Gravity 2013 Review

 

Gravity (2013)

“Life in Space is Impossible”. That’s the line that precedes Alfonso Cuaron’s 90-minute spectacle and is an apt quote for what the film is trying to get across. There isn’t much of a story in a sense it is more an experience as Nasa medical officer Dr Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) must get to get to a working space station and perform re-entry and most of all avoid drifting into deep space. Very deep space.

 

While you may not have heard much about this film before it’s cinema release it is a ground-breaking effort that finally portrays space more accurately in terms of dimensions. Foreground and background can very quickly intertwine and motion is a loose concept as we see Astronauts Stone and George Clooney’s Matt Kowalski navigate through the vast expanse. It’s an epic tale in terms of scale, with the earth a permanent backdrop; gorgeously realised with immense detail.  A new innovation called a ‘light-box’ was created to get the exact lighting for the sun’s rays to fall on the character’s suits as they revolve and float around endlessly.

Keeping to the realism is the fact that we only hear communications and the low rumble of the machinery but no exaggerated sound effects that go against the fact that space is a vacuum. It is the first film since 2001 to mute any space sounds and in many ways this film feels tonally and in production a close connection to Kubrick’s masterpiece. While Gravity doesn’t carry the same weighty themes it makes up for it in emotion. Though there are a few lulls in the film as well, particularly when Stone is out of the suit and in the relative safety of a command module.

There is also an inherent beauty to the characters drifting through off to the point of being a speck in the distance. While some moments from the astronaut’s POV or in the International Space Station resemble video games, it is forgotten every time there is a shot of the earth. When Bullock’s character poignantly talks about the little details of her deceased daughter’s room whilst staring into the oblivion of space there is a lot of power in the shot. Whilst Steven price’s music suitably augments this without ever feeling too strong only when chaos returns to the temperamental interstellar ocean.

 The plot and everything else literally revolves around Bullock’s timid heroine who must simply survive, though frequent problems fall in her way and she descends into a frantic state that is delivered in tune with the subdued tone of the film. Alfonso Cuaron co wrote this film and returns to directing sci-fi after 2006’s brilliant Children of Men adaption. Though this is a grander drama, both films shared similarities in their nihilistic visions, long takes and ground breaking effects. The film did not have too much hyped attached to it until it’s premiere at the Venice Film Festival, but it deserves it for pushing the visual medium with it’s excellent combination of digital sets and photo realistic cinematography.

 The opening shot is what you could call a fixed shot of the earth while the shuttle in orbit and Clooney’s jet packed Captain slowly come into view and then grow in size without any feeling of unnatural zooming. It captures flow of moving through space and is also the reason why this is possibly the best use of 3D to date. Only the 3D could capture the unparalleled depths of space. Almost to dizzying proportions as Bullock gets detached from the space shuttle in a debris shower that will go down as one of the most terrifying sequences in cinematic history. The sudden destruction and breaking apart of space stations like tinfoil is amazing particularly when it is captured in silence and the flying debris showers that are a recurrent threat never allow the audience to relax as they whip past the screen they create pure terror.

 In fact the audience are never allowed to relax as this is what Cuaron had intended; Life in space is impossible, as Cuaron, Lubezki and Bullock have shown.

*****

Films to See #6: We're The Millers review

We’re The Millers

 The brilliant idea at the centre of this film from the writer and director of Dodgeball is a comedy classic like the 2004 Will Ferrell vehicle ripe endless laughs. The plot is that a middle aged, layabout drug dealer (Jason Sudeikis competently handling leading man duties) must assemble various misfits and pillars of society to act as a squeaky clean all American family to help smuggle  a ‘squidge’ of marijuana over the Mexican border without being suspected. The idea is refreshingly original and boosted by a strong central cast.  While Aniston plays the stripper turned loving housewife role well and Roberts also nails the runaway daughter role the film belongs mainly to Will Poulter’s Kenny. Poulter’s Kenny is the full comic package from his funny striped shirt appearance to his hilarious accent and his frequent clueless and innocent expressions such as when he is being forced by Jason Sudeikis to perform fellatio on a Luiz Guzman’s nosy cop. Though marketed with Aniston’s erotic dancing abilities, the film boasts great characters right down to Nick Offerman’s moustached family man and DEA cop on vacation that the titular Millers must not let near their camper van that is brimming with a huge shipment of hash.

The plot is paced beautifully as the initial challenge of getting over the border is then faced with following challenges of getting the drugs across a country notorious for it’s anti-drug enforcement as the ‘smugglers’ face a breakdown,  an off duty cop and his family and a poisonous spider bite to  unload the cargo of high level contraband.

