Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe: A Review

 

ARISTOTLE AND DANTE DISCOVER THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE

Ah, to be young, in love and in denial. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe makes as good a go as it can in adapting Benjamin Alire Saenz's young adult novel of Mexican teen boys discovering their same-sex love. It was a nice effort, but it was also sluggish and a bit muddled.

Angel Aristotle "Ari" Mendoza (Max Pelayo) is wandering through life in El Paso, Texas during the summer of 1987. Having nothing to do and nowhere to go, he struggles with his fear of swimming when he meets Dante Quintana (Reece Gonzalez). Dante, sole scion of a more intellectual couple, is proudly pocho (someone of Mexican descent who knows little to no Spanish). Aristotle, however, is more working-class and in touch with his heritage. Despite their disparate backgrounds, a friendship develops.

It may be more than a friendship, at least initially from Dante. A car accident causes Ari to sustain injuries saving Dante, who had gotten distracted by an injured bird on the road. Dante's family moves to Chicago for Mr. Quintana's job, with them maintaining their friendship via letters. The letters become more overt from Dante, who writes such things as asking Aristotle if he masturbates. Aristotle moves on, finding attraction with good-bad girl Elena (Luna Blaise), while Dante becomes more accepting of his homosexuality. It is to where, on a visit, Dante all but begs Ari to have a kiss. Reluctantly doing so, it becomes a triggering event, and a break in their relationship.

It may be due to the Mendoza family secret, eventually revealed: the older Mendoza brother Bernardo murdered a trans hooker. That crime haunts the family, and the growing yet conflicting feelings Aristotle has for Dante do not make it easier for him. Eventually, a gay bashing Dante endures along with another Mendoza family revelation brings Aristotle to accept that he is in love with Dante, with them at last finding the love that dare not speak its name. 

Before I continue my Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe review, I should for full disclosure reveal my connection to Benjamin Alire Saenz, whose young adult novel the film is based on. As a student at the University of Texas-El Paso, I took a writing class instructed by Professor Saenz. He was not fond of my work, telling me that it was "not Chicano enough". Separate from being a very curious criticism of my writing, I fail to see what my ethnicity has to do with the quality of my work. Still, I am not particularly fond of Mr. Saenz, but given the high praise Aristotle and Dante the book has received, I figured that my evaluation of the film should be based on what I saw.

What I saw was a curiously stiff production, one that went through the motions but never found a heart. Try as the film and the actors might, I never bought that Aristotle and Dante would be friends. There are many reasons for this. First, I think writer/director Aitch Alberto made a poor choice in having Aristotle be the voiceover. That essentially means that Aristotle and Dante is more Aristotle than Dante. In a book (and again, for full disclosure I have not read the book), you can have alternating voices. In a film, you can have either a character's perspective or an omnipresent perspective. I think maybe All About Eve or Rashomon are the handful of films that can have multiple perspectives, so it is possible to do have had Dante's side. Instead, by having it be more about Aristotle, Dante almost seems an intrusion to things. He does not exist on his own, but as something for Aristotle to enjoy and struggle with.

Another issue is the acting that hamper the film. We are supposed to believe that Aristotle and Dante have formed this deep, close and eventually intimate friendship. However, there is a curious stiffness between them, as if they are still trying to figure out who and what they are to each other. There was more chemistry between Aristotle and Elena than between Aristotle and Dante, even when they were merely platonic friends. As played by Gonzalez, Dante came across as needy and aggressive, not boyfriend material for either female or male. No matter how open Dante may have been, asking your supposed best friend if he would kiss you, if you have started masturbating and declaring that you want to marry a boy seems very curious for the late 1980s. 

Peyalo was better as Aristotle, though he at times seemed to be sleepwalking through the film. This was something that affected most of the cast. The parents of Aristotle (Eugenio Derbez and Veronica Falcon) and Dante (Kevin Alejandro and Eva Longoria) did their best, but they too seemed to be rather stiff in their manner. Only Marlene Forte as Tia Ofelia had any spark to her character. Sadly, her character got short-changed when we discover at her death that she was a lesbian with a long-term partner. There was never any indication that Tia Ofelia was gay, so this revelation seems almost tacked on to show that the Mendoza family was almost riddled with homosexuality: lesbian aunt, transvestite* attracted brother, eventually gay son.  

The film starts off with perhaps one of the wildest and most unintentionally funny openings in recent memory. To be fair, the song choice to open our film of blossoming same-sex love is time appropriate. However, why open the film with Bronski Beat's Smalltown Boy? That song is open about a young man's homosexual awakening and the tragedy that it brought to him and his family. Somehow, it signaled that this was a same-sex love story versus letting us discover the secrets of their universe. 

The film moves very stately for something that runs a little over ninety minutes. It, intentionally or not, seems to borrow from other LGBTQ films. There is the slow discovery of their love like Brokeback Mountain (I'm so tempted to call the film Brokeback Barrio). Derbez's speech to his son about there being nothing wrong with loving Dante in every way veers close to copying Call Me By Your Name, but without the screenplay's eloquence or the strong acting of that film.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, as a side note, has always struck me as a pompous title, but that's neither here nor there. It was a bit slow, a bit dull, a bit sputtering and a bit blank. Not a terrible film but a weak one. These secrets are not worth discovering.  

* The film stumbles when Aristotle tells Dante that Bernardo killed a trans hooker "with his bare hands" (a phrase he repeats twice). Aristotle can't verbalize it, but I think he would have used "transvestite" versus "transgender" as I do not think that the latter term was in use at the time. 

DECISION: C-

Chaos Walking: A Review

CHAOS WALKING

Sometimes what works on paper simply does not translate visually. Chaos Walking, the first of a young adult book trilogy, is one such example. Poor visual effects, dull leads and at times a nonsensical story scuttle any hope for adapting the other two novels into what I figure was a hoped-for cinematic project.

In 2057 AD there is a community of only men on an Earth colony called New World. Here, the men's thoughts, memories and fantasies are visible to all. The youngest man in the community of Prentiss Town, Todd Hewitt (Tom Holland) finds controlling what is called "The Noise" impossible. "Hide/Control your noise," he keeps telling himself with no success. 

More successful is Mayor Prentiss (Mads Mikkelsen), who is able to shield his thoughts from everyone, even his son Davy, Jr. (Nick Jonas). Todd has resigned himself to outliving the world he knows, until a stranger comes his way. 

It takes nearly 50 minutes to learn her name: Viola (Daisy Ridley), a young woman part of an expedition to bring new settlers to New World. Her ship crashed, and Todd is astonished to find a female. Worse, on New World female thoughts cannot be read.

Insert your own jokes here.

Mayor Prentiss and the crazed Preacher Aaron (David Oyelowo) want "Yellow Hair" or "Space-girl" killed for separate reasons (I did mention it takes almost an hour to learn her name). Todd's two adoptive fathers Cillian (Kurt Sutter) and Ben (Demian Bichir) urge him to take her to another community for safety, but the crazed menfolk are determined to make all-out war to stop them. Todd learns the shocking truth about why there are no women in Prentiss Town, and now he and Viola race to save themselves and the incoming settlers.

One cannot blame the failure of Chaos Walking to its adaptation. One of the credited screenwriters is Patrick Ness, upon whose novel The Knife of Never Letting Go the film was based on (Christopher Ford being the other screenwriter). One therefore can imagine that Ness had at least some say in how his story was shaped, but Chaos Walking does not suggest he is a good writer.

Chaos Walking has, at least to me, elements from Beneath Planet of the Apes, The Maze Runner and even Children of Men. You have the isolated community where people can communicate with just their minds (Beneath Planet of the Apes). There's the isolated men-only community where the appearance of a female brings chaos, exploration of the outside and a hunky male lead (The Maze Runner). Finally, you have a hope of new life via a hereto unknown community on what appears a dead world (Children of Men). 

As a side note, it does not help that Ness also created and wrote the Doctor Who spinoff Class, a disastrous YA effort that went nowhere. I bring this up because Chaos Walking, like Class, can be read as another effort at muddled allegory that ends up looking at best confusing at worst idiotic. 

