So, we all heard the rumors, right? Despite Marvel's best efforts at keeping this secret, we all heard that Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield were seen on the set of this movie. And that Marvel was doing some sort of multiverse thing.
As a big comic book geek in my youth, I knew that the multiverse has always been a big part of comic book stories. So in one sense, it seemed totally natural to do. And, I think if I were 10 years old again, this would be the absolute coolest thing for a movie to do. (I used to dream of these kind of cross-franchise team ups when I was a kid.)
But now that I'm older, I view these kinds of stunts with a bit more skepticism. I mean, sure, in one sense, it's really cool. But in another sense, it seemed a bit...desperate. Like it seemed like the kind of stunt that fanboys would always dream of, but that a serious franchise would never dream of doing until they were flat out of ideas.
And yet, here we are.
I don't think a major studio would ever have considered doing a film like this when I was young. This is the kind of thing that would be viewed as appealing only to the geeks, but not the mainstream audience. But, as has been noted many times before, somewhere around the turn of the century, geek culture became mainstream, and now a cross-over stunt like this can have major appeal to a mainstream audience.
So, does it work?
The answer is, yeah, mostly. It's basically like a lot of Marvel movies--by which I mean it's well directed, the actors are all incredibly charismatic and likeable, and it's edited together in a very fast paced way with lots of quick cuts and snappy music. The movie hums along nicely at a fast pace. There's plenty of action, plenty of laughs, and the movie cuts so quickly from scene to scene that you really don't have time to get hung up on any one plot point.
There were a lot of things in the movie that I don't think entirely made sense. And there were some character moments that didn't entirely make sense. But the movie moves along at such a fast pace that you don't really have time to think about any one thing too much. You're just along for the ride.
And what a ride it was! These Spider-Man movies have always done a good job of capturing the kinetic energy of swinging through the air in and out of danger, and this one is no exception. In fact, this one may be the best one yet. The action scenes in this movie are really fast paced and intense and brilliant. And also those scenes with Spider-Man fighting Doctor Strange in the mirror universe were not only wonderfully bizarre, but again had so much kinetic energy throughout (swinging around, riding on speeding trains, etc.)
Once Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield show up, the pace slows down a little bit. There's a lot of fan service in this movie. Which is to be expected. (I mean, if you're going to do a movie like this, you pretty much have to do the fan service.) But the problem with fan service is that it slows the story down. Character moments with Toby Maguire, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland all bonding are great, but these are also moments in which the story isn't going anywhere. The movie was on the verge of over-doing these character moments, but I think it gets away with it because it had earned some down-time. The movie had been so fast paced up until this point that it had earned some slower scenes that don't go anywhere.
(Or... now that I think about, maybe the opposite is true. Maybe the reason that these character moments felt so slow is because they felt out of place in a movie that had been so fast paced up until these moments. I don't know, what did you guys think?)
8 out of 10 Stars. Look, as far as entertaining goes, this film is about as entertaining as you could ask for. It loses one point for some plot and character moments that don't entirely make sense. And it loses another point for some fan service that slowed down the plot. (I'm all for fan service, but you've got to integrate it into the plot better.) But it's a solid 8 out of 10.
I think it's fair to say my obsession with radical politics has somewhat faded with age (a fairly common trajectory, I think), but because of my youthful obsession, I still maintain at least somewhat of an interest in this trial still now.
I've also been anticipating this movie for years. Reports that Steven Spielberg and Aaron Sorkin were working on a movie about the Chicago trial have been around for years (this movie had famously been stuck in development hell since 2006) and over the years, whenever I was browsing the web or reading about this trial on Wikipedia, I would see reports that an all-star Hollywood version of this story was in development. "Wouldn't that be cool to see?" I often thought to myself. The names attached to this movie have changed several times over the years, and at a couple points, it looked like this movie would never come out. And to be quite honest, I forgot about the whole thing. But then a couple weeks ago, I started seeing reviews of this movie popping up on Youtube. It was on Netflix now, people were saying.
"This movie looks really cool," I said to my wife. "It's a pity I'm not going to be able to see it anytime soon. It's only on Netflix." "My friend has a Netflix account he's not using," my wife replied. Well, problem solved! Plus, the wife and baby were travelling this weekend, so I had the apartment to myself and for once had the peace and quiet to actually sit down and watch a movie. So here's the review.
The Review Man, I could go on for hours about all the stuff Aaron Sorkin gets right, and all the stuff he gets wrong. I mean it, there is so much to talk about here.
Instead, I'm going to try to talk about this movie in very general terms, and not nit-pick every little historical detail. (Even though I totally could!) [Short version: Basically none of the historical figures in this movie are portrayed accurately. Sorkin has distorted the original history in order to make an identifiable character-type out of each historical figure, that he can then use to create cheap drama. In reality, Rennie Davis was never so nerdy as Sorkin portrays him, Jerry Rubin was never so chill, Tom Hayden was never so uptight, David Dellinger was never so boring, Abbie Hoffman's quips were never so sharp, Richard Schultz was never so nice, et cetera.]
In general terms then... The thing about the Chicago 7 trial is we actually have the transcripts of the court proceedings. In most historical movies, the screenwriters have to imagine what the historical characters might have said, but in this case, you don't have to imagine anything. We have the actual transcripts of what they actually said. Therefore, most dramatizations of this trial just use the transcript. The movies Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8 and Chicago 10 that I mentioned above were dramatizations made using the trial transcripts.
