ANT-MAN - My Review Of What I Think Is An Excellent Superhero Film - Entertaining and Fun

ANT-MAN - 2015

A while back, I heard that Marvel Studios was considering making a film that I wanted to see. It was supposed to be about the Avenger member Black Panther.  I was very excited about that because he was one of my favorite characters when I read comic books. Then the announcement came that they were actually going to make Ant-Man.  “Lame” I thought.  I had read a few Ant-Man comics, but didn’t care too much for them, and wondered who would want to see a movie about that?  Then I saw the trailer for the film and thought that it didn’t look too bad and decided to give it a look.

So, this afternoon, Diane, Chrissy and I headed to the theater to see what it was all about and I am here to say that I very much liked this film.

The film opens in 1989 with Dr. Hank Pym (the original Ant-Man) resigning from S.H.I.E.L.D. because they were apparently attempting to replicate his shrinking technology Pym tells the S.H.I.E.L.D. leaders that he will hide what he knows until the day he dies and walks out.

In the present day, Pym’s former protégé, Darren Cross,along with Pym’s estranged daughter, Hope, have forced Pym out of control of his company. Working on what he has learned from Pym, Cross is getting very close to perfecting the shrinking technology. Cross has built a shrinking suit that he calls the Yellowjacket, and continues to test methods to make it work.

Meanwhile, a former thief, Scott Lang, is being released from prison. He moves in with his former cell mate Luis and tries to secure gainful employment (no easy task for an ex convict) so he can begin to help support his daughter and be a part of her life. When Scott goes to his daughter’s birthday party, he is told that he may not have visitation rights until he has an apartment, a job, and begins providing support. Dejected at not finding work and not begin able to see his daughter decides to perform a burglary that is suggested by Luis.

Scott, Luis, along with two others go to a house, disable the alarms, and crack a safe.  There isn’t much in the safe except what Scott thinks is an old motorcycle suit, which he takes back to Luis’ apartment. Later, he tries on the suit and to his surprise, when he presses one of the buttons, he is reduced to the size of an insect which takes him on a journey that terrifies him. All the while, Scott hears Pym’s voice as he goes on his adventure. Scott decides to break into the house again to return the suit. Upon exiting the house, Scott is arrested.

Posing as his lawyer, Pym smuggles the suit into Scott’s cell, with the help of some ants, and helps Scott escape from Jail.

Scott and Pym meet face to face where Scott learns that he has been manipulated into becoming Ant-Man to help Pym stop Cross from completing development of the Yellowjacket suit by stealing it. Scott reluctantly agrees and is trained how to fight and control ants by Hope.

Scott’s first task is to go to Avengers’ headquarters and steal a small device. But what should have been an easy task gets a little harder when Sam Wilson (Falcon) enters the picture. Scott and Sam fight, but Scott finally gets the upper hand when he shrinks down and gets into the workings of the Falcon’s wings.

We learn next that the reason for Hope’s estrangement is that Pym has never told her the complete truth about her mother’s, Janet’s death. Finally, Pym tells him how her mother and he were on a mission to stop a nuclear missile from striking the United States. Janet (Wasp) shrunk herself to get inside the workings of the missile, but to do this she had to enter the Subatomic Quantum Realm, so after she managed to stop the weapon, she continued to shrink and was lost to this world. Pym also warns Scott that the same could happen to him if he improperly makes adjustments to the Ant-Man suit.

So, Cross finally perfects the Yellowjacket suit, and invites Pym to it’s unveiling.  At the same time, Scott, Luis, and their crew break into the building with the intention of stealing the Yellowjacket suit, but Cross is one step ahead and traps Scott and tells everyone present that he intends to sell HYDRA both the Ant-Man and Yellowjacket suits.  Scott manages to break free though, and dispatches most of the HYDRA agents, but one gets away with a vial of material used in the shrinking suit technology. Meanwhile, Cross escapes, explosives planted in the building detonate and is vaporized.

Cross puts on the Yellowjacket suit, he and Scott fight but it is cut short when Scott is once again arrested. When a call comes over the radio that there is trouble at the home where Scott’s daughter lives.  When he arrives, he finds that Cross has taken his daughter hostage.  Scott and Cross fight again, but this time, Scott enters the Quantum Realm, get’s inside of the Yellowjacket suit, and destroys it and cross.  As Scott continues to shrink, he realizes that he can manipulate the workings of the suit and manages to return to the normal realm

Later, Scott is told that Sam Wilson is looking for him.

