DUNE PART TWO

Directing: A-
Acting: A-
Writing: B+
Cinematography: A
Editing: B+
Special Effects: A

The word “iconic” has been overused for decades. For this reason, I don’t ever use it. Maybe Dune Part Two is the exception that proves the rule. There is a moment in this film that is so visually iconic, it looks like the cover of a pulp science fiction novel come to life. There’s nothing kitschy about it, though; it’s very earnest—a key element of both these movies’ success.

I have to admit, I spent a fair amount of Dune Part Two thinking that it might not be living up to the hype. I wanted to be bowled over, overwhelmed by my love for it, and that wasn’t quite happening. The thing is, that’s just not how Denis Villeneuve operates. This is an artist with such unparalleled skill as a storyteller, you need to regard the piece in its entirely before you can properly judge it. This movie does not disappoint.

There’s something about Dune Part One, released in the fall of 2021—two and a half years ago—that makes it stand apart. I really liked that film when I first saw it, but I didn’t love it. And yet, every single time I rewatch that film, I appreciate it more than the last. I’ve seen it at least four times now, and I still notice new details every time.

It is for that reason that I expect the same thing with Dune Part Two. I’m not yet prepared to declare my undying love for it, but, much like Paul Atreides’s visions, I can see a near future where I’ve gotten to that point. I am genuinely looking forward to seeing this movie again, and will certainly be seeing it many times. This first go-round, I know there is much I did not catch, which is to be expected with films so well adapted from literary source material, but material I have not read. I have started to consider reading it, though.

I am especially looking forward to the point at which both Dune Part One and Dune Part Two are avaiable to watch together, back to back, as one film. Part One was two hours and 35 minutes long; Part Two is two hours and 46 minutes; the two combined, as one interrupted narrative, would make a five hour and 21-minute movie. When combined, maybe one of the greatest science fiction films ever made.

Has anyone else thought to compare this to Kill Bill Vol. I and Kill Bill Vol. II? Wildly different movies, obviously, but a key thing in common: a first part that ends abruptly, with much of the story clearly left to go—but incredible up to that point. Then the second, concluding part comes out, and even the first part is improved when regarded as part of the whole.

And there’s a lot new to discover in Dune Part Two, particularly when it comes to the cast. Zendaya had all of seven minutes of screen time in the first Dune, and as expected, here becomes a critical part of the story. She is great as expected as Chani, as is Timothée Chalamet as Paul—effectively embodying a young man who is maturing, for both good and for ill, before our eyes—but I simply must mention Austin Butler, as Feyd-Rautha, nephew to the grotesque Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård). I could already tell from Elvis that he was a very good actor, but only when comparing that to his performance here does Austin Butler prove to be an astonishing talent. He’s not just the most eminently believable psychotic character in this movie, but he takes it a step further with an incredible vocal performance just similar enough to Stellan Skarsgård’s to make him believable as a relative of his.

There’s a lot of other new famous faces introduced to Part Two: Christopher Walken as the Emperor; Florence Pugh as his daughter, Stellan Skarsgård; Léa Seydoux as Lady Margot Fenring, one of the Bene Gesserit; even Anya Taylor-Joy as a flash-forward of Paul’s little sister. Unfortunately, none of these top-notch actors get much to work with, while Chalamet, Zendaya, Rebecca Ferguson (as Paul’s mother, Jessica), Josh Brolin and especially Javier Bardem get all the desert scenery to chew. Anya Taylor-Joy get about one minute, if that, of screen time.

It’s understandable, however, for them all to want to be part of something that is greater than the sum of its parts. There may not be any better example of that phrase than the two Dune movies—and, incidentally, unlike many other franchises, you absolutely need to have seen Dune Part One in order to fully appreciate, or possibly even understand, this movie. They really should be regarded as part of a collective whole, like Kill Bill or The Lord of the Rings.

The special effects, once again, are spectacular. Even more of this film takes place on the desert planet of Arrakis than the previous one did, and still Villenueve makes it a work of art, between the incredible cinematography and the seamlessly integrated visual effects. The fact alone that he manages to render characters riding sandworms without it looking ridiculous is an impressive accomplishment. The sandworms alone give the film an arresting, visual grandeur.

None of this would matter, of course, without such rich storytelling, in a fully realized, wholly separate universe. For much of this film, we see Paul learn the ways of the Fremen, the people native to the desert, fighting alongside them, protesting their insistence that he is their Messiah while also using that faith to his advantage. This film certainly has more to say about religion, a running subtext to the intergalactic political intrigue and fighting between different planetary clans. Which of these “houses” will ultimately gain the greatest power is incidental to the means by which this power is attained.

I will say, I could feel large swaths of the source material left unaddressed, at least not directly, while watching Dune Part Two. But, like Dune Part One, it is denslely packed with information, which no doubt gives greater satisfaction to those familiar with the books, and more easily picked up on by the rest of us with subsequent viewings. “Epic” is another word I try to avoid because of its overuse, but it is unavoidable here. This is an epic film for the 21st century, done right in a way it hasn’t been for decades, a classic that might just be beloved for generations to come.

Just when you wonder when there will be shock and awe . . . it comes.

Overall: A-

I.S.S.

Directing: C+
Acting: B+
Writing: C
Cinematography: B
Editing: C
Special Effects: B

I.S.S. isn’t smart enough to be a clever thriller, and it isn’t dumb enough to be “dumb fun.” Didn’t these astronauts ever learn about the “Goldilocks Zone”?