Aaron Sorkin has chosen to completely re-write the trial. In some cases, he has kept the essence of the dialogue the same, but has re-written it so that it flows differently. In other cases, he's completely changed the actual history. At first, this struck me as sacrilege. But then, I thought about it, and I thought, "Well... why not?" After all, we already have movies about the Chicago 7 that are based on the transcripts. If you want to see a movie based on the transcript, you can just go and watch: Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8. But there's no point in hiring Aaron Sorkin, the most talented screenwriter alive, and having him just re-use the transcript. Let Sorkin do his thing. Let him completely re-write it so that every character is now talking in the famous quippy Sorkin dialogue. Why not? It's not historical, but it's entertaining.
Now, the thing about Sorkin is that sometimes he can be brilliant, and sometimes he can be really cheesy and corny. Charlie Wilson's War and The Social Network are examples of Sorkin at his most brilliant. The Newsroomand Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip are examples of Sorkin being corny. But, even when Sorkin gets corny, he never gets boring. As I wrote in my review of The Newsroom:
Aaron Sorkin may mess up a lot of things, but he still understands the mechanics of screenwriting very well. Each episode may be terrible objectively if you focus on the plot, but Aaron Sorkin still knows how to keep the dialogue snappy and he knows how to keep the forward momentum of the story going. So the show may be terrible, but it never really gets boring. And, I have to confess that even while I was rolling my eyes at how cheesy the plot was, I still kept watching it.
Much of that was true of The Trial of the Chicago 7. Sorkin manufactures a lot of cheesy plot points that were not historical--Jerry Rubin gets his heart broken by an undercover cop who pretends to be in love with him, Rennie Davis has a girlfriend who doesn't know he's a protest leader, Richard Schultz actually is secretly conflicted about his job, et cetera. None of this is historical, and all of this is really cheesy and corny but... but it kind of works as entertainment. The snappy Sorkin dialogue keeps the plot moving, and once again: "...even while I was rolling my eyes at how cheesy the plot was, I still kept watching it." And the Sorkin dialogue works. The one-liners work. (This movie got a chuckle out of me on more than one occasion). The dramatic moments are slightly corny, but they work.
All that being said, it's interesting to compare this film to a film based off of the actual transcripts. Compared on a scene for scene basis, the actual history is way more dramatic than Sorkin's re-writing of it. There are several examples, but the most obvious example is the Bobby Seale incident. The actual transcripts of Bobby Seale and Judge Julius Hoffman arguing over whether or not America's Founding Fathers were slaveholders is way more interesting than the dialogue Sorkin creates. And the story of Bobby Seale being bound and gagged in court is way more dramatic in the actual real history. In Sorkin's version, Bobby Seale is only bound and gagged momentarily. In the actual history, Bobby Seale was struggling against his gag and restraints for 3 days in the court.
And yet... although on a scene by scene basis, the actual history is more compelling than fiction, when looking at the movie as a whole, Sorkin's version is far more entertaining and watchable than the more historically accurate versions of this story. This is because Sorkin understands the importance of pacing, momentum, character arcs, and dramatic climaxes. He has to sacrifice historical accuracy to get these things, but it works as drama. The scenes of Bobby Seale struggling against his gag--getting re-gagged and rebound by the bailiffs, and the many scuffles that broke out on the trial floor--would have made for very interesting drama. But it would also have slowed the movie down. In Sorkin's version, Seale is only bound and gagged for a minute, and then this instantly moves the story on to the next phase. And the whole movie is like this. The drama of the individual scene is under-played to keep the story moving. (There are so many examples where the actual trial was more chaotic and dramatic than what Sorkin showed on screen. But to show all that would have slowed the movie down.)
Final verdict: Enjoy it for the drama, don't rely on it for historical accuracy. For historical accuracy, check out Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8
Rating: 8 out of 10 Stars. That's me being slightly generous to this movie. It should probably lose another point for being overly cheesy in places, and possibly another star for all the history it gets wrong, and yet... and yet it's all good entertainment. 8 out of 10 it is.
Update: October 19, 2020
Okay, I can't resist. Let's get into some of the historical nitpicking a little bit:
* The real life story of Rennie Davis getting beaten unconscious by the Chicago police was actually way more dramatic in reality than it was in Aaron Sorkin's version. I'm genuinely puzzled as to why Sorkin re-wrote history to make that confrontation a lot more watered down than it actually was in real life. Why would he do that?
* Fred Hampton was not actually a part of the Chicago 8 trail in real life. So I'm a bit conflicted about how Sorkin shoe-horned his story into this movie. On the one hand, the assassination of Fred Hampton is the pre-eminent example of "Stuff that every American should know, but that no one ever teaches you in school" So on the one hand, I'm glad more people are learning about his story because of this movie. But on the other hand, this movie is over-stuffed already, and it doesn't really have time to tell Fred Hampton's story. (The movie doesn't have time to really emotionally process Fred Hampton's death, and it never even attempts to explain why he was assassinated.) Plus, dramatically, it interferes with Bobby Seale's story. In reality, Bobby Seale didn't have his outbursts because of Fred Hampton's death, he had his outbursts because he was so frustrated with Judge Hoffman. And by making the outburst be about an outside element, it undermines the drama of the conflict between Seale and Hoffman. Plus... for some reason, in Aaron Sorkin's movie, Bobby Seale makes a really big deal of saying that Fred Hampton was shot first in the shoulder before he was killed. But this was not by far the most outrageous thing about Fred Hampton's death. The most outrageous thing was that he was shot and killed in bed while he was sleeping. So why does Aaron Sorkin's script make a big deal out of the fact that he was shot in the shoulder, and not even mention that was killed sleeping in bed?
