Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: A (mostly) fond farewell

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for intense action violence and fleeting profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.30.23

This slam-bang adventure opens with a prologue that finds Harrison Ford’s surprisingly youthful Indy battling Nazis as they loot Berlin, prior to the city’s fall in the spring of 1945.

 

We briefly wonder: Has director James Mangold resurrected unused footage left over from a previous film?

 

Trying to keep an eye on his, larcenous, long-estranged goddaughter, Helena (Phoebe
Waller-Bridge) proves increasingly difficult for Indy (Harrison Ford), particularly with
a bevy of bad guys hot on their heels.

But no, this is CGI “youthifying” to a truly astonishing degree. (The illusion cracks a few times, fleetingly, but only if you watch very closely.)

This fracas establishes what will become the story’s ongoing clashes between Indy and the nefarious Dr. Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), over possession of the Antikythera, an artifact also known as the Archimedes Dial. For reasons unknown when the story begins, the famed Greek mathematician broke the mechanism into two halves, one of which is stashed on a train bearing the Nazis’ stolen plunder.

 

Cue an action-packed melee within and atop the aforementioned moving train, between Indy — accompanied by his overwhelmed Oxford colleague, Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) — and scores of Nazis led by the hissably unpleasant Col. Weber (Thomas Kretschmann). Voller, on the sidelines, has his own agenda.

 

(It’s a shame that what ultimately becomes a mano a mano skirmish between Indy and Weber, atop the train, features many of the same stunts, moves and details employed by Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, Part One, due in two weeks. Did these two production teams spy on each other?)

 

Cut to Aug. 3, 1969, the day the Apollo 11 astronauts are feted with a New York City ticker tape parade; and also the final day of teaching at Hunter College for an older, wearier and somewhat disillusioned Professor Jones. Not that any of his students will notice, since they have absolutely no interest in archaeology.

 

But one surprise visitor does: Basil’s daughter — and Indy’s goddaughter — Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), whom he hasn’t seen for years. She’s full of praise and questions, the latter quickly turning to the long-unseen partial Archimedes Dial. Believing her interest to be sincere, Indy reveals that it is indeed in his possession.

 

Elsewhere, in a posh hotel room, Voller and his neo-Nazi associate, Klaber (Boyd Holbrook) — along with their hulking man-mountain, Hauke (Olivier Richter), and a few other lackeys — have a chilling encounter with the Black porter (Alton Fitzgerald White) who delivers breakfast. Voller is contemptuous; White’s expression, body language and reply are sublime.

 

Alas, Voller’s men crash Indy and Helena’s reunion, demanding the Archimedes dial. Worse yet, during the ensuing fracas, Helena reveals her true stripes: She’s a career con artist, liar and thief. She snatches the dial, manages to elude everybody, and — to Indy’s disappointment and horror — swiftly departs the country in order to sell the artifact to the highest black market bidder in Tangier.

Tetris: Game on!

Tetris (2023) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity

Available via: Apple TV+

By Derrick Bang

You wouldn’t think the debut and marketing of a video game could be spun into an absorbing thriller.

 

You’d be wrong.

 

Software entrepreneur Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton, left) initially believes that marketing
Tetris simply will involve securing publication rights from developer Alexey Pajitnov
(Nikita Efremov), but the latter quickly dismisses this naïve notion, pointing out that
things are handled quite differently in the Soviet Union. Translator Sasha
(Sofia Lebedeva) follows this conversation with open curiosity.

Director Jon S. Baird’s Tetris is an audacious account of the mid-1980s struggle for publishing rights for that enormously addictive game. Many of the key players here are actual people — the two most prominent individuals, still with us today, approved the project — although scripter Noah Pink employs serious dramatic license to transform what likely was a dull, grinding saga of dueling litigants into a delightfully cheeky spy flick.

Besides which, we’re dealing primarily with the Soviet Union, during the final few years before its collapse … so who’s to say that some of Pink’s imaginative embellishments don’t hew close to the truth?

