"The Martian" Review

Okay, I'll admit it: I've never watched a single episode of MacGyver. I'm almost afraid to do it at this point, considering how deeply woven into my code the ethic of the show has become.  I'm worried that the 80s cheese will taint that Mojo of Inventive Improvisation that so guides my approach to the problems that can so pretzel up my days.

Indeed, there have been times when, in the process of tackling one of those problems, I have arrived at a "MacGyvered" solution, using available materials (Madame 'Cyte frequently...errm...laments the heaps of bric-a-brac that I keep around, expressly for its utility as a pool of raw materials for such projects...till the moment when they allow me to construct --like a Master Builder in Lego World-- a Fix)...only to find a purpose-specific tool for the job...and experience actual disappointment over that, and the sudden obsolescence of my jury-rigged solution.

If that Moment rings any kind of bell in you, then you are just the sort of person who will groove HARD on "The Martian."

The novel --the first by engineer Andy Weir--  had sat in my Kindle queue for a couple of years, after it had been recommended to me by someone who'd read and enjoyed (and written a lovely review of) my novella, Night Music. She'd said that it bore strong affinities to my book, in its scrupulous attention to technical detail, its inventive use of technology, and its celebration of the human mind as a problem-solving engine. Naturally, I was intrigued (and more than a little flattered/honored to have communicated so successfully that she so clearly Got what I was going for). 

Finally read it over the Summer (before I found out that it had been optioned as a film, let alone  that it was nearing completion....with Ridley-Freakin'-SCOTT at the helm!)....and immediately re-read it as soon as I was finished (and I almost never do that). I was even MORE flattered/honored at the comparison!

As for the film....Yay. Just Yay.

As I say, this is not a movie that will speak with too loud a voice to those with not even a whisper of tech-geek in their souls. It is very faithful to the book, though with some notable exceptions which are all in service of making it work better as a film (successfully. The "Iron Man" beat comes most vividly to mind).  It moves at a deliberate pace. It explains many things (usually via the protagonist, Mark Watney's video log).  It sets up problems, establishes the stakes, and walks us through the solutions (and setbacks. OY! Such setbacks!).

The situation is that Watney --played superbly by Matt Damon-- finds himself left alone on Mars after his fellow crew members on an exploration mission need to abort very early, due to a terrible storm that jeopardizes the crew's ability to leave safely (gotta give a Mulligan here; the actual atmosphere on Mars is so thin that even a hurricane-speed wind would exert little more dynamic force than a stiff breeze at Earth-level atmospheric pressures. But whaddya gonna do; gotta tell a story here). While trudging to the MAV (Mars Ascent Vehicle) to evacuate to orbit, Watney is struck by a fragment of the high gain antenna and hurled into the Martian night, very plausibly killed in the process.

But, it turns out, he is not dead....but will be if anything breaks down, and when the food supply runs out.

So, as the trailers say, he's gotta "Science the shit outa this!"

And Science he does!  It is a JOY to watch him attack problems, inventorying his assets and liabilities (rather bigger column, that one), apply scientific principles in solving them, fail to be defeated by the odds and the obstacles, and maintain a wry, profane sense of humor about the whole affair (wait for the whole "Space Pirate" thing..).

All Hail Duct Tape. 'Nuff said.

One of the characteristics of Scott's films that most stands out is his eye for breathtaking visual design. This film is no exception.  The surface of Mars is rendered with heart-stoppingly stark, majestic beauty. Being something of a Mars Geek, I was impressed at how precisely the color palate of the 4th rock from the Sun is reproduced. "You Are There" doesn't begin to cover this! The space scenes are stunning, conveying the brain-melting vastness of the distances in every direction, while also preserving the paradoxically claustrophobic quality of hurtling through that Vastness in a succession of pressurized tin cans.

Probably set in the early 2030s, the technology is marvelously realistically designed. Things are functional and plausible, treated in the matter-of-fact way that tech is treated by real people (when was the last time that you described your computer as a "silicon-CPU information processing node?"). It was the little things: the big outboard thermal radiator vanes on the aft end of the mothership, Hermes, glowed orange while the ion engines were active (and those low-but-constant-thrust engines glowed a realistic arc-blue-white, with no dramatic flares like you'd see with chemical rockets). Also, things fell on the Martian surface at rates and on trajectories that accurately depicted what it would look like at .38-gee. Most folks wouldn't notice these things consciously, but the dividends in verisimilitude pay off quite nicely in the hind brain.

