Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon: You’ve Seen It All Before…

There’s not much to say about Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon — Part One, so I won’t spend a lot of time on it.

If you can stand to sit through the two-ish hour runtime, which, since it’s on Netflix, you can pause for more alcohol (and boy, is alcohol required for this one), you’ll spend most of the film going “Hmm… I know I’ve seen this before somewhere…”

If you’ve watched any science fiction movies, or westerns, but specifically: Star Wars, The Magnificent Seven, The Avengers: Infinity War, Battle Beyond the Stars, Seven Samurai, Harry Potter, or even A Bug’s Life, maybe read or played some Warhammer 40K, etc, then there’s a LOT about this film that will feel familiar.

The problem though, is that Rebel Moon feels like a copy of a copy of a copy, and none of it brings anything new to the table. You’d be better off watching one of the other films instead.

At its basic level, Rebel Moon is essentially Seven Samurai/The Magnificent Seven in space, and that’s not even fully realized because Snyder wants you to wait until April 2024 to see Part 2 and watch the rest of the story.

Or, if you’re truly dedicated, wait until March and watch the R-rated extended “Snyder cut” of Part 1. There’s an interview with Snyder where he admits that Netflix “forced” him to put out a PG-13 version of the film, so he had to cut some things out, but the “complete” vision of the film is his R-rated version.

Supposedly, Rebel Moon was originally pitched as a new Star Wars script to Disney/Lucasfilm, and it was so bad that even they wouldn’t touch it. And, considering the current state of Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise, that’s saying a lot.

Yet, despite creating mega stinkers for movie studios, Zack Snyder has somehow cut a deal with the devil where studios/streaming services STILL continue to throw millions of dollars his way to do whatever he wants with it.

You’d think Netflix would have learned after he made that zombie stinker Army of the Dead, but, nope. They threw more money at him to make this “space franchise” that I’m sure he promised would be as big as Star Wars.

Honestly, I’m going to spoil the movie from here on out. If you are desperate to kill two and a half hours, then maybe watch Rebel Moon, but you’d get more enjoyment out of watching the 4K movie of a fireplace (yes, there really are fireplace vids on Netflix).

The movie is about a space empire that’s reigned for 1,000 generations having conquered the galaxy and have enjoyed a relatively long time of peace and prosperity. But, recently, the ruling family was assassinated, and now there’s a power vacuum. The main military leader decided to set himself up as regent, but that has not stopped some worlds from deciding maybe it’s time to strike out on their own. So, the new regent has sent his armies to the farthest edges of the realm to strike down anyone who dared to call themselves “rebels” — (roll credits)

Anyway, so out in BFE, we find a small farming community that is meant to be either Space Vikings or Space Amish. Their buildings looked like Viking buildings, and they liked using “old” tools, like horses and plows, to farm the land. They’re okay with electricity, though, so shrug

We are introduced to Kora, a “mystery girl” who has been in the community for a couple of seasons and is farming the land. There’s a big celebration that night in the main community building because two local hunters have killed a local beastie, so there’s a feast. Again, the whole community vibe is medieval/Viking/fantasy blah blah blah. We’re introduced to Gunnar, who Kora has “friend-zoned”, and just follows her around. The elderly man who took Kora in seems focused on getting Kora married off and out of his house, so she can “be part of the community.” But, Kora is a strong female character and “don’t need no man.”

The next day, the bad guys show up on a massive ship with the leader dressed in his best Space Nazi uniform. They need food for their troops. It’s not explained why a high-tech society that can build massive spaceships with “space-vagina” warp technology needs local farmers for crops, but whatever. We learn shortly before the bad guys arrived that whatever surplus the community had, Kora’s buddy Gunnar sold to the rebels. That may not go over well with the bad guys, who are looking for rebel factions, right?

But, the bad guys don’t know about any of this. They want food for the troops. But, the community leader lies about the surplus, so he’s murdered for it. Now, the bad guys are willing to wait for the next harvest, and then they’ll want most of it, leaving the community with not enough food to survive.

Oh, and for good measure, they leave a small garrison of troops behind to keep an eye on things.

The farmers decide they should just do what the soldiers want. Kora wants no part of it and decides to leave.

Before she gets a chance to leave though, the soldiers decide to get rapey with a young village girl (as soldiers do), so Kora reluctantly decides to stop them.

Kora is played by Sofia Boutella, who is 5’5″ and probably weighs less than 110 pounds. We know nothing about her background at this point, other than she’s not originally from here. We’re treated to a SLOOOOO-MOOOOOO extended fight sequence where the bad guys conveniently wait to fight her one at a time and where she easily handles 7-8 men twice her size without much effort.

SIDE NOTE: If you want to watch an action flick with a female protagonist with better fight choreography, check out Ballerina on Netflix. It’s a Korean film, and she’s probably even smaller than Boutella, but the fight sequences are much more “realistic” in that she has to struggle when fighting men twice her size. The plot’s not much better than Rebel Moon, but at least it’s entertaining.

Eventually, we learn that Kora was a soldier in the empire. The empire slaughtered everyone on her planet, including her parents, but the main military leader guy found her, spared her, and took her in (ala Thanos). She’s trained as a soldier, and because her adopted “father” is part of the elite and close to the royal family, she’s had a life of privilege. She even gets to become part of the royal guard and is assigned to protect the princess (more on her in a bit).

This is science fiction. They could have easily added something to Kora’s story to give her abilities to help explain why she’s such a capable fighter: genetic manipulation, cybernetics, something. It’s not Star Wars; this is a new Snyderverse, where he can do whatever. But, nope, she’s just a soldier with the same training as the other men.

Anyway, Kora has now put the village into a situation where they’ll have to fight the bad guys. Nobody seems to object to this one way or another, but Kora decides she’s going to fly off and try to find some people to help fight on behalf of the villagers, even though they can’t pay much (sound familiar?) She knows of a general who rebelled against the empire, and maybe he would be willing to train the villagers and lead them into battle.

They end up in the nearest spaceport town to find Gunnar’s rebel contact and arrive just in time to see him being carted off by the bad guys. So, they go into a nearby bar (a wretched hive of scum and villainy) and run into trouble. A smuggler helps them out. He conveniently has a spaceship, and he immediately decides to help fly them around the galaxy and recruit more people. If that seems suspicious, and that he might betray them if the right opportunity comes along, then — well, you’ve seen that story before, too. Even Gunnar wonders “Should we trust this guy?” but Kora’s decides “Nah, it’ll be fine.”

With that, the rest of the movie is Kora going to different locations that look completely different from one another to find recruits for the cause. It’s so stark that it feels like they’re jumping into completely different video games each time they switch locations. I can’t say much about any of the recruits because the plot is the same: a brief introduction to the location and the person, one slo-mo action sequence involving the potential recruit (while everyone else stands and watches), Kora makes a 30-second pitch, and bam, they’re in.

We go to a barren world where they encounter a Conan-wannabe. He’s enslaved by a dude, but he’s willing to part with Conan (none of these idiots are the least bit memorable so I’m not bothering to look up their names) if he breaks in his pet hippogryph (as you do in sci-fi movies). After a slo-mo sequence, he’s in the gang.

Next, we go to a quasi-futuristic-Asian-Blade-Runner-looking world where we find another fighter with swords. We get to watch her in a sloooo-mo fight with a wicked-looking spider-woman who is kidnapping local kids. There’s a brief blah blah backstory about the environment that explains why spider-lady is doing what she’s doing, but it doesn’t matter.

Oh, and sword-lady has two swords that “ignite” with plasma? that looks not entirely unlike lightsabers (but totally not lightsabers — the second it happens – you can almost hear Snyder in a voiceover saying – no these are not lightsabers). They are physical swords that ignite somehow. They’re only there for one “cool” shot that Snyder puts in, and outside of that, they’re not any different from normal swords.

