Forcing Humor Undermines Thor: Ragnarok

The Good: Hela and Heimdall have interesting arcs, One or two performance moments
The Bad: Forced humor, Simplistic plot, Obvious plot reversals, Light on character development, Special effects are surprisingly mediocre
The Basics: Thor: Ragnarok takes a surprisingly serious premise for a fantasy/action movie and undermines almost all of it with forced attempts at humor that often fall flat.


There is no real purpose in an American reviewer reviewing a Marvel Cinematic Universe film anymore. By the time a Marvel Studios film is released in the United States, it has been out in theaters in other countries for at least two weeks and die-hard fans who want spoilers have a tendency to look up the foreign press reviews while American reviewers are embargoed from publishing their reviews. So, when Thor: Ragnarok was released in theaters in the United States, I did not rush right out to see it. Instead, I waited for the first surge crowd to dissipate and then I saw the film a few days later. All of this in spite of me being generally psyched about Thor: Ragnarok from the latest preview trailers.

It was not long into Thor: Ragnarok, though, that I became certain that the best moments of the film had been put into the film's trailer. The big reveal of the Hulk was certainly gutted by the preview trailers, but what surprised me most was how much of the film's sense of menace was undermined by the near-constant attempts at humor. Ironically, the film's funniest moment was virtually buried by the reaction to the joke prior to it (in the full theater I was in, I found myself as the only one laughing when Tom Hiddleston's reaction shot - which was, admittedly, entirely dependent upon viewer's seeing The Avengers - at a key moment was focused on for too brief a moment after one of Chris Hemsworth's well-spoiled lines).

Thor: Ragnarok is a conceptual failure and one suspects after the hype for the film dies down, more and more fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be able to admit that the film is a painfully forced bridge movie. Despite the constant menace to Asgard, most of Thor: Ragnarok is actually about reconciling the final moments of Thor: The Dark World (reviewed here!) and re-integrating The Hulk and Thor into the narrative after the events of The Avengers: Age Of Ultron (reviewed here!). And to accomplish those rather simple goals, Thor meanders through his own film making dull jokes while the compelling original elements of Thor: Ragnarok are largely neglected.

The concept of Ragnarok is the end of the world, which in Thor: Ragnarok is supposed to come in the form of Surtur. So, in one of the few remarkably sensible plot points for Thor: Ragnarok, the first thing Thor does is kill Surtur and steal his magical helm so he cannot fulfill the prophecy of Ragnarok and destroy Asgard. Unfortunately, the menace of Ragnarok hangs over Asgard, but is quickly swept aside by a bevy of jokes that fall flat.

Thor, who had figured out how to prevent the prophesied end of Asgard had also already figured out that Odin had been replaced by Loki. But, alas, the big emotional moment of Thor somehow realizing that Loki is both still alive and has weakened Asgard's place in the Nine Realms through his decadence is not actually in Thor: Ragnarok. Thor and Loki take a brief trip to Earth where they search for Odin who promptly dies (or dies enough so that Asgard is now helpless).

And helpless Asgard is to the first-born of Odin, Hela: the Godess Of Death. Hela makes an excellent entrance, announcing herself to Thor and Loki and enlisting arguably the worst, most dimwitted d-rate sidekick villain of all time in the form of Scourge (poor Karl Urban!). Hela then immediately begins a campaign to take over Asgard and at this point, Thor: Ragnarok makes its fatal narrative divergence. Hela inadvertently knocks Thor and Loki out of Asgard by shoving them out of the Einstein-Rosenberg Bridge teleport. When that happens, Thor and Loki go on a grand comedic adventure and Hela and Heimdall are left holding the bag on the vastly more interesting and compelling Ragnarok plot.

Hela is an instantly intriguing villain and Cate Blanchett does the best she can with the material she is given for the firstborn of Odin. Hela reveals that Odin built Asgard on genocide and conquest, with Hela herself as Odin's executioner. The idea that something grand had some truly sinister origins is a distinctly American idea, yet the U.S. gets Thor: Ragnarok after most of the rest of the world. And in Thor: Ragnarok, the horror of how Odin built his empire is not given time within the narrative for reflection or emotional consequences for the characters. Instead, when Thor gets around to trying to stop Hela, he does so without any reflection on how his father betrayed him by not telling him the truth and/or making a philosophical argument to Hela that Odin evolved beyond his need for violence and conquest. Sadly, Thor: Ragnarok is all fisticuffs and little philosophy, which is truly disappointing because the inherent conflict between Hela and Heimdall is a compelling one.

Heimdall spends Thor: Ragnarok as a fugitive. He creates an underground railroad intended to save as many of the Asgardians as he possibly can from being murdered by Hela and her army of the undead. Heimdall does what he can to avoid direct conflict with Hela - despite the fact that the Asgardians are being hunted because of him and his theft of the sword that unlocks the bifrost - and instead concerns himself with actually trying to save Asgard. Heimdall is, easily, the smartest character in Thor: Ragnarok as he attempts to get people out of the way of the Goddess Of Death as opposed to *snicker* trying to find a way to kill her.

Seriously, when Thor comes back to Asgard and starts hacking and stabbing at Hela, the sequence is about as ridiculous as Wonder Woman trying to subdue the god of war by fighting him physically in Wonder Woman (reviewed here!). The Goddess Of Death cannot, logically, be killed by . . . well, death. Death empowers the Goddess Of Death; her demise would have to come from a nontraditional means, much like the only way to defeat a God Of War would be through creating a lasting peace.

So, while Thor: Ragnarok has the seeds of a great, truly epic, story of the destruction of Asgard and the attempt to save its people, Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost and Taika Waititi instead send Thor and Loki into a comedic adventure on an alien world where they are reunited with the Hulk, meet the last surviving Valyrie (which is an elite fighting order, not an individual character) and meander their way back to Asgard. In the previous Thor films, the humor worked by contrast. Thor encountered humans who had very different views on the world compared to the arrogant God and humor resulted. In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor just runs around making jokes. And he plays them off an often humorless Loki and Bruce Banner, arguably the least funny character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

By the time Thor gets around to trying to interface with the true menace of Ragnarok on Asgard, Thor is a buffoon who is impossible to empathize with who hardly seems up to the task of fighting for his homeland. And given that Thor has lost his hammer and been granted super lightning powers by the time he has to take on Hela, the character the viewer has seen for four prior films is virtually unrecognizable.

For other Marvel Cinematic Universe works, please check out my reviews of:
"Havoc In The Hidden Land" - Inhumans
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 4
Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase 1 - Avengers Assemble

4/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

The Next Great Fantasy World Is China?! The Great Wall

The Good: Special effects, Good performances, Interesting characters
The Bad: Very simple plot
The Basics: The Great Wall is a visually-engaging film that is very simple.


With the popularity of Game Of Thrones on HBO and the end of the marketable Middle Earth books, moviegoers are looking for the next big mythical world to emotionally invest in. The Great Wall implicitly makes the argument that ancient China is a setting worth exploring. The Great Wall blends history and mythology, character and special effects to create a story of heroism that is likely to appeal to those who love fantasy.

