Tag Archives: Sci-fi

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

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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

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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.
____________________

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

 

Annihilation (2018)

13 Saturday Apr 2019

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a spooky and mysterious poem. Of course, I could have used either of the movies from the last two days, but this one works too, with its theme of unchecked change hopefully providing the chill factor I was going for.)

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The world is changing before my eyes,
And what a surprise
To notice mutations that God never tried
That eons would normally cover and hide.

That tree over there was not always a tree.
Nor was that creature that lurks in its shade.
Should I be afraid?
For I know what they are,
But what kind of people did they use to be?

Betrayed by their cells, too minute to resist,
They changed and exchanged what had made them exist.
What monsters are born from a change so extreme,
A mutable dream
Where men were not always the beasts that they seem?

Are questions of sanity signs that you’re sane?
Just being here mixes unease in my brain.
For I’m not immune;
My own skin’s a cocoon.
When it hatches, how much of myself will remain?
____________________

MPAA Rating: R (for some language and gruesome violence)

From the trailers, Annihilation looked like the kind of movie to follow in the footsteps of Arrival with its slow-burn, high-concept science fiction. Or maybe that’s just what I wished it was. It’s actually closer in spirit to 2001: A Space Odyssey, and while most critics considered that a point in Annihilation’s favor, it’s not for me.

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Natalie Portman plays a cellular biologist and ex-soldier named Lena, who recounts her story to a hazmat-suit-wearing Benedict Wong. After her soldier husband Kane (Oscar Isaac) disappears on a mission, he returns a year later changed and distant, and Lena soon learns where he has been: a forested region of Florida, where a shimmering, expanding wall has puzzled scientists and swallowed any team sent to investigate it. Along with a head psychologist (Jennifer Jason Leigh), a paramedic (Gina Rodriguez), a physicist (Tessa Thompson), and a geomorphologist (Tuva Novotny), Lena enters “the Shimmer” in an effort to unravel its mysteries.

I’ll admit writer-director Alex Garland’s Annihilation has the high acting and production standards that modern sci-fi deserves, and it’s a home run at least on a visual level. The set-up is superbly intriguing, and Lena’s journey into the Shimmer is buoyed by the allure of the unknown. Signals and light are unexplainably altered. Monsters and strange species lurk out of sight. The evidence they find of Kane’s mission challenges their sanity.

It’s Alien-level tension and uncertainty (or at least Prometheus-level), but all this mystery has to lead somewhere for it to be worthwhile, and Annihilation’s ending is just too ambiguous for its own good. That’s where the comparisons to 2001 ring true, with the largely wordless climax playing out like a fever dream of compelling but nebulous menace. In the end, though, its unanswered questions just left me puzzled by its enigmatic lack of resolution.

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It’s odd that this would be my gripe when I commended the ambiguity of The Endless just a couple days ago. I guess The Endless was open to interpretation in a way that suggested a complexity that was justifiably out of reach (and at least the main plot got some resolution), whereas Annihilation seemed more intentionally esoteric, like a puzzle where the writer was hiding pieces from you and chuckling at his own shrewdness. Maybe that makes no sense, and maybe others will enjoy the film’s mind-twisting, but Annihilation left me unsatisfied, just as my VC was left unsatisfied by the novel on which it was based (and by all the changes made by the filmmakers). I enjoyed the set-up, but not where it led. With its middling box office returns, they may or may not adapt the other books in the series, but either way, I’m not sure the resolution is worth caring about.

Best line: (Dr. Ventress) “Then, as a psychologist, I think you’re confusing suicide with self-destruction. Almost none of us commit suicide, and almost all of us self-destruct. In some way, in some part of our lives. We drink, or we smoke, we destabilize the good job… and a happy marriage. But these aren’t decisions, they’re… they’re impulses. In fact, you’re probably better equipped to explain this than I am.”
(Lena) “What does that mean?”
(Ventress) “You’re a biologist. Isn’t the self-destruction coded into us? Programmed into each cell?”

 

Rank: Dishonorable Mention

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
625 Followers and Counting

 

The Endless (2018)

11 Thursday Apr 2019

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a poem of origin, so, inspired by the time loops in this film, I focused on how where we’re going might mirror where we’ve been.)

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Is darkness our friend?
They say we came from darkness.

We’ve grown up searching for the light
From friends both fickle and contrite,
From dogs that lick and dogs that bite,
And lies that distance and unite.