All of this visual and technological wizardry, however, would fall flat without recognizable people in its midst.  The character work in this film is highly effective in its deft, understated clarity. These characters come across as real individuals, into whose lives we have dropped at a critical time. Jessica Chastain's Cmdr. Lewis is someone who takes her job very seriously. She is wracked by leaving Watney behind, even as she clearly knows it was the only responsible choice. The conflict of these realities is at times heartbreakingly manifest in her performance.

The unfolding relationship between Kate Mara's Johannson and  Sebastian Stan's Beck comes across in a series of sweet, almost-imperceptible little beats. Michael Peña's Martinez is a good-hearted, wise-cracking natural counterpart to Damon's Watney.  The Earth-bound cast plays out the politics and practicalities of this extraordinary situation with a recognizable Truthfulness that makes no one the Villain (even Jeff Daniels' NASA Director has defensible motivations for choices that might otherwise have been turned into a stock "Gutless Bureaucrat" cartoon in a lesser script). Honorable mention goes to Donald Glover's Rich Purnelle, the brilliant, quirky, socially inept astrodynamics savant; his description of his rescue plan during the "Project Elrond" meeting (One does not simply walk to Mars...) was high-LARIOUS!

And Damon. Ah, Damon.  He simply LIVES in Mark Watney. It's like how I will never again read LOTR without seeing Viggo as Aragorn. He inhabits that character with such an unforced, real-to-the-marrow way that his voice will sound in my head when I eventually (inevitably) re-re-read The Martian. It's clear (as it actually wasn't in the book) that the wise-cracking persona is a defense against the Dread and Despair that it only very precariously holds at bay. His humanity is a stand-in for our own, speaking to the best aspects of how we might manage any analogously dire situation in which we might find ourselves.

Final note:  Of all the things I love about this film, perhaps the one that lies closest to my heart of hearts is the degree to which it non-preachily extols the virtues of learning and critical thinking as the means by which we can deliver ourselves from the atavistic Fears that lie within us. Lateral, creative thinking, fueled by an intelligent deployment of well-learned lessons about how things work in the 'verse are what allow us to transcend the shadows all around us. The bootstraps by which we can lift ourselves from even the deepest of pits are composed of well-tempered strands of neural fiber, honed by exposure to and flexible recombinations of the DNA of knowledge and logic, informed --but not dominated-- by emotion, intuition, and Love.

"The Martian" not only tells us how we can survive even the most desperate of straits...but why we can and must do so.

INTERSTELLAR: The Stars and Our Selves

Went to see Interstellar last night, in glorious 70mm IMAX (2-D!) format.


Huge. Still digesting...


This film paints on a VAST canvas. It involves some PROFOUND reflections on high astrophysics, consciousness, ethics and Love. Right away, you can see the potential conflict here: How do you tell a story on such a scale, and not lose the humanity that must comprise its narrative core.


Answer: Like this.


The great achievement of Interstellar is that it folds the humanity of its characters (and its characters as avatars of Humanity) into the very quantum foam of its storytelling.

They are one and the same.

There is an intimacy to the thing that resounds in even the most sweeping of establishing shots, the most mind-bending of theoretical constructs. This is accomplished in subtle ways, like the POV, "rocket-cam" nature of most of the spacecraft sequences (this is happening to You, not to Them). There are really very few of the standard distant, 3rd-person-observer tableaux which are so ubiquitous in spaceborne cinematic SF (though the few that do appear are simply breathtaking!).

The objective here is not to point out how puny we are compared to All Of It. It is to establish that, puny as we surely are, we are still the heroes (and villains) of ANY story that involves us. Our hope and dread and resolve and Connection and Love are what propel us into the Big Black (or what SHOULD, so long as we 'do not go gentle into that good night,' so long as we do not succumb to complacency and despair, so long as we preserve and nurture our Explorer's Heart, our Will to survive). We bring the good and evil and valor and cowardice and nobility and cravenness with us, no matter how immense the journey.


"No matter where you go.....there you are."


And, in the end, in the funny things that happen to spacetime when its physics are pushed to their breaking point, we find that the nature of our consciousness, the purity (or putridity) of our intentions and motivations become (or, rather, reveal themselves to have always been) PART of the equation.


The most important part, really.


For the particles that form us still swarm in their entangled dance, indifferent to distance, be it a micron or a mile. Or a million-million light years.

We are, each of us, a world unto ourselves, and yet our trajectories through the N-Dimensional topographies we traverse are perturbed (and --if we are VERY lucky-- defined) by the gravitational forces that bind us to the Other(s) who travel with us.....even if they are separated by blood-freezing distances and durations.

It is LOVE --variously defined-- that sculpts space and makes a tinker-toy of time.

