Review: "Tenet"

So.

Well.

…yeah.

This is what we waited almost half a year for? After seeing the entire spring and summer movie season swallowed by -- well, you know -- it was finally time for some big-budget, big-name movie-making.

Christopher Nolan -- “Dunkirk,” “Inception,” “Interstellar” -- yeah, that guy. His new creation, “Tenet,” with a $225 million budget (reputedly). John David Washington, Denzel’s boy and the rising star of “BlacKkKlansman.” A high-tech spy franchise supposedly with enough thrills to put James Bond to shame.

And my first trip to a movie theater in six months.

High hopes? Yes, certainly up there. Admittedly, probably, a bit too high. But this? This?

Nolan’s newest is a great big catastrophic mess. How messy? We’re talking toeing the line on sheer incomprehensibility, and often juking gleefully over the edge.

If you had trouble understanding “Memento,” then this movie is the “Hold my beer.”

“Tenet” is a strange, strange bird. It’s got tons of dialogue, long winding scenes of people jabbering away about inversion and freeports and grandfather paradoxes and plutonium 241 and Goya paintings and a bunch of other stuff.

And you. Cannot. Understand it. At all.

There are several reasons why. Primarily the over-complicated plot in which some evil mastermind wants to end the world using time travel. Well, not traveling through time per se, but reversing time. So objects and, eventually, people can actually move through time in opposite directions. More on that in a bit.

Then there’s Nolan’s well-documented penchant for having sound effects and thundering music drowning out the dialogue. (Ludwig Göransson subs in for Nolan’s pet composer, Hans Zimmer, though based on the thundering bass and dissonant chords, it’s mimicry rather than departure.)

And we have a sprawling international cast using all sorts of accent flavors, often spoken rapidly and underneath their full breath. There’s Kenneth Branagh’s vowel-twisting Russian arms dealer, Sator, who is (we think) the chief villain. And his kept wife, Kat (Elizabeth Debicki), in clipped high-class British tones. And a warbling Indian power broker (Dimple Kapadia).

Heck, Michael Caine turns up for a bit, and he’s the most comprehensible of the lot.

Here’s how the movie plays out: there will be an exciting but bizarre action scene. Then a whole bunch of talking to explain what just happened. Then a bunch more talking to set up the next set-piece. But we can’t understand the talking, so we have to amble our way through the chases and explosions, trying so hard to make sense of what we’re seeing it carries no emotional weight.

Because it’s Christopher Nolan, the movie is sleek and shiny and moves well. Some of the bang-bang scenes play quite nicely, including a heist of a MacGuffin from a moving truck using a variety of other trucks. And a bungee-cord assault on a skyscraper.

Branagh brings genuine menace as a controlling monster who keeps his wife pressed beneath his very thumb. This, despite the fact the stork-like Debecki towers above him, and everyone else for that matter. She resembles a normal woman whom God stretched out like taffy.

“Tenet” is not actually the name of Washington’s character, who simply calls himself The Protagonist. As the story opens he has just passed a particularly cruel test to be admitted to the top echelon of spydom and entrusted with this Most Important Mission. Robert Pattinson plays Neil, a smirking playboy wingman who can pick the locks of a lot of closed doors. He’s got foppy hair and a floppy lilt. (Again, hard to make out.)

The science is left deliberately fuzzy, something to do with a nuclear blast inverting the flow of electrons so the object moves backward rather than forward in time, I think. So a bullet hole will appear before the gun has been fired, and so on.

This results in decidedly weird, borderline comical combat scenes in which one person is moving forward in time and the other in reverse. It’s a lot of fumbling around and actions that miss the mark wildly; reminds me of my early love life. Eventually we get entire battles scenes of this.

Everything’s so utterly serious in “Tenet,” as if the movie can’t see itself and grasp how ridiculous it is. “We’re living in a twilight world” is a passcode some of the spies use when they find themselves in a situation where they’re unsure of what’s what, and boy do I know how that feels.

Video review: "Godzilla"

It’s only been four months since the (latest) remake of “Godzilla” hit theaters, but already the movie has recessed into the dim fog of memory one keeps for so-so flicks.

This was one-half of a terrific summer action movie. Once big G finally arises from the ocean and starts laying the smackdown on his equally huge bat-like foes, “Godzilla” is as fun and entertaining a film as we saw all season. But you have to wade through the dreary first 60 minutes to get to the good 60.

Bryan Cranston plays a scientist whose life was turned upside by a deadly seismic event 15 years ago. Now he’s a loony loner spouting conspiracy theories, and is estranged from his son (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a resolute soldier. But when monsters start wreaking havoc on cities in Japan, Hawaii and San Francisco, they put aside their differences to answer the call.

The middle section is truly stultifying, as talking-head generals and politicians debate the scientific and geopolitical repercussions of skyscraper-sized beasties doing a WWE imitation on their population centers.

Eventually “Godzilla” finds a sense of fun, but you may not find the wait worth it.