It feels as though our life’s a loop,
A track so many have run before,
From more to less and less to more,
And ere our ship returns to shore,
Our time is short, but we explore.

The light’s the loop,
The dark’s the end,
They say we’re headed for darkness.
Is darkness still our friend?
____________________

MPAA rating:  Not Rated (R for the language and some violence, though there’s much worse out there)

Not being a huge fan of horror, I’ll admit I’m not very familiar with the works of H.P. Lovecraft, a name I’ve noticed becoming more and more popular lately. What constitutes Lovecraftian horror is new to me, but from what I understand, it deals with terrifying cosmic powers beyond the scope of human understanding, or basically fear of the unknowable. If that’s right, The Endless might be the best example I’ve seen, a fascinating and slow-burning mystery with an undercurrent of paranoia and weirdness.

Two brothers Justin and Aaron (played by Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, who also directed and split work on writing, editing, and cinematography) are struggling with normal life some years after escaping from a so-called “UFO death cult” out in the desert. Aaron remembers their time there as one of stability and plenty and wishes to return, and, though Justin is dead-set against it, he agrees to briefly visit their former home after a mysterious video arrives. Strangely, very little seems to have changed, but the longer the brothers stay, the more uncanny events seem to happen, portending a great danger that might be inescapable.

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I won’t pretend to claim that I completely understood the film’s plot, but The Endless is well-acted and has intrigue to spare, with mysteries and fear piling on top of each other and most of the questions left largely unanswered by the end. Yet it’s very much a case of what you don’t see being scarier than what you do; there’s not really any nightmarish imagery, more foreboding and unease. A prime example is when the brothers are invited to pull on a rope as one of the community’s confidence exercises. The rope stretches off into the darkness as each person plays tug-of-war with something, with the chill factor coming from the lack of knowing what that something is.

As the film goes on, it enters a wilder side of science fiction, with time loops and fractured dimensions that challenge the mind and don’t provide easy answers, if any, but through it all, the brotherly bond between Justin and Aaron proves to be a strong human element to ground the craziness. I’m curious now to check out one of Benson and Moorhead’s previous films called Resolution, which apparently expands on one of the subplots from this movie, or vice versa. (Fans of theirs were no doubt happy to spot the connection.)

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Like Chronesthesia, The Endless is an example of multitasking filmmakers making the most of a limited budget and delivering a surprisingly solid product; the special effects are especially well-done for an independent film. It’s also one of those movies worth rewatching and discussing with others, if only to understand it better, though perhaps that lack of full comprehension is both the point and the appeal.

Best line: (an anonymous quote displayed at the beginning) “Friends tell each other how they feel with relative frequency. Siblings wait for a more convenient time, like their deathbeds.”

 

Rank: List Runner-Up

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
622 Followers and Counting

 

Snowpiercer (2013)

06 Saturday Apr 2019

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(Today’s NaPoWriMo prompt was for a poem about the possible, so I tackled the improbability/possibility of sci-fi dystopias.)

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What would you call an improbable threat
For the future that no one has witnessed as yet?
Dystopian visions are dozens per dime,
Propped up by the volatile nature of time.

Who knows if we might be supplanted by apes,
Or drive over ruined, deserted landscapes?
Who knows if we might be beset by undead,
Or banned from free thought by a Big Brother head?
Perhaps we might battle an alien foe
That strikes from above or attacks from below.
The sun may desert us or scorch us to ash,
Or robots may kill us or clean up our trash,
Or humans may live in a virtual setting
That no one recalls since it’s built on forgetting.
Or maybe, just maybe, mankind may well learn
From all its mistakes that so often return
And set up a world of the peaceful and wise,
Not built on the backs of control and dark lies.

But with all of the ifs that end nightmarishly,
I think that’s unlikely, but hey, it might be.
_____________________

MPAA rating: R

It’s hard to know how I feel about Snowpiercer. On the one hand, I can appreciate the ambition that went into this epic dystopian vision, and on the other, I’m confounded by the bizarrely unrealistic concept that remains straight-faced throughout all its weirdness and violence. It’s a film I’m glad to have seen once, but I’m not sure I want to see it again.

After a half-baked attempt to stop global warming sends the planet into a deep freeze, the only remaining humans are those aboard the Snowpiercer, a high-speed train looping endlessly across the globe. The wealthy live in luxury in the front of the train, while those in the back scrape by in squalor and authoritarian suppression, personified by the loathsome Minister Mason (Tilda Swinton with false teeth). After seventeen years, the have-nots make their final push for change as their leader Curtis (Chris Evans) aims to take the engine.

