The Great Wall

Posted on February 16, 2017 at 5:39 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Preschool
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for sequences of fantasy action violence
Profanity:	None
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Extensive, intense, military and fantasy violence with scary monsters, spears, arrows, explosions, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters but some insensitive portrayals
Date Released to Theaters:	February 17, 2017

I get that you need a big Hollywood star to get big Hollywood money. But in “The Great Wall,” that means that Matt Damon has to save the day in ancient China, and having him share the fight with a tough female military leader (Tian Jing) who is Chinese (and very beautiful) does not reduce the quease factor.

Damon plays William, a mercenary who has fought for and against armies of several European nations, now traveling through China in search of the “black powder” they have heard is a new weapon of massive power to destroy. (Gunpowder, the first explosive, was developed by Chinese alchemists in the 9th century.) All of his group are killed except for his closest friend Tovar (Pedro Pascal) in an encounter with a mysterious beast. William kills it and keeps the claw to help find out what it was. When they are captured by an enormous army, it is the claw that keeps them from being killed. The army, a part of the Nameless Order, is stationed by the Great Wall to fight off those creatures, called Tao-Tie. They are dragon-like predators who are learning and evolving, becoming more powerful and working together to develop what can only be called strategy. The Nameless Order has to stop them before they can no longer be contained and take over China, and, after that, the world.

The six people who wrote the film include top-level screenwriters including Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz (“thirtysomething,” “Nashville”), Max Brooks (“World War Z”), and Tony Gilroy (“Michael Clayton”) were not able to add any more depth than a videogame, and Matt Damon’s talent and charisma can only take his one-dimensional character so far, but the real star here is director Yimou Zhang, whose gift for visual imagery is always a pleasure to behold. In the grand tradition of Cecil B. DeMille or Busby Berkeley, his eye for epic scale, pageantry, and battle is superb. Blue-armored female soldiers leap off ledges to fight the Tao-Tie via military-grade bungee cords. Two interlopers are suddenly surrounded by a storm of red arrows, shot to keep them at the center of a perfect circle. A soldier accused of having a bow “not to the level of your skill” demonstrates what it — and he — can do with three arrows shot at once, one to adjust the trajectory of a tossed bowl and other two to pin it to a column. The film has no dialog about trust or what it means to risk your life, whether for money or for your community, no bromantic banter, and no discovery of the surprising secret to defeating the animals that comes close to the power of the endless row of faces, resolute, honorable, and determined it to whatever it takes to fight the Tao-Tie.

NOTE: Matt Damon and co-star Andy Lau both played the same character in the American and Chinese versions of the film that in the US was called “The Departed.” The Chinese version was “Infernal Affairs” and both are excellent.

Parents should know that this film includes extended military vs. monsters violence with many characters wounded and killed and disturbing images, arrows, spears, and explosions. While it features strong, brave female soldiers and officers and tries to balance the skill and courage of the Chinese and western characters, it is still disturbing to see in 2017 a movie where the indigenous people cannot solve the problem until the European arrives. You may wish to read the director’s statement on this issue.

Family discussion: Were William and Lin Mae alike? How did they earn each other’s trust?

If you like this, try: “House of the Flying Daggers” and “Curse of the Golden Flower”

John Wick Chapter 2

Posted on February 9, 2017 at 5:25 pm

A little bit of a spoiler alert here: this time the dog does not die. Other than that, “John Wick Chapter 2” is pretty much what you saw in the first “John Wick.” Once again, this is a movie about a good guy who happens to be an assassin, going after the bad guy assassins, in an assassin demimondaine with cool details but mostly a lot of assassining. Director Chad Stahelski, a martial arts instructor turned stuntman in films like “The Crow” and “The Matrix” makes these films from a stuntman perspective. The intricately choreographed stunts are shot like a Fred Astaire dance number. That means the camera sits relatively still and lets the action tell the story rather than tricking it all up with quick cuts and fancy angles. And the stunt settings are imaginative, including ancient Roman catacombs and an art installation that is like a super-sized funhouse mirror display.

