Sci-Fi – The House Always Wins

Catching Fire / The Desolation of Smaug

January turned out to be a month of movie sequels. At the tail end of my stay in Philadelphia, the wife and I saw The Hunger Games: Catching Fire with a friend of hers, and then after returning to Canada a friend and I took in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.

Thoughts on The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Yay! The producers used the money they made from the massive success of the first movie to buy a tripod for the cameraman! No more shakey-cam!

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire lived up to the quality of its predecessor, but it does have the distinct feel of being the middle movie of a series—the ending is kind of abrupt, and just sets you up for more. Quality performances all around, as well as more tantalizing glimpses into the world of Panem. Not much else to say—if you liked the first one, see this one, because you’ll like it too.

Thoughts on The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, however, does provoke me to say more. Though in a largely good way!

It has been so long since I read the book that I can’t really pick out much in the way of differences, apart from the introduction of Legolas and a newly-created Elf woman, Tauriel, into the mix. While I don’t think their presence is strictly necessary, neither is it particularly jarring, either. It’s just another part of the transformation of what is a relatively straightforward children’s book that just happened to be set in the same world and predate the events of The Lord of the Rings into a full prequel to Lord of the Rings—they go out of their way to lay the groundwork for much that is seen in the more epic trilogy.

In general, I liked this movie a lot better than the first one. I enjoyed the first one, but felt it was kind of slow, and it certainly didn’t grab me the way The Fellowship of the Ring did when it first came out all those years ago. This one did retain the physics-defying action sequences that I found kind of jarring in the first one, but on the whole it was a better-paced movie. It does end with a rather large cliffhanger, but I knew that going in.

While I’m sure the Hobbit would have been best as, say, a single 3-hour movie, this installment improves my opinion of the trilogy. While there were some questionable elements (the obligatory sort-of introduction of a love triangle with the one named female character they have introduced), the acting is by and large quite good, many iconic scenes are portrayed in a visually exciting way, and the exchange between Bilbo and Smaug in this one parallels quality of the meeting of Bilbo and Gollum in the first.

So, my verdict: If you are a Tolkien purist, you are probably going to be very unhappy with this movie. If you were kind of wishwashy on the first Hobbit movie, this one is, I think, better, so go see it. And if you hate all these kind of movies, well, you don’t need me to tell you not to see it.

The Secret World of Arrietty / John Carter

It has been a while since I last did a movie post. I had started one way back in January, but it was too ambitious and still sits somewhat unfinished. I’ll get to it soon, since those movies are starting to come out on home video now.

I did see a couple of movies a bit more recently, though, and so I offer up my thoughts on those.

The Secret World of Arrietty

This is the latest animated Studio Ghibli film to be released by Disney in North America. While Ghibli’s legendary director Hayao Miyazaki did not helm this one, he was heavily involved in the script and planning, and it bodes well for the future of Ghibli that this movie turned out awfully good. The movie is a Japanese transplant of Mary Norton’s classic Borrowers children’s novels about tiny people who beneath the floorboards of our homes and “borrow” things to survive, and focusses on the Borrower girl Arrietty.

In typical Ghibli fashion, the animation is lush, beautiful, and detailed. The perspectives they use evoke the sense of being a tiny person in a giant world better than anything else I’ve seen. From duels with cockroaches, using leaves as umbrellas, and the dangers posed by the cat and the hungry bird attacking from above, it really gives you a sense of a whole other world surrounding us in our everyday lives.

The story skews to the family-friendly end of the Ghibli spectrum, but is oddly slow-paced and contemplative. That is not to say it is boring—I was rapt throughout—but much of its wonder arises from the discovery of the world of the Borrowers rather than artificial external dangers, though those arise in due time. It succeeds by being genuinely beautiful and interesting, not simply because it keeps throwing cheap gags and explosions in your face.

While I wouldn’t say this is the best example of what Studio Ghibli has to offer, The Secret World of Arrietty can stand quite comfortably alongside it. Anyone who is a fan of quality animation—or quality film in general—should definitely check this out.

John Carter

John Carter is another Disney release that has already gained notoriety as being declared one of the biggest flops of all time within 2 weeks of opening. There has been much debate over why that is the case even as the film continues to do okay worldwide, so who knows whether it might eventually earn back its massive production budget.

Had Disney actually cared enough to market the film properly, it might have done better domestically. As a science fiction reader, I knew that the titular John Carter referred to John Carter of Mars, the hero of Edgar Rice Burroughs‘s (creator of Tarzan) Barsoom novels. This was not at all apparent from any of the trailers I saw. The one I sort of vaguely remember made it unclear whether it was a science fiction film at all, or a superhero film, or a dumb fantasy movie. I’m not sure that there was a single thing done to market this film to people who didn’t already know who John Carter was.

Anyway, all of that is beside the point. John Carter is a good movie. It has its flaws, to be sure—it starts too slowly, throws in some unnecessary back story, gets a bit muddled in the middle, and has villains with unclear motivations—but it is a fun, enjoyable movie.

It is approximately ONE BILLION TIMES BETTER than any Michael Bay film. Especially those ones with the transforming robots.

It looked beautiful and the action was fun and well-choreographed. There was good chemistry between John Carter and Dejah Thoris (the Princess of Mars played by Lynn Collins, who is providing competition to Princess Leia for my Favouritest Space Princess Ever!), and the supporting cast (both human and alien) was strong. And it did a pretty decent job of evoking a sense of wonder at Burroughs’s vision of ~~Mars~~ Barsoom.

