Movies

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

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Despite my general disdain for zombies, I had some hopes of enjoying this film. While shambling corpses do little to interest me, classic literature does and I found that zombies tend to be tolerable in a comedy setting. Look at Shaun of the Dead; I could give two craps about the classic zombie movies it’s riffing on, but the comedy kept me more than entertained. Pride and Prejudice is at its heart a comedy. Yes, Elizabeth Bennet deals with some very serious issues, but foibles of those around her are exaggerated to comic proportions. With a title like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies there is really no place to go but to comedy. This makes it a shame that this movie resists that call so much.

It still has plenty of comic elements, and those elements tend to be its best. Matt Smith plays Mr. Collins as obsequious to the extreme. He almost feels as though he has come from a different, much better version of this movie to lighten things up. Mr. and Mrs. Bennet act much as they do in the book, the lack of change works for a pair of already comedic characters. Unfortunately, the real fault lies with Darcy, who is played as charmlessly serious. While it isn’t a bad interpretation of the character, it doesn’t feel right for this movie. Lily James is better than this film deserves as Elizabeth, which works for her as the center of the film. Still Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is too serious for a movie as patently silly as it is.

It does add some competent fight scenes to the mix, but it doles them out at odd times. Some changes to the book are inevitable in any adaptation, but this movie stick to the book oddly closely at times while going completely off the rails at others. The best one is at the ball at the beginning, with all five Bennet sisters showing their competence at zombie killing. The movie seems as though it is setting up some sort of point about the differences in where the upper crust learned their fighting styles, either in Japan or China, but that is dropped about the midway point. Many of the other fights are either too short or shot in too close to have much of an effect. Still, the battle between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth during his first proposal is excellent, allowing them to show their emotions with more than just dialogue. The great shame is that the film builds to a big climax and them barely lets either character do anything during it. All the pieces are there, much time was spent showing how competent of fighters they are, but the last big fight is not so big and not much of a fight.

Other than that, the film is just littered with ideas that dropped almost as soon as they are mentioned. There is something about the 4 Horsemen of the Apocalypse to lead the zombies against the humans, but not much comes of it. There is the whole Chinese or Japanese training segment. Lady Catherine de Bourgh looks fearsome in a couple of scenes, but she doesn’t even fight in the one scene it is all but necessary that she do so. Some zombies are able to avoid eating humans by never having consumed human brains, but no one other than Elizabeth seems to care. The whole thing seems half-baked and just reeks of squandered opportunity.

I didn’t hate the movie, though. There was just enough there to enjoy that made it sting all the more how fleeting those enjoyable moments are. This could have been an excellent, schlocky mash-up, but instead it is a tepid mixture of ill-fitting parts. Maybe they did need to go for the extra gore and the “R” rating; that may have helped. The real problem is that it had too many ideas and wasn’t smart enough to sift the good ones from the bad.

**1/2

What I Watched in Jan ‘16

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Movies

Star Wars The Force Awakens – see review here. ****1/2

The Revenant – see review here. ****1/2

The Hateful Eight – see review here. *****

The Ladykillers – This is not a Coens’ movie that gets a lot of attention. After watching it, I would say that it doesn’t really deserve much attention. It isn’t bad, but it is slight. There just isn’t a lot here. It’s a well-executed farce, with JK Simmons and Marlon Wayans, of all people, giving really good performances. Fun, but forgettable. ***1/2

Shawshank Redemption – Yeah, it’s great. I don’t have a lot to say. *****

Hot Rod – I am not always a fan of Andy Samberg, but he is really great here. This movie kind of meanders around and loses momentum at times, but it has a lot of really funny people and some really funny scenes. This is a great movie to watch on a lazy Saturday afternoon. You don’t really have to pay attention and each little bit is entertaining on its own. A solid little comedy. ****

Galaxy Quest – Alan Rickman’s passing made me want to revisit my favorite of his films. This Star Trek pastiche is simply great. It is that oddly prevalent mixed up take on the Magnificent Seven with actors taking the place of the fighters, like A Bug’s Life or The Three Amigos. Galaxy Quest might be the best executed of those, and Rickman’s utter contempt for everything with his old TV role is one of the highlights. This is just a great comedy. ****1/2

The Four Falls of Buffalo – I love 30 for 30. The tale of these Buffalo Bills, the best team to never win the Super Bowl, is kind of heartbreaking. This is pretty well made, since they got most of the big players in to talk about it. To come that close that many times and not come away with a victory is crushing. ***

