Ender’s Game (2013) – Review

Review: Ender’s Game is a perfectly acceptable young adult sci-fi action/drama. The film is about a teen, Ender Wiggin, who is being trained to lead the Earth’s Space fleet in an assault on an alien enemy that almost conquered Earth thirty years earlier. While Ender is being groomed for command by Colonel Graff, he must still overcome multiple obstacles to prove that he is indeed ready to lead. In this seemingly utopian (authoritarian governed) future, children are determined to be the Earth’s best hope at survival as their minds have a higher aptitude for taking on complex strategic problems (and they can be controlled more easily by propaganda, weeding out compassion).

Ender’s Game has a lot of interesting ideas: the morality of the use of child soldiers, compassion for the enemy, the social construct of a state governed by an authoritarian government, how propaganda is used to incite emotion and action within people, and many others. However, writer-director Gavin Hood’s film feels rather restrained. These elements are present, as they are in Orson Scott Card’s novel (for which the film is based), but here they are sort of glossed over and pushed to the shadows. The film is far less dark than it probably could have been tonally. In many ways, it reeks of a Hollywoodized makeover, which is disappointing as this feels watered down. That said, though, there are still interesting social and political elements that linger just below the surface.

The film overall can be read as an allegory for the West’s current feelings towards and on-going struggle with within Middle East, and vice versa. The International Military’s policy towards the Formics (the bug-like alien race that attempted to conquer the Earth) is that of total eradication, without regard for their civilization. They never question why the Formics first attacked Earth or to what end they now seem to be rebuilding their forces. They just assume the worse: the Formics intend to come back to Earth. The attitude of hate and ignorance that the film attributes to the International Military and through their propaganda the Earth’s population is similar to how many (on both sides) feel about the West’s current conflict within Middle East – the only way to truly gain victory is simply eradication (which is seemingly fueled by propaganda built on fear). The lesson of the film is that understanding is a better method. Applying this to the conflict in the Middle East is probably an over-reading of the film, but much like in Ender’s Game the current conflict seems to be escalating towards an event that will be catastrophic, irreversible, and civilization altering. The film warns of where unchecked hate and fear lead, when most of Hollywood’s generic output celebrates violence and hate.

Structurally, Hood has a lot of plot to get through, which does hurt his ability to develop supporting characters. Ender is given almost all the film’s character moments, which works well (given how much plot there is in a limited runtime) as the audience does become invested in his journey. However, the supporting characters and secondary storylines suffer greatly. There is almost no backstory or world building. The audience never really gets a full sense of the world Ender has grown up in, rather just quick glimpses. Hood tells his narrative very efficiently, but the film feels a bit emotionally bland. The audience wants to see Ender succeed from a story perspective, but so much is brushed to the side that the audience does not really have too much to grab onto and truly become invested in on a deeper level.

The military’s psychologist at one point expresses her concern for the use of children in war, but really the film does not dig into this idea, which otherwise seems like one of the central ideas in the narrative (I have not read the novel, so I comment purely based on what I saw in the film). The idea of using children to fight a war, tricking them by telling them they are merely playing ‘games’ and continually culturing them to be soldiers and hate the enemy, is very interesting and intellectually compelling. In our modern world, children are used for much the same reason they are in Ender’s Game in gangs (to sell drugs and commit other crimes) and even as soldiers in some third world countries. In both examples, children fall victim to powerful authoritative figures who exploit them using the hardships of their lives and propaganda. Children’s minds are still developing and thus are more susceptible to brainwashing by propaganda (in whatever form it takes). So the question becomes, while we know using children in such a way, as gangs and warlords use them in our modern society, is it still wrong to use them in a similar fashion to potentially save humanity? This question is maybe the most compelling that the film asks, but it spends almost no time addressing it, which is unfortunate. Again, Hood has a lot of plot to get through and seemingly just does not have the screen time.

