I like dinosaurs. I will have a difficult time disliking very much any movie that lets me see dinosaurs. Yes, I know it's all CGI, and yes, I know this isn't actually what dinosaurs looked like, but, doggone it, even these shadows of dinosaurs make my spirits soar.
Because of that, Jurassic World would absolutely be built, even after the fiasco of Jurassic Park. We'll do it right this time. We'll learn from our mistakes. The idea of bringing back the dinosaurs is so compelling that, once the technology to do it exists, every few generations is going to have to learn anew that the dinosaurs always win.
Indominous Rex...I can also buy. It does seem like eventually someone would stop to think that one all the way through...but maybe not. It's human nature to want things bigger and better, and we mad scientists are not necessarily known for our prudence. So yeah, this situation would exist, and the dinosaurs would win.
But did we really have to make it so easy on them? Let's enter the cage to inspect the scratch marks before we find the missing super-dino, because clearly touching the scratch marks is more important than looking for footprints on the other side of the wall or finding the most secure shelter available until we figure out what's going on.
(Which, by the way, how did Indominous know to change her body temperature? Why on earth would she have suspected that that was being monitored?)
Then, once the super-dino has escaped, we should certainly try to recapture it alive, and not evacuate the island immediately, because we're concerned about money.
Question: Which zoo would you go to--the one that you know will evacuate you the minute there's any hint of anything wrong, or the one one that will tell you everything's under control until it's too late? Heck, why not have enough ferry boats for everyone on the island and just evacuate to a little ways offshore for a few hours? I know ferry boats are expensive, but you have an island full of dinosaurs. This seems like a reasonably cost-effective safety measure.
Also, I understand why the first Indominous was so expensive, but why would the second one be? You've already done all the research and synthesized the DNA, so all you have left to do is grow the clone, and by now the Jurassic World scientists would be able to do that in their sleep. So shoot the rogue Indominous and make a new one. (Or come to your senses and not.) Your business model kind of depends on no tourists getting eaten, so even if it costs you a bit and causes some delay, it's worth it.
Then, when they do get serious about shooting the thing, we find out that the only person left on the entire island who can pilot a chopper at all is the only half-competent financier of the place. Wait, what? The containment team really doesn't include any trained helicopter pilots? Why the heck do you have a helicopter? Now, it's possible that no pilot could have pulled this off, but, come on guys, you're not even trying here.
In the meantime, the endangered kids very conveniently found the old Jurassic Park visitors' center and got a jeep working, which they totally have the skills and tools to do, and fortunately it still had enough gas to get them back to the new visitors' center. Willing suspension of disbelief and all that, but...
And then there were the velociraptors. The semi-trained velociraptors. These aren't dinosaurs. They're scaly wolves. And you know what? The military would not be considering using them as weapons, for the same reason we don't use wolves as weapons. Namely, that idea is insane. We do use dogs, but not in the way they were talking about the velociraptors. We don't typically go into the war zone and try to sic a pack of dogs on the enemy. Unless they have managed to create velociraptors with bullet proof hides, velociraptor regiments are not going to be effective.
(While we're on this subject, exactly what is the logic behind the idea that animals can't be bought? Isn't the whole methodology of training that they can be bought with food? True that you will sometimes hear incredible stories of the loyalty of dogs, but why are we expecting velociraptors to act like dogs?)
When the velociraptors do find Indominous, there's some difficulty because SPOILER ALERT: Indominous is part raptor. Funny how the military guy who seemed to be in charge of this didn't realize that was a problem. Just hubris, I guess?
And then the big showdown happens. In one important moment, a velociraptor decides where her loyalty lies. Why do we have to rob raptors of their dinosaur-ness like this? And in another, a woman in high heals outruns a T-rex. In the world of Jurassic Park, it is mentioned that the T-rex can run at 32 miles per hour. A woman in high heals cannot run at 32 miles per hour. An olympic sprinter in running shoes cannot run at 32 miles per hour. She is lunch. (Or in this case, midnight snack.)
But she makes it. And the velociraptor sides with the humans, and, with the help of a well-placed sea monster, they bring Indominous down and let the humans escape, and the T-rex is now free and happy, as...nature intended? END SPOILER
So at the end of the day, we have a dinosaur park run by people with a grand total of no common sense. But still, we have a dinosaur park, and that's what counts.
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Friday, June 12, 2015
Jurassic Park
This is one of the cruelest movies that I have ever seen. Not because it was bad. Not because it was gory. Not because (spoiler alert...) the obnoxious mathematician lived and the big game hunter died. (Look, I know us mad scientists gotta stick together, but a) he's a mathematician, not a scientist, and b) he was really obnoxious.)
No, this was an exceedingly cruel movie because everyone who is human is, in some part of their heart, Hammond. Everyone who had a healthy childhood has fantasized at least once about bringing the dinosaurs back to life. And, let's be honest, some of us still do.
Jurassic Park indulges those fantasies. The first part of the movie, where you are just seeing dinosaurs brought back to life on a beautiful, almost prehistoric island, is amazing. The explanation is sort-of-kind-of-plausible-ish if you squint, and it's good enough, because you buy it, because you want to, because inside each of us is a ten year old who desperately wants to see a [insert your favorite kind of dinosaur here, and don't pretend like you don't have one!]. And for a moment, Jurassic Park makes you believe that you can.
