MOVIE REVIEW: AVATAR

I’ve seen some interviews with movie producers recently, mostly Pixar, saying that all the key producers are moving to 3D. I’ve taken these words with a pillar of salt, as just new ways to capture the eyeballs of price-sensitive consumers who are nervous about spending $10 a head to attend the cinema, when they could stay at home and watch a movie rental on TV… one that is getting larger, HD, and Blu-ray.

That is until this movie. I can’t imagine what it would be like without 3D. I watched it in “Real D 3D” and I have just one word for it:

Gobsmacked!

It is like full immersion in a high-quality, beautifully rendered, high-definition video game. I’m not really a computer game player, my tastes lean more toward the Wii, but this might make a convert of me: there’s one for the iPhone. Indeed, Avatar has been called “the iPhone of movies.” The movie James Cameron has been working 15 years on, since Titanic, waiting for the appropriate technology to become available is now here.

There is a flying scene with dragon-like creatures in the second act that had my jaw dropped for a full five minutes.

But other than feeling like you’re inside a video game, a feeling I distinctly felt when watching the flying car sequences in Star Wars II, there was something else going on here. The line between live action and animation was seamless. The use new digital “stereoscopic” 3-D technology that adds depth significantly enhanced the experience. Rather than things protruding out of the screen over the audience, as we’ve seen in other 3D movies, this was a difference sense altogether.

Here are some of my first impressions…

• Music:

James Horner did the music for this movie. He’s one of my favorite movie music composers, first popping up on my sensors back in 1982 for Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. It was powerful and effective, if unmemorable.

• Art Direction:

There were several unmistakable resemblances to the art work of Roger Dean, well known for his ’70s and ’80s album covers for such musicians as Yes (floating islands), Uriah Heap, and Asia. From colorful dragons to flying elephants, to curving stone landscape to statuesque trees the likeness was striking. Curiously, there is no credit given to Roger Dean.

• Joel Moore:

This actor plays the role of Norm Spellman, our hero’s human buddy and scientist. He also has a recurring role as Dr. Colin Fisher on the TV series Bones. In a recent episode, his buddies at the Institute sneak out early with him to catch a premier showing of the new movie Avatar.

• Zoe Saldana:

You loved her as Lt. Uhura in the new Star Trek movie. She’s a very capable female lead in this blockbuster as Neytiri, the chief’s daughter, and was both fierce and appealing as a lithe heroine. I expect to see her in many more movies.

• Sigorney Weaver:

The only actor in this movie with name-brand appeal, she reminds the viewer of Ripley from the Alien movies, and even talks about lemurs. Is this a sly reference to her role as Dian Fossey in Gorillas in the Mists? Weaver plays the adult supervision role of Dr. Grace Augustine.

• Setting the bar:

This movie raises the bar to a new level in technical accomplishment. Like 2001: a space odyssey in the ’60s, Star Wars in the ’70s, Terminator 2 in the ’90s (a Cameron movie) and Lord of the Rings in the ’00s, this movie defines the new standard. Avatar enjoys the technical expertise of the two leading special effects houses: Weta Digital, who gave us Lord of the Rings, and to help finish the film ILM, Industrial Light and Magic. Douglas Trumbull and his assistant John Dykstra did 2001, Dykstra went on to lead ILM and do Star Wars. In Avatar, ILM came in to do visual effects on the film’s aircraft, specifically its helicopters and the large-scale shuttle. They also worked on the film’s final battle scene, with scenes of all the vehicles taking off, as well as cockpit interior shots. Indeed, the heads-up displays, and the wrap around monitors in the command center turned up the geek lust factor higher than a new 27″ iMac.

• Derivative:

Throughout the movie, you get a feeling you’ve seen parts of this movie before. From the opening scene aboard a system sojourning ship like 2001‘s Discovery, to the first scenes of the dog soldiers that is reminiscent of the troops in Aliens (also by Cameron), to the enduring sense that this is Last of the Mohicans or Dances With Wolves in space. Our hero Jake Sully (played by Sam Worthington from Terminator Salvation and in this movie his Australian accent only slips in when he gets excited) in this movie even has a native rival, a kind of “Wind In His Hair” character who is a great warrior. There is the same sense of the soldier who goes native to protect the innocent and wronged indigenous Native American Indians.

• Fail:

Where the movie failed was in the story. It could have taken the idea of:

A stranger from the skies comes down to become on of us and lays down his life to save us.

It would have even worked well as a theme with the Christmas-time release. Instead, it used a retread of a heavily used and as equally heavy-handed story of:

A neopagan Earth goddess (OK, Pandora goddess) who is the mother deity at the center of the world.

