Hello, this is your spoiler-break. If you haven't seen Spider-Man: Far From Home, you shouldn't be here. This piece goes into (and underneath) far too much detail of the plot and themes of the film. To the point where it probably won't even make too much sense if you haven't seen the movie, but all the same you can always read my first-pass review to get a general flavour of what's in store (very vague spoilers in there, but nothing too derailing).
It took me far too long to get round to watching Far From Home again, but in the meanwhile I was at least able to marshall my thoughts somewhat. I absolutely love it, that should have been clear last time, and watching a second time allowed me to pick out more specific detail while also having the deeper themes filled in with more texture. I still didn't get quite the buzz that I did from 2017's Homecoming, but this movie is far more than just a flashy ride, as we'll discover.
Anyway, that's enough stalling - proceed with care…
Still here? Smashing. Okay, let's look at potentially the biggest revelation in Far From Home before we get into the meaning of the film. Because while they're certainly linked, they're not the same thing. J.Jonah Jameson appears in the mid-credits scene. Big deal, J.Jonah Jameson is a central player in the spider-specific mythos, and he didn't rock up in Homecoming, either reinterpreted or otherwise, so he fits in well here. But J.Jonah Jameson is played by actor J.K. Simmons here. Big deal, Simmons is an absolutely perfect fit for the bullish newspaper editor. In fact, we know he's a perfect fit because we saw J.K. Simmons play J.Jonah Jameson in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy from 2002-07.
Wait, what? Oh yeah.
Now, the one point on which Marvel Studios have been consistent over the course of twenty three movies is that the cinematic universe is sprawling yet self-contained. Characters who have appeared in other movies and media previously are not to be taken as the ones in the MCU content, in terms of the story-canon. Many of them will have broadly similar backstories, but characters, events and even actors outside this timeline are not to be taken as historical in their new iterations. That's why Chris Evans was able to portray The Human Torch in a pair of Fox's Fantastic Four movies, and still become the definitive Captain America. It's why Ben Affleck was Daredevil in the 2003 flick, but in the MCU he's played by Charlie Cox, and different things happen to that character.*1
Anyway, the point is that Marvel Studios aren't beholden to the story arcs and casting choices of any 'sub-contracted' movie series*2. So why, after all these years of retooling and re-imagination, has J.K. Simmons returned in the role of J.Jonah Jameson? They could have dropped many other performers into that role. Robert Redford, Glenn Close, Tommy Lee Jones, Jenny Agutter, the MCU is full of actors who maybe can't do the action stuff any more, but are still great to have in roles of gravitas. But they chose Simmons again. Rest assured, this was no accident. And the answer, somewhat ironically, lies in last year's Into The Spider-Verse. Sony's non-MCU animated extravaganza deals with the collision of various comic and cartoon versions of the web-slinger, when a dimensional-portal mishap draws all these threads together. And just when we thought the MCU was safely walled off from Marvel's uneven earlier cinematic efforts, J.K. Simmons rocks up as J.Jonah Jameson, reminding everyone of those three Tobey Maguire movies*3. And all of a sudden, it seems like characterisations from elsewhere in Marvel's screen history actually could exist in the MCU after all. Different stories, but same faces.
How? That's not explained. Yet. Doctor Strange spoke of seeing different realities at the climax of Infinity War, his 2021 outing is titled Multiverse of Madness, and Disney's recent re-acquisition of the X-Men and Fantastic Four characters via the Fox buy-out could well point to some mass crossover whereby non-MCU properties are at least accounted for (otherwise it's exposition-heavy reboots all round). Far From Home teases the possibility earlier in its run-time when Mysterio states he's from Earth 813, a parallel dimension to the MCU's 'standard' Earth 616. But as everything else Quentin Beck says here is a lie, presumably we can discount that, too? We can certainly scrub his exact version of events, although the seed has been planted all the same. Hell, Beck's got access to a lot of Stark's old files, and it's possible his own team have made some advancements of their own, he's just rounding it out with bullshit.
But the first shoot to break through the soil comes in the mid-credits scene, and it's something which was there all along - we just hadn't been shown it yet.