In the first of two Easter Eggs, Pym shows Hope a Wasp suit that will be hers when completed.  In the second scene, Sam Wilson and Steve Rogers are holding Bucky Barnes in custody.

At the end of the credits, it is announced that “Ant-Man Will Return.”

I thought the main characters for the most part were well written. Hank Pym was awesome as played by Michael Douglas who looks to be in great shape and ready for a return in the sequel. His performance alone was worth the price of admission. The same can also be said for Paul Rudd as Scott/Ant-Man.  He was someone that I found myself caring about and felt invested in seeing him be successful.  I didn’t like the Cross character, but we aren’t supposed to, because he is the bad guy.  His part was understated somewhat, and also underdeveloped and I didn’t get the feeling that I knew exactly why i didn’t like him, beyond the fact that he was the bad guy.  One area that Marvel has been catching a lot of heat on is the handling of their female characters, or lack of handling, as in the case of this film. I didn’t feel any sympathy at all for Hope or her plight.  She was a very one dimensional character and the highpoint of her part in the plot was in teaching Scott how to fight. I think that Marvel has to do a better job with their female roles, or they are going to lose the market to comic book fans.

One of the best aspects of Ant-Man was the incorporation of humor throughout the movie.  It was always appropriate to the plot and worked well, adding to the story.  And what a story.  While we get an origin/reboot of the Ant-Man character, we also get a comedic heist kind of film where everything goes wrong, despite the best efforts of the crooks, who are really nice guys who are just a little bad. The plot was very engaging for the most part, but I did get the feeling at times that the exposition of the film was just a bit draggy, which turned around as soon as Scott donned the Ant-Man suit.

Also impressive were the action sequences in the film. In some of the Marvel films, I have thought that the action was too fast, and often filmed too close to get the full effect of the fight scenes.  That was not the case here.  I don’t feel like I have to go and see the movie again to get a better look at the action, which I appreciate.

One of my favorite parts of the film was the scenery that was used from San Francisco! Those were some great shots and I wish they had put more of those to use in the film.

Overall, I would have to say that Ant-Man isn’t a great film when comparing to the scope of other Marvel films such as Avengers, but it is a solid piece of entertainment that was fun to watch.  It was mostly well acted, well directed, beautifully filmed and edited.  Well worth the price of a matinee admission.  It’s just a good popcorn movie.

 Well, there it is…

Qaplah!

Star Trek: Captain Pike - Looking At The Story Of Captain Christopher Pike - An Indiegogo Project

 Star Trek: Captain Pike - Looking At The History Of The Future

While it seems that CBS and Paramount are content to just let Star Trek, one of their most popular properties, just sit on the shelf and gather dust, we the fans continually ask for more.  In recent years, there have been many new incarnations of Star Trek available in the books, and movies. While the books are great (I happen to be reading an excellent one right now), we still want the visual experience. J.J. Abrams produced and directed two films that have raised a lot of controversy within fandom and have been accused of falling short by many.  I have even heard people who described the J.J. films as being "amazing" turn around and are also bashing them.

Another source for us Trekkies is the recent trend of producing fan films. Some are trying to break new ground with all new concepts, while others are leaning more towards the traditional Star Trek concept of episodic television.  All are well produced and feature great casts and are quite professionally done.

I have recently been hearing about a new project that is in the works called Star Trek: Captain Pike.  But I haven't been hearing very much, so here is my contribution to help boost the signal for something that promises to be fresh and something that fans have been asking for.

Star Trek: Captain Pike will give us a visual story of the second commander of the USS Enterprise, Captain Christopher Pike. Building on the story by Gene Roddenberry in his pilot for TOS, The Cage which didn't air, but was later reworked for the only two part episode of the original series, The Menagerie. The concept is being developed by Todd Shawn Tei along with others who have gathered an all star cast and are striving to do a film that is professional in all aspects.

