Inferno (2016)

Let’s be very clear about one thing: although the Dan Brown “Robert Langdon” series has always tried to be Indiana Jones for the art history crowd, I can’t say that the films have been as first-rate as Raiders of the Lost Ark or as transcendently resplendent as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. (The books do manage to capture a striking breakneck pace for prose, such that I do have a hard time putting them down, though I now wonder how much of that is due to the fact that each chapter ends on a cliffhanger.) At any rate, I liked The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons well enough at the time, playing along with the outlandish plots and high-profile performances, but Inferno is the third and hopefully last in the series, a spiral of utter rubbish that manages to be muddy, dull, and unpalatably preposterous.

Tom Hanks is back as Robert Langdon, the jack-of-all-trades academic whose expertise on Dante Alighieri is brought to bear when a dead futurist (Ben Foster) releases a warning that a plague will be unleashed on the world, bringing about an apocalypse intended to curb the earth’s growing population. Felicity Jones, late of Rogue One, plays Sienna Brooks, Langdon’s physician who becomes embroiled in the hunt for the plague after treating an amnesiac Langdon for an unremembered head injury.

I read Inferno a whole year and several dozen other books ago, so my memory of it is a little fuzzy, but I recall at least modestly enjoying it, even if the ending was utter claptrap. The good news, I suppose, is that the ending has changed for the film version, although a good number of things have also changed, evidently because they’d simply take too long. There are whole subplots excised from the novel, and while I’ll never be the guy who says a movie must match the book verbatim, the effect of these omissions is such that the movie starts to crumble into procedure. Rather than follow the puzzle-box mentality of the previous films, where it seemed clearer why we had to go from Point A to Point B, plotlines don’t materialize so much as arrive like leaden parachutists. There’s a particularly egregious moment – well, two, now that I think of it – where the film “reveals” that something we thought we’d seen was actually something else all along, and although I remember those moments coming off a little more effectively in the novel, the film deposits them with minimal buildup and next-to-no fanfare, as if to say, “Oh, time for the twist. Here you go.”

Part of the reason the film doesn’t feel like it’s following a strain of logic is that it’s not comprised of puzzle pieces weaved from preexisting artwork so much as Dan Brown has come up with his own maze, a path devised by the film’s antagonist to lead to the plague – which is inherently nutty, because if the goal is to release a plague, a plague which would be time-released whether you find it or not, why on earth would you point a colossal neon sign in its direction? Why put a ticking clock on the thing? Moreover, why tell anyone at all? This sort of plot works better when it’s an ancient mystery designed to be read by the initiated, but it’s a bit of a headscratcher why this story exists in the first place, other than to give Tom Hanks something to do for two hours; heaven knows Langdon is a busy enough man, a career symbologist with a newfound expertise in Dante studies alongside a reputation that draws the World Health Organization to enlist his help.

And speaking of the World Health Organization, hold onto your plague masks, because there’s a ludicrous diversion from the novel in that the film posits a foregoing romantic relationship between Langdon and the WHO’s director (Sidse Babett Knudsen, who you might recognize from her stint on Westworld). I’m not miffed that screenwriter David Koepp has expanded the role of this character or even tried to humanize Langdon a little beyond being a human decoder ring. But in a franchise that has seemed to pride itself on outlandish leaps in logic, this one takes the cake because it contributes nothing to the plot and goes literally nowhere, approaching character development but turning tail and thinking better of it.

As I recall, the first two Robert Langdon films had some semblance of suspense, some air of mystery that demanded solving. Inferno, however, ends up fairly boilerplate, with an attempt to reinvent the formula by giving Langdon amnesia and forcing him to piece it together along with us, but the payoffs are increasingly absurd and the twists uninspired. With Hanks at 60 and director Ron Howard joining that galaxy far, far away, it might be better to let Inferno burn out the franchise before a geriatric Langdon is called upon to solve the dispiriting mystery of who stole his oatmeal from the retirement home.

Inferno is rated PG-13 for “sequences of action and violence, disturbing images, some language, thematic elements and brief sensuality.” Directed by Ron Howard. Written by David Koepp. Based on the novel by Dan Brown. Starring Tom Hanks, Felicity Jones, Omar Sy, Irrfan Khan, Sidse Babett Knudsen, and Ben Foster.

Rogue One (2016)

It’s Disney’s galaxy, folks; we just live in it. But as I’ve said over and over, now is the best time to be alive. We’ve got comic book superheroes on film and television, engaging as ever, and we’ve got a new Star Wars film coming out every year. And if they continue to be as good as Rogue One is, that’s reason enough to hold onto the planet for another rotation around the sun.

