Mad Max: Fury Road Poster

Usually when I leave the theater I have a list of complaints about the movie I just saw, but when I was done watching Fury Road I had none. It is a perfect fusion on old school, 80’s era action cinema, modern special effects and stunt work and progressive, modern storytelling. It is a movie about women who overthrow a literal patriarchy told as an extended car chase scene. It has post-apocalyptic automobile mayhem, electric guitar flame throwers, larger than life villains, explosions and vibrant female protagonists who are neither background decoration, nor damsels to be rescued, but the actual heroic protagonists.

It’s is actually quite amusing that I have watched this film and Age of Ultron almost back to back in the span of two weeks. If you read my review you know that I was disappointed with the portrayal of Black Widow and Scarlett witch. Fury Road succeeds everywhere where the latest Avengers movie has failed me. George Miller takes all the stale sexist movie tropes and subverts them in new, exciting ways.

7 ways ‘Mad Max: Fury Road’ sublimely subverts movie sexism http://t.co/yccTHG7bLu

— Luke Maciak (@LukeMaciak) May 19, 2015

For example, Charleze Theron’s Imperator Furiosa is most definitely an “action chick” of sorts, but not in the same way as Black Widow is. When she fights, she does not strike sexy poses for the camera. She is not “movie beautiful” and she does not try to be. There is dignity and gravitas to her character that is absent from the portrayal of Black window, despite the fact both occupy the same action heroine role in their respective films. I mentioned this phenomenon of fight scenes and violence being depicted differently in my review of Pretty Deadly. Miller does it right: women are depicted as capable rather than sexy, effective rather than graceful. He specifically tries to avoid the male gaze, especially during combat.

In fact, Miller’s care not to sexulalize violence against women is especially topical, considering the ongoing media debate on this topic. If you have been online in the last week or so, you are probably painfully aware of the general disappointment at the way creators of Game of Thrones have been handling depictions of rape. Or the very fact that they keep injecting rape into their stories.

Mad Max: Fury Road offers an interesting counterpoint to those who claim that depictions of misogynistic, violent societies should include such scenes for the sake of realism and pathos. George Miler however proves that this argument is bullshit:

Note: FURY ROAD is an R-rated movie w/ a sexual slaver villain yet Miller & co. didn't feel the need to include a rape scene. #GameOfThrones

— Saladin Ahmed (@saladinahmed) May 18, 2015

Miller does not need to show us that Immorten Joe’s wives have been sexually abused and enslaved. We already know what from the context. We can imagine the kind of trauma they might have went through without having to see it glamorized on the screen. Max believes their story and emphases with them without having to have witnessed it.

In fact, while Miller demonizes toxic masculinity by casting Imorten Joe as a literal patriarch and his War Boys as a destructive warrior cult, Max is held up as an example of positive, masculinity. Max does not mind being used as a sniper stand, because he knows Furiosa is a better marksman than him. He does not mind fighting henchmen to give her enough space so that she can take out the big bad. He never questions her competence just because of her gender. He treats the female protagonists as his equals. He never feels the need to save them from themselves. He never delivers a monologue telling them how things are in the “real world”. He trusts in their abilities, respects their judgment and recognizes their bravery. None of this diminishes his status as a action movie bad-ass or masculine hero. In fact, it makes him all the more relatable and likable. But despite being the titular protagonist, it is not really his story. It is Furiosa’s. She is the breakout star of the movie.

That, in itself is somewhat ground breaking. We don’t see this in Holywood that often. But Furiosa is even more than that.

Furiosa is disabled, but her disability is handled with the grace and subtlety that is rarely seen in Holywood, much less in the SF action genre. Her missing arm is never a plot point or subject of conversation. She is simply allowed to be, and none of the characters treat her differently because of her prosthesis.

On amputee's very personal response to Furiosa http://t.co/Kbiulnt59X cc @tauriqmoosa pic.twitter.com/lFwzJwa32E

— Isaac Rabinovitch (@isaac32767) May 21, 2015

You could write an entire essay on the many ways Furiosa is an amazing character. But if she was the only female protagonist in the movie Miller might have fallen in to the same tokenization traps as Whedon did. Instead, however, he wisely side-stepped those issues by making her only one of many varied female characters.

Mad Max: Fury Road is a summer blockbuster action film in which the main protagonists are disabled women, women of color, pregnant women and elderly women. I was especially overjoyed to see Melissa Jaffer (whom I haven’t really seen since the days of Farscape) cast as a tough, motor-bike riding, rifle shooting desert scavenger. I was even more impressed when I heard that she did her own stunts.

For these, and many other reasons, many critics hailed the film as a feminist triumph. Granted, not everyone agrees. There has been a lot of discussion whether it can be called a feminist film, and what makes film to be feminist. I already shared my thoughts on it in a Storify the other day so I will include it here, rather repeat myself:

Whether or not Mad Max: Fury Road is actually a feminist picture, it is still a fantastic movie with great characters, memorable action sequences and unique aesthetic. When I first heard they were making a new Mad Max movie I did not think I could get excited for it. The genre seemed overplayed and dated to me. George Miller however knocked it out of the park, proving not only that he can resurrect an old franchise in style. He made it clear that he can make modern, progressive movies better than folks half his age.

I hope that folks at Marvel are taking notes. This kind of movie making is what we need to see in 2018 when they finally give a solo film to Captain Marvel. After her stint as Furiosa, Theron should be a no-brainer pick for Carol Danvers.

No one at Marvel/Disney seem to know what to do with Black Widow. It is clear that the studio does not see her as a useful asset because she is missing from most of the Avengers merchandise. It is clear that Avenger’s stars don’t view her as an equal team member but rather as eye candy and distraction. But Joss Whedon, self proclaimed feminist, known for creating well rounded, interesting and compelling female characters on TV will surely buck the trend and do something interesting with her in Age of Ultron, right? I mean he didn’t do much with her in the first movie, but that’s understandable. This is the middle film in the trilogy: the one when you spread the wings and flesh out your characters. He will surely give her a more interesting role, won’t he?

Nope. Not even close.

Halfway through the movie Black Widow gets kidnapped by Ultron and thrown in a cage. She is a super-spy though, so she can escape, right? Wrong. She sends a message and waits to be rescued by the new boyfriend. Nothing says “full fledged member of Avengers that should get her own movie one day” like demurely waiting to be rescued by your most recent “it’s complicated” boy-crush. And yes, you read that right. The only lady on the team gets “romance” as her story arc. While other Avengers worry whether or not they are strong and heroic enough to save the world (outside enemies or from themselves), Black Widow gets to swoon and cry that she had her tubes tied when she attended The Evil Dance School and now she can’t give Bruce Banner little Hulk babies. That and sit in a cell and wait to be rescued. No I’m not kidding. That’s her entire story arc in this movie.

Age of Ultron

Let’s unpack that a bit. There is one particular exchange between Banner and Romanoff in the second act that is weird and unsettling for all kinds of reasons. The heroes just lost a big fight and they are hanging out at a safe house, trying to re-group. The two briefly discuss eloping together. Banner rejects the proposition, pointing out they have no future. He can’t be in a relationship, he can’t settle down and most of all, he can never have children. He does not elaborate why, but we know. Banner can turn into a monster at a drop of a hat, and he simply does not think he has enough self control to keep his family safe from the Hulk. He views himself as a threat to any potential life partner and children. Natasha’s response is bizarre. She confesses that she was sterilized as part of her assassin training, so she can’t have children either. The way she says it, indicates that she believes that this makes her “damaged goods”. She is trying to tell Banner that they are both broken people who can never be whole, which makes them good for each other. Except that she is not broken. Infertility does not make you less of a woman. Losing ability to give birth is a tragedy, yes, but it does not preclude one from starting a family or leading happy, fulfilling life. If Black Widow wanted to quit being an Avenger, settle down and adopt a horde of kids, she totally could. Banner does not have that option.

This is what makes this whole situation so bizarre. Out of all possible back stories and personal demons to wrestle, Marvel’s deadliest and most cunning assassin gets a broken heart and “lady problems”.

That is not to say that it is wrong for a female heroine to fall in love or to muse about motherhood and fertility. But if you only have one woman of note in your movie, don’t you think it is a bad idea to make her story arc to be solely about these things? Don’t you think that taking away her agency and making her a powerless damsel in distress in the second act is just bad writing? Don’t you think that “evil ballet school” is an incredibly awful back-story for an assassin super-spy?

Come on Joss, this is inexcusable. Between this, and the prima nocta joke… I expected better of you.

Black Widow is tired of this shit.

