SICARIO

Sicario

Grade: B+

Starring: Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro, Josh Brolin, Daniel Kaluuya, Victor Garber, Jon Bernthal and Maximiliano Hernandez

Premise: An idealistic FBI agent is recruited to a narcotics tax force battling the influx of drugs from Mexico. She is surprised to find almost immediately that the drug cartels aren’t the only ones who don’t play by the rules.

Rated R for bloody violence and disturbing images, language, scary moments, and some sexual content

Sicario is a dark, bruising film about what it means to live in a depraved, fallen world. It shows the dark side of battling the disease that is the drug trade. Denis Villenueve’s film (from Taylor Sheridan’s screenplay) suggests that, for something as dark and penetrating as the drug trade, it can’t always be as simple and righteous as kicking down doors, arresting the bad guys, and showing off piles of confiscated drugs and cash to the TV cameras. As one character tells another late in the film “If you want to live in the land of wolves, you have to be a wolf.” It’s a well-made, brilliantly-shot film with several fine performances, though if you were hoping for a more gung-ho, patriotic film about good guys stopping the bad guys in the name of justice, in a clear battle of right and wrong, wait for the Secret Soldiers of Benghazi movie from Michael Bay. It should tell you something that the title is Mexican for “hitman”. This is movie with a skewed, cracked moral compass, but it’s masterful and devastating in the way it portrays the shades of gray in one deep bruise on humanity’s conscience.

Plot

A high-flyer in the war on human trafficking, FBI Agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) is a crack operative, one of the best of the best. Her reputation has gotten around. One day—shortly after her team busts down a door and finds something even worse than kidnapped human beings in a small, cramped house in an Arizona suburb—she’s recruited to a specialized anti-drug task force in El Paso, led by smooth-talking Matt Graver (Josh Brolin). Matt and his mysterious enforcer Alejandro (Benicio del Toro) are at the front of a team looking to make a splash in the drug trade at the border by kidnapping the relative of a big-time drug lord in the hopes that the main man will show himself. Assuring Kate she’ll make a difference—after her recent gruesome findings and a hidden bomb that killed two men on her team, Kate is eager to find the people who would commit such atrocities—they immediately make an incursion into Juarez, Mexico, and nab a guy. But Kate has her doubts when Matt and Alejandro are vague in the details of who the man is or why they have him, and she has even more when their men initiate an armed engagement with drug runners in an area crowded with civilians. She soon suspects she is nothing more than a pawn, a front for Matt and Alejandro and their dark, subversive activities. But she has no idea how deep the rabbit hole goes.

What Doesn’t Work?

If you like everything laid out neatly for you, this isn’t your movie. Not even close. It can be frustrating how quiet and devoid of simple answers lots of Sicario is. It’s a movie about manipulation, and fighting fire with fire, and justifying any means with the ends achieved. The characters are given motivations but little in the way of backstory or personality—there’s nothing along the line of a big, character-building moment. It also doesn’t quite provide the action that seems to be promised—there is action, but it is dark and grueling, not the pocorn blockbuster variety. It’s a slow burn to a dark, dark climax.

If you didn’t get the hint yet, it’s not a movie that leaves you feeling very cheerful.

What Works?

It’s a gnarly flick, though, one where subtle hints and seemingly-meaningless scenes slowly become very, very important, as in life-or-death important. It asks you to consider whether the means are justified by the ends they achieve. What constitutes “making a difference” in something as ongoing and impossible as the war on drugs? What is an appropriate punishment for someone who would attempt to legitimize his role in the drug trade with the uniform he wears? What do you do to a man who has a nice house and a nice family and seems like a regular businessman, when he sits atop a veritable food chain of a drug cartel in which people are kidnapped, killed, tortured and taken advantage of every day?

The key performances are strong without being flashy. Blunt, who also played a conflicted action heroine in last summer’s Edge of Tomorrow, is the audience’s conscience, a toughie and a patriot but someone who believes in right and wrong and not crossing the line, even though she’s seen how some do cross the line. She’s solid, and her growing internal conflict is easy to sense and understand even as she uses minimal words to portray it. Brolin has his usual swagger but it’s here suffused by a determination to see everything through a sardonic, tinted, look-at-the-big-picture lens. Del Toro—who won an Oscar in 2000 for Traffic, another big movie about how the drug trade impacts everyone—uses his big frame and impassive visage to loom intimidatingly over the film long before he does anything significant, but he turns out to have a huge role to play, and he teaches Blunt (and the audience) the “become a wolf if you want to live among the wolves” lesson in the most dramatic, unsubtle way possible.

The cinematography is terrific, full of slow-panning shots of cities and country-sides that build the tension until even beautiful sceneries are seemingly bursting with horrifying possibilities. The camera also captures a few close-ups of certain characters’s faces that will stick with you. The tension is built all along by a muted but addicting drum-driven score. And the final, wordless scene brilliantly drives home the horror of the ongoing drug trade and the violence and darkness it creates even as it focuses on a calm, domestic environment.

Content

Sicario is a hard R, with plenty of splattery head shots and pools of blood, plus a few unexpected shocks and plenty of bad words. Also, with its gloomy outlook, it’s definitely not for the faint of heart. Leave the kiddies and the optimists at home.

Bottom Line

One of those dark, brooding films you sit through waiting for some awesome gunfight or car chase, only to get to the end and realize dang, that actually was a pretty good movie, Sicario shows just how dark the world can be, both in terms of the drug trade and the human tendencies for sin and vice that created it. An effective musical score, strong cinematography, and notable performances by Emily Blunt, Benicio del Toro and Josh Brolin make this a solid, thought-provoking venture for the tougher, more daring moviegoer.

Sicario (2015)

Directed by Dennis Villenueve

Screenplay by Taylor Sheridan

Rated R

Length: 121 minutes 

THE MARTIAN

The Martian

Grade: B+

Starring: Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Pena, Kate Mara, Kristen Wiig, Sean Bean, Benedict Wong, Sebastian Stan and Aksel Hennie; also featuring Mackenzie Davis and Donald Glover

Premise: Stranded after a terrible storm, a lone member of the first manned mission to Mars struggles to survive on the planet’s airless, waterless, non-living surface. Meanwhile, NASA, Mission Control, and his surviving crewmates in space try to devise a way to rescue him before he runs out of food.

Rated PG-13 for language, intense scenes of peril and suspense, and some bloody/disturbing images

In 2013, audiences were wowed by Sandra Bullock’s desperate struggle for survival on the fringes of Earth’s atmosphere in Alfonso Cuaron’s taut, terrifying Gravity. Last year, audiences tried to hold back tears as Matthew McConaughey searched for a new home for the human race amongst the stars, even if it meant leaving his beloved daughter behind, in Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar. Gravity, which had exactly two characters whose faces were ever shown onscreen and took place largely in real time, was 90 minutes long, won 7 Academy Awards, and earned $274 million at the box office in the U.S. alone. Interstellar, which was 169 minutes long and had a plot that spanned nearly 80 years, won 1 Academy Award and grossed $187 million in the U.S.

