The Martian (2015)

Just to get this out of the way, I haven't read the book, so there will be no comparisons or anything like that. This is a movie review. I can barely read in the first place. On a related note, I talked to a couple after seeing The Martian that was all too happy to tell everyone within earshot that Andy Weir was his cousin. I had to fight every fiber of my being to respond, "Who's that?" Seriously though, The Martian is the kind of movie that makes you want to read the book.

The Martian doesn't waste any time. Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is stranded on Mars in the opening moments of the film. Since that's the whole premise of the film, might as well get it out of the way, right? No sense in building that up for 30 minutes when the trailer reveals this. Watney must figure out a way to make his supplies last and contact home. As said in the film, he sciences the shit out of it.

It made me happy to see a film where everyone is smart. Hell, the main character of the film is an astronaut-botanist. How geeky is that? Matt Damon might be the main character, but the hero of The Martian is Science. Anything that gets people interested in outer space and celebrates Science is already winning my book. Doesn't hurt when Neil deGrasse Tyson tweets that The Martian got "crucial science right." He did also say that it's still fantasy, but some of those comments seemed to in jest.

It's a testament to Matt Damon's acting and charisma that The Martian stays entertaining even when watching long stretches of just talking to himself, or doing repetitive tasks. Like many stranded films, it can be hard or tedious to watch a guy struggling to survive if you don't like the actor or can't root for the character.

The Martian is a good example of a great cast that isn't wasted. They exist in the Goldilocks zone where everyone's screentime and performances are just right. It's is also very funny with a lot of sharp dialog. I didn't realize Drew Goddard (The Cabin in the Woods) wrote the screenplay, so perhaps its humor shouldn't have surprised me as much. The script also does a good job of explaining everything just enough that it's not too complicated, so nobody will get lost. It's not bogged down with jargon or techno-babble.

I'm glad to see Ridley Scott knock one out of the park again. Feels like it's been a good decade since he really nailed a film, so it's nice to see him return to form. I was worried that he might have totally lost it

Funny, thrilling, and best of all, smart, The Martian hits on cylinders. This is one of the most entertaining films of the year, and you don't need to be a fan of the book to enjoy it. It's a must see!

5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Mama (2013) - Movie Review

Yo Mama's so dumb that...um...that's all I got.  This is why I'm not a stand-up comedian.

I know a lot of people really like Guillermo del Toro, but I'm starting to think his name attached to a movie is a sign that it's either going to be over-hyped, or it never sees the light of day.  Mama was only produced by del Toro, but he got behind the project after seeing a short film by Andrés and Barbara Muschietti.  For the feature film, Andrés directed and shared writing credit with Barbara and Neil Cross.  Neil Cross you may know as the writer and director of Luther, which is an awesome BBC that I highly recommend you all check out, especially if you like Idris Elba.  The fact Neil Cross was involved in the writing disappoints me all that much more with how this played out, but we'll get to that.

If you're interested, you can watch the original Mama short below.  Don't worry, it won't spoil anything about the movie to watch it.  It's mainly a version of a few things you saw in the trailer and doesn't have any of the story of the movie.



Mama has a tragic, effective setup.  A man kills his wife (along with some co-workers) and kidnaps their two daughters.  While speeding away on an icy road, they crash in the woods, and find small cabin.  I thought this abandoned cabin was a little unusual as it seemed to be in pretty good condition, and looked like it was decorated in the late 1960's or early 70's.  As the father is preparing to kill his kids, something intervenes and takes him away.  Right away, this kind of surprised me as the evil in the movie is already revealed, and you have a good idea of what it looks like and know it can interact physically with the outside world.

The kids are left to fend for their own, but we all know that this 'Mama' is watching over them.  Five years pass, and we meet Lucas (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) the twin brother of the man from the opening scene.  He's been spending every dime he has trying to find any trace of his brother or nieces.  I'm a little surprised it took five years to find them considering you'd think the police would have been looking for him, and his car couldn't have crashed that far from the road. Anyway, the kids are found in a feral state.  The older of the two, Victoria (Megan Charpentier), was old enough when abandoned that she at least had some speech skills and remembers her father.  However, the younger of the two, Lilly (Isabelle Nélisse), was too young to remember her parents and was raised only by her older sister and Mama.