You’ve seen it before, in Disney’s historically inaccurate Pocahontas, even down to involving a giant tree. The villains were two dimensional (a real problem in a 3D movie), stereotypical, and superficial. It reminded you of the corporate slime ball Carter Burke played by Paul Reiser in Aliens (another Cameron movie). Clocking in at almost 3 hours (163 minutes), and $300M — what was what was spent on all three of the Lord of the Rings movies — this movie was written, directed, and produced by James Cameron. I’m impressed by his directing and producing, but don’t feel he was up to the task of the depth and breadth of writing. Indeed, Cameron is no J.R.R. Tolkien.

Grade: A-

You’ll like it if: you enjoy sci-fi/fantasy, action or battle films, romance and special effects to knock your eyes out.

You won’t like it if: you don’t care for violence, overt in-your-face “green” messaging, anti-war rhetoric and neopagan overtones.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood culturevulture
www.billpetro.com

MOVIE REVIEW: STAR TREK

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life-forms and new civilizations; to boldly go where no one has gone before.

If you’ve already read my History of Star Trek article, this is the future of the franchise, by returning to its past.

Let me get to the bottom line first: this is the best Star Trek movie ever. Indeed, it’s the best movie I’ve seen this year. Why?

This is the movie I’ve been waiting for 40 years, the first original episode of Star Trek: The Original Series since the show went off the air in 1969. As I mentioned in my earlier article, usually even-numbered movies are better than odd-numbered ones: but not with this eleventh movie — unless you want to call it what it really is, Star Trek 0.

Without giving away any plot details, this movie has action, drama, romance, humor, adventure, fisticuffs, and terrific space battles. $30 million were spent on special effects alone, of course by Industrial Light and Magic. The movie starts with a bang, with a truly emotional event, and keeps up the excitement right up to the end. The writing is both smart and lovingly detailed at times, and there are genuinely touching scenes of realization and revelation. And the ending, well, it brought a tear to my eye.

Yes, this is the prequel, as it were, of the original show — how the original crew met up at Starfleet Academy. This is essentially an origins story. It is also a reboot of the franchise, in the same way as Batman and James Bond have gotten a fresh start, decades after the original movie series began. But this movie is accessible to non-fans as well.

Many Trekkies, Trekkers and Trek junkies may bemoan the fact that this movie does not stick strictly to “Star Trek canon” — for example, this Spock raises his left eyebrow, not the canonical right one — but there is a reasonable explanation given for this. You’ll just have to go see the movie to find out.

Director J.J. Abrams had a difficult task of appealing to the long time fans, while attracting a new younger audience. He walked this tightrope well, mixing loving respect for the original while adding fresh and fun improvisations on the iconic characters for a post-modern age. Nostalgia and newness.

The music of Alexander Courage is peppered throughout the movie. He did the original score of the TV show and I had the privilege of seeing him in the Bay Area at a space music concert. The familiar 4-note introduction appears four times and makes chills run up one’s spine. But that’s not all, even the familiar bridge sounds are there for the old fans to relish.

Pay attention to catch a couple of prominent product placements in the movie.

Among many tributes paid to the original series — even a “red shirt” if you know what I mean — there were also lots of inside jokes and references made to other movie lines and famous TV sayings. Also, we see the use of Vasquez Rocks near Los Angeles. It was used as a popular exterior in several of the original TV show, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Voyager, Enterprise, and the movie Star Trek IV. It was featured in this film for the planet Vulcan. It’s been a filming location in many other TV shows like Bonanza, F-Troop, Have Gun Will Travel, The Big Valley, Maverick, Gunsmoke, Kung Fu, and The Wild, Wild, West.

Chris Pine, who you’ve seen in Smokin’ Aces and the delightful Bottle Shock plays James T. Kirk, cocky, brash, arrogant, confident, even fool hardy, but usually right in his hunches. He gives a remarkable performance, having some critics saying “a star is born.” He does make it happen and is believable in the role. Like me, and George Takei (the original Sulu), and John Cho (the new Sulu), Pine went to school at the University of California, Berkeley — where we were all bitten by the acting bug.

Zachary Quinto, best known as the villain Syler in the popular TV series Heroes plays the part of the human-Vulcan Spock. His resemblance to the young Leonard Nimoy is uncanny. Quinto is a half-breed himself, half-Italian, half-Irish. And like Leonard Nimoy, his father used to cut hair. Having the opportunity to meet with and work with Leonard Nimoy, who approved his casting, he learned his mannerisms, like holding his hands behind his back, his erect and still posture, and his measured and stoic composure. Of all the cast, he most resembles the original character in appearance and carriage.

