Over at Salon.com Max Cea reviews the documentary American Anarchist. The film, directed by Charlie Siskel (he is the nephew of movie critic Gene Siskel), focuses on William Powell, the man who in 1971 published the very controversial book The Anarchist’s Cookbook. The review of the film can be found here:
I’m incredibly fascinated with the subject matter.
Back in High School, I recall at least one fellow dorm dweller having a copy, though I suspect it wasn’t so much that the person who had it fancied themselves an anarchist but rather they wanted to own this controversial book. In the book, Mr. Powell, who wrote it when he was 19, weary of the Vietnam War, and held a “radical libertarian’s” viewpoint, offered a manual of how to make DIY explosives/weapons and drugs.
Mr. Powell is now 65 years old and, according to the review, was not aware of the “influence” this tome has had over the years, including being found among the possessions of the Columbine shooters.
According to the review:
(Mr. Powell) has publicly denounced the book’s message and argued for it to be taken out of print. “Over the years, I have come to understand that the basic premise behind the Cookbook is profoundly flawed,” he wrote in a 2013 Guardian op-ed. “The anger that motivated the writing of the Cookbook blinded me to the illogical notion that violence can be used to prevent violence.”
Further, the review notes Mr. Powell is not that interested in looking into his book’s connections to other acts of violence. Though he clearly regrets the book and its contents today and wishes it was “out of print”, I get the feeling from the review that Mr. Powell feels the publication of the book is not unlike a gun-maker producing weapons which subsequently are used for violence. The defense is the old “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” cliche.
I’m very likely simplifying things as Mr. Powell no doubt holds his own views and I cannot get into his mind. Nonetheless, the documentary intrigues me.
I certainly feel for Mr. Powell as 1971 was a rough time to be a 19 year old. With the Vietnam War raging and the draft still in effect, the idea of going overseas to fight -and possibly die- for what many considered by then a worthless war must have created a tremendous strain in many people of Mr. Powell’s age.
His book, created at the height of these very harsh times, will likely be his life’s legacy and it must bother him that a book he now wishes was “out of print” remains out there and, possibly, influencing minds if not actions.
As someone who writes, this proves to be a cautionary tale. Whatever you choose to write and publish might linger for many, many years beyond the time of publication and if you’re forward thinking you may want to carefully consider this before releasing something into the general public.
Samuel L. Jackson, during an interview for (I’m guessing) his new Kong: Skull Island film, had some thoughts on the use of British actors to play African American roles, such as the lead in the hit film Get Out:
I appreciate Mr. Jackson’s point. There is something to be said about British actors playing “American” Black people, especially in a film where the American Black experience is an integral part of the movie’s plot. Mr. Jackson, too, is not alone in lamenting the use of actors to depict certain racial roles they clearly are not.
I suppose it would be weird to see, say, notable American actors like Clint Eastwood or Robert Redford playing, say, Sherlock Holmes or James Bond. Especially if they were trying to emulate a British accent.
Keep that example in mind because there is also an effort of late regarding casting a person of a certain race when the original character was not originally presented that way. In this, Samuel L. Jackson can very easily be listed as prime example “A”.
One of Mr. Jackson’s bigger roles of late is that of Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. in the Marvel movies. A character who, in the comics, looked like this…
That’s him, before getting his eyepatch, on the far left of the image. The character moved from a WWII fighter to a secret agent (this was to capitalize on the James Bond craze in the 1960’s) and came to look like this…
A movie, believe it or not, was made in 1998 with David Hasselhoff in the titular role. Here’s the movie’s poster:
Still don’t believe me? Here’s a fan made “trailer” for that film:
My point is this: One can argue in favor of characters written to be of a certain race and when presented on film should be played by actors of that race. But what about when you take well established (or even not so well established) characters on the page and completely change their race for the screen?
In the case of Samuel L. Jackson playing Nick Fury, I think the end result wasn’t by any stretch a bad one.
