Science-Fiction films - 2015
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So, what is the reason for the enduring appeal of the Star Wars films? Is it the universe full of gadgets, an infinite variety of alien worlds and species? Is it the depiction of good and evil as magical forces? Is it the fast-paced action? Is it the characters that we are able to relate to, in spite of their alien surroundings? Yes, yes, yes, and yes. Take all of this and add quality direction and writing, and you will have that wonderful combination of elements that has been so successful with Star Wars films in the past and now has fans coming to see the newest, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, as it returns after a 10 year absence.
Now produced under the guidance of the people at Disney, directed by J.J. Abrams (Armageddon, Lost, Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness), and co-written by Abrams and Star Wars veteran Lawrence Kasdan (The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Silverado, Body Heat, The Big Chill, The Bodyguard), we have a new entry in the Star Wars saga. Unlike the prequels, we now get to blaze into new territory. Building from the preceding six chapters, episode seven takes us 30 years past the ending of Return of the Jedi. We meet new characters and see new places and eventually are led back to characters from the previous films and learn what has befallen them during that time. And thank goodness. It is a testament to the popularity of the series that so many people were willing to sit through the mostly unloved prequels. I firmly believe that prequels are usually mistakes. Most people want to see their favorite characters going forward. Did we really need over six hours of how Darth Vader came to be?
As The Force Awakens opens, we are told that a repressive regime called The First Order has risen to power and seeks to overwhelm the Republic. Because of this struggle, Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), now a General in the re-formed Resistance, and her comrades, seek to find the last known Jedi remining - Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) - to obtain his help. As both sides search for Luke, a couple of new players are drawn into the fray - Rey (Daisy Ridley), a scavenger on a remote planet who stumbles across a droid with information regading Luke's whereabouts, and Finn (John Boyega), a stormtrooper deserter who happens to have a conscience and turns to a captured resistance fighter to help him escape his First Order employers. Their efforts to escape lead them to join forces with Han Solo (Harrison Ford) and Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew) and they all become further embroiled in the fight against the First Order and the search for Skywalker.
There is much more to our story and our new charactes, or course. But Abrams and Kasdan are perfectly happy to keep us wondering as they give us only hints and pieces of the full picture as the story unfolds. I felt this was the right choice, even though I was frustrated by answers to questions that came slowly or not at all. This first film in our new trilogy primarily sets out to bond us with Finn, the reluctant stormtrooper, and diamond-in-the-rough Rey, and keep us caring about them as the story puts them neck-deep in trouble and moves them from peril after peril until the end of the film. And even then, we are still left wondering what is next for them.
There are no poor performances in this film and the action and special effects are top notch. I'm grateful that John Wiliams returned to add to his iconic score. Williams' themes give depth to the characters and convey the mood for every scene. His music is such an integral part of the Star Wars universe, it's hard to imagine any of these films being able to exist without it.
In short, Star Wars: The Force Awakens does exactly what it sets out to do. It is an engaging, exciting time at the movies that leaves you yearning for more. I will be looking forward to the next chapter, slated for release in May of 2017.
- JC
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While it may be the lowest grossing film of the Hunger Games series, Mockingjay Part II picks up the pace after a slower, relatively low-action Part I. This is both the film’s greatest strength and its greatest weakness, making for an exciting, yet occasionally confusing conclusion.
The movie picks up more or less in the middle of the action, exactly where Part I left off, but we don’t remain in the hospital — or even District 13 — for long. Instead, the final installment of The Hunger Games follows an invading army, staffed with our favorite tributes, Katniss, Peeta, and Finnick (along with Gale and an assortment of cannon fodder associates) into the heart of the Capitol. Along the way, they are met with a series of sadistic Capitol-generated “pods” booby trapped with heavy artillery, fire, and even genetically engineered mutant vermin designed to exterminate invaders in the most spectacular (and of course, televised) way possible, a strategy which Finnick aptly dubs “the seventy-sixth Hunger Games.” Therefore, if you spent much of the last installment nostalgic for the giant venomous hornets, mutated mutts, and poison gas of the first two films, you shouldn’t be disappointed here.