So, space movies that are more than mere “space adventures” like Star Wars or Star Trek have become a new regular pastime, thanks largely to the advances in CGI and other special effects. This weekend’s new film, The Martian, is the first “big space film” of recent years that isn’t an original work. Based on a best-selling novel by Andy Weir, this Ridley Scott-directed film follows capably in the footsteps of those intergalactic predecessors, but it may, ultimately, prove the most audience-pleasing. Lacking the white-knuckle intensity of Gravity and the slightly overblown “epicness” of Interstellar, The Martian is a well-paced, well-thought out, accessible film that has its astonishing visuals and its moments of pathos but is, ultimately, a solid, well-rounded motion picture that should please audiences.

Plot

Just days after becoming the first humans to set foot on Mars, the highly-trained crew of the research mission Ares III is forced to evacuate when a stronger-than-expected storm descends on their base camp. Rather than risk having their shuttle knocked over by the high winds, stranding them on the planet with no way to return home, they abort. However, during the hurry to the shuttle, one of the team members, botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is struck by debris and nearly buried in sand. With limited visibility and the information that Watney’s vitals have ceased, the remaining crew, running out of time, make the crushing decision to leave him and begin their journey back to earth. Back on Earth, the Director of NASA (Jeff Daniels), the head of Mars Missions (Chiwetel Ejiofor, of 12 Years A Slave) and the Ares III crew director (Sean Bean) debate how soon to send another mission. They wonder if one of the key objectives of a new mission should be to retrieve the body of the astronaut for whom they have had a full, decorated funeral.

However, Watney isn’t dead. He awakes in pain, half-buried and alone, but he manages to get back inside the base structure, treat his wounds, and consider his situation. He is alone with no means of contacting anyone (the communications disk torn asunder is the very item that hit him during the evacuation), and, worse, he has limited food and water. He can survive several months, maybe a year if he rations. He’s on Mars, a planet millions of miles from Earth where nothing grows and there is no water. A botanist, he begins to use canvas tarps and energy from the base’s solar panels to fashion his own greenhouse, and he tries to make himself at home, using the video log recorder to record his daily activities and give himself a reason to talk out loud. On Earth, a NASA specialist (Mackenzie Davis), viewing satellite images from the planet’s surface, notices objects from the base camp have been moved, re-positioned, cleaned. It slowly becomes clear to NASA that Mark Watney must be alive. Debates arise. Is there a way to contact him? What do they have to tell him even if they do contact him? Should they tell his surviving crewmates, who are on their nearly year-long return journey, believing him dead? Should they hurry another mission, potentially cutting corners and endangering others’ lives, to try to get to him before he dies of starvation? Watney, who knows he has limited time, begins searching for his own answers.

What Works?

As was evidenced by its intriguing trailers, The Martian has a killer premise that could scarcely be uninteresting even if it tried. It’s also much brisker and more procedural than, say, Interstellar—it takes great pains to explain ways that Watney tries to grow food, has to charge his land rover, how NASA has to make an emergency shuttle lighter to try and get to him. Yet it also has plenty of time with Watney mulling things over, talking and even laughing to himself about his situation, and it features plenty of scenic shots that drive home the concept of his being so utterly alone—millions of miles from the nearest known living things.

I’d be willing to argue that Matt Damon was the perfect actor for the role of Mark Watney. Clean-cut and All-American, usually with a little smile at the corners of his mouth, he’s always been a likable, , accessible presence, which is big here when he spends the vast majority of his screen time alone, in unfamiliar surroundings, just going through daily tasks and talking to himself. Roles like the super agent in the Bourne series and his surprise cameo in Interstellar make him easy to believe as an astronaut, and we’ve seen him in brainy roles before (Good Will Hunting, the Ocean’s series), so we can accept that he’s an enterprising, genius botanist as well. And he’s no less easy to watch, and root for, even once a great deal of time has passed and he’s thinned out, grown a scraggly beard, and developed a weary, somewhat haunted look in his eyes.

After the film lays the groundwork, though, there are significant passages where Watney is not onscreen and Damon’s large, diverse supporting cast has to pick up the slack. Since the movie is more a procedural, most of the actors are playing roles without back-story and with a lot of plot-driven, technobabble dialogue. They make it work, though. Standouts include Jessica Chastain (an Interstellar co-star of Damon’s), Chiwetel Ejiofor, Benedict Wong, and Donald Glover.

Will The Martian be a big awards play? As was the case with Everest, the movie I saw and reviewed last week, it’s technically impeccable (it’s difficult to imagine how they put together and filmed this movie)—it looks great whether it’s on Mars, in space, or inside the shuttle with the crew members. It could well be in the running for technical awards like visual effects, editing, and sound mixing. Plus it's well-written and, despite a lot of space terminology, easy enough to follow. Overall, it’s a very impressive achievement.

What Doesn’t Work?

As entertained as I was by The Martian and as much as I enjoyed it, I didn’t find myself blown away. Two years ago, I was blown away after I saw Gravity. This movie didn’t quite have that effect on me. I think it’s because the movie is so generally riveting the whole time, it just isn’t able to conjure a moment or two of real, amazing movie magic that’s noticeably above and beyond its general pulse. It is very interesting and engaging and the last half-hour will have you on the edge of your seat, but no scenes quite took it to the point of greatness. For comparison’s sake, The Martian is exciting but, as a procedural, lacks the relatable emotional underpinnings of Interstellar (with almost no back-story for any characters, you don’t get quite as invested) or the high-pitched, feverish intensity of Gravity (there is a moment with two astronauts clinging to a tether, spinning in space, that is highly reminiscent of Cuaron’s film, but, here, you’re almost certain they’ll make it, whereas in Gravity, you had no idea and felt like you were hoping against reason). The movie also skips a great deal of time right at its conclusion, skipping several big, key scenes I thought would have been very important to the humanization of the main character as he adjusts to life back on Earth, amongst people.

Content

The Martian is the rare PG-13 film that gets away with two F-words, plus it has plenty of other swears. There’s no nudity or sexual content, no alien gore or anything (Red Planet, this isn’t), but the entire movie is pretty intense, and there are moments when the main character’s chance of survival seems pretty slim. There are at least one or two big shocks, and an early scene of Mark Watney tending to his wounds will have squeamish audience members covering their eyes.

Bottom Line

I liked The Martian. A lot. For the most part, I’m not disappointed. It’s a very, very good film in my opinion. Great? Not quite. But if you’ve seen the trailers, you know how intriguing the premise is, and the movie comes up with plenty of ingenious ways to keep things interesting and to keep you involved, even with plenty of technobabble dialogue. The always-likeable Matt Damon anchors a sprawling cast of recognizable actors, there are some gorgeous visuals and some heart-stopping, Gravity-style space action scenes. It’s a well-rounded film that will easily entertain you.