However…
For no other reason than the fact that Will Smith was a very popular actor at the time, he was cast in the role of James West for the film version of the popular 1960’s action/adventure/fantasy series The Wild Wild West. Here’s an episode from the original TV show, which featured Robert Conrad (that’s him in the still from the episode!) in the role of James West:
Casting Will Smith in the role of a secret service agent in the “wild west” of the post Civil War era was, I’ll be completely blunt here, idiotic. Granted The Wild Wild West, both TV show and movie, were meant to be fantasy, but the idea of a black male roaming the wild west in fancy duds and not being immediately noticed by the locals just doesn’t work, especially for that time frame.
I suppose the “color blind” casting was meant to broaden this role but in this case, as opposed to Nick Fury (who, let’s face it, was known mostly to comic book fans before the Marvel films were released and became such big hits), I felt it hurt the overall product as much as the silly film surrounding it. I can easily imagine a film being made featuring Will Smith in the post-Civil War era and working as some kind of secret service agent, but not in the way presented in The Wild Wild West TV show and subsequent movie.
So here’s the bottom line: I think one can get behind the idea Mr. Jackson presents that when a role is created for someone of a certain background/racial heritage it is indeed appropriate to want a person of that background/heritage to play the role.
It is also appropriate, some might also argue, that when a character is originally created to be of a certain race/background and has been depicted that way for many decades, then perhaps there should also be some respect given to keeping the casting there consistent as well.
I’ve noted before that as far as my opinion on movies are concerned, I’ve mellowed out considerably and give features far more of the benefit of the doubt than before.
But there are limits to this and I present to you Example A: Morgan. Here’s the movie’s trailer…
Directed by Luke Scott, son of Blade Runner/Alien director Ridley Scott, Morgan feels like an attempt to tread in Blade Runner territory with more than a little of Frankenstein. Perhaps the movie was meant to be a Blade Runner prequel?
Anyway, Morgan (Anya Taylor-Joy) is an artificial creation housed in a remote forest lab. She is five years old though looks to be in her later teens and, as the movie opens, she viciously attacks Dr. Kathy Grieff (Jennifer Jason Leigh, completely wasted in a small cameo role). The attack, which results in Dr. Grieff losing one eye, is in turn investigated by the corporation funding the Morgan “project”.
Sent in to check the status of the scientific group, Morgan, and the viability of the project itself is Corporate clean-up specialist Lee Weathers (Kate Mara, sadly one note and morose throughout this film).
She begins her investigation and meets the various people in this scientific community, almost all of whom, including Dr. Grieff, have strong positive feelings toward Morgan and try to convince Weathers that Morgan’s attack was an anomaly and that she deserves a second chance.
Ok.
So we have Weathers meet up with the group and, eventually, Morgan herself. Since the attack, Morgan has been placed in isolation and behind a thick glass. Morgan states she is sorry for the attack and all and Weathers takes it in unemotionally (as she does everything else) and things are oh-so-serious and…dull.
And then, stupidly (there are an awful lot of stupid things being done by supposedly smart people here), the corporation brings in Dr. Alan Shapiro (Paul Giamatti, acting set to “overkill”) to interview Morgan and see just how stable she is.
He does this by essentially yelling he’s got the power to kill her and what the hell is she going to do about it?!
Now, can you just guess what Morgan will do about it?
The movie’s second act, as if you haven’t guessed it yet, is Morgan going apeshit on those she is convinced are out to kill her (some are, most are not). This leads to the movie’s climax and a “twist” ending that does almost nothing for the film and an epilogue featuring Brian Cox who explains everything that’s just happened and…
…ugh.
Morgan, if you haven’t guessed it yet, is to me an almost complete bust. The movie features a lackluster, all-too-simple and all-too-familiar plot that begs for a much more robust, in-your-face and perhaps even campy presentation. We need blood and guts and craziness but instead are offered a far too-mannered, too-Masterpiece Theater presentation and this, unfortunately, makes the movie’s plot problems all the more evident.
