Reboots and sequels, amiright? We’re gonna be seeing a lot of them in the next few years. Dirty Dancing, Drop Dead Fred, Pet Sematary, The NeverEnding Story, Clue, The Birds, Police Academy, Scarface and Gremlins are all either in preproduction or production. Twenty first century America is a manifestation of half-ironic boyhood nostalgia. In Portland, there’s an army of mustachioed train conductors and chimney-sweeps; in Detroit they’re building giant toys that bear the names of our dads’ favorite muscle cars; in San Francisco there’s a Street Fighter-themed bar in the Mission, where you can spend $60 for the right to spend $15 on a drink; and in Hollywood, executives unimaginatively dust the cobwebs off of your favorite childhood films and repackage them. It’s the world we live in right now, and it fucking sucks, folks.
As a screenwriter, I see this bullshit as the cancer that’ll eventually kill the industry (and the reason it’s so hard to get steady work). As a cinephile, I see it as the unravelling of the seams of our culture.
But this one is different.
Written by screenwriting legend Hampton Fancher (whose credits include the original Blade Runner), and executive produced by (Blade Runner director) Ridley Scott, Blade Runner 2049 builds on the original and adds something new to the conversation. In fact, my problem with reboots and sequels isn’t that I’m inherently against a part two, it’s that so often, the second telling is so boring, bloated and safe. Blade Runner 2049 is none of that.
Just as 1982’s Blade Runner was about body politics, and was born into a world of cutting edge artificial hearts and “test-tube babies,” Blade Runner 2049 is about identity politics, born into a world of non-binary gender, intersectional feminis and the dismantling of gender roles. The film challenges us with the definition of humanity, and puts forth a handful of characters, each with both a viable claim to humanity, and a notable piece missing. Does loving make us human? Does being born make us human? Does being recognized as human by other humans make us human? Do our memories make us human? Interestingly, the film asks each of these questions in the form of a character, struggling to lay claim to their humanity. Perhaps most interestingly, the film doesn’t answer the question for us, which is the catalyst for an even bigger question: What the fuck is a human in the first place? Why are we even bothered with who does and doesn’t belong in that category?
The film follows the blade runner (in the future, that’s what we call the cops who hunt down and “retire” the “replicants”: robot slaves who are nearly indistinguishable from humans) called K (Ryan Gosling) as he bumbles into a conspiracy that fractures the fragile wall dividing human and non-human, discovering that one of the replicants had somehow given birth to a “human” (excuse the quotes, but for the sake of this review, we’re still asking what the fuck that word means). This conspiracy, of course, was desperately kept secret by those in charge so as not to disrupt the power dynamic. K pulls on the thread, following it all the way through the strange world of manufactured dreams, implanted memories, fabricated bodies and beings (tangible and intangible) who walk the fine line between human and non. K falls in love with a sentient hologram, and with her help, sets out to find (and “retire”) the baby who was born to a replicant.
Along the way, Fancher and director Denis Villeneuve lay the groundwork for what seems to be a really lame twist, something you can see coming from a mile away. Brilliantly – and I don’t want to ruin it here for you – it was all a red herring, and the twist that you think is gonna be a twist, isn’t a twist at all, which springs open a new and truly magical twist that, well, you’ll have to see to believe.
In all, Blade Runner 2049 is less interested in rendering homage to its predecessor and snacking on the nostalgia the film conjures, and is more interested in building on the legacy it left behind, picking at the wounds it left, and exploring the questions it didn’t answer. It would have been really easy to make this into a boring Hollywood sequel and make some cash, and it would have been incredibly easy to fuck it up. Fancher and Villeneuve took the road less traveled, though, and use the film to do something truly special. This is not just a replicant, it’s the real thing. Let’s hope Hitchcock’s The Birds fares as well.
{5 out of 5 stars}
**This review first appeared in print on page 13 of issue #250 (Oct. 9 – 23, 2017)**
Exodus: Gods and Kings
PG-13 {1.5 out of 5 stars}
Bible stories. You know you’ve been waiting for them. And guess what? They’re here, and some of them star Russell Crowe! Let me just reassure you that there’s nothing wrong with fantasizing about Dwayne Johnson as Goliath in the next James Cameron film. David vs. Goliath is a Bible story, right?
I don’t really remember. Like many, I went to Sunday school as a kid but was ultimately unaffected. I harbor no ill will toward Christianity, though no particular reverence either. I feel perfectly capable of looking at a movie like Exodus: Gods and Kings, and reviewing it without bias. Because when you get right down to it, the Bible is full of amazing stories (whether or not there’s any truth to them is a conversation for another time between people who actually care about such things). But at the very least, the Bible is a treasure trove of allegory and adventure, and it makes perfect sense that Hollywood would begin turning more and more of its tales into major motion pictures.
Exodus: Gods and Kings is the story of Moses. Driven out of Egypt by Pharaoh Ramses after the revelation of his Hebrew roots, Moses defies exile by leading 600,000 Hebrew slaves from their collective shackles under the guise of Almighty God. Christian Bale portrays the man of the hour, leading a relatively star-studded cast that includes Ben Kingsley, Joel Edgerton, John Turturro, Aaron Paul and of course (being that this is a Ridley Scott film) Sigourney Weaver. Seemingly all the necessary ingredients are at hand for a massive epic, and clocking in at 150 minutes, you’d have to believe that Scott felt the same.