At least The Beekeeper has the decency to feature exciting fight choreography, fun explosions, innovative death scenes, and groan-worthy “protect the hive” metaphors. I.S.S. seems to think it can skate on the supposed novelty of its premise, with all of six characters—three of them American, three of them Russian—directed to “take control” of the International Space Station after nuclear armageddon occurs on the Earth below.

Here’s the question I couldn’t let go of. What’s the fucking point? Writer Nick Shafir and director Gabriela Cowperthwaite would have us believe it’s a sensible expectation that some of these characters have hope of returning home. They want to see their kids again!

Earth to I.S.S. crew! Your kids have been incinerated! Not once does any one of these characters even entertain this as a possibility. The nuclear flashes seen on the planet’s surface below are in the dozens, do they think all that radiation is just going to mind its own business on one side of the Earth?

Cowperthwaite once directed the very good 2013 documentary Blackfish, about the tragic consequences of keeping orcas in captivity. What the hell is she doing here? I’d say this is the cinematic equivalent of a corporate CEO winding up living in a ditch, but I should be fair, that’s a little harsh. It’s more like a corporate CEO winding up the manager of a regional Sizzler.

I suppose these metaphors are a little random. They’re definitely more creative than any of the boilerplate ideas presented in I.S.S., which seems on the surface like it’s . . . fine. If you’re at or below average intelligence, this movie might work for you. If you think about it for a minute, you might realize this movie is insulting your intelligence. You might be forgiven for missing that, given all the actors have a charismatic and competent screen presence. They’re kind of fun to hang out with, even if nothing they do or say ultimately makes a great amount of sense.

The story begins with two American astronauts in transport to the I.S.S.: John Gallagher Jr. as Christian Campbell and Ariana DeBose as newcomer bioengineer Dr. Kira Foster. I was skeptical of this film’s logic from the start, given a book I read recently that covered how strict NASA is about bringing personal effects into space, as the slightest added weight comes at exorbitant cost. But, Campbell rides the rocket with one of his kids’ squeeze toys in his hand.

Sure, I came in hot with the nitpicking: it’s just a movie, right? So, these two join the four others already on the station: Gordon Barrett (Chris Messina), evidently the highest ranking American astronaut; and the three Russians cosmonauts: Weronika Vetrov (Masha Mashkova); and brothers Nichoai Pulov (Costa Ronin) and Alexey Pulov (Pilov Asbæk). I guess I’ll give I.S.S. points for casting actual Russian actors.

We see them all settle in; Foster has brought some mice with her. We see the six of them pal around, exchange Christmas gifts. None of this is particularly interesting. The script neatly sidesteps any details about what might have prompted the assured mutual destruction: “We don’t ever talk politics,” they say. “And we definitely don’t talk about what’s going on down there.” What is going on down there, anyway? People gettin trigger happy, apparently.

To me, the most astounding thing about I.S.S. is that no one responds to the unfolding events with any kind of existential crisis. Somehow being stranded on a space station during a nuclear annihilation makes them all safe? Oh wait, one of the scientists on board was working on a radiation treatment! Okay, but why the hell would that research need to be done in space? No matter, we have four or five vials of it to return to the surface and save humanity!

This treatment is just used as a minor plot turn somewhere in the second half of the movie. What Cowperthwaite wants us to focus on is the idea of global conflict distilled down to these six characters, three on each side, with shifting allegiances. In more capable hands, this actually could have been a taut, gripping thriller, an exploration of the human psyche under extraordinary and desperate circumstances. Instead we’ve just got an entire film crew phoning it in.

I.S.S. could have been much, much worse. The script could have been utter garbage instead of just blandly ridiculous. They could have cast bad actors instead of the clearly talented ones here, evidently just getting a paycheck. Good for them, get that cash! If anything were to save this movie, it would be this cast. Unfortunately, once I finish writing this review, I’m going to forget this movie completely and just move on with my life.

Hang in there! This movie might get better. JKJK

Overall: C+

THE MARVELS

Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: B
Cinematography: B-
Editing: B+
Special Effects: B

The Marvels has all the same old bullshit I tired of eons ago in these superhero “universes”—the supposed stakes of saving the world; the CGI-laden action climax; the same broad story arc as dozens of other superhero movies just like it. Even worse, it relies too heavily on “MCU world building” that connects all these movies, the onetime novelty where the collective audience consensus finally seems to be: we’re over it.

And yet: there are things that set The Marvels apart. Like Captain Marvel (2019) before it, this is the exceptionally rare movie about a woman superhero. Indeed, this time, it’s about three women superheroes—one of whom is a woman of color. I am all about supporting movies like this, just to keep the studios keyed into the idea that they clearly have an audience. But, it also helps if the movie is actually good.

One of the unfortunate things for viewers who haven’t consumed all of the MCU content is that The Marvels, like most MCU movies anymore, relies on shorthand assumed to be understood by viewers who have. I’ve heard moderately good things about the Disney+ series Ms Marvel, but haven’t gotten around to seeing it, so this film is my introduction to her—otherwise known as Kamala Khan (Iman Vellani)—as a character. Incidentally, I did watch WandaVision on Disney+, but even two years ago is long enough for all the MCU mediocrity I’ve viewed to simply blend together in my memory. I know I liked Teyonah Parris’s screen presence as Monica Rambeau then, and I still do now.

