Tag Archives: sci-fi

Ghostbusters (2016)

MV5BMTU0OTQ5NDMzNV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwMTUxODMxOTE@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,673,1000_AL_I actually saw two movies on Thursday prior to departing for a camping trip. As usual, I have squandered my chance at a timely review of a new release movie. This happens with such reliability that this can probably never be my actual job? No, I’m kidding, there are much better reasons for that outcome than lack of timeliness. Still, though, I’m here now, so let’s talk.

Ghostbusters, right? There’s been a lot of chatter for months about this movie, mostly along feminist lines. On one side of the divide are people complaining about an all female cast of main characters taking over the reins of a major nostalgia franchise. On the other side are people who want to slap the smirk off the first group of people, because, Jesus, how is this a thing someone can justify complaining about in 2016? (I, uh, may have an opinion in this race.) For my part, my complaint from the start has been, why is this a reboot? Why not a next generation sequel? This complaint, while I have not really let it go after the fact, was never enough to keep me out of the theater.

Anyway, though, the outcome? I’m gonna stay away from plot, because you know what’s up. Four women in New York with unlicensed nuclear reactors strapped to their backs are out to solve a ghost problem. Anything less would be impossible for you to know, and anything more is best saved for the theater. But was it worth it? I have mixed feelings.

See, on the one hand, they drew so very heavily from the nostalgia well. Yes, I loved the movie unabashedly, but it’s not really easy to tell if I’ve been puppeted into feeling that way. On the other hand, and I think this is key: every moment that I walked out of the theater laughing about and already quoting back and forth with my friends was a moment that was new and fresh to the new characters. I hope it passes the test of time, and I hope any potential sequel is neither a pale facsimile of this one nor a tired retread of a plot that already exists. Because I really want to see it again already. I know for a fact there are jokes and sight gags I missed; and more importantly, I want to get some of those lines down solid, because I wouldn’t be surprised to be throwing them around in casual conversation 30 years from now, just like I do with the old lines today.

X-Men: Apocalypse

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MV5BMjQxMjY5MzU1NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTgwNzgyNjY0NzE@._V1_SX690_CR0,0,690,999_AL_I saw the new X-Men movie a week or two ago, and I liked it, but what with being busy and behind on internets and seriously really busy what with houses that don’t clean themselves and weddings that don’t plan themselves and jobs and the whole being an adult thing, I’ve maybe lost track of anything I might have said about it.

Apocalypse, as you will learn in the opening moments of the flick, is set in a tenuous 1985 between the recent First Class and Days of Future Past and the original X-Men movie that due to timeline manipulations may not even exist anymore. See, there’s this Egyptian guy who I haven’t gotten to in my readings of the source material[1], and now that he’s awake again, he wants to rule the world as is his wont.

And then, you know, mutanty things happen. It seems like there should be more to say, about themes or some such? Maybe I waited too long, maybe I expect more than is necessary from a perfectly fine X-Men slugfest. Either way, I’m seeing a movie tonight that I will perhaps review more timelily, and this is what you get.

Final thought: Psylocke, another character who I have not gotten to in comics, seemed kind of shoehorned in just for the purposes of costume fan service. Which is kind of lame.

[1] Unless I have? But if this dude is based on the Living Pharaoh, he is much, much cooler in this movie than in the comics he was drawn from.

Limitless

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MV5BMTY3NjczNzc5Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMzA2MzQyNA@@._V1__SX1859_SY893_I kind of wanted to see Limitless a good long time ago, because of how I like Bradley Cooper and the plot seemed cool in a wish-fulfillment kind of way, but I never did. Then recently CBS released a show about it, which I did watch, and it turned out a) to be good (and more importantly, fun) but also b) a sequel to the movie rather than a reimagining of it. So at that point, I had to watch it. Which I have!

And, yeah. Wish fulfillment is the name of the game. You just take this pill, and suddenly you can remember everything you’ve ever seen or learned, not to mention how easy it becomes to learn new things and make new connections. And the downsides are… well, fairly minimal.[1] From there, high stakes cats and mice, criminal enterprises, stock markets, genius books that capture the public imagination: you know, the kinds of things people would do if they had, er, limitless potential.

Recommended to people who like brain wish-fulfillment or Bradley Cooper. Not recommended to people who like Wars on Drugs. Oh, and the show is definitely better, if for some reason you feel a need to choose between them.

[1] There are more realistic downsides in the show, which is early on often a remake of the movie after all, but smarter.

Men in Black 3

It needs to be said, right up front, that MIB^3 was an entirely unnecessary movie. Even if there was no other reason, it is troubling that this is the movie that tells the world a) that Tommy Lee Jones deems himself ready to retire or b) that the studio figures he cannot cut the mustard fighting aliens and/or quipping deadpan against Will Smith. Let’s be honest, both of these are crimes against humanity. Plus, blah blah blah Hollywood sequelitis, nobody can write well about time travel, et cetera.