So John Carter was a good (but not great) movie that I enjoyed more than, say, James Cameron’s Avatar (which was well-made and more tightly scripted, but less interesting to me for all its technical superiority) and which did not suck like those bowel movements that Michael Bay keeps excreting onto screens around the world and calling movies. John Carter is not a deep, mind-blowing, revolutionary movie, but it is a lot of fun, and if a sci-fi action movie is the sort of thing you like, it is well worth seeing.

In Time / Tower Heist

Last week—through no particular planning on my part—I ended up seeing movies two nights in a row! The excitement there is more from having an opportunity to get out of the house two days in a row more than excitement at the movies specifically; I’ve become something of a hermit, of late. Anyway, here are my thoughts, in brief, on In Time and Tower Heist.

In Time

In Time is from writer/director Andrew Niccol, who—to me, at least—is best known for Gattaca. Gattaca was a slightly odd but well-done, thoughtful movie. Unfortunately, In Time doesn’t hold together quite so well, despite being generally entertaining.

The basic premise is that the key to eternal youth has been unlocked, and so everyone stops aging at age 25. However, to prevent overcrowding, everyone then has only a year of life left—unless they earn more. The rich can live for hundreds—or thousands—of years, while the poor live from day to day, struggling to earn enough time at work to keep going until the next day. Time is the new currency, and everyone is kept strictly isolated in different zones, according to how much time they have.

So, this is an interesting idea, and it certainly allows Niccol to work with a cast of young and beautiful people. We’re given some heavy-handed tragedy early on, and then Will Salas (played not particularly well by Justin Timberlake, who couldn’t manage the full range of emotion the character demanded) lucks in to a hundred years, and that’s where all his problems start. And while those problems are interesting, they just don’t hold the story together in a sensible way.

Specifically, there are a number or aspects of the worldbuilding that are necessary to tell the story, but that make NO SENSE AT ALL for a reasonable person. For example, you can steal a person’s time while they are asleep/unconscious. WHY WOULD ANYONE BUILD A SYSTEM THAT ALLOWED NON-CONSENSUAL TRANSFER OF TIME? The answer, of course, it because it is needed for the plot, but that is exactly why this movie just doesn’t hold together well.

I realize this all sounds pretty negative, and I don’t mean to be. It wasn’t a bad movie, just a flawed one. It was still quite enjoyable, and while not as clever and thought-provoking as Gattaca, it is still more clever than a lot of movies that pass for science fiction these days. I certainly don’t regret the time or money spent seeing it.

Tower Heist

Tower Heist was not really on my list to see, but some friends were going, so I figured, “Why not?” Luckily, it turned out to be an enjoyable comedy. The trailers play up the presence of Eddie Murphy and Ben Stiller, but Tower Heist is not a “Ben Stiller movie” or an “Eddie Murphy movie”, and was actually more dependent on the ensemble cast and the clever writing for its humour.

So this movie was much better than expected. The setup for the eponymous tower heist was original (compared to other heist films), and the execution has some genuinely tense and brilliant moments. This was definitely a comedy with some heist movie more than a heist movie with some comedy, but that’s okay. It was a lot of fun.

Final Summer 2011 Movie Thoughts

It has been a while since my last post on account of finishing up the course I was teaching, marking the final exam, making a significant amount of progress on my thesis research, and having the girlfriend visit for ten days that overlapped with a five-day visit from my brother’s family. So I’ve been, you know, busy.

But fear not! I did manage to see a number of movies in that time, about which I am about to expound. (I also read a number of books, which is delightfully unusual, and about which I will elaborate at a future date.)

I will first discuss two less-fantastical films, then move into the science fiction and fantasy backbone of my usual movie-going. Note that there will be a few minor spoilers in my discussion of Conan.

Crazy, Stupid, Love

Crazy, Stupid, Love is a bit outside my normal fare, I’ll admit, but I do enjoy some mainstream comedies/dramas, and Steve Carrell has a good track record of doing stuff I enjoy. Plus, it had Emma Stone (though not nearly enough of her) who totally won me over with Zombieland and Easy A. And Julianne Moore, who won me over with Evolution of all films. Basically, it has a great cast in a well-written ensemble comedy.

I really enjoyed Crazy, Stupid, Love. It balanced itself nicely between over-the-top comedy and genuine emotional moments, and while there were a few things I wish it had done a bit differently, it did manage to surprise me with some of the plot twists throughout. Admittedly, it had its moments of predictability, too, but overall it was a really well-done movie—one that I would easily recommend, if you’re in to that sort of thing.

The Change-Up

I cannot be quite so effusive about The Change-Up, which the girlfriend and I saw because we decided to see a movie late Saturday night and it was the only one playing quite so late that hadn’t already started. Despite having two strong comic actors as leads, the premise of them switching bodies is an old one that has been done many, many, many times before.

(Aside: I actually find the body-swap comedy most interesting when done in a TV series rather than a movie, since in a movie you typically don’t see much character establishment before the switch so you don’t get a strong sense of the different characters in each others bodies. In a TV series, however, where you have had many episodes—or even seasons—to get to know the characters, seeing the actors pull off each others mannerisms and delivery is really enjoyable. Stargate SG-1 did this well, for example.)