ST: Captain Pike is the story of what took place in the years prior to Kirk's command.  The story will explore how Pike came to take command from Captain Robert April, the first commander of the Enterprise, as well as his relationship with his father, Josh Pike.  According to Tei, one of the most important aspects of his production is that it isn't just about battles and conflict, but will explore more of the interpersonal relationships that were the basis of what Star Trek was all about.  For instance, we know that Spock is loyal to Captain Kirk, however in the Menagerie Spock was willing to end his own career, as well as Kirk's to bring Pike to Thalos IV so pike could live some semblance of a normal life. What were the events that led to this fierce loyalty spock had for Pike? This is just one of the aspects that Tei promises will be explored in what he hopes will become an ongoing story that will unfold as new films are produced and released.

The cast that has been lined up at this point includes a list that is a veritable who's who in Star Trek.  Along with Todd Shawn Tei (starring as Captain Pike, producing, directing, and writing) is Robert Picardo, Chase Masterson, Linda Park, Dwight Schultz, and Water Koenig.  Also among the talent participating is Ray Wise, Eric Roberts, Bruce Davison, Jorge Pallo, and Rico Anderson. The Links point to their IMDB pages.

An undertaking such as this cannot be done without funding. Tei has chosen to fund Star Trek: Captain Pike through Indiegogo.  There you will be given the opportunity to help fund the project and there are perks at various levels for donating.

You can learn more about ST: Captain Pike in an interview with Tei and one of his co-writers, Walter Doty that M Sieiro Garcia and I did for The Scifi Diner Podcast.

Here is a list of links to also check out...

 

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/star-trek-captain-pike#/story

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4669408/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt

https://www.facebook.com/captainpikemovie?fref=ts

https://twitter.com/CAPTAINPIKE65

http://www.startrekcaptainpike.com/

Well, there it is...

Q'aplaH!

Avengers: Age Of Ultron - The Age Of Marvel Continues To Create Greatness

Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

It has been said over many years that lightning never strikes twice in the same place. We know that, scientifically speaking, this is not true.  However in the movie industry, more often than not, it is true. In this age of movie making that is replete with sequels, prequels, and remakes, it seems that for the most part, when there is a great movie, it is usually followed by another film that is less than what is expected. But as we all know, there are exceptions to almost every rule, and Marvel would seem to have figured out how to make movies that are consistently as good as, if not better than the ones that come before their previous efforts.

Marvel’s Avengers: Age of Ultron is once again proof that lightning, at least as far as movies are concerned, can not only strike twice, but multiple times.  What is it with this studio?  They seem to have hit on a formula, or some device that has brought hit after hit to the big screen. I’m not complaining, mind you, but it is impressive.

Age of Ultron opens with a massive battle scene that finds the Avengers advancing on a large castle-like structure that houses a Hydra outpost.  Inside is Baron von Strucker who has been working on enhancing human abilities using Loki’s scepter. The result of his experimentation are a brother and sister duo Pietro (Quicksilver) with the power of super speed, and Wanda (Scarlet Witch) who can manipulate minds and throw energy bursts.  After the running battle, Tony Stark captures Loki’s scepter and all return to Stark’s tower that has become the base of operations for the Avengers.

While analyzing the sceptre, Stark and Banner discover an artificial intelligence and use it to complete Stark’s global defence program that he calls Ultron.  What they don’t know is that the artificial intelligence that they discover is also sentient and Ultron’s mission is global defence through the elimination of all humankind.

As the Avengers relax during a victory party, Ultron eliminates Stark’s own artificial intelligence, Jarvis and becomes more powerful and crashes the party.  Ultron then escapes with the sceptre and returns to von Strucker’s former base.  While there, he enhances himself and builds an army of robot drones.  Ultron also recruits the enhanced twins who are seeking revenge against Stark for the killing of their parents via the use of weapons that were developed by Stark Industries.

The twins head to Wakanda to obtain vibranium (the substance that is used in Captain America’s shield) and meet with an arms dealer.  When the Avengers arrive and try to stop them, Wanda subdues them with visions of doom, except for the Hulk, who goes on a blind rampage.  Stark is forced to use a new enhanced armor to subdue the Hulk, but not before there is a significant amount of destruction. This results in a backlash of negative public opinion against the superheroes and that, combined with the disturbing visions planted by Wanda, send the team into hiding at Clint Barton’s (Hawkeye) home.

