THE CREW AND THE SQUAD
Late-Summer Tentpoles with Large Casts Exemplify the
Best/Worst of Blockbusters
What does any great story have?
Think of a classic great
story. King Arthur. Romeo &
Juliet. Robin Hood. Oliver Twist. Pride & Prejudice. Frankenstein. Harry
Potter. The Lord of the Rings. What do they all have?
The answer’s not hard to figure out. They all have great characters. Yes, many of those stories
have action, romance, comedy, mystery, fantasy and other great elements that
help make great stories, but what makes all that other stuff especially
compelling, or worth getting into, are the characters. Characters you can root for.
Characters you want to see live, fall in love, fight, win, achieve their
destinies, have happy endings.
Two of the last big movies of this Summer 2016 season are
chock-full of distinct, colorful characters. In one corner we have a jocular
spaceship captain, his cool, logic-driven right hand, and their favorite
ship-mates: the chatty, resourceful engineer, the feisty doctor, the plucky young
pilot with a Russian accent, the beautiful, whip-smart communications officer,
and the even-keeled pilot who has a young daughter as motivation to be safe and
succeed on his voyages. In the other corner we have a hard-eyed, cold-blooded
government operative and the band of misfits she forces to do her bidding—a quippy
but deadly sharpshooter, an upbeat but unhinged former psychiatrist, a
heavily-tattooed man who can shoot fire from his hands, a dirty Australian
thief who throws boomerangs and likes unicorns, a man with a skin condition so
bad he looks like a monster, a chuckling homicidal gangster who wears clown
makeup, and a 6,000-year-old witch who takes over the body of a scientist.
The primary difference between Star Trek: Beyond and Suicide
Squad is that one movie knew what to do with its characters—put them front
and center, let them talk and breathe and develop, and put them in an adventure
in which they can all play a part—and the other did not—hastily throwing them
together in an overstuffed, poorly-edited story with a half-baked central
premise and a pitiful overarching conflict. The former, a second sequel to 2009’s
Star Trek reboot, told an exciting
adventure but kept its familiar characters (well-established after two films
and the classic TV series) at the focus of its camera no matter the expensive
visual effects around them, and the latter--though admittedly introducing all
but two of its characters for the first time--spent little time introducing its
characters and thrust them into the midst of a whirl of effects and cuts and
plotlines.
In an age when most movies of note are big-budget, effects-laden
films, these two effectively capture the good and bad of the “blockbuster” as
we know it. One movie cares about its characters enough to make the audience
care, and the story is that much more compelling for it. The other has interesting
characters but doesn’t know what to do with them, and it does its characters
(and its audience) a disservice in putting them in a clunky stopgap feature.
Star Trek: Beyond Grade: B+
Directed by Justin Lin
I’m admittedly biased because I loved the 2009 reboot and
its 2013 sequel, Into Darkness, but Star Trek: Beyond will go down as the
only truly good movie I saw during the
summer 2016 season other than May’s Captain
America: Civil War. Beyond wasn’t
a movie whose release date I had circled on my calendar, but it turned out to
be a far smarter, more engaging, and better-rounded film that nearly all of the bigger-name releases that came out around it.
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of the inception
of creator Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi universe, Beyond opens about halfway into the five-year mission of the U.S.S. Enterprise. Space travel is fun,
sure, but being literally adrift for years has taken its toll on even the notorious
adventure-lover James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), the starship’s captain. Just as his
birthday arrives and the Enterprise
Star Trek: Beyond
hits almost all the right notes. Krall is a little weak of a villain—nowhere
near as intimidating and charismatic as Benedict Cumberbatch’s Khan from the
last installment—someone who might antagonize the crew on an average episode of
the show, but most the film's elements are top-of-the-line. The special
effects are great, starting with the gorgeous, unique design of the Yorktown space station at which the Enterprise docks
early on, and really hitting their stride in the sensational sequence in which Krall’s
minions wreck the Enterprise Enterprise
But, of course, what really makes Beyond work is the family-like cast. This is their third outing—almost
all of them are contracted for a fourth—and these characters who go back 50 years
in the pop zeitgeist are as fun and interesting as ever. I feel certain many,
myself included, would watch the seven or so name characters simply interact
for a couple hours and be quite satisfied, even if there was no space adventure involved. Like a great episode of a show, Beyond keeps the whole ensemble together
most of the movie, but breaks off one pair for a few hugely-effective
character-building moments. While Saldana’s Uhura and Cho’s Sulu aren’t given
quite as much to do, Pine, Quinto, Urban and Yelchin all shine—as does newcomer
Boutella, even behind the kabuki-mask makeup—while Scotty gets a much bigger,
more dynamic role thanks to Pegg helping write the script. It’s a fine group
that, despite the episodic nature of the these movies (in keeping with the franchise’s
TV series origins), makes me want to come back for more.
