Category: Nicole Kidman

DEAD CALM

By Marc S. Sanders

During the summer of sequels in 1989 (Lethal Weapon 2, Ghostbusters 2, Indiana Jones 3, Batman 1, Dalton/James Bond 2), Phillip Noyce directed a sleeper thriller that took place in the middle of the ocean with only three actors at his disposal.  Nicole Kidman and Sam Neill play the married couple who are looking for a needed escape following the loss of their child in a car accident.  Billy Zane is the psycho who upends their oasis on the seas.  It all leads to Dead Calm.

The tricks of Noyce’s film are familiar formula.  The wife is terrorized.  The husband is left helpless.  The nutjob killer has his way with the whole routine until he gets conveniently careless for a split second.  Fortunately, the trio of actors are very capable.  The script needed more invention, however.

In the middle of nowhere, on a clear day, the sailboat navigated by Rae and John (Kidman, Neill) come upon a large sinking ship.  Only one survivor emerges from the vessel in a rowboat coming right for them.  His name is Hughie (Zane) and he doesn’t have much to say of what happened.  All he’s got to aid him are his swim trunks and his stamina.  Otherwise, he’s very disoriented. The couple welcomes him on board and while he rests down below in a locked cabin, John goes out to the damaged ship to uncover what occurred, leaving Rae alone with Hughie. 

Upon discovering some sinister trappings have taken place, John desperately rows back to his boat before Rae is subjected to Hughie’s unwelcome intentions.  He’s not successful.  The sailboat takes off, leaving John marooned in open water with only the sinking boat left behind.  It’s at this point, I started to give up on Dead Calm.

One opportunity after another leaves Rae with the chance to get the upper hand.  Yet, she doesn’t take advantage.  It’s never confusing to see Hughie for what he is. After all, he abandoned her husband at sea!!!! Rae sees this with her own eyes!!!!!  At best, she takes to the on-board radio and radar, attempting to contact and locate John.  Yet, she does nothing to protect herself, leaving Hughie to roam and plot and terrorize.  At least pick up a steak knife to fend off your intruder.  Rae never arms herself with anything until long after Hughie has the upper hand.  She even willingly subjects herself to Hughie’s advances in a scene that is just icky and carried on far longer than necessary. 

Noyce’s script has no respect for Kidman’s portrayal of Rae.  I bet she’d still be an intelligent, strategic woman, despite her recent trauma of burying a child.  Nevertheless, the screenplay restricts the character’s wisdom and intuition for the sake of stretching out the picture.  Phillip Noyce should have been more open minded to the idea that Dead Calm could have found its sea legs by making the sailboat a one-on-one arena for woman against man.  Nicole Kidman can take on Billy Zane.  Let the girl stand up for herself.  However, it’d be absurd for the female to be the hero, right?  The woman’s purpose is to be the damsel in distress.  Reader, as a versatile actor, Nicole Kidman is a lot of things.  She should never be a damsel.

Sam Neill’s participation works like a separate storyline.  Left to his own devices, alone on the sinking ship, he must use his character’s mariner skills to catch up with his boat that is long out of sight.  Believably, the setting works against him with an engine that won’t start and water levels rising.  As well, there is plenty of information provided to paint a picture of the antagonist that John and his wife are up against.  It’s not all spelled out, but there’s enough to realize danger is within reach, thereby upholding the suspense. 

Phillip Noyce and his set design crews do good work at gradually diminishing the integrities of both boats.  Water quickly rises, wood splinters through doorways, planks and floors, sails become undone, things capsize, and equipment and utensils scatter as the action increases. 

Regrettably, the ending tacks on the unworthy “killer come to life” for one last hurrah.  It’s ridiculous Friday The 13th tripe and opens one more opportunity for Rae to shut off her intuition to serve the helpless victim element.

I can’t forgive the absentmindedness of Kidman’s character.  This woman is so much brighter than Phillip Noyce gives her credit.  Even at this young age, before she became a top billing star with an Oscar, Nicole Kidman was working on a more advanced level than the material she was given.

TO DIE FOR

By Marc S. Sanders

Gus Van Sant’s To Die For has to be one of the most wickedly delicious satires of the last thirty years.  Buck Henry adapts Joyce Maynard’s novel that takes a bite out of the juicy apple that savors fame and popularity.  Nicole Kidman delivers my favorite performance of her extensive career with one of the few comedies on her resume.  The film stands the test of time because in an age of social media influence and YouTube stardom, it perfectly reflects the vanity that our modern cultures strive to uphold.  It’s a proud demonstration of exaggerated egotism.

