Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Rated PG-13 (violence, mild language, allegory)
Directed by: Matt Reeves
Written by: Mark Bomback (story), Rick Jaffe and Amanda Silver (story and characters), and Pierre Boulle (novel "La Planète des Singes")
*** 1/2 out of ****

"All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again." -  Battlestar Galactica

I went to this flick because I thought it would at least LOOK good. I wasn't expecting a think piece, but, here we are.

I love science fiction. It shows us what we can be, but, as Rod Serling showed us, it's even better at showing us what we ARE.

What's the movie about? It's a sequel to a reboot that I haven't seen.

Apes, under the leadership of a chimpanzee named Caesar (Andy Serkis), think that humans are extinct. "Ten winters. Two without seeing them," intones Maurice (Karen Konoval), an orang-utan teacher. The Apes have a good life. A village, fire, food, a home. A future. Maurice teaches the children the Laws of the Apes. The chief law is "Ape does not kill Ape." Caesar's son, Blue-Eyes (Nick Thurston) is one of his students. He's also a teenager. Caesar's best friend is Koba (Toby Kebbell), a former lab chimpanzee, who bears the scars of "human work".

The humans that live in San Francisco are running out of fuel. Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) sends an expedition to a nearby hydroelectric dam. The group, led by Malcolm (Jason Clarke) crosses paths with Blue-Eyes and his friend. A shot is fired in panic and anger, and... You can see where this is going.

I started with a quotation from the 2004 version of "Battlestar Galactica" for a reason. Because it's fitting.

I'm watching the movie, which opens with Apes and subtitles. I'm sold before we even get to the post-apocalyptica (which I love).

But, as the story moves forward, bits of the amateur scientist in my brain get activated.

Homo Sapiens is the dominant hominid species on the planet, but we weren't (and possibly still aren't) (not to get into Bigfoot bullcrap) always the only ones.

Let's say that h. sapiens comes across h. neanderthalensis. One is smarter (we think), one is stronger (we know). What happens? Do we fight? Humans love fighting. Do we  fuck? Humans love fucking almost more than we love fighting. Do we, dare I dream, try to communicate and coexist?

All three probably happened, but, eventually, we "won".

The original film (the one with Charlton Heston and the damn dirty apes) was obviously an allegory for race relations. This one doesn't shy away from it. Koba bears the scars, memories and hatred of his servitude. Caesar had a different upbringing, and has different ideas about how humans are. In a couple of scenes, Koba actually employs minstrelry to fool humans. Very clever, and very, very angry.

Language was addressed, but not as well as I would have liked. Amongst themselves, the Apes used sign language,  with grunts and rumbles for emphasis. With humans, some chimpanzees had a limited verbal vocabulary. Short, declarative sentences. I don't know if the crew studied chimpanzee anatomy and the films of the "talking chimps" of the early 20th century or not, but, for the most part, the words that they used seemed physically possible.  Sadly, this fell apart towards the end.

One thing I really liked was the fact that the "noble savage" archetype was avoided. The Apes didn't need the White Man to save them, or one of their own to show them the path to salvation. An uneasy truce is the best that can be hoped for.

I don't want to say that the filmmakers are being cynical, but, it seems that war is inevitable. The people in power, or who want to be in power, while they think they have the best interests of society at heart, are short-sighted, selfish and genocidal. But, regardless of our fear of "The Other", we need hope.

One big question is: at least in the world of the movie, does humanity need to survive? The Apes are doing just fine. They've adapted to their new world. They have fire, food, water, shelter and family. Humanity needs technology. The Apes have tools, but humanity had forgotten how to make them. We can repair what we have, but we can no longer create.

At every They Might Be Giants show I've been to, the band divides the audience into "Apes" and "Humans", and, while the band jams, the audience shouts their allegiance. The Apes always win.

Godzilla (for crazy people)

Godzilla
No stars.

This movie was disgusting. Absolutely depraved. The audience is left wondering if we are just as monstrous as the blasphemously named creature.

The gay agenda, the pro-abortionists, the LIE-berals, they will eat this trash right up.
First of all, the HollyJews cast Bryan Cranston, a man who is known for playing "men" who are unable to provide adequately for their families.

Then, they make the American Military, the only reason that we are free, look completely incompetent. Not only are the weapons useless against the monsters, the people behind this garbage have the audacity to claim that dropping atomic bombs on Japan was a bad idea. Do you know how many people that saved? It saved you, for one. (If you can call living in this day and age "living", what with our morals going down the toilet)

But what really sickens me is how the movie ends.

G*dzilla (I don't want to risk blasphemy any more than I have to) is chasing a monster that only wants to meet his wife.

This MUTO wants to raise a family. A stable, loving, and, most importantly, HETEROSEXUAL family.

G*dzilla wants to stop this. And where does this happen?

In San Francisco, of course.

That's right. This beast kills a heterosexual family in San Francisco. And a member of the new gay military kills the children.

It doesn't end there. Of course not.

The depraved citizens of New Sodom actually cheer the giant sin monster after he kills the heterosexual monsters. And the lamestream media has the gall to name G*dzilla "King of the Monsters".

The gays aren't even trying to hide their agenda against families, traditional values, and America anymore.

Thanks, Obama.

Godzilla

Godzilla
Rated PG-13 (destruction and 'splosions)
Directed by: Gareth Edwards
Written by: Dave Callaham (Story) and Max Borenstein (Screenplay)
***1/2 out of ****

Godzilla is not Pacific Rim, and that's good.   I loved del Toro's love letter to anime for what it was: one hell of a fun time. It was stupid for all the right reasons and in all the right ways. It was giant robots punching giant monsters, it looked great, it had just enough story to... set up the punching? It was a live-action cartoon.

Godzilla was always something more. At its core, it was a cautionary tale about atomic weapons (the dumbest thing we have ever come up with as a species). Yes, the later films were campy, and the rubber suit was laughable, but, he had some sort of dignity.

I think I saw the Roland Emmerich excrement with Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno and an indestructible taxi cab using a free pass, and I still wanted my my money back. There was nothing good about it. I'm still baffled as to how you make a movie with a giant monster in it boring.

I'm hesitant to call this Godzilla a reboot. I mean, it is, but it's not. It's more of a reinterpretation, like Burton's Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (which I thought was hands-down a better movie than the original).

In this latest version, it wasn't humanity's hubris that created monsters. They are ancient, like younger versions of Lovecraft's Great Old Ones. They are creatures that consume radioactivity. When Earth was younger, it was "hotter". As this radiation dissipated, they adapted and went underground or underwater, where the radiation would be more plentiful. Hiroshima didn't make the monsters (and I am trying so hard to not make a Twilight Zone joke here); it merely showed them that pickins were good on the surface again.

In 1999, Joe Brody (Bryan Cranston) was working at a Japanese nuclear reactor. Some... thing... that looked like an earthquake was heading towards the reactor. Meanwhile, Dr. Ichiro  Serizawa  (Ken Watanabe) found that some... thing... was headed towards Japan from the Philippines. (The two things were the same thing.)

The reactor was destroyed, the town evacuated, and a no-man's-land grew in the quarantine zone.  (Cranston) felt something was fishy, and was arrested for trespassing in the zone. His son Ford  (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) a Navy Lieutenant, had to leave leave to bail him out, flying from San Francisco to Japan. This sets in motion the human part of the story. It's an important distinction.

The core of the story here is not that we make monsters or anything like that. The tale is not a parable or fable. We aren't meant to learn, or change our ways or face dire consequences. It's actually much more... Cynical is the wrong word. So is pessimistic. Realistic? The movie has giant monsters. Not symbolic monsters, not Monsters of the Id. Actual giant monsters.

Godzilla is a force of nature, like a hurricane or a tornado. Earthquakes are not mad at California. Godzilla is not an enemy of humanity. He is, at best, indifferent to us.

That's one of the things that this version gets right. Godzilla's story happens regardless of the story of the human characters.

This isn't to say that the human characters are undeveloped. They aren't. I mean, they aren't the deepest, but, there is enough humanity there to latch on to. Just not enough to hate. There are kids in the movie, but not annoying ones. We aren't subjected to heavy-handed reunion scenes, or emotionally manipulative music cues. There aren't any silly heroics, or sacrifices, or speeches. The movie is not emotionless, though. It is simply matter-of-fact. About giant monsters.

The monsters are not given characters, but we project "good" and "bad" on to them, and I found myself changing allegiances more than once.

The effects are good, as would be expected. Stylistically, however... I don't know if it was a choice, or coincidence, but the digital mattes looked delightfully like the miniatures in the Toho productions. And the scale of the monsters was, thankfully, consistent.

Godzilla wasn't campy, or grim and dark, or overwrought. It was simply, for lack of a better word, good.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Rated PG-13 ('Splosions and guns)

Directed by: Anthony and Joe Russo

Written by: Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (screenplay), Ed Brubaker (concept and story), Joe Simon and Stan Lee (comic book)

***1/2 out of ****

THIS is why I love Captain America.

Batman has brains and money, but he's insane. Superman is good, but he's basically a god. (Yes, I know that DC and Marvel take different approaches to their respective superheroes, but I didn't read a whole lot of superhero comics growing up.) There was just... something about Cap that I liked.

I'm sure that you've seen the previous Marvel Cinematic Universe flicks. If not, I'll try to recap them.

