Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

TMP Television Edition: Legal Dramas

Fences

Suicide Squad

Get on Up

Ender's Game

Directed by Gavin Hood.

2013. Rated PG-13, 114 minutes.

Cast:

Asa Butterfield

Harrison Ford

Viola Davis

Abigail Breslin

Moises Arias

Ben Kingsley

Hailee Steinfeld

Aramis Knight

Fifty years ago there was an alien invasion that wiped out much of humanity. Eventually, us earthlings were able to defeat the extra terrestrial invaders when a brave soul named Mazer Rackham (Kingsley) rammed his ship into the bad guys' mother ship and all of their smaller ships started falling out of the sky. Apparently, he saw Independence Day. Anyhoo, his sacrifice has made him a legend and we've been preparing for another attack ever since. Of course, all of our fighting vessels have lots of buttons and big screen displays and kids are allegedly more adept at using those things than adults, so it's decided that we only train child prodigies to be our future fighters. The program is run by Colonel Graff (Ford). He goes all Morpheus and thinks he has found "the one" in the form of Ender Wiggin (Butterfield). Trying to get him ready for the next invasion ensues.

Right away, the movie puts me in position to actually contemplate its premise. I like it, but at the same time it sounds like complete rubbish. To begin with, people who are really adept at video games are simply people who love video games, regardless of age. Kids tend to play them a lot more often due to having more time, less responsibility, yada yada, which is why they're generally better. Where I'm going is I don't think it would be wise at all to utilize children for such a program because of the real life ramifications of what you're asking them to accomplish. Do you really want to place your fate in the hands of button happy children? Since that's what the movie is going with, that's what I'm going with. The sooner you let go of the questions, the sooner you can get into the movie.

To help us get into it, it presents us with the dire reality that the powers that be aren't just preparing for a possible attack, they're fairly certain one is coming. Next, they run our hero through a series of training exercises. These are mostly interesting, particularly the floating war games thingy. On top of this our hero clashes with whoever his leader is every step of the way, so there's lots of arguing about everything. Lots of this arguing is done by Col. Graff and his right hand man woman Major Anderson (Davis). Her only function throughout the film is to say the exact opposite of whatever Graff says. Their back and forths are amusing, even if Ford seems to be phoning it in. Davis is her usual intense self. I swear that woman could make twiddling your thumbs sound like an urgent matter that must be addressed. Our star, Asa Butterfield, is rather meh, but helped greatly by appearing normal next to the scenery chewing Moises Arias (of Hannah Montana fame) as one of those leaders he clashes with. Ben Kingsley shows up later to chew whatever scenery was left over. Butterfield gets a nice emotional centering from Abigail Breslin as the girl who takes a shine to him and helps him out from time to time. This reminds me, as always, there is a budding romance shoe-horned in, though it never really goes anywhere.

Ahhh...never going anywhere. That's the movie's problem. I understand that the whole thing is meant to set up a sequel. However, that doesn't mean that it should completely anti-climactic. I hope I'm not spoiling it, but the way the movie plays out it's training, argue, training, argue, training, stupid twist, The End. It quite literally pulls the rug out from beneath your feet. My first reaction to what happened was "What? That's it?" Usually, when that happens I put my brain to work trying to dig a little deeper. Maybe I missed something. Perhaps something profound is lurking just beneath the surface that I didn't initially grasp. No, not really. It just kind of says "We were pulling your leg this whole time," and drops the mic like it just finished rocking the house. My house wasn't rocked.

Prisoners

Beautiful Creatures

Directed by Richard LaGravanese.