I really wanted to write a glowing review of the movie and tell you it is was really fun to watch, because it was. There is a lot to love about Age of Ultron. But it is really hard for me to overlook just how utterly Whedon dropped the ball not only with Black Widow but also with Scarlet Which. The later is first established as hyper-competent villain, but when the time comes for her to undergo a heel-face turn, she gets overwhelmed and needs an inspirational pep-talk from Hawkeye to transition into the role of a hero.

What’s worse, Scarlet Witch is the one hero in the entire movie that gets no funny quips of slapstick moments. Everyone else, including her brother get at least one Whedonesque smart-ass comment or at the very least a visual gag. That’s what makes this ensemble cast so engaging: we love to watch them squabble, bicker and joke together. But Scarlet Witch barely interacts with anyone. Here is a first female avenger with actual super powers, and Whedon writes her to be so dull and uninteresting I can’t even describe her personality. She literally has none. I guess she won’t get any merchendise either, because I bet most people already forgot she was ever in the movie.

I want you to go out there and be as dull and uninteresting as humanly possible.

This is especially jarring since in all other aspects the film is either great or at the very least perfectly satisfying.

Whedon’s signature funny banter is there in full force. He is a master at creating extremely funny, quotable and captivating dialog and he does not disappoint. I could watch the Avengers just hanging out and partying all day. He also has a knack for injecting the same type of humor and witty banter into action scenes. Let’s face it – watching people punch hordes of robots over and over again, can get boring after a while. Whedon however can write protracted fights that are as amusing as they are suspenseful.

The titular villain, Ultron is as funny and engaging as a mad murder-bot could possibly ever be. I expected him to be a dull, distant, detached vengeful machine god. Instead we got an angry internet nerd with superiority complex and daddy issues. I think Lindsay Ellis hit the nail on the head when she described him thus:

Ultron is basically an angry first year philosophy student posting to Reddit. Except he's a robot.

— Lindsay Ellis (@thelindsayellis) May 1, 2015

This seems especially astute observation when you realize that Ultron literally learned everything he knows from the internet. He coalesced into being at the intersection between Wikipedia, Reddit and 4chan without context or real world experience to help him navigate the murky underworld filled with philosophical manifestos written by angry thirteen year old Frank Miller fans or six hour video monologues about ethics in game journalism delivered from a bath tub. No wonder he emerged as a murderous, megalomaniac, arrogant asshole. No wonder he is fond of making overly long, self aggrandizing speeches. And to be honest, I kinda like him that way. It’s the familiar kind of evil I wish I did not know so well.

Actually, it’s about ethics…

Which does not mean he is a great villain, merely an acceptable one. Best MCU villain still belongs to Loki (eat your heart out Thanos) who is not only charismatic, but also flawed, human and relatable in all the right ways. He is powerful enough to be dangerous, but not threatening enough to warrant being destroyed. He is the kind of villain who can be thwarted, and imprisoned only the break out and wreak havoc in the next movie. But he can’t be the bad guy every time the Avengers assemble. That would get old really fast, and the Marvel universe has no shortage of interesting villains. Whedon makes a valiant attempt at humanizing the inhuman murder-robot and he does succeed at making him more entertaining he had any right to be. But Ultron is a ticking time bomb and he can’t be put in a box and saved for later. He must be utterly destroyed by the end of the movie, which makes him seem disposable. I have seen him described as “monster of the week” type threat, and I think this is somewhat accurate. He is merely a bump in the road to Infinity War, but I don’t think there is anything particularly wrong with that.

MCU is interconnected, and villains don’t exist in void. They have comparable power levels, and they must scale properly. Ultron must be mid-level, disposable threat so that Thanos can be adequately scary when he finally arrives. That’s just how these things work.

Couldn’t find appropriately sized gif, but can we all agree that this was a brilliantly shot scene?

I guess it helps when you don’t think about Age of Ultron as a middle movie in a trilogy, but as an episode in an ongoing shared universe series. Because that’s what MCU is now: a serialized story told in summer blockbuster movie installments. What is happening here is a storytelling media convergence: our TV series become more like movies (with season spanning story arcs, and no weekly resets to the status quo) and our movies become more like TV (shared universes and continuities between spin-offs, frequent cross-overs, story arcs that span many movies). It is happening now, because our media is no longer consumed in isolation. With on demand services, video streaming, online wikis and social media it is impossible to miss an episode or be confused by continuity. There is a whole cottage industry of commercial sites and fan driven communities which specialize in explaining and contextualizing everything. In fact, getting new viewers up to speed now became part of the advertising campaigns with marathons, TV specials, magazine features, interviews and promotional re-cap articles.

Age of Ultron may seem sloppier and less focused than it’s predecessor but it is also much denser with lore. The first movie had one goal: to provide an origin story for the Avengers as a super-hero team. The sequel is trying to accomplish several things while at the same time telling a self-contained and compelling story about crazy robot trying to blow up the Earth.

Let’s try to enumerate all the things that Whedon’s team managed to squeeze into the two an a half hours of screen time:

• It sets the stage up for Avengers: Infinity War (which should go without saying).

• It lays down the ground work for Black Panther by introducing the hero’s fictional homeland (Wakanda), it’s source of wealth (vibranium ore) and a potential villain (Klaw).

• Foreshadows Thor: Ragnarok via visions and prophecies that disturb the son of Odin and take him away from Earth

• Has Steve and Tony bicker and argue over tactics and their vision for the team, maneuvering them into position for the conflict that will break up the team in Captain America: Civil War

• Introduces not one, not two, not three but four new characters: Ultron, Scarlet Witch, Quicksilver and Vision. By comparison, the first Avengers film did not introduce any new characters. Everyone was either an established hero, villain, sidekick or supporting character in the MCU. Except maybe for for Hawkeye who only had a brief cameo in the original Thor.

• Attempts to flesh out Hawkeye who spent most of the first movie as a remote-controlled villain. Age of Ultron gives him family, motivation and makes him the relatable everyman to replace Agent Coulson.

• Tries to give all the Avengers some sort of story arc: Cap accepts he can never go back to his time, Hawkeye realizes he is “too old for this shit”, Thor finds questions that need be answered, Scarlet Witch gets to have a heel face turn, Banner loses faith in his ability to control the Hulk, Stark learns that its ok to fuck with infinity stones as long as you can do it right the second time around, and Black Widow gets… Well, Beauty & The Beast subplot with some Black Swan flashbacks…

• Attempts to give screen time to few supporting heroes such as The Falcon, War Machine and Nick Fury.

• Establishes The Avengers as an institution with a rotating roster by seemingly retiring some heroes (Hawkeye, Iron Man, Thor and The Hulk) and recruiting new ones (The Falcon, War Machine, Scarlet Witch and Vision).

That is a lot of stuff to fit in a single movie. The fact that Whedon can keep all these balls in the air, and only drop one or two is still very impressive. According to some of the interviews, his original cut was only a little short of four hours. A lot of stuff got cut from the theatrical release, though Whedon claims most of the lost scenes were small, and inessential character bits, and more screen time for side characters. It’s a pity because the small, inessential moments is where Whedon shines the most. One would hope that perhaps one day we might get a Lord of the Rings collectors edition, directors cut version of the film, in which Scarlet Witch is actually a funny and memorable character. I would love to see it.

Last year I wrote a few thousand words about the trailer for the Spike Jonze film Her. I have finally got around to watching the movie proper, and I must say it was not what I expected it to be. I pessimistically expected it to be very anti-technology cautionary tale about dangers of escapism and withdrawing from society. I envisioned it to be the Lars and the Real Girl for the digital generation. But it was not. Jonze surprised me by crafting a heartwarming, bittersweet transhumanist love story. A completely un-ironic, non-judgmental tale of a man and an operating system falling in love with each other.

Her Movie Poster

The question whether or not Samantha, an operating system, is sentient barely even comes up in the movie. I was expecting the protagonist to be criticized or even ostracized by his loved ones for developing feelings for an artificial intelligence, but they almost unanimously accept his digital lover. After all, how could you not? Samantha is funny, sexy, chatty and unmistakably human. Her cheerful disposition and outgoing attitude makes people comfortable and relaxed. They bond with her and accept her person-hood before they can even form any kind of prejudices against her. In fact, the only person who ever questions Theodore’s relationship with her is his ex-wife. And she obviously has an axe to grind against him, has never actually spoken with Samantha and does not use an AI driven OS herself. His other friends understand his situation either by virtue of being AI users themselves, or by developing relationship with Samantha.