However, whereas the first two films spent a reasonable amount of time fleshing out each character in the events before the games, including training, TV interviews, and parades, this film more or less introduces new characters by name only once before spectacularly eliminating them — often in a manner so sudden and/or disfiguring that it’s hard to tell whom the team has just lost. Even characters that we met in the previous film (and thus might actually care about) are a little hard to keep track of as the action nears its climax. As a result, viewers unfamiliar with the book may have a harder time keeping up with the action towards the end.
Overall, this film is very faithful to the books, contains a number of heart-pounding action scenes, and features a fantastic cast. As always, Jennifer Lawrence and Donald Sutherland deliver excellent performances, while Josh Hutcherson is perhaps surprisingly compelling as recovering torture victim Peeta Mellark. Although the film unfortunately keeps the book’s too-neat, vaguely saccharine, fan-fictiony epilogue — with teen protagonists settling down and having kids à la Harry Potter — the actors navigate this difficult piece of the script as well as anyone could be expected to. Finally and significantly, Philip Seymour Hoffman is a welcome presence, having apparently completed most of his scenes before his untimely death last year. The film is dedicated to him and, all in all, makes a nice, interesting and fast-paced tribute in spite of its flaws. All the usual themes about power and its abuse continue to be explored in depth, and viewers who missed the books will even find themselves in for some shocking twists and surprises.
- Kathryn Carty
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The Martian, directed by Ridley Scott, is based on the best-selling book of the same name by Andy Weir. Matt Damon plays the title role of Mark Watney, a member of a six-person Mars exploration crew who is mistakenly left behind when a sudden storm foces the group to hurriedly leave the planet.
This film is a great example of a modern-day "man against nature" story. Watney is a man in an impossible situation - marooned on a lifeless world, millions of miles from help that doesn't even know he is there. The designers did a marvelous job, working in conjunction with scientists at NASA, of crafting a convicing Martian landscape where Watney uses his wits to survive the unsurvivable.
Damon's portrayl of Watney is probably Oscar-worthy, as he shows the man making light of his situation in video logs, "sciencing" the heck out of what little he has to work with, and also enduring serious setbacks. But it would be untrue to say Damon carries this whole film himself. The Martian also features a stellar cast (no pun intended, though it fits) of performers, including Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sean Bean, Michael Pena, Kristen Wiig, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, and many more.
The scenes shot in space are also very well done. These effects are at least on a par with, if not surpassing, those in Gravity and Interstellar, as we seem to be entering a new age of space exploration on the big screen. But unlike Gravity, we are allowed to focus on more than just one ill-defined character. And unlike Interstellar, we have a coherent, realistic story that doesn't wander into the realm of fantasy.
Between the effects, the performances, the direction, and the adapted screenplay, we should see several Oscar nods to The Martian. This is an easy one to recommend.
- JC
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So, last year we passed on the newest entry in the young adult film series craze. After Hunger Games and Divergent, Maze Runner seemed like more of the same - a dystopian future with tyrannical adults forcing children into life or death struggles which eventually force them to revolt. This, and the overall concept: The film was based on a gimmick to put clever, agile young men through a killer maze with deadly obstacles. Actually, it sounded more like a computer game or a reality show. The trouble was the backstory. The so-called "reason" for the maze was utterly preposterous. It made it hard to take the story seriously. But still, now we have a second film - Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials. Is it just more of the same nonsense or has the plot thickened? Mercifully, it has.
Our small group of survivors from the maze find themselves in the hands of a military force in a desert fortress. Society is apparently in ruins and desert seems to be the new standard terrain. The spread of the virus referred to in the first film has turned much of the populace into viral creatures like something out of Resident Evil or I Am Legend. They are fast, crazed, infectious, and don't burn up in sunlight. It's not a safe world to be out in - a huge natural disaster coupled with a zombie apocalypse. And these few young people, the "immunes," are the only known resource for treating the virus. (It makes one wonder how they could justify killing so many of them in the first film or are they just making this stuff up as they go?)
Thomas (Dylan O'Brien), the only immune who doesn't seem willing to just play victim in this whole scenario, suspects their rescuers may not actually be what they claim and soon he and his group escape and search for freedom and a safe haven in a hostile world where they are still trying to understand what is going on.