 

A brief real-world introduction:

 

In 1984, early-gen hardware and software engineer Alexey Pajitnov — then working for the Soviet Academy of Sciences — developed a puzzle game on the institute’s Electronika 60 computer. Pajitnov titled his “falling blocks” creation Tetris, from a blend of “tetra” (four) and his favorite sport, tennis.

 

The Electronika 60 lacked a graphical interface, so Pajitnov’s first-gen version used simple spaces and brackets. The game caught on like wildfire once he shared it, and soon migrated to every scientific colleague with a computer. With the help of Vadim Gerasimov, a 16-year-old student with mad programming skills, Tetris was adapted for IBM personal computers.

 

But Pajitnov didn’t “own” his creation; the Soviet government did. He therefore couldn’t sell, license or market it. The game nonetheless um, ah, “traveled” to Hungary and Poland, where it came to the attention of international software salesman Robert Stein; he shopped it around the 1987 Las Vegas Consumer Electronics Show.

 

What happened next was somewhat fishy, because Stein ultimately licensed a game that he didn’t actually own. Soon thereafter, it was spotted by Henk Rogers, a Dutch-born, American-raised entrepreneur living in Japan with his family; he smelled opportunity.

 

Baird’s film begins as Rogers (Taron Egerton), seeking a hit that might save his failing company, Bullet-Proof Software, stumbles across Tetris at a computer expo. He’s transfixed, and immediately sets out to obtain the right to license the game in Japan. Stein (Toby Jones) already has — questionably — sold American rights to video game developer/publisher Spectrum HoloByte, and European rights to Mirrorsoft; Japan remains an open market.

 

But Rogers soon learns that — Stein’s existing deals notwithstanding — the game’s ownership is murky at best, utterly bizarre at worst. The complexity of additional licensing involves not only nation-state rights, but also the proliferation of platforms — at the time, Atari, Commodore 64 and Amiga, among others — and their parent companies.

 

Ergo Rogers, with no shortage of brashness, becomes “the guy who goes to Russia.”

Empire of Light: Radiant

Empire of Light (2022) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five). Rated R, for profanity, sexual content, dramatic intensity and violence

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.23.22

Writer/director Sam Mendes’ handsomely mounted, intensely intimate character study is enchanting on so many levels, it’s difficult to know where to begin.

 

In the long-deserted upper level of their majestic cinema palace, Hilary (Olivia Colman)
watches, transfixed, as Stephen (Micheal Ward) gently tends to a pigeon with an
injured wing.

First and foremost, this is a loving valentine to the transformational magic of old-style film palaces: perhaps also a sad farewell to a manner of moviegoing likely to disappear within the next decade.

We’re also reminded, ever so gently, of the healing power of art in general — music, poetry, film itself — and the connective warmth of community, however unusual the “family unit” might be.

 

And this poignant story’s emotional impact comes from the powerhouse starring performance by Olivia Colman, whose bravura work here may be the high point of an already astonishing acting career. (I’ve said this before, about Colman’s work … and, somehow, she always tops herself.)

 

The setting is an English coastal town, where Hilary (Colman) is the shift manager of the Empire, a fading palatial cinema house that still looks quite fancy — to a point — while nonetheless being a shadow of its glory days. 

 

(Filming took place in Margate, a town on the northern shore of Kent, where production designer Mark Tildesley discovered Dreamland: a former cinema and ballroom, with a majestic art deco exterior attached to a seaside fun fair. His transformation of that venue, for this film, is breathtaking.)

 

It’s Christmas Eve, 1980; Hilary arrives for the day’s shift, unlocking doors and cabinets, turning on lights. The rest of the crew soon follows: notably projectionist Norman (Toby Jones), junior manager Neil (Tom Brooke) and 18-year-old worker-bee Janine (Hannah Onslow).

