Some Other Movies I Saw in 2014 (It was a Great Year for Science Fiction)

 In an average year of films being released, it's unusual to see more than one or two really good science fiction releases on the big screen. For the most part, the films that make it to multiplexes are either comic book adaptations with elements of sci-fi, or a director with some clout putting out an ambitious, if flawed, release. Let's say, oh, Prometheus. You're lucky to get a Looper or a Moon every now and then, but most of the time it's Transformers: Age of Whatever or something that's like that but just different enough. Has somebody bought up the rights to Go-Bots yet? I mean, there was a Ouija movie this year, and if that's not scraping the barrel of licensed properties, we're in trouble. The point is that, most of the time, you're looking to independent films or video-on-demand for intelligent science fiction.

 Which is what makes 2014 all the more an embarrassment of riches for fans of science fiction in cinema. Not only did we get a sizable chunk of releases, the ones not named Transformers: Pain & Gain Edition Now With Dinobots were all pretty good to really good. In fact, there are at least two that should be in this section, but won't be precisely because they were among my favorite movies of 2014. You'll also notice that there are more existing reviews in this section than in any of the ones that preceded it, because I wanted to get the word out. We've already covered Godzilla, Interstellar, Automata, and Lucy, and while I didn't necessarily love the last two, they're still better than most of what passes for science fiction. However, what follows are much closer to the cream of the crop, including one comic book movie I'm including because it involves time travel.

 There's nowhere to start but strong with this list, so I might as well begin with Edge of Tomorrow, a criminally under seen film from Doug Liman (The Bourne Identity) and starring Tom Cruise (Oblivion) and Emily Blunt (Looper). It didn't do very well at the box office, which I'm just going to go ahead and attribute to "Oblivion fatigue," mostly because I haven't seen Oblivion because it looked like Wall-E meets Moon with Tom Cruise and Morgan Freeman. Maybe it's good, maybe it isn't, but I didn't see it and it's from the director of Tron: Legacy. Take that for what you will. Tom Cruise hadn't really been doing anything that the tabloids were leaping over each other to cover, so that's my only explanation for the audience ennui that led Warner Brothers to rebrand the film Live. Die. Repeat. when they released it on Blu-Ray, further confusing people.

 And this is a shame, because Edge of Tomorrow is that rare beast of a science fiction / action hybrid that trusts its audience to keep up, toys with our expectations, isn't chopped into a million pieces in editing the combat scenes, and is a lot of fun to watch. In fact, it's funny. Like, really funny. If your smart-ass buddy leaned over on his couch and said, "heh, check it out - Video Game: The Movie," he'd be half right, but Edge of Tomorrow is really more like Groundhog Day in the middle of an alien invasion. Its exposition is reminiscent of Pacific Rim: quickly dropping you into a world where humans are getting their tails handed to them by an unknown alien force, nicknamed "Mimics". Major William Cage (Cruise) is a propaganda official who we meet during the news pieces that open the film, and shortly thereafter is shirking any responsibility to be involved in a D-Day like offensive being organized by General Brigham (Brendan Gleeson). Cage has never seen combat and is, frankly, a coward.

 His attitude rubs Brigham the wrong way, and when Cage is knocked out trying to leave HQ, he wakes up in the middle of an Army Base, handcuffed and issued a Private's uniform by Master Sergeant Farrell (Bill Paxton), who treats him like a newly enlisted grunt. Cage is taken to the worst unit, J-Squad, and informed he'll be on the front lines of the offensive, whether or not he learns to use his EXO-Suit. For the record, he just barely figures out how to reload before he manages to kill a Mimic, and then is promptly killed himself. Then Cage snaps awake, back on the Army Base, handcuffed and thrown his uniform, with no one having the slightest idea what he's talking about. It's not until the third or fourth time Cage dies horribly that he's noticed by Sergeant Rita Vrataski (Blunt), one of the "faces" of the war, who seems to understand what's happening to him.

 From that point onward, Edge of Tomorrow balances the repetition of action and character moments as Cage and Vrataski work together to use his ability to their advantage, to beat the Mimics at their own game of adapting to human strategy. Liman, screenwriters Christopher McQuarrie, Jez and John-Henry Butterworth - adapting Hiroshi Sakurazaka's novel All You Need is Kill - use our familiarity with Cage's predicament to leap forward in time and let us figure out how many times he's replayed a scenario. As a result, Cruise spends most of the movie working his way towards the "stoic hero" persona you're used to seeing. It's actually fun watching him play a coward, somebody totally overwhelmed by, well, everything, acting as the comic foil for Blunt. Edge of Tomorrow has the good sense not to pander to audiences, up until perhaps the end - which is going to again remind you of Pacific Rim - and barrels ahead. The cast seem to be having a great time here, particularly Paxton as the anti-Hudson from Aliens. For a movie I wasn't expecting to see at all, I must say that Edge of Tomorrow delivers on everything it sets out to do, and does it very well. It's a shame more of you didn't watch it, but that's what home video is for, right?

