The Odyssey: An epic masterpiece

The Odyssey (2026) • View trailer

Five stars (out of five); rated R, for violence, gore, dramatic intensity and profanity

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.19.26

Not many screenwriters get to share a credit with Homer.

 

And Christopher Nolan is one of very few directors up to the challenge of the ancient Greek poet’s classic work.

 

Warriors three: Odysseus (Matt Damon, center), Cepheus (Jimmy Gonzales, left) and
Eurylochus (Himesh Patel) survey what's left of Troy, following their successful
siege of the city.

This is epic filmmaking on a truly grand scale, which is the only way to present a saga that has it all: gods and goddesses, men and monsters, full-scale battles, perilous sea voyages, and dastardly palace intrigue. Granted, Nolan skips some events, and minimizes the list of involved deities, but only scholars intimately familiar with Homer’s fabled poem will notice.

Nolan wisely holds our attention, during this three-hour masterpiece, by alternating the “money sequences” with quieter, even melancholy moments between primary characters. Indeed, judging by how Monday evening’s sold-out Sacramento crowd reacted, viewers were much more invested in what would become of Odysseus’ kingdom, during his absence, than with what he faced while struggling to return home.

 

Be prepared for a challenging initial character dump.

 

Nolan follows Homer’s template, opening the story in medias res — in the plot’s chronological middle — and then supplying What Came Before via flashbacks recounted by Odysseus and a few other key players.

 

Tensions are high in Ithaca, where 20 years have passed since King Odysseus (Matt Damon) and his men joined Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) in his army’s successful invasion of the city of Troy. During this time, Odysseus’ wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), has endured a palace invasion by an ever-expanding number of boorish suitors hoping to become her new husband.

 

She has held them at bay by promising to remarry when she finishes weaving a shroud for Odysseus’ aged father, Laertes ... but she secretly unweaves each day’s progress at night.

 

(And she has gotten away with this for 20 years? That doth raise an eyebrow or two.)

 

The suitors have remained at bay, in part, because Odysseus’ renown, skill and might leave a massive shadow, even in his absence. During one flashback, we see that he’s the only man able to string his bow, inevitably following that up with his favorite party trick: shooting an arrow through a series of bundled axe heads.

 

Odysseus and Penelope’s son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), has come of age during this time. But he’s more eager to find his father — or, at least, to learn if he’s alive — than challenging his mother for the throne.

 

But one of the suitors, Antinous (Robert Pattinson), has grown tired of waiting. His vile nature emerges early on, when he grossly insults Eumaeus (John Leguizamo), Odysseus’ loyal, loquacious friend and swineherd. Although now blind, Eumaeus still is able to tell the young man what he’s doing wrong during a swordplay training session. Leguizamo exudes honor, honestly and loyalty.

 

Worse yet, Antinous contemptuously abuses Argus, Odysseus’ faithful and now quite aged dog. Pattinson oozes smarmy menace, with a scowl to match. (Do we hate Antinous? You betcha.)

 

Such behavior violates what becomes a crucial theme, as these events proceed: Zeus’ Law, the “guest friendship” decree that decrees how hosts should and should not act, and requires them to treat all guests with respect.

Mickey 17: One heckuva ride!

Mickey 17 (2025) • View trailer

Four stars (out of five). Rated R, for gruesome violence, profanity, sexual content and drug use

Available via: Movie theaters

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 3.9.25

This is science-fiction cinema at its finest.

 

Director/scripter Bong Joon Ho’s mesmerizing adaptation of Edward Ashton’s 2022 novel has it all: a fascinating premise, solid characters, a persuasively chilling future, a tone that veers from brutally horrifying to macabre, and scathing social commentary.

 

One Mickey too many? Two "expendables" (both Robert Pattinson) are sent on a suicide
mission, in an effort to do something about the inhospitable elements on the faraway
planet of Niflheim.

That is, after all, science-fiction’s primary mission: to employ a high-tech backdrop as a means of calling out contemporary society’s failings.

And goodness, but we’ve been failing a lot lately.

 

Ho’s film hits the ground running, as the hapless Mickey (Robert Pattinson) struggles to awareness after having fallen into a deep, icy cavern. His stream-of-consciousness ramblings sound defeated and resigned.