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The biggest problem with Snowpiercer is buying into its unlikely dystopia without being distracted by just how unlikely it is. So much science fiction is dedicated to conjuring future worlds where vices are taken to extremes or improbable outcomes challenge our perceptions, so in some ways, Snowpiercer is in good company. But then again (and my views may be tainted by a semi-famous and extremely negative review I read a while back), there is such a thing as too many plot holes. Why is one Korean girl psychic? How is it that the wealthy of the front section have perfectly maintained amenities and clean clothes with no visible manufacturing or service areas? It’s a train after all; there’s only so much room in the cars, all of which Curtis passes through to get to the front, often with random themes, like an aquarium or a rave. Surely this train isn’t as self-sustainable as it appears with no outside resources. Considering the body count and how pyrrhic the battle becomes, how can the ending be viewed as anything but a total downer waving a shred of false hope?

It’s a lot to overlook, yet, if you can, there’s much to appreciate as well. The set design and limited CGI effects (mainly any exterior shots) have a convincing world-building flair, and the fight scenes, while unnecessarily bloody, are tense and shocking, with a strange preoccupation with limb amputations. The film does excel as an action movie and has moments of pointed social commentary about the breakdown of society, though its almost cartoonish class struggle themes were done far better in The Hunger Games series.

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Snowpiercer seems to be divisive, and all in all, I can’t completely agree with either end of the spectrum. It’s not a total train wreck (pun intended) as some faultfinders have derided it, but neither does it seem worthy of its effusive critical praise and 95% on Rotten Tomatoes. I’m somewhere in the middle, dubiously positive you might say. If you can manage to take its grim craziness in stride, Snowpiercer may be the dystopia for you.

Best line: (Wilford, the creator of the train) “Curtis, everyone has their preordained position, and everyone is in their place except you.”  (Curtis) “That’s what people in the best place say to the people in the worst place.”

 

Rank: Honorable Mention

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
620 Followers and Counting

 

Captain Marvel (2019)

24 Sunday Mar 2019

Posted by in Movies, Poetry, Reviews, Writing

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What makes a hero, I ask you, my friend?
Some inhuman power defending good ends?
Some courage or virtue beyond normal means
Or blasting the bad guys to small smithereens?
Perhaps perseverance, refusing to yield,
Or wielding a weapon, a sword or a shield?
No, heroes are simple yet more than all these,
And those they inspire can spot them with ease.
_____________________

MPAA rating:  PG-13

Well, I’d say the Marvel Cinematic Universe has a new MVP. No, not Captain Marvel, although she’s pretty cool too. I’m talking about a scene-stealing cat named Goose (which is a Top Gun reference since Carol Danvers was an Air Force pilot). There are still endless possibilities in the MCU, many of which are opened by this very movie, but I’d be happy if every movie from now on had a cameo from Goose.

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As for the rest of the movie, widely touted as Marvel’s first film with a main female protagonist, Captain Marvel is a success beyond the cultural box it ticks. I had some reservations about Brie Larson playing Carol Danvers, just because of how serious she is in most of the trailers, but she is a welcome addition to the MCU, finding a healthy balance between self-assured power and typical Marvel humor. It does help that she usually has someone to play off of, sometimes Jude Law as her Kree trainer Yon-Rogg but mostly that someone being Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, who has two eyes and is digitally de-aged (incredibly well, by the way) since this is set back in 1995. Having already starred together in Kong: Skull Island and Unicorn Store, the two have great buddy-movie rapport as they take on the war between the shape-shifting Skrulls and the Kree Empire.

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A word to the uninitiated: Captain Marvel doesn’t try to give many concessions to the casual Marvel viewer. There are moments in the first quarter or so that are bound to leave people confused, but it picks up when events (and Captain Marvel herself) get more down to earth. The alien Skrulls, who can impersonate anyone, make for an intriguing foe, especially with Ben Mendelsohn as their leader, and the makeup work for them is much more effective than if they had been created solely with CGI. And as usual with Marvel, the effects and action are top-notch, especially when Danvers reaches her maximum power (the “Whoo!”s she makes while destroying alien ships really add to the fun).

