Hitman: Agent 47

Posted on August 20, 2015 at 5:29 pm

Maybe someday there will be a good movie based on a videogame. But there’s no evidence of that possibility in the tiresome “Hitman: Agent 47” based on the first-person shooter Hitman Trilogy. The game keeps the player’s interest through challenges involving dexterity and problem-solving.

The movie has striking images and competently staged fight scenes, but a movie needs some reason to care about what is going on, and that never happens. The one interesting twist in the storyline is revealed in the trailer, so if you’ve seen that, you’ll be spending a lot of time looking at your watch. Even by the low standards of the dog days of August, this one is a slog.

“Hitman: Agent 47” is another in a long series of films — and one of two this week — with the same theme. There’s a secret government program to create enhanced humans with better-than-human reflexes, sight, hearing, and survival skills. But other human qualities like emotion, fear, and remorse, have been eliminated. They are called Agents and they have numbered barcodes tattooed into their heads. This is explained by a droning narrator at the beginning, more likely to induce somnolence than dread. So, the program has been shut down, the only person who knows the secret formula has disappeared, and the head of an evil corporation called the Syndicate wants the scientist, he wants the formula, and he wants to create an army of Agents.

Meanwhile, Katia (Hannah Ware) is trying to find a man, and all she has is an out-of-focus photo. She is not making any progress and then a mysterious man named John Smith (Zachary Quinto) shows up for one of those “follow me if you want to live” moments. He says he will protect her from a man who is trying to kill her and help her solve the mystery. The man he promises to protect her from is Agent 47, played by Rupert Friend, with a shaved bullet head and razor-sharp cheekbones.

After that, it’s just a lot of bang bang in exotic locations and not-surprising surprises about who is what and who fights whom. When you have characters with superpowers, we have to have a thorough understanding of their abilities and vulnerabilities for any dramatic tension about the outcome of a fight. There is literally a shot of a staircase in this film that is more arresting than any of the blood-spurting injuries inflicted along the way. It’s basically a “Terminator” rip-off (as if “Terminator” sequels haven’t already provided us with enough of those) — emotionless killing machine pairs with human and takes on battalions. One of his superpowers apparently includes not mussing his clothes. His red tie stays neatly knotted and his crisp white shirt stays tucked in. He also sleeps sitting up. In the theater, checking my watch, I envied that superpower most of all.

Parents should know that this film includes extensive and very graphic and bloody peril and violence, shootouts, explosions, knives, chases, torture, many characters injured and killed, disturbing images, some strong language, medication, and a sad parental death.

Family discussion: Why does John say his name is Brian? Why doesn’t he get up the first time he is shot? Is it inhuman not to have remorse or sorrow?

If you like this, try: “Hanna,” “The Bourne Legacy,” and “Resident Evil”

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Action/Adventure Based on a video game

Ricki and the Flash

Posted on August 6, 2015 at 5:48 pm

“Aren’t you allowed to have two dreams?”

The person asking the question is Ricki (as she is now known), played by Meryl Streep. She has just accused her ex-husband, Pete (Kevin Kline), of not supporting her dream of playing rock music. And he has responded, “I thought we were your dream.” Years ago, Ricki was a suburban housewife named Linda, with a husband and three young children. She left them to be a rocker, and now fronts a cover band called Ricki and the Flash, performing at night for a small group of loyal fans at a bar in Tarzana, California. During the day, she is a cashier for a warehouse store. Neither job pays well; she is about to declare bankruptcy.

But first she has to go home. Her daughter Julie (Streep’s real-life daughter Mamie Gummer) is having a breakdown because her husband is in love with someone else. Pete’s wife is away, caring for her ailing father. So Pete calls Ricki and asks her to come home and help him take care of Julie. She arrives, with her guitar and dressed in 70’s rocker drag, at his gracious gated community and enters Pete’s grand and elegant home, where everything seems effortlessly comfortable. And where Ricki, with her stringy braids and kohl-rimmed eyes and tattoo is very out of place.

Screenwriter Diablo Cody (“Juno”) gives Ricki some unexpected characteristics and of course Streep brings her to life. Linda/Ricki loves to perform and loves the look and shock-the-bourgeois attitude of a rock musician, even at her other job. But she is not the stereotype anarchist/liberal. The tattoo on her back is a proudly waving American flag and she calls out “Support the troops!” from the stage. We learn a little bit more about where that comes from in one of the movie’s highlights, when Pete’s second wife, played with depth, heart, and resolve by Broadway star Audra McDonald, returns home and the two women have a conversation about what is best for Julie. It is couched in the kind of “we don’t have to like each other but we need to get along” terms of two very different women who share the experience of having been married to the same man and, in their own ways, mothering his children.

Streep clearly loves being back with her “Sophie’s Choice” co-star, and she and Kline create a palpable sense of history with each other in some touching moments, especially when they join forces to confront Julie’s ex. And it is a joy to see Steep and Gummer together. Their trust and connection is so solid that it gives them both the freedom to make their relationship complicated and painful, wanting so much from one another, and still wanting to give to one another, too.
Rick Springfield (yes, that Rick Springfield) is excellent as lead guitar of The Flash and sometime boyfriend for Ricki.

The film is awkwardly constructed, and the ending, while sweet, is abrupt and unrealistic. It makes sense for the storyline that Ricki is not a great singer or musician, with a dozen cover songs on the soundtrack, director Jonathan Demme’s commitment to using the live performances without any studio sweetening is questionable. But the musical performances are joyous, tender-hearted and true. And it explores essential questions: How do we love the people who cannot love us back the way we want them to? What do you do when your dreams do not fit together? What will you give up for someone you love?

Parents should know that this movie includes tense and unhappy family confrontations, discussion of a suicide attempt, strong language, drinking, marijuana, and sexual references and situations.

Family discussion: Can you have two dreams? How does Pete feel about Ricki? How can you tell? Why does Ricki hurt Greg?

If you like this, try: “The Rocker” and “Juno” and see Streep and Kline together in “Sophie’s Choice”

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Drama Family Issues

New on DVD: Tales from the Royal Wardrobe

Posted on July 25, 2015 at 10:54 pm

New from PBS: Tales From the Royal Wardrobe. Historian Dr. Lucy Worsley, Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, explains that the fascination with the clothes worn by the royals is not a recent development. And the monarchs have used and encouraged this fascination as a carefully orchestrated piece of theater managed by the royals themselves to control the right image and project the right message to their subjects. Royal fashion is, and always has been, as much about politics as it is about the cut. This documentary explores the history and style of the royal wardrobe and how the clothes each of the royals chooses reflects and affects — for better or worse — not just their personalities but their relationship to their subjects. From the formal gowns and robes and jewels to the iconic wedding dresses and the clothes worn by the royal children, Dr. Worsley shows us how they shape history.

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Documentary New on DVD/Blu-Ray

Pixels

Posted on July 23, 2015 at 5:37 pm

C-

Lowest Recommended Age:	Middle School
MPAA Rating:	Rated PG-13 for some language and suggestive comments
Profanity:	A few bad words
Alcohol/ Drugs:	Drinking, including drinking to deal with stress and alcohol humor
Violence/ Scariness:	Sci-fi action-style violence, no one permanently injured
Diversity Issues:	Some sexist and homophobic "humor"
Date Released to Theaters:	July 24, 2015
Date Released to DVD:	October 26, 2015

I never thought I’d see Max Headroom or “Fantasy Island” again, much less have to explain them to someone sitting next to me who was a toddler when they were on television, but Adam Sandler is still relentlessly working his slacker way through every pop culture meme of the decade where he spent his late teens and early 20’s, and apparently the last decade he was willing to pay attention to. He’s used up most of the good ones. That means that this is another film that was pieced together from the cutting room floors of his previous movies plus VH1’s “I Love the 80’s” series. Yes, I know that it is impossible to believe that there was anything worth remembering that happened in the 80’s that they did not cover. And yet, here we are, with a movie about 1980’s arcade games that have become real-life alien invaders. If you remember and retain some affection for games like Frogger, Pac-Man, Tetris, and Q*bert, or if you like Sandler and are relieved he is not making “Grown-Ups 3,” then you might get a few smiles out of “Pixels.”

Grading on a curve, it is tempting to provide some positive reinforcement for Sandler, who in the hands of director Chris Columbus, is better than some of his recent films. But just because it is safe to say he probably will not be a winner at the Razzies this year does not merit him an endorsement. This movie is less predictable and less entertaining than the charmingly retro 8 bit games to which it pays tribute. And unfortunately, one more element carried over from the 80’s is the idea that homophobic and sexist jokes are funny and permissible. Having a female character be a capable military officer does not mean that it is okay to have the other female characters be one-dimensional (literally, one one case).

Sandler, looking puffy and bored, plays Sam, a Geek Squad-style technician who installs fancy television and gaming equipment in people’s homes. In a flashback, we see that as a kid, he had a natural facility to recognize the patterns in arcade games and made it to second in a national competition. The winner was Eddie (Peter Dinklage from “Game of Thrones”), a mullet-coiffed braggart who triumphed over him in the final round. Another competitor was a whiz kid named Ludlow (Josh Gad, “Frozen’s” Olaf) with poor social skills, conspiracy theories, and a pretty pervy obsession with a video game avatar. And Sam’s loyal friend and supporter was Cooper (Kevin James).

Footage of the competition was sent into space to introduce the galactic community to life on Earth. But it was misinterpreted as a declaration of war, and now the aliens have arrived. Just as in the era of arcade games, they wreak destruction by dissolving everything around them into pixels, according to the same rules and patterns of the original games. Fortunately, if improbably, Cooper is now the President of the United States. So he is able to call on Sam, Eddie (who has to be sprung from prison), and Ludlow to save the day. Helping to coordinate the defense is Violet (Michelle Monaghan), first met by Sam when he is installing a television/game system in her home and finds her sobbing in the closet over her husband leaving her for a Pilates instructor named Sinnamon (with an S) and he comforts and then hits on her. But it turns out that she is actually a top military officer who can muster whole new categories of weapons, train the SEALS, and engage in sizzle-free romantic banter at the same time.

The effects in the battle scenes are fun, turning these very rudimentary characters into real space invaders without losing their iconic 8 bit design. Centipede in particular is impressive, glowing like a Chinese New Year Parade dragon made from Lite-Brite as he slithers through the mushrooms. Like some of the other arcade characters, he is far more vivid and has more personality than the humans in the story.

Parents should know that this film has a handful of bad words, potty humor, sci-fi/action violence with peril and apparent injuries, brief comic view of a portion of a bare butt, and comic but crude sexual references including a threesome. There are alcohol jokes and alcohol is used to deal with stress.

Family discussion: Why did coming in second change Sam’s life? Is Violet a snob? How could the skills you have help save the planet?

If you like this, try: “The King of Kong,” “Wreck-It Ralph,” and “Galaxy Quest”

Trainwreck

Posted on July 16, 2015 at 10:00 am

Judd Apatow has made a bunch of raunchy comedies about man-children who have to learn to grow up and embrace the joys of intimacy and responsibility, and one raunchy comedy (“This is 40”) about a couple who have to learn to grow up and embrace the joys of intimacy and responsibility. Guess what his new movie is about? Yes, this time it’s a woman who has to learn to grow up and embrace the joys of intimacy and responsibility.

It stars Amy Schumer, who wrote the script based on her stand-up character, a potty-mouthed single woman who is unabashedly sexual, an empowered feminist, but often self-deprecating. The film begins with Schumer’s character Amy as a child, with her sister, as their father (Colin Quinn) tells them why he is divorcing their mother. “Monogamy isn’t realistic,” he tells them, and they repeat it after him obediently, if not quite comprehendingly.

Fast forward 23 years and Amy is now, she tells us, very happy with her life. She has a great job as a writer for a men’s magazine that hands out article assignments like “Are you gay or is she just boring?” and whether garlic affects the way a man…tastes. She has a series of one-night stands that she enjoys (except when she wakes up not knowing where she is and quite distressed to find that it is Staten Island). She has no problem tricking a man into taking care of her needs and then pretending to be asleep so she does not have to reciprocate — why not? She is never going to see him again. She likes to feel “in control.” And she even has a sort-of regular boyfriend, who has extremely impressive muscles but perhaps a not fully-thought-through sexual orientation (a very funny John Cena).

Amy cannot imagine why anyone would consider her life of drinking and countless men anything but ideal, especially her happily married sister Kim, named for real-life Amy’s sister and writing partner, and played with wry perfection by the indispensible Brie Larson.

And then Amy is assigned to write a story about a sports surgeon (“SNL” alum Bill Hader as Aaron) and she discovers what it feels like to begin to care about someone and worry about whether he feels the same way, which completely freaks her out. Plus, she thinks that “sports are stupid and anyone who likes them is just a lesser intellect.” (Is this a reference to the first Tracy-Hepburn movie, “Woman of the Year,” where a political reporter meets a sports writer because she insulted athletes and their fans?) Romantic comedy ensues.

Schumer is very funny and an exceptionally appealing comic actress who can make “thank you” into five different hilarious punchlines. As a scriptwriter, she has not quite made the transition from skits to storylines, and gets little help there from Apatow, who has to learn how to cut a movie. There may be a comedy that deserves more than two hours, but this is not it. It is 20-30 minutes too long, with a number of diversions that drag on the pacing. The characters watch a black and white romantic film about a dog walker starring Daniel Radcliffe and Marisa Tomei that never goes anywhere. And the conclusion is disappointingly formulaic.

There are individual moments, though, that are genuine breakthroughs and wildly funny. Some of the best are small, almost throwaway moments. On that trip back from Staten Island, Amy impulsively throws her arms in the air at the prow of the boat, emulating the spirit of Melanie Griffith in “Working Girl” and Kate Winslet in “Titanic.” And the supporting cast is exceptional, including Brie Larson (“Room”) as Amy’s sister. Aaron’s best friend is Lebron James, playing a take on himself (the real Lebron’s basketball skills, the movie Lebron’s cheapness and affection for “Downton Abbey”). He is a romantic comedy best friend for the ages. There’s a cheeky riff on the inevitable New York City movie falling-in-love montage. Tilda Swinton is a hoot (and unrecognizable) as Amy’s boss.

And there is a brief serious speech that is is unexpectedly moving. As movie Amy learns to believe in the possibility of romance, real Amy just might make us believe again in the possibility of romantic comedies.

Parents should know that this film includes very raunchy sexual humor including explicit sexual references and situations and some nudity, very strong language, references to substance abuse, drinking, marijuana, and cocaine, some graphic scenes of an operation, and a sad death.

Family discussion: Why did Amy and Kim respond so differently to the way they grew up? Was Amy’s eulogy fair? What do we learn from the way Amy describes her work for the magazine to Aaron?

If you like this, try: “The Hangover” and “The 40 Year Old Virgin”

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