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thedullwoodexperiment

~ Viewing movies in a different light

thedullwoodexperiment

Tag Archives: Matt Damon

Monthly Roundup – January 2018

31 Wednesday Jan 2018

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Adrian Molina, Alexander Payne, Animation, Anthony Gonzalez, Awakening the Zodiac, Chadwick Boseman, Christoph Waltz, Coco, Comedy, Darkest Hour, Downsizing, Drama, Dylan Minnette, Fabrice du Welz, Family Fever, Gael García Bernal, Gary Oldman, Germany, Hallie Meyers-Shyer, History, Home Again, Horror, Jaume Collet-Serra, Joe Wright, Jonathan Wright, Kathrin Waligura, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lee Unkrich, Leslie Bibb, Liam Neeson, Matt Angel, Matt Damon, Meryl Streep, Message from the King, Mexico, Michael Sheen, Nico Sommer, Peter Trabner, Pixar, Reese Witherspoon, Reviews, Romance, Serial killer, Shane West, Steven Spielberg, Suzanne Coote, The Commuter, The Open House, The Pentagon Papers, The Post, The Washington Post, Thriller, Tom Hanks, True story, Vera Farmiga

Awakening the Zodiac (2017) / D: Jonathan Wright / 100m

Cast: Shane West, Leslie Bibb, Matt Craven, Nicholas Campbell, Kenneth Welsh, Stephen McHattie

Rating: 4/10 – no one knew it at the time but the notorious (and uncaptured) Zodiac killer filmed the murders he committed, something cash-strapped couple Mick and Zoe Branson (West, Bibb) discover when they come into possession of one of the reels, and then find themselves and those around them targeted by the Zodiac killer himself; there’s the germ of a good idea lurking somewhere in Awakening the Zodiac, but thanks to a sloppy script, wayward direction, and an indifferent approach to the Zodiac killer himself (by the end he’s just a generic movie-made serial killer), this never gets out of first gear, and settles for trundling along and signposting each narrative development with all the skill and style of a one-legged man at an ass-kicking contest.

Home Again (2017) / D: Hallie Meyers-Shyer / 97m

Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Michael Sheen, Candice Bergen, Pico Alexander, Jon Rudnitzky, Nat Wolff, Lake Bell

Rating: 7/10 – when middle-aged fledgling interior designer Alice (Witherspoon) splits from her unreliable husband (Sheen), the last thing she expects to do is allow three young men trying to break into the movie business to move into her guest house – and then become romantically involved with one of them (Alexander); it’s hard to criticise Home Again because despite it being almost drama-free and the very definition of innocuous, it also just wants to give audiences a good time, and on that very basic level it succeeds, but it’s still possibly the most lightweight romantic comedy of 2017.

Downsizing (2017) / D: Alexander Payne / 135m

Cast: Matt Damon, Christoph Waltz, Hong Chau, Kristen Wiig, Rolf Lassgård, Udo Kier, Søren Pilmark, Jason Sudeikis

Rating: 5/10 – the answer to the world’s population crisis is revealed to be shrinking people to the point where they’re five inches tall, something that sad-sack occupational therapist Paul Safranek (Damon) agrees to with alacrity, but being small proves to be no different from being normal-sized, and soon Paul is having to re-think everything he’s ever thought or believed; a closer examination of Downsizing (under a microscope perhaps) reveals a movie that contains too many scenes that pass by without contributing anything to the overall storyline, and a satirical approach to the idea itself that lacks purpose, and sadly for Payne fans, his trademark wit, making it all a dreary, leaden experience that goes on for waaaaaay too long.

Family Fever (2014) / D: Nico Sommer / 71m

Original title: Familien fieber

Cast: Kathrin Waligura, Peter Trabner, Deborah Kaufmann, Jörg Witte, Jan Amazigh Sid, Anais Urban

Rating: 7/10 – when two sets of parents get together for the weekend at the request of their respective children (who are a couple), none of them are able to deal with the fallout that comes with the revelation of a secret that threatens the security of both marriages; a German comedy/drama that doesn’t always go where the viewer might expect it to, Family Fever revels in the awkwardness and frustration felt by its quartet of main characters, and though it sadly runs out of steam in the last fifteen minutes, by then it’s done more than enough to provide plenty of wicked laughs and affecting drama.

Coco (2017) / D: Lee Unkrich, Adrian Molina / 105m

Cast: Anthony Gonzalez, Gael García Bernal, Benjamin Bratt, Alanna Ubach, Renee Victor, Jaime Camil, Alfonso Arau

Rating: 8/10 – Miguel (Gonzalez) is a young boy whose family has rejected any kind of music in order to focus on selling shoes, which leads him into all sorts of trouble in the Underworld on Mexico’s Day of the Dead, trouble that could also mean his never returning to the land of the living; right now you’re never quite sure how a Pixar movie is going to work out, but Coco is a treat, its mix of clever character design, beautifully rendered animation (naturally), heartfelt storylines, and memorable songs making it one to savour time and again… though, be warned, you will be in tears towards the end.

Darkest Hour (2017) / D: Joe Wright / 125m

Cast: Gary Oldman, Kristin Scott Thomas, Lily James, Stephen Dillane, Ben Mendelsohn, Ronald Pickup, Nicholas Jones, Samuel West

Rating: 8/10 – it’s 1940 and Great Britain is faced with a challenge: who is to lead them against the fast-approaching menace of the Nazis, and if it has to be Winston Churchill (Oldman), then what can be done to undermine him and his authority?; the answer is quite a bit – for the most part – but history is firm on Churchill’s success, and so Darkest Hour, while featuring a superb performance from Oldman, has no choice but to succumb to retelling events that have already been retold numerous times before, and in doing so doesn’t offer the viewer anything new except for a number of very good performances and assured, and surprisingly sinewy direction from Wright.

