Posts Tagged ‘Gareth Edwards’

THE CREATOR: 3 ½ STARS. “values emotional fireworks more than spectacle.”

Despite citing everything from “Apocalypse Now” and “Blade Runner” to “District 9” and “Paper Moon” as influences for his new sci fi epic “The Creator,” director Gareth Edwards has made a strikingly original film that doesn’t feel derivative.

Set in 2065, a decade long war between humans and artificial intelligence continues unabated.

“Ten years ago today, the artificial intelligence, created to protect us, detonated a nuclear warhead in Los Angeles. For as long as AI is a threat, we will never stop hunting them. This is a fight for our very existence.”

When the architect of AI, The Creator, builds an unstoppable weapon that could control all technology, recently widowed special forces agent Joshua (John David Washington) and his team are brought in to find and retrieve the weapon.

“Our mission is to find the weapon designated Alpha O,” says Colonel Howell (Allison Janney). “You are authorized to kill on sight.”

Behind enemy lines on occupied AI territory, they discover the deadly weapon is actually an AI in the form of a small child named Alphie (Madeleine Yuna Voyles).

“We are close to winning the war,” says General Williams. “Execute her, or we go extinct.”

There is a lot happening in “The Creator.” It is an ambitious allegory for oppressed minorities and American imperialism, but above all it is soulful sci fi.

Visually, director Edwards looks to “District 9” and “Apocalypse Now” for inspiration to create a unique looking slice of speculative fiction. Shot in Thailand, the film takes advantage of that country’s other-worldly, old-world locations, juxtaposed against the high-tech AI robots and sleek, futuristic aircraft and weapons. The mix of old and new, of nature and technology, make for a grand backdrop to a story that thrives on intimate moments.

Big action scenes do light up the screen, but Edwards appears to value emotional fireworks more than spectacle.

At its heart, “The Creator” is a love story. Joshua, still hurting from the disappearance of his wife (Gemma Chan), is driven by heartache. The discovery of Alphie, played with heartrending innocence by Voyles, shifts the story to a father-daughter dynamic, à la “Paper Moon,” but maintains the film’s emotional core as the young robot looks at humanity filtered through AI eyes.

“The Creator” builds a dystopian world that feels unique, and it is certainly nice to have a new sci fi tale not based on existing IP, even if it feels like a pastiche. But for all the admirable ambition and emotion, Edwards occasionally runs off in all directions all at once, leaving nuance and subtlety behind.

Metro Canada: Galaxy’s newest recruit Riz Ahmed proud to be en Rogue

screen-shot-2016-12-11-at-12-46-20-pmBy Richard Crouse – Metro Canada

Like a lot of kids Riz Ahmed liked Star Wars. Unlike most kids he grew up to be part of the franchise, playing pilot Bodhi Rook in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

“I was a fan,” says Ahmed, also known as Riz MC, who earlier this year starred in HBO’s The Night Of.  “I remember watching the films the first time round with my older brother. I was about six or seven years old. They were kind of my only memory of watching any movie at all. They left a massive impact on me. I remember running around with my brother for years, acting out our own weird sci-fi stories. Even though I didn’t understand the storyline – I was too young – the level of imagination and detail that went into those movies…. It made an impression.”

Yet, while the originals left an impression on the younger Ahmed, it was only when he joined the universe himself that he realized his level of fandom might not have been quite at the level he had thought.

“It’s only now that I have met real Star Wars fans that I realize I wasn’t really a fan,” he says. “I thought I was. Star Wars fans are dedicated, loyal fans. I think the kind of vibe I’ve gotten so far is that they are really excited to see a film that both preserves the legacy and the inheritance of the Star Wars saga but is also something a little different, fresh, distinctive and separate from the other films. I think that can be a really tricky balance to achieve but I think they have really done that.”

Rogue One is the first standalone Star Wars Anthology film — upcoming movies in the expanded cinematic universe will focus on Han Solo and Boba Fett — and takes place after the formation of the Galactic Empire, shortly before the events of Episode IV: A New Hope.

The Rebel Alliance has recruited former criminal Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones) to collaborate with a team to retrieve the blueprints of the Death Star, the Empire’s armoured battle station capable of destroying entire planets.

Ahmed plays a recruit, a former Imperial pilot with strong technical skills. Producer Kathleen Kennedy calls the character “a troublemaker.”

“It is interesting she calls Bodhi Rook a troublemaker,” Ahmed laughs. “I sometimes wonder if she is talking about me on the film set. Bodhi is somebody who is thrust into a really unfamiliar set of circumstances. He is just an Imperial cargo pilot, an average Joe trying to earn a living. It is a company town he lives in, the occupied planet of Jedha, so he works for the Empire. He’s really thrust into a new set of circumstances that force him to reconsider his allegiances and what he’s doing in these turbulent times.”

