Reviews

Brooklyn is mostly a story about immigration. Eilis, the main heroine, travels from Ireland to New York where employment, lodgings, and even night classes are all conveniently arranged by a kindly priest. Though the journey is arduous and homesickness prevails, the path to romance is fairly smooth, and she soon falls into a relationship with a nice, less educated Italian plumber whose love for her could be easily confused for lust. Fate intervenes when Ireland is reintroduced as the new land of opportunity, and Eilis drifts between countries, relationships, and jobs, squandering any apparent initiative on her lackluster love life. Saoirse Ronan infuses Eilis with independence and reason, traits that are stifled by the conventional story. I cared more for her sister than the men she may have loved. Worst of all, the main conflict and resolution come late in the film and have a strange way of undermining Eilis' best qualities. In a picture that makes everything else beautiful, the protagonist remains somewhat tainted in the end by her own indecisiveness.

Rating based on five factors, each worth up to two points: Sound: 1; Acting/Characterization: 2; Script: 1; Visuals: 1; Concept: 1

Total: 6

A woman and her child are locked in a room. The child is a boy, though his distracting long hair and feminine features suggest otherwise, and the room is his entire world. Room depicts his perspective as his world changes. Although the movie works on an emotional level without feeling too manipulative, I disliked the scenario and was bothered by the questions it raised. How believable is the main characters' captivity, the extent of their trauma, and their attempts to escape it? I have my doubts, but I think the audience is supposed to be too in awe of their maternal bond to care. I, however, wanted a little more intelligence from the tantrum-prone duo. The mother is saved by a five-year-old with a facile understanding of his environment. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose, but let's not pretend it's lovely or enlightening. One could argue the mother protects her son's purity, but even this seems a matter of luck given her limited control over the situation. I guess I can't abandon my intellect to appreciate a child's innocence, especially when it could have been more effectively preserved by a little adult cleverness.

Rating based on five factors, each worth up to two points: Sound: 1.5; Acting/Characterization: 2; Script: 1; Visuals: 1; Concept: 0.5

Total: 6

Watching this film is like stepping into a lurid dime store novel. The setting is mostly desert and open road. The backdrop changes colors with the mood. The action feels spontaneous and inventive as vehicles explode and skinheads fly through the air like acrobats. The primary antagonist is a decrepit megalomaniac who monopolizes the water supply and literally milks and breeds women while driving his fanatical minions to self-destruct. To make this all less tawdry, his captive wives discover feminism and escape with a butch heroine, her posse of old biker chicks, and a romantic sap named Nux. Max helps guide the lost ladies to their true utopia. That, in a nutshell, is Mad Max: Fury Road. Sure, there's more--cretins with distracting deformities, a midget, a pregnant woman with an exposed belly, etc.--but none of it really matters. The world and its characters have a pulpy comic book shallowness. Either you like them or you don't. If you're not a fan, the fantastic visuals may not be enough to sustain you for two hours.

Rating based on five factors, each worth up to 2 points: Sound: 2; Acting/Characterization: 0.5; Script: 0.5; Visuals: 2; Concept (Plot/Theme): 0.5

Total accumulated score: 5.5; Rating based on gut feeling: 5; Average final rating: 5.25

Sound - 1.5/2 - The soundtrack is great, but dialog is occasionally garbled.

Acting/Characterization - 2/2 - The acting is uniformly good. Tom Hardy is an intimidating Bane, and Anne Hathway is a likable Catwoman. Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Matthew Modine are also welcome additions to an already stellar cast.

Script/Writing - 1/2 - Catwoman adds a little levity, but The Dark Knight Rises is a long slog overall. Batman's friends and foes are both fond of long-winded exposition, and the passage of time is disorienting. Months go by in a flash, while minutes are prolonged to accommodate impossible action sequences.

Visuals - 1/2 - Gotham is a disappointingly generic U.S. city in broad daylight.

