The Edge of Seventeen (2016)

Yes Hailee Steinfeld exudes charisma and has the chops to carry each scene, the entire movie, all by herself. Yes a movie starring her about teenage angst should be something beyond the average teenage angst movie. Is that movie The Edge of Seventeen? Not really. The film has a great deal of potential but keeps falling into predictable and rather boring traps.

The biggest problem with The Edge of Seventeen is that is feels like it's always trying too hard. From the oh-too-cool costumes, to the "edgy" camera angles, to the clever banter between characters, The Edge of Seventeen thinks it's hipper and more original than it is. But its plot keeps falling into safe territory where things work out like we expect. Its dialogue, for all it's hip repartee, is overt and obvious. They avoid anything too difficult, asking the audience to fill in gaps. And then it all gets wrapped up predictably easily. The Edge of Seventeen feels like we've seen it all before.

And there's an uncomfortable thread running through the film of how Steinfeld's character ignores the incredibly hot and perfect asian guy (Hayden Szeto playing Erwin) who crushes on her, fascinating on a terribly uninteresting white kid instead. The only reason that there appears to be for why we aren't supposed to see the asian guy as a viable love interest is... well... cause he's asian. Sure she learns in the end (cause the film has a predictably happy ending where solutions come all to easy) but even then we don't get to see Erwin as the hunk the other boys in the cast are. It's all a but unseemly. 

The Edge of Seventeen isn't terrible. Steinfeld's personality carries it, and there are charming moments, mostly involving Erwin. But it often felt like it should have been better.

The Edge of Seventeen
Starring: Hailee Steinfeld, Kyra Sedgwick, Woody Harrison, Blake Jenner, Hayden Szeto
Director: Kelly Fremon Craig
Writer: Kelly Fremon Craig

Moana (2016)

We associate the word "princess" with Disney animated movies. We all carry with us the baggage of how we understand that word. For some it is pejorative while for others its really not. In Moana it feels like Disney is playing with what the word can mean, redefining the word for a jaded audience at war with conflicted understandings and values associated with the word "princess."

Moana is a princess in the most literal definition of the word. She is the female heir to the ruler of her land. She has very little of the trappings we associate with princesses (there are scenes which show her leaving certain princess like objects behind) and the expectations around her are not close to the cliched princess expectations. There is no expectation to marry, there appears to be very little attention paid to her dress and appearance, and she seems expected to lead. Even the somewhat new, but becoming cliched, idea of the reluctant princess dreaming of shuffling off the sheltered life to have an adventure, is tossed aside, Moana's quest is in service to her people. Her compulsions are based on a desire to serve. Moana is like no Disney princess come before. Disney is giving us something new.

Her adventure is closer aligned with a hero quest but even that breaks the confines of that genre. Her triumph and success on her mission comes from an act of love not war. She is not a warrior either. She may be a voyager, but not a conqueror. Her victory is based no on defeating a foe or villain but loving it. I believe it isn't a spoiler to say that Moana not only deconstructs the idea of princess but of hero as well. Her strength and power lie in her ability to not fight.

Moana is visually gorgeous, with most scenese fully exploiting the beautiful physical world of Polynesia. One of the strengths of good animated films is their creation of worlds for their story to live in and Moana triumphs there. Another strength is in the music. A traditional Disney animated musical, the wonderful songs advance story and are essential to the movie's characters and plot, not just thrown in for entertainment value. Broadway genius Lin-Manuel Miranda teams with Oceanic songwriter Opetaia Foa'i to create beautiful songs which create an essential grounding in the culture and landscape. My main complaint with Moana, is highlighted in the catchy tune You're Welcome. This is the vehicle for introducing the film's likely to be very popular breakout character Maui, the demi-god voiced by Dwayne Johnson.

I pretty much hated everything about Maui.

I know that he will be a crowd pleaser and will be featured in all sorts of Disney themed paraphernalia in the future but he made me cringe. I find Johnson's shtick to be grating at the best of times, and, like the Genie from Aladdin (whom I love), Maui is one of those characters which is just the actor thinly disguised. He's corny, fairly crass, with an insincere character arc. He also acts as dues ex machina a few times saving the plot for no real authentic reason. While I know I am very much in the minority here, Maui could have ruined the movie for me if the rest of it wasn't so good. I much preferred the moments when Moana was on her own adventure.

