"Mad Max: Fury Road"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

I love that the most striking feature of “Mad Max: Fury Road”—which, on the surface, is as actiony an action movie as it gets—is its socio-political message. I love this not because I agree with the message (though I pretty much do), but because the care and nuance with which it is communicated gives a soul to a movie that could very well have been soulless (and unoriginal and mundane), and because it illustrates how, as if through magic, movies can show us things that cannot be told.

But first things first: Through every fault of their own, human civilization has been reduced to the Citadel. And the Citadel really sucks. Well, everywhere really sucks—maybe even worse than the Citadel. It’s all because everyone lost their minds and forgot to be people and started blowing up the whole world. At any rate, the Citadel really sucks. Like everywhere else, it is hot, and dry, and dusty, and brownish red. It looks like everyone’s whole body is doing The Cinnamon Challenge all at once, minus the sweetness.

But unlike all the other desolate places in the bleak, bombed-out wasteland that was once Earth, the Citadel is crowded—it has swarms of starving people everywhere, armies of goblin-like men painted in white, and a ruthless ruler—Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne)—who hoards every drop of resources, brutally oppresses his people, and yet acts like their gracious benefactor at the same time.

So it is understandable that Mad Max (Tom Hardy) didn’t want to come to the Citadel. He was too busy roaming around feeling guilty and horrified by something in his past (something like he failed to save some people he loved). But the gang of goblin-like men (aka “War Boys”) captures him for use as a host for Nux (Nicholas Hoult), who is one of the War Boys and seems to have an illness that requires fresh blood.

Things get even worse for Max when he is mounted atop a pursuit vehicle chasing after rogue Imperator, Furiosa (Charlize Theron), who was supposed to be getting more gas for Joe and his gang, but instead ran off with several of Joe’s mothers (i.e., women used for breeding more men). Joe seems to care about his mothers above all else—not because he really cares about them, but because he prizes them as possessions. So he wants them back.

Hence, the chase is on along Fury Road. This is a long road—Max, Furiosa, Joe, Nux, and all sorts of other marauders, War Boys, bandits, barons, etc., race and crash and fight and scream and crash along the road for most of the rest of the movie. And it is furious. No one seems happy. The closest thing is a kind of rabid, ferocious glee coursing through the testosterone infused man-gasmic hoard that is pursing Fioriosa—a glee embodied by the insistent flailing of an electric guitar player atop a mobile fortress of blaring speakers that is in on the chase.

Furiosa wants a new life free of her male oppressors. Joe et al. want to further oppress. Max is caught in the middle. It’s a last-man or last-woman standing type of situation, though it is never obvious who, if anyone, will end up on top of the heap of rubble.

“Mad Max: Fury Road” is striking in several ways. First, it has a very distinctive style—quick cuts, extensive death and destruction, sped up action sequences, hyper-stylized sets, and an almost cartoonish wardrobe (all of which is reminiscent of Baz Lurhman’s overwrought style). Second, 95 percent of the movie is action: Racing, punching, jumping, shooting, flipping, exploding, etc. I tend to get bored with such pervasive action. For me, watching constant, indistinguishable explosions can be more monotonous (and less pleasant) than staring out a window. But after a worrisome first half-hour, the storyline picks up and injects enough drama into the movie to keep the action captivating.

Third, and relatedly, there is very little dialogue in this movie. Almost all of the emotion and drama are communicated—very effectively, I might add—via looks, body language, and Tom Hardy’s gruff yet charming grunts.

Finally—and this is what is getting “Mad Max” the most attention—is the feminist ideology of the film. From very early on it is clear that its men who screwed this up. And, with all their thoughtless, macho war mongering, its men who are continuing to screw this up. The only hope for a future—and for redemption—is to elevate a group of women who are extremely badass and yet mercifully reluctant to harm (and, indeed, have a positive view as to how to flourish, as opposed to a purely negative, vengeful solution to every problem) whilst the men are defeated, subverted, or else willingly yield leadership.

And that—despite all the racing, running, punching, jumping and exploding—is what is most striking about “Mad Max: Fury Road”.

"Ex Machina"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), a nerdy computer programmer, wins first prize! Who knows for what, but hey, Caleb is pretty excited about it. All Caleb knows is he gets to spend a week with Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the founder of Blue Book (read: Google), which is a tech company that is best known for its search engine that handles almost all internet searches.

