The Rip: Quite disappointing

The Rip (2026) • View trailer

2.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for violence and gobs o' profanity

Available via: Netflix

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.25.26

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck have appeared together in more than a dozen films, since their small supporting roles in 1992’s School Ties. 

 

After climbing into an attic that is suspiciously clean and empty, narcotics cops J.D.
(Ben Affleck, left) and Dane (Matt Damon) notice that a back wall appears to be a
"false front."

They most often have been part of an ensemble cast, or one has starred while the other took a smaller supporting role, as in 2023’s Air. Learning that they’d share equal starring roles in a crime thriller helmed by action director Joe Carnahan therefore sounded promising … although his résumé is wildly uneven, to say the least. Hits such as Narc and The A-Team share space with junk such as Battle Ready and Shadow Force.

Carnahan and co-scripter Michael McGrale clearly borrowed a note from Howard Hawks’ 1959 classic, Rio Bravo — remade, in an urban setting, by John Carpenter in 1976’s Assault on Precinct 13 — and that also seemed like good news.

 

Alas, all that potential is sabotaged by the most relentless barrage of F-bombs I’ve ever endured in a mainstream film. Every character succumbs to this nonsense, at times unleashing a torrent within a single sentence. It’s inane, distracting and a glaring example of uninspired screenwriting. We barely get a sense of these people as individuals, because they’re little more than profanity-spewing caricatures.

 

Ahem.

 

Things begin viciously, as Miami-Dade Police Capt. Jackie Valez (Lina Esco) is brutally murdered, late at night, by two masked thugs … but not before she sends a text. To somebody.

 

In the aftermath, the members of her special unit — the Tactical Narcotics Team — are grilled by higher-ups who’ve heard rumors of crooked cops robbing drug houses. These silly interrogations don’t get the story off to a good start, since both Lt. Dane Dumars (Damon) — Valez’s second in command — and Detective Sgt. J.D. Byrne (Affleck), along with the visiting Feds, lose their tempers in twin displays of unrestrained overacting.

 

As an added wrinkle, one of the Feds — Del (Scott Adkins) — is J.D.’s brother.

 

The team later regroups to assess the situation; the other members are Mike Ro (Steven Yeun), Numa Baptiste (Teyana Taylor) and Lolo Salazar (Catalina Sandino Moreno). The latter handles their drug- and cash-sniffing beagle, Wilbur. DEA colleague Matty Nix (Kyle Chandler) drops by briefly to hassle them; it’s difficult to tell if it’s good-natured ribbing, or genuine suspicion.

 

In a nod to Robert Mitchum’s character in 1955’s Night of the Hunter, Dane has two sets of letters tattooed on his hands: AWTGG and WAAAWB.

Godzilla vs. Kong: Thud and blunder

Godzilla vs. Kong (2021) • View trailer

Two stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, relentless carnage and brief profanity

By Derrick Bang

Back in the golden age of Universal Studios monster movies, when one character’s popularity began to wane, he’d be set against another.

 

Although completely dwarfed by the massive Kong, Jia (Kaylee Hottle) isn't the slightest
bit afraid of him; indeed, she and the mighty ape share a special bond.

Ergo, we got Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man in 1943, followed by the triple-threat of Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster and the Wolf Man in 1944’s House of Frankenstein.

 

And when Universal got really desperate, their monsters became shameful comedic foils for Abbott and Costello.

 

Despite being silly, pratfall-laden spoofs, even they were far more entertaining than this noisy, landscape-leveling dust-up between Godzilla and Kong (this revived franchise apparently having dropped the “King” from the latter).

 

In fairness, director Adam Wingard’s monster mash — available via HBO Max, and at operational movie theaters — is somewhat better than 2019’s thoroughly deplorable Godzilla, King of the Monsters (although, yes, that’s damning with faint praise). Wingard and editor Josh Schaeffer move this entry along more efficiently — at least until the interminable third act — and the CGI animators get a welcome level of emotional depth from Kong.

 

But the major problem, as before, is the script: a sloppily assembled, seemingly random collection of set-pieces populated by — for the most part — stiff-as-a-board characters too vacuous to be regarded as even one-dimensional. (A few exceptions stand out, and I’ll get to them in a moment.)

