A Million Miles Away: Earthbound

A Million Miles Away (2023) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for no particular reason

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 9.22.23

José Hernández’s remarkably impressive life and career definitely warrant a suitably exhilarating film.

 

Sadly, this one isn’t it.

 

José Hernández (Michael Peña, center), newly hired as an electrical and computer
engineer at California's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, finds that his input
is neither requested nor appreciated by his white colleagues. During meetings, he often
doesn't even get a seat at the table.

The script — by Bettina Gilois, Hernán Jiménez and director Alejandra Márquez Abella, based on Hernández’s 2012 autobiography — jarringly skips massive chunks of his early years, and is quite sloppy with respect to the passage of time. It’s also frequently hard to determine what year it is, and when various things take place.

Die-hard NASA fans will be able to fill in the gaps, but casual viewers will wonder if key scenes wound up on the cutting-room floor.

 

That’s a shame, because all the performances are strong and heartfelt, particularly Michael Peña’s starring role as Hernández. The film also excels at its depiction of family dynamics, and the strong ties binding him with his parents, his cousin Beto (Bobby Soto), and (eventually) his wife Adela (Rosa Salazar) and her family.

 

That said, it could be argued that Abella spends too much time on these relationships, at the expense of a more thorough depiction of how José gets from A to B, and then to C and D.

 

The story begins in the late 1960s, as the families of 7-year-old José (endearingly played in these early scenes by Juan Pablo Monterrubio) and Beto (Leonardo Granados) divide their lives between home in La Piedad, Michoacán, Mexico, and work each year as farmworkers, moving from one California town to another. Education is scattered and inconsistent, as the boys shuttle from one school to the next.

 

On top of which, they’re often both exhausted, sometimes — in a poignant scene — falling asleep on their school desks.

 

Even so, young José has a thirst for learning, and receives encouragement from a teacher (Michelle Krusiec) who sees a spark in his eager gaze. “You’re a force of nature,” she tells him. “Nothing will stop you.”

 

José’s father Salvador (Julio César Cedillo) also has a telling encounter with a guidance counselor. “A tree doesn’t like to be uprooted and planted somewhere else every few months,” she points out. “It will grow, but it won’t thrive.”

Jungle Cruise: A delightful voyage

Jungle Cruise (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for adventure-type violence

Available via: Movie theaters and Disney+

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.30.21 

I know what you’re thinking.

 

Another movie based on a silly Disneyland ride?

 

Our heroes — counterclockwise, from top, Frank (Dwayne Johnson), Lily (Emily Blunt)
and MacGregor (Jack Whitehall) — cannot believe what has just popped out of the
water, in pursuit of their tiny boat.

OK, granted; the first few Pirates of the Caribbean entries were a hoot. But does anybody even remember 1997’s Tower of Terror? Worse yet, can anybody forget 2003’s Haunted Mansion, which almost finished Eddie Murphy’s career?

Yeah, well … scoff if you like, but this one is quite entertaining.

 

Granted, it borrows heavily from Pirates of the Caribbean, Raiders of the Lost Ark and 1999’s The Mummy; and granted, the third act gets needlessly chaotic; and granted, the film runs about 15 minutes too long. (Don’t they all, these days?)

 

No question: This is something of a kitchen sink endeavor, thanks to five credited screenwriters (and likely several more, behind the scenes).

 

But however familiar the wrapping, the contents make the package. And there’s no denying the combined charm of Dwayne Johnson and Emily Blunt, seasoned with the droll comic relief of Jack Whitehall. As ye olde peril-laden treasure hunts go, this one’s a corker.

 

The year is 1916, at the height of World War I. British researcher Lily Houghton (Blunt) and her brother MacGregor (Whitehall) are introduced while trying to persuade a roomful of stuffy academics to back an expedition to the Amazon jungle. She hopes to uncover the mystery behind an ancient tribal artifact, which is supposed to point the way to something reputed to have miraculous restorative powers.

 

The stuffy academics decline, of course. MacGregor looks and sounds like an aristocratic twit; as for Lily, she’s a woman, for goodness’ sake. Who’d pay attention to anything she believes?

 

Well, the stuffy academics should have clocked the fact that this quest also is of great interest to the Teutonic Prince Joachim (Jesse Plemons), whose malevolent bearing screams “sinister” so blatantly, that he may as well have the word tattooed on his forehead.

 

Indeed, it doesn’t take long for Joachim to reveal his stripes.

 

Elsewhere, we meet charismatic Frank Wolff (Johnson), head of the Jungle Navigation Company — just himself, of course — and skipper of the dilapidated La Quila. He leads unwitting visitors to this scruffy Brazilian harbor community on sightseeing cruises along the Amazon, which are low on substance but high on humor (so he insists). 

 

His “typical tour,” which we experience with his newest load of passengers, is this film’s direct nod to the eponymous Disneyland attraction. The homage is hilarious: same cheesy “special effects,” same awful jokes, same wincing puns, the latter delivered with a relentless lack of shame by Johnson.