Terminator

James Cameron, 1984

IMDB

3/5

The Terminator franchise is as culturally familiar to America as the Rocky franchise. The whole concept of artificial intelligence taking over the Earth and eliminating the human race feels very visceral, and scarily possible. The unfortunate part of this franchise is, while it’s such a rich story with much to draw from, it’s been repeatedly put in the wrong hands and the many Terminator movies are just wildly inconsistent. The best of all of them is undoubtedly Terminator 2: Judgement Day. But without this original right here there wouldn’t ever be a T2. 

Of course visiting this film in 2016 is going to involve looking past some of the primitive production elements. The periodic battle scenes of humans vs machines in the future feel like very obvious set pieces. There’s that distinctively 1980’s electrical light effect that we all remember so well from Back to the Future and any other sci-fi type film that was released in that era. 

But Cameron captures some of the energy that would be present in it’s successor. The relentlessness of the pursuit. The unbearably high stakes that Sarah Connor discovers she’s a part of. The coldly-menacing determination of the Terminator cyborg to eradicate Sarah so she cannot bear the offspring that would eventually give the machines their challenge. The Terminator manages to do a lot with the limited resources available in that period. The explosions, the gunfire. It’s an important movie. It is a cinematic piece that sort of has it’s place in time. The 90’s action films had a level of male bravado and big guns that sort of faded away over time. Now it becomes more of a nostalgia thing to revisit. Of course there’s humorous aspects of that as well. Like when the Terminator is shooting his way through the police station, taking out anyone in his path. You would think that the officers would quickly realize that The Terminator doesn’t exactly fall when shot. Instead of fleeing they all jump out at him firing like they are going to be the one who gets him. Even many years after this movie had been made, this still feels groundbreaking. 

The Hunger Games: Catching Fire

Francis Lawrence, 2013

IMDB

4/5

I have to start this review with a bit of an apology. After seeing the first Hunger Games film, a lot of memories of the 2000 Japanese bloodbath thriller Battle Royale surfaced. It felt so similar. I went on to do a little research, discovering that The Hunger Games books actually stirred a bit of controversy because of the similarities to the Royale films. Some argued that because of the Royale films being released before the books, that author Suzanne Collins must have lifted the premise. I was one of the people who felt that Collins had ripped off Kinji Fukasaku’s idea. The whole kids getting put on island forced to fight it out to the death couldn’t have been conceived by both purely on coincidence. But the second installment of the Hunger Games comes into it’s own. It builds off the first film, and takes on a different form that sets itself apart. The detailed dystopian landscape, as unforgiving and tragic as it is, is alluring. The film does what so many of the great dystopian films (Children of Men, The Road, The Matrix) do so well. It creates a dreadful end-of-days scenario where the state of humankind is haunting. Through fascist political overreach and highly evolved technology, we see what humans are capable of doing to each other in such horrid circumstances. You continue to stay invested in Jennifer Lawrence’s Katniss Everdeen character as she tries to find independence / solitude from the Snow regime. But because her character has become an iconic figure, it becomes evident that she is forever changed and unable to escape the public spotlight. A symbol of hope for the poverty-stricken people but a symbol of rebellion to the leadership. Francis Lawrence does a good job of making you completely despise the Snow regime and really get behind the plight of Katniss. From the detailed visual effects to the sound design, Catching Fire feels very much like a Battle Royale meets Snowpiercer meets novel Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (soon to be adapted to film by Steven Spielberg). I am glad I gave the second one a go. I plan on continuing on. Catching Fire certainly leaves you hanging, eager to see what happens next.

Mad Max: Fury Road

George Miller, 2015

IMDB

4/5

In this era of too many reboots, forced franchises and unnecessary sequels, Mad Max seems to come out of nowhere and surprise everyone by outdoing itself and it's predecessors. Fury Road takes the franchise out of cult status and gives it a fresh aesthetic while also preserving what made the original films appealing.

