My desire to see 2014’s “The Lego Movie” was on par with my wish to step on a Lego brick in my bare feet. How could a movie starring plastic, singing mini figs possibly appeal to anyone who graduated Saturday morning cartoons decades ago? But I’m a professional so I put my bias of toy story movies aside and went to the screening.
Later, as I left the theatre humming “Everything is Awesome” I was own over. Directors and co-writers Phil Lord and Christopher Miller had pulled off something great, they made a movie with wide appeal using the Legos as a muse to do what the bricks have always done, light imaginations on fire.
Question is, five years later will everything be awesome in the sequel “The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part”?
The last movie ended with the revelation that the movie’s Lego Land frenetic action had actually taken place in 8-year-old Finn’s (Jadon Sand) imagination. The new one focuses on Finn’s sister Bianca (“The Florida Project’s” Brooklyn Prince) disrupting her brother’s carefully built world of fancy with her Duplo-Block creations.
In the make-believe world Duplo aliens, led by shape-shifting villain Queen Watevra Wa-Nabi (Tiffany Haddish) declare war on Bricksburg. Fast-forward five years. Optimistic construction worker Emmet (Chris Pratt) and Master Builder Lucy’s (Elizabeth Banks) home is now a smoking ruin called Apocalypseburg where if you show any weakness you will be destroyed. Dave is now called Chainsaw Dave and Sewer Babies live under the streets.
When Lucy, Batman (Will Arnett), Unikitty (Alison Brie), Benny (Charlie Day) and MetalBeard (Nick Offerman) are kidnapped and transported to the Systar System by General Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz) Emmet and intergalactic archaeologist / Snake Plissken look-a-like Rex Dangervest (Pratt again) set off to rescue them. “Don’t worry Lucy,” says Emmett, “everything will still be awesome.”
“The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part” is a pure pop art blast as though designed by kids. A mix of non-sequiturs, silly jokes, attention deficit editing, CPDs (Convenient Plot Devices) and music it zips along but isn’t as awesome as the original. The first film was a powerhouse of imagination and adventure. “The Second Part” has its moments—like the “Catchy Song” sequence—but feels like a dim bulb that doesn’t burn as brightly as it once did.
Like the first film the mayhem of Lego Land is tempered with real life lessons. In this case it takes an existential turn in the last third, expanding the mini fig story to shine a light on the fraught relationship between Finn and Bianca and their struggle to find a way to play together. When they learn to be kind and tolerant of one another their lives improve, as do those of their plastic figures.
“The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part’s” convoluted third reel paints the screen with too much frenetic CGI action but maintains the lesson of the first film, that NOT putting away childish things, like Lego blocks, is the key to making everything awesome, no matter what age. That the message doesn’t feel like a commercial for the brightly coloured blocks is a pleasant plus even if the movie feels like diminished returns.
One thing is for sure, the “Jurassic Park” movies are not an endangered species. The film series, now entering its fourth iteration since 1993’s prehistoric original, has outlived most other monster movie franchises of its vintage. With another one already scheduled for 2021 the dinos-gone-wild-movies show no signs of extinction. It seems audiences have an endless appetite to see people become dinosaur snacks.
The new one, “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” picks up three years after the “de-extinct” dinosaurs destroyed Isla Nublar, the island paradise where “Jurassic World” took place. Now abandoned and overrun by dinosaurs, the former theme park and its inhabitants face a new threat—“the flashpoint animal rights issue of our time,” we’re told—in the form of a volcano poised cover everything in a thick layer of molten lava.
Some people, like Dr. Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), feel nature should be allowed to take its course even if that means the end of the dinosaurs. Others, like Sir Benjamin Lockwood (James Cromwell), John Hammond’s partner in developing the dinosaur clone technology, want to see them rescued. Enter two former park employees, dinosaur trainer Owen Grady (Chris Pratt)—the Cesar Millan of the dinosaur world—and former park director Claire (Bryce Dallas Howard) and small team of helpers, computer whiz and comic relief Franklin (Justice Smith) and paleo veterinarian Zia (Daniella Pineda) who spearhead a campaign to relocate the creatures to a newer, safer sanctuary. “Save the dinosaurs from an island that is about to explode,” says Owen. “What could go wrong?” Lots. There’s more, like a nefarious plan to sell the rescued dinosaurs and a “creature of the future made from pieces of the past” but who cares as long as the creatures are let loose.
