A House of Dynamite (4/5 Stars)

This tense thriller takes place in less than twenty minutes and is told three times, from different viewpoints.

In the first act, the action takes place in the White House Situation room, Captain Olivia Walker (played by Rebecca Ferguson) presiding, and an army base in Alaska, Major Daniel Gonzalez (played by Anthony Ramos), presiding. A missile launch somewhere in the Far East is picked up by a satellite. Within a few minutes it is ascertained that the missile has gone suborbital and is heading toward the United States. Within a few more minutes, it is ascertained that the missile is going to hit Chicago. The operators in the first act are the first and only line of defense in what appears to be a preemptive nuclear strike. Although they have trained for their task many times, they fail to stop the missile.

In the second act, the action takes place mainly in STRATCOM, General Anthony Brady (played by Tracy Letts) presiding, and the White House’s Deputy National Security Advisor Jake Bearington’s (played by Gabriel Basso) breathless race to get to work on time and engage foreign leaders to find out what is happening abroad. STRATCOM is located in the Rocky Mountains and commands the nuclear arsenal of the United States. General Anthony Brady acts like he has been preparing for this moment for his entire life. Jake Baerington scrambles around to consult an expert on the North Koreans and the diplomat from Russia, but ultimately cannot provide the President with advice that is conclusive.

In the third act, the action follows the President of the United States (played by Idris Elba) and his belated interactions with Lieutenant Commander Robert Reeves (played by Jonah Hauer-King), the man in charge of the “football”, that briefcase which contains the nuclear codes and follows the President around everywhere he goes just for this kind of scenario. The President’s schedule has him attending a fundraiser with a WNBA star for girls’ sports. Then he is whisked away to make a decision as to whether to commit to an all-out nuclear counterstrike on the USA’s enemies. Each act ends with the President about to decide what to do.

This movie is directed by Kathryn Bigelow, a very capable director who excels at relatively realistic war movies (2008’s The Hurt Locker, 2012’s Zero Dark Thirty) and who, inexplicably, hasn’t made a movie since 2017. Somehow, she hasn’t lost her step. “A House of Dynamite” is a taut thriller that moves along briskly, introduces mainly characters and locations, and explains various procedures. Still, it keeps a clear focus and is, more or less, understandable. Above all, it is an interesting (and maybe plausible) take on a somewhat realistic scenario, which more than anything else, impresses upon the viewer not just the outward stakes in terms of human lives at issue but also the lack of time involved in the decisions that need to be made. Apparently, it would take an intercontinental nuclear strike only twenty minutes to get from somewhere near North Korea to Chicago. And apparently, the United States is so ready and prepared for that scenario, that it could initiate a world-wide counterstrike of apocalyptic proportions on all of our enemies at the same time before the first missile actually landed.

That is kind of amazing when you think about it. I vaguely knew that a man with the Football briefcase followed the President around everywhere just for that eventuality, but I never saw a movie in which that guy opens the briefcase, pulls out the armageddon menu, and ask the President whether he wants to initiate the “rare”, “medium”, or “well-done” plan. This is the type of movie where the subject matter elevates the material. The details in the plot are inherently dramatic. And the more the movie understates its delivery, the more it makes the movie feel real, which underlines that you are seeing a relatively realistic end-of-the-world scenario.

The point of this movie is to impress upon the viewer the importance of nuclear arms proliferation and an urgency for world leaders to once again enter treaties limiting their arsenals. As of next year, I believe there won’t be any of those treaties left. I believe another point the movie is trying to make is that this particular decision is in the hands of one man, the President, who may not be as prepared for this sort of thing as we may all like. In this movie, Idris Elba remarks that he received “one briefing” on this subject. This contrasts with the thousands of rehearsals that the Alaska army base and STRATCOM mention that they have had. Why is the least prepared character person in this movie in charge of the most important decision?

Counterintuitively, I think the people who should really be frightened after seeing this movie are all our would-be nuclear enemies. Although the Americans are shown to be realistically emotional about the situation, they are very competent and have plans in place to deal with it, not only in their attempts to thwart the strike before it happens, but also how to deal with the aftermath locally, and how to seek revenge immediately and on an apocalyptic scale. Consider this movie from the viewpoint of our enemies: one rogue missile is launched and before that missile even touches down 20 minutes later, it shows the American President in the process of confirming launch codes for an immediate and massive counterstrike. Meanwhile, a general impending nuclear armageddon playbook is automatically being implemented with all the functions of government being presently and immediately shuttled to a secure underground bunker in Raven Rock, Pennsylvania.

People are focused on the “House of Dynamite” quote. I think the better quote is the one preceding it, in which the President posits: “I always thought having you follow me around with that book of plans for weapons like that, just being ready is the point, right? Keeps people in check. Keeps the world straight. If they see how prepared we are, no one starts a nuclear war, right?” Hopefully, our enemies see this movie and are reminded of what the United States is capable of.