J.Jonah Jameson exists in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as the editor of The Daily Bugle, and he's played by J.K. Simmons. And Jameson's still angry. He's angrier than ever, in fact. Because director Jon Watts hasn't stopped with a callback to an old character. In the MCU, The Daily Bugle and its associated website is an opinionated, authoritarian, right-wing, conspiracy-theory-loving news outlet. 2019 (our version) is a cynical place, and not everyone has that 'gee-whiz' trust in the media any more. The Daily Bugle now shadows the likes of Fox News*4 and even InfoWars; Jameson rants and raves across the digital airwaves, so determined to bring viewers The Truth™ that he's prepared to spread lies to do it. And it could be the most real thing that Marvel Studios have done to date.
Which brings us, as they say, to the crunch. The real message, hiding in plain sight throughout Far From Home. That even in fiction, you can't handle the truth…
IT'S EASY TO FOOL PEOPLE
WHEN THEY'RE FOOLING THEMSELVES. Or, as a much wiser man once said, "your eyes can deceive you, don't trust them". That thing you just saw, there. Did you really see it? Really? Okay, but did you also believe it? In 2019? More fool you. And its coming to something when the largest entertainment company on Earth - the one that's been capturing hearts through fiction for just shy of a hundred years - feels the need to dole out that lesson.
The Daily Bugle's paranoid propaganda machine is the final raised-eyebrow, tongue-in-cheek hammerblow in a movie which has spent two hours telling its audience to question everything. From Quentin Beck's fabricated backstory, to the hologram generators he uses to create his attacks, to the con he pulls on Peter to get the E.D.I.T.H. glasses, to the visual nightmare he summons around Spider-Man to paralyse him, to his coup de grace contingency-plan of faking a video then doxxing Parker as revenge from beyond the grave: question everything.
From the double-life that Parker still leads as he tries to complete his education and not assume the full mantle of hero, to pretending he doesn't know why his school tour is being diverted around Europe into the path of attacking Elementals, to the clumsy excuses he makes to MJ as he tries to avoid the subject of his absence without flat-out lying to the girl he's falling for: question everything.
From Happy Hogan and Aunt May lying to Peter about the relationship they're having, to Happy Hogan and Aunt May lying to each other about the relationship they're having, to Happy sending clumsily coded messages to Nick Fury about Mysterio's whereabouts, to Nick Fury pretending he didn't pick those up, to Nick Fury lying to Happy and Peter Parker because Nick Fury is actually Talos because the real Nick Fury is halfway across the galaxy helping the Skrull refugees, to Talos then attempting to play down the absolute shit-show he's created on Earth in the meanwhile: question everything.
PEOPLE NEED SOMETHING TO BELIEVE;
THESE DAYS, PEOPLE WILL BELIEVE ANYTHING. Throughout all of this, Spider-Man: Far From Home is a film about belief. It's about Peter Parker learning how much Tony Stark believed in him, and Parker learning to believe in himself, too. Not so much the cocky, self-assuredness of an athletic teenager with access to a billionaire's vault of technology and the free-rein to use it, but believing - knowing - that he's doing this for the right reasons. That being the hero is just the right thing to do, because not everyone can help themselves. Because being the hero is a privilege.
It's a film about confidence, about trust, about choosing friends you can rely on and about accepting that sometimes you'll make mistakes. It's about accepting that you won't always know what to do - whether you're 15, 35 or 85. And ultimately it's a film about truth. About how damaging the truth can be as well as how liberating. About how we'll often deny the truth in comfort rather than confront it to make things genuinely better, and how when it's taken out of our hands that can cause even more problems.
At the end of Far From Home, the city of New York (and by extension the world) knows that Spider-Man is a kid named Peter Parker. That shouldn't affect him too adversely, Tony Stark outed himself as Iron Man at the end of the first movie, after all. In fact, Spider-Man is one of the few heroes in the Marvel Cinematic Universe who actually has a 'secret identity'. But that disguise wasn't there to help the web-slinger - it was there to help the kid who wears the suit. The kid who knows he still has to finish his education if he's to become the best version of himself. Well, I'm sure the Stark Foundation can stretch to some private tuition because now Parker is in the big-leagues. They're probably going to have to stretch to some protection for May, Ned and MJ too, but that's another story.
Parker will do well, though. He'll grow, he'll adapt.
He'll become the hero he was meant to be.
It certainly deserves to be near the top of the CV of everyone involved.
I suppose we might.
There ain't.
Level 1: Pre Vizsla is in this.
Also, Peter Parker's got a 3¾" scale TIE Bomber in his bedroom, which is exactly the level of in-universe homage I'm after. The Lego Death Star from last time was a bit much, mate.