Sure enough, half-an-hour into “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom,” after some call backs and set up, dinos are chasing humans, summing up the two most important elements of the Jurassic franchise—giant dinosaurs and people for them to eat. Other stuff, like narrative logic, plain old common sense and interesting characters, come a distant second to gnarling teeth and big action set pieces.
The usual franchise mumbo jumbo about science tampering with the natural world is in place but it’s even more cursory than in the first “World” film. Instead it embraces the thing that has always been at the rapidly beating heart of these movies, monster mayhem and on that level it succeeds.
Ultimately, however, the stakes are very low. It is obvious who will become a dinosaur entree and who won’t. Also much of the danger has been replaced by more family friendly light moments—i.e. Owen doing a tranquilized acrobatic act to escape molten lava or Franklin’s ladder gag. There is some suspense, but it’s not subtle like Alfred Hitchcock style suspense. Instead it’s will-Owen-get-eaten-by-a-dinosaur-as-Claire-and-Franklin-roll-away-into-a-giant-motorized-orb suspense.
By the end credits what do we learn about “Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom”? Chris Pratt could probably outrun Tom Cruise without breaking a sweat. The rules of physics and do not apply in Dino Land. When you have dinosaurs you don’t need much else and some sequels are easier to set up than others.
“Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2” surpassed expectations after posting $146.5 million on its opening weekend. Richard spoke with one of the film’s stars Michael Rooker. Check out the interview now!
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 opens with a battle scene that would not be out of place in almost any other superhero movie.
The set-up has the Guardians — Peter Quill /Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) and Rocket (Bradley Cooper) — working for the Sovereigns, a thin-skinned race of aliens who have hired the heroes to protect valuable batteries from an inter-dimensional monster.
The action is as wild and woolly as we’ve come to expect from these big CGI extravaganzas, but the thing that sets the scene apart from all other superhero movies is the sheer, unbridled joy brought to the screen by Baby Groot (Vin Diesel), a tree-like being too small to take part in the fight. Instead he blissfully dances throughout to Mr. Blue Sky, the lush, Beatles-esque ELO song that underscores the sequence.
The scene and the movie brim with the missing element of so many other big superhero movies — fun.
“That’s what we hoped to do,” says star Michael Rooker, “bring back the fun. It was fun as hell doing it.”
Rooker reprises his role as blue-skinned, red-finned mercenary Yondu. The former Walking Dead actor — he played Daryl’s older brother Merle Dixon — jokes that his normal look, his handsomely craggy face, is actually make-up, and the Blue Man Group style we see in the movie is the face he was born with. “It takes four or five hours to get this on,” he says, pulling at his cheek. “The real problem is getting the fin off.”
Yondu’s weapon of choice is a flying arrow made of special sound-sensitive metal he controls through whistling.
“Dude,” he says, “everyone is digging that weapon.” It’s the character’s trademark and Rooker laughs when remembering talking to director James Gunn about the role. “Man, I was glad I was able to whistle.”
“The first time I got to whistle I did the melodic whistle… I hypnotized one of the aliens and then I shot out a piercing whistle. Yondu has different whistles.”
One wild action sequence with Yondu’s deadly arrow and set to ’70s pop ditty Come a Little Bit Closer is a showstopper, an imaginatively staged set piece with a huge body count and just as many laughs.
“That whole sequence is very much like a western gun fight if you think about it,” Rooker says. “You go out, and jacket pulled back, methodical, not fast. It is a total tribute.”
In the scene he is accompanied by two computer-generated characters, Baby Groot and Rocket, a genetically engineered raccoon-based bounty hunter. Neither actually appeared on set while shooting, but Rooker says they were there in spirit.