Tom Hardy is a good fit for the role of Max; the guy that you are supposed to learn a lot when given little about him. What you do know is he is a man haunted by his past, the lost souls that he wasn't able to save. Now the world that he wanders through is a dystopian wasteland, where the world is run by various warlord-led factions. In the early moments of the film the pacing is set and it doesn't slow down much for the duration. Someone who doesn't typically enjoy the action genre can still get something out of Fury Road, especially stylistically. There is so much visual invention going on, so much attention to detail. It seems to be a movie that probably took a lot of effort to film in the desert, from a logistical perspective but also from a pure engineering perspective. There is a wide array of vehicles assembled by the war dogs in the film. A good portion of the story is the variety of these war-mobiles in pure battle with each other whether it's to protect territory, gather resources, or retain what one feels is rightfully "theirs". It's interesting to think of how many mechanics must have been on set to help with any operational quirks that must have occurred here and there. Fury Road seems like a really good candidate for the dvd / blu-ray extra features of the behind the scenes footage and directors commentary. The grand scale of the films stunts / choreography seems almost unfathomable. While all of this chaos was in front of the cameras, there must have been boom lifts, helicopters and drones shooting frantically.

Miller's world is really a hot rod hellscape. At times it almost feels like a Steampunked Sin City. Filled with deranged and death-inducing drag racing. It's an unforgiving universe that nobody would really want to spend any time in other than in a voyeur role. In fact, one could argue that it's one of the dilemmas with the story. The sense of pointlessness to it. The fact that in this world there aren't really any "good guys". The Mad Max world shows us that our race has failed. Yet, at least for the sake of the Mad Max narrative, there is a level of human resilience. Many of the remaining inhabitants live to serve a leader, live with some kind of religious ideology. The warlords manage to keep a grip on their populations, usually by limited their resources like food or water. But there are still babies being born in this horrifying society. And they won't ever know what the world was like before everything was destroyed.

Complimenting the attention to visual detail, there is a real impressive use of sound. A great synergy of music to action, whether it's transitioning from a death to an ambient heartbeat in the song to the heavy metal guitarist that is riding on a flat bed with dozens of amplifiers raging behind him. Fury Road is chaotic yet managed. Energetic but not to the point of pure lunacy. It's a style over substance movie that manages to go so heavy on style that the imagery will take root in your mind for some time after. Out of all of the 2015 films, it's one that basically lives up to the hype. Now let's just hope that this doesn't start some trend of motor-heads souping up their Dodge Rams and putting all sorts of unnecessary equipment on the exterior to look like some kind of badass. Who knows, maybe Fury Road will inspire countries at war to have their own heavy metal guitarist standing on top of a tank or something to get the soldiers amped up. 

Only Lovers Left Alive

Jim Jarmusch, 2014

Can I Stream it?

2/5

Two vampires reunite after years apart from each other to complain about their frustrations with the modern world and how uncivilized the human race has become.

Jarmusch creates the kind of movies that people want to say they liked. But Only Lovers is a perfect example of an intellectual filmmaker making an awfully dull movie. Maybe he was in his own head too much. Maybe he was trying to hard to make a carve out a niche in an already exhausted genre. But even the story didn't feel all that fresh, either. Maybe the angst-ridden vampire stories are better left for Anne Rice. Jarmusch did do a couple of things right. Shooting in Detroit to take advantage of the dystopian landscape is a good idea, might as well make use of America's dying city and make a subtle message about the actual state of our American culture at the same time. It's no mistake that they juxtapose dying Detroit and culture-rich Tangier. Casting Swinton and Hiddleston is certainly a good idea. But instead of letting Swinton breathe he follows her on exhaustingly long shots through Middle Eastern alleyways. Instead of letting Hiddleston breathe he turns him into a virtually mute emo-rocker, like a junkie who can't seem to get the right score in his hands. And of course that's the point, two vampires completely dissatisfied with the state of the world. All of the culture, the art, the creativity has died off giving way to a toxic race that they call "zombies". Maybe Lovers needed actual zombies to make it more interesting. Only Lovers feels like work while watching it. You get a feeling that you were bit in the neck in the opening credits and slowly bleed out during the remainder of the film, sort of falling into a lightheaded daze. There should be a disclaimer that you need 3 Venti's before viewing. Don't watch this one after a couple glasses of wine. The Blade franchise is more engaging, as strange as it feels to say that. Only Lovers can be placed somewhere in the middle of the Twilight franchise and the much better Interview with a Vampire. 