Current geopolitics affects the screenplay of this movie and also the plausibility of the United States response to the threat. Perhaps because it would be too provocative to actually name the source of the ICBM, the movie provides an excuse for the characters to not know. So there are three possibilities: North Korea, Russia, or China. Out of those three, Russia is the least likely and that is the only country the United States is able to get on the phone to talk about the threat. Not surprisingly, the Russians don’t know or won’t admit to anything. But really, if this was either Russia or China, there wouldn’t only be one missile, there would be at least fifty. It doesn’t really make sense for Russia or China to send over one nuke to wipe out Chicago just to test how the United States would react.

But really, regardless of who has lobbed this missile (and especially if it was North Korea), it doesn’t make sense to present the President with the options that he is presented with. All three options “rare”, “medium” and “well done” are for scenarios in which many nuclear warheads are moving our way, not just one, and certainly not just one from an isolated pariah state. If it is just one, then the most obvious response would be to lob one-and-only-one missile back at a similar target. Tit-for-tat. This shows that the United States will respond, but not in such a way that will necessarily provoke everyone else in shooting off all of their missiles at the same time. It might provoke that response, but not necessarily. If you ever watched “Dr. Strangelove”, you will notice a similar dynamic to “House of Dynamite”. In that movie, a rogue American military officer goes on the loose with the effect of only one nuclear missile being dropped on Russia. The obvious Russian “Tit-for-Tat” response is neutered by its new technology, the “Doomsday Device” which automatically triggers an all out nuclear response regardless of how many missiles have been sent first. Both of these movies present a worst case scenario by involving plot points that prevent the obvious game theory strategy from being implemented. I’m fairly certain our generals at STRATCOM have a basic understanding of game theory.

Finally, this decision is probably best in the hands of the President. The alternative would be to put it in the hands of Congress, which will not have the ability to act with deterrent speed, or the generals, who, let’s face it, have been training their whole lives for this moment. You want Idris Elba, who would rather be at a WNBA fundraiser, making this call, not Tracy Letts, who is unelected and sees every problem as a nail to hit with his nuclear hammer. At the end of the day, the President is a people person and cares about his legacy. He is the one going to try to avoid a nuclear war.

Three Thousand Years of Solitude (4/5 Stars)

 

“Three Thousand Years of Longing” is a small movie with big trappings. Like George Miller’s last outing “Mad Max: Fury Road” it is a demonstration of the benefits of the last two decades revolution in cheaper digital movie-making. The plot is too alien for a mainstream audience: an aging scholar of ancient Mesopotamian culture (Tilda Swinton) comfortable in her solitary life, by happenchance and/or fate finds a bottle in Istanbul thrift shop which contains an ancient djinn (Idris Elba), or as you may have heard in a Disney movie, a genie. He grants her a wish, but she refuses to make one. She is well versed in myths and genies and believes that making wishes is not wise. Trickster genies abound and, well, she does not need anything. To convince her to make a wish, this djinn delves into its lives and loves of the past three thousand years. We meet King Solomon, spend time in the harem of the Ottoman sultan, and attain knowledge of the universe. Imagine if this movie had been made twenty years ago. First of all, it wouldn’t have been, at least not with this level of sophistication. It would have been far too expensive a gamble for a storyline that is inherently so niche. (I believe I called “Mad Max: Fury Road” a ‘niche blockbuster’. This is even more so). If it had been, I swear it would have been ugly. There would be no budget for the expanse required. All would be darkness, robes, and sandals.

As it is, we live now, and “Three Thousand Years of Longing” feels like the movie it should be. Much of it takes place in a hotel room in Istanbul in which Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba carry on a long debate amidst flashbacks of the djinn's long life and misfortunes. You could do much worse than spend a few hours listening to the back and forth between Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba, two of our most talented actors. Tilda Swinton is perfectly cast as scholar of foreign and ancient knowledge. Idris Elba it can be noted, is Black. Really, an ancient djinn should be of the middle-eastern persuasion. No matter. He has been appropriately cast. He he has the body frame and the intelligence to pull of an ancient djinn (as opposed to say, a Will Smith) and I can’t really think of anybody else I would like to see in the part (honorable mention, Robin Williams for the parody).

Idris Elba tells three stories. The first takes place a long time ago and is pretty straightforward. The djinn is advisor to the Queen of Sheba that falls for King Solomon. I won’t get into it too deep but it ends with the genie being entrapped in a bottle and thrown into the ocean. The second story involves the genie being found by a young concubine in the harem of the Ottoman Sultan. What makes this story interesting is that the concubine actually wishes for something someone of her stature and education would wish for at that time period. Given her narrow view of the world, she wishes to carry the son of the prince as it would automatically catapult her in social standing. And with another dose of realism, she doesn’t fully understand why this might be a dangerous wish in a place where political power is directly related to bloodlines. After some palace intrigue, the genie finds himself in a bottle in at the bottom of the sea again. The third story is the best and legitimately interesting. The genie is found by the youngest wife of an aging merchant. He keeps her in a tower and doesn’t let her out of the house. What she wishes for is the knowledge of the universe. This is granted to her not by some Matrix mind-meld, but by the genie scouring the earth and bringing back to her the best scientific texts. This is the type of woman a djinn could fall in love with and he does. I won’t tell you how this one turns out.

