SWIMMINGLY GOOD FUN

MOVIE

Aquaman
Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Nicole Kidman
Director James Wan

Review Ray Chan

When it comes to finding a formula for successful super-hero movies, it's been the Marvel Comics line of characters that has kept raising the bar to new heights.

    But the DC Extended Universe appears to have picked up its game in recent times. Wonder Woman, with its female lead, a terrific script and an underlying sense of optimism, remains a critical success, and now Aquaman, spearheaded by Jason Momoa, very clearly follows in its footsteps.

    The fundamental plot of the film follows the sea king's comic book origin closely. It begins with Atlanna (a suitably majestic and nobly powerful Nicole Kidman), the ousted queen of the undersea realm of Atlantis, washed up on the shore around a lighthouse kept by lonely Tom Curry (Temuera Morrison). There's a lovely little tribute to the Gerry Anderson underwater marionette TV show Stingray as Tom brings Atlanna into his home, and they eventually produce a son Arthur, destined to unite the surface world with the sub-aquatic territories.

    But that won’t happen if Aquaman’s half brother, Orm (Patrick Wilson), also Atlanna's son but to a different father, has anything to say about it. Orm rallies Atlantis to wage war on terra firma because of the way humans have dumped garbage into the ocean, polluted it with oil spills, and encouraged climate change, which is killing ocean life. While Orm's regarded as the movie's villain, it also seems he has a valid point when he accuses land-dwellers of starting the battle.

    Enter Mera (Amber Heard), a warrior, a sorceress, daughter of a king, and also betrothed to Orm against her wishes. At the behest of Atlantean chief scientist Vulko (William Dafoe), she seeks out Arthur to convince him to take his rightful place on the throne. 

    Thrown into the mix is Black Manta (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), another character from the comics. His motivation to kill Aquaman comes from an earlier incident when Aquaman refused to rescue his pirate father from a sinking submarine, leaving him to perish, claiming “You killed innocent people. Let the seas judge you.” 

    This sequence breaks new ground. Heroes, by definition, or at least the comic book code, do not kill. So Aquaman's action clearly goes against tradition, although perhaps the fledging fighter doesn’t consider himself a hero at that stage, and it gives him a character arc to grow into. But it certainly also gives Manta a legitimate reason for revenge.

    Aquaman's powers include super-strength and the ability to communicate with marine life, which is taken seriously and used creatively, whether he's talking with sharks, whales or even HP Lovecraft-inspired creatures. Mera, as in the comic books, can manipulate water, and uses her powers to great effect.

    Making the movie more breathtaking is the focus on the seven kingdoms which make up Atlantis, and particularly their inhabitants, which include crab-like creatures, merpeople, and angler-fish beings. The battle sequences between opposing armies as Aquaman marshals various denizens of the deep on his trusty sea-horse are some of the movie's most enduring, and a testament to the creative genius of Perth-raised director James Wan, famous for his Saw, Conjuring and Furious 7 movies.

    Wan balances the enormity of the special effects and heaviness of the more explosive depictions cleverly with doses of humour throughout, such as in the banter between Aquaman and Mera, or in various scenes throughout the movie, such as an octopus playing drums (a nod to Aquaman's comic book pet Topo), or luminous jellyfish adorning Mera's costume.

    (Incidentally, Wan isn't the only Perth connection. Local actress Sophia Forrest plays the part of a princess of the Fishermen tribes.)

    Through it all, Momoa flexes his muscles as the camera objectifies his presence in a way that is usually restricted to women. Indeed, the first shot of the adult Arthur has him tossing his ringletty curls playfully as he looks at us over one tattooed shoulder, eyebrow raised, and asks permission to come aboard. 

    Yet, while his swaggering charisma is as formidable as his brawn, he is also the incarnation of the super-hero as a regular dude. For most of his exploits, he’s in tattered jeans as he counters the flowery speech of the other Atlanteans with macho quips, giving little doubt that what he most wants in the world is a cold pint at his local bar. 

    Momoa interacts well with Heard, in particular in a superbly choreographed chase scene in a Sicilian village. Kidman, meanwhile, actually almost steals the show with her portrayal of the regal, ass-kicking matriarch, a marked diversion from the usual characters she has played of late.

    All in all, there's much to like in this movie, which very much fits into the mould of a Marvel Universe production. And like a Marvel movie, it leaves us with a cliffhanger after the first run of credits, that teases a not-quite-unexpected twist which sets up the sequel’s story with neat efficiency. 