* John Froines, and Lee Weiner were obviously the odd-men-out in the Chicago 7, in that they were the only members of the 7 who were not actually leaders of the anti-war movement. It seems to be a bit of a mystery how they even ended up being indicted with the rest of them. Aaron Sorkin shines a spot-light on this oddity by putting it right in the dialogue of his script. In Sorkin's script, John Froines and Lee Weiner will occasionally ask each other how they ended up being in the same group as the others. (And I think Sorkin is right to highlight this--especially for younger viewers who are new to the history, it's a nice little way of conveying the information that these two weren't celebrities in their own right, but everyone else in the trial was.) In Sorkin's script, Abbie Hoffman later says that John Froines and Lee Weiner were only put on trial so that they could be "give backs" to the jury--that is, the jury is meant to acquit John Froines and Lee Weiner, so that they will feel less guilt about convicting the rest. This makes about as much sense as anything (I mean, why else would these two be part of the trial?) but the problem is that it doesn't seem to be borne out by the actual trial transcripts. The government prosecutors were not playing softball with John Froines and Lee Weiner--the government prosecutors (in real life) tried really hard to prove that John Froines and Lee Weiner were inciting violence at the protest.
* In Sorkin's version, life-long pacifist David Dellinger finally snaps and punches a deputy during a confrontation at the trial. Oh, the dramatic irony! And right in front of his wife and son too! It's a really cheesy unhistorical Sorkin moment, but it kind of works as cheesy drama, I guess. But if you look at the actual trial transcripts, in real life David Dellinger was accused of getting a bit physical with the court deputies during some of the confrontations with Bobby Seale. So if you want to have a dramatic irony moment with David Dellinger losing his cool, why not incorporate it into the Bobby Seale parts? It would be truer to the real history, and I think it might also work better in terms of drama.
* It's probably unfair to criticize this movie for everything it left out, right? Because any dramatization of the Chicago 7 trial has to leave out a lot. You can't possibly include everything. So all the counter-culture celebrities and singers who testified, the confrontation with Mayor Daley on the witness stand, Alan Ginsberg chanting "Om" in the witness stand, the Vietnam War Moratorium day, and the scuffle over the American flag and the Viet Cong Flag on the defense table.... all of that would have made great drama, but I guess all of that has to be left out. The movie's too long already. In real life, the increasingly vicious verbal sparing between William Kunstler and Tom Foran was much more dramatic than any of Sorkin's dialogue, but I guess you have to cut that out too.
Major describes a cocktail party as an example of how relationships between white radicals and Panthers deteriorated. Black Panther David Hillard was there, who had already “pointedly questioned [Stew] Albert’s and Hayden’s understanding of Marxist-Leninist principles” (112), and, Major implies, found them to be lacking. When Hayden was asked to speak, Hillard jumped up and asked: “Yeah, goddamnit, get up and explain why you’re out on the streets and Bobby is in jail” (114). Hayden sidestepped the question by attacking the racist nature of America’s courts. Major condemns him.
“The question actually was why Hayden was not in jail. Bobby had been indicted, tried, placed in chains, and was subsequently sentenced to four years in jail for contempt of court as the result of a casual speechmaking excursion into the scene of hippie-involved political mayhem. Hillard’s words implied that if Hayden and his fellow defendants were really the revolutionaries they claimed to be, they would have closed ranks and stood on their conspiratorial constitutional rights when Bobby Seale was denied the right to represent himself, and if necessary to force the court to chain them all. It didn’t happen” (114).
Hillard was unimpressed by Hayden’s answer, and began to question him angrily. Stew Albert, a revolutionary writer who Major also dislikes, tried to smooth things over, but Hillard answered, “Fuck you, Albert, you jive-ass revolutionary. We can do without you and your shitty writing” (115). The conference finally ended with Hillard and the rest of the Panthers storming out.
Major asserts that:
“Hillard--in fact the Panthers generally—were very unhappy about this indictment, as it was a direct result of the Panthers association with white radicals. The indictment was a confirmation for a number of black people of their belief that a black-white radical alliance could only bring trouble to the Panthers” (109).
This is the type of dramatic confrontation that Sorkin could have milked for a lot of mileage, no? And it would have added yet another dimension to Sorkin's portrayal of a fractured and squabbling defense. Part of me really wishes Sorkin could have included this scene in his movie. But the other part of me knows that the movie was too long already.
***SPOILERS***
I'm 2 weeks late on this because it's a lot harder to make it to the cinema after having a baby. But the wife's sister agreed to watch the baby for one afternoon so we could watch this.
I do genuinely enjoy these movies, but they've also begun to feel a bit like an obligation. It feels like you absolutely HAVE to make a trip to the theater to see this, or you're missing out on an important cultural milestone.
I do also wonder at what age I'm going to become too old for dumb superhero movies. I mean, here I am, 41 years old, and still planning my day around seeing a superhero movie. Should I have stopped watching these 10 years ago, or has the culture shifted so that these are now acceptable for adults?
At any rate, after some 20 movies watched, I feel like it's too late to back out now. At this point I have to watch this one to see how it all ties together.
Actually to give credit where credit is due, whatever else you want to say about these movies, they are not "dumb superhero" movies. The plotting and continuity off these movies has become complex enough that at this point, I have to admit the people making these movies are a lot smarter than I am. They're juggling a lot of characters, and a lot of story-arcs here, but they manage to do justice to them all. And they throw in a some interesting plot twists and subverted expectations.
We've also reached a point where the convoluted continuity of comic book characters (which used to be something only geeks cared about), has now become mainstream. Pity the poor person who tries to watch this movie without a detailed understanding of the previous 20 movies before it. This movie is chalked full of Easter eggs and references to previous movies. (My sister-in-law got dragged to this movie by her boyfriend, and didn't understand anything that was going on.)
Me? I've always been a geek, so I eat this kind of stuff up. I loved all the call-backs, references, and continuity nods to previous movies.
