Justice League (2017)

Justice League (2017)

Directors: Zack Snyder/Joss Whedon

Cast: Ben Affleck, Gal Gadot, Jason Momoa, Amy Adams, Ezra Miller, J.K. Simmons, Jeremy Irons, Billy Crudup, Diane Lane, Amber Heard, Robin Wright

I started collecting comics when I was nine years old. I discovered the world of comic books through a neighbor of mine who had mountains of them. Back then, you were either a Marvel fan or a DC fan, it was always a clash of who had the best superheroes. Who would win if they ever fought against each other? Who was the most powerful? And it was all about those big events like Marvel’s ‘Secret Wars’ , where all of the heroes got together to defeat an all-powerful villain. Nowadays, these clashes have translated to the silver screen. Who makes the best comic book movies? Marvel or DC? Are you with Warner Bros. or are ya with Disney? Maybe you’re like me and enjoy both sides equally, I mean, why side, when you can have all the fun and enjoy the whole shebang? Cool thing is that each production company is always trying to make the biggest and the baddest comic book film ever made, all to please us, the viewer. They don’t always succeed, but boy is it fun to watch them try. Up to my writing this, I’d say that there’s no doubt that Marvel is winning the day in terms of who makes the best comic book movies. Marvel seems to have the formula figured out, and they are ahead of the game, no doubt. But DC is slowly learning from their mistakes. Is Justice League a step in the right direction?  

This time around, Batman is trying to gather superheroes to form a group of heroes to protect the earth from a coming threat. Apparently, a villain called Steppenwolf is hell bent on world domination, but in order to do so, he has to recollect three “mother boxes” that will give him the power he seeks in order to achieve his goals. Will Batman gather the team in time, and if he does, will they be enough? How can this world without a Superman confront such a threat?

For those of you not in the know, this film had a bumpy road towards the silver screen. Zack Snyder was directing it, but he suffered the death of a loved one, so he stepped down to deal with that. Warner Bros. decided to hire Josh Whedon director of Avengers (2012) and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) in order to finish the film. Whedon did a couple of re-writes and reshoots and boom, we got Justice League. Warner Bros. took the opportunity to make the film a bit “lighter”, the reason for this being that audiences have felt that DC movies are “too dark and brooding”, well, at least when compared to Marvel movies, which are bright and shiny and know how to juggle heroic elements with comedy. 

This whole making DC movies lighter thing has been going on for a while now. Warner Bros. has been reactionary in this sense, they react to whatever Marvel does. And I think that’s actually part of the problem, they aren’t trend setters. They are following, reacting to whatever Marvel does. In this sense, Marvel has proven themselves the leaders of this whole comic book movie craze. Warner Bros tried making Suicide Squad (2016) lighter and funnier with some reshoots, but that turned out to be a failed experiment. With Justice League, DC finally found the right balance between comedy and super hero antics, and it’s all thanks to Whedon’s influence in the project. The funny moments are truly funny, well written and effective, so I’d say you guys can rest assured the film delivers.

In terms of these six heroes coming together, I’d say they did a good job as well. I gotta say I had a kick out of seeing all these heroes together on the silver screen. Nobody is left behind, they all shine, they all kick ass, they work together. It’s cool seeing their different personalities clash. Some are seasoned veterans, others are just learning how to be heroes. How cool is it to see Flash afraid of getting into battle? I’d say he is the one that grows the most as a character, learning how to grow into the role of a hero. Flash also has the funniest lines in the film. For the record, I like Ben Affleck as Batman. Momoa is the badboy of the group as Aquaman. Cyborg is surprisingly crucial to the story. And Wonder Woman is growing to be the leader of the pack. And speaking of Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman, she looks even more beautiful on this one, I have a crush on this girl. She’s just stunning on this film.

On the negative side, the villain is your typical “world domination” type, which felt very “been there done that”. The villain being a completely computer generated character didn’t help matters much in terms of giving it life, Hollywood has to learn that lesson. We want thespians Hollywood, not pixels. No matter how cool they may look, nothing will ever replace the performance of a real actor. In this type of film, the villains shenanigans are just a trigger to get our heroes in motion and what really matters is how they get from here to there, how they go about it. The McGuffin this time are three powerful items called “The Mother Boxes” and basically, they are what moves the plot along. It’s the type of film where the villains motivations don’t matter as long as we get that cool superhero action, which can be seen as a negative point. In a good honest to god great film, everything is that much better if we care about what’s moving the story along. You definetly feel the voice of two different directors, and a bunch of producers messing with the movie, as a result the film does feel a bit uneven. It feels a bit disjointed in terms of tone and style. But whatever, Justice League is a no brainer. It’s meant to be a fun movie and in that sense, it delivers every step of the way. There are surprises and cool moments that will have those geeky fans wetting their pants with joy. Stay for the two extra endings!

Rating: 3 out of 5

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Director: Denis Villeneuve

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Jared Leto, Robin Wright, Dave Bautista, Sean Young

What has always attracted me to Blade Runner (1982), and part of the reason why it’s one of my favorite science fiction films ever (topped only by Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey) are its themes. The film asks one of the most thought-provoking questions of all time: why must we die? The question of our mortality has haunted us since the dawn of time. Why are we born with an expiration date? One for the ages to be sure, but one that Ridley Scott and his crew weren’t afraid to ask back in 1982. Which is why that scene in which Roy Batty kills his creator for being unable to give him more life struck me as a great example of a film that knows its themes well and truly explores them. “You were made as good as we could make you” is the answer Tyrell, the ‘God of Biomechanics’ gives his creations. Live your life to the fullest, but rest assured, you’re going to die.  That frustration and anger we all feel at the fact that we know we are going to die is explored on Blade Runner with laser clear precision. The film really dives into its themes with reckless abandon. It asks questions and attempts to give us answers, even if said answers are dark and hopeless. And it delivers these dark explorations with beauty and poetry.