After a short time of being studied by a psychiatrist Dr. Dreyfuss (Daniel Kash), the kids are sent home with Lucas and his rocker girlfriend Annabel (Jessica Chastain).  This was another unusual part of the film for me as Lucas and Annabel didn't have the funds to watch over the kids, but Dr. Dreyfuss puts them up in a house with the condition that he's allowed to still study them.  It's not long before weird things happen around the house.  Lucas is actually knocked into a coma really early on into the film, which leaves Annabel to watch the kids on her own, and she's already established that having kids isn't high on her list of things she wants.

Jessica Chastain, fresh of her Golden Globe win, elevates the material, but I felt like her character was a little too cliched.  She plays bass in a band, all tatted up, and everything is dark about her.  The fact that she was a musician in no way played into the plot at all.  I did like the fact that her arc involved her getting over the fact she didn't want kids, but was forced to watch them and eventually bond and become a parental figure to them.

I also thought Megan Charpentier and Isabelle Nélisse were very good.  There's a nice contrast between watching Victoria slowly acclimate back to normal life, while you can tell that something isn't right about Lilly.  Lilly is eerie without having to say anything.  The interaction between the two was kind of heartbreaking, especially towards the end.

Is Mama scary?  Not really.  The setup works for a bit and there are some good jump-scares, but the movie starts to rely on those too much.  It's also a case of taking too long to get to the point.  The more they reveal, the less effective it comes.  The effects for Mama initially looked good, but it eventually turns into a really bad CG effect that took away anything that was scary about her.  Towards the end people were laughing out loud at the events that played out, rather than being scared.  These are the same people that were jumping early on.

It just all falls apart at the end.  There are a lot of plot holes, and character decisions that didn't make any sense.  They introduce things that aren't really followed up on, or would have resolved the movie sooner if they had been.  Plus, there are some conveniences at the end that make it tie up too neatly.  They try to explain why Mama was doing what she was doing, and it attempts to make her sympathetic, but I didn't feel that way.  I won't spoil the end, but it had this almost fairy tale quality to it that just didn't fit the tone of the film.  I also don't like it when a movie isn't consistent about it's mythology.  Sometimes Mama is real, other times she's intangible, and it's not like she's invisible or can't be heard.  Everyone is powerless to stop her, so why is there even a setup to what she's doing?  She can get what she wants at any time.

Mama has an effective setup and some creepy moments, but the more they reveal, the more it falls apart.  Sometimes it's better to leave things to the imagination, and that's probably Mama's biggest flaw.  What could have been an effective ghost story, ended up being a really uneven film with an ending that didn't fit.  It does have some strong performances, but that's about the most I can say about it.  This is a rental.

2.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Zero Dark Thirty (2012) - Movie Review

Just when I thought I was done with all of the 2012 Oscar contenders another emerges...

I had almost forgot about Zero Dark Thirty despite the fact that it was one of the year's most anticipated films.  It probably didn't help that it wasn't given a wide release until 2013, and even that date was kicked around (rottentomatoes.com shows it as Jan 11th).  A friend of mine was surprised when I told him it didn't come out on Christmas, and I have friends that saw screenings of this weeks ago.  I just found it odd that a release like this would be so under the radar.

Zero Dark Thirty spans the ten years from 9/11 right up until the operation that found and killed Osama bin Laden.  The trailers for this film make it look like it's more of an action film and military focused, but it's definitely not.  Certainly not for the first two hours anyway.  The story mainly follows the work of Maya (Jessica Chastain), an extremely driven CIA officer focused on finding bin Laden.

A majority of the film revolves around chasing down leads and trying to find a courier that will lead them to bin Laden.  To be honest, I didn't really find this part of the film to be all that interesting. There are a lot of names and jargon being thrown around, and at times I had trouble keeping it all straight.  It's the kind of film you sometimes wish you had a flow chart to refer to while watching. Unfortunately, this is the majority of the film.