There's a great deal in Chaos Walking that doesn't make sense. These men can see and hear each others' thoughts but couldn't hear either the sonic boom from Viola's spaceship or the crash? She had time to bury her crewmates, so how long was she actually on New World before she was found out? Other communities know of Prentiss Town so why does Todd appear the only person on New World to not know there is life outside? How is it that Todd continues to keep thinking out loud when he could easily just use actual words? Todd has never seen a female yet quickly fantasizes a kiss and erotic fascination? 

As another side note, while we learn the Prentiss Town men killed the women due to their anger or hatred or resentment that the women could hear their thoughts, what exactly did they do when an erotic desire swept in? I'm no expert in sexual studies, but I figure even the Prentiss Town community had urges that they'd want met. Fortunately or not, we'd never get to see a Nick Jonas/Tom Holland sex scene where they'd unleash their carnal desires with the only outlet available. That does lead to a somewhat confusing element involving Todd's two dads. Were they just friends, or friends with benefits, or lovers, or soulmates? 

All those sorts of questions won't be answered, as Chaos Walking ends up confused about itself, and no that's not some kind of pun.

The small audience who saw the film with me found a lot of it funny, though I don't think it was meant to elicit laughs. Most of the unintended humor came from Holland, or rather Todd's massive idiocy. He's thick as a plank, and it was his thoughts that caused the laughter. Everything from his nicknames of "Yellow Hair" and "Space-Girl" to such thoughts as "I like her hair. She's pretty" made people laugh out loud. While we did have the obligatory shirtless shot for Holland, the oddity of him stripping off in front of her but insisting on bathing fully clothed was another sign of how confused this is.

Was he so naïve that he was unaware of the differences between men and women? If so, why then can he figure out kissing so quickly? Holland is a good actor: his performance in The Impossible testifies to his abilities. However, ever since he became Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Holland has apparently carved a niche in playing idiots, and Chaos Walking continues that tradition.

Him looking like he's wearing a trash bag does not help.

Ridley looks bored through it all, as if desperate to get out of both New World and Chaos Walking. She and Holland have little chemistry to where the idea anyone would want to see three films of Todd and Viola seems almost unhinged. Jonas, desperately working to build up a film career to coincide with a musical one, to his credit wasn't on screen long enough to embarrass himself. To be fair, his character had nothing to do, so much so that after Mayor Prentiss meets his comeuppance Davy, Jr. pretty much disappears. Bichir and Mikkelsen too decide to slum it and take the cash.

Oyelowo went the opposite route, going so bat-crazy with his Preacher it went into an almost spoof of "crazed preacher".  Whether he just went crazy or was already crazy to begin with is another element that will not be answered. The film was also a waste of Cynthia Erivo as the distant community's Mayor. Whether the counterpoint between "crazed white man" and "rational black woman" as competing Mayors was intention or not I can't say, but the opening is there if one wants to see it that way.

Chaos Walking was also brought down by lousy visual effects. Everything from the thoughts that appear to their one encounter with a Spackle, the native inhabitants of New World, looked bad. About the only thing of note is Marco Beltrami and Brandon Roberts' score, and even that wasn't memorable once you finish the film.

With all that said however, I found Chaos Walking a delightful disaster, almost a "so bad it's good" type. Maybe in the books the whole scenario works better, but in the film it looks like there wasn't much thought into things. 

DECISION: D-

The Hate U Give: A Review

THE HATE U GIVE

I am mixed about The Hate U Give, the adaptation of Angie Thomas' young adult novel of race and social justice. I find there are some good performances and I'm the type to think well of people. However, I also found it very preachy, at times cartoonish and in a word, hateful itself.

Starr Carter (Amandla Stenberg) is a young African-American girl growing up in Garden Heights, a lower-middle-class area of Los Angeles. Her father Maverick (Russell Hornsby) is a former member of the King Lord gang, deeply committed to the Black Panther doctrine, but a loving albeit slightly crusty man. Her mother Lisa (Regina Hall) is a nursing assistant and deeply committed to raising Starr, her half-brother Seven (Lamar Johnson) and full brother Sekani (T.J. Wright).

Starr lives a double life. In Garden Heights, she is Starr 1.0, Starr from the block. At her elite prep school of Williamson, she is Starr 2.0: a girl as far from the 'ghetto' as possible. This seems a bit odd since all her white classmates seem determined to make fools out of themselves by trying to 'act black'. That includes her white boyfriend Chris (K.J. Apa), who thinks that being a bad DJ Khaled with his mixtapes makes him a brother.

As a side note, DJ Khaled is actually of Arab descent, but why quibble.

Starr 1.0 and Starr 2.0 can't seem to keep a steady balance between Garden Heights and Williamson. Things come to a head one fateful night when Starr sees Khalil (Algee Smith), her old friend who played at Harry Potter and gave her her first kiss. Khalil is beautiful inside and out, but the party they're at is interrupted by gun shots. They flee together and after some talk Officer Macintosh pulls them over.

Typically, Khalil as a young black man is harassed by this white cop. Starr was already given 'The Talk' on how as a black person she is to behave with the police. Khalil didn't have it, because when reaching in to get a hairbrush the cop with Badge Number 115 shoots him. He also handcuffs Starr, preventing her from holding Khalil as he dies.

Khalil's shooting causes an outcry in the community, but Starr is now caught in the maelstrom. She is literally the "Starr witness" in this case, and she has several pulls at her. Her Williamson friends mostly either take the cop's side or opt to skip school in 'protest' (just an excuse to get out). She also has to worry about King (Anthony Mackie), the local gang leader who worries that Starr will reveal that Khalil sold drugs for him.

As a side note, I would figure all the white students in this elite California school would be a bit more 'woke' and sincere in their 'wokeness'. Also, until The Hate U Give, I had never heard the term 'code-switching', let alone know what it meant. However, at least the 'Code Switch' section of NPR has context.

Lisa worries about her daughter's safety, and Starr's moral outrage at how Khalil is made to be a villain and Officer Macintosh a hero or at least a victim. Starr must decide whether or not to out herself as the witness, and despite all the trouble it will cause her, eventually she reveals herself.

This brings only trouble to her from all sides and puts others in danger, including Seven, who is related to King. Things come to a climax when as always, the grand jury did not indict 115 (Starr never calls the officer by name, only by number). Riots erupt, and Starr finally finds her voice to speak out against injustice.

The Hate U Give comes from Tupac Shakur's definition of THUG LIFE: The Hate U Give Little Infants F***s Everyone. The film comes from a place of fierce passion, which I cannot fault it for. What troubles me is that it is so overt in its messaging that it soon becomes less film and more lecture.

The film paints all the white characters in unpleasant lights. Hailey (Sabrina Carpenter), ostensibly Starr's best friend despite there being no visual or social connection, says a series of ghastly comments or is so overtly nasty that one wonders why anyone, let alone Starr, would like her. I cannot pass the comment Hailey made to Starr in basketball practice that Starr should catch the ball "like if it was fried chicken", even if Hailey says it was because they had fried chicken for lunch that day.

Hailey's comments about how "cops lives matter" and how Khalil should not have gotten the hairbrush are meant to portray those who side with "115" as either bigots or ignorant. Somehow, Starr pulling Hailey's hairbrush from her backpack and terrorizing her with it was meant to be empowering but came across to me as bullying.

From Starr's Instagram comparing Emmett Till to Eric Gardner to how only Chris belatedly became something of a 'white ally', The Hate U Give seemed fine being hateful itself.

I think it's a shame given that the film had many positives. You had absolutely wonderful performances from people like Regina Hall as the protective and strong mother and Hornsby as the equally protective and strong father. I would have liked seeing a film about them, about the difficultly of raising children in this environment and of the struggle between the two worlds Starr felt compelled to give separate fronts to.

I was also impressed by Stenberg as someone who was better than the material. Starr's need to be two different people was something I did not understand given how I thought she was pretty pleasant both in Garden Heights and Williamson, but when she loses her friend it is genuinely moving.  Even though his role is small, I thought well of Algee Smith as Khalil, a young man with both smooth and pleasant manners.

However, I was unimpressed with other performances, primarily due to their one-dimensional characters. The worst of the lot is Anthony Mackie, a fine actor who has nothing to do but glower at people as our stereotypical villain. Mackie is too good an actor to have to play stereotypes. I was not impressed with Apa as Chris either.

