New(ish) Releases (2015): Ex Machina; Dope; Straight Outta Compton

Ex Machina (2015)

Director: Alex Garland

A brilliant piece of original speculative fiction.

Ex Machina begins with Caleb, a young computer programmer in a large company, winning a competition to spend a week with his company's eccentric, reclusive, and brilliant founder, Nathan. Caleb is taken to Nathan's home in a beautiful, isolated area, where he is told that he will take part in a ground-breaking experiment. Nathan has been building robots with cutting-edge artificial intelligence, the long-time dream and goal of computer programmers whereby a machine actually possesses all the deepest and most complex intellectual capacities of human beings. Caleb's job will be to interview Nathan's latest creation, Ava, a robot given the form of a beautiful young woman. Nathan is told to apply his knowledge as a programmer to assess whether Ava could pass as a human.

Within the first few days of his stay at Nathan's beautifully sleek but confined home, Caleb senses something amiss. His host drinks himself into a total stupor every night. Several parts of the house are firmly locked by Nathan's state-of-the-art smart home security measures. Caleb is charmed by Ava when they first meet, but she soon tells him that Nathan torments her, out of the sight of others. Eventually, Caleb is mentally scrambling to determine whether he is part of some twisted experiment, or whether he is being manipulated by one or both of the hyper-intelligent beings in the house with him.

It is rare to get a science fiction film that is confident enough to keep its pace measured and its aesthetic simple and clean, but this is what Ex Machina does. The result is a striking work with a ton of intellectual and emotional power. The character of troubled genius Nathan is fascinating to attempt to analyze, though such an exercise is difficult for much of the film. Caleb, the far more sympathetic character, evokes the kind of feeling which we reserve for the good-hearted and vulnerable. The three-way psychological war is subtle enough that it never relies on cheap thrills or obvious melodrama. There is tension, but it is cerebral in nature, and it builds wonderfully to a shocking finish.

When taken with other films penned by Alex Garland, such as Sunshine and Dredd, Ex Machina means that I now have a smart, modern science-fiction movie writer who I am glad to follow to the theater.

Dope (2015)

Director: Rick Famuyiwa

A phenomenally creative update to the "coming up in the 'hood" movies of the late '80s and early '90s.

Dope chronicles several very tense and sometimes funny weeks in the life of Malcolm (Shameik Moore), a high school senior growing up in 2014 in Inglewood, California, an area notorious for its poverty and danger. Malcolm is an unusual kid for his time and place - he's a young black man with a passion for learning at school, science fiction, punk music, and 1990s hip-hop and rap music and clothing styles. Basically, he's a geek. He and his two misfit friends, Jib and Diggy, spend far too much time trying to avoid the various perils rife in his neighborhood, tellingly nicknamed "The Bottoms."

One night at a club which Malcolm and his friends have nervously wormed their way into, a gunfight breaks out over a raid on a drug deal. After the chaos abates and the trio flee to safety, they discover that an entire brick of uncut cocaine has been stuffed into Malcolm's backpack, which had been placed behind the bar for safekeeping. This puts Malcolm, Jib, and Diggy in the difficult position of deciding what to do with it. Various social pressures and personal desires assert themselves, understandably, as these three nerds in the 'hood try to cope with a situation which could land one or all of them in prison.

Following such a description, you may be surprised to learn that Dope is an incredibly funny movie. Malcom, Job, and Diggy are such awkward fish out of water, despite being natives to The Bottoms, that their simplest, everyday interactions are often comedy gold. This is enhanced by some great direction by Rick Famuyiwa. For sections of the movie, Malcolm is almost a Ulysses-type character. He needs every bit of his considerable smarts to survive an array of dangerous and bizarre characters and situations. Almost every stage in his mini-epic journey has a distinctive sense of place, and it makes a viewer eager to see just what awaits Malcolm and his comrades around the next corner.

Dope is a wonderfully clever update to films from the late 1980s and the 1990s like Juice or Boyz In The Hood. It shines a light on a part of the United States that is far too often overlooked, and it does it with style and respect. A larger message is there, but it is not what you might expect, and it is nowhere near as heavy-handed as those earlier groundbreaking movies.

The original members. Unlike many of the "gangsta" rappers
who followed in their footsteps, these guys came by their
anger and perspectives honestly, as the movie shows.

Straight Outta Compton (2015)

Director: F. Gary Gray

Slick and compelling dramatization of the formation and dissolution of one of the iconic music groups of the late 20th century.

While the above-reviewed film Dope is a brilliant fictional tale of modern life in a rough section of Los Angeles, Straight Outta Compton is the dramatized tale of the very real hardcore rap group N.W.A. in the late 1980s and early 1990s in neighborhoods not far from the Inglewood in Dope. Those of us over age 35 are bound to have strong recollections of the waves that this group made at that time, and this movie does the members' stories justice.

