One thing Hollywood has never gotten right about the Greek myth of Zeus's son is the name. Hercules is the Roman name for the Greek myth while Heracles is the Greek name. Yes every iteration of the character uses the Roman name with Greek everything else. Small nitpick, and it'll probably never be fixed. So let's move on.
Of all Hercules movies, the Disney version is widely known for being one of the lease accurate depictions of the legend. Leave it to Brett Ratner to one-up someone in doing it wrong. Remember, this is the guy who nearly single-handedly destroyed the X-Men franchise. THE X-MEN!!!! *deep breath* Woosah. Woosah...
Anyway.
Hercules, starring Dwayne Johnson, is the least faithful to the legend of all tellings that I've seen or heard of. At first, I didn't have a problem with this. It tried to approach the story in a realistic fashion. As we know, the legends of Greek mythologies are a bit exaggerated from what really happened. So this film is showing what could have happened with a real man named Hercules who inspired the legends.
But wait a minute, didn't the trailers show Hercules going all out and killing these legendary creatures like the Hydra? Yes, yes it did. And you do get to see that... in the first 7 minutes of the movie. These tasks that Hercules is known for, his labours, which included slaying the Hydra, slaying the Nemean Lion, killing the Erymanthian Boar, are all done in montage with a voice over. Then the voice over is revealed to be one of Hercules's partners, who I forget his name and don't really care to look up. He tells these tales of Hercules's labours to bring fear to the enemy and inspire allies. So, basically, they're all lies.
Now, I'm not one to judge a movie for not delivering on what I expect. Nor am I really going to hold a movie to what the trailer promised. For those that don't know, trailers are typically made by people who aren't involved with the production of the film. They're just paid to make something that will get people to buy tickets. Sometimes a trailer will lie and what actually is presented is far better. A good example is The Grey. Advertised as Taken with wolves while it was actually a survival-horror/philosophical/existential thriller. Some were disappointed; I was enamored.
At first I was interested. I like to think of myself as somewhat of a skeptic, so I like stories that play with "what is known may be false" angle. I'm enjoying how Hercules and his companions, who are just a band of mercenaries, use their friend's gift of story-telling to their advantage to both obtain jobs and frighten those they oppose.
On paper this sounds kind of fun. Unfortunately, as shown with X-Men The Last SttttaaaaaaAAAAHHHH--- Woosah... Brett Ratner somehow finds a way to suck the joy out of it. You find that without his labours, Hercules is an incredibly boring character. And other than Ian McShane, the characters surrounding him are just as boring. The dog-like mad man. The best-friend from war. The Woman. The younger relative who can't fight and he doesn't want to be harmed. Then you throw all these characters in a tired "train my men so we can fight a war" story with your typical twists and turns. If you can't see where this movie is heading after 20 minutes, you probably haven't seen many movies.
I will admit, there are some fun moments in this film. There's 2 big battle sequences that, for the most part, are well-done for a PG-13 movie. Dirt and mud serve as a substitute for blood. It's not quite the same, but it's still something to see small particles fly off a person when they're hit. Even if the enemies are rejects from 300, they have some moments where they seem threatening. There's also a few details through the first two acts that show how Hercules and his friends keep their legend alive. A good example is when Hercules takes an arrow tip in his fist and punches a guy in the face with it. No one except his companions saw the arrow tip, so to everyone else it appears that Hercules killed a man with a single blow. There are a few clever moments that this for the first hour.
Unfortunately, everything that gets built up from the first two acts of Hercules just being a normal man and a group who uses the power of perception and exaggeration to make it seem as if he were "More than just a man." The movie takes a hard left turn and has him do things that completely break all the rules set up in the first two acts. All of a sudden, a man of just superior human strength becomes a man of god-like strength. Why? Because the plot needed him to escape an impossible situation. Why was he there? Because the plot needed him to do something stupid to get there. Then the last 20 minutes just go against everything set up in the first hour and change for this big battle between Hercules and his friends and an army culminating and an outlandish final moment. Yes, the previous parts of the movie were boring. But you can't just break your own rules for no reason. Fully commit to the story you want to tell, or at least give the possibility throughout the entire film that things could be more than what's let on.
If I had to tell the story of Hercules in a "realistic" manner that played with the notion that the legend is an exaggeration, I would show how the story came to be. I wouldn't just have someone be telling the story to tell you that it's an exaggeration. I would show you what really happened along side with the storyteller's exaggerations. That could be a cool movie. But, as it stands, Hercules is just another typical action movie.
