Jupiter Ascending

I hate having to say this, especially considering how much I like the Wachowskis' movies, but Jupiter Ascending was a bit of a mess of an action movie. It's an entertaining mess, but it's still a mess.

It suffers a problem that many sci-fi/fantasy movies suffer, where it tries to have a deep and complex mythology underlying the story, but the end result is something that's more complicated than complex. In Jupiter Ascending, there is a trio of siblings that own multitudes of planets. One of them owns Earth, which is apparently one of the most valuable planets, and his brother and sister want it for themselves. Except their mother has (sort of) been reincarnated on Earth as a cleaning lady named Jupiter Jones (played by Mila Kunis.) The Earth had previously belonged to Jupiter, (or her sort of previous incarnation,) and now it's hers again to claim. The siblings each decide to use various means to convince Jupiter to hand ownership of the Earth over to them.

This is a movie where politics play a central role, although it is more in the form of political infighting, as opposed to trade negotiations. On top of that there is a massive, unwieldy bureaucracy lurking in the background, full of rules and regulations about how transfer of ownership of planets goes about. It should come as no surprise that there's a Brazil inspired scene about obtaining the proper paperwork. Then there's also scores of rules an regulations in play about who can attack who, and when.

As if the underlying political system weren't enough to keep track of, there's also all the characters with shifting allegiances. As the film went on, I not only had trouble remembering who was double-crossing who, but also which characters were supposed to be allied with each other in the first place.

Jupiter Ascending's underlying issue is that the plot is severely underdeveloped. I get the sense that the Wachowskis had a rough vision for what they wanted this movie to be, full of spectacular battles and fantastic set pieces. The spectacle aspect of the film is fully realized, but the story never felt like it was more than an idea. Granted, it wasn't as bad as Transformers: Age of Extinction, a movie where I suspect the special effects scenes were created first, then the script was thrown together to accommodate the CGI. With Jupiter Ascending, it felt more like the script needed to go through many more drafts to be more workable. Buried in the film is the potential for a great story, but not enough time was spent enhancing the great moments, and shedding away the bad ones.

On the plus side, the Wachowskis' writing skills may have gotten a bit rusty, but they still know how to direct. I'm not saying anybody is going to win an Oscar for their performance in this movie, but if you were to watch scenes from the movie out of context, you might actually get the impression it was a solid movie. At any rate, there aren't any moments of overt badness from the actors, and it's actually quite fun seeing Eddie Redmayne revel in playing a pompous, aristocratic villain.

That's the thing, actually. I can't completely discount this movie because in spite of its many, many flaws, it is fun to watch. The moments that work, manage to work surprisingly well even against the bad parts. The humor lands on point, and not in a groanworthy, bad movie sort of way. There's plenty of genuinely funny moments in the film. The action scenes are exciting, from the arial battles along the Chicago river, to crazy fight sequences that have Channing Tatum flipping about on levitating boots.

Then there's the production design. This film has some of the most gorgeous and original set pieces and costumes I've seen in a while. Jupiter Ascending will probably be long forgotten by the Academy when next year's Oscars roll around, but the production design of this movie is something that awards should be given out for. It just makes for such a visually fun world, that you wish the story in the film lived up to the universe imagined for it.

Usually a film like Jupiter Ascending is the type you'd pass on in cinemas, but maybe get around to catching when it gets to home video. This would be such a film, if it weren't for the 3D effects. From their previous films, I suspected that the Wachowskis would take well to filming in 3D, as their visual style is already well suited to it. They use lots of steady camera shots and keep every part of a scene in focus. In fact, somebody watching Speed Racer for the first time might be shocked to realize that it was never released in 3D, despite all of its visual pop, and I don't think I'd object to a 20th anniversary 3D rerelease of The Matrix.

The 3D in Jupiter Ascending takes it from being an okay sci-fi movie to being a thrill ride. The Chicago River battle feels like a roller coaster. There's a wedding scene with overhead shots that actually induce a sense of vertigo. Finally, there's a fight near the end that takes place in a room with a translucent floor. In 2D, it would just be an alright shootout, but with the 3D effects, it feels absolutely immersive. You actually get the sense that you're in this impossible, futuristic space.

This might be the first time I've found myself advocating going to see a movie in cinemas just for the 3D aspect of it. It's not really a movie that's worth the price of a ticket, but perhaps paradoxically, if you are going to see it in a cinema, it's the sort of movie that you might as well go all-in for, and watch it on IMAX 3D. I can see Jupiter Ascending being one of those movies where clips from it are constantly being played on TVs at electronics stores as a way of showcasing how good a TV is. Stripped of a big screen and killer sound system, this film's weaknesses become far too apparent, but with all the bells and whistles in place, it's a reasonably enjoyable movie. It's unlikely that it will happen, but a part of me wouldn't mind seeing a sequel to this, provided they do a much, much, much better job of coming up with good story.

Interstellar

There is a scene at the start of Interstellar that feels uncomfortably prophetic. Cooper, an astronaut turned farmer (played by Matthew McConaughey) is brought to his daughter's school for a parent teacher conference. His daughter, Murph, has gotten in trouble for bringing an old textbook to school. The teacher explains that they now use corrected textbooks, which accurately explain that the Apollo missions were really an effective propaganda tool to get the Russians to bankrupt themselves, but that humans have never actually been to the moon.

As depicted in Interstellar, humanity's future is pretty bleak. Blight has wiped out all but a handful of crops, and even those are dying out. The space program has to operate in secret because people don't think space exploration is a useful way to spend taxpayer money when famine is imminent. However, it appears that humanity's only hope is to begin colonizing other planets.

In the film, possible salvation for humanity comes in the form of a wormhole that has opened up near Saturn. Astronomers have determined that there are three potentially habitable worlds on the other side of it, but they do not know which, if any, is the most suitable for colonization. A team of astronauts, led by Cooper, have to decide for themselves which planet may be the key to the continuation of the human race.

The idea that humanity may have to colonize other planets to survive as a race is a possible future scenario that may await us. In fact, it may not just be probable. It may be inevitable. With that in mind, director Christopher Nolan aimed to depict the events in this movie as realistically as possible. While the film does employ some "cheats," such as having the characters go into suspended animation, it strips away a lot of sci-fi tropes in favor of brutally honest physics. As a result, Nolan has created a film that shows a version of space travel we rarely see on film. This isn't like the worlds of Star Trek or Star Wars, where traveling between planets is as easy as taking a road trip. This is a film where space travel is dangerous and untested, and missions are just as likely to fail as they are to succeed.

Although a wormhole plays a critical role in the film, space ships in the film don't have means of faster-than-light travel, so moving through space is still a long and arduous journey. The relative nature of time is also addressed, meaning that time passes differently for some characters in the film because of the effects of speed and gravity. However, the most brutally honest aspect of interplanetary colonization that Interstellar addresses is that for those first colonists, it will likely be a one way trip, and there is the possibility that nobody else will follow after.

Against this setting, Christopher Nolan crafts an intensely emotional film about humanity's drive to survive, and the consequences that come from characters forced to choose between taking actions to be with the ones they love versus possibly saving the human race. On paper, it may seem like an easy choice, that you go with saving humanity, because if the human race dies out, so do your loved ones. However, in the film it's clear that the mission has a very low chance of success, so if humanity is going to die out anyway, do you make that impossible effort to try to save it, or do you spend those last moments with the ones you care about?

Nolan is known for being an adamant supporter of using practical visual effects (meaning effects done on set, and not through computer generated imagery,) and it's something that helps keep the story as a character driven drama. The alien worlds look fantastical, but also plausible. You really feel that the actors are on these far off worlds, because they didn't shoot their scenes on a green screen trying to imagine what they look like. The result is that you're focused on the challenging dilemmas posed to the characters.

There's no denying that Interstellar is heavily influenced by Stanley Kubrick's film, 2001: A Space Odyssey. However, instead of being a film that rips off from it's predecessor, Interstellar feels like a movie that's a response to 2001. When 2001 came out, it was the height of interest in NASA's space program. We had not yet landed on the Moon, and were already dreaming of missions to go beyond it. Computers were becoming an increasing part of every day society, but we didn't yet trust relying on machines for crucial tasks. Now, we have a space program that's fighting for funding, and has to constantly justify its existence to critics. We inherently rely on machines for every day tasks. It's other humans we've come to distrust.

This difference of mentalities over the year is reflected in both films. 2001 is a tale of wonder and exploration, where the greatest obstacle proves to be a homicidally sentient computer. Interstellar is a tale of desperation and necessity, where sentient machines are the most reliable characters in the story, and the greatest obstacle proves to be humans' ability to trust and communicate with each other.

