Hanna

Hanna, 2011 - Joe Wright

This is a great movie, so unlike the other Wright-directed picture I'd seen, Pride And Prejudice (which I admit I love), that it's surprising that it's from the same director. I watched it in a packed theater (which I think is great for a film such as this), and must say that despite this being the first film I'd seen since Tron:Legacy (and we know how much I enjoy that film), this is one of my favorite films of 2011 already. So often I'd felt as if I were watching a gritty '60's spy thriller, like The Ipcress File, or any of the Harry Palmer films, or even The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Ir felt so much like a Cold War thriller that it was exciting (and not in a retro, meta way). This isn't a spy film comprised of other spy films, this is its own entity, and such a beautiful combination of action, story, and style that it really is inspiring for the state of modern action films.

The story starts off near the Arctic Circle, somewhere in northern Russia, where the titular character, Hanna (played perfectly by Saiorse Ronan), an other-worldly-looking blonde 16-year-old girl, has been trained by her father, Erik Heller (Eric Bana...why doesn't he get more action leading-man roles? Hulk, as despised as it is, still showed him being amazing at action), a former CIA agent who has been put to ground and is in hiding. They live together, exclusively, and he has trained her in foreign languages (including Arabic, German, French, Italian, and Spanish...at least that's what we hear), physical combat, how to stay aware even in sleep, and how to live in the wold and maneuver on her own. The object of her training is to stay one step ahead of their CIA handler, the icy-cool Marissa Weigler (Cate Blanchett, with a Southern twang), evade her assassins, and eventually kill her as well. To do that, Erik abandons his daughter, allowing her to to be captured in hopes of reuniting with her in Germany.

With the exception of one plot point (which I won't mention, but when you hear of it you might realize that the movie would have been much more plausible without it), the film is perfect. The Chemical Brothers' score (an energetic, electri-pop) feels more like a complete album of theirs rather than a film score, and with each change in location, Hanna experiences more and more of the emotions that she'd been forced to abandon in her training to become a perfect killing machine. She befriends Sophie (Jessica Barden), who is traveling through Morocco and Spain with her hippy parents and younger brother, and who eventually help her get close enough to Erik to meet up with him in Germany.

However, their friendship is not one grown out of contrivance or for the sake of the plot; here Hanna meets someone her own age, who gets her to experience the first twang of emotion outside of devotion to her father, and whose fate is determined on what she (Hanna) can do. The stakes of the film are determined by how involved Hanna becomes with this traveling family, and that adds gravitas to the action. Each action beat is determined by Hanna's emotions, and by the emotions of the secondary characters (especially Sophie's younger brother, and, in an odd way, Weigler herself). Even the motivations of the Weigler's cronies---the sadistic Isaacs (played in a surprisingly, deliciously perverse way by In The Loop's Tom Hollander)---are driven by some semblance of distorted emotion. Emotions drive this entire film, and that's something that at least feels new coming from an espionage yarn.

That's not to say that the action isn't up to snuff either. Hanna's breakout from a CIA safe-house is incredibly exciting, and cut incredibly well (no montage-style fight scenes, or MTV-style cutting here! No Bourne-style shaky cam! And fuck hand-held! I love it!), bolstered by, once again, the Chemical Brothers' bombastic and energetic score. The highlight of the film is another Joe Wright trademark: a single-take long shot; here, though, we follow Erik Heller as he leaves an airport, gets followed first by one agent, then another, as he makes his way to a metro station, before coming up against no less than 6 agents. In the same shot, he takes them all down swiftly, before walking off. It's beautiful: a single-take tracking shot of a fight scene featuring the protagonist against multiple assailants, showcasing the actor's fighting ability, and shot clearly enough to know what the fuck is going on and who is hitting who. Why is this a rarity in action films? Why should I praise the fact that I can see what the hell is going on?! It should be common sense, especially if it's done as deftly as it is here!

I love this film, not just for the action, or the bad-assness of Hanna herself: this is a smart, thrilling, action-packed espionage fairy tale (yeah...a fairy tale. You'll see what I mean) that is brimming with emotion and subtext (which I would go into more, but it would ruin one of the seminal emotional scenes in the film). With the exception of two minor quibbles (the aforementioned plot point, and the ending, which my friend anticipated almost beat-for-beat), this is a perfect film, and great thriller, and one of the great, smart modern espionage films. If only the modern Bond films were this good...

Also, I couldn't get Isaacs' motif, the one he whistles throughout his appearances, out of my head for days. Now that it's gone, I kind of miss it...

