Ender's Game

For F*** Magazine

ENDER'S GAME

Director: Gavin Hood

Cast:         Asa Butterfield, Ben Kingsley, Harrison Ford, Hailee Steinfeld, Abigail Breslin, Viola Davis, Nonso Anozie, Stevie Ray Dillmore, Andrea Powell, Moises Arias, Conor Carroll, Aramis Knight, Brandon Soo Hoo

Genre: Sci-Fi, Adventure

Run Time: 114 mins

Opens: 7 November 2013

Rating: PG

           These days, nothing quite gets a movie studio excited like the F word – “franchise”. Hollywood honchos hanker for the next Marvel cinematic universe, the next Star Wars, Fast and Furious or Twilight. Summit Entertainment, the studio behind the sparkly vampire chronicles, has found a property with the potential for aggressive expansion: the Ender Saga or the “Enderverse”, a series of science fiction books by Orson Scott Card which were, well, a game-changer.

            Following an attack on earth by insectoid alien invaders known as “Formics”, a battle school is established to train the next generation of International Fleet cadets for when the Formics strike again. Ender Wiggin (Butterfield) is a particularly promising student who is earmarked by Col. Hyrum Graff (Ford) and Major Gwen Anderson (Davis) as a potential leader of earth’s military forces. Ender’s siblings, Valentine (Breslin) and Peter (Jimmy Pinchak) failed to make it through the program, so as if the pressure of the fate of the world being in his hands wasn’t enough, Ender has to cope with that. An integral part of the training is the game of the title; a kind of zero-gravity strategy-based amalgam of football and laser tag. Ender has to contend with being bullied, but finds friendship in the form of Petra Arkanian (Steinfeld), one of the few female students in battle school. Ender soon finds himself among the cream of the crop and studying under war hero Mazer Rackham (Kingsley) as the clock ticks away to the next invasion.

            The novel Ender’s Game, expanded from a short story of the same name, was published in 1985. The book and its sequel Speaker for the Dead clinched the Hugo and Nebula awards, two of the most prestigious honours in science fiction. A film adaptation has been in the works for many years, with The Phantom Menace’s Jake Lloyd considered for the title role at one point. The book is regarded as something of a modern classic and perhaps film franchises centred on young characters, like the Harry Potter movies, paved the way for this adaptation to finally get off the ground.

            The premise of using games and simulations in preparation for war proved prescient, seeing as how video game technology has been co-opted into military training over the last decade or so. The film focuses on the process of the practise and trials leading up to combat instead of the battle itself, so writer-director Gavin Hood has the responsibility of making sure certain stakes and a sense of danger are still established and that viewers will be interested in seeing the games played out instead of yelling “get to the real fighting already!” at the screen. He is somewhat successful in this regard, but the film’s pacing is uneven and jittery and there is a fair bit of exposition and backstory to get out of the way in its first half. Also, pretty much every “boot camp” or “military school” trope from the movies finds its way into Ender’s Game.

            Big-budget spectacle and sci-fi action razzle dazzle is a lot more accessible to today’s audiences than before. That’s another way of saying moviegoers have become harder to impress. Ender’s Game is not a badly-designed movie by any standard, it’s just that its world of space stations, futuristic dorm rooms, grey uniforms and termite mound-style enemy terrain carries a sense of familiarity with it and doesn’t pack quite enough punch to pull one into the world. The film’s major action sequences take place within the battle room, the balletic zero-gravity sequences well-choreographed and stunt coordinator Garrett Warren’s wire-work innovations making the scenes suitably dynamic. It’s a shame this film comes right on the heels of Gravity, which will be hard to top.

 

            Asa Butterfield is a competent lead, playing Ender not as a know-it-all whiz or an insufferable adult-kid but as a “chosen one” who just has to deal. Hailee Steinfeld is very likeable as Petra and the moments in which she and Ender train together are welcome respite from the harshness of the battle school environment. A role like Hyrum Graff is best handled by an actor of stature and who has a sci-fi pedigree and Harrison Ford certainly fits the bill. Sure, there’s a lot of the scowling and looking grumpy typical of Ford’s recent career, but he’s able to bring out some layers, the character not just an authority figure but a manipulative and canny one at that. Ben Kingsley, sporting facial Tā moko Māori tattoos, is only in this for the last section of the film and doesn’t get too much to do, but he’s good.

            Ender’s Game will give teen audiences something to chew on and it is good to see a film aimed at this demographic that isn’t pointless and inane. Sure, the tackling of issues such as ethics in war and theme of empathy vs. violence may come off as clumsy or heavy handed, but at least they were given some attention. The film’s most intriguing moments come in the form of a mind game in which Ender is represented by a mouse, faced with a giant and other allegorical obstacles – and there’s the attention-grabbing ending, too. On the whole, Gavin Hood’s take on the material is more effective than the over-the-top satire Paul Verhoeven wrought with his Starship Troopers adaptation, even if the Ender’s Game team doesn’t quite hit a home run.