There were a few plot twists in this movie that I thought were very clever and some of which took me off guard. Kudos to the writers--there's some really clever plotting and set-up and pay-off things going on here--which is difficult considering how many characters they're juggling.
I also really enjoyed the humor in this movie. (I thought that whole fat Thor thing was the funniest thing ever.)
The action scenes were decent--I liked the battle between Thanos and Thor/Captain America/ Iron Man.
The big battle at the end was well-done also. Although this is (by my count) the 4th Avengers movie that has ended with a big battle against an invading horde. I guess if you're going to bring all the Avengers together into one movie, then you need to have something big for them to fight. But too much of this could get tiring quickly. (I'm happy to wait a few years before the next movie that has the Avengers battling a huge space army).
Background/ My History With this Movie
I'm breaking my own rules a bit with this on. Usually I only review movies that I watch for the first time. This movie I saw once before back in college.
It was on VHS in the public library. I stumbled upon it one day just while browsing. I hadn't known there was a Rosa Luxemburg movie prior to stumbling upon it, but I was very interested in Rosa Luxemburg the historical figure, so I grabbed it and watched it at home.
I don't really remember much from that first viewing--at least I don't remember much about the movie itself. I vaguely remember sitting in the apartment watching it on a Summer afternoon, and I remember feeling slightly bored at points. But I don't remember the movie itself. The only part I really remember is the ending.
The other day, I stumbled upon this movie while I was surfing Youtube. Some kind soul has put the whole thing on Youtube, and it is now available to watch for anyone who wants it.
I decided to re-watch. And, since I remember so little from the first time I saw it, I decided to treat it as a new movie, and review it accordingly.
The Review
This is a 1986 movie from West Germany. (In German, but with English subtitles). It's good for what it is, but it is far removed from the style and pacing of a modern Hollywood movie.
It also doesn't have anywhere near the budget of a modern Hollywood movie. Most of the movie feels like more of a stage play than an epic Hollywood movie, and the set design and even the film quality remind me of a BBC television miniseries from the 1970s or 1980s.
Consequently the film doesn't show the big set pieces of war and revolution. I suspect probably because they didn't have the budget for it.
...although according to Wikipedia, the big war and revolution set pieces were not what the director was interested in anyway. Wikipedia states that director Margarethe von Trotta's films have a common theme:
Von Trotta has been called "the world’s leading feminist filmmaker." The predominant aim of her films is to create new representations of women. Her films are concerned with relationships between and among women (sisters, best friends, etc.), as well as with relationships between women and men, and involve political setting
Through her cinematic vision, von Trotta returns to the theme of "the political and the personal," giving fair attention to both Rosa Luxemburg's personal life as a female in society and her political life as a "public revolutionary."
Consequently, the film focuses as much on Rosa Luxemburg's personal life as her political life. I've complained about this tendency in the past with other - biopics, but in this case it didn't bother me that much. The personal details didn't seem like they were interfering with the story the film wanted to tell--they were the story that the film wanted to tell. (It could also be that because this was my second viewing, I was prepared to be more patient).
The historical/political parts of the film are here as well, though.
One of the things I remember from my college history courses is that the Socialist International fell apart because of the outbreak of World War I. Socialists were supposed to support international solidarity instead of nationalist wars, but in the war hysteria of 1914, most socialists supported the war efforts of their own country, and the international solidarity fell apart. (Nowadays we remember socialist and anarchist figures like Eugene Debs, Emma Goldman, and Rosa Luxemburg who went to prison for opposing the war, but they were the exceptions).
The movie does a great job of depicting this, and in fact this makes up the bulk of the middle of the movie--Rosa Luxemburg's struggle to get the German Social Democratic Party to oppose the war, and her bitter disappointment when the German socialists cave in and support the war. (The same thing happened in all the socialist parties in Europe, on both sides of the war.)
The movie does a good job of showing Rosa Luxemburg's speeches opposing the war. And then showing the absurdity of how she was the one who ended up in jail. (It's a strange thing about modern civilization. Waging war makes you a hero. Campaigning for peace puts you in a jail cell.)
The movie slows down again when Rosa Luxemburg is in jail, as the drama at this point largely consists of her trying to keep her spirits up while she is in jail, and reading books, and walking in the prison yards. It arguably goes on a bit too long, and gets a bit too boring, but again, I think this was what Margarethe von Trotta wanted to focus on.
The Spartacist Uprising, when it does come, happens mostly off camera. Again, I suspect this movie just didn't have the budget to show it.
And then the ending of the movie is shocking. Rosa Luxemburg is shot in the head and dumped into the canal. And the movie just abruptly ends.
Ratings: 8 out of 10 Stars. (I'm willing to forgive a lot because I'm so interested in the history. Assuming you're of the same mindset, I think 8 out of 10 stars is fair. If you're not interested in the history, then stay away. There's nothing in this movie for you.)
Positives
* You've got to give Marvel credit--they really go all out for these movies. Despite the fact that this is just one of those movies to tide us over until the next big crossover event, they did not skimp on the action here. A huge spectacle that pulls out all the stops.
* Related to the above point: some really spectacular action scenes.
* But also some genuinely funny moments.
* Great dynamic between Thor and Hulk.
* An awesome soundtrack. (I've always loved Immigrant Song by Led Zeppelin, and it gets featured prominently in this movie twice).
* A great retro campy style. (I was reminded, in a good way, of all the excesses of the 1980 Flash Gordon movie).
* Some of the other Asgardians that featured prominently in the first film get killed off rather unceremoniously.
Mixed
* So, this film is pretty much just non-stop fighting scenes from beginning to end.