The Great Wall is not as sprawling or complicated as Warcraft (reviewed here!) and in some ways that makes it much more accessible. Despite the flash and physical scope of the film, The Great Wall is essentially a simple siege story with a very basic morality aspect thrown in. The lack of complexity does not make The Great Wall bad, though, but it is easy to get swept away by the armor and sprawling mountains and come to believe the film is bigger than it actually is.

Opening with the disclaimer that this is one of the legends of the Great Wall, William Garin is being chased on horseback through the desert with his comrades and are only able to evade their pursuers through luck and cunning. Garin and his team of six men (down by twenty from when the expedition began) are searching for gunpowder, which they have only heard of as rumor and at night, their camp is attacked by something they do not recognize and only see clearly in the amputated limb one leaves behind. Garin and Pero Tovar survive the fight with the creature and are scouting when they are attacked again by riders. They are corralled to the Great Wall, where military forces are defending China. After being interrogated by Lin Mei, a general who speaks English thanks to the tutelage of Sir Ballard, they are imprisoned and brought to the top of the Great Wall.

There, they witness an attack on the Wall by massive reptiles. Freed from their bonds during the fight, Garin and Tovar take down a couple of the creatures and earn the begrudging respect of Lin Mei. The Westerners learn of the Taotie, whose queen breeds an army that attacks every sixty years and whose legions now threaten the capital city. With its population, the military leaders believe that the Queen Taotie will be able to breed enough soldiers to cover the entire Earth, wiping out humanity. After a nighttime attack kills the leader of the army, Lin Mei is promoted and she agrees to try Garin's idea, which is to capture a Taotie to find the creatures' weaknesses. While the military captures a Taotie soldier, Sir Ballard and Tovar flee the Great Wall with a supply of "black powder." Despite immediately mistrusting Garin, Lin Mei is convinced that his desire to stay and fight the Taotie is legitimate. Together, Lin Mei and William Garin mount a daring expedition to find the queen and kill her to eliminate the threat the Taotie represent to Earth!'

The Great Wall very quickly sets up obvious dialectics. William Garin is a mercenary, while Lin Mei fights for the common good of her people; Garin distrusts everyone, Lin Mei survives because she can trust her soldiers and they trust her. Even the adversaries are set up as part of a very simple conflict; the emperor is using his army to protect China and the world; the Taotie Queen is an invader who fell from the sky and threatens to overwhelm the world with her mindless drones.

The plot of The Great Wall is similarly simple. The warriors must repel the Taotie in order to save the kingdom. William Garin and Pero Tovar must choose to join their fight or steal the black powder and flee the Wall with it. So, it is somewhat unsurprising that the film offers both options; Garin takes the high road, Tovar chooses avarice. Thematically, there is something very unsatisfying about the film's resolution, but in general terms, the dialectics are well-established and decently executed.

The characters in The Great Wall play out like very simple archetypes, but they are well-performed by Matt Damon (Garin), Tian Jing (Lin Mei), and Pedro Pascal (Pero Tovar). It is weird seeing Willem Dafoe in such a monolithic supporting role as he is in The Great Wall, where he plays Sir Ballard, but he makes the most of it. Tian Jing dominates the screen as Lin Mei; she plays the military leader with a precision and control of her body language and tone that make it entirely believable that she could rise to such a position of power. Damon is good as Garin, but he takes a back seat to Jing in every scene they share; he plays the mercenary fine (albeit without the charisma of, say, Han Solo), but she plays the military leader masterfully.

The effects in The Great Wall are good. I found the waves of Taotie attacking to get a bit repetitive-feeling, but they are well-rendered. Between the realistic rendition of the Taotie and the brightly colored armor for the various divisions within the army, The Great Wall looks wonderful.

The Great Wall is a stylish-looking film that makes a simple story seem exceptional and that makes for enjoyable, if not objectively incredible, movie.

For other movies currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
War On Everyone
Underworld: Blood Wars
La La Land
Passengers
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Surviving Space: The Martian Balances Practical Science And Entertainment Shockingly Well!

The Good: Decent performances, Interesting characters, Good pacing for the relative lack of plot
The Bad: Glossed-over characters/initial pacing seems very fast
The Basics: The Martian does what several of the recent science fiction space exploration films have failed to do in creating a plausible narrative that remains entertaining.


Whatever NASA is currently spending on advertising - if it even has an advertising budget at this point - it might as well reroute that money. Hollywood films are produced with a much more significant budget and between Gravity (reviewed here!), Interstellar (reviewed here!) and now The Martian, the enthusiasm for practical space travel seems to be the highest it has been in years. Despite all of the initial hype for Gravity and the fantastic elements that made Interstellar a box-office hit, the superior film of the three is The Martian.

I was drawn to The Martian based on the strength of director Ridley Scott's prior science fiction work, Prometheus (reviewed here!) and I was somewhat surprised that my appreciation of that film did not get me excited about any of Scott's projects in between. I was pretty psyched to go into The Martian without any knowledge about the film outside the tagline on the movie poster and the fact that Matt Damon was the lead in it. That led me to the rare pleasant surprise of a survival film whose ending was not immediately apparent the moment the initial concept of the film was revealed.

Eighteen days into the Ares III exploration of Mars, NASA suddenly detects a storm that will sweep over the mission's landing site. The crew of the lander is notified minutes before the storm hits and they evacuate the land station for the lander. In the process of struggling through the storm, astronaut and mission botanist Mark Watney is impaled by a transmitter antenna and blown back. Mission Commander Melissa Lewis opts to save the remaining crewmembers by lifting off after trying everything they can to search for him in the space of a minute. The rocket lifts off and the next morning, Watney wakes up to his suit's oxygen alarm going off. He makes it back to the shelter, removes the metal that pierced him and his suit and he resolves to survive for the four years needed before the next manned mission to Mars arrives. He builds a greenhouse, creates a water supply, and plants potatoes.

On Earth, NASA's director Teddy Sanders declares Mark dead and the director of the Ares project, Vincent Kapor starts to look ahead on funding the subsequent missions to Mars. When Mindy Park at the satellite station on Earth notices movement at the Ares III landing site, Kapor and Sanders work to control the narrative and figure out how they may best help Watney out. Sanders remains adamant that the crew of the Ares III not be told Watney is alive (as they are not equipped to mount a rescue mission and NASA does not want to risk losing them in such an attempt). Months in, though, Watney tries to figure out how to get to the Ares IV landing site (some 3500 kilometers away) and how to communicate with Earth (which he does by scavenging the old Pathfinder probe. But as NASA prepares to drop supplies to Watney, the airlock to the greenhouse blows off and Watney's chances of surviving until supplies can arrive plummet. When Chinese scientists step in to assist with the problem of resupplying Watney, the mission has the potential to change and everyone involved is faced with critical choices.

