The short that opens Frozen, entitled Get a Horse!, is easily one of the best Mickey Mouse cartoons Disney Animation has produced in the last few decades. This is Mickey as he hasn’t been seen in years: creative, new, and utterly delightful, and it’s a thrill to see the character as engaging as he is here. It’s a loving tribute to the classic black-and-white Mickey Mouse shorts of the 20s and 30s, even going so far as to incorporate archival recordings of Walt Disney himself as the voice of Mickey, and what makes it particularly special is the way it brings that classic aesthetic into the modern day, incorporating elements not normally associated with the classic cartoons, but that feel right at home. This wonderful blend of tradition with the new is what makes Get a Horse! feel unique as a Disney cartoon and what will make it last as one of the best modern uses of Mickey Mouse.
Which is exactly why it is a perfect companion piece to Frozen, the newest Princess film from Disney Animation. Within its opening moments, Frozen feels amazingly familiar, calling to mind the opening of films like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast. Indeed, the film is traditional in the best ways, the majority of the film feeling like a warm blanket, something snuggly and comforting that you feel like you’ve known your whole life. But there is a smart, very knowing approach to the traditional aspect of Frozen that sets it apart and gives it a heart that is entirely unexpected.
Loosely based on Hans Christian Andersen’s The Snow Queen, Frozen follows Elsa and her sister Anna. Elsa was born with the power to create ice with the flick of her wrist and, as kids, the two would play all kinds of games with it. But when one game ends in a terrible accident, their parents confine Elsa to a life of seclusion in her bedroom until she can learn to harness her abilities. It’s not until Elsa is set to take the throne that she hesitantly steps back into society, but of course, she loses control of her powers, accidentally sending the kingdom into an eternal winter. Elsa runs into the mountains, convinced she does not belong with anyone, so it’s up to her sister, Anna, to find her and save the kingdom.
Frozen looks, sounds, and acts like a basic Disney Princess tale for the first third of the film, and beautifully so. The Broadway-like quality the 90s resurgence of Disney musicals is known for is on full display here. The first two numbers are wonderful, full of the charm and wit audiences hope for coming from Disney, but it’s the third number, “For the First Time in Forever,” in which Anna excitedly sings about being around people for the first time in years and her sister, Elsa, nervously attempts to collect her mind and emotions so she can be the perfect young woman people expect her to be, that makes it clear that co-directors Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, as well as songwriters Robert Lopez and Kristen Anderson-Lopez, are pushing for greatness. It’s a beautiful song, one of the film’s best, perfectly encapsulating the emotion and the longing of the best Disney musicals, but more importantly, it marks the point where the film strives to be something new. From that point on, the story maintains the basic shape of a classic Disney fairy tale while eschewing it in such a way that it becomes something altogether new and extraordinary, playing off of audience expectations rather than into them and it’s hard to argue with the results.
Coming off of The Princess and the Frog, Tangled, and Brave, Disney seems to be very mindful of how they are portraying young women in their films. They have long been known to portray their female characters as women to be saved and/or goals to be attained by the male characters, and Frozen feels like the perfect remedy to those portrayals. While I adore the character of Merida from Pixar’s Brave, I am fully willing to admit that she feels like a rather dramatic push against type simply to be more PC. She’s practically a superhero, a young woman who not only can save herself, but makes a point to reject men almost entirely. Which is good, but not exactly average.
Anna, however, feels like one of the most ordinary girls imaginable. She’s kind of scrappy, a little awkward, and slightly naive, but she’s strong where it counts. Buck, Lee, Lopez, and Anderson-Lopez give these characters room to live and breathe on their own, to be their own people rather than the characters the genre stipulates they should be, and it culminates in the film’s best, most uplifting number, “Let It Go.” Sung by Elsa after she accidentally sends the kingdom into eternal winter, this moment would normally be played as the character’s low point, and, indeed, it at first feels that way. But within moments, that feeling dissipates and the song becomes freeing and empowering, a beautiful moment where the character is finally able to be herself. It’s a show-stopping number that is bound to bring the house down in Disney’s inevitable Broadway adaptation of the film and it perfectly portrays the understanding the filmmakers have of how these films typically work and how they twist those notions for maximum effect.
Anna and Elsa only have each other and it’s their love for one another that marks the film as something unique, something more than just another Disney fairy tale. That’s not to say that romantic counterparts don’t play a part in the story, but they don’t define these women nearly as much as their relationship to each other does. It’s the kind of sisterly bond rarely seen in film, let alone Disney Princess movies, and it’s handled with a finesse and delicacy here that makes it feel entirely organic to the story and characters, wearing a distinctly feminist cap, but without drawing attention to itself. It makes for a wonderful approach to the story, empowering to not only be themselves, but to not be afraid to take solace in each other, and that kind of message is important for girls of all ages to see.
Visually, the film is gorgeous, the characters cartoony without feeling out of place in some astonishing backdrops, and the 3D is fine, if not exactly necessary. (The only point to see Frozen in 3D is to do the opening short the full justice it deserves [you won’t be sorry you did.]) On a technical level it’s arguably on par with Pixar. But that is not the draw of Frozen, nor should it be. Instead, it’s the story, the characters, and the music that matter the most, that hit the hardest. I think a little more time could have been spent with Elsa and the film could probably use one more song, especially as a clincher to leave the audience humming on their way out the door, but complaints that I wanted to spend more time with the characters the filmmakers created or that I could have one more song to listen to on repeat are the best complaints to have.
With Tangled, Wreck-It Ralph, and now Frozen, Disney Animation is hitting a stride with the fervor of Pixar at their finest and it’s exciting to see them come back into form. Frozen is a fantastic film and one that will sit perfectly on a shelf next right next to Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid.
I almost feel uncomfortable writing anything about Ender’s Game. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding the film leading up to its release due to Orson Scott Card’s involvement. As the author of the original novel, it’s natural to assume that Card will benefit from any success the film has. Not because of ticket sales, necessarily, but because the film will no doubt attract audiences to the source material. That normally isn’t a bad thing, but Card has been very vocal about how he is anti-gay marriage and how he actively supports/funds anti-gay rights groups, giving the whole project a very negative stigma. Lionsgate has gone out of their way to disassociate themselves and the film from Card, holding gay rights fundraisers and publically denouncing any of Card’s creative involvement with the film, but many people have been very vocal about boycotting the film and refusing to see it. Now, I totally understand and sympathize with that, but at the same time, I think it’s important to separate the people from their work. What people do in their personal lives should have no bearing on the final product as long as the product stands on its own. It’s the same reason I feel like I’m constantly defending my enjoyment of Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson films. I may disagree with them as people, but their work, the material they are sending out into the world for audiences to consume, is what really matters. And as long as it doesn’t carry the same offensive quality, I’m willing to put anything aside for the sake of the material.
I say all of this because, while I supremely disagree with Orson Scott Card’s very vocal political stance, I found Ender’s Game to be surprisingly enjoyable.
I feel like a lot of what will determine how people react to Ender’s Game, aside from any political agenda, will largely depend on how they grew up, and I don’t mean that in terms of nostalgia. From the film’s opening moments, the story is absolutely entrenched in video game culture. Kids play video games in the form of war simulations in a way that is practically second nature, grasping the intricacies of battle tactics with the speed adults could never reach. They play a variation of laser tag in zero G that is as fun to them as it is challenging. They practically live in virtual worlds that have little to no real world ramifications. In other words, the kids in the world of Ender’s Game are extensions of the generation of kids who grew up playing Nintendo, who can pick up a brand new video game and immediately know how it works, who can get a new gadget and completely understand it in a matter of minutes. These are kids who I, and many people my age, will immediately relate to.
Set in the distant future after humans have been attacked by an alien species and barely managed to scrape by alive, the International Military have turned their sights to the world’s youth. Due to their speed and intuition that well outpaces that of adults, the best and brightest kids are selected and trained to head the fight against another upcoming invasion.