There's no problem with that per-se. After all, you're just getting what you pay for when you come to see a Marvel movie.
But, I don't know, maybe I'm just getting old, but I'm starting to feel a bit fatigued by these movies that are just constant fighting. I was really pumped and excited for the first fight scene. I was loving it during the middle fight scenes. But by the time we go to the end of the movie... I was feeling ready for the movie to just be over.
All that being said, the director did the best that could be expected with this. He kept increasing the drama and adrenaline. I loved in the climatic fight scene how the movie took time out for the pep talk with Odin, and then it came back to the fight with more energy and amped up music.
Rating
An awesome spectacle and a lot of fun. 8 out of 10 stars. Other Notes
* I'm ashamed to say I didn't actually know what Ragnarok was before this movie. It wasn't until the trailers for this movie first came out (about 6 months ago) that I bothered to Google it.
Once I realized the real mythology behind Ragnarok, I found it quite fascinating. In fact, I was going to make it one of my Interesting Random Facts, But then I changed my mind because I figured everyone would be going to Google this for themselves once this movie came out.
But if by chance you are one of those people who never got around to reading about Ragnarok, check out the Wikipedia page. Wow, did our ancient Germanic ancestors believe some crazy things!
* Admittedly, not all of the quirky humor in this film worked. Some of the jokes fell flat. But the jokes that did work were funny.
* I'm not sure the film as a whole rose to the level of genius, but there were some really genius moments. One example out of many: That opening scene where Baby Groot was dancing around while his teammates were fighting the monster in the background.
* Those folks over at Marvel Studios are doing some brilliant work. It's great to see these wonderfully bizarre and convoluted comic book plots actually go mainstream. Negatives
* As with so many Marvel movies, the filmmakers completely disregard the physics of what a human body can physically survive. So you have to work really hard to suspend your disbelief. (There was a little voice in the back of my head that kept saying, "Okay, so he should have been dead 10 times by now", and I constantly had to tell it to shut up.) Mixed
* In my review of the original Guardians of the Galaxy, I wrote *quote* [This film]Tried to milk the sentimentality a little too much—something I have little patience for in dumb comic book movies where my investment in the characters is minimal *endquote* Guardians of the Galaxy 2 takes that same sentimentality, and cranks it up to 11. But... but I actually didn't mind it so much in this film, because by this point in the franchise it feels like we've actually spent a lot of time hanging around with these characters, and we're invested in them. So the sentimentality is earned this time.
But that being said... I think in that last scene they milked the sentimentality just a little bit too much. It seemed like it went on for just a couple beats too long.
* There was a lot of jokes in this film. Many of these jokes were pretty funny. But some of the jokes just didn't land, and I frequently felt embarrassed for this film at all the attempts at humor that didn't work.
In the end though, the positives outweighed the negatives.
Rating
A movie that definitely had genius moments, even if it wasn't flawless. 8 out of 10 Stars.
The original 1933 King Kong is easily one of my top movies of all time.
...What's that? I left it out of my top movies of all time list? An oversight on my part. I absolutely loved King Kong back when I was 10.
The Review
I'm largely on the same page as this critic here. I loved this movie, but then I've always been a big sucker for these kind of fantastic monster movies, so I suppose it's no surprise.
Positives
* I've always felt that Skull Island was the most interesting part of King Kong. The place was a mysterious tropical jungle that was overflowing with mystery, monsters, and dinosaurs.
I always got a little bored with King Kong movies once they got away from the island.
So in my opinion, this movie made the right decision to put Skull Island front and center, and skip out on King Kong in New York.
* The idea to put this movie in 1973 and connect it to the Vietnam War was interesting. (Really, there's no reason why it had to be set in 1973. It could just as easily take place today). But as a history nerd, I'm a sucker for these period pieces. I loved all the references to politics, Nixon, anti-war demonstrations, and the Vietnam War, etc. Even though some of them bordered on the cliche, it still helped to enliven the movie for me.
* Another benefit of situating this movie right at the end of the Vietnam War is that it helped to add a lot of drama to what would otherwise have been the most boring part of the movie--the set up. But actually this movie started off with a bang--rushing from Washington to Danang to Saigon to Bangkok. The set-up was really interesting, and incredibly well-paced.
* Great directing, and just generally a great monster film.
* Glass half full time: The CGI is almost good enough these days that you can't notice it's CGI. The Negatives
* Glass half empty time: You can still kind of tell a little bit that the effects are CGI, and it takes me out of the movie a little bit.
* The original 1933 King Kong was cool because in addition to Kong, you had a whole host of other great monsters--mostly identifiable dinosaurs. There was a Stegosaurus, a Brontosaurus, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, and a Pteranodon.
The monsters in this remake were not nearly as memorable. In particular, those CGI lizard monsters struck me as just generic CGI monsters. I would have much preferred to see a broader range of monsters, and more personality in the monsters we did see. Perhaps sticking to the classic dinosaurs would have been best.
* The movie dragged slightly in the middle
* So, at this point we all know that Hollywood is putting more Chinese actors and actresses into its movies in order to increase ticket sales in China. And honestly, I don't mind. (Hollywood movies need to be more diverse anyway, so bring on the international casting, I say). But hopefully in the future they can actually integrate these actors into the story more. It was just so so obvious that the Chinese woman in this movie had absolutely nothing to do with the script, and was only in the movie to meet a casting quota.
Really, it was incredibly clumsily done, wasn't it? She just got dumped into the movie with no backstory, motivation, or characteristics. And she was in just about every scene, but had absolutely nothing to do in any of them.
Without having bothered to any research this, I'm relatively sure that 1) the actress must not have been able to speak much English and 2) she was a last minute addition to the cast, and there was no time to do any re-writes to the movie to give her any sort of character.
