Category: Action/Adventure

ELYSIUM

By Marc S. Sanders

Neill Blomkamp is that writer/ director who escapes my memory until I see a movie trailer with one of his signature robot designs weaved into the populace of his dystopian stories, like in his widely recognized District 9 and Chappie, which I’ve yet to see.  These androids are as capable as humans but primarily devoid of feelings and follow stringent programming with no exceptions.  That way order is maintained without an interference of subjectivity.  These figures are not plotters like HAL 9000 or companions like R2D2, but they have strength through arms and legs to restrain anyone out of line, and thus that’s a hard obstacle to circumvent when you are a human member of a vastly overpopulated Earth who desperately needs to reach the orbital space station Elysium where the wealthy thrive and survive with technology designed to cure any illness or injury.

Matt Damon is Max, a former street criminal, now factory worker on parole who dwells among the detritus of filth, crime, sickness and starvation left behind on Earth.  An accident with a piece of machinery exposes him to radiation that only allows him less than five days to live.  His one chance is to board Elysium and take advantage of a quick remedy that will cure him and prolong his life.

Jodie Foster is Delacourt, the business-suited, high-powered official who keeps a tight ship on the station in space.  She ensures that all traffic in and out are strictly enforced to uphold the enchanting Utopia for the uber-rich.  She’ll go so far as to order vessels shot down on approach. That still doesn’t prevent rebellious outlaws from trying to make way.  Food and medicine are scarce below on Earth.

Max conspires with a known rebel (Wagner Moura) who will get him on board Elysium in exchange for downloading all files about the ship that are stored in the mind of an executive (William Fichtner).  Delacourt contracts a bounty hunter named Kruger (Sharlto Kopley) to hunt down Max and extract the files while also keeping him from making his journey.  

Elysium boasts some spectacular visual effects ranging from all of the robotics that work against Max and his rebel comrades to the ships that travel across the skies of a dirty Los Angeles and up into the reaches of space.  The space station is shaped like a hexagonal satellite and filled with stunning upper-class decor.  It’s quite the country club for the one percent of one percenters with pools, tennis courts and well-manicured lawns.  Everything is colorfully lit while the daytimes of L.A. are distressed with dirty brown and grey hues.  Blomkamp demonstrates the wide expanse of class warfare with the two environments.  This film deserved Oscar recognition for art direction and special effects.  Outstanding work.

As Damon was still in his Jason Bourne phase, he looks everything of the suffering muscled, action hero, complete with a kind of steel frame screwed into his chest, back and head to keep him upright and ready to run and fight.  Damon, accompanied by Blomkamp’s designs look like a spawn of a Phillip K Dick story.  You can easily group Elysium with Blade Runner, Total Recall and Minority Report.  Though Elysium released five years later, it operates like a pre-cursor to Wall-E with stacks and stacks of high-rise garbage on Earth, while the elite live happily in the heavens.

Still, the set ups never feel entirely complete.  Something always felt like it was missing.

I think Blomkamp’s outline extends more validity to its fiction thirteen years after its release.  It’s not overtly stated but there’s no denying that the heroes are battling against an anti-immigration regime, lacking feeling for those that do not measure up to the wealthy and upper class.  I believe I appreciate Elysium a lot more now, than had I seen it back in 2013. 

Call me woke if you want!  It’s such a stupid, invented moniker to argue against compassion, anyway.

This film is lacking though.  Blomkamp could have offered more contrast between the two regions.  For the wealthy, there’s a very cold Jodie Foster who’s not lending much depth except to give the orders that identify her as the villain.  Delacourt debates with the President (Faran Tahir) of the station but I could not easily identify what they disagree on.  What’s he doing here and what exactly is on his mind?

Sharlto Kopley’s character looks like another Mad Max spawn with a very hard to understand dialect and a barbaric exterior.  Not exactly a villain I love to hate.  I gave up trying to comprehend anything he was saying and only regarded him as the guy that Matt Damon had to outrun, and out-punch if he’s ever to reach his destination.  

Alice Braga is Frey, the adult version of Max’ childhood friend.  As an ER nurse, she has her own reasons to get Max on Elysium.  Her daughter is stricken with leukemia.  She’s a side story and Blomkamp’s film could have just focused on Damon’s peril to run like in The Fugitive.  It’s rare I see Frey helping Max’ plight.  Braga’s stay is over welcomed with a lot of cutting room floor material.

Elysium has good action and outstanding special effects that build a convincing future year of 2154. It’s not a perfect thriller, but its themes are clearly relevant to the concerns of most Americans and illegal immigrants.  

Are our governing bodies, taking into account all manners of people and social classes, or are they functioning with a harsh and violently forceful approach?  Add another half hour to this movie, and excise some irrelevant characters in the cast, and this likely would have shown a clearer, more precise grim future of a year 2154 that looks a lot like real life modern day social structure.

THE END OF OAK STREET

By Marc S. Sanders

I look at a movie like The End Of Oak Street and I think to myself didn’t we once have all that we needed?  As kids raised in suburban life, we had our share of turmoil when mom and dad wouldn’t stop bickering and the neighborhood bully wouldn’t leave us alone.  However, Superman bedding, books on dinosaurs and the solar system, and a dog named Starbuck, along with neighborhood barbecues and a local library made up for a lot.  Movies like Gremlins, The Goonies and E.T. from the early 1980s were spared the onslaught zombified characters brainwashed by the World Wide Web, delivered by means of portable electronic devices.  In order to escape danger, you ran or pedaled as fast as you could while screaming your head off.  When you had a moment of respite, you stretched your imagination to logically surmise why the science fiction you always read about was actually coming true.  

When I saw those movies in the theaters and later rented from the video store, I didn’t have to reflect.  These were fresh tellings of new adventures with honest and relatable issues that might have been happening in other homes, just like they occurred in my house.  The End Of Oak Street invites you to reminisce while welcoming today’s generation to look beyond their Play Stations and A.I. reliance.  It’s a simple and familiar film not out to challenge you like a complex standardized test.    Writer/director David Robert Mitchell only wants to thrill your discoveries as they follow a terrifying, inescapable journey.

The Platt family do their best to maintain a family nucleus.  Audrey and Brian (Maisy Stella, Christian Convery) are siblings who rely on each other while their parents, Denise and Greg (Anne Hathaway, Ewan MacGregor) seem like they are teetering on the unheard of D-word.  When I was growing up, only one kid in my school had divorced parents – far from what my daughter witnesses.  The family’s slivers of divide, along with that pesky bully and an irate neighbor who literally threatens to shoot Starbuck, take a back seat to strange occurrences of flashing lights at night and mounds of animal poop in the backyard.  There’s also plant life that grows quickly out of the ground, yet is of unknown origin. 

The day after the biggest flash happens, the Platts discover that their suburban neighborhood has been transported to prehistoric times when dinosaurs run amok.  Like a familiar franchise, these animals are ready to chase, roar and eat the neighbors.  The Platts seem to have the best luck at surviving though.  Now they have to figure out how to stick together, stay alive, hope that Starbuck comes home, and get back to present day, 1982.