Again, as in the first film, the story's greatest weaknesses are in the over-the-top plans and outright badness of the villains. It's a good thing they are powerful and ruthless, since they make so many poor decisions. What the film does well, are its action sequences. The chases and battle scenes are very well done and audiences will genuinely be squeezing their armrests and have knots in their stomachs for several of these.
But action alone isn't enough. The characters have to sell it. This is where O'Brien truly shines. This young actor shows the emotions necessary to make us involved with and care about his character, whether he is fighting his oppressors, saving his friends, seeking the truth, or yearning for the girl who has his heart. In addition, he is completely believable in the running, jumping, climbing, and fighting sequences. He carries a lot of this film. Thomas Brodie-Sangster is also good as Newt, Thomas' maze brother and former leader of the Glade who is his voice of caution, and Ki Hong Lee as Minho, the leader of the maze runners and usually the fleetest of foot and wits in their group.
This film, in Empire Strikes Back fashion, fleshes out the series mythology and gives the heroes something to come back from. Thankfully, the third and final chapter will be kept to one movie and not be split into two. I hope it continues the trend of the films improving as they go and that it gives us a satisfying conclusion.
- JC
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When Rocky Balboa was made, was it because in 2006 there was a great clamoring for another Rocky movie or did Stallone just want to do another? Did we really need another time-traveling robot movie or did Arnold just want to "be back" in his most famous role?
Terminator Genisys turns the franchise a bit on its ear by going back to the original story set in 1984. Now, Skynet - the evil AI bent on human extinction - isn't just tampering with the past, but also seeking to attack the human resistance sent back to the past - a counter-counter-attack. The trouble with time loops is that they can have multiple iterations and change can occur as time is continually re-treaded and re-written. The result can be a muddy, jumbled mess. One of the essentials of good storytelling is clarity and this is something that suffers here.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is back as yet another T-800, the Sherman Tank of terminators. This one had been sent to protect Sarah as a child, a very transparent excuse to explain an older-looking version of him while allowing the producers to cast new young leads into the Sarah and Kyle roles. Once one recognizes that the story mostly exists to get those characters and their perpetual foil, Skynet, back onscreen, it becomes clear that the plot only serves to give them something to do. This plot includes common tropes like an all-powerful antagonist and a ticking countdown clock to destruction.
Oddly enough, Schwarzenegger's character mostly provides comic relief. Emilia Clarke is fine as Sarah Connor. She offers a Sarah somewhere between the Linda Hamilton of the first and second films in the series. Jai Courtney is "OK" as Kyle Reese, but I still have to wonder why this actor gets cast in so many parts. His acting skills have always been limited and he is usually the typical, modern-day muscle-bound young actor with a crew-cut (inherited from Sam Worthington, no doubt), though this time with curly, blondish hair to make him seem Michael Biehn-like.
If you really want to see an older Arnold playing Terminator again or if you find the Sarah Connor / Kyle Reese romance irresistible, then Terminator Genisys might be worth seeing in the theaters. But frankly, this series was reaching with T2. Skynet simply isn't that interesting of a villain. It's time for it to stop being back.
- JC
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So, “Jurassic World” is finally open for business. And, of course, by substituting “World” for “Park,” it will be very different. Because we all know that calling something by another name changes what it actually is (not really). The same way that the owners of the new attraction want tourists to separate it from the Jurassic Park “incidents” of the past, doubtless the producers of this film would prefer viewers forget the last lackluster sequel.
In this story, on the island of dinosaurs from the first films, the people now in charge of InGen have re-opened the park after apparently resolving the problems of keeping the dinosaurs contained. We are introduced to several characters: Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard), the overly-officious park manager, whose two young nephews (Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins) have come to visit, Owen (Chris Pratt), a velociraptor expert and trainer, and Hoskins (Vincent D’Onofrio), InGen’s security chief, who has aspirations of genetically designing the velociraptors and other dinosaurs to market as military weapons. Everything seems to be going fine, until a genetically-engineered monster dinosaur, given the name “Indominus Rex” and intended as a new park attraction, manages to escape its containment. The newly-created specimen is deadlier than a t-rex, has the ability to avoid detection, and is actually intelligent enough to outwit its captors. As Indominus wreaks its own havoc on the island, it also causes the release of some of the island’s other dangerous inhabitants, forcing the humans on the island to flee for their lives.
