Dune: Epic sci-fi storytelling

Dune (2021) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, and somewhat generously, for considerable violence, disturbing images and dramatic intensity

Available via: Movie theaters and (until November 21) HBO Max

By Derrick Bang

This film’s final line of dialogue, spoken with a soft smile and the hint of promise by a key character: “This is only the beginning.”

 

Deliberate irony, I’m sure, on the part of director Denis Villeneuve.

 

With seconds to spare before a massive sandworm erupts to the desert surface, Gurney
Halleck (Josh Brolin, left) drags Paul (Timothée Chalamet) onto their ornithopter, just
as the aircraft takes off.

Folks wondering how Frank Herbert’s complex 1965 novel could be condensed into a 155-minute movie need wonder no longer. Misleading publicity notwithstanding, this actually is Dune: Part One … with the second half likely several years away.

From what I recall — the read was decades ago — Villeneuve and co-scripters Jon Spaihts and Eric Roth get slightly more than halfway into Herbert’s chunky book. In fairness, the breakpoint is logical — more or less where Herbert divided the two portions of his novel — and the film’s conclusion is reasonably satisfying.

 

But let’s just say that about 17 chads are left hanging. Resolution ain’t in the cards. Not yet.

 

That aside, Villeneuve’s always engaging film is a breathtaking display of sci-fi world-building: absolutely an honorable adaptation of Herbert’s blend of future-dreaming, socio-political commentary and (for its time) ground-breaking eco-fiction.

 

Dune has, practically since publication, been the great white whale of filmmakers. Surrealistic Chilean-French filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky spent three years, in the mid-1970s, trying to mount an adaptation that would have starred David Carradine and Salvador Dali(!), with music by Pink Floyd (!!); the project finally collapsed when backers bolted over the rising budget. 

 

David Lynch’s misbegotten effort, deservedly loathed by fans and critics, did make it to the screen in 1984 (and more’s the pity).

 

The 2000 TV miniseries isn’t bad; it also isn’t very good.

 

Neither holds a candle to the bravura work by Villeneuve and the massive, massive crew that brought this vision to the screen. This is true sense-of-wonder moviemaking.

 

For all its merits, Herbert’s novel is a slog at times, burdened by didactic passages and tediously descriptive prose. This film’s greatest achievement — scripters, take a bow — is the distillation of such stuff: retaining just enough to highlight the essential plot points and narrative beats, while simultaneously juicing up dramatic tension.

 

That makes this film frequently exciting: something that’s rarely true of Herbert’s novel. Villeneuve and editor Joe Walker move things along at a suspenseful clip, and matters almost never flag. (This can’t be said of Villeneuve’s previous film, Blade Runner 2049, which — despite its many merits — is hampered by far too many dull stretches of Nothing Much Happens).

 

With Dune finally realized so marvelously on the big screen, one can readily see — as just the most obviously example — how much this story influenced George Lucas.

The Addams Family 2: Insufficiently ookie

The Addams Family 2 (2021) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated PG, for macabre and rude humor

Available via: Movie theaters and streaming services

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 10.01.21

I sometimes wonder what Charles Addams would think, about how his macabre characters have been re-invented in the 21st century.

 

Morticia and Gomez, center, are horrified by what their son Pugsley has done to one
of our nation's natural wonders; daughter Wednesday is simply bored.

According to his official biographer, Linda H. Davis, he was “up and down” about the 1960s TV sitcom; he “enjoyed what it did for his earning power, but said the characters were ‘half as evil.’ ”

Bearing that in mind, regardless of his reaction to this New Age-style animation, he’d likely be unhappy over the way parents Gomez and Morticia — in particular — have been softened in this sequel. There’s scarcely an evil glance between them, let alone any sort of malevolent behavior. Indeed, Gomez (voiced by Oscar Isaac) spends the entire film fretting over the fact that daughter Wednesday (Chloë Grace Moretz) has adopted the aloofness of teenagehood, and prefers to be left alone.

 

Morticia (Charlize Theron) insists this is just a phase, but Gomez feels that desperate measures must be taken. His solution: a road trip across the United States, so the family can wreak all manner of havoc at — in sequence — Niagara Falls, Sleepy Hollow (an apt choice), Miami, San Antonio, the Alamo, the Grand Canyon, Death Valley and — of all places — Sausalito.

 

Ergo, poor Lurch (Conrad Vernon) must haul a mountain of luggage into the family’s haunted camper, and — with Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll) also crammed inside — they take off to see the country.

