Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

*** ½ out of ****

The original “Star Wars” (1977) was released when I was seven years old, and there was no bigger fan than me. I had the movie book, every possible toy from the action figures to the Mos Eisley Cantina to the Millennium Falcon to the Death Star itself. I played with almost nothing else until I gave up toys around the age of 13. This was back in the days when if you didn't see a movie at the theater you had to wait for years until it came on TV, and my parents were never sci-fi fans so I never saw the actual movie until much later.  Heck, I even thought “Star Wars” was so incredibly wonderful that not just anybody could go to see it – I thought you had to “be somebody” to get in. In 1980, when my best friend came to school and told me his mother had taken him to see “The Empire Strikes Back”, I flat out refused to believe him. I mean, not just anyone could see it, right?

Because of how much that original movie meant to me (I loved the others in the original trilogy too, but not with the same fervor as the first one) I decided not to see “The Force Awakens” on its opening weekend. I would wait instead until I had my 11 year old twins with me, which I did 5 days after it opened. Watching their reaction to this film was worth at least as much to me as seeing the movie itself.  Their wide-eyed wonder warmed my heart and time-traveled me back to my childhood and my love for the original.

But enough of my ramblings.... onto the movie. With the franchise now re-imagined by JJ Abrams, it has sprung back to dynamic life after the ridiculous second trilogy tried so hard to kill it.

Decades have passed since Luke, Leia and crew saved the galaxy from the Empire. Luke started to try to rebuild the Jedi but went into hiding after a student (who we later know as both Kylo Ren and as Ben Solo, the son of Han and Leia) turned to the dark side. Kylo Ren has joined the “First Order”, which has risen from the ashes of the old Empire and is led by Supreme Leader Snoke (Andy Serkis). The First Order is very powerful with the Dark Side of the force and appears to have regained control of the galaxy.

One of the silliest parts of the second Star Wars trilogy was the whole “clone” thing with the stormtroopers. This film puts that to rest by explaining that in the new age stormtroopers are selected at birth and raised to be mindless killing machines. But one stormtrooper (Finn, played by John Boyega) can't bring himself to kill innocents and helps a captured rebel pilot, Poe (Oscar Isaac), to escape. They go off looking for a droid called BB8 that has a map to find Luke Skywalker's hiding place.

This leads them to a very Tatooine-like planet called Jakku, where Finn gets tied up with a scavenger girl named Rey (Daisy Ridley). Through various twists and turns they end up in the company of Han Solo and Chewbacca on the Millennium Falcon. More twists and turns lead them to Leia and the resistance, as well as the realization that Rey is very powerful with the force. And their collective need is to find a way to stop the First Order, which now has a Death Planet (called “StarKiller”) that can destroy other planets from a great distance away.  Governor Tarkin would have approved.

Much has been made of the fact that “The Force Awakens” is terribly similar to the original “Star Wars”. There is even one scene, where Rey is sneaking around the StarKiller, that so reminded me of the original film that I got a bit misty. We have a small band of rebels on board a killing planet, trying to destroy it despite being outnumbered hundreds to one, hoping to get a droid to the rebels to get information from it, while a powerful dark lord and a rookie Jedi butt heads. So yes, it's very similar to the original.

But who cares? It's fantastic!

Harrison Ford was made to play a dashing rogue, and he shines like a star in his return stint as Han Solo. Leia (Carrie Fisher) looks like a mannequin of herself (my guess is excessive collagen) but her part is far less prominent than Ford's. Daisy Ridley, John Boyega and Oscar Isaac are all welcome additions to the fold, blending pathos and humor throughout, and Domhnall Gleason is wonderfully foul as the First Order's General Vox. The story moves fast, the action is amazing and your breath will be taken away by the visual effects. Some scenes completely blew me away, including an homage to the first scene of Star Wars right after the opening crawl.

They have set this film up beautifully for a new trilogy, especially with the last scene of the film. Part of me wonders if the First Order has unlimited funds (the destruction of StarKiller Base must have ruined the annual budget) so how they will continue to be powerful moving forward should be interesting. But that is a minor footnote to an enormous triumph - “The Force Awakens” has the same feeling as the original film, and leaves you with the same joy and love for the characters and the story.

I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here.....but don't miss it.

P.S.. I had heard it said that fans of the original series would enjoy this movie more on the second viewing. It's a lie – savour that first viewing as much as you can, as there will be nothing like it. For me, without the magic of “what's going to happen next” the second viewing was still enjoyable, but lacked the wondrous magic of the first time.