And then...they eat you. It's the only possible scenario. How did you want it to end? Dinosaurs in cages? Dinosaurs conquered by man? Tame dinosaurs? Those would not really be dinosaurs. The reason we love dinosaurs is precisely because they would eat us. We don't think of it in those terms, of course, but what we love when we love dinosaurs is the size, the power, the wildness, the mystery. Tame dinosaurs would not really be dinosaurs--they'd be overgrown dogs. Caged dinosaurs would not be dinosaurs--they'd be scaly lions. [Or feathery lions, but I refuse to get into that discussion here. The movie shows them scaly.] Dinosaurs are not dinosaurs unless they are free and fierce. Put a puny human in the mix, and there is only one outcome.
There is a small irony here that the mathematician was absolutely wrong about chaos theory applying. This system is actually remarkably robust. Perhaps there is an alternate universe out there where Hammond didn't hire a scumbag and put him in charge of all the park computer systems. Maybe there's one where the storm did dissipate, or where someone thought to have the system require two people to turn off the electric fences. Maybe this, maybe that, maybe a thousand possible permutations of the security measures, but the dinosaurs will always win. It won't always happen the same way. There may be some alternate universes where the park does open. There may even be some where it functions well for years. But the dinosaurs always win in the end. No system created by humans is ever perfect, so it's only a matter of time before something goes wrong. Dinosaurs, by definition, are fierce and free, and so, at the first mistake we make, they win.
And so Jurassic Park has done about the cruelest thing that can be done to many childhood fantasies: It indulged the fantasy, only to see it through to its logical conclusion.
No, this was an exceedingly cruel movie because everyone who is human is, in some part of their heart, Hammond. Everyone who had a healthy childhood has fantasized at least once about bringing the dinosaurs back to life. And, let's be honest, some of us still do.
Jurassic Park indulges those fantasies. The first part of the movie, where you are just seeing dinosaurs brought back to life on a beautiful, almost prehistoric island, is amazing. The explanation is sort-of-kind-of-plausible-ish if you squint, and it's good enough, because you buy it, because you want to, because inside each of us is a ten year old who desperately wants to see a [insert your favorite kind of dinosaur here, and don't pretend like you don't have one!]. And for a moment, Jurassic Park makes you believe that you can.
And then...they eat you. It's the only possible scenario. How did you want it to end? Dinosaurs in cages? Dinosaurs conquered by man? Tame dinosaurs? Those would not really be dinosaurs. The reason we love dinosaurs is precisely because they would eat us. We don't think of it in those terms, of course, but what we love when we love dinosaurs is the size, the power, the wildness, the mystery. Tame dinosaurs would not really be dinosaurs--they'd be overgrown dogs. Caged dinosaurs would not be dinosaurs--they'd be scaly lions. [Or feathery lions, but I refuse to get into that discussion here. The movie shows them scaly.] Dinosaurs are not dinosaurs unless they are free and fierce. Put a puny human in the mix, and there is only one outcome.
There is a small irony here that the mathematician was absolutely wrong about chaos theory applying. This system is actually remarkably robust. Perhaps there is an alternate universe out there where Hammond didn't hire a scumbag and put him in charge of all the park computer systems. Maybe there's one where the storm did dissipate, or where someone thought to have the system require two people to turn off the electric fences. Maybe this, maybe that, maybe a thousand possible permutations of the security measures, but the dinosaurs will always win. It won't always happen the same way. There may be some alternate universes where the park does open. There may even be some where it functions well for years. But the dinosaurs always win in the end. No system created by humans is ever perfect, so it's only a matter of time before something goes wrong. Dinosaurs, by definition, are fierce and free, and so, at the first mistake we make, they win.
And so Jurassic Park has done about the cruelest thing that can be done to many childhood fantasies: It indulged the fantasy, only to see it through to its logical conclusion.
Thursday, May 28, 2015
Avengers: Age of Ultron
This was not a bad movie. Compared to some of the other Marvel movies, it was not a great movie, but that's a pretty high bar.
Spoilers will abound in this review--the problem is, though the movie overall was all right, lots of little things bugged me, and those little things added up to detract from my enjoyment of the movie as a whole. Therefore, I can't talk about it without talking specifics. And so, SPOILER ALERT!
Age of Ultron begins fairly promisingly. The team is back together, bringing down a Hydra base where Loki's staff is being kept. The first few minutes really made me appreciate the value of a "cinematic universe" like Marvel has been building. We have half a dozen major characters who need no introduction. The goal can be stated very simply: Get Loki's staff from the Hydra base. The viewers already know what all of these things mean. We can jump right in to the action, which, let's be honest, is the reason we're all here.
After the staff is retrieved, Tony Stark discovers that it contains some sort of artificial intelligence. (Later, this turns out to be an infinity stone. Seems like the Asgardians would have known that Loki had that, but okay. Loki is a master of deception, so I'll let it slide.) Anyway, Stark decides to use that artificial intelligence to create a sentient robot programmed to protect Earth, and he gets Bruce Banner to help him, because apparently neither of them have seen I, Robot.
The viewer can see from a mile away that this isn't going to end well, but, to be fair, Stark and Banner are both doing and saying things that are totally in character and the whole setup is reasonably plausible, as far as superhero movies go, and then...
"Peace in our time."