Asa Butterfield, known primarily for his work in Martin Scorsese’s Hugo, plays Ender Wiggin, a smart, often times coldhearted kid with a knack for strategy and a slight penchant for violence. He’s an outcast, a socially inept misfit who never quite fits in, but what he lacks in social grace he more than makes up for in a strong sense of leadership. He knows who to befriend and who to kick in the ribs to gain the upper hand and it’s his calculated nature that draws the attention of Colonel Graff, who quickly pulls Ender from training to put him front and center in various war simulations to one day lead the fight against the invading alien forces.
Video games are an easy thing to get wrong in films. More often than not the filmmakers either don’t understand them or present them in a way that is nothing if not condescending, making them out to be either juvenile or pointless. So it surprises me how right the video games in the world of Ender’s Game feel. Yes, they are used as entertainment by the characters, but the film also shows what can be gained by playing games and what they can invariably say about the people who play them. I have no idea how close the film is to the original novel, but the story acts as a poignant examination of what most video games really entail and how we digest that material, twisting our understanding of what it means to play something like Call of Duty for hours on end. It’s the kind of moral quandary I would never have expected to come from a story aimed at teens that was written in the 80s, especially given how modern the film comes across. This is as much an examination of our modern video game culture as it is a slam against military tactics and it’s the exact kind of approach I love from hard sci-fi. It doesn’t pull any punches or shy away from the ugly truth of the entire situation, instead choosing to play the situation as real and honestly as possible.
That said, I don’t think a history of gaming is necessary to appreciate what the film has to say. This is the type of film that seems to be made for a very specific group of people within a very specific generation, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to follow or understand the point being made unless you fall into that specific subset of people; it just may not mean as much. With a history of gaming, the film’s finale packs a bit of a personal punch, not only altering everything that came before, but questioning what it means to play games. Without that history, it will still be a pleasant surprise, but it will probably be a bit of a shrug, an interesting concept without any lasting impact. But that’s not a bad thing! When filmmakers try to please everyone, they many times end up pleasing no one, falling into a bland gray area that fails to provoke on any level. So by aiming at a specific audience, the film has a distinct point of view. It’s a smart choice, one that allows the film to create a nice energy and exist on its own merits, and it’s something I wish more of these teen based movies would do.
However, as much as I enjoy what the film has to say about video games, it does feel a bit rushed. The film moves at a nice clip, jumping from set piece to set piece without ever being boring or repetitive, but it feels breathless, never giving Ender or the audience a chance to sit and breathe. Which is a shame because the scenes between Ender and his various fellow crewmembers are some of my favorite moments. Not only are characters like Bean, Alai, Bonzo, and Petra nice foils to Ender’s coldhearted nature, but they are the moments where Butterfield feels the most natural. I love that director Gavin Hood decided to actually cast kids to play kids, but it is a bit of a detriment at times and especially with Butterfield. He’s fine, but he always feels a little stiff, like he’s a trying a bit too hard to play a calculated sonofabitch. I never quite buy him as being angry or misunderstood, but when he is playing opposite Hailee Steinfeld as Petra or Moises Arias as Bonzo, he lights up. Those are the moments where he feels like he really is in control, where the warmth begins to creep in under the surface, and I would have preferred more time to see that side of him, as well as to see more of those other characters. Steinfeld is great as Petra, a tough, girl next door type, and Arias, hot off his amazing turn as the hilarious and lovable Biaggio in Kings of Summer, is strong as Bonzo, but neither of them are given enough screen time to make their characters feel like more than cutouts.
Pretty much the same thing can be said about the adults in the film, but as the film is about the kids first and foremost, it’s not as big a problem. Viola Davis and Ben Kingsley are strong, if under utilized, and Harrison Ford seems to be wide-awake for the first time in years, playing the crotchety Colonel Graff. They each serve their purpose and while none of them are given much to do, they play their roles well.
This is the first time I can think of where I’ve seen a visual effects house get an opening title card alongside the production and distribution studios, but it’s more than earned. Digital Domain did the effects for the film and it’s stunning. The vast space shots, the zero G training arena, the war simulations, everything looks amazing. And the action is actually compelling, which is more than surprising given Gavin Hood’s previous work on the utterly atrocious X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The way he and Digital Domain shift the battle tactics between species is nice, well-observed work and it keeps the battle scenes dynamic and interesting.
Is the film great? No. I have more than my fair share of problems with the film, but more of Ender’s Game works for me than doesn’t. It’s entertaining, it has lots of silly names, and it actually has something worth saying. To be perfectly straight, I had a huge grin on my face the majority of the time, and considering my hesitation, it’s more than I could have asked for. Believe it or not, Ender’s Game left me curious and excited to see the next chapter in the series. Whether or not that happens remains to be seen, but for now, I’m excited that this film works as well as it does.
I have to admit that I was not exactly looking forward to Carrie when it was first announced. As a fan of Brian De Palma’s original adaptation from 1976, the prospect of remaking it for modern audiences initially made me cringe, flashes of Rob Zombie’s terrible Halloween remake immediately coming to mind. But as Kimberly Peirce, Chloe Moretz, and Julianne Moore all became attached to the project, my hesitance began to wane. I still wasn’t particularly excited about seeing yet another remake of a classic film, but it seemed like with that kind of talent, perhaps something deeper was going on and they actually had a reason to retell the story.
I’m all for remaking films when there is a point to it. Just look at John Carpenter’s The Thing from 1982 or David Cronenberg’s The Fly from 1986. Those are not only two of the best remakes ever made, but they are two of the best horror films of all time and that is precisely because they take their respective source materials and twist them into something completely new. By approaching the material from a completely different angle, Carpenter and Cronenberg made films that were not only deeply unsettling and entirely memorable, but that worked perfectly as their own entities, never leaning on what the original films they are both based on did before them. And with Kimberly Peirce, the director of the powerful and devastating Boys Don’t Cry, behind Carrie, I hoped it would be an example like The Thing or The Fly, a film that used the original material as a springboard to make something completely new for a contemporary audience.
Unfortunately, one of the only good things I can bring myself to say about Kimberly Peirce’s new iteration of Carrie is that it desperately made me want to revisit Brian De Palma’s original adaptation from 1976. This newest version of Carrie is more an adaptation of that original film than Stephen King’s novel. It’s a remake that is far too beholden to what was done with the material before as to render it completely pointless, not only telling the exact same story in the exact same way, but adding almost nothing new to the conversation, a prospect which utterly baffles me.
In our current social climate where the spotlight is being shown on bullies more than ever, with people discussing how kids are prodding each other with the help of social media and what that sadly leads kids to do either to themselves or to others in retaliation, it makes perfect sense to approach Carrie from a modern point of view, to tell the story of a tormented girl in a modern context. But that’s not what Peirce and screenwriters Lawrence Cohen and Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa do here. Carrie is the straightest of remakes, strictly adhering to the structure of the original film to the point that it’s practically a carbon copy. The bullying isn’t presented through a modern filter, the kids don’t act any different, and social media is hardly even a factor, a footnote of contemporary life in what otherwise feels almost old-fashioned. In staying so close to De Palma’s original vision, the events of Carrie feel false for a modern setting, completely ignoring exactly what makes bullying in the modern age so effective. It’s not just physical abuse that can drive kids nowadays to throw their hands in the air and either give up or fight back; it’s the psychological abuse. And without that key factor, by not making these kids wear Carrie White down mentally as much as they do physically, the film feels far removed from the reality of what kids face in our modern age.
