The Vault: Definitely worth opening

The Vault (2021) • View trailer

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

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.13.21 

We must acknowledge that complex heist films are utterly preposterous, involving improbable insider knowledge, unlikely coincidence and impossible split-second timing.

 

That doesn’t make them any less fun.

 

Having already navigated an impressive series of obstacles, our heroes — from left,
Thom (Freddie Highmore), James (Sam Riley) and Lorraine (Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey) —
are stunned by what comes next.

Director Jaume Balagueró’s entry in this engaging genre is a multi-national production involving five writers and 10 production companies, half of which display their insufferably arty logos before the film begins. Normally, so many cooks would be a recipe for disaster, but Balagueró somehow keeps an iron grip on this menagerie.

The caper also involves a twist I’ve not previously encountered: an objective so mysterious — the eponymous vault — that our protagonists have no idea what they don’t know about it … and yet must crack it.

 

But that’s getting ahead of things.

 

The setting is roughly a decade ago. Professional marine salvage expert Walter Moreland (Liam Cunningham) and his longtime partner James (Sam Riley) have just concluded a decades-long hunt for the remains of a 17th century ship, half-buried on the ocean floor off the coast of Spain. Moreland knows that the booty includes a set of coins used by the ship’s captain, Sir Francis Drake, to reveal where he buried vast treasures that he plundered during his career as a privateer.

 

Treasures that the British government wishes to retrieve, since Drake had a tendency to cheat his Elizabethan sponsors (so this story would have us believe). Ergo, Moreland has been getting clandestine assistance from a shadowy MI6 operative (Famke Janssen).

 

Alas, before Moreland can search the many recovered chests for the coins, his operation is intercepted by the Spanish Coast Guard. Since he lacks a legal salvage claim, the Spanish government seizes everything and locks it in an impregnable vault, somewhere within Madrid’s historic Bank of Spain. The nature of this vault, reputed to be the world’s most secure, has remained a carefully guarded secret for 70 years.

 

Elsewhere, 22-year-old Cambridge University engineering student Thom (Freddie Highmore) has just become a media sensation, courted by all manner of tech corporations, thanks to the ingenious manner in which he averted what could have become a major environmental crisis. Thom is a think-outside-the-box improviser with little interest in corporate fealty; he’s more intrigued by solving “impossible tasks” for their own sake.

 

Which makes him ideal for Moreland’s purposes.

The Art of Getting By: Does just fine

The Art of Getting By (2011) • View trailer for The Art of Getting By
3.5 stars. Rating: PG-13, for sexual content, profanity, teen drinking and smoking, and thematic elements
By Derrick Bang


Motivation is an odd and elusive presence in our lives, and I often wonder why more people don’t suffer its absence.

Sure, we can cite personal drive and/or an awareness of responsibility — to family, friends and self — but what really makes us get up each morning with a willingness to tackle the new day?

The shy and withdrawn George (Freddie Highmore) doesn't understand why
Sally (Emma Roberts) suddenly is willing to hang out with him, but that's not
a bad thing. The trouble is, George hasn't the faintest notion of what to do next
with a pretty girl, just as he hasn't a clue how to handle life itself. And such
protracted inactivity can only lead to heartbreak...

George (Freddie Highmore), a New York high school senior, can’t find that intangible get-up-and-go. Part of the problem is fatalism: an awareness of overwhelmingly bad world events that render trigonometry homework rather insignificant by comparison. Additionally, George is crushingly lonely and has turned this isolation into a pose that rebuffs all meaningful contact, whether with peers at school or his mother and step-father at home.

In a word, George is the ultimate slacker, but with a twist: He clearly isn’t enjoying his indolence.

Writer/director Gavin Wiesen’s The Art of Getting By — which George has perfected — is a quiet, quirky little film: a sober character study of a lost soul who appears to have surrendered any willingness to seize his own self and give it a good shake. A diagnosis of clinical depression seems screamingly obvious, but Wiesen’s script never goes there; we simply wait for the moment when somewhere, somehow, George will experience the epiphany that will kick-start his enthusiasm for life, the universe and everything.