Message from the King (2016) / D: Fabrice du Welz / 102m

Cast: Chadwick Boseman, Luke Evans, Alfred Molina, Teresa Palmer, Natalie Martinez, Arthur Darbinyan, Lucan Melkonian, Diego Josef, Tom Felton, Chris Mulkey, Jake Weary

Rating: 5/10 – when his younger sister dies in suspicious circumstances in Los Angeles, South African cab driver Jacob King (Boseman) travels there to find out who caused her death and why – and exact revenge; a throwback to the kind of blaxploitation movies made in the Seventies, Message from the King at least refers to King as an angry brother in the traditional sense, but the movie’s plot is hollow, and the likes of Evans and Molina are wasted in roles that might have seemed fresh (again) in the Seventies, but here feel like caricatures for the movie to focus on in between bouts of King exacting his violent revenge.

The Commuter (2018) / D: Jaume Collet-Serra / 105m

Cast: Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Jonathan Banks, Sam Neill, Elizabeth McGovern, Killian Scott, Shazad Latif, Andy Nyman, Clara Lago, Roland Møller, Florence Pugh

Rating: 4/10 – ex-cop turned insurance salesman Michael MacCauley (Neeson) is approached by a mysterious woman (Farmiga) on his train home and tasked with finding a complete stranger who’s also on the train – what could possibly go wrong?; everything as it turns out, with The Commuter going off the rails soon after, and never getting back on track, something confirmed (if there was any doubt before then) when the script throws in an “I’m Spartacus/I’m Brian” moment (take your pick), as well as reminding everyone that Neeson really is too old for this kind of thing.

The Post (2017) / D: Steven Spielberg / 116m

Cast: Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Sarah Paulson, Bob Odenkirk, Tracy Letts, Bradley Whitford, Bruce Greenwood, Matthew Rhys, Alison Brie, Carrie Coon, Jesse Plemons, David Cross, Zach Woods, Pat Healy

Rating: 9/10 – the publication of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed the level of deceit the US government had perpetrated on its citizens about its involvement in Vietnam, is explored through the days leading up to the Washington Times‘ courageous decision to publish despite the threat of imprisonment for treason that the White House was prepared to enforce; Streep is publisher Kay Graham, Hanks is legendary editor Ben Bradlee, and Spielberg is on excellent form, giving The Post a sense of immediacy and potency that other historical dramas can only dream of (and the relevance to today’s US political scene doesn’t even need to be made obvious).

The Open House (2018) / D: Matt Angel, Suzanne Coote / 94m

Cast: Dylan Minnette, Piercey Dalton, Patricia Bethune, Sharif Atkins, Aaron Abrams, Edward Olson, Katie Walder

Rating: 3/10 – a recent widow (Dalton) and her mopey son (Minnette) get away from their grief and their problems at a house that’s up for sale – and find strange things going on there right from the start; an awful thriller that just refuses to make any sense or make either of its two main characters sympathetic, The Open House does everything it can to make you look away… and not in a good way.

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The Great Wall (2016)

07 Tuesday Mar 2017

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Action, Andy Lau, Archer, Bianliang, Black powder, China, Drama, Fantasy, Matt Damon, Nameless Order, Pedro Pascal, Review, Tao Tei, Tian Jing, Willem Dafoe, Yimou Zhang

D: Yimou Zhang / 103m

Cast: Matt Damon, Pedro Pascal, Tian Jing, Willem Dafoe, Andy Lau, Hanyu Zhang, Lu Han, Kenny Lin, Eddie Peng, Xuan Huang, Ryan Zheng, Karry Wang, Cheney Chen, Pilou Asbæk

On paper it must have sounded like a great idea. A US/China co-production directed by Yimou Zhang and starring Matt Damon, and telling one of the legends behind the creation of the Great Wall of China: that it was built to stop a species of monster called the Tao Tei from over-running the country. On paper it promised Zhang’s visionary skill as a director, Damon’s solid acting presence, and some of the most exciting battle scenes this side of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It would also be the most expensive movie in Chinese history, costing $135 million.

But somewhere along the way, what everyone – the production companies and the producers, Zhang and Damon, anyone else involved – forgot was that the movie was going to need a decent script. Or maybe they were aware it needed a decent script but decided to make do with the one they had (or maybe working with more than one hundred on-set translators didn’t help). However it was, The Great Wall reaches us with its goal to entertain its audience undermined almost from the word go. And it never recovers, offering lazy characterisations, even lazier motivations for its characters, plotting that goes beyond ridiculous, and the kind of moments that are meant to be, well, meaningful but just look and sound awkward. It’s only the well-mounted action sequences that provide any fun, but by the end, any credibility they’ve given the movie has run dry as well. So step forward Max Brooks, Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz who came up with the story, and Carlo Bernard, Doug Miro and Tony Gilroy who actually wrote the script. Give them all a hearty round of applause – and let that be the only acknowledgment they get for coming up with this farrago.

Now obviously, The Great Wall is a fantasy movie, and none of it ever happened for real, but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be grounded as far as possible within its own fantastical world. Matt Damon and Pedro Pascal as mercenaries trying to steal black powder (gunpowder) from the Chinese? Okay, that one’s possible. The Great Wall built to stop a horde of monsters from over-running the country (and by extension, the world)? Ahh, hang on a minute. No, that’s not going to work. There are problems with that idea straight away, and these are problems the movie ignores, as if by ignoring them no one will stop and say, ahhh, hang on a minute… The problem lies with those pesky, awkward timescales, the ones the movie itself comes up with. Seventeen hundred years to build. Okay, but the Tao Tei attack every sixty years, and again according to the movie, have been doing so for two thousand years. So the obvious question is: how is it that the Tao Tei haven’t over-run the country already? There’s thousands upon thousands of the ugly creatures (which must mean their Queen is kept very busy).

To be fair, the movie does try to provide an answer to this conundrum, by mentioning that the Tao Tei are evolving with each sixty year cycle, and becoming more and more intelligent. But then it shoots itself in the foot – again – by giving Damon’s character, William, a large chunk of magnetised rock (don’t ask; really, don’t). Magnets apparently have the ability to literally put the creatures to sleep, something the Chinese are aware of but which they’ve never put to the test. Cue a mission to capture one of the creatures. Once secured, the creature is then whisked off to the capital city of Bianliang where the magnet is removed far enough for the creature to wake up and transmit its location telepathically to its Queen (oh, yes, they’re telepathic as well). And just at the same moment, the Chinese, led by Commander Lin (Jing) and Strategist Wang (Lau) discover that the Tao Tei have been digging a massive tunnel through the Wall and are heading for Bianliang (and no one has noticed this, or spotted them heading for the capital; no, really, no one).