Kidman portrays Suzanne Stone, a peach of a preppy gal who costumes herself in candy colored business suits and wardrobes.  Suzanne aspires to become the next Jane Pauley, minus the flab or Connie Pauvich – sorry Chung, Connie Chung.  Therefore, she’ll stick with Suzanne Stone and not her married name Suzanne Maretto, adopted following her nuptials to her sweetheart of a guy, Larry (Matt Dillon). Maretto does not have the roll of the tongue stage name that the alliterative SS of Susan Stone provides. Larry is a sweet and naive guy who helps run his Italian family’s restaurant with mom and dad (Dan Hedaya, Maria Tucci) and sister, Janice (Illeana Douglas, always an amazing character actress, normally in smaller roles than what she offers here.)

Suzanne’s rise to the top has to start somewhere in the small hometown of Little Hope, New Hampshire.  So, it’s best to seek out an opportunity at the local public access TV station run by Ed Grant (Wayne Knight) delivering magnificent facial expressions of puzzlement and uncertainty in response to Suzanne’s onslaught of ideas and suggestions.  Eventually, Ed surrenders to Suzanne and gives her a short section at 9:00 PM to deliver the weather report complete with cardboard cutouts of the sun, and clouds.  Her mom, dad and sister (Holland Taylor, Kurtwood Smith, Susan Traylor) are gleefully proud to watch from the comfort of their home.  So are Larry and his folks.  Janice is suspicious and concerned, though. 

When Suzanne recruits three burnout high school students, Jimmy, Lydia and Russel, (Joaquin Phoenix, Allison Foland, Casey Affleck) for a documentary project, things may become murderous as a means to fuel the engine of ambition.

Buck Henry’s script outline works partially as a documentary.  Between staged scenes among all of the characters, the perfectly coifed Suzanne is speaking directly towards the camera eager to share everything that’s wonderful about her.  She does offer a moment to shed a tear for her dearly departed Larry though, but the chin quickly pops back up and the white teeth shine between the pinky lip gloss. 

Caught while casually ice skating at the Little Hope rink, Janice reflects on Suzanne’s short marriage to her brother.  Jimmy is dressed in a prison jumpsuit, with a mop in hand and a buzzcut while offering a perplexed recollection of his time with her.  Poor white trash Lydia reminisces about her fondness for Suzanne.  This “starlet” of the public access airwaves with a perfect figure, and a glistening smile with a saccharine sweet inflection in her voice had an impact on all of these people.  Both sides of the family go on a daytime talk show to share their points of view.  Suzanne’s dad was especially concerned about his little girl marrying Larry because his family feels like an extension of the mafia.  By the way, dad opposite dad, Kurtwood Smith vs Dan Hedaya, is casting brilliance.

Shortly after Suzanne begins speaking directly to me, I cannot help but think about Erica Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, who bravely headlined speaking engagements in front of tens of thousands of people, dressed in the finest glittered outfits with the perfect shades of blush, mascara and lipstick and every strand of hair perfectly in place.  She has notoriously been questioned if her grief for her assassinated husband is genuine.  Regardless of where your politics stand or how you regarded Charlie Kirk, there’s no denying the false advertising of Erica’s anguish amidst the pompous display of fireworks and showmanship in the aftermath of her husband’s violent death.  Suzanne Stone is unquestionably the precursor to, former fashion model, now mother of three, Erica Kirk’s campaign to stay relevant.  It’s uncanny, and Joyce Maynard’s character invention is a very frank reflection of people’s yearning to be known above all the rest. 

With news cameras present at Larry’s gravesite funeral and then on the steps of the courthouse, there is Suzanne ready to speak directly to the camera, adorned in her Easter pastel colored best, ready to declare her innocence and sorrow after she’s considered suspect number one in Larry’s unexpected murder.  How the crime is carried out is salacious beyond just another burglarized home shooting.  For Suzanne, however, it’s perfect fodder for showmanship.  Suzanne is much more interesting as a murder suspect than a cutesy weather girl in a mini skirt and high heels.