How it comes to pass that Kamala, Monica, and Carol Danvers (Brie Larson), Captain Marvel herself, have found themselves in a predicament wherein every time they use their power at the same time, they teleport to swtich locations, I could not pretend to explain. The Marvels is packed with science fiction techno babble that is utterly meaningless, and all you can do is let it go. If you keep an open mind to the objective stupidness, The Marvels is actually pretty fun.

It’s the scenes where it goes gonzo-bonkers that I wish it had more of. Goose, the “flerkin” who looks like a regular domesticated house cat but is actually an alien that can swallow things exponentially larger with giant tentacles coming out of his mouth, was easily my favorite thing about Captain Marvel in 2019, and that remains true now. And director Nia DaCosta, along with her team of writers, really ups the ante with Goose this time around: Goose’s ability to swallow giant things whole, and then cough it up like a hairball later, slimy but otherwise completely unharmed, becomes a pivotal plot point. I didn’t know I needed to hear an overhead intercom voice say in a deadpan tone, “Don’t run from the flerkins. Let them eat you.” But it arguably made my week.

In other words: I came for the cats. Or the flerkins, to be more specific. Not to get too far into spoiler territory here, but this time we get more than just goose, but in a way you may not be able to predict, and it’s bizarre, fun, and hilarious.

I just wish flerkins weren’t the only area in which The Maevels leans into getting super weird. Weird is good! The rest of it, really, is just rote. The villain, Dar-Benn, is just dull (through no fault of Zawe Ashton, who does the best with what she has to work with), and represents otherworldly aspects of the Carol Danvers / Captain Marvel story that come across like a cross between Superman and Star Trek, with dying suns and generations of alien-ethnic rivalries. The stuff Captain Marvel has to condend with is rarely earthbound, and within the MCU context—Guardians of the Galaxy notwithstanding—it makes her less interesting. The most interesting superheroes are specimens of flawed humanity contenting with awesome responsibilities, who are dealing with other human beings.

All that said, Larson, Parris and Vellani have an undeniable chemistry as a trio, and the addition of Khan is particularly welcome, with her South Asian family getting the kind of representation seldom seen in films like this. Her parents, played by Mohan Kapur and Zenobia Shroff, make the most of the screen time they are given—even as a fight takes place in their house that destroys a bunch of their stuff, and even blows a hole in their ceiling. This is the kind of stuff that annoys me, the massive collateral damage that barely gets acknowledged, or might just get a sigh or an eye roll. Sure, these movies are utter fantasies, but if you are going to set any part of them on our version of Earth, there should be some modicum of groundnedness.

But, yet again, I nitpick. I guess you could say this is my passion. After Goose the flerkin, my second favorite thing about The Marvels is the run time: one hour and forty-five minutes. I saw that and thought I must be dreaming, it was so shockingly reasonable. Did someone get fired so another person could finally come in and say it’s okay to stop making these movies as though we are pretending they’re epics? There are many complaints one can have about The Marvels, but at the very least it’s not bloated.

Instead, it’s a breezy hang with three very different women with great chemistry, and a mouth-tentacled alien cat. If we could just get more weirdness on the level of kitty tentacles and less in the way of tired plot tropes, we’d really be getting somewhere. On the other hand, even a meaningless good time is still a good time.

People aren’t talking enough about how Tango is the real star of the movie.

Overall: B

THE CREATOR

Directing: B
Acting: B+
Writing: C
Cinematography: B+
Editing: B
Special Effects: B+

The Creator is a visual achievement, and if that’s all you need, it will work very well for you. It’s also a narrative mess.

This film seems to be leaning into ideas of xenophobia, American exceptionalism, the narrative structure of Apocalypse Now (which itself was a loose adaptation of the 1899 Jospeh Conrad novella Heart of Darkness), and even, arguably, both-sides-ism. The script, co-written by Chris Weitz and director Gareth Edwards, doesn’t fully commit to any of these things to achieve any truly crystalized ideas. This movies seems to want, at the same time, to entertain both American military jingoists and self-identified compassionate leftists.

It’ll probably satisfy average viewers just looking to watch a science-fiction action movie. And on that front, it does impress: Gareth Edwards, with previous directorial offerings from Monsters (2010) to Godzilla (2014) to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), has an established history as a gifted visual storyteller. He knows how to integrate visual effects on a modest budget that serve the story rather than the other way around. And in The Creator, every scene is visually compelling. with attention paid to every part of the frame, foreground as well as background. Combined with the production design, it makes for very effective world building.

I just wish the story these things are serving were better. Too many things don’t add up, not least of which is the idea of a world threatened by AI that exists in self-contained, individual robot units, some of them with only robot parts, some with heads and faces indistinguishable from humans, aside from cylindrical holes that pass through where ears would otherwise be. I’m frankly astonished that Edwards would make a movie like this without once considering the idea of, say, a wifi network in which all of these machines are connected to each other, as one unified whole. These AI “beings” exist as though they are all singular personalities, much like androids. Except this is never the way that would go, especially if humanity were to declare war on the lot of them, as has happened here—due to a coding error that resulted in Los Angeles getting nuked, fifteen years before the events of this movie.

We’re moving through the 2060s here. What’s the state of climate change, then? No one ever even mentions it. I suppose I’m nitpicking here, but still, I prefer movies like this to make sense. The best science fiction extrapolates from plausible, present-day realities, which this film all but ignores. Instead, it relies on wild plot contrivances.