    As with Wonder Woman, the  movie is about a character coming to terms with his place in the world, a film that earnestly embraces its more ludicrous tropes, and a sprawling epic that makes DC universe movies worth watching again. Now if only they can stop trying to make everything super-serious, return the fun to Superman and avoid portraying Batman as a serial-killer-in-training. 

#aquaman #jasonmomoa

ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROMA

MOVIE
ROMA
Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira
Director Alfonso Cuaron

Review Ray Chan

When movie critics get together, chances are they will talk about Roma. Alfonso Cuaron’s production has been lauded as the most beautiful cinematic release made in recent times, registering near universal acclaim on even the most hardened of review websites.

    Some point out that it’s more style than substance. Certainly, moviegoers will be immediately  enveloped in the sweeps employed by the Academy Award-winning director's visual technique, which brings a majesty to the widescreen that entices with its sheer lavishness and attention to detail.

    There’s just so much to see in every individual composition and each new vignette: a plane flies across the sky in the reflection of a window in soap suds; a panaromic span of a rural countryside reveals people going about their business while a circus performer is shot from a cannon; a family outing at a picnic carries us through to a scene where men and women alike participate in a spot of recreational shooting, guns clasped in hands like budding secret agents.

    Images are captured from angles that make each still a resplendent study of art, enhanced by the decision to shoot the movie in black and white, granting it that timeless quality and edge which work to snare the viewer’s attention.

    Time will tell if it’s a masterpiece with qualifying asterisks, or simply a masterwork, full stop. But for this reviewer, it casts a definite enchantment and describes a specific period, place and collection of Cuaron’s personal memories in ways that will resonate with millions.

    Taking place in 1970, the story is set in the Colonia Roma district where Cuaron grew up, during a period wracked by civil unrest. The era is also clearly stamped by a soundtrack of the times, from various Latin American favourites to the biggest English hit of the year in the country (Christie’s Yellow River), and references to Creedence and the Beatles.

    The picture is based around the nanny who helped raise Cuaron. The movie’s  version of that housekeeper, Cleo, is played wonderfully by newcomer Yalitza Aparicio, whose warm, loyal presence becomes the central focus.

    The maid looks after the household of Sofia (Marina De Tavira) in a middle-class adobe which accommodates four children, one grandmother, another servant, one regularly defecating canine, some caged birds and a husband who later absconds to Acapulco with his mistress. 

    Cleo eventually loses her virginity to a restive young man (Jorge Antonio Guerrero) devoted to martial-arts training and so disturbed by Cleo’s resultant pregnancy that he disowns mother and child.  A few days later, as the family spends New Year’s Eve with relatives in a country hacienda, a forest fire erupts, forcing the men to try and douse the flames as the women continue to sip their champagnes. Again, all this is told in slow, smart pans of the camera.

    Indeed, Roma drifts from incident to incident, involving earthquakes, street protests,  Cleo’s arrival at hospital to deliver the baby, where tragedy awaits, and a rescue that bonds the family and Cleo ever tighter. Cuaron’s technical prowess and profound artistic vision combine to ensure that, while we’re with Cleo every step of the way, we always get to see the streets, the countryside, the world around her, and other minutiae, suggesting many other stories yet to be told.

    With such powerful and breathtaking imagery, it’s easy to overlook the lack of an actual narrative in the movie. It’s basically a chapter in the life of a Mexican maid, but Cuaron has assuredly turned these adventures into a marvel of craft and one of the year’s very finest achievements.

   The use of water is a recurring device in the film, from the calming opening scenes of a floor being lathered, to rainy weather in the city, to Cleo’s pregnancy waters breaking, and culminating in the waves of a tempestuous sea. 

    Oceans often represent obstacles or abysses from which things emerge, or that characters must journey across to reach a destination. Water generally cleanses, however, and it inevitably becomes a symbol of characters handling difficult life scenarios. Both aspects are exemplified as Cleo and Sofia come to grips with their respective predicaments.

    Without a doubt, Roma rewards your time sublimely. It’s showing both in the theatres and also via Netflix on TV, but really, watching it on as wide an aspect ratio as possible maximises its grandeur. 

    Cuaron won an Oscar for directing Gravity, the movie about astronauts stranded in space. Co-written by Cuaron, it was inspired by the 1969 movie Marooned, to which homage is paid in one of the scenes from Roma. It’ll surely be no surprise to see this epic earn him another accolade at the 91st Academy Awards in February.