 

Wednesday’s younger brother Pugsley (Javon Walton) still loves to blow up stuff, and his expression — at least — often radiates wicked glee. And, yes; Wednesday’s arcane experiments, stylized weapons and booby traps often are at poor Pugsley’s expense; she loves to torture him, and (of course) he enjoys it.

 

Wednesday’s stoic somberness, in both animated expression and Moretz’s voice, is the film’s best running gag; she remains impassive no matter what manner of mayhem erupts around her (which she often generates).

The Oscar Shorts: Big stories in small packages

The Oscar Shorts (2020) • View trailer

Four stars. Not rated, but not advised for young viewers, due to dramatic intensity, violence and profanity

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.2.21

This year’s crop of Academy Award-nominated live-action short subjects is impressively robust.

 

The animated nominees are … impressively uneven.

 

Let’s start with the live-action entries, all of which (no surprise) are variations on the themes of racism and tolerance.

 

Writer/director Doug Roland’s Feeling Through, set in New York, opens late one night as teenage Tereek (Steven Prescod) seeks a place to crash. He’s aimless, rootless, perhaps only one impulsive act away from winding up on the wrong side of the law.

 

But his immediate problem — where to sleep — fades due to a chance encounter with Artie (Robert Tarango), an amiable deaf-blind man who needs an assist in finding the correct bus to take him home. (Why such a vulnerable individual would be wandering New York’s mean streets alone, late at night, is something we can’t worry about; this is a parable.)

 

As Roland develops this heartwarming tale, we’re reminded anew that — often — the best way to help yourself, is to help somebody else.

 

High-profile casting is the first thing noticed about writer/director Elvira Lind’s The Letter Room. Oscar Isaac — one of our newest Star Wars champions, among many other roles — stars as Richard, an empathetic corrections officer recently transferred to the mail room in a maximum security prison.

 

All incoming and outgoing letters must be scanned and scrutinized. Richard, who lives alone, soon becomes captivated by the warm and sensitive letters written by a woman (Alia Shawkat) to one of the prisoners on Death Row … who never writes her back. This seems grievously unfair to Richard, particularly since another of the Death Row prisoners pines for letters he never receives. 

 

Isaac’s performance is a masterpiece of subtlety and silence, as this inherently kind and uncomplicated man struggles to make peace with his new role.

Star Wars, Episode IX — The Rise of Skywalker: Breathless adventure

Star Wars, Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for sci-fi action and violence, and dramatic intensity
By Derrick Bang

I’ve no doubt fans will be dazzled by this long-awaited concluding chapter in George Lucas’ original nine-part serial — how could they not be? — but this film will resonate even more strongly with those who were between the ages of 8 and 25 back when the original Star Wars debuted in May 1977.

With the remnants of the massive Death Star II towering against the pounding waves of
an oceanic moon, young Jedi Knight Rey (Daisy ridley, left) and the evil Kylo Ren
(Adam Driver) duel to the death with their light-sabers.

The sense of closure here will be far more emotionally powerful for that group. 

One generation of Harry Potter fans grew up with the books (1997-07) and subsequent films (2001-11), but followers of The Force have lived with these characters for 42 years. For those folks, the dramatic impact of this new film’s final 15 minutes defies easy discussion. Suffice it to say, we get laughter, tears, anxiety, relief, regret and — most crucially — satisfaction.

Along with the knowledge — bottom lines being what they are — that we certainly haven’t seen the last of this galaxy far, far away (as the new Disney streaming service’s The Mandalorian demonstrates).

Getting to this film’s finale, however, is almost too much to endure at times. Goodness, but our heroes suffer!

Director J.J. Abrams wisely plays to the faithful with this ninth “original series” installment, following the pell-mell serial format that Lucas established four decades ago. The best Star Wars entries always have relied on the “divide and conquer” approach, sending individual characters on crucial sidebar missions, while the core plotline inexorably advances toward an appalling outcome. This prompts cross-cutting between events, simultaneously building suspense in numerous directions.

We hit the ground running, as always, and the pace remains frantic. Everything is propelled by John Williams’ exciting orchestral score, blending long-familiar character themes with plenty of fresh cues.