Gus Van Sant recruited composer Danny Elfman to score the film and while his easily recognizable notes and chorus harmonies sound like they have been pulled from his other works in Beetlejuice and Edward Scissorhands, it works as the most appropriate accompaniment over the opening credits that play over a series of front-page newspaper articles.  Much of the exposition is covered by quickly glancing over these headlines that imply something sinister has occurred with this “pure as the driven snow” young girl and her newlywed husband whose worst mistake was to fall head over heels in love at first site.

Buck Henry echoes some themes of a May/December seduction that sent The Graduate into the pop culture stratosphere to amplify the shocking drama of crime in a small town.  The aftereffects are altogether different in To Die For, though.  Beyond Suzanne’s immediate family, most adults can see right through her act.  On the other hand, Larry, along with the three high school students, are susceptible to her conniving web.  Suzanne knows just how to pull at the heartstrings. 

In a YouTube world, Suzanne Stone would be at the very top of the food chain.  No one would be able match her.  Nicole Kidman is masterful at her timing.  She’s hypnotizing with her assertiveness and confidence.  She may not have a journalism major, but Suzanne Stone believes she has the skills and assets to dethrone the Barbara Walters of the world. 

Like Paddy Chayefsky’s Network appears uncannily prophetic, To Die For equally has achieved that plateau.  I recently watched a Netflix documentary called The Crash that focuses on a social media addict who was found guilty for killing her boyfriend and a friend after crashing her car into a brick wall.  It was not challenging to determine that the act was certainly intentional and the egotistical young girl was sentenced to fifteen years to life in prison.  Now, the debate rages about how much is this convicted murderer entitled to for the newfound fame and attraction this documentary has generated to her advantage while unforgivingly resurfacing unwanted heartache for the victims’ families.  The girl is interviewed in prison with makeup on and a false and overly dramatic sense of “regret” and “grief.”  It’s no surprise that she is reportedly the “It Girl” in the prison where she is serving time.  With a societal zest for reality television and true life crime stories, even stemming back to the OJ Simpson bruhaha, so many people shamelessly carry the Suzanne Stone gene.

Other stories came to mind while watching To Die For, including the musical Chicago which follows a very similar trajectory – fame might be the one factor that could exonerate you for murder.  Heathers explored the need for popularity, attention, and public sympathy by only just attempting suicide. Faye Dunaway’s character in Network (still the best satire, in my opinion) pounces on a man’s mental ailment to generate viewership and ratings climbs for programming success.  Notoriety can be a terrible sin. Yet, notoriety offers a wealth of advantages.

To Die For is shocking, hilarious, and much more relatable than it ever was when released in 1995.  It’s a comedy of ridiculous truths that will leave you thinking. Wisely, Gus Van Sant runs the closing credits of the film over an ice-skating routine performed by Illeana Douglas which is likely one of the most inspiring closing scenes you could ever find in a movie.  As insightful as Joyce Maynard might have been with her published novel, there’s no way her final pages could equate to how karmic Van Sant and Henry opted close out their film. Larry’s sister, Janice finally gets her moment in the spotlight for all the world to see.

BATMAN FOREVER

By Marc S. Sanders

Last month, upon hearing the news of Val Kilmer’s unfortunate passing, Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever actively swept the social media rounds.  Fans of Kilmer praised his one and done occupation with the costumed role.  Some declared the film their favorite of all the superhero’s cinematic adventures and expressed their immense appreciation of the Juilliard graduate as Bruce Wayne and his vigilante persona.  He’s good.  Yeah.  I’m not going to say he’s great though because the film doesn’t offer much meat for Kilmer to chew off the bone.  As for the film, well, it’s a Joel Schumacher movie.  Should it be good?

The director took over the reigns from Tim Burton.  Michael Keaton opted not to return following two films and thus Kilmer was contracted.  The villains of the week are a very miscast Tommy Lee Jones as Two Face and Jim Carry doing a misbehaved class clown interpretation of The Riddler.  Unlike Burton’s noir approach, Batman Forever is gleefully campy and colorful with overly apparent winks and nods to Batman’s butt, codpiece and notorious chest nipples.  None of it necessary because it’s all wrapped in vinyl and plastic.  Buy the action figures if you want to cop a feel.