Speaking of the robots in Interstellar, I dare say they were one of the more unexpectedly intriguing parts of the movie. Throughout the film are robots with names like T.A.R.S. and C.A.S.E., and which bear a striking resemblance to the monoliths of 2001. Yet, despite their bulky and rigid shape, their voices sound natural and human. It actually took me a moment to realize that the human voice of T.A.R.S. was not an off screen character, but the faceless monolith appearing onscreen. The result is that even though the robots are as un anthropomorphic as a robot can get, they feel as much of full bodied characters as their human counterparts. Perhaps this is due in no small part to the fact that for most of their onscreen appearances, they are portrayed by puppets that were actually on set with the actors, and directly interacted with them, and not CGI'ed in afterward.

Like Gravity, this is one of those films that is meant to be watched on the largest screen possible. The panoramas of outer space and other planets have their full effect when they take up your whole field of vision. Christopher Nolan, being the fan of analog filmmaking that he is, decided to shoot Interstellar on actual film, not digitally, so the movie looks grainier than we've become accustomed to lately, but it does add a touch of timelessness to it. The slightly old-fashioned look of the film suggests that just as 2001 is a film that is still being watched 50 years down the road, that Interstellar may be a movie that people still watch 50 years into the future.

Overall, Interstellar feels like both a thank you letter to the pioneers of space exploration, and a plea for the continued existence of space programs. The film sends the message that space exploration is hard, and as we push out further into space, it will only get harder. More will be demanded of the men and women who take the voyages into deep space than has ever been demanded of anybody in human history, but the payoffs will be invaluable.

Whatever career path you've chosen in life, it's hard to walk out of Interstellar and feel a tinge of regret for not having pursued a career in physics or as an astronaut. (Unless of course you are a physicist or astronaut, in which case this film will surely make you feel emboldened about your career choice.) This is one of those films you should take your kid to to inspire them to study science, (once you think they're old enough to sit through a three hour epic). The truth is, we need more films like this. Pulp science fiction films are fun, but we also need more films that explore hard science and that generate a public dialogue of what can it can accomplish. In other words, we need more movies that take the wonder and amazement that is found in fantasy films, and asks the audience, "How much of this can be done for real?"

Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy is arguably Marvel Studios' biggest gamble to date. It's based on one of the more obscure teams of Marvel heroes, specifically an incarnation of the team that appeared in a series that only ran for two years, back in 2008. (Of course, Marvel revived the series in anticipation of this movie.) I imagine that when the film was first announced, I wasn't the only nerd who had to flock to Wikipedia to find out just exactly who or what the Guardians of the Galaxy even were.

Like many of my fellow nerds, I had faith that Marvel would deliver a solid movie. After all, Marvel Studios has had an unbroken string of hits worthy of Pixar, starting with Iron Man. (Not to be confused with properties Marvel licensed out to other studios, such as X-Men, or Spider-Man, which have certainly had their shares of hits and misses.) However, many were worried that Marvel was bound to stumble eventually, and that when it did, it would be with the crazy space-adventure movie, starring characters nobody ever heard of.

If Marvel does eventually stumble, it sure as hell isn't with Guardians. I'm not going to be so bold as to say that it's on par with a movie like Star Wars: A New Hope, but Guardians certainly captured the feel of A New Hope in ways that the prequel trilogy didn't. Guardians is full of the roguish space cowboy types that made Episodes 4-6 of Star Wars so enjoyable, and that were strangely lacking from Episodes 1-3.

The fact that Guardians worked so well as a movie is actually a bit surprising. On paper, it sounds like it should be a bomb. Of the five heroes, only one is human. Of the four non-human protagonists, one is a talking raccoon, and one is humanoid tree, capable of only saying the words "I am Groot." While the current trend of comic book movies is to tone down the more comic-booky aspects of the source material when adapting things for the big screen, such as dropping code names or costumes, Guardians fully embraces its comic book origins. Characters retain their names such as Drax the Destroyer and The Mad Titan Thanos. The story has the Guardians trying to stop a villain named Ronan the Accuser from trying to destroy the planet Xandar. This sounds like it should be the sort of movies nerds make fun of for years, as the worst possible idea anybody could come up with for a summer blockbuster, and yet it's proven to be one of the best ideas to come around in a long time.

Quite frankly, I'm sure that if this film had come out twenty years ago, it would have bombed in theatres, having been torn apart by 90's critics for it's wild and fun nature, and unabashed comic book feel, only to re-emerge as a cult classic after finding its audience on video. In other words, Guardians would have experienced the same treatment The Fifth Element received.

Yet, Guardians works as a movie, even if it doesn't sound like it should, because the filmmakers know when to play things for laughs, and when to play it straight. Despite the unquestionably sci-fi pulp nature of this film, the film never treats the story as being campy. It's loaded with (sometimes incredibly juvenile) humor, but treats its core story as earnestly as every other movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The cast they lined up for this film is perfect, and there are a few unexpected performances among them. Obviously, Zoe Saldana is great as Gamora, but having seen her in Star Trek, there's no reason to expect anything less. No, the bigger question was how Chris Pratt would do as the main character, Star Lord/Peter Quill. He's certainly developed a loyal fan base from his role as Andy Dwyer on Parks and Recreation, but aside from his voice-over work in The Lego Movie, he had yet to take on the leading role in a movie. Considering how much hoopla he's generated over getting in shape for this film, he better get used to sticking to that regimen because he's definitely proven he can helm a movie, and not just as a comedian.

The performances that really surprised me were from Karen Gillian and Dave Bautista. I had only seen Gillian as the kind natured Amy Pond on Doctor Who, so it caught me off guard how frightening and intimidating she was as the villain Nebula. As for Bautista, when I saw the trailer, I figured he'd been cast as Drax the Destroyer strictly for his size and muscle mass, but it turns out he's got a knack for delivering deadpan comedic lines, some of which make up the best moments in the movie.

Finally, there's Lee Pace as Ronan the Accuser. I've been a fan of Pace ever since his roles in Pushing Daisies and The Fall (which is easily on my list of top 5 movies.) Personally, I think he's one of the most underrated actors out there right now. This film is unlikely to boost his standing, but only because he's heavily costumed and covered in makeup. As Ronan, he is perfect in the role, giving his all portraying a villainous force to contend with, but you can tell he's secretly reveling in playing the character.

It actually shocks me to say this, considering how 3D adverse I am, but this is actually a film worth seeing in 3D. The first time I saw Guardians, it occurred to me it might actually be worth watching in 3D. When I saw the film a second time (yes, it does warrant watching twice in cinemas,) I did not object when my friend wanted to catch a 3D showing, and it certainly made for a more enjoyable second viewing. Not only did the film have dazzling visuals and a brilliant color palate, but every shot was composed in a way that it was clear that director James Gunn wanted it to look good in 3D. Even though the film was originally shot in 2D, they did a great job converting it into 3D so that everything from the wide-angle shots of deep space to the close up shots are not only easy on the eyes, but add to the immersive experience.

(Originally, I was going to comment that either they did an impressive job converting Guardians to 3D, or I've just gotten used to watching 3D movies, but I saw Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in 3D over the weekend, and that is a terrible, terrible conversion job. So yes, I can safely say the conversion job in Guardians is well above average.)

Now I can't talk about Guardians of the Galaxy without mentioning it's soundtrack. It's one of the first things about this film that grabs you. In particular, the opening credits gets its hooks into you with a scene featuring Peter Quill trouncing about a barren planet to Redbone's hit, "Come and Get Your Love." The film makes heavy use of 70's pop hits, but every one of them is as perfectly selected and placed as if it were in a Quentin Tarantino film. So for any parents out there with young kids, get ready for them to develop a sudden interest in the music your mom and dad listened to growing up.

For a summer that's felt like it's lacked a solid, knock-it-out-of-the-ballpark hit, Guardians of the Galaxy is the movie that should have been the anchor for the July 4th weekend. It may have been an audacious move on behalf of the marketing team to give this film the tagline, "You're welcome," but the film backs that tagline up, as well as prompting me to say, "Thank you, Marvel."

Snowpiercer

Bong Joon-ho's post apocalyptic thriller, Snowpiercer, took a long time to get an American release. The film first premiered overseas almost a year ago. It seems odd that anybody would stall releasing a film starring actors such as Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton, Octavia Spencer, John Hurt and Jamie Bell, but despite the worldwide acclaim the film had received, the US release was held up due to the Weinstein Company, who bought the US distribution rights. Initially, the Weinsteins planned to edit the film down into what they considered a more marketable, action oriented cut, (did they learn nothing from the infamous Battle of Brazil?)* Thankfully, they relented and agreed to release the film unedited in the US, but the trade-off is that the film would only get a limited release.