Blessedly, the movie doesn't bother going back too far into the lives of the group's members. Rather, it picks up just before they come together and start performing. Director F. Gary Gray made the savvy move to quickly establish the social ills that Andre Young, O'Shea Jackson, and Eric Wright (Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and Eazy E, as they were better known) and fellow N.W.A. members lived every day. The movie then jumps into just how they channeled their frustrations, anger, and musical talents into a form of rap music that became wildly popular while scaring the pants off of the conservative white establishment. The focus on how the music reflected and was influenced by incidents such as the Rodney King beating and other institutional racial injustices is what propels this movie beyond a mere music biopic.

Eazy E's business partnership with manager Jerry Heller is
at the crux of much of the drama. Actors Jason Mitchell
and Paul Giamatti add plenty of power to their dynamic.

The movie is not flawless. A bit of research can tell one how certain details are glossed over or completely ignored (Dr. Dre's abuse of women, for one) or how certain events in the film either did not happen or were manipulated by the writers for more narrative punch. It also comes as no surprise that the movie's executive producers - Ice Cube and Dr. Dre - are painted in the most positive light. The movie also slows a bit when it comes to Eazy E's HIV diagnosis. Still, the lion's share of violent and unhinged incidents depicted can be confirmed with a bit of research, so one should fight the urge to dismiss the wilder elements as pure fiction. Pure truth or somewhat embellished, the movie is extremely well-paced, well-acted, and it remains interesting for nearly all of its 140-plus minutes. This is true even for someone like my wife, who knew very little about the group or its members but enjoyed the film.

Obviously, anyone with a severe distaste for gangsta rap will have difficulty with this film, as it does feature a considerable amount of the music of the era. That aside, and if one can handle the very authentic blue language and hedonism on full display in the movie, then they should give this one a go. 

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) [Spoiler Free first section]

I did a long review of A New Hope several years ago here, during my trip through the "All-TIME 100" great movies list. 

[Spoiler Free Section]

Director: J.J. Abrams

Extremely satisfying for fans of all types, if not exactly a life-changing experience of adventure movie viewing.

I am of the generation that first fell in absolute love with the Star Wars movies as only Generation X could have. The original trilogy came out when I was between the ages of two and eight, which are almost exactly the ages when colorful fantasy movies involving space travel, robots, and strange creatures were likely to firmly imprint themselves on a person's brain. It did for me.

Like a lot of people, I found the second trilogy a nearly-traumatic disappointment. Yes, there are a few redeeming qualities to them, but I agree with the many who feel that George Lucas completely lost touch with what made his originals so iconic.

As the hype for The Force Awakens mounted to unprecedented levels, I refused to see or watch any trailers or listen to or read any criticism. I knew that J.J. Abrams was directing it, and I had mixed feelings about this. I appreciated his Star Trek reboots, but I wasn't crazy about his heavy leaning on the earlier TV shows and movies. There were far too many coy "homages" to characters, creatures, and plotlines which were familiar to Trekkies from the decades-old classic stories. My fear was that Abrams would do the same thing with The Force Awakens.

Fortunately, my fears were (almost) completely unrealized. The Force Awakens does certainly take several key parts of the templates used in the original trilogy as its materials. The very basic plotline will be one that is extremely familiar to devotees of the Episodes IV, V, and VI, and there are certainly landscapes and scenarios that are equally familiar. However, Abrams and co-screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan (who wrote Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi) injected enough new material to make the story feel adequately fresh.

An early scene with Rey and the droid BB8 on the planet 
Jakku. If this seems an awful lot like early moments in 
A New Hope, then your head's right in the place that 
director J.J. Abrams wants it.

The familiar faces are all good to see again. Blessedly, the story does not rely too much on older characters or nostalgia for their past exploits. Characters like Han Solo and others serve nicely to bridge the gap into a new tale with new players. And the new blood looks great. The handful of new, young characters all had me itching to see more of them in future installments of the series. These were not just retreads of our old favorites. While there may be a few superficial similarities here or there, characters like Rey, Finn, and Poe are novel enough that they should be more than capable of putting their stamp on this new trilogy in the epic series. Abrams made some great casting choices as well, selecting actors who are not only talented but also relatively unknown.

Another extremely gratifying part of the experience is how Abrams returned to the look and feel of the original trilogy. Rather than the horrendous, A.D.D., hyper-polished, CGI video game aesthetic prevalent in Episodes I through III, The Force Awakens revives Lucas's original vision of a "worn down universe," where many buildings and machines look decades or even millenia old. There are also many expansive long shots with negative space, and the general pacing is more measured than the often frenetic speed of the prequel trilogy. With more time and physical space to take things in, we viewers get a chance to drink in the world and truly escape to it, rather than constantly trying to catch up with an overload of visuals moving at breakneck speed.