Pride and Prejudice – This 2005 adaptation of Austen’s novel is really good. It is solidly acted all around and as true to the source as a two hour version of a novel can be. Kiera Knightley is just about as Elizabeth, with the right amount of satisfaction in her witty retorts. It also establishes a sense of scene and time that goes beyond what would be expected. Really, there are some great shots and settings in this film. ****

Paprika – This was recommended to me in a list of the 50 best animated films decided by people voting in their personal top 25. This was one that made the list that I had never seen, so I picked up the Blu-ray on the cheap. It is really good, kind of like Inception (which I have to assume took at least some inspiration from this) without the need to be tethered the reality of having to be filmed. It is also lacking Inception’s explanations. The whole movie is just sort of strange and simply dropped on the viewer. Paprika is excellent. The English dub does not have the most natural translation, but point gets across. Also, some of the sequences are perfectly mind bending. I think some of the character work is either lacking or was lost in translation, but other than that I really liked this movie. ****1/2

TV

Detectorists – For a show that never goes too far in any direction, this turned out to be a complete delight. Andy and Lance are detectorists, guys who spend their free time with metal detectors. Their devotion to their hobby can be a little pathetic at times, but they know that. The show flits from being mildly pleasant to somewhat uncomfortable at times, never being a complete delight or a total drag. The show doesn’t want to beat its protagonists down completely, but it also isn’t going to have them realize all of their dreams. It ends up feeling real, mostly on the back of some strong writing and performances. I can’t wait to see the second series.

Making a Murderer – This is pretty chilling. A great, entertaining documentary. It didn’t convince me one way or the other about Steven Avery’s guilt, but it did leave me questioning the idea of fairness in our justice system. It is rather chilling how they lied to and railroaded the younger of the accused. The whole thing illustrates how the justice system is not after justice, but after a conviction. Really, it is just really well-made.

Poirot Series 5 & 6 – I need to be more considered when writing about this. It is still good, if dry. It is very slow paced, letting the mysteries unfold in their own time. It is a big change from current TV and takes a little getting used to. It also switched from hour long episodes to episodes that are nearly two hours long, which is just a little too long. Still, Suchet does a great job in the title role and they are largely well acted and made. I am going to stick with it until the end.

Galavant – God, I love this show. I hope that we get more of it. I missed about half the episodes when they aired; catching them later on Hulu, but this show is still just delightful. It is lightweight, but it is also thoroughly enjoyable. I don’t really have very much to add, other than hope for a DVD release.

Always Sunny Season 10 – This show somehow keeps getting better and better. This season got really dark at times, in the best possible way. The stars have honed their characters into increasingly deranged collections of neuroses. They react to the situations they are put in in natural and hilarious and awful. That is pretty much this show in a nutshell: hilarious and awful. Just really great stuff.

The Spoils Before Dying – I really liked the sheer goofiness of The Spoils of Babylon and this follow up is more of the same. The same sort of overblown artiness and complete incompetence is on display, along with some wonderfully off performances. It is just so absurd and ridiculous. It can be a lot to take all at once, but it is mostly delightful. Some of Will Ferrell’s episode opening and closing rants by Eric Jonrush were misses, though. The good ones are some of the best parts of the show, but the others are sadly not funny or interesting.

Parks and Rec Season 7 – I thought the end of season 6 was a fitting ending to this show. While I wasn’t going to say no to more Parks and Rec, I really felt like the show had already gone out on a high note. Season 7, though, proved me wrong. This was the perfect ending to the show. It was a well-deserved victory lap for one of the best shows of this last decade. A show as consistently upbeat as this one needed an ending that was equally upbeat.

Super Hero TV Shows: With only a few weeks of shows, I don’t have much to say about the panoply of superhero shows currently airing. I will say that the Flash is still great; it feels like they are building some good stuff here. Supergirl is really coming into its own, with Martian Manhunter really being the perfect mentor and ally for Kara and Cat Grant is getting more focused. Agent Carter came back this year with some great episodes and Arrow has largely recovered from the scattered third season.

The Revenant Review

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My thoughts following watching The Revenant, a film directed by Alejandro G. Inarritu (Birdman) and starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hardy, was that it was an altogether excellent film and I hope never to see it again. Much like The Hateful Eight, The Revenant is a near three hour long western that is frequently brutal and often bleak.  Where the former film goes for stylized and exaggerated violence, The Revenant uses chilling realism to tell its story. It is singularly effective, gut wrenchingly hard to look away from and almost impossible to look at again once it is over.