 

Everybody answers to supervising manager Mr. Ellis (Colin Firth), prone to outbursts of temper, and soon revealed as a tight-lipped bully who uses and abuses people. (Firth, a chameleon who could embrace any role, is thoroughly convincing as an unapologetic bastard.)

 

Business is light, despite the allure of top-drawer, second-run fare on the theater’s two screens; we sense that a long time has passed, since the Empire enjoyed anything approaching a full house.

 

Despite her obviously capable skills, Hilary is quiet, withdrawn and oddly muted. It’s as if her eyes have become motion detectors: dark and inert at rest, erupting suddenly with life — and a smile that feels forced, existing only because it’s expected — only when somebody interacts with her.

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain: Heartbreaking study of a tormented artist

The Electrical Life of Louis Wain (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and brief profanity

Available via: Movie theaters and (beginning November 5) Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

One rarely encounters such a Dickensian life, outside of a Charles Dickens novel.

 

Artist Louis Wain’s personal and professional life was just as tragic, as the majority of his vast output was playfully joyous. He remains, to this day, one of the most beloved commercial illustrators in English history; during the Edwardian era, it was the rare home that lacked one of his posters, or many of his children’s books.

 

Louis (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Emily (Claire Foy) are
surprised to find a scruffy, rain-soaked kitten in their
garden. They'll soon be even more surprised by the
degree to which this little feline affects the arc of
Louis' artistic career.

He also deserves credit for helping elevate the humble pussycat into a companion worthy of being a pet, rather than a pesky creature best relegated to the streets.

Author H.G. Wells famously noted — during a radio broadcast reproduced in this biographical drama — that “He has made the cat his own. He invented a cat style, a cat society, a whole cat world. English cats that do not look and live like Louis Wain cats are ashamed of themselves.”

 

Wain also was quite popular on this side of the pond, at the beginning of the 20th century, and then much later, in the 1970s, when his more outré cat paintings were ubiquitous among the, ah, college-age psychedelic set.

 

Director Will Sharpe’s poignant, deeply sensitive film is highlighted by sublime performances from Benedict Cumberbatch and Claire Foy. The script, by Sharpe and Simon Stephenson, is remarkably faithful to Wain’s life and career … the all-too-brief highs and numerous shattering lows of which, are almost too much to bear.

 

Indeed, this saga’s midpoint, highlighted by an intensely intimate scene between Cumberbatch and Foy, surely ranks as one of the saddest, most heartbreaking moments ever captured on film.

 

The story begins in the early 1880s, when — following their father’s unexpected death — 20-year-old Louis (Cumberbatch), as the family’s lone male, is forced to support his mother and five younger sisters. 

 

Fortunately, he has a remarkable — and rapid — facility for drawing and painting, which he’s able to do with both hands simultaneously (which Cumberbatch depicts persuasively). Louis specializes in animals and country scenes, and within a few years is selling work to journals such as the Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News and, a bit later, the Illustrated London News.

 

Unfortunately, Louis also suffers from a mental illness — possibly schizophrenia — which would remain undiagnosed throughout his lifetime. Symptoms include an irrational fear of drowning, which strikes unexpectedly. For the most part, he keeps such demons at bay via the manic intensity with which he fills every minute of every hour: sketching, tinkering with useless inventions, “composing” unmelodic musical works, and even sparring uselessly in an amateur boxing ring.

 

Along with a frenzied fascination with the wonders of electricity, which he comes to believe is a defining force in life and the universe.

 

So, yes: Cumberbatch once again is portraying an eccentric and deeply unstable genius, who’s all tics and twitches. But it must be acknowledged that his Louis Wain is completely distinct from his Sherlock Holmes, or his Alan Turing, or his Hamlet.

Christopher Robin: Endearing, but uneven

Christopher Robin (2018) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG-13, for no particular reason
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.3.18

I’ve long regarded title credits as a strong indication of quality; a director who cares enough to insist upon clever, stylish or (in some manner) unusual credits, generally can be counted upon to give his film the same attention to detail.