At first Nathan seems like some kind of burly bro hipster. He is personable at times, but he also has a mad scientist way about him. When Nathan jokes to Caleb that he had all the people who built his home killed to protect his secrets, you know it is a joke, but you also look into Nathan’s squirrely eyes and think, “Um, are you maybe serious?”

Nathan is also a hermit. He lives way out in the middle of nowhere in a very secure, high-tech compound. When Caleb is flown in by helicopter, the pilot has to leave him a ways off from the compound because the pilot is not allowed to get any closer.

So what’s the prize? Well, Caleb gets to stay with Nathan, hang out with Nathan, party with Nathan (oh, yeah, Nathan is an alcoholic). But most importantly, Caleb gets to see Nathan’s latest work—his work on artificial intelligence.

Hence, Caleb meets Ava (Alice Vikander). Ava is artificial. That is clear from the humming machinery visible through the transparent skin covering most of her body. But Ava is also intelligent. Her speech, while a tad formal, is smooth and responsive to nuanced questions, and her facial expressions are subtle and remarkably human.

And so it turns out that this “prize” week is really Nathan’s way of getting Caleb to put Ava through the so-called “Turing Test”. The Turing Test has someone interface via a computer with one human and one robot/computer, and if this someone cannot tell which is which, the robot passes the test. Some people think this is a test for intelligence, thought, a mind, or even consciousness (though even Turing himself recognized its limitations with respect to the latter). But Nathan brings Caleb in for a sort of extended Turing Test: Caleb does not interact with Ava via a computer. He talks to her, interviews her, confides in her, listens to her desires and worries, gauges her facial expressions, weighs her movements, and so on. This is supposed to be the ultimate, decisive test for intelligence.

And that is what this film is all about. It has a singular focus: The Turing(-ish) Test. It is all about the test in one form or another. And one of the beauties is that we, the audience, are the ones running the test. Caleb is the interviewer, but we are the judges. Is Ava a person? Does she have a mind? Is she conscious? And it’s not just Ava. More generally: Who are the real people, and who are mere automata? And, by extension: Who is to be praised or blamed, who deserves freedom or punishment, and whose life is worth preserving?

I like that filmmaker Alex Garland is so obsessed with this Turing Test idea. Focus is good. But it is also risky. It is risky because if the heady AI stuff fails to come off, there isn’t anything else to back it up. There is little else driving this movie.

But, at the end of the day, who really cares? This is a sci-fi movie. Risks are what it’s all about. What matters is that “Ex Machina” stokes the imagination. It succeeds in its playing around with ideas—with this notion of external marks of the mental, in particular, and with the forms and importance of observation more generally. I say, “playing around” because “Ex Machina” is a sandbox. It is play—an exploration. It is not about answers (though it does eventually offer some answers, which is regrettable given how the rest of the film goes). This movie is about possibilities, what-ifs, potential advances and dangers, and an examination of what we are, could be, or could do.

Now, “Ex Machina” does not ask any new questions or raise any new puzzles. But it does offer a fun look at some really good questions and some really interesting puzzles.

"Get Hard"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

James (Will Ferrell) is rich. How rich? Well, when James’ fiancée tells him she thinks they should get a bigger house, her voice echoes down the corridors of their enormous mansion replete with arches and balconies and fountains and servants busy making it all sparkle. That’s how rich.

In “Get Hard”, James wants for nothing. He is a day trader who spins gold from straw. If he wanted to, he could swim in his money a la Scrooge McDuck.

That is, until the feds show up and charge him with fraud. James promises he didn’t do it, and he is sure his team of lawyers will get him off. But he is wrong. Then he thinks at least he will be safe in a minimum-security, white-collar resort prison. Wrong again. The judge decides to send a message and gives James 30 days before he has to report to San Quentin, a maximum-security prison teeming with murderers and rapists.

James is concerned. Surely his delicate, pampered frame will not withstand the hardships of prison. If he is going to survive, he needs to get hard.

So he goes to Darnell (Kevin Hart), the only black guy he knows. Actually, he doesn’t even really know him. They just ran into each other one day in a parking garage. James thought Darnell was trying to rob him. But cooler heads prevailed, and James promised he would have had the same reaction if Darnell were white.