NOT RECOMMENDED
Monday, July 28, 2014
Sunday, July 20, 2014
The Purge: Anarchy
I wasn't a fan of The Purge. I thought it was an interesting premise that never really went anywhere. The idea of allowing 12 hours for people to let loose and get all the crime out of their system is kind of silly, but could provide for a fun romp for 90 minutes. While the movie was trying to more intelligent, which I respect, it ultimately devolved into a by-the-numbers home-invasion thriller with an annoyingly dysfunctional family. But the movie was made for a ridiculously low budget ($3M) and made a huge profit (raked in $64.4M at the box office) so the sequel is here. Anarchy does have a significantly higher budget, but still incredibly cheap, $9M, and it made over $28M opening weekend. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw a third Purge movie either next year or the following year.
The Purge: Anarchy is more or less what I want sequels to do. The first movie had some interesting concepts that were never really explained or expanded. The most intriguing things in the first movie were some of the world-building aspects. Neighbors who seem like such nice people talking about what kind of atrocities they're going to do during the annual purge like it's no big deal. One of my favorite moments of the first movie was two characters seeing their neighbor sharpening a machete in his back yard. One character looks at the other and simply says, "Looks like someone's getting ready to have fun." It's creepy to think that the person next door has these wild urges that they have to keep held up under any normal circumstances, but given a way to let them go, you can see what people's true colors are. Unfortunately, The Purge never really goes anywhere with it.
Unlike the first film, The Purge: Anarchy shows more than it tells. It's taken a couple of the more political ideas that the first film would just talk about in passing and puts you right in the middle of it. In this world, there's a new American government calling themselves The New Founding Fathers of America. It seems more like an overthrow of the original government and now a totalitarian state. The NFFA are almost like gods. They're referred to multiple times as divine or blessed.
The biggest problem with the first movie is that it just told us about its political agenda. It's just mentioned in passing, but some believed that one reason why the purge exists is to have the citizens commence "population control" on themselves and "cleanse the country of the poor, unproductive members of society." Here, we actually see this happening. Instead of following a rich family in a rich neighborhood, we follow a group of people stuck in the middle of the city surrounded by purgers. The lower-class families can't afford all the high-tech stuff to protect their homes, the expensive weapons or armor to defend themselves. Homeless people have almost no chance other than to hide, and even that doesn't work. The first movie just told us (in passing) about this side of the purge. Anarchy puts you right in the middle of it.
Director James DeMonaco has definitely improved in every aspect from his first film. He's got 3 movies under his belt as a director (2 of the are The Purge movies), and a few more writing/co-writing credits, including The Negotiator, Assault on Precinct 13, and.... Jack starring Robin Williams? OK.... Anyway... Everything is improved in The Purge: Anarchy. The cinematography is better composed, the action is better captured and has more urgency, the pacing is much quicker, the political message is more clear and poignant, and it's simply more fun.
Instead of trying to connect with a rich family, we're following your everyday people, and a bad ass played by Frank Grillo (who you may remember from the recent Captain America movie, or that guy as that one character along side that bigger actor in that one movie that you can't quite remember the title). This does wonders for the story because the characters are much more relatable and they're more suited for the film's political message. We got the mother and daughter (Carmen Ejogo and Zoe Sould), the boyfriend and girlfriend who may or may not be breaking up (Zach Gilford and Kiele Sanchez), and the Punisher (Frank Grillo). Well, he's actually an ex cop or ex military, but it really doesn't make a difference.
Grillo's character (not given a name, credited as Sergeant) is trying to find a guy who killed his son. The mom and daughter's house was raided by seemingly government soldiers trying to capture them. And the boyfriend/girlfriend are being chased by a bunch of guys in masks and what seems to be an ice-cream truck. They all come across each other, and of course the people who don't want to be out there want Grillo to help them survive the night. He reluctantly accepts, so we follow them trying to navigate the city without getting killed. It almost reminded me of Escape from New York. Through their trek through the city, we get to know them and they all are given enough character for us to care about them. Even though we don't spend as much time TRYING to develop them as the first movie did -- I emphasize trying because the first film wasn't successful at it -- we still get to know them enough to feel a sense of urgency when shit goes down.