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) was a 90-pound weakling when Hitler started doing his stuff in Europe. Steve wanted to help out so damn badly. His best friend, James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes (Sebastian Stan) is going to be an amazing soldier, and Steve doesn't want to be stuck being just a stateside volunteer. He won't take "no" for an answer from the enlistment board. His moxie is noticed, and he is put in the "Super Soldier" program (which, due to licensing deals, can't be called what it became by Marvel Studios films. Captain America is Weapon I. Wolverine is Weapon X.). Cap goes to Europe, socks Hitler in the jaw, and loses Bucky.

After being frozen in the North Atlantic for decades, he's "resurrected" by S.H.I.E.L.D., and joins the Avengers Initiative. He helps Iron Man, Hulk, Black Widow, Thor and Hawkeye beat Loki, and continues working as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent while trying to adjust to the 21st century.

So, now we're here. Cap and Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) are sent on a rescue mission. A S.H.I.E.L.D. launch platform was hijacked by pirates. Wait. Cap was sent on the rescue mission. Black Widow was sent on another mission that just so happened to be on the same ship.

This really irritates Cap, and he lets Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) know. Fury doesn't really care. What he doesn't tell Cap is that S.H.I.E.L.D. has been compromised.

Fury tells his best friend, and S.H.I.E.L.D. executive, Alexander Pierce (Robert Redford). An attempt on Fury's life is made by a "ghost" known only as the Winter Soldier.

Then a bunch of stuff blows up.

Marvel really keeps raising the bar with each installment. One helicarrier in "The Avengers"? Let's do three. One kickass woman in the "universe"? That sounds like an awfully small number.

I think I liked this better than" The Avengers". Much like in "Thor: The Dark World", the Marvel team is letting the characters breathe. If you wondered why Black Widow was in The Avengers, you won't after this. Captain America needs a team, and with Black Widow, Nick Fury and Falcon (Anthony Mackie), he has an amazing one. while I'm going to see all of the Marvel Studios movies, I am really interested in seeing where Captain America goes from here.

Captain America is a soldier, yes. But he's not a blind soldier. He is a government agent, yes, but he doesn't fight for the government. Captain America represents the best of America, regardless of politics. Superman fights for Truth, Justice and the American Way, but Captain America IS Truth, Justice and the American Way. His attitude isn't "My country, right or wrong," but "When my country is right, it's right. When it's wrong, it needs to be taken to task."

The Monuments Men

The Monuments Men
Rated PG-13 (It's kind of a war movie, but not like Saving Private Ryan or Black Hawk Down)
Written by: George Clooney and Grant Heslov (Screenplay) and Robert M. Edsel and Bret Wittier (Book)
Directed by: George Clooney
*** out of ****

A quotation attributed to Winston Churchill goes something like this: When asked if he planned to cut funding for the arts to help fund the war against Germany, Churchill replied, "Then what on earth are we fighting for?"  He didn't say it, apparently, but, the sentiment is accurate.

I'm not an artist.  But, I kind of am.  I can't draw, or sculpt, or compose.  I'm told I can sing well, I used to be able to play the violin passably well, and, while I'm not Twain or George Bernard Shaw or Roger Ebert, I do enjoy playing with words.  I like mashing them together, I like making sentences, I like the act of making things that exist in my head exist elsewhere.

I'm not a historian, or an anthropologist, but I do feel strongly that art is what we, as a culture and as a species, are.  We need food, and water, and air.  We need shelter and warmth and sleep.  Do we need art in the same way?  I'd wager that we do.  If it's not necessary, then why do we enshrine it and continue to make it?

I refuse to classify art as "high" or "low".  I've been to The Louvre and seen the "Mona Lisa".  My reaction was "Huh.  There it is."  I've read "Preacher" by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon.  My reaction was "Ho... Holy shit.  Wow."  I think that Philip Glass is the greatest composer of the last 100 years, and I think that "Surfin' Bird" by The Trashmen is the greatest rocknroll song ever written.  Picasso's "Guernica" does nothing for me, but Zdzisław Beksiński draws my dreams.

I thought that we had finally stopped fighting WWII after Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan.  Of course, that was more than 15 years ago, back before the History Channel became the Shit We Just Made Up Channel.  As I've gotten older, I've realized that there really are many, many stories to be told, and shouldn't be forgotten.  The Monuments Men is one of these stories, but, in a way, it's about every story.

Frank Stokes (George Clooney) is an art historian.  He learns that Hitler is stealing Europe's art (starting with private Jewish collections, of course) to populate his Führermuseum in Linz, Austria.  (Just a quick aside, the Nazis were unquestionably evil, but, man alive, did they ever have design figured out.  This museum would have been glorious.  Except, you know, for all the evil.)  With the permission of FDR, he assembles a team of, while not exactly Top Men, men of respect in their various fields.  There's James Granger (Matt Damon), another art historian, Richard Campbell (Bill Murray), an architect, Walter Garfield (John Goodman), another architect, Jean Claude Clermont (Jean Dujardin), a French museum curator, and Preston Savitz (Bob Balaban), a choreographer or director (it's not really made clear).  All men who know art, artists, and the importance of the mission: save art, and, thereby, save history.  They are assisted by Sam Epstein (Dimitri Leonidas), a Private from New Jersey by way of Germany and Claire Simone (Cate Blanchett), a French secretary to a Nazi officer, Viktor Stahl (Justus von Dohnányi), who is one of the men "curating" the art for the Party.

The movie obviously takes some dramatic liberties with history, and, while it's packed to the gills with some terrific comic actors, there aren't really than many big laughs.  Which isn't to say that it's grim or dark.  It takes a while for the story to get rolling, but once it finds itself, it goes along just fine.

There are ideas worth fighting and dying for.  Can we say the same about art?  Should we be spending money to preserve art?  Absolutely.

Art is what we are.  It is our legacy.  Cinema is a little more than a century old, and, already, countless films have been lost due to simple chemistry and carelessness.  Television is even newer, and even more documents have been lost for the same reasons.  Paper documents -- poetry, novels, plays, compositions -- are decaying as we speak.  Even digital archival techniques are not completely reliable.  Years ago, the BBC decided to archive its library on laser discs.  When the readers broke down, they had to write computer programs to get the data back off of the discs.  Things like this are simply inevitable.  Cuneiform clay tablets have held up better than a healthy chunk of the history of the Industrial Era.  But, when you deliberately destroy art, you are destroying an entire culture.  The loss of the Library of Alexandria set our species back thousands of years.  Hitler (riding high on a wave of nationalism that started well before he came along) wanted to, if not re-write history to benefit Germany, destroy history.  It's a road that humanity has traveled down before.  Banning languages (German, Navajo, etc. in America), stealing or destroying "pagan" symbols in Latin America and elsewhere, by destroying the art and the language of a culture, you destroy the culture, and, thankfully, we seem to be waking up to that fact. 

And, speaking of art, man, Europe is just beautiful.  I wish that Clooney had taken a cue from Tarantino when filming France in springtime.  War is hell, yes, but, sometimes even destruction can be beautiful.

RoboCop

RoboCop
Rated PG-13 (Violence, brief language)
Directed by: José Padilha
Written by: Joshua Zetumer (Screenplay) and Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner (Original screenplay)
**1/2 out of ****

I'd like to tell you a story.  Now, now, don't get antsy, I'm not here to bore you.  Just hear me out.  It's a simple story, but it might just be the most important, nay, the Greatest Story Ever Told.

It's about a man.  Just like you or I.  Just an average man.  But, this man was something, had something, special.  See, he cared.  He cared about you and me.  He cared so much for us, in our little lives, that he laid down his life for us.  He died for us.  

Now, you hear stories like that quite often, don't you?  About people sacrificing themselves for others.  There was the track star who gave up Olympic glory to become a bone marrow donor.  There are the parents who sacrifice for the sake of their children.  So, one man, who loved the world so much, sacrificing his life for us, while it is a big deal, it really isn't terribly uncommon.

But, this man... Well, there's something that makes his sacrifice even neater.  

See, he came back from the dead.  He was resurrected.  And he continued to fight for each and every one of us.  Red and yellow, black and white, for all of us he continued to fight.

His name?

RoboCop.
 

Actually, his name was Officer Alex Murphy, and he was played by Peter Weller.   His deeds were originally chronicled in 1987 by Paul Verhoeven.  Oh, yeah.  And there was a dude named Jesus that you may have heard of, too.  But he wasn't a cyborg.

This new RoboCop... I didn't have a lot of high hopes for it, frankly.  The original was a pretty blatant re-telling of the death and resurrection of Christ (No, really.) in a sci-fi violence wrapper.  I didn't see the original until... last year, maybe?  A while after it came out.  But I liked it.

Is Hollywood out of ideas?  Maybe.  But, during the prologue, my hopes were raised considerably.

Pat Novak (Samuel L. Jackson, who doesn't turn on his Samuel L. Jackson until the end of the movie) is a (presumably) conservative talk show host.  In the future, robotics have advanced considerably.  ED-209s, smaller versions of the ED-209 and even human-sized robots are used to patrol streets, while AI-controlled drone jets patrol the skies.  In other countries. They are used for riot control, for threat assessment, for everything that would normally require the use of human troops.  Novak has a film crew on the streets in Tehran, watching a patrol happen.  The robots are owned and designed by Omnicorp, and (presumably) under the control of, if not the US Military, a private security firm (or, in the parlance of "Metal Gear", a PMC).  What are they doing in Tehran?  Installing "freedom", of course.  When suicide bombers take down a few robots ("We aren't going to kill anyone.  We just want to make sure we get on TV."), the feed is cut by the Pentagon, but Novak explains that this action would normally have killed American Troops, while now we are just out a few robots.  So, why can't we have this kind of security in America, the Greatest Nation in The World?

