Thursday, July 21, 2016

Spectre: Unexpected, Unspectacular Bond.

Movie Review: Spectre

Director: Sam Mendes

Reviewed: Started 31 December 2015; Finished 21 July 2016.

jamesintexas rating--**


Regrettably, Spectre is minor Bond, a true let-down after the magnificence and electricity of Skyfall. Sam Mendes opens the film with a memorable long take in Mexico City, complete with skeleton masks, a Day of the Dead parade, and high-octane action with buildings crumbling and helicopters diving, but the film never sustains that initial burst of power. Daniel Craig is back as Bond in his fourth and probably last appearance (the ending seems like a good-bye, particularly), and despite his intense physicality and some gorgeous scenery, the film fails because of its structure and its decision to take the character to a place that feels inauthentic. The film's denouement violates the tenets of the character of James Bond, but that is Mendes's (and Craig's) right as artists to do so. I just think there is no way that Ian Fleming's James Bond does what he does in the last frames of this film.

Bond receives a message from beyond the grave in which M orders him to investigate a criminal which leads him to unexpected places. Moneypenny (Naomie Harris) produce a  burned photograph from Bond's childhood, and an octopus ring leads to a shadowy underworld organization in Italy. A late-night street race through the old city is a highlight, as does a spooky meeting of the criminals that calls back the Connery films. A clinic in the Alps introduces the mysterious Dr. Madeleine Swann (Lea Seydoux), and various fighting and sleuthing leads them to Tangiers and a train ride into the desert and into the desert lair of the enemy.

There, the ghost-like villain Hans Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) appears more than an hour into the film, and after announcing his plans for world domination that involve filming and listening in on all the major security systems of the world, the film marches predictably to its conclusion. Lea Seydoux's character as written does not suggest to me the seismic shift that she causes in Bond, and she shrinks, in my opinion, to the deep crater left in James Bond by Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) of Casino Royale. Mendes attempts to have the four Craig films tie together into one overarching conspiracy culminating with Oberhauser, the self-proclaimed "architect of all [Bond's] pain."

Yet, declaring something is different than effectively building a world where the pieces fit and an overarching narrative does not just feel retrofitted. There are four writers, three people credited with story, and, of course, Ian Fleming, behind this project. I just sigh and wonder what it would be like for the James Bond character to get more of a vision instead of a decision by corporate committee. I think in my heart I was hoping for a darker film.

I am disappointed that Oberhauser's announcement of who he is and why he is fails to intrigue or satisfy. Mendes did such deft work in referencing the deaths of Bonds parents and the fall of M in the previous film that it was unexpected to see him stumble here with Oberhauser. Especially with an actor of Christoph Waltz's stature. Waltz brought such unforgettable malevolence to the role of Hans Landa in Inglorious Basterds; I wish that he were that level of character here instead of a strange bird, wearing shoes without socks. And Ralph Fiennes, a revelation in The Grand Budapest Hotel, seems to shrink here in the diminished role of M. Naomie Harris and Ben Whishaw are fine here as Moneypenny and Q, and it is nice to see some of the work around the edges (a view into James Bond's sparse apartment).

The filmmakers made choices at the end that simply did not work for me. If I am ranking the four Daniel Craig films, I would put Casino Royale and Skyfall as tied for best, and this one above Quantum of Solace. I just do not know what this film was trying to do.



Star Wars 4: The Characters Awaken Thirty-Three Years Later.

Movie Review: Star Wars Episode Seven: The Force Awakens.

Director: JJ Abrams

Reviewed: Started 31 December 2015; Finished 21 July 2016

jamesintexas rating--***1/2



 
Although it has taken me more than six months to write this review, the new Stars Wars film Episode Seven: The Force Awakens has never been very far from my mind. I was born in 1978 and revere the original trilogy with only vague recollections of seeing Return of the Jedi in the theaters (the lens was blurry during the title credits scrawl, and I remember people howling at unbelievable volume).  It says it came out May 25th, 1983, so that summer I would have been four. The photos below this review confirm it as I am wearing a Star Wars t-shirt at my 5th birthday party in September of 1983; its characters, locations, and conflicts became the fabric of my life. Its toys were some of my greatest treasures, and they intersected in a bizarre but entirely plausible fictional universe of toys on the basement floor of 308 North Myrtle, forging bonds with G.I. Joes, He-Man and his ilk, the occasional GoBot or Mask figurine. I remember having Ewoks and droids, Jabba's Throne Room and popping speeder bikes. The film and its predecessors were titanic in my mind and imagination.

I collected and watched through middle school and high school. You could find toys in the occasional baseball card shop or comic book store. In college, I remember the excitement of viewing the movie trailer for Episode One: The Phantom Menace on dorm room computers with John Egan and Jason Miles, the exhilaration of a double-sided Darth Maul light saber, and I went to the theater to see all the re-releases of the originals in the build-up to the new film. Episode One underwhelmed me, and I remember the first 45 minutes as being one of the worst cinematic experiences of my lifetime. They were ruining my childhood; they were making it boring and dry and uninteresting. It picked up with the podracing and wrapped me up in its four battle montage intercutting in the last quarter of the film, particularly captivating me with "Duel of The Fates."

