Tag Archives: sci-fi

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

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Last year, they made another Indiana Jones movie. I know that a lot of people complained about the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull movie, which, wow, was longer ago than I thought. But I think a certain suspension of disbelief is required to watch really any of these movies, and the things I saw at that time were more or less from the perspective of people who had lost their childlike sense of wonder about watching a pulp-inspired movie, and thought the sequel should have grown up with them. All of which to say, if you didn’t like that, you probably won’t like this. (If you simply thought it was weaker than some of the other movies in the series, this one is stronger again, for sure.)

Which brings us to 1969 and the latest (last?) sequel, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. The veracity of the plot is somewhat less than that of the other Indy movies involving Nazis, while still having more basis in fact than you’d expect from a pulp movie in general. See, there’s this fancy gear/dial thingy that predicts events based on prior knowledge, called an antikythera. The movie inaccurately(?) attributes its invention to Archimedes, who to be fair is a pretty cool dude, on par with your Da Vincis and your Teslas as far as coming up with fancy ideas (and perhaps executing them).

Everything else can be derived from first principles. Will there be an exciting chase sequence in which the upper hand changes direction multiple times? Will the Nazis deserve to have their faces melted off? Will there be glorified tomb-raiding, complete with traps and bugs and snakes and whatnot? Are there unexpected twists? Will it belong in a museum? (Yes, yes because it’s an odd-numbered movie, more or less yes, obviously yes, and, well, yes.)

Godzilla (2014)

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Back when they made that Godziilla remake, I still remembered the one with Matthew Broderick. You know, the one that basically killed his career?[1] So naturally I avoided with prejudice. Then later I saw Kong: Skull Island[2], and learned that these two movies were related? And they’ve made two sequels since then, of which I’ve seen one. I think? …nope, additional minor research indicates I’ve seen both, and, I don’t know, am just conflating them?

But for whatever reason, I never saw the movie that [re]started it all.

Godzilla has three distinct acts, connected linearly by the flow of time and not at all by theme. In act one, Bryan Cranston is [spoilers for the prologue] trying to figure out who murdered his wife. In act two, his son is taking a tour of the Pacific in the style of Raymond Burr. In act three, there is a final confrontation in San Francisco.

I do think that these movies find their footing, but this first one is interesting only insofar as you are entertained by fights with kaiju (80% of the movie) or shadowy government conspiracies regarding kaiju (20% of the movie). Otherwise, it’s kind of a shambling mess full of extraneous characters in service of a plot in which one rando is solely responsible for the salvation of humanity, even though the movie is named Godzilla.

But I mean… it was still mostly pretty cool to look at.

[1] I mean, is he still doing anything and I just don’t see it, or was that the coffin nail and now he’s retired on Ferris money? …or in that retirement home for Hollywood people who lost it all? Well. He’s probably not old enough for that.
[2] If you think I wanted to see that one on the strength of Peter Jackson’s remake, well, you’re at least partially right. but also I’ve always had a soft spot for King Kong.

Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3

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My mother-in-law was in town for my son’s birthday, and due to a coincidence of chronology, my birthday is one day later, with the upshot being we had childcare available for my birthday! As a further result of which, we went to see the semi-recently released newest Marvel movie, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.

If you’re worried about plot spoilers, do not be, because I legitimately could not remember who or why the bad guy was, until I spent several moments of concentration trying to. Which sounds like a strike against the movie? But no: I come not to bury Gunn, but to praise him. Because, plot or no plot, what the movie had was a ton of heart, and even more tons of concern for its characters. The only real problem I had with it, in an overarching sense, is that it made most of the recent previous movies[1] worse just by virtue of its existence. Because this is what has been missing since Endgame. Not a specific direction, or a replacement for Thanos. Just… heart.

