3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

2024, George Miller (The Witches of Eastwick) -- download

Weird, my headcanon says George only directed The Road Warrior (and Fury Road) but whatever, my headcanon is sometimes stupid.

I am not. Also, WTF dude, download?

I am already on my second viewing of this one, as I have to admit, I started nodding off after Hour One (pt 3). It was all my own fault: a long day of work, a carb take-away, and an overly full tiki drink. So, second viewing already only days later and I am enjoying it.... even more? There are so many, many, and while I won't use the title of the video essays ("Every Frame a Painting"), scenes that stand as beautiful pieces of work on their own.

So, so many scenes a painting? Quit rolling your eyes.

But what kept on going through my head during the watching, and is retained during this one is that this reminds me so much more of Babe: Pig in the City than any other of Miller's works. Its almost fairy tale like in its depiction, as he danced the thin line between recreating the visual cues and imageries that made Fury Road so distinct, and doing something ... new.

Of note, I made this mistake of listening to a less that favourable review podcast (Maximum Film!) and it has left me thinking. Was what they said warranted? Is it diminishing what I felt about the movie, especially now that I have finished second watching? errr... watching 1.5 ?

I liked the movie, maybe even a tempered love. And I also know that deep down in my heart, I will love it more with repeated viewings. The thing I can say is that it did not want to be Fury Road and in that it succeeded. Where the previous movie was fraught with silences, this one was overwhelmed by the constant monologuing of Dementus. If this is but one of the Mad Max movies of the "new era" then it may be less than lauded, as Beyond Thunderdome was, but it still stands up as such a spectacle.

So, prequel. The story of how Furiosa came to be.

She's a wee thing (Alyla Browne, Sting) in the Place of Abundance: food, water, horses, even electricity -- you can see solar panels on the roof of buildings in the background. Her horse is taken down by raiders from the Wasteland and before she can finish disabling their bikes, she is taken. But not before she can alert her home, her mother.

Don't forget to mention that the other girl with Furiosa is Valkyrie, who ends up being one of the Mothers. Is she the final inspiration for Furiosa to betray Immortan Joe?

The first chase, as these movies are naught but chases scenes strung together by plot and need. Two women, one is Furiosa's mother. She traces them back to the camp of Dementus (Chris Hemsworth, Snow White and the Huntsman). This is where we slide back easily into the world building Miller has given us as the raiders yell at each other, "My lips. Dementus's ear. My lips. Dementus!" They may have found a Place of Abundance, but what's more important is carrying this information to their leader, being the first to mention it, to rise in the ranks.

Gawds, Dementus, what's with the Jesus look?

The second chase. Mary Jobassa (or Joe Bassa? Jabassa? Furiosa's mom; Charlee Fraser, Anyone But You) succeeds in rescuing Furiosa but not without injury and loss of the fuel they need to get back to the Greenlands. They are caught, and rather than run to safety as instructed, Furiosa comes back, only to be confronted by the death of her mother, and the first instructional of life in the Wasteland, by Dementus.

Second Act. Months later? A year? Little D is Dementus's pet, along side The History Man (George Shevtsov, Mystery Road: Origin) wearing his and tattooed with (mostly useless?) facts from the old world. By chance Dementus's horde comes across a warboy (one must wonder why this is the first time; the world of Mad Max doesn't actually seem all that big) who leads  them to The Citadel ("the whata-del?"), home of Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme, Offspring) and his genetic reject sons, to semi-quote Dementus. This is the first hint of how inflated the ego of Dementus is, as his horde is decimated and unsuccessfully threatening Joe and crew.

Instead, Dementus, who is not entirely stupid, finds his way into Gastown and takes it for himself. He offers the previous deal they had with Joe, in return for Little D and The Organic Mechanic (Angus Sampson, The Lincoln Lawyer). Well, technically Joe takes them as part of the deal. Dementus doesn't have as much leverage as he hopes. That is the repeated truth of Dementus, in that while he feels he is underestimated, he constantly overestimates the effect he has on people. Little D escapes from Joe's clutches almost immediately, hiding among his people as a boy.

Third Act. Years later. Another chase. Furiosa (Anya Taylor-Joy, Morgan) has become a Dogman, the grunt mechanics of The Citadel. But she has a plan and works through it with precision, helping build the legendary (but first) War Rig, something that is already "shiny & chrome", even so far to be adorned with a bas relief of Immortan Joe and his legacy. It is driven by Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke, CB Strike), a survivor of more runs (between the triad of Gastown, the Citadel and Bullet Town) than any other. Based on the actions of these two movies, that could mean surviving more than two runs, but hey, he's legendary, his truck is legendary. Furiosa (secretly) rides with him, and survives an attack by Dementus's crew... actually no, its a breakaway crew belonging to the Octoboss (Goran D Kleut, Wyrmwood Apocalypse), someone who has already seen how Dementus treats those who are loyal to him. Just another example of the slow degradation of Dementus's reign. She is the lone survivor, and Jack offers her a place in his crew, and a promise to help her escape, once a new crew is trained up.

Fourth Act. Some time later, again. New crew, same War Rig. Furiosa is now a Praetorian. A run to the Bullet Farm where another plan is in place. Jack and Furiosa will change things up, her lagging behind in a vehicle packed with two bikes and lots of supplies. While the crew is concerned with filling up the tanks with bullets, they will escape into the wasteland (small W) together, making for the Greenlands. 

Exceeeept, it doesn't as planned. Dementus has already taken the Bullet Farm and wants the War Rig, probably for another Trojan Horse attempt. They do succeed in surviving the attack, so, another chase. They are captured, Jack is killed and Furiosa only survives by gnawing off her own arm... well, not literally but she might as well have. So long Jack, you are gone far too soon. Furiosa returns to The Citadel, minus one arm, but with great resolve. 

Fifth Act. A reckoning. She builds an arm. She instructs the angry, petty, awash with toxic masculinity fools to not pursue Dementus to Gas Town, which is on fire, but to prepare for his attack. We get the "40 Day War", where we see whatever crew Dementus has left cut down, piles of bodies, almost all vehicles destroyed or in need of repair. And Dementus escapes.

There ya go Dementus, ya get yer Jesus thing.

The last chase. Despite an attempt at deception, he is caught and the words just keep on coming out of him, never stopping. He is not regretful, and he has his "freakishly high pain tolerance" but he asks one thing of her, that she "make it Epic." 

She does.

So, there we have it. Mega post for Mega movie. Something I didn't bless the first movie with after only a single cinema viewing. But what did I think? I still strongly believe I loved it, but I still have some issues. The production of Fury Road was said to have been a nightmare, but from the fires of the forge we got perfection. This seems.... rushed? It is tightly paced, but maybe covers too much? He shaved off the bright, saturated colours of Fury Road for crisp, clean scenes but supplemented by CGI far too often, and far too obviously. 

What I really need to do is see it a third time, in cinema. 