Normally this wouldn’t bother me so much. I’m willing to suspend as much disbelief as possible to go along with a movie to see where it goes so long as it stays true to its own internal logic. Just look at Brian De Palma’s Carrie. The students in that film are completely unrecognizable as normal human beings. They are made to be the biggest of assholes, absolute scum of the earth, but that whole film is highly stylized to accentuate Carrie’s seclusion and how out of place she is. It may not make sense in terms of our reality, but it makes perfect sense for the reality the film creates. Kimberly Peirce’s Carrie, however, muddies the ground between stylization and grounded reality. Because it is trying so hard to be De Palma’s film, the students who bully Carrie are made to be awful, awful people, but Peirce simultaneously tries to humanize them, showing their panic and regret once things get terribly out of hand. It gives the film an oddly misshapen feeling, nobody coming across as terribly consistent except for Carrie, her mother, and Sue Snell, the girl who feels bad for Carrie. It becomes most apparent during the prom sequence, where students readily accept the newly made over Carrie only to turn around and have a good laugh at her expense at the drop of a hat. It rings false and it perfectly exemplifies the middling nature of the film. It’s too exaggerated to feel real and it’s too grounded to have any teeth, so it ends up staggering around, never quite sure where it wants to fall.
As for the famous prom sequence, it’s fine. It’s obviously made to be a lot bigger and much more violent than what was capable of anyone in the 70s, but it feels a little hollow. The whole finale after the pig’s blood is dropped on Carrie’s head is the one area of the story Peirce and the writers decide to veer from the original film and it is good work, with plenty of strong ideas of how to creatively kill off characters using telekinesis. There are some great gags and two fantastically gruesome shots of characters being pulverized in slow motion, but it merely comes across as empty spectacle. The finale is the one section the writers seem truly interested in, going all out to make Carrie violent and scary, and it still feels unearned, as if everything that comes before it was simply done as quickly and easily as possible to get to what they really wanted to do. I have no doubt that a lot of that blame probably comes to down to studio involvement in some form, but it ends up giving the whole film the stigma that it was simply made for that one sequence alone and it left something of a sour taste in my mouth.
Chloe Moretz and Julianne Moore, as Carrie and her overly religious mother, Margaret, respectively, are the two best things about the film and if there is one thing Peirce gets absolutely right, it’s their relationship. Moore is great as a religious fanatic, playing up the crazy without going over the top, and while I had reservations about Moretz in the titular role, mainly because she seems too pretty to be made an outcast, she nicely counterbalances it with some terrific physical acting, embodying Carrie’s awkward nature through her posture and the way she averts her eyes. They both do wonderful work that is at once subtle and larger-than-life and Peirce perfectly nails the underlying sadness inherent to their relationship, really accentuating the growing barrier between the two of them, Carrie becoming her own woman and her mother desperate to maintain her dominance in the relationship. It’s the one area I wish Peirce had pushed to explore further as those smaller, more human moments are the most engaging parts of the film and where her talent really excels. The rest feels more like an experiment for Peirce, a place for her to stretch her wings and see what else she is capable of, and the result is a mixed bag, a film that is perfectly competent, but does nothing to warrant remaking a classic.
I don’t get why this version of Carrie exists aside from making money off of a pre-established name, to be quite frank. It does nothing new, adds nothing to the larger conversation, and ends up feeling like nothing more than a retread. It’s a remake in the purest sense, simply giving audiences the iconography they expect with gussied up effects. Given my initial expectation, that’s about what I expected. But given the talent involved, especially Kimberly Peirce taking the helm, it’s a huge let down. I wanted the film to surprise me. I wanted to see Carrie White made into a cautionary tale for the modern age. I wanted the story to be as relevant today as it could and should be. Maybe that was just too much to ask for.
It’s not until fairly recently that I began finding myself fascinated by outer space. It was a topic that always eluded me throughout high school and college, something that I found more interesting to ponder than actually study, but now that I find myself done with school and in a menial, mind-numbing job, the universe as a whole has never seemed more appealing. I’ve devoured more science books, podcasts, television shows, and documentaries in the past few months than I did during my entire high school and college education combined and I still feel like I only have the slightest understanding of what the universe really entails. It’s a vast, seemingly endless horizon of opportunity and discovery, full of worlds that we can’t even begin to imagine or comprehend. Save for the farthest depths of the ocean, space really is the final frontier, the one area where humanity has yet to even scratch the surface, and that romantic calling of the unknown, of the possibilities of what else could be found throughout the universe (not to mention just the awe-inspiring images that can be and have been captured), is what I find so appealing and endlessly fascinating.
But then you have the darker, more dangerous, and far more realistic flipside of space: it is completely inhospitable to any living creature. As much as I have quickly grown to love and adore outer space, the danger, the idea that the only thing keeping humans alive in the vacuum of space is a few inches of glass, metal, and various other materials, absolutely terrifies me. Humans do not belong in the endless black void of outer space no matter how technologically advanced we are. As fascinated as I am by the prospect of the unknown universe and the beauty it is so readily capable of, I honestly don’t think I could ever do what any astronaut does when they enter a rocket and leave the earth’s atmosphere, putting their lives in the hands of their partners and their own ingenuity.
Gravity is the perfect encapsulation of both of those mindsets.
Director Alfonso Cuaron has created a film that both romanticizes and displays the harsh truth of space, showcasing pure beauty in what is easily one of the scariest scenarios I have seen on film in years. The film constantly shifts from quiet serenity, to hair-raising enormity, and back to majestic beauty within minutes, sometimes seconds, of each other. It’s a deft balance and Cuaron handles it like a master, the sense of scale never proving to be too much for him. One of my favorite moments comes later in the film, with Sandra Bullock’s character, Ryan Stone, struggling to beat the fading light of the setting sun against the silhouette of the earth. Cuaron plays the scene for maximum tension, implying the dangers of the freezing darkness through quickly frosting glass. It’s the first time the simple act of the sun setting ever felt so life threatening and, like the majority of the film, it had me on the edge of my seat. But when the sun finally sets and the danger of death looms ever closer, the earth slowly rotates, the camera slightly shifts, and the most astonishing depiction of aurora borealis gradually appears from the side of the screen. It’s a moment of such surprising grace, mere moments after fearing for the life of the main character, that it took my breath away. It’s moments like this that embody Cuaron’s approach to space in Gravity. There is wonder to be found in the face of death, he seems to be saying, and those are the reasons that make risking our lives by traveling into a place that does not want us worth it. It may seem foolhardy, but it gives humanity a better sense of what we really amount to. And that is where the 3D gives the film an immense push.
The way Cuaron utilizes 3D technology in Gravity, coupled with an IMAX screen, is absolutely astonishing. He fills the film with countless shots of the earth in silhouette against the stars or the sun, and while our planet may seem huge from the given vantage point of the main characters, the 3D and size of the IMAX screen make it feel exceedingly small against the deep backdrop of nothing. And many times tucked away into the corners are the humans, trying to desperately to survive, hardly showing up as blips against the stars and the planet we call home. It’s sheer enormity as pure spectacle, but it gives the film and the audience some very poignant perspective. In emphasizing scale through the use of 3D, Cuaron also emphasizes the loneliness and isolation of outer space. Up there, humans have nothing but their life-sustaining suits, their cramped up space stations, and each other. And aside from the surface of the earth, which is hundreds of miles away, there is absolutely nothing for millions of miles. We, humanity, are alone. The conclusions to be made from that are, I think, to be left to the individual, but I love that it prompts discussion. It’s subtle, and it may very well be me reading into the contents of the film’s images far more than it wants the audience to, but it’s a heady idea to throw into something that could be approached from a purely visceral perspective.
And, of course, the film is being touted as a suspenseful action/thriller and in that sense alone the film is a huge success. The “action scenes,” for lack of a better term, are hugely engrossing and the 3D only adds to the already wildly dizzying approach Cuaron takes to shooting the film. Rather than using the standard shot/reverse shot mold, cutting between characters and scenes, Cuaron presents the film in a series of extra long takes, the camera floating from moment to moment, character to character. It serves to let the audience experience the events of the film the same way the characters do and the 3D, once again, enhances the scenes and the imagery. The opening 20 minutes alone are a single, extended shot, the camera weaving, floating, and rotating between points of interest and it made me physically anxious. I’m not one to be terribly effected by watching films in the theatre, but within minutes of the film’s opening, I could feel my heart pounding in my chest through sheer sensory overload. It’s a brilliant effect and on a pure technical level, I still find myself wondering just how a lot of the film was even possible. It’s pure artistry on a grand level, but, as per usual, as impressively grandiose as the imagery and technical acumen on display are, the story is what I keep finding myself returning to in my mind.
