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2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

The Girl Without Hands (2017): Gorgeous Art, Unnecessary Adaptation

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The world of animation has becoming increasingly similar. Despite growing options with new technologies, most companies opt for computer generated 3D animation. As beautiful as these renderings can be, the lack of diversity is disheartening with Japan remaining as the main producer of feature length 2D animation. The Girl Without Hands is a welcome visual change, featuring a singular hand-painted 2D art style animated entirely by its director Sébastien Laudenbach. The film is an adaptation of the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. It is the story of a miller that mistakenly trades his daughter for wealth in a deal with the devil and follows her as she faces the fallout of his decision.

The expressive images are worthy of hanging up on a wall.

Laudenbach’s art is the film’s most distinctive quality. He uses a minimalist, yet expressive style. The images are less like drawings and more like etchings. Each frame has a colored background with objects shaded in rather than explicitly outlined in a sort of spartan impressionism. The background colors are textured and often have a gentle gradient that sets the mood for each scene and the brush strokes are painted on similar to watercolors. The film animates by having these strokes pulsate and is particularly effective when depicting water or wind. The rippling colors perfectly encapsulate the energy and movement of nature. Laudenbach also has a unique method of showing the emotional state of the characters. Because they are so minimally sketched, he can paint a broad stroke of color over them and even as the character moves, this mark remains, showing their lasting presence and the unchanging state of their mind. His indirect approach to his images gives the film its unmistakable storybook quality.

The vibrant colors are a joy to look at.

If only the screenplay wasn’t also of storybook quality. The original fable is short and the film, while running only 76 minutes, still feels overlong. The material hasn’t changed significantly in adapting it for the screen so there isn’t enough content to justify the runtime and what is present is too simplistic. As gorgeous as it is, the film is clearly an excuse to show of Laudenbach’s beautiful images. Several scenes are elongated just to feature the artwork. The story, with its fairytale roots, never produces any emotional response. This is a fantasy world that is too detached from our reality to create a connection. There is supposed to be a moral lesson about admonishing the pursuit of wealth, but it is delivered using blunt platitudes that are as generic as they are groan-inducing. A character says to the girl’s father, “You are rich. How could you be at peace?”. These aren’t new or creatively presented insights. This might be a trait that stems from the source material, but even so that doesn’t mean it translates well in a film. The few original flourishes added to the story are scenes that show the director’s gross and unnecessary fetish with genitals that has no place in something that was originally meant for children. Laudenbach’s artwork and animation are uniquely expressive and minimalist, but the story they present would have been better suited to a picture book, not a feature length film.

2/5 stars.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Detroit (2017): Unsettling, Infuriating, and Timely

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Working again with writer/producer Mark Boal to make a historically based film, Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker) leaves military stories behind for a period piece set during the Detroit riot of 1967. As a brief, but informative intro animation explains, the city of Detroit had become increasingly segregated with many of its black citizens living in the crowded inner city patrolled by a predominantly white police force. A large-scale raid and arrest of an unlicensed bar leads to riots, city-wide destruction, and the deployment of the National Guard. The film follows an up-and-coming doo-wop group led by Algee Smith (Earth to Echo) as they retreat to a nearby motel to avoid the riots, only to be attacked by the local police.

The film is shot in a quasi-documentary style. Bigelow has used this technique before and she leans even harder into this direction here. She uses an unstable camera that rapidly whips between subjects and zooms in and out constantly as if a cameraperson is rushing to capture live action. This makes the film incredibly immersive and it would be easy to forget that this isn’t found footage from the actual time. Bigelow chooses to interweave real news video and photographs which makes this distinction even harder. She is also an expert at blocking her scenes. And by that I literally mean blocking. The film almost always features groups or crowds and the characters will routinely burst into frame and obstruct the camera’s view causing it to have to readjust around them. These cinematographic choices create a palpable feeling of boots-on-the-ground frenzy.

You will hate Poulter (left) because of this film.

