Movie Reviews

Arrival

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  • Title: Arrival
  • IMDb: link

Arrival

We’ve seen this all before. Alien arrival movies have become a Hollywood staple, although the themes have varied allowing the sci-fi tales to cross genres from horror to comedy. Movies centered around first contact with aliens fall into two categories based on the reasoning behind the aliens arrival on Earth. Are they here to destroy (Independence Day, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Thing) or do that have more complicated, but ultimately benevolent, motivations (E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Contact)?

Adapted from the short story by Ted Chiang, Arrival is presented from the view of linguist extraordinaire Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) who is brought in by the United States Government when one of twelve monolith-style alien space ships which have arrived on Earth lands in Montana. Racing to be the first country to decipher just what the aliens want, the U.S. gives Dr. Banks control of the team along with physicist Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner). Together the pair work together to begin attempting to communicate with the squidish Heptapods whose language comes from visual drawings created by expelling ink from their tentacles.

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Christine

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  • Title: Christine
  • IMDb: link

Christine

Depression is a hard subject matter to tackle. By its very nature it makes any character suffering from the condition standoffish at best or, as is the case here, nearly unrelatable. The subject of director Antonio Campos‘ film is 70s Florida local news reporter Christine Chubbuck (Rebecca Hall). As a character study of a person struggling with depression and paranoia, Christine works well-enough. But as a film it’s difficult to see past the premise as anything other than Oscar-bait. Hall gives a great performance as a woman on the edge, but the sad fact about writer Craig Shilowich‘s script is we are never invested in what dark end is destined for her.

Based on a true story, Shilowich’s script showcases Christine as a hack local newswoman unable to get along with co-workers or family with dreams of the big time Christine, at least on some level, likely understands she will never achieve. Unable to deal with her loneliness, the station manager’s orders for more sensational stories, and a medical problem she refuse to share with anyone, Christine is on the fast track to ruin. What makes her story different is how public her downward spiral became.

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Hacksaw Ridge

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  • Title: Hacksaw Ridge
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Hacksaw RidgeGrabbing a rifle and racing straight into gunfire is certainly an act of bravery. What then is making the same mad dash while refusing to carry a weapon of any kind? The latest film from Mel Gibson is based on the true story of contentious objector Desmond Doss (Andrew Garfield) who enlisted for the Army during World War II to serve his country as a field medic on the battlefield but earned the ire of the Army and his own company by his refusal to even touch a weapon.

Merriam-Webster defines a hero as “a person who is admired for great or brave acts or fine qualities.” It’s a term that is certainly overused, but it’s also impossible to describe Doss’ journey and his actions on the battlefield without using that word.

While not always a fan of Gibson’s work behind the camera, I will freely admit that the man has an unique understanding of complex emotions on the battlefield. The war scenes of Hacksaw Ridge are as brutal as any you are going to find in a war film which makes the “miracle” that Doss was able to achieve in Okinawa all the more powerful. Because of these sequences, Hacksaw Ridge isn’t a movie I’d recommend to all audiences. It certainly earns its R-rating.

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Doctor Strange

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  • Title: Doctor Strange
  • IMDb: link

Doctor StrangeFirst introduced in Marvel Comics back 1963, Doctor Stephen Strange finally makes it to the big screen in the latest entry to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Although Marvel Studios has dipped their toe in the water previously with Thor and its sequel, this time the studio dives head first into the mystical for the origin of a neurosurgeon who became the Sorcerer Supreme (Earth’s primary mystical protector).

More notable for its look than plot, Doctor Strange is a visible smorgasbord of delight. After the perfunctory set-up where we’re introduced to a genius/asshole surgeon (Benedict Cumberbatch) whose life turns on a dime with a single event, we follow Strange on his journey to learn the mystical arts in hope of reclaiming what he has lost. That journey takes him to Nepal where he encounters the Ancient One (Tilda Swinton) and his understanding of the world is forever changed.

Following the basic layout of The Matrix, Strange moves from non-believer to the most powerful wizard ever over the course of the film. It may have taken Luke Skywalker three movies to become a proper Jedi, but like Neo the Doc only needs about 90 minutes.

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Inferno

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  • Title: Inferno
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InfernoWith each successive entry, the film series based on the Robert Langdon novels of Dan Brown becomes less and less watchable. At this rate the fourth movie may actually make audience bleed out of their eyes. Opening with an incomprehensible first 10 minutes filled with hellish images floating through an injured Langdon’s (Tom Hanks) mind, the film attempts to up the ante by forcing the professor not only to solve riddles and clues to find the truth but this time to do so with amnesia. Along for the ride is his latest attractive European brunette co-star, this time a genius doctor (Felicity Jones) with a love of puzzles (of course) who helps Langdon escape a hospital in Florence when the men who kidnapped him attempt to reacquire the college professor to find a deadly virus.

Rather than unraveling the mysteries of the Holy Grail or delving into a Papal conspiracy, this time Langdon is set after a man-made plague known as Inferno. Created by a billionaire (Ben Foster) obsessed with purging the world of its excess populace, the madman of course left near-indecipherable clues that would make it nearly impossible to see his plan carried out.

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