Waaaaay back in the early 1990’s I, along with many other movie geeks, discovered the works of director John Woo. Most specifically for me were two movie he made starring ultra-cool Chow Yun-Fat: 1989’s The Killer and 1992’s Hard Boiled. The later film, according to Mr. Woo himself and if memory serves, was intended to be not just a great action film but a calling card to Hollywood that Mr. Woo was not only a top-tier action director, but that he was willing and able to make the leap to American films.
This bravura sequence from Hard Boiled, shot mostly in one take (if you look hard, there is one clear break), is one of the film’s highlights:
Hollywood, needless to say, took notice.
The very next year, in 1993, Mr. Woo’s first American film, Hard Target, featuring Jean-Claude Van Damme, was released. The movie was, to me, a disappointment. It was a good Jean-Claude Van Damme film, perhaps his best, but considering what Mr. Woo released the previous years, it felt like a step down. (NOTE: Mr. Woo’s original version of the film was cut for theatrical release. You can read more about what was changed/taken out of that version here)
It would be three years and not until 1996 that Mr. Woo’s next Hollywood film was released and that was the John Travolta and Christian Slater action-fest Broken Arrow.
I recall seeing that film back when it was released and found it a far better film than Hard Target yet was still disappointed because I expected so much more from the man behind the camera.
Mr. Woo would go on to make a handful of other films for Hollywood, including Face/Off, Mission: Impossible II, Windtalkers, and Paycheck, before heading back to more familiar ground -and Hong Kong- to continue his career.
Now, looking back at Mr. Woo’s Hollywood years, one can’t help but feel this once very exciting director’s career stalled or, sadly, took a big step backwards during this time period. Today, Mission Impossible II is looked at as one of the lesser MI films. Paycheck, to many (including me) was an outright terrible film and one of the reasons Ben Affleck’s career nosedived after a promising beginning.
So while I harbored good feelings toward Mr. Woo’s earlier works, there was little doubt I felt either ambivalent or bad feelings regarding his Hollywood career.
Today, that’s very far in the past and when I found Broken Arrow playing on cable yesterday, I decided after all these years to give it another try.
Wouldn’t you know it, I found the film far more enjoyable than I remembered?
I think part of the reason is those old heightened expectations I had of Mr. Woo’s then-nascent Hollywood career were long gone and I watched Broken Arrow with far fewer -indeed, no- expectations, and the movie benefited tremendously without them.
The movie concerns Vic Deakins (John Travolta, looking very young, spry, and more than a little out of his freaking mind) hijacking two nuclear missiles from a bomber he and his co-pilot, Riley Hale (Christian Slater), were transporting. As it turns out, Deakins was acting alone and intended to kill Riley during the hijacking.
Riley, however, survives and the movie becomes a cat-and-mouse chase between Deakins and his band of very bad-guys versus Riley and his eventual companion, Park Cop Terry Charmichael (Samantha Mathis), as they try to thwart Deakins and the very deadly missiles he intends to use to extort big money from the U.S. Government.
Broken Arrow, viewed today, is a surprisingly old-fashioned (I DO NOT say that as a slight!) good-guy versus bad-guy feature. The bad-guys are really bad and the good guys are clean-cut and very good. The bad guys will play dirty and snarl and curse while the good guys will take what’s given and not back down…even if the odds are against them. The action sequences, while not quite as good as Mr. Woo’s greatest Hong Kong hits, are nonetheless exciting and entertaining and deliver the thrills.
After the film was done I couldn’t help but feel I’d been too harsh on Mr. Woo way back then and most certainly regarding this film. I also wondered if maybe it was time to give at least some of his other Hollywood features a second chance.
I’m looking at you, Hard Target and Face/Off.
Broken Arrow is recommended…and further reviews of Mr. Woo’s works may be coming!
I present the movie’s trailer below but caution those who haven’t seen the film yet that they may want to before seeing this trailer. It gives away an awful lot of plot!