Seeing as how, these days, films rarely get the chance to jump from small art-house releases to nationwide roll outs, if Snowpiercer isn't playing in your neighborhood, you might have to wait for it to come out on video, but it is worth it. The film takes place in a future where an attempt to curb global warming disastrously fails, plunging the Earth's temperatures to uninhabitable levels. The last survivors of the human race are on a train that endlessly circles the world.

It's an absurd premise, but other filmmakers have taken more believable movie premises and made them into outrageously implausible movies, and Snowpiercer's premise makes more sense once you realize it's a class conflict allegory. The very back of the train is a cramped, squalid slum whose inhabitants are not permitted to leave the car. Meanwhile the rest of the train's inhabitants are free to move about and live in luxury. One of the tail section's inhabitants, Curtis (played by Chris Evans,) decides to lead a revolution to take the engine.



Once the tail section's inhabitants make it into the main body of the train, the environment shifts from being a dark, gritty slum into a surreal and luxurious wonderland. All of the cars are extremely purpose-specific and instead of being cars adapted to fit certain functions, they are instead built like rooms in buildings on stable land. There's a nightclub car, a spa car, and even an aquarium car complete with an underwater tunnel. There's a particularly bizarre scene in a schoolhouse car, featuring a overtly pure and wholesome teacher.

In spite of strange environments of the various train cars, the movie itself doesn't feel too weird or surreal, because the protagonists remain firmly rooted in the environment of the ghetto they're trying to escape from. It's a dynamic similar to The Hunger Games, in which the Capital's residents live ostentatious lifestyles, and only look upon residents of the outer districts with disgust. The over-the-top nature of the luxury cars on the train only reinforce how out of the way the train's upper class go to live the lifestyle they want, at the expense of those in the back.

In case you're wondering, the film does address why the most bizarre aspect of the film's premise occurs, namely why the train keeps going on an endless loop instead of just staying in one place. The reason given may not be the best, or most plausible, but if the train just stayed still we'd all be denied the visual spectacle of intense battles in tight environments, or the strangeness of luxury amenities cramped into train cars. Snowpiercer balances it's surreal and realistic moments extremely well, allowing you to enjoy its stranger moments, while maintaining a very clear and focused plot.

Balance is actually a central theme to the story in Snowpiercer. The characters constantly remind the tail sectioners that the train is a closed environment, and one way or another it's an ecosystem that must be maintained. There are a few scenes sprinkled throughout the movie that argue that the way things are in the inescapable ark are the way they must be for humanity to keep on surviving, but usually before you can consider buying into the argument, the film hits you with a grisly revelation that keeps you rooting for the tail section.

Personally, I saw Snowpiercer as being a dystopian drama with elements of action, and not a straight up action movie, like the Weinstein Company saw it as. However, there are some pretty intense action scenes in the film, so their plan to edit the film into an action flick isn't completely unfounded. There's a pretty intense scene early in the film in which the tail sectioners, armed only with pipes and other blunt instruments, open a car door to find the next section is full of guards all armed with axes and pikes. The scene that follows is inevitably brutal and gripping, and somewhat reminiscent of the infamous hammer scene from Oldboy.

This isn't a soulcrushingly dark movie, though. To contrast the grittier aspects of the film, there's plenty of humor running through the movie. Some of it comes from the peculiarities of the front end of the train's inhabitants, and some from the tail sectioners being hopelessly outmatched by their combatants. Bong Joon-ho seems to fully acknowledge how crazy the premise of the movie is, and plays up the absurdity without going overboard, similar to the films of Guillermo Del Toro.

However, like I said earlier, this film is at its heart a drama, and the cast delivers some incredible performances. Tilda Swinton throws herself into the role of Mason, a mouthpiece for the head of the train. She's so quirky and unrecognizable in the role, its the kind of immersive performance one usually associates with Johnny Depp. However, the actor who really gets a chance to show what he's capable of is Chris Evans. He's obviously best known for roles in action movies, and a few romantic comedies as well, but I get the sense he's been trying to take on more serious roles as well, even if most of the ones he's had so far have been in movies that have gone largely unnoticed. That may change, as near the end of Snowpiercer, his character delivers a monologue about what it took to survive seventeen years in the tail section of the train that's a bit chilling at parts, but definitely shows he's capable of taking on a more dramatic role in a film not full of gunfights and explosions. This movie may also prove to be a breakout film for actress Ko Ah-sung, one of the surprisingly few Korean actresses in this South Korean movie. She has a supporting role in the film as a character that's oddly indifferent to the revolt she's partaking in, and is also responsible for some of the best moments in the movie.

It's a shame that the Weinstein Company opted to give this film a small release in the middle of summer, because it probably would have done quite well if released nationwide between January and March, which is a time of year often seen as a dumping ground for mediocre movies, and would have been the perfect time for a film like this to stand out. Fortunately, although Snowpiercer presents a very unique visual spectacle, it isn't one that necessarily needs a massive screen and killer sound system to be enjoyed at its best.

If this film does have one thing going for it's American release, it's that despite being a Korean film, it's primarily in English and has a cast primarily made up of Western actors, so it's unlikely that this version of the film will be undercut by an American-made remake way too soon.

*For those of you who didn't click through the link, and are unfamiliar with the so-called Battle of Brazil, Terry Gilliam's 1985 sci-fi dystopian film, Brazil, faced a similar situation as Snowpiercer regarding it's US release. Universal, which had bought the US release rights to Brazil wanted to recut the film, trimming down its running time and making it more upbeat overall. The US release was held up until Gilliam held private screenings of his original version in the US, ultimately winning Best Picture award by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. The original version still didn't get released in the US, but Gilliam approved of a considerably less invasive cut of the film. 

Godzilla (2014)

Now I'm going to apologize in advance for the fact that this review has a fair amount of spoilers in it, but there's just no way to talk about what the filmmakers did right and wrong in this particular movie without going into plot points.

In many ways, the 2014 remake of Godzilla is a well made movie. It's visually engaging. They picked a great cast. For the most part, the special effects look incredible. Unfortunately, there's quite a few problems lying beneath the surface of this well polished movie, but the greatest problem has to be the plot. "Who even cares about the plot?" you ask. "Aren't people just paying to see a giant lizard wreck a bunch of cities?" If that's your philosophy on monster movies, I'm not going to shoot you down.

However, the problem is that there's hardly any Godzilla in this Godzilla movie.

I don't mean this in the sense that when Godzilla isn't on screen, the rest of the movie is building up suspense for his next imminent attack. I mean that he isn't even the main focus of the movie. He's just a tertiary character. The main focus of the movie, the thing that everybody is trying to figure out how to kill, the thing that threatens the lives of humans everywhere, is a pair of giant insectoid creatures classified as Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Objects, or MUTOs for short.

The MUTOS are only here to do two things: eat radiation, and mate. Naturally, they wreck a path of destruction as they try to do both. It's the MUTOs that the characters are primarily focused on stopping. So then where is Godzilla? Most of the movie he just spends kind of chilling out in the ocean, like an actor waiting in the wings for his cue.

In fact, for much of the movie it's easy to forget you're actually supposed to be watching a Godzilla movie. Much of the dialogue in the movie seems to go like this:

SOLDIER: The MUTOs are destroying everything! What do we do?

GENERAL: Here's a plan to kill them.

SOLDIER: What about that Godzilla thing chilling out in the ocean?

GENERAL: Um... This plan ought to kill him too... Maybe.

This might have actually been a fairly decent monster movie if they had just left Godzilla out of it, but he's in there, in a somewhat awkward manner. Inexplicably, one of the scientists, played by Ken Watanabe, suddenly becomes this film's version of Charlie Day's character from Pacific Rim. You know, the one with the kaiju tattoos who's just a bit too excited about the monsters threatening to extinguish mankind. For no real reason, Watanabe's character concludes that Godzilla is a good guy, and that instead of trying to kill him, everybody should just let him be and he'll kill the MUTOs, because he's their apex predator.

And of course, this is exactly what Godzilla sets out to do once the MUTOs make landfall. I realize that in most Godzilla movies, he iss the hero, saving mankind from other monsters, but in the original movie he was the villain, senselessly causing destruction across Tokyo. If I'm going to see a movie called Godzilla and only Godzilla, not Godzilla vs. MUTO, I expect all of the focus to be on a giant lizard trashing cities. Unfortunately, this film decided to jump the gun and build up the mythology of Godzilla as King of All Monsters, without any proper setup of what Godzilla is, and why he's defending humanity. It's like they made Godzilla 2, without making Godzilla 1, figuring you didn't care enough to see it anyway. Defending humanity is the best way to describe what he does on screen. He doesn't attack the MUTOs like he's their predator. He attacks them like it's the sole thing he was put on earth to do. Again, not much of a reason is given as to why this is.