Another huge improvement from the first movie is the action here is actually fun. While the first Purge tried to have this slow-burn build up, the payoff wasn't satisfying enough to justify the long wait to get there. Anarchy doesn't waste as much time getting to the purge's commencement, and it keeps it steady once it gets there. It didn't just remind me of Escape From New York in the sense that it's people trying to navigate their way through a city, but it had that same feel of B-Movie fun. I know a lot of people were excited for The Purge because they wanted to see people go crazy for a night. The Purge: Anarchy actually delivers on that. But it aspires to be more intelligent and thoughtful than your typical violence splurge of a movie.
Remember how I said this movie has a political agenda? Anarchy is basically showing us an extreme version of what happens when country's government is run by the wealthy and for the wealthy. We see them using media outlets to say what a great thing the purge is while using it to manipulate the lower-class citizens to kill each other. We also see the people who are in dire situations sell themselves off to be killed by wealthy families so their loved ones can live a better life. The poor and homeless can't afford to defend themselves, so they get picked off easily. We also see what seems to be S.W.A.T.-like government-paid soldiers kidnapping and killing people in poor neighborhoods. They even throw in someone supposedly like a Malcom X and a resistance that's using the Purge to fight back. It's a tad heavy-handed, but it's doing this in an action-horror movie for an audience that didn't come for things like subtlety.
While James DeMonaco definitely got better the second time around, it's not quite where I think he wants to be. I definitely enjoyed The Purge: Anarchy much more than the previous film, but it's still not much beyond a fun, B-movie. There's still a lot of silly moments and contrived, "oh, how convenient" moments. But there's less stupid decision making for the sake of plot, and it does deliver on a lot of what The Purge didn't. If the next Purge movie proceeds to improve, we might actually get something of what I imagine DeMonaco is trying to convey.
SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED
The Purge: Anarchy is more or less what I want sequels to do. The first movie had some interesting concepts that were never really explained or expanded. The most intriguing things in the first movie were some of the world-building aspects. Neighbors who seem like such nice people talking about what kind of atrocities they're going to do during the annual purge like it's no big deal. One of my favorite moments of the first movie was two characters seeing their neighbor sharpening a machete in his back yard. One character looks at the other and simply says, "Looks like someone's getting ready to have fun." It's creepy to think that the person next door has these wild urges that they have to keep held up under any normal circumstances, but given a way to let them go, you can see what people's true colors are. Unfortunately, The Purge never really goes anywhere with it.
Unlike the first film, The Purge: Anarchy shows more than it tells. It's taken a couple of the more political ideas that the first film would just talk about in passing and puts you right in the middle of it. In this world, there's a new American government calling themselves The New Founding Fathers of America. It seems more like an overthrow of the original government and now a totalitarian state. The NFFA are almost like gods. They're referred to multiple times as divine or blessed.
The biggest problem with the first movie is that it just told us about its political agenda. It's just mentioned in passing, but some believed that one reason why the purge exists is to have the citizens commence "population control" on themselves and "cleanse the country of the poor, unproductive members of society." Here, we actually see this happening. Instead of following a rich family in a rich neighborhood, we follow a group of people stuck in the middle of the city surrounded by purgers. The lower-class families can't afford all the high-tech stuff to protect their homes, the expensive weapons or armor to defend themselves. Homeless people have almost no chance other than to hide, and even that doesn't work. The first movie just told us (in passing) about this side of the purge. Anarchy puts you right in the middle of it.
Director James DeMonaco has definitely improved in every aspect from his first film. He's got 3 movies under his belt as a director (2 of the are The Purge movies), and a few more writing/co-writing credits, including The Negotiator, Assault on Precinct 13, and.... Jack starring Robin Williams? OK.... Anyway... Everything is improved in The Purge: Anarchy. The cinematography is better composed, the action is better captured and has more urgency, the pacing is much quicker, the political message is more clear and poignant, and it's simply more fun.
Instead of trying to connect with a rich family, we're following your everyday people, and a bad ass played by Frank Grillo (who you may remember from the recent Captain America movie, or that guy as that one character along side that bigger actor in that one movie that you can't quite remember the title). This does wonders for the story because the characters are much more relatable and they're more suited for the film's political message. We got the mother and daughter (Carmen Ejogo and Zoe Sould), the boyfriend and girlfriend who may or may not be breaking up (Zach Gilford and Kiele Sanchez), and the Punisher (Frank Grillo). Well, he's actually an ex cop or ex military, but it really doesn't make a difference.