SUMMARY: Certainly not the easiest story to bring to the screen, Ender’s Game presents a blend of mature themes and sci-fi action – a balancing act that mostly pays off.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong 

Gravity

For F*** Magazine

GRAVITY

Director: Alfonso Cuarón
Cast: Sandra Bullock, George Clooney
Genre: Drama, Thriller, Space,
Run Time: 91 mins
Opens: 10 October 2013
Rating: PG13 (Brief Coarse Language And Some Disturbing Images)

Have you ever been to a museum and watched an IMAX 3D documentary such as Space Station 3D or Hubble 3D and wondered “gee, what would happen if something went horribly wrong on one of these missions?” There’s no reason to feel guilty, since an environment as treacherous and as unfamiliar as outer space does lend itself to some rather macabre fascinations. This film is, very thankfully, probably the closest most of us will get to being first-hand witnesses to a catastrophe in orbit.

Medical engineer Dr. Ryan Stone (Bullock) is on her first space shuttle mission, STS-157, supervising the installation of technology that she has developed into the Hubble Space Telescope. The mission is commanded by seasoned astronaut Matt Kowalski (Clooney), who is on his last shuttle expedition. While on a spacewalk and working on the telescope, a wave of debris from a destroyed satellite hits the shuttle, leaving Stone and Kowalski stranded. With no way to contact mission control and with oxygen quickly running out of their spacesuits, the scientist and the astronaut must figure out a method of survival, floating in the vast, silent vacuum of space.



Gravity is very much a technical marvel. The film was four years in the making and is Alfonso Cuarón’s first directorial credit since 2006’s Children of Men. The film opens with a dazzling, 17 minute-long unbroken shot, cementing its place as a Best Visual Effects Oscar frontrunner within those few beginning minutes. Gravity seduces the audience with gorgeous, jaw-dropping vistas, before setting them on a thrill ride; this method making it comparable to Jurassic Park. It plays on simultaneous feelings of claustrophobia and agoraphobia; the characters almost trapped within their spacesuits while drifting through the expanse of outer space. We’ve often pointed out certain films that aren’t worth seeing in 3D; this definitely isn’t one of them. The stereoscopy contributes tremendously to that feeling of all-encompassing immersion. We’d also recommend seeing this on as big a screen as possible.

The term “visionary” is used a lot in movie marketing to describe directors – Cuarón once again proves that he is wholly worthy of the adjective. This was a labour of love for the Mexican helmer and the grandiloquent technical aptitude put on display is staggering. Credit must also go to multiple Oscar-nominated cinematographer and Cuarón’s oft-collaborator Emmanuel Lubezki, who makes use of the revolutionary Bot & Dolly IRIS motion-control camera rig to accomplish some breathtaking shots. Cuarón, who co-edited the film with Mark Sanger, has crafted a motion picture packed with suspense and peril without relying on frenetic hyper-editing or shaky cam.



While Gravity may be considered a film that “stars visual effects”, we do need to care for the human beings caught in the predicament, and that’s where Sandra Bullock and George Clooney come in. He’s the veteran and she’s the rookie; Clooney playing Kowalski as a charming, cool-headed consummate professional. He coaches and coaxes Stone along, gently guiding her through a very alarming, sudden situation. He regales mission control with funny stories and describes himself as just “the bus driver”. He has to put Stone at ease and, by extension, the audience too.

This is very much Sandra Bullock’s movie to carry though, and talk is already swirling of a Best Actress Oscar nomination for her turn as the mission specialist. The character is a fantastic female protagonist; we don’t get a whole lot of those in science fiction and shades of the Alien franchise’s Ellen Ripley are indeed evident. Bullock gives the part her all, though this reviewer couldn’t help but wonder if any of the actresses considered before she got the part (Angelina Jolie, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Marion Cotillard among them) might have been a better fit. In addition to traipsing across space station exteriors, Dr. Ryan Stone has vulnerable moments where it seems she’s given up all hope, and while Bullock appears to struggle with portraying that raw, desperate emotion, her performance is still very commendable. Sci-fi is often seen as clinical, but Dr. Ryan Stone’s quest to simply find her way home is told with a deft, personal touch, even as it unfolds against the majestic, high production value backdrop.



“Atmospheric” is a pretty apt way to describe Gravity, even though it takes place outside of our atmosphere. The film is a masterful exercise in contrasts, with calm, peaceful moments juxtaposed against white-knuckle ones and silence immediately following frantic sections of Steven Price’s score. Even though it’s high-gloss, the film doesn’t feel artificial or inauthentic and is without that pesky “phony green screen” feel these pictures sometimes have. There aren’t any mind-bending plot complexities, but Alfonso Cuarón and his son Jonás’ screenplay forms the ideal blueprint for a lean (at just 90 minutes), well-paced and visually sumptuous journey.

