Film Review - Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Copyright: Walt Disney Studios

George Lucas was the guy who invented the concept of the Force, and then 30 years later decided that the Force was actually produced by midi-chlorians, a type of microorganism in the blood of a person. After that, he apparently realized that he just doesn�t get these new kids, which is the reason why his last three films in the Star Wars franchise failed so miserably, even when it comes to selling a lot of merchandise (for some reason, not many people bought Hayden Christensen T-shirts).

At that moment, he did something unattainable for most despots through history and released the reins to someone else for the Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Lucas was done and many felt really happy that he was out of the picture.

The guy who filled his shoes was J.J. Abrams, a film industry veteran that must have been Cardinal Richelieu or someone like him in his past life because he continues to swim like a champion in the shark-infested waters of Hollywood. 

Now, the same person revitalized both Star Trek and Star Wars, which is for me a very fitting end to the age of the 1980�s when both franchises found their audience. Back then, these two had hardly anything in common, except the word Star in their title and the appearance of star ships in their plots.

But now, thanks to the Abrams� brilliant but also somehow hellish brewing pot, these two are practically identical space opera stories set in a sci-fi type of setting. I wouldn�t be surprised if he even decided to do a crossover movie where some of the characters from the new Star Wars films end up on the Enterprise.

Is this something that is desirable? Well, no, but strictly from a cinematographic point of view. Abrams is a man devoid of any vision apart from being a craftsman who specializes in refurbishing stuff. A man like him picks up broken things from the past, paints them in a currently very popular color and sells them for a profit. But, this does not make the new Star Wars film an unpleasant viewing experience. In the adventure story that looks like a retelling of the first film (or the 4th one according to the new calendar), there is plenty of fun and excitement.

I didn�t have a problem with plot similarities, while the stars from the original trilogy strangely absent in the films from the early 2000�s now return, looking old, frail and disconnected, especially Harrison Ford, but they were brought in not to do or say anything especially important, but just to be there visually. They are a human equivalent of a light saber and have a similar purpose of popping up at the appropriate moment. I�m pretty sure that when CGI becomes a bit more advanced, the same people will only appear as computer simulations.

Everything else is adequate in the Star Wars: The Force Awakens. New actors are fine, but none of them are Ford in 1977 even by a long shot. The locations are exciting and the action unravels just like Abrams� notebook of action films says it should. All in this film is average and above average, finely crafted and marketed perfectly like a high-quality action figure selection they are planning to sell across the world.

Like an action figure, this film is designed to be consumed and forgotten, while details from it will remain forever in the new apps, games, toys and T-Shirts. Because of this, the visual design of the mask that Kylo Ren wears will outlive the plot of the film or any of its cinematic moments, big or small. Here, the brilliance of Abrams� ability to constantly upgrade the idea of the smart-looking blockbuster is seen in full force. But, for some reason, he forgot all about midi-chlorians which are never even hinted at in this film. I wonder if Lukas is disappointed about that, but at the same time, I also believe that no one bothered to ask him.

Film Review: Sicario (2015)

Copyright: Lionsgate

There�s a lot of justice in the fact that Benicio Del Toro had the opportunity and the privilege of being a part of two seminal films about the War on Drugs, almost exactly 15 years apart. One is Traffic while the other one is Sicario and this review will perceive them both as a single chapter in a bloody and futile endeavor.

Both films are crucial in their presentation of how the US collective subconsciousness is grappling with the issue of drug trafficking in the Americas and the violence it breeds in the ever-widening cracks left by poverty.

In my Sicario review, I have to congratulate the director Denis Villeneuve for continuing his streak of fantastic movies that includes Enemy and Prisoners. As intense as always, Villeneuve in his latest film tells two stories � first covers a driven and honest FBI agent accepting a role in a task force with a semi-secret, semi-legal mission that will include both the US and Mexico territory.

The other one takes place for only a fraction of the film and follows a mysterious adviser to the task force called Alejandro (played by Del Toro) who is seeking for something a lot more personal than a law enforcement victory. With a life filled with unimaginable suffering, felt and caused by him, he is a figure determined to see his goal accomplished, no matter what.

All of this is shot under the beautiful sky of the US-Mexico border region. Villeneuve doesn�t shy away from action sequences, even though the story of the film is so dark and unnerving that Sicario is anything but an action film. As the hunt for a cartel sub-boss descends deeper into the pitch black waters of the War-on-whatever-we�re-making-war-on-currently, so does the FBI agent, played by Emily Blunt, become lost in the violence and depravity of human greed and stupidity.

Del Toro, as a brilliant, hard-working actor that marked many films for two decades, now has a complete body of work that will surely be on the right side of history. While Traffic tried to present the fact that a very ordinary and a very American hunger for narcotics is driving the will of the criminals to sell it (and kill for it), Sicario is placed in a time and place where that idea doesn�t really mean anything anymore.

Now, in 2015, the War on Drugs is exactly that � a real armed conflict fought with special forces, drones, rigged safe-houses, urban US cartel graveyards and seasoned professional killers. Norther Mexico turned into a battleground, which, unlike places in the Middle East, is not grabbing headlines nor shocking the world. Instead, it just festers suffering and mindless confrontations created by the unquenchable thirst for drugs coming from its norther neighbor.

