Independence Day: Resurgence

Elysium

Directed by Neill Blomkamp.

2013. Rated R, 109 minutes.

Cast:

Matt Damon

Jodie Foster

Sharlto Copley

Alice Braga

Diego Luna

Wagner Moura

William Fichtner

Emma Tremblay

Faran Tahir

Jose Pablo Cantillo

Adrian Holmes

Matt Damon plays President Obama. Okay, not really. It's probably too soon for you to get where I'm going with that so I'll come back to it later. Damon actually plays Max Da Costa who lives in Los Angeles in the year 2451. He's a convicted felon trying to live life on the up and up. That's a little difficult when the police, automated by the way, just yank you out of line at the nearest checkpoint and arrest you whenever they want due to their knowledge of your past. I imagine its also difficult when you know unequivocally that you will never rise past a certain station in life. Such is the way of society in the twenty-fifth century. All those beautiful and wealthy people that make up the one percent have finally just packed their shit and left us here. Literally. They live on a space station high above Earth named Elysium. They've got it so good, they even have a machine that cures any disease in a matter of seconds. The rest of us slugs are stuck here on the third rock basically going all crabs in a bucket on each other. For us regular folk, getting sick is pretty much a death sentence. As luck would have it, that's precisely what Max does. Well, not exactly. He actually gets exposed to as much radiation as humanly possible without dying on the spot or transforming into The Incredible Hulk. He's told he will most certainly expire in five days, is given some pills to make the time bearable and sent on his way. Understandably, he tries to get to Elysium, ASAP! One little problem with this: the good folks in the sky shoot down anything approaching their home and immediately arrest anyone aboard anything that manages to slip through.

I like to start with positives, so let's talk action. This is clearly the best part of the movie. It's fast, brutal, and certainly more graphic than I expected going in. Another plus is the premise. Theoretically, if we were to start living anywhere other than Earth's surface, the super rich and/or important would probably be our first colonists. What would it be like if they all just took off one day? There are also shades of the sci-fi classic Metropolis present. The rich and the poor really do live in societies segregated by bank account sizes. Just like in Fritz Lang's masterpiece, and in real life (oops, didn't mean to say that out loud), the elite are largely supported by the labor of the poor while simultaneously thumbing their noses at them. In fact, John Carlyle (Fichtner), who has to be on Earth to oversee operations for his company, incidentally where Max works, tells us directly that he hates "breathing this air."

Unfortunately, things never quite come together like they should. One problem is that once it's established that our hero needs medical help, the exploration of the differences between the classes ceases. Instead, we quickly shift into Star Wars mode as Luke (a sleep-walking Matt Damon) and the Rebel Alliance try to infiltrate the Death Star. We're not as behind them as we should be because we discover that the people of this particular empire aren't really all that evil. They might be oblivious, an indictment on its own, but not enough for us to go all in on their mission. This leaves our Darth Vader, or Delacourt, played by Jodie Foster, seeming to act alone, except for her Earth-bound Boba Fett, or Kruger (Copley). As Vader imitations go, Foster does a piss poor one. She plays it completely stone-face, which isn't too terrible. However, she takes it way over the top by speaking with the most ridiculous accent from nowhere since Tom Hanks in The Terminal. It's especially grating because no one else is doing it. By the way, she's also got a little Col. Jessup from A Few Good Men going on. I say this because one of her big moments is giving her version of "You need me on that wall!" She even seemed to be struggling to refrain from blurting out "You can't handle the truth!"

So far I've mentioned Metropolis, Star Wars, The Terminal, and A Few Good Men. This points to another big problem with Elysium. It's too transparently derivative. I get that there's nothing new under the sun, but this doesn't even try to disguise the fact that it's just a hodgepodge of other, better films. Even the look of it, during the scenes on Earth, is very similar to another movie. That movie is director Neill Blomkamp's own hit District 9. It gets to the point where you just start picking out which movie each particular element comes from. This works for the best when, say, Quentin Tarantino does it as a way of paying homage and putting his own spin on it. Here, it feels like a lazy knock-off someone is trying to pass off as the real deal.

If there is one part of the narrative into which great effort was put, it's the movie's message. Sure, our hero is sick, but great pains are taken to make it clear that his ex-girlfriend's daughter Matilda (Tremblay) is even sicker. She's stricken with leukemia. Even though her mom, played excellently by Alice Braga, works in a hospital, they can't afford treatment and even gets kicked out of said hospital. The only thing we need to know about her is just what I've told you. She's a child who is probably going to drop dead before Max. This is why our sickly Luke Skywalker is really Pres. Obama. He's gonna get this poor girl cared for, dammit! Whether or not you agree with it on principal, I think we can all agree the Commander-in-Chief used some forceful tactics to get his baby passed into law. Again, regardless of how I feel about it, because I actually think it's a good idea, just poorly executed, we don't need a two hour commercial for ObamaCare, even if it does use excerpts from some of our favorite movies.