SUMMARY: Alfonso Cuarón delivers a science fiction thriller that is at once sweeping and intimate and showcases the catalogue of filmmaking skills the director possesses, in addition to good performances from its cast of two.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Pacific Rim

For F*** Magazine

PACIFIC RIM

2013

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Idris Elba, Rinko Kikuchi, Charlie Day, Ron Perlman, Burn Gorman

Directed by: Guillermo del Toro

            B-movie aficionados might recall a film called Robot Jox, an immensely cheesy sci-fi flick from 1990 in which territorial disputes in a post-apocalyptic wasteland are settled by way of giant robot gladiator fights. That film was overlooked upon release and hasn’t aged well. It’s a good thing then that today’s fanboys have something like Pacific Rim to devour. It’s giant robots vs. giant monsters, boasting high-quality production values and with geek icon Guillermo del Toro at the helm. Yeah, we’re up for that.

            Beasts from another realm, or kaiju, have arrived on earth through a portal far beneath the Pacific Ocean, ready to wreak havoc, each wave of attacks more vicious than the last. The nations of earth pool their resources to build “Jaegers”, giant mecha equipped to go toe-to-toe with the kaiju, controlled by two pilots who must be psychically linked to each other. Raleigh Becket (Hunnam) is a former Jaeger pilot called back into duty five years after being scarred, mentally and physically, in combat. He is eventually paired with Mako Mori (Kikuchi), an untested rookie who lost her family to a kaiju attack as a child. They, along with the other Jaeger pilots, answer to Marshal Stacker Pentecost (Elba), a no-nonsense military man who was one of the first Jaeger pilots. With the Jaeger program in danger of being decommissioned due to diminished results, the remaining pilots must make their last stand against the destructive creatures.

            There’s this pre-conceived notion of creature features being silly, quaint and low-rent affairs. After all, most of us would remember watching guys in rubber suits duke it out against the backdrop of an unconvincing model city in Tokusatsu films or TV shows (or 50s Hollywood B-movies). It is therefore extremely gratifying to see clashes between beast and machine so lovingly brought to life in an expensive A-picture. As children, we could only dream of robot/monster melees rendered with such conviction and quality. This is nostalgia made state-of-the-art; boyhood imagination made celluloid reality. It’s the kind of film that should be seen in the IMAX format and actually is really enjoyable in 3D, despite director Guillermo del Toro’s initial reluctance to convert the film into this format.

    
        Guillermo del Toro is something of a fanboy, and his passion and respect for anime, manga and Tokusatsu fuels the film and sets it apart from something like a Michael Bay-directed Transformers film. Del Toro is far more imaginative than your average action movie director and together with the creative team for this film has come up with some very arresting visuals and ideas. Sure, it might be hard to tell one kaiju from another and all the battles are rain-soaked and dimly lit, but del Toro has somehow managed to find a sweet point between “outlandish” and “awesome”, crafting many moments which make one want to leap out of the seat on an adrenaline rush.

            If you’re not in a particularly charitable mood, the plot could be described as “formulaic”: there’s the hero who must overcome a past trauma and rise to the occasion alongside a wide-eyed but equally-tormented rookie, unstoppable behemoths not of this earth, a “combat as foreplay” scene, the battle-hardened boss man who oversees the whole operation, comic relief scientists and tech guys, a cocky rival and a ticking clock. However, there are definitely times when canned food can taste absolutely delicious, and Guillermo del Toro has cooked up a storm. Clichés and stereotypes are in full effect (the Russian Jaeger pilots look like they stepped out of an 80s Cold War thriller) but somehow, this makes it all the more entertaining. Del Toro stated that he didn’t want to make a “super-brooding, super-dark, cynical summer movie” but deliver something more palatable in a throwback sort of way instead – and that he has.

            Given the above, the characters in Pacific Rim could well have felt pre-fabricated and cookie cutter, but they don’t and it is remarkably easy to root for them. Charlie Hunnam isn’t exactly a bankable marquee name and is best-known as the lead actor on TV’s Sons of Anarchy. He makes for a very sympathetic leading man and appears equally comfortable with the more dramatic moments and the action beats. Similarly, Rinko Kikuchi isn’t your typical Hollywood faux-action chick, her Mako Mori a vulnerable but competent character, and that helps set this apart from the rest of the “movies made for 12 year-old boys” pack.

            Idris Elba could well be the next Samuel L. Jackson as he steadily builds his repertoire of badass parts. The guy has presence to spare and there’s something inexplicably grin-inducing about hearing him bellow such lines as “do not let my calm demeanour fool you, ranger!” and, of course, that “we are cancelling the apocalypse” speech. It could well be irredeemably silly in the hands of another actor but man, he pulls it off. Charlie Day and Burn Gorman make for a funny, over-the-top double act as two rival scientists working on the Jaeger program (though they might border on grating for some) and del Toro oft-collaborator Ron Perlman threatens to steal the show as only he can, playing a black market dealer profiteering off kaiju remains, selling them as health products.