I hesitate to even get into the moral quandary of “compassion” for artificial intelligence. Multiple times we hear the line: “It’s not real. It’s just programming.” This movie clearly wants us to hear that as misguided, and take the side of the AI. The problem with this is that “it’s just programming” is actually correct. Ironically, humanity is wildly vulnerable to emotional manipulation by AI to think it’s “alive,” and The Creator itself is a movie that successfully manipulates our emotions. To say there’s a lot to unpack with this movie is a wild understatement.

Further complicating matters is how undeniably entertaining it is, at least when you’re not thinking too much about its many plot holes and lapses in logic. John David Washington makes a great protagonist in this world, easily seduced by the adorableness of “the weapon,” a super-advanced “AI” being designed to look like a little girl, played by a seven-year-old Madeleine Yuna Voyles—complete with her own cylindrical hole through her head, ear to ear. These two have great chemistry together, and could have been a classic duo in a better written movie, the “lone wolf and cub” trope notwithstanding.

Between the acting, the cinematography, and the visual effects, The Creator has more than enough going for it to keep viewers rapt from start to finish. When it comes to the technical elements, this is a very well crafted film. If you don’t mind that it really has nothing original or even cohesive to say, then I guess it delivers.

Sure, it looks great if you only look skin deep.

BIOSPHERE

Directing: C+
Acting: B+
Writing: C-
Cinematography: B
Editing: B

I have wildly mixed feelings about Biosphere, which I really wanted to like. I also went into it quite eager to find out what this movie about two men stuck for years, with only each other, in a sealed biosphere after a global catastrophe, would have to say about sex, and attraction, and what having no other option does to people. We’ve all heard the stories about prison, right? Presumably this would be a similar scenario, just minus the criminal aspect.

What I did not expect was for it to tackle sexuality within minutes, and head on, and then effectively make it part of the entire premise. It just didn’t do it in anywhere near the way I thought it might, or even that I particularly wanted it to. I won’t spoil the turns the story takes, but I will say it felt a little bit like a copout, and like a movie that thinks it’s progressive is actually being a little regressive.

Beyond that, the premise has vast potential for deeply nuanced discussion of sexuality and gender roles, of which director Mel Eslyn, co-writing with Mark Duplass who also co-stars, barely scratches the surface. Instead we are presented with a pair of childhood friends who are now dealing with the fallout—quite literally, it would seem—of the most recent U.S. President’s deeply bad decisions, in the face of the advice of a best-friend advisor (from the opposing political party, no less).

The fact that these characters are middle-aged men who were recently the President and his advisor turns out to be utterly pointless. Very few truly political ideas get explored, and this backstory seems to exist only as a handy backstory and nothing more. I’d have found Biosphere much more successful were it about two best friends who happened to build a safe haven in a post-apocalyptic wasteland that was not of their own making. That way the story could focus on their relationship as friends and regular people, Americans sure, but the idea of their political leadership (or lack thereof) feels very awkwardly shoehorned in.

It also has nothing to do with the supposed “evolutionary jump” that occurs to the fish in their tiny pond, as well as to Billy and Ray themselves. And here we come to my biggest hangup about Biosphere, the same issue I had with last year’s Crimes of the Future: the preposterousness of a so-called leap in evolution that does not, could not, and will not ever happen. The fact that they even directly reference the “Life finds a way” quote from Jurassic Park is meant as amusing but just underscores how derivative this truly hair brained idea is. This could have been so much more incisive a story had Eslyn and Duplass merely stuck with an exploration of what forced, extended isolation with just one other person does to people in ways that are actually plausible.

To be fair, that is not especially the Duplass brand. Mark Duplass plays Billy, the former president; Sterling K. Brown plays Ray, the guy who was really pulling the strings—this being one of the sources of resentment between them, which could just as easily have been done without making them titans of politics now rendered restless man-children.

What eventually happens to them borders on otherworldly. A bonkers as the plot becomes, they are fun to watch together, and the one real compliment I will give to the writing is the fact that this is a two-hander in the truest sense of the phrase—we see no other actors onscreen, ever, except these two—and the film still manages to hold the viewer’s attention. Duplass and Brown feel like childhood friends.

But, the more Biosphere went on, the more embarrassed I became by it, as it couches itself in what it wants us to take on faith are extrapolations of real-world scientific ideas. Except that fish are not amphibians and humans are not fish, and Biosphere is finding ways to conflate them all in ways it hopes we won’t notice.

I might be willing to forgive a lot if, for instance, the fantastical things that occur were a springboard or nuanced examinations of human relationships. I think Biosphere is crafted to make us think that is indeed what it’s doing, except that every idea it examines, it does little more than regard as a slight amusement. This is a movie deeply confused about what it wants to be, which is a disservice to any of the legitimate ideas it touches on.

The laws of nature get thrown right out the biosphere window.

Overall: C+

SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE

Directing: A-
Acting: A-
Writing: B+
Cinematography: A-
Editing: A-
Animation: A+
Special Effects: A-

Some movies take a while to make clear they are great. Some take a few scenes, a few minutes, for it to sink in that you are watching something special. Once every few years, sometimes even a lot longer, a movie comes along that confidently announces it stands apart as of its opening frame.

The fact that Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is one of those movies is just one of many reasons why I love it. A movie this good that’s a sequel skirts the edges of astonishment. Would it be hyperbole to utter this film title in the same breath as The Empire Strikes Back? The Godfather Part II? Maybe. Time will tell. Right now, I am sorely tempted. I mean, I just did it.