In the first film, retired assassin John Wick (Keanu Reeves) is mourning the death of his wife, the woman for whom he quit being a paid killer so they could live happily ever after together. She had arranged for an adorable puppy to be delivered to him after her death. The spoiled, hot-headed son of a crime boss kills Wick’s dog and takes his car, so Wick gets out a sledgehammer to smash up the cement he laid down metaphorically and literally over his arsenal and stockpile of gold coins, the preferred currency for Assassin World. Some 70 kills later, including the son and his dad, the movie ended.

Chapter 2 has Wick getting his car back, and when we see him laying down that cement again, we know it’s time for the doorbell to ring.

It turns out you don’t get to retire twice. An old colleague shows up with a marker. And, as hotel for assassins proprietor Winston (Ian McShane) helpfully reminds us, there are only two unbreakable rules in Assassin World: no spilling blood in the Assassin Hotel chain known as Continental (we’ll overlook that tussle with Ms. Perkins in the first film), and all markers must be paid. Santino (Riccardo Scamarcio) wants Wick to kill his sister, Gianna (Claudia Gerini), so he can take her place on the Assassin World ruling council. Wick says no. Santino burns his house down.

No time to stop to dig up the arsenal again. Lucky for us, as this means some of the film’s highlights, when Wick meets with his weapons “sommelier” (“Spy’s” Peter Serafinowicz) and his tailors, expert in the art of exquisite fit and bulletproof fabric. Then it’s off to the catacombs for a rather unexpected encounter with Gianna, followed by an Assassin World APB when Santino offers a $7 million reward for killing John Wick.

So, basically another FPS game, as everyone comes after Wick, including Common and Ruby Rose, and he goes after everyone. There has to be a Chapter 3, right?

The details are stylish and a lot of fun, especially Lance Reddick’s imperturbable concierge, a room full of 1940’s-style plugboard and vacuum tube female operators handing out assassination assignments, Rose’s acrobatics and her sign-language threats (she does not speak), and everyone’s exotic tattoos. (Wick’s, usually translated as “Fortune Favors the Bold” is really more like “It is only the strong that the Goddess Fortuna comes to save.”) It is delightful to see Reeves paired again (briefly) with his “Matrix” sensei, Laurence Fishburne, here presiding over an intelligence network of apparently homeless people. It nicely balances the gory images to keep us in a world where we are relieved that the local cop (the always welcome Thomas Sadoski) appreciates that all this killing has nothing to do with the normal rules. Contrary to Winston, in this world there is only one rule: don’t get in the way of entertainment, and this movie obeys.

Parents should know that this film includes constant strong and very gory violence with guns, knives, fights, suicide, many characters injured and killed, many disturbing images, very strong language, and briefs nudity.

Family discussion: Why are the two rules important? Should there be any others?

If you like this, try: the first “John Wick” and “Shoot ‘em Up”

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Action/Adventure Series/Sequel

xXx: The Return of Xander Cage

Posted on January 19, 2017 at 5:28 pm

This ridiculous but ridiculously entertaining third chapter in the “XXX” action series is basically script by Mad Libs: Let’s have Vin Diesel in a . Which is how we get a motorcycle race over water and a ski jump into jungle. Plus a shoot-out in zero gravity. And why not. Sick of winter? Tired of the news? Here is a summer movie in January, with chases and explosions for days, badassery of all kinds, and many thousand yard stares, all presented for your delectation in gorgeous IMAX 3D.

So, to recap. In the first XXX movie, released in 2002, extreme sports and extreme tattoo anti-hero and adrenaline junkie Xander Cage (Vin Diesel) was recruited by federal agent Augustus Gibbons (Samuel L. Jackson) to do some tasks that normal military and government operatives were not cool and crazy enough to do. Chapter 2, “XXX: State of the Union” (2005) had Ice Cube stepping in for the reportedly deceased Cage. Twelve years later, it turns out that Xander Cage was just too cool to kill. He’s been enjoying life with crazy stunts and beautiful ladies. But tracks him down because has to be taken away from , and so once again his special skills are needed.

That special ops boss is Marke, played by Toni Collette as though she is doing a bad drag queen impression of herself, as opposed to the good drag queen impression she did in “Connie and Carla.” She helpfully provides X with a team of military tough guys. He dispatches them quickly by throwing them off a plane and rounds up his own Benneton ad of a team, a motley crew of wisecracking with and no fear: “the bad, the extreme, the completely insane,” we are reminded, as though that isn’t the very reason we are there. The movie helpfully skips over exposition that might get in the way of chases, explosions, shoot-outs, fight scenes, and quippy threats and bragging by providing helpful title cards for each character outlining, like Power Point on crack, their most significant achievements, characteristics, and useful other information like their go-to karaoke song or the fact that one of them, meeting with Samuel L. Jackson, thinks he is being recruited for the Avengers.

