(Jeff Nichols, 2015)
Nichols' "voice" makes perfect sense here, applied to a sci-fi thriller which refers to Spielberg's sci-fi cinema of the late '70s and early '80s; like J.J. Abrams' Super 8, Midnight Special seems hugely indebted to E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, as well as John Carpernter's Starman.
The difference is that while Abrams is a skilled mimic, Nichols has his own sensibility and style. It is artier than most mainstream Hollywood cinema, patient and precise, with much attention paid to tone and mood. Visually he uses almost-Hawksian simple set-ups, eschewing flashy cutting or ostentatious angles.
Each of his films is imbued with a strong sense of emotion, perhaps at the expense of plot. So here there is no exposition, meaning that the audience is involved in an intriguing game of catch-up from the start. We meet two men, on the run from the authorities across the South of the U.S. with a little boy in tow. The boy wears swimming goggles and headphones. They travel by night, the driver wearing night-vision goggles so that their car travels in darkness. They use cardboard to blackout motel room windows in the daytime. The Government is searching for them, as is the cult they appear to have escaped. The boy is spoken of in reverent terms by cult members, and appears to have powers of some sort. One of the men (Michael Shannon) is revealed as his birth father.
Nichols lets the details come slowly, focusing instead on the mood of desperation and fear around the fugitives. This is really a story of a father's struggle to protect his child, and as such it accrues tremendous emotional power as it moves with gathering speed towards a climax. The sci-fi elements are all sudden shocks in the story, and the naturalism of the setting and playing gives them an awesome effect; a scene at a gas station is interrupted by a shower of falling satellite debris. Shannon is woken from sleep by the house being shaken off the ground by the light shooting from his sons eyes. The boys touch kills patches of grass.
While the film is without any Spielbergian sentimentality, it does try for Spielbergian awe, and the context and tone helps it achieve something like that. It is a slow burn that sparks to life impressively.
Nichols is great with actors as ever. Shannon, Edgerton and Dunst are all excellent, while Driver shows good range as the Government expert on their trail. Perhaps most impressive is the cinematography of regular Nichols collaborator, Adam Stone; he paints a muted, wintry picture of the Southern States by night, lit by halogen and headlamps.
Showing posts with label Science Fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Science Fiction. Show all posts
Sunday, 17 April 2016
Monday, 28 March 2016
BATMAN V SUPERMAN: DAWN OF JUSTICE
(Zack Snyder, 2016)
Forced to try to make super-hero movies in a different way to Marvel, Warner Bothers and DC have gone all-in on grim and gritty. That might be in part an attempt to duplicate the success Christopher Nolan experienced with his Dark Knight trilogy, which embraced the darker aspects of Batman mythology, largely eschewing any humour, campness or fun along the way.
Snyder already aped that approach with Man of Steel, and here he brings in his own interpretation of the "Bat of Gotham" to set up the extended Universe DC presumably feels is their right, looking at the industry-altering success Marvel has enjoyed with its unending flow of Marvel Universe product.
And that approach has its strengths. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (explicitly nodding to the hints of the coming Justice League in a few scenes here) is positively stuffed to the gills with stuff. With easter eggs, characters, gadgets, dialogue, cgi, mythology, action, exposition, technobabble, ephemera, spectacle: just stuff. It also has more ideas than any Marvel film, which may be another of the legacies left by Christopher Nolan.
It's just that in his films, the ideas are foregrounded. Indeed, if his Batman trilogy has a major flaw, it is an inability to balance the demands of an action spectacle with his own desire to engage with big themes. Well, Zack Snyder can do the action spectacle in his sleep. But the big themes are a different story. He allows his characters to expound upon the nature of heroism and power, but that's it. The film doesn't pursue these ideas in any meaningful way. Instead, Snyder flicks through them en route to another big slugfest action sequence. And so the tone isn't earned by the story it frames, and it just seems slightly, unnecessarily grim.
But then perhaps this is the perfect superhero film for the modern world; teetering on the edge of anarchy (glimpsed in a Batman nightmare filled with more Darkseid-shaped easter eggs), split between those who worship powerful figures (Snyder conjures one lovely scene where revellers at a Mexican Day of the Dead festival bow and stretch to touch the Kryptonian) and those who despise them (Batman is feared and seen as a myth), mired in bureaucracy (a surprising amount of plot is spent dealing with import permission) and secretly run by the powerful mega-rich.
Snyder is as visually assured as ever. This is perhaps best seen in the way he shoots Batman - an early encounter with two beat cops treats him like a horror character; seen in blurred background and shadow. The later take-down of a warehouse full of armed thugs is the closest approximation of the Batman I grew up reading I have ever seen. Mixing tech and fighting acumen, it is easily the best action scene in the film; thrillingly shot and cut without resorting to slo-mo, Snyder's personal visual tic.
The cast is strong, which helps carry some of the more shockingly badly written scenes. Ben Affleck makes for an appealingly tired and sombre Bruce Wayne, (a somewhat underused) Cavill is more confident as Clark/Superman, and Amy Adams makes Lois more vulnerable than she was in Man of Steel. Jeremy Irons is a nicely sardonic Alfred, while Gal Gadot is magnetic and does well with no real part in her handful of scenes as Wonder Woman. Jesse Eisenberg plays Lex Luthor as a damaged manchild, a super villain in word and gesture before ever becoming one in deed, all titters, furies and whimsically murderous asides and impulses.
The plot is an awkward thing. It shows that this was a movie conceived in a panic just days before it was announced as a way to combat the empire-building of Marvel. The narrative hoops screenwriters Chris Terrio and David S Goyer jump through in order to get the two titular heroes face-to-face feel formidable, and the first act is a wonder of fleet exposition and character introduction. After that though it starts to grind a little. Too much going on, too little of it as interesting as it should be. Affleck is good in all of his scenes, but then he has the best character to play. The climactic confrontation is impressive, but instantly gazzumped by the arrival of the cgi Doomsday and Wonder Woman to complete the "trinity" at the heart of the DC Universe.
The cosmetic debt to Frank Miller's the Dark Knight Returns is outweighed by the debt to the (terrible) Death of Superman by Dan Jurgens, which may just sum up the issues with Snyder's film.
But its issues, such as they are, are interesting. This film is a fascinating mess.
Forced to try to make super-hero movies in a different way to Marvel, Warner Bothers and DC have gone all-in on grim and gritty. That might be in part an attempt to duplicate the success Christopher Nolan experienced with his Dark Knight trilogy, which embraced the darker aspects of Batman mythology, largely eschewing any humour, campness or fun along the way.
Snyder already aped that approach with Man of Steel, and here he brings in his own interpretation of the "Bat of Gotham" to set up the extended Universe DC presumably feels is their right, looking at the industry-altering success Marvel has enjoyed with its unending flow of Marvel Universe product.
And that approach has its strengths. Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (explicitly nodding to the hints of the coming Justice League in a few scenes here) is positively stuffed to the gills with stuff. With easter eggs, characters, gadgets, dialogue, cgi, mythology, action, exposition, technobabble, ephemera, spectacle: just stuff. It also has more ideas than any Marvel film, which may be another of the legacies left by Christopher Nolan.
It's just that in his films, the ideas are foregrounded. Indeed, if his Batman trilogy has a major flaw, it is an inability to balance the demands of an action spectacle with his own desire to engage with big themes. Well, Zack Snyder can do the action spectacle in his sleep. But the big themes are a different story. He allows his characters to expound upon the nature of heroism and power, but that's it. The film doesn't pursue these ideas in any meaningful way. Instead, Snyder flicks through them en route to another big slugfest action sequence. And so the tone isn't earned by the story it frames, and it just seems slightly, unnecessarily grim.
But then perhaps this is the perfect superhero film for the modern world; teetering on the edge of anarchy (glimpsed in a Batman nightmare filled with more Darkseid-shaped easter eggs), split between those who worship powerful figures (Snyder conjures one lovely scene where revellers at a Mexican Day of the Dead festival bow and stretch to touch the Kryptonian) and those who despise them (Batman is feared and seen as a myth), mired in bureaucracy (a surprising amount of plot is spent dealing with import permission) and secretly run by the powerful mega-rich.
Snyder is as visually assured as ever. This is perhaps best seen in the way he shoots Batman - an early encounter with two beat cops treats him like a horror character; seen in blurred background and shadow. The later take-down of a warehouse full of armed thugs is the closest approximation of the Batman I grew up reading I have ever seen. Mixing tech and fighting acumen, it is easily the best action scene in the film; thrillingly shot and cut without resorting to slo-mo, Snyder's personal visual tic.
The cast is strong, which helps carry some of the more shockingly badly written scenes. Ben Affleck makes for an appealingly tired and sombre Bruce Wayne, (a somewhat underused) Cavill is more confident as Clark/Superman, and Amy Adams makes Lois more vulnerable than she was in Man of Steel. Jeremy Irons is a nicely sardonic Alfred, while Gal Gadot is magnetic and does well with no real part in her handful of scenes as Wonder Woman. Jesse Eisenberg plays Lex Luthor as a damaged manchild, a super villain in word and gesture before ever becoming one in deed, all titters, furies and whimsically murderous asides and impulses.
The plot is an awkward thing. It shows that this was a movie conceived in a panic just days before it was announced as a way to combat the empire-building of Marvel. The narrative hoops screenwriters Chris Terrio and David S Goyer jump through in order to get the two titular heroes face-to-face feel formidable, and the first act is a wonder of fleet exposition and character introduction. After that though it starts to grind a little. Too much going on, too little of it as interesting as it should be. Affleck is good in all of his scenes, but then he has the best character to play. The climactic confrontation is impressive, but instantly gazzumped by the arrival of the cgi Doomsday and Wonder Woman to complete the "trinity" at the heart of the DC Universe.
The cosmetic debt to Frank Miller's the Dark Knight Returns is outweighed by the debt to the (terrible) Death of Superman by Dan Jurgens, which may just sum up the issues with Snyder's film.
But its issues, such as they are, are interesting. This film is a fascinating mess.
Saturday, 20 February 2016
THE SURVIVALIST
(Stephen Fingleton, 2015)
The Survivalist aims to depict a post-apocalyptic world without any of the iconography or mythology of the Road Warrior school of post-apocalyptic action. It focuses on one man living alone on a tiny farm hidden in Northern Irish woodland. When we first encounter him he is disposing of the corpse of an intruder, and we sense this is not the first time. He tends to his crops, sleeps, eats, masturbates. He is twitchy and paranoid about more intruders, and as we learn, he is right to be. This is - as it always is after an apocalypse in fiction - a world of Darwinian principles. Only the very strongest survive. Two women arrive. Mother and daughter, they say. They want food, perhaps a nights shelter. They trade sex with the younger woman for both. Meanwhile they plot to take the man's gun and his home away from him.
Fingleton carefully observes the shifting dynamics between these three people. The watchful, cunning older woman. The man's wariness soften as he develops feelings for the girl. The girl realise who she may be better off siding with. Eventually, other intruders come. They are armed. Loyalties are tested, realities faced. There is little dialogue, no non-diagetic music. We hear the characters breathe, the wind in the trees. We watch their eyes watch one another.
The space is precisely mapped out by Fingleton, the arena of the shed the three share, the clearing where the man confronts an intruder, the stream nearby. The pacing is deliberate, controlled. This is a slow world. No need to rush it. It acquires a mesmeric quality.
Martin McCann is excellent as the man, so stoic that any flicker of feeling in his eyes has a seismic effect. Mia Goth is just as mysterious as the young woman, while Olwen Fouere seems to have stepped from some medieval myth; wise and frightening, she possesses an unforgettable face.
This is tense, beautiful, though-provoking. Its quality makes a virtue of a small budget and modest ambition.
