Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Well, Rogue One has had its first major opening weekend, which means some of you lovely people who weren't passionate/stupid enough to go to the midnight screening as I did, have had a chance to see it, so I can do a spoiler heavy post. Still, please be aware, if you've not seen it yet that there are massive spoilers from the very beginning. Also, this is going to be less of a review, and more a collection of ramblings from an overexcited fan.

On that note, as I've not really discussed it before, I am a huge Star Wars fan. Like, huge. I don't talk about it much, not the way I do about my Neil Gaiman or Terry Pratchett obsessions, nor do I geek out on it the way I do with superheroes or Middle-Earth. I don't really consume much spin-off media, nor do I even really watch the films that much, no more than once or twice a year, if that. However, it is my home fandom. My first fandom. Star Wars A New Hope was the first live-action movie I was ever conscious of watching, aged 5 and I have been a fan from that time, to the point that the combination of music and opening scroll of The Force Awakens had me weeping openly (even if the subsequent film left me underwhelmed). So yeah, Star Wars is important to me.

With that said…

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, dir. Gareth Edwards – 2016

 

I loved it!

Going into the cinema I knew exactly what I wanted from the film: originality and risk-taking, both of which had been so lacking in The Force Awakens. And while some people, even the usually excellent Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian seem to imply that because there are lightsabres and space battles the film is largely derivative (as if the presence of guns and horses made High Noon and Unforgiven near identical) Rogue One was, to me, near revolutionary as a Star Wars Movie. This is not to say that there aren't familiar elements, there is once again a parental relationship that is central to the plot, but it astonishes me that, in the reviews that I have read, critics do not seem to be acknowledging the huge risks taken in this film. Tonally, the film is closest to The Empire Strikes Back, but Rogue One is the first film to fully embrace the word 'Wars' over 'Star' and the upshot of this is that, in this Christmas blockbuster – one that parents will be taking their children to in droves – they kill characters. And not just the villains, or wise old mentors like Obi Wan, or Yoda, or even Han in The Force Awakens, or even all the background Jedi in the prequels-that-must-never-be-named. Main characters. All the main characters. I'll admit that when I first heard the synopsis for Rogue One I'd thought it would be so effective if those who stole the Death Star plans died doing so, but I assumed that Disney would never allow that to happen, neither wanting to jeopardise the market of Star Wars films as child-friendly, nor kill off further franchising along with the characters. The fact that they did so, and that the final act of the film is essentially a suicide mission, brings a weight and power, not only to the weak-sounding platitudes spoken throughout the film about rebellion and hope, but to the cinematic Star Wars universe as a whole. Ultimately, any action-related movie contains the basic question of 'are all/any of the protagonists going to make it?' and by answering 'No' Rogue One completely changes the game for the Star War's universe.

This is not to say there aren't problems. Despite boasting an impressively diverse cast (and making an excellent point in that every Imperial officer we see is played by an older, white actor…) it's a shame this only seems to apply to the men; the only two female characters with any substantial dialogue or narrative importance are played by well-spoken white women… And yes, there are only two… I have also heard criticism of the characters themselves, that they are too thin or the actors are wasted in their roles. While it's certainly true that actors of Forest Whitaker or Mads Mikkelsen's calibre are underutilised (poor Mads Mikklesen's not doing too well, is he?), it must also be acknowledged that this is not a rompy space-opera, nor even a character-driven action movie like the Avengers; it is a war movie, and part of what gives their deaths such power is how little we know these characters, the things we never get to see or learn about them. Another unfortunate aspect of the film lies in the CGI presence of a young Carrie Fisher and the late, great Peter Cushing, reprising their roles as Princess Leia and Grand Moff Tarkin. Leaving aside the considerable issue of taste, though the CGI is certainly impressive, it's nowhere near good enough yet for this to be anything other than distracting and it's hard not to think that shots of silhouettes, profiles and the backs of heads would not have been better.

However, one other character returns, whose presence alone helps us to forgive all the film's faults. Although Darth Vader has less than ten minutes screen time, every moment counts as Edwards perfectly utilises the greatest bad-guy of cinema, succeeding not only in making him cool as all hell, but also genuinely menacing, as the last few minutes of the film attest. It helps that James Earl Jones is still booming out the iconic voice, and that the script allows Vader to be intimidating, while also keeping the level of acerbity consistent with lines such as Return of the Jedi's 'The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am'.