The dinosaurs resemble the creatures of the Jurassic Park/World pictures.  David Robert Mitchell introduces some new breeds with toothlike delights, though.  My favorite was some kind of giant snake or eel that can gracefully enter a home from the upstairs bedroom and silently wind its way through the hallways, staircase and down to the kitchen before it quietly opens its wide maw with enormous fangs that are ready to bite down on Anne Hathaway.  Outstanding work!

There are triceratops and raptors and “veggies-saurouses,” and pterodactyls that claw and nibble and bite and roar and chase.  It’s nothing novel after twenty Jurassic movies.  Still, the time period and setting are new to this standard and the cast is genuine, well mostly.  Anne Hathaway hearkens back to the stressed suburban mom that Dee Wallace Stone delivered in E.T.  She’s a good housemaker at her wit’s end with a dream for another kind of life.  Ewan McGregor’s European dialect is hard to ignore.  So, he doesn’t exactly feel like that dad with the Adidas shorts, tube socks and white tennis shoes.  Greg delivers pizzas to make ends meet. It was hard to buy a guy with an accent designed for highbrow Shakespeare dropping off a large pie with everything on it. The character is drafted well as the paternal figure who is not the king of his castle and lacking all the answers. McGregor just feels more intelligent than Brian Platt is supposed to be.  In this movie, dad doesn’t drive.  Mom drives the car and wields the gun.  Craig T Nelson (Poltergeist) would never stand for that. Oscar Isaac was originally meant to play the role. He would have been a more appropriate choice.

The End Of Oak Street works like a rainy Saturday afternoon picture at the neighborhood theater when you’d be dropped off at the mall by mom while she ran her errands.  Bicycles and homemade bows and arrows fend your way through the made-up adventures in the woods or between the homes and within the backyards.  

Again, dinosaurs are nothing new or novel anymore, but David Robert Mitchell sets up a handful of shocking moments that will drop your jaw as some characters wind up in unexpected peril.  Other times you laugh as the Platts can only run across well mowed lawns, from one end of the street to the other.  It’s adventure, but this family also has time to come to grips with their hang ups while running out of food and avoiding being consumed by their unfamiliar environment.  

Anne Hathaway is especially right in this time period, and she only makes McGregor look more suitable in this middle Americana period setting.  When he speaks, I hear Obi Wan Kenobi and Trainspotting, but at least Hathaway keeps him engaged as a husband device for her performance as the frustrated, neglected housewife.  

The End Of Oak Street is a welcome passage of escape to a time when visual effects were being embraced as a means to tell wondrous stories of imagination.  It’s fortunate, that on the surface, its technology stops at the chapter of a once familiar now, when social media wasn’t needed to save your life, much less solve your problems. The family had to sleep on the family room floor together, and then assemble in a circle to talk to one another about whatever was bothering them.

JJ Abrams’ studio Bad Robot produced this film.  He also directed Super 8, a clear salute to Steven Spielberg’s alien adventures that’ll thrill you and make you ugly cry.  This is the director/producer’s specialty-to echo how much these films shaped so many of us into adulthood.  I hope Abrams and his production crew stay on this trajectory.  I’d like to play in the past a little more before I head back to my future.

CHARADE

By Marc S. Sanders

I’d always heard that Stanley Donen’s Charade was the definitive Hitchcock movie that was not directed by Alfred Hitchcock.  Maybe that’s true.  Yet, having watched it over sixty years after its release, I get the feeling this paved the way for other comedy/thrillers like what Chevy Chase and Goldie Hawn did in Foul Play or Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepard accomplished with Moonlighting.  Remington Steele is another example. There’s a killer on the loose.  Nevertheless, that shouldn’t stop anyone from engaging in fun flirtations without breaking a sweat in some of the most strikingly colorful costume wear that Givenchy can provide.  

Audrey Hepburn is Reggie Lampert a woman ready to divorce her husband Charles due to a loveless marriage.  When she returns to Paris from a skiing retreat she finds their apartment has been emptied.  Mr. Bartholomew (Walter Matthau) calls Reggie into the American Embassy and explains that Charles was murdered and thrown from a train.  He also had ties with the CIA.  During the war, his military unit came upon a trove of a quarter of a million dollars.  The other members of that unit are likely looking for the money and they will go after Reggie to get it.  She has no idea what Charles was involved with or what he did for a living or how he made his fortunes.

Peter Joshua (Cary Grant, a Hitchcock regular) comes in and out of Reggie’s life.  She trusts Peter, but then gets skeptical of his charm when a truth becomes inconsistent.  He has an explanation for everything, and the cycle of good faith starts all over again.  

Charade is predictable, right from start, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a lot of fun.  Henry Mancini’s soundtrack keeps Donen’s picture peppy as Audrey Hepburn dodges suspects with Cary Grant’s assistance.  The movie doesn’t rush for the inevitable romantic kiss between the two leads.  The fast talking lines pace their performances.

The men in pursuit are James Coburn with a supply of threatening cigarettes to burn, a nerdy Ned Glass and George Kennedy looking like an imposing Bond henchman with an iron claw for a hand and a belted trenchcoat.  They all stand apart, and one of them could be the killer with a little more to collect on the apparent fortune to be found.

The Hitchcokian comparison stems from the recognizable structure of his pictures.  I don’t deny the familiarity.  Yet, most of Hitch’s films operate on a more sinister level.  Then again there was To Catch A Thief with Cary Grant and that movie could have been part of the same universe as Charade.  I simply credit Donen’s film with what it inevitability inspired as opposed to where it seems to have been sourced from.  

The story sets in motion the meet cute romance of Hepburn and Grant, and despite the clear age difference they’re also charming together.  Try finding a Gen X leading man who could shower with his suit on for an amused Audrey Hepburn.  Try finding a leading woman of today who could be so taken with a such a silly demonstration from a leading man.  Cursing and crude bathroom humor were never necessary for these two.

When a movie opens with a troublemaking kid shooting a squirt gun in the kissers of both Audrey and Cary you immediately recognize the lighthearted tempo of this picture.  These two sophisticates are ready to minimize their dignity while racing through a romp in beautiful Paris, France.  I was happy to run along with them.  

THE ODYSSEY

By Marc S. Sanders

It seems that Christopher Nolan is left challenged by one thing – himself.  In less than thirty years this director/producer/writer has moved from the simplest of filmmaking with limited funds (Following, Memento) to enormous heights in bonanza showmanship like The Odyssey, the first movie to be completely shot with IMAX cameras.  These devices are expensive and according to Nolan, they are also heavy and overbearingly noisy.  Yet, IMAX accommodated the filmmaker with specialized boxes to contain their equipment and muffle the sound interference.  As such, The Odyssey is a wonder to the eye.  Frankly, as impressed as I was with the film, on the most ideal IMAX screen available, I still didn’t see anything that felt any grander than the latest Dune offerings.  I mean how far are my pair of 20/15 LASIK eyes supposed to decipher?  Don’t get me wrong.  I am impressed.  However, was I as impressed as I was supposed to be? Should I be nitpicking pixels here?