Working beside Ahmed are Diego Luna, Donnie Yen and Forest Whitaker, making Rogue One the most diverse of all the Star Wars films.

“I think it just makes sense that our film reflects the society around us,” says the British Pakistani actor, “and also the audience watching the films. A story like Star Wars is a global story. It belongs to all of us.

“Audiences around the world are excited about Star Wars so it makes sense that when they think about who might be the best actors for these roles they cast their net really wide all around the world. ‘Yeah, we’ll have Ben Mendelsohn from Australia, Forest Whittaker from L.A. and Mads Mikkelsen from over here.’ I’m lucky to have been caught up in this net as well.”

Metro In Focus: We all remember feeling that first flash of the Force

screen-shot-2016-12-15-at-9-01-15-pmBy Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus

February 3, 1959 and February 9, 1964. The day the music died and the date it was reborn on the Ed Sullivan Show, both days burned into the collective memories of pop culture fanatics everywhere. But what about May 25, 1977?

If you were a teenager then chances are you felt the earth shift. It was the day Star Wars opened, kicking off a cultural phenomenon that continues to this day.

This weekend the universe George Lucas unleashed in 1977 grows to include Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Much-anticipated, the movie is the first of the standalone Star Wars Anthology films and is expected to decimate the competition, Death Star style.

Expect line-ups and packed theatres — box office seers estimate it could pull in somewhere between $130 million to $150 million at the U.S. box office this week — but no matter how wild the weekend gets, nothing will match the pandemonium that greeted Star Wars in May, 1977.

To paint a picture of the first blush of Star Wars mania I asked my Facebookers what they remember about that moment a long time ago, in a galaxy (not so) far, far away…

“I remember being so in awe of that legendary opening scene with the giant spaceship coming into picture from the top and filling up the entire screen… oooo, aaaaah,” wrote Glenda Fordham. “The audience gasped in unison.”

“Upon leaving the theatre, with my little mind totally blown, I was interviewed by the news,” recollected Lesley Mitchell-Clarke, “where I think that I said, ‘Anything is now possible cinematically.’ I was all of 19.”

“My stepbrother, who was seven at the time, was dead set against seeing it,” says Tina Cooper, “and then of course saw it at least 50 times and dressed in Star Wars gear and played with Star Wars toys every single day for the rest of his childhood.”

“The line-up went right around the block and we ended up sitting in the front row of the balcony,” recalled Chris Ball. “I was mesmerized but dad was bored. Part way through I guess he decided he might as well get comfortable. He took his jacket off and in the process knocked his popcorn over the balcony railing. We got a stern lecture from the manager and almost got thrown out. Fast forward 20 years (1997) and I am now the manager of the same theatre and handing out those stern lectures.”

“I was six,” remembered Sue Edworthy. “My Dad took me to see it. I fell asleep halfway through. He took me to see it again. I fell asleep halfway through. The seventh time, I finally saw the whole thing. Clearly he had no problem seeing it again, and again, and again.”

“It was the first film that I went to more than once in its initial run,” said Adrian Gruff. “In the scene where the X-Wings enter the Death Star’s trench, I disengaged from the screen just so I could watch everyone’s heads do the sideways bob and twist that mine had done on first viewing.

“It was the first time that I had a true inkling as to the energy that religion refers to as ‘God.’”

ROGUE ONE: A STAR WARS STORY: 4 STARS. “THE FORCE IS STRONG WITH THIS ONE.”

There’s no scroll at the beginning of “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” but that doesn’t mean this isn’t a “Star Wars” movie. Call the new Gareth Edwards’ movie what you will—a standalone, a spin-off, a prequel—but there is no denying that the DNA is pure Lucas.

To avoid spoilers I’ll give only the sketchiest of synopsis. Set after the formation of the Galactic Empire, shortly before the events of “Episode IV: A New Hope,” “Rogue One” sees the Rebel Alliance recruit Jyn Erso (Oscar nominee Felicity Jones), the daughter of scientist Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen), to collaborate with a crew, including Cassian Andor (Diego Luna), to retrieve the blueprints of the Death Star, the Empire’s armoured battle station capable of destroying entire planets. “You are asking us to invade an Imperial stronghold based on hope?” asks Senator Pamlo (Sharon Duncan-Brewster). “Rebellions are built on hope,” replies Jyn.

