BACK TO THE FUTURE

MOVIE
Terminator: Dark Fate
Linda Hamilton, Arnold Schwarzenegger
Director Tim Miller
Review Ray Chan

The classic Terminator franchise graces our screens once again, bringing along with it the premise from the first chapter, in which sentient, almost invulnerable machines take over the Earth but find resistance in the human rebellion that is led effectively by an enigmatic leader. 
    The solution the robots devise is for them to send a ‘terminator’ back in time to ensure the saviour is never born, by killing the person believed to be the mother: a young human woman named Dani (Natalia Reyes).

    This sequel – the sixth instalment after three ill-received forays into a rebooted universe – rehashes the concept, but while the story might seem familiar, it’s not tired nor stale.
    This time round, in the machine-ruled future, a new powerful shape-changing automaton, the Rev-9 (played by Gabriel Luna), has been dispatched to the past to carry out the assassination.
    Not to be undone, the humans have their secret weapon in the form of the mechanically enhanced Grace (a lean and lithe Mackenzie Davis), who is also relayed to the present day to keep Dani alive.
    In trying to avoid capture, they encounter legendary Terminator-eliminator Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), no longer a damsel in distress; she's now older and irritable, greyer and grimmer, but just as kick-ass fantastic.
    Indeed, Hamilton steals the show with a magical performance as the unflappable, determined wonder warrior, who’s become as iconic a female protagonist as Sigourney Weaver in Aliens or Jamie Lee Curtis in the Halloween series.
    The tenacious trooper even appropriates – and owns – Arnold Schwarzenegger’s immortal line, “I’ll be back”.
    And speaking of Arnie, he IS back: as a model T-800 Terminator who has surprisingly developed a human conscience, been living a normal life with a family, and started a drapery business.
    The sheer absurdity of such a scenario ensures that Arnie gets most of the good lines and provides unexpected comic value amidst all the bloodletting of the first hour.
    Cal, as he is named, teams up with the female triumvirate to hunt down the Rev-9, despite Connor’s revulsion at working with the enemy.
    Slowly and surely, Cal appears to win her over with his demeanour, contrition, and signs of humanity. In a poignant moment, as the cyborg anticipates impending doom while contemplating putting on his trademark sunnies, he tells his partner and son: “I WON’T be back”.
    Of course, all-out battle between the opposing forces has been a staple of all Terminator films, and in that regard, Dark Fate‘s action scenes don’t disappoint. In this age of CGI though, you’d expect nothing less.

    Yet even though they are well crafted, at times it does feel as if there are too many unnecessary sequences, such as a prolonged underwater skirmish.

    In any case, they aren’t the main reason to see the movie.
    It really is all about Hamilton, reprising the role that helped make her career, and who delivers a grizzled action movie heroine unlike anything we've ever seen before.
    This contrasts perfectly with Schwarzenegger, who brings a warmth and oddball charm to his T-800 persona.
    The chemistry between the two is dynamite, and reminds us why they made such a lasting impression when they first appeared together almost 30 years ago.



#terminatordarkfate 

BRAINLESS FUN

MOVIE
Zombieland: Double Tap
Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Abigail Breslin, Emma Stone
Director Ruben Fleischer
Review Ray Chan