The Martian (2015)

Directed by Ridley Scott

Screenplay by Drew Goddard

Based on the novel by Andy Weir

Rated PG-13

Length: 141 minutes

EVEREST

Everest

Grade: B

Starring: Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, Emily Watson, Keira Knightley, Sam Worthington, John Hawkes and Michael Kelly, also featuring Jake Gyllenhaal and Robin Wright

Premise: Multiple competing teams of hikers trying to reach Mount Everest’s summit on May 10, 1996, are waylaid by a terrifying, deadly blizzard

Rated PG-13 for constant intense scenes of peril, and emotional content

Everest, a new true-story-based feature about one of the deadliest days in the history of earth’s tallest mountain, is an interesting case in which the film is not directly “based on” any particular book, though some five published books have detailed at least some of the events depicted in the film. Some of the details about who did what are hazy. Ultimately, the movie depicts the events of May 10-11 1996 and the days preceding, when a total of thirty-four climbers attempted to reach the summit of Mount Everest, a reported 29,029 feet above sea level. While most made it to the summit, some did not return because of a powerful blizzard that hit just below the summit in the afternoon on May 10, turning already barely-endurable conditions into a nightmare of dwindling oxygen, avalanches, slippery ice and snow, and frostbite.

Directed by Icelandic filmmaker Baltasar Kormakur and brought to life by a large cast, including five Oscar nominees and several other familiar faces, Everest, like many true story films, is a riveting-enough film that ultimately makes you more interested in the real-life story than the movie. Though, I suppose, even if there hadn’t been a blizzard, it would still be compelling, as it makes the viewer wonder, watching people who can barely breathe or move toiling up a snowy mountainside, what compels someone to put themselves through this just to get to the top of a mountain? As one character says, “You’re suffering now, but, for the rest of your life, you’ll be the guy who made it to the summit of Mount Everest.”

But is it worth it?

Plot

In the Spring of 1996, New Zealand-born mountain climbing specialist Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) was planning to make his fifth trek to the summit of Mount Everest, helping a new bunch of adventurers and thrill-seekers experience the ultimate thrill on Earth, before heading back home to be with his wife Jan (Keira Knightley) when she goes into labor. His clients—who each paid him a hefty sum to help them realize their dreams—are a mixed bunch, each with their own stories. Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin) is a Texan example of machismo, climbing Everest mostly because his wife (Robin Wright) doesn’t approve of the idea. Doug Hansen (John Hawkes) is a drifter who nearly made it to the summit once and is desperate to do so again—his dream has captured the imagination of folks back home. Jon Krakauer (Michael Kelly) is a writer who wants to give the world in-depth personal insight on this ultimate expedition. Yasuko Nambo (Naoko Mori) has already climbed six of the world’s seven highest peaks and wants the complete set.

Rob Hall’s team—called Adventure Consultants, headed by himself and Helen Wilton (Emily Watson), who oversees base camp about half-way up the mountain—turns out to be one of a handful of groups making for the summit on May 10, 1996; another is rival group Mountain Madness, led by the gregarious American hotshot Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal). Rob and Scott end up deciding on a reasonably amicable alliance due to sheer number of hikers and the need to get to the summit by 2:00 p.m., the usual turnaround time, in order to get down the mountain and inside their tents (with their plentiful oxygen supply), before the sun goes down and the weather gets likely worse. Along the way there are deposits of oxygen canisters that need to be placed in case of emergency, ropes that need to be rigged, and local sherpas who need to be recruited to help climbers make the most treacherous passes.

There’s a reason one in four Everest climbers dies. With such thin air and frigid temperatures, exhaustion, hypothermia and windburn begin to take their toll. Some people’s lungs just can’t take it. Others’ eyes or muscles begin to give out. The weaker climbers who need to use their oxygen more begin to run out. Some people are too slow to make the peak in time but claim they will die trying, causing some faster climbers to have pity and slow down to stick with them. Others are sick enough to be rushed down the mountain by macho hikers who then rush to try and catch back up with the group. All this happens even before a huge blizzard hits just below the summit, blasting the exhausted hitchhikers with gale-force winds, pelting snow, early-onset darkness, and, of course, diving temperatures.

What Doesn’t Work?

Everest takes a while to get going, feeling early on like either a documentary or a movie with a clear over-abundance of characters, most of whom are dark-haired, bearded men with only a handful of lines each. A lot of technical terms or mountain lingo is used—“Hillary Ridge”, “above the summit”, “below the summit”, “south summit”, “the face”—to describe things that are, to the viewer’s eyes, mostly indiscernible patches of rocks and snow. The movie begins with the pre-climb team meeting and then hustles forward several weeks to get to the main action of May 9, 10, and 11, which can be disorienting. Sure, the movie tosses the audiences a few anticipation-building nuggets (“Humans are not meant to function at the cruising altitude of a 747—your bodies are literally dying up there”), plus it’s impossible to not be intrigued by the idea of achieving such a hallowed achievement, but it gets hard to really care when you see scene after scene of people climbing mountainsides or scaling ropes, so heavily bundled that you can only maybe tell who’s who because of the color they’re wearing. There are too many characters to go around. Distractingly, the same extended shot that pans from the hikers toiling up the mountainside to the summit high above them is used twice in the span of about twenty minutes. And, after building up a huge head of steam and sense of emotion and anticipation, the movie unexpectedly (and, I would argue, somewhat unfairly) hustles to its conclusion and casually drops a few bombshells on the audience just before the end credits. 

What Works?

While Everest isn’t the same kind of sensory thrill as, say, Gravity, when you sit down and think about it, it’s an undeniably spectacular achievement. It’s almost impossible to imagine how, exactly, this movie was filmed, with such a thorough, convincing sense of atmosphere. The visuals are by turns breathtaking and terrifying, and it’s not hard to believe the men and women toiling onscreen are truly in discomfort and pain even before it all hits the fan when the blizzard comes. I saw the movie in 2-D, but there were no moments to me that really stuck out as “pop-out 3-D” moments, so I would imagine the 3-D is pretty immersive; that would probably add a little to the spectacle.

I will say that, despite having so many characters and taking a while to pull the viewer in, Everest is very well written and directed in that most of the characters and storylines you were actually able to grab onto in the first half become crucially important in the second half. In fact, it’s appropriate that, once the first party of climbers reaches the hallowed summit of Mt. Everest—in a well-done, slow-panning shot—it feels like a switch has been flipped, and the movie is much more epic and exciting from there on. There are a multiple scenes audiences will watch on the edge of their seats or through their fingers, and others that could very well bring a tear to the eye.

As was the case with Black Mass, the true-story-based film I saw and reviewed last week, Everest is somewhat mystifyingly full of recognizable actors despite having, for the most part, relatively few juicy dramatic parts. I wondered if they all came on board due to interest in the script or interest in the real-life story—though it occurs to me now the studio likely noted that the film would need familiar faces for audiences to latch onto and thus paid name actors to make the film more marketable. Just like Black Mass, the story behind the film is more interesting than any particular part, but the actors in Everest commit themselves admirably. Jason Clarke, who seems to be everywhere lately, is solid in the lead, recognizably mostly thanks to his strong Down Under accent, but Emily Watson and Josh Brolin have the showier parts that form the real backbone of the film. Jake Gyllenhaal and Robin Wright are somewhat wasted in tiny cameo roles, but Keira Knightley nearly steals the movie in just a couple of scenes with a cousome heart-wrenching moments as the beleaguered, terrified spouse back home.

