Film Review: Jupiter Ascending

‪
Jupiter Ascending. Rated M (violence and science fiction themes). 127 minutes. Written and directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski.‬

Verdict: Cinderella meets Star Trek.

Unbeknownst to Earth-bound cleaning lady Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), she is the queen of an alien race who must be eliminated so that the powerful dynasty, led by the ruthless Balem (Eddie Redmayne), can take control of their home planet’s valuable resources. Fighting to ensure that Jupiter is restored to her rightful place as leader of the Free World is Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), a pointy-eared warrior with a wicked set of skates, who will do whatever it takes to keep Jupiter alive.

Witnessing Jupiter Ascending is like watching someone desperately trying to rescue a burnt roast dinner, with exactly the same level of impending doom and embarrassment. At its best though, it is a sumptuous visual feast that appears unable to be contained within the screen across which it blazes. But for the sheer audacity of creating a film that is so beautiful, baffling, boring and shambolic – often all at precisely the same time – you’ve simply got to hand it to The Wachowskis (The Matrix trilogy, Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas).

Jupiter Ascending is delivered to the screen with such unabashed confidence, style and budget that it almost seems rude to suggest that it hasn’t worked. The many expensive, big action set pieces are so dark and ill-defined that it is often impossible to work out what’s going on.

Tatum, who spends much of his time looking extremely uncomfortable, skates endlessly around the galaxy with his shirt off rescuing the hapless Jupiter, while Redmayne makes the bizarre choice to either whisper or scream his dialogue. Kunis, on the other hand, floats through the story looking as though she hasn’t the faintest idea what’s going on. Which is perfect really, because most of the time neither do we.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Godzilla

Godzilla. Rated M (science fiction themes and violence). 123 minutes. Directed by Gareth Edwards. Screenplay by Max Borenstein.

Verdict: A triumphant return for our megastar Kaiju.

Since his first appearance in Ishiro Honda’s Gojira (Godzilla) in 1954, the megastar Kaiju (strange creature) has starred in 31 films, and returns to the big screen this year to celebrate his 60^th birthday – and what a spectacularly gob-smacking celebration it is.

Sounding mostly like a symphonic concert, courtesy of Alexandre Desplat’s (Zero Dark Thirty, Argo) majestic score, Edwards’ brilliant ode to the monster movie genre (with particularly obvious references to King Kong and Alien) is an often astonishing achievement.

One of Borenstein’s many masterstrokes is the way he incorporates Godzilla into the story, and the less you know about the reasons for his appearance, the better. The outstanding cast, afraid no-one will notice them if they don’t take the emotional content of their performances up to an equally radioactive level, go for broke with the florid material – with Borenstein unafraid to dispense with them as and when the story demands it. The early, heart-breaking sequences where Bryan Cranston’s (Breaking Bad) Joe parts company with his wife Elle (Elizbeth Olsen) set the ruthlessly efficient tone for all that is to follow.

It is the screenplay’s brutal lack of sentimentality that powers Edwards’ grand vision of total annihilation as prehistoric foes go head-to-head for supremacy. On their battleground, humans don’t matter.

Edwards (who made the under-rated Monsters in 2010), cinematographer Seamus McGarvey (The Avengers) and Western Australian-born production designer Owen Paterson (The Matrix, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert) have created an entirely absorbing, big-screen experience, which is edited to perfection by Bob Ducsay (Looper, The Mummy).

Don’t be at all surprised that as you make your way home from the cinema after this immersive experience, you’ll be expecting our heroic Kaiju to rise from the ocean to see you safely home.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Ender’s Game

Ender’s Game. Rated M (science fiction themes and violence). 114 minutes. Written and directed by Gavin Hood.

Verdict: A compelling study of the moral dilemmas associated with resolving conflict.

With Earth’s population recovering from near-annihilation at the hands of an alien invasion, the military – led by Harrison Ford’s Colonel Graff – decide to recruit young video game-playing geniuses to develop a defensive strategy that will not only protect the planet from the next invasion, but eliminate the threat entirely by exterminating the hostile alien species.

Led by an outstanding performance from young Asa Butterfield (Hugo, Nanny McPhee Returns, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas) as technology wiz Ender Wiggin, Ender’s Game makes no apology for feeding the brain as much as it dazzles the senses. Hood’s script skilfully covers the important and topical issues of generational change, bullying, peer pressure and survival strategies – resulting in compelling character studies that are equal to the stunning visual environment, confidently directed by Hood and expertly photographed by veteran Australian cinematographer Donald McAlpine.