The Martian is a geek's dream for a practical space film that also manages to be entertaining. Until very late in the film, the practical problems are practically addressed. Unlike Gravity which relied a great deal on spectacle, The Martian features scientists who are utilizing mathematics and science to solve problems. The Martian has spectacle, but it is minimized in favor of quiet moments, references to budget problems, and a surprising amount of time where Matt Damon's Mark Whatney talks to himself.

What The Martian does exceptionally well is balance the story of Watney on Mars with the rescue attempts being made by the people on Earth. Initially, Watney's story seems ridiculously simple. He finds himself abandoned on Mars with all of the supplies he actually needs and the moment he sees the first potato plant growing, it's hard to feel a sense of urgency about him being lost in space. In fact, the two biggest plot issues seem to be with the set-up and the solution.

Mark Watney gets left behind on Mars in a very reasonable way. The mission commander makes a tough call and opts to save five lives over prolonging the search for Watney. The storm that causes the initial conflict is incredibly severe and seems to come out of nowhere, such that the team barely makes it from the habitat to the lander ship. That's a tough conceit to buy right off that bat; that NASA either so blunders the weather models or that the Mars team doesn't have weather monitoring instruments of their own forces the film's premise. As well, the moment Watney is discovered alive on Mars, the question becomes how to help him survive or rescue him, which is reasonable. While one might expect a film to not have to address all contingencies, in a film as science-laden as The Martian, it seems odd that no one on screen pitches that Ares IV would come with a more advanced rover to pick Watney up at the Ares III site. Unburdened by the thoughts of how to move himself to the Ares IV site, Watney could have been more cautious and, perhaps, done some things like focus on building a secondary greenhouse to double down on his survival chances.

All that said, The Martian is otherwise gripping. Matt Damon does an excellent job of playing an astronaut who retains his humanity and wry sense of humor in the face of exceptional odds against his very survival. It takes a pretty impressive performer to carry a film on one's own, but Damon pulls it off. Every minute one spends watching Watney try to figure out how to survive is gripping.

Watney's story is balanced - mostly effectively - by the NASA storyline where Teddy Sanders basically acts like the average Star Trek captain and forces engineers to do things faster than they are comfortable and with a seemingly unlimited budget (budget problems are referenced, but what the film lacks is a single, key scene with the American President where Sanders bluntly states that he does not want to be the President who let an American astronaut die in space out of respect for budgetary concerns). Jeff Daniels plays Sanders with credibility, as Chiwetel Ejiofor does as Vincent Kapoor. Kristen Wiig is entirely underused, as are the talents of most of the crew of the Ares III mission. And there is something unsettling, these days, about watching a film where Sean Bean plays a character that has every reason to be expected to survive the film.

Ultimately, with minimal flare, Ridley Scott paints a picture of what space exploration looks like when smart people work together to survive a very basic problem with finite resources. And Scott and Damon make it entirely watchable and entertaining.

For other films featuring Chiwetel Ejiofor, be sure to see my reviews of:
Doctor Strange
12 Years A Slave
Salt
2012
Children Of Men
Serenity
Four Brothers
Love Actually

8.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Hardly An Epic, Sadly Unincredible, Why Interstellar Is Not All It Should Have Been. . .

The Good: Decent plot, Adequate acting, Moments of character, Metaphysics
The Bad: Not stellar on the character or performance fronts, Huge detail problem that is never addressed
The Basics: (Mostly) Well-constructed, Interstellar is still deeply unsatisfying.


Coming into Oscar Pandering Season, indeed for most of the year, it is easy to say that the film I was most anticipating was Interstellar. I have largely enjoyed the works of Christopher Nolan and I am a fan of Anne Hathaway. Eager for her biggest film since Les Miserables (reviewed here!), I spent the day on a splurge: I went downstate to see Anne Hathaway in IMAX. I was excited to spend the day out and splurge seeing Interstellar in IMAX [Rant #1 – Hey, you, jackasses at the Warner Brothers advertising department! If you’re going to make the claim that “This film will be released two days early in IMAX” live up to your promise! There were no IMAX showings of Interstellar in Michigan on November 5, but your commercials sure made it here! Grumble!]. I otherwise went into Interstellar virtually blind; I managed to avoid spoilers, reviews and previews.  So, having made a day of it . . .

. . . it is hard to discuss my level of disappointment now. I know the moment the film was done that I enjoyed it more than I did Gravity (reviewed here!). But, when I went to assign a number rating on Interstellar, I had to go back to my literal, strict, formula for rating and Gravity, it turns out has a half point on Interstellar by the numbers! My wife asked me before if it was the worst Christopher Nolan film and I said, “No,” thinking that I liked Interstellar more than The Prestige (reviewed here!). While this might be an implicit argument that sometimes films get rated higher based on a first viewing (The Dark Knight Rises, I am most certainly looking at you!), my gut tells me that Interstellar is suffering in the opposite direction . . . and yet . . . and yet. There is much to recommend Interstellar, but there are some gaping holes in the science and science fiction of the film. As a result, I have decided that the best way for me to approach reviewing Interstellar is with a fractured review; the top half will have the spoiler-free critique (Jessica Chastain had a much bigger role than Anne Hathaway, the visual effects were not actually all that spectacular, etc.) and then a more thorough analysis of the problems with Interstellar (which is impossible to do without some spoilers). There will be a clear delineation.

Set in a nebulous future where blight has killed off many major crops and made farmers more important to Earth than engineers and astronauts (not to mention military powers), Cooper is a farmer who was once, briefly, a pilot. Living in the new dust bowl, Cooper farms corn and raises his son – Tom - and daughter, Murph, because humanity has turned so against science and medicine that MRIs no longer exist to find things like cancerous tumors in time to save the life of Cooper’s wife. Murph is a bit of a troublemaker at school and refuses to believe things like the Apollo missions were just government productions devised to bleed the Soviet Union financially dry and she is convinced she has a ghost in her room because books keep falling down. After a particularly violent dust storm floods Murph’s room with dust and dirt, Cooper becomes convinced that there is something going on in Murph’s room; the dust lands along specific lines of gravity and from those lines, Cooper discerns a simple binary message. Something is giving Cooper and Murph coordinates and Cooper (unwittingly taking Murph with him) makes a journey to find what is at those coordinates.

What they find is an old NORAD facility, which has been secretly used by NASA, which has existed in secret long after the public thought it was gone. Cooper meets Amelia Brand, who shows him the truth: in the years to come, the Blight will adapt to corn and the Earth will be unable to feeds its people and NASA is working on an ambitious project to evacuate the population or repopulate a distant planet with humans using embryonic genetic material. Cooper is reunited with Dr. Brand, whom he knew from his past days in NASA, and he meets Doyle and Romilly, along with the robots TARS and CASE, who are intended to go on a mission through a wormhole that appeared 48 years prior out near Saturn. Cooper learness that their mission would be the second endeavor through the wormhole; a decade ago, the Lazarus Project under Dr. Edmund went through the wormhole and sent twelve pods out to nearby planets to try to find a habitable one. Despite Murph being furious at Cooper for going, Cooper joins the mission as the pilot, leaving behind a watch for Murph and hoping to return by the time she is his age.

