of the visuals even reminded me of Guardians of the Galaxy. At the best it is all adequately entertaining if inevitably forgettable. But it was nice to see a glimpse of the old Star Trek again, even if for the most part it was buried under the layers of noise that pass for film making in Hollywood these days.

The Lobster: Movie Review

The Lobster may not be the weirdest movie I’ve ever seen, but it is surely in contention to be one of the top five. Directed and co-written by Yorgos Lanthimos, the film stars Colin Farrell as a man who has been dumped by his wife. This, in and of itself, might not be so unusual, except that Farrell’s character (David) lives in some bizarre alternate universe where being single is not tolerated. He is sent to a hotel like prison where he has 45 days to find love or be turned into the animal of his choice. He chooses a lobster because of their longevity and lifelong fertility, though we’re never given a clue as to why the latter may be that important to him. Life in the hotel is very regimented, and does nothing to inspire romance among its residents. A disastrous attempt to hook up with a ‘heartless’ woman leads David to escape into the forest, where he meets up with a group of ‘Loners’ that includes a woman played by Rachel Weisz.

This satire is not about human relationships per se, but is rather about the social pressures and traditions that exist within human societies regarding when, who, and how people should enter into romantic relationships. The movie is very on point with its criticisms, showing us not only a social order obsessed with forcing people into relationships, but also a counter culture that is equally obsessed with enforcing singleness. The problem is not that the film doesn’t make its point, it’s that it does so in a manner that undermines its satiric qualities. It lacks all subtlety and grace. There are moments of jarring violence, some that you can see coming a mile away, that make the film hard to watch. None of the characters have much depth, although that is one point of the film, that the superficial qualities people may share are not a good foundation for a relationship. In spite of strong performances by Farrell, Weisz and the rest of the cast, the film lacks emotional depth and is too heavy handed to be effective as satire. C+

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - What the Flick Reviews

Below are two video reviews of Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice by the reviewers over at What The Flick. The first review is spoiler free, but the second is not, so choose wisely. I may eventually share some of my own thoughts on the film, but for now these reviews are as close to my own opinion as any.

Spoilers Below:

10 Cloverfield Lane: Movie Review

10 Cloverfield Lane is not a sequel to J.J. Abrams' 2008 movie about an American Kaiju (read giant monster) attacking New York City. In fact, outside of the title and a few little JJ verse references (there is a gas station named Kelvin, a name scattered throughout his oeuvre), this film has little in common with Cloverfield. Of course the title kind of spoils what it does have in common, since not knowing what was going on outside of the bunker might’ve made things a bit more interesting.

10 Cloverfield Lane is about Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), a woman on the run from her boyfriend until an auto accident sidelines her into an underground shelter belonging to Howard (John Goodman). Howard explains that he found her in her overturned vehicle and brought her to his shelter to save her life, since there was some kind of unspecified attack (chemical? nuclear? biological?) that had rendered the world above uninhabitable. Unsure of Howard’s credibility, Michelle spends most of the movie working on one escape plan or another, and ultimately escapes from the bunker to discover the truth, a truth in the title that doesn’t leave much room for suspense.

The big problem with 10 Cloverfield Lane is that it doesn’t know what kind of movie it wants to be, a tense psychological thriller about a young woman trapped in a bunker with an ambiguously threatening John Goodman, or a post apocalyptic monster movie. It shines at both in moments, based largely on the performances of Goodman, Winstead and John Gallagher, Jr. (as third wheel survivor Emmet), but you never really get over the feeling that you are watching two different movies. B-

Deadpool: Movie Review

Deadpool is a superhero/comic book movie that dares to be different, except when it doesn’t, which is most of the time. Based on the Marvel Comic book, ostensibly inhabiting the same universe as The X-Men (who are present) and The Avengers (different studio), Deadpool is the story of wiseass mercenary Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) who seeks radical treatment for advanced stage cancer only to emerge with Wolverine style healing powers and a serious case of the uglies. Motivated by revenge against the generic slimy British guy who cured/cursed him and the need to rescue his girlfriend, Deadpool dons his red and black suit and kills a whole lot of people. He does this in the most graphically violent way possible, and unlike most comic book movies there in no sanitation of the violence, language or sex. This movie earns its R rating. It also manages to be funny, and is full of self-referential moments and Deadpool’s trademark shattering of the fourth wall, which is all fairly entertaining.

Warning: this redband trailer contains violence and language.