Concept (Plot/Theme) - 0.5/2 - Contrary to the implications of the title, Batman suffers multiple crippling defeats at the hands of his opponents. Thankfully, the villains have convoluted plans to force the slow lemmings of Gotham to destroy themselves, giving the Caped Crusader time to be a proper idol while Catwoman does the dirty work. Although both Batman and Bruce Wayne are unfavorably depicted (the latter's wealth and resources empower Bane while the former's vigilantism causes as many problems as it solves), the film is too philosophically shallow to explain Gotham's shortcomings. Instead, Batman's flaws are overshadowed by his role as a symbol, scapegoat, and crutch for weak-willed citizens. He and his successors are needed, apparently, but no one is supposed to wonder why. Moreover, the film undermines its claim that anyone can be Batman by giving us so few contenders and a hero who has remarkable difficulty rising to the challenge.

Total Score - 6/10

Gut Feeling - 6/10 - What makes Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy both compelling and disappointing is its tendency to relate Gotham to the society we know. Unfortunately, Gotham is nothing but a playground for Batman and the big bosses he fights. Everything exists for Bruce Wayne and his alter ego, including his wealth, his gadgets, his inner turmoil, and his corrupt town. Therefore, it is not Batman who must justify his existence, but Gotham itself. The film's hollow ruminations simply detract from the fun.

Final Average - 6/10

Sound: 2/2 Harry Gregson-Williams' effervescent, electronic score evokes the protagonist's diligence, wonderment, and loneliness (perhaps more effectively than the script).

Acting/Characterization: 1/2 Matt Damon takes his snarky act to Mars, where he plays a different kind of Mann. The role of Watney suits him, and everyone else is affable and strong under pressure. Their good humor is of the blockbuster variety, but I like the characters' resolute focus and pragmatism. I am glad the film did not resort to cheap histrionics, which would have undermined the credibility of someone likely trained and selected to withstand great mental and physical stress.

Script/Writing: 1/2 The one-liners are standard Hollywood cheese, but the absence of maudlin backstories and unnecessary romance is refreshing. In The Martian, egalitarian enthusiasm for solving problems apparently prevails over international differences and agency hierarchies, and I suppose I have no reason to reject such a happy fantasy even if some of the flippant exchanges between the scientists and directors at NASA are hokey. Also, the script could have been less obvious by implying rather than dictating the theme via Watney's speech at the end.

Visuals: 2/2 It's a Ridley Scott film; of course Mars is gorgeous.

Concept (Plot/Theme): 1.5/2 I haven't read Weir's book, but I love the "MacGyver on Mars" idea, though the film's surprisingly positive tone lowers the stakes. The audience is meant to respect Watney's ingenuity, not worry for him, so survival seems less perilous and uncertain than conditions on Mars might suggest.

Total: 7.5/10

Gut Feeling: 7/10 The Martian is a fun adventure that celebrates science, space exploration, and the collective agency of analytical minds at the cost of dramatic tension and a truer portrait of how difficult such endeavors can be.

Final Average: 7.25

Ex Machina has a simple plot. Nathan, a reclusive programming genius, treats one of his employees to a week at his remote estate with Ava, an enigmatically charming robot who's meant to wow (or seduce) her visitor into believing she has human tendencies. Although this appears to be no real challenge, both Nathan and Caleb, the unlucky employee, egotistically assume they control the experiment. The rest is a foregone conclusion. As much as I like Nathan and his dancing Japanese servant, style is no substitute for ideas. Where other films might explore the potential ironies or paradoxes of artificial intelligence, Ex Machina reduces the human condition to basic animal attraction. When not quoting philosophers or scientists, Caleb is a voyeur and Nathan is the inventor of elaborate sex toys. Ava just happens to be a spectacular example.

I liked Donnie Darko initially. It had a memorable soundtrack, dreamlike visuals, and a few strong performances. Mary McDonnell and Beth Grant stood out as Donnie's mother and Kitty Farmer, respectively, and many of the other characters, including the rest of Donnie's family, were played well. It was both nostalgic and timely in its portrayal of high school angst and oppressive, anti-intellectual conservatism given the sociopolitical climate at the time I saw it. There was a kind of a perverse satisfaction in watching Donnie rebel against Mrs. Farmer, Jim Cunningham, and the rest of their kind. Furthermore, the plot had a superficial cleverness as the chain of events unfolded to reveal a fate we already knew. I also saw Donnie Darko before I knew of its cult status, so its bizarre mix of humor and creepiness seemed novel and compelling.