But, simply put, Exodus is boring. No. It’s a horse tranquilizer. Other words that might describe its aspect would be stale, milquetoast and overreaching. Let us now evaluate each word above and its applicable nature.
Boring: Good Lord does this film plod. Long stretches of uninteresting dialogue wrapped in a cloak of Biblical history has a way of wearing one down after a while. And by “a while” I mean about three minutes.
Stale: The acting is lifeless. Joel Edgerton’s portrayal of Pharaoh Ramses couldn’t possibly be less intriguing, and the same can pretty much be said for the lot of ‘em. (When John Turturro is flat-out invisible in a character role, you know there’s something wrong.) And you’d also think that recreating Egypt BCE would equal somewhat of a visual thrill, but again, you’d be wrong. It’s like Moses went to Modesto.
Milquetoast: Difficulty catching five winks in your busy schedule? Try the Exodus action sequences on for size. They’re so spineless, at one point I actually thought the poor soul next to me was taking a nap with his eyes open.
Overreaching: As someone who doesn’t know how many pages in the Bible are actually dedicated to the story of Moses, I can only reflect on what the film has to offer. And what it does offer is a setup far too grand for a payoff far too small. No Charlton Heston moment here.
In other news, I’ve heard some criticism regarding the film’s casting and its general lack of Eastern faces. Moses certainly didn’t look anything like Christian Bale, that’s for sure. But this is par for the course, and follows a long-standing tradition of cinematic opuses that reads like the 11th Commandment: “When in doubt, cast white people and give them British accents.” You’re also sure to hear critiques on the film’s historical accuracy, which to me is laughable, as it is in all likelihood a made-up story in the first place. Though I suppose if you really do believe the Bible word for word, you’ll find something legitimate to take umbrage with, just as I do with, say, The Rum Diary.
I feel comfortable saying that there are worse movies than Exodus: Gods and Kings. It’s not repellent, it’s just not any damn good. I kept thinking how much it reminded me of Kingdom of Heaven, which I later realized is also directed by Ridley Scott. It’s possible that if you’re a practicing Christian, you’ll find a smattering of interest here. But religion should not mask the fact that this is just a dull, forgettable film.
Counselor
Rated R
If it hasn’t happened already, someday one of your favorite actors or actresses will die. Be it old age, cancer, a tragic drug overdose or a plane crash, it obviously happens, and will happen again. You’ll be watching the Oscars, the Golden Globes or whatever, and there will inevitably be one of those “In Memoriam” segments that runs snippets of a person’s silver screen career. And you’ll recognize all the snippets, except for one, and you’ll say, “Damn, I can’t place what the hell that’s from.” Maybe you saw it and forgot it. Maybe you swore you would and never did. Maybe you picked the box up at All the Best Video 20 different times and carried it around the store for an hour only to put it back on the shelf at the very last second.
That’s The Counselor. Allow me to explain.
Directed by Ridley Scott (Alien, Prometheus), The Counselor is hard not to at least peek at through the corner of your eye—it rolls out an absolute A-list cast, star-studded to the gold fronts. Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds) plays, well, “the counselor,” a cocky, nameless, quick-witted El Paso, Texas lawyer with a beautiful bride-to-be (Penelope Cruz), whom he enjoys performing oral sex upon. Driven by greed and an implied sense of invincibility, the counselor decides to try his hand at the drug trade, arranging the nuts and bolts of a major coke deal via Juarez and the Cartel. His associates are Reiner (Javier Bardem) and Westray (Brad Pitt), both of whom have deep Cartel connections, and both of whom sardonically advise the counselor not to take this irreversible step. Ominously watching from the sidelines is Malkina (Cameron Diaz), Bardem’s devilishly intelligent and underhanded lover. But the counselor, whom Fassbender cleverly portrays as the type of pretty boy know-it-all you’d love to see fail, fears not what he can’t understand and dives in head first.
This plot comes screaming at you like the pulse of a comatose camel. Scott’s attention to cinematography and the film’s general slickness is not to go unnoticed, but what’s lost in the lavish setting of Bardem’s hillside mansion and Pitt’s custom cowboy suits is an overall sense of pacing. Scott, though, would most likely brush such a criticism aside, and point to the philosophic tone that abounds, a pacemaker by design. Written by renowned author Cormac McCarthy, each character in the film finds their own personal way to wax intellectual on the morality and life-death practicality of the various paths they’ve chosen. Mixed up in all this pseudo-intellectual morbidity is a strange and overt interplay of seething sexuality. Diaz—who now looks something akin to an alien from Communion—caps this theme late with a truly bizarre soliloquy on the carnal nature of her prize cheetah killing wild rabbits.