The family dynamic takes on a special meaning for this film
in particular, what with two of the key members of the Trek universe having passed in real life during its development. In Loving Memory of Leonard Nimoy appears mid-way through the end
credits, followed shortly by the heart-tugging words For Anton, for the young actor who died in a freak accident less
than two months before the movie’s release. This genuinely-good movie makes a
fitting tribute.
**Star Trek: Beyond is
rated PG-13 for intense action and scenes of destruction, some disturbing
images, and brief language.
Suicide Squad Grade:
D
Directed by David Ayer
When March’s Batman v.
Superman: Dawn of Justice met mixed (mostly-negative) reviews from critics
and fans alike, many said August’s Suicide
Squad—which exists in the same part of the fictional DC Comics Universe—could
erase memories of that movie and redeem the DC Universe. With the Joker coming
back to the series, plus a whole bunch of other notorious characters hitting
the big screen for the first time—Harley Quinn, Deadshoot, Captain Boomerang,
Killer Croc, etc…--Squad looked like
it could be the cool, edgy shot-in-the-arm DC (and the summer movie season in
general) needed.
Sadly, Suicide Squad
is no better than the much-maligned Batman
v. Superman. In fact, it’s arguably worse. I summed up my feelings on BvS by calling it “an overlong,
overstuffed, big ugly misfire”, and Squad
meets all those ignominious criteria as well. This two-hour movie is stuffed to
the gills with character intros, extra plot threads, nods to different parts of
the DC Universe, cheesy action sequences, musical interludes, and
sorta-kinda-funny moments that would be more entertaining if they hadn’t
already been in all the movie’s trailers. In contrast to Star Trek: Beyond, which acquitted its beloved, developed
characters well by keeping watching them grow through their new adventure, Squad hastily introduces its characters
and then hurls them into a cheesy, by-the-numbers plot.
The eccentric title characters are all introduced,
and then thrust into action, by federal agent Amanda Waller (Oscar-nominee
Viola Davis, playing by far the actual most intimidating character in the
movie), who proposes the world counteract the threat of Superman and other powerful
extraterrestrials by forming a team of criminals—“the worst of the worst”.
These eccentric baddies are all in an underground prison in Louisiana . They include “Deadshot” (Will
Smith), a sharpshooter who never misses; Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), a former
psychiatrist who lost her credibility, and, it seems, her sanity, when she fell
in love with the nefarious Joker; “Diablo” (Jay Hernandez), a man who can shoot
fire from his hands; “Killer Croc” (Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje), a burly cannibal who
has a skin condition that makes him look like a human/crocodile combo; “Captain
Boomerang” (Jai Courtney), a rugged Australian thief; and “Slipknot” (Adam Beach), a “guy
who can climb anything”. When Agent Waller puts this team of criminals in
action, it’s up to decorated Special Ops vet Rick Flagg (Joel Kinnaman) to keep
them in line—him, and the tiny explosive computer chips Waller had planted in
each criminal’s neck as a warning to conduct themselves appropriately.
With the mysterious Batman (Ben Affleck) lurking in the background
and the infamous Joker (Jared Leto) dogging their steps in an attempt to rescue
his beloved Harley, the criminals are forced into action when an ancient witch
takes over the body of a scientist (Cara Delevingne), turns people into
faceless zombies, and tries to take over Midway City (and, tomorrow, the
WORLD!!!).