Kent's post. We agree, but a tempered agree.

What?!?!? Not even a single reference to Chris Hemsworth and the nose/teeth? Seriously? 

KWIF: Furiosa (+4)

KWIF is Kent's Week in Film where each week Kent has a spotlight movie in which he writes a longer, thinkier piece about, and then whatever else he watched that week, he just does a "quick" (ha! ahahaha! ha!) little summary of his thoughts. 

This week:
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024, d. George Miller - in theatre)
Point Blank (1967, d. John Boorman - Criterion Channel)
Purple Noon (or Plein Soleil, 1960, d. René Clément - Criterion Channel)
The American Friend (or Der amerikanische Freund, 1977, d. Wim Wenders - Criterion Channel)
Paprika (2006, d. Satoshi Kon - the shelf)

and, go!

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Following Mad Max: Fury Road, about as beautifully artistic and mentally and viscerally stimulating a post-apocalyptic action movie as we're ever to get, I was keen to say that Warner Bros. should just cut George Miller a blank check and make another one, whatever way he wants.  I believe it was during the press junket for Fury Road that Miller intoned he had written a full backstory script for Furiosa, the character played by Charlize Theron in the film.  I was more than ready for that.

As time passed, the realization dawned on me that Furiosa's back story would have to be a pretty bleak one, given how in Fury Road she was headed to The Green Place from which she was abducted as a child. Was that something we really wanted to see? The abuses set upon a young girl in a very toxic and masculine society?  We're aware of Immortan Joe and his harem of "wives" (barely more than breeding livestock as far as he's concerned) so it could get real, real dark. Did we want that?

What we really wanted was more Fury Road.

And you know what? That's almost exactly what Miller delivers with his new entry in the "Mad Max Saga".

In this nearly two-and-a-half hour extravaganza, told in five parts, we first meet Furiosa (Alyla Browne) in the fabled Green Place, a beautiful crevasse in the dead center of Australia (for the first time in the "Saga" were given an actual birds eye view, confirming, yes, this is Australia). A couple of marauders from the wastelands have found the place, and Furiosa, along with a younger sibling or friend raises the alarm. She attempts to sabotage the marauder while help comes but finds that, more than anything else in this lush refuge, she is the most valuable prize.  Our first chase begins as Furiosa's fierce mother (Charlee Fraser) pursues the kidnappers through the desert, and yeah, it's relatively bare bones, but also completely intense. Furiosa is no hapless victim and finds her own ways of sabotaging the marauders.  

Furiosa's story is one of tragedy, so things don't go so well against the vast forces of Dementus (Chris Hemsworth, Ghostbusters: Answer the Call). Furiosa is charged with protecting the location of the Green Place, while she is lobbed between Dementus and Immortan Joe.  Realizing what fate has in store for her in Immortan Joe and his creepy family's care, Furiosa (now Anya Taylor Joy, The New Mutants) hides herself, disguised as a mute boy and a mechanic, she listens and learns. She observes the creation of Immortan Joe's first war rig, and sees the glory of its driver, Praetorian Jack (Tom Burke, The Lazarus Project [@Toasty...where's that review?]).  Through a series of events, Jack becomes her new mentor. He's a hard, but kind man who wants nothing more than to help Furiosa be fully capable of surviving their horrid reality.  As the two plot their long-term plan for escape from Immortan Joe, the two get swept into an increasingly urgent and brutal war between Immortan Joe and Dementus, which leads to more and more loss for Furiosa, but gaining an all-consuming thirst for vengeance.

If we look at the prior films in the overall Mad Max "saga" they are all structured differently. The original film is pretty much a series of vignettes, while the second film attempts a more conventional three-act structure (that I can recall). Beyond Thunderdome is more two distinct stories, and Fury Road is basically one long act. I like how Miller keeps you guessing with this series and the only thing you can really expect is to have an epic time with some crazy stunts.

While there was some themes to Thunderdome and Fury Road, Furiosa is pretty much a straightforward action movie. It maybe juxtaposes how different people deal with tragedy differently, but it's certainly not the driving force of the movie. Each of its five acts captures a day or so in Furiosa's life that shows her resolve and willpower in the face of intense combat and overwhelming odds against.

The acting is all exactly what it needs to be. Browne playing young Furiosa for the first hour of the film was unexpected but she was incredible. By the time we meet Joy's Furiosa she's been keeping herself hidden for years so her toughness is very quiet and reserved, until it shows itself in a very raw, emotional form. Praetorian Jack teaches her to control her rage and enhances her skill set, with Burke making Jack a very welcome reprieve from all the letcherous, vainglorious, egocentric and ugly men of the various worlds she's forced to inhabit. 

Furiosa has about as much dialogue in this as Max did in Fury Road, which isn't much at all, so both Bowne and Joy's performance of the character is all in the physicality and the eyes. Conversely, Hemsworth is all words. While Dementus is a dangerous man, he's also a charismatic fool. He leads his people to ruin, but he has the distinct capability to always sucker in more people under him. Hemsworth's charm factor is so high, even when playing this despicable man. He has more dialogue than I think every other character combined, including a riveting monologue in the final act that is the flailing desperation of a thoroughly defeated egomaniac.

I liked how Miller and co-writer Nico Lathouris side-stepped a lot of the world building. Rather than shift its lens off Furiosa, it held tight with her throughout the film. It didn't spend more time with the society of the war boys, and didn't provide an origin story for "Witness Me" or even recycle any of the catchphrases from the prior film. Certainly they are a part of the story, but there is no character there to explore their culture through like Nux from the last film. Been there, done that. We really don't spend time with Dementus' crew as well because, as we learn, Dementus' crew is mercurial.

I found Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga to be a highly invigorating experience. I wanted to throw my arms up and cheers so many times, and I clapped with glee to see the war rig manufacturing process. It's a worthy prequel to Fury Road even if it is not quite its equal. I doubt anything can be.

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One of my ongoing viewing projects is to watch all the various adaptations of Donald E. Westlake's Parker novels (written under the "Richard Stark" pseudonym). Though I've never read any of the novels, I became a rather immediate fan upon reading Darwyn Cooke's loving graphic novel adaptations.  To date I've only managed to catch the awful Jason Statham-starring Parker and the director's cut of 1999's Payback, starring Mel Gibson.  Of the eight adaptations of various Parker stories, arguably the most famous is the 1967 crime thriller, Point Blank, starring Lee Marvin.

Based off the first Parker novel The Hunter, it finds Marvin's "Walker" (as Westlake notoriously refused anyone using the name without committing to multiple pictures) trying to come to grips with how he wound up in a prison cell with two bullet holes in his abdomen. The answer: betrayal. He got pulled into a job by Reese, a man in desperate need of money to pay off his debts, but the job wasn't a big enough score to pay Walker the split he was promised. Reese, having seduced Walker's wife, Lynn, sets him up for the fall. His only mistake was in making sure Walker was dead. Walker pulls through his injuries and sets out to not so much get revenge as collect what he is owed by any means necessary.

