Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

Tags

Action, Comedy, Sci-fi, Superhero, Thriller

Don’t you just hate it
When you’re on vacation
Intent on enjoying some hard relaxation,
And then all at once,
With distinct irritation,
Your work calls, demanding your consideration?

You reach for the phone
With a slight hesitation,
But then you ignore it with smug indignation.
But if the world ends
Due to your recreation,
You just might regret your own preoccupation.
_____________________________________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

How do you follow up a monumental universe-changing achievement like Avengers: Endgame? With a light-hearted high-school romp, of course! Just as Ant-Man and the Wasp lightened the mood following Infinity War last year, Spider-Man: Far From Home brings the scale of mayhem and destruction down a bit while delivering yet another marvelously entertaining entry to the MCU.

Spider-Man: Homecoming was a fun new version of the webslinger, but actors other than Tom Holland hadn’t quite settled into their roles and there was a tad too much “gee whiz, this is awesome” mentality, albeit an understandable one since they’re high school kids. In Far From Home, all the pieces just fit more comfortably, and characters like Zendaya’s MJ and Angourie Rice’s Betty Brant are given more presence than the first film. And, of course, the other big difference is the absence of Robert Downey, Jr.’s, mentoring Iron Man (for reasons everyone should know by now), though his legacy still plays a role.

This time around, after most of Peter’s class was snapped out of existence by Thanos and then returned five years later in what is understatedly called the Blip, things have largely gone back to normal, and Peter and friends are eager to enjoy a school trip to Europe. Enter Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and the new interdimensional hero Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) to interrupt Peter’s carefree vacation with the threat of elemental monsters wreaking havoc, which is almost as stressful as telling MJ he likes her.

Anyone familiar with the comics should know what to expect in regards to Mysterio, but there’s still plenty of action to enjoy, as well as some hilarious running gags and a few genuinely surprising twists. The subplots are all good fun, from the impromptu romance of Peter’s friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) to a rivalry between Peter and a handsome classmate (Remy Hii) for MJ’s affections. And of course, the visual effects are staggeringly well-executed, including a hallucinatory sequence that would feel right at home in a Doctor Strange movie.

It’s not above complaints, such as an unrealistic scene of the villain monologuing about his plan in detail or the uncertainty of why Peter is somehow expected to fill Iron Man’s shoes. Plus, Holland and Zendaya probably have the least chemistry as far as spider-couples go. Yet Far From Home serves as an enjoyable epilogue to the ambitious gravitas of Endgame, a teen comedy in superhero guise that ends Marvel’s Phase 3 on a high note, as well as a cliffhanger.

Looking forward in Marvel’s timeline, it stings to notice that it looks like there’s no forward motion in the current storyline until late 2020 with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+. But maybe that’s best, what with the time jump of Endgame and the threat of people getting “superheroed out.” Not that I’m in danger of that. No, I’m still very much on the Marvel bandwagon and hoping, like so many, that Disney and Sony can come to some agreement on letting Spider-Man continue in the MCU. I don’t expect him to take Iron Man’s place, but he fits so well in this universe that it would be a shame for the powers that be to yank him out of it.

Best line: (Happy Hogan) “You handle the suit. I’ll handle the music.” [‘Back in Black’ by AC/DC plays]
(Peter) “Oh, I love Led Zeppelin!”

 

Rank: List-Worthy (joining Spider-Man: Homecoming)

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
646 Followers and Counting

 

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I Am Mother (2019)

Tags

Drama, Sci-fi, Thriller

Mothers care,
And mothers bear
The heavy weight
Of a child’s welfare.

They guard the gate;
They mind and wait
Until that child
Can negotiate

The world so wild
And be exiled
From all that Mother
Once reconciled.
_________________

 
MPAA rating: TV-14 (aka PG-13, mainly due to heavy themes; nothing gratuitous)

It’s a good time to be a fan of science fiction, and Netflix has been supplying a steady stream of it, with I Am Mother immediately catching my eye with its trailer. One part dystopian sci-fi, one part psychological thriller, it’s a futuristic chamber piece that keeps the audience guessing as it asks whether humans or robots are the more trustworthy.

The film starts with some unknown catastrophe that prompts a robot called Mother (voiced by Rose Byrne) to activate in an underground facility and begin the development of one of thousands of embryos stored there. We then cut to 38 years later, when a girl only referred to as Daughter (Clara Rugaard) grows into a teenager with Mother as her sole teacher and companion. (And if you recognize a discrepancy between the 38-year time skip and the teenage girl, rest assured that there’s a reason.) Daughter, however, entirely trusts and helps Mother, who has warned her of radiation outside, but the arrival of an injured woman (Hilary Swank) who warns her against her robotic guardian throws everything she’s ever known in doubt.