Desperate to prevent passersby from realizing that Pooh is a stuffed bear who nonetheless
walks and talks, Christopher (Ewan McGregor) begs his childhood friend to "play taking
a nap."

In that respect, then, director Marc Forster’s Christopher Robin begins auspiciously. An extended prolog is lovingly and warmly animated from the E.H. Shepard illustrations in A.A. Milne’s original Winnie the Pooh books; the sequence also incorporates flipped pages laden with the correct type font. In all respects, it’s like we viewers jump into the book itself and become part of what follows, much in the manner of Jasper Fforde’s delightful Thursday Next novels.

This lengthy, period-appropriate introduction also establishes the firm bond between young Christopher Robin (Orton O’Brien) and his half-dozen plush animal friends, all seemingly hand-stitched, as if by some doting parent. They’ve organized a party in the Hundred Acre Wood, but the occasion is somber: Christopher Robin is heading off to boarding school. The mood is pure “Puff, the Magic Dragon.”

These sweetly animated characters are voiced sublimely, their note-perfect dialog — here, and throughout the entire film — impeccably crafted to match Milne’s blend of innocence and gentle playfulness (with numerous quotes lifted directly from the page). We can’t help being both charmed and saddened; the sweet sorrow of this impending parting is almost more than can be withstood.

Then the movie proper kicks in, and the mood is ... well, badly compromised, if not completely shattered.

The script — credited, with eyebrow-raising concern, to five different hands — is a patchwork mess stitched together with far less care than that given to its animated stars. The plot is a clumsy mash-up of Steven Spielberg’s Hook and Disney’s Mary Poppins — both centering around an adult who has lost track of his childhood sense of wonder — blended with numerous un-subtle nods to the three Disney Winnie the Pooh cartoon shorts produced between 1966 and ’74.

To make matters even worse, this film’s (mostly) soothing tone often is marred by the destructive slapstick sequences that infected so many of Disney’s insufferably stupid late 1960s and early ’70s live-action comedies. The sudden shift in tone can cause whiplash.

In a nutshell, these characters — human and otherwise — are far better than the derivative, wafer-thin and disappointing story into which they’ve been dumped.

Atomic Blonde: A noisy bomb

Atomic Blonde (2017) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rated R, for strong violence, nudity, sexuality and relentless profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.28.17

British author Antony Johnston obviously grew up reading John Le Carré, because his 2012 graphic novel — The Coldest City, with moody art by Sam Hart — is laden with the sort of spycraft that George Smiley would have recognized: bleak cynicism, operatives known only by code names, squabbling between Intelligence Agency factions, cut-outs, traitors and double-crosses.

It's just another day in the office for Lorraine Broughton (Charlize Theron), as she tries
to prevent KGB thugs from reaching — and killing — the defecting East German
intelligence officer under her protection.

The story takes place in Berlin in November 1989, immediately before and after East and West are unified. An undercover MI6 agent is killed trying to bring invaluable information back to the British: a list believed to identify every espionage agent working on both sides of the wall. Veteran undercover operative Lorraine Broughton is sent to Berlin, to retrieve the list and identify her colleague’s killer; her task is complicated by the chaos of mass demonstrations calling for unification, while KGB loyalists resist with increasing viciousness.

Definitely a hook on which to hang a slick, thoughtful espionage saga.

Too bad director David Leitch and scripter Kurt Johnstad didn’t see it that way.

They’ve essentially re-cast 2014’s loathsomely violent John Wick with a female lead, and the briefest of nods to genre spycraft. (No surprise there, since Leitch was an uncredited co-director on the first Wick.) The distinction is immediately obvious with a name change — Atomic Blonde — that more accurately reflects star Charlize Theron’s luminously white hairstyle, and the luxuriously wild outfits that she wears so well: most of them also vibrant white, with striking black accoutrements. Costume designer Cindy Evans, take a bow.