The crew of the Endurance goes to sleep for two years and wakes up when the ship reaches Saturn and the wormhole there. Cooper pilots the Endurance through the wormhole – in which Brand has a close encounter of sorts – and arriving near the black hole (Gargantua) in a far away galaxy, the crew discovers that three of the twelve probes give them reason to hope. The crew heads right away to Miller’s planet, where the orbit of the planet has such a relativistic distortion that an hour on the planet is equivalent to seven years outside the distortion field! Trying to track down Miller turns disastrous, though; her planet is all-water and while the lander finds her wreckage, they lose Doyle and are delayed while the engines drain of water. Returning to space, Brand and Cooper learn from Romilly that twenty-two years have passed. While he has managed to learn all he can about gravity from the nearby black hole, the years have drained most of the Endurance’s power and now the Endurance has only enough fuel to investigate one of the two remaining close planets. When Cooper exposes Brand’s determination to go to Edmund’s planet as a result of her love for him, he makes the choice to take the ship to Mann’s planet. During that time, Cooper finally starts getting messages from Murph, who has begun working with Dr. Brand on the project to get a worldship off the ground. As the years go by, Murph struggles to keep hope up for saving humanity. Hope is in short supply, though, when Dr. Mann’s optimistic appraisal of the planet he has been marooned on for decades turns out to be way too good to be true and Dr. Brand delivers a deathbed confession to Murph that causes her to question the whole nature of the mission her father is on.

Throughout Interstellar, the lingering question is who They are. They are the people who sent Murph and Cooper a message in the dust by manipulating gravity, They are the ones who created the artificial wormhole and other gravity anomalies, They seem to want humanity to survive, but They do not communicate directly with humanity. Unfortunately, the narrative technique of Interstellar makes this answer troublingly obvious – more about that in the spoilerific section below the rating! For no particular reason that makes much sense, Interstellar opens with elderly people discussing their childhood in the time period that the film begins in. While this is wonderful for creating a sense of time and place – they put plates on the table flipped over because of all the dust – it telegraphs the largest possible arc of the movie in a disappointing way. From almost the first frames of Interstellar, writers Jonathan and Christopher Nolan seem to be obsessed with saying, “Don’t worry, humanity will survive!”

Ultimately, though, that is at the root of the problems with Interstellar; the film tries to make mysteries and then completely lets down the audience with the payoffs to them. The film is riddled with inconsistencies much larger than Murph’s disappearing necklace between a p.o.v. shot change; the audience is meant to feel a sense of peril, but there is no larger sense of jeopardy because we already know humanity lives on. Similarly, Cooper opens the film as a scientist of such strength and conviction that it gave me hope that should Matthew McConaughey win any awards for his portrayal of Cooper in Interstellar, he could not reasonably waste time thanking the Divine in his acceptance speech. But for all of the rigid science of Cooper’s views, much of Interstellar is about faith. Anne Hathaway’s Amelia has her most impassioned speech of the film about the power of love; Murph is an educated scientist whose devotion to the cause borders on the fanatical in the absence of any reasonable reinforcement for decades!

This is not a complaint about the final act’s metaphysical nature. In fact, I enjoyed that. After a very literal film about the perils of space travel, Interstellar evolves and goes into cerebral territory much akin to 2001: A Space Odyssey. I have no problem with cerebral science fiction; indeed, I enjoyed Love (reviewed here!) more than most and more than I did Interstellar. But for a film that is supposed to be about human resilience and hope in the face of potential extinction, Interstellar really cheaps out with a faith angle that is not at all scientific.

On the performance front, Interstellar is adequate. Some of the casting is a little weird; Mackenzie Foy looks like a pre-teen version of Anne Hathaway, yet her character Murph grows up to be played by Jessica Chastain and then Ellen Burstyn, so there’s really no clear evolution in how her body changes throughout her life cycle! That said, all three actresses make incredible use of their time on screen – Foy especially is a scene stealer. Jessica Chastain has a powerfully substantive role in Interstellar and what is perhaps most impressive about her performance is how she sells some of the most ridiculous leaps a scientist could make as plausible. For plot purposes, Murph realizes something impossibly obscure and Chastain acts around the improbability remarkably well.

Interstellar has an impressive supporting cast, led by Anne Hathaway. Hathaway is given remarkably little to do; her character of Amelia seems cold initially and Hathaway has to play the part with a bad-enough poker face for Cooper to realize that Amelia has an attachment to Edmund and she does that. But Hathaway has only one big scene in Interstellar where she is otherwise given enough space to act and give her character any dimension. Ironically, Matt Damon’s character of Dr. Mann is in Interstellar for far less time, but he is given more to do with greater range. Damon is able to evolve Mann from good-natured and grateful to unsettling and unhinged, with careful gradations in his behaviors! Wes Bentley, Michael Caine, Topher Grace, Casey Affleck, John Lithgow and David Gyasi (wow, Interstellar sure is a sausage fest – are all the women in this bleak future out farming, too?!) all have moments that make their characters watchable and/or interesting. But no one in the film really shines and makes the viewer think “wow, that’s an amazing performance!”

That includes Matthey McConaughey as Cooper. McConaughy plays Cooper as a reluctant leader who is determined to juggle two potentially opposite things; save the Earth and get back to Earth before his daughter dies! McConaughey is good for the film’s physical moments and he does most of the jargon just fine, but his performance is nothing superlative.

Sadly, the same can be said about the special effects in Interstellar. I was psyched to go see Interstellar in IMAX and once the film finally got off Earth, I became excited again. Just as Prometheus (reviewed here!) made great use of the massive IMAX canvas for illustrating a tiny ship next to a massive planet (it’s a very different effect on Blu-Ray on a small screen!), Interstellar features a tiny space ship next to Jupiter. And the spherical wormhole is pretty cool. And the trip through the wormhole is appropriately trippy. And the film’s climactic, metaphysical, event is awesome. But in between . . . meh. Director Christopher Nolan tells a few cool things using effects – the lander hitting a frozen cloud in the atmosphere of Mann’s planet is neat – but the effects are more mundane and obvious than they are incredible or truly special.

In fact, in the quest to make some good special effects frequently works to the detriment of the story in Interstellar. The Coopers are farmers in a society that values farmers; why is their house falling apart?! Seriously, we have better windows and doors today than the Coopers do and there is no real rational reason for that to be so (see the spoilerific section for more on this!).

The result is a surprisingly middle-of-the-road science fiction piece that does what it promises in the film’s first few moments - it tells the story of how humanity was saved – it just does not do it very well. In fact, Doctor Who pounded the same theme on the importance of exploration in the recent episode “Kill The Moon” (reviewed here!); that might have had an equally preposterous underlying supposition, but at least it was shorter!

6/10

So, beyond this point is the crux of my issues with Interstellar - SPOILERS ABOUND! READ BEYOND HERE AT YOUR OWN RISK TO ENJOYING THE MOVIEGOING EXPERIENCE!!!