Of course, when standing on the shoulders of such a giant, the makers of Blade Runner 2049 must’ve been concerned with delivering a film that was just as compelling and thought provoking as the original. Which of course was never going to be an easy task. Ridley Scott’s film is good on so many levels, it has  memorable characters, incredible dialog, amazing art direction, incredible special effects and music…it’s that rare “perfect” film that is extremely hard to top. I give kudos to Denis Villeneuve’s for having the guts to tackle the sequel of such a masterpiece. Was Blade Runner 2049 a worthy sequel? How does it compare to the first film? Can it be its own thing?

On Blade Runner 2049 we are presented with a new Android Executioner (a.k.a. Blade Runner) called agent ‘K’, who is assigned to retire a rebellious android who is passing itself for a farmer. Agent K ends up stumbling upon a mystery, which will lead him to a discovery that can shake the very foundations of society itself. Will he take the task and open this Pandora’s Box?  

I have to give it to Hampton Fancher and Michael Green, the writers behind this sequel, because they actually came up with some interesting concepts for this movie. The concepts are so good that they could branch off into entirely different films, which says a lot about the complexities of the concepts behind Blade Runner 2049. This movie has more meat to it than 90% percent of what passes for science fiction these days. And that “meat” is merely the backdrop of the story.  The actual plot of Blade Runner 2049 concerns itself with continuing exactly where the original film leaves off, with Deckard running off with Rachel to god knows where. This makes perfect sense when we take in consideration that Fancher also wrote the first film, so he’s picking up the story right where he left it.

Blade Runner 2049 has gotten lots of praise for its visuals and I agree, the film looks astonishing. Denis Villeneuve pays huge amounts of respect to the original film. You’ll feel you are in the same world that Ridley Scott presented us with in the first film. From the crummy, dirty streets filled with mutants to the flying police cars and the nonstop rain. It was great seeing landmarks from the first film like the Tyrell Corporation Pyramids or all those neon holograms promoting every sort of product available to man. I mean, Villeneuve succeeded in recreating that visual complexity that Ridley Scott is so good at conjuring on his films. Fans of the original Blade Runner are in for a real treat. It’s got that classy Film Noir vibe we all love from Blade Runner, its still very much a science fictin film mixed with a detective story. 

I was extremely disappointed that Vangelis was not used as the composer for Blade Runner 2049 because to me, the Vangelis score in Blade Runner (1982)  is a huge part of what emotes in conjunction with the visuals, such a unique cinematic experience. Vangelis’s music is sampled and reused in 2049, but instead letting him come up with a new score, they brought it in Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch, which I will admit did an amazing job here anyway. The sounds used to compliment the visuals effectively evoke that dark science fiction vibe, it’s not Vangelis, but its mind-blowing in its own way. I’ve seen the film twice already and realized just how fantastic that musical score is. So prepare yourselves to dive into an amazing audio visual experience.

Though the film is amazing in many ways, it did have some flaws. One of the things that just didn’t work for me were the unanswered plot points, purposely left that way to be answered in a possible sequel. I personally don’t like to see scenes shoehorned in there for the sake of setting up a franchise, but whatever, you might not care. The original Blade Runner wasn’t concerned with establishing a franchise, they just did the one great film. To me it feels distracting, especially if you’re not even sure if there will be a sequel at all. You'll be left wondering what happened to certain characters, so be ready for that. Another thing is that to me 2049 is not as crystal clear with its themes as its predecessor. What is Blade Runner 2049 really about? Is it trying to answer any big questions? It is not as crystal clear as the first film. For now all I can say is that it is a film that warrants a few viewings to really grasp it, which means its a film that begs to be analyzed. I missed that focus in themes I got with the original film. But even with its flaws, the film is amazing on so many other levels that it balances the pros and cons out. I do hope more people go see it because like its predecessor, Blade Runner 2049 isn’t exactly lighting the box office in flames. In fact, last time I checked it was having a hard time making its money back. Which is sometimes a good thing. When general audiences don't like a film, it usually means it has some brains to it, which usually means I'll like it. So there's that. It's not a film made for mass consumption, which is a good thing for some of us.    

This was a risky movie for Denis Villeneuve to make because it’s an intelligent, slow paced science fiction film, and mass audiences like their explosions and fights every five seconds and they like everything spoon fed to them. It also has a lengthy running time of almost three hours, but I’ll tell ya, I was engaged all the way through, I didn’t really notice the running time. I wanted more by the time it was over. When it's over it comes as a surprise. In that sense, it is extremely similar to the original Blade Runner, which also slammed its door on our face, making us wonder what happened to Deckard and Rachel. Well, this film answers us that question, but it leaves so many others unanswered, hopefully we’ll get a sequel, hopefully the answers will come, and hopefully they wont take thirty something years to make the next film. I love the world of Blade Runner and I hope we get to revisit it at some point. I am extremely happy that Denis Villeneuve is doing such an amazing job with the science fiction genre, he is steadily becoming the sci-fi director of this generation. I hear he wants to tackle Dune next! What can I say, after seeing Blade Runner 2049, he has my vote. Final word, even with its flaws, I cannot bring myself to give this film anything but a perfect score. One for the ages in deed. 

    

Rating: 5 out of 5