So, as promised, I am going to try to get out an extra post this month. For those of you who are new to the blog a quick summary of what a rants and raves post is. Rants and Raves is where I go through movies, music, and other stuff, and talk about what I love and hate in a quick spoiler free review. So without further ado, here we go.
Fantastic? Beasts
So I want to jump right in with a review of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. While I enjoyed the Harry Potter films, I was never a huge fan. I loved the wizarding world Rowling created, but the focus on Harry often kept the story insulated from the wider wonders of the world. Fantastic Beasts is everything I loved about Harry Potter, with none of the things I hated. There is no Harry, no Ron, no ultimate battle of good and evil, no Chosen One, no Voldemort; this is no school story. We are finally getting to see what the adult world of magic looks like, and it is spectacular! The titular beasts are diverting and well thought through; they lend an aura of wonder to the film reminiscent of the very first Harry Potter; there is a great delight in meeting each of the new beasts and encountering their quirks and habits. Because the story follows Jacob, a “no-maj” (or muggle in H.P. terms) along with Newt Scamander, the wonder that we as an audience feels in encountering these fantastic beasts is echoed and refined by Jacob’s experience. Storywise, I felt the film was a bit predictable; I saw the big twist ending coming pretty early, but because the emphasis is on worldbuilding rather than plot, the simplicity of the story was not to the film’s detriment. What made this film a true delight, however, was the cast. They were likable without being perfect, complicated but without the mopey brooding. Eddie Redmayne was absolutely brilliant as Newt Scammander, creating a gawky, awkward character who was completely believable, empathetic, and innocent. All in all, Fantastic Beasts was an excellent new installment in Rowling’s wizarding world, and I highly recommend the film as a great family flick for the holidays.
Hacksaw Ridge
While normally when contemplating the cost of an admission ticket to the movies, I tend to gravitate toward those films I know I will enjoy (i.e. science fiction, fantasy, superhero movies), occasionally I hear enough good things about a film that I take a gamble outside my genres. That gamble paid off when I went and saw Hacksaw Ridge, the true story of a young medic in the Pacific theater of WWII. A conscientious objector to violence, Private Doss still chose to serve his country in the military, refusing to carry a gun, but providing assistance and medical attention on the battlefield. The film was well deserving of its R rating, as many of the scenes of the brutality of modern warfare were grotesquely violent, however, the violence serves the purpose of highlighting the valiant actions of each of the soldiers presented in the story. The highlight of the film is its emphasis on the power of belief and conviction; each of the men in the story has his own reasons for being in the war, and each has his own part to play in the battle. This emphasis culminates in Private Doss, as he struggles to find his place as a healer and saver of lives in a system that glorifies death and brutality. I don’t want to saw too much, for fear of spoiling the powerful climax of the story, but this film is inspiring, compelling. This is not a family movie, but any stretch of the imagination, but if you are an adult looking for a movie that is powerful, uplifting, and convicting, then you cannot go wrong in checking out Hacksaw Ridge.
Rogue One
I was very excited to go see this film. I had heard very good things from other reviewers, and from my friends who went to see it before me. All in all, I was not disappointed. Rogue One was exactly what I was expecting it to be. This was both a positive and a negative. I love when a story keeps me guessing and makes me wonder, and there were not a lot of surprises in Rogue One. That being said, the movie was nicely constructed, the characters were engaging and interesting, and the film didn’t overdo the exposition, which is a danger in science fiction, and particularly in Star Wars prequels. The story was came together well, and serves as a bridge between the prequels and the “orig. trig.” There were some good visual moments, excellent use of old footage from A New Hope to incorporate familiar characters, and a number of nods to those of us nerds who were looking for Easter eggs. Worth the cost of admission, a thoroughly enjoyable film that was exactly what we expect from a Star Wars movie. The first two thirds of the film can be a bit slow at times, but this is more than made up for by the fantastic final act, which features a good beach battle, an excellent space battle, and the single most awesome Darth Vader appearance in the Star Wars universe to date. There were a couple of pet peeves for me in the film (the lack of the iconic opening scrawl with the massive John Williams salute definitely bothered me, and sometimes the storytelling gets a little convoluted), but overall the film was enjoyable, and definitely in my top 5 Star Wars movies.