Now, I have specifically have shied away from talking about the story up until now for good reason. Gravity is an experience. It is a film best seen knowing next to nothing. The cleaner you are of any pre-conceived notions, the better off you’ll be, and as such, to give anything away would be doing everyone a disservice. But let it be said that the story revolving around Sandra Bullock’s Ryan Stone is something that caught me off guard. Yes, it’s a story of survival, of being pushed to your limits, of looking death in the eye, but Cuaron and his son, Jonas, have written a fully formed female character going through so much more than a simple life or death situation. Without being explicit, the film is about rebirth, about going through hell to come out renewed and with a fresh outlook on life, about the courage and strength it takes to change. It’s astoundingly warm and heartfelt and it gives the film’s cold atmosphere a resounding sense of hope.
Bullock is outstanding as Stone. She plays the hidden strength well, that potential constantly pushed to the background as her hesitance takes over, but it’s her vulnerability on display that blows me away. There is a scene towards the end of the film where Stone tries to use a radio to contact anyone who can hear her that slowly ebbs into her breaking down that utterly destroyed me. It’s a beautifully written scene, the Cuarons putting a pinpoint on an emotion revolving around the simplest of things, and Bullock plays it to the T. Stone is a character who reminds me a lot of Ripley from Ridley Scott’s Alien. They are both strong women in a man’s world, but where Ripley is almost all guts, a woman defined by her equality to men, Stone is a character defined by her faults and inadequacies. She’s not perfect. She has a lot to learn, a lot of personal problems she needs to work through, and the script and Bullock smartly never play it as weakness, at least not fully. It may somewhat hold her back, but it is simultaneously what gives her strength in the end. Not a man telling her what to do, not the imposing threat of death, but her own psyche. It’s wonderfully complex and Bullock perfectly lives up to and even elevates the script, giving the sci-fi genre, and film in general, what I think will end up being one of the best female characters ever put to screen.
I could go on for days discussing everything I love about Gravity. I didn’t even mention George Clooney, the amazingly propulsive score by Steven Price, or any of the specific scenes or moments best experienced before talking about them. But suffice to say that Gravity is something special, quite possibly the event of the year. Some people may complain about it not exactly being the subtlest of films, but when everything around it is so damn good, subtlety is the least of my worries. Upon the film’s beautiful, hopeful final shot, I found myself exhausted and hugely satisfied by what I just experienced. It’s inventive, it’s entertaining, it’s new, and within minutes I was already itching to see it again. But the further I get from the film, the more I love, appreciate, and understand the breadth of just what Alfonso Cuaron accomplished with this film. He did not just make a heart-pounding blockbuster. He has singlehandedly pushed the medium forward, forever altering our view of what film is capable of.
Gravity is unlike anything you or I have seen before. And as hyperbolic as that sounds, this one is going to stick.
What is the attraction of smirking in the face of death? What pushes some people to put their life on the line for what ultimately amounts to entertainment? Just what is so fascinating about watching people drive in circles to see who can do it the fastest?
These are the kinds of things I wonder when I see NASCAR or F1 or the Indy 500 or any sort of racing on television or in movies. The simple act of going fast has never really appealed to me and as such it takes a lot for driving sequences in movies to capture my imagination. I enjoy the type of driving presented in the Fast and Furious series (ie, driving that is not physically possible in the real world) precisely because of how over the top it is, but I’ve never been one to just pop in something like Mad Max, a movie that, while stylized and exaggerated, is based more on real world physical limitations. I appreciate the stunt work that goes into shooting such sequences, but I mostly find myself bored with driving, especially sports racing.
So it surprises me just how much I love Rush, the new film from Ron Howard that tells the true story of a several years-long rivalry between two F1 racers, James Hunt and Niki Lauda, in the 1970s.
One of the film’s opening images is of Hunt and Lauda on the racetrack, patiently waiting for the race to begin. On one side you have Hunt, a young British driver with devilishly good looks, happily taking pictures with some female fans as he slyly flirts and basks in the glow of fame. On the other side you have Lauda, an Austrian driver with a stern look on his face, quietly sitting in his car contemplating. It’s a stark image, one that quickly and succinctly defines who these people are and how they are perceived, but Howard and screenwriter Peter Morgan use the film to slowly chip away at who Hunt and Lauda are beneath those facades, to show how similar they are despite their enormous differences.
Hunt is a man who craves adrenaline, who doesn’t feel like he’s living unless he’s pushing at the boundaries full-throttle, and it carries over into his personal life as he leapfrogs from relationship to relationship, unable to settle down. Lauda, meanwhile, is a man who, after pulling away from his domineering father, strives to prove that he is strong and capable, sacrificing any sense of amiability in exchange for power, and the result is a life of quiet solitude. The two characters seem to be diametrically opposed to one another, but their equal goal to be F1 World Champion is what brings them together. They have a wonderful push and pull dynamic, both of them driving each other insane while pushing each other to try harder and drive faster. They are just as likely to bring each other to fumes as inspire one another, and it is this constantly fluctuating dynamic that marks the film as something special.
There is an easy way to make Rush. At its heart, it could easily be a standard black and white, good versus evil story. Simply make a few tweaks and one character becomes a hero (probably Hunt, the hunky, charming young Englishman) and the other a villain (probably Lauda, the cold, unfeeling Austrian) and Good would inevitably triumph over Evil. It clearly could have been yet another byproduct of the Hollywood machine, but Howard and Morgan have taken that very basic concept and molded it into something incredibly mature. These are men who are flawed and complex, neither of them ever fully encapsulating the notions of “right” or “wrong.” They are simply who they are, making decisions based on circumstances rather than who they should be, and as a result, audience sympathies shift multiple times throughout the film. It’s a truly engaging way to present the characters, never pinning them down to one single corner, and it makes their respective arcs feel nuanced and earned.
Chris Hemsworth is impressive as James Hunt, showing a much larger range than anything we’ve seen from him before, and the way he ever so slightly tweaks his natural charm to come off as a total prick is fantastic. But the way he dons his affability as a guise is what is most noteworthy. Hunt is a bundle of nerves, a sack of pent-up nervous energy. He pukes before races and constantly flicks a gold lighter behind his back or under tables, but the second he is on the spot, out comes the biggest, most charming smile imaginable. The way Hemsworth naturally shifts back and forth between these two faces is truly great and it makes me excited to see what else he is capable of. Daniel Bruhl as Niki Lauda, however, is probably the best thing about the film. Lauda is a thinker, a strategist, a man who takes racing very seriously, and the way Bruhl plays up his methodical, somewhat cold nature is wonderfully subtle. It’s common to love him and abruptly hate him in a moment’s notice throughout the film. The reluctant warmth he portrays when Lauda meets his eventual wife, however, is what gives Lauda a soul, swiftly changing him from a character you love to hate into arguably the most sympathetic character of the film.
About the one area the story somewhat falters is in terms of the women in the lives of the two central characters. Olivia Wilde plays Suzy, Hunt’s very brief wife, and Alexandra Maria Lara plays Marlene, Lauda’s supportive wife. They are both fine in their respective roles, but neither of them is really given much to do. Their screen time is very limited, so they end up acting as symbols of where their lives could be or what they have to lose than real characters. It’s something that will inevitably bother some people, and while it is a bit of a misstep, it falls perfectly in line with who Hunt and Lauda are and what they value. Both of them are almost entirely singleminded, their focuses pulled directly towards the World Champion trophy, and the women in their lives are inevitably pushed to the side, mere obstacles for them to dodge on their way to the gold. I maybe would have liked to have seen more of Suzy and Marlene and how they react to what their husbands are putting themselves through, but it’s hard to deny that the way they are presented is thematically apt.
