Directed by British filmmaker Andrew Haigh who is best known for 2015’s 45 Years, Lean on Pete is a heartwarming and sometimes heartbreaking tale about a young man living in challenging circumstances who is able to overcome his life’s difficulties through his relationship with an aging racehorse. The film is notable for the truly astounding performance from the young actor Charlie Plummer who plays a 15-year-old named Charley Thompson recently arrived to Portland, Oregon living with his troubled single father Ray. Living somewhat of a vagrant lifestyle trying to scrape by with small jobs to help support him and his father and thereby unable to attend school, Charley stumbles into a job working for a down-on-his-luck horse trainer named Del, played by the terrifically grumpy Golden Globe winner Steve Buscemi, at the local race track. Buscemi’s character as well as a female jockey named Bonnie, played by Chloë Sevigny, take Charley on the lower racehorse circuit. He quickly forms a bond with one of the quarter horses, Lean On Pete, who is simply used by Del as a cash cow in second-rate races and is eventually destined to slaughter after several weak performances. Never having a real relationship with friends or family, Charley views Pete as more than just an old horse and more of a friend. After another personal tragedy, Charley decides to run away with Pete and set out on a epic adventure across the West to find his beloved aunt. The unlikely duo find themselves crossing lonesome and treacherous landscapes, meeting all sorts of characters, and running into trouble. In addition to the powerful performances, the filmmaker does an excellent job of setting up a compelling narrative structure by dividing the film into three parts that coincide with the character development of Charley as he suffers setbacks and discovers himself. Overall, I found it to be an emotionally powerful drama that beautifully shows the important connection between humans and animals and is filled with groundbreaking acting: introducing the world to the talents of the up-and-coming actor Charlie Plummer.
Directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Wes Anderson who is best known for 1998’s Rushmore, 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums, 2009’s animated Fantastic Mr. Fox, and 2014’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, Isle of Dogs is a beautiful stop-motion animated film with the trademark meticulous detailing and deadpan humor of a Wes Anderson project. The truly peculiar story revolves around the fictional Megasaki City in Japan that under the ruthless leadership of Mayor Kobayashi has removed all dogs and exiled them to a desolate island known as Trash Island. Kobayashi claims that all canines must be eradicated because they carry a particular disease that could spread to humans, and he even ignores the scientist Professor Watanabe who says he is close to finding a cure that would allow the dogs to live safely among humans again. Much of the film focuses on the adventures of a group of dogs living on the island: Rex, voiced by Edward Norton; Boss, voiced by Bill Murray; King, voiced by Bob Balaban; Duke, voiced by Jeff Goldblum; and Chief, voiced by Bryan Cranston. After the appearance of a young boy named Atari who is looking for his beloved dog Spots, voiced by Liev Schreiber, the dogs decide to help Atari travel across Trash Island despite it being full of dangers, including a rumored gang of cannibalistic dogs. As a stray dog who feels out of place with the pet dogs, Chief begrudgingly goes along with the plan, but eventually he becomes more fond of Atari and the other dogs, especially the show dog Nutmeg, voiced by Scarlett Johansson. Back in the city, a foreign exchange high school student named Tracy Walker, voiced by Greta Gerwig, is suspicious of Kobayashi and investigates him as the center of a conspiracy theory in which all dogs are purposely exterminated in order to favor cats. In an unusual twist, the film’s dialogue alternates between English, which all the dogs speak, and Japanese, which is presented without subtitles and is occasionally translated by the on-screen character Interpreter Nelson, voiced by Frances McDormand. As is the case with Wes Anderson’s other work, the most remarkable aspect of the movie is the obsessive detail that is put into the scene design and the painstaking lengths he takes in order to create a surrealistic depiction of the characters through the use of stop-motion animation. Overall, I found it to be a remarkable cinematic achievement because of its visionary use of animation and ability to tell an exceptionally creative and heartwarming story about persecuted talking dogs. It is definitely a weird film that will not appeal to all moviegoers but will delight fans of Wes Anderson’s unique style and dog lovers.
Based on the best-selling 2011 novel of the same name written by Ernest Cline, Ready Player One is entertaining science fiction fantasy that effectively recreates the video game experience with its frenetic pace and overabundance of CGI. The plot revolves around Wade Watts, played by Tye Sheridan, who lives in a futuristic Columbus, Ohio in 2045 and finds himself on an adventure in the so-called OASIS, a virtual reality world that most people tap into to escape their dystopian real lives. Wade whose avatar is named Parzival is what is known as a Gunter and searches for the Easter eggs that the creator James Halliday, played by Oscar winner Mark Rylance, hid within OASIS after his death. The person that discovers the three keys will become the sole owner and operator of the massive virtual world in addition to receiving $500 billion from Halliday’s estate. With the possibility of such immense power, the villainous CEO of the video game corporation IOI Nolan Sorrento, played by Emmy winner Ben Mendelsohn, enlists an army of indebted OASIS users to discover the clues left behind in order to take control. Wade races to discover all of the Easter eggs before Sorrento and eventually teams up with a group of other avatars known as the “High Five,” including the young and beautiful Art3mis whose real name is Samantha Cook, played by Olivia Cook, and Wade’s virtual best friend Aech, played by Lena Waithe who is best-known for her role in the Netflix series Master of None. The movie feels very much like the audience is alongside Wade as he battles through what is essentially an elaborate video game, with the telltale graphics of a modern first-person shooter and the presence of avatars and Easter eggs. Besides the spectacular and almost seizure-inducing special effects and action sequences, the film is remarkable for its nostalgia and homage to vintage and contemporary video gaming as well as past pop culture, in particular the 1980s and even to the director Steven Spielberg’s earlier movies. Overall, I found it to be a unique and creative cinematic experience that, for better or worse, feels like a video game nerd’s fever dream brimming with so much insider geeky knowledge to be almost too overwhelming for general audiences.
