Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales – Not great but a little better

I’ve been busy, OK? Not a lot of time to keep the six people that read these blogs/reviews (that’s right, I’ve gained a couple of readers in the last year or two) up to date on some of the latest films. But it’s summer don’t you know – “blockbuster” season – and time to grab the steady or the whole family and go see some tremendously-average action film, be mildly entertained, and promise yourself, as you refill your jumbo popcorn bucket (butter throughout), that you’re going to see something a bit weightier next time. So, if you’re into that all-American tradition, Dead Men Tell Know Tales is just the ticket. And if you’re an easy-to-please sort of summer movie going person like me, you may even find Dead Men to be slightly better than tremendously average.  

It wasn’t all about the summer-blockbuster tradition with me though – I had some ulterior motives for going. After following Pirates star Johnny Depp’s downward spiral into his own personal Devil’s Triangle these last few years – money woes, failed marriage, sobriety issues - I was interested to see what type of Jack Sparrow the damaged star would produce. Turns out Depp’s latest version of Captain Jack is a near mirror image of the portrayer’s real life ­– Jack’s kind of a wreck – I mean, even a bigger wreck than we’re used to. We find Sparrow early in the film without a crew, without a sound sailing vessel, drunk and stupefied and so desperate for more that he trades his super natural guiding compass in for a bottle of rum. Trades the compass… can you believe it? Fortunately, Dead Men doesn’t rely solely on Captain Sparrow, nor Depp’s half-in performance, for its dynamism. The scene-sucker this time is the new bad guy; the mostly-dead, blood-drooling, Spanish Captain Salazar (and that’s a theta on the z mind you). There’s just nothing like a well-rendered villain to make you sit up in your IMAX recliner and take note. Salazar, played superbly by Spaniard Javier Bardem (No Country for Old Men), grabs you right off the bat, in the quite-good opening scene, and proceeds to dominate the screen whenever he’s on it.   

Alas, the rest of the film is not as good as its opening frames. Dead Men moves on from the promising start in fits and spurts through a sometimes-confusing mouse-maze of old and new pirate lore: ships in bottles, voodoo witches, zombies, magic gems and the like. New faces Henry Turner (Brenton Thwaites, Gods of Egypt), Will Turner’s (Orlando Bloom) son, and young astronomer Carina Smith (Kaya Scodelario, Maze Runner) traverse the littered gauntlet, entangled with Sparrow, Salazar, and good ‘ol Captain Barbosa in a quest for Poseidon’s Trident – an instrument so powerful it can break all curses. The mix of generations is fresh and gives a needed boost to Dead Men’s stream of old gags which occasionally miss their target; although Jack’s truly creative encounter with a spinning guillotine makes up for the several action and comedic whiffs. 

Although spotty, Dead Men is a recovery of sorts of the Pirates Franchise. It’s an above average summer romp and is arguably the best of the franchise since the first film. Geoffrey Rush’s Barbosa and Bardem’s Captain Zalazar are more than enough to fill the slight void openned by Depp’s below-average and forced portrayal of an aging Captain Jack (he seems to be impersonating himself impersonating Jack Sparrow). It’s still all tremendously average, but it’s familiar and fun and it’s summer time – so what the heck - 6 out of 10.

La La Land is worthy of the accolades

I’m a sucker for a good musical – check out my Top 100 List and you’ll find several there. And La La Land is vintage film musical – cut from the same celluloid as the Gene Kelly and Fred-and-Ginger classics where an innocent-enough meeting between a man and a women can suddenly transform into the couple dawning oxford taps and soft-shoeing their way across a boardwalk or spinning around a street lamp. But despite the throwback style, La La feels neither old nor borrowed. Some mature (really old) viewers may wax nostalgic, but La La is truly its own new thing – with a classic musical mix of real and dream that somehow feels fresh and alive… and wonderful.

It’s not just La La’s style that is classic though – the film’s tale of star-crossed lovers is also a song as old as rhyme. Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) are dreamers – Mia, pushing caffeine at a Universal Studios’ coffee shop while trying, unsuccessfully, to break into the movie business; Sebastian, broke and trying to revive a career as a jazz pianist on his own terms. Their initial encounters are less than cordial, but as these tales usually go, fate causes their paths to repeatably intersect and the two romantics come together as they must. 