The stories are engaging enough as they are being told, but the movie itself finishes with a bit of an anti-climax. You see Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba are actually quite reasonable people so ultimately there is not much of a conflict. Actually the largest controversy in our modern times involves her taking the djinn back to London where two of her nosy old lady neighbors take exception. Why they do this doesn’t make much sense. They make general xenophobic points about culture and what not. Actually, the old neighbors have a point given that the genie is from a place of polygamy and harems, (which might be offensive to the modern woman?). Except the old ladies don’t know that Idris Elba is a djinn, so they just come off as having a prejudice against black people. But the genie shouldn’t be played by a black guy and the movie works best if that fact is quietly ignored. In any event, the whole thing seems to resolve rather quickly once they get a good look at him and realize he's Idris Elba. I believe, yes I believe you could say that everyone lived happily ever after.

The Suicide Squad (4/5 Stars)

 

This one is for all us losers.

The conceit of “The Suicide Squad” is a classic stock plot. I couldn’t tell you where it first was used, I expect B-movies have done something like it many times over since the early days of cinema, but one of the best examples is the 1967 movie “The Dirty Dozen”. The idea is that there is this important military objective that needs to be accomplished, but the chances of successful mission are minimal, so a bunch of guys with no future, like criminals serving life sentences, are given the opportunity to take a shot at it. They will probably die in the attempt, but they were going to rot in prison anyway, so what do they have to lose?

“The Suicide Squad” updates this premise with a modern comic book movie twist by making all of the criminals super-heroes. But you wouldn’t send Batman on a suicide mission. He’s a billionaire that works for himself. You need some more expendable product, super-heroes that wouldn’t be too much of a loss if they were going to die. Turns out, D.C. Comics has plenty of them. So much so that within the first fifteen of the minutes of the movie, at least half the squad is dispatched, and I don’t think anyone is going to miss the Swedish guy with the javelin known as (...looking it up by IMDB…) “Javelin”.

The remaining squad are as follows:

Colonel Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) superpower: competence, moral compass, leadership

Bloodsport (Idris Elba), superpower – good at weapons, killing people

Peacemaker (John Cena), superpower – good at weapons, killing people

Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchio) superpower – can control rats

King Shark (voiced by Sylvester Stallone) superpower – indestructible sharkman

Polka-Dot Man (David Dasmalchian) superpower – throws polka dots at people

Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) superpower – likely insane, innovative with melee weapons

Writer/Director James Gunn has a long storied history of juggling misfits in a group setting. He is the writer/director of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies after all. Now, you are not supposed to switch between rivals like Marvel and D.C. Comics like he is doing here, but then again Marvel fired him for uncouth Twitter jokes (before waiting a year while the cultures vultures attention went elsewhere and then hired him back) so I figure he doesn’t owe anybody anything. He does a very good James Gunn here. I especially liked the fact that Bloodsport and Peacemaker have essentially the same superpower which sets up a childish competition between them; how King Shark is so big and dumb; and how Polka-Dot Man, who shoots polka dots at people, is as sad, crazy, and pathetic as he sounds. (It is revealed that his motion injected him with radioactive stuff because she wanted superhero children which gave him polka dot powers but also daily polka dot rashes and he has to puke rainbows each day or die of polka dot exposure.) He fits right in. Rounding out the suicide squad is the only half-way well known superhero and the only one that also starred in the original and lessor “Suicide Squad” movie from a few years back, Harley Quinn. Harley gets the full James Gunn treatment in a scene where she dispatches plenty of nameless bad guys to the tune of Louie Prima singing Just a Gigolo.

This movie is frequently funny and has plenty of good action set pieces. And the final battle, which involves an especially B-movie type boss monster is big and ridiculous in a good way. There is also real pathos here (via certain cameos by fellow director and character actor Taika Waititi). In particular, James Gunn is decidedly for the underdogs, a very sympathetic note to take. However, his glorification of the underappreciated is a little belied by the many many gratuitous deaths of unknown extras. Let me ask you this: when was the last time you saw a SWAT team head into a combat zone in any movie vaguely like this one and thought that a single one would leave alive. These guys have all the body armor and automatic weapons yet they never don’t stand a chance. You want an underdog, make a movie about a SWAT team that fights superheroes.

What is left is the politics of this movie. It isn’t meant to be front and center, but it is interesting to talk about as, like many comic book movies, the message it contains is meant for a very large mainstream movie, and therefore kind of needs to be safe.