"The Hunter" is the same story Payback was based off of, and the rhythms of the story are almost exactly the same. Some of the characters shift in their personality and story, but inconsequentially. The real difference is in style. Payback is a very 1990's production, Cooke's comic adaptation is very firmly in the 1950's, while here it's so very 1960's Los Angeles, and it's glorious. I have to think everything Quentin Tarantino was trying to achieve visually in Once Upon A Time...In Hollywood stems from this film. I can't exactly put my finger on it, but the aesthetic of this film, from the streets of Hollywood, to every hotel room, office and mansion homestead are so exquisitely of the era, and it all just sings beautifully.

If I had to place the aesthetic it's that in the 1960's technology was just starting it's advancement into commercial sales, hi-fi stereos and phone intercoms, and doors that open and close with the press of a button. The ostentatiousness of the 1960's resulted in such heavy investment in electronics and mechanized devices that there wasn't the same sense of investment in making everything gold or highly ornate. Environments were very much wood framed with the brushed chrome of technology as an accent. Colours were pastel bases, muted, yet still vibrant.  The buttoned down suits of the 1950s gave way to more mod suits in the 60's and the women adopted patterns and colours galore.  There are times when I watch the film and wish I could tour around the setting more. This is a film where I wish I could just dive right in and live there.  

I was about to say Lee Marvin as Walker was maybe a decade too old to play the character, but I just looked it up and he was 43! Five years younger than I am now. And he looks like he's cresting 60 in the film.  Man that era of sunbathing, heavy drinking and smoking was hard on one's looks.  That said, he's almost perfect for the vision of Walker, a big, broad man who can stop you dead in your tracks with just a look.  There's a weird flashback where Lynn talks about when she met Walker, and it shows Marvin being playful and smiling with her, and oh, it threatens to undermine the entire image of the character. It's early enough on in the picture that Marvin has time to rebuild his image, but it takes a bit.  The most immediate thing about Marvin's Walker that seems to deviate from Parker is his code of ethics. It seems at first like Walker is really trying to get revenge, it's not for a while where he really starts hammering it in that he's actually just after his money.

Angie Dickinson (Police Woman) is in the film as Lynn's sister, Chris, and she is everything to this film. She is a love interest for Walker, but definitely not the conventional "love interest" role. She is versed in working hard and doing what must be done, and as much as she wants to resent Walker for asking her to do so, she can't help but see a guy who very much does the same...only he's kind of an emotionless automaton. He frustrates her so much (as witnessed by the incredible scene where Dickinson goes full ham on Marvin until she's utterly exhausted and collapse to the floor) and yet it's clear she's got an incurable thing for him in spite of herself. She plays it so well. Her roles seems beefed up from other versions of this story, but maybe it's just that Dickinson does more with it. She has presence, and her character feels lived in, in a way maybe no other character does.

Boorman and his editor (Henry Berman) do weird collages throughout the film, mostly as flashbacks, which are not unwelcome but seem so ...primitive as a storytelling vehicle. Sometimes they work very well, acting as Walker's inner conscience or a dreamscape, but sometimes they feel like too much.  There's a magnificent scene of Walker walking down a hallway, his ADRed footsteps "clop-clopping" away, setting the rhythm for Johnny Mandel's score to kick in, paired with some of that collage editing and it's just an masterful senses-grabbing scene that has been cribbed so much since, but probably never bettered.

---

Another kick I've been on is watching any adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley series. I just did an obscenely long look at the 1999 version of The Talented Mr. Ripley in comparison with the new Netflix series, and this drew me to re-subscribing to the Criterion Channel so that I could catch up on two earlier adaptations of Ripley stories.

1960's Purple Noon (not Purple Moon as I keep wanting to say) is a very French adaptation of The Talented Mr. Ripley, starring notoriously handsome actor Alain Delon (Le Samourai) in the title role of Thomas Ripley. I could go into a very detailed list of "differences" between this and the other adaptations of the novel, but I'll spare that in favour of just the broadest strokes.

The first big shift is how the film begins in media res, with Tom and Philippe Greenleaf (changed from Dickie) already best buds and hanging out in Rome. Philippe  is already aware that Tom was sent by his father and Tom seemingly doesn't hide the fact from Philippe his criminal ways. The two are very boys' boys as they horse and pal around and fuck with other people for their fun. They pick up a woman and both make out with her (well it's more Philippe making out and Tom trying to get in on the action). Did I mention this film is so French. Marge likes Tom just fine but her relationship with Philippe seems strained by his cladding about with Tom. Tom covets everything about Philippe, his wardrobe, his carefree lifestyle, and his women.

Obviously this is the second big change. Tom's intoned homosexuality is completely absent from Delon's performance (and the script). When he kills Philippe, takes over his life, kills Freddie and returns to being Tom, he heads back to Marge and they start a relationship, and Tom seems genuinely happy. He has Dickie's life and he doesn't have to pretend to be him.

But as much as the story and performance are absent of any gay undertones, the lens in which we view the film is very queer indeed. The camera isn't in love with Delon, it is obsessed with him. Where in other productions the camera provides us largely Tom's point of view of events, lets us understand the story through his very warped eyes, here the camera is very disengaged from Tom's point of view and instead just ogles him. Though Tom is clearly covetous of Philippe's life, through the lens we see Tom as the ideal. He's much more attractive than anyone else on screen (and Maurice Ronet is not a bad looking guy, but pales compared to Delon) and we can never forget it.

Remember that old Late Night with Conan O'Brien bit "If they mated" where they would take two celebrities and show us what an adult offspring would look like if they shared their DNA? In Delon's case, he would be the "If They Mated" of Zach Efron and Jared Leto in their primes. Just the most piercing blue eyes and carefree floppy hair and fit-but-not-buff body. Just total ah-ooh-gah.  I don't know what makes the lens gay male gaze as opposed to female gaze, but it's definitely feels like one and not the other.

The final big distinction of the various versions is the ending, in which Tom doesn't get away with it. And it's kind of clever and unexpected how they did it. Innocuous, sudden, and yet logical. I understand why in such an era they needed crime to be punished on films, but it does lessen the story, but so does the removal of the homosexual undertones.  It's a very good production overall, but of course it is. As I stated before, the source material is one of the greatest, sure to be adapted over and over.  Yet, it's the lesser of the three productions for not even daring to challenge the norms of the time.

---

I like the story behind The American Friend (not My American Friend, as I keep wanting to say) - the late 70's German-French production from noted auteur director Wim Wenders - almost as much as I like the film. As Wenders tells it, after his first few films were road stories largely improvised from loose scripts, he was looking for a fully scripted story for his next film. He became obsessed with Patricia Highsmith's novels and attempted to option every one of them, only to find they were all unavailable. This caught Highsmith's attention and she met with Wenders and clearly, as he says it, he "passed the test", and she offered him her new manuscript for her third Ripley novel before she had even sent it to the publishers. This was Ripley's Game.