A Walk in the Woods

*** out of ****

While I make no effort to avoid movie trailers, I have a rule about movies that look interesting enough to  see. That rule is to know as little about a film as possible before going in to see it. That way I have no preconceived notions and can experience the movie the way the filmmakers intended. It also allows me to enjoy it more. This past summer the importance was reinforced when, after avoiding looking at anything about the new Terminator movie, I sat in the theatre waiting for it to start. IN THE PRESHOW MATERIALS they played a little feature on the movie I was about to see that blew the whole “this is a reboot, Arnie is waiting in 1984 when the first terminator arrives.” I was beside myself. It ruined the entire movie for me.

So I continue to try to avoid those preconceived ideas. When I found out that Robert Redford and Nick Nolte were doing a movie where they as 70+ year olds hike the Appalachian Trail, I made sure to watch nothing else about it. And as is so often the case, I'm glad I did.

Redford plays Bill Bryson, a real-life author of travelogues, who is bored. Middle age has left him behind and he feels that his comfortable life offers him no challenge or excitement. So he decides, against the objections of his wife (Emma Thompson), to hike the Appalachian Trail, a 2000 mile foot-path that extends from Georgia to Maine. After several well-intentioned attempts to talk him out of it, his wife finally agrees but decrees that she will only allow it to happen if he travels with a companion.

Bryson's companion search is brief and fruitless, with most of his friends deciding he has a screw loose. Then he receives an unsolicited call from a long-lost acquaintance from decades ago, Stephen Katz (Nick Nolte). Katz has heard about the trip from a mutual friend and he asks to go along. Despite reservations due to the contentiousness of their friendship back in the day, Bryson agrees. Really, he has no other choice, as he has nobody else that wants to go. Katz's lifelong drinking problem and lack of personal fitness add to the levity when they meet up again.

Now the conventional critics didn't especially like this film, suggesting that this plotline coupled with the stellar pairing of Redford and Nolte should have produced a really entertaining movie. I personally think they sold it short, as this IS a really entertaining movie. Nolte, as is so often the case, is absolutely stellar in his role and his traditional growling bear persona, which is now 50% grumpy-old-man, is hilarious. Redford is clearly the straight man in this pairing – Nolte had me laughing out loud a dozen times.

Despite a bit of an anticlimactic conclusion, I thoroughly enjoyed the film. Nolte really lights up the screen, and Redford's role, greatly enhanced by his weather-beaten, leathery appearance play really well against it. It's surely not going to be nominated for any Academy Awards (except perhaps for some technical ones) but it's a fun film with some great laughs. Particularly for those of us that are already finding ourselves a step slower than we used to be.

Ant Man (2015)

** ½ out of ****

When I first saw previews for “Ant Man” my first thought was that Paul Rudd was totally the wrong man for a super-hero movie. Turns out that there could have been worse choices made to play the hero, as Rudd does a serviceable job, but come on Marvel are you going to make a movie out of every single character you have?

Twenty-five years ago, Dr. Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) has developed a new technology for reducing the space between atoms in normal materials – effectively a way to cause things to shrink. This short sequence early in the movie was my favorite part about it, as a CGI-ed Michael Douglas is looking more like the guy from “Romancing the Stone” than the creepy “he looks just like his dad” oddball from “Last Vegas”. Pym hides the tech as he believes it is too dangerous to use. His second-in-command (Corey Stoll) can see it would be worth billions to the military and he immediately starts to try to reproduce it from scratch.

Fast forward to modern day and the new version of the technology is almost ready to go. Pym realizes that he needs to use his version of the shrinking tech to prevent the new one from being used. He hires recently paroled master thief Scott Lang (Paul Rudd) to break into Pym's own house to see if he can do it successfully, but it's just a test to see how good Lang is. Lang desperately needs money to be able to see his daughter, so he goes along with the heist, not know what he's getting himself into. But soon Lang is the new “Ant Man” and he, Pym and Pym;s daughter (Evangeline Lilly) are a team trying to prevent the armageddon which would occur if the new version of the technology is militarized.

Whew – long winded explanation.... like all Marvel films this one has lots of intrigue, lots of action, lots of CGI and visual eye candy, but comes up pretty short on heart. The actors are all fine, the story isn't terrible, it has a couple of laughs, but it just doesn't do anything to really grab your attention. A good movie is supposed to make you care about the plight of the antagonists, and as with just about all the recent Marvel films it simply doesn't do that.

A few days after watching this movie I re-watched “Blue Ruin” (2014). “Ant Man” cost $130 million to make, “Blue Ruin” cost $420,000, has no special effects and so little dialogue the script was probably a third as long as “Ant Man”. But “Blue Ruin” is riveting, you lose yourself in the plot and you desperately hope for the hero to win against the bad guys. “Ant Man” is missing that element that connects you to the characters in a way that makes you care about them.

It doesn't stink, but it isn't any great shakes either. It will pass the time, then you'll forget all about it.