It is based on the true story of Hugh Glass, a trapper working with the US Army who in 1820 gets mauled by a bear.  His companions drag him as far as they can, but in the end leave him in the care of a few men, including his son, who are supposed to watch him until he dies. After one of the men, Fitzgerald, kills his son and leaves Glass for dead, he treks across the wilds of Dakotas to get revenge.  Many of the details are have been altered, or changed outright, but the bear attack and trek through the wilderness are true to life.  I was warned beforehand that the bear mauling scene was brutal, and it is, but it is followed by numerous scenes that are equally hard to watch.  Glass goes through hell in his quest, and no one else gets off easy.  Each act of bloody violence compounds on the one before it, exhausting the viewer is its sheer ugly spectacle.

In sharp contrast to the ugly violence perpetrated by the men in this film is the incomparable beauty of the setting. Offsetting the scenes of blood in this film are vast panoramas that display the beauty of Northern Great Plains. It shows different sorts of fauna, along with the rivers, forests and mountains that awe viewers in between scenes full of blood and violence.  The two are so different it is almost as though they are from two different films.

DiCaprio has gotten a lot of attention for his performance, but equally striking is the performance of Hardy.  Hardy plays the villain that is almost comically in his complete lack of redeeming characteristics, but Hardy makes him seem real. Right from the start, when the Native Americans start attacking the trapping crew, he is more concerned with the pelts and his payday than getting anyone else out alive.  He follows that up with a racist speech, an attempted murder and several actual murders. There are shades of grey with everyone else, from Bridger, the young man convinced to leave Glass to die, to the Native Americans on the warpath looking for their Chiefs kidnapped daughter, but Hardy’s Fitzgerald is a monster.  

It all comes together into a film that is equal parts beautiful and ugly. For the most part it sticks to its simple story other than from some ill-advised detours into magical native mysticism.  I found the violence sickening, and it wore on me as the film went on.  The Revenant is a film that feels every minute of its long run time.  Still, it is an experience that shouldn’t be missed.  It is also an experience that maybe shouldn’t be repeated.

****

The Hateful Eight Review

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The Hateful Eight might be one of the meanest, darkest movies I’ve ever watched. Still, I would also call it one of the most enjoyable. Despite its overwhelming bleakness it is never difficult to watch. The Hateful Eight has a running time of very close to three hours, but you never feel a moment of that running time. The film is mesmerizing, disgusting and utterly entrancing.

Tarantino masterfully builds the bleakness of this film into every part. Starting with the beautiful landscape shots, showing snow covered mountains and forests barren of life, other than the stagecoach carrying some of movie’s travelers. The snow covers all life; nothing in this mountain wilderness is alive. Into this world is where our characters enter, with Samuel L Jackson’s Major Marquis Warren appears as if from nowhere, blocking the way of a stagecoach carrying bounty hunter John Ruth and his bounty Daisy. They are soon joined by another lost traveler, supposed Sheriff Chris Mannix. The four of them travel for some time, treating viewers to one of Tarantino’s trademark conversation scenes. Each one of these characters is horrible in their own way. Mannix is a former confederate raider, a man with who feels no shame about his racism. Daisy shows herself to be simply vile, being as awful as possible at every opportunity. The apparent heroes of the piece, Ruth and Warren, are only marginally better. Ruth quickly proves himself to be both violent and a fool. Warren is accused by Mannix of brutalities during the war, acts not confined to his enemies and he doesn’t even bother to deny the accusations. None of these are good people.

When they reach their stopping point, a small respite named Minnie’s Haberdashery; the other four appear, other travelers waiting out the coming blizzard but not the people they were expecting. Warren is suspicious and Ruth suspects at least one of them is there to free Daisy. This is when the film switches to it true story, which is a murder mystery with eight (it actually isn’t eight, I can’t think of a way to count those in the cabin that doesn’t equal nine) terrible people trapped in the same place, all distrustful of the others, each with secrets. They are violent people trapped in close proximity until violence erupts.

And things do get violent. As secrets are uncovered and violence is done, each character ends up looking worse and worse. Warren might be on the side of good, but his methods are anything but. He is the hero, but still manages to gloat over how much he loves to kill white people. Ruth may be admirable in many ways, but he is still a fool that when enraged beats a captive woman bloody. Daisy is awful enough that the audience cheered her beating. Still, by the end there is almost a bit of hope among all the blood and death. There is common ground found between two very different men. It maybe doesn’t matter, it isn’t likely to change their fate, but it is something.

