Movies like the high gloss crime thriller “La Femme Nikita,” the assassin mentor flick “Léon: The Professional” and outré sci fi opera “The Fifth Element” have come to define director Luc Besson’s outrageous style. Kinetic blasts of energy, his films are turbo charged fantasies that make eyeballs dance even if they don’t always engage the brain. His latest, “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets,” not only has one of the longest titles of the year but is also one of the most over-the-top, retina-frying movies of the year. Your eyes will beg for mercy.
Based on the French comic book “Valérian and Laureline,” a series that ignited the young Besson’s imagination, it stars Dane DeHaan and Cara Delevingne as 28th century dimension-jumping space police and lovers Major Valerian and Sergeant Laureline. When they aren’t cooing over one another the duo preserve law and order in the universe’s human territories.
Their biggest mission ever comes when the Minister of Defense (jazz star Herbie Hancock) dispatches them to save Alpha, an ever-growing space station nicknamed, “the City of a Thousand Planets.” Led by Commander Arün Filitt (Clive Owen) it is one of the most diverse places in the universe, a peaceful melting pot, home to 30 million inhabitants and thousands of species, who live in harmony, content to share culture and knowledge. Trouble is, sinister forces are afoot.
There’s more, like the Besson-ian touch of a wild red light district called Paradise Alley, an exploding planet, a shape-shifting burlesque performer played by Rihanna and a creature that that poops pearls, but the draw here are the eyeball-spinning visuals, not the story.
“Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” is undeniably great looking, but Besson is a stylist above all, but it feels as though it is composed of influences from dozens of other better movies. It’s less than the sum of its parts. “Avatar” + “Tron” + “Dune” + “Star Wars” = “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.”
There are characters who look so much like the Na’vi you’ll think James Cameron delivered his long promised “Avatar” sequel years early, plus ectoplasm shooting guns, Lucas look-a-like creatures and Jessica Rabbit even makes an appearance. Laureline also drops one of the most famous space opera lines ever, “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” without a trace of irony. Cowabunga! The movie brings with it a disconcerting feeling of déjà vu, made doubly strange because you’ve never seen anything quite like it before.
It’s all spectacle and the leads get lost somewhere between the art direction and the artless storytelling. DeHaan plays Valerian as a Han Solo type, cocky and quick with a line but his laid-back, off kilter demeanour—so appealing in films like “The Place Beyond the Pines” and “Life”—gets lost amid the noise.
Delevingne, the Meryl Streep of eye roll acting, delivers a speech about love being more powerful than any army that is destined to become a YouTube camp classic. A psychic jellyfish sequence recalls one of Delevingne’s high fashion modelling jobs come to life, is beautiful but deeply odd.
Both leads look like they reek of Redbull and herbal cigarettes and provide the film’s most interesting juxtaposition between the flamboyant art design and their blasé performances.
“Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” has some trippy space-time continuum stuff but otherwise it’s jammed with the hoariest of clichés, like a ticking clock counting down to doom and an ending right out of “Colombo” complete with flashbacks. There is a sense of fun about some of the creatures—and a wild allusion to eating live monkey brains—but oddly the movie isn’t much fun.
Less a story than a conceptual art piece, “A Ghost Story” delivers on its promise of a ghost but, by design, does not deliver any thrills or chills. Instead it’s a ponderous look at love, loss and legacy.
Casey Affleck and Rooney Mara star as characters simply identified as C and M. Married, they are planning to move from their country bungalow when tragedy strikes. C is killed in a car accident on the road next to their home. In the morgue M identifies the body, seen in a sterile white tile room, covered in a starched white sheet. When she leaves the room he rises from the slab, covered head-to-toe à la a children’s Halloween ghost costume, complete with two holes cut for eyes.
The ghost returns home and, unbeknownst to M, watches her as she grief eats an entire pie, drunkenly kisses a man on the stoop and packs up the house for her eventual relocation. M leaves and he turns increasingly violent when a new family moves in becoming Casper-The-Not-So-Friendly-Ghost, breaking plates and scaring the kids. Tenants come and go. He communicates with another sheet-wearing spirit a few houses down. Time passes; days, weeks, months, years even centuries. When the house is torn down, replaced with a skyscraper, he pads around the offices, haunting meetings until entering a meta time cycle that sees him thrust into the distant past.