I never understood what Starr saw in Chris or vice-versa. His efforts to 'be black' (along with apparently every white student at Williamson) were cringe inducing and came from an alternative universe.

I think it is hard for me to embrace a film where teenagers seem to talk about 'white privilege' more than something like whatever show or pop star they follow nowadays. The Hate U Give wants to tackle an important subject, but does it in a rather blunt manner that it soon becomes more lecture than actual film.

DECISION: D+

Love, Simon: A Review

LOVE, SIMON

Representation is all the rage these days.

We see it with Crazy Rich Asians, which has been feted (correctly, I think) for its all-Asian cast.  We see it with A Wrinkle in Time, which has been feted (to varying degrees of success) for its casting of a biracial female lead character and a multicultural cast. We see it with the television show Doctor Who, which has been feted (horrendously in my view) for casting a Female in a role that has been male for 50+ years.

We even have a female Predator, which appears to some to be a landmark equal to the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment.

We see 'representation' everywhere in terms of casting women, people of color, LGBT actors/actresses, females of color, and LGBT characters of all ethnic backgrounds. I have long-argued that so long as a role does not specifically call for a particular ethnicity/gender, it should be open to a wider casting. Perhaps this is why I do not see a female King Lear (Glenda Jackson be damned).

Sometimes it gets to the point of parody; in Spider-Man: Homecoming, for example, while it was good to see a more ethnically diverse Queens, one began to wonder if Peter Parker was the only white male in the borough.

Now we have Love, Simon, a film feted for being a young adult romantic comedy with a gay lead character. I've heard it compared to a John Hughes movie (which, curiously, are now seen as 'problematic' and 'bigoted', so I wonder if that's a good thing).  I've heard it called a landmark in cinema.

After having seen it, I just wonder, 'were all teen romantic comedies this dopey'?

Simon Spier (Nick Robinson) tells us he's just like us: with successful parents, a bedroom larger than my office, appropriately multicultural friends and a daily iced coffee habit.

At this point, I'd like to say that 'iced coffee' is a crime against humanity.  Coffee should always be hot, but I'm not one to dump on these hip Millennials.

Anyway, Simon is pretty average save for one thing: he's a closeted gay young man.

This fact is one he keeps to himself, until on Creek Secrets, a blog for his high school, there's a post from "Blue", another closeted teen male.  Using the pseudonym 'Jacques', Simon writes to Blue, and they begin exchanging messages.

Simon has fallen in love with Blue despite not knowing who he is (or even if he is, for I guess 'catfishing' did not exist when the book was written). Simon begins to wonder who 'Blue' is.  Could it be Bram (Keiynan Lonsdale), teammate to one of Simon's friends, Nick (Jorge Lendenborg, Jr.)?  How about Lyle (Joey Pollari), the hot Waffle House waiter?  Then there's Cal (Miles Heizer), the pianist who is working with Simon and his other friends Leah (Katherine Langford) and Abby (Alexandra Shipp) on a high school production of Cabaret.

I'm stopping here again to ask, 'Seriously, Cabaret?'  I could understand The Sound of Music, My Fair Lady, or Annie, but what high school chooses as a musical production Cabaret?  I'm surprised they didn't pick Urinetown or The Book of Mormon.

As it stands, the M.C. of High School Cabaret, Martin (Logan Miller) discovers Simon's trove of messages and blackmails him to help Martin woo Abby.  Martin's boorish and generally annoying to bonkers behavior alienate him from everyone, but Simon goes along with this.

This requires Simon to manipulate his friends like chess pieces to keep his secret.  However, after Martin publicly humiliates himself when revealing his unrequited love to an uninterested Abby, he decides the best way to get the school to stop laughing at him is to out Simon.

This does not go over well with everyone: Simon's friends feel betrayed by how he tried to manipulate him, the other students either shun him or mock him, and Simon's revelations scare off Blue.

Simon opts to come out to his parents, his father Jack (Josh Duhamel), a former jock, accepts him more slowly than his patriarchy-protesting mother Emily (Jennifer Garner). With Simon formally out but still not adopting a different personality, he posts one last message on Creek Secrets: he will ride the Ferris Wheel and asks Blue to reveal himself by riding alongside him.

In the end, Blue reveals himself and they share a kiss to the cheers of their fellow classmates.

Yes, as much as I try I just end up getting caught up in details when reviewing films.  In Crazy Rich Asians, I got hung up on the fact that an economics professor never heard of the Singapore version of the Rockefeller/Buffet family.  In Tomb Raider, I got hung up on the fact that a secret room undiscovered for seven years was cleaner than my bedroom.

With Love, Simon, I get hung up on the idea that a high school would think Cabaret is the perfect high school musical.  Seriously, who the Hell does Cabaret in high school?!

What I found surprising in Love, Simon is how unrealistic it is.  If the film had been set in the 1980s or even 1990s, Simon's secret would be more surprising and coming out more courageous.  However, at a time when teens have seen same-sex weddings and when LGBT characters proliferate television screens in excess of their actual percentage of the overall population (6.4% to 4.5%), it seems odd for Simon or Blue to be as closeted as they are; from Teen Wolf to among others, Gotham, Doctor Who and the failed spin-off Class, Star Trek: Discovery, Glee, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Fosters, Game of Thrones, and frankly far too many to list, it seems almost bonkers to think any of our teens would be shocked by Simon's sexuality.

As a side note, director Greg Berlanti also oversees the so-called 'Arrowverse', a set of comic-book based shows, each of which has at least one major LGBT character.  Again, with a large number of LGBT characters on television, would today's teens really find a gay student the subject of scandal?

Love, Simon also has some quite surprisingly bad moments, most of them involving Miller's Martin (and as a side note, I found the whole 'Simon left his emails open' bit highly contrived).  Meant as a 'wacky' and clueless character, Martin comes across as both unrealistic and genuinely insane.  No amount of kowtowing to teen film tropes makes the mascot interrupting the National Anthem to make a wild love declaration funny or real.

Curiously, the actual mystery of Blue seems more a plot device than a real search, and I never thought that Simon really fell in love with Blue.  When Blue finally unmasks himself, it is someone whom the film forgot about for a long stretch, and while it isn't surprising, it does make one wonder why Simon couldn't put it together.

How many black Jewish guys could there possibly be at his high school?

I also didn't understand why no one wondered if Simon wasn't gay.  He has more female friends than male friends.  His room is filled with rather poetic art.  He has sleepovers with his female BFF.  Granted, it's been decades since I was a teen, but all this made me wonder why there wasn't speculation beforehand.

Also, it might be my background, but I know my parents would never allow a sleepover with a female even if she had been my BFF since elementary.

Love, Simon has positives.  The scenes between Simon and his parents are moving and close to real, with surprisingly good turns from Garner and Duhamel.  As Simon, Nick Robinson had a somewhat weary look on his face, down to where I wondered if Simon got enough sleep.  The real standout was Shipp as Abby, to where I would have preferred a film about her than our rather pleasant, nonthreatening yet blank Simon.

Tony Hale and Natasha Rothwell provided comedy as the too-eager-to-fit-in Vice Principal Mr. Worth and the theatrically frustrated Ms. Albright, though why Mr. Worth was wearing a rainbow flag lapel pin is left unanswered.

Love, Simon is not terrible.  It just doesn't seem all that interesting or intelligent. In its defense, those two traits are shared by the title character, so there's that.

Seriously...a high school production of Cabaret?

DECISION: C-

Ready Player One: A Review

READY PLAYER ONE

I have not read this novel, Ready Player One, so as always I cannot say how close or far the film version stays to the original.  I imagine as close to its creator's wishes, given the author of said novel, Ernest Cline, adapted the screenplay with Zak Penn.  Ready Player One is a clear love letter to all of Cline's pop culture/nerd passions: video games, science-fiction films, anime.

Here's my difficulty: I am not as enamored of those things as Cline is, so for me, Ready Player One was at times almost a tragedy than a celebration.

It is 2045, Columbus, Ohio.  The world is a dystopian nightmare, and the majority of the population finds life so miserable that the only way out is through The OASIS, a virtual reality universe where you can be anything.  Among the denizens of this universe is Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan), who goes by the name and avatar Parzival.