During the downtime in the country, Thor departs to consult with Dr. Selvig about the visions he is having and Banner realizes an attraction for Natasha, and she is also attracted to him.  They make plans to leave together once Ultron is defeated.  Nick Fury arrives on the scene with encouragement to keep the team working together to make a plan to defeat Ultron.

Meanwhile, in South Korea, with the help of Wanda, Ultron forces Banner’s friend, Dr. Cho to create the perfect body for him using her synthetic tissue technology, vibranium and the gem from the sceptre.  While Ultron uploaded himself into the new body, Wanda reads his mind and discovers his plan for the destruction of humanity and the twins turn against him.  Before ultron can complete his task, Captain America, Natasha and Hawkeye track Ultron down and take the synthetic body, but Ultron manages to escape with Natasha.

Stark reveals that Jarvis is not actually gone as was thought, but was hiding the entire time inside the internet, and he secretly uploads Jarvis into the synthetic body and Thor returns to activate the body with lightning.  Thor then explains that the gem that has been placed on the forehead of the body is actually the Mind Stone, one of the six Infinity Stones, and one of the most powerful objects in the universe.  Thor further explains that the Mind Stone was part of his vision and thus the body is called Vision.

The twins and Vision accompany the Avengers to Skovia where Ultron has used the remaining vibranium to create a machine to lift a giant piece of the city high into the atmosphere and then plunge in back onto the surface of the Earth causing global extinction.  While the landmass rises into the air, Banner rescues Natasha and she helps him turn into the Hulk and get ready to fight.  In the meantime, Nick fury arrives with a Helicarrier to evacuate the people off of the landmass.  Pietro takes fire that is intended for Barton, who is holding a child, and is killed in doing so.  This sends Wanda into a rage of grief and she releases an energy burst that destroys many of Ultron’s drones and causes damage to Ultron himself, but is also allows one of his his other drones to activate the machine Ultron is using to destroy humanity. The landmass begins to fall to Earth, but Stark and Thor arrive and manage to overload the machine, shattering the landmass before it can hit.  Vision saves Wanda and confronts what is left of Ultron.

In the closing scenes of the movie, the Hulk takes a Quinjet and leaves on his own, leaving Natasha behind instead of them getting away together as they had planned.  The Avengers establish a new base in Upstate New York under the direction of Fury, Hill, Cho and Selvig.  Stark drives away talking like he is retiring, and Hawkeye returns to his family. Captain America and Natasha begin the training of a new team of Avengers consisting of War Machine, Wanda, Vision, and Falcon.

The only easter egg in the credits shows Thanos vowing to hunt for all of the infinity stones himself.

There was a lot I liked about this film. In the past, I have bashed on the Tony Stark character as portrayed by Robert Downey Jr.  In the Iron Man films, I thought that he was way too flippant and constantly cracking wise.  As I recall, I said that the Iron Man films seemed like a two hour Downey Jr. stand-up comedy act.  It wasn't as much that in the last Avengers film, but then, he didn't get as much screen time. In Age of Ultron though, I was happier with the character.  While he still had his arrogance and some of his flippant tendencies intact, he seemed more flawed and more human, and more serious about the situation. I even found myself liking Star for the first time since he began appearing in the more recent Marvel films.

I also loved, as always, Scarlett Johansson's portrayal of Natasha.  But this time, she comes across also as a character who is very human.  I enjoyed the scenes that she and Banner had together.  Banner wants to simply get away because he is appalled by what he becomes when he transforms into the Hulk, an apparently out of control, unstoppable force of destruction.  He just wants to go someplace where he can enjoy peace and quiet and not become his alter ego.  Natasha is similarly tired of the constant adventuring and wants to get away making the two kindred spirits.  In this film, we get some of Natasha's backstory; we learn that she was sterilized to prevent her from thinking about her emotional side that might prevent her from being the stone cold killer she was trained to be.  In the scene where she explains this to Banner and they talk about their getaway, Natasha begins to tear-up and seems on the verge of losing it, but she doesn't quite let go.  In my mind, this was one of the best and most human scenes in the movie, showing that there is a human side to the characters, and that there is indeed more depth to them.