Then, we get to go to Gladiator-world, where we find the general, Titus? If you’ve seen the trailers, this is probably the character everyone wants to see because he’s played by Djimon Hounsou. We’re told he’s a “badass” and a “master strategist”, even though he also rebelled against the empire and got all of the troops who joined him slaughtered. So, you expect there to be some bad-ass slo-mo gladiator fight with Titus in it, right? WRONG. He’s just the local drunk.

Mind you, as an aside, it’s funny that our smuggler guy has no trouble finding where the general is. You’d think that the empire would be looking for him (and as it turns out, they were). Why any empire, government, etc., would face off against a rebellious general, defeat him, and then decide to let him go on his merry way makes no sense. If they didn’t outright murder him, you’d think he’d be locked up in a gulag somewhere where he can’t cause any more trouble. But, nope, he’s just free to do whatever he wants.

He gets a bath and a quick revenge speech from Kora, and Generalissimo is in. Maybe he gets to do more in part 2, but he gets to do almost nothing in this part. I don’t even remember if he got some bad-ass fight sequence in the finale. He did get to make a general-y speech about how the final fight is going to be super-important.

There’s also a brother/sister duo that are the leaders of the rebels. The sister passes on helping Kora, but the brother joins up and takes some of their troops with him.

It’s all a rush to get to the big, dumb slo-mo final battle. where Kora and her new “team” are betrayed by our smuggler guy (gasp!). It’s here we probably get the most exposition about all of these characters because they’re all “most-wanted” by the empire. Conan turns out to be a prince. Which prince? is he part of the royal family? Why didn’t Kora know who he was? Or is he just a prince in some random world? It’s never explained. Sword-lady is also wanted by the empire because she’s been taking out her revenge on them for killing her family. Of course, we have the super bad-ass rebel general Titus.

Then, there’s Kora. It’s finally revealed that she’s the daughter of the new regent, and daddy wants her back. Why? The film never tells us. There’s zero explanation for why Kora left, why the empire wants her back, or how she ended up on the backwater moon. However, smuggler guy considers her to be the “most valuable prize”.

Well, she’s the most valuable person next to the princess (who’s dead — or is she?). The princess is “magical” or something. Kora reveals at one point while guarding the princess that she saw the princess’ dog kill a bird, and the princess was able to bring it back to life. She’s also important to the robots, who somehow sensed her specialness and pledged to fight for her.

Anyway, Gunnar helps them escape and hilarity ensues. There’s a big slow-mo battle that is super dumb. The rebels have some small ships, but the bad general shows up in a capital ship. It’s a big ship. The dumbest part of the fight comes when the rebel dude grabs a shaft of metal and makes for a slo-mo jump to a gunner pod. The guns are killing his troops you see. The shot looks like something directly out of 300. The rebel dude sacrifices himself to kill the gunner guy. And, as it turns out, the gunner pod also conveniently has the steering controls of the massive ship, so as he dies he knocks the steering wheel over to the right causing the big ass ship to crash and be destroyed.

No, I’m not making that up.

We see a long drawn-out fight between Kora and the main bad guy of the film (general whatever). Plenty of SLOOOOO-MOOOOOOOO action to the point that you just wish one of them would finally die.

She appears to kill the bad guy, so they all decide to go back to the village to collect their reward. There’s a magnificent seven scene where we see them all on space horseback riding to the village, but the movie’s over, right? Why did they all go back? Why not pay them something on the world they were on previously, and then everyone could go their separate ways?

Well, no, of course not, because it’s only part 1, you see. The bad general guy isn’t completely dead, just mostly dead, and they’re able to retrieve him. He has a chat with the regent in a “holodeck”? and he tells the regent guy that Kora is alive. It’s not clear if the general guy is a guy or some sort of robot or construct or whatever. And, of course, the regent dude tells the general guy to use whatever means necessary to get Kora and her allies.

Roll credits. That’s the film.

Obviously, there’s going to be a part two. We’ve seen the other movies, so you know they’re going to help build up some defenses and train the villagers to fight, etc. Oh yeah, part one also shows us a scene where the bad guys’ big-ass ship has some big-ass guns where they can effectively destroy cities from orbit. So, yeah, how the villagers are going to stand up against that might? be interesting.

The whole thing is just dumb. At least the village in the other films served a purpose. There was a reason for the bad guys to want stuff? But here, if anything, Kora has stirred things up, and by rounding up this group of characters, she’s just given the empire even more of a reason to hunt them down and put the villagers in even greater peril.

I mean, the character with the most interesting story is the robot guy. He shows up at the beginning of the film. They were intelligent robots, and they used to be soldiers for the Empire. But, after the king/queen/princess were killed, they stopped fighting. For reasons, the soldiers keep them around? Anyway, he shows up long enough to be bullied by the soldiers, hangs out with a local girl to do an exposition dump about his back story, and then helps Kora briefly in the fight with the rapey soldiers. And then… he fucks off. He’s gone for the rest of the film until the very ending where he’s in one of the last shots standing in a field carrying a staff and wearing “antlers”.

I can’t blame any of the actors for being in this. I can’t argue whether Boutella has the presence to be a lead because there’s so little for her to work with. I don’t know if anyone else would have better luck. Then again, she has an acting range of two facial expressions.

Kora is another “strong female character”/Mary Sue, and I don’t know if that was Snyder’s intent as much as it was just lazy writing. For all of this so-called worldbuilding, Snyder couldn’t be bothered with giving Kora, or any of his protagonists, enough of a personality to make them interesting.

Everyone else in the cast is just wasted. Maybe they get to do more in part 2, but the characters are never given any chance to bond or anything, so why would anyone be invested enough in these characters to see them in part 2? Sir Anthony Hopkins probably got the best deal since he just provides the voice of the robot and the opening narration that happens in place of a text crawl (totally not Star Wars).

Rebel Moon is just a hodgepodge of every movie that Zack Snyder has ever liked that he’s tried to jam together into a single incoherent mess of a film. I could show you individual scenes from each of the worlds they visit and you’d never guess that they were in the same film outside of the slo-mo and Snyder’s love for muted palettes.

I would like to think this would eventually end his career, or, at least, Zack Snyder’s going to run out of studios willing to piss away millions of dollars on his creations. He’s burned Warner Bros. Netflix will surely learn their lesson now.

Maybe Apple will be next?

Regardless, Rebel Moon isn’t worth the two-plus hours to watch, much less however long the “Snyder cut” might be. It certainly isn’t worth watching for part 2, which is the second half of the Magnificent Seven.

You’re probably better off watching one of those, or Star Wars, or hell, even Battle Beyond the Stars than wasting time on this.

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning mostly hits the mark

(Mostly spoiler free version)

Compared to the other recent summer “blockbusters” this summer: another transforming robots film, another  super-hero story, and a sequel to a legacy action series with an octogenarian that nobody asked for (ask me how I really feel about Dial of Destiny), Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning largely succeeds. There’s plenty of action, and while most actors his age would have moved on from big action blockbusters, Tom Cruise shows why he’s one of the few bankable movie stars left.

The story opens with a secret Russian submarine prowling the Bering Sea testing a new technology that helps render the vessel undetectable. The tech involves an AI, which goes “rogue” while testing, and, since it controls all of the ship’s electronics, tricks the crew into firing a torpedo at a phantom American sub. Before they realize what’s happened, the AI redirects the torpedo at the Russian sub and sinks it. Why? That’s not entirely clear.

On the sub, there are two keys that combine into a cruciform key that can theoretically unlock the AI core, and whoever controls the core can control the AI. Through a number of conveniences, the keys have somehow miraculously been recovered without revealing the location of the sunken sub.

We know how things go at this point. Cue the Mission Impossible theme: Dun dun duh dun…

Enter Ethan Hunt, who is apparently in hiding for reasons, receives a new mission. The CIA wants the key, and as it so happens, his old “friend” Ilsa happens to have “acquired” one half of the key. The CIA decides to put a bounty on her head, forcing her into hiding, but the agency knows where she is, and they want Ethan to retrieve the key. What he does with Ilsa is “up to him.”