I suppose I could quibble about such unsplit hairs as coriolis forces in spin-simulated gravity if too short a moment-arm is utilized, I could bellyache about the VICIOUS radiation environment around a black hole with a luminous accretion disk, about the orbital dynamics that would have to pertain, in order for certain time-dilation ratios to apply, could grouse about a few overly-chatty scenes and a smattering of instances of strained dialog.....but all of that would miss the point by such a wide margin that the point would not be a naked-eye visible object from such a course.

And that Point is embodied in the gentle Hope that permeates even the darkest moments of despair in this film. It lives in the bitter tears that fall from the eyes of frustrated Love, in the serene but steely resolve that shines from those eyes at the chance to be of Service to that Love....even if the fruits of that Service might never be seen.

For if each of us is a world.....then our world is each of us.

And so long as the Blights that might afflict its soil are allowed to settle, uncontested, on the surfaces of our souls...that world begins to die, and inexorably to bury us in that very soil, while we watch in numb helplessness.

But so long as we rage against the dying of the light, remember who we are and to whom we are bound in Love, then that light may yet coalesce into luminous spherical portals, which resolve into the eyes of those whom we carry with  us.....wherever we go.


And that is a very encouraging thought.

Another Bold Go

Returned a while ago from the 11:00 showing of "Star Trek Into Darkness" (really liking the omission of the obligatory colon), with friends, old and new. It is difficult to believe that it's been four years since I reviewed its predecessor.

Clearly, JJ Abrams and his team have been using the time wisely and well!

There have been reviewers (who I am feeling heartily unmotivated to search out, and who, frankly, I do not believe deserve the traffic) who have decried this as a smashing action movie which has nothing to do with The Spirit Of Star Trek.

I can state with unassailable Trekker credentials that, whatever it is they have been smoking should be tested forthwith for all manner of unsavory additives.

This impeccably-paced, visually arresting piece of cinema is positively redolent with all that is finest in Trek. And I'm not just talking about the cornucopia of deft homages (I'll get back to that). It's all here: the Prime Directive, the needs of the many, the emerging triumvirate of Spock (Reason), McCoy (emotion/empathy), and Kirk (Will), the spectre of the Kobayashi Maru, the moral balance between expediency and justice, the triumph of the competent geek....you get the picture.

This. Is. Trek.

End of report.

Yes, the story blazes through set-piece after set-piece...but not in a jagged, fragmented way, and not just for action's sake. The fact that Star Trek may now be painted on a broader, more frenetic canvas does not diminish its fidelity to the franchise one jot. Sheesh!

One of the things that has (to coin a phrase) fascinated me about this new Trek is the way that the alternate time-line allows for the opportunity to explore the Deep Question of what sorts of things will tend to diverge from an altered set of initial conditions (a la Butterfly Effect), and what sorts of things will display a more durable tendency to occur, despite those altered conditions.

Toward the end of the first movie, the characters' personalities --despite wildly different life histories, as a result of Nero's rending of the Trek Prime timeline-- had begin to coalesce into their familiar configurations (with a number of twists). The promise of this has put my fears to rest by receiving a wildly satisfying payoff in this second iteration of the new franchise. Each of the beloved characters is given something Important to do, something which allows us to see how they are both known and new.

Similarly, there are aspects of the Federation which resonate in familiar ways to those who are conversant in the various series and movies from the Trek Prime universe. But the rippling consequences of the changes which spawned this new timeline have had far-ranging consequences whose implications become clear as the film reveals its secrets (a privilege I am resolved to not usurp in this review!). There are resonances with the Trek which we know....but they are just that: resonances. These are not retreads, nor slavish repetitions. Echoes of events which unfolded as we know them from the familiar Trek universe are present (and many more foreshadowed). But they all bear the stamp of the new conditions under which they arise, and so they retain their ability to surprise. And surprise they do!

Naturally, this makes my inner Chaos/Complexity Theory Geek emit all manner of undignified SQUEES!

All that said, this is a very entertaining film! I had the pleasure of seeing a special preview of the first 9 minutes of it, attached to The Hobbit, back in December. Although the Peter Jackson Extravaganza that followed all-but obliterated those 9 minutes, enough of a trace remained that I was TERRIBLY excited to see what would follow. And I was not the least bit disappointed. The blend of genuinely funny humor and jaw-dropping eye and ear candy is very much still in evidence here.

You. Will. NOT. Be. Bored.

Could I predict a few of the plot twists ahead of time? Sure. Did it telegraph these a bit? Yup. But it was neither insultingly obvious nor maddeningly coy about this. Were there sleeper subplots which languished, unrevisited, till the story required them to re-emerge? Sure. But not every story needs to be told in detail, if the telling will derail the overall tale (that's what Deleted Scenes are for!).