If after all this, you’re not convinced that The Great Wall has a really duff script then you’ll really have to see it for yourself. What was probably meant to be an effective melding of Western and Eastern movie making, or at the very least a Chinese tale adapted for a wider international audience, in the end becomes a collection of cinematic clichés, desultory character beats, and an ending that’s so rushed you get the feeling that maybe you’ve missed something (one minute the tunnel is discovered, the next, everyone’s climbing onto unstable hot-air balloons to reach Bianliang before the Tao Tei get there). It’s a movie that doesn’t seem to trust itself with any depth or nuance, as if audiences wouldn’t appreciate their inclusion. In its aim to be as entertaining as possible, it appears to have shed anything that might be thought-provoking, original, or ambitious.

During the movie’s production there was a lot of criticism surrounding Damon’s casting (as if no one realised this was an international co-production). Accusations of the movie using a white saviour narrative prevailed for a long while, and on watching the movie, it’s not hard to see why such accusations were made. Whether they’re well-founded or not will be down to the individual viewer, but as the Chinese have been fending off the Tao Tei for centuries, and only defeat them once Damon’s character turns up – well, you do the math. There’s also the inevitable attraction between Damon’s early medieval archer and Jing’s initially wary (but intrigued) commander. Their relationship remains entirely platonic throughout, with admiring glances appearing here and there, but the idea of an actual romance is firmly kept in its place. This may be an international co-production made for modern audiences, but let’s not get several centuries ahead of ourselves.

In the end, this is an American production that takes an ostensibly Chinese story (it was actually dreamed up by Legendary Entertainment CEO Thomas Tull and World War Z author Max Brooks), makes it on Chinese soil with a largely Chinese cast and crew, appropriates a Chinese national monument, and then jettisons anything that makes it truly, identifiably Chinese. (There’s also a corollary with World War Z as the Tao Tei climb up and over each other in their efforts to scale the Wall.) Should the Chinese feel insulted by this? That’s a difficult one to answer, their having been involved in this almost from the beginning, but if the white saviour narrative does apply then this is arguably one of  the most racially condescending movies made in a very long while.

But inevitably, with all the talent involved, there are some things that the movie gets right, it’s just that there aren’t enough of them to make up for when it goes wrong. The movie is often beautiful to look at, with a dazzling array of colours for the Chinese to wear and be seen against, and the overall production design by John Myhre is equally dazzling. The Wall’s defences are impressive too, with one unexpected, built-in feature proving particularly effective against the Tao Tei (though frustratingly it’s only used once). And one character’s death prompts a beautiful display of sky lanterns against the backdrop of the night sky. But as already mentioned, these aspects don’t make up for the clumsy, substance-free elements that are thrust centre-stage, from those awkward timescales, some truly awful dialogue, a subplot involving Dafoe’s captive mercenary and his plan to steal the black powder, and the inclusion of a young soldier who proves his bravery when everyone (except William) doubts him.

Rating: 4/10 – as dumb as dumb can be, The Great Wall is a terrible mis-step by Zhang, and by everyone else involved; big on spectacle but short on invention and lacking any internal logic, it’s a movie built out of nothing and unsurprisingly, is well on course to lose a lot of money for the studios who made it.

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Jason Bourne (2016)

20 Saturday Aug 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Action, Alicia Vikander, Asset, Athens, Berlin, Black ops, CIA, Drama, Iron Hand, Las Vegas, London, Matt Damon, Paul Greengrass, Review, Sequel, Thriller, Tommy Lee Jones, Vincent Cassel

Jason Bourne

D: Paul Greengrass / 123m

Cast: Matt Damon, Tommy Lee Jones, Alicia Vikander, Vincent Cassel, Julia Stiles, Riz Ahmed, Ato Essandoh, Scott Shepherd, Bill Camp, Vinzenz Kiefer, Stephen Kunken, Gregg Henry

The original Bourne movie trilogy was smart, inventive, thrilling, and a massive boost for the ailing spy genre. It made an action hero of Matt Damon, featured action sequences that were fresh and exciting, and had an emotionally complex through-line that bolstered the already intense plotting. At the end of The Bourne Ultimatum, David Webb had gained the answers to questions that had plagued him ever since he’d been saved from a watery grave by the crew of a fishing boat.

Except… he hasn’t, not really. The closing lines from The Bourne Ultimatum – “I remember. I remember everything.” – are repeated here at the movie’s beginning, and are followed by a montage of scenes from the original trilogy (as far as this movie is concerned, The Bourne Legacy (2012) never happened). But in amongst these memories are flashes of scenes we haven’t seen before. And when Jason Bourne snaps out of his reverie, we find him in the back of a truck and heading for an illegal fight ground in Greece. Clearly the years since he took down Treadstone and Blackbriar haven’t been good to him: despite his fighting prowess he still looks lost. And the bad dreams, or reveries, he’s experiencing aren’t helping. For someone who “remembers everything”, he’s having some of the most spectacularly disturbing and disorienting dreams ever. And he can’t make sense of them, especially the ones that involve his father, Richard Webb (Henry).

Jason Bourne - scene1

Help comes in the familiar but unexpected form of ex-CIA analyst Nicky Parsons (Stiles). Having hacked into the CIA mainframe, she’s done so with the aim of helping Bourne learn more about his past, and has discovered that his father had a greater role in the Treadstone programme than Bourne has been led to believe. But in hacking the CIA, Nicky has become a target and her contacting Bourne in Athens leads to his getting “back in the game”. With CIA operatives on their trail, as well as an Asset (Cassel), Bourne gains access to the information Nicky hacked, and once he becomes aware of his father’s involvement, he finds his enrolment in the Treadstone program wasn’t as clear cut as he thought. But as before, his reappearance has senior members of the CIA, including Director Robert Dewey (Jones), unwilling to let Bourne expose their Black Ops programs. Using a combination of the Asset and the head of the Cyber Crimes Division, Heather Lee (Vikander), to track down Bourne and eliminate him once and for all, Dewey plots to keep the CIA’s secrets as hidden as ever.