After watching the original again, I still appreciate these qualities, but I'm more aware of its limitations. At times, Jake Gyllenhaal, Jena Malone, and Drew Barrymore are simply trying too hard. The quintessential valley girl acting the part of an edgy English teacher is hard to accept, while the relationship between Donnie and the new girl feels hollow. At best, she shares his flair for histrionics and an emotional honesty that would have embarrassed most of the kids I knew in high school. Donnie and Gretchen are unrealistically naïve, and while Donnie may chastise his teacher for attempting to reduce the gamut of human emotions to a simple love-fear dichotomy, he crumbles when his therapist's analysis of his inner demons is similarly reductive. The film tries to turn teen angst into some metaphysical struggle, so Donnie's quest to get into Gretchen's pants suddenly becomes faith- affirming. I wouldn't have a problem with this if the superhero angle was told with a little self-deprecating wit, but most of the film's humor is at the expense of its worst stereotypes while equally limited characters are given a weight they don't deserve.

Noah Wyle, who is otherwise credible as a high school science teacher, readily embraces the fantasy logic of Donnie's world as if Stephen Hawking made it all unequivocally believable, and I expect the audience is meant to accept the director's notion of an alternate universe with equal relish. However, the arbitrarily convoluted rules governing the plot are only interesting in their lack of clarity. I agree with fans who think it's more fun to let your imagination wander and critics who argue the film's incoherence is not an attribute. While God and fate are mentioned in passing, the film dodges the big philosophical questions to the extent that objecting to the implications of the ending becomes difficult. Regardless, nothing that transpires in the film is substantive enough for Donnie to reach any great epiphany. Instead, he is merely going through the motions like a pawn in some Rube Goldberg contrivance. So much for being a superhero.

Admittedly, Christopher Nolan has been incredibly successful at what I would consider a doomed endeavor. After all, what sane director would try to fashion a realistic, rational universe from a sophomoric fantasy about a self-indulgent playboy with a costume fetish and a penchant for stylized bedlam? Still, I find the Batman premise more palatable when overshadowed by the fun spectacle of carnival freaks, kitschy art, and psychedelically rendered pulp lore. Without such accoutrements, the story largely relies on the poignant characterization of caricatures—a difficult task, to be sure. At times, Nolan tries to circumvent the problem by turning The Dark Knight into a didactic meditation on terrorism or a vehicle for its catch phrase, "You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain." However, terrorism loses its contemporary salience when exploited for plot and entertainment purposes, and Nolan seems reluctant to subject his protagonist to the implications of a dubious aphorism or to explore adequately the transformation of his less fortunate foil, Harvey Dent. Because each character serves as a mouthpiece for Nolan's ideas rather than a living manifestation of his themes, even a cast of capable actors cannot save some of the more unconvincing scenes. In the film's best moments, the camera lingers over a face or a cityscape and allows the image to transcend the script. Sadly, such moments are few and far between. Nolan reminds us that the Batman legend will always fail as social commentary because it focuses on allegorical, larger-than-life individuals while relegating the masses to cowering factions of homogenized corruption, selfishness, or ineptitude. Such a perspective underestimates humanity, which is lost in the frenetic whirl of action sequences on screen.

I agree with the critics who lambasted 'Beyond Borders', a film with the intellectual depth of an infomercial that portrays starving children to elicit donations. Similarly, the filmmakers' methods undermine their intentions, if their intentions were in fact as noble as many of the other reviewers here seem to think. If they sought to inspire viewer sympathy and support, the filmmakers succeeded. Personally, I feel for the extras exploited in the film, and I support any viewer who stopped watching within the first hour.