There are times when the story can strain your patience. The film’s climax is a slightly overlong interrogation inside a motel where three Detroit police officers repeated assault and, in some cases, kill the mostly black tenants for a crime they have no physical evidence of. This depiction dramatizes an event using witness testimonies so, as the film states in the end credits, some liberties were taken during the recreation. The local police, led by Will Poulter (The Revenant) in an appropriately repulsive performance, continuously fail at drawing out a confession and the film shows each of their futile attempts. These start to wear thin as you wonder why the police, or the filmmakers, haven’t moved on already. At 143 minutes long, the movie would have improved with some editing in this particular scene. The incompetence, the racism, and the cruelty of the police becomes evident quickly which makes the extended sequences unnecessary. Bigelow may be using the length to emphasize the cast’s protracted suffering but the point has already been made and further emphasis without additional depth becomes somewhat redundant, even if these scenes are rooted in fact.

Despite some pacing issues, Bigelow uses the injustice on display to create a sense of terror and urgency. For these characters, the slightest misconstrued movement or innocuous comment could lead to a ruthless beating or worse, so every interaction is fraught with danger. It’s impossible to separate the events depicted in the film from our current problems in America. The actions of the police in the film combined with the horrifying news headlines of the past few years become both hideous and infuriating with later scenes involving John Krasinski (The Office) as a police union lawyer being blood-boiling in their blatant inequity. The inhumanity displayed by the authorities towards people of color makes for more than just a disturbing movie. It has been some time since we have had a film that can truly be described as polemic, but Detroit deserves that descriptor. Bigelow’s indictment of systemic racism and injustice in 1967 Detroit is an upsetting look into the tribulations of minorities at the hands of law enforcement that is infuriating and, sadly, relevant to our present world.

4/5 stars.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

To the Bone (2017): A Grounded, Painful Look at Addiction

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[BS Note: This film is currently available for streaming on Netflix]

With glamorous images of people with seemingly perfect looks and illustrious lives exacerbated by social media, we are inundated with unrealistic ideals of how we should look and behave. For some, this can lead to harmful behaviors, namely eating disorders. To the Bone follows Ellen (Lily Collins; Mirror Mirror), a 20-year-old living with anorexia nervosa. She has just left her fourth treatment facility without showing any improvement and returns home to a stepmother who is unsure of what to do next. She finds one final physician who may be Ellen’s last chance at recovery.

Keanu Reeves (John Wick) turns up in an unexpected, but welcome supporting role. He plays Dr. Beckham, an eating disorder specialist known for his high success rate and unusual methods. Reeves plays Beckham as a tough, no-nonsense doctor. Instead of sterile clinical language, he is direct and almost confrontational. “I’m not going to treat you if you aren’t interested in living”, he tells Ellen. His experience makes him impatient with pleasantries, but detailed during actual treatment and his advice, however blunt, is filled with support. He genuinely cares for the well-being of his patients and Reeves’s confident performance highlights his intelligence, understanding, and compassion.

The physical effects of anorexia create some of the film’s most unsettling images.

Director Marti Noxon’s approach to group dynamics goes far beyond the typical addiction movie. Instead of only focusing on Ellen’s struggles, she takes time to explore the damage done to her loved ones. This ranges from a mother too hurt to look at her suffering daughter, a frustrated stepmother, an absent father, and a loving younger sibling who misses having her older sister in her life. Noxon understands that these afflictions also manifest differently. She uses the different patients in the treatment home to show the lengths to which people will go. Whether it’s laxatives, diet pills, or hiding bags full of vomit, these are people trapped by their disorder into an unstable frame of mind. As a test of her size, Ellen tries to wrap her thumb and forefinger around her bicep. The film is deeply disturbing in its depiction of the unrealistic, self-destructive ideals the patients impose on themselves and the rippling effects they have on their families.

Collins is frightening in her performance. She has written about her own struggles with eating disorders and she clearly draws from those personal experiences in her acting. Her progressively skeletal frame and gaunt facial features show her deteriorating condition. “You’re a ghost”, her mom says after seeing her. The film has faced some backlash over its depiction of anorexia, but it neither glorifies nor indicts people with eating disorders. It repeatedly states its position: that this an addiction and one without clean answers. When Ellen’s stepmother tries to tell her doctor that the disorder has something to do with her mother, he cuts her off and says, “It’s never that simple.” This isn’t a film about easy solutions or motivational speeches. Noxon delves into the obsessive behaviors of anorexics and the fractured families that may be both a source and symptom of the disorder. The only exception is a dream sequence near the conclusion that is embarrassing in its literalism and contradicts the film’s grounded tone. Save for this specific mistake, Noxon has created a realistic examination of the struggles of someone clinging to warped body image ideals and the turmoil it can create for those who love them.

