Thor: The Dark World

This was an entertaining movie. It had the requisite battles to destroy and/ or save the universe; fighting against hideous creatures with dark powers. For sci-fi fans this type of apocalyptic battle is the de rigueur. What makes this movie work is the chemistry of the cast. The audience buys into them. Twirling the hammer is fun to watch, but do you like the guy at the other end of the handle?

The other guy at the end of the handle is Chris Hemsworth, a worthwhile addition to the Australian acting roster working in American cinema: Hugh Jackman, Sam Worthington, Paul Hogan (Crocodile Dundee) and others. He plays Thor with both graveness and a human touch. Hemsworth is most appealing when he is not using his Thor voice and just doing human things like asking for directions to a train station. His relationship with Natalie Portman’s character is heating up and this will take us to the next sequel. Maybe there will be little Thor’s?

Natalie Portman is an actress with credentials (Black Swan, V for Vendetta, Garden State and other movies); it was a surprise to see her in the first Thor movie. This is light duty for her, but with the reduced voltage she is integrating herself well with the cast. She is Thor’s main squeeze and they work well together.

Antony Hopkins should pay the producers for letting him play Odin. He is having too much fun to call this work. His one eyed glare rules over Thor and Loki. Hopkins was such a ham he could be served at a Thanksgiving dinner.

I cannot say that Loki is likable, because he is despicable, but he is an indispensable part of the landscape. Thor without Loki is like a hot dog without mustard. Not to give anything away Loki is an integral part of the story and there is chemistry, even if it is corrosive.

Darcy Lewis, as played by Kat Dennings, is the film’s second banana. She has more air time in this movie than the first (thank goodness for focus groups). She serves up many funny lines. She is still an intern in this movie, but she has an intern who will likely be the third banana at some point.

There are other notable actors who make up Thor’s merry men and a merry woman. It was nice to see Renee Russo on the screen again (she plays Thor’s Mom).

The movie is the whole of its parts. Let’s hope the producers keep these Lego blocks together.

N.B.-DO NOT LEAVE UNTIL THE CREDITS ARE FINISHED!!

Dallas Buyers Club

My impression of Matthew McConaughey was of a light weight actor doing romantic comedies and at every opportunity taking off his shirt showing off his jacked body and PhotoShopped abbs. Recently his acting credentials improved with pictures like Lincoln Lawyer and Magic Mike. As Ron Woodroof, McConaughey ups his game. His acting in this role is memorable. The anger and desperation which McConaughey projects is palatable. Ron Woodroof is in a life and death struggle and McConaughey is pitch perfect portraying Woodroof’s tenacity to live. The physical challenge of the role required McConaughey to lose 50 pounds (so much for my acting career).

Woodroof is diagnosed with AIDS and in 80’s treatment of AIDS was embryonic and basically a gamble. Ron is given a short time to live by his doctors which he rejects telling them to go f__k themselves (this was before Obmacare). Ron appears to be a womanizing alcoholic cocaine drug user, which he was. But he was smart and very well organized and proceeds to get drugs from outside of the US which are not FDA approved. His battle with the FDA is one of the feel good moments of the film.

Woodroof is a homophobe, but he puts his emotions in check when he accepts that gays are lucrative clients.  A center piece of the movie is Woodroof’s relationship with Rayon, a transgender woman played by Jared Lato. The relationship goes from repulsion to acceptance to commitment. Jared Lato is outstanding in this role. Any actor can put on a dress; the trick is to make the audience see beyond the dress. Lato portrays Rayon’s hopelessness with sad eyes, an emaciated body and cheap make up. Lato’s weight he lost for the role is alarming. I think an Oscar nomination is justified here.

Another character is played by Jennifer Garner, one of Woodroof’s doctors.  She plays the role with limited emotion, but she does use the F word, once. She did a good job but this was not a transformative role for her.  Then there is Steve Zahn who plays the Ron’s cop buddy. Zahn does not have much air time and the role is pedestrian but he is sincere and he is always fun to watch.

The last scene is a very poignant metaphor for the movie. Don’t miss it.

p.s.-This is a true story.

