Top Gun 2: Maverick

Films like these are called legacy sequels, made 30 years after the original. It didn't work well for Indiana Jones, and Star Wars had some problems, but this one is a surefire hit.

It's a big powerhouse of a movie with plenty of fast planes and Tom Cruise star appeal. I don't normally like action scenes but enjoyed these ones, mostly as I was able to tell what was going on.

The story is that Maverick is forced to go back and train the next generation of cocky young pilots. This time there's two women pilots too. All the young bucks are referred to several times as 'the best of the best' but this is clearly not so, as early on Maverick mercilessly beats all of them in a simulated dogfight. Then he does a sort of plane assault-course much quicker than they can.

I have only a few gripes. There is a rather artificial plot-device that they have to fly super-fast to avoid being detected, but the only reason they are at risk of detection is because of their own bombs (which they could drop a bit later). 

There is also a reckless lack of safety gear. Not in the planes, but on motorbikes (no helmet) and sailing ships (no life jackets). I know these guys are crazy sons-of-guns but why not minimise the risk where possible? I sympathise with the Miles Teller character, Rooster, who prefers flying at a more sensible speed and getting there safely. I thought his conservative approach would come into the finale, but the ending was still very satisfying.

Director Joseph Kosinki has delivered on the promise of Oblivion (classic Cruise). This is a film to see in the cinema.

Dune

 

The thought of the story of Dune conjures up images of sandy expanses and people looking wistfully across (see the poster above). That's my favourite aspect of Sci-fi, the sense of enormity and awe, and this film version has plenty of it. It is extremely stately and slow, as it must be, even to the point of crawling along at some points (slow-mo of spaceship coming out of water). I said some of the same things about Denis Villneuve's last film too: https://hamfilmreviews.blogspot.com/2017/10/blade-runner-2049.html.

The central relationship between Paul Atreides and his mother is really good, and I like that she is strict with him in a sort of your-fate-is-too-important-to-mess-around Sarah Connor way. 

I could definitely take a few more hours of this and hope the next part gets made. Though if I was watching it again at home I'd certainly have plenty of snacks. 

No Time to Die

 

Anna and I saw this at a little cinema in Malton. I thought there'd be lots of trailers so we were late. The initial sequences were good, and the story flowed nicely. There were a few highlights and a mostly enjoyably story, though (as ever) the baddy was evil without reason, and it did feel like they wrote the ending and worked backwards.

But actually I agree with everything in this review: https://www.techradar.com/news/why-the-no-time-to-die-ending-doesnt-really-work so will say no more. 

Tenet

Before I saw this film I knew that it was by Christopher Nolan, involved messing around with time, and had some muffled dialogue. All of these things turned out to be true. The dialogue wasn't actually too much of an issue. It was the action scenes that were hard to follow. Car chases and fast fights are hard enough to know what's going on anyway; I had no chance with time-reversal too.

The central idea of the film is that some things (and later people) can travel backwards through time. Not time-travelling, but moving backwards at a steady rate through time. This doesn't appear to make any sense, and on closer inspection, still doesn't. This is more or less admitted by the film, then buried out of embarrassment. It seems like they got three quarters of the way through filming, realised it didn't work, but carried on anyway.

If a bullet is inverted then wouldn't it just retrace it's forward steps, i.e. sit in a box for a while then head back to the factory when it gets made? It wouldn't start jumping into people's hands (or into guns), unless it did that the first time. Or is the inverted bullet a new object, that is unrelated to the original bullet, that has magic properties?

When inverted bullets get sucked out of glass, the glass remains whole. But when they get sucked out of people, the people are injured. Why is that? When the Protagonist gets inverted why can he drive a car, unless that's been inverted too? Why does he have to take back his own oxygen (as the reactions happen in the opposite direction) but not his own light (that would also move away from his eyes towards the sun in an inverted world)?

Admittedly I've got some of those from the internet. My problems are more basic. In a temporal pincer movement wouldn't the second group, moving backwards in time, simply arrive to see the whole area devastated (since the first group set off a big bomb at the end)?

It almost makes sense if you forget about the time aspect, and just call it magic-mode. When something enters magic-mode things are a bit weird. Any closer examination of the time-inversion idea means it works less and less well. This is the opposite of what a Sci-Fi film should be; the main idea should be explored not buried beneath fast action and very loud music.

Ignoring the time-inversion it's quite an entertaining spy film. Robert Pattison is good, and so is Kenneth Branagh.

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Star Wars IX: The Rise of Skywalker

I went to see this on my own the day after it came out. It was a very enjoyable afternoon of escapism.

I liked seeing the different worlds, and the hints at the enormity of the Universe. When you see the Knights of Ren parading around in their matching outfits it opens up the possibility of various cults, including the Sith and Jedi, competing in a semi-magical world. This is a bit like the situation I imagine about the time of Jesus, with various charismatic leaders competing for followers. Only in Star Wars it's better as the cults really do have supernatural powers.

The best bits of the film were with Rey, and the allusions to the history of the Jedi. A lot of the rest felt very similar to previous films, and for me at least there were about eight too many 'crowdpleasing' moments where an old person or artefact appears. Let's just ditch C3PO and R2D2.

A review I read said this is a fairly safe film and doesn't continue interesting ideas from The Last Jedi. I think that's probably right, although perhaps it needs another watch to be sure. Strangely, when I was thinking of whether or not this new film had any classic Star Wars moments I thought back wistfully to the cloners planet in Attack of the Clones, Count Dooku, Obi-Wan and Qui Gon Jinn, and even the romance with Anakin and Queen Amidala.

So I still think Episode I, II and III were under-rated, and perhaps this is too.

Joker

This was a tough film to watch. It's immediately uncomfortable because of Arthur's manic laugh, which comes out at inappropriate moments due to his medical condition (does that really exist?) Then the film gets darker as it goes on, and Arthur loses hope. The backdrop, which prevents it getting too miserable, is that it's taking place in Gotham City and boy batman is around too. Thomas Wayne isn't quite the hero we thought he was though.

There's a certain amount of ambiguity during the story, and as it's all told from Arthur's viewpoint, and he's an unreliable narrator, it's hard to know what to believe. It's a little like American Psycho and even more like The Machinist. Not only does the protagonist not really know what's true, he doesn't really care.

I would say the pacing is slightly off and the second half drags a little, plus the crossover with the TV show seems a little far-fetched (it feels like it's about the 1970s, so how would anyone have filmed Arthur's performance in a little comedy club and sent it to a talk-show?). Those are my only issues though, apart from it obviously being rather grim viewing. I wouldn't recommend it to many, but I'd like to see it again myself.

Ad Astra

I got to see this at the IMAX when my bike was getting serviced and it took longer than expected. I enjoyed it. The opening sequence is excellent, and introduces Brad Pitt as a cool-headed space-pilot. But he also has existential doubts, centred around his distant father, played by Tommy Lee Jones. TLJ is really good, and never once breaks into his manic cowboy act that I find rather annoying.

The film is slow and stately, but takes place in space so is still exciting. A bit like Space Odyssey or Gravity, but not Solaris which is still boring. It's also set in the future where space travel is relatively normal. Could it happen in our lifetime? Probably not.

I have a few qualms about the plotting, which seems un-necessarily contrived. There's really no reason for Brad to go to the moon on the way to Mars, except for us to have a good look at the moon and see some Space Pirates. I also don't know why later on the crew of the shuttle that he boards all decide to kill him. Space madness perhaps? And the whole thing could easily have been made without the plot-device cosmic surges.

Overall I thought this was elegant and interesting. Not quite Bladerunner 2049 but I'd watch it again, on an even bigger screen if possible.