Their love and mutual support of each others’ dreams play out in poetic and dreamy musical numbers with some doors opening while others close. I should be clear here; Gosling and Stone are no Fred and Ginger. But their more-amateur performances of song and dance seem to fit naturally into La La Land, adding a genuine and honest feel to the film. As we old folk and classic-movie enthusiast would have to admit, many of the old Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly musicals were not great films – their stories simply quickly-assembled vehicles to get the over-the –top dancing talents of their stars onto the screen. This is certainly not the case with La La Land . The score may not be filled with the catchy tunes performed with high skill, but it is an effective, even powerful story teller. The film’s last scene – presented in front of the movies’ theme melody – displays this power and is a prefect summary of the slice of life we just witnessed – a hard review of the potential outcomes of the real and the dream and the decisions we make between them. We get to decide at La La’s last note, the last frame of the film, whether it was all worth it. La La Land is one of the best of the year – a magical must see. 9 out of 10.  

Arrival

The major themes of Arrival,  the new sci-fi film directed by Enis Villeneuve (Prisoners), are determinism, language, and the Sapir–Whorf hypothesis. Sapir what? Yeah, I know… deep stuff… Meet the Millers this is not. Do not fear (too much) though – Arrival gives you plenty of time, and peace and quiet, to allow the deepness to entrance and the meaning of it all to slowly crystalize in your mind. Just be aware, although the film does include what one would call a space monster, there are no laser beams or death stars – it’s grown-up time in the theater so put your big girl/boy pants on for this one.

Caveats aside, I think most of you will like this film. Although Arrival is certainly one of those movies that will get higher marks from the critics than the viewers, I think it’ll be close with both groups registering high scores. Arrival is good, principally, because it is based on excellent material; that is, Ted Chaing’s Nebula-award winning short story “Story of Your Life.” And the film sticks pretty close to Chiang’s piece. An alien race, labeled heptapods due to their 7-armed radial appearance, has made contact and located 12 spacecraft, randomly it seems, across the earth. Their origin and purpose on our planet are unknown, but they have opened a line of communication allowing access into their stone-like ships every 18 hours and appearing to whomever enters from a wispy environment behind a transparent shield. World powers and their militaries rush to communicate with the extraterrestrials and discover their motives with the U.S. enlisting Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams), a linguistics professor of some renown, as their lead code breaker.  As Louise and assigned team member, theoretical physicist Ian Donnelly (played by Jeremy Renner), race to develop enough vocabulary to query the aliens on their intent, the creatures’ language begins to affect Banks. Donnelly, observing the impact, asks Banks if she is dreaming in the heptapod’s language – she is not sure… and neither are we. And this is possibly the most interesting aspect of Arrival; the viewer and the film’s protagonist share in the confusion and revelation of the aliens’ arrival, and their un-human and beautiful language, simultaneously. We both view the event as through a glass darkly, so to speak, with understanding coming in a slow and dampened crescendo.

Arrival puts forth some truly curious and fascinating ideas that project into an interesting twist –  common attributes of all excellent sci-fi short stories. Being a first-contact story, the film reminds, at times, of Carl Sagan’s Contact, evoking a similar awe and anxiety toward the unknowns of a superior presence. The linguistics emphasis kept reminding me of an old Twilight Zone episode (based on a Damon Knight short story) where a manual belonging to alien visitors, titled “To Serve Man”, is misinterpreted as a guide to the aliens’ altruistic intentions when it is really the first page of a cookbook. But (spoiler alert) nobody gets eaten in this one. Some may prefer a bit of alien teeth gnashing, however, to Arrivals non-action pace and ponderments. My bet, however, is that your brain and heart will win out over the carnal desire for space bedlam and inane photon explosions, and that you’ll appreciate the skilled rendering of this outstanding piece of science fiction. 8 out of 10.