Interstellar is plagued with some serious problems that the film is unable to reconcile and it is unfortunate for how a film that tries to be smart ends up being so very, very stupid. First, the narrative technique; old people discussing life in the future, where they were children. The Nolans seem to think viewers who they want to be smart enough to understand physics and philosophy will be unable to grasp that the narrative technique they use to establish the precepts of their near-future also deny the viewer of any question as to whether the mission of the Endeavor and Lazarus Project will be successful! This film is not like “The Inner Light” (reviewed here!) where all that is going to survive are the planet’s stories.

The second big problem is They. “They” are referred to as being interested in saving humanity and giving Cooper the coordinates to the NORAD facility. They set off a story that is inherently cyclical. Unlike Inception (reviewed here!) where the movie may be viewed as a loop that the audience is working back to, Interstellar depends upon the loop. In fact, the film is all about the loop. Unfortunately, the nature of the loop is obvious from almost the very first moments of the film. When a time/space anomaly is detected that is clearly artificial and has such specific effects as coding a message to a single person in a specific place and time, the nature of that loop is pretty obvious. Anyone who likes science fiction will know that Cooper is sending himself on the mission.

But, wow, does Cooper go the long way around! “They” are influencing gravity to make messages in dust. That ability could be used, any time after Cooper has left on his mission, to write messages in the dust without causing a paradox. In fact, if the Cooper house had just had modern windows, “They” could have written pretty decent, concrete, messages in the dust on the windows. Cooper could have written something in the dust that would have made Murph’s ridiculous leap make sense, something like “Second hand!” But alas, Interstellar does not do anything quite that smart, even as it is appearing to be smart.

That is because the entire conceit of the movie defies any sense of logic and reason. I understand paradoxes and I love narrative loops. I have absolutely no problem with effect preceding cause . . . but it has to make sense. Sadly, Interstellar doesn’t. Even non-linear narratives need to have a sense of reason; if time is a loop, events must conspire such that the first time through time, people or planets get to a point where the loop may occur (i.e. if the Earth is destroyed by all-out nuclear war before the time machine is invented, a human from the future cannot come back to influence the past). The reason it fails to make sense comes during the metaphysical climax to the movie. Cooper does not do enough to influence his own timeline to make events happen after he and TARS enter the black hole. Cooper should have created the gravity anomaly that crashed his first mission, but the Nolans forgot to address that.

The wormhole is a problem that is a macguffin that is not satisfactorily addressed. The Lazarus Project and the Endeavor are only able to go out to a distant galaxy thanks to the wormhole. The wormhole was supposedly created by Them, which would be Cooper and TARS, but they forgot to make it before reality on the other side the event horizon collapsed. Therefore, someone else had to make the wormhole and the only implication in the film is that it is hyper-evolved humans who exist in five dimensions in the distant future. But, here’s the problem; without Cooper getting saved by them, they can never exist. Cooper’s own story which puts him in the distant galaxy on the other side of the wormhole hinges on him getting messages back to Murph in both the past and present. Cooper’s message cannot be transmitted unless he and TARS solve the equation from within the event horizon. The choices then are that he is saved by aliens who have mastered the fifth dimension or that he and TARS create the wormhole to save themselves. Otherwise, cause and effect be damned; humans would not have come through the wormhole to evolve into fifth dimensional beings to save Cooper! They couldn’t have left the planet to get there. So, that puts Interstellar once again in remarkably unsatisfying territory; Cooper and TARS forgot to engineer the wormhole so they were saved by unseen aliens who manufactured a wormhole . . . why?!

Seriously, if we’re to buy that aliens save humans what. the. hell.?! Many, many galaxies away, aliens bend time and space to discover humans and they commit themselves to saving them . . . by putting a hole in space not really near enough to them to be particularly useful. Ugh!

For other works with Jessica Chastain, please check out my reviews of:
The Martian
The Help

6/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

The Search For The Zero Theorem Results In . . . Well, Nothing, Really.

The Good: Excellent direction, Good concept, Decent performances
The Bad: Convoluted (lack of) plot, Protagonist never becomes likable or interesting enough to care about, Minutia
The Basics: Terry Gilliam’s film The Zero Theorem is complicated and cluttered and fails to create a film with essential Gilliam characters.


For the past year, since I learned of the film’s existence, the movie I have wanted most to see is The Zero Theorem. Terry Gilliam’s The Zero Theorem was completed late last year and its release has been peppered around the world and in the U.S. in film festivals. It is not getting a wide release in the U.S. and now that it is in limited release, I’ve managed to see it as part of my wife’s early birthday celebration to me. Fortunately, The Zero Theorem is better than the last film I greatly anticipated and was able to see as a birthday gift from her, The Master (reviewed here!). Even so, The Zero Theorem is not the masterwork I hoped it would be from Terry Gilliam who has created my two favorite films of all time Brazil (reviewed here!) and The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus (reviewed here!).

While The Zero Theorem has been compared to Brazil by a number of reviewers, but I am not going to be one of them. Having watched The Zero Theorem twice now, I think the essential difference between the two films is in the level of character the two films portray. While both movies feature dystopian, Orwellian-style oppressive futures where people are worked to death, Brazil has interesting, likable, quirky characters who have a base of realism to them. Brazil is led by a protagonist who could be anyone living in an oppressively capitalist country, coming alive enough to reclaim his own sense of soul and self. The Zero Theorem is far more esoteric and the protagonist fails to have a connectable quality.

Qohen Leth works for Mancom, a giant company that seems to be involved with programming everything in the world of the near-future. Leth lives in an abandoned church and is petitioning Mancom to get put on disability so he can work from home, instead of being forced to go into Mancom’s offices each day and work on his own next to others working alone. Qohen has been waiting his entire life for a specific telephone call, so working from home is ideal for him and he is disappointed when the company’s doctors will not approve his request. Leth’s supervisor, Joby, invites him to a party where Qohen is able to meet with the mysterious head of Mancom, Management. Management makes an exception to the company’s doctors’ recommendation and sends Qohen home the next day, with the intent that he will work on their Zero Theorem project. In his house, Qohen starts working on plugging random figures into an insanely complex creation with the intent of getting zero in the equation to reach 100%.

Monitored by Management, Leth’s efforts to get zero to 100% show almost no progress. To try to shake things up, Management hires Bainsley, a virtual-reality prostitute (she strips online and only allows “clients” to have contact with her through virtual-reality bodysuits so she does not actually have sex with them) to try to make a connection with Leth. After Leth’s frustration with the project reaches a new high and he crushes his equipment, Management’s son, Bob, comes to Leth’s house to repair the equipment. Bob’s presence aids Leth in both the work on the Zero Theorem and in his personal life. Exposing Management’s plan as a form of control over Leth and revealing everyone under the influence of Management to be tools of Management’s machinations, Bob draws Leth away from his virtual world and back into the real world.