Rating : 8 out of 10 Stars (Each movie is rated against its genre, so this is not comparing it to Citizen Kane, but to other monster movies).
Thoughts on Seeing this Movie in Vietnam
So, since I'm currently living in Vietnam, I saw this movie in a theater in Saigon. Which made the Vietnam connections all the more interesting. (You always take note of these things when you see the movie inside the country its referencing).
I just this week mentioned that the Vietnamese government often censors references to Vietnam in American movies. Apparently because they are very nervous about any portrayals of Vietnam that they do not control (My students told me part of X-Men: Days of Future Past was censored in its Vietnamese release). So you can imagine how surprised I was at how many references there was in the opening of this movie to the Vietnam War, and even depictions of American soldiers in Saigon and Danang. All uncensored. (That being said, there might well have been other parts that were censored and I just wouldn't know it.)
Since I was the only white guy in the movie theater, I can only imagine what the Vietnamese audience thought about the film. Did they feel a bit uncomfortable by the references to napalm and American bombings? I don't know, because I didn't talk to any of them.
(Actually, as likely as not, they didn't care one way or the other. Most young Vietnamese regard the War as ancient history, and don't really care about it.)
Also, apparently a lot of this movie was filmed in Vietnam.
The opening parts where the helicopters first go into Skull Island was apparently Halong Bay.
And the big mountain in the movie was from the middle of Vietnam. My girlfriend told me it was the same mountain cave we went to during a vacation this past year, but I would not have recognized it.
It's funny, because none of these places are out in the middle of nowhere. Halong Bay is ordinarily over-run by tourists, and the mountain was covered with roads and tour buses and parking lots.
I imagine all the evidence of human civilization was obscured by clever camera angles, or maybe papered over by CGI.
But it did make me think about how cleverly Hollywood disguises its shooting locations. The next time I see a landscape shot in a movie and I'm tempted to think "Wow, that looks really remote and exotic," I'm going to remember that there's probably a huge parking lot just off of the camera frame.
Um, so a couple technical issues this time around. First of all, I accidentally deleted the first video. So this is me talking through everything for the second time. Theoretically, that should have made it more smoother and more rehearsed, but I think it just distracted me more. (I was so concerned about remembering everything I had said the first time that I lost my train of thought a couple times).
Also, I rambled on for so long that my girlfriend had to run off to work, and there's an awkward moment in the middle where she hands the camera off to me.
Anyways, for whatever it's worth, the video is here and embedded below.
Positives
* I love these movies that can inform and entertain me at the same time. And it was a very interesting little piece of American and Hollywood history here.
* Bryan Cranston is, as always, wonderful.
Negatives
* The historical stuff in this movie was really interesting, but by the time we get to the "genuis struggles to balance his work and family life" storyline, then we've officially reached Biopic Cliches 101. At this point, the arguments he has with his wife and kids could have been switched in from just about any other Biopic, and no one would know the difference.
* A lot of the celebrity impressions in this movie were really bad, and had a "made-for-TV movie" quality to them. Bryan Cranston was really good, of course, but the actors playing John Wayne, Edward G Robinson, and Kirk Douglas were all pretty awful.
Review
This film moves at a pretty slow pace, so you have to be in the right mood before you settle down to watch it. But if you're in a relaxed mood and you feel like a good biopic and some interesting history, then this is worth checking out. Rating : 8 out of 10 Stars
***Spoiler Warning***
This is one of those movies in which knowing the plot twists ahead of time will completely ruin the movie for you. Even minor spoilers should ideally be avoided. So if you haven't seen this film yet, don't read the review.
The Review
I wish I had some new commentary to offer, but most of what I have to say about this film are the same things I said before in my previous reviews of Quentin Tarantino movies.
This wasn't intentional--I didn't set out to copy myself--but after the movie finished, I made a list of everything that struck me and it was largely the same things I had said before about other Tarantino movies.
So here goes:
Quentin Tarantino is an amoral story-teller in just about every sense. Not only does he like to tell stories in which the good guys don't always win, but he likes to tell stories in which there are no clear good-guys.
In this aspect he is not necessarily unique. Granted, it's obviously a departure from the modern Hollywood storytelling formula, but to be fair, unhappy violent endings have a long tradition in world literature. (the Greek tragedies, Shakespeare's tragedies, Japanese literature). But what separates Tarantino from the Greek tragedies is that in the Greek tragedies, the audience was supposed to learn a lesson.
In Tarantino movies, however, there's no larger message he's trying to communicate. It's a violent story about amoral people with a violent ending, and the audience is left with nothing to take away.
...Nothing to take away, that is, except a sense of awe at how well the story is told. The art of the story-telling itself is the sole point.
Tarantino's basic technique has remained the same over the years, even though he's pushed it further and further with each movie.
The audience knows that he's got a sadistic sense of violence in him. So you know sooner or later, the hammer's going to drop down, and people are going to get killed in very violent ways.
And you know he's got an amoral sense of storytelling, so there's no guarantee that the sympathetic characters are going to live, and the hateful ones are going to die. Anybody could be violently killed at any moment.
And Tarantino knows that we know this. So he's able to exploit this tension by making the build up longer and longer and longer.
He's been pushing this more and more with each movie. In Inglorious Basterds, he was able to keep the tension going for about 20 minutes before the shooting finally started.
In The Hateful Eight, he milks that tension all the way up to 90 minutes.
And for my money, he pulls it off. I mean, wow, does he pull it off. Even though it was 90 minutes of slow build up, I was on the edge of my seat for the whole time.
Add to that Tarantino's wonderful ear for dialogue.
