Review: FAST & FURIOUS 6

FAST & FURIOUS 6  (ACTION)
Two and a Half Stars out of Four
Directed by Justin Lin
Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Luke Evans, Gina Carano
PG-13 for intense sequences of violence and action and mayhem throughout, some sexuality and language. 
Verdict:  FAST& FURIOUS 6 has, for better or worse, no bothersome brain to keep it down, throwing care to the wind as it returns to the "heist film" formula that made its predecessor a success, but amplifies everything to such a ridiculously bombastic, idiotic level, that one simply cannot resist grinning and settling in with the unparalleled level of explosive roadway mayhem.

FAST & FURIOUS is quite possibly the weirdest major franchise in Hollywood; not in the sense that the individual films are the weirdest (in that competition, it might be PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN), but in the sense of how the franchise has developed and evolved.  The one that started it all, THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS (2001), was a glossy but grimy, watered-down exploitation flick about illegal street-racing in L.A.; violent, cheesy and unremarkable.  2 FAST 2 FURIOUS was a film as stupid as its title; more violent, more nasty and brimming with unintentional homo-eroticism.  The franchise bottomed-out with THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT, which was the only film in the series to gross less than $200 million worldwide, and relegated main player Vin Diesel to a cameo, and Paul Walker didn't even appear.  But TOKYO DRIFT brought with it writer Chris Morgan and director Justin Lin, the team that would eventually revitalize the franchise.  The confusingly-titled FAST & FURIOUS (2009) brought Walker and Diesel back to their starring positions, and while critics dismissed the film, it became the highest-grossing film in the series up until that time.  Then FAST FIVE came and did something very weird; it received praise from a majority of critics and grossed over $600 million worldwide.  This is a series of exploitation schlock films, watered down to a teen-friendly PG-13 level, with its most loyal demographic in junior high-aged boys and the "wrong side of town" teenage boys, while glamorizing criminality, objectifying women and insulting intelligence.  But now it was a critical success and a major blockbuster property.  How'd that happen?  FAST FIVE embraced the stupidity head on, and also finding a way to focus their storylines which previously staggered through auto-based penis comparisons whilst colliding with cops and gangsters, but was now molded into a "heist film" storyline.  FAST & FURIOUS 6 plays similar tune, but this time, as Dominic Toretto's band of thieves pursue an organization of vehicular warriors with whom Dom's old flame is working.
FAST & FURIOUS 6 is dumb as hell, and possibly more dumb than any of the other FAST AND FURIOUS films, but it's also the most fun, even if sometime you find yourself laughing derisively.  While not many films dare to be as intelligent as, say, INCEPTION, similarly, not many films dare to be as outright stupid as FAST & FURIOUS 6.  A tank speeds along the highway, flattening cars in its path while firing shells at others; a car explodes out the nose a crashing jumbo jet in a burst of flame; a woman is thrown as a vehicle on which she was standing flips at at least 90 mph and a man driving 100+ mph the other direction leaps from his car, catches her in mid-air and then lands on another car, knocking the windshield, but the two get up, unfazed.  However, when a woman falls from a plane's wing while speeding on the seemingly-endless runway, she dies.  Go figure.  Ah, but it's fun.

"Of all the vacation spots, in all the towns, in all the world, you had to walk into mine."

I'll admit that it's a little frustrating to think that a large part of this film's target audience may possibly not be in on the joke, and the objectification of women in this series is very troublesome and not at all mitigated in this addition.  You can have women drive fast and beat the hell out of each other and talk tough, and even occasionally embarrass their male counterparts, but while they continue to be second-tier characters defined by a juvenile attitude about sexuality, the case can hardly be argued that they are strong female characters.

The spirit of entire series encapsulated in one still.

It's way too violent for pre-teen boys (not that that will stop their parents from taking them, so long as they close their eyes during the sexy bits), and far too dumb for most of anyone else, or at least, it should be too dumb.  In the right kind of movie, however, while intelligence is just about always a good thing, stupidity is not so damning as it might otherwise be.  The sixth chapter in a muscle-headed franchise doesn't exactly have much to prove, except to live up to a fluke of a moderately entertaining fifth chapter, so with an I.Q. of no more than 60, FAST & FURIOUS 6 moves at a breakneck pace while its heroes leaves a trail of destruction as bad as anything the villains they're trying to stop might be guilty of.  The laws of physics are given the finger, about 70% of the jokes land with a deafening thud, and seriously, you can't quite tell if you're smiling out of derision or out of the adolescent thrill of seeing World War III on the highways of Spain.
After a false ending, the full 130-minute run time of the film becomes a little taxing, and the family of homies
treacle that tattooed, flat-brim hat-wearing young males eat right up is embarrassing, but it's part of the deal you make when you go into this kind of movie.  In the end, it's a waste of time, but not a bad waste of time.