That's not to say that it doesn't have its intense moments.  We open with a really brutal and graphic scene of torture involving a man with ties to known terrorists.  I've heard there are complaints that the movie has a pro-torture stance, but I didn't come away from it thinking that or that it glorified torture.  I thought it was presented in more of a matter-of-fact way where the officers believed it was the best and quickest way to get the information they were looking for.  Once that gets shut down, their focus shifts to other methods, and those other methods are what gave them the leads that eventually led to Bin Laden.  You could almost argue the opposite, that if they had continued torturing prisoners, perhaps they never would have gotten to bin Laden.

Maya eventually uncovers enough information to believe she's found bin Laden, but her superiors are not convinced.  You see a lot of stand-offs between Maya and anyone that doubts her.  This is one of the areas where I thought Jessica Chastain shined.  When she'd square off with people, you never doubted that she wasn't going to get what she wanted.

The last 40 minutes or so is where the tension in Zero Dark Thirty ramps up.  I always find it impressive when a movie can still build tension despite knowing how the movie is going to end before even sitting down in the theater.  It reminds of Argo in that way.  Director Kathryn Bigelow seems to have a knack for keeping the tension high, even when things aren't necessarily happening, or always keeping the fear that something may explode at any moment.

Unlike Argo, the problem with Zero Dark Thirty is that it doesn't have the character development of that film.  Outside of Maya, I don't think I could tell you name of any other character in the film. Even with Maya, I couldn't tell you anything about her.  Was she married?  Did she have any kids? Did she even have time for a social life outside of co-workers?  There's a point in the movie where you briefly see a wallpaper on her computer screen of her and little girl, and I couldn't help but wonder if that was her daughter, a niece, or an actual picture of Jessica Chastain.  It makes the movie a little less relatable (and entertaining) when compared to something like Argo.

I also thought the movie could have been cut down a little.  Sure, when covering ten years of actual time you have to show a lot, but at the same time, I felt that a lot of scenes didn't really go anywhere or give you much information.  I credit writer Mark Boal for being thorough, but I don't think they needed to include everything.

I love Jessica Chastain, and I'm sure she'll get an Oscar nomination, but I didn't think this was her best performance.  I can think of a few movies last year where I thought she was much better (and I'm not even talking about her nomination for The Help).  Granted, I don't think it's necessarily her fault as it's just what she was given to work with as far as the character.  Many of her early scenes in the film involved standing off to the side and not saying anything or looking serious.  She does have those good scenes when she'd confront someone, but those aren't very frequent and I didn't come away from this blown away by her performance.

Like Lincoln, the supporting cast is stacked with many great actors in very small roles.  I'm sure it's another instance of taking any role to be in a sure Oscar contender, but it's also a shame when you see an actor you like a lot and they aren't given that much to do.  Kyle Chandler, Mark Strong, Joel Edgerton, Chris Pratt, Mark Duplass and even James Gandolfini have small roles.  In the beginning of the film, I actually thought it focused more on Maya's partner Dan (Jason Clarke) than on Maya.  It's not until he takes a different role in the hunt for bin Laden does the movie focus more on her.  Not go get off on a rant, but how is Mark Duplass in everything these days?  The only person I've seen in more movies over the past year than Mark Duplass is Jessica Chastain.  I like him fine, but does even he lose track of all the films he's been in?

Zero Dark Thirty is a very good movie, but I didn't think it was a great one.  This isn't the type of movie you're going to watch over and over.  The lack of character development makes it more difficult to connect to, and the lull in the middle of the film could have been tightened up.  When you compare it to Kathryn Bigelow's last film (The Hurt Locker), or other Oscar contender's like Argo or Lincoln, I don't think it measures up to the story or performances of those films.  It's still worth watching for the intense beginning and ending though, so I still recommend it as a matinee.

4 (out of 5) Death Stars

Lawless (2012) - Movie Review

I guess with the popularity of Boardwalk Empire we shouldn't be surprised if we see a trend of prohibition-era films.

This review might be a little spoilerific, so be warned.

Lawless is about the Bondurant brothers, Howard (Jason Clarke), Forrest (Tom Hardy) and Jack (Shia LeBeouf), who were moonshine bootleggers during the prohibition. The story is based on the book The Wettest County in The World by one of their descendants, Matt Bondurant. I've never heard of the Bondurant Brothers, so they could have been based off the Bing Bong Brothers for all I knew.

