Tag Archives: Sci-fi

The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)

22 Sunday Sep 2019

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Evil is as evil does,
And such it is and ever was,
But when an evil worse than most
Endangers all on every coast,
Perhaps what once was evil might
Defend the day against the night.
___________________

MPAA rating:  PG-13

I watched Pitch Black for the first time earlier this year, curious about Richard B. Riddick’s reputation as an anti-hero and the cult classic status of the series, and I liked it for the most part. Vin Diesel radiated cool danger as the shiny-eyed criminal, and it echoed Aliens while being just different enough. The Chronicles of Riddick distances itself from the Aliens comparisons, widening its scope perhaps too far but still preserving the coolness that made Riddick memorable.

Whereas Pitch Black was confined to a single alien-infested planet, The Chronicles of Riddick opens up a wealth of previously unknown sci-fi lore: a fanatical force of Necromongers under the supernaturally powered Lord Marshal (Colm Feore), a prophecy about the Lord Marshal’s downfall, a race of Furians thought to have been wiped out. It sometimes comes off as ridiculous and I couldn’t help but wonder what Karl Urban or Dame Judi Dench thought of their careers as they were delivering certain lines, but it’s just as often camp-tinged fun with enough fast-paced action, imaginative set and costume design, and genuinely awesome set pieces to forgive its faults. The effects sometimes belie their low budget, yet that somehow just adds to their appeal.

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For some reason, writer-director David Twohy chose to target a PG-13 rating for this sequel, and I was grateful for it. I stand by my conviction that extreme gore and profanity are largely unnecessary, and The Chronicles of Riddick still delivers plenty of sometimes brutal badassery without them. (I mean, Riddick kills a guy with a tea cup, for Pete’s sake!) I’ve been shown to be very forgiving with science fiction movies, but once again I think this film’s mere 29% on Rotten Tomatoes is far too low and personally found it more watchable than Pitch Black, though my VC disagrees.

Of course, I recognize its faults as well, from occasional histrionics, a lackluster script, and meh villains. (The main villain’s past motives are basically the same as the peacock in Kung Fu Panda 2.) Yet I think the film’s worst aspect is its insistence on Riddick alone being the one character worth keeping around. I was disappointed with how Pitch Black ended by killing off the main character worth rooting for, but at least it had thematic significance at the time. The sequel continues that trend by showing that anyone who’s not Riddick is just there to be either an enemy or a sacrifice, which I think hurts the film as part of a series.

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Despite this drawback and an admittedly dumb final scene, The Chronicles of Riddick was still great fun for this sci-fi fan, an underrated entry that replaced the first film’s horror with a partially successful stab at space epic. Now two films in, there’s just one left to watch in the series, 2013’s Riddick (which incidentally returned to an R rating), and I’m curious to see how the series ends. Unless Twohy and Diesel decide to keep it going, which I wouldn’t mind at all.

Best line: (Aereon, in the intro monologue) “In normal times, evil would be fought by good. But in times like these, well, it should be fought by another kind of evil.”

 

Rank:  List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
646 Followers and Counting

 

Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019)

02 Monday Sep 2019

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Don’t you just hate it
When you’re on vacation
Intent on enjoying some hard relaxation,
And then all at once,
With distinct irritation,
Your work calls, demanding your consideration?

You reach for the phone
With a slight hesitation,
But then you ignore it with smug indignation.
But if the world ends
Due to your recreation,
You just might regret your own preoccupation.
_____________________________________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

How do you follow up a monumental universe-changing achievement like Avengers: Endgame? With a light-hearted high-school romp, of course! Just as Ant-Man and the Wasp lightened the mood following Infinity War last year, Spider-Man: Far From Home brings the scale of mayhem and destruction down a bit while delivering yet another marvelously entertaining entry to the MCU.

Spider-Man: Homecoming was a fun new version of the webslinger, but actors other than Tom Holland hadn’t quite settled into their roles and there was a tad too much “gee whiz, this is awesome” mentality, albeit an understandable one since they’re high school kids. In Far From Home, all the pieces just fit more comfortably, and characters like Zendaya’s MJ and Angourie Rice’s Betty Brant are given more presence than the first film. And, of course, the other big difference is the absence of Robert Downey, Jr.’s, mentoring Iron Man (for reasons everyone should know by now), though his legacy still plays a role.

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This time around, after most of Peter’s class was snapped out of existence by Thanos and then returned five years later in what is understatedly called the Blip, things have largely gone back to normal, and Peter and friends are eager to enjoy a school trip to Europe. Enter Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and the new interdimensional hero Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal) to interrupt Peter’s carefree vacation with the threat of elemental monsters wreaking havoc, which is almost as stressful as telling MJ he likes her.

