Blade Runner 2049

BLADE RUNNER 2049 (Denis Villeneuve, 2017)

In BLADE RUNNER 2049 thirty years have passed since the events of the previous film, yet little seems to have changed for the better for those humans who haven’t moved off-world. Nexus-9 replicants are more obedient than the previous model of bioengineered humans. The Nexus-8s hiding out still face termination at the hands of police officers called blade runners. When K (Ryan Gosling) examines the property of his latest target, he finds a case whose contents could threaten to upset the balance of civilization.

The box holds the remains of a replicant who died in childbirth, and other evidence suggests that the child survived. As replicants were believed to be incapable of reproducing, K’s superior officer, Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright), orders him to find and kill the child. K’s investigation leads him to the Wallace Corporation, which has taken over where the Tyrell Corporation’s efforts ended. Founder Niander Wallace (Jared Leto) wants to increase production of his replicants and thus greatly desires to have his assistant Luv (Sylvia Hoeks) find this wonder. K’s search will ultimately lead him to Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), who holds the information everyone seeks.

Like its predecessor, BLADE RUNNER 2049 is an astounding visual achievement, with director Denis Villeneuve and cinematographer Roger Deakins contrasting the bleak, neon cityscapes with foggy, tinted areas outside dense populations centers. It all feels very unnatural, alien even, despite mostly taking place in southern California. Although there is a sense of too few resources for too many people in this dystopia, the framing highlights the disconnection. Characters are practically swallowed up by all of the space around them. They often live alone--K’s apartment is more like a cozy cell--and have seemingly no social circle. Work brings them into contact with others, but it encourages impersonal interactions and extends the sense of acting in isolation.

The most meaningful relationship in BLADE RUNNER 2049 is with technology. K has a virtual girlfriend named Joi (Ana de Armas). While interacting with this artificially intelligent hologram provides the kind of connection he wants, it is merely an illusion tailored to his preferences. Like Saul of Tarsus, K has a transformative experience, one that turns him from a persecutor of replicants to their defender. Awareness of a miraculous birth changes how he sees himself and others, rewriting what he has taken for granted. Villeneuve also uses the first few notes of a theme from Prokofiev’s PETER AND THE WOLF as a clue that challenges to the system can come from unlikely places.

BLADE RUNNER 2049 is about as close to slow cinema as expensive Hollywood productions are likely to get, and it is pleasurable to luxuriate in its lulling sonic atmosphere and visual distinctiveness. The screenplay by Hampton Fancher and David Green is overstuffed with ideas that it is incapable of doing justice to them all. Style may overwhelm the substance, but what style it is.

Grade: B+

Blade Runner: The Final Cut

BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT (Ridley Scott, 1982 and 2007)

Four artificial yet human-like drone workers known as replicants escape from laboring on a planet colony to running from the law in 2019 Los Angeles. The replicants, led by Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), are marked for death--or retirement, as it’s called in director Ridley Scott’s science fiction film BLADE RUNNER. Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) is a weary policeman in the Blade Runner unit who is tasked with hunting down and executing these runaways. Although he harbors no sympathy for the creations of the Tyrell Corporation, his view of them becomes complicated when he meets Rachel (Sean Young), the latest replicant iteration and one that can pass even more convincingly as a real person.

BLADE RUNNER transports the world of mid-20th century film noir several decades ahead. With blazing neon signs and massive advertisements cluttering the polluted, rain-battered skyline, Scott’s vision, which itself owes a debt to METROPOLIS, has essentially defined how the future is expected to look on film. THE MATRIX and GHOST IN THE SHELL are just two examples of many that derive their looks from this seminal work. Thirty-five years later the images in BLADE RUNNER still dazzle with visual imagination in addition to being fundamental to establishing the oppressive atmosphere that permeates the story. The detective, his targets, and most of the individuals with whom they come into contact feel choked by the dystopian lives into which they’ve been delivered. Their environment reflects the restrictions occupying their minds.

Vangelis’ synth-laden score is evocative of a foreseen time in which the distinction between man and man-made begin to blur. Electronic melodies emerge from machine-like clanging and burbling, the human or human-like straining to rise above the mechanistic. BLADE RUNNER’s score also expresses the weight of the atmosphere, bringing to bear the darkness, fullness, and brittleness of the strange advances that have become commonplace.

In their loose adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?, screenwriters Hampton Fancher and David Webb Peoples raise questions as relevant as ever regarding technology and how it affects our philosophies, our economies, our interactions, and the environment. BLADE RUNNER is more of a canvas for sketching out ideas for further consideration than a deeply argued text, yet it seems strikingly prescient in anticipating how modern life is becoming more inhuman.

Five versions of BLADE RUNNER have been available on home video: the U.S. theatrical cut, the international theatrical cut, the 1992 so-called director’s cut, the workprint, and 2007’s THE FINAL CUT. Despite being called the director’s cut, Scott was not as involved with that version, making THE FINAL CUT the best realization of his vision for the film. The obsessive may want to track down the other cuts or read up on the differences, but this version should serve most well.

Grade: A

War for the Planet of the Apes

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES (Matt Reeves, 2017)

At one point as a kid I wondered what it would be like in movies or after-school cartoons if the bad guys won for a change. After all, no matter how things appeared to be going in these shows and films, everything predictably worked out in the end. I suspect that this fleeting thought from my childhood was common among those of the same age who were becoming bored with the formula. Now that my generation has a lot of sway in what gets made, it seems that we’re getting the chance to discover what it feels like when the course reverses and good doesn’t triumph or its victories in mass entertainment are pyrrhic. Think of all the remakes and franchise reboots in the last decade or so whose differentiating quality is that they are now dark, gritty, or edgy. The new normal is an overwhelming sense of gloom and doom, in part because it is considered more artistically serious. While any framework will yield worthwhile and lousy results, this worldview in event films has become exhausting.

WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES picks up two years into the combat between humans and the apes. Having toppled Koba in the previous film, Caesar (Andy Serkis) leads his kind, making him the top priority for The Colonel (Woody Harrelson) to find and eliminate. Caesar wishes for the fighting to stop, so when the apes capture some of the enemy, he sends them back as a gesture meant to broker a detente. Instead the intel of where Caesar is invites a slaughter of many he’s been trying to protect.

Caesar sends most of the survivors toward a new home while he intends to exact revenge on the Colonel. Rocket (Terry Notary), Winter (Aleks Paunovic), and Spear (Alessandro Juliani) refuse to let him go alone. On their search they take pity on and add to their group a mute girl given the name Nova (Amiah Miller). They also come across former zoo animal Bad Ape (Steve Zahn), who knows where the Colonel and his men are stationed and agrees to show them.