One of 2016’s bigger hits was the suspense/horror movie Don’t Breathe. Here’s one of the movie’s trailers…
The movie’s plot is, essentially, a thematic inversion of the 1967 Audrey Hepburn/Alan Arkin film Wait Until Dark. Here’s the trailer for that film…
In Wait Until Dark, a trio of thieves enter Audrey Hepburn’s character’s home and, eventually, terrorize her as they seek heroine they are certain is hidden within the place.
In Don’t Breathe Rocky (Jane Levy), her sleazy boyfriend “Money” (Daniel Zovatto), and the clean cut/not-so-secretly-pining-for-Rocky Alex (Dylan Minnette) form the trio of thieves who use information Alex gets from his father’s security company to break into homes, disarm their alarms, and steal whatever items they can get their hands on.
It turns out Rocky has a very good reason for engaging in these activities: She lives in a highly dysfunctional home with her very sleazy mother and much younger sister. She hopes to get enough money to be able to flee this hellish house with her young sister.
So while her methods are bad, her goal is noble.
When the trio hear about a man, as it turns out a Blind Man (Stephen Lang, absolutely terrific here), who may have as much as $300,000 hidden away in his home in a deserted slum within Detroit, they figure they’ve found the right mark and haul that can finally get them out of their individual bad situations.
Unlike Audrey Hepburn’s character in Wait Until Dark, however, Stephen Lang’s Blind Man turns out to be far from helpless…or, for that matter, good. There be terrible secrets hiding within his house and our “heroes”, or perhaps more appropriately “anti-heroes”, are about to enter a very dark (no pun intended) world from which they may not escape from…alive.
Don’t Breathe was made by the same team, and features the same star, Jane Levy, of 2013’s Evil Dead remake, a film that, frankly, I didn’t much like (you can read my review of that film here). Unlike the bloody and gore filled Evil Dead, Don’t Breathe uses very little actual blood and almost no gore in telling its story. Instead, this movie relies on building tension through the strength of the actors and situations they are in to convey the terror of their situation. While I’m not adverse to gore in films (I loved the original Evil Dead films and the first two were filled with gore!), this movie benefits tremendously from the decision to forego the bloody stuff and focus on situational tension.
Before I go, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that those who faulted the film felt its second act and the big reveal regarding what the Blind Man was up to in his decrepit house was a little too much. Frankly, I can’t argue against those who felt these things were unnecessary. Indeed, these elements could have been cut out and the film and we therefore might have had a leaner and meaner feature. However, these revelations didn’t bother me as much as it did some others.
In the end, Don’t Breathe is an easy recommendation to all fans of good tension/horror films.
Several years ago I saw and reviewed Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol (2011) (you can read the full review here) and noted the following:
Have you ever seen a film that, upon exiting the theaters, you could tell it underwent some major revisions in the story it was trying to tell?
In the case of MIGP, if felt to me the film took a major deviation in its climax and I strongly suspect (still do!) the movie’s bad guys were intended to be Josh Holloway’s Hanaway (a character who apparently dies in the opening act…a strange choice to have a fairly recognizable actor like Mr. Holloway in what amounts to little more than a cameo role) and his girlfriend/fellow agent, Paula Patton’s Jane.
The film, IMHO, leads to this revelation up to the sequence in the very tall building in Dubai. It was there I was absolutely certain Hanaway would be revealed as not dead and Jane, seemingly distraught at the death of her boyfriend and wanting revenge, was really a double agent working alongside him.
For whatever reason the film’s makers decided not to go there and, as I explained in my review, the movie’s climax was hurt (but, to be fair, not fatally) by this change. I suspect MIGP would have been far better/shocking -and made more sense- had they gone that way.
I had similar feelings, though on a smaller scale, with the movie Criminal. The film was an entertaining action/thriller with a small yet significant sci-fi element whose use reminded me a little of the John Woo directed, John Travolta/Nicholas Cage starring Face/Off.