Anyway, I do remember what happened, more or less. Like everything that has ever happened in any Guardians of the Galaxy movie, the past shows up to bite everyone in the ass. The only things I will say are that a) this is maybe the weirdest take I’ve ever seen or can imagine seeing on Adam Warlock, to the extent that I feel like maybe they shouldn’t have actually thanked Jim Starlin in the credits; and b) the take on the bad guy, whose presence I will not spoil, is so accurate it reminds me of Ultimate Reed Richards.

[1] Essentially all of them in the age of COVID except No Way Home.

Everything Everywhere All at Once

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I’m not sure there’s a point in talking about the plot or storyline or character beats of Everything Everywhere All at Once. It would be some combination of entirely spoilerful and also incomprehensible. Which is not to say that the movie is incomprehensible, so much as that I’m just pretty sure it works much better on screen than it would in print. As an example: there is no way I could explain mid-life lesbian relationship with hot dog fingers world and make you believe it was kind of glorious. So now you know why I’m not going to try to talk about things that legitimately matter about the movie, if I can’t even explain that.

(You should watch it, though, if that was not yet clear.)

Here’s what I find interesting: it won best picture. Did it deserve to win best picture? I mean, it’s the best 2022 movie I’ve yet seen[1]. But it’s a sci-fi comedy about Chinese immigrant inter-family politics. Last time I checked, that kind of movie doesn’t win best picture at the Academy. …or maybe it does? I haven’t been paying attention for a little while. But it certainly did not used to do such a thing. And it’s like, the family drama part actually felt like Oscar-bait[2], but what blows me away is that the voters made it far enough into the film to see that part and bite on it.

Anyway: I’m glad to see this kind of movie be acclaimed, and I loved it, and you should still go watch it. It’s just surprising, is all.

[1] I might like No Way Home as much or more, but that doesn’t make it a better movie, if you see what I’m saying. Also, oops, I’m being informed that was a 2021 movie anyhow, so, uh, yeah. Man, I didn’t see much of anything last year, did I?
[2] not in the bad way

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania

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The internet hated the third Ant-Man movie. This is no secret. And… as a movie, okay, I get it. It had maybe seven actors running around in front of green screens and emoting at explosions and creatures and whatever in the hopes that the CG people could keep their eyes pointing in the right direction. So when Martin Scorsese says whatever he said about superhero movies being soulless, I understand where people like him are coming from.

But this wasn’t Martin Scorsese, this was a broad cross-section of the kind of people who go to see all of the Marvel movies. And I just don’t really see the problem? The entire premise, as laid bare in the first ten minutes, was predicated on people who are nominally on the same team not talking to each other, nor apparently to their therapist.[1] So okay, that’s a little dumb. But really, when you get down to it, Quantumania only had one task, which was to introduce the viewing audience to Kang the Conqueror, and if they had to stretch credulity (but not violate any established character beats) to get there? Who cares.

They could have done a lot worse! I liked the crazy hunter-killer bot that I will steadfastly refuse to spoil. It was dumb, but it was fun dumb. I like this take on Scott Lang where his power isn’t that he can shrink or grow or talk to ants, it’s that he has an entire family to back him up. (I like that by implication Hank Pym was not a successful superhero because his powers were the inverse of Scott’s. It tracks.) I was a little disappointed, maybe, that the leader of the rebels wasn’t Jarella, but look, these movies are not for me, on some level. I’ve gone too deep![2]

Here’s what I will say in favor of the “not a good movie” camp. It was two hours, but it felt like two and a half, minimum. Still and all, and granted that I was primed by months of internet hate, but I really don’t think this was nearly so bad as what people say. It was bottom 50% of MCU movies, but was it bottom 25%? i’m not convinced it was. As a counterpoint, for example, I literally do not remember what Ant-Man and the Wasp was about. I know there were a lot of Pym particles and… I was about to say, and a geography defying bus chase, but that was Shang Chi. So, nope, nothing.