Star Trek

Star Trek (2009)


It's been two days since I saw this film with a group of friends, and I'm still surprised that a Star Trek film can be this good. Truly, it's better than it should be (given that it's a sequel/reboot of a moribund franchise whose last entry 7 years ago grossed only about $46 million and is in competition with Wolverine of all movies), and as exciting a summer film as it could be. It's not without its flaws (including gaping plot holes and a script that reads as if it was halfway through a rewrite before the writer's strike hit)...but even then I can't not like the film. There's so much more going for it and working that it's impossible for me to hate it, and that's a credit to everyone involved. I mean, really: a packed theatre for Star Trek? Applause at the end of it? Teenagers and middle-agers sitting together to watch a fucking Star Trek movie? (Although I could have done without the couple sitting behind me and making out every five fucking minutes). It's a credit to everyone involved.
Mostly, it's a credit to director J.J. Abrams, who takes many elements that really shouldn't work (including what I can only describe as an eclectic cast, and the aforementioned script) and somehow makes them work. Adn he doesn't just make them work, he makes them WORK. Like, perfectly and nearly flawlessly. His Mission: Impossble 3 from three years ago marked his first foray into feature filmmaking, but even then he directed as if confined by a small television screen: rewatch that movie and note his directorial choice in scenes that should have been explansive and bombastic, such as the bridge heist, or the raid in Tokyo, or (especially) the climatic fight between Ethan Hunt and Owen Davian. It's all so small for a theatre screen.
Well, he fixes that problem with his second film. This is a Star Trek that feels like it belongs on a theatre screen: the sets are expansive, the sound design booming and rich, the battles epic (on a scale that rival Wrath of Khan), some real emotional heft, planets caving in or exploding, and even a space monster or two thrown in for good measure.



<>>



The true scope of the film reveals itself in the open sequence, where we are introduced to Nero, the Romulan villain from the future (or, in actuality, the late 24th century, which is where the last film took place, thus confirming its place as a "presequelboot"), and his ridiculously massive mining vessel. The U.S.S. Kelvin is sent in to investigate the time time distortion that Nero's time travelling causes, and we learn that Nero is searching for Spock. The Kelvin is attacked and its captain killed, and the second-in-command ---George Kirk--- orders the ship evacuated (along with his wife, who is onboard and going into labor as the attack is carried out). They escape and he flies the Kelvin right into the horrendously more heavily armed Romulan ship.
And right off the bat the film makes its own mark, seperate from everything Trek that went before. It's different in almost every respect. The Federation ships are both dirty and ultra-modern (the engineering sections are dripping with condensation, and cramped, with pipes and tubes shooting all over the place; whereas the bridge is like an Apple Store 20 years from now), and extremely streamlined (and feature odd numbers of nacelles...something Roddenberry always opposed). The battle is less calculated than the one shown in Wrath Of Khan, with each commander trying to outwit the other, but is instead desperate and haphazard, both ships seemingly firing at random. Abrams minutely details the damage: in one instance, the impact of one of Nero's torpedoes is shown from the inside, a corridor suddenly explodes and a crewmember is sucked out, screaming, as the soundtrack suddenly becomes silent and what we hear is Michael Giacchino's beautiful score (seriously, with every film he reaffirms himself as my favorite contemporary film composer. His work on The Incredibles and Speed Racer especially go underappreciated). The opening battle, again, is on a scale unlike anything seen in Star Trek since 1982 (even the battle between half of Starfleet and the Borg in First Contact lasted only a few seconds) and sets the tone of the film.
And that tone? Fun. Fun with a capital "F". While the film has its flaws (which I will get to), every actor is giving their absolute all and enjoying being in the film so much that I can't helped but be charmed by everything that occurs onscreen. Chris Pine, as Jim Kirk, plays the role as the cocky, chauvinistic, self-assured cowboy that he usually is in the best of the original episodes. Gone are the dramatic pauses, the melodramatic gesturing, and the grandiose speeches (not that those are bad; in fact, that's what makes Shatner's interpretation great and fun! But it's 2009, and it's time for a different take on the role). Zachary Quinto's Spock is more emotionally open (to the point of engaging in a relationship with Zoe Saldana's Uhura...a relationship that I not only don't agree with, but which abandons ---nerd alert--- the Vulcan mating ritual of pon farr...unless Spock is 28 in this film...whatever), but, at the same time and quite paradoxically, plays Spock with an almost sociopathic apathy. Spock has always been about repressed emotions, not lack of any at all.
The rest of the cast play their roles better than expected (Karl Urban's McCoy was ABSOLUTELY perfect. If the movie were all about him, I would be fine with that. Seriously, it was as if someone had cryogenically frozen the DeForrest Kelley of the 1950's and placed him in the film. Unending kudos to Urban!) John Cho expands Sulu from a bridge instrument to actually being involved in a major setpiece; Anton Yelchin goes a little overboard with Chekov's accent (although him trying to get the computer to understand him was funny) and leaves me to wonder why a 17 year old Chekov would be in uniform so soon...not only should he not be on the Enterprise at that point, but he would have to be 12 at the time he was accepted to the Starfleet Academy; Uhura gets more lines and action in this film than she did in the entire run of the series; and finally, Simon Pegg's Scotty was perhaps the most fun character (and does manage to save the day at the end), but was played a bit too much for laughs...although, even then, he never loses his dignity. In fact, each character gets their moment to save the day, and each actor expands on the characteristics that made the characters individual to begin with, not merely paying lip service to the original actors.
The other actors fare well with their roles also: Winona Ryder as Spock's mother, Amanda, was barely recognizable (a credit to the old-age makeup), and Bruce Greenwood as Captain Pike made the role his own, and his fate shows that already the established universe is drastically different from what went on before.
However, Eric Bana's Nero, while a fun nemesis...doesn't really have an interesting MO. He's a Romulan space miner. His wife died when Romulus exploded. He's mad at Leonard Nimoy's Spock Prime (which, in reality, is the Spock from the established universe). He accidentally gets sent back in time to 2225 and blows up the Kelvin, which sets off the chain of events that change history. And then, for 25 years...he just...kinda...waits. He doesn't do anything. A friend said, "Well, he's waiting for Spock to show up so he could use the red matter to blow up Vulcan." True. Except he witnessed everything happen from his ship and probably wouldn't know that there was red matter in Spock's vessel. So...what was he doing?
Spock Prime has never been this emotional before. Ever. At least not without the aid of some spores, or Vulcan ritual, or mind control. But this is Leonard Nimoy showing an aged and emotionally conflicted Spock...but a Spock who also just accidentally went back in time. And I'm used to the Star Trek movies dealing with time travel, but in each of the films it was an active move: the characters didn't just go back in time accidentally. That's what occurs here, and that weakens the villain and, therefore, the story.
And the story is what should matter most in a Star Trek film (or any film, for that matter). Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman's script is full of massive plot holes (if Spock went back in time by accident, why does Kirk comment that his "going back and changing history, isn't that cheating?"; is it really plausible that Kirk would be marooned on the same planet and hide in the exact cave where Spock Prime is hiding, and on that same planet Scotty is stationed? And, again, what the hell is Nero doing for 25 years?) Little explanation is given as to how exactly Nero's appearance alters the state of Starfleet technology, why Pike and his crew were hanging out in Iowa, why the destruction of the Kelvin is worthy of the history books (maybe that'd explain the advanced state of Starfleet technology), nor as to why Nero, at the climax, is suddenly so adamant on killing Kirk (for all intents and purposes, Nero shouldn't give a damn). It is as if prior to the destruction of Vulcan Abrams was working on the script's latest draft, and after that scene was forced to use an earlier draft (due to the writer's strike, which occurred midway into shooting).
But, even then, Abrams makes it fucking work! He proves wrong the adage that a film is only as good as its script. Because, well, the script is pretty bad (Scotty's lines, while funny, are wildly out-of-character, especially that "nacelle" line). But what he utilizes in the bad script he makes up for with charm. Even when Scotty gets beamed into a coolant tank in a pointless scene that adds nothing to the story or the character, I still cared about what happened and wanted him to get out okay. Pointless scenes that add nothing of merit at all are still so charming as to not be offensive.