*1 It's also kind of why Evan Peters is the mutant-Quicksilver in 2014's X-Men: Days Of Future Past, but Aaron Taylor-Johnson is the "enhanced" Quicksilver in 2015's Avengers: Age Of Ultron. That one is more complicated, in fact - same character, completely different backstory for self-defeating contractual reasons - and I'll be honest I'm regretting bringing it up now. But here we are. Blame Marvel. [ BACK ]
*2 Andrew Garfield did a fantastic job in The Amazing Spider-Man 2, and Marvel still recast the role to Tom Holland in the MCU. Holland is also fantastic, but that's not my point. [ BACK ]
*3 In fact, Simmons also voiced Jameson in the Ultimate Spider-Man animated TV series, although that's less likely to be in the minds of the casual cinema-going audience. [ BACK ]
*4 While they've kept the newspaper's branding in-universe for obvious reasons, this is a particularly delicious tonal twist as Disney (owners of Marvel) have recently bought the entertainment arm of Fox Corp, leaving its broadcast network and news outlets to fend for themselves financially - ie without being under the larger umbrella that also earns income from licensed Marvel characters such as X-Men. They can basically take the piss out of Fox's shouty bullshit paranoia full-belt now, knowing they're not inadvertently funding it. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Well, we're barely half-way through the year and already on to the third entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with Jon Watts' Spider-Man: Far From Home landing in cinemas before Captain Marvel and Avengers: Endgame have even hit the Blu-ray shelves.
We're in the post-Endgame timeframe, as the world adjusts to life without the heroes they lost fighting Thanos, as well as the odd fact that everyone who disappeared in 'the snap' has returned, albeit five years younger than those who were spared the cull - adressed early in the screenplay and referred to in-universe as 'the blip'. Young Peter Parker (Tom Holland) is still having to balance student-life with being an on-call Avenger. With an imminent school trip to the cities of Europe, Peter hopes to take a back seat from the costumed life and catch the right moment to tell classmate M.J. (Zendaya) that he's grown increasingly fond of her. But naturally a superhero can't go on vacation in much the same way that Hercule Poirot can't book himself into a Travelodge for the weekend and expect peace and quiet.
And so, Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) and Maria Hill (Coby Smulders) enlist the web-slinger to assist the multi-dimensional newcomer Quentin Beck, aka Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal). Beck has come to Earth 616 (ie, the reality we know from all previous movies) from his alternate existence, Earth 813, after it's destroyed by four power-hungry entities known as the Elementals. These aeons-old beasts are attacking major cities with little-to-no warning, and the remnants of S.H.I.E.L.D. need all the help they can get.
CARD Now, perhaps the strongest card played by the movie is how much surface resemblance it bears to its predecessor, Homecoming. The high-school aesthetic eases us gently back into the levity, and a lot of flippant laughs serve to mask more deadpan humour behind. This is a film very much made for people who bought into Parker's pre-Thanos adventure, and viewers who struggled with certain aspects of that will find little to change their minds here. Those aspects are slightly amplified if anything. Of course, Homecoming's strength lay in how self-contained it managed to be in such a sprawling wider narrative. Far From Home has more threads to pull together in that respect, but still manages to do so with its own voice.
But it's not just a disposable action-jaunt. Peter spends the film struggling to form a romantic relationship while people around him breeze in and out of theirs. He's also sorely in need of a mentor-figure, and the shadow of Tony Stark looms over the story and its characters (in a good way).
The title 'Far From Home' is a callback to the 2017 movie and a descriptor for the 2019 sequel, as well as being a nod to The Wizard Of Oz. And much like that classic, there are themes here about identity, responsibility, trust, social-conditioning and most notably Fake News™. In fact, that latter is presented far too boldly to hold the mantle of subtext, feeling both entirely fitting yet painfully on-the-nose. But it's woven into the fabric of the movie and runs throughout (stay until the end of the credits - obviously).
FEAR Holland does well in the title role, by now embedded as Parker for a new generation of cinema-goers, and is supported well by an extensive cast returning from both Homecoming and the wider MCU. Sam Jackson illustrates that irritated Nick Fury is the best (and the funniest) Nick Fury. There's another layer to this performance, but that can't be discussed without minute spoilers, which we aren't doing here. On the newbie-front, Jake Gyllenhaal is on predictably solid form and deliberately hard to read. But the most pored-over casting choice in the next few weeks will be the one*1 who seems to suggest that the live action Spider-Man universes may well be pulling together in much the same way as their animated counterpart. Exciting stuff.