Today, a row of mutilated bodies are strung from a highway bridge in Juarez and it�s just another day. The film ends with sounds of explosions and gunfire erupting in the background of a children�s soccer training in the same city and people only look over their shoulders in a tired fashion. No one runs, no one screams and ducks for cover. There are no police sirens and no TV crews converging on the scene.

The fate of those people is set and there is nothing they can do about it. Now, Sicario tells us, the War on Drugs simply became just a war.

Film Review: Ted 2

Copyright: Universal Pictures

There is a lot to be gained by completely letting go of some cinematic ideas (and ideals). In Ted 2, this is demonstrated by the readiness of its director and writer Seth MacFarlane to disregard the previous installment of the series and everything that happened there.

This way, MacFarlane slithers back into his TV zone of comfort, where he makes one more Family Guy episode that only happens to last two hours and includes live action and not animation.

There�s no doubt that he is a smart and talented guy, but I kind suspect that he sees himself as the golden god of comedy. Unfortunately for him, he isn�t, especially when it comes to feature-length movies.

Ted 2, however, is a project that he approached with a lot less ambition and hunger than A Million Ways to die in the West. Here, this is good news because it allows the film to provide the audience with the thing MacFarlane does best: a barrage of rapid-fire, stream-of-consciousness jokes that include a colorful range of offensive stuff. It is empty of everything else, but no one ever promised anything like that to Ted 2 audience.

The plot, which revolves around Ted being forced to prove that he is not a possession, but a person, isn�t such a big deal and it unravels deep in the background. In the foreground, we have the animated bear that is directed, written and voiced by MacFarlane, cracking jokes with Mark Wahlberg�s character John. There�s nothing more to this film than that, which is oddly enough in its own right. And unlike a similarly self-centered comedy Tusk, this one didn�t get lost in hermetic, obnoxious jokes which drowned the Kevin Smith�s film.

In fact, the entire film with its sets, additional actors and even the plot is simply a sabot used to deliver its true penetrating round: MacFarlane cracking jokes about German Wings cockpit and Charlie Hebdo attack (which are one of the funniest parts of a film). But, in spite of this disregard of all that is cinematic and movie-worthy, Ted 2 is still a funny film and it manages to deliver laughs, especially when it goes into the non-PC waters. All those who liked the previous film will thoroughly enjoy this one as well.

With this mold, MacFarlane can make as many Ted sequels as he likes. We could have Ted: Disneyland, Ted: Islamic State, Ted: Whatever and they would probably all be as good as Ted 2.

Film Review: Bone Tomahawk (2015)

Copyright: RLJ Entertainment

So far, Bone Tomahawk is one of the best films of 2015.

Films like it are only enforcing my strong belief that we�re living in the golden age of neo-western film. Furthermore, it seems that the standards set by films like The Salvation, The Retrieval, and the Das finstere Tal are constantly upgraded by other filmmakers who dare to push the genre into its next developmental chapter.

Here�s one way to describe it: Bone Tomahawk is a film that somehow managed to get connected with the spirit of Quentin Tarantino circa 1991 and offer him a chance to use a cast of choice to make a western horror dead-pan delivery dark comedy. The man that got the opportunity to channel this spirit is S. Craig Zahler, who made his debut with this film.

Before this, Zahler worked as both writer and cinematographer. But, in this film, his directorial results can only be described as flawless.

Using a simple story, set at the end of the 19th century, which follows a group of men going after a tribe of cannibalistic Native Americans with the purpose of retrieving a woman, the director made a killer film. There�s no better way to describe this movie than to call it sharp. All in the world Zahler made can cut right to the bone. This includes the bone tomahawks shaped from the jaws of horses that the cannibals use, but also the way characters perceive the world and their roles in it, and even goes all the way to the language they use. To say that the film is witty would be a gross simplification of the completely unburdened nature of the script.

Similar to other neo-western stories, it is liberated from the nonsense of contemporary films that might be called horrors. Here, the terror is fused with humor and the completely foreign way in which the people of that (relatively recent) time understood and approached their environment. At one moment, a member of the party, without any hesitation, kills two strangers who they notice in the dark approaching their campsite, even though they agreed to disarm themselves a moment before. His rationalization is simple: the two were robbers or a scouting party for other robbers.

No one else would approach a campsite without making their presence known and there is no room for special circumstances. While there is some protest, all appreciate his logic and just pack up and leave. In other words, the Wild West was as different to the modern mentality as much as the middle Ages were. This film doesn�t make a big deal out of it, just recognizes it as a stone cold fact.

The second thing that makes Bone Tomahawk into such a masterpiece is its humor and the way it bursts out of the characters, who all act brilliantly and I don�t want to commend anyone in particular (OK, maybe Richard Jenkins). In some ways, the humor is integral to the idea of violence and suffering � from the modern perspective, the things that the main characters do are irresponsible, cruel and wildly risky, but to them, they are just the way the world works. In the West, dying violently was kind of expected and you were expected to roll with the punches until you end up in a ditch surrounded by a beautiful sunset in the prairie.

The genius of S. Craig Zahler lies in the fact that he managed to present this type of grim and pointless historical idea in a wildly fun, funny and gory film.