The other problem with having Godzilla just show up out of nowhere and fight the other monsters is that it kind of makes the rest of the action irrelevant. The climax of the movie involves a team of soldiers trying to get a nuclear warhead out of San Francisco, but once it's clear that Godzilla, not the bomb, is going to kill the MUTOs, the scenes with the soldiers feel like they're part of another movie. I almost felt like somebody was flipping channels between an action movie and an HD remaster of an old Japanese monster movie.

Also, Godzilla's look in this version is a bit disappointing. I know it's sacrilege to say this, but personally I preferred the look from the 1998 version. That version had the visual elements of the original Godzilla, but looked more convincing as a monstrous lizard wrecking a city. The 2014 version remains very faithful to the look of the original Godzilla, but to a fault. All the millions of dollars spent on highly advanced CGI results in a creature that looks, and moves, like a guy in a giant rubber suit.

As for the human characters in the film, they all felt very generic. The film starts out strong, building the characters by setting up their roles in the story through a disaster at a Japanese nuclear power plant. (The filmmakers were at least tasteful enough to not suggest it was supposed to be Fukushima.) Unfortunately, once the MUTOs show up and start causing havoc, all character development comes to a grinding halt.

The thing is, you need to have strong character development among the human characters to get you to care about the story. Otherwise, it's just a bunch of long, drawn out monster battles and scenes of destruction, and those can be a bit boring after a while if there's nothing to anchor the viewer into the lives of the people caught in the path of destruction. For example, Pacific Rim built up its characters enough that you not only cared about the humans in giant robot suits fighting monsters, but also cared about the people on the streets below. In Cloverfield, all the relationships that are established in the opening party scenes are carried through the movie as a group of friends and family try to get each other out of New York as its being ripped apart.

In this version of Godzilla, because the characters aren't developed well, you don't really care about the humans in the path of destruction. Considering that in the finale, a father, a mother and their son all find themselves in separate parts of the city, all under attack, I couldn't find myself caring much if anything happened to any of them. They felt less like characters and more like extras with extended amounts of dialogue.

That's a shame because, as I said before, the cast in this film is amazing. There's Ken Watanabe, Bryan Crantson, Kick-Ass's Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and even Juliette Binoche. Even though they all put in great performances, they all feel under-used as actors.

The 2014 version of Godzilla had the potential to be a great interpretation of the story. From the outset, it looked like the producers intended to make a serious and seemingly plausible take on the monster movie concept. It had all of the elements it needed to do it. The cast was there. The cinematography, sound and music were all right. Aside from the CGI rubber-suit Godzilla, the effects were good too. In spite of this, Godzilla managed to feel like a late night B-movie somehow given the trappings of a major blockbuster. By all means see it, but wait until its available for home viewing.

Or, if you must see it in cinemas, catch a showing where Mystery Science Theater 3000-like heckling is encouraged. There's enough moments of B-movie stupidity going on that it can only add positively to the viewing experience.

Amazing Spider-Man 2

Director Marc Webb certainly had an uphill battle when he took on the role of directing the first Amazing Spider-Man movie. The decision had been made to reboot the franchise after the disaster that was Spider-Man 3, but in order to clearly establish to audiences that this was a completely new version of the character, it meant retelling his origin story. It had only been a decade since Sam Rami's first Spider-Man movie had been released, so retelling the origin story meant partially remaking a movie that was only ten years old.

Nonetheless, Webb proved himself up to the task, not only opting for a more serious and "realistic" interpretation of the hero, but also putting a new spin on Spider-Man's origins. In Amazing Spider-Man, he hinted that Peter Parker's transformation into a superhero might have been tied to work that his father, Dr. Richard Parker, did on genetics. There were some scenes filmed that made more overt references to Peter's father's work being tied to his super powers, but these were cut before release, possibly due to fan outcry against this new interpretation.

For Amazing Spider-Man 2, Webb chose not to shy away from his twist on the tale, and instead makes it the backbone of the film's story. In this film, Norman Osborn is dying from a hereditary genetic disease, one he had hoped to cure though the research Peter Parker's dad was doing. Norman's son, Harry, learns he also has the disease. However, when his father dies, and Harry inherits the company he discovered that the board of Oscorp destroyed all of Dr. Parker's files have all been destroyed as a show of good faith to the shareholders, after Dr. Connors attempted to use it to turn everybody into lizard monsters in the previous movie. Harry slowly takes on a more villainous persona as he tries to uncover the research, ultimately taking on the persona of the Green Goblin.

Unlike the first Amazing Spider-Man, which only had a slightly different version of Spider-Man's origin from the original, the Goblin story arc feels completely different from the version in Sam Rami's trilogy. While Willem Dafoe was fantastic as Norman Osborn in those movies, lets be honest, James Franco's performance as Harry Osborn was kind of weak, and only became weaker as his character was supposed to become more villainous. ASM 2's version of Harry Osborn, played by Dane DeHaan, is much more convincing, both as Peter Parker's best friend, and as Spider-Man's nemesis.

As you've probably guessed from the trailers, Green Goblin isn't even the film's main villain. That honor goes to Jamie Foxx, as Electro. As much as I like it when movies try to stick to characters' comic book appearances for movies, Electro's getup was one of the campier ones, and his new look for the movie is a welcome change. Foxx does a great job with the role, taking the character from a confused, socially awkward person to somebody who revels in terrorizing the Web Crawler.

Yes, there are certainly campy aspects to Foxx's portrayal of the villain. In fact, the whole film has a slightly campier feel than the previous one, although nowhere near as over-the-top as Rami's trilogy. However, it's well balanced out with the more serious and dramatic parts of the film. I guess Marc Webb realized you can only go so far with the gritty and serious take on comic books before it looks equally as absurd as a campy interpretation, especially when you have characters that include giant lizard-men and a villain made of electricity.

Even though ASM 2 has both Goblin and Electro as villains, with a minor appearance from Paul Giamatti as Rhino, this film isn't the bloated mess that Spider-Man 3 was, trying to awkwardly mould a story with Venom, Goblin and Sandman. Instead ASM 2 follows an arc similar to The Dark Knight, having one character emerge as a villain early in the story, and another character come into the villain role as the story goes on. However, it also teases at the appearance of many, many more villains for sequels, such as Black Cat, Doctor Octopus, Vulture and Alistair Smythe. (Why would you name a villain "Alistair?" Clearly, thats a wholesome and virtuous name, right?) Hopefully these new villains get paced out well, or used in small does, otherwise ASM 3 might become just as big a mess of a movie as Spider-Man 3 was.

The best part of Amazing Spider-Man 2 was, just like in the last film, the onscreen chemistry between actors Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone, who play Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy. The way they banter back and forth feels like Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday. In this go around, Gwen and Peter have a bit of a falling out as Peter is filled with guilt over going back on a promise he made to Gwen's dead father that he'd stay away from her. However, they work so well together as a team that you can't help but cheer for them to get back together.

Overall, the film is pretty top notch. It's not quite on par with the level of quality we've come to expect from comic book movies, thanks to the Avengers franchise, but the film does find the right balance of lightness and seriousness, as well as campiness and grittiness. The only part I can really single out as needing improvement is the music. To put it politely, there are some questionable music choices in the film. For example, some of the songs selected to play over montage scenes don't quite fit the tone of what's happening on screen, and the first song to play over the end credits sequence is, I kid you not, an R&B slow jam.

However the worst offender is probably Electro's theme music. It starts out clever. When Electro is still his human persona, Max Dillon, he's always accompanied by a chorus of whispering voices. It keys you in to the fact that the character isn't quite stable as a person, even before he undergoes his super-powered transformation. Once he does become Electro, and decides that Spider-Man is his enemy, the voices move from whispers to overt screaming. Suddenly, it sounds less like an internal monologue and more like a rejected song from the Spider-Man: Turn off the Dark musical.

In the end, Amazing Spider-Man 2 felt like a satisfying take on the character that managed to feel faithful to it's comic book roots, while being completely different from the version in the Sam Rami trilogy, which also remained pretty faithful to its comic book roots. I'm a bit nervous about these rumors that Sony plans to expand the franchise into spin-off movies, creating an Avengers-style cinematic universe. For now, as long as they stick with Marc Webb at the helm and Andrew Garfield as Spidey, I'll at least be looking forward to Amazing Spider-Man 3.

Her

Upon hearing the premise of the film Her, it's easy to get a misconception of what this movie is about. You may have gotten the impression it's about a pathetic loser who is so hopeless at interacting with people that he develops a relationship with the operating system on his phone. Yes, the film is about a man who falls in love with his phone, but he's not some sort of loser with social issues. Rather, Her is a movie about how our relationship with technology is changing, and the strange consequences that result from us trying to make technology easier to interact with. It's a story about falling in love with an artificial intelligence that's advanced enough to have a self aware consciousness.