Wait! What? Did Tony Stark seriously just quote Neville Chamberlain?? This is Iron Man we're talking about. This is a man who made a fortune selling weapons, and, when he got out of the weapons business, it was not because he became a pacifist, but because he realized his weapons were falling into the wrong hands. In his post-weapons-magnate career, he has become a warrior, single-handedly (or with the help of a few friends) taking on the forces of evil whenever the situation calls for it. He is, in that very moment, discussing building a weapon of such power that it would deter all threats to the entire earth. Why is he quoting history's most famous appeaser?
Are we to assume he doesn't know where that phrase comes from? You don't have to be a genius (which he is) or have close friends who fought in WWII (which he does) to be aware of that. Do the scriptwriters assume the audience won't know the context? That's kind of insulting. Do the scriptwriters themselves not know the context? Say it ain't so--I really want to believe better of them.
And yet the question remains: Why did Tony Stark just quote Neville Chamberlain? That this is the phrase Ultron initially latches on to only highlights the problem. A little thing, but it got under my skin (as you can tell).
Then, after the creepiest rendition of "No Strings on Me" ever imagined, the questions just multiply. What advantage does Ultron see in a biological/vibranium body over a pure vibranium one? Why is Romanov the only Avenger who does not have some sort of supernatural (or technologically advanced to the point of being supernatural) enhancement or weapon? And why does her suit glow in the dark? Don't get me wrong--it looks cool, but isn't she supposed to be a stealthy assassin? What's up with Thor's visions? (I'm hoping they come back to this in a later movie.) While we're on the topic, where is Loki? Not that this is a plot hole, but he is just about my favorite villain ever, so I'm always hoping he's going to show up. Also, where is Falcon? I would like him to get more screen time.
When did Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver get over their issues with Tony Stark? I could almost let this slide, except that Fury explicitly said something like "Ultron having an enemy is not the same as us having a friend." Sure, they can work with Steve Rogers, but anyone who's not a total villain can work with him. There is nothing objectionable whatsoever about that guy. Stark? Different story. The twins do have something like a legitimate grievance with him, and it just kind of...goes away.
What exactly are The Vision's powers? Ultron, Stark, Banner, and Thor all had a hand in his creation, and Loki's infinity stone is in his forehead, so he can lift Mjolnir, fly, and mind meld with the internet?
On a side note, I did think the whole hammer thing was pretty well played. That first scene where they're all trying to lift it seems just to be fun filler while we wait for Ultron to show up, and having Steve able to shift it was a nice touch. (I've since been told that, in the comics, he can actually wield it, so some people where disappointed that he couldn't lift it here. I took it for granted that no puny mortal would be able to make it budge, so I was pretty impressed with even that small movement.) Then the whole thing ends up being quite significant down the road. Nicely done, there.
And now you see the real problem: I've spent this whole review focused on tiny things. A line here, a scene there, even a costume choice. I haven't talked about the plot or the themes or the character development. The movie contained plenty of all of the above, but I just lost the forest for the trees with all the little things that went wrong.
I guess I will address the big ideas just briefly. This is a movie that is, once you strip away all the extraneous trappings, fundamentally, at its core, about why Pepper Pots can never go on vacation. Think about it: If she had been there, none of this would have happened. She would probably have been with Stark when he was forming the idea (and, if not, she almost certainly would have realized that he was up to something before Ultron was finally formed) and she could possibly have talked him out of it. If not him, then probably Banner, and, if not Banner, she could have gotten the rest of the team to put a stop to it, because she's a sane person like that.
Okay. Got all of that out of my system. END SPOILER.
Again, none of these problems was terribly significant on their own, and overall it was a fun action flick. Also, we have to give Marvel credit: Is there any other series whose eleventh installment has still been pretty decent? I am very much looking forward to the twelfth.
Spoilers will abound in this review--the problem is, though the movie overall was all right, lots of little things bugged me, and those little things added up to detract from my enjoyment of the movie as a whole. Therefore, I can't talk about it without talking specifics. And so, SPOILER ALERT!
Age of Ultron begins fairly promisingly. The team is back together, bringing down a Hydra base where Loki's staff is being kept. The first few minutes really made me appreciate the value of a "cinematic universe" like Marvel has been building. We have half a dozen major characters who need no introduction. The goal can be stated very simply: Get Loki's staff from the Hydra base. The viewers already know what all of these things mean. We can jump right in to the action, which, let's be honest, is the reason we're all here.
After the staff is retrieved, Tony Stark discovers that it contains some sort of artificial intelligence. (Later, this turns out to be an infinity stone. Seems like the Asgardians would have known that Loki had that, but okay. Loki is a master of deception, so I'll let it slide.) Anyway, Stark decides to use that artificial intelligence to create a sentient robot programmed to protect Earth, and he gets Bruce Banner to help him, because apparently neither of them have seen I, Robot.
The viewer can see from a mile away that this isn't going to end well, but, to be fair, Stark and Banner are both doing and saying things that are totally in character and the whole setup is reasonably plausible, as far as superhero movies go, and then...
"Peace in our time."
Wait! What? Did Tony Stark seriously just quote Neville Chamberlain?? This is Iron Man we're talking about. This is a man who made a fortune selling weapons, and, when he got out of the weapons business, it was not because he became a pacifist, but because he realized his weapons were falling into the wrong hands. In his post-weapons-magnate career, he has become a warrior, single-handedly (or with the help of a few friends) taking on the forces of evil whenever the situation calls for it. He is, in that very moment, discussing building a weapon of such power that it would deter all threats to the entire earth. Why is he quoting history's most famous appeaser?