IMAX says it all though.  The landscapes of open desert plains and vast open waters are brilliantly captured.  I could never tell you of any inconsistencies or shortcomings.  Costumes serve just as any sword and sandal picture that came before.  The sound, especially in an IMAX theater, is immersive and deafening as expected. Tidal waves within blinding rainstorms demonstrate this wholeheartedly.  The cast is stacked with some of the best talent available. The Odyssey has everything it demands of its legacy and what’s expected of a Christopher Nolan film.  Yet, I was never emotionally invested in the picture.  Understand that Christopher Nolan knows how to reach an audience on a primordial level of emotions. Think back to Matthew McConaughey’s tearful moment in Interstellar or how he shares scenes with young Mackenzie Foy. Look at Christian Bale’s anguish during the middle section of The Dark Knight. Hugh Jackman and Bale compete for moments of deep rage and sadness within The Prestige.

Nolan wrote his adaptation of Homer’s poetically romantic adventure.  I recall reading it in high school.  The fat, floppy, black paperback that weighed down my book bag has never been forgotten.  The highlights of the story remain in my consciousness from the Trojan Horse to Helen Of Troy (the face that launched a thousand ships), and of course the central plot of having the famed Odysseus making his long awaited journey home.  It’s all here, and then there’s more including the towering Cyclops and Circe, the witch who can turn men into pigs.  Nolan’s film goes from chapter to chapter, beat by beat.  This easily could have been a ten-episode miniseries on HBO MAX, and people would eagerly watch every Sunday night.

I favor Nolan’s choice to rely on modern dialogue, without rooted domestic accents or dialects. It’s a wise choice when delivering a poetic opus to the screen. This movie is a story. It likely would not relate to audiences on a poetic level structured in stanzas. Homer’s work does not lend to dialogue like Shakespeare or Mamet. A friend took issue with referring to Odysseus and Penelope as “mom” and “dad.” I get it. Nolan’s picture is much bigger than Harry Potter. However, the characters are bonded as family. So, it’s a pick your preference kind of situation. You either embrace or it takes you out of the story on occasion.

I’m not sure what I can say that this beast of a film says for itself.  If you’re not dazzled by simply one shred of a moment in this picture, then you are impossible to satisfy. Consider me wowed, but I was not moved.  The same way that I was never absorbed with Homer’s piece.  It was a homework assignment that spanned a long month of my junior year.  As a film lover, it’s inevitable that I see this picture. If it’s the first complete IMAX picture from beginning to end, then yeah, I’m spending the extra money to see it that way.  Am I going to watch it on repeat, on home video 4K? Probably never on a whim.  It’s a chore.

First, the picture seems to presume the viewers have prior knowledge of elements like the battle of Troy and why the war took place before we see how the famed Trojan Horse led to Odysseus’ (Matt Damon) victory with his army.  I don’t recall all that merited the action, but Nolan’s footage is astounding, especially that enormous horse on its hind legs.  On screen, the figure is as towering as the Statue of Liberty. No wonder the thing is being sold as a popcorn bucket.  

As complex as Christopher Nolan’s films can be (Interstellar, Inception), I always thought he was great at spelling out his unique brands of formula.  It took me a good hour or more to pencil down who everyone is playing and what purpose they serve in The Odyssey.  It boasts a big cast of celebrities who are all given their moments to shine.  I was especially taken with Samantha Morton’s Circe, introduced as a helpless woman grotesquely ready to reveal something more.  Robert Pattinson is Antoninus, a bratty and cowardly adversary ready to assume rule now that Odysseus has not returned.  He truly owns the picture when the focus turns back to him amid the rest of the cast and extras that occupy the room.

Anne Hathaway as Odysseus’ wife Penelope demonstrates nice range away from her Prada films and warm-hug kinds of pictures.  She looks quite unfamiliar while leaning into what you’d expect from Cate Blanchett.  Tom Holland drops the adolescent mischief of Spider-Man to play Telemachus, the son who takes it upon himself to uncover where his father could be after being gone for two decades.

Lupita Nyong’o may not look like she belongs in a story originated in Greek fiction, but she serves her small but significant role(s) with fierceness.  I’m not petty enough to let the appearance or history of an actor diminish my experience of seeing a sensational performance.  The same goes for Elliot Page in a crucial cameo.  As an aside, knock it off with the woke protests. Theatre is theatre and this is centered in mythology with a Cyclops of all things. If the Romans of Gladiator can speak with English accents, then in the fiction of Hollywoodland, casting has no limits.

I do not think the finished product The Odyssey is a new kind of novelty for filmmaking.  Christopher Nolan is taking advantage of the latest advancements that Peter Jackson did with his Lord Of The Rings and Hobbit trilogies.  If Nolan didn’t make this movie, Jackson would likely step up.  The swordplay and battles are as similar as most anything else that’s sent out each year.  Nolan has not reinvented the wheel in that aspect.  Likely he’s done it with how he made this picture.  That’s a blessing and a curse.  

The Odyssey is seamless, but how am I to recognize what’s done better here than what Jackson or Denis Villanelle has accomplished with their works?  I guess I had to be on set.  Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and company testify to how astounding the experience has been.  I choose to believe them though I can’t compound what was embarked. For example, the actors enthusiastically celebrate the director’s idea to have then perform speaking to the mirror image of their scene partners. The mirror was mounted next to the IMAX lens and thus reduced time and cost for reshoots with the bulky and expensive equipment. Something like that. See, I do not see the advantage of this technique when I’m sitting in the theatre. There it is, though. Amazing! Incredible! It can be the greatest hot dog I’ve ever savored. Yet, I never went to the sausage factory.

I know my enthusiasm does not measure up to what so many others are saying.  The Odyssey is just an overwhelming picture.  The storytelling seems all too familiar, and yet not everything feels completely clear and decipherable.  Visually, it will always be stunning, even on a 55-inch flat screen. I wish Nolan offered more definition to the giant Cyclops (played by the master of mime and body manipulation, famed Ringling performer Bill Irwin who was TARS in Interstellar).  The movie will easily sweep all the technical awards while only earning acting nominations for Morton and maybe Hathaway.  Matt Damon earns recognition for exerting himself like never before in muscle mass. He’s only improved what he’s physically done in the Bourne films, for example.

This is a major hurdle that Christopher Nolan has elevated to, and a new bar has been set at a taller height.  Still, this picture never stayed with me like his Dark Knight trilogy that covered everything from sensational action to questions of morality. His brainy science fiction challenged protagonists to extend themselves towards sheer impossibilities of comprehension like Inception, Interstellar, or The Prestige.  Even a biographical story like Oppenheimer left me more emotionally consumed than The Odyssey, because the title character served as a puppeteered villain to everyone else, including himself internally.  Odysseus leans on Athena for solace, played by Zendaya, serving as an imaginary friend to the hero. He’s marooned with Calypso (Charlize Theron) serving as a sounding board while Odysseus struggles to recollect the memories of his adventures. All the parts are here like a grocery shopping list, but the connections just don’t feel as warm as they were in Nolan’s other pieces.

That’s okay though.  We all have our favorite flavors of ice cream. Just like we all have our favorite efforts of Christopher Nolan.

What’s this guy gonna do next? I cannot wait to find out because it’s never simplistic and always challenging with a sense of thrill and knowledge.