That’s it fuzzballs. That’s all you get. The plot is so laced with character photobombs and cameos it’s almost impossible to say more without squashing some of the fun. Know that it is a classic space opera latched to a primal story of good vs. evil. Add to that some stuff you expect—big battle scenes, quippy droids, a classic Vader entrance (not a spoiler, it’s in the trailer!)—and some stuff you don’t—no spoilers here!—and you have a movie that simultaneously feels familiar and fresh. Down and dirty, it has more grit than the other films—this is not a slick sci fi world, it’s a place that has been dinged up and lived in—but maintains the heart and soul of what came before.

Director Edwards amps up the action. He knows that, “travelling through hyperspace ain’t like dustin’ crops, boy!” The film’s final third is a smash ‘em up that gives The Battle of Hoth a run for its money but never allows the characters to get lost in the bombast. It’s a morally complex war film that knows the audience must be invested in the characters to care whether or not they are successful.

So who are the characters?

At the helm is heroine Jyn. She is an everywoman thrust into a dangerous situation after a lifetime of hurt. She’s rough and tumble, an impetuous scrapper fighting on an impossible mission. No gold bikinis for her. Jyn is the catalyst for much of “Rogue One’s” action but her relationship with her father Galen is film’s the emotional core.

For lack of a better analogy Rebel Alliance Intelligence Cassian Andor is the film’s Han Solo. Scruffy and an outsider, his best friend isn’t a 200-year-old Wookiee, but a fast-talking reprogrammed Imperial droid. He’s an experienced rebel and fighter who moves beyond the traditional image of a hero. He’s not as funny as Han—that’s left to his droid K-2SO (Alan Tudyk)—but does provide the same kind of swashbuckling joie de vivre.

Assorted other rebels include blind warrior Chirrut “I fear nothing. All is as the Force wills it.” Îmwe (Donnie Yen), freelance assassin Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen) and Saw Gerrera, played by Forest Whitaker as a lion in winter, a stately fighter whose body is more machine than human, but whose humanity is intact.

With a title like Director of Advanced Weapons Research for the Imperial Military you just know Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) is going to be a bad man. He’s a cog, an Imperial baddie eager to please is boss—i.e. Darth Vader—and the definition of the ordinariness of evil.

It is the most diverse casting of any “Star Wars” film. It ushers the franchise into the 21st century in terms of make-up, reflecting not only the world we live in, but also the world the film takes place in.

“Star Wars” über fans will geek out at some of “Rogue One’s” surprises but nonfans need not worry. You don’t need to know that Poggle the Lesser turned over plans to the Death Star to Count Dooku or that the Ultimate Weapon is powered by a cavernous hypermatter reactor encased in radiation insulator plating. Just know the Death Star is huge and, as the name suggests, deadly, and you’ll be fine. The force is strong with this one.

GODZILLA: 4 STARS. “the full experience of Godzilla’s awesome presence.”

Conspiracy theorists are going to love the new “Godzilla” film.

In this big-budget reboot of the giant lizard series “Breaking Bad’s” Bryan Cranston plays Joe Brody, head of a nuclear facility in Tokyo. When something triggers a massive meltdown at the facility tragedy, both professional and personal strikes.

Fifteen years later Brody is living on the fringes, still obsessed with the accident that changed his life.

The army, the government and mainstream media wrote off the incident as a nuclear meltdown caused by earthquakes, but Brody is convinced it wasn’t Mother Nature but something more nefarious.

When he is arrested for trespassing on the accident site his son, Ford (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a military bomb expert on leave in the United States, travels to Japan to bail him out and bring him back to San Francisco.

Before father and son can head west Brody Sr’s wild theories are proven correct. He was right that it something other than earthquakes and tsunamis responsible for the breakdown fifteen years previous. That “something” turns out to be a Massive Unidentified Terrestrial Organism (or MUTO), a giant winged creature that feeds off earth’s natural radiation.

Unfortunately by the time his theories are validated the MUTOs have begun to wreak havoc and there is only one force on earth (or maybe just under the earth) powerful enough to battle the overgrown mosquitoes—Godzilla, king of the monsters.

In a movie like this you know that when Ford’s wife says, “You know you’re only going to be away for a few days… it’s not the end of the world,” that he’ll be gone for more than a few days and it just might be the end of the world, or something pretty close to it.

“Godzilla” plays by most of the rules of the giant lizard genre, but stomps all over 1998’s Roland Emmerich by-the-book remake. The standard kaiju kitsch is all in place—humungous monsters knock skyscrapers over with the flick of a tail and scientists talk mumbo jumbo—but director Gareth Edwards has added in some moments of real heartbreak, small sequences that underscore the huge amount of destruction the creatures cause.

Cranston hands in a dialed-up-to-eleven performance that occasionally feels like it might have worked better in Emmerich film, but supporting roles from Ken Watanabe, Sally Hawkins, Elizabeth Olsen and Taylor-Johnson are more modulated.