30 Years After the Jedi Returned

When RETURN OF THE JEDI was released thirty years ago in 1983, it was warmly recieved by critics and audiences alike, with legendary film critic Roger Ebert proclaiming it "a magnificent experience" in a four star (highest rating) review and ranking as the highest-grossing film of the year, not to mention untold profits in merchandising.  It boasts an enviable rank of #80 on IMDb's top rated films of all time and was nominated for four Academy Awards.  It is the climactic chapter in one of the most popular series of all time, and yet, conflicting for many.
When STAR WARS (later re-titled STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A NEW HOPE) was released in 1977, it became the most successful film of all time and was an unprecedented cultural phenomenon.  In 1980, the sequel, THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, was financially successful, if not on the same level as the first film, but received a mixed reaction from critics and audiences.  Today, EMPIRE is widely considered the greatest of the Star Wars films, but following the breakneck-paced and upbeat original, the leisurely paced and surprisingly dark tone of the film were a bit of a sucker punch for many viewers.  So, when RETURN OF THE JEDI was released, the return to a lighter tone and a neatly resolved conclusion were welcomed.  Because high-profile film sequels were a relatively new practice at the time, many were unable to recognize each of the films as an act in a three-act story, which hindsight has now allowed us.  JEDI has evolved into a perfect example of the weak "three-quel," where a three-part series builds itself up so high in the first two parts, that the third chapter has no room to go higher, and tends to collapse under the weight of expectations.
But JEDI certainly is not a bad film, in fact, it's a very good film, even if it falls short of great; what makes that more upsetting though is there are definite glimpses of greatness in the film, promising an even higher potential.  It is the culmination of the Skywalker drama, the redemption of the father and the fulfillment of the son's transformation.  The whole thing comes full circle, which, after all, is the nature of a third act; the third act is one of reflection, where end meet beginning.  The story returns to its roots, as does the protagonist, to consider his/her origins in their cyclical transformation.  Early scripts of JEDI contained a scene which was an excellent example of this and which I would have loved to see, but was cut for more than a few reasons, not least of which were technological and economic concerns, in which Darth Vader returns to the volcanic planet (referred to as Mustafar in STAR WARS EPISODE III: REVENGE OF THE SITH) where the events which forced him to don the mask transpired, and where he seeks sanctuary.  Maybe some would accuse that kind of scene as too melodramatic, but I think it would have been marvelous.  Even with the exclusion of that scene though, there are plenty of moments of retrospection in JEDI, i.e. the return to the planet Tatooine, the reinterpreting of Obi-Wan Kenobi's tale of Darth Vader's betrayal/murder of Luke's father, and C-3PO's reiteration of the Battle of Yavin to the Ewoks among other things.  Another prominent example of echoes from the first part might be the Death Star II, but I actually have some minor problems with that thing, but more of that later.
The story structure in JEDI is a bit odd in that it feels almost like two films; the first 35 minutes or so are plenty entertaining but feel completely separated from the rest of the film as Luke & Co. rescue Han from his carbonite imprisonment by notorious space gangster, Jabba the Hutt, a grotesque giant slug/frog hybrid with the coolest entourage in the galaxy.  These scenes are lighter and quirkier than the remainder of film, which returns to the relatively serious tones of life cycles, redemption and the like which make up most of the Star Wars saga.  I wouldn't say the shift is jarring, because the Jabba the Hutt/Tatooine scenes tie off nicely, but it feels like you switched movies there.
While on the topic of the Tatooine scenes, fan-favorite Boba Fett's usage in this film render his cult status utterly inexplicable.  I don't give a damn about what some "Expanded Universe" books say about him, and for all I care, those books matter about as much as internet fan-fiction (Twilight fan-fic has been published in the form of novels too).  Maybe it's that he has a cool look, or maybe it's the need to assign some level of skill to the guy pursuing Han "Awesome Guy" Solo, but Boba Fett has been made out to be the Clint Eastwood of the series, when he's more along the lines of Mr. Muldoon, the game warden from JURASSIC PARK (who also was "brought back" via additional published material), except sillier.  Think about it: Boba Fett was first introduced in the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special; let that sink in.  He is the only character in the movies to have first appeared in the Star Wars Holiday Special.  Add to that the fact that he never once kills anyone onscreen (unless you count himself), he never captures Han Solo (Darth Vader & Co. do and then hand him off), a blind man (Han Solo) accidentally bumps Fett's jet pack, causing it to blast off, and then hit Jabba's barge before falling into the Sarlaac like a bitch.  Just in case that weren't enough, his ignominiously anti-climactic demise is punctuated by a belch from the Sarlaac.  You can pretend that Fett survived and is awesome in your little minds, but while you're at it, maybe re-imagine Jar Jar Binks as a badass too, because it's basically the same thing.  Come to think of it, Jar Jar probably knocked off that kid from ATTACK OF THE CLONES and became Boba Fett after the formation of the Empire.  Ya know, that would make sense, considering that Jar Jar's fate was never specified, Boba Fett is covered from head to toe to keep us from seeing his orange mottled skin, he's on good terms with Darth Vader and the clumsy way he bumps into Jabba's sail barge before dying.  Anyway, back to RETURN OF THE JEDI...
So yeah, the Ewoks are a problem.  Lucas had wanted to show a primitive race defeating the Empire and had originally considered Wookies, but decided that Chewbacca as a co-pilot proved they weren't all that primitive, so he shrunk the idea down to Ewoks.  As a child, I thought Ewoks were just creepy; they were teddy bear people, but with thick, dirty, little sausage fingers.  Yuck.  Today, my issue with them is primarily how they throw rocks and sticks at armored troopers, successfully downing them, and successfully  destroying an armored tank unit with swinging logs.  Is the Empire retarded?  Eh, but the Ewoks don't cripple the film the way some suggest they do; their just kind of stupid.
In terms of what makes the movie so awesome though, the space battle is spectacular, an epic, full-bodied battle ground in the cosmos, where plasma bolts riddle every perspective, and ship careen out of control, colliding with others.  The speeder bike scenes are excellent, utilizing an impressively effective effect of filming 5 mph steadicam shots at one frame per second, then playing the shot at the standard 24 frames per second.  The Rancor scene was originally intended to use stop-motion animation, but was changed to a puppet, due to budget concerns,but I think the scene works best as a puppet, with the fun b-movie elements of the super-imposing borders and cutting between actor and puppet shots.  Overall though, for the climactic chapter of a big-budget action-adventure, RETURN OF THE JEDI is surprisingly patient with its action and pacing, not necessarily to its detriment.
Although emotionally-charged, however, the lightsaber duel, the true trademark of the series, is disappointingly short-changed.  There are only a few brief bouts of fighting, between which Luke avoids fighting Vader, which I suppose is noble and all, but we all came to see a badass lightsaber fight, and it only gets real for a about thirty seconds.
And despite all the quibbling I can make, it's still a movie I love; it's one of those film that is highly entertaining, but you can't help but add your input, because it's personal enough that you want to construct it into the best possible vision in your mind, even if it's just for you.  And you don't have to publish some dopey fan-fic story either.  All you need to do is debate, re-watch and consider, then repeat.