The movie opens with Bill Pope (Ryan Reynolds) in the process of doing …something… in London. We know he’s on the run and avoiding some suspicious people who are after him. He gets a bag full of money and a passport and, we find, is not only being chased by some dubious characters but also tracked by a CIA office run by Quaker Wells (Gary Oldman). Wells is frantic to figure out where Pope is going and provide him protection.
While fleeing Pope manages to call his wife Jill (Gal Gadot) for what will turn out to be the last time he speaks with her…ever. Not long afterwards Pope is captured by the people pursuing him but not before hiding the money he got. Despite being tortured, Pope refuses to tell the bad guys what they want to know. By the time the CIA finds him, he’s already dead.
Whatever Pope was up to was big league stuff and the CIA, desperate to figure out what exactly he was up to before he died, contact Dr. Franks (Tommy Lee Jones). Dr. Franks is working on a way of transferring the memories of one animal into another. The CIA tasks him with transferring the memories of the deceased Bill Pope into someone else so they can figure out what he was up to before he was killed.
Enter Jerico Stewart (Kevin Costner), a psychopathic -and imprisoned- killer who had severe brain trauma as a child and cannot feel or distinguish emotions or right versus wrong. His frontal lobe never developed due to this brain trauma and therefore he is the one, the only subject which Dr. Franks feels may be successfully used to transfer Pope’s memories and find the information the CIA is so desperate to get.
All the while, the clock is ticking…
I won’t go into too many more SPOILERS and please note what I’ve written above occurs in the movie’s first fifteen or so minutes.
Suffice to say Criminal centers around the psychopathic Jerico as he struggles with Pope’s emerging memories…all while the villains are closing in.
Criminal is a pretty good action film, IMHO, that could have been even better had the script been tightened down a lot more (You knew I was going to get back to that Mission: Impossible Ghost Protocol stuff eventually, right?).
The fact is that the movie’s opening minutes are far more confusing than they should be. For whatever reason Pope’s mission was kept under wraps until later in the film and this was a mistake. They could have told audiences just how important the mission was right off the bat and that would have made us care more about Pope and, later, Jerico.
When Jerico is brought in, there is a choppiness here as well, as if parts of the script were tossed in favor of keeping the movie’s runtime reasonable (the movie nonetheless clocks in just shy of 2 hours). We quickly hurry through introductions to Dr. Franks and Jerico so we can (also very quickly) get him to England and then out on his own.
Despite the choppiness, the film settles down and, to its great credit, Kevin Costner is quite good in the central role of Jerico. He is something of a Frankenstein monster, gruff and confused yet slowly -and sometimes angrily- reacting to the humanity that is starting to spread for the first time into his system.
The movie features an astonishingly large cast of recognizable actors, many of whom, amusingly enough, were previously featured in comic book or sci-fi fantasy type films. Let’s see now: Kevin Costner/Waterworld & The Postman, Man of Steel/Batman v Superman, Gary Oldman/Commissioner Gordon in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy, Tommy Lee Jones/Two-Face in Batman Forever, Gal Gadot/Wonder Woman, Ryan Reynolds/Green Lantern & Deadpool, and, finally Alice Eve/Star Trek.
I point out Alice Eve last and here, again, I get the feeling her character’s place in the movie as released is a good example of what had to be major script changes. Alice Eve’s character, Marta Lynch, is a CIA agent and, I can only guess based on her very limited role, Quaker Wells’ right hand man.
As presented in the film, Marta Lynch is little more than an extra who could have been played by anyone. One can argue whether Ms. Eve is an “A” list actress or not, but she has a very long resume and has been featured in several very big movies yet her role here is so small and anemic that one wonders why a) she took the role and b) why the movie’s producers would hire her as she no doubt commands far better pay versus a smaller, lesser known actress. Again, I can’t help but think there was more involved in the character of Marta Lynch but as the film was made her role was chopped down to near nothing.
Before I go, here’s the movie’s official trailer. If you decide to see it, beware…it comes perilously close to revealing a little too much about the film.