 One of the nice things about the short window between theatrical and video releases is that it makes it possible to see movies that don't open in a very wide release, but are nevertheless on my radar. Such was the case with Jonathan Glazer (Birth)'s Under the Skin, which is a film I don't feel is inaccurate to describe as "Lynchian". Here's an excerpt from my review earlier this year (light SPOILERS if you don't know anything about the film or book it's based on):


"Under the Skin [...] is filled with visual tics and images that suggest, but often never explain. Glazer seems content to introduce a concept in the film and explore it in its bare minimum, instead leaving much of the heavy lifting to the audience. If you like films that are puzzles, ones that present the pieces but don't tell you how they fit together, Under the Skin excels at that. Perhaps reading the book by Michael Faber would help with interpreting Glazer and Walter Campbell's adaptation. Perhaps not. I haven't read the book, although I'm certainly more interested in doing so now. At the moment, I'm still digesting what I have seen, what tantalizing clues I'm not putting in the right places. [...]Glazer does an interesting about face, particularly considering the amount of nudity from Johansson in the film I wasn't expecting. The"male gaze" is on display near the very beginning - when Johansson either takes over for the last "agent" or simply removes the clothes of a dead woman - slowly gives way to another sort of gaze. I hesitate to call it "feminine" because she's clearly not playing a human, and it implies that the male objectification operates in the exact same way that the "male gaze" does. It's more of an "alien gaze," although her entire purpose is to draw men in using their "male gaze" - critical in drawing them to follow her into the Black Room and by extension, their doom."

 I could have sworn I reviewed The Rover, but I can't seem to find it, so I must not have. It's a continuation of "Australian Post Apocalyptic" cinema that most of you would identify the Mad Max films with. The Rover is more stripped down, almost to the barest of essentials, but it's nevertheless science fiction in that it takes place after the world has collapsed, following people hardened by trying to stay alive. It's not quite the post-apocalypse we're used to: there are attempts to maintain society as it was, to run stores and an emphasis on money still being viable (US dollars, though), but things are going downhill fast, and martial law isn't what it used to be.

 Eric (Guy Pearce) is a man with a car. We meet him stopping at a bar, cleaning up, and having a drink. Meanwhile, three crooks driving away in their SUV come speeding towards town, in the aftermath of what clearly was a robbery gone wrong. Henry (Scoot McNairy) is shot, but seems more concerned that he abandoned his brother, despite the insistence by Caleb (Tawanda Manyimo) and Archie (David Field) that he's probably dead. When they swerve off the road and into some construction, Archie abandons their car and takes the nearest available one - Eric's. This, it turns out, is a mistake, and the rest of The Rover is about Eric's relentless pursuit of his car. We won't know why until the very end, but he wants it back. He needs it back, and no one and no thing in this world is going to stop him.

 Pearce is something to see in The Rover - his grimy, buttoned up shirt, cargo pants, and sneakers imply a man who can be pushed around, who values pragmatism over principle, but take a careful look at his shaggy beard and patchy, home-cut hairdo. This is not a man with whom you should trifle, and he's not the sort afraid to leave a trail of bodies in his wake. The way he gets a gun on the way to finding them, or the casually brutal way he deals with Rey (Robert Pattinson), Henry's brother, who is alive, but barely, are a sign of what's to come. He takes Rey to a doctor (Susan Prior), strictly out of necessity, to keep him alive long enough to get to Henry. Rey seems to be just a simpleton, who doesn't understand the world, but Pattinson plays him in such a way that it's not always clear how much is real and how much of it is an act.

 There are moments when Rey is clearly more attuned to the situation than Eric is, not the least of which when he rescues his captor from the Military. There were only four of them, and to be honest, the world has gone to hell, so they don't even really care about processing Eric. It ends up not mattering - they're all dead in a flash - but moments like these are critical in the world building of The Rover. What we learn comes in fits and spurts - it's never clear what caused society to collapse - but it's enough to make it believable that it isn't just the "strong" that survive. Sometimes the bitterly determined, or the decent, can make it if they're willing or stubborn enough. Eric is most certainly stubborn enough to follow through to the bitter end, and in doing so ends the film on a wicked pun. And that's all I will say about that. If you like low key apocalypse stories, ones without a massive scale or insane chases, The Rover will be right up your alley. Just don't expect Mad Max - we'll get that soon enough...