The New Zealand actor Karl Urban puts on a bit of a southern gentleman accent, like the original “just a country doctor” role DeForest Kelley did. I heard De Kelley at a Star Trek convention once challenge the audience with “You all think you know Star Trek so well, give me the name of any episode and I’ll quote a line from it.” As people shouted out episode names, he confidently replied, “He’s dead, Jim.” Urban gets to play this role with humor, something we don’t usually see from the man of action who played Eomer in The Lord of the Rings trilogy or Vaako in Chronicles of Riddick. While Urban does not quote that line in this movie, he does quote another of his iconic lines. And here, you learn (one possible) origin of the name “Bones.”

Simon Pegg, the irrepressible English actor plays engineering genius Montgomery Scott. He effected a Glasgow accent for the role, believing that Scotty was originally from Linlithgow — a short train ride from Edinburgh — and the old castle there is the birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots. This is curious, as we all know from the episode “Wolf in the Fold” that Scotty was “an old Aberdeen pub crawler.” In any event, since Pegg is an English actor — unlike the original James Doohan who is Canadian (and admitted to me that he loves to do accents) — at least he’s closer geographically. You’ve seen Pegg before in Shaun of the Dead, and many other movies he’s produced, directed, and starred in. He brings his unique sense of humor to the role, and what he says about the Enterprise’s nacelles, well, you just have to see it.

Anton Yelchin who plays Pavel Andreievich Checkov was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, though he’s since lived in the United States since the year he was born. He brings remarkable energy an enthusiasm to the role. As the 17-year old Ensign, he lays on the Russian accent a bit thicker than Walter Koenig did in ST:TOS. Several years ago I had the opportunity to meet the actor Walter Koenig and in the course of conversation asked him how he developed his Russian accent.

“I have a good ear for accents.”

When I looked at him quizzically, he added.

“Both of my parents are Russian.”

The new USS Enterprise is a thing of beauty to behold. It looks like the BMW engineering team got a hold of the original and “pimped the ride.” While not straying as far as the redesign in the first movie Star Trek: The Motion Picture this retains most of the original elements with a slightly more curved engineering section and more elegant warp nacelles. The use of weapon systems, including photon torpedoes and phasers is more developed in this design, as are greater uses of blue over the original red, but it works for me. I saw the original 11-foot filming model back in the mid-’70s before it was put on display at the Smithsonian Institution’s Air and Space Museum. Even before it was restored, it was a stunning piece of engineering.

The bridge looks like a white iPhone: shiny, new, clean, and not black. Rather than the old TV-sized monitors, we’ve got widescreen. Rather than the gooseneck lights on the helm and navigation consoles, we’ve got swing arm extensions. But, what’s with all the lens flare on the bridge?

The transporter room looks very much like the original show, with a two-person console and a display on the wall. And next to “Scotty” appears Christopher Doohan, the son of the original Engineer Scott, as an extra, as he had on Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Bruce Greenwood assumes the role of Captain Christopher Pike created in the very first pilot “The Cage” — rejected originally by NBC — filmed in 1965. He handles the role with maturity and grace.

Eric Bana plays a very different Romulan, unlike any we’ve seen before, an Aussie Captain Nero with an American accent and poor hygiene habits. It is ironic that he received an acting award for his lead in the 2007 Australian movie Romulus, My Father. You’ve seen him before in Munich, Troy, Black Hawk Down and the earlier version of Hulk.

John Cho had a unique challenge as he reprises the role created by George Takei, who is still an active actor, appearing in the recent TV series Heroes. In the same way Sulu fenced in the original episode “The Naked Time” so here John Cho fences — but with a samurai sword rather than the original foil. In the same way that the Chinese-American actor Garrett Wang plays the Korean Harry Kim, here Korean-American actor John Cho plays the Japanese Lt. Sulu. You’ve seen Cho before in the Harold and Kumar movies.

Zoe Saldana plays the role of the lovely Uhura, whose name means “Freedom” in Swahili. Given a larger role in this movie than in previous Star Trek movies, there is a bit of irony here. In the movie “The Terminal” she plays a Trekkie. But you’ve also seen her as Anamaria in “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.”

Ben Cross, who played the character Harold Abrams in the 5-Academy Award winning movie “Chariots of Fire” appears here as Spock’s father Sarek of Vulcan. He’s excellent in the role, and gets a chance to deliver amazing lines, some unexpected.