4/5 stars.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Brigsby Bear (2017): “Dope as Shit, Man”

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This a movie to watch with no prior information. If you’re willing to do that, suffice it to say that the film is a strange, hilarious, and heartfelt comedy.

If you need more than that, please read on. Minor plot details follow that tiptoe around spoilers.

Brigsby Bear is a story of a young man named James (Kyle Mooney) who is obsessed with a TV show about an intergalactic bear that fights an evil talking star in what seems to be a low budget 80s style production. James’s entire life has revolved around Brigsby (the titular bear) so when the show abruptly ends, he must adjust to normal living. He has no other context for regular human reactions and the film becomes both a coming of age and a fish out of water story of him learning about the real world while proving to it that his passion is worthwhile. To demonstrate what he has learned from his favorite show, he decides to make the film sequel. With no experience, money, or even, initially, friends, he writes a script, draws a storyboard, and starts his journey anyways.

James’s integration into modern society is a limitless supply of laughs. He has never had friends or been exposed to any type of media other than Brigsby so he frames everyone’s behavior in terms of plotlines from the show. Brigsby reacted in a certain way, so he assumes that he should too. The trouble comes in the many scenarios that Brigsby did not cover, namely parties, slang, and drugs and alcohol. In these cases, James makes the exact wrong choice and imitates others…poorly. His (mis)use of slang around the wrong people and the way he copies other people’s mannerisms to try to be normal are endearingly awkward. His good-natured spirit makes every faux pas equal parts hilarious and sweet.

James’s unbreakable spirit is magnetic.

The film’s success rests on Mooney’s pitch perfect performance. With even a trace of knowing satire or cynicism, the entire film would have fallen apart. Mooney instead plays James with the most childlike earnestness. Every interaction he has is free from judgement, ulterior motives, or ego. Mooney creates a genuine innocence that becomes the heart of the film. He approaches luxuries we take for granted with a contagious wonder and enthusiasm. In a world of forgotten dreams and suffocating realities, James is a dreamer with nothing but hope. His passion, dedication, and conviction are absolutely infectious, even if the project in question is ridiculous.

Director Dave McCary strikes a tone that precisely complement’s Mooney’s performance. The film never looks at its subjects with any sense of ridicule. His camera comes from a place of pure compassion and every character’s flaws or desires are treated with respect. For example, there is a detective who wanted to be a Shakespearean actor, but gave up when life got in the way and McCary gives his hopes the deepest sympathy. Like James, the film views the world as an open book, with each individual as an aspiring writer. They just need the belief in their own ability to say something. The tenderness of McCrary’s direction and Mooney’s sincere screenplay and performance create a film that reminds us of the passions we neglect and celebrates the desire to create that exists in all of us. It’s an offbeat, heartfelt, and hilarious counterpoint to cynicism and apathy.

five stars

5/5 stars.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Atomic Blonde (2017): Neon Action with a Convoluted Plot

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Coming off the success of co-directing John Wick, stuntman-turned-director David Leitch left production on the sequel for his first solo outing, Atomic Blonde. Adapted from a graphic novel, the film is a cold war era spy story with Charlize Theron (Mad Max: Fury Road) starring as Lorraine, a British MI6 agent tasked with recovering a list of undercover operatives taken from a killed MI6 agent in Berlin. The setup is familiar with both Skyfall and Mission Impossible using similar plots, but the film distinguishes itself with its unique, stylized action.

From the first frame, Leitch goes for a decidedly anarchic tone. The opening credits and intertitles are spray painted onscreen and the streets of East Berlin are riddled with graffiti and punks. His film breaks against the typical noir with its use of style and energy. Every set is bathed in a seedy neon green, red, or blue and he runs with this aesthetic even more than he did on John Wick. His commitment to this visual style provides a distinct look that is as noticeable as Lorraine’s hair color. Forget neo-noir, Leitch has styled Atomic Blonde as a neon-noir.