 It’s success having already grossed £120 million is probably because it’s based on an original idea as opposed to the familiar plots (Wedding Crashers set in the Google Offices, Ron Burgundy as a Race Car Driver, etc)rehashed by the Stiller, Owen, Black Frat Pack brand of comedy that seems to always get funding. However this film manages more laughs than in three of their films put together. It’s only slightly ruined by the cheesy bloopers where they play the Friends theme tune in one take of the rapping scene

****

Films not to See #2 The Lone Ranger

The Lone Ranger starts off like a an epic as an unrecognisable and heavily made up older version of Johnny Depp’s Tonto regales the story of pacifist lawman John Reid (Armie Hammer) and his transformation into the titular Vigilante. But it is this epic length that kills the film, running at an exhausting two and a half hours that drains all promise from the film. Trying to imitate a John Ford western in running time doesn’t work when the characters are so familiar and the story so predictable.  It’s a story that been told many times that a modern reboot didn’t necessitate that long a film, it just  needed some inventive action sequences. While the train chases are thrilling the film in between them isn’t. William Fichner’s Butch Cavendish never feels a strong enough threat despite what he does to John Reid’s brother Dan and Tom Wilkinson’s politician is just an obvious villain from the start that also never feels like that big of an opponent for Reid and Tonto. The second act seems to last for eternity as the central duo go through numerous escapades involving scorpions, the cavalry and Native Americans. It’s clear that the filmmakers sacrificed pacing in a last ditch effort to show the budget on screen. Also the comedy is quite simple even for a disney film but the bloody scene where Cavendish eats a man's heart seems a bit too strong so I'm not too sure who the audience of the film is; are kids nowadays interested in cowboys and horses?

The biggest story of the film being it’s tortured production that saw a mid shoot hiatus to reassess the excessive budget on what is a pretty rote western full of the usual clichés such as bank robberies and bridge explosions that have been done convincingly before.  It is a very visual film with Verbinski doing some interesting transitions and effects sequences but the film as a whole feels far too conventional and suffers for it as we pass the two hour mark. Helena Bonham Carter’s unnecessary appearance and a cruelly underused Barry Pepper as the cavalry chief means the film rests too much on Depp doing his usual idiosyncratic performance and Armie Hammer’s dull lawman whose strict refusal to do any harm to his brother's killers becomes infuriating; how can a lawman survive without a gun is a key question in the film. Was the film worth it's budget and protracted production schedule... no, probably not.

Verdict: Good visuals but standard western tale and a lacklustre Depp performance

***

Past Films 1# Predators

Like many Predator fans, the news that Robert Rodriguez was making a sequel that the franchise deserved by taking inspiration from James Cameron’s Aliens gave a lot of hope that Predator could more equally share the pantheon of Sci-fi Monsters with the Alien. Aside from the 1987 Arnie original the Predator series has remained a one off with the descent into the urban jungle and lethal weapon territory in the completely misjudged sequel and then the AVP films. Predator’s reputation really was only built on the solid foundations of John McTiernan’s expertly done taut thriller which combined equal parts suspense as action. The mistake in the sequel and the AVP films was trying to take it out of its natural jungle habitat; after all in all the Alien films the Alien is still confined to industrial interiors whether spaceships, colonies or prisons. So this return to roots but upping of the ante with multiple predators and an up and coming director under the effects guidance of Robert Rodriguez should have given us the return to form. It didn’t really.

First of all the idea of a mismatched team of Earth’s most dangerous men (and woman) forced to team together using their shared strengths and weaknesses I felt was a good idea but the characters come off too much as cardboard clichés. While in the first film there are also obvious cut-outs such as Sonny Landham’s quite prophetic type or Jesse Ventura’s badass but they often had real characters playing them who made them interesting than a boring imitation and there were more developed characters alongside them such as 

Carl Weather’s company man struggling to keep the team composed in the face of an invisible enemy. And while like most classic horrors and Sci-Fi films the film takes it’s time creating the setup before introducing the predators it feels quite dull and a significant lack of urgency.

The cinematography is pretty good but the whole production lacks much originality from Alan Silvestre’s original score being pasted in here the only real differences are the metallic birds, the predator hounds and the different individual designs of the predators themselves. It dosen’t stand out as sequel as more of a remake and worst of all unlike the hordes of aliens in Cameron’s master class of a monster sequel here there are only four who often attack their prey one on one while one of the four (who bears the classic Stan Winston design from the first film) is tied upto a post the whole film and actually helps our team of humans.