The Berlin setting is persuasively reproduced by production designer David Scheunemann; cinematographer Jonathan Sela deserves equal credit for gritty street scenes, strobe-lit nightclubs and shadow-laden noir tableaus. No question: This film looks terrific, and feels like the ideal backdrop for cloak-and-dagger subterfuge.

But Leitch has no finer sensibilities. His film is flashy trash: violent, tawdry and depressingly nihilistic. Midway through this two-hour exercise in brutality, it becomes impossible to keep track of who’s good, bad or in between; Johnstad’s script keeps changing its mind, seemingly on every other page.

Anthropoid: Grim, fact-based war drama

Anthropoid (2016) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for violence and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

Terrible title, taut thriller.

And historical authenticity doesn’t necessarily justify the choice. Nor does historical authenticity conceal another issue.

Having parachuted into Czechoslovakia only the night before, Jan Kubiš (Jamie Dornan,
left) and Josef Gabčík (Cillian Murphy) steal a truck in order to reach Prague, where they are to
link up with resistance fighters

To cite another recent example ... despite the care with which 2000’s The Perfect Storm was assembled, I couldn’t overcome the core paradox:

Sebastian Junger’s book — and, thus, William D. Wittliff’s screenplay — were based on an actual event that left no survivors. Ergo, everything we watched was no more than an educated presumption of what actually happened: a narrative conceit that can’t help pulling us out of the story at every significant juncture.

This is never a problem with dramatic fiction, which allows us to simply go with the flow; we accept the saga on its own merits. But no matter how persuasively George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg delivered their dialogue — no matter how heroically they behaved — it was impossible to accept things at face value. Were the men in question really that brave? Actually that selfless?

Similar questions emerge during the course of Anthropoid, director Sean Ellis’ often gripping account of a World War II incident that forever changed the fate of Czechoslovakia, and quite likely altered the direction of the entire war. Ellis and co-writer Anthony Frewin have developed their script from what is known about “Operation Anthropoid,” and while the clandestine mission’s preparation and outcome are the stuff of recorded history, much of this storyline can’t be any better than speculation.

Whether that’s vexing enough to be an issue, will be up to the individual viewer. It’s easy to imagine that things may have gone down this way, and that might be sufficient. Ellis certainly draws persuasive performances from most of his cast — with one unfortunate exception — and there’s no denying the suspenseful nobility inherent in WWII resistance fighters who risked everything to thwart Nazi advances.

The film begins in December 1941, three years after the Allies’ notorious “Munich Agreement”: the act of appeasement that passively allowed Hitler to take over Czechoslovakia without a shot being fired. Two soldiers from the London-based Czechoslovakian army-in-exile — Jan Kubiš (Jamie Dornan) and Josef Gabčík (Cillian Murphy) — parachute back into their occupied homeland, and carefully make their way to the few individuals who remain in the underground resistance.

Captain America — The Winter Soldier: Another Marvel-ous hit!

Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for intense action violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.4.14

This one’s a lot more thought-provoking that I was expecting.

Confronting an enemy strong enough to catch his shield — and hurl it back, with deadly
force — Captain America (Chris Evans) and the Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson)
consider their rapidly dwindling options. Much as they hate to admit it, retreat might be
the better part of valor...

It’s safe to acknowledge, after so many rip-snorting predecessors involving so many characters — whether individually, or in groups — that Marvel Studios has the formula down to a science. Captain America’s second solo outing once more offers a welcome blend of familiar faces, superbly choreographed action scenes and just enough witty banter to prevent things from getting too grim.

Rest assured: No sophomore slump here.

And, yes, Marvel’s production team continues to navigate the all-essential fine line: offering insider nods to fans who’ve read these comic books for decades, while nonetheless ensuring that newcomers won’t be left out. That’s a remarkable feat by itself; still more impressive is the degree to which all of these films, this one included, continue to build on an ever-expanding tapestry that now includes a weekly TV series.