Ender’s Game

The premise  of  Ender’s Game is children (12-15 years old) can process information quicker than adults and their gaming prowess teaches them valuable tactical skills. This makes them the ideal soldiers for future battles. The concept of children soldiers is not unique; it goes back to David and today exists in the battle fields of Africa.

The problem with Ender’s Game is Ender, he is the best. He is told in the beginning of the movie that he is the best. In every situation, be it a school test or a battle simulation, the outcome is no surprise. His ascent in military rank is without obstacle.  Ender is two dimensional. His character would be more interesting if he had to overcome failures. Redemption makes for good story telling; people relate.

Asa Butterfield (the kid in Hugo) plays Ender placidly punctuated with some lively periods of homicidal rage. His performance is functional but not memorable. The other child actors are perfunctionary. There is a transition from hostility of his fellow cadets (no one liked Ender in the beginning) to comradery which coalesced into his squadron.

The adults are Harrison Ford, Viola Davis and Sir Ben Kingsley. The megawatt star power in this movie is wasted. None of their roles was demanding or required any acting range. Even big stars need to pay the bills. Harrison Ford is the colonial in charge of the academy for the young soldiers. In this movie he is the angry Harrison Ford. He is humorless and demanding, a scowl is his mask. Viola Davis is Major Anderson, the psychiatrist. For most of the movie you only see shots of her from the waist up, this is a metaphor for wasted talent. In this movie she does not need to dig deep for emotions.

Ben Kingsley shows up towards the end of the movie as a legendary pilot. The meaning of his New Zealand Maori face tattoos eludes me. He just looks ridicules. To save money they could have hired Mike Tyson for the role and saved money on make-up.

Three quarters into the movie it gets interesting. May be it’s my age but I did not expect it (I am sure all the video brats out there are making fun of me). The ending is hokey and clearly a set up for a sequel (doubtful).

If you are into Sci-Fi go see it, if not put it on your Netflix wish list… maybe not.

Carrie 2013

Carrie 2013

This movie seems to be more violent and vengeful than the original 1976 Carrie film. With better special effects and new technology the blood fest has a bigger splash. The 2013 Carrie uses social media, cell phones and digital recorders to persecute Carrie augmenting  vicious and humiliating gossip. Aside from these technological embellishments the movie is basically unchanged. In the modern context this is the ultimate bully revenge movie. 

Julian  Moore plays the fanatical ultra-religious mother, Margret, who wants to keep her daughter from worldly contact, including boys.  Moore is an excellent actress and convincingly plays the role of a woman consumed by guilt for a sin that torments her. The dynamics between daughter and mother are in transition where the dominance of the mother is supplanted by the growing telekinetic powers of the daughter.

Chloë Grace Moretz plays Carrie White. She is the scared girl who is brutally abused by her classmates.  Some scenes were uncomfortable to watch.  In the film Carrie’s abuse is caught on a digital recorder and posted on the internet. The callousness of her classmates drives Carrie to revenge. There is no pity for the bad girls.

The 2013 Carrie was true to the story adding only with some current gadgets which are superfluous. This is a very good story and a good movie. This redux adds little new. Save a few bucks and go to Netflix.

Gravity

Gravity relies heavily on CG, green scenes and copious use of NASA space shots. Sandra Bullock, as Dr. Ryan Stone, and George Clooney, as Matt Kowalsky, are encased in their space suits for most of the movie while floating in space. These two super stars have almost no physical contact, which is a unique approach for this movie.

This is a story of survival. The American astronauts are repairing the Hubble Telescope when they are bombarded with space debris from a shattered Russian satellite destroying the space shuttle and hurling them untethered into space. The roles of Clooney and Bullock imply sexism. In the face of catastrophic failure Clooney’s character is calm, soft spoken and knows what every knob and flashing light mean.  Bullock’s Dr. Ryan is panicking and tumbling out of control physically and mentally. I believe our female astronauts have more of the right stuff than Dr. Ryan.

 What makes this movie different from other classic space movies such as 2001 Space Odyssey, The Right Stuff and Apollo 13 is the majority of the action occurs outside of the space ship. Bullock and Clooney are literally marooned in space. The shots of Earth are stunning. The movie’s visual impact alone is justification to see it. I begrudgingly admit 3D works here.

