Alien: Covenant (2017)

After I saw Prometheus in 2012, ostensibly returning director Ridley Scott’s prequel to Alien, I had such a viscerally negative experience that I’ve never gone back and rewatched the film. It worked on an instinctive level, with enough scares and dread, but the meandering narrative left me unfulfilled. It was a film without an ending, a prequel without a need to participate in the same universe. 

In fact, Prometheus was such an overall negative experience for me that it took me four years to watch its sequel, Alien: Covenant, which came out in 2017. At least this time, the film is unabashed about its ties to the Alien franchise, but it is so unbearably ponderous, and it takes far too long for much of anything to happen. By the time the film hits its strongest notes, most in the audience may have long since fallen asleep.

 

Android Walter (Michael Fassbender) awakens his ship of colonists after a solar flare damages their vessel. Once the repairs are complete, Captain Oram (Billy Crudup) and his second Daniels (Katherine Waterston) discover a mysterious broadcast that leads them to a planet perfectly suited for their settling mission. The planet, however, is home to a giant storm, a few mysterious creatures, and another android (also Fassbender) who appears to be the only survivor of a doomed ship ten years ago.

 

Alien: Covenant begins with a lengthy sequence between Fassbender’s robotic David and his human inventor, played by an uncredited Guy Pearce. The dialogue is laborious and painstakingly self-serious, as though this is the first time that such a scene has been presented between creator and creation. Pearce and Fassbender limp their way through dismally tedious monologues about creating life, and just when you think the scene can’t verge any further into cliché, Fassbender begins playing, of all things, Wagner on a conveniently adjacent piano. It’s guaranteed to induce a hearty groan from anyone who’s seen a science-fiction movie in the last forty years, yet this prologue is so sententious that it casts a dour pall over the rest of the movie.

 

It’s another forty minutes or so before the plot of the film really gets going, after taking much too long to introduce a crew of no fewer than nine characters – half of whom, don’t worry, will be alien fodder before too long. You’ll have to wait nearly an hour before seeing so much as a hint of an alien, which is a bit of a problem, especially because the alien hijinks in Covenant aren’t anything we haven’t seen before. There are blundering humans who unwittingly infect themselves with alien spores, alien eggs that ought to ring a bell for fans of this franchise, and things that go bump in the dark. There’s even a familiar piece of heavy machinery that plays a significant role early in the film’s climax; it’s not the cargo-loader from Aliens, but it’s close. 

 

Indeed, Mark Kermode has rightly called Alien: Covenant a “greatest-hits” collection, reprising so many recognizable moments to diminishing effect. One senses that Ridley Scott is re-staging them with all the dramatic flourish of the original King Kong, as if to say it’s all been building to this – ta-da! Yet we’ve been down this road once or twice already; we’ve seen it all before. There’s an instinctual fear of the darkness and of sudden scares, and Scott is deft at manipulating the audience into being startled, but at the same time any eagle-eyed Alien fan will probably spot some of these jumps coming. (Cautionary tale: if you’re in space, never ever go into a medical bay.)

 

Just about the only fresh thing the film does is to cast Fassbender as the dueling android twins David and Walter. Fassbender shines in these twin roles, not least of all because of the different accents he employs. He manages to make both characters visually distinctive in their mannerisms and bearings, yet Alien: Covenant finds a way to wear out your patience in a few navel-gazing sequences where the two androids explain the plot to each other before – and I cannot make up this level of narcissism – kissing. It’s a perfect metaphor for how enamored the film is of itself and its own weighty, needless mythology. 

 

You sense that the makers of Alien: Covenant are trying, really trying. Katherine Waterston is a fine update on the Sigourney Weaver archetype, and the film gives her enough room to carve out a unique take on the role. But no one else is quite trying at the level of Fassbender and Waterston, and the film is mired in its own reflection. There are things that will always work in an Alien film, but that doesn’t mean you can string them together time after time for a guaranteed winner. It took me four years to watch Alien: Covenant; maybe I should have waited a little longer.

 

Alien: Covenant is R for “sci-fi violence, bloody images, language and some sexuality/nudity.” Directed by Ridley Scott. Written by Jack Paglen, Michael Green, John Logan, and Dante Harper. Starring Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Billy Crudup, Danny McBride, and Demián Bichir.