Like it’s siblings The Hunger Games and TRON, Ender’s Game explores its moral imperatives (and ambiguities) within a complex gaming environment that is increasingly the exclusive domain of the next generation.

Ford is at his best espousing the rules and regulations of militaristic and moral fundamentalism, while Viola Davis (Prisoners, The Help, Doubt) is excellent as his colleague, who is charged with determining what psychological impact the relentless preparation for conflict is having on their young warrior.

While the militaristic motivations are relatively easy to comprehend (no-one wants to perish in an alien invasion after all), the film’s penultimate battle sequence is not only a tour de force of visual effects mastery, but one that generates an extraordinary moral dilemma. It is here that Ford’s Colonel and Butterfield’s Ender absolutely nail the film’s central conflict, resulting in a scene of immense power that challenges us to contemplate the film’s lasting message – which is how conflict of any kind might be resolved through striving for mutual consideration and respect as opposed to brutal aggression.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film review: Elysium

Elysium. Rated MA 15+ (strong bloody violence). 109 minutes. Written and directed by Neill Blomkamp.

Verdict: An uneven, but ultimately rewarding, post-apocalyptic, big screen adventure.

Hollywood’s obsession with a post-apocalyptic universe reaches a particular zenith with Blomkamp’s (District 9) aggressive and over-loaded take on our not-too-distant future. It is a grand and ambitious vision, beautifully realised by Production Designer Philip Ivey and cinematographer Trent Opaloch, both of whom collaborated with Blomkamp on District 9.

It is 2154, and the privileged live on Elysium – a state-of-the-art space station where cancer is cured by a full-body scanning machine in only minutes. Everyone else lives on an over-populated, impoverished Earth – dreaming of, one day, being able to afford a ticket to Elysium’s utopian world, where sprawling mansions are surrounded by picturesque gardens and unpolluted water.

Blomkamp’s cut ‘n’ thrust screenplay explores so many grand themes that it becomes difficult to keep up with them. And unlike almost every other movie reviewed this year, Elysium powers to a stark and incredibly moving conclusion that you expect it to dodge.

Matt Damon is great as parolee Max, whose desperation to get to Elysium ensures that the stakes at play are incredibly high. Damon is well supported by an excellent performance from Alice Braga (I Am Legend) as his childhood sweetheart, now doctor and single mum, Frey. As the leading resistance fighters, Wagner Moura’s resourceful Spider and Diego Luna’s loyal friend Julio both deliver spirited performances that beautifully account for the resistance movement’s resourcefulness and determination to eventually reach Elysium safely.

Jodie Foster, surprisingly, spends much of her time striding around Elysium and fighting with a peculiar accent (the accent wins), while Sharlto Copley’s (The A-Team, District 9) toxic, special agent Kruger is so unlikeable that it becomes increasingly difficult to care about what happens to him.

Even though Blomkamp sets Elysium in 2154, it might just as easily be taking place today. Corruption, greed, selfishness, poverty, pollution, over-population and ruthless exploitation are all themes we can immediately relate to. Precisely what we are prepared to sacrifice in order to change what we can for the better (and not just for ourselves), is the question.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Pacific Rim

Pacific Rim. Rated M (science fiction violence). 131 minutes. Directed by Guillermo del Toro. Screenplay by Travis Beacham and Guillermo del Toro.

Verdict: The most perfect invading alien monster flick in recent memory.

Lovers of the good old invading alien monsters movie will have the time of their lives with del Toro’s spectacular, no holds barred adventure – possibly the most perfect example of its kind in recent memory. Waiting for the film to trip over itself (it’s a massively ambitious undertaking), becomes a futile exercise as the early action set pieces (which also feed in the crucial back-story) scorch across the screen in marvellously accomplished style.

As gigantic Kaijus (the Japanese word for monsters) rise from the depths of the Pacific Ocean to conquer the world, humans have developed massive fighting machines called Jaegers (German for hunter) to wage war against the invading beasts. Piloted by two humans whose brains are linked to ensure they are not overwhelmed by the ferocity of the Kaijus, the Jaegers are ultimately found to be a futile defence. But when two young pilots Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) and Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) take control of the decommissioned Jaeger ‘Gipsy Danger’ – each with a score to settle – the Jaegers find themselves back at the frontline in a race against time to close the deep-sea portal once and for all.

Del Toro (Hellboy 2: The Golden Army, Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy) and his frequent collaborator, Cinematographer Guillermo Navarro, expertly account for the film’s technological and visual challenges – helped enormously by the stunning work of Production Designers Andrew Neskoromny (Apollo 18, AVPR: Aliens vs Predator – Requiem, Dawn of the Dead) and Carol Spier (The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen).