STAR WARS: EPISODE VI- RETURN OF THE JEDI  (May 25, 1983)
Three and a Half Stars out of Four
Directed by Richard Marquand
Starring: Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, David Prowse, Billy Dee Williams, Ian McDiarmid 
PG for sci-fi action violence.

REVIEW: STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

Hollywood is getting better at preserving the surprises in their movies from marketing exposure, and after IRON MAN 3, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS is already the second summer blockbuster this year, only midway into May, to contain quite a few very high-profile plot twists that make it rather difficult to provide a spoiler-free discussion on the film.  As such, I will later post a "spoiler edition" review, but for now, I'll hold back.
What little can be said about the plot is that the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, as had been introduced in 2009's STAR TREK, is re-introduced in the midst of high adventure as they explore and survey new worlds in the name of Starfleet, the Federation of Planet's peacekeeping armada dedicated to exploring the frontiers of the known galaxy.  Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) violates Starfleet regulations in order to save a primitive planet, as well as an endangered crew member, and is reprimanded and demoted as a result, while his friend and first officer, Mr. Spock (Zachary Quinto), faces conflict in his relationship with Communications Officer Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and his friendship with Kirk due to his emotional distancing as a half-Vulcan.  When a mysterious rogue agent of Starfleet identified as John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) is found responisble for a pair of horrifying attacks on Starfleet bases on Earth, Kirk and the Enterprise crew find themselves thrust back into action in a moment of desperation for Starfleet.  As they endeavor on the emergency mission, the Enterprise crew unravel a mystery wherein things are rarely as they seem.
I actually have mixed feelings about big plot twists, not specifically for this movie, but in general.  There is a certain level of enjoyment in those "big reveals", but on the first viewing of a film, major plot twists sometimes shake myself as a viewer out of my groove.  Such films are usually more entertaining on subsequent viewings, as I can watch the course to which what I already know as it unfolds, and I'm prepared and thus allowed better focus on tones, emotions, and nuances which I generally attribute more value to.
That said, I enjoyed STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS throughout, and it held my attention in a vice-like grip.  I do plan to see it again, and I believe it be even more entertaining then.
The action sequences are quite spectacular, including a clear RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK-inspired opening sequence to the thrilling, pirate ship-esque space battles between Starfleet vessels, and an intense and emotionally-charged hand-to-hand combat showdown atop speeding Earth transports.  Even with the relentless pacing, the film is also heavy laden with philosophical and ethical conundrums familiar to the Star Trek franchise.  The film is a lot more complex than I expected, and while I enjoyed STAR TREK more for it's emotionally-driven escapism, INTO DARKNESS could be argued as a more substantial experience.
Cumberbatch, best known for BBC's excellent series, Sherlock, makes a great antagonist played with a cold sort of charisma, and is a surprisingly physical villain.  Unfortunately, he is never given the opportunity for a really menacing intellect showcase like the interrogation scenes in THE DARK KNIGHT or MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS.
As with STAR TREK, the most interesting character is again, Mr. Spock.  His Asperger's-like emotional inhibition and logic-driven personality often clashes with the full-blooded humans around him, but when he is hit with a bout of emotion, it is the most powerful.  His character's use as a consideration on human emotions toward death are particularly poignant and provide some of the film's best moments.  On the other hand, a cameo from Leonard Nimoy as "Spock Prime", the elderly Spock of the original future (as addressed in STAR TREK), in which the young Spock seeks advice from him is pretty bizarre, runs a line between meta and just plain odd.
J.J. Abrams is unlikely to return for the third chapter of this reboot, for which the cast is still contracted, because he's been tapped as director for 2015's STAR WARS EPISODE VII, which he has used for as much or more inspiration than the original series  for his interpretation of the Star Trek universe.  If this is to be a preview of what we might expect in 2015, there's nothing to worry about for Star Wars, but there never really was anyway.  While STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS is technically a bit darker than STAR TREK, it's still primarily a rollicking adventure in space, with a good deal of humor, though not as broad as in the previous film, and you'll leave the theater feeling fine; this isn't quite EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, for better or worse.

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS  (May 16, 2013)
Directed by J.J. Abrams
Starring:  Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zoe Saldana, Alice Eve, Simon Pegg
PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence.

