Category: Katherine Waterston

ALIEN: COVENANT

By Marc S. Sanders

I imagine it would take a defiant personality to become a God and bearer of life.  That individual would most likely have to be beyond human to follow through on such an endeavor.  In cinematic fiction, to occupy such a role would require an exceptional actor with a calm yet powerful command.  It is fortunate that in Ridley Scott’s follow up to his Alien prequel, Prometheus, that he was able to recruit Michael Fassbender in the role of David – the android invested in discovering new amalgamations of life from unknown sources within a very deep universe.

I understand Alien: Covenant left many fans and critics divided and that it was not the box office success many were hoping for.  In addition, a follow up chapter to this film seemed more unlikely following Disney buying out 20th Century Fox.  Nevertheless, none of these occurrences dismiss one of best dual role performances I have ever seen, compliments of Michael Fassbender. 

The actor first appears in a prologue as David discussing challenging questions with his maker, the wealthy industrialist Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), a younger looking iteration than from the prior film.  David has met his maker.  However, he questions who created his own maker.  No satisfying answer comes from the conversation and thus it ends with Weyland commanding his “child servant” to a menial task of serving him tea.  David, we learn, will resent humans who opt to subject his incredible capabilities to menial tasks.  He is destined for greater achievements than servitude.  David is meant to be a God.

The film diverts to a period eleven years after the events of Prometheus.  A massive ship known as The Covenant is embarking on a journey to a paradise where the cryo-sleeping colonists and the hundreds of human embryos in storage will set up a new civilization for themselves.  They have just over seven years left of their journey.  The crew of fifteen who command this expedition are also sleeping while an android named Walter (Fassbender in another role) oversees operations.  Following a collision with a storm-like phenomena in space, the crew is violently awakened and the captain (James Franco) does not survive. A reluctantly nervous replacement named Oram (Billy Crudup) now must lead, and it appears fortunate that Covenant has come upon another nearby planet sending a signal source in the form of a John Denver song.  Why John Denver????? I guess the Beatles and Rolling Stones were too expensive. This locale might suit the colonists’ needs and save them another seven years of travel and unexpected risk.

Oram and the former captain’s wife, Daniels (Katherine Waterston), lead a team down to the planet.  A wheat field is surprisingly found.  There’s beautiful blue sky and mountain ranges.  Water is found.  Still, there’s a disturbing realization. Not a single animal or life form is anywhere.  No insects, no birds, no wildlife, nothing.  Like prior installments in the franchise, it is not long before some crew members get ill, very, very rapidly.  Then the first of several terrifying episodes begins.  All of that is visual and not necessary to recap here.

David makes an “Obi Wan Kenobi” like appearance amid the mayhem and calms everything down.  The highlight of Covenant is when Fassbender as Walter (a down to earth American interpretation of an android) encounters Fassbender as David (a refined English example). Upon entering David’s habitat, it is clear he has been busy over the last decade since he and Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace, from Prometheus) arrived on this uncharted planet that was once populated by The Engineers, also from the first film.

At the risk of mild spoilers, I offer the following observations, because the thought provoking aspects of Ridley Scott’s third monster movie, are worthy of insightful conversation. 

Walter and David are undoubtedly the most interesting characters of Alien: Covenant.  They possess two totally opposite mindsets.  Almost like they are the angel and devil figures found on a person’s shoulders.  They regard the value of people differently.  Walter holds humanity in high esteem, ready to assist while they continue explorations of great beyonds.  David is prepared to dismiss them, though they serve a valuable purpose in his own selfish discovery to harbor a new breed of creature – one considered to be a perfect organism.  Experimentation has been David’s sole focus.  Now he may have finally uncovered precisely what he needs for his masterpiece of creation.

There are staple moments and happenings that are no longer surprising in Alien: Covenant because there’s a formula that traditionally worked in the long gestating franchise before.  Nevertheless, the film is far from stale.  The story offers up a well-conceived history to the origins of the alien breed, known as Xenomorphs from other films.  Why and how they came to exist are provided.  Hey, I’ll happily say this is more definitive than the Old Testament.