Our current heroes — led primarily by apprentice Jedi Rey (Daisy Ridley), reformed mercenary Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac), and former First Order Stormtrooper-turned-good guy Finn (John Boyega) — learn that, horror of horrors, the “defeated” Galactic Empire’s evil-evil-evil Emperor Palpatine (Ian McDiarmid, returning to the role) still lives. Whether clone or spirit resurrected by foul Sith magic, the result is the same: Palpatine intends to resume his plan to dominate the universe.

To that end, he has overseen the construction of a massive fleet of First Order warships equipped with planet-killing cannons. Any world unwilling to be dominated … will be obliterated.

The Addams Family: Appropriately ookie and spooky

The Addams Family (2019) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated PG, for macabre and suggestive humor
By Derrick Bang

This new Addams Family film definitely catches the vibe that cartoonist Charles Addams established so well, during a run that lasted from 1938 to his death in ’88.

Then again … not entirely.

Newly arrived in the postcard-perfect community that has been built in the lowland beneath
their dilapidated hilltop mansion, the Addams Family — from left, Morticia, Wednesday,
Gomez, Pugsley and Uncle Fester — prepare to greet their neighbors in their own
inimitable fashion.

These animated Addamses certainlylookright; directors Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon have faithfully followed the character template established within so many magazine covers and single-panel New Yorker cartoons. The resulting film moves along at a brisk, gag-laden clip; Tiernan, Vernon and editors Kevin Pavlovic and David Ian Salter pack their 87-minute romp with plenty of entertainment. I’ve no doubt today’s audiences will find it gleeful good fun.

And yet … scripters Matt Lieberman, Pamela Pettler and Erica Rivinoja have made a major change that would have prompted a frown from dear ol’ Charles, were he still with us. His cartoons always derived their humor from what dire deed was about to take place, generally executed by the gleefully macabre children, Wednesday and Pugsley; our imaginations filled in what would happen in the next few seconds, thereby making us collaborators in the punch line.

This film, in great contrast, too frequently completes the gag: often at the expense of poor Uncle Fester. Wednesday’s casually aimed arrows repeatedly penetrate his flesh, in a manner more reminiscent of Kenny’s recurring deaths, in television’s South Park. Many would excuse this as the dictates of modern humor, but I lament the absence of subtlety … particularly because subtlety — even if gruesome — was Charles Addams’ forté.

But times change, and it’s not really fair to judge this film by standards dated by more than half a century. Particularly because Lieberman, Pettler and Rivinoja have concocted a story quite decidedly Addams-esque, while taking a few cheeky digs at contemporary real-world behavior. 

It’s impossible to make too much fun of the narcissistic social media generation. On top of which, this film takes some perceptive shots at the gullibility of small-minded adults too easily swayed by libelous tweets and emails (a message likely overlooked by guilty parties who’d never, for a moment, think they behaved like that).

A brief prologue follows the nuptials that unite Gomez (voiced by Oscar Isaac) and Morticia (Charlize Theron) in unholy matrimony, after which they and all their bizarre friends and relations are driven away by angry/terrified “normal” townsfolk. Gomez and Morticia wind up at a mansion-esque, long-deserted asylum that comes with a vengeful resident ghost and hulking, shambling lunatic; the latter becomes their butler, Lurch (Vernon), when they turn this “perfect” estate into a happy home.

Life Itself: Should be put out of its misery

Life Itself (2018) • View trailer 
One star. Rated R, for profanity, dramatic intensity, relentless heartbreak and brief drug use
By Derrick Bang

This is the most relentlessly, manipulatively, cruelly depressing film I’ve ever had the displeasure to endure.

Abby (Olivia Wilde) and Will (Oscar Isaac) linger in bed with their beloved little pooch,
convinced that every morning — every day — will be as giddily, lovingly happy as this
one. Obviously, they haven't read the next page in this unspeakable film's script.

Writer/director Dan Fogelman obviously had some serious demons to exorcise, but that’s no excuse; he could have poured his heart into a journal, and spared the rest of us this soul-numbing slog of gloom and despair.

It’s also counter to what we’ve come to expect from the writer who brought us droll, sharply observed ensemble dramedies such as Crazy Stupid Love, Danny Collins (which he also directed) and the ongoing TV series This Is Us, not to mention Tangled, his clever animated take on the fairy tale Rapunzel. This has been a go-to guy for guaranteed entertainment for more than a decade.

What the hell happened?

And what in the world made Amazon Studios think people would want to watch this?