Beginning with 2011’s RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, the rebooted series has always had dark clouds looming over it because the original films provide the roadmap for where the new ones will arrive. They’ve become progressively darker and now reach the exceedingly grim WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES. What gets depicted is restrained enough to stay within the confines of a box office-maximizing PG-13 rating, but what happens is pretty horrific regardless of which side comes out on top. Tragedy builds upon tragedy to the point that by the time this aggressively feel-bad film concludes I left the theater hoping the sun hadn’t been extinguished in the interim. WONDER WOMAN features its share of darkness, but at the core it prizes earnestness, decency, and love over fear, nihilism and hatred. It’s unfair to WAR OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, but I’m seeking more of what WONDER WOMAN is promoting at this point in time.

Perhaps I was just in the wrong mood when I saw WAR FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES. It’s a marvelous technical achievement that the number and variety of simians are so convincing that it’s taken for granted that they are real. Although Zahn’s Bad Ape probably belongs in a more lighthearted film, the provides comic relief and a much-needed glimmer of fun. Director and co-writer Matt Reeves lingers on the breathtaking scope of the landscapes being traversed and occupied. The action scenes are brutally effective. The film’s allegory about humanity’s penchant for mutually assured destruction hits hard in the context of the daily news. But WAR OF THE PLANET OF THE APES is such an oppressive film to watch. Plus, there’s the sneaking suspicion that its purpose is just to advance the series to where we knew it was eventually headed.

Grade: C+

The Discovery

THE DISCOVERY (Charlie McDowell, 2017)

Thomas Harbor (Robert Redford) finds overwhelming proof that the afterlife exists in THE DISCOVERY, although what that other plane of existence is like remains unknown. Two years after he announces the discovery, four million people have committed suicide, often with the expectation of getting a fresh start. Thomas’s son Will (Jason Segel) remains more skeptical regarding what his father’s findings mean and detests the widespread social response to them. He protests that the evidence is not definitive, nor does it promise a better life. Upon hearing that his father has built a new machine, Will returns to their island home, now a fortress-like building where Thomas, his other son Toby (Jesse Plemons), and a group of people whose suicide attempts failed continue the secretive work to learn what exists beyond the veil.

On the ferry there Will encounters Isla (Rooney Mara), the only other passenger making the trip to the island in the off-season. Both dodge explaining why they are going to such a place and part ways without expecting to see one another again for reasons that become clear soon enough. Will does not want his father to reflect on him, and Isla is hiding her intention to kill herself. Later Will spots Isla’s attempt to drown in the ocean and saves her. He also smooths the way for her to receive a spot among the selected in his father’s home. It’s a momentous time there as Thomas now believes he can record what is seen in the afterlife. When the experiment appears to fail, only Will knows that a recording is made, although what he sees is difficult to translate.

Director and co-writer Charlie McDowell imparted a TWILIGHT ZONE-like quality to his debut feature THE ONE I LOVE, and he does it again with THE DISCOVERY. Both films take place in worlds very much like ours except in one specific aspect that recontextualizes everything we know. The consequences of the discovery mostly take place off-screen and emerge in anecdotes, but the impact hangs heavy over the proceedings. Thomas is as driven as ever because he bears the weight of all the people who interpreted his pioneering finding in a way he likely didn’t anticipate or desire. The film eludes questions about the religious implications, yet Thomas has constructed something like a cult around him. Whether intentional or not, THE DISCOVERY recalls THE MASTER in shots of the ocean and Thomas’s private, personal interview method for determining who can stay. (Both also have small roles for Plemons.)

THE DISCOVERY is most compelling as it dives deeper into the search for answers. McDowell wisely does not get into the speculative science involved, leaving it to suspension of disbelief to accept the film on its own terms rather than getting bogged down debating the viability. He explains what developments mean more often than allowing the viewer to do the math, which takes some of the fun out of THE DISCOVERY, but he draws out the hunger to comprehend what new information signifies. Humans want to bring order to the unknown, so it is imperative that the film satisfies that craving. McDowell’s most prominent stumble occurs at a climax that seems like it should be revelatory yet, more than anything preceding it, confused me in the Christopher Nolan-like layers upon layers. The romantic element between Will and Isla comes off as more forced than credible even as it becomes more integral.

Although the material is treated seriously, THE DISCOVERY carves out room for some humor. As the more dutiful son, Plemons displays a cavalier attitude about the research and arrangements that highlight what those deeply embedded in something weird accept as normal. Mara lends a sarcastic edge to Isla, particularly when she identifies the strangeness of her and Will selecting and returning a corpse.

Whether one believes in eternal spiritual existence after death or not, THE DISCOVERY asks a provocative question: does the inability to know with complete certainty what comes next invest more meaning in life? The film’s answers could be more rigorously considered but are thoughtful nonetheless.

Grade: B

Okja

OKJA (Bong Joon Ho, 2017)

Under the leadership of CEO Lucy Mirando (Tilda Swinton), the Mirando Corporation has a grand design to disrupt worldwide meat production in OKJA; however, the discovery and breeding of a so-called superpig that leaves less of a carbon footprint while tasting good is not intended for a rapid product launch. Instead Lucy distributes twenty-six superpigs to farmers around the globe for a competition to name the best one in ten years.

Mija (An Seo Hyun) and her grandfather Heebong (Byun Heebong) are raising their superpig named Okja in the mountains of South Korea. Okja is essentially a floppy-eared hippo with a dog’s personality, so to Mija she is more like a beloved pet than livestock. Although Mija assumes her grandfather has purchased Okja from the company, she despairs upon learning that the Mirando Corporation has taken the superpig to its local headquarters before sending her to the surely dire fate that awaits in New York City.

Determined to get her best friend back, Mija embarks for Seoul, where her attempt to retrieve Okja crosses with a rescue mission led by Jay (Paul Dano) of the Animal Liberation Front. They want to expose Mirando’s practices and need Okja to gain access to their facilities. The public relations fallout surrounding the ALF’s heist and return of Okja lead the corporation to bring Mija to New York for a reunion of the girl and her superpig.

OKJA is akin to a hybrid of David Lowery’s 2016 remake of PETE’S DRAGON and FAST FOOD NATION, mixing the action-adventure of children’s fantasy with political satire. Such a genre medley makes for a striking, albeit inconsistent, fable. Rather than scratching out a screed against multinational conglomerates, writer-director Bong Joon Ho seeks to provide balance to a complicated issue, even if where the film’s sympathies reside are never in doubt. The activists practice laughable extremes to prove their commitment to ideals and struggle to pass their own purity tests. Although the corporation is undeniably driven by a profit motive, Lucy is well-meaning in bringing this product to the market. The inherent deception in her marketing plan is necessary because consumers tend to prefer not to know how their food gets to them.

OKJA doesn’t shy away from depicting the realities of factory farming and processing, but Bong isn’t arguing in favor of vegetarianism or veganism. The film’s aim seems to be less specific. Rather, it seeks to raise consciousness of the system and how consumer choices and attitudes are interconnected with corporate decisions. Bong is addressing big, complex questions about international demand and the supply chain. The points he makes can get muddled, which is the challenge of infusing so much thematic ambition into a simple story.