Content

Everest is impressively clean for a PG-13 film, with no innuendos or sexual content to speak of and, even more impressively for a film about people constantly in distress, almost no cursing that I can remember. Of course, it’s the harrowing circumstances in which the protagonists find themselves that make the film intense. Early scenes of a few people coughing up blood due to an adverse reaction to the thin air prove just the beginning—no details are excessively gory (though one wince-inducing image depicting horrible frostbite will remain etched in one’s mind), but there are a few shock moments as people fall or even, simply, slip, because, in those circumstances, being separated from the group or finding oneself at even a slight disadvantage can prove fatal.

Bottom Line

Everest looks great and tells a powerful, thought-provoking, heart-wrenching true story. As a movie, it takes a while to warm up, though most of the second hour of this 121-minute movie is as engaging and riveting as you could want. A large cast with a number of respectable actors acquits itself well, though most of the actors have only a few scenes. And if you’ve ever thought that you might want to climb to the summit of Mount Everest, rest assured this movie may make you re-think that ambition.

Everest (2015)

Directed by Baltasar Kormakur 

Screenplay by William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy

Rated PG-13

Length: 121 minutes

BLACK MASS

Black Mass

Grade: B

Starring: Johnny Depp, Joel Edgerton, Benedict Cumberbatch, Kevin Bacon, Corey Stoll, David Harbour, Adam Scott, Jesse Plemmons, Rory Cochrane, Dakota Johnson, and Julianne Nicholson, with Peter Sarsgaard and Juno Temple

Premise: Notorious South Boston criminal James ‘Whitey’ Bulger increases his empire of crime under the veil of immunity he received due to his agreement to become an FBI informant.

Rated R for constant profanity, bloody violence and disturbing images

Black Mass, based on a book of the same name that detailed the rise of real-life criminal James ‘Whitey’ Bulger, is the most Boston-accented movie I’ve seen in a while. In fact, I can trace a direct connection between this movie and The Departed, another film about cops/agents of the law and career criminals set in Boston. Like Black Mass, that Oscar-winning film featured a huge cast of notable actors all barking relentlessly in ‘pahk the cahhh’ accents. Also like Black Mass, that movie made the idea of the cops, the FBI, or anyone else agreeing to deals with criminals who wish to become “informants” a fairly poor idea given the possible (and, this film argues, likely) repercussions of granting streetwise criminals a feeling of freedom. But, unlike The Departed, Black Mass is based on true events.

Plot

In the early ‘70s, James ‘Whitey’ Bulger (Depp, in blue contacts and under a lot of makeup) was already a noted criminal, having spent nine years in Leavenworth and Alcatraz prisons and tending to "take care of" people who got in his way. The much older brother of a senator, Billy Bulger (Benedict Cumberbatch), don’t-call-me-Whitey-or-else kept his dealings relatively on the DL. Then the ties he’d formed with good old “southie” paid off when ambitious young FBI agent John Connolly (Joel Edgerton), with whom the Bulgers had grown up, offered ‘Jimmy’ immunity as an informant—Jimmy, who hated the idea of ‘rats’ or ‘informants’, considered it an ‘alliance’—if he helped the FBI bag the Boston branch of the mafia, which was based on the north side.

Jimmy, it transpired, did lead the FBI right to the house of the local Mafioso, but the FBI agents (Kevin Bacon, Adam Scott, David Harbour) around Connolly slowly begin to realize Jimmy is abusing his place in the “alliance” by expanding his criminal activities, to the point that he is soon tied to the murder of the head of a million-dollar business in Oklahoma. And after Jimmy’s young son (Luke Ryan) and elderly mother pass away, leaving him with lots of criminal associates but no one with whom he feels truly close, he becomes more unhinged and wanton in his killings. As the crimes continue to escalate, Connolly--once a stud for making the “alliance” that landed the FBI the mafia--begins to feel the noose tightening, his claims of “southie ties” and “southie blood” paling in comparison to the reign of terror he’s helped unleash.

What Doesn’t Work?

I would guess we’re going to see four or five more movies with the same general appeal as Black Mass between now and mid-January—i.e. the season in which awards contenders are released. That would be films based on interesting, catchy real-life stories that transpire over a number of years. Such movies are innately interesting given their ripped-from-the-headlines, history-making content, but the movies are often no more than competent. These real-life stories that take place over a large expanse of time tend to leave little room for character development, strong relationships, or even, sometimes, a particularly strong narrative arc. One of the people with whom I saw Black Mass claimed during the end credits it was “different than I thought it was going to be” and “kinda boring”. While I can’t imagine anyone claiming Mass was “crap” or “a waste of time” or the worst movie they’ve ever seen, you might hear a lot of watered-down, lackluster “praise” like “it was well-made, and well-acted”. That’s exactly Black Mass. The film has its strong points (and I’ll get to those), but anyone expecting The Untouchables or The Departed or another hip, groovy cops-and-robbers film with a lot of action is going to be disappointed.

Also, something that didn’t quite work for me was one of the film’s main selling points—Johnny Depp in blue contacts and under a lot of makeup meant to depict him as an aging, balding, white guy from southie. As soon as I started seeing him in marketing material for the movie months ago, to me, it just felt like a gimmick. There’s an argument to be made that Depp doesn’t sound like, act like, or, obviously, look like his normal characters, and that may well please fans who have felt he’s coasted in recent years playing eccentric, accented, fantastical characters that were all seemingly just “Johnny Depp in a Different Accent and Colorful Costume”. Despite what’s obviously a pretty bang-up makeup job, I still felt distracted the entire film that Depp's makeover, with his lighter skin and ice-blue contacts, was more a cool attempt to disguise an actor than a really transformative event. If you see the film, you be the judge.

What Works?

I’ll say that Whitey Bulger’s story is interesting and it can get one riled about not wanting the cops/FBI to make the same mistake of creating “alliances” with Bad Guys just so they can catch Really Bad Guys, but the real reason to see Black Mass is its sprawling cast of recognizable actors. Depp is the just the tip of the iceberg (and I wonder if it was the chance to work with him that drew in all these other notable faces). This movie is loaded. Will any of them be making the rounds during the golden weeks of awards season? We’ll just have to see.

Depp, who, it must be said, convincingly speaks the accent and owns a couple of bravura scenes in the second act in which he terrifies the crap out of the audience and the other characters on screen just by talking quietly and gesturing, might be in the Best Actor conversation, though I would argue the role isn’t quite showy enough (and the movie probably came out a little too early for him to not be drowned in the tide of contenders in upcoming movies). If Depp’s name remains in awards-consideration conversations long enough, his chief co-star, Joel Edgerton, deserves to be in those conversations with him (albeit for the Supporting Actor category). In what’s probably his best role to date—and coming off his recent joint success directing and starring in the heralded suspense thriller The Gift—Edgerton perfectly plays the part-patriot, part-sleaze who’s blinded by “southie ties” and, later, corrupted by fame and success. Edgerton is almost a co-lead, in fact, and he’s terrific.

Recent Best Actor nominee Benedict Cumberbatch also has a notable role as “the most powerful politician in the state”, Jimmy/Whitey’s little brother Billy. Although he amazingly disguises his strong native British tones for “southie” speak, the role is ultimately rather thankless. You wonder if the popular, acclaimed actor was just really drawn to the script or the story or the possibility of working with Depp, and thus accepted such a part.