Akiva Goldsman was the head screenwriter.  His script carries no reluctance in delivering cliche dialogue.  “It’s the car right? Chicks dig the car!”  or “I’ll get drive thru.” (McDonalds was a proud sponsor.) Worse though are the two halves of the picture.  Kilmer’s Batman endures his ongoing traumatic psychosis of losing his parents, while Jones and Carrey go for a reiteration of the beloved Adam West slapstick TV series.  These two languages never speak to one another.  The hero and the villains hardly confront or challenge each other and never hold a substantial conversation during the course of the film.

Jim Carrey and Tommy Lee Jones try way too hard to duplicate what Jack Nicholson’s Joker portrayal memorably did the first time.  There is no backstory to Jones’ character except a brief news clip.  Otherwise, the middle-aged actor looks like he’s exhausting himself out of breath while trying to match Nicholson and Carrey.  As a Batman fan, he’s entirely wrong for this role.  The Two Face alter ego is the handsomely vain district attorney Harvey Dent.  According to comics lore, when Dent gets half his face grotesquely disfigured, he develops a deep-seeded anger to losing his looks and it leads to his ongoing villainy.  Tommy Lee Jones is a fantastic actor, but he is not the Adonis that Billy Dee Williams (Burton’s Harvey Dent) carried his charming career on.  The makeup job with Estee Lauder pink and purple is awful craftsmanship.

Jim Carrey is doing his usual schtick that skyrocketed his career with Ace Ventura and Dumb & Dumber, but it’s overly abundant here.  Goldsman, Schumacher and Carrey take equal blame.  This Riddler only offers three or four puzzles.  Otherwise, we get Carrey doing the Nicholson gags that should never have made the final print; a baseball pitcher tossing a curveball bomb in the Batcave and a mad scientist routine that drives the bad guy’s stupid plot line of using television waves to absorb the collective intelligence of the people of Gotham City.  The more this side story carries on the more mind numbingly stupid it becomes.  The Riddler’s device is nothing more than a kitchen blender that glows neon green while it hardly maintains balance on anyone’s head.  Junky production value.

Nicole Kidman is radiant as the next romantic Bat gal in line.  She’s so much better than this insubstantial material, though. She consists of zero significance.  Nothing else I can say.

Chris O’Donnell makes his first of two appearances as Dick Grayson, Batman’s sidekick known as Robin.  O’Donell actually has the most interesting storyline as a daredevil kid who tragically loses his family but can’t sit still when adventure awaits.  He gets into all kinds of mischief on his motorcycle and within the confines of Wayne Manor before he finally dons the famous costume. Yet, even when he’s standing in the same frame as Kilmer, both actors look like they are performing in different films.  One guy is hyperactive.  The other is morose and neither seems to be reading from the same script. Their chemistry is begging. Did these guys ever stop and develop an appreciation for one another?

Joel Schumacher applies a candy-colored polish to his Gotham City with black light graffiti, bright lights and more glow, glow, glow!!! Even the street gangs use neon glowing fighting sticks and Two Face’s henchmen work with neon red machine guns.  Oy!!! Enough.  Willy Wonka’s factory was not this sugary sweet.  Batman Forever is one film that can give you diabetes just by looking at it.

Other than an impressive opening scene with a helicopter and a cylindrical bank vault, none of the action sequences are worthy of postponing your bathroom break.  Batman’s fighting prowess and his ugly car and jet look like they are being run by an eight-year-old with his action figures.

So, as I noted before, I took another look at Batman Forever to explore what Val Kilmer did with the role.  He would have been a good Batman if he was given some things to do.  Ultimately, his dashing good looks complement Bruce Wayne’s suits and ties quite well and his square jaw fits perfectly in the mask.

What else can I say except I can’t imagine any chicks loving the car because this Batmobile has a pointless fin sticking out of the chassis and the wheels glow white, plus there’s an odd rib cage of lights on the sides of the vehicle.  Oh, and it drives up the wall of a building.  Is this where people are supposed to be impressed with Val Kilmer?

AQUAMAN AND THE LOST KINGDOM (2023)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

DIRECTOR: James Wan
CAST: Jason Momoa, Patrick Wilson, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Amber Heard, Nicole Kidman, Randall Park, Temuera Morrison, Dolph Lundgren
MY RATING: 7/10
ROTTEN TOMATOMETER: 35%

PLOT: When Black Manta seeks revenge on Aquaman for his father’s death, Aquaman forges an uneasy alliance with his imprisoned brother to defend Atlantis and his family.


