MONSTER TRUCKS

Lucas Till     Jane Levy     Rob Lowe     Danny Glover     Barry Pepper

          For a completely fantastical (i.e., unrealistic) experience, go see Monster Trucks.  The story is predictable, with a teenage boy named Tripp (Till) taunted by a rude classmate; ignored by his irresponsible father; disdained by his mother’s boyfriend, Sheriff Rick (Pepper); thwarted by evil corporation Terravex headed by Reece Tenneson (Lowe); and pursued by a pretty tutor named Meredith (Levy), a science geek. 

          When Terravex ignores environmental risks in drilling for oil, observed by one of their scientists, it proceeds to drill anyway, which disturbs the habitat of a species new to science.  One, named “Creature” by Tripp, escapes the company’s creature catcher and makes its appearance at the teen’s job in a wreck yard.  After brief transactions, Tripp decides the creature is smart and friendly, and he makes a friend of it.  It helps that Creature has social sensibilities and is affectionate.  This friend will do amazing things for Tripp, including navigating a monster truck MacGyverred by Tripp from one of the junkyard trucks. 

          Meredith is trying desperately to have a tutoring session with Tripp, and since she is smart and curious, she tries to help him figure out how to protect Creature and build his longed-for truck at the same time.  She offers scientific facts that are helpful to Tripp and provides a place for him to work undisturbed.  He’s a pretty clueless kid, and is so preoccupied with his project he doesn’t even notice when he starts to fall in love with her in a day or so.

         What follows is a series of car chases involving more monsters in trucks pursued by the sheriff (Tripp’s stepfather) and the evil creature catcher.  Powered by Creature, the truck can leap over buildings and trains, go through narrow alleys by making its sides climb partway up the walls, and go for days without sustenance (which is oil, by the way). 

       There is an inherent contradiction in a story that is supposed to be ecologically sympathetic—that is, that the monsters’ primary food is oil, and the featured trucks are gas-guzzling monsters themselves.  So much for ecology and the preservation of animal habitats.

          One of my pet peeves in movies about teenagers is that the actors are frequently too old to be plausible for that age.  It’s a bit ludicrous to see Tripp (played by an actor 26-27 years old) sitting in his old truck acting out scenes of a truck driver shifting gears with all the sound effects of gunning motors, brake screeching, etc.  Actress Jane Levy—his girlfriend—is even older.  There are hundreds of talented teenage actors; so why moviemakers employ 20 and 30 year-olds to be teenagers doesn’t make sense.  Another inconsistency in the story is the abrupt shift in the character of the sheriff from a cold, derisive grown-up with no respect for Tripp in the beginning, to his suddenly being a helpful father figure in the end.  We’re given no explanation for this transition.

       The primary flaw in this production is a script (by Derek Connolly and Matthew Robinson) that is nonsensical and not readily identified for any age group.  Although visually it appears to be for very young children, much of the narrative will go over their heads and bore them.  Despite a big budget, the producers and Director Chris Wedge were not able to mold the project into a meaningful, entertaining whole.

Someone thought that trucks powered by monsters to look like monster trucks would be a clever premise.

Grade:  D                                    By Donna R. Copeland

THE BYE BYE MAN

Douglas Smith   Lucien Laviscount   Cressida Bonus   Michael Trucco   Faye Dunaway   Doug Jones   Jenna Kanell

         There are plenty of chills and thrills in the horror called The Bye Bye Man.  Devotees of the genre may find it too derivative of so many other haunted house productions, but one such viewer I sat with at the screening thinks it is great.

         The movie opens with three college students wanting to move out of the college dorms into an off-campus house.  It looks like it’s in disrepair, but after finding furniture in the basement, the three decide to take it.  Elliot (Smith) and Sasha (Bonus) are a couple, and John (Laviscount) is Elliot’s best friend from childhood.  Soon after they move in, they throw a party, and Sasha invites her psychic friend Kim (Kanell) to conduct a séance because the house is a bit creepy, especially after she and Elliot have heard strange noises from time to time.  Sasha hopes that Kim will be able to give them more information so they can “cleanse” the house.  Elliot is skeptical about psychics and séances, but after he hears scratchings one night, and finds evidence of those scratches on the brick in the backyard the next morning, he becomes more concerned.

