Silent_Cal Reviews

Super 8 (2011)

JJ Abrams's Metafictional Ourobouros

[5/10 · 16 May 2021]

Bear with me, because this might get complicated.

"Super 8" is a film by JJ Abrams, the director of all those forgettable Star Wars and Mission Impossible movies. It's about a group of kids in a small town in 1970-something who witness some strange shenanigans involving a train wreck, a monster, and sinister military operations.

The kids are making their own movie, with a Super 8 camera, a fan-film apparently inspired by George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead." In this fan-film, or film-within-a-film, the kids play adults, as kids do when they shoot their own movies. They deliver stilted, implausible dialogue while ostensibly behaving like grown-ups.

But "Super 8" is itself a fan-film, one made by JJ Abrams and clearly inspired by the early work of Steven Spielberg -- "Close Encounters" and "E. T." in particular. The kids in Abrams's movie also seem to be playing adults: they deliver stilted, implausible dialogue, and pretend to act like grown-ups, all the while carrying on the illusion of making their film-within-a-film.

It's hard to say whether this tail-eating act of nostalgia was intentional. If it was, it's a triumph of metafiction, an homage to movie-making and cinema magic. If it wasn't, it's just a clumsy reflection of JJ's childhood favorites, rife with bad dialogue, obnoxious lens flare, and manipulative editing. The child actors, Elle Fanning among them, are more like stand-ins for characters in a Spielberg movie, rather than actual children.

Perhaps, in the not-too-distant future, the next generation of filmmakers, inspired by "Super 8", will make their own referential paean to the early work of JJ Abrams: a movie about adults making a movie about children who are making a movie about grown-ups who will all, hopefully, be eaten by zombies.

The Witcher (2019– )

Someone Please Give Henry Cavill a Cough-Drop

[5/10 · 12 February 2020]

"The Witcher" is a reasonably entertaining fantasy show in the style of "Xena: Warrior Princess". There's a hero and a sidekick; swords are involved. Magic makes an occasional appearance. For the sort of people who like this, this is the sort of thing they'll like.

Henry Cavill occupies the center of nearly every frame on account of his wide shoulders. They're genuinely about six feet wide, maybe more. He has some odd fashion choices not dictated by the breadth of his shoulders, the most striking being the dirty mop he wears as a sort of wig. It's grayish and stringy, and could do with a wash. He speaks as if he's auditioning to be the next Batman, and I kept expecting him to cough and clear his throat and start talking normally.

Henry does a lot of walking and engages in intermittent fighting in a gloomy landscape vaguely reminiscent of medieval Europe. He frequently cracks wise, often at the expense of his minstrel sidekick -- the minstrel's name escapes me, because I can't help but remember him as Joxer, who likewise followed Xena and Gabrielle around.

Meanwhile, a young MacGuffin escapes her castle when evil forces attack, and wanders through some other fantasy tropes: an enchanted forest, elves, a two-faced sorcerer, that kind of thing. The two subplots neatly intersect at the end. For such a determinedly average and okay show, it takes a surprisingly nuanced approach to its timeline, with one of the subplots actually being a flashback that leads to the other.

The King (I) (2019)

I can't even

[4/10 · 6 November 2019]

The movie is haunted by Timothee Chalamet's cold, lifeless eyes. Perhaps he screened "The Chimes at Midnight" and realized there was really no point in trying to improve on Orson Welles's version of Sir John Falstaff, and his will left him. Or perhaps he watched Laurence Olivier's brilliant 1944 adaptation of "Henry V" and was too stunned to move afterwards, and could only shuffle onto the set as if in a trance. Or he might have had a look at Kenneth Branagh's 1989 version of the same play. His wholly affectless face and dull, tired gaze tell a story of a man robbed of all energy, a broken, humbled actor who understands the impossibility of the task before him; the giants of cinema loom large, and though he tries to stand on their shoulders, their combined weight ends up crushing him.

The rest of the cast and crew caught the same fever. The movie is empty, listless; it drags along, as the actors mumble into their beards and slouch around the gloomy medieval locations and tedious battle scenes.

Only Robert Pattinson seems to have survived intact. He puts on an outrageous French accent as the Dauphin, taunting those silly English kniggits who have invaded his dreary country. Too bad he didn't stick around longer, but it was probably a wise move on Pattinson's part. Lily-Rose Depp as Princess Catherine shows up about twenty minutes to the end to liven things up, but she also beats a hasty retreat in the face of Chalamet's sulky countenance.

Everyone else seems determined to fade into the background, as if they were too embarrassed to be noticed. Joel Edgerton gets away with the bare minimum of effort as Falstaff, a Shakespearean invention elevated here to historical standing, and killed off in place of the real Duke of York. Welles left big shoes to fill, and an even bigger suit of armor, and Edgerton makes no effort to fill them. It's easy to forget he's there.

It's encouraging to know that you can write and direct a historical movie without ever bothering to open a history book. History is very complicated anyway: the facts, like the films of Welles, Olivier, and Branagh, are best left where they belong, in the past, where they won't get in anyone's way.

Apocalypse Now (1979)

Boys Behaving Badly

[7/10 · 3 March 2019]

"Apocalypse Now" has a lot to say about colonialism and American interventionism, and some unintended statements about how the West -- white folks -- see the rest of the world. Conrad's original novella compared the darkness in men's hearts to the unknown interior of Africa, and the movie draws similar comparisons to the jungles of Southeast Asia. Both stories feature characters journeying upriver and slowly losing their civilized, Western identities.