The Survivalist aims to depict a post-apocalyptic world without any of the iconography or mythology of the Road Warrior school of post-apocalyptic action. It focuses on one man living alone on a tiny farm hidden in Northern Irish woodland. When we first encounter him he is disposing of the corpse of an intruder, and we sense this is not the first time. He tends to his crops, sleeps, eats, masturbates. He is twitchy and paranoid about more intruders, and as we learn, he is right to be. This is - as it always is after an apocalypse in fiction - a world of Darwinian principles. Only the very strongest survive. Two women arrive. Mother and daughter, they say. They want food, perhaps a nights shelter. They trade sex with the younger woman for both. Meanwhile they plot to take the man's gun and his home away from him.
Fingleton carefully observes the shifting dynamics between these three people. The watchful, cunning older woman. The man's wariness soften as he develops feelings for the girl. The girl realise who she may be better off siding with. Eventually, other intruders come. They are armed. Loyalties are tested, realities faced. There is little dialogue, no non-diagetic music. We hear the characters breathe, the wind in the trees. We watch their eyes watch one another.
The space is precisely mapped out by Fingleton, the arena of the shed the three share, the clearing where the man confronts an intruder, the stream nearby. The pacing is deliberate, controlled. This is a slow world. No need to rush it. It acquires a mesmeric quality.
Martin McCann is excellent as the man, so stoic that any flicker of feeling in his eyes has a seismic effect. Mia Goth is just as mysterious as the young woman, while Olwen Fouere seems to have stepped from some medieval myth; wise and frightening, she possesses an unforgettable face.
This is tense, beautiful, though-provoking. Its quality makes a virtue of a small budget and modest ambition.
Sunday, 20 December 2015
STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS
(J.J. Abrams, 2015)
I am one of Generation Star Wars.
Seeing the first two films in a double-bill around 1982 was a formative event in my childhood and, lame and corny though it sounds, helped to turn me into the person I am today. I accept the value of the myth created by George Lucas, I understand how it has shaped and turned popular culture, and in some ways, I've been waiting for this film for thirty-odd years. I know I brought a few metric tons of baggage into the cinema with me when I went to see The Force Awakens.
With that said, this is a good piece of genre entertainment, not a great one. The narrative is a bit of a mess, but so many other elements are excellent that they offer no little compensation. The story focuses on the search for a vanished Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), a quest which involves both sides of a conflict in a galaxy now overseen by a Republic. Those sides are the Resistance, led by Leia (Carrie Fisher), now a General; and the First Order, an Empire-worshipping army led by Supreme Commander Snoke (voiced by Andy Serkis) whose leadership includes a new version of the Darth Vader-Grand Moff Tarkin duo in Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Commander Nux (Domhnall Gleeson). That suggests one of the issues with this film: it has a karaoke feel to it, with almost every single element recalling or referring to one from the original trilogy.
Take the heroes: Rey (Daisy Ridley) is a scavenger who we first encounter alone and shiftless on a desert planet, just like Luke at the start of Star Wars. Finn (John Boyega) is a scrapper who makes one decision after another and winds up up to his neck in the Resistance, despite starting the film as a Stormtrooper. Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) is a cocksure, witty X-Wing Pilot, seemingly blustering and improvising his way through sticky situations, just like Han Solo when we first encountered him.
Speaking of Han Solo (Harrison Ford), he and Chewbacca show up too, going about their roguish smuggling business and drawn back into a conflict centred around the Force, just like they were in Star Wars.
Not only that; there is basically a new Death Star. There is a climactic light sabre duel. There is an X-Wing dogfight with Tie Fighters. There is a snowy planet. There is a cantina scene, complete with odd music. There is a wise old alien who knows more than she lets on and dispenses advice, informed by her awareness of the Force. There is the death of an old, mentor character at the hands of a younger character, who was once close to him.
Abrams takes Star Wars itself as a sub-sub-genre; sci-fi by way of space opera, and as all that quotation and repetition suggests, he is extremely faithful to the conventions of that sub-sub-genre. Perhaps too much so, in that this film is never really surprising, with even its twists reminiscent of twists from the original trilogy. But then a massive part of the pleasure here is that this film feels like Star Wars in a way none of the prequels really did.
And then there are the virtues that Abrams brings: he has always been good on character, and the characters here are fascinating. Take Kylo Ren's volatile brattishness (he is just the way Anakin Skywalker should have been in the prequels), soulfully played by Adam Driver. Or Daisy Ridley playing Rey and her gradual awakening to who and what she may be (accusations that her character is a "Mary Sue" seem ignorant of the "hidden Prince" trend which has been popular in the fantasy genre for decades, and of which she seems a prime example) as a frightening and then exhilarating journey. John Boyega's Finn, meanwhile, is the most entertaining of the three, finding himself while wisecracking and double-taking the whole time. The older characters, meanwhile, show up just like old friends, the changes in them moving and amusing in equal measure. Harrison Ford in particular seems to be having a good time as Solo, and he manages to play a few difficult moments with a lot of emotion and wit.
Abrams other chief strengths are aesthetic - his films are usually incredibly pacy, and The Force Awakens whips along throughout its two hour twenty running time, never really pausing for breath. That is useful, when the story is as messy and occasionally stupid as this one is. Another compensation is the visceral physicality of his storytelling. There have never been moments in Star Wars films like some of the shots here - Tie Fighters appearing against the sun, Storm Troopers waiting in a shuddering drop-ship.
Above all, Abrams knows how to make his films fun. The Force Awakens is stuffed with gags, great action beats, nice character moments and rich detail, and it is entertaining from start to finish, with a few passages which have resonance and emotion throbbing through them. It also sets up Rian Johnson's Episode VIII in a manner which suggests it has a great chance of becoming another Empire Strikes Back. Lets hope so. For now, The Force Awakens is a definitive statement - Star Wars is back, and it's good again. Whew.
I am one of Generation Star Wars.
Seeing the first two films in a double-bill around 1982 was a formative event in my childhood and, lame and corny though it sounds, helped to turn me into the person I am today. I accept the value of the myth created by George Lucas, I understand how it has shaped and turned popular culture, and in some ways, I've been waiting for this film for thirty-odd years. I know I brought a few metric tons of baggage into the cinema with me when I went to see The Force Awakens.
With that said, this is a good piece of genre entertainment, not a great one. The narrative is a bit of a mess, but so many other elements are excellent that they offer no little compensation. The story focuses on the search for a vanished Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), a quest which involves both sides of a conflict in a galaxy now overseen by a Republic. Those sides are the Resistance, led by Leia (Carrie Fisher), now a General; and the First Order, an Empire-worshipping army led by Supreme Commander Snoke (voiced by Andy Serkis) whose leadership includes a new version of the Darth Vader-Grand Moff Tarkin duo in Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) and Commander Nux (Domhnall Gleeson). That suggests one of the issues with this film: it has a karaoke feel to it, with almost every single element recalling or referring to one from the original trilogy.
Take the heroes: Rey (Daisy Ridley) is a scavenger who we first encounter alone and shiftless on a desert planet, just like Luke at the start of Star Wars. Finn (John Boyega) is a scrapper who makes one decision after another and winds up up to his neck in the Resistance, despite starting the film as a Stormtrooper. Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) is a cocksure, witty X-Wing Pilot, seemingly blustering and improvising his way through sticky situations, just like Han Solo when we first encountered him.
Speaking of Han Solo (Harrison Ford), he and Chewbacca show up too, going about their roguish smuggling business and drawn back into a conflict centred around the Force, just like they were in Star Wars.
Not only that; there is basically a new Death Star. There is a climactic light sabre duel. There is an X-Wing dogfight with Tie Fighters. There is a snowy planet. There is a cantina scene, complete with odd music. There is a wise old alien who knows more than she lets on and dispenses advice, informed by her awareness of the Force. There is the death of an old, mentor character at the hands of a younger character, who was once close to him.
Abrams takes Star Wars itself as a sub-sub-genre; sci-fi by way of space opera, and as all that quotation and repetition suggests, he is extremely faithful to the conventions of that sub-sub-genre. Perhaps too much so, in that this film is never really surprising, with even its twists reminiscent of twists from the original trilogy. But then a massive part of the pleasure here is that this film feels like Star Wars in a way none of the prequels really did.
And then there are the virtues that Abrams brings: he has always been good on character, and the characters here are fascinating. Take Kylo Ren's volatile brattishness (he is just the way Anakin Skywalker should have been in the prequels), soulfully played by Adam Driver. Or Daisy Ridley playing Rey and her gradual awakening to who and what she may be (accusations that her character is a "Mary Sue" seem ignorant of the "hidden Prince" trend which has been popular in the fantasy genre for decades, and of which she seems a prime example) as a frightening and then exhilarating journey. John Boyega's Finn, meanwhile, is the most entertaining of the three, finding himself while wisecracking and double-taking the whole time. The older characters, meanwhile, show up just like old friends, the changes in them moving and amusing in equal measure. Harrison Ford in particular seems to be having a good time as Solo, and he manages to play a few difficult moments with a lot of emotion and wit.
Abrams other chief strengths are aesthetic - his films are usually incredibly pacy, and The Force Awakens whips along throughout its two hour twenty running time, never really pausing for breath. That is useful, when the story is as messy and occasionally stupid as this one is. Another compensation is the visceral physicality of his storytelling. There have never been moments in Star Wars films like some of the shots here - Tie Fighters appearing against the sun, Storm Troopers waiting in a shuddering drop-ship.
Above all, Abrams knows how to make his films fun. The Force Awakens is stuffed with gags, great action beats, nice character moments and rich detail, and it is entertaining from start to finish, with a few passages which have resonance and emotion throbbing through them. It also sets up Rian Johnson's Episode VIII in a manner which suggests it has a great chance of becoming another Empire Strikes Back. Lets hope so. For now, The Force Awakens is a definitive statement - Star Wars is back, and it's good again. Whew.
Sunday, 1 November 2015
HARD TO BE A GOD
(Aleksey German, 2013)
You know the sequences in Spaghetti Westerns where the director (be it Leone or Corbucci or Sollima or Petroni) exposes the audience to the truth of the West by showing us ordinary life? It may just be twenty seconds before our protagonist rides into town, or a glimpse into the dark corners of the saloon he's just wandered into, but it is generally there, in every Spaghetti Western, continuing to demythologise and revise the classical view of the old West. Usually it consists of extras with "interesting" faces, scratching themselves, squabbling, stuffing food into rootless gobs, being lazy or lustful or disgusting, featuring sweat-stained clothes and gleaming, stubbled, frequently misshapen people, with exaggerated sound design so that every grunt and muttering is audible. This is what the world is like, these sequences seem to say; full of filth and brutality and idiocy, signifying nothing.
Well Hard to be a God is like that. Except it is set in a Medieval world. And it lasts for three long hours.
The sci-fi basis for the story - from the novel by the Strugatskys - is laid out briefly, then basically ceases to be relevant as German gets carried off by his self-indulgent - if genuinely astonishing - technical brilliance. The film follows Don Rumata (Leonid Yarmolink) on a journey across the planet Arkanar. Discovered years earlier by scientists at a Medieval stage in its development, an experiment was carried out to try to spur it into a renaissance. Only the experiment has backfired disastrously and the culture has utterly rejected intellectualism. Men have been hanged, the university closed down, and a war has broken out. Don Rumata wanders among these people, who fear the power of his armour and weapons while he remains indifferent, beyond caring.
German shoots all this in beautiful, shining black and white in his signature long-take style, and the way he seems to have constructed a flawless 360 degree reality around his camera is stunning. But that effect wears off after half an hour or so, while the film runs for another two and a half, repeating itself over and over and over. Don Rumata passes something vile or awful, the camera lingers briefly, perhaps he interacts - though rarely in any way "dramatically" - and then he is moving on, to the next iteration of the same thing, the same thematic point, restated. And though I know that that itself is German's point; that nothing changes or progresses, that mankind is doomed, I was bored after that first 40 minutes or so, and that lasted right up until the last ten minutes, when the rhythm and the action changes.