Yesterday came the shocking news that actor/director/writer Bill Paxton had passed away at the age of 61. The cause of death, as listed to date, was “complications from surgery”. You can read an article about Mr. Paxton’s passing by Holly Yan and Amanda Jackson over at CNN:
First, my condolences to the family and friends of Mr. Paxton. Last year my aunt passed away and the cause of her death was also “complications from surgery”. That descriptive statement, at least with regards to what happened to her, sounds a whole lot nicer than the hell she -and her immediate family- went through. I very much hope Mr. Paxton and family didn’t go through anything similar to what she did.
The passing of Mr. Paxton does, inevitably, lead one to reflect on the man’s career. One can check out his list of credits on IMDB:
As is the case with actors whose careers span many decades, there are plenty of works they were involved in which, over time, were by and large forgotten. In the case of people like Mr. Paxton, there were highlights which were incredibly, incredibly memorable.
I suspect if you were to focus on one role Mr. Paxton is best known for, it has to be Private Hudson from the seminal film Aliens. While many love to quote the “Game over, man” line, the knife scene, to me, was a highlight. Here audiences quickly realize Hudson’s bravado isn’t all its cracked up to be…yet we cannot hate the man because how else would anyone react to this?
By the time Aliens reaches its climax and Hudson meets his fate, we’re squarely in his corner and lament his passing.
Hudson was perhaps the quintessential Bill Paxton character: At times loud and obnoxious yet very much someone we ultimately root for…even if we know they’re doomed. That’s not to say all his roles were like that. Mr. Paxton’s career included appearances in classic films like The Terminator, Near Dark (where he reunited with two of his fellow Aliens cast-members and played a very fearsome villain), Tombstone, Apollo 13, and Titanic, to name a few. He also directed and had a small role in Frailty, a film that deserves a second look.
Another critically successful film he starred in is One False Move. This movie, ironically enough, may have fallen victim to having a little too much good early word of mouth.
I say this regarding One False Move because, if memory serves, the film was originally supposed to be released straight to video but the critics and audiences who saw it early loved what they saw and this encouraged the studios to give it a full theatrical release. By the time the film made its theatrical release, the early word of mouth was so good that I suspect many people went into the film expecting to see filmic nirvana and wound up being disappointed the film didn’t quite literally blow their socks off.
One False Move is a damned good film but there was no way it could live up to the ultra-high expectations that swirled around it.
As for me, I’ll always remember Mr. Paxton primarily as Hudson in Aliens. I suppose its inevitable. I’ll miss his work and miss the at times wicked charisma he brought to the screen.
Before I go, a trailer to one last film of Mr. Paxton’s I really enjoyed. Trespass, released in 1992, was perhaps director Walter Hill’s last really good film. In many ways it was a typical Walter Hill “B” movie, gritty and action/testosterone filled. This movie also featured a cast that today is very well known. There’s Mr. Paxton, of course, but also William Sadler and the duo of Ice-T and Ice Cube.
It’s a good, gritty little action film and worth catching, provided you can find it…
Rest in Peace, Mr. Paxton. At the very least you’ve left behind a wonderful legacy in film, something many actors today hope they can, too.
This clip, listed as a “Prologue” to Alien: Covenant, was supposedly not directed by Ridley Scott (who made the original Alien, Prometheus, and this film) but rather his son Luke Scott. The clip, obviously, is intended to get potential audiences interested in the upcoming film and will likely NOT be in the film itself. This clip features no blood, no guts, no “horror” but subtly references the original Alien.
IMHO, it is a freaking bore.
Sorry, but nearly five minutes of seeing these uninteresting people -and one robot- talking (for the most part) nonsense before giving us a little hint toward the horror that one imagines is to come didn’t work for me.
Worst, it reinforced another fear I have: That Alien: Covenant is a subtle remake of the original Alien.