 

This (ahem) Frankenstein’s monster of a story is credited to Eric Pearson, Terry Rossio, Michael Dougherty, Zach Shields and Max Borenstein, the latter three responsible for writing the aforementioned Godzilla, King of the Monsters. So I guess we can credit Pearson and Rossio with this new film’s slight improvement.

 

Matters begin well, with Kong safely — but unhappily — housed in a huge biodome located on Skull Island (presumably cleared of all the other huge and nasty beasts we met in 2017’s Kong: Skull Island, by far the best of these films). He has bonded with Jia (Kaylee Hottle), a young, deaf/mute orphan whom the mighty ape both trusts and — to a degree — obeys, via their shared sign language. This relationship is the film’s strongest note, due to the nuanced sensitivity of Hottle’s performance; she immediately wins our hearts and minds.

 

Jia shares a similarly loving and caring bond with her adoptive mother, Dr. Ilene Andrews (Rebecca Hall), an anthropological linguist attached to Monarch, the world government’s crypto-zoological agency dedicated to the study of “Titans” such as Kong. Hottle and Hall work well together; it’s a shame they’re not granted larger roles. Like, in place of everybody else in the film.

The Midnight Sky: Oppressively cheerless

The Midnight Sky (2020) • View trailer

Two stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fleeting profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.5.21 

Check a dictionary for the phrase “profoundly depressing,” and you’ll find this film.

 

There’s a tiny cinematic sub-genre that I’ll call “futility drama,” wherein a given premise is catastrophic from the onset … and then gets progressively worse. Heroic action is either inconsequential or useless; failure is inevitable. Recent examples include 2003’s Open Water and the 2009 adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

 

Sully (Felicity Jones) and Adewole (David Oyelowo) can't understand why they aren't
picking up any transmissions from Earth's numerous spacecraft support facilities.

The Midnight Sky — exclusive to Netflix — isn’t quite that bleak, but the distinction is so insignificant, that you’re unlikely to find it comforting.

 

The setting is February 2049, three weeks after “the event.” This incident never is specifically disclosed, but visible computer modeling screens reveal that it began in major metropolitan centers and then spread outward; the implication is the mutually assured destruction of war. The result is that Earth’s air has become radioactive and/or poisonous, killing everything: all plant and animal life forms.

 

The effect hasn’t yet reached the Arctic Circle’s Barbeau Observatory, which has been abandoned save for Augustine (George Clooney), a scientist who — alone among the facility’s sizeable staff and research team — chose not to return home, and to certain death. The irony is rich: Although he suffers from some undisclosed medical condition that requires frequent blood transfusions, he already has outlived everybody else on the planet. He’s literally the last man on Earth.

 

(Right away, the psychology feels totally daft in scripter Mark L. Smith’s adaptation of Lily Brooks-Dalton’s 2016 novel. Everybody else left? Nobody else remained with Augustine, in order to live a few more weeks? That’s ridiculous.)

 

Augustine has everything he needs, and — as flashbacks soon make clear — he’s a loner by nature anyway; his entire life has been consumed by his research. Clooney persuasively depicts the grinding struggle of a man in constant discomfort and pain, who nonetheless goes through the motions, valuing each fresh moment of survival. Even so, he’s spent: bone-weary and resigned to an inevitable fate.

 

On this particular day, he’s reminded of the spacecraft Aether, returning from a two-year mission to explore K-23, a previously undiscovered moon orbiting Jupiter. The five-person crew, commanded by Adewole (David Oyelowo), has no idea that they’re returning to a dead planet. They need to be warned, but the Aether still is too far away; the observatory’s antenna isn’t strong enough for a signal to reach them.

 

Thus, the challenge: Can Augustine figure out a way to contact the Aether, and — even if he does — would such information even be useful?

 

Godzilla, King of the Monsters: Gawd-awful

Godzilla, King of the Monsters (2019) • View trailer 
One star. Rated PG-13, for relentless monster carnage and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang

Sigh.

