Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

Guardians of the Galaxy is a film that grew on me, and it’s kind of a wonder it even needed to (it’s possible I just wasn’t in a great mood when I first saw it). Besides being the most visually sumptuous of the Marvel films, it was also a great showcase of characters, their radically disparate personalities forming a winning comedic blend that’s impossible not to love. 

Vol. 2 knows that’s what the people want, and gives it to them wholesale. The film is one terrific action or effects sequence after another, about half of them brilliant pieces of comedy. Connecting them is the rapid-fire cocky wordplay that made us love these characters, including a few truly hilarious exchanges that keep building, and keep getting funnier, long after the joke would normally seem spent. And in addition to a whole new slew of oldies on the soundtrack, the picture goes a step further with a handful of creative retro pop culture touches, including some surprising cameos (and the Stan Lee cameo game one-ups itself yet again, with arguably the creator’s best one yet).

Admittedly, all this fun comes a bit at the expense of a storyline. What’s there has Star-Lord Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) meeting his long-lost father (Kurt Russell), a being with near-godlike power, and traveling to his paradise-like home planet. Here, half the team spends most of the movie just chilling until the final act, but at least it’s got Dave Batista’s Drax the Destroyer providing comic relief, finding a comedic partner in the doe-eyed newbie Mantis (Pom Klementieff). As much of the movie, however, follows the now-baby Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), Rocket Racoon (voiced by Bradley Cooper), and the Ravager leader Yondu (Michael Rooker) trapped in a predicament that, in a more complete plot, might have only been a short aside before an escape sequence. That’s not a bad thing, though, as their half turns out to have the most enjoyable stuff in the picture.

So, there’s not nearly as much going on as the first Guardians, and little apparent universe-building for Infinity War or other future films, aside from the mid- and post-credits scenes. But it’s not to much detriment because it’s too much fun spending time with these characters to really notice. And at the very least, it allows enough time for a few subtle moments for the characters to exhibit their humanity, particularly Zoe Saldana’s Gamora.

Marvel Studios, for all their expertise at building a combined film continuity with excellent crossovers, has been a bit hit-or-miss with the second installments in individual series. Iron Man 2 and Age of Ultron were ultimately underwhelming in the long run; the second Captain America, on the other hand, is still the very best single picture the studio has yet made. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 falls somewhere firmly in between, not as fully plotted and soundly structured as the first, but nearly as much fun.

Logan

Fans can argue about when was the exact moment the superhero film truly “grew up.” But Logan indicates that the genre has firmly reached adult territory, and not just because of its R-rated elements (last year’s Deadpool was also bloody and profane, but had a sensibility arguably geared toward teenagers). This is a grown-up tale, slower, more thoughtful, and drained of the fantasy flash of its predecessors or contemporaries. And it’s better for that, both an oh-so-bitter bittersweet elegy for an era of X-Men movies and an excellent piece of work by itself.

Comparisons will be drawn to Mark Millar’s Old Man Logan, but it’s almost more fitting to call this the first Max movie (Max being Marvel’s mature imprint). Besides, obviously, the explicit content, several elements characteristic of Max are there: smaller-scale storytelling focused more on character, downbeat outlook, and aesthetic that’s stripped-down, (relatively) realistic, and decidedly un-super. Its subtle futuristic touches feel realer and more affecting; rather than a dystopia brought on by some fantastical comic book apocalypse, the film presents a near-future of societal decays one can plausibly see on the horizon.

In this setting, almost all mutants on Earth have mysteriously died out. The ex-X-Man Logan (Hugh Jackman), now aging and hindered by his depleting healing powers, spends his autumn years working as a driver-for-hire along the U.S.-Mexico border. Along with the mutant Caliban (Stephen Merchant), he acts as caretaker for the exiled Professor Charles Xavier (Patrick Stewart), now stricken with dementia and unable to control his telepathy. This depressing existence is upended when Logan comes across a young mutant (Dafne Keen) who also has adamantium claws and healing power, and who’s being hunted by a band of mercenaries called the Reavers.

More is revealed slowly as Logan, the Professor, and their young charge make their journey to a rumored safe haven in Canada, and frankly, every new reveal is grim. Whenever a moment arises where the day would be saved in many a superhero movie, the film rips the rug out and does the polar opposite. But it’s not relentlessly bleak and dark just for the sake of being edgier than the next picture. On the contrary, it serves to strengthen the film’s pathos. There are many scenes that are genuinely touching and sad. There’s even quite a bit of humor, a pained, desperate levity that lands because it feels earned.

Jackman, always the charismatic heart of the franchise through good and bad, does some of his best work here. Stewart, contrasting his usual authoritative manner with a heartbreaking brokenness and vulnerability, is at his very best. Keen, though, is a real revelation. She conveys some deep emotions with little more than a stare and broken English. And yes, she can slice up baddies just as well as her companion the film is named after.

Finally allowing the bloody fight scenes befitting Wolverine provides catharsis worthy of a finale (if this is, in fact, Jackman’s last rodeo), and is all the more satisfying because it’s the only true release the picture provides. But Logan is not really about the action. Nor is it all that concerned about whether or not the hero beats the bad guy, which is pretty fundamental to each and every superhero film since time immemorial. It’s about the slower, quieter moments where the characters reveal their soul, the humanity within the superhuman. These stick with the viewer afterward more so than (okay, as much as) the most climactic action sequence, visual effect, or one-liner. Some are saying for this reason, the film doesn’t feel like a comic book movie (a reductive statement that implies the genre is incapable of depth); I say it breaks some exciting new ground for the genre, while at the same time closing a significant chapter of it on a high note.