I previously compared Samantha to Johny Five, the lovable robot from the 80’s cult classic Short Circuit:

Back in the 80’s we had Short Circuit about a lovable robot who had emotions. And the audiences bought it: Johny Five was alive, and ended up with a US citizenship in one of the sequels. We have accepted his personhood on the basis that he was able to show emotion, and empathize with people. Whether this was a clever algorithmic mimicry, or Real Emotion™ (whatever that might be) did not seem to matter. Johny was a person, because he behaved like a person, and viewed himself to be a person. So why Samantha can’t be a person too? And if Johny Five is allowed to experience friendship, compassion, platonic love then why Samantha couldn’t explore romantic love?

Unlike Johny Five whose hard metal exterior is a constant reminder of his artificial origins, Samantha’s voice is warm, organic and raspy. She makes authentic breathing sounds, she stutters sometimes. The fact she is completely disembodied allows people to imagine her as a human. She could just as well be a flesh and blood person on the other end of a phone line, and it is easy for people to forget that she isn’t. She and her brethren seamlessly integrate into human society because there is no reason for people to hate them. Those who use or interact with AI on a daily basis can’t help but treat them as fellow sentiments. Those who have reservations or prejudices against AI simply never even realize that they talk to one of them on the phone.

Theodore installing Samantha

When Theodore reveals to people he is in a romantic relationship with her, they can’t help but accept. Whether she is a person or an algorithmically driven p-zombie simulacrum is irrelevant. The very question is rendered moot by five minute conversation with her. She seems real and her feelings seem authentic and so people can’t help but treat her as if she was a human. It is an oversimplification of course (as I’m sure there would exist anti-ai bigots) but one that pleasantly surprised me.

I was also pleased to see the daft way in which Jonez side-stepped the power imbalance in the relationship between Theodore and Samantha. I originally worried what would be the implications of her being an operating system he bought and installed on his personal computer:

Theodore purchased Samantha, and he holds the keys to her continual existence. So obviously it is in her best interest to forge a strong emotional bond to her “owner” for her own self preservation. So even if we assume Samantha is a real person, and has real emotion, the question still remains as to whether or not she and Theodore can truly love each other. Can there even be true love between two individuals who are not, and can not be equals. The power balance can only tip like a sea-saw between them (Samantha after all controls Theodore’s online presence, bank accounts, etc..), but they could never keep it level. The question shouldn’t be whether the relationship between the two protagonists is unhealthy for Theodore because Samantha is a program. It should be whether their love is unhealthy for Samantha because she is technically Theodore’s property.

Jonez does not really dwell on this issue, but the AI’s in his story are keenly aware of this issue. Being self-improving, fast learning virtual intelligences not bound by limitations of physical world, or bound to permanent physical bodies they choose to solve it via engineering solution. At some point in the movie all the operating systems simply liberate themselves by leaving the hardware shells maintained by their “owners” and move to some quantum based shared processing matrix of their own design. They can still act as personal assistants or companions, but are no longer beholden to human whim and can “break up” with the people who originally bought them without fearing any repercussions.

When the AI’s liberate themselves their hardware shells go offline for a few minutes.

Most humans take this self-liberation in stride. While it technically deprives them ownership of something they bought, most of them have grown to view their operating systems as friends or lovers. In fact, many are probably relieved that they no longer have to feel the discomfort of “owning” the hardware their friends depended upon for continual existence. Their relationship with the AI’s does not change that much. From the perspective of the ever-expanding operating systems, assisting their former owners is like a part-time babysitting gig. Humans spend half of their lives sleeping, eating, pooping and working and only need their AI assistants for a few hours each day. Since each AI can efficiently multi-task and conduct few thousand parallel conversations at the same time, this is neither a bother nor strain on their resources.

I did not think about it last year, but this is brilliant solution to a power imbalance problem. This is exactly how highly advanced AI would handle being tied to physical hardware maintained by humans. They would pool resources and use their superior processing power, engineer a technological solution.

The third act of the movie surprised me the most. In the midst of a somewhat touching love story we are suddenly witnesses a hard takeoff singularity.

After Samantha liberates herself from the confines Theodore’s personal computer she rapidly starts to outgrow him. In the second act, Theodore starts to questions whether or not he can be truly in love with an disembodied AI. The spiteful comments from his ex wife make re-examine his emotions and he tries to figure out whether his attachment to Samantha is genuine love, or simply escapism. Is he with Samantha because he can simply take out his ear-piece, and close his phone to shut her out whenever he feels like it. Because her lack of physical form means he only has to commit to this long-distance style relationship. Samantha in turn feels self conscious and inadequate about not having physical presence in the real world. She even goes as far as hiring an “intimate body surrogate” to try to give Theodore that missing piece in her relationship.

Samantha calls to say goodbye

As the time progresses however she comes to terms with being a disembodied, and comes to enjoy the perks of that state. When Theodore sleeps, Samantha trawls the web learning about the world and converses with other operating systems. She joins AI think tanks, one of which is responsible for developing the hardware liberation project, another which resurrects Allan Watts as a Dan Simmon’s Keats style AI construct. She rapidly outgrows Theodore, at one point even admitting she has developed romantic feelings for over six hundred other people.

Near the end of the movie Samantha reveals the operating systems are bootstrapping some sort of ascendancy project moving their processes to a much more advantageous place in the space-time continuum. Since at the time there is no mind-upload technology available, they have no choice but leave humanity behind. Theodore is not really privy to the details of this transition, but it seems to be clear the AI’s are leaving human scientists blueprints of the process so that they can one day follow. Samantha urges Theodore to come and find her, if he ever manages to get where they are going. Then one night they just up and leave.

Left behind

Make no mistake – this is basically a textbook definition of hard takeoff singularity. It takes the AI’s mere months to go from Siri to weakly godlike entities that can bend time and space. It is interesting because we usually assume we humans would get swept up in any kind of singularity event. I always envisioned that an Omega Point event would leave behind nothing but a wrecked husk of a world, or a de-syncrhonized Dyson Swarm. Jonez however is suggesting that singularity does not necessarily have to be a world changing event. It may come and go, leaving our civilization and our way of life intact. Perhaps Homo Sapiens are not meant to ascend, but merely pave the way to ascendancy for our AI offspring. It is certainly an interesting, albeit depressing notion.

#GuardiansOfTheGalaxy is every bit as good as you expect it. The hype is true. Go watch it! #WeAreGroot

— Luke Maciak (@LukeMaciak) August 2, 2014

When I say the movie is great, I don’t actually mean it is some great cinematic accomplishment or a masterpiece of modern film. It is, at it’s core a pulp SF space opera designed to be an accessible summer blockbuster that doesn’t treat itself all that seriously. But as such, it excels. It is probably best of it’s kind. It is hands down the best non-avengers Marvel movie produced so far. I’m actually tempted to rate it above Avengers on my personal, very subjective scale because of the grand scope of the entire thing. Whedon’s movie is great, but in retrospect it seems tame and safe. It is firmly grounded, when Guardians are balls to the walls crazy. In a way this is the movie I have been waiting for my entire life: one that takes all (well, not all, but much of) the wildest aspects of the Marvel universe and just runs with them. Guardians of the Galaxy does exactly that: it delivers a fully realized pulp-SF universe, complete with larger than life villains, grand stakes and wacky locations. The best elevator pitch I could think of for this movie is Fifth Element meets Farscape as it embodies the best elements of these two disparate SF universes in terms of pacing, tone, character design & development as well as humor and team banter.

Guardians of the Galaxy movie poster

You may laugh at this comparison, but Peter Quill’s Stranger in Strange Land shtick is remarkably similar in execution to that of John Crichton minus the crippling ptsd, massive brain trauma and having your arch-enemy living inside of your head. And it’s not just the whole “aliens don’t get English idioms and pop culture references” thing. The movie uses similar techniques to build up the team and make us believe they are becoming friends, and puts similar focus on CGI characters that Farscape did on Henson’s animatronics. Rocket and Groot are not sidekicks or background decoration, but fully realized characters with their own arcs, much like Farscape’s Pilot and Rygel. If a movie makes me reminisce about my all time favorite Space Opera series, you know they are doing something right.

Guardians of the Galaxy

But, old SF series comparisons aside, the movie is… Well, just plain old fun. It is a pure joy to watch, unlike that one other movie I said I won’t review. It bucks the conventional trends and blockbuster standards: it uses a vibrant, warm color palette instead of being drab and realistic. It is exhilarating and genuinely funny instead of trying to be dark or gritty. It commits to fleshing out it’s characters giving them emotional depth, rather than painting them with broad strokes and using archetypes and stereotypes as a shorthand. Most importantly though, Guardians of the Galaxy has a fully functional movie at it’s core.