A coup for Wenders, in a way, but also a consolation prize of sorts. Wenders had approached actor-director John Cassavetes for playing the role of Tom Ripley, but he was busy. Cassavetes suggested Dennis Hopper (Super Mario Bros.) to Wenders, and Wenders came to like the idea. But when the time came to shoot the picture Hopper was still sidelined shooting Apocalypse Now. Hopper came off the set of that feature a practical zombie, drinked and drugged out of his mind, barely able to engage with the material and his co-stars.  Bruno Ganz (The Boys From Brazil) was a popular stage actor who had only one screen credit, but Wenders convinced him to take the role. Ganz prepped endlessly and was very invested in the part. A few days into working with Hopper, who was very laissez-faire and freewheeled his lines, the men came to blows. Wenders let them fight it out, which led to an evening of drinking and a mutual understanding with Ganz softening his over-prepared stance and Hopper committing to starting each day prepping with the director.  

It's a wonderful story in a way, I just wish it paid off on screen. Hopper's Ripley, wearing a stetson and cowboy boots most of the time, is certainly not the mind's eye view of Thomas Ripley, not akin to any other interpretation we've seen on screen. But aesthetics aren't everything.  My chief complaint is that Hopper's performance just feels like he's in a completely different movie every time he's on screen. 

Thankfully (I guess) in the first hour of the film, Ripley only has two or three short scenes which seem quite outside the main plot. Ganz plays Jonathan Zimmerman, a framemaker whose wife works at an auction house where Ripley peddles his illicit art wares. When the two are introduces Jon slights Ripley which causes him to spread a rumour that Zimmerman's rare blood disorder is terminal and that he's having money problems. 

This catches the attention of some criminal types who are in a feud with other criminal types. They start to gaslight Jon into believing his disorder is terminal, and convincing him that he should be doing what he can to ensure the stability of his wife and son after his passing.  All he needs to do is kill someone.  It's very Highsmith in a Strangers on a Train but in a fun house mirror sort of way.

The job is done, and it's an intense set pieces that is wonderfully shot (no pun intended). There's a dangling thread of Jon having been caught fleeing the scene on camera but it's never picked up (and I'm not sure why). Ripley later encounters Jon at his frame shop, perhaps to taunt him, but Jon apologizes for his behaviour in their initial meeting and is very friendly. Ripley feels guilty. When he finds out the goons are trying to force Jon into another hit, Ripley tries to stop it before it starts, but ultimately can only intervene and help out. It's a very clumsy, blackly comedic, and similarly intense sequence on a high speed train.

Jon's secrecy with his wife and the weight of his deeds starts fracturing his marriage, but Jon thinks it's all too late. Ripley notes that the bad guys will try to clean up any loose ends, and they're going to have to go on the offensive. The film's final big piece once again plays out unexpectedly, with some irreverent turns that carry just as many nerves.

If not for Hopper, this is otherwise an really great film.  It's not a terrific Ripley story, as the character is largely absent from the first half, but at the same time, given what we see of Ripley in the various adaptations of the first of Highsmith's novels, the character profile of an art dealer with criminal connections seems absolutely fitting. I just wish almost anyone else was playing him, but I think a 15-years-later Delon would have been perfect, as the film ventured between Hamburg and Paris.

---

Paprika is the final film made by Satoshi Kon, and what many regard to be his masterpiece. Having just seen all four in the past month, it's hard to not say they are all his masterpieces.  He was such a thoughtful, incredibly curious and inventive storyteller, and as very much a latecomer to his career, it's still resonates as a huge tragedy that he died still quite evidently in his storytelling prime.

That all said, at least in first watch, Paprika is my least favourite of the quartet. It is so primarily because of my typical reaction to typical anime, which is a flinching revulsion.  Where Kon's prior films seemed to defiantly break from typical anime styles and forms, Paprika seemed to be a sudden dive right into them, as if Kon just caught up on the prior ten years of anime that he had missed.

It's probably an unfair assessment.

And yet I kept wincing as I watched this. It started very simply with the character Paprika's haircut. Something about it screamed so loudly in my face, the way the curl of the hair covers over the cheekbones to both accentuate the jaw and highlight the eyes...almost more helmet than hair. It was the visual equivalent of chewing tinfoil or fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Just set me on edge.

A lot of anime (not a genre, I know, but...) has this thing where its action scenes or often entire stories operate in a stream-of-consciousness manner, because you can do anything in animation. But should you? The stream-of-consciousness side of this entertainment shouldn't bother me (I like Twin Peaks after all) but it's often just nonsense.  Of course, I have limited exposure and so limited experience, but that is my experience and it does not appeal to me.

So when Kon's movie opens with a very intentional stream of consciousness-style dream sequence I was getting itchy, despite being obviously wowed by the director's continued masterful control over transitions, here rapidly transitioning between different dream realms.  I basically bought into the film by the end of the incredible opening credit sequence, but my seatbelt wasn't securely fastened the entire journey.

Paprika doesn't really hold your hand. It may grab you by the shirt sleeve and give you a little tug from time to time, but it's not laying it all out for you, and it never establishes any sort of rules to what you are seeing. It's all very mercurial, dream logic.

Yet the story is nearly quite straightforward. In a near-future world, a company has invented a technology that can record people's dreams, but there's an exploit where people can actually enter those dreams using the technology.  Paprika is Dr. Atsuko Chiba's alias when she enters the dreamscape, her very superheroic alter ego. Except someone else has stolen the technology, entered the dreamscape and is doing some real harm.

As Atsuko and the other heads of the project work with a police detective to try to suss out who is poisoning people's dreams, people start losing their minds in the real worlds and killing themselves.  The news is bad, and the chairman wants to shut the project down, which would leave anyone using the dream recorder exposed to the psychopath.

This is a generalized summary and definitely not 100% accurate...as I said, it's a film that doesn't hold your hand.  I found it difficult to embrace this world without understanding it first. The film talks about the newly developed "DC Mini" but doesn't really set us up for understanding the world as changed by the dream therapy technology that seems more widespread. Maybe they're both the same thing but it doesn't make sense that they are. I dunno, I probably need to watch it again.

The film toys with dreamscape logic, which means that often characters seem to wake up but are still in a dream, and then wake up from that dream to still be in a dream etc. It is a trick dream-based movies have been using for decades before and since. It's as effective as it is annoying.

There's this whole angle to Paprika that's about filmmaking and storytelling and camera perspective and collaboration and regret that seems very personal and personally appealing to Kon, but also is verrrry inside baseball for animators and cinematic storytellers. It's a side trip that ultimately has some leanings into one of the character's back stories but it also feels like an unnecessary tangent that stalls the mid-point of the film.