But the stronger effect of the movie is its bold redefinition of the aesthetics of war. Older war movies showcased a different sort of martial spectacle: uniforms, discipline, and impressive formations of soldiers, tanks, and airplanes. War was a pageant choreographed to stirring marches. In those days, war was a good thing, a struggle against evil and tyranny.

In "Apocalypse Now", the soldiers are shirtless young men, smoking joints and blasting rock music as they joyride up the river, terrorizing the locals. The enemy is barely seen. War is more like an anarchic gap year: there's no authority, no structure, but plenty of intoxicants to enjoy along the way. If you're into that sort of thing, it can be a great time. Surfing, LSD, machine guns, Playboy bunnies. When Colonel Kilgore says, "I love the smell of napalm in the morning," you know there's nowhere else he'd rather be.

It's this aesthetic that makes the biggest impression, much more than the anti-war or anti-colonial messages. Vietnam, according to Coppola and his screenwriters, is a place where there is no responsibility, no morality, a place where a young man can massacre an entire family with a machine-gun and get away with it. Actions don't have consequences, and when death inevitably comes it does so randomly and unpredictably. Violence is a risk you take, something you live with, but not something you really have to think about.

I don't know if that's what Coppola intended. He probably thought the sight of armed helicopters obliterating a Vietnamese village to the sound of "The Ride of the Valkyries" would be ironic and shocking, rather than exciting. To most people watching the film, it probably just looks like fun.

Forrest Gump (1994)

Life is Like a Box of Chocolates That You Totally Just Got for Free

[7/10 · 19 February 2019]

"Forrest Gump" is a classic movie that everyone's seen a dozen times, and if you haven't you probably know all the quotes: You've heard "Run, Forrest, run" and "Life is like a box of chocolates" and so on, and you've heard impressions of Tom Hanks's slow Southern drawl in varying degrees of similitude and awfulness. The movie ambles charmingly along with its protagonist, following him from Alabama to Vietnam to a Louisiana shrimp boat, watching him meet presidents and celebrities, and regularly churning out life lessons. A charming, amiable sort of movie, if only those life lessons weren't so sickening.

Forrest never does much of anything, but wonderful things just keep happening to him. His miraculous sprinting earns him a college football scholarship, and he meets John Kennedy after the championship game. He joins the army and goes off to the Vietnam War, where he wins the Medal of Honor. He becomes a wealthy shrimp-boat captain after surviving a hurricane, also rather miraculously. Everything just keeps getting better for him.

Meanwhile, his single mother is stricken with cancer, and dies. His childhood friend Jenny, after struggling with drugs, gets AIDS and dies. His army friend Bubba is killed in Vietnam. His other friend, Lieutenant Dan, gets off easy by comparison, only losing his legs and spending much of the film in a wheelchair.

The obvious and unequivocal message of all this is that it was good to be a straight white man in America in the second half of the twentieth century. The movie's two women both live hard lives and die young, as does Bubba, who is black. Lieutenant Dan is white, by the way.

Forrest is oblivious to nearly everything. Good things are handed to him, like that box of chocolates or the Apple stock he just happened to come by. He even accidentally inspires the iconic yellow smiley face.

Looking at it this way, it's less of a nostalgic trip down our collective memory lane and more of a scathing satire on the inequities of American society. Someone should tell the folks who keep posting this on their "Best Conservative Movies" lists.

Cat Skin (2017)

Brighton Rock

[8/10 · 29 July 2018]

There's apparently a thriving genre of films about young women discovering their sexuality and facing the perils of young love and social and familial ostracism. "Cat Skin" follows a familiar plot, about an ostensibly heterosexual girl falling for a shy lesbian, but the specifics and the style make the film stand out.

The film is short on dialogue, which is fitting as Cat, the shy photography student you see on the poster, doesn't speak much, except to her pet cat and her hospitalized mother. Jodie Hirst is mesmerizing in the role, conveying the character's thoughts and feelings with expressions and silences; you can see the words she wants to say, and the torment of not being able to say them.

When the characters do speak, the results are not as strong: when April, the object of Cat's affection, is confronted by her parents for her friendship with this weird, mysterious girl, the lines are stilted and trite. The parents themselves are two-dimensional. Thankfully their role in the film is brief, and outweighed by the two dynamic leads.

The director squeezes almost unbearable tension out of almost static scenes: the two girls sitting beside each other in a cinema, neither daring to move, or April masturbating in her bedroom after a heated argument with her mother. When Cat and April finally spend the night together the scene is more suspenseful than graphic, since any sound could alert April's parents and cause trouble for both of them. But there's an overall gentleness and sensitivity to the story that is deeply touching, without ever getting sentimental or melodramatic.

The bittersweet ending leaves the audience with unanswered questions, but also a sense of hope. Cat and April still face a lifetime of struggle, but at least they understand themselves and each other better, and their story makes the audience feel a little closer to the rest of the world. That connection between personal and universal stories makes "Cat Skin" a rare film.