Florence Foster Jenkins

The film Florence Foster Jenkins begins with Aida Garifullina, portraying war-era opera star Lily Pons, singing The Bell Song from the opera Lakme’ in Carnegie Hall. Pons’ (Garifullina’s) voice is beautiful, so pure that it’s hard not to cry hearing it. The voice of Florence Foster Jenkins, who is in the audience, is not pure, and sharing it, which she often does, produces a different reaction – laughter usually, and often distress. Thus, director Stephen Frears’ opening scene sets the stage for a well-crafted story about the dualities of life – the purity we humans can possess and demonstrate juxtaposed against our abundant frailties and failures. The fact that Florence Foster Jenkins actually existed makes the telling of it just that much more enjoyable. 

Those unfamiliar with this stranger-than-fiction story will find it hard to fathom.  Florence Foster Jenkins, marvelously portrayed by Meryl Streep, has had a love for music since a young age. A talented pianist as a child, her desire for a career in music was derailed by the will of her father and, finally, a hand injury. We encounter Florence later in life; a significant inheritance has allowed her to pursue her love of music and lifelong passion for public performance through involvement and financial sponsorship of the wealthy New York City art society and social clubs. Along with her husband (sort of) and manager, St. Clair Bayfield (Hugh Grant), a failed British Shakespearean actor, Jenkins performs in her own well-attended social club. After a club performance of a tableaux vivant, she reveals to Bayfield her desire to continue voice lessons and expand her singing career. There’s just that one problem – she has no voice… she can’t sing, not a lick. 

It would be easy from here to treat Florence Foster Jenkins as farce – I mean it is, on the surface, just that. But Frears strikes the better balance between joke and poignancy. Florence’s ear-spitting warbles are mingled and matched with the beauty of other sounds and voices. Although whimsy abounds, we are never left too long without a reminder of the charade that is going on. Jenkins is coddled due to her great wealth and allowed her indulgence to perform – even reaching Carnegie Hall – in part, by those who live and thrive from her support. But, as with most lives, there’s context surrounding the foolishness and Frears takes time to reveal pain along side the pomp,  and empathy and selflessness against selfishness. Frears and the script writers walk the thin line masterfully bracketed by the perfectly-pitched performance of Streep and Grant, and a clever take by Simon Helberg (The Big Bang Theory) as Florence’s opportunistic but confused pianist. 

Some may decide that the balance is too one sided in Florence Foster Jenkins - that the film is too soft on its subject. But heck, we’re all fools at some time… in some way. We hope that our remaining substance is still noticeable during those times and that we are lucky enough, like Florence, to have plenty of love to cushion us in our follies. And a little tenderness never hurt anyone. Go see the show, I think you’ll like it - 8 out of 10. 

Star Trek Beyond gets lost in space

Beyond is the third installment in the Star Trek reboot. Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek - Into Darkness (2013) were both good films. The success and quality of the restart stems, in part, from the clever time-travel slide of hand unveiled at the beginning of the first new Star Trek, which left us with all of the beloved characters from of the original but placed them at a new starting point to shoot off from. From that new vertex has come two good stories that have mixed the fresh with the familiar. The Star Trek series now lives in a slightly tangential universe from the one we experienced with Bill Shatner and crew. But the characters’ DNA is the same and J. Abrams and his writers used that concept beautifully in the first two films to weave our old friends through new tales within a slightly twisted Star Trek environment. Star Trek Beyond aims to follow the same path with a story that mirrors, in a distorted way, another time from the original Star Trek – a story of finding ones “first best destiny” amidst fear and doubt – a la The Wrath of Khan (1982). But alas, Beyond lacks the substance and heart of its parallel-predecessor – Beyond’s turning points get lost in a “fast and furious” blur. 

After three years of the “five-year-mission,” James Tiberius Kirk is wondering what it’s all about. He took the Federation gig on a dare. Now, three years in, and dealing with the more mundane tasks of exploring strange new worlds, Kirk is “lost” and on the brink of taking a desk job. Recall that the Shatner-version of Kirk was in a similar fix in the original Star Trek universe until Kahn showed up in the Botany Bay. But with the Kahn character used up by J. Abram’s in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), new director Justin Lin (Fast and the Furious) and a writing team that included Simon Pegg (who also plays Scotty) give us Krall, a lizardy villian who tricks Kirk into putting the Enterprise in harms way but also reignites the Captain’s juices as he fights to save her. If this sounds supremely familiar, it should – it was Kahn, recall, who masqueraded as a Federation star ship to rend the old Enterprise from a spectacled Shatner-Kirk back in 82. Krall is also searching for a super weapon reminiscent of Kahn’s quest for the “Genesis Probe.”But it’s not the familiarity that stymies Beyond – that’s expected with the new Trek universe – we welcome the parallelism and are tantalized wondering how it will be fashioned in each new film. No, it’s not the concept that is the problem, it’s the follow through – there is none.  

