Interstellar: a call to arms

In the interest of updating my column at least yearly, I have decided to write some stray thoughts on Interstellar. This is less a review – because there is already an exhaustive supply – and more of a call to arms for the film and Chris Nolan in general.

The film has been polarising critics and audiences. Proponents generally praise the epic scale, practical effects, and fairly consistent adherence to actual hard science. Critics may call it bombastic, poorly scored, or ham-fisted.

While none of these appraisals are incorrect, to call Interstellar failure as film (which some are doing) is wrong. I don’t consider it a masterpiece and would probably place it at the tail end of Nolan’s top 5 (after Memento, Inception, The Dark Knight, and Insomnia, just barely edging out The Prestige). It cannot be called a failure.

The film is grandiose, a true feat of production design. The acting is less the spectacle here, but far from poor. Those people criticising the acting in this film should see The Room or Grown Ups and then try to say “Anne Hathaway, meh” with a straight face. More importantly, Interstellar grapples with lofty concepts, often metaphysical, which are at the core of good SF. I will allow that Nolan sometimes lays it on a bit thick, but do not understand how a bit of heavy-handedness turns this into a one-to-two-star film.

I’m willing to give Nolan a bit more rope than other directors because few, if any, are making films like he is. Given all the people who bemoan the cookie-cutter superhero franchise films, the bland CGI-fest pictures, the lifeless, interchangeable teen fantasy flicks, and pointless reboots, one would think that more critics would be lining up to defend Interstellar. It is a hugely ambitious film from a director who delights in challenging his audiences rather than belittling them. Although I have my

issues with Interstellar (mostly the last 20 minutes), I admire Nolan’s commitment to quality and to the film medium. Here is one of the few remaining directors who is not a hired gun, not interested in selling merchandise nor franchise rights, but in making art. He is able to pursue these ambitions because he has taken big risks and they have largely paid off. His movies make heaps of money, so studios (for now) are willing to sign blank checks for him to keep creating, innovating, and pushing boundaries.

My appeal is simple: go see this movie and his next movie and so on regardless of a few killjoy critics. I realise this is a tad hypocritical coming from me, who savaged TDKR two years ago, but chalk it up to being two years older and wiser now. We are voting on the future of film with our dollars and, recently, the drab, effects-laden blockbusters have been winning. Even if Interstellar isn’t your cup of tea, you must still recognise Chris Nolan as one of the most important directors of his generation and arguably the most vocal defender of film stock today. His efforts may not always resonate with you personally, but they are always valiant. As such, I feel a moral responsibility as a film-lover to see his work in theatres and I encourage you to do the same.

Man of Steel sucks and here’s why

Directed by Zach Snyder

Starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Michael Shannon, Russell Crowe, Morpheus, Antje Traue, Diane Lane, Kevin Cosner, and Christopher Elephantdick Meloni

** MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW**

I was super excited for the new Superman. That’s saying something. That carries more clout that fanboy mouth-frothing, because I’ve never had any interest in the character, the movies, the comics, etc. I think Superman is boring, both in the cape and the eyeglasses. For me to be excited about this movie speaks to my faith in Chris Nolan, Zach Snyder (who I’m more willing to defend than most), and David S. Goyer, and the effective marketing campaign preceding the film’s release.

In addition to the strong production team behind this feature, Man of Steel benefitted from the bar being set at an all-time low. There hasn’t been a good Superman movie in 35 years and the last attempt, 2006’s abysmal Superman Returns, was, as Kevin Smith so gloriously put it, ‘the whiny emo version of Superman where Superman doesn’t even throw a punch.’ From the get-go, it seemed pretty hard to fuck this up, but I guess Zach Snyder is the type of guy who really relishes a challenge because he fucks this one up hard.

The film is an origin story. It opens with the crumbling of Krypton. The planet’s advanced and hyper-regimented civilization has taxed natural resources beyond reason, but the Kryptonian elders refuse to admit fault or take necessary steps to preserve what remains. As the abidingly patriotic General Zod (Michael Shannon) stages a coup, warrior/senator Jor-El (Russell Crowe) defies the government by having a natural-born son and sending that progeny in a capsule bound for Earth along with Krypton’s digital archives. Jor-El gives his life to protect his son’s escape and, he feels, the survival of his civilization.

Flash-forward 33 years and Kal-El (Henry Cavill) has been raised in Kansas as Clark Kent, now wandering the Earth, keeping a low profile, and using his Kryptonian superpowers to rescue people. Before long, though, Zod comes looking for him and Krypton’s ‘codex,’ stopping at nothing to reclaim what he feels is the final hope for rebuilding the home he swore to defend. Clark now has to choose sides between his Kryptonian blood and his adoptive planet, the fate of which hangs in the balance.