The mission is as follows: A fictional South American banana republic has recently suffered a military coup. The previous government was corrupt and so is this new one, but the previous government was tolerated by the United States because, it is revealed, it was willing to serve as a base for the United States to develop alien technology, which involves the experimentation and torture of political dissidents. This would not be the first time it was revealed in a movie that the American led team found out that the United States was really the bad guy, and like everything in this movie, it is a trope competently recycled. But what does this trope mean? Why do American movies so often reveal that America is the ultimate bad guy?

First of all, we should point out that the reveal of America being the bad guy leads to conflicts between the members of the Suicide Squad, which is a diverse group of people and at least one fish. How will this mainstream movie sidestep awkward political battles that may double as racial conflicts. Easy, the conflicts will be mano a mano between members of the same race. For instance Colonel Rick Flag (white) has his major conflict with Peacemaker (white) while Bloodsport (black) has his main conflict with Amanda Waller who is played by Viola Davis (black). Whew, dodged a bullet there.\

But why is the mainstream movie so hesitant to sidestep racial conflict but it still quite comfortable with laying an evil fictional plot at the feet of the United States government. There are a few possibilities to explore.

The most obvious is the movie industry’s leftist tilt. It is an urban industry, mainly centered in two very blue cities Los Angeles and New York City and, like seemingly all businesses within the realm of the arts and humanities, it draws a certain type of person with blindspots. For example, Oliver Stone who can brilliantly articulate all the bad things America has done in Latin America in the past one hundred years and in the next breath make a puff piece documentaries about autocrats like Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez.

Second, it may have something to do with corporate cowardice. The movie business is well acquainted with its free speech rights and is not fearful of retaliation from the American government. In contrast, a hint of any criticism towards the Chinese government may result in an American movie being completely banned from China’s gigantic market. Because of this, America’s government gets routinely trashed while China’s government, which is presently disappearing its citizens into gulags, is never criticized.

But there may also be something else at work here. I recently read Charlie Kaufman’s latest book Antkind which was about a ficitional movie critic B. Rosenberg Rosenberg, an insufferably woke white man who rails against white privilege and toxic masculinity (and expects credit for it), uses non-binary verbs (that he invented and only he uses), and calls himself an ally of every last victim on Earth (without asking whether or not they want his help). Half-way through this hilarious book it dawns on the reader that this character’s obsequiousness masks in even deeper pretentiousness. After all, in order to feel like you need to apologize for everything, one must first believe they are responsible for everything, which, if you think about it, is an extraordinarily egotistical view of the world. B. Rosenberg Rosenberg inflates his own importance by constantly apologizing for the terrible influence people like him have on the world. Perhaps the trope of America being the ultimate bad guy is but an exercise in vanity. Ultimately, it matters less whether or not we are the good or bad guy, what matters is that we matter. Think about it.

Hobbs and Shaw (4/5 Stars)

I have never had the opportunity to admit this in my movie review blog, but I have actually seen several of the Fast & Furious movies. I forget exactly which ones, but it hardly matters. They are all the same. Alpha males, fast cars, good-looking women. Oh and family, every single Fast & Furious movie is about family.

You need to be a good sport to watch a Fast & Furious movie. They are stupid, but if you play their game, well the stupid works. In this movie, a kidnapping takes place in a skyscraper. The bad guys bust through the window about fifty stories up and haul off a woman down the side of the building using very long ropes. Shaw decides to take the elevator down. Hobbs decides to jump out the window. His plan is to use gravity to catch up on the escaping bad guys heading down the ropes, to grab a hold of one to stop his fall, punch him in the face, and then jump to the next bad guy etc. This plan is stupid but it works. One must lend a lot of credit to the actors, in particular Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, who is one of the best at keeping it straight in the face of endless absurdities.

This movie is shameless. It stars a few of the newer stars of the Fast & Furious movies, Jason Statham (“Shaw”) and Dwayne Johnson (“Hobbs”) and adds the one and only Idris Elba (“Black Superman”) and a kick ass lady named Vanessa Kirby. The bad guy introduces himself as “Bad Guy”. He has a plan to spread a super-virus that will wipe out most of the world in an attempt to weed out the weak and kickstart human evolution. One of the better scenes involves a scientist explaining a real easy way to stop the plot (kill one person who is the room) and a really really hard way to stop the plot (infiltrate the bad guys lair in the middle of an army base in a completely different country within 12 hours). The World is at stake. The first option is not seriously considered. Another great scene involves a car mechanic trying to repair a complex biological contraption with no training and no special equipment while Hobbs and Shaw yell at him to hurry up. Amazingly, the yelling helps and the car mechanic gets the contraption to work. Shameless. During the climatic battle, our guys Hobbs and Shaw realize that the way to beat the bad guy is to work together as a team. Shameless, shameless, shameless.