Are we to assume he doesn't know where that phrase comes from? You don't have to be a genius (which he is) or have close friends who fought in WWII (which he does) to be aware of that. Do the scriptwriters assume the audience won't know the context? That's kind of insulting. Do the scriptwriters themselves not know the context? Say it ain't so--I really want to believe better of them.
And yet the question remains: Why did Tony Stark just quote Neville Chamberlain? That this is the phrase Ultron initially latches on to only highlights the problem. A little thing, but it got under my skin (as you can tell).
Then, after the creepiest rendition of "No Strings on Me" ever imagined, the questions just multiply. What advantage does Ultron see in a biological/vibranium body over a pure vibranium one? Why is Romanov the only Avenger who does not have some sort of supernatural (or technologically advanced to the point of being supernatural) enhancement or weapon? And why does her suit glow in the dark? Don't get me wrong--it looks cool, but isn't she supposed to be a stealthy assassin? What's up with Thor's visions? (I'm hoping they come back to this in a later movie.) While we're on the topic, where is Loki? Not that this is a plot hole, but he is just about my favorite villain ever, so I'm always hoping he's going to show up. Also, where is Falcon? I would like him to get more screen time.
When did Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver get over their issues with Tony Stark? I could almost let this slide, except that Fury explicitly said something like "Ultron having an enemy is not the same as us having a friend." Sure, they can work with Steve Rogers, but anyone who's not a total villain can work with him. There is nothing objectionable whatsoever about that guy. Stark? Different story. The twins do have something like a legitimate grievance with him, and it just kind of...goes away.
What exactly are The Vision's powers? Ultron, Stark, Banner, and Thor all had a hand in his creation, and Loki's infinity stone is in his forehead, so he can lift Mjolnir, fly, and mind meld with the internet?
On a side note, I did think the whole hammer thing was pretty well played. That first scene where they're all trying to lift it seems just to be fun filler while we wait for Ultron to show up, and having Steve able to shift it was a nice touch. (I've since been told that, in the comics, he can actually wield it, so some people where disappointed that he couldn't lift it here. I took it for granted that no puny mortal would be able to make it budge, so I was pretty impressed with even that small movement.) Then the whole thing ends up being quite significant down the road. Nicely done, there.
And now you see the real problem: I've spent this whole review focused on tiny things. A line here, a scene there, even a costume choice. I haven't talked about the plot or the themes or the character development. The movie contained plenty of all of the above, but I just lost the forest for the trees with all the little things that went wrong.
I guess I will address the big ideas just briefly. This is a movie that is, once you strip away all the extraneous trappings, fundamentally, at its core, about why Pepper Pots can never go on vacation. Think about it: If she had been there, none of this would have happened. She would probably have been with Stark when he was forming the idea (and, if not, she almost certainly would have realized that he was up to something before Ultron was finally formed) and she could possibly have talked him out of it. If not him, then probably Banner, and, if not Banner, she could have gotten the rest of the team to put a stop to it, because she's a sane person like that.
Okay. Got all of that out of my system. END SPOILER.
Again, none of these problems was terribly significant on their own, and overall it was a fun action flick. Also, we have to give Marvel credit: Is there any other series whose eleventh installment has still been pretty decent? I am very much looking forward to the twelfth.
Thursday, April 23, 2015
Now You See Me
"Wait...Mad Scientist, why are you posting two movie reviews in one day? Did you do a double feature on a weeknight?" You may or may not be thinking.
The answer is no, I watched these on two separate days and I just haven't gotten around to reviewing them until now. Nevertheless, Now You See Me did have the misfortune to be the next movie I watched after The Fugitive, and, as you'll know from reading my last review, nothing was ever going to live up to that standard.
Now You See Me didn't even try. It suffered mainly from two problems, one minor and one major. The minor problem was it couldn't make up its mind about the existence of magic. There was far too much explaining for this to be a show about wizards, but also not nearly enough for it to be a satisfying show about illusionists. Besides the hypnosis, which always seemed to be real, the tricks the Horsemen did were (mostly) pretty clearly just tricks. Then things got strange at the end with "The Eye." On the one hand, "The real magic is taking four solo acts and making them work together." On the other hand...exactly how do you explain that weird Tarot card business? A movie about illusionists can't pull a stunt like that without some hint at an explanation, or the existence of an explanation...so...magic is real? What's going on?
I may or may not have been able to get over that, if not for the major problem with the movie: Every single character was completely unlikeable. By the end, I was hoping to see all of them utterly humiliated. Of course they couldn't all lose, so some of them had to win, and the twist was well played, and did shed new light on one of the characters, but...it wasn't enough. The payoff did not make up for all the brainpower I had to expend to keep up with plot developments that didn't make sense and tricks that weren't explained all in the service of characters I didn't like.
SPOILER ALERT: The other minor problem was the cell phone. I mean, how would a person possibly not notice his cell phone had been swapped with a duplicate? There's no way (that the movie ever bothered mentioning) the Horsemen could have known all his contacts, his downloaded apps, his pictures, his music, his password, his voicemail greeting, etc. etc. Even if they did manage to do something fancy with the sim card, which I don't think they did, how would they even know what kind of cell phone he had? And yes, I realize he was playing along and rigging the game the whole time, but why would no one around him find it suspicious that it took him so long to realize his phone was not really his phone? END SPOILER
I like to fix movies, but I don't know if there was anything that could be done for this one. The characters would have all had to be completely redone. Once that was taken care of...I'm guessing a lot of other problems would have emerged. I think the only hope would have been a total re-write that somehow managed to result in Tommy Lee Jones chasing Harrison Ford.