In many ways, Ender’s Game is a straightforward sci-fi action/drama. Man must fight against an alien race for its very survival. Most of the action takes place in Space and the production design on Earth creates a very futuristic/utopian feeling. And to this degree, the film is entertaining. Its characters are also managed well enough to create an acceptably dramatic experience. The audience cares about Ender (though, I would argue only superficially) and thus are engaged in the story, action, and drama. But, the film is also nothing special. It just feels bland. This is the result of playing it safe in regards to all the interesting questions it raises about the nature of humanity in the face of war. Looking at the potential of what Ender’s Game could have been, it is a great disappointment, but that said it is still an enjoyable Hollywood sci-fi film as it is.

Technical, aesthetic & acting achievements: Gavin Hood’s Tsotsi (the story of a young Johannesburg gang leader) seems like it would translate very well into his ability to tackle Ender’s Game from a place of looking at the social and political ideas that the narrative raises. He also made the politically infused drama Rendition (regarding war-prisoner interrogation). But Ender’s Game is politically mute for the most part. Everything is very subtle and glossed over. It is as if Hood took an interesting narrative, sanitized it of all real grit, and then presented it as a polished, safe Hollywood film (a system/style of filmmaking that has not served him well in the past: X-Men Origins: Wolverine).

Composer Steve Jablonsky, who often works on action films, again offers up a score that emphasizes the action and sets the tone. The action as it is set forth in the film is really marginally interesting as presented (it is basically teens flying around in zero-gravity shooting stun guns at each other or meaningless Space ships firing at each other), but Jablonsky gives everything an extra feeling of excitement as his score seems to raise the stakes. The film has an overall look and feel that can be described as a mix of Gattaca and Starship Troopers (though in both cases much more restrained politically and tonally). Donald McAlpine’s cinematography does a great job giving the film a strong sci-fi aesthetic, as the lighting it very clean. Sean Haworth and Ben Procter’s production design is probably the film’s best attribute. In collaboration with McAlpine’s photography, their work creates the overall feeling that this takes place in a very rigid, futuristic world. Their sets in Space have somewhat of a generic sci-fi look, but they still work. However, the look of the sets and overall design of the scenes on Earth is fantastic. Again, everything looks very clean (the shots of the Space craft taking off set against the mountain landscape are beautiful).

The cast is adequate overall. The narrative, as it is structures, does not really give any of the characters much to do outside of Ender and Graff (though, even he is mostly just an authoritative caricature). Moises Arias (who plays a character completely different than his The Kings of Summer character Biaggio but can seemingly still not escape him), Nonso Anozie, and Viola Davis provide decent small supporting performances. Ben Kingsley takes his highly underwritten character of Mazer Rackham and infuses it with life with his intense eyes. Abigail Breslin plays the film’s only seemingly compassionate character and she is essential to the narrative, and yet is given almost nothing character wise. She merely says plot driven dialog while trying to emote deeper emotions. Hailee Steinfeld’s character of Petra Arkanian is also gravely underwritten. She ends up a stereotypical, boring PG love interest. Harrison Ford is good in the film, playing Graff. He mixes hardened war veteran with loving father well. I might argue that Ford is too sincere in his performance, but that plays into the film not being very dark tonally when it probably should have been. Asa Butterfield is also good as Ender. He does a great job of playing his emotions on the surface non-verbally. The audience can tell what is going on with him emotionally without explicitly needing to be told through dialog.

Summary & score: Ender’s Game is an entertaining sci-fi action/drama targeted at young adults, and to this purpose it is a decent film. The issue with the film is that it squanders the potential to be something more, say something more, and dig deeper into interesting social and political questions (that are clearly central to its narrative). 6/10

Iron Man 3 (2013) – Review

Review: Iron Man 3 is a different sort of Marvel film. It is about Tony Stark dealing with the world in the wake of the events of The Avengers and the toll it is taking on him personally. He cannot sleep. He is obsessed with what the next threat could be. He wants to be the old Tony Stark, but something within him has changed. He may no longer be up to the challenge of protecting the things he cares about (like Pepper Potts). Yet, he must face his latest villain, The Mandarin (a terrorist who is setting off bombs across America) because he still feels that it is his duty. Thus, more so than before, he may fail.

From the beginning moments of Iron Man 3, it is clear that the Marvel Universe has shifted.  Throughout Phase One, the Marvel films were light and fun (for the most part), but Iron Man 3 begins with Tony Stark (via voiceover narration) regretfully owning up to his mistakes. No longer is he the arrogant selfish showoff, but a man who has clearly seen his world view shaken to the extent that he has doubts about who he is going forward. Something has definitely changed in him. The bravado and wit are still there, but now they mask his self-doubt.