Fans of the Bourne Trilogy are generally dismissive of The Bourne Legacy, the Jeremy Renner starring addition to the series that failed to add anything new to the mix, and which felt like an uninspired retread of everything that had gone before. Matt Damon famously turned down the chance to cameo in Legacy, and made it clear that he wouldn’t return to the franchise unless Paul Greengrass was back on board as well. Well, Damon got his wish, and Greengrass is back as the movie’s director. But perhaps Damon should have made another stipulation: that Greengrass didn’t write the script.

Jason Bourne has many of the same attributes that The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum share. There’s the generous use of “shaky cam”, Christopher Rouse’s exemplary editing, excellent location work, and a series of intense and very well-staged action sequences (one of the series major strengths). But there’s one aspect that’s missing this time round, and aside from Greengrass’s muscular directorial style, it’s perhaps the series’ most important component: the contribution of Tony Gilroy. As screenwriter of the first two movies, and co-screenwriter of the third (though his input was drastically reduced), as well as Legacy‘s writer/director, Gilroy helped guide the series from its inauspicious beginnings to a position of critical and commercial success worldwide. His scripts had intelligence, depth and subtlety, and his villains were drawn with a vividness and care that made them worthy adversaries.

Jason Bourne - scene3

But without Gilroy (no doubt a casualty of The Bourne Legacy‘s poor reception), Jason Bourne proves just as disappointing as its unacknowledged predecessor. Nearly ten years on from the events of Ultimatum, Bourne is still an emotional mess, haunted by memory fragments that cause him pain and regret. He looks awful, and Damon plays him like a man besieged. For a man who found all the answers he needed, Bourne looks even more tormented than when he was in the dark. The movie never really attempts to explain why this is the case, preferring instead to give audiences a tortured Bourne without expanding on his back story. As a result, his decision to jump back in, prompted by some spurious nonsense involving his father, seems perfunctory instead of necessary.

With Bourne himself treated in such a cavalier fashion – he’s really just a one-man wrecking crew here – the other characters fare just as badly. Dewey is a stock villain, one step removed from twirling an invisible moustache and muttering “mwah-ha-ha!” whenever the script has him do something nefarious. Jones has no chance with the role, and there are times when his awareness of this comes through loud and clear; just watch his scenes with Vikander, and ask yourself if he looks committed. Cassel’s Asset is fuelled by revenge for the torture he suffered through Bourne’s exposure of the Blackbriar program, but as the character spends an inordinate amount of time running around chasing Bourne without actually catching him, his anger (and his back story) gets shoved to the side. And then there’s Heather Lee, the Cyber Crimes head who acts as this movie’s Pamela Landy. There’s supposed to be some mystery as to which side she’s on (she helps Bourne in various ways while pushing a separate CIA agenda), but thanks to Greengrass’s less than subtle direction, Vikander never looks anything other than extremely distrustful.

Film Title: Jason Bourne

And then there’s the small but important matter of how Bourne gets about. From Greece he travels to Berlin, then to London. He does so on his own, without any help from anyone, and manages to elude detection at every turn (a facet of the series that was usually, and very cleverly explained away – but not here). And yet when he travels from London to Las Vegas he does so by commercial aircraft, and though he receives assistance from Lee in getting through US Customs, it still begs the question how UK Customs didn’t flag him up in the first place. (Also, it seems that outside of Athens and Las Vegas there’s not the CCTV infrastructure to allow the CIA to track Bourne efficiently anywhere else.) And stop and think about this: in Las Vegas, at an expo for a communications platform that Dewey wants to appropriate – don’t ask – Bourne picks up various conveniently placed bugging devices that he uses to get to Dewey, all of which begs the question, what plan did he have originally (as he couldn’t have known they were there beforehand)?

Gaping plot holes like these only add to the realisation that Jason Bourne is a less than rewarding, less than necessary sequel to four previous movies (three of which had already told the story effectively and with impressive style), that throws in a handful of rousing action sequences, makes Bourne indestructible, has a subplot involving a communications platform – actually, still don’t ask – and features some of the blandest characters in the whole series. Greengrass is a mercurial director, with a great visual style, but he’s not as good a screenwriter as he might think, and along with Rouse, he makes things too simplistic for the movie’s own good. The end result? A movie that only takes off when it’s throwing punches or chasing SWAT vehicles.

Rating: 5/10 – a missed opportunity to enhance and expand on the series, Jason Bourne trades on nostalgia instead of bringing something new to the franchise; Bourne looks tired throughout, as does Jones, and by the movie’s end the viewer will feel exactly the same way.

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Question of the Week – 30 July 2016

30 Saturday Jul 2016

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Tags

China, Matt Damon, Question of the Week, The Great Wall, Yimou Zhang

Fans of Matt Damon will be intrigued, or just plain excited, by his presence in Yimou Zhang’s latest epic, The Great Wall, due later this year. It’s a fantasy/action period piece that asks the question, why was the great wall built? Was it to keep people out, or was it to keep out – speak of it only in hushed tones – something far worse? If you’ve seen the trailer by now then you’ll already know the answer (and let’s just say it’s not Po the Kung Fu Panda). But if you haven’t, and you’re wondering what on earth Matt Damon is doing appearing in an historical drama set in China, then… join the rest of us.

Perhaps it was being able to work with Yimou, still one of China’s most distinctive and exhilarating movie directors, even if it’s been ten years since he made Curse of the Golden Flower (2006), perhaps his last movie to gain both critical and commercial plaudits worldwide. Or maybe it’s the chance to spend time in China itself, a kind of busman’s holiday. Either way, Damon is there taking part and kicking – whoa there! Nearly gave it away (let the trailer do that).