Grillo's character (not given a name, credited as Sergeant) is trying to find a guy who killed his son. The mom and daughter's house was raided by seemingly government soldiers trying to capture them. And the boyfriend/girlfriend are being chased by a bunch of guys in masks and what seems to be an ice-cream truck. They all come across each other, and of course the people who don't want to be out there want Grillo to help them survive the night. He reluctantly accepts, so we follow them trying to navigate the city without getting killed. It almost reminded me of Escape from New York. Through their trek through the city, we get to know them and they all are given enough character for us to care about them. Even though we don't spend as much time TRYING to develop them as the first movie did -- I emphasize trying because the first film wasn't successful at it -- we still get to know them enough to feel a sense of urgency when shit goes down.
Another huge improvement from the first movie is the action here is actually fun. While the first Purge tried to have this slow-burn build up, the payoff wasn't satisfying enough to justify the long wait to get there. Anarchy doesn't waste as much time getting to the purge's commencement, and it keeps it steady once it gets there. It didn't just remind me of Escape From New York in the sense that it's people trying to navigate their way through a city, but it had that same feel of B-Movie fun. I know a lot of people were excited for The Purge because they wanted to see people go crazy for a night. The Purge: Anarchy actually delivers on that. But it aspires to be more intelligent and thoughtful than your typical violence splurge of a movie.
Remember how I said this movie has a political agenda? Anarchy is basically showing us an extreme version of what happens when country's government is run by the wealthy and for the wealthy. We see them using media outlets to say what a great thing the purge is while using it to manipulate the lower-class citizens to kill each other. We also see the people who are in dire situations sell themselves off to be killed by wealthy families so their loved ones can live a better life. The poor and homeless can't afford to defend themselves, so they get picked off easily. We also see what seems to be S.W.A.T.-like government-paid soldiers kidnapping and killing people in poor neighborhoods. They even throw in someone supposedly like a Malcom X and a resistance that's using the Purge to fight back. It's a tad heavy-handed, but it's doing this in an action-horror movie for an audience that didn't come for things like subtlety.
While James DeMonaco definitely got better the second time around, it's not quite where I think he wants to be. I definitely enjoyed The Purge: Anarchy much more than the previous film, but it's still not much beyond a fun, B-movie. There's still a lot of silly moments and contrived, "oh, how convenient" moments. But there's less stupid decision making for the sake of plot, and it does deliver on a lot of what The Purge didn't. If the next Purge movie proceeds to improve, we might actually get something of what I imagine DeMonaco is trying to convey.
SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED
Sunday, July 13, 2014
DAWN OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
I was never a Planet of the Apes fan to any extent. My mother wasn't really into sci-fi, she still really hasn't seen any of the Star Wars movies and she was born in the '60's... how do I say this without upsetting her.... before they came out... My dad never really liked to watch movies more than one time, because he didn't really see a point in doing so. With that upbringing, I never was exposed to the original Apes movies. And when I heard about the Tim Burton version, I thought that was the only one for quite a while. I never saw it because I heard it was bad.
As I grew older I did find out about the original films. But I really didn't have much drive to go back and see them. Then, out of nowhere, Rise of the Planet of the Apes came to theatres. I was really interested in this movie. It looked like it was taking the franchise to a serious tone and making the big twist with the original films plausible. Sort of like a reboot/origin story. While I never saw the original Apes movie, the twist ending I already knew. Being a huge fan of film I was exposed to a few spoilers from many old films before I got a chance to see them, including: Planet of the Apes, The Crying Game, Soylent Green, Psycho, and most unfortunately, The Usual Suspects.
However, I never ended up seeing Rise, even though I was doing movie reviews at the time it came out. I went on a family trip, missed the showing, and somehow never got around to sitting down and watching it. I did work as a projectionist at the time, so I did watch it in segments from the projection booth throughout my days during its running. And I got the gist of the movie by watching practically the entire thing as if Tarantino directed it. For those of you that don't get that joke... moving on.
What's really nice about Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is you don't need to have any knowledge of any other Apes movies. The opening credits do a quick rundown of everything you need to know. A test virus for Alzheimer's was accidentally spread to apes giving them enhanced intelligence, subsequently a flu virus called the simian flu ends up wiping out almost all of humanity with a 1-500 survival rate for the virus. 10 years later, humanity is pretty much close to extinct.