There is a faceoff between two predators and a duel between a Yakuza hecnmen and a predator is an excellent sequence there are far too many nods to the first film; such as the flying log trap or a Gatling gun or a character staring blankly at a tree or a group firing aimlessly into the forest and particularly in the unoriginal faceoff at the end which references the original climax so much that it should give writing credit back to the original creators of the series John and Jim Thomas. There are no classic lines as in Cameron’s Aliens or the original; “If it bleeds we can kill it!”, “I ain’t got time to bleed!” and “Get to the Chopper!”

Nimrod Antal gives the jungle an alien vibe and creates some interesting shots but when the action kicks in, he resorts to the usual quick cutting Bourne style where the camera often doesn’t capture the cool moves. Some revolving shots aside and the duel scene he lacks any of the roving camera angles Mc Tiernan had all over the first film. The final proof is that in the comic book on the DVD I saw more cool shots than in the whole film including a Predator wading through a river.

Verdict;

 While on paper a Robert Rodriguez produced, Aliens-esque sequel with a group of mismatched killers may have sounded (good kind of like the Alien 3 setup) this fails overall to be that memorable. The poor character development and blank faced cast means that we are only watching for the predators who unfortunately are also lacking any new tricks making this just another contemporary reboot that can’t find the original talent that makes the original so engrossing.

Pros; Good set up, Good Cinematography, Interesting Predator design

Cons; Predictable outcome, Follows the original too closely and Poor Cast

Who’s to blame; Script writer and Casting director

***

Films to see #5 The World's End

The final part of Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and Edgar Wright’s Cornetto trilogy is a fun adventure as five friends reunite all grown up and try and complete a bar crawl they failed twenty years before.  The usual quick editing of Wright is still an effective comedic tool and a consistent motif in the trilogy. While Pegg effortlessly sells the one whose life never took off still riding the same car and wearing the same coat. It is powerful point made on how life is meant to take off and the feeling of nostalgia for those whose lives never get off the ground. There is also surprisingly message on commercialization, or ‘starbucking’ as one character puts it as all the pubs become chains and lacking as much individualism as the robots.It does lack the richness of characters that it’s predecessors boasted and doesn’t quite equal the thrill and fun of a zombie picture or a cop actioneer.

The ending remains frustratingly vague and sums up one of the main gripes; the robot alien plotline is never fleshed out or explained. The robot element is introduced so late in the story and it is only then you feel the film kick in. The first 30 minutes are lack any laughs or real jokes and center on developing pretty stock character types such as the teetotaller, the enthusiastic one etc.

The Cornetto gang take on the big ideas of sci-fi as opposed to the chase of zombie films and the big action of action films which is why there isn’t as much action but more discussing in this instalment though it picks up pace in the carnage as they foolishly attempt to complete the bar crawl regardless of the fact the town and potentially the world is slowly being infested by replicants with evil beaming out of their eyes and blue toothpaste shooting out of their joints. Though you could argue there is less humour and more serious emotional moments in the trilogy as it goes on the films are guaranteed entertainment and it will be shame that the trilogy’s three stars won’t be collaborating again or anytime soon.

****

Classic Horror 1#

The Hitcher

An cult horror/actioneer in which the happy go lucky teen Jim Halsey gives the icy John Ryder a hitch but what begins as a boogeyman myth of the murderous hitchhiker turns into a non-stop chase across the empty desert highways of the mid-west.  What is surprising is the levels of carnage that occur in which Halsey becomes a fugitive from the law, cops are taken out like ducks on a firing range and even a police helicopter is not safe from the destructive game that Halsey and Ryder are in entangled in. Much of the horror is Halsey’s treatment by the police, who at times are more frightening than the elusive presence of Rutger Hauer’s quiet drifter. There is an almost supernatural air to this tale of relentless murder along an empty stretch of highway of diners and gas stations as Halsey is pursued relentlessly by Ryder whose presence is constantly felt and frequently is ahead of Halsey. An unstoppable spirit who can plant a severed finger in your chips without ever being seen while what makes The Hitcher stand out as classic is C. Thomas Howells’ masterful performance as Halsey; Howell’s transformation from cowering kid to coldly, calculative adult who regularly points guns at cops is the real brilliance at the heart of this film. While Huger effortlessly hands in a defining portrait of motiveless menace it’s Howell’s character arc that makes this beyond an entertaining thriller.