The character designs in this film in general feel more animated archetypes than in Kon's previous films (as Griffin Newman pointed out, it seems like three of the main doctors were visually designed after Professor X, Toad and the Blob from X-Men, something I picked up on as well, but was likely in mind after a binge of over 100 issues of X-Men comics and the 13 episodes of X-Men '97).  I don't feel like I understood our main protagonist, Atsuko and her altar ego Paprika all that well. I don't really understand why Atsuko was doing call girl-style illicit meetings with patients where Paprika invaded their dreams. It somehow made more sense when the dream world was invading the real world and Paprika became an independent being from Atsuko, but I'm not sure why that made sense.

This wasn't a mind-twist, so much as a mind hurt. Again, maybe upon rewatch it will reveal itself more, and repulse less. I mean, there's an abundance of fat jokes and denigrating of an obese character in this so, cultural biases, along with my own anime biases, all got in the way.

KWIF: Wonka (+3)

 KWIF = "Kent's Week In Film", so...stuff he watched in a week, or so. Just not this week.

This Some Week:
Wonka (2023, d. Paul King - Crave/Max)
Extraction 2 (2023, d. Sam Hargrave - Netflix)
Die Hard with a Vengeance (1996, d. John McTiernan - DVD)
The Hunt for Red October (1990, d. John McTiernan - DVD)

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I have yet to find the person who wanted Wonka to happen.

Seriously, who asked for Wonka to happen?

We, Toast and Kent, know this answer: The Purple Suits.

Wonka is a result of Hollywood's IP-driven landscape, where origin stories for popular characters are seen as a necessary vehicle to both perpetuate a property and potentially reboot it while providing the opportunity to recast a role or three or ten.  

It's happening all the time (a trailer for Transfomers One, which tells the origin of Optimus Prime and Megatron has just dropped the day that I write this) and I don't know if audiences are as cynical about it as the more cinephilic are (as I am) but they just seem so tired.

But, lazy film idea doesn't have to mean lazy film. And Paul King, poached from a plum Paddington gig proves the point with Wonka. I had a surprisingly good time. All it takes is putting the right people in place.

My review for Paul King's Paddington 2 lives over in Letterboxd, as it was a film from The Dark Year of the blog (what, you didn't read all 7600 words Toasty and I just spilled about our 2000th post?) but I, like many, had my pants utterly charmed by that movie. I have not revisited Paddington 2, despite the pants-charming, and my stab at watching the first Paddington was interrupted and I never returned to it, but King's thumbprint is clearly very prominent on the two films. I only just learned that King's TV work includes some directing of Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and The Mighty Boosh, two very arch and weird series that I wished I had spent more time with in my younger years, because I don't have the time now. Both Darkplace and Boosh are the product of their creators, and not necessarily a result of King's guiding force, but that's not to say that King didn't bring anything to the table, and also not to say that things didn't rub off on King.

Much of the same magic of Paddington is found here. There's a timelessness to the storytelling, not that it's set in a specific time period, but that there's a lack of era-specificity that unmoors it from our specific reality. Thought there's a wide-eyed naivete to the characters of the world, it also contains a message about class structures and capitalism-gone-wrong, and even about police and how they really only protect property and the wealthy. Well, it's in the subtext, anyway.

I don't love the Gene Wilder Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but I've seen it enough in my life, and I like it okay (the Johnny Depp one I haven't seen, but from what I recall of the trailers he was playing Wonka by way of Michael Jackson), so I'm not necessarily hung up on any specific interpretation of the character or needing anything specific out of this film.

Timothee Chalamet, I have to say, I was wary about. I hadn't hopped aboard the Chalatrain up until this year, but between Dune Pt. 2 and Wonka, I am sold on his star power. Can he believably be a cult leader/warrior/politician as a wistful, fanciful chocolateer? Yes, indeed he can. He brings an unending hopefulness to Willy here that echoes Paddington without the bumbling. Willy is hyper-competent and utterly creative, but he's not without his flaws which see him set back more than a time or two.  Especially when three rival chocolateers, in secret collusion with one another, seek to drive Willy out of their very locked-down marketplace.

It's not a full-on musical, but there are musical numbers. It's Mary Poppins-esque.  It's a film meant for everyone, frowning only on the selfish and greedy.  That bite of darkness that Wilder had in his performance is not at all present here, and while some bemoan its absence, it's a more uplifting film without it. 

I don't know why Paddington, just as much an IP-driven movie as this one, was given such leniency but Wonka so severely scrutinized (I could guess at length but I have other films to write about), but under King's guidance the flavours are not as far apart as one would suspect.  It was a surprising smash success, given the scrutiny, and I suspect a sequel, but not likely another direct Dahl adaptation. 

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Tyler Rake, Rakestraction himself, is back!!

He got shot a whole heap back at the end of Extraction 1: In Which Tyler Rake Does A Rakestraction, but he's not dead, just severely wounded. He fell into a very gross looking river, and likely got sepsis. Good thing he's got gobs of money and Chris Hemsworth's good looks otherwise he wouldn't have made it. But he did make it, but he's become a sad, wounded puppy, retires to his Austrian(?) cabin and sulks about his dead son some more. 

I shouldn't be pithy about the dead son bit... Hemsworth brings a genuine emotional center to Tyler Rake as a traumatized man but it's got nothing to do with his physical wounds.

Rakestraction is approached by fellow handsome man, and Hemsworth's good pal from the Thor movies, Idris Elba to do him a job. Rake's handler and business partner in Rakestractions Inc., Nik (Golshifteh Farahani), is not happy that Rake has accepted the job, but she will be by his side wherever he goes. Rake does his Rocky 4 training montage and gets back into fighting shape. No long-term side-effects for him!

Farahani does an awesome job at playing a badass mercenary as well as Rake's best friend. She straddles the line very well of never telling the audience exactly how she feels about rake, whether it's a deep platonic love or something more that she knows he's unable to reciprocate.  A romantic side-plot is not part of this action-heavy (action-only?) series, but Rake's personal life is really drawn out when his ex-wife, Olga Kurylenko, makes herself known.  It's her sister and her kids that need extracting from a very, very bad situation.

Rakestractions Inc. gets everyone out in loud, violent, pulse pounding, anxiety-inducing long-take sequences, first through a prison riot, then a car chase, then on a train. But then, when seemingly resting comfortably in Vienna, only for the very bad people to come hunt them down. It gets really messy.

If I were to hazard a guess, I would say I liked Rakestraction 2 more than Rakestraction 1, but, if I'm being honest, both of these films kinda left my brain the moment they were done. They are thoroughly engaging in the moment, but they're so light on character and plot that they don't have a stickiness to them. Hemsworth is a very likeable and attractive presence to follow around and his physicality (and physique) are very impressive to see in action... and these are action-centric showcases, spinning out of the John Wick mold. Unlike Wick, which was a series that built a world around its killing-machine-of-a-central-character-who they-barely-explored-over-four-films, Rakestraction drops its character into a setting, has him fight his way out, and gives a bit of space for the character to breathe in the middle, drop some character nuggets, then continue fighting.  It works, but it's not enough to really sell us on Tyler Rake as our next John McClane or whatnot.

But boy, those action sequences are amazingly well orchestrated and look intense. I wish they would just do a G.I. Joe movie in this vein, a tactical force of specialized individuals dropped into a situation fighting their way out, showing off their stuff.  But I digress.

The only thing I don't like about the Rakestraction films is the unacknowledged collateral damage. Because you know there are people everyone just taking bullets or having their cars flipped unexpectedly (does anyone ever have their car flipped expectedly?).  I just can't help but think about what might be going on just out of frame and in the world outside that the extraction is just plowing through.

[we agree, toasty's take)

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Speaking of John McClane, it's been at least 20 years since I last watched Die Hard with a Vengeance. I watch Die Hard every so often, because it's a stone cold classic (and a Christmas movie) so it gets play, but DHw/aV doesn't get the same treatment because it's juuust *that* much a derivative product that it doesn't beg for revisiting as much.

But it remains and incredible action movie and the only worthy sequel to Die Hard (I rewatched Die Hard 2 recently, and while it's enjoyable enough as an action movie, Willis' performance could have been any character...this feels like John McClane).  What works so well is, well, everything. The premise, the casting, the directing, the action, the twists... they all collude so perfectly...right up until the end.

The final moments of DHw/aV are kind of unmemorable. There's a Canada/US border town and a helicopter, and you would be excused for mistaking it for the much better sequence in The Long Kiss Goodnight. There's a quick action beat, some gunfire, then it's over. It's so abrupt. It's not unsatisfying, but it's not totally fulfilling either.

Samuel L. Jackson is the perfect pairing with Willis, in that golden age of the 90's when, well, Sam Jackson was the perfect pairing for anyone (see also The Long Kiss Goodnight). That man knows how to deliver every time, all of the time.  The racial tension is far from ignored, which is surprising for the 90's era of supposed "post-racial harmony" that was sold so hard to sweep uncomfortable conversations under the rug, never to be seen from again...until someone moves the rug.  I like the addressing of it head on and the two men finding that they're both just men.  Jeremy Irons is not Alan Rickman, and he doesn't get to be as tricksy and weasely, but I like the facade he puts on. Is it strange that he delivers a better performance over the phone than in person?

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A second John McTiernan film, because, well, podcast coverage of the direct had me intrigued.  I had intended to do a "Series Minded" on all the Jack Ryan movies, but I don't think I have easy access to the Chris Pine or Ben Affleck ones. And I'm not watching the TV show.

I honestly can't recall if I've ever seen The Hunt For Red October before. I think I have, but I may be mistaking my recollections for Crimson Tide. All submarine movies look the same to me.

Based off the Tom Clancy novel, this is a very 1990 movie but set as a period piece in 1984, really only because Russia got decommunismed (for a time anyway) in the time between the book and the movie.  The film posits that an experimental Russian sub, with the ability to move unseen by radar/sonar in the water, and armed to the gills and able to decimate the Atlantic coastline with nuclear warheads has been stolen by a celebrated Russian naval captain, played by Sean Connery.

Jack Ryan, played here by Alec Baldwin, is not the action hero he will be known as, but instead an competent analyst for the CIA. He suspects that Connery's captain is trying to defect. Elsewhere there's another American sub led by Scott Glen, where their sonar operator Courtney B. Vance is obsessed with an errant signal they picked up then lost. Meanwhile, on the Red October, Connery has a small subset of the crew loyal to him and his plan to defect, but the rest of the crew aren't entirely aware.

The genius of the film is in planting the seed that Connery's captain, having suffered a devastating personal loss, may be suicidal and intent on taking the world down with him.

For a film that largely takes place around consoles or tables, it's absolutely gripping. Set as a period piece, it still holds up as a period piece, and McTiernan's direction, with some ace editing, has the feel of an action movie even though there's very little actual action. It's pacing, and timing, a similar magic trick pulled off by Oppenheimer. 

There's a genius trick on McTiernan and co.'s part, where it starts off with the Russian crew speaking Russian, but after a little time with them, McT does a pull in-pull out of the camera in between a beat of Connery talking and it switches from subtitles and phonetic Russian to English. Even Connery's accent can be explained away as being different from the crew as he's said to be Lithuanian. That facade only comes apart in the final moments of the film when Connery has to speak with the Americans and still just speaks like Connery, but at that point in the film, who really cares. 

3 Short Paragraphs (Or Not): The Wandering Earth II

2023, Frant Guo (The Wandering Earth) -- Amazon

Speaking of bad movies that at least entertained...

In the first movie, either I misunderstood some things about the Sun dying, or they created this movie to purposely explain some of the things that didn't make sense in the first movie. Yes, the sequel to The Wandering Earth is a prequel, and to be fair, its a proper prequel meant to chronicle the time between deciding to attach rockets and the test of the first rocket. Oh, and the blowing up of the moon. And the invention of AI to help with the control of the rockets.

Of note, someone was listening to my brain. One of the 31 "story ideas" in my head is that the invention of sentient AI is an accidental side-effect of the creation of a computer that is capable of doing the calculations for FTL travel.

The problem with "chronicling the time" is that they wanted to do the span of years, but they also wanted to retain characters we can relate to and root for, so the entire time period between "oh shit, we have to do something!" and first rocket test is barely one generation. No matter, hand wavey time!

So, we begin not long after the discovery that The Sun is dying. They fill in some blanks from the first movie and explain, which I believe is the correct astro physics, that its not that The Sun will burn out and leave the solar system dead cold, but that the quickly dying sun will expand and consume the entire solar system. NASA (IRL) isn't sure The Sun would actually eat us, but they also say it will happen in 6 billion years, not next week, so what do they know. And with this discovery, there are only two solutions: fly the Earth to another solar system, or .., convert everyone to AI so they "can live forever". A very big conflict in the movie is the dispute between what the real choice should be, enough that there are violent rebellious forces that want to bring down Big Rocket.

So, we answered one question and introduced another head scratcher. Why is the AI idea a viable solution? AI requires computers, computers require power and an actual place to house those computers & their power source. If The Sun consumes the solar system, bye bye computers and bye bye AI People. They could have mentioned an idea to build a colony ship that would have AI People on it, instead of living people, but nope, just, "WE SHOULD ALL BE CONVERTED TO AI !!"

Sigh.

The movie begins, post explanatory prelude, with the new teams joining the Space Force funded by all the Governments, ruled by the United Earth Government based out of NYC but mainly controlled by China's generous understanding of everything possible and industrious workforce. A space elevator has been created so they can collect resources from The Moon. But the AI People contingent attack! For some reason, they are so incensed with the Big Rocket idea that they have to destroy it all! The opening attack segment is exciting, a CGI extravaganza full of death and flying machinery and explosions and heroic sacrifices that bond some of our potential heroes. The AI People contingent is inevitably defeated but they do destroy the space elevator. Alas that somehow that doesn't deter Big Rocket's contingency plans. Whatever, hand wavey time!

