DOPPELGANGER DRAMA

MOVIE
Us
Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke
Director Jordan Peele
Review Ray Chan

After comedian-turned-filmmaker Jordan Peele earned an Oscar for debut feature film Get Out, the expectations were high for his follow-up.
    Early reviews of that movie, Us, have been overwhelmingly positive, and it’s a pleasure to report that it's easy to see why. There’s no sophomore slump to be found here, and Peele remains one of the most exciting American filmmakers to come around in a long time.
    Us is a 1970s-inspired horror flick that wears its references on its sleeve and crawls with terror and tension, a melodrama which throws up philosophical questions about existence and identity. 
    Our unsuspecting picture-perfect American family is the Wilsons: Gabe (Winston Duke), Adelaide (Lupita Nyong’o) and their children, Zora and Jason. They arrive in Santa Cruz, California, at their family summer home ready to enjoy the beach town — even though Adelaide is troubled by disturbing memories of her childhood there, when she eerily confronted a doppelganger of herself.
    But they go anyway to keep up appearances and impress their affluent friends. Adelaide's fears are realised when a strangely identical version of the Wilson family — clad in red jumpsuits and wielding sharp scissors — shows up in their driveway one night, causing her cold sweats to flow profusely. It proves to be not just a physical invasion, but one of the soul as well. 
    As both Adelaide and Red, the matriarch of the photocopied Wilson family and leader of the attack, Nyong’o anchors the film with a spellbinding and bone-rattling dual performance. Red is a horror hall-of-fame scary mommy as unnerving as any you’ve ever seen. Her presence becomes even more menacing when it's revealed she is the mastermind of a whole tribe of community copycats.
    Peele, meanwhile, demonstrates a mastery over film-making craft and tone much in the same way he did with Get Out. His elegant command of cinematic grammar build slow, lurking dread, and the surprisingly melancholy mood he captures in the film’s more reflective passages provokes a deeper response than just cursory shrieks of fear.
    But while the script for Get Out, with its clever allegories and visual prompts, felt like a tightly wound watch with gears all in place, Us feels messier because of its bigger and broader plane. 
    The director has widened his scope from one small hamlet’s terrible secret to the entire country, dabbling in ideas of governmental mind control and total societal collapse. It alludes to people being treated as test subjects, symbolised by the recurring use of rabbits in laboratory cages. 
    In doing so, it doesn't settle on a central focus, drifting between a home-invasion thriller, an apocalypse film, a zombie movie, to an identity crisis. It’s impressive that Us manages to be all those things with finesse and style, but it feels as if it hasn’t fully gelled yet. There's a twist ending which half satisfies because it opens up questions which don't have immediate answers. 
    The Wilsons' envy of a richer family emulates the hunger suffered by the duplicates. It is a story about whether all our fortunes or happiness requires the privation of others. It's about what it’s like to covet a tiny object from the universe — in the movie, items like a stuffed rabbit, or lipstick — and never get it. 
    It seems a clear message from Peele to the people of his homeland. Indeed, reflecting the dualism theme, there's a dichotomy to the name of the movie itself, with Us a clear reference to the United States. It invites Americans to not only look at the film Us, but to then “look at us” figuratively. This is a movie about divided selves in a divided nation with no clear resolution, forcing viewers to leave the theatre with their fears intact.

#Usmovie

BRICKS IN SPACE

MOVIE
The Lego Movie: The Second Part
Chris Pratt, Emily Banks, Will Arnett
Director Mike Mitchell
Review Ray Chan