Shot in a boxy 1:33 aspect ratio, director David Lowery presents “A Ghost Story” with rounded corners like an old photograph. It’s just one of the many sentimental touches in this strange story. At its heart it’s a rumination on the melancholy of feeling helpless as the spirit of C is actually the one being haunted by the living. The inversion of the usual ghost tale deepens the film’s surreal mood, which is both romantic and discomforting.
It won’t be for everyone. The aforementioned five-minute pie-eating scene and a shot where we literally watch paint dry may test the patience of the restless viewer but if you can get on board with the conceit of a ghost dressed in a child’s costume there is much to mull on. What is legacy? How do you move on in the face of great loss? What is the true meaning of love? These are big questions and the movie occasionally gets lost in its philosophical enormity but as audacious, experimental looks at love and life go, it’s unafraid and unapologetic.
Despite critical raves and big box-office success, Roddy McDowell wasn’t nominated for his work as the sympathetic chimpanzee Cornelius in the original Planet of the Apes. Unless things change radically in the next few months Andy Serkis, star of War for the Planet of the Apes, won’t be either. He’s getting the best reviews of his career for playing chimpanzee Caesar, leader to a tribe of genetically enhanced apes in the new film, but the Academy refuses to recognize his style of acting.
Unlike Serkis, McDowell wore a rubber mask that took hours to apply, even for quick promotional appearances like his 1974 spot on the Carol Burnett Show.
Burnett introduced McDowell as “one of Hollywood’s most familiar faces,” then feigned shock as the actor came onstage in a tuxedo, but in full Planet of the Apes facial makeup. They launch into a spirited version of the love ballad They Didn’t Believe Me. By the end of the tune the audience roars as Burnett warbles, “When I told them how wonderful you are, They didn’t believe me,” as she mimes picking a bug off his lapel.
Later she thanked Roddy for undergoing the three-and-a-half hours it took to put on the makeup for that bit of funny business.
It’s not likely you’ll see Andy Serkis partaking in the same kind of promotional monkey business.
Times have changed since McDowell had to endure untold hours in the makeup chair, then smoke using an extra long cigarette holder so as not to light his faux fur on fire. “It’s about a foot long and makes me look like the weirdest monkey you ever did see,” McDowell told Newsday.
These days Serkis, who is best known for his motion capture performances of Gollum in the Lord of the Rings films and The Force Awakens’ Supreme Leader Snoke, performs on a soundstage in front of multiple cameras that film his performance from every angle. He wears a body suit dotted with spots that allow the computers to register even the slightest movement. Serkis calls this “a magic suit” that “allows you to play anything regardless of your size, your sex, your colour, whatever you are.” Later, in post production the “digital makeup” adds in the costume and character details.
It saves hours in the makeup chair, but is no less a performance than McDowell’s more organic approach. “I’ve never drawn a distinction between live-action acting and performance-capture acting,” Serkis says. “It is purely a technology. It’s a bunch of cameras that can record the actor’s performance in a different way.”
Which raises the question of why the Academy refuses to acknowledge the work of Serkis and others who specialize in motion capture? The Independent calls him one of the greatest actors of this generation and the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films recognize his work but the Oscars have steadfastly ignored his specialty. It’s a slap in Serkis’ face that The Lord of The Rings: The Two Towers won an Oscar for Visual Effects in part because of the genius of his performance.
Whether included in the Best Actor category or another, new grouping for Best MoCap Performance, it’s time Serkis and others were recognized for their work.
Weeki Wachee Springs is a legendary Florida roadside attraction. The theme park features the usual enticements like water rides and animal shows, and one unusual feature — mermaid costume shows.
According to their website, since 1947 they have ignited tens of thousands of imaginations with an underwater show featuring “beautiful women dressed as mermaids with fins about their legs [swimming] in the cool, clear spring waters.”
When documentarian Ali Weinstein read a story about the place in The New York Times Magazine she was intrigued.
“They had interviewed a bunch of women who worked there and who had worked there back in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s,” she says. “The way these women spoke about their job as a mermaid fascinated me because they talked about it as though it was the most important thing they had done in their whole lives; like it was this completely transformative experience for them.
“I started thinking about what it would be like to be able to put on this alter ego, this costume, and transform physically,” Weinstein says. “I started researching mermaids from there and saw there was this subculture I had no idea about.”