The most enjoyably shameless part of these movies is the Fast & Furious physics. Cars can’t do this shit. You can’t shoot people from the cab of a jeep while its doing a barrel roll, but there it is up on the screen proving your sense of reality and logic wrong. The director of the movie is David Leitch, who is more of a stunt coordinator that has been converted into a director. His one previous movie  was the very good Deadpool 2. You can tell because he fills out the supporting cast with actors from that movie: see Eddie Marsan, Ryan Reynolds, and Rob Delaney. I’m beginning to like the idea of stunt coordinators becoming directors. The other good movie this year that was directed by a stunt coordinator was John Wick 3. The fight scenes were of a higher caliber in John Wick 3, however, this movie however is funnier. The jokes are a bit clunky in the first half of the movie, but as everyone settles in, they start coming out smoother. Then Kevin Hart shows up and is hilarious for about forty seconds.

Let me give you a test: The movie relocates to Samoa for its third act for no particular story reason. The only conceivable reason it happens is to provide an excuse to see Dwayne Johnson dress in traditional Samoan warrior club and have a traditional Samoan brawl with a traditional Samoan warrior club. Before the climatic battle, The Rock stands on a bluff and with a totally straight face states, “I can’t believe this is where we’re going to save The World.” If that makes you chuckle, I’ve got a direct commercial flight from Moscow to Samoa to sell you.

Thor: Ragnarok (4/5 Stars)

For those that felt Thor would be more entertaining if his tragic flaw was stupidity as opposed to pride (see my review of “Thor”) and did not bother seeing the second movie because it looked more stilted and oppressive than the first, the third movie in the “Thor” saga is exactly the course-correction the character and story sorely needed.

One half of the story is business-as-usual. There is a political crisis in Asgaard. Odin has finally died (or has he?) and his long-lost daughter, Hella, played by none other than Cate Blanchett, has come back from the throne. As she is Odin’s eldest issue and apparently was his right-hand person in establishing Odin’s empire, she has a pretty good argument for being Queen. Thor, played by Chris Hemsworth, and his brother Loki, Tom Hiddleston, aren’t going for it though and try to start a fight. She defeats them handily and even crushes Thor’s mighty hammer.

Thor lost his hammer in the first movie, but whereas in that movie the event inspired soul-searching and just a little bit of crying, in this movie Thor’s loss of his hammer merely serves to knock a few power notches off the characters ability points so the fights he undertakes afterwards are fairer and funnier. Thor finds himself on a garbage dump planet ruled by the Grandmaster, Jeff Goldblum, who specializes in providing gladiatorial contests. The whole scene feels like the color scheme and outgoing nature of “Guardians of the Galaxy” has been injected into the Thor universe (or that Thor has taken a vacation in the “Guardians of the Galaxy” universe for a spell.) This works much better than one would perhaps think. Thor has never been especially funny, but becomes quite useful for initiating and returning jokes in this movie. It helps that Chris Hemsworth is an underrated comic actor and is particularly good at being a dumb blonde hunk (see the recent “Ghostbusters” reboot).

Surrounding Thor in the trash world are other routinely funny characters. Jeff Goldblum, an inspired piece of casting if there ever was, is essentially playing a meme-version of himself. Given that he is technically the bad guy, his weirdly punctual way of stilted speaking deprives any sense of foreboding in the story. He enters Thor in a non-consensual gladiatorial contest. There Thor meets a rock giant named Korg whose accent and style of speaking is reminiscent of the “The Flight of the Conchords.” That is no mistake. He is voiced by a director of that series, Taika Watiti, who also is the director of this movie. Thor also meets the reigning champion, none other than the Incredible Hulk, who has eschewed his Dr. Jekkyl-Bruce Banner persona for a running two years because this garbage planet actually likes the other guy. Thor without his hammer is a bit like Superman consistently surrounded by Kryptonite. It brings him down to earth where Hemsworth comic abilities allow the rest of us to laugh at him. It also helps that they shaved off his pretentious long hair.

The battle scenes in Thor: Ragnarok are spectacular and not so cringe-inducing as most other blockbuster movies. I’ve complained ad infinitum about nameless and countless humans being destroyed in great movie spectacles of violence without anyone in the story particularly caring. This is less of a concern when the characters are gods and cannot actually die or get all that much hurt. The gladiatorial contest between Thor and The Hulk is especially pleasurable.

Given that one-half of the movie is consistently funny and fun to be around, the other half seems to lull in parts. This has got to be the first time that I have written that Cate Blanchett does not inhabit the most interesting part of a movie. Here it is true, but it is mainly because the Thor-Hulk story-line is so entertaining. I got a great kick out of it and look forward to the next Thor movie.

p.s. If Thor is the God of Thunder and he can summon thunderbolts, why would he not be immune to tasers that use electric shocks.

