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Troy (2004) – A Movie Review

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As a former student of classical languages and literature I suppose I should be categorically opposed to this movie.  But to be honest I probably enjoyed around three quarters of it.

(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

Now full disclosure, the movie Troy resembles Homer’s Iliad about as closely as my grandson’s middle school band’s rendition of the Blue Danube Waltz resembles that performed by the Berlin Philharmonic.  In other words, not a lot.

But that really isn’t important.  The question is whether it succeeds on its own terms.  What we’re presented with is an adventure film masquerading as a literary epic.  We have the story of Orlando Bloom as Paris absconding with Menelaus’ wife Helen from Sparta and taking her to Troy where her new father-in-law Peter O’Toole as Priam decides that they’ll defy Agamemnon and try to keep Helen even if Brad Pitt as Achilles is preparing to run amok on the windy plains of Troy.

In order to turn an epic poem into a two-hour movie some compromise had to be taken with the plot.  Instead of a ten-year war we have a ten-day war.  And some folks had to be sacrificed.  For instance, both Menelaus and Ajax are axed in the second day of battle.  Now that is surprising since in the Hellenic version Menelaus is one of the few heroes to reach a ripe old age after the war.  And equally surprising, not only does Paris survive but he ends up keeping Helen.  Shocker!

So, you might ask what does survive the translation from page to screen?  Well, I’d say Agamemnon, Odysseus, Achilles, Priam and Hector are recognizably themselves.  Agamemnon is an arrogant fool.  Odysseus is the wily survivor and Achilles is the aristocratic demi-god following his doom.  Priam is the honorable king who must see his country and family laid waste.  But the most sympathetic character is of course Hector.  Here is the good man, prince, husband, son, brother and father trying to save his country from a creature that no man can defeat.  It is his fate to kill the cousin of the monster and now have to face him in single combat.  And he will die and his body will be lashed to the back of Achilles chariot and dragged around the plains of Troy in ignominy.  And this gives his father the chance to beg Achilles mercy to allow for decent burial.

So quite a bit of the story survives.  We even get the Trojan horse scene, which truth be told isn’t part of the Iliad.  It’s more of an aside in a story in the Odyssey.

As you can imagine, the whole thing is sort of a hot mess.  To his credit I think Brad Pitt acquits himself quite skillfully in his characterization of Achilles.  His relation to the primary and secondary characters is consistent and generally very entertaining.  Unfortunately, all of this relatively positive film making falls apart in the last scene.  The sack of Troy is highly unsatisfactory.  The death of Achilles seems to fall flat and lacks emotional interest.

So, who, if anyone, can I recommend this movie to?  Well, to start with Brad Pitt fans might want to give it a watch.  I’d say fans of sword and sandals epics might like it.  Strict devotees of Homer will be affronted and may throw things at the screen.  My opinion is that it is relatively entertaining with some weak scenes and an unsatisfying ending.  Of course, your milage may vary.

Thoughts on Current SF&F in Cinema – Part 1

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When I was much younger, I remember wondering if there would ever be a time when the state of the art in “film” would allow a decent version of the Lord of the Rings to be made.  When Ralph Bakshi’s cartoon over live action was made in 1978, I was quite surprised at how good it was.  And I hoped that he would continue the project to finish the complete story.  But he never did.  Maybe he didn’t make enough money or maybe he got bored.  And so, it would be another twenty years before anyone tried again.

Peter Jackson did a remarkable job both visually and artistically of capturing Tolkien’s story.  And I think he proved that we have reached a point where regardless of the unreal or fantastic nature of the story CGI can produce a convincing visual representation of that story on the screen.  And that was an important moment.  For a fan of science fiction and fantasy this is the promised land.

And yet, what have we got now?  For every film like Dune where the story faithfully reproduces a worthwhile piece of fiction, we get ten movies like “The Marvels” or “The Last Jedi” or “Madame Web” where the visuals are successful but the story and the acting are unwatchable.