Matt Reeves (Cloverfield and Let Me In) does an incredible job with visual story telling. While the apes have had a lot of time to build their society and become more intelligent, they're still not quite on the level of humans. They speak mostly in sign language so we have to read subtitles and watch the emotions on the apes' faces. The first couple sequence after the credits do a fantastic job building up this world the apes have made their home. In a matter of 10 or 15 minutes, we see how they live their lives, how they hunt, the relationships between all the apes, how the families are handled, their politics. It's a great example of exposition through action. There are some less involving information dumps here and there, but almost all of them are handled in a way that doesn't feel contrived. It doesn't treat the audience like the dumb kid who the teacher keeps needing to stop class for in order for that kid to catch up to the rest of the class. Plus there's a fantastic one-shot sequence near the climax of the film which really shows off Matt Reeve's creativity with action set pieces (See also one of the best car crashes ever put on film in Reeve's Let Me In).
The motion capture is phenomenal. The apes look and feel real. Every detail is accounted for. Most lot of apes look the same. But the main ones to follow all have their special visual markings that make them stand out. Caesar doesn't have much to make him stand out, but for some reason you can always tell who he is. Caesar's son, Blue Eyes, is attacked by a bear in the opening sequence, so he has claw marks across his chest and face. Koba, Caesar's right-handman ape, was experimented on by humans giving him scars all over his body and an understandable loathing for all humans. Maurice is the only orangutan in the movie, so he's easy to spot. The visual detail isn't all that sells these creatures, the motion capture allows the actors to breath life into all these characters.
What really hit me with Dawn were the gut-wrenching dramatic moments. There is a lot of spectacle throughout the film. But the drama is what drives this movie. Moments like when the first time apes and humans come into contact with each other after 2 years had my palms sweating. Dawn portrays both the humans and the ape societies as almost mirrors of each other as far as how they fear each other.
The fact that one person or one ape can take two societies who are so close to the brink of destroying each other can screw it up for everyone. It's scary because both the ape-hating humans and the human-hating apes are realistic with their fear and hate. It is almost blind hatred, but it's a blind hatred that you can understand how it got there. Seeing your entire family be killed by a virus called the "simian (simian definition: higher primates. i.e. apes) flu." Recognizing that if they wanted to, they could wipe out what's left of humanity. And as an ape, being a test subject for humans for your entire life. Or having the first contact with humans almost kill your best friend. These scenes where you know if one person does the wrong thing at the wrong time, all hell is going to break loose.
The truly heart breaking thing is the fact that we do see that both the apes and humans have the capacity to become friends and trust each other. We see an up-and-down relationship between Caesar and Malcom (Jason Clarke), the leader of the group of humans who make initial contact with the apes. It's rocky and full of fear and mistrust. But Malcom is fascinated by Caesar and the apes by their intelligence, while Caesar is reminded of his human friends back before he was forced to flee with the other apes out of the San Francisco. We get a glimmer of hope of these two, man and ape, being able to overcome their differences and live in peace, maybe even as friends. But the actions of a few, and the inherent nature of intelligent societies, war ends up being what truly ties both the apes and humans together.
Caesar and Malcom , the main character from the human group, try all they can to keep peace between apes and humans. Watching them struggle to maintain this peace is emotional. I found myself getting angry with the characters that screw everything up. You do get a sense that it's inevitable that the two sides are going to clash. But that didn't stop me from hoping that in some way things won't go to absolute shit.
Dawn does take itself seriously. My cousin told me the original films were more on the campy level, and Tim Burton's version is just plain silly. There are a few things that don't quite make sense. Like the tribal face paint and feathers that the apes wear. I guess it's to make them more of an indians/native american type group to make their stage of human-like societal evolution (so to speak) more visually understandable. But why do they do it? What purpose does it serve? Where did they learn these practices? The movie does a great job at making the ape society believable in almost every aspect. But that was just kind of silly and felt out of place. And sometimes some character's blind hatred just seems a little too powerful. I guess I want to see the better side of people, and in this case apes as well, so having the typical "They can't be trusted" cliché is frustrating. It's supposed to cause an emotional response, but supposed to make you angry at those people and not frustrated with the movie. As much as I love Gary Oldman, his character isn't given enough to do, along with several other human characters, to really flesh out and become more than just plot devices.
