Monday at the Movies - November 13, 2017

Welcome to another installment of “Monday at the Movies.” Last week saw the debut of Taika Waititi on this blog, so today we flash back a few years for his vampire mockumentary.

What We Do in the Shadows (2014) – It’s no surprise that this film, written and directed by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi, is a laugh-out-loud riot; one need only look at their recent comedic pedigrees (Flight of the Conchords and Thor: Ragnarok) to know we’re in for a good time. Waititi, Clement, and Jonathan Brugh star as a trio of vampiric flatmates in New Zealand, the subject of a documentary in the months leading up to their annual Unholy Masquerade ball, during which time they make human friends and consider adding one more to their nocturnal number. The bulk of the film’s humor comes from the vampires’ rapid-fire delivery and gift with one-liners (describing a bloodstained couch as “Well, it’s red now”) and the distinctly unique blend of supernatural horror with the utterly banal, like seeing a vampire do the dishes or learn how to use Skype. There’s a divine subplot involving Rhys Darby as the leader of a gang of well-mannered werewolves (“We’re werewolves, not swear-wolves”) and the delightful presence of a fourth roommate, an 8,000-year-old dead ringer for Nosferatu’s Count Orlok. The film’s comedic timing is impeccable, perfecting the art of the mockumentary with the awkward way its characters continually break the fourth-wall with a self-aware smile, but there are also those moments that engross you so much that you forget about the mockumentary conceit – until a character hilariously mentions the fact that there are cameras in the room. At a tight eighty-five minutes, What We Do ends up doing the opposite of overstaying their welcome; I’d have been happy with much, much more of this irreverent and singularly inimitable vision of the vampire myth wedded to the quotidian.

That does it for this week’s edition of “Monday at the Movies.” We’ll see you next week!

Legion (2017)

Between weekly looks at Batman: The Animated Series and the occasional voyage into the realm of Marvel’s Netflix offerings, I may have to get around to rebranding myself – with all this television floating about, can I really call myself “The Cinema King” anymore? Then again, when television is as cinematic as Legion – eight episodes, closer to a miniseries or just a serialized long film – do those distinctions really matter?

Legion stars Dan Stevens as David Haller, a troubled young man who’s either the most powerful mutant in the world or a psychologically troubled lifer at Clockworks Psychiatric Hospital. David’s world is rocked when he meets Sydney Barrett (Rachel Keller), a new patient at Clockworks with a pathological aversion to being touched. When things go awry at Clockworks, David starts seeing things that might not be there; his best friend Lenny (Aubrey Plaza) appears when she shouldn’t, while David is dogged by painful childhood memories, competing agencies who fear his capabilities, and a morbidly obese demon with yellow eyes.

Legion is the sort of show that’s difficult to summarize because it changes tracks so quickly that the boundaries of a spoiler are almost imperceptible. For example, and without spoiling too much, one character dies partway through the first episode but continues to appear regardless, even remarking on the peculiarity of life after death. Legion is riddled with this sort of thing, head-scratchers that turn the screen into an irresistible magnet. Each episode contains at least two moments where everything you thought you knew about the show changes, prompting questions like, “Wait, why is he the coffee machine?” and “Was he always the deep-sea diver?” (Yes, actual questions I asked during the show.)

Legion is among the most visually stylized shows in recent memory, and it exploits that to its full advantage. The temptation now is to watch television with a phone in hand or while doing some menial task, but Legion is a different beast altogether. Long sequences play out with no dialogue, scored by some of the most inventive music on TV, courtesy of composer Jeff Russo – including an impromptu dance number set to Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” and one very memorable sequence from Episode 7, staged like a silent film, replete with dialogue cards, set to an electronic version of Ravel’s “Boléro.” The music plays into the wild unpredictability of the show, and – along with the nightmares – it’ll stick with you after the show ends.