I’ve seen a lot of stupid over the years, but this one takes every cake in the bakery.

Not yet having realized that she's standing alongside a deranged sociopath, young
Madison (Millie Bobby Brown, right) watches while her mother, Emma (Vera Farmiga),
activates a whatzit in order to unleash a whozit.

Rarely has a big-studio blockbuster been directed this clumsily, written this poorly, and acted this atrociously. Doctoral theses could be written, about everything wrong with this misbegotten mess.

It’s a $200 million embarrassment.

When a film is this bad, every minute wasted with it — and we’re looking at 131 minutes here — is an exercise in put-me-out-of-my-misery tedium. Root canal surgery would be preferable.

This second entry in the modern Godzilla series once again demonstrates the folly of pleasing too many international masters, given that this is a co-production by Warner Bros. and China’s Legendary Entertainment. In theory, that should be a good thing, since it assures international casting; in practice, it has been the death of quality cinema.

Recent exhibits of shame include Skyscraper, Pacific Rim: Uprising, Man of Steel and, yes, the previous Godzilla. Among many others.

Each one is characterized by noisy, cataclysmic, landscape-leveling mayhem that goes on and on and on and on. Along with atrociously dumb dialogue, and performances so wooden they could warp.

And — worse yet in this case, with respect to emotional resonance — people who mostly stand around, slack-jawed, impotently staring at screens, or out windows. It’s difficult, nay impossible, to get involved with characters in a thriller of this sort, unless they’re pro-active and do something to make a difference.

One of this film’s major stars checks out so quickly, we scarcely have time to register the individual’s presence.

Three-quarters of the way into this debacle, somebody finally does something heroic. And then there’s an act of noble self-sacrifice, and for a moment — just a fleeting moment, but still — we actually care. A teeny-weeny bit.

Prior to that…

First Man: A troubled landing

First Man (2018) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, and too harshly, for dramatic intensity and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.12.18

Director Damien Chazelle and screenwriter Josh Singer jump into their film with an edge-of-the-seat sequence: the highest of solo pilot Neil Armstrong’s numerous test flights in the X-15 rocket airplane.

While Janet Armstrong (Claire Foy) putters in the kitchen, her husband Neil (Ryan Gosling)
and their elder son Rick (Gavin Warren) work on a jigsaw puzzle during a rare moment
of family bonding, unaware that a phone call is about to bring disturbing news.

It’s a savagely cut cacophony of images: the shuddering and jouncing aircraft; the roar of the rocket engines that blast Armstrong (Ryan Gosling) up to 207,500 feet; similarly jittery close-ups on his determined expression.

And then utter silence, as the engines switch off (intentionally) ,and Armstrong gets a panoramic view of the blue globe below, against the dark-night contrast at the edge of space.

Totally, amazingly breathtaking.

But that’s just the preamble. Armstrong’s return to Earth goes awry when the X-15 begins to “bounce” off the upper atmosphere, sending him even higher into the mesosphere above. Utter chaos, as he tries to compensate while mentally plotting a new landing spot, having zoomed past the planned touchdown at Edwards Air Force Base.

Like, wow.

First Man is laden with sequences even superior to this one, given a degree of verisimilitude — by visual effects supervisor Paul Lambert — wholly on par with the we-are-there reality viewers experienced while watching 2013’s Gravity. It becomes clear that Armstrong had more lives than a cat, and also possessed seat-of-the-pants math and physics calculating skills that made him just this side of a walking computer. (A good thing, too, given the limitations of 1960s mainframes.)

If only this film’s quieter moments were handled as well.

Singer’s script is adapted from James R. Hansen’s 2005 best-seller, First Man: The Life of Neil A. Armstrong, the pilot/astronaut’s only official biography. The film’s intimate “family” element takes place in between stunning piloting events that could be considered myth, were the details not so well known: the aforementioned 1962 X-15 flight, the 1966 Gemini 8 crisis, the 1968 mishap with one of the Earthbound Lunar Lander Research Vehicles, and — the reason for this film’s existence — the 1969 Apollo 11 mission.