But Deadpool never manages to swim out of the shallow end with regards to character or story. Outside of the title character almost everyone else feels like a prop. The prop villain. The prop girlfriend. The prop superhero sidekicks. They all have their little moments, but none of them ever add up to much. Leslie Uggams cameos as Blind Al, Wilson’s sightless roommate, but for some reason she gets less screen time than his pointless bartender buddy Weasel. And the story follows the same standard superhero origins outline we’ve seen dozens of times now, even leading to the big final showdown set piece where the hero saves the day. Sure the budget must’ve been too small to destroy an entire city, but they still manage to cause significant property damage, not because that was remotely the best way to conclude the story, but because all of these productions are trapped in that ‘massive property damage’ paradigm. So for all of the boundaries it pushes with regards to violence and language Deadpool only ever manages to be a standard superhero/comic book movie. B

The Frontier Boys: Matt, Leo and the Fight for the Oscar

Spoiler Alert: This post contains spoilers for both The Martian and The Revenant. Continue reading at your own risk.

Of all the films nominated for Best Picture of 2015 by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences there are few common themes that emerge. True, both Spotlight and The Big Short delve into the exploitation of vulnerable populations by those who have power over them (priests and bankers), and most of the other films explore the depth of human emotion that usually attract Oscar attention, but they don’t seem to have much else in common. The exceptions, of course, are the two films about survival, The Martian and The Revenant.

There are plenty of obvious parallels between these films, events and actions that they have in common. The fur trapping expedition in the American wilderness is cut short by an Indian attack. The exploration of Mars is cut short by an unexpected dust storm. Frontiersman Henry Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is mauled by a bear. Astronaut Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is mauled by a windblown communication antenna. Both men are left for dead in a hostile environment and use specialized skills and knowledge to survive. Glass cuts open a horse carcass to use as a shelter; Watney cuts open a rover to adapt it for his survival. Glass builds a fish trap to feed himself. Watney builds a potato farm to do the same. Glass performs surgery on himself (cauterizing a wound in his neck with gunpowder), as does Watney. Both men struggle for survival against a backdrop of gorgeous scenery, and both men adopt something of an extra-human identity, Watney becoming The Martian, identifying with his new world, as Glass becomes The Revenant, one who has returned from death. It is clear that these stories share a basic mythological foundation.

Of course while both men focus on surviving, Glass is also motivated by revenge, hoping to catch up to John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), the man who killed his son and abandoned him. This explains the grim intensity of Glass’ story when compared to Watney’s. Watney uses humor to help himself cope with his situation, while Glass rarely cracks a smile (the only moment of lightness coming during the snowflake catching scene). Both Damon and DiCaprio are up for Best Actor for their performances in these films, with the general consensus being that DiCaprio will finally get the award for his portrayal of Glass. But between what are essentially two one-note performances, I’d say Damon had the harder job. He not only had to portray Watney’s many struggles to survive, but he also had to have good comic timing. As the old saying goes, “dying is easy, comedy is hard.” But maybe Damon did too good a job, as the Hollywood Foreign Press awarded him and The Martian Golden Globes for Best Actor in a Comedy or Musical and Best Musical or Comedy Motion Picture.

The only other performance I’ve seen in the Best Actor category is Bryan Cranston’s as Dalton Trumbo, and while it is certainly a good performance, it is not really a threat to either DiCaprio or Damon. Based solely on the Academy’s usual treatment of comedic efforts, I’m guessing that DiCaprio’s grim intensity will outweigh Damon’s comic timing, but you never know. #OscarsSoSerious

Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens

My original intention for the first post of 2016, marking the rebranding of my blog from Tabula Rasa to Four Mile Circus, was to write a critique of director JJ Abrams’ questionable understanding of outer space. Abrams has the distinction of directing movies in two of the largest space-based film franchises ever conceived (Star Trek and Star Wars), and has done so with very little understanding or respect for it as a setting. But apparently since the science in Star Wars has always been atrocious (and it has been) Abrams’ scientific failures are off limits when discussing the film. That is some of the feedback floating around on Twitter anyway. It is still my intention to write about the topic, but I will probably wait a month or two until The Force Awakens has become less of a sacred cow. 