Anyone familiar with the comics should know what to expect in regards to Mysterio, but there’s still plenty of action to enjoy, as well as some hilarious running gags and a few genuinely surprising twists. The subplots are all good fun, from the impromptu romance of Peter’s friend Ned (Jacob Batalon) to a rivalry between Peter and a handsome classmate (Remy Hii) for MJ’s affections. And of course, the visual effects are staggeringly well-executed, including a hallucinatory sequence that would feel right at home in a Doctor Strange movie.

It’s not above complaints, such as an unrealistic scene of the villain monologuing about his plan in detail or the uncertainty of why Peter is somehow expected to fill Iron Man’s shoes. Plus, Holland and Zendaya probably have the least chemistry as far as spider-couples go. Yet Far From Home serves as an enjoyable epilogue to the ambitious gravitas of Endgame, a teen comedy in superhero guise that ends Marvel’s Phase 3 on a high note, as well as a cliffhanger.

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Looking forward in Marvel’s timeline, it stings to notice that it looks like there’s no forward motion in the current storyline until late 2020 with The Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+. But maybe that’s best, what with the time jump of Endgame and the threat of people getting “superheroed out.” Not that I’m in danger of that. No, I’m still very much on the Marvel bandwagon and hoping, like so many, that Disney and Sony can come to some agreement on letting Spider-Man continue in the MCU. I don’t expect him to take Iron Man’s place, but he fits so well in this universe that it would be a shame for the powers that be to yank him out of it.

Best line: (Happy Hogan) “You handle the suit. I’ll handle the music.” [‘Back in Black’ by AC/DC plays]
(Peter) “Oh, I love Led Zeppelin!”

 

Rank: List-Worthy (joining Spider-Man: Homecoming)

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
646 Followers and Counting

 

2019 Blindspot Pick #7: Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honneamise (1987)

28 Wednesday Aug 2019

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The depths of space have tempted man
For years while holding him at bay
Through distance, death, and lack of breath,
Insisting that we humans stay.

But mankind rarely takes a hint,
For us, a challenge is a lure,
Inviting us to sojourn thus
And learn how far we can endure.
___________________

MPAA rating: Unrated (an attempted rape scene probably would make it R, but otherwise, it’s an easy PG-13)

Unless you’re a diehard anime fan, you probably read the title of this movie and said, “What the heck is that?” Well, now that I’ve seen most of the mainstream films anime has to offer, I’m now seeking out the obscure, and I was surprised at the glowing reviews this unknown film has gotten since its 1987 release, growing into an apparent classic of the medium with 100% on Rotten Tomatoes. (Imagine my surprise when Netflix didn’t have it, but my local library did.) Royal Space Force is a hard film to categorize, but it’s undoubtedly well-made with unexpected thematic depth.

Imagine an anime mixture of The Right Stuff and Contact, and you’ve got Royal Space Force, the title referring to the poorly organized space program of the fictional country of Honnêamise. (Hun-ee-a-meece? Honey-mice? I don’t know how it’s pronounced since I don’t recall the name ever being spoken.) While no one takes the program seriously with its poor management and frequent failures, a slacker recruit named Shirotsugh Lhadatt finds a new passion and ambition for the project after a run-in with a young female evangelist named Riquinni. Despite the innate dangers of this unprecedented venture, including hostilities from a rival nation, Lhadatt literally shoots for the stars in a quest for peace and meaning.

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Beyond the plot or characters, what makes Royal Space Force really unique is its comprehensive world-building. It’s not quite straight fantasy or science fiction: there are a couple futuristic machines and some unique animals, but otherwise there aren’t many fantastical elements to the setting. It’s just different, a vision of what our world might have looked like during the Space Race if history had taken a different route. Windows slide downwards; plane propellers spin on the tail of the plane; currency is made up of small needle-shaped pins instead of coins. The architecture of the cities is ornate yet believable, often a mish-mash of cultural styles that create something new. I would watch it again just to appreciate the imagination on display, the fashioning of an alter-earth with creativity sadly lacking in so many other animated films.

As someone with direct family ties to the space program, I was also intrigued at how this film would approach its version. The filmmakers went to NASA to study space flight, and their efforts at authenticity mix surprisingly well with the otherworldly setting. The training contraptions for preparing Lhadatt for his mission are more slapdash and home-made than NASA’s, but their crudeness highlights how big of a scientific leap space travel is for this world, as it was for our own. And by the time the launch day comes amid self-doubt and international turmoil, the event has a similar gravitas and grandeur as the real thing.