        The strange happenings and hallucinations they begin to experience increase in the coming days, Sasha begins to develop a cough and feel fatigued, and John has some bizarre experiences with Kim.  Elliot decides to go to the school library and do some research, and Sasha talks to the owner of the house, but he dismisses her fears, saying she just needs to rest and take care of her cough.  Elliot does make progress in learning something of the history of the house, and the librarian gives him Dead File 69 (“dead file” means it was never published) written by a journalist named Redmond years before.

        From the previews, you know that “Don’t say it” and “Don’t think it” are like mantras spoken and written in various places as warnings.  Actually saying The Name will get you killed.  Special effects, visual effects, and the music of The Newton Brothers accentuate the eeriness of the situation and the fears provoked by it.  Director Stacy Title has paced the story well, and the actors are skilled in conveying their puzzlement and rank fear.  James Kniest’s cinematography is likewise of high quality. 

       The author of the novel on which the film is based—Robert Damon Schneck—is a freelance writer who enjoys delving into accounts in American libraries about witches, ghosts, strange beings and paranormal activity in our cultural history.  The Bye Bye Man movie is based on one of his books telling about “strange-but-true tales” (The President’s Vampire:  Strange-but-True Tales of the United States of America, 2005).  The film—which may not reflect the book in this sense—has a couple of weak points in its plot.  For instance, why can’t the people who have figured out what is going on simply tell the story without revealing the actual name?  How has the librarian escaped the fate of those who do say the name and has not been “infected” before her encounter with Elliot?  She must have spoken of the story before. 

          Despite some weaknesses, the story is engaging, and the quality of the filming seems good enough to please those who are into the horror genre.

Don’t say it.  Don’t think it.  These instructions will be clear soon after the start of the film.

Grade:  C+                                    By Donna R. Copeland

I, DANIEL BLAKE

Dave Johns     Hayley Squires     Sharon Percy

          An older man, widower Daniel Blake (Dave Johns), has survived a major heart attack and is told by his doctor that he should not return to his carpentry job yet.  This means he needs financial assistance, but bumps up against an unforgiving bureaucracy.  He is told that to receive benefits, he must be looking for a job when he is not supposed to be working; moreover, he must answer the same questions over and over and fill out the application online, despite the fact that he doesn’t have the foggiest notion about how to do anything on a computer.  While waiting to be seen at social services, he takes pity on a young woman with two children, getting the first person in line to let her go ahead.  This gets them both in trouble, and they are told to leave.  Thus develops the unlikely friendship between two people who try to support one another through the frustrating coming weeks.

       Katie (Squires) is new in Newcastle, having been forced to leave her previous apartment and supportive network in London.  She is having trouble getting a job to provide for her family, and must visit the food bank for supplies.  Since Daniel has handyman skills, he tries to make her apartment more livable, and she fixes meals for him, sometimes foregoing eating herself.  Additional dramas for the two include her arrest and Daniel getting mixed up in a neighbor’s questionable business.  But mostly, this is an indictment against the British system of social services for its inefficiency and lack of understanding for the people who need the services.

         Most of actor Johns' previous work has been in television, but he seems perfectly suited for this role as a practical, simple man who is honest and charitable toward others.  Squires is a perfect counterpart, bringing freshness and a kind of earnestness to the action.  This is a quiet film—as Ken Loach’s films tend to be—quiet, but forceful in advocating for the little guy and those victimized by larger forces in society. 

An eloquent plea for rationality and common sense in a system clearly not designed for those in need of its services.