The sound design of the film provides a beating pulse to the action. The crack of gunshots is deafening and each strike in the frequent combat scenes creates an ear-splitting thump. Music blares constantly providing an electric or, in one case, ironic backdrop to the violence onscreen. The film uses an 80s heavy soundtrack featuring the likes of Depeche Mode, David Bowie, and even George Michael. Music is almost used as much as this year’s Baby Driver, but unlike that movie, the music never overshadows the action. In most cases, Leitch’s music choice adds a playfulness to the fighting and prevents the film’s violence from becoming too heavy.

Theron is a fearsome action star.

And Theron dishes out suffering like a professional. She isn’t the perfect action hero that glides easily through each enemy, nor is she a Jackie Chan-like fighter that stumbles through their encounters. She is tough, resourceful, and unrelentingly brutal. Leitch isn’t as proficient with hand-to-hand combat as he was with gunplay in John Wick. Some of the fight scenes lack the cohesion of better action films, but Leitch and Theron still deliver their fair share of beatdowns. The best of these takes place in apartment building used as a sniping spot by KGB agents where Leitch orchestrates a series of extended takes as Lorraine fights her way through her enemies. It doesn’t hold up to the masterful combat from The Raid and its sequel that the film is clearly mimicking but it does give us a clearer view of the merciless damage these agents inflict on each other without succumbing to the overediting of combat that plagues most action blockbusters today. Her hits land with a ferocity but we still see Lorraine falter. Several of the men are larger than her and their size gives them the upper hand. However, her fighting and her greater characterization are not just defined by her immense skill, but by her tenacity. These protracted fights become less about who is stronger, and more about who continues to come back after each blow. Theron’s defiant glares are the best indication that she has a resilience they can never hope to match.

As a cold war thriller, the plot in encased in paranoia. Lorraine’s orders are to trust no one, even her fellow MI6 agents. Several supposed allies appear, but potential betrayals are lurking around every corner and no one has a clear motive. The narrative can get lost in these turns. One too many reveals near the end start to unravel the story and character motivations leading to more confused shrugs than the shocked gasps the writers hoped for. The plot strains under these repeated twists as they undermine the plausibility of the preceding events. It makes the case for John Wick’s paper-thin revenge story. By using the simplest of setups, that film shifted the audience’s focus to its best feature, the action. Atomic Blonde’s story is its weakest element, but it can be enjoyed for its neon-drenched bloodshed and rousing soundtrack.

3/5 stars.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Dunkirk (2017): A Well Crafted, but Forgettable Ride

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In his first historical film, director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight) brings his talents to recreating the Dunkirk evacuation, where over 300,000 Allied troops, surrounded by Germans, were saved by hundreds of private boats that crossed the English Channel to rescue their soldiers. Rather than work with a linear story, Nolan splits the film’s focus into three separate viewpoints: soldiers on the beach awaiting help, a civilian (Mark Rylance; Bridge of Spies) and his son taking their personal boat to assist in the evacuation, and a fighter pilot (Tom Hardy; Mad Max: Fury Road) providing cover to the trapped soldiers.

As a writer, Nolan has always had a preoccupation with structure. Films like Memento and Inception, exploited their setup for suspense and the same is attempted here. The characters may be in different locations, but any building intensity is meant to be shared between them. Working with his regular composer, Hans Zimmer, he uses an ever-accelerating ticking clock as a metronome for the film’s tension and audio bridge between the perspectives. As the film cuts between each set of characters, the danger they face is carried forward but difference in time duration between the three settings is mostly irrelevant. There is an overreliance on raw decibel power to create a feeling of intensity, similar to the sound mixing in Interstellar, that is not as effective as desired, but the film succeeds in making each disparate scenario equally precarious.

In the past, Nolan’s greatest weakness has been exposition. Needless, forced exposition that talks down to the audience as if the director’s greatest fear is that the masses will not be able to keep up with his intelligence even though his films, despite their often deliberately convoluted structure, are fairly followable. In Dunkirk, he breaks away from his tendency to overexplain. The film features little dialogue, instead relying on images of warfare to propel the story. With a few exceptions, namely Rylance’s seemingly sedated performance, he refrains from undue exposition.

The scale of the action is the film’s greatest triumph.