Watching a Tarantino movie is something like seeing Rembrandt do superhero comics. It is an unquestioned master working in a medium that gets little respect. Tarantino can set a scene and build tension like no one else, but he works exclusively in the lowest, most pulpy of genres. I wouldn’t want him to change for anything. He gets great performance out of great actors; there really isn’t a weak link among them, though the best are Jennifer Jason Leigh as Daisy Domergue and Walton Goggins as Mannix. Who is to say that spaghetti westerns or martial arts revenge movies aren’t deserving of true masterpieces. That is what The Hateful Eight, like Django Unchained and Inglorious Basterds before it, is: a masterpiece.

*****

What I Watched in December 2015

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Movies

  • The Master – This is a case of a movie that is clearly excellent, but somehow I didn’t end up liking it.  Part of that is due to how good some of the performances are.  Joaquin Phoenix does an outstanding job, but his character is too convincing at being off-putting and uncomfortable.  He is hard to watch.  He is also the center of this film, Hoffman’s turn as the titular Master notwithstanding.  Having a character that makes everyone, the viewer included uncomfortable makes for a hard movie to watch. ****
  • Forgetting Sarah Marshall – This wasn’t anything outstanding, but it was a funny movie full of generally funny people.  I just think it hovered between trying to have some kind of real heart and being really funny, without committing fully to either idea.  The result is pleasantly enjoyable, but not outstanding.  ***
  • Punch Drunk Love – I started to watch The Ridiculous 6, but after a few excruciating minutes I switched over to this. I doubt any would call this Paul Thomas Anderson’s best film, but it is likely Sandler’s.  He plays a business owner, henpecked by his numerous elder sisters who occasionally have violent outbursts.  He meets a woman, finds a harmonium and makes a call to a phone sex line.  While his relationship with the woman deepens, he has to deal with blackmail attempts. It is a strange, off kilter romance that is highly enjoyable.  ****
  • In the Heart of the Sea – see review here.  **1/2
  • Star Wars: The Force Awakens – see review here.  ****1/2
  • Kill Me Three Times – This movie really wants to be some kind of Tarantino, or at least Guy Ritchie, crime movie, but it just isn’t that good.  That is not to say there is nothing to like in what is mostly a limp, mean effort.  Simon Pegg is clearly having a lot of fun playing the villain and the way everything twists around to everything together. Still, too much of it is just poorly explained.  It isn’t a good movie, but there is some enjoyment to be gleaned from it. **1/2
  • Mission Impossible Rogue Nation – Just as good on DVD as it was this summer.  It is certainly better than the limp Bond offering from this year. ****
  • Whisper of the Heart – A Ghibli movie that had slipped by me until my brother got it for Christmas.  This movie is amazing, a perfect expression of the yearning and dreams of childhood.  One of Ghibli’s best, and that is saying something.  *****
  • High Road to China – This is something of a bone thrown to Selleck after he was forced to pass on Raiders of the Lost Arc, and while it does have some superficial similarities to Indy’s first outing, it is something else entirely.  While it is an adventure movie, it is not much of an action movie.  It does feature some great biplane action, I guess.  I think it is telling that at the end it is not Selleck’s O’Malley that gets the triumph, but his love interest.  Still, it is a fine, unfairly forgotten film. ***1/2
  • Quigley Down Under – Tom Selleck plays a cowboy in Australia, first hired then hunted by Alan Rickman’s villain.  It is a well-done western that somewhat updates the formula, if only by setting it in Australia rather than actually in the west.  Rickman’s villain is a conscious lover of the west, but Quigley shows him that all his aping of cowboys doesn’t make him one.  It also allows the main character to call out the racism of the west without actually doing so.  It is not a great movie, but I would definitely call it a good one. ***1/2
  • Electric Boogaloo – I was not super knowledgeable about Cannon Films going in, but this documentary was great.  It perfectly shows what made them interesting even if it didn’t make their movies any good. They churn out schlock, desperate to make it in Hollywood.  Their occasional hits seem to be more the result of just how much they throw against the wall than any sort of plan, but they did have them.  Still, I think the film world was better off with them churning out schlock than without them.    ****