My VC wasn’t all that excited for Captain Marvel. Not being much of a feminist, she didn’t like the gender switch, since she associated the name Captain Marvel with the male hero Mar-Vell from the comics (never mind that the name originally belonged to the DC character now known as Shazam). While it didn’t remove all her reservations, the film managed to win her over to accept this version of the character. I think this was not only due to the fun ‘90s setting but also its message of perseverance that is universally human, not being limited to male or female. Whether Carol Danvers is known as Ms. Marvel or Captain Marvel (neither name is actually used in the movie), she’s a welcome heroine for the MCU for reasons beyond the fact that she’s a she.

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Captain Marvel is a well-made origin story that sits squarely in the middle of the MCU rankings and, like last year’s Black Panther, doesn’t seem to have much bearing on the next Avengers movie following in its wake, aside from providing background for a major character. Nevertheless, it has lots of well-planned ties into the larger MCU (loved Stan Lee’s tribute, and I’ll never look at Fury and his scar the same way again!) and still whets the appetite of us Marvel nerds; the first thing I said when the credits rolled was, “At least we only have another month to wait,” to which my VC replied, “Thank God!” Now, in addition to all the hopes and fears I had for Endgame, I can add the hope that Goose will make an appearance. Fingers crossed!

Best line: (Carol Danvers) “What does your mother call you then?”
(Nick Fury) “Fury.”
(Carol) “What do your friends call you?”
(Fury) “Fury.”
(Carol) “Kids?”
(Fury) “If I ever have them? Fury.”

 

Rank: List-Worthy

 

© 2019 S.G. Liput
613 Followers and Counting

 

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (2018)

16 Sunday Dec 2018

Posted by in Movies, Poetry, Reviews, Writing

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History repeats itself more often than it should,
For man is vain and foolish even after childhood.

The same mistakes will plague mankind until at last we learn,
Though when that may or may not come is cause for some concern.

Self-destruction is a right we mastered long ago;
We’re just too curious to see, this time, how it will go,
And so we do not slow.
__________________________

MPAA rating: PG-13

For starters, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom was never very high on my list of highly anticipated movies this year. The first Jurassic World was good and I like anything with Chris Pratt, but the law of diminishing returns definitely applies here. Some years after the incidents of Jurassic World, Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen (Pratt) are called back to the island of dinosaurs to rescue as many as possible before the volcano erupts, and naturally the sponsor of the expedition has some ulterior motives.

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It wasn’t until I actually saw the movie that I realized why my excitement for it was so low: the trailers. The entire first half of the movie on the island was spoiled in the trailers, making even scary or spectacular scenes carry zero tension for me. I’m sure future viewers who didn’t see the trailers beforehand might not have this problem, but I wish the trailer editors wouldn’t divulge so much, even the ending itself. Granted, the second half, mostly set in an expansive mansion on a dark and stormy night, carries a great deal more anxiety, shock value, and stylish horror flourishes, but skilled director J.A Bayona can’t completely reinvent the wheel.  Arrogant characters still make dumb decisions, and despite efforts to stay inventive, it feels like this series doesn’t have much new to offer.

There’s an ongoing argument of whether the dinosaurs should be allowed to die out again or not, a question about which my VC felt strongly. She didn’t see why everyone was insisting on saving the dinos, and while I lean more toward the conservationist viewpoint of keeping them alive but contained, I do think the film’s message is left muddled. (Plus, why Claire is suddenly so protective of the dinos, I don’t know.) By the end, one character sides with saving the deadly animals above all other concerns, putting their lives above human ones, which is a thoroughly wrong-headed sentiment that left a sour taste none of the other sequels have. My VC and I agreed that “because they’re alive” isn’t a good enough reason to put human lives in danger when it comes down to either us or them.

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Oh, and one other thing. Everyone was talking about the dinosaurs becoming extinct again after the volcanic eruption on Isla Nublar. What about Site B on Isla Sorna, which has never been mentioned since Jurassic Park III? There should still be dinosaurs on that island, right? Anyway, I don’t mean to sound like I hated it, since it still had many of the ingredients that made the first Jurassic Park and Jurassic World enjoyable, just watered down and overly spoiled by trailers. Time will tell if the next sequel can redeem this one’s weaknesses.

Best line: (Ian Malcolm, in a welcome but all-too-brief cameo) “Change is like death. You don’t know what it looks like till you’re standing at the gates.”

 

Rank: Honorable Mention

 

© 2018 S.G. Liput
599 Followers and Counting