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Another unique aspect of this film was the role of religion. Riquinni’s faith is clearly a fictional one based off a couple stories mentioned, but her discussions of God and nightly dispersal of tracts are clearly an analog to Evangelical Christianity. And unlike Contact, which annoyed me by pitting faith and science against each other as if they were antithetical, Royal Space Force depicts faith as a positive influence, encouraging Lhadatt to believe he is part of something bigger than himself and push toward a brighter future. There have been plenty of anime with Christian elements and themes, but this movie climaxes with a sincere and moving prayer that is one of the most explicit declarations of faith I’ve seen in animation.

While it’s a significant achievement in the medium, Royal Space Force does suffer somewhat from a deliberate pace and not quite enough resolution by the end. It’s not boring and has a few thrilling sections, but you shouldn’t expect constant humor or action from its grounded drama. The biggest problem is a scene of attempted rape that saps a lot of the sympathy for Lhadatt, even if he seems repentant later, and also serves no other purpose than to put the film into “mature” territory. The scene was cut in its video release, and it would have been better if the initial editors had done the same.

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Now at least, I can check off another Blindspot from my list, an anime film that has held my curiosity for some time now. I think anyone interested in the development of space travel and speculative fiction would find much to appreciate, and fans of animation even more so, since this feature was the first project of Studio Gainax, which went on to the fame of producing series like Neon Genesis Evangelion and Gurren Lagann. Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise may have an ungainly name, but it deserves its low-key classic status, making me wonder if the sequel that’s been rumored for years will ever get off the ground.

Best line: (Riquinni, reading from her holy book) “And you shall find that prayer is the greatest of all things, and it is also the smallest. You’ll find nothing more noble than prayer, nothing more humble.”

Rank: List Runner-Up

© 2019 S.G. Liput
645 Followers and Counting

 

I Am Mother (2019)

23 Friday Aug 2019

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Mothers care,
And mothers bear
The heavy weight
Of a child’s welfare.

They guard the gate;
They mind and wait
Until that child
Can negotiate

The world so wild
And be exiled
From all that Mother
Once reconciled.
_________________

 
MPAA rating: TV-14 (aka PG-13, mainly due to heavy themes; nothing gratuitous)

It’s a good time to be a fan of science fiction, and Netflix has been supplying a steady stream of it, with I Am Mother immediately catching my eye with its trailer. One part dystopian sci-fi, one part psychological thriller, it’s a futuristic chamber piece that keeps the audience guessing as it asks whether humans or robots are the more trustworthy.

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The film starts with some unknown catastrophe that prompts a robot called Mother (voiced by Rose Byrne) to activate in an underground facility and begin the development of one of thousands of embryos stored there. We then cut to 38 years later, when a girl only referred to as Daughter (Clara Rugaard) grows into a teenager with Mother as her sole teacher and companion. (And if you recognize a discrepancy between the 38-year time skip and the teenage girl, rest assured that there’s a reason.) Daughter, however, entirely trusts and helps Mother, who has warned her of radiation outside, but the arrival of an injured woman (Hilary Swank) who warns her against her robotic guardian throws everything she’s ever known in doubt.

Those who know dystopian fiction might be able to guess the most likely explanation for what’s going on (though perhaps not all of it), but I Am Mother thrives on its atmospheric uncertainty. Mother seems to be a dutiful, even tender parent to Daughter, yet sci-fi has shown us too many times that advanced robotics are rarely sympathetic to mankind. Similarly, Swank as the unnamed woman knows more of the world and shares a common humanity with Daughter, yet she’s a survivor whose motivations are similarly hazy. There are lies and accusations of lies that can’t be proven, forcing Daughter to choose who has her best interest at heart and letting themes of truth, trust, and motherhood play out as only sci-fi can.

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Both Swank and Rugaard are excellent in their roles, while Byrne makes a surprisingly good female HAL, and the effects are every bit as impressive as a big budget Hollywood version of this story might have been. In many ways, it’s a coming-of-age story, one that shatters the Bechdel test while delivering a thriller that may have familiar elements but still delivers on its thought-provoking suspense. There are plenty of Netflix movies that only got there because they wouldn’t make it as a big-screen film, but I Am Mother is not one of them.

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
644 Followers and Counting

 

Mortal Engines (2018)

17 Friday May 2019

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We all survive in different ways
When struggles line our path.
We cry, we grieve, we carry on
And curse the aftermath.