All the technical accomplishment in the world cannot make up for how utterly humourless and grim this film is.
You know the sequences in Spaghetti Westerns where the director (be it Leone or Corbucci or Sollima or Petroni) exposes the audience to the truth of the West by showing us ordinary life? It may just be twenty seconds before our protagonist rides into town, or a glimpse into the dark corners of the saloon he's just wandered into, but it is generally there, in every Spaghetti Western, continuing to demythologise and revise the classical view of the old West. Usually it consists of extras with "interesting" faces, scratching themselves, squabbling, stuffing food into rootless gobs, being lazy or lustful or disgusting, featuring sweat-stained clothes and gleaming, stubbled, frequently misshapen people, with exaggerated sound design so that every grunt and muttering is audible. This is what the world is like, these sequences seem to say; full of filth and brutality and idiocy, signifying nothing.
Well Hard to be a God is like that. Except it is set in a Medieval world. And it lasts for three long hours.
The sci-fi basis for the story - from the novel by the Strugatskys - is laid out briefly, then basically ceases to be relevant as German gets carried off by his self-indulgent - if genuinely astonishing - technical brilliance. The film follows Don Rumata (Leonid Yarmolink) on a journey across the planet Arkanar. Discovered years earlier by scientists at a Medieval stage in its development, an experiment was carried out to try to spur it into a renaissance. Only the experiment has backfired disastrously and the culture has utterly rejected intellectualism. Men have been hanged, the university closed down, and a war has broken out. Don Rumata wanders among these people, who fear the power of his armour and weapons while he remains indifferent, beyond caring.
German shoots all this in beautiful, shining black and white in his signature long-take style, and the way he seems to have constructed a flawless 360 degree reality around his camera is stunning. But that effect wears off after half an hour or so, while the film runs for another two and a half, repeating itself over and over and over. Don Rumata passes something vile or awful, the camera lingers briefly, perhaps he interacts - though rarely in any way "dramatically" - and then he is moving on, to the next iteration of the same thing, the same thematic point, restated. And though I know that that itself is German's point; that nothing changes or progresses, that mankind is doomed, I was bored after that first 40 minutes or so, and that lasted right up until the last ten minutes, when the rhythm and the action changes.
All the technical accomplishment in the world cannot make up for how utterly humourless and grim this film is.
Sunday, 18 October 2015
THE MARTIAN
(Ridley Scott, 2015)
The Martian may be the first time that Matt Damon has truly embraced his movie stardom. The role of Mark Watney, NASA Astronaut mistakenly believed dead and abandoned alone on the surface of Mars, mainly asks that he use his most essential qualities: his likeableness, his charisma, his sense of easy humour. At least half of the movie is Watney alone, engaged in one of the many tasks that will prolong his life (farming potatoes using his own excrement as fertiliser, travelling to pick up an old drone probe, scavenging, counting & rationing supplies, fortifying his habitat) while he talks to the camera or in voiceover. It relies on us liking Damon and wanting him to be ok. He has always had an everyman quality. It is what makes his Bourne a sort of anti-Bond; he fits in, disappears, seems incapable of the devastating violence he unleashes on enemies. And here it lends this survival tale an inbuilt suspense. We need Watney to be alright because we like him so much; he is funny and oh so human.
Ridley Scott directs with relatively anonymous efficiency. Perhaps he has built so many worlds on-screen that he does it now sleekly, without too many ostentatious shots, but this is trim and adept, and seems to trust in an excellent script by Drew Goddard and a classy supporting cast to hold up their end opposite Damon. That cast includes a few vivid cameos from the likes of Donald Glover as a geeky astro-physicist who discovers a quicker way to get Damon home, Michael Pena and Jessica Chastain as the most memorable of his crew-mates, and a potentially great comedy troupe of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kirsten Wiig, Sean Bean and Jeff Daniels as the NASA executives dealing with the fall-out and complications of the whole saga.
To the films credit, the material on earth is just as interesting as the Mars material, and the whole thing stands as a superior, utterly enjoyable piece of Hollywood hokum.
The Martian may be the first time that Matt Damon has truly embraced his movie stardom. The role of Mark Watney, NASA Astronaut mistakenly believed dead and abandoned alone on the surface of Mars, mainly asks that he use his most essential qualities: his likeableness, his charisma, his sense of easy humour. At least half of the movie is Watney alone, engaged in one of the many tasks that will prolong his life (farming potatoes using his own excrement as fertiliser, travelling to pick up an old drone probe, scavenging, counting & rationing supplies, fortifying his habitat) while he talks to the camera or in voiceover. It relies on us liking Damon and wanting him to be ok. He has always had an everyman quality. It is what makes his Bourne a sort of anti-Bond; he fits in, disappears, seems incapable of the devastating violence he unleashes on enemies. And here it lends this survival tale an inbuilt suspense. We need Watney to be alright because we like him so much; he is funny and oh so human.
Ridley Scott directs with relatively anonymous efficiency. Perhaps he has built so many worlds on-screen that he does it now sleekly, without too many ostentatious shots, but this is trim and adept, and seems to trust in an excellent script by Drew Goddard and a classy supporting cast to hold up their end opposite Damon. That cast includes a few vivid cameos from the likes of Donald Glover as a geeky astro-physicist who discovers a quicker way to get Damon home, Michael Pena and Jessica Chastain as the most memorable of his crew-mates, and a potentially great comedy troupe of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kirsten Wiig, Sean Bean and Jeff Daniels as the NASA executives dealing with the fall-out and complications of the whole saga.
To the films credit, the material on earth is just as interesting as the Mars material, and the whole thing stands as a superior, utterly enjoyable piece of Hollywood hokum.
Sunday, 23 August 2015
FANTASTIC FOUR
(Josh Trank, 2015)
Fantastic Four tries to do something different with the superhero genre, it really does. It aims for a considered, somewhat dark and gritty approach to the genre in stark contrast to the two (commercially successful) Fantastic Four films from the '00s. It tries to update the material, making it relevant for modern audiences. It also goes for a character-first angle on this super-hero origin story, largely eschewing action until the last act.
But it doesn't work.
There are too many weak spots and outright mistakes here, too many obvious compromises for it to ever feel like a film entirely confident about what it wants to be. The much-reported creative tensions on set and in post-production (which sound far more entertaining than anything in the finished film) are evident in the way the trailer is filled with shots and moments absent from the actual film and the way certain moments feel rushed and fudged.
The comic book - at its best - is as much sci-fi as super-hero, a story of science explorers, full of other dimensions and alien races, held fast by the familial bond and bickering of the four principals. The film at least retains that to some extent. Focused mostly on Reed Richards (Miles Teller, never entirely convincing as the super-genius the character is meant to be) who is attempting to create a teleporter from the moment we first see him, collaborating with local tough kid Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell, so sparely used he is basically in a cameo role) as fifth graders in his garage. Seeing his genius, he is recruited by Professor Storm (Reg E Cathey), whose son Johnny (Michael B Jordan, appropriately cocky) and adopted daughter Sue (Kate Mara, probably most convincing of any of the leads) are also involved in the programme to create a teleported similar to Reed's. The final scientist is Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebell, fine as the most interesting character, but still one who represents a grotesque mishandling of perhaps the greatest super-villain in the genre), an arrogant, genius with contempt for the powers that be.
Together they open a path to another dimension, but in the process all five are given powers and abilities which make them superhuman, with Victor turned into a powerful madman bent on the destruction of the world.
Yes, this is the type of super-hero film where the villain wants to destroy the world, the kind of failure of imagination that hurts a film so set on doing things differently as this one is. Another problem is how quickly all this happens. The film spends an age on exposition - who wants what and why, how they're trying to get it, etc - then rushes through the important part, where people become superhuman, and positively speeds through the final confrontation, which never in any way earns its own sense of climactic importance or apocalyptic emotional tone. We barely see these characters as super-heroes, and this is a true origin story, ending as it does at the first moment when they are together as a team. But this has its frustrations too.
In a film where action is at such a premium (in this genre, that is a bizarre decision), when it comes it better be memorable. And here it never is. The final confrontation is one of those vague face-offs with flying rocks and energy being tossed around. The inventive possibilities of some of the character's powers (Reed's stretching ability, Sue's telekinesis) are only very briefly explored, and virtually abandoned by the ending.
It looks dull too, that 'gritty' approach manifesting itself as an overly dark colour palette and the sort of burnished steel production design too common in modern blockbusters. The source material in contrast is as bright and poppy as super-hero comics get.
Perhaps most damningly, you just know that if Marvel Studios (rather than 20th Century Fox, who own the rights to these characters) had made this film, it would be much much better, and far more fun.
Fantastic Four tries to do something different with the superhero genre, it really does. It aims for a considered, somewhat dark and gritty approach to the genre in stark contrast to the two (commercially successful) Fantastic Four films from the '00s. It tries to update the material, making it relevant for modern audiences. It also goes for a character-first angle on this super-hero origin story, largely eschewing action until the last act.
But it doesn't work.
There are too many weak spots and outright mistakes here, too many obvious compromises for it to ever feel like a film entirely confident about what it wants to be. The much-reported creative tensions on set and in post-production (which sound far more entertaining than anything in the finished film) are evident in the way the trailer is filled with shots and moments absent from the actual film and the way certain moments feel rushed and fudged.
The comic book - at its best - is as much sci-fi as super-hero, a story of science explorers, full of other dimensions and alien races, held fast by the familial bond and bickering of the four principals. The film at least retains that to some extent. Focused mostly on Reed Richards (Miles Teller, never entirely convincing as the super-genius the character is meant to be) who is attempting to create a teleporter from the moment we first see him, collaborating with local tough kid Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell, so sparely used he is basically in a cameo role) as fifth graders in his garage. Seeing his genius, he is recruited by Professor Storm (Reg E Cathey), whose son Johnny (Michael B Jordan, appropriately cocky) and adopted daughter Sue (Kate Mara, probably most convincing of any of the leads) are also involved in the programme to create a teleported similar to Reed's. The final scientist is Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebell, fine as the most interesting character, but still one who represents a grotesque mishandling of perhaps the greatest super-villain in the genre), an arrogant, genius with contempt for the powers that be.
Together they open a path to another dimension, but in the process all five are given powers and abilities which make them superhuman, with Victor turned into a powerful madman bent on the destruction of the world.
Yes, this is the type of super-hero film where the villain wants to destroy the world, the kind of failure of imagination that hurts a film so set on doing things differently as this one is. Another problem is how quickly all this happens. The film spends an age on exposition - who wants what and why, how they're trying to get it, etc - then rushes through the important part, where people become superhuman, and positively speeds through the final confrontation, which never in any way earns its own sense of climactic importance or apocalyptic emotional tone. We barely see these characters as super-heroes, and this is a true origin story, ending as it does at the first moment when they are together as a team. But this has its frustrations too.
In a film where action is at such a premium (in this genre, that is a bizarre decision), when it comes it better be memorable. And here it never is. The final confrontation is one of those vague face-offs with flying rocks and energy being tossed around. The inventive possibilities of some of the character's powers (Reed's stretching ability, Sue's telekinesis) are only very briefly explored, and virtually abandoned by the ending.
It looks dull too, that 'gritty' approach manifesting itself as an overly dark colour palette and the sort of burnished steel production design too common in modern blockbusters. The source material in contrast is as bright and poppy as super-hero comics get.
Perhaps most damningly, you just know that if Marvel Studios (rather than 20th Century Fox, who own the rights to these characters) had made this film, it would be much much better, and far more fun.
Thursday, 23 July 2015
THE BOOK OF ELI
(Hughes Brothers, 2010)
The first act of The Book of Eli is terrific and suggests that it will be an impressive film. The Hughes brothers find a series of eerie images to capture this world, thirty years on from the 'big flash", Denzel Washington lend his magnetism to the taciturn, efficiently murderous protagonist, and the society we encounter is just complex and different enough to be interesting.