Those who know dystopian fiction might be able to guess the most likely explanation for what’s going on (though perhaps not all of it), but I Am Mother thrives on its atmospheric uncertainty. Mother seems to be a dutiful, even tender parent to Daughter, yet sci-fi has shown us too many times that advanced robotics are rarely sympathetic to mankind. Similarly, Swank as the unnamed woman knows more of the world and shares a common humanity with Daughter, yet she’s a survivor whose motivations are similarly hazy. There are lies and accusations of lies that can’t be proven, forcing Daughter to choose who has her best interest at heart and letting themes of truth, trust, and motherhood play out as only sci-fi can.

Both Swank and Rugaard are excellent in their roles, while Byrne makes a surprisingly good female HAL, and the effects are every bit as impressive as a big budget Hollywood version of this story might have been. In many ways, it’s a coming-of-age story, one that shatters the Bechdel test while delivering a thriller that may have familiar elements but still delivers on its thought-provoking suspense. There are plenty of Netflix movies that only got there because they wouldn’t make it as a big-screen film, but I Am Mother is not one of them.

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
644 Followers and Counting

 

Pulp Fiction (1994)

Tags

Drama, Thriller

It’s a dark and sordid world we dwell in,
Home to many a thug and felon,
Home to murderers and liars,
Thieves and daily hell suppliers,
Wickedness and base desires.

I don’t deny such things exist.
I’ve heard the tales; I get the gist.
Too much can hurt the human heart,
But watching it’s the easy part.
It’s realistic, life as art.

The darkness, yes, can entertain,
But how untouched do we remain?
Such things we cannot just ignore,
But when we laugh or cheer at gore,
I fear for what is at our core.
________________

MPAA rating:  a hard R

Unlike so many other cinephiles out there, I am not a fan of Quentin Tarantino. And I can say that even without having seen any of his movies…well, except for this one. His reputation precedes him, you might say, and I’ve never been eager to seek out the work of a director known for the severity of his R ratings. Nevertheless, Pulp Fiction has become such a mainstay of cinema that I felt I had to check it out, especially when it aired on TV, minus its 265 F-words (according to IMDb).

It’s too absolute to say I didn’t like Pulp Fiction because there’s quite a lot to appreciate about it. That is to say, I liked its style but not its content. It’s chock full of colorful characters, including two bantering hit men (John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson), a mob boss (Ving Rhames) and his girlfriend (Uma Thurman), a boxer on the run (Bruce Willis), and a seemingly unrelated pair of lovers/thieves (Tim Roth and Amanda Plummer). The nonlinear story is especially well-executed, with characters’ stories jumping back and forth in time; though I could see that becoming confusing for some, it all fits together like a puzzle, cleverly offering backstory or glimpses of what’s to come. In addition, stripping away all the profanity, I can see why Tarantino has been praised for his dialogue, crafting banter that feels like a natural conversation yet provides some eloquent insight into how his characters view the world.

So yes, on some level, I enjoyed Pulp Fiction’s style, but its substance is clearly not for me. Even without the language, its dive into the seedy underbelly of Los Angeles isn’t as much fun as the film’s soundtrack tries to make it, nor does the flippancy with which it treats an accidental murder and its cleanup make it any less disturbing. The film is sorely lacking a character to root for, because although there are plenty of motley personalities, there’s not a moral compass to be found among them. You might root for Bruce Willis, but his reaction to inadvertently killing somebody doesn’t paint him as much better than the rest. The one gleam of hope is Samuel L. Jackson’s intense turn as Jules Winfield, who does at least question his life of violence, culminating in an admittedly brilliant stand-off at the end.

From Marcellus Wallace’s glowing briefcase to John Travolta’s dance with Uma Thurman (love that Fall Out Boy song!), I can appreciate Pulp Fiction for its influence on pop culture and how it has inspired other works, particularly the anime Baccano, another non-linear, unnecessarily violent story that I enjoyed far more than this one. Yet I doubt I’ll ever have the desire to watch this iconic movie again. I loved the story structure, but not the rampant murder, drug abuse, and rape. It’s a cultural touchstone I’ll only touch once.

Best line: (Harvey Keitel’s The Wolf, summing up so much of this movie) “Just because you are a character doesn’t mean that you have character.”

 

Rank: Dishonorable Mention

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
632 Followers and Counting

 

Mortal Engines (2018)

Tags

Action, Drama, Sci-fi, Thriller

We all survive in different ways
When struggles line our path.
We cry, we grieve, we carry on
And curse the aftermath.