 

But it’s not the first time an A-list Hollywood star has appeared in a movie set in historical China. Tom Cruise was once The Last Samurai (2003), while more recently we’ve seen the likes of Adrien Brody and Nicolas Cage donning historical armour and pitching up in Chinese movies – Brody opposite Jackie Chan in Dragon Blade (2015), and Cage taking Hayden Christensen under his wing in Outcast (2014). In all three of these movies, the presence of such stars has no doubt been encouraged to help boost international sales (and The Last Samurai was hugely successful, raking in over $450 million), but the so-called Marco Polo effect really only works when the Occidental character is, well, Marco Polo. So, with that all in mind, this week’s question is (obviously):

In this day and age, is the presence of a globally well-known star still the (potential) guarantee of box office success that Oriental movie makers seem to think it is, or are they being hired purely because they’re the best actor for the role?

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The Martian (2015)

14 Wednesday Oct 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Andy Weir, Ares III, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Drama, Hermes, Jeff Daniels, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Literary adaptation, Mark Watney, Mars, Matt Damon, NASA, Pathfinder, Potato crop, Review, Ridley Scott, Sci-fi, Thriller

Martian, The

D: Ridley Scott / 144m

Cast: Matt Damon, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig, Michael Peña, Sean Bean, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, Benedict Wong, Mackenzie Davis, Donald Glover

On Mars to explore the terrain and collect samples, the crew of the spaceship Hermes, headed by Commander Melissa Lewis (Chastain), have established a habitat station (the Hab) that allows them to check their samples before sending the results back to NASA. It’s also a living space for them. When a fierce storm approaches more quickly than expected, and some of the team are caught outside, botanist Mark Watney (Damon) is struck by debris and catapulted out of sight. With little option but to abandon the habitat centre and return to the Hermes, Lewis makes the decision to leave Mars even though she wants to find Watney. When NASA learns what’s happened, its director, Teddy Sanders (Daniels), holds a press conference that details the mission’s current status, and Watney’s unfortunate death.

But Sanders’ declaration proves to be wrong. Watney is still alive, though when he wakes after the storm has passed, he has a piece of antenna sticking out of his torso. He makes it back to the habitat station where he removes the antenna and staples shut the wound. He then starts to work out how long he can survive on the rations left in the Hab, but quickly realises that he doesn’t anywhere near enough to sustain him until a rescue mission can reach him. Drawing on his knowledge as a botanist, Watney decides to use the Hab’s resources (including his and the crew’s waste), and the Martian soil to grow potatoes. Meanwhile, back at NASA, mission director Vincent Kapoor (Ejiofor) is alerted to the fact that there is unexpected movement occurring on Mars, and soon it becomes apparent to everyone that Watney is alive.

Watney travels to where the Pathfinder probe lies abandoned and manages to get it to transmit images back to Earth. He and NASA come up with a means of communicating with each other (even if it is a bit slow due to the distance between them), and soon Watney is able to establish a more stable comms link. With NASA determined to rescue Watney, they finally decide to tell his crewmates that he’s alive. They’re all pleased but angry as well for being left out of the loop. But disaster strikes, when an airlock decompression at the Hab destroys the potato crop, leaving Watney with only enough rations for around 200 days, and a rocket supply drop arranged by NASA malfunctions and blows up before it even leaves Earth’s atmosphere. With time running out, NASA must find a way of getting to Watney before his food runs out, and he has to find a way of making his food last as long as possible.

Martian, The - scene

An adaptation of the bestseller by Andy Weir, The Martian is something of a return to form for Ridley Scott, with the septuagenarian director making his most accessible and expertly constructed movie for some time. This is largely due to Drew Goddard’s assured, though not entirely flawless screenplay, which juggles successfully not only the hard science that keeps Watney alive (and making it relatable to the average viewer), but a myriad cast of characters, all of whom had the potential to become stereotypes. But Scott keeps all this in check and presents us with a sci-fi thriller that feels fresher than most recent outings (despite some obvious antecedents), and which features an impressive central performance from Matt Damon that helps ground the movie immeasurably.

So good, in fact, is Damon as the embattled astronaut of the title, that sometimes the events happening on Earth come as a bit of an intrusion. Yes, it’s good to see the effort being put in to rescue one man (even though you could argue that the cost of doing so would be too prohibitive for even the most caring of space agencies to consider), but these scenes too often feel like second cousins to those in Apollo 13 (1995), and Ejiofor’s character also feels like a close relative to his character from 2012 (2009). With this element of the narrative ticking several expected boxes, even down to the plucky, rule-bending astrodynamicist (Glover) who comes up with a plan to save Watney that no one else has thought of, it’s thanks to Goddard’s understanding of the necessity for these scenes, and Scott’s accomplished direction, they’re intrusion becomes less worrisome, and as Watney’s continued survival comes closer and closer to connecting with his rescue, the viewer can root for both camps.

But with so much happening back on Earth (and with such a large ensemble cast to cater to), the script doesn’t put Watney in as much jeopardy as Weir’s novel does. Part of the fun of reading the novel was that Weir consistently came up with ways to put Watney in danger, and he consistently made it seem as if Mars itself was conspiring to make Watney pay for being there. But here the suspense is lessened in favour of Watney’s unflagging determination to survive, which is admirable in itself, but there needs to be more in the way of peril, even if we can all guess the outcome. Harking back to Apollo 13, it was the way in which problems continued to mount on that mission that heightened the drama, and the way in which each problem was overcome that made it all the more engrossing and exciting. Here, Watney’s methodical, never-say-die attitude ensures that each setback is dealt with matter-of-factly and in double-quick time (and usually by virtue of a montage). By taking some of the natural tension of the situation away, the gravity of Watney’s dilemma is lessened when it should have had us on the edge of our seats.

But Damon holds it all together, making Watney a pleasure to spend time with, and be sympathetic of. The little dance and shouts of joy he makes when he discovers he can talk to NASA is a small moment of inspiration, especially when he looks round to check if anyone has seen him. And Damon is equally good at expressing the character’s somewhat arrogant sense of humour and keeping the viewer on his side, even with lines such as “They say once you grow crops somewhere, you have officially colonised it. So technically, I colonised Mars. In your face, Neil Armstrong!” There are few actors audiences would want to spend an entire movie with, alone, but Damon is one of them, and he keeps the viewer focused on what is essentially one man’s battle for survival against (almost) impossible odds.