As becomes clear immediately, Life Itself also suffers from obnoxiously contrived structural and presentation tics, any one of which seasoned filmgoers generally recognize as a signal of Bad Things To Come: 1) tedious, said-bookism narration; 2) cutesy “chapter titles”; and 3) far too much time spent in a psychiatrist’s office.

At times, this is a deliberate deconstruction of cinema’s traditional storytelling process, in service of a running subtext concerning a fictional device known as the “unreliable narrator.” Hitchcock employs this quite notoriously in Stage Fright, when the “flashbacks” related by Richard Todd’s character turn out to be lies. More recently, The Usual Suspects tricked us grandly with an unreliable narrator.

But Fogelman’s use of this gimmick isn’t clever; it’s simply mean-spirited, as if he derives some sort of sadistic pleasure from shattering not only our expectations, but the investment we have in a blossoming series of captivating characters. By the end of the first “chapter,” the message becomes clear: Neither Fogelman, nor this film, can — or should — be trusted.

His apparent point: Life, itself, is the ultimate unreliable narrator, because just when things seem to be going wonderfully, true happiness can be shattered by tragedy.

Okay, fine … but must that happen over, and over, and over again, in the same dreary slice of rancid cinematic pie?

Operation Finale: A taut, fact-based espionage drama

Operation Finale (2018) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity, violence, highly disturbing content and occasional profanity
By Derrick Bang

The scariest monsters are the ones who look and act completely normal.

Say, like the kindly retired gentleman who lives next door, and often can be found in his garage, putting the finishing touches on a wood-working project. When it turns out that he’s a serial killer living under an alias, wanted in seven other states for the murders of at least 15 people, his neighbors shake their heads and — if interviewed for the local news — say “We had no idea.”

Peter Malkin (Oscar Isaac, left) believes that he can manipulate Adolf Eichmann
(Ben Kingsley) into cooperating with the Mossad abduction team ... but they're likely
underestimating their captive's guile.

And then lie awake at night, eyes wide open, shivering over the possibility that he might have come in their window.

Ben Kingsley plays just such an individual in Operation Finale, and his performance is just as chilling — just as rationally, seductively evil — as Anthony Hopkins’ Dr. Hannibal Lecter, in 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs.

The difference — which makes Kingsley’s performance even more frightening — is that he plays an actual historical figure: Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust.

Operation Finale is director Chris Weitz’s thoroughly absorbing depiction of the clandestine 1960 Mossad mission that tracked Eichmann to an industrial community in Buenos Aires, where he had been living under the alias “Ricardo Klement” since 1950. Because Argentina had a well-established history of refusing extradition requests for Nazi war criminals — which had enabled a sizable community of expat Nazis to continue espousing their genocidal Aryan philosophies — the decision was made to kidnap Eichmann, in order to bring him to trial in Israel.

Scripter Matthew Orton’s narrative focuses on Peter Malkin (Oscar Isaac), one of the eight operatives sent to snatch Eichmann, under the supervision of Mossad director Isser Harel (Lior Raz). Thanks to the Mossad’s 2012 decision to finally reveal details of the operation — and with access to Malkin’s 1990 memoir, Eichmann in My Hands — Orton’s script is able to depict details accurately, while also identifying many of the actual Israeli participants.

The result is a riveting espionage drama with the immediacy of a documentary, and the edge-of-the-seat suspense of a Hollywood thriller.

Isaac’s Peter, in his early 30s and already a veteran Mossad agent, is an outwardly affable individual who’s quick with a wry quip. But the ready smile on Peter’s face does not rise to his eyes, which often are dark with grief. He suffers frequent nightmares — we view them as flashbacks, each revealing a bit more than its predecessor — of precisely how his beloved sister Fruma and her three children perished during the Holocaust. Not knowing is almost worse than the loss itself.

He therefore protests, at least initially, when he’s asked to join the Argentinean assignment by good friend and fellow Mossad agent Rafi Eitan (Nick Kroll). Peter would rather execute the man and be done with it; Harel and Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion (Simon Russell Beale) insist that putting Eichmann through a very public trial would be far, far better.

Peter therefore spends most of the film in a deeply troubled state, Isaac deftly conveying the turmoil that digs at the man’s soul. It’s a persuasive performance, given the degree to which Isaac is able to put us into Peter’s head, and allow us to understand his motivations. And fears.

Annihilation: Slow death

Annihilation (2018) • View trailer 
3.5 stars. Rated R, for violence, gore, profanity and sexuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.23.18

Some say the world will end in fire; some say in ice.