Thankfully, The Change-Up at least executes the concept fairly well by loading it up with raunchy, low-brow humour right from the start. It eventually becomes fairly predictable, and while at times it strives toward trying to incorporate genuine emotional moments, it never really gets there. It does remain funny throughout—assuming you’re okay with toilet humour—so it is watchable and enjoyable, but it didn’t really offer anything beyond laughs. So, not a bad movie to watch for a few laughs or to pass the time, but not really something you need to go out of your way to see.

Captain America: The First Avenger

Marvel has been doing a good job with the movies it has released under its own auspices, the latest of which is Captain America: The First Avenger. This was a well-done WWII-era superhero action movie that established Steve Rogers—Captain America, as he is better known—as something of a tragic figure in his modern reincarnation. While it does not match the original Iron Man in terms of depth of characterization, it does a better job than Marvel’s subsequent movies (The Incredible Hulk, Iron Man 2, and Thor), which—while enjoyable and generally well-done—failed to deliver quite the same mix of character development and exciting action achieved by Iron Man. I feel Captain America: The First Avenger comes close to meeting that lofty goal.

That said, I know a lot of people have complained about this movie. I do wonder if they knew anything at all about it going in, however, since it stayed quite close to the traditional Captain America origin. The Super Soldier Serum, the Red Skull, Hydra… they are all part of Marvel lore, and rewriting Cap’s origin completely would be gauche, to say the least. The special effects were good, and while one man’s action choreography trash is another’s treasure, I enjoyed the action sequences.

So, if you don’t mind a bit of inherent cheesiness in the plot, the Americana and patriotism, and the character development, I think you’ll find Captain America: The First Avenger an enjoyable movie and a great lead-in to next year’s The Avengers, which the whole world is hoping will be awesome.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

I rather suspect I don’t need to say much about this one, so I’ll keep it brief. I liked Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 much better than the first part, though it still struck me as a bit too loose and jumbled to overtake Azkaban, Order of the Phoenix, or Half-Blood Prince as one of the best films of the series. I do think it provided a suitably epic climax to the series overall, with most of the characters—especially side characters—getting their chance to shine, even if that shining moment wasn’t staged particularly well for everyone.

The girlfriend says she actually prefers the Deathly Hallows movies to the book, since the movies give a wider picture of what is going on for everyone whereas the books are a little too concentrated on Harry, Hermione, and Ron. I’ll be curious to see if I agree with her once I get around to finishing off the book series.

So, pretty good, overall. But I imagine if you’ve watched the previous 7 movies, you’ll watch this one no matter what, and if you haven’t seen the previous movie, why would you ever watch just this one? I don’t even know what the purpose of a proper review would even be.

Cowboys and Aliens

I’ve noticed a bit of a trend while reading online movie reviews over the last few years, in which there seem to be only two kinds of movies: great and bad. If a movie is not great, then it is bad, terrible, awful, a crime against humanity. To me, this is obviously stupid. Greatness, by its very nature, must be rare and hard to achieve. To cast down anything that fails to achieve greatness as awful means there’s going to be an awful lot of misery and disappointment in the world.

This opinion of mine is why I perhaps come across as a bit more favourable that most online critics in that I rather like quite a few movies that have been righteously panned. There are lots of movies out there that are flawed in some way, but still pretty good, and I like to recognize that. There are also some movies that are in fact perfect but misunderstood, like Speed Racer, about which I can feel smug that I see their true awesomeness. Similarly, there are movies that are successful but truly awful, like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, about which I can despair for the future of humanity.

This is all a roundabout way of me justifying the fact that I quite liked Cowboys & Aliens when it has gotten generally poor reviews and even worse box office success. It delivers exactly what the title promises: cowboys and aliens. The visual effects are good. The action is good. The cast is good. (Come on! Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, and Sam Rockwell in the Old West! It’s a match made in heaven!) The plot is a little straightforward and trite, and there’s no hugely deep character development or anything, but at least there is some.

Thus, as a movie, Cowboys & Aliens is, at the very least, okay. But since I found it more enjoyable than just okay, I’d nudge it up to good, but not great. I think it lacked enough depth to aspire to greatness; it was just too predictable and too reliant on stock characters. But it was absolutely enjoyable and fun. And if you are expecting more than that from a movie titled Cowboys & Aliens, then perhaps the problem is with you and not the movie.

Conan the Barbarian (2011)

The new Conan the Barbarian movie is one I am more conflicted about. I saw it (thankfully) in 2D, fully expecting it to be awful—and IT WAS NOT. It was okay. There were lots of things that could have been better, but for fans of sword and sorcery… well, pickings are slim, and this stands above the last Conan movie.

What could have been better? Well, the fight choreography, for one. Jason Momoa, who played Conan, spent 4 years on Stargate: Atlantis in the role of Ronon Dex where he had plenty of hand-to-hand action sequences that were pretty good. We don’t really see any of that on screen in this movie, however, since apparently they hired some dude with a camcorder to film the fight sequences and had them choreographed by a toddler on a sugar-high. So while there was plenty of bloody action, not a lot of it jumped out as particularly memorable.

Also: final battle in collapsing lair? Seriously? That ancient temple wasn’t even collapsing for a reason! And, for that matter, how did Conan win in the end, exactly? When he fought the big bad before, he had his ass handed to him, and yet in the final battle he won the day without even a training montage in between!

Ahem! So yes, the movie is rather heavily steeped in tropes of the genre, which are a bit tedious though tolerable. My biggest complaint is actually that the movie didn’t feel enough like CONAN.

Allow me to elaborate.