Hunt retrieves one half of the key, but he’s not happy with the agency’s tactics. So, he infiltrates the CIA to have a word with his boss Kittridge about what the hell is going on. There’s a long exposition scene that explains that the real threat is an AI developed by the U.S. The AI has become sentient, and for reasons, they embedded part of its code on that Russian submarine. The AI has gone rogue, which the CIA now calls The Entity, and it’s infiltrating all major intelligence, defense and financial systems around the world.

Naturally, the CIA, along with every major government in the world, would like to regain control of the AI, because whoever controls the AI also has access to all of those systems. Theoretically, the only way to gain control of it is via the key, and they’d like Ethan to get both halves and return them to the CIA.

Hunt, of course, has seen every science fiction movie involving sentient AI’s and decides the best course of action is to destroy it, which makes his bosses none too happy.

So, that kicks off the newest Mission Impossible adventure as Ethan and his team pursue both halves of the key and try to learn what / where the key can be used while evading capture from the CIA and (in theory) every other major intelligence agency.

To make things even more challenging, the Entity has its own real world agents stirring things up as well as the Entity itself which can manipulate things in the real world from the virtual one.

Making AI the story’s main antagonist is a great choice, considering there are a lot of conversations happening now about what impact AI may have on our society in the near future. They had to provide physical agents as well, so Ethan has somebody to punch.

Dead Reckoning delivers on everything you’d expect a major blockbuster action film to do. There are some big, tightly choreographed chase sequences, there’s a car chase every bit as real as anything from the Bourne series; and of course, there’s that “big stunt” — the newest, craziest thing that Tom Cruise wanted to shoot for real and integrate into the film.

The usual gang is here: Benji, Luther and Ilsa, although in abbreviated roles. There are some new characters as well. Hayley Atwell stars as Grace, who is a charming and brilliant thief recruited to try steal half of the key. She’s in it for a big payday, but she has no idea what she’s gotten herself into.

There’s Gabriel, played by Esai Morales, who we learn is working for the Entity and also has a connection to Ethan’s past. It’s great to see Pom Klementieff outside of the MCU, playing Paris, another one of the Entity’s followers. Vanessa Kirby also returns as the White Widow.

There are a pair of CIA? intelligence agents who are fun to watch as they manage to stay a couple of steps behind Hunt and the others. It’s not clear who they’re working for, just that they’re out to stop Hunt.

But, Dead Reckoning is far from perfect.

With a 2:43 runtime, it’s easily about 30 minutes too long, and it shows as at least two of the big action set pieces drag on for way longer than they should. I found myself checking my watch during both scenes. There are some tightly choreographed fight scenes, but at the same time, there are at least two, particularly involving Gabriel, that feel kind of half-assed.

And, of course. we see Tom Cruise running. A lot.

But there’s just something a bit off about the overall story. Early on, it’s suggested that every major agency has learned about this AI and is going to be looking for the key. But, outside of Ilsa’s involvement (which we learn she was recruited by MI:6), we really only see the guys from the CIA, the bad guys, and Ethan’s team pursuing the keys. You don’t get that sense of Ethan and his team against the world like we’ve seen in the John Wick films.

That would have been fine if the film hadn’t told us at the beginning to expect it. But, it did. Where’s MI:6? Where’s Mossad? Interpol?

Maybe a lot of that had to do with the fact that a chunk of this film was shot during COVID, and the cast and crew were locked down and could only shoot with a smaller team. At that point, though, I think they should have re-worked the story so it would have made more sense with a smaller group of characters involved.

There’s a very specific couple of dramatic scenes I can’t get into without spoiling the film, but again, the writing makes both of those scenes fall flat. It’s mainly because this film seems more focused on moving to the next big action sequence that it’s forgetting about fleshing out the story. There’s no time to stop and breathe and let these characters develop their relationships, and it really kills the dramatic punch they were aiming for.

I think another part of if it is just: we’ve seen it all before. The rogue AI, while a fresh aspect for the MI films, isn’t exactly new. Ethan Hunt going rogue is so common at this point even the CIA jokes about it in a meeting at the beginning. Sure, they need the IMF to do a thing, and while they may get results, they also know its agents, and Hunt specifically, don’t exactly follow orders.

Even the action sequences we’ve seen elsewhere, including in other Mission Impossible films. The car chase is great, but we’ve seen these before. The White Widow hosts a party (again) that’s lit very much like something out of a John Wick film. The finale has echos of things we’ve also seen elsewhere. For what was originally a spy thriller, there’s very little spycraft going on in the film anymore.

One of my friends was annoyed with Grace because the film seems to be setting things up where she could potentially replace Hunt as the star of the Mission Impossible series. The idea of simply gender swapping a series lead has been the thing to do in Hollywood (I’m looking at you Marvel/Lucasfilm). I’ve seen a couple of reviews that have compared Dead Reckoning to the Dial of Destiny where an aging star is working together with a younger female counterpart who is also intended to replace the original star.

I don’t know if that’s true. I mean, at 60, you’d think Tom Cruise would start thinking he might finally be getting too old for this shit. But, you can also see him stubbornly going on for at least another decade.

That said, the women in the Mission Impossible series, including Grace, are very well written characters with both skills and flaws. They’re not Mary Sues. They work together with their male counterparts equally rather than overshadowing them. Of any modern franchise, if Tom Cruise did finally decide to retire Ethan Hunt, I think he and the other MI folks would find a way to create a compelling film for a female lead, be it Atwell or someone else.

Obviously, this is only the first half of a total story, so it’s hard to say how the second part will conclude. Even though Dead Reckoning has its flaws, and isn’t the best film of the series, the overall track record of the series has been stellar. It’ll be worth catching part two when it comes out.

Even with its flaws, and especially given its competition this summer, Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning hits the mark for big summer blockbuster action and is definitely worth seeing. At least for now, but I think, like many of these franchises, moviegoers are starting to get fatigued by the sequels and would love nothing more than to see something original.

Captain Marvel: Good, but Not Great

For the last ten years, Marvel Studios has done an amazing job creating a cinematic universe using “second-tier” heroes from their comic books. They’ve also done a pretty uncanny job of casting the right people as the heroes. Today, who could imagine someone besides Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man or Chris Evans as Steve Rogers/Captain America (and so on).

Although Captain Marvel is a good, decently paced, and entertaining latest entry in the MCU catalogue, it’s just misses the mark of being one of the great films. It’s like the Tony Romo of the MCU films: Good movie, great numbers ($900 million at the box office so far), but is just missing that extra something special to push it over the top.

The first part of the movie is a bit boring. Starforce member Vers (Danvers/Capt Marvel) suffers from amnesia and is haunted by nightmares. She has been a part of Starforce for the last six years and has no memories before that. She has issues maintaining control of her emotions, and is urged by her mentor and commander as well as the Kree leader she must learn to control them.

On a mission to recover a spy, Vers is captured by the Skrulls, an alien race of shapeshifters who the Kree have been at war with, and is subjected to a memory probe. Strangely, although Vers has amnesia, there’s nothing that prevents the Skrulls from scrolling through her memories with a high-tech TiVo. The Skrulls are looking for a specific Kree agent, and as luck would have it, Vers memories lead them to her. Vers escapes, but destroys the Skrulls ship, so both she and the Skrulls crash land on Earth in 1995.

Once on Earth, Vers runs into a young Nick Fury and SHIELD, and hilarity ensues as they try to track down the Kree agent on Earth before the Skrulls do.

The amnesia angle is a bit of a problem, because it seems like the writers have given little for Brie Larson to run with outside of being a stoic warrior. Once she has a chance to interact with her co-stars, she’s much better, and in some cases, her co-stars really outshine her. Larson does fine with what she’s given, though. She may be the right choice for Carol Danvers/Capt Marvel, but we’ll have to wait to see her in Avengers: Endgame to see if Larson has more to work with.