Author/editor/literary critic Jeff VanderMeer apparently prefers cellular madness.

After narrowly surviving an encounter with an unexpectedly oversized alligator, cellular
biologist Lena (Natalie Portman) is disturbed to find that its mouth contains far too
many rows of teeth.

His Nebula Award-winning 2014 novel, Annihilation, is — to say the least — a challenging but thoroughly fascinating read.

Director/scripter Alex Garland’s big-screen adaptation is thoughtful, absorbing, unsettling and even scary. For a time.

Unfortunately, he lets everything go to hell in the third act. And I don’t mean that in a positive way.

Certain science fiction films suffer from this problem: a terrific premise and suspenseful development, with — ultimately — nowhere to go. Garland’s take on Annihilation reminds me strongly of 1974’s Phase IV, a low-budget little flick that began with a similarly captivating premise but concluded with a nonsensically metaphysical climax (literally) that only could have been concocted by somebody on mind-altering substances.

The major problem here is that Garland was hell-bent on delivering a resolution that’s wholly at odds with VanderMeer’s novel ... which is only the first book in a trilogy. Garland’s “solution” to this dilemma isn’t merely unsatisfying; it makes total hash of what takes place during the first two acts.

Garland is best known as the writer/director behind 2014’s brilliant Ex Machina, a deliciously unsettling sci-fi saga that holds together superbly, up to a disturbing final scene that perfectly enhances everything that has come before. Too bad he couldn’t bring that rigorous logic and plot coherence to this one.

Former soldier-turned-cellular biologist Lena (Natalie Portman) has mourned the loss of her husband, Kane (Oscar Isaac), for a full year. Flashbacks and passing remarks reveal that he’s active military, subject to abrupt special-ops missions that he’s not able to share with his wife. Now long missing after having deployed on ... something ... Lena reluctantly believes him dead.

Until he turns up in their bedroom one day, disoriented and with no apparent memory of how he got there, or where he has been, or who he was with, or ... anything.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi — Galaxy-spanning excitement

Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for intense sci-fi action and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.15.17

The newest installment in the Star Wars franchise certainly doesn’t lack ambition.

At 152 minutes, The Last Jedi is by far the longest chapter in George Lucas’ originally conceived three-trilogy ennealogy. (I had to look that one up.)

Having been sent on a desperate mission to the obscenely opulent gambling planet of
Canto Bight, Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) and Finn (John Boyega) have decidedly different
views on how to locate their quarry.

It’s also the grimmest, with an emphasis on the word “Wars” that echoes last year’s Rogue One. The middle chapter of a trilogy inevitably is the most dire, as was established in 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back. This new film’s solely credited writer/director, Rian Johnson, clearly took that precedent seriously. We hit the ground running, with few pauses for breath.

But they’re important pauses. Johnson understands the value of dramatic highs and lows, and — most crucially — of leavening dire doings with well-timed dollops of humor.

When last we left our various heroes, the Nazi-esque First Order — having risen from the ashes of the evil Galactic Empire — was eradicating the peaceful New Republic, world by world. Aside from wishing to dominate the universe, the evil Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis) employed the Darth Vader-esque Kylo Ren (Adam Driver) to seek out and destroy all traces of the Jedi order.

The plucky Rey (Daisy Ridley), imbued with the mysterious Force, has journeyed to the remote oceanic planet Ahch-To, in order to find and train with the long missing Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill). Former Stormtrooper-turned-good guy Finn (John Boyega), badly injured during a lightsaber battle with Kylo Ren, lies comatose in a medical stasis bed. Impetuous pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) and his faithful droid, BB-8, joined the Resistance forces commanded by Gen. Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher), as they celebrated the destruction of First Order’s massive Starkiller Base.

If all this seems a voluminous information dump, it’s merely the tip of the iceberg; subplots and sidebar characters reference everything back to 1977’s very first film. Four decades later, it’s extremely difficult for new viewers to jump into this saga, and even longtime fans may need an Internet refresher course.

(This being the era of binge viewing, I suppose the tried-and-true are expected to power-watch the previous seven films before embracing this one. That’s asking a bit much.)

Suburbicon: It's a con, all right

Suburbicon (2017) • View trailer 
One star. Rated R, for violence, profanity and sexuality
By Derrick Bang

Bad movies prompt all manner of conversational snorts and giggles, while heading home and often well into the following day.