In recent years I have been reading the original Robert E. Howard Conan stories (and the Dark Horse comic series relaunch that heavily drew on them). In them, Conan is strong, to be sure, but also smart, clever, and almost entirely self-interested. He steals, then spends his take on food, wine, and women, and when he runs out of money, he goes stealing again. He is honourable in his own way, but not particularly heroic.

This movie, on the other hand, struck me as a generic fantasy movie simply reskinned with the Conan license. The plot was of the epic save-the-world variety, and Conan was freeing slaves just because he didn’t believe people should be slaves. That, well, it didn’t feel like Conan. (I could see Conan free slaves while robbing the slavers, say, but not as the main point of his attack.)

Complaints aside, I was sufficiently entertained by this movie to not regret seeing it. It also had one of the most intense action sequences I’ve seen in any movie, in a bit from Conan’s childhood, that was just awesome. But then it got my hopes up that the whole movie would be that good, and sadly, it wasn’t.

So, while I liked the movie well enough overall, it didn’t deliver to my satisfaction the same way that Cowboys & Aliens did. With that movie, you got exactly what the title promised; with Conan the Barbarian, you got a reasonably well-done generic fantasy with hints of and the trappings of Conan. So while it wasn’t as terrible as I had feared it might be, neither did it satisfy my craving for a Conan movie.

Thoughts on Super 8

I finally got to see the movie Super 8 this past weekend. It had been subject to a subdued viral marketing campaign, something akin to when Cloverfield came out a few years ago, but thankfully the payoff for Super 8 was much, much better. I thought Super 8 was a fantastic movie.

Super 8 is a deliberately nostalgic movie, throwing back to the era of summer films with ensemble child casts (think Goonies or E.T.) and set in 1979, right smack in the middle of that era of summer movies. It captures the awkwardness of childhood while showing the kids dealing with it and having an awesome, incredible adventure that you wish you too could have during your summer break.

The basic setup is that a group of kids filming a Super 8 movie during summer break witness the derailment of an Air Force train under mysterious circumstances. After, strange things start happening around town which they end up getting caught up in. Of course, this is just the basic premise of the plot, and ignores the character arcs that are the main driving force of this movie.

The young cast carries the movie, with the two leads (Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning) displaying a good degree of nuance, and the supporting actors hitting their notes just right. The adult characters have an arc that parallels the kids, and while the handling of this is not particularly subtle, neither is it heavy-handed or overbearing. I would consider this to be a very classically-structured film, and that’s entirely okay. It totally works.

The reviews for Super 8 were mostly positive, with a few complaining about the ending. While the ending was not particularly surprising or clever, I do think it worked, and I’m not sure how it could have been different without compromising the feel of the film. Super 8 is a movie that doesn’t try to pull any tricks on the viewer; it is exactly what it appears to be. And that’s great, because it is done so well. Super 8 is easily one of the best movies I’ve seen this year.

Summer Movie Mania!

I felt the need to break from my recent movie-posting naming scheme since the titles of the four movies I plan to talk about would make a rather long title when concatenated. It is, perhaps, an indication that this post is long overdue.

In my defense, however, the past month has seen me actually making some progress on my research, plus teaching, plus actually (*GASP*) reading some books. For fun. In the past few weeks I have read three or four books, in fact. I should probably blog about those at some point.

But not now. Now, I have some summer movies to talk about. I had meant to give Thor its own post, but alas, the God of Thunder shall receive short shrift from me tonight.

Please note, there may be spoilery comments, but nothing major.

Thor

Marvel Comics has brought another of its lesser-known heroes to the big screen with Thor, in a film that introduces a character that will be part of next year’s The Avengers. The Marvel version of Thor is a loose adaptation of actual Norse myth, and this film is a loose adaptation of the Marvel comics.

However, it is an adaptation with a famous director (Kenneth Branagh!), Oscar-winning actors (Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins!), a suitably godlike Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and a strong supporting cast, and it totally worked for me. That is not to say there weren’t some things I wish had been handled different, but it was a satisfying movie overall. I especially enjoyed the creative designs for the gods’ city of Asgard and their magic and technology.

My major complaints are primarily about pacing. Without giving too much away, I feel that Thor learned his lesson in humility awfully quickly, almost as fast as he and human Jane Foster fell for each other. (Though, to be fair, since Foster was played by Natalie Portman, I could hardly blame him.) What was there was done well, but it felt like the movie played out over a handful of days, and I think the character development might have been better served with a “living like a regular dude” montage in there somewhere.

In terms of Marvel-produced movies, I would put this up there after Iron Man, but above Iron Man 2 and The Incredible Hulk, both of which were good movies, but I think I liked Thor just a little bit better. I felt happy coming out of this movie.

X-Men: First Class

I’m not entirely certain whether X-Men: First Class is a reboot or a prequel. I am certain that it was very well done. Set in the 1960s during the Cuban Missile Crisis, it shows how Charles Xavier first formed the X-Men with the help of Erik Lensherr (who becomes the villain Magneto), and centres around the tragedy of their parting of ways.

The movie looks great, with groovy ’60s fashion and a solid cast of lead and supporting actors. There are a few familiar characters first seen in previous X-Men movies, but not too many, and so we get introduced to a number of new characters and special powers. (Some of the characters would be familiar to readers of the comics, but in many ways this is a hindrance, as their origins are nothing like the comic book versions.)