Del Toro and Beacham’s (Clash of the Titans) screenplay, while heavy on the patriotic and nationalistic imperatives that are standard fare in Hollywood blockbusters, also manages to inflate the stakes at play from the very beginning and keep them high all the way through – ensuring that our interest and involvement in the story never wanes.

The cast, led by the charismatic Hunnam and the feisty Kikuchi, play the material for all it’s worth – even if they are ultimately swamped by the film’s brilliant alien monster versus man-made robot visual and technological brilliance.

This review was commissioned by the West Australian Newspaper Group.

Film Review: Oblivion

Oblivion. Rated M (science fiction violence and infrequent coarse language). 125 minutes. Directed by Joseph Kosinski. Screenplay by Joseph Kosinski, Karl Gajdusek and Michael Arndt.

Verdict: A verbose, fatally-flawed script mars a potential classic.

With his directorial debut TRON: Legacy (2010), Kosinski was revealed to be a filmmaker of our time. His masterful use of state-of-the-art motion picture technology that powered the story rather than distracted from it (or replaced it entirely), marked him as a director to watch. Darren Gilford’s flawless production design and Claudio Miranda’s (Life of Pi) superb cinematography ensured that Kosinski’s vision for his film was brought to the screen in breath-taking visual style. Expectations for the trio’s next big-screen adventure were high, so the only question that needs to be asked in relation to Oblivion is why has it all gone so wrong?

Film Review: I Am Number Four

I Am Number Four. Rated M (science fiction themes and violence). 109 minutes. Directed by D. J. Caruso. Screenplay by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Marti Noxon. Based on the novel by Pittacus Lore (Jobie Hughes and James Frey).

After a hostile takeover of their planet by the violent Mogadorians, super-alien refugee from the planet Lorien ‘John’ (Alex Pettyfer) and his guardian ‘Henri’ (Die Hard 4’s Timothy Olyphant) are hiding on Earth. John is the fourth in a line of seven super-aliens who, it is hoped, will one day be powerful enough to reclaim Lorien from the Mogadorian invaders. But when Mogadorian warriors arrive on earth, John learns that something has gone terribly wrong – and he is next in line to be exterminated.

It can be quite a bewildering experience watching a movie only just manage to hold itself together – especially one like this, which has expert pedigree and an extremely promising set-up. That the end result is a mish-mash of the vastly superior Predator and Terminator franchises (mixed with a generous amount of Twilight-inspired lovelorn angst) can only be described as disappointing.

While Caruso (Disturbia) and cinematographer Guillermo Navarro (Pan's Labyrinth, Hellboy) certainly bring their anticipated panache to several sequences (the opening and the haunted hay-ride are two stand-outs), the end result is a derivative, dim, dark and loosely-structured effort that sci-fi devotees will more than likely find themselves laughing off the screen. Why, for example, do the fearless Mogadorian warriors who have conquered distant planets have to travel by car? Why do they have noses and gills? And what’s with the I Dream of Jeannie-inspired puffs of smoke when someone is exterminated?

Model-turned-actor Pettyfer tries incredibly hard in the leading role, but lacks the necessary emotional range to make the character (or his journey) even remotely interesting. On the other hand, Australian-born Callan McAuliffe shows real promise as ‘Sam’ – the boy who finds his missing father’s alien theories validated by John and Henri’s arrival in his hometown. Dianna Agron as John’s love-interest ‘Sarah’ easily accounts for the little she actually gets to do (consisting mostly of endlessly wondering what on earth is going on), while Australian-born Teresa Palmer absolutely steals the show with an entertainingly rough-shod turn as ‘Number 6’.

Whether the impending “I am number …” franchise gets off the ground will depend entirely on the extent to which its target audience embrace its clumsy and unoriginal pretence. Based on this Terminator-lite effort, it’s unlikely.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspaper Group.

DVD Review: Moon

Moon. 93 minutes. Rated M. Directed by Duncan Jones. Written by Nathan Parker from an original story by Duncan Jones.

All too rarely, a movie comes along that, on the surface at least, is apparently incredibly simple and understated. But as it slowly begins to unfold, it reveals itself to be fantastically original and complex, and before long, you somewhat unexpectedly find yourself under its spell. Moon is one such film. Directed by Duncan Jones (the son of David Bowie), Moon is a mesmerising little masterpiece that slowly hypnotises you with its nihilistic vision of not only the future of lunar exploration and the possible exploitation of the planet's resources, but also the very essence of our human identity, fallibility, beliefs and values.

Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is employed by Lunar Industries to oversee giant harvesters that extract helium-3 from the moon's surface. With only his computer assistant GERTY (superbly voiced by Kevin Spacey) for company, Sam must ensure that once the machines have harvested a certain quota of the precious element, it is jettisoned safely back to earth in canisters where it will aid the development of our planet's clean energy programs. But with only two weeks to go before his three-year contract expires and his replacement arrives, a near-fatal accident involving one of the harvesters threatens his return to earth.

As the lonely engineer who appears to be slowly losing his mind, Rockwell is magnificent. It is a tour de force performance of such immense skill and craftsmanship, that you practically forget that this is, essentially, a film with only one actor in it. He is helped enormously by Parker's marvellously engrossing, lean, mean and inventive script from Jones's fact-based story (the scientific community are actually researching ways to harvest Helium-3 from lunar soil and the film was screened privately for NASA's scientists).

While it lovingly references previous films of the sci-fi genre (particularly Soylent Green, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Silent Running and Blade Runner), Moon's modest special effects are less concerned with flashy explosions and random space-based exotica, and consist of exemplary model and miniature work (supervised by Alien and Casino Royale Model Master Bill Pearson). And like director Ridley Scott, Jones has the ability to employ the services of his gifted special effects crew to serve his vision and drive the story forward – not distract from it.

But it is Rockwell (who was the voice of guinea pig Darwin in G-Force and who is also starring in Iron Man 2) whose virtuoso performance brings this extraordinary film to life. For those film-lovers who are more than a little fatigued by big expensive flashy epics and want a film that will have you thinking and contemplating the very nature of our existence for days afterwards – Moon is the film for you.

This review was commissioned by the Geraldton Newspapers Group and was published in the print edition of the Midwest Times.

Review: Avatar

Avatar. 162 minutes. Rated M. Written and Directed by James Cameron; Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox; Cast includes Sam Worthington, Zoë Saldana and Sigourney Weaver.

As a genre, science-fiction has contributed to the cinema in a host of inspirational ways. Ultimately, it all comes down to Fear, Faith, Fate, and Trust: big emotional journey states which underpin the great work in the genre – of which James Cameron’s Avatar is a perfect example.

The year is 2154. On the planet of Pandora, the Resources Development Administration (RDA) is spending billions to mine the mineral 'Unobtainium' – a key to solving a dilapidated Earth's energy crisis. Home to the indigenous Na’vi, Pandora’s atmosphere is lethal to humans, so the RDA's scientists have created the Avatar Program (led by Dr Grace Augustine – a magnificent Sigourney Weaver), in which humans have their consciousness linked remotely to a genetically-engineered Avatar. Grace and her colleagues have little time to encourage the Na'vi to peacefully relocate before Col. Miles Quaritch's (Stephen Lang) security forces are permitted to use military force to "shock and awe" them into submission. As the mining giant's administrator Parker Selfridge (Giovanni Ribisi) tells us with potent, contemporaneous efficiency: “One thing the RDA stockholders hate worse than bad press is a bad quarterly statement”.

Self-belief in the face of immense odds is a common thread in Mr Cameron's work, and here he has created a sweeping story of engrossing emotional, cultural and spiritual conflict set within an environment of epic beauty. But while Avatar is an astonishing display of technical genius, it is the rite of passage allegory that powers the story: no more beautifully realised than the dazzling 'Banshees' – dragon-like beasts which the Na’vi must tame before they become their ‘wings’ for life.

Avatar is anchored by revelatory performances from Sam Worthington (Jake Sully) and Zoë Saldana (Neytiri). The success of how instantly we accept the remarkable computer-generated characters is achieved not only in Mr Worthington's exhilaration when he inhabits his Avatar for the first time, but entirely throughout his and Ms Saldana's extraordinary performances.

Ms Weaver's 'Grace', Ms Saldana's 'Neytiri' and a red-hot cameo from Michelle Rodriguez as Trudy Chacon, a feisty tilt-rotor pilot, also contribute to the grand Cameron tradition of powerful female action heroines (The Terminator’s Sarah Connor and Titanic’s Rose). What is new territory for Cameron devotees (quite apart from the state-of-the-art performance capture technology he has developed for this film), is the fascinating and vast spiritual world that nourishes, guides and informs the Na'vi's existence. The highpoint is the stunning 'Tree of Souls', which, even for the most cynical non-believer, will give pause to the concept of a life-enhancing, faith-based connection that exists beyond our messy, Earth-bound religious contradictions.

Avatar is a unique cinematic experience, and one you should rush to share in – because one viewing will not be enough.

Pictured: Sam Worthington and Zoë Saldana in Avatar.

This review was commissioned by The Geraldton Guardian and published in the print edition on Wednesday, 30 December 2009.