SPIDER-MAN: BRAND NEW DAY

Tom Holland’s fourth stand-alone film as the most famous web slinger of all time is his best installment and easily ranks at the very top of the very long list of MCU films.  Spider-Man: Brand New Day is a movie full of emotion, depth, and conflict ablaze in outstanding action sequences that reach new heights.  Finally, the Kevin Feige machine serves Tom Holland a hundred percent correctly.  There is not one weak moment in this new picture.  If anything, it serves as a reminder of what the recent Supergirl neglected in its construction. 

The story jumps to around four years after the complicated events that overflowed with experimental multi-dimensional fun in the last picture, No Way Home.  That movie opted to surrender to fan service with every favorite Christmas ornament on the tree.  Brand New Day delivers an assortment of new characters to progress a solid storyline of curveball surprises.  Thankfully, the narrative stands on its own with a grounded sense of maturity.  Tom Holland is no longer portraying Peter Parker as a klutzy dweeb whose silly carelessness leads to mountains of unamusing mishaps.

A sinister new kind of villain is terrorizing Peter/Spidey in a post age where no one has any recollection of Peter Parker, including his love interest MJ and his best friend Ned (Zendaya, Jacob Batalon). As well, his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei) has now passed on while he’s left only with daily visits to her grave to offer solace.  Peter’s isolation as a super-hero crime fighter in New York is now that much more troubling as he cannot fathom how to approach this new antagonist who has a novel way of hiding within the populace of the city while staying right on Peter’s tail with disturbing torment. 

As well, returning writers Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers weave in a very popular storyline from the classic silver age comics as poor Spidey seems to lose concentration of his powers and thus some frightening inconveniences occur.  To aid the web head with these new challenges is the acerbic anti-hero Frank Castle aka The Punisher (Jon Bernthal, graduating from the Netflix/Disney + Marvel streaming series) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) who seems to have a proper stronghold on his Mr. Hyde, green goliath persona. For now!!!! There’s also the superhero clean-up crew known as the Department Of Damage Control, led by actor Tramell Tillman (from the inventive Apple + series Severance, which I strongly recommend).  A phone call away is a likable police lieutenant (Liza Colón-Zayas) and the new Black Widow aka Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) has an unsuspecting “office” nearby.

Everything looks improved in Brand New Day.  The Hulk is bigger, fiercer and angrier.  He’s much more well defined in his action scenes.  Frank Castle is not a hi & bye character.  He blends into the storyline of the film, with just enough backstory to care about his relationship to Spider-Man, unlike the fruitless contribution of Lobo in Supergirl.  All other characters are served valuable purpose to the transitions of the screenplay. 

Spider-Man actually occupies most of the film with the mask on.  Finally!!!!  What frustrated me tremendously about the first two Holland films was that the hero was hardly shown wearing the familiar threads of bright blue and red with the web stitching.  When I am watching a Spider-Man movie, I want to see Spider-Man.  At last, McKenna, Somers and new director to the franchise, Destin Daniel Cretton get it right.  The mask stays on.  The costume stays on.  Webs are shooting out all over the city and their various designs are wildly imaginative found in the best comic book issues. 

The choreography of the action sequences is superb frame for frame with punches, kicks, acrobatics and deflections.  Web swinging goes to new heights and across wide diameters.  Everything looks like a perfect design.

The second half of Brand New Day opens up some wonderful twists that lead the film down new paths.  What I’m grateful for is that this time Peter Parker works to solve all the dilemmas on his own.  He doesn’t turn to guys like Iron Man, Dr. Strange or Happy Hogan.  There is a wealth of Marvel favorites here, but this picture truly belongs to the title character Spider-Man following a promising formula used with Chris Evans in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Cretton wisely closes the film with a feel-good salute to Spidey’s hometown of New York City.  No special visuals or dazzling sci fi or animation.  Just sites of the most popular city in the world.  After a whirlwind experience of a breezy two and a half hours, this was the most suitable way to close out this outstanding chapter.  No needle drops of pop music.  Rather, sensitive instrumentals and bright visuals that lend to positive outlooks for the world we all share together.  Movies are not just for escape. Movies also have the magic to make us feel good about ourselves.

Tom Holland has wonderful chemistry with the whole cast.  I believe the scenes he shares with Zendaya are the couple’s best to date.  On rooftops high above the city and later in a confined room, the two actors have focused emotions accompanied with dialogue that never feels hammy or something built for daytime soap opera.  Just great acting from both leads who embrace how serious millions of fans are about the best in comic book film adaptations.  No one in this cast is cashing in a paycheck here.  They are looking to do great work that will stand the test of time when this movie is popped in the blu ray player ten or twenty years from now.

As the third act of this film began, I told myself this is easily in the top five best films of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and without question the best Spider-Man film to date.  Anyone who frowns on comic book movies (Martin Scorcese, Terry Gilliam) need to become more open minded.  The best ones look for internal conflicts, remorse, love, hate, insecurity, trauma, grief, happiness, duty and responsibility.  Spider-Man: Brand New Day covers all of these bases.

One of the year’s best films.

SUPERGIRL

By Marc S. Sanders

I don’t understand it.  A billion-dollar movie studio like Warner Brothers, with DC Studios, has all of the resources imaginable and nearly ninety years of source material to draw from and they opt for absolute dreck populated with three literal vomit scenes.  In the first twenty seconds of the movie, the hero’s dog urinates on the floor!  This is Supergirl, and this is the best they came up with?

Milly Alcock is a fine actress. She’s got an unusual tomboy appearance (that is unfairly and cruelly being ridiculed online) and she’s ready to offer gusto and nerve. Unfortunately, with her first big marquee picture, she is wrongly lent a disservice with a terrible script written by Ana Nogueira (The Vampire Diaries).  The story is simple and that’s not a complaint.  Basically, a villain called Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts), who looks like a foreground extra from a Mad Max picture, gets his spot in the limelight when he slaughters the family of a young girl named Ruthye (Eve Ridley) and poisons the super terrier dog Krypto.  Kara Zor-El (aka Supergirl) has 72 hours to find Krem and recover the antidote or the lovable mutt will die.  Plus, she has to discourage Ruthye from slaying Krem out of a means of revenge.  While they are at it, Kara might as well try to break up a trafficking ring of young girls held in captivity. The pair hop from one seedy bar to another in their quest and encounter the ugliest alien beings imaginable.  These are all Star Wars rejects of the worst looking kind.  None of these characters would even make good action figures.

Spliced within this main plot line, Kara recalls her origin on Kryton, followed by her arrival on Earth where she meets Kal-El, aka Clark Kent/Superman (David Corenswet), for the first time. These flashbacks are the best parts of the picture. Kara struggles with staying by her dying family or leaving them to survive and prosper as a hero.  The demise of Krypton is covered again but then there are residual moments that pertain specifically to Kara that were not extensively covered in other films.

Otherwise, this gal is a miserable drunk, wanting to celebrate her twenty-third birthday by herself, because that’s entertaining and healthy. When she’s not drunk, she’s just hungover.  How is any of this fun or appealing?  Moreover, this is Supergirl. So, I want to see her dressed as Supergirl.  The imagery sells these comic book characters, right.  It’s about pictured aesthetics first.  Kara allows her oversized trench coat to drape sloppily over her hair and untucked Blondie t-shirt.  Bubble size sunglasses hide her red eye. It’s like the costumer and creators are trying as hard as they can to make her as repulsive as possible. Are we meant to enjoy this? Supergirl is not John Belushi in Animal House. He made drunkenness an art form.