There’s a lot to like about OKJA even as Bong tries to do more than he can effectively manage. Jake Gyllenhaal’s Johnny Wilcox, a Jack Hanna-like TV host who is the face of the superpig competition, isn’t established sufficiently for the dark turns the character takes to have dramatic impact. Gyllenhaal’s broad performance comes off as a miscalculated attempt to match Swinton’s quirkiness. Bong mostly succeeds at shifting tones from sweet to satiric and humorous to horrifying, but easing into the film’s end, including a post-credits scene, indicates that he wasn’t certain how to wrap OKJA beyond one obvious matter.

Lest OKJA sound like an economics lesson, the adventure Mija finds herself caught up in might be better thought of as a globalism-questioning WILLY WONKA & THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY, although be advised this is decidedly not a film for little kids. Early scenes of Mija and Okja cavorting in the countryside have the charm of the children playing with E.T. An impresses with the determination and intelligence she conveys in Mija even as others try to exploit her for their interests. Bong shows off his flair for staging action with Mija’s thrilling chase after Okja through downtown Seoul. Although OKJA is ambivalent at best about whether changing the world is scalable, it rejoices in the fights and victories achieved on a micro level. That may not be altogether heartening, but the small wins are what fuel the pursuit of larger ones.

Grade: B

Morgan

MORGAN (Jake Scott, 2016)

Risk management consultant Lee Weathers (Kate Mara) arrives at a remote property to determine how the corporation should proceed regarding a product in development, a synthetic humanoid named Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy). Although just five years old in real time, Morgan has developed at a highly accelerated rate, appearing to be a female in her late teens or early twenties. In MORGAN Lee prefers to refer to this gray hoodie-clad being as a genderless it, but the scientists who have nurtured her growth, particularly behavioral analyst Amy (Rose Leslie), tend to view her as a young woman.

Lee has come to assess if the project with Morgan should continue after this embodied artificial intelligence savagely attacked one of the workers. Much rides on Morgan’s psychological evaluation, and she does not take well to the provocations made by her interviewer, Dr. Alan Shapiro (Paul Giamatti). It falls to Lee to clean up the mess he creates in pushing his subject to a breaking point.

MORGAN echoes the documentary PROJECT NIM, about an experiment to raise a chimpanzee as a human, and the science fiction thriller EX MACHINA with its robot that might pass as a real person. While rich thematic possibilities exist in considering the ethical quandaries and unanticipated effects of such scientific trials, the film by director Jake Scott and screenwriter Seth Owen settles for being a Frankenstein-like story absent a brain. MORGAN’s premise is established but never expanded upon, leaving it as something that looks good at the design stage but lacks an animating force.

MORGAN’s visual style, especially the bunker-like building with its sleek interiors, are highly reminiscent of EX MACHINA too. Some of the similarities may be attributable to the genre, yet calling to mind a much better recent comparison does this film no favors. Side by side, MORGAN looks like the shell of a futuristic suspense movie, one with an appealing exterior alone that also has nothing to distinguish it from more robust competitors.

The film’s familiar but attractive foundation and surfaces hold enough interest that its diminishing returns make it feel like a squandered opportunity. The cast, populated with recognizable faces in small roles, promises something better than what they have to work with. Taylor-Joy, who first came to notice in THE WITCH: A NEW-ENGLAND FOLKTALE, is effectively eerie as a character trying to integrate the programming within her biological casing. In failing to tap into the potential of its scenario, MORGAN is vulnerable to being evaluated primarily on its narrative ingenuity, of which there is little. It takes all of the turns one expects in a schematic manner. Although it does so efficiently, MORGAN functions like a machine that can accomplish a task quickly even as it doesn’t deliver anything desired.

Grade: C

Passengers

PASSENGERS (Morten Tyldum, 2016)

Everyone aboard the spaceship Avalon in PASSENGERS is to be in a state of hypersleep for most of the 120-year journey to Homestead II. Unfortunately for Jim Preston (Chris Pratt), he is accidentally awakened about thirty years into the voyage, meaning that if he can’t get back in that suspended state, he will live the rest of his life and die before anyone else comes out of their hibernation chambers. Jim has his run of the spacecraft, for the most part, but the company of just humanoid bartender Arthur (Michael Sheen) and the servant robots.

For a year Jim studies and works to no avail to figure out how he might save himself. Inconsolably lonely, he becomes enchanted with Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence), a writer and fellow passenger he learns everything about. Finally Jim decides to awaken her so that he will have someone to share this doomed time with. Aurora doesn’t know that he is responsible for what has happened to her. She and Jim don’t become close right away, but considering the circumstances, their bond naturally becomes tighter, with Jim’s secret just waiting to be exposed and ruin everything.

The early section of PASSENGERS with Jim on his own cuts to the humor and terror in his predicament. He is relieved to send a message to someone who might be able to help, but the punchline is that it will take decades for his distress call to reach anyone. Jim essentially has his run of the ship, but he’s still at the mercy of the automated access provided by the price level at which he booked his ticket. Everything is so close and yet so far away in this TWILIGHT ZONE-like scenario.

That Jim would choose to subject someone else to the same fate is understandable even if it is a morally indefensible choice. Desperation can make fools of us all, and his situation would be enough to push anyone to the edge. The problem for PASSENGERS is not the decision Jim makes but how it deals with the repercussions of his actions. Morten Tyldum’s direction and Jon Spaihts’ screenplay view Jim as a romantic hero. They allow Aurora to have her time to feel angry and betrayed, but ultimately the film treats Jim as Adam if he didn’t need God’s intervention to provide him with a companion. PASSENGERS implicitly states that Jim deserves Aurora, an aspect that gets magnified with Pratt’s puppy dog charms.

PASSENGERS also bungles the ending. Even being exceedingly generous in allowing how Aurora might come to reevaluate the state of things, what she decides rings false. On a dramatic level it also clanks because the opportunity for Jim to atone for his sins is dismissed in favor of rewarding him. PASSENGERS’ tone deafness mistakes feelings of male entitlement for romance. The saying goes that all’s fair in love and war, but that sentiment can justify horrors. If the film were capable of viewing the story through Aurora’s lens, PASSENGERS might have succeeded. Instead it doesn’t notice the warped perspective.

Grade: C

Arrival

ARRIVAL (Denis Villeneuve, 2016)

In ARRIVAL twelve alien spacecraft appear around the globe and hover above their locations. No one knows why the ships, named shells, are here or how to communicate with the aliens inside them. The United States military turns to Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams), a linguist, and physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) to interact with the squid-like visitors they call heptapods.