“They say everybody’s good at something.  Me?  I talk to fish.  …Some people think that makes me a joke.  But I don’t care.”

Those lines, spoken in narration by Aquaman at the beginning of Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, admirably sum up just about every comic book fan’s opinion of Aquaman and his dubious powers over the course of his existence.  The genius move on the part of the DC Extended Universe was casting Jason Momoa as the King of Atlantis.  As I wrote in my review of Aquaman (2018): “Hell, I wouldn’t laugh at a guy who looks like that.  ‘You talkin’ to fish?  Ping away, Muscles!’”

So, you’ve got the right guy for the role, no worries there.  The problem now is how to use him.  Based on Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom, it would seem they used up all the best ideas in the first movie.  I wouldn’t call Lost Kingdom a rehash of Aquaman, necessarily, but it doesn’t exactly stake out new territory.  (Well, except for when they visit the underwater version of the Star Wars cantina, complete with a live band, seedy characters, and a pirate overlord who looks like Jabba the Hutt with fins for hands.  That was new.  I mean, sort of.)

Putting it another way, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom does not transcend, or even seem to ATTEMPT to transcend, the boundaries of the comic-book-movie genre.  The filmmakers did add some witty banter between Arthur and his imprisoned brother, Orm (Patrick Wilson), that was a nice source of comic relief.  Orm’s almost complete ignorance of life on the surface world leads to some funny scenes involving such basic concepts of what to eat and how to run.  But aside from that, a rundown of the plot seems redundant because you’ve heard and seen it all before.  “Bad guy from first movie shows up, more powerful than before, threatens life on Earth for personal vendetta against good guy.  Good guy learns to get along with semi-bad-guy brother to defeat good guy.”

With that in mind, though, knowing full well that the movie followed the comic-book-movie formula step-by-step…I must truthfully report that I had a good time.  I enjoyed it.  I could intellectualize endlessly about the bankruptcy of the story, the bloated visual effects, the overly-preachy finger-wagging to climate-change deniers (Black Manta’s plan is to raise global temperatures in order to release an army of mutant henchmen from their icy prison in Antarctica; he has a line where he says something like, “I’m only continuing what we’ve been doing for decades.”  Shaaaame on us).  But…again, I must admit, I had fun.

At some point, when it comes to comic book movies, I have to start asking myself: what more do I want from a comic book movie?  If I expected every single comic book film to be as good as Superman or The Dark Knight or The Batman or even the first Shazam!, I would be sorely disappointed.  It’s impossible to have that kind of track record, quality-wise.  To be sure, there have been disappointments (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Venom, Wonder Woman 1984, and many others).  But none of those films were even close to being as much fun as Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.  Others will no doubt disagree.  Understandable.

But I still had fun, and no amount of critical dismantling of the plot will change that.

SECRET IN THEIR EYES (2015)

By Marc S. Sanders

So here is a movie I thought I had figured out; the twist, I mean. Yet it’s ending didn’t turn out to be that way at all.

So, what did I get from Secret In Their Eyes? Well, I guess the confidence that I am probably a better writer than the ones who doctored this crap.

This is another mystery thriller, where everybody working in the same law enforcement department must remain divided and have animosity towards each other because if they didn’t have conflict they’d only get along and solve a very basic murder case.

See, it has to be this way.

The main character played by Chiwetel Ejiofor must play the obsessive (13 years obsessed!!!) FBI investigator prone to making dumb and impulsive mistakes because if he didn’t there’d be no movie.

Julia Roberts, effectively departing her glamour roles, as the cop/mother of a murdered daughter will only conveniently appear to make things awkward for Ejiofor and DA Nicole Kidman who is unnecessarily, overtly sexy to drive a subplot for more awkwardness. Oh, hi Julia. Didn’t expect you to step on to the elevator. Well, look who showed up at the office just as I get into town; things like that.

Nothing that these characters do seem very wise or necessary but we are supposed to believe these are some of LA’s best legal minds; break in and steal evidence without a warrant, solve a murder by looking at a picture from company picnic, beat a confession out of a suspect, and presume you found the killer again because a guy made parole 13 years later and the ages match up. He might have had a nose job, but that’s gotta be the guy. Ejiofor says it is. So it must be true. Stop arguing with me. Ejiofor says he’s right and you’re wrong. Case closed. Shouldn’t these great legal minds look a little deeper before they make their conclusions? There’s more concrete evidence in a game of Clue than anything I found in Secret In Their Eyes.