#roma  #cuaron

DELIGHT OF THE BUMBLEBEE

MOVIE
Bumblebee
Hailee Steinfeld, John Cena, Jorge Lendeborg Jr., John Ortiz
Director Travis Knight
Review Ray Chan

As his Wikipedia entry proclaims, director Michael Bay has become synonymous with big-budget action productions characterised by stylistic visuals and extensive use of special effects, “including frequent depictions of explosions”.
    Over more than a decade, he has suffused the Transformers films with his discordant brand that often involved lengthy scenes of mass destruction: sensory divertissements that had more in common with high-speed amusement rides in mosh pits than what we would otherwise consider customary, cinematic storytelling. 
     But Bumblebee, refreshingly, is quite unlike its predecessors. New director Travis Knight shows that there’s no need to traverse the route of spectacular crash-bang effects to effectively sell the concept of alien beings that can morph into machines.
    Some cynics might suggest that’s not difficult, since storytelling consistency and half-decent character development are probably all that are needed to better the tedious array of antecedents. 
    In Bumblebee’s case, this false praise would be a travesty of justice, for it truly is a solid and satisfying movie that melds action, humour, and characterisation, and with enough pathos to establish a clear connectivity with the audience. 
    Justifiably so, Knight’s new era re-tells the origin of the Transformers, taking us back to the planet Cybertron, where the civilisation of sentient robots is in the middle of a savage war with the attacking band of Decepticons.
    Recognising imminent defeat, Transformers leader Optimus Prime signals a hasty retreat for his armies of Autobots and commands a soldier to flee to Earth to prepare the planet to become the resistance’s new base of operations.
    The black-and-yellow automaton crashes in the thick of a military exercise, led by Agent Jack Burns (John Cena), which quickly escalates into a robot hunt, as the alien, demonstrating a mix of fear and curiosity,  desperately flees his pursuers, trying to avoid harming them while evading capture. 
    Unfortunately for the Autobot, a Decepticon duly arrives to confront him. In the battle that ensues, the Transformer manages to destroy his attacker, but not before his voice box is ripped out, his memory erased, and his shell converted into a beat-up Volkswagen Beetle as a defense mechanism.
    Eventually ending up in a car yard, the dormant apparatus gets acquired by teenage amateur mechanic Charlie Watson (Hailee Steinfeld), who’s still mourning the death of her father. The iron giant that can also become a convenient compact car immediately becomes her new best friend, but not before it demonstrates feelings of insecurity, a willingness to assimilate, and a child-like innocence.
    The pair bond and enter a series of comic misadventures, giving the movie a more interesting and entertaining resonance than the other mega-serious Transformers offerings. Eventually they battle two more Decepticons, who have arrived on Earth and duped the US army with their intentions in a bid to flush out the Autobot, now renamed Bumblebee by Charlie.
    At its essence, the movie is about finding one’s purpose and voice (for Bumblebee, this is literal; for Charlie, symbolic). Certainly, the delightful chemistry between the two has given the franchise its buzz back, pun intended. They have ample opportunity to learn important lessons, prove their heroism and save the world, even as their efforts point to more ominous adventures on the horizon.
    As always, Optimus Prime appears at the end to deliver his preachy, Adam West-esque monologue, a speech that actually blends in well with the more light-hearted nature of the film.
    Bumblebee fits nicely in the family action genre, laced with genuine and good-humoured performances, and direction that finally makes the Transformers characters feel real. The screenplay by Christina Hodson embraces the familiar structure of classic magical sidekick movies such as Pete’s Dragon, E.T. and even another Beetle accomplice in Herbie, complete with an obligatory scene where our hero looks as if he’s expired, but in which everyone just knows he will recover.
    As an aside, the decision to portray Bumblebee as a mid-'60s Volkswagen Bug may seem like a strange choice to some, but this model was the character’s original configuration in early stages of the Transformers timeline before it became the more muscular Chevrolet Camaro in later sequels, an evolution which is acknowledged at movie’s end and will surely delight hardcore Transformers fans. 
    All in all, Knight shines like his proverbial namesake, letting the adventure take flight into a joyous orbit, floating like a butterfly and stinging like a bumblebee. With Paramount’s planned Transformers 7 project shelved for now, this character could represent the studio’s next best chance to extend the franchise, particularly if it doesn’t detour from the motion picture motorway it’s travelling on.

#bumblebeemovie