Picnic at Hanging Rock (2018)

Happy Valentine's Day

[9/10 · 10 June 2018]

It's marvelously refreshing to watch a period film take such bold stylistic chances, from the vivid title font to the dizzying camera angles and the anachronic narrative. At the same time we are treated to costumes, sets, and details every bit as historically accurate as what you'd find in Downton Abbey. The juxtaposition is delightful.

The eponymous picnic, and the disappearance of the three girls, happens in the first episode. Spoiler: the mystery is never really resolved. The fruitless search is also over quite quickly; the remaining episodes unravel the characters' lives, revealing who they were and who they wanted to be, and the societal forces arrayed against them. Flashbacks and fever-dreams recur throughout, as time seems to stand still and reality grows increasingly fluid. The ambiguity is very Australian, and very startling to my American sensibilities: the ancient landscape and the Victorian colonists may exist side by side, but they are worlds apart, and the series' writers and directors make us feel that sense of displacement and uncertainty.

Natalie Dormer stars as Mrs Appleyard, the headmistress of the girls' school, and while it may have been enough for her to be merely cruel and mysterious, instead she is surprisingly complex and nuanced: strict, frequently abusive, but occasionally sympathetic. Her relationship with an orphaned girl is layered and fascinating, as she sees in the girl a reflection of her own childhood, and uses her harsh discipline to try to correct for her own past mistakes.

Few answers are provided, either to the central mystery or to the characters' motivations. The people, like the story, defy conventional explanations. That approach is almost as bold as the lurid pink on the poster. We expect heroes and villains from our entertainment, or at least logic and clarity; Picnic at Hanging Rock offers us contradictions and questions instead.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

A Surprise

[10/10 · 9 June 2018]

Peter Weir is an underrated director, one whose name never seems to come up in lists of great filmmakers. Perhaps it's because he's never made a truly "great" movie, the kind that both impresses critics and seduces huge audiences, though most of his films, like "Witness" and "Dead Poets' Society", have become classics. Or perhaps it's because Weir's movies tend to be quiet and subtle, and avoid easy categorization.

Take "Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World", ostensibly the first entry in a series inspired by the novels of Patrick O'Brian. It's an historical adventure set in 1805, but it's neither an escapist blockbuster like the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films, nor an epic romance like "Titanic". Though nearly two and a half hours long, most of its action takes place aboard the HMS Surprise, a tiny British frigate sailing alone across the vast oceans. The drama is bookended by sharp, suspenseful battle scenes, but between those scenes the story focuses on its characters and their life aboard the ship.

The protagonists, played by Russell Crowe and Paul Bettany, are old friends, both brilliant in their own ways: Crowe is the charismatic captain, leading his crew on a chase around the world; Bettany is the ship's surgeon, counselling his companion and offering insights into the natural world around them. Their differing philosophies lead to some arguments, but ultimately both men see the wisdom in compromise.

Contrary to the prevailing fashion of the time, "Master and Commander" is filmed in a warm, almost naturalistic style that eschews displays of digital grandeur in favor of immersive verisimilitude. You can feel the ship rocking on the waves and hear the creak of its masts and the rustle of wind in the sails; you settle into the rhythm of shipboard life and naval traditions, the grog and clubbed hair, the songs and toasts at the dinner table. When the action arrives the camera puts you in the midst of it, with the rumble of the cannons and the heavy clouds of black powder smoke.

The most remarkable scene in the whole film is a detour to the Galapagos Islands, set to the sound of Bach's first Suite for Unaccompanied Cello. The scene is a respite from the man-made conflict, a moment for everyone to catch their breath. It's simple, timeless, and quite beautiful in its quiet appreciation for the wonders of nature.

It's this scene that makes the film more than a seafaring adventure: despite its historical setting, it grounds the story in the present, reminding us that the world is greater than nations or individuals, or the wars we contrive.

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

Turn off the Lights and Save Money

[7/10 · 2 June 2018]

"Solo: A Star Wars Story" is one of the most expensive movies ever made, so obviously they had to cut corners somewhere. They chose the lights: if you watch the end credits closely, you'll notice there is no credit for lighting operators, lighting technicians, light bulbs, or anything of the sort. The result is kind of like Kubrick's movie, "Barry Lyndon", shot entirely by flickering candles.

This makes a lot of "Solo's" frenetic action rather difficult to follow. All the characters dress in muddy browns and grays, and the sets are decorated in a similar fashion. The planets the crew visits to pull off their various heists are similarly drab and dusty, though I'm sure the production had to travel the world to find such locations.

The story has a few twists and turns as it follows young Han Solo on his first adventures. There are many chases, an elevated train robbery, a run-in with an unfortunate space-octopus, and several shootouts. Alden Ehrenreich, filling in for Harrison Ford, is really only a convenient place-holder; the story doesn't give him much to do anyway, as it's more about the action than the character. Any old hero would have done just as well: Lando Calrissian, Nathan Fillion, Captain Kirk; they're really just variations on a theme.

Come to think of it, the movie would have been little different without all the Star Wars paraphernalia. There are various gangsters and rebels competing for the macguffin -- precisely what it is hardly matters -- but the movie is really only concerned with getting its heroes from one action scene to the next. It's efficient, occasionally fun, but ultimately forgettable.

Still, I guess it was worth $200 million to somebody.