I had really hoped to like this film. But I’m afraid there is a lot more flash (CGI) than substance here. The characters are, unfortunately, mostly two-dimensional stereotypes with very little back-story. Chris Pratt’s character is probably the most engaging, simply due to the actor’s own charisma. But his character is written as such a simple two-fisted, he-man type, it’s hard to take him seriously. D’Onofrio’s villain is so cliché-bad he was only missing a handlebar moustache to twirl.
Several plot elements seemed to be lifted directly from other films. The notion of tampering with the traits of an already deadly predator, making a much worse one, complete with an officious female lead and a hunky male beast-wrangler anti-hero, comes right out of Deep Blue Sea. The monster loose in the park reminded me of Jaws 3D. And the story thread of taking a character uncomfortable with children, pairing them off with a partner, and having them rescue endangered kids to form a surrogate family, comes right out of the original Jurassic Park.
But my main complaint is that even in numerous scenes which should be scary, there is very little building of suspense. With the exception of one scene, Indominus is simply there or not. This factor was much better handled in all three preceding films.
If you like CGI dinosaur effects and are OK with scares and characters written at the grade-school level, then you will probably be happy with Jurassic World. It is probably on a par with the Transformers sequels. Otherwise, wait for it on TV.
- JC
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Is a bright future of dazzling technology and peaceful co-existence a pie-in-the-sky hope only achievable by impossibly brilliant people or is it simply a matter of choosing that future and working towards it? This is the question Tomorrowland poses.
The story begins with a mystery. In a flashback, a young boy named Frank shows off his jet pack at the 1964 New York World's Fair. He attracts the attention of a young girl named Athena, who gives him a pin with a "T" on it. He soon discovers that this pin allows him entry to an idyllic, futuristic place. The story jumps to the present, where teen-ager Casey is given a "T" pin by a young girl that looks like Athena. When Casey touches the pin, it gives her a detailed look at the futuristic world Frank had found. But the pin only works for so long and then quits, prompting Casey to search for another or to find out whatever she can about the world she had seen. Casey's search leads her to killer robots, Athena, a grown-up misanthropic Frank, and eventually a trip to "Tomorrowland."
From a storytelling perspective, this one is split up into three acts - What is Tomorrowland? Finding Tomorrowland. Fixing Tomorrowland. Most of the reviews I've read give credit to the first two parts but state that act 3 is preachy and cliched because it talks about a potentially fatal flaw with humanity. I think they are just plain wrong. First, I don't mind a film having a message. And if you say you've heard this particular one before, I would like to know where. Yes, there is a bad guy, but it's a bit more complicated than that. So, the film has a bit of a message about hope and choice and some people have a problem with that? It sounds as if they are suffering from the very affliction the movie is talking about. If your complaint is that the film isn't gritty or edgy enough for you, it seems appropriate to remind you that this is a PG Disney film. Fury Road is probably still playing down the hall.
Britt Robertson does an excellent job as Casey, the girl who carries us through the whole adventure. She is likable enough for us to care about and she is not some shallow, whining teen-ager. She is smart, cares about other people, and takes the approach that any problem is solvable. George Clooney, as Frank, makes the character interesting. Even though disappointments have jaded him, the hopeful idealist starts showing through more and more as the story goes on and he realizes some of his own mistakes. Raffey Cassidy is also very good as Athena, the little girl who finds, guides, and helps Casey and Frank.
Director Brad Bird, coming from his impressive film-making history - The Iron Giant, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol - does an excellent job of creating the futuristic world of Tomorrowland and orchestrating the storytelling and all the action.
So, if you like mystery, action, and a story that isn't so blasted grim as any of the dystopian films out in any given year, go see this movie. When people complained about a cliched, preachy ending, I expected there would be a stern overlord with a giant doomsday nuke and a ticking clock. (OK, there is a clock in this movie.) But this story, thankfully, isn't that obvious. It's been said that nothing is more powerful than an idea. Let's try to encourage better ones rather than bad ones, for the sake of our own Tomorrow.