2013. Rated PG-13, 124 minutes.

Cast:

Alice Englert

Alden Ehrenreich

Jeremy Irons

Viola Davis

Emma Thompson

Emmy Rossum

Thomas Mann

Margo Martindale

Zoey Deutch

Tiffany Boone

Kyle Gallner

With vampire, werewolves, and zombies already taken care of in the inter-mortality relationship category, Beautiful Creatures takes on witches. The movie calls them “casters.” Our caster’s name is Lena (Englert). She’s just moved back to Gatlin, South Carolina, and in with her Uncle Macon (Irons). She’s a rather sullen sort, and a couple months shy of her all-important sixteenth birthday. Despite her best efforts to ward off everyone, Ethan (Ehrenreich) falls for her immediately after laying eyes on her. He manages to break down her defenses, but learns she’s got an awful lot on her mind. You see, on that birthday she has coming, she will discover her true nature and whether she’ll be claimed by the light or the dark. In other words, she’ll find out if she will be a good or wicked witch. Complicating things further, falling in love with a mere mortal is know to be an express ticket to the dark side.

As things roll along, we realize this is a good looking movie that desperately wants to say something, but has no idea what that actually is, let alone how to say it. Early on, it appears to argue for science over faith. Gradually, it floats over to the other position rather unconvincingly. It also wants to establish our two lovebirds as intellectuals, but fails that attempt, too. Both are avid readers. Ethan latches on to any novel he can get his hands on with a particular fondness for the work of Kurt Vonnegut. Lena read poetry, especially that of Charles Bukowski. Unfortunately, what they’re gleaming from these texts is unclear. They appear to be reading only as a means to avoid social interaction rather than an intrinsic passion for the written word. It comes off more as a marker of their being different than their classmates and a way for the filmmakers to pretend this film is somehow more intelligent than its contemporaries.

Other things in the narrative are brought up and unceremoniously dropped. Most noticeably, the conflict between our love birds and the popular kids in school never amounts to anything. Perhaps not so coincidentally, this is a major factor in the movie’s debate on religion. That whole thing, which was potentially more interesting than anything else going on, is similarly abandoned. It makes both things feel like they are there merely to pad out the run time.

Continuing the film’s overall messiness are a bunch of performances that are all over the map. As Lena Englert is okay, but unremarkable. Her leading man, Ehrenreich, is all “golly gee,” and very reminiscent of Lucas Black in Friday Night Lights. He is also more annoying than endearing. Unsurprisingly, the more experienced members of the cast fare better, for the most part. Viola Davis is her usually excellent self, bringing much needed depth and gravity to her walking stereotype of a character (the older black woman with supernatural abilities). The problem is she plays is so dead serious it seems she isn't fully aware what type of movie she’s in. On the other hand, Emma Thompson and Emmy Rossum are perfect, hamming it up as our cackling wicked witches. The one real disappointment is the normally great Jeremy Irons. He seems to be worrying more about whether the studio’s check will clear than the fate of his character’s niece. This is most evident in the way his southern accent comes and goes.

This truly is a post-Twilight world. Movie monsters are being wussified and carrying on full-blown relationships with humans at an unprecedented rate. The Twilight movies themselves are not good, according to most adults, myself included. The films they inspire are generally of equal or lesser quality. Occasionally we get a gem like Warm Bodies, but more often than not, we get something like Beautiful Creatures. It is ambitious, pretty to look at, but overly derivative and utterly contrived. Most of its inspirations are easily visible on the screen. Even less discerning viewers will likely notice where it takes from The Wizard of Oz, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and of course, Twilight. However, it does little more than throw those things out there. Transparently stealing from cinema’s past can work well provided the thief is also a skilled chef mixing the existing ingredients with those of his own creation. Quentin Tarantino has made a whole career of this. Here, all those elements are re-purposed enough to form the type of trite narrative the tween and teen girl viewers into this sort of thing might enjoy, but it fails to differentiate itself from most of the other faux-goth romances out there.

MY SCORE: 4/10

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Directed by Stephen Daldry.

2011. Rated PG-13, 129 minutes.

Cast:

Thomas Horn

Tom Hanks

Sandra Bullock

Max von Sydow

Viola Davis

John Goodman

Jeffrey Wright

Zoe Caldwell

Oskar (Horn) is a happy little boy who does everything with his father Thomas (Hanks). Much of their time together is spent on fanciful excursions like looking for New York’s “lost sixth borough.” Dad uses these to bolster the boy’s confidence and develop his social skills since it seems the boy suffers from some form of autism (the movie half-heartedly kinda sorta rules out Asperger’s Syndrome). The two get along swimmingly. However, bliss is not eternal and Thomas dies during the tragic events of 9/11. A year later, he finds a key his father had hidden in a vase. Oskar then embarks on his own expedition all over the Big Apple to find out what it unlocks.