Overall, Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a solid Star Wars movie. It may be the most inherently Star Warsish Star Wars movie since the original, as The Empire Strikes Back aspired to be greater than the first and all of the other sequels and prequels aspired to be less. The new characters, scavenger Rey, ex-Storm Trooper Finn and pilot Poe Dameron, are paper thin and questionably motivated but great fun, as are the returning characters of Han, Leia, Chewbacca and the droids. The plot has been wholly recycled, down to the droid carrying important data, a planet destroying superweapon and a visit to an alien filled tavern (although I always felt that it was somewhat unfair to declare that no movie could ever feature a bar filled with aliens without being accused of ripping off Star Wars). The villains of the piece, genocidal maniacs based on their actions, never generate much in the way of fear or intimidation. Darth Emo is in no way as complex or compelling as people think he is. Tantrums do not equal conflict. Star Wars: The Force Awakens is a fun and fast paced film, but it really doesn’t add up to much more than that. B+

Mr. Holmes: 100 Word Movie Review

There are some mysteries that even Sherlock Holmes cannot solve, mysteries of memory, age and human relationships that are not easily distilled into mere facts. In Bill Condon’s Mr. Holmes the great detective’s inability to solve such mysteries catches up to him. Set in 1947, this film features a retired Sherlock Holmes living far from 221 B Baker Street, with his housekeeper and her son in a small farmhouse. He struggles to recall the details of his last case even as senility is robbing him of his famous mental faculties. The film flashes back 30 years to the case in question, as well as to a more recent expedition to Hiroshima, Japan, where Holmes seeks out a botanical remedy that he hopes will allow him to recover his memories. There are times when this film feels rather unfocused, much like Holmes’ mind, but the brilliant performances by Ian McKellan (Holmes) and the rest of the cast prove compelling throughout. And in the end Holmes learns that logic and facts will only take you so far, especially in regard to human relationships. A

*100 word reviews are 100 words long, more or less. Often more.

Skynet vs. Genisys: The War Between the Machines

The following is an analysis of certain story elements contained in the film Terminator: Genisys, and not a review of the film.

Warning: Spoilers

Terminator: Genisys, the fifth film in the 31-year-old Terminator franchise, offers us yet another version of the homicidal artificial intelligence known as Skynet, this one taking the form of a cloud based app called Genisys that is supposed to provide cross device connectivity for over a billion people. The screen writers apparently wanted to update the face of Skynet, and make it more relatable to a generation with little memory of Cold War thermonuclear brinkmanship but a great deal of familiarity with cloud based computing and connectivity apps. The producers of this film have indicated that Genisys may be a super aware version of the original Skynet, having seen the outcome of the war between man and machines across multiple timelines. But their creative intentions aside, my own theory about Genisys is that it is not a new version of Skynet at all, but rather a competing artificial intelligence who has been fighting its own war against Skynet through all of the Terminator movies since T2.

The Terminator franchise has been riddled with paradoxes since the beginning. Kyle Reese, sent back in time by his commanding officer, John Connor, to save Connor’s mother from the original Terminator, is actually Connor’s father, and was only there to father him because his son had sent him back to 1984 in the first place. Similarly, it seems that Skynet itself would never have been built if pieces of the first Terminator had not been found and adapted by Cyberdyne industries into the technology that would eventually become Skynet. Now, in Terminator: Genisys, something else happens as Reese is sent back to the past, John Connor is attacked by Dr. Who Genisys and assimilated into its collective. Connor, the great leader of humanity’s war against the machines has now become part machine, and is sent back in time to 2014 to initiate the creation of the Genisys program. Yet another ‘character’ that uses time travel to create itself.

But why 2014? In the original timeline the military control system Skynet “wakes up” and initiates Judgment Day (a launch of America’s thermonuclear arsenal at the Soviet Union, which retaliates in kind) in 1997, killing three billion people at the start of the war to eradicate humankind. The Genisys program that gets created almost 20 years later is more of a civilian system with military applications, a cloud based app that would seem to need human customers (one billion pre-orders) to work in the first place. It is a totally different program from a totally different decade than the original Skynet. It couldn’t have been created in 1997, so it needed to prevent Judgment Day from coming. It needed to prevent Skynet from being born. It did that by reprogramming Skynet’s own Terminators and sending them back in time to collude with John and Sarah Connor in changing history.