For as brief as the show is, it’s got an impressively sized cast who get a striking amount of material. Stevens is fascinating as the unreliable protagonist, who’s never quite in control of himself or his rapidly evolving environment. Keller is sweet and mysterious, and she has a genuine chemistry with Stevens. Bill Irwin and Amber Midthunder are ones to watch as Cary & Kerry (about whom I really can’t say anything else), while Jemaine Clement is his quirky compelling self as an icy beat poet with a slipping grasp of the English language.

Far and away, though, it’s Aubrey Plaza who hogties the show, absconds with it, and then brings it back around to show you all the madcap things she’s done with it – and thank God for this, because after the one-two punch of Dirty Grandpa and Mike & Dave Need Wedding Dates, I had just about given up on the actress who was perennially my second favorite character on Parks & Recreation (though, to be fair, she was the closest thing to a bright spot in those dismal, dismal movies). It’s become the stuff of television legend now to remark upon the fact that the role of Lenny Busker was originally written for a man, though Plaza insisted the role not be altered once she was cast, and yet it is impossible to imagine a man making this part work because Plaza’s offbeat gender-bent presence adds still one more dimension of existential uncertainty to the show. As Lenny, Plaza is Janet Snakehole by way of Inception, a wolf in Beetlejuice’s clothing with a penchant for delivering, baldly straight-faced, immortal lines like, “Unhand the reptile, space captain!” And if we could talk plainly about the show, I’d tell you so many more delightful things about Plaza’s performance, but the real delight of her act is that you’re never quite sure what to expect from her, and as David’s grasp on reality begins to falter (which is to say, within the first few minutes of the pilot), you can’t be certain what – if anything – is real.

Legion is gripping in a way that most television shows struggle to manage; Westworld aside, I can’t remember a show debuting this strongly. (Even Game of Thrones took a few episodes to really get going.) And for those who feel a slight creep of superhero overload, a numbing disappointment that maybe-just-maybe we’ve seen everything the genre has to offer, Legion rejects that premise out of hand and then proceeds to destabilize your faith in the very language in which you proposed that premise. Better still, though, Legion never leaves its audience in the dust (at least, not for very long) and instead patiently unfolds the answers to the mysteries it postulates in a way that never feels compulsory. Aside from a post-credits sequence, this first season of Legion manages to address very nearly all its central questions and wrap things up in a way that feels both satisfying and enticing; put another way, I didn’t need the slightly gimmicky cliffhanger after the credits to guarantee my attendance for a second season.

Legion is rated TV-MA for “language, sexuality, and violence.” Created by Noah Hawley. Based on the Marvel Comics. Starring Dan Stevens, Rachel Keller, Aubrey Plaza, Bill Irwin, Jeremie Harris, Amber Midthunder, Katie Aselton, Mackenzie Gray, with Jean Smart and Jemaine Clement.

Moana (2016)

While Disney is remaking and reinscribing their classic animated fare with varying degrees of success (from Maleficent to The Jungle Book, the results have been a mixed bag), they’re simultaneously churning out what can best be described as revisionist fairy tales in which Disney can be seen to rewrite its gender politics vis-à-vis the “happily-ever-after through true love” narrative. (Zootopia might even fit in here, though from here Big Hero 6 seems to fit better with the Marvel movies.) Moana certainly fits in the latter camp beside Tangled and Frozen, and while I wasn’t as bowled over by Moana as I was by Frozen, Moana is still a fine offering.

Fueled by a longing to take to the seas, young Moana (newcomer Aul’i Cravalho) bristles against her father’s insistence that she stick to her island roots and prepare to lead her people as their chief. But with the gentle encouragement of her grandmother, Moana discovers another destiny, one that leads her to the exiled demigod Maui (Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) and his own begrudging quest for restitution.

Your mileage, as ever, may vary, but perhaps because the bar has been set so high of late by Disney, Moana did not knock me out. Last month I returned from a few days in Walt Disney World, so maybe it’s the fact that I’d very recently mainlined the magic of the mouse, or perhaps it was the burden of expectation (always a dangerous thing to carry into a movie theater) based on precedent and extant reviews. Heck, maybe I’d been jaded by the dispiriting array of trailers on tap before Moana. Or maybe it’s just that Moana is good but not great. Maybe, in the words of Captain McCluskey, “I’m getting too old for my job... too grouchy.”