The answer is no, I watched these on two separate days and I just haven't gotten around to reviewing them until now. Nevertheless, Now You See Me did have the misfortune to be the next movie I watched after The Fugitive, and, as you'll know from reading my last review, nothing was ever going to live up to that standard.
Now You See Me didn't even try. It suffered mainly from two problems, one minor and one major. The minor problem was it couldn't make up its mind about the existence of magic. There was far too much explaining for this to be a show about wizards, but also not nearly enough for it to be a satisfying show about illusionists. Besides the hypnosis, which always seemed to be real, the tricks the Horsemen did were (mostly) pretty clearly just tricks. Then things got strange at the end with "The Eye." On the one hand, "The real magic is taking four solo acts and making them work together." On the other hand...exactly how do you explain that weird Tarot card business? A movie about illusionists can't pull a stunt like that without some hint at an explanation, or the existence of an explanation...so...magic is real? What's going on?
I may or may not have been able to get over that, if not for the major problem with the movie: Every single character was completely unlikeable. By the end, I was hoping to see all of them utterly humiliated. Of course they couldn't all lose, so some of them had to win, and the twist was well played, and did shed new light on one of the characters, but...it wasn't enough. The payoff did not make up for all the brainpower I had to expend to keep up with plot developments that didn't make sense and tricks that weren't explained all in the service of characters I didn't like.
SPOILER ALERT: The other minor problem was the cell phone. I mean, how would a person possibly not notice his cell phone had been swapped with a duplicate? There's no way (that the movie ever bothered mentioning) the Horsemen could have known all his contacts, his downloaded apps, his pictures, his music, his password, his voicemail greeting, etc. etc. Even if they did manage to do something fancy with the sim card, which I don't think they did, how would they even know what kind of cell phone he had? And yes, I realize he was playing along and rigging the game the whole time, but why would no one around him find it suspicious that it took him so long to realize his phone was not really his phone? END SPOILER
I like to fix movies, but I don't know if there was anything that could be done for this one. The characters would have all had to be completely redone. Once that was taken care of...I'm guessing a lot of other problems would have emerged. I think the only hope would have been a total re-write that somehow managed to result in Tommy Lee Jones chasing Harrison Ford.
The Fugitive
This was an excellent movie. It can be summarized as, "Tommy Lee Jones chases Harrison Ford for two hours." After watching it, I spent some time thinking about whether there is any way a movie that can be described like that could possibly go wrong. My conclusion is: No. No, there isn't. The setup could be anything from a zany, ridiculous, "Agent K chases Han Solo through a galaxy inside a subway station locker" to a dead serious, gritty action film. Anything on that spectrum would work. In fact, "Tommy Lee Jones chases Harrison Ford for two hours" could be an entire sub-genera unto itself, and every single entry would be awesome. Why don't I live in the alternate universe where this happened?
My only complaint is that the violence at the beginning and end was slightly more brutal than it really needed to be. Don't get me wrong--I like action movies, and I like fight scenes, but I like them for the stunts and for the thrill that comes with the fear of danger, not for the actual violence itself. (Okay, fine, sometimes it is pretty satisfying to see the villain take a couple punches to the face, but that's beside the point...I think...) Anyway, because of that, my philosophy is that the violence should be toned down as much as it can be without sacrificing either of those two things, and The Fugitive could have toned it down a little.
But honestly, only a little. It's a pretty minor complaint, and everything else about the movie is perfect. I considered starting this review with a line or two quoted from the movie that caught its essence, but there were too many good ones and I couldn't choose. Instead, I will let you go watch it for yourself and enjoy all of them.
This is a movie about what happens when an unstoppable force (Harrison Ford) meets an immovable object (Tommy Lee Jones). Their two characters are both remarkably stubborn, admirably resourceful, and absolutely convinced of the justice of their own cause. They are also both completely right.
And that is what makes this movie so insanely good. Of course the good guy is is going to win. I tend to avoid movies where that is not a foregone conclusion because I have the taste of a ten year old boy. But with The Fugitive, the actual villain is the direct cause of very little of the film's suspense or conflict, which is provided almost entirely through chase of the escaped convict by the lawman. (There's a reason it's called The Fugitive, after all.)
So who's the good guy? Is it the escaped convict--the man who was wrongly put on death row because he was framed for the murder of his wife but then escaped and is now trying to avoid recapture and find the real killer? Or is it the lawman--the U.S. marshal whose job it is to protect people from convicted murderers?
The answer, of course, is that it's both of them, and when you have two good guys in conflict, anything could happen. The real villain is there, of course, lurking in the background and leading to the inevitable black and white climax, but throughout the movie, it is by no means clear where any particular step is going to lead. Even better, you the viewer don't always know where you want it to lead, so you can just sit back, relax, and enjoy this immensely fun ride.