Overall, the film is uneven, but the problems are entirely overridden by the excellent acting, breathtaking visuals and a plot that dares to take risks never normally seen in a blockbuster. It is one thing for a PG/12a film to assert that there are things worth dying for; quite another for it to back these words up by killing every one of its central characters. This fan adored it, and is already planning on seeing it again, so….



May the Force be with you.

Dr Strange

Well, my first NaNoWriMo experience is over, and I have staggered out of the field of battle, waving my flag, and a 51,000 word story, aloft. I did so at about 7 o'clock yesterday evening, so my time for writing anything else had been slightly limited. Therefore, please enjoy some potentially rather frazzled and incoherent thoughts on the recent Marvel move, Dr Strange, which I finally got around to watching. Normal service will resume shortly.

Dr Strange, dir. Scott Derrickson – 2016 

All rights to Marvel Studios

Brash, narcissistic Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) is one of the finest neurosurgeons in the world, though he works entirely for glory and prestige, and not at all out of altruism or the desire to heal the injured. However, as a result of a horrific car crash, he suffers severe nerve damage in his hands which leaves him unable to wield a scalpel and while others, particularly his ex-girlfriend (Rachel McAdams), advise him to accept the fact and suggest he focus on more theoretic areas of medicine, his ego will not allow him to do so. Discovering a patient who suffered far more crippling injuries than he and yet is seen playing basketball with his friends, Strange questions the man, and begins his journey to Kamar-Taj. There he encounters the mighty Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), her loyal right hand man, Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) and the formidable librarian Wong (Benedict Wong), and the magic they use to keep the forces of darkness at bay. After some trouble accepting the reality of magic, Strange turns his impressive intellect to learning all that he can of the mystic arts. Even as he does so, however, Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen), a former student of the Ancient One, now cast out, is seeking revenge, and has turned to a far darker being; the dread Dormammu. Worse still, are the questions he raises about the source of the Ancient One's power…


So first off, the casting… Scott Derrickson, the director, has said a lot about it himself (yes I did just link to the Express… I feel dirty…) and I understand his point. Essentially, the real problem lies with the source material, in adapting a fifty year old story in which a white man learns magic from a wise old Asian man, until he becomes the 'Sorcerer Supreme'. Basically there were always going to be issues. On the plus side, a previously male character was made female, a character who has always been white in the comics is played by a black actor, and while this obviously does little for Asian visibility in Hollywood, it's nice to see SOME effort being made…


Beyond this, perhaps the most important thing to say about the film is that it is gorgeous. The designs and the execution of some of the CGI, particularly Strange's introduction to magic and Dormammu's Dark Dimension, are absolutely beautiful and the scope and scale of them mind blowing. It is so refreshing for the Marvel films to contain genuinely magical elements, especially bearing in mind the disappointingly technological Asgard in the Thor movies, as it gives the director and effects teams the chance to abandon any semblance of reality and really cut loose. This also leads to some breathtaking action scenes, in which streets are folded up, sections of buildings set spinning and half a city transformed into a gigantic clock, all as background to a fight. Dr Strange makes the most imaginative use of CGI of any movie since perhaps Avatar (and even then, that was really only some floating islands and a forest… not a single ethereal dimension to be seen!).

To compete with this, it takes some fairly strong acting to not get swept aside by the stunning CGI, and Dr Strange boasts the most prestigious cast of any Marvel movie yet, with some of the most charismatic, talented actors working today amongst the cast. Rachel McAdams is massively underutilised in the generic girlfriend role, slipping nicely into the 'she's the best at what she does, just not quite as good as him' trope and while McAdams, Academy Award nominated actress, plays it well, it's difficult not to feel that she, the character and the audience are all being a little short-changed. Likewise, Mads Mikkelsen, the only one of the main five who is not an Oscar nominee despite being a titan of the acting world, portrays a villain who brings some very interesting moral conflict to the film, but whose only real strengths as a character are those that Mikkelsen himself imbues him with. 