The lack of exposition also extends into character development. These are people whose names you will not know, even during the course of the movie. Perhaps this is a willful commentary on the war itself, claiming that the characters have little individual identity because they are each one of many who experienced the same trauma in WWII, but that does nothing to connect the audience to them. For all of Nolan’s immense technical skills, emotions have always been a major shortcoming. Even the basic plot of many of his films can be reduced to men whose lives are disrupted by engaging with emotions. The missing attachment to the characters makes the film more appreciable for its technique rather than its heart.

Dunkirk is an amusement ride. That isn’t necessarily a criticism, but it does accurately depict the film’s effect. The characters and actual plot are either simple or deliberately downplayed. Instead, we are meant to take in the expertly realized period and effects in the moment. Nolan and his team have recreated the incredible scale of this moment in history. Countless troops appear to line the beaches without any suspicion of computer generated assistance. He continues his love of practical stunts by using multiple real Spitfire fighter jets and the same wing-side camera shots from the famous docking scene of Interstellar. While enjoyable in the moment, the emphasis on historical accuracy over emotional attachment has the unintended consequence of making the film forgettable. Like even great rollercoasters, it entertains during its runtime then fades away as soon as the ride ends. Dunkirk is well-crafted experience, just not a particularly memorable one.

3/5 stars.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Lady Macbeth (2017)

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Referencing one of the most devious characters in literature is a bold choice for a film, but, thankfully, the title isn’t a spoiler. That being said, the lead character Katherine (Florence Pugh) does share many traits with the famous femme fatale. She is a young woman in England during the mid-1800s married to an older man. The marriage provides her with stability, but not affection. Her husband is entirely uninterested in Katherine, emotionally or physically, and spends his time away for business, leaving Katherine to her own devices.

The setting echoes Katherine’s lonely life. Her house, while huge, feels stark and empty. This isn’t a Merchant Ivory film where homes are filled with countless knick knacks. Despite her husband’s wealth, the furnishings are minimal and she is the only non-servant residing there. She is initially forbidden from leaving the house, but even when she does the outdoors offer no reprieve. The landscape is barren and desolate. It only highlights her increasing isolation and how meaningless she feels her life is.

A vacuous existence is Katherine’s greatest fear.

Pugh makes the perfect Katherine. A relative newcomer, she embodies the ideals of a woman of her time while believably progressing into aberrant behavior. Many actors playing characters in the past have an incongruous look. Their body and features can be too sculpted for the simpler time. Pugh, while still attractive, has a more era appropriate frame. In her blue dress, she is the image of upper class England. As takes extreme measures to control the direction of her own life, her ruthless determination comes through. Pugh’s tenacious performance causes Katherine to be an intriguing character, even as her actions become heinous.

Director William Oldroyd makes some interesting casting choices. Improving diversity in film has fortunately entered public discussion as of late, but period pieces have always been an issue. How do you incorporate actors of different races when a film’s setting wouldn’t have allowed it? Oldroyd chooses anachronism which results in a welcome change. There is some initial confusion when actors of color are shown in positions unexpected for the time, but it quickly fades to the background. Unfortunately, the plot results in negative outcomes for most of the non-white cast which is alarming. It’s impossible to speculate on whether this was coincidence or not, but either way it gives the film an unwelcome nastiness.

Everything changes for Katherine when she meets one of the men working on her land and begins an affair with him. Sebastian (Cosmo Jarvis) finally brings some excitement into her empty life so when her father-in-law returns to scold her and beat Sebastian, she does what she believes is necessary to preserve her only passion. This is where the film hits its stride. Lady Macbeth proves to be about the limits of selfishness and, later, self-preservation in the face of accepted morality. The lengths to which Katherine goes are equal parts amusing and mortifying. As she descends deeper into depravity, the cause of her actions comes into question. Is this the result of her failed marriage? Loneliness? Or maybe this is just the manifestation of an impulse already inside of her? Oldroyd hints at answers for each of these questions but prefers to luxuriate in Katherine’s increasingly extreme measures. Pugh’s unyielding performance and the almost transgressive narrative turns make Lady Macbeth a wicked drama with a remarkably sinister lead.