My only complaint is that the violence at the beginning and end was slightly more brutal than it really needed to be. Don't get me wrong--I like action movies, and I like fight scenes, but I like them for the stunts and for the thrill that comes with the fear of danger, not for the actual violence itself. (Okay, fine, sometimes it is pretty satisfying to see the villain take a couple punches to the face, but that's beside the point...I think...) Anyway, because of that, my philosophy is that the violence should be toned down as much as it can be without sacrificing either of those two things, and The Fugitive could have toned it down a little.
But honestly, only a little. It's a pretty minor complaint, and everything else about the movie is perfect. I considered starting this review with a line or two quoted from the movie that caught its essence, but there were too many good ones and I couldn't choose. Instead, I will let you go watch it for yourself and enjoy all of them.
This is a movie about what happens when an unstoppable force (Harrison Ford) meets an immovable object (Tommy Lee Jones). Their two characters are both remarkably stubborn, admirably resourceful, and absolutely convinced of the justice of their own cause. They are also both completely right.
And that is what makes this movie so insanely good. Of course the good guy is is going to win. I tend to avoid movies where that is not a foregone conclusion because I have the taste of a ten year old boy. But with The Fugitive, the actual villain is the direct cause of very little of the film's suspense or conflict, which is provided almost entirely through chase of the escaped convict by the lawman. (There's a reason it's called The Fugitive, after all.)
So who's the good guy? Is it the escaped convict--the man who was wrongly put on death row because he was framed for the murder of his wife but then escaped and is now trying to avoid recapture and find the real killer? Or is it the lawman--the U.S. marshal whose job it is to protect people from convicted murderers?
The answer, of course, is that it's both of them, and when you have two good guys in conflict, anything could happen. The real villain is there, of course, lurking in the background and leading to the inevitable black and white climax, but throughout the movie, it is by no means clear where any particular step is going to lead. Even better, you the viewer don't always know where you want it to lead, so you can just sit back, relax, and enjoy this immensely fun ride.
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Columbo
I'm not going to review every episode of every TV show I watch, because that would be ridiculous. (Unfortunately, I watch way too much TV...) [Also, yes, for all you grammar geeks out there, I do know you're not supposed to put a comma before "because," but I feel like the sentence needs the comma to have the desired rhythm. I'm sometimes loose with punctuation that way. In the future, I will not be apologizing for this.] However, I think I'll review a show as a whole after it's over.
I recently finished "Columbo." It was a pretty good little show. I call it "little" not to, well, belittle it, but because the world it created was very small. I like (or, rather, I think I like) shows that are big--I love the world-building. Complicated mythologies, intricate storylines, complex characters, the works. The problem is that I demand perfection of such shows. An unhealthy amount of my memory space is devoted to remembering the details of fantasy universes, so a big show sure as heck better not break their own rules at any point. Also, I don't like the feeling that the showrunners are making things up as they go. Of course we the viewers, and possibly the characters, are exploring the world of the show one episode at a time, but the world itself should feel self-existent. If you introduce later something that would have changed a previous episode had it existed then without giving a convincing reason for why it is only now showing up, I am going to be disappointed. This is a real problem, since showrunners are always making things up as they go. That's how TV works. Therefore, big shows are hit-and-miss. When they're good, they're great, but it takes a lot to be good.
That's where small shows come in. The world of "Columbo" consists entirely of the titular character, his dog, his car, and his perpetually off-screen wife. That's it. In later seasons, there were one or two semi-recurring policemen in bit parts, but they were little more than extras. The plot of basically every single episode can be summarized as, "Columbo catches murderer." (Off the top of my head, I can think of only one exception, and the plot of that one was "Columbo catches would-be murderer moments before the murder occurs.") The only thing the show needed to do to maintain a consistent mythology was to keep the character of Columbo himself consistent.
They did a pretty good job of that, though I will complain that in later seasons, he seemed less "Sherlock Holmes playing Jacques Clouseau" and more just "Jacques Clouseau." The later seasons generally seemed inferior to the earlier seasons. The plots weren't quite as tight, the plans not quite as clever, the pacing sometimes a bit slow, but there were some good moments. The would-be murderer case was a particularly effective deviation from the usual formula.
The earlier episodes were often quite clever, and I think, more than anything, this is what I liked about the show. I am now convinced that I could never get away with murder, or probably any other crime. I would never actually think of everything. At first, I didn't like the "opening with the murder" format the show employs because it takes the mystery out of it. You know from the start whodunit. The more I watched, though, the more I became sold on the style. Starting with the crime gives the viewer a chance to catch the perpetrator's mistakes before Columbo does--to say, "Don't leave those fingerprints on the door!" (Not that you're rooting for the murderer, but you know what I mean.) Usually, I didn't see many. For the most part, the murderers were pretty wily. Then Columbo gets to the scene and within five minutes finds some crucial clue that's lying out in the open that you never thought of.
My conclusion is that if I ever wanted to commit murder, I would have to either a) Think of an incredibly intricate, complicated, Rube-Goldberg mess of a plan that would account for absolutely everything, which I would be so proud of that I would just have to brag about it to someone, which of course would blow the whole thing b) Actually cause an accident. Not make it look like an accident, but actually cause a legitimate accident and hope the jury forgives me or c) Straight-up just shoot the guy in broad daylight and then immediately get on a plane to some country without an extradition treaty and never come back. Those are the only possibilities.
Why am I thinking about how to get away with murder?? And is doing so better or worse than spending a lot of time thinking about what life would be like as a starship captain? And if I were a starship captain, how would that change the murder plot? And has this entire post suddenly devolved into an argument against watching TV, period?