There’s healthy ways to deal with loss,
Like, say, the world’s demise.
Yet most dystopias suggest
That man won’t be so wise.

Authoritarian regimes
Are now a stock motif.
But giant cities set on wheels?
That takes some disbelief!

Yet who can say what man might do?
His foolishness is nothing new.
_________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

I’m clearly more forgiving than most critics when it comes to the fantasy and sci-fi genres. In fact, I could probably compile a list of sci-fi films that critics have savaged and I’ve still enjoyed (note to self: make such a list for later). I was eagerly awaiting the release of the Peter Jackson-produced Mortal Engines, which promised a young-adult Mad Max: Fury Road on an even bigger scale, but then it tanked at the box office and earned a mere 26% on Rotten Tomatoes. That made me question my prior expectations, but now that I’ve seen it, it definitely fits into the category of movies that are better than their reviews indicate.

Based on the first of a quartet of novels and directed by Christian Rivers, who has worked on the effects of many Jackson films, Mortal Engines is one of those far-flung, highly unlikely post-apocalyptic futures where the world has radically changed and forgotten its past, as evidenced by the amusingly misinterpreted “relics” of our present day. In this world, a terrible war has led to a system of “municipal Darwinism” in which cities have become mobile, mounted upon enormous tank tracks so they can hunt smaller towns for their resources, with London being the strongest. A scarred girl named Hester (Hera Hilmar) seeks revenge on London’s Deputy Lord Mayor Valentine (Hugo Weaving in familiar villain mode) for the death of her mother, and when a museum worker named Tom (Robert Sheehan) learns the truth, he is thrust into a journey with Hester to stop Valentine’s plans for world domination.

Mortal Engines has its imperfections, particularly in the way it blatantly echoes many better movies, such as Star Wars and Howl’s Moving Castle. (Really, Star Wars is a huge influence.) Yet there’s nothing that would warrant the film’s poor box office, unless people just don’t connect with the story’s post-apocalyptic quest and relatively unmemorable characters. The actors do their best, though, and I thought the film more than made up for its weaknesses with its epic steampunk visuals and fast-paced storyline.

There are many references to unfamiliar places and events that are unique to the film’s internal history, and while this might make it hard to follow at times, I love this kind of world-building, making the story’s universe feel bigger than what we see onscreen. The moving cities crafted by Weta Digital reflect the same level of commitment and detail that the company brought to Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth films. And while the plot can feel derivative at times, one subplot featuring Stephen Lang as an undead cyborg adds great tension and a surprisingly emotional payoff. Mortal Engines may not be the blockbuster I thought it could be and certainly isn’t on par with The Lord of the Rings, but for fans of the genre, it’s a large-scale, effects-heavy adventure that deserved much better.

Best line: (Katherine Valentine) “How can a society so advanced, so scientific, be so stupid?”   (Tom) “Well, no more stupid than people today.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
632 Followers and Counting

 

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

Tags

Action, Drama, Sci-fi, Superhero, Thriller

You failed to do your duty.
You failed the foe to thwart.
Are heroes those who do their best
And still come up too short?

The world could not be rescued.
Accepting that is key,
But afterwards, a hero asks
What forward path they see.

Perhaps the end is final;
Perhaps the race is run,
But if there still remains a chance,
The fight is not yet done.
___________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for, the big payoff for the monumental cliffhanger that was the end of Avengers: Infinity War, the movie that twenty-one other films have been building up to over eleven years. To avoid unnecessary buildup on my part, I’ll just say it: Avengers: Endgame is awesome! The Marvel Cinematic Universe has had its ups and downs over the years, but Endgame is the culmination for which ardent fans like myself have been wishing.

I had to see Endgame on opening weekend (and then again the next day), but I’ll be sensitive to those who may not have gotten around to seeing it yet. I won’t mention how that one character ***************, or how awesome it was for ***************, or that heartbreaking moment where *******************. Nope, I’ll avoid major spoilers, but just know that I’m still buzzing over Endgame’s best elements.

Given that spoiler caveat, I’m obviously limited in how much I can say about Endgame, but for anyone wondering if it delivers the proper payoff for Infinity War, the answer is a resounding “Yes!”  The intergalactic warlord Thanos (Josh Brolin) left a lot of damage in his wake, snapping half of the universe out of existence and leaving those who weren’t dusted with much to avenge. The likes of Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) all deal with the grief of the situation in different ways, with Hawkeye’s loss in particular sending him down a dark road of vengeance, but hope is renewed when Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) returns with a pitch for saving everyone with a not uncomplicated time travel mission.