            Pacific Rim may be comprised of familiar elements and, depending on your mood, an eye roll-worthy bit or two, but the sheer exuberant, childlike energy that propels it forward makes everything else very easy to forgive. Guillermo del Toro’s enthusiasm for the material is infectious and with top-notch art direction, production design and visual effects work on show, this is escapism of a very polished sort. This is a love letter to the kaiju and mecha genres written in calligraphy on fancy paper. Japanese video game creator Hideo Kojima said it best when he remarked that he “never imagined (he) would be fortunate enough to see a film like this in (his) lifetime”.

SUMMARY: A better-made and more entertaining clash of the titans than the one with Sam Worthington in it. A giant robot using a container ship as a sword is what the fantasies of your inner 12 year-old are made of.

RATING: 4 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong 

Star Trek Into Darkness

For F*** Magazine, Singapore

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

Director: J. J. Abrams
Cast: Chris Pine, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Simon Pegg, Alice Eve, Peter Weller, Bruce Greenwood
Genre: Sci-Fi, Fantasy
Run Time: 123 mins
Opens: 16 May 2013
Rating: PG-13

With 2009’s Star Trek, director J. J. Abrams had set a course for the future of the series with a film that thoroughly invigorated what was, up to that point, largely seen as a flagging franchise. References to Star Trek in popular culture had been relegated to jokes about basement-dwelling man-children squinting through coke-bottle glasses, and it was a widely-held stereotype that “Trekkies” (the preferred term is apparently “Trekkers”) just weren’t ‘cool’. Love it or hate it, Star Trek ’09 made the series accessible to the masses and perhaps the sexy young cast, the action sequences and the lens flares were just a way of helping the movie-going public at large let down their collective guards and learn to appreciate this cornerstone of science fiction through new eyes.

With Star Trek Into Darkness, Abrams and his cast and crew continue to blaze a trail through the cinematic cosmos. We begin right in the middle of the action, just as the preceding movie did – only this time, we follow the crew of the Enterprise as they embark on a misadventure on the planet Nibiru. Kirk (Pine) and Bones (Urban) get pursued by angry spear-wielding natives as Sulu (Cho) and Uhura (Saldana) lower Spock (Quinto) into an active volcano on the brink of eruption in order to neutralize it with a cold fusion device. Just another day in the office for them, then.




Kirk and company return to Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco, where the higher-ups are none too happy about the recklessness they displayed on Nibiru. This is interrupted by a new threat: an unstoppable one-man terror cell who goes by the name of “John Harrison” (Cumberbatch). Kirk leads the crew of the Enterprise in pursuit of Harrison, armed with 72 photon torpedoes and with newbie Dr Carol Marcus (Eve), daughter of Starfleet head Admiral Marcus (Weller), on board. Chief Engineer Scotty (Pegg) is suspicious of the contents of said weapons but his concern is initially unheeded. What follows is a dangerous quest that takes our heroes to the Klingon homeworld of Kronos (or Qo'noS), leading them to the discovery of the torpedoes’ secret payload and the truth behind John Harrison’s beef with Starfleet.

Now, this is how you make a summer blockbuster. A tentpole sci-fi action flick doesn’t have to be two hours of mind-numbing, cacophonous dross. Abrams, along with writers Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof and the countless others involved have brought us a film that is fresh, relentlessly exciting and overflowing with white-knuckle action, and none of this at the expense of a compelling story or well-drawn characters. From the very first minute, this reviewer was yanked right into this fantastical world. Abrams all but announces “buckle up, because it’s going to be one hell of a ride” – and what a ride Star Trek Into Darkness is.




The Star Trek series has a magnificent legacy and has had an immeasurable impact on the genre, and to chuck all that away for all flash and no substance would be something of a crime. That’s not the case here. Sure, there seems to be barely a minute to stop and catch one’s breath, but that’s probably preferable to a film that drags on and on any day of the week. The film has no shortage of pizazz in the form of stunning visual effects work, witty banter and edge-of-your seat near misses galore. Despite having “darkness” in its title, this flick is far from dour or depressing. References, homages and shout-outs are skilfully weaved into the fabric of the story and some may disagree, but this reviewer feels this iteration of Trek actually is very respectful of what went before – just not slavishly so.

One of the many things the first film got right was its casting, with the Enterprise staffed not by a troupe of impressionists, but by actors who got the spirit of the characters they were portraying but weren’t afraid to put a bit of a spin on things. The opening sequence is a brilliant way to reacquaint audiences with the characters without an exposition-heavy recap. We get the sense that these guys are family now, and like any family they have their idiosyncrasies, but they certainly feel more at home on the bridge, in the engineering bay or wherever than they did as fresh faces in the first film.