But, given that Darnell is black, James does assume that he has been to prison and is therefore quite hard. So he offers to pay Darnell 30 grand to turn him into a bruiser. Darnell needs the money. So he agrees to help.

The problem: Darnell is not hard. He has never been to prison. He has never committed a crime. He knows nothing about gangs, toughness, fighting, or surviving prison. He is an average, middle class family man who owns a small business.

But, again, Darnell needs the money. So he plays along, acting like he knows what he is talking about, and putting James through his paces. James is a joke at first, big surprise. He can barely handle trash talk, let alone faux solitary confinement or a mild beating. His case looks hopeless.

Yet, over time, in his own silly and peculiar way, James starts to get a little a tougher, a little more savvy, and just a little bit harder. His trash talk is weird, but effective. He still cannot take a beating, but he weirds people out enough to keep them at bay.

All the while further details about his case are emerging. The closer James gets to going to jail, the closer he gets to figuring out why, and the closer he gets to being able to demonstrate his innocence. But time is running out.

Now, I should say, before seeing “Get Hard”, I was 100% committed to panning it. I pictured myself writing something like, “This movie is just a gimmick,” or “Every good joke is in the trailer. So don’t waste your time,” or “Just another goofy Will Ferrell movie exploiting his lumpy white male lameness.”

Now after seeing the movie, I admit that I have lost some of my resolve. Everything I was going to say is probably still true. The movie is a gimmick. It is one-dimensional. And so much of it does trade on the deep biological incongruence between Ferrell’s pasty body and the demands of being hard. But this movie is also kind of funny. Ferrell and Hart are charming, and they do have good chemistry. The jokes are extraordinarily predictable. But they are well executed, and easy to chuckle at.

So although “Get Hard” is a bad movie, it is a bad movie that is tough not to like just a little.

"Kingsman: The Secret Service"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

The post-Oscar hangover is harsh. The highs of movies like “Boyhood”, “Birdman”, and “The Grand Budapest Hotel”—which, by my estimation, are higher than most years’ highs—are replaced by the crushing lows of “Hot Tub Time Machine 2”, “The Lazarus Effect”, and “Fifty Shades of Grey”. A year in cinema always has peaks and troughs. This, alas, is no peak.

Which is not to say that there is nothing worth seeing out there. For example, “Kingsman: The Secret Service”, whilst, again, hardly being a high point, is enjoyable. This movie—which was actually released just before the Oscars—is a wild ride. It is way over the top. It is fantastical. And it is so earnestly unserious about itself that it makes for a good time.

The Kingsman—the group, not the movie—is a very secret, very elite British spy organization responsible for responding to and eliminating the world’s biggest threats. Well, actually, that’s not quite right. After all, global warming is plausibly one of the world’s biggest threats. And, ironically, it is this film’s villain—media mogul, Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson)—who is all about eliminating global warming (by eliminating its cause—i.e., us!). But more on that in a moment.

The Kingsman does, at very least, deal with a lot of the conventional spy organization, James Bond-style threats—you know, terrorists, Nazis, communists, etc.

This is dangerous work, as you might expect, and full of tragedy. So when agent Harry Hart (Colin Firth) loses a fellow Kingsman one day, he takes it hard. So hard, in fact, that he dedicates his life to making it up to his fallen comrade’s baby son, Gary ‘Eggsy’ Unwin (Taron Egerton).

By the time he has grown up, Eggsy is a smart, talented, and sometimes charming kid. But he is also rough around the edges. He comes from a tough neighborhood. The streets are his playground. So when Harry comes knocking to recruit Eggsy for the Kingsman, both know there will be some growing pains.

And growing pains there are. Eggsy endures brutal and exhausting training as part of a competition with other recruits for the single open spot in the Kingsman. The way that Eggsy responds to challenges is unconventional and sometimes awkward. However, to his credit, he rather quickly learns to use his out-of-the-box approach to his advantage.

Unfortunately evil does not wait for training to complete. While Eggsy and his fellow candidates are still in their learning phase, Valentine is busy plotting the demise of the civilized world. His thing is global warming. He thinks of the human race as a virus or parasite feeding off the earth. And since us viruses are just ignoring what we are doing to the environment, Valentine sees it as his prerogative to cure Mother Earth of its disease.

