Sunshine

Posted on January 8, 2008 at 12:34 pm

The sun is dying. A rocket ship from earth, meaningfully named “Icarus,” failed in its mission to reboot the sun with a supercharged nuclear payload designed to “create a star within a star.” Now the earth’s last chance is Icarus II. If they do not deliver the payload, the sun and all of its planets will die.

But this is not the usual “and then something goes wrong” or “and then an alien leaps out of a crew member’s chest” space opera. This is a meticulously constructed story that presents its characters with a series of exponentially more complex moral and practical dilemmas as gripping as the perilous situations that threaten the mission.

Director Danny Boyle transcends genre. His films have ranged from horror (28 Days Later) to thrillers (Shallow Grave) to charming family fantasy (Millions). But all of his films focus on moral choices. In 28 Days Later, he showed us a world infested with enraged zombies where it is the uninfected humans who are the scariest predators. In both Shallow Grave and Millions, characters discover the corrosive effect of stolen money. Boyle likes to make us think about what we would do to survive, how far we would go to get something we wanted.

The crew of Icarus II has just passed the point where communication with earth has been cut off. They are alone, a community unto themselves, and they must struggle with the remnants of the priorities and procedures they have been given as they are confronted with increasingly dire circumstances and increasingly conflicted priorities.

Should they change their course to try to save anyone who might still be there? No, that would interfere with their mission. But what if it might increase the chance of completing the mission? And what if things change and it is essential for completing the mission?

And what if there is not enough oxygen for everyone? How do we decide who gets to live? By assigning blame? By rank? By who is most important for completion of the mission? And, at the end of these judgments, who are we? How do they change us?

Boyle and his able cast create an atmosphere of conviction and sincerity that makes us invest in the answers to these questions, and the debates as gripping as the action scenes.

Parents should know that this is an intense and disturbing movie, with extreme peril, some jump-out-at-you shocks, and some graphic violence. Characters are injured and killed and there is a suicide. One of the strengths of the movie is the way it presents moral issues in a provocative manner, and that may be disturbing for some audience members. Another strength of the movie is its portrayal of diverse characters.

Families who see this movie should talk about how the characters evaluated their choices. What were their priorities? When they disagreed, what were the determining factors? Authors often use science fiction and the device of putting diverse characters in an environment that is cut off from everyone else to highlight particular controversies. How would this story have been different if it took place today, in the US?

Families who enjoy this film will also enjoy Silent Running, Apollo 13, and 2001 – A Space Odyssey. Books like Tragic Choices and The Problems of Jurisprudence consider ways to evaluate options in a legal, economic, and public policy framework and of course many books consider moral, ethical, and spiritual approaches to these issues as well.

The Bourne Ultimatum

Posted on December 11, 2007 at 8:00 am

There is not much story here. The set-up was two movies ago, when a man with a gunshot wound was fished out of the water. He had no memory but when it came to the tricks of the spy trade, he had mad skills. Now, three movies later, he is beginning to put it all together and that is something that the bad guys do not want and will do anything to stop. So, the whole movie is just cat and mouse — that is, if the cat and mouse were equipped with some serious ordnance, the combat skills of an Ultimate Fighting Champion, and the resilience of The Terminator. This movie has no pretence of being about anything but the action scenes. Fortunately, the action scenes are choice.

The Kingdom

Posted on September 24, 2007 at 11:47 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for intense sequences of graphic brutal violence, and for language.
Profanity:	Some very strong language, racial epithets
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, smoking
Violence/ Scariness:	Extreme, graphic, and intense peril and violence, terrorist attacks, torture, many characters injured and killed, including parents and children
Diversity Issues:	A theme of the movie
Date Released to Theaters:	2007

The highlight of this film is over by the time it begins. A brief credit sequence outlines the relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia in provocative, trenchant terms covering the Saudi nationality of Osama Bin Laden and most 9/11 hijackers to the entanglements between the US and its top politicians and the oil companies and the Saudis.

Then the movie opens and the last moments of complexity and signficance are over and it becomes a high-budget episode of “The A Team” crossed with “24” and a sort of “CSI: Riyadh” until a few minutes at the end try to tack on some larger meaning. It just shows how thin the material in the rest of the film is by contrast.

It is carefully constructed for maximum impact. Happy American families stationed in Saudi Arabia, mostly by oil companies, are relaxing in that most American of pastimes, a baseball game. And then an all-too-sickeningly familiar scenario unfolds, as a carefully orchestrated multi-stage terrorist attack, killing hundreds of people. Meanwhile, the man who planned it, watches from a balcony far away, filming the explosions.

Who has jurisdiction to investigate and respond? Legally, the Saudis have exclusive authority. As a matter of diplomacy, the United States does not want to interfere. But a movie-genically diverse group of FBI agents fly over to investigate, over the objections of the State Department and his Justice Department superiors.

Jamie Foxx is leader Ronald Fleury, and he is joined by canny cracker (Chris Cooper), a wisecracking newbie (Jason Bateman), and a tough but tender-hearted woman (Jennifer Garner). They are escorted by a sympathetic Saudi (Ashraf Barhom) and pestered by an obnoxious embassay aide (Jeremy Piven).

Director Peter Berg tries to show his mastery of the situation by even-handed assigment of good- and bad-guy roles on all sides and undercutting his shoot-em-up, just-in-time, climax with a final acknowledgement of the inextricability of the forces and tensions behind terrorism and corruption. His capable cast does their best to inject some character into all the bang bang. But it still comes across as arrogant, superficial and part of the problem, not part of the solution. A character is shown reading “The Koran for Dummies” as preparation for the investigation. The movie so mistrusts its audience that it tries to be “The Mideast Conflict for Dummies,” throwing a lot of gunfire and brutality on the screen to get us to learn something about Saudi Arabia and ending up losing not just credibility but interest as well.

Parents should know that this movie has very graphic violence, including a massive terrorist attack by suicide bombers that results in the death of a hundred civilians, including children, torture, and heavy artillery attacks, with explicit shots of gruesome injuries, bloody deaths, and dead bodies. Characters are in intense peril and many, many people are killed. Characters also smoke and use very strong language. A strength of the movie is the portrayal of strong, loyal, capable diverse characters.

Families who see this movie should talk about how we draw the line between diplomacy and law enforcement. How would the US respond to another country’s law enforcement officers coming to investigate a crime in the US? What do you think about the ending? What does it mean to say that tradition and modernity are in violent collision?

Families who appreciate this film will also like The Siege and Arlington Road.

Related Tags:

Drama Movies -- format Thriller

Resident Evil: Extinction

Posted on September 20, 2007 at 11:52 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for strong horror violence throughout and some nudity.
Profanity:	Some strong language
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Marijuana
Violence/ Scariness:	Explicit graphic violence and peril, slashing, impaling, shooting, exploding, zombie humans, dogs, and birds
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters, very strong women
Date Released to Theaters:	2007

Those meanies at the Umbrella Corporation are at it again in the third chapter of this series based on the popular computer game. That pesky virus they allowed to escape has wiped out nearly all life on earth except for raging feral zombies.

The corporate bad guys somehow all have clean shirts, a little English girl hologram to tell them what is going on, and working computers in those underground offices, the ones with the spooky mirrored corriders and intricate booby-traps. Bad guy number one talks like this: “their hunger for fleshhhhhh.” He is releasing a series of Alice clones (which have scars for some Lamarckian reason), but he needs the real thing to get her special blood for his anti-virus.

Meanwhile, Alice (Milla Jovovich)-in-anti-wonderland is riding around on a motorcycle like Mad Maxine, fighting off feral humans and those inside-out zombie dogs. She meets up with a hardy group of survivors led by Ali Larter (TV’s “Heroes). They all say a lot of brave and hearty things to each other in between rapping out commands about securing the perimeter and evac-ing the bus. The group includes a cute guy with an English accent (Christopher Egan), a cowboy, a girl named K-Mart, a guy good at tossing off wisecracks (Mike Epps), a warm-hearted medic (Ashanti), and a guy Alice likes a lot (Oded Fehr).

And Umbrella Corp’s Dr. Isaacs (Iain Glen) is trying to track down Alice to use her blood for an antivirus.

True to its video game origins, the movie is basically one set-piece after another, all going something like this. Alice (sometimes another character) enters a new environment. It is quiet. Too quiet. Then something scary and gross happens. And Alice (sometimes another character) responds by fighting back with knives, guns, explosives, a fireball, or kicking and punching. Cue “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”

The scary and gross things include not only the ever-popular zombie dogs, but also zombie ravens and a tentacled zombie mutant, as well as the normal, everyday zombies. The environments include a broken-down gas station and a deserted Las Vegas. That’s deserted in both senses of the word. No one is there and “the desert has taken it back;” everything is buried under sand.

It is still more shooting gallery-style videogame than movie. The Resident Evil games themselves have far more by way of plot and characters. And it has to do without the interactivity that adds vitality, so it all seems rather remote, underscored by the cardboard dialogue. The best you can say is that it tries to provide some variety in all of the various battles with zombies, and that Epps, Larter, and Fehr seem to forget they are in a video game movie and for a moment when watching them we can forget it, too.

Parents should know that this movie has extremely gross and graphic violence, with many disgusting deaths and gross monsters. There are a lot of “ewwwwww” moments with spurting blood, sliced-off body parts, and disgusting sounds of pulverization. Characters are in extreme peril and most of them are killed. There is some strong language and non-sexual nudity and a joke about porn. Characters smoke cigarettes and a joint. A strength of the movie is the portrayal of exceptionally capable and courageous women, though of course they dress for combat in scanty clothing.

Families who see this movie should talk about the challenges of turning a game into a story. What can keep a corporation from becoming as powerful as Umbrella Corp? One difference between the good guys and the bad guys in this movie is shown by who is — and is not — willing to sacrifice himself or herself for the others. Where do we see that?

Families who enjoy this movie will enjoy the first twothe much better The Fifth Element, also starring Milla Jovovich, and zombie movies like 28 Days Later and Dawn of the Dead, and the “zom-rom-com” (zombie romantic comedy) Shaun of the Dead. They may also enjoy trying the the games.

Illegal Tender

Posted on August 21, 2007 at 11:20 am

Lowest Recommended Age:	High School
MPAA Rating:	Rated R for violence, language and some sexuality.
Profanity:	Very strong language, n-word in song lyrics
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Characters are drug dealers, drinking
Violence/ Scariness:	Intense and graphic violence, shoot-outs, torture, beatings, suicide
Diversity Issues:	Diverse characters
Date Released to Theaters:	2007

There’s a chance, but a very slight chance that 20 years from now this could be one of those films whose pulpiness overcomes its dopiness. But I doubt it.

Oh, it is fun to see Wanda de Jesus get all Pam Grier and shoot off two big guns at once after making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for her son. But the big dumb story and the big dumb dialogue keep getting in the way.

It begins in 1985, when drug dealer-but-nice-guy Wilson De Leon (Manny Perez) is killed on the same night his son, Wilson Jr., is born.

Fast forward to the present day. Wilson Junior (now played by the always-appealing Rick Gonzalez) is a student at genteel Danbury College. He lives with his mother (de Jesus as the older Millie) and little brother Randy (Antonio Ortiz) in a luxurious home in the suburbs of Connecticut. But everything changes when Millie runs into a friend from the old days. She knows this means that the men who killed her husband will be coming after her and her sons. She takes Wilson down into the cellar and opens up the safe. Inside are enough guns to arm a militia. “It’s called weight,” she explains.

But that is about all she explains. When he refuses to go on the run with Millie and Randy, she leaves him a gun and tells him to protect himself. Soon he is practicing his shooting face and taking aim at some tin cans. And soon after that he is taking aim at some assassins who come to his house, where he is staying with his girlfriend Ana (Dania Ramirez).

Her role in the story is to keep asking what is going on in a loud voice as the drug lord’s goons are tramping through the house shooting everything and call at inconvenient moments to tell Wilson she is worried. I’d be worried, too — Wilson and his mother return to the house when the bad guys are after them. Then, when they are after the bad guys, they stop for some retail therapy to pick up some bling. Millie’s explanation of her income (“You bought Microsoft?”) and justification for her late husband’s career choice (“everyone has stains”) is as silly as the rumble on the soundtrack that always seems to alert her to impending danger. A couple of developments near the end are intended to be plot twists, but there is so little to qualify here as plot that they are more like plot nudges. There isn’t much dialogue, either. At least a third of it seems to be various people saying “Wilson” when they speak to him, as though we need to be reminded who he is. And the other two-thirds is soapy tripe like, “Oh, God, I want this to end!”

Yeah. Me, too.

Parents should know that this is an intense and violent film with graphic images of shoot-outs, beatings, and torture. Characters are in peril and many are injured and killed and a character commits suicide. Characters are drug dealers and gangsters and some drink wine, champagne, and alcohol. They use strong language, including the n-word in song lyrics. The movie includes sexual references and brief explicit situations, dancers in skimpy clothes, and brief nudity.

Families who see this movie should talk about what Wilson and his mother told each other and did not tell each other.

Audiences who enjoy this movie will enjoy Pam Grier classics like Coffy.

Related Tags:

Crime Drama Movies -- format Thriller