Alright, I have a bit more to say, but this next paragraph is going to contain some spoilers. If you know nothing about Star Wars, and totally didn’t get what I meant when I said Rogue One went exactly as expected, please do not keep reading. I don’t want to spoil it for people who might be surprised by the end. Everyone else, keep going.
So for those of you who saw A New Hope, and understand that Rogue One is a prequel based on a few lines in the opening scrawl, you know that the story follows rebel spies stealing the plans for the Death Star. You can also surmise based on the fact that we never meet any of these rebel spies in the whole “orig. trig.” and based on the fact that Darth Vader is hard on the heels of Princess Leia’s spaceship at the beginning of A New Hope, that these spies do not make it out alive. So when I said the story went exactly as I expected it to; well, everyone dies. Going into the film expecting that, I had some trouble initially engaging with the characters because I didn’t want to get too attached when I knew they were going to bite it at the end. However, the stellar performances from the actors broke through my barriers, and I definitely grew to like and admire the plucky rogues and their Rebellion. There is a sad tension created when you know a character is going to die, and you are waiting for it, which made the final act of the film particularly wrenching. There was no suspense; we know the characters will get the Death Star plans to the Rebel Alliance because we have seen A New Hope, but we also know that everyone is going to die because we have not seen them in A New Hope. This added element of expectation worked very well for the film, and helped overshadow the lack of suspense in the plot itself.
Moana
If you are the kind of person that likes heartwarming Disney movies with lovable animal characters, a quirky pop culture referencing magical sidekick, and a coming of age story about being yourself, with brilliantly lyrical massively staged musical numbers, then go re-watch Aladdin... and afterward check out Disney’s latest princess movie, Moana. This thoroughly enjoyable flick features a good story, nice and fun characters, catchy songs, and some very nice animation. Moana is a Hawaiian princess who has always been attracted to the ocean, however her father has forbidden anyone from sailing beyond the reef and into wider seas. When a darkness begins to taint her perfect island life, however, Moana risks everything to help save her people. Helped along the way by her spastic chicken Heihei and the demigod Maui, Moana learns to use her insatiable curiosity, her empathy, and her stubbornness in order to defeat the darkness that threatens her people. Highlights of this film include some lovely animation, catchy songs, and a princess who grows and learns, and uses the skills she acquires to solve problems.
I did have a couple of issues with the film. Dwayne Johnson’s Maui, while a hilarious character, is a bit distracting. Like the Genie in Aladdin, he is constantly making pop culture references with a wink and nod to the audience. The difficulty with this is that sometimes the references to twitter or Disney princess stereotypes takes the audience out of the story. The referential asides work with a character like Deadpool who is supposed to be a post modern parody, or even with Genie, who almost omnipotent and a metaphysical construct. Maui is neither crazy enough nor powerful enough to make the fourth wall breaks work, and his references, while funny, are a bit distracting, and unfortunately will do more to date the movie in the future than to provide humor. My other big issue with the film was with the music. Don’t get me wrong, I loved each of the songs individually and I thought they were great. But when you think about the great Disney soundtracks; Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid, The Lion King, even Aladdin, each of the songs fit within the specific musical context of the film. There was a consistency in sound across each that unified the film. One of the issues that the more recent Disney films has had is this lack of a consistent musical theme. Both Frozen and Moana suffer from this. While each has standout songs, they do not fit into a wider theme that draws the whole film together. Moana starts out well, with the first three songs fitting into a cool island theme, but the consistency is broken with “You’re Welcome,” and “Shiny,” the two catchiest, but also thematically dissonant songs in the film. I know I am nitpicking here, but for me the lack of musical consistency kept Moana from the highest echelons of the Disney films. While I found the film enjoyable and worth seeing, I did not find it overall to be as excellent as, say, Aladdin or The Lion King.