The supporting cast is a who’s who of supporting actors from TV, like Adam Scott (Parks & Rec), Jesse Plemmons (Breaking Bad), and Corey Stoll (House of Cards), and recognizable lifetime supporting actors from movies like Kevin Bacon and Peter Sarsgaard. A few others make strong impressions in just a handful of scenes, like Dexter-look-alike David Harbour as an increasingly-conflicted FBI agent, and Dakota Johnson (50 Shades of Grey) and Julianne Nicholson as Whitey and Connolly’s conflicted spouses, respectively. Finally, some praise should be handed to Juno Temple, who has exactly two scenes, but they’re two that will have the entire audience on the edge of their seats, peering between their fingers. It should be noted that, despite the movie’s overall slow pace, it does begin noticeably ratcheting up the suspense in the second half—the audience can feel the noose tightening almost as much as any of the characters.

Content

Black Mass isn’t quite as bloody or shoot-em-up violent as you might think, given that one of the reasons the movie is officially Rated R is “Brutal Violence”—in fact, the main reason the movie is rated R is the F-word-every-sentence dialogue. That said, the violence the film does contain is often gut-wrenching, including two close-up violent murders (one of which compelled me to look away) and one particularly disturbing scene in which we don’t see the murder directly, but we hear the victim trying to struggle and scream as they’re slowly strangled to death. For a “slow” or even “boring” movie, you might be surprised how tense you are during the latter stages of Black Mass.

Bottom Line

Black Mass has an interesting story to tell about a real-life criminal—so interesting that the end credit captions of what happened to the surviving major participants in the film prove arguably the most interesting part of the entire two-hour affair. But, as a movie-going experience, it’s not particularly entertaining. Anyone expecting a full-on cops and robbers shoot-out will be disappointed. The movie also has scant romance and only the merest touch of dark (dark!) humor. That said, Depp headlines a deep cast of recognizable and solid actors which should prove intriguing to any real movie buffs out there. It’s not a hugely-entertaining time in the theatre, but I won’t say you won’t be affected.

Black Mass (2015)

Directed by Scott Cooper

Screenplay by Mark Mallouk and Jez Butterworth

Based on the book by Dick Lehr and Gerard O'Neill

Rated R

Length: 122 minutes

KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE / AMERICAN ULTRA

Agents and Spies, Secrets and Lies

James Bond, Jason Bourne Each Get a Send-up in These Bloody But Fun Capers

Imagine James Bond as a skilled ne’er-do-well who’s living a life of petty crime before being adopted into the upper ranks of MI-6. Or, if you prefer, imagine Harry Potter as an inner city British boy with one living parent, who’s mysterious past comes full circle when he’s invited to join a super legit, super secret agency most people don’t know exists…

Now imagine Jason Bourne as a below-average Joe, a stoner prone to illness, panic attacks and laziness eek-ing his way through life...one who just happens to have an inner switch that, when flipped, opens up a whole world of pain on any ill-advised suckers trying to hurt or subdue him…

And you pretty much have the two spy/secret agent flicks I watched in the past 24 hours, last winter’s pseudo-Bond flick Kingsman: The Secret Service and this weekend’s new indie actioner, American Ultra. Neither was completely original—what with echoes of Harry Potter, Mission Impossible, and, especially, the Bond and Bourne sagas—but both brought a little extra oomph to the movie-watching experience when I needed it; I’m rather jaded at the tail end of a long summer of big-budget but cookie-cutter theatrical experiences. Neither was a family-friendly experience, exactly, but both brought a sense of fun, hyper-realism, irreverence, and badassery that made them very legitimate entertainments.

KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE                          GRADE: B+

Directed by Matthew Vaughn

I had had thoughts of seeing Kingsman: The Secret Service when it bowed in theaters back in February, but, scared off by some iffy reviews and the unpromising spectre of the typecast Samuel L. Jackson as the villain, I never got around to it. But after learning a few of my friends liked it, I took a shot—and I’m glad I did. Sure, the elements are kinda familiar, but director Matthew Vaughn brings the same snarky but fierce, funny but edgy aura he brought to his cult classic 2010 film Kick-Ass. Here, as there, the characters are vivid, the twists and reveals are exciting, and the action is a Tarantino-esque mix of shockingly-brutal and exquisitely, insanely awesome.

The plot is simple, and most of the keys were revealed in the film’s trailers—in modern-day England, a physically-gifted petty criminal who goes by the name of Eggsy (newcomer Taron Egerton) is bailed out of a tough corner with the law by a mysterious man in a suit named Galahad (Colin Firth) who claims to have been saved from certain death by Eggsy’s father, who died when Eggsy was just a boy. At first cynical and derisive, Eggsy warms to the man once he gets a glimpse of his bone-breaking fisticuffs skills and nifty gadgets. He’s thus introduced to the world of the Kingsman, a super secret high-tech agency that was created after World War I and whom no one outside has any idea exists. It’s headed by an elderly aristocrat (Michael Caine) and trained and equipped by a tech genius (Mark Strong), both of whom accept Galahad’s recommendation that Eggsy be included in the newest class of Kingsman recruits.

Though the poor Eggsy seems out of place with his fellow recruits, who were mostly plucked from prep schools, he shows guts and guile, which the Kingsman need, as they’ve begun to monitor a secretive sociopath (Jackson) bent on world domination. A Steve Jobs-esque mogul who’s made billions in the tech industry, Jackson’s Richmond Valentine has all the money and weapons he could want, plenty of deadly henchman, and a crude but undeniably effective means of accomplishing his goal. Plus, any who oppose him tend to end up dead. After a run-in with Valentine’s henchman leaves Galahad--the Kingsman's top operative--in a coma, all signs begin to point to Eggsy as the Kingsman’s best hope of stopping the worldwide threat.

Again, it’s familiar stuff, but the way the Kingsman’s secret world is unveiled has bits of the magic of early Harry Potter, and it certainly helps to have the seasoned likes of Firth, Caine and Strong on hand. Egerton proves a nimble, likeable presence who’s believable in the fight scenes and some of the more emotional moments—he’s easy to root for. And Jackson actually eschews accusations of playing the same old, same old—sure, he gets to rant and rave (and curse) a little bit, but, armed with a lisp and techie knowhow, Jackson’s actually believable as a new-age supervillain, namely, a geek who grew up being overlooked and made fun of and never forgot it. The movie has a few great stunts, and, of course, electrifying action. Like Kick-Ass, the action is stunning in its execution, but it’s well choreographed and edited in a way that makes it both real-life dark and comic-book “legit” (a lengthy fight sequence inside a church is one of the great large-scale, R-rated action scenes in recent years; jaw-dropping in its brutal, intimate details yet also strangely, perversely funny). Vaughn, who’s directed two of the great comic-book movies of the past five years (Kick-Ass and X-Men: First Class) has done it again.

I wasn’t blown away while watching it (though I marveled at the aforementioned fight scenes), but I realized how much I’d enjoyed it when it came to a close. I would gladly have watched at least another half-hour.

**KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE is rated R for strong, bloody violence, language, gory and disturbing images and brief nudity

AMERICAN ULTRA                                                          Grade: B+

Directed by Nima Nourizadeh

I knew little about American Ultra before I saw it, and what little I knew I didn’t know quite what to make of. I saw very mediocre online scores after it opened, I heard the description of a “stoner secret agent movie” (including a radio ad that boasted “Part Pineapple Express, part Bourne Identity”), and I knew of its star, Jesse Eisenberg, a typically low-key, likeable actor, but one best known for snark, sarcasm, and parody flicks (like 2009’s Zombieland). I also went in thinking Ultra had its work cut out for it (as far as impressing or entertaining me goes) because I had just watched Kingsman the previous night. Seeing the low critics’ scores, I dreaded sitting through a lame-brained, poorly-written, stoner giggle-fest.

Well I’m glad I saw it. Very glad. For one, it was far more entertaining than I expected (and than it’s online scores suggest); I would watch a movie with the same premise and major pieces that was twice as long, I enjoyed it so much. For another, well, it actually features a very good performance by that most maligned of It Girls, Kristen Stewart.

American Ultra focuses on the person of Mike Howell (Eisenberg), a twenty-something burn-out with a bland job at a convenience store and a record of petty drug arrests. However, he is supremely blessed to live with, and be loved by, Phoebe (Stewart), a pretty, kindly young woman who seems to love and appreciate him for who he is, even when he almost burns the house down trying to cook an omelet, or when he has panic attacks so severe they have to skip a dream Hawaiian vacation at the last minute. Mike, who knows he’s squeaking by, begins to fear that he’s holding Phoebe back from a better life.

One night, while sitting behind the counter of his convenience store, Mike—secretly rolling a joint beneath the register—is approached by a wary-looking older woman (Connie Britton), who suddenly bequeaths on him what seems a mouthful of nonsense:  “Chariot progressive. Listen. Mandelbrot set is in motion. Echo Choir has been breached, we are fielding the ball.” Nonplussed, Mike watches the woman leave the store, thinking she (or he) might be insane. But when he leaves the store that night, he’s set upon by a pair of muggers armed with a knife...Next thing Mike knows, he’s just barely escaped from a blown-up police station with a terrified Phoebe in tow, being pursued by nasty, highly-trained hit men, somehow unearthing hidden knowledge about weapons that he never knew he had, and, when cornered, unleashing deadly skills he doesn’t remember learning. Mike begins to doubt who is and what he is, and wonders who wants him dead so badly.

I won’t give away more except to say that American Ultra’s Bourne Identity-style screenplay is exciting, the action is swift and brutal (a la Kingsman, but a little less showy), and, most importantly, the two actors at the fore are wonderful. Eisenberg—best known as the stuffy, self-centered Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network—is surprisingly vulnerable, and likeable and convincing as a relatively Regular Joe caught up in scary and overwhelming circumstances. As his amazingly supportive and understanding better half, Stewart gives probably the best performance she’s given since she became a household name with the Twilight series. Gentle and encouraging and completely committed to Mike, yet also possessing a backbone of steel that begins to show itself, Stewart nearly steals the show; ironic that this great, raw performance comes in a movie no one is anticipating and no one has any expectations for (though I maintain that the Twilight series’ lameness does not rest entirely on her shoulders). It’s the connection between the two leads that makes this movie work, even more than the action, and the movie ends with a brilliant, Bond-esque scene of espionage.

Not the smartest or most original movie in the world, but American Ultra is far more than its “stoner” label suggests, an exciting and engaging action flick for the late summer.

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

Directed by Matthew Vaughn

Screenplay by Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn

Based on the comic book "The Secret Service" by Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons

Starring: Colin Firth, Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Samuel L. Jackson, Sophie Cookson, Sofia Boutella, Michael Caine, Samantha Womack and Mark Hamill

Rated R

Length: 129 minutes

American Ultra (2015)

Directed by Nima Nourizadeh

Screenplay by Max Landis

Starring: Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Topher Grace, Connie Britton, Walton Goggins, John Leguizamo, Tony Hale and Bill Pullman

Rated R

Length: 95 minutes

STARSHIP TROOPERS

Starship Troopers

Grade: C+

Starring: Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Dina Meyer, Jake Busey, Patrick Muldoon, Neil Patrick Harris, Michael Ironside, Clancy Brown, Brenda Smart and Dean Norris

Premise: A young rising star in the futuristic Military Infantry comes front and center in a devastating war between humankind and a race of deadly alien bugs.

Rated R for strong graphic violence, blood and gore, nudity and sexuality, scenes of peril and destruction, and some language

The best way to describe 1997’s Starship Troopers is “dumb fun”. I got excited when I noticed it on Netflix today—it was one of those movies I always wanted to see as a kid because my friends at school were always talking about it, but my parents wouldn’t let me. So I watched it. Based on a 1959 novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein—though I have a feeling it’s “based” on Heinlein’s novel about as much as the last two Hobbit movies were “based” on J.R.R. Tolkien’s book—Troopers has designs on being an epic but is nowhere near smart enough. I described it earlier on my Facebook page as “Ender’s Game on Steroids, minus about 100 I.Q. points”. Turns out it nabbed an Oscar nomination for its Visual Effects, which were probably cutting-edge in ’97 but are video game-level now, but it’s an atrociously-written, lamely-acted, uber-cliché film that’s made for those teenage boys and men who just want to think about attractive women and blowing stuff up real good. Still, even if that was its only goal, it could’ve been a little better.

Plot

In the future, where a space-faring humanity seems joined up into one coalition called the “Federation”, an intergalactic war with the giant insect residents of a distant planet called Klendathu has begun. While not all of Earth’s inhabitants are privileged, all-rights-guaranteed Citizens, one way to become one is to serve at least one term of service in the Federation’s military. This becomes reality for John “Johnny” Rico (Casper Van Dien), a tall, handsome, athletic high school senior who passes up his parents’ wishes of going to Harvard for the chance to stay in touch with his hottie girlfriend, Carmen (Denise Richards). Carmen aspires to be a pilot in the space fleet, and Johnny figures he’ll serve a term as a grunt in the Military Infantry until their terms are up. Johnny’s best friend Carl (Neil Patrick Harris) also joins the military, heading into the science division. Once Johnny gets into the infantry, he encounters another familiar face, Dizzy Flores (Dina Meyer), a former classmate who always nursed a strong crush on him.

Johnny proves himself a strong leader in training, surviving the harsh demands of his instructor (Clancy Brown), and, soon enough, is a Corporal and squad leader in the field, under the tutelage of renowned warrior—and Johnny’s former high school teacher—Jean Rasczak (Michael Ironside). The war with the bugs proves intense and costly, but Johnny continues to prove himself with assistance from new best friend Ace (Jake Busey), despite the distraction of Carmen rising through the ranks at the fleet and being paired up on a flight crew with an old high school rival (Patrick Muldoon) of Johnny’s. In addition, Johnny soon finds he can no longer resist Dizzy’s cute, confident advances. But these thoughts are soon pushed into the background as the bugs prove fiercer and harder to eliminate than anyone thought…word soon gets out that the bugs can read people’s minds, and thereby anticipate humanity’s every move.

What Works?