The first Lego movie ended up being one of the most wholesome hits of 2014, to the surprise of many, so much so that a sequel to the adventures of optimistic everyman Emmett (voiced by Chris Pratt) always seemed a foregone conclusion.
    The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part has followed real time and is therefore set five years later, when things have changed dramatically for the residents of Bricksburg. The city has been laid to waste by confrontations with Duplo invaders from outer space, who wreck everything faster than the Lego legions can rebuild it.
    Everyone's now living in a dystopian setting, where all the characters have become dark and brooding, apart from Emmet, who is still happily singing about how “Everything Is Awesome”. But his demeanour is upset when the aliens from the Systar system end up taking girlfriend Lucy, Batman and all of Emmet's other friends, leaving him to find a way to save them and stop the so-called Our-mom-ageddon (the genesis of which is revealed later in the story).
    On his journey to the Duplo homeworld, Emmet teams up with Rex Dangervest, a galaxy-defending archaeologist, cowboy and raptor trainor, who's basically an amalgamation of Pratt's post-Lego roles. It's a clever tongue-in-cheek nod at the the contrast between Pratt's Parks and Recreations' good-natured Andy Parks character, and his more recent dabblings with dinosaurs and galactic guardians.
    We're introduced to a new batch of characters from Systar, including an upbeat vampire DJ, a sentient ice cream cone, and the Duplo queen Watevra Wa'nabi, who can transform into anything she wants. She introduces herself through the song "Not Evil", in which she dispels any ulterior motives on her part.
    Indeed, the movie contains more than its fair share of musical numbers. Some fall flat but others work well, such as "This song is gonna get stuck inside your head", which it certainly does.
    As in the first Lego film (and the Batman one, which earned bouquets for the brick Bats), writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller excel in their unique brand of self-referential humour, with characters ranging from various DC heroes to Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Bruce Willis. There's also another real world lesson mirroring the events in the film, this time involving sibling rivalry and conveying the message of learning to get along with one another when things aren't really awesome.
    It's worth noting that the chief appeal of the Lego movies has always been in watching the plastic playthings come to life. It's a delight to see how the Lego builders face up to new modelling challenges, particularly with ephemeral constructs such as smoke, clouds, water and fire. In this movie, the futuristic Mad Max-style vehicles and intergalactic vessels certainly exemplify terrific imagination and do not disappoint in their creativity.
    As it is though, with its recycled jokes and revisited tropes, the film can't help but highlight the fact that the original movie was, well, indeed quite original. That being said, it does fit snugly into the franchise with heaps of heart and humour, although many of the references are so adult-themed that they will not be understood by the younger viewers, whom one would assume are the chief demographic this offering is directed at.


#thelegomovie2 

SHE IS STRONG, SHE IS INVINCIBLE, SHE IS ...

MOVIE

Captain Marvel
Brie Larson, Samuel L Jackson, Jude Law
Directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck

Review Ray Chan

Set in 1995 before the Avengers were created, the movie tells the story of a test pilot from Earth named Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), who inadvertently absorbs cosmic powers and gets kidnapped by alien race the Kree to serve as a weapon on their home planet of Hala.
    Brainwashed of her memories, she gets captured by the Kree's enemy, the shape-shifting Skrulls, who, in probing her mind, trigger flashbacks to her time on Earth, or planet C-53, as the aliens call it.
    Danvers, referred to as Vers because that's all the name on her damaged dog tag reveals, manages to escape her captors and crash lands a spacecraft somewhere in the USA (like they always do). More specifically, she plummets into a Blockbuster video store, which of course were ubiquitous at the time. 
    (In a curious case of poignant timing, the movie opens in cinemas the same week as the second last Blockbuster in the world, situated here in Perth, shut its doors.)
    But this isn't the only time stamp for the period, as directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck throw in other reminders of an era when teenagers stomped to grunge music, Happy Days memorabilia abounded and Internet users still flocked to Alta Vista search engines.
    To find out more about her origins, Vers rediscovers herself with the help of her old pilot comrade, Maria Rambeau, and the young S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Coulson and Fury (Clark Gregg and Samuel L. Jackson, respectively), who are bound for greater glory in the future.  No doubt enhanced by a touch of CGI, the pair look suitably de-aged, with Jackson in particular standing out with his chubbier face, healthy crop of hair and two good eyes.
    Indeed, the character of Fury is one of youthful exuberance, untarnished by the darkness of the many inter-galactic adventures that are to befall him and that he will share with the batch of super-heroes that will emerge in the next decade. While in the present he is a jaded, grim, cold fish, here he even cuddles up to a friendly feline, whose presence ends up stealing the show.
    Ultimately, the crew work together to dodge the Skrulls (led by a Cockney-speaking Ben Mendelsohn) and, later, the mega-weaponised Kree, led by Yon-Rogg (Jude Law), both of whom are after a light-speed engine whose possessor will control the universe. 
    Rambeau, while helping Vers fill in the missing chapters of her life, refuses to give up her life on the farm to help fight the aliens. Unimpressed, her frizzy-haired daughter Monica chirps in with “Consider what kind of example you’re setting for your daughter!”, a line that will resonate well with audiences who know that, in the comics, Monica also ended up with the Captain Marvel mantle.
    While lots of superheroes feel conflicted about using their powers, this blonde bombshell is different. Inherently decent and with a sound moral compass, she still doesn’t hesitate to employ her super flight, photon blasts or invulnerable fists, but the whirlpool of action around her is so confusing that she’s not sure whom to trust, or whom to help.
    In the end, our heroine, adapting the name of her Kree mentor Mar-Vell, defeats one of the races while leading the other to safety at the far end of the galaxy. It's a journey that has resulted in her absence from planet C-53 for 23 years. But, as we have seen at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, old comrade Fury manages to send out a distress call to her to help out against Thanos, signalling the possiblity of this super-powered woman leading the charge against the near-omnipotent villain in the forthcoming Endgame conclusion.
     And that, in itself, is this movie's greatest triumph. In much the same way as Wonder Woman did, this film empowers women and gives them the leading light without pushing the message in everyone's face. Given the responsibility of reconstituting half the world's population, including many of its most charismatic heroes, Vers now wears the burden of saving the Marvel Universe. And that onus is on the shoulders of an Earthwoman whose manner is as ordinary as her power is extraordinary.