As a science fiction film, ARRIVAL is often stirring. Director Denis Villeneuve builds the suspense and conveys the wonder in the simple act of entering the ship. Fear and awe mix as they slowly make their way in the cavernous black corridor to a large room with a transparent wall behind which these mysterious visitors emerge out of the fog. When Ian brushes the side of this huge structure, Renner’s reaction evokes the giddiness of a baby learning about the world through touch. Adams is more sober because the most pressure really is on Louise, but the intense interest she shows in wanting to bridge the communication divide is no less a way of displaying her reverence for the opportunity entrusted to her.

The main dilemma in ARRIVAL is the inability to understand the other. A lot is riding on the humans and heptapods comprehending what is being said. First there’s the obstacle of spoken and nonverbal language. This fades as the issue of deciphering written symbols becomes more prominent. Even if these shapes can be interpreted according to their denotations, are the connotations being picked up too? Other teams at sites around the world are doing similar work but don’t always reach the same conclusions, presenting further barriers to a situation in which errors in decoding could be catastrophic.

While it uses the trappings of first contact with beings elsewhere in the universe, ARRIVAL is ultimately about empathy, particularly when points of view among two parties are, in this case, literally alien. Being able to see and feel from all sides is the best defense available. Adams makes Louise the rare hero who can save the day through listening and contemplation. The film itself takes the whole view idea to heart, as seeing it a second time brings out shades that would be easy to miss the first.

Grade: A-

Attack the Block

ATTACK THE BLOCK (Joe Cornish, 2011)

Despite keeping a watchful eye on her surroundings as she makes her way home to an apartment in a public housing complex, Sam (Jodie Whittaker) runs into five teenage delinquents on a night of revelry in London in ATTACK THE BLOCK. As they’re stealing her phone and ring, a meteorite crashes into a nearby car, causing a distraction that lets Sam get away shaken but unharmed. Moses (John Boyega) starts rooting through the car for anything worth taking when a creature scratches him and runs away. The boys chase after the small hairless alien, and Moses corners and kills it.

They take the body to the drug dealer who lives on the top floor of their tower block until they can figure out what to do with it. From the high vantage point they can see all of the other meteorites falling around the city unnoticed among the fireworks. Moses and his crew go out to do some more alien hunting, but the next ones they encounter are bigger, like a cross of a gorilla and a dog with glowing teeth and without eyes, and relentless in chasing the teens. While running from them, they cross paths with Sam riding along with the police. Although Moses is handcuffed and locked up in the back of their van, the aliens make quick work of the cops. Sam gets away from the teenagers again, but knowing that she’s a nurse, they track her down in the tower to help when one of them is bitten by an alien. Like it or not, she is stuck with them if she’s to survive the aliens attacking the building.

With its mix of science fiction, comedy, horror, and action, ATTACK THE BLOCK has the makings of a cult hit. Writer-director Joe Cornish’s film is too slim in character and story to deserve elevation to word-of-mouth classic status--it’s more minor than major--but it is an entertaining romp that benefits from maintaining a local focus. The world could be coming to an end with this invasion, but for these characters that encircles the borders of their neighborhood, not the entire globe. Although they don’t have much on this block, they’re going fight for what little is theirs.

The spirit of ATTACK THE BLOCK is freewheeling fun, yet Cornish struggles to establish that tone by setting up teenage muggers as the points of identification. He’s aiming for an antihero in the vein of John Carpenter’s films. Moses and his associates are hard to cheer on, though, when their introduction is robbing a vulnerable woman and being unrepentant about it. Their criminal activity seems to be indulged out of a sense of boredom or fun, just kids being kids, than desperate need. That doesn’t sit particularly well for a long time and can hardly be dismissed even when the usual sops are thrown in to explain why Moses is the way he is. Cornish has more success in softening the toughness of Moses and the other boys through comedy that undermines the poses they are adopting. The influence of Edgar Wright, one of the executive producers, is readily apparent in ATTACK THE BLOCK’s humor regarding its self-destructive characters; it could just stand to have more of it earlier in the film.

Cornish has room for improvement in developing his characters and the thin premise, but ATTACK THE BLOCK boasts enough cleverness for it to satisfy on a basic level. The alien’s teeth, which can initially be mistaken for eyes, are a nice design flourish. The action demonstrates the ability to employ modest means to craft excitement. The humor and elements of surprise bolster the anything-goes spirit. ATTACK THE BLOCK is infused with the brashness of youth, a quality that gives it a spark and leads to some less desirable choices.

Grade: B-

Independence Day: Resurgence

INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE (Roland Emmerich, 2016)

Movie theaters have been chockablock with ill-advised and hard-to-justify sequels in 2016, so Roland Emmerich’s bid to make a franchise out of INDEPENDENCE DAY seems like business as usual for Hollywood. Still, it’s some feat that INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE feels like a rush job even though twenty years have passed between the original and this sequel. Will Smith does not return, leaving his character’s absence to be explained with about as much elegance as Poochie being written off THE ITCHY & SCRATCHY SHOW on THE SIMPSONS. Some of the special effects impress, but a number of scenes don’t look much different than television dramas with conversations in front of chromakeyed backgrounds. The hash made from several weightless narrative threads does nothing to diminish the sense that this is a cash-in project timed to align with an anniversary ending in a zero.

INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE picks up two decades after the events of humanity’s defeat of the alien invaders. Knowing that a common enemy is out there among the stars, the world has become a more peaceful and unified place. Scientists have reverse engineered alien technology to improve Earth’s defenses in the event that another attack comes. Former President Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman) is haunted by the the previous battle and worries another is imminent. His fears are confirmed when scientist David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum), among others, discovers that a distress signal is being sent by the first mothership.

When an unidentified vessel appears at the moon defense base, the snap judgment among world leaders is to destroy it. This victory is short-lived, as a ship three thousand miles in diameter follows and begins drilling into the Earth in pursuit of the molten core. Those fighting for Earth Space Defense against the aliens include Patricia Whitmore (Maika Monroe), the onetime First Daughter and pilot who assists the current Commander-in-Chief; her fiancé Jake Morrison (Liam Hemsworth); and her friend Dylan Hiller (Jessie T. Usher), the stepson of Will Smith’s INDEPENDENCE DAY character.

The aliens wipe out the United States’ East Coast, London, and presumably much of Europe and Asia, yet the massive toll doesn’t register at all. The lack of impact could be attributed to scenes of spectacular destruction becoming commonplace in comic book films and the like, so the imagery of large-scale catastrophes has become overly familiar to moviegoers. Emmerich doesn’t help matters by putting no emotional investment in these sections. There isn’t really any proportional human reaction to the incomprehensible carnage that occurs. Emmerich dispenses with the faceless masses and fleetingly recalled characters from the first film as if he’s stepping on an ant colony. INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE goes even bigger than before, although perhaps not as near-extinction level as THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW or 2012, but the tragedy merits little more than a shrug of the shoulders.