But of course, to focus solely on the character work would be doing a huge disservice to the fantastic action Howard has put together for the film. The races in Rush are exciting, exhilarating, and, quite frankly, absolutely terrifying. He shoots them in such a way that they are slowly seen more and more from the driver’s perspective as the film progresses, and while I never really “got” professional racing, I now fully understand it. Howard emphasizes the strategy and the intuition that go into successfully winning a race, giving the entire sport a whole new dimension that most people may not be aware of. Drivers have to know when to speed up, when to slow down, how sharp to take a turn, when to drive offensively and cut someone off, when to drive defensively and keep other drivers from passing, but it’s all explained through simply showing the races without anyone every giving a lecture on the intricacies of the sport. And when Howard goes into the cockpit, showing the race from the perspective of a driver, it becomes immediately clear just how dangerous it is and just how thrilling that can be. It’s very smartly crafted and in making the audience care for both Hunt and Lauda, the races are given an extra ounce of tension, the audience never quite sure who to root for.
Rush may be the most surprising film I’ve seen all year. I can’t say I expected much; spectator racing is one of the many sports that I’ve never understood up until now. But director Ron Howard imbues the film with such raw intensity and screenwriter Peter Morgan gives the characters such depth and complexity that I didn’t just like it, but effectively loved it. The roar of an engine has never sounding so appealing to me before now. But what is perhaps most surprising is how rare the film feels. Taken separately, the action and the story of Rush would work perfectly fine. Story wise, you have a very pointed character drama; action wise, you have a great Hollywood blockbuster. But together, they meld to create something fun and wholly adult, a type of film so rarely seen coming from Hollywood anymore. It’s a refreshing change and the fact that the film is so good and so well made makes it feel like an event.
Insidious: Chapter 2’s intent seems to be the antithesis of director James Wan’s most recent outing, The Conjuring. In some ways, Insidious: Chapter 2 is even fairly opposite of what the first Insidious goes for. The Conjuring is a full-blown exercise in restraint, maximizing its scares while providing the most minimal visual cues possible. It’s a film practically built on the theatre of the mind, suggesting terrifying images through sound effects and dialogue more than actually showing them. The first Insidious takes a different approach, presenting a fun house style horror film, building its scares on things jumping out and yelling, “Boo!” while still maintaining a relatively tense atmosphere. Insidious: Chapter 2, however, seems to take the kitchen sink approach. It feels like Wan is throwing as many images, ideas, and horror tropes at the screen as he can to see what sticks and the result is a bit of a mixed bag.
I get the feeling Insidious: Chapter 2 is going to lose more fans than it will make and that is almost by design. The story takes place relatively soon after the events of the first film, the Lamberts recovering from their son’s pass with demonic ghosts, and the father/husband, Josh, per the first film’s final moments, is not quite himself. To his wife, Renai, he seems colder and more distant and when paranormal entities begin wreaking havoc once again, he is completely ignorant of anything and everything. The past may be coming back to haunt them even more than anybody imagined and what began as a simple haunting may run far deeper.
Wan crafts this sequel in such a way that the two films together become something of a puzzle box. Chapter 2 is full of references, callbacks, and even some direct lifts from the first Insidious in order to connect the two, and I admire how much Wan clearly respects his audience. He doesn’t constantly reiterate information from the first film or beat home certain ideas, instead relying on the audience to recall everything that came before. It’s something hardly seen anymore in Hollywood sequels, especially ones as intrinsically tied to the original film as this one is, and it allows Wan and his frequent collaborator/screenwriter, Leigh Whannell, to start the film at a gallop, immediately introducing new ideas and concepts. The problem is that unless you are amazingly familiar with the first Insidious, Chapter 2 is nigh impenetrable. I haven’t watched Insidious since last Halloween, but I have seen it a few times; I consider myself a fan of that first film. And yet I still find myself feeling a bit lost as to who certain characters are or why certain information is spoken about as if it’s common knowledge. It’s a little too dense and steeped in its own mythology for its own good, occasionally straining under the weight of its ambition, and it ends up detracting from what is otherwise a cool, if decidedly weird, story.
Wan and Whannell have taken the very simple story of the first film and approached it from the most obscure angle imaginable for Chapter 2. I won’t go into specifics as that would essentially ruin the whole point of the film, but they add twists and eccentricities that give the film a surprisingly playful spirit. They don’t always work and some of the dots don’t quite connect as clearly as I’m sure Wan and Whannell expect them to, but it’s such an oddball way to confront a sequel that I can’t help but grin and respect them for it, at the very least. It’s something different and when given the choice between that and a simple rehash of the first film, I’d take different any day.
The scares do suffer because of the storytelling, however. Wan and Whannell have placed such an emphasis on creating a complex structure that the scares are given less time to develop and what we’re left with is an overabundance of jump scares without any of the atmosphere. I don’t find the first Insidious particularly scary, but I enjoy the way that film builds tension, creating a nervous, anxious energy that primes the audience to watch every corner of the screen, ready for anything to jump around the corner; an energy that Chapter 2 completely lacks. Wan may literally hurl objects at the screen and use the loudest music stings imaginable to elicit jumps, but none of it gives the film a pulse. It’s viscerally and emotionally limp, the horror equivalent of a wet noodle. Of course, it doesn’t help that substantially more time is spent in The Further this time than last, the limbo/afterlife Josh and his son, Dalton, are able to traverse, and just like the first film, this whole section is the worst, most boring part of the film. I’ve already gone on the record about why The Further doesn’t work for me, but suffice it to say that after seeing how capable Wan is at eliciting pure dread and terror by showing absolutely nothing in The Conjuring, the extended use of The Further in Chapter 2 feels like a step back.
The cast is strong throughout. The way Patrick Wilson skews his natural affability into something dark and destructive for Josh is inspired and while Rose Byrne does not have much to do as Renai other than scream and cower in fear, she is good in the role, lending a nice motherly quality to her character. Barbara Hershey is given more screen time here than in the first film and she is wonderful as Lorraine, Josh’s mother. Hershey is no stranger to horror films and she brings a nice air of experience to Lorraine, a woman who is proactive in ridding her family’s life of ghostly hauntings. And, once again, Leigh Whannell and Angus Sampson singlehandedly steal the show in their bit parts as Specs and Tucker, the two bumbling paranormal investigators from the first film. On a technical level, the film is fine. But 24 hours later I can already feel it slipping from my memory.
I believe James Wan is one of the best directors working in horror today. He has an eye and an ear for the genre, knowing how to turn the screw just enough to build tension and punctuate it with a perfectly timed scare and I eagerly await his future projects; The Conjuring alone seals that. But Insidious: Chapter 2 feels like it will ultimately amount to one of his minor films. It’s fun and at times delightfully off-the-wall, but it’s more miss than hit, a horror sequel that goes big but falls short.
Over the span of two movies, the Riddick series quickly went from interesting sci-fi romp to within arms reach of atrocious. Pitch Black, the first film in the Riddick series, is a strong little sci-fi film, punchy and perfectly self-contained, and its sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick, is hugely flawed and wrong-headed in the way it broadens the mythology of the universe. It has some great elements and imagery, but it’s an overblown mess of a film, its ambition far outweighing its coherent world building. Bigger does not always mean better, and Chronicles of Riddick is a perfect example of that. But these are films about big concepts and sequences rather than big ideas, and approached as such, I like the character and the world writer/director David Twohy and muscle-head/mush-mouth Vin Diesel have created. The films are uneven and in no way the best examples of what sci-fi can be, but when they work, they’re pulpy fun. So the fact that Riddick, a sequel to an artistic and financial disappointment from 2004, even exists makes me smile. But I’m of two minds about the final product.
