Men in Black 3 Review

Men in Black 3

Directed by Barry Sonnenfeld

Released in 2012

Reflecting on Men in Black 3, my mind, for some reason, keeps jumping to comparisons with The Avengers. Marvel’s blockbuster is still Hulk-smashing every box office record out there, so the film is probably occupying every Variety subscriber’s thoughts for some reason or another. But the two movies share a similar premise — banding together estranged heroes to stop an alien threat — and a love of comic foreplay that faintly nestles them side-by-side. In that case, MiB 3 is without a doubt the superior film. With a $225 million budget, MiB 3 has all the bells and whistles of your typical summer hit yet still possesses a warmth missing in so many others. This film does not succeed by flaunting what it has but by having all it needs and letting it sing.

What MiB 3 has is genuinely great acting, a sharp, economic script and director Barry Sonnenfeld’s clutch balance of such quality. The story is independent of the first two films in the franchise, scrapping Agent Zed, Frank the pug and 90s artifact ‘the worm guys’ except for fleeting cameos. Agent J (Will Smith) assumes the lead, tracking down Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones, with Josh Brolin playing his young self) back in 1969 via time machine after an evil alien Boris the Animal (Flight of the Conchords’ Jemaine Clement) erases K’s entire existence. There are dozens of plot loopholes and continuity errors but to dwell on such trivia is to ignore the film’s characters, tone and, really, its whole point.

It is reasonable, however, to complain about the outrageous salaries some celebrities receive, especially in these tough times. But, really, the $20-plus million upfront and 20-percent backend thrown at Will Smith is doing some good, because the man earns it. Besides not aging one bit since 1997, Smith still jokes, brawls and charms in league with Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford. There is a moment when Agent J stares at Brolin’s young Agent K when they are driving through 1960s-era New York City after meeting for the first time — the shot is prolonged enough that Smith’s grin is supposed to be construed as awkward. The theater laughs; it’s a joke. But there is a real sweetness to this gesture, of seeing your best friend for the first time, again, before you ever met — Smith is capable of blending a joke with humility and love, in the span of just a few seconds.

Tommy Lee Jones proves again why he is one of his generation’s most gifted and enjoyable actors, with a face as cratered as the moon and a presence equally bright. In the beginning, K infuriates J by withholding secrets that J feels entitled to know. “I promised you the secrets of the universe, nothing more,” K says over the phone, ensconced in his apartment’s leather chair, fireplace smoldering behind him. J and K then share a moment of silence, with a close-up on K’s face. He does not look indifferent but sad that he cannot speak the truth (the reasoning, of course, is revealed later). After they hang up, K nonchalantly presses a button that raises the wall and fireplace behind him to unveil a vast arsenal of ‘space guns.’ He picks one up, snaps it side to side, sits back down and awaits the dangerous Boris the Animal who has a score to settle.

It is not so much a juxtaposition as a natural coexistence of comedy and drama, light and heavy, deft and steady that this film — with much credit to the directing — continuously pulls off. Josh Brolin nails the clip of Jones’ voice, but thanks to a script that actually lets K smile for once, he develops a character richer than the one we started with. The joy K radiates recounting a night spent with Agent O (Alice Eve, dressed like a Mad Men secretary working at the Solomon Guggenheim Museum) brings more humanity to a character in ten seconds than all of MiB II.

Then there is Griffin, a fifth dimensional alien who can read and live in all seemingly infinite alternate realities. Played by A Serious Man’s Michael Stuhlbarg, he probably pillaged a thrift store to hide his unknown alien appearance under layers of secondhand sweaters. His introduction at The Factory — yes, The Factory, Andy Warhol’s (Bill Hader) bastion for counterculture extraterrestrials — lets loose a string of possible immediate futures that all spell doom, only to conveniently end up on the most improbable historical line on which our heroes are still alive. When not tortured by clashing apocalyptic realities, Griffin revels in the remarkable events when everything works out, like the “Miracle Mets” 1969 victory at Shea Stadium. Stuhlbarg, a brilliant actor Scorsese recently tapped for Boardwalk Empire and Hugo, legitimizes a supporting role with all the debilitating neuroses and yearned-for optimism we share.

I have not even mentioned the zany futurist set and costume design, remarkable time travel sequence or nods to modern and 60s pop culture (Lady Gaga now adorns the MiB headquarters’ monitors; “The Viagrans have an amazing new pill…”). Nor have I yet admitted that the 3D in this film actually works; it does not desaturate the overly bright shots but rather exaggerates the rapid digital action scenes, with flying projectiles and long-exposed motion blur. Men in Black thrives on the characters it develops and the connections they make with one another. Studios love to pile different genres onto one film to reach everyone — which is effectively no one. This film proves that at least a few wealthy filmmakers can see past the gloss and craft with their own human hands, as the bittersweet ending bears witness. This is a sci-fi action time travel comedy, yes, but don’t hold that against it.