- JC
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Ex Machina is one of those films that, while definitely interesting and thought provoking, is more affecting than entertaining. It makes one think seriously about what it means to be human. Does one's physical makeup matter more or does the humanity evidenced by one’s values and empathy toward others? Can an artifical intelligence have anything more than the illusion of a moral standard? And if one creates an artificial intelligence, how will one differ from another? Will different creators spawn creations that are a reflection of themselves? Interesting things to ponder.
Ex Machina was directed by Alex Garland in his directorial debut. Garland is mostly known for his writing, as both a novelist (The Beach, The Tesseract, The Coma) and screenwriter (28 Days Later, Sunshine, Never Let Me Go, Dredd). He also wrote the story and screenplay for this film. Ex Machina won a Jury Prize at the Gerardmer Film Festival.
The premise of the story is that a young programmer, Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), wins a company lottery to spend a week with the creator and owner of a Google-like company, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac), at his secluded home in the mountains. Nathan, though supposedly a computer and business genius, is somewhat off-putting to the more sensitive Caleb – he is punching a heavy bag when Caleb arrives and is often lifting weights and usually wears gym clothes, he drinks alcohol frequently and to excess, treats a female servant as if she is subhuman, refers to Caleb as “dude” and “bro” – as if he feels like he missed out on being a grungy college kid and wants to live that experience. He is brilliant, but boorish. Caleb eventually finds out that Nathan has brought him there for a “Turing Test” – an evaluation of how well an artifical intelligence exhibits behavior indistinguishable from that of a human being. The subject of the test is a female-in-appearance android named “Ava” (Alicia Vikander) that Nathan has confined in a glass room. Caleb has a series of sessions with Ava, asking her questions to test her, but over time the discussions become more personal. Caleb takes a personal interest in Ava, since he feels an attraction to her and also sees her as an innocent in the hands of an unfeeling master.
This film touches on so many issues. There are issues of artificial intelligence, to be sure, but it is no coincidence that Nathan’s version of his "Galatea" is female in appearance. With all of his intelligence and all of his resources, he seems to be spending them to make the "perfect" woman, but one who would be completely subservient to his will. It makes one wonder, when our technology reaches this level, will this be something that becomes common? Will everyone be able to buy or build a custom-made mate that has to obey them? Frankly, if the technology existed, I suspect we would see a lot of it. Dating and marriage could become obsolete.
There are quite a few science-fiction concepts that could end life as we know it if they came to be. Time travel. Superviruses. Radiation. And if we were foolish enough to create our own successor. As the Planet of the Apes movies suggest, making animals intelligent could be our doom. Likewise, if we made machines as smart as us. Or smarter. And would a machine care? More than likely – no.
- JC
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After a mediocre first installment, Insurgent does nothing to redeem the Divergent series as anything more than a highly derivative, lackluster teen dystopia—a poor competitor with the much stronger Hunger Games franchise. To the contrary, it actually represents a significant step backwards. While one might have hoped that this sequel could retain at least the bland, forgettable acceptability of its predecessor, Insurgent ’s convoluted plot and shallow characterization signals the death knell for any hope that the series might achieve the same gritty impact and social relevance as other offerings in the genre.
Those determined to see the movie will be treated to a fast-paced plot and a variety of often highly violent action scenes. True to action movie form, the bad guys are implausibly bad shots and the good guys are implausibly good at avoiding death or capture. For a YA film, the combat scenes are also brutally violent. However, it is difficult to enjoy all this adrenaline if one has any kind of attachment to an engaging, logical storyline.
Whiplash inducing plot twists and lapses in logic are peppered throughout the film, which still fails to make clear precisely why—apart from pure dogma—the characters in its dystopian world believe that “Divergents” will topple their society and therefore must be destroyed at all costs—including genocide, violence, and the toppling of society. This weak central premise can hardly support the number of conflicts, betrayals, and complications made to hinge upon it—not to mention that the total lack of character development renders these conflicts and betrayals completely flat, nonsensical, and meaningless.