We learn though that The OASIS is not just an escape for humanity, the soma to those in this virtual universe.  Eccentric OASIS creator James Halliday (Mark Rylance) has died, leaving his fortune and control of The OASIS to whomever can find three keys within this alternate universe.  However, the clues are so opaque as to make all the 'pop culture scholars' continuously struggle to solve the puzzles; since his death there has been only one portal discovered, where the various participants in The OASIS constantly race to get through the first challenge.

Parzival, along with his friend Aech (which I confess to thinking of as 'H'), follow the race, which is expensive in virtual currency, but constantly get thwarted by King Kong.  Even the 'beautiful' avatar of Art3mis cannot get through.  Parzival, however, is totally obsessed with Halliday, and having studied his archives soon stumbles onto a clue, something Halliday said.

With that, Parzival finds a safe passage to the first key: by going under the streets rather than on them.  Soon, he shares that with Art3mis, with whom Parzival/Wade has grown infatuated with, then with his BFF Aech, who then shares the secret with two of his buddies: Sho and Daito.

This group, the High Five, finally placing on the scoreboard attracts the attention of the evil Innovative Online Industries Corporation.  IOI head Nolan Sorrento (Ben Mendelsohn) has thrown everything at The OASIS to win the game and Halliday's fortune, but now has to play catch-up.  Sorrento does have a few tricks up his sleeve: not only greater resources but a henchman, I-Rok (T.J. Miller), an expert killer in the virtual world.  He could be good at his job, but Sorrento constantly gets in his way.

Now the High Five continue to pour over Halliday's archives, where the snooty Curator, a robotic-looking being, guides them and makes occasionally snippy comments.  The second key lies within a game meant to resemble The Shining, which again they found through a clue in Halliday's memory bank.  Again Sorrento and IOI play catch-up, and more drastic action has to be taken.  By now Wade's true identity is discovered thanks to his besotted nature towards Art3mis.  He whispers his real name, something verboten in The Oasis, and I-Rok overhears it.  Art3mis manages to rescue him from Sorrento's hitmen, and we learn she is Samantha (Olivia Cooke), whose father died as a result of his massive debt to IOI.

The third and final key is in Planet Doom, but IOI has gotten there first, and I-Rok uses a spell to block anyone else from entering.  It is now up to the real-life versions of Aech (Lena Waithe): real name 'Helen', Sho (Philip Zhao): real name Zhou (who is also only 11 years old), and Daito (Win Morisaki): real name Toshiro, from both rescuing Samantha and stopping Sorrento from winning the game.

It means a major battle where the other gamers lead a revolution against IOI, and we get a couple of more twists and turns until Parzival/Wade wins.

I was left a little cold by Ready Player One, not because it was a bad film but because I do not have this overwhelming love of all things nerd/pop that those involved in Ready Player One have.  It isn't as if I don't appreciate or find some of the thousands of shout-outs amusing or good, though I do wonder if those raised on Playstations and XBoxes will get the 'Holy Hand Grenade' or even 'Zemekis Cube' references.

Even if they did, I'm taking a guess they won't get the nod to the original War of the Worlds.  Perhaps that would be a good demarcation line: those who do get it versus those who think the Tom Cruise version, also directed by Steven Spielberg, is the only version of H.G. Wells' novel.  After all, there are some people totally unaware that the Marky Mark Planet of the Apes is a remake/re-imagining of some old forgotten film.

While many find thrills with all the shout-outs, homages and nods to various films, television shows, video games and even songs in Ready Player One, which starts out with Van Halen's Jump and has the climatic battle serenaded by Twisted Sister's We're Not Gonna Take It, both very curious choices for 2045 in my view, I found the world of Ready Player One close to a horror film.

This is a world where people are so drugged out on virtual reality that they let the world go to waste. This is a world where such things as 'pop culture scholars' can pour over the minutia of The Breakfast Club, Animal House and Mindcraft and those in avatars can spout this off quickly but apparently can't throw in a Shakespeare or Alice in Wonderland or Bible quote (which, per my old English teacher is where the vast majority of quotes come from).

Even when you do get more 'obscure' references, such as whenever Parzival says that Halliday's lost love Kira is his 'Rosebud', it does not quite ring true: I'm not convinced that many of those gamers, cosplayers and sci-fi fans that get shout-outs have seen or heard of Citizen Kane.

Again, Ready Player One is meant to be a catalog of all of Cline's loves, and those who share those great loves.  I just do not happen to be one of them; even when I get the visual call-outs, and even when the film overtly yells them at me, like when Parzival 'dresses' as Michael Jackson from the Thriller video, it does get a little too on-the-nose for my liking.

For me, story is paramount (no pun intended), and Ready Player One struck me as rather unoriginal.  A bit of Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory mixed with It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World or even Million Dollar Mystery and TRON, with a hint of the original Star Wars trilogy, I still fail to understand how Ready Player One is this praised.

Then again, any film that uses New Order's Blue Monday gets points in my book.

We also get bad, cliched moments such as when the 'Zemekis Cube' reverses time 60 seconds, using an old trope to get characters out of trouble (example: Doctor Who's timey-wimey) and underdeveloped characters/stories (quite convenient that Wade's aunt and abusive boyfriend can get killed off, since we got two scenes with them, they can be easy collateral).  Of course, the villain would be so dumb as to not only write his password down, but leave it where someone can easily read it off.  We even get lousy lines: "She's hacking your heart to get into your head" has to be one for the books, as if Wade's aunt yelling, "Go to your room, Rick!" to her abusive boyfriend isn't already funny enough.

Acting-wise, we got some good things.  Rylance was doing an Andy Warhol meets Willy Wonka with his Halliday, the eccentric creator of The OASIS in his way-out wig and soft, meek voice.  Sheridan does wonders as Wade/Parzival and continues to show himself as a young actor to watch, even if I did not think he had much to work with.  For the longest time I kept wondering where I knew Cooke from once she revealed herself, and it wasn't until I saw her name that I realized she was Emma Decody in Bates Motel (aka 'the only sane character on the show).

There were also some bad things: Mendolsohn was in need of a mustache to twirl as the evil Sorrento and I could have done without Miller's 'humor' as I-Rok, constantly going on about his neck problems and trying to out-quip Deadpool.   I have nothing good or bad to say about Waithe, Zhao or Morisaki, though I did wonder if having the Asian character 'meditate' until he was ready to do battle was necessary.

And personally, I would have preferred he become an Evangelion over a Gundam, but we can't have it all can we?

Ready Player One is saved by beautiful visuals because if not for that, I would have rated it lower.  This is really a film that is worth renting, but its colors and odes to pop culture would look better on the big screen.  It is really into pop/nerd culture, but for me, while I like it, I am not so enamored with it that I have to know what school makes up the John Hughes universe.

DECISION: B-

Nerve: A Review (Review #880)

NERVE

Nerve is a frightening movie, frightening in that it is not too far removed from reality, or should I say, virtual reality.  While a lot of things in Nerve are extremely coincidental (and I mean a lot), the story moves well enough to give us a funhouse mirror reflection into the power and perverse nature of online activity and of how people can both manipulate and be manipulated by said forces.

Venus, better known as Vee (Emma Roberts) is a high school senior, who like most high schoolers today lives online.  She's thoroughly connected, but still a bit on the outside.  A talented photographer, she's been accepted to Cal Arts but feels pressured by finances to decline it, finding it safer and cheaper to stay on Staten Island.  Though her heart is in going, part of her fears the change and fears leaving her mother Nancy (Juliette Lewis).

Vee has a few friends, like her platonic male friend Tommy (Miles Heizer) and her more outgoing, daredevil-like Sydney (Emily Meade).  She's pretty outrageous, like when she mooned a football game as a cheerleader.  Like most teenagers, she chronicles her activities, but unlike most who just do it because they think people will enjoy such antics, Sydney has a financial/popularity reason for this.  She is part of a subculture online game called Nerve, where people are either Watchers or Players.  The Watchers pay to watch and give Players various challenges (or dares) to perform.  Players who successfully complete their task in the allotted time win money.  A mixture of challenges and viewers get the players to the Finals.

Sydney pushes Vee about being a real-life Watcher, always observing but never participating in life (such as Vee's fixation on the high school quarterback).  Against her better judgment and over the objections of Tommy, she signs up to be a Player on Nerve. 