Marvel continue to soar in regard to choreography, cinematography and spectacle, and a fantastic nightmare-type sequence means this is arguably the most visually ambitious entry to date. Michael Giacchino returns on score-duties, capitalising on his fantastic work from the last outing, yet not adding too much to the overall soundscape. But his work retains the identity of Homecoming without being just a rehash, and that's not to be sniffed at.
The expansion of the mythos is on slightly looser ground however, with the Elementals bearing more than a passing resemblance to Spider-Man's 2007's antagonist, Sandman, and one particular character's backstory seeming to riff on Jim Carrey's 1995 Riddler. The well can only go so deep obviously, but if you were going to deliberately evoke a pair of superhero movies from years past, would Spider-Man 3 and Batman Foreverreally be on on that list?
CHOCOLATE Make no mistake, Spider-Man: Far From Home is an imperfect film, but I love that imperfection. It's easy to make something which looks gorgeous but feels empty, and while this never quite reaches the heights of Homecoming, it's still a two-hour joyride in every sense.
Outstanding work and I grinned throughout.
The business-end (not spoilers, but highlight-to-read anyway):
• Is there a Wilhelm Scream? I dunno. Didn't hear an obvious one? • Is there a Stan Lee cameo? There isn't, those days have now past. • Is there a mid-credits scene? There is - stay for this. • Is there a post-credits scene? There is - stay for this.
MCU movies, but the other Spider-Man flick, in particular.
It is.
It is.
Let's not get carried away.
Although this is still fantastic.
Well I LOVE the movie, so only you know if that's likely to happen.
Not that I heard.
Level 1: Mace Windu is in this.
What's more, he can apparently make references to Star Wars references. Very meta.
*1 I won't name the performer in question this time, but I imagine that by the time this review goes live it'll be all over the internet anyway and you'll know exactly who I'm talking about. Because there's no such thing as accidental casting in a movie aimed in no small part at geeks who obsess over every last detail. [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
I have, to put it mildly, a rough track record with Western-type movies (both vintage and modern), to the point where I'm never sure if it's a genre or setting that I actually enjoy. But let's face it folks, with a cast like John C. Reilly, Joaquin Phoenix, Jake Gyllenhaal and Riz Ahmed, there's got to be something to enjoy in The Sisters Brothers, right?
Right. Jacques Audiard's cinematic rendering of Patrick DeWitt's novel sees the eponymous brothers (Reilly, Phoenix) heading west to San Francisco on the trail of a bounty (Ahmed, who befriends and drags in Gyllenhaal en route), while fending off fellow outlaws as well as each other's bickering, bad luck and poor judgement.
MOMENTS The film is not 'a comedy', but there are plenty of amusing moments (certainly far more than the one which preceded it), and begins with quite possibly the bleakest opening sequence in living memory. It's brutally violent in several places; never exploitatively so, but Audiard is certainly unflinching in his bloodshed. And yet, this can be more properly called a character-study, with the fantastic performances you expect from the central cast*1 and beyond.
For a movie which is a combined road trip and low-speed chase, The Sisters Brothers is an oddly paced affair. Not slow throughout, just uneven and ponderous. Although again, there's the feeling that the parts which I didn't connect with are more to do with my reservations about Westerns than this film itself.
JOHNSON
An audible ripple went through the auditorium during 'the spider-scene' (and again shortly afterward in its payoff moment). One of the few examples where mild breaking of The Code is probably permissible. By the time you add on a wonderfully relatable script and Benoît Debie's gorgeous cinematography, it's fair to call this something of a mixed bag, even if all the elements appear to be pulling in largely the right direction.
What begins loud ends quiet, and although the eponymous pair have more than earned their rest by the two hour mark, there's the feeling that it would have been more satisfying for this to be implied rather than shown. Had the title card made an appearance when they reached the gate five minutes earlier, the more ambiguous ending would have been - perhaps ironically - far more satisfying…
This is a film that's relatively unique to me, stylistically. It would be reductive and unhelpful to cite Django Unchained here, not least because The Sisters Brothers is nowhere near as desperate to be hip, but let's go with that anyway.