Oh yeah, they are also building rockets on the moon, so they could move it out of the way. This is where we begin a significant subplot (main plot tangent?) of using an advanced quantum computer bolstered by AI to help with the Big Moon Rocket testing. This particular AI also happens to have the digital consciousness of the late daughter of one of the engineers. Big Moon Rockets are a success. China leads the building of the remaining Big Rockets on the Earth's equator.

Time passes. People get cancer.

It is at this point I realize I dont' really care about the melodramatic tribulations of any of the characters. One main character has cancer and will die, but her husband wants to secure a spot for her in the Big Cities Under the Rockets. Other Main Character is still trying to get his digital daughter into a bigger AI so she can "live a complete life". But I don't care, as I am just enjoying all the CGI tech.

I was never really sure, but I think AI Daughter Guy, who is pissed he hasn't been provided a proper quantum computer for his daughter, uploads her anyway, which is ... connected to the AI computers on the Moon, which causes them to malfunction, which causes them to blow up, which causes the Moon to start to fall. Uhhh, guys, wrong movie. So, to stop The Moon from joining forces with The Sun to fuck up The Earth, they collect all the nuclear missiles and bombs on Earth and deliver them to The Moon to blow that fucker up. They also want to early ignite some of the Big Rockets so they can scoot The Earth over to the left, out of the way of The Moon debris. Yeah, I am pretty sure that is not how gravity works. Whatever, hand-wavey. Also, the nuclear option hits a snag, so they send 300+ astronauts to The Moon with hand-detonators to make noble sacrifices.

BUT, and if you haven't guesses yet, there is one challenge after another in this movie, there is another problem. Years ago they turned the Internet off (cuz, reasons), which they now suddenly need so they can properly ignite Big Rocket to scoot The Earth out of the way. So, not just quantum computer AI but also Big Network to connect it all together. The root server is in Beijing, under water, so deep sea diving scientists have to go there and reboot things, which again involves fuck ups and noble sacrifice. It also makes use of AI Daughter to properly ignite the rockets and The Earth flies away into the wild black yonder.

Waitasec. Wasn't a critical plot of the first movie also all about doing final tests on Big Rocket before igniting them and flying into the wild black yonder? I had assumed this movie's ending was just about scooting out of the way, but the final scenes implied they were actually beginning their journey.

In the end, I guess I was entertained enough to finish it but not entertained enough to re-watch the first movie. I can only assume the third movie will pick up near the end of the journey, some 2500 years in the future when they arrive at Replacement Solar System and... well, probably have to blow up a planet that is sitting in the spot The Earth will need, or some other such nonsense.

P.S. Terrible movie, great poster.

3 Short Paragraphs: The King's Man

2021, Matthew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class) -- download

Rather surprised that Vaughn came along to direct the third installment in his Kingsmen movies, adaptations of the Mark Millar comic. Given this is a prequel, apparently, he was supposed to be filming the third "normal" sequel to the other two movies right after this movie, but that seems to have died on the vine. I am also rather surprised I watched  this, as I am not that big of a fan of the other two movies. One viewing should have been enough, but after a bit of clicky clickism, I rewatched the second and then downloaded this. Again, strongly seated in the meh field.

The first two movies had their tongues securely in cheeks, but this one seemed... overly serious? Its a period piece set just before the first World War, centered around the intelligence group setup by Orlando, the Duke of Oxford (Ralph Fiennes, Spectre) that uses servants and household staff to keep him appraised of the goings on within families of import. Nobody ever notices the servants just doing their job. Meanwhile an organization calling itself The Flock is trying to orchestrate a controlled war in Europe. Their base of operations is rather improbable tor only accessed by a long manual elevator ride, and is covered in sheep. Their leader in the shadows has the most impressive cartoon Scottish accent. Meanwhile, Orlando is doing his best to keep his son out of harm's way, yet still brings him along on a mission to assassinate Rasputin (Rhys Ifans, Notting Hill). Despite their success, The Flock gets the War going which leads to Orlando's son's death, forcing him to take on the leader of The Flock directly.

The movie wants to be a convoluted look into the political events of the early 20th century while also being the rollicking adventure the other movies were. It does have some fun with the historical facts, such as the insular (inbred?) nature of the royal families of Britain, Germany and Russia, by having Tom Hollander (About Time) play all three rulers: King George, Kaiser Wilhelm and Tsar Nicholas. I had thought Rasputin to be at the centre of things, but his bit was rather short, while being overly comically dramatic. In the end, it kind of captures the nature of the other films but wasn't very memorable, and I was rather disappointed by the secret reveal of The Flock Shepherd which served no purpose being hidden at all. And the creation of the Kingsmen tailor shop / spy service out of Orlando's servant organization is... meh.

3 Short Paragraphs: Army of Thieves

2021,  Matthias Schweighöfer (You Are Wanted) -- Netflix

Waitasec. The director of Army of Thieves is also the actor who plays the main character, which happened to be my least favourite character in a movie I didn't enjoy much, despite being about zombies and Las Vegas? So, you may ask why I even watched this movie, but the answer is rather easy. Rather than do the usual click-click-click browse through of all the movies we have downloaded or Added To List, we just chose something light, and not likely to interfere with looking down at our phones/laptops while watching the movie. I mean, I do like heist movies, so there was at least a reason. And lo what a surprise, but I ended up really really enjoying the little flick.

Dieter, from Army of the Dead is really just Sebastian Schlencht-Wöhnert, a meek bank employee living a mundane life all the while obsessed with  legendary bank vault maker Hans Wagner. Sebastian raves about how great Wagner was on his YouTube channel with no subscribers, but does end up catching the attention of someone who invites him to what appears to be an underground fightclub safe-cracking club, where he wins the competition with apparent ease. Of course, not a club but an audition to the crime gang run by rich girl gone jewel thief Gwendoline Starr (Nathalie Emmanuel, Game of Thrones). Their goal is to crack all of Wagner's famous vaults, not for the riches within, but for the fame of just doing it. While initially hesitant, Sebastian joins because he cannot miss having a crack (pun intended) at those safes.

Schweighöfer made Schlencht-Wöhnert (whom all the characters comment that he has an unpronounceable last name) an utterly charming, off-beat young man with a very centred moral compass. The movie itself is one that Ryan Reynolds wanted his Europe-based heist flick to be like, set in many exotic locales, tense and exciting but a Hell of a lot more grounded than Red Notice. And Nathalie Emmanuel is leaps & bounds more alluring than Gal Gadot was as The Bishop. Of course, anyone who has seen the zombie movie knows that Ludwig Dieter, the cool name Sebastian adopts as a safe-cracker, ends up chasing down the final Wagner safe in Las Vegas, banking on the reputation he builds in this movie. Part of me hopes they retcon his death for the sequel.