Mostly because of the actions of one Senator, Hubert Dreyfuss (Zach Grenier).  Dreyfuss asks the president of Omnicorp what a robot would feel if it killed a child.  "Nothing," replies Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton).  That's the problem.  Do we want a security force that has absolutely no emotion?  That carries out actions based solely on threat assessment in a binary language?  

Well, this is a bit of a pickle for Dreyfuss.  His company is missing out on billions of dollars in sales because America isn't on-board with the idea.  So, he goes to his head of prosthetics, Dr. Dennett Norton (Gary Oldman), with a proposition: put a man in the suit, and your division (which isn't really a great money-maker for Omnicorp) will get all the funding it needs.  Forever.

The ideal candidate presents itself in Detective Alex Murphy, a family man with a wife and a kid, who is trying to stop a Bad Guy named Antoine Vallon (Patrick Garrow) and some possibly Corrupt Cops.  A bomb is placed on Murphy's car, which then explodes, which results in severe injuries.  The Only Hope for Survival is, of course, the robot body.

The movie started out really, really strongly.  This remake went away from the Christ story and updated it to reflect today.  The ethics of drone strikes, the meaning of humanity, the nature of free-will, all really, really juicy topics.  "You aren't your body," Norton tells a man who lost both of his arms.  "You are your mind, and your arms are simply tools."  An artificial arm that transmits sensation was just revealed this past week or so, so we are getting close to the future presented here.  "Now, play," Norton tells the man.  The man picks up a guitar, and begins playing a flamenco tune flawlessly.  Until he gets into it, and his emotions start making his new arms fail.  "Just relax.  Don't get so emotional," Norton tells the man.

"I can't play without emotion," is his reply.

So, we have one aspect of the nature of humanity: emotion.  And the filmmakers start to address this.  They also address the question of free-will in a manner similar to the way Kubrick did in "A Clockwork Orange", and just about as subtly, if not as skillfully.  If a man is compelled to act in a certain way, is he actually making a choice to act that way?  If you take away a person's "ability" to act, are they still a person?

The ethics of drone strikes is... kind of ignored.  Which is fine.  That might be even trickier than the notion of free-will.

RoboCop started out strong, but then... Somewhere along the line, it just... I don't know.  It's like the writer was like, "Well, that's some neat philosophy, isn't it?  Too bad we've got this whole plot to take care of.  So, let's just kind of take some shortcuts and shoot some stuff and end with the possibility for a sequel."  

I know I shouldn't look for too much depth in a movie like this, but, damnit, I hold sci-fi up to a higher standard.  I can appreciate a good ol' space opera, I think Pacific Rim was one of the best movies I saw last year, and the Resident Evil movies are good, stupid fun.  But, I know that the genre can be absolutely breathtaking.  It can get into philosophy and not be boring.  And to dangle some interesting concepts in front of me and not follow through?  Not cool, guys.

On the plus side, Michael Keaton is always entertaining.

The Lego Movie

The Lego Movie
Rated PG (I honestly don't know why. There isn't anything that happens that all of us haven't done or said.)
Directed by: Phil Lord and Christopher Miller
Written by: Dan Hageman and Christopher Hageman (story), Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (story), Phil Lord and Christopher Miller (screenplay)
***1/2 out of ****

I suck at Lego. Just plain suck.

Sure, give me the instructions, and I can build the thing. But, coming up with something original? Well, I can come up with a pretty good box, which might have a door and a window. So, a house?

I guess that would make me both Emmet (Chris Pratt) and Lord Business (Will Ferrell), the hero and villain of "The Lego Movie". Which means that I'm complicated. Or not. The movie isn't subtle.

It is, however, gleefully stupid, gloriously silly, and clever without being smug about it.

Emmet is a Construction Worker in Blocksburg. The town is populated by Office Workers, Police, Firefighters, Doctors and a Surfer Dude. Just a typical, normal Lego town. One day, he accidentally discovered the Piece of Resistance, a legendary object that can, according to prophesy, stop the Kragle, a weapon capable of freezing the world.

Emmet meets WildStyle (Elizabeth Banks), a lady figure, Vitruvious (Morgan Freeman), a hippie wizard, Benny the '80s Astronaut (Charlie Day), Unikitty (my girlfriend Alison Brie), a kitty that is also a unicorn, Metal Beard (Nick Offerman), a cyborg pirate thing, and Batman (Will Arnett). Yes. This is an awesome team.

These people are up against Lord Business and his chief henchman Bad Cop/Good Cop (Liam Neeson), and the plan to freeze the multiverse.

The plot is there, moreso than in "Pacific Rim", but, really, the story isn't the point. The movie is about the magic of being a kid. The magic that you are only capable of before your prefrontal lobe develops fully. The magic that makes "Toy Story" and "Adventure Time" work. It's about worlds with rules and an internal logic, but at the same time, of course Luke Skywalker can show up in the G.I. Joe Mobile Command Center. Yeah, he can't drive, and he doesn't have a kung-fu grip, but, really, the Force against COBRA? The only thing that could beat that would be, what? Skeletor and Serpentor just teamed up? Well, that's fine. Optimus Prime just showed up and, no, dammit, you can't use a NERF dart gun! You're gonna break it! I HATE YOU! I'M TELLING YOUR MOM!

I can't say enough good things about this movie. The voice work is top-notch, the silliness is just delightful, and the cameos. Oh, man, the cameos. I'm sure I annoyed the entire theatre with my laughing. I smiled the entire time.

The movie draws on so many influences. Lego, obviously. But, also the Pikmin video game series, a huge range of pop culture (the end of "The Return of The Jedi", "Terminator 2", "Akira")... It's just delightful. I want to buy all the Lego sets.

Which brings me here. Only Fox News could be so completely comfortable with cognitive dissonance to say that a feature length commercial for a brand of toys could be "anti-business".

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Rated PG-13 (So many decapitations)

Written by: J.R.R. Tolkien (novel), Fran Walsh, Phillipa Boyens, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro (screenplay)
Directed by Peter Jackson
*** 1/2 out of ****

Peter Jackson just dropped the mic.

Boom.

We all know the story of "The Hobbit, or There and Back Again". If you don't, you probably had terrible parents, or didn't have a cool uncle or cousin, or something. Regardless, you missed out on a good chunk of childhood, and you need to stop reading this and go to the library or fire up a Kindle or something and rectify this immediately.

Back? Good.

Bilbo, Gandalf and the crew of Thorin have escaped the Goblin King and Gollum, and are continuing their quest to Mount Erebor, to reclaim Thorin's throne. They meet Elves, and Men, and Beorn, and Smaug. Seriously though, if you don't already know the story, man. Fix that.

It took a LONG time to get "The Hobbit" to the screen. Trying to figure out who owned the film rights to the book took years. Once that was sorted out, a director needed to be found. Jackson was burned out on Middle Earth, having spent a huge amount of time on "The Lord of The Rings". He had other things that he wanted to do, so Sam Raimi was attached for a while. Then he backed out, and del Toro stepped in. He dropped out because it was just taking so damn long to even get to principal shooting, but did help with the adaptation. Sadly, his designs were not used. I would have LOVED to have seen Smaug designed by him.

So, the ball was passed back to Jackson. When he announced that this would be another trilogy, nerds were shocked and confused. I could see two movies (The Shire to The Lonely Mountain, and The Battle of the Five Armies), but three? Not without some insane padding. After "An Unexpected Journey", I still had doubts. I thought the first installment was disappointing. Too many dwarves, too little character development. Not enough big set pieces. Slow going.

I no longer have these doubts.

Is this adaptation faithful? Mostly. Did I object to the changes? Not at all.

"The Hobbit" was, essentially, a children's story. I am sure I will be corrected, but I just don't feel like doing research, so, I'll go with what I think I remember.

During WWI, Tolkien wrote a sentence: "There was a hobbit that lived in a hole in the ground."  He then had to figure out what the hell a hobbit was, and went from there. He hadn't yet invented the languages and cultures of Middle Earth, but he had a rough notion. The characters are little more than sketches, apart from Bilbo, Gandalf and Thorin.

But, when he wrote "The Lord of The Rings", Tolkien remarked that "the tale grew with the telling." That's what I see here. Jackson and company have taken a perfectly fine story and slapped on some chrome.

The story here is centered on Thorin (Richard Armitage), Balin (Ken Scott) and Bilbo (Martin Freeman). The characters are far more fleshed-out than in the previous installment. They brought back Legolas (Orlando Bloom), made up a character with Tauriel (Evangeline Lilly), and, somehow, nothing felt shoehorned in.

Then, there are the action sequences. Oh, lordy. Wow.

I was actually giggling during the barrel escape, simply because it was such fun to watch. Much like the motorcycle chase in Spielberg's "Tin Tin" movie, it's completely improbable and that's what makes it great. Smaug  (Benedict Cumberbatch) is huge and impressive. The hoard beneath Erebor would make Scrooge McDuck jealous.

Everything here is bigger and better than in the first installment, and, I have a feeling that the final one will be almost entirely one huge action sequence.

Thor: The Dark World

Thor: The Dark World
Rated PG-13 (Destruction, language)
Written by Christopher Yost, Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (screenplay), Don Payne and Robert Rodat (story), Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby (comic and characters)
Directed by Alan Taylor
*** out of ****

Let's get a couple of things out of the way. Chris Hemsworth is a handsome man. I've had a crush on Natalie Portman for years. And, Kat Dennings should give me a call sometime.