Emmerich’s large-scale disaster films are knowingly outrageous and campy to a degree, and INDEPENDENCE DAY: RESURGENCE is no different even as it verges on self-parody. Brent Spiner hams it up as Dr. Brakish Okun, who has been in a coma since the previous film. Judd Hirsch is back as Julius Levinson, the father of Goldblum’s character, and he brings some levity via his matter-of-fact acceptance of all the nonsense happening around him. Spiner and Hirsch’s performances demonstrate awareness that this is all big and dumb, so why not have fun with it? The rest of the film subtracts fun from the equation and substitutes it with an earnest insistence that a good time is being had. Emmerich’s salesmanship is not convincing.

Grade: D-

10 Cloverfield Lane

10 CLOVERFIELD LANE (Dan Trachtenberg, 2016)

Having left her fiancé, Michelle (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is not in a good place emotionally as she drives across Louisiana in 10 CLOVERFIELD LANE. After being knocked out during a nighttime car accident, she awakens in a bad physical place. She finds herself on a mattress with her right leg chained to the wall of a locked concrete room. Michelle is visited by Howard (John Goodman), who informs her that he saved her life by pulling her out of her wrecked car and bringing her to his bunker while an unspecified attack has rendered outside uninhabitable. He isn’t clear on what specifically has happened. All he knows is that everyone Michelle knows is surely dead.

In time Howard grants her more movement around his well-stocked underground shelter. Also occupying it is Emmett (John Gallagher Jr.), who helped build the bunker and rushed to it for safety when the unknown event happened. Emmett and Michelle don’t fully trust Howard, who comes off as a paranoid survivalist, but with his broken arm and her injured leg, they are limited in their abilities to physically overpower him. The limited information they have about what’s going on above ground also discourages a possible escape. For now they’re better off playing board games, doing puzzles, and enjoying whatever other entertainment options are available while biding what could be a couple years until it’s safe on the surface.

10 CLOVERFIELD LANE exists within the same universe as Matt Reeves’ 2008 thriller CLOVERFIELD, although the films stand as separate works that lack overlapping characters. Such knowledge is a tip-off to the mystery about what the trio is burrowed away from, but the greater uncertainty lies in Howard’s motivations. By preparing for a doomsday scenario that seems to have arrived, his suspicious nature is validated. Howard is weird, but the limited evidence also means that he’s correct. Goodman plays Howard as a creep emboldened because his fears have become manifest and thus allow him to exert excessive influence on what Michelle and Emmett can do and say. Goodman is terrific straddling the line of acting like those around him have the freedom to do as they please while never letting them forget that he holds their fates in his hands. Sometimes it’s what he implies, like telling Michelle that she’ll learn to enjoy cooking. In other actions the threat is explicit, such as the fact that Michelle is still locked in that barren room at times. Goodman is often scarier as Howard when he’s putting on the appearance of being nice, which poorly disguises whatever pathology drives him.

Winstead is excellent at showing how Michelle maintains the peace around a volatile personality. She locates the character’s strength by having Michelle play along with whatever placates Howard even as she schemes to find out the truth of the predicament for herself. There’s not much meat to the part, but Winstead brings solid determination to it.

Director Dan Trachtenberg maximizes the tension in close quarters, whether it’s the stifling experience of bunker life or the claustrophobia of crawling through a ventilation shaft. Even if the three people living there were on good terms, at some point it would feel like the walls are closing in on them. Every word and movement is heightened in this tight thriller because upsetting the fragility of the environment can be the difference between life and death.

Grade: B

The One I Love

THE ONE I LOVE (Charlie McDowell, 2014)

When something or someone is familiar, it’s easy to take for granted what to expect when encountering the object or person again and again. As the newness wears off, the sameness may become less interesting and the flaws more apparent while a slight modification from the usual can seem rather exciting. THE ONE I LOVE explores this aspect of a marriage through something akin to romantic comedy, although not in a way anticipated by that genre label.

Ethan (Mark Duplass) and Sophie (Elisabeth Moss) are in the middle of a rough patch in their marriage. He did something for which she still hasn’t forgiven him For their anniversary Ethan tries to duplicate the evening they met, which he considers the greatest night of his life, but the second time around doesn’t contain the same thrills. His attempt speaks to the problem Sophie feels exist. They are at a point where happiness is something they have to recreate.

Their therapist (Ted Danson) suggests going on a weekend retreat that has proven beneficial for his other patients. Although they’re at odds, Ethan and Sophie want to salvage their relationship, so, in the hope of renewing their love, they go to the gated property with a vacation house and guest house. While there they face what each is seeking in a spouse.

Without explicitly spoiling the surprise of what awaits the couple at the retreat, THE ONE I LOVE resembles Rod Serling’s version of WHO’S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF?, which is something the characters acknowledge upon sizing up the situation. The film’s particulars are fantastical, but the dilemma is rooted in reality. If one person in a relationship is more enamored of a memory of who the other was or a projected better-but-not-ideal version, how can they repair the damage before everything collapses? As Ethan and Sophie mention to their therapist, reliving the rosy origin of their romance didn’t rekindle what once existed so easily.

The comedy in THE ONE I LOVE emerges in the differing visions the characters have of one another in this strange trust exercise. Duplass amuses with how he registers annoyance at the man Sophie would prefer Ethan to be. Some changes that appeal to her are superficial, but to Ethan fulfilling her requests means losing the ability to assert his individuality. Plus, Sophie doesn’t seem interested so much in working with Ethan but rather having her desires reinforced. On the other hand, he is suspicious of the supposedly better Sophie, which Moss has fun playing as the perfect traditional housewife. Ethan finds that a more compliant version of Sophie feels alien. After all, a solid marriage is based on mutual respect, not acceding to the partner’s every wish.

The film’s second act, its strongest section, verges on farce as Ethan and Sophie negotiate how best to deal with the scenario they find themselves in and react to the complications. Director Charlie McDowell and screenwriter Justin Lader meet the precarious challenge of keeping the limited narrative action moving without stagnating, although the third act muddles things somewhat thematically by introducing explanations for what’s occurring. Those answers create more questions and distract from the primary subject of study. Still, THE ONE I LOVE succeeds through its inventive and humorous treatment of what people seek in a serious relationship.

Grade: B+

Under the Skin

UNDER THE SKIN (Jonathan Glazer, 2013)

UNDER THE SKIN begins with the gradual reveal of a developing eye and language. It is the birth of a sort for Scarlett Johansson’s unnamed character, an alien in human form. Although her motivation for coming to our planet isn’t clearly defined, her task is to lure men into the white van she drives around Glasgow and its surrounding areas. With her curves, mop of black hair, bright red lips, and welcoming personality she wears a pleasing form to males of the species. Such attributes make it easy to entice men into going for a ride to a dingy house where they follow her into full submersion and suspension in a pitch-like substance for storage until harvesting.