I would never advise people to buy a ticket to a movie but not walk in until the halfway point. But on video… well, let’s just say that if, during the early going, your finger gets a little jittery hovering over the Chapter Skip button of your remote control, I won’t judge.

The video comes equipped with a nice host of extras, divided into two sections. “The Legendary Godzilla” looks at all aspects of the production, from special effects to casting the actors, and creating the look of the M.U.T.O.s, Godzilla’s ancient enemies.

“MONARCH: Declassified” is supposedly a host of “evidence” showing how the governments of the world hid knowledge of Godzilla’s existence for decades. Fun, quirky stuff.

Features are the same for the DVD and Blu-ray combo pack versions.

Movie:

 


Extras:

Review: "Godzilla"

"Godzilla" takes its sweet own time about getting to the Big G himself -- exactly halfway through the movie, to be exact. Though it's a bit of a slog reaching that point, from there to the end is exactly the big, loud summer thrill ride you've been expecting.

After starring in many low-grade Japanese films back in the day and a few half-hearted modern revival attempts, the radiation-feeding dinosaur is back after a lengthy hiatus. Instead of just being the heavy who smashes buildings and sends humans screaming, he also gets to fight against some other critters in his own considerable weight class.

Godzilla looks as nasty as ever, re-imagined with huge spikes on his back that resemble an outcropping of moving hills when he's swimming half-submerged in the ocean. He's got that big blunt head, the fire/energy breath, and that roar that sounds like a cross between an elephant and an air horn.

(He's also appearing a might chunky through the hips, though whether that's from age or artistic license is a matter for debate.)

Director Gareth Edwards helms just his second feature film; 2010's low-budget "Monsters" was essentially training ground for this flick. The story is told (screenplay by Max Borenstein) through the eyes of the humans, as they watch Godzilla and some vaguely bat-like foes battle it out through Japan, Hawaii and San Francisco.

This is a shame because, well, the people aren't nearly as interesting as the monsters.

It starts out OK, with Bryan Cranston playing a scientist who was at the helm when mysterious seismic activity destroyed the nuclear plant where he worked, claiming the life of his wife (Juliette Binoche) in the process. Flash forward 15 years, and now he's a lonely kook with some crazy theories about what caused the disaster.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson -- one of the few Brit actors who can do a convincing American accent -- plays his son Ford, now a Navy bomb expert with a wife and kid of his own. She (Elizabeth Olsen) plays a nurse because, have you noticed in big disaster movies the hero always makes desperate phone calls to check on his family, and the wife is always a nurse or doctor, thus requiring her to be at the center of the danger?

Ford bounces around from one action set piece to another, following the monsters and their wake of destruction. My favorite was a disturbingly quiet encounter across a long train bridge, with a bunch of soldiers trying to sneak across.

The plot is some ridiculous contraption about luring the monsters to the middle of the ocean with radioactive material, which for some reason involves transporting nuclear missiles from Nevada to the coast, instead of just unloading some from a submarine or what have you.

The second act is a chore to get through, with a bunch of scientists and soldiers (Ken Watanabe and David Strathairn among them) spouting gibberish about the origins and intentions of Godzilla. We learn that all those nuclear bombs the Americans and Russians set off in the oceans during the 1950s were not tests, but attempts to off him.

Once the title fight finally begins, though, it's off to the races.

This isn't a bad film, but it could have been a much better one. I don't know why all our new superhero and monster movies have to take themselves so darn seriously. This type of filmmaking is all about having fun, which "Godzilla" gets around to, eventually.

Review: "Kick-Ass 2"

"This isn't a comic book! If you die, there is no do-over! There are no sequels!"
--Dave Lizewski, aka Kick-Ass

I lost track of how many times the characters in "Kick-Ass 2" reminded me that what I was watching was real, not just pretend -- as if to give weight to the proceedings that did not otherwise exist. The joke, of course, is this is very much a comic book movie, super-heroes get do-overs all the flipping time, and it's a sequel that is trying so hard to convince us that sequels and reboots are soulless affairs with little point for existing.

I'm not sorry they made a sequel to "Kick-Ass," or that I watched it. But it feels like the original's vital juices all got sucked out of it.

The 2010 film, directed and co-written by Matthew Vaughn based on the comic books by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr., was shocking, hard-edged, hyper-violent and whip-smart. The sequel is jokey, surprisingly soft around the edges, sorta-violent and not half as clever as it thinks it is.

Writer/director Jeff Wadlow takes over the reins, and to his credit the characters haven't just been frozen in time since last we saw them. Dave Lizewski (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), the rail-thin high school dweeb who first started the masked vigilante craze, is now a burned-out senior who looks like he's been living at the gym. Seeing so many would-be superheroes copycatting his style finally convinces him to get back in the game.

More problematic is Hit-Girl, the pint-sized terror who spewed vile curses while literally chopping up bad guys with her arsenal of blades and guns. Now she's a trembly 15-year-old freshman, uncertain of her place in the world and feeling ostracized by the mean girls at school.