Much of The Zero Theorem is devoted to creating mood and embellishing the setting of Terry Gilliam’s near-future. Unfortunately for viewers, the hyperbolic setting of The Zero Theorem is chaotic to the point of being entirely overbearing. Qohen Leth’s world is not supposed to be an inviting vision of the future, but we get that almost immediately in The Zero Theorem. After leaving his burnt-out, graffiti-covered church home, Qohen Leth steps out into a world where everyone is self-absorbed and plugged into personal electronic devices. To combat that, the city is packed with advertisements that chase down citizens as they try to move around. The setting is big, obvious, oppressive . . . and Gilliam beats the viewer to death with it. Unfortunately, Gilliam seems to be under the impression that his viewers are not particularly attentive: the first time Leth is out in the city, one of the news crawls on the wall has a story of a six inch gap in the train tracks being filled with ice cream; after months of working from home, Leth goes back out and the news feed has the same story!

The attention to setting and creating a visually-impressive film preoccupies Gilliam past the point of reason or sensibility in The Zero Theorem. I “get” what Qohen Leth is working on and how he is going his work. Unlike Pi (reviewed here!) where the film is so esoteric that only a mathematician is able to understand even a fraction of what is going on with the work being pursued, Gilliam does not get obsessed with the minutiae in The Zero Theorem. But in not presenting the actual work on the Zero Theorem in a rational way on Management’s work, Gilliam creates a concept that only works as a cinematic visual effect. Qohen Leth uses an interface that is very much like a video game; his work on the Zero Theorem is presented much like a three-dimensional game of Tetris. Leth shoots blocks that represent mathematical elements to create factor cubes and then he plugs those cubes into the immense equation that represents the larger Zero Theorem. Sometimes, that moves the equation forward, other times it causes the collapse of previously-established structures in the equation. This is an intriguing visual representation of pursuing a mathematical proof; the new information disproves a previously-assumed component of the equation. We get it.

The problem with The Zero Theorem is that Qohen Leth does not seem to have any form of intellectual or creative drive to actually work on the equation. Leth seems to randomly create the blocks and plugs them into the equation with equal randomness. To understand the problem, look at this review. Seriously, the form mirrors the evaluation; trying to describe the setting takes up so much space, but finding space to discuss how Qohen Leth interacts with it is pretty much a non-starter. Qohen Leth is like a random element in The Zero Theorem; he is a product of the setting, but does not actually do much of anything in that setting. Leth’s work is random and nonsensical in a world where technology is overbearing. Given the randomness of the interface for the work that Leth is working on, it seems like a computer program would actually be able to make sense of the work faster and better than any person (i.e. the only way the computer program could work, rationally, is by being programmed with elements and any possible combination of those elements that would be combined to form the factors for the larger equation and then plugged into the equation could be formed faster and in infinite combinations by the computer once the smallest building blocks were entered into the interface).

So, complex and pointless, but visually impressive; that’s the bulk of The Zero Theorem. What saves The Zero Theorem, even if it took me multiple viewings of the film to get there, is the acting and the (eventual) character development. Qohen Leth is pushed into the world, out of his simple, focused, world in front of the computer monitor. He interacts virtually and in the real world with Bainsley and Bob and that does make Leth evolve. He stops using the first person plural and he actually becomes invested in trying to solve the Zero Theorem. Leth accepts that he has been a tool, but he seems to genuinely want to get zero closer to 100% (even if the methods used are somewhat nonsensical).

Outside his role in The Green Hornet (reviewed here!), I had never seen Christoph Waltz in anything. In The Zero Theorem, he plays an uptight, reclusive, and entirely off-putting computer programmer and he does it exceptionally well. Waltz is difficult to watch as Qohen Leth, but part of that is because Waltz is able to so completely and realistically bury his humanity to make the character come alive. As Leth develops, Waltz plays off Lucas Hedges’s Bob brilliantly. Hedges brings youth and exuberance to the role of Bob and the more he and Waltz interact, the more Waltz infuses Leth with subtle eye movements and facial expressions that make Leth more relatable and human. Waltz slowly infuses Leth with soul and that makes for a memorable and complex performance.

Similarly, Melanie Thierry plays Bainsley as a seemingly generic sex object, but is able to completely sell the moment Bainsley develops more. Thierry and Lucas Hedges have great on-screen chemistry with Waltz. Tilda Swinton and Matt Damon have wonderful supporting roles in The Zero Theorem as the computer-generated therapist and Management, respectively. Swinton’s part is reminiscent of Ricardo Montalban’s portrayal of Khan in Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan (reviewed here!); the way Swinton interacts with Waltz is so convincing one never thinks about how Swinton and Waltz are never in the same room together.

The Zero Theorem asks viewers to invest a lot to get to a point that is not as satisfying as a lobotomized rebel, but the journey is clever-enough to be watchable. Terry Gilliam created a mess with The Zero Theorem, but he populated it with exceptional performers playing at the top of their game and a visual sensibility that is incredible, if overwhelming and it’s still better than Tideland (reviewed here!)!

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
10,000 Days
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1
Interstellar
Hit By Lightning
Horns
John Wick
Listen Up Philip
The Best Of Me
The Judge
Dracula Untold
The Equalizer
The Maze Runner
This Is Where I Leave You
The Giver
Guardians Of The Galaxy
Life Of Crime

7.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Quietly Through The Eastern Front: The Monuments Men

The Good: Interesting concept, Decent acting
The Bad: No real character development, When you’ve heard the concept, you’ve pretty much seen the movie . . .
The Basics: Releasing after awards season, The Monuments Men is a splintered historical drama that fails to go beyond its one-line concept to make a film of enduring greatness.


George Clooney’s production company, Smokehouse Pictures, had a good 2012. Their film, Argo (reviewed here!) won the Best Picture Oscar and Clooney’s partner at Smokehouse, Grant Heslov, decided to use that cache to further his writing career. Heslov and Clooney co-wrote the screenplay for The Monuments Men, which was adapted from the book by the same name. What is intriguing from a production perspective is how Clooney and Heslov opted to hedge their bets for the 2013 award season. Smokehouse Pictures released August: Osage County (reviewed here!) in time to get the inevitable nominations for the Golden Globes and Oscars that Smokehouse wanted, but to not crowd the field, they held The Monuments Men off until February. February is one of two death slots for films; it’s the Friday night prime time slot for movie releases. In other words, for a company that has taken a simple-concept film and made it into an award-winner – as they did with Argo - it seems like a severe lack of confidence in their own production to release a film in February.

When watching The Monuments Men, though, the lack of push for awards season comes to make a lot of sense. Given the stellar cast, I was eager to watch The Monuments Men, which is why I was surprised at how poorly the film landed. The Monuments Men is a film whose concept is not expanded upon, developed, or enriched beyond the one-line pitch for the film. In other words, with my next line, the entire film is pretty much spoiled (or, if you’ve seen the trailer or heard anyone describe the movie, it’s pretty much done for you). The Monuments Men is about a group of art experts who infiltrate France and Belgium in 1944 as the Germans are withdrawing from their occupied territories and attempt to recover and protect any artistic antiquities they can find before the Germans destroy them. Based on historical accounts, The Monuments Men is not a riveting adventure like Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark (reviewed here!), but it is a story worth telling.