Kara’s Kryptonian mother gets sick.  So, she throws up.  Kara gets poisoned.  So, she throws up.  Kara pees with the door opened.  She munches on alien poop and then realizes it tastes like shit.  Duh!  Ruthye spits on Krem. Krypto pees on a Superman newspaper article.  Every bodily fluid imaginable is presented to disgust your pallet, and if it is done for bathroom humor it’s not funny and if it is done for dramatic heights, it really was never, ever necessary.

Jason Momoa is back as Aquaman…I’m sorry Lobo, who’s basically Aquaman now, but caked in black vampire makeup and equipped with a cigar and a motorcycle.  He’s a b-character from the DC comics. An anti-hero that I think enthusiasts celebrate like they do with Deadpool.  The guy looks like a KISS rocker from outer space.  Though I don’t know what he contributes to this movie with the exception of finally bringing the ever so famous Lobo to life.  The guy never turns the tides on the narrative.  He has nothing funny to say like Deadpool might.  His motorcycle doesn’t perform any outstanding stunts.  His cigar lights up without a match, and he sits in a prison cell.  That’s it! He’s muscle but with no expressive superpowers. He observes, rather than participates. So, what’s he doing here?

After all of the Superman iterations and spinoffs, why does James Gunn, who is blessed with creative control of the entire DC franchise, stay away from the wide gallery of rogue villains offered over the last century of comic books. There’s Braniac (who I’ve read will finally arrive in the next Superman film), Metallo, and Mr. Mytxlplyk.  The Toyman too. Heck, Jerry Seinfeld introduced the backwards/opposite functioning Bizzaro Superman in his sitcom about nothing.  These are all drawn from the weird cloth that I’d think Gunn would encourage since his success with Guardians Of The Galaxy.  Instead, we are dealt an unappealing, truly ugly and uncool, one-dimensional adversary with spikes in his face, dressed in leather.  I read that Krem is a featured bad guy in recent comic iteration of Supergirl. I don’t care. This storyline adaptation is a terrible option to follow. The day after seeing this movie, I can’t even recall what accent this guy Krem uses.  He’s positively forgettable and I think as unimaginable an invention as that nuclear dude from Superman IV: The Quest For Peace.  

Craig Gillespie (I, Tonya) has not assembled a good film.  I saw it on IMAX, and the enhancement did his picture no favors. Supergirl punches and kicks more than she flies.  She shoots the lasers out of her eyes and uses the x-ray vision, but where’s the super breath?  Where’s the super speed? The super hearing? Couldn’t we see her fly more?  The fight choreography is clunky and at times hard to decipher through dark CGI moving at too many frames per second.   Gillispie’s team only makes up for that by deliberately concealing Kara kicking ass and focusing on Ruthye shuddering under a table during a barroom brawl.  Not cute.  Not funny.  Just lazy craftsmanship.

There’s no wit to anything said.  Krypto is cute as a misbehaving rascal, but there’s nothing to laugh or cheer for in the rest of the film, and when Supergirl finally defeats Krem, her last act is offensively anticlimactic.  Actually, it’s obscenely hypocritical to the doctrines she tried to instill in Ruthye over the course of the film, and it crudely defies what the Superman/Supergirl mythology has always stood for.  I wanted to throw my popcorn at the screen.

Supergirl is not a total failure thanks to Milly Alcock.  She looks great in the costume and has a heroic appeal in the limited time that’s offered from the script.  Krypto is a precocious troublemaker and the Kryton footage and background look sharp, even if unoriginal. Efforts to make the alien dialogue feel authentic works nicely and enhances the fantasy/sci-fi demands.  Yet, these are just small ingredients in a stew lacking anything savory.  

Since 1984, Kal-El’s cousin has been done criminally wrong now for the third time (don’t forget The Flash from a few years ago) on the big screen. On all occasions it’s clear the filmmakers didn’t even try to research and explore what was easily at their fingertips.  Instead, they just literally vomited, shit, spit and pissed out whatever popped into their heads first – a John Wick storyline with a failed Mad Max villain, drenched in an assortment of bodily fluids.

Fly away from Supergirl. 

DISCLOSURE DAY

By Marc S. Sanders

A day before I saw Steven Spielberg’s latest sci-fi project, Disclosure Day, I witnessed the aftermath celebration of the New York Knicks’ NBA championship win.  People of New York City took to the streets to celebrate.  By and large it appeared jubilant, loud and celebratory.  However, to no surprise, there was a faction of miscreants who used this momentous occasion as an opportunity for property damage and chaos.  School buses and police cars were destroyed and burned while fists and flames happily flailed in the air.  Sixty-Five people were arrested. You can easily find all of the footage online because our present age allows us to witness every action of newsworthiness.  This was a response to a basketball championship, fifty-three years in the making; my whole lifetime thus far.  I’m happy for the Knicks and their fans, though I could care less.  I don’t watch basketball.  Comparing this to the end of Spielberg’s new film, I’m skeptical the real-life response would be as similar and inspiring as the film’s breathtaking, epic conclusion.

Disclosure Day is seeped in government conspiracy and the revelation of extra-terrestrial life discovered on Earth.  Spielberg’s concept was shaped into a screenplay by David Koepp and it hinges on many of the same story beats that Close Encounters Of The Third Kind delivered.  A few different walks of life suddenly find themselves on the run while an antagonistic entity will go to great lengths to censor or eliminate these individuals before reaching their end goal and destination.

Josh O’Connor is who we first meet as a young scientist named Daniel Kellner.  He seems to have arrived from a prior film because he carries a MacGuffin in his backpack after escaping from a clandestine organization headed by a sinister Englishman named Noah Scanlon played by Colin Firth. Noah urges Daniel to handle the item he carries delicately.  The slightest amount of pressure could be dire.

Funnily enough, we first see Daniel under duress as he sits in the stands at a violent, caged match wrestling competition.  This film was released two days before Donald Trump’s absurdly notorious UFC event on the White House lawn.  Assembly in barbarianism.  I dunno.  Just seems too ironic when you witness the ease of this film’s wrap up on an opposing end of the spectrum.  Watch the film and perhaps you’ll understand the sad irony.

Jane is Daniel’s girlfriend, played by Eve Hewson (daughter of U2’s Bono).  She was once studying to be a nun and as she learns more about Daniel’s drive, she questions her faith and the validity of religion, particularly Christianity.  I like this angle the same way I appreciated it in Robert Zemekis’ Contact.  Has God created life elsewhere in this endless environment we call the universe?  Heck, I’ve always wondered why there were never two dinosaurs boarding the ark ahead of the great flood.  Is the bible THE BIBLE?  Cuz if so, where’s the T-Rex?

Elsewhere, a cheerful and manic meteorologist named Margaret Fairchild (Emily Blunt, who is now a front runner for an Oscar), broadcasting locally out of Kansas City, Missouri, is suddenly exhibiting a variety of strange phenomena following the arrival of a cardinal who lands on her kitchen table.  She can read the minds of people she encounters and can fluently speak any foreign language including Russian, Korean and an indescribable clucking/chirping dialect just before fainting on live television.  From there, all she knows is that she must find a way to hit the road and drive.  Where?  Even she doesn’t know.