Writer-director Shane Black has created a superhero event film that does indeed have the required prerequisite big action scenes and villain who is evil and powerful enough to call to arms a superhero to defeat him, but all that is secondary to his main focus: Tony Stark’s own internal struggle. This is a personal character story, which means that Black has Stark out of the Iron Man armor for most of the film. There are already three films in which Iron Man defeats his adversaries in the suit. Now, it is time to see Stark truly address his own issues. And yet, the fact that the film is a superhero blockbuster does demand villains. Black uses his villains more as foils for Stark’s own deficiencies to by reflected, rather than fully fleshed out characters with origin stories and tons of character development – again, this is a personal narrative about Stark, the rest is secondary to the story Black wants to tell.

Stark not being in the suit is in a way refreshing, and it gives the audience the ability to connect with the character on a deeper level. He is much more vulnerable when he is not Iron Man and the action feels much more immediate because Stark could actually be killed at any moment (or at least that illusion is enhanced). Being stripped of his armor also allows Stark to fully lose everything. He has two passions (or loves) in his life: Pepper and his suits of armor. Black takes both away. The audience sees Stark at his lowest point, which makes his inevitable rebirth all the more satisfying.

However, some will take issue with these narrative choices as well. There is still a lot of action involving the Iron Man suit, but much more with Stark out of it, which changes the tone of the series considerably. The first two films are mostly driven by big action set pieces in which Iron Man battles stuff in his suit – there are lots of explosions and heavy metal music; it is a lot of fun. This film is character driven. The action, while still big and exciting, is narratively secondary. It could be greatly reduced and the film’s overall narrative would not be hurt, in a sense the action scenes do not matter.

Not developing strong villains in terms of them being full characters also seems to diminish the stakes of the action scenes. The Mandarin is evil and has a grand evil plan in a very generic 1980s Euro-villain sort of way. Black does give his villains some backstory and motivation, but mostly they just serve as plot points along Stark’s journey – because, again, this is a character piece focused wholly on Stark. Thus, while Stark defeating The Mandarin does not feel as satisfying as it maybe should, Stark growing as a person is much more gratifying on a character level for the audience, as Black has done great work creating a deeper connection between Stark and the audience (deeper than just: Iron Man is cool and Tony is funny). The audience cares about whether or not Stark finds himself, not just about whether or not he blows stuff up with his armor suit. Maybe that should not be the goal of a blockbuster film, but it makes for a much more engaging and interesting film overall (than the past two). Black also includes a fantastic twist in the film, which works incredibly well as a satire (to say more would encourage many spoilers). 

Black also puts his mark all over the film. To some extent, it very much feels like his first directorial film Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (but with a lot more action). Stark engages the audience and brings them into the narrative with his voiceover narration (that seems to mirror Harry Lockhart’s in tone and style). Black also does a brilliant job with Stark’s wit. This is probably the cleverest and deviously funny of the Iron Man films. The best moments in the film are those in which Stark is just engaged in banter (I particularly liked the scene in which he tries to intimidate two minions that are standing guard while he is held captive). And like many of Black’s films, this is set at Christmas.

Black’s Iron Man 3 ushers in a new era for Marvel produced films, one that is more character driven and personal. The success of this film, however, somewhat depends on the viewer’s expectations. Do they want an Iron Man or a Tony Stark film? After Iron Man and Iron Man 2, it seems like it is about time for a Tony Stark film, and Black has done a fantastic job with the character.

Technical, aesthetics & acting achievements: Shane Black’s ability to write dialogue is brilliantly on display in Iron Man 3. He is also adept at action too, but as mentioned in the review above the best moments of this film are those in which Stark is engaged in character moments and banter. The Kiss Kiss Bang Bang vibe is also undeniable (for those who have seen it), as this film has a similar style in which the narrator tells a story about how he got himself into a big mess, but how it all worked out in the end and how he grew as a person as a result of the journey. Stark also resembles Harry and to a greater extent another Black protagonist Martin Riggs (from Lethal Weapon, which Black wrote) in that he is psychologically about to crack – a man on the edge (so to speak). Plus, this has a bit of a mystery undertone to it as well. Personally, it is my favorite of the Iron Man films and the second best of the Marvel films so far (behind The Avengers), setting the stage of Phase Two to be quite a bit better than Phase One (which aside from The Avengers was filled with entertaining but mediocre films).