Twohy and Diesel have been pulling to get Riddick made for years and in that time they have taken to heart all of the problems audiences had with Chronicles. This time out they have stepped away from the bombast of the second film in order to return to the smaller, more confined storytelling of Pitch Black and that is theoretically the best move they could have made. The character of Riddick belongs in smaller stories. He is not a superhero, but simply a man who is amazingly trained in survival who can also happen to see in the dark. He is a criminal, an animal, and he works best when he is slowly picking off his enemies in the dark one by one. But Twohy and Diesel have swung too far back in that direction and have ended up with a film that is too similar to Pitch Black to stand on its own two feet.
The majority of the film follows Riddick as he is stranded on a planet and tracked down by bounty hunters. But, being the renowned criminal he is, he slowly turns the tables so the hunted becomes the hunter, doing everything in his power to steal a ship and get off the planet. Of course, when an enormous storm rolls in and the planet’s native creatures crawl out of the depths, Riddick and co. must work together to get off the planet safely. For those familiar with the previous two films, that may sound very similar to Pitch Black and that’s because it is essentially a rehash of that first film. Riddick lines up with its superior predecessor almost beat for beat and when it doesn’t, Twohy, who wrote the film as well as directed, makes sure to mention events and characters from that film constantly.
It’s an odd choice. For fans of the original film, this will feel almost entirely like a retread, like Twohy and Diesel are simply trying to relive the relative success of their first go around with the character, and for people who are completely unfamiliar with the previous films, almost none of the actual story will carry any weight. There is an entire subplot between Riddick and one of the bounty hunters, Boss Johns, concerning Johns’ son and how he died in Pitch Black that is an interesting way to bridge the two films, but ultimately amounts to very little without the knowledge of what actually happened to him. Even with said knowledge, the subplot mostly acts as a catalyst for the film’s finale. It does give a nice sense of repercussion to the events of the first film, something that is hardly seen in any sequel, but it makes Riddick feel even more beholden to Pitch Black, like it’s trying to walk the exact same footsteps. It keeps Riddick from being its own standalone story and given how malleable the character is written, that seems like the exact wrong way to go.
The best part of the film is its first act in which Riddick is freshly stranded on a strange planet and he must survive against wild animals and harsh environments. It’s something that hasn’t been explored in the previous two films, playing almost like a silent movie with Riddick only left with his thoughts and his thriving instinct to survive, and it is the only part of the film that has the energy Twohy and Diesel clearly want to instill in the property. It’s fun, suspenseful, and even surprisingly playful once Riddick manages to tame a wild hound, but once again, I’m of two minds about it. On its own, the first act is fantastic. If anything, I wish the whole film had been in that vein. But in context of the film as a whole, it feels strangely out of place, keeping the real story from breathing freely, which is a big reason why the majority of the bounty hunters are singular traits rather than characters. It may be the best bit of Riddick-centric storytelling Twohy and Diesel have put on screen, but as is it feels more like a vignette than a real beginning. It’s a weird either-or situation they’ve set up here; no matter how much I enjoy the first act, it makes the real meat feel truncated, and while I like the broad strokes of the second and third act, it’s keeping Twohy and Diesel from telling the actual interesting story they open with. Separately, they would be fine (the redundancy of the back two-thirds notwithstanding); together, they make a Frankenstein’s monster.
But all of that is not to say that Riddick does not have its bright spots. The imagery, like the previous two films, is great and I love the way Twohy makes his worlds feel real and lived in. From the planet’s partially destroyed moon floating in the background to the way hologram projectors don’t quite work without a little bit of fidgeting, the world is well realized. The violence is nicely emphasized in this installment. The blood flows freely at times, with characters being stabbed, shot, and/or dismembered, making the planet and Riddick exactly as dangerous as they seem. And there are also some cool creature designs and practical effects going on, as well. The monsters partially suffer one of the pitfalls Pitch Black did in the way it only showcases two different species, making the planet feel consequently miniscule, but they’re cool, fun designs.
There’s not much to say on the acting front. You should know what to expect from Vin Diesel and if you don’t like what he does by now, his reprisal in the role of Riddick is not going to change your mind. And given how little there is for the bounty hunters to do, none of them really stand out. Except for Dave Bautista. Known mostly for his days wrestling with WWE, he is slowly making his transition into movies. He is already set to play one of the central heroes in Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel’s lead-in film to Avengers: Age of Ultron, and judging from his work here, it’s easy to see why. Like the other bounty hunters, he does not have much range to show, but he is charming and energetic in the same way Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is. It’s a fun little performance and I can’t wait to see what he is able to do in a Marvel film.
As a whole, Riddick is easily a step above Chronicles of Riddick, but that’s really not saying much. This was a passion project for Diesel and Twohy, both of them pushing as hard as they could to get the film made; Diesel even put a good chunk of his own money toward the film’s production and for that I have nothing but respect. This is clearly a property that means a lot to them both and I believe this is the film they wanted to make. It’s a film that knows exactly what it is. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and is perfectly willing to flash a smile as characters’ heads are lopped off and that sense of fun is at times palpable and infectious. It’s just a miscalculation of how to re-approach Riddick after nine years. I hope they get the chance to make another film, as they are clearly passionate about the character and it remains the most comfortable Diesel ever feels onscreen, but that doesn’t make Riddick any better. It’s an okay modern B-movie, and while it marks a step in the right direction, it’s still a disappointment.
Warning: I do go into some very minor spoilers about You’re Next, so if you’re planning on seeing the movie, please see it first and then come back to this. You will be happier you did.
I am a fan of female empowerment in film (and in general) for many reasons. Yes, it is important for that basic gender equality to reflect in our entertainment, and yes, seeing a woman take control of a situation can be amazingly fun and, quite frankly, badass, but after seeing so many films about men, it is simply refreshing to see the world from a woman’s perspective.
Historical context is probably one of the biggest reasons I love strong female characters in film. Too often women are relegated to smaller roles and side characters, often times merely serving the function of the inevitable “love interest” for the central male role or the “damsel in distress” or the “shrew” who is meant to be tamed by the strong men in her life. That is not always a bad thing (just because a female character is not the central focus does not mean she cannot be strong), but it typically amounts to exactly what many people think it would: they exist to serve the male characters. It’s something people can’t really get away from, especially considering how many of the Hollywood tent pole blockbusters are largely geared towards male audiences, but that is exactly why people need to champion the films that depict women well, that make them just as strong and complex, if not more so, than the male characters. It’s precisely why I adore Ripley from Alien, The Bride from Kill Bill, and Edwina “Ed” McDunnough from Raising Arizona.
That’s a long way of saying that I love strong female characters. But it’s important to preface with that because when I say that the majority of the film adaptations based on popular Young Adult (YA) novels aimed at teenage girls are just as bad as typical representations of females in the film world, I don’t want it to sound like a kneejerk, uninformed opinion. It is something that genuinely bothers me.
One of the movies I have continually been seeing commercials for on TV or at the theatre lately is The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. It’s a film that seems to be built on the general YA zeitgeist, just as bland and uninspired as every other property that is hot among teenage crowds. But that’s not why I bring it up. For those unfamiliar, watch this trailer.
I’m not here to bash the film. I’m not even here to bash the young adult subgenre permeating the big screen the last couple years. I’m not here to bash anything. For all I know, The Mortal Instruments is a fine, fine film. I doubt it, but you never know. Instead, what bothers me most about that trailer is how it embodies what is quite possibly a very hazardous standard female representation in young adult films. The films/books may centralize on a female protagonist, but more often than not they seem to be defined by the men in their lives, by who they will end up with, rather than who they are as a singular person. And yes, some may argue that they are almost always at the center of a series of often cataclysmic events, thus making them important and strong, but look at how they typically fall into the situation in the first place. They are not saving entire populations because they are particularly capable or driven, but because they are “the chosen ones.” The characters are “destined” to save humanity.