But the thing is, a movie doesn’t have to be necessary to be fun, and probably I will not ever get tired of watching the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air tackling his way through alien goo, incomprehensible technology, and Tommy Lee Jones’ deadpan to save the world yet again from the latest space-borne menace. Mind you, I will probably have the good grace to feel bad about it before I walk into the theater, and in direct proportion to the amount of missing Tommy Lee Jones. But I’ll still like it. We’ll all still like it. I mean, come on.

Inception

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Inception is troubling to me, for a few reasons. There are a lot of reviews floating around the internet today talking about how amazing it is, spending a sentence or three doing so, amping up expectations beyond all reason. And they’re not saying much of anything else. For my part, I guess what is troubling me is that I can’t think of a better way to handle the situation. Because, as much as I hate the expectations game, the movie really is as good as people are saying, and I really don’t want to say anything about it either.

Still, it’s my job and I’m gonna. So. It’s like an Ocean’s Eleven heist caper, done up with sci-fi trappings and a psychological thriller hook. And with an overly dramatic soundtrack that lends an extra dose of portent to every single scene. Honestly, that part is unfortunate because the film as scripted and shot is plenty enough portentous on its own, with all kinds of moral questions to consider and dramatic fates to create or avoid. I’ve seen a few other complaints, for the most part equally nitpicky, and while I understand them, this is the only one that really bothered me.

At the end of the review, my point is this: maybe the movie has been oversold for you, and that’s a damned shame if so. But go see it anyway, because regardless of how you walk out of the theater feeling about it, you’ll regret it if you don’t get to be in on the discussion. Folks will be talking about this one for a while.

Predators

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One of the things I liked the most about Predators (and make no mistake, there were very few things I didn’t like) is that it did not concern itself with reasons. Why are there skillfully violent people being dropped out of the clear blue sky? Who armed them to the teeth with things they know how to use? How did they even get here? That doesn’t matter, all that matters is, here they are. And they’ve got to find a way to survive against the deadliest hunters in the universe, all while learning to trust each other, work as a team, and somehow keep Eric from That 70s Show alive (as he is also here for some reason). Or they’ve got to die messily, one by one, with no hope of rescue or escape.

Which is another thing I like about the movie, it did not waste any more time on the premise than it did on reasons. Within five minutes, the movie is going all out and it doesn’t ever really stop. It’s possible that the original Schwarzenegger-driven Predator is the better movie, but only possible; I have seen no better movie that had a Predator in it, without a doubt. This is probably not the best sequel ever, but it is hard to imagine crafting a sequel to a movie that would fit the spirit of its originator any better than this one did.

Star Trek

MV5BMjE5NDQ5OTE4Ml5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTE3NDIzMw@@._V1__SX1859_SY893_Obviously, you are aware of this movie, and you’ve probably already formed your own opinion. And anyway, I’d be leery of spoilers for anyone who hasn’t seen it. In theory, this constrains my review by quite a lot, but I figure it leaves me free to talk about what I really wanted to anyway. But, first things first. Did I like it? Enough to see it three times on opening weekend. Did it have flaws? I can think of a couple offhand, one extremely nitpicky and one that, absent, would have failed to feel like a Star Trek movie anyway. Plus, I think I’m willing to claim that at one point, there was actually an insufficient amount of technobabble. Was it accessible to non-fans? I feel as though it really was, and the reviews I’ve heard from non-fans (and in one case, an actively anti-fan) have borne this impression out. So you should really go see it, if this has not already occurred.

Because what J.J. Abrams made here was a philosophical, character-driven action movie, and really, how many of those do you think exist? Of the ones that exist, how many do you think aren’t insufferably smug about it? This right here is a narrow field to occupy! Action: ’cause, you know, space battles and laser gun fights. Character-driven: the driving forces of the story are all based in interactions. Kirk and McCoy’s friendship. Kirk and Spock’s rivalry. Spock’s relationship with his human mother. Nero’s irrational impulse for personal rather than systemic revenge. (He’s the bad guy.) Philosophical: take a group of people that shook the foundations of the Federation (and, projecting outward less than you’d think, the galaxy) and drastically change their history. Okay, many of the changes were not drastic, but one was, and there are clear, subtle ripples from there even before the main plot of the movie takes over. And then explore the question of random chance versus unalterable destiny.

I liked that by the end of the movie, the history of the Federation is vastly divergent from the one that fans of five TV series and ten movies know. And I like that it’s not going to be “fixed.” It was a bold move that I think is going to pay off in spades for the future of the franchise. But as much as I approve of that, I absolutely adored watching as, moment by moment, destiny pushed beloved characters into roles that they had fallen into by seeming happenstance in the original timeline. This new Trek may have surprisingly non-causal time travel that never really existed in “my father’s” Star Trek, but it also has some modicum of fate. And that’s kind of cool.