Martian, The - scene2

He’s supported by a great ensemble cast headed up by the ever reliable Ejiofor, with Wiig playing serious for once, and Daniels giving Sanders a sardonic air that fits well with his job as director of NASA. Chastain and Peña grab most of the limelight from Mara, Stan and Hennie as Watney’s fellow astronauts, and The Martian marks one of the few occasions when Sean Bean’s character in a movie doesn’t get killed (he’s also part of a great joke involving The Lord of the Rings). As you’d expect from a movie directed by Ridley Scott, it all looks incredible, with Jordan standing in for Mars, Arthur Max’s expressive production design, and very impressive cinematography from Dariusz Wolski (Scott’s go-to DoP for his last few movies). And on the music front, anyone expecting to hear David Bowie’s Life on Mars? at some point will find that Scott has gone for Starman instead, and there’s the completely unexpected use of ABBA’s Dancing Queen, which should feel out of place but is surprisingly apt for the point at which it’s used.

Rating: 8/10 – good sci-fi these days is rare (as anyone who’s seen Prometheus (2012) should know – sorry, Ridley), but The Martian is that rare beast, and is intelligent enough overall to overcome a few narrative concerns; with Damon in commanding form, and the drama of the situation sufficiently gripping, being stranded on another planet has never seemed so tempting.

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Interstellar (2014)

09 Sunday Nov 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Anne Hathaway, Black hole, Christopher Nolan, Drama, Farm, Food shortage, Human extinction, Jessica Chastain, Matt Damon, Matthew McConaughey, Michael Caine, Review, Saturn, Sci-fi, Space travel, Wormhole

Interstellar

D: Christopher Nolan / 169m

Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Jessica Chastain, Michael Caine, Matt Damon, Mackenzie Foy, Wes Bentley, David Gyasi, John Lithgow, Casey Affleck, Topher Grace, Ellen Burstyn, Leah Cairns, Timothée Chalamet

In the near future, humanity is at risk of extinction due to a worldwide shortage of food. Ex-pilot, engineer and widower Cooper (McConaughey) runs a farm in the Midwest growing corn, the last remaining crop that is resistant to the blight that has devastated the rest of the world’s crops. Cooper is helped by his father-in-law, Donald (Lithgow), son Tom (Chalamet) and daughter Murph (Foy). Murph is a precocious child who is convinced their farmhouse has a ghost that is trying to communicate with them.  Cooper isn’t convinced but as the phenomena increases he comes to realise that there is a message being sent, but why and by whom remains a mystery.

The message translates into coordinates. Cooper determines to travel to where the coordinates are located, but finds Murph has stowed away in their truck. Letting her go with them, they find themselves at what appears to be an abandoned army base. They try to break in, but Cooper finds himself tasered. When he comes to, he finds himself in the company of a group of NASA scientists led by Professor Brand (Caine) who are attempting to find a way to solve the problem of humanity’s approaching doom. Brand, along with his daughter (Hathaway), have been working on finding another planet to live on. Through the appearance of a mysterious wormhole near Saturn, Brand and his team have sent twelve manned probes into the wormhole and three have returned signals that indicate the planets they’ve found could sustain human life. The next mission, which Brand wants Cooper to pilot, is to travel to each planet and make a definitive choice for mankind’s future.

Cooper’s decision to make the trip alienates Murph and he leaves without reconciling things between them. Along with Brand’s daughter and two other scientists, Doyle (Bentley) and Romilly (Gyasi), plus two robots, TARS and CASE, Cooper makes the two year journey to Saturn and then pilots their ship, the Endurance, into the wormhole. Once on the other side, they have to decide which planet to visit first. When they do they find it covered in water, and with wreckage of the manned probe strewn about; by Brand’s calculations and thanks to the difference in time and relativity, they’ve arrived only a few hours after the probe landed. When nearby mountains prove to be an approaching wave of huge proportions, Brand’s determination to retrieve the flight data leads to a member of the team dying before they can escape back to the Endurance.

Back on Earth, a grown up Murph (Chasten) is now working for Professor Brand; she still feels animosity toward Cooper and still hasn’t forgiven him for leaving. With her brother Tom (Affleck) now married and with a child of his own, and still trying to run the farm, she’s taken the place of Brand’s daughter and is working with him on his research. As the situation on Earth worsens, Murph learns that Brand hasn’t been entirely honest about his motivations in sending Cooper et al on their mission.

The second planet reveals a surprise: the scientist who was sent there is still alive. Dr Mann (Damon) is initially pleased to see them, but he behaves oddly, especially when he learns that their mission’s back up plan – to colonise the new planet with specially chosen embryos – is still feasible. He makes an attempt on Cooper’s life and then tries to gain control of the Endurance. His plan fails, but provides Cooper with the opportunity to head back through the wormhole in the hope that he can be reunited with Murph, while also allowing Brand to get to the last remaining planet.

Interstellar - scene

Ambitious, thought-provoking, and visually arresting, Interstellar is Nolan’s ode to 2001: A Space Odyssey, a dazzling sci-fi venture into the unknown that finds itself bogged down by the need to emphasise the human values that make us what we are, while making less of the actual space adventure that takes up so much of its running time. It’s a bold experiment, detailed and rich in its scientific background, but one that leaves many questions unanswered by the movie’s end.

While a degree of ambiguity is no bad thing in a movie, here there’s too many elements and aspects of the script that either don’t make sense or leave the viewer wondering if they’ve missed something. It seems clear that Nolan and co-scripter/brother Jonathan have made a great deal of effort to get the physics right, but they’ve done so at the cost of a consistent narrative. At the movie’s beginning, Cooper is shown as a man with somewhat undeveloped parental skills: a problem with Murph’s attitude at school is resolved by his getting her suspended. He encourages her to scientifically investigate their home’s ghost phenomena, but remains unconvinced of her findings. She’s not exactly an inconvenience to him, but the viewer can see that he’s happier dealing with machines. So when it comes time to leave for space, and he suddenly becomes completely committed to Murph and all misty-eyed over leaving her behind, it comes as a bit of a surprise that she means that much to him (but it does set up a later conflict between Cooper and Brand’s daughter, so maybe that’s why it’s there).