Final Verdict:

4 Stars Out of 5

This article was originally written for The Cornell Daily Sun and can be viewed at its original location via this link. 

The Avengers Review

The Avengers

Directed by Joss Whedon

Released in 2012

There is no reason to review The Avengers. If you love it, go tweet “#Avengers is awesome / See it!” and be done with it. If you hate it, your words will fall on ears deafened by the cha-chings of $207 million in opening weekend box office receipts, or maybe a Furious Samuel L. Jackson. And if you neither love it nor hate it, like me, then — who cares?

The flaw and triumph of The Avengers is that it succeeds so well in capturing its source material and nothing more. That source material is a line of Marvel comics that started in the 1960s and throws some of Marvel’s most popular characters together to save the world against “foes no single superhero can withstand.” It is a fun, pulpy series, with a lot of macho banter between, and during, action scenes in place of true character development seen in the individual heroes’ stories.

Those superheroes are Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Hulk, Hawkeye, Black Widow and Nick Fury. Say goodbye to the reality of the Iraq War that set the scene for Iron Man, and hello to Norse mythology besides a gamma-radiated beast and former Nazi hunter. Their foe is Thor’s adopted brother, Loki, who seeks to enslave the world with some magical cube that unlocks a portal to another universe. The stakes are so high that it is hard to care. It is more Loki’s ability to sustain perfect posture and speaketh in faux-Middle English while wearing egregious golden horns that convinces me that, yes, this is a job for more than one.

This film is clearly not The Dark Knight and does not pretend to be. I see that as a relief. IMAX agrees, for it holds a strict summer quota on “brooding, depressing, not-so-super hero tragedies.” But The Avengers is not even a hearty, standalone comic adaptation in the vein of Spider-Man 2. Director, co-writer and nerd-throb Joss Whedon basically crafts a superior version of Michael Bay’s Transformers films: irresistible to the eyes, with wit and fan service to spare, yet still without a thread of substance or speck of beauty underneath it all.

Despite the love Whedon is given by Internet culture, his talent displays itself sporadically in the film. With a movie set to top a billion dollars and a budget of over $220 million, it’s disappointing that many of the dialogue scenes possess a cheap aesthetic. To juggle all the characters, the film jumps from one character to another, often using dolly or crane shots to quickly establish a sense of place and familiarity with someone you might not have seen for three minutes (an eternity in a blockbuster). Filmed digitally, a lot of the dialogue looks like that of a TV show — no surprise considering Whedon’s Buffy and Firefly history. But there is a disposable, uninspired feeling to these shots and, further, to whole scenes. Our few moments with, say, Hawkeye are recorded in the same stock fashion as just another ensemble cable drama.

Given its rather simple expectations, however, The Avengers might just benefit from these artistic shortcomings. It is one of the most faithful comic book film adaptations in recent memory, with all the pretty visual motifs, ridiculous scenarios and emotional shallowness you can find in its inspiration. The S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier — an aircraft carrier capable of stratospheric flight — looks crazier in motion than it could possibly appear on hand-drawn panels. Iron Man flying through the city, back facing the ground, is an iconic image brought to life, as is the 360-degree rotating shot of The Avengers, cornered by foes and New York City skyscrapers, prepping for battle. These scenes are just about copied from Stan Lee and Jack Kirby’s original work, but it’s the kind of flattering plagiarism everyone can get behind.

The special effects are obviously remarkable, dazzling, super-duper. I am continually impressed by the different ways Iron Man enters and exits his suit; when he lands on the open-air pad of his own skyscraper, Tony Stark quickly emerges as spinning discs and robotic arms disassemble the intricate exoskeleton. Stark is, of course, blasé to the whole display. In the final action sequence, the camera swoops down streets and up buildings in an uninterrupted, natural flow that follows each hero kicking ass and farming testosterone. Don’t ask who their enemies are (Wikipedia says they are Loki’s army of “Chitauri,” and I am not sure the film said even that) and ignore that they look like a poor mesh of Gears of War’s Locust army and Transformers 3’s flying monsters. Just enjoy the show.

Detailing the story would bore me more than you: Things happen, things are explained, things are never explained. You could toil over the numerous plot holes, or you could just read the comic book — the answers are there, I hope. I did notice some light contemporary political commentary, with Nick Fury as the neoconservative hawk pushing for action, Bruce Banner (The Hulk) as the frustrated diplomat and Captain America as the old-fashioned ideologue of World War II-era America. These tensions manifest in one key scene of verbal conflict and are not addressed afterward, but the film deserves an ‘A’ for its effort, right?