Add to that the great actors that Tarantino always recruits, and the wonderful performances he always gets out of them.
Add to that some interesting visual tricks with camera angles.
The word "genius" get over-used a lot these days (and I'm guilty of over-using it myself) but I'm convinced Tarantino is a true genius. His movies are going to be studied in film schools for decades to come.
Which makes it so puzzling that a man possessed with such genius is so obsessed with creating low-art.
I don't want to say that the violence is pointless in a Tarantino film, because the threat of eventual violence is what underlies the whole tension of the narrative.
But...but you do get a sense that he takes a little bit too much sadistic pleasure in this violence. And this is something that's bothered me in all his movies, but it's on full display here as well--the director seems to take a little bit too much pleasure in using Jennifer Jason Leigh's character as a human punching bag, or in describing the sadistic torture of General Sandy Smith's son, or in showing Samuel L. Jackson in pain after having his testicles blown off, or showing Six-Horse Judy gasping for breath as she's bleeding to death on the ground.
Don't get me wrong, I like an action movie as much as the next guy, but the sadism in Tarantino's violence has always troubled me.
....And yet, without the threat of that sadistic violence hanging over the narrative, you wouldn't have any tension in the narrative. It's precisely because you know that Tarantino's crazy enough to do all this stuff that you get so tense as you watch the movie. It's what makes his work so fascinating, and also so problematic.
But if someone were to ask me: forget all the moralizing--the real question is: were you entertained?
Then I would have to admit that, yes, I was. Thoroughly.
Final Analysis and Rating
The first half of the film was pure genius--the way the tension slowly built, the way the characters slowly assembled, the way the plot was slowly began to form, the way we got slow hints that something wasn't quite right at the inn. The dialogue was brilliant, the actors were brilliants--I was thinking I might be giving this movie a full 10 out of 10 stars.
But then once the tension broke into violence, the violent ending wasn't nearly as satisfying as the tense build up. And I'm going to knock a couple stars off for that.
That, plus when it was revealed that another character had been hiding in the basement, this seemed to me to be cheating. The set-up seemed to promise a story in which 8 men were locked in a cabin, and would have to work everything out themselves. To introduce another character out of nowhere, and to have him come out like a deus ex machina and upset the balance of power, broke the rules of the game.
The basic pattern of The Hateful Eight is this: Tarantino displays a mastery of classic storytelling and brilliant suspense that would make him the darling of even the stodgiest elitist film critic, and then, just when they’re ready to elect him president of the snoot academy, he hits them with an exploding dick or some shitbomb of schlocky gore that ruins countless cravats. He never lets you forget that while he can do high art as well as anyone, low art is his first love, that no matter how much he evolves, he’ll always be a vulgarian.
The AVclub has an interesting review which sees political themes in The Hateful Eight. I think they may be being a bit too generous (I saw the movie as mostly just violence for the sake of violence), but it's an interesting read nonetheless.
Also I found this discussion here to be an intelligent dissection of both the movie's strengths and weaknesses.
Positives
* There's a lot of debate about what a Star Trek movie should be. (I know a lot of fans want to see a more intellectual movie). But whether or not this is the Star Trek movie you wanted to see, you've got to at least give the film makers credit for doing what they set out to do. They set out to do an action/adventure film set in space, and they delivered on that premise with a lot of incredible action set-pieces
* The best thing this reboot series has going for it is the very talented cast, and it's true in this movie as well. (Rest in peace Anton Yelchin).
* Related to the above points, it has a script that gives all the characters time to shine, and has a lot of character driven moments.
Negatives
* Yet another villain who just wants to blow up everyone for the sake of blowing up everyone.
* The list of "things that are never explained at all" in this movie is really pushing it. There's a lot of magical alien technologies. (I guess that's par for the course in a Star Trek film). Krall's motivation is kind of explained, but not really. I still don't know what was the motivation of everyone working for Krall. I don't understand how Krall got his powers.
* Jaylah's character was intriguing--what little we saw of her--but she never got developed into someone the audience was attached to. Which made it bizarre when one of the movie's climatic fight scenes revolved completely around her. What do I care happens to this white skin lady I've barely been introduced to?
* It's a minor thing, but for what it's worth I agree with George Takei about the gay Sulu controversy. It was a nice gesture, but it would have been better to just leave Roddenberry's characters as they were, especially once George Takei had made his feelings known to the film makers (which he apparently did before the filming).
The Review
I know fans have high expectations of everything Star Trek, but for me, this film did exactly what it set out to do. It was a fun action/adventure movie set in space.
Links
For a counterpoint, see Fredrik deBoer, who writes:
I saw the new Star Trek movie. When I tell you that it’s all punching and shooting, I’m really not exaggerating. It’s all punching and shooting. And as far as punching and shooting summer action movies goes, it’s OK. It has an ending that’s like two 13 year old boys talking about what a good ending would be via text message, but it isn’t completely soulless, which is better than you can say for most franchise movies. But Star Trek isn’t about punching or shooting. It’s contemplative. It’s about actual moral conflict and ambiguity. It’s optimistic about the prospect of peace and the ability to solve problems nonviolently. It lets stories develop slowly. It’s about exploration and diplomacy far more than its about combat.
Speaking as someone who was completely obsessed with Star Trek in his youth, I think Star Trek's reputation as "the thinking man's science fiction franchise" has been much exaggerated. Sure, when the original series was at its best, it could be contemplative, about actual moral conflict and ambiguity, and optimistic about the prospect of peace and the ability to solve problems nonviolently. But I challenge people to go ahead and re-watch the original 1960s Star Trek. It had episodes which were completely dumb, many episodes which ended in a climatic bare-knuckled fist fight, and lots of episodes that seemed to exist only for the purpose of having a few fight scenes and some scantily clad alien women. (Some of the original Star Trek episodes were even polemics against pacifism as a realistic alternative--like City on the Edge of Forever (W) ).