I had been deeply impressed with this film’s predecessor, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse when it was released in 2018. It blew me away, and a film so skillfully nuanced, funny, entertaining and beautiful that was both a superhero movie and an animated feature almost defied belief. To say it exceeded expectations would be an understatement. What’s even more amazing is that there’s a strong argument to be made that Across the Spider-Verse is even better.

Its three-person writing team has only one in common with the first film (Phil Lord), and its three-person directing team is entirely new (including Soul co-director Kemp Powers). By definition, they still have to explore the endless possibilities of the wildly overused “multiverse” concept, but these animated films about it not only find almost shockingly clever angles with it, but actually improve with their own iterations. Somehow the convoluted plot mechanics actually make more sense this time around.

And they take their time with it: this movie is 140 minutes long—a record for an animated film—and it doesn’t even finish the story. I’m being careful not to spoil plot details here, but I do think it’s useful to know that the original title for this film was indeed officially Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse Part 1. Now they’ve dropped the Part 1 and the next installment will be called Beyond the Spider-Verse. It remains a part 1, though: with tons of story left to go, the film ends with a comic-book style caption: To Be Continued. It was an entertaining experience being in a theater full of people who did not already know to expect this. It was a unique combination of sounds that emitted out of the crowd.

And I cannot stress this enough: those minutes truly fly by. Like its predecessor, the animation is a sight to behold, that being the only consistency across different and distinct animation styles depending on the dimension we’re in. My favorite is the dimension the film opens in—after thrillingly rendered, animated title sequences that flip through dimension styles even through the many production company logos—which is the one home to “Spider-Gwen” (Hailey Steinfeld). The animation itself responds to characters’ emotional states, the colors of their environment flowing in waves away from them like water color paint.

Every style of animation is beautiful, though, an impressive feat given the many different, wildly differing styles, many of them clear visual references to literal comic book drawing and painting styles. This is the kind of literalization in adaptation that movies like this need, giving it a visual depth that augments the incisively written script. The spectacular action sequences are almost incidental, even as they serve the story rather than the other way around, and we become deeply emotionally invested in the relationships—particularly those between the title character, Miles Morales (Shameik Moore, reprising the role even though he’s aged five years whereas teenage Miles is only supposed to be a year older—Moore was in his twenties either way) and his parents (Luna Lauren Vélez and Brian Tyree Henry, both fantastic); also Gwen Stacey and her father (Shea Whigham, voicing a man beautifully drawn). And, of course, Miles and Gwen, whose romantic potential remains a question, whether or not they will be dimension-crossed lovers.

I even liked the villain better this time around, given the knowingly on-the-nose name of “The Spot,” and voiced by Jason Schwartzman. Due to an accident with an Alchemax collider, he’s been rendered a white body with black spots, all of which can be used as portals. The Spider-Verse films are never content with keeping things simple, though, and an alternate dimension Spider-Man from 2099 (Oscar Isaac) seem to exist in a gray area between heroism and villainy.

Across the Spider-Verse reportedly has settings in six different dimensions, but there are channel-surf-like movements through many more, most of which are delightful surprises that I won’t spoil. I simply have to mention my favorite, however, even though few others will care about it as much as I do: “Mumbattan,” which basically splices together Mumnai with Manhattan, and features an Indian Spider-Man named Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni, previously featured in the Deadpool films). Once Miles, Gwen, Spider-Man 2099 and yet another dimensional badass Spider-Woman (Issa Rae) who has her own motorcycle enter the Mumbattan dimension, we are treated to an extended sequence with both fantastic action and a lot of very funny gags that should land well with South Asians. (This is some excellently integrated content for potential international audiences.)

There is an incredible number of characters in this film, apparently some 240 of them, a whole bunch of them in a spectacularly funny and entertaining action sequences featuring seemingly infinite versions of Spider-People (or in multiple cases, Spider-Animals). The humor and gags in this movie come at such an unusually fast and steady clip, I am eager to see it again just to see what I missed the first time around. And this is in the same movie that had me so deeply absorbed in its story and its characters that I actually got misty-eyed. It can be hard to trust any assertion that a movie has everything you could possibly want and more, but in this case, you can take that to the bank. The movie’s producers almost certainly will. This movie is a truly amazing specimen of cinematic craft.

There is simply nothing not to love about this movie.

Overall: A-

LINOLEUM

Directing: B+
Acting: B
Writing: B+
Cinematography: B
Editing: B+

Linoleum is my kind of mystery. What’s going on with Cameron (Jim Gaffigan)? He’s just checking his mail, minding his own business, and suddenly a red sports car falls out of the sky onto the street next to him. He walks around, and the person inside the smashed car looks uncannily like a younger version of him.

Cameron is also the host of a struggling children’s show, focused on science. It’s very low-fi, which gives it an undeniable charm, and we are subject to a great many fun clips from it—including the opening scene. We shift from there to the falling car in short order, with pleasant cinematography and clever editing, and we immediately wonder if this film is going to be playing with time or space or both, or perhaps the supernatural.

I won’t spoil it. Linoleum is best experienced, I suspect, the way I experienced it: knowing almost nothing about the content or the tone. I’ll tell you this: Gaffigan is competent in not one, but two parts; Rhea Seehorn is lovely as his frustrated wife; Katelyn Nacon charms as his daughter, Nora; Gabriel Rush is a bit stoic as Nora’s love interest. Roger Hendricks Simon plays the elder man we are clearly meant to assume is Cameron’s father, ailing with dementia. Curiously, when asked “Who are you?” Cameron doesn’t say, “I’m your son,” but rather, “You know me.” If you clock that, you’ll know something odd is afoot.