“Because these movies use a lot of CGI they require your imagination to be fertile and open and ripe for seeding,” he says. “I’m like, ‘There is Baby Groot. He’s over there and he’s sopping wet…What have they done to him?’ I talk to them like they were any other two characters.”
Yondu may be a vicious, arrow-wielding mercenary but he’s also the film’s emotional core and James Gunn says people will be “surprised by Michael Rooker’s performance. He deserves an Academy Award nomination. No joke.”
What does Rooker think? “We’ll see about that bro. I’m up for anything.”
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” opens with a battle scene that would not be out of place in almost any other superhero movie. The set-up has the Guardians—Peter Quill / Star-Lord (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax the Destroyer (Dave Bautista) and Rocket (Bradley Cooper)—working for the Sovereigns, a thin skinned race of aliens who have hired the heroes to protect valuable batteries from an inter-dimensional monster called the Abilisk. In exchange they will receive Gamora’s estranged sister Nebula (Karen Gillan).
It’s a lot of names and intrigue to keep straight right off the top. The action is as wild and woolly as we’ve come to expect from these big CGI extravaganzas, but the thing that sets the scene apart from all other superhero movies is the sheer, unbridled joy brought to the screen by Baby Groot (Vin Diesel), a tree-like being too small to take part in the fight. Instead he blissfully dances throughout to “Mr. Blue Sky,” the lush, Beatlesque ELO song that underscores the sequence.
The scene and the movie brims with the missing element of so many other big superhero movies—fun.
Anchoring the rock ‘em sock ‘em action is a subtext about family; you can choose your friends but you can’t choose your family. Gamora is bound by blood to a sister with an extreme case of sibling rivalry while Peter must choose between his birth father, a small ‘g’ god named Ego the Living Planet (Kurt Russell), his adopted dad Yondu (Michael Rooker) and his Guardian posse.
Set to a soundtrack of 70s radio hits and a cavalcade of pop culture references “Vol 2” is less story driven than the first film. With the origin tale out of the way it focuses on the characters and their relationships. Director James Gunn doesn’t allow the characters to become overwhelmed by the computer generated imagery. From Rocket’s wisecracks to Peter the semi-inept action hero and Gamora’s pragmatism—“If he does turn out to be evil will just kill him.”—the characters are front and center. Like the true scavengers they are, Drax—with Bautista’s deadpan delivery—and Baby Groot—“He’s too adorable to kill,” says Taserface (Chris Sullivan)—steal the show.
Fans will get what they expect—loads of goofy, gross and gooey cartoon action and cool Day-Glo creatures—but it’s the characters that make it so enjoyable. They spend as much time laughing as they do in action, bringing with them an infectious joyfulness. The movie is at it’s best when the characters are hanging out, when Peter finally gets to play catch with his dad with a ball made of pure energy, when Drax is ribbing Mantis (Pom Klementieff) or when Baby Groot is perched on the shoulders of his Guardian pals.
But Gunn also stages interesting action. The “Come a Little Bit Closer” sequence with Yondu’s deadly arrow is a showstopper, an imaginatively staged set piece with a huge body count and just as many laughs.
“Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2” is a mix of high-tech and lowbrow that breaks the sequel curse. It’s a tad too long, succumbs to CGI overload in its final moments and the not so subtle anti-bullying and free to be you and me messaging feels tacked on but is so much fun (there’s that word again) you’ll forgive its transgressions.
There will be a time when the “Guardian of the Galaxy’s” formula of 70s kitsch and wisecracks won’t work but we’re not there yet.
Like “Every Breath You Take,” the wedding band standard Police tune from 1983, the new film “Passengers,” depending on your point of view, is either an ode to romantic love or the storof an obsessed stalker.
The action takes place aboard the Avalon, a massive spaceship on a 120 year mission to deliver 5,259 people to Homestead II. All passengers are asleep, suspended in time until they arrive on the planet colony. “Don’t get homesick! Get Homestead!”
Among the travellers is Jim Preston (Pratt), an engineer anxious to start a new life in a new world. His deep slumber is interrupted when an asteroid slams the Avalon, waking him up ninety years too early.