There’s healthy ways to deal with loss,
Like, say, the world’s demise.
Yet most dystopias suggest
That man won’t be so wise.

Authoritarian regimes
Are now a stock motif.
But giant cities set on wheels?
That takes some disbelief!

Yet who can say what man might do?
His foolishness is nothing new.
_________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

I’m clearly more forgiving than most critics when it comes to the fantasy and sci-fi genres. In fact, I could probably compile a list of sci-fi films that critics have savaged and I’ve still enjoyed (note to self: make such a list for later). I was eagerly awaiting the release of the Peter Jackson-produced Mortal Engines, which promised a young-adult Mad Max: Fury Road on an even bigger scale, but then it tanked at the box office and earned a mere 26% on Rotten Tomatoes. That made me question my prior expectations, but now that I’ve seen it, it definitely fits into the category of movies that are better than their reviews indicate.

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Based on the first of a quartet of novels and directed by Christian Rivers, who has worked on the effects of many Jackson films, Mortal Engines is one of those far-flung, highly unlikely post-apocalyptic futures where the world has radically changed and forgotten its past, as evidenced by the amusingly misinterpreted “relics” of our present day. In this world, a terrible war has led to a system of “municipal Darwinism” in which cities have become mobile, mounted upon enormous tank tracks so they can hunt smaller towns for their resources, with London being the strongest. A scarred girl named Hester (Hera Hilmar) seeks revenge on London’s Deputy Lord Mayor Valentine (Hugo Weaving in familiar villain mode) for the death of her mother, and when a museum worker named Tom (Robert Sheehan) learns the truth, he is thrust into a journey with Hester to stop Valentine’s plans for world domination.

Mortal Engines has its imperfections, particularly in the way it blatantly echoes many better movies, such as Star Wars and Howl’s Moving Castle. (Really, Star Wars is a huge influence.) Yet there’s nothing that would warrant the film’s poor box office, unless people just don’t connect with the story’s post-apocalyptic quest and relatively unmemorable characters. The actors do their best, though, and I thought the film more than made up for its weaknesses with its epic steampunk visuals and fast-paced storyline.

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There are many references to unfamiliar places and events that are unique to the film’s internal history, and while this might make it hard to follow at times, I love this kind of world-building, making the story’s universe feel bigger than what we see onscreen. The moving cities crafted by Weta Digital reflect the same level of commitment and detail that the company brought to Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth films. And while the plot can feel derivative at times, one subplot featuring Stephen Lang as an undead cyborg adds great tension and a surprisingly emotional payoff. Mortal Engines may not be the blockbuster I thought it could be and certainly isn’t on par with The Lord of the Rings, but for fans of the genre, it’s a large-scale, effects-heavy adventure that deserved much better.

Best line: (Katherine Valentine) “How can a society so advanced, so scientific, be so stupid?”   (Tom) “Well, no more stupid than people today.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
632 Followers and Counting

 

Avengers: Endgame (2019)

08 Wednesday May 2019

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You failed to do your duty.
You failed the foe to thwart.
Are heroes those who do their best
And still come up too short?

The world could not be rescued.
Accepting that is key,
But afterwards, a hero asks
What forward path they see.

Perhaps the end is final;
Perhaps the race is run,
But if there still remains a chance,
The fight is not yet done.
___________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

This is the moment we’ve all been waiting for, the big payoff for the monumental cliffhanger that was the end of Avengers: Infinity War, the movie that twenty-one other films have been building up to over eleven years. To avoid unnecessary buildup on my part, I’ll just say it: Avengers: Endgame is awesome! The Marvel Cinematic Universe has had its ups and downs over the years, but Endgame is the culmination for which ardent fans like myself have been wishing.

I had to see Endgame on opening weekend (and then again the next day), but I’ll be sensitive to those who may not have gotten around to seeing it yet. I won’t mention how that one character ***************, or how awesome it was for ***************, or that heartbreaking moment where *******************. Nope, I’ll avoid major spoilers, but just know that I’m still buzzing over Endgame’s best elements.

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Given that spoiler caveat, I’m obviously limited in how much I can say about Endgame, but for anyone wondering if it delivers the proper payoff for Infinity War, the answer is a resounding “Yes!”  The intergalactic warlord Thanos (Josh Brolin) left a lot of damage in his wake, snapping half of the universe out of existence and leaving those who weren’t dusted with much to avenge. The likes of Captain America (Chris Evans), Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), and Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) all deal with the grief of the situation in different ways, with Hawkeye’s loss in particular sending him down a dark road of vengeance, but hope is renewed when Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) returns with a pitch for saving everyone with a not uncomplicated time travel mission.