I did like it, but the superlatives aren’t there for me to purge like so much ipecac. I enjoyed the soundtrack in the moment, though I didn’t leave the theater humming any of the tunes; I laughed at the jokes, but I can’t say that I could repeat any of them for you. What did impress me mostly began with the letter C – Cravalho, coconuts, the chicken, and a crustacean. And the tattoos.

Time will tell whether Cravalho becomes a major star or not (remember, the voice of Mulan now has a regular spot on Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD), but she acquits herself well in her debut feature in a part that feels written to play to her strengths – her determination, her singing prowess, and her ability to keep pace with the more seasoned voices in the cast. While I never fully dissociated Maui from the man I knew to be voicing him, Cravalho inhabits Moana with aplomb and breathes life into her.

The plot of the film can be loosely described as a Polynesian Odyssey, with a series of episodic adventures along a sea voyage on a mission from the gods. In these adventures, we meet a seafaring band of pirate coconuts (or is that coconut pirates?) who are equal parts adorable and terrifying, a fine feat of visual design and wordless storytelling. Then there’s the mad chicken Heihei (voiced, surprisingly, by the dulcet clucks of Alan Tudyk), who almost steals the show with his dimwitted struts and well-timed mishaps. Rounding out a kind of trinity of fascinating creatures (or, put another way, “fantastic beasts”), we have Jemaine Clement as the klepto crab Tamatoa, who gets a fun musical number in which to express his offbeat sensibility while serving as a kind of Joseph Campbell’s gatekeeper for a literal sword-in-the-stone moment.

Lastly, if I wasn’t knocked out by Maui himself, his tattoos are quite impressive, hand-animated amid the computer cartoonery that is the film’s milieu. Indeed, it’s little surprise that the film’s directors have had a hand in many of Disney’s last twenty years of animated films, especially because Maui’s tattoos recall the Grecian aesthetics of Hercules back in 1997, a film I remember fondly. These semi-sentient tattoos continue the coconuts’ good work of silent storytelling, drawing on the bulging biceps and swirling linework of Hercules to great effect. Maui seems irritated by their rebellious approach to his own self-mythmaking, but it’s an audience delight to see a hole poked in the demigod’s bluster

I have nothing bad to say about Moana, except to say that I have nothing tremendous to say about Moana, which feels a bit like the movie review equivalent of a “first world problem.” Moana is the very model of reliable entertainment, steady on course for Disney, even if the effect is more that of a pleasant dream – left with a good feeling but without the lasting memory that would accompany something a little more substantive.

Moana is rated PG for “peril, some scary images and brief thematic elements.” Directed by Ron Clements and John Musker. Written by Jared Bush, Ron Clements, John Musker, Chris Williams, Don Hall, Pamela Ribon, and Aaron & Jordan Kandell. Songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Opetaia Foa’i. Starring Auli’i Cravalho and Dwayne Johnson.

Bonus review! Moana is preceded by the short film “Inner Workings,” which is very much the half-remembered dream equivalent of the immaculate Inside Out. Here, a man’s internal organs react to the drudgery of office work, the temptations of the beach, and the overwhelming urge to micturate. It’s clever but ephemeral, perhaps hampered by the protagonist’s uncanny resemblance to Carl Fredrickson from Up, and it never arrives at the depth of concept or feeling that Inside Out did. But it’s cute and doesn’t overstay its welcome.

Men in Black III (2012)

I’m going to jump right in and say that Men in Black III is much better than it ought to be, although it’s still a long way from being the best MIB flick in the trilogy (I’d have to go back and reassess the first two, though I’m reasonably certain the first is still king).

In this third MIB film, the “aliens among us” premise is mostly jettisoned in favor of a more character-driven exploration of the relationship between Agent J (Will Smith) and his gruff senior partner Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones).  After the nefarious Boris the Animal (Jemaine Clement) escapes from a lunar prison and time-travels to murder K, J – the only one who remembers his partner – timejumps back to 1969 and pairs with a young K (a pitch-perfect Josh Brolin) to prevent Boris’s plan from succeeding.