     “You have no idea who I am. I don’t even know who I am,” she says early in the movie in one of her battles.  But then that’s what’s best about Captain Marvel. The title is a metaphor for every woman — or even every person — who is trying to figure out how to harness their own power.
**By the way, look out for a loving tribute to Stan Lee at the start of the movie and a bittersweet cameo within. 

#captainmarvel

EYES WIDE OPEN

MOVIE

Alita: Battle Angel
Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz
Director Robert Rodriguez

Review Ray Chan

Alita: Battle Angel begins with cyborg doctor Dyson Ito (Christoph Waltz) sifting through a junkyard full of robotic spare parts in order to find anything he can use.
    If you're cynical, you might say that's symbolic of just what director Robert Rodriguez and co-writer/co-producer James Cameron did to piece this movie together: rummage through the remnants of established sci-fi properties in order to form a cohesive chronicle within the confines of its genre.
    Based on the manga work Gunnm, Alita adapts many visual cues and the narrative structure from a 1993 anime adaptation of the same name, which, though short, managed to pack in a sprawling cyberpunk universe with a rich and complex lore.
    In this movie, which plays over a much longer running time, the story follows Alita (Rosa Salazar), whose cyborg remains Dr. Ito finds during his scavenger hunt. He takes her back to his shop and gives her a body he once intended his daughter to wear. While her brain is human, the rest of her is artificial. She doesn’t remember her past, but has enough memory to retain supreme martial arts instincts, leading Ito to suspect a military history.
    The movie is set in a typically derivative dystopian era all too familiar now with futuristic settings, a dingy cross between the worlds of Dredd and Mad Max, a grimy post-apocalyptic city that’s also an overpopulated metropolis. And it's within this chaos that Cameron and Rodriguez try to cram some order with a myriad number of twists and turns.
    Looking over the grimy grounds below are elite communities who live in a utopian (even Elysian) city in the clouds that everyone on the surface yearns to reach one day. Believing that the junkyard is a disposal ground for broken cyborgs from this eye in the sky, Alita hopes to somehow travel there to learn more about herself.
    The overall plot of Alita trying to figure out her identity is muddled by her journey of turning into a bounty hunter while also being involved in a vicious game called Motorball, with the winners of tournaments granted a trip to the promised land that hovers like the stranded alien spaceship in District 9.
    It's in the fighting scenes that Battle Angel shines most. Rodriguez takes advantage of the fact that cyborgs aren't really human to exercise his penchant for gore while keeping within the PG confines, with hack-and-slash destructiveness that result in a significant amount of bodies split in half, decapitated and torn to pieces. The visceral intensity, reminiscent of the bloodlust seen in his movies like Machete and From Dusk Till Dawn, creates a visual spectacle, even if most of it is CGI-generated.
    And speaking of CGI, you will either love or hate the decision to retain Alita’s prominent eyes, so characteristic of the manga aesthetic. While it's clearly a tribute to the original anime, it just doesn't make sense because everyone else's visual orbs are “normal”.
    There's a love interest in the form of Hugo (Keean Johnson) to introduce a semblance of emotion in an otherwise action-oriented movie, but it seems to take more prominence than Alita's effort to merge with the rest of the community as the last of her kind.This short-changing of social introspection for shallow relationship melodrama is one of the film's low points.
    Ultimately, there are many plot lines left dangling to suggest that a sequel is inevitable. Whether viewers' appetites have been whetted enough to entice them to return for more of this unique combination of live action and CGI manga remains the true test.