However, ignore me. Everyone will love Maui and Johnson's antics. And regardless of how you feel about him, the rest of the film is undoubtedly great. This is another wonderful addition to Disney's legacy of animated features and will likely be a favorite for a long time.

Rules Don't Apply (2016)

I've never understood the fascination with Howard Hughes. They keep making movies about him, the latest being Warren Beatty's surprisingly funny story about a two young people who come to Hollywood to try to "make it." Yeah that's a cliche story too, one that I'm not usually interested in. But I think what surprised me most about Rules Don't Apply is how Beatty made me enjoy a story I had absolutely no interest in.

The story arc of Rules Don't Apply starts out as predictable as they come. Two young people with big dreams meet, are forbidden from being together but feel the need to anyway. The first half of the film is something we've all seen before. What makes it work is how entertaining the whole thing is despite itself. Future Han Solo Alden Ehrenreich (who has been amazing in everything I've seen him do) and former Snow White Lily Collins have a great chemistry and both play it to the hilt with remarkable success. Even Beatty, finally appearing as Hughes (a rather safe, lovable Hughes, but an addicted recluse just the same) has an enjoyable presence. The whole thing plays like a classic, 50s rom com, the kind RKO used to make.

But the second half looses its way a bit. It starts taking itself too seriously, starts to meander and get too involved in making us care. When it was just an enjoyable romp it was entertaining. The film doesn't have the gravitas to be dramatic and falls a bit flat when it tries to. Fortunately Beatty saves it with a very classic feeling ending right out of an Audrey Hepburn film.

Beatty throws star after star at us throughout. Alec Baldwin, Steve Coogan, Candace Bergan, Oliver Platt, Martin Sheen, Ed Harris, Paul Sorvino, and even Beatty's wife Annette Bening all play small yet clever roles. It adds to the 50s studio film feel to see a stable of stars paraded before us. Beatty films his whole film in dimly lit, lush tones like we're watching Walt Disney speak to us from his pristine office. The whole feel of old time cinema is there, especially in the driving scenes.

So overall, Rules Don't Apply is far more enjoyable than it should have been all things considered. Not a great film, and it sags a bit near the end, but it remains mildly amusing, and a great showcase for Ehrenreich, despite being about nothing of real interest.

Rules Don't Apply
Starring Alden Ehrenreich, Lily Collins, Warren Beatty
Director: Warren Beatty
Writer: Warren Beatty

Loving (2016)

There is a moment about half way through Loving, director Jeff Nichols' retelling of the true story of the couple who changed American law for interracial couples, that shows just how much he gets. The couple is driving and they desperately, yet tentatively, reach for each other's hands, holding on for dear life. It's a small gesture, but a profound one. And it speaks volumes about its subjects and their story.

Everything I have read about the Lovings (the last name of the white man and black woman who were arrested for nothing more than being married to each other) is that they were very quiet people who weren't looking to be heroes. Nichols brings this approach to his masterfully filmed tribute to them. His film is quiet, beautiful but unassuming. It doesn't try to be a grand epic. It's not a court room drama. It's not a horror film of white power lynchings and attacks. It is a very simple, gorgeous, lyrical portrait of a couple who love each other and never waiver in that love. It is the power of that love which changes a nation.

Ruth Negga and Joel Edgerton employ the same approach, giving restrained yet powerful performances. Negga moves her head lyrically, smiling a peaceful smile, exuding the strength of someone whose power comes from love. Edgerton looks like his fight is always draining him of everything he has. He just wants to love his wife and take care of his family. Never has a last name been so appropriate for so much. That is the power of this story and the power of a film which resists doing anything but letting this couple's story be told.

Other approaches would have been to follow the legal process more closely. There would have been television style drama in that for sure. Perhaps the brutality of the supremacists around them would have made for some exciting, edge of your seat thrills. None of that is in loving. All of it is peripheral. Nichols lets you feel the real fear of being different in a region where that isn't okay. That hand holding says it all.  The legal process is discussed but kept to the sides. Nichols in interested in who these people are. We are interested in seeing their love.