31 Days of Halloween 2017: Alien Covenant

2017, Ridley Scott (Kingdom of Heaven) -- download

Another cheat insert.

I am not a fan of Prometheus. I found it a re-hash of what had been done before and even more plot hole filled than the less popular follow-ups to the original movie. So, I did not have many expectations for this sequel to the prequel (not sequel!). But I was pleasantly surprised that he at least gave us a decent horror movie.

But first the kick-off that pissed me off to no end. The last movie ended with Elizabeth Shaw and David the Friendly Android following a beacon back to the homeworld of the Engineers. That gives a lot to work with, with a first contact by a lone human and android. But no, that's too much for Scott to build a story around, so he kills them all off. An entire planet of Engineers is killed off by the Not-Friendly David android that Elizabeth has reassembled. He has re-engineered (pun intended) the planet into something ruled by whatever the Engineer black ooze virus does when there are no more lifeforms for it to destroy. And Elizabeth is dead. Not since the death of Newt, did I feel so pissed off.

But this is the planet that the next crew of unsuspecting unfortunates arrive at. Its a colony ship, a nice shiny well crewed spaceship filled with frozen humans & embryos and one toned down version of the android David, named Walter. They can re-program the line, but I guess they liked the Fassbender model. The crew has to be awakened when an accident happens, killing their captain.

So, like last time, there is a nearby planet that some want to explore and others want to avoid. They have a destination, but a quick pitstop won't hurt anything, right? Wrong. As said above, David has destroyed the place. They find the devastated Engineer city, but not before inhaling lots of spores left over from the black goo death machine. This is at the source of all the terror; you don't need face huggers to kick off the expected events.

What happens is a decently done, lots of shadows and things that eat you in the night horror movie. Ridley also does an annoying good job of giving us the greater threat, the machine that man made -- David. My namesake android is rather insane, and despite Walter's attempts to explain to him the error of his ways, David proceeds to work with the xenos to kill off the crew. We are left with the Ridley analog, played by Katherine Waterston still bearing the horrible bob haircut from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, having to defend herself and the colony ship from David and the Xenos (my favourite new band name) but we know it will lead into a new sequel aboard the ship.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

2016, d. Gareth Edwards -- in cinema

I can't believe it's taken me this long to write about a Star Wars movie.  It just goes to show how burnt out I was that I couldn't find the time over a two-month span to write about the latest installment of a franchise that has dominated my brainspace more than any other piece of entertainment.  But after a fourth viewing this week (and seeing that Toasty has posted his review), I figured it was high time I lay down some thoughts.

First, with each subsequent viewing, I love it more and more.  I said this to many people (Toasty included) this was the Star Wars movie I have wanted since I was a kid.  This is the Star Wars movie that skirts around the outsides of what we see in the original trilogy.  This is the side story of the side characters doing their side things.  This is a deeper peek inside the operations of the Empire and the Rebellion.  This is a look at the societies that get caught in their crossfire.  This is a look at the grey area that Rebellions must operate in, breaking laws and making sacrifices.  These aren't the big-hearted heroes with toothy-white smiles, these are the gutter-trenches, heavy-hearted heroes doing what must be done.

When I was a kid, what I wanted more than anything was to just explore the halls of the Death Star, to take in visually every square inch.  I would try to map out in my brain where corridors went based on what we see in A New Hope and the toys that came out, but it never made enough sense.  I would watch Star Wars (practically every Sunday, like it was church, for a time) and just marvel at the backgrounds, wondering where that hallway leads, or what would it look like if Luke and Leia ran the other way?

Rogue One takes us to the ground level of the Rebellion versus the Empire.  Director Gareth Edwards did such an amazing job with Godzilla in establishing scale in that film that had such hope he would do the same here, and he delivers in epic proportions.  We see how ships scale against each other, and against the Death Star.  We see troop on the ground looking up at AT-ACTs in a way Empire couldn't manage.  We see epic disasters loom large.  It gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.

One of the things I admire most about Rogue One is how it delivers big spectacle but with purpose.  Outside of mainly Christopher Nolan pictures, most films build stories around set pieces.  "Here's a cool action sequence we thought of, now how do we get the characters there?"  Here, every "set piece" emerges organically out of the story, and there are plentiful set pieces.  Characters never feel like they're in arbitrary danger for the sake of audience manipulation, this film flows smoothly -- perhaps too smoothly --  such that the characters always feel like they belong in a scene.


The main complaint about the film is the characters, however, about being too thinly cut without much definition.  It is true, there's not much here for most of the characters. But there is subtext.  The performances here are rather incredible all around, from Riz Ahmed's Bodhi Rook to Felicity Jones' Jyn Erso to Alan Tudyk's K-2SO, everyone is invested in their character, they know what motivates them and they know who they are.  After four viewings, I draw more and more out of their interactions with each other, their relationships get more and more defined, and their characters reveal themselves.  This is an utterly rewatchable movie, partly because it's so damn awesome looking, but also because the subtext of the characters and their relationships leaves much of their interpretation to the audience to draw out.  There are certainly worse ways to handle characterization than "less is more".

As a lifelong Star Wars nerd, I am somehow in awe of this film.  The prequels disappointed in story and character (the spectacle was quite good in many cases) and Episode 7 was like a clean break from all the heavy, depressing debate over whether the prequels irreparably destroyed Star Wars.  It had spectacle, but not like this.  Episode 7 was what we expected.  Rogue One provided so much more.  Planet-hopping, the Death Star, so many different space ships, gun fights, espionage, all out war on the ground and in space.  The space battle leaves me drooling every time.  It's just so phenomenally well-conceived and intense.  Even during the fourth viewing I was still saying "wow" out loud.

Rogue One also serves to fill in one of the life-long major plot holes in the original Star Wars, ie. howcome the Empire didn't know about the flaw in the Death Star?  And this movie is built around that very question and it provides a thoroughly satisfying answer.  What I love is this is its own movie.  It's got its own beginning, middle and end.  It feels heavyweight and important on its own. Rogue One is not a "prequel" to Star Wars, nor is Star Wars a sequel to Rogue One.  They're complimentary sides of the same coin.  In a weird way one completes the other and vice versa, yet neither absolutely need the other.  Had this been the first Star Wars movie in 1977, I would have be just as all-in as I was with George Lucas' original vision.

It's a darker movie than any Star Wars we've seen before, far more intense in its violence (but it's still just bloodless laser blasters).  Even still, it's not necessarily only for older audiences.  It's exploration of the grey side of war, and the casualties it brings can be important for kids to see and talk about afterwards.  My seven year old loved it (she's seen it 3 times now).  But it's really up to a parent to know their kid's tolerance levels for cinematic violence.

This one is in my top 3 Star Wars films already, and could very well edge its way into #1, sentimentality for the originals be damned.  It's such a fantastic, well realized production that it sucks me into the world like I was 10 years old again.  I want to watch this every Sunday for a good long while.