Let me stop you right there. While the opening is both
rushed and too long and too cluttered—with most of the characters getting at
least a few moments’ introduction if not a whole montage of scenes (which Deadshot
and Harley Quinn get)—the characters are eccentric enough, and Davis’ Waller
convincing enough, that this all might
work…if it weren’t for the witch. The witch—called “Enchantress”—is possibly
the most ridiculous movie villain I’ve ever seen on the big screen. Here you
have most of this movie taking place in the same moody, grittily-realistic
cityscapes as Batman v Superman, and
then you have the villain, a half-naked young woman wearing a chain-mail
loincloth, gyrating and moaning dialogue in a hilariously-fake foreign language
while CGI tentacles come out of her back and fake smoke rises from her body. Her
followers—who she creates by French-kissing them—are zombies with oozing,
pulsing, featureless lumps for faces. Nothing is bad quite like bad sci-fi or
fantasy, and this is bad. More than
once, I burst out laughing during the movie just because the movie—about a
group of deadly killers pulled out of prison to try and stop a “terrifying evil
force”—was just too silly for me to take.
It’s not all the witch’s fault—the rest of this isn’t
exactly Shakespeare. I mean, the characters are interesting enough that, if the
film around them were better written and better directed, they might really
have something (like DC’s rival Marvel’s witty takes on antiheroes in Guardians of the Galaxy and Deadpool). But the movie has too much in
it, jumps around far too much, and has too much of the witch and her (wizard? Warlock?
Mummy?) brother rendered in bad CGI to be good. Even Jared Leto’s
much-ballyhooed Joker is a disappointment—in his maybe ten minutes of
screentime, he’s rendered as a fey, giggling goof, which might be the point of the
character (being called the JOKER), but still seems like weak sauce compared to
the late Heath Ledger’s depiction of a homicidal anarchist/terrorist in 2008’s Dark Knight.
For the actors, Davis
fares best, her stone-faced agent a chilly baddie who could probably have her
own movie. Smith is back to entertaining after a few too-serious recent outings
(Focus, Concussion, the awful After Earth), and he manages pretty well.
Margot Robbie has a ball throwing herself into the role of Harley Quinn—with the
smudgy makeup, intriguing backstory, and life-of-the-party flair, Harley has
everything…including many little character-building moments spoiled by the
trailers. Still, Robbie hits a home run in this hugely-anticipated role, and
most of the others fall in her wake. Joel Kinnaman’s straight-laced Flagg, surrounded by all
these eccentric wackos, is flat and forgettable. Delevingne should fire her
agent, her role is so embarrassing. Akinnouye-Agbaje’s Killer Croc isn’t so
much a character as a scaly thing that occasionally mumbles words. Jay Hernandez
tries to give Diablo a personality and a soul, but I just kept looking at him
wondering why no one ever mentioned he had distracting tattoos all over his
freakin’ face. Jai Courtney’s Boomerang is little more than a bunch of tiny
weird character moments put together. Adam Beach’s Slipknot is just here to get
his head blown off.
Needless to say, it’s disappointing that Suicide Squad falls on its face. Its
main villain is pathetic, its plot flimsy, its “supervillain” characters not
very super or villainous, its opening is too full, and its three endings all
contradictory. It strikes the wrong tone—it makes people who had wanted to see
it for months laugh at how silly and dumb it was.
***Suicide Squad is rated PG-13 for action and violent
content, language, and some disturbing images
Star Trek: Beyond (2016)
Directed by Justin Lin
Screenplay by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung
Based on Characters Created by Gene Roddenberry
Rated PG-13
Length: 122 minutes
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Karl
Urban, Zoe Saldana, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, Idris Elba and Sofia Boutella; Also
Featuring Lydia
Wilson and Shohreh Aghdashloo
Suicide Squad (2016)
Directed and Written for the Screen by David Ayer
Based on the Comic Book by John Ostrander
Rated PG-13
Length: 123 minutes
Starring: Will Smith, Margot Robbie, Viola Davis, Joel
Kinnaman, Jai Courtney, Cara Delevingne, Jay Hernandez, Adewale
Akinnouye-Agbaje, Karen Fukuhara, Ike Barinholtz, and Jared Leto; with Adam
Beach as Slipknot and Ben Affleck as Batman
No comments:
Post a Comment