Her first Dare is rather innocuous: kiss a stranger for five seconds. She finds said stranger, who happens to be reading her favorite book, By the Lighthouse.  This stranger, named Ian (Dave Franco), then has a surprise of his own: he starts singing Roy Orbison's You Got It to the entire restaurant.  It's no surprise that this impromptu number is recorded on cell phone.

Ian too is a Player, and they've been brought together deliberately by Watchers.  To their surprise, they are paired as a team to continue doing more dares.  Vee's popularity begins to grow, and she soon starts getting more followers.  Sydney, an experienced Player, finds the news most irritating.  To outdo Vee and Ian, she agrees to do a dangerous Dare: walk across an alley on a suspended ladder.  She fails in her attempt and declares that she 'bails', thus dropping out of the game.

Ian and Vee soon start getting manipulated into doing more and more dangerous Dares (with Ian being manipulative himself, Vee the ultimate dupe). Vee follows through on Sydney's failed Dare, and unknown to her the increases in their bank account raises Nancy's concerns.  Tommy for his part discovers Ian's past: in Seattle, he and two other Players made it to the Finals, but one of those Players was killed when the Dare (to hang from a construction crane) plunged to his death.

As the film goes on, not only are the Dares growing more dangerous, but Vee herself inadvertently puts herself in danger when she attempts to tell a policeman about Nerve.  She has violated one of the three rules in Nerve: Snitches Get Stiches. She now must win the Final, or essentially be killed.  Tommy, who is a hacker and well-versed in 'the dark web', attempts frantically to save her, as does Ian, who says that he too is a prisoner of Nerve.  Only Ty (Colson Baker, better known as rapper Machine Gun Kelly), a more vicious Player, stands in their way.

It's a final showdown where Watchers get more vicious, calling for literal death and Prisoners (Vee, Ty, and Ian) all fight to stay alive before the morning's light.

In a certain way, Nerve appears to be a teen-centered version of The Game, a movie starring Michael Douglas and Sean Penn.  In that one, Penn's character gets his brother (Douglas) to participate in an elaborate game that takes place in the real world which creates havoc in his life.  I didn't like The Game, finding it all too improbable to be remotely believable.  Nerve, on the other hand, is more plausible (if not entirely believable) primarily because it does reflect a better sense of what today's teens are like.

They chronicle their lives for others to see, they are passive viewers of 'reality television', and on occasion have a shocking amorality to situations.  Not once in Nerve did the Watchers who were friends to Vee or Sydney ever attempt to stop them from doing the more dangerous Dares (such as walking several feet above ground on a ladder or driving a motorcycle blindfolded to sixty miles per hour).  Instead, they watched, perhaps entertained, but divorced from a sense that what they were watching was 'real'.

Using that interpretation, Nerve becomes a sharp, pointed commentary on Millennial narcissism and lack of morals/ethics.  It is the 'entertainment' factor to Watchers that motivates them, not the dangers or the morality of the situations they put Players in.  I found some of it genuinely frightening: not necessarily the stunts though they were intense (such as when Ty lays on subway tracks while a train rushes over him). I was frightened by the perverse enjoyment people took in seeing dangerous, criminal, and even murderous acts being committed and they not caring about any of it.

In a lot of ways, Nerve hits the nail on the head as to how teens are: how they equate worth with number of 'followers' (in real life, on Twitter, Instagram or maybe Facebook versus the Nerve game), how they are passive, almost gleeful in recording all sorts of things for others to watch, and how the bleeding of reality and fantasy become one, indistinguishable one from the other.

I may be giving Nerve more credit than it deserves, though I cannot say whether Jeanne Ryan's novel (which Jessica Sharzer adapted) was meant as commentary.  I just interpret it that way.

The performances were on the whole good.  Emma Roberts made for a fine Vee (short for Venus, I might add), that hesitancy and confusion mixed with the slow thrill of coming alive.  Franco continues to build on his successes as Ian, the dubious Player who is playing a game of his own.  Meade and Heizer did much better than their roles (the somewhat skanky but secretly insecure friend and the 'friend-zoned' male pal). Lewis had essentially little to do apart from look worried, but she did what she could with such a small part.

If Nerve has a flaw, it's within the story itself.  As is the case with a lot of films, a long number of things have to happen to make the story flow, even if it depends on a great number of coincidences and contrivances.  No doubt Ian was directed to bring To the Lighthouse with him when Vee was set up with her first dare, but what if she had found another stranger to kiss? What if she had bailed at that point (neither gaining or losing any money)?  What if Vee didn't have Tommy or Sydney (who does reconcile with her bestie by the time the film ends) helping her out?  What if Tommy wasn't a hacker?  What if Sydney had completed her dare or Vee hadn't?  What if Vee and Sydney hadn't fought?

What if...what if...what if...  Nerve, to be believable, or even plausible, relies on too many 'what ifs', to get going.  I'm not begrudging that fact, merely pointing out that things have to work out just right to make things actually work.  Maybe that's why The Game came to mind; like in Nerve, The Game relied on too many things going exactly right in order to work.  One slight change and everything would fall apart.

I didn't dislike Nerve.  I will fault it for being a bit clichéd with characters and with having a story that stretches believability.  However, I did find as a commentary on how 'reality' can be false, even dangerous, and on how people are too busy documenting their lives for others to live lives for themselves, Nerve has enough to recommend it.        

DECISION: C+

Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials Review

MAZE RUNNER: THE SCORCH TRIALS

Unlike a good number of my fellow critics, I liked The Maze Runner, a film I thought was steady in pacing, generally well-acted, and a departure from many dystopian Young Adult fiction adaptations in that it removes romance from the narrative (and in what might be a twist, returns the lead to a male rather than Hunger Games' Katniss or Insurgent's Tris).  Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, the second part of James Dasher's trilogy (The Death Cure being the third and The Kill Order being a prequel), builds on what came before.  It, I don't think, is better than The Maze Runner.  It's serviceable, with some great visuals and tense moments, good casting, and an interesting story.  It keeps things going to where one does want to see how it all ends.

The Gladers have made it out of The Maze and find themselves rescued by a mysterious figure called "Mr. Janson" (Aidan Gillen).  They find themselves in a special facility where they discover there are many mazes, a few of them the reverse of their maze (mostly women).  The Glader's de facto leader, Thomas (Dylan O'Brien) is suspicious of how things are going on here, as is Aris (Jacob Lofland), the person who has been at the facility the longest.  Despite his seniority, Aris has never been airlifted to a safe place from the wicked WCKD organization, which had put all these kids in their mazes.

Soon it becomes clear why: WCKD and its wicked leader Dr. Paige (Patricia Clarkson) are in cahoots with Janson, and Thomas helps his other Gladers: Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster), Minho (Ki Hong Lee), Frypan (Dexter Dardon), and Winston (Alexander Flores), along with Aris and Teresa (Kaya Scoledario), who was separated from them, escape.

That was a rather long sentence, so my apologies for that.

They escape and are now headed to find The Right Arm, a rebel group attempting to overthrow WCKD.  Of course, this means having to go through The Scorch, a desolate place full of Cranks (formerly known as zombies or walking dead).  Poor Winston gets infected, and in order to prevent him going full Crank he is given a gun to take an honorable alternative.  They eventually find an abandoned warehouse, or at least they think it's abandoned.  Instead, it is the home of criminals Jorge (Giancarlo Esposito) and his henchgirl Brenda (Rosa Salazar), who've been waiting for an opportunity to get on WCKD's good graces.  Until WCKD attacks, at which point Jorge and Brenda spirit the Gladers away before Patsy Cline's Walking After Midnight ends...and sets off major explosions.

Well, Brenda and Thomas are separated from the others, and have to go to find them in the sleazy Zone A, where hedonism in Hell is all around.  Jorge pushes the WCKD informant/den of iniquity manager Marcus (Alan Tudyk) to lead them to The Right Arm.  He does, and they encounter the resistance (some of whom were former prisoners with Aris, thus sparing the group).  They meet Vince (Barry Pepper) and Dr. Mary Cooper (Lily Taylor), who tells them that Thomas was their inside man in WCKD.  She gets a cure for the infected Brenda and tells Thomas she left WCKD due to differences between her and Paige over how to harvest the natural enzymes that immune people had.  However, Teresa, in an effort to stop what has happened to her mother to happen to others, has informed WCKD of their location, and they sweep in full force.  The Scorch Trials ends with Paige, Janson, and Teresa fleeing a revived assault from Thomas and Vince, the group separated or in Dr. Cooper's case, killed, and Thomas determined to make one last stand against WCKD.