Considerable time is spent with Armstrong’s home life, particularly early on, as he and his wife Janet (Claire Foy) agonize over the final months of their 2-year-old daughter, Karen, who died while being treated for a malignant tumor at the base of her brain stem. This is a lot to take in, so quickly, and explanations are minimal. 

The presentation of this chapter establishes the style Chazelle and cinematographer Linus Sandgren use throughout the film: lots of tight close-ups and jiggle-cam tracking shots, like one would expect from home movies. This suggests documentary-style authenticity — which Chazelle likely intended — but it also assumes considerable pre-existing knowledge of the part of the viewer, and repeatedly leaves questions unanswered.

I got a sense, heightened as the film continued, that this 141-minute drama has been distilled from a longer director’s edit. Details are left unexplained; scenes cut abruptly to unrelated events.

Manchester by the Sea: Drowning in an ocean of grief

Manchester by the Sea (2016) • View trailer 
Five stars. Rated R, for profanity and sexual candor
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.2.16

Some films are constructed so beautifully, and lensed so crisply, that they seem to glow. Life of Pi is a recent example, and it brought cinematographer Claudio Miranda a well-deserved Academy Award.

After being brought back to his home town by the sudden death of his brother, Lee (Casey
Affleck, left) is left with the question of what to do about his now parentless teenage
nephew, Patrick (Lucas Hedges).

Manchester by the Sea has the same radiant allure, its northern Massachusetts fishing village setting portrayed with such luxurious sparkle that it literally feels like heaven on Earth. Cinematographer Jody Lee Lipes deserves equal recognition, come Oscar time.

The same can be said for just about everybody connected with this poignant drama. This luxurious, rustic setting is juxtaposed against star Casey Affleck’s heartbreakingly persuasive, all-encompassing depiction of grief. This is one of those assignments that transcends acting; within 10 or 15 minutes, we simply accept the fact that Affleck is Lee Chandler, an estranged native son brought back to his hometown under tragic circumstances.

Writer/director Kenneth Lonergan has an ear for the way people actually talk to each other: true conversation, which often erupts in short-tempered bursts, as opposed to the carefully sculpted “movie talk” that generally passes for dialogue. He’s a methodical and unhurried filmmaker; this is only his third big-screen feature, beginning with 2000’s similarly impressive You Can Count on Me, with Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo shining in the poignant saga of a woman’s awkward reunion with her younger brother.

It has become clear, with time, that Lonergan is adept at coaxing superlative, quietly lifelike performances from his stars. Affleck is by far the standout here, but he’s in good company; co-stars Lucas Hedges, Michelle Williams and Kyle Chandler complete the core ensemble, together enacting a story that illustrates the crippling, pervasive impact of guilt and anguish.

We meet Lee during his daily routine as a Boston-based janitor, solemnly dealing with clogged toilets, recalcitrant radiators and persnickety light fixtures. Some of the lonely tenants in question welcome his presence; others flirt awkwardly; still others are rude. Lee is uniformly stoic, to the point of appearing discourteous; we initially wonder if he’s on the spectrum, unable to properly process social niceties.

But then we realize no, it’s more a case of a man lost in a swamp of despair, and no longer able to navigate. Affleck moves with uncertainty, as if worried that the very ground might trick him into placing a foot wrong. His sleepy eyes fail to register friendly overtures, as if he’s perpetually stoned, yet he takes no drugs. He does, however, drown the remnants of a gray day with a few too many beers at the local tavern, at which point he may become a short-fused, belligerent drunk: picking fights as a means of securing a punishing beat-down.

All of this emerges in a deft, superbly assembled introductory montage; Lonergan is a master of small, character-establishing details.

Carol: Nothing to sing about

Carol (2015) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated R, for nudity and intimate sexuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.15.16

Intimate dramas work best when we understand and empathize with the primary characters: when we feel like we know them.

Even during their first meeting, Therese (Rooney Mara, left) can't help noticing the
smoldering, come-hither gaze that Carol (Cate Blanchett) delivers with a shameless
lack of subtlety.