Boldly Going Where No Trek Had Gone Before

2009 wasn't actually such a great year for summer movies.  After all, the year before, when most of those films were in production, there was a bitter writers' strike in Hollywood, and the writing in many of those films suffered as a result.  However, the summer of 2009 also saw three decades-old film series (43 years as a franchise, first as a television series) release its finest chapter to date, in a bold and stunning "reboot".
STAR TREK was J.J. Abrams' second film as a director, but after creating three extremely successful television series (Felicity, Alias and Lost) and a warmly-received feature film directorial debut with MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE III in 2006, Abrams was a big name in Hollywood, with a reputation for high-octane, interesting and "cool" output.
But "cool" isn't (or wasn't) a characteristic of the iconic Star Trek franchise, but that was precisely the problem.  The last Star Trek film, STAR TREK: NEMESIS, had been released seven years before STAR TREK in 2002, and had received mixed reviews and crashed hard at the box office, grossing a pitiful international box office of $67 million from a $60 million production budget, not including marketing and other expenses.  For a franchise, Star Trek had become too exclusive, so only devoted fanboys had an interest in the films, and they didn't amount to nearly enough to support the series.  A "reboot", a relatively new phenomenon, was ordered with the intention of broadening appeal of the franchise to include the "uninitiated".
The concept of "re-booting" a film property is a 21st century invention, although there are loose arguments that could be applied for certain 20th century cases.  Regardless, it was 2005's BATMAN BEGINS which turned it into a mainstream concept, after 1998's BATMAN & ROBIN decimated a formerly lucrative film property and perverted it into lampoonery.  The reboot is a result of the post-STAR WARS blockbuster Hollywood, where single stand-alone films rarely carry the same promise of a big budget series based on an established character/story property.  Once a consistent interpretation of one of these franchises can no longer be sustained, no studio wants to stand by and wait, especially when the film rights to an adapted property may revert to a previous owner due to disuse.  However, you can't exactly "remake" a series either; you add on to a series for ever how long, but you don't just redo a particular chapter.  Instead, they re-approach the material as new, as a completely different interpretation, and it paid off handsomely for BATMAN BEGINS.  But rebooting had been practiced in the comic book industry for a long time by then, and it translated smoothly enough for a comic book adaptation, but Star Trek had been one sustained timeline, simply creating new characters as original characters fell out, and the storyline canon was important to the already established fanbase which Paramount hoped to maintain even as they hoped to add new fans.
To address this dilemma, the script written by Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman utilizes a time travel plot device, thus providing for itself an "alternate timeline" and with it, a great deal of creative leeway.  Typically, this would be a bad thing; time travel has an ignominious reputation as a plot device in film, not including comedies like BACK TO THE FUTURE and BILL AND TED'S EXCELLENT ADVENTURE, or adaptations of H.G. Wells' The Time Machine of course, but for instance, in SUPERMAN, to reverse the death and destruction in the film's climax or in HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN (albeit, blameable on the book source), to rescue a deceased character and a condemned man; both of which were cases of stories that wandered themselves into corners and then used time travel as a cheap cop out.  In the case of STAR TREK though, it does help that the presence of time travel in the series had already been established in previous chapters, but more importantly, time travel is the source of the plot conflict, instead of the solution.

"Token villains" are extremely rare for blockbusters.

The prologue sequence pulls me in as a viewer from the start and threatens to overshadow the entirety of the film to follow, but remarkably, the film manages to sustain an incredible energy throughout, with well-spaced easing points and a pre-third act conflict respite, and there is an abundance of visual splendor, riotous humor and honestly come by emotion.  The prologue depicts the arrival of the film's main antagonist, Nero, a Romulan whose grotesque space vessel emerges from black hole (the typical science fiction device of natural time travel) and mysterious origins, then unleashes a hail of deadly fire on the less-advanced, but definitely more handsome, Starfleet U.S.S. Kelvin, where Mr. Kirk is newly promoted to Captain.  We soon learn though, that this is not James Kirk; it is his father (played by Chris Hemsworth, who became a star two years later as the title character in THOR), and his mother is going in labor as she's being transferred to the an escape transport.  Yes, these coincidences could be called "contrived", but screw you, because it's awesome.  The ship is bombarded with pyrotechnic projectiles, and shown from inside, a piece of the ship is torn off, sucking a crew member into the silent vacuum of space; Michael Giacchino's excellent musical score accents terror, thrills and heartbreak; then, the autopilot fails, and to prevent Nero's ship from destroying the the evacuee transport, Cpt. Kirk must fly kamikaze into the aggressor ship while speaking a farewell to his wife and newborn son.  After this awesome frenzy and ruthless emotional bombardment, the titles appear with Giacchino's stunning rendition his main theme in soaring accompaniment.  Like I said, it's just awesome.
I'm not a Trekkie; I've seen a handful of other Star Trek films, including the two previous favorites, STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN and STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME, but I didn't care for either.  While there are obviously many for whom such things have an appeal, I've often felt that the Star Trek adventures were too distant, dry, and to get a bit nerdy about it, a bit much like their own character, Mr. Spock, full of emotionless, cold calculations.  While I love J.J. Abrams' reboot wholeheartedly though, it alienated many Trekkies, seemingly the way the previous films which they loved did for me.  Mainstream science fiction is usually narrowed down to two categories: Star Wars and Star Trek.  I do enjoy the Star Wars films, although with some reservations, and certainly moreso than I do the pre-2009 Trek films, so Abrams' preference for Star Wars probably has some connection to my preference for his interpretation of Trek.  Handing the Star Trek franchise over to a Star Wars fan bordered on blasphemy for Trekkies, thanks to a legendary rivalry, but in spite of what some had argued, I see no significant similarity between STAR TREK and the Star Wars films, at least, outside of genre and pacing.  STAR TREK is a little grittier, a lot sexier and more grounded than the Star Wars films.

Can you believe they actually got away with that?

Although many reboots have a tendency to lean gritty and contemporary in comparison to their previous interpretations, sometimes for better and sometimes for worse, STAR TREK isn't actually significantly grittier than previous films in the series.  It's gritty enough, but it never strives to be particularly dark, hard-edged, cynical or even all that violent.  It's happy, sci-fi adventure pulp, self-aware and self-embracing.
The cast is fabulously assembled without notable flaws, and the film never falls into that ever-present threat to ensemble cast films of over or under using characters.  Everyone gets their moments to shine, and usually with great moments of humor, especially Simon Pegg as Scotty and Anton Yelchin as Lt. Chekov.  The main players though are Chris Pine as Cpt. James Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Commander Spock.  Pine's Kirk is a slightly more unscrupulous take on the Han Solo scoundrel, fast with a quip and brash in a fight, and Spock is the by-the-book man of logic.  Putting the two together naturally results in buddy cop film-esque conflict, though sometimes with higher tensions, but by the film's climax, they've united into something of a Butch & Sundance team (Kirk is Butch).  Spock, in particular, is evolved into a more complex, more emotional and more satisfying character in the reboot, and the story has a strong emphasis on his inner conflict based in his logic-driven Vulcan and emotionally-driven human heritages.
There is some ground to all the complaining about the "solar flares", which Abrams, as a devoted student of Steven Spielberg (who uses "beams of light"), uses as a sort of visual calling card, and Abrams acknowledges that it's ultimately excessive in the home release commentary.  I don't believe, however, that it acts as a significant hindrance to the film's quality.

