“Never Too Late,” story of four friends, separated by distance, experience and fifty years starring James Cromwell, is sweet and sentimental but has a serious message at its core. The four Vietnam vets chase their dreams to VOD this week.
After a daring escape from a Vietnamese POW camp, Jeremiah Caine (Dennis Waterman), Jack Bronson (Cromwell), Angus Wilson (Jack Thompson) and Bruce Wendell (Shane Jacobson) were called The Chain Breakers. Half a century later they’re reunited at the Hogan Hills Retirement Home for Returned Veterans when Bronson checks himself in under the guise of recovering from a serious stroke. He’s conned his way into the facility not to hang out with his old pals but to reconnect with the love of his life, former combat nurse Norma (Jacki Weaver). “Sometimes it takes a lifetime to find a happy ending,” she says. But soon after the meet she is transferred to another hospital for a three-month drug trial for Alzheimer’s Disease, leaving Bronson and Company behind.
Thrown together once again in a different sort of prison, Bronson rallies the troops for one last operation of daring do. “We’re the Chainbreakers,” he says. “We don’t sit around feeling sorry for ourselves, we get the job done. I’m going to finish this mission.” They’re not as young as they used to be, but Bronson devises a plan, a run to freedom and Norma.
It’s “The Great Escape,” senior’s style.
“Never Too Late’s” feels like a light, old-codger comedy but at its heart, right next to the pacemaker, is a commentary on how seniors—and in this case, veterans—are treated in long term care. Hogan Hills is essentially a jail with barbed-wired grounds, attendants who behave like guards and while there are no bars, there are more locked doors than Riker’s Island. It’s a timely social issue and is given a fair treatment here.
The engine that keeps “Never Too Late” moving forward, however, are the actors. The Australians, Waterman, Thompson and Jacobson, offer up broad comedic performances tempered by enough sentimentality to make their hijinks likable. Cromwell and Weaver, however, bring the humanity. Their relationship, and their shot at happiness after fifty years, is the is the soul of the film. A subplot involving an evil doctor (Renee Lim) looking for revenge feels wedged in and briefly disrupts the movie’s flow.
“Never Too Late’s” predictability—let’s face it, we all know where this is going—is blunted by the actors and the warmth of the characters who get one more shot at adventure and happiness.
Based on “Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite” by Jake Bernstein “The Laundromat” chronicles the rot that festers on the corrupt body of our financial institutions.
Divided into chapters with names like “Secret Number One: The Meek Are Screwed,” “The Laundromat” is a funny, star-studded portmanteau of thematically linked stories involving tax loopholes, exploitation and financial malfeasance. “All these stories are about money,” says Ramón Fonseca (Antonio Banderas), “the secret lives of money.” Like “The Big Short” it takes the spoonful-of-sugar-to-help-the-medicine-go-down approach to telling a story so dripping with bile you have to laugh to stop from crying.
Meryl Streep is at the helm of this cinematic op-ed playing Ellen Martin, a steely woman whose husband’s death leads her by the nose into the world of fake insurance policies and a shady Panama City law firm run by slicksters Jürgen Mossack (Gary Oldman) and Fonseca. The flamboyant represent “drug lords, sex traffickers and destroyers of the planet” and also colorfully narrate the action. “Tax avoidance and tax evasion,” says Mossack. “The line between them is as thin as a jailhouse wall.” They’re more interested in the shell companies they control that help line the pockets of their very wealthy clients than the regular Joes affected by their actions. “Bad is such a big word for such a small word.”
As the story splinters into chapters, cameos from Jeffrey Wright (as a secretive insurance broker), Nonso Anozie (as a billionaire who tries to buy his way out of trouble) and David Schwimmer (as a business person screwed by his insurance company) pile up, revealing personal aspects of the dirty business of money laundering. The story wanders here and there but Streep stays on course, lending this ragged movie a strong emotional core.
“The Laundromat” features lively performances—I’m looking at you Oldman and Banderas—timely commentary about whistleblowers and fraud and a rousing fourth-wall-breaking ending and yet, feels like less than the sum of its parts. Director Steven Soderbergh provides some well-crafted big moments but the stories are too far flung and too brief to inspire any real interest in the characters. They come and go with little development (save for Martin), often representing ideas rather than fully formed characters.
Streep plays a double role, an ill-advised choice that feels like a stunt and doesn’t lend much to the telling of the tale, but wraps things up with a wake-up call, asking basic questions—Who is accountable? Where and how do you get justice?—that put a period on this story but should be a starting point for more discussion and thought.
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.
Science fiction author Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics are a trimmed down version of The Ten Commandments for androids. Simple, direct and to the point, Asimov declared, “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.”
Asimov’s rules have inspired short stories, video games, music and cartoons. Roland Charles Wagner’s short story gave them an erotic spin in Three Laws of Robotic Sexuality, while the game Portal 2 sees all military androids sharing one copy of the laws of robotics.
And in the Mega Man series by Archie Comics, automatons are almost defeated by an anti-robotic terrorist group because they must abide by the three laws.
This weekend, Baymax, the lovable inflatable robot at the heart of Big Hero Six, abides by the laws. “Hello,” he says. “I am Baymax, your personal health-care companion.”
The roly-poly inflatable bot can almost instantly diagnose and treat a variety of diseases but even when he is transformed into a crime-fighting warrior, he still plays by the rules.