Red Dawn (1984)

The Heroic Struggle of Tragic Idiots

[3/10 · 23 April 2018]

Let's for a moment leave aside the rather asinine political background of the story, the Cold War milieu and the Middle American paranoia. Obviously the movie is about a bunch of "average" white kids, football players at that, fighting a cast of foreign invaders with scary accents; make of that what you will. But it's also a predictable Eighties action movie, and a rather dumb one to boot.

High school kids, half a dozen or so, survive the Soviet-Cuban invasion of Wyoming and take to the hills as guerrilla fighters. I gave a vague number, because director John Milius never convincingly distinguished between any of the characters; I couldn't keep track of who was who or what their names were, so that when several of them inevitably died tragic deaths, I could only react by asking, "Which one was that?"

The story is a great celebration of brainless macho posturing. The kids' leader bullies them and threatens them when they express any emotion, and Milius portrays their transformation into killing machines without any trace of irony or self-awareness. He's already stripped them of their individuality, but his only goal seems to be to create violent fight scenes, and not any sort of commentary on the dehumanizing effects of war.

The fight scenes, or action scenes or whatever the aficionados prefer to call them, are elaborately staged, with helicopters, tanks, rockets, and lots of exploding stunt men. They also manage to make the trained Soviet soldiers look like morons, while the plucky American youngsters perform like steely Red Berets. The overwhelming focus on the action ensures that the movie will never be taken seriously, because the characters are allowed no emotional life, and the real consequences of guerrilla violence are avoided -- the brutal reprisals, the collateral civilian deaths, the moral compromises.

Cheesy Eighties action movies can be fun, but "Red Dawn" is too exploitative for that. It misses all the opportunities it had for thoughtful commentary or provocative insights, and instead just stages a bunch of generic shootouts.

The Quiet Man (1952)

The Fifties Sure Were Weird

[3/10 · 23 April 2018]

This is a classic film by the renowned director John Ford, the man who single-handedly defined the Western genre. It stars some gorgeous photography of picturesque Irish locations in eye-popping color, a notable first in Hollywood history. It also stars John Wayne in an atypical role as a retired American boxer who returns to his ancestral homeland, and comes out of retirement so he can beat up a young local woman and her elderly brother.

At first it looks like it's going to be a Hollywood romance spiced with local color. John Ford favorites Victor McLaglen and Ward Bond reprise the broad Irish accents they used throughout Ford's cavalry films, and the other Irish locals spend most of their time in the village pub, singing and fighting in true stereotypical Irish fashion. Maureen O'Hara plays a young woman with a fiery Irish temper who falls for the Duke.

But then it gets confusing. O'Hara's character is less feisty and hot-tempered, and more hysterical and psychotic. The romance involves Wayne repeatedly chasing O'Hara, grabbing her, and roughly having his way with her. The climax begins with Wayne dragging her bodily across half the country, and then fighting Victor McLaglen for about an hour and a half.

Perhaps this is what passed for romantic comedy in 1952, which just proves that societal progress is a good thing. The casual sexual violence in the film is shocking, confusing, and just plain weird. By about halfway through the film I honestly had no idea why or how the romance between the two leads was still going. On a second viewing, it might become clear that the real relationship we're meant to care about is the brawny homoeroticism shared between Wayne and McLaglen.

Game of Thrones (2011–2019)

Winter is Coming, at the Pace of a Glacier

[4/10 · 30 July 2017]

"A Song of Ice and Fire" is a series of fast-paced fantasy epics by novelist George R.R. Martin. With a total of 4,451 pages so far, it took me a little over a month to read. It's an exciting parade of plot twists and prophecies, and explores a rich secondary world with all its cultures and history through the points of view of a diverse cast of characters.

"Game of Thrones" is an HBO television series based on those books. It has lasted six seasons so far, and each one feels like an eternity. It is pedantic, talkative, static, and predictable. The progress of its narrative mirrors the structure of its opening theme music: circular, monotonous, and endlessly repetitive. Its plot twists take the form of stabbings, beheadings, and betrayals, but for all their apparent randomness they arrive at regular intervals -- when things are going well for a character, you know his throat will be slit by the end of the episode.

The novels were told from the points of view of its main characters, and its perspective broadened with each book, illuminating new corners of the world of Westeros and shedding new light on what's gone before. Reading the books is an experience of ongoing revelation. We gradually come to understand the story's villains, and that understanding engenders our sympathy. The show is more direct. Everything is laid bare, and the characters are transformed into cogs in the convoluted machinery of the plot. The net result is that none of the characters are truly sympathetic; we can only watch the show objectively, without really caring about what happens to anyone. All men must die, and all GoT characters will commit terrible deeds for selfish ends.

Stylistically, the show is bewilderingly dull. When the tension should be ratcheting up, Tyrion and his brother Jaime pause for a conversation about their mentally challenged cousin. Littlefinger and Varys, the show's resident Machiavellian schemers, regularly deliver expository speeches. Other characters proclaim their motives out loud, while still others happily announce things that everyone should already know. It creates the singular impression that the scripts are ninety percent filler. The gears of the plot keep inexorably turning, and the writers struggle to keep up.

Wing Commander (1999)

An Experience

[4/10 · 25 March 2017]

This is a truly amazing film. Not amazing to watch, but amazing to contemplate from a distance. That this film was ever produced in the first place is astounding: it is based on a series of flight-simulator computer games, and even directed by the man who created those games; at times watching the movie is like watching over someone else's shoulder as they play a video game. It features an outstanding cast of European character actors: Tcheky Karyo, Jurgen Prochnow, David Suchet, Hugh Quarshie, and David Warner. Along for the ride are two bright young stars of the late-90's, Matthew Lillard and Freddie Prinze, Jr, and seldom has there been a pair of actors so misplaced.