THE DYNAMIC DUO: IN SPACE

The science fiction genre has become the mainstream film industry's bread-and-butter ever since STAR WARS in 1977 (which, I might point out, is more accurately categorized as "fantasy"), but SPIDER-MAN resulted in a major shift to superhero-centric sci-fi in 2002.  With the superhero film properties still performing strong, Abrams' STAR TREK is a unique presence, at least until the Abrams-directed STAR WARS EPISODE VII comes out in 2015 (see: Signs That the Universe is Imploding).  If Abrams wants to be the new Spielberg/Lucas, that's just fine, because he's pretty darn good at it.

STAR TREK (May 8, 2009)
4 out of 4 stars
Directed by J.J. Abrams
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban
PG-13 for sci-fi action and violence, and brief sexual content.

REVIEW: THE GREAT GATSBY

THE GREAT GATSBY  (May 10, 2012)
2.5 out of 4 stars
Directed by Baz Luhrmann
Starring:  Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Joel Edgerton, Carey Mulligan, Elizabeth Debicki, Isla Fisher, Jason Clarke
PG-13 for some violent images, sexual content, smoking, partying and brief language.

Baz Luhrmann, the director known for glitzy, over-the-top passion and spectacle in films like ROMEO+JULIET and MOULIN ROUGE!, has released his first film in five years.  It's certainly not the longest stretch of time between films for him though, after all, THE GREAT GATSBY is only his fifth theatrically-released feature film since he appeared on the scene in 1992 with STRICTLY BALLROOM.  His last film, AUSTRALIA, came out in 2008, and despite its top-notch production values, the bloated romantic epic underwhelmed audiences with its thin script.  I'm not really much of a Luhrmann fan; his flair for loud and flashy production values tend to give me a headache or even make me nauseous, especially MOULIN ROUGE!, which was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and is considered his masterpiece, but I loathed.  I never really cared a whole lot for F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby either, maybe because I read it for school, but I can understand why others love it and why it's considered the "Great American Novel" by so many.  It just wasn't really for my taste.  Notwithstanding, when I heard that Luhrmann was planning to direct a film adaptation of Gatsby, I couldn't think of a better match for the material.  Some people have voiced opinions suggesting some sort of eccentricity to the pairing, but I never thought so for a second.  What director could be more suited to direct the ultimate story of the Roaring Twenties, with all the excess, the moral looseness, the passions and the tragedy?  I don't want to sound like I set myself up to dislike this film because I certainly didn't; I was very interested by some of the advertising, I'm a Leo DiCaprio fan and I did like the film, albeit, mildly.

Maguire as your humble narrator, Nick Carraway

For those of you unfamiliar with the story, shame on you, and, it's told from the perspective of one Nick Carraway, here played by Tobey Maguire.  Nick is a Minnesotan who goes to New York in 1922 to become a bonds broker when postwar United States is in an economic boom state and Prohibition has made alcohol less expensive and more popular than ever.  His neighbor is a mysterious millionaire by the name of Jay Gatsby, played by Leonardo DiCaprio (who played Romeo in Luhrmann's ROMEO+JULIET), who throws extravagant parties every week which are a draw to all of New York.  Nobody knows much about Gatsby or how he made his millions, but Gatsby acquaints himself with young Nick to enlist him in wooing his cousin, Daisy, played by Carey Mulligan.  Daisy is married to a brutish former jock named Tom Buchanan, played by Joel Edgerton, who cheats on her with another married woman, Myrtle Wilson, played by Isla Fisher; Daisy is a simple-minded but sweet girl with whom Gatsby had a romance prior to serving in the war, but postponed plans to marry her so he could build his fortune.
The story is one of the dark side of the American Dream, the social and moral decay which accompanies the material excess of prosperity, the assigning of value to illusions and material and reaching desperately for a hollow ideal.

Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, like Estella, but dumb and sweet

Luhrmann's script (co-written by Craig Pearce) is very faithful to the source material, although not the the extent which crippled the Francis Ford Coppola-penned 1974 adaptation.  In contrast, it is an addition to the novel's material which does the most harm in the script, and that is a framing story in which Nick is telling his story to a psychiatric doctor in a Minnesota sanitarium.  In this sanitarium, he his stubbled and unkempt, in treatment for "morbid alcoholism", following the events of the main story.  As the film keeps returning to this plot device, it becomes a distraction and eventually turns corny and cliche. 
The film also suffers somewhat from an uneven tone, with a first hour or so that is booming with excessive energy, not always for the better, in a style characteristic of Luhrmann's other works, but after a gradual easing on the throttle near the end of the first hour, the film becomes unfocused and sputters between soft romantic scenes and high-octane, angst-ridden scenes.

DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Patron Saint of the 1920s

The film has a tremendous strength though in DiCaprio's performance as Gatsby, a performance worthy of an Oscar nomination.  DiCaprio's Gatsby is sincere but confused, passionate yet suppressed, and he gets every detail perfect as the multi-layered character in pursuit of a hollow dream and hiding behind multiple masks.  I am compelled to also note that his character is given a truly magnificent entrance accompanied by chords of Rhapsody in Blue and fireworks in the background.  Although I assume there's some computer trickery involved, the youthful depictions of Gatsby played by other actors have an uncanny resemblance and a younger-looking DiCaprio is a spot-on effect too.  Edgerton is also excellent as Daisy's antagonistic husband Tom; Edgerton is far better known for conservative, nice guy performances in movies like WARRIOR, THE ODD LIFE OF TIMOTHY GREEN and ZERO DARK THIRTY, so it's fun to see him letting loose as the rough and tough "good ol' boy".