I understand that you don’t have all day and there are about 230,000 things I don’t like about this movie, so let me just (for now) highlight the most important ones.

The film’s core failing is Zack Snyder not understanding how human beings work. If you’re going to make a movie focusing on an alien, and the crux of his character arc is finding or defining his humanity, then you should probably understand how human beings work. There’s an early scene wherein Clark gets into a rowdy bar dispute trying to protect a female colleague from harassment. He gets a beer poured over him; he shows restraint while the crowd looks on. The problem: the crowd includes two CF soldiers. There is no universe in which two CF guys in uniform don’t come between a trucker and the waitress he’s sexually harassing. I promise you that.

Then there’s a scene where Clark reveals to his aged mother Martha (Diane Lane) that he uncovered relics from Krypton’s past and knows a bit more about his family history. She gets emotional and starts crying. He just chuckles (a bit condescendingly, I thought) and says ‘Aw, shucks, no worries Ma’, I’m still your son.’ Or some shit like that. As an only son who loves his mother, I can tell you when your mom starts to cry, you start to cry too. That is hard-wired. To simply laugh that shit off means you’re a sociopath. Seriously.

Later still, Zod’s spacecraft lifts off out of the desert in front of a company of soldiers and FBI agents. The craft’s propulsion turbines kick up a giant dust cloud and not one of the dudes covers his face with his hand. They may as well be like:

I love you, sand! Come into my eyes, sand!

 

It’s fair to argue that these are minor points and that I’m nitpicking. I bring them up for two reasons. First, I don’t want to re-hash the same comments that other critics have made, so I probe a bit deeper. Second, at fear of sounding like a broken record, if you’re going to make a movie about a dude discovering his humanity, you need to populate that movie with flesh-and-blood humans. Real people, not robots. The devil is in the details and they need to ring true, no more or less than the major arcs. Every character in this movie behaves like a robot except for Christopher Meloni, who fuckin rules shit.

The film’s second fatal flaw is its failure to capitalize on one of its most interesting plot points: the existential dichotomy between Superman and Zod. MoS sets it up brilliantly: it posits Superman as the first natural, non-engineered Kryptonian birth in centuries (hence, the first in centuries to have a blank slate and agency in the course of his life), and Zod as a guy who was designed and programmed to be the guardian of his civilization, which is now on the brink of extinction. Right there, you have a template for one of the most profound moral and philosophical explorations of free will and utilitarianism in the entire superhero canon. It gets tread over for a cumulative three minutes, maybe. Superman = good; Zod = bad, they punch each other, guess who wins. Such waste.

My third quarrel is with the actual punching. The action in this movie sucks huge amounts of camel dick. I read a great review that described action as consequence. Action is made meaningful by the audience’s emotional investment in the characters and genuine concern that they are at risk. As per point one, none of these people are actual humans so your investment is zero. The only minute of action in this movie that made my dick even remotely hard was when Meloni survives his helicopter being shot down, escapes the wreckage, and fires about 50 rounds point-blank at Kryptonian baddie Faora (Antje Traue). Upon seeing the bullets bounce off her like Nerf darts, Meloni practically fuckin YAWNS, pulls out a buck knife, and stands up all like: ‘Alright let’s dance, E.T.’

'Hope you brought your A-game, 'cause I trained at Fort Yolo, motherfucker.'

I care about this dude. Meloni for President. Klingons would surrender to this fuckin guy. They should have made the movie about Meloni and called it Balls of Steel. People would watch that movie and care about the action, not because things explode hugely, but because the risk of him being injured or superkilled is significant and because you are moved by his courage and selflessness in the face of danger and death. That is what humanity is about.

Zach Snyder clearly slept through the day in film school when students were taught that action doesn’t have to be huge to be meaningful. Neo fights Agent Smith three times in the Matrix trilogy. Which is the best one? Subway in the first movie, right? Yet it covers the least physical space, has the least FX, and is the shortest in duration. It is the best because Neo is mortal (makes emotional stakes higher), the buildup to it is superbly executed, and it carries weight and resonance in the scope of the movie – it is more about Neo overcoming his own self-doubt than it is about him defeating a computer-generated bad guy.

In a single sentence, MoS spends its two-hour running time shouting ‘LOOK AT ME’ without delivering something worthy of attention other than the shouting itself. It paints itself as a dark, brooding, character study but achieves at none of these things.

The Dark Knight Rises

Directed by Christopher Nolan

Starring Christian Bale, Tom Hardy, Anne Hathaway, Gary Oldman, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine.

*** Contains spoilers in the second half. I will indicate where so please READ CAREFULLY.***

The review is as much for me as it is for anyone else. The Dark Knight Rises release marked the culmination of six months’ anticipation and, unlike the two previous Batman instalments, it was sorely disappointing. Since I knew this stance would be an unpopular one, I have spent much of last night and today pondering why I thought the movie was such a huge letdown. In effort to describe what I thought was faulty about The Dark Knight Rises, I have synthesised a review in two parts.