A sequence that I also loved was the victory party at the tower after the capture of Loki's scepter.  Especially when everyone tried to lift Thor's hammer from the table.  No one was able to do it, but one character was able to make it move a bit, and Thor looked on with a bit of worry on his face.  As part of one of the running gags during the film, Vision DID lift the hammer and hand it to Thor later in the movie, and the look on Hemsworth's face made everyone in the theater chuckle.  I'll also say that the other running gag involved Captain America's concern with Iron Man's tendency to use some more colorful metaphors.

I thought that this was a well balanced film.  There was plenty of action and plenty of story in equal parts and the time went by so fast, it certainly didn't seem like it was almost two and a half hours long.

I do only have one, very small and nitpicky complaint; the action scenes and the scene changes go by so fast that there isn't really time to digest everything one sees on the screen. I am pretty sure that no one can see everything in a Marvel film in just one viewing, so whether it is a shortcoming of the editing process, or a ploy to get patrons to go and see the film more than once, it is just a small thing, because even if I cannot make it to the theater to see this a second time, I will be getting this on BluRay so I can see it again.

I will conclude by saying that I truly enjoyed this film.  I found it entertaining on many levels, and if you are reading this and have not been to the theater to see Age of Ultron, or are waiting for it to come out on one of the digital services, please be advised that these films are made for the big screen and you will be doing yourself a disservice if you do not see it in a theater.

Well, there it is...

Q'aplaH!

Jupiter Ascending - A Film That Descends To New Lows - Unwatchable For Many Reasons

Jupiter Ascending - 2014

As a former movie theater manager and owner, I have seen many films.  Many of them were very good and a few were really bad. As I remember back to those days, I can honestly say that Jupiter Rising would easily make it on the list of the worst Sci-Fi films I have ever seen.  And I don't even mean one of the best of the worse, it is just altogether bad.  What makes me really sad is that I was looking forward to this film so much because it is not a prequel, a sequel or a reboot, as so many of the offerings are these past several years.  It is an original film with a supposedly original story that falls so flat that it is virtually unwatchable.

Jupiter Jones is an unfortunate cleaning woman in a family business.  Her main job seems to be cleaning toilets.   Jupiter however doesn't know that she also has the genetic makeup to be the queen of the Earth.  An alien, Balem Abrasax knows that the planet has been seeded with human life that is to be harvested to make a substance to sustain and extend life for his species.  Balem will be able to harvest the planet very soon but he first must obtain ownership by getting Jupiter to sign it over to him or if she is killed.  It is up to Caine Wise to protect Jupiter and make sure that nothing happens to her majesty.

The plot of the film comes down to Jupiter's choice to save her family and allow the Earth to be harvested, or, with the help of Caine and a sort of galactic police force save the Earth from being harvested by Balem.  As one might suspect, and because of the predictability of this so called "original" story, Balem is defeated, Jupiter and Caine fall in love, and the population of the Earth is saved.

There are other characters and things that take place in this film, but they are really not worth mentioning because the really add nothing to this 127 minute (that seemed like "six hours" according to my ten year-old daughter who went to the show with me) ride through utter boredom.

Outside of saying that what I didn't like about this film is just about everything, I have to be more specific...

Characters: The characters were flat and uninteresting. There was very little character development. Jupiter as portrayed by Mila Kunis probably had the most development of all of the characters.  Her father was killed in an armed robbery of the family's home, she was born on a ship in transit to the U.S., and her and her mother went to Chicago to live with her aunt who runs a cleaning business.  Beyond that, characters come and go with little to no introduction or background other than that everyone is ready to advance their own causes to gain ownership of the planet.

Direct Reference to Dune?

Plot: This film, minus the killing and other pointless violence, is basically a Disney Princess movie.  The main character discovers that she is royalty, is protected by a handsome prince, chooses to become a hero by saving lives, and finally falls in love with the prince and lives happily ever after.  But that's not all. Now take the Disney film and mash it up with David Lynch's Dune film from 1984!  I'm not kidding.  The place where Balem lives looks like what one might imagine Geidi Prime.  The ships and structures like they were taken directly from Dune, and judging from what I have seen of the documentary on Jodorwoski's Dune, might even be a direct ripoff of those Joderowski's designs.  Even Balem himself has an eerie resemblance to the Baron Harkonnen complete with a Piter De Vries mentat-like sidekick.