In this movie, Captain Kirk truly comes into his own as leader of a starship crew and father to his men, Pine further proving there’s more to him than just his handsome mug. Sure, Kirk’s still the brash, womanising guy we all love (we catch him in bed with two be-tailed alien sisters) but there is character growth to be had. The ever-uneasy friendship between Kirk and Spock also gets a fair amount of play, and there are some great moments between the two, ranging from casual brickbats to a pretty dramatic bit near the end of the film. Quinto conveys Spock’s struggle to get in touch with his human side, his resistance to emotion driving a wedge between him and Uhura, but never hits us over the head with this.




Just as in the earlier film, everyone gets a chance to strut his or her stuff – for example, Sulu even gets to be acting captain. Simon Pegg as Scotty and Karl Urban as Bones in particular stand out in this one, both bringing different brands of comic relief to the proceedings while functioning as far more than merely “the funny guys”. Bones mentions that he once performed a Caesarean on a Gorn and delivered octuplets. It’s a funny bit that’s also a nice nod to the original series.  Speaking of alien species, there’s a tribble which turns out to be integral to the plot. This is also brilliant.

Of course, the attention is square on Benedict Cumberbatch as the villain of the piece. Suffice it to say that fangirls of his (who call themselves “Cumberbitches”) will not be disappointed. The guy is a riveting actor, one who knows when to chew just the right amount of scenery in order to not come off as silly. There has been a spate of more “intellectual” villains in blockbuster movies as of late, but Cumberbatch does enough to differentiate himself from the bunch and Harrison isn’t just all brains and no brawn – he single-handedly takes on a Klingon patrol in one action sequence.




Star Trek Into Darkness is such a thrill that this reviewer left the theatre kind of breathless, but also really pumped. It’s a big, big movie, but not the kind that’s an extravagant insult to the intellects of audiences everywhere. Abrams has crafted a sequel that ups the game and elicits cheers, laughter, goosebumps, excited fist-pumping and even a tear or two at all the right moments. And isn’t that warp effect just so sparklingly beautiful?

SUMMARY: J. J. Abrams has assembled everything needed for an involving, supremely entertaining big-ticket picture and somehow made it even more than the sum of its parts. It’s such an impressive ship that even Scotty would be jealous.

RATING: 5 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong

Oblivion

Movie Review                                                                                                                 15/4/13

OBLIVION

2013

Starring: Tom Cruise, Olga Kurylenko, Andrea Riseborough, Morgan Freeman

Directed by: Joseph Kosinski

            Joseph Kosinski was the man who took us back to the grid with 2010’s Tron: Legacy. While remaining in the sci-fi realm, he heads in another direction, bringing audiences a post-apocalyptic vision of Earth where the last man left is Tom Cruise.

            Cruise plays Jack Harper, a technician in charge of maintaining the drones that patrol Earth, the planet having been nearly destroyed by an alien invasion 60 years earlier. Jack lives and works with Victoria (Riseborough), but is mostly occupied with dreams of a mysterious woman he has never met but somehow remembers. In the wreck of a crash-landed spaceship, Harper discovers Julia Rusakova (Kurylenko), whom he identifies as the woman in his dreams. Jack also comes across a rag-tag gang of survivors led by Malcolm Beech (Freeman), who helps him realise that there’s a massive conspiracy afoot and that the life he and Victoria have been living isn’t all it seems.

            Oblivion is ostensibly an adaptation of a graphic novel Kosinksi and writer Arvid Nelson worked on that has been delayed and is yet to be published. The film is, first and foremost, quite the visual experience. Claudio Miranda, recent Oscar winner for Life of Pi, is the director of photography and manages to find the beautiful in the desolate. A lot of contemporary sci-fi films tend to be hyper-kinetic, stuffed to the gills with quick cuts and stylistic flourishes. Oblivion is thus very refreshing, possessing a rare, quiet grandeur and a look that combines sleek and shiny futuristic designs with the vastness of a ravaged earth. We do get some cool action sequences on top of that, most notably an intense dogfight in which Jack in his “bubbleship” craft is pursued by a pack of vicious drones.

            This is very much the Tom Cruise show, the Jack Harper character receiving the lion’s share of storytelling attention. Here, Cruise shows yet again why he’s managed to maintain considerable longevity as a big-name movie star – he’s an actor who can command attention. At the hands of a lesser performer, it’s likely that Jack Harper might blend into his bleak surroundings. Olga Kurylenko does the “mysterious exotic figure” thing well and Andrea Riseborough has a sexy/playful scene in which she takes a night swim all siren-like. What’s nice about the characterisation is that neither female lead is a guns-blazing Ellen Ripley-esque cliché. However, nobody really gets much development beyond Harper himself; this reviewer wishes that we learnt more about Beech and his gang of survivors, who tend to feel a bit Mad Max-ish at times.

            The film’s central plot twist is pretty much par for the course when it comes to science fiction storytelling devices and it also wraps up a little too neatly when a degree of ambiguity might have done it some good. There are a few interesting elements that spice up the ending and in the end, it doesn’t feel like a cop-out, nor does it undermine anything that went before (as twist endings often can).