Speaking of The Hulk, Mark Ruffalo’s portrayal of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde pacifistic beast steals the show. Ruffalo is a naturally reserved and faintly awkward presence on screen — Bruce Banner incarnate. Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark continues to rob all the witty one-liners (before he flies off with Hawkeye in his arms, Stark deadpans, “Clench up, Legolas”), but The Hulk has a few key moments of winning physical comedy, one joke of which set my theater off in an uproar of laughter that didn’t cease until halfway through the next scene.

So, The Avengers is funny as well as entertaining, attractive and exciting. What’s not to love? Truthfully, most of the film’s problems arise from the concept more than the execution. You can say, “Well, it was the best ensemble superhero movie ever!” And I would agree, with such stiff competition and all.

But look: This movie is going to make a billion dollars. Far more than that, actually. With only three days in the States and thirteen worldwide, it has already accrued a staggering $650 million. This is not the last Avengers movie, nor the last Marvel sequel or spin-off. The Avengers sets a decent precedent, one of cheery mirth and harmless arousal. It is not the plethora of explosions and jokes that rubs me wrong. Rather, it is the notion — nay, insult — that we cannot handle anything more.

Final Verdict:

3 Stars Out of 5

This article was originally written for The Cornell Daily Sun and can be viewed at its original location via this link.

A Perfect Slope Day, Like Every Other

Courtesy of Ryan Landvater

Slope Day is a perfect day. It is nothing less than perfect, even with all its imperfections. Short of an earthquake or norovirus contamination of Tompkins County’s Keystone Light supply, it will always be perfect. One could even convince his inebriated brethren that an earthquake or stomach virus would only further pad the posthumous scrapbook of the day, figuratively and literally.

Let’s start with the Slope itself. 364 days of the year, Libe Slope withstands ridicule from anyone who is forced to scale it. It’s a consensus that catalyzes Ivy Room small talk, excuses for sleeping in and one-too-many Facebook memes. Poor Slope. Yet on May 4, there is no place those wambulance criers would rather be. And they don’t just tolerate the Slope — they realize how damn perfect the awful thing is. Not only does the 89-degree angle create a natural stadium for viewing the show, but it also provides a readily available grassy mattress to collapse on and front-row seats to watch those who fail when doing so and tumble down the hill.

Which brings me to the people. You and I were one of them (except you, Mom, I told you not to read this article; can’t you just trust me when I say no one drinks at Cornell?). Even before I entered the fenced-off grounds, I was feeling the love. Quite literally, actually — I was vigorously massaged and nearly violated by the horde of woozy students who pushed me to lead the way. I appreciated their confidence in my leadership abilities, but they were not too receptive to my pleas that, as great as I am, even I could not part this Big Red Sea.

In the company of friends, the love never ends. Except if you cannot find said company — noob freshmen like me usually spend more time staring into the impenetrable crowds looking for that one suitemate who hasn’t texted back since 10 a.m. instead of just enjoying the show. All the while, be ready to bump into everyone you have seen over the past year, including many you hoped to never see again. It’s like a giant frat party, except all the lights are on.

As for the music, how can you ask for anything better? Well, you just ask, since there is definitely better but … come on, dude, lighten up! I will call you a liar if you say you didn’t mumble the chorus and jump around during “Hangover.” I will also call you sober and promptly shatter this eight-month-old handle of Svedka over your head.

The party started with The Wailers, Bob Marley’s old backing band. I love Bob Marley. I love all types of reggae music — you know, the slow kind and the slower kind with the funky bass. I love weed. I also love Bob Marley, so this was a perfect match. To my alcohol-pot-coke-DMT-skipped-last-lecture-bitches addled mind, The Wailers could have played all of Legend or just one guitar chord on the upbeat. I think I am right on both counts.

Neon Trees was life-changing, of course. Singer Tyler Glenn really seemed like he wanted to be there; he was bouncing about the stage and treating Slope Day like a real gig (which it really is! (really!)). At one point he mentioned how he didn’t go to college, though, and then I grew suspicious. Ever since Justin Bieber ’16 fell through, Glenn knew Slope Day could be a kickass UnCommon App. Apparently C.U. Admissions has canned the idea because Neon Trees didn’t play “Animal” until the end of their set. No matter how much charisma and pink hair you have, Mr. Glenn, you can’t convince us we like any of your other songs.

Before I mention the main act, I have to commend the DJs who played Avicii’s “Levels” between the sets. Everyone on the Slope was so drunk that we might as well have actually hired Avicii to play that one song anyway! Next to slashing funding for the humanities while also expanding Goldwin Smith Hall’s empty hallways, this was the most badass book-balancing exercise the University has undertaken all year.