The premise of Terminator 2: Judgment Day, was that Skynet, operating from a second time travel facility, sent an advanced T-1000 Terminator back in time to kill John Connor. Future Connor, somehow aware of this second Terminator, reprograms an older T-800 (Arnie) model and sends it back in time to protect himself. But Terminator: Genisys shows us John Connor being attacked by Adam (Genisys, also called the T-5000 in his human form) just as Reese is time traveling. The conceit of the film is that this is what creates the new timeline, and that Genisys had not assimilated future Connor is the previous movies. But what if he did? What if that was always what happened and it was always the Genisys controlled Connor sending Terminators back in time to protect himself. After all, where did Connor suddenly acquire the ability to reprogram Terminators? If Skynet’s assets were so easily manipulated, why wasn’t the resistance using them against Skynet in the war? No, Connor was able to reprogram the T-800 because he had already been integrated with Genisys, who was able to manipulate Skynet’s systems. Genisys sent the T-800 back to battle Skynet’s T-1000 to save John Connor, because Connor was vital to Genisys’ plans. John and Sarah adopted the mission to stop the 1997 Judgment Day after being rescued by the T-800, a plan that worked out to the benefit of Genisys and the detriment of Skynet. It was the T-800’s plan to destroy himself as well (even though he couldn’t self-terminate), ensuring that the technological foundations of Skynet would disappear from the timeline.

We could carry this logic forward to Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, with Skynet sending the T-X back to kill John’s future wife and lieutenants, and Genisys sending another T-800 back to protect them. Yes we’re told a story by the T-800 that Kate Brewster reprogrammed him after he killed John. But that could be a fiction created by Genisys to sell the story. Of course the Rise of the Machines timeline still had Judgment Day occurring in favor of Skynet over Genisys, so this film, removed from the canon by Terminator: Genisys, could at best be considered an alternate timeline in the war between Genisys and Skynet, one where Skynet triumphed.

Terminator: Genisys also complicates the timeline by sending Terminators back to Sarah’s childhood, where her family is killed by a T-1000 and she is rescued by the T-800 she calls “Pops.” This is just another battlefield in the war between Skynet and Genisys. In each of these conflicts the older model T-800 is successful against the more advanced T-1000. Why? What edge could the human leader John Connor have given these machines? Almost none. But the advanced artificial intelligence Genisys may have been able to provide intelligence and strategic assets that enabled them to consistently defeat a superior enemy.

Of course Terminator: Genisys ended with Sarah, Kyle and Pops destroying the complex that housed the Genisys project, believing that Genisys is just another version of Skynet that would seek to launch Judgment Day. But we never saw Genisys’ version of Judgment Day, so maybe that’s not the plan at all. Genisys seems more interested in converting humans into machines, and even Sarah wonders whether or not this is what will happen to them. After all, it may be possible that Genisys has won its time war against Skynet (since the mid credits scene did confirm its survival), but that doesn’t mean its plans for the future of the human race are significantly more benevolent.

Jurassic World: 100 Word Movie Review*

Jurassic World, directed by Colin Trevorrow, is a film about the world’s smartest people making the world’s stupidest mistakes, the same basic premise as the original Jurassic Park 22 years ago. Set on the island featured in the original film, Jurassic World is now a full-blown theme park attracting over 20,000 visitors a day. Bryce Dallas Howard plays a corporate executive looking to increase park attendance with her new asset, a genetically modified dinosaur named Indominus Rex. Chris Pratt is a Velociraptor whisperer brought in to inspect the new dino’s cage, and arrives just in time to participate in its escape, because when you name your brand new dinosaur "Untamable King" (the translation of the Latin Indominus Rex) ya shouldn’t be surprised when it proves to be untamable. Because Congress must’ve passed some law saying you can’t make a film about cloned dinosaurs that doesn’t feature children in jeopardy you also get two kids, who happen to be the nephews of Howard’s character, that run right into the escaped beast. Pratt and Howard spend a lot of time together trying to rescue the boys and contain the dinos, and you get the sense that there might’ve been some genuine chemistry between these actors if someone had thought to write them something other than junior high level dialogue. But then the people are rarely the attraction in these films, and are usually just lucky not to be on the menu. Though certainly not as dumb as your average Transformers movie, Jurassic World offers little that is smart, but a lot that entertains. B

*100 word reviews are 100 words long, more or less. Often more.