As I suggested above, I really enjoyed this movie, and thought it was well done. But, as with Thor, I think there were some minor issues with the pacing of the story. Not in terms of action versus character moments, but rather in the friendship between Charles and Erik. The key thrust of this movie is that it is a tragedy, that these two great friends eventually became bitter enemies. But they don’t really give a lot of time on screen to the development of that friendship.

While I haven’t put together a detailed timeline or anything, I got the feeling that their friendship played out over months (if not weeks). While I can see that they became good friends in that timeframe, it lacks a certain gravitas. Had they been working together for years, it would have made more sense to me.

(This also reminds me of another irritation: the close relationship between Charles and Mystique. If this is a prequel, nothing of the sort was alluded to in the earlier movies. In the context of this film, however, they grew up together from a young ago. Their parting was in many ways more tragic that Charles and Erik’s.)

Overall, however, this was a very well-done movie. Certainly a million times better than X-Men: The Last Stand. I was happy with this one.

The Hangover Part 2

This movie does not really fall within my usual sci-fi/fantasy purview, but I saw it and feel obligated to say a few words. Those words are this: if you liked the first one, you’ll probably like this one, because it is the exact same movie. As such, it was quite funny, but lacked the element of pleasant surprise and discovery that accompanied the first one. I enjoyed it, but it is not a movie you need to go out of your way to see.

Pirates of the Caribbean 4: On Stranger Tides

I saw On Stranger Tides in 3D unfortunately, which was entirely a waste of money. But then, 3D always is. Apart from the pointless 3D conversion, this movie was okay. It wasn’t great, like the first one, and while it was less stupid in many respects than the 2nd and 3rd ones, it had its problems.

In this movie, Captain Jack Sparrow becomes our main character, and that, perhaps, is the first problem. He is fantastic as a supporting character when you can’t wait to see what he’ll pop up and do next, but as a main character—especially when all the other lead characters are also scenery-chewing pirates—he lacks anyone to be outrageous in comparison to.

The plot also seems unnecessarily complicated. There were several times during the movie when I was bored waiting for two characters on screen to explain what they were doing and why. From what I understand, this movie was very loosely adapted from a novel by Tim Powers. I wonder if shoehorning Sparrow and Barbossa into an existing plot led to its overlarge cast and sometimes languid pacing and unnecessary subplots.

But the characters were fun, and the action sequences good, and so overall the movie was okay. There was some stuff that was definitely big-screen worthy, and there were some cools bits, so I don’t feel disappointed that I saw it. But it wasn’t awesome or anything; it was just okay.

Paul / Sucker Punch / Hanna / Your Highness

In the last 7 weeks I have finished teaching one course, travelled to Toronto, gave and marked an exam, travelled to Salt Lake City, and started teaching another course. Around all of that, I even managed to make some progress on my thesis research.

But fear not! I have also managed to squeeze in a surprising number of movies. I shall discuss four of them here; the fifth (Thor) will get its own entry soon.

Paul

This latest movie from Simon Pegg and Nick Frost kind of does for science fiction film what Shaun of the Dead did for zombie movies and Hot Fuzz did for cop/action movies: poke fun at the genre while firmly entrenching itself as part of it. However, I think Paul has a level of meta-parody that overshadows its homage to SF movies in that it also rejoices in the fan culture of science fiction, comics, and other nerdly pursuits.

To that end, the movie is absolutely steeped in subtle (and not-so-subtle) references to other films. What impressed me most, however, was that they didn’t have to struggle to fit them in or set them up, and if you didn’t get the reference the dialogue still worked and was funny enough it its own right.

That said, if you are not interested in science fiction films in general, I don’t think this one being a comedy is going to help matters much. Also, the more familiar you are with iconic science fiction film, the more you’ll get out of this movie. I enjoyed this movie immensely, as did the people I went with, but it is definitely not for everyone.

Sucker Punch

I so wanted to love this movie. After having seen Zack Snyder’s 300 (visually cool, if too in-love with slow motion and adapting some thin source material) and Watchmen (a good—but not great—adaptation that I talked about here), I was curious to see what he would do with his own material.

The trailers for Sucker Punch promised hot chicks kicking ass in a variety of fantastical and science fictional settings. Unfortunately, in the film itself that turned out to all be in the imagination of a wrongfully-imprisoned young woman. Thus, as cool as it looked, there were no stakes to the action on screen. Sure, it was representative of other struggles in the real world, so it made sense in terms of the narrative, but it was just disappointing—I wanted to see hot chicks actually fighting zombie Nazis and giant samurai and robots, not imagining doing those things.

But I could forgive that. It added a layer of complexity to an otherwise straightforward story. What I didn’t like was how relentlessly dark and depressing that story was. Pretty much everything that happens to our main characters in the movie is absolutely awful, most of the characters we encounter are the worst kind of scum, and—while there is some hope of things improving at the end—there’s not really much in the way of justice being served. It’s just dark.

I wanted awesome and fun, and got dark and depressing. While I think that dark story has its place in the world, dressing it up with imaginary fantasy action was the wrong way to sell it to me. And apart from the bleakness of the story preventing me from even enjoying those action scenes, the betrayal of the promise of the trailer is what irked me most about this movie.

Complaints aside, I do think this movie was better than most reviews suggested. I’ve noticed that movie reviewers tend to get upset by any kind of narrative complexity in a film—especially an action film—and I think that Sucker Punch was not as slight as most reviews suggested. It was certainly a creatively ambitious film, but ultimately I don’t think it was successful in achieving its goals.

