Mortal Engines: High-octane thrills

Mortal Engines (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13 for dramatic intensity and sci-fi action and violence
By Derrick Bang

This one’s relentless.

Director Christian Rivers’ exhilarating adaptation of Philip Reeve’s Mortal Engines is sci-fi world-building on a scale we’ve not seen since Lord of the Rings and Avatar. This impressively ambitious, post-apocalyptic saga hits the ground running — literally — and doesn’t let up during a bravura 127-minute adventure that barely seems long enough to contain its opulent wonders.

Out of the frying pan, and into the fire? Tom (Robert Sheehan) and Hester (Hera Hilmar,
right) are moments from a fate worse than death, when they're snatched away by the
enigmatic Anna Fang (Jihae). But is this a rescue ... or something more sinister?

Scripters Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson have done an impressive job of condensing Reeve’s 2001 young adult novel into a slam-bang romp that faithfully follows roughly half the book and hits most of the key plot beats. (That said, Walsh & Co. deviate seriously during the climax, likely in the interest of anticipating a sequel.)

These events take place a millennium after what has come to be known as the “Sixty Minute War,” when Western nations unleashed a cataclysmic weapon that destroyed much of civilization, while causing planet-wide geological upheaval. Forced to adapt to earthquakes, volcanoes and other instabilities that continued for hundreds of years, metropolitan centers were retrofitted with massive wheels and engines, in order to become mobile “traction cities”: a steampunk method of survival known as Municipal Darwinism.

Countries have vanished; civilization per se has developed into cooperative bands of peaceful small-town traders, constantly on the alert for fast-moving, scavenger settlements.

Along with the biggest threat of all: the massive predator city of London, which hunts, pursues and dismantles (devours) other cities for resources.

All this by way of back-story, because Rivers opens the film without preamble, as the massive bulk of London chases down a small mining community known as Salthook. Production designer Dan Hennah, cinematographer Simon Raby and a huge visual effects team — Ken McGaugh, Kevin Smith, Luke Millar and Dennis Yoo, take a well-deserved bow — swoop the camera in, around and through London’s jaw-dropping hugeness and complexity, layered with bits and bobs clearly snatched from countless earlier captures.

It’s an absolutely amazing, stunning sequence, particularly as many of London’s thousands of residents gather at their city’s layered edges, cheering the pursuit with the bloodthirsty savagery of heartless nationalists (an allusion to current real-world behavior, in which this film frequently indulges).

Salthook has maneuverability and quick turns in its favor, but it can’t compete with London’s stronger engines. The outcome is inevitable, with one of the smaller community’s residents — a young woman with a red scarf concealing part of her face — watching with (we’re surprised) what appears to be mixed feelings.

Hacksaw Ridge: A cut above

Hacksaw Ridge (2016) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for graphic war action, gore and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.4.16

Factual war dramas often are remembered for seminal sequences: the badly outnumbered British soldiers at Rorke’s Drift, who withstood the final onslaught by native warriors, in 1964’s Zulu; George C. Scott’s electrifying opening speech, in 1970’s Patton; and the Omaha Beach assault that kicked off 1998’s Saving Private Ryan, to name a few.

Once word spreads that Desmond (Andrew Garfield, right) refuses to wield or even touch
a weapon, Smitty (Luke Bracey, left) is the first to register contempt and hostility: How can
he — or anybody else in their division — trust a man who smacks of cowardice?

Indeed, the latter set a new bar for gripping, ghastly, battlefield intensity.

Until now.

Director Mel Gibson’s impressive Hacksaw Ridge is another reminder that, even with a long string of inspiring World War II dramas stretching back to the 1940s, fresh stories remain to be told. The best are those able to personalize the ordeal, by focusing on a few unforgettable individuals, or perhaps just one.

Hacksaw Ridge is the first dramatic depiction of American Army medic Desmond T. Doss’ experiences in the war: specifically his actions with the 77th Division — dubbed the “Statue of Liberty Division” — when it was ordered to take the Maeda Escarpment on Okinawa, as part of the Allied push to mainland Japan.

Frankly, I can’t understand what took Hollywood so long; Doss’ story screams for big-screen treatment.

Scripters Andrew Knight and Robert Schenkkan didn’t even have a mainstream biography on which to base their film treatment (although an obscure small-press book — Booton Herndon’s Unlikeliest Hero — was published in 1982). They were able to draw from Terry Benedict’s award-winning 2004 documentary, The Conscientious Objector. That title cuts to the core of Doss’ unique status: He was the only American soldier in World War II to fight on the front lines without a weapon.

As a Seventh-Day Adventist, Doss believed strongly that killing was against God’s Sixth Commandment. But he also insisted on serving his country in a meaningful way —obtaining a deferment, due to his employment at a naval shipyard, seemed cowardly — and therefore viewed a role in the army medical corps as a logical compromise.

It wasn’t to be that simple.

Gibson opens with a brief flash-forward to the chaos on Okinawa — a pointless foreshadowing of the carnage to come — and then takes us back to Desmond’s youth and young adulthood. He came of age in a household terrorized by his alcoholic father, Tom (Hugo Weaving): a man unable to forgive himself for surviving his WWI service, when so many of his friends and fellow soldiers died. Weaving makes Tom a forlorn and unstable — even dangerous — wreck, but not an entirely unsympathetic monster. In fact, Tom gets his shot at redemption, later in the story.

A couple of seminal events harden Desmond’s decision never to wield a gun, or take a life by any other means. We don’t doubt his resolve.

The Dressmaker: Leaves us in stitches

The Dressmaker (2015) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, and rather harshly, for occasional profanity and fleeting drug content
By Derrick Bang 

Revenge is a dish best served with needle and thread.

Metaphors aren’t the only things mixed in director/co-scripter Jocelyn Moorhouse’s deliciously savage adaptation of Rosalie Ham’s 2000 novel. The Dressmaker starts as a tart-tongued Aussie burlesque populated by small-town eccentrics: something of a cross between Tim Burton’s sensibilities, and arch British films such as Cold Comfort Farm and Death at a Funeral.

Returning to her home town after an absence of two decades, Tilly (Kate Winslet,
standing) finds that her first chore is to restore order — and cleanliness — to the
grotesquely messy house in which her mother Molly (Judy Davis) is living.

But just as you’ve settled into what seems a comfortable — if rather scathing — groove, the story takes a jaw-dropping third-act lurch and turns dark. Very dark. Pitch-black gallows humor.

All of which continues to work, even as we gasp for breath. Ham had a lot to say about small-minded, small-town snobbery — “suspicion, malice and prejudice,” in her own words — and such concerns are the thread from which this cutting tapestry is woven. Moorhouse and co-scripter P.J. Hogan (who brought us Muriel’s Wedding) faithfully retain both the tone and essential plot points from Ham’s book, and the result is a tasty blend of social commentary, mystery and oh-so-sweet revenge saga.

The time is 1951, the setting the tiny community of Dungatar, a one-horse town deep in the wheat belt of southeast Australia. The film opens late one night, as a mysterious woman arrives by bus. This is Tilly Dunnage (Kate Winslet): poised, polished and professional.

And the last person most folks in Dungatar ever wanted to see again.

Moorhouse slyly parcels out brief, sepia-hued flashbacks. As a child, Tilly was hated by the one-room schoolteacher; was the butt of every other child’s prank; was despised even by local adults. The distraught little girl lacked the sophistication to realize that she was being “punished” for being an illegitimate child, her mother Molly (Judy Davis) having defied social convention by remaining in town to raise her daughter alone.

Now, 20 years later, and having been trained in France to become a haute couture designer, Tilly has returned to Dungatar. Ostensibly, she has come back to care for her ailing and now wildly peculiar mother; under the surface, though, Tilly wants answers.

She also wants payback.

The first task, though, may prove impossible. Molly, a bitter recluse with a particularly nasty tongue, won’t even acknowledge Tilly as her daughter; the early confrontations between these two women are hilarious. Davis never has been more wily, Winslet never more grimly determined. Cackling eccentrics are an actor’s dream come true, and Davis milks the role for all it’s worth.

Were it not for my fear that this little film won’t attract any attention, Davis would be a shoo-in for a supporting actress Academy Award nomination, if not the statue itself. Yes, she’s that good.

The Hobbit: An impressive journey

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) • View trailer
4.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for considerable violence, action and relentless dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.14.12

A decade after The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King and its stunning — but definitely well-deserved — 11 Academy Awards, director Peter Jackson has lost none of his ability to amaze and delight.

Bilbo (Martin Freeman, center) can't imagine why so many dwarves — including, from
left, Bifur (William Kircher), Dwalin (Graham McTavish), Bofur (James Nesbitt) and Oin
(John Callen) — have decided to join him for dinner on this otherwise average evening.
The poor hobbit is about to find out, which won't ease his mind any.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is breathtaking in every sense of the word: a glorious return to J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth, with its heroic little folk, their unlikely and often quarrelsome allies, and a host of dire and deadly creatures, each more ghastly than the last.

Jackson and his numerous production teams certainly had nothing to prove, when it comes to world-building; their Lord of the Rings trilogy delivered the true “sense of wonder” that made 21st century filmgoers appreciate what it must have been like, a century ago, when audiences first glimpsed the moving images of primitive one-reelers. We can only lament that Tolkien himself never had the opportunity to witness the grand and glorious means by which Jackson brought his imaginative prose to the big screen.

And yet, amazingly, Jackson has upped the ante again with this first installment of The Hobbit (with two more to follow, in successive Decembers, as before). All the realms of Middle Earth are back, as if we’d never left them; one imagines that some massive chunk of Jackson’s New Zealand simply has remained, wholly transformed, for all this time.

All this said, questions have been raised.

Turning Lord of the Rings into three expansive films made sense: one for each book. But The Hobbit is a single, much slimmer volume, with a kid-friendly story that (by design) lacks the narrative complexity of Tolkien’s heftier trilogy. Pundits have wondered whether the decision to turn THIS saga into a nine-hour experience might be more than a little self-indulgent.

Ah, but Jackson and his co-scripters — veteran Middle Earth colleagues Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens, along with newcomer Guillermo del Toro, a masterful fantasist in his own right — had a secret weapon. We tend to forget that Tolkien concluded his Lord of the Rings trilogy with 125 pages of notes and appendices that also added considerable back-story to The Hobbit: more than enough to justify this unexpectedly ambitious big-screen adaptation.

Additionally, as James Cameron did with Avatar, Jackson has taken advantage of technological advancements to deliver a whole-immersion experience that’s almost too real at times ... and definitely will startle folks (about which, more in a moment).

Cloud Atlas: Fair to partly opaque

Cloud Atlas (2012) • View trailer
3.5 stars. Rating: R, for violence, profanity, nudity, sexuality, drug use and often disturbing dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.26.12

Shirley MacLaine will adore this film, and I’m sure she already has done her part to goose sales of David Mitchell’s source novel.

Investigative journalist Luisa Rey (Halle Berry), poking about behind the scenes at a
nuclear power plant, is surprised when scientist Isaac Sachs (Tom Hanks, center)
doesn't turn her in to CEO Lloyd Hooks (Hugh Grant). She soon learns that Sachs has
just as much reason to be concerned by what is taking place under Hooks' watch.

Rarely has the interconnectivity of past lives been conveyed so cleverly on screen, and certainly never before with such audacious snap. Even if you snicker at the premise and the multiple casting gimmick — about which, more later — it’s impossible to deny the skill with which these half-dozen interlinked stories unfold.

Despite an indulgent length of nearly three hours, directors Tom Tykwer, Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski maintain an impressive degree of suspense and momentum, layering cliff-hanger upon cliff-hanger. We can’t help being caught up in the vastness of this sweeping fantasy, or the intimacy of its individual storylines.

And yet, when all is done and the screen fades to black, it seems like a lot of fuss and bother about very little. Just as Christopher Nolan’s Inception was an overcooked journey to discover the identity of Rosebud, Cloud Atlas builds to its climax only as a means of reflecting upon the endurance of true love, and the notion that — historically, contemporarily or in a future yet to come — individuals can make a difference, and always have.

As one character says, “What is an ocean, but a multitude of drops?”

Not exactly an earth-shattering revelation, but I suppose the thought is comforting.

The interlaced narratives are driven, to a degree, by the shared memory of a piece of music: the Cloud Atlas Sextet, a symphony written by young ne’er-do-well Robert Frobisher (Ben Whishaw), during his 1936 stint as amanuensis to cranky old composer Vyvyan Ayrs (Jim Broadbent), years beyond his prime. The spirit of this music — actually composed by Tykwer and score collaborators Johnny Klimek and Reinhold Heil — imbues these and all other characters, and the theme itself bridges events from one time period to the next.

Captain America: Gung-ho glory

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011) • View trailer
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, and perhaps too harshly, for sci-fi violence and action
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.22.11


We're in good hands with this fellow.

And I don't mean Captain America, although he also has our backs. I'm referring to director Joe Johnston, who has the perfect touch for this sort of material: precisely the proper blend of dramatic heft, low-key humor and well-choreographed action scenes.

Steve Rogers (Chris Evans, center), having seized an opportunity to lead a
rescue mission deemed impossible by his superior officer, discovers that his
silly, USO-show costume might serve an important symbolic purpose after all.

Johnston understands the balance necessary for us to buy into fantasy, and he also sets a mean period stage; we always feel part of whatever era and locale his projects exploit. And he clearly has a fondness for retro superhero sagas, having delivered an impressively authentic and entertaining — and sadly undervalued — adaptation of The Rocketeer, back in 1991.

But Johnston is equally at home with the fully grounded and more gently emotional requirements of an intimate character drama such as 1999's October Sky, or the all-stops-out roller coaster ride found in 2001's Jurassic Park 3. The latter may have been formulaic and a shadow of its predecessors, but somebody had to step into Steven Spielberg's shoes ... and, to his credit, Johnston made sure his continuation wasn't a pale shadow.

And since I'm waxing poetic about Johnston's earlier accomplishments, let me also praise 2004's thoroughly engrossing horse-racing saga, Hidalgo ... which also never found its audience. Some directors just can't catch a break.

But Johnston certainly snatched the gold ring this time. Armed with a pitch-perfect script — Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, take a bow — and a skilled ensemble cast, Johnston has delivered a well-told fantasy saga that feels as innocently high-spirited and pridefully patriotic as America itself, during the turbulent days of World War II.

At the same time, Johnston fulfills the genre requirements expected by the Marvel Comics geeks who always sharpen their blogging knives, in anticipation of disrespectful or otherwise inferior big-screen adaptations. Markus and McFeely know their stuff, and they've managed the quite impressive task of nailing this patriotic symbol of two eras. Bear in mind that Cap, although still a stalwart of contemporary comics fiction, emerged as a red, white and blue avenger in the 1940s ... and yet hasn't aged.

Ah, therein lies a tale...

Which I'll not spoil.

Following a suitably intriguing prologue, we meet scrawny Steve Rogers (Chris Evans): the epitome of a 98-pound Brooklyn weakling, but no less determined to sign up for his chance to help end Hitler's Nazi reign. But no recruiting office wants an undersize mutt who also suffers from asthma and a dozen other physical issues, and Steve should know; he has tried every "Uncle Sam wants you" station within easy travel, using a variety of aliases.