Finding Dory (3/5 Stars)

“Finding Dory” is special in that special way that special people are special. It isn’t great but it has a lot of heart and its not mean or bad in anyway so what’s the harm in liking it.

It is a spinoff from one of Pixar’s best movies, “Finding Nemo.” In that movie a very worried father fish, Marlin, voiced by Albert Brooks, is searching for his lost son Nemo. On his journey he meets his polar opposite, a fish named Dory, voiced by Ellen Degeneres. Dory had a personality quirk that was all the rage in the early aughts: she suffered from the inability to create new memories. Yes, like that guy in “Memento” and Drew Barrymore in “Fifty First Dates.” She provided a delightful foil to the always anxious Marlin what with her blissfully optimistic mantra “Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming” and her complete inability to remember what her problems were or even what was Marlin’s mission.

She was a great sidekick. She is not so great a main character. For one thing, her character needs a reworking that doesn’t exactly fit with what we have been previously told about her. That is for the plot to kick in she has to first remember a rather big that she forgot: she had lost her way from her parents when she was young. Why she remembers this now and some other things at various times when she can’t remember anything else strains the suspension of disbelief. People pointed out that the main character in “Memento” implausibly remembered that he couldn’t create new memories. Dory has that one memory quirk as well and then a bunch of other memory quirks that surface up continually when…well whenever the story needs her to remember something for it to progress forwards.

This doesn’t happen too much but that in and of itself is also a problem. For Dory needs to find her parents somehow, and the only way she can do that plausibly is to simplistically bumble into them. So the story structure reflects that and in doing so is especially linear and almost entirely predictable. The problem solving required is at minimum capacity otherwise Dory would be completely helpless or not Dory at all.

It does not take many twists and turns to get Dory very close to where she needs to go and that is an Ocean Aquarium that rehabilitates injured fish before releasing them back in the wild. The nature of this aquarium seems to reflect the politically correct view towards aquariums nowadays in that they are more like prisons for the large animals in them than homes. Thus this aquarium has at its stated goal to rehabilitate injured fish and then at some point release them back into the wild. Good, now we can look at fish behind glass and not feel guilty about it.

At this aquarium she finds several “special” animals willing to help her. The best by far is a wily Octopus named Hank (played by Ed O’Neill of all people). Hank by and large solves the problem of how a fish can get around a big above ground place. He slithers along and camoflauges himself to fake out the humans. It is most definitely based on the true life notorious octopus that escaped from an aquarium via a drainage pipe a couple of years ago.

Other animals are more forgettable. Sometimes the most interesting thing about the character is who is ultimately voicing them. For instance, there are two sea lions voiced by Dominic West and Idris Elba, both of whom played main characters in “The Wire.” I got a kick out of that because I am a fan of “The Wire” That is to say my pleasure in watching them here is derivative as opposed to original. That is especially true of the disembodied cameo of Sigourney Weaver who introduces herself over the Aquarium loudspeaker as Sigourney Weaver and continues to provide information about the park as Sigourney Weaver. I wonder if small children several decades born after the apex of the Aliens franchise will know who Sigourney Weaver is? I liked it sure but that has very little to do with the substance of this movie. I just happen to like Sigourney Weaver.

I expect the message of the movie is the most commendable thing about it. It’s very kind and nice and comfort food. I hate to be a total downer and say that the idea that every one is special in their own special way and that certain specialness makes them useful in ways that other not special people cannot be is not entirely correct. But really think about it. Dory’s special ability (or disability more like it) to optimistically and impulsively act upon no evidence (because she can’t remember any) is not an entirely special quality. Her success, let’s be frank, is mostly luck. She could just as easily be someone's lunch many many times. 

I really don’t think I’m missing the point. I get the point. I understand why parents would like to tell their children that everything will be okay no matter how badly their genes have failed them. I just don’t happen to agree with it. I much prefer a movie like Pixar’s “Inside Out” that has the emotional maturity to see life with clear eyes. “Finding Dory” is all fluff.

Pacific Rim (4/5 Stars)

Godzilla eat your heart out.

So in the year 2013 (that’s this year!) an instellar rift in the space-time continuum opens up in a deep underwater crevasse of the Pacific Rim. And out of it crawls a big-ass monster. Like huge. Godzilla huge. It crawls over to San Francisco and snaps the Golden Gate Bridge like a twig. That’s when humanity knew it had a problem. So the governments abutting the Pacific Ocean made monsters of their own: Huge man-like robots! Godzilla size! And they sent them off to fight the monsters in the middle of the ocean away from any large metropolitan areas. The robots are capable of firing rockets and all that but the battle style of choice is hand-to-hand combat. Now that may sound oddly impractical to you. I mean why would you spend an enormous amount of time, money, and resources developing a military strategy of up close fighting that could very possibly result in the death of the crew and the obliteration of your mega-robot when you have the technology and ability to simply fly over the monster and drop bombs on its head from a safe distance. You are such a smart ass. Sit down, shut up, and just enjoy the movie.