The first I will try to keep spoiler-free (since trailers have done a good job of piquing interest while revealing little of the plot) and the second part will be full-on, spoiler-filled but will more thoroughly address the core failings of the film. I will note when this review segues from part I to II.

Part I: Spoiler-free

The narrative picks up eight years after the events of The Dark Knight. The deaths of Harvey Dent and Rachel Dawes have thrust Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) into a reclusive lifestyle and also provided Police Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) with a strong mandate to rid Gotham of organised crime. In these détente times, both crime fighters seem listless and impotent.

Soon enough, however, a madman following in the footsteps of Liam Neeson’s Ra’s al Ghul and Heath Ledger’s magnificent Joker threatens to plunge Gotham back into violence and chaos. Bane is played as a force of nature by rising star Tom Hardy, replacing Joker’s sinister, sociopathic menace with brutish physicality and surprising intelligence. It is clear that he and his plans for Gotham are pure evil and stopping them will require every ounce of Batman’s waning strength and resolve.  The road to their final showdown is two-and-a-half hours long and the climax unsatisfying.

Hathaway: underdeveloped but hot damn that catsuit

For a 165 minute movie there isn’t much to sink your teeth into. The film introduces this new villain, the slinky, ambivalent Catwoman (Anne Hathaway), young heartstrong cop John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), and a slew of other characters and ideas but fails to develop any of them substantively.

This is what’s wrong with the movie. It’s the first time that Chris Nolan has failed as a storyteller, a quality that has always been his greatest career asset. Rather than letting the plot unfold, he hurls it at you. The film is like watching almost three hours of back-to-back montages. I struggle to remember any scenes in this movie; points where it exits Ludicrous Speed, the Huge String Section Epic Movie Score relents, and characters interact for more than 15 seconds before a cutaway. Granted, Nolan films habitually move along at a brisk pace, but he’s always found time to produce great character moments; like Leonard’s description of his wife to Natalie in Memento or when a naive Bruce Wayne confronts crime boss Carmine Falcone early in Batman Begins. These moments simply don’t exist here.

Perhaps even more problematic are the myriad plot deficiencies. I was willing to forgive the ones in Dark Knight (like that nonsense escapade to Hong Kong) because they were less glaring and because that movie ultimately owned. But Chris and brother/screenwriting partner Jonathan Nolan are just asking for way too much slack this time around. It’s difficult to expand on this point without over-revealing, so more to follow in the spoiler section.

The last nails in the lid of the coffin are the characters. Don’t misunderstand, Bale, Hardy, Oldman, Hathaway, JGL, and Michael Caine all do the absolute best with what they’re given. The performances are beyond reproach. It’s the characters themselves that are hugely inconsistent. In most cases their motivations are muddled, and the way they execute them defies reason and ignores the character roots that Nolan spends an hour establishing. What made the Joker a great villain (beyond Ledger’s singular performance) was that he was a great character. Sure, he was a complete lunatic but, in the scope of the Dark Knight, was internally consistent in his lunacy. His actions always made sense in a Joker sort of way.

Lesser complaints include the surprising lack of action in the film, too little/too much emphasis being placed on certain characters, and the climax not being as exciting as I thought fitting for the “epic conclusion” to this Batman saga. As with Dark Knight’s deficiencies, it would have been easy to overlook some of these if, at the core, Rises actually worked. But it doesn’t. In any way.

***Beyond this glorious picture of the Joker lies part II of the review during which I literally SPOIL THE ENTIRE FILM. Please read only if you have already seen it. You have been warned.***

Part II: Spoilers and discussion

Alright, I’ll expand on what’s been discussed in Part I; that nothing about the plot or its characters makes a lick of sense.

Caine as Alfred, one of many unjustly treated characters

My earliest major objection was to disappearing Alfred within the first half-hour. I’m one of the rare few who generally dislikes Michael Caine’s performances (and most of his movies) and I still thought he acted the living shit out of Rises. Beyond that, his character has always been a moral and emotional compass for Bruce Wayne, and a necessary one in the absence of a Robin character. Even if you liken his departure to Katharine Ross in Butch & Sundance (i.e. being unwilling to watch the man he loves die) it still doesn’t ring true. Alfred knew the dangers that Bruce Wayne faced from the onset and was never so lily-livered that he’d bow out when the going got tough (anyone remember Dark Knight and his huge speech on ENDURING?). I think this decision was made purely to speed the movie along, like dispatching Franka Potente two-thirds of the way through Bourne Identity when it became expedient for the plot. The irony is that Rises continues for two hours beyond that.