I will be the first to admit that I really didn't care to see this movie. Thor was never one of my heroes. I read "Captain America". Not "Iron Man", not "Hulk", not even "Avengers", classic or west coast. I went to this movie, much like I went to the first "Thor", simply because Marvel Studios is doing something that I admire. They are working on what could be the biggest epic series in film history. Much like you don't need to read EVERY comic in the Marvel Universe (which one is an even bigger question), you don't need to watch EVERY movie (or TV series, for that matter) to enjoy the big picture.

I had, not high hopes, but certainly higher expectations for the first "Thor" movie. Why wouldn't I? It was directed by Kenneth Branagh. If anyone should know how to deal with larger-than-life characters, he should.

And, it fell short.

I don't know exactly what went wrong, but the movie felt "small". Maybe it was because we needed to be introduced to the characters. Maybe the story sucked. I don't know.

That's been fixed here, though. Wow.

It's important to remember that, in the Marvel Universe, the Asgardians are not truly gods. They aren't humans, they live far longer than us, but can die. They don't have magic. Instead, they obey one of Clarke's Laws: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

And, by Odin, they got that right. So, so right.

The Dark Elves waged war against Asgard millennia ago. They lost, but Malekith (Christopher Eccleston) wants revenge. Loki (Tom Hiddleston) has been imprisoned by Odin (Anthony Hopkins) for being an ass. Thor (Hemsworth) has been putting down revolts across the Realms (different planes of reality, because shut up, that's why). Jane (Portman) and her "team" of scientists have been picking up strange gravimetric readings that indicate something is going to happen. The bad guys show up, things explode, Thor and Loki have to team up, and the rest just writes itself.

This installment just felt so much bigger and better in every way. I fell in love with the design of the worlds. Asgard looked carved and sculpted. Art deco done by Vikings. The Dark Elves had ships and weapons that looked extruded, like lava coming up underwater. Primal. Rough. The worlds looked lived-in, and felt right.

The characters were more developed. Yes, this is the third movie for Thor and Loki, but it seems like the writers are finally figuring out how to write the characters. I'm sure that this is at least partly due to Joss Whedon shepherding the movie universe.

I honestly can't think of anything that I didn't like about this movie. True, it didn't advance the metastory much (as far as I know), but, as a stand-alone movie, it far outshines the first.

Ender's Game

Ender's Game
Rated PG-13 (Violence)
Written and directed by Gavin Hood, based on the book by Orson Scott Card
*** out of ****

They were close. So damn close.

Before I get into the meat of the review, lemme talk about separating the art from the artist. Phil Spector is one of my heroes, and he is spending the rest of his life in prison. He is, and always was, crazy as a shit-house rat. But, the music that he recorded was just amazing. Without Spector, we would have had The Beach Boys, but, would Brian Wilson have had the guts to use the studio as an instrument?

Orson Scott Card is a homophobic asshole, but, that doesn't mean that "Ender's Game" isn't an amazing story. So, while I understand why some people might stay away from the book and the movie, it really is worth your time.

Back to the review.

Andrew "Ender" Wiggin (Asa Butterfield) is a Third. Earth has instituted population controls, limiting parents to two children. But, Ender is special. The International Fleet (a united Earth defense force) is looking for humanity's Last Best Hope, and Ender's older siblings were almost, but not quite, the right child for the job. Valentine was too compassionate, and Peter was a psychopath. Hopefully, Ender will be the balance that the IF needs to stop the next Formic (or Bugger) invasion.
Ender is recruited for Battle School, where Major Anderson (Viola Davis) is the bad cop, and Colonel Graff (Harrison Ford) is the worse cop. Ender's training is based not only on tactics and physics, but on how he relates to his platoon mates.

The team behind the movie got most of the core of the story. The events (and, I'm taking as a fan of the book) were mostly intact. But, dammit, it's what was left out that is what made the story truly great.

A good portion of the story is based around the Battle Room, a zero-G arena designed to teach tactics and improve unit cohesion. And, it looks great in the movie. It was just too damn short.

That's my main complaint about the whole thing, really. It runs two hours, but, man, there's so much STORY that was left out.

The casting was spot on. Ford was great as Graff, and Butterfield was perfect as Ender. But, it just just felt like an abridgement, and, when a screenplay is adapted, the good ones don't feel abridged.

There are two defining moments that I was worried would be glossed over, but they weren't. Two other things, however...
SPOILERS AHEAD

Ender was pushed past his limits. What he went through was a crime. At best, it was child abuse, and was presented as such in the book, and hinted at in the movie. He was brutalized physically and mentally. He was hated by squadmates, he killed two children in self-defense. When he started winning Battle Room matches, Graff changed the rules. He and his squads were forced to fight multiple battles a day, without sleep or food. At the end, Ender gave up. He, in essence, said "Fuck you" to Graff. "Fuck you. If you aren't going to play by the rules, neither am I. I'm going to win in spite of you, and then, dammit, I am going to quit."

It wasn't heroism, and, while Ender was a tactical genius, it wasn't just that that enabled him to win. It was Ender giving up, Ender telling authority to screw itself, Ender just wanting to go home, that won.

END SPOILERS

They were just so damn close.

There were great moments. Butterfield is a strong actor, but, because the movie was so short, we weren't able to see Ender develop. Davis was a good counterpoint to Ford, but, again, we aren't able to see their doubts, convictions and justifications. We see Mazer Rackham (Ben Kingsley) but don't see him beat the living hell out of a little boy. (That might not have been due to the length of the movie.)

I first read the book in my early 20's. Others probably read it when they were younger, as it shows up on suggested reading lists in high schools. The movie was stuck in development hell for years (when I read it, Wolfgang Peterson was attached to direct, and I don't think Asa Butterfield had been born).

It was going to be difficult to adapt for anyone, and, this is an admirable effort. If you haven't read the book, the movie is fine. Good effects, decent story, enjoyable all around. If you have read it, you'll know what's missing. They were so damn close.

Gravity

Gravity
Rated PG-13 (Space is scary.)
Directed by Alfonso Cuaron
Written by Alfonso Cuaron and Jonas Cuaron
**** out of ****

Wow.

Let me elaborate: Holy wow.

If you'll indulge me for a bit, I have a little story to tell you about me.

From my earliest memories, I have always wanted to be an astronaut. There was never any question in my mind that it was what I was going to be when I grew up. Then, one day in third grade, Mr. Saathoff, the janitor, came into the classroom (reading, I believe, with Mrs. Wood), and told us that the space shuttle, Challenger, had exploded. This news completely broke my heart. Completely.

Now that I'm older, I understand that accidents like that happen, but it doesn't lessen the sorrow that I felt when Columbia exploded on re-entry, or that I will feel the next time a spacecraft is lost.

Nor does it diminish my desire to go to space.

Space is huge and dangerous. Your body rebels in zero G, there is next to nothing to protect you from radiation, micrometeorites are zipping around at tens of thousands of miles an hour, and everything up there is amazing.

If you have any fear of drowning, or have problems with vertigo, do NOT go to this movie. If you are prone to motion sickness, you should skip the 3D version.

That being said, damn. Just... Just holy crap.

I'm sure you can put the story together from the trailers. Captain Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) is on his last shuttle mission. Mission Specialist (usually NASA shorthand for "dead weight") Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock and her legs (I'm sorry, but they are amazing legs)) is installing a piece of equipment that she has designed onto the Hubble Space Telescope. The Russians used a missile test to destroy one of their obsolete spy satellites, and the debris causes everything to go wrong.

The film is event, rather than character, driven, but, since there are only two characters in the film, we bond with them. Hard. You know how some people watch horror movies and tell the characters what to do and not do? Yeah. I did that here.

Roger Ebert once described the Indiana Jones movies as "one damn thing after another", and that's what Cuaron has here. In a movie like that, the pacing is critical. The audience needs time to breathe. Not too much, but just enough. Cuaron has this nailed here.

The special effects are stunning. I don't know if any part of the movie was filmed in the Vomit Comet or not, but I doubt it. Here's why :

The cinematic language of the film is established right at the top with a 15 - minute long single (or so cleverly edited to appear so) uninterrupted take. There are no quick shots. There is at least one shot that, when I realized what was going on, made me smile, like the scene in "Contact" that looked like a Steadicam shot of young Ellie running through her house, only to end with her opening the medicine cabinet with a mirrored door, as if the entire shot was an impossible reflection.

I'm a gigantic nerd, so, while watching the astronauts, I was paying attention to the physics of motion. I know that, in a stable orbit of Earth, one circuit takes roughly 90 minutes. I'm going to say that James Cameron has some SERIOUS competition in the scientific accuracy and plausibility department. Again, wow.

I don't think anyone but Clooney could have played the captain. He's the right age to be plausible in the role, and he's handsome and cocksure enough to fit our (my) idea of what an astronaut is. Bullock carries most of the weight of the story, and does it well. She's not an astronaut, but she's not incompetent. She's had training, but she has to think things through.

I saw the 2D version, because of my problems with motion sickness. (I watched "Cloverfield" by looking at the ceiling of the theatre and listening to the dialogue.) However, I think that this might be one to pay the extra money to see in 3D, simply because it would make it that more immersive and scary.

Wow.

Riddick

Riddick
Rated R (violence, gore, brief nudity)
Written and directed by David Twohy
** 1/2 out of ****

If there was such a thing as an impressionistic action character, it would be Richard B. Riddick.

Years ago, I saw "Pitch Black", and thought it was a perfectly fine B-grade sci-fi flick. Solid premise (a planet with multiple suns that had constant light until an eclipse, creatures that hunted with sonar, a bad ass with night vision), decent story (a group of people who depend on a murderer to survive), everything hit the right notes. It was small, self-contained and fun.