At just over two hours, the movie feels pretty well paced. As with any Marvel movie, you probably don’t want to overthink the plot too much (like a nit picky thing for me is: where is her Kree uniform? Danvers wears normal clothes during a large part of her time on Earth, but there’s no sign of her Kree outfit or some type of Kree fanny-pack that she’s wearing. Sure it’s something they could have explained in a few seconds, but they didn’t) . The 90’s references are fun, and ensures the film has a pretty great soundtrack. The movie does a decent job of introducing the Kree/Skrull conflict and throws in a few MCU connections.

The creators try to give Capt. Marvel a big “hero” moment late in the film. A lot of the elements are there, like flashbacks of Danvers struggling in moments in her past. But, there’s no real context around the flashbacks, and the stakes aren’t really established, so when she overcomes the challenge, it lacks the emotional connection they were shooting for. You can see what they were trying to do, and I think, with a few changes, they could have gotten pretty close.

Spider-Man: Homecoming borrows a scene like this directly from the comics, and they do a much better job of making the “hero” moment work.

The weakest part of the movie comes near the end. Once Capt. Marvel “unlocks” her powers, she masters complete control of her nearly apparently near-unlimited power within about 10 minutes of screen time. Up until that point, we’ve only ever seen Marvel shoot fusion blasts from her hands. The audience has no idea that she can do the other things or was even trained to do anything else with her powers.

I have no problem with Captain Marvel being ultra-powerful, but for me it’s a case of lazy writing. At least show the audience some glimpse of her doing something else with her powers beforehand.

Hopefully, by Endgame, Carol Danvers/Capt. Marvel will have her memories back and can bring more of a human element to her powers, so she doesn’t end up feeling like the Superman of the MCU. I really don’t want to see Capt. Marvel become this emotionless god-like character like DC has done with Superman in the DCCU/Snyder-verse.

The most touching moment of the film? For me, it was the opening credits. Normally, Marvel movies open with an animated logo sequence. As the 3D logo falls into place, we see animations of comic panels inside the logo related to the hero in the movie. For their 10th anniversary logo, the logo changed to splice in video clips of the heroes from the entire MCU. This year, in honor of Stan Lee (who passed away last November), the logo shows clips of all of Lee’s cameos from the MCU movies (I’m assuming only MCU, but I guess they could have clips from the older movies). At the end of the animation, the logo fades to black before displaying a single, simple message: “Thank you, Stan”.

I’ll be honest. I sorta had high hopes for this film. With this being the first major Marvel movie starring a female super hero, and Marvel knocking it out of the park in their most of their most recent films, I really hoped they would do something special with Captain Marvel.

Instead, it feels more like a standard MCU-paint-by-numbers origin story, and while the movie is good, it just misses that something extra to make it memorable.

It’ll be interesting to see if Captain Marvel becomes a part of one of the other teams (Avengers, Guardians), or if they’ll keep her solo and have a Captain Marvel sequel. Based on the box office numbers, a sequel seems like a pretty sure bet. But with the Disney/Marvel acquisition of 20th Century Fox (and the rights to Marvel’s top-tier heroes), it’s too early to guess if Marvel will re-think “phase four” of their plans for the MCU.

Thoughts on the Last Jedi

With the holidays, it’s taken me a while to get this down. To date, I’ve still only seen The Last Jedi once, so this is still based on my first take of the film. Maybe I’ll post an update after a couple of more viewings. 

First, the non-spoilers review:

Unlike The Force Awakens (TFA), Lucasfilm creators appear to have given director Rian Johnson much more creative control over The Last Jedi (TLJ), and in a lot of ways, The Last Jedi is what The Force Awakens should have been: a fresh take on the Star Wars franchise without George Lucas at the helm.

The Last Jedi isn’t without its flaws, but overall, with the exception of the lag about midway through the film and maybe just a tad too many attempts at humor, Rian Johnson delivers on giving us a fresh take on the Star Wars universe that’s both visually stunning and entertaining. 

After reading some of the complaints on the internet, I suspect The Last Jedi will become one of the most polarizing films among fans, who seem to be equally divided between loving it and hating it. I don’t think there’s one right answer, and it’s impossible to look at the new movies with the same childlike wonder that I watched the original trilogy (which naturally biases me towards those three movies).

I watched The Force Awakens last weekend, and I despise it more than I did before, mainly because of the complete rehash of A New Hope (the original Star Wars). I’d rank it just above the prequels. I’d probably place The Last Jedi just behind the original trilogy. 

!!!END OF SPOILER FREE REVIEW!!!

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

If you’re reading this far you’ve been warned. Spoilers will be rampant in 3…2…1…

TURN BACK IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE LAST JEDI!!!

SPOILERS BEGIN NOW!!!

There’s plenty to like about The Last Jedi. Here’s a decent list of things that I enjoyed:

  • I like that they tried to give the three major characters story arcs, even if the arcs were not complete hits. 
  • I loved some of the humor – The “do you feel it now” scene with Rey and Luke still cracks me up just thinking about it. 
  • I like that the ending illustrated that “spark of hope” for the rebellion even though they’re at their lowest point by the end of the film.
  • Mark Hamill was amazing and did an enormous job of portraying Luke’s guilt and hesitation in training Rey
  • I loved the fight between Luke and Rey
  • I loved the appearance of Yoda
  • I actually like that the story didn’t follow the conventional Star Wars formula
  • I liked the new twists on Force abilities and the connection between Rey and Kylo
  • I liked that despite everything the rivalry between Kylo and Hux is ongoing, which could have major repercussions for the First Order
  • Despite the twist, I actually really enjoyed the final conflict between Luke and Kylo.
  • The “chase” sequence – Although the set up was kind of dumb, I liked where they were going with it. 
    • My take on this whole thing is that, yes, the First Order could have guessed where the ships were heading and radioed ahead to have other ships fly in to intercept the Rebel ships. But, I think the idea was Hux is a major asshole, and, knowing the Rebels were out of options, wanted to simply drag things out. He’s like a cat playing with its prey. 
  • The reunion scene with Luke and Leia. It was hard not to tear up, especially with the meta of Carrie Fisher’s death and knowing that she and Mark Hamill treated each other like brother and sister in real life.

As I’ve said, the movie is not without its flaws. Here’s my list:

I loved some of the humor, but in other places, it felt forced or awkward. Unlike Thor: Ragnarok, I think maybe they strayed a bit too far down the humor trail in TLJ.

Porgs. Meh. I just want a picture of Chewie with that one on the skewer with the caption: Porg: It’s What’s for Dinner.

The “Epic” Chase

I think this could have been set up better. I don’t think they explained why there wasn’t a tracker on one of the resistance ships. The set up was the First Order has tech that can track ships through hyperspace. The first response in the Star Wars universe should have been: Oh, they’ve got a tracker on one of the ships. Instead the characters quickly jump into a convoluted plot to “hack” the main First Order’s ship’s shields into order to slip on board and disable the tracker from that ship. 

The “tracker” story could have been interesting in its own right. If they found a tracker, then there could be a mole on one of the ships. That could have fed into Poe’s distrust of Holdo, eventually suspecting that she may be the mole.

Plus, no one on the First Order ships asks the obvious question: Why not bring in other ships to intercept the fleeing Resistance ships and shoot them all down in a crossfire. The answer, I think, is that Hux is a major asshole, and being such, opts to simply slowly continue the slow pursuit. He knows full well that the Resistance ships can’t run forever, so he wants to make his final victory last. 

A simple conversation between Hux and a junior officer could have made that clear. 

The awkward setup sticks out because this is basically the end of Act I, and the chase  is what triggers everyone else’s actions from this point, from Holdo’s secret plan to Poe/Finn/Rose’s ridiculous plan. 