Well, that’s reality.  The cultural and societal standards are pretty awful so even if some interesting topic like the Second Age of Middle Earth (Rings of Power) or Harry Seldon’s Psychohistory (Foundation) are being filmed chances are that the result will be terrible.

But the only good thing I can say is that the potential exists for a rogue force like Elon Musk to come along and fund an independent studio to produce some exciting projects.  So, eventually we will get good movies.  Eventually the profit motive will succeed.  Who knows we may be forced to watch Chinese or Hungarian movies in subtitles but it will come.  So, patience, patience.

And what might make a good project?  Well, based on what we know would sell, how about space opera that is a lot more interesting than the Star Wars universe?  How about a project to film the Lensman series?  A few updates to the technology might be needed and the chronology might need to be tweaked but then the story would be easily turned into a series of films.  It has likeable heroes, awful villains, interesting aliens and plenty of space battles.  And best of all, not a girl boss in sight.  Just classic square-jawed heroes saving the day and rescuing the damsel in distress.  I would guess that the Lensman saga would be easily as popular as Star Wars and in fact more so.

Now another popular film idea would be the Heinlein juveniles.  There are several good candidates.  As a first choice I’d go with, “Have Spacesuit Will Travel.”  It has all the requisite ingredients for a good young adult movie; human interest, suspense, adventure, pathos, humor and the resolution of a coming-of-age story.  As a second choice I’d recommend, “The Star Beast.”

It’s an interesting thing to reflect that a really satisfactory movie version of a Heinlein book has never been done.  The only one he ever had a hand in was Destination Moon.  And while technically there were interesting aspects to the production as a movie it was pretty cut and dry; more of a primer on rocket flight than work of fiction.  In terms of popularity, I guess Starship Troopers is the best of those produced, even though the director made it in the spirit of a mockery of the underlying philosophy of the book.  A faithful portrayal of Starship Troopers would be an amazing idea for a movie.

And rounding off my picks for Heinlein would be, “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.”  I think this story would make an excellent film too. I’d especially enjoy seeing the rail gun attack on Earth on the big screen.  And I think the friendship between Manny and the artificial intelligence Mike would work great on the screen.

I’ll have to think of some other classic sf&f books that would make good movies.  If you can think of any you’d like to see made, leave them in the comments.

Sequential Horror

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Hollywood seems incapable of making anything original and all the sequels and reboots they make suck mightily.  So, I have decided to step into the breach and provide the ultimate in sequel mashup awfulness.

Movie Treatment: Cosmic-Horror-Palooza

Rick Deckard is at home with his wife Rachael having breakfast before he heads off to work as head school crossing guard at the Philip K Dick Elementary School in Portland Oregon.  Rachael is pregnant with their first child and asks Rick to bring her some sweet gherkin pickles on his way home.  She chastises him briefly because this is the third time he’s forgotten.  He absorbs the abuse kisses her on the forehead and heads out the door while absently loading .45 shells into his revolver.

When he reaches the security office, he notices on the various video surveillance screens that a protest has set up shop in the intersection adjacent to the northwest corner of the school.  A mostly crossdressing mob of activists with signs that say REPLICANT-PHOBIA IS HATE were chanting and marching in one of the crosswalks.  This would not be an easy day.

Suddenly an energy bolt blazed across the screen and struck one of the extremely plus-sized blonds-wigged transwomen in spandex and left a visibly gaping hole through his body before collapsing onto the asphalt.  Several other energy bolts followed in quick succession wreaking havoc with the chant as deep bellows and hoarse screams erupted from the targeted activists.

Deckard bolted for the door and sprinted toward the crime scene.  As he approached, he could see that the attack was coming from a tree located fifty yards from the corner.  He approached warily, shielding himself from view with the side of the building and ending up very close to the base of the tree.  Peering carefully around the corner of the building he could see a shimmering patch of foliage that was the source of the deadly beams.  As he watched he could make out what looked like a humanoid form and aiming for the head he unloaded with his .45.