MY SCORE: 5/10

The Lone Ranger

Directed by Gore Verbinski.

2013. Rated PG-13, 149 minutes.

Cast:

Johnny Depp

Armie Hammer

William Fichtner

Tom Wilkinson

Ruth Wilson

James Badge Dale

Helena Bonham Carter

Barry Pepper

JD Cullum

Harry Treadaway

Saginaw Grant

Way back when my age was denoted by a single digit, I made sure to watch three television shows that were made before my birth, but still in syndication. One was "The Adventures of Superman," starring George Reeves. The second was "Batman" with the one and only Adam West in the lead. Finally, to complete the daily triple shot of pre-pubescent testosterone, I watched "The Lone Ranger." I knew that Superman was really the mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent and Batman was millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. The Lone Ranger was different. That masked man was so mysterious I didn't even know his real name. His secret identity really was just that - a secret! How cool! I guess Tonto knew, but he didn't say much. Besides that, our hero had some other cool things going for himself. He rode that beautiful white horse name Silver and wore a hat that matched her coat. He had a long nosed six-shooter and was so accurate with it he could shoot the gun out of a man's hand from any distance without hitting the hand. Then there was that theme song. Dutta dent, dutta dent, dutta dent dent dent dent - dent dent dent dutta dent....I know, I'm not doing it any justice at all. Maybe this will help...

Fast-forward more years than I care to count and The Lone Ranger graces the screen once more. He made it there once in the 80s, but let's pretend that never happened. This time around, we get Armie Hammer taking over the titular role. Okay, not the first person I think of for the part, but not someone who makes me scratch my head, either. The problems start with his role, though not necessarily with him. What I mean is The Lone Ranger is only the third most important element to this whole production. In reality, this is a film all about the director, Gore Verbinski, and the muse he occasionally borrows from Tim Burton, Johnny Depp.

Depp plays our hero's sidekick Tonto. Sort of. It's really some weird amalgamation of Tonto and all of Depp's other face-painted characters. From the Tonto side of the equation, we get all the broken English we can stand, even if it is fairly irregular. From the other side, he brings his now trademark mugging for the camera and often prancing about the set while playing everything for laughs. It gets close to minstrelsy of a Native American hue. It is pretty much the direct opposite of the way the character was portrayed all those moons ago, in a supposedly less enlightened era. Let's keep it real. He was always a walking stereotype. However, no matter how racism or just plain ignorance was explicit in how he was drawn, Tonto was always honorable and prideful. Depp's version may or may not be a pathological liar, is closer to being a court jester than a hero and is at least a little bit insane. I guess if it makes the kids laugh then mission accomplished, right?

This is where Verbinski comes in. He does here what he does with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. He introduces a lot of colorful characters we should get to know better, but don't, and places our heroes in one life-or-death situation after another. As per his usual, he does it all in a manner that's so silly it's bound to get a few laughs, but not nearly enough to make up for all the gags that fall flat. Finally, he delivers what should be a simplistic plot in a convoluted manner. This starts with where we first met Tonto. He is and exhibit in a museum in 1933. As if this were Night at the Museum, he comes to life and relays the whole adventure to a young boy. It adds nothing to the movie except run-time and a different style of makeup for Depp to perform in. This defines the word extraneous.

Verbinski does give us some exciting set pieces. Early on, we get an amazing scene featuring a runaway locomotive. Sure, it ends in ridiculous fashion, but it's a sight to behold. The climactic battle at the end is also fun. There are also some standouts among the supporting cast. In fact, there are two. One is a cross-dressing henchmen with the IQ of a buffalo head nickel played by Harry Treadaway. He's good for easy laughs. The other is played by Helena Bonham Carter, also on loan from Tim Burton. Here, she appears to be something out of Robert Rodriguez's fantasies. She comes complete with an artificial leg that doubles as a rifle.

Unfortunately, the positives aren't nearly as weighty as the negatives. The good things amount to a few empty thrills. Those looking for lighthearted action may be pleased. Even they won't have much to grab onto, however. The rest of the movie is basically a bunch of stupid stuff happening. As far as our hero, The Lone Ranger himself, well, he's not all that heroic. He whines and complains a lot. He also winds up following Tonto a lot. Only at the end does he change gears. That seems as much about giving him the obligatory shining moment than about him actually developing into that. In other words, this could probably have been titled Tonto: the Movie or Pirates of the Wild West. A whole bunch is going on, there are a few laughs mixed in with some big action sequences that will entertain some viewers while the rest of us will think it's a mess.