It’s one of the things The Hunger Games actually does right. In those books/film(s), the main character, Katniss Everdeen, is nothing special. She does not intrinsically stand out and she is in no way a “chosen one.” Rather, Katniss is a regular girl who can hunt, has some basic survival skills, and a driving sense of humanity, all of which make her a symbol for the people. Her eventual status as an icon may happen by accident, but the fact remains that she doesn’t start a revolution because she was born to do it; she does it because, in a way, she is compelled to do it. And that difference is what makes her strong and empowering. Of course, the films and books fall prey to some young adult trappings, such as the love triangle between Katniss, Peeta, and Gale, the second and third books becoming much more heavily focused on her relationship with the men in her life than the blood being shed around her, but Katniss remains a very strong, very human character throughout. And that is the kind of female empowerment most young adult properties are missing that teenagers should be looking up to.
However, perhaps young adult properties are not necessarily where teenagers should look for female empowerment. There are other avenues of entertainment, of course, and classic books and films will always exist for young women to peruse, but no film lately has understood female empowerment arguably as much as You’re Next.
On the surface, the film may seem like any old slasher, and as the film begins, it indeed feels very familiar. But the film ends up portraying a deft understanding of the slasher subgenre, turning many traditional slasher tropes on their head, making for one of the most enjoyable slashers I’ve seen in years. But one of the big factors that make the film so special is the main character of Erin as portrayed by Sharni Vinson. Traditionally in slashers, you have the killer, the survival girl, and the fodder of friends who may as well be dead from the moment they walk on screen. Survival Girl stumbles around, manages to not die on several occasions, and in the end barely skates by alive, often times doing practically no harm to the masked killer. In You’re Next, however, the killers are not dealing with a Survivor Girl; they are dealing with a Hero Girl.
Erin is calm, she thinks things through, and she is amazingly adept at defending herself and gradually picking off her enemies. She is not a loose canon, but a very precise one that is as methodical and stunningly relentless as the killers. She is one of the strongest female characters I have seen in some time and Vinson never plays the character as cold-hearted as she could easily be. Her character is incredibly warm, often times looking out for her friends and loved ones in the face of danger, but never at the expense of her survival or anybody else’s. It’s a complex portrayal, as ruthless as it is congenial, and while the film may not be as teen friendly as many of the YA properties, Erin is perhaps the exact kind of character teenagers would be better off learning from. She is not one defined by the men in her life or “ancient prophecies” depicting her as “the chosen one.” Instead, she is a strong, capable woman who is simply determined to come out of her particular situation on top.
So, please, see You’re Next and be amazed at what female empowerment can be when handled correctly.
Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg, and Nick Frost have long been open about why, at this point in their lives, they wouldn’t want to make a third series of Spaced, the television show where they first became a unit that has since gone on to be a highly beloved cult item. That show dealt with a group of friends in their twenties, lost, confused, and so entrenched in pop culture that it colors the very way they perceive the world around them. It’s a show made by twenty-somethings for twenty-somethings, capturing the laziness and the fear of becoming an adult in the modern world in a way no other show or film quite has, and its warmth and sincerity is a product of experience. That is who they were at that time in their lives and the show completely reflects that. So when discussing the possibility of a third series, they have all stressed that that is just not who they are anymore. As much as that may disappoint fans of the show, that simple, undeniable fact of growing up shows in their work and has never been more apparent than in The World’s End. And as big a fan I am of Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, and Hot Fuzz, it may well be the best thing that could have happened to them.
The World’s End is a film that I don’t think could have been made by Wright, Pegg, and Frost earlier in their careers. It’s a film that, in many ways, feels like their geeky equivalent to Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven. Where Eastwood used his film as a response to his early roles in Sergio Leone’s Man With No Name trilogy, admonishing those early depictions of violence for having little to no ramifications, The World’s End is Wright and co.’s response to the importance of nostalgia in the characters of Spaced and Shaun of the Dead. Where nostalgia simply shapes those youthful characters, making them lovable, quirky, and relatable, it completely defines the main, middle-aged character of Gary in The World’s End. Nostalgia is what hinders him from progressing in life and being a responsible adult. It is what drives huge rifts between he and his old friends. And for the majority of the running time, it is nothing but a wellspring of complications. Nostalgia is poison in The World’s End, a veritable leech on a person’s livelihood, and it makes the strikingly poignant point that as we grow older, it is important and, as hard as it may seem, necessary to let some things go; or, at the very least, it is important to loosen our grip on them.
The film opens with Gary reminiscing about high school, the days when he was considered a king, a legend, the coolest of the cool, and he fondly remembers the best night of his life when he and his friends attempted The Golden Mile, a pub-crawl consisting of twelve pubs and sixty pints of beer. They didn’t make it to the final pub that night and Gary always regretted it. So he corrals his estranged old buddies (practically against their will), drives them back to their hometown, and does everything he can to recreate that night. But when they arrive at their old town, things are not quite as they remember and they end up in a wild night of beer, brawls, and a legion of extraterrestrial robots.
Before anyone worries, it is important to note that this is still very much an Edgar Wright film in the vein of Shaun and Fuzz. It’s incredibly funny and silly, quite possibly the funniest film the trio has made together, and it’s particularly rewarding if you are very familiar with all of their previous work. That is not to say that it is full of references to the other films or that it won’t work for casual fans, but Wright peppers the film with cameos from familiar faces and the occasional nod to past works that immediately made me grin. It feels like a film for the fans, but it never alienates audiences. This is, by far, the most raucous film they have made to date, a film that grows funnier the more inebriated its characters become, and it’s hilarious seeing the characters gradually fall into their high school roles the more they drink. It’s a pointed display of how nostalgia works on all of us, even if on a subconscious level, and all of the actors hone in on a very particular sense of drunken humor that makes them feel like real high school buddies reliving the old days.
Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman, and Eddie Marsan fill out the group and they all have a terrific, easy chemistry together that is funny, but carries weight. It feels like they have a past, like they are all still carrying emotional scars from those years in their youth, and it is this facet of the story that really makes the film excel. There is a tinge of darkness and sadness to all of the drunken shenanigans these friends get into. Old issues are brought to bare, confrontations occur, and what starts out as a seemingly innocent grasp at the past ends up being much heavier than many people may be anticipating. It marks a huge step forward in maturity for the group of Wright, Pegg, and Frost to simply explore something this real, but the way they examine a damaged psyche in the middle of their funniest film is nothing short of extraordinary. They earn the gravitas by the time they accentuate it in the film, and while I don’t know if any of them have gone through anything quite like these characters, it feels like it’s the most personal of their work. These are characters who are getting older, who are learning to take the hits life throws at them, so it’s natural to think back on older days when things were great and everything seemed perfect. But that is not how built-in nostalgia works. It’s an insidious thing, luring people into inevitable disappointment, and the way they approach this realization is devastating.
Simon Pegg carries the brunt of the film’s emotional core as Gary, the charismatic leader of his friends, intent on reliving the past, and it is easily the most sophisticated work of his career. He gives a layered performance that is at once hilarious and heartbreaking and it proves that just because he is funny does not mean he can’t be taken seriously. Nick Frost plays Andy, Gary’s best friend, and I cannot stress enough how much I love seeing him play the straight man rather than the lovable goofball this time out. From the moment Gary asks him to go drinking with them, his guard is up and for good reason. It’s reiterated throughout the film that they got into some sort of accident together when they were young and the eventual revelation of what that was is harsh and Frost internalizes that information to define Andy as a person. He is the most reluctant to give in to Gary’s wishes, but seeing his walls slowly crumble as he drinks his way back to friendship is, like Pegg, some of Frost’s best work. Freeman, Considine, Marsan, and Rosamund Pike are all wonderful in their respective roles, and Marsan in particular delivers one of the film’s most memorable and sad speeches that rings amazingly true to the way people harbor certain feelings from high school. But as strong as they all are individually, it’s all of them as a group that makes the film sing.