Suffice to say that, long before the iconic Alexander Courage theme rang out at the end, I was SOLD on this New Trek's spirit, its reverence for its roots, and its...well...boldness to grow in truly different (but thematically consistent) directions from those roots.

It appears that the Final Frontier encompasses even wider expanses than we'd thought.

And I could not be any more ready to warp out and explore them!

"Cabin In The Woods"

Just finished watching the Joss Whedon-written, Drew Goddard-directed Cabin In The Woods. Had the misfortune of never having had the chance to see it in theaters, despite most of my therapy clients assuring me that if I missed it, there'd be a strong argument for switching places with them. Now I see what they meant.

Writing a review for this movie is a difficult thing, since what makes it great (along with the crackling, Jossian dialog, the insanely brilliant production design, the surprisingly effective acting, and...stuff) is the way it reveals its secrets, like unlocking levels in a cracking-good video game. Not about to step on that process here.

On the surface, this is as familiar a story as you could imagine. That's the point, really: the "Teens in an Isolated Forest Cabin" simulation has been run so persistently in our culture that even the self-referential, oh, so Po-Mo deconstruction of it (care of the "Scream" series) has become an idiom of its own.

What Whedon's been able to do in "Cabin" would be nothing short of astounding...if it were anyone but Joss. Somehow, he's been able to take not only our familiarity with the assorted horror movie tropes, and fold it in on itself yet again, but he escapes being merely clever in doing so by creating a framework for understanding how  (and why) these meme clouds have become so archetypal in the first place.

Now, that's what Meta's for!

I don't even want to go through the characters and describe their stories and how they fit together here. First of all, I don't have to; you'll know them right away. More importantly, though, going into this with too much foreknowledge would be a disservice to the experience of it, the way it turns your expectations and certainties on their heads (which may or may not be attached to anything at the time...), and forces you to reflect on yourself reflecting on the story as it reflects on itself...then takes you where you least expected to end up.

Now, don't worry: I'm not talking about "Inception"-level complexity here (GODS, did I love that film, but man, was it dense!). You could write dissertations on this movie...but it doesn't try to be one, itself. At a mere 1 hour and 38 minutes (less credits, which [a little surprisingly] do not contain an Easter egg at the end), this thing moves along with no lags or hangs in its masterful, relentlessly entertaining pace. You can't get away with not thinking...but you'll never be bored as you do it!

If you have a penchant for inky-dark humor, a strong stomach (!), and even a casual acquaintance with the vernacular of horror movies (which will be rewarded with a swarm of very excellent visual and thematic homages), you'll see how the seasoned team of Whedon and Goddard have served up a bubbling beaker of Instant Classic.

Attack the Block

Still a mite zingy from seeing birds and clouds between my feet today at Six Flags (grass-sky-grass-sky...), took in "Attack the Block" on demand. There's been MUCH buzz about this one since last Summer when it opened at...like 18 theaters.

Believe the buzz. This is as tight and raw and honest a B-movie as you'll ever see. An alien infestation in the heart of a South London slum --I mean Community Housing Project--, with no one to beat it back but a group of very young street kids, hardly paragons of virtue themselves? The only thing resembling a Learned Scientific Infodump device is Dude-like pot dealer Nick Frost and his profoundly stoned buddy, with whom he zones out on National Geographic? Do I really need to say more?

Nordling here from AICN lays it out (and yes, of course there's a language warning, It *iS* AICN, after all). This is the kind of flick across which we film geeks sit through hillocks of explosives-grade fertilizer in hopes of stumbling.

Believe!

PROMETHEUS

(Some spoilers, but nothing which strays too far from what one could glean from the trailers)


Taking in the midnight showing of Ridley Scott's "Prometheus" on Thursday night into Friday (for which I was rewarded with a nice little promotional poster) I can now understand why Filmmaker Guillermo Del Toro has expressed reservations about ever getting H.P. Lovecraft's justly-beloved novella, "At the Mountains Of Madness" produced.  There is something decidedly Lovecraftian about the film, something wonderfully unnerving, in all the right ways.

After coming home from the film, I took the dog ('the Woofocyte?') for a wee hours' consitutional, under a brilliant starlit sky, frosted by a crisp, gibbous moon. On any other night, this would have been a serene, elevating sight. That night, however, the heavens seemed sinister, redolent with menace, haunted by leering eldrich specters which lurked in the inky abyss, the blood-freezing whispers of ancient, calculating intelligences, beyond the reckoning of any human mind which would not go mad at the misfortune of understanding them too well.