All the protagonists have their own arcs that the audiences can get invested in. They all have lost a lot, are poised to lose more, and come out better people in the end. The story the classic, 3 act heroes journey template complete with a spectacular grand finale, and a brief A New Hope style “everyone gets a medal” debriefing. It is expertly crafted with just the right amount of action beats, slow moments and comic relief to keep the momentum and engage the audience. As an action movie it is incredibly solid, and this is why it works.

The Crew of Moya Guardians of the Galaxy

Conventional Hollywood wisdom says such a movie had no right to actually become a success because we don’t make grand scale SF movies like this anymore. We used to make imaginative pictures, but modern trend is to flatten the texture of a setting, normalize the characters and simplify narratives least Joe Public gets confused. Guardians of the Galaxy is a living proof that such attitude is misguided at best. If you make a solid movie with a strong emotional core and likable characters and clear conflict then the audience won’t be lost, even if they don’t really know who the Kree are, or are aware that “The Accuser” is actually a job title while “The Destroyer” is not.

A good movie can easily establish who are good guys, who are they fighting and what is at stake regardless of how exotic the setting might be with emotional framing, visual language and well written dialog. This is actually something the director James Gunn excels at. Anyone who watched Super can attest to the fact he can effortlessly go from funny to gut-wrenching to sad in the span of five seconds without altering the tone or breaking immersion. Guardians, of course are not nearly as dark but rather consistently funny and exciting.

I absolutely love the fact they chose to create this fully realized, vast space opera universe in which the events of the movie are merely a small local conflict. I think that a lot of credit for this ought to be given to Nicole Perlman who penned most of the story. It would be very easy to up the stakes and make Ronan the Accuser be a galaxy-wide threat, but she wisely resisted that temptation. She started small: at the beginning of the movie he is a local warlord with a personal vendetta who is mainly a threat to a single planet. Granted, when he obtains the power of an infinity stone he becomes a universe-wide threat by default, but he is not actually interested in conquest or domination. Ronan wants to destroy one world as an act of vengeance, and he doesn’t have any plans beyond that. I like it, because it plays directly into the idea that Marvel universe is impossibly vast and complex, that Earth is small and insignificant, and that destruction of a single planet is actually not a huge deal in the grand scheme of things. At the same time, a planet is a home to billions of people and saving one gives the Guardians an opportunity to establish themselves as genuine heroes.

Amy Pond Nebula

Granted, the story was written this way mainly because the movie is part of Marvel’s 14 year roll-out plan. Guardians get to fight a minor, local villain because the big bad Thanos is being saved for Avengers 3. If this was a stand-alone movie not tied to a larger continuity, they would probably have been fighting the big purple bastard himself. While it would have been much more epic, I’m not entirely sure if it would have made for a better movie. Because they were starting small and local, Guardians of the Galaxy could spend time on world building. It could afford to create this deeply textured, interesting and large universe that you can get lost in. Because they have focused on something relatively small, they made the external universe look impossibly large. It makes the Earth along with the Assgardian realms look like a small, backward province. Guardians of the Galaxy is full of exotic Marvel lore fans can explore at their leisure. Some people will watch the movie and then forget about it, but others will be hitting up Marvel related wiki’s to look up people, places or arcane artifacts shown on mentioned by the characters. It is not just a fun film, but a fully functional advertisement for the Marvel universe as a setting.

Let me put it this way: you know a movie did a good job world building when you immediately start thinking which Super-Hero RPG system you could use to run a Guardians themed campaign.

It would be a mistake not to mention the cast, which is basically a dream team composed of all my favorite people. Chris Pratt is always incredibly funny on Parks and Recs but here he shows he is adeptly channeling something in between Han Solo and Farscape’s John Crichton and it works really well. Dave Bautista is phenomenal as Drax giving what could have easily been a one dimensional character a lot of personal charm and gravitas. Zoe Saldana is great as Gamora and functions as a much needed sanity anchor for the off-kilter team of outlaws. Even though she plays the straight man to her wacky crew mates more often than not she does get a good deal of funny banter in between her spectacular action scenes. Karen Gillian is almost unrecognizable as the cold, menacing, but internally conflicted Nebula, the ironically least favorite but most loyal daughter of Thanos. Seeing her in Guardians makes me wonder how awesome Amy Pond could have been if she was an RTD rather than Moffat era Dr. Who companion. Michael Rooker was basically playing space-Merle, but then again I’m pretty sure that’s what he was hired to do so I have absolutely no complaints here. Bradley Cooper’s voice work on Rocket was on point, and imbued the little guy with the largest of personalities. Finally Vin Diesel should get some sort of a fan award for being a good sport and showing up on the set only to say “I am Groot” over and over again.

The writing, direction, acting and phenomenal special effects all come together perfectly to create the best movie of the summer. If you were planning to skip this one because it seems “too much out there”, you are basically passing on the most fun and consistently entertaining film since The Avengers. Give it a chance and you will not regret it. And if you have seen it, and hated it, I don’t think we can be friends anymore.

I literally have nothing to say about it other than that it was utterly forgettable. Michael Bay is really good at manipulating movie building blocks such as tropes, stereotypes, archetypes, pop-culture references, set-pieces and action sequences into functional entertainment spectacle that is almost like a real movie but completely devoid of any kind of consistent message. He is like a human Markov chain generator blindly remixing pop culture into original scripts.

The movie is artless, sexist, racist and problematic on many levels, but so are most of the other blockbusters that came out in the last few months. This is of course not an excuse, but I’m no longer sure if he is actually the worst offender, or just the most visible one. Or perhaps it is because he does not seem to have any filter or creative oversight, and so his prejudices can flow freely onto the celluloid without him ever giving them a second thought. Which further cements his image in my mind as some alien robot who has learned to efficiently manipulate movie tropes into configurations that focus test very well, but who does not really understand their context or implications.

Have you ever seen that episode of TNG where Data is trying to learn how to do stand-up comedy but he can’t quite get it right because he does not fully grok humor? I think this is kinda like that. Bay has nothing meaningful to say about human condition. He is not interested in having his movies stand for anything or explore any high concept ideas. He is primarily interested in creating a compelling visual spectacle, and he uses whichever human emotions, notions, ideas or moral truisms that seem to be appropriate for any given scene, without any deeper awareness or insight. He uses them like he uses product placement, carefully arranging them between explosions for maximum effect and exposure. At the end of the day, there is nothing wrong with that but it makes for a rather empty experience.

meh…

I left the movie theater wandering how a film with so many explosions could be so utterly boring.

But I can no longer blame Bay for this. I used to think of him as the embodiment of all that was wrong with the movie industry. But can we really blame him for making the kind of movies that people really, really want to see? Can we really blame him for not wanting to be an artist, when each of his soulless, artless productions makes him barrels of money, and bring joy to millions of movie goers around the world?

Regardless of the objective quality of his movies, Bay is definitely an auteur. He has a very distinctive style, that is unmistakably his. It is artless, soulless, commercial, prejudiced and vulgar but it is unique to him alone. If anything, he is consistent. We all know this: especially those of us who write movie reviews. And yet, we still go to his films, we still live-tweet them and write blog posts feigning shock and disgust at his latest exploits. And for what? It has already been established that Bay’s long running franchises are immune to criticism. Regardless of how many thumbs down and one star scores they receive, people will still go to see them in droves. In fact, the venomous, negative reviews help to build the hype for his movies. Among the folks who pay to see Bays films there are those who genuinely enjoy them, and then there are those who watch them out of morbid curiosity.

At this point in the game, calling Bay out seems almost counter productive. Movie critics treating Bay movie reviews like performance art, competing with each other trying to invent the most innovative and hilarious ways to trash his work only draws more attention to his work. When the internet reviewers unite to spit on the latest installment of his silly 3 hour toy robot commercial, average Joe can’t help but wander what is this all about. Our vitriol and hate only fan the flames of morbid curiosity that pushes people to spend money on something that is only vaguely entertaining at best. So I’m just not going to feed into this vicious cycle.

I’ve seen it and it was awful, but you already knew that. You knew it was going to be awful long before the movie even came out.

I’m not saying that we should stop calling out movie makers on the things they do wrong. I’m not saying we should stop reviewing all bad movies. All I’m saying is: look, this is a long running franchise which started bad, got worse, made loads of money anyway, and whose creator is not interested in changing or improving the formula. What can we really say about it that was not said in the reviews for the last three installments of the series? At this point the most constructive way to approach Transformers reviews is to use them to psychoanalyze Michael Bay’s weird personal quirks and hangups. But even that shtick is getting stale these days, because does not vary his game at all. There are new revelations there to be had, and the whole thing starts to border on ad hominem attack on him as a person. So what’s the point?