As for Edgar Wright, I maintain that he is one of the best working directors in the business. The way he punctuates the humor in The World’s End with some of the most exciting action I’ve seen all year is fantastic. It’s a blast just seeing how each character has a distinct way they deal with their robotic foes – Nick Frost’s Andy is a particular treat as he dishes out various wrestling moves to decapitate, maim, and all around destroy his opponents – but Wright keeps it feeling fresh and funny every step of the way. He has clearly incorporated what he learned working on Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World into the mix, so the choreography flows beautifully into and out of dialogue heavy scenes, giving the latter half of the film a breathless pace. His understanding of film language is continually outstanding, as has come to be expected, so from a pure filmmaking perspective, The World’s End is phenomenal. But Wright has such a tight grip on storytelling that it never feels flashy for the sake of being flashy. The way he shoots and edits is tied to this story in a way none of his other films are, becoming crazier and more intense the more wasted the characters get, and it makes everything feel like one cohesive whole, like it’s the only way the story could possibly be told.
As with any director with such an eclectic track record, it’s difficult to say that any one of Edgar Wright’s films is inherently better than the others. But it’s undeniable that there is a confidence here that only comes from working with a core group of people for so long. As the conclusion to their Three Flavors Cornetto Trilogy, aka The Blood and Ice Cream Trilogy, The World’s End is phenomenal, an encapsulation of and comment on the love of pop culture their films embody. But as a standalone film, I think The World’s End is one of the best films so far this year and may be my favorite film Wright, Pegg, and Frost have made. Despite the film’s message about the dangers of nostalgia, Wright and Pegg, who co-wrote the screenplay, have drawn from so many influences that echoes of films like Invaders of the Body Snatchers and The Thing can be felt throughout, giving the film the distinct feeling that one doesn’t have to completely let go to move on. It’s a nice counter-balance to the somewhat heavier message at the film’s core and, in my mind, it defines who these people are now: not adults with geeky interests, but geeks who know how to function as responsible adults. It’s a fine, yet distinct difference, and Wright, Pegg, and Frost embody it to the T.
So yes, The World’s End is Shaun of the Dead’s mature older brother who lovingly calls him out on his bullshit and gives him a swift kick in the ass, all with a smile on his face. And that’s something we all need every once in a while.
The original Kick-Ass reminds me of good punk rock. It’s shaggy and a little bit messy, but it’s utterly propulsive with an energy so infectious that it’s easy to ignore its flaws. It’s equivalent to a band like The Ramones; it’s fun and edgy, but with a pseudo pop sensibility that appeals to a large audience. Kick-Ass 2, in comparison, is the equivalence to a band like Green Day; it tries to be edgy and push buttons, but it ultimately amounts to high school piffle. It’s entertaining enough and is not the worst way to spend your money, but it’s merely a shadow of its predecessor it so desperately wants to live up to.
Picking up a couple years after the events of the first film, Kick-Ass 2 returns to Dave Lizewski, Mindy Macready, and Chris D’Amico as they try to revert to lives of normalcy. Dave tries to fixate on staying out of trouble, Mindy does her best to fit into high school culture, and Chris is still distraught over the murder of his father via bazooka at the end of the first film and is simply hell bent on getting revenge against Kick-Ass. But while Dave does his best to keep his head down, he can’t help but be drawn back into the world of masked vigilantes and caped crusaders. So he once against dons his mask and meets Justice Forever, a ragtag group of like-minded wannabe superheroes. But when they start doling out justice, they inadvertently spawn a league of super villains intent on tearing apart everything Justice Forever has set up.
Despite the film’s title, Kick-Ass 2 should be Hit-Girl’s film. The proceedings may insist on following Kick-Ass as he spawns forth far more trouble than he can handle, but his story is largely derivative of what was already seen in the first Kick-Ass. Dave was never the most physically adept hero in the first film, but to focus so largely on him training and stumbling his way through fights once again feels like déjà vu. These are obstacles he already somewhat overcame in the first go-round, the only difference this time being that he’s thrown into a group setting. The new heroes do add some nice color and texture to the film, especially Colonel Stars and Stripes, a born again ex-mafia man with a heart of gold and a penchant for violence, but they don’t play a large enough role to keep Dave’s story from feeling like a rehash.
Hit-Girl, on the other hand, is given much more room to develop as a character and she ends up being the film’s beating heart. After Big Daddy was killed in the first film, she is now living with his best friend, Marcus. He pushes her to go to school and does everything he can to give her the normal life of a 15 year-old girl, but she instinctually reverts back to the mentality her father instilled in her all her life in order to work through any social situation. She wants to honor her father’s dying wish and listen to what Marcus tells her to do, but it goes against the only life she ever knew growing up. It’s a sweet, endearing story of finding one’s identity, albeit blended with costumes, acrobatics, and the pressing urge to chop people into bits, and it is engaging in a way Kick-Ass’s story never is. Where it is clear Mindy is growing as a person, really coming to understand what it means to be Hit-Girl, Dave is largely stagnant, a guy who keeps trying to be a superhero even though he is rather terrible at it because he thinks it’s awesome, and had the film shifted its focus to the first film’s scene stealer, I imagine the film would be stronger for it.
Instead, we’re left with Kick-Ass Redux, complete with broad humor, crass language, and violence so tame that only a kid seeing their first R-rated film would find it edgy. The film does have some cool action beats scattered throughout, such as Justice Forever raiding a mob hang out, Chris D’Amico – now The Motherfucker – and his cronies ambushing the house of one of the members of Justice Forever, and the final showdown between Hit-Girl and Mother Russia, The Motherfucker’s right hand woman, but they all lack the punch and the confidence of any scene in the first Kick-Ass. And that is the film’s ultimate problem. The first film is so big, raucous, and over-the-top that the only way to do a sequel is to go bigger, accentuate the violence even more, and rub the audience’s face in it. But for some reason the film pulls back, never really showing the nitty-gritty of what this kind of violence in the real world would entail. People take some heavy beatings, but there seem to be almost no ramifications. The occasional limb is lost and a modicum of blood is shed, but it feels as if writer/director Jeff Wadlow, working off of the comic by Mark Millar, was afraid to go that dark for fear of losing audiences. The action is watered down, the dark humor is almost entirely eradicated, and what humor there is is mostly relegated to broad jokes and/or very out of place pop-culture references. The film feels like a sanitized version of what the film should be, going against everything the first film and the comics strive to do.
The actors, at least, all range from good to great. Aaron Taylor-Johnson still plays a good geek reenacting his fantasies of beating up thugs as Kick-Ass and Chris Mintz-Plasse is enjoyable as The Motherfucker, giving the character just a hint of insanity that is at times at odds with his better judgment, but Chloe Moretz as Hit-Girl and Jim Carrey as Colonel Stars and Stripes are the ones who really shine.
Moretz is gaining a lot of momentum in her career, gradually working her way towards star status, and she deserves every bit of it. Her work here is nuanced and the way she portrays the two sides of Mindy feels real. There is a scene in the film where Hit-Girl saves Dave from a group of thugs and after she swiftly incapacitates her enemies, she musters up the best one-liner she can think of. There is a lightning-quick shift in character where Moretz goes from Hit-Girl, badass superhero, to Mindy, giggly 15 year-old girl, excited to see if she impressed Dave with her one-liner, that is so small yet so impressive that it had me grinning. As for Jim Carrey, I’m just happy to see him work outside of his typical wheelhouse, so it makes me very happy that he is fantastic as the Colonel. His role is much smaller than the advertising is making it out to be, but in the short amount of time he is given, he makes Colonel Stars and Stripes one of the best new or returning characters. He gives the character a real past and inner life, completely transforming himself with the help of heavy prosthetics, and he ends up being one of the film’s diamonds in the rough.
I have no doubt some people will walk out of Kick-Ass 2 just as jazzed and excited as when they saw the first Kick-Ass. It has many of the right elements, but they seem to be jumbled around too much, and in so doing many of them were lost. The first film may not be great, but what it lacks in story/intent, it more than makes up for in spirit and rewatchability, two huge factors this film is completely missing. It has been roughly 24 hours since I’ve seen the film and already I’m struggling to remember details and plot points. It’s not terrible, but it is limp, and for a sequel to one of the most relentlessly enjoyable movies from 2010, that is a huge disappointment.
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