I don't think The Scorch Trials is better than The Maze Runner.  However, I think The Scorch Trials has what I imagine its readers and those who enjoyed The Maze Runner want: a lot of action, some new twists, and a lot of action.

I make special note of the action because some of the action pieces in The Scorch Trials were downright amazing.  Yes, I know I sound all fanboy at that, but since I've not read the Dasher books (though I did try with The Maze Runner and found that the film stayed close to the book, at least up to the part I stopped at), I am nonpartisan.  Of particular note is when Brenda and Thomas have to escape the ruined city.  Their escape was THRILLING, and yes, I do require that to be in all caps.

When we find the Cranks the first time, it did make people jump and the Gladers rush to escape, while frenetic, was certainly in line with the tension director Wes Ball was aiming for.  He even managed to get a little artsy at times, like when the group walks away knowing Winston has to shoot himself.  The imagery deliberately evokes the end of The Seventh Seal, and while obviously The Scorch Trials is nowhere, nowhere near Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece it was nice of him to sneak that in.

Again and again The Scorch Trials does push the action factor up as far as it can, even if at times one is left slightly confused by what is going on.  I didn't realize those Cranks were the infected beings the Gladers and their group were producing the cure for.  Truth be told, I just thought they were random zombies (and I don't even remember the name the Cranks used).  How Teresa managed to contact WCKD (as silly and obvious a name as to be almost parody) I don't know either.  All the suggestions about Thomas being more involved in things than even he knows is also just a case of having to introduce it now so that we can get on with The Death Cure next year. 

In terms of directing actors, I wonder whether Ball thought some things through.  For example, Janson is so obviously a bad guy one wonders why the Gladers didn't think he would be menacing.  They seem all too eager to accept things, even if it is obvious that it really is all too good to be true.  I don't know whether Gillen was deliberately directed to play up Janson's wicked nature to where he was a mustache short of twirling or whether he thought he came across as sincere when he clearly didn't.  However, it does make one wonder why the Gladers save Thomas go along with what the adults say.

In other respects, my view of O'Brien have not shifted: he still remains one of the best young actors of his generation and hope that he gets parts equal to his talent.  I think he would have made an ideal Spider-Man (though I have confidence in Tom Holland).  O'Brien's Thomas continues to be a young man of mystery, even to himself, and O'Brien makes him into a reluctant action hero, not eager to do what he must but still with the courage to do it.  O'Brien IS the show, and he makes for compelling viewing.

It almost makes me go and watch Teen Wolf again, where he was the comic relief.  He isn't here, and the fact O'Brien can handle being the goofy Styles and the serious Thomas with equal conviction shows we've yet to dig into the depth of his talent.

As a side note, I'm glad The Scorch Trials opens up the casting.  I don't know many Hispanics named Winston (unless they are really strong Anglophiles), so giving the part to Flores, and this not being an issue, is a positive step.  Winston's end is rather sad and moving, so I reject the idea that there isn't character development in the film. 

This isn't to say that all is good.  The adults are all pretty much wasted (though given this is a teen-oriented franchise, somewhat understandable).  The trippy sequence in Zone A where we get what looks like debauchery is more creepy than titillating, and the suggestion of a love triangle between Teresa, Thomas, and Brenda doesn't seem to fit in there very well.

However, on the whole I think Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials should please those who enjoyed The Maze Runner.  I have no way of knowing whether fans of the series will like it as much as I did, but on the whole, I think The Scorch Trials was both a pretty strong follow-up to The Maze Runner and a strong precursor to The Death Cure.

Let's take Thousand Foot Krutch's advise as I Get Wicked with a little help from Andy Hunter...     

DECISION: B-

Seventh Son: A Review

SEVENTH SON

It's interesting that when Seventh Son arrives on DVD, it can quite rationally mention that it has two Academy Award winners (Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore).  As we all know, even Academy Award winners have to eat, because there really is nothing to show that Seventh Son is worth their talents, let along even the extras who were in this monster of a disaster.  In turns boring and stupid, Seventh Son might now be the nadir of young adult fantasy adaptations, making something like Twilight or Beautiful Creatures read like Jane Eyre or Gone With the Wind.

Come to think of it, if the film is like the original source material, who was dumb enough to publish Joseph Delaney's The Spook's Apprentice (the first in a series from which Seventh Son is based on).  I can see why the original title didn't work for all sorts of reasons, but Seventh Son isn't the most original title either.  If only the title to this piece of sleep-inducing crap were the least of Seventh Son's problems...

Master Gregory (Bridges), a warrior against the supernatural, has trapped the malevolent Queen of the Witches, Mother Malkin (Moore).  He thinks its for time and eternity, but of course not.  She escapes and makes quick use of both Master Gregory and his apprentice, Billy (Kit Harington, who decided he needed more dragons outside Game of Thrones).  With Billy dead at her hands, Master Gregory needs a new apprentice, and it can't be any old boy.  He needs the seventh son of the seventh son.  After short order, he finds one in Thomas Ward (TBA), who has strange visions that leave him temporarily unconscious.  His mother, Mam (Olivia Williams) gives him an amulet that will protect him, and with not much work Master Gregory and Thomas go for him to be trained.

As things go, Thomas has only a week to master what it took Billy ten years to, because the Blood Egg, a once-in-a-century event, is happening soon.  When the Blood Egg is full, Mother Malkin will be able to take control with help from her minions.  Among those are her sister, Bony Lizzie (Antje Traue), and Lizzie's daughter, Alice (Alicia Vikander).  Alice is a bit like Hermione Granger (half-witch, half-human), and while she is sent to spy on Tom and Gregory, Tom rescues her from being burned as a witch.

They also fall in love.

In any case, it's now a race to defeat Mother Malkin (whom we discover had a romance with Master Gregory but who killed his wife in anger) and Alice constantly changing sides.  Thomas is able to rise to the challenge, sort-of kill the Witch Queen (who promises to come back and haunt them) and has to stay put in a cave while Master Gregory goes off somewhere.

In between fighting my own battle to stay awake and trying to figure out why everyone involved made the decisions they made I realized that nothing, but nothing could have saved Seventh Son.  Everything about it is so wrong, so dumb, so bizarre, so incompetent, that not even someone like pre-Hobbit Peter Jackson could have put this into anything coherent, let alone worthy of our time. 

Let's start with the performances, the most obvious place to start.  As I kept watching Seventh Son (despite the film's determination to put me to sleep), I kept wondering about Thomas.  He looked familiar but at the same time looked like someone I hadn't seen before, some unknown having the misfortune of trying to break out with the broken-down franchise starter.  Once we got to the credits, I finally figured out what I had been missing.

Thomas Ward is played by Ben Barnes. 

Barnes seems absolutely determined to prove critics right: he's nothing but an extremely pretty and youthful-looking face with absolutely no business attempting to pass himself off as an actor.  It's sometimes hard to say whether Barnes or Channing Tatum is the less talented of people who use their looks to get movie roles.  At least Channing Tatum has ONE discernable talent: taking his clothes off.

Barnes, as far as I know, doesn't know how to take his clothes off.  He certainly doesn't know how to act.  Ben Barnes has managed to shut down not one but TWO fantasy franchises (Delaney's The Wardstone Chronicles and C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia...wow, TWO Chronicles Barnes has killed off).  

I might walk back that last statement about Barnes having no discernable talent.  He does have one.  He can convincingly look like a seventeen-year-old despite being 33.  Granted, he can't convincingly look or sound Latino (like when he tried in The Big Wedding), but he still looks like a man half his age.  More power to him in this department, but apart from that Ben Barnes keeps building a case against him as a legitimate thespian with every film he's in.