Nitpicking aside, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a powerful and poignant film. There's enough action set pieces to keep the summer popcorn fans happy with enough heart and real drama to keep it nutritious. It also gives a depressing notion that intelligent societies are naturally driven to war. As much as we try to avoid it and seek peace, all it takes is one small thing to drive us to war. And now it's not just humans. It really is as dark as it sounds. It's unsettling. But it's compelling enough to probably make it one of my best movies of the year.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
(So far all but Transformers have been HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Hopefully we'll have a mediocre movie come along just to prove that I don't just love or hate movies.)
As I grew older I did find out about the original films. But I really didn't have much drive to go back and see them. Then, out of nowhere, Rise of the Planet of the Apes came to theatres. I was really interested in this movie. It looked like it was taking the franchise to a serious tone and making the big twist with the original films plausible. Sort of like a reboot/origin story. While I never saw the original Apes movie, the twist ending I already knew. Being a huge fan of film I was exposed to a few spoilers from many old films before I got a chance to see them, including: Planet of the Apes, The Crying Game, Soylent Green, Psycho, and most unfortunately, The Usual Suspects.
However, I never ended up seeing Rise, even though I was doing movie reviews at the time it came out. I went on a family trip, missed the showing, and somehow never got around to sitting down and watching it. I did work as a projectionist at the time, so I did watch it in segments from the projection booth throughout my days during its running. And I got the gist of the movie by watching practically the entire thing as if Tarantino directed it. For those of you that don't get that joke... moving on.
What's really nice about Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is you don't need to have any knowledge of any other Apes movies. The opening credits do a quick rundown of everything you need to know. A test virus for Alzheimer's was accidentally spread to apes giving them enhanced intelligence, subsequently a flu virus called the simian flu ends up wiping out almost all of humanity with a 1-500 survival rate for the virus. 10 years later, humanity is pretty much close to extinct.
Matt Reeves (Cloverfield and Let Me In) does an incredible job with visual story telling. While the apes have had a lot of time to build their society and become more intelligent, they're still not quite on the level of humans. They speak mostly in sign language so we have to read subtitles and watch the emotions on the apes' faces. The first couple sequence after the credits do a fantastic job building up this world the apes have made their home. In a matter of 10 or 15 minutes, we see how they live their lives, how they hunt, the relationships between all the apes, how the families are handled, their politics. It's a great example of exposition through action. There are some less involving information dumps here and there, but almost all of them are handled in a way that doesn't feel contrived. It doesn't treat the audience like the dumb kid who the teacher keeps needing to stop class for in order for that kid to catch up to the rest of the class. Plus there's a fantastic one-shot sequence near the climax of the film which really shows off Matt Reeve's creativity with action set pieces (See also one of the best car crashes ever put on film in Reeve's Let Me In).
The motion capture is phenomenal. The apes look and feel real. Every detail is accounted for. Most lot of apes look the same. But the main ones to follow all have their special visual markings that make them stand out. Caesar doesn't have much to make him stand out, but for some reason you can always tell who he is. Caesar's son, Blue Eyes, is attacked by a bear in the opening sequence, so he has claw marks across his chest and face. Koba, Caesar's right-hand
What really hit me with Dawn were the gut-wrenching dramatic moments. There is a lot of spectacle throughout the film. But the drama is what drives this movie. Moments like when the first time apes and humans come into contact with each other after 2 years had my palms sweating. Dawn portrays both the humans and the ape societies as almost mirrors of each other as far as how they fear each other.
The fact that one person or one ape can take two societies who are so close to the brink of destroying each other can screw it up for everyone. It's scary because both the ape-hating humans and the human-hating apes are realistic with their fear and hate. It is almost blind hatred, but it's a blind hatred that you can understand how it got there. Seeing your entire family be killed by a virus called the "simian (simian definition: higher primates. i.e. apes) flu." Recognizing that if they wanted to, they could wipe out what's left of humanity. And as an ape, being a test subject for humans for your entire life. Or having the first contact with humans almost kill your best friend. These scenes where you know if one person does the wrong thing at the wrong time, all hell is going to break loose.
The truly heart breaking thing is the fact that we do see that both the apes and humans have the capacity to become friends and trust each other. We see an up-and-down relationship between Caesar and Malcom (Jason Clarke), the leader of the group of humans who make initial contact with the apes. It's rocky and full of fear and mistrust. But Malcom is fascinated by Caesar and the apes by their intelligence, while Caesar is reminded of his human friends back before he was forced to flee with the other apes out of the San Francisco. We get a glimmer of hope of these two, man and ape, being able to overcome their differences and live in peace, maybe even as friends. But the actions of a few, and the inherent nature of intelligent societies, war ends up being what truly ties both the apes and humans together.