Grade:  B                             By Donna R. Copeland

A MONSTER CALLS

Lewis MacDougall     Sigourney Weaver     Felicity Jones     Toby Kebbell     Geraldine Chaplin     Liam Neeson

          Recurring nightmares can be transformed into a fable to guide a 13 year-old boy in coping with his mother’s terminal illness.   A Monster Calls—originally a novel by Patrick Ness and realized in a movie with the same title by Director J. A. Bayona—uses Conor’s (MacDougall) nightmares to help him accept the anger inside him and face the reality of his mother’s condition.  In the wonderfully artistic, animated film (Cinematographer Oscar Faura, Production Designer Eugenio Caballero and the special effects crew), the Monster (voice of Neeson) is a yew tree near Conor’s house which comes alive as a huge gnarly monster.  The yew tree is considered to have healing powers, but we also find out later that this particular tree is meaningful to Conor’s mother.  Conor is very close to his mother (his father is far away in another country), and they have a special connection in their artwork.

          The Monster is not a gentle tree, it comes crashing through Conor’s house breaking up everything in its wake with fiery eyes at exactly 12:07 am.  It will appear three times to tell him a story, and at the fourth time, Conor must tell his story.  Conor resists it with everything he can muster, which is not what he does with the bully at school.  That’s because he is not ready to acknowledge the anger inside.  But after his mother tells him after the Monster’s first visit that the yew tree has healing powers, he asks the Monster for help in making his mother better.

        Each of the Monster’s stories produces a strong reaction in Conor that results in destruction, anguish, and agonizing over their meaning.  The Monster’s answers to Conor’s insistent questions (“Who’s the good guy here!?”) involve paradoxes meant to help Conor evolve from his black and white view of people and the world to one that contains the complexities of life and human nature, e.g., “You meant it and you did not mean it.  Both are true.”

        An important component of the story is that after Conor’s acting out his anger in various ways, he is not punished.  Instead, when he asks in wonder why, he is told, “What could possibly be the point?”  Adults like his grandmother (Weaver), whom he detests, his father (Kebbell) and the head teacher (Chaplin) take it for granted that he is angry and needs to express it.  Kudos to these wise, insightful authority figures.

        A Monster Calls is in the genre of tales like “Hansel and Gretel”, where horrific fantasies are intended to teach principles that help children grow up.  It explicitly and forcefully shows the debilitating effects of cancer and its effect on the patient’s child/children, but it also offers an effective means for children to use to get through the experience.  Art has been shown time after time to be effective in helping children express their thoughts and feelings about illness, death, and loss.  This film beautifully presents a graphic representation of how/why that is helpful.

A raw, realistic look at terminal illness from a bullied child’s point of view, redeemed by a graphic illustration of what can help.

Grade:  A                    Donna R. Copeland

HIDDEN FIGURES

Taraji P. Henson     Octavia Spencer     Janelle Monae     Kevin Costner     Kirsten Dunst     Jim Parsons     Mahershala Ali

       Heartbreaking, thrilling, suspenseful, funny—Hidden Figures embodies all these, including inspirational.  I’m sorry it has taken so long for the story about three heroic black mathematicians at NASA to be told to the mainstream.  But at least it’s out now for all to see at their local theaters.  The film is based on the book, Hidden Figures, by Margot Lee Shetterly, who also served as one of the producers.  Shetterly won an Alfred P. Sloane Fellowship based on this work, and apparently, Levantine Films bought the film rights soon after she completed it (or maybe before, since her book is dated 2016).

         The film opens with little Katherine Harrison (Henson) demonstrating her mathematical genius to school officials when she was in the sixth grade.  Her teacher was determined that she would have educational opportunities that were appropriate for her.  Soon, we meet her as a grown-up on the road to work at NASA with her two friends, Dorothy (Spencer) and Mary (Monae).  They’re having car trouble, but since Dorothy is a mechanical as well as math genius, she fixes it.  After showing their work IDs to a stunned policeman who had stopped to investigate, he offers to escort them to work with red lights blinking so their delay won’t make them late. 