A small settlement run by Gary Oldman (who holds power due to his knowledge of where there is water) becomes the focus and correspondingly, the film becomes less impressive. Our hero, an "outlander" who wanders the wasteland, comes to town, gets into a saloon fight - just like in a classic western - and attracts the attention of Oldman's character, who is set on finding a Bible, realising he can use it to control everyone, with or without water. Oldman sets his road gangs - Mad Max style marauders - on Denzel, and there follows an increasingly weary succession of fight scenes, chases, captures and escapes..
The first few scenes contain the best action scene in the film; Washington is ambushed by a band of hijackers, retreats into the shade offered by an overpass, still wearing his shades, and proceeds to cut his way through them in a single unbroken take, all seen in silhouette. This scene and the lengthy, violent fight in the saloon suggest that the Book of Eli is really a post-apocalyptic take on Zaitoichi (confirmed by a late twist), and when it arrives at the town, the film takes on a series of Western codes and conventions.
It has moments of wit - the value of wet-wipes as barter in a post-apocalyptic world, for instance - and is nicely shot in a dry, desaturated style by Don Burgess. Oldman is good value as the villain, but Mila Kunis has no character to play beyond a series of bullet-pointed cliches, and Denzel Washington could do this in his sleep. In fact there are moments here when, shades on, you can't be sure he isn't having a sneaky nap.
What the film does well are the tough guy beats in the lead up to the action scenes, but they are fleeting.
The first act of The Book of Eli is terrific and suggests that it will be an impressive film. The Hughes brothers find a series of eerie images to capture this world, thirty years on from the 'big flash", Denzel Washington lend his magnetism to the taciturn, efficiently murderous protagonist, and the society we encounter is just complex and different enough to be interesting.
A small settlement run by Gary Oldman (who holds power due to his knowledge of where there is water) becomes the focus and correspondingly, the film becomes less impressive. Our hero, an "outlander" who wanders the wasteland, comes to town, gets into a saloon fight - just like in a classic western - and attracts the attention of Oldman's character, who is set on finding a Bible, realising he can use it to control everyone, with or without water. Oldman sets his road gangs - Mad Max style marauders - on Denzel, and there follows an increasingly weary succession of fight scenes, chases, captures and escapes..
The first few scenes contain the best action scene in the film; Washington is ambushed by a band of hijackers, retreats into the shade offered by an overpass, still wearing his shades, and proceeds to cut his way through them in a single unbroken take, all seen in silhouette. This scene and the lengthy, violent fight in the saloon suggest that the Book of Eli is really a post-apocalyptic take on Zaitoichi (confirmed by a late twist), and when it arrives at the town, the film takes on a series of Western codes and conventions.
It has moments of wit - the value of wet-wipes as barter in a post-apocalyptic world, for instance - and is nicely shot in a dry, desaturated style by Don Burgess. Oldman is good value as the villain, but Mila Kunis has no character to play beyond a series of bullet-pointed cliches, and Denzel Washington could do this in his sleep. In fact there are moments here when, shades on, you can't be sure he isn't having a sneaky nap.
What the film does well are the tough guy beats in the lead up to the action scenes, but they are fleeting.
Monday, 20 July 2015
ANT-MAN
(Peyton Reed, 2015)
It's one thing Marvel taking established, popular characters like Spider-Man, Captain America and Iron Man and turning them into hugely successful film franchises. But the way they have transformed that success into the ability to take third (or fourth) tier characters and make their movies into hits too - that is genuinely impressive.
In both the cases of Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man, a big part of the process appears to be the way they have empowered the filmmakers to make something different from what would generally be expected of a Marvel movie. That might sound funny given the fact that the original writer-director of Ant-Man, Edgar Wright, quit the project over interference from Marvel. But the finished film still feels like something new to the studio; smaller in scale (no pun intended), quirkily funny, inventive and loose in certain particulars. For much of the first two acts, it feels more like a ramshackle bro-comedy than a super-hero movie. That is down to the presence of Paul Rudd, but also the fact that he and Adam McKay worked on the script is obvious in the way some scenes stretch out once they find a comic groove. Rudd plays Scott Lang, just released from prison after a stretch for burglary (he broke into the offices of a corporation and released some secrets to the world) and trying to go straight so that he can be a part of his daughter's life.
He is noticed by Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), a genius scientist and creator of the "Pym particle" which allows people wearing a customised costume to shrink to insect proportions (and beyond). Pym's old protege Aaron Cross (Corey Stoll) has taken over his company and found his own version of the shrinking process, which he hopes to sell in weaponised form as the Yellowjacket, a battle armour capable of shrinking. Pym and his skeptical, partly estranged daughter Joy (Evangeline Lily) want Scott to break into Cross' facility, destroy the armour and all of the research, without being spotted.
What we ultimately have here, then, is a heist movie. Scott assembles his crew of ex-con mates, led by a winning, hilariously broad Michael Pena. The make a plan, they prepare, there is a training montage, everything goes well...until it doesn't anymore.
Ant-Man takes longer to get to the super-hero action than any Marvel film since Iron Man, but when it comes it is genuinely different and arresting. The scenes of Scott in shrunken form, surfing on a wave of ants or riding on the back of one are among the best in the movie, and the now-you-see-me combat style he has developed has visual impact and provides for a few good gags (the final Yellowjacket vs Ant-Man fight is as funny as it is exciting). The best moment is near the end when Scott enters the "Quantum Realm" and floats through a subatomic universe where time and space have lost all meaning. That this 2001: A Space Odyssey quotation co-exists within a film also setting up a new Spider-Man movie is genuinely exciting.
Largely, Ant-Man works because it sets itself up as a modest film with modest goals. The characters can be a tad dull (Lilly and Stoll both struggle with their parts) but the actors generally sell it, the Marvel easter eggs are mostly subtle and intriguing, and the climax is excellent.
It's one thing Marvel taking established, popular characters like Spider-Man, Captain America and Iron Man and turning them into hugely successful film franchises. But the way they have transformed that success into the ability to take third (or fourth) tier characters and make their movies into hits too - that is genuinely impressive.
In both the cases of Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man, a big part of the process appears to be the way they have empowered the filmmakers to make something different from what would generally be expected of a Marvel movie. That might sound funny given the fact that the original writer-director of Ant-Man, Edgar Wright, quit the project over interference from Marvel. But the finished film still feels like something new to the studio; smaller in scale (no pun intended), quirkily funny, inventive and loose in certain particulars. For much of the first two acts, it feels more like a ramshackle bro-comedy than a super-hero movie. That is down to the presence of Paul Rudd, but also the fact that he and Adam McKay worked on the script is obvious in the way some scenes stretch out once they find a comic groove. Rudd plays Scott Lang, just released from prison after a stretch for burglary (he broke into the offices of a corporation and released some secrets to the world) and trying to go straight so that he can be a part of his daughter's life.
He is noticed by Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), a genius scientist and creator of the "Pym particle" which allows people wearing a customised costume to shrink to insect proportions (and beyond). Pym's old protege Aaron Cross (Corey Stoll) has taken over his company and found his own version of the shrinking process, which he hopes to sell in weaponised form as the Yellowjacket, a battle armour capable of shrinking. Pym and his skeptical, partly estranged daughter Joy (Evangeline Lily) want Scott to break into Cross' facility, destroy the armour and all of the research, without being spotted.
What we ultimately have here, then, is a heist movie. Scott assembles his crew of ex-con mates, led by a winning, hilariously broad Michael Pena. The make a plan, they prepare, there is a training montage, everything goes well...until it doesn't anymore.
Ant-Man takes longer to get to the super-hero action than any Marvel film since Iron Man, but when it comes it is genuinely different and arresting. The scenes of Scott in shrunken form, surfing on a wave of ants or riding on the back of one are among the best in the movie, and the now-you-see-me combat style he has developed has visual impact and provides for a few good gags (the final Yellowjacket vs Ant-Man fight is as funny as it is exciting). The best moment is near the end when Scott enters the "Quantum Realm" and floats through a subatomic universe where time and space have lost all meaning. That this 2001: A Space Odyssey quotation co-exists within a film also setting up a new Spider-Man movie is genuinely exciting.
Largely, Ant-Man works because it sets itself up as a modest film with modest goals. The characters can be a tad dull (Lilly and Stoll both struggle with their parts) but the actors generally sell it, the Marvel easter eggs are mostly subtle and intriguing, and the climax is excellent.
Tuesday, 14 July 2015
THE GIVER
(Phillip Noyce, 2014)
The Giver has lots of big ideas. Based upon Lois Lowry's seminal novel, it tries to spin that story in a post Hunger Games world with mixed results. Beginning in a future-world literally devoid of colour, it borrows a trick from Gary Ross' superior Pleasantville by having colour slowly bleed into the film scene by scene as Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) learns about beauty, emotion, violence and love.
Jonas has been chosen as the Receiver, the only one in this perfect future community who is fit to take on any knowledge of the past. As such he has daily sessions with the Giver (Jeff Bridges) who somehow psychically exposes him to memories, images and sensations of the past world, most of which play out as random streams of over-slick advertising imagery.
As for the rest of his black and white world, here people take a daily injection to kill emotion, are constantly polite and apologetic, and have no knowledge of art, music or love. Jonas' parents insist he use 'precision of language" while his father (Alexander Sarsgârd) is a sort of midwife-paediatrician who is also responsible for killing the babies deemed unfit for life in the community (releasing them to elsewhere is the euphemism preferred). A Chief Elder (Meryl Streep) watches carefully that nobody disturbs their fragile equilibrium, but of course Jonas begins to, falling in love with his friend, curious about the possibility of universal memory and whatever lies beyond the border.
The big themes touched on here remain just that - touched on. The Giver never explores them, never speculates what the world might really be like if people lived a life beneath them.
Noyce's direction is elegant and somewhat anonymous, as are many of the performances. This is a film of half-measures.
The Giver has lots of big ideas. Based upon Lois Lowry's seminal novel, it tries to spin that story in a post Hunger Games world with mixed results. Beginning in a future-world literally devoid of colour, it borrows a trick from Gary Ross' superior Pleasantville by having colour slowly bleed into the film scene by scene as Jonas (Brenton Thwaites) learns about beauty, emotion, violence and love.
Jonas has been chosen as the Receiver, the only one in this perfect future community who is fit to take on any knowledge of the past. As such he has daily sessions with the Giver (Jeff Bridges) who somehow psychically exposes him to memories, images and sensations of the past world, most of which play out as random streams of over-slick advertising imagery.
As for the rest of his black and white world, here people take a daily injection to kill emotion, are constantly polite and apologetic, and have no knowledge of art, music or love. Jonas' parents insist he use 'precision of language" while his father (Alexander Sarsgârd) is a sort of midwife-paediatrician who is also responsible for killing the babies deemed unfit for life in the community (releasing them to elsewhere is the euphemism preferred). A Chief Elder (Meryl Streep) watches carefully that nobody disturbs their fragile equilibrium, but of course Jonas begins to, falling in love with his friend, curious about the possibility of universal memory and whatever lies beyond the border.
The big themes touched on here remain just that - touched on. The Giver never explores them, never speculates what the world might really be like if people lived a life beneath them.
Noyce's direction is elegant and somewhat anonymous, as are many of the performances. This is a film of half-measures.
Sunday, 21 June 2015
JURASSIC WORLD
(Colin Trevorrow, 2015)
Making a sequel to a film directed by Stephen Spielberg is challenging enough; in most cases you have to compete with huge success. But it is that much worse in a genre where success is partly defined by the effect of the set-pieces. Spielberg remains one of the best ever directors of suspense, and there are a handful of set-pieces from the twenty year old Jurassic Park which are immortal because they are so well conceived and directed.