Scott eventually heats things up a bit, if only for a minute. The counselor’s drug deal goes horribly wrong from the inside out, leaving both him and his associates $20 million in debt to the Cartel. This spells ultimate doom for all parties involved, giving way to a series of brutal killings that in one instance even comes as a mild surprise, given the natural expectations of a formulaic Hollywood rescue mission. But just as things get interesting, you realize the movie is nearly done. One of those where you say something like, “Is this about to end? I think it’s ending. This is the end. It’s over.”
Of course I can’t say The Counselor is a total failure. It wasn’t painful to watch. Individually, there was plenty to grin about. Javier Bardem was brilliant, as always. Brad Pitt was sexy Brad Pitt, as always. There were notable and agreeable cameos (Dean Norris, Bruno Ganz, Rosie Perez, John Leguizamo, Natalie Dormer). Even Cameron Diaz, weird plastic surgery aside, was more than adequate. But none of these actors and actresses will be remembered for what they did in The Counselor. It was forgettable, elegant and profound as the intention may have been. Maybe it’s just that I have trouble relating to the philosophic ponderings of man accepting fate in the face of unfathomable adversity when coming from the perspective of wealthy, fashionable coke peddlers. Perhaps I simply can’t appreciate the plight. I’ve also never seen a leggy blonde achieve an orgasm on the windshield of a Ferrari before. Does that make you want to see The Counselor more, or less? I won’t judge you either way.
Prometheus
Rated R
Ridley Scott’s Alien came out in 1979, perhaps before a lot of you were born. The sci-fi/horror hybrid was a truly frightening and groundbreaking film that propelled Sigourney Weaver to superstardom and birthed countless comic book crossovers and a long-lived film franchise, of which only the first two films (including James Cameron’s action-fueled 1986 sequel, Aliens) are really worth seeing. Prometheus takes us back before the beginning. It’s a prequel, a word that may have left a bad taste in your mouths after the debacle that was the prequels to the Star Wars saga. In Prometheus’ case, a look back proves to be more enlightening (and opens up even more questions) to the events portrayed in the Alien series as opposed to damaging their legacy.
The year is 2089. Two researchers, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace, Lisbeth Salander of the Swedish-language The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), have patched together clues from ancient cave paintings, left by civilizations from all corners of Earth to create a map to a moon in a far-off solar system capable of supporting life. While that discovery may be monumental enough, it’s even more so because Shaw and Holloway hypothesize that this moon may have been the origin of the human race–as well as the beings known as Engineers who created it.
Peter Weyland (Guy Pierce) assembles a rag-tag exploring party to accompany Shaw and Holloway on their journey. Weyland is convinced that the Engineer theory is correct and that contact with this mysterious race of beings could answer humanity’s greatest question, “Why are we here?” Led by the icy Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), the party aboard the Prometheus find what they’re looking for, much to their chagrin.
Story aside, Prometheus is awe-inspiring to behold. Audiences will no doubt be left slack-jawed by the film’s bold look and stunning scenery. In most cases, 3-D seems little more than an easy way for big-ticket Hollywood films to pad their box office numbers, but much like Avatar, which really ignited the 3-D frenzy, it would be to your detriment to view Prometheus in its flat transfer. Sweeping panoramas of alien landscapes, wonderfully rendered computer effects and trippy digital-static overlays are wonderful fodder for eye-popping visuals, and Scott seems to use them to wonderful effect. Do yourself a favor and spring for the extra few bucks.
More traditional elements also enhance this feast for the eyes. H.R. Giger’s twisted cyberotica, which has been an Alien series hallmark since 1979, flavor Prometheus with terrifying notes, touching upon fears that are exotic and familiar. From the macabre marriage of the technological and organic of the Engineers’ fortress and control rooms to the freakishly vulgar creature creations, the uneasiness of the characters seems mirrored in their otherworldly surroundings.
It’s good that the visuals are so stupendous, because the film’s plot is surprisingly basic. Co-written by Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof (with John Spaihts), one might expect a dizzying story with a lot of twists and turns, but there aren’t many to be had. There are instances where we see flashes of the philosophical/spiritual mindbenders that were Lost’s trademark, but in the end, Prometheus stays true to the Alien franchise formula: humans trying to manipulate forces they don’t fully understand to their own greedy ends. There is the rich man, Weyland, who knows more than he lets on (a sort of Charles Widmore, perhaps?) and the android who seems helpful but may have its own nefarious agenda–devices that anyone familiar with these movies has probably come to expect. Unfortunately, other than a tense scene in a robotic surgery chamber, there isn’t much in the way of suspense that made Alien such a classic.
There are a couple of noteworthy performances, though. Rapace, who really gets run through the wringer in Prometheus, is the prototypical Scott heroin. Amazingly fit, she’s also tough, persistent and perhaps a bit bitchy, but she certainly upholds the high standard set by Weaver in previous films as the central character. Michael Fassbender is a wonderful antithesis to Rapace as the outwardly charming robot David, who models his appearance after Peter O’Toole in Lawrence of Arabia. Underneath his classic screen star looks is a personality more akin to 2001’s HAL9000, however.
In true Lindelof fashion, Prometheus answers as many questions about the Aliens’ origins as it poses new ones, which may be answered in another film. As beginnings go, it at the very least opens the door to a promising future.