Meanwhile, the man himself, Taio Cruz, did not disappoint. At least some form of the man, at some time, did not disappoint. The heavy sampling of his recorded material was a wise move on his part: While his detached stage presence failed to connect to Cornell students, he found common ground by touting past accomplishments that were the product of lucky collaborations with more talented contributors. When the sound guy pushed play on David Guetta and Usher’s song, “Without You,” Cruz reminded the audience that he was also one of six writers on that song. The sole “yooouuuuooouuuu” flourishes he added in the chorus reminded me I have a problem set due Sunday that I haven’t copied from someone yet.

Clearly, Slope Day could not have been better. Well, of course it could have been, but like frat hookups and A’s on engineering prelims, there is a certain shittiness, sadness, sacrifice involved in some of the best college experiences. FIJI’s t-shirts captured it well, with their back text of “Drink Until You Like Taio Cruz.” Since everyone already likes him, I am assuming FIJI just meant drink until you like him more. Still, it is a clever line and I’d buy drinks for whoever thought of it, even if I would go broke.

Those shirts are only further proof that Slope Day is the perfect day; we gather en masse and drink and roast in the sun until we pass out. It is so simple, with absolutely no room for error because the error is the whole game. We love to abuse ourselves after the abuse of months’ prior, and we come back, bleary-eyed and shambling, every year.

Who’s up for Chris Brown for next year?


This article was originally written for The Cornell Daily Sun and can be viewed at its original location via this link. And, yes, this is a satire.

How to Make a Billion Dollars

Courtesy of Santi Slade

While the weather may have its own agenda, summer is almost here — four days away, in fact. No, not because classes end then. And not Slope Day, either, though with all the alcohol and sweat it might as well feel like it.

No, this Friday, May 4, The Avengers will open in theaters across the country, unofficially inaugurating the start of the summer movie season. Marvel is hoping you and I are excited about this movie; in 2010, summer “began” May 7, with Iron Man 2, and last year on May 6, with Thor (at this rate, in 60 years, Hologram Nick Fury vs. The Royale With Cheese will kick off summer on February 19, 2072).

Lots of money is on the table for this one. Consider how each summer for the past four years has featured big-screen advertisements for this very film. They all did well (the weakest was The Incredible Hulk, which earned $263 million worldwide), but so far all of these films have eluded that coveted $1 billion landmark. Disney — who put $4 billion down for its acquisition of Marvel Comics and all its associated properties — does not want to lose any more dough on its films, especially with the colossal failure of John Carter earlier this year.

Will The Avengers cross the totally arbitrary $1 billion worldwide gross threshold, which only 11 other films have passed to date? It seems likely to considering that seven of those billion dollar babies were released in the past four years, with three films alone released last year. The trailer depicts actors we love (veterans Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Downey Jr., along with rising stars Chris Evans and Chris Hemsworth), an actress men love to ogle (Scarlett Johansson, conveniently wearing a skintight costume) and explosions in a metropolitan setting. (Has anyone else noticed how our discomfiting fetish with city destruction has only accelerated post-9/11? Look at every Transformers or Roland Emmerich film we watch). Oh, and the movie is good too, with upwards of 96-percent approval on Rotten Tomatoes. But we are speaking about the bottom line here, so silly things like whether a movie you pay $12 for is “good” or not are kept at the door.

After this weekend, in which The Avengers will undoubtedly deliver a huge turnout upwards of $120-140 million, the box office curve will naturally slope downwards. Last year’s Harry Potter reached $1 billion in 19 days. No matter how much comic book geeks obsess over Hawkeye’s long-awaited inclusion or Captain America’s abdominals, there’s no beating Dumbledore’s Army. It was this similar, though skewed younger, demographic that launched The Hunger Games into stratospheric financial success, with the third best opening weekend of all time at $155 million, the number to beat this summer. But even Games has a long ways to go to hit a billion clams, as the $600 million it has made to date worldwide, after 38 days in theaters (which still slays the rest of the year, by the way), reveals its weak sustainability. Think about how the waves of pre-teens (I will not use the “twe-” word) saw the movie: They screamed at their moms about Katniss and Peeta enough to get them willing to drive to the theater or even hooked themselves. But then it’s back to work and back to school.

So, Marvel’s biggest yet will likely not pull in the explosive first weekend but looks more set to survive. How about the rest of the summer? Expect good showings from Men in Black III (the first real impediment to Avengers, three weeks after), Brave (Pixar’s newest won’t mine the lucrative merchandising goldmine like Cars or Toy Story, but should boast a creative return to form a la Wall-E) and Prometheus (an R rating may hold it back from a few but not from the droves of adults looking for a mature option).