Brian Tyler’s score has a good theme (which is important for superhero movies), but more so than it being particularly memorable it accompanies the dramatic tone of the film well. Black also uses his found-music soundtrack effectively to set the mood (for example: the scene in which Stark is trying his new armor for the first time). John Toll’s cinematography is very strong throughout the film. Visually, Toll and Black seem to want a slightly grittier look than the very clean and glossy style of the earlier films to fit Iron Man 3’s tone (which is darker, as the narrative focuses on Stark essentially losing everything and having to rebuild himself from scratch). Toll’s photography, however, still excels at providing wonderfully grand and heroic images of Stark and Iron Man, during the action sequences. Bill Brzeski’s production design also very much fits the tone as he seems to play with the juxtaposition of the grandeur of Stark’s old persona and the current broken state that he finds himself him (which is also mirrored in the costume and set design). The Mandarin visually has the opposite narrative arc to Stark, starting at the bottom, broken and rising to power (arrogant and self-obsessed), which works well in contrast. It allows to audience to visually see that these men are opposing forces.

As Iron Man 3 is a character piece, the performances are paramount to its success, much more so than in the past two films. The whole narrative hinges on Robert Downey Jr.’s performance essentially. He is fantastic. All of his past performances of Stark have been good too, but he is more or less playing the same character the whole time. He does not change. With this film, Stark undergoes a massive and clear transformation, which Downey Jr. plays wonderfully. He is at his best when he is tearing off one-liners at rapid pace, but more vitally he is excellent in the dramatic moments too. The audience has always liked Stark, been amused by him, and cheered for him, but here Downey Jr. goes deeper and enables them to feel pity when he makes mistakes and ultimately admiration when he picks himself back up a new man. More than ever before, the audience has a stake in the outcome and cares about Stark. Black’s narrative is partially to thank for this, but Downey Jr.’s performance is what makes the film. The supporting cast is also good. James Badge Dale does not have a lot of dialog, but he has a great presence which amplifies what is really nothing more than a henchman role. Ben Kingsley is marvelous in the film. He is clearly having a ton of fun with his character, which translates well for the audience (i.e. they are having a lot of fun with him too). Rebecca Hall is maybe underutilized, but her good work in the early moments of the films pays off well later. Guy Pearce is a great character actor and here again he does a good job creating something out of thinly written character. Don Cheadle and Gwyneth Paltrow are also good in support. They bolster Stark, but are also removed so that Stark can find his way alone.

Summary & score: In many ways Iron Man 3 is more a Shane Black film than it is a Marvel film, but that works greatly to its benefit, as this is the best and most personal of the series to date. 8/10 

Movie of the Week – Gandhi

This week’s movie: Gandhi (1982).

The drama follows the life of Mohandas Gandhi, a lawyer who became the leader of the Indian revolts against British rule. His philosophy of non-violent protest made him a hero amongst his people.

Director Richard Attenborough (who many know as John Hammond in Jurassic Park) is known for his epics: A Bridge Too Far (my favorite of his work), Cry Freedom, Chaplin (which I also highly recommend), Shadowlands, and Gandhi, which is the most acclaimed and generally the most beloved of his career. He worked with composer Ravi Shankar, cinematographers Ronnie Taylor and Billy Williams, and production designer Stuart Craig (who also designed the Harry Potter films) on the film.

Ben Kingsley gives the performance of his career in the film and won an Oscar for his work. It is a remarkable transformation. The supporting cast is also very good featuring: Candice Bergen, Edward Fox, John Gielgud, Trevor Howard, John Mills, Martin Sheen, Amrish Puri, Roshan Seth, Richard Griffiths, Om Puri, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Bernard Hill.

Gandhi won eight Oscars including Best Picture and Best Director. It is one of the great cinematic biographies and epics. It is a must-see for those interested in Gandhi, as the film tracks much of his life. It is also a must for fans of Kingsley.