            Oblivion is the sort of film that’s probably a lot less contemplative than it seems, and while it isn’t particularly engaging on a story or character level, the world that Kosinki and his team have constructed is a masterpiece (enhanced by M83’s atmospheric techno score) and it just pulls the viewer in. While it may not be as deep or thought-provoking as it could have been and might come off feeling too clinical for some, it is still far from superficial and empty and has a fair bit for genre fans to like.

SUMMARY: Wonderful to look at and soak in, Oblivion has a calmness about it that’s hard to find in mainstream sci-fi, but it’s bogged down a tad by narrative loopholes and a less-than-compelling human element.

RATING: 3.5 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong 

Upside Down

For F*** Magazine

UPSIDE DOWN

Director:	Juan Diego Solanas
Cast:	Jim Sturgess, Kirsten Dunst, Timothy Spall
Genre:	Drama, Romance
Run Time:	100 mins
Opens:	14 February 2013
Rating:	PG

“Did you think that your feet had been bound/ by what gravity brings to the ground?” So go the lyrics to Peter Gabriel’s “Down to Earth”, from WALL-E. Just as that film was a high-concept science fiction romance, so is Upside Down.

Well, sort of.

This French-Canadian film stars Jim Sturgess as Adam, who lives on a planet much like Earth, except that it has “dual gravity” – two worlds are separated from each other, the prosperous realm of “Up Above” casting its shadow, quite literally, on the lower-class citizens of “Down Below”. Adam is from Down, and a forbidden love between him and Eden (Dunst) from Up blossoms, as they meet for secret rendezvouses between the mountains of both worlds. Following an accident, Adam believes Eden to be dead, but catches a glimpse of her on TV, and so he gets himself employed by Trans World, the mega corporation that provides the only link between the two worlds, so he can chase the girl of his dreams.

Stories about star-crossed lovers are nothing new. From the Chinese myth of the Weaver and the Cowherd to Romeo and Juliet, from Jack and Rose to Anakin and Padme, we’ve long been fascinated by the idea of two people who must cross incredible boundaries to be together. Upside Down’s premise seems ingenious and very creative at first – how about have the force of gravity separate our male and female leads? However, it turns out that there is nothing more to it than that.

There is very little character development, and we learn next to nothing about Adam and Eden throughout the film. If their love transcends the force of gravity, then why is it so thoroughly uninteresting? The symbolism is heavy-handed (the leads are called “Adam” and “Eden”), and this is yet another poor-boy-falls-love-with-rich-girl tale, a formula which the filmmakers add precious little to. Though cosmic forces are keeping the two apart, it doesn’t seem like there’s much at stake. The film struggles to stay in line with its internal logic regarding the way the “dual gravity” works, and inconsistencies mar what seems like a clever idea, eventually exposing its inherent flaws that writer-director Solanas was probably unaware of as he was crafting the story.

Jim Sturgess and Kirsten Dunst and both talented actors, but saddled with an exposition-heavy opening narration that outlines the rules that govern this strange planet, Sturgess’s voice strains with mock wonderment. Kirsten Dunst seems rather detached from her role, though she does get to reprise some of the upside-down kissing she made famous in Spider-Man. Both have somewhat stilted line delivery that is certainly not helped by the clumsy dialogue. The only other character of note is Timothy Spall’s Bob, Adam’s colleague at Trans World who helps him find Eden – but it’s a comic role Spall can do in his sleep.

It would be a sin to completely write off Upside Down though, because credit is due to Solanas and his team for at least daring to try something different, and something so technically difficult to film. This is a very visual-effects heavy movie, what with the two opposing worlds and their respective gravities, and despite the Hollywood leads, it’s essentially a foreign film and not a big studio production, and it looks all the more impressive with that taken into consideration. It’s a stylish picture for sure, and many shots look straight out of a Chris Van Allsburg-esque picture book.

Unfortunately, this is one of those movies that is fascinating visually, but only on that level. There’s probably a compelling love story to be found somewhere in Upside Down, but it is left completely unmined, and audiences will have to make do with a simplistic and aimless plot, and a romance that never captivates. One can suspend disbelief – but what goes up must come down, and this movie does so with a clatter.

SUMMARY: Beautiful visual effects and art direction can’t stop this half-baked sci-fi fantasy romance from falling apart (and up, and down).

RATING: 2 out 5 STARS

Jedd Jong

Looper

 For F*** Magazine, Singapore

LOOPER

Director:	Rian Johnson
Cast:	Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis, Emily Blunt
Genre:	Action, Thriller
Run Time:	118 mins
Opens:	11 October 2012

There’s no doubt about it: time travel has been something that’s fascinated the public consciousness for quite a while now. From H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine to Back to the Future to The Time-Traveller’s Wife, it seems authors and filmmakers have tapped into mankind’s almost primal desire to transcend the boundaries of time. It could be compared to mankind’s almost primal desire to fly. But while we’ve kinda achieved flight by way of heavier-than-air flying machines, time travel is still something that is quite elusive, to say the least.