Despite the scrupulous care with which director Todd Haynes has assembled his new film, it’s almost impossible to become involved with the storyline. The narrative is slow, the tone is sweepingly luxurious, and the performances are overstated: all intentional, since Haynes is imitating the opulent 1950s melodramas made by director Douglas Sirk (Magnificent Obsession, Written on the Wind, Imitation of Life and many others).

Which would be fine, if playwright Phyllis Nagy had done a better job with her adaptation of The Price of Salt, the Patricia Highsmith novel on which this film is based.

Granted, Cate Blanchett delivers another of her carefully sculpted performances as protagonist Carol Aird (although I’d argue that Blanchett did the “anguished socialite” shtick much better in Woody Allen’s Blue Jasmine).

But despite the film’s title, Carol isn’t the most important character in this story, as Highsmith made abundantly clear in her novel. That would be the younger Therese Belivet, who remains an utter cipher as portrayed by co-star Rooney Mara. It’s not entirely her fault; she hits the higher emotional notes reasonably well. But Mara’s Therese has too much “down time,” when she simply stares vacantly toward the camera, as if waiting for Haynes’ next instruction.

More to the point, we know nothing about Therese: her background, the reason she’s so arbitrarily bitchy toward longtime boyfriend Richard (Jake Lacy, who does his best in a thankless role), or — most crucially — why she’s so suddenly infatuated with Carol. We get none of the essential back-story present in Highsmith’s novel.

OK, fine; Therese is trying to “find herself.” But that isn’t good enough; Mara doesn’t sell her half of the dynamic, and therefore the entire film sinks beneath the weight of its own flamboyantly breathy ambiance.

The Wolf of Wall Street: A howling disappointment

The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) • View trailer 
Two stars. Rating: R, for strong sexual content, graphic nudity, pervasive profanity and drug use, and some violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.31.13

Boobs, blow and bad language.

That’s my takeaway, from the 180 minutes I wasted — nay, endured — while watching The Wolf of Wall Street.

This is where Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) feels the most comfortable, and the
most powerful: at the microphone in front of his troops at Stratton Oakmont, preparing
to deliver another do-or-die speech designed to encourage everybody to hit the
phones and fleece ever more working-class suckers out of their hard-earned savings.

Root-canal surgery would have been less painful.

Director Martin Scorsese and star Leonardo DiCaprio have made beautiful music on numerous occasions, but this symphony of wretched excess plays more like a botched rehearsal.

There isn’t more than 20 minutes’ worth of actual narrative in Terence Winter’s sloppy excuse for a screenplay. Indeed, this plays like the parody sketch Saturday Night Live might have made of a much better movie ... or, perhaps, the Mad Magazine take on far superior material.

Great, expansive chunks of this bewildering project could have come from the improvisational, goof-laden antics of a Seth Rogen/Judd Apatow farce. Pointless exchanges of inane, profanity-laden, frat boy “dialogue” go on and on and on and on. Our stars seem to make stuff up from one scene to the next, pretending that frenzied hysteria is some reasonable substitute for actual acting, with Scorsese apparently content to let the camera roll.

That sort of babbling slapstick nonsense wears thin very quickly ... and yet it continues for what seems an eternity.

I want those three hours of my life back.

Winter’s script is adapted from Jordan Belfort’s 2007 “memoir” of the same title, a book that can be called laughably unreliable at best, perniciously self-aggrandizing at worst. Belfort was yet another opportunistic Wall Street swindler who made the most of the high-flying 1990s, largely by defrauding investors with penny stocks via the “prestigious” brokerage firm front of Stratton Oakmont.

He was indicted for securities fraud and money laundering in 1998, investors having lost somewhere north of $200 million. Belfort served just shy of two years in federal prison, then re-invented himself as a “motivational speaker” and wrote the aforementioned book — and a sequel, Catching the Wolf of Wall Street — mostly to revel in the notoriously bad behavior he and his colleagues enjoyed while fleecing the unwary.

Actually, he’s the perfect egotistical show-off for the share-all Facebook generation.

The Spectacular Now: Dangerous Liaison

The Spectacular Now (2013) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rating: R, for profanity, alcohol abuse and some sensuality, all involving teens
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 8.23.13

We must be our own best advocates.