 

Then, the overhead roar of engines; a figure appears atop the fissure. Timo (Steven Yeun) peers over the edge ... but instead of assisting, he rappels down just far enough to retrieve Mickey’s futuristic weapon, and then returns to his ship. This leaves Mickey to a fate that becomes even more dire, when weird, many-legged beasties burst into the cavern.

 

Okay, this isn’t Earth.

 

While praying for a fast death, rather than being devoured bit by bit, Mickey recalls what brought him to this fate.

 

We flash back four years and change. The year is 2054. Mickey and Timo have unwisely crossed a nasty loan shark; they’re given four days to replay the loan ... or else.

 

Mickey — a forlorn nebbish who has resigned himself to loser status — impulsively decides to leave the planet; Timo does the same.

 

That proves possible, thanks to a mission being mounted by Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), a former congressman and failed two-time presidential candidate. Earth has become increasingly inhospitable, and — with the financial backing of a right-wing religious order — Marshall has become the public face of a voyage to the distant planet Niflheim, where a “righteous” new colony will be established.

 

Naïve, wide-eyed true believers line up by the hundreds, most sporting logo caps and flashing uniform salutes. Mickey fills out a form, and — not realizing the significance of this detail — signs up to become an “expendable.”

 

“Are you sure?” the receptionist asks, warily.

 

Why not? It’s not as if Mickey has amounted to anything up to this point.

 

The Lost City of Z: Fails to find its rhythm

The Lost City of Z (2017) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, violence, disturbing images, nudity and brief profanity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.21.17

Toward the end of this ambitious historical drama, a key character observes that a man’s reach should exceed his grasp.

As Fawcett (Charlie Hunnam, front) guides their boat ever deeper into uncharted
Amazonian waters, his companions — from left, Manley (Edward Ashley), Murray
(Angus Macfadyen) and Costin (Robert Pattinson) — warily watch for unfriendly tribesmen.

Sadly, that’s precisely the case with director/scripter James Gray’s disappointing The Lost City of Z. He’s simply unable to wrap his arms around the enormity of this saga.

The film’s subject, Lt. Col. Percival Harrison Fawcett, certainly deserves to be brought to the attention of modern audiences. The early 20th century British geographer, artillery officer and explorer, most famous for his eight mapping and archaeological expeditions to Brazil’s Amazon region, was fictionalized by no less than Arthur Conan Doyle, in a series of Professor Challenger novels and short stories published between 1912 and ’29.

Much more recently, Fawcett is rumored to have inspired a certain Indiana Jones.

By all accounts, Fawcett took his work more seriously than these pop-culture counterparts, but that’s no excuse for Gray to deliver such a grim, dreary and bloodless depiction of the man’s exploratory career. Charlie Hunnam’s portrayal of Fawcett is withdrawn and stoic; even the man’s moments of triumph feel muted, as if Hunnam can’t figure out how to depict genuine excitement.

His Fawcett simply isn’t very interesting.

This can’t be Hunnam’s fault; he has demonstrated plenty of charisma and thespic talent in projects that range from his lead role in 2002’s Nicholas Nickleby, to his popular Jax Teller in TV’s Sons of Anarchy. The blame for Hunnam’s subdued performance here belongs fully to Gray, who obviously wished Fawcett to be presented in what often seems a trance-like state.

Actually, much of the film feels like a fever dream, thanks in great part to Darius Khondji’s shimmering cinematography and Christopher Spelman’s understated, almost hypnotic orchestral score. Both contribute to the film’s atmosphere of surreal obsession: a Joseph Conrad/Heart of Darkness tone that was captured far better by Francis Ford Coppola (Apocalypse Now) and Werner Herzog (Fitzcarraldo).

Despite Gray’s passive depiction of Fawcett, at least we learn something about the man, and what drives him ... although it could be argued that our knowledge mostly springs from what we observe during his interactions with his progressive wife, Nina, played with spunk and effervescence by Sienna Miller. She gives the film some desperately needed emotional vigor.

Water for Elephants: Medium-top melodrama

Water for Elephants (2011) • View trailer for Water for Elephants
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for violence, dramatic intensity and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.22.11


Acting flavors of the month shouldn't be allowed anywhere near prestige projects.

The newbie's presence inevitably affects atmosphere and tone, and sometimes story elements are modified — or compromised — according to this fresh young talent's strengths ... or limitations.

