“There ain’t nothin’ in the world like a big eyed girl to make Christoph Waltz act so funny. Five years ago he played Walter Keane, the wannabe artist who wrongly took credit for his wife Margaret’s phenomenally successful paintings of sad looking kids with enormous eyes. He returns to screens this weekend as a mentor to a cyborg heroine who looks like she stepped out of one of Keane’s paintings.
Set in 2563, three hundred years after “the fall,” a deadly war, the story takes place in the dangerous and dystopian Iron City. Overcrowded and violent, the city doesn’t even have police, just Hunter Warriors who track down criminals for cash.
The action kicks off when the kind-hearted cybersurgeon Dr. Dyson Ido (Waltz) finding the cast-off “core” of Alita (Rosa Salazar) an abandoned cyborg with amnesia, discarded in a scrapyard. “I guess I’m an insignificant girl,” she says later, “thrown out with the rest of the garbage.”
Recognizing that there is more to her than metal and wiring, he takes her in, and like a high tech Dr. Frankenstein pieces together a body for her abandoned head and shoulders. He cares for her as if she was his daughter, attempting to give her a normal life despite the fact that there is very little normal about her. Sure, she giggles like a teenage girl and develops a love-at-first-sight crush on Hugo (Keean Johnson), but strange flickers of memory keep popping into her head.
Fragments of her former life come back when she least expects it. When she rescues a dog from danger an old instinct kicks in and she shows remarkable agility and speed. Later, when Hugo teaches her to play Motorball—sort of parkour on rollerblades—she displays incredible skill.
Turns out triggers recollections of her warrior past, providing clues to who she once was. As her true identity emerges—turns out she is one of the most advanced cyborg weapons ever made—sinister forces in Iron City including Motorball impresario Vector (Mahershala Ali) and the world-weary Chiren (Jennifer Connelly), want her stopped. At stake is not just her survival but the survival of Iron City, and everyone in it. “I do not stand by in the presence of evil,” she says.
Loosely based on Yukito Kishiro’s original manga, with a focus on the first four books, “Alita: Battle Angel” provides director Robert Rodriguez with lots of material for world building. Perhaps too much. Each main character has a backstory, whether it is in Iron City or the Eden-like floating world of Zalem. There’s hundreds of years of history to establish, the rules to Motorball and, of course, the blending of Alita’s two lives, past and present. There’s a lot going on. Exposition abounds and with the frenzy of plot it is inevitable there will be shards of unanswered and unexplored left by the time the end credits roll. Add to that a cliffhanger ending that doesn’t feel like an ending, more like Rodriguez simply ran out of film, and you have a movie more concerned with its franchise possibilities than telling a complete story.
“Alita: Battle Angel” is a feast of imaginative CGI, driven by large scale spectacle but, like its main character, has a synthetic heart.
Based on a well-loved James Baldwin novel, “If Beale Street Could Talk” is a story of love in the face of injustice. Director Barry Jenkins, in his follow-up to the Oscar winning “Moonlight,” has crafted a stately film that takes us inside the relationship at the heart of the story and the heartlessness that threatens to rip it apart.
Childhood friends “Tish” Rivers (Kiki Layne) and Alonzo “Fonny” Hunt (Stephan James) kept their relationship platonic until it blossomed into love when she was 19 and he was 22. With a lifetime of familiarity behind them, their relationship progresses quickly. They move into together and wait for the birth of their first child when tragedy strikes. Framed for sexual assault by racist cop Officer Bell (Ed Skrein) Fonny is thrown in jail. “I hope nobody ever has to look at somebody they love through class,” Tish says. The families rally to raise money for his defence but circumstance conspires to keep him incarcerated.
“If Beale Street Could Talk” is a love story framed against a backdrop of disenfranchisement and turmoil. It is about a woman’s love for her fiancé, a mother and father‘s for their daughter, the power of love to be the fuel of survival. As the faces of this love Jenkins displays an impeccable eye for casting. Through their body language and easy chemistry Layne and James hand in performances ripe with empathy, power and, here’s that word again, love.
There is a delicacy to the filmmaking. Jenkins takes his time, slowly building the story of heartbreak tinged with hope. It’s a period piece but placed alongside the spate of newspaper stories of young African-American men by police it feels as timely as today’s headlines.