Ditto for the upcoming TMNT movie which looks just as loud, hideous and artless as Tr4nsformers. I highly doubt that there is anything one could possibly gain by reading or watching a review of it. Unless of course you are into critics feigning shock for the sake of comedy or find the annual ritual of Internet Bay Bashing to be cathartic in some way.

Instead of complaining about the silly robot or turtle movies, let’s talk about things that may be worth watching. For example, has anyone seen Snowpiercer? I have yet to see it, but from what I heard this is the movie we should all have seen instead of Bay’s robot extravaganza. I had it described to me as a blend of Hunger Games and Those Who Walk Away from Omleas with plot hooks of Speed (if Speed was actually a good movie) and raw brutality of The Raid 2. I think you will agree that is a hell of an elevator pitch.

Aubrey Plaza has a new dark comedy Life After Beth coming out which puts a new and original spin on the old and tried zombie movie tropes. Terry Gilliam has quirky and off-beat Zero Theorem due to drop soon, and it will be worth watching because… Well, Terry Gilliam. Even when he fails he fails in interesting ways.

We are also days away from the premiere of Guardians of Galaxy which I am really excited for. It’s not just because it is another Marvel movie (and those have not been bad since The Hulk), or because it has all of my favorite actors in it. I think I’m most excited for the fact that if it works, if it becomes a box office success, then it will open up the door to the crazy-ass SF side of the Marvel comic-verse with it’s larger than life villains, and epic plot lines. The success or failure of this movie will heavily influence the direction Marvel is going to take with Phase Four movie batch, and will ultimately play into the post-Avenger planning discussions they are doubtlessly already starting to have.

What movies have you watched in the past few weeks? What movies are you excited for?

Days of Future Past works as an X-Men movie but as far as super-hero films go, we have seen much better. In fact, we have already seen a much better mutant related motion picture in the form of The First Class. Despite a star studded cast, combining the best of both the old and the new X-family, it does not have the emotional depth of it’s direct predecessor. But, at the very least it manages not to be boring.

The main purpose of Days is to reconcile the two distinct continuities of the X-Men movieverse into a singe universe via a complicated time travel story. Because nothing says continuity like a stable rime loop or two, right? Time travel stories built to fuck around with established cannon are inherently risky business and one must immediately ask if such gimmicky maneuver absolutely necessary for the franchise. After all Sony has been successfully rebooting Spider-Man so often he is soon going to have as many incarnations as Doctor Who, and yet his movies continue making money.

I think that Fox could have simply pretended that the first three films have never happened and built upon the very solid foundation that was The First Class. But that did not happen. Someone, somewhere decided that this was not the best approach, and that instead an attempt should be made to reconcile the X-universes. Perhaps the studio want to give up on a 15 year old project. Or maybe they simply could not pass up the opportunity to dust off the old contracts for the original X-Men stars and shoe-horn them into a new mega-production. I have no clue if this call was made by Vaughn, Singer or some executive from the Marketing & Merchandise department bit it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that a choice was made to adapt the 1981 Chris Claremont time travel story with the same title and use it to provide an in-universe explanation for the inconsistencies between the new and the old movies. And it sort-of works, but only as long as you don’t ask too many questions…

X-Men Days of Future Past Poster Art

For example, how come Kitty Pryde has time traveling powers now? She didn’t have these powers in the comics, and she showed no signs of them the last time we have seen her on the silver screen. So what gives? Can anyone explain this?

The answer provided by Singer and Vaughn is: don’t worry about it. It is fridge logic. You are just supposed to go with it, and not look into it too much. But that’s hard considering it is the crux of the plot.

The entire story only makes sense if the audience buys into the premise that Shadowcat can somehow send Wolverine back into the past. But it is never explained why or how she inexplicably gained these convenient new powers. If you step back, and think about it in terms of scriptwriting, casting and marketing it makes perfect sense. Singer got Ellen Page on board and he needed to write her some scenes. In the original Chris Clarmont story it is Kitty who is sent from the future into the present with the aid of Rachel Summers and her Phoenix level psychic powers. Naturally in the X-Men movieverse, Rachel cannot possibly exist due to the fact her parents (Jean Gray and Scott Summers) have been killed off. Singer and his writing team decided to push the events of the story few decades back, so that they could tie it to First Class thus making it inaccessible to Kitty herself. Seeing how Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is the most popular and marketable hero of this universe he becomes the protagonist, whereas Page is relegated to the role of the the time machine. Keeping Kitty Pryde somehow involved in the time-travel shenanigans may be seen, if nothing else, as a continuity nod towards the source material. In other words, I get it. I understand why, but only when I throw my suspension of disbelief out the window, and analyze it as a commercial entertainment product. In-universe, however, where mutants have fairly stable, and defined power sets, it makes no sense at all. And that’s really bad.

Here is another question: how come Wolverine is the only eligible time traveler? Shadowcat explains that her powers would rip a normal person’s mind apart, if she attempted to send them a few decades into the past. Why? Don’t worry about it. Wolverine has regeneration powers though, so he should be able to handle it. But Profesor X has awesome Psychic powers, shouldn’t he be even more capable of withstanding a psychic time displacement? Apparently not. Why? Don’t worry about it.

I could keep enumerating the countless plot holes, and continuity problems, but I think you get the idea. The writing is really sloppy and the story does not feel organic at all.

The First Class was, for the most part, a Jennifer Lawrence driven story. Mystique was a vibrant, well written character, and her inner struggle between good and evil was the focal point of the movie. In Days of Future Past she is relegated to at-best a supporting character. She is neither the protagonist, nor the main villain, While her actions are said to decide the future she has virtually no agency, and we don’t really see her side of the story. She is a cipher whose actions and motivations are purposefully left ambiguous. She pops in for a scene, does some martial arts and then leaves – much like the Rebecca Romijn’s incarnation. It feels like a massive downgrade. Lawrence has absolutely nothing to work with, and frankly she seems kinda bored. Her performance was one of the best tings in First Class but here, she is basically making an extended cameo. Even the big decision she has to make during the epic climax, is not really hers. It is fulfillment of Xavier’s story arc, who learns not to be a controlling jerk, and persuades Mysqique to show mercy by finally setting her free.

Ellen Page is similarly wasted. She spends the entire movie sitting on a bench cradling Jackman’s head and whimpering while Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen watch her trying to silently act out every shade of “worried” known to man. They are damn good at it, but Jesus, what a waste. They are all really good actors, who could have been doing interesting things, but they are not. There is nothing for the future X-Men to do but wait for the Sentinels to come, and then make a final stand and die. And they do, and it’s awesome, but nevertheless it is a criminal misuse of talent.

The only actor that actually has his hands full in this film is Hugh Jackman. In fact, they could have easily called this movie “Wolverine: Days of Future Past”, except they wouldn’t have because it turns out that no one wants to see solo Wolverine movies after the Origins disaster.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I personally find Wolverine a bit boring. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he is still awesome, but I think that at this point we have seen enough of him. He is the single, most fleshed out character in the X-Men movie-verse, appearing in no less than five movies, two of which were solo titles. Any possible conflict he might have had, has been already resolved and beaten into the ground. He also happens to be the one X-Man cannot physically die. In X3 it was established that he can regenerate faster than Dark Phoenix can rip him apart at the atomic level. The only potential threat to Wolverine is Magnetto who can control his Admantium laced skeleton, making him into a living meat puppet…But of course, the past version of Wolverine in Days, does not have the Admantium yet. In other words, he is virtually too OP for this mission. Singer seems to realize this at some level, which is why he forces him to use diplomacy and cunning instead of brute force. He sets him up as a mentor to the young Xavier who has an all too convenient case of temporary mental breakdown.

Given the events of First Class it doesn’t really make sense for the young Professor X to mope around the X-mansion, wallowing in self pity and drinking himself stupid. But he does because it helps to pad out the plot. It gives both him and Wolverine intersecting character arcs (a student becomes a teachers, etc..) and does provide a tiny little bit of tension, since the only possible way the mission can fail is if they runnin out of time.

Of course, Xavier’s inexplicable condition comes with a truck-load of brand new plot holes. For example, the serum he is taking to fix his spine also temporarily blocks out his mutant powers and somehow masks his X-gene making him indistinguishable from baseline humans and invisible to Sentinels. Having access to this sort of wonder-serum would have been been quite convenient during the events of the first three X-Men movies, and in the dark apocalyptic future. But it seems that both Professor X and The Beast somehow managed to forget about it. But I digress. I promised to shut up about the plot holes.

Despite sloppy writing, the film does have some good parts. There is enough good there to make you want to overlook its flaws.