Yeah, the cast is larger and the effects are better and instead of “space truckers” we’ve got colonists going to the mystery planet, but otherwise it looks essentially the same. Check out the movie’s actual trailer:
Let’s see…we got a disparate cast of “regular” people who go down into a planet (at night, with rain/bad weather, another original Alien element), they explore, they find a crashed ship with an “egg”, one of them apparently gets the face hugger, and all hell obviously breaks loose and an Alien creature has a target rich environment in which to operate.
Okay.
To be fair, there are other things here, one of which is hinted at it the movie’s trailer. The bug that heads for the man’s ear, for example, may be some kind of permutation of the alien creature as well, though given its size its also quite possible this is something else.
There is also the question of the movie’s relationship with Prometheus and, more specifically, actress Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw. IMDB revealed she is in the film and I can’t help but wonder just how big a role her character has in this, especially when this is the plot description Twentieth Century Fox provides for this movie:
Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the colony ship Covenant discover what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world, whose sole inhabitant is the synthetic David, survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.
Is Elizabeth Shaw dead? Will we see her only in video and/or flashbacks? That would be a shame given the way Prometheus ended. Now, I’m not a huge fan of Prometheus (one of the more beautiful nonsensical sci-fi films I’ve seen in recent years), but in Elizabeth Shaw we had a survivor. A woman who faced incredible horror, including being impregnated by the alien creature yet managing to rid herself of it, before leaving the plague planet in search of answers to the questions of related to the Aliens and those who created them.
It would be a big shame, again IMHO, if it turns out her character is dead.
Anyway, I’ll be a damned liar if I said based on what I’ve seen so far -which, again, is rather disappointing- is so disappointing I plan to miss the film.
I caught Prometheus in theaters and even though I thought it wasn’t all that good, I do not regret going to see it. I was just too curious to see Ridley Scott take on the universe he started so brilliantly with Alien.
Yes, I will catch Alien: Covenant, most likely at some point during the first week of its release. Unlike Prometheus, I’m going into this film with far more guarded optimism.
Back in 2013 the movie Now You See Me was released and became, at least to my mind, something of a surprise hit. My daughter saw it and recommended it and, while I haven’t seen the full movie, I caught most of it one day on cable and found it an entertaining diversion…though just about everything that happened within the film would have been impossible for a group of four magicians to accomplish without some major cash and an army of assistants.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Now You See Me was about four magicians (played by Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrelson, Dave Franco, and Isla Fisher) who are engaged in a “Mission: Impossible” type …uh… mission and use their skills to expose nefarious deeds perpetrated by the film’s villain(s).
If my plot description sounds rather vague, this is on purpose. I don’t want to get into too many details for those who haven’t seen the film and are curious to do so as there are plenty of revelations along the way and not everyone is who you think they are.
Again, what I saw of that film (roughly the last 2/3rds) was enjoyable. Further, the film did well enough at the box office to merit a sequel.
2016’s Now You See Me 2 brings the whole gang back minus Isla Fisher’s Henley Reeves character. She is replaced by Lizzy Caplan as Lula, who plays another highly skilled female magician.
If you liked the original film, Now You See Me 2 will probably appeal to you as well though this time around the revelations and surprises aren’t quite as “big” as they were in the first film. Given what happened in the first film, I suspect there was no way they could be.
Yet the film, as directed by Jon M. Chu (taking over for the original’s Louis Letterrier), is a slick concoction that moves moves moves along at a heart-racing pace and is enjoyable enough…though it lacks the freshness of that first film.
In a piece of sly casting, everyone’s favorite wizard Daniel Radcliffe joins these proceedings as the movie’s main villain and he’s decent in a role that doesn’t ask all that much of him except to be the bad guy.
Is the film worth seeing?
If you have the free time, it is but the fact is that as slick as this movie is, and as neat as some of the sequences are (there’s one involving a card which is very slick indeed), this film is the definition of disposable entertainment. What you have in Now You See Me 2 is a sugary concoction that won’t make you hate the fact that you gave a little over two hours of your time watching it yet it won’t linger all that long in your head. If it does, the only things you’ll think about are the movie’s many impossibilities.