Visual Effects: Nothing special.  While the visuals in the film are well done, they are in most films made in the last few years.  But the way they are used is truly appalling.  First of all, it is far too obvious that the Wachowskis directed this film to pander to the 3D crowd (I am on a one-man boycott of 3D, by the way.  It is ridiculous, in my opinion, to pay extra for the privilege of sitting in a dark movie theater wearing dark glasses and getting a bad case of eye strain and a blinding headache.).  Almost every scene has people or objects flying at the viewer, and along with that, these scenes are far too long to be entertaining.  One such scene seemed to go on for about 15 minutes!  One of the heroes in the film lives in a house that is virtually covered with beehives and there are bees constantly swarming around characters.  In one scene, the bees launch a mass attack on forces who are after Jupiter.

Sound: One particularly irritating aspect of watching this film is that almost all of the characters seemed to be mumbling their lines.  I found that I missed a great deal of the dialog. It was even worse if someone in the theater was rattling a popcorn bag or unwrapping cellophane from a candy package.  Also, the genius of Michael Giacchino was not even enough to pull this farce out of its tailspin.  The music was good and may have been the only redeeming part of this disappointing movie-going experience.

I attended the film with my daughter, Chrissy, who said that "there were too many scenes" in this film and as I stated before, she said it felt like it was too long.  I cannot disagree.  As I said, any of the scenes went on far too long to get the full effect of the 3D.  Chrissy also said that "it didn't make sense."

About twenty minutes into the film, I was seriously considering walking out.  It was just a few seconds later when a family of three got up and did just that.  I hope they got their money back. A few others also left at various times.  Those of us that stuck it out left the auditorium looking like we had been caught in a boiler explosion, and I will admit that there were a few times I found myself nodding off.

On the poster, it touts the Wachowskis as the directors behind the Matrix.  This isn't even 1/10th of the film that was and I will tell you that in the future, Wachowski will be more like Watch-Outski when it comes to me attending another one of their creations.

Just to be fair, I have to admit that a colleague and good friend, Mr. Chuck Roe texted me before the film started and said that I should go to American Sniper instead.  I should have listened.

My advice is to save your money for a film that was featured in the previews, Ant-Man.  The trailer looked very good.  

Don't see this in the theater, don't see this on PPV, don't rent it, or buy it in any form, unless you are a glutton for visual punishment.

Well, there it is…

Q'aplaH!

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes - The Sequel To Rise Falls A Bit Short.

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes - 2014

With as busy as this past summer was, I was not able to make it to the theater to see Dawn.  So when it came available on Amazon, I put it on pre-order and waited. It arrived and last night my daughter and I watched a Planet of the Apes double feature night.

I did take advantage of the opportunity to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes in the theater and was very impressed and enjoyed it in every aspect. I had high expectations for Dawn and found that while I enjoyed it, there are a few things that I found lacking in Dawn.

The events of Dawn take place ten years after the events in Rise.  The ALZ-113 virus that was developed has been dubbed the Simian Virus and has wiped out most of the human population. There would seem to be scattered pockets of humanity that are immune to the virus.  One such pocket, located in San Francisco, is facing the dilemma of running out of energy and will soon not be able to keep the lights on. They know that there is a hydroelectric generating plant and if it can be repaired, they will have all of the electricity they need for sometime.

Meanwhile, across the Golden Gate in Muir Woods, Caesar and his band of intelligent apes have managed to do pretty well for themselves, being fruitful and multiplying into vast numbers. The would seem to have set up their own society living in peace.  As they contemplate their existence, they are aware that something has happened and they speculate on whether there are any humans left on the planet.

That question is soon answered as a small band of humans from San Francisco arrive on an apparent hunting exposition.  One trigger happy member of the human band shoots an ape and the problems start. Ceasar sends the humans away, preventing his fellow apes from exacting revenge on the humans.

Caesar's lieutenant, Koba feels that they should take advantage of the human weakness and attack, but Caesar logically thinks that while that might happen, there may also be a large loss of life among the ape population.  Koba remains ambitious while he remembers what was done to him at the hands of human scientists.  At any rate, Caesar leads his troops to San Francisco to tell the humans to stay in their city while promising that the apes will stay in their home and everyone will get along just fine.