Because that is what wins the day. There are always arguments for hate, disguised and prettied up by those who want to maintain power. Loving doesn't allow room for that by focusing on what you can't argue with, the love of a family which doesn't alter when alteration finds. And that is the lovely, quiet triumph of Nichols' film Loving. It is everything is should be and it's glorious.

Loving
Starring: Ruth Negga, Joel Edgerton, Michael Shannon
Director: Jeff Nichols
Writer: Jeff Nichols

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

Some fictional worlds have an infinite amount of space for narratives. J.K. Rowling just proved that her wizarding world, once inhabited by Harry Potter, is one of those worlds.

Jump back 100 years (ish) from Potter's time and a young British wildlife expert with a bit of a clumsy streak has unleashed magical creatures while visiting New York on a research trip. This is the very basic premise which kicks off a rich and exciting adventure. Like she showed us in the latter Harry Potter books, Rowling is not only interested in telling adventure stories, she is interested in grand, epic morality plays with complicated layers of analogies to our real and unfortunately not magical world.

There are two things going on here. First, an adventure story about Newt collecting all the creatures he let loose while he meets charming friends to go on that adventure with. And second a political drama about the constructs of social oppression. The film's climax is a moving and remarkably accurate depiction of the violence done against people who are different due to zealotry and the struggle for power.

Charming and awkward, Redmayne is the perfect Newt Scamander, reluctant and odd action hero. He is so reluctant he often seems quite slow to act, a common tool to advance the plot which feels entirely in character. I did feel his rag tag group of hangers on were a little vanilla. I'm not sure any of them have the charisma of a Hermione Granger or any Weasley. If there is a fault in the film it is found here. We may not love these characters as much as others in this universe.

As the plot's evil is revealed, it becomes dark and quite terrifying. The implications of beatings and abuse makes this about a very real evil, the magic side of it is sidelined. There is the cultural purity movement and it's willingness to co-op religion to do its dirty work. There are also the political apologists looking to cover it all up. Fantastic Beasts is astutely accurate in its exploration of our real world through the lens of a magical adventure.

The film's greatest strength is here. It is in the moments of torment portrayed so wonderfully by Ezra Miller that the film reaches its real emotional punch. The film requires a certain amount of understanding of the history and future of this shared universe to get all that's going on and I worry something would be lost on audiences less familiar with the interrelations. Scamander's connection to the Lastrange family, for example, is one that has real meaning for those who are in the know. The film is just richer with a greater understanding.

Does the marriage between Rowling's adventure tale and her world building opus completely work? Perhaps it could have been balanced a bit more perfectly. But in the end its richness is there for those who have a passion for it.

A warning to those who have experienced abuse, especially to members of the LGBTQ community who come from communities which were not affirming of their identities. The film has a strong metaphorical story arc exploring this. It could be difficult for those who have experienced that kind of abuse to see it represented on the screen.   

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Starring: Eddie Redmayne, Katherine Waterston, Dan Fogler, Alison Sudol, Ezra Miller, Colin Farrell
Director: David Yates
Writer: J.K. Rowling 

Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walk (2016)

Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walk is an exploration of the way American culture fetishizes and mishandles veterans. Told from the point of view of young soldier who has returned home a hero, we witness the superficial way America pays tribute to him, juxtaposed with the battles he experienced for real. The film forces us to reckon with what it means to "support our troops" and the stranger in a strange land feeling many soldiers feel upon returning to the country they are supposedly fighting for.

There are two main reasons why I felt Billy Lynn didn't quite work. The first is the choice to film in a rapid frame rate. As far as I am aware this is the first major release since The Hobbit An Unexpected Journey to use a significantly higher number of frames per second than the average film. It has a jarring effect and there are times when it is used effectively here (more on that later). But generally it makes it seem like you are watching cardboard cut outs of actors layered two dimensionally on top of one another. This pared with director Ang Lee's choice to film most scenes in uncompromising close up makes the audience feel put off.