Caesar and Malcom , the main character from the human group, try all they can to keep peace between apes and humans. Watching them struggle to maintain this peace is emotional. I found myself getting angry with the characters that screw everything up. You do get a sense that it's inevitable that the two sides are going to clash. But that didn't stop me from hoping that in some way things won't go to absolute shit.
Dawn does take itself seriously. My cousin told me the original films were more on the campy level, and Tim Burton's version is just plain silly. There are a few things that don't quite make sense. Like the tribal face paint and feathers that the apes wear. I guess it's to make them more of an indians/native american type group to make their stage of human-like societal evolution (so to speak) more visually understandable. But why do they do it? What purpose does it serve? Where did they learn these practices? The movie does a great job at making the ape society believable in almost every aspect. But that was just kind of silly and felt out of place. And sometimes some character's blind hatred just seems a little too powerful. I guess I want to see the better side of people, and in this case apes as well, so having the typical "They can't be trusted" cliché is frustrating. It's supposed to cause an emotional response, but supposed to make you angry at those people and not frustrated with the movie. As much as I love Gary Oldman, his character isn't given enough to do, along with several other human characters, to really flesh out and become more than just plot devices.
Nitpicking aside, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is a powerful and poignant film. There's enough action set pieces to keep the summer popcorn fans happy with enough heart and real drama to keep it nutritious. It also gives a depressing notion that intelligent societies are naturally driven to war. As much as we try to avoid it and seek peace, all it takes is one small thing to drive us to war. And now it's not just humans. It really is as dark as it sounds. It's unsettling. But it's compelling enough to probably make it one of my best movies of the year.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
(So far all but Transformers have been HIGHLY RECOMMENDED. Hopefully we'll have a mediocre movie come along just to prove that I don't just love or hate movies.)
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Snowpiercer
Bong Joon-ho's first English film knocks it out of the park. He's a wonderful director who's responsible for The Host and Mother. If you haven't seen either of those, go to Netflix and watch them as soon as you can. Snowpiercer is absurd, heavy-handed, over-the-top, but in all the best ways possible.
Chris Evans plays Curtis, a passenger aboard a train carrying the last known survivors of earth after an experiment to counter global warmer is implemented. The experiment puts the earth into an ice age and all life freezes to death. But everyone aboard this train, which travels around the world's continents once every year, are alive as the last of humanity.
We start out in the back of the train where it's basically a slum. People have worn out clothes, it's dark, dirty. You can almost smell it the rotten stench of it all. And as you head forward through the train you can see a progression of luxury. To say it's a metaphor for class separation and struggle would imply that it's being subtle. Snowpiercer is anything but subtle.
Snowpiercer's world is like a Fox News wet dream. People in the lower class, the back of the train, are almost slaves. Soldiers come by and do head counts, they basically kidnap people to perform tasks for the people in the front of the train. "Oh, you can play violin? Well we need a violinists in a forward car. You're coming with us. Leave your things. No, your wife stays here." And there are brutal consequences if you don't obey the people from the front of the train. Along with a figurehead, in this case played by Tilda Swinton, giving a speech about social order and everyone "belonging in their place."
There's a moment where if it weren't for seeing how crazy some of the politicians can be, I wouldn't have believed how over-the-top Tilda Swinton's character is. Yet as despicable as she is, telling the lowly passengers in the back of the train, eating nothing but manufactured protein bars, that they should be grateful for what they have. So what if you're living in your own filth. You should be happy that we're being gracious enough to allow you to be here at all. It's almost as if Swinton's doing a Michelle Bachmann with a little bit of Hunger Games flair.
Curtis, along with Edgar, played by Jamie Bell, and Gilliam, played by John Hurt, are planning to revolt and march through the cars of the train towards the front to gain control of the engine, which is basically treated as a deity to the people in the front. What ensues is one of the most fantastically brutal uprisings put on screen.