The movie sets its cast adrift in a banal script about the conflict between a generically futuristic human military and a race of anonymously aggressive aliens. Neither side of this conflict receives any sort of background, but the humans are dressed up like Soviet sailors and fly space fighter-jets that look like MiG-21's, so we can safely assume that they represent the eventual victory of Marxism-Leninism over the decadence of Western Capitalism. The aliens look like armored cats, perhaps symbolic of Wall Street "fat cats". These deceitful petty-bourgeoisie kick off the plot by attacking a human base, much as the imperialist Japanese did in 1941.

What follows is a remake of the 1944 wartime propaganda film "Wing and a Prayer", as the heroes' spaceship fights its way across enemy space to bring vital information to the human space-navy in time for the space-battle of Midway. Meanwhile Lillard and Prinze Jr. engage in a forgettable human-interest story aboard the ship, romancing fellows pilots Ginnie Holder and Saffron Burrows (both of whom are better actors and more sympathetic characters), and combating the inexplicable prejudice of executive officer Prochnow and others, none of which adds up to much. Lillard and Prinze spit out their dialogue as if they might choke on it otherwise; Lillard's rubbery features and Prinze's blank face provide an interesting contrast that helpfully distracts from their lack of talent.

I won't spoil the movie by telling you the good guys win in the end. It's obviously that kind of movie, and the outcome preordained, even though the film never presents its audience with a reason to care. The setting is vague, the action obscure, the characters walking clichés; the only thing passing for entertainment value is the enthusiastic performances offered by the supporting cast. From conception to execution the entire effort defies belief.

Braveheart (1995)

"Every man dies" -- especially in Mel Gibson movies

[4/10 · 28 September 2013]

In typical Hollywood fashion, "Braveheart" delivers a sturdy tagline as a sort of moral: "Every man dies, but not every man really lives." That is particularly true of Mel Gibson movies, where you can be assured that nearly everyone will die in very bloody and gruesome Medieval fashion, and that most of them won't be given the chance to really live. (Although the film's portrayal of 13th-century Scotland looks so miserable, I can't fathom why any of them would bother.)

But what about Mel? History dictates that Mel, as the eponymous -- sort of -- hero, will have to really die. But does he really live? Let's see what Mel and his screenwriter, Randall Wallace, offer as a definition of "really living":

1. William Wallace's wife is murdered the day after their wedding.

2. Wallace's rampage of revenge incites a bloody insurrection.

3. A pitched battle is fought, leading to hundreds of dead Englishmen and horses and hundreds of exposed Scottish backsides.

4. Wallace has a clandestine affair with the French princess -- who, according to history, was nine years old, but never mind.

5. Wallace is betrayed, captured, and messily tortured and executed in an extended climax that reaches a sort of feverish apotheosis with Mel screaming "FREEEEDOM" as blood and spittle flies from his lips.

Gosh. If that's what they think "really living" is all about, I've got a long way to go. Messrs. Gibson and Wallace (Randall, not William...) have settled on a rather ruthless and violent idea of what life is all about, and their concept of "freedom" seems equally brutal. Revenge, philandering, pedophilia, gory disembowelings -- is that sort of freedom really worth it?

Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)

Kirk Vs. The Almighty

[7/10 · 28 May 2013]

The majority of Trekkies will tell you that "The Final Frontier" is the worst Star Trek movie. Some of the Next Generation movies were bad, but none quite so incompetently put together as this one. The tone is inconsistent, the special effects are shoddy, the plot is weak, the climax is anticlimactic. But for all that, it captures the adventurous spirit of the original show better than any of the other films in the series.

A few things stood out to me the last time I watched it. First, the red toy-soldier uniforms look more out-of-place than ever; I kept expecting to see the classic costumes, which would have been more appropriate than the movies' military duds. Second, Captain Kirk sports blue jeans and a flannel shirt in the campfire scenes that bookend the film, as if they took place in the 20th century instead of the 23rd. Finally, the Klingon antagonists seem to have arrived from a different movie only to cause trouble.

Where "The Final Frontier" absolutely nails the source material is in its combination of humor, action, metaphysics, and warm characterization. It probably has the best moments between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy of any of the films -- especially since the previous three movies rarely got these iconic character together. Sybok's quest for god may be a little too heavy, but at least it has ambitions. Sybok turns out to be one of the more memorable Star Trek villains: a deluded cult leader on a monomaniacal mission to discover the Garden of Eden, who ultimately realizes where he went wrong and redeems himself in the final reel. None of Trek's other cinematic enemies can boast that sort of dramatic arc.

It sounds funny, but I think it might be one of the best Star Trek movies after all.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

As good as it gets?

[5/10 · 28 October 2012]

It's easy to see why this movie succeeded after the failure of the first Star Trek film: "The Wrath of Khan" aims very low, so it can't miss. The story is instantly familiar from classic Westerns and adventure stories, the drama is mundane and domestic, and there's lots of action. Don't look too closely, or pull too hard on any loose threads, or the whole thing will unravel.