Yes, there’s time travel, which makes me a happy fan. The opportunities this plot device allows are numerous, with many references to Back to the Future and many scenes revisiting past moments of the MCU, not unlike Back to the Future Part II. It’s a nerd’s delight, but these reminiscences are dwarfed by the all-out action spectacular at the film’s finale. It is hands down the most bombastic, exquisitely awesome sequence the MCU has fashioned to date, with huge stakes and Marvel fan service galore, which some have criticized but please, these movies were made for the fans and we/I loved it! Watching it again also allowed me to pick up on a host of tiny but smile-inducing references to past films, some obvious, some subtle. A small one that I noticed but haven’t seen anyone else mention involves one character simply calling another by name, where one stated in a previous movie that he didn’t care to be acquainted. The acting is beyond fault as well, and it was neat to have a double Lost alert with both Evangeline Lilly and Hiroyuki Sanada.

Of course, it’s not perfect, and I can’t completely disagree with some of the negatives I’ve heard. My VC loved it but wished certain plot directions hadn’t been abandoned, like the budding romance between Black Widow and Bruce Banner. Other opinions have found fault with the action-light slowness of the beginning, but this at least gives room for the characters to react realistically as the weight of the situation sinks in, and there’s still that trademark Marvel humor to keep things from getting too heavy. I do sort of wish they had offered some religious dimension to the loss, and I could have done without the somewhat more frequent profanity, even from the once clean-mouthed Captain America. And of course, as with any time travel story, there are plot holes, tons and tons of plot holes, some of which open up the potential for a multiverse of alternate time lines, some that feel like the characters didn’t think things through, and some that are likely meant to fuel fan theories and made me say, “Now, this only works if such and such actually happened.” (Oh, I wish I didn’t have to hold back, but maybe that’s for another post. Though, there are plenty of YouTube videos with such theories too.)

Even with these negatives, even if one of my friends referred to it as “a big glorious mess,” Avengers: Endgame is everything you could want in a big superhero finale, allowing for future storylines but tying up others in a climactic and usually satisfying way. It’s already broken box office records left and right, and after it recently passed Titanic for overall gross, I’m rooting for it to surpass Avatar too. This deserves to be the highest-grossing film of all time, and if Avatar and Black Panther can do it, I’d like to see it earn a Best Picture nomination too. Perhaps it will be a Return of the King situation where the finale gets the real reward. Even if it doesn’t, though, I can tell that Endgame was made by Marvel fans and for Marvel fans; the worst part is that it’s hard to imagine Marvel’s future offerings ever matching the new high bar it has set.

Best funny line: (Tony Stark, to Rocket Raccoon) “Honestly, at this exact second, I thought you were a Build-a-Bear.”   (Rocket) “Maybe I am.”

Best serious line:  (Tony) “No amount of money ever bought a second of time.”

 

Rank: List-Worthy (joining Infinity War)

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
630 Followers and Counting

 

Odd Thomas (2013)

Tags

Action, Comedy, Drama, Fantasy, Horror, Mystery, Thriller

(Today’s final NaPoWriMo prompt was for a minimalist poem, and since I can’t quite understand how one word could be a poem, I’ll at least end the month with a short couplet.)

Perish the thought
That the perished are naught.
__________________

MPAA rating: apparently Not Rated? (should be PG-13)

Odd Thomas is one of those movies that makes me wonder why it’s not more popular. A starring vehicle for Anton Yelchin three years before his untimely death, this horror-comedy-mystery hybrid is an overall fun watch that made me want to check out the Dean Koontz novels on which it is based.

Odd (Yelchin, and yes, that is his first name) is what I would imagine Haley Joel Osment’s psychic character from The Sixth Sense might grow up into, an everyday fry cook and oddball whose ability to see dead people aids in bringing justice to killers and peace to their victims. Further supported by a trusting detective (Willem Dafoe) and Odd’s devoted girlfriend Stormy (Addison Timlin), he also can see vicious spirits called bodachs who are attracted to evil, and when an especially large number appear in town, he knows some great calamity is close at hand.

This is yet another movie that floors me with how low its Rotten Tomatoes score is (a mere 36%) when I’d place it solidly in the 70s or 80s. I’ve read that some were annoyed by the lovey-dovey dialogue between Odd and Stormy, but they really make a cute couple so I don’t begrudge the film its bit of romance.