Then, "The Chronicles of Riddick" came out, and it tried to be, like, seven things at once. There just wasn't enough room in the movie for all the ideas it had. However, it was designed within an inch of its life. It LOOKED amazing, but, it FELT impressionistic. Characters and situations were sketched out, but never fleshed out. Concepts were introduced, but, it's like we had to (along with the actors) fill in the blanks.

In "Riddick", the series has returned to its roots, as it were. It's small, self-contained, and has an absolutely gleeful amount of gore.

And it's still impressionistic. Riddick (Vin Diesel) is a bad man. When we last saw him, he had become Lord Marshall of the Necrons ("The what of the who?" You ask. And I nod in agreement.), but, apparently, things happened, and he's stuck on this planet. With monsters. And a dog. And he somehow determines that something bad is coming, so, he finds a merc/bounty hunter way station and calls in two ships with a distress beacon. One is only looking for the bounty on Riddick, the other is looking for answers from him. And then violence happens.

The movie looks great. It was obviously filmed on location in Green Screen National Park, with additional scenes filmed in Available For A Few Months Memorial Soundstage, but the design more than makes up for it. Everything looks lived-in and detail was not skimped on. The team loves this world they've created, and it shows. The acting isn't going to win any awards, but that's fine. David Bautista is not a bad actor, and I've had a crush on Katee Sackoff for years, but, we come to this little sticking point:

How does Riddick know what he knows? He seems to be a genius in tactics, he apparently understands alien biology and human behavior, but none of the how or why is presented. I know that there is TONS of backstory that isn't put on screen, but I want to see it. "He's a bad ass" is fine for a character sketch, but if a psychopath all of a sudden displays sympathy or caring, I want to know WHY.

The characters aren't one-dimensional, but, in movies like this, with worlds that aim for space opera epicness, you need more than impressionism.

Elysium

Elysium
Rated R (Violence)
Written and Directed by Neill Blomkamp
*** out of ****

Let's get this out of the way first of all: Conservatives are going to HATE this movie. 

Well, maybe not all of it, but, good chunks of it.

I don't want to get all political in what should ostensibly be an entertaining review of light entertainment, but, dangit, Blomkamp opened up that door, and I'm going through.

I may have said it before, and I'm sure I will say it again, but, science fiction is rarely about the future.  It's more about the present, in a round-about (and sometimes, not-so-round-about) way.  "Farenheit 451" was (regardless of what every single person who ever read it thinks) not about the government censoring literature in the future, but rather television taking the place of books.  "1984" wasn't about a dystopian future with unlimited government control, but rather it was about 1948 London.  "2001: A Space Odyssey" was... well, it was about EVERYTHING.

Let's get another thing out of the way: Space stations are supposed to be round, with a docking bay in the center, with PanAm flights in and out daily, and with a Hilton Hotel and video phones.

"Elysium" got the round space station completely correct.  Perhaps at a lower orbit than the one in "2001", but still, nice and round.  The reason for the Elysium torus was because rich people didn't want to be around poor, stinky, dirty, sick people on Earth.  So, they took their toys and, I don't know, went Galt, I guess.  Conservatives are going to HATE the fact that the super-rich are, at least in the case of Sec. Delacourt (Jodie Foster), bad guys.  Like, boo-hiss bad guys.

Down on Earth, in Los Angeles (which looks a lot like the slums around Johannesburg, South Africa), Max (Matt Damon) is a laborer in a plant that makes robots.  Fully-articulated humanoid robots that provide security, medical care, etc.  Due to an accident at work, he needs to get to Elysium, which has all of the high-tech medical equipment, and they don't share with non-citizens (Boo! Hiss!).  To get a black market ticket, he has to go back to an old partner-in-crime and do One. Last. Job.

This job attracts the attention of Delacourt, who calls in some serious Black Ops (Boo?) named Kruger (Sharlto Copely), who also helps deal with the illegal immigrant problems for the torus (Yay!).

Blomkamp is a fine director.  "District 9" was a really good sci-fi flick that was basically about Apartheid.  "Elysium" is a really good sci-fi flick that is about... lots of things. 

I don't want to say that he spread himself too thin with the themes he was working with.  They are presented, not so much in a political way, but, much like "Black Hawk Down", simply as how things are.  However, much like there is no such thing as a "neutral" documentary, you can see what Blomkamp feels about certain issues.

And, hoo boy, are there issues.  Illegal immigration, Libertarian philosophy, drone strikes, government surveillance,  Christian philosophy, unregulated capitalism, and mercenaries just off of the top of my head.  These things are presented, and, while not thoroughly explored, the shorthand for how he wants you to feel is right there.

Is this the best movie I've seen this summer?  Nope.  That's still "Pacific Rim".  However, the special effects in this movie are by far the best I've seen.  Copely could, someday, give Christoph Waltz a run for his money in the bad guy department.  The story is fine, there are some good moments of tension, and there were some really cool camera tricks in the fight scenes that I hadn't seen done before.

I think, however, that, if there is one lesson that we can all learn from "Elysium", it's that mercenaries are terrible, terrible people.

Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim
Rated PG-13 (for roughly the same reasons as "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom")
Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Written by del Toro and Travis Beacham
**** out of ****

I don't see how it's possible to see a better movie (not film) this summer than "Pacific Rim".

Summer movies are supposed to be big, colorful, loud and entertaining, with clear-cut good guys and bad guys.  Mellerdrammers with bigger budgets and similar acting styles.  Like summer stock theatre, these movies should be acts of love on the part of the cast and crew, and the best ones are.  "The Goonies", the first "Iron Man", the original "Star Wars", "Super 8", "The Cabin in The Woods" -- all very entertaining, all very loud and colorful (except "Super 8"), and all of them just dripping with the sheer, unbridled joy that the makers poured into them.  The joy in these movies is contagious.  And this movie, oh, man.  I couldn't stop smiling.

Monsters called "kaiju" (the Japanese term for the giant monsters like Godzilla and Mothra) are invading the planet from beneath the Pacific Ocean.  As you all know from the trailers, to fight monsters, we had to make monsters.  Apparently, the solution to the kaiju invasion was to throw all the world's money at Japan to make giant battlemechs called "Jagers" (the German word for "hunters").  Each Jager is piloted by a pair, because one person doesn't have the brain power to make the mech move.  The pilots are rated by compatibility called "drift" -- how well their minds work together.  A kaiju appears, a Jager team is deployed, the Jager punches the holy hell out of the kaiju, and humanity lives another day.

The plot is pretty bare-bones, but that's OK.  We see glimpses of things like the UN, and are made to understand that, after several years, the Jager program is losing its effectiveness.  Marshall Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) is given six months to make it work, or it will be shut down.  Former Jager pilot Raliegh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) is brought back into service for One. Last. Mission.  We meet the other pilots, the research team of Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day), who is a wanna-be rock star and Gottlieb (Burn Gorman), who is a weird crippled math dude.  We see bits of the black market for kaiju body parts, and the best of the worst is Hannibal Chau (Ron Goddamn Perlman).  That's pretty much it.  There's very little interpersonal drama between pilots, there are hints at romance (but, for the target audience and for those of us who remember what it was like to be the target audience, girls are kind of neat, but kind of scary at the same time).  

Mostly, it's giant robots punching giant monsters in the most awesome ways you can imagine.

"Pacific Rim" is a big, giant, live-action anime.  It's a less-epic "Robotech", a less David-Lynchian "Neon Genesis Evangelion".  It looks and feels like the best after-school cartoon EVER.  del Toro is an amazing designer, and, wow.  This movie is almost entirely about design.

One of the challenges Bryan Singer had with making a live-action X-Men movie was making the costumes not look stupid on-screen.  It looks like del Toro went the opposite direction.  The Russian Jager pilots have blonde pompadour haircuts.  The Chinese team is played by triplets.  The guy manning the ops station looks like he stepped out of the original "Speed Racer" cartoon.  Hannibal Chou has a switchblade, sunglasses, and the best damn shoes I've ever seen.  Every character is a stereotype, and every character SHOULD be a stereotype.  We don't want to think here.  We want to see giant goddamn robots, and, by god, we do.  

Special effects-wise, I don't see any other contenders winning Oscars over this one.  It's almost flawless.  And, unlike Michael Bay's "Transformers" movies, nothing hurts to look at.  I mentioned that with Zack Snyder's "Man of Steel", I like Snyder's ability to keep the huge action sequences focused on what they should be focused on.  In "Pacific Rim", the objects in the screen are too big to allow for distraction.

Does this movie have toys?  Because I want to get all the Jager models that I can.  8-year-old me loved this movie.  Teenage-anime-watching me was just enthralled by the fact that they actually did it, and it didn't suck.  36-year-old me smiled, and smiled, and smiled.

Monsters University

Monsters University
Rated G (It's about monsters, but, you know, Pixar monsters)
Directed by Dan Scanlon
Written by Robert L. Baird, Dan Scanlon and Daniel Gerson
**1/2 out of ****

This one has me baffled.  I love animation as an art form.  The Fleischer Studios "Popeye" and "Superman" shorts, Henry Selick's peerless stop motion, Aardman Animations, "Cowboy Bebop", "Neon Genesis Evangelion", "Animaniacs", the Looney Tunes, "Batman: The Animated Series", Studio Ghibli, Pixar... There's no reason I can think of to outgrow watching cartoons.  Some cartoons are made for children, some are made for everyone, some are made for adults.