Catwoman is also completely mishandled. I was comfortable with her being a burglar/modern day Robin Hood. But here’s the problem: if her character is one of principle, there’s no way that she’d shank Batman and ally herself with a megalomaniac and his army of zealots. The argument that she did it for survival is facile and weak. Bane had bigger fish to fry, looser ends to tie up, and she should have known that. A career criminal of her calibre could have escaped pre-ruin Gotham with little difficulty. If, conversely, she was completely nihilistic (which seems rather unlikely from her dialogue), there’s no way she stays and fights at the end. If this incongruity is meant to be her character’s “journey,” then Nolan really has done a poor job of getting her convincingly from point A to point B.

Christian Bale has zero romantic chemistry with either of the two female leads. Having said that, when has Christian Bale had any romantic chemistry with anyone? Why bother?

The movie comes majorly off the rails with the Bane character. Making him an ostracised disciple of Ra’s al Ghul, still determined to carry out League of Shadows work, is a gigantic problem. As artistic liberties go it's a completely unnecessary one, born of some misplaced desire to make the trilogy come full circle. If Bane is trying to finish Ra’s work, and Ra’s plan was to destroy Gotham, why doesn’t he just destroy Gotham? Why is it necessary for the city to live as a would-be anarchist state for five months before it explodes?

Ra’s readily admits in Batman Begins that he tried and failed to kill Gotham the slow way (through economic stagnation). Undaunted, he travels there with a small army and disperses a destructive neurotoxin across the city. Bane, supposedly brilliant yet somehow completely unwilling to learn from his predecessor’s mistakes, twiddles his thumbs for half a year and leaves Batman, the one man capable of unravelling his plan, alive and unguarded. Why does he stick him in a prison in South America? How does Bane even GET THERE? Why is Wayne’s escape [insert gas mask voice] “Impossible!”? He’s a MOTHERFUCKING TRAINED NINJA!

Nevermind that. It’s cathartic. Just watch and accept, right?

Even more ridiculous is Bruce Wayne’s escape and return to Gotham (conveniently) 15-or-so hours before the bomb goes off with no money or passport. Speaking of which, the fact that all the characters also somehow know exactly when the bomb is going off is in itself absurd and inexplicable. The “time bomb” premise is predicated upon the nuclear device becoming unstable. By definition, unstable explosives do not detonate by timer. It’s like this movie was written by monkeys.

Bane vs. Batman: the epic showdown is hardly that

The conclusion of the film is a giant goddamn catastrophe. The epic final battle between cops and mercenaries should be worthy of all the clashes in Braveheart, Gladiator, and Star Wars. This trilogy deserves that. Instead, its scope is essentially restricted to some close shots of Bane and Batman trading blows – a final mano-a-mano that is not nearly as bone-crunching or emotionally involving as their sewer fight. On the whole, adherence to a PG-13/12A rating keeps their battles from being primal, visceral, and brutal as they should be.

Revealing Miranda Tate as Talia al Ghul straight up kills the movie. It weakens – to the point of invalidating – Bane as a villain, and Batman by extension. Bane could have been an effective nemesis with no mention of the al Ghul family. He unmasks and cripples Batman. He takes control of Gotham. He’s surrounded by an army of highly-trained zealots who literally die at his command. Then, for no reason and to little positive effect (because what does it ADD to the movie, really?), it’s revealed that he’s not actually the mastermind. He is in fact no more than Talia’s attack dog – unwaveringly obedient and willing to sacrifice himself out of idolatry for her. Bane, the beast, the monolith, the man who broke the Bat, is no different from the horde of automatons that does his bidding. It makes him pathetic and Batman’s defeat at his hands even more so.

The second reason why revealing Miranda as Talia is stupid is because it’s fucking stupid. Are we expected to forget that she spent all her time in post-ruin Gotham embedded with the resistance?! Wouldn’t she have, oh, I don’t know, blown the whistle on them a thousand times over? Wouldn’t that have nullified any chance of her master plan being thwarted?

JGL: on point but misused

The final minutes also reek of foul play by Warner Brothers. I already thought that JGL played too prominent a role in someone else’s film. This is Batman’s last film and it almost felt like JGL was the main character. Revealing him as Robin in the denouement was hackneyed studio trickery. It transforms Rises from a concluding chapter (which has been its tagline from the beginning) to the introduction of yet another money-making superhero spinoff sequel. Beyond that trespass, Nolan has always adamantly opposed to the inclusion of Robin in his films. To not only include him but give him lion’s share of running time is a violation of the Batman universe Nolan set forth to create. It strips authorial control from one of cinema’s last remaining auteurs.

I wanted so badly to like this film. Stepping into the theatre I was in fact unshakably convinced I would. Whether Nolan was strong-armed into doing the studio’s bidding or whether he dropped the ball on his own is inconsequential. Rises’ failures are irrefutable and absolute.