This was all foreshadowed of course. I mean, with the director of the Fast and the Furious mega-series and the author of the scripts for Hot Fuzz and Sean of the Dead at the helm (or conn), you can’t expect anything too profound – and this team certainly met my lowered expectations. The finding of Kirk’s best self, it turns out, is a very minor side story attached to a very forgettable core. Lin and his team are much more about the visual than the visceral. But his relentless action scenes trend from frantic to incomprehensible. They are long things, narrated by the crew’s rapid fire, nonsensical, MacGyver escape ideas. And poor Krall is a hot mess – his villainous motivations are feeble and the explanation for his existence – extremely questionable. Even the Kirk-Spock-Bones interplay, which I thought might be highlighted by Pegg’s comedic talents, seem strained, as if the writer has worked to hard to get them into the same elevator or transporter. It’s not that the buddy scenes are bad because there not – they’re easily the best part of the film. But they’re not enough to keep Star Trek Beyond from ranking third of three in the new Star Trek enterprise. 5.5 out of 10.

Jason Bourne

They just ran out of nouns I guess. That’s what happens when you make more than three… you start running out of nouns. Imagine the pressure to come up with a really good noun after the likes of “Identify”, “Supremacy”, and “Ultimatum” – those are all great nouns. You might get four nouns maybe (“Legacy” is not bad I guess), but five… give it up. And so they did… just called it Jason Bourne. Oh, they also gave up on finding anything new to wrap this fifth Bourne film around – they ran out of story for Bourne to act on. Just used the same stuff – warped CIA directors, foreign assets living in small hotel rooms (who takes these jobs?), and Jason Bourne’s fractured psyche. It’s all kind of the same. In fact, some of it is exactly the same… but it still sort of works.

We left Jason Bourne a couple of films ago after he discovered his true identity and faced down his creators. He said that it “ended there”, back in Ultimatum, but it didn’t. He says he remembers everything now. But it turns out he still doesn’t have the whole story, so we need Universal to keep making these movies – it’s about closure I guess… and millions of dollars in profits. We now find Bourne off the grid in Greece – a traveling fist fighter, beating and allowing himself to be beaten on – a sort of self-imposed punishment, we suppose, for all of the damage he’s done. Bourne’s wracked with guilt for the lives he’s taken as Treadstone’s super assassin and unclear about his true nature – is he a killer at his core or a brain-washed victim of an off-track security machine? Enter former colleague and Moped partner Nicky Parsons (Julia Stiles) who has continued to monitor the CIA’s nasty doings via the cyber-underground since she went on the run in Ultimatum.  She has information about a new and even more insidious CIA program and has also stumbled onto some troubling news about Bourne’s father Darth Vader… errr, I mean Richard Webb and his role in Treadstone. And Bang! Bourne has something to do again – it’s tired motivation, but it’s something. 

The first thing to do of course is to get out the old passports and start Bourne Carmen San Diego-ing around the globe – check. On the other side, the CIA still has access to every camera everywhere (including in space) and they pick up Bourne’s re-entry – check. Some of them get that “we’re in deep stuff” look on their faces and plot to take out Bourne because he knows too much – check. While others raise one eyebrow guessing that something is amiss here – check, check, check, and… check, check. It’s like setting up for a game of Clue for the umpteenth time – same suspects, same rooms. But we keep playing Clue don’t we? And you’ll keep watching Jason Bourne. Because despite the familiarity, the film is still able to create significant tension. Writer-director Paul Greengrass’ action is consistently crisp. Although not as good as those in Ultimatum, Bourne’s confrontations and chase scenes are still exciting and all pulled off without the over-the-top CGI bombast that most blockbusters fall back on. Still, the hub-bub seems less important this time. Even a new out-of-the-headlines subplot that has the CIA secretly embedding a massive surveillance program within a popular social media platform fails to generate the energy of the original trilogy. The lack of an intriguing story line puts it all back on an older, thicker Bourne to carry the film home – quick-walking, almost reluctantly this time, in search of himself. Jason Bourne is still frenetic and fun, but its path is worn and has lost a step or two. 6 out of 10.