4/5 stars.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Wind River (2017)

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After scripting both Sicario and Hell or High Water, Taylor Sheridan made a name for himself as a writer of taut action films; light on exposition but heavy on tension. He makes his directorial debut with Wind River. Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker) plays Cory, a US Wildlife Service agent that stumbles upon a dead body in the Wind River Native American reservation. He recognizes the body as the best friend of his daughter, who also died years earlier. He, along with the under-resourced local police and FBI agent Jane (Elizabeth Olsen; Martha Marcy May Marlene), search for her killer in the harsh backdrop of frigid Wyoming.

Renner commits an admirable effort, but is miscast. He elongates his speech and uses short sentences to make himself seem world weary, but his still isn’t believable as the character. 25 years ago, this role would have been played by Tommy Lee Jones. His performances always feature a curt directness that suits Cory’s mountain man characterization but Renner can’t match Jones’s brand of gruff credibility. Olsen’s ingénue helps him seem experienced in comparison, but his performance falls just short of the verisimilitude needed.

Gil Birmingham (right) and the Native cast deliver the standout performances.

For all of Sheridan’s history with succinct writing, this is his weakest script. It’s still well-written with a twisting plot far above most other films, but has some clumsy dialogue and exposition. The film begins with a flowery poem that never amounts to anything and the tragic backstory about Cory’s daughter is awkwardly repeated, even in scenes where it has no relevance. The entire subplot is a manufactured method to make Cory more sympathetic but has little material effect on his behavior. His actions would have been the same without it and the film would have benefited from reduced exposition. Sheridan frequently shifts the focus back to Cory’s past at the expense of the greater story: the plight of the Natives in modern America. Perhaps without the extra eyes of a different director, some of these missteps made it through to the final version.

Many will compare this film to the Coen brothers’ Fargo. Yes, it features a murder in a wintry rural setting, but that is where the similarities end. While there are brief moments of humor, Sheridan isn’t interested in the sardonic wit of the Coens. The closest analog is Debra Granik’s Winter’s Bone. Both films are about the fringes of society and the suffering of the people who reside there. The Native reservation is depicted as a desolate place. A land and a people that have been mistreated for so long that hope is a thing of the past. Several characters are shown as frustrated with the systemic disadvantages they face and the vicious cycles they are limited to. When Jane sees the victim has been raped and asks if their medical examiner is qualified, the police chief answers simply “He’s kept busy.” Everything has an air of accepted despair. Sheridan aptly uses this as the prevailing tone of the film. The overwhelming misery creates apprehension. Injustice is a daily occurrence so the prospect of failing the investigation has a high possibility. It surely wouldn’t be the first unsolved crime for the area. By ingraining the futility of reservation life into the plot and atmosphere, Sheridan creates an action film with a tense, discomforting bleakness.

4/5 stars.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets (2017)

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When people first came out of screenings of Avatar, they spoke of wonder and amazement. They talked about being transported to a world unlike anything they had ever seen before and in a way they had never experienced. But I never felt that way. To me, it was derivative world with an even more derivative plot. The most noticeable thing about the CG world was just how expensive it must have been to render. Not creatively challenging. Expensive. I mention this because I think I finally understand how those people felt back in 2009. Luc Besson (Léon: The Professional) has done what James Cameron tried, but couldn’t accomplish. In Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, he adapts a comic series with incredible devotion. The story follows Valerian (Dane DeHaan; A Cure for Wellness) and Laureline (Cara Delevingne; Paper Towns), special agents of the human empire in the 28th century. The titular city floats through space and houses millions of individuals of all species living in all biospheres, but there is a problem. Deep within the city is a growing radioactive zone and none of the soldiers sent there have come back alive. Valerian and Laureline must find out what is causing the disturbance before it threatens the lives of the city’s many inhabitants.

The city is a believably massive and maze-like entity.