And, in their far more well developed roles, Tilda Swinton, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Benedict Cumberbatch are all excellent. Given the direction in whichthey chose to take the Ancient One, Swinton is perfect; warm yet distant, obviously secretive yet inspiring trust, and ethereal, while remaining wry. Ejiofor is, quite simply, one of the finest actors alive and he brings the same quiet, easy fanaticism to Mordo that made him so chilling all the way back in Serenity (2005), choosing to play Mordo's perceived betrayal by the Ancient One with wide-eyed pain, and only allowing a bitter, resentful zealotry to emerge late. For Cumberbatch's part, there are obvious comparisons that could be made to Sherlock, but a more worthwhile link could be made to Robert Downy Junior's Tony Stark, as a bearded know-it-all whose primary weapon is a mixture of intellect and arrogance. However, in Strange, Cumberbatch is given the chance to depict a man prising his ego away from his genius, and emerging as a stronger, better man, therefore throwing off the character burden of being unbearably, smugly annoying; development Stark has not been allowed.

Aside from the casting and the poor showing for the female lead, the main issue with Dr Strange does not, perhaps, lie in the film itself, but in the expectations that came with it. Where many fans hoped for a sea-change in the Marvel movies, which have for a while now narrowly avoided feeling staid, and a bold, exciting new direction for the series, what we have instead is a very beautiful looking film, that essentially follows the same story structure as all superhero origin movies. I would argue, though, that it does present some interesting conflict. While I found Captain America: Civil War to offer a lot of false drama, not to mention discarding the ethical dilemma for a turgid emotional climax, Dr Strange initially promises less, but offers greater spectacle, while hinting at deeper questions. Despite the often very 'superhero-y' feel, from the revelation around the source of the Ancient One's powers, to the rift between Mordo and Strange, as well as Strange's own struggle with taking life, even in self-defence, we are presented with a MCU film where no side may be entirely in the right, though some entirely in the wrong, and decisions must be approached with care and thought.


Though it has its flaws – on top of all I've mentioned, the design of Dormammu himself is pretty weak, and, unusually in this very faithful film, could have done with being closer to the comics – I adored it, and would happily watch it several more times on the big screen alone. I enjoyed the performances of some truly world-class actors, and revelled in the sheer scope, imagination and beautiful execution of their CGI. Welcome to the pantheon Dr Strange, you're the most entertaining member for quite some time!


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And for my own post-credit scene: though not a big name, Benedict Wong is superb. As well as being a wonderful, solid counterbalance to the madness of the film, he earns probably the biggest laugh of the film, as a punchline that has been built up to for the whole movie, one we all know is coming, is pulled off beautifully.
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Also, I want that cloak!!!

(It's OK, you can leave your seats now… no more post-credit scenes)

Suicide Squad

Suicide Squad, dir. David Ayer – 2016

Massive spoilers throughout; also TRIGGER WARNING for discussion of abusive relationships/domestic violence.

For the purposes of this review, I am going to be talking almost entirely about narrative, characterisation and acting because, hey, that's what I know! For a better take down than I could write of the blatant misogyny at work through much of the film try Alison Willmore's post on Buzzfeed or the always stellar Emily Asher-Perrin's over at Tor.com . Also, yes, Katana is reduced to 'strange Asian lady who talks to her magic sword' and the first Native American to portray a named meta-human in a mainstream, live action Marvel or DC movie does not speak, punches a female soldier in the face in his first moment on screen, and is killed 5 minutes later to make a point………………...........................................
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…….............this is gonna be a long one, isn't it?

The Suicide Squad are a team of currently incarcerated super-criminals, assembled, coerced and intimidated by Amanda Waller (Viola Davies) to become a task-force, capable of dealing with meta-human threats. Among their number are master assassin Deadshot (Will Smith), fire-controlling El Diablo (Jay Hernandez), loutish Captain Boomerang (Jai Courtney) and the insane Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), while leading this team of misfits is the tough-as-nails Special Forces officer Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman). However, unbeknownst to them, Waller's first attempt at controlling meta-humans was the Enchantress (Cara Delevinge), an amazingly powerful magic wielder who shares a body with archaeologist June Moore, Flag's girlfriend. Unfortunately, the Enchantress seizes an opportunity to escape, and begins to assemble a weapon in the city centre that is capable of destroying the world. The Squad are sent in, but all the while Harley's grinning, green-haired boyfriend is closing in on them.

The elements of Suicide Squad can be divided neatly into four categories: the excellent, the lazy, the problematic and the deeply uncomfortable.