The second piece is the casting. For some reason (perhaps the film's frame rate) so much of the cast feels remarkably wooden. The choice to cast first timer Joe Alwyn in a role like this, one where the camera, in hyperHD, is focused so tightly on him, seems foolharder. He doesn't appear to be up to the task. His performance often feels forced, uninspired.  Under the grueling demands of a film shot like Billy Lynn Alwyn doesn't pull off a realistic role and since he's the centre of the film he pulls it all down. But it's not just him. I am not a fan of Kristen Stewart, Garret Hedlund, or Vin Diesel as actors (I know that puts me in the minority) and here I found all their performances wooden, lifeless, and generally unbelievable. All of this, in high def no less, makes the film feel emotionless and "performed."

However the film doesn't outright fail. There are its moments. The centrepiece of the movie, the Half Time Show where the soldiers are trotted out on stage like show ponies and exposed to the triggering effects of the commodification of their war experiences, is strikingly powerful. This is where Lee's choices make sense. We are on that stage. We are in the battles. We are exploited by our nation, just like these soldiers. It comes together. It makes sense. It is a stunning moment that needs to be seen on the big screen.

There is a personal moment which I feel the film did well. Billy Lynn's romance with a cheerleader he meets briefly crumbles predictably around him and he's wounded. In that moment, Not only does Alwyn redeem himself, the film does too. Our "love" of our vets isn't based on us placing value on their service, it's on our ideological desire to justify the horrors we participate in. It's in the cheerleaders face, a lack of ability to to truly humanize Billy.  She needs him to be something safely imaginary. Him as a person is far too much for her to invest in. Our soldiers as human beings are too hard for us to manage as we send them off to war.

Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walk is a noble effort with moments of brilliance but it doesn't hold an audience's passion for long enough. While I appreciated what they were trying to do, they didn't quite make it have the emotional punch it needs to get its point across.

Billy Lynn's Long Half Time Walk
Starring: Joe Alwyn, Kristen Stewart, Garrett Hedlund, Vin Diesel
Director: Ang Lee
Writers: Jean-Christophe Castelli

The Handmaiden (2016)

The Handmaiden is a con about con artists. It's that fun sort of movie where everyone is playing everyone else. As the audience we follow their schemes, watch the back and forth, the lunges for upper hand. We also are struck by the incredible visuals laid out for us, the kind that balance being absolutely gorgeous and uncomfortably shocking. We are both seduced and anxious. We know not all is alright but are irresistibly drawn to what we are seeing. Park Chan-wook masters the art of beating us up while we love it. He plays us and it is lovely.

The film starts out one way, lulling us into a certain level of security. The film is lovely at this point, and its story is immediately engrossing. But it feels rather familiar and safe at first. Chan-wook pulls the wool over our eyes, not giving us a clue he is going to smack us upside the head with a story that goes beyond what we are expecting. When he gets there the film becomes something that you watch with your eyes wide open.

The Handmaiden, like other Chan-wook films, will take you on an extraordinary ride. It takes the grifter plot genre but makes it into something new. Not only is there his exciting, energetic story telling style, there is his embrace of an uncomfortable erotic esthetic which blends sex with violence, pain with pleasure, love with betrayal. He starts us off, just pushing things to a line, but soon he is far over it and the audience is just made to experience.

And he finds something completely lovely there. Min He Kim is a strong, incredible centre to this film. She opens up like a flower, revealing far more than we first see. The entire cast is strong but so much of the film is centred around Min He Kim and her robust performance. 

The eroticism in The Handmaiden is beautifully dangerous, subversive, and empowering all at once. Chan-wook doesn't shy away from showing it all, appreciating the darker and more nurturing elements of sexuality. His film is a bit triumphant, in fact, for love. I wasn't expecting that quite so much.

The Handmaiden is one of the strongest, most entertaining, most riveting films you'll see all year. It is not for the faint of heart, but the experience is a rich one for those who can take it on.

The Handmaiden
Starring: Min-Hee Kim, Kim Tae-Ri, Jung-Woo Ha
Director: Park Chan-wook
Writers: Park Chan-wook, Chung Seo-kyung

Manchester By The Sea (2016)

It's been a while between this film and writer/director Kenneth Lonergan's last hit You Can Count On Me. This may be a good time to use the expression "it was worth the wait." This solid piece of story telling is moving and enjoyable.