Trailer: Here

Available on: Blu-ray and Streaming

Movie of the Week – Schindler’s List

This week’s movie: Schindler’s List (1993).

The Holocaust drama takes place in Poland during WWII. It is about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who decides he is going to risk his life to save as many members of his Jewish workforce as possible after witnessing the horrors committed on the Jewish people by the Nazis.

Director Steven Spielberg won an Oscar for his directorial work on the film, and while it was his fourth time being nominated this win (followed by his win five years later for Saving Private Ryan) announced him as Hollywood’s premier director. He was already the king of blockbusters, but now he was also at the top of grand Hollywood style prestige drama as well.

Spielberg worked with his frequent collaborators composer John Williams (whose score is beautiful, capturing the sadness and struggle) and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (though, this was Kaminski’s first time working with Spielberg – they have now made thirteen films together) on the film, both of whom won Oscars as well. He also employed Polish production designer Allan Starski, who did fantastic work (winning an Oscar too – he later worked on Roman Polanski’s The Pianist, returning to the genre).

The film has a great cast as well, headlined by tremendous performances from Liam Neeson, Ben Kingsley, and Ralph Fiennes.

All together, the film won seven Oscars including Best Picture on twelve nominations. However, what makes the film a classic and one of the best from the 1990s is its humanity, amidst one of the most tragic, heinous, and inhuman periods in history. There have since been many fantastically made films focusing on the time period, but Schindler’s List will remain maybe the most iconic. It is a must-see for fans of Spielberg and excellent period dramas.

Trailer: Here

Available on: DVD

Hugo (2011) – Review

Review: Hugo is beautifully made from an aesthetics point of view, rich with passion (especially for cinema’s silent film era) but ultimately disappointing due to its slow pacing and meandering first act. The film is about Hugo, an orphaned boy who lives in a train station in Paris (it sort of looks like Gare de Lyon) fixing and maintaining the clocks, while trying to fix an automaton his father rescued from a museum shortly before his death. Hugo engages in an adventure to solve the mystery of the automaton as he believes there is a message from his father. At first, I wondered why director Martin Scorsese would make a family film in 3D (though, I saw it in 2D) – and then I saw it. The characters and story almost take a back seat to Scorsese’s passion for old movies (and really these sequences detailing the highlights of the silent film era are the best part of Hugo). I loved the references to Buster Keaton, Charlie Chaplin, The Lumiere Brothers’ Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, and George Melies’s A Trip to the Moon (who is also a character in the film), as well as many others. These sequences detailing the great films, filmmakers and stars of the era rejuvenated me as a cinema fan (and almost made me forget that the film did not work all that well up until that scene). Scorsese obviously loves that era (and he is known for his work to preserve old films) and it comes through in this film (and I think is probably the reason he made it). Back to the film itself – Scorsese opens it with a prologue that negatively impacts much of the rest of the film. He goes through the station and introduces the main players, and does so with many of the themes from the score. The issue is however that this scene is overly long, not very interesting and the score is so overblown that it, in a sense, ruins it for the rest of the film. From there, Scorsese ever so slowly develops the story and character of Hugo – when the mystery surrounding the automaton is much more interesting and needed to be addressed far quicker (at just over two hours, the film could have lost probably thirty minutes and played a lot tighter without losing any essential character development). Many of the ancillary characters, while important in the book, are essentially meaningless to the film’s narrative and yet time is still used to vaguely address them, again dragging things along. What works the best is Hugo’s friendship with Isabelle, and the mystery surrounding the automaton – everything else just bogs the film down. The first act is almost terrible, and it never really recovers even with a good third act – as the audience has already lost their connection to the characters. At best, Hugo is a beautiful tribute to silent film; at worst, a disappointing effort from a great director.