Winona Ryder is Amanda Grayson, the human Earthling mother of Spock, and wife of Sarek of Vulcan. Ironically, her name means “worthy of being loved.”

Jennifer Morrison, from the TV show “House” has a brief role as James Kirk’s mother, and explains (another possible) reason for Kirk’s middle name.

Grade: A. Swing, hit, a home run.

You’ll like it if: action, humor, vitality and space are your final frontier

You won’t like it if: you’ve been on another planet for the last 40 years.

Trivia Question: There is one performer who has been in the original show, ST: The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Enterprise, the animated series, and many of the movies — including this film as well. And is in this film’s dedication at the end. Who is it?

Yes, this is a deeply gratifying movie. I’ve already got tickets to see it again tomorrow!

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood Trek junkie
www.billpetro.com

MOVIE REVIEW: WALL-E

What a sweet movie, what a cute film. Who else but Pixar could make a movie that’s animation, science-fiction, comedy, spaceships, green — and romance…and make it all work?

And the tributes to other movies of this genre! In the same way that Pixar’s The Incredibles paid tribute to early James Bond movies with its music, cinematography and sets, so too this movie pays tribute to other movies and TV shows about space (Alien), science-fiction (2001: a space odyssey, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica) and even sea voyages (Titanic). Keep an eye out for HAL’s eye from 2001 as well as some music you’ll instantly recognize, the sound effects of Star Trek‘s “red alert” and phaser blast, the voice of a Battlestar Cylon centurion — and Sigourney Weaver‘s voice as the ship computer! Look carefully, and you’ll see tributes to The Wizard of Oz and The Dream Team. And if you have a penchant for the history of space, if you look quickly you’ll see Sputnik.

In the same way as The Incredibles has its own cinematic feel, so does this film, more than a cartoon it has a lived-in feel as WALL-E seems to have been here for a long time. And when he discovers something new, it seems so clean.

And what movie could start with Michael Crawford singing… not from “Phantom of the Opera” but his younger work from 1969 in “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” and “It Only Takes a Moment” from “Hello Dolly”?” And the delightful singing of “La Vie En Rose” by Louis Armstrong. The end titles “single” was done by Peter Gabriel. The music score was by Thomas Newman.

Story

Our story starts some 800 years in the future, where Earth has been abandoned by mankind and left for robots to clean up all the trash, which had made Earth uninhabitable. WALL-E is a Waste Allocation Load Lifter-Earth Class garbage compacting droid. We feel like we’re seeing a day-in-the-life of R2-D2. We even hear a few R2 beeps, unsurprisingly as Ben Burtt who conceived the voice of R2 does WALL-E.

For over half an hour we hear almost no dialog, it’s almost all pantomime and visual impressions. Other than a cockroach buddy, WALL-E is the only one we see who is still operational. The dystopia theme of mankind’s possible future on Earth is not yet obvious, except in contrast to the very human nature of WALL-E who collects interesting human artifacts of the past, including Christmas lights, an iPod, Zippo lighters, Rubik’s Cube, Twinkies, and of course old videos like “Hello Dolly.” The ecology morality tale kicks off in earnest when WALL-E discovers a living green plant, the first in the 700 years since mankind left on space liners.

EVE

For our droid Adam WALL-E, there appears an EVE (Extra-terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator). A space probe lands on Earth and deposits a sleek, white reconnaissance probe-droid, looking for sustainable life on the planet. The influence of Apple on Pixar become immediately apparent. As WALL-E “reboots” with a Mac startup chime, EVE looks like a sleek iMac. This is not surprising considering the designer of the iMac and iPod, Apple Sr. VP Jonathan Ive consulted with Pixar on the film. When EVE separates out of her elongated egg shape to differentiate into head, arms and hands, she glistens like a second generation white iPhone. And below her monitor-like head, we see a spinning gear, just like on an Apple machine.

The film chronicles their romance through dance as well as care giving incubation. The emblem where EVE’s heart should be is a bio sign of plant life, a subtle shade of green.

There is such visual wonder, the majesty of space flight, the quality of loyal friends, and the touching heart-felt self-sacrifice of mutual love. Surely, fun for the whole family, for children of all ages, including you. And the only movie, that I’ve noticed, that gives credit in the final titles to “processors by Intel”.

Grade: A-

• You’ll like it if: You enjoy animation, heroes, robots, science-fiction, and comedy
• You won’t like it if: You don’t care for cockroaches and prefer live actors

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood culturevulture
www.billpetro.com

Mission: Impossible: III

I was privileged to see a private sneak preview the third installment of the Mission Impossible franchise, and what is arguably the first blockbuster popcorn movie of the summer of 2006.