TV

  • Daredevil – As with Jessica Jones, there is a sense of diminishing returns with Daredevil.  There is a lot of really good show here, but I can’t help but think it would be better if it was ten episodes instead of thirteen.  I’m not sure Daredevil really uses its running time wisely, since despite all the buildup they had for the Kingpin, he falls rather easily.  The second half never touches the heights of the beginning, but it is never really bad.
  • Poirot S3 & 4 – I really like this show, even though it can be slow and dry.  They are well done adaptations of Christie’s stories, with little frills or flash.  Suchet does a great job as Poirot, and most of these are really good stories.  Solid is, I guess, the best way to describe this show.
  • Fargo S2 – This is the best show on Television, even with its all too frequent references to Coen Brothers films, not just Fargo.  This season jumps back to the early eighties, and has a hapless couple accidentally pitting a local crime family against a big one from KC.  It nails pretty much every character and story beat perfectly.  The show is just great.
  • Supergirl – There are still flashes of greatness here, especially Melissa Benoist in the lead role, but it still hasn’t managed to pull all of its various characters and setting into a cohesive whole.  It is getting closer, though, and the good has always outweighed the bad.  Hopefully the second half of the season brings it all together.
  • Flash & Arrow – I’m putting these two together because the big episodes for each in December were the crossover episodes.  And man, what a crossover that was.  The Flash still manages to delight at every turn, and Arrow has been much better this season that last.  I’m not sure how much I like Hawkman and Hawkgirl, but still, seeing both gangs together to fight Vandal Savage was great.

In the Heart of the Sea

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In a lot of ways, In the Heart of the Sea is a well-made, but it also sprawls in too many directions for any of it to really land.  The underlying quality of the craftsmanship still makes it thoroughly enjoyable, but it doesn’t quite stack up with Ron Howard’s better films.

In the Heart of the Sea starts with Herman Melville visiting the only remaining survivor of the Essex, a whaling ship that was lost in the Pacific Ocean.  That survivor, cabin boy Thomas Nickerson, then recounts the story of the Essex’s last fateful voyage.  It starts with Owen Chase, played by Chris Hemsworth, being passed over for a promised promotion to Captain for the son from an well-known whaling family.  That starts a rivalry for the more experiences Chase having to answer to the inexperienced and haughty captain.  The movie spends a lot of time setting up the two as rivals, and positions Chase as the man for viewers to root for, but as the movie goes on the whole rivalry angle is kind of lost.

Their voyage is not successful, starting with a near disaster with a storm and then months without seeing a whale.  The lack of success makes them desperate, so they venture into distant waters to find the whales and tragedy strikes.  A rogue whale rams the Essex, sinking it and leaving the crew on the whaling boats 2000 miles from land.  Now the movie shifts from to a survival tale.

Both halves of the movie are effective, but they don’t quite fit together cohesively.  For instance, when they land on a small island, which does not contain enough food or water to support them, Chase and second mate Matthew Joy reveal that they are close as brothers and he tearfully leaves him behind.  While they had showed some familiarity in the earlier parts of the film, that closeness was never mentioned until that point.  These sorts of little hiccups are all over the movie.

As an aside, I looked up the story of the Essex after seeing this movie, and I am confused about why some things were changed.  The basics are still the same, and I understand some changes to the family stuff back on shore, but other changes, which I won’t detail, are simply not as good as the truth.  I okay with some dramatic license, but why change things in a way that makes it less interesting?

Where the film succeeds is in its imagery.  This is a beautiful film.  Every shot is gorgeous.  The ship and its cramped inner working looks amazing. Then there are the incomparable shots of the Essex on the sea, with contrast between the sky and the murky depths of the ocean. It just looks amazing. There are also some very good performances by the cast, with Cillian Murphy being the obvious stand out.  To the film’s credit, it eventually gives a nuanced look at the power dynamics between the two leads.  Less successful are the cutaways to Melville and the elderly Nickerson, which seem only to detract from the parts people actually want to see.

In the Heart of the Sea is a good story told somewhat badly, but shot wonderfully.  Despite its subject matter, it is an easy movie to watch.  The sailing shots alone make this movie worth watching.  The rest isn’t really bad, but it feels like a lot of different stories haphazardly strapped together.  When things do come together, like in the whaling scenes, it is wonderful, but other times is just sort of muddles through. Still, it is worth watching.

**1/2

Top 10 Movies of 2015

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It was a good year for movies. It is usually pretty easy for me to pick a top ten, since I tend to manage about 15 new movies a year and dropping out the handful I didn’t like is pretty easy. This year there were only a few that I immediately dismissed from contention, Spectre and Fantastic Four. Choosing among the rest was somewhat difficult. Still, I am satisfied with this list. As far down as seven entries on this list are excellent films that I might have considered for the top spot in another year. It is a where the top three movies were new entries in movie series dating back to the 70’s. It is a not completely happy trend, but all three were great updates on old formulas.

10: The Peanuts Movie – There were a lot of movies I considered for this last spot, but I had to go with Peanuts. While it is likely the least ambitious of the movies I was considering, but it was also likely the most pleasant. That is not always a good thing, but there is something charming in The Peanuts Movie’s nostalgia. It is familiar, but still enjoyable.