To start with the excellent areas, and there are some, despite everything else that needs saying about the film: the style of the film is pretty damn nice, with some great cinematography and wonderful uses of colour and lighting. The set designs are also beautiful; Arkham looks as close to a Hammer Gothic mansion as it should, and what we see of Gotham has a nicely gritty, dirty feel to it. Praise also has to go to most of the cast. With steely eyes, face of stone and voice of iron, Viola Davies embodies every inch of the badass-as-all-hell Amanda Waller, even though the plot itself dramatically undermines her competency. Will Smith manages to tone down the normal Will Smith charm, and though it's debatable whether a character other than Will Smith emerges, it's also debatable whether one needs to. Joel Kinnaman plays the tough-guy soldier, secretly concerned for his girlfriend, with all the hard-edged stoicism it requires, while Jai Courtney is entertaining as the boorish Boomerang. Jay Hernandez, playing a pyrotechnic crime lord who killed his own family in a fit of temper, focuses on El Diablo's total regression into guilt and manages a very quiet, touching performance, despite the lazy racial stereotyping. And Margot Robbie, bless her, is trying SO hard against a script I will discuss later, to nail Harley, and in everything that an actor can contribute, pretty much does: she steers a perfect course between childlike and cynical, while keeping Harley's chirpy demeanour intact, and her delighted squeal of 'Puddin'!' is indistinguishable from the original Animated series. Meanwhile, Cara Delevingne once again proves she can hold her own as an actress, however...

Moving on to the lazy aspects, and having mentioning Delevingne, leads us straight into the unavoidable fact that our antagonist is beyond one-dimensional. Though initially the Enchantress is at least vaguely threatening, shadowy and savage, when she receives a power-up, she transforms into the utterly generic Enchantress who then reawakens her brother as her utterly generic CGI muscle. Does the film explore her trauma at having been once worshipped as a god and then reduced to being controlled by Waller, her humiliation at her enslavement and her feelings of violation at being turned into someone else's weapon? Do they, with this depth of character, create a sympathetic, complex antagonist, who we can empathise with, who has come from a similar place as our protagonists and whom they can relate to even while still needing to stop? Nope. Oh no, there's too much wearing a black bikini and headdress and 'building a weapon to destroy the world with' which is done by crotch-thrusting at a massive column of magic blue light (let's not go there on that one!) to be done for any of that. We are given zero information about the weapon (which of course would have been ludicrous, but come on, just throw some magical technobabble at us! At least pretend to care!) and the general feeling is that the sentiment of 'Ah, let's just stick Cara Delevingne in her underwear and have a crap-tonne of CGI and that'll do for the bad-guy' was prevalent among the producers.

And here we hit the really problematic aspect: the script. The weakness of Cara Delevingne's antagonist highlights one of the key flaws: all of these characters are horrible people. DC Warner were obviously hoping for an equivalent of Guardians of the Galaxy, a fun, action-packed adventure about a bunch of belligerent misfits and ne’er-do-wells banding together and accomplishing something good, all to a killer rock soundtrack. However, part of the problem is that in the classic movies of this kind (think GotG, Ocean's 11, etc.) the protagonists are thieves, con-men and tricksters, not killers. In Suicide Squad, we are supposed to laugh with, empathise with and root for people who have been shown as unrepentant killers, murderers for profit and sport. There is a great difference between making a film about bad people and a film about truly awful people. Making everyone, the government, the crime bosses and the loners all appear villainous doesn't make our protagonists likeable or more moral, it just creates a film of totally reprehensible characters. This is particularly the case with Will Smith's Deadshot, imbued with slightly subdued Will Smith charm and warmth. He has a daughter, who pleaded with him not to shoot Batman (yeah...Batfleck really is one of the better things here!) resulting in Deadshot's arrest and when, in the finale, Enchantress shows them all their heart's desire, we see that his is to have shot Batman. Not to have a life where he's not a killer and sees his daughter all the time, in the knowledge that she can't be affected, or frightened or disappointed by his work, no, he simply wants to have been able to get away with being an assassin. It sounds trite to suggest that they might have 'learnt' something from their adventure, but there is no character development for any of the villains, which leaves the entire débâcle feeling like a waste of time. Indeed, even when faced with the annihilation of the planet in the finale, they don't rally to fight the Enchantress in order to save the world, they do it because they have grown to tolerate the now desperate Flag, whose girlfriend she still shares a body with. You know something is up when the Joker himself feels no more unpleasant, dangerous or uncaring of other's lives than the 'heroes' and this robs him of his effectiveness and makes us wonder why we should care about any of our protagonists. It doesn't help that, despite the hype, Leto's performance gives us just another vaguely odd, creepy criminal, in a film full of them. (Also, he laughs three times and barely even smiles….)