And now we are here. I am thirty-seven years old, watching the continuation of a story that ended when I was five.

Unrest exists in the universe and the Empire. There is an angsty, raging villain in Kylo Ren (Adam Driver, who removes his mask more quickly than I thought he would). Ren's creepy voice and crucifix of fire-like light saber represents an almost teenage unpredictability in his response to a failed search for droid BB-8 who holds the key to finding the hidden Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). On the lonely planet of Jakku, BB-8 finds Rey (Daisy Ridley), a scrappy scavenger who searches among the wreckage of the gigantic Imperial starships of, I presume, Return of the Jedi, which had to fall somewhere and landed on her planet. That moment, to me, is one of the very best. Rey rappels into the bowels of these fallen starships which rest on the desert floor of her own planet, and in its own beautiful way, Abrams reminds us of the previous films and their conflicts, showing the aftermath in this wreckage that is now being used by others to maintain survival. It reminds me that Jawas recovered C-3PO and R2DR in the original film, scavengers doing a junk sale to survive themselves. It is a moment in the new film that lingers because of its connectedness and its showing of some consequences in this fantasy science fiction saga. Yeah, I realized, everything that did get blown up in that previous film probably had to land somewhere. Metaphorically, Abrams scavenges and plays with the wreckage of the trilogy itself, marred by its remarkably uneven and illogical Episodes 1, 2, and 3, three films that perhaps have enough good in them to make one film.

Finn (John Boyega), a storm trooper with a conscience, rejects his role as paid killer and revolts, eventually crossing paths with both Daisy and with pilot Poe (Oscar Isaac, far too brief). Old characters resurface in a quest to solve the mystery of Luke Skywalker's disappearance, and along the way, there are some light saber battles, particularly one in the woods that is great, some wonderful chases, and some heartfelt moments. There is some communing with a familiar melted helmet as well as some weird communication with Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) that seems forbidding (but mostly did not work for me).

It is not a perfect film. I like the new characters, especially Rey and Finn, who can hold their own and display wonder, exasperation, and even humor in the film when it calls for it.  I was less enthusiastic about the reappearance of some familiar faces; I know these moments were meant to be uplifting and exciting for the audience, but I was caught up in staring at these faces, thirty-three years later, and thinking of all the time that has past (and how great this would have been if it was made ten or fifteen years ago). At times, I feel like its adherence to past characters and storylines holds it back from being fully formed and from spending enough quality time with Rey, Finn, Poe, Hux, and others. It is that old adage about constantly looking backwards, slowing a runner down, causing him or her to go off course, possibly to stumble or fall. The film never falls, though it seems comfortable to play it safe with a very much retread of scenes and arcs in the original Episode 4: A New Hope. Empire was my favorite, and maybe the next film will leap to its own music and voice and style. I do not really remember John Williams's score, which is not a good sign to me.

Two days after I saw Episode Seven: The Force Awakens, our second child was born, a girl this time, and as a result, my movie-watching has slowed down significantly. Does seeing a Star Wars film where a female character picks up a light saber mean something to me now as a father of two young ones?  I think it does. I want both my son and my daughter to see depictions of all different kinds of heroes (and villains, frankly), and seeing my son dressed up like Kylo Ren (even though he has never seen the film) interact with the costumed adults at the Children's Museum last weekend who came dressed up as Rey, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, and Darth Vader, it crystallized how important Rey and Finn are. I saw little kids dressed up as Rey and Finn and others, and before that would not have been possible (or it just would have been more limited). Today, a little girl or boy can want to be Rey or Finn, just like Luke or Han or Leia or Lando, and that makes our universe a little bit better, a little bit more inclusive, a little bit brighter, I think. Yes.

The bottom line is that I loved the Ewok song "Yub Nub" at the end of Return of the Jedi.  I loved the wordless reunions of old friends and family, the hugging and the dancing.  The feeling after the lighting of Darth Vader's body on fire of completion. The nodding of Luke Skywalker to the ghosts of Jedis past who will remain watching him. The sucker punch of Episode Seven: The Force Awakens, for me, is realizing that story continues, and, in this artist's view and in these films, all did not end as well as it seemed in Return of the Jedi. Was it a pyrrhic victory? The Empire survived and thrived, the Jedi were not strong enough to overcome them or themselves, and the characters who seemed destined to be happy together ultimately were not. Those revelations are going to take some getting used to because I have been living with a happy ending for thirty-three years. I am willing to work to get there, and I think the wordless finale of Episode Seven: The Force Awakens offers some pretty great tantalizing hope for more balance to the Force in the future.

By my count, this makes four great Star Wars movies to three minor ones. And there is another.