The mission itself is another device that doesn’t work entirely well. Ostensibly, the plan is to find a planet that can sustain human life and that humanity can eventually all travel to (the enormity of such an operation is never discussed though – but hold on, there’s a reason for that too). The back up plan – as noted above – is akin to a kind of Noah’s Ark solution, but again the details of just how these embryos are going to be “grown” is never fully examined. It’s things like these, where the reasons behind the mission are glossed over, that make Interstellar such a frustrating watch for so much of its running time. With so much riding on the mission and its success, and with the whole programme being hidden from the public – though wouldn’t someone have noticed the launch of a rocket ship into space? – the notion that humanity is facing extinction is never quite made to feel like that much of a pressing problem. When events on the first planet prove disastrous, the relative time they’ve spent there means that twenty-three years have passed on Earth. This allows for Chastain’s appearance as the adult Murph, but conditions haven’t changed, and if anything, no one seems any more worried than before. Certainly not the adult Tom, whose life running the farm carries on without comment.

Once on the second planet, the introduction of Damon as the unhinged Dr Mann – an unadvertised performance whose secrecy wasn’t really necessary – lends the movie some unneeded action heroics but also leads to musings on the nature of death and the importance of connecting with our loved ones, particularly our children. It’s an attempt at adding depth to a part of the film that doesn’t need it, and hamstrings what little suspense there is (which basically boils down to when is Mann going to go all psycho on everyone). Damon is good but it’s the predictable nature of his character that hampers the set up and by now the audience can accurately guess just where the movie is heading.

There’s more but a special mention should be made for a scene near the movie’s end, where one character finds themselves dismissed by another character in a matter of a couple of minutes (maybe three). It’s an astonishingly abrupt moment, and one that seems to have been written deliberately that way because the Nolans became conscious of the movie’s running time and needed to wind things up as quickly as possible. It undermines the relationship between the two characters completely and, considering it’s a scene that should carry one hell of an emotional wallop, it has the feel of an outtake that was added back in at the last minute.

interstellar - scene2

While the storyline and the plotting suffer from a consistent inconsistency – if such a thing, like the movie’s appearing-out-of-nowhere wormhole, can be said to exist – Interstellar at least looks stunning, its space travel sequences some of the best since 2001, and has Nolan cannily dispensing with sound effects outside the Endurance. The level of detail is impressive, and Nolan displays his usual knack of framing shots and scenes with an eye for the unusual angle and the beautiful image. He’s a master craftsman and it’s a pleasure to watch him at work – even here where the themes and motifs are not as congruous as they should be. (For his next project, it would be interesting to see Nolan direct someone else’s screenplay, one that he doesn’t get to adapt into something with more of his DNA on it than the writer’s.)

It’s also a pleasure to see Nolan assemble such a great cast. Man of the moment McConaughey is excellent as the tough-minded but ultimately emotionally driven Cooper, and Hathaway also excels in a role that, thankfully, isn’t as generic as it could have been; she also gets to deliver a speech about love that is genuinely moving and something all of us can relate to. As the conflicted adult Murph, Chastain provides an emotional touchstone for the audience in the movie’s latter half, giving a more subtle performance than might be expected, and Caine continues his run of Nolan movies with an appearance that, refreshingly, isn’t as overloaded with the usual heavy handed gravitas that this type of role normally attracts. Lithgow, Affleck, Bentley, Burstyn and Gyasi offer solid support, and Foy matches McConaughey scene for scene at the movie’s beginning.

Interstellar is a big picture that would like to be seen as an important picture, the kind that, back in the Fifties, would have had a roadshow release ahead of its theatrical run. But as mentioned above, there are too many “issues” – the overbearing, intrusive organ-based score by Hans Zimmer, Brand’s most important line in the movie being rendered unintelligible, the design of the robots that changes from scene to scene depending on what they’re needed to do – to allow it to be regarded as truly important. It strives hard to achieve this but as with The Dark Knight Rises (2012), Nolan’s grip on the material is not as strong or as focused as on previous projects. But again, it’s an impressive visual experience and shouldn’t be faulted on that level, but as the good folks at Pixar always say, “It’s all about the story”, and sadly, that’s not the case here.

Rating: 6/10 – best seen on an IMAX screen – though even that will have viewers scratching their heads at Nolan’s choice of shots in the format – Interstellar sets out to be a profound meditation on love and the will to survive, but falls well short of effectively engaging with either concept, except occasionally; technically superb, this is a movie that, despite its star power and exceptional director, won’t remain in the memory for long because, sadly, it lacks the resonance to do so.

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Mini-Review: The Zero Theorem (2013)

22 Saturday Feb 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Christoph Waltz, David Thewlis, Drama, Mathematical equations, Matt Damon, Review, Sci-fi, Terry Gilliam, Tilda Swinton

Zero Theorem, The

D: Terry Gilliam / 107m

Cast: Christoph Waltz, David Thewlis, Mélanie Thierry, Lucas Hedges, Matt Damon, Tilda Swinton

Another dystopian fable from the mind of Terry Gilliam, The Zero Theorem bears a strong relation to Brazil, but lacks that movie’s charm and deft characterisation. Here, Waltz plays Qohen (not Quinn) Leth, a company man who is asked by Management (Damon) to solve the Zero Theorem, a mathematical formula which posits that everything amounts to nothing, or zero. With the help – or is it hindrance? – of Bainsley (Thierry) and Management’s son, Bob (Hedges), Leth does his best to solve the puzzle.