Look! Up on the screen! It’s Blade: Trinity. It’s The Proposal. It’s Ryan Reynolds!
Yes, it’s Ryan Reynolds, strange visitor from Vancouver who came to Hollywood with powers and abilities beyond those of mortal men. He speaks faster than a speeding bullet! He can leap tall scripts in a single bound! He’s more versatile than a roomful of Sexiest Men Alive!
I’ve paraphrased the famous opening of Superman, even though Reynolds has never played Superman in the movies. Careerwise, however, he has been a super man, leaping from genre to genre, piecing together an IMDB page so varied it’ll make your head spin.
This weekend brings us another exciting episode in the adventures of Ryan Reynolds.
In Deadpool he’s a former Special Forces operative subjected to an experimental treatment that gifts him with regenerative healing power and increased agility. Unfortunately it also leaves him filled with rage; thirsty for revenge against the doctor who changed his life. The character’s greatest superpower, according to Reynolds, “is annoying the s— out of people.”
It’s not the first time the 39- year-old actor has played someone with superpowers. It’s not even the first time he’s played Deadpool. That character debuted in X-Men Origins: Wolverine and he starred as Captain Excellent in Paper Man, the darkly heroic Hannibal King in Blade: Trinity as well as donning the super-tight tights of the Green Lantern.
When he isn’t battling crime, however, Reynolds has been more adventurous in his roles than people give him credit. Peppered throughout his major Hollywood successes like The Proposal have been roles like The Amityville Horror’s psychologically unstable father, Woman in Gold’s relentless lawyer, and the crackhead Gary in the thriller The Nines.
Successful or not, those movies showcased a performer looking to stretch his acting muscles (and not just display his prodigious ab muscles). Here are some other Reynold’s roles that show his super-versatility:
The Voices: Reynolds plays the wholesome-looking Jerry, an eager to please factory worker with a crush on the cute accountant upstairs. When she stands him up for a date it becomes apparent Jerry has serious problems. As bodies pile up he grapples with voices in his head that tell him to do terrible things. Kitschy, strange and decidedly off kilter, The Voices has funny moments but revolves around Reynolds’s winningly odd performance.
Buried: Reynolds is a civilian truck driver in Iraq, taken hostage, buried underground, who will be left to die unless a ransom is paid. The entire movie happens inside the four walls of a coffin with only Reynolds and a cell phone on display. Unable to rely on his usual comic timing and bulging muscles, Reynolds hits a career high, keeping the audience intrigued for most of the 90-minute running time.
The Change-Up: Starring Reynolds and Jason Bateman, this film is like several movies in one. It’s part gross-out comedy, part heart tugger and all switcheroo. The set-up is Freaky Friday simple; the two leads swap personalities but it works because Bateman adds a little hyper Van Wilder inflection to his speech and Reynolds drops his energy a few notches to match Bateman’s more laconic style. Both are likeable actors, with charm and charisma to burn.
Don’t expect the usual kid-friendly superhero fare from “Deadpool.” He’s part of the Marvel family, a distant cousin to Iron Man, The Hulk and Captain America, but he’s a superantihero, a weaponized bad attitude come-to-life with a chip on his shoulder and a raunchy quip on his lips.
Ryan Reynolds plays Wade Wilson, a former Special Services operative who now spends his days as the “Patron Saint of the Pitiful,” a mercenary who takes care of life’s little problems for people who can’t take care of themselves. “I’m a bad guy who get paid to BLEEP worse guys,” he says. When he meets Vanessa Carlysle (Morena Baccarin) he finally feels like he has a shot at a normal—or at least normalish—life.
They’re a match made in heaven. “Ever had a cigarette put out on your skin?” she coos. “Where else do you put them out,” he says. In love, they have plans to get married until he is diagnosed with late stage liver, prostate and brain cancer. Grasping at straws he signs up for an experimental treatment that promises to cure his disease. Instead, he is subjected to round-the-clock torture by an evil doctor named Francis (Ed Skrein), who uses immense physical stress to trigger super power mutations in his patients.
The treatment leaves him disfigured, both physically—”You look like an avocado had sex with an older avocado,” says his best friend.—and mentally—the treatment “cell stomped my sanity,” he says.—but with accelerated healing powers and a sarcastic way with a word that earns him the nickname The Merc [mercenary] with the Mouth.