The humans return to Muir Woods to ask permission to repair the hydroelectric generator so they can at least have electricity. Caesar reluctantly agrees and relations improve but again deteriorate when Koba discovers that the humans are preparing for war. Koba returns to the woods with a weapon and, while being very angry that Ceasar is cooperating with the humans, decides to take matters into his own hands.  Koba sets the ape village on fire and shoots Caesar. Koba then incites his fellow apes, blaming the humans for everything and leads an invasion of San Francisco.

The humans come upon Caesar, finding that, while being severely wounded, is not dead.  They nurse him back to health and take him to San Francisco where he confronts and defeats Koba and once again becomes the leader of the apes.  However, during the conflict between the invading apes and the good people of San Francisco, one enterprising individual manages to get in touch with a military base using his amateur radio set and puts out the call for help.  Caesar knows that there is a bigger war coming soon.

The film ends with the promise of another sequel.

There was a lot that I liked about this film. First off, the visual impact is, without a doubt, excellent. The CGI for the apes was even better in Dawn than it was in Rise, giving the film emotional impact.  One could feel what the apes felt, and could even be fooled into thinking that they were real actors. I also thought the story was solid, at least for the most part.  I was into it as far as wanting to see what would happen next, and even knowing that the apes would eventually get the upper hand, I found that there were sufficient surprises along to way to hold my interest.

But...

Unfortunately, I found that I was disappointed on a few points also. While I found the story interesting and the visuals well done, I found the acting performances of the human cast uninteresting and shallow.  This actually led me to wonder what exactly the movie was about.  I am still not sure exactly what I was supposed to focus on in dawn.

Was Dawn supposed to be about? The plight of the apes?  The plight of the humans? The conflict between the humans and the apes? The conflict within the human camp? The conflict within the ape camp? I think there was far too much crammed into one film to really get a handle on what the message of the film really is.  

My biggest disappointment was in how the humans were handled in this movie.  I found that I couldn't care less whether the humans accomplished what they set out to do or not.  The humans were shallow, had no background (save for one that had worked for the CDC before the catastrophe), and were not at all memorable.

The main human characters were someone named Malcom, who seemed to be in charge of improving human-ape relationships by negotiating passage to the power plant. Where did he come from? What did he do before the Simian Virus struck?  The there was his son, who liked to scetch and had seen some events that "no child should ever see." What was his purpose?  What did he see? Then there is Ellie, who worked for the CDC, and also seems to be rather adept at treating apeish ailments, but again, shallow and undeveloped.  Gary Oldman plays the leader of the human population of San Francisco.  So what? Probably the only character I really cared about what happened to was Curt as protrayed by Kirk Acevedo; I was very happy to see this guy get his trigger happy butt kicked, but again, another shallow character.

Try, as I did, I really didn't care about the humans in Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and thought that they were nothing more than a plot device to give the apes something to be in conflict with and to cause conflict within the ape ranks.

Despite the problems I have with Dawn, I liked the film for what I think it is, that being a bridge between Rise of the Planet of the Apes and the next film due in 2016 and has yet to be titled.

Well, there it is...

Q'aplaH!

Interstellar - Brain Candy For The Intellectual Sci-Fi Fan

Interstellar - 2014

Carl Sagan said in one episode of Cosmos, "...there will be a last perfect day on earth."

Dr. Sagan said this in the context of the far future, some 5 billion years from now. However, it is no secret that we humans are constantly changing our planet and its environment.  While the reasons for what is happening to our planet are not given in Interstellar, suffice it to say that that last perfect day has come and gone and Earth is no longer able to sustain human life.

This film presents a vision of life in which humans have had to abandon the pursuits of science and technology for the betterment of mankind while being shifted to an agrarian based existence where the main concern is simply growing enough food to feed everyone.  So what is the logical next step?  Find another place to live, of course.

Matthew McConaughey plays Cooper, a former NASA engineer and test pilot how is one of those that are forced into becoming a farmer.  He lives with his two children and his father-in-law on a huge farm.  Cooper uses his engineering skills to run his own farm on automation and help others maintain their automated systems for farming by scrounging and repairing whatever he can find.  His daughter, Murph, aspires to be a scientist and seeks answers to strange happenings that she dubs ghosts. She finds books and other objects have been knocked off of shelves onto the floor in strange patterns that Cooper later figures out are gravitational anomalies that convey messages.  One of the messages, he figures out, are a binary set of coordinates that point to a former NORAD base.