Hanna

The movie Hanna seemed to come out of nowhere, and I was pleasantly surprised by it. Hanna is an SF-tinged action thriller with a strong cast that blends bloody and brutal action with an almost sweet story of a young girl learning to make friends and live in the wider world.

This is one of those movies that is exceedingly well-executed. While it is not going to be one of my favourite films or anything, it is one where I didn’t see anything and think, “Oh, I wish they could have done that better,” or, “That was stupid.” Everything hung together well, the pacing was tight, and the ending was… satisfying.

Overall, it was a good movie. I would recommend it to anyone who likes action, suspense, or thriller movies (whether science-fictional or not).

Your Highness

I didn’t have much in the way of hope for Your Highness. Humorous fantasy is tough to pull off in general, and I’m not sure that there is enough iconic fantasy film to successfully parody. But it was cheap night at the movie theatre, I wanted to get out of the house, and it had both Natalie Portman and Zooey Deschanel, so I was game.

It was okay. It made me laugh. And it had a few scenes of a scantily-clad Natalie Portman. Most of the humour came in the form of anachronism—the modern language and attitudes of the lead character sticking out amidst the more stock supporting cast. The plot was basically a mishmash of standard fantasy tropes glued together with some foul language and a veneer of gross-out humour.

Basically, this was a dumb but mildly amusing movie. Unless you have a strong aversion to profanity, ridiculous violence, and some awkward nudity, I would suggest this is the sort of movie you watch if it happens to be on TV and you are looking for something to do, or if it comes up while you are looking for something on Netflix. It was better than I had expected, though, so for me is was a successful movie outing.

Coming Soon…. My thoughts on Thor.

The Adjustment Bureau / Limitless

It seems that March held an unexpected bonanza of science-fictional films. I have been making something of an effort to see as many as I can, but as my time is limited I have been concentrating on movies that have a degree of positive buzz. Thankfully, the two I’ve seen have not let me down.

The Adjustment Bureau

This Matt Damon vehicle is yet another loose Hollywood adaptation of a Philip K. Dick short story (“Adjustment Team”). Not having read the original story, I have no idea how accurate this adaptation is, so my impression of The Adjustment Bureau is solely based on the movie itself.

That impression is favourable. The cast was surprisingly solid, and while there were plenty of chase sequences and big reveals, the pacing of the movie was surprisingly thoughtful and reflective. The basic premise—which I think is apparent from the trailers—is that political aspirant David Norris (Damon) falls for a girl and mysterious forces try to keep them apart.

If that plot sounds rather simple, well, it is. But the movie tries to explore the whole fate-versus-freewill debate, and much of the action develops out of the main characters taking action for themselves. They actually have clear reasons for acting as they do, and it is an intensely personal story despite all the bigger questions raised by the film.

My only complaint about the film is with the ending, which seemed to arrive rather abruptly and quite possibly undermined the thematic argument of the movie. While it tied up the plot, it didn’t really answer any questions or give us any sense of what lay in store for the characters. (I will grant that the last point may have been deliberate, given the nature of the movie, but it was still mildly unsatisfying.)

Still, I very much enjoyed this movie. While it was no Inception in terms of complexity or quality, it was one of the more enjoyable and thoughtful SF movies I’ve seen recently, and I wish more movies were out there like it. Good stuff.

Limitless

I had some trepidation going in to Limitless, as I hadn’t heard much about it before its release, and I knew its star Bradley Cooper more for his roles in comedies than serious action or SF films. But it got some decent reviews from SF outlets, and did some solid box-office, so I gave it a shot.

In the movie, Eddie Morra (Cooper) is a struggling writer who takes a drug that enhances his intelligence to stratospheric heights but only lasts for a day. The plot follows what happens to his accelerated self as he tries to take advantage of his new-found capabilities.

I thought this movie did not explore the notion of enhanced intelligence as well as it could have. There are threads in that direction, but they get subordinated to the plot-level action and suspense. However, the narrative style of the film was unconventional for an SF movie, and there were some very interesting visuals used in showing how the drug affected Eddie’s mind and perception of the world around him.

Despite the lack of depth, the movie was entertaining. While the outcome was somewhat predictable, there were surprises on how we got there, and it made for a satisfying movie. While I did not personally enjoy it quite so much as The Adjustment Bureau, I can certainly see that other people might like it more. And, technically speaking, Limitless was the more rigorously science-fictional of the two movies.

Overall, I think my two choices for movies so far this month were good ones.

Megamind / RED / Skyline / Morning Glory

Once again, I strive to squeak in an update under the wire and leave no gap in the monthly archives. I have actually quite a lot to talk about, but I’ll limit myself to movie thoughts for now. That, in itself, is still quite an undertaking, as I managed to visit the girlfriend and we saw 4 movies in theatre in 8 days.

Megamind

I had low expectations for this movie. When the trailer first debuted forever ago, I was immediately dismayed at the similarities with Despicable Me. (Note that this was before either movie was released—I was dismayed at the seemingly-similar premises.) I was also dismayed at Will Ferrell’s involvement, as I have tended to be irritated by his movies, though I may need to reconsider that assessment as I have quite enjoyed several of his more recent movies.

Anyway, point is I had low expectations. However, a few people I knew saw it and said it was good, so off the girlfriend and I went, and I was really pleasantly surprised. Apart from both being about the villains, Megamind and Despicable Me are quite different films, and while I enjoyed the latter, I think Megamind was the better of the two. Indeed, Megamind was one of the better movies I’ve seen this year.