Let me say from the onset that it starts with a bang and doesn’t let up. It’s non-stop action from beginning to end. It’s like watching 2 episodes in a row of the TV show 24. Total adrenalin rush. It has “video game” written all over it.

The female lead, and love of super-agent Ethan Hunt’s life is Julia, played by Michelle Monaghan, with a preternatural resemblance to Katie Holmes, Tom Cruise’s real-life fiancée. Ms. Monaghan has been seen in the films North Country, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (ironically, the title of a song in the James Bond movie Thunderball), and Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

Speaking of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, in a scene in the first act of M:i:III, new recruit Lindsey, played by Keri Russell, and Ethan engage in “synchronized shooting” like that seen in the Brad Pitt/Angelina Jolie movie.

There were a number of other “tributes” as well. We see Ethan and Lindsey repelling on a cable like in Batman (the latest installment of which Katie Holmes was in, but that’s another subject.) The HQ role of Benji Dunn, played by Simon Pegg reminds one of James Bond’s Q, though the more eccentric one from the non-canonical Sean Connery 007 outing Never Say Never Again.

There is skyscraper-to-skyscraper swinging, a la Spider-man. Indeed there are a number of great stunts, though it is at times difficult to believe that Tom Cruise did all of his own as claimed.

We can say that this time his hair is normal for a change. In the first installment, it was unusually short, it what many called “a bad hair day.” In the second it was quite long. In this one, it’s just right.

While this movie is back to the ensemble cast, unlike M:i-2 which was more of a “mano-a-mano” film, in this movie Ethan is not just one of the agents, as he was when he started in the first Mission: Impossible movie. Rather, he’s the leader of a group that seem more like his chorus.

Ving Rhames is a welcome return as Luther Stickell. Didn’t we see him play essentially the same role for Sean Connery in the 1999 movie Entrapment?

Jonathan Rhys Meyers is Declan the transportation expert. We don’t usually hear his natural Irish accent, but it’s evident here, and much better than the Irish accent that came and went when Tom Cruise tried it in the movie Far and Away. It’s interesting to see him play a good guy, as we’ve usually seen him do somewhat unpleasant characters earlier, as in The Magnificent Ambersons and Vanity Fair.

The Asian beauty Zhen is played by Maggie Q and has played in few English-speaking movies, though she’s a star of Hong Kong films.

Laurence Fishburne plays head of operations Brassel, though less iconic than he was in The Matrix.

The villain, and international weapons dealer is Owen Davian, played by recent Academy Award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman. It’s great to see how good he is at being bad. Quite coldblooded.

There is the usual intrigue, assumed and mistaken identities, and split-second timing we’ve come to expect of Mission: Impossible. And we’ve got the strains of the original theme music for the TV show written by Lalo Schifrin, including the military drums as the mission begins.

There were four units with filming going on all over the world, including the US, Berlin, Shanghai and Rome. Most of the Roman filming was in and around the Vatican, including Declan’s unlikely parking in the middle of the piazza of St. Peter’s.

The action is fabulous and there’s lots of eye candy – from beautiful locations to beautiful women to beautiful cars. The gadgets are improbable, but flashy. Nokia got listed in the credits (for some cool phones.) But Cisco was listed too!

The previous M:I movie came out in 2000, before the TV show 24 became a hit. There are many similarities to it in the new M:i:III movie, from hand-held camera action to the “speak or die” ultimatums. Yet somehow, this movie does not hook the viewer on a visceral level like 24. Kiefer Sutherland brings an angst to his role of Counter Terrorist Unit agent Jack Bauer that Cruise does not for his character. Rather he brings intensity, passion and fear. This is not as engaging, the audience does not care for his character like they do for Jack.

Final take: the movie is a bit formulaic. By that I don’t mean to say that it’s derivative of other spy movies, though it is, but rather I mean that they include the most successful elements of highly popular movies, mix them together in a winning formula, put it in a blender, set it on “cacophonous,” press all the right buttons, and out comes a movie that is sure to be a hit. It will please most of the movie-going public, though it’s a rollercoaster ride with little in the way of modulation or variety. But for my money, I’d give it a B. Jack Bauer needn’t worry about his job at CTU.

• You’ll like it if: mindless, senseless action with lots of gadgets is what you crave
• You won’t like it if: you are looking for plot sense, depth, plausibility, logic or character development

Bill Petro
www.billpetro.com