Asimov’s stories have been turned into films like I, Robot and Bicentennial Man, where the robots follow the dictums. But not all movies stay true to the rules.
In Alien, the Hyperdyne Systems 120-A/2 cyborg character Bishop (Ian Holm) says, “It is impossible for me to harm, or, by omission of action, allow to be harmed, a human being,” but later tries to kill Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) by choking her with a rolled up porno magazine.
The 1951 classic The Day the Earth Stood Still has both good and evil robots. When alien android Klaatu’s message of friendship to earthlings is met with a bullet from a sniper, his eight-foot metal robotic assistant Gort lets loose with a disintegration death ray.
Finally, worse than Blade Runner’s killer android Roy (Rutger Hauer) or the robot gunslinger from Westworld, is Maximilian, the silent-but-deadly android from The Black Hole.
Not only does he wordlessly do the bidding of the evil Dr. Hans Reinhardt (Maximilian Schell), the blood-red bot later merges with his human creator to lord over the fire and brimstone of hell. Lawgiver Asimov surely would not approve.
For all intents and purposes “Big Hero 6” is an animated superhero movie aimed at kids too young to sit through the violent theatrics the Marvel universe offers up. The main difference, and the thing that makes the movie special, comes in the form of an empathetic blowup doll who could give the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man a run (or maybe just a waddle) for the title of Cuddliest Causer of Mass Destruction.
Set in San Fransokyo, the story focuses on fourteen-year-old robotics genius Hiro Hamada (voice of Ryan Potter). His brother Tadashi (Daniel Henney) is also a whiz kid but has taken a different route. Hiro spends his time making robots to fight in illegal bot wars while Tadashi studies at the “nerd school” and has built the inflatable health care companion Baymax (Scott Adsit). Realizing his potential is being wasted Hiro puts his big brain to work to create microbots with a Borg-like collective consciousness that impresses the university’s Professor Callaghan (James Cromwell) so much he offers Hiro a scholarship. Before he can enroll, however, a tragedy claims the life of his brother. Compounding his heartbreak, Hiro discovers his technology has fallen into the wrong hands. Finding out who took the tech leads Hiro down a dark path of revenge, but with the help of Baymax and Tadashi’s friends Gogo (Jamie Chung), Wasabi (Damon Wayans Jr), Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez) and Fred (TJ Miller) the young genius can get some closure and discover his inner super powers.
There are set pieces in “Big Hero 6” that rival anything from the Marvel imaginations. Characters fly, breath fire and do battle with lasers. Buildings are leveled and there a giant time travel hovers in the air, threatening to transport everything in sight to another dimension. It’s big, impressive stuff, but the thing people will remember when they leave the theatre is Baymax, a rudimentary inflatable robot who walks like a baby penguin. His “nonthreatening huggable design” makes him look like a roly poly vinyl snowman with ovals for eyes. He’s nondescript, like a bloated crash test dummy, but he is the heart and soul of the movie.
Without him “Big Hero 6” would mostly be a series of slickly rendered—the animation is really lovely—action sequences, catchphrases and plot threads about revenge and life lessons. With him, however, the movie has real heart. The balloony Baymax doesn’t just rescue Hiro’s humanity; he gives the movie a large dose of it as well.
“Still Mine” will likely be thought of as heartwarming, but instead of wringing tears from its tale of an elderly couple near the end of their time tighter, it uses a ripped-from-the-headlines story to paint a portrait of how true love conquers all—including government, death and taxes.
Based on the true story of a New Brunswick man who fought for the right to build a retirement home, “Still Mine” sees James Cromwell and Genevieve Bujold playing an elderly married couple battling dementia and government interference.
When they outgrow the house they’ve lived in for 61 years farmer Craig Morrison (Cromwell) decides to build a new, more manageable house on a piece of his 2000 acre farm. As wife Irene’s (Bujold) memory fades Craig begins to build, only to run up against a persnickety building inspector (Jonathan Potts). Faced with fines and jail time he must decide to follow the law or his heart.
“Still Mine” has a slow pace that echoes the leisurely pace of life of the film’s setting—the sleepy village of St Martins, New Brunswick. It’s a gentle movie about tough people, farmers who have lived peaceful, fulfilling lives on their own terms. At an age when most people are rocking on the porch, Craig is living his life the way he always has—observing the old ways with a hearty regard for the traditions of his family and community. “Age is an abstraction, not a straight jacket,” he says as he begins to build the house using the techniques his father, a shipbuilder, taught him.
As his rights, as he sees them, are eroded away by government meddling—“When did we become a country of bureaucrats?”—a quiet steeliness comes over him. This is where the movie really succeeds. Cromwell is stoic and determined, but always with a gentle undercurrent. It’s a subtle performance that plays nicely against Bujold who hands in a fragmented performance that captures the onset of dementia.
“Still Mine” is about many things— bureaucracy, love, determination but above all it is about a life well lived—right to the end.
Cromwell delivers a touching speech about a handmade table that nicely sums up the film’s take on life and aging. At first it pained him to see a mark or a dent on the piece that he had worked so hard on, but, he says, “as the years went by and the scars added up the imperfections turned the table into something else—it holds a lot of memories.”
That story, like the movie, is a gentle reminder that it isn’t the easy parts that make life worth living, but also the flaws.