The “WTF” Moment

This is the moment that made no sense to me, and it sucks because I don’t see an easy way to fix it. The hacker DJ sells out not only Finn and Rose but the Resistance as well by telling the First Order the good guys have cloaked? transports. Holdo was keeping this info on a need to know basis. She didn’t tell Poe, which drives Poe’s arc, and it drives the need for Finn/Rose to go off on their adventure. If Finn/Rose don’t know about this plan, how the hell does DJ know?

Again, it’s a problem because it sets everything up for the third act. It’s just sloppy storytelling. 

Leia Innnn Spaaaace 

For me, I really agonized about this. My first thought when this started to play out was “Oh come on!” On the one hand, I thought it was over the top, but on the other hand, I really liked seeing Leia, at the moment of nearly dying, finally connecting with the Force and saving herself. I didn’t want to see Leia go out that way, so I’m going to let it pass.

Canto Bight 

It bites. Really. I liked some of the ideas Rian Johnson introduced here, that there are people who are profiting from the war and there are people/creatures suffering because of it. It feels too much though like “let’s give Finn & Rose something to do.” It bogs down the movie and really messes with the story timeline as well. The resistance ships have mere hours before they run out of fuel, but it’s fine that Finn/Rose go off on their marry adventure. Since this introduces DJ, but Finn and Rose ultimately fail to stop the First Order, this entire arc feels out of place. 

Luke’s Bad Decision

A lot of fans are upset about Luke deciding, if only briefly, that he’s lost Ben to Snoke, and he should kill Ben while he has the chance. I agree with argument that the “Luke we knew” probably wouldn’t go there. He wouldn’t give up on Ben. 

But – the “Luke we knew” was from Return of the Jedi. At the point this happens in TLJ, we’re watching a Luke Skywalker 20 plus years after ROTJ. We don’t know what’s happened to him in that time. Luke having doubts about losing influence over Ben and ultimately being betrayed by him is the beginning of the end for Luke. 

It’s that moment that consumes Luke with fear and doubt and guilt that drives him away from everyone he loves and places him in isolation on Ach-To. 

It’s a hard moment to see. To me, it’s much like finding Han basically running from Leia and going back to smuggling in TFA.

These characters were our heroes in the original trilogy, and it’s hard to see them 30 years later to find out that they’re human after all. 

At the same time though, these movies are also about passing the torch to a new generation of characters that have will bring with them a new legion of fans to the Star Wars universe. 

I hope, though, that Lucasfilm allows someone to publish a novel or two that further explores the adventures of Luke and Ben/Kylo and their relationship, including Ben’s eventual betrayal.

I was also a bit disappointed that the Knights of Ren were a no-show.

Luke’s Last Stand

I have to see the movie again, but I don’t know if they really explained why Luke’s projection was a one-time deal. I read somewhere that Kylo says something about this, but I missed it. Outside of that, I fully expect to see a Luke ghost both helping Rey and (hopefully) taunting Kylo.

Poe’s Arc

I really liked Poe’s arc for the most part. I didn’t mind that he’s left out in the cold by Holdo. I wished there was a moment of reckoning after the mutiny between Poe and Leia. I liked that he’s learning in the battle of Krait that maybe there’s a time to back off and not sacrifice forces. The problem, though, is at this point of the movie, there is no Plan B. This is a “last stand” moment, and Poe should have been all for helping Finn sacrifice himself in order to help buy them time.

Finn’s Arc

Again, Finn had a pretty decent story arc, but it felt cheated at the end because Rose kept him from making a heroic sacrifice. I would have liked to see him eject at the last second or something where he’s able to survive but still succeed in destroying the weapon. Let’s say the ship hits the weapon but doesn’t destroy it; at least it still completes Finn’s arc and it adds to his own mythology. 

Rey’s Arc 

I’m more bummed that we didn’t see Rey get more training than I am about her parents. Sure, Kylo could be lying, but I don’t think any of the other “theories” would have been better. If she’s Luke’s daughter, then we turn Luke into a deadbeat dad. Same with her being a Solo. Making her related to Obi Wan or Palpatine would only be interesting because it ties her to characters in the other movies. 

Hey, at least they skipped the “immaculate conception” this time. Making her parents irrelevant opens up the idea that anyone could be Force sensitive and evolve into a Jedi or Sith (or something else). I’m okay with that. 

Rey, though, has had less training than Luke did, and that may or may not be a bad thing. She may? have the Jedi Order books, but I think the main point is that because she’s not completely indoctrinated in either the Sith or the Jedi, Rey may ultimately become something else – a person truly balanced between the light and the dark.

Not Enough Snoke

Alas, poor Snoke, we hardly knew ye.

Maybe this will be covered in a novel, but it’s a shame that for all his power, Snoke doesn’t get enough screen time, so his eventual death feels a bit meaningless. The final confrontation between Rey, Kylo and Snoke kind of echoes Return of the Jedi, but it feels off. By the time the scene happens in ROTJ, Luke has faced Vader once, and he’s come to terms with the fact that Vader is his father. The stakes are much higher there because of the connection between Luke and Vader. The Emperor still wants to turn Luke, and catching his friends in a trap with the new Death Star, he hopes to push Luke to the dark side. 

In TLJ, Rey senses Kylo’s conflict, and like Luke with Vader, hopes to lure him back into the light. We know Snoke wants to kill Luke, but it’s never clear why. He also doesn’t seem to be as interested in converting Rey, who, with little training, should be susceptible to Snoke’s influence, just as Ben was. 

Snoke has also created a trap, but he seems to be singularly focused on killing Skywalker. Although the twist here is great, Snoke’s death doesn’t have the same impact as the Emperor’s.

I can’t place my finger on it. Maybe seeing it again will help. I like the overall sequence of events here, but it seemed to lack the same emotional impact as ROTJ.

Too Many Woman

Ugh, the dumbest thing I’ve seen in the last week or so is the political “far right” having fits about too many women in positions of power in TLJ. I honestly thought it was great to see more than one strong female character in these movies, and I think the “far right” can just crawl back under their rocks. 

Moving On 

We will always have the original trilogy of movies, and the memories of seeing those and playing with the toys and reading all of the theories about how Vader could be Luke’s father will not simply disappear because we may or may not like the direction the new films are going in. 

Note, that does NOT include the prequels, which were bad on so many levels. They didn’t destroy my childhood, but I don’t have to bother to watch them, either.

While it has its flaws, I have to give props to Rian Johnson and the Lucasfilm folks for taking chances with The Last Jedi. They’ve opened up some new ideas about what it means to be a Force-wielder (either Jedi or Sith), and they’re trying to take the world of Star Wars into new directions. The Skywalker saga is ending, but the Star Wars universe will be stronger than ever.

I only wish they had started this with The Force Awakens, because there’s so much crammed into The Last Jedi, I almost wish they had made two movies (or had simply introduced some of these things in TFA). 

My biggest worry at this point is whether or not JJ Abrams will be open to the direction that TLJ has gone, or will he backtrack and turn Episode IX into a re-hash of Return of the Jedi. 

Justice League – Watchable, but pretty meh

A couple of weeks ago, a buddy of mine and I went to see Thor: Ragnarok (again). Afterward, we were discussing if Ragnarok was worthy of being in our personal top five Marvel movies. 

 

For both of us, it was. 

 

Last week, I watched a review of Justice League and the most positive thing they could say about the movie was that they considered to be the 2nd best DC Cinematic Universe movie behind Wonder Woman. 

 

So, now, after seeing it, where does Justice League land, in my opinion? 

 

Meh? It’s watchable, but it’s also kind of boring. 

 

Instead of the top five Marevel movies, think about which one you would consider to be the WORST of the MCCU movies (starting with Iron Man in 2008). 

 

Your pick for the worst Marvel movie is still able to tell a more coherent story and may actually have a better villain than Justice League. 