I expect The Bourne Legacy to underperform, because while the original films defied expectations, many still do not know leading man Jeremy Renner and the studios are dumping it off at August, which usually signals hesitance. The Amazing Spider-Man does not have to apologize for the franchise’s awful third movie, for that still accrued nearly $900 million worldwide, and it will fare better than many think (say, $80 million opening, $650 million worldwide finish). Same goes for Ice Age: Continental Drift, which will likely pull in unimpressive domestic sales but skyrocket in the increasingly critical foreign markets. There’s something about animation and mysterious megafauna that turns on those across the pond(s). Ask Kung Fu Panda.

It’s the easy answer, but put your money on The Dark Knight Rises as king of the summer. Its predecessor hit a billion with over 50-percent of its total gross in domestic box office, the only case in the billion dollar movie club. While this film may not have the Heath Ledger scuttlebutt to energize its P.R., its varied cast (read: women) and intriguing art direction (read closer: women in tights) will entice more foreign crowds this time around. If the trailers play up its conclusiveness of the Nolan saga (so they say) and Bane’s bizarre physical presence while hiding the silly American football scenes, Batman can soar all the way to Tokyo … again.

My columns are usually about big ideas and my struggle to comprehend and reconcile them with my daily life. This entry is rather anti-intellectual, not about big ideas but rather big numbers. And when the summer ends and all my above predictions prove wrong, enough time will have passed so that you forget I ever made them. I think this Cornell education might be actually starting to pay off.


This article was originally written for The Cornell Daily Sun and can be viewed at its original location via this link.

Mass Effect 3 Review

Mass Effect 3
Developed by BioWare
Released in 2012

The Mass Effect series is, so far, the only body of video game fiction worthy to join the heavies in film, television and literature like Star Wars, Lost and Harry Potter. The rich universe of characters, locations, conflicts, phenomena and funny names created by Canadian developer BioWare not only stirs a rabid fanbase but also mines a vein of franchise dollars on a scale unseen before in role-playing games. All tales must end, and Mass Effect 3 concludes the trilogy just like those aforementioned series: with nostalgic nods to its revered canon, inspiring additions and a handful of questionable decisions.

Despite what EA Games' marketing team may be preaching, Mass Effect 3 is made for the fans. Who starts with Return of the Jedi, after all? As hero Commander Shepard, you run into basically every key and bit character of the trilogy (well over 50) as you prepare to battle the gargantuan threat of the Reapers, an ancient alien race that wipes the universe of all sentient life every 50,000 years. Since you can import your save file from the second game — which, in turn, could have been imported from the first — the choices you made way back in 2007 decide who is alive to fight by your side.

The word "choice" rules most discussions of Mass Effect. Once again, choices you make shape your character into a good — “paragon” — or bad — “renegade” — character, though saving the galaxy is the common goal at both ends. The variable is more how you get there: unite the quarreling races or save only those already on your side? (Hint: the latter approach is most unwise.)

Guiding your Shepard’s morality takes place in the abundant cinematic dialogue the series is famous for. Not much has changed in aesthetic since the first game, but I am once again astonished how they record over 40,000 lines of dialogue and attach them to convincing, animated characters in proper lip-sync. The voice cast includes such actors as Martin Sheen, Seth Green, Keith David and Yvonne Strahovski. It speaks to the respect BioWare has accrued that these acclaimed talents bring their all to this medium.

BioWare fills the Milky Way with species ranging from beautiful humanoids to sentient Portuguese Man o’ Wars. There are the brilliant, if neurotic, amphibious Salarians and the brutish, reptilian Krogans. Ignore that all these disparate organisms evolved with roughly equal intelligence and have spoken modern English for millennia (shh, ignore it). Shepard has to find a way to band together the warring factions and recruit the isolated ones to unite against the greater threat. In my playthrough, Shepard solved not one but two Israel/Palestine analogous conflicts; one race involved, the Quarians, carry an unmistakable Middle Eastern accent. Earthly ties can be drawn between all events, if on a macro scale. It is a post-human society where contemporary quibbles over evolution — “the cosmic imperative,” a wise, African-inspired race calls it — and homosexuality — pilot Steve Cortez recalls his dead husband with no camp or novel subtext — are relics of the past.

But your time with Mass Effect 3 will not rest solely on futurist political theory and interspecies sociology. At its core, the game is a cover-based shooter a la Gears of War. Action still does not flow as smoothly as said game, and both schools and monasteries possess invincible architecture primed for war. However, there is a broader cornucopia of choice on how each battle is played. Dozens of pistols, shotguns, snipers and machine guns flesh out the arsenal, and new modifications can be purchased to strengthen your stopping power. Biotic and tech powers, including a repackaged Force push, are now easier to complement conventional weapons, leading to varied battlefield encounters encouraging experimentation.