         Most of us simply have no idea about the countless indignities these women will have to face, from having to go to the restroom labeled “Colored Women” a half-mile away, to having pertinent information for their jobs hidden from them, to a separate coffee maker (so white people won’t have to touch it)…we could go on and on.  Throughout, the women are polite, patient, and kind (until pushed too far, then they react strongly, effectively, and appropriately).  The rationalization they are given for such treatment?  “That’s just the way it is.”

         Hidden Figures, to its credit, gets into the fears about the Soviets and the space race at the time, which shows up at NASA certainly, but also by the patrolman on the country road and by the children at school who have drills to get under their desks in case the Soviets attack the U.S.  President Kennedy is featured prominently in showing the pressure to be first in the space race, which dials up the pressure on NASA.  All this reinforces the importance of three black women in their previously unheard of roles.

         Henson, Spencer, and Monae are all standouts, but Henson shows special flair when she answers in an outburst why she disappears for 40 minutes at a time (the walk to the restroom) and why it’s crucial for her to receive updated information immediately.  She also shines when she’s perched on a ladder writing complicated formulas for problems that have perplexed a whole room full of mathematicians.  In the evening, she slides into being a loving, demonstrative mother to her three girls.  I loved Henson’s portrayal of her policewoman character in CBS TV’s “Person of Interest”, where she showed intelligence, canniness, and wit, just like she does here; but here, she’s in an elevated position finally being recognized for her worth.  Ah…..!

A story that should have been told long ago.

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland

FENCES

Denzel Washington     Viola Davis     Mykelti Williamson     Russell Hornsby     Jovan Adepo     Stephen Henderson

          This passionate tale about a black family’s experience at home and with the outside world is heart wrenching, enlightening, and funny.  The film is the third iteration of an August Wilson story, which was a multiple Tony Award-winning play, first on Broadway in 1987 then revived in 2010, and now a film directed by Denzel Washington.  He has played the role of the patriarch Troy in both plays and the film.  Viola Davis played Troy’s wife in the 2010 play and again in the current film. 

           Troy is a very authoritarian father with a past that would predict his adult personality—maternal abandonment and paternal abuse.  So Troy ran away from home when he was 14, and got involved in stealing.  Eventually, he ended up being tried and convicted for murder, serving 15 years in the penitentiary.  Soon after, he married and had a son, Lyons, but the marriage didn’t last, and the boy was brought up by his mother.  Lyons has a conflicted relationship with his father now.  Troy belittles Lyons’ playing in a band and not having regular employment, but grudgingly gives him money from time to time.

           When Troy met Rose (Davis), he had gained steady employment as a trash collector, and he attributes her with helping him make something of his life.  He reveres her, and she is a good foil for him, standing up to him occasionally, but mostly going along with whatever he wants.  Their love for one another is apparent, but they have a son Cory (Adepo), and Troy continues the father tradition in their family of providing little reinforcement but much instruction and criticism. 

         Cory is in high school and doing well in football, but his father wants him to work instead of playing sports and going to practice.  He even has a chance for a football scholarship for college.  But here is where the negatives of authoritarianism and “the father’s sins being visited upon the children” rear their ugly heads.  Troy tells Cory that he needs to learn a trade so he won’t have to be a trash collector.  Cory is enraged (potently expressed by Adepo) by his father’s forbidding him to play football, sensing that Troy doesn’t want him to have what Troy missed out on. 

       These relationships between Troy and his children illustrate the mistakes of an authoritarian, but it also shows up as a drawback in Troy’s marriage.  When he makes a major transgression, Rose lets him have it when he tries to explain how deprived he has been in sacrificing for his family.  “You talk about how much you give, but you take too!”  And her remarks emphasize his self-centeredness and his “bubble” in thinking he has been the only one wanting more in his life. 