The shimmering patch fell to the ground and Deckard ran over to it.  What he saw there startled him.  A man shaped creature lay on the ground but the inhuman head had insectoid mandibles.  The .45 slugs hadn’t done the head any good but Deckard added a couple more through the cranium just to be sure.  Looking around on the ground he found a long rod with a blinking light at one end and what probably was a trigger near the other end.  Picking it up and sighting through the blinking light device he aimed at the tree and pushed the trigger.  A bright red bolt drilled a two-inch round hole precisely through the 36 inches of the tree trunk and elicited a respectful whistle from the impressed former blade runner.

Looking into the foreground he could see a shimmering area about twenty feet down the sidewalk.  Suddenly four of the humanoid creatures approached with their right arms raised in the universal sign of respect for a successful warrior’s victory.  They came bearing a large blue lawn dart which one of their comrades had claimed as his trophy over a human in a 1968 Cincinnati Ohio suburb.

But before they could bestow this trophy on Deckard, other creatures poured out of the dimensional portal that the four earlier beings had opened.  These creatures were decidedly unlike the first ones.  They were about eight feet tall with extremely elongated heads with two sets of jaws, one inside of the other.  They had long claws on the feet and hands and a long, pointed tail.  Deckard instinctively knew that the saliva dripping from the creatures’ jaws was molecular acid and that this wouldn’t end well.

About twenty of the creatures attacked the four earlier visitors and an enormous battle ensued.  The bug-jawed warriors put up a hell of a fight with their energy weapons and the lawn dart but there were just too many of the xenomorphs (Deckard somehow sensed this was what these other creatures should be called).  Seeing that the battle would soon be over Deckard called his office and ordered his team to lock down the school and call the authorities.  Then he sprinted over to the protest site to warn them away.

Unfortunately, the activists had repurposed the event into a day of rage against transphobic energy-beam wielding haters and they had begun turning over cars and torching them.  They had formed a kind of funeral pyre for their fallen comrades but it hadn’t really done a thorough job of consuming their bodies so a very questionable pile of remains remained.  Seeing Deckard running toward them carrying the energy weapon they assumed he was the killer and they charged toward him.  He stopped and looked around.  Behind him the remaining ten or so xenomorphs were coming up quickly in his direction.  With the two groups converging on his position imminently, he did what any clear-thinking individual would do.  He ran sideways and hoped for the best.

And that worked extraordinarily well for him.  But much less well for the angry mob that suddenly intersected with the xenomorphs.  It turns out xenomorphs are not transphobic.  In fact, it turns out they’re transphilic.  In fact, I think they even enjoyed eating the wigs.  It wasn’t pretty.

Deckard took the opportunity to sneak over to an entrance to the school and punch in the entry code and head for the security office.  When he arrived, his crew updated him on the current state of the “battle.”  The xenomorphs were somewhat leisurely feasting on the four warriors and the fifty some-odd rioters.  Deckard tried in his mind to come up with a strategy to hold off the xenomorphs until Space Marine troops could be summoned.  But nothing occurred to him.  He did remember that he had to get those gherkins for Rachael but that didn’t really seem to improve the situation.

But then a very odd thing happened on the screen.  One of the corpses of the warriors suddenly stood up and metamorphosed into something that was a combination of the xenomorph and a rioter.  It looked like a xenomorph wearing a yellow wig.  But it grew to five times the size of one of the xenomorphs and began eating the other xenomorphs.  And each time it ate one of them it got bigger.  The xenomorphs never ran away and kept fighting but one by one they were swallowed by the shape-shifting creature.  At one point a xenomorph managed to rip an arm off the shapeshifter and throw it to the ground.  The arm sprouted six spider like legs, a mouth full of teeth at the shoulder and proceeded to attack the xenomorph.  Within half an hour the battle was over and the shapeshifter and the walking biting arm coalesced into an amorphous mass of protoplasm.  After a short time, the blob flowed over to the school and covered it in a layer of pulsing goo.