 Somewhere between the beginning and end of the summer, my "Double Double Feature" turned into a "Triple Double Feature." I had the great fortune of taking a chance on The One I Love, a movie that I'd initially passed on based on my not so great track record with the brothers Duplass (who produced). I'm glad I changed my mind, based mostly on finding out some of the premise, which I guess I kinda SPOILED. Then again, if you already read my review from September of last year, you know the basics of the story, just not where it goes from there. Here's a sampling:

 "There is, it seems, more going on than meets the eye, but it's less important than watching Moss and Duplass interacting with very different versions of their characters (more Duplass than Moss, as the "other" Sophie isn't much of a factor until late in the film) and what it does to their already fractious relationship. Ethan finds himself competing for his wife's affection with, well, himself, only a more appealing version. Out of desperation, he pulls a potentially relationship damaging act of subterfuge, one that comes back to haunt him when they discover that the "other" Ethan and Sophie are able to leave the guest house. Their final night at the house is indeed a tense one, as both Ethans and both Sophies have dinner and attempt to navigate mutual suspicions. And then, near the end, we have some idea why the therapist isn't answering his phone and what purpose these "others" serve. I'll save that for you to find out.

 If this was a largely improvised movie (as per "mumblecore" ethos), it certainly didn't feel like it. Some of the conversations between Moss and Duplass felt a little open ended, but that might have more to do with the ambiguous nature of the situation Ethan and Sophie are in. There's a considerable amount of set-up / payoff in the film, particularly at the end, and while I'd technically classify the film as "science fiction," it's mostly realistic in execution."

  Blogorium regulars will already know that this followed a doubled-up review of Enemy and The Double from the month before, and I'm still on the fence about which one I prefer more. The ambiguity and at times disturbing imagery in Enemy sticks with me, but there is something to be said for the Gilliam-esque universe of The Double, of its tone and refusal to simply head in the direction it seems to be going. The good news is that I don't have to pick one. Here's a taste of Enemy, followed by The Double:

 "The entire film is cast in a sickly, yellow pallor, indicative of the state of mind of at least one (but probably all) of the main characters. Gyllenhaal distinguishes Adam from Anthony so well, both in physical performance and in delivery of dialogue that I never doubted they were two distinct characters, despite knowing it was the same actor. Laurent is in less of the film than Gadon, but makes an impression that's hard to shake. Gadon carries much of the emotional arc of the film - she meets Adam before Anthony does, and her perplexed reaction to him (he doesn't know who she is) is crushing. The impact of his existence hurts her more deeply than it does Adam, a meek and shrunken individual every bit the opposite of the confident, scheming Anthony. That is, if either really exists. Without giving too much away, there are elements of Enemy that reminded me of Mulholland Dr, but in a more abstract sense. The shared dreams and experiences of the doppelgängers don't directly point towards a revelation in the story: Villeneuve and Gullón are content to imply, to suggest, right up until the very end. Or the beginning.

 The Double is a less abstract but in many ways more impressionistic film exploring similar territory, albeit based on an older (and arguably more bizarre) story. A colleague of mine mentioned that he was impressed anyone would even try to adapt Dostoevsky's "weirdest" novel, which he described as "Jung 50 years before Jung." If there was anyone with a sensibility to make it work, The Double landed in the capable hands of Richard Ayoade (Submarine), who crafts it into a film that I can only describe as unique. I feel like doing The Double an injustice by suggesting that it resembles Fight Club by way of Brazil, but there's an element to Ayoade's stylistic approach that is highly reminiscent of the latter, with elements towards the end similar to the former. That said, The Double isn't quite like anything most of the time.

 [...] Ayoade's visual presentation of The Double gives it the feeling of a lucid nightmare, of a dystopian future that's simultaneously retro (while I don't think it's ever stated, The Double seems to take place in an alternate 1980s). It's doesn't draw attention to itself, but the television program Simon is fond of and the computers they use are clearly several generations removed from the 21st Century. His scene transitions are often inspired, capitalizing on isolated faces in darkness that suddenly emerge in new settings. While Enemy sparingly uses split screen or digital technology, Eisenberg is almost constantly interacting with himself, and the seams aren't apparent in the slightest."

 As I find myself on the subjects of doubles or alternate versions of characters, it's as good a time as any to mention the Marvel comic book movie that ended up out in the cold, memory-wise, by year's end. Not to denigrate the other three (four, if you want to count Big Hero 6), as two of them will be popping up later in this recap and the other one was The Amazing Spider-Man 2, but I do feel bad for X-Men: Days of Future Past. It is a really entertaining return for Bryan Singer to the cinematic mutant world he created, and does a few impossible tasks with aplomb. I mean, we are talking about a movie that manages to combine X-Men: First Class with the original Singer films without making us think about how terrible X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men Origins: Wolverine were. It might have even erased one of them entirely*.