Zero Theorem, The - scene

Made on a predictably small budget, the movie flirts more with ideas than it does engage with them, and there’s a delicate romance in there as well, but it’s all kept in check by the type of narrative ambiguities that make movies like this such a struggle to enjoy and connect with. Gilliam can do this kind of thing in his sleep now and while that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it does seem to limit him as a filmmaker; ultimately it’s the visuals that strike home rather than any emotional heft the story may contribute (one visual conceit is the black hole that represents Leth’s inner turmoil…or is it his soul?…or his demons? Who knows?). It’s a shame then that The Zero Theorem zips along at a good pace, and the laughs, when they come, are very good indeed. Waltz plays the baffled, slightly obsessive Leth with a keen eye for the absurdities his character has to endure, while Thierry makes for an appealing heroine. It’s Thewlis though who steals the movie, mugging throughout but with all the best lines to excuse him. With an ending that reinforces the similarities to Brazil, the movie leaves one thinking that maybe for his next project Gilliam should tackle something that doesn’t depend on weird props and special effects to get itself noticed.

Rating: 6/10 – disappointing and hollow, The Zero Theorem shows Gilliam’s imagination running riot once again, but at the plot’s expense; scattered with flashes of brilliance but too few to elevate the material.

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The Monuments Men (2014)

21 Friday Feb 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Cate Blanchett, George Clooney, Ghent Altarpiece, Hidden treasures, Hugh Bonneville, Jean Dujardin, John Goodman, Madonna of Bruges, Matt Damon, Nazis, Review, Stolen art, True story, World War II

Monuments Men, The

D: George Clooney / 118m

Cast: George Clooney, Matt Damon, Bill Murray, Cate Blanchett, John Goodman, Jean Dujardin, Hugh Bonneville, Bob Balaban, Dimitri Leonidas, Justus von Dohnányi, Holger Handtke

When you see the phrase “Based on a true story” at the beginning of a movie, there’s an expectation that what you’re about to see really happened, and in the way that it’s portrayed.  But the key word is “based”.  The word serves as a get-out clause for filmmakers the world over, so that when anyone criticises a movie for its accuracy they can say it’s not meant to be taken as a de facto retelling of events but as an interpretation.

With The Monuments Men, actor/director and co-scripter Clooney has taken a relatively unknown tale from World War II and – forgive the clumsy analogy – used broad brush strokes to bring it to the screen.  Playing Frank Stokes, we first see him in 1943 canvassing President Roosevelt about the importance of finding and safeguarding the huge amount of art that the Nazis are plundering across Europe, as well as asking for the military’s cooperation in avoiding unnecessary damage to important historical buildings and monuments.  Asked by Roosevelt how many men he needs, Stokes tells him six.

The six men are Americans James Granger (Damon), Richard Campbell (Miurray), Walter Garfield (Goodman), and Preston Savitz (Balaban), plus Brit Donald Jeffries (Bonneville), and Frenchman Jean Claude Clermont (Dujardin).  All six have the skills and the experience Stokes needs to identify, trace and recover the stolen art, and two pieces in particular: Michelangelo’s Madonna of Bruges and Jan van Eyck’s Ghent Altarpiece.  Splitting up to cover as much ground as possible the men set about tracing various treasures and seeking the cooperation necessary to avoid the continued ruinous bombing of buildings such as Monte Cassino.  In this respect, and despite clear orders from Roosevelt, they find themselves rebuffed at every turn.  They have better luck tracing the routes the Nazis are using to hide everything, but they still always seem to be one step behind.

In Paris, Granger is put in touch with Claire Simone (Blanchett).  She has a detailed list of all the artwork and treasures that were stolen by the Nazis in Paris, as well as who they belonged to and where they were to be taken.  Using this list, Stokes and co are able to discover the locations the Nazis chose to hide everything.  With the war now drawing to a close they face a race against time to reach the treasures before the approaching Russians.

Monuments Men, The - scene

The story of the Monuments Men and their achievements makes for a thrilling read but on screen it’s a different matter.  Clooney and co-scripter (and long-time collaborator) Grant Heslov have fashioned a story from the facts that has all the hallmarks of a rush job.  Character development is perfunctory and relies on the actors to fill in the gaps by using established traits: Dujardin flashes the winning smile seen in The Artist, Murray rehashes his bucolic approach to Lost in Translation, and Goodman continues to play the same role he’s played for the last ten years.  In a way it’s a clever approach, a kind of cinematic shorthand to help introduce the characters quickly and then get on with things, but other than the fact that these men all knew (or knew of) each other before coming together, we don’t really get to know them.  As Stokes, Clooney takes a back seat, giving himself a couple of rousing, authoritative speeches, and generally directing traffic – that’s not a criticism, there is an awful lot of poring over maps and working out which direction to take.  Damon and Blanchett struggle to make her initial distrust of Granger credible, while Bonneville’s turn as the plucky Brit using the mission to overcome his drink problem, though one of the (slightly) better performances, is undermined when you realise his drink problem isn’t going to reoccur and jeopardise things.

The movie also jumps about quite a bit as it attempts to cover both time and distance.  The events shown take place between 1943 and the end of the war.  Some scenes, particularly Garfield and Clermont’s encounter with a sniper, seem included for no other reason than they might prove exciting, but this rarely works out.  Clooney tries to instil a sense of urgency, but the timescale defeats him every time.  Even towards the end with the Russians right around the corner and the Madonna of Bruges to be rescued, there’s just no excitement to be had.  And when the team are put in harm’s way, it’s hard to be concerned because a) you don’t care enough them (see previous paragraph) and Clooney’s direction doesn’t stretch itself enough to provide any tension.

What you have then is a strangely flat movie that never really takes off but which, thanks to both the art and Phedon Papamichael’s wonderful photography, looks good and is handsomely mounted.  Clooney does have a good eye for composition, and he uses the camera to good effect throughout but by the end it’s not enough to distract from the disappointment that will have already been felt.  There’s also some misguided humour, along with a few too many one-liners (there are times when the movie skirts perilously close to coming across as a kind of Ocean’s Seven).  One moment, though, that does deserve a mention: Campbell, having received a recording from his daughter, hears it played over the camp tannoy system while in the shower.  As his tears mingle with the water from the shower, it’s an instance of emotional beauty in amongst all that glorious art.

Rating: 6/10 – a missed opportunity, too lacking in focus and without a cohesive script; a great story that will hopefully be revisited at a later date.

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