When the threequel was announced, I remember rolling my eyes with some skepticism at the apparent lack of originality running through Hollywood that they would dust off a property more than a decade older.  But thanks to my recent addiction to Doctor Who and Grant Morrison comics, the time travel conceit sounded promising.  And after being oh so wrong about a certain casting choice in a certain blockbuster Batman film, I’ve adopted a “cautiously optimistic” stance toward most Hollywood ventures.

“Cautious optimism” pays off here, because Men in Black III is entertaining and a good bit of light-hearted fun.  Forgive the comparison, but it’s no Avengers in terms of summer blockbuster greats, but it’s better than most threequels (see this week’s “Monday at the Movies” feature for more) and takes the franchise in an intriguing new direction.

Although Will Smith’s performance seems a little dated, Josh Brolin ably steps in for Tommy Lee Jones and does a more than convincing job of playing the younger version (with a few “city miles” to account for the apparent lack of sufficient age discrepancy).  Rather than a straight impersonation, Brolin is charged with creating a peppier Agent K, to boot, and it’s something he does successfully, creating a character that is at once familiar and unexpected.  If for no other reason, then, the film is worth seeing for Brolin’s performance.

Also in the “good performances” catalog – Jemaine Clement, late of Flight of the Conchords, as antagonist Boris the Animal.  After musical partner Bret McKenzie won an Oscar for his work on The Muppets, Clement also takes the comedy route but dials up the menace significantly.  Gratefully, Clement doesn’t turn Boris into a caricature of a villain but embraces the character’s nature and revels in it.  Boris isn’t a villain we laugh at but rather can genuinely fear.

While the performances make the film worth the price of admission, I can’t help wishing the script was a little stronger.  The script was apparently cobbled together from several drafts and left a bit unfinished; consequently, there are a few narrative plot threads that never quite come to fruition.  Maybe I’m just reading too deeply into the movie, or maybe I’m falling for the alternate timelines which at least one character posits are in existence..  (And here it’ll be impossible to discuss the film without at least spoiling what doesn’t happen.)

The beginning of the film seems to intimate that K is dying; he’s more depressed than usual, even before he learns that Boris has escaped and is gunning for him.  He’s clearly keeping a secret from J, although the alleged payoff doesn’t quite measure up to the teases we get (nor do we know why now of all times the secret is bothering him).  Narrative problems surround K; we’re promised that we’ll learn why the happy-go-lucky K of the 60s transformed into the crotchety oldster we know and love, yet the continual hints of “It hasn’t happened yet” remain ephemeral evaporations at the end.  It ultimately has nothing to do with Cape Canaveral, nor with his relationship with Agent O (another thread that never pays off) – at worst, the writers are teasing it for Men in Black IV, a sign of poor writing.

Worse, up until the last minute, it seems that the writers are going to kill J.  Repeatedly he’s asked how far he’ll go to save K; we’re told that he’s “been there” before; the rules of time travel apparently stipulate that a death must be replaced by another death; and it’d make perfect sense for K to be bitter that his partner’s death saved his own life.  Ultimately, though, the writers seem unwilling to pull the trigger (no pun intended) on J.  The inclination to sustain the franchise is understandable, but copping out on the ending results in a film which signifies nothing.

But in the words of Captain Jack Sparrow, “It’s not the destination so much as the journey.”  Men in Black III is a fun ride and a satisfactory summer popcorn flick, so long as there’s a bit of disbelief suspended.

Men in Black III is rated PG-13 for “sci-fi action violence, and brief suggestive content.”  Aliens menace our heroes and each other; one shoots spikes out of his hand and impales several characters, while most others are vaporized in colorful bursts of energy.  Boris has a weird henchwoman who’s wearing a slightly revealing outfit when she makes out with his elongated tongue, and police guards comment briefly on her attire.