As for the horror-comedy side, those who enjoyed the mix in The Mummy will likely enjoy this one too, since Stephen Sommers directed and wrote both. The mystery is actually quite riveting, by the end especially, and finds a good balance between human evil and its supernatural side that only Odd can see. With its tepid reviews and the loss of its lead actor, it’s a shame that Odd Thomas will probably never get the sequel it deserves. It’s the kind of film I can see putting on every time it’s on TV, and I gladly will.

Best line: (Odd) “I see dead people, but then, by God, I do something about it.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
628 Followers and Counting

 

Cartoon Comparisons: Alita: Battle Angel (2019) / Gunnm (1993)

Tags

Action, Animation, Anime, Cartoon Comparisons, Drama, Romance, Sci-fi, Thriller

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a poem that meditates on a strong emotion, like disillusionment with the world at large.)

The world is not the friendly place we once had promised to ourselves
When youthful optimism held some sway within our hearts.
We like to think that’s still the case, and yet the more a person delves,
The more this human-born machine reveals its sordid parts.

It’s tragedy that truly wakes our minds to darkness come to light,
That shows how cruel the world can be, with men its messengers.
We’re ignorant of risk and stakes, and enter honestly the fight,
Too late to learn the world was not designed for amateurs.
___________________

MPAA rating: PG-13 (comes close to R with the violence)

I’ve been looking forward to Alita: Battle Angel for well over a year, ever since I heard James Cameron was planning on bringing the long-running manga Battle Angel Alita (a.k.a. Gunnm) to Hollywood. This movie fascinates me not only for its visually awesome cyberpunk future, but also because it owes its existence to one man’s passion project, bringing an extremely niche franchise to a far wider audience than it otherwise would have enjoyed. It makes me wish something similar would happen with Steins;Gate or Cowboy Bebop.

Adaptations between manga/anime and live-action have historically been more miss than hit, but Alita is finally the hit that fans have been waiting for, faithful to its origins in the best way. I, for one, have not read the manga that so enthralled James Cameron, but I have watched the 1993 OVA (Original Video Animation), which is basically like a direct-to-video anime. At only 55 minutes long, it was an imaginative if brutal sci-fi that I definitely recognized had plenty of potential for the big screen. And now that it has, I’m thrilled that such potential was not wasted.

The manga/anime/film tells the story of the cyborg Alita (Rosa Salazar), a girl whose head is discovered in a trash heap by cybernetics expert Dr. Ido (Christoph Waltz). Finding her human brain still active, he rebuilds her body and introduces the amnesiac girl to the cutthroat world of Iron City, a sprawling dystopia patrolled by cyborg bounty hunters and festering in the shadow of the floating city known as Zalem. Trying to regain her memories, Alita becomes a Hunter Warrior herself as she falls in love with young Hugo (Keean Johnson) and navigates the plotting of Ido’s rival Dr. Chiren (Jennifer Connolly), the villainous Vector (Mahershala Ali), and his killer henchmen.

As it is, Alita might bring to mind several other films, such as Elysium with its floating city of higher class exploitation or the cyberpunk aesthetic of Ghost in the Shell, but I can’t help but feel that, if Alita had come out twenty years ago, it would be blowing people’s minds left and right. Yet the manga predates most of what it seems to borrow from, though the sport of Motorball definitely seems inspired by Rollerball.

I’m glad, though, that Cameron wasn’t able to make Alita when he first wanted to back in 2003 because the visuals wouldn’t have been this good. Alita: Battle Angel is a sci-fi action treat, with visual effects that have a good shot at an Oscar next year. Alita herself is stunningly realized, with Rosa Salazar providing a strong motion capture performance, augmented by the effects team with those anime-sized eyes that aren’t as hard to get used to as you might think. There are a few hiccups in the animation early on that threaten to be distracting, but by the time Alita starts kicking criminal butt, she’s seamlessly a part of this world.

The live-action Ghost in the Shell was distracting for me because it was a mish-mash of various plot points from the anime film and series; Alita, on the other hand, might be the most faithful adaptation I’ve come across. Nearly everything in the anime is also in the movie, sometimes even shot for shot (like Chiren squishing a bug while telling Ido she’ll claw her way back to Zalem), though the movie’s greater length allows it to expand on many plot elements, such that watching the anime is like a highlight reel of the film. Considering how anime adaptations have flopped so hard over the years, the film’s faithfulness to its source material is laudable and likely credited to the efforts of Cameron himself as a fan of the manga. Interestingly, I understand that some differences from the manga were actually borrowed from the anime; one villainous character is killed in both versions but apparently survives much longer in the manga.

