Incredibles 2: Close, but not quite

Incredibles 2 (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.15.18

The frequently delightful and long-awaited Incredibles 2 (14 years!) has much to recommend it, and writer/director Brad Bird obviously used the time wisely; his sequel avoids many of the pitfalls that characterize the often dismaying “sophomore curse.”

When you're taking the baby for a family stroll, confronting a super-villain can be awkward:
from left, Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl, Dash, Violet and baby Jack-Jack decide how best to
handle the subterranean-dwelling Underminer.

That said, this second outing lacks the spark, snap and freshness of its predecessor. The pacing is uneven — the first act is particularly slow — and the balance is off. The numerous sequences with infant Jack-Jack are undeniably hilarious — a hyper-edited encounter with a raccoon could be extracted as a terrific cartoon short — but the baby steals too much focus from the rest of his family ... and, indeed, from the core plot.

As the first film made abundantly clear, the super-heroic Parr family functions best when it functions together ... and this story waits far too long to deliver on that promise.

Events kick off in the immediate aftermath of the previous adventure. Super-powered crime fighters remain illegal: The government and general public still are unwilling to overlook the collateral damage that results when the good guys do their best to bring down super-villains such as the Underminer and his massive conical drill (which broke through to the surface world in the first film’s final scene).

(Geek alert: Given that Bird clearly intended the Parr family as an homage to Marvel Comics’ Fantastic Four, the Underminer is a similarly droll wink-and-nod to the Mole Man, whom the FF battled in their debut November 1961 comic book.)

Despite the best efforts of Mr. Incredible (voiced by Craig T. Nelson), Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), teenage daughter Violet (Sarah Vowell) and adolescent son Dash (Huckleberry Milner), the Underminer’s drill takes out a massive swath of downtown Municiberg. Adding insult to injury, the villain escapes.

Worse yet, longtime colleague and “fixer” Rick Dicker (Jonathan Banks), whose Super Relocation Program has helped the Parrs — in their civilian identities — evade public censure, informs them that his division has just been shuttered by the government. Bob, Helen and their children are on their own ... and homeless, thanks to events in the first film. Dicker’s last bit of generosity is a two-week stay in the amusingly droll Safari Court Motel.

The Big Sick: Just what the doctor ordered!

The Big Sick (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.7.17

Stand-up comics have a significant advantage, when it comes to autobiographical projects; they’ve fine-tuned such material during years of comedy club appearances.

As their relationship blossoms, Kumail (Kumail Nanjiani) and Emily (Zoe Kazan) spend
more and more time together, even as both continue to insist — with diminishing
conviction — that this "isn't anything serious."

The results can be terrific, as demonstrated by (for example) Nia Vardalos’ My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Billy Crystal’s 700 Sundays.

The Big Sick is a similarly delightful experience: by turns sweet, funny and poignant, with a gently instructive cross-cultural moral that we desperately need these days.

The film stars Pakistani-American actor/comedian Kumail Nanjiani, perhaps best recognized from his starring role on HBO’s Silicon Valley. He co-wrote The Big Sick with his wife, Emily V. Gordon; the film depicts their real-life courtship, which started when, as a grad student, she attended one of his stand-up appearances at a Chicago comedy club.

The relationship gets off to a shaky start. Although Kumail (playing himself) and Emily (Zoe Kazan) enjoy each other’s company, neither is looking for a relationship. She’s focused on finishing a master’s degree in couples and family counseling, in order to begin a career as a therapist; he’s enduring the grueling, grinding ordeal of trying to hone a stand-up set in front of frequently unforgiving audiences.

Then there’s the other issue. She’s a modern American white gal; he belongs to a conservative Muslim family, with parents — Azmat (Anupam Kher) and Sharmeen (Zenobia Shroff) — who expect him to enter into a traditional Pakistani arranged marriage. Like they did, and like his older brother Naveed (Adeel Akhtar) did, with his wife Fatima (Shenaz Treasury).

Kumail faithfully has dinner once a week with his family: chaotic affairs with (in his own words) “five different conversations going on, people talking over each other, and everyone’s very loud.” Which wouldn’t be so bad, except that Kumail’s mother always sets a sixth place at the table, in case an eligible young Pakistani woman “happens” to drop in. Which one always does.

Bearing a photo and résumé. Which Kumail dutifully takes back to his apartment, once dinner concludes, and tosses into a cigar box laden with similar profiles.

So yes, there’s a strong echo of Greek Wedding, albeit from a Pakistani perspective. But there’s also a significant difference, because Kumail can’t work up the courage to tell his parents about Emily (whereas she has shared everything about him with her folks). He’s paralyzed by anecdotes about adult children and other relations banished from their families, for similar “transgressions.”