So Trevorrow took on Jurassic World (effectively Jurassic Park 4) presumably aware of these factors. And, to give him some credit, the set-pieces in his film are probably the best sequences. He steals shamelessly from Spielberg, as well as James Cameron (there are a couple of blatant Aliens nods here) and the scenes in question benefit from that thievery. Once the stage is set for man vs dinosaur and Trevorrow can cut loose in a series of thrilling scenes of panic and stalking, Jurassic World feels like a decent summer blockbuster.
But films have to be more than just a loosely linked line of action scenes. They need to include characters. Jurassic World doesn't do so well here. Set in a new, functional and thriving Dinosaur theme park established on the same island as in the original film, the principals are all sketches composed mainly of stereotype, shorthand and outright cliche. First we have the two brothers (Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins) sent to visit their Aunt, who runs the park, while their parents divorce proceedings are sorted. The elder is a moody, hoodie-wearing teen, constantly staring at either his smartphone or the teenage girls in the park and impatient with his little brother's immaturity. The younger is sensitive and geeky, loves dinosaurs and worried about the future of their family. Once the mayhem begins, they are imperilled a few times, then reduced to running mannequins, fleeing from one dinosaur to another, dragged behind adults. The actors do alright, but the boys are boring cyphers. The adult have a little more to chew on. There are supporting characters, each easily summed up in a phrase: Vincent D'Onofrio as a hubristic, hawkish exec at an arms manufacturer, set on weaponising velociraptors (guess how he dies!), Omar Sy as a sensitive Velociraptor keeper, appalled by these plans, Irrfan Khan as the Billionaire owner of the park, torn between the ideals of wonder and the bottom line of profit, Jake Johnson as the dinogeek who runs the systems at the park clad in a vintage Jurassic Park t-shirt, his work-space lined with dino-toys and most obviously, Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard as our hero and heroine.
She is the boys' workaholic Aunt, portrayed as tightly wound and a little inhuman, until her nephews are in danger, at which point the humanity in her is revealed. Her repartee with Pratt's Navy vet Velociraptor trainer is a bit stilted, despite the natural charm of both actors. Pratt plays this character mostly straight - his job for the first half is to warn the suits that they keep making mistakes, and for the second is to run, shoot and rescue people. Perhaps the most interesting thing in the film is the dynamic between him and his pack of velociraptors - he has positioned himself as the alpha, and the confusion of the animals when confronted with a rival alpha in the form of the movies big bad, the camouflage-using, thermal-radiation sensing, many-toothed, extremely intelligent genetic hybrid Indominus Rex is nicely played. Meanwhile Howard does her best with an awful character; though her thaw from ice queen to lioness never really works.
What we're left with then are the action scenes. Twice we see groups of heavily armed military personnel go hunting the Indominus, the second accompanied by raptors, and these sequences are undeniably effective. The attack by a huge armada of pterodactals and pteradons on a fleeing crowd of people may be better for spectacle and sight gags (Trevorrow works in a few nice ones).
But this is ultimately a frustratingly workmanlike blockbuster; moving pieces and people not place for the big money scenes, and mostly disposable for the rest of the time.
Making a sequel to a film directed by Stephen Spielberg is challenging enough; in most cases you have to compete with huge success. But it is that much worse in a genre where success is partly defined by the effect of the set-pieces. Spielberg remains one of the best ever directors of suspense, and there are a handful of set-pieces from the twenty year old Jurassic Park which are immortal because they are so well conceived and directed.
So Trevorrow took on Jurassic World (effectively Jurassic Park 4) presumably aware of these factors. And, to give him some credit, the set-pieces in his film are probably the best sequences. He steals shamelessly from Spielberg, as well as James Cameron (there are a couple of blatant Aliens nods here) and the scenes in question benefit from that thievery. Once the stage is set for man vs dinosaur and Trevorrow can cut loose in a series of thrilling scenes of panic and stalking, Jurassic World feels like a decent summer blockbuster.
But films have to be more than just a loosely linked line of action scenes. They need to include characters. Jurassic World doesn't do so well here. Set in a new, functional and thriving Dinosaur theme park established on the same island as in the original film, the principals are all sketches composed mainly of stereotype, shorthand and outright cliche. First we have the two brothers (Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins) sent to visit their Aunt, who runs the park, while their parents divorce proceedings are sorted. The elder is a moody, hoodie-wearing teen, constantly staring at either his smartphone or the teenage girls in the park and impatient with his little brother's immaturity. The younger is sensitive and geeky, loves dinosaurs and worried about the future of their family. Once the mayhem begins, they are imperilled a few times, then reduced to running mannequins, fleeing from one dinosaur to another, dragged behind adults. The actors do alright, but the boys are boring cyphers. The adult have a little more to chew on. There are supporting characters, each easily summed up in a phrase: Vincent D'Onofrio as a hubristic, hawkish exec at an arms manufacturer, set on weaponising velociraptors (guess how he dies!), Omar Sy as a sensitive Velociraptor keeper, appalled by these plans, Irrfan Khan as the Billionaire owner of the park, torn between the ideals of wonder and the bottom line of profit, Jake Johnson as the dinogeek who runs the systems at the park clad in a vintage Jurassic Park t-shirt, his work-space lined with dino-toys and most obviously, Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard as our hero and heroine.
She is the boys' workaholic Aunt, portrayed as tightly wound and a little inhuman, until her nephews are in danger, at which point the humanity in her is revealed. Her repartee with Pratt's Navy vet Velociraptor trainer is a bit stilted, despite the natural charm of both actors. Pratt plays this character mostly straight - his job for the first half is to warn the suits that they keep making mistakes, and for the second is to run, shoot and rescue people. Perhaps the most interesting thing in the film is the dynamic between him and his pack of velociraptors - he has positioned himself as the alpha, and the confusion of the animals when confronted with a rival alpha in the form of the movies big bad, the camouflage-using, thermal-radiation sensing, many-toothed, extremely intelligent genetic hybrid Indominus Rex is nicely played. Meanwhile Howard does her best with an awful character; though her thaw from ice queen to lioness never really works.
What we're left with then are the action scenes. Twice we see groups of heavily armed military personnel go hunting the Indominus, the second accompanied by raptors, and these sequences are undeniably effective. The attack by a huge armada of pterodactals and pteradons on a fleeing crowd of people may be better for spectacle and sight gags (Trevorrow works in a few nice ones).
But this is ultimately a frustratingly workmanlike blockbuster; moving pieces and people not place for the big money scenes, and mostly disposable for the rest of the time.
Monday, 15 June 2015
THE MAZE RUNNER
(Wes Ball, 2014)
For the first two acts, this is quite a taut and brutal little genre film. That is if you can forgive the way it fulfils every Y.A. consideration to an almost parodic degree, and the way its violence is toned down to allow its target audience to see it on a big screen.
Teenagers forced to play a bloody game, a chosen one protagonist who doesn't really understand what is going on, enemies and allies among his peer group that echo nothing so much as high school, mysterious, cruel adults; a hint of romance, nature vs technology as a motif, a young innocent sacrificed...it's all there, ticked off. But those first two acts are quite pacy, embed the exposition well, and feature a few decently effective spills and thrills.
This is more solidly a sci-fi action film than the likes of The Hunger Games and Divergent (it may be relevant that this film, with its hero rather than heroine, is aimed squarely at a boy rather than girl demographic), and it has moments of horror in the scenes of the Greavers, genetically engineered cyborg-spiders that patrol the maze. It is nice to look at, the effects are fine, and the young cast do quite well with the material.
But then the final act begins to solve some of the mysteries, and it all gets quite tedious and wearyingly predictable, from who dies to how to that final ambiguous scene. And the promise of the sequel just ruins everything.
For the first two acts, this is quite a taut and brutal little genre film. That is if you can forgive the way it fulfils every Y.A. consideration to an almost parodic degree, and the way its violence is toned down to allow its target audience to see it on a big screen.
Teenagers forced to play a bloody game, a chosen one protagonist who doesn't really understand what is going on, enemies and allies among his peer group that echo nothing so much as high school, mysterious, cruel adults; a hint of romance, nature vs technology as a motif, a young innocent sacrificed...it's all there, ticked off. But those first two acts are quite pacy, embed the exposition well, and feature a few decently effective spills and thrills.
This is more solidly a sci-fi action film than the likes of The Hunger Games and Divergent (it may be relevant that this film, with its hero rather than heroine, is aimed squarely at a boy rather than girl demographic), and it has moments of horror in the scenes of the Greavers, genetically engineered cyborg-spiders that patrol the maze. It is nice to look at, the effects are fine, and the young cast do quite well with the material.
But then the final act begins to solve some of the mysteries, and it all gets quite tedious and wearyingly predictable, from who dies to how to that final ambiguous scene. And the promise of the sequel just ruins everything.
Tuesday, 26 May 2015
TOMORROWLAND
(Brad Bird, 2015)
Narratively, Tomorrowland is a mess.
It has a charming but disposable prologue that goes on for about ten minutes longer than it should. It starts after that, then restarts a while later. It doesn't introduce its big star until almost half way through. It doesn't really explain who the bad guys are or what they're doing until the last act, meaning that we don't understand what's going on or what the stakes are for most of the film. Even then it all culminates in a pretty stock "blow-up-the-big-bad-device" ending, with a couple of simultaneous fights going on. Much of the story is made up of (admittedly impressive) action sequences, though they never flow into one another and rarely arise organically from the story. Inbetween the action scenes, there is a hell of a lot of what Bird identified in The Incredibles as "monologuing", as characters explain the story to one another (and the audience).
There are many good things too. This is an ambitious and even personal blockbuster film, about optimism and dreaming. It's very earnestness is unfashionable, and it makes that unfashionability part of its theme.
The design is fitfully lovely and sometimes lazy (the future as a pastel world of odd fashions and flying skate-boards, essentially), and after taking forever to set up the relatively dull real life of its heroine, Casey (Britt Robertson), it feels like it skips through the interesting stuff later in the film at hyper-speed, making the climax rushed and under-explained.
The cast are solid - Clooney gives good grump, young Raffey Cassidy is excellent, and Laurie monologues better than most - and Bird delivers on thrills and incident, but it never really works, hamstrung by that bizarre structure, and the way so many incidental details are far more fascinating than anything happening in the main plot.
And then there is Bird's usual theme of special people, doing special things, twisted here around a strangely polemical disappointed tone: how dare we mess up the future and let down the dreamers and the optimists? We could have built a utopia! Instead all we want to do is sit around and watch disaster porn.
Narratively, Tomorrowland is a mess.
It has a charming but disposable prologue that goes on for about ten minutes longer than it should. It starts after that, then restarts a while later. It doesn't introduce its big star until almost half way through. It doesn't really explain who the bad guys are or what they're doing until the last act, meaning that we don't understand what's going on or what the stakes are for most of the film. Even then it all culminates in a pretty stock "blow-up-the-big-bad-device" ending, with a couple of simultaneous fights going on. Much of the story is made up of (admittedly impressive) action sequences, though they never flow into one another and rarely arise organically from the story. Inbetween the action scenes, there is a hell of a lot of what Bird identified in The Incredibles as "monologuing", as characters explain the story to one another (and the audience).
There are many good things too. This is an ambitious and even personal blockbuster film, about optimism and dreaming. It's very earnestness is unfashionable, and it makes that unfashionability part of its theme.
The design is fitfully lovely and sometimes lazy (the future as a pastel world of odd fashions and flying skate-boards, essentially), and after taking forever to set up the relatively dull real life of its heroine, Casey (Britt Robertson), it feels like it skips through the interesting stuff later in the film at hyper-speed, making the climax rushed and under-explained.
The cast are solid - Clooney gives good grump, young Raffey Cassidy is excellent, and Laurie monologues better than most - and Bird delivers on thrills and incident, but it never really works, hamstrung by that bizarre structure, and the way so many incidental details are far more fascinating than anything happening in the main plot.
And then there is Bird's usual theme of special people, doing special things, twisted here around a strangely polemical disappointed tone: how dare we mess up the future and let down the dreamers and the optimists? We could have built a utopia! Instead all we want to do is sit around and watch disaster porn.