Iron Man 3 (2013)

It’s a brave new world, folks.  We’re post-Avengers and entering solidly into what’s been called “Phase 2” of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.  And with a new director at the helm of the centerpiece franchise, how does Iron Man fare against cinema’s greatest enemy – the dreaded threequel?

Come on, it’s Robert Downey, Jr.  Of course it’s fantastic.

Iron Man 3 picks up after The Avengers, with a PTSD Tony Stark (RDJ) tinkering with his metal men in lieu of sleeping.  The suits are all quite fantastic, but Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) is worried, especially after a few close encounters with empty suits.  Speaking of empty suits, blast from the past Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) arrives at Stark Enterprises with an offer that’s too dangerous to be good – hacking into the human brain to augment natural genetics.  And when Tony Stark calls out top terrorist The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley), the Invincible Iron Man finds himself vulnerable and pondering the viability of his very existence.

It’s heavy stuff, vaguely reminiscent of the rock-bottom approach of The Dark Knight Rises.  But make no mistake – RDJ and new writer/director Shane Black maintain all the fun that ought to be the governing spirit of an Iron Man film.  Even the panic attack sequences aren’t deadly serious, deflated by RDJ’s speedy comedic delivery and the script’s wise refusal to submit to cliché; case in point, Tony Stark’s second-act encounter with a young child who helps him out.  It’s an initial eye-roll, but our incredulity is assuaged once we realize that Stark refuses to “learn a lesson” from the kid and indeed willfully disregards the boy’s guilt-trip backstory in favor of a sandwich.

It’s a credit to Black that the film doesn’t feel tonally different from its two Jon Favreau-helmed predecessors.  In fact, Iron Man 3 is equally consistent with the last Black/RDJ team-up, 2005’s brilliant Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.  It’s not just the Christmas setting or the narration (which pays off beautifully in the incredible post-credits sequence), but it’s a consistency of tone, of snappy dialogue, of confident fun that runs through both films.

I can’t emphasize enough how much of this is thanks to another fabulous central performance by RDJ; in fact, most of the other roles are essentially cameos, though no one drops the ball in their smaller parts.  (It’s a shame, though, that we don’t get more Pepper, since her scene in The Avengers was among the best.)  Our two big villains here, Pearce and Kingsley, are right at home in the trappings of a comic book film, though comics fans may wrinkle their nose at liberties taken with each character (Pearce’s role is bigger than Killian’s ever was, while the Mandarin’s presence is reduced).  As Killian, Pearce is reminiscent of Sam Rockwell’s turn as Justin Hammer in Iron Man 2, but without the schlock and quirkiness; Aldrich Killian is deadly menacing, a near-perfect match for Tony Stark (though I still think Jeff Bridges as Obadiah Stane was the best nemesis).  As for Kingsley, his Mandarin isn’t your granddaddy’s Oriental wizard; updated for the film as the new face of terrorism, Kingsley brings in his trademark any-ethnicity-goes approach and drawls out threats that downright drip doom.

And as War Machine/Iron Patriot, Don Cheadle gets more action sequences than last time, both in and out of the suit.  The case of Iron Patriot raises a key point about the film; where The Dark Knight Rises spent so much time working toward the symbolic significance of the costume, Iron Man 3 revisits the first film’s closing line – “I am Iron Man” – in search of some greater truth about its protagonists.  It almost seems like an effective metaphor for changing creative teams:  you can paint the suit any color you like, you can strap on any number of accoutrements, and you can even blow up as much of the trappings as you like.  Because what really matters is the person inside the suit.  You need to get the character right for any of the rest of it to work.

And in that respect, Iron Man 3 succeeds.  It evolves the character of Tony Stark in a number of intriguing ways, and the promise that “Tony Stark will return” (shades of James Bond?) was never more fascinating.  See you in Avengers 2, Tony.

Iron Man 3 is rated PG-13 “for sequences of intense sci-fi action and violence throughout, and brief suggestive content.”  There’s a modest amount of blood in scenes that involve iron-suited fisticuffs, as well as an unsettling heat signature around most of the enemies in the movie; as for suggestive content, Tony Stark meets women, some of them in bikinis.  You can imagine how that conversation goes.

Don’t forget tomorrow is the Double-Oh-Seventh of the month, and you know what that means...