That interest sparked the idea for a film, Mermaids, which took her to Weeki Wachee Springs and beyond. But the film isn’t a historical look at marine folklore or the history of the Starbucks’ logo. Stories of the underwater half-fish, half-humans luring sailors to their death have been written for centuries, but Weinstein took a humanist approach, deep diving into the lives of people living the mermaid fantasy.
“I grew up loving the water,” she says. “I was a synchronized swimmer for many years and even though I never put on a tail before I started researching this film, I immediately connected to what some of the women were saying about feeling more at peace with themselves and more beautiful underwater because I had experienced that. I definitely expected to have that kind of healing power in the stories I was going to hear but the ubiquitous of that was shocking to me.”
The 75-minute film introduces a variety of women for whom the wearing of a prosthetic tail is a cathartic act. There’s incest survivor Cookie (her husband tailors her tails) whose love of dressing as a mermaid helped her overcome feelings of worthlessness. There’s also Julz, a transgender woman who found acceptance in the mermaid community.
“I think there is something about a mermaid where she is both free and independent and powerful,” says Weistein, “which makes her an easy figure to aspire to. At the same time, in so many of the legends she is depicted as lonely or having this unrequited love or a yearning to be something different than she is. I think that duality in a mermaid is something that people connect to very easily.”
Weinstein lets the women do the talking in Mermaids, presenting slices of their lives. The thing that binds them is the inclusive and empowering nature of the mermaid world. “All tails are welcome here,” says one woman.
“I was hoping from the start that someone who walks in and watches the film might find it amusing at first,” Weinstein says, “but by the end they would feel they could really relate to these people even if they don’t share the desire to wear a tail.”
The latest “Planet of the Apes” movie has all the earmarks of what is wrong in Hollywood. It’s one of those dreaded hyphenate reboot-prequel movies, there’s a child sidekick and more than half the characters are computer generated. That should be three strikes you’re out, but “War for the Planet of the Apes” transcends all that monkey business as an expertly made popcorn flick.
The story picks up two years after “Dawn of the Planet of the Apes” and brings us one step closer to the events of the very first “Apes” film from 1968. Human civilization has crumbled after a simian-flu wiped out most of humanity while empowering the apes. The primates, led by aging hero ape Caesar (Andy Serkis), have created a comfortable forest world for themselves along the California/Oregon border.
It’s a peaceful place until a human commando team, under the orders of a ruthless Colonel Kurtzian leader named McCullough (Woody Harrelson), stage a brutal raid. “We must abandon our humanity to save humanity,” he says. Instead of Born to Kill written on their helmets these soldiers have slogans like Bedtime for Bonzo emblazoned up top.
Later, when McCullough kills Cesar’s wife and son he seeks out the Colonel. His search for revenge leads him to an ape prison camp, kick starting the film’s “Ape-pocalypse Now” section. It’s guerrilla warfare, but this time it’s personal.
“If we lose,” McCullough says, “it will be a planet of apes.” Duh. Isn’t that kind of the point of these movies?
“War for the Planet of the Apes” is a summer tentpole movie that fits into the franchise but can be enjoyed as a standalone. Director Matt Reeves creates exciting action sequences but there’s more to the movie event explosions and gunfire. A brief recap brings us up to speed, then we’re thrown into the world. Cesar wants to be left alone but the murder of his family ignites within him complex, contradictory emotions, the desire to protect his ape herd while getting revenge. Those feelings are the engine that drives the movie but they are wrapped around a blockbuster that doesn’t feel like a blockbuster. It’s quiet—most of the apes speak in sign language—with a philosophical edge not usually found in big summer releases.
Much of that is due to a brilliant MoCap performance from Andy Serkis. In a genre not known for subtlety he brings a range of emotion to Cesar. Selfless, melancholic and compassionate, his take on the ape character is layered and made all the more remarkable given the computer generated process that goes into creating it.
Serkis is aided by Karin Konoval as orangutan Maurice, who complex emotions with little to no dialogue. Less welcome, although not fatal, is Steve Zahn’s Jar Jar Binks-esque Bad Ape. He’s the film’s comic relief but his goofy gags and slapstick often feel slightly out of place in a movie that is otherwise concerned with classic themes like fear of the other and revenge.