And you wouldn’t be wrong. By the end of Linoleum, how all these characters are connected is revealed to be something different from how it initially appeared—both confused and clicking pieces together, making everything make sense. I was somewhat relieved by this ending, actually, as I can’t imagine everything seen prior to be as satisfying in any other way.

Linoleum is a special kind of movie that has a peculiar charm threaded through its melancholy. It’s sort of an exercise in blending nostalgia and wistfulness, a longing for great times that can no longer be. Writer-director Colin West offers a slightly abstract portrait of complicated love and longing, revealing how simple seemingly complex things can be, and vice versa. “It’s not that simple” is a line uttered several times, always clear that it really is.

There is a running theme of unrealized dreams in this movie, with Cameron mentioning how he always wanted to do “something fantastic.” This film itself is something fantastic, in the literal sense of the word. It doesn’t seem to be getting much traction in theaters, and I can only hope it will soon on one streamer or another. I found it quite lovely, and surprisingly moving.

It will take you to unexpected places you’ll be glad you went.

Overall: B+

INFINITY POOL

Directing: B-
Acting: B+
Writing: C-
Cinematography: C
Editing: C+

There comes a moment in Infinity Pool when Mia Goth’s Gabi, who has been toying with Alexander Skarsgård’s vacationing author James all along, pulls out a bad review of James’s one published novel, which did not sell well. She reads it aloud to him, emphasizing a passage that leans on how pretentious the novel was.

She might as well have been describing this movie, which spends all of its time attempting to convince us it has something to say while it actually says nothing.

This is a film by Brandon Cronenberg, son of David Cronenberg, who released his own subpar movie last summer. I guess you could say the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, except that with Infinity Pool, Brandon elicits very good performances in a story that fails to justify itself. I spent two hours watching this film, not bored per se, but keeping an open mind: maybe something will eventually tie everything together impressively. No such luck. The movie ends with a narrative thud. It’s not the greatest thing when a movie ends and you just think, That’s it?

It could be argued that the most interesting thing about this movie is that it features an orgy with people wearing deeply disturbing, disfigured-face masks. Except that the orgy is both an overly stylized fever dream of a scene and somehow still a bit dull.

Here’s the potential in the premise of Infinity Pool: James leaves the resort compound against the advice of the people who run it, or an excursion out in the fictional European island country they are visiting. When he accidentally hits a local man with his car and kills him, they discover the country has a tradition of a family’s firstborn son killing anyone who kills a member of their family—apparently for any reason, accident or not. But to maintain their tourism industry, they have this incredible side hustle where they make “doubles” (basically clones, though that word is never used in the script) to be sacrificed. The double is given all the same memories, and for reasons never even close to explained, the original people must be present to witness. What must that be like, then, to see a copy of your own self murdered? This is the kind of existential theme that is the makings of a rich text, for which Brandon Cronenberg offers no useful illumination.

Instead, we get Mia Goth as Gabi, an effectively creepy and manipulative woman from the start, beginning with one of the oddest hand job scenes ever put onscreen. You want to see some urine and then some semen splatter onto some beach pebbles? This is your movie!

James’s wife, also on this vacation and the breadwinner as the daughter of a successful publisher who we are told detests James, is played by Cleopatra Coleman. She has a notable presence through about half the movie, until she decides she’s had enough of the wild shit happening in this country and up and goes home. Coleman is good in a thankless role that completely wastes her. There is never even any sexual tension, as evidently Em remains oblivious to Gabi’s advances.

I knew there would be some kind of plot twist in Infinity Pool, and it comes along maybe three quarters of the way through the story. It’s disappointingly minor as twists go, and not particularly satisfying. Infinity Pool offers plenty of sex and violence and depravity, I guess maybe as commentary on the excesses of wealth: all these people can afford to pay for doubles to be sacrificed for their own sins, over and over again. The thing is, Brandon Cronenberg is what the kids these days call a “nepo baby,” and is plenty wealthy in his own right, which inevitably skews his perspective. It lands differently when someone with more than their fair share of advantages attempts commentary on the pitfalls of privilege. In this case, it’s kind of just a tedious mess.

Get over yourselves already.

Overall: C

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER

Directing: B+
Acting: B+
Writing: B-
Cinematography: A-
Editing: B+
Special Effects: A+

Is anyone coming to see Avatar for the story, really? I can tell you that I wasn’t. I came with the expectation of a thrill ride of heart pounding action set pieces, and heart stopping special effects. On those fronts, Avatar: The Way of Water absolutely delivers. And it delivers beyond your expectations: I can’t say that its “wow factor” surpasses that of the 2009 original, but it’s stunning to note that it easily matches it. And how does it manage this feat? By making the special effects even more impressive than they were in the previous film.

I have to admit, I went in with skepticism on that front. Indeed, I did not think Avatar was as visually stunning as millions of others did back in 2009—particularly in 3D, which never managed to impress me. In fact, I went to see that movie a second time in 2D and found it a better experience. Well, call James Cameron a megalomaniac all you want, but this is a guy who knows how to get the job he’s looking for done, and the very reason he waited 13 years to make the sequel was because he wanted to the technology he was looking for to catch up. And I am here to tell you: it was worth the wait.