Tuesday, 10 March 2015
CHAPPIE
(Neill Blomkamp, 2015)
Blomkamp has nothing to say about anything. Three movies in, and he has included themes and references in his movies that are consistently interesting and topical - the gap between rich and poor, racism, violence in law and order, crime, what constitutes consciousness, corporate influence - and yet he has never really investigated any of them in any meaningful way. They're there. And that's it.
What he seems really interested in is technology. That and ultra-violence. Preferably a combination of the two.
Chappie follows the Blomkamp formula in that it includes many elements reminiscent of his first 2 films, only it is less successful than either. Set in a very near future Johannesburg (lacking a single major black character, let it be noted) where the police are using robot "Scout" officers to deal with the overwhelming rate of violent crime, Chappie is really the story of Dev Patel, the engineer creator of the Scouts, who decides to repurpose a damaged unit in order to test out his new AI program. Only this test coincides with his own kidnapping at the hands of lowlife small-timers Ninja and Yolanda (the members of Die Antwoord) who want him to hit the off switch on all the scouts so that they can pull off a massive heist, and pay back their crimelord boss Rhino. When the criminals spot Chappie, awoken into the world like a baby, all blank slate innocence-cum-stupidity and clumsiness, Ninja immediately spots a way to exploit his abilities for financial gain, while Yolanda takes to motherhood like a natural, bonding with her baby instantly.
Complicating this is Hugh Jackman's dangerous rugby playing, gun-toting, ex-soldier Christian engineer, envious of Patel's success and just itching to be allowed test his massive Robocop ED 209 rip-off, "the Moose". When all these interests converge for the climax is when Blomkamp seems at his most comfortable. Mayhem, lots of firepower, blood and guts and the apocalyptic destruction of a warehouse.
Blomkamp loves lingering on the damage hardware can do to the human body, and he shoots action with a real feel for the visceral impact of combat. Combine these traits with a love of video-game tropes (lots of HDU shots and POV 1st person shooter cutaways) and a distinctive nose for a grungey cyberpunk tech fetish, and what you have here is nine tenths an almost generic Blomkamp film.
That other tenth is filled by Chappie himself, a beautifully seamless cgi creation, sensitively, and at times hilariously voiced by Sharlito Copley. Chappie has an actual arc here, losing his innocence before finding something new to replace it, and much of the film's humour comes from watching him act like a gangster, mangle swearwords and misinterpret simple instructions.
The cast are fine, the wooden Die Antwoord aside. Jackman is having a rare old time as this bad guy, all mullet and shorts, and Dev Patel is believably geeky and terrified when called to do so.
What it's really missing, though, especially in the draggy middle section, is a point, a reason to exist.
Blomkamp has nothing to say about anything. Three movies in, and he has included themes and references in his movies that are consistently interesting and topical - the gap between rich and poor, racism, violence in law and order, crime, what constitutes consciousness, corporate influence - and yet he has never really investigated any of them in any meaningful way. They're there. And that's it.
What he seems really interested in is technology. That and ultra-violence. Preferably a combination of the two.
Chappie follows the Blomkamp formula in that it includes many elements reminiscent of his first 2 films, only it is less successful than either. Set in a very near future Johannesburg (lacking a single major black character, let it be noted) where the police are using robot "Scout" officers to deal with the overwhelming rate of violent crime, Chappie is really the story of Dev Patel, the engineer creator of the Scouts, who decides to repurpose a damaged unit in order to test out his new AI program. Only this test coincides with his own kidnapping at the hands of lowlife small-timers Ninja and Yolanda (the members of Die Antwoord) who want him to hit the off switch on all the scouts so that they can pull off a massive heist, and pay back their crimelord boss Rhino. When the criminals spot Chappie, awoken into the world like a baby, all blank slate innocence-cum-stupidity and clumsiness, Ninja immediately spots a way to exploit his abilities for financial gain, while Yolanda takes to motherhood like a natural, bonding with her baby instantly.
Complicating this is Hugh Jackman's dangerous rugby playing, gun-toting, ex-soldier Christian engineer, envious of Patel's success and just itching to be allowed test his massive Robocop ED 209 rip-off, "the Moose". When all these interests converge for the climax is when Blomkamp seems at his most comfortable. Mayhem, lots of firepower, blood and guts and the apocalyptic destruction of a warehouse.
Blomkamp loves lingering on the damage hardware can do to the human body, and he shoots action with a real feel for the visceral impact of combat. Combine these traits with a love of video-game tropes (lots of HDU shots and POV 1st person shooter cutaways) and a distinctive nose for a grungey cyberpunk tech fetish, and what you have here is nine tenths an almost generic Blomkamp film.
That other tenth is filled by Chappie himself, a beautifully seamless cgi creation, sensitively, and at times hilariously voiced by Sharlito Copley. Chappie has an actual arc here, losing his innocence before finding something new to replace it, and much of the film's humour comes from watching him act like a gangster, mangle swearwords and misinterpret simple instructions.
The cast are fine, the wooden Die Antwoord aside. Jackman is having a rare old time as this bad guy, all mullet and shorts, and Dev Patel is believably geeky and terrified when called to do so.
What it's really missing, though, especially in the draggy middle section, is a point, a reason to exist.
Wednesday, 18 February 2015
JUPITER ASCENDING
(The Wachowskis, 2015)
Jupiter Ascending is gleefully ridiculous, and great fun in places. A bizarre mix of princess fairytale, epic space opera and palace court politics, spliced with some anti-corporate thematics, it fudges some of the material you would expect the Wachowskis to get right. The action scenes - from the directors of The Matrix, which contains some of the greatest action scenes in history - are generally incoherent, frequently boring (incoherence does breed boredom), and never all that rousing.
The story follows Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), a Russian Immigrant in modern Chicago, after she discovers that she is an exact genetic match for the former Intergalactic Queen, and therefore rightful owner of Earth. Of course she discovers this when various aliens come hunting her, and Cane (Channing Tatum), a half-wolf, half-human warrior rescues her. This is all tied up with the political/corporate maneuvering of the Abrassix clan (Eddie Redmayne, Tuppence Middleton and Douglas Booth), each of whom wants Earth to farm human beings for their cells, which are used to prolong life across the galaxy. Jupiter learns all this much as the audience does, in-between bouts of (an underwritten, undercharged) romance with Cane and being (repeatedly) rescued by him. His old bee-spliced comrade Stinger (Sean Bean) becomes involved too, battling lizard-men and hairless shape-shifters on earth and in space as they try to keep Jupiter alive.
The Wachowskis pull off some fine genre beats here despite the sluggish action film-making, and their world building is bold and ambitious; this is a cosmos filled with ravishingly beautiful worlds, references to Brazil (complete with Terry Gilliam cameo) and little flashes of wit (explanations for the extinction of the dinosaurs and crop circles). But there are repetitive plot-points - can Cane save Jupter before she marries Titus, sealing her doom? Can Cane save Jupiter before she signs away all rights to Earth, sealing everyone's doom? etc. The story may avoid the typical male power-fantasies so beloved of much sci-fi, replacing it with a girl asked to decide on the fate of her family versus that of the human race, but the mix of that with a hidden Princess archetype is an awkward one.
The English thesps ham everything up, which is possibly the right tone for this sort of material. Tatum and Kunis are both movie stars; beautiful, charismatic and eminently watchable, but neither of them feels quite right here. Kunis has the wrong sort of look and spiky tomboy presence for this role, while Tatum's character is largely a heroically brave blank. Their romance never convinces, robbing the movie of much last reel emotional weight (aside from the stuff about the Earth being farmed and all of humanity dying, of course).
But still, this is an interesting, imaginative, barking mad attempt at a sci-fi Epic, even if much of it doesn't remotely work. At least it tries.
Jupiter Ascending is gleefully ridiculous, and great fun in places. A bizarre mix of princess fairytale, epic space opera and palace court politics, spliced with some anti-corporate thematics, it fudges some of the material you would expect the Wachowskis to get right. The action scenes - from the directors of The Matrix, which contains some of the greatest action scenes in history - are generally incoherent, frequently boring (incoherence does breed boredom), and never all that rousing.
The story follows Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), a Russian Immigrant in modern Chicago, after she discovers that she is an exact genetic match for the former Intergalactic Queen, and therefore rightful owner of Earth. Of course she discovers this when various aliens come hunting her, and Cane (Channing Tatum), a half-wolf, half-human warrior rescues her. This is all tied up with the political/corporate maneuvering of the Abrassix clan (Eddie Redmayne, Tuppence Middleton and Douglas Booth), each of whom wants Earth to farm human beings for their cells, which are used to prolong life across the galaxy. Jupiter learns all this much as the audience does, in-between bouts of (an underwritten, undercharged) romance with Cane and being (repeatedly) rescued by him. His old bee-spliced comrade Stinger (Sean Bean) becomes involved too, battling lizard-men and hairless shape-shifters on earth and in space as they try to keep Jupiter alive.
The Wachowskis pull off some fine genre beats here despite the sluggish action film-making, and their world building is bold and ambitious; this is a cosmos filled with ravishingly beautiful worlds, references to Brazil (complete with Terry Gilliam cameo) and little flashes of wit (explanations for the extinction of the dinosaurs and crop circles). But there are repetitive plot-points - can Cane save Jupter before she marries Titus, sealing her doom? Can Cane save Jupiter before she signs away all rights to Earth, sealing everyone's doom? etc. The story may avoid the typical male power-fantasies so beloved of much sci-fi, replacing it with a girl asked to decide on the fate of her family versus that of the human race, but the mix of that with a hidden Princess archetype is an awkward one.
The English thesps ham everything up, which is possibly the right tone for this sort of material. Tatum and Kunis are both movie stars; beautiful, charismatic and eminently watchable, but neither of them feels quite right here. Kunis has the wrong sort of look and spiky tomboy presence for this role, while Tatum's character is largely a heroically brave blank. Their romance never convinces, robbing the movie of much last reel emotional weight (aside from the stuff about the Earth being farmed and all of humanity dying, of course).
But still, this is an interesting, imaginative, barking mad attempt at a sci-fi Epic, even if much of it doesn't remotely work. At least it tries.
Friday, 6 February 2015
KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE
(Matthew Vaughn, 2015)
Kingsman makes sure that you know it has the James Bond films in mind from early on, and there are several explicit references. But this film, based on a comic book, accordingly takes a much more comic book angle on the material, making everything even bigger and broader and sillier than most Bond films usually go. It even has a dig at modern 007 - too serious, apparently - and so here that serious nature is replaced by ludicrous action scenes and some lame gags. It actually bears more resemblance to the recent G.I. Joe films than any Bond movies.
The story follows young petty criminal Eggsy (Taron Egerton) after he is saved from prison by Galahad (Firth), an agent of the titular organisation. Firth sponsors him to enter the recruitment process for a new Kingsman, run by Merlin (Mark Strong) while he investigates the scheme cooked up by Internet Billionaire Valentine (Samuel L Jackson). That scheme involves culling the majority of earth's population, and gives rise to one impressive action sequence, where Firth's dapper, old-school agent kills about two dozen people in a berserker fury. Like all of the action scenes here, that one is almost ruined by an over-reliance on CGI, and throughout the film flirts with being a tasteless and embarrassing mess. It has a particular weakness for the obvious; from the choice of music to the product placement to the action beats to the gags, there is nothing surprising or witty here, just a whole lot of boxes being ticked. Some of those boxes work and are undeniably satisfying to watch; others are cringe-inducing and eye-rollingly dumb.
There is also a streak of class warfare running through the plot, with prole Eggsy taking on the Oxbridge Elite and showing them that a pleb can have what it takes, but even that is messy, what with the way the film fetishises upper-class British culture.
The performances barely matter, but Jackson and Firth have fun, while Egerton does what he needs to do. It is massively overlong, but scattered sequences are enjoyable and funny.