The film is set in a near future where technology has changed how we interact with people. It doesn't really cast judgement on whether those changes are good or bad. Bluetooth earpieces make a comeback. People actually talk in chat rooms with their voices instead of typing. They send handwritten letters to each other, but they outsource them to a website called Beautiful Handwritten Letters.com. The main character, Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix), is a man going through a divorce. He upgrades the operating system on his phone and computer to a new one that uses artificial intelligence. After it personalizes itself to him, it takes on a female persona that names herself Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson).

The film does an excellent job of making this seemingly absurd concept feel plausible. When Samantha and Theo first start talking, she comes off as just an easy to interact with operating system. She offers to help sort organize his emails and calendar. Then Theo finds himself talking to her about things that have nothing to do with organizing his life, and soon they find themselves attracted to each other.

Their relationship undergoes similar highs and lows as any human/human relationship would, except at its low points, Theo and other characters in the film do call attention to the fact that it is a relationship with a computer. It's because of moments like that, where the characters question the emotions they're feeling from technology (and the technology itself questions the emotions it feels from humans) the movie has a sort of prophetic feel to it. Her joins the ranks of other sci-fi classics such as Gattaca and Minority Report that are in many ways so on the nose with their premises that it feels like less of a question of "Could this happen?" and more of a question of "What do we do when this happens?"

Lets face it. We are actively working on making computers easier to interact with, and we're working on making artificial intelligence convincing enough to pass a turing test. I wouldn't be surprised if the first time most of us interacted with a true artificial intelligence it would be in the form of an operating system. Think of how big a deal Apple made about Siri on its iPhone. Imagine what a selling point it would be if a company came out with a computer you could actually converse with. The easier computers are to talk to, it's not too hard to imagine people feeling a bond of friendship with them, especially if computers are capable of showing friendship back.

Her is actually a much tamer film than you'd expect from writer/director Spike Jonze. Jonze's previous films have been unabashedly strange and surrealistic, such as Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, (both of which were written by the unquestionably strange Charlie Kaufman.) He's also known for music videos such as Fatboy Slim's "Praise You" and "Weapon of Choice." And of course there's his work in advertising, making ads such as the "Tainted Love" ad for Levi's and the greatest Gap commercial ever.

Considering how strange Jonze's filmography is, Her feels surprisingly down to earth. Yes, the film does have moments of quirkiness, such as having characters play unusual video games, and having high waisted pants be the go-to fashion trend, but it's light on the weirdness, so as not to distract from the characters.

Jonze made a brilliant choice in not giving Samantha a face. She's represented through abstract imagery on computers, but most of the time her only visual presence is as the phone or an earpiece. I think this is what sells the story the most. It shoots past the uncanny valley by not giving her some sort of faux human digital representation. Instead Samantha sounds like a woman Theo is having a conversation with on the phone. There were actually moments in the movie where I forgot that she wasn't somebody Theo was having a long distance relationship with over the phone, but rather the phone itself.

Of course since we never see Samantha, this means most of the dialogue between her and Theo involve long shots of Joaquin Phoenix staring off into space as he holds his end of the conversation. It does take some getting used to at first, but it also helps immerse you in his character.

The film also takes the high road in not representing the future as bleak, or our first encounter with a conscious AI as being apocalyptic. Considering that "future dystopia" and "robot uprising" are two of the most common tropes in science fiction, not using either one in a film set in the future, about computers, seems downright revolutionary. Her felt so grounded in a plausible reality, that when I saw the trailer for the upcoming film Transcendence, a thriller where a man's consciousness is uploaded into a computer and then turns evil, that premise felt hilariously absurd.

Her is an unexpectedly heavy and emotional film. You wouldn't think a movie about a man talking to a phone for two hours could emotionally resonate with you in the way a movie about a more conventional romance would, but Joaquin Phoenix's performance, and Jonze's writing and directing really drive it home. The relationship between Theo and Samantha feels real enough that as the logistical problems of a human and a program being in love present themselves, the tragic aspect of the story slowly creeps forth. Although the aesthetics of the movie may seem dated in a few years, I believe that the core story of Her will definitely age well.

The World's End

When I first saw Shaun of the Dead, I realized it an incredibly unique movie made by an extremely talented cast and crew. It manage to spoof zombie movies in a way that paid homage to them as well, and went far above the usual fare we see in parody movies today of just re-enacting famous scenes, but with jokes. It showed off writer/director Edgar Wright's ability to shift from horror to romance to drama to comedy, all without missing a beat. And of course, it introduced Americans to the onscreen duo of Simon Pegg and Nick Frost.

The three would reunite a few years later to make Hot Fuzz, a movie about a London cop sent to a peaceful village in the country, that starts out as a fish-out-of-water story, shifts into a film about a small town with a secret, throws in a few elements of slasher movies before exploding into a parody of Michael Bay action, all while being a buddy movie.

Somewhere along the line, the films became referred to as the first two parts in what is semi-officially known as the Cornetto Trilogy, called so because of how the films share themes of friendship, maturity, alcohol, violence, towns overrun by a menacing force, people trying to jump over fences, and a random appearance by a Cornetto ice cream cone. At long last, we've been given the third part of the trilogy with The World's End.

Like the other two films with Wright, Pegg and Frost, The World's End hops its way about film genres. It opens with Gary King (played by Simon Pegg) describing what he considers the best night of his life: attempting an epic pub crawl, known as The Golden Mile, with his high school best friends, back in their home town. However, they never managed to complete the crawl, so years later Gary becomes determined to round them all up, and finish what they started, making it through all twelve pubs to The World's End.

Then they realize their hometown has be conquered by alien robots.



Frost and Pegg switch out of their archetypal roles for this film. While the other Cornetto films had Pegg as the straight man, and Frost as his bumbling sidekick, in this film, Frost is the straight man, with Pegg acting like a full on maniac. I dare say that Pegg's portrayal of Gary King goes right up there with Shaun on the list of iconic sci-fi/comedy characters.

It's actually rather impressive how the film manages to stick to its core premise of friends reuniting for a pub crawl while all around them they're being threatened by increasingly hostile robots. It's largely due to Pegg's character being absolutely fixated on finishing the crawl, against all reason, forcing his friends to come along, if only to try and save him. Then again, that's what I love about movies written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright. They manage to take a premise that should be a movie in itself, and make it the backdrop for a character driven story with characters you'd want to see in a movie even without the sci-fi shenanigans happening around them.

Another thing I was surprised by this movie was how it depicted a rather balanced view of drinking. Most movies I can think of that are about friends drinking tend to celebrate partying from top to bottom, with no real consequences. World's End is actually just as much about the fun of drinking as it is about the consequences. Nick Frost's character starts out the film as a teetotaler, telling his alcohol obsessed friend Gary, "You remember the Friday nights. I remember the Monday mornings."He talks about how it takes real balls to go into a pub, full of drunken rugby players, and just ask for a water. I just found it so refreshing to see a character in a movie about drinking, who abstains from drinking, and yet isn't depicted as some kind of square. Granted, Nick Frost's character does start drinking as the movie progresses, but then again wouldn't you if you found yourself surrounded by hostile alien robots?

While there are a few bits of dramatic moments throughout the film, World's End is at it's heart a very solid British comedy. I am a huge fan of how Wright's writing and directing style leads to fantastic moments of comedic timing, whether it's in the form of wordplay or visual gags. There are moments of witty dialogue exchanges followed by lowbrow slapstick humor, or highbrow visual gags mixed with bad puns and obscenities. It doesn't get too lowbrow though. The crudest joke in this film still manages to stay far, far, far classier than anything in this summer's other apocalyptic comedy, This Is The End.

I wouldn't go so far as to say this is an "intellectual" comedy. However, it is a film that's so jam packed with subtle jokes and ingenious moments of foreshadowing that it warrants multiple viewings just to catch everything you might have missed the first time around. It's also funny as hell, which is of course the other reason to watch it multiple times.

The fight scenes in this movie are pretty damn impressive as well. Edgar Wright worked a good amount of action sequences into Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, but where he really started to cut loose with filming fight scenes was in that non-Cornetto Trilogy movie, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. That film was loaded with over-the top fights, and Wright incorporates some of that into World's End. The bar fight scenes have ordinary Joes taking on a waves of martial arts savvy robots. It's crazy to watch, but the result is a depiction of what every imagine's he'd be like if he had to get his friends' backs in a bar fight. In other words, its some of the most epic fist fighting you'll ever see in a bar.