 Singer liberally adapts the original Uncanny X-Men story, which will be much to the consternation of Kitty Pryde fans. On a marketing and somewhat logistical level, I understand it: Hugh Jackman's Wolverine has consistently been the face of the franchise (he's been in every movie, including First Class) and while unfair, building the movie around Ellen Page travelling back in time would only serve to remind fans of X-Men: The Last Stand. It's pretty clear from the ending of Days of Future Past (Kelsey Grammer cameo aside) that Singer and company are working hard to undo the Brett Ratner helmed third film, so Logan gets shipped back in time. Singer pulls off an impressive juggling act of keeping things light and, frequently, funny. At least, that is, after a dour, post-apocalyptic prologue action sequence, introducing us to (and then murdering) several familiar faces to fans of the comics.

 Actually, Days of Future Past might be the most violent of the X-films: the prologue essentially sets up the menace of Sentinels, as we watch them brutally murder what's left of the X-Men one by one. I mean, yes, it's bloodless by and large, but seeing Iceman decapitated and then have his frozen skull crushed it pretty rough stuff. I mean, inside of twenty minutes we're hanging out with Logan in bell bottoms.

 It remains to be seen what Joss Whedon is going to do with the character, but Singer gives the character of Quicksilver (Evan Peters) a showcase moment in slo-mo halfway through the film that shouldn't be anywhere as fun as it is. It's a scene among many scenes where characters who went under-used in First Class have the opportunity to really shine, from Beast (Nicholas Hoult) to Magneto (Michael Fassbender) and Professor Xavier (James McAvoy). However, Jennifer Lawrence actually makes an impression this time around as Mystique, which is odd only in that her character was supposedly the focus of First Class. Peter Dinklage has some fine moments as Bolivar Trask, who is perhaps rightfully unnerved by mutant evolution, but whose methods of research are, shall we say, excessive.

 Still, it's not really fair to talk about Days of Future Past without mentioning Hugh Jackman, who at this point IS Wolverine. He's the only character who really has any idea what's supposed to happen, but his discombobulated state and inability to convey what the older Xavier (Patrick Stewart) wants the young Xavier to do is quite funny. It's a fish out of water story despite the fact that Logan is clearly inhabiting his younger body. He just can't remember much of what it was like to be there. Jackman sells the comedy with ease: watch the scene where Logan walks through the metal detector, and the relief on his face when nothing happens. It's balance nicely with the more serious moments, like a brief back and forth between Xaviers, or the impressive - albeit excessive - climax involving the White House and a football stadium. Singer puts everything together so well, handles the mutants so logically, that you're totally willing to forgive him for leaving to make the most boring Superman movie ever. But, even for Marvel 2014, it's not enough for people to remember it in the same breath as, oh, that other space movie or the one with the soldier. Winter something or other...

 I know that this next movie is technically a documentary, but one of the great things about Jodorowsky's Dune is the speculative quality it brings to the true story of the adaptation that never was. For a long time, it was whispered among fans of science fiction, typically as a counterpoint to the "Alan Smithee" extended cut of Dune. I still have friends who prefer that version to the one David Lynch was willing to put his name on, but neither iteration comes close to the "other" Dune, the mythical Dune. And now we can see what it might have looked like, thanks to Jodorowsky's concept art / script. Here's a snipped of the original review from last year:

  "It is still hard to imagine that Alejandro Jodorowsky's mad plan could have translated to film, although I'd love to have seen his try. He only made three films after Dune's collapse - Tusk, Santa Sangre, and The Rainbow Thief (I've only seen Santa Sangre) - but being involved in Pavich's documentary led Jodorowsky and Seydoux to reconnect, and together they made The Dance of Reality last year. I hadn't heard of it until Jodorowsky's Dune, but it's described as a "metaphorical, poetical" autobiography, so I plan to seek it out in the near future. In the meantime, I highly recommend Jodorowsky's Dune, both to people who have been aware of the story and to people wondering what we were all so excited about. This review only really scratches the surface of what's covered in the film - I left out almost all of Jodorowsky's best stories - so don't worry that you'll already know everything going in. Just sit back and enjoy what might have been."

 Appropriately enough, I began this section about a great year for science fiction on a strong note, and will close on an even stronger one. If you've been around the Blogorium a while, or have made use of the "search" function (I have one of those, right?), you might know that my biggest problem with Rise of the Planet of the Apes were its one-dimensional human characters. For a movie that was so much better than anyone thought it could be, all of the focus seemed to be on the apes. Ironically for a movie with digital protagonists, the humans were mostly cartoonish and unbelievable, which dampened the proceedings somewhat. It didn't ruin my ability to invest in Caesar (Andy Serkis)'s arc, but it did keep it from being a fully realized entry into the series. Instead, it was a "better than most of the sequels" re-imagining of part of Escape from the Planet of the Apes.