Produced by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro who directed the original Pacific Rim released in 2013, Pacific Rim: Uprising is a preposterous yet sometimes entertaining sequel that falls short of the original’s creativity and fun. The film takes place ten years after the first movie when the extraterrestrial monsters known as Kaiju are defeated by the Pan-Pacific Defence Corps and their gigantic fighting machines known as Jaegers. The story follows Jake Pentecost, played by John Boyega of Star Wars fame, who as the son of the fallen hero and leader of the PPDC Stacker Pentecost is forced to reenlist as a Jaeger pilot instructor after he is arrested dealing in the black market. He must begrudgingly work with his former copilot Nate, played by Scott Eastwood, and train the young new recruits, including a young orphan named Amara, in case the Kaiju return to earth to wreak havoc. With the world at peace, the Jaeger program is under assault with the rise of a drone program developed by the wisecracking scientist Dr. Newt Geiszler, played by the highly entertaining Charlie Day, and the Shao Corporation based in China. Eventually, the Kaiju present an imminent threat and Jake and his cohorts are relied upon to pilot the Jaegers to prevent widespread destruction. The PPDC are assisted by the odd genius Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, played by the highly believable Burn Gorman, who discovers that Kaiju blood is highly reactive and could be used to kill off humanity. Similar to the Transformers movie franchise and the long line of Godzilla-like monster films known in Japan as Kaiju, the movie is chock-full of elaborate CGI fight sequences between building-sized creatures and robot in which wide swaths of cities are wiped out in over-the-top fashion. Overall, I found it to be a rather typical Hollywood blockbuster sci-fi movie overflowing with rather silly action scenes; the only true asset to the film is its almost tongue-in-cheek view of itself as a popcorn flick that should not be taken too seriously.
Based on the best-selling video game series first released in 1996, Tomb Raider is an entertaining paint-by-numbers action-adventure movie that takes a unique approach to the highly sexualized character of Lara Croft as depicted in the first series of films starring Angelina Jolie in 2001 and 2003. We first meet Lara Croft, played by Oscar-winning actress Alicia Vikander, working as a bike courier in London after the mysterious disappearance of her wealthy father and adventurer Richard Croft, played by Dominic West, several years prior. After agreeing to claim her inheritance from her father’s business partner played by Kristin Scott Thomas, she discovers her father’s research into a mythical Japanese queen named Himiko who was a deity of death. Richard disappeared while on an expedition to a remote Japanese island in the treacherous waters known as the Devil’s Sea to find and recover Himiko’s tomb that he feared possessed highly destructive powers. With the help of the son of Richard’s ship captain who took him to the mysterious island, Lara decides to travel to the island and continue her father’s work. However, she encounters the villainous Mathias Vogel, played by Walton Goggins, who works for the secretive organization Trinity and is forced to stay on the island until he discovers the tomb whose powers can be used as a weapon. Reminiscent of the video game, Lara embarks on an adventure to discover the tomb before it is too late and fight off Vogel and his ruthless army in a series of highly choreographed fight sequences. Unlike Angelina Jolie’s portrayal of Lara as a fantasized buxom superhero, the film depicts Lara Croft as a tough and independent young woman dressed in more practical attire for an adventurer, desperate to find out what happened to her beloved father. Overall, I found it to be a rather straightforward and predictable action flick trying but ultimately failing to emulate the Indiana Jones movie franchise, and it is notable for providing a more nuanced and less objectified view of the video game icon Lara Croft better suited for the times.
Directed by Alex Garland who is best known for the 2015 Oscar-nominated film Ex Machina, Annihilation is a visually dazzling and thought-provoking sci-fi movie notable for its rather strange and frightening story and a terrific performance from Oscar-winner Natalie Portman. Based on the acclaimed 2014 novel of the same name written by Jeff VanderMeer, the plot revolves around Portman’s character Lena who is a biologist and former American soldier that unexpectedly becomes involved in a highly classified mission to study and prevent the spread of a scientifically unexplained phenomenon known as The Shimmer located along the American coast in a rapidly expanding region known as Area X. After her husband Kane, played by Golden Globe nominee Oscar Isaac, mysteriously returns a year after going missing on an expedition into Area X, Lena is recruited to go on another mission to study The Shimmer and determine whether it is earthly or extraterrestrial. It is a particularly dangerous operation because no one besides her husband has ever returned after that many failed attempts. Led by the stone-faced psychologist named Dr. Ventress, played by Jennifer Jason Leigh, the all-female group of scientists is comprised of a paramedic named Anya, played by Gina Rodriguez, a physicist named Josie, played by Tessa Thompson, and a surveyor and geologist named Cass, played by Tuva Novotny. Immediately after venturing into Area X, Lena and the rest of the team notice that things are very abnormal, including the plants and animals exhibiting perplexing biological mutations. The filmmaker mystifies the audience through the realistic and often beautiful depictions of these strange creatures; towards the end, reality and the laws of nature become further blurred as emphasized by the ever increasing mind-blowing imagery witnessed by the characters. Not just purely science fiction, the film contains several suspenseful and often terrifying moments that could come from a horror flick, especially the scenes involving mutated animals and the psychoses experienced by the team members. Overall, I found it to be a riveting and creative work of science fiction that surprisingly delves deep into philosophical issues of humanity and our relationship to the environment, while also catering to fans of sci-fi and horror with its mesmerizing visual effects and creation of horrifying creatures.
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