Sadly, the lack of comparative excitement or sophistication makes for a poor film. The Monuments Men is a ridiculously simple concept presented with historical realism as opposed to a sense of dramatic tension. As a result, the film does not develop characters, it does not illustrate a team coming together for common purpose, it does not involve clever people piecing together clues to save antiquities. Instead, a disparate group of individuals are tasked with an assignment, they break into small teams, and target specific locations operating mostly on hope or common knowledge until one of the least important characters finally realizes a pattern that could have saved a lot of time and lives if only he had looked at a map and used his brain a year and a half (and an hour in filmwatching time) earlier.

As the Nazis advance through Europe, they collect and steal artwork. In Belgium, the painting set known as the Altar of Ghent is protected by Belgian clergy until it is stolen as well. When Frank Stokes learns that Hitler is planning to build the world’s largest museum, he convinces FDR to commit some men to recovering and protecting the artwork stolen by the Nazis before they can destroy it or get it back to Berlin. In Paris, Claire Simone is forced to work for the Nazi, Viktor Stahl, in order to protect the works of art captured in France. When Stahl withdraws, taking what art he can with him, Simone is imprisoned as a collaborator.

Stokes assembles his team of art scholars, including James Granger, Richard Campbell, Walter Garfield, Preston Savitz, the Frenchman Jean Claude Clermont, the Englishman Donald Jeffries, and the young German Sam Epstein, who enter France through Normandy (quite a bit after the invasion). They then split into teams to try to recover sculptures, paintings, and other artwork the Germans have hidden. As one team works with the priests who have hidden artwork through the war, another finds Stahl’s hideout and another goes searching for the sculpture of Madonna and Child. As the different teams meet with varying degrees of success in their mission, they manage to uncover more obviously recognized valuables, are put in harm’s way, and suffer casualties just as any other unit would. Reuniting, the team’s mission becomes more important as the Nazis begin a scorched earth policy on their stolen antiquities as the war turns inevitably against them.

The problem with The Monuments Men is that it truly is over the moment the concept is revealed; the details beyond the concept are presented in such a listless and undramatic way. The film is not about the characters, so when the team (and I use that term lightly considering how the group is split up almost immediately in order to cover more ground) suffers casualties, it seems much more inevitable than dramatic. It is hard to empathize with the characters, especially when a scene reveals a collection of teeth fillings from executed Jews. Yes, antiquities are exceptionally important, but losing a person or two who is trying to safeguard them seems diminished when one looks at a pile of fillings and realizes that innocent people were simply executed for being who they were. In simpler terms, The Monuments Men is about guys who signed up to risk their lives to recover antiquities and some lose their lives in the process, but that sacrifice is one they were prepared to make. The film does not develop the characters enough to make those deaths resonate with the audience. In fact, there is a sense that some casualties were pretty much bound to happen given the nature of the characters (they are not professional soldiers).

The acting in The Monuments Men is fine, but there is nothing extraordinary delivered by the amazing cast. Bill Murray is used to deliver comic relief, John Goodman plays an understated good guy, and George Clooney . . . he shaves his beard as quickly as possible so he’s recognizable as George Clooney. Matt Damon, Bob Balaban, and Cate Blanchett also appear in the film. The acting is fine; none of it is spectacular.

Argo was a pleasant surprise; it took an event that the entire world knew about (the Iran Hostage Crisis) and told a story most people did not know – how some of the hostages were snuck out of Iran by the Canadians. The thing is, because the story became public knowledge, Argo had only one way it could end, with the successful execution of the plan. Yet, Argo has a dramatic tension and narrative quality that makes one forget they already know how it will end. It is easy to become immersed in the moment of the film. Unfortunately, The Monuments Men never gets there. This (previously) untold story of a lesser-known part of World War II history does not have an immediately obvious resolution – the mission could succeed or fail – and it is told in an unremarkable and zestless way. Smokehouse Pictures banked on creating a historical document, which they did adequately, but they failed to make a great, or even engaging, film.

For other works with Bill Murray, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Zombieland
Get Smart
The Darjeeling Limited
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
The Royal Tenenbaums
Charlie's Angels
Cradle Will Rock
Space Jam
Saturday Night Live - Season 1

4.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an easy, organized listing by title of all the films I have reviewed!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Summer’s Most Anticipated Original Film: Elysium Is Worthwhile, If Not Great.

The Good: Good social allegory, Decent effects
The Bad: Stiff acting, Minimal character development
The Basics: Elysium is a fresh take on socially-relevant problems that reminds viewers how smart science fiction can be, even if it lacks a spark of real greatness.


As Summer Blockbuster Season winds down this year, moviegoers have a lot to be disappointed by. This was not an epic summer by any means and I can only imagine how pissed off parents are at the sheer number of children’s films that were released to milk adults of their hard earned dollars. Still, as Summer Blockbuster Season came to its inevitable close, Neill Blomkamp tried to make a substantial cinematic outing. The director of District 9 (reviewed here!) released Elysium. Elysium was supposed to be the Prometheus (reviewed here!) of 2013; a science fiction epic shrouded in mystery before the film’s release that would resound with meaning and depth for genre fans. Elysium succeeded where Prometheus did not; it hit at the box office for the #1 in the United States that Prometheus was deprived of. Sadly, those anticipating Elysium would be something truly incredible were left wanting something more.

Elysium is good, but it lacks a zest or feeling of freshness that makes one want to rewatch the movie. There is a classic science fiction sensibility to Elysium, but it is so heavyhanded in its application that it is hardly enjoyable to watch. As important, given how oppressive the first half of the film is and how clearly it creates the economic conflict between Earth and Elysium, the latter half of the film which is largely a chase/extended fight sequence seems incongruent and surprisingly lowbrow.

Max grew up on a shattered Earth and in 2154, he is an ex-con who works on the line making the police robots that harass people like him. When he makes a joke to one of the robots, he ends up with a broken arm and an extension of his parole. Like the rest of the workers, Max has never been to Elysium, the elite and verdant space station high above Earth. When three undocumented ships take off from Earth for Elysium, Defense Secretary Delacourt has her asset on Earth shoot down the ships. Two of the three are destroyed with 46 casualties, but one makes it to Elysium and its fugitives are quickly apprehended, with some of them killed. At that time, Delacourt is ordered by the President to stop using the services of the war criminal Kruger and she reluctantly terminates her arrangement with him. That day, Max – who has been doing a good job of flying right and avoiding crime – is ordered by his boss into a jammed chamber on the line, which results in Max getting irradiated by the machine. With only five days to live, Max appeals to the crime lord Spider for a ticket to Elysium where his radiation sickness would be easily treated.

Spider’s price is a high one: Max must take a device and download the memories from the factory owner, Carlyle, for him to use. Seeing Max’s weakened state, Spider gives him a mechanical exoskeleton and Max and a small team attack Carlyle. The attempt to get Carlyle’s memories comes after Delacourt makes a secret pact with Carlyle for an exclusive contract and, in the process, he is given the codes to Elysium. With Carlyle’s memories in Max’s possession, Delacourt rehires Kruger and the two begin a game of cat and mouse that takes them from Earth to Elysium with Max’s life, the life of a small girl, and the lives of millions of humans living in poverty on Earth caught in the balance.