Like all good speculative fiction “War for the Planet of the Apes” isn’t just a movie about the wild idea of apes vs. humans. With deeply rooted ideas about the nature of compassion and community, it also contains timely ideas for a troubled world. In one tense scene child sidekick Nova (Amiah Miller) risks everything to bring food and water to Cesar, subtly suggesting that even in the darkest times kindness can still exist. It’s a rare movie, an intimate epic brimming with food for thought while simultaneously satisfying the need to watch apes on horseback.
“Mermaids,” a new documentary from Toronto filmmaker Ali Weinstein, isn’t a historical look at marine folklore or the history of the Starbucks’ logo. Stories of the underwater half-fish, half-human beings luring sailors to their death have been written for centuries but Weinstein takes a humanist approach, deep diving into the lives of people living the mermaid fantasy.
In 75 minutes the film introduces us to women for whom the wearing of a prosthetic tail is a transformative act. There’s Cookie De Jesus, an incest survivor (whose husband tailors her tails) whose love of dressing as a mermaid helped her overcome feelings of worthlessness. We meet Rachel, half of a mother, daughter mermaid team, a handful of the famed Weeki Wachee mermaids of Spring Hill, Florida and Julz, a transgender woman who found acceptance in the mermaid community.
Weinstein let’s the women do the talking here, presenting slices of their lives. The thing that binds them is the inclusive and empowering nature of the mermaid world. “All tails are welcome here,” says one woman.
“Mermaids” doesn’t delve much deeper than that, but it’s an intriguing and positive snapshot of a subculture. Visually Weinstein keeps things interesting with beautiful underwater cinematography, but the film’s strength is its message. “You’re half fish and half human,” says one mermaid, “and I think the best of both.”
Take “The Decameron,” a collection of novellas by the 14th-century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, add in “Mean Girls” and you have “The Little Hours.” Set at the time of the Black Death, director Jeff Baena has made a quirky comedy with an all-star comedy cast including Alison Brie, Dave Franco, Aubrey Plaza, John C. Reilly and Molly Shannon, period costumes and dialogue that would not be out of place in a raunchy, modern day teen comedy.
The spoiled Alessandra (Brie), eye-rolling Fernanda (Plaza), and befuddled Ginevra (Micucci) are medieval nuns, bored out of their minds at the convent. They spend the day doing chores, stealing bottles of communion wine and having impure thoughts.
When Massetto (Dave Franco), a young servant forced to flee home after he was caught sleeping with his Lord’s (Nick Offerman) wife (Lauren Weedman), arrives at the convent he provides a release for the pent up repression. Cue bawdy wickedness and even a satanic ritual or two.
Like the period “Carry On” movies, in “The Little Hours” the genre is the joke. Baena mines some outrageous moments by casting Brie, Plaza and Micucci as repressed, nuns but the humour primarily comes from the situation, not the script. In other words, like many of the “Carry On” movies, the idea is funnier than the actual script.
“The Little Hours” is a movie with “mischief in its heart.” Its satire is so broad it doesn’t aim to offend. Instead, it revels in its irreverence, relying on its cast—particularly the trio of nasty nuns and John C. Reilly as Father Tommasso—to find whatever humour is hidden in this audacious material.
This weekend, Peter Parker swings back into theatres, but it’s not Tobey Maguire or Andrew Garfield behind the familiar red-and-black-webbed mask. Instead, for the third time in 15 years the web-slinging role has been recast. This time around, 21-year-old English actor and dancer Tom Holland wears the suit as the star of Spider-Man: Homecoming.
Holland’s extended Captain America: Civil War cameo in 2016 almost stole the show, displaying the character’s bright-eyed, boyish spark but this is his first outing as the title star. So far he’s getting rave reviews. After a recent critics screening the twitterverse lit up.
“Tom Holland is perfect,” wrote one poster, “He’s having the time of his life and it shows.” “I don’t want to spoil it,” wrote another, “but they found a way to make Spider-Man relatable like never before on screen, that’s where @TomHolland1996 shines.”
Spider-Man: Homecoming is poised to hit big at the theatres, breathing new life into a character we all know but it is also a shining example of the old adage, “The only constant is change.” Hollywood loves to reboot movies — we’ll soon see new versions of It, Flatliners and Blade Runner — but while the titles stay the same, the faces change.