An ominous phone call from a man named Hugo (Coleman Domingo, one of my favorite character actors) tries to comfort a terrified Margaret as he insists she make the trip to see him.  Hugo has also filled Daniel in on Margaret’s experience.  Whatever these men know, they now have assurance that what they must share with the world has to happen now.  Margaret is the last remaining piece of the puzzle.  Jane and Margaret’s boyfriend Jackson (Wyatt Russell) are the skeptics.

There’s a lot to recognize in Disclosure Day.  Yet, the mystery of why we are running with these characters and what secrets they carry feels positively fresh and captivating.  When the wrap up arrives, I’m exhilarated and I want to know more, and see as much as possible.  Across the fictional globe of Spielberg and Koepp’s story with an apparent Cold War threat on the horizon, no one standing in front of a cell phone or television can look away and therefore I yearn for a united response as imagined here.  

Chatting with Miguel after the film we both wonder what would truly happen.  Sadly, radicalism would factor and pillaging would abound.  It’s part of human nature to resist one another and push against campaigns.  After all, it happens following presidential elections and sporting victories.  A newly released podcast with Spielberg discussing Stanley Kubrick informs that the eccentric director filmed the first landing on the moon.  Has to be true apparently because 2001: A Space Odyssey was released a whole year before that historic moment.  Right? PEOPLE PLEASE!!!!

Within the confines of this story, the unheard-of revelations display an assembled united response.  Not likely. Nevertheless, I’m not complaining.  For now, this is science-fiction.  Talk to me in a hundred years and perhaps Close Encounters… and Disclosure Day will be prophetic, like Network is for reality TV and modern-day journalism.  The real question, based on the harshness of mankind, will it always be a fantasy? Sadly, I think I know the answer.  Optimism can only go so far.

So, there’s a lot to think about, and Disclosure Day captured me quite emotionally with fear and curiosity.  It’s been a while since I was so deeply interested in the direction a movie was taking me.  I recognized the tropes of Spielberg and all the Twilight Zone stimuli, but I was also wise enough not to read or view much advance press for this movie.    

Beyond the enigmas, this is a superb and thrilling adventure.  Spielberg directs action scenes that feel newly inventive.  You have seen heroes stuck in a car on the tracks with the train bearing down on them.  However, in Steven Spielberg’s hands this feels new and exhilarating.  I was literally slamming my hand on the armrest as this blaring centerpiece prolongs. This scene alone earns accolades in visual effects, stunt work, editing, cinematography, and sound editing.

Another moment shows a random extra zapping out of existence when he picks up a significant prop.  The audience I was seated with gasped with complete shock.  Steven Spielberg always finds a way to incorporate his visuals with the means to advance the story.  He threatens me with props.  He stuns with sight and sound like few directors can offer. He uses another original score from John Williams to build and uphold tension with atmospheric lens flares and bold, dark hues from his resident cinematographer, Janusz Kaminski (Oscar winner for Schindler’s List).

The cast is doing superb work here. My wife, a big fan of The Devil Wears Prada, saw the sequel just three weeks prior and somehow didn’t recognize Emily Blunt in this picture.  It lends to how well the actress hides behind a mid-western American accent with a character buried in startled confusion.  Margaret’s special talents come through seamlessly as she diverts from speaking English to Russian and Korean without dropping a beat.  Blunt interacts with nearly every extra that appears on screen to demonstrate her character’s special talents, and each exchange appears unique from the rest.  She exhibits a wealth of tempos.  Blunt serves as another way the film’s mysteries unravel.  Soon, she might have all the answers to share.

Josh O’Connor is quite good as the running man and shares an effective chemistry of nerves with Eve Hewson.  Colin Firth makes a welcome return as a determined villain.  Initially, he comes off as the man with a drive of no compromise to stop the hero.  His antagonism shows in expressions of pain and great lengths he executes while maintaining a pursuit.  Later, he provides weakness and passion in his quest.  Coleman Domingo is reminiscent of Francois Truffaut from Spielberg’s first alien exploration. He’s the man who knows answers exist. He’s the lynchpin to how everything fits into place.  A man who tells the principal characters to operate on blind faith while he prepares for their arrival.  All of these actors enhance the dialogue of Koepp’s script with intrigue and engaging drama.

Disclosure Day is a wonderful experience of suspense with a passionate hunger for curiosity.  Though it all looks familiar, the film grabbed me on a personal level. It is fondly reminiscent when my twelve-year-old self would happily escape from government agents on my bicycle or find solace in the elements of a popular tune from a Walt Disney picture.  This movie convinced me that whatever answers are out there, they are valuable enough to uncover by even leaving your loved ones behind and trusting a calm, unfamiliar voice or an innocent, indescribable creature to lead you to a salvation.  

Is this fiction?  Not to me.

About the only thing that doesn’t seem real is when people stop what they’re doing to watch and listen together.  Once again, though, Steven Spielberg gives you hope.

SEND HELP

By Marc S. Sanders

The best way to get back at your boss?  I guess you could hope for the slim possibility of surviving a plane crash with him. Then he has no choice but to surrender to your survival instincts on a desert island off the coast of Thailand.  That might deliver a more effective act of vengeance than bad mouthing him online or deleting a promising report that could advance his Fortune 500 company into greater profitability.

In Sam Raimi’s latest horror/slapstick adventure, it’s a blessing for the mousy computer nerd known as Linda Liddle (great name for Rachel McAdams’ character) that she didn’t end up in a skyscraper with twenty terrorists on Christmas Eve.  She likely would not have been as resourceful as she is within the dense jungles of an island populated by wild boar, bugs, and assorted feastings with conch and berries.  Linda is a huge fan of Survivor.  She even went as far as submitting an audition tape demonstrating her abilities to live off of the outdoor elements. She didn’t get on the show, but her efforts are about to pay off.

Bradley (Dylan O’Brien) is now her boss after inheriting the position from his deceased father.  He’s a chauvinistic and conniving jerk.  He disregards Linda and overlooks her for a deserved promotion following seven years of accomplished desk work under dad’s leadership.  The frat buddy who’s only been with the company for six months, and steals credit for Linda’s hard work, cuts in line.

A business trip aboard a private jet nosedives into the ocean leaving only Linda and Bradley as the washed up survivors.  He has a badly injured leg and no knowledge of working in the outdoors.  On the other hand, Linda quickly builds a fire and shelter while also rummaging for various sources of food and water, including a bloody hunt for wild boar.  

From this point, Sam Raimi has lots of fun with his signature scare jumps and zoom-ins to startle you, prompting screams of laughter like you did when you saw Evil Dead and Drag Me To Hell.  This thriller veers down paths least explored. A premise like this could never occur so conveniently in real life, but I had a blast watching Send Help, particularly because this bonkers script from Damian Shannon and Mark Swift can never, ever be trusted.   With Raimi as director, these guys rely on your expectations that stemmed from a million other pictures like The Blue Lagoon or Castaway.   Though I was surprised not to hear a single reference to Tarzan or Gilligan’s Island.  Standard romance and crazed killer material has hardly ever been served up like it is here. The creators of Send Help manipulate you with fresh and shocking ideas.