Lonergan's style is very laid back. He not only films his story in a subtle, restrained manner, he writes it that way too. He focuses on the mundane things. This is a story about loss, but most of the time we watch people carry on with their lives - run errands, microwave food, talk about nothing - while everything remains simmering under the surface. There are moments where things bust out, but never too much. It's a perfect tone for white people restraining themselves. And yet it's powerful.

A good example of this style, a moment of Lonergan's cleverness and quiet power, is we see a character pack up pictures of their dead children. We don't see the pictures, we don't see the emotion, we just know that's what's happening and what is happening for that character in that moment. It is remarkably effective.

Casey Affleck is a triumph here too. He plays the central character in the same manner and Lonergan directs him. He plays it all behind his eyes. There is always so much going on for him, and within him, and he communicates it all to us without any bravado. Even his few moments where it can't be held in any longer are painfully restrained. He connects with his fellow cast members but it is his solo scenes which are the most riveting.

Manchester by the Sea, like You Can Count On Me, is a film which just needs to play out. It isn't clear from the beginning where it's going to go or how it's going to end. In fact I would argue it doesn't end anywhere near where you think it's going to. But it never feels dishonest. It is completely satisfying. I hope Lonergan doesn't take so long before he makes another movie this good.

Manchester By The Sea
Starring: Casey Affleck, Michelle Williams, Kyle Chandler, Lucas Hedges
Director: Kenneth Lonergan
Writer: Kenneth Lonergan

Arrival (2016)

Arrival is one of those deceptive films that is not about what you think it is going to be about. It will likely come as no surprise that Arrival is not your average alien's arrive movie. It's not Independence Day or even a more cerebral take like The Day The Earth Stood Still or Contact. Arrival is about something else entirely. The film uses the idea of first contact with aliens to provide a key to unlocking a completely different story.

After seeing the film I believe most would fee the title Arrival doesn't even refer to the aliens at all, but about something else.

Arrival is about our choices, our free will. It is also about language and the way culture, words, politics, affect who we are. But mostly it is a profound, moving, brave, exploration of choice. As the film's mobius strip of a story began circling back on itself, the true emotional power of the film came into focus for me and it felt like a revelation. It would have been easy to play the climax for a gotcha moment but director Villeneuve doesn't go there. Instead he opts for a quiet awakening, letting the film's message flow over you.

Villeneuve's approach is lovely yet rather understated. He apes Terrance Malick a little letting his camera float freely in space around his characters while we hear their inner thoughts, but with a more restrained narrative. Sometimes his narrative is so tight it feels a bit rushed. There are developments which just seem to come from nowhere. Never does the movie feel that the humans learn the alien language in a believable way. We are just to accept that they do. I get that's not the point of the film, but it does feel a bit jarring, especially because Villeneuve spends so much time reveling in how beautifully the alien's communicate. I felt there was a disconnect between how well Arrival's "distraction" plot was handled and how well it's actual plot was.

Amy Adams is, as she often is, truly engaging. The film's whole story centres on her and the film requires an actor with her strength. She pulls off an amazing performance which cannot be over praised. She is the lynch pin that overcomes any narrative or pacing problems. She is placed in the awkward space between the film's various tones (the militaristic themes, the intimate domestic memories, the unearthly environments) and brings them all cohesively together. It is she who makes the story of the film come together.

Arrival is a quiet little treat which provides that delicious food for thought you'll be chewing on for a while afterward. This is the sort of film to see with friends and to plan after movie drinks/snacks for discussion. Arrival is for thinkers and dreamers and for those who don't mind feeling a little melancholy.

While not perfect, Arrival is beautiful, inspiring, and disquieting. It is biting off a lot more than we expect to be chewing so be ready. But in Villeneuve and Adams' hands, the film and its story become quite manageable, digestible, while remaining profound.

Arrival
Starring: Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forrest Whitaker
Director: Denis Villeneuve
Writer: Eric Heisserer

Elle (2016)

Paul Verhoeven's films' reputation proceeds them. Robocop, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, and (yes, even) Showgirls, hold a certain fascination to many but his unsubtle, often insensitively gauche style left me more bored than "shocked." His idea of envelop pushing is usually less about exploring dark, complicated characters, and more about showing body parts. Therefore his newest film, which is everything a Verhoeven film should be but usually isn't, ends up being such a surprise.