Anyway, it was fun to match wits with Columbo, even if I usually lost. In fact, it was probably fun to match wits with Columbo precisely because I usually lost. If I had usually won, the predictability of the form would have made the show go stale very quickly. As it was, the form provided a certain comforting steadiness, especially now that the show is over.
Lt. Columbo isn't gone. He'll be back in a moment to ask just one more thing. There is always one more thing, one more murder, one more case, even if I don't get to see it.
I recently finished "Columbo." It was a pretty good little show. I call it "little" not to, well, belittle it, but because the world it created was very small. I like (or, rather, I think I like) shows that are big--I love the world-building. Complicated mythologies, intricate storylines, complex characters, the works. The problem is that I demand perfection of such shows. An unhealthy amount of my memory space is devoted to remembering the details of fantasy universes, so a big show sure as heck better not break their own rules at any point. Also, I don't like the feeling that the showrunners are making things up as they go. Of course we the viewers, and possibly the characters, are exploring the world of the show one episode at a time, but the world itself should feel self-existent. If you introduce later something that would have changed a previous episode had it existed then without giving a convincing reason for why it is only now showing up, I am going to be disappointed. This is a real problem, since showrunners are always making things up as they go. That's how TV works. Therefore, big shows are hit-and-miss. When they're good, they're great, but it takes a lot to be good.
That's where small shows come in. The world of "Columbo" consists entirely of the titular character, his dog, his car, and his perpetually off-screen wife. That's it. In later seasons, there were one or two semi-recurring policemen in bit parts, but they were little more than extras. The plot of basically every single episode can be summarized as, "Columbo catches murderer." (Off the top of my head, I can think of only one exception, and the plot of that one was "Columbo catches would-be murderer moments before the murder occurs.") The only thing the show needed to do to maintain a consistent mythology was to keep the character of Columbo himself consistent.
They did a pretty good job of that, though I will complain that in later seasons, he seemed less "Sherlock Holmes playing Jacques Clouseau" and more just "Jacques Clouseau." The later seasons generally seemed inferior to the earlier seasons. The plots weren't quite as tight, the plans not quite as clever, the pacing sometimes a bit slow, but there were some good moments. The would-be murderer case was a particularly effective deviation from the usual formula.
The earlier episodes were often quite clever, and I think, more than anything, this is what I liked about the show. I am now convinced that I could never get away with murder, or probably any other crime. I would never actually think of everything. At first, I didn't like the "opening with the murder" format the show employs because it takes the mystery out of it. You know from the start whodunit. The more I watched, though, the more I became sold on the style. Starting with the crime gives the viewer a chance to catch the perpetrator's mistakes before Columbo does--to say, "Don't leave those fingerprints on the door!" (Not that you're rooting for the murderer, but you know what I mean.) Usually, I didn't see many. For the most part, the murderers were pretty wily. Then Columbo gets to the scene and within five minutes finds some crucial clue that's lying out in the open that you never thought of.
My conclusion is that if I ever wanted to commit murder, I would have to either a) Think of an incredibly intricate, complicated, Rube-Goldberg mess of a plan that would account for absolutely everything, which I would be so proud of that I would just have to brag about it to someone, which of course would blow the whole thing b) Actually cause an accident. Not make it look like an accident, but actually cause a legitimate accident and hope the jury forgives me or c) Straight-up just shoot the guy in broad daylight and then immediately get on a plane to some country without an extradition treaty and never come back. Those are the only possibilities.
Why am I thinking about how to get away with murder?? And is doing so better or worse than spending a lot of time thinking about what life would be like as a starship captain? And if I were a starship captain, how would that change the murder plot? And has this entire post suddenly devolved into an argument against watching TV, period?
Anyway, it was fun to match wits with Columbo, even if I usually lost. In fact, it was probably fun to match wits with Columbo precisely because I usually lost. If I had usually won, the predictability of the form would have made the show go stale very quickly. As it was, the form provided a certain comforting steadiness, especially now that the show is over.
Lt. Columbo isn't gone. He'll be back in a moment to ask just one more thing. There is always one more thing, one more murder, one more case, even if I don't get to see it.
Saturday, February 7, 2015
Jupiter Ascending
I have trouble sitting back, relaxing, and enjoying a movie. The problem is so few movies are perfect, and, as I watch just about any movie, I feel the need to troubleshoot and mentally fix it. So it was with "Jupiter Ascending."
The first problem I saw was the pacing. (Well no, that's not true. The first problem was the movie opening with a voice over, which is almost always a bad sign.) This is a hard thing for action movies: You never want to reveal everything all at once because mysteries are intriguing, but you also need to establish the stakes early on. If two alien forces are going to destroy the city of Chicago, I need to know what they're fighting over. I need to be rooting for one side or the other here, because, if I'm not, all other things being equal, I have to end up rooting for Chicago to not be destroyed, which really gets in the way of me enjoying the visual spectacle of explosions, which is what fight scenes should really be about. "Jupiter Ascending" kept me just enough in the dark for me to be confused about the stakes when it counted, and revealed just enough so that I wasn't actually surprised by anything.