All of which is to say that I don't believe making Star Trek into a dumb action movie ruins the franchise. Star Trek is a versatile franchise. It can easily be a dumb action movie in one incarnation, and serious and contemplative in the next incarnation. I'm content to enjoy this movie for what it is.
Star Trek Links
My review of Star Trek Into Darknesshere,
My review of the original 2009 reboot here.
My review of Star Trek Enterprisehere.
My 4th grade report (1987) on the original Star Trek series here.
My History With this Franchise
I have seen 9 of the 12 movies leading up to this: Iron Man,Iron Man 2, Iron Man 3, Captain America, Captain America 2, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, The Avengers, and Guardians of the Galaxy.
I'm 3 movies behind right now, because I still haven't seen Thor 2, Avengers 2, or Ant-Man. Negatives
* I often find in these Marvel movies that I have to work really hard to maintain my suspension of disbelief as so many rules about physics and human physiology are constantly being broken. During the fight scenes I'll be thinking to myself something like: "This is awesome. This is awesome. This is awesome...Wait, that's just physically impossible. This is awesome. This is awesome....Wait, there's no way he could have survived that fall." etc.
It takes me right out of the movie, because it's a constant reminder that I'm just watching a Hollywood film, and that none of these characters and situations are at all real.
Positives
* As I said in my review of The Avengers, I continue to be impressed by how these Marvel movies are able to incorporate so many characters and continuity plot points from previous movies, and yet still have a story that makes sense. They're juggling a lot of balls in this movie, and they manage to keep them all in the air.
* Just when you thought you were getting bored with formulaic superhero movies, Marvel shakes things up and gives you a completely different kind of plot.
* I agree with what everyone else has been saying: Tom Holland is a lot of fun as Spiderman.
* Also in agreement with everyone else: that airport fight scene was the best fight scene we've ever had in a comic book movie.
The Review
We live in interesting times. Many articles have already been written about how in the past 15 years geek culture has totally taken over mainstream culture.
Examining how or why this happened will have to be another subject for another day. For now, I'll just say that this movie is a prime example of the phenomenon.
It's masquerading as a Hollywood blockbuster, but don't fool yourself--this is one of the geekiest movies ever released.
It appeals to the comic book geek who loves seeing grown men fly around in ridiculous outfits and fight monsters.
And it appeals to the continuity geek, who loves to be rewarded for remembering and obsessing over plot details from previous films.
And it appeals to the debate-club geek, who enjoys arguing about political hypotheticals.
Me? I'm a huge geek. So naturally I loved this movie. But my poor girlfriend was bored out of her mind for the 2 and a half hours.
So, consider yourself warned. Non geeks should stay well away from this movie.
But if you're a fellow geek: this is the greatest superhero movie we've seen yet.
One more caveat: this is another one of those movies that's essentially 2 hours of non-stop fighting. If you don't like action movies, consider yourself warned.
Other Notes
The poor girlfriend had not seen any of the 12 movies leading into this one. Before the movie, I didn't consider it necessary to catch her up on any of the backstory. "Basically all you need to know is that there are a bunch of superheros, and they fight stuff," I said (in my attempt to sum up the previous 12 movies.)
This actually turned out to be wrong. You do need to be familiar with a lot of the backstory to make sense out of this movie. If you don't know who Captain America is, or what his relationship to Bucky is, or how he got frozen, or who Agent Carter is...then large parts of this movie are not going to make any sense at all.
Consider yourself warned.
Rating
Given that this is the best superhero movie ever, and given that each movie should be judged against its genre, I'm tempted to give it a full 10 stars. But I just can't bring myself to give 10 stars to a silly superhero movie. So it gets knocked down to 9. And then it loses one more star for blatantly ignoring the laws of physics and gravity so many times (and causing me to struggle to maintain my suspension of disbelief.) So 8 stars it is.
Why I Watched This Movie
I was watching TV last night, and this was on.
My History With Elmore Leonard Movies
* I'm ashamed to say I've never read any books by Elmore Leonard, but I have seen (and thoroughly enjoyed) several of the Hollywood adaptations of his books: Get Shorty, Be Cool, Out of Sight, and Jackie Brown.
* In particular, Life of Crime is a prequel (of sorts) to Jackie Brown, which I consider my favorite - Tarantino movie.
The Review
Classic Elmore Leonard story of a perfect crime that gets increasingly complicated when people don't react like they're supposed to. The thing I love about Elmore Leonard (or at least the movies based on his work) is you never know where the story is going to go once you start watching them, which makes them great fun to watch. Also great humor.
Why I Saw This Movie/
My History with this Movie/***Spoiler Warning****:
I saw and enjoyed Shaun of the Deadyears ago.I had heard from some people that this movie
was from the same team that did Shaun of
the Dead, and I also had this film highly recommended by some friends.That was the only information I went into
this film with, and so the various plot twists took me completely by surprise—which
is the best way to view this movie, by the way, so if you haven’t seen it yet,
don’t read this review any further.
The Review
Admittedly, this film just
retreads the same premise from Shaun of
the Dead (a comedy about people being more concerned about their petty
personal problems than about the zombie apocalypse), and just replaces “body
snatchers” for “zombies”.But I loved Shaun of the Dead and had more than
enough goodwill left in the tank to enjoy this film as well.The film can be hilarious, but also very
clever—for example the way the back story is integrated into the film. It does
a good job of integrating completely normal relatable human problems (mid-life
crisis) with science fiction absurdity.