Elle pushes the envelop in fascinating ways. I imagine it will be polarizing based on how unflinchingly it embraces its central character who refuses to be morally pure. It is like all those times Verhoeven crafted insultingly simplistic portraits of vengeful women, he was learning how complex and rich a female lead could actually be. He has manifested that in Elle, a shockingly intricate study of a woman who will neither be victim or hero.

As played by the exquisitely pitch perfect Isabelle Huppert, Michele is nothing binary. She is neither good nor evil, victim nor perpetrator, sympathetic nor reviled. Elle is 4 dimensional and I was never sure what she was going to do next. Huppert is up for the task of such a rich character, bringing her to unflinching life.

Elle wrestles with sexual assault and the ways it is destructive and often beyond the reach of justice. Verhoeven chooses not only to witness it (no surprise that he does not leave the attack off camera), but to relive it, experiencing different iterations of the violence. But this is where he convinced me of what he was doing. It was never exploitative, never eroticized. It was explicit yes but always clearly violent and not sexual. He captures the idea that rape is not about sex but about power. His transactions are clearly a battle. And Michele's choices are never the cliches of how victims react. She forges her own path, one with questionable motives. Elle has us struggle with what she does. She is not hero. She is not villain. She is a woman pursuing her path as she sees fit. For the man who crafted the problematic Catherine Tramell to produce such a richly drawn character as Michele, is a remarkable thing.

Elle is not going to be for everyone. It is going to be difficult for many to watch in terms of its graphic nature and its exploration of morality. When I say "graphic" I am not using the world to compare this film to the level of violence and sexuality we are seeing in many (often less complicated) films. I am referring to the raw and calculated way the film (and Michele herself) go through the assault and through the aftermath. The film doesn't endorse her but it does ask us to go along with her which will make many uncomfortable. It is also very fascinating whether we are comfortable or not.

Elle
Starring: Isabelle Huppert, Laurent Lafitte
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Writer: David Birke

Trolls (2016)

Oh the Irony. Dreamworks studios made the mark in the animated world with Shrek, a film which parodied the "fairytale" optimism of the dominant optimistic trends of western animation at that time. I never felt Shrek was very successful at that but it certainly cashed in at the box office. Well now they have come full circle with their latest animated epic, a film which unabashedly celebrates being "happy."

Trolls is what you would get if you made a movie out of all those meaninglessly inspiring memes, cat posters, and slogans about hangin' in there. It has the emotional depth of a greeting card, the originality of day time TV, and the soundtrack of radio stations with "lite" in their names. It will pretty much make it hard for you to keep you popcorn down.

And there is a part of me angry with the message that you just need to find happiness inside yourself. We all see those memes flying around that shame us for not feeling good enough. Ugh. This is that movie. And it's just not very entertaining. The jokes are obvious. The tunes vanilla. The story predictable and boring.

A lot of corporate media is about promoting products. There are those films which are based on properties with a real fan following, people who love the stories, characters, adventure. There are those which are really just about putting a piece of intellectual property in the minds of shoppers. A good comparison of that is The Lego Movie, a film which was really just about selling Lego but ended up being about so much more. Trolls is not The Lego Movie. Trolls is just about selling. Selling products and selling "happiness." Or at least selling a message that if you're not happy you're just not trying hard enough.

I wouldn't recommend bringing kids to Trolls. There is an audience for this, those who just want mindless escapism which bullies us into humming along with the happy song. Some just really want that. If that's your thing, I guess this is for you. For the rest of us, there are better films to see.

Trolls
Starring: Justin Timberlake, Anna Kendrick, Zooey Deschanel, Russel Brand, Gwen Stafani, James Cordon
Directors: Mike Mitchell, Walt Dohrn
Writers: Jonathan Aibel, Glenn Berger

Hacksaw Ridge (2016)

I have never touched a gun and I doubt I ever will. I was struck by the irony of a film maker like Mel Gibson making a film paying tribute to a pacifist and his convictions. This sentimentalized biography of Desmond T. Doss, a real life American soldier in World War II who, due to his faith, refused to touch guns or kill, but signed up to join the American Amry as a medic, is a sometimes overly fawning love letter to Doss and his bravery, but also to his strength as a pacifist.