Alone, save for android bartender Arthur (Michael Sheen), Jim is at loose ends. After a year drifting around the empty ship on an extended, lonely boys night out—he boozes-it-up, eats whatever he wants, plays video games and doesn’t shave—Jim becomes convinced he will die in a spacy solitary confinement long before the ship arrives at its destination. To alleviate his loneliness he goes about choosing a mate to pass the time. After some research he settles on Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence), a pretty journalist from New York City. “Say you figured out how to make your life a million times better,” he asks, “but it was wrong. What would you do?”
That is the big quest=ion at the heart of “Passengers.” Is Jim a hopeless romantic looking for love or a stalker who plucked Aurora out of her safe bubble to essentially hand her a death sentence? Answer that question to gauge your “Passengers” enjoyment level.
“Passengers” could easily have played as a horror film. Imagine a different cast, the loneliness of space and a little less romance and you would have a perfectly creepy vehicle for Ben Foster. Instead we have a strappingly handsome presence in Chris Pratt who is does, to be fair, seem conflicted about what to do and later sorry for what he did. He’s a charismatic and likeable star and that is supposed to make it OK that he makes life and death decisions for her without first asking for consent.
Add to that some epic scale special effects—a gravity free swimming pool and a misfiring nuclear reactor—and you have one of the strangest movies of the year. It should work. Individually Pratt and Lawrence are spark plugs; unfortunately no sparks fly between them on screen. Each are reliable, amiable additions to almost any other movie, but here they fall flat failing to draw the audience into their strange new world.
The film is at it’s best when Pratt is prattling around the snip on his own, having trite conversations with Arthur. Sheen is wonderfully perfunctory as the android who (almost) always has the right thing to say and the sense of boredom and growing ennui that arises is effectively portrayed. It’s the misguided “romance” that comes afterwards that doesn’t seem to fit. Lawrence, the very model of grrrl power in the “Hunger Games” movies, allows herself to be relegated to the fantasy girl role here, inexplicitly easing Jim’s guilt when the movie runs out of ways to have the pair interact.
“Passengers” desperately wants to be a feel good romance but never quite gets there. A few tweaks could have turned it into a creepy look at Jim’s desperation or an amusing film about technology gone wrong—imagine if Hal from 2001 was an automated customer service attendant—but instead its done in by the story’s sexist undercurrent.
Why did director Antoine Fuqua decide to remake the legendary 1960 western The Magnificent Seven? “I wanted to see Denzel Washington on a horse,” he jokes.
The story of seven men who come together to protect a town from a vicious robber baron looks back further than the 1960 film to the 1954 epic Japanese historical drama Seven Samurai. Often cited as one of the greatest films ever made, Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai provided what Fuqua described as the DNA of his film, but he also noted, “Westerns change with the time we’re in, so we made our film based on the world we are living in.”
To that end he has assembled the most diverse cast for a western ever. In addition to top billed stars Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke and Vincent D’Onofrio the seven magnificent leading actors include South Korean star Lee Byung-hun, the Mexican born Manuel Garcia-Rulfo and Martin Sensmeier, an American actor of Tlingit, Koyukon-Athabascan and Irish descent.
“You can’t do the same thing every era,” says Fuqua. “Westerns change all the time. If we were sticking to just one way of doing something then all westerns would be all white guys looking like John Wayne in a John Ford movie.”
“My idea was, if Denzel walks into a room, the room stops,” he says. “If Clint Eastwood walks into a room, the room stops. Is it because he’s a gunslinger or is it because of the colour of his skin? We’ll let the audience decide.”
When asked if The Magnificent Seven is proof that Hollywood is becoming more diverse the director says, “You have to give the studio credit when they do something like this. This becomes the new definition of what a western is.”
Chris Pratt, who plays gunslinger Josh Faraday says despite the film’s title The Magnificent Seven has more to do with another well known western.