That's kinda the vibe of this thing.

The discovery that a host of ancient civilizations --with no possibility of contact with each other-- had adorned their walls with symbols depicting the same set of stellar coordinates prompts the mounting of a scientific expedition to plumb the depths of a great many mysteries. Some appalling things ensue. And some Very Big Questions are raised...and not especially tidily answered. It's not unlike if Sir Arthur C. Clarke had written 2001: A Space Odyssey, while under the influence of some really vicious hallucinogens...perhaps something derived from belladonna-like alkyloids (/gratuitous "Altered States" reference). It has a similar scope, partakes of a similar sense of awe and wonder. But its ultimate lessons (such as they are) sound a far more disturbing note on our prospects, should we choose to  pursue some questions too far.

The tone of the film is spot-on, crafted to induce a steadily-mounting sense of dread. Like in "Alien," the technology is presented in a way to make a geek bounce in his seat, but is just recognizable enough that we can see ourselves operating the controls...which only heightens the dread. The score is effective for the most part, with a main theme which evokes both wonder and warning. I would have preferred a more minimalist musical footprint, though, as it can be just a bit intrusive during some set-pieces. Seldom have I so mourned the passing of the great Jerry Goldsmith (all the moreso at the brief homage to his seminal "Alien" theme).

The visuals in "Prometheus" are simply spellbinding. It really does appear that we have reached the place where no story is untellable, where no image in the imagination cannot be convincingly committed to film. The ship is marvelously designed, rendered to perfection, and moves through space with a sense of mass and power and flawless physics. 3-D is often an afterthought, a way to amp up ticket prices, while intermittently jumping off the screen at you to go "BOOGIE-BOOGIE-BOOGIE" in your face. This is not the case in "Prometheus." The 3D is immersive and essential, by turns conveying a daunting, dwarfing scale to things, and a terrifyingly claustrophobic closeness to other things from which you would much prefer to keep your distance. I saw this in IMAX 3D, and I heartily recommend that you do likewise if you can. As a sensory experience, there is simply nothing about which I can complain in this film.

Michael Fassbender's performance as the "artificial person," David, is one of the highest of the high points of this film. The scenes of him roaming the halls of the ship while the crew rests in hypersleep are unforgettable, as he learns ancient languages, sinks perfect baskets while riding a bicycle, and emulates Peter O'Toole's Lawrence of Arabia. What if Commander Data were not governed by Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics? On the whole, he'd just as soon be helpful and agreeable toward humans. But of what would he be capable, were he "unclouded by conscience, remorse, or delusions of morality?" David's innocent wonder and infectious curiosity are utterly disarming, at the same time that his altogether dispassionate view of the universe (and all who live in it) is chilling in the extreme.

Noomi Rapace's performance as Dr Elizabeth Shaw has gotten a bum rap in assorted circles. This is not, IMHO, just. The simplicity of her character is also its complexity: she is a Believer. She's the sort who never would have seen the "cookbook" thing coming. She speaks to our Better Angels. She is heartbreakingly slow to wake from her dreams, and that awakening is very viscerally shattering to her. The form she ultimately takes is both consistent and changed.  She is angry, but wounded and still not altogether without hope. She is not especially sophisticated, which is both her appeal and, I expect, the source of much frustration.

Charlize Theron's Vickers is a perfect embodiment of The Company, an icy pragmatist whose main priority is her own survival ("all other priorities rescinded"). Her character is, in many ways, more cybernetic even than David's, which makes one scene with the irresistible Idris Elba's Cajun Captain Janek (from whom I truly wish we'd seen more) all the more hilariously effective.

Noomi Rapace's partner and love interest, Charlie Holloway (played by Logan Marshall-Green) is also a truth-seeker, but his motivations are rather less pure than Shaw's. He has an occasionally over-the-top air of striving to dominate nature by wresting her secrets from her. He is, in short, something of a jerk, especially to David. His lack of empathy and insight leads to all manner of unpleasantness.

This last is one problem which many viewers have had with this story: people behave in irrational, stupid ways. At times, distractingly so. I do share the irritation with some of the choices which people make in this film, but --without giving too much away-- there is some sense to staffing this expedition with people who may not be the most disciplined and professional sorts. When things start to go Very, Very Wrong, these people do not exactly bring their A-Game...which acts to move things along with an increasing inevitability. Most of the characters are pretty superficially treated, but we do get just enough to fit them into the puzzle. I am more than willing to grant that such a large ensemble, if given a more full treatment, would have weighed down an already deliberately (if at times erratically) paced film to an excessive degree.