If this were merely Angelina Jolie's latest bit of entertaining fluff, I could forgive the film for its shortcomings as a star vehicle designed to exhibit the actress' ample charms. Here, however, Jolie is cast in a serious role as a UN relief worker whose only contributions to the relief effort appear to be her wealth, her compassion, and her ability to strike a pose during a bad situation. I could almost hear Isaac Misrahi cooing at Jolie's miraculously kempt appearance and missionary-chic ensembles. Are we meant to applaud Sarah (Jolie) for not wearing perfume after Nick's ridicule, even when we can see faint traces of mascara on her drooping eyelids as she broods in Chechnya? The attention to Sarah's impeccable appearance detracts from a film that seemingly condemns such superficial concerns in light of human suffering throughout the world. Moreover, it contributes to the overall hypocrisy of a movie meant to galvanize social reflection and reaction through the didactic speeches of its belligerent protagonist Nick (Clive Owen), while exhibiting remarkable indifference to the objectification of the nameless victims that suffer and die in the film so that our love is not for them, but for the named heroes who suffer and die out of pity.

In 'Beyond Borders', the world is a simple place in which the problems of Chechnya, Cambodia, and Ethiopia are conflated to represent Third World issues for which compassion is the panacea. Perhaps if this were true, I could appreciate Sarah's sudden ill-conceived trip to Ethiopia at the beginning of the movie, thus precipitating her future involvement with the UN. Why not admire her for responding to Nick's impassioned plea for more funding at a dinner in London when her peers are cruel and apathetic? For starters, the fact that she is so moved by one incident is more indicative of her obliviousness before the pivotal event than any admirable quality attributed to her reactionary social conscience. Amidst her tears, Nick's speech, and the audience's jeers, a little boy is humiliated to make a point. Worse, a fracas ensues, and his separation from Nick leads to the boy's demise. Sarah's journey to Ethiopia is as senseless as his death, but 'Beyond Borders' seemingly justifies these events by implying that irrationality is at the heart of all worthwhile endeavors. Nick, after all, is as irrational as Sarah. In his recklessness and outrage at the human suffering he encounters as a Third World doctor, Nick is an ineffective negotiator and fundraiser. He is subsequently forced to resort to an uneasy alliance with an insipid trafficker in weaponry and other questionable goods. His actions lead to plot complications involving the relief workers, but the social consequences for the local populations they endeavor to help remain unexplored. Even when Nick later expresses his guilt over the little boy's death, I wonder if we are meant to feel sorry for him or the boy.

Nick is the cynical foil for Sarah's naïve idealist, but, predictably, the initial hostility between them turns to attraction. It's inevitable, I suppose, that the two beautiful do-gooders exchange a few clichéd remarks about the state of the world before tumbling into bed. First, however, they share meaningful glances during Sarah's short stay in Ethiopia. The shipment of provisions she brings with her lasts only a few days, and as her only occupation involves feeding milk to an extremely malnourished boy whom she rescued from certain death, she leaves. Her bedside vigil earns her the respect of the relief workers, but the film does not question the outcome of her actions. It becomes apparent that Sarah's act, along with her mediocre piano playing, is supposed to endear her to Nick. Never mind that her efforts are short-lived and that she abandons the now motherless child to suffer the cruelties of a prolonged existence alone.

What more can we expect from a film that suggests food shortages are the root of famine, evil is the cause of war, and apathy is the sole impediment to social change? If only things were so simple. One of the many problems facing relief efforts is that policymakers are unwilling to explore and fund long-term solutions that have enduring consequences but less immediate results, and thus this film, in its glorification of thoughtless emotion and quick solutions, actually hinders such efforts. Moreover, its neocolonial view of the locals in Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Chechnya as savage criminals or helpless victims is derogatory and condescending. These are not people, but stereotypes ripped from the headlines of sensationalist magazines.

This film contends that Sarah, in her facile understanding of the situations she encounters, can somehow rescue the world from its own depravity by accompanying trucks carrying needed supplies across ravaged terrain. What ethnocentric, ignorant conceit to think that she could provide aid without adequate knowledge of the local languages, people, or customs! Then again, all Third World countries are the same in their shared devastation, and Sarah cares, right? Good intentions are no excuse for inexcusable actions or bad film-making. Why doesn't Sarah combat poverty in London or address the needs of her family, which she abandons to endanger her life in reckless pursuit of Nick? The answer's obvious: Then there would be no tragic soap opera against an exotic backdrop of human suffering. It is unfortunate that Sarah and Nick need the exploitation of others to add meaning to their bland love story.