Bravo to Rachel McAdams, the marquee actress listed above the title, for braving a tremendous, completely unglamorous role. She is stunning at going against type.  She presents a clumsy, insecure outcast with no fashion sense and an ugly mop of a mess of hair.  She’s even got a hideous looking zit on her cheek.  Mean Girl Regina George would have a field day tormenting poor Linda.  This script gives the actress so much to do.  An incredible monologue at the midway point leans towards the twisty ending, but also allows for an illustrious recollection, on an intense level comparable to Quint’s USS Indianapolis anecdote from Jaws.  McAdams is truly one of the most unsung actresses working today.  Just a skilled performer with a wide berth of range and no two of her characters ever look the same.  In Send Help, she’s offering hard hitting drama and suspense as well as ridiculous comedy.  She goes to limits that Jack Nicholson and Gene Hackman provided during their careers. Rachel McAdams is the second coming of Kathy Bates from Misery. 

Dylan O’Brien is a new actor for me. He’s a perfect cad, with a silver spoon of privilege wedged deep down in his throat.  You hate this bastard he plays right from the start bringing what sounds like a ho hum script to alert life.  Against McAdams, there are echoes of Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner in both Romancing The Stone and The War Of The Roses. This new couple go to both extremes of those opposite sides of a romantic face off.

Sam Raimi builds a playground for these pawns to roam around in where they get poisoned, vomited on, attacked, splattered with blood, and put in various stages of peril. He’s almost playing a board game as he uses Linda and Bradley to spell out the rules and boundaries that must be observed while they wait to be rescued. To win will mean they either work together or go against each other.  

Send Help veers in so many different directions that it’s nothing but outlandish fun where you ask what could possibly happen next.  You think you’ve seen this movie a dozen times before, but then it is daring enough to invent its own twists.  With only a cast of two you’re conflicted by who you should root for.  This story is completely expansive in imagination, and daring in execution.

Having recently seen Backrooms, I applauded the idea, but I frowned on a stapled conclusion that settles for the monster chasing the poor victim.  Send Help breaks conventions set up in the first half.  It was such a pleasure to not have everything figured out, where the filmmakers took me on a ride far beyond a merry go round.  The scenario is implausible, but the character instincts and circumstances are marvelously intelligent, compelling and totally surprising.

This might be on my top ten list for 2026. 

MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (2026)

By Marc S. Sanders

You should never expect much from a movie about a hero who calls himself He-Man and allies with guys known as Ram Man and Fisto.  If you are demanding too much, it’s not the movie.  It’s you. 

Based on the famous Mattel toy line and after school cartoon of the 1980s, an updated cinematic interpretation of Masters Of The Universe arrives in theaters.  It’s fun, designed for all ages and is proudly self-deprecating and stupid.  I mean all of this as a compliment.  The MacGuffin is the well-known power sword.  Why does the villain, Skeletor, want possession of the weapon and control over all of Eternia?  Teela, the warrior goddess, played by Camila Mendes sums it up perfectly.  “He’s bad!” 

Okay, then!

Director Travis Knight clearly wants to salute all of the action figures and animated episodes that never weighed heavily into drama and concluded with a valuable lesson.  Prince Adam, who is destined to be He-Man, the most powerful man in the universe, is never mired in unbearable anguish like Bruce Wayne or Peter Parker.  This invented fiction has the powerful Sorceress of Castle Greyskull (Morena Baccarin) sending young Adam to Earth after Skeletor and his minions besiege Eternia. He’s played by Jared Leto, who you’d never recognize behind an effective hooded skull head with beady red eyes.

On Earth, Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) is separated from the power sword, and years go by where he is relegated to a dead-end cubicle job.  He hopelessly searches for the item online while reminiscing of where he came from.  Shortly after he finds the sword, a beast of a man attacks him on the city streets and then he’s escorted back to Eternia by Teela.  Once Adam is caught up with everything that’s occurred in his absence, he must find a way to wield his sword so that he can be transformed into the heroic He-Man and rescue Eternia back from the clutches of the vile Skeletor.

Masters Of The Universe never hesitates to poke fun at itself. Skeletor delivers an evil laugh and when no one joins in, he whines about it.  He exacts his frustrations with his underlings but it equates to terminology on a nincompoop level.  Sidekick Evil Lyn (Allison Brie dressed bewitchingly) offers up apologies but she never gets slinky and sly like Michelle Pfeffer would. 

You just gotta laugh at all of this.  Either that or walk out and see the Brendan Frasier WWII film Pressure in the theater next door.  This fantasy is especially designed for its longtime fans and the children they passed their toys and playsets down to.  It is unfair to expect anything more.

Idris Elba is here as mentor Man At Arms.  He’s doing comedy. Elba is not trying very hard because nothing in this script demands impactful dialogue or emotions.  At best, he’s a depressed, hungover drunk who has lost his way.  That’s fine.

Camila Mendes does the best work of the bunch.  She looks primed for a promising career, and I would not be surprised if she earns her own action franchise one day. 

Nicholas Galitzine is likable but he’s not effectively dorky enough with the part.  It could be because he’s not as strong an actor as a Chris Hemsworth or a Channing Tatum.  At the start of their careers, they would have taken this material further.  Galitzine is fine but not as talented or endearing as those other guys.  His physique does not promise a “He-Man” either.  He’s not tall enough. He’s too petite to be the actual He-Man – the MOST POWERFUL MAN IN THE UNIVERSE.  It’s forgivable but it could have been better, stronger, and more imposing.

The designs in makeup, costumes and set pieces are wonderous.  The vehicles make sense for fantasy and look familiar enough for the toy collectors. The names of people like Trap Jaw, Tri-Klops and Moss Man, earned by the appearance of these silly warriors and the aesthetics, all work nicely.  Eternia is not as breathtaking as Thor’s Asgard, but there’s plenty to take in. Castle Greyskull is not as colorful as the memorable toy but it’s a giant of a structure. I would have liked to explore more of it actually. Have the drawbridge come down. Show me the trap door in the floor.  Skeletor’s lair, Snake Mountain, is magnificent and brooding. This might all be CGI, but the designs are magnificent. More features from both well-known settings would have been welcome though. When you see the internals of the Death Star in Star Wars, you see how things operate. The lairs of Eternia needed more of this.

Masters Of The Universe is a fun romp.  The film could have been at least a half hour shorter in run time by offering a little less on Adam finding his self-identity and purpose.  When the adolescence of this movie attempts to get in touch with its feelings, the movie (not the story because there isn’t a story) drifts. Try all you want, but I will not take any of this seriously.  So, abandon all the heaviness.  It does not work.  Some lines have a little sexual innuendo. Forgive it. Remember, there are characters named Ram Man and Fisto!!!! To ignore that would have been a disservice.

Travis Knight keeps the movie engaging when he circles back to the various battles and ships and swords and laser guns and silly Loony Tunes dialogue.  You realize this when dorky Adam raises the sword and declares “BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL…” Every time that happened, a kid sitting in front of me raised both fists in the air, blocking my view for a second. I did not mind one bit. Masters Of The Universe touched someone.