9: Ant-Man – The formula for Marvel’s superhero movies has become all but impossible to notice, but it is no less effective. Ant-Man is a good execution of it, though I can’t help but yearn for Edgar Wright’s version. Still, what we got was perfectly enjoyable, even if it wasn’t quite as spectacular as some of the best Marvel films.

8: Furious 7 – Nothing tops Furious 7 in terms of pure nonsense spectacle, but the movie also had a surprising amount of heart. I don’t know that I would ever actually call this movie good, but it beats all the other pure spectacle films of the year, like Avengers Age of Ultron or Jurassic World.

7: Inside Out – This movie’s placement on this list was the most volatile. I never questioned putting it on the list, but where it fit on the list was very much in question. Here at 7 is the lowest it got, and I am tempted to movie it back up a few spots because this seems too low. Inside Out was Pixar being critically recognized as being back on top of their game (though I am of the opinion that their previous outings, Brave and Monsters University, were as good as any of their previous films) and it really is one of their best. It nails both being a fun movie for kids and a thoughtful movie for adults.

6: The Martian – Matt Damon is really excellent in this and the movie around him is just as good. It is basically Robinson Crusoe on Mars, and executed by Director Ridley Scott with skill. It is simply a fun, thoughtful movie.

5: The Man from UNCLE – This is my dark horse movie. I don’t think many people gave this movie a chance, because it was excellent, but did pretty poor at the box office. I can’t figure out why. It is slick and charming, with just enough action to make everything work. The middle action sequence, the boat chase, is maybe my favorite scene in any movie this year. This is just a pure fun movie.

4: Mission Impossible Rogue Nation – I don’t know that this one if quite as good as the previous MI movie, Ghost Protocol, but it is still an excellent spy movie. There is great chemistry among the stars, Cruise, Pegg, and Ferguson. Really, Rebecca Ferguson is the stand out performer here. I hope to see more of her. The rest of the movie is great as well, with several great set pieces and action sequences.

3: Star Wars the Force Awakens – This movie would probably top the list if it did just a little more new. As good as The Force Awakens is, it is just a little too beholden to what came before it. No one channels nostalgia like JJ Abrams, but this time he seemed to just a bit too reverent to the source material. Still, it was a great to watch a Star Wars movie that felt like a Star Wars movie.

2: Creed – Much like The Force Awakens, Creed also hews very closely to the series originator. In this case, though, it felt like the filmmakers did something new and had something new to say. It is wonderfully acted and directed. It is just a great movie.

1: Mad Max Fury Road – This was not even close. This is by far the best movie of the year. It is relentless and unforgettable. Hardy does some good work stepping into the Max role, but Charlize Theron is impossibly great as Imperator Furiosa. I loved every single second of it. It is just great. I could sit here forever raining superlatives on this film, but I’ll just stop and say that it is the best.

Star Wars The Force Awakens Review

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A decade after the last movie, more than thirty years after the last movie people actually liked, and a numbing amount of prerelease hype, a new Star Wars movie has hit theaters. For once, the wait was worth it.  The Force Awakens is an unqualified triumph and one of the best movies of the year.

Taking place thirty years after Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens opens with the stormtrooper of the First Order, which has replaced the Empire, massacring a small village on a desert planet.  It highlights the two central thrusts of the movie.  The first is the familiar.  During this scene, important information is stashed in a droid who is sent away to get help, just like at the start of Star Wars.  It also shows a stormtrooper react to the atrocities he and his allies commit.  That is what The Force Awakens does.  It frequently and intentionally alludes to or straight out copies scenes from the original trilogy, but combines it with fresh new character and concepts.

It really shines in bringing new heroes to the series.  Rey is this trilogy’s desert prodigy child, following in the footsteps of Anakin and Luke.  She is immediately charming and compelling.  Unlike Luke and his yearning for adventure and excitement, Rey has no desire to leave her home, not until the parents that abandoned her there come back to get her.  As she gets caught up in greater struggles than she knows, she becomes all the more interesting.  Then there is Fin, the one time stormtrooper who is rebelling against his training.  He is awkward and jumpy and ultimately relatable.  The third member of the triumvirate is Poe, a hotshot pilot who is all charm and confidence.  In some ways the three are simply a rearranging of the trio of Luke, Han and Leia, but they all feel fresh and interesting.  Taking the place of Darth Vader, both and the villain and literally in character, is Kylo Ren, a failed Jedi student who consciously apes the famous bad guy.  This deliberate mixture of old and new occasionally leans a little to hard on the old.  As much fun as it is to see Han, Chewie, and the Falcon, the stronger parts of the film are the parts that are moving forward, not looking back. In this movie, Han is passing the baton, not taking center stage.