Amazingly the stupidity of the premise does not result in a stupid movie. This largely has to do with the fact that a very accomplished artist, Guillermo Del Toro, is in charge of everything from directing, writing, and art direction. So like his previous movies (Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy, Hellboy II: The Golden Army) the design of the robots and the monsters is something to behold, the dialogue and character interactions between the humans make sense, and the fight scenes are competently choreographed. Let me repeat that last part because it is of great importance. The battles apply the laws of physics and general theories about space and time. So if you thought that the Transformers movies were great or thought they were terrible, I implore you to go see Pacific Rim because this is what a good movie about gigantic things that fight each other should look like. There is an extended sequence in Hong Kong and in the surrounding waters that works especially well. I saw it in 3D IMAX and will attest that it is worth the extra ticket price. If you are going to see this movie at all, please don’t wait till it comes out on DVD. You need a big screen.

The mega-robots work by mimicking an in-flight-crew stationed in its head that act out all of the movements of the machine. When these robots were being manufactured it soon became clear that a solo pilot could not handle the stress of wielding such a large vessel i.e. he would get nosebleeds i.e. a sure sign impending death via brain damage in movies. So a pair of pilots with each pilot controlling a particular hemisphere of the mega-robot’s “brain” was deemed the solution. What this meant is that the two pilots “drifted” together, which means that while piloting the mega-robot they were in each others heads working as one. So the team needed to be compatible on a profound level. This concept is ridiculous as well but watch what Guillermo does with it. Given that we accept this condition, it sets the movie up for some rather meaningful drama between the pilots of the mega-robots, like sibling bonding or a love story. They have to have a “connection” you see.

I generally do not enjoy blockbusters all that much not because I don’t like huge spectacle, but because the movies always insert these serious dramatic confrontations or idealistic speeches or tearful reveals in between all the dumb explosions. It’s the change of tone that I find particularly jarring. If the spectacle were totally unbelievable why would I care about the trumped up dramatics. It is to the credit of Pacific Rim that I did not mind all the quiet scenes in the movie. I thought they worked okay and were not annoying.  

There is something of course to be said of the main character Raleigh played by Charlie Hunman. Who? That’s right, I haven’t heard of him either. I remember with some nostalgia the heady years of the 2000s when the revolution in digital effects had just come into effect. I wrote then that the effects had the side of effect of revolutionizing casting in blockbusters as well. Where the 80s and 90s blockbusters had relied heavily on ginormous muscle men like Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the new effects had produced enough dazzle on their own that the studios felt confident for the first time in hiring actors actually known for acting in the lead roles. Tobey Maguire, Robert Downey Jr., Christian Bale, and Johnny Depp come to mind. I could also mention Shia Lebouf, who (and I swear this was true at the time) had done enough good movies to be considered an interesting actor when he was hired for the first Transformers movie. It seems that these days are now going gone and the leading roles in summer blockbusters increasingly depend on the Abercrombie & Fitch stable of muscular (for the men!) yet doe-eyed (for the women!) man meat. Charlie Hunman is no exception. And him and his ilk, like say Chris Hemsworth, Chris Pine, Chris Evans, and Taylor Kitsch are fast becoming interchangeable parts in the current blockbuster cog. They all look the same, act the same, and more than likely are named Chris. I don’t want to seem like I am merely belittling six pack abs. After all, I have written the praises of Brad Pitt, Channing Tatum, and quite recently Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson in the past. The problem is that there seems to be this notion that you can stick one of these guys into a leading role and then that’s it. You do not have to put any more effort into the character. Once we all get a look at those abdominals, all the women will want to be with him and all the men will want to be him. Unfortunately a movie isn’t exactly like sex. It takes far longer to get through. (You can make the argument that a movie trailer or other marketing platform is given the respective length of time). For that reason it is a bit more like storytelling and it is actually of some relevance as to whether the person the story is about has a personality worth spending a couple of hours with. 

For that reason, it is a pleasure to see Charlie Day, Idris Elba, and Ron Perlman inhabiting the rest of the supporting characters, but Charlie Day especially. Mr. Day is currently one of the most interesting actors on television. There he plays Charlie in “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” a frenzied, illiterate, unhygienic, seemingly celibate, rat-obsessed janitor of a dive bar. Here he plays Dr. Newton (“call me Newt”) an eccentric scientist who has his expertise in the monsters of the deep. He has got this crazy plan to drift with the still intact brain of a recently deceased monster in order to learn the secrets of the species. He does a very good, very funny job of it especially when playing against the stoic Idris Elba, commander of the army, and the dangerous Ron Perlman, CEO of the black market for monster remains. This is Mr. Day's first blockbuster and he fits right in. I hope to see him in others.