Though we hardly see her, Oskar does have a mother. She’s played by an appropriately worn looking Sandra Bullock. Nearly every word she says is laced with a defeatist attitude. Neither she nor her son are taking her husband’s death well. Basically, she lies in bed while he traverses the city trying to dig up remnants of his dad. Eventually he gets some company on his daily treks from the old guy known only as The Renter (von Sydow). The Renter doesn’t talk but rents a room from Oskar’s grandmother who lives across the street.

There are some interesting things going on in Extremely Loud. Oskar encounters some interesting people on his travels. The relationship between he and the old man is endearing. All thanks for this is due to the wonderful Max von Sydow. He expresses so much without ever uttering a sound. His is a remarkable piece of work. A couple other performances also shine in the brief time they’re allotted. I’ll not divulge any further details as this may give too large a hint about the outcome.

As we inch nearer that outcome things fall apart. The movie becomes too transparent in its attempts to manipulate. It tries to play on our inherent sympathy for children and soon has Oskar bursting into tears every so often in hopes that we’ll do the same. Some of us will. For the rest of us, however, Oskar’s proven to be kind of a jerk. We’ve humored him out of sympathy for his quest, but we’re not ready to sob with him. To combat this, we’re next hit with a seriously contrived and overly gooey conclusion that somehow excuses mom’s highly questionable parenting tactics. It’s clearly meant to have us bawling at the notion of sweetness and enveloped by the warmth of closure. Instead, I merely felt violated as it kept trying to touch my sensitive areas without permission.

MY SCORE: 5/10

The Help

Knight and Day

Directed by James Mangold.
2010. Rated PG-13, 109 minutes.
Cast:
Tom Cruise
Cameron Diaz
Peter Sarsgaard
Viola Davis
Jordi Mollà
Paul Dano
Celia Weston
Jack O’Connell
Maggie Grace

We learn something about Roy (Cruise) long before June (Diaz) finds out. Right at the start of Knight and Day, we find out he’s got some pretty powerful people after him. For some reason, they set it up so that she’d be the only other person aboard a flight with Roy and assassins they’ve sent to kill him. After spectacularly escaping that situation, with June in tow, he goes on the run dragging her along and generally not telling her much of anything. Is Roy the good guy, or the bad guy? Is he lying, or not? What about the people chasing him? Where does June fit into all this? These questions drive all the action and gags that follow. With the next shootout, car chase or fist-fight never more than a couple minutes away, its definitely an action flick. Since much of that action, and nearly everything else fused with jokes, it’s also a comedy.

The near constant action is a big plus. It keeps things moving along. Our runtime breezes by. The whimsical nature of the script helps with this, too. There are no heavy scenes for us to slow down and ponder. The basic pattern goes like this: everything goes boom, a few silly lines of dialogue reveal ever-so-slightly more of the plot, everything goes boom again.

Where it falls apart is in the story. It only gives us a little at a time because its trying to stretch what little is there. What’s there is simply a rehash of something we’ve seen hundreds, if not thousands, of times before. For all the mystery its presented with, it actually holds none. On top of that, the entire movie could’ve been done without the Cameron Diaz character. She’s completely irrelevant, aside from the fact that the filmmakers obviously wanted a female lead to create sexual tension. Otherwise, she just gets in the way, screams hysterically and puts herself in harm’s way on a regular basis merely so she can be rescued. She is a classic damsel in distress, except she’s a damsel our dashing hero just met.

This is strictly for those knights you just want to see a lot of explosions while Tom Cruise does the impossible. Did you see that? Anyhoo, its not terrible popcorn fare, but it isn’t especially memorable, either. About ten minutes after the credits roll, it will simply blend in with all the other action flicks you’ve seen.

MY SCORE: 5.5/10