Kingsman makes sure that you know it has the James Bond films in mind from early on, and there are several explicit references. But this film, based on a comic book, accordingly takes a much more comic book angle on the material, making everything even bigger and broader and sillier than most Bond films usually go. It even has a dig at modern 007 - too serious, apparently - and so here that serious nature is replaced by ludicrous action scenes and some lame gags. It actually bears more resemblance to the recent G.I. Joe films than any Bond movies.
The story follows young petty criminal Eggsy (Taron Egerton) after he is saved from prison by Galahad (Firth), an agent of the titular organisation. Firth sponsors him to enter the recruitment process for a new Kingsman, run by Merlin (Mark Strong) while he investigates the scheme cooked up by Internet Billionaire Valentine (Samuel L Jackson). That scheme involves culling the majority of earth's population, and gives rise to one impressive action sequence, where Firth's dapper, old-school agent kills about two dozen people in a berserker fury. Like all of the action scenes here, that one is almost ruined by an over-reliance on CGI, and throughout the film flirts with being a tasteless and embarrassing mess. It has a particular weakness for the obvious; from the choice of music to the product placement to the action beats to the gags, there is nothing surprising or witty here, just a whole lot of boxes being ticked. Some of those boxes work and are undeniably satisfying to watch; others are cringe-inducing and eye-rollingly dumb.
There is also a streak of class warfare running through the plot, with prole Eggsy taking on the Oxbridge Elite and showing them that a pleb can have what it takes, but even that is messy, what with the way the film fetishises upper-class British culture.
The performances barely matter, but Jackson and Firth have fun, while Egerton does what he needs to do. It is massively overlong, but scattered sequences are enjoyable and funny.
Tuesday, 27 January 2015
EX MACHINA
(Alex Garland, 2015)
It's not a criticism of Ex Machina to say it resembles an extremely good episode of The Outer Limits stretched to feature length. In fact, it may be a compliment.
This provocative piece of science fiction, filled with ideas and founded around three strong characters makes for an intense, unsettling experience.
Domhnail Gleeson is Caleb, a coder at a hugely successful search engine company who wins a workplace lottery to spend a week at the isolated, beautiful estate of the reclusive founder-owner-genius Nathan (Oscar Isaac). There he discovers that Nathan has created a robot named Ava (Alicia Vikander), and he wants Caleb to perform a turing test on it through conversation.
Writer-director and former novelist Garland has structured his debut like a novel; it is split, with onscreen titles pages, into days and once during each day Caleb has a conversation with Ava. Afterwards he hangs out with the Bro-like Nathan (who gets drunk late at night, and alternates detox and boxing a punchbag in the mornings), becoming increasingly disturbed and suspicious about his methodology and motivations. This may have something to do with the fact that he might in fact be falling in love with Ava, who is worryingly beautiful, and even seems to be flirting with him.
Gleeson and Isaac are brilliantly cast here, with the former's jumpy anxiety a fine contrast to the cocky intensity of the latter. Isaac gets the best speeches and the most interesting depths, and much of this film plays like a theatrical two-hander - intense exchanges and arguments between intelligent individuals about abstract ideas. Their dynamic is perfect; Isaac penetrating, patronising and deliberately cool. Gleeson struggling to retain any composure.
Vikander's Ava then, comes out of left field. First seen in silhouette, she makes a lovely electronic whirring noise as she moves. But she seems more and more human with each scene, though Vikander never loses the odd, alien quality she gives the character - there in the way she holds herself, the way she turns her head. She seems to fall for Caleb just as much as he has fallen for her, but the film is full of dire warnings of the consequences for her creation: early on, Caleb equates Nathan with a God (Nathan's deliberate (?) misremembering of this moment is a quiet comic highlight) , and later, Nathan speculates that one day A.Is will view humans as we regard fossils on the plains of Africa - dumb apes and their clumsy tools. All of this and the growing tension between the three characters (together with Nathan's silent maid, Kyoko) makes for a growing sense of unease. Garland's cinematographer, Rob Hardy, is a vital contributor here - he shoots Nathan's house-cum-research facility with long, muted tracking shots down corridors, plenty of oblique angles on Ava, observed and aware, in her room, the nearby vastness of the green mountainsides and waterfalls emphasising the isolation of these characters as their drama plays out.
And it is a drama which has a great ending that makes perfect sense and seems inevitable, in retrospect. As if nothing else could have happened, it could have gone no other way. That's what's in the eyes of the three principals in the climactic moments: This is how it always had to be.
Garland should have a hell of a career ahead of him.
It's not a criticism of Ex Machina to say it resembles an extremely good episode of The Outer Limits stretched to feature length. In fact, it may be a compliment.
This provocative piece of science fiction, filled with ideas and founded around three strong characters makes for an intense, unsettling experience.
Domhnail Gleeson is Caleb, a coder at a hugely successful search engine company who wins a workplace lottery to spend a week at the isolated, beautiful estate of the reclusive founder-owner-genius Nathan (Oscar Isaac). There he discovers that Nathan has created a robot named Ava (Alicia Vikander), and he wants Caleb to perform a turing test on it through conversation.
Writer-director and former novelist Garland has structured his debut like a novel; it is split, with onscreen titles pages, into days and once during each day Caleb has a conversation with Ava. Afterwards he hangs out with the Bro-like Nathan (who gets drunk late at night, and alternates detox and boxing a punchbag in the mornings), becoming increasingly disturbed and suspicious about his methodology and motivations. This may have something to do with the fact that he might in fact be falling in love with Ava, who is worryingly beautiful, and even seems to be flirting with him.
Gleeson and Isaac are brilliantly cast here, with the former's jumpy anxiety a fine contrast to the cocky intensity of the latter. Isaac gets the best speeches and the most interesting depths, and much of this film plays like a theatrical two-hander - intense exchanges and arguments between intelligent individuals about abstract ideas. Their dynamic is perfect; Isaac penetrating, patronising and deliberately cool. Gleeson struggling to retain any composure.
Vikander's Ava then, comes out of left field. First seen in silhouette, she makes a lovely electronic whirring noise as she moves. But she seems more and more human with each scene, though Vikander never loses the odd, alien quality she gives the character - there in the way she holds herself, the way she turns her head. She seems to fall for Caleb just as much as he has fallen for her, but the film is full of dire warnings of the consequences for her creation: early on, Caleb equates Nathan with a God (Nathan's deliberate (?) misremembering of this moment is a quiet comic highlight) , and later, Nathan speculates that one day A.Is will view humans as we regard fossils on the plains of Africa - dumb apes and their clumsy tools. All of this and the growing tension between the three characters (together with Nathan's silent maid, Kyoko) makes for a growing sense of unease. Garland's cinematographer, Rob Hardy, is a vital contributor here - he shoots Nathan's house-cum-research facility with long, muted tracking shots down corridors, plenty of oblique angles on Ava, observed and aware, in her room, the nearby vastness of the green mountainsides and waterfalls emphasising the isolation of these characters as their drama plays out.
And it is a drama which has a great ending that makes perfect sense and seems inevitable, in retrospect. As if nothing else could have happened, it could have gone no other way. That's what's in the eyes of the three principals in the climactic moments: This is how it always had to be.
Garland should have a hell of a career ahead of him.
Friday, 19 December 2014
REAL STEEL
(Shawn Levy, 2011)
Take Rocky, add a little sprinkling of The Champ, and then; add robots.
That sounds truly awful, I know. But Real Steel works on it's own, oh-so simple terms. Based on a Richard Matheson story - always a good thing - it is set a few years in the future, when boxing has been replaced by robot boxing, allowing for far more violence and carnage in the ring as machines pound and rend one another into scrap metal. Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) is an ex-contender, now plugging his way from one debt and one robot to another, never catching a break, living off the goodwill of his ex (Evangeline Lily). Then his 11-year old son (Dakota Goyo) shows up, and Charlie does a deal with the husband of the boy's Aunt - he will spend a summer with Charlie, who will then give him up and be rewarded with a $50,000 payday. All Charlie cares about is the money.
But the boy loves robot Boxing as much as he does, and they bond over the potential of Atom, an old, battered sparring bot they find one night in the scrapyard.
Atom is built to take punishment, and with the modifications made by the boy and Charlie's knowhow, he starts to win fights and develop a reputation. All the while, father and son are growing closer as they drive back and forth across the country, and Charlie's bad luck seems to be changing. Then there is the seemingly invincible super-bot Zeus on the horizon, built to spot patterns and counter them, but perhaps not quite so comfortable against human spontaneity and creativity.
There is nothing new here; not a scene or character or idea or emotion or gag. But what there is, is effectively done. The fight scenes are exciting, nicely manipulative, and well-shot. The gushing sentiment of the father-son scenes is affecting. This sort of underdog tale cannot miss unless it's done really badly, and this one is not.
As robot boxing movies go, in fact, I imagine you can't do any better...
Take Rocky, add a little sprinkling of The Champ, and then; add robots.
That sounds truly awful, I know. But Real Steel works on it's own, oh-so simple terms. Based on a Richard Matheson story - always a good thing - it is set a few years in the future, when boxing has been replaced by robot boxing, allowing for far more violence and carnage in the ring as machines pound and rend one another into scrap metal. Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman) is an ex-contender, now plugging his way from one debt and one robot to another, never catching a break, living off the goodwill of his ex (Evangeline Lily). Then his 11-year old son (Dakota Goyo) shows up, and Charlie does a deal with the husband of the boy's Aunt - he will spend a summer with Charlie, who will then give him up and be rewarded with a $50,000 payday. All Charlie cares about is the money.
But the boy loves robot Boxing as much as he does, and they bond over the potential of Atom, an old, battered sparring bot they find one night in the scrapyard.
Atom is built to take punishment, and with the modifications made by the boy and Charlie's knowhow, he starts to win fights and develop a reputation. All the while, father and son are growing closer as they drive back and forth across the country, and Charlie's bad luck seems to be changing. Then there is the seemingly invincible super-bot Zeus on the horizon, built to spot patterns and counter them, but perhaps not quite so comfortable against human spontaneity and creativity.
There is nothing new here; not a scene or character or idea or emotion or gag. But what there is, is effectively done. The fight scenes are exciting, nicely manipulative, and well-shot. The gushing sentiment of the father-son scenes is affecting. This sort of underdog tale cannot miss unless it's done really badly, and this one is not.
As robot boxing movies go, in fact, I imagine you can't do any better...
Thursday, 20 November 2014
INTERSTELLAR
(Christopher Nolan, 2014)
By now, the things that Christopher Nolan does well are taken largely for granted. This is a director who makes immense blockbuster films, a widely reviled genre. And yet he makes them with an utterly serious intent, set on examining big, important themes through narratives including superheroes and sci-fi action. He largely eschews digital visual effects in favour of more old-fashioned in-camera tricks, and his films all look and sound splendid - he has mastered a monolithic, stately visual style based seemingly on a mix of Michael Mann in his middle period (Heat, The Insider) and Stanley Kubrick, coupled with deafening Hans Zimmer scores which make his films must-see big-screen experiences. All this and massive movie stars too.
And yet...
Interstellar is a fascinating, hugely flawed film, like much of Nolan's work. These days, with ridiculously huge budgets and final cut, his films must be as close to his vision As any major director is ever likely to get. And that's a possible reason for the fact that stretches of Interstellar feel interminable. The third act, in particular, is boring and seemingly endless. Perhaps if he were a slightly less popular and commercial filmmaker, some executive would be on-hand to make the point to Nolan that This film needed another week or so in the editing suite. But instead he indulges himself, and while his commercial instincts tell him to introduce some conflict on a human level in his third act - a decision leading to perhaps the weakest passage in the film - he somehow also thinks it is ok to include not one but three, yes, three separate scenes of spaceships docking in space stations, the second and third both attempts at suspense which fall monumentally flat.