As Johansson observes and speaks with the natives, she becomes more sympathetic to them. Her developing emotional capacity opens the visitor to new experiences of this foreign world but also puts her in danger from the men on motorcycles, presumably fellow aliens, and the subjects she is studying.

Jonathan Glazer’s stunning film provides an experience akin to hearing and seeing for the first time. The sound design starts as though it is muffled to convey the sense of one’s ears adjusting to a new environment. Mica Levi’s abrasive and sinister score heightens the physical and psychological uneasiness of navigating the unfamiliar. Even the thick Scottish accents, which require some work for this American viewer to understand, work in service of culture shock’s disorientating effects

Remarkably Glazer grants the audience the opportunity to see humans like extraterrestrials might observe us. Like THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH, UNDER THE SKIN functions as an anthropological study. A shot of a wailing child on the beach gives the sensation of watching an animal in a nature documentary. For that instant it’s as if the kid is something other than what we are. Johansson studies the people around her as though tracking the movements of ants and, at least for a time, treating their welfare with no more regard than most would give tiny insects.

UNDER THE SKIN advances visually and sonically from sensory bombardment in the city to a calmer state as Johansson progresses from disaffected onlooker to empathetic participant in human culture. The stark lighting and locations become more natural. The score becomes somewhat more melodic, and the sound design softens from the previous buzz and harshness. The suggestion of potential malevolence remains in what is seen and heard; it merely fades into the background more.

Glazer’s exacting, detached style is the most immediately dazzling aspect of UNDER THE SKIN, but it wouldn’t work as well as it does without Johansson’s spectacular performance. Her acting turns on subtle expressions that show how her character flips from hunter mode to a passive manner she deploys to seduce men. As much as UNDER THE SKIN is about observing humankind, it is also concerned with what it is like in society to be seen as a woman.

Grade: A

Upstream Color

UPSTREAM COLOR (Shane Carruth, 2013)

Fundamentally UPSTREAM COLOR relates to the indescribable attraction that brings two people together and the wounds and common ground in their history, but storywise it’s a whole lot more complicated and bizarre than that. A man referred to as The Thief (Thiago Martins) harvests a worm that he puts in a capsule and forcibly gives to Kris (Amy Seimetz). He uses the worm to control her mind and takes her for all she’s worth. After he’s done with her, a man called The Sampler (Andrew Sensenig) comes along to remove the worm and implant it in a pig.  A post-procedure Kris discovers her life in ruins but eventually finds and is drawn to Jeff (Shane Carruth), who may have endured a similar situation.

Although the surrealist and naturalistic influences place UPSTREAM COLOR at the intersection of David Lynch and Terrence Malick, Carruth’s weird poetry of sound and images belongs to his distinct vision. The plot particulars are often indirect and opaque, yet the film is never less than mesmerizing or comprehensible because of its impeccable sculpture. By crosscutting sonic tones and matching visuals, Carruth points out the connections surrounding and linking us regardless of if they are perceived or not. Whether the chains come in the form of looped paper, crocheted yarn, human relationships, or the natural cycle, UPSTREAM COLOR functions like a microscope through which these bonds are acknowledged and examined.

Cracking the narrative code was a great source of gratification in PRIMER, Carruth’s previous brain-busting film, but to get twisted up in what UPSTREAM COLOR means is to miss its deeper pleasures. Here the complexity and strangeness work toward conjuring the ineffable to elicit emotional responses. For such an abstract film, it offers a tactile viewing experience. It’s about texture rather than text, and the sound design, ambient score, and cinematography enhance the senses to lead to an instinctual understanding of UPSTREAM COLOR’s essence.

This description likely makes UPSTREAM COLOR sound like a cold, intellectual, and impenetrable exercise, which couldn’t be farther from the experience of it. This film is felt more than comprehended. The odd and disorienting science fiction surfaces allow for the emotional undercurrents to break through more easily. Seimetz’s remarkable physical performance contains the pain and anger that come with injury, the wariness of trusting anew, and the ecstasy of love. An entire inner life is made familiar through her.

With UPSTREAM COLOR Carruth employs a novel and thrilling strategy for studying the inexplicable bonds that pull and hold people together, the shared joys and concerns that transform us as individuals and couples, and the past hurts that need to be absorbed into our identities rather than removed or disregarded.

Grade: A

Total Recall

TOTAL RECALL (Len Wiseman, 2012)

In TOTAL RECALL factory worker Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) has a vivid dream in which he and a woman are being pursued by synthetic soldiers.  He wakes up to remember that he doesn’t live the thrilling life of a spy and that the beautiful woman beside him in bed is not the one which he fantasizes spending adventures with.

Quaid lives in The Colony, which used to be called Australia and is essentially the rundown home for the blue collar laborers in the United Federation of Britain.   A global chemical war has left much of the planet uninhabitable at the end of the 21st century, so working stiffs like Quaid must take an elevator-like transport--a sub-subway, if you will--that passes through the Earth’s core to the more affluent territory.  Times are tough in The Colony as the UFB’s Chancellor Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston) seeks to crack down on terrorists fighting back on the downtrodden’s behalf.

Feeling as though his life is missing something, Quaid eventually decides to visit Rekall, a company that can implant memories as if one actually experienced them. The only caveat is that customers cannot select memories that overlap with their real lives.  Quaid chooses the spy package, but things go wrong almost immediately.  The Rekall employee (John Cho) accuses Quaid of lying about his past, and next thing he knows the room is surrounded by law enforcement.  Through an exceptional display of physical skill and mental calculation, Quaid escapes and returns home to his wife Lori (Kate Beckinsale).

Are Quaid’s experiences part of what he purchased, or is he really a secret agent?  The appearance of Melina (Jessica Biel), the woman from his dreams, further confuses Quaid as to what is real. Director Len Wiseman’s remake doesn’t have much interest in the thematic questions the premise raises.  This TOTAL RECALL is less humorous and contemplative than Paul Verhoeven’s 1990 adaptation of the Philip K. Dick short story that is the basis for both films.  Nevertheless, it succeeds on the modest aims of a self-contained action/science fiction film.  The action scenes mostly work, particularly some chase sequences, although Wiseman thoroughly botches the spatial element of a fight in an elevator.

While clearly inspired by other films--BLADE RUNNER is liberally borrowed from--the production and art design are quite beautiful.  Considering that Wiseman utilized an almost monochrome palette for the two UNDERWORLD films he directed, it’s nice to see him utilizing more color in the noir-like gloom of TOTAL RECALL’s dystopia.  

Wiseman is better off when he frees himself from the strictures of replicating Verhoeven’s version.  The obvious nods to the other film are more distracting than anything.  The hat tips feel less like homage and more like dutiful item box checking. While Wiseman’s slick update probably has no good reason for existing other than a rights owner wanting to cash in a chip that takes advantage of today’s special effects, this TOTAL RECALL is a solidly entertaining blast of summer movie spectacle.