Some have complained that this film raises a number of questions which it does not then go on to answer. Duly noted and agreed. But, at its heart, this is not the sort of story which needs to wrap everything up in a neat little bow. There are some profound meditations at the core of this film, questions about our origins, purpose, and fate, questions which hinge on the motivations and priorities of forces so removed from us in space and time and sophistication that it would be the height of hubris to fancy that we could just Get To The Bottom of them (this is, in fact, the tragic flaw in Shaw's and Holloway's characters, and it bears reflecting-on that we should become too huffy at the thought that some mysteries remain mysterious!). Again, there is a strikingly Lovecraftian message that we puny humans meddle in the affairs of the Dark Gods at our extreme peril, regardless of the purity of our motivations.

In short, I do love this film...but not unconditionally. I do recommend it...but not unreservedly. As I've said, the pacing at times lurches and drags. The score is a bit too in my face at moments (nothing like the outlandishly obtrusive "Predator" score, mind you. But also nothing like the atmospheric "Alien" suite). Some characters never venture far from one-note stereotypes. On balance, though, there is much more here to love than to dislike, and nothing to hate.

Final note: this is NOT (merely) an "Alien" prequel. That would be rather like saying that the Old Testament was a prequel to the book of Mark. The conditions are set for "Alien," but pretty much as a side-note to a profound and ambitious science fiction story..which is what this is: a tale of macabre science fiction (not "horror," as such...though there are some decidedly horrific things which happen --parents take careful note!).

Send In The Clones

Well, the Li'l Cyte has grown to the point that he can watch the Star Wars prequels (except for the last bits of "Sith"; still a mite too intense, those). As a result, I have recently had the chance to re-watch "Episode Two: Attack of the Clones" for the first time in years. Thus am I moved by whimsy to post herein a review I wrote for the movie in August of 2002.

Readers of these pages might be interested by this artifact of a period during which I fancied myself the Leftiest of Lefties, most Transnationalistic of Trasnational Progressives. Curious because, amid the predictable intimations of anti-corporate animus, there are suggestive foreshadowings of my current jaundiced views of bureaucracy, my mistrust of overcentralized political power. It appears that my political transformation may have occurred in soil already fertile for its emergence...

Anyway, it was nice to see this unjustly-maligned film hold up as well as it has.


REVIEW FOLLOWS (Moderate Spoilers)


First, let me speak to that timid, timorous voice of fractured expectations haunting our skulls since TPM. Shush! This is the movie we've coveted in the holiest of holies of dreams since millions of Ewoks (disappointingly) failed to be pulverized by a hail of superheated Death Star debris.

From the first moments after the disappearance of a crisp screen crawl, this film flies directly into its relentless quest to saturate our senses with shockingly delicious imagery. Gods below! What special FX! I can only imagine a wholesale re-staffing (or a group consciousness-raising exercise, perhaps involving some belladonna-like alkaloids) taking place at ILM!

Gone are the super-slick, lovely-but-affected `ILM grays.' This film is textured down to fractal levels of detail. It has grit. It has contrast. It has heat distortion from engine ports, glittering droplets of rain, hypnotically languid waves on a low-gravity ocean, quick, shaky photo-journalistic zooms during apocalyptic battle sequences with chips and scratches on helmets in the far background while hundreds of dust-smeared blaster bolts tear through heavy metallic hides of immense space ships and...

GAH!!

No words...should have sent a poet!

Typical. I had to start with FX. These are what immediately kicked me in the arse and convinced me that ILM had, once again, set the bar to an entirely new place!

What truly gripped me, though, was that there was actually a MOVIE attached to those blazing visuals. A damned good one. Who'd a thunk it?

This is a morally, politically, emotionally, and tactically complex film. Sure, it keeps you bouncing in your seats and yowling like Slim Pickens riding that bomb (short cut to mushrooms? Sorry.). What it also does, though, is tell a rich, layered, sobering, authentically moving tale. It is the story of things passing away.

MILD TO MODERATE SPOILERS AHEAD

Christensen's cocky, heedless, impulsive Anakin nails the archetype of the Brash Young Man with surprising subtlety. He's drunk on his power and youth, a True Believer in his myth of personal immortality, Icarus incarnate. He is a Buddhist's (or a Jedi Master's) nightmare! He covets. The pain of his love for Padme is palpable. We feel it in his hungry gaze. This is a boy struggling to find completion, and suffering because he seeks it always from outside himself. Obi Wan won't validate him (one wonders how a certain Middle-Eastern carpenter would have gotten along with his step-dad, Joe...), Padme won't look at him the way he looks at her, while a lost mother haunts his dreams. He yearns, and, when his longings go unmet, he rages. If he is occasionally annoying (and he is!), it is only because we KNOW him. He is an annoying PERSON, not an annoying part, or an annoying performance. We watch as he's maneuvered to the cliff's edge by his own grasping, and feel it, as he is ultimately undone by the strategic fulfillment of his heart's desires. There is characterization here like we haven't seen since TESB.