 

Despite this, you may ultimately agree that Justice League is the second best DC movie to date (and that depends on how you felt about Man of Steel). The bar, though, is so low at this point, it’s hard not to beat those expectations.

 

Justice League also has the misfortune of following Thor: Ragnarok: It’s easily the best Thor movie to date, and it’s a showcase of the MCCU hitting all the right notes. 

 

So what worked in Justice League? 

 

Certainly, adding a bit of humor to the movie certainly helped along with making Batman less murdery (although Affleck’s “phoned-it-in” performance seems pretty obvious he’s lost interest in the role – or maybe that was his intent for Batman to sulk because he’s not killing so many bad guys this time around).

 

Gal Gadot is still great as Wonder Woman.  Flash and Cyborq are pretty good, and even Aqua-brah is at least tolerable. It’s disappointing that the movie didn’t take a bit more time fleshing out the back stories of these guys, especially Aquaman.  They made him look cool, sure, but there’s just not much revealed about his own story outside of the fact that he’s Atlantean.  There are some funny moments, and there are a few moments of seeing the group start to bond that are fun to watch. 

It certainly feels like Whedon had a hand in some of the bonding scenes.

 

The opening song is a bit gut-wrenching. It’s meant to echo the feeling of the world losing hope as they mourn the death of Superman, but the song also touches a bit close to home with the political situation here in the U.S. and elsewhere. 

 

I’m still a bit disappointed in Cyborg being in the League, but that’s mostly because of my background. When I read & collected comics in the 80s, the sixth member of the Justice League was Green Lantern and Cyborg was part of the Teen Titans. 

 

What didn’t work?

 

It’s hard to get into what went wrong with the movie without delving into spoilers. Basically, Batman, for reasons, suspects that something bad is coming, and that the world is in danger. He needs to put together a team to fight this thing and hopefully stop it and help restore “hope” to the world.  Beyond that, the story is a complete mess.

 

Part of the problem with Justice League is that it wants us to forget about Batman vs Superman. Part of the entire theme of that movie was that world wasn’t sure about Superman, but now that he’s dead, everyone loves him. Batman already has files on the “recruits” so it feels odd that he’s got to find them and/or isn’t sure how to approach them. 

 

Another part of the problem is the main villain: Steppenwolf. For one, he looks too much like Mars did in Wonder Woman. He’s just not interesting. He shows up, and he’s out to destroy the world: for reasons. There are hints about a backstory, but there are almost no details. 

 

Unless you’re deeply familiar with DC comics, you’ll have no idea who or what Steppenwolf or parademons or mother boxes are. They could have swapped any of the bad guys out with vampires or zombies or giant alien robots and you’d care about the same.

 

Why does this suck? 

 

Towards the end of the credits, the movie recognizes some of the brilliant creators who have worked on Justice League over the years. The Justice League/Justice League of America/JLA have been in comics since 1960, yet Warner Bros/DC could not find a single story from almost 60 years of comic archives by some of the greatest creators in the industry that would have worked in a movie? 

 

The other sad thing is that the villain most fans were truly excited to see doesn’t show up until the post credits scene. He looks amazing, and I look forward to seeing him in action. But again, in my comics background, that bad guy isn’t one of the JLA’s normal opponents.

 

I guess Steppenwolf is meant to be a kind of an harbinger of Darkseid, but outside of Steppenwolf saying the word “Darkseid” once in the film, the movie never mentions anything about that. 

 

It’s almost like the movie creators put a list of names of villains that could be powerful enough for the League to fight on a wall and just threw a dart at the wall to pick one at random. 

 

And don’t get me started on what happens with Superman. 

 

Ultimately, the movie suffers from the same thing that all of the DCCU movies have suffered from: they’re desperately trying to catch up to Marvel. But, they don’t want to spend the time in creating individual movies and building the characters up to a point where a movie with them working as a team makes sense. 

 

From a software perspective, it’s like rushing a product that tries to catch up to a competitor and trying to convince buyers that they have the same “feature set” as the competition, even though the competition has spent years getting to where they are. Look at this list of features, marketing says, we check all the same boxes as the other guys. 

 

That’s what Justice League is: See? We’ve got all the things as those other guys! They have six super-heroes; we have six heroes. They have witty banter; we have witty banter.  They save the world; our guys save the world, too. They care about protecting innocent civilians, and, now, so do our guys. 

 

And for better or worse, DC can now say they’ve checked off all the boxes, and that Justice League is “just the same” as the Avengers. 

 

Except that Marvel can still tell a better, more coherent story on their worst day.

 

I won’t even bother comparing it to Thor: Ragnarok, because that wouldn’t even be a fair fight. 

 

Justice League may check off all of the boxes and it may be better than the clusterfuck that BvS, but DC still has a long way to go before they’re able to put together something that competes with the Avengers. 

 

I wouldn’t rush out to see this one; maybe it’s worth a rental. A cheap rental.

As much as DC likes rebooting their comic universe lately, I’d say that maybe it’s time to boot Zack Snyder and start over. (Find a way to keep Gal Gadot though)

 

Additional Notes:

 

I found the second post credits scene to be a complete cringeworthy mess despite the fact of who shows up in it. It’s amazing that a single two minute scene can make you exclaim “Wait, what?!?”, then “Yes!”, then “Oh, for fuck’s sake” by the end. Again, you’d think this scene would drop hints that would tie this movie into the sequel, but nope, not so much. 

 

Will DC try to make individual movies for Superman and Batman (and Flash and/or Cyborg)? Aquaman is basically done, so they’re committed there. Obviously, Wonder Woman is a go as well. Flash seems to be getting pretty positive vibes from other reviews I’ve read, so… maybe?

 

There are also the constant rumors that Affleck wants out. Do they do an Affleck solo Batman movie and have him pass the torch to a younger guy to be the new Batman?  Do they just let him off after the solo Batman movie and then retcon Batman as a younger actor and hope nobody notices? 

(No, really, Batman is really this guy not that old Affleck guy – fake news!)

 

Of course, if not Affleck, then who would be the next to wear the cowl?

Suicide Squad: A Hot Mess

Although visually interesting and sprinkled with a few great performances and some humor, the mess of Suicide Squad’s story overshadows everything else. It still manages to entertain, though, making it better than Batman v. Superman, but BvS set the bar pretty low.

While it will likely make lots of money for DC, Suicide Squad also does nothing to prove that DC can produce a good comic-book movie outside of Nolan’s Batman trilogy.

Secret government person Amanda Waller wants to build a team to combat a potential future meta-human threat (i.e. What if the next “superman” wasn’t on our side). Instead of looking for potential “good guys” (because that relates to a different upcoming DC movie), Waller decides to use villains, including other meta-humans. Ultimately, she argues, the villains are expendable – if something goes south, they’ll throw the team under the bus.

Harley Quinn and Deadshot get the longest introductions since they both involve scenes with the Batman (Batfleck) and the Joker. The other members of the squad get shorter intros: Killer Croc, Diablo, Captain Boomerang, and the Enchantress. Colonel Rick Flag, a bad-ass best-of-the-best soldier is recruited to lead them. Oh, and Katana and Slipknot show up about an hour into the movie with no explanation. 

So after about 30-40 minutes setting up the Squad, someone realizes there should be a villain in the film, and that’s where things go completely off the rails. 

The villain, via a series of badly edited scenes, quickly sets up in Midway City? (because it can’t be Gotham or Metropolis?) and establishes that it’s going to do something very bad to the city (and the world?) and that the military is powerless to stop them. 

So, the Squad is activated. Each member of the team has a small explosive implanted in their necks that can be remotely detonated by Flag/Waller to ensure that they follow orders. Instead of pursuing the villain, Waller sends the team in to retrieve a high-value target in the city and escort them to safety.