 Dawn of the Planet of the Apes does not suffer from the same shortcomings, although I'm sure people will point to Kirk Acevedo's character, or Gary Oldman's bullhorn speechifying. And you might have a point, but I'll make my case in a little bit why they're far more dimensional than Tom Felton or David Oyowelo were in Rise. What's interesting about Dawn - which is, at its heart, a retelling of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes - is how even-handed the story is. Rather than trying to paint one side or the other as being in the wrong, much of the film is spent with the mistakes that Caesar makes in negotiating with the humans living in San Francisco. He wants to show strength, to maintain Koba (Toby Kebbell)'s respect, but his affinity for Will (James Franco) from the first film remains, and it causes him to overlook wrongs inflicted, for the most part, accidentally.

 Humans and apes haven't seen each other in nearly a decade, and while the apes have created a society to raise their families and teach each other, humanity has struggled just to stay alive. The virus wiped out most of society, and those who survived don't necessarily have the same information that the audience does. Acevedo's character, Carver, represents this ignorance about what the "monkey virus" really means, and he's accordingly terrified when he encounters them for the first time. It leads to an accidental shooting that nearly derails talks before they can begin. Carver is part of a team working with Malcolm (Jason Clarke) to restore a hydroelectric dam near where the apes live, and territorial issues spring up immediately. Dreyfus (Oldman) is holding together the population of survivors as best he can, but without power they won't survive much longer. Caesar is living in peace with the apes, but the presence of humans brings longstanding grudges, particularly on the part of Koba, who never forgave them for experimenting and the scars that mark his face. Malcolm and Cesar attempt to reach a peaceful settlement, but is it even possible?

 The Planet of the Apes series would never be accused of being, shall we say, subtle, but Rise was interesting in that it took Caesar seriously. The all CGI, all singing, all dancing apes were the reason to see the film. To be fair, yes, it took what sounded like a horrible idea - rebooting the series and jumping back in time to not step on the cold, dead toes of Charlton Heston - but managed to tie itself to the first film in ways that didn't seem dumb. More importantly, it made me want to see more Apes films, which I thought I'd never say following Tim Burton's terrible remake from 2001. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes ups the ante by refusing to make us choose "apes" or "humans": giving us good and bad on both sides, neither of which is totally resolved at the end. If anything, it's a kind of melancholy cliffhanger: Caesar stays, Malcolm goes. War is coming, and the apes have no choice but to fight it. And win. I mean, we know they're going to win. They can ride horses and dual wield machine guns.

 Yes, that happens in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and yes, it's pretty cool. Impractical? Oh yeah, but we're talking about building a world which will eventually get back to mutants who worship an unexploded atom bomb. Also, while it puts asses in seats, most of the film isn't ape-on-human whooping. In fact, the first twenty minutes are just apes, communicating mostly through sign language (don't worry - they can still talk). There's a lot of time spent leading up to the Big Dumb Climax, which is arguably better than the Big Dumb Climax on the Golden Gate Bridge in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Director Matt Reeves (Cloverfield) even manages to sneak in some visual cues that echo Rise in Dawn. Even if it was just a fun action movie with talking apes and humans being corny villains, I probably would have enjoyed it. But instead, there are nuances, little moments that go beyond "broadly drawn type." Dreyfus explaining how he came to San Francisco. The first time music plays in the gas station. Maurice (Karin Konoval) trying to calm Caesar about the influence Koba has on the others. Or wondering if any people are still out there. Koba's "shuck and jive" performance for the guards.

 If I was onboard for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes after Rise finished, I'm certainly keen to see the next film. We're headed for all out war, which means that the gap between Conquest and Battle for the Planet of the Apes will happen, on-screen, and maybe it means a less terrible take on Battle to follow. As long as the series builds to, but does not decide to take on, Planet of the Apes, then keep those sequels coming. We can stand to have some well thought out science fiction along side our apes on horseback firing machine guns. I mean, if a talking raccoon can do it...

 Oops, got ahead of myself there. We'll get to those other talking animals (and trees) soon, but first I need to finish with the runners-up. The end is nigh, cats and kittens...



 * Full disclosure: I haven't seen The Wolverine yet, so I don't want to include that.

So You Won't, uh, Or Maybe You Will (I Dunno): Legend

 So yeah... Legend. Ridley Scott's Legend, his follow-up to Alien and Blade Runner. I understand that Legend has a cult following and it has its ardent defenders, and as a result I wondered why nobody ever said to me "Cap'n, you should really check out Legend!" I mean beyond the director, Legend has Tom Cruise going for it, TimeCop's Mia Sara* and Dr. Frank-N-Furter himself, Tim Curry as "Darkness," the ultimate embodiment of evil. On top of that, Rob Bottin (The Howling, John Carpenter's The Thing) handled makeup effects, and that's always a plus. So why don't I know people who recommend it? It's never happened, so when I came across the movie last week, I thought "why not see what this is all about?"