Even though The World's End is called the third part of the Cornetto Trilogy, here's hoping that it isn't the last film that Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost make as a trio. They just work too well as a trio to not give us more movies. Maybe they'll take a line from Douglas Adams, and give us more movies in The Increasingly Inaccurately Named Cornetto Trilogy. Although The World's End might not be on the same level as Shaun of the Dead, (That's a pretty hard one to top for anybody.) but it is certainly one of the best films to come out in 2013.

And it is best enjoyed with friends, and beer.

Pacific Rim

Man, it had been way too long since we've seen something from Guillermo del Toro. Between 2001 and 2008, he'd been churning out quality movies at a pretty consistent pace. They were a mix of comic book movies, such as Blade II and the Hellboy movies, and character-driven pieces such as Pan's Labyrinth. Then for a while he stepped into the background. He was producing movies, but not directing them. His name was attached to many projects that have yet to come to light, such as an adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness." But at last, after a five year drought, we have an actual completed film by del Toro, and it shows he hasn't lost his stride.

When you first hear about it, Pacific Rim sounds like it's going to be just a mash-up of two staples of Japanese sci-fi: Giant monsters, (a.k.a kaiju), and giant mechas. Lets be honest, those two genres have only worked moderately well in the hands of Hollywood filmmakers. Roland Emmerich's take on Godzilla has its most climactic moments half an hour into the movie, and wastes another two hours trying to come up with something close to being as exciting for the finale. Michael Bay's Transformers movies have a few explosions too many, not to mention robots that look like scrap metal slapped together, and prone to racist caricatures.

Perhaps putting together monsters and mechas works in Pacific Rim because the movie is helmed by a guy who understands that you need to put characters before concepts. The battle scenes look pretty incredible in this movie, but they only work because the characters inside the mech suits are developed well enough that the audience will care what happens to them. Yes, as crazy as it sounds, Pacific Rim is a character driven movie that's less about how monsters are destroying the world, and more about the people who are trying to save the day.

The concept of this film is pretty ambitious. I think the prologue for this movie ran about ten minutes long, just setting up the main story. However, it is a well paced prologue that feels like a mini-documentary being played before the film. Basically what happens is an inter-dimensional rift opens in the Pacific Ocean and kaiju (giant monsters) start coming out of it. Governments of the world respond by building jagers, mech suits the size of skyscrapers that are operated by two pilots. At first the jagers are able to beat back the kaiju, but as the years go on, bigger kaiju start coming out of the ocean, and with more frequency. The jagers start losing the battles, and the governments drop support of the program, choosing instead to focus on just building a massive wall around the Pacific. When the wall fails, the few remaining jagers make one last ditch effort to stop the monsters, once and for all.

No, seriously. The bulk of that paragraph takes place in the first ten minutes of the movie, and it makes for one hell of an opening. Its the kind of opening that makes you even more excited about the movie you've just sat down to watch.

As for the rest of the story, it's fun and lighthearted in the way a proper summer movie should be. It doesn't revel in scenes of mass destruction the way Man of Steel did. Instead it really focuses on the development of the characters. I'll admit, Pacific Rim recycles a lot of old action movie tropes. There's the inexperienced rookie who's brought into battle without training. The hot shot hero who doesn't get along with the new guy. The seasoned veteran who gives the big inspiring speech right before the last battle, and so on.

The thing is, it doesn't feel like a rehash of things we've seen before in movies. That's probably because it's surrounded so many things that feel fresh and new. For one thing, this is one of the few action movies I've seen in a while where the female lead is not a damsel in distress, a sex kitten, or just a love interest for the male lead, but is actually a character who gets a story arc as well developed as the male characters.

Also, the way the jagers operate is by having two pilots meld their minds, then controlling the machine as two hemispheres of one brain. It's a unique concept that leads to some of the best storytelling moments in the movie.

It may have the premise of a pulp sci-fi movie, but there's plenty in Pacific Rim to remind you that writer/director Guillermo Del Toro is the same mad genius that made Pan's Labyrinth an Oscar winning film.   

Pacific Rim may not have any A-Listers in its cast, but it has a talented crew of actors you might know from their other roles. There's Rinko Kikuchi, who gave an Oscar nominated performance in Babel and played Bang Bang in The Brothers Bloom. Idris Elba, star of Luther, is the commander of the jagers. Trust me. It's not going to be long before Idris Elba starts getting top billing in movies. It's Always Sunny's Charlie Day even has a role, and it's so good to see him play a character other than the absolutely weird and crazy Charlie Kelly from Sunny. He's still hilarious, but in this movie he's more "nerd" funny than "weird" funny. (And I mean realistic nerd funny. Not the "I can't tell if they're laughing with us or at us" version of nerds from Big Bang Theory.)

It's also a great movie to take the kids to. There's not really much in the way of gore, besides neon goop dripping out of interdimensional monsters. No awkward sexual innuendo. I'm just throwing it out there for anybody out there who are parents that are tired of hoping you enjoy the movie you're taking your kids to see, and instead want your kids to be able to enjoy a movie you want to see.

This is also one of those movies you really do want to see on a big screen. Solid characters aside, the jager/kaiju fights are something really best enjoyed on a screen the size of your house. People complain that the movies coming out every year are either sequels or remakes, so when something this fresh and original comes along, you owe it to yourself to see it.

One last note: When you do see it, just make sure you stick around through the first batch of end credits.

The Kings of Summer

The premise of The Kings of Summer is a fantasy I suspect a lot of people have entertained at some point in their lives, namely the idea of running off to live in the woods. Whether it's to break away from civilization, or to prove to yourself that you could truly rough it, it's a fun idea to entertain, and The Kings of Summer crafts a fun movie out of it.

The film is about three high school students named Joe, Patrick and Biaggio who decide they want to run away and build a house in the forest. It starts when Joe, unable to put up with his widowed father, runs out one night to go to a party with friends. On the way home, he gets lost and comes across a clearing in the woods. He goes back with his friends, and pitches them the idea of living there. At first they pass it off as just a fun idea, but then decide they want to do it for real.

The Kings of Summer does a great job of balancing out its characters. On the one hand, you get why the boys decide to run away. To them, their parents are unbearable to be around. For example, Joe is constantly butting heads with his dad, who comes off as gruff and over-intrusive. On the other hand, the film doesn't try to vilify the parents, it just makes them the sort of parents a teenager would want to rebel against.

Something about this film reminded me of the movie Adventureland, and I think it's that both build upon the idea of having a truly memorable summer, without feeling as if the filmmakers are being nostalgic for their own youth. Kings of Summer is a fun story that does a great job of building upon its premise. Yes, there are bits of drama in the story, (after all, it is a film about kids running away from home,) but overall its a lighthearted, fun, escapist comedy. It's the perfect movie for a warm summer night, or alternatively, a freezing cold night in the dead of winter when you want to watch something to remind you what the warm summer sun feels like.



There were two stand out performances in this movie. First, there's Nick Offerman as Frank, Joe's dad. Okay, I'm guessing I already lost a few of you at the mention of Nick Offerman's name, as you likely just left to check showtimes to see when this movie is playing next. For the rest of you, Offerman does some well balanced acting. I haven't actually watched him on Parks and Recreation, but I know his character on that show has earned him a pretty big following, and from this movie, I can see why. He delivers some hilariously deadpan insults to the other characters, especially at one of the cops who's trying to find his son. However, despite how intolerable he is to the other characters, you still end up feeling sympathy for him.

The other great performance was by Moises Arias, who plays Biaggio, the third kid in the trio. His character is the kid everybody knew in high school that just lurks about, and seems incapable of doing or saying anything that doesn't come off as completely weird. (I suspect some people I went to high school with might accuse me of being that guy, but lets move on, shall we?) I don't think I've seen somebody do as good a job at stealing every scene he's in since McLovin in Superbad. Biaggio does everything with an insane level of intensity, while at the same time being somewhat absurdly dressed in about every scene. I'm sure we're going to see a lot more of all three of the actors who play the boys in this movie, but I think this movie will be a breakout film for Arias.

So far, Kings of Summer has been among the best movies I've seen this summer. It's been a while since we've seen a movie become a true sleeper hit, jumping from the indie cinemas and working its way up the box office rankings, and it would be awesome if a movie like this pulled it off. I think the only reason this didn't get a wider initial release was because it was the debut film for both the director and writer. However, it's such a polished film, you wouldn't know it. We'll hopefully be seeing more from them in the future.

Man of Steel

I know this is obvious to a lot of you reading this, but I'm just going to put out these three points anyway because I'm always surprised how many times I hear people pass up a good movie, like Mission Impossible: III or X-Men: First Class, based solely on bad incarnations that came before it.

1. This is not a sequel to the Christopher Reeve/Brandon Routh Superman movies.
2. This is a complete reboot of the franchise in a vein similar to Batman Begins.
3. It's the best damn Superman movie made yet.