All of this terrible writing is a shame in a high budget, talent-filled film. While the estimable Kate Winslet unfortunately comes off quite flat as the two-dimensionally villainous Jeanine Matthews, Shailene Woodley actually delivers another strong performance as protagonist Tris Prior. It’s too bad that she’s thrust into a poorly conceived action film that gives her little to work with. And to top it off, other casting decisions make it downright uncomfortable for anyone who’s been following most of the past year’s major blockbusters. A year after Divergent, both Woodley and costar Ansel Elgort have become famous for their roles as cancer-stricken teen lovers in The Fault in Our Stars. As siblings in Insurgent, the two lack any kind of familial chemistry, and Elgort is not given enough to do to establish himself as a separate character from The Fault in Our Stars’ Augustus Waters. The overall effect is either awkwardly incestuous or just plain lackluster, considering that, for a central character, Caleb Prior remains rather enigmatic, but in the least interesting possible way.
With the adaptation of the third book set to be split into two installments—as is the current trend—viewers hoping for some kind of payoff from this story have two more films to sit through. Here’s hoping that they somehow manage to make it worth our while.
- Kathryn Carty
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Chappie is the story of a robot made sentient, by director and screenwriter Neill Blomkamp (District 9, Elysium). Sharlto Copley (District 9, Maleficent) does the motion capture performance and voice for Chappie.
In the not-so-distant future of 2016, automated armored robots have been employed to assist the police in Johannesburg, South Africa. These robots, called "scouts," have rudimentary intelligence and assist the human police. The lead programmer for the project creates software for actual artificial consciousness which he tests on a damaged robot removed from service. However, through a twist of circumstance, the robot winds up in the hands of a gang of small-time criminals, who wind up becoming the impromptu, extremely dysfunctional, family for the robot which has been born with the mind of a child. "Chappie," as they call him, learns the world from his brutish guardians with occasional positive input from his creator and his foster "mother."
It is difficult to know how to comment on this film. It doesn't follow a typical adventure or science-fiction story structure, but almost feels more like a short, comical fable. Other reviewers have compared it to Robocop and Short-Circuit, but to me it brought Pinocchio to mind. As in Pinocchio, the main character falls in with a bad crowd shortly after coming to life. He eventually redeems himself and saves his father's life.
Oddly, the story also seems to borrow from another Disney tale - Beauty and the Beast. The character Vincent (Hugh Jackman) is reminiscent of the muscle-bound bully Gaston. Vincent is jealous of Chappie's creator Deon (Dev Patel) and wants to advance the usage of his competing product, a heavily weaponed, remote-controlled robot called a "moose." So, he is the story's main antagonist as he tries to destroy both Deon and Chappie several times.
Chappie gives us something of a mixed bag. Copley's portrayl of the newborn as a fast-learning robot is good, but the gangsters who he spends so much time with are so utterly unlikable that it sours the viewer to much of the film. Jackman's portrayl of the very 2-dimensional villain might have been better invested in a character actor who might have been able to lend more to the role.
If this film had been made with a somewhat lighter tone, this might have saved it. If Chappie's criminal foster family had been more lovable, bumbling crooks and less like murdering psychopaths from The Road Warrior it might have been heartwarming and less painful to watch. If they had cut out a lot of needless harsh language, a lot of kids might have taken to the robot that loved to paint, to be read to, and played with dolls. As it is, Chappie is a bit of a disappointment.
-JC
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Here is the concept: You are a young woman living a lifestyle similar to Cinderella. You are poor. Your life is tainted by the loss of your father. You slave away day after day doing menial work. One day, you find out that by an accident of birth, you are royalty and the heir to the Earth itself. Corrupt aliens are out to steal your birthright and kill you, but you are under the protection of an impossibly brave, capable, and good-looking warrior who has wolf-like characteristics. Seriously. It sounds like the "Recall ego trip" fantasy of a geeky 12-year-old girl. But there you have it. It's a cross between Dorothy's fish out of water in Oz, Star Wars' visual effects, and The Terminator's "come with me if you want to live."
