Terminator Genisys

Posted on June 30, 2015 at 5:15 pm

B-

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi violence and gunplay throughout, partial nudity and brief strong language
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	None
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and often graphic peril and violence, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	July 1, 2015

Copyright Universal 2015 — Copyright Paramount 2015

“I’ll be back,” Arnold Schwarzenegger said in the first “Terminator” movie. He had the title role but only 16 lines, with about a total of 80 words. But those three words have become a legend. It now appears he meant it more than we thought, as he appears four decades later in a fifth “Terminator” movie, with two more in the pipeline.

The storyline is about how a network of computers called Skynet took over and all but destroyed life on earth, except for a small group of rebels led by John Connor. Given the time travel that occurs in the films, they in effect act as their own prequels and sequels. This is more of a side-quel, presenting some of the same characters and events in a sort of alternate, butterfly effect universe. Some changes are explained, including why a robot that looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger now looks so much older than he did in the first one. (I didn’t say it was explained persuasively, just that they recognize someone has to say something about it.) Many changes are not explained, and I am not just talking about the fact that the characters are, other than Schwarzenegger, played by different actors. Some of those changes are good. Some are not. And some are just dumb.

Here’s a good one. In the first film, we learn that John Connor has sent Kyle, his top rebel colleague back in time to protect Sarah Connor because the Terminator (Schwarzenegger) has been sent back to kill her before she can even become pregnant with Connor, to eliminate him so that he can never be born and lead the rebellion against the machines. In this film, we see it happen. John (Jason Clarke) explains that, as we already know but Kyle does not, Sarah is not yet the tough, resilient woman she will become by the end of #1 and really show us in #2. She is “scared and weak.” She is also, John tells Kyle, a waitress, though since Kyle was very young when Skynet took over and declared humanity a pestilence that had to be eradicated before it contaminated the earth beyond repair, he has no idea what that is.

But then we see Sarah (now played by “Game of Thrones'” Emilia Clarke, no relation to Jason), and she is not the frightened, inexperienced girl Kyle expected. Plus, she has Terminator of her own (Schwarzenegger) who is protecting her, not killing her.

Even by the very low standards of blockbuster sci-fi, the mumbo-jumbo here is pretty over the top, with plot holes bigger than the school bus that hangs over the side of a bridge in one of the film’s showiest action sequences. We have not quite reached nuke the fridge status yet, but we’re teetering on the brink with unanswered questions and outright subversion of some of the series’ core precepts. And it is one thing to make reference to the earlier films; it is another to wink at them and at us. Make a character we trust untrustworthy. Okay. Age the Terminator. Well…okay. Call him “Pops.” Sort of okay. Have him fake smile. Okay. Have him keep a cache of sentimental tokens. Not okay. This is not Pinocchio, and he is not going to become a Real Boy.

But hey, this is summer, and we don’t need think-y movies, right? So let’s drive right through those plot holes, enjoy seeing Arnold now fight a CGI Arnold circa 1984, hang that school bus off the bridge, and keep going, without looking back.

NOTE: Stay past the credits for a scene that will not surprise you about what’s in store for #6.

Parents should know that there is extensive and intense peril and violence throughout the film, just under the R level, with characters injured and killed and some disturbing images. There is also some discreet nudity, and brief strong language, with a couple of mildly crude sexual references.

Family discussion: If you could go back in time to make a change, what would it be? What is the best way to prevent a Skynet-type machine takeover?

If you like this, try: the first two “Terminator” movies

Trailer: Eva — Yet Another AI Robot Movie

Posted on May 28, 2015 at 8:00 am

This is certainly turning out to be the year of the AI robot. This one stars Daniel Brühl and this time the robot is a child named EVA.

Tomorrowland

Posted on May 22, 2015 at 7:10 am

It begins with an argument. Frank (George Clooney) is trying to tell us the story. But he is repeatedly interrupted by someone we will learn is Casey (Britt Robertson). “Try to be a little more upbeat,” she urges him. The only way he can do that is to go back to when he last felt upbeat, as a child in 1964, when he brought his not-quite-working-yet invention to the New York World’s Fair to submit it in competition. The judge (Hugh Laurie) rejected it, but a young girl who was watching them follows Frank, hands him a pin, and tells him to follow her without being noticed. She is Athena, played with saucer-eyed charm by Raffey Cassidy. That leads him to the “It’s a Small World” ride, which had its premiere at the 1964 World’s Fair, but in this version of the ride, there is a portal to a fabulous Oz-like city of the future.

We then meet Casey in the present day, where she is engaging in a little breaking and entering at a NASA facility in Cape Canaveral, trying to stop the machines that are tearing it down. Her father (a warm and wonderfully natural Tim McGraw) is a NASA engineer who has been laid off as his entire program is shutting down. Casey is caught and arrested, and when she is being released, among her things is the same pin. And when she touches it, she is transported to a wheat field with that same city in the distance. The shot is an homage to the iconic image of the Emerald City from the poppy field. She wants to get back there. She feels that she needs to get back there. And so she tries to track down the pin, which takes her to a store filled with sci-fi artifacts run by Kathryn Hahn and Keegan-Michael Key, who manage to be both very funny and surprisingly menacing. The store is called Blast from the Past, a name that turns out to be quite literal when some guys dressed in black with scary grins and big guns show up.

Athena arrives, looking not a day older than in 1964, and takes Casey to see Frank, now a grumpy recluse with a grizzly gray beard stubble and a holographic dog. When the guys in black show up, they are held back by Frank’s elaborate system of booby traps long enough for Frank, Casey, and Athena to escape. Eventually they make it back to Tomorrowland, which looks quite different from the pristine and joyful version Casey first saw.

There are some magical moments, but also some choices so poor they suggest last-minute panic re-cutting. That last scene with Clooney and Cassidy is weird and creepy, even more so because it is intended to be touching. But in much of the film, co-writer/director Brad Bird, working with “Lost’s” Damon Lindelof, combines some of the themes from his earlier films, “The Iron Giant,” “The Incredibles,” “Ratatouille,” and even “Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol,” so that the story’s superbly staged action sequences and gorgeously imagined settings underlie ideas about creativity, optimism, and the power of ideas and imagination. It is all in the tradition and the spirit of the man behind the theme park area that inspired the film.

Early on, Casey tells her dispirited father, who describes himself as “a NASA engineer without a launch,” the Cherokee story he used to tell her. Two wolves are fighting. One represents darkness and despair. One represents light and hope. Which one will win? The one that you feed. It is clear that Bird wants us to feed the wolf of light and hope, and this film gives that wolf some real nourishment.

Parents should know that this film includes sci-fi/action/fantasy peril and violence including weapons, characters injured and killed, themes of dystopia and destruction, and some mild language (hell, damn).

Family discussion: What made Casey special? What invention would you like to create to make a better future? Would you like to have a friend like Athena?

If you like this, try: Disney classics from the original Tomorrowland era like “Escape from Witch Mountain” and “Swiss Family Robinson”

Trailer: Aurora

Posted on April 22, 2015 at 3:20 pm

When will humans (at least those in movies) figure out that putting machines in charge is never a good idea?

Ex Machina

Posted on April 16, 2015 at 5:18 pm

A-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for graphic nudity, language, sexual references and some violence
Profanity:	Very strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking and drug use, intoxication
Violence/ Scariness:	Violence and peril, characters injured and killed
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	April 17, 2015
Date Released to DVD:	July 14, 2015
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00XI057M0

Movies about artificial intelligence or computers achieving consciousness are, of course, really about what it means to be human.

When software and hardware combine to mimic or exceed human qualities in “Her,” “Chappie,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Terminator,” or the upcoming Avengers sequel, even “Planet of the Apes,” it is a way to think about what it is that defines us. Alan Turing of “The Imitation Game” used our ability as humans to recognize each other as the famous Turing test to determine whether artificial intelligence has been created. The test is passed when a person cannot tell whether the entity on the other side of a conversation is human. If we cannot tell the difference, then we have to rethink our exceptionalist notions of human supremacy. We accept, sometimes reluctantly, the notion that computers are vastly superior in computation and memory, that they can whomp us in chess or on Jeopardy. But can a machine achieve what we think of as consciousness? Or conscience?

Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is a computer programmer who gets the equivalent of Charlie Bucket’s golden ticket. He wins a chance to spend a week at the home of the brilliant founder of his company (think Steve Jobs), a man who at age 13 invented the most powerful search engine and now lives in a home so remote that a helicopter flies over the thickly wooded property for two hours before they reach the residence. They are in the middle of nowhere. (The film was made at the stunning Juvet Landscape Hotel in Norway.)

Nathan (Oscar Isaac, all brutish charm, feral, and entitled, with shaved head and beard), welcomes him with a rough candor, explaining that he is hung over, and giving Caleb a keycard, so that he will have access to those parts of the home where he is welcome and be kept out of those where he is not. It turns out he has been brought there for a purpose. Nathan has been working on what he describes as the greatest scientific advance of all time. He is not creating a robot. He is trying to create life. He wants Caleb to perform the Turing test on his latest creation, named Ava (Alicia Vikander of “Anna Karenina”).

But it turns out that it may not be Ava who is being tested.

Ava is gorgeously designed. Nathan admits that he created her to be intensely appealing and she is, both her humanoid face and her transparent neck and midriff that allow us to glimpse her mechanics. Vikander gives her a tentativeness and innocence, with a sweet seriousness and (at least at first) an endearing wish to please. She tells Caleb to wait while she gets a surprise and it turns out to be clothes that cover up the machinery so well that it is not just the human part of Caleb that recognizes her as a part of the same species; it is the depths of the lizard brain instinct. We may have wondered why Nathan’s test was conducted in a glass box that separates Ava and Caleb. Perhaps it was to prevent him from abandoning the Turing test for a more animalistic evaluation based on smell and touch.

There is that always-compelling hubris/Frankenstein/Jurassic Park/sorcerer’s apprentice element of foolish, narcissistic grandiosity in creating something out of a grant vision without appreciating how dangerous it will be. Something always goes wrong. And anyone who does not realize that does not really understand that part of the essence of humanity, for better and worse, is the chasm between our ability to dream and our ability to execute.

First lesson: Isaac Asimov was right. Second lesson: the qualities of human-hood go beyond syntactical complexity and conversational non-linearity. To be human means independence of thought and action, and the pesky thing about independence is that it overlaps with rebellion. We know computers can outsmart us. Can they out-human us, too? Is it any wonder that Caleb flays his own arm just to check that what is inside is not made of gears and chips?

Screenwriter Alex Garland (“28 Days Later,” “Sunshine,” “Never Let Me Go”), directing for the first time, has an eye for gorgeous visuals and a superb sense of balancing the future-wow with the ordinary to make his sci-fi-style extrapolations amplify and illuminate who we are.

Parents should know that this film has very strong language, substance abuse, explicit nudity and sexual situations, and violence.

Family discussion: What is Ava’s most human quality? What is Nathan’s least human quality?

If you like this, try: Read up on the Turing test and watch movies like “A.I.” and “Her”