One of the problems that I think has always plagued writers of Superman it's too easy to lose focus of the character. The character has been around for 75 years, so naturally he's built up several interpretations and lots of backstory, not to mention an increasingly weird and over-the-top array of powers. What Superman has needed for years is a story that builds upon the most central aspects of the character, while not being afraid to jettison the rest.

Batman, a character that has been around for 74 years, was fortunate enough to get such character treatments in Frank Miller's Batman: Year One, which later inspired Batman Begins. These stories whittled away the most excessive and absurd parts of his character and built a story around the character at the core of them all. In those instances, it was a story of a man who turns into a vigilante when faced with a corrupt police force and a city overrun with crime.

Man of Steel gives a similar treatment to Superman, building a story around the idea of a hero that is really an alien from a dying world. As a result, Man of Steel becomes a tale of first contact with extraterrestrial life.

The way the film focuses on Superman as being an alien feels like a fresh approach, even though it's been touched upon before in other versions. It builds upon the idea of what it must feel to be the only one of your kind. For example, when he first develops his X-ray vision, it leaves him cowering in a school closet. Instead of being the All-American golden boy most versions depict him as, Man of Steel has the American government suspicious of him, only because he is not of this world. Perhaps most surprisingly, instead of emulating Uncle Ben's speech from Spider-Man about "with great power comes great responsibility," Jonathan Kent tells young Clark something to the effect of, "With great power, you should keep your head down, or people will come looking for you."

As played by Henry Cavill, this version of Superman is actually reluctant to use his powers, not only because he risks exposing his identity, but also because he understands how devastating they can be when used. The end result is that we get a Superman with more depth to his character than I think we've really seen in any version.

However, the changes made to Superman's character are nothing compared to this version's Lois Lane. Finally, we get a version of Lois that doesn't just tell us she's an intrepid reporter, it actually shows us. Amy Adams's Lois Lane feels inspired by real-life NBC reporter Richard Engel. She's comfortable in the field, even in the face of danger, and we actually get to see the lengths she goes to get her stories. There's still a feeling of romantic chemistry between her and Superman, but her character feels more like Superman's heroic human counterpart, rather than just his girlfriend.

And you'll have to forgive me for spoiling this one minor plot detail, (it happens early in the film anyway,) but I really want to applaud the filmmakers for doing away with the one element of her character that never made any sense. For years fans have always wondered why if Lois is such an ace reporter, how is she unable to tell that Clark Kent and Superman are the same person? In this version, she not only knows his secret identity, she finds out his secret life before he even dons the Superman costume.

I was hesitant about the decision to use General Zod as the villain. With so many unused Superman villains, it seemed like a lazy move to go for one already featured so notably in Superman II. In fact, using Zod almost necessitates that a film with him in it be somewhat of a remake of Superman II. Well, I know a lot of people were fans of Superman II, but I hate to break it to you, Man of Steel takes the major story elements from that movie and does it so much better. Zod is no longer a scene chewing generic dictator. Michael Shannon portrays him as a cunning, manipulative and terrifying general bent on doing what he thinks he must to ensure the survival of the Kryptonian race. And through his second in command, Faora-Ul, we get a glimpse of what Superman would be like if he truly acted uninhibited. Hell, at times, she comes off as scarier than Zod.

While we're at it, Russel Crowe's portrayal of Jor-El, Superman's birth father, is the best incarnation of that character I think I've seen. He comes off as genuine and compassionate, and definitely has some of the best moments in the film. Again, I hate to anger the fans of the Christopher Reeve-era Superman films, but after you see Crowe play Jor-El, you'll find yourself wondering why anybody ever got excited about Marlon Brando in the role. Brando merely made a cameo appearance when he stepped into the role. Crowe owns it.

It should come as no surprise that since Man of Steel was intended to build off of the success of Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy, the tone of this movie is more serious than previous incarnations. Don't get me wrong, it's still a fun movie, but there's a high level of drama in the story.

Drama and destruction... Lots of destruction... The filmmakers definitely decided that when super powered beings get into a fight on earth, it should be the kind of fight that levels cities. Towards the end of the movie, there's a slew of buildings crumbling and explosions all over the place, and yet it never comes off feeling like Roland Emmerich-style disaster porn.

Speaking of directors with distinctive styles, I was also a bit worried about how much of his personal style Zack Snyder was going to put into this movie. The movies he made between 300 and Sucker Punch were filled with scenes of slow-mo action mixed with super-fast cuts of action, all shot with smoothly controlled stedi-cams. (Actually, I can't say for sure that's true of all of the movies he made during this period because, amazingly enough, I have still not seen Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole.)

For Man of Steel, Snyder opted instead to emulate Christopher Nolan's visual style from The Dark Knight Trilogy, with a bit of Snyder's own style from Dawn of the Dead thrown in. Expect lots of shaky hand held camera shots, especially in the early scenes. I'm not saying that's a bad thing though. In fact it makes Man of Steel as if it's part of the same universe as Nolan's Batman films, in the same way The Avengers movies all shared a same visual feel. Not that I'm implying Man of Steel feels like it's going to pave the way for a Justice League movie, either. I'm just saying they complement each other nicely.

One thing that did irk me about this movie was the science involved. In an attempt to further emphasize the "realistic" feel of this movie, the filmmakers tried to give a more scientific sounding explanation for Superman's powers. However, I think they went overboard. Instead of just saying he has powers from radiation from Earth's yellow sun and leaving it at that, they go on to suggest other things affect his powers too, like the nutrient rich nature of Earth's atmosphere. It's a plot point that gets exploited a few times, but feels more like a distraction than a welcome addition to the canon.

Overall, Man of Steel is the reboot that the Superman character, not just the movies, has needed for some time now. This is the movie we were all expecting to get back in 2006 when Bryan Singer made Superman Returns, (which, while disappointing, still isn't as bad a movie as everybody makes it out to be.) This is the kind of movie that can get people who don't read comics to ask their nerdy friends what Superman graphic novels they should go out and buy. (Sad news guys, there aren't as many great ones compared to Batman.)

This a movie I want to see turned into a franchise. I want to see more of what familiar characters are like in this interpretation. I want to see Henry Cavill's Superman take on Lex Luthor, and Braniac, and Metallo, and Parasite, and Dark Seid. (I doubt they'll do Bizzaro, but I'm going to keep my hopes up.) I just ask that they let this franchise continue indefinitely, instead of turning it into a closed ended trilogy with a movie like The Dark Knight Rises.

The Great Gatsby

Ordinarily, I do my best to avoid spoilers in reviews, but lets be honest here. We've all read The Great Gatsby. Either you read it in high school, or you read it later in life because you knew it was one of those books that everybody should read. In the event you're one of those few people who haven't read the book yet, I'm not going to go so far as to tell you to not see the movie until you read the book. I am, however, going to insist that whether or not you like the movie that you still pick up the book.

The Great Gatsby is unmistakably a film by Baz Luhrmann. That means certain things are almost guaranteed. Regardless of what era the film is set in, the music will be contemporary, (the exception being his film Australia.) It will be at times brash, and fast paced. Most of all, it will be a story about love. 

Baz actually structures his adaptation of Gatsby similar to how he did Moulin Rouge. Both films open with a narrator, distraught over the events that transpired during the story. Here, it's Nick Carraway, played by Tobey Maguire. As a way to deal with what happened, he turns to writing. We get a brief introduction to the time and the place of the story before being launched into a wild and fervent party scene, filled with rapid cuts that jump from moment to moment, in this film it's Gatsby's house party. Then it finally settles down into the main romance story. 

I want to emphasize that the pace of the story does slow down after the beginning. I know several people who walked out of Moulin Rouge because they couldn't handle the frenetic pace of the opening scenes, and I imagine the same will apply to Gatsby.

Once Gatsby is introduced, and the stage is set, I suspect this is where some people may have issues with the story. For a novel that's less than 200 pages, Fitzgerald wrote an extremely deep and multilayered story. As such, there's plenty of room for debate about what is central and what is incidental to the plot. After watching the film, my friends and I got into a debate about whether Gatsby was written as a commentary on the lifestyles of the Roaring 20's, told in the structure of a love story, or if it was a love story that was incidentally meant as a commentary on the 1920's lifestyle. 

It should come as no surprise that Baz opted to film it as a love story, with the social commentary on the side. His films are all about characters falling in love, against all odds, with them winding up in some combination of living and/or dead by the end. Regardless of how you interpreted the novel, I think Baz's interpretation works well for the silver screen. You buy into Gatsby's lifestyle easily. The parties. The fancy cars. The champagne. (The rap music?) Leonardo DiCaprio plays Gatsby in such a way that not only is he a guy who feels he gets what he wants, you feel he deserves what he wants. So when things inevitably start crashing down around him, you start to see the shallowness of the 1920's lifestyle for what it really is. 