Jupiter Ascending was written, produced, and directed by Lana and Andy Wachowski. The Wachowskis are well known as the creative team responsible for the very successful Matrix series, the moderately successful V For Vendetta, the box office flop Speed Racer, and the controversial Cloud Atlas. Comparing Jupiter Ascending to these preceding works, I wonder if they were hoping to make something a bit more fun and financially successful.
Jupiter Ascending does have wonderful visual effects and action scenes. However, it comes up short on its storytelling. There needed to be more character development at the beginning of the film. Jupiter (Mila Kunis) is reasonably well-established early on, but we are not given nearly enough on Caine Wise (Channing Tatum). For a character we will follow through the entire film and who does most of the fighting and risk-taking, we are given very little information to feel we know his character and thus little reason to care about him, except as Jupiter's rescuer. I kept comparing him to the Reese character in The Terminator. In not many scenes and precious little dialog, the audience identifies with and cares about Reese. Wise, in contrast, never quite seems real or sympathetic. A scene rendering more of his backstory or his character in general at the beginning of the film could have helped immeasurably.
If you are looking for a space opera starring a spunky damsel-in-distress with a slightly feral, daredevil hero constantly coming to her rescue, while she is pursued by screen-chewing villains with monstrous minions, this could be just what you're looking for. But you must admit, the plot seems a bit corny. As different foul felons attempt to steal Jupiter's claim to Earth away from her by lies or threats or both, I kept hearing in my head, "and if you don't give me the deed to your ranch, I'll tie you to the railroad tracks." Unfortunately, most of us have outgrown this kind of melodrama and need something with a bit more substance.
-JC
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Project Almanac is a sci-fi/time travel/found footage film directed by Dean Israelite and written by Jason Harry Pagan and Andrew Deutschman.
The film tells the story of a group of tech-savvy teens who, upon finding the blueprints for a time machine, decide to build it and use it for their own ends. It's a young-adult wish fulfillment fantasy couched in the belief that our technology can do anything. The group is led by David (Jonny Weston), a young inventor with aspirations of going to MIT. Working in his basement, he and his friends are able to build and modify the "temporal displacement" device his father invented for the government shortly before his death. Once he and his friends finally have the device working, they start using it to improve their own lives academically, financially, and socially. They treat their time machine much as if they had come upon a magic lamp, until things eventually start going awry.
The story is mostly told in the "found footage" format, though it drifts from it occasionally. Many times I felt that the story could have been told better in a more conventional style. The story is engaging enough that it does keep one's interest, but pacing problems can make a viewer impatient. The early part of the film when the group is building and testing the device seems twice as long as it needed to be. Conversely, the climax at the end seems rushed.
Project Almanac is interesting and fun but it doesn't pack enough emotional punch to make a lasting impact.
-JC
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How to describe the story in this film? The tale of time-traveling policemen writing wrongs before they happen? A guy walks into a bar . . . ?
Predestination is an Australian time travel science-fiction story based on the Robert Heinlein story "-All You Zombies-," written and directed by identical twin brothers Michael and Peter Spierig. It has been nominated for several awards with the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts and has won Best Science Fiction Film and Best Screenplay at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival. It saw narrow release in the United States on January 9, 2015, and would have gone un-noticed except we do keep an eye out for films like this, as Snowpiercer and Under the Skin, both serious science-fiction films from outside the U.S. slipped under our radar in 2014.
The focus of this story is a time paradox, the kind of causal conundrum that a lot of sci-fi fans go for. We can reveal little of the plot here without tampering with a viewer's opportunity to unravel the whole thing upon watching. This is less of an action story than a mystery and most of the best science-fiction has at least some mystery element to it. As a first-time watcher, I was able to figure out some things, but definitely not all. On a second watching, all the bizarre elements finally slip into place. Like another story with a hero not entirely stuck in time, Christopher Nolan's Memento, the viewer is constantly trying to make sense of the whole thing. This is not the kind of film to watch casually without your full attention.
Predestination stars Ethan Hawke and Sarah Snook. Both turn in good performances, but Snook truly shines in her unusual role.
Sadly, viewers will be hard-pressed to find a theater showing Predestination. Luckily, Amazon online video has the film available for streaming over the Internet. Click on the following link to buy or rent - Predestination
-JC