When August (Christoph Waltz, left) begins to suspect that his wife, Mariena
(Reese Witherspoon), and Jacob (Robert Pattinson) have become more than
troupe acquaintances, he orchestrates a cruel charade and orders them to
participate; we nervously eye this uncomfortable game, while also wondering
why the circus owner has insisted on the presence of Rosie, the company's
new elephant star.

Robert Pattinson's most visible problem is an acting range that stretches most of the way from A to B. He delivers tortured angst quite well, having had plenty of practice as the sparkly vampire love interest in the Twilight series. The trouble is, Pattinson's apparent takes on more cheerful emotions — happiness, satisfaction, love — still look very much like ... well, tortured angst.

He's therefore quite credible here while pining for Reese Witherspoon, or one of the most personable elephants ever captured on camera ... although it looks very much like the way he pines for Kristin Stewart's Bella, in the Twilight movies.

When things go his character's way in Water for Elephants, though ... well, it's difficult to tell the difference.

In a nutshell, both Witherspoon and supporting actor Christoph Waltz act circles around Pattinson. They're so far superior that he all but vanishes from the screen: rather awkward, given that his character is this story's protagonist. Heck, Mark Povinelli, in a minor role as a dwarf circus clown named Kinko, is more credible — and gives us a better sense of his character — than Pattinson.

In most other respects, director Francis Lawrence delivers a respectable adaptation of Sara Gruen's best-selling novel, thanks in great part to a thoughtful, well-constructed screenplay from Richard LaGravanese (who also adapted The Bridges of Madison County and The Horse Whisperer, among his numerous other credits). He has, of necessity, condensed many of the events from Gruen's dense Depression-era saga; he and Lawrence also have made the story far more viewer-friendly, toning down both the period squalor and often shocking animal cruelty, as befits a gentler PG-13 rating.

So while this film affords a reasonable glimpse of the hard-scrabble conditions found within a third-rated Depression-era traveling circus, the cruelty and sadism displayed by numerous characters in Gruen's book have been condensed into a single, supremely malevolent figure: Waltz's August, owner/manager of the Benzini Brothers Circus ("the most spec-ta-cu-lar show on Earth!").

But his introduction comes later. We first meet Jacob (Hal Holbrook) in the present day: an old-timer disgusted with life in a nursing home, who has wandered off to visit a nearby circus. Jacob winds up recounting his youthful days to an interested listener, and thus we're whisked back to the 1930s, as a polished and confident veterinary medicine student (now played by Pattinson) prepares to take the test that will confer his degree. But the exam is interrupted by a crisis: Jacob's two loving parents have been killed in a road accident. The young man subsequently learns that he's penniless, his parents having converted their house and business into cash, in order to fund their only child's education.

Bereft and adrift, Jacob hits the road, unable to return to the life and career that had been so carefully planned.

(One would think, given the nature of Jacob's devotion to his mother and father, that he'd honor their memory by taking the damn exam and hanging up his vet-med shingle. But then, of course, we wouldn't have a story...)

Twilight Eclipse: Bloodless

Twilight: Eclipse (2010) • View trailer for Twilight: Eclipse
Two stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for swooning teenage angst and quite a lot of violence
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 7.2.10
Buy DVD: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Two-Disc Special Edition) • Buy Blu-Ray: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (Single-Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo)


Thank goodness for Taylor Lautner. 

At the risk of succumbing to the obvious pun, this film would be utterly lifeless without his easy presence, quick grin and dry sense of humor. 

Bella (Kristen Stewart) has trouble keeping Jacob (Taylor Lautner,
left) and Edward (Robert Pattinson) from attacking each other, since
werewolves and vampires have been natural enemies for
generations. The situation gets even stickier, because Jacob and
Edward both love Bella, and each believes that he'd be the better
boyfriend. Bella, poor dear, can't make up her mind. That makes
sense, since it's impossible to tell, from Stewart's perpetually
mopey expression, which guy she does prefer. Acting isn't a strong
suit in this film...

Honestly, would it be so difficult for all the rest of these people to smile? 