American Ultra (2015)

** out of ****

Mike Howell (Jesse Eisenberg) is a loser. His only desire in life is to get high and listen to music.  He works at a dollar store that appears to go days between paying customers. Inexplicably he has a beautiful girlfriend named Phoebe (Kristen Stewart) who he wants to marry, but feels like he has nothing to offer her. In addition, he has some sort of anxiety disorder about ever leaving the small town where they live. He's just not someone you'd want to know.

But there's more to this picture than meets the eye. It turns out that Mike used to be some sort of trained CIA superagent, and he has been brainwashed and is currently dormant. And when his former chief (Connie Britton) finds out that another CIA chief (Topher Grace) is planning to have him eliminated as an unnecessary risk, she swings by Mik'e workplace and activates him. He doesn't realize that anything has happened.... until a couple of guys pull guns on him and he kills both of them in seconds with a soup-spoon.

This starts “American Ultra” down a semi-interesting path as the career stoner tries to make sense of his newfound abilities, and despite his lack of memory about why he has them. Soon teams of hitmen are coming out of the woodwork and one by one Mike eliminates them (often in gruesome and spectacular fashion) so that he can go back to looking for his bong.

American Ultra is a pretty slickly produced film, but at the end of the day doesn't really offer anything more than a comic twist on “The Bourne Identity” (2002). There are some laughs and there is some action, but the performances are universally weak and stereotypical and the heroes aren't particularly likable. There isn't much more to say about it, other than it will kill the time if there's nothing particularly good to watch on TV.

90 Minutes in Heaven (2015)

½ out of ****

First the synopsis. Hayden Christianson is a 38-year old father of three who is nearly killed in a horrific crash with an 18-wheeler. In fact, the emergency responders were so certain he was dead that it was 90 minutes before they got him out of the car. Later, during his recovery, he claimed that for that 90 minutes he was dead and experiencing heaven. He becomes a real asshole to everyone in his life because he wants to leave this life and go back to heaven. Kind of like Soren with the Nexxus in “Star Trek: Generations”.

Deadly dull, incredibly boring, slower than a snail and foolish on every possible level. If I ever consider watching this again, I want someone to punch me in the face.

Horns (2013)

*** out of ****

Imagine that the love of your life broke up with you on the night you were going to propose to her. Then suppose that as you went off that night, getting hammered and sleeping in your car in a parking lot, she was somewhere being raped and murdered and left to die in the woods. Further imagine that every single person in your town, including your family, believe you are the killer. You'd be imagining yourself in a pretty bad spot.

But that is exactly where Iggy Perrish (Daniel Radcliffe) finds himself at the beginning of “Horns”, a really terrific adaptation of Joe Hill's intriguing novel. His girlfriend had been Merrin (Juno Temple), and there isn't enough evidence to convict or clear him of her murder because the forensics lab where the DNA evidence was being analyzed burned down before any results were in. As a result he drinks too much and understandably has all kinds of self loathing issues.

But one morning he wakes up, after a blackout drunk the night before which he can't remember at all..... with horns. Real devil horns growing out of the top of his head. They have nerves and blood, and Ig is sensibly mystified about and terrified of them. But now that he has them, something weird starts to happen; everyone he now talks to starts to confess their deepest, darkest desires to him. At the doctor's office the mother of a screaming child tells him about her desire to leave the child and screw her golf pro. The receptionist tells him about her craving to berate that mother and beat the crap out of her. The doctor himself tells Ig he wants to crush up some Oxycodon and “get fucked up”, and also how he wants to sexually assault one of his daughter's friends.

And NOBODY appears to think the horns are especially weird. It seems everyone kind of forgets about them as soon as they aren't looking at them anymore. So Ig decides he can use this odd new power to get people to talk about the night Merrin was killed and hopefully find out what really happened.

What “Horns” ends up being is sort of a supernatural whodunnit, and the story gets pretty interesting. I think it would have been an intriguing film even without the horns, but that aspect makes it a pretty unique endeavor. Daniel Radcliffe is actually incredibly good in the lead role, not only in his ability to pull off a perfect American accent, but in his authenticity as the tormented Ig. His grief over Merrin's murder, his confusion about the horns, his rage in his desire to find the killer, his horror at learning everyone's darkest desires....even his fiendish joy in using his new influence against people he doesn't like – Radcliffe has it all down seamlessly. A performance worthy of note.

This movie was clearly a smaller project than most popular releases, but is surely one of the more unique stories we've seen on the screen recently. An absorbing plotline, a bunch of nice performances and solid production make this one really worthwhile. If you've read the novel you may be a bit unhappy with some of the changes made, but I found those all pretty minor and necessary to make the film easier to follow.

Overall a really enjoyable movie – well worth watching if you stumble across it.