"The Last Jedi" Surprises, and In GOOD Ways

Like so many folks, I had theories about what would logically follow the events of The Force Awakens, and even had some ideas that ran contrary to all of those “Rey MUST be Luke’s daughter” stuff some people blathered on and on about.  Now, however, I sit here after my initial viewing of The Last Jedi (“initial,” because I already have tickets for two more showings in the next few days) wondering exactly what to say about it.  Not because I’m wondering if I liked it - quite the contrary, I most certainly did.  I’m just a bit stumped about what to say because The Last Jedi actually surprised me so.  

The first thing that pops to mind is that it sure seems to me that writer/director Rian Johnson was given LOADS more freedom to take this story where he wanted than J.J. Abrams was for the prior film.  For those of you who complained that The Force Awakens followed too many story beats from the original 1977 film, you darn-sight shouldn’t have any gripes about this one being too much like The Empire Strikes Back.  The opening crawl sets us up by telling us that the First Order is on the ascent across the galaxy, having run down General Leia’s Resistance to just a few hundred ships and personnel, and are closing in for the final kill.  While the remnants of the Resistance fleet flees from General Snarky-Pasty-Face… excuse me, I mean General Hux (Domhnall Gleeson)… our heroes are split off on separate missions that will hopefully all serve the same goal - escape Hux’s pursuit without being tracked to a new hideout. While Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) grows impatient about the seemingly risk-averse approach charted by Leia and her second-in-command (Laura Dern), John Boyega’s Finn teams up with a Resistance mechanic named Rose (Kelly Marie Tran) to track down a hacker (“codebreaker”) to sabotage the First Order’s new ability to follow the rebel ships in and out of light speed.

Simultaneously, Rey (Daisy Ridley) is right where The Force Awakens left her - on the island-dotted planet of Ahch-To, where she found Luke sulking in the remains of an ancient Jedi temple.  While hounding him to not only return to action, but also tutor her in the ways of the Force, she learns about why Luke ended up here and comes to find just how much raw power she may possess.  The dynamic between Luke and Rey feels similar to that of Yoda and Luke in Empire at first, but the payoff to which it leads is totally different.  

Mirroring the Luke/Rey relationship is the Rey/Kylo Ren(Ben) “relationship.”  As if there was any uncertainty before, The Last Jedi makes it very clear that Rey and Ben are the focus of this new trilogy, even more so than I would’ve guessed.  Adam Driver continues to excel as the incredibly powerful, incredibly insecure and incredibly immature villain of this new segment of the Star Wars saga, and he and Ridley convey the angst of dealing with the flavors of the Force so much better than did Hayden Christensen in the prequels (here's where you can debate whether they're better actors, or were better-directed... or both).  The Force-centric communication between these Kylo and Rey throughout the story plays out like some sort of cosmic FaceTime-ing, during which each attempts to insult/convince/cajole the other into coming around to his/her point of view.  Sure, it’s the old Dark Side vs. Light Side, but again, Rian Johnson twists things just enough to keep things from feeling exactly like the Luke/Vader/Palpatine conflict.  

The Last Jedi strikes a terrific balance of remaining true to how the previous seven (eight?) films FELT, yet makes it clear that we’re moving on to something new.  Nerds such as myself all over the world have been debating (and debating… and debating…) for the last two years about such earth-shatteringly important issues like Rey’s parentage and Snoke’s origins and Luke’s reasons for becoming a hermit.  Without revealing those answers, I will say that the answers are indeed given.  What so pleasantly surprised me about Rian Johnson’s script is how NONE of those answers are what I expected, much less guessed them to be and, to be honest, I don’t recall hearing anyone out in the Nerd-verse posit the correct answers over the last two years, either.

Sure, I may have a point of contention or two about some of Johnson’s story choices (“you mean that’s ALL the Captain Phasma we get AGAIN???”), but that’s just personal taste and not any reflection on the quality of the film.  Well, I guess I will say the first act seemed to be trying a bit too hard on the jokes (SPOILER - I am bitterly disappointed in Luke’s reaction to being handed his original lightsaber), but thankfully, things are played pretty straight for the final two acts, and Johnson does a wonderful job of giving us proper portions of things we wanted to see, things we needed to see, and things we didn’t even know we wanted to see.  Most notably to me was the final confrontation at the film’s climax, something Star Wars nerds have oh-so longed to see from an actual bad-ass Jedi Master Luke Skywalker, but in a fashion we never would’ve guessed in a million years.  

So apparently, I actually HAVE found a bit to say about The Last Jedi.  As with anything Star Wars-related about which I write, I qualify this essay by reminding you that I have forty years of love, affection and out-laying of hard-earned money involved in this franchise, so take my opinions with whatever grains of salt you think should be applied.  With that fair warning given, I tell you that The Last Jedi is what all Star Wars movies aspire to be, and what most of them turn out to be - a fantastic escapist space fantasy tale with characters we love going in directions that surprise us.  Space battles, lightsaber fights, Good vs. Evil philosophizing - it’s all there, and no matter what some naysayers might nay-say, we’d gripe if any of it wasn’t there!  Go see it.