The dichotomy between Earth and Elysium is an obvious one. Earth is the refuse bin for the elite humans who are able to live on Elysium. While President Patel ostensibly runs Elysium, he has less real power than both the military (Delacourt) and the industrialists (Carlyle). That detail is one of the more subtle jabs writer and director Neill Blomkamp makes in Elysium. While Patel is clearly human, he is at the mercy of the literally inhuman (Carlyle) and the stiff and cold Delacourt. Delacourt uses the obvious “protect the children” excuse to justify her harsh means, but Blomkamp makes the strong argument that her ends do not justify her means, especially when so many humans are kept virtually enslaved on Earth.

The social message is populated by characters who are less compelling than the theme. Max is a criminal who has no higher ambitions than to live and it is hard to guess why. Earth is ruined and his life is craptastic. The man helps make the very robots who abuse him and that might be the only real spark of irony in the entire movie. The rest of the film is cold and embodies a narrow extension of the real-life horrors faced by the working poor today on most of the planet (including in the United States). Delacourt fights for her way of life without any real humanity to her character and that makes it impossible to empathize with what the residents of Elysium have. Sadly, that level thematic obviousness is less clever and undermines the fundamental truth that Blomkamp fails to land; these injustices are done by humans to humans. Delacourt’s lack of humanity undermines the point by making her seem like the other instead of like a common species with Max and Kruger.

Elysium is marred throughout by clunky and stiff acting. Jodie Foster’s performance as Delacourt is so stiff that when she makes her plea to Patel about the children and the importance of protecting Elysium, her delivery is almost laughable. Similarly, William Fichtner – who is usually wonderful – telegraph’s Carlyle in a way that is just a cheap rehashing of his character from Invasion (reviewed here!) as opposed to anything really new from him. Matt Damon similarly fails to land it as Max. Max is tough to care about, though one feels bad for the way he is pressured into the situation by which he is irradiated. Beyond that, he exhibits more empathy through aiding Frey’s sick daughter than anything Damon puts into his performance.

The result is that Elysium is generally smart, but not executed well-enough to truly make its point resonate. In other words, while the film might entertain, it will not change the world.

For other works with Alice Braga, please check out my reviews of:
Predators
Repo Men
I Am Legend

6.5/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

One Of The More Jarring, But Enjoyable, Films Blending Humor And Violence: True Grit Delivers!

The Good: Great acting, Wonderful writing
The Bad: Very simple plot and characters
The Basics: The Coen remake of True Grit is funny, violent and all-around enjoyable as a fourteen year-old girl goes searching for frontier justice in the American West.


Right up front, it is worth noting that I have never seen the original True Grit, so this is intended as a very pure review of the 2010 version of True Grit as re-imagined and recreated by the Coen Brothers. I am, it should also be noted, not a fan of Westerns in general. The only real draw for me to True Grit was that I recently rewatched The Big Lebowski (reviewed here!) and absolutely loved it. I like the weirdness of most of the Coen Brothers’ movies, so I thought I would give True Grit a chance.

And it was well worth the time and attention I gave it.

As a Coen Brothers film, True Grit is loaded with quips and witty dialogue and a wonderful sense of cinematography and good acting to boot. Within moments, I found myself enjoying True Grit more than the similarly hyped Lincoln (reviewed here!) and the blend of humor and character kept me engaged the whole film.

Mattie Ross spends almost no time mourning the death of her father when he is killed by Tom Chaney. Instead, she decides that when the law opts not to pursue Chaney, who fled the small city, she will hire a bounty hunter to track down Chaney and bring him to justice. She wants to employ the most ruthless U.S. Marshall she can find and that is Rooster Cogburn. Mattie watches Cogburn take the stand in another case where he killed two of the three suspects and she tries to hire him then. The quick-tongued Mattie wakes up the Texas Ranger, LaBoeuf, at the foot of her bed and learns that he has been hunting Chaney (under a number of aliases) across the South and West. LaBoeuf brings his knowledge of Chaney and Cogburn brings his ruthless determination (once Maddie prods him into it and gets him sober enough) to the hunt.

When the two men head out without her, Mattie pursues, which annoys LaBoeuf. Mattie works to keep Cogburn focused on finding Chaney in the wilds, frequently threatening everyone with legal actions. When they part ways with LaBoeuf, they hunt for Chaney through the wilds, following vague leads (like recovering the gold piece that Mattie’s father was carrying) and dead bodies (and strange living people) in their pursuit of justice. The pair and LaBoeuf hunt for Ned Pepper to find Chaney and bring their judgment upon him.

True Grit is all fun and amusement until it takes the predictably Coen-esque turn for the abruptly violent and shocking. True Grit is unfortunately gruesome when it is not being chuckle-out-loud funny. But the humor is quickly mixed with scenes where characters have bitten through their tongues and have other body parts chopped off. The most cerebral form of humor in the film comes from Mattie. Mattie is the smartest person in the film – explaining Latin legal terms to Rooster and outmaneuvering Stonehill to get the money to bankroll her quest for vengeance – and her naïveté plays off Cogburn’s drunken worldliness with great comedic effect. Indeed, her trying to get Cogburn to live up to his promise to bury one of the scoundrels is met with his observation that the man shouldn’t have died in such a cold climate where the ground was frozen over works because of Mattie’s wide-eyed optimism before and after.

When the Marshall and Ranger beg off, the mission changes as Mattie is captured by Pepper and Chaney. Even so, True Grit keeps a fast enough pace to be consistently engaging and funnier more than it is horrifying. The characters, who could come across as simply goofy are presented as quirky instead and that works for a story that is rooted in a dark quest for revenge.

Jeff Bridges deserves a lot of kudos for his role as Rooster Cogburn. He is hilarious as he slurs through the role, creating a character who is almost as funny as The Dude in the exact opposite way as his iconic Coen Brothers character. Jeff Bridges plays Cogburn as a drunkard and with a lack of focus that fades to a strong moral core that keeps him determined and willing to sacrifice everything for Mattie. Matt Damon is like no other role he has played as LaBoeuf and he manages to get through the entire film without his trademark smirk, illustrating that he can act.

True Grit is held together by Hailee Steinfeld. Steinfeld is the fourteen year-old Mattie and she is articulate enough to make the character completely viable. She has a presence on film on that is uncommon in young people. In fact, not since Dakota Fanning in i am sam (reviewed here!) has a girl so driven a film and stolen the spotlight. It is virtually impossible not to watch True Grit and predict that she will have (barring a Lohan-like collapse) a long and fruitful career.

True Grit becomes a little muddied in that Cogburn becomes obsessed with finding Ned, as opposed to keeping on Mattie’s focused quest for Chaney alone, but it might be the best film yet that blends humor and violence into an overall satisfying film.

For other films with Barry Pepper, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Seven Pounds
25th Hour
Battlefield Earth

7/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the reviews I have written!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |