Category Archives: Action

One Battle After Another

One Battle After Another                             5 stars

It’s only October and I feel I may have seen one of the Best Picture nominees or even the Best Picture with Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another. Anderson, the master storyteller (remember Licorice Pizza, Phantom Thread and There Will Be Blood) has created a film that is part social commentary and part family saga. It tackles matters that are relevant to today’s social situations and has some exceptional heart pounding action sequences. The main story follows an ex-revolutionary figure named Pat or Bob (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his sixteen-year-old daughter, Willa (Chase Infiniti in her first movie role) as they try to escape an enemy from their past, a certain army colonel named Lockjaw (Sean Penn) who is trying to hunt them both down. But first we must learn what led to this situation through the first part of the movie. Bob and Perfidia (Teyana Taylor) are part of an anti-establishment revolutionary group called the French 75, a loosely organized group of freedom fighters who try to free detained undocumented aliens and cause general chaos through destructive actions. Perfidia is one of leaders of the group while Bob has skills with explosives. Their actions could fit in almost any time period, but here it seems to be the early 2000’s. They run afoul of Colonel Lockjaw, a hardnosed tough as nails army officer with a really bad haircut who literally has a hard-on for black chicks. He is also part of a secret Neo-Nazi white supremacist society (called the Christmas Adventurers Club) which creates a conflict when he meets Perfidia during one of the 75’s missions. Pat and Perfidia have a baby daughter, who they are raising together that is, until most of the gang gets rolled up after a bank heist, including Perfidia. She is convinced to reveal names by Lockjaw and is placed into witness protection only to flee into the wind. Sixteen years go by during which time the gang goes dormant and Bob must live off the grid while raising the baby, now named Willa on his own. Bob is no criminal mastermind and by now has become a stoner regularly getting high and drunk. Other than his skills with explosives, he is not good for much. But DiCaprio is very convincing as a father who has a real attachment to his daughter. Bob has a real problem when he is alerted through his underground contacts that the authorities are on to them and he and Willa will need to disappear. Fortunately for Bob, there are still a few members of the group around that can help keep him and Willa out of the hands of the government. They include Sensai Sergio St. Carlos (Benicio del Toro also of Inherent Vice) and Deandra (Regina Hall of The Hate U Give) who finds Willa and gets her out of harm’s way (at least for a while). The latter part of the movie is very intense as Bob and Willa try to stay one step ahead of Lockjaw’s soldiers who are closing in. The scenes are aided by a fast-moving original score by Johnny Greenwood. The audience will really be glued to the screen during two car chase scenes, with an outcome that is not expected. (Also, look for Alana Haim in a small role. Anderson featured her in his film, Licorice Pizza.) I fully expect One Battle After Another to earn several Academy Award nominations. It could be Paul Thomas Anderson’s best to date. Do not miss it.

Ready Player One

Ready Player One             4 stars

Ready Player One, directed by Steven Spielberg seems like an appropriate movie for now as we isolate from one another and communicate through electronic devices.  In this movie, set decades in the future, most people live in poverty while a small segment live well working for giant corporations.  The masses escape their reality by venturing into the Oasis, a virtual world where people meet through their avatars and compete to find the treasures that its creator, James Halliday left behind but he died.  Our hero, Wade Watts is determined to do what no one has been able to do, find the hidden keys that will lead to the Easter Egg, giving the recipient total control over Oasis.  Of course there is a sinister corporation called IOI headed by the evil Sorrento, who will stop at nothing to get control of Oasis even if it means hurting Wade and his friends.  The movie is filled with pop culture references to movies, comic books and video games that others will appreciate even more than I did with what I managed to notice.  I especially liked the scenes from The Shining.  The references to Saturday Night Fever, Back to the Future and The Iron Giant were fun as well.  Even though I am not a video game player I enjoyed the action sequences and the visual effects.  The scenes continually alternate between reality and the virtual world with the result being a well put together story.  I was not at all bored through the two hour and twenty minute running time.  Be sure and watch for the appearance of one Simon Pegg!

The Hunt

The Hunt                                             2 ½ stars

Since I haven’t been to a theater in a long time, I went looking for a new release. I landed on The Hunt which has been called one of the most controversial recent movies. The Hunt is a violent political satire horror action movie that features the hunting down of people for sport on an isolated patch of land by a few rich elites.  The elites are believers in the usual left-wing issues like climate change, follow leftist authors and are led by Athena (Hilary Swank), a left winger who hates the kind of people who love Donald Trump.  A group of twelve people awake to find themselves in an unknown countryside and discover that they are all believers in the conspiracy theory that there is a place called The Manor where right wing types are hunted down by leftist elites. There are a few utterings of second amendment rights and the evils of immigrants. In a clearing there is a giant crate, that when opened reveals a pig and a giant cache of arms. It doesn’t take long till the shooting starts and the group finds that they are the prey. They gather the weapons available and try to escape while each is gunned down in ever increasing bloody and violent fashion.  The violence level is high in this one, (comparable to Revenge from a couple of years ago). There is an assortment of well known actors playing the right wingers. There is Emma Roberts who is Yoga Pants who doesn’t last very long. Justin Hartley from This Is Us is a hunter of exotic wildlife. Ike Barinholtz of The Mindy Project is Staten Island. Wayne Duvall is Don??. Ethan Suplee of My Name is Earl is Shut the F*** Up Gary. There is another character referred to as Target for reasons that become clear. As the body count increases one person emerges as more than Athena was counting on by the name of Crystal (Betty Gilpin of the TV show GLOWS) who is quite proficient with a gun and various hand to hand weapons. While it may not be entirely appropriate for our times, the movie effectively satirizes the common behavior of believing conspiracy theories without checking out the facts.  If you feel like combining political lunacy with bloody violence, then The Hunt might be for you as there is something in it for both sides. Who knows? President Trump might even like it.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Solo: A Star Wars Story                  4 stars

By now everyone has seen the origin story of Han Solo titles Solo: A Star Wars Story, part of the Disney expansion of the Star Wars universe.  So I won’t go into any great detail about the story, other than to say it was an interesting departure from the other Star Ward movies.  Here story is that of an outlaw, Han Solo, joining with other outlaws to put together a colossal interstellar heist to steal some valuable treasure from some very sinister folks.  There is little mention of the empire or the force and we only see a couple of the characters that are so familiar from the other movies.  There is no shortage of action be it high speed chases, shootouts or space dog fights.  It looks like the critics were split on this one and I come on the side of those who thoroughly enjoyed the film.  Woody Harrelson does his usual bad guy impression as Beckett, the outlaw that Solo teams up with.  Paul Bettany is a convincing evil villain who you better not cross and we even get to see how Chewbacca and Han got together.  Also, Donald Glover and Phoebe Waller-Bridge make a well matched and very mouthy pair.  I could see there being a follow up film starring Alden Ehrenreich as the young Han.  If you haven’t seen it yet, what are you waiting for?

RRR

RRR                        5 stars

RRR is the blockbuster 3-hour epic action movie that created something of a sensation in 2022 when it appeared in theaters in India and soon spread around the world. The movie stars two popular actors from Indian cinema, Ram Charan and N. T. Rama Rao, Jr. and tells a popularized version of two legendary figures from 1920’s India and floods the screen with heroic action and carefully crafted dance scenes all set to Bollywood style music. The title, RRR, stands for Rise, Roar, Revolt and tells the story of the colonial rule of India by the British and of two men, Rama and Bheem who lead a revolt against them. It all starts with a story showing the cruelty of the English rulers as the rich governor has a young Indian girl kidnapped from her family because of her artistic talents and in the process leaves a few corpses behind. It is meant to show the contempt and racist attitudes of the British toward their brown skinned subjects. That memorable scene is followed with separate action-packed sequences involving Rama and Bheem, (both very muscular men) where Rama fights off a crowd of men in order to apprehend one rock throwing individual and Bheem does face to face battle against a ferocious tiger. The two men have different motives for their actions and we eventually learn more about their backgrounds through flashbacks. The two meet and become friends with each hiding something in their background from one another. At one point, about a third of the way through the movie we experience the grand event of a sort of dance off between the English and the two heroes where the two cultures go toe to toe against one another with Rama and Bheem coming out on top. The number, called “Naatu Naatu” which goes on for several minutes, is a real crowd pleaser and was the winner of the Best Original Song Academy Award two years ago when it was performed live at the ceremony. It is not only entertaining, but it sets the stage for the wider conflict in the movie. Oddly, the movie was not nominated for International Feature. Eventually, the two heroes come together to do battle with literally hundreds of British soldiers in some of the most violent scenes I have seen lately. But don’t worry. It is all comic book style violence and is all done using CGI effects. (And we are assured that no animals were harmed in making the movie.) Whether or not you know anything about the history of India in this period, you will certainly be entertained by the film. And it would be best to see it with a group of friends.
 

Harriet

Harriet                  4 stars

Harriet Tubman, the slave girl turned freedom fighter for many slaves in the pre-Civil War south finally gets the big screen treatment in Harriet. Cynthia Erivo does a superb job of portraying the tiny Harriet with her expressive acting and her big voice. We know Erivo from her role in Bad Times at the El Royale and for winning a Tony for The Color Purple. The movie is something of a romanticized account of her escape from her abusive master, her encounters with the people running the Underground Railroad and her coming a legendary conductor, venturing into the South and leading many black slaves to freedom in the North. The anguish that the slaves went through is told in convincing style, but some of the encounters and dangers of the escape attempts seemed to be a bit overdramatic. Some of the movie serves as a good history lesson such as the treatment of The Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 that made it legal to hunt and return escaped slaves in the North and how a plantation owner’s wealth was measured by how many slaves they owned. Some of the violent consequences of the Slave Act are enacted in the film. We also see how some blacks lived in the South as free people, but that required them to carry papers showing their freed status that any white person could require them to show. Notable performances in the movie also include Janelle Monae as Marie Buchanon, a free black woman helping escaped slaves, Leslie Odom, Jr. as Henry Still, one of the leaders of the Underground Railroad and Vondie Curtis-Hall as the reverend who preached obedience to the slaves while also helping to harbor escaped slaves. The movie is two hours long, but seems to move along quickly. I watched the deleted scenes too and was disappointed to see some minor characters removed from the final version. The movie deserves its Oscar nominations for Cynthia Erivo as Best Actress and Best Song performed by Erivo.

Ford v. Ferrari

Ford v Ferrari     5 stars

Ford v Ferrari tells the story of two individuals who joined forces with Ford Motor Company to build a race car that could challenge the dominating Ferrari in the 24 hours of Lemans in 1966. The superb cast is led by Matt Damon as Carroll Shelby, American car designer and Christian Bale as Ken Miles, British born fearless race car driver. Both display a passion for the craft of racing in convincing fashion. The two have to battle the corporate meddling of the executives at Ford Motor Company who are more concerned with appearances and marketing than understanding what it takes to win a race. Of course the real show are the racing scenes with cars reaching speeds of 240 miles per hour and performing daring maneuvers that could end in disaster or blow a piston at a critical moment. This is all done with the amazing stunts and effective film editing and some great sound effects. It is apparent that CGI has come a long way as the entire movie looks like the real thing. I am not a gear head so I am sure some things got past me, but it looks like the best auto racing movie I have seen. The disadvantage is that since it is a true story, you have a pretty good idea how it is going to turn out in the end. The story does get a little ironic when you stop to consider that Ford is the Goliath here as they take on the much smaller auto company, Ferrari using virtually unlimited financial resources. The film is worthy of its Best Picture Academy Award nomination and its wins in both Film Editing and Sound Editing.

Tell It Like a Woman

Tell It Like a Woman       2 stars

Tell It Like Woman is an anthology series, one of those movies that is a collection of short films that have a common theme or characteristic. In this case, all seven of the films are by different women directors and have women as their primary subject. It is notable for its Academy Award nominated song that plays over the closing credits: Applause by Diane Warren. I do have to say that it is a memorable song. The movie that it’s attached to, not so much. A couple of the stories are interesting like A Week in My Life by Japanese director Mipo O about a single mother who is struggling to go through her daily routine of raising two young children by herself. We see over the course of one week just how challenging this job can be. In Pepcy & Kim directed by Taraji P. Henson, Jennifer Hudson plays a drug addicted prisoner who is trying to keep her act together so that she can be released and see her young son again. Hudson also plays the part of the prisoner’s inner voice that tries to steer her in the wrong direction. The other films were less interesting and incomplete. Unless you are really into seeing some of the directors’ work or the actresses, I recommend that you skip it.

Underwater

Underwater                       2 stars

While watching Underwater, the movie about a deep sea research facility that is suddenly attacked by strange sea creatures, I had the distinct impression that I had seen it before. Much of the elements of it are taken from The Abyss and Alien, both about mysterious creatures attacking a small group of survivors. This does not bode well. In Underwater we have a group of six survivors that must crawl their way through the wreckage of the laboratory that happens to be seven miles below the surface. As you would expect the suspense comes in as you wonder which one will be the next to die. The sets and effects look very authentic so this was an expensive movie to make. We know little about the characters as they try to stay together to protect each other and maintain sanity. The movie was derivative and you might say boring.

The Batman

The Batman        4 stars

In 2022 we got yet another incarnation of the most depicted, depressed superhero in movies, TV or comic books. This time it is Matt Reeves (two iterations of The Planet of the Apes movies) giving us his version of the caped crusader, otherwise known as Batman. What can he do that Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan or Joel Schumacher haven’t already done? Apparently, it is creating the darkest and moodiest Batman yet to hit the big screen. This Batman (Robert Pattinson) has seemingly been suffering from PTSD ever since his parents were murdered some twenty years before. He regularly goes skulking around Gotham City looking for criminal gangs to beat up on and shows them no mercy. Bruce Wayne, the millionaire, does appear in a few scenes, as well as his butler, Alfred (Andy Serkis), but he is not the playboy type that has been seen in other Batman movies. He typically shares in Batman’s moodiness. The entire movie takes place at night, with much of it in the rain to add to the gloomy feel of it. There isn’t even a hint of comedy throughout the movie. In Reeves’ movie Batman isn’t just a crime fighter. He must also take on the role of detective when a series of high-profile murders are taking the lives of the most prominent men in the city including the mayor and the DA. At each crime scene a letter is left addressed to Batman with a puzzling riddle that he, together with Commissioner Gordon (Jeffrey Wright (probably the finest actor in the movie)) must find the answer to. Slowly it is revealed that a web of corruption has infected every level of the local government, and this hidden psychopath has made it his mission to clean things up while also believing he can get Batman to help in the endeavor. Each victim seems to have ties to a crime boss named Carmine Falcone (John Turturro), a real slimeball who operates an exclusive club and hangout for criminals in Gotham City. One other character figures prominently in the story. Selina Kyle (Zoë Kravitz in her most athletic role yet) is a showgirl at Falcone’s club and wants answers as to what happened to her missing friend there. She can help Batman in finding the truth but tends to go off on her own with a vengeance. (She also provides a home for several cats.) There are hints of a love interest as well. When the murdering psychopath (Paul Dano) is finally unmasked, it seems that he and Batman are like two sides of the same coin, each having a deep need to root out the corruption in the city, only the murderer doesn’t care who gets hurt in the process. The Batman combines elements of what we’ve seen in the comics and the more recent movies as well as traditional detective noir stories. It has plenty of action and story packed into its almost three-hour running time. And there is word of another The Batman movie in the works!