Prometheus (5/5 Stars)

A worthy addition to the franchise

It is the year 2089 and a couple of archaeologists excavate a cave in Scotland. They find a cave painting of a large humanoid pointing at what looks like five stars. The same mural had been found in the ancient murals of the Egyptians, Sumerians, Mayans, and Babylonians as well. These civilizations had little to no contact with each other. What’s more, the five stars can actually be found in the nighttime sky. One of these stars is very similar to Earth’s sun and orbiting it is a large gas planet with a moon very similar to Earth. Is it a message? A warning? An invitation for man to meet its makers? Five years later, the Weyland Corporation sponsors a spaceship named Prometheus and its crew of engineers and scientists to make an investigatory trip to that far off galaxy. They find almost exactly what they are looking for: an ancient pyramid with the long forgotten carvings of a humanoid species of alien. But they also find a not very well intentioned something else living inside. Then people start dying.

The look and the feel of the movie should be instantly recognizable for those familiar with the “Alien” franchise. The font for the title is the same, the style of futurisitic technology and set design is the same, and the director, Ridley Scott, was actually the director of the first “Alien” movie (but none of the others. This was way back in 1979). The plot (humans investigate, find hostile aliens, people start dying, the corporate agents act amorally, and more people die) is fundamentally the same as the first several movies, but differs in all the correct ways. There are new thrills, new themes, and new developments in what happens to who and when. I'm being vague on purpose. This is one of those movies where the less I say about the plot, the better experience the reader will have when they see it. So let me just say that the movie is similar enough to the original movies that they make sense being in this franchise but different enough that you will still actually be shocked when you should be. Or in other words, you can enjoy this movie without having seen any of the others and having seen the other movies won’t diminish the experience of this one. This is a quality (the ability to expand on the themes and look of previous movies without violating basic copyright laws) that marks all great sequels and prequels and what makes “Prometheus” a worthy addition to the “Alien” franchise.

No actors from previous installments of the franchise are present in “Prometheus,” but that does not stop this movie from having one of the best ensemble casts in any movie this year. None of these actors are A-List, but to the cinephile in the audience, it is a hugely heavyweight collection of intelligent badassery. First off, playing the ship’s captain is Idris Elba (aka “Stringer Bell” from “The Wire.”) This guy must be a good 6’4” composed entirely of muscle yet still would not look the least out of place in glasses reading a book on quantum mechanics. Not an easy thing to do. Then there is the corporate overseer played by Charlize Theron (aka the “Monster”), who has recently accomplished the feat of being in her late thirties and more stunningly beautiful than she has ever been. Charlize certainly doesn’t need help being tall, but that doesn’t stop her character from wearing five-inch power high-heels, a touch that along with an icy glare gives her screen presence an effect similar to, well, I can’t think of any other woman but Sigourney Weaver. Next is the new golden-boy of serious cinema, Michael Fassbender, who you may be most familiar as the young “Magneto” in the latest X-Men movie. Fassbender has a face and build that makes him perfect for playing a super intelligent and amoral android.  There’s a great scene when he watches his favorite movie, “Lawrence of Arabia,” and the resemblance is uncanny. He has the same intense gaze of a young Peter O’Toole.

Finally there is Noomi Rapace (aka the original and actually Swedish “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”) playing the archeaologist. She is noticeably softer than Lizbeth Salandar but the events she goes through are just as traumatic if not more so. I always hesitate to say an actor/actress is brave because you know in the end, it is all just pretending. But for a select few I will pull out that adjective. Christian Bale is one and also Noomi Rapace. It is hard to judge a science fiction performance come Oscar time because the great ones generally require actions in situations that have never been done before (in contrast a performance in a movie adapted from Shakespeare is perhaps the easiest to judge) but as you reflect on this movie, ask yourself this question about that particular scene you must know I am talking about: Who else could have done it better, or better yet, who else could have even done it? (And don’t say Rooney Mara unless you want to piss me off.) For the fourth time in as many movies as I have seen her in, I believe Noomi Rapace deserves an Oscar Nomination. Perhaps the best compliment I can give this movie however has to do with the fact that Sigourney Weaver is not missed. That’s huge because Weaver is arguably the best female action heroine to ever grace the movie screen. But here I am saying it: Rapace and Theron, more than make up for the absence. There is some serious intelligent badass female empowerment going on here. Ridley Scott never seems to disappoint in that area. 

The main flaw in this movie is that it asks several big questions like: Where do we come from? Who are our makers? What do they think of how we turned out? and then does not answer any of them. This does not bother me that much though because these questions really do not have any decent answers and when a movie tries to provide these answers it is always unsatisfactory anyways (see 6th season of “Lost,” the “Matrix” sequels). There is a moment in this movie when the maker has the opportunity to say something and instead just starts being violent. What could it have said? I have no idea. It could have been cool if he had said the correct thing whatever that is. He does not say anything and that is a shame, but I’m not about to fault the writers for not knowing what the meaning of life is. Asking the questions is good enough for me.