So, yeah, although the squad was formed to combat evil meta-humans, and there’s a clear meta-human threat, the squad is sent on an entirely different mission. 

Of course, the squad ultimately winds up confronting the villain, but by that happens, you’ve given up on watching a cohesive story and are just rolling with what happens on screen. There’s a subplot with Joker in order give Jared Leto’s Joker some additional screen time, but outside of the flashbacks to establish Harley Quinn’s story, the entire Joker arc feels unnecessary and tacked on. 

The weirdest thing about the squad? There’s virtually no conflict amongst the team. They all go along with the orders they’re given, and despite that none of these characters were meant to be team players and are thrown together into this situation, they all work together with almost no conflict between each other. 

And, there’s something odd about the music choices. It’s not that the songs are bad, but they never feel like they’re played at the right moments. It feels like the choice to use classic rock songs was a deliberate attempt to try give the movie a “Guardians of the Galaxy vibe” without understanding how or why the music worked in that film.

As far as the cast goes, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn steals every scene she’s in. Viola Davis is excellent as the cool and fierce Amanda Waller. 

Will Smith is fine as Deadshot, with one exception. He’s given the Deadshot mask as part of his costume, but it seems like he’s got a clause in his contract that the audience must see his face on film 95% of the time. He puts the mask on twice in the film, and neither case makes any sense. Arrow’s version of Deadshot didn’t have the mask at all, so Smith would have been fine without it.

Jared Leto’s Joker is… fine, I guess. Trying to do something different from Heath Ledger’s Joker in the Dark Knight, Leto’s version is more of a crazed, tattooed gangster. He does bring some nice touches to the character, though.

Katana matches her comic-book version. Boomerang is kind of the comic relief of the film. Croc doesn’t have much screen time, but the look doesn’t feel quite right. Croc should have been much bigger, either via a suit or digital effects. Diablo looks great when he transforms.

And the Enchantress – She’s probably the worst part of the film. The initial set up is interesting by setting up the dual personas, and the transformation from June Moone to the Enchantress is pretty good. I don’t think it’s just Cara Delevingne’s performance; the entire arc around this character was so badly written that every scene with her in it disrupts the flow of the movie.

There are already stories out that state the studio got involved late in the project after the dismal reviews from BvS and even paid for some reshoots to add some levity to this film. I read one article that went as far as to say there were actually two different versions of the movie being put together at one point – David Ayer’s version, and the studio’s. 

It feels like the release was a mishmash of both versions, and it shows. Still, it could have been a LOT worse (for that, see last year’s Fantastic Four). 

There are a few great performances (Smith, Davis, and Robbie) in the film and, despite grinding to a halt story-wise halfway through, the movie does succeed in limping to the end and is, if nothing else, at least entertaining to watch. 

Unfortunately, DC still hasn’t managed to find the right combination of elements to produce a comic-book movie that matches the success or coherence of any of the Marvel films. It’s unfortunate, too, because I could have easily seen Suicide Squad capturing a lot of the elements from both Guardians of the Galaxy and Deadpool and create a distinct movie franchise. 

The Martian

TLDR: Go see it! Then, go buy the book, and read it!

I’ve seen a couple of reviews compare the Martian to Cast Away, and although the premise may be similar, the comparison doesn’t really do the story justice.

Based on Andy Weir’s first novel, the movie tells the story of Mark Watney. Watney is part of a series of manned missions to Mars called Ares, but when a massive storm forces the team of astronauts to abort their mission and leave the planet, Watney is struck by debris and tossed out of sight of the others. The electronics in his suit fail, making the others assume the worst. Because of the risk to their own lives, they have no other choice but to leave Mars, assuming that Watney died on the surface.

Only, (spoilers!), he didn’t die. Watney survived, but now he’s the only man on Mars, with no communications, 50 million miles away from Earth, and the next manned mission to the planet won’t arrive for another four years.

The movie is both a story of survival as Watney tries to solve the problems he’s facing on the desolate Martian landscape as well as the drama faced by both NASA and the other members of the Ares crew learn that Watney is alive and was left behind on Mars and struggle to find a way to rescue him.

Matt Damon is perfectly cast as Watney, and he does an amazing job in portraying both the humor and the emotional roller coaster Watney experiences as he fights to endure on Mars. The film balances everything well between both Mars and Earth, so viewers aren’t simply watching one man struggle to survive. They do a great job of handling the problem-solving scenes, setting up the problem, then watching as Watney or Watney and NASA work through the task at hand.

The cinematography of the vast, wide shots of the Martian landscape are gorgeous even though they serve to remind us of just how isolated Watney is.

Despite the smooth pacing of most of the movie, the film feels a bit rushed towards the end – as if someone was trying to keep the film from stretching out for three hours (which it may have if they didn’t speed things up). A couple of tense scenes from the end of the book are lost here, but it doesn’t detract from the overall story. As it is, the film clocks in at 2:14.

My only quibbles about the film are that the film ignores the fact that in the book Watney is both a mechanical engineer and a botanist. I always felt his expertise in both disciplines helped the character to survive. The film also leaves out some of the best lines from the book (which is why you should really read the book, too)

The movie is a very tense but enjoyable experience. Be forewarned, if you’re someone who gets emotional watching films, you may want to bring some tissues.

Back to Jurassic Park

A few weeks ago, one of my buddies had mentioned that he’d read Jurassic Park for the first time recently, and he was surprised at the number of differences between the book and the movie. I haven’t read the book since 1993 (around the time the movie came out), so it was a bit fuzzy. At this point I’ve seen the movie quite a few times, so it has kind of become “canon” in my memory. 

Last week, I was going through a slow purge of my existing books and stumbled across my paperback copies of both Jurassic Park and the Lost World. Inspired by my discussion with my friend, I decided to re-read both books. 

Here are some of the differences that I thought were interesting and/or was disappointed they left out of the movie. 

(Needless to say – uh, spoilers – for both the book and the movie. C’mon people you’ve had at least 20+ years to see the movie and/or read the book) 

1. The movie flips the ages and a couple of the personality traits of the kids. Lex is the older and the computer nerd, and Tim is the younger one and the dinosaur expert. In the book, Tim is still the dinosaur expert, but he’s the computer nerd and the oldest. Lex is the youngest and really doesn’t do much in the book (outside of petting and naming the dinosaurs they encounter. I prefer the movie switch, since it gives both kids something to do (Although I still cringe every time I hear “It’s a Unix system.” from that scene in the movie). The book also mentions the kids’ parents are divorcing, but it’s left out of the movie.

2. My favorite – and I chuckled at this as I read it – was that Alan Grant “loves kids” in the book. I didn’t mind that they made him uncomfortable around kids in the movie because it gave his character a chance to grow through the film, but it was a funny thing to read that line in the book.

3. The T-Rex is a much bigger antagonist in the book. All of the content about Grant and the kids taking a raft into the lagoon / river in the book are not in the movie. I’d completely forgotten about this, so I was disappointed (again) that they weren’t in the film. A couple of them – the scene where they learn the T-Rex can swim, and the waterfall scene where the raft is about to go over the falls to where the T-Rex is waiting below – would have been amazing on film.

4. I was happily surprised that a lot of the great lines from the movie came directly from the book.

5. The aviary and the opening scenes are left out of the book, but they are used in the other films. The opening scene of Jurassic Park becomes the opening scene for the Lost World movie. The aviary shows up in Jurassic Park III (you know, the one where you root for the dinosaurs to eat Tea Leoni’s character)

6. The main subplot of the book that’s completely left out of the movie is the concern about the dinosaurs getting off (and possibly already have gotten off) the island. It’s another point about “life finds a way” that the movie picks up when they discover that the dinosaurs are breeding, but the other, much greater concern, of dinosaurs getting off the island is left out. In fact, while the book describes the island being bombed to eradicate all life, the movie leaves the island intact, In fact, the end of the movies shows pterodactyls flying along side the helicopter as the survivors leave the island, and nobody is the least bit concerned. 