To witness one actor on both sides of a debate discussing the purpose of human preservation and what value people serve from this point is really a thrill.  Both Walter and David are artificial intelligence.  They are so advanced that they have usurped humans as the greatest thinkers in the universe.  It’s not farfetched in this age of smart phones and an over reliance on technological innovations to incorporate this into a monster movie.  It only enhances and improves upon a tired old Godzilla cliche.  Movies are sometimes quite prophetic.  So, it’s not even ridiculous to categorize a film like Network with a bloody sci-fi horror film like Alien: Covenant or even a couple of Tom Clancy political thrillers.

Alien: Covenant boasts a good cast particularly with Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, and an unusually serious Danny McBride as a good ol’ boy pilot named Tennessee.  McBride does well with the drama and horror to come.  He’s not a novelty act.  While these actors may be playing well developed characterizations, I know they are only here for the body count and to keep David and the aliens busy.

Again though, the film especially belongs to Michael Fassbender.  A brilliantly inspired casting choice for the first film in this more recent resurgence of the franchise.  It’s only a huge blessing that he returned, and this next film pounced on his capabilities to balance the two roles on opposite ends of the spectrum.  Regardless of whether he’s playing Walter or David, Alien: Covenant only gets more interesting when Fassbender occupies a scene. 

An especially telling moment is so wisely written with a kind of seductiveness between the androids while one teaches the other to play the flute.  Humans no longer need to program computers.  The computers can work it out themselves, and even develop an intimate attraction for one another.  What’s most delightful is again, I remind you, that Michael Fassbender is the only one working in scenes like this.  How often has an actor gone in for a kiss in another role that he is playing in the same scene?  He hides so well in Walter and David, that you lose sight of the fact that you’re watching only one performer doing all the work.

The final scene of the picture caters beautifully to what Fassbender offers in his two roles.  The story’s conclusion will leave you thinking and wondering what comes next.  Intentional or not, I regard the ending of Ridley Scott’s picture as an homage to other great films like The Silence Of The Lambs and The Usual Suspects.  You may feel shockingly haunted as the end credits roll.

Overall, Alien: Covenant is a chilling, mind-bending masterpiece of science fiction horror and what-if prophecy.

FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE SECRETS OF DUMBLEDORE

By Marc S. Sanders

That’s it.  I’ve had it.  Enough already.  After three unnecessarily long movies, if you can’t get it right then what’s the point anymore?

Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets Of Dumbledore, the third film in the Harry Potter prequel series, is an absolute failure beyond any magical or Muggle measure of comprehension. It operates with the same handicaps that crippled the prior installment, The Crimes Of Grindelwald, and maybe picked up an additional dozen or more problems along the way.

I don’t understand it Warner Bros.  Following the abysmal reviews of the prior film and the tepid overall assessment of the first, why, with all the monies at your disposal, would you settle for a boring piece of production work like this, all over again? This new film’s main attraction is simply men in dull grey wool suits and overcoats speaking to one another in quiet English whispers.  Every so often they do something quirky like pull a wand out of their pocket.  Fleetingly, they use them.  How novel. 

It boggles my mind that this world from Rowling’s colorful imagination was at one time intended for pre-teens and young adults.  I’ve seen political debates or Sunday morning commentary programs with more flair.

The fault in these films holds primarily with the creator, J.K. Rowling, and David Yates, the director that’s helmed the last four Potter films and all of the Beasts films up to date.  I’m so exhausted in saying it.  ROWLING NEEDS AN EDITOR!!!!!  There is so much fat on this meat that is impossible to swallow.  Someone needs to speak up and advise her to save this scene and that scene for the DVD extras.  One curse that this film suffers from is the exact same thing that the second film dealt with.  A background story is told, with a majestic fade up and fade down and fade up again flashback.  It takes a good five minutes to tell this tale, and then someone else chimes in and says hold on, that’s not how it happened at all.  Then a new character starts from the beginning and apparently tells us the real story as it truly occurred.  Why in the hell should I trust this new character if you’re now telling me not to believe the lies of the former?  Fodder like this stretches this fantasy towards a distant two- and half-hour mark, though it feels like four.