He goes to investigate and finds that the NORAD base has been taken over by NASA.  NASA's mission is not any longer the exploration of space, but rather to find a way to save humanity itself. Near the planet Saturn, a wormhole is discovered and Cooper is recruited to fly a space craft into the wormhole to meet up with a previous expedition that has supposedly found three possible candidate planets to move the population of Earth to.

What Cooper finds is mostly disappointment and empty promises, but there is still hope for human kind.

Interstellar is a good film in the vein of 2001: A Space Odyssey but it is not for the casual Sci-Fi fan. This film goes beyond mere entertainment and would seem to have been made to make one think about the possibilities of the future.  There are themes that are quite disturbing.  For instance, what would it be like if we were faced with a situation where the entire planet became a dust bowl?  Obviously, we do not have the capability to either leave the planet en masse, nor the capability to terraform another planet to live on.

For me, the most disturbing was a brief scene in which Cooper goes to his kid's school for a parent/teacher conference.  Cooper has continued to try to instill the value of scientific discover in his children.  While his son has made up his mind that he will carry on farming, His daughter, Murph has embraced a love of science.  During the conference, Cooper is treated to a good report for his son, while Murph has chosen to go against the film's current trend in education of teaching that the moon landings were faked as a political ploy and that other scientific discoveries were similarly treated.  Mind you, this is,in the context of the film, taking place in the public schools.  The actor that plays the teacher, Ms. Hanley (Collette Wolfe) does a brilliant job of playing the role of a teacher who has completely bought into the curriculum and will allow no room for individual thought or speculation.  She allows no room for questioning the "facts" or investigation into the validity.  Although it was a brief scene, I found it quite disturbing and it made me very uncomfortable watching it.  But understand, I am not saying that this is a bad thing.

I enjoyed many of aspects of this film.  First of all, it was a great story. I didn't find it predictable at all.  I went into the theater not knowing what to expect, and as the story unfolded, I was expecting some benevolent alien race to be responsible for the placement of the wormhole that would have been responsible for the saving of the human race.  I was pleasantly surprised at the reveal at the end that we humans were actually capable to use science to save ourselves.  The surprise is in how this was brought about.

I especially loved the soundtrack that, at least in my mind, was a huge nod to 2001: A Space Odyssey, especially through the use of a pipe organ that one can hear at some of the most dramatic moments of the film. But the score was not taken from composers of classical music as was the case in 2001, so I cannot help but think that it was the composer's intent to acknowledge the classic film.

Scientifically speaking, it would seem to me that it was mostly plausible.  In this vast cosmos, I am sure that there are planets that experience huge tsunami-like waves such as the one that killed one of the crew members, as well as planets with surfaces of frozen ammonia, but I do have to doubt that there are planets with frozen clouds floating in the upper atmosphere.  There were also a few few scenes of zero gravity that seemed a little awkward as crew members of the Endurance crew moved from one place to another before the artificial gravity was established.

The visuals were done pretty well.  I understand that director Christopher Nolan opted to use models instead of CGI for his ships.  Models just look more organic and render better on film than CGI, and it shows that the director cares.  Not that CGI is bad, mind you.  The use of locations is also appreciated.

If there is anything that I didn't care for in this film, I would have to say that it was the lack of character development.  We get a look into Cooper's character pretty well, but not enough to really make me care what happens to him.  The depth with Cooper comes out in the relationship he shares with his daughter, Murph.  All of the other characters are very shallow and also quite forgettable.  This was especially disappointing for me with Michael Cain's character.  Cain is one of the best actors of our time, and I would have liked to seen him better utilized.

Despite that drawback, I found Interstellar to be a good film, but not necessarily a great one.  It really is on the intellectual side of the equation.  If you are looking for an action packed "shoot 'em up" film, you will not want to see this.  While there is plenty of tense sci-fi action, it is couched in a lot of technical discussion that a deep thinking sci-fi fan can appreciate.  This film is also not for the casual science fiction aficionado, stay away of you don't want to think.  Also, if you go to see this in the theater, be sure you hit the restroom and get your popcorn before the film starts, you will not want to miss anything or it might throw off the continuity for you.

Well, there it is...

Q'aplaH!