Unfortunately, Kumail also doesn’t share his lack of candor with Emily: a nagging secret that eats at him, as their didn’t-want-a-relationship blossoms into a genuine love affair.

This can only end badly ... but Kumail can’t imagine how badly.

Batman V Superman: Clash of titans

Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, and somewhat generously, for brief sensuality and relentless, soul-crushing violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.25.16

A perceptive philosophical theme serves as this film’s beating heart, a tenet that — quite sadly — reflects these cynical and despondent times: that, just as we worship our heroes, we’re all too eager to tear them down.

Alexander Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg, center) is delighted to discover that the guests at his
high-society event include inquisitive Daily Planet reporter Clark Kent (Henry Cavill, left)
and fellow industrialist Bruce Wayne (Ben Affleck). But why are they present?

Because we’re also jealous, and more than a little fearful. Because such individuals are different than you and I.

The “Big Blue” standing as the moral centerpiece of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice couldn’t be more different than the cheerful, easily admired boy scout played by Christopher Reeve in his quartet of films, several decades and a tidal shift of public sentiment ago. This 21st century Superman exists in a mutinous, resentful America that mirrors our own today, with a populous eager to be suspicious of any “alien” floating amongst us.

The resulting film is grim, its tone unrelentingly melancholy, its subtext downright depressing: We clearly don’t deserve a Superman.

For longtime comic book fans, the irony is palpable. Back in the early 1960s, DC Comics’ stable of heroes — Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman et al — were colorful but simplistic champions who routinely, almost casually, defeated equally flamboyant villains in self-contained storylines that mirrored popular TV dramas that did the same: all problems solved in one quick read (or one quick hour), and then on to the next adventure, perhaps with a quip or two. Nobody ever changed, because nobody had anything approaching an actual personality.

Upstart Marvel Comics upended this one-dimensional formula with its eye-opening roster of angst-laden superheroes. When out of their costumes, Spiderman, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four and their brethren felt like the folks next door, complete with anxieties and ground-level responsibilities. Their clashes with bad guys often occurred over multiple-issue story arcs: the outcomes less definitive, and often tinged with regret.

How interesting, then, that these two companies have switched roles en route to big-screen domination. Even at their most dire, Marvel movies are fun, their cataclysmic events leavened with an engaging layer of droll humor: a wink and nudge established the first time Robert Downey Jr. donned his Iron Man togs.

Won't Back Down: Belongs in detention

Won't Back Down (2012) • View trailer
2.5 stars. Rating: PG, for dramatic intensity and brief violence
By Derrick Bang

Advocacy cinema is nothing new, and in some cases serendipitous timing can help raise public awareness of an important issue; the most famous example remains The China Syndrome, and its coincidental proximity to the partial nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island, which took place 12 days after the film was released.

When Jamie (Maggie Gyllenhaal, left) and Nona (Viola Davis) team up to take over
the local public school and — hopefully — build it into something bigger and better,
they're faced with an avalanche of paperwork: reams of forms that need to be
filled out properly, lest their proposal never even leave the starting gate.

But dramas that trivialize significant real-world issues can be extremely irritating, particularly when the filmmakers resort to ludicrous dollops of soap-style melodrama, as is the case with Won’t Back Down.

The American public school system has become a national tragedy, and the many teachers’ unions do themselves no favors by adhering to hard-line policies that favor their own employment over the desperate need for reform and bureaucratic streamlining. Yes, it’s a complicated issue, with economic malaise, parental hostility and student indifference deserving their share of the blame.

But those fires of parental hostility have been stoked, in great part, by the system’s apparent refusal to consider reform, let alone embrace it. And since art always imitates life, we wind up with the likes of dramas “inspired by actual events” ... which is to say, thinly suggested by real-world activity but mostly made up.

The passion at work here is laudable, as are the performances by stars Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal. But director Daniel Barnz’s film is clumsy and one-sided, his script — co-written with Brin Hill — as unbalanced as kid-centric TV sitcoms that score points by making all adults look like blithering idiots.

It’s perhaps telling to recall that Won't Back Down was a can’t-miss event at both the Democratic and Republican conventions, where it drew applause and prompted lively follow-up panel discussions. And that seems to have been Barnz’s primary goal: to score political points, rather than to make a good movie.

But people rarely are persuaded by material that offends their intelligence — and/or pisses them off — and that’s the core problem here. Few things are more irritating than a filmmaker who piles on contrivance and artificial tension with a trowel.