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

Fantastic Four (2015)

Three strikes and you're out. Hang it up, Fox, and give it back to Marvel. You clearly don't know how to make a good Fantastic Four movie. This might be one of the most disappointing superhero films ever. Even with lowered expectations, this reboot of Fantastic Four still managed to come up short. It's so bad that even Stan Lee didn't do a cameo. It makes the first two Fantastic Four films look halfway decent in comparison.

On paper it has a lot going for it. I was optimistic that Chronicle's Josh Trank was directing, but whether his vision was off (I heard he had limited knowledge of the source material) or the studio interfered, it's just so lifeless and dour. I heard they did massive reshoots due to all the backlash (like Dr. Doom being a blogger, not from Latervia, and named Domashev), but even with all the reshoots the tone is all wrong. It's not just the tone, but entire film lacks the color the Fantastic Four should have.

It also had a great cast. Unfortunately, they are all misused. While Miles Teller and Kate Mara are a step up from Ioan Gruffudd and Jessica Alba as Reed and Sue, they have zero chemistry together. They barely flirt and give you nothing to see how they'll eventually be husband and wife. Jamie Bell and Michael B. Jordan, while fine actors, don't compare to the fun that Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans had playing the same roles. There's no sense of family, and none of the bickering you'd expect. Everyone plays their role mopey or detached. Was anyone having fun at all?

We get yet another origin story. I like that it was grounded in science, but two thirds of the film (it's barely 100 minutes) is dedicated to showing the team working on computers, building stuff, and then eventually get their powers as if an afterthought. Oh, and how they handle Sue Storm will drive fans nuts. Once they get their powers, the story immediately jumps ahead a full year. Have they mastered them and are a successful team saving the world at this point? No, the government has stepped in and is training them as weapons, as if that trope hasn't been beaten to death. We only get one scene of them at the end working together. Doom is reintroduced as the bad guy and then resolved in like ten minutes. There's no threat or stakes at all.

Outside of The Thing (his look was probably the lone improvement over the original), the effects weren't all that impressive. The Human Torch looked okay, I suppose, but it's nothing you haven't seen before. Where this movie really failed was the look of Dr. Doom. He looked like a cross of that stupid computer monster in Superman 3 and someone on their way to a rave. It looks homemade, but I've seen better cosplay than this. His powers, origin and motivation are all off.

There's nothing about Fantastic Four that warrants seeing on the big screen. Any film that casts Chet Hanks in a role does not deserve to be seen. It's not a complete disaster, but it's still an overall failure. Save it for rental if you want to punish yourself. I don't actively root for films to bomb, but I really hope people don't go out and see this. Please don't encourage Fox to attempt this again.

1.5 (out of 5) Death Stars

Deadfall (2012) - Movie Review

A getaway after a robbery goes wrong.  Oh but wait, there's snow!

After a casino heist, siblings Addison (Eric Bana) and Liza (Olivia Wilde) get into an accident while making their getaway.  Even though they are in the middle of a snowstorm, they decide to split up (always a good idea) and reconnect later.  I've always wondered, why split up, if the goal is to meet up later?  Aren't you increasing the chances that one of you is caught or that something will go wrong?  Anyway, as this is going on, ex-con Jay (Charlie Hunnam) is headed home, but also runs into difficulty along the way.  Paths cross in the movie Deadfall, which could have been renamed Amazing Coincidences.

Yes, amazing coincidences are key in this movie directed by Stephan Ruzowitzky.  This wouldn't have been so bad, if Zack Dean's script wasn't also so cliched and predictable.  It's disappointing because it actually had an interesting beginning, and there are moments here and there where you think it might do something different, but there weren't any twists or surprises.  As a result, there is no suspense at all.  The mistakes made by the characters are so obvious or telegraphed that I had a hard time believing they were capable of robbing a casino in the first place. As the movie opens, Liza is counting a pile of money in the back seat of a car.  They all thought this was a good idea?  To have money out in the open of your getaway car.  Then both the driver and Addison turn around to talk to Liza in the middle of a snow storm, and you can't help but think someone should be keeping there eyes on the road.  WHAM!  A deer hits the windshield and the car flips.  Stuff like this continues throughout the film.

Even the supporting characters had my rolling my eyes.  We're introduced to the local sheriff (Treat Williams), and he was a bad, sexist stereotype.  He refuses to give a female officer an assignment, and you think it's because he's trying to keep her down, but then you find out she's his daughter (Kate Mara).  So then you might think he's being protective, right?  Nope, he continues to berate her throughout the film for being a screw-up (despite her passing an FBI entrance exam), and you get the feeling the real issue is that he wishes he had son instead of a daughter.  It's an awful character that I have a hard time understanding why he was written this way, since it wasn't essential at all to the plot.  Oh, and the kicker is that he ends up shooting his daughter on accident.  Idiot.

It's really not even an issue with the performances, as we're working with a good cast, but it's more how the characters were written.  Addison is initially portrayed as a criminal that appears to have a code, but then his character takes a turn at the end that makes him completely unlikable.  Plus, they appeared to throw in some implied incest angle between the two of them that wasn't fully explored, but just added to the creep factor.  I really like Eric Bana, and I think he tried to do the best with what he was given.  I also liked Olivia Wilde for a change.  Normally she seems to get these smaller roles where she's wasted, but I actually thought she got a chance to act a little and show some charisma that I'm not used to seeing from her.  I didn't mind Charlie Hunnam's performance either, but I found his voice kind of distracting.  I thought it might have been because he was doing an American accent, so I looked it up and sure enough, he's from the UK.

The two people I thought were wasted here were Sissy Spacek and Kris Kristofferson as Jay's parents.  I wished the movie had focused on them and their relationship with Jay more.  They try to setup a overly complex relationship between them, but it all just kind of gets glossed over in favor of the main story.  Jay, a former boxer, was trained by his father, who's also a retired sheriff. They had a falling out after Jay blamed him for only getting the silver medal in the Beijing Olympics. Also, it's never really clear why Jay was in prison.  Something about him throwing a fight, but I'm not sure why he was in prison for that.  Do you see what I mean here about it being needlessly complex?

Speaking of unnecessary, the movie features two sex scenes between the same characters only about five minutes apart.  The first one does something that's kind of a pet peeve of mine in that you have two attractive, fit people having sex with their clothes on.  When you consider that Jay just got out of jail and this is the first action he's gotten in a while, you'd think he would've been tearing clothes off to see a woman naked.  The movie seemed to recognize this mistake, too, as in the second sex scene, they are both nude.  So, why not just edit out the first scene then?  It just kind of struck me as odd.  I'm sure they figured it was a tough sell to convince us these two connected emotionally in just 24 hours, so they just show them having sex again, because sex means they are in love.

Deadfall is a tepid thriller full of cliched characters and a telegraphed ending that provides no impact or satisfaction.  It's a nice looking film and the performances are fine, but the story is all over the place.  This one has 'wait for cable' written all over it.

2 (out of 5) Death Stars