To be sure, at times Wiesen’s script plays like a lite version of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, and suffers a bit for the comparison. Salinger’s book, although focused on Holden Caulfield, offered shrewd observations on the human condition; Wiesen’s film doesn’t explore much further than George’s condition.

It’s an odd role that could be off-putting if not handled properly. Lucky for us, then, that Highmore delivers just the right blend of earnest sensitivity and contrite resignation. Although he can’t be bothered to do his schoolwork, much to the growing vexation of his various teachers, George is always polite about his refusals. He’s not a “bad” kid in the usual sense; he’s simply ... lost.

Highmore, now a mature 19 years old, will be remembered as the engaging young actor who delivered such memorable performances in Finding Neverland, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, August Rush and The Spiderwick Chronicles. Highmore grew up somewhere along the way; he still was a kid in 2008’s Spiderwick, yet here he is now, with the height and gangliness of near-adulthood.

With his acting chops quite intact, rest assured.

That’s crucial, because a single mis-step would transform George into an unlikable parasite: somebody wasting the very air he breathes. And yet this never happens; we sense an artistic soul waiting to burst forth, thanks to the complex and often provocative doodles with which he fills all his textbooks and classroom worksheets.

Cool, we think; art class must be a cathartic release each day. But even here, George can’t muster the enthusiasm to complete an actual assignment. His doodles may suggest talent — even his crusty art teacher senses this — but George hasn’t yet found his muse.

The Spiderwick Chronicles: Enchanted land

The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008) • View trailer
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG, for fantasy violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.21.08

Nickelodeon continues its impressive run of high-quality family films, with a handsomely mounted and highly entertaining adaptation of The Spiderwick Chronicles, based on the cleverly packaged quintet of books by artist/author Tony DiTerlizzi and author Holly Black.

After his brother is kidnapped by goblins, Jared (Freddie Highmore) and his
new friend, Hogsqueal, watch with mounting horror as the other boy is
questioned by the sinister ogre who rules the forest.

Young readers who've exhausted the Harry Potter and Lemony Snicket titles are bound to enjoy this saga (really only one book divided into five easily digestible chapters). And while it's inevitable, in our post-Potter world of youth-oriented fantasy, that all "new" books get compared to J.K. Rowling, that isn't terribly fair to DiTerlizzi and Black.

The Spiderwick Chronicles, published in 2003, stands quite well on its own. By design, the story is more American and comfortably contemporary than most fantasy titles for young readers, and DiTerlizzi's lovely line art plays a major role in the narrative's enchantment factor. Indeed, I haven't seen a young reader's book so perfectly married to its artwork since Garth Williams' illustrations graced E.B. White's Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little.

The film adaptation, which contains a bit more depth and angst than most so-called children's films, comes from Karey Kirkpatrick, David Berenbaum and — here's a surprise! — indie filmmaker John Sayles, who usually only works on his own projects. But it's a natural fit: Sayles explored Irish fables and mystical creatures superbly with his own 1994 film, The Secret of Roan Inish, which remains one of the gentlest and most beautifully rendered all-ages fantasy films I've ever seen.

The adaptation of Spiderwick concentrates of books one and five in the set, pretty much abandoning the additional creatures and narrative complexities found in books two through four, but that's all right; Kirkpatrick, Berenbaum and Sayles deftly capture the tone and spirit of the entire saga. (Young readers hoping to meet the river troll, the phooka and the forest elves may feel differently.)

The film also draws considerable power from the impressive performances delivered by 15-year-old Freddie Highmore, continuing the splendid body of work that began with Finding Neverland and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And that's "performances," plural, because in Spiderwick he plays identical twins Jared and Simon Grace.

It's not merely a matter of superb special-effects work, although the scenes involving both boys are amazing. Highmore crafts two dissimilar personalities that are so distinct that at times, even knowing better, I thought I was watching two different actors. Jared and Simon look quite the same, and yet they also look different, and it's more than the clothes and the hair. Depending on which boy he's playing, Highmore modulates his body movements: the way he stands, tilts his head, uses his eyes to probe a darkened corner or somebody else's expression.

Highmore's work moves beyond "gimmick" and becomes wholly accepted by us viewers. He's good enough that, were Oscar-like awards granted to children's films, he'd deserve to be nominated for both roles.