Everyone loves to run, jump, shoot, and fight except for Nina Dobrev as the Velma of this Scooby-Doo crowd, with oversize glasses, super-duper tech ability, and an inability to stop talking around X. She babbles anything that comes into her mind, explaining so thoroughly (in the world of this movie, more than six words in a row is a monologue) that she is not a field agent that we know eventually she will have to shoot a gun at someone, and adding, as she swoons over X’s muscles, “It’s not that I have a safe word or anything; it’s kumquat.”

X-Men style, this Island of Lost Toys bunch of misfits keeps shifting loyalties, so, gets to fight and fight alongside , too. It’s all delightfully preposterous but crazy fun and .

Parents should know that this film includes constant action-style peril and violence, chases, explosions, assault weapons, knives, terrorism, sexual innuendo and non-explicit situation, and some strong language.

Family discussion: Do you agree with Xander’s comment about rebels and tyrants? How do the characters decide when to be loyal and who to be loyal to?

If you like this, try: the earlier “xXx” movies and the “Transporter” and “Fast and Furious” series

Trailer: J.K. Simmons in “Renegades”

Posted on November 7, 2016 at 11:00 am

Yes, it looks like a SNL parody of an action movie. But I like Luc Besson and I think it will be a hoot.

Inferno

Posted on October 27, 2016 at 5:10 pm

Dashing, globe-trotting symbology professor Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) doesn’t work any harder at trying to prevent a global pandemic than Hanks and director Ron Howard work at trying to make the Dan Brown book into a movie. You can guess how Langdon’s effort works out. I’m here to tell you that the movie does not. Not even close.

Langdon wakes up, disoriented and with a gash on his head. As far as he remembers, he is still at Harvard but somehow he sees Florence out the window. He has no recollection of the past few days and the doctor (Felicity Jones) explains that he has temporary retrograde amnesia. Her name is Sienna. Conveniently, she speaks English — she is English — and several other languages, and even more conveniently she is a fan of his work because she “likes puzzles.” She attended one of his lectures when she was nine years old and has read all of his books with such devotion that she even mentions there is one she didn’t like much.

When an assassin dressed as a police officer starts shooting at them, Sienna grabs Robert and brings him, still in his hospital gown, to her apartment. Pretty soon, they are both on the trail of a puzzle that leads to an impending release of a virus that while wipe out 80 percent of humanity, put in place by a crazed zillionaire who had some very strong feelings about the problems of over-population, and who fell to his death in the prologue, but not before warning darkly that “Humanity is the disease; Inferno is the cure.”

Robert, still groggy, has to figure out how to stop release of the virus. But the clues are simply that that puzzling or interesting. Unlike The Da Vinci Code, where Brown put together a clever and intricate series of clues based on authentic history and art, this one is little more than chase scenes in iconic locations, alternating with yawn-inducing scenes people barking kill orders into headsets and staring intently into monitors.

We also get drearily Delphic pronouncements like “the truth can be glimpsed only through the eyes of death” and somber almost-adages like “the greatest sins in human history have been committed in the name of love,” squinting at Renaissance frescos, a mysterious group with the PAC-like name The Command Risk Consortium (“We are not the government; we get things done”), a stolen death mask of “Inferno” poet Dante Alighieri, and an absurd pause for a chat about missed chances and regret. Irrfan Khan provides an all-too-brief bright spot, and I would happily see an entire movie about his crisp and unflappable character. As for the rest, one action scene is underwater, but the rest of it drags so much it feels like it might be, too.

Parents should know that this film includes fantasy/action style violence with grotesque and disturbing images, theme of global pandemic, chases and extended peril with characters injured and killed, suicide, betrayal, some strong and crude language, and a sexual situation.

Family discussion: Who is doing the most to address the problems of over-population? Why is Dante especially appropriate for this story?

If you like this, try: “The Da Vinci Code”