Pixar has been amazing for decades.  They all but invented the animation landscape we have today, and most of the tools that are used to produce that animation.  They specialize in family movies, not movies that parents are forced to sit through with their children, growing stupid and irritated.  Pixar's movies are filled with clever details, stunning technical execution, and, in their best films, emotional manipulation that would make Spielberg jealous.

As Meatloaf said, two out of three ain't bad.  Sadly, two out of three ain't what I want from Pixar.

Maybe the problem was the fact that "Monsters University" was a prequel.  We know how it's gonna end for the most part.  We know that Sullivan (John Goodman) and Mike (Billy Crystal) are going to be friends.  We know that they're going to work for Monsters, Inc.  It's tough to build drama when the audience knows what's going to happen at the end.  So, rather than focus on tension, you would need to focus on character and story.

Which is what Scanlon & Co. did here.  Sadly, the audience has seen this before.  The kids with the "Harry Potter" books and movies, the adults with "Revenge of the Nerds", "Police Academy", pretty much any underdog movie you can name.

Now, there were some little twists to the formula, but, I almost think that they were constrained by the G rating.  So much more could have been done in the cabin in the woods, for example.

Pixar all but owned up to the fact that they swiped the character designs for the monsters from Jim Henson.  Art, a purple... arch? thing is a dead ringer for a Muppet from some of the early, anarchistic Jim Henson commercials, when Henson was mostly concerned with blowing up the proto-Kermit or any other Muppet that was nearby.

From a technical standpoint, yes, this is an amazing exercise in animation.  The movie looks stunning, but, it didn't feel stunning.  The characters are much younger here, and, unless I'm completely wrong about monster physiology (which wasn't discussed in the movie, and I'm afraid of what I might find on the internet if I look), they should be more energetic, more spry, more agile.  More like what I think I may have been back in college.  Yet, there are no really memorable setpieces.  Nothing like the Door Rollercoaster in "Monsters, Inc."  The movie feels... smaller.

And there just isn't an emotional hook.  There's no Boo.  Perhaps I just like the idea of a sound engineer following a two-year-old around with a microphone as she wanders and babbles, because that makes me smile.  Maybe I'm just let down because this is the first Pixar movie that I've seen in which the theatre's HVAC system functioned correctly and didn't allow dust to get into my eyes.  Either way, I wasn't tricked into feeling emotions, and I wanted to be.

Now, the opening short, "The Blue Umbrella", on the other hand, that had some good feels.  There's an old Disney short called "Johnny Fedora and Alice Bluebonnet" that tells a similar story, albeit with song and not street objects, but it's just as sweet a love story when told by Pixar.

"Man of Steel"

"Man of Steel"
Rated PG-13 (Pow! Kablam!)
Directed by Zack Snyder
Written by David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan

*** 1/2 out of ****

I'm kind of rusty at this, so, patience, please.

If I were to have a complaint about "Man of Steel", it would be that Zack Snyder is, surprisingly, not a subtle director. More on this later.

It's 2013.  EVERYONE knows Superman's origin. Writers David S. Goyer and Christopher Nolan recognize this.  Their depiction of Krypton is, however, much different than Richard Donner's or John Byrne's.  Think Cloud City, but have it be designed by the team that did the second "Riddick" movie.  Speaking of that, when are we as a culture going to move beyond the School of Funny Hats Science-Fiction Costume Design?  Seriously.

OK.  That looks like two complaints.  But that was more of a general critique of the industry as a whole, not of this movie.

Anyway, Krypton is destroyed.  Jor-El (Russel Crowe) saw this coming.  So did General Zod (Michael Shannon).  They disagree over the best way to save their people.  Jor-El is given a bigger role than the one I recall Brando having in Donner's original "Superman".  Zod, of course, is evil.

Duh.

So, Kal-El lands in Kansas (slipping under NORAD surveillance somehow.  One more reason to increase NASA's funding.).  He's raised by Ma and Pa Kent near Smallville.  Kevin Costner was just perfect as Pa Kent.  On the other hand, after seeing her in "Unfaithful", I just can't accept Diane Lane as a small-town farmer's wife.  Damn.

Kal-El is re-christianed (Ha!) Clark, and is raised as a typical small-town kid.  One thing that the crew does very well is show, for all intents and purposes, the worse case of ADD ever as Clark's powers emerge.  Ma is Clark's anchor, and Pa is Clark's... mentor?  Conscience?  They both clearly love their adopted son, and want him to be the best person that he can be, but, to have to raise a being that is, for lack of a better word, a god... That's an unenviable position.

Clark (Henry Cavill) spends his 20s living the life of TV's "The Incredible Hulk", wandering from job to job, moving on when his abilities are revealed, eventually getting a job with a cargo company contracted by the military which has found... A Thing.

Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams), who has been embedded with platoons before and is already a Pulitzer Prize winner, is dispatched to the Arctic, where The Thing has been found.  Journalism! ensues.  Discoveries are made!  Action setpieces happen!

And they are amazing.

I don't think that there is an American director working right now that is better at constructing action sequences than Zack Snyder.  Michael Bay is, in some circles (not mine), regarded as an avant-garde genius.  Seriously.  "Transformers" hurt by brain to look at.  Far too much geometry for my visiual cortex to process.  Snyder maintains a VERY clear focus.  Buildings are collapsing, debris is flying, stuff is blowing up real good, but there is no waste on the screen.  Nothing is distracting you from a) the action or b) the story.

"The fights?" you may be asking.  I don't know.  I'm not you.  "What about the fights?"

Oh, lordy.

Wow.

You saw "The Avengers".  Don't lie.  The movie made more money than God last year.

Remember Hulk vs. Loki?

Make that last longer than one very short scene.  With equally-matched opponents.  And goddamned A10 Warthogs.  And Lawrence Fishburne as Perry White.

You feel the hits connect.  Force and mass accelerate.  And it is glorious.  It looks, sounds and feels completely RIGHT.  These are gods fighting.

I'm burying this next bit.

I'm so straight it's boring.  I'm pretty damned vanilla.  But, oh my god, Henry Cavill without a shirt.  Oh.  My.  God.

I did not expect to like "Man of Steel" as much as I did.  I new that Snyder was a more-than-competent director, and Nolan has his fingerprints all over this movie.  I want to say that they knocked it out of the park.  I want to say that it ranks up there with "The Dark Knight".

But!

But, Snyder is not subtle.  Nor is Nolan.

The Marvel Cinematic Universe (Iron Man/Captain America/Thor/Avengers, not Spider-Man/Fantastic Four/X-Men) has made changes to the lore of its heroes.  I'm fine with the changes as long as they make sense.  Kubrick's "The Shining" is VASTLY different from King's novel, but they are both good enough to be judged on their own merits.

You may have heard or read on the internet or seen things on the tv about an... equivalency?  Cross-cultural metaphoric symbol switching?

Superman = Jesus.

WRONG!

Superman =/= Jesus.

Superman = Moses.

Why would a couple of nice Jewish boys like Jerry Seigel and Jerome Schuster make a Jesus character?  That's dumb.  You're dumb for thinking that.

Minority Report ***
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Written by: Philip K. Dick (short story); Scott Frank and Jon Cohen (screenplay)
Starring: Tom Cruise, Max von Sydow, Colin Farrell, Tim Blake Nelson and Samantha Morton
Rated PG-13 (violence, language, asking questions)

Science fiction – that is, good science fiction – is never ‘about’ the future. It is about the present. Fiction as a whole does not exist in a vacuum. Sci-fi is even less inside a vacuum. Sci-fi authors are able to ask questions that need to be asked and present ideas that need to be presented. But, because they tend to have things like robots and laser guns and spaceships, they are dismissed by the public. The public is right to do so, for the most part. There is loads and loads of sci-fi that is just terrible. The truly good stuff, however, shouldn’t even be called science fiction. Speculative fiction is a better term.

Now, it’s one thing to write a synopsis of the plot of Minority Report – it’s another thing entirely to tell you what it was ‘about’. I’m gonna try to do my best.

John Anderton (Cruise) is the chief of the Department of Precrime in Washington, DC. The Department of Precrime is charged with arresting murderers before they kill their victims. The murders are seen by three Pre-cogs – people who see, with great detail, murders that happen in the future. Precrime deals only with homicide, simply because the killing of one person by another person is so jarring to the metaphysical world that it is the only crime that can be pre-seen accurately. In the 6 years of Precrime’s trial run, murder in Washington, DC has dropped to zero. Not one murder. Sometimes there are close calls, but the officers have always been able to stop the crime from happening. The pre-murderer is arrested, mentally incapacitated with a device known as a halo, and is imprisoned. All three Pre-cogs, named Agatha (Morton), Dashiell (Matthew Dickman) and Arthur (Michael Dickman) see different things, but, combined, the images are nearly identical. Precrime is poised to go national, but before it does, Ed Witwer (Farrell) has been assigned by the Attorney General to see if there are any flaws in the system. When Anderton is charged with the precrime of murder, it sure looks like there are flaws. Many, many flaws.

I’m gonna talk about the movie itself here, and save the philosophy until the end, because if I don’t, you’ll get bored and go away.

There are no doubts in my mind that Steven Spielberg is one of the best filmmakers in history. Certainly he’s the best one working today. While Stanley Kubrick is still my favorite director of all time, Spielberg is able to appeal to the general public in a way that no other director I can think of is able to. He is in a phase in his career right now that can only lead to even greater things. I’m sure that Schindler’s List will be his magnum opus for many people, but I am more interested in seeing where he’s going. With A.I., he directed a Stanley Kubrick movie, but was able to bring his own sensibilities and ‘trademarks’ to it. It was a fairly dark story, but it still worked. There have always been sinister undercurrents in his work (adults who don’t remember what it’s like to be a child, Nazis, growing up – all things that, really, are scary in their own way), but now he is more able to deal with darker ideas. He has said that there is no way he could make E.T. today. He is no longer that idealistic. Of course, I imagine that talking to Holocaust survivors would tend to make one’s worldview a bit bleak. I really like this phase in his career. He’s not completely embittered, but he’s not going to candycoat anything.