That’s not to say there aren’t other differences; the source of Alita’s name and body is given more emotional weight in the film, and Ido’s former relationship with Chiren is explicitly romantic where it wasn’t before. And the film throws in entire sections that I can only assume are drawn from the manga since they weren’t in the anime, like the deadly sport of Motorball and the glimpses of Alita’s forgotten past. For me, these additions only added to the epic dystopian world-building that I so admire.

One thing I was concerned about the adaptation was just how violent it would end up being, and I was relieved that it earned a PG-13 rating and the wider audience that that entails. Don’t get me wrong; Alita: Battle Angel definitely pushes the boundary for a PG-13 film with multiple heads and limbs sent flying, but the anime is certainly more violent and bloody. The movie may have its brutal moments, but I was glad it was largely bloodless, leaving out the anime’s brief nudity and leaving some cruel moments mercifully offscreen.

While Alita was a pleasure to watch on the big screen, I find myself struggling with how to rank it. I’m still not a fan of the mostly bitter ending common to both the anime and film, but I’m excited for whatever may come in the (hopefully forthcoming) sequel, which is uncharted territory for me. My ranking could easily change with time, but I’ll err on the side of caution and make it a List Runner-Up. Nevertheless, for the most part, Alita: Battle Angel was pure effects-heavy coolness and as good as I’d hoped it would be, proving that Hollywood can make good films based on manga/anime. Perhaps it simply takes someone like James Cameron to steer them in the right direction.

Best line: (Alita) “I do not stand by in the presence of evil!”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
628 Followers and Counting

 

VC Pick: Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

Tags

Drama, Mystery, Thriller, VC Pick

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a poem featuring repetition, so I took inspiration from a form called the pantoum, wherein the second and fourth lines are reused as the first and third in the following stanza. I don’t think I’ve written one before, so it was fun trying it out.)

 

There’s death at our feet now and guilt in the air.
We wince at the wrong the once righteous have done.
The taking of life is a fearful affair,
Not easily halted once it has begun.

We wince at the wrong the once righteous have done,
But justice is fast on the heels of the crime,
Not easily halted once it has begun
And knowing that truth is a matter of time.

Yes, justice is fast on the heels of the crime
And eager that evil be dragged from its lair.
We know that the truth is a matter of time.
There’s death at our feet now and guilt in the air.
__________________

MPAA rating:  PG-13

My VC has recently become enamored of all things murder mystery. She’s gobbled up mystery novels by the series, and is currently making her way through innocuous but likable Hallmark mysteries. So of course, we had to check out one of the most famous mysteries of them all, Mystery on the Orient Express, specifically Kenneth Branagh’s rendition of the acclaimed Agatha Christie novel.

I’ll admit up front that I did actually know whodunit (it’s a famous story, after all), but my VC didn’t. And even though I knew the ultimate answer to the mystery, I couldn’t recall all the details and motivations. This is also the only film version I’ve seen, and it delivered its eloquent twists admirably, with a stunningly crafted setting against a snowy mountainside.

Branagh is an excellent Hercule Poirot, even if his handlebar mustache and OCD tendencies are a bit over the top, and he’s joined by a laudable collection of worthy actors/suspects, including Michelle Pfeiffer, Willem Dafoe, Penélope Cruz, Daisy Ridley, Josh Gad, Lucy Boynton, Derek Jacobi, Leslie Odom Jr. (of Hamilton fame), and Johnny Depp as the disreputable victim discovered murdered on the fateful 1930s train ride. I was also amused at the “coincidental” casting of Judi Dench alongside Olivia Colman, both of whom have Oscars for playing British queens, with Colman’s obviously coming after this movie.

Beyond the who’s who of talent, the film is also sumptuously shot, merging the feel of a classic with the polished cinematography and inventive camerawork of a modern auteur. Its ultimate resolution doesn’t really lend itself to a satisfying end (at least my VC thought not), but it’s true to what I recall about the original story, with its final open-ended theme meant to leave the audience pondering right and wrong. While it’s not the Oscar contender I thought it might be before its release (though still much better than its 59% Rotten Tomatoes score indicates), Mystery on the Orient Express is well-mounted and well-acted enough to please most fans of a good murder mystery. I’m looking forward to its sequel based on Death on the Nile, which incidentally I know nothing about and plan to keep it that way until 2020.

Best line: (Poirot) “I am of an age where I know what I like and what I do not like. What I like, I enjoy enormously. What I dislike, I cannot abide.”

 

Rank:  List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
627 Followers and Counting

 

Pitch Black (2000)

Tags

Action, Horror, Sci-fi, Thriller

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a poem about animals, so I tried to be less literal and wrote of how man is the most dangerous animal of all.)