Nicholas Meyer took over the franchise with this movie and decided that the whole "exploring space" thing was too hard to get a handle on. Instead, he brought back a villain from the old TV show and had him chase Captain Kirk around in circles for the better part of two hours. Along the way there's a bit of melodrama: Kirk's midlife crisis, an old flame, and an estranged offspring, as if his life weren't complicated enough already. The old gang comes along for the ride, even though few of them have any excuse for being there. (It's worth mentioning the delightful irony that Meyer, who never served in any military, introduced the silly space-navy look to the franchise in this film, while Gene Roddenberry, the notorious peacenik, was a decorated bomber pilot in WWII.)

I won't dwell on plot holes, because there are too many of them. If you like "Wrath of Khan's" blend of action and soap opera, those little inconsistencies and mistakes will hardly matter to you. Other mistakes are bigger and more bothersome: the Genesis Device that Khan wants to get hold of is no more than a MacGuffin, whose duty it is to drive the plot and explode when necessary. (Khan's quest for revenge fulfills similar requirements). The terraforming angle pops up as an obligatory piece of science fiction paraphernalia, mostly so that Doctor McCoy can compare science to "playing God", as if that hadn't been done a million times before. The dialogue is stilted and cluttered with shout-outs to Charles Dickens and Herman Melville, perhaps to lend an air of dignity, and the acting veers woozily back and forth between hammy and wooden.

The music is superb, and does most of the film's hard work. Without James Horner's nautical score, there would hardly be any suspense or excitement during the many space battles in the final act. The special effects are quite decent, even the ones that aren't nicked from the previous movie. If it weren't for those two things "The Wrath of Khan" would feel too much like a TV film -- above average, but not nearly as good as the show it was based on.

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)

Six Cinematic Offences

[2/10 · 19 October 2012]

A critic once said that watching "The Assassination of Jesse James..." is like watching a book on tape. That's such a brilliant and succinct description that there's not much to add to it. I'll try to enumerate the film's cinematic offences anyway, but forgive me if I don't have the original writer's wit.

1) A good movie should begin and end in sensible places. Not only does "The Assassination of Jesse James..." finish long after its ending, but it starts long before its beginning.

2) Actors should have an excuse for lending their talents to a film, but the only real speaking role in "The Assassination of Jesse James..." is that of the narrator.

3) The audience deserves at least one character they can side with. But in "The Assassination of Jesse James..." no reason is ever supplied as to why we should care about any of the characters, from Jesse James and Robert Ford to the sundry other gang members who get shot along the way.

4) Dialogue in a film should express to the audience the thoughts and feelings of the characters. Since it's difficult to care what any of them think or feel, the fact that they mumble all of their overwrought lines hardly matters.

5) A movie should seek to entertain its audience in some way, shape, or form. "The Assassination of Jesse James..." seeks only to put its audience to sleep.

6) A movie should be a movie, and not a narrated slide show. The story should be told with action, dialogue, and images, and not by a didactic voice-over. "The Assassination of Jesse James..." tramples this rule into the ground.

On the plus side, it's good news for insomniacs.

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993–1999)

What is Star Trek, anyway?

[5/10 · 19 October 2012]

The first problem with DS9 is that it takes place on a space station. I never minded that much, but it leads to other flaws: the original mantra "to boldly go where no one has gone before" is cast by the wayside, and exploration and science fiction are largely ignored in favor of domestic drama and political tedium.

I watched DS9 faithfully throughout its original run. I liked most of the characters, such as the feisty ex-terrorist Major Kira, and the naive young Doctor Bashir. But after a few seasons I realized that I no longer cared for these people. Kira seemed to grow middle-aged overnight, and her violent temper had given way to self-righteous complacency. Bashir was revealed to be a genetically enhanced super-doctor, and his entire life up to that point was a lie.

I got the feeling that the writers were trying their best to distance themselves from the show they'd created. Not only did characters suffer drastic changes, but the show's plot switched direction so many times that keeping track just got frustrating. At the start there were political and religious issues with the Bajorans and their former oppressors, the Cardassians; in the second season we were introduced to the Maquis, a group of human freedom-fighters who would go on to reappear only once per season. After that came the Dominion, but little was done with them for about three years, and in the meantime there was a brief conflict with the Klingons. Eventually the writers decided to tie all these dangling plot threads together and start an interstellar war. If only they'd had the budget and the writing talent to make something of it.

It's difficult to summarize a seven-season TV series in just a few paragraphs without sounding harsh. Most of its characters aren't bad, but their behavior from one episode to the next is often inconsistent, and the writers seem too concerned with relationships and love affairs that are tawdry rather than compelling. The insistence on romantic subplots edges out the science fiction; the writers forgot that half their characters were aliens with radically different biology. Instead of exploring the idea of interspecies romance, they focus solely on the characters as if they were all humans. Altogether the series gets a little too comfortable in its stationary setting, and loses itself in minutiae; perhaps the biggest flaw of the format is that the writers never had to come up with anything new.

The war is DS9's real problem. It's the biggest, most explosive, and most elaborate conflict ever seen on Star Trek, even including "Enterprise" and the JJ Abrams movies. So why do I find it underwhelming? The battles are huge mêlées that closely resemble something out of "Dawn Patrol" or "Hell's Angels" rather than what you'd expect from futuristic starships. Despite the frequent discussion of strategy and tactics, the war itself always feels like it's in the background: everything happens elsewhere, to other people, and we only hear about it in stilted dialogue. The result is an uncommitted show, a series with no real story, and for all its action, its characters, and its intrigues and melodrama, it's not really about anything.