It’s a difficult, often bitter lesson. Sometimes we get lucky, and somebody comes along who believes in us wholeheartedly, unreservedly.

Aimee (Shailene Woodley), never having enjoyed the thrill of romance, falls heavily in
love with Sutter (Miles Teller), despite knowing full well that he's bad news. Indeed,
everybody in school knows about Sutter's self-destructive tendencies. The question,
then: When he goes down in flames, will he take her with him?

Sometimes that isn’t enough.

At first blush, 18-year-old Sutter Keely (Miles Teller) seems the life of every party: vibrant, good-natured, aggressively spontaneous. He enjoys a relationship with Cassidy (Brie Larson), one of the most popular girls in their high school; they’ve obviously been intimate for awhile.

But Sutter’s glad-handing exterior masks uncharted depths of pain and uncertainty that he has absolutely no desire to confront. He’s a smart kid who doesn’t bother to study, much to the dismay of a concerned math teacher (Andre Royo). Sutter is left on his own too much, because his single mother (Jennifer Jason Leigh, as Sara) often works double-shifts just to keep a roof over their heads.

And Sutter drinks. Far too much, far too often. He is, in fact, a teen alcoholic, rarely seen without the shiny hip flask that he regards as a badge of ultra-coolness. He’s cheerfully on the fast-track to nowhere, a road he has traveled for several years. Doesn’t bother him a bit: If confronted, he smiles broadly and extols the virtues of living solely for the moment, for the “spectacular now.”

Screenwriters Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, who did such a marvelous job with 2009’s (500) Days of Summer — their own original script — have done some equally sensitive work with this adaptation of Tim Tharp’s 2008 novel.

The Spectacular Now stars off as a hip, flip teen saga, displaying the raunchy language and earthy behavior we’d expect from something shallow like the American Pie franchise ... but that similarity fades quickly. Sutter Keely is badly damaged goods, and Teller throws himself into the role with a reckless abandon that his character would recognize.

Before we know it, director James Ponsoldt has taken us into dangerous waters; we realize that things can’t end well. The only question is how much collateral damage will be involved.

Zero Dark Thirty: The ultimate manhunt

Zero Dark Thirty (2012) • View trailer
4.5 stars. Rating: R, for considerable violence, torture and profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 1.11.13

Osama bin Laden was executed on May 2, 2011. Given the realities of Hollywood development time, production and post-production work, this film’s arrival in the waning days of 2012 is nothing short of remarkable.

When the SEAL mission finally comes together, Maya (Jessica Chastain) scarcely can
believe it. All her years of research, and of trying to persuade CIA superiors that she
really might have a lead on Osama bin Laden's location ... and now her work may
bear fruit. Or has she been pursuing a useless lead all this time?

That the result is this riveting, is icing on the cake.

It’s easy to understand why director Kathryn Bigelow and writer Mark Boal would select this project as a follow-up to their Oscar-laden triumph with 2009’s The Hurt Locker. Although lacking that film’s nail-biting intensity, Zero Dark Thirty carries the same suspenseful atmosphere of docu-drama verisimilitude. Given the topic, American audiences also can’t help experiencing more than a little cathartic exhilaration.

Unseemly or not, it’s hard to resist the impulse for an exultant “Hell, yeah!” as we hit the story’s payoff.

Despite the perception that fact-based, politics-laden “procedural thrillers” (for want of a better term) are box-office poison, we’ve recently been gifted with two crackling efforts: this one and Argo. Both manage the impressive feat of generating tension and building to exciting climaxes, despite our knowing the respective stories’ outcomes long before entering the theater.

That’s no small thing. Scripter William Goldman’s handling of 1976’s All the President’s Men remains the superlative template for depicting dull-as-dirt research work in a manner that becomes not just fascinating, but downright compelling; Boal obviously took its lessons to heart. Zero Dark Thirty spends a great deal of time watching a lone CIA analyst beat her head against a vague investigative wall, yet these efforts never seem dull or repetitive.

In part, that’s because we know the stakes involved from recent history, and we’re genuinely curious to learn more about what went into this impressively successful covert operation: how the key pieces of information were determined and then properly analyzed. And if Boal takes some dramatic license along the way, well, that’s fine; cinema places its own unique requirements on narrative flow, not the least of which is building our emotional involvement with these characters.