Deckard watched in horror as all the doors began to slowly ooze rivulets of the creature.  He sent his crew to the doors and they used CO2 fire extinguishers to freeze the jelly as it attempted to enter the building.  Things were looking quite bleak as the extinguishers one by one were emptied of their frozen contents.  But suddenly the ooze retreated from the doors and the creature flowed off onto the nearby street and reformed into the shape of a yellow wigged transwoman complete with alarmingly overstretched spandex body suit.  The creature was apparently asleep.  As Deckard watched the sleeping form evaporated completely.  At that point he saw that there was a similarly sized shape on the ground about ten feet from where the sleeping creature had been.

Gathering his courage Deckard walked out of the building and approached the shape on the ground.  When he got near it, he saw that it was what looked like a giant seed pod.  And as he watched it burst open and slowly a living being pushed its way out.  When it had exited the pod, it was seen to be an identical blond wigged transwoman; spandex and all.  Deckard stood his ground, pointed the energy weapon at the creature and asked it to explain what had just happened.

The creature adjusted its costume, scratched at its beard and explained that its species sent spores throughout space that land on planets and produce seed pods that mimic other life forms and then replace them with their own individuals.  And slowly they replace all individuals of the local dominant species and thus take over that world.  However, because of all the various different cell types that were present in this individual’s new body, life on Earth was just too painful for it to continue and it begged Deckard to finish it off as a mercy killing.  And Deckard promptly obliged it using the alien energy rod.  At that point the creature evaporated into the air (except for the spandex suit and wig).

When the police finally showed up, they wanted to know what the hell was going on.  All that remained of the battle were the few burned out cars and the spandex suite and wig.  Deckard started to tell the whole story then thought better of it and just said there had been a protest that sort of got out of control and left it at that.  One of the officers asked him about the energy rod and he said it was a prop for a school play.  The police did a walk around and cited the school for a safety violation because of the empty fire extinguishers and Deckard had to fill out a lot of paperwork and give some of his staff a mental health week off to keep them from quitting.

He didn’t get home that night until ten thirty and when he walked in the door Rachael asked him how his day was.  He said it was okay.  But then she looked at him and said, “You forgot the gherkins!”

So, he turned around and headed off to the grocery store with his walking stick blinking along.  She said after him, “Men are so easily distracted.”

Oppenheimer (2023) – A Movie Review

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I finally got around to watching this movie.  This won’t be a full review because I don’t think I can be completely fair to the movie.  Christopher Nolan has been a big-time director for a good long while.  His Batman trilogy earned gazillions of dollars and was actually very good.  Now this movie is a very different animal.  I don’t think it is supposed to be entertainment in the same way.  It’s a biopic and a historical recreation of a very important event, the Manhattan Project; the invention of the atomic bomb.

As the story of the Manhattan Project, it is fascinating and compelling.  The biopic is a combination of experiences.  Oppenheimer himself is very odd duck.  From his own admission he was not a great physicist like Fermi, Einstein or Bohr.  He was a dilettante who found himself surrounded by the generation that invented quantum mechanics and became their interpreter and project manager in shepherding all the pieces needed to allow the US military to get the a-bomb in 1945.

And we hear his history as a retrospective because the movie is really the story of how Oppenheimer; this critical individual in the ushering in of the nuclear era, loses his US government security clearance due to his former association with communists and other less reputable individuals in his circle of friends.  We are also led through the less than honorable path of his love life.  And we see how his concerns about the dangers of nuclear weapons seem somewhat inconsistent depending upon where his role in producing the bomb stands.  While ensconced in the project he seems not at all conflicted.  But once he and his colleagues have handed over the bombs to the Army and the spotlight is no longer on him, his qualms grow exponentially.  As a viewer of the story, this seems clear.

The movie is populated with famous names and faces, some of them very hard to recognize.  Robert Downey Jr. is Lewis Strauss, Oppenheimer’s implacable foe who hounds him out of the government circle of influence.  Emily Blunt is Kitty Oppenheimer, his wife.  Matt Damon is Gen. Leslie Groves, director of the Manhattan Project.  Josh Hartnett is Ernest Lawrence, a Nobel-winning nuclear physicist.  Kenneth Branagh is the brilliant physicist Niels Bohr.  Tom Conti is Albert Einstein and weirdest of all Gary Oldman is Harry S. Truman.