As the Empire nears completion of its mammoth Death Star weapon just before the events of the original Star Wars film, a band of Rebels led by Cassian Andor (Diego Luna) and his droid co-pilot K-2SO (voiced by Alan Tudyk) seeks out Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), the daughter of the weapon’s chief engineer. While the Death Star’s military director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) grapples for power by proving the strength of his facility, Jyn bristles at the notion of joining the Rebellion but finds herself drawn into the struggle as she searches for her father.

If you’ve been around this long, you know I’m something of a shill when it comes to the genres I love. It’s not that these movies can do no wrong – I took Suicide Squad to task for biting off more than it could chew and for being “more than a little strangely crafted” – but maybe I’m a little more forgiving just because these are “my” genres, movies that feel made for me. But Rogue One is, I think, a great Star Wars movie that does everything a Star Wars movie ought to do. Since buying Lucasfilm lock, stock, and Greedo-shot-first barrel, Disney has been quite enamored of the Original Trilogy era, setting its television shows, comic books, novels, and now spin-off films in that period. But they’ve been equally keen on butting up against our sense of what Star Wars can be – that is, led by someone who isn’t a whiny blond dude, with next-to-no lightsaber combat.

Rogue One is both of those things, and more, depicting the run-up to A New Hope in a way that will forever color the way we look at the original film (answering in the process a question fans have had for about forty years in the process). But it does so in a way that deepens our understanding of the Star Wars mythos – at least, the post-Disney purge canon. Rogue One unites disparate elements from the Prequels, the Original Trilogy, Clone Wars and Rebels, from tie-in books like James Luceno’s Catalyst to what I’m pretty sure are a few weapons from the Lego Star Wars video games. We even, finally, get references to the mysterious Whills, referenced in early drafts of the screenplay and novelization to Star Wars. All of this, thankfully, is never beholden to an audience’s preexisting knowledge, serving instead like bonus frequencies on the electromagnetic spectrum for those of us who have eyes trained to see them.

Because at its core, Rogue One is a film about a girl, her father, and the galaxy that finds itself depending quite unexpectedly on them. If you always thought the galaxy revolved around the Skywalkers, Rogue One asks you to look again; there’s only one Skywalker here, but as I predicted last week he’s treated like an ominous specter at the periphery of this story, the armor-plated embodiment of fury waiting for an excuse to unleash his hate. By and large, though, Rogue One is more interested in its scrappy band of Rebels, new characters all, some of whom are bound to become new fan favorites. K-2SO’s deadpan cynicism recalls a kind of killer Baymax, while the warrior duo of Chirrut Îmwe (Donnie Yen, my personal fave) and Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen) shed light on the Force from the vantage point of someone who isn’t a Jedi.

Amid all the fresh new characters who I’d gladly follow into spin-offs of their own, though, Rogue One is thoroughly Felicity Jones’s show. Although some have drawn superficial lines between Jyn Erso and Daisy Ridley’s Rey, Jones does a fabulous job differentiating her character from the one found in The Force Awakens. There’s an unexpected emotional depth to Jyn, which Jones lets us see Jyn has repressed for so very long. She lets it burble over every so often, to great effect, and we never have a hard time believing that the tough persona she puts on in front of the other Rebels is just a defensive mechanism.

On the subject of the film’s villains, I will say that my first impression of Orson Krennic is that he’s a little undercooked. I have the disadvantage of having read the prequel novel before the film, so I know him a little better than most filmgoers, but his motivations and rank in the Empire might have been made clearer. Mendelsohn does a good job turning Krennic into a snarling power-hungry Imperial middleman, but as it is, Krennic takes a backseat to the Empire at large. Here the Empire is a giant and well-oiled machine, whose hold over the galaxy is more intimidating than any one figure could be. Then again, how daunting can an Imperial be in a film with Darth Vader? As the trailers have hinted, Krennic has a very memorable scene with Vader which puts Krennic in perspective relative to the Imperial machine he serves. Still, there’s a more personal story to be told, considering Krennic’s long history with the Erso family.