In fact the best moments in this film are all early on, before Nolan is able to indulge his desire to remake 2001, when the drama is still largely domestic and Terran. At some unspecified point in the future, a worldwide blight and ferocious dust storms wipe out the majority of crops, kill millions, and ensure that governments redirect most of their spending away from defence and technology and into agriculture. Matthew McConaughey plays Coop, an ex-NASA pilot and engineer now working as a farmer somewhere in the Midwest. A widower, he has two young children who he chooses to leave after offered a mission from a NASA operating in secrecy. The mission is a last chance to save humanity from the inevitable death awaiting the species, and involves travelling through a wormhole to investigate the viability of planets in a distant solar system.
The scenes of Coop's life on earth are quiet, beautiful and almost banal. He attends a parents evening at his daughters school, where he learns that she has been fighting with classmates because of her belief that the moon landings happened and were not just (the now-official line) state sponsored propaganda. He drinks beer on the porch with his wise father-in-law (John Lithgow), flees dust storms, fixes machinery, does his best as a dad. His bond with his daughter, Murph, is especially powerful, and their relationship is the emotional backbone of the film.
For such a big film it has an astoundingly narrow emotional focus - this is purely a fathers paean to his daughter. Murph grows up to be a bitter Jessica Chastain, finding a surrogate father in Michael Caine's NASA Professor Brandt, whose own daughter (Ann Hathaway, struggling with the worst dialogue in the film) is off in space with Coop.
The frayed bond between Coop and Murph is central to the best sequence in the film. The astronauts visit a planet where each hour that elapses equals seven years on earth. Suspense, immediately established, obviously things go wrong, and the scene where Coop watches his children's video messages and their development from teenagers to adults is immensely powerful, mainly because of McConaughey's performance.
There is a depth of emotion here, but Nolan frames it in an almost Spielbergian manner - trucking in wonder and sentiment, whereas his usual mode is a more rational Kubrickian distance. His films all seem rooted in a Godless universe, yet here is a film which seeks to make us wonder at the mysteries of that universe. This sets up a strange tension the movie never quite resolves.
It also feels as if it needed another week or two in the editing suite; or perhaps Nolan has reached such a level of power and influence that nobody dares tell him when he is being self-indulgent. Because the last act here is interminable - featuring two separate scenes (both meant to be suspenseful) of spaceships docking, it loses all tension and instead dissolves into metaphysics and manipulative melodrama. McConaughey keeps it watchable and it is always a typically grand, colossally-scaled spectacle, but it is confused and unsatisfying too.
The coda - while moving - feels a little contrived widescreen splendour, we've been here so many times before in cinema, watching astronauts struggle with eternity, and seen it done more intelligently and more cinematically. This is a film made by a director who fell in love with 2001: A Space Odyssey as a young man, and in this case that's very much a bad thing, since that influence is detectable in a number of irritating ways. The final product feels more like two other misfires of exploration: DePalma's Mission To Mars (minus the grandstanding set-pieces) and Cameron's The Abyss (minus the watery close encounters), only it feels a little inferior to both of those too.
For all it's strengths, Interstellar is fascinating chiefly because of the ways in which it fails.
By now, the things that Christopher Nolan does well are taken largely for granted. This is a director who makes immense blockbuster films, a widely reviled genre. And yet he makes them with an utterly serious intent, set on examining big, important themes through narratives including superheroes and sci-fi action. He largely eschews digital visual effects in favour of more old-fashioned in-camera tricks, and his films all look and sound splendid - he has mastered a monolithic, stately visual style based seemingly on a mix of Michael Mann in his middle period (Heat, The Insider) and Stanley Kubrick, coupled with deafening Hans Zimmer scores which make his films must-see big-screen experiences. All this and massive movie stars too.
And yet...
Interstellar is a fascinating, hugely flawed film, like much of Nolan's work. These days, with ridiculously huge budgets and final cut, his films must be as close to his vision As any major director is ever likely to get. And that's a possible reason for the fact that stretches of Interstellar feel interminable. The third act, in particular, is boring and seemingly endless. Perhaps if he were a slightly less popular and commercial filmmaker, some executive would be on-hand to make the point to Nolan that This film needed another week or so in the editing suite. But instead he indulges himself, and while his commercial instincts tell him to introduce some conflict on a human level in his third act - a decision leading to perhaps the weakest passage in the film - he somehow also thinks it is ok to include not one but three, yes, three separate scenes of spaceships docking in space stations, the second and third both attempts at suspense which fall monumentally flat.
In fact the best moments in this film are all early on, before Nolan is able to indulge his desire to remake 2001, when the drama is still largely domestic and Terran. At some unspecified point in the future, a worldwide blight and ferocious dust storms wipe out the majority of crops, kill millions, and ensure that governments redirect most of their spending away from defence and technology and into agriculture. Matthew McConaughey plays Coop, an ex-NASA pilot and engineer now working as a farmer somewhere in the Midwest. A widower, he has two young children who he chooses to leave after offered a mission from a NASA operating in secrecy. The mission is a last chance to save humanity from the inevitable death awaiting the species, and involves travelling through a wormhole to investigate the viability of planets in a distant solar system.
The scenes of Coop's life on earth are quiet, beautiful and almost banal. He attends a parents evening at his daughters school, where he learns that she has been fighting with classmates because of her belief that the moon landings happened and were not just (the now-official line) state sponsored propaganda. He drinks beer on the porch with his wise father-in-law (John Lithgow), flees dust storms, fixes machinery, does his best as a dad. His bond with his daughter, Murph, is especially powerful, and their relationship is the emotional backbone of the film.
For such a big film it has an astoundingly narrow emotional focus - this is purely a fathers paean to his daughter. Murph grows up to be a bitter Jessica Chastain, finding a surrogate father in Michael Caine's NASA Professor Brandt, whose own daughter (Ann Hathaway, struggling with the worst dialogue in the film) is off in space with Coop.
The frayed bond between Coop and Murph is central to the best sequence in the film. The astronauts visit a planet where each hour that elapses equals seven years on earth. Suspense, immediately established, obviously things go wrong, and the scene where Coop watches his children's video messages and their development from teenagers to adults is immensely powerful, mainly because of McConaughey's performance.
There is a depth of emotion here, but Nolan frames it in an almost Spielbergian manner - trucking in wonder and sentiment, whereas his usual mode is a more rational Kubrickian distance. His films all seem rooted in a Godless universe, yet here is a film which seeks to make us wonder at the mysteries of that universe. This sets up a strange tension the movie never quite resolves.
It also feels as if it needed another week or two in the editing suite; or perhaps Nolan has reached such a level of power and influence that nobody dares tell him when he is being self-indulgent. Because the last act here is interminable - featuring two separate scenes (both meant to be suspenseful) of spaceships docking, it loses all tension and instead dissolves into metaphysics and manipulative melodrama. McConaughey keeps it watchable and it is always a typically grand, colossally-scaled spectacle, but it is confused and unsatisfying too.
The coda - while moving - feels a little contrived widescreen splendour, we've been here so many times before in cinema, watching astronauts struggle with eternity, and seen it done more intelligently and more cinematically. This is a film made by a director who fell in love with 2001: A Space Odyssey as a young man, and in this case that's very much a bad thing, since that influence is detectable in a number of irritating ways. The final product feels more like two other misfires of exploration: DePalma's Mission To Mars (minus the grandstanding set-pieces) and Cameron's The Abyss (minus the watery close encounters), only it feels a little inferior to both of those too.
For all it's strengths, Interstellar is fascinating chiefly because of the ways in which it fails.
Monday, 25 August 2014
LUCY
(Luc Besson, 2014)
Besson has always had a knack for establishing a simple, gripping high concept dramatic device quickly and economically. The first 10 minutes of Lucy features two examples of this talent; in the first we watch Lucy (Scarlett Johansson, beautifully cast), plainly a bit of a party girl studying in Taipei, as she argues with a newish boyfriend who is trying to persuade her to drop off a mysterious briefcase in a hotel. Of course this errand leaves the boyfirend dead and Lucy in the hands of a Korean gang run by Mr Jang (Choi Min-Sik) who want to use her as a mule, an experimental new drug surgically concealed inside her stomach ready to be transported to Europe. Secondly there is the scene where a terrified Lucy is forced to open the the briefcase she has delivered while Mr Jang and his men hide behind cover in case it is a bomb.
Besson shoots these scenes simply and classically. Some of the style - we must remember that the "movement" of which Besson along with directors like Jean-Jacques Beineix and Leos Carax belonged was known as the "cinema du look" - which so enveloped his earlier work seems to have dropped away, and though Lucy always looks good, there is nothing all that distinctive or remarkable about its visual style.
Instead - and this is new for Besson - the content is fascinating. The ideas in Lucy about human beings only using 10% of our brains and the possibilities if we ever accessed more may be half-baked sci-fi, but at least there are ideas. And Besson expresses them visually, or at least tries to. His film has passages that recall a lobotomised Tree of Life, others that suggest 2001 and Koyanisqatsi. And yet, sometimes the effect is like nothing so much as an extremely well-shot and cut Powerpoint presentation. And that is without mentioning the dissonance created by juxtaposing all that with the international crime drama (the kind of thing Besson's Production company, EuropaCorp, specialises in) that the first act suggests Lucy will become. It never quite becomes that. Instead, that story - of Lucy's attempts to track down the rest of the drug that has allowed her to access more of her brain and hence given her what are in effect superpowers - runs alongside the changes Lucy is registering within herself and how they are effecting her.
As she begins to transcend time and space the film has one foot bogged down in a familiar, predictably violent action film. While Johansson is excellent - this role suggests a sort of dumber companion to Under the Skin - this strange schizophrenia is both the films strength and its great weakness. It makes for a movie that is entertaining, weirdly self-aware, and utterly brainless.
Besson has always had a knack for establishing a simple, gripping high concept dramatic device quickly and economically. The first 10 minutes of Lucy features two examples of this talent; in the first we watch Lucy (Scarlett Johansson, beautifully cast), plainly a bit of a party girl studying in Taipei, as she argues with a newish boyfriend who is trying to persuade her to drop off a mysterious briefcase in a hotel. Of course this errand leaves the boyfirend dead and Lucy in the hands of a Korean gang run by Mr Jang (Choi Min-Sik) who want to use her as a mule, an experimental new drug surgically concealed inside her stomach ready to be transported to Europe. Secondly there is the scene where a terrified Lucy is forced to open the the briefcase she has delivered while Mr Jang and his men hide behind cover in case it is a bomb.
Besson shoots these scenes simply and classically. Some of the style - we must remember that the "movement" of which Besson along with directors like Jean-Jacques Beineix and Leos Carax belonged was known as the "cinema du look" - which so enveloped his earlier work seems to have dropped away, and though Lucy always looks good, there is nothing all that distinctive or remarkable about its visual style.
Instead - and this is new for Besson - the content is fascinating. The ideas in Lucy about human beings only using 10% of our brains and the possibilities if we ever accessed more may be half-baked sci-fi, but at least there are ideas. And Besson expresses them visually, or at least tries to. His film has passages that recall a lobotomised Tree of Life, others that suggest 2001 and Koyanisqatsi. And yet, sometimes the effect is like nothing so much as an extremely well-shot and cut Powerpoint presentation. And that is without mentioning the dissonance created by juxtaposing all that with the international crime drama (the kind of thing Besson's Production company, EuropaCorp, specialises in) that the first act suggests Lucy will become. It never quite becomes that. Instead, that story - of Lucy's attempts to track down the rest of the drug that has allowed her to access more of her brain and hence given her what are in effect superpowers - runs alongside the changes Lucy is registering within herself and how they are effecting her.
As she begins to transcend time and space the film has one foot bogged down in a familiar, predictably violent action film. While Johansson is excellent - this role suggests a sort of dumber companion to Under the Skin - this strange schizophrenia is both the films strength and its great weakness. It makes for a movie that is entertaining, weirdly self-aware, and utterly brainless.
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