There are only 15 or so hours of required missions, but to see all the content — and achieve the “best” ending — 30 to 40 hours will accumulate. One central mission culminates with directing airstrikes on and dodging the death rays of a giant Reaper, the design of which resembles Halo’s Covenant ships and H.G. Wells’ alien forces. Another smaller assignment has you defusing a bomb that could decimate a planet, ending with a scene of thrilling cinematography and moving sacrifice. There was only one mission I actively disliked, involving a digital Shepard recovering important files; basically, a virtual reality CCleaner. Regardless, most missions reintroduce familiar faces from past titles and carry enough thrills to induce involuntary gamer vegetation, or bliss, as we prefer it to be called.

Between missions you roam the Normandy SR-2, your sleek vessel capable of faster-than-light speeds, and talk to your squadmates about the mission ahead. The different perspectives of your varied crew lead to enlightening discussions on the toils of war. However, if playing the good guy as I did, it usually boils down to Shepard reassuring those worried that cooperation is the key to victory and, when Shepard laments all those dead, a pal like series steady Garrus reminding that sacrifice is the other key. War is bad, that is for sure. The game even opens with you watching a little boy crash as his ship fails to escape a smoldering Earth. For a triple-A blockbuster title of the sort, there is legitimate contemplation on the price of war, even if the theme’s execution leans more Independence Day than The Battle of Algiers.

Love is still on the plate, of course, and virtual romance is still as incendiary as it has never been. I favor overhearing crewmembers hit on each other and the awkward results that follow, or the exchange of dirty jokes between a meathead soldier and a 50,000-year-old warrior (“Now the joke’s on you, human, hehe”).

To guarantee the “best” ending, assisting different races to find traitors or artifacts boosts their morale and, alas, readiness. Your in-game journal does not register progress on these tasks, so these preparations for war just become what they really are: cumbersome chores. Thankfully the Citadel, an ancient space metropolis, is a triumph of artistic direction, so running across a beautiful plaza to deliver the third missing war bible right after taking down a mile-high Reaper is not that much of a buzzkill.

Playing multiplayer is also necessary to gain access to the “best” (again, the quotes) ending by some inexplicable logic of ratios and “effective military strength” EA threw in. Thankfully, the online co-op is surprisingly fun, structured like Horde mode from Gears, with waves of enemies to defeat and simple objectives to complete. I cannot picture myself playing it weeks down the line, but it is a worthwhile diversion from the main campaign.

And then it ends. The ending already lives in infamy, with thousands signing protests against it. I find this widespread devotion to story inspiring, signaling how great writing is now expected of great games. The final moments do not take into account the whole arc of your journey and enter some serious Lost territory that will frustrate some, or many. I do not personally loathe it so for it still successfully wrings emotion, a tough feat in video games, and there is a convincing justification making the Internet rounds (look up: Indoctrination Theory). The real issue is that, after bonding together the entire galaxy to fight the Reapers, there is little proof of collaboration in the final battle. I would have appreciated some help from the bloodthirsty Krogans I befriended after dying for the ninth time battling endless screeching Reapers.

The first Mass Effect received a fair share of ridicule for its loading screens disguised as the slowest elevators in the universe, inching up as you and your squad just awkwardly stood there. There is a not so subtle nod to that ignominy in Mass Effect 3 as you blast off on top of a high-speed elevator to apprehend an assassin. BioWare has brought this series to remarkable heights over five years, aware of its weaknesses and ever eager to improve. While the third may hold its own flaws, it closes the greatest modern video game franchise with style and heart. I finished the game and was struck by that unique depression that also accompanied the finales of Lost and Harry Potter. Now what? I guess I’ll play them all again.

Final Verdict:

4.5 Stars out of 5

This review was originally written for The Cornell Daily Sun and can be viewed at its original location via this link. 

A History of Violence

Courtesy of Santi Slade

"Familiarity breeds contempt,” the saying goes. Anyone familiar with the current events of the world should harbor a little contempt at the way things are running. On one side, GOP contender Rick Santorum spews outdated drivel demeaning women, gays and all other minorities. Far more flagrant is the state-sanctioned massacre of civilians over in Syria. Videos from journalists — two of which were killed last week while covering the clash — and everyday citizens expose nauseating bloodshed that has spared no one; a clip went viral earlier this month that depicted a dismembered teen’s last moments. This continues on, with no end in sight.

But, hey, we love violence. A small contingent applauded Rick Perry’s boast that, last year, his state of Texas put to death more criminals than any other. A much larger majority cheered the death of Osama bin Laden. I will not lie to say I was not one of them. But, as a key passage from the Bible, Matthew 5:44, attests, “Love your enemies,” a principle so noble in theory because it is so difficult in practice.