Which brings us to the best weapon in Bigelow’s capable filmmaking arsenal: star Jessica Chastain. As the CIA analyst in question, she drives this story with — by turns — calm intelligence and righteous fury. She’s never less than wholly persuasive, whether cycling grimly through surveillance footage or standing up to overly cautious superiors too concerned about their political reputations.

Even Chastain’s quiet moments are laden with emotional depth, when she sinks, exhausted, into the austere quarters that have become “home.” We understand that this woman has no true home: no family, no friends, no lovers. Nothing but The Mission.

Super 8: Plenty of pizzazz

Super 8 (2011) • View trailer for Super 8
Four stars. Rating: PG-13, for action violence, dramatic intensity and grody monster behavior
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 6.10.11


This film reminds me how much I’ve missed the family-friendly action/suspense flicks of the 1980s, which introduced an entire generation of young stars to movie fans: The Goonies, Poltergeist, the prologue of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (the “young Indie” sequence, with River Phoenix), The Lost Boys, Fright Night and — most particularly — E.T.

And you thought your day was going badly? All heck is breaking loose in the
small Ohio town where our young heroes — from left, Martin (Gabriel Basso),
Cary (Ryan Lee), Joe (Joel Courtney) and Charles (Riley Griffiths) — have
been trying to make an amateur zombie movie. They're about to discover
something far worse than even their imaginations can concoct.

Super 8 plays like an energetic cross between E.T. and The Goonies, and I mean that in all the best ways. I’d expect no less from producer Steven Spielberg and writer/director J.J. Abrams, who make a great team. To a degree, Abrams has re-visited his “unseen monster on the loose” concept from Cloverfield, but (thankfully!) absent the irritating, jiggly video verité point-of-view that ruined an otherwise nifty little film.

Spielberg’s touch as producer was present on some of the above-named thrill rides; he’s clearly able to help bring out the best in other directors. The same is true here, with a nifty premise that hits the ground running and maintains a palpable level of suspense, while allowing sufficient time to explore the key characters and their varied relationships.

And while our heroes are (for the most part) middle-school nerds, their savvy doesn’t come at the expense of adults who behave like boobs. The principal grown-ups here are just as resourceful, when necessary ... and there’s a whole lotta “necessary” populating Abrams’ cheeky, mildly retro script.

Two things to bear in mind:

First, this is a very loud film. The premise demands plenty of crashing, smashing and heavy gunfire, and sound effects editors David Acord and Dustin Cawood, and supervising sound editor Matthew Wood, definitely earn their paychecks. Given a theater with a well-tuned sound system — as was the case at Tuesday evening’s Sacramento preview — this flick will leave you wide-eyed and breathless.

Second, the PG-13 rating is deserved. The occasional shocks and jolts are on par with the severed head that unexpectedly bobbed into view, back in the day, during an underwater search in Spielberg’s Jaws. Since the whatzis is this story is large and carnivorous, draw the logical conclusions and be prepared accordingly.

Abrams opens his story with a doleful prologue, as young Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney) has just lost his mother to a freak workplace accident: a sequence handled with poignant subtlety. The loss also is felt keenly by Joe’s father, Jackson (Kyle Chandler, familiar from TV’s Friday Night Lights), who works as one of the town deputies. For reasons not immediately made clear to us — or Joe — Jackson blames Louis Dainard (Ron Eldard) for the accident. To makes matters worse, Jackson is a distant father at best, and their shared loss further strains the dysfunctional family dynamic.

Four months then pass, putting Joe and his friends at the beginning of summer vacation. The small gang takes its marching orders from Charles (Riley Griffiths), who serves as director on an amateur zombie horror flick they’ve been making with his Super 8 camera. Joe handles make-up, model work and occasional script tightening; Cary (Ryan Lee), something of a nascent firebug, takes care of explosives and pyrotechnics; Martin (Gabriel Basso), the tallest and most mature-looking, is the primary star; and Preston (Zach Mills) does anything else that needs doing.