The further along the train Curtis and the others go, the more losses they take. Snowpiercer is unapologetic about how brutal a revolution can be. It doesn't water it down or glorify it. It emphasizes that it could feel futile at times. I wondered at many points in the film what Curtis was going to do once he reaches the front of the train. Is it all going to be worth it in the end? Does the ends justify some of the hard choices he made to get to the front? You can even see it in Curtis's face that he's thinking the same thing.
I really have to praise Bong Joon-ho. He keeps the focus of the film very tight. There's some great world building as we see more and more of the train. The sharp contrast between the front cars and the back cars is jarring. Yet it completely fits within how the separation of classes works today in America.
Joon-ho also never reaches too far. With so many "epics" coming out now, large-scale destruction is losing meaning. It almost seems like the bigger the movie gets, the less we care about what's going on. Snowpiercer keeps the focus on the characters, and allows the action to envelop them instead of just places characters in the middle of a disaster. The use of lighting enhances these great character moments in the middle of these stylized action sequences. Almost none of the action feels unnecessary. Every frame of violence serves a purpose.
I don't think everyone's going to enjoy Snowpiercer. It is incredibly heavy-handed in its political message. At times it does get really weird. Some of the cars further up in the train get a bit too satirical of the upper-class and may seem out of place. And the violence may be a bit too brutal for some. Despite this, Snowpiercer is among my favorite movies of 2014.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Chris Evans plays Curtis, a passenger aboard a train carrying the last known survivors of earth after an experiment to counter global warmer is implemented. The experiment puts the earth into an ice age and all life freezes to death. But everyone aboard this train, which travels around the world's continents once every year, are alive as the last of humanity.
We start out in the back of the train where it's basically a slum. People have worn out clothes, it's dark, dirty. You can almost smell it the rotten stench of it all. And as you head forward through the train you can see a progression of luxury. To say it's a metaphor for class separation and struggle would imply that it's being subtle. Snowpiercer is anything but subtle.
Snowpiercer's world is like a Fox News wet dream. People in the lower class, the back of the train, are almost slaves. Soldiers come by and do head counts, they basically kidnap people to perform tasks for the people in the front of the train. "Oh, you can play violin? Well we need a violinists in a forward car. You're coming with us. Leave your things. No, your wife stays here." And there are brutal consequences if you don't obey the people from the front of the train. Along with a figurehead, in this case played by Tilda Swinton, giving a speech about social order and everyone "belonging in their place."
There's a moment where if it weren't for seeing how crazy some of the politicians can be, I wouldn't have believed how over-the-top Tilda Swinton's character is. Yet as despicable as she is, telling the lowly passengers in the back of the train, eating nothing but manufactured protein bars, that they should be grateful for what they have. So what if you're living in your own filth. You should be happy that we're being gracious enough to allow you to be here at all. It's almost as if Swinton's doing a Michelle Bachmann with a little bit of Hunger Games flair.
Curtis, along with Edgar, played by Jamie Bell, and Gilliam, played by John Hurt, are planning to revolt and march through the cars of the train towards the front to gain control of the engine, which is basically treated as a deity to the people in the front. What ensues is one of the most fantastically brutal uprisings put on screen.
The further along the train Curtis and the others go, the more losses they take. Snowpiercer is unapologetic about how brutal a revolution can be. It doesn't water it down or glorify it. It emphasizes that it could feel futile at times. I wondered at many points in the film what Curtis was going to do once he reaches the front of the train. Is it all going to be worth it in the end? Does the ends justify some of the hard choices he made to get to the front? You can even see it in Curtis's face that he's thinking the same thing.
I really have to praise Bong Joon-ho. He keeps the focus of the film very tight. There's some great world building as we see more and more of the train. The sharp contrast between the front cars and the back cars is jarring. Yet it completely fits within how the separation of classes works today in America.
Joon-ho also never reaches too far. With so many "epics" coming out now, large-scale destruction is losing meaning. It almost seems like the bigger the movie gets, the less we care about what's going on. Snowpiercer keeps the focus on the characters, and allows the action to envelop them instead of just places characters in the middle of a disaster. The use of lighting enhances these great character moments in the middle of these stylized action sequences. Almost none of the action feels unnecessary. Every frame of violence serves a purpose.
I don't think everyone's going to enjoy Snowpiercer. It is incredibly heavy-handed in its political message. At times it does get really weird. Some of the cars further up in the train get a bit too satirical of the upper-class and may seem out of place. And the violence may be a bit too brutal for some. Despite this, Snowpiercer is among my favorite movies of 2014.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
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