Consider how many synonyms in the English language can substitute for “kill”: murder, slay, waste, snuff, whack, hit, ice … to take care of, to do away with, to make sleep with the fishes. How many different ways can we describe a field of flowers, or the connection with a loved one? Words appear futile in those circumstances. We have all, at least, seen glimpses of the best in life. Millions of songs have been written about how impossible it is to describe, the ineffability of beauty. Most of them are so bad they make us value this struggle even more.

Victims of rape assure the cozy masses that the extent of abuse similarly defies words. With a glazed stare, PTSD war veterans contend that taking life, for the noblest of causes, still rattles the soul. Hostile rhetoric can prove far more dangerous, for it indoctrinates subjects in intolerance, pushing objective detachment to subjective hatred. The images of war and the words leading to it remain ugly. Violence is the antithesis of beauty.

History tells us violence has forever been the answer instead of, to quote Elvis Costello, “peace, love and understanding.” It is easier, requires less thinking and compensates for the impotence of a long line of male leaders. “Kill, kill, kill!” we yell to this day. Demonize the enemy, for they could surely not be anything like us.

The haunting quote from Jean Renoir’s 1939 film, The Rules of the Game, takes the just, if taboo, both then and now, approach to our history of violence: “The awful thing about life is this: Everybody has their reasons.” There is a side to every story, with emotions and values that lie not in black or white, but the grey in between. Familiarity breeds not contempt but identification, knowledge of another’s affairs that sit not far from our own.

Art uncovers these truths and, today, cinema most of all. But now that Oscar season is over, I expect movie studios to once again focus on making money; that is, equate the lowest denominator as the entire audience. Sickly romantic comedies take a shot at cobbling together some immaculate depiction of true love while Michael Bay and Guy Ritchie wade in the unremitting tide of action blow-em-ups.

From post-Oscar February to pre-Oscar October, Hollywood attempts to ignore its unequaled ability to contemplate topics like peace and morality, values long stripped from Congress. Some films like Harry Potter, Super 8 and Planet of the Apes slip through the cracks, yet not even they, the sole breadwinners in the business, occupy the ballot for Oscar night. Why does intelligent fare have to be relegated to a narrow three-month window, and at the metropolitan poles of our two coasts, no less? For the rest of the year, sex is love and blood is war.

The best of cinema ponders themes greater than its own plot or mechanics. Iran’s A Separation, winner of the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar and my Best Film of 2011, period, studies a simple but powerful domestic dispute. Through its performances, subplots, editing and direction, the film upends the hostile image of the country and its people many of us have as well as any notion of infallible law. No side of the conflict, between a recently divorced husband and sickly, pious woman, acted worthy of condemnation independent of one another. Innocuous events escalated until a mutual split in morality cast one vehemently against the other.

It is a fascinating, brilliant film that explores the simple violence in language and conduct, and how uncontested it would stand at each home base. Like the smallpox explorers greeted Native Americans with, the origins of strife are invisible to one another.

I criticized last year’s Drive, a film I otherwise greatly admired, for serving its brutal, almost beautiful carnage with no footnotes. Director Nicolas Winding Refn framed the slitting of wrists and stomping of skulls with chill sterility and detachment. It disturbed me not for the bloody images but for its refusal for empathy. It took a Camus approach to violence, detached and detailed, not unlike the testimony of the BTK Killer or Ted Bundy.

That approach works for some, but I carry an agenda with the greatest of films. “Why?” I want the film to ask. Violence is all around us, but it is born of mass ignorance and petty greed. Diplomacy seems impossible for a man raised to pull the trigger. If this is such a wonderful world, there should be nothing funny about peace, love and understanding. The Coen Brothers capture this complex perfectly in Fargo, after policewoman Marge apprehends four-time murderer Gaear. “And for what?” she asks. “For a little bit of money. There’s more to life than a little money, you know … And here you are, and it’s a beautiful day.”


This article was originally written for The Cornell Daily Sun and can be viewed at its original location via this link.

The Grey Review

The Grey

Directed by Joe Carnahan

Released in 2012

In my minutely-partitioned movie collection, there is a little section I like to call “old men kicking ass.” The subgenre hit its peak in 2008 when Hollywood realized the youth demographic revered the aging action stars from the 70’s and 80’s  (Chuck Norris jokes may be somewhat responsible). We saw Clint Eastwood and Michael Caine pulverize punks in Gran Torino and Harry Brown, and Sylvester Stallone slurred at anything that moved in reboots to the Rocky and Rambo franchises, not to mention regrouping the Rogaine collective in The Expendables.

Guilt by proximity places the Liam Neeson of Taken in this category as well, as a 56-year-old clearing a yacht full of machinegun-wielding thugs using only a pistol and no apparent shortness of breath strikes us as rather exceptional. Neeson may be a few years under the median of the rest of these gentlemen, but his association in the badass elder enclave stands strong.