#alita  #alitabattleangel

THIS BOOK IS NOT THE COVER

MOVIE
Mary Poppins Returns
Emily Blunt, Lin-Manuel Miranda
Director Rob Marshall

Review Ray Chan

Mary Poppins Returns could probably have been named Mary Poppins Repeats, for that would more accurately describe a movie which unashamedly attempts to mimic the magicness of the original by capturing all its feels, foibles, frolics and fantasy. 

    JJ Abrams went down the same track when he made Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which succeeded in recapturing the appeal of the landmark movie from which it spawned. That was some feat, for even George Lucas couldn’t replicate his own signature blend of space opera and television serials in his tired prequel trilogy.    
    But sometimes imitation can simply remain a form of flattery and nothing else. Unfortunately, despite director Rob Marshall's best of intentions, this remake needs a few spoonfuls of sugar to make it palatable.
    Granted, the bar was set very high. Mary Poppins is the most recognised live action musical in the Disney canon, backed by the unmatched melodies of the Sherman Brothers and stellar performances from Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke, even if the Cockney accent left much to be desired.
    This time round, another American is cast (Lin-Manuel Miranda of Hamilton fame), and he makes a much better fist of the Pommie pretense. He plays Jack, part of a legion of lamplighters who have apparently taken the place of chimney sweepers in this era, set some 20 years after the first movie.
    But beyond that, the plot is pretty much the same, and ultimately the copycat storyline isn’t robust enough to stand apart from the original.
    The Banks children are now grown up, and the recently-widowed Michael (Ben Whishaw) lives in the family home with his three children Anabel (Pixie Davies), John (Nathanael Saleh) and Georgie (Joel Dawson). The abode is threatened with foreclosure unless he and sister Jane (Emily Mortimer) can find the shares their father left behind to cover the cost of the mortgage.
    With the Banks family distraught, the English breezes blow in Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt), who takes it upon herself to look after the children while concealing their outings from their beleaguered dad.
    From there, if you've seen the original movie many times over, the proceedings are pretty much telegraphed, as Mary, Jack and the kids traipse through animated adventures while also helping the Banks siblings fight off the determined efforts of the bank to repossess the house.
    It goes without saying that no actress could ever emulate Julie Andrews, and a Mary Poppins film featuring her in any role other than the titular one would be practically imperfect in every way. Andrews was entirely correct in turning down a cameo role, providing Blunt freedom to create her own version of the character.
   She gives the character some extra pep, attitude and zestiness. Her singing voice, while not in the Andrews class, is more than capable of singing Can You Imagine That? (the equivalent to A Spoonful of Sugar), The Royal Doulton Music Hall (Jolly Holiday), A Cover Is Not the Book (Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious) and the lilting The Place Where Lost Things Go (Stay Awake).
    Interestingly, the songs themselves prove to be a mix of wit and woe. The Sherman Brothers were in a pedigree of their own when it came to crafting catchy, singalong tunes with memorable lyrics. Despite the valiant efforts of Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman (and even with Richard Sherman serving as a “consultant”), the melodies in the movie lack sufficient hooks and addictiveness to help them linger in the mind. On the other hand, many of the verses are very clever and well-written.
    Sticking too close to the original can also have other pitfalls, demonstrated none more so than in the Trip a Little Light Fantastic sequence. When Mary, Jack, and the kids join up with the lamplighters in a rousing number in the spirit of Step in Time, it falls flat. While it's obvious that Marshall had aimed for a spectacular showstopper of a scene, the choreography is confused and composed of predictable moves that seem to reference every well-known dance movie of the past.
    Then there is the mystery of Meryl. Remember Uncle Albert (Ed Wynn)? He provided a happy and enjoyable interlude in the first movie, rising to the rafters each time he laughed. The analog in the remake is someone named Cousin Topsy (Meryl Streep), who does little but sing a laborious ditty called Turning Turtle.
    In short, there’s almost a parallel counterpart for everything in the original, most of which don't work. There's not much difference in the plots to suggest this is anything but a direct retelling of its predecessor, albeit taking place in a different time period.
    Conversely though, when Marshall does try to veer away from the formula, it seems as if he tries too hard, by exaggerating the visual spectacle. So now it’s not merely snapping fingers to make toy blocks assemble, instead there’s a magical underwater world inside the bathtub.
    There are some notable cameos to look out for. Dick Van Dyke's appearance has been well-publicised, so it's not really a spoiler to mention him here.
   But see if you can spot Karen Dotrice, who played the original Jane. As Jack and the grown-up Jane chat outside the home, a woman (Dotrice) approaches them and asks for directions to 19, Cherry Tree Lane. When they simultaneously tell her it's two doors down, she politely replies, "Many thanks, sincerely", a nod to the song The Perfect Nanny from the first film.
    All that being said, the colourful palette and top-notch production values of Mary Poppins Returns, coupled with the much-improved animation of today and the merry routines, will definitely entertain newer generations of kids who've never seen the original, and whose enjoyment will not be diluted by inevitable comparisons.
    But for long-time Mary Poppins fans, the remake can be regarded as a filmic facsimile that didn't quite come off. It leaves them wanting more – or indeed, less – and some others, like this reviewer, will have a desire to pop in a DVD of the original movie for a rewatch.