I really enjoyed this movie, and it's clear that Disney handed this beloved tale to the right director. It's not flawless, but given the insanely high amount of things that could have gone wrong (as George Lucas himself fell prey to), the movie is a great entry. I do have my little gripes (detailed below, along with spoilers), but I plan to see it at least once more in the theaters, and I will eagerly await the next two episodes.

[Spoiler Section. Be Warned!!!]

Getting into the story allows me to get into the details and a few of the little issues I have with the movie. 

I could accuse Abrams and Kasdan of playing it safe by using the basic stories from Star Wars and Return of the Jedi to form the plot. A young orphan of mysterious origins on a desert planet is brought into the machinations of forces battling for galactic supremacy. Said orphan is forced to uncover and face her history with an evil overlord to whom she may be related. She is forced to make several new friends who will help cripple a planet-destroying base used by an oppressive army seeking to wipe out all forms of resistance. This is all well-worn territory, to be sure. I can mostly excuse it because this movie is clearly meant as a transition from the original trilogy, but I still think that the story could have been a little more daring and creative.

The new faces of the Star Wars series: Poe, Rey, and Finn.
I definitely think they can make this new trilogy a
worthwhile addition to the grand series.

I was, however, happy that the details were fresh enough to keep the movie from seeming dull. The new "Luke," the young scrap collector Rey, is a really strong character. In fact, she immediately shows an authentic grit which Luke took much longer to acquire. The other two primary new characters, Finn and Poe, are more original. Finn, a defected stormtrooper from the Empire holdover group The First Order, is a completely new idea for the film series. Poe, though not garnering a tremendous amount of screen time, has a genuinely warm and humane feeling about him. None of these three feels like a cut-out, and the first two show a nice amount of depth, which I sense that Poe will also exhibit if he becomes more integral in future episodes.

I'm not yet completely sold on Kylo Ren as a menacing villain, but there is promise that he may very well become one. With the Supreme Leader Snoke (awful name, by the way) stating that he will "complete Ren's training," there is potential for Ren to become a true menace on par with past Sith Lords like Vader and Sidious. I was pleased with the turn of having him reveal his face in the middle of the picture, rather than use the mask and his identity as a tired device of mystery to be dragged along for two or three movies. We do still have the McGuffin of Rey's parentage to wonder over until the release of Episode VIII, and that is plenty.

One aspect of Finn's character that does nag me is how well-adjusted he is. According to his story, he was kidnapped by the First Order as a young child and forced into stormtrooper training. He was even stripped of a name and given a mere alpha-numeric designation, including the "FN" from which his human name is derived. If this is the case, then he has been part of a machine-like system whereby almost all sense of individuality is wiped out. Given that Finn has been a part of this system for nearly his entire life, I found his light sense of humor a bit out of keeping with his background. The First Order didn't strike me as very fertile soil for light-hearted jokes. Fortunately, the humor itself is effective, and it makes for a far better prospect than attempting to make him some sort of dark, brooding character whose inner turmoil defines him. We have Kylo Ren for that.

I was very impressed with the handling of the old guard. Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Leia are a part of the story, but they are fortunately not the story. It would have been far too easy for Abrams and Kasdan to showcase the old, familiar faces in order to stroke the nostalgia of old fans. They didn't. Their parts in the greater framework of the new characters' tales feels mostly organic and blessedly understated, especially in the case of Leia.

Old favorites like these two pirates are handled very well.
Their measured presence serves to enhance rather than
overtake the story from the new, young protagonists. 

I found a lot of the humor very solid and in sync with the light tone of the original trilogy. There are some solid sight gags and little one-liners that would have been right at home in any of Episodes IV through VI. I did, however, feel that there were a few lines that had a slightly more modern feel which were a tad off-beat. Finn's quick probing to see if Rey has "a boyfriend? A cute boyfriend?" is funny, but I can't shake the sense that the word "cute" has no place in the Star Wars universe. This was one of a few moments of such banter. Fortunately, there were no serious breaks of tone or context, and the lines themselves were always amusing, thanks mostly to actor John Boyega's deliveries and timing.

(Double-Major Spoiler Alert!!) I was satisfied with Han Solo's ultimate fate. It's never fun to see a beloved character die, but Solo's death at the hands of his son is another turn which invigorates the Star Wars epic. My hope is that this is the first major step towards Ren becoming a truly and unrepentantly evil Sith Lord. We've already seen the "redemption" storyline with Anakin/Darth Vader. It would seem more than a little tired to simply retell that story.

Going Forward

I am very excited about the next installment. Abrams did such a quality job, that I am disappointed that he won't be returning. However, I am excited that Rian Johnson is directing Episodes VIII and IX. Johnson has given us some great modern films, including Brick and Looper. He's a highly skilled director who I feel is unlikely to make a hash of this major project. I can't be sure that he will approach these movies with the same passion and affection that a devoted fan like Abrams did, but I'll be very happy to pay up and find out.