7. Speaking of survivors, the book makes it pretty clear that both Hammond and Malcolm die on the island. Both survive in the movie. The Lost World book has to quickly explain how Malcolm is now alive since he’s the main character in the story (turns out he was only “mostly” dead). 

Both the movie and the book are excellent, and it’d be worth your time to go and enjoy both again. Read the book first, then re-watch the movie.

For me, I’m moving on to reading the Lost World. 

Godzilla – What you'd expect

Much like last year’s Pacific Rim, if you walk into Godzilla looking for an Oscar-worthy performance (well, unless it’s from Godzilla himself), please move along. There’s nothing for you to see here.

But…

If you’re looking for a decent popcorn movie that’s all about giant freakin’ monsters stomping around our world while we helplessly watch with a bit of an “arrogance of man” message, then Godzilla is your movie. It’s not a great flick, but it’s a good movie that follows more in the tradition of the original movies and makes up for that 1998 disaster of a flick by the same name.

For me, the most depressing thing about this movie was the opening scene. It’s a flashback to 1999 (which, I think, is the second summer movie that has a 90s flashback – Spider-Man 2 being the other). I saw the “1999” title and sat there thinking, “1999? That wasn’t that long ago” …before quietly doing the math in my head. 

The flashback introduces an incident in Japan where a mysterious series of earthquakes takes out a nuclear reactor as well as sets up our main characters. The main character, Ford, is a boy at this point, and his parents work at the reactor.

Flash-forward to present-day, and Ford is an adult and a demolitions expert in the Navy who has just returned home to his wife and son in San Francisco.

He has to race to Japan to bail out his father, who, after losing their mother in the accident, has become a conspiracy theorist chasing a theory that the accident at the plant was not a natural occurrence. He believed something caused those quakes and the government has been covering it up ever since. 

Cut to Japan, Ford bails his father out. Dad (played by Bryan Cranston) is determined to retrieve data disks from their old home, which has been quarantined because of the radiation from the reactor, because it will give him the definitive proof about his theory.

For no apparent reason, Ford goes with his dad, and that kicks off the wild ride of the plot involving the humans. 

Every aspect of the human story is pretty forgettable. Ford goes to help his dad, then spends the rest of the movie trying to get home to his family. Along the way, he continually manages to be dragged into the conflict with the monsters. Ford could have handed the story off to another couple of characters and we could have followed them from point B to C. They could hand the story off to other characters to go from points C to D, and it wouldn’t have mattered.

The plot isn’t anything you haven’t heard of before: Stupid humans unwittingly awaken something they have no hope of controlling or understanding. Big monster starts leaving a trail of destruction. Although presumed dead (because the humans awoke something else back in the 50s and then immediately tried to kill it), Godzilla suddenly shows up and is now somehow aware of and in pursuit of the “bad” monster.

The big difference is that instead of tearing up Tokyo or New York, the big battle ends up heading for San Francisco. So, at least ,in one sense, we at least get to see massive destruction of a different city. 

There are a few scenes that dwell on the arrogance of man and argue that despite our bumbling of mankind to destroy our world, nature will find a way to restore the balance. 

Ironically, in a summer full of super-hero movies, Godzilla really plays out a lot like another super-hero movie…

Because Godzilla’s the hero Gotham… er, San Francisco deserves, but not the one it needs right now…and so we’ll hunt him, because he can take it. Because he’s not a hero. He’s a silent guardian, a watchful protector…a dark grayish green knight.”

I kid, but let’s face it – We’re here to watch giant freakin’ monsters duke it out – and they do. Sort of. 

That’s probably the most disappointing part of the movie. Just as we start to see the big fight scenes between Godzilla and the bad guys, the director decides that’s a good time to cut over to see what Ford or the other characters are doing. 

 The creature itself is also back to the one we know from our childhood and not the oddball super-big yet somehow also super-stealthy creature from the 1998 version.   This Godzilla isn’t all that concerned about all of the military hardware following or attacking him. 

Overall, though, it’s still a decent homage to the original movies from the 60s. Like Pacific Rim, it’s a fun flick to see in IMAX. Like disaster movies? Like giant monster movies? Godzilla is your movie. 

 

The "Amazing" Spider-Man 2 Review

 Okay, the Amazing Spider-Man 2 had some great scenes in it. Every fight scene with the web head doing his thing, swinging through the city, fighting the bad guys while making wisecracks and just plain having fun was amazing. The first confrontation with Electro had a great bit that really gave us a feel for what Spidey’s spider-sense does. 

There’s a couple of nice scenes with Spider-Man and a little nerdy kid. 

Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone have great chemistry on-screen and are annoyingly cute to watch even though the are-we-or-aren’t-we-dating story drags on for far too long. 

It’s a good summer popcorn movie that could probably have been shorter if that was the original intent of the producers. It seemed like the producers of the movie were too focused on the long game – meaning – they’re dying to transform Spider-Man into a mega multi-movie universe along the lines of what Marvel Studios has done with the Avengers. (Spider-Man’s movie rights are owned by Sony – and they let you know it throughout the film) 

At the end of the day, though, you have a few great scenes wrapped up in a mess of a 2hr, 22min film that milks the love story as long as it can yet rushes to introduce villains, transform them via the most ridiculous means, and turn them against Spider-Man with very little back story. That wouldn’t be such a bad thing if it weren’t for the fact that the bad guys will likely be back in the sequels. 

While it may be a great idea to create a multi-movie franchise like Marvel Studios, if the first movie(s) aren’t very good, why on earth would audiences bother going to the sequels? After this film, I have little desire to see a “Sinister-Six” movie. (The next “Spider-Man” movie is going to focus on the villains – and will come out before an Amazing Spider-Man 3)

The movie has the elements there, and if they were shaken up and re-assembled in a different order, you might have wound up with a better overall story.

Case in point – There was a scene between Harry and Peter in the trailers where Harry showed Peter that OSCORP had Peter under surveillance, and it was cut from the movie. There was another cut scene from the trailers between Harry and Norman Osborn where they’re discussing Peter where Harry says “What about Peter?” to which Norman replies “Not everyone gets to have a happy ending.”

The movie focuses so much on OSCORP that it seems a shame that those two bits were cut from the film because it could have helped build up this larger epic conflict between OSCORP and the Parker(s). 

(BEGIN SPOILER) – Skip this section if you don’t want to know anything about the movie.

So, imagine how this would work —

Harry comes back to visit his dying father. His father reveals his legacy and fills him in on the research that he was doing with Richard Parker and that Peter may be the “key” to Harry’s survival.

After Norman dies, Harry is going though his father’s “Special Projects” files and stumbles across the research into the radioactive spiders. He also sees that Peter has been under surveillance and finds a video diary entry from Norman discussing his belief (but can’t prove) that Peter may be Spider-Man. 

Now, Harry has motivation to start hanging out with Peter again in order to rebuild their friendship. Show several quick scenes of them together (not the same sequence – make it clear that it’s different dates). 

Later, they have the conversation in OSCORP that we see in the trailer where Harry is showing Peter the surveillance footage while Harry quietly watches Peter and wonders if his father was right about the idea that Peter is Spider-Man. 

This would occur before Harry asks Peter to help him locate Spider-Man because he may be the key to saving Harry’s life.

(END SPOILER)

Anyway… 

Although The Amazing Spider-Man 2 has some great moments in it, they’re not enough to overcome the weakness of the overall story. It’s a decent popcorn summer movie, but it could have been better or at the very least mercifully shorter.

——————————–

This is a great FAQ (WARNING: SPOILERS!) that jokes about a lot of the good and bad elements of the film. It’s written by Rob Bricken who wrote another ingenious FAQ last year about Star Trek: Into Darkness.

http://io9.com/the-amazing-spider-man-2-the-amazing-spoiler-faq-1572405038