The film celebrates his refusal to back down in the face of all kinds of aggression, from his comrades in the army to the violence on the battlefield, Doss is painted as a pillar or resistance to a violent world. His heroism is defined through the lives that he saves, not takes. How refreshing.

Gibson's film falls in to many of the traps that "based on true story" films fall into. Doss often seems to wonderful to have been real, his flaws never truly explored, his relationships all to perfect. It also focuses on Doss and his heroism without critiquing the violent world around him. So while he is praised, the violence he is opposed to isn't deconstructed. We are to admire him for his stand without having to embrace his principles. It has the overall effect of sapping some of the emotion that could have been there.

Gibson's treatment of the Japanese "enemy" is at best dismissive, at worst outright racist. In Gibson's world, the American army was made up of handsome young white men. Not only are the Japanese soldiers never humanized, their lives aren't valued. Doss saves a few only to have a fellow soldier almost brag that they "didn't make it."

Gibson's approach puts an almost fairytale feeling all over this story. Many scenes seem structured quite conveniently and don't reach a level where they feel authentic. For example, Doss' court martial scene seems completely contrived, despite it actually having happened.  Despite the graphic depictions of war violence the film remains somewhat aloof from reality. I honestly feel this has to do with Gibson's reluctance to critique the war itself. It is an odd balance to celebrate a man who refused to kill without coming down on the killing that's happening.

What Gibson does well is his depiction of the WWII battlefields. The battle scenes are vicious and visceral. I think this is how it should be. If you are going to depict war, you should depict it, not some sanitized version that gives us a pass on the lives that are lost.

So for me Hacksaw Ridge is a mixed bag. I appreciated the depiction of the cost of war and of the argument supporting Doss' non-violence. I struggled with the film's tacit acceptance of war and it's slaughter, especially towards America's "enemies." Another plus is Vince Vaughn's charming "Sarge," a performance definitely worth catching. 

Hacksaw Ridge 

Starring: Andrew Garfield, Vince Vaughn, Sam Worthington, Luke Bracey, Hugo Weaving, Ryan Corr, Teresa Palmer, Richard Pyros and Rachel Griffith

Director: Mel Gibson

Writers: Andrew Knight, Robert Schenkkan

Doctor Strange (2016)

Keep it simple stupid. This mantra has been working for Marvel Studio's most recent films, the ones introducing new characters anyway. Like Ant-Man, Doctor Strange tells a clear, straight forward story that is exciting and entertaining with a great cast. For all the "magical" special effects, the secret that makes Strange works is the clear, accessible story and how well it is told.  Marvel's Avengers movies (and in that I include Captain America Civil War which is really more of an Avengers movie than just a Captain America movie) may be getting a bit overblown, but the solo movies remain smart and fun by sticking to a winning formula, keeping it simple. There is very little story here. It's basic comic book origin story 101. This isn't reductive, the story may be basic but it's solid and it's compelling. While the narrative aspect may be simple, what is truly spectacular about Doctor Strange is how it looks. Clearly inspired by Inception, Doctor Strange offers a visual cornucopia which makes it worth seeing on a huge screen. Strange is a visual treat.

What Doctor Strange won't do is push your boundaries or buttons. For a film whose story explores the "multi-verse" and multiple realities, the plot, as I pointed out, remains remarkably straight forward and understandable. I had expected it to be a bit more opaque, offering a bit more personal interpretation. Strange doesn't go there, instead choosing to remain easily explicable without nuance. It is a crowd pleaser. 

Cumberbatch is, unsurprisingly, strong. He pulls off the arrogant rich white guy without making him a cliche. His chemistry with Tilda Swinton is palpable and fortunately the best parts of the movie are when they are together. I'm not sure his chemistry with love interest Rachel McAdams is as honest. The love story aspect fell flat for me. 

Still Doctor Strange is a joy to see and and enough of a refreshing of the Marvel cinematic universe to re-energize that world. The film makers pulled this rabbit out of their hat. 

Doctor Strange

Starring: Benedict Cumberbatch, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Tilda Swinton, Rachel McAdams, Benedict Wong, Mads Mikkelsen

Director: Scott Derrickson

Writers: Scott Derrickson, C. Robert Cargill