Bullock has the main role. This is probably the greatest range of emotion she has displayed in a movie to date. She goes from very scared to being very very really scared. This was a physically challenging role for the actors since for the majority of the movie they were suspended with wires off the ground.

There were two other actors. An Indian astronaut who bought the farm in the very beginning of the film (I saw that coming). Also Ed Harris, who played John Glenn in the Right Stuff, is the voice of Houston Mission Control (he never appears on screen). Ironically a real astronaut is Earth bound.

For the most part the hardware and equipment looked authentic (yeah, like I would know), but there was one totally BS scene that belonged in a Looney Tunes cartoon rather than in this movie. It was a lazy way to solve a problem. Interestingly, the movie ran for only 90 minutes which bucks the new trend of three hour movies. I think there is only so much 3D tumbling an audience can take without getting motion sickness.

The movie is worthwhile seeing, I just do not buy into all the ballyhoo the movie has engendered. In Gravity acting is secondary to the green scene.

The Butler

Outstanding movie, go see it.

This is a tale of two stories. One story focuses on the embryonic Civil Rights movement and the other is about a boy’s journey from the cotton fields of Macon Georgia to the back door of the White House. The stories are separate but connected.  Cecile Gaines is the Butler who is very content with the status quo because he knew how hard and dangerous life was before arriving in DC. One of his son’s, Louis, becomes a Freedom Rider against his father’s wishes. This situation creates bitterness and anger between the two. In his quite way Cecile was advancing the cause by giving a better life to his family and the ability for his sons to move forward.

This role was perfect for Forest Whitaker. He has played the quite confident character in other roles (OK, he was not that quite as Idi Amin). Whitaker’s role requires a range of emotions from the invisible butler to the agonized father estranged from his son. The transitioning of emotions is what makes him a great actor.

Then there is Oprah. The woman is a billionaire but she still knows how to work. Oprah must have had real life experience to play Gloria Gaines so well. The part was more than a dutiful wife; she had her own demons and transgressions she had to battle. Her acting chops are still sharp. Oh, one other thing, Oprah has a mean back hand and I do not mean tennis!

I am not sure if the director meant to have the US Presidents as humorous as they were. Some characterizations were better than others. Here are the Presidents in no particular order: John Cusack, Robin Williams, James Marsden, Live Schreiber and Alan Richman. None were an encore performance, but with little imagination they pulled it off.

I am going out on a limb, but I think Forest Whitaker will get an Oscar nomination. As for Oprah, regrettably she has too much bling already.

Elysium

Hi, I’m back from vacation.

I wanted to see Elysium because I like sci-fi and this was the same director who did District 9, Neil Blomkamp. I liked District 9 very much. It condemned Apartheid, and the orchestrated evacuation of the “prawns” was symbolic of genocide. I had high expectations for Elysium, which regrettably were not met.

Elysium is a simple story of the have and have not’s.  The movie sets vividly depict the contrast between the two societies. Los Angles of 2154 is all squalor and over populated while Elysium is a giant sleek space station of prosperity spinning above the Earth fiercely protected against any intruders. Aside from the opulent life style no one on Elysium gets sick. They have machines that cure all, from caner to a shot gun blast to the face (yuk!).

Matt Damon is the protagonist. He is a former criminal eking out a living working in a factory that OSHA would have condemned. Damon is wasted here. Any mid weight actor could have carried off this part since action is more important than acting. What was interesting in the movie was the use of Spanish. I didn’t get it at first, but of course this Los Angles. Even Matt gets to speak some Spanish,”Hola me llamo es…Thank God for subtitles.

Jody Foster players the Über bitch as Elysium’s Secretary of State. Foster plays these roles very well, but here she over does it. Her words were like venom spiting from her lips and veins popping on her neck. She got to the point where her character looked cartoonish.

The most entertaining part of the movie was played by the South African actor Sharlto Copley. He played the nebbish administrator in District 9 who in the end was transformed into a prawn. In District 9 he seemed to be five feet two inches weighting about one hundred and two pounds. In Elysium he is a giant! He looks six feet two inches weighing about two hundred and thirty pounds, all muscle.  He beats the crap out of Damon and you can tell he enjoyed his role.

This is a B movie, more worthwhile on DVD. For all its sleekness it lacks gravity.