Silence

Martin Scorsese’s years-in-the-making passion project, based on the Japanese novel of the same name by Shūsaku Endō, is a strong piece of filmmaking. That’s not to say it’s a good work of entertainment by any means. No, here, the director is in a petrifyingly serious mode, more solemn than his last out-and-out religious film The Last Temptation of Christ, more pained than even Raging Bull. He’s made longer pictures, but between the pace and the heaviness of its subject, Silence seems to last longer, almost like it’s work to watch. I wouldn’t quite go so far to compare it to a religious trial, though considering what the film’s about, it’s possible that's what Scorsese had in mind.

The setting is Edo Japan in the mid-1600s, a time when Christians were brutally persecuted in the country. From this hostile land comes news that a Portuguese Jesuit missionary (Liam Neseson) has committed apostasy and joined the Japanese. Two pupils of his (Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver) are sent to the country to find him and learn the truth. Upon arrival, they find small sects of Japanese Christians (the Kakure Kirishitans) living secretly, in fear of torture and death at the hands of the authorities, and deprived of the basic rituals of the Church. Mostly, the journey is told from Garfield’s point of view as he struggles with his faith and laments his powerlessness at the suffering he sees.

Wide-eyed and young-looking, Garfield at first seems ill-suited for the part, but soon proves himself to be a good fit. His beaming true believer enthusiasm (obliquely conjuring present-day stereotypes of Christians as faithful to a fault that, fairly or not, have taken root in our culture) is almost necessary for a narrative that takes faith so seriously. When the horrors he witnesses put that faith to the test, his torment is appreciable, whereas a more nuanced piety might have been simply drowned out by it all.

That torment and violence (less graphic than some of the director's other work, but constant and dispiriting, likely intentionally so) is the focus of around 90 percent of the picture. This is probably the most spartan film Scorsese has ever made. There’s none of the crackling editing or sequences that stand out like in his most famous films. There’s barely even any music. Despite the lush Taiwan scenery of the production, there's rarely a chance for the viewer to take it in. It’s as if the director has stripped it down as much as possible until the only thing left to counter the brutality is the character’s faith, bare and undiluted by even basic cinematic flourish.

The picture is dead serious about that faith, too. This isn’t a story interested in any ambiguity. To the lament of opponents of the “white savior” trope, the Japanese point of view is never explored; their depiction is entirely one-note, either stubbornly ruthless or as nameless victims. They exist less as characters than human faces for Garfield's trials and tribulations. He wavers a bit surrounded by such anguish, but he never doubts the righteousness of his God or his mission. And the picture accepts that he's truly doing the Lord's work as a given from the start.

Whether this approach is successful is dependent on the viewer. An audience of believers might find the film to be an ultimately uplifting story of faith against great adversity, where faith itself is the only and total reward. The less faithful may simply see a harrowing matter-of-fact depiction of a brutal chapter in history. There’s no filmmaking flair to sway the viewer for the sake of narrative; either you believe it going in or you don’t. Either way, Silence can be appreciated as an admirable work, even though it’s not a picture one really likes watching.

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

The last half-hour or so of Rogue One is sure to be the talk of the whole picture, and might even be remembered as one of the top moments in the Star Wars film canon. The audience is treated to a Rebel firefight from the ground-level vantage points of the people in it. In the sky above, X-Wing and TIE fighters engage in some of the franchise’s best dogfights since at least the snow battle in The Empire Strikes Back. Then, it pulls off its real, see-it-to-believe-it masterstroke, connecting directly into the original Star Wars (as in, practically tacking its last frame onto to that film’s first), complete with digital re-creations of old familiar faces (literally). It’s utterly ridiculous, but damn if it isn’t impressive. Just one little problem: getting to this final blowout is a slog through mediocrity.

This is a production trying to be too many things at once. It wants to be a gritty war movie, yet undercuts its own efforts with a lighter, sometimes comedic blockbuster approach to several scenes. The tone is also hindered by the inclusion of seemingly every possible in-joke and reference. It aims to expand the franchise lore, but dwells too much on filling in timeline blind spots and plot holes (the reason the original Death Star has such an obvious weak spot is revealed, for example) than new and interesting storytelling. It’s also rather cluttered with cameos that add nothing to the narrative. Even marquee star Forrest Whitaker seems only in the movie to connect it to the popular cartoon series (and like Bryan Cranston in director Gareth Edwards’ Godzilla, is in it much less than we were led to believe).

Everyone remembers how the 1977 original revolved around the stolen Death Star plans. Well, Rogue One tells us how the Rebel Alliance got a hold of those plans. It was the work of a ragtag group of rebellious souls, led by the iconoclastic Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones), whose military scientist father (Mads Mikkelsen) was kidnapped by the Empire and forced to design the battle station. But stealing the plans is no easy task, requiring a dangerous mission into an Imperial stronghold, in the same mold as so many World War II pictures featuring a colorful cast of characters.

Except, the characters here are all one-note, or no-note. There’s little appeal and even less depth or backstory to let us know what drives them, even by the slim standards of war ensemble genre films. About all they do is yell at each other spelling out the plot points, or go through the motions through speeches and scenes you’ve seen in other movies, including other Star Wars movies. Only Alan Tudyk as (ironically) a digitally-created droid displays any bit of personality, though still, C-3PO he ain’t. As for Ben Mendelsohn’s bad guy, he’s upstaged by the returning Grand Moff Tarkin, which wouldn’t be so embarrassing if it were the real Peter Cushing instead of a hologram. 

The Force Awakens was far from original in its environments and action sequences, but one could argue that’s because it was aiming to be a nostalgia fest. Rogue One has no