#marypoppinsreturns

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

ESCAPE FROM REALITY

MOVIE
Bohemian Rhapsody
Rami Malek, Lucy Boynton
Review Ray Chan

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
    Viewers will have to make up their own minds about this biopic on Freddie Mercury, which promises a retelling of the life of the Queen frontman, but strangely delivers a healthy dose of false news as it does so.
    We meet Rami Malek, fitted with rabbity prosthetic buck teeth, as Farrokh Bulsara unloading luggage from planes. Within minutes he has upset his staunch Zanzibari family with his penchant for the night life, charmed his way into a struggling band of blokes with little personality, accidentally snapped his mic stand in half and thereby creating his trademark singing posture, named himself after a Roman god, and taken a slightly soporific girlfriend Mary Austin (Lucy Boynton) who will conclude he’s not heterosexual in the slightest, well before he does.
    The rise of the band is depicted with the same dizzying speed, as the newly coronated Queen starts to gain fame with its brand of glitzy, glamour rock. 
    The story takes an odd liberty with the facts when it reveals the group's first break was in the US, where among the songs it would play in live shows would be the cheeky Fat-Bottomed Girls, in reality a hit long after Queen had already been established as a bona fide star act.
    All in all, the band’s incandescent moments are duly brought out, from the operatic trills invoking Galileo and Bismillah, to the bassy throb of Another One Bites the Dust. But along the way, as Freddie and companions bitch and bicker and rock and roll, the general malaise in the way cliches are thrown in and character stereotypes are portrayed leads to a sense of indifference as to what might be turning up next.
    Michael Myer plays a nice part, looking like a dishevelled Jeff Lynne and is almost unrecognisable. He gives himself away with a classic one-liner, so watch out for it. There's also a moment when the screen swims with print, highlighting various cities and countries that the band played in as their fame spreads throughout the globe. Guess which Australian city is the only one that gets a mention.
    The movie tends to romp along inconsistently, spending too much time on inconsequential events and far too little on the issues of real interest.  Mercury’s complicated sexuality is left almost entirely off-screen and the rest of the band are merely musicians with mullets who have no charisma. 
    Almost the entire first half of the movie is dedicated to his love story with Austin, but his relationships with eventual life partner Jim Hutton (Aaron McCusker) is basically a footnote.
    On other hand, Mercury's first proper gay lover, roadie Paul Prenter, is given far more screen time, and he essentially ends up as the movie's villain.
    The most flagrant bit of inaccuracy strikes Mercury down with AIDS two years before he was actually infected, simply to enable the script to position the band’s triumph at Live Aid as his resurrection. We Are The Champions indeed.
    The Wembley set, performed faithfully and in its full glory, is set up as a redemptive climax from the start of the movie, and to be fair, Malek pulls off an impressive facsimile of  pouts, yells, cheeky banter and calisthenic struts. It's clearly the highlight  of the movie and could make up for any of its shortcomings if the viewer is generous.
    By the way, did you know that every band member composed at least one of the group's anthem songs? While Mercury wrote the band's magnum opus and the equally grandiose Somebody To Love, bass guitarist John Deacon contributed Another One Bites the Dust and I Want To Break Free, drummer Roger Taylor was primarily responsible for Radio Ga Ga  and A Kind Of Magic, while lead guitarist Brian May came up with We Will Rock You and the searing Hammer To Fall. Eventually, the band decided that all compositions, no matter who wrote them, would be jointly credited to all four members, a fact the movie did get correct.
    Freddie Mercury was certainly one of the first out-and-proud gay artists who attained mass popularity, and his story deserves to be told truthfully and told well. Queen's music lives on to this day, and merits discovery by a younger audience who never even heard of the Beatles. This movie might achieve the second part, if not the first.

#bohemianrhapsody

CHECK IN FOR A GOOD TIME AT THE EL ROYALE

MOVIE
Bad Times at the El Royale
Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson, Jon Hamm, Chris Hemsworth
Director: Drew Goddard
Review Ray Chan