Edgerton as Tom Buchanan: racist, philandering polo player

Although mainly in that no-holds-barred first hour, there's also lots of really fun "rollercoaster" CGI shots, such as one that starts at the heights of the New York City skyline and then plunges down to the pavement below, or high speed travel shots across the bay between the East and West Egg neighborhoods.  I didn't see the film in 3D, but even much moreso than typical 3D, I would expect it to induce severe nausea.  Every shot is so perfectly choreographed, as if the filmmakers expected every frame of film to be used as a publicity still; had the film been released last Christmas as originally intended, it would have been a very strong candidate for cinematography and production design awards.

Parties are bigger and liquor is quicker

Although there are such moments, THE GREAT GATSBY is less a victim of Luhrmann's tendency for garish excess and grotesque mugging than in his other films.  There's a greater tenderness to much of this, and Luhrmann is clearly passionate about the source material.  Especially in the last fifteen minutes or so that lead up to Gatsby's imminent fate, there are some surprisingly touching and beautiful cinematic moments.  It's dreamy and full of admiration, with a pretty if not exactly outstanding musical score by Craig Armstrong, and a hit-and-miss assortment of energetic pop songs performed by artists too "in" for someone as out-of-touch with the modern music scene as me to be at all familiar with.  I don't give a hoot in hell if the movie doesn't actually "capture the spirit" of Fitzgerald's novel; it's a movie, and that's a book, and it's the same story told by different people.  Anyway, Luhrmann clearly reads the novel differently than literary scholars, but it's evident that he's passionate about the source material.  He amplifies the aspects he most connects with, that being a "doomed romance," and that's just fine; if only his execution were more even.

Marvel's The Avengers: A One-Year Retrospective

In 2005, Marvel Studios, the film branch of comic books juggernaut, Marvel Comics, announced that they would be making their first independently-financed feature film after several years of successful adaptations of their character produced by major film studios.  The first Marvel Studios independent production was IRON MAN and was released in May 2008.  The film was a financial and critical success, but Marvel had something far bigger in mind.  They weren't making a superhero movie franchise; they were planning a full-blown cinematic translation of their various conjoined comic book series.  They called it the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where multiple major characters with their own series would be interlocked so that they could make appearances in each others films.  The tentative finishing line for this experiment was set for three years later, in 2011, but later pushed back a year to 2012.  Including IRON MAN, Marvel produced five films crafted to lead into THE AVENGERS.  Obviously, this kind of business practice invites cynicism, considering that all five of those films can easily be accused of just being big-budget commercials or necessary stand-betweens, but all five were successes at the box office and in the reviews.

Badass Incarnate as himself.

Now, all of those lead-in films were entertaining enough, although, at times a bit manufactured, but when Marvel pulled those characters altogether into this epic crossover feature, it was one of the greatest blockbusters of all time.  Naturally, with a film as successful as THE AVENGERS, there's always an offensive, because not everybody will love, or even like, a film, and a large-scale success provokes attempts to balance the scales in opinion.  As such, there's been a good deal of talk about THE AVENGERS being entertaining, but not perfect, or emphasizing of the film's "flaws".  And that's fine; after all, there are always unpopular opinions, and they need to be heard or the majority gets too comfortable with themselves, but it's also good and fine to be part of the voice for the majority.  For THE AVENGERS, I am a voice in the majority, and at the more enthusiastic side at that.
It's tempting to call THE AVENGERS the "best superhero movie ever made," but THE DARK KNIGHT (2008) has at least as strong a claim to that title and also edges out THE AVENGERS for best-reviewed comic book/graphic novel adaptation (with AVENGERS a very close second), but in spite of whichever one is best, I'm inclined to say that THE AVENGERS is still the most entertaining.  Comparing the quality of films tends to break down in that area of whether it's more important to be admirable, bold and relevant, or entertaining and fun.  Regardless, I think I can safely say that THE AVENGERS is the most entertaining and fun superhero movie to date.

Hiddleston as "Reindeer Games"

In terms of what a summer blockbuster should be, I believe THE AVENGERS is "perfect"; it runs like clockwork from start to finish, only easing the pace just enough to catch your breath before it takes it away again.  I must confess, I was a little disappointed to hear that Loki, played by Tom Hiddleston, would be the villain, after being the primary antagonist in THOR.  In THOR, Hiddleston was a fine actor and the Loki character was surprisingly sympathetic, but I felt like he lacked the sense of menace that an Avengers-worthy threat would necessitate, but with Buffy the Vampire Slayer-creator Joss Whedon as scribe and director, such concerns were immediately remedied.  Loki is a marvelous villain, with a spectacular entrance in the first sequence of the film that gets the ball rolling from the get-go, wielding a glowing scepter topped with a deadly blade, he disposes dozens of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in a matter of seconds and steals the primary MacGuffin, the Tesseract, a less silly name than "the Cosmic Cube" as it was sometimes known in the comics.  Anyway, Loki is a balls-to-the-wall antagonist, spouting over-the-top, grandiose monologues about human nature and self-importance while waging an interplanetary war that on one occasion involves carving out a man's eyeball.
I have a particular fondness for the 40 or so minutes in the film, after the prologue action sequence and the title card, when the film navigates the globe to find the various future Avengers in their own stories, finding Agent Natasha Romanoff, aka the Black Widow, in Russia on a mission investigating illegal exports, Bruce Banner, aka the Hulk, treating fever patients in Calcutta, Steve Rogers, aka Captain America, reawakened in New York from 70 years entombed in Arctic ice, and Tony Stark, aka Iron Man, also in New York, innovating in the field of clean energy.  These globe-trotting introductions give the story a widely-scoped, James Bond-esque atmosphere, each establishing the characters from the start.