The Kingsman do not agree, of course—well, at least not for the most part. So, ready or not, Harry, Eggsy and crew must spring into action.

“The Kingsman” has several immediate advantages that have nothing to do with plot, character development, conflict, catharsis, metaphor, or anything very sophisticated like that. First: immensely charming actors in snappy clothes. This advantage should not be underestimated. Second, this movie’s choreography and cinematography—particularly during the many comically brutal fight scenes—are stunningly engaging. Again, the force of this advantage should not be underestimated.

The question is whether “The Kingsman” can do what a movie like, say, the second “Matrix” could not do—that is, either transcend its immediate, relatively superficial advantages, or else ply those advantages to such great effect that it is possible to ignore its other deficiencies. It is a close call whether “The Kingsman” does either of these things. Its plot is formulaic and predictable. And there is not a whole lot else to grab onto and love. But it is not a disaster, either. It is plenty fun. And it certainly is no “Matrix Reloaded”.

Thank God.

"Black Sea"

By Matt Duncan
Coastal View News

I tend not to like submarine movies. They just remind me that stressfulness and boredom are not mutually exclusive. Yeah, all those depth charges, red flashing lights, sweaty faces, and steam are plenty stressful. But, my goodness, they can be pretty dull. It’s like a slow, constant drip of water on your skin: both monotonous and torture.

I would not call “Black Sea” torture, though. It’s not a day in the park either, nor is it a quiet evening in, or even a swashbuckling adventure. It is predictably watchable.

“Black Sea” makes sure to remind you of the darker, and perhaps more intriguing, days of submarining—the Cold War, in particular, but also some of the Nazi U-Boats and WWII. But this movie is not really about all that. It is about Captain Robinson (Jude Law), who is a present-day submarine captain working for a corporation that, you know, needs submarines. That is, until he gets laid off. After all, who really needs submarines these days?

Robinson is pissed and doesn’t know what to do. He dedicated his whole life to submarining—and even sacrificed relationships with his son and former wife—and doesn’t really have anything to fall back on

But then a friend—also an out-of-sorts ex-submariner—tells him about this really hush-hush, really dangerous, certainly very illegal, opportunity. He tells Robinson that once upon a time the Soviets made a deal with the Nazis that involved shipping (via submarine) tens of millions of dollars in solid gold back over to the Third Reich. But on the way back through the Black Sea, the gold-laden submarine crashed. Either everyone forgot about the submarine—kinda a lot going on back then—or else they could not get to it, because, according to Robinson’s friend, the submarine is still there.

So of course what could be better for out-of-work sailors than to go on a treasure hunt? So that’s just what they do. They get their hands on an old Soviet sub, assemble a half-Russian, half-British crew, and set sail for the wreck.

The good-hearted, magnanimous Robinson tells his crew that, after paying their backers, they are going to split the treasure evenly between them. Jackpot! Right? Well, the problem is, the divers start to think, “Why does that there cook get as much as me?” And the beastly Russian engine-room worker thinks, “Well if one of these Brits happens to die on the job, there is more for the rest of us.” In other words, discontent is sown.

And of course it only gets worse, because, as we all know, a ride on a submarine is never smooth—whether it is a power failure, sinking below crush depth, enemy torpedoes and depth charges (which, mercifully, do not make an appearance in this film), or just those random yet seemingly ubiquitous hull breaches, something must go awry. I’m pretty sure Murphy Law’s was made with submarining in mind.

All that is to say, “Black Sea” has plenty of the stress and tension you would expect from a submarine movie. You really do feel like it would absolutely definitely suck to be on a submarine when something goes wrong. And I, at least, had the opportunity to once again thank my lucky stars that I am a landlubber.

But, for all its heart-pounding, stress-inducing drama, “Black Sea” remains strikingly conventional. This or that particular scene may not be predictable, but the movie as a whole sure is. Jude Law and the rest of the cast do an admirable job bringing the amusing (albeit contrived) story to life. But all the plot points just feel too familiar.

So yes, you will still feel the stress, just like you will still feel a punch in the gut even if you know it (or something like it) is coming. But whereas a punch in the gut always feels pretty fresh—it never gets old, if you know what I mean—“Black Sea” does feel somewhat stale.