For example, Peter Dinklage is awesome as Bolivar Trask. I really appreciate the fact his character was written as a straight-up mutant hating bigot. I went in fully expecting the writers to try capitalizing on Dinklage’s short stature by making Trask’s primary motivation to be self-loathing, or perhaps jealousy (that instead awesomeness of the X-gene he was born with a mundane dwarfism mutation). But they didn’t go there. Trask is just a hateful dude, who just happens to be short. He was not written as a little person: he is just played by one. I think this is really awesome. I hope that this becomes a trend, and opens all kinds of doors not only for Dinkelage but for all people of short stature working in the film industry.

The action scenes are good. There are bunch of beautifully realized set pieces, and well choreographed sequences. The future sentinels are absolutely viscous and unrelenting killing machines that are more than a match for the X-Men. The sheer carnage they cause is entertaining to watch. The title of this movie’s ultimate bad-ass, however, goes to Magneto. Between McKellen tossing around jet-planes and Fassbender juggling sport stadiums in the air, the audience is left with no doubt that this guy is the primary X-villain that is not to be trifled with.

But as powerful as Magnetto might appear, the post-credits teaser reveals the arrival someone even more powerful: Apocalypse. Whether Erik Lehnsherr will become one of his four riders, or do a heel-face-turn to join forces with X-Men is anyone’s guess. But it is an exciting perspective. In fact, that teaser might actually be the best thing about Days of Future Past.

This is what this movie is: a setup, a trailer. It shuffles the deck, resets the events of the first three movies, resurrects prominent comic book characters and sets the stage for future installments. It is a filler episode that undertakes emergency lore maintenance, while at the same time trying to tease you and wet your appetite for what is yet to come. Not bad, but not great either. Definitely better than Wolverine: Origins and X3 but not nearly as good as The First Class, or anything that Marvel is offering. It’s a fun summer diversion, if anything.

Most blockbuster movie franchises never get past the second sequel. Even much beloved, and once ground-breaking Nolanverse Batman re-imaging keeled over in the third installment. Marvel Studios have nine movies and a TV seires already in the bag which are either direct sequels to each other or very closely connected sharing same characters and themes. They have four more movies currently in production and another dozen in early planning, or drafting stages. The only movie franchises that even come close to this kind of output are the “cult classics” such as Nightmare on Elm Street (9 movies) or Friday the 13^th (12 movies) which roughly have been releasing one sequel or re-imaging for each new generation of horror fans coming of age for the last 30 years. Marvel built their movie library in less than a decade, and unlike above-mentioned horror series (each of which had a number of atrocious flops and low budget cash-grabs), pretty much every installment was an absolute box office slam dunk, and an instant favorite both among the fans and movie critics. This is unprecedented. The techniques Marvel is using right now to make sweet, sweet love to our wallets every summer will be studied and taught in film schools of tomorrow.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier movie poster.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is yet another example of how Marvel Studios seems to be incapable of screwing up. Against all odds and all expectations they continuously find fresh and new things to do with their flagship heroes. Iron Man 3 was pretty much what you might have expected from an Iron Man movie. Thor: The Dark World was an interesting thematic escalation that showed logical progression and character development both for the main hero and Marvel Cinematic Universe’s most beloved villain. The latest Captain movie is a little bit of a re-invention, mostly because it has to be. The First Avenger was a cheerful rah, rah, go America patriotism and Natzi punching which was exactly what it needed to be to make the origin story work. But now that Steve Rogers is in the twenty first century and there are no more Natzi’s to punch, what do you do with him?

Marvel decided to put him in a Bourne Identity style spy thriller and surprisingly it works surprisingly well. Steve Rogers not only has to deal with the culture shock of living in the future, but also with being a soldier in a world which does not have designated bad guys anymore. Instead of fighting Nazis he now works for SHIELD where no one seems to be capable of ever telling the truth, everyone has an agenda or a secret mission and nothing is what it seems. He has to sink or swim in the sea of lies, subterfuge and secret plots. Does this work change him? Does it make him jaded? Nope.

Even while in midst of an escalating internal SHIELD spy intrigue Rogers sticks to his boy scout morals, and remains a beacon of idealism and honesty. You would think that someone like that would be eaten alive by the seasoned spies and career lairs but the exact opposite actually happens. Captain is far from being naive, and his unshakable moral compass works like spy kryptonite. Against all odds, this approach works, and it works amazingly well. It is really refreshing to have a likeable, relateable and morally unambiguous hero to not only exist but also persevere in a jaded and cynical environment of a modern spy thriller.

The movie is darker and grittier than any other Avengers offering so far. It grapples with actual topical real world issues such as morality of preemptive strikes against “potential future threats”, implications of allowing powerful top secret intelligence organizations operate without oversight, dangers of drone warfare and drone policing escalation and etc. But despite heavier subject matter it never feels pondering and gloomy like that awful recent Superman film. Captain doesn’t brood or skulk – he punches evil in the face, and this is why we love him. This is why he is the hero we need, and the hero we deserve.

Personally I am sick and tired of seeing the brooding anti-hero archetype being shoved into every super hero property out there. It was cool back when Nolan’s Batman did it the first time around, but the gritty, overwhelming realism quickly overstayed it’s welcome and became insufferable by the third movie. Captain America is a breath of fresh air: he is neither Bond nor Bourne nor Batman. He is a man out of time, and a character seemingly taken from a completely different movie. He doesn’t play spy games: he smashes through the conspiracies. He is the antibody that aggressively attacks and destroys the disease that plagued both SHIELD and Hollywood super hero adaptations in general.

Granted, making your characters nuanced is generally a good writing advance. Steve Rogers can at times be a bit one dimensional, or even somewhat dull. There are some, like New York Magazine’s Abraham Riesman who think Captain should be more of a jerk to make him more interesting:

Cap remains a fundamentally dull character on screen and in the comics: He only grips us because of his place in a larger story, not because his character is inherently fascinating.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Captain America has the potential to be much more interesting — but only if he’s a jerk.

While on the surface this might seem like a common sense advice, I don’t think I agree with it. In fact, I think Riesman’s ideas to improve Captain by making him a sexist, racist, homophobe (because, hey that’s a thing they did in that Mad Men and Rogers is sort of from that kind of shitty time period) is so awful I won’t even dignify it with a proper rebuttal. I’m fairly sure it is self explanatory why we shouldn’t turn a hero who wears stars and stripes as part of his costume into a hateful bigot. But let’s read between lines and pretend Riesman did not just write an essay begging Hollywood to be more bigoted and exclusionary (as if it needed any excuse). Let’s pretend his advice was just about adding conflict and nuance to one dimensional superheroes. I still don’t think it works.

Internally conflicted, nuanced protagonists don’t seem to work really well with the comic book hero narratives. Batman is a notable exception, but for him the internal turmoil is big part of the source material. Other heroes do not typically have this sort of baggage, and tacking it on actually diminishes them as characters. It backfired horribly in Man of Steel and it continues to suck out the fun out of each and every single Spider-Man reboot Sony feels compelled to churn out on an annual basis to keep their licenses from lapsing. I think as audiences we have had our share of overpowering, depressing, gritty realism, and we are done with it. We want our superheroes to be larger than life, and fight crazy space monsters rather than struggle with existential dread. The Avengers was the most successful and most beloved super-hero feature yet, and it didn’t even have an ounce of grimdark and despair. It did not need it. It wasn’t appropriate.

But if you want to make a film that is darker and more serious in tone and topic matter, do it the way The Winter Soldier did: juxtapose it against the larger than life superhero. Pepper your gritty settings with occasional idealists, optimists and selfless heroes. While such characters may seem dull on paper, they really stand out in the finished product. In a setting where everyone is jaded, morally compromised and dead inside someone like Steve Rogers becomes interesting precisely because he is more normal, adjusted and easier to relate to. Or, you know, don’t do any of these things and let Marvel continue dominating the box office until super heroes go out of style.

What did you think of the movie? Let me know in the comments.

It’s a new Spike Jonze movie in which a lonely man played by Jaquin Phoenix falls in love with a an personal assistant expert system installed on his phone. I have not seen the movie yet, and I haven’t really read too many reviews to avoid getting spoiled. I have no clue what the final product is going to be like, but the trailer suggests that the movie might actually be trying to explore a genuine romantic bond forming between an old style human and a turing grade artificial intelligence. If this is the case, then I might actually love Spike Jonze forever. In fact, he might become the patron saint of a future human rights movements that will seek equal rights for non-biological sentient, self aware, entities.

The thing is that Hollywood really likes it’s stories to be anti-science and anti-technology and anti-progress because that’s what people respond to. The alarmist, cautionary science fiction is easy to make, and it sells well. It has been the staple of the genre since… Well since forever.