          Eventually, the sins of the father are visited not only upon the sons but on the wife as well.  Rose must rescue him once again, not that he doesn’t also pay for his mistakes. He is now persona non grata at home, and he learns the bitter lesson and outcome of failing to foster his relationships with his children. 

       Fences is impressive in its portrayal of an American family in the 1950s, their challenges and issues, and part of their history that got them to this point in time.  It can’t quite overcome its “Broadway play” look, which is distracting at times, although this isn’t a major drawback.  The performances of Washington, Davis, Adepo and the screenplay (still imminently current) more than compensate for any downsides.

          A curious theme (to me) throughout this play/film is the theme of death.  It comes up from time to time, the song “I had a Dog Blue” (which dies) is sung, but Troy dismisses death out of hand.  He denies the eventuality of his own death, although after his own brush with it, the devil has become his adversary and we hear him challenging it right up to the end. 

Fences:  A way to keep things out and to keep things in.

GRADE:  B                        By Donna R. Copeland

ASSASSIN'S CREED

Michael Fassbender     Marion Cottiard     Jeremy Irons   

 Brendan Gleeson     Charlotte Rampling     Michael K. Williams     Ariane Labed   Michelle Lin 

         The original idea of the film came from the video game of the same name, but Director Justin Kurzel wanted writers to come up with a new story that would be less “game-ish” and more suited to cinema.  For this, he engaged writers Michael Lesslie, Adam Cooper, and Bill Collage.  To see that action and game fans would not be disappointed in the visuals and special effects, he secured the help of Production Designer Andy Nicholson, Cinematographer Adam Arkapaw, Musician Jed Kurzel, and a talented cast, as shown above.  In my view, he certainly succeeded in the visual and special effects and in the cast.

         The drawback of the production is a rather confusing story that jerks us around in time and space with a host of characters difficult to keep track of.  The first scenes are in 1492 in Andalucia, Spain, in which Aguilar de Nerha (Fassbender) is taking the oath of the Assassin’s Creed to protect an apple even unto death against the Templars, who had taken over Spain.  Switch to 1986 in Baja, California, where a young boy Cal is told by his father (Gleeson) to run and “keep in the shadows”, hiding from assassins out to kill him like they did his mother.  Thirty years later, we see the grown-up Cal (Fassbender) in prison for murder, being visited by a priest, and subsequently being executed and declared dead—when suddenly he is in Spain at Abstergo Industries associated with the Knights Templar Order. 

       He awakens to Dr. Sofia Rikkin (Cottiard) telling him that he will be participating in research with the aim of getting rid of his DNA associated with violence that passes through generations.  Yes, he is a descendant of Aguilar.  His charge is to go into “Animus” with virtual reality equipment designed to take him back in time (15^th Century) and space (Spain) to wrest the apple from the Templars, who now possess it.  The apple’s seeds will then be used to rid the world of violence.  We watch this happen, and it is truly amazing to see Cal/Aguilar with his partner Maria (Labed) miraculously fighting off hordes of people standing in their way.  (I understand Fassbender and Labed did 95% of the fights themselves).  And Cal takes more than one trip into Animus trying to retrieve the apple.

         Of course, dark forces are at work.  It seems that Sofia’s father Alan, CEO of Abstergo has his own plans, and we see him talking with Templar Ellen Kaye (Rampling).  The plot thickens as the differences in aims between father and daughter become more apparent.  This adds an unnecessary layer to the drama that I think would have been better off omitting. 

        The strength of this film is actually the video game aspects (and I’m not a video game fan), and less so with the story that becomes weighed down with too many layers and complications.  And I’m not even mentioning the layer of current prisoners at the Abstergo Company who play a role in insurrection.

        Fassbender, Cottiard, Irons, Gleeson, and Rampling give the film a haunting, mythical quality that keeps the viewer engaged.  It’s too bad the story becomes so convoluted they are hung out to dry.

Action and intrigue, but with substance minimized.

Grade:  C+                        By Donna R. Copeland