It doesn’t quite reach Pixar quality, but the writing and jokes were clever, and there were some delightful visuals. And, most pleasantly, the movie actually surprised me in a couple of places. As a result, I’d probably put it above all the other non-Pixar CGI movies I’ve seen, with the sole exception of How to Train Your Dragon, which was also really good. Anyway, Megamind is a good movie, and I highly recommend it.

RED

No, not the colour. Acronym. For “Retired, Extremely Dangerous”. Based on a comic by Warren Ellis. Most of what you know can be summed up with the following: action movie starring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, and John Malkovich. If you can’t tell whether RED is something you might enjoy based on that, I’m not sure anything else I can say will help.

Anyway, the aforementioned cast star as retired spies. When a team of commandos tries to kill Frank Moses (Willis), he reunites with old friends to find out why. Wackiness ensues, where wackiness equals lots of entertaining gun battles with actors not usually found in the action genre.

The plot is a little weak but vastly entertaining, and the action scenes are well done. While I have seen better movies, RED certainly satisfies. Recommended if action movies are your thing.

Skyline

We saw this sci-fi movie because it was the next one playing, and because some of the trailers looked kind of cool. Unfortunately, the coolness did not persist outside of the trailer. Skyline was quite dissatisfying.

It is like the illegitimate love child of Independence Day and Cloverfield, where we have an alien invasion, but see it from the point of view of regular people trying to survive. As such, we never really find out what is going on, and our heroes, such as they are, stand little chance. It’s a pretty dark and depressing movie, and while they almost did something interesting with the ending, they pushed it too far, took it in the wrong direction, and gave it a non-ending instead.

You don’t need to actively avoid this movie. It had some cool bits and all, but it’s not really enough to command your full attention. It’s the sort of thing you might watch if it’s on TV while you’re doing something else, or on an airplane. So I give this one a big, “Meh.” My viewing companions were not nearly so kind in their opinions, so be warned.

Morning Glory

Morning Glory is a comedy—or possibly a dramedy, though I am loath to use the term—starring Rachel McAdams and Harrison Ford. It is not a romantic comedy, though there is some romance in it (not between the two leads). It is just a funny, well-done movie.

McAdams plays an eager young TV producer given a chance to try to revive a failing morning talk show. She manages to bully Harrison Ford’s character—a legendary news anchor who is a miserable, grumpy bastard—into working on the show, but has little time to wring cooperation out of him and improve the show’s ratings. Wackiness ensues, where wackiness equals zany news bits, neuroses, Harrison Ford being an ass, and further delights.

The movie has solid writing, is not entirely predictable, and is quite cute to boot. It is thankfully not rife with cliche and rehashed storylines, and while it’s not ridiculous over-the-top side-splitting funny, there is no shortage of laughs. A good movie, and recommended if you’re in to general (non-gross-out) comedies.

Fan Expo Canada 2010

Thanks to the generosity of my good friend Jenn, last weekend I attended Fan Expo. She gave me the passes as an early Christmas/Birthday/Next Christmas present, and was in no way motivated by a desire to have company for her Fan Expo adventure or avoid thinking up other presents for me.

We met for lunch before heading over on Friday, August 27th at around 3 pm. We thought this would be an easy task, as doors had opened for Deluxe attendees like ourselves an hour earlier, but alas, the line stretched around the entire north and east sides of the building when we arrived, and before long it was wrapping around the south side of the building as well.

Two hours later we finally got in and presented our tickets, at which time we were rewarded with wristbands, and that was it. No swag bag or anything. I think I’ve been spoiled by my experiences with Ad Astra and Worldcon. I put the wristband on, not realizing that it was the sort designed not to come of without being cut, and so I was less than impressed at having to wear the damn thing when I went to the bathroom, showered, and ran errands outside of the convention centre. Jenn had been clever enough to leave hers loose so she could slip it off.

We started on the exhibition floor, which was insanely crowded. This was wear tons of booths were set up selling all the things I ever wanted. GI Joe toys, classic Transformers, endless shelves of DVDs, and comics, and Star Wars everything. And I had no money to spare. Alack! Alas! But probably for the best.

We wandered over to the celebrity signing area, and were sort of appalled at the cost of autographs. I mean, I appreciate the need for these people to make attendance worthwhile, and since the lines were quite large I guess they didn’t need to worry about demand, but still… I would have liked an Adam West autograph, or James Marsters, or Tahmoh Penikett, or Michael Dorn, but I could barely afford one, much less all of them.

I did spring for a Guild photo signed by Felicia Day and Amy Okuda, since I enjoy their work and—like many people of the male nerd persuasion—I have a somewhat mild desire to groom Felicia, albeit in a totally non-creepy way. Really. And Jenn and I split a photo opportunity with Summer Glau, scheduled for Saturday at 6 pm. After that we went and got some of Jenn’s books signed by Kelley Armstrong.

At this point, we’d been on our feet for quite a while, so we wandered the floor some more before leaving a bit early. We were rather frustrated by the poor organization for getting us in, and for controlling the flow of people.

Saturday, we arrived a bit after 11 to find a line wrapped around the building once again. Thankfully, that line was not ours, but for people looking to buy a single day pass. We were able to walk past them and in to the reentry doors with no problem. There was nothing scheduled that early that interested us, so we went straight to line up for the Tron Legacy presentation to ensure we got seats. This was, admittedly, more my interest than Jenn’s, on account of Bruce Boxleitner—Tron himself, though I better know him as Captain Sheridan from Babylon 5—being a part of the presentation.