I guess now that I’ve watched the film and see that my predicted ending never turned up, maybe I’ll keep it to myself, jot it down on paper and sell my own screenplay. If this crap could attract a Hollywood budget with top talents to fill the roles, how bad could I do?

LION (2016, Australia)

by Miguel E. Rodriguez

LION (2016)
Director: Garth Davis
Cast: Sunny Pawar, David Wenham, Nicole Kidman, Dev Patel, Rooney Mara
My Rating: 9/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 84% Certified Fresh

PLOT: A five-year-old Indian boy is adopted by an Australian couple after getting lost hundreds of kilometers from home. 25 years later, he sets out to find his lost family.


It’s as if Charles Dickens came back to life and concocted the plot of Lion.

In 1986, in Central India, a young boy named Saroo, lives with his family, hovering on the knife edge between poverty and desperation.  He and his older brother, Guddu, steal coal and redeem it for two bags of milk.  Their mother asks where they got it, but they do not answer, and she tactfully does not press the question.  One day, Saroo begs Guddu to take him on a week-long job.  At the train station, Guddu leaves Saroo on a bench while he goes to make sure the job is still waiting.  Saroo dozes off, and when he awakes, the station is empty…and Guddu is nowhere to be found.  Saroo wanders onto a decommissioned train and curls up for another nap.  But when he wakes this time, the train has left the station far behind.  He winds up in Calcutta, 1,600 kilometers from his village, with no way to get home or contact his family.  (The end credits inform us that 80,000 children vanish in India every year.)

Plot-wise, there’s not much to distinguish Lion from any number of similar films.  The dreaded words “soap opera” came to mind as the movie progressed.  We get a nice little wrinkle when, after several months of wandering Calcutta and winding up in a government orphanage-slash-prison, Saroo is adopted by a loving Australian family, John and Sue Brierly (David Wenham and Nicole Kidman), who also adopt another Indian boy, Mantosh, two years after adopting Saroo.  Then we jump to 2008, Saroo is now a strapping young man (Dev Patel) who leaves home to go to university in Melbourne, but the unforgettable smell of a specific Indian pastry brings back memories of his childhood, and he decides to find the family he lost.

So, yeah, just another movie-of-the-week on your basic third-tier cable channel, right?  Not exactly.  What distinguishes Lion is its storytelling.  Just like in comedy, it’s all in the delivery.  This was director Garth Davis’s first feature film, but you wouldn’t know it.  The whole movie feels slick and polished.  The establishing or transitional shots between scenes are intentionally reminiscent of the new online research tool that was all the rage at the time: Google Earth.  It’s very subtle, but it’s there, like it was designed to not be noticed until the movie is almost over.

The performances from the adult cast are all great, but what stood out to me was the boy playing young Saroo.  His name is Sunny Pawar.  He was 8 years old during filming, but he is so small he looks 5 or 6.  His story, from introduction until he grows up into Dev Patel, occupies nearly half of the film’s running time, and during that time he must make us feel sorry for him, empathize with him, and root for him every step of the way.  In the hands of an experienced child actor, we might have viewed his performance as just that: a performance.  But Sunny was a non-actor when he was selected for this part, and that makes all the difference.  The look on his face when he finds himself lost is indescribably real.  There’s a scene where he is trying to make himself understood to a ticket agent (he speaks Hindi, but in Calcutta everyone speaks Bengali).  The adults try to move him out of the line, but for a brief instant, he gets furious and shoves the adult hands and bodies away from him.  The rage in that tiny face and in his body language was utterly convincing.  I think it was that moment when I felt I was watching something a little more elevated than a cable melodrama.


Although the story is a bit trite as far as movies go, there’s something to be said about the universality of its message.  There isn’t a soul who can watch Lion without completely understanding Saroo’s desire to find his real family, along with his desire to keep his adopted mother in the dark about his obsession.  I’m not a parent, but I know some close friends who went the adoption route, and I found myself thinking of them and their children, and how they might feel if they found out their kids were actively searching for their real parents.  Lion addresses this heartbreaking scenario in a marvelous scene between the adult Saroo and his mother, Sue, in which she reveals the real reason she decided to adopt.