Estranged from Vanessa, who thinks he’s dead, he searches for Frances, the only person who can right the wrongs done to him and give him back his life. Decked out in red leather suit that resembles a Spider-Man ninja costume—Why is it red? “So bad guys can’t see me bleed.”–he adopts the alter ego Deadpool.
“Deadpool” is unlike any other origin story. It’s a snarky, violent, fourth-wall-breaking collision between “Van Wilder” and Marvel Comics. The opening credits–which scream the movie stars God’s Perfect Idiot, A Hot Girl, A British Villain, A CGI Character and features a Gratuitous Cameo–set the tone. This isn’t your grandfather’s superhero movie. With one bloody shot across the bow “Deadpool” makes the other Marvel movies look a little less Marvel-ous. No joke is too crass. No lines are left uncrossed. Where the last couple of Marvel superhero films have felt like odes to market research, “Deadpool” feels like an antidote to the repetition of recent superhero offerings. Politically incorrect and rowdy, it’s a down-and-dirty movie that has more in common with “The Toxic Avenger” than “Iron Man.”
This may be the role Reynolds has been waiting for. It mixes-and-matches his skill at dropping a one liner with his physical side and finally gives his bland leading man mien some edge. Self-effacing, he pokes fun at his other attempts at superhero notoriety. “Please don’t make this super suit green or animated,” says the former Green Lantern and suddenly we forgive his past transgressions.
“Deadpool” won’t be for everyone. It’s occasionally a little too rude and crude, bloody and bowed for it’s own good but at least it tries to do something a little different in the well-worn context of the superhero genre. It exists in a meta universe where Deadpool is aware he’s in a movie–“Whose BLEEP did I have to BLEEP to get my own movie?” he asks.–while another character suggests the name Deadpool “sounds like a franchise.” I hope so. Like them or not, superhero movies aren’t going anywhere soon but at least every now and again there may be a new “Deadpool” film to shake things up a bit.
One question hangs heavy over “The Transporter: Refueled” (sic), Can the franchise survive and thrive without its former star Jason Statham? The action hero drove off into the sunset after three instalments, leaving it up to “Game of Thrones” actor Ed Skrein to take his place. Can Skrein put the pedal to the metal or is the series headed to the junkyard?
Skrein is the Transporter. No names please, it only complicates things. He is a skilled driver who delivers packages for anyone who agrees with his rather stringent demands—no lateness, detailed weight restrictions and once the deal is made if the deal changes, he walks away.
Against the backdrop of the French Riviera the Transporter and his newly retired spy father Frank Martin Sr. (Ray Stevenson) soon finds themselves involved in a dangerous revenge plot against a vicious Russian pimp (Radivoje Bukvic) staged by Junior’s newest clients, four prostitutes willing to die to get away from their old lives.
“The Transporter: Refueled” is a slick looking movie that substitutes squealing tires for story. It adheres to the fight scene/car chase formula that drove the Statham’s “Transporter” triptych but the dark humour and the wink of the older films is missing. Skrein is all business, a grim-faced chauffeur who can take a punch and throw a kick with a wild style that would make Jackie Chan proud, but it all seems rather joyless. Stevenson has the charm to pull this off but is a secondary character, mostly left in the background.
Then there are the female revenge plot masterminds (Loan Chabanol, Tatiana Pajkovic and Gabriella Wright), the supposedly strong female characters at the heart of the movie. They are capable of pulling off a major heist and going-head-to-head with Russian bad guys but, for some reason, become freaked out squealing school girls at the prospect of driving through a gate secured only with a flimsy chain. Skrein simply frowns and gets on with the job but the women react as though they’re about to jump off a cliff and later, jump into bed with their rescuers as a sign of gratitude.
Some grrrl power.
But what did I expect? Ten minutes in it’s clear why “The Transporter: Refueled” isn’t in 3D. It’s because the characters are so one-dimensional they simply couldn’t exist in three dimensions. Instead they are cartoons, existing in a world where you’re shot, near dead one day, wearing a tight dress and kicking butt the next.
“The Transporter: Refueled” is a silly movie, and that’s OK, lots of silly movies are entertaining and worth your money. Unfortunately “The Transporter: Refueled” isn’t one of them.