They started letting us in early, after security confiscated all our phones and cameras, and we got some decent seats. The presentation itself was kind of exciting. It was hosted by Ajay Fry and Teddy Wilson from the Space channel, and first there was one of the tie-in game developers to show off the game. Then, they brought out Tron Bruce and talked a bit before showing us the trailer and 7 minutes of footage from the movie itself—in 3D! I don’t actually care for 3D that much, but I appreciated the effort to make the presentation seem special. There was a Q&A thereafter, and then we were free!

To line up to get our stuff back, which Jenn did while I went to the can. So, line up to get in, line up to get out, all sort of poorly organized. By the time we were sorted out, it was already 1:20, so we decided to take in Tahmoh Penikett’s spotlight panel though it had already started. Apparently it had started late though, because it didn’t seem like we had missed much. He gave a pretty interesting talk about his work on Battlestar and Dollhouse, and seemed like a nice guy.

After that, I left Jenn to watch Felicia Day while I headed back up to the exhibition floor to try and get a free autograph from Boxleitner, as Babylon 5 is one of my favourite things ever. I had to line up to take the escalator, because they were controlling how many people were allowed on the exhibition floor. Rumors were circulating that even people with the 3-day pass weren’t being let in to the building because it was so crowded.

After visiting the Pure Pwnage booth to say hi to the guys (who have a Gemini nomination, by the way), I got to the Tron booth a bit after 2 pm. He was scheduled to be there at 2:30, and I thought I was in luck—there was hardly anyone there! Then I asked, as was told the line was around the back of the booth. And across the aisle. And around the back of the Marvel comics booth, and along one side.

On the upside, from my spot in the line, I had a good view of the Hasbro booth, which had some pretty sweet Star Wars displays, and I could watch the Marvel preview videos. Eventually, Jenn showed up and joined me, flitting in and out to keep me and herself entertained. As we neared the front of the line, she decided she was in the line, too, and so we both got free Tron Legacy posters signed by Bruce Boxleitner. Sadly, he didn’t have time to personalize them, but I’m not complaining about free.

We figured the James Marsters session would be full, so we sought out food instead. (We later found out we could have gotten in—oh well.) Food turned out to be another lengthy lineup. And then we went to line up for the Summer Glau discussion session. She seemed quite shy, but had a few good stories to tell from being on set for her various science fictional shows and movies.

Guess what? After that we went to line up AGAIN for our photo op. The line went all the way down one hallway and across another, and continued to grow behind us. But our line was dwarfed by the Stan Lee line, which I don’t think was pre-paid like ours. And once the line started moving, they were able to process us quite quickly. Our photo op was at 6 pm, and we were done by 6:30. I look forward to seeing the resulting photo.

And that was the end of that.

Sunday morning we met at 11 (after I had a Cinnabon for breakfast). This time there was a significant line of people with armbands waiting to get in, so Jenn and I took a spot in the shade and waited for the end of the line to reach us. (It is possible that we may have filled in a large gap instead, but I fell no guilt about that.

We decided to stay away from the exhibition floor, and went on the spur of the moment to a Space panel with Ajay Fry, Teddy Wilson, and Natasha Eloi, along with two surprise guests: David Blue from Stargate Universe and Ryan Robbins from Sanctuary. They were quite funny playing off each other, had incredibly hard questions for their giveaways, and ended the event with David Blue signing Ryan Robbins’ ass. It was an unexpectedly fun time.

From there, we went to see William Shatner speak, and not in just as he was starting. He was in the largest panel room, so we were able to get seats, albeit far from the front. Shatner was… funny. Really funny. He had tons of funny and interesting stories to tell, poked fun at his cohosts and the audience, and worked the crowd well. This was also an unexpected delight. However, I was not crazy enough to try for an autograph after the fact.

From there we switched rooms to see Sendil Ramamurthy of Heroes fame/infamy. He played Mohinder on that show, one of my favouite characters of the first season, who the writers made progressively more ridiculous as the series wore on. He had a lot of interesting observations about his time on the show, and working as an Indian actor in general.

After his show, we were pushed out of the room to line up to come back in for the Michael Dorn panel. I went to this mostly out of curiosity, to see just how geeky a Star Trek panel could be. It was pretty geeky, but Dorn worked the crowd well, was happy to play to his Star Trek fans and discuss Worf in detail, and had funny stories to tell from the set and the things he’s managed to do as a result of his fame—specifically, riding in a lot of military aircraft.

By this point is was 4 pm, and our day was winding down. Jenn left at this point to do some other shopping, and I wandered the exhibition floor one last time before heading home.

Overall, it was a fun experience wrapped in boredom and frustration. It had an extremely commercial vibe about it, unlike Ad Astra or Worldcon or other book-oriented events, and all our 3-day pass guaranteed was getting to the exhibition floor—everything else we had to pay extra for or line up for. As a result, there were a number of panels that we missed because we were lining up for something we wanted more. I’m not sure I’d go back again, unless one of the following comes to pass: a) they have a guest that was a must-see for me, b) they seriously improve their crowd control and access issues so I don’t spend half my time in lines, or c) I have a ton of money to blow on the exhibitors. If I can optimize the fun stuff though, then maybe….