When I buy Mr. Neeson’s latest film The Grey — which I will do considering it is, itself, rather exceptional — I will not place it besides these vigilante senior pictures. This film has something profound to say, not (wolf) skulls to crush, though the aggressive marketing campaign insists on the latter. The Grey creeps into heavy philosophical territory without pretension but with the innate terror — and, conversely, Zen — these situations carry. For me, that trumps any mindless action rehash, even with the novelty of an old man holding the gun.

Ottway (Neeson) is at the end of the line. He addresses ambiguous notes to his unseen wife and finds himself pulling a gun to his brain in the plot’s first five minutes. Symbolic events ensue and he ends up on an airplane with a crew of oil drillers headed to Northern Alaska. They do not make it there. In a stunning scene, the plane rips from the sky in a whirling blur of chaos, silence and light. Seven survivors plus one dying one make it through the crash. That man’s death — which Ottway softly eases him into — throws the film as far away from the hyper pulp of Taken as possible, if the initial suicide attempt did not already come to that conclusion.

The terrible plane crash actually brings Ottway back to life. Not to the extremes of Locke’s reaffirming rebirth in Lost, but more a solemn commitment to save those still with him. His official job in the oil operation is to snipe encroaching wolves, so he knows a few tricks to sustain survival. Unsurprisingly, the crash reduced his rifle to splinters so the circling wolves indisputably have the upper hand.

These savage canines — whose depiction conservationists call deceptive while Joe Carnahan, the director, defends as plausible — pick off the survivors one-by-one, with different tactics each time. The realism of the wolves’ stalking, strategizing, bloodletting may be questionable, but I have seen enough Planet Earth to know that nature is cruel, and it would not surprise me if apex predators, evolved to dominate in the harshest of climates, could wipe out our truly weak species.

Carnahan takes cues from Spielberg by keeping the wolves off-screen for the most part. Relegating the animals to blurs of grey fur and echoing howls creates creatures far more terrifying than what Canis lupis truly are: a few nucleotides away from Air Bud. Jaws set the precedent for the unseen, and thus omnipresent, monster (actually due to malfunctions on-set that Spielberg took in stride). These wolves could be anywhere, but are always in mind.

But enough about these damn wolves, sharks and boogeymen, for the story cares little about them. Instead, it thrusts men into the most primal of scenarios, where it is not only necessary to kill, but almost impossible to do so. This crew of ex-cons, fugitives and thieves — “men unfit for mankind,” as Ottway describes, though others might just call them “manly men” — falls victim to the elements with shocking passivity. Diaz, played by Frank Grillo and by far the most captivating of the supporting characters, brutally dismembers a wolf carcass as the rest of the survivors watch in concern. It is not a look of disgust as much as fear that this loss of humanity lurks around the corner for them, as well.

Dread as bleak as Alaska’s whiteout tundra permeates every scene of this film, though spiritual catharsis joins in tandem for a few provocative moments. Prayer is both futile and vital. Under such duress, most would turn to a higher power for aid, but what can He do? Screenwriters Carnahan and Ian Mackenzie Jeffers play the middle ground, leaving the message fulfilling to those with and without faith. Distributor Open Road Films actually released a companion pamphlet aimed at Christian audiences, saying The Grey “provides men with an opportunity to discover the many ways in which they can better face a life in which spiritual warfare – the battle for our individual souls – is a hard reality.” Perhaps pushing the card a bit, but the poetic last scene will leave it up to any interpretation.

There is one scene that will sear into your conscience. A character gives up, but not in the way you would expect. Carnahan stages an incredibly long shot, proving great courage on his own part (he directed the bombastically mediocre A-Team reboot after all) and balances terror and serenity with minimalist precision.

The solid cast of I’ve-seen-that-face-before character actors and the script’s decency to give us a decent look into their humble lives brings a complete, circular structure to the plot and themes. It is a heavy movie for the multiplex, especially considering many are expecting Taken 3 (2011’s Unknown was the spiritual sequel) and do not anticipate a Jack London-esque contemplation on nature, death and faith, in all the agony and peace and yin and yang that they carry.

This strife serves as the perfect vehicle for the film’s titan, Liam Neeson. His rugged but mortal face completely fills the poster. It is a handsome face, well-suited for close-ups, not unlike the symbolic tarmacs of Clint Eastwood or Dustin Hoffman. His presence guarantees quality regardless if the rest is camp or craft. He dominates the screen. How could wolves think they stand a chance?

Final Verdict:

4 Stars out of 5




This article was originally written for The Cornell Daily Sun and can be viewed at its original location via this link.