Writer-director Rian Johnson’s film Looper offers an interesting twist on things: the ‘Loopers’ of the title are specialised assassins who take care of the trash of the future, by executing those sent back in time by criminal syndicates for a clean, untraceable disposal. Joe (Gordon-Levitt) is one such Looper, living the high life working his fairly uncomplicated job. However, every Looper must eventually ‘close the loop’ – i.e. kill the future version of themselves sent back in time, effectively tying up any loose ends for the crime syndicates. However, Joe’s future self (Willis) won’t go out without a fight, and evades execution. The younger Joe seeks refuge at a farm owned by redneck single mother Sara (Blunt), and just as he figures out how to deal with future-Joe, future-Joe sees the opportunity to right a few wrongs now that he’s in the past, and both must confront each other - even if it means tearing apart the fabric of time itself.



Looper is not your grandfather’s time-travel movie. Johnson has crafted a very intelligent, highly-engaging picture. He quickly establishes the high-concept premise and the story never gets swallowed up in its complexities. There’s a scene where future-Joe meets Joe in a diner, and says that if he attempted to explain the mechanics of time-travel, they’d end up sitting there for hours “making diagrams with straws”. Johnson makes sure he doesn’t end up doing that himself, instead spinning a very human and surprisingly poignant yarn with the science-fiction element as a backdrop. The picture is stylish but never flashy, and Johnson keeps a firm hold on his narrative even as it branches out into “possible eventualities” and alternate futures. Our attention is captured by the intricate plot, so much so that we never stop to question the metaphysical technicalities of it all, and that is very much to Johnson’s credit.

This film re-teams Johnson with the star of his earlier film Brick, Joseph Gordon-Levitt. So, does he make for a decent Junior Bruce Willis? Yes. Although the prosthetic makeup designed by Kazuhiro Tsuji can start off looking a mite goofy, it’s easy to get past that and the actor does a marvellous job emulating Willis’ strained vocal affectations. There was a time when Bruce Willis could have been considered sexy, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s portrayal seems to hearken back to those days. He puts across the moral and emotional toll being a Looper takes on Joe very well without doing too much, and he shares crackling chemistry with Willis himself.


As the older Joe, Willis is really good and actively lends his action hero credibility to the part, without his ‘icon’ status overshadowing the rest of the film. This movie doesn’t succumb to the cliché of having the older version of the character act as a mentor to his younger self and show him the ropes; rather both versions of Joe are almost constantly at each other’s throats and Willis is bitter and aggressive as the older one. What’s quite amusing is how quickly both Joes get over the absurdity of it all, staying focused on their respective missions as the other Loopers are sent to hunt them down (led by a rather intimidating Jeff Daniels).

When one thinks ‘redneck single mother’, English Rose Emily Blunt isn’t the name that immediately springs to mind, but she does a fantastic job as Sara, Southern accent and all. The character is a tough chick that isn’t your stereotypical tough chick; she’s just looking out for her son and making a living on the farm. The subplot which focuses on her character is intriguing to say the least. About halfway through, Looper becomes a completely different film, and while this makes sense in retrospect, it can come off as jarring and abrupt to some. This is one aspect of the film we are desperate not to spoil; the twists and revelations are just incredible. We’ll give you one hint – it’s a little “X-Men”. There are themes of predestination (a little akin to The Adjustment Bureau, also starring Emily Blunt) and sacrifice, and by the film’s end it’s turned from a head-spinning sci-fi action thriller to a poignant, moving drama – and yet doesn’t feel too disjointed.

We moviegoers often complain that Hollywood seems to have well and truly lost its creativity and is content in churning out production line cash-ins, banking on the names of franchises by way of sequels and remakes. Looper is a blunderbusser blast in the face to all of that. Here is a heady, intelligently-made science fiction film that true aficionados of the genre will want to take in, layering emotion, thrills and philosophy one on top of the other. It may not be immediately accessible and it will take a bit of effort to make sense of, but audiences will be amply rewarded.

SUMMARY: A refreshingly original, captivating sci-fi action thriller, this is one loop you want to keep yourself in even if it means working a little for it.

RATING: 4 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong

Iron Sky

As published in Issue #31 of F*** Magazine Singapore

Movie Review                                                                                                             10/7/12

IRON SKY

2012

Starring: Julia Dietze, Götz Otto, Udo Kier

Directed by: Timo Vuorensola

             There are few movie villains audiences love to hate as much as the Nazis. This is probably because they were villains in real life too, and represent a dark and tragic chunk of modern history. For a long time, the Third Reich, with its severely-uniformed storm troopers, inhumane torture and experimentation and goose-stepping soldiers, were Hollywood’s go-to bad guys, be it in serious war films (Schindler’s List, Sophie’s Choice) or pulpy action-adventure flicks (Raiders of the Lost Ark, Hellboy). Many films that didn’t directly contain Nazis had them as inspiration for their own villains: where do you think George Lucas got the name “Stormtrooper” from?  