Saroo’s girlfriend, Lucy, brings up a terrible, but probable, scenario: what if Saroo completes his search, finds his village, and travels to India…only to find his family isn’t there?  It’s been over 20 years.  He believes his mother and brother searched for him, but he can’t really know that for sure.  Maybe they moved away.  Maybe they’re dead.  Saroo doesn’t care.  For him, that chapter of his life must be closed one way or the other or he will feel lost and adrift for the rest of his life.  Closure is everything.

This is another one of those movies where, as an audience member, we’re put through the wringer for about 100 or so minutes so we can experience the full emotional impact of the film’s climax.  At some point, we can surmise that, yes, Saroo is eventually going to travel to India.  What he finds there, I would not DREAM of revealing.  I think it’s safe to say that many people I know would be reduced to tears by the time the final credits roll.  The finale justifies the overall melodramatic tone of the film, especially because of how well the damn thing was made.

Lion is one of the few true-blue melodramas that I would wholeheartedly recommend, even and especially to anyone who doesn’t think they like soap operas.  Dickens would have approved.

AQUAMAN (2018)

By Miguel E. Rodriguez

Director: James Wan
Cast: Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Willem Dafoe, Patrick Wilson, Nicole Kidman, Dolph Lundgren
My Rating: 8/10
Rotten Tomatometer: 63%

PLOT: Arthur Curry learns that he is the heir to the underwater kingdom of Atlantis, and must step forward to lead his people and be a hero to the world.


Take the best parts of Tron: Legacy, Tomb Raider, and Disney’s animated Atlantis, and you’ll get an idea of how much fun Aquaman is.  For some people, saying it’s one of the best of the films set in the DC Universe isn’t saying much (peep that mediocre Tomatometer score), but speaking as someone who thoroughly enjoyed Justice League and Man of Steel and Wonder Woman, I had LOADS of fun watching an aquatic Dr. Doolittle kick some serious ass.

Admittedly, some of the underwater scenes are a little tricky.  It’s hard to take some of the weighty dialogue seriously when the people doing the talking are floating instead of standing, with their hair moving around like seaweed.  It’s the kind of thing that works great in animated movies or comic books, but to see it onscreen…it takes a little getting used to.

Once you get past that initial hurdle, though, this movie really cooks.  Jason Momoa was the best possible choice to make the much-maligned Aquaman character relatable to mass audiences.  He may not have the cocky delivery of a Robert Downey Jr. or a Chris Pratt, but he throws a mean glare, and, bro, dude is CHISELED.  When THIS guy emits sonar waves to talk to whales, it’s not a joke.  Hell, I wouldn’t laugh at a guy who looks like that.  “You talkin’ to fish?  Ping away, Muscles!”

The story is as ancient as Atlantis itself.  Arthur Curry returns to the land of his lineage to reclaim his birthright, but first he must overcome several trials before he can emerge triumphant.  Ho hum, been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.  But this movie really dresses it up and dazzles us with phenomenal sights.  Atlantis itself looks like someone mashed up Pandora from Avatar with the digital cityscapes in Tron: Legacy.  The various fight and battle scenes are handled extremely well, balancing clarity with incredibly elaborate CG fireworks.

(It was also nice to see one of Aquaman’s nemeses, Black Manta, rendered in a way that was EXTREMELY faithful to the source material, big head and big eyes included.  Of the actor portraying him, let it be said he was extremely adequate to the task, without really transcending the role he was given.)

Whatever gripes people may have, I would imagine it’s with being tired of overblown superhero movies, or the relatively few story gaps in the movie. (How did they get out of the desert?  How did Black Manta contact the Atlanteans in the first place?  If this is a sequel to Justice League, why are there no appearances or mention of the other members whatsoever?)  I can understand those gripes, but for me, the spectacle and the fun cancelled them out.

It’s not a perfect superhero movie; I wouldn’t quite rank it with the best Marvel films. But I gotta be honest: I had a blast.