Yes, there’s time travel, which makes me a happy fan. The opportunities this plot device allows are numerous, with many references to Back to the Future and many scenes revisiting past moments of the MCU, not unlike Back to the Future Part II. It’s a nerd’s delight, but these reminiscences are dwarfed by the all-out action spectacular at the film’s finale. It is hands down the most bombastic, exquisitely awesome sequence the MCU has fashioned to date, with huge stakes and Marvel fan service galore, which some have criticized but please, these movies were made for the fans and we/I loved it! Watching it again also allowed me to pick up on a host of tiny but smile-inducing references to past films, some obvious, some subtle. A small one that I noticed but haven’t seen anyone else mention involves one character simply calling another by name, where one stated in a previous movie that he didn’t care to be acquainted. The acting is beyond fault as well, and it was neat to have a double Lost alert with both Evangeline Lilly and Hiroyuki Sanada.

Of course, it’s not perfect, and I can’t completely disagree with some of the negatives I’ve heard. My VC loved it but wished certain plot directions hadn’t been abandoned, like the budding romance between Black Widow and Bruce Banner. Other opinions have found fault with the action-light slowness of the beginning, but this at least gives room for the characters to react realistically as the weight of the situation sinks in, and there’s still that trademark Marvel humor to keep things from getting too heavy. I do sort of wish they had offered some religious dimension to the loss, and I could have done without the somewhat more frequent profanity, even from the once clean-mouthed Captain America. And of course, as with any time travel story, there are plot holes, tons and tons of plot holes, some of which open up the potential for a multiverse of alternate time lines, some that feel like the characters didn’t think things through, and some that are likely meant to fuel fan theories and made me say, “Now, this only works if such and such actually happened.” (Oh, I wish I didn’t have to hold back, but maybe that’s for another post. Though, there are plenty of YouTube videos with such theories too.)

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Even with these negatives, even if one of my friends referred to it as “a big glorious mess,” Avengers: Endgame is everything you could want in a big superhero finale, allowing for future storylines but tying up others in a climactic and usually satisfying way. It’s already broken box office records left and right, and after it recently passed Titanic for overall gross, I’m rooting for it to surpass Avatar too. This deserves to be the highest-grossing film of all time, and if Avatar and Black Panther can do it, I’d like to see it earn a Best Picture nomination too. Perhaps it will be a Return of the King situation where the finale gets the real reward. Even if it doesn’t, though, I can tell that Endgame was made by Marvel fans and for Marvel fans; the worst part is that it’s hard to imagine Marvel’s future offerings ever matching the new high bar it has set.

Best funny line: (Tony Stark, to Rocket Raccoon) “Honestly, at this exact second, I thought you were a Build-a-Bear.”   (Rocket) “Maybe I am.”

Best serious line:  (Tony) “No amount of money ever bought a second of time.”

 

Rank: List-Worthy (joining Infinity War)

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
630 Followers and Counting

 

Cartoon Comparisons: Alita: Battle Angel (2019) / Gunnm (1993)

29 Monday Apr 2019

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a poem that meditates on a strong emotion, like disillusionment with the world at large.)

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The world is not the friendly place we once had promised to ourselves
When youthful optimism held some sway within our hearts.
We like to think that’s still the case, and yet the more a person delves,
The more this human-born machine reveals its sordid parts.

It’s tragedy that truly wakes our minds to darkness come to light,
That shows how cruel the world can be, with men its messengers.
We’re ignorant of risk and stakes, and enter honestly the fight,
Too late to learn the world was not designed for amateurs.
___________________

MPAA rating: PG-13 (comes close to R with the violence)

I’ve been looking forward to Alita: Battle Angel for well over a year, ever since I heard James Cameron was planning on bringing the long-running manga Battle Angel Alita (a.k.a. Gunnm) to Hollywood. This movie fascinates me not only for its visually awesome cyberpunk future, but also because it owes its existence to one man’s passion project, bringing an extremely niche franchise to a far wider audience than it otherwise would have enjoyed. It makes me wish something similar would happen with Steins;Gate or Cowboy Bebop.

Adaptations between manga/anime and live-action have historically been more miss than hit, but Alita is finally the hit that fans have been waiting for, faithful to its origins in the best way. I, for one, have not read the manga that so enthralled James Cameron, but I have watched the 1993 OVA (Original Video Animation), which is basically like a direct-to-video anime. At only 55 minutes long, it was an imaginative if brutal sci-fi that I definitely recognized had plenty of potential for the big screen. And now that it has, I’m thrilled that such potential was not wasted.