The thing about a big ensemble-cast movie like this one is that there's an ever-present risk of disorder as the story struggles to keep some sort of focal point while having the position of main character split between five or six characters.  Whedon's solution to overcoming that was initially to make Captain America/Steve Rogers (played by Chris Evans) as the focal point, giving a lot of attention to his "man out of time" status having recently between discovered in a WWII-era wreck.  When shooting was completed though, the rough cut reportedly clocked in at over three hours long and had to cut down.  Much of what was trimmed involved Captain America's scenes that were not directly related to the Avengers' team-involved events, and the finished cut runs at 143 minutes, about average for a big budget summer film.  It's hard to pinpoint though what exactly makes it work so well in lieu of a main character; there are certain characters who seem to get slightly more attention; obviously Loki, being the primary antagonist, but also, fan favorite, Iron Man/Tony Stark (played by Robert Downey, Jr.) and Black Widow/Natasha Romanoff (played by Scarlett Johansson), the latter largely thanks to Whedon's well-known proclivity for strong feminist characters.  I suppose it works things out through a continuing tease of each character being a main character; this film is unmatched in it's aptitude for giving each of it's stellar cast their due spotlight, whereas many films of that sort are prone to underplaying some characters and letting others overshadow.
There are two aspects most prominently represented in THE AVENGERS, and those are action and humor.  Primarily due to the success of the relentlessly somber THE DARK KNIGHT, there has been an undue surplus of dark and gritty big summer movies, sometimes at the expense of the fun stuff, but THE AVENGERS takes it fast, furious and very funny.  As can be seen on the additional feature included on the Blu-Ray, in the 3 hours+ rough cut, there was at one point a somewhat grittier atmosphere to the movie, where Agent Maria Hill (played by Cobie Smulders) was being debriefed as a framing story, with an emphasis on death and destruction-related aftermath of the climactic battle, but the finished cut has a very strong emphasis on escapist fun.  Much is made of the personality conflicts between characters, and Whedon's goofy/twisted sense of humor is pervasive.  In terms of action, the movie delivers in full, including a spectacular 45 minutes-long battle royale in New York City that plays like a superhero war movie.  Granted, this kind of stuff can be easily identified as "nerdgasm"-inducing frivolities, but it's incredibly thrilling and involving mass audiences of all sorts.  I certainly can't bring myself to read through a comic book, not since I was a child, nor do I find other comic book-related media interesting, that is, outside of those movies which are good movies, and THE AVENGERS is superb.

The action scenes are perfectly orchestrated and all the more impressive when you consider how much is happening at the same time but coherently.  It's like a hall of fame of great action sequence varieties, including a car chase with gun fire, a classical music-accented heist joined with a stylishly traditional superhero-supervillain fight, a comedically-charged superhero on superhero showcase, a suspenseful monster movie-esque scene, Bourne-esque martial arts brawling and a no-holds-barred sci-fi war movie battle royale.  In most cases, this kind of relentless action would grow tiresome, but very few of the action scenes in the film are purely action scenes; most of them are directly involved with character development and relationships, such as the tech-smart Iron Man and old-fashioned Captain America struggle to work out their differences in order to repair an aircraft under attack.  The action is also highly inventive and plays off the characters' physicalities and personality traits, for instance, the forest showdown between Iron Man, Thor and Captain America, where the extent of their powers is played out heavily, and with a good deal of humor so as to not become solely a nerd-expo.  The 45 minutes-long climactic battle is simply packed with badass-itude moments, especially an incredible prolonged tracking shot that takes the viewer from Avenger to Avenger
across the battle as they interlink in their offensive.

It's plenty worth noting too that Joss Whedon's use of Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow is an example of unparalleled quality in a feminist portrayal within a major mainstream film.  Today's film industry has taken a bizarre turn in terms of gender politics where nearly all movies that attract mass female demographics downright unfriendly to the female gender in their portrayals; a prominent example is the hugely-successful Twilight series of film adaptations.  Some try to justify this as women simply being forced to settled for the shit that the corporations shovel out, but the source materials, the screenplays for each TWILIGHT movie were written by women, and the first was directed by a woman, although to clarify; I don't mean to impune the talents of women filmmakers, after all, Kathryn Bigelow, Kimberly Peirce and Brenda Chapman have all made excellent work.  My intention is to debunk the theory that those sexist films are the result of a sexist industry.  But meanwhile, most action movies, even the notoriously female-objectifying James Bond series, have made significant efforts to depicting strong women characterizations.  Johansson's Black Widow manages to be an ass-kicking and delightfully witty character, and all while avoiding the most common pitfall of "feminist" depictions.  Whedon maintains the distinct femininity of the character, writing her with warm and temperate personality and feminine demeanor instead of playing out the "honorary boy" characterization which causes many movies to stumble, where what is basically a male character has a feminine name and cast with an actress.  That was a bit like the way Black Widow written in IRON MAN 2 in 2010, except in a very glossy, hyper-sexualised way.  In THE AVENGERS, she's still sexy, but in a sophisticated manner in which she maintains distinctly feminine character attributes while still kicking ass. 

The only Hulk people really like (because Mark Ruffalo)

THE AVENGERS isn't as weighty and "relevant" as, say, THE DARK KNIGHT, but that work to its advantage where a DARK KNIGHT tone simply wouldn't work.  THE AVENGERS is not frothy or forgettable; it does possess adept level of substance, but in a buoyant and fun manner.  It can easily be compared to STAR WARS, as an incomparable piece of thrilling fun and spectacle with a lead foot on the gas pedal from beginning to end; the kind from which you exit the theater pulsating with gleeful energy and argue with your fellow patrons over which scene was the most awesome, while also quoting the funniest lines and imagining what the sequel, still years away, will have in store.  It is a piece of perfection in commercial filmmaking.

MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS (May 4, 2012)
4 out of 4 stars
Directed by Joss Whedon
Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Chris Evans, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Mark Ruffalo, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremey Renner
PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and action throughout, and a mild drug reference.

IRON MAN 3

The summer movie season typically begins on the first weekend in May, and for the sixth consecutive year, Marvel holds that slot, this weekend opening the summer box office with IRON MAN 3.  For better or worse, this is actually a somewhat difficult film to describe because the marketing campaign has kept a surprising many things under wraps, and of course we don't want to publish any "spoilers," which would basically involve revealing anything that official advertising hasn't, so I'll just do the best I can.
This third chapter in the Iron Man series is actually has much or more a spin-off of last years mega-hit, MARVEL'S THE AVENGERS, because it is those events from which the film takes its main cues.  Although IRON MAN (2008) and IRON MAN 2 (2010) were directed by Jon Faverau (who returns to play Tony Stark's head of security, Happy Hogan), the director's reins have been handed over to Shane Black, who also co-wrote the script.  As promised, Black has based IRON MAN 3 primarily on the comic books' "story arc," Extremis, but considering that the previous two films borrowed liberally from the same storyline, the whole trilogy (to date) is really a three-part loose adaptation of Extremis.  That actually explains the manner of this film fairly well, that is, it doesn't at all play like a chapter in an adventure serial.  It plays like a third act.

The newly-branded "Iron Patriot" nee War Machine.

As aforementioned, or implied, the story takes place shortly following the events that took place in THE AVENGERS, and Tony Stark, aka Iron Man (played by Robert Downey, Jr.), is suffering from severe post-traumatic stress due to his near-death experience in the New York battle.  In his state of stress, Tony throws himself into his work, and that puts a strain on his relationship with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow).  On top of all that, a flamboyant terrorist calling himself "the Mandarin" (Sir Ben Kingsley) has declared war on the United States and the western world.  After Tony broadcasts a direct challenge on the Mandarin, his entire Malibu mansion state is destroyed in a startling attack, and Tony only escapes with his life and a malfunctioning Iron Man suit.  Presumed dead and left with little more than his considerable mental facilities, Tony sets out on an odyssey to earn back his life while he ponders his legacy.
The primary theme of the film involves the age-old story of the young and brilliant idealist fighting for a dream, but then come the compromises, the influences and the egos; how can one make the progress with purity?  It's a ponderous film, and the symbolic comparisons between the man and the image is fun to pinpoint laced throughout the story and imagery.

Ben Kingsley as "the Mandarin".

A terrorist makes a house call.

If you've seen a Shane Black film before, you can get a pretty good idea of his tone and conventions, i.e. the Christmastime-set events, black humor, a bit of a caustic sensibility, witty quips throughout (but that's inherent to the Iron Man films already) and writing some of the funniest lines for throwaway characters like henchmen.  It's has a distinctly different feel from IRON MAN and IRON MAN 2; I would describe those films as "rock 'n' roll".  In addition to the heavy metal (especially AC/DC) soundtracks in those films, they were also very hip and brash, with a taste for fine machinery.  IRON MAN 3 is, well, a bit like jazz, I guess.  I'm still not positive if that quite fits, but it's more polished, more calculated and more soulful.  In the superhero genre, most films are prone to villains who overshadow the hero, but the Iron Man films haven't had a problem with that (although that was a disappointing aspect of IRON MAN 2), and this third film is the most "Tony-centric".  It's a character study of Tony Stark/Iron Man, especially that Tony vs. Iron Man dynamic.  Even though they're not, the antagonists almost feel incidental, and I do mean that in a good way.
Tonally, it strikes me as a Tom Clancy adaptation but on sci-fi steroids, mixed with 1990s James Cameron, and for that matter, a lot of other big action movie in the 90s.  The action scenes have that particular aesthetic, with lots of pyrotechnic spectaculars, and desperate and ridiculously difficult scraps.  I would rather that some of the science fiction elements were toned down some, but in the end, those pitfalls are largely inconsequential.

Iron Man (Downey, Jr.), down for the count.

As Pepper quips, "Wow, that was really violent," IRON MAN 3 also amps up the violence quotient in its inventive and rather intense action sequences, fantastical as a lot of the elements are.  However, Black has mixed in a much more potent children presence in this film than most summer action would get near, but like I said, it's reminiscent of 90s action movies, where that kind of thing was prevalent.  Plus, it provides an opportunity to show the cynical and standoff-ish Tony interacting/clashing with admiring children.
Most remarkable about IRON MAN 3 though, is how tightly-wrapped the whole thing has been kept.  There is an abundance of extremely bold plot twists and character developments just about the whole way through, and even if I tried to spoil them for you, I doubt you'd even believe me.  I know I wouldn't.  I am definitely planning to see it again soon; I'm still trying to get it to sink in.  It appears as if Marvel has some pretty bold plans in store for "Phase Two" of their Marvel Cinematic Universe.  As usual for these films, be sure to stay through the credits for a post-credits sequence; it's a real doozy.




IRON MAN 3
3 1/2 out of 4 stars
Directed by Shane Black
Starring: Robert Downey, Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Ben Kingsley, Rebecca Hall
PG-13 for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence throughout, and brief suggestive content. 

YOU MIGHT LIKE IRON MAN 3 IF YOU LIKED:
IRON MAN (2008)
KISS KISS BANG BANG (2005)
TRUE LIES (1994)
TERMINATOR 2: JUDGEMENT DAY (1991)
LETHAL WEAPON (1987)