*1 What the hell kind of accent is Gyllenhaal meant to be doing, though? It's not American, it's certainly not British. I can imagine that in the expansion-era of 1851 it would be possible to have acquired a mix of the two, but this is just distracting... [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Stronger Cert: 15 / 119 mins / Dir. David Gordon Green / Trailer
You'd think I'd be happier about this. Being a curmudgeon of monumental dimensions, I usually berate the December/January-scheduled, über-worthy, awards-bothering, true-story releases for being excessively mawkish and exploitative, for expecting an audience to wistfully grip a tissue in their quivering hands for every minute of the run-time, for wringing the earnest, soul-wrenching drama from every last calculated frame of celluloid.
Stronger doesn't go to those lengths. And I'm not happier about this because Jake Gyllenhaal, Tatiana Maslany and Miranda Richardson are acting their thespic socks off while screenwriter John Pollono and director David Gordon Green apparently don't care. This is the story of Massachusetts production-worker Jeff Bauman, a spectator at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon when an explosive device was detonated next to him*1, resulting in the loss of his legs. The film isn't so much about the event itself as Bauman's struggle to get back into the world, to be the inspiration that people assumed him to be even before he was ready for that mantle.
Well, it should be about that, at least. Instead we get more of a fleeting docu-drama filled with unlikeable characters and a dearth of mechanical detail*2. Given how dramatic the first act is out of necessity, the film we have is oddly bereft of emotion. Not quite clinical, but anaesthetised certainly. A short setup takes us to the day of the marathon*3, breezes over the immediate aftermath, skips out completely on the six weeks of in-hospital rehab, then just drifts along with snapshots of Jeff's recouperation. We get glimpses into the recovery, but never really enough to emotionally invest in the character (a real actual person, don't forget). Dramatic outbursts and flashes of PTSD come as much of a surprise to the audience as they do to the characters surrounding Jeff, almost suggesting that we're not being told the story from his point of view in the first place. Which is odd because the only other main character is his partner Erin, doing her best to help Jeff's rehabilitation*4, but we don't really see the film from her point of view either.
The central performances are, as noted, solid enough, but the writing isn't there to back them up. And while Gyllenhaal is one of the finest actors of his generation, it feels like this part (certainly as it's written) isn't complex enough for Jake to represent good value for money*5. There's the feeling that rather than present Bauman as a challenging/conflicted character, the screenplay just doesn't particularly like him*6, which becomes a waste of a great performer. Mark McMark could play this role. There moments of dark humour in the film, genuinely funny for all the right reasons, but they're too sporadic to be classed as an actual feature of the script. A tale of redemption should be a rollercoaster, this is like being pulled over waste-ground in a cart with wooden wheels for an hour and a half, before…
And then, around twenty minutes from the end of the movie, Jeff resigns himself to meeting a man named Carlos in a bar. It's Carlos who pulled Jeff out of the carnage in Boston, who tourniquet'd his legs to stop him bleeding to death, who reassured the semi-conscious man that help was on its way. Carlos has his own backstory of course, and this could be the one genuine scene in the whole two hours. Everything after this point is absolutely fine, the movie I was expecting it to be throughout (which is to say it's overly-sentimental, but the details of the plot have earned it by that point). But it's too little, too late. You can't just fill the screen with sports-fans waving Stars and Stripes flags and call that a happy ending. No really, you can't.
The usual rules apply for this sort of thing: You want to honour survivors of an ordeal, film-makers? Then take a film crew to their house and get the base-footage for a documentary...
This Sort Of Thing™.
While Stronger isn't exactly televisual, it's not particularly cinematic either.
And it's only the last twenty minutes which lift it up that far.
*0 If you're at this first footnote because of the asterisk in the 'post description' on social media (and for the sake of HTML coding, let's call this *0), I put "Boston Strongler" in there because even I didn't think I'd get away with "Marathon Man(gled)". Who says I'm not a sensitive guy?