Assassin’s Creed
I have a confession to make. My nerd cred may be severely damages by this fact, but I do not play video games. My mom would never allow us to play games growing up, so I never learned how to handle the controls well enough to make me an effective gamer. That being said, I love to watch other people play video games, and I am fascinated by the format as a medium for story telling. When I have talked to gamer friends in the past, they have always mentioned Assassin’s Creed as being one of the best games and one of the best stories in a game. So when I heard about the movie, I was both excited and a bit nervous. Excited because I was finally going to get the chance to see what this story was all about, and nervous because video game movies have a reputation for making notoriously bad movies. Assassin’s Creed was pretty good by the standards of video game movies, but still had some major issues that kept it from being anything more than a mediocre film.
The difficulty in turning a game into a film is twofold. First, there is the issue of long versus short form story telling. Because video games are designed for hours of playing time, the story telling format of the game is designed as more of a long form story which is told (at least to my understanding) through cut scenes, play through action sequences, in game hints and worldbuilding sources, and through the typing of the characters themselves; the type of weapon or fighting style a character uses says much about their personality and backstory. In film, however, there is a limited time for worldbuilding, character exposition, action, and story. To be truly effective, these elements must be integrated, with character exposition coming through the storytelling, worldbuilding through action, etc. Assassin’s Creed struggled to balance each of these elements, emphasizing the complicated plot, worldbuilding, and action over character exposition. We get references to character’s histories; we know that Cal Lynch is in prison for murder, that Sophia Rikkin’s mother was killed by an Assassin, that Aguilar de Nerha is an Assassin in fifteenth century Spain, but we never get the information that would make these characters sympathetic or interesting; who did Lynch kill and why? Why was Sophia’s mother killed? Or why did Aguilar choose to become an Assassin? The very questions that would serve to make the characters relatable or more human are the questions that are consistently ignored by the film. In a long form storytelling format like television, book series, or the game itself, these questions can be left unanswered for a while, and answered individually for characters in an episodic format. However, in a film, these questions only serve to keep the audience disconnected from the character. Instead of focusing on character, the film chose instead to focus on story exposition. The film was constantly repeating information about the main conflict between the Assassins and the Templars, and the importance of the Apple of Eden in this conflict. Unfortunately, this was repeated so often it became a bit of a drag; movie goers are not stupid people. We don’t need to be told in an opening scrawl, then reminded in an opening action scene, and then told again in every single conversation between characters that this movie is about the fight between freedom/violence and safety/total control. The film should have cut out half of the plot exposition sequences and added some character development to maintain its storytelling balance.
The second issue for a video game film is the question of audience. This is always a problem with a source material that already has a specific and devoted fan base, but it is heightened for video game films. Does the film try to appeal to those who are already fans by including all the characters, situations, weapons, paraphernalia, and details that those already engaged with the material know and love? To do so risks alienating the neophyte audience who doesn’t know that this character was an essential part of the game or that weapon is used in this, that, or the other situation. Assassin’s Creed suffers as a film because it it overpopulated with undeveloped characters. We meet a half dozen modern Assassins in Abstergo Industries, none of whom are given much more than a name. Who are these people? What is their history? How did they become Assassins? I kept seeing faces and thinking; am I supposed to know this person? Are they important for something? Fewer characters would have allowed for greater development, which would have led to greater investment in those characters by the audience. The final fight sequences carried no weight for because the audience did not care about the fate of the characters involved.
Ultimately, Assassin’s Creed was an unfortunate example of the difficulties in translating a video game to the big screen. It was entertaining, but ultimately forgettable because there was too much exposition and not enough character. A mediocre film at best, it was amusing, and if you have nothing better to see, it was an alright way to spend the afternoon, but if you are looking for a fun action movie to see over Christmas break, go see Rogue One or Fantastic Beasts instead.
That's all I got for today. Happy New Year, and I am really looking forward to seeing what 2017 has in store for us.
Well, back to reality!