There’s nothing in here that hasn’t been done—before or since this film’s release in 1997—but it checks many of the boxes well enough. Intense, epic scenes of combat? Check. Tongue-in-cheek political propaganda? Check. Clean-cut, macho, easily-identifiable main hero? Check (Van Dien defines the term “square-jawed”). Likeable love interest? Check (Meyer does a lot with a little). Scene-stealing turns by charismatic older actors? Check (Clancy Brown and Michael Ironside play their usual screen selves, but they look like they’re having fun doing it). Quotable dialogue, whether of the unintentionally or intentionally quotable variety? Check (“Come on, you apes! You wanna live forever?!”  “What’s your malfunction, Rico?” “Funny how girls always wanna be friends right after they rip your guts out.”). Starship Troopers isn’t a smart or original movie, but, being so by-the-book, it at least separates itself with its harsh combat sequences and full story arch. In a nutshell, it’s pleasant, just-watch-for-fun camp, plus a lot of blood and dismembered limbs.

What Doesn’t Work?

Obviously, it’s not really original, and it actually covers so much ground in its barely-two-hour plot time that it’s sensationally under-written at almost every turn. Every battlefield death is clearly telegraphed in advance. Every time our hero might get really emotional, the scene takes the easy way out or cuts away entirely. Plenty of boxes here are checked as well, docking the film points for originality. The alien bugs are smarter than we thought they were. Check. Almost every identifiable character in the film is bumped off in slow-mo. Check. Our heroes’ mentors/commanders die obvious, leave-me-save-yourself deaths. Check. Johnny Rico and his romantic rival get into a wildly over-the-top fistfight over Carmen. Check.

Besides the writing—again, this movie was only really made to show bugs gettin’ blowed up, people getting tore up, people spouting chest-pounding military bravado, and those two scenes where women are shown topless—the main thing that doesn’t work is the hideous performance given by Denise Richards. Richards has been a Bond girl (2000’s The World is Not Enough) but is probably still best-known for her marriage to and divorce from wild man Charlie Sheen; she’s easy on the eyes, that’s for sure…at least until you realize she holds that pretty but bland smile throughout the entire movie with few alterations. Her performance could hardly be more stiff and wooden—I began to actively root for her death, and not just after she seemed poised to break Johnny’s heart. Turns out, being attractive just isn’t enough sometimes.

Content

Though surprisingly-light on profanity (I only noted 1 F-word, an incredible amount for an R-rated movie about military types), Starship Troopers is a hard R, thanks to some of the most graphic sci-fi gore you’ll ever see. People get decapitated, dismembered, cut open, drained of blood or, famously, get their brains sucked out. People also occasionally get melted or crushed by falling objects. The computerized bugs suffer no less, often getting battered by what must be thousands of bullets as their gooey-green blood spatters and their multiple extremities disintegrate bit by bit. Troopers also has the distinction of being one of the first movies in which people my age witnessed female nudity (along with Titanic, which came out the same year), with one scene of the co-ed squad showering and another scene depicting two characters in the opening throes of what I suppose you could call a “quickie”. The violence is what you’ll remember, though, and it’s pretty ruthless. Keep the kiddies away.

Bottom Line

As far as spectacle, the shoot-em-up, blow-em-up, humans-versus-aliens-war odyssey Starship Troopers delivers what it should. Some of the battle scenes are actually pretty intense. But the movie is tame, by-the-numbers stuff overall, with cliché characters, some really poor acting, special effects that haven’t aged particularly well, and a check-the-boxes screenplay of which you’ve seen every major beat done better before (or since). There are plenty of other, smarter, more invigorating flicks you could watch that cover the same beats.

Starship Troopers (1997)

Directed by Paul Verhoeven

Screenplay by Edward Neumeier

Based on the novel by Robert A. Heinlein

Rated R

Length: 129 minutes

TERMINATOR: GENISYS/ ANT-MAN

Can You Say “Redundant”?

Marvel Origin Movie, Sci-Fi Sequel/Reboot Mildly Entertaining, But Pale in Comparison to Flicks That Inspired Them

Well, we’re here, folks. This summer season, we’ve already gotten our top-flight, highest-quality blockbusters (Avengers: Age of Ultron, Inside Out) and our similarly-huge and almost-as-good second-tier entertainments (Jurassic World, Mad Max: Fury Road). Now, it’s on to our third-tier summer flicks: Terminator: Genisys is the fourth sequel, second re-imagining, and first kind-of-reboot to James Cameron’s classic 1984 film The Terminator, while Ant-Man is a new film, and a non-sequel, but it fits easily into the current Marvel/Avengers universe and is serving mostly as a cash-grab to keep Marvel Comics Universe raking in the bucks in between sequels to their bigger-name, more lucrative character vehicles (such as upcoming Captain America and Thor sequels). Basically, this is the third level of summer movies—stuff with big names but relatively little to offer in terms of freshness or creativity (consider the impending Mission Impossible sequel and Fantastic 4 reboot fellow members of this tier).

This review is obviously quite late (I saw Ant-Man four days ago and Genisys back on July 2^nd), so I won’t deny that my overall level of enthusiasm for both may have diminished a bit in the time since I saw them. Not to mention, I saw Ant-Man late on Thursday night at its premiere, after a long day of work when I was tired and (as a bonus—to me, not the movie), before it started, I was engaged by trailers for movies I am much more interested in—December’s Star Wars sequel and next year’s Batman v. Superman film. But, in a nutshell, despite some engaging action and a decent character moment here and there, neither film really stands out to me as anything special. Generic is a word I have applied to both. Fairly bland is another apt description. And, for the Terminator film in particular, I have thought and said and written repeatedly: it has no reason to exist.

TERMINATOR: GENISYS                                               Grade: C

Directed by Alan Taylor

**Note: You definitely don’t need to see all four previous Terminator movies to understand this one, but I’d recommend at least seeing or discussing the 1984 original so you have an idea of the past/future timelines, who the main characters are, and what the main gist of the sci-fi plot is**

After years of being imprisoned, tortured, and incinerated by the super-smart machines that evolved out of artificial intelligence in the late ‘90s (from a company called Skynet), the human resistance finally breaks through in 2029, attacking the main Skynet compound under the command of hardened, brilliant battle commander John Connor (Jason Clarke, the fourth actor to play the role). The humans emerge victorious, but they soon realize that, just as John always predicted, Skynet landed a sucker-punch before being beaten—it sent an indestructible human cyborg, a Terminator, back in time. It was sent to 1984 to kill a woman named Sarah Connor…before she could give birth to the child who would grow up to be John, i.e. humanity’s only hope in the war against the machines. To ensure this murderous/genocidal act cannot come into play, the humans decide to send one of their own to defend helpless, unknowing Sarah. The person they send is Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney, of Divergent fame), a good soldier and one of Connor’s closest confidants (and, in Terminator lore, John’s father).