Mad Props to Ewan McGregor! The subtle, non-verbal homages to Sir Alec, first evident in TPM, are just a bit more prominent in this installment. He manages to convey a transitional stage in the maturation of this character which is never forced, never...impersonation. That young bloke can ACT! Obi Wan is focused, authoritative, and NOT to be trifled with. But, too-soon released from his apprenticeship by a star-struck Qui-Gon Jinn, he lacks the depth and experience to appreciate what is happening to his Republic...and to his apprentice. He is troubled by trends he can sense, but can never seem to divert. His fate is foreshadowed in one bittersweet joke, but also in his naïve declaration of victory at a very dark moment indeed.

As much of a disservice as it is to the many superb individual performances in this film, I need to talk about two doomed characters of a rather more abstract nature: the Republic and the Jedi Order. Their fates are joined, and the feeling of their deterioration pervades the film. They are set in their ways, confident in their power, and entirely blind to the rot growing from within. Only Yoda seems to see it. Imagine the Dalai Lama's rueful resignation as he watched the Chinese advance on his land. That's the sense you get from Yoda's surprisingly unobtrusive CGI face as he contemplates an Order grown so decadent as to declare primly that "if it isn't in the archives, then it doesn't exist." His gradual awakening to the fact of an end-game to whose beginning he'd been completely oblivious is a wrenching sight. He realizes that someone's manipulated the motivations and vulnerabilities of his Order, his society, and even himself, steering them toward choice point after choice point, positioning the players so that the only possible decisions are those which push them closer to their inevitable ruin. And he is sad.

(And he is one bad-ass little green dude with a saber. Nuff said.)

It's been said (Plato? Frank Herbert? Thucydides?) that democracies inevitably deteriorate into oligarchies...and that dictatorship is not far behind. Lest we huff and puff too righteously against such heresy, let us pause and contemplate the French Revolution's fate. Or else, just go see AOTC. Lucas' rumored disenchantment with, and grim prognosis for, the state of modern democracies is in full force here. The viruses which effect this fatal mutation in the Old Republic are the calcification and corruption of bureaucracy, the ruthlessly pragmatic avarice of banking and trade conglomerates, the crushing juggernaut of technocracies...all quietly subverted and maneuvered by the insidious (pardon pun) Will to Power. There is some extraordinarily mature (and eerily familiar) political commentary here, light years from the desiccated, two-dimensionally technophobic sketch of TPM. Machiavelli would be proud of the way in which, bit by bit, even the wise are enticed to give away power, ignorant -until it is too late- of how that power has been channeled into fewer and fewer hands, till the only one left is the one with the leash.

"John Carter" Review

Just back from taking myself to an 11:35 of "John Carter" (finally!). Thoroughly entertaining! Departs radically from the source material, but in ways that make it a far better film than a more literal treatment would have yielded. Preserves the sweeping spirit of Burroughs' epic, though.

Visually stunning (3D is well-utilized, and worth the extra scratch for the ticket), with action and humor aplenty, and fine work by supporting actors (the cast of HBO's "Rome" was well-represented, and it's always a pleasure to see Bryan Cranston, however briefly). Willem Dafoe's gruff but soulful Tars Tarkas was spot-on, and Lynn Collins' Dejah Thoris was comprehensively appealing. Strong, intelligent, principled, but vulnerable when she judges that she can afford to be. The actress' training and skill are no less thrillingly on display as are her more accidental attributes (though I'm not above saying that these were *devastating!*). Which is to say, you fall in love with her as quickly and hopelessly as does Carter himself. Taylor Kitsch as Carter brought the courtly Southern cavalryman's feisty but courteous steel to the role, but with far more of a broken heart than Burroughs' rather exuberantly blood-lusty protagonist. Not too much of a purist to concede that this makes him a far more sympathetic character.

The fact that it is tanking at the box office, while the appalling "Lorax" continues to rake in the bank is a nauseating spectacle indeed. So, take yourself to the theater while you have a chance, and rest assured of time (and money) well-spent!

"Outlander" Review (UPDATED)

Vikings vs. Aliens. What's not to love?