Gardner (Matt Damon) and his sister-in-law, Margaret (Julianne Moore), react in stunned
silence to the newest ludicrous indignity inflicted upon their family.

Really bad movies leave us in stunned silence, unable to process the why and how such a travesty could have survived the lengthy vetting process that must be endured by all major studio productions.

This is a really bad movie.

The Coen brothers have hit both extremes during a long and productive career, and of late they’ve been getting sloppier; A Serious Man, Hail, Caesar! and their misguided 2012 remake of Gambit are a far cry from Fargo and No Country for Old Men.

Suburbicon may be their worst stinker yet.

As a satire — and I admit, that’s speculation — this film’s message is too garbled, sloppy and tasteless. But it’s far too weird, random and exaggerated to be taken seriously, with almost every character an overblown burlesque. They may as well be wearing clown suits.

Co-scripters George Clooney (who also directs) and Grant Heslov appear to have been inspired by the post-WWII, postcard-perfect Levittown suburban communities: the sort of cheerful towns characterized in TV shows such as Father Knows Best and Leave It to Beaver. What’s often lost to history is the fact that Federal House Administration lenders restricted housing rental and sales agreements, in all Levittown developments, to (and I quote) “the Caucasian race.”

That issue came to boil in August 1957, when William and Daisy Myers moved their family into a section of Pennsylvania’s Levittown community, becoming the first African-Americans in the all-white enclave. The nasty results were captured by filmmakers Lee Bobker and Lester Becker in a documentary titled Crisis in Levittown, Pa., which remains jaw-dropping, cringe-worthy viewing (and is readily available online).

So: Part of Cooney’s film, set in the late 1950s in a Norman Rockwellian, Levittown-esque community, depicts — with impressive authenticity to actual events — what occurs during the first few weeks after an African-American family moves into a home that shares a back fence with the house belonging to Gardner Lodge (Matt Damon), his wife Rose (Julianne Moore) and their adolescent son Nicky (Noah Jupe).

The problem is that this concept has been married — by shotgun — to a shelved Coen brothers script called Suburbicon, populated by the usual Coen misanthropes and overwhelmed “regular folks” with poor judgment, and a proclivity for ill-advised decisions.

It’s not a good fit.

X-Men: Apocalypse — Thud and blunder

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) • View trailer 
2.5 stars. Rated PG-13, and quite generously, for gratuitously fleeting profanity and distasteful, soul-crushing violence
By Derrick Bang

Enough, already.

Things were bad enough last summer, when Avengers: Age of Ultron gave us characters capable of re-shaping reality, along with a celestial scheme to return Earth to its Ice Age. Hollywood’s apparent need for superhero movies that forever increase the sense of scale — like a junkie craving ever-stronger fixes — was plain outta control.

When Charles Xavier (James McAvoy, center) is alerted to the presence of an ultra-
powerful mutant, he and his comrades — from left, Raven (Jennifer Lawrence), Moira
Mactaggert (Rose Byrne), Alex Summers (Lucas Till) and Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) —
try to determine how best to find this entity.

This newest X-Men entry is even worse, with a villain who literally can re-shape the planet according to whim: a level of power so off the chart that the very notion of this guy being stopped by anybody, let alone young and largely untested mutant heroes, is simply ludicrous.

What, I wonder, could be next? A baddie who’ll pull the Moon out of its orbit? Destroy Saturn and her rings? Extinguish our sun? Annihilate entire galaxies?

It’s impossible to care about any of this film’s sturm und drang, because its screenplay — credited to Simon Kinberg, Michael Dougherty, Dan Harris and director Bryan Singer — doesn’t spend enough time with character development. Worse yet, the little we do get is needlessly grim and mean-spirited: the same problem of tone that infected Batman V Superman a few months back.

The early X-Men films were entertaining by virtue of the wary ensemble dynamic that united such radically different characters into a team, and for the way that everybody’s strange and weird powers were blended into a cohesive fighting unit. That camaraderie is all but lost in this smash-fest, which instead revels in an arrogantly callous level of civilization-snuffing carnage that I’ve not seen since the distasteful 2012, which depicted mass death with all the gravitas of a pinball machine.

Singer’s tone is about the same here, with John Ottman’s bombastic score adding even more portentous fury. And just to seal that atmospheric deal, Ottman’s original themes are augmented, at (ahem) apocalyptic moments, by the equally dour second movement (“Allegretto”) of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7.