IT’S hard to believe that it’s been 10 years since the original Zombieland broke new ground with a hilarious jaunt through the undead apocalypse.
    Remarkably, the four principal cast members return for the sequel looking hardly worse for wear, but they’re certainly wiser, having accrued either Oscar nominations or, in Stone's case, winning the coveted award itself in the intervening decade.
    With such a stellar group, it’s not surprising to see that the palpable chemistry within the fearsome and funny foursome has remained, although with Breslin’s Little Rock character excised from the group for most of the film, it sometimes feels like a vital part of the recipe is missing.
    Thankfully, you don’t need to have seen the forerunner – or if you’ve forgotten what transpired – to understand the basic premise of Eisenberg’s nerdy Columbus, Harrelson’s redneck Tallahasee and Stone (Wichita) and Breslin’s sister act banding together in a world infected with zombies.
    The creatures, it turns out, have evolved over time: now there are slow, stumbling corpses dubbed “Homers,” slightly more cunning flesh-eaters referred to as “Hawkings” (after Stephen), and hardier, almost invulnerable ones named after Terminator androids.
    Once again, the proceedings are narrated by Columbus, who acknowledges the passing of time by quipping “back for seconds?”
    His prodigious list of survival rules has become longer, often playfully emblazoned in the background, and the “zombie kill of the week” cutaways are still intact.
    It’s definitely a sequel that revives all the hits, but one that is embellished by two new additions: a chirpy blonde named Madison (Zoey Deutch) who’s been waiting out the “acropolis” in a walk-in freezer at a deserted shopping mall, and Rosario Dawson’s Nevada, the whiskey-drinking proprietor of an Elvis-themed hotel, who is as smart and savvy as Madison is dumb and ditzy.
    Indeed, Madison is such an annoyance for Tallahassee (Harrelson), that he proclaims “she’s still alive because zombies eat brains, and she doesn’t have any”.
    The storyline focuses on the group’s cross-country trip to find Little Rock, who ventures out on her own after meeting guitar-playing, Kumbaya-singing Berkeley (Avan Joglia).
    As if the notion of hearing that the girl he treats as his daughter has embarked on a romantic journey wasn’t terrible enough, the discovery that Berkeley is both a musician and a pacifist is enough to send Tallahassee into a rage, a performance capped off by Harrelson’s wonderful facial expressions.
    The climax takes place in a hippie peace-loving commune called Babylon, where weapons and survival skills are traded in for drum circles, patchouli, and bags of weed, and where Little Rock and Berkeley have sought sanctuary.
    When the enclave is attacked on by hordes of zombies, there’s no paucity of carnage in the ensuing free-for-all – nor in fact, throughout the entire movie – with plenty of Matrix-esque slo-mo gunplay, rotting dead walkers and multiple exploding heads aimed at raising the mirth level.
    And therein lies perhaps a moral conundrum: is it right to so blatantly slam the peaceniks while glorifying, and enjoying, the violence championed by Tallahassee? Can society just passively sit back and accept an attitude that makes light of such extreme aggression?
    But then again, people who don't appreciate the over-the-top scenes of brutality and bloodshed for the exaggerated caricatures that they are, probably won’t be lining up at the cinema for this anyway.
    If you do go, make sure you stay till the very end (and that means during and after the credits) for a call-back to the first chapter that’ll probably send you home grinning from ear to ear.


#zombieland2  @sonypicturesaus

NO LAUGHING MATTER

MOVIE
Joker
Joaquin Phoenix, Robert De Niro
Director Todd Phillips
Review Ray Chan

