Red, White & Royal Blue: Colorless

Red, White & Royal Blue (2023) • View trailer

2.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for strong sexual content, partial nudity and profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

I’ve rarely seen a film this uneven.

 

Director Matthew López’s romantic comedy opens with a bit of over-the-top slapstick that suggests what follows might be relentless, frat-boy hijinks.

 

Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine, left) and "First Son" Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor
Zakhar Perez) smile politely — despite mutual antipathy — moments before they
create a horrific wedding crisis.

Fortunately, the bulk of the film instead settles into a sweet — if needlessly protracted, and highly improbable — wouldn’t-it-be-nice romantic fairy tale, set in the rarefied realm of upper-echelon U.S. and British ruling families.

But that idealistic atmosphere ultimately is destroyed by an atrociously strident, sermonesque finale that stretches credibility way beyond any level of acceptance ... and, it must be mentioned, veers wildly from the 2019 Casey McQuiston novel on which this film is based. The word “overkill” leaps to mind.

 

I can’t imagine what López and co-scripter Ted Malawer were thinking. If I wanted a lecture, I’d go back to school.

 

Everybody involved undoubtedly hoped to replicate the warm reception McQuiston’s LGBT romance novel received upon publication, but the characters and plot beats here have been simplified and sugar-coated to an absurd degree. Drama doesn’t exist without conflict, and — at an overlong two hours — López’s film becomes dull and plodding.

 

Alex Claremont-Diaz (Taylor Zakhar Perez), son of U.S. President Ellen Claremont (Uma Thurman), has long nurtured a grudge against Prince Henry (Nicholas Galitzine), younger brother of the future king of England. Alex nonetheless is sent to represent the States when Henry’s brother, Philip (Thomas Flynn), gets married.

 

The subsequent reception is highlighted by a £75,000 cake that stands taller than the White House Christmas tree. When Alex and Henry begin squabbling like a pair of 5-year-olds, we just know that cake is coming down. On top of them.

 

(This may have played in McQuiston’s book, but — as visualized — it’s a wincing display of wretched excess.)

 

The resulting media circus throws a spanner into President Claremonth’s re-election campaign, and her ongoing negotiations with the British Prime Minister (Sharon D. Clarke). In order to quell what could blossom into a diplomatic crisis, both families force Alex and Henry to feign friendship during a series of interviews and photo ops. (No hostility here, folks!)

 

Transcendence: A whole new level of tedium

Transcendence (2014) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, for sci-fi action and violence, brief profanity and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.18.14

The White Queen in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass may have been able to believe as many as six impossible things before breakfast, but smart screenwriters limit themselves to one.

Expecting her former colleagues to be amazed, Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) shows Joseph
(Morgan Freeman) and Buchanan (Cillian Murphy) through the massive underground
complex that has been built to her deceased husband's specifications ... via his
AI avatar, who watches closely from a series of computer monitors.

Meaning, viewers generally are willing to stretch credibility and accommodate one massive leap of faith per movie. Transcendence kicks off with an intriguing premise and rather quickly unveils its fanciful notion. Fair enough: We buy it, for the sake of the impending drama.

But first-time screenwriter Jack Paglen doesn’t know when to quit. He piles absurdity atop contrivance, then gets sloppy with logic, basic human nature and socio-political behavior. By the third act, you’ll lose track of the glaring plot-holes.

Newbie director Wally Pfister doesn’t do much to improve the situation; in fact, he makes it worse. While he deserves credit for drawing compelling performances from his stars, Pfister also succumbs to the weakness suffered by most cinematographers who insist on helming a movie: too much reliance on arty scene compositions and camera shots, and a smothering atmosphere of Great Significance.

Pfister is best known as director Christopher Nolan’s visual amanuensis: the cameraman behind The Prestige, the Batman trilogy and most particularly Inception, for which Pfister won an Academy Award. He has given Transcendence the same labored, walking-through-glue self-importance that made Inception such a chore to watch.

Every scene seems to carry an invisible subtitle: “This is really cool, and very important, so pay close attention.”

Yawn. Wake me when it’s over.

And, as is the case with many first-time scripters, Paglen’s so-called “original” narrative begs, borrows and steals from many other, better sources. Avid sci-fi buffs will recognize strong elements from films such as 1970’s Colossus: The Forbin Project and 1974’s Phase IV, and books such as Greg Bear’s Blood Music and Michael Crichton’s Prey.

Finally, on top of all their other sins, Paglen and Pfister open their film in the aftermath of horrific events — thus ruining the suspense they quite easily could have built — and then flash back five years, to show us how everything went to hell. That’s an irritating cliché these days, and one that makes sense only if it later turns out that assumptions derived from said prologue are inaccurate, as a result of a clever twist.

No clever twists here. Just a long, slow descent into sci-fi silliness.