Millennium Falcon

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I’m not entirely sure why I bother to review Star Wars books at this point, except that it’s expected of me to review everything. It’s just, the context is pretty small, or something. Nonetheless, I’ve typed this much, so I may as well finish up! Millennium Falcon performs a few duties for the Extended Universe. Primarily, it puts together a history of one of the most famous starships in science fiction from before the days when Han Solo owned her (starting with a fairly cheesy Christine-on-the-assembly-line homage and, thankfully, improving from there). Secondarily, it provides a plot hook for a treasure hunt, and then places the Solo family on that hunt as a way to heal some of the still painful wounds brought about by the most recent Sith assault on the galaxy. Lastly, and probably most importantly to the ongoing storylines, it sets up the newest political threat to the Jedi Order, albeit behind the scenes and in throwaway moments.

The book itself was good but not great. I can’t really recommend it as a standalone, and if you weren’t planning to read it in that sense, you probably will regardless of anything I say on the topic. But the secondary characters were all pretty decent, and the stories-within-the-story format reminds me a lot of World War Z.

The Happening (2008)

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Yesterday, I said to myself, hey, let’s go see a movie! And then I looked up times, but the dollar movie I want to see (even though I found a second dollar theater, and right across the highway, not far away like that other one (where “far” in this case equals about 1/3 of my daily commute. Help.)) was only showing in the evening, and I already had evening plans. So then I poked around at what was out in general, and settled on The Happening. And then I saw it, which just goes to show you the value of a plan.

The movie itself was an odd mix of satisfying and cheeseball. I went in knowing nothing beyond what I’d seen in a couple of previews, which as it happens is sufficiently little to make the thing work; I have to assume that without the mysteriousness pulling you in, the satisfaction would have been nowhere to be found. The premise is straightforward: one day in Central Park, people start acting mentally and physically confused, and then they start dying. And those scenes which open the movie? Creepy as all get out, I tell you. Next thing, a teacher and his wife and some friends are headed out of town because of their concern over the TV-reported terrorist attacks that have just occurred, and the film turns into about one-third mysterious deadly event and two-thirds marital drama. Or maybe fifty-fifty? I was never annoyed that the scary mystery part had vanished, and the drama part was pretty decently done.

Unfortunately, this was billed as M. Night Shyamalan’s first R-rated movie. I call this unfortunate because, aside from a ridiculous chase scene about which I cannot divulge more that would otherwise assist me in mocking its ridiculousness, the biggest problem the flick had was its focus on gore. It just wasn’t the right kind of movie, in mood, to be concerned with over-the-top death scenes; and there were a few. It’s like M. was just trying too hard, to no good effect. Well, the acting was a little iffy, too, which is odd, because I’ve seen both leads do far better jobs elsewhere. All in all, though, it was a decent, scary movie. It was not the best movie I saw yesterday, which is kind of funny when you consider I had only planned to see the one. But anyway, just don’t go in expecting Shyamalan’s previous brilliance, and you should be fine.

The Incredible Hulk

I can’t really explain what went wrong with The Incredible Hulk. It was much more of a super-hero movie than Ang Lee’s much derided The Hulk from a few years ago. It did a really good job of pulling in numerous sly references to the ’70s TV show, plus of course to the original Marvel comics. The effects were always spot on, as they have been of late. And I have to geek out a little bit at the way that the various movies are being tied into a cohesive Marvel Universe, just as the comics have always done.

These all sound like pretty good things. And yet, it felt like a late winter release from Marvel a la Daredevil, rather than the summer renaissance they’ve provided so often this decade, most recently with Iron Man. I know that part of the problem has got to lie with the Hulk himself; at least, what I’ve read from 1962-1967 reveals him as an insufficiently interesting character with especially uninteresting villains. And sure enough, the majority of the movie related to Bruce Banner being hunted by the army, angered, transformed, eventually captured anyway, and so on, because the army and General Ross are practically his only interesting foes, and they because of the human element. Which is good and all, but falls flat in an ostensible superhero movie. You need super villains for things to work.[1] If you don’t believe me, ask Ang Lee.

On the other hand, though, whatever pejorative comments have been thrown at Lee over the past few years, the primary flaw of his Hulk was in making a movie whose reach far exceeded its grasp. There are worse epitaphs to be cursed with, and among them is to make a movie that simply didn’t bother to reach very far at all.

[1] And, okay, this had a super-villain. Which was pretty much an alternate brute strength guy who we do not like because he isn’t green and because Liv Tyler doesn’t like him. (Well, and he’s kind of a douchebag.) Still, not much of an improvement on the army, which he is incidentally a part of in the first place. On the bright side, they laid groundwork for the only interesting Hulk villain I’ve seen in the comics to be present in a potential sequel. So that’s something.