Ender’s Game

Posted on November 1, 2013 at 6:35 pm

Director Gavin Hood (“Tsotsi”) has skillfully adapted the Nebula and Hugo award-winning novel about a boy who leads an interplanetary battle against insect-like aliens, doing justice both to the fun of the sci-fi action and to the seriousness of the book’s themes. The story has been adapted for film — Ender is several years older in the film than in the book and an extended and astonishingly prescient subplot about his siblings writing something resembling blogs and becoming highly influential political commentators has been dropped. But it is very true to the spirit of the book and its characters and with special effects technology vastly beyond what was possible when the book was written, spectacularly realizes some of the book’s most thrillingly imaginative passages.

A memorable scene in Kevin Smith’s “Clerks” has its two slacker heroes arguing about one of the most rousing moments in the history of film, the destruction of the planet-destroying Death Star in the original “Star Wars.” Randall points out that while the Jedi and the audience are cheering the explosion, they are overlooking the fact that the Death Star, still under construction, was not staffed with military but with independent contractors, who are at least arguably innocent bystanders in the conflict and unarmed. In the middle of a raunchy comedy there is suddenly a more nuanced moral sensibility than is exhibited in the the usual big-budget sci-fi extravaganzas.

That is what makes the Ender’s Game series by Orson Scott Card so compelling. The original book has been a worldwide best-seller for more than 20 years. Like “Star Wars,” “The Matrix,” and other YA favorites, it is the story of a “chosen one” of extraordinary skill who takes on the oppressive and vastly powerful but corrupt enemy, and it is filled with exciting action. But it also engages directly, thoughtfully, and sometimes provocatively with profound questions that are even more apt today than they were in the 1980’s: Should we sacrifice the interests of one person to benefit the rest of the world? Should we stage a pre-emptive attack by an enemy that is not currently demonstrating aggressive behavior? What is more important, the ability to win a battle or the ability to feel compassion or empathy?

The setting is at a time in the future when earth has successfully defended itself against an attack by an insect-like race of aliens called Formics and disparagingly referred to by humans as Buggers. The effects of the war against the Formic were devastating, and the entire resources of the world have been turned to just one goal — seeing out the Formics and destroying them to make sure that they can never return to attack the humans. They have determined that only a child has the reflexes, flexibility, and singleness of purpose to lead that attack.

All children are fitted to monitoring devices so that the military can see how they behave and find the likeliest candidates for military training. Couples are strictly limited to no more than two children. The Wiggins family is permitted a rare third because their son and daughter, while not suitable for training, show extraordinary ability. The third is Ender Wiggins (“Hugo’s” Asa Butterfield in a considered performance of great dignity and focus), whose deliberate but savage attack on a school bully brings him to the attention of the commander in charge of training, Colonel Hyrum Graff (Harrison Ford, returning to space for the first time since the “Star Wars” trilogy). Ender is brought to a space station for a series of training exercises called “games.”

A disagreement between Graff and Major Gwen Anderson (Viola Davis, once again speaking on behalf of humanity) is one of the film’s clearest statements of the moral conflict it lays out. Anderson wants the training to do what is best for Ender. Graff wants it to do what is best for humanity, and if that means inflicting the kind of trauma and encouraging the kind of brutality that will make Ender a better commander, he is willing to make that trade-off. Of course it is out of the question to consult Ender or his parents. Card wisely makes it clear that there are two questions here. One is whether the ends ever justify the means. The other is who should decide what ends or means to consider.

The games are fascinatingly constructed and the battles in the weightless chamber with freeze-ray weapons are absorbing and immersive. It gets more exciting when a new teacher with a fabled history and an impressive Maori face tattoo (Ben Kingsley) takes over. The climactic battle is as dramatic as we hope, but it is a remarkable twist and a surprising coda that bring depth and meaning to the story.

NOTE: In real life, author Card has demonstrated hateful homophobic bigotry that has led some people to call for a boycott of the film. Here is my view: I believe that the principles of courage, integrity, compassion, empathy, and service to others that “Ender’s Game” promotes are essential values. While I regret that the author’s ugly and bigoted statements show that he himself is still struggling to learn the lessons of his book, I agree with the poet Don Marquis that “an idea is not responsible for the people who believe in it.” The best of his vision should be shared with young people in the hopes that the next generation will transcend some of the biases of the previous ones.

Parents should know that this film includes extended sci-fi violence and peril with characters injured and killed, themes of interplanetary genocide, brief mild language, theme of child soldiers and moral conflicts, and bullies.

Family discussion: What does it mean to win “the right way”? Was Graff or Anderson right about the best way to treat Ender?

If you like this try: The book and its sequels by Orson Scott Card and the “Star Wars” movies starring Harrison Ford.

Gravity

Posted on October 3, 2013 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense perilous sequences, some disturbing images, and brief strong language
Profanity:	Many s-words, one f-word
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Alcohol
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and prolonged peril, characters killed, disturbing images of dead bodies
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	October 4, 2013
Date Released to DVD:	February 24, 2014
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00H83EUL2

In space, there is no oxygen and no sound. There is no up or down. Everything is weightless. When you cry, the tears float away instead of running down your cheeks.

“Gravity” is one of the once-to-a-generation films that transform our sense of the immensity of space and the potential of film. Like “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Avatar,” it makes use of technology to create unprecedented visual splendor that recalibrates our notions — literal and metaphorical — of our place in the universe. I have two recommendations: see it on Imax 3D to get the full effect. And see it soon, before you are exposed to spoilers that give away too much of the story.

I’ll do my best to omit comments that give too much away but you may wish to skip the rest of the review until you’ve had a chance to experience the movie’s suprises fully.

Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a doctor who is up in space to get data, “a new set of eyes to scan the edge of the universe.” It is her first time in space and she has had just six months of training. She is nervous and, if the word applies where there is no air — airsick, or, if the word applies where there is no gravity — motionsick. “Keeping your lunch down in zero gravity is harder than it looks,” she says a little grimly. And it is a challenge to use tools that float away while wearing a spacesuit with thick gloves. “I’m used to a basement lab in a hospital where things fall to the floor.” But she is intent on completing her work. And she likes one thing about space: “The silence. I could get used to it.” In charge of the mission is Matt Kowalsky (George Clooney), a genial, experienced astronaut who enjoys annoying mission control in Houston (Ed Harris) with corny jokes, shaggy dog stories, and Hank Williams, Jr.

And then Houston warns them that debris is headed their way and that it may knock out communications and destroy the spacecraft. And then it arrives. The damage is devastating. Stone and Kowalsky are stranded somewhere between earth and the moon. “I am off structure and I am drifting. Do you copy? Anyone?”

Bullock gives an extraordinary performance in a role that calls on her to spend most of the movie by herself, with only her voice and eyes to convey the shifting emotions: terror, resolve, submission, transcendence. While her visceral first response is an adrenaline-fueled elevated heart-beat and rapid breathing, Kowalsky reminds her that she has to slow down to conserve her limited oxygen. He chats with her to help her calm down and we learn that nothing that can happen to her in space can make her feel as lost, isolated, and devastated as what she has already experienced on earth. She has walled off every part of herself outside of the narrow scope of her mission. Her biggest challenge in space will not be technical or physical but finding in herself the courage and the spiritual bandwidth to take in what is happening to her. “You’re going to have to learn to let go,” Kowalski tells her.

There is something both reassuring and chilling in the understated vocabulary the astronauts learn to use to describe catastrophic failure in place of the more obvious”OMG! We’re going to die!” “It’s not rocket science,”Kowalski says reassuringly, if inaccurately.

Alfonso Cuarón, who directed and c0-wrote “Gravity” with his son, Jonás, is a master of storytelling through camera movement and striking images. There are brilliantly choreographed near-misses and almost-failures. Watch how the literally breathtaking continuous shot that begins the film breaks only when Stone’s connection to the spacecraft is severed. Watch again as our understanding of the crucial importance of the lifeline that is attached to something or someone is upended and turned inside out when Stone is tangled in strings that hold her back when she needs release. In another scene, Stone gets some literal breathing room when she is able to remove her spacesuit and float in her underwear as though she is protected by amniotic fluid, a moment of profoundly tactile, ecstatic, sensuality. Every reflection in every shiny surface helps to set the scene and tell the story of her spiritual rebirth and reconnection. A weightless Marvin Martian doll, a family photo, the earth, seen from almost 700 km above — each image is telling, moving, meaningful. The script, especially the last half hour, is not up to the level of the visuals, but the setting (I hereby predict Oscars for visual effects and sound editing) for the of inner and outer exploration implied by the title is exquisitely conveyed.

Parents should know that this film has very intense and scary peril and some disturbing images of injuries and dead bodies. There are some mild sexual references, and characters use some strong language and drink alcohol.

Family discussion: What makes Ryan change her mind? Which was the most difficult moment for her and why?

If you like this, try: other outer space classics like “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Silent Running,” and “Apollo 13” and the television miniseries “From the Earth to the Moon”

World War Z

Posted on September 16, 2013 at 6:00 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for intense frightening zombie sequences, violence and disturbing images
Profanity:	Mild language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Constant peril and violence with many characters injured and killed, children in peril, scary zombies, many disturbing images including graphic wounds and attacks, dead bodies, tension and scary surprises
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	June 21, 2013
Date Released to DVD:	September 17, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B005LAIIMG

There are going to be a lot of superheroes on screen this summer, but none of them are as super as Gerry Lane a former investigator for the UN called back into action to fight the zombie apocalypse. No superhero outfit or origin story — he doesn’t need one. He’s just an ordinary good guy who happens to be super-smart, super-kind, super-honorable, and super-able to withstand all kinds of physical challenges, perform emergency surgery, and be an awwww-inspiring dad and husband. To put it another way, he’s played by Brad Pitt. Based on the book by Max Brooks (son of Oscar-winners Anne Bancroft and Mel Brooks), the story takes Lane all over the world to find “patient zero,” the original source of the plague that has turned millions of people into zombies, so they can figure out how to fight them.

A brief opening scene shows us Lane interacting endearingly with his adorable family: wife Karin (Jessica Chastian-ish Mirielle Enos), and two daughters, one with a stuffed animal and one with asthma. We have just enough time to fall in love with them on what seems like an ordinary day, until all hell breaks loose while they are driving to work and school. At first, all is confusion and chaos, and then the zombies arrive. They are fast and aggressive and it takes just 12 seconds after a person is attacked for them to become fast and aggressive zombies themselves. Zombies are, as we have come to know from many other movies, extremely focused and therefore extremely effective. They have just one purpose: to create more zombies. They will do whatever it takes to whomever it takes. And the humans who must try to survive will be faced with terrible choices.

After a harrowing escape, the Lanes and a young boy who helped them are rescued by a helicopter and taken to Gerry’s former boss at the UN, working from an aircraft carrier. At first, Gerry refuses to leave his family to investigate the source of the zombies. But the Naval Commander (David Andrews) makes it clear that they only have room for “essential personel” on their ship — and that Gerry’s family will only be considered essential as long as Gerry takes on the mission of escorting a young professor and expert in virology to Korea to track down the first reported case. They set off with some Navy Seals for protection, but soon Gerry is on his own, globe-trotting from Korea to Israel to Wales in search of answers.

Director Marc Forster, not known for thrillers, keeps things taut and involving, holding back information to keep us just a little strung out and then allowing us some release at just the right moment. The zombies are fast and relentless. Even at a PG-13 level, with muted gore, they are very disturbing. One just clicks his teeth with what could hardly be described as a knowing look — maybe just focused — and it is really creepy. From the heartbeat sound behind the opening logo to the seemingly innocent moments that turn ominous, the pacing is tight and absorbing and the the characters and the puzzle weighty. But it is Pitt who makes it all work. He is so good at everything that we almost wonder why he needs a plane — surely he can just fly to the next city on his own — but his un-angsty goodness and sheer star power is itself the most powerful reminder of why it is that we want the humans to win.

Parents should know that this film has graphic and disturbing images, extended very intense sequences of peril with many characters injured and killed, scary and disgusting zombies, emergency amputation, guns, explosions, and chases.

Family discussion: Do you agree with the “tenth man” rule? How did Gerry use what he learned from the doctor? From his observations?

If you like this, try: “28 Days Later,” “I Am Legend,” and “The Andromeda Strain” and the book by Max Brooks

The World’s End

Posted on August 25, 2013 at 2:14 pm

B+

Lowest Recommended Age:	Mature High Schooler
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for pervasive language including sexual references
Profanity:	Constant very strong and crude language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	The theme of the film is a pub crawl intended to make the characters very drunk, drinking and drunkenness, drugs, drug dealer
Violence/ Scariness:	Comic peril and violence with some graphic images
Diversity Issues:	Homophobic insult
Date Released to Theaters:	August 23, 2013
Date Released to DVD:	November 18, 2013
Amazon.com ASIN:	B00BPEJX12

Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, and co-writer/director Edgar Wright have re-united for the third in the genre-bending “Cornetto” series, which I refuse to call a “trilogy” because I want them to keep going. In case you’re listening, guys: Please.

“Shaun of the Dead” was a romantic comedy with zombies and strawberry Cornetto ice cream. “Hot Fuzz” was a sort of deranged meta-buddy cop film with blue Cornetto ice cream. And now we have “The World’s End,” a comedy about a group of high school friends who get together to re-create a legendary pub crawl in their suburban home town. Twenty years after their high school graduation, they go back home to have a pint in each of the twelve pubs that constitute the “golden mile,” concluding at one called The World’s End. And yes, that is foreshadowing.

Things go badly. Things are not as they remembered. When the group arrive at the first pub on the list, it is depressingly generic. In the decades since they left, everything has been homogenized into sterile, interchangeably dull corporate decor. The second one is indistinguishable from the first. Gary has always cherished the notion that they were legends in the town. But no one seems to remember them, not even the high school bully.

Then the robot aliens show up and things get worse.

Co-write Pegg plays Gary King, who is now only dimly realizing that the qualities that lead to popularity in high school do not equip one for success thereafter. This is particularly the case when those qualities are essentially limited to creating the kind of experiences that result in watching the sun come up with bloody knuckles, a hangover, and vomit on your shoes. You can still do that after high school, as Gary’s current status as an inpatient in a substance abuse clinic attest. It’s just that it no longer makes him a hero to his friends. Now all respectable men with jobs and, for most of them, families, they have moved on and have no interest in going back.

But Gary, who thinks he lost his way when they failed to make it to all twelve pubs in “the golden mile,” manages to persuade the other four to come with him and try it again. For no other reason except for pity, survivor guilt, and perhaps some wish to revisit a carefree past, they decide to come along. It is possible, though, that they envy Gary’s freedom as they are constantly checking with their watches, their phones, and their wives. There’s car dealer Peter Page (Eddie Marsan — all of the characters have royal court-related names), realtor with a permanently embedded bluetooth earpiece Oliver Chamberlain (Martin Freeman of “The Hobbit”), recently divorced Steven Prince (Paddy Considine), and Gary’s former best friend Andy Knightly (Nick Frost), whose hostility indicates that a revelation about some horrible misdeed lies ahead. Also in town is Sam Chamberlain (Rosamund Pike), Oliver’s sister, who was there for an important part of the legendary pub crawl in 1990.

Gary is darker than the previous roles Pegg wrote for himself, which mostly had him as an amiable, if immature and socially inept doofus (although in “Hot Fuzz” he was a very buff and straight arrow variation). He clearly relishes playing a completely dissolute character who cannot seem to figure out why a system of doing or saying whatever will get him what he wants at that moment without any regard to the consequences for himself or others is not working for him anymore. It is also good to see Frost playing something different as well. His Andy is responsible, dignified, and quietly competent and confident. He also turns out to be very good at fighting the robot aliens.

It’s a delicious mix of understated British humor and over-the-top craziness, with witty lines, some knowing digs at Hollywood, and razor-sharp satire. It also has the only credible explanation for hideous public sculpture I’ve ever seen. I hope they end up with at least as many in the series as there are flavors of Cornetto ice cream treats.

Parents should know that this film has constant bad language, including crude sexual references and a homophobic insult, a lot of drinking and drunkenness, drugs, and mostly comic peril and violence with some disturbing images.

Family discussion: Why did Gary’s friends agree to come back? Why was the pub crawl important to Gary?

If you like this, try: “Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz,” “Paul,” and the television series “Spaced”

Elysium

Posted on August 8, 2013 at 6:01 pm

The best science fiction acts like a narrative Rorschach test, taking specific elements of our current condition, extrapolating into the future (usually dystopically), and allowing the audience to project our assumptions — and our fears — onto it. “Elysium” is a smart sci-fi thriller that bundles the action and visuals we want from big-budget sci-fi with some provocative ideas about the logical consequences of the decisions we make on some of today’s most contentious issues.

The word “elysium” means a place or condition of perfect happiness. Imagine a place of no worries, no illness, no want. There are endless, perfectly manicured green lawns and soft breezes lightly flutter the sheers on windows that look out on exquisite landscapes. That is home to the wealthy residents of “Elysium,” the space station. It orbits above the now-despoiled planet earth, where the 99 percent live Hobbesian lives that are brutal, nasty, and short. In other words, the set-up is “Wall•E” for grown-ups, without the “Hello Dolly” dance number and cruise ship atmosphere.

Max and Frey meet as children on Earth, and he promises to take her to Elysium some day. They grow up to be Matt Damon and Alice Braga, and meet again when he mouths off to a robocop, who breaks his arm, and she is a nurse in a health care system that provides only the most basic first aid for Earth residents while Elysians have access to a kind of tanning bed technology that cures all injuries and diseases and even reverses the effects of aging.

Max is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation at the plant where he works, making more robots to wait on the residents of Elysium and enforce the brutal restrictions on Earth. A robot informs Max that he will experience catastrophic organ failure and die in five days. The arrogant Elysian CEO in charge of the factory, John Carlyle (William Fitchner), is only concerned about whether Max will get the sheets dirty and how quickly he can be gone.

Max knows that breaking into Elysium and hacking into a med-bed is the only way he can stay alive. And the only way for him to get there is to do a job for his old boss, Spider (Wagner Moura), capturing some data from Carlyle. To keep Max strong, Spider’s henchmen surgically attach a cyber exo-skeletal device to his arms, spine, and skull. He gets help from Diego Luna, a highlight as Max’s old friend from the car-stealing days. It gives him extra power and a sort of USB plug in his brain. And it turns out that Frey also has a desperate reason to get to Elysium. And that the Secretary of Defense (Jodie Foster, dressed in spotless white) is in the midst of orchestrating a regime change, so the data downloaded into Max is of vital importance. She sends a scary operative with a lot of firepower (“District 9’s” Sharlto Copley, scary good) to get Max.

As he did with “District 9,” director Neill Blomkamp adds just enough allegory to this story to give extra weight to the heart-pounding action. Both of the worlds are thoughtfully conceived, especially the burned-out, graffiti-covered remains of Earth. The details are evocative and compelling — a robot asking blandly whether Max is using sarcasm, Spider’s hodgepodge lair with its hobbled-together computers. Foster’s recent performances have been disconcertingly mannered, with head-shaking to indicate the intensity of emotion. But Damon is top-notch as Max, terrific in the action scenes and even better as we see him becoming more human.

Parents should know that this film includes constant sci-fi peril and violence with some very graphic and disturbing images, many characters injured and killed, constant strong language, drugs, drinking, and smoking.

Family discussion: What elements of this story are based on current issues and controversies? Why did Max say no to Frey? Why was the story about the meerkat and the hippo important? What will happen next?

If you like this, try: “Upside/Down” and “Mad Max”