“I don’t know how many movies there are in the world,” he said at the TIFF opening night press conference. “What would you guess, several hundred thousand? Millions? Eventually you just run out of names. If I have a son and name him Chad, is he a remake of somebody else who was named Chad? No. We could have called this The Cowboys or something, but [The Magnificent Seven title] has reach,” he continued, “it gets people engaged. But [this movie] is probably more Wild Bunch than it is [1960’s] The Magnificent Seven. We use the title, we use the story. It’s a bunch of guys. There are seven of us. And we’re all [bleeping] magnificent. We’ve got that going for us, but let that movie be that movie. This is a different movie.”
Star Denzel Washington says he’s never seen the 1960 film. “I didn’t keep away from it,” he says. “I just didn’t know how it would help me. I had never seen it as a kid or whatever. People say, ‘You’re the so and so character,’ I don’t even know who that is. I think it allowed me to do whatever I wanted to do instead of trying to not do what someone else did.”
Why did he sign on? “Well, Antoine asked me. It’s as simple as that. Obviously, it’s a good story and a good script but most importantly it was Antoine.”
Director Antoine Fuqua’s remake of “The Magnificent Seven” literally starts with a bang.
A series of mine explosions echo through Rose Creek, signalling unrest in the tiny mining town. Bartholomew Bogue (Peter Sarsgaard) has taken over, terrorizing the town with hired goons. He’s a cruel man who guns down citizens and says to his henchmen, “Leave the bodies where they lie. Let them look at them for a few days.” Bad Bart wants the land but is only will to pay a pittance per parcel. “Those of you who signed the deeds will get your $20,” he sneers. “And those who don’t, God help you.”
The townsfolk are helpless. Bogue has killed a half dozen men and with the sheriff on his payroll will continue to do as he pleases. Fed up and recently widowed, Emma Cullen (Haley Bennett) turns to hired gun Sam Chisolm (Denzel Washington) for help. “You don’t need a bounty hunter,” he says, “you need an army.” Despite the massive odds against them Chisolm assembles a rag tag team of killers, gamblers and outlaws—Josh Farraday (Chris Pratt), Goodnight Robicheaux (Ethan Hawke), Jack Horne (Vincent D’Onofrio), Billy Rocks (Byung-hun Lee), Vasquez (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo), and Red Harvest (Martin Sensmeier)—to go up against the ruthless robber baron in what promises to be a better than OK gunfight at the corral.
“The Magnificent Seven” is a classic looking western with a modern pace. Fuqua chooses not to mess with the key oater elements. He papers the screen with acres of open land, seven tough men, one or two resilient women and a sea of cowboy hats. He is respectful to the form and doesn’t try to bring the genre into the twenty-first century with frenetic editing—I’m looking at you Timur “Ben-Hur” Bekmambetov—or contemporary language. It’s a western, with all that entails; good vs. evil with some moral ambiguity thrown in for good measure.
Also thrown in for good measure is a heap of star power. Washington is a cool character, quietly deadly. He says cool stuff—“Chisolm, should I know that name?” he’s asked. “You should know it from your obituary,” he replies.—and is the movie’s charismatic center. Chris Pratt’s easy charm gives Washington a run for his money, but this is really Denzel’s movie from top to bottom.
Hawke and D’Onofrio do interesting character work. As the shell-shocked Robicheaux Hawke is equal parts swagger and skittishness while D’Onofrio is practically unrecognizable as the squeaky-voiced Jack Horne.
The remaining member of the seven aren’t given much to do other than pull triggers and nod in agreement to Chisolm’s plans, but they are an interesting bunch nonetheless.
At a little over two hours “The Magnificent Seven” could be leaner and well, maybe not meaner—I would not be surprised if it had the highest body count in a western ever—but tighter. There is a mid-movie sag as the plans for the final shootout are being finalized but the ballet of bullets at the end is epic, if not a little excessive, putting a fitting cap on a story that is slight but entertaining for most of the running time.
Richard hosts the “Magnificent Seven” TIFF press conference with (from left to right) Richard, Peter Sarsgaard, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Haley Bennett, Chris Pratt, Denzel Washington, Antoine Fuqua, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D’Onofrio, Lee Byung-hun and Martin Sensmeier.