            As of late, Hollywood has turned their attention to other easier targets (Arab terrorists, African warlords and North Korean despots) and Nazis have been relegated to a cliché, not to be found outside documentary films. This Finnish-German-Australian romp brings the dastardly fiends back, in the form of the “Space Nazis” sci-fi subgenre, touched on in several old Star Trek episodes and in the novel Rocket Ship Galileo, by Robert A Heinlein of Starship Troopers fame. Naturally, it takes a silly, irreverent tone and pretty much runs with it.

            It is the year 2018, and as part of her re-election campaign, the President of the United States (Stephanie Paul as an ersatz Sarah Palin) has sent an African-American astronaut, James Washington (Christopher Kirby), to the moon. On the lunar surface, he is ambushed by, you guessed it, Nazis. After their defeat in 1945, a band of Third Reich-ers hightailed it off the planet and have been hiding in an elaborate, Swastika-shaped base on the far side of the moon. They are led by moonfuhrer Wolfgang Kortzfleisch (Kier), whose second-in-command Klaus Adler (Otto) is set to marry Renate Richter (Dietze), the beautiful daughter of an Einstein-esque mad scientist (Tilo Prückner).

            The nefarious moon Nazis have been planning a return to Earth, and attempt to harness the computing power of Washington’s smartphone to power their space battleship. However, as they often do, the phone runs out of battery power, so Klaus and Renate take Washington back to earth to retrieve more. The two Nazis are recruited by Presidential aide Vivian Wagner (Peta Sergeant) to revamp the President’s campaign with Nazi-style propaganda. Meanwhile, Kortzfleisch has figured out that Adler plans to overthrow him, and brings a fleet to earth himself, beginning the invasion. This leads up to a climactic space battle with the space warship “USS George W Bush” leading the other countries’ spacecraft (including Australia’s “Dundee Irwin”) against the space Nazis.

If all that sounds pretty nuts, that’s because it is. Iron Sky's biggest success is attempting to pull off its premise, which is equally ridiculous and entertaining. Recalling old-fashioned "Nazisploitation" and sci-fi movies, the film revels in the sheer absurdity of the plot and tries to get the audience to have fun along with it. The acting is decent, an eclectic mix of German, Australian and American actors who apparently all relish playing up the stereotypes, subtlety be damned.

Götz Otto, standing at all of 198 cm, is the stock muscle-bound Germanic henchman in human form and is probably best known as the evil henchman Stamper in the Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies. Incidentally, he was also in the much more serious Nazi-themed film Der Untergang (Downfall), source of the infamous “Hitler rant scene” that spawned a thousand gag subtitle parodies on YouTube. In fact, this film pays homage to it with a shot-for-shot spoof enacted by Vivian Wagner, expressing her anger at the ineffectiveness of the presidential campaign. There are several stupid but gut-busting jokes along those lines and this is by all accounts a fairly funny movie, however given how ripe for comedy the premise is, it certainly could have used more humour.

It's plain to see that this farce is a labour of love; even though the subject matter isn't serious, some serious effort was put into bringing it to the big screen. About 10% of the film's budget was donated by fans (who are thanked by name in the end credits), and the opening credits reveal a myriad of other monetary sources and individual sponsors. Admittedly, the movie looks great; the design of the Nazi moon base and the various spacecrafts is quite eye-catching and the space battles are pretty fun to watch and could perhaps rival Hollywood films in quality. The CGI work is consistently terrific, even if the practically-done elements (boy is that a cheap-looking spacesuit) may be a little lacking.

The filmmakers presented a teaser trailer at the Cannes Film Festival way back in 2006 in the hopes of getting funding for their ambitious idea and, slowly but surely, the acquired the funds to pull it off. However, having a long gestation period, the film's Sarah Palin analogue provides slightly dated and weak satire, and on the whole the film definitely comes off as more haphazard than your typical Hollywood production. It desperately wants to be a wacky, modern-day Dr Strangelove, but has far too little impact to be even in the same neighbourhood as Kubrick’s satirical masterpiece. Its jabs at Nazi Germany and modern America are many, but relatively insight-free.

However, audiences don’t want a discussion on indoctrination, propaganda and the militarisation of space, they want to have fun – and you’ll be hard-pressed to say this isn’t. It’s definitely worth checking out because it's certainly a cool ride – it’s the small carnival that comes to town that you may like better than the expensive mega-theme park. After the end credits, the camera pulls back, bringing a neighbouring planet into frame and hinting at who the villains might be for a potential sequel. Count us in as interested.

SUMMARY: Look out; because the heil is falling from the sky – while it lacks punch, this quirky, accessible sci-fi action-comedy is somewhat worthwhile amusement.

RATING: 3/5 STARS

Jedd Jong