Right away, I can tell you that this movie suffered from not deciding on what type of movie it was going to be.  It never focuses on one character or element enough, and even the tone of the movie is all over the place. Sometimes it's brutally violent, then it's funny, and at other times you aren't sure if you should be laughing.

Forrest Bane...er, um, I mean Bondurant, while being a little unclear as to whether or not he's the eldest Bondurant, is clearly the boss of them.  At first you think this is going to be a bad ass movie about him.  He's kicking ass and telling the new lawman in town (played by a 'dastardly' Guy Pearce) to piss off, but then something happens to him.  This gives Shia the Beef an opportunity to prove to his brothers he has what it takes.  Then, you might think this turns into a revenge flick, but The Beef basically makes a bunch of moonshine runs with his pal, Cricket (Dane Dehaan), laughing all the way.  He's got a little more business sense than his brother, so he's making them more money, but not as much common sense, as he's just spending money all over the place.

While Forrest recovers, both he and Jack have their own romances, but neither added anything to the central plot.  It's shame because I really like both Jessica Chastain and Mia Wasikowska, but they weren't give much to do, especially with Wasikowska, and it felt like both characters where thrown in there just to give the main characters something to do during their down time between moonshine runs.

Gary Oldman shows up for early in the film, and you get a glimpse of what appeared to be another bad ass character, but that's all you get, a glimpse.  He's gone before you even get a chance to blink.

Even though many characters are underused and underwritten, the strength of the film are the performances.  I've been critical of Shia the Beef, but I thought his performance worked very well in contrast to the tougher nature of his older brothers.  I did think it was odd that his main characteristic seemed to be that he got his ass kicked in nearly every scene though.  Tom Hardy was a badass, but for the second time this summer, he plays another character that speaks with a voice that's difficult to understand at times.  Also, it seemed they missed another opportunity with his character, as the fable of Forrest Bondurant was that he couldn't be killed, but it's treated a little more than a gag and kind of glossed over.

Guy Pearce's character, Charlie Rakes, is this silly, over-the-top villain.  It seemed like a caricature of a villian from an old cartoon.  The only thing he was missing was a twirly mustache and cigarette holder.  Pearce appeared to have a lot of fun with the character though, and I thought it was a good performance.  Pearce is one of those actors that I think can do pretty much anything, but hasn't quite gotten that one killer role that he'll always be remembered for.  I hope he gets that chance.

Directed by John Hillcoat, who's directed much darker movies like The Road and The Proposition. I hoped this was going to be similar in tone to those movies, but it simply wasn't.  I never felt any real tension or like the characters were in any real danger.  He teamed up again with writer/musician Nick Cave. The screenplay is extremely straightforward and seems like something you could have seen on TV.  Lawless doesn't take any risks or do anything you haven't already seen before.

What couldn't have been on TV though were the visuals.  There are some really bloody, violent moments and there's also lots of nudity (thank you, Jessica Chastain).  It's a well-made movie as far as how it looks.  The sets are great and the setting felt authentic, but again, there's something in the details that just felt odd to me.

Speaking of which, here's one of the attention to details the bugged me.  Early on, Jack gets worked over pretty hard by Rakes.  He punches him several times on the left side of his face pretty hard, but in the subsequent scenes, he's face is bruised on the right side.  There's also very little swelling.  It was funny to me, because while Jack was getting his ass kicked in the scene I would have bet you any amount of the money that Jack's face wasn't going to look all that that bad after the beating he just took.  When a movie blows a detail like that, it kind of takes me out of the movie.   

Lawless is still an entertaining film, but I can't help but feel a little disappointed in it.  With the cast and all the window dressing, it had the potential to be something special, but it wasn't greater than the sum of it's parts.  It's suffers too much from lack of focus and inconsistent tone that makes it hard to completely get into, and at times it wastes its extremely talented cast.  I'm right on the edge between a matinee and rental on this one.  If you're really interesting in seeing this, then I'd say to check it out on matinee, but if you're on the fence, save it for rental.

3 (out of 5) Death Stars