Not everyone embraces the changes. When Garfield took over for Maguire in 2012 1234zoomer commented on The Amazing Spider-Man: “IS NOT GOING TO BE THE SAME WITHOUT TOBBY!!!,” (her uppercase and spelling, not mine), but Maguire was gracious, saying, “I am excited to see the next chapter unfold in this incredible story.”
Whether Holland acknowledges Maguire or Garfield is yet to be seen, but at least one replacement had the manners to recognize his precursor.
In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 007 No. 2 George Lazenby paid a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the original Bond, Sean Connery. After a wild battle to rescue Contessa Teresa (played by Diana Rigg) the new James Bond didn’t get the girl. “This never happened to the other fellow,” he says, looking dejectedly into the camera.
Connery went on to co-star in The Hunt for Red October with Alec Baldwin playing Jack Ryan, a character later portrayed by Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck.
In 2014 Chris Pine (who also took over the part of Captain Kirk in Star Trek from William Shatner) played the super spy in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit. He admits, “We didn’t totally get that right,” but still has hopes for the series. “It’s a great franchise, and if it’s not me, then I hope it gets a fifth life at this point. I hope it’s done again and with a great story.”
The Batman franchise also has had a revolving cast. Since 1943 eight actors have played the Caped Crusader, including Lewis G. Wilson, who at 23 remains the youngest actor to play the character, and George Clooney who admits he was “really bad” in Batman & Robin.
Most recently Ben Affleck, dubbed Bat-Fleck by fans, has played the Dark Knight but probably the most loved Bat-actor of all time is the late Adam West. West, who passed away last month at age 88, admits playing Batman typecast him but says, “I made up my mind a long time ago to enjoy it. Not many actors get the chance to create a signature character.”
The folks behind “Spider-Man: Homecoming,” the second reboot of the web slinging comic superhero following franchises lead by Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield, wisely decides not to rehash the Peter Parker’s origin story. We know he’s an orphan being raised by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben when a bite from a radioactive spider caused mutations in his body, granting him the superpowers of super strength and agility.
Been there, done that twice before.
Instead, it picks up the story a few months after “Captain America: Civil War’s” epic airport tarmac battle. After that taste of big league crime fighting with the Avengers, 15-year-old Parker (Tom Holland) returned to normal life as a high school student in Queens, New York, living in a small apartment with his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei).
Mentored by Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) he’s slowly figuring out what it means to be a superhero at night while and Peter Parker, a scrawny science nerd by day. “I am a kid,” he says, “but a kid who can stop a bus with his bare hands.” When he ‘s not fighting crime he’s acting like a teen, building a 3803-piece Lego Death Star with his best friend or getting shy in the presence of his crush Liz (Laura Harrier). He likes Liz but Liz loves Spider-Man. What to do?
It’s just one of many problems Parker encounters as his ambition to become a full-fledged Avenger puts him on a crash course with Vulture (Michael Keaton), a villain with wings and a bad attitude.
“Spider-Man: Homecoming” is easily the best web tale since 2004s “Spider-Man 2.” Director Jon Watts channels John Hughes in the high school scenes, Sam Raimi in the action scenes. There’s comedy and a more light-hearted tone as Parker comes of age as a crime fighter and hormonal teen. Holland finds the right mix of the character’s vulnerability and arrogance, nerdiness and impulsiveness. Together they spin a new web that is the most diverse entry in the Marvel Universe to date and one of the most entertaining.
There are new Spidey toys—his suit now speaks to him à la Jarvis in “Iron Man” for instance—but while cool, the effects aren’t the things that give “Homecoming” a recommendation, it’s the movie’s sense of fun and humanity. It’s a fantastical story about real people. Parker is simply a teen coming to grips with the changes in his body and even the villain is essentially a working class guy who wants to provide for his family. He’s tired of being pushed around so he’s pushing back. By going back to basics Watts grounds the movie in the comic book lore that made the character popular in the first place. He’s not the tortured superhero we’ve come accustomed to seeing on the big screen, instead he’s a regular teen in extraordinary circumstances. How regular is he? Sometimes his crime-fighting escapades are spoiled by after school detention.
“Spider-Man: Homecoming” is over two hours long and, like all other superhero movies, features a CGI heavy climax, but somehow doesn’t feel bloated. It also features the best last line of any Avengers movie and, for once, an after credit scene that is worth waiting for.