Grade: B

Extraterrestrial (Extraterrestre)

EXTRATERRESTRIAL (EXTRATERRESTRE) (Nacho Vigalondo, 2011)

Julio (Julián Villagrán) wakes up in an unfamiliar apartment with little memory of the wild Saturday night he apparently had.  The flat belongs to Julia (Michelle Jenner), who is eager to send him on his way.  As they try to recall the previous evening and each others’ names, Julio and Julia become aware that the world to which they’ve awakened in EXTRATERRESTRIAL (EXTRATERRESTRE) is no longer ordinary.

The downtown Madrid streets are empty.  Neither cell phones nor landlines work. The television is not picking up any signals, and internet access is unavailable.  Then they notice that a massive flying saucer is hovering above the city.  Julio and Julia are able to tune in a radio broadcast to gain some information, although the news that most people have been evacuated and stragglers should remain inside is less than reassuring.

Among those still in the city is Julia’s stalkerish neighbor Ángel (Carlos Areces), who tells them that about thirty spaceships are reported over Spain and untold numbers have appeared all over the globe.  Carlos (Raúl Cimas), Julia’s longtime boyfriend, eventually turns up as well.  He doesn’t suspect Julia and Julio of doing anything improper and believes the story she contrives about spotting Julio on the street and inviting him in.  Carlos is so trusting he insists that Julio stays with them.  Julio and Julia fear that Ángel will tell Carlos the truth about how they know one another, so they convince Carlos that Ángel is really an alien posing as a human.

Although set during an alien occupation of Earth, the science fiction trappings function as a readily apparent misdirect for staging a romantic comedy/drama. Writer-director Nacho Vigalondo’s interest lays not in little green men attacking earthlings but in the disruptive effect an outsider can have on a couple.  The problem is that the interpersonal dynamics aren’t developed sufficiently or invested with high enough stakes for what Vigalondo wants to study to matter.

If EXTRATERRESTRIAL is to explore what might be called Third Wheel Syndrome, Vigalondo needed to bring greater tension to the romantic triangle than what exists.  The mere presence of Julio, the proverbial extraterrestrial, alters the environment, but circumstances have a convenient way of mitigating his culpability. In due time Julia reveals to Julio that she has been with Carlos since she was nineteen and that their relationship was distressed before the spacecrafts appeared. The implication is that the relationship had soured before Julio’s arrival and that he need not feel guilty for whatever is transpiring between him and Julia, regardless of Ángel’s attempts to expose what he views as a tawdry secret.  Meanwhile, Carlos seems oblivious to any potential hanky-panky between Julia and Julio and then, having broken the trio’s agreement never to go anywhere alone, makes it easy for them to ask him to go away.  Despite Vigalondo presenting Julio as the suffering romantic, the emotional burden he is carrying could be shrugged off with little effort. The noble decision facing Julio packs less of a wallop because it feels unnecessary.

EXTRATERRESTRIAL’s combination of romantic comedy and genre movie elements recall SHAUN OF THE DEAD while failing to blend them nearly as well as Edgar Wright’s feature.  Having confined the action to a pocket of the world, Vigalondo’s featherweight film relies on the small but affable cast to be its saving grace, a task they are capable of handling.  With Carlos behaving as though the invasion has drawn out his purpose in life, Cimas is funny kicking into survivalist mode at the expense of all rational thought. As the third wheel supplanted by Julio, Areces adds some amusing moments in his awkward interactions with the others and his bold bids to restore his position, not the least of which involves a tennis ball cannon.  Miguel Noguera gets laughs as a resistance fighter constantly feeling demeaned by the technical ineptitude of those helping him with a UHF broadcast. Villagrán and Jenner are good in their underwritten roles, but the end of life as the characters know it doesn’t feel at risk collectively or individually in EXTRATERRESTRIAL.  Lacking a sense of cataclysmic change in civilization or a couple thus sells short what could have made for a thrilling adventure or a potent metaphor for love.

Grade: C

Men in Black 3

MEN IN BLACK 3 (Barry Sonnenfeld, 2012)

Agent J (Will Smith) must time-jump to the summer of 1969 to save his partner and the planet in MEN IN BLACK 3.  He’s in pursuit of Boris The Animal (Jemaine Clement), a notorious alien killer who escapes from a maximum security prison on the moon and is hellbent on visiting the past so he can eliminate Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones in the present-day scenes, Josh Brolin in 1969).

Boris succeeds, which wipes K from the memories of everyone at Men in Black headquarters except for J.  This historical revision means that K was never able to put a safety shield around Earth, thus making it susceptible to invasion from Boris’s warmongering race, the Boglodites.  New chief Agent O (Emma Thompson) figures out that time travel has been involved and dispatches J to restore order by time-jumping to a day before his gruff associate’s death at the Apollo 11 launch and stopping Boris.

MEN IN BLACK 3 arrives fifteen years after the original and a decade after the franchise’s first sequel.  Consider this installment a reunion in which Smith is in charge of assuring everyone that it will be a good time and Jones makes a token appearance because he’s obligated to do so.  Inevitably someone has work done to maintain a youthful appearance at these get-togethers.  To keep up with the times it is rendered in 3D. 

MEN IN BLACK 3 can be a pleasant reminder of goofy, special effects-laden summer blockbusters of old that weren’t preoccupied with origin stories, world-building, and their own importance and seriousness.  Director Barry Sonnenfeld’s sci-fi comedy maintains a breezy tone that keeps it agreeable even when the lightness feels more forced than natural.  The good jokes in MEN IN BLACK 3 don’t nudge the needle much on the laugh-o-meter while the unsuccessful ones land softly instead of hitting with a thud.  

The millions lavished on creature designs and action scenes are meant to impress, yet the filmmakers are less concerned with drawing attention to the expense than delighting in the absurdity of how the aliens look and the craziness of the scenarios.  Despite the huge budget, MEN IN BLACK 3 is comfortable as a B movie and isn’t trying to prove itself as anything else.

Brolin’s impersonation is so good it wouldn’t be a shock to learn that the performance is actually achieved through CGI wizardry de-aging the crusty Jones instead of a younger colleague imitating him.  In supporting roles Michael Stuhlbarg adds genuine sweetness as Griffin, an alien who can envision the multiple conclusions of every scenario, and Bill Hader gets laughs with his zany spin on Andy Warhol.

MEN IN BLACK 3’s modest charms aren’t plentiful.  The mild laughs come sporadically.  It delivers what is expected, more or less, and doesn’t strain in the effort. The eager-to-please attitude and sleek sets provide relief from the somber mood and environments in vogue in tentpole films.  As far as unnecessary sequels are concerned, MEN IN BLACK 3 is a serviceable addition to the series.  

