by George Wolf
Interstellar
Christopher Nolan is nothing if not ambitious. He first wowed audiences with Memento, putting us in the shoes of our protagonist by telling his story backwards. Later he singlehandedly revolutionized the super hero film, then did it again, and then again. He also told the headiest tale imaginable about dreamshare technology, and pulled it off like some sort of magician. (He crafted a lovely tale about a magician somewhere in there, too.)
Well, Nolan is out to top all of that with an intergalactic drama that sees Matthew McConaughey heading into a wormhole to save the world.
In the unspecified future, the earth is seeing its last generation. But Michael Caine (regular Nolan go-to) has concocted a plan to save humanity, and it involves sending McConaughey and a crew in search of a suitable replacement planet.
As perfunctorily SciFi as that all sounds, Nolan (scripting again with his brother Jonathan) can be trusted to spare no expense, establishing the earth’s plight realistically, outlining the likely-doomed mission with little hyperbole, and basically connecting his story to science so it never feels like Armageddon II.
Properly grounded, Nolan then sends us to the heavens.
Wormholes, black holes, relativity, 5th dimensions, the time/space continuum – all of it handled with just enough layman’s terminology to make it palatable but not entirely understandable. It’s a trick he picked up with Inception, one of the cleverest SciFi adventures of modern cinema.
Like all galactic exercises worth their mettle, Interstellar borrows from and celebrates Kubrick, although Nolan’s film certainly never feels stale or derivative – more like the next logical step in SciFi.
The sounds and silence, the mind-bending imagery, the danger and loneliness – all of it impeccably, almost overwhelmingly captured.
It’s hard to watch the film without thinking of Alfonso Cuaron’s 2013 galactic masterpiece Gravity. One of that picture’s greatest strengths was its utter simplicity.
Nolan is not one for simplicity, and that need to complicate has a negative impact on his effort. Earthbound entanglements lose their draw in the face of the travelers’ peril, and Nolan and his terrestrial cast can’t compel attention or interest.
At home and in space, characters sometimes make unlikely yet convenient choices to further the story, which is a disappointment in a film otherwise so well crafted.
It’s also quite long and it feels long, but whatever its faults, you can credit Nolan for creating a genuine epic, and an experience filled with terrified wonder.
Laggies (aka Say When)
by George Wolf
Is this movie called Laggies, or Say When? What does “laggies” mean? And why couldn’t someone think of a better title for that last Tom Cruise movie than Edge of Tomorrow?
Good questions. The answers are 1) Laggies in the U.S., Say When elsewhere 2) it’s Southern California slang for those who “lag behind” 3) no idea.
Really, the most important question for Laggies, and nearly all romantic comedies is: how well does it get to where you already know it’s going? That answer here is…pretty well.
Keira Knightley is Megan, a college grad caught in a twenty something life crisis. She helps out at her dad’s tax service and has a nice boyfriend and all, but she just can’t get enthused about the whole marriage/career/kids life plan that her friends are embracing.
Megan promises to buckle down and get with the program, even agreeing to go away for a week-long self-improvement seminar. Instead, she hides out at the home of Annika (Chloe Grace Moretz), a high schooler she met at the local mini-mart. Turns out, Annika could really use a positive female role model and her dad Craig (Sam Rockwell) is hip and single so, you know, cool.
Director Lynn Shelton (Your Sister’s Sister/Touchy Feely) provides the appropriate touch for a tale of three people at completely different points in life all looking for the same thing. Much like the characters, sometimes her film’s breezy wanderlust is refreshing, other times it yearns for the anchor of a more logical structure.
Andrea Seigel offers up a likable debut screenplay, often clever and amusing, made even more so by the talented cast. Knightley is at her most charming, as she and Rockwell, who continues to improve everything he’s in, display a winning chemistry. Just try and get through Craig’s interrogation of his daughter’s new, unusually older friend without smiling.
Moretz, again showing her recent stumble in If I Stay was an outlier, gives Annika a welcome authenticity, with humor and vulnerability that seem miles away from the usual teen caricatures populating movie screens.
Will you think about Laggies much after the lights come up? No, but you’ll probably enjoy the journey to an ending you’ve already guessed.
Big Hero 6
A couple guys involved in some of the more average animated films of the last few years are at the helm for Big Hero 6 and the result is about what you’d expect.
Co-directors Don Hall (who also helped with the story) and Chris Williams have resumes full of movie credits such as Bolt, The Emperor’s New Groove, Home on the Range and Brother Bear. Their new film, though, borrows heavily from a few more well-known animated projects to tell the story of a boy and his ‘bot.
14 year-old Hiro (voiced by Ryan Potter) is a robotics wunderkind, and his creations enjoy surprising success at local “‘bot fighting” competitions. His older brother Tadashi is no engineering slouch either, and Hiro soon learns all about his bro’s longtime project: Baymax.
Baymax (Scott Adsit) is a large, Michelin-meets-Marshmellow-Man that serves as a personal healthcare unit. It senses when you are in distress, and will not stand down until you tell it you are “satisfied with your care.”
And it isn’t long before Hiro is in distress, as he, Baymax and other young geniuses are on a mission to find out just who has stolen Hiro’s new invention, and is putting that technology to nefarious use.
Based on a somewhat obscure comic, Big Hero 6 is a perfectly fine adventure, but assembled from the spare parts of How to Train Your Dragon and The Incredibles, with a big dose of The Iron Giant as the film winds down. Will the youngsters care? I doubt it. The emphasis on computing alone will probably keep them engaged, if not exactly enthralled, and it gives the smaller ones their own group of avengers to root for.
Big Hero 6 is often amusing but never outright funny, and a bit lacking on originality and real excitement. Parents will approve of the film’s tender nods to compassion and humanity, but may not be quite ready to greet the “get ready for the sequels” ending with a hearty round of applause.
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Photo credit: AP Photo/Paramount Pictures, Melinda Sue Gordon