Snowpiercer

Joon-ho Bong, 2014

Can I Stream it?

4/5

The world is has been forced into a modern-day Ice Age after a global warming solution failed. The remaining inhabitants of Earth now live on a transcontinental train that circles the globe once a year. The lower class inhabitants live in the rear carts of the train while the upper class resides in the front, more lavish end of the train.

Korean director Joon-ho Bong's (The Host, dystopian sci-fi piece runs on an inventive concept that mirrors some of the class warfare of the Hunger Games with some of the offbeat humor on a futuristic backdrop of The Fifth Element. The fast moving train is unforgiving. The back end carts are fed gelatin-like bricks of processed protein that resembles out of the can cranberry sauce (except a really disgusting version of it), while the front end dines on lavish meals consisting of fresh fruits and vegetables and meats. The never-ending tension reaches a boiling point early on the film and the lower class passengers decide to rebel under the leadership of Curtis (Chris Evans) and guidance of Gilliam (John Hurt). As they attempt to push forward to the upper section of the train, you see a brilliant progression of the luxuries (probably the best feature of the film, such a pleasant surprise) awarded to the upper end of the Snowpiercer hierarchy. There are moments when the cart doors open to a barrage of defenders and you witness sequences not seen since Tarantino's Kill Bill.

Because it's Bong's English debut, there is likely some things that got a bit mixed in translation. Some of the humor feels misplaced, a bit awkward at times. But it's completely forgivable. There is enough meat on the bones to the rest of the picture. Snowpiercer is visually appealing and built on an innovatory premise with some good performances, and that's enough to make a good sci-fi film.

Oblivion

Joseph Kosinski, 2013

Can I Stream It?

3/5

Jack is a Drone Technician that services patrolling drones that defend the remaining habitable portions of Earth that haven't been destroyed by nuclear blasts that won the war for the human race. These drones keep the alien invaders still present at bay while Jack's organization can successfully complete their Nuclear Fusion accumulation mission off of the coast. Jack is told that the work is nearing completion and he will soon join the remaining members of Earth on a moon orbiting the planet Saturn. But he soon finds that the agency that he works for might not have been completely honest with him, and that there may be something more to the visions that he has been having in his dreams.

This Cruise-led Sci-Fi that gives nods to Minority Report, A.I., Planet of the Apes, to the Matrix and Blade Runner. The dystopian landscape is a truly a feast for the eyes, from the Sky-High contemporary pod house that Cruise's character Jack resides in or the multitude of gadgets that they use. These visual elements are the biggest perk of the film, the highlight probably being the spaceship / drone battle about 3/4 into the picture. In fact, the drones could easily be considered characters in the film. You never really get sick of those little sounds that they make as they zero in on a target, and if it's hostile you hear the couple of beeps before the enemy becomes nothing but disintegrated matter. Jack spends the first hour or so of the film showing you the modern planet. Manhattan is submerged under soil, with pieces of classic architecture still protruding from the surface. He even has his little nostalgic shrine that he sneaks off to periodically, where he can listen to rock LP's and read A Tale of Two Cities. Oblivion really feels like it has something going for it, that is until the reveal. At this point, it makes a predictable stroll to the end. By the end you are given a certain amount of closure but wondering why the hell it took so long to get there.