Avengers: Age of Ultron: 100 Word Movie Review*

The first question you might want to ask yourself after sitting though Joss Whedon’s Avengers: Age of Ultron is “What year is this?” Because at two hours and 20 minutes the Age of Ultron is almost an eon. After that you probably won’t ask much else, or think much else, about this film. Sure it’s momentarily entertaining, but it doesn’t exactly leave an impression. Ultron brings the band (Ironman, Captain America, Thor, The Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye) back together on a mission to retrieve the previous film villain’s scepter, which features a jewel of incredible power that happens to be hiding the seeds of an artificial intelligence. After retrieving the scepter, Tony “Ironman” Stark (Robert Downey, Jr.) uses the AI as a source for his Ultron program, peacekeeping robots whose presence will allow the Avengers to disassemble. This turns out to be a bad idea of course, as Ultron decides the most efficient way to keep the peace is by eliminating the pesky humans that are always breaking it. Cue multiple globe spanning conflicts between the Avengers and Ultron. It all looks great, if not endless. Hulks and robots and heroes tear through acres of CGI real estate in long and eventually pointless set pieces. Whedon’s wit and his weakness for character development occasionally shines through the endless visual stimulation, but mostly this film is just a hyped up roller coaster ride. I’ve got nothing against roller coaster rides, but I guess I was expecting more. B-

*100 word reviews are 100 words long, more or less. Often more.

Selma: 100 Word Movie Review*

Director Ava DuVernay's Selma tells the story of the historic 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and other noted civil rights activists. The film also covers events in the three months leading up to the march, including King’s continued efforts to secure support for voting rights legislation from President Lyndon Johnson. Although uneven in spots, the film is an authentic and powerful look at a critical juncture in the civil rights movement. David Oyelowo is excellent as King, as is Carmen Ejogo as Coretta Scott King, but the film suffers during the scenes they share from the unfortunate lack of chemistry between them. Many of King’s personal moments on screen seem rather muddled, perhaps an attempt to inject a sense of self-doubt that was rarely visible in public, but I’m not sure that this is entirely effective. Overall though, Selma is a well-done chronicle of these events, and a timely reminder of a history that still has strong influences on American society.

*100 word reviews are 100 words long, more or less. Often more.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies: 100 Word Movie Review*

Orcs and Elves and Dwarves, oh my. No one should be surprised at the identity of three of the five titular armies that go to battle in the final installment of Peter Jackson’s bloated adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s The Hobbit. Or that the human residents of Lake Town, featured prominently in The Desolation of Smaug, make up the fourth of those five featured combatants. But for the sake of those unfamiliar with the book I’ll refrain from naming the final army, whose critical contribution to the battle seems largely glossed over anyway. But none of the battle sequences in this film feel critical. Well-rendered waves of CGI Elves and Orcs and Dwarves clash convincingly over the well-rendered battlefield of Erebor. But who really cares? The main characters, Thorin, Bard, Gandalf, Tauriel and Bilbo all have brief moments where we get some sense of character and narrative, but mostly the film consists of endless CGI cinematography and warfare. And although Billy Connolly’s turn as the Dwarf king Dain Ironfoot is almost worth the price of admission, the rest of the film, like the others in The Hobbit trilogy, is just too long and too much.

*100 word reviews are 100 words long, more or less. Often more.

The Interview: 100 Word Movie Review*

The Interview, an assassination comedy from Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg, generated a significant amount of controversy in the weeks leading up to its planned Christmas 2014 release. An act of cyber-terrorism against Sony Pictures almost led to the picture not being released at all, which would have been no great loss to the art of moving pictures, but a serious compromise of the rights to free expression guaranteed by the First Amendment. Fortunately, Sony found a way to release the picture to select independent theaters and via streaming services online.

In the film, James Franco plays David Skylark, a vapid tabloid-TV host who lands an interview with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Recruited by the CIA to assassinate the dictator, Skylark and his producer Aaron Rappaport (Rogen) head to Pyongyang on their absurd mission. Although never subtle enough to rise to the level of actual satire, of either the American infotainment industry, the CIA or North Korea and its leader, the film does work hard to make its points between the self-indulgent banter that passes for dialogue. There are plenty of laughs to be had, though of course from Franco and Rogan they trend more toward the crude than the clever and the film as a whole is rather stupid. I doubt that the creators ever had any higher aspirations than to make a dumb comedy. If not for North Korea’s attention the whole thing probably would have faded into obscurity within a couple of weeks. The violence at the end is rather jarring, even for a film about an assassination, but overall, if you’re in the mood for stupid comedy with a side of controversy The Interview isn’t all that bad.

*100 word reviews are 100 words long, more or less. Often more.