But who cares about the humans? They are merely the meat props that set the stage for what we’re really paying to see—the showdown between Godzilla and the MUTOs.

For the most part creature feature fans will be pleased. The MUTOs are malevolent spider-like beasts with scythe arms, a bad attitude, and worse, a need to reproduce. Godzilla is a towering figure with nasty looking spikes spouting from his back and tail, like a row of jagged mountains no man or monster will ever be able to cross.

The MUTOs are on full display, but if I have a complaint it’s that Godzilla doesn’t enter until a bit too late in the game. This whole “Cloverfield” don’t-show-the-monster thing is artistically noble, but if I wanted to NOT see Godzilla I’d go see “Million Dollar Arm” instead. For much of the movie every time we get to the cool ‘Zilla action, Edwards cuts to something else or shrouds him behind a cloud of soot and smoke. He is, as Sally Hawkins’ character says, “a God for all intents and purposes,” so we should be treated to a better look at him.

Perhaps a little Godzilla goes a long way for some, but the monster fanboy in me was greedy for more. The battle scenes, however, are top notch, shot from shifting points of view to give you the full experience of Godzilla’s awesome presence.

“Godzilla” plays like “Jurassic Park” times two, the thrills have been amped up but Edwards has managed to maintain the spirit of the original “Godzilla” movies while updating them for a new audience.

HALLOWEEN SPOOKTACULAR DAY 24! MONSTERS: 3 ½ STARS “a pure b-movie premise.”

monsters_05Big monsters are back. Movies like “The Host” and “Cloverfield” have reintroduced audiences to that rarest, but biggest of beasts, the giant out-of-control monster. Who needs vampires and zombies when you could have a ninety foot tall squid with a bad attitude and a Christmas bulb for a head?

The latest addition to the big monster genre is “Monsters,” an indie movie that reportedly only cost $15,000. Part road trip, part romance and all atmosphere, the story of Andrew (Scoot McNairy), an opportunistic photojournalist, who must escort his boss’s daughter, Sam (Whitney Able), back to the U.S. border through the treacherous quarantine area inhabited by… you guessed it, giant creatures left there when a NASA space craft carrying samples of extraterrestrial life crashed.

It’s a pure b-movie premise and for the first fifteen minutes or so promises to be little more than a Roger Corman film with better CGI. Then something happens. The movie becomes about the relationship between total opposites Andrew and Sam as they bond over their trip’s hardships and the strangeness of their surroundings. It’s a giant monster movie that focuses on the characters and despite some wild plot contrivances, it works.

The character study is a slow burn that leads up to the big reveal, the unveiling of the creatures. For most of the film they are seen and not heard but director Gareth Edwards paces the film carefully building up suspense through use of sound effects to climax with a wild mating dance between two of the Lovecraftian beasts. It’s a strangely beautiful and eerie sequence that brings the movie to a close.

“Monsters” isn’t as effective as “District 9” or “Cloverfield,” two other recent movies that introduced us to new creatures, but it is a complex film with timely messages about immigration (the US is protected by a giant fence to keep the monsters out) and our reactions in times of danger.

MONSTERS: 3 ½ STARS

Big monsters are back. Movies like “The Host” and “Cloverfield” have reintroduced audiences to that rarest, but biggest of beasts, the giant out-of-control monster. Who needs vampires and zombies when you could have a ninety foot tall squid with a bad attitude and a Christmas bulb for a head?

The latest addition to the big monster genre is “Monsters,” an indie movie that reportedly only cost $15,000. Part road trip, part romance and all atmosphere, the story of Andrew (Scoot McNairy), an opportunistic photojournalist, who must escort his boss’s daughter, Sam (Whitney Able), back to the U.S. border through the treacherous quarantine area inhabited by… you guessed it, giant creatures left there when a NASA space craft carrying samples of extraterrestrial life crashed.

It’s a pure b-movie premise and for the first fifteen minutes or so promises to be little more than a Roger Corman film with better CGI. Then something happens. The movie becomes about the relationship between total opposites Andrew and Sam as they bond over their trip’s hardships and the strangeness of their surroundings. It’s a giant monster movie that focuses on the characters and despite some wild plot contrivances, it works.

The character study is a slow burn that leads up to the big reveal, the unveiling of the creatures. For most of the film they are seen and not heard but director Gareth Edwards paces the film carefully building up suspense through use of sound effects to climax with a wild mating dance between two of the Lovecraftian beasts. It’s a strangely beautiful and eerie sequence that brings the movie to a close.

“Monsters” isn’t as effective as “District 9” or “Cloverfield,” two other recent movies that introduced us to new creatures, but it is a complex film with timely messages about immigration (the US is protected by a giant fence to keep the monsters out) and our reactions in times of danger.