*1 Now you would think they'd have done a shared-cinematic-universe thing and given a cameo to Mark McMark, to tie in with last year's Patriots Day, but apparently not. Normally I'd insert a link to my review of the film there, but since I refused to watch Patriots Day as it looked like 90 minutes of histrionic flag-waving, I can't do that. You're right, maybe I'm not a sensitive guy… [ BACK ]
*2 It's quite a feat that in a movie full of aimless self-centred drifters, that the HR policy of the Costco corporation comes out looking like the good guy. I'm assuming the blink-and-you'll-miss-it reference to a health insurance claim for an underperforming, low-grade 'poultry-technician' is what paid for his robot legs, the likes of which are normally reserved for military veterans. Because the film doesn't explain it otherwise. Jeff comes out of hospital to live in his mum's flat in the housing projects, and the extra financial burden on a woman who's already not working just isn't mentioned. And while I'm on, in one scene he's been out of the hospital for weeks and nobody's thought that a guy with no legs might have trouble reaching the toilet-roll which is kept on the opposite side of the bathroom from the toilet. Jeff's family are dicks in this. [ BACK ]
*3 Really though, Jeff's on/off girlfriend Erin is running a full marathon and leaves getting sponsorship until the day before. Then she does this by going to a pub and sitting down, and has the temerity to call him lacklustre in his commitments... [ BACK ]
*4 By the way, if you're unfamiliar with the phrase "Boston strong" (*raises hand*), I advise you to look it up before watching the this. The second-act is in love with the phrase, but not to the point where it actually explains the etymology of it. Jeff's surname isn't Strong, and at that point in the story he's displayed few actual signs of endurance other than being interviewed repeatedly on TV (or so we're told, that's another thing the film doesn't bother showing us). Anyway, apparently it just means that the people of Boston are strong. Which is fair enough, but here in the UK we got news reports about the bombing itself, but the rest of this awful world quickly filled the follow-up schedules. What I'm saying is, don't @ me for not knowing what the hell 'Boston Strong' meant. I'm a sensitive guy. [ BACK ]
*5 Seriously though, not to demean the actual Jeff Bauman's struggle at all, but Stronger's approach to post-traumatic stress disorder is much like that of American Sniper: 1) Lead character is sad and angry for a bit, 2) Lead character shouts for a bit, 3) Lead character is reflective for a bit, 4) Yay, lead character is better now! That's all he had to do all along!! [ BACK ]
*6 There's a lot of consequence-free alcohol/medication mixing going on in this movie. As well as the drunk-driving scene which has no comeback. And apparently losing your legs means never having to wear a seatbelt, somehow. If anyone is thinking of looking to this movie as a source of inspirational reference, they're going to take away the message that it's okay to be a complete tool for as long as you want. The bizarre thing is that when photos of the real, actual Jeff Bauman appear in the obligatory credits-montage, I was thinking "funny, he doesn't look like the dick that Jake's just made him out to be". Who knew? [ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Life Cert: 15 / 104 mins / Dir. Daniel Espinosa / Trailer
So the general rule appears to be that any movie opening with an asteroid shower hitting a spacecraft is going to be hard work. After around ten minutes of exposition-heavy dialogue, the title card of Daniel Espinosa's sci-fi horror Life features a typographical homage to Alien and an orchestral homage to 2001. That's pretty much all you need to know.
Not as visceral as Alien, not as profound as Interstellar, not as sexy as Species… why am I here again?
It's a fine-looking film. If you're going to watch it at all, you may as well do it on a big screen that'll do the visuals justice.
…be a $58m cover-version? Sure. It's entertaining enough, but the film feels like the cartoon shown before Covenant. BUT fair play to casting for getting an actual international cast to inhabit the re-created International Space Station. Many productions wouldn't look much further than their own native shoreline. Although naturally, the poster's only got the white folks on, but hey.
And while I'm on about the poster: seriously though, mate?
Also, bonus points for the line: "That's not protocol, it's way too risky!", from Jake the pilot. This is after the galaxy's most inept Quarantine Officer has watched the galaxy's most slapdash Science Officer literally finger-prod an alien organism. After the same dude has electrocuted it to wake it up. After Ryan's gone full-belt in the laboratory with an actual flame-thrower. "That's not protocol!", Jake says*1. Sorry to pop your bubble Jake, but I don't think "Flubber Kills: In Spa-a-a-ace!" is in the manual...
No.
I like all of the cast, very much. They're just better than this.
It says a lot that in Jake Gyllenhaal's recent Wittertainment interview, he seemingly couldn't wait to talk about any-and-everything other than the film he was there to push, a tactic also employed on the same show by a Mr McConaughey when he was on the promo-trail for Gold.
I rest my case.
Probably not.
Unless you think it's better than Alien or Aliens.
There isn't, although Ariyon Bakare gets the line "I have a good feeling about this…".
From a scriptwriter's perspective, this is probably meant as a playful wink to the GFFA (especially given the question below this one). From the audience's perspective, it's a slap in the face reminding them they could be at home watching Star Wars.
*1 Speaking of which, if there's a 'protocol' for pushing the space-station out into the void in the event of an E.T. emergency, then there's a suicide-procedure for the remaining crew-members, surely? If only to stop them suffocating, starving or just going mad?[ BACK ]
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