Maybe my second (and third) viewings will give me even more to talk about...

"The Revenant" is a brutal, beautiful experience

There are movies that are meant to be enjoyed.  There are movies that are meant to be endured.  There are movies that are meant to be admired.  It is entirely possible for a movie to be one, a combination of any two, or all three at once, and still be great.  In my particular case, I found all three to be applicable to The Revenant.  

Director Alejandro González Iñárritu’s follow-up to last year’s Oscar-winning Birdman is an even better film.  It is a survival story, a revenge tale, and travelogue all rolled into one, and would serve as an almost-perfect example of each.  We’ve all seen the shots of the battle scene in the trailer and television spots, and yes, those are incredible, but these moments from the first ten minutes of the film are not indicative of the whole.  If you choose to see this film, you may think you’re going to see a Western.  You may think you’re going to see a thriller.  You may think you’re going to see a revenge yarn.  In a manner of speaking, you may be right, but you’d also be totally wrong.  

The story opens in the 1820s, and explorer and frontiersman Hugh Glass (Leonardo Dicaprio) is helping other Americans get through the unchartered Dakota territories as they collect pelts, but are soon attacked by natives and reduced in number from a hundred to a mere twenty or so. The survivors, still followed by the Indian leader in search of his daughter who was kidnapped by other fur trappers, leave the sure path of the Missouri River to civilization to instead trek overland and hopefully lose their pursuers.  As they escape the terrain, Glass is furiously mauled by a wild bear protecting her cubs.  With a couple of hunters left in charge of caring for him, John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), not only stabs Glass’ son to death in front of him, but buries Glass alive, leaving him for dead.  Glass survives his wounds, however, and begins a superhuman journey to find Fitzgerald and exact revenge.

This film is an endurance trial, for both DiCaprio’s character and the audience viewing it.  I don’t believe I’ve seen any character suffer so much throughout the course of a story since The Passion of the Christ, although that suffering certainly had a different impact. DiCaprio conveys Glass’s hardships with nary a spoken word, as he may only have a couple dozen line of dialogue throughout the film (I didn’t count, so don’t quote me on that). Considering DiCaprio never seems to take a role that doesn’t require him to do some yelling at some point, this is definitely a change of pace for him. With so many of his scenes being shot in close-up, looking deep into his pain-wracked face, or staring into his revenge-filled eyes, Leo shows us yet again why is he one of the best film actors of this generation.

The movie’s other lead, Tom Hardy, is almost unrecognizable as Fitzgerald, and is even unintelligible at times, too, but I thought that to be probably historically accurate - Hell, education is supposedly better now than it was a hundred and ninety years ago, and people can’t speak English worth a toot NOW, so imagine how bad it must have been back then!  But I digress…

With all that said, one must be aware that this is not a Leonardo DiCaprio movie, nor is it a Tom Hardy movie.  Sure, those names are what will appeal to general audiences and possibly lead them to buy a ticket, and their performances are out-of-this-world.  Make no mistake, however - this is an Alejandro G. Iñárritu movie.  This is an instance of a great artist creating his Magnum Opus.  Iñárritu has crafted a film that, on the exact opposite end of the spectrum, is as visually stunning as David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia. His astounding camera movement - around moving horses, over and under water - is something I’m yet to figure out for myself.  Every frame of this film is beautiful, and a still of any shot would make a lovely piece of art to grace anyone’s wall.  The film was shot entirely in natural light by Emmanuel Lubezki, Oscar-winning cinematographer the last two years running (for both Gravity and Birdman), a technical feat that I will not attempt to describe here, but take my word for it - shooting an entire movie in natural light is incredibly difficult.  

Some may call Iñárritu’s pace of the 156-minute movie slow, but I would disagree.  A short-and-sweet hour-and-three-quarter movie would not do justice to the ordeal the main character must suffer in this story.  The movie’s pace is deliberate, steady and unrelenting, following Glass’s efforts at survival not only with great detail in HOW he survived, but with sequences of dreams and delirium that provide insight into WHY he survived.

We often sit in a darkened theater or our living room and watch characters suffer through physical and emotional pain that most of us can’t really comprehend.  Too often, these endurance tests feel manipulative or, even worse, false.  We’re smart enough to “see the strings” being pulled, and the actor and set never fades away into the character and condition. What’s remarkable about The Revenant is how effectively it transports us to another time and place, while always maintaining its worth as a piece of visual art. You don’t just watch The Revenant, you experience it.  You should walk out of it exhausted, impressed with the overall quality of the filmmaking, and a little more grateful for the creature comforts of your life.