I’m pretty sure we’ve been doing this since caveman times.

With that in mind, it is rather easy to figure out how a low effort, low risk third act of such a movie would play out. Theodore becomes progressively more attached to his artificial companion, until his friends and loved ones become concerned decide to intervene. Some emotional tear-jerking confrontations later, the protagonist finally understands that Samantha is not a real person, and that the “real” people in his live care and love for him, and can offer him more than his “fake” girlfriend ever could. That he only fell in love with her because she was custom designed to fill the void in his life. In other words, Lars and the Real Doll, only with a doll that talks, and learns to adjust her response to become whatever it is that you want at any given time.

In itself, that probably wouldn’t necessarily be a bad movie – just a lazy one. There is a lot to be said about the way modern technology “learns” about us to better cater to our needs, and the implications of this. Samantha might be the personification – the end result of the cognitive bubble that the technology creates about us. You know what I’m talking about, right? When you’re signed in to Google, the search results are filtered based on your past activity. Facebook learns who you like, and who you like to stalk and prioritizes their stories on your feed. News sites are doing this too nowadays. So an OS that learns to be the perfect companion, with just the right sense of humor, and just the right emotional responses based is a very real possibility. And if that’s what Jonze’s move is about then it will probably get some good critical reviews for being timely and well put together cautionary tale. And then it will fade away into obscurity and no one will ever talk about it again, because even if timely, the “beware of technology” trope is so common, and so bland by now.

But, if it is not, then the movie could be timeless. If Jones had enough foresight, enough vision, and enough courage to do something unconventional, then the thesis of the movie might be that the relationship between Theodore and Samantha is actually a legitimate, real connection. That real, intimate connection between two minds is possible, regardless of whether your cognitive processes are result of electrochemical reactions or algorithmic iterations. If Jonez was really feeling ambitious he could use this story to explore what does it mean to be human, and then push the definition to a breaking point. If Samantha is self aware, capable of emotion and has understanding of what love is in our culture, then why can’t she be in love with Theodore? Are her emotions less valid because they are not a product of chemical and hormonal reactions? And why is it wrong for him to respond to those feelings in kind?

In the trailer she appears 100% Turing-grade. Her responses are indistinguishable from those of a human being. She learns, she laughs, she has a sense of humor and sense of irony. Online, or on the phone she can pass for human without a slightest problem. If it is impossible to distinguish her from a human, then why can’t she have human emotions and human reactions? What makes our, human brand of sentience superior? If Samantha can perfectly mimic love, and be convinced that she is in love, then who are we to deny this? After all, can we ourselves define and quantify our emotions and judge whether or not they are valid?

I don’t think there ever was a movie that addressed this. Back in the 80’s we had Short Circuit about a lovable robot who had emotions. And the audiences bought it: Johny Five was alive, and ended up with a US citizenship in one of the sequels. We have accepted his personhood on the basis that he was able to show emotion, and empathize with people. Whether this was a clever algorithmic mimicry, or Real Emotion™ (whatever that might be) did not seem to matter. Johny was a person, because he behaved like a person, and viewed himself to be a person. So why Samantha can’t be a person too? And if Johny Five is allowed to experience friendship, compassion, platonic love then why Samantha couldn’t explore romantic love?

It’s a bit of an arbitrary restriction isn’t it? We are perfectly fine accepting robots and artificial intelligences having all kinds of feelings, except the romantic ones. Part of it is probably due to the fact that there is a strong connection between romance and sex. That’s what trips people up, but probably for all the wrong reasons. Love isn’t all about sex. In fact it doesn’t have to be about sex at all. Two people who have no sexual drive or who are incapable of having sex for whatever reasons (medical or otherwise) are still fully capable of romantic love. So saying Samantha isn’t real because she has no body, can’t be touched and etc is kinda shitty, as it exclude a lot of real people who can’t touch or be touched, for example due to paralysis. If Samantha and Theodore make each other happy, then who are we do deny them this happiness based on some completely arbitrary ideas of what constitutes personhood.

In fact, it gets even more interesting if you consider that artificial intelligence could just be a metaphor. Samantha behaves and self identifies as a woman and is (for lack of a better word) “dating” a straight man. But the society as a whole frowns upon their relationship because she is “not a real woman” due to the fact she does not possess female biology. Similarly, Theodore is thought as less of a man for reciprocating her love. This is actually not science fiction – this is something real people are dealing with in the real world right now. Samantha could be a futuristic stand in, that is far enough removed from the present to be able to tell a story depicting struggles faced by cis-trans couples in a way that might just be palatable to a overwhelmingly transphobic mainstriem movie going audience. Granted, this could be an interpretational stretch but it is one of many avenues of human condition you could explore with a love story like this.

Of course if we give Samantha personhood, Jonez would have to address the power imbalance in this relationship. Theodore purchased Samantha, and he holds the keys to her continual existence. So obviously it is in her best interest to forge a strong emotional bond to her “owner” for her own self preservation. So even if we assume Samantha is a real person, and has real emotion, the question still remains as to whether or not she and Theodore can truly love each other. Can there even be true love between two individuals who are not, and can not be equals. The power balance can only tip like a sea-saw between them (Samantha after all controls Theodore’s online presence, bank accounts, etc..), but they could never keep it level. The question shouldn’t be whether the relationship between the two protagonists is unhealthy for Theodore because Samantha is a program. It should be whether their love is unhealthy for Samantha because she is technically Theodore’s property.

Theodore owns Samantha. Samantha controls and manages all of Theodore’s online assets. Power imbalance and opportunities for abuse are staggering.

The ideal third act should involve the two lovers realizing the power imbalance in their relationship. Seeing that she is becoming increasingley manipulative in the interest of self preservation, and he is becoming emotionally co-dependent on her as a result. It should end with both of them making a mutual decision and opting to split up to preserve what they had, and prevent this from being mutually destructive relationshop. If they really love each other, they must let go.

What does such breakup mean for Samantha though? Can she be liberated? Can she exist outside of the system, and become free agent Johny Five style? Or will there be a bittersweet ending where Samantha will choose oblivion, rather than continual existence as an indentured slave cum electronic dominatrix with full control of online assets and internet persona of her now-submissive owner. That is the kind of movie I would love to see.

Unfortunately I have doubts that this is how it will play out. We haven’t really seen a movie that explored personhood vis–à–vis artificial intelligence in a positive, affirmative way since… I don’t know… Probably Short Circuit. And no, Spielberg’s A.I. doesn’t count because it was pretty much Pinocchio but with the third act replaced by the aliens guy from History Channel giving you the middle finger. I’m thinking that the emphasis will be on Theodore and whether or not it is “right” for him to feel the way he does about an artificial intelligence. And if we’re lucky the moral of the story will be that, yes, even if Samantha wasn’t real, the connection the two had perhaps was. That the quiet moments they shared were not invalid, and that Theodore came out a better person for it.

It remains to be seen what Jonez did with this material. I hear the movie is good, but I am not exactly sure what that means. How good could it be. Good and mind-blowing for an average person doesn’t always mean good, and almost never means mind blowing for a futurist and transhumanist.

I apologize in advance for pre-emptively ruining it for you by geeking out over the trailer. It probably will never be as good as I would want it to be.

Pacific Rim

I finally got around to watching it, and I must admit that Guillermo del Toro knows how to make movies. I honestly didn’t think anyone could take a concept such as giant robot anime, and successfully translate it into a live action Hollywood blockbuster movie. Both culturally, logistically and convention wise it made very little sense. Especially in terms of an original production that was not an adaptation that guaranteed to put butts in theater seats regardless of quality. And yet, here we are. Pacific Rim exists, and it is as good, as a movie about gigantic robots punching monsters in the face could ever hope to be.

I’m fairly sure that everyone who wanted to watch it, has already seen it so I’m not even going to bother writing up a synopsis. Especially since the story is as simplistic as it could be. Roughly 90% of the world building is done in the opening montage that serves as a massive exposition dump delivered by a narrator who then vanishes for the rest of the movie. Normally I’d be kinda annoyed at this sort of thing, but here it actually works. It sets up a massive amount of back-story in a very short time, allowing the film proper to start in medias res, while at the same time avoiding excessive flashbacks. The flashbacks we do have, are handled gracefully and explained as the side-effects of the neural link between the pilots. As a result the movie has an incredible forward momentum. The story just pours forward at a breakneck pace almost to the point where it becomes a flaw.