Janusz Kaminski is the only cinematographer that matters. End of story. When he’s working with Spielberg, he is unstoppable.

The casting in this movie was perfect. The performances all outstanding, especially the exchanges between Cruise and Farrell.

I only have two complaints about the movie. The first was with the film itself. Now, I am all for action sequences. Chases, explosions, spaceships, guns, all that stuff is really good. The only problem was, in this movie, the main action sequence didn’t feel right with the rest of the movie. It was almost slapstick, and I thought it detracted from the overall quality of the film. The other complaint was with the person who assembled the reels before showing the movie. The second-to-the-last reel was loaded backwards, which meant that the audience had to wait for almost 30 minutes to see the end of the movie. A film is an experience. The lights go down, the surround sound kicks in, and there you are. Having to sit and wait lessens the overall impact of the experience, whether it’s a simple action movie or a kiddie flick or a drama – you’re drawn out of your suspension of disbelief, and it’s tough to get back into the flow.

Now it’s time for what I thought the movie was actually about. Feel free to imagine a drumroll.

By arresting someone before they commit a crime, you are altering the future. You have arrested someone for a crime that they did not commit. Yes, they were going to commit the crime, but the did not. They did not have the opportunity. You have taken away something that makes them human – free will. They were no longer able to choose to kill or not to kill. What if, at the last second, they did not commit the crime? You have arrested an innocent person. There are no trials, no judges, no juries. The decision of Precrime is final. What if you, or the Pre-cogs, made a mistake? What is the point in saving the life of someone who wasn’t going to be killed? How much faith do you have in the system? How much freedom are you willing to sacrifice to feel safe?

That’s another issue – freedom and privacy. The movie is absolutely filled with advertising. Here are the products I remember: Aquafina, Nokia, Pepsi, Lexus, Kawasaki and American Express. Part of the product placement was simply to reinforce the ‘reality’ of the world. It wasn’t there simply to advertise, it wasn’t parodied, it wasn’t mocked – it was simply there. My favorite movie of all time, 2001: A Space Odyssey featured Hilton hotels, AT&T and Pan-Am. Advertising in and of itself is neither a good thing nor a bad thing. But, the ways that the advertising was presented in Minority Report was a little bit scary. Identification is based on retinal scans in the world of 2054. Say you’re walking through a mall. A scanner identifies you, and a holographic salesperson appears, saying, “Welcome back, Grant. We’re running a special on those polos you like so much,” or “Grant Bennett, wouldn’t you love to take a trip to Hawaii? To be eligible to win, all you have to do is make three more purchases with your MasterCard. You haven’t been using it lately. Why not use it today?” How much privacy do we want? How much do we need? Technology is already in the works to place a call to your cellphone to notify you of sales at stores you walk by. Face-scanning technology has already been used at the Superbowl. Spielberg doesn’t pass judgement on the technology in this movie; he simply presents it as part of the world. I’m not sure I want that world.

It’s wonderful to see a good movie based on the work of Philip K. Dick. Dick was one of the most remarkable sci-fi authors I have ever encountered. Blade Runner is based on his story “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” which asked the question “What determines ‘life’? Is artificial life any less valid than ‘real’ life?” Total Recall was based on his short story “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale”, which dealt with the issue of our own memories. What do we remember? Do we actually remember it, or did we make it up? Philip K. Dick was able to write stories using God as a character without it seeming awkward or contrived. He is also the only person who I believe actually had a religious vision in the 20th Century. If you’re curious about him, check Philip K. Dick.com.

I chose to watch Minority Report this week because I am a fan of Spielberg and P.K. Dick. However, I do have a good feeling about the other movie opening at The Hangar this week, Lilo and Stitch. I’m glad to see Disney actually taking some risks in their animated features, instead of just churning out a musical ever 2 years or so.

Windtalkers **
Directed by: John Woo
Written by: John Rice and Joe Batteer
Starring: Nicholas Cage, Adam Beach, Peter Stormare, Roger Willie, Noah Emmerich and Christian Slater
Rated R (It’s a war movie. And it’s directed by John Woo.)

Dear Hollywood,

While it’s admirable that you are broadening your horizons by bringing in talent from overseas, perhaps you should let a director make the movie he or she wants to make, instead of making them make what you think audiences want to see.

Sincerely,
Grant Bennett

I really, really wanted to like Windtalkers. I really, really like John Woo and his films. American film audiences owe him a debt of gratitude. Ever see a character in a movie jump through the air holding 2 .45s in slow motion? John Woo invented that. Ever see a movie with a gunfight in a church? That’s his invention, too. You can bet that Quentin Tarantino has seen all of Woo’s films at least twice. John Woo practically invented a genre of film – the ‘blood opera’. Blood operas are very, very violent, but not gratuitously so. The violence is essential to the story, but the focus is on characters. Not too many characters, however.

Windtalkers, while not based on a true story per se, is based around the US Military’s use of the Navajo language as the basis for a code during World War II. Navajo code was the only unbreakable code in the war. Ben Yahzee (Beach) and Charles Whitehorse (Willie) are two private code talkers. In order to protect the code, each is assigned a Marine as a bodyguard. Yahzee has Sgt. Joe Anders (Cage), and Whitehorse has Sgt. Peter “Ox” Henderson (Slater). The task of the bodyguards is to protect the code, not necessarily the code talker. Themes like racism, family, friendship, duty and honor are addressed, people get shot, Nicholas Cage gets blown up like 7 times, and America wins the war, eventually. This story takes place fairly early in the Pacific campaign.

When I first saw a preview for this movie, I was all kinds of excited. “Woah! A new John Woo movie! And it’s a war movie! How can this not rock?” Well, I’m sad to say that there are several ways in which it failed to rock.

First of all, 2 words: stock footage. And not just any stock footage. I’m talking about stock footage that was clearly taken from video. Secondly, airplanes. I don’t know if the airplanes were CGI or models, but, either way, there were scale problems. Thirdly, John Woo wasn’t allowed to make a John Woo movie.

I’m sure that most of you have seen at least one John Woo movie. He directed Face/Off, Mission: Impossible II, Broken Arrow and his unfortunate American debut, Hard Target. All of these movies were action movies. All of them except Hard Target were very good action movies. But, John Woo is not an action movie director – he is a dramatic director who uses action in his stories. His movies are centered around doomed, tragic relationships, loneliness, misunderstanding, trust and redemption. Thusfar, he hasn’t made a John Woo movie in America, which is unfortunate. Especially since in Windtalkers he really could have made a masterpiece.

I don’t know for a fact that Woo was forced to make changes in his film, but it sure felt and looked like it. There are some scenes that are classic Woo – characters playing music because they like to play music, very strong friendships, characters self-destructing after a tragedy, nearly every John Woo hallmark is present, including camera work. But there are others that seem like the executive producer said, “Hey, ya know that really neat part in Saving Private Ryan? Why don’t you put something like that in. Oh, and, you know how in most of your movies you have like 3 primary characters? Well, if your stuff is good with 3, it’d be even better with, oh, I dunno, 4 primaries and like 10 supporting characters! What? Of course you’ll have time to develop all of the characters fully!”

I can’t say that I absolutely didn’t like this movie. It had some absolutely wonderful moments, but, it usually followed those moments up with cliches. I am just disappointed in Windtalkers, and in Hollywood for thinking that American audiences are too stupid to understand things like ‘emotion’ and ‘high tragedy’. That’s right – Hollywood thinks that American audiences are dumb. But, you and I both know better.

If you’re in the mood for a REAL John Woo movie, I’d suggest renting The Killer or Hard Boiled. They’re in Chinese with English subtitles since they were made in Hong Kong, but, that shouldn’t bother you. If you’re not in the mood for a HK John Woo flick, rent Face/Off, which also has Nicholas Cage.

Bad Company * ½
Directed by: Joel Schumacher
Written by: Gary Goodman and David Himmelstein (story); Jason Richman and Michael Browning (screenplay)
Starring: Anthony Hopkins, Chris Rock, and a bunch of character actors
Rated PG-13 (sass, attitude and flava!)

I suppose I should extend my thanks to Messrs. Schumacher and Bruckheimer for giving me so many great ideas. There are so many ways I could start off this review, including (but not limited to):

• This movie deserves a hug, because it tried its best.


• The oldest story in human history must be that of the sassy, street-wise black man being paired up with the straight-laced older white man.


• Instead of writing a review, I’m going to write a transcript of what Mike, Crow and Tom Servo would have said, were they in the audience.

Instead, I’m going to use this opportunity – nay, this gift, to offer you something I’ve wanted to do for quite a while. This is going to be an entry-level film course. If there are any young Spielbergs or Kubricks reading this, please take notes. You won’t be quizzed, but, you will save yourself some humiliation at the box office should you feel compelled to make a movie starring Jimmy “Dyn-O-Mite!” Walker and Patrick “Engage!” Stewart in a buddy cop story that features as its central plot device a rogue state placing a nuclear device at a Star Trek convention and time-travel. Perhaps you’d call it Russell Simmons’ Def Con One or Box Office Poison. Sure, the idea sounds fantastic on paper, but, as you’ll soon learn, things don’t always translate from the page to the screen. So, to help you wind up with something that’s only mostly bad, like Turner and Hooch, instead of something that’s completely bad, like Rising Sun, I am offering these tips.