It wouldn’t be a Cinema King review without a wild comparison or two, and so I offer that Rogue One is very much akin to Captain America: The First Avenger. We knew where both films would end up – Darth Vader tells us as much in Star Wars, while we knew Cap was going to end up on ice, only to be thawed out in time for The Avengers. But just because the ending is a foregone conclusion, an accidental spoiler forty years in the making, that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun along the way, in a movie that feels more heartfelt than you might expect, given that at least a few of our heroes might have a tragic fate bearing down on them. There’s room for a few surprises along the way, but more importantly Rogue One clicks up with Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in its personification of the quintessentially human emotion of hope. Both films, even as things look quite grim, find room for optimism, for persistence in the face of adversity because “men are still good” and “rebellions are built on hope.” It’s always darkest before the dawn, we recall from an earlier Batman film, but the dawn – or in this case, the new hope – is coming.

And for moviegoers, it isn’t all that essential to hope that the Star Wars franchise continues to thrive under the gloved thumb of the Mouse. Mickey’s two-for-two. The Force is truly with us.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is rated PG-13 for extended sequences of sci-fi violence and action. Directed by Gareth Edwards. Written by Chris Weitz & Tony Gilroy and John Knoll & Gary Whitta. Starring Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Alan Tudyk, Donnie Yen, Wen Jiang, Forest Whitaker, Riz Ahmed, Mads Mikkelsen, and James Earl Jones.

The Theory of Everything (2014)

With the advent of awards season comes the inevitable onslaught of true story biopics, often shoo-ins for acting, costuming, and set design trophies.  The Theory of Everything is precisely that kind of film, exceptional in some regards but rather boilerplate in others – the result being a film that ends up being anchored more by its performances than what it does with them.

Eddie Redmayne stars as Stephen Hawking in a film that follows Hawking’s career as a graduate student and his inspirational success as a cosmologist in the face of a debilitating motor neuron disease.  Felicity Jones costars as Hawking’s wife Jane, torn between her love for her husband and the strain his physical limitations place on her.

I’ll begin by revisiting my claim that the Best Actor award is Michael Keaton’s to lose this year, thanks to his riveting turn in Birdman.  Let’s amend that and say that at the very least he’s going to be facing some very stiff competition from Redmayne, who in this role undergoes the kind of physical transformation the Academy Awards love so very much.  It’s a performance reminiscent of Daniel Day-Lewis in My Left Foot, with the exception that Redmayne plays a man in transition and so has the perhaps more difficult task of balancing the two (he’s remarked in interviews that the film was shot out of sequence; contrast this to Day-Lewis remaining in-character off-camera).

Hawking, who lends his signature voice for the role, has commented that he found the resemblance uncanny, and indeed Redmayne is very compelling as Hawking.  Mistaking the actor for the man is an easy misstep to make, so complete is Redmayne’s self-paralysis and his surprising ability to emote with only the movement of his eyes.  There’s a scene very near the end of the film (no spoilers) in which Hawking tells his wife he’s going to America, and the depth Redmayne is able to communicate with his eyes in that moment is frankly astonishing.

Jones is quite good as well, but her performance understandably takes a backseat to how riveting Redmayne’s work is.  What Jones adds to the film is a wonderfully emotional weight, the pain of the disease etched on Hawking’s body but fully depicted on Jane’s very existence.  Jones carries the romantic plot of the film too, as Jane’s love for Stephen is tested against his illness.  It’s the kind of film that makes you want to grab the hand the person sitting next to you and hold on until the end of time.  The Theory of Everything isn’t a “grab your fella” kind of film, but a call for a more profoundly spiritual kind of love, one that survives even (spoilers for real life?) divorce.

Speaking of real life, the problem with The Theory of Everything, secured by strong performances such as it is, is that the film is unfortunately very paint-by-numbers when it comes to the true-story biopic formula.  The film opens with the obligatory party sequence in which Stephen and Jane lock eyes; their courtship is engaging but somewhat preordained; the film ebbs and flows between successes and setbacks; the film ends with Hawking receiving the CBE and declining his knighthood.  Where the film focuses on Stephen and Jane’s personal life, I would have much preferred more on Hawking’s insightful scientific contributions, which were much more unprecedented than the familiar romance we’re given.

Surprisingly, the film does a very capable job of presenting thirty-second versions of some of Hawking’s more weighty contributions to science, but the bulk of its attention is on the love story, which is gracefully told.  The Theory of Everything rests on two very strong performances who tell a version of the story we’ve all heard a million times, but fortunately they tell it quite well.

The Theory of Everything is rated PG-13 for “some thematic elements and suggestive material.”  This film is really a light PG-13, almost a PG.  Some might find the depiction of Hawking’s illness (and the accompanying medical tests and procedures) distressing, while a few fleeting references to sexuality are mentioned.