 And I watched Legend, and, uh, yeah. I get why it never came up in many film conversations. Legend is a bit of a mess, cobbled together by Scott and writer William Hjortsberg of a dozen or so different fantasy elements and then crammed together into a "hero's journey" narrative halfheartedly. And I'm not averse to the fantasy genre, which bears pointing out: I continue to enjoy Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal (two of Legend's 80s contemporaries) which contain many, if not almost all, of the same story elements. While I'm not as big of a fan of "sword and sorcery" fantasy films, I would hardly qualify Legend as being part of that subgenre. The movie looks great, and has some memorable imagery, but there's also so much being crammed into the film for no apparent reason that after a while I just gave up.

 For the record, I watched Ridley Scott's preferred Director's Cut, which clocks in nearly thirty minutes longer than the theatrically released version. It also restores Jerry Goldsmith's score to the film rather than use the Tangerine Dream music most people associate with the film. I did check out some of the shorter cut and will address it later in this review.

  Okay, so Princess Lili (Mia Sara) has an innocent heart but a bit of a mischievous streak, so while singing and cavorting in the woods with "forest child" Jack (Cruise), she disregards his warning while showing her something very special: two unicorns. A human must never touch a unicorn, and when Lili does, it upsets the balance of the world, allowing Blix (Alice Playten), a goblin, to poison the unicorn and steal its horn. Blix is a servant of Darkness, the Lord of Night, who needs both unicorn horns to ensure that a light is removed from the world and that he may reign supreme. Unaware of what happened, Lili and Jack return, and while she toys with his infatuation, a storm arrives and covers the forest in frost and snow. Lili and Jack are separated, but help arrives in the form of Gump (David Bennent), an elf, Oona (Annabelle Lanyon), a fairy, Screwball (Billy Barty) and Brown Tom (Cork Hubbert), two dwarves. They help Jack to protect the last unicorn and to defeat Darkness, who discovers he desires something even more than ruling the world: the young princess.

 That's the simple plot synopsis, leaving out additional goblins and secondary characters who provide us some more information about Lili and Jack. (SPOILER ALERT from here on out, I guess) From this point, Legend basically moves into "teaching Jack how to be a hero and save the day" but without really having to do much of anything in the way of growing as a person, er, forest person. Lili and the second unicorn are captured by Darkness, and he attempts to woo the princess to no avail, and then Jack defeats him by "bringing light to darkness" with the help of his friends. Lili falls asleep, and Jack takes her to where they were separated, and after retrieving the ring she promised to marry whoever found it, she reneges on that. Well, she may have forgotten the whole thing ever happened. Still, Jack happily sends her along her merry way and the unicorns are fine with Gump and Oona and Brown Tom and Screwball. Jack runs into a patently artificial sunset and that's end. And they lived blissfully ignorant ever after...

 Every time I try to write about Legend, despite the fact that I was really impressed by the way Scott holds back revealing Tim Curry in his (very impressive) Darkness makeup and how the manufactured (in studio) forest (but with real animals living in it) most of the time doesn't look like a set, I keep getting bogged down in how "safe" the film is. It makes me all the more cruel to the movie, because it's such a consequence free film where characters can say or do anything and nothing matters at all.

 Take, for instance, Blunder (Kiran Shah, who most people know as Elijah Wood's Hobbit stunt double). Blunder is introduced as one of Blix's friends, and participates in the hunting of the unicorns and is present when Blix steals the horn. Blunder is too impressed by the magical power of the horn (which acts like a magic wand of sorts) and when he speaks ill of Darkness, a zombie (?) rises from the ground, picks him up, and carries him down a hole. It's treated with all the severity of an "uh oh!"

 We meet Blunder again later when Jack and company find themselves in Darkness' dungeon, where a pair of demonic butchers are cutting up a dummy to eat. While trying to help them escape, Blunder is dragged off, kicking and screaming, to what one would assume would be his doom. Instead, later in that same sequence, Brown Tom and Screwball find Blunder inside of a meat pie, tied up with vegetables around him, but very much alive, and he joins them in defeating Darkness. In fact, he's with Gump and the rest at the end of the film, including the unicorns. Yes, unicorns, because even though one was poisoned and lost her horn, it's strongly implied that this isn't enough to kill a unicorn and that the horn can be reattached. Hopefully in a way that makes it look less wobbly than earlier in the film.