Now, to make sure that everyone’s on the same page, let me give you an abstract of the story. Jack Hayes (Rock) is a street-wise sassy black man. He plays chess in the park for money, and scalps tickets to things like Knicks games and Broadway shows. Gaylord Oakes (Hopkins) is a CIA spook, but not one of the head spooks. Oakes was working with Michael Turner (Rock) on trying to buy a former-Soviet suitcase nuclear bomb. Turner gets shot and dies, saving the life of Oakes. Guess what – Turner and Hayes are, are you sitting down? LONG LOST TWINS! (Long-lost twins would be the second-oldest story in human history.) Turner was a CIA spook, too. A deep-cover spook. The deal had been secured with a nasty former-Soviet General (some character actor speaking with a bad Russian accent). The CIA now has nine days to see this deal through. So, they ‘convince’ Hayes to help them out by impersonating Turner. There is a love interest, and another love interest, and some guns, and some shooting, and some computer stuff, and Jack Hayes says some sassy stuff, and Gaylord Oakes broods and acts all cold and distant, but you know that he’s just faking it, because, what’s the point of teaming up a sassy black man and a straight-laced white man if they don’t learn how to love?

So, that’s pretty much it. Now, here’s a partial list of things that went wrong in this train wreck.

When I first saw a trailer for this movie, I felt a little part of me die. I saw the name Jerry Bruckheimer. Now, I used to look forward to losing the brain cells that Bruckheimer productions killed off. I didn’t really need them, anyway. He made stupid, dumb summer movies that featured things like explosions and sassy black people in cameo roles, like the sassy black woman who was one of the hostages in The Rock, or the sassy black bus driver in The Rock, or, if a sassy black actor wasn’t available, a sassy homosexual, like the one seen in Con Air. They were formulaic and stupid and exemplified what a ‘Summer Movie’ was all about. Sometimes they featured an Aerosmith song, or a LeAnn Rimes song, but that was after all the explosions and one-liners delivered by Sean Connery or John Cusack. Then, he made Pearl Harbor, which had a preview that, I am not kidding, made an entire audience groan. We don’t want Jerry Bruckheimer involved in anything that involves actual emotional investment on the part of the audience. Not content with producing Pearl Harbor, he went and threw everyone for a loop by producing the Oscar-winning Black Hawk Down, which everyone should see. So, now, whenever I see Bruckheimer’s name attached to anything, I err on the side of caution and assume that it’s going to be garbage.

Just to kill a little bit more of my soul, I saw that Bad Company was directed by Joel Schumacher, the man who killed the Batman franchise. The man who decided that the costumes of Batman and Robin just weren’t complete without nipples. The man who directed DC Cab, which had Mr. T (which was good), and The Barbarian Brothers (which wasn’t good). Joel Schumacher should not be allowed to make movies ever again.

So, what filmmaking lessons can we gain from this movie?

1) Long-lost twin plots are only effective if Jackie Chan is the star of the movie. We like contrived plots in Jackie Chan’s movies. We’re not there for things like ‘story’ and ‘character development’ – we want to see what sort of crazy stunts Jackie is going to do. They do not work in movies that do not involve Jackie Chan. When we don’t have Jackie Chan, we wind up with Maximum Risk starring Jean-Claude Van Damme. The “twin” genre, for the most part, is just not a good idea. Unless you actually like movies with Peter and David Paul, The Barbarian Brothers.

2) If you’re going to cast a popular comedian in a movie, for the love of Pete, don’t have him or her use lines from their stand-up act. Especially lines from their stand-up act from like 10 years ago.

3) If you are looking to make an action/comedy, you should make sure that the comedy parts are the funny parts, not the action parts of the dramatic parts.

4) If you’re going to feature the CIA in your movie, you should either have an agent who is sickened by the amount of red tape that prevents him from solving the case, or a conspiracy based around either a) The Illuminati or b) space aliens. You shouldn’t just portray the entire agency as being incompetent.

5) If your name is Chris Rock, and you are a former member of the “Saturday Night Live” cast, you should get a better agent, or be more selective with your scripts. You should probably pick roles that don’t have you screaming like a woman. Those roles are written with Chris TUCKER in mind.

6) If your name is Anthony Hopkins, and you have been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, you can play pretty much any role you want to play. There’s no need for you to go slumming.

7) If, as a director, you are working for Jerry Bruckheimer, and you are using excellent actors (like John Malkovich and Steve Buscemi in Con Air), you should make sure that you are actually using abilities the actors possess beyond ‘can read lines’ and ‘can not read lines when other characters are speaking’. You should also make sure that any villains can do convincing foreign accents, since they will be required.

8) If you are going to feature things like ‘computers’ or ‘technology’ in your movie, you should use things like ‘operating systems that actually work’. Apple Computers regularly pays lots of money to have MacOS used in movies. MacOS stopped the aliens in Independence Day. Little things like that will save you money in the long run.

9) If you’re going to feature ‘characters’ in your movie, make sure that the audience cares about what happens to them. If you’re going to feature things like ‘tension’ in your movie, make sure that you have met the needs for a ‘character’, and make sure that your ‘plot’ isn’t entirely predictable. If you’re going to feature things like ‘plot’, make sure that you’re not making a movie about long-lost twins. If you are absolutely set on the ‘long-lost twin’ genre, make sure that the twins have prior contact, so that Twin 1 can actually care about and/or be aware of the existence of the Twin 2.

10) If you are a director, and your name is not John Woo, you should not stage gunfights in churches. John Woo is to gunfights in churches what David "Lawrence of Arabia" Lean is to making movies in deserts. It's already been done better than you can do it, so, just don't even try it.

There are lots of things I could go into, but, this is meant to be an entry-level course. If you are looking to see about a nuclear device that terrorists have planted on American soil this week, go and see The Sum of All Fears. If you are in the mood to play the live-version of “Mystery Science Theatre 3000”, then, by all means, go and see Bad Company.

The Sum of All Fears *** ½
Directed by: Phil Alden Robinson
Written by: Tom Clancy (novel), Paul Attanasio and Daniel Pyne (screenplay)
Starring: Ben Affleck, Morgan Freeman, James Cromwell, Liev Schreiber, Ciaran Hinds
Rated PG-13 (because, in all reality, the MPAA rating system is arbitrary.)

If this movie doesn’t scare the hell out of you, man, you’re cold.

Now, how do I go about writing a synopsis of this one... Jack Ryan (Affleck) works for the CIA as an analyst specializing in Russian politics. He, and the other people in his office (he’s not a department head), watch lots of TV. They keep tabs on how much weight the Soviet President has gained, if he’s drinking again, who that person in the background is, who is having sex with whom, all of which are important details when a) keeping intel up to speed and b) shaping foreign policy. When the Soviet President has a heart attack and dies, Alexander Nemerov (Hinds) is picked to succeed him. Ryan wrote a massive research paper on Nemerov while in grad school, and knows more about him than most of the US government. For this reason, he is called in by CIA Director Bill Cabot (Freeman). Nemerov is something of an enigma – “He talks like a hard-liner, he acts like a hard-liner...” says one of President Fowler (Cromwell)’s Cabinet members. Ryan thinks that it’s all a ploy to get the real hard-liners (read: Communists) off of his back so he can start solving the Chechnya situation. Ryan and Cabot go over to Russia to make sure that the Russians are meeting their end of the START-II treaty and dismantling their nuclear arsenal. Nemerov tells the US to keep away from Chechnya. Ryan notices that 3 Russian nuclear scientists are missing. The essential three that would be needed to construct a nuclear bomb. This is not good. When a chemical attack that basically causes cerebral palsy is launched against the capital of Chechnya, Grozny, things get worse. Oh, and someone who isn’t Russia or America, or even a nation for that matter, has a nuclear bomb. That’s kind of an important detail. Please note that this is as simple a synopsis as I could write.

Many people were upset with the casting of Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan, who was played by Alec Baldwin in The Hunt for Red October and Harrison Ford in Patriot Games. Those people are wrong. Yes, it might not be entirely faithful to the storyline of the books, but that doesn’t matter. This movie is the best Jack Ryan movie, hands down. Affleck does a great job. I don’t think anyone is going to complain about Morgan Freeman. I’ve liked James Cromwell ever since he played Farmer Hoggitt in Babe, and he makes a fine President. All of the other actors are good, too. Lots of character (read: “Hey, it’s that guy!”) actors portray President Fowler’s cabinet. By far the coolest character in the movie is Mr. Clark, played by Liev Schreiber. He's one of those CIA agents that doesn't officially exist. They do the things that are generally frowned upon by things like 'other governments' and 'international treaties'. Tom Clancy is not only an author -- he has a media company called Red Storm Entertainment. One of his game series, Rainbow Six, is a tactical simulation (you have a group of soldiers, you command them to, say, rescue a hostage). I think he's clearly missing out on a BIG franchise by not making a Metal Gear-type game with Mr. Clark.

Robinson’s direction was very good. You’ve seen his stuff before – he also directed Field of Dreams and Sneakers, so he knows how to work with a talented cast. The cinematography was also good. Especially after... crap – I’m not going to give that away. Trust me. The pacing was tight, for the most part. If there were any lags, I’ve forgotten them.

After seeing this movie, I’m scared. Don’t get me wrong – I’m gonna sleep just fine tonight. The Sum of All Fears isn’t a huge downer. It’s just the exact emotional opposite of Dr. Strangelove.