Gravity (***1/4)

A sci-fi movie that’s not an action movie, Gravity combines otherworldly visuals with a down-to-earth story. The time is the near future. The place is not so far, near-earth orbit, where a repair of the ship system’s electronics is taking place. The people are played by George Clooney, Sandra Bullock, and a couple of other people who are not movie stars. Guess who disappears from the story as debris from a space accident, traveling thousands of miles per hour, creates disaster and, in the space equivalent of the cell phone falling in the toilet, prevents communication with the NASA folks on the ground. In this future, the US manned space program is up and running again, along with the Russian and Chinese ones.

Relatively original for a big-budget film (despite similarities to a Ray Bradbury story), this is based on a screenplay by director Alfonso Cuarón (his first feature since 2006’s Children of Men) and his son Jonás. I can’t vouch for the scientific veracity of the plot, but it at least seemed credible. (Though I wonder, would an astronaut running short on oxygen be encouraged to talk a lot? And, would a mission commander really not know where his crew member lived, or whether she was married?) The opening is silent, with a subtitled reminder that, contra so many other space films, sound does not carry in a vacuum. (The movie does not rigidly adhere to this truth later.) As for the two characters, each basically has one personality characteristic: he’s a smooth talker, and she’s a grieving loner, though she also does, even with short hair, remind me of characters played by Sandra Bullock in earthbound roles. This is somewhat of a disappointment coming from Cuarón, who created the rich character-driven comedy Y Tu Mamá También.

Visually, the film is frequently stunning, at least in the 3D version I saw. The whizzing-toward-me space shrapnel actually had me ducking my head, but perhaps more impressive are the less-showy long shots of the actors moving in space in their near-weightless state, the space vehicles growing ever larger as they neared, the blue, green, and brown earth sometimes in view. I almost wished I would have been watching the film on a smaller screen so that the actors would have appeared to be the same size as in real life. Even so, this is great as a 3D film (worth making a point to see that way), pretty good as sci-fi, and intermittently good as suspense drama.

IMDb link

viewed 9/10/13 7:30 at Rave UPenn [PFS screening] and posted 9/13/13

Europa Report (***1/4)

Using a quasi-documentary structure to dissect the aftermath of a voyage to Jupiter, this is sci-fi that, like 2009’s Moon, emphasizes space as a lonely, quiet, place. (The movie pays tribute to another inspiration, 2001, by briefly featuring Strauss’s The Blue Danube, prominently featured in that classic, as the crew boards the spaceship.) Taking its inspiration from recent evidence that Europa, one of the planet’s moons, has an icy surface with, possibly, water underneath, the film follows a four-man, two-woman crew as they travel there in the hope of finding evidence of life. The setting seems to be the current time, or close to it.

As the story begins, it is six months into the voyage, and the crew has lost its communication with earth. The idea is that the public had been following the voyage, but only now has information about what happened after that been declassified. A spokeswoman for the space agency on the ground narrates some of the story, told in flashbacks and flash-forwards that are generally not confusing. One of the crew tells other parts of the story. Is she the only survivor? What happens on Europa? I think you can probably guess, in broad strokes, if you assume that if the crew finds nothing, or all die immediately, there’s not much of a story. Still, this is an intelligent approach to sci-fi that seems fairly realistic.

Director Sebastián Corderouses split screens and typical subtitles to give the impression that we are looking at footage from video feeds, but he only does this for some of the movie. As for the actors, they’re fine. Most likely to be recognizable are Embeth Davidtz as the Earth-bound spokeswoman and Michael Nyqvist, star of the original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, but the characters are not the movie’s strong suit. The visuals are not flashy, but seem believable, and the score by Bear McCreary is effectively moody.

IMDb link

viewed 8/15/13 7:35 at Ritz Bourse and posted 8/15/13

Star Trek (***)

They used to just have sequels, and then they had prequels, and now they have “reboots,” attempts to financially, and maybe artistically, resuscitate a movie series that had seemed to play itself out. New actors are cast, a new writer and director are hired, and the story returns to its origins. In this case, it returns to an even earlier period, though that happens to be over 200 years in the future. Beginning with the birth of future starship captain James T. Kirk, it ends more or less at the starting point of the original 1967–1969 series. The director is J. J. Abrams, creator of TV’s Alias and Lost.

I tend to like origin stories, but to be honest the childhood stuff is pretty perfunctory. Kirk (Chris Pine) reveals his brash nature and impulsivity via that hoariest of clichés, a bar fight. (He’s trying to pick up his future shipmate Uhura, who gets to be a love interest in this version.) Meanwhile, on planet Vulcan, Spock (Zachary Quinto) gets teased for being half-human, behavior that seems odd, and not at all alien, for such a logical race. But the series, and this movie, always seemed to have as a core theme that trying to be logical makes no sense. Hence, Spock is always the secondary hero to Kirk, who believes every battle can be won and reflects creator Gene Roddenberry‘s optimistic view of humanity.

Genocide and revenge are themes here too, but it’s not the humans but the alien Romulans who threaten both. This plot, too, is unremarkable, but provides the framework for the main characters to reveal their personalities, and for the special-effects crew to show up those 1960s TV folks and most of the earlier films based on their exploits. You don’t need to know anything about any of that to follow the film, but it probably makes it more enjoyable. Even if the story is new, it’s careful about hitting as many of the familiar touchstones as possible, from Spock’s “Live Long and Prosper” to “Bones” McCoy’s “I’m just a doctor!” schtick to the “These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise” voiceover, moved from the intro to the coda. The actors, too, definitely aim to preserve some of the mannerisms of the old cast. Pine’s Kirk, especially, has more than a hint of Shatner in his movements, though there’s less of his oft-parodied halting vocal style.