It amazes even me to say this, but Avatar: The Way of Water is a stunning experience in 3D. With the exception of the relatively few human characters rendered as human onscreen, every living thing in this movie is rendered with CD effects, the fauna of Pandora all invented creatures. And they all look as real as if they were right in front of your face. If James Cameron has anything to do with it, the days of 3D as a gimmick or a price-gouging distraction are a thing of the past. Every minute of the sensory experience of this film feels organic, like you are indeed immersed into a fully realized world. More than once I watched what I was seeing onscreen and actually thought to myself, This is incredible. Truly, it may very well be that this film advanced VFX technology further in a single go than any other movie since Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park in 1993.

The key difference, of course, is that Jurassic Park also has an incredibly tight, skillfully constructed script, which was just as much a part of that movie’s success as its visual breakthroughs. The same cannot be said of James Cameron’s scripts, which these days can have the surprise effect of making us wistful for the rote romance of Titanic. Now, to give The Way of Water some credit, this outing leans less heavily on the Dances With Wolves nature of the original—on which Cameron had sole writing credit—with a team of four other writers who worked with him on the story. That part is an improvement, albeit not by a huge margin.

If there is any particular disappointment to this movie, it’s the return of Stephen Lang as the villain—he wasn’t that great a villain to begin with; why do we need him again? And, okay, you may be wondering how this is possible, if the guy (spoiler alert!) died at the end of the first one. Well: cloning to the rescue! Cameron’s “innovation” in this case is not to bring back just a clone of the character Quartich, but to revive him as a cloned version of his Na’vi avatar—he and his troupe of military goons are Na’vi grown in a lab, so they never revert to their human selves. On top of all that, the Na’vi version of Quartich has had the original’s memories implanted. Viola! I now dread the idea that Quartich will be the villain in every single one of these movies.

Another actor from the first film whose character died returns, this one on the more compelling side: Cameron loyalist Sigourney Weaver returns, not as the original Dr. Augustine, but as Kiri, the mysterious offspring of the avatar version of Augustine, father unknown, adopted into the family by Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) and his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña). Some snide remarks are made about Kiri’s father being Augustine’s colleague Norm Spellman (Joel David Moore), but I don’t think we are meant to take that at face value, not least of which because it would suggest a nature far darker on Spellman’s part than ever gets otherwise suggested in the film.

Kiri is shown sporadically through The Way of Water to have an easy, special connection to the Great Mother, the natural world around her, with abilities to control certain forms of life, particularly (of course) under water. This element of her character is never fully fleshed out in this film, only steadily revealed throughout, and I suspect this will be more directly explored in the next sequel. Presumably so will her paternal parentage.

Which is to say, even at a ridiculously long three hours and 12 minutes, Avatar: The Way of Water leaves a lot of questions unanswered. It submerges us ever deeper into the world of Pandora, after settling into this new family life with the Sullys, who now have three children aside from Kiri: sons Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) and Lo'ak (Britain Dalton), and eight-year-old daughter Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss). Further adding to this mix is Spider, the fully human teenager who turns out to have been Quartich’s son, marooned on Pandora due to his youth precluding him from traveling back to Earth. With his special mask allowing him to breathe Pandora’s air, he’s befriended the Na’vi and integrated himself into their society as much as is possible in his human form—which includes wearing little more than a loincloth, which is all we see actor Jack Champion wearing for the duration of the film. He plays a key role, including an extended period when he’s commandeered into a sort of tour guide for Quartich and his troops. It was distracting to me that those guys never made Spider put on some clothes, rather unrealistically just accepting him as a “feral” human adopting the ways and culture of the Na’vi.

So, as always, the script in a James Cameron movie is its weakest link. Usually I place more importance on that than I will here, because nearly everything we actually see onscreen is so genuinely amazing, it goes a long way toward making up for stupid lines of dialogue like “You are not in Kansas anymore” (which Quartich literally says in both of these movies).

As it is, you could split The Way of Water into three, roughly one-hour parts. In the first, we are re-introduced into this world, and I have to give Cameron some credit here: he eases us into it instead of jolting us with an opening over-the-top action sequence, something far too many movies make the mistake of doing. We meet the expanded Sully family, and although this gets just as “bro-y” as most Cameron films (the Sully sons literally refer to each other as “bro,” too many times; we spend far too much time with trigger-happy military personnel), most of the kids each get key story arcs of their own—with the suggestion that the adopted daughter, Kiri, may yet be the most important. Cameron’s plot threads may lack the same dimension as his visual effects, but they do get surprisingly well fleshed out.

The second hour is when we get largely submerged underwater—hence the subtitle—when the Sullys, fleeing the vengeful advances of Na-vi Quartich, go into hiding in some faraway islands where a different, seawater-adapted tribe of Na’vis live. This is where a wholly unrecognizable Kate Winslet shows up, as Ronal, the wife of their chief, Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). Ronal and Tonowari have teenage children of their own, who vacillate between rivalries and friendships with the Sully children. They learn this tribe’s seafaring ways, and this is where a great deal of underwater footage is eye poppingly impressive; we also learn about their hyperintelligent, whale-like creatures, tukun, which can communicate with the Na’vi and ultimately play a pivotal role in the climactic sequence of the film.