If you don’t know Drew Goddard, you’ll surely know of his works such as TV’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Lost, and the eerie The Cabin in the Woods, which looked at events from a deconstructionist perspective, an approach he takes to another level in his second movie, the noir Bad Times at the El Royale.
    It gathers a group of strangers in the lavish motel which straddles the California/Nevada border, once home to the stars but now, in the late 60s, fallen on hard times.
    The front desk is unoccupied when guests start turning up: Laramie Seymour Sullivan (Jon Hamm), a travelling salesman; Darlene Sweet (Cynthia Erivo), a young black aspiring singer; Father Daniel Flynn (Jeff Bridges), an avuncular yet addled Indiana priest; and a wordly-wise mystery woman in sunglasses (Dakota Johnson). A young clerk, Miles (Lewis Pullman), eventually emerges from the maintenance closet and rooms are duly assigned.
    Once that setting is established, the viewer is enticed by the promise of good times at the Bad Times, as each person, much like in most accomplished mystery offerings, has something to hide. The rooms are all surreptitiously monitored via one-way mirrors, which provides Goddard the means of presenting the backstory of each occupant.
    The movie is broken into chapters, each named for a room number (or maintenance closet), and often ending with a surprise reveal about the guests.  The plot keeps on thickening, with new details and possibilities arriving at a frantic pace.
    The way everyone’s stories mingle and merge while redolent songs play in the background evokes memories of Tarantino offerings that twist and turn and tell tales from different perspectives which have to be pastiched together to make sense. But this film is one that’s more interested in telling an entertaining story than in being mysteriously aloof. Goddard gives much screen time to each character, thereby keeping the audience in suspense as to who the main protagonist is.
    The story takes a turn when Chris Hemsworth, playing a cult leader, arrives on the scene. He plays a solid enough role, but his accent, drifting between Australian, English and forced American, can prove to be irritating, particularly as his enunciation has often left much to be desired.
    Bridges, Jones and Pullman are the outstanding actors here, pulling off their roles with passion, panache and pulchitrude. But despite their performances, and the potential shown in the first half hour, there’s a slightly disappointing end to the movie, likely because there is no central theme to link the disparate threads, while others may feel the conclusion is unsatisfactory as it appears to let the bad guys win.
    Ultimately, while the audience may be kept on the edge of their seats expecting the twisted journey to reach a memorable destination, they may feel that as it turns out, the trip to the El Royale itself was the main focus all along.

#BadTimesAtTheElRoyale

HOMAGE, HORROR AND HUMOUR

MOVIE
Predator: Hunting Season
Boyd Holbrook, Trevante Rhodes, Jacob Tremblay
Director: Shane Black
Review Ray Chan

Shane Black was a cast member in the original Predator movie, where he played a US mercenary who, like many others, met a grisly demise at the hands of the alien.
    Since then, he's made a name for himself as a writer (Lethal Weapon) and lately a director (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), so it's particularly poignant that he oversees the latest instalment in the franchise.
    It opens with a sequence all too common these days, as a space vessel crashes in a secluded forest on Earth … and, conveniently enough as is always the case, somewhere in the USA. On board is the hulking humanoid with the cavernous piranha mouth, dreadlocks that belong to a Caribbean warlord, and a tinge of anguished puzzlement in its jaundiced eyes.
    In the original film, this extra-terrestrial monster was a lurking threat, unveiled only at the climax. This time, multiple predators are visible in all their glory from the outset, as the story reveals that one of them is in fact the prey among his kind.
    Indeed, there's an almost philosophical discussion about why the name “Predator” isn't appropriate, as the invaders only attack people who are armed and don’t rely on humans as a source of food.
    Evolutionary biologist Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn) proclaims they're more like sports trophy hunters, but of course calling them "predators" is "cooler." All the men in the Predator war room agree. The only ones who don't are the woman and suicidal Afro-American soldier Williams (Trevante Rhodes): symbolically, the characters most likely to be preyed upon (woman, black, mentally-ill, veterans) by their own culture.
    Overall, the characters are an eclectic bunch. Boyd Holbrook as Quinn McKenna heads a group of military misfits who find themselves in the firing line of not just the Predators but also a clandestine government agency intent on safeguarding their alien research work.
    Jacob Tremblay plays Quinn's son Rory, a young boy with autism who comes into contact with the alien technology. Quinn's wife is played by Australian Yvonne Strahovski, who gets a few good one-liners as a mother who finds her house overrun by the military folk as they hide from the approaching creatures.
    Interestingly, all the gore and carnage one can expect of Predator offerings is tempered by many laughs and witty exchanges along the way. Like all Black’s work, The Predator refuses to take itself seriously even for a moment.
    Yet in the midst of all the chaos, it does keep circling back to one specific theme: each main character feels connected to the Predator in some way, leading us to ponder the possibility of a fusion between human and monster.
    Some gaping plotlines aside, this movie is harmless entertainment which doesn't offer much in terms of thrills and originality.
    But as a showcase for its titular character, as well as a Deadpool-esque fun slice of action horror, Black certainly hits those proverbial nails on their heads, and his various homages to the first two Predator movies will make diehard fans go home happy.


#ThePredator