MINOR SPOILER HERE (though, if you’ve seen the trailer, this shouldn’t come as much of a surprise)—once Kyle gets to 1984 Los Angeles, things aren’t as he expected. Sure, he’s almost immediately set upon by a lethal, shape-shifting, liquid-metal T-1000 Terminator (Byung-hun Lee), but he’s then saved by a crafty, intelligent, tough-as-nails Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke, “Khaleesi” from Game of Thrones), who is already in on the war against the machines and even already has a friend/protector who is a terminator and was reprogrammed to be an ally before being sent back. She calls him Pops (Arnold Schwarzenegger). Together, they prepare to be sent forward to 1997 to stop the Skynet-instigated nuclear war Judgment Day. However, Kyle begins having flashbacks/memories of a life he never had (call it “a disturbance in the Force” ;) ) that implies a new, different date for Judgment Day. It takes place in 2017, and Skynet is about to launch a new A.I. program called Genisys, a new software that will create a worldwide connection between all forms of electronic communication (which, our protagonists know, will make it really easy for the machines to take over the world). Kyle convinces Sarah to jump forward to 2017 instead of 1997, and they do it, but they are almost immediately arrested and questioned by police who question their story, identity, and sanity, and they’re set upon by an unexpected new threat.

Without giving away a few more, mostly minor, details, that’s honestly about as well as I can explain the confusing plot of this movie. Trust me, it doesn’t really matter. My dislike of this film stems largely from the fact that it is not only confusing and seemingly self-contradictory, but its new, “alternate reality” timeline basically makes the 1984 original and the epic 1991 sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day—far and away the best films in the series (and the only two made by the visionary James Cameron)--meaningless. Like I said before, Genisys has no reason to exist (not its fault), but its worst crime—beyond being confusing, or boring—is rendering those two great, classic films obsolete. There’s still some decent action and some cool scenes (there’s even kind of a big, likeable, bounce-back performance from Arnold Schwarzenegger), but the movie induces mostly sighs, never more so than a brief early-credits bonus scene that hints that, as The Lost World tagline went back in the day: “Something has survived”.  Give me a break.

**TERMINATOR: GENISYS is Rated PG-13 for intense action violence and destruction, language, and some partial nudity

ANT-MAN                                        Grade: C+

Directed by Peyton Reed

**NOTE: While Ant-Man is introducing a new character to the Marvel canon, it makes constant references to the Avengers and characters from those storylines. If you somehow don’t know who/what the Avengers are, ask a friend to fill you in**

During the Cold War, a pioneering SHIELD (again, ask a friend) scientist named Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) created something called the “Pym Particle”, a serum that could allow people to be shrunk down to microscopic size while still maintaining their full-size strength. He also made a nearly indestructible suit to wear while using it, complete with triggers to turn oneself large and small at will. However, he was turned off by SHIELD heads who didn’t want his new creation—or wanted to misuse it for personal/company gain—and left SHIELD, later starting his own company. Years later, it turns out his protégé, Darren Cross (Corey Stoll) has developed a similar technology and wants to put it to use right away in “stopping the world’s wars”, which Pym doesn’t like. Deciding to steal Cross’ research and new suit—called The Yellow Jacket—Pym allies himself with his estranged daughter, Hope (Evangeline Lilly), and a career thief, Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), to help him carry out this caper.

Scott is actually the film’s main character, and he is first seen getting out of San Quentin prison after spending three years for larceny. While his release means he is sorta-reunited with his young daughter, Cassie (the adorable Abby Ryder Fortson), his immediate post-prison life is not encouraging. He’s crashing a couch with an old prison buddy (Michael Pena) and that buddy’s new accomplices (T.I. Harris and David Dastmalchian), who want Scott—who intends to “go straight” for his daughter’s sake—to join them in their low-rent capers. His daughter’s guardians are his no-bones-about-it ex (Judy Greer) and her cop boyfriend (Bobby Cannavale). He briefly gets a job at Baskin Robbins but is soon fired when his record is discovered. Desperate for cash to at least feign a decent living in order to get a shot at visitation, Scott finally agrees to one of his gang’s robberies, which involves breaking through two high-tech vaults to the undoubted treasures inside. The object of desire inside turns to out to be merely “a motorcycle suit”, as Scott calls it. He thinks nothing of it, but he takes it, and, once he puts it on, he shrinks down to the size of a small insect, and he can hear Dr. Pym talking in his ear through a headpiece. It turns out Dr. Pym has been watching him since he made headlines for his pre-prison robbery, and thinks his expert knowledge might come in handy in snatching the Yellow Jacket. It also turns out Dr. Pym has created a sort of neural-signal transmitter that allows anyone wearing The Suit to communicate with ants of all kinds.

To be brief, I personally split Ant-Man into two halves: the first half, which is all generic origin story stuff that you’ve seen done better at least half-a-dozen times by this point, and the second half, which is almost entertaining and funny enough to redeem the movie. Almost. With the possible exception of Dr. Pym, played by Douglas in a solid portrayal, the characters are all bland variations on well-worn types—Rudd’s wise-cracking Scott is a poor man’s attempt at Tony Stark or Chris Pratt’s Star Lord, Evangeline Lilly’s Hope is nothing but a potential love interest for Scott, and Corey Stoll’s villain is the most obvious not-a-good-guy, no-one-should-trust-him since Loki from the original Thor. Overall, Ant-Man seems to be trying to ape last year’s surprise smash Guardians of the Galaxy in being more irreverent and funnier and more self-aware than the average superhero film, but, in doing so, it almost immediately jettisons any chance the non-fanboy audience (like me) can take it seriously. While some of the comedy works (Dalstmachian, who may look familiar from a bit part in The Dark Knight, is a standout, with his thick Russian accent punctuating a few amusing reaction lines), a lot of it is too in-your-face, and proves fairly insufferable. Example: on the heels of a big, forced Relationship Building scene between Scott and Hope, we’re thrown headlong into a Big Emotional Moment in which Dr. Pym explains to Hope how her mother died (her mysterious passing has been the prime factor in their estrangement), a moment that is broken up when Scott makes some obvious Self-Aware Commentary (“aww, that is nice. This is good for you guys” *pause* “oh, I’m sorry, did I just ruin the moment?”).

But, again, the second half picks things up. The caper is exciting, the use of (and animation of) the ants is creative and interesting, the suit’s powers are cool, and Stoll goes hardcore villain to keep things sinister enough. A few key moments in the action are shown via a real-life visual scale (a catastrophic collision of The Yellow Jacket with an oncoming Thomas the Train toy looks like mere toys falling over), making it effectively clever and witty. Though when all seems lost and Scott seems without hope, if you aren’t sure he’s going to be just fine and everything is going to end up all hunky-dory with his daughter and her guardians, you haven’t seen enough movies. Ultimately, Ant-Man is the least-inspiring Marvel movie since at least Thor: The Dark World.

**ANT-MAN is Rated PG-13 for action, language, a few scary moments, and some emotional content

Terminator: Genisys (2015)

Directed by Alan Taylor

Screenplay by Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier

Based on Characters Created by James Cameron and Gale Ann Hurd

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jai Courtney, Emilia Clarke, Jason Clarke, J.K. Simmons, Matt Smith, Dayo Okeniyi, Courtney B. Vance and Byung-hun Lee

Rated PG-13

Length: 126 minutes

Ant-Man (2015)

Directed by Peyton Reed

Screenplay by Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Adam McKay and Paul Rudd

Based on the comics by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby

Starring; Paul Rudd, Michael Douglas, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Michael Pena, Bobby Cannavale, T.I. Harris, David Dastmalchian, Abby Ryder Forston, Judy Greer, Wood Harris, and Martin Donovan; Featuring Appearances by John Slattery, Haley Atwell, and Anthony Mackie

Rated PG-13

Length: 117 minutes