David Yates has always been a problem.  Look, I know nothing about a camera or the most up to date technology in filmmaking or digital making, but I’ve seen enough special effects laden films in my time.  The prologue to this film commits the same visual atrocity as the prologue to the prior film.  Here, our main hero, Eddie Redmayne’s Newt Scamander – a magic zoologist – is observing a magical deer like creature deliver her offspring.  Suddenly, some other magic figures come upon the sight and attempt to zap the creature and Newt with their wands.  It’s the middle of the night amid a dense forest/jungle of thick plant life and trees.  We see flashes and blurs.  We hear ear piercing sound effect swishes, and the music from James Newton Howard (which is quite good) carries to a high volume.  Just like the last film, though, action scenes like this are murky.  It’s like the lens is covered with the bottom of a soda bottle filled with vinegar.  I can’t tell who is chasing who or who is zapping who, who dies or who lives.  Yates is not doing any favors for what bills itself as fantastical adventure.  When he isn’t shooting action scenes like this, his direction seems to perform on cruise control at a top speed of 15 mph.  There’s little drama or interest in any of the speaking scenes that drag on and on.

The movie’s story picks up with whatever cliffhangers were left from the last time.  It’s really not necessary for me to recap.  They hold little relevance here. 

Basically, Grindelwald (Mads Mikkelson, now taking over from a controversial Johnny Depp) is getting his bearings together with the troubled young man Credence (Ezra Miller) who we were told earlier is the brother to the Albus Dumbledore (a well-cast Jude Law).  Once again, Dumbledore recruits his former prized pupil Newt Scamander to locate the criminal Grindelwald and defeat him.  Newt assembles his brother, his assistant (neither of which we hardly get to know; so why should I disclose their names) and his Muggle baker friend Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler). Two more new characters round out this fellowship.  However, if you are looking for a real, solid fellowship, go back to those movies where the characters go after a plain gold ring.  That is fantasy at its finest.  This is the back story of a National Geographic issue found in your grandmother’s attic.

A whole lot of nothing happens for long stretches of time.  Grindelwald has managed to get the criminal charges against him dropped, and arranged to become a viable candidate to be elected the head of the magical world.  That spells trouble though, as he believes in complete genocide of the entire Muggle/No Maj population.  Dumbledore, his former lover, stands on the other side of that debate.  What does this have to do a with a magic deer that was delivered many moons ago when this movie started?  Well, you find out……….eventually, but your patience will be shot to hell.

Only one good scene in the film works on a sort of mischievous Spielberg direction (like the Cairo sequence in Raiders) where a “shell game” with various suitcases is passed around through a small village.  This turns up in the third act and finally we see some fun magic arrive.  Wands are lit up that trap one wizard in a transparent brick wall.  Props are turned into glass globes to trip over, and the characters smirk at one another through the hijinks.  This one scene provides some welcome reminiscence of Quidditch and other prop pieces from earlier Potter films. Until this moment, no one is enjoying themselves in this movie.  There’s next to no humor or cuteness from Newt’s assortment of magic wildlife. There’s no discovery from any magic spells.  Dumbledore doesn’t even have any secrets to disclose, save one. 

Yates and company fail as well with the details.  When we get to visit Hogwarts, it’s terribly boring and dull.  There’s no interesting Easter eggs or wonderment to savor.  No new rooms or tunnels to uncover.  No silly spells or magic props or ghosts to engage with. 

A glaring part of this new series is also conspicuously missing.  Tina (Katherine Waterston), puppy love interest of Newt, is hardly seen nor acknowledged.  Her role was a large part of the first film, minimized in the second film and only welcomed this time as a close up with no more than four words of dialogue.  Maybe not even that much.  Why establish this romance angle for the hero, if she’s hardly to be used?

The one error that really stands above all else is Grindelwald played by Mikkelson.  This is such an underrated character actor destined to be in every popular film franchise.  He’s done Marvel, James Bond, Star Wars, now Potter, and he’ll be in the new Indiana Jones film.  I welcome him to have this role in the Beasts series.  Yet, he looks nothing at all like Depp’s appearance.  Mikkelson just wears a grey wool suit and tie with an overcoat.  Depp had bleach blond hair and pale white skin for a foreboding albino characterization.  I’m not suggesting a complete duplication of what was formerly seen, but there’s a huge difference in looks between the two actors who have now occupied this part.  Reader, when there’s an absence of story, mundane dialogue and distorted visuals to settle for in a big budget movie, this is where my mind is going to run off to.  Mikkelson looks like he’s showing up for a read through rehearsal before the full-dress performance.  At the very least, couldn’t you dress the guy in the same unusual silk vests and fabrics that the other guy wore?  Put the different colored lenses in his eyes?  It truly makes me wonder if there was a stipulation in Mikkelson’s contract – he’ll do the role, but he refuses to look like a clown.  You just can’t not see how far apart this is from what’s been traditionally shown already.