Technical, aesthetic & acting achievements: Martin Scorsese’s venture into kids’ movies is not totally fruitless, as there are many things to like, but it develops way too slowly to work. I do not expect to see another film like Hugo from Scorsese anytime soon (it felt like one of Robert Zemeckis’s recent Christmas films, but better and a lot more aesthetically interesting – but tonally similar). Howard Shore’s score is fitting to the material and tone of the film and yet for me its use in the prologue ruined it. The best moments musically come during the silent film expose with the use of Camille Saint-Saens’s Danse Macabre and Erik Satrie’s Gnossienne No. 1. Robert Richardson’s cinematography is very good. I particularly liked how he shot the exteriors in snowy Paris. Dante Ferretti’s sets are good as well. My favorites are his book store set and the graveyard. The cast is good, but many are just sort of there to take up space. Christopher Lee and Helen McCrory do the best work among the smaller supporting roles, while Sacha Baron Cohen plays his Station Inspector very oddly. He is so awkward and strange in his manner that the viewer is not sure whether to laugh or feel uncomfortable (it is actually kind of brilliant in its own way). Ben Kingsley is very good playing Melies with such intensity and sadness, but also with a hidden joy. Chloe Grace Moretz brings so much needed life to the film, that it really does not start to work until she shows up and starts interacting with Hugo. She just has so much positive energy and charisma. Asa Butterfield is sort of an enigma. While he is good in the film, he does not carry it very well, needing Moretz to balance out the cloud of depression that follows him around, and his performance is not helped by the slow pacing in the beginning.

Summary & score: While Hugo is Scorsese’s love letter to cinema and its fans (particularly those with knowledge of the silent film era), it does not live up to the films it is paying tribute. 6/10

Shutter Island (2010) – Review

Shutter Island is creepy, well made and interesting – a film that interacts with its audience, building not only tension but also engaging the viewer to participate in the detective aspect of the film. The main theme of the film is redemption set against the early Cold War paranoia. Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Teddy Daniels above all else seeks atonement for the tragedies of his past, which all come crashing to a head as he investigates the disappearance of a patient on Shutter Island’s facility for the criminally insane. As the Teddy and the viewer decipher clues, listen to the interviews and get wrapped up in the case, director Martin Scorsese forces in flashback and haunting imagery to signal that all is not what it seems, with the character, the case and the film. The avid viewer will enjoy participating in unraveling the case, clue by clue, as the payoff is evident amongst the facts before it is revealed. The thematic elements of the main character trying to find redemption and attempting to fit into society, in whatever form that exists around him, are common in Scorsese’s work and it is interesting to see the different ways that he comes at them. Here, Scorsese seems to be most interested in how tragedy affects people, the different ways that they cope. Do they retreat or push forward? Teddy digs deeper into his work, and so the film works best as an interactive detective narrative with these thematic elements influencing the character and his perspective. Another interesting aspect to the film is that only Teddy Daniels seems to be a fully fleshed out character – in other words, Teddy seems real, while everyone else is a caricature playing a role (minus one other character), which normally would seem like a negative, but here it works quite well in the narrative that Scorsese has laid out. The imagery that Scorsese uses is impactful and meaningful, both emotionally and in terms of solving the case. A number of the scenes visually were masterfully impressive, poetic and with wonderful composition (my favorite is the flashback scene in which DiCaprio is staring down at the German officer bleeding to death while paper floats in the air behind and around him, sort of beautiful and intensely sad). Scorsese’s visualization of Teddy’s nightmares is astonishing, visually stunning yet emotionally tragic. The music used in the film at first seemed to be strangely over the top and forced given the genre, but as the film plays out, this makes sense and like many other aspects works well in the structure. The music does add to the tension that the film builds throughout in addition to the story elements and situations that have implicit anxiety attached (some in the theatre could not handle it screaming out at parts). The film is very well acted by DiCaprio and there is strong supporting work by Michelle Williams. Ben Kingsley gives a slightly offbeat performance which seems very odd at times, yet like everything else, works here. Emily Mortimer is also good and really creepy. The shooting style of Robert Richardson mixed with the editing of Thelma Schoonmaker along with Scorsese’s input created an interesting visual style to the film. At times, the camera would pan, yet it looked like a projector moving to the next slide, as if the divulgence of visual information was rehearsed to be presented. Also, there are shots of perspective that seem off when the location is visited again. Things seem off throughout, but again it works. All in all, the film is a very good detective film with psychologically-thriller elements built in to the narrative structure with fantastic imagery creating an interestingly made film – another fine one from Scorsese. 8/10