Judging by the giddy, sugar-fueled enthusiasm and shrieks of delight every time Lautner hit the screen during Monday evening's Sacramento preview of Twilight: Eclipse, this third entry in Stephenie Meyer's insufferably maudlin vampire/werewolf opus will please the faithful — they call themselves "Twihards" — just as much as the first two films. Which is to say, this installment inflexibly follows the same formula. 

I do not mean that as a compliment. 

Some stories reluctantly resort to cliches when necessary; some make at least a token effort to conceal well-worn plot contrivances. Director David Slade and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg positively wallow in the trite and overly familiar in Eclipse, as if the absence of original thought — and the lack of narrative forward progress — were virtues. 

Ah, yes: Let's talk about forward progress. 

At the end of this series' previous installment, Twilight: New Moon, Bella (Kristen Stewart) asked her vampire boyfriend, Edward (Robert Pattinson), to turn her into a vampire, so that she might remain with him for eternity. Edward countered by asking Bella to marry him. Fade to black. 

At the end of this film, Bella asks Edward to turn her into a vampire, and Edward asks Bella to marry him. Fade to black. 

No lie. 

Deja-vu never felt so oppressive. 

Similarly, I can report with complete accuracy that neither Bella nor Edward has changed a lick since these films began with 2008's Twilight. Bella still looks, in every scene, as if somebody has just run over her favorite puppy. Edward still looks, in every scene, as if he's about to burst into tears. Declarations of love eternal repeatedly flow between these two, always delivered with breathless, constricted intensity amid pauses so pregnant I keep expecting them to give birth. To triplets. 

Twilight: Somewhat anemic

Twilight (2008) • View trailer for Twilight
3.5 stars (out of five). Rating: PG-13, for violence and brief sensuality
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 11.21.08
Buy DVD: Twilight • Buy Blu-Ray: Twilight [Blu-ray]


Judging by the delighted squeals from the primarily female teenage audience at Tuesday evening's preview screening, director Catherine Hardwicke and scripter Melissa Rosenberg did right by their adaptation of Twilight, the first novel in Stephenie Meyer's insanely popular vampire series.

Having accepted the fact that Bella (Kristen Stewart) knows that he's far from an
average teenager, Edward (Robert Pattinson) confirms her suspicions by
effortlessly carrying her up to the top of a huge tree, where the two then exchange
smoldering, love-struck glances. Such is the nature of a growing relationship
between human and vampire, in this big-screen adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's
first novel.

Certainly the casting is spot-on, starting with Kristen Stewart as the mousy, subdued and yet stubbornly fearless Bella Swan, and Robert Pattinson as the hypnotically alluring vampire, Edward Cullen. The hesitant, fragile manner in which their star-crossed romance unfolds — so Romeo and Juliet — is this film's strongest and most appealing asset.

I'd expect that from Hardwicke, who explored the rebellious angst of young girls so superbly in 2003's Thirteen. She coaxes a persuasive performance from Stewart, who in turn makes Bella a perceptive and plucky heroine who refuses to back down after discovering that the guy she's sweet on has ... a socially unacceptable diet.

To the extent that we'd ever buy the notion of a young woman throwing herself into the arms of such danger, Stewart makes it work.

Pattinson, in turn, is just as believable as a deeply conflicted vampire who can't help being attracted to this new girl in town, despite his quite reasonable concern that blood lust might overpower his otherwise cautionary instincts. In Meyers' world, you see, a too-close proximity to humans can send vampires into a crazed, uncontrollable killing frenzy.

And the actual sight of human blood? Much, much worse.

It's the ultimate doomed relationship, and Hardwicke and Rosenberg take their time establishing its parameters — which is to say, torturing both Bella and Edward with uncertainty and raging mood swings — just as Meyers does in her book.

Indeed, in this respect — and I can hear the howls of indignation already, as a result of what I'm about to say — Rosenberg's script is vastly superior to Meyers' often laughably over-written novel. This film's first act unfolds quite economically, in roughly an hour, which is far more satisfying than the 150-plus pages Meyers takes to cover the same ground, often with breathlessly purple prose.

Occasionally, though, no doubt wanting to please fans desperate to hear at least some of the same dialogue, Rosenberg lifts some passages directly from the book. Sometimes they work; sometimes they don't. Even Stewart can't sell a particularly clumsy voice-over where she acknowledges three things she knows about Edward; the line prompted snickers from some of the less faithful.