Go see it.  It’s fun!

THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU

By Marc S. Sanders

The Mandalorian And The Grogu is an absolutely fun, rollicking adventure with no demands to overthink or criticize.  The film that is spun off from the hit Disney + show more than serves its purpose to just entertain.  It does not require much background knowledge from other Star Wars properties, and it allows anyone to watch the movie without ever seeing an episode of The Mandalorian. 

The armored Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) roams the galaxy with his little friend Grogu, the “baby Yoda” as many have monikered him, who bears force like levitating powers.  Together, they operate as independent contractors, or bounty hunters, primarily for the New Republic. 

Following a thrilling pre-credits opening complete with snow covered Imperial walkers and plenty of shootouts and explosive fireballs, X-Wing Pilot Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver) assigns them to first settle a deal with a pair of Hutt gangster twins who want to reunite with Rodda The Hutt (Jeremy Allen White), their nephew and Jabba’s son.  In exchange, they will provide information on the whereabouts of a rouge Imperial commander.  Mando is ready to abide by the plan even if it means participating in a thrilling gladiator match with Rodda on a neon city planet that looks like the futuristic earth of Blade Runner.  Alas, Mando goes off script. That’s when the gangsters respond unfavorably allowing episodic and combative thrills to uphold this new creation from sci-fi geek loving writer/director Jon Favreau (Elf, the Iron Man films). 

I will not deny that the material of this movie released wide for theaters is not a large step above any of the episodes found on streaming TV.  It does not get weighty in lore and mythical revelations. As well, some fans and keyboard warriors are more than happy to declare Star Wars as “dead” and disappointing and misguided and so on.  Nevertheless, so what?  Find another studio other than Disney that invests so much into sustaining the classic looks and feels of George Lucas’ galaxy from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, his “used universe” inspired by classic westerns with Asian influences.  The Stormtroopers of fifty years ago remain.  The ships look beaten up, dented and stained, with the exception of Mando’s newly awarded Razor Crest vehicle, sleek with yellow trim.  Mando and Grogu have that familiar look descending from the classic characters of Boba Fett and Yoda.  The blasters are part of the same family we all know.  So are the droids and cantinas and electronics and set designs. 

I’ve always been a die-hard Star Wars fan.  It has influenced my preferences for storytelling with imagination and invention.  I will not deny that my wish was that this new film was going to delve deeper into the myth of its title characters, especially the lovable Grogu with his baby talk expressions and puppy dog eyes.  I still feel like there is more mystery to uncover about the little fella and while he’s given a lot to do here, I want more from him than just the hop around jumps and waddles he performs in most action scenes.  As best that I can recall, only two other characters in the Star Wars universe bear a resemblance to him.  Where does Grogu come from and why is he so valued to other interested parties that the Mandalorian has had to contend with? 

Unlike most of the Star Trek films, this film does not take advantage of going for big revelations.  Perhaps that is wise so general audiences can enjoy the picture.  Think about it, you can’t necessarily follow along with some of the Marvel and Harry Potter films if you just jump right in the middle of them.  The fact that The Mandalorian And Grogu does not hinge too heavily on what’s come before allows a creative freedom to just make a new adventure.

Jon Favreau set up fantastic scenes of action and excitement with an array of unusual monsters and aliens.  My favorite is the pearl-colored Dragon Snake located beneath a trap door.  It is actually inspired by original artist Ralph McQuarrie who designed much of the original Star Wars trilogy and this creature is a nasty bugger, complete with long fangs, a wide-open maw and a long flexible body.

I really like the Mandalorian side story of this vast universe.  Clint Eastwood’s “Man With No Name” and other westerns clearly inspire the character.  He’s a loner who roams the galaxy’s Outer Rim surviving from job to job.  Even his house originally found on the third season of the TV show bears a similar resemblance to Eastwood’s William Munny’s farmhouse in Unforgiven.  His cape is reminiscent of Eastwood’s poncho in the Dollars trilogy.  Neither character talks much and their distressed earth-toned color schemes are similar.  Maybe I’m sounding a little too personal about this but as a lover of both Eastwood and the original Boba Fett mythos, Favreau’s creation is a brilliantly welcome combination.

Star Wars always works best when the unexpected occurs and Jon Favreau with his co-writer and modern day imagineer Dave Filoni deliver plenty of surprises. There are some fun Easter eggs to uncover for fans of the whole franchise and even collectors of the original vintage Kenner produced toy line.  Because so much was known of what was to come following George Lucas’ prequel trilogy, those films were somewhat paint by number.  This lone story, however, does not rely on what is known to occur at later times in the expansive story cycle of the galaxy. Therefore, it’s not limited by any boundaries.

The soundtrack is an orchestral variety that’s far from the familiar strings and horns of John Williams.  That’s a wise choice as it serves the western motif of these characters and the missions they follow.  Three-time Oscar winning composer Ludwig Göransson crafts a fantasy concert come to life within a Tolkien landscape.  Some numbers feel techno electronic.  Other pieces have a quiet, mysterious aura that complements the mask and body language of The Mandalorian. Newer material completes the expositions of new characters that may be friendly or demand caution upon approach.  All good, consistent stuff that tells a selection of stories.

Some of the dialogue is clunky.  Rodda The Hutt is a little corny in a pre-teen kid kind of way, but he’s also a hellava wrestler with his wormlike physicality.  Very creative fun with his visual designs and movements.  Jabba was lazily resigned to his throne room platform as a clear inspiration of Brando’s Vito Corleone (great stuff).  His son Rodda, flexes muscles, wields weapons and swiftly goes all over the place. 

A purple teddy bear-like guy called Zeb (Steve Blum) from the various animated Star Wars series is a likable comrade co-pilot for the heroes.  (Actually, McQuarrie’s initial concept for Chewbacca.) Like Rodda, he talks like he’s from a Saturday morning cartoon.  That’s okay though.  He’s fun for the kids.

Sigourney Weaver is not given anything to do and per her talents and legendary status with the Alien and Avatar franchises, I would not have minded if she had more impact to the simple story.  I mean this is Sigourney “Ripley” Weaver we are talking about. 

At least Martin Scorsese returns a favor to Favreau (The Wolf Of Wall Street) as a panicky hot dog street vendor with multiple arms and his signature bushy eyebrows. He’s fun.

What I was anticipating from this cinematic adventure is not all here but that did not hinder an exciting time at the movies again.  This Star Wars installment may be simplistic in its storytelling, but all of the images and thrilling action scenes feel fresh while also appearing familiar. That’s a wonderful balance.  It’s not a perfect film and yet I still loved my time with the whole experience, especially on IMAX.

The Mandalorian And Grogu might look just as good as any one of the TV show’s episodes on your flat screen at home, but this movie is so worth seeing with a cheering crowd in a darkened theatre and an immersive, booming audio system. The colors and sounds justify why going to the movies remains vital for our escapes into visual imagination.  Treat yourself to Star Wars again, where it serves its purpose best.  Go to the movies!!!!  You’ll be smiling for over two hours straight, and even on your drive home. 

This Is The Way!