Not much fun to be had, all told, in this 143-minute endurance test.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens — Everything old is new again

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated PG-13, for intense sci-fi action and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.18.15

No question about it: J.J. Abrams definitely is one with The Force.

The writer/director/producer who so smartly revived the Star Trek franchise has done the same with Star Wars.

With nasty First Order storm troopers hot on their heels, Rey (Daisy Ridley) and Finn (John
Boyega) do their best to survive long enough to get a valuable little droid into the hands of
good-guy Resistance fighters.

After the most recent trilogy prompted a blend of disappointment, disgust and outright hostility — Jar Jar Binks, anyone? — fans could be excused the raised-eyebrow wariness that initially greeted news of fresh doings in that galaxy far, far away. But maybe there really is something to the all-pervasive Force, because — for several months now — we’ve been part of an escalating global awareness that Something Great was in the offing.

Indeed.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens isn’t merely a 30-years-later continuation of the universe-spanning saga that (technically) left off back in 1983, with Return of the Jedi. Abrams and co-scripters Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt have delivered a new chapter that simultaneously advances the ongoing narrative, while strongly evoking, echoing and honoring everything that we loved about that wonderful debut, back in 1977.

Abrams sought out the best: Kasdan will be recognized as the writer who worked on both The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi (not to mention Raiders of the Lost Ark). He lives and breathes this stuff; he also understands the delicate art of imitating Hollywood’s Golden Age serials — with their alternating dollops of melodramatic angst and cliff-hanging action scenes — without crossing the line into overly broad farce.

And, as befits the 30-years-later scenario, we’ve been granted a fresh — and fresh-faced — cast of new characters, possessing varying capabilities, and thrust into ghastly events with either reluctance or grim resolve. At the same time, fans will cheer the return of old friends, whether human, droid or Wookie.

It can’t have been easy to deliver a film that will please both newcomers and longtime fans with light-sabers drawn; Abrams and his crew pulled it off, and then some.

Ex Machina: The perils of playing God

Ex Machina (2015) • View trailer 
Four stars. Rated R, for profanity, disturbing content, nudity and violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.24.15

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley would have loved this film.

Indeed, granted a time machine and access to today's technology, she likely would have made this film.

During one of the rare moments when he feels like showing off, Nathan (Oscar Isaac, left)
allows Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) into the lab where all of the "bits" were created, which
eventually came together as a disarmingly personable robot dubbed Ava.

At its core, writer/director Alex Garland’s Ex Machina is an absorbing update of Shelley’s Frankenstein: a 21st century cautionary tale about the limits of humanity’s hubris, and the unintended consequences of science outstripping ethics and morality. Midway through the first act, we can’t help recalling the wonderful sentiment that has been paraphrased in so many sci-fi B-movies: “There are things we are not meant to know” (which likely originated, appropriately enough, with a line of dialogue from 1935’s The Bride of Frankenstein).

Garland’s film is thoughtful, methodical science-fiction: akin to Duncan Jones’ Moon, which made a well-deserved splash back in 2009. Like Moon, Garland’s narrative is an intimate character study that plays out in an isolated, claustrophobic setting. And, as with Moon, Garland’s storyline revolves around a core mystery that becomes increasingly disturbing as we move inexorably toward a chilling third act.

Along the way, we ponder questions relating to existence, consciousness and the nature of one’s soul: the big issues that always arise when contemplating the possibility of creating life. Heady stuff. But although Garland’s film is dialogue-heavy, it’s never boring ... in great part because production designer Mark Digby has crafted a fascinating, yet always persuasively believable setting for these events.

Not to mention the simultaneous creation of an amazing “subject” for what becomes an uncomfortably twisted psychological clash between two men.

Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is an unremarkable programmer employed by a Google-esque Internet search giant dubbed Blue Book (deliberately named after philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein’s 1930s-era notes for his class on the philosophy of language). He’s delighted one day to discover that he has won a company-wide contest to spend a week with Blue Book’s brilliant, über-wealthy and reclusive founder, Nathan (Oscar Isaac).

Nathan lives (mostly) alone in an imposing home/lab built into the remote heart of Alaska: reachable only by helicopter, and isolated from all of civilization’s trappings. Although uneasy from the moment he passes through the compound’s fortified front door, Caleb is too excited to worry about such things; he’s overcome by this opportunity of quality face time with a genius blend of Howard Hughes, Steve Jobs and Richard Branson.