The production design is at once both gorgeous and gritty. The designs of the Federation starships adheres to the desgins of the previous films (saucer sections, nacelles), and the bridge looks like an Apple Store expanded on government scale. He retains the sound design while updating them slightly (the communicator sound; the red alert sound; the transporter energizing effect, the late Majel Barrett Rodeenberry as the computer voice), and they all work flawlessly. The Enterprise looks absolutely gorgeous, almost like what the design would have been in the aborted Star Trek: Phase Two television series from the 1970s. Cool color palettes on the exteriors, and bright lighting for interiors...except for the engineering section, which is dank, foggy, musty, damp, dimly lit, and expansive. I find it wierd that every part of the ship except for engineering would be so absolutely pristine and state-of-the-art.
Abrams did what producer Ronald Moore couldn't do: he made Star Trek fun and popular again. And he did it without alienating the original fans. Gone is the baggage of the original actors; gone is the melodrama and the 40+ years of labyrinthine continuity; gone are the dreary sets (just go back and look at the lighting and color scheme of the Enterprise-E) and costumes; hell, gone is all the metaphysical musings by the characters...this is the Star Trek from 1966: bright colors, bright lighting, lots of sex, comedy, adventure and Fun. The stakes have never been higher (characters are killed that you wouldn't expect; Vulcan is destroyed; Spock Prime is forced to live in the past in order to perpetuate his own species), but that doesn't mean we have to be all dark and gloomy and Dark Knight about it. There's nothing to stop a fun film from having real emotional weight and consequences, and Abrams proves it here.
This is a new Star Trek. Just like Batman is new again. Just as James Bond is new again. But this is a new vision of the future, without the cynicism and gloom. Without the darkness that'll come in tow with next week's release, Terminator Salvation (a film I have absolutely no interest in). Star Trek's ---and Roddenberry's--- vision of a future where people work together to overcome their problems is resonant again.
Goddamn it, Star Trek is back, and I'm here for the ride.

For more on how this new film works despite itself: http://chud.com/articles/articles/19369/1/THE-DEVIN039S-ADVOCATE-WHY-STAR-TREK-WORKS-DESPITE-ITSELF/Page1.html

And how the new film is going to affect prior canon: http://popculturezoo.com/archives/2529