The Force Awakens brings back a sense of momentum and adventure to the series.  It is a propulsive film, sometimes to its own detriment.  At all times the movie feels the need to keep the action up.  That is a big improvement over the flat dialogue and a turgid romance of the prequels, but it has its own drawback.  The movie never takes the time to let the character breathe; there are few scenes like Luke at home with his Aunt and Uncle or his first training on the Falcon.  Even when they are there, they feel truncated.  That is less a fault of this movie and more a commentary on the current state of blockbuster movies.

If there is one thing I do not like about The Force Awakens, it is the narrative that has sprung up around it, that the fans have come to fix what Lucas put wrong. The prequels, and to a lesser extent the special editions, have long been a target for supremely nerdy hate.  I am not going to try to defend them, other than to say that they are in no way bad enough to deserve such vocal hate, but this attitude about them and their relationship to TFA is disappointing.  The idea that TFA is what the prequels should have been, but George Lucas was unable to see it rings false.  For all that TFA does well, it highlights the prequels strengths.  Those movies, for all their faults, had a sense of newness about them.  They weren’t the same hero’s journey of the originals, but a broken form of that.  The special effects, which have not aged well, were on the cutting edge.  The Force Awakens lacks that feeling of newness. There is a sense of a return, that things are back they way they should be, but I perversely yearn for those unknown territories.

Still, Star Wars The Force Awakens is a triumph.  It may hew a little too close to its predecessors, with a few too many direct references, but otherwise it is astounding.  While the old favorites are used as a selling point, the new blood is what is going to keep me coming back.  Rey, Fin and Poe are characters I can’t wait to learn more about.  Kylo Ren, for all his intentional aping of Darth Vader, is an original villain, more pathetic and pitiable than scary.  He is still highly dangerous, but he feels more like a teenager throwing a tantrum and less like a powerful force of evil.  Star Wars The Force Awakens lives up to the legacy of its predecessors.  It is a terrific continuation of the saga that is hopefully one glance backwards before moving on to the new.

Creed Review

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creed

The Rocky movie series has already undergone several metamorphoses.  It started as a relatively grounded movie about a down on his luck boxer before morphing into that same boxer’s larger than life tales as the World Champion and then cratering into whatever the hell Rocky V was supposed to be and finally becoming the mournful dirge of Rocky Balboa, with its ruminations on loss and life.   All of the movies, save V, have something to offer.  And presented over the Creed represents in some ways the biggest departure for the series, but is actually more like the original than any film that followed it. The biggest change with Creed is right in the title.  This is not a movie about Rocky Balboa, as all the previous films have been, but a movie with Rocky Balboa.  It uses the history and characters of the series as its structure, but it turns the whole thing into a cycle.

At the risk of spoiling the whole thing, Creed is built on a more than similar framework to Rocky. For large parts it is beat for beat identical, the biggest difference being that starting situations of the two title characters. Adonis grew up with his father’s wife, notable not his mom, in relative luxury instead of Rocky’s rather impoverished roots. Still, the story hits a lot of the same beats, though it does it with style and emotion. It is a sports movie, viewers will know the formula, but Creed executes it nearly perfectly.

It works because it nails the psychology of is characters. Adonis feels like something of an imposter, growing up in the shadow of a father he never met. His forays into boxing are both about proving that he belongs and a way to connect with that father. Rocky, meanwhile, has all but given up. He is still the charming guy he has been for six movies, but his friends are all gone and even his son has moved away. He is an old man that doesn’t feel he has a lot to live for.

Creed works on its own merit. Knowing who Rocky is previously isn’t necessary. There is little here that isn’t explained in the film itself. However, the previous six Rocky movies work form a lot of context that helps speed things along. Knowing who Adrian was isn’t necessary, the movie makes it clear she is Rocky’s deceased wife, but having watched her in previous Rocky movies makes the scene of Rocky sitting in the cemetery reading the paper to her grave all the more effecting. It is very satisfying to see Rocky move on from the ring and fully become Mick. He is now the one telling the youngster that women weaken legs. Everything has come full circle.