Well, unless you are Martin Scorsese, reading this review. From your perspective, sir, I get it, and this was a legitimately terrible movie. (But some of them have been pretty fantastic, and you’re just not the audience, is all. Don’t forget that it’s important to judge a movie from the viewpoint of its intended audience, not just from your own.)

[1] side-note: I wonder who acts as therapist to the superheroing community. I think I’ve seen Doc Samson do it, but he frankly wasn’t very good, plus he’s a superhero himself, so it seems sort of like a conflict of interest. I bet Marvel does something with this someday, but I’m surely at least 10-15 years away from it. But the MCU is in modern times, not in 1987, so you’d think this would have come up before now.
[2] get it?

Black Sheep (2006)

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You know how sometimes the plot of a movie goes in so many different directions that you can tell the person (or more likely “people”, and probably in serial rather than parallel) had no idea what they were doing, and just kept throwing anything and everything at the wall to see what would stick, with the result that basically nothing sticks and the movie makes no sense whatsoever?

Apparently, in New Zealand, you can do that and it all weaves back together and every part of it makes sense. …well, okay, no, that is an exaggeration at best. But enough of it comes together and what remains is funny enough that you can ignore the plot holes. Well, also arguably I should not generalize to everything they make, but at least for Black Sheep, it’s all true.

It’s like this: two brothers, unalike dignity, in fair Aotearoa, where we lay our scene, from ancient grudge break to new mutiny, where ovine blood makes civil hands unclean[1]. …but I suppose I should say more. See, the grudge between them is over the murder of Henry’s sheep and also, due to the gory shock and unrelated timing of the event, over Henry’s subsequent ovinophobia. Unfortunately, the day fifteen years later that Henry shows up to finally wash his hands of the relationship (and the massive sheep farm that he owns a 50% share of) is the day his brother has set aside to reveal his new breed of sheep upon the world.

This is unfortunate because the disgraced geneticist that has assisted him with a unique (or, depending upon your perspective, distressingly common) form of animal husbandry has also been performing her own experiments in what I choose to believe was a method of keep meat fresh for the longest period possible. If you guessed “zombie sheep that are still alive even after being dressed and hung on meathooks, but also one of the experimental animals escaped and spread the, er, modification to the herds at large”, then, well, I really painted an evocative picture in the first place, and go me! Or you’re an uncommonly good guesser.

The thing is, there’s so much more to it than just that, and most of it chuckleworthy. Also, there are multiple instances of unnecessary to the story rabbit dismemberment. I wonder if it’s lingering resentment over Night of the Lepus? But whatever, the point is, the movie is mostly good, mostly funny, and has more subplots than you can shake a pointed stick at.

[1] There’s no reason for this, and yet here we are.

Black Panther: Wakanda Forever

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It’s impossible to think about a sequel to Black Panther without thinking about Chadwick Boseman. I don’t mean because he died, or I don’t only mean that. I mean that every aspect of the movie’s plot is wholly informed by the fact of his loss. I try to imagine a movie with any shared plot point but also T’Challa is the main character, and… I just cannot.

Instead of whatever might have been, we got one of the grimmest MCU movies I can remember, in which a series of unlikable politicians face off against[1] an unlikable Queen Ramonda[2] faces off against the goddamned Submariner.

I want to have more to say, but… I kind of don’t. Wakanda Forever ended up feeling like exactly the movie it was, in which the MCU architects were forced to spend an entire movie shifting around pieces on the chess board to explain why there’s still a Black Panther even though the actor died and they were smart enough to not replace him in the same role with a new actor.

The best part of the movie was the payoff of that conundrum, where the most deserving justification and the most deserving character came together very neatly to solve the problem and save the day. The second best part of the movie was that they managed to convince me Namor’s ankle wings are not entirely ridiculous in every way, via Mayan mythology. The second worst part of the movie is that I think if Boseman had lived, we would not have gotten the goddamned Submariner into the MCU yet, or maybe ever. (The worst part of the movie is that Chadwick Boseman died, of course. Even if it happened before they settled the script.)