Animals, animals!
What an insult
For mankind to level at one of his own!
An absence of conscience,
Deeds unprincipled –
For these, as an animal you will be known!

But animals do not
Take life for mere fun,
Nor yet do they harbor a conscience to lose.
No, those are unique
To the broken human,
The one so-called animal known to abuse.

It’s man that can foster the good and the just
Or evil that leaves animals in the dust.
_____________________

MPAA rating:  R

Science fiction has always been one of my favorite genres, so it was only a matter of time for me to catch up on Vin Diesel’s cult-classic Riddick series, which all started with Pitch Black. Oddly enough, Pitch Black is the highest rated of the trilogy on Rotten Tomatoes, yet still bears a 59% Rotten rating. Yet most films don’t garner a trilogy without doing something right, and Pitch Black does more right than wrong.

You know what I considered Pitch Black both before I saw it and while I was watching it? A more R-rated version of Aliens. While its plot is undoubtedly inspired by Aliens, I didn’t realize till afterward that Aliens has more profanity and comparable violence. I guess I’m just so used to seeing it cut when it comes on TV that such things stood out more in Pitch Black. Regardless, though, I love Aliens, and I enjoyed Pitch Black for many of the same reasons.

It doesn’t start out as a monster movie. A shipful of passengers in cryostasis are rudely awakened by disaster (not unlike Alien: Covenant) and stranded on a planet of perpetual daylight. Among them is the now-famous Richard B. Riddick (Diesel), a dangerous and shiny-eyed prisoner freed in mid-transport. As the survivors seek a way off the planet, they learn that they’ve arrived just in time for a long eclipse and that deadly swarms of darkness-loving creatures live underground and will soon be free to hunt above it. Good thing Riddick can see in the dark, right?

Like Aliens, Pitch Black thrives on the thrill of man vs. alien, with the aliens being either slithery, hammer-headed beasts or smaller pterodactyl-like swarms. Aside from Diesel’s hard-boiled convict, the human characters aren’t as memorable as some in this genre, but they fill their roles well, especially in how they are forced to balance survival with their general distrust of Riddick and the bounty hunter (Cole Hauser) gunning for him. Radha Mitchell even has a stirring character arc concerning the weighing of lives, and Keith David plays a travelling imam, highlighting how unusually diverse it is to see a Muslim in science fiction.

The creatures and visual effects work surprisingly well, considering they’re not as polished as most Hollywood features; in fact, the way writer-director David Twohy shot it sometimes gives scenes an odd TV movie quality. This belies its modest budget yet somehow works to the film’s advantage, keeping some of the more violent parts blurry and contributing to its cult classic status.

In many respects, Pitch Black feels like someone wanted to give their own spin to the Aliens formula, but it has enough plot twists and unique action sequences to set it apart as more than a lazy copycat. There are still moments where characters act stupidly and don’t seem to realize that darkness = bad, but it’s also memorably tense, particularly a death scene involving a lighter that ought to be more famous simply for its chilling visual impact. Pitch Black may not rival Aliens for sci-fi horror and doesn’t exactly end as I would have liked, but it’s quite an entertaining member of the genre with perhaps the best antihero I’ve come across, one worthy of a cult classic status.

Best line: (Johns, the bounty hunter) “Battlefield doctors decide who lives and dies. It’s called ‘triage’.”   (Riddick) “They kept calling it ‘murder’ when I did it.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
627 Followers and Counting

 

Version Variations: The Magnificent Seven (1960, 2016)

Tags

Action, Classics, Drama, Thriller, Version Variations, Western

(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a poem dedicated to some other form of art, so I opted for the film Seven Samurai and its many incarnations.)

In the land of Japan, after warring was done,
An epic and classic of film was begun
By one Kurosawa, director renowned,
Who left cinematic impressions profound.

This film Seven Samurai dazzled the critics
(And still holds a high spot in film analytics)
So Hollywood said, after only six years,
“We’ll do that in English for our Western ears.

“And speaking of western, we’ll re-set the plot
With cowboys and Mexicans. Now that’s a thought!”
So that’s what they did, and it turned out a winner
With quite the ensemble headlined by Yul Brynner.

They didn’t stop there; three more sequels ensued,
But even those westerns were just a prelude.
A Corman sci-fi set the story in space,
Hong Kong made a version with China the place,

And Italy even confused the translators
By making the samurai brave gladiators.
A Bug’s Life was Pixar’s cartoonish conversion,
Then back to Japan for an anime version.