Besson’s visuals are on another level entirely. These are some of the most creative and hyper-detailed renderings ever put to screen. Some of these may be pulled from the original comic, but it’s clear that Besson and his team of concept artists put a staggering amount of labor and love into every frame. Opening scenes of a peaceful, primitive species on a beach planet are genuinely awe-inspiring. Water shimmers and color radiates with life. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Besson uses every spectrum of the rainbow and doesn’t succumb to the dull tones used to make a film seem “realistic”. There is so much sheer variety in the film’s settings. While Avatar only featured a jungle, Valerian has deep sea exploration, life-sized nervous systems, and the most gorgeous semiconductor manufacturing you will ever see. All of these environments have the originality and detail to sustain entire films of their own, but they have mere cameos here because there is so much other creativity to show. There is even an inventive spin on the standard seedy desert flea market sci-fi trope. The market is situated in the middle of the desert, but visitors need to use special virtual reality gear to phase themselves and their belongings in and out of the market. With the equipment on, the area is a bustling bazaar filled with diverse species selling anything you could want, legal or not. Besson uses this as the perfect setting for a heist. As Valerian sneaks in and out of the virtual reality, the tense subterfuge is contrasted with images of him walking through an empty desert to comical effect. This is just one of the many examples of how the incredible effects elevate common scenarios.

This is only one of the many, varied locations.

It’s a shame that the beautiful images have to feature two disappointing leads. DeHaan and Delevingne only have a small fraction of the chemistry the script demands of them and fall too easily into archetypes with DeHaan as the overconfident asshole and Delevigne as the uptight one. DeHaan’s cocky delivery never has the charm needed and Delevigne is relegated to nagging and rolling her eyes. The plot itself mostly serves as an excuse to traverse the varying environments within the city. While it does feature endearing side characters, particularly a trio of enterprising informants, the film’s narrative and its mismatched leads are a disappointment. Fortunately, this is a movie where the strengths can mask the flaws. The unbridled artistry that went into every landscape and every character create a computer-generated world of pure delight. For those who can overlook mediocre writing, Besson and company have produced visuals that will be talked about for years to come.

4/5 stars.

2017, Recent Reviews, Reviews

War for the Planet of the Apes (2017)

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Picking up a few years after the previous film, the apes are still hiding in the woods and battling the humans. Their leader Caesar (Andy Serkis; The Lord of the Rings) is trying to find a way for them to end the conflict with the humans or at least escape to a new home where they can live in peace. On the other side is The Colonel (Woody Harrelson), a military leader bent on eliminating the apes.

War is both a Darwinian and a biblical epic. The hatred coming from the Colonel is because he is acutely aware of humanity’s own inferiority. Caesar and the apes are as intelligent as the humans but they are physically stronger. In a world of natural selection, they will eventually win out so the Colonel seeks to end the apes before that can happen. Caesar becomes their seminal figure in the face of this threat. He is the only one that can save them from this oppression and move them into a new age.

Serkis continues with the nuanced, emotive performance we have come to expect. This Caesar is the definitive ape leader, but he does not have the energy of his youth. More than anything else, Serkis exudes Caesar’s responsibility. He bears the burden of saving his tribe and the minor grimaces and pensive pauses in his decision making demonstrate the weight he carries. Every direction he takes the apes in could potentially change their lives. Serkis’s motion capture cements his Caesar as the true star of this film trilogy.

Harrelson was the wrong choice for an already lacking character.

The motion capture performances are further complemented by Weta’s incredible attention to detail. Having innovated the motion capture process with Gollum then enhanced it with 2005’s King Kong, Weta is the leading effects house for this technology. The textures of their wrinkled skin, the matted fur, and, most of all, the emotion in their eyes is clearer than ever. This is the first of the recent Apes films without human protagonists. It forces the audience to identify with the apes rather than their own species and this is only possible because of their rendering. Weta’s visuals create the emotion needed to recognize the humanity in the apes.

The Colonel becomes a cartoonishly evil character. He shaves his head with a straight razor and is almost always seen wearing sunglasses. The film tries to show his behavior as the result of cold pragmatism, but, as a brand-new character, he feels two-dimensional. There is a shoehorned backstory to make him sympathetic, but it is too abrupt to change his characterization. Harrelson’s performance is part of the issue. He is neither menacing nor does he appear particularly strategic. He has always been better in lighter roles and he seems miscast here. His Colonel is supposed to be taken seriously but instead comes off like Brad Pitt’s character in Inglorious Basterds. He is unintentionally silly in a somber film. He can’t bring depth to an underwritten character and without a grounded villain, the film is unable maintain its more realistic tone. The motion capture acting is stellar and Weta continues to impress with their visuals, but the weak antagonist diminishes the gravity of any threat to the apes.

3/5 stars.