And there’s all kinds of good acting.  I especially enjoyed the “physicists seemingly engrossed in the endless details of making a weapon out of their incomprehensible mathematical equations.  There is a critical scene where Edward Teller, the father of the H-Bomb stops the project when his calculations seem to indicate that there is a very high probability that setting off a fission bomb could ignite the whole atmosphere of Earth and end all life on the planet.  That is a pivotal scene where eventually even Einstein is consulted.

And the climactic Trinity test scene in the desert is very effective.

But it’s a three-hour movie and that means we see quite a bit of J. Robert Oppenheimer and I have to admit I didn’t find him the most sympathetic character to follow for that three-hours.  It’s a good movie.  But I ended it wishing it had been more about Matt Damon’s character and that’s an odd feeling for me.

An Entertaining Movie Review of “Independence Day”

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There is a YouTube channel for a guy that calls himself “The Critical Drinker.”  He has some kind of Gaelic brogue whether it’s Irish or Scottish or fake.  And he pretends to be drunk in every review.  And he swears a blue streak so be warned in advance that his videos are not safe for work or home or anywhere that genteel ears are present.  But he is extremely funny and his criticism is often very accurate.  This review of Independence Day is well done and identifies why this ridiculous film is still so enjoyable despite being a ridiculous film.

My Thoughts on the New Movie, “Civil War”

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I have not gone to see the new movie “Civil War.”  And unless something comes out to convince me otherwise, I won’t be.  I watched a bunch of video reviews by people who went to the early IMAX screening.  And based on these reviews I understood that the director wanted the audiences to feel that the movie is drawing no comparison between the existing political sides in the United States and the fictional factions that are at war in the movie.

The director wants the audience to think that the movie is about the unstoppable desire of the four journalists to document the war and also about the horrors that would break out in the event of an American Civil War.  So that doesn’t sound like a partisan set-up waiting to mug unsuspecting conservatives after they plunk down their hard-earned movie money.  But the more I thought about the details of the movie the less convinced I was that this was an even-handed film.

I think the first “tell” I found was the fact that in the movie the dictatorial three term president had disbanded the FBI.  Now everyone knows that the FBI is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Obama/Clinton/Biden crime cartel.  And that Donald Trump has called for the FBI to be purged and possibly closed down.  To me this is the clearest sign that the rogue authoritarian president is meant to be Trump.

The second sign that the civil war is being presented as a battle between the Left and the Right is the scene where a “white” militiaman is pointedly asking the non-white journalist what kind of an American he is.  The implication is that at least one of the seceding entities is made up of white nationalists murdering non-whites.

But for me the thing that makes it most likely that I won’t enjoy this movie is the choice of protagonists.  The heroes of this drama are intrepid journalists.  These pillars of democracy are there to present the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help them CNN.  After all, when might we have seen journalists reporting from a war zone with less than the complete truth?  Hmmm.  Oh, I remember, the fiery, but mostly peaceful George Floyd riots when half of America’s cities were looted and burned.  Yeah, that was it!  Why wouldn’t I buy into a movie where these paragons of objectivity were the heroes?

Based on the reviews and the statements made by the cast and director they are putting this forward as a completely neutral film.  Well, of course they are.  Alienating the half of the country that enjoys action movies is a recipe for box office failure for a movie like this.  But I’m extremely tired of paying for movies that portray me as what’s wrong with this country.  I’ll let someone else pay for that.

And it’s a shame I won’t be going.  From what I’ve read and seen, the war sequences are pretty exciting.  And they do blow up Washington DC pretty convincingly, which sounds like fun.  Maybe I’ll wait until it’s streaming for free or I can rent it from the public library.  Oh, and one last thing.  The guy who plays the evil president doesn’t look like him but he sounds exactly like Mike Pence.  I’m okay if the Western Alliance takes old Mike away for high crimes and misdemeanors.  That I’d be okay with.