Battle of Britain (1969)

Still Flies Circles Round CGI

[8/10 · 19 October 2012]

There's not much in the way of character development in this film. It's not that kind of film, so let's get that out of the way at the start. Michael Caine, Laurence Olivier, Robert Shaw, and Christopher Plummer (among many others) are on hand for their star power and charisma, but don't expect awards-worthy performances. This movie, as the title suggests, is about the Battle of Britain, so you should expect Spitfires, dogfights, the Blitz, and lots of pompous Prussian military marches.

And that's exactly what you get. The makers of the film assembled a huge fleet of vintage aircraft from around the world: many Spitfires were restored to airworthy condition just for the movie and are still flying today because of it; Messerschmitts and Heinkels were loaned by the Spanish Air Force and have gone on to star in films and air shows; a trio of Hurricanes make a rare appearance. This might only be of interest to aviation enthusiasts or history buffs, but so what: it's an historic film, the only occasion outside of newsreels that you'll ever see these aircraft in their element, and it's breathtaking.

The plot follows the basic timeline of the Battle. After Dunkirk, the British withdraw to their island and Hitler contemplates his options. Eventually, after a few perfunctory scenes set the stage, the Luftwaffe launches its attack. The outnumbered pilots of the Royal Air Force fight back against impossible odds. Young, inexperienced men are thrown into combat with a short life expectancy. Untried Polish volunteers acquit themselves rather well, in a couple humorous scenes. Olivier, as Air Chief Marshal Dowding, lends gravitas to the situation, while his German counterpart, Goering, frets and struts and intimidates his underlings.

There's plenty missing, but there's plenty to like. The stars all do their bit for queen and country, and the attention to detail is superb. The narrative often seems to skip bits and pieces, and leaves several characters hanging...but as I said, this isn't about the characters so much as the moment in history that they happen to be passing through.

Firefly (2002–2003)

Howdy Doody meets Han Solo

[4/10 · 9 September 2012]

I grew up watching Westerns like Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers. Eventually I started watching and reading science fiction: Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who. The two genres obviously have a lot in common: unexplored frontiers, hostile aliens, larger-than-life heroes having exciting adventures. When I first ran across the Space Western idea it was 1987, and I was a devoted pint-sized fan of the cartoon "BraveStarr". So you'll understand when I say that "Firefly" is a bit of a rip-off.

If the idea behind the series is nothing new, its creators haven't noticed. Every scene and every shot seems to bear the caption "Look how awesome this is." For example, in a saloon brawl in the first episode, our hero gets tossed through a holographic window. Wasn't that awesome? It's just like in a Western, but with an arbitrary science-fiction thing too. Some of the baddies ride hovercraft, other ride horses. Our hero wears a leather duster, but his engineer dresses in the latest Harajuku fashions. The entire cast cusses in Mandarin with Texas accents. Isn't it all so irritatingly clever? Isn't it all just so pointlessly, overbearingly precious?

If cleverness was all you needed for a successful show, maybe "Firefly" would have gotten somewhere. But it's generally accepted that good shows need good characters and good stories; "Firefly" has stereotyped characters and clichéd stories. There's hardly a script that hasn't already seen a thousand typewriters, from the blandly generic "Train Job" to "Heart of Gold", in which the crew defends a whorehouse as if it were Fort Petticoat. Our heroes are the swaggering Captain Mal, icy "Warrior Woman" Zoe, gun-crazed lunatic Jayne, cute but autistic River, and some others. Most of them are crazy and/or violent, but cursed with Joss Whedon's dialogue they become merely, well, cute. There's not really any psychology here, at least no more than you'd expect from something like "The A-Team". The stereotypes are balanced out by the show's villains, mostly in the shape of the cookie-cutter totalitarian Alliance, who are merely a less effective iteration of the Galactic Empire trope known already from Star Wars. The Western's obligatory Indians have been functionally replaced by zombie-like "reavers", who seem to have trespassed from the set of a horror film.

To sum up: "Firefly" is annoyingly cute, insufferably clever, and has lots of shooting. It has neither depth nor originality. If you like self-consciously quirky dialogue and guns, then this is the show for you. If you like intelligent science fiction, or even intelligent Westerns, then this ain't your show, pilgrim.

Piece of Cake (1988)

Don't Bleed on the Carpet, Dickie.

[10/10 · 21 May 2012]

In the very first scene of "Piece of Cake", a squadron leader lands his plane in a ditch, and breaks his neck on his way to the ground. Things go from bad to worse: it's September 1939, and Britain and Germany have just declared war. RAF Hornet Squadron's first successful dogfight turns out to be an embarrassing friendly-fire incident. The young pilots' enthusiasm doesn't wane, however, and a new commanding officer soon arrives in a red sports car and immediately orders a bottle of champagne.

In France the squadron enjoys their comfy château with its full bar and squash court, as well as good food, good wine, and local women. In the air there is much confusion, as the pre-war RAF's tactics are gradually revealed to be inadequate in the face of the veteran German air force. The war heats up, things start to fall apart, and it all ends with the Battle of Britain in September 1940.