A few years back, I read a very favorable review on Aintitcool news of a movie called "Reign of Fire," a tale of post-apocalyptic Brits vs. the dragons which had decimated the Earth, with some help by a motley platoon of bad-ass Yanks (led by an altogether unrecognizably buff Matthew McConaughey).

I know; right?

And yet, it muscled its way incongruously onto the short list of the most effective, tightly-crafted monster movies I'd seen in a long time. From the mostly quite deft pacing, A-list production values, and (at times simply jaw-dropping) visual effects, to the surprisingly well-executed character work, "Reign" did things with a pretty absurd premise which led me to markedly expand the parameters of what I was willing to buy as raw material for a well-told story.

Which is why, when I read this review of "Outlander," I did not immediately click back to my newsfeed. This is not a choice I regret, having just watched it.

Is it as good as "Reign of Fire?" Hell, no. Does it deliver the crap sandwich you'd expect from the headline (interstellar traveler crash lands in 8th century Norway, inadvertently delivering a terrifying extraterrestrial beastie into the territory of a Viking king, with whom he must join forces to vanquish the creature that had killed his family on a distant colony world)? Oddly, no.

Part of the credit goes to the casting, with a gravelly John Hurt as the King Rothgar (no, not "Hrothgar" but the ref was not lost) delivering a much-needed gravitas to the fur-sporting Vikings (among whom there was a welcome absence of horned helms), to John Caviezel as the stranded star man, Kainan, and the ever-spunky and appealing Sophia Myles as the king's daughter, the cast plays it straight. This is a good thing, since with a story like this, even the slightest wink would take one dangerously into "SyFy" territory.

Caviezel's Kainan is a haunted, traumatized warrior with a stain on his conscience, and a major score to settle, but he is fundamentally a good man, whose frustration with the barbarians among whom he has landed is balanced by the debt he owes for the calamity he has inadvertently brought down on their heads. The process by which he wends his way into their reluctant good graces unfolds with a surprisingly satisfying exhibition of quiet virtue and bluster-free valor. Some will find his performance flat and monotonous, but I found subtleties which quite compensate for the lack of scenery-chewing machismo (the Vikings shoulder that burden with a delightfully over-the-top mannish elan).

Jack Huston plays Wulfric, the impetuous heir of Rothgar's kingdom with a nice blend of obnoxious testosterone and a promise of unpolished wisdom whose development through the course of the story is surprisingly effective, given how badly you want to brain him with a battle axe at the beginning of the story. His clumsy courtship of Myles' Freya and his bull-headed hostility toward Kainan form the concrete expressions of Rothgar's otherwise generic-sounding reservations about his readiness to claim the throne. We can actually see where he falls short in the role of a true leader, and we get to watch him confront those shortcomings, learn just the right amount of humility, and grow both as a character and as a king-in-waiting. It's a good turn for Huston, somewhat reminiscent of Karl Urban's Eomer in "The Lord of the Rings." He's one to watch, as he brings an appealing humanity to a role which was seemingly made for a cardboard cut-out treatment.

And then there's the creature, a coal-black, vaguely reptilian monster known as a "Moorwen." It's an all-CG creation which still manages to convey terrifyingly realistic presence and menace. The physics engine used in the rendering of the creature was expertly deployed; the beast never violated the rules of its motion and mass, moving with impressive speed and grace, but still conveying a daunting sense of weight and power. It phosphoresces with eerie beauty in the night, before striking with its long, whip-like tail, slicing through Vikings like a hot knife through butter. Best of all, as we learn more about its back-story, even the creature takes on a distinctly sympathetic dimensionality, without ever losing its brutality (and, again, the "Beowulf" reference is in evidence, as there are clear but non-slavish affinities with Grendel). The SFX team struck just the right balance between preserving the mystery of the thing's appearance, and refraining from annoyingly coy concealment.

Yes, it drags a bit in the third act. Yes, some of the "comic relief" was a bit broad. No there was not nearly enough of the great Ron Perlman as a rival tribesman. Yes, Kainan's Honorary Viking Costume was laughably silly.

But c'mon, it's Vikings vs. aliens. What're you expecting, King Lear?

[edited for late-night grammatical miscarriages]

UPDATE: Here on AICN are some neat making-of featurettes which do not appear on the US DVD, but are planned for inclusion on the upcoming UK Blu-Ray release (there is at this time no planned US Blu-Ray release for this film...and what's up with that?!). Some spoilers, but nothing too earth-shattering, and they do give a nice taste of the film (worth it just for Ron Perlman's brief, hilarious interview). Recently watched it again (before returning to NetFlix). Held up surprisingly well on re-watching, and even grew on me a bit.