WHILE the focus of this movie is on a jokester, it is in essence one of the most depressing of the year.
    The writer who brings us this masquerade, Todd Phillips, uses the fact that little is known of the iconic Batman villain’s origins to fashion a grim and compelling story about the making of a monster - one in which, much like the clown’s own garish make-up, a mask of angst, anxiety and a liberal dose of ambiguity covers the narrative.
    The central character is Arthur Fleck (Joaquin Phoenix), a struggling comedian beset by some inner demons and a Tourette’s-level compulsion to laugh at random moments, and who lives with his infirm mother Penny (Frances Conroy) in a Gotham City wracked by crime, class warfare and increasing dissatisfaction with the law: in short, pretty much the same sort of desolate metropolis that has been shown over the decades in the theatres and comic books.
    During the day, Arthur ekes out a living as a rent-a-clown at an agency where one of his peers loans him a handgun for protection.
    When he is assaulted by a group of drunk men on the subway, the firearm is employed in defence, empowering him and enabling his dark alter ego to emerge.
    The rage behind the epiphanous moment is fuelled as misfortune upon misfortune falls upon him through no fault of his own, including discovering that he may be the illegitimate, abandoned son of wealthy businessman Thomas Wayne (who, of course, is father of Bruce, AKA Batman himself); a possibility denounced by the tycoon, who claims Penny was deranged.
    The metamorphosis into madman is complete after Arthur is invited onto late night TV host Murray Franklin (Robert De Niro)’s show as a guest, during which he liberates his pent-up frustrations of the system to full effect, making him a champion of protesting and angry disenfrachised communities.
    Confusingly, many of the revelations in the film are initially shown to be the product of Arthur’s delusion, but then later details suggest he may not have been making them all up after all.
    Arthur strikes up an apparent relationship with his neighbour Sophie (Zazie Beetz), but viewers are eventually shown each scene she’s been in with her presence removed, indicating that they were all imaginary.
    Sophie’s final fate also remains unclear. After Arthur breaks into her apartment and confronts her, what happens next, again, is open to interpretation, as the line between fact and fancy continues to be obfuscated.
    Similarly, when Arthur is told that Penny was herself mentally unsound, we see her young version being interrogated in Arkham Asylum, where she is accused of neglecting her adopted son.
    And yet, as if to tease the viewers, Phillips shows Arthur looking at an old photo of Penny that’s been signed affectionately by one “TW”, leaving the door open for the tantalising possibility that the Bat and his arch-nemesis are indeed half-brothers.
    By leaving so many questions unanswered, Joker undermines its own chance at making a statement.
    In a movie about less fortunate people being ignored by society, surely it would have been more poignant to reveal with certainty that its impoverished main character was a billionaire’s son.
    The film doesn’t gain anything by leaving this possibility, or Sophie’s destiny, unclarified. And indeed, there is the same element of doubt over the closing scenes before the fade to black.
    That exchange between hitting the audience over the head and withdrawing completely doesn’t provide any sense of enrichment, but instead opens up too many loose ends, neglecting to bring them all to a conclusion.
    Indeed, could it all have just been a dream, mirroring the vague climax of, perhaps intentionally, De Niro's Taxi Driver, upon which Phillips had based his screenplay?
    We can’t leave the review without mentioning Phoenix, of course.
    It’s no exaggeration to claim this as a career-defining performance, by one of the best character actors of his generation.
    The actor never flinches, as he brings Arthur to life via contortions and convulsions in a nuanced dance that flits through humanity to a state of virtuoso insanity.
    As mentioned at the start, this is not a feel-good cinematic experience. But any discomfort or objections to the film may be tempered by the uncomfortable realisation, that most people, under provocation, are capable of some pretty terrible things.


#joker# #buzzmarketing#

STYLE OVER SUBSTANCE

MOVIE
Gemini Man
Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Benedict Wong
Director Ang Lee
Review Ray Chan


THE script for Gemini Man was first bandied around in 1997, when the likes of Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford and Tom Cruise were touted as possible leads.
    And the fact that it’s taken so long for a movie to materialise turns out to be a blessing, for it allows the story to be told using the most advanced 3D technology available, transforming this action/adventure offering into an almighty visual spectacle.
    Gemini Man casts Will Smith as two characters: Henry Brogan, a retired hitman who just wants to spend the rest of his days in a sleepy fishing village, and Junior, a younger clone of himself who has been tasked with hunting him down and killing him after his assassin agency turns against him.
    The whole novelty of the movie revolves round the two versions of the same actor, who are so equally matched that their fight scenes together end up being brutal stalemates.
    But can you imagine how poorly this would have looked if it had been filmed two decades ago? The current special effects repository available to director Ang Lee ensures that the clone looks truly like a genuine fresh prince from Bel-Aire, while the high frame rates employed make the action scenes shine in all their glory.
    Everything is clear and incandescent, whether it’s a rooftop shootout, spectacularly choreographed parkour ballets or a motorcycle chase in broad daylight, or a savage brawl in skull-lined catacombs lit only by the flashlight on a gun.
    Groundbreaking graphics aside, Smith plays the older and wiser protagonist well, reinforcing his status as a more-than-capable A-list actor, while benefiting from strong supporting roles by Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Benedict Wong.
    The let-down is the script in general, which is composed of oft-risible dialogue, cursory characterisation, and tired international espionage plots: while the premise may have been fresh in the 90s, it's now weary to see yet another adventure of a once-decorated hero pursued by his former government employers.
    Still, it’s a fun bit of popcorn entertainment, with the storyline pretty much conveyed in a linear style that doesn’t shoot off into various tangents that require the viewer to work hard in piecing them together.
    The tricks and tech make this movie worth the price of admission alone, even if the substance doesn’t quite approach the grandeur of the style.

#geminiman  #nrccommunications