 See what I mean? I can't not point out things that demean Legend or make it sound ridiculous because after a while it was clear to me that nothing mattered in the film. Even Darkness (correctly) points out to Jack that he can't really die, because there can be no light without darkness, that they are "brothers eternal." When he's sucked into space (?) and becomes a constellation (?), it's not really a satisfying conclusion for our antagonist. It's more of a "meh." If there are no stakes in this world, forgive me for no longer being invested after an hour of watching Legend. Even the admittedly cool looking Meg Mucklebones (played by Joe Dante regular Robert Picardo) scene doesn't seem to really advance the plot or really sell to me that Jack is capable of destroying Darkness. And I'm pretty sure that's the only reason it's in there at all.

 After taking a quick look at the Theatrical Cut, I will say I'm glad I watched the Director's Cut instead, because the opening crawl laughably oversells the fantasy world and you see Darkness almost immediately afterward, cross cut with the demon butchers cutting up that dummy, presumably to really sell how eeeeeeevillll it all is. If you're interested in other differences, I refer you to IMDB's page. While I can't say I enjoyed the version of Legend I watched, it certainly sounds like a vast improvement over the other cut, even if I did miss out on the Tangerine Dream music. That is, by the way, not intended sarcastically, as most of the people I talked to after watching Legend specifically mentioned Tangerine Dream.

 It's been nearly a week and I'm already forgetting a lot of Legend, which is not a good sign. Since I don't know whether you folks have seen it or not, I can't honestly say I watched it So You Won't Have To. Nobody ever mentioned it, so I can't be sure you didn't already see it. If you did, then I'd certainly be happy to hear you take on why you like it so much. Again, if you did. I know enough to know that it does have a following, as Blade Runner does (another Ridley Scott movie with multiple cuts that didn't make a strong impression when released), so perhaps you could shed some light on the darkness of this review, so to speak.


 * What, did you think I was going to say Ferris Bueller's Day Off?

Blogorium Review: Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

 There's supposed to be such a thing as a "law of diminishing returns"; if a hit movie continues to produce sequels, they rarely if ever are as good as the first film. From the eleven-and-a-half Friday the 13ths to the Die Hard and Indiana Jones and Alien quadrilogies all the way back to the Thin Man films, it's a dicey proposition to keep going. Even in the rare cases where a Godfather Part II or Evil Dead 2 manage to match the original, the third film is imperfect. The James Bond films have lows that match their highs, and it tends to happen that the "diminishing returns" play out with each successive 007.

 I bring this up because this is the fourth Mission: Impossible film, and it's a toss up as to whether Ghost Protocol or M:I:III are the best entries yet. You could really argue either way, but it's strange to think that the third and fourth Mission: Impossible films are not only that much better than the first two films, but better than a lot of action cinema in the last decade. This comes from a fan of the Bourne films, the Jason Statham cycle (Transporter/Crank/Death Race/etc), the Sherlock Holmes buddy-cop reinvention, The Expendables, Rambo, Predators, and yes, Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace. While these are all fun in their own right, I'm still prepared to take Ghost Protocol over them right now.

 Call me a prisoner of the moment, but it's rare to see a film that doesn't mind being action packed and funny without one undermining the other. It's also nice to see that Brad Bird transferred the breathless action from The Incredibles to the real world, in what is (reported to be, anyway) as realistically as possible. Tom Cruise was dangling from the walls of the world's tallest building in Dubai, although how or why any insurance company would allow that is beyond me.

 Okay, we're four paragraphs in, so let's explain what happens in Ghost Protocol: Ethan Hunt (Cruise) has been cooling his heels in a Russian prison for a few years, following the death of his wife Julia (played by Michelle Monaghan in M:I:III), when he's released by IMF agents Jane Carter (Paula Patton) and Benji Dunn (Simon Pegg, returning from M:I:III). The agency assigns the team the mission of breaking into the Kremlin in order to find some evidence of the mysterious "Cobalt," a terrorist who may have a nuclear device. "Cobalt" has successfully been erasing all evidence of his existence, and when Hunt is caught in an explosion while trying to escape from the Kremlin, IMF and the United States are implicated in an assault on Russia. Hunt is informed by the IMF Secretary (?) (Tom Wilkinson) that the President is issuing "Ghost Protocol," and that the team will now be considered "enemies of the State" unless they can covertly intercept "Cobalt," nuclear expert Kurt Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist) before he begins a new world war. Hunt, Carter, and Dunn are joined by William Brandt (Jeremy Renner), an analyst who may be more than meets the eye, but their resources (and time) are limited. Oh, and the Russian police agent (Vladimir Mashkov) is hot on their tail.