Even if you think Baz wrongly emphasizes the film's romance, there is one thing you cannot deny he got right, and that is the look of the film. Fitzgerald used extremely stylish and vivid prose to describe Gatsby's world, so that anybody reading the novel could easily picture the green light on the dock, the windshield of Gatsby's car, and of course the watchful eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. Baz faithfully translates the Fitzgerald's prose into bright and energetic visuals. When you see everything from the parties to the Valley of Ashes onscreen, it feels as if that's the way you always pictured the settings in your mind, long before you saw a frame of footage for this film.

I am also going to defend his use of anachronistic music for the film. The thing with period appropriate jazz music is that current generations are accustomed to associate it with being a more recent type of classical music. It's what you hear on NPR late on saturday night. Sure, Baz could have played 1920's jazz music for the party scenes, and it would have conveyed that people were having a fun time. But by playing dance tracks and rap music, he did a better job of showing on what was really going on back then. People weren't having a good time. They were having an out-fucking-rageous time.

As a Baz Lurhmann fan, Gatsby is definitely on par with his other films. It mixes being fun and emotional in the way films like Moulin Rouge, or Strictly Ballroom do. (On a side note, if you've never seen Strictly Ballroom, it's on Netflix Instant. Watch it.) The acting, the visuals, and the script and come togther in a way that's highly theatrical and extremely engaging. As for non-Baz Luhrmann fans, well the two people I went to see it with actually watched it with the expectation that it was going to be a train wreck, and said they enjoyed it more than they thought they were going to, so make of that what you will.

One more thing. I've been fairly vocal about how for the most part I'm against 3D movies, with a few exceptions for when it's done well and adds something to the story. Gatsby was a film I intended to make an exception for. The last time I watched Moulin Rouge, I thought it practically felt like a 3D movie, without the glasses on, so I was eager to see how Baz would handle making an actual 3D movie. Unfortunately, the AMC at Newport on the Levee saw fit to botch things up as much as possible. For some reason, they opted not to offer a 3D showing at a time around the 7-8pm block when most people see movies. On top of that, they crammed us in one of the smallest auditoriums in the theatre, as if unaware that this was a major hollywood release. (And the movie started 20 minutes late, but we got free passess for that, so I'm not going to complain about that point.) So, alas, the one time I wanted to see a movie in 3D was the one time there wasn't a convenient showing for it. Should I find the time to catch a 3D showing of this, I'll let you know what I think.

Trance

I remember the first time I ever saw a Danny Boyle movie. One of my friends had come over with a copy of Shallow Grave, and simply said, "We're watching this," as if the matter wasn't up for discussion. The film turned out to be a chilling, disturbing psychological thriller that felt like something Hitchcock would have done if he could have gotten away with it in his day. Since then, Boyle has gone on to make films of varying genres, such as crime, romance, horror, family films and stories of personal struggle, sometimes mashing the genres all together. Yet, he hadn't returned to doing a straight-up psychological thriller until Trance.

Trance revolves around three central characters. There's Simon (James McAvoy), an employee at an auction house, Franck (Vincent Cassel), ringleader of a group of thieves, and Elizabeth (Rosario Dawson), a hypnotist. The film opens with Simon explaining to the audience the security procedure for when somebody tries to steal from an auction house. If possible, take the most valuable pieces of art, and drop them into a time locked vault. Don't be a hero. He reiterates a mantra, "No piece of art is worth a human life."

Yet, when Franck tries to steal a painting from under Simon's nose, Simon violates his most basic rule. He tries to attack Franck, but instead takes a severe blow to the head for his efforts. Franck runs off with a case containing the painting, but later realizes that all he has is the frame. Simon is the only person who knows what happened to the painting, but because of his head injury he can't remember what he did with it. Franck then hires Elizabeth, the hypnotist, to help him remember where he put it.

It quickly becomes apparent that there's more going on to the story than initially appears, especially since Elizabeth, a professional, shows little reluctance to assisting a gang of thieves with locating a piece of stolen artwork. Even though Simon, Franck and Elizabeth are working together to figure out what Simon did with the painting, they may be trying to manipulate each other for reasons that aren't initially clear.



The story gets increasingly twisted as the film progresses, and I mean that in two different ways. It's twisted in the sense that the film is loaded with plot twists, and twisted in the sense that there are some rather disturbing moments of violence peppered throughout the film. It may not come across in the ads for the film, but consider yourself forewarned about the violence. It's not constant, but when it happens it can be rather cringe inducing. Hell, while I'm giving you a heads up about things, there's a fair amount of sex in the movie too. Just trying to spare you a few moments of awkwardness that might come up if you were planning on seeing this with your family.

But getting back to the plot twists, sure you might be able to figure out a few in advance, but there are plenty that are going to catch you off guard, even if you've got your eye out for them. They're well thought out too. No cheap shots are pulled here. I don't want to say too much and risk spoiling things for you, but I will say it merits a second viewing to get a better understanding of what you missed the first time around.

Of course, being a Danny Boyle movie, Trance is filled with slick editing and plenty of techno music. It works for the film, but I worry the music may make the film feel a bit dated later on down the road. Going back to the other Boyle film I mentioned earlier, Shallow Grave, there are moments that serve as a time capsule for what must have been the height of mid-90's house music in the UK, and somewhat distract you from the horrifyingly intense thriller you sat down to watch. I don't recall the music in Trance as being that overt, but then again, 10 years down the road it might start to stand out from the rest of the story.

Overall, Trance proved to be a genuine, unexpected surprise. I say unexpected, because as a guy who follows movies intently, I didn't really hear anything about Trance until about a month or so before its release. It was rather nice to see a trailer for a movie I was excited about, and not have to wait months for it to hit theatres. I say genuine, because it's a movie that was clearly thought out front to back and back to front. It somehow manages to be a mix of fun, suspenseful and disturbing all at the same time.

Cloud Atlas, Makeup and the Oscars

There's already much that's been written about the 2013 Oscars. Of course, there was talk about Seth MacFarlane as host, (I thought he did a good job, personally,) and there was talk about the excess of musical numbers from movies that came out years ago, (which also resulted in the exclusion of performances for two of the songs that were actually nominated,) but I want to take a moment to call attention to one of the often overlooked categories.

As the Oscars were going on, a friend pointed out that not only did Cloud Atlas not win for Best Makeup, it wasn't even nominated. I found this surprising, as the extensive makeup and prosthetics were one of the most talked about aspects of the film. In fact, of all the films to come out last year, Cloud Atlas was the only film I could think of where there was anything particular notable about the makeup at all.

If you haven't seen the film, Cloud Atlas has six interwoven storylines, each set in different eras and parts of the world. As a way of uniting the storylines, the same core cast is used in each timeline. However, since the stories are set in such varied locales such as a 19th century merchant ship, modern times, a futuristic Korea and a post apocalyptic Hawaii, the actors appearances had to be changed dramatically for each setting.

Although the makeup team's talent was quite evident with Hugh Grant's characters, as he was practically unrecognizable in all six of his roles, what make their work really stand out was the transformation of the British actor Jim Sturgess to a Korean character for the Neo Seoul scenes. The work was so convincing, that if nobody told you about the prosthetic work in advance, it would be easy to assume that Jim Sturgess's role had in fact been played by a Korean actor.

I have two theories about why Cloud Atlas was snubbed. One theory is that not enough Academy members even saw the movie to even consider it for a nomination. The other theory is that the Academy wanted to avoid the controversy about having white actors made-up to look like non-whites. It's a controversy that started to build on the internet before the movie's release, but I think it died down once people who saw the movie realized that prosthetic work didn't just involve putting whites in non-white roles. Black and Asian actors starring in the film also underwent prosthetic makeup jobs to portray characters of different races. Also, Sturgess (whose race-swapping was most prominent in the film,) didn't pander to the sort of negative stereotypes commonly associated with white actors playing other races. In other words, we're not talking about Mickey Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's. 

Unfortunately, this leads me to conclude that it didn't get nominated simply because not enough people saw it, which is a shame, because it suggests that much of the pre-awards season lobbying actually is necessary to be nominated for awards. However, for the life of me, I'm still not going to understand how the movie that did win, Les Miserables, beat out the other nominees in the category. Les Miserables was up against The Hobbit, a movie that transformed a crew of actors into goblins, dwarves and Hobbits, and Hitchcock a movie that transformed the famous faced Anthony Hopkins into the famous director. The makeup in Les Miserables, simply involved dirtying up some actors faces and cleaning up the others. It's not that they didn't do a good job at it, but there was nothing terribly stand-out about the makeup in that film at all, at least compared to other period pieces.