Memento (2000)

Memento was Christopher Nolan's first big picture (a smaller film called Following preceded it), but it's indicative of the caliber of filmmaker Nolan is that Memento displays none of the unpolished nascence that many "early films" possess. Instead, it's a smart film, engaging in many of the same ways that Nolan's other films are.

The protagonist of Memento is Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce), a former insurance salesman who, following the murder of his wife, is no longer able to form new memories; since he has only a weak short-term memory, Leonard must write down or photograph anything he needs to remember. Leonard is aided by Natalie (Carrie-Anne Moss, in her pre-Matrix days), who has also lost someone, and Teddy (Joe Pantoliano), a cop who apparently was one of Leonard's wife's attackers. Take note - that's not a spoiler. The entire film is told backwards, with Leonard killing Teddy at the beginning of the film. Consequently, the film unwinds in reverse, putting the audience in Leonard's shoes as we try to connect scenes and uncover motivations.

The hallmark of any Christopher Nolan movie is its intellect, and Memento is as sharp as anything else Nolan's done thus far - perhaps even smarter than its successors (though Inception is pretty darned brainy). What's particularly brilliant about Memento is the way that it creates and sustains audience interest by forcing us to feel the psychological plight of Leonard; just as he cannot remember where he has been, so too are we left in the dark, fumbling for answers about backstory. When Leonard asks himself (as he does repeatedly), "Where am I?" the audience is asking right along. But the added level of ingenuity comes from the fact that the film doesn't simply feel like it was written forward and then put backward; the screenplay instead makes perfect sense in its own nonlinear format, spiraling backward to answer one mystery while asking yet another. It's like Lost at its most addictive, with a plot twist every five minutes - only here, the mysteries matter, and most of them are answered at the ending.

No, Memento doesn't tie everything in a neat little bow; like a crazy straw, it forces the viewer to work hard and only then follow the path that the film has taken. If you're coming to a Christopher Nolan movie without moral noir in your bloodstream, you're in the wrong theater. Memento, like everything else Nolan has done, is marked by brutally murky shades of moral ambiguity, especially once the film reveals who's lying to whom (hint: the lies we tell ourselves, the film suggests, may be the deadliest of all). Consequently, the film hits what might be a slip-up for some; Memento appears on first glance (and even on second) to fail to explain the significance of the story of Sammy Jankis, here heartbreakingly played by the criminally underrated Cinema King-favorite Stephen Tobolowsky. Sammy Jankis suffers from the same disorder Leonard does, and Leonard tells the story of Sammy Jankis throughout the film; he even has "Remember Sammy Jankis" tattooed on his hand. But remember him why? The lies told by characters throughout the film call into question the integrity of the Sammy Jankis narrative, to the point where you'll ask the question that almost every Nolan film inevitably invites - is any of this even real? If the ambiguity weren't intentional, I'd be complaining, but I think I've got it cracked, anyway. (Hint: it's all about lying.)

But there are other things going on in the film other than cerebral interrogations of morality and the art of knowing things. There are some very good performances, chief among them Pearce's; though Pearce has been a favorite of mine since his turn as the villainous Mondego in 2002's The Count of Monte Cristo, Memento is probably his strongest role, equal parts mysterious and mystified and perfectly plausible as a man with all the answers but who has forgotten where he has put them. Moss is solid and a little shady as Natalie, making me mourn the fact that The Matrix series seems to have put an otherwise promising career on hold, and as Teddy "Joey Pants" reminds me how delightfully seedy he always is (particularly in his top role, as the scummy Ralphie on The Sopranos). And I've already praised Tobolowsky, with whom readers should know I'm cinematically in love.

Memento is certainly not for everyone. It's intelligent unlike a lot of what Hollywood's churning out, but its downer note on the human condition's tragic attraction to self-destructive moral uncertainty. But for anyone acquainting themselves with Nolan's oeuvre, Memento is a fine place to continue your sojourn. Just try to keep up.

Memento is rated R "for violence, language and some drug content." The violence gets a little on the bloody side in a few fight scenes, and the film isn't shy about F-bombs (about 75). There's some brief discussion about rape, an implied romantic interlude, and fleeting rear nudity during a fight scene that seems like a precursor to Eastern Promises.