Chloë Grace Moretz is one of the brightest lights of her generation, but her character's back-and-forth dithering gets really old, really fast. We know she's eventually going to put the purple wig back on again, so everything until then feels like marking time.

There's a long sequence where Hit-Girl gets sucked into the bitchy schemes of the ruling clique, led by Brooke, deliciously played by Claudia Lee. It's like the movie goes all "Heathers" for a time, and while it's engaging enough in its right, this section belongs in another movie.

Rejected by Hit-Girl in his quest for a partner, Kick-Ass hooks up with a bunch of other supers, who dub themselves Justice 4 Ever. These include Battle Guy (revealed to be Dave's oldest friend), Dr. Gravity, Night Bitch and Insect Man. For wannabes, they sure come up with lackluster names for themselves.

They're led by Colonel Stars and Stripes, a deranged fascist played by Jim Carrey, nearly unrecognizable under a mountain of prosthetics. The Colonel teaches his disciples not to use foul language, but sees nothing wrong with siccing his attack dog (also masked) on the nether regions of his foes.

Of course, you couldn't have a super-hero story without a villain, and it's Christopher Mintz-Plasse as Chris D'Amico, former Kick-Ass friend-turned-foe after the latter killed his mob boss father.

Recognizing that his super-power is that he has gobs of money, he gives himself a new (unprintable) moniker and sets about recruiting an evil army. His own costume is salvaged from his mother's S&M outfits, which aren't improved by his wearing them.

This leads to the inevitable showdown between the two teams, which carries a certain amount of thrills -- especially Hit-Girl's faceoff with Mother Russia, a former KGB enforcer vividly portrayed by bodybuilder Olga Kurkulina.

I didn't hate "Kick-Ass 2," but I didn't particularly like it, either. The movie just sat there for me, going through the motions of the original but with the violence and swearing toned down about 40 percent. What's most clear is that very little ass is actually kicked.

Review: "Anna Karenina"

In adapting Leo Tolstoy’s iconic novel “Anna Karenina” for the screen, director Joe Wright (“Atonement”) and screenwriter Tom Stoppard (“Shakespeare in Love”) have gotten too clever by half. The result is a sprawling, overly ornamented mess in which the theatricality of the production overwhelms the storytelling.

I don’t generally get too cynical about the motivations of filmmakers, but this movie seems like it was made with Oscar ambitions in mind. From the classic literary touchstone to the extravagant costumes/sets and high-toned performances, everything has a very self-satisfied pedigreed feel to it. I don’t mind films with ambition and even a little swagger, but in this case the braggadocio is misplaced.

Wright and Stoppard run afoul by adopting the notion of Tolstoy’s novel as a grand stage play in which the characters are both audience members and participants. Many scenes involve Anna and the people around her attending the theater, and then our perspective shifts so now they are performing in front of the lights. Or they go about their daily lives, with stagehands moving the scenery around into place and placing props in the characters’ hands, just in time for them to deliver their dialogue.

This is a bold concept, and one that might have worked better of exercised consistently. But the theme goes away for long stretches at a time, so when we are abruptly reminded of the filmmakers’ conceit – say, when Anna’s husband watches his children frolicking in a field, and then the camera pulls back to reveal the entirety of the theater filled with wildflowers – the effect is more discombobulating than thought-provoking.

Tolstoy’s story is stripped down – how could it not be for the famously long-winded author? – but the bones of the tale remain. Anna (Keira Knightley) is a member of Tsarist Russia’s pampered nobility circa 1874. Married to Alexei Karenin (Jude Law), a rich and powerful senior government official, Anna is seen as an irreproachable woman of high society.

But then she falls for a dashing young cavalry officer named Vronsky (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and finds her world crumbling around her. Even when faced with social ruin and estrangement from her children, Anna finds herself unable to tear away from her powerful desires.

“You are the murderer of my happiness,” Anna whispers in Vronsky’s ear during their first frenetic, almost violent coupling – which should give you a flavor of the sort of arch dialogue spoken throughout the film.
Knightley tries valiantly, but is not entirely convincing in the role of a woman torn asunder by forbidden love.

Part of that has to do with her androgynous looks -- she's beautiful and alluring, but in a curiously sexless way. It's not necessarily a bad thing for an actress -- Audrey Hepburn possessed the same quality. But it makes roles in which passion is the major dynamic a challenge for her.

Taylor-Johnson primps and smirks, and we never really get to see any layers beneath the superficial one the story presents. Since the audience immediately recognizes Vronsky as a cad, it only diminishes Anna that she falls for him so completely.

Law is terrific as Karenin, a man who gives his wife utter devotion but little in the way of intimacy or emotional connection. It's not that he withholds these qualities, but rather that he simply does not have them in his makeup. He does give Anna all that he does have to offer, and is genuinely crushed when that is not enough for her. Ostensibly the villain of the piece, Karenin ends up being the most identifiable person we encounter.

I respect the cast and crew of "Anna Karenina" for trying to do something different with a classic tale. But even sincere experiments sometimes fail.

2 stars out of four