Still, you could do far worse than spend time watching this film, though if you haven’t seen either it or the original I’d recommend seeing the first one and, depending on how much you like it, only then giving the second a try.
Which is my long winded way of saying I give Now You See Me 2 a mild recommendation. Brainless, slick fun that you will enjoy…provided you don’t take it too seriously.
Yesterday the rather shocking news of Mel Gibson being considered for director of Suicide Squad 2 was released. Some, like Megan Reynolds at Jezebel.com, reacted…quite negatively:
Today comes an article on comicbook.com and written by Jay Jayson notes that Mel Gibson himself has confirmed during a screening of his film Hacksaw Ridge that he was in consideration for the movie’s director. While Warner Brothers is in contact with other potential directors, Mr. Jayson’s article states that the job is his “if he wants it”:
Now I’m slowly, inevitably, becoming an old fart. I know it, my body reminds me of it constantly (damn it!), and the greys in my hair and the wrinkles I see in the mirror reinforce this fact.
I point this out because unlike others, I’m old enough to have lived through Mel Gibson’s entire career arc.
My first big exposure to him was in local theaters via what I consider one of the all time best action films ever made, the 1981 flick The Road Warrior (aka Mad Max 2)…
So impressed was I with Mel Gibson that I eagerly sought out the first Mad Max film, released in 1979 and found it a great first stab at the world of Max. I caught him in some other films, most notably the now forgotten Attack Force Z (also released in 1981)…
I point out Attack Force Z because this film was essentially an Australian version of The Dirty Dozen, the film which I strongly suspect was on the mind of John Ostrander, the writer who co-created the modern super-villain version of The Suicide Squad…
Fast forward many years and I watch as Mel Gibson becomes a box office behemoth. His Lethal Weapon films are incredibly successful while he expands his career between action/adventure films and more “serious” dramatic roles such as those in The Year of Living Dangerously (1982), Mrs. Soffel (1984) and Hamlet (1990). Then, in 1993, Mr. Gibson acts in and directs his first film, The Man Without a Face. While that film isn’t particularly well remembered today, his follow up certainly is, 1995’s Braveheart.
Since then, Mr. Gibson’s directed The Passion of the Christ, Apocalypto, and, most recently, Hacksaw Ridge. While The Passion of the Christ was not without its controversy, almost every one of Mr. Gibson’s directorial films, whether they feature him in the lead role of not, has been met with considerable critical acclaim, even his most recent films.
Let’s be damn blunt here: Mr. Gibson’s actions back then were vile. While Mr. Gibson has repeatedly apologized for his grotesque behavior and racist rants and noted they were made at a time he abused alcohol and was in the throes of emotional problems, the fact is that when most people today see or hear about Mr. Gibson, that’s what they think about.
So its not all that surprising there’s already a negative reaction to the idea that he might be involved in Suicide Squad 2.
Me?
Perhaps because I’ve followed his career for so long I’m a little more forgiving.
Anyone who’s been around here any length of time knows I enjoyed Batman v Superman. Suicide Squad, on the other hand, is a much harder film to defend. From a story standpoint, the film was a complete mess. What made it tolerable was the fact that it had considerable energy, humor, as well as fun acting by Will Smith and Margot Robbie.
Yet one can’t help but feel this was a missed opportunity. Looking at The Dirty Dozen (or, indeed, Attack Force Z), there is a way to make a Suicide Squad film that is gripping, humorous, blunt, and, once it finishes, leaves audiences satisfied.
Given Mel Gibson’s career, both as actor and director, I’m inclined to think he easily has the skills to make a Suicide Squad film that works.
The question is whether Warner Brothers can take the critical heat from the public while the film is being worked on…and whether they can do this while allowing Mr. Gibson a free hand at making the type of film he will surely want to make.
Assuming all this is possible and Mr. Gibson releases a *gasp* good Suicide Squad film, is it possible Mr. Gibson, the person, can be redeemed in the eyes of the public?