 One of the things I enjoy so much about Ghost Protocol is the way that nothing goes according to plan: from the opening, where Lost's Josh Holloway is "Estevez'ed" because his face recognition software warns him an assassin (Léa Seydoux) is coming while she's pulling her gun out. He's distracted and killed, so Carter and Dunn's first mission is botched, necessitating Hunt's release. Ethan won't just leave the prison when Benji unlocks the cell doors by remote: he insists that the person releasing him (he doesn't know it's Benji, which is a nice conceit between what the audience knows and what the characters know) also open the door for Bogdan (Miraj Grbic), causing an otherwise smooth escape plan into a full fledged prison riot.

 And it just keeps going. Little things like the mission brief not self destructing to the mask maker jamming to accidentally killing a key informant to sticky gloves that don't stick keep compounding and making life harder and harder for the team. They can't do anything about it, so they have to improvise, grin, and bear it. So the building in Dubai they need to control the elevators in has a room you can only get into from the outside - Ethan can use the stick gloves to break in so Benji can hack it. They have 30 minutes before the assassin arrives to sell the launch codes to Winstrom (Samuli Edelmann), and one of the spider-man-like gloves stop working halfway up. It's a good thing Ethan was rock-climbing in M:I II.

 This works in Ghost Protocol because it adds serious tension to the film. They manage to be too late, make silly mistakes, and only sometimes manage to succeed by the skin of their teeth. It's less of the "oh shit, they have his wife" from M:I:III and more of "there's no back up coming if you screw this up" as is evident when Wilkinson's secretary is killed and Renner is forced to join the ragtag group. He doesn't have anywhere else to go now.

 While Pegg is a consistent source of laughs in the film, Renner also brings in some much needed levity as an IMF analyst befuddled by the half-baked desperation ploys during the film. His "secret" isn't actually all that important, especially when one considers the coda for the film (for which I do recommend you catch up with characters from M:I:III), but it does explain how Hunt knows he's more than just a number cruncher. Ethan pulls a gun on Brandt and isn't surprised at all when he's promptly disarmed.

 The rumor was that Renner was brought in to continue the series after Ghost Protocol, but then Cruise had so much fun making the film that they may continue with both of them. That's fine with me, because if we're not going with the Maggie Q / Johnathan Rhys Meyers iteration of the team (Ving Rhames' absence from Ghost Protocol is explained without suggesting he's out of the series), I could watch more Mission: Impossible films with this lineup. Cruise, Patton, Pegg, and Renner have great chemistry and work together as a (dysfunctional) team. Like the last film, each member serves more than one purpose and nobody feels superfluous, even if some of the set pieces sometimes do.

 Which brings me to the weaknesses of Ghost Protocol, and there are a few: Benji and Brandt are involved in an infiltration scheme reminiscent of the "sensor room" in the first film, but instead of suspenseful it's joke-y and ultimately proves to be another red herring. Hunt's showdown with Hendricks in an (admittedly cool looking) elevated car port is anticlimactic, but that may be due to the fact that Nyqvist is stuck playing a character that barely figures into the movie. He doesn't say much, he's mostly in the background, and the threat he poses is globally more dangerous but doesn't have the same emotional resonance as Philip Seymour Hoffman's Owen Davian. He doesn't register much at all, and certainly doesn't have the impact of Seydoux's Sabine Moreau, a much smaller character.

 In fact, it's entirely possible to play out Ghost Protocol without a "main" villain. The film is more or less the disavowed IMF team racing against the clock to stop a missile from launching, and while their attempts to stop "Cobalt" / Hendricks from getting to the point he can do that are entertaining, I don't know that his presence is even necessary. Like the Russian police who show up at inopportune times for Ethan, Hendricks is more effective as an abstract threat. There's one scene that really gives Nyqvist anything to do, and while it's a clever closer to a great chase scene, that's about all that the moment amounts to.

 Still, I highly recommend Ghost Protocol, which is consistently entertaining despite these flaws. To be honest, I didn't really notice them while I was watching the film - it was only in retrospect that it occurred to me that some elements of the film (including a character played by Slumdog Millionaire's Anil Kapoor introduced in the third act) were maybe superfluous. It never feels superfluous when you're watching the film: the script by André Nemec and Josh Applebaum and Brad Bird's direction keep you swept up in the race to stop nuclear war. Tom Cruise is again hard at work demonstrating why he's so essential to this series. He's a little bit older than he was last time and things are a little harder for Ethan Hunt to bounce back from, but he's still climbing up the side of buildings to entertain us.

 If this is any indicator of what J.J. Abrams and Tom Cruise (as producers) want to keep bringing to the Mission: Impossible series, it's entirely possible that "diminishing returns" aren't on the horizon as they push towards a fifth film. There's certainly enough that happens in the last five minutes of Ghost Protocol to imply there's more story to be told, so keep the quality level high and I'll be back for more.