AQUAMAN

By Marc S. Sanders

The next installment in the DC Cinematic Universe takes place in the ocean. Too bad the ocean is just too murky. James Wan’s Aquaman is muddied in long, boring, unsurrendering exposition and CGI. It is a film based on the most famous of all the undersea super heroes who is destined to be King of Atlantis. HE’S HALF MAN! HE’S HALF FISH! HE’S AQUAMAN, AND HE MUST BE KING!!!! That’s about all we should have to know to appreciate the storytelling of this film. However, Wan left me guessing just what the hell everyone was talking about for most of the film. King Orm (boring Patrick Wilson) declares takeover of this kingdom and take over of that kingdom and I’m like what, who, how, why???? Who the hell is he talking about? Why is this a threat? What will this mean for everyone? Shut up! Stop talking! Show me something! In the immortal words of Syndrome (from a better super hero film), “Stop Monolouging!!!!”

The first problem is when we are brought from one ocean floor to another and another and another and they all have location names like Kingdom of the Starfish Curtain or Dwelling of the Stingray Horse or some such thing. So what? These locales are literally shown for no more seven seconds before it moves to another location. This isn’t Krypton or the Batcave. We get to go to “Somewhere In The Atlantic Ocean” or “Somewhere In The Indian Ocean,” but so???? And????? Wan seems too proud to uncover these geographical areas that hold no measure.

Then there is the cast of characters. We got Dolph Lungren with a red beard, Willem Dafoe with a slicked back ponytail, Amber Heard beautiful as the love interest Mera, Nicole Kidman with her alabaster skin looking angelic as a queen and mother to Arthur Curry (the Aquaman title character) and Patrick Wilson, blond, white and curiously looking like the Hanna Barbera Aquaman during the days of Super Friends. Wilson is the big bad here and he’s kind of boring, kind of not intimidating, kind of the guy who looks too innocent to ever be cast as a villain in any film.

Let’s go off subject for a moment, shall we? Jason Momoa is the best thing about Aquaman and he makes a great Aquaman. I knew that when I saw him in the role in last year’s Justice League (a much better film; yes the Joss Whedon cut). Momoa is ripped, muscled and tattooed perfectly with long flowing charcoal hair, a perfect beard and sparkling blue eyes. This guy looks great on land while downing full pints of beer with his dad, or under CGI water. As I became less and less interested as the movie went on, I found it curious that the image of Momoa’s Aquaman is destined to defeat the image of Patrick Wilson’s (supposedly) ruthless King Orm, also known as Ocean Master. It’s as if the gorgeous motorcycle dude is meant to erase the much maligned (see countless GIFs and a couple of Big Bang Theory episodes) Hanna Barbera blond boy image.

The CGI does its best. After all, how else do you film a movie that primarily takes place under the ocean? It’s colorful. The effort is there. What I took issue with was the great battles between all these kingdoms. I couldn’t tell who was fighting who, who was with who, and who lived and who died, not to mention how they fight. Was it with spears? Laser guns? Swords? Hammers? Pies? What?????? I know these are underwater battles, but why can’t any of these great kingdom of kingdoms movies learn from the best like Peter Jackson’s Tolkien films or Ridley Scott’s Gladiator? There is something more literal in those grand battles. You could always recognize who was charging at whom. In Aquaman, it’s mass hysteria, riots in the ocean streets.

The villain Black Manta is next best thing after Momoa. Played by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II. Unfortunately, he’s not given much to do. He’s out for revenge against Aquaman. That’s been done before. What saves the character is the costume and helmet. Now this is a villain!!!!! He looks badass with red sonic blasts shooting out of his eyes and he’s agile; the filmmakers at least got the image and movements of this guy right. The best scene of the film takes place on land in what looks to be the Greek Isles. Lots of rooftop jumping, statue shattering, and wall breaking with good fisticuffs are in play here between Momoa and Abdul-Mateen. It’s a good long scene. Then, oh yeah, we gotta go back to Wilson and Dafoe talking about something somewhere that’s labeled with some “legendary” location amid some coral.

James Wan and the writers of Aquaman try too hard. There’s too much going on here that doesn’t belong. I don’t know how a pre teen kid nor an adult could sit through these boring conversations of fiction that is unfamiliar to many. Again, none of this is the stuff of legend like Lord Of The Rings, or Krypton, or Gotham City, or even Star Wars or Star Trek. If only Wan and crew didn’t elevate the importance of things that even they show are just not that important. Stick with the simplicity guys. At least, you got the Atlanteans riding Sea Horses. Nice touch, there!