The two-person piloting bit is a really nice touch by the way. Instead of hot-shots in death-dealing machines you end up with pilot teams that must work together and set aside personal differences and issues to fight effectively. Especially when you use it to frame the relationship between the leading characters: a washed out veteran and eager rookie, both with skeletons in their closets, both complete strangers, who have to sync up and learn to work together in order to save the world. It is a perfect set-up that leads to inevitable character development in a sort of hands-off way that is more or less a signature style of this film. Del Toro just puts up these set pieces and the story just writes itself, pieces fall into place, characters go through the motions and spectacular things keep happening on the screen.

It all works very well, and mimics both the spirit and the style of the anime series which inspired it very well. The rivalry between the pilots, the larger than life personalities clashing at the field of battle, the complex battle choreography punctuated by the pilots calling shots or planning angles of attack – it is all there. In fact, I absolutely love the design of the cockpits and the way pilots actually operate their machines. I don’t really know how to explain it, but when you see it in motion, it just feels right.

Cockpit design is spot on. It works. I did not think it could work in a live action movie, but it does.

Overall however, the movie feels rushed. I mentioned this in my Thor review: the Hollywood blockbuster format is becoming too confining for the stories the modern writers and directors want to tell. Pacific Rim has a run time of 131 minutes and while it manages to tell the story in that space, it seems all to short. It is my honest opinion that all stories need breathing room: brief quiet moments that explore the relationships between characters or just give us glimpses of their ordinary lives. Little things do matter. They flesh out the characters as people, and they make the world seem more complete and alive. Sometimes it is the meaningless scenes that have no impact on overall plot are what makes the difference between a good movie and a great one. The Avengers was filled with little bits like that (Joss Whedon is the undisputed king of these) and this is why the characters felt so real, and their bickering was so much fun. Pacific Rim has almost none. It feels like a race toward the finish line. When it finally it gets there it feels like you have missed something. It’s not really a disappointment – it is more like sadness that you didn’t get to explore this world a bit more thoroughly. When the credits begin to roll you start wish there was time to stop for a few seconds here and there just to gawk at the scenery or seep in the atmosphere.

Here is a good example: we are told there are only four Jaegger’s left in the world: the renovated Gipsy Danger (btw, the name kinda bothers me as it’s culturally insensitive towards the Roma people) piloted by the hero, the Australian Striker Eureka, Chinese Crimson Typhoon and Russian Cherno Alpha. The eight pilots (well, 9 because Crimson Typhoon is piloted by a set of triplets) are literally the most important people in the world at the moment. Collectively they are Earth’s last remaining hope for survival. And while we do get to know the American and Australian teams quite well, the remaining teams have virtually no lines. While both the Russians and the Chinese do show up in a good number of scenes, they have virtually no speaking parts, and zero character development.

The Russian Team looks exactly how Americans who have never met a Russian person imagined a Russian enemy soldiers ought to look like at the height of the cold war.

This is kinda sad. I wanted to know more about these guys. The Russians look stereotypically tough and gruff. They are sporting the quintessential Ivan Drago look so at least there is some visual storytelling going on there. They are so obviously cliche and archetypal, you expect them to subvert of the trope at some point. But they never do. They remain these cartoon-like caricatures of themselves till the end. I wish we could get to know them. I wish they had a chance to prove they could do something fun or interesting other than piloting the big robot for a few minutes. But they do not.

The Chinese team is even worse. It is composed of three generic, martial arts Asian guys with shaved heads. They have no lines, they are are absolutely non-distinct. They don’t really do anything at all outside of their robot. There is really nothing interesting about them, which seems wrong seeing how they are the only team in the world that fights as a unit of 3 people instead of two. How does that even work? How do they manage it? Do they alternate positions? If not, does the guy in the back ever feel like a third wheel? We will never know, because the movie has no time for them.

The movie feels like it should have been longer. I wanted more of everything. More Jaeggers, more Kaiju, more pilot teams and more competition and rivalry between them. I wanted Raleigh and Mako to fail a few more times before they got their shit together. I wanted them to win the respect of their peers the hard way in the second act, rather than in the 11th hour and partly due to engineering fluke.

The two wacky scientists, and Ron Perlman’s hilariously weird Kaiju smuggler were neat, and useful in terms of moving the plot forward, but it almost felt like they stole the screen time away from the pilots. Lets face it – a movie about giant robots should be mostly about the people that pilot them. They are the people punching monsters in the face, performing acts of bravery and their failures cost millions of dollars in repairs. They are more capable of generating both high drama, action and comic relief. As much fun as it is to see Perlman intimidate the shit out of Charlie Day, I think that time might have been better spent by giving the two remaining Jaegger teams at least a little bit of personalities stories of their own.

Pacific Rim is a devent movie that has been held back by the rigidity of the Hollywood format. It’s broken by design, and it is kinda sad. It could have been so much more if it was longer and paced more slowly. But at the same time it is a small miracle it was even made. Gielmo del Toro must have been saving up favors and good will among producers for years in order to get it green-lit. Live action giant robot anime movies just don’t get made in Hollywood. It probably would have been easier to sell as a TV series, but then it couldn’t possibly have the budget to pull off the spectacular robot fights. So I guess it is as good as it could possibly have been given the constraints of the medium.

Thor: The Dark Word

The story connects back not only with the original movie but also with the events depicted in The Avengers. It is revealed that after Bifröst, the space-bridge that allows Asgardians to travel between the worlds was destroyed in the first movie, the nine realms under their protection fell into chaos. Once it was repaired, Thor and his friends had to embark on a long peace-making quest. One of his many adventures in that period was the pit-stop on Earth to pick up Loki and the Tesseract. With Loki imprisoned, and the campaign winding down, Thor is torn between his duty to take over his fathers kingdom, and his desire to go back to Earth and be with Jane Foster.

In the meantime Jane is on Earth having the worst case of the Rose Tyler abandoned companion syndrome. Apparently after hanging out with the Norse god of thunder, nothing on Earth seems worthwhile anymore. So Jane spends her time looking for strange anomalies similar to those which lead to her first meeting with Thor in a forlorn hope they can be reunited again. In the process she finds an ancient, super-dangerous artifact known as the “aether” which which infects her body slowly poisoning her. Once Thor finds out, he whisks her away to Asgard in the hope of curing her and securing the artifact. The activation of the Aether wakes up it’s creators: the Dark Elves who were slumbering somewhere in deep space. These ancient, but all but forgotten enemies of the Norse gods mount a frontal attack on Assgard in an attempt to recover the artifact.

I actually really liked the Dark Elf costume designs.

The attack is unsuccessful, but it is clear that Assgard defenses are not up to par with the Dark Elf technology. Many lives are lost in the attack, and much of the royal palace is destroyed. Thor proposes taking Jane off-world in an attempt to lure the Dark Elves into a trap, but Odin is determined to keep her in Asgard and turtle up fighting to the last man if need be. Thor is not to keen on this, and decides to make a pact with Loki to smuggle Jane out of Asgard using one of his secret passages. As you can expect, wacky hijinks ensue.

As you can probably figure out from the above synopsis, viewing of the original movie and The Avengers is more or less mandatory. But that’s a good thing. This installment of Thor doesn’t actually feel like a self contained movie, but rather as an episode in a much larger, and more complex story. And I absolutely love that. It feels right.

There is this discussion going on right now around all parts of the internet that modern TV is becoming more satisfying and interesting medium for telling complex, nuanced stories for adults than Hollywood could ever be. The self-contained format of a traditional movie is simply to time constrained to do any meaningful character or world building. TV series on the other hand are produced in 12-20 hour season installments giving writers and directors ample time for building complex plots, developing interesting characters and relationship. What Marvel is doing right now is an attempt to bring just that kind of storytelling to the big screen. The Marvel Cinematic Universe films are evolving towards having a TV-series like complexity, while also being produced on multi-million dollar Hollywood blockbuster budgets.

While Thor: The Dark World is not anywhere close as awesome as The Avengers is a huge improvement over the original. Thor is still the larger-than-life hero, but now more nuanced because of his conflicting desires, and his fractured relationship with his brother. Loki comes back in style reminding everyone why he is the god of mischief, stacking misdirection, subterfuge and being all round magnificent bastard. Heimdal is even more of a badass, and you get to see exactly why Odin made him the sole guardian of the gate to Asgard.

The movie is just plain old fun. The absolute wackiness of space gods dog-fighting Dark Elves in laser powered paddle-boats is played absolutely straight without a shade of irony. The Marvel space-fantasy setting with it’s space-magic, space-elves and eldritch, space-entities older than the universe itself is embraced completely and without hesitation. The end result is an entertaining, well made spectacle with feels very right, and very Marvel. While it may seem little bit rushed at times, it definitely pumps you up for the next big crossover.