Two more films are promised to be released in this prequel series.  Really? Another two more near three hours pieces of tripe?  Well, according to my Potter versed daughter, it has to be that way.  These films take place near the end of the 1920s.  There’s the climactic showdown that must be depicted between Dumbledore and Grindelwald though, and according to Rowling’s timeline, that occurred in the late 1940s. 

So, we got another twenty or so years of this.  Friends, watching these three films, I feel as if I’ve gone about sixty.

FANTASTIC BEASTS AND WHERE TO FIND THEM

By Marc. S. Sanders

I really do like the Wizarding World of J.K. Rowling.   The attention to detail is marvelous.  The landscapes she has painted over eight best-selling books that follow the adventures of a boy wizard, are limitless.  A new kind of fun vocabulary was invented thanks to her colorful imagination.  Still, she needs an editor!  Even if it is not a novel, her recent screenplays that follow the escapades of another magical protagonist, Newt Scamander, and his small, distressed suitcase drift off into so many side stories, it is difficult to focus on a central plot at play.  While some might appreciate the assortment of distractions, for me it grows a little frustrating.

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them (great title) is the first of what will become five new films that focus on an earlier time before the famous boy who lived was ever born.  Rowling takes the magic to New York City for the odd, but adorably likable Newt (Eddie Redmayne) to accompany his suitcase that carries the most unusual creatures that any other fantasy has likely ever introduced.  There’s a platypus duck thing that has a penchant for stealing jewelry and coin; perfect for stuffed animal merchandising at Universal Studios.  There’s a purplish-blue mosquito that twittles around.  There’s a dragon and an elephant/rhino combo thing.  There are bright green grasshoppers that hide in Newt’s jacket pocket.  It’s an encyclopedia of Rowling wildlife.

Newt arrives in Depression era New York and some of the creatures flip the buckles on the suitcase open, and before you know it, he’s chasing them through the streets.  Soon after, he gets his bag mixed up with another one belonging to a lovable baker “No Maj” (American term for “Muggle” or non-magic person) named Stanley Kowalski (Dan Fogler).  From there, a partnership is forged, and the men are pursuing the missing animals through the city bank, the zoo, tenement buildings and jewelry shops.  Romantic angles serve the men by way of magical sisters, Tina and Queenie (Katherine Waterston and Alison Sudol).

Parallel to all of this are concerns of a magic criminal known as Grindlewald who is making headlines for his various worldwide offenses.  The North American magic congress is disturbed by these events and rely on a man named Graves (Colin Farrell) to investigate.  As well, there is a No Maj woman (Samantha Morton) leading a chorus of city folk and politicians (including Jon Voight) in the hunt for what are believed to be witches and those that are committing crimes of witchcraft.  This woman serves also as a foster mother to numerous children, two of which are known as Credence and Modesty (Ezra Miller and Faith Wood-Blagrove).  These two in particular are curiously quiet with a dark way about them. 

So, yeah!  There’s a lot going on here.  There are a lot of stories to explore and a lot of characters to meet. As well, there are a lot of animals to learn about.

David Yates has become the go to director for the Harry Potter franchise and he takes up the mantle here as well.  This first film in the new series is gorgeous to look at with its period piece art design and the CGI special effects blend nicely with the human actors. 

However, the film loses itself over and over again with the different avenues it takes.  One moment we are supposed to feel the tension of Grindlewald on the loose. Then we are getting into madcap mischief with two other characters chasing down silly creatures seemingly inspired by a Jumanji theme.  We are also treated to an opportunity to literally step down into the suitcase for a whole other world of different settings where these animals are meant to be housed.  It’s wonderous for sure and Yates simply allows time for observation and nothing else.  Intermittently within the film, we also end up following these two dark children who are altogether disturbing, and we wonder why.  How and when do they come into play?  Rowling’s script is more concerned with painting broad strokes of new environments, rather than staying focused on one trajectory.  At times, I’m asking myself, where did we leave off with this storyline or that storyline.