If there is one flaw to this movie, other than its predictability, it is that they again used a real boxer for Creed’s eventual opponent. It is not that Tony Bellow did a bad job as desperate champion Ricky Conlan, but the filmmakers were wise enough not to rely on his performance outside of boxing. Instead, the always delightful Graham McTavish does most of the work for the opposite corner. A big part of the appeal of Rocky was the in how appealing Creed was as an opponent. Carl Weathers was a perfectly charming Ali-type champion for the lower key Rocky to work against. Bellow doesn’t really provide that. Also, by having a real boxer as the opponent creates a visual mismatch with them in the ring. Michael B Jordan as Adonis has very showy muscles, Bellow doesn’t. It is a little distracting.

The formula that produced the first Rocky is a good one, and Creed recreates it almost perfectly. There are just enough new touches to keep things interesting, even if they never stop being predictable. You may know the beats as the come, but when they are hit with as much skill as they are here you can’t help but be moved. Creed is an excellent movie, one that stands with the first Rocky in the pantheon of great sports movies.

****1/2


What I Watched in November ‘15

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Movies

Spectre – review here. **

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – I queued this up right after finishing the book.  It is a tense and understated spy movie, with the focus being more on the psychological battles instead of action scenes.  It is well acted and completely engrossing.   ****

The Peanuts Movie – review here.  ***½

King Kong – I love Peter Jackson’s King Kong.  It is long and it has some really terrible effects shots, but there are just so many great scenes that I can’t help but love it. I love Jack Black’s slimy Carl Denham and Kong himself. Denham just can’t help but be the worst person, you never get the feeling that he is lying to anyone more than he lies to himself. ****

The World is Not Enough – The action scenes are really rough, but this is the sort of Bond movie I enjoy, warts and all.  It is nothing to write home about, but it is certainly entertaining.  ***

The Man from UNCLE – I really enjoyed this, so I bought the DVD. It holds up to repeat viewings.  ****

Dinner for Schmucks – This movie gets by on some really funny leads in Rudd and Carrell, but it is still either too mean spirited or not mean spirited enough to really fly.  Because it has just enough of a cruel streak to be uncomfortable but not enough to go all the way. Still, there are a lot of really funny moments and characters.   ***

The Cobbler – I had heard this movie was bad, but I wasn’t really prepared when I watched it.  It starts fine, despite Sandler being a complete nonentity in the title role, but as soon as it establishes its concept, that when Sandler’s character Max puts on the shoes he’s repaired he becomes that person, it veers off into crazy town.  Really, little once he starts changing to movie is just unbelievably bad. What Max does with his powers tends to the inexplicable, moving from one laugh-less adventure to the next with little rhyme or reason until it gets to the even more ludicrous conclusion. *

Mad Max Fury Road – My family in for Thanksgiving hadn’t seen it, so we watched it.  Still the best movie of the year.  *****

Creed – review coming soon. ****½

Rocky 2 – It is Rocky 1 again, only this time not quite as good.  Still, it is highly entertaining.  ***1/2

Rocky 3 – This is the movie that turns Rocky from character drama with boxing to cartoons about boxing.  Still, it is a super fun cartoon.  ****

Rocky 4 – This one goes further down the road to crazy town, but doesn’t stop being super entertaining.  ***1/2

TV

Supergirl – I won’t deny that the show is experiencing some growing pains.  Its seems to be spreading its characterization around a bit too thinly, with no one but Kara and maybe Jimmy Olsen getting enough development to be memorable.  Still, the good parts of the show have been really good.  I think it has the potential to be as good as The Flash, but it’s not quite there yet.

The Flash – This is still the best superhero show.  On TV or anywhere.  Still, this season has not been quite as smooth as the first one.  It is spending a little too much time setting up pieces for the upcoming Legends of Tomorrow, but the rest of it still coming along nicely.  Plus, it just did a Gorilla Grodd episode that set up Gorilla City.

Arrow – Still not as entertaining as its little brother, but the show seems to be more focused than last season.  It also has a somewhat lighter tone, which works better for what this show has become four seasons in.  The show just feels really comfortable right now.

Jessica Jones – I plan to have a full write up on this show coming soon, but for now I’ll just say that is it very good.  It gets dark, occasionally stupidly so, but it is largely well acted and written.  Most of the attention had been paid to David Tennant’s villain, for a good reason, but just as strong was the central relationship between Jessica and her best friend/adoptive sister Trish.  That is the real emotional heart of the show and it works flawlessly.

Master of None – I’ve loved Aziz since first seeing him on Parks and Recreation, and then seeing his stand up.  This show it just short of a masterwork.  It manages to be really funny and really heartfelt at the same time.  Many of the situations Aziz’s Dev finds himself in are ridiculous, but the larger problems he deals with, like relating to his parents or weighing the choice of becoming a parent, are real.  Any show that can be this real and this funny is something to be treasured.