And that sequence goes on a long while, mostly in the final hour, nearly all of it breathlessly mesmerizing. I would see this movie again just for its final third, it’s so well staged and thrilling—even though it features its own sequence of a sinking ship, which quite clearly (and deliberately?) recalls the last hour of Titanic. Still, I must mention James Cameron’s notoriously despotic attention to detail even here: we spend little time inside this particular ship when it is upright, and yet there is very attentive production design on things like floor-bolted dining tables we only ever see in passing after the ship has capsized. Which is to say, every physical setting in this film has a genuinely lived-in feeling. Although this movie has no hope of winning any top-tier awards, it’s already easy to imagine it sweeping both the technical and the creative awards.

Truly, the one and only thing that keeps Avatar: The Way of Water from being an even more stunning achievement than it is, is the fact that we’ve already gone to this world once before. Back in 2009, everything in Pandora was completely new to us (well, except for the story tropes). This time, we are returning to a world we’ve already been to, just far more vividly rendered. When it comes to how we see it, it’s a little bit like stepping out of black and white and into color, an almost Wizard of Oz moment. There was a time I always said CGI effects would become dated quickly, in a way that practical effects never did. But in this case, whatever practical effects or sets they had were integrated seamlessly. For now, at least, you can’t see the seams. It has been a long time indeed since a film transported its viewers so successfully.

It is somehow both imperfect and spectacular.

Overall: B+

2009'S AVATAR IN 2022

Directing: B-
Acting: B
Writing: C+
Cinematography: A-
Editing: A
Special Effects: A-

When I first saw Avatar in 2009, I was impressed enough with it that not only did I give it an A-, by the end of the year I put it on my annual top 10, placing it at #10.

With the film’s first sequel finally coming to theaters this December, the first film is once again in theaters now, this time only available in 3D—in 2009, I went to see it first in 3D, then again in 2D, and very much preferred the latter. I suspect I would feel the same way now, even though I must say, when viewed superficially as nothing more than blockbuster entertainment, that film remains a spectacular specimen. I cannot deny that I was wowed by the effects, the visual inventiveness, and how imaginative it was—possibly even more than I was thirteen years ago, when I spent an inordinate amount of time discussing the uselessness of 3D in my review.

And now, I am doing something I never did before: re-reviewing a movie in re-release many years later. My rule has always been against this because, well, I already reviewed it. Except in this case, there is the unusual burning question of how well the film holds up after all this time, both because of the amount of time that has passed, and the massive cultural shifts in the zeitgeist in that time, particularly when it comes to race.

There is no question that the “white savior” concept came up in criticism of this film in 2009, but I am somewhat disappointed in myself not to have mentioned it at all in my original review. In the year 2022, for anyone with any concerns about social justice at all, James Cameron’s narrative in this film certainly sits uncomfortably—and for many white people, less comfortably now than it did in 2009.

James Cameron is another massively successful straight white man, after all, and certainly there will be some who read my commentary now as just shitting on straight white men. It cannot be denied, however, that his gender and race informs the story he is telling here, about a white man (Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington) who enters the “indigenous humanoid” population of a moon called Pandora, gets accepted as one of them, and then leads them in successful resistance to the “white people.” A lot of the problematic characterizations of this indigenous population are more glaring now, and further reading comes recommended. There is plenty out there about this if you make the slightest effort to look for it; I am hardly alone in thinking about these things.

One wonders whether Cameron will take any of these frankly fair criticisms to heart in the upcoming sequel. I have my doubts, but also I suppose it’s not impossible. The internal struggle I have with the original Avatar now is how much I genuinely enjoyed it. And surely, plenty of people might sensibly ask why we can’t just give ourselves over to blockbuster entertainment and simply be entertained. I can tell you this much: if you do that with Avatar, you absolutely will not be disappointed. Cameron’s script may be packed with stereotypes and tropes, but it is also incredibly tightly constructed, and the film is riveting from beginning to end. I just also had the space in my head for recognition of its many faults, some more subtle than others. I wasn’t even as bothered by the 3D this time around; the film is so wildly entertaining that you quickly forget about the sometimes awkward visual experience.

Would I recommend that you see this in the theater now, again? Only if you are a purist regarding the cinema experience: there is no question the stunning visuals work better in a theater, no matter how big your home TV screen is.

Also, there has been regular mention over the years that Avatar has the distinction of being the only film ever to become the biggest box office earner of all time which people don’t really still talk about, and no one can even remember what the characters names were. Sigourney Weaver plays Grace, the doctor who heads the “Avatar” program that links humans to hybrid Na’vi that can breathe and function in the local environment. Zoe Saldana plays Neytiri, the Na’vi woman Jake falls in love with. Michelle Rodriguez plays Trudy, a rebellious company employee. Stephen Lang plays Colonel Miles Quaritch, the man who becomes the very Cameronian villain of the film. Giovanni Ribisi is Parker, the corporate shill intent on ruining the Na’vi land in pursuit of the idiotically named “unobtanium.” Very seldom are any of these people’s names actually said onscreen.

Setting the problematic narrative aside, the reason to see Avatar remains its groundbreaking special effects. The Na’vi are CGI rendered in a way that precludes any genuine photorealism, and yet their environment on Pandora is so colorful and inventive, it is an unusually immersive experience. It feels very much like a fully realized world, wholly separate from the one we live in. Cameron simply grafts a very Dances with Wolves story onto it. I spent a lot of time not minding that so much, thinking maybe I should mind it more, and escaping into a science fiction fantasy. That descriptor can be applied in more ways than one, and which angle you take on it is really up to you. But, even the most spectacular entertainment is not above a more deeply critical look.

A Series of Unfortunate Events, Rendered Spectacularly

Overall: B+