Then we have Jeff Bridges.  Jeff Bridges, who has let his Oscar all but wreck his career.  He seems absolutely determined to mumble his way through every post-Crazy Heart project.  With the exception of True Grit (where he did mumble, but at least he had the excuse he was playing drunk), Bridges hasn't made a good movie since (TRON:Legacy, R.I.P.D., and now this).  Seventh Son is the worst of Bridges: mumbling, apparently unaware of anything going on around him, and to top it off, speaking in a bizarre pseudo-British accent that never settled on what it was suppose to sound like.  Even that wasn't as bad as the fact that he looked like he couldn't move his chin, which made his dialogue at time unintelligible.  Seriously, I didn't understand what he was saying to where I thought subtitles would have helped.

Come to me, Oscar...

Finally, there's Moore.  I think she was about the only one that got the idea that Seventh Son wasn't just beneath her talents, it was beneath her as a human being.  Barnes tried to act (always a bad choice for him), Bridges couldn't decide whether the material was serious or not (thus whether he was in on the joke or not is still in doubt), but Moore decided that she was just not going to take any of it seriously.  She was just there to make some money (and I'm sure underpaid as well), so she just went along with things and decided it really wasn't worth trying,

As far as the others, from a 'why is he here?' Djimon Hounsou to a perpetually sad Harrington (oh Kit, you always look sad...be it here, in Pompeii, or Game of Thrones.  Why is thou so troubled?), everyone looked pretty much embarrassed to be here.

The performances were a contributing factor, but not the only one.  Charles Leavitt and Stephen Knight's screenplay (with screen story by Matt Greenberg) was such a rushed and chaotic affair.  We kind of just raced through things, never stopping to establish why anyone did anything or worked towards anything.  Worse, at times it was repetitive (twice Master Gregory and Thomas raced to the edge of a cliff) and jumbled (we clearly see a raft at the bottom of the first cliff, and when they manage to jump and get to it, the poor boatsman just watches before promptly being thrown off by the monster chasing after them, never to be heard or seen from again). 

It's not as if the three don't have talent.  Maybe there were too many cooks, or maybe they were under so much pressure to build a franchise they failed to put anything that would make it worth our while to watch more Seventh Son films (which I think is pretty much a dead idea). 

Helming all this is Russian director Sergei Bodrov, making his English-language debut.  Whether something was lost in translation I don't know.  I do know that this is beneath the talents of the cast (save Barnes, who shows little to no actual talent), or the crew (amazing how legendary art director and three-time Academy Award winner Dante Ferretti and two-time Oscar winning special effects master John Dykstra could fail so spectacularly). 

Seventh Son should not be seen by those who love the Last Apprentice series (which I now recognize).   It shouldn't be seen by those interested in the Last Apprentice series. It should not be seen by anyone really.

Ben Barnes, you have so much to answer for...

DECISION: F

Divergent: A Review (Review #690)

DIVERGENT

Is it me, or do all Young Adult literary series share some similarities, such as being unnecessarily and extremely long, insisting that our characters live in dystopia, and be really, really dumb?  I'm no fan of The Hunger Games series, finding it puzzling that after 75 years of brutality from the Capital, a somewhat surly teenage girl is the lynchpin to revolution.  After watching Divergent, I find not only no desire to return to the series, but wondering why it has to be THREE books long (and four films, with the third part of the trilogy. Allegiant, like Hunger Games' Mockingjay, being broken up to two films) when the first story/film was not only dull but pretty much appears to have ended the story?  

Chicago, the not-too-distant-future.  Society has been divided into five factions: Erudite (the intellectuals), Candor (the honest), Amity (the friendly farmers), Abnegation (the selfless) and Dauntless (the muscle).  There is another group, called Factionless, who are the homeless of Chicagoland, because they don't belong to a group. 

Already all I keep thinking is, 'Veronica Roth, the series' author, is laying on the 'life as high school' metaphor really, really thick'. 

Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley) is the daughter of Abnegation, who finds she doesn't fit in to her specific group.  Her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) appears to be a better fit for self-sacrifice.  For about one hundred years Abnegation, being the noble group that they are, have been in charge of the government for all this time.  However, there are stirrings of coups, with Erudite chomping at the bit to be the government.  At age 16, all citizens are given a test to see what group they will go to.  Beatrice's tests are...shockingly, inconclusive.  She is a divergent, one who fits more than one group.  This must be kept completely quiet, as all divergents are being exterminated with extreme prejudice.

In what I think is a bizarre turn, while all children are tested to see where they will fit in, they still get to choose what group they will go to (begging the question, if they get to choose, why test them in the first place?).  To the shock of their parents Natalie (Ashley Judd) and Andrew (Tony Goldwyn), Caleb chooses Erudite, and Beatrice chooses Dauntless.  Immediately they are thrown into training.  We skip Caleb's because book-learning should be rather boring, while jumping off trains and shooting things is more exciting.

New transfers include the now-rechristened Tris' new friend Christina (Zoe Kravitz), Will (Ben Lloyd-Hughes), Al (Christian Madsen), and Peter (Miles Teller).  They are trained by the enigmatic Four (Theo James) and Eric (Jai Courtney).  We get a lot of training where Tris shows improving skills, with some secret help from Four.  She also is facing great threats from inside and outside, with her divergent identity still haunting her.  Tris and Four stumble into a conspiracy involving Jeanine (Kate Winslet), an Erudite who plans on taking over the world.  She uses drugs to control Dauntless and use them as a private army to exterminate Abnegation, including killing her parents.  She and Four attempt to stop the controlled Dauntless, and it costs the lives of both her parents.  Fortunately, Caleb has turned against Erudite, and Four and Tris defeat Jeanine and take the A train to go outside the walls of Chicago.

Often during the screening of Divergent, I stopped the DVD to do other things: read, check my e-mail, bake a cake.  I did this to relive the boredom that Divergent was if nothing else, terribly terribly boring.  Must all dystopian worlds be so humorless? 

One of my chief complaints about Divergent is that pesky question of logic.  Again, why test in the first place if you get to choose what group you want? 

As a side note, Roth at the very least was inspired by The Giver, for the stories share similarities (our lead not 'fitting in' within their sealed-off world after a devastating war, a ceremony to select what group/duty each teen will be given for life, a rebellion of sorts against the system and desperate efforts by the leadership to keep things as they are for the population's own good of course).  With The Hunger Games, it shares a female lead, a warrior-type who is not a natural fighter but rises to the occasion to take on the dangerous leadership (President Snow or Erudite head Jeanine). 

Copycats...

Then there is the 'factionless' group.  My goodness what a pathetic bunch.  So the deal is if you fail at the tests/training for a particular group, you are expelled from the group and not allowed to return to your original group (hence, 'factionless').  What I didn't understand is why didn't the 'factionless' themselves lead a revolution to take over or at least give the other factions endless trouble?  Are they that pathetic and hopeless.  Why would they be so willing to go along with things?  If by some odd chance you were born into Factionless, could you still test at all?

Again, what was up with the testing?  I didn't understand how one could possibly score 100 on any particular scale.  100 years would not be enough time to eliminate total honest from every human, or personal courage, or intellect, so by 'logic', every person should have shown traits of all factions and thus be 'divergent' in some way.  So, if one was a totally honest Dauntless-born, would you honestly fail to be totally honest with Candor and thus become 'factionless'?

Look, it isn't as if I don't understand what Roth was going for: some overt allegory of the high school experience where people divide themselves into cliques.  The fact I understand something, however, doesn't mean I have to say it makes sense in the world Roth created.  It doesn't.  I know that when you're a teen, you can feel as if being/not being in a particular group is the end of the world, but I simply couldn't accept the reality of this Chicagoland Dystopia thrown at me.

Even the sheer illogic to stupid plot, perhaps, I could go along with, if there was something of interest.  However, everyone in Divergent appears so bored or uninterested in the project.  It isn't as if at least on screen, some of them don't show how much contempt they have for the film that pays them thousands if not millions of dollars.  Miles Teller, someone I genuinely admire, does himself no favors in Divergent, being merely a quip-spouting machine in a kind of role and performance he could do in his sleep (and judging from the final project, might actually have been).  Elgort, someone I don't genuinely admire, didn't do badly as Caleb, but he too looked a bit bored with it all.

Same goes for Courtney's crabby Eric, one note short of one note as he just snapped at people everywhere.  James, someone who is physically correct as the romantic lead, similarly looks dead, showing no emotion either in the romance with Tris or when he has to train anyone.