And Hollywood remade the remake it made,
The most recent role that this formula’s played.
Imitation is flattery’s form at its highest,
But would Kurosawa, I wonder, be biased?
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MPAA rating for the 1960 version:  Approved (basically PG)
MPAA rating for the 2016 version:  PG-13 (pretty strong on the violence)

I haven’t done one of these Version Variation posts in a while, mainly because I haven’t watched an abundance of remakes lately. Yet I stumbled upon the 2016 remake of The Magnificent Seven, and finding it to be an above average western, had to see how it compared to the more celebrated original (not to mention how it compared to the original original, 1954’s Seven Samurai).

Of course, Akira Kurosawa started it all with Seven Samurai, the tale of seven disparate but skilled misfits recruited by desperate villagers to fend off invading bandits. The Magnificent Seven is very much the same tale, simply transplanted from feudal Japan to the mythic American West. Certain scenes and plot elements are common to every version, such as the duel that introduces the most deadly of the bunch or the number of the seven who are killed by the end (though which characters die seems to differ).

All three also feature extremely talented ensembles, led by an established movie star. In the case of The Magnificent Seven, that would be Yul Brynner (1960) and Denzel Washington (2016), both dressed all in black and oozing enough self-confidence to recruit six others with minimal effort. Watching the different versions, it was interesting to pick out the parallels between the other characters. Horst Buchholz (who went on to appear in Life Is Beautiful) plays a scrappy upstart in the 1960 version, clearly modeled after Toshiro Mifune in Seven Samurai, but there’s not really an equivalent character in the 2016 film. As the second recruit, Chris Pratt seems comparable to Steve McQueen’s drifter, while James Coburn’s knife-thrower is unmistakably akin to Lee Byung-hun in the remake. Other comparisons are a little harder, such as Ethan Hawke’s war-haunted Cajun in the remake having elements of both Robert Vaughn and Brad Dexter’s characters in the original.

One thing that is self-evident about the 2016 remake is its effort to be more inclusive in its representation. While all of the original seven were white, the new seven include three whites, one black, one Mexican, one Native American, and one South Korean (who I guess is supposed to represent the Chinese? I didn’t know there were Korean immigrants in the Old West).  Another difference is that the characters in the remake are given far more colorful names; after all, aren’t “Goodnight” Robicheaux and Billy Rocks cooler sobriquets than Britt or Chris or Lee?

While it makes the character comparisons a little harder, the racial changes aren’t unwelcome and don’t make much difference storywise, aside from a clash between the Native American member of the Seven (Martin Sensmeier) and his counterpart on the bad guy’s side (Jonathan Joss, who surprisingly also played Chief Hotate on Parks and Recreation). Speaking of bad guys, that’s another major change; whereas the original’s Eli Wallach played the leader of a Mexican outlaw band, the remake’s Peter Sarsgaard plays a ruthless businessman aiming to buy out the townsfolk for the nearby gold mine (which is notably not in the original, much to Brad Dexter’s chagrin).

Perhaps it might have been different if I had watched the 1960 version first, as most cinephiles did, but I think I actually prefer the 2016 version. The 1960 film is a classic, no doubt about that, with Yul Brynner’s man in black standing up as one of the quintessential western heroes. Yet even though that film has its fair share of gunfights, the 2016 film plays out much more like an action movie, tossing out the love subplot and apparent defeat of the original in favor of bigger and more explosive battles. The body count is higher, but the thrills don’t disappoint, in contrast to the original film’s excessive length and occasional boring parts.

That being said, cheating though it may be, I don’t have any problem grouping the two together for ranking purposes, or even grouping both with Seven Samurai. Seven Samurai may be the most artistic and the 2016 film the most entertaining, but all three are worthwhile. (I’ll draw the line, though, at grouping them with A Bug’s Life, which is also basically the same story. I did like how Charles Bronson’s bond with some local kids was recycled for Francis the lady bug in Pixar’s film.) Many may scoff at the mere idea of remakes, often rightfully, but, like A Star Is Born, this is one story that has endured the test of time and excelled in multiple incarnations.

Best line from the 1960 version: (Vin/Steve McQueen) “It’s like a fellow I once knew in El Paso. One day, he just took all his clothes off and jumped in a mess of cactus. I asked him that same question, ‘Why?’”   (Calvera/bad guy) “And?”   (Vin) “He said, ‘It seemed to be a good idea at the time.’”

Best line from the 2016 version: (Sam Chisholm/Denzel Washington) “What we lost in the fire, we’ll find in the ashes.”

 

Rank: List-Worthy (both grouped with Seven Samurai)

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
627 Followers and Counting