With Shatner represented in spirit, Leonard Nimoy shows up in the flesh, shoehorned into a couple of scenes via a time-travel plot that Spock himself might call “highly illogical.” Again, plot is not the strong point, but with that exception the script Transformers writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman have crafted is a sturdy vehicle for the action scenes (I liked the one with a wild animal) and the rivalry-cum-friendship of Kirk and Spock. Reboot successful, more or less.

IMDB link

viewed 5/26/09 at Moorestown; reviewed 5/26 and 5/29/09

Meet Dave (**3/4)

This movie’s weak opening must be payback for Eddie Murphy’s previous “family comedy,” the atrocious Norbit. Yet even though Murphy has reteamed with that film’s director, Brian Robbins, this sci-fi-slanted follow-up is much more palatable. (Which is an example of why the importance of directors can be overrated and writers overlooked; the writers on this wrote for Mystery Science Theater 3000 and Frasier.) Not only does Murphy play an alien, but he also plays a spaceship that looks and sounds just like a spastic, stiff Eddie Murphy. See, the aliens are really tiny, and they’ve come to New York City on a mission to repair a young boy’s self-esteem. Okay, it’s actually to save their planet somehow, but you could be forgiven for any confusion.

The aliens are all Mr. Spock serious until those decadent earth ways start rubbing off. Watching the aliens (who are all hidden inside the human-shaped spaceship) start to “get down” will probably be painful for adults, and when alien Eddie’s would-be girlfriend (Gabrielle Union) started getting jealous of spaceship Eddie’s flirtation with “gigantic” mom Elizabeth Banks, well, I think I audibly groaned.

My rating may be generous on account of the movie being better than I expected (awful), and because I am looking at it from the point of view of a pre-teen target audience. And I did laugh some. It doesn’t make any sense that Eddie Murphy talks in an unplaceable accent while the rest of the crew sound like native-born Americans. It doesn’t make sense that they seem to know most every English word but assume that “Welcome to Old Navy” must be a typical greeting. (And yet, seen from a product-placement point of view, it’s perfectly logical.) But the accent, and Murphy’s performance, amused me, and the fish-out-of-water plot was not without its moments.

IMDB link

viewed 7/12/08 at Moorestown; reviewed 7/17/08

In the Shadow of the Moon (***)

Amazing visuals anchor this portrait of the astronauts of the Apollo program. Initiated by President Kennedy and encompassing eleven manned space missions in about four years (1968–1972), Apollo represents the only voyages in which men stood on a body other than Earth. About a third of this documentary is devoted to the period leading up to the first lunar landing, a third to Apollo 11 (the first landing, in July 1969), and a third to later voyages and reflections, including the story of the nearly doomed Apollo 13, the subject of the 1995 feature. (A special feature on the DVD explains this in more detail.)

Providing a basic chronology and the astronauts general reflections about their experiences are what the movie provides. Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, is seen only in historic footage, but the other two Apollo 11 astronauts, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, are interviewed extensively, along with other astronauts such as Apollo 13’s Jim Lovell (played by Tom Hanks in the movie). The personalities, especially of the avuncular Collins and Apollo 12’s modest Alan Bean, emerge. Period footage—Walter Cronkite’s TV coverage, crowds watching the Apollo 11 launch at Cape Kennedy, even Armstrong’s parents appearing on the game show I’ve Got a Secret—is a reminder of the cultural impact of the moon landings.

Little scientific information is included. Clearly, the technological and strategic challenges were enormous, but they are outlined in only the broadest terms. Given the artificial deadline—the end of the 1960s—imposed by Kennedy’s directive, there must have been enormous pressure to speed things up at the potential expense of safety. Another astronaut quotes Gus Grissom as being afraid to point out wiring flaws in the first Apollo module for fear of being fired. Grissom would die with his crew in 1967 when the module burst into flames on the ground. This is the film’s only hint of serious controversy or tension. The movie doesn’t even go into the end of the Apollo program, which involved the last three planned voyages being scrapped to save money and pave the way for the subsequent Space Shuttle program. Still, it’s a sound recounting of an important cultural moment in our planet’s history and how it felt to those most closely involved.

IMDB link

viewed 1/31/09 and 2/2/09 on DVD; reviewed 2/2/09

Serenity (**3/4)

Serenity is a sci-fi action film from Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It’s somewhat in the vein of Star Wars without the self-importance. (There’s even a bit of humor.) The story, set 500 years’ hence, begins when a “reader” (psychic) gets broken out of a government facility by her brother. They take refuge aboard Serenity, a fancy spaceship whose captain, a hero of a recent war, has turned to petty interstellar crime. A guy from “the Alliance” (the government) is hot on their heels, and cannibalistic “Reavers” are also marauding about the solar system. The film was clearly made with the possibility of sequels in mind, and while the story doesn’t feel incomplete, some of its elements feel underdeveloped. What was the war about? Where do the psychics’ abilities come from? Luckily, the film is well-done enough that fans of the genre will want to find out. [I suspect that many of these questions were answered in Firefly, the short-lived (2002-2003) Fox TV series on which this was based. The cast of relative unknowns is taken right from the series.] The CGI effects are solid, the action sequences fairly good, not great, and the non-psychic characters, with one exception, are standard-issue action film sorts.

IMDB link

viewed 10/1/05 at Moorestown; reviewed 10/3/05