Eddie Redmayne is adorably quirky, but maybe a little too much.  He has the “Willy Wonka” palette to his wrangler occupation. Though, his dialogue gets swallowed in his modified English accent and it is difficult to comprehend what he is saying.  He’s deliberately mumbling his words to build upon the oddities that come with Rowling’s character.  Newt has a name for each creature in the film, but there’s no way I could understand what he calls them.  I don’t even think his acting partner, Dan Fogler, understands everything being said to him.  On this latest viewing with my wife, we opted to turn the subtitles on our 4K player.

The characters are suitably atmospheric for the dark and unusual that stems from Rowling’s imagination.  Colin Farrell always plays well as the handsome, yet brooding man of mystery.  Ezra Miller seems to come from the cloth of a Tim Burton iteration.  Fogler’s character is the best though.  His expressions of stare at the amazements he’s witnessing for the first time represent the audience.  He’s not the bumbling fool that other storytellers might depict him to be.  He truly can’t believe his eyes at first, but eventually builds an affinity for the fantasy in front of him.

The ending somehow brings all of these characters together. It is engaging for sure with an action-packed encounter with a black cloud blob within the underground subway tracks. Then it is concluded with a celebrity cameo that teases of what’s to come. 

Fantastic Beasts And Where To Find Them is not unwatchable, but it requires extra attention so that you can recall where one story leaves off and then later resumes itself.  Often, I found myself asking how did I get here, and then my mind would wander and I’d get distracted from the continuing narrative. 

There’s no doubt of the kind of power and influence J.K. Rowling has.  If only someone would be brave enough to offer her a little constructive criticism, though.  The Fantastic Beasts series was originally meant to be a trilogy of films.  Then her contract with Warner Bros expanded to five films.  You know what?  With all that Rowling has to share with us, I think she might need ten or twelve films.

FANTASTIC BEASTS: THE CRIMES OF GRINDELWALD (2018)

By Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: David Yates
Cast: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Jude Law, Johnny Depp
My Rating: 7/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 40%

PLOT: Magizoologist Newt Scamander (Redmayne) searches Europe for a young man harboring a powerful talent, but must contend with dark forces led by the notorious dark wizard, Gellert Grindelwald (Depp).


[SPOILER ALERTS!!!]

In a nutshell, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald is more exposition than spectacle, delivering chunk after chunk of background information on new and existing characters, culminating in a filial revelation that, frankly, I found more than a bit unbelievable.  (But then, I originally thought Vader was lying to Luke Skywalker, so there you go.)  The movie also has a weird habit of introducing characters and then forgetting about them, either altogether or for long stretches of time.  (Wasn’t Bunty interesting?  Two scenes, then nothing.)

But, I have to say, I loved the creatures again, just as I did in the first installment.  The obscurial, for example, is a deceptively hard creature to bring to life, and it’s just as imposing and fearsome this time around.  I loved seeing the niffler again, and who wouldn’t?  The Chinese dragon creature, the Zouwu, was the highlight of all the creatures for me, if for no other reason than the charming method used to calm it down.

I did have a problem following the action during the film’s opening sequence, Grindelwald’s escape.  In all the worst ways, it resembled one of the main fight scenes from Ang Lee’s “Hulk.”  It takes place at night, in driving rain, and a lot of the action happens too fast for the eye to follow.  I might as well have been watching an abstract screen saver.

Being a middle chapter, there were also a lot of threads left hanging, no doubt to whet our appetites for the third chapter, but frustrating nevertheless.  I felt some key information was left out in Yusuf Kama’s story.  The French witch in charge of the archives in the French Ministry of Magic seemed to know more than she was letting on…did she know immediately that she was being hoodwinked?  It was nice to see Nicolas Flamel…but who was he talking to in that big book of his?  A prophecy is mentioned repeatedly…but no one is ever able to finish it without being interrupted.  The woman who fatally pulls a wand on an auror at the big gathering in the finale was glimpsed earlier in the film.  Why?  Was she meant to be important?

I haven’t read the negative reviews of the film, but I would imagine these questions and the density of the screenplay are key points in their arguments.  I have no counterargument.  The screenplay is indeed very dense.  But the visuals are a treat, however rare they were.  It was extremely cool, on a Potterhead level, to see Hogwarts again.  (An audience member applauded when it appeared on screen.)  The creatures are, naturally, fantastic.

I can only hope that these great gobs of backstory pay off in future installments of the franchise.