Zoolander 2 is better than you've heard

Ben Stiller, the co-writer, director, and star of Zoolander and Zoolander 2 commented in Vogue (where else?) prior to 2’s release that “they want a sequel until they get one.” Stiller must have known what the critics were about to do to the sequel to his 2001 outrageous spoof on fashion vanity. If you’re the type that checks the Rotten Tomatoes scores before venturing out to see a film, you’ll know that most of the big-wig critics have panned 2 – some brutally. But don’t believe ‘em. Most of these guys didn’t like the first film at its release either, although they wouldn’t admit that now. Zoolander 2 is funny enough. Granted, it’s not as good a the first, sequels rarely are. But if you really liked Zoolander – meaning, you’re not just faking it to fit in – then you’ll likely enjoy Zoolander 2. And if you didn’t like Derek and the gang the first time, then you’re not going to this movie anyway… unless you’re a movie critic.

Zoolander 2’s plot is just as amazingly idiotic as the first film’s story line. You all recall the old one – the really, really, really, good looking Derek Zoolander (Ben Stiller), greatest male supermodel of his generation, is brainwashed by Mugatu, the deranged designer of the piano neck-tie (Will Ferrell), to assassinate the Claymation guy – err… I mean the Malaysian prime minister, in order to maintain cheap child labor in sweatshops that support the fashion industry – marvelously inane, right? Now, 14-years later, we find Zoolander in seclusion after a tragic accident at the center he built for Kids Who Can't Read Good and Who Wanna Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too. Hansel (Owen Wilson) is not hot right now either, having suffered a horrifying injury to his face when Derek’s center collapsed. Both are lured out of retirement and thrust into a mystery of murdered celebrities, selfies, and a quest for eternal youth and really good skin. I told you… astronomically ridiculous, just as it should be.

But the plot is really not important in these films – It’s just a superficial tool to create a superficial movie about the superficial. This idea and odd-ball approach was peculiar back in 2001. So much so that it took some time for audiences to catch up to the fresh weirdness of it. Initial critical and public response to the first film was underwhelming at best. Post-big-screen Zoolander, however, hit stride quickly and developed a fervent audience. Mention Mugatu’s name and call for a “walk-off” in a crowd of Millennials and they’ll know just what you’re talking about. This same generation now flashes Blue Steel, Magnum, and Le Tigre, on selfies all over Instagram, Facebook, and the rest any chance they get (wait… all these selfie poses look the same… Mugatu was right). The fact that the vanity the first film made fun of has now become mainstream works both for and against Zoolander 2. Stiller exploits the expanding selfie culture throughout the film, most memorably to capture the over-the-top demise of really, really, good looking Justin Bieber in 2’s cleverly moronic opening scene. But the weirdness is now the orthodox. Stiller’s team settles, generally, for revisiting the same gags from the first film with several efforts coming off as a bit worn. There’s still some edge there though. Between Derek and Hansel’s serious debate on whether being plus size makes you a terrible person (left unresolved) to their “mind-blowing” exchange with astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson on self realization, there’s still more hits than misses.

Although I doubt any part of Zoolander 2 will infuse itself in our conscience and language the way the first film did, it’ll still fill up your silliness cup. If not fresh, Zoolander 2 is still fun in its absurdity. Ferrell’s Mugatu is in fine form – his summarizing diatribes on the fashion world and its rulers are by themselves worth the price of admission, reminding us of how ridiculous this all really is. Insert the all-in Penelope Cruz as an Interpol Fashion Policy Detective, Kristen Wiig’s way over-the-top aging fashion doyenne and new Mugatu lust interest, and a never-ending parade of celebrity and fashion icons, and you’re ready to get stupid. So to all of the jaded professional rag writers and bloggers out there – stop the complaining all ready, this isn’t the sequel to El Cid. Try to have a little fun – RELAX!

7 out of 10.