[1] Because, see, they want vibranium, and there’s no longer a Black Panther to protect Wakanda. (I mean, there’s still piles of Wakandan futuretech and those badass Dora Milaje, which you’d think would be plenty enough to give anyone pause.)
[2] A lot of the time, she[3] has good reason to be angry. But she’s just not nice to anyone, and it definitely adds to the grim feel of things.
[3] T’Challa’s mother, the new ruler of the nation since he had to be written out of the story.

Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City

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Speaking, as I was, of video game adaptations in general and the Resident Evil series of such in specific, it seems only natural that I would have remembered and thus watched the reboot. (But also I really need to finish Resident Evil 5, the video game. I’ve only been trying for years upon years.)

In a counterfactual world where a six movie series starring Milla Jovovich as Alice never existed, here is what I would have to say about Welcome to Raccoon City: It’s a pretty good mashup of Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2, the video games, which makes sense as those (and 0 and 3, not mashed up here) all cover approximately the same 72 hour period during which really a lot of things happened. There are a lot of iconic images and moments, and all in all it is a surprisingly faithful adaptation of those two games. The games are of course still better, but what else could you expect out of a game adaptation?

However, those movies do exist, and they exist as an object lesson in why, if you intend to adapt a game, you need to take the premise and go in a new direction, something that maybe surpasses or maybe doesn’t, but at the least tries to be different. With books, faithful can be amazing, but with games, you’re in control of what happens as you play, so faithful is a bit flat, you know?

Dark Skies (2013)

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During the first maybe 10 minutes of Dark Skies, I thought I was watching someone’s take on E.T. as a horror movie, and man, I really want to see that now that I’ve thought of it.[1] But by the time I’d seen three different scenes of stuff in Keri Russell’s house stacked weirdly or moved around when nobody could possibly have done it and then her husband decided to install security cameras, I knew I was watching someone’s take on Paranormal Activity as an aliens movie instead, and for whatever reason, that’s not nearly as interesting of a premise.

It was fine, though, other than the teen drama bits, which seriously did not fit the tone of anything else going on. I think if you remove the neighbor teen love interest, you lose ten minutes of footage and change nothing at all about the movie. That’s never a good sign, you know?

Also: there were never any especially dark skies, so I guess it was a metaphor.

[1] …or make it? That would also be cool. I guess step one is a script, although realistically I shouldn’t let that stop me. Except, there’s a pretty strong case to be made that Stranger Things already partially did this, which will stop me, so, nevermind.

The Matrix Resurrections

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I rewatched the Matrix trilogy last month, on 4k Blu-ray no less (but apparently without a subwoofer, which hurts my soul in retrospect), so that I would be prepared to say whether or not The Matrix Resurrections was a giant retcon, and whether it was a bad retcon, and whether it was a good movie. And I do have opinions on these points!

But first, a few words about makeup and set dressing. I appreciated that the omnipresent dark green drear was replaced by nonstop blues, representing of course the blue pill seen on the right. I won’t go into specifics, of course, but I liked the way the truth of the Matrix was kept while jettisoning the old color palette, and I liked that this occurred for a good in-story reason. As for the makeup bit, upon reflection it would be a pretty big spoiler, so I may bring it up later. But, I was equally impressed with someone’s job there as well.

Anyway, in order: it was not a giant retcon, and it was also not a bad retcon, by virtue of the retcon not being the one I expected. A retcon certainly occurred, but I approve on the whole. It’s the kind that reveals how the world really was always this way and we just hadn’t noticed, not the bad kind that gets a writer out of a dumb corner they could have avoided on either the front end or the back with no real trouble, had they but tried. And it was a good movie if you accept that all the fun being poked is at itself for existing and not at you for being suckered into paying for it to have existed. Or if you forgive all that because it used White Rabbit really well. (Man I love that song.)

The rest, below the spoiler cut.

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