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The manga/anime/film tells the story of the cyborg Alita (Rosa Salazar), a girl whose head is discovered in a trash heap by cybernetics expert Dr. Ido (Christoph Waltz). Finding her human brain still active, he rebuilds her body and introduces the amnesiac girl to the cutthroat world of Iron City, a sprawling dystopia patrolled by cyborg bounty hunters and festering in the shadow of the floating city known as Zalem. Trying to regain her memories, Alita becomes a Hunter Warrior herself as she falls in love with young Hugo (Keean Johnson) and navigates the plotting of Ido’s rival Dr. Chiren (Jennifer Connolly), the villainous Vector (Mahershala Ali), and his killer henchmen.

As it is, Alita might bring to mind several other films, such as Elysium with its floating city of higher class exploitation or the cyberpunk aesthetic of Ghost in the Shell, but I can’t help but feel that, if Alita had come out twenty years ago, it would be blowing people’s minds left and right. Yet the manga predates most of what it seems to borrow from, though the sport of Motorball definitely seems inspired by Rollerball.

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I’m glad, though, that Cameron wasn’t able to make Alita when he first wanted to back in 2003 because the visuals wouldn’t have been this good. Alita: Battle Angel is a sci-fi action treat, with visual effects that have a good shot at an Oscar next year. Alita herself is stunningly realized, with Rosa Salazar providing a strong motion capture performance, augmented by the effects team with those anime-sized eyes that aren’t as hard to get used to as you might think. There are a few hiccups in the animation early on that threaten to be distracting, but by the time Alita starts kicking criminal butt, she’s seamlessly a part of this world.

The live-action Ghost in the Shell was distracting for me because it was a mish-mash of various plot points from the anime film and series; Alita, on the other hand, might be the most faithful adaptation I’ve come across. Nearly everything in the anime is also in the movie, sometimes even shot for shot (like Chiren squishing a bug while telling Ido she’ll claw her way back to Zalem), though the movie’s greater length allows it to expand on many plot elements, such that watching the anime is like a highlight reel of the film. Considering how anime adaptations have flopped so hard over the years, the film’s faithfulness to its source material is laudable and likely credited to the efforts of Cameron himself as a fan of the manga. Interestingly, I understand that some differences from the manga were actually borrowed from the anime; one villainous character is killed in both versions but apparently survives much longer in the manga.

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That’s not to say there aren’t other differences; the source of Alita’s name and body is given more emotional weight in the film, and Ido’s former relationship with Chiren is explicitly romantic where it wasn’t before. And the film throws in entire sections that I can only assume are drawn from the manga since they weren’t in the anime, like the deadly sport of Motorball and the glimpses of Alita’s forgotten past. For me, these additions only added to the epic dystopian world-building that I so admire.

One thing I was concerned about the adaptation was just how violent it would end up being, and I was relieved that it earned a PG-13 rating and the wider audience that that entails. Don’t get me wrong; Alita: Battle Angel definitely pushes the boundary for a PG-13 film with multiple heads and limbs sent flying, but the anime is certainly more violent and bloody. The movie may have its brutal moments, but I was glad it was largely bloodless, leaving out the anime’s brief nudity and leaving some cruel moments mercifully offscreen.

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While Alita was a pleasure to watch on the big screen, I find myself struggling with how to rank it. I’m still not a fan of the mostly bitter ending common to both the anime and film, but I’m excited for whatever may come in the (hopefully forthcoming) sequel, which is uncharted territory for me. My ranking could easily change with time, but I’ll err on the side of caution and make it a List Runner-Up. Nevertheless, for the most part, Alita: Battle Angel was pure effects-heavy coolness and as good as I’d hoped it would be, proving that Hollywood can make good films based on manga/anime. Perhaps it simply takes someone like James Cameron to steer them in the right direction.

Best line: (Alita) “I do not stand by in the presence of evil!”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
628 Followers and Counting

 

Pitch Black (2000)

23 Tuesday Apr 2019

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a poem about animals, so I tried to be less literal and wrote of how man is the most dangerous animal of all.)

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Animals, animals!
What an insult
For mankind to level at one of his own!
An absence of conscience,
Deeds unprincipled –
For these, as an animal you will be known!

But animals do not
Take life for mere fun,
Nor yet do they harbor a conscience to lose.
No, those are unique
To the broken human,
The one so-called animal known to abuse.