The women fared slightly better, even if Judd had nothing to do but look fretful (Goldwyn being a black figure).  Woodley and Kravitz at least conveyed that Tris and Christina had a genuine friendship, and maybe if we'd have more focus on that we might have had a more interesting movie.  Winslet had to be a villain, and I figure she did well because it was pretty obvious she was a villain.

Finally, here is where I again wonder about all this.  Divergent ends with Tris and Four defeating Jeanine's wicked scheme and Jeanine running off.  Tris and Four, along with some others, jump the train that goes into the Great Unknown, but from my vantage point, they could have ended the series (let alone the book) with the villain being beaten and Tris and Four leading a new truly factionless world.  Why keep it going, seeing as how boring it was?

Seriously, we have to sit through three more movies like this?   

DECISION: D-

The Fault in Our Stars: A Review

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS

Love in the Time of Leukemia...

It a curious thing, an aspect of The Fault in Our Stars.  If the screen adaptation is close to the original novel, we get this idea that John Green's Hazel is dismissive of teen-centered dramas where things end happily to a Peter Gabriel song.  I don't know why a.) a teenage girl would listen to Peter Gabriel (and it's no slam on Gabriel, since I love his music), and b.) Green thinks mocking one type of cliché is bad when his book gives us another (the 'wise-beyond-her-years teen girl who is so insightful about life and everything in it).  Most teenagers I know are neither quirky or deep thinkers, merely young.  The Fault in Our Stars is extremely popular with teens, and not having read the book I've no idea how close or far it strays from Green's novel.  However, the film is simultaneously smug and sleep-inducing, as two young people dying pepper us with a version of love that is one cancer patient short of Love Story. 

Hazel Lancaster (Shailene Woodley) has cancer and she would rather face it in a 'realistic' manner.  This means not going to a support group, which her intellect is far above everyone, especially the group leader Patrick (Mike Birbiglia), who is in Hazel's words, a divorced man with half a testicle who is living on his parent's couch and sewing a large carpet with the literal Heart of Jesus carpet.  In other words, someone beneath her. 

Into this world comes Augustus Gloop...I mean, Waters (Ansel Elgort), who comes to the support group as moral support to his friend Isaac (Nat Woolf), who is about to lose his second eye and become blind.  Augustus lost half his leg to cancer as well, but so far appears to be doing all right.  Immediately struck by her beauty, Augustus soon charms Hazel Grace (Augustus insists on using her first and middle name and perhaps only once or twice ever calls her just plain 'Hazel').  Hazel Grace soon becomes enraptured with the cocky, self-assured Augustus.  He in turn is also smitten, to where he will read her favorite novel, An Imperial Affliction, a somber tale of cancer that ends rather abruptly for her.  Being a guy (in other words, someone who loathes any hint of intellectualism), he finds An Imperial Affliction a tedious bore, but knowing that Hazel Grace loves the book (and even agreed to read his favorite book, an adaptation of his favorite video game), he goes the extra mile for her.

Hazel Grace has written hundreds of letters to An Imperial Affliction's reclusive author but never received a response.  With one e-mail (ONE, mind you), our uber-confident ex-jock has gotten not only a reply from the writer Peter Van Houten, but an invite to visit him in Amsterdam.

At this point, I observed that I'm sure J.D. Salinger did things like this ALL the time to those kids who thought Catcher in the Rye explained everything about their lives and spoke to them and them alone.  Yet I digress.

Well, Augustus cashes in his 'wish' to go to Amsterdam, and part of that wish involves taking Hazel Grace and her mother Frannie (Laura Dern) to Amsterdam.  The kids get a free meal thanks to Van Houten (again, bet you Salinger coughed up money for his fans to dine at Tavern on the Green whenever they hit Manhattan), and meet the reclusive Van Houten (Willem Dafoe). Shock of shocks, he doesn't want to answer their questions about the book.  He won't even give them much of an audience, but Van Houten's assistant Lidewij (Lotte Verbeek) makes it up to them by taking them to the Anne Frank House.  There Hazel Grace finally admits that she loves Augustus, and later that night, despite her oxygen tank and his prosthetic leg, they lose their virginities to each other. 

Good thing too, as Augustus tells Hazel Grace that his cancer has returned with a vengeance.  He is getting sicker and sicker, while she is still medically able to push her cancer away.  The boy who has no fear of oblivion faces just that, and the girl who believes we are all destined to be forgotten sees that being remembered by one person is enough to last them all their infinities.

Augustus dies, and to her anger Van Houten arrives for his funeral.  Isaac, now blind, tells her that the letter Van Houten gave her wasn't by the author, but from Augustus.  It was the eulogy he had written for her, which she had asked a long time ago.   Hazel Grace looks upon the stars and sees that their love is truly infinite and will outlast the stars themselves. 

There is something, if not insidious, at least arrogant and condescending about The Fault in Our Stars.  John Green is someone I find I don't care for.  He may be a nice enough person, but if the book is like the movie, I imagine he has a grand opinion of himself and his insight into young people.  He may, given he's more successful than I in terms of book publication.  However, The Fault in Our Stars is a film I found dull, manipulative, and a little nonsensical.

I simply could not suspend disbelief long enough to accept that Van Houten, this Salinger-esque writer, would so quickly agree to meet or invite two kids out of nowhere.  It isn't mentioned that meeting Van Houten was part of Augustus' wish.  I thought it was merely to go to Amsterdam, and I think I'm right in thinking this way because there was no official from any wish-granting organization making any arrangements with Van Houten. 

Here, I will grant the filmmakers a little leeway, seeing as I fell asleep during this 'great love story of our generation' (well, not MY generation, but that's another matter). 

Even if I go with 'the assistant arranged all this', apart from it needing to happen because the plot requires it to, my question is 'why these two'?  I'm sure An Imperial Affliction affected hundreds if not thousands if not tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, thousands of thousands, maybe even millions of millions of readers, and these fan letters asking for questions about the fate of the gerbil or hamster or whatever pet the main character had must have arrived at his home.  Dame Agatha Christie for example, had many people writing to her, but she never opened her home to someone asking that Miss Marple marry Hercule Poirot.

That whole storyline didn't hold water for me, and it took me out of the movie pretty much right away.  Why Lidewij decides these two would be granted an audience with her surly drunk boss I won't know. 

Personally, I suspect that Van Houten is John Green's idealization of himself, someone whose writings has this powerful impact on the young.  The only difference between the faux-genius of Van Houten and the faux-genius of Green is that the latter LOVES to communicate with his fans.  It's an incredible thing that with one adaptation of his work, I already dislike John Green.

What really irks me about The Fault in Our Stars is how it plays with the audience.  It wants us to think the story is 'the truth' about young people with cancer, but it gives us the most clichéd characters: the emotionally needy best friend/comic relief, the slightly smug know-it-all-girl, the cocky boy who charms everyone to do his bidding, a boy so good at getting his way he can tell the mother of his best friend's ex-girlfriend to get back into the house while they egg it, AND SHE DOES IT!  It mocks certain conventions of the teen romance genre but it maintains and embraces others (down to the cutesy indie soundtrack).  The inclusion of the song All I Want by Kodaline doesn't help.  That song, which plays when the three are egging the house, is the same song played in the 2014 TCM Remembers montage.   Having seen the annual tribute before seeing The Fault in Our Stars, I recognized the song, and if one is distracted by that over what is suppose to be a 'touching' moment, then the thing pretty much falls flat to me. 

I never like Elgort as Augustus (and as a side note, how come he got away with calling her Hazel Grace, but we never got her calling him Auggie or something equally silly).  I suppose he was suppose to be a charmer, but he came across to me as arrogant, conceited, and a little obnoxious.  It got to the point that I really didn't care if he lived or died, and when he is facing his final battle in his car, I found it laugh-out-loud funny rather than touching.

I love Woodley, so I can't say much against her.  In truth, I liked her in this role, especially since there was an evolution to her character, something Elgort/Auggie didn't have.   

I suppose all generations need their own Love Story, something insipid, even idiotic, but which manipulates one emotionally and has faux-intellectual witticisms that will appeal to those whose minds gravitate to simple bromides as deep thoughts.  When once we had "Love means never having to say you're sorry", for Millennials, bred on Twitter and Facebook, something shorter will have to do.

Okay...

DECISION: D+