That should give you an idea of the tone and style of "Piece of Cake", a six-part miniseries based on Derek Robinson's 1983 novel. Much has been lost on the route from page to screen, including several characters and subplots. That's all right, since there were a lot of them to begin with. The cast fit into their roles smoothly and naturally: Neil Dudgeon plays the bullying Moggy Cattermole with easy charm; Tom Burlinson is the stalwart Australian flight lieutenant; Richard Hope is brilliant as the egg-headed intelligence officer Skull Skelton; and Tim Woodward brings an appropriate air of stubborn romanticism to the aristocratic Squadron Leader Rex.

There are plenty of vintage aircraft on display for those who like that sort of thing. The Spits are anachronistic, but excusable. You can also see a pair of Spanish-made Messerschmitts standing in for the Germans, and a few other old warbirds in the background. It's a relief to see the real things: not models, not computer-generated, and flying under bridges to boot.

Is it realistic? Is it true to history? Who knows. The survivors of the battle are not likely to appreciate their warts-and-all portrayal, as you'd expect. That's fine. "Piece of Cake" does nothing to tarnish their legend, nor does it try to: the idea is to show the heroes of the Battle of Britain as people the audience can understand, and it works. Humor, irony, and tragedy are the stuff of real life. I'd rather have the daunted, wearied, and worn-out men of Hornet Squadron than the cardboard cutouts of myth.

Kingdom of Heaven (2005)

A Story in Search of a Protagonist

[7/10 · 27 February 2012]

Ridley Scott's movies should be taught in film schools, not because they are great movies -- none of them are -- but because they provide such a useful study in contrasts. You can see so easily what went wrong, and the many ways they fell short of greatness. "Kingdom of Heaven" was released in cinemas as a bloated historical action movie about bickering Crusaders, and while Scott's later edits turned it into a longer, more considerable epic, it's one that still bears his trademark faults.

First the casting, good and bad. Scott recruited an excellent supporting cast, starting with Liam Neeson and Eva Green, and including Brendan Gleeson, Jeremy Irons, Alexander Siddig, and Ghassan Massoud. All of them bring their best efforts to the film; you can read their life stories in their faces. Neeson plays a knight hoping to atone for a youthful indiscretion; Green is the princess of Jerusalem, sister to a dying king and mother of the boy who will inherit the throne. Gleeson, with bright red hair, clearly relishes his role as a bloodthirsty Crusader lord, while Irons plays a weary nobleman trying to keep the peace. Siddig and Massoud represent the film's Muslims, with Massoud an especially strong presence as Saladin. All of these actors have depth and gravitas, and anchor the story in its historical setting. But above them all there's Orlando Bloom, a movie star known more for his perfect cheekbones than for his acting skills. He's almost impassive in his role as Balian of Ibelin, a blacksmith who becomes a knight, then rallies the defense of Jerusalem against Saladin's army. There doesn't seem to be much going on behind his eyes. Any other actor might have filled the spaces the script leaves for him, but Bloom is little more than a facade.

Which brings us to the script. The writer, William Monahan, takes pains to lay out the historical backdrop for us. Christians and Muslims both claim Jerusalem, but some want to maintain the unstable peace while others want to upset it and start a war. Political and religious forces on all sides vie for domination. Meanwhile, other characters struggle to reconcile their actions with their beliefs, and find salvation where they can. From start to finish the movie confronts us with the hypocrisy of holy war, and of religious leaders who promise to absolve their followers' sins if they kill in God's name. But the movie makes the mistake of centering this conflict on Balian, a heavily fictionalized version of a real person, whose very emptiness renders him as a sort of blank slate for everyone else to act upon. The script feels unfinished, as if it was rushed into production before Monahan could produce a final draft. Maybe a different actor could have brought Balian to life in a more meaningful way, and communicated his internal conflicts to us with a expression or a gesture; but the script doesn't provide much for Bloom to work with, and instead we get a lot of sullen silences and brooding looks.

The sets and costumes are beautiful, so long as the camera stays still long enough for you to see them. This is not the sort of dingy, muddy medieval movie we've gotten used to seeing in the past couple decades; instead, the clothes are colorful and richly textured, and the sunlit streets and palaces of Jerusalem just as vibrant. John Mathieson's cinematography shows us a Middle Ages much closer to the vivid and lively illuminated manuscripts than anything Hollywood has done before or since; it feels tactile and real in a way that most historical films don't. But Ridley Scott's direction is strangely impatient and jittery, with frequent recourse to slow-motion and other gimmicks. His style and pacing is at odds with the script's more contemplative needs. The story is meant to span three years, from 1184 to the Siege of Jerusalem in 1187, but Scott doesn't allow it any room to breathe. He's a music video director, worried that too much stillness will bore his audience.

But those criticisms could easily be applied to any other Ridley Scott movie. A miscast protagonist, an unpolished screenplay, a visual style in conflict with itself. The result is a frustrating and clumsy film that never quite makes the points it so clearly wants to make. That's why it's so fascinating to watch: if only Monahan had put in a few more late nights honing his script; if only the casting director had searched a little harder for a leading man; if only Scott had calmed down his usual visual clamor, this could have been a truly great movie. There's an alternate universe where "Kingdom of Heaven" was directed by David Lean and starred Peter O'Toole, but in this universe we will have to tolerate the flawed version we have.