And, having now mentioned him, let us address the green-haired, grinning elephant in the room, and his relationship with Harley, thereby turning our minds to the deeply uncomfortable elements of the film. In her initial appearances in Batman The Animated Series, and her subsequent introduction into the main DCU, Harley appeared as a costumed 'moll', almost hearkening back to the Batman '66 show where such figures were a regular occurrence. She was bubbly, cheery and fun and though somewhat unhinged, evidently neither as psychotic, nor as dangerous as the Joker himself. This was demonstrated particularly in episodes like Harlequinade1, Harley and Ivy2 and especially Harley's Holiday3, in which she is depicted as causing huge amounts of chaos even away from the Joker, but without any malicious intent whatsoever. In Mad Love, first a graphic novel penned by the main writers of BTAS and then adapted into an episode, her back story is finally revealed. She was a psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum, assigned to treat the Joker, who so twisted her mind that she fell in love with him, helped him escape and became his sidekick, all for her devotion to him. What Mad Love also demonstrated was how deeply abusive the relationship was; while previously in the animated series, he had insulted and bullied her, as he did all of his henchmen, here he explodes into a violent assault on her, at the end of which, she blames herself because she 'didn't get the joke'4. It is one of the most sickening and heartbreaking scenes committed to paper or film. For post-Mad Love depictions of their relationship, do take a look here.

Which brings us back to Suicide Squad. In flashback, we see them meeting as psychiatrist and patient and events unfold as one would expect. However, at no point is it suggested that, beyond the initial twisting of Harley's mind, there is anything abusive at play between them. This may sound like a ridiculous thing to say, and of course his manipulation of her into submitting to him in the first place is abusive, but once they are together, they are played as genuinely loving one another. Far from barely noticing when she's gone, as he has done in comics (see the link above) Leto's Joker pines for her, until he begins chasing after the Squad, like a concerned boyfriend in a rom-com. In the flashbacks where we see them together, there is no sense that he is ever violent towards her, or that she is anything but constantly and uniformly happy whenever she is with him; she loves him and wants to be with him, he adores her, and wants to be with her. There is even a suggestion that in his initial manipulation of her, the Joker has unlocked her potential, rather than driven her mad, that she is, in Amanda Waller's words 'crazier than he is'.
Not only is this an inaccurate and offensively irresponsible depiction of the most famous abusive relationship in the comics medium, it also does not help the overall tone of the film. Obviously, for a female character to be portrayed entirely as a victim is highly problematic in itself, but in removing almost all of Harley’s victimhood, it transforms her from another unfortunate polluted by the Joker into a gleeful killer, with as little regard for human life as he has. While the animated series, and many incarnations in the comics, give her a naivete and innocence that counterbalances her criminal activities, Suicide Squad aims for the chirpy attitude, without the essential decency or tragedy of the character that other portrayals have had. When the film is counting heavily on her likeability as a key selling point, this really does not help. Even worse, is that no character development is offered, no suggestion of Harley questioning Mr J's world-view, and the overall effect, as I have said of the others, is to leave the viewer wondering why we should care about any of them.

Overall the film is a mess, with some gorgeous visuals, well-done hints as to the wider DCEU (Batflek plus a sudden, but rather entertaining moment of the Flash) and some excellent acting from actors struggling against the constraints of what feels like a rushed, first draft script. Once again, I single out Margot Robbie, for being genuinely entertaining and bringing so much to a film that overtly sexualises Harley, while it disregards the mixture of innocence and trauma that made the original character so compelling. It is in aspects like these that Suicide Squad, like Man of Steel and BvS, shows a depressing lack of thought, and, although I hope the Patty Jenkins helmed Wonder Woman restores some substance over style to the DCEU, I am beginning to dread every new film they announce.

1 http://dcau.wikia.com/wiki/Harlequinade
2 http://dcau.wikia.com/wiki/Harley_and_Ivy
3 http://dcau.wikia.com/wiki/Harley's_Holiday
4 http://dcau.wikia.com/wiki/Mad_Love