The second problem was the tone. I really couldn't tell whether "Jupiter Ascending" knew when it was being funny. Most of the time it seemed to take itself pretty seriously, and the result, quite frankly, was hilarious, but sometimes it did something very deliberately hilarious (the intractable bureaucracy comes to mind) that did not quite fit the seemingly straight-faced persona of the rest of the movie. This left me confused as to whether I was laughing at or with the movie, and that's never a good place to be.
The third problem was genre. "Jupiter Ascending" wanted to be a sci-fi action movie, a chick flick, and an intergalactic political thriller all at once. It did not succeed, and, I'm afraid, in the attempt, managed to appeal to the intersection of the intended audiences rather than their union. It didn't help that the chick flick part of it was absolutely full of cringe-inducing dialogue.
To my surprise, despite these three very major flaws, I found myself enjoying the movie, and not in the sense that it was so bad, it was good (which I think was the opinion of many people in the theater), but in the sense that despite the bad, it was good. This led to an epiphany: The problems I had diagnosed were problems, but they were not the problem. The problem was the form. "Jupiter Ascending" is not a great movie, but it has all the makings of an awesome TV show.
Think about it (some minor spoilers follow): We've got an ordinary girl who finds out that, not only is there a huge universe out there that she's never dreamed about, but also she's the empress of the whole thing. We've got not one, not two, but three villains with intricate, interwoven plans and complex backstories (not to mention a couple of minions worth developing a piece). We have hints at explanations for the extinction of the dinosaurs, reincarnation, Baalim, vampires, Roswell grays, crop circles, (with a stretch) werewolves, dragons, and (with a bigger stretch) the Egyptian gods. We find out there's a fortress inside of the planet Jupiter and all of Earth is just a pawn in a game of intergalactic chess between powerful players who are also humans, which is apparently a kind of master race that did not start on Earth. We have human-animal hybrids created by "Splicers" who brand their property. Heck, we have a mouse-person as the number one assistant to one of the most powerful men in the universe. How could the story of how that came to pass possibly not be interesting? We have a galactic legion of soldiers under the command of who knows who and a totally dysfunctional bureaucracy that even an empress can't bypass. We have an ex-soldier with a complicated past and some sort of chief of police who has a daughter that can be used against him. We have cloning experiments gone wrong and a commerce system that revolves around the buying and selling of human cells. Just think about the possibilities here! How could this not be awesome?
By shoving it all into a two hour movie. That's how.
The first problem I saw was the pacing. (Well no, that's not true. The first problem was the movie opening with a voice over, which is almost always a bad sign.) This is a hard thing for action movies: You never want to reveal everything all at once because mysteries are intriguing, but you also need to establish the stakes early on. If two alien forces are going to destroy the city of Chicago, I need to know what they're fighting over. I need to be rooting for one side or the other here, because, if I'm not, all other things being equal, I have to end up rooting for Chicago to not be destroyed, which really gets in the way of me enjoying the visual spectacle of explosions, which is what fight scenes should really be about. "Jupiter Ascending" kept me just enough in the dark for me to be confused about the stakes when it counted, and revealed just enough so that I wasn't actually surprised by anything.
The second problem was the tone. I really couldn't tell whether "Jupiter Ascending" knew when it was being funny. Most of the time it seemed to take itself pretty seriously, and the result, quite frankly, was hilarious, but sometimes it did something very deliberately hilarious (the intractable bureaucracy comes to mind) that did not quite fit the seemingly straight-faced persona of the rest of the movie. This left me confused as to whether I was laughing at or with the movie, and that's never a good place to be.
The third problem was genre. "Jupiter Ascending" wanted to be a sci-fi action movie, a chick flick, and an intergalactic political thriller all at once. It did not succeed, and, I'm afraid, in the attempt, managed to appeal to the intersection of the intended audiences rather than their union. It didn't help that the chick flick part of it was absolutely full of cringe-inducing dialogue.
To my surprise, despite these three very major flaws, I found myself enjoying the movie, and not in the sense that it was so bad, it was good (which I think was the opinion of many people in the theater), but in the sense that despite the bad, it was good. This led to an epiphany: The problems I had diagnosed were problems, but they were not the problem. The problem was the form. "Jupiter Ascending" is not a great movie, but it has all the makings of an awesome TV show.
Think about it (some minor spoilers follow): We've got an ordinary girl who finds out that, not only is there a huge universe out there that she's never dreamed about, but also she's the empress of the whole thing. We've got not one, not two, but three villains with intricate, interwoven plans and complex backstories (not to mention a couple of minions worth developing a piece). We have hints at explanations for the extinction of the dinosaurs, reincarnation, Baalim, vampires, Roswell grays, crop circles, (with a stretch) werewolves, dragons, and (with a bigger stretch) the Egyptian gods. We find out there's a fortress inside of the planet Jupiter and all of Earth is just a pawn in a game of intergalactic chess between powerful players who are also humans, which is apparently a kind of master race that did not start on Earth. We have human-animal hybrids created by "Splicers" who brand their property. Heck, we have a mouse-person as the number one assistant to one of the most powerful men in the universe. How could the story of how that came to pass possibly not be interesting? We have a galactic legion of soldiers under the command of who knows who and a totally dysfunctional bureaucracy that even an empress can't bypass. We have an ex-soldier with a complicated past and some sort of chief of police who has a daughter that can be used against him. We have cloning experiments gone wrong and a commerce system that revolves around the buying and selling of human cells. Just think about the possibilities here! How could this not be awesome?
By shoving it all into a two hour movie. That's how.
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