"Ex Machina" brings Frankenstein to the Modern Day

Years ago, I reviewed Steven Spielberg’s AI: Artificial Intelligence, and said that while I could not honestly say anything about the quality of the movie other than how excellently-made it was, I could not recommend it. Despite how wonderful a storyteller Spielberg is, I believed he was asking his audience to do something that I found to not only be impossible, but also immoral - to presume that Man can artificially replicate human emotion. In my review of that film, I explained how I firmly believe that, despite the scientific wonders of which Mankind is capable, there are some things that are beyond science, things such love and pain. I always find myself hindered when watching any story about “robots” interacting with humans, as it seems to me that almost without fail, the story is asking me to feel some sort of sympathy for the robot/artificial construct in question, and I can’t feel sympathy for such a construct any more than I could feel sympathy for a toaster, or a hedge trimmer, or my cell phone. No matter what task or action it performs, or how it seems to display some human reaction, nothing will change the fact that IT IS NOT REAL.

Thus, the dilemma I faced when watching Alex Garland’s Ex Machina recently ("Ex Machina" being derived from the old literary device "Deux ex Machina," literally "God from the Machine," meaning some unexpected power or event saving a seemingly hopeless situation). We, the audience, are represented by young Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), a lower- to mid-level programmer at a mammoth search engine company (called “BlueBook,” but who are we kidding? It’s Google) who is selected, seemingly at random, to visit the mountain retreat/estate/laboratory of the company’s founder, Nathan (Oscar Isaacs) for a week. While there, he is to administer a Turing Test to an artificial intelligence construct Nathan has created, a female-shaped robot called Ava (Alicia Vikander). 

What’s a “Turing Test,” you ask? It’s a scenario in which a computer or some other construct interacts with a human to a degree that the human is unable to determine that the computer is not human. Nathan is so firm in the belief that he has created what amounts to a new life form that he even tells Caleb straight up that Ava is artificial, confident that even with that knowledge, Caleb will come to accept her as indistinguishable from human. 

Nathan is portrayed as an almost total megalomaniac, freely admitting using his Google-like search engine database illegally as raw data for constructing his artificial intelligence. As if his desire to “become God” (his words) wasn’t evidence enough, his regaling Caleb with the young man’s fantasy of a bachelor pad stocked with alcohol, unlimited WiFi, a weight room and a silent, leggy Asian servant girl should seal the deal for you. He lectures Caleb on how his creation is not only wonderful, but is the next logical step in evolution, explaining how attraction and sexuality can be reduced to mere ones and zeros and programmed into a construct, resulting in reactions indistinguishable from “natural.” 

Garland’s clever screenplay is essentially a three-character stage play, with the majority of the film taking place in one location with the three speaking characters (and a non-speaking one). Over the course of the week Caleb is present, Nathan passive-aggressively steers Caleb into developing an emotional connection to Ava (well, perhaps not even all that passively). He watches the interview sessions between Caleb and Ava via video monitors, sessions during which, strangely, Caleb is the one sealed in a locked enclosure, not Ava. We already know Nathan is playing Caleb and Ava off one another, attempting to engender sympathy in each for the other, but during almost regular power outages, Ava begins trying to get Caleb to aid her in escaping her creator. Garland keeps us wondering whether it is Nathan playing Caleb off Ava, or if it’s Ava playing him off Nathan, or if both possibilities are true. 

I say that Caleb is the only sympathetic character in this movie, but perhaps I should be more specific and say that he is the only HUMAN character for whom to feel sympathy. The vibe of the scenes between Caleb and Ava are obviously to evoke feeling for the robotic construct, such that Caleb will deceive Nathan and help the machine “escape,” but I again remind the reader that I can’t fall for that trap. If anything, I found myself amazed at how someone as supposedly intelligent as Caleb, someone specifically trained in computer science and the application/manipulation of data, could so quickly fall in “love” with something showing its wires. While I imagine his fate at the end of the film was supposed to engender a different reaction from me, I couldn’t help but feel that the dum-dum sorta asked for it.

Alex Garland has written some very good science fiction movies, 28 Days Later and Sunshine, just to name a couple, and I reiterate that this screenplay makes for a fascinating, engrossing story. This movie being his directing debut, he shows some skill in guiding the three actors playing the lead roles, as they are all wonderful in conveying innocence, insanity and awareness, respectively.  

Oh, there are discussions galore to be had about the subtexts and undertones in this film - Nathan’s God-complex, the sexism in his conscious decision to make all of his constructs in the female form and have them serve him, Ava’s ultimate fate and the coming of the Technological Singularity, etc. I won’t delve into those, however, in an effort to keep this essay a reasonable length. I will say that I honestly don’t know if my inability to enjoy this movie will make me the exception or the rule. I can see how some may find it thoroughly enjoyable. I imagine lots of people, Sci-Fi fans and not-so-much fans, will find Ex Machina something to generate lots of deep thought afterwards. 

However, my intellect and my Faith prevent me from following stories such as this one to the emotional places I believe their tellers wish me to go. This may very well just be some personality flaw that only affects me and prevents me from enjoying such entertainment, and perhaps might not affect any other viewer at all. As Popeye so famously said, however, “I yam what I yam,” so I cannot in good conscience proclaim Ex Machina to be an enjoyable film. A well-made one, without question, and one that can I can admire, but not enjoy.