Grade: C+

John Carter

JOHN CARTER (Andrew Stanton, 2012)

Former Civil War Confederate captain John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) desires nothing more than to forget the tragedy that fell upon his family and search for a cave of gold, but you can’t always get what you want.  The title character in JOHN CARTER does find that gilded cave but has no time to claim its riches.  Instead he is involved in a brief clash with the strange man he discovers in it and then awakens in the middle of a red desert.

Although he doesn’t know it at first, John Carter has been transported to Mars, or Barsoom, as the natives refer to it.  He’s captured by a tribe of fifteen-feet tall, four-armed Green Martians called Tharks.  In this situation John is regarded as the alien creature.  Being on Mars imparts John with great strength and a spectacular jumping ability, which delights the Tharks’ leader Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe).  He will be safe as long as he performs for his captors.

When the war between the humanoid Red Martians spills into the Tharks’ territory, John puts his physical skills to use saving the princess Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins).  She’s trying to protect the city-state of Helium and not marry Sab Than (Dominic West) of Zodanga, who hopes to overtake her home by matrimony if martial force won’t suffice.  Sab Than is backed by the shape-shifting, immortal White Martians known as Therns.  They wish to create chaos and destruction on Barsoom.  Matai Shang (Mark Strong), the primary Thern advising Sab Than, is concerned that John Carter could ruin the plans they are trying to put in motion.

John Carter, Dejah Thoris, and Tars Tarkas’s disgraced daughter Sola (Samantha Morton) set out for the holy land that might hold the answer for his return to Earth, but inevitably they get pulled back into the fight between Helium and Zodanga.

If all of this sounds ridiculously complicated, it is.  That’s not even accounting for the triple introductions, including the framing story in which John Carter is thought dead and his cousin Edgar Rice Burroughs (Daryl Sabara) reads about his adventure on Mars.  The plot dump requires an adjustment period to get one’s footing.  Clearly director and co-writer Andrew Stanton, the FINDING NEMO and WALL-E helmer making his live-action debut, and screenwriters Mark Andrews and Michael Chabon are trying to do right by the Burroughs stories.  (Yes, the author, who wrote a series of novels about life on Mars, is also a character in the film.)  They go to great lengths to adapt a mythology likely unfamiliar to the majority of the blockbuster-seeking crowd.  While their ambition is to be admired, the volume of information to process makes for a rocky first half.

Once JOHN CARTER gets past laying out the specifics of the various Martian cultures and tensions, it settles into a pleasant groove that recalls the old Saturday afternoon serials or, more accurately, the STAR WARS and Indiana Jones films inspired by them.  Stanton understands that this is first and foremost a rip-roaring adventure not meant to be taken too seriously, and he does a nice job layering in light touches and comedic moments, particularly with the Martian version of a dog.

The action sequences are high on CGI spectacle but fail to stand out from what’s been done in other sci-fi and fantasy extravaganzas.  (It doesn’t help that the 3D is absolutely of no consequence.)  A colosseum battle scene features the film’s best combination of effects, thrills, and humor, yet there’s the nagging feeling that it’s indebted to a similar stretch in STAR WARS: EPISODE II - ATTACK OF THE CLONES.  The source material for the adaptation was published in 1912, so JOHN CARTER may have been doomed to feel derivative through no fault of its own.

Unlike its shaky beginning, JOHN CARTER ends strongly and brings the depth of feeling for the main character and his dilemma that is absent for much of the running time.  John Carter gradually acclimates to Mars so that a place where he didn’t want to be begins to feel like home.  Oddly enough, the film has the same effect.  JOHN CARTER delivers a rough welcome to Burroughs’ vision of Mars, but I wouldn’t mind returning for future adventures, assuming this entry reaps enough money at the box office.

Grade: C+

Never Let Me Go

NEVER LET ME GO (Mark Romanek, 2010)

NEVER LET ME GO follows the lives of friends Kathy H. (Carey Mulligan), Tommy (Andrew Garfield), and Ruth (Keira Knightley), who grew up together at Hailsham, a boarding school for special children like them. The film begins in 1978 with them as children and concludes in 1994 with the three as adults trying to make sense of the world. Kathy is the pensive one of the group, and her thoughts and observations provide the narration to NEVER LET ME GO. To say much more about the veiled truths in the plot would ruin the experience of discovering them.

The rich subtext in NEVER LET ME GO wouldn’t mean anything without the care given to the story. Screenwriter Alex Garland’s skillful adaptation of the fantastic Kazuo Ishiguro novel reveals the secret about these characters basically from the outset, yet the underlying science fiction aspect is treated as a canvas for the relationships and emotional turmoil instead of being the plot’s main focus.

NEVER LET ME GO can be about the soul, technological innovation, media messaging, or any number of things beyond what the plot spells out. While the characters are vessels for various interpretations of their existential crises, the main story regarding love and purpose plays well enough on its own.

NEVER LET ME GO also digs into the foundation of our beliefs and the astronomical impact of how we often accept unquestioningly what we are taught and what we view, especially as children. The carefully chosen euphemisms convey concepts with large implications for the kids, yet it is through such words that passivity is branded into them. Director Mark Romanek and cinematographer Adam Kimmel employ a nostalgic and otherworldly visual sensibility to evoke the golden years of innocence and ignorance. The film looks and feels like beautiful heartbreak.

Grade: A

Surrogates

SURROGATES (Jonathan Mostow, 2009)

In the futuristic world of SURROGATES, most people stay at home and mentally control human-looking androids that they send out to work and play. Since it's rare for people to leave their private spheres, crime has plummeted.

If a surrogate is damaged in any way, the operator remains unharmed. Or at least that's always been the case until cop Tom Greer (Bruce Willis) discovers that two operators died when their surrogates were attacked and terminated. The possibility that users can be harmed through their surrogates threatens to upend civilization's current way of functioning.

SURROGATES establishes an intriguing premise for exploring a world in which virtual life trumps physical reality, but the thematic potential is squandered in favor of a by-the-numbers police procedural. Who's responsible for murdering people through their surrogates is much less interesting than thinking about technological innovations and the foreseen and unexpected social and ethical implications they can have on society.

In SURROGATES who one can be depends on the mechanical avatar chosen to represent oneself. But what are the costs of putting forth a false or idealized image and withdrawing from an existence outside one's home? SURROGATES is a movie that has a lot on its mind but chooses the least compelling aspect to focus on.

I've read nothing to suggest that the film was tampered with in the editing room, but SURROGATES has the marks of a movie that's been oversimplified due to a studio's lack of confidence in its complexity. Most noticeably, the surrogate resistance movement gets short shrift when it would seem to be critical to digging into the film's themes.

The sleek visual texture and rich thematic potential make director Jonathan Mostow's inability to corral the ideas all the more disappointing. Technology often moves faster than society can deal with the moral quandaries it creates. SURROGATES poses some provocative questions. If only it had debated them.

Grade: C