It’s man that can foster the good and the just
Or evil that leaves animals in the dust.
_____________________

MPAA rating:  R

Science fiction has always been one of my favorite genres, so it was only a matter of time for me to catch up on Vin Diesel’s cult-classic Riddick series, which all started with Pitch Black. Oddly enough, Pitch Black is the highest rated of the trilogy on Rotten Tomatoes, yet still bears a 59% Rotten rating. Yet most films don’t garner a trilogy without doing something right, and Pitch Black does more right than wrong.

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You know what I considered Pitch Black both before I saw it and while I was watching it? A more R-rated version of Aliens. While its plot is undoubtedly inspired by Aliens, I didn’t realize till afterward that Aliens has more profanity and comparable violence. I guess I’m just so used to seeing it cut when it comes on TV that such things stood out more in Pitch Black. Regardless, though, I love Aliens, and I enjoyed Pitch Black for many of the same reasons.

It doesn’t start out as a monster movie. A shipful of passengers in cryostasis are rudely awakened by disaster (not unlike Alien: Covenant) and stranded on a planet of perpetual daylight. Among them is the now-famous Richard B. Riddick (Diesel), a dangerous and shiny-eyed prisoner freed in mid-transport. As the survivors seek a way off the planet, they learn that they’ve arrived just in time for a long eclipse and that deadly swarms of darkness-loving creatures live underground and will soon be free to hunt above it. Good thing Riddick can see in the dark, right?

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Like Aliens, Pitch Black thrives on the thrill of man vs. alien, with the aliens being either slithery, hammer-headed beasts or smaller pterodactyl-like swarms. Aside from Diesel’s hard-boiled convict, the human characters aren’t as memorable as some in this genre, but they fill their roles well, especially in how they are forced to balance survival with their general distrust of Riddick and the bounty hunter (Cole Hauser) gunning for him. Radha Mitchell even has a stirring character arc concerning the weighing of lives, and Keith David plays a travelling imam, highlighting how unusually diverse it is to see a Muslim in science fiction.

The creatures and visual effects work surprisingly well, considering they’re not as polished as most Hollywood features; in fact, the way writer-director David Twohy shot it sometimes gives scenes an odd TV movie quality. This belies its modest budget yet somehow works to the film’s advantage, keeping some of the more violent parts blurry and contributing to its cult classic status.

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In many respects, Pitch Black feels like someone wanted to give their own spin to the Aliens formula, but it has enough plot twists and unique action sequences to set it apart as more than a lazy copycat. There are still moments where characters act stupidly and don’t seem to realize that darkness = bad, but it’s also memorably tense, particularly a death scene involving a lighter that ought to be more famous simply for its chilling visual impact. Pitch Black may not rival Aliens for sci-fi horror and doesn’t exactly end as I would have liked, but it’s quite an entertaining member of the genre with perhaps the best antihero I’ve come across, one worthy of a cult classic status.

Best line: (Johns, the bounty hunter) “Battlefield doctors decide who lives and dies. It’s called ‘triage’.”   (Riddick) “They kept calling it ‘murder’ when I did it.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
627 Followers and Counting

 

Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991)

20 Saturday Apr 2019

Posted by in Movies, NaPoWriMo, Poetry, Reviews, Writing

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a poem based on the way people normally talk, so I poked fun at the devolution of the English language. Best read with a valley girl/guy accent.)

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Have you ever, like, noticed how people, like, talk,
Contracting their verbs into mush?
It’s, you know, “I wanna,” “I’m gonna,” and stuff
That’d make Noah Webster, like, blush.

I don’t know how English, like, got to this point,
But I follow it to the letter.
It’s, you know, like, likely you like how you talk,
But other folks shoulda learned better.
_______________

MPAA rating: PG

It may have only taken two years for Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure to get a sequel, but it took me at least a decade to finally catch up with their Bogus Journey. There’s something about the first film that’s so absurdly entertaining, so I wanted to believe that that creative lightning would strike again with the sequel.

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The first film had a goal specified early on, gathering historical figures so Bill (Alex Winter) and Ted (Keanu Reeves) don’t flunk history and ruin the future in the process. In this one, the plot rambles even more, as an ambitious baddie in the future (Joss Ackland) sends evil Bill and Ted robots back in time to kill the good Bill and Ted and pave the way for their master’s reign. I’ll just ignore how absurd the plan is and how the bad guy doesn’t seem to understand how altering the past works. The film’s original title was Bill and Ted Go to Hell, a fitting option as the plot veers away from sci-fi and pits the dimwitted duo against the Grim Reaper (white-faced William Sadler, unrecognizable compared with his roles in Shawshank or The Green Mile).

Of course, it was fun revisiting Bill and Ted and their valley-guy nomenclature, with even a cameo from George Carlin, and Winter and Reeves fit these roles like two chuckleheaded gloves. I did get a kick out of the film’s reference to Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal and its game against Death (as well as the realization that this film surely inspired the cartoon series The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy). Yet for all its humor, I didn’t laugh very often, and the rampant silliness just didn’t quite match the “educated stupidity,” as I call it, of the first film.

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It’s telling when one film has “Excellent” in the title and the next one has “Bogus.” This sequel isn’t bad and even quite amusing with some quotable gems, but perhaps I need to see it a few more times before I can embrace its cult classic status. With the announcement of a long-awaited third film entitled Bill and Ted Face the Music, I’m hoping the next one will be better.

Best line: (Bill, after seeing hell) “We got totally lied to by our album covers, man.”

 

Rank: Honorable Mention

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
627 Followers and Counting

 

Isle of Dogs (2018)

14 Sunday Apr 2019

Posted by in Movies, NaPoWriMo, Poetry, Reviews, Writing

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a poem using homonyms or the confusion common to the English language, so, taking my cue from cleverly homophonic film title, I tried to apply it instead to the language of dogs.)

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The language of dogs is a curious tongue.
It cannot be written and cannot be sung.

A “ruff” isn’t “rough” or the variant “roof”;
It’s “Give me a biscuit! I’m not hunger-proof.”

A “bark” isn’t something that grows from a tree.
It’s “Take me outside or else give me a key.”

A “whine” isn’t alcohol people can pour;
It’s “Don’t look at me; it’s that cat from next door.”

A “yelp” doesn’t reference a restaurant review.
It’s “Help! I’ve run out of apparel to chew.”

And woof, yap, and yip have no clear homonym.
So when your dog says them, you’ll have to ask him.
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MPAA rating: PG-13

A Wes Anderson expert I am not, but I could tell from the two films of his that I’d seen in full (Rushmore and Fantastic Mr. Fox) that he’s an acquired taste I wasn’t sure I cared to acquire. It’s hard to compare the works of this king of quirk with more traditional cinematic style, but Isle of Dogs has an enjoyably straightforward plot couched among Anderson’s typical flashbacks, symmetrical designs, and camera-facing monologues.

First of all, I love the play on words with Isle of Dogs sounding like “I love dogs” (by the way, that’s the name of an actual district in London), and indeed a love of dogs plays a big part in the movie. In a near-future Japan, an outbreak of disease has led to all dogs of Megasaki City being quarantined on a nearby island. A young boy named Atari, the ward of the dog-hating mayor, goes there in search of his own dog and journeys with a colorful band of alpha dogs, with nation-changing results.

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One thing I can definitely say for Isle of Dogs and all of Anderson’s films is that they’re clearly labors of love. Stop-motion animation takes unparalleled patience and attention to detail, and the animation quality and fluidity rival that of Laika (the gold standard studio for stop-motion, see Kubo and the Two Strings, Coraline, etc.), with set design made even more laudable by its miniature size. On top of that, the storyline, broken into chapters like a storybook, is buoyed by the bond between Atari and man’s best friend, finding surprising sweetness alongside the not-too-distracting idiosyncrasies.

Something my VC didn’t care for was how the dogs speak English but the language of the Japanese characters is not rendered in English, though it often is translated through electronic or human means. I took it as simply a creative choice, which worked best with Atari’s interactions with the dogs, since we never know how much dogs actually understand our words. Because of this, the dogs get the bulk of the dialogue, and Anderson collected an outstanding voice cast, including Bill Murray, Bryan Cranston, Jeff Goldblum, Edward Norton, Scarlett Johansson, Liev Schreiber, and even a cameo from Yoko Ono.

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Isle of Dogs is a little more mature than most animated films these days, with some darker-than-expected story elements, some of which are relieved by the droll humor and a clever twist or two. But for older kids, dog lovers, and fans of stop-motion, Isle of Dogs is an unconventional treat and certainly the best Wes Anderson film I’ve seen. Maybe next he’ll do a Christmas spin-off called Yule of Dogs.

Best line: (Nutmeg) “Will you help him, the little pilot?”
(Chief) “Why should I?”
(Nutmeg) “Because he’s a twelve-year-old boy. Dogs love those.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
625 Followers and Counting