All well and good, and guaranteed to result in a crowd-pleasing popcorn flick.

But scripters Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely make this film much more than a popcorn flick, thanks to a deeply unsettling plot that’s ripped from today’s paranoia-laden headlines. It’s a very clever touch, because Cap — Steve Rogers — is precisely the right character to confront this crisis.

It’s not easy, in our increasingly cynical times, to work with a character whose moral compass feels too good to be true. Putting such an individual on the big screen is even more difficult, demanding a perfect marriage of talent and material. Christopher Reeve’s Superman was just such an iconic good guy: a genuinely virtuous hero who could speak of “truth, justice and the American way” without prompting snickers from the audience.

Chris Evans makes Steve Rogers just as true-blue, with just the right balance between old-fashioned ethics and resourceful savvy. We must recall that he’s a man out of time: a World War II hero who — in his previous film — sacrificed himself for what he believed would be certain death, but instead wound up in suspended animation, revived decades later in our modern era.

Fish-out-of-water stories, when done correctly, can’t help being entertaining. Markus, McFeely and co-directors Anthony and Joe Russo do it correctly.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: Whac-A-Mole

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) • View trailer
3.5 stars. Rating: R, and too harshly, for brief violence, occasional profanity and eyeblink nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.6.12


If your theater of choice offers the faux “classified dossier” of notes, characters and background information on this film, I strongly suggest you grab a copy.

You’ll need it.

Better still, arrive at least 10 minutes early, so you’ll have plenty of time to study the bloody thing.

Never underestimate the value of an employee who has been recently sacked:
Smiley (Gary Oldman, right) questions former MI6 duty officer Jerry Westerby
(Stephen Graham), while Smiley's younger associate, Peter Guillam (Benedict
Cumberbatch) watches the master at work. The issue at hand: Did a field
operative actually send a message during a crucial operation, or was that a lie?

Although scripters Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan have done an impressive job of condensing John Le Carré’s massive, genre-breaking spy novel, the drawback is a sense of having been dropped smack into the middle of an extremely complicated story.

O’Connor, Straughan and director Tomas Alfredson simply assume that we’ll be able to pick up what we need to know, concerning roughly a dozen characters, as the film progresses. This already difficult task is further complicated by a raft of flashbacks, often arriving without warning; heck, we don’t even learn that this is 1973, until a ways into the unfolding plot.

Nor is that all; we’re also expected to understand British Cold War politics and immediately grasp the internecine squabbling that infects the upper-echelon members of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, reasonably well known by spy buffs as MI6, but here always code-named “the Circus.”

Ah, yes: That’s another thing. This story is rife with jargon, and not simply the terms and code names given field agents or their operations. You’ll need to grasp the purposes of lamplighters, scalphunters, wranglers and shoemakers, suss the distinction between mothers and debs, and understand the differing responsibilities of ferrets, housekeepers and janitors.

Mind you, I eat this stuff up, and O’Connor and Straughan work hard to make things clear in context. But much as I enjoyed the Machiavellian maneuvering among the characters played by this sublimely talented cast, this is a film that only die-hard Anglophiles could love ... and even they would be well advised to have read Le Carré’s book first.

More than anything else, Alfredson captures the grim atmosphere of despair that permeates Le Carré’s novel: the bleak misery of a working environment where trust is a fickle commodity at best, and loyalty often is for sale to the highest bidder. The people at the Circus can’t have normal relationships; by definition, they always worry about motivation and deception.

Establishing this unsettling, unstable mood is what Alfredson does best, as he demonstrated so well with the intriguingly inverted “vampire dynamics” of Let the Right One In (the Swedish version). We’re uneasy at all times, worried that our central character — veteran agent George Smiley, played with thoughtful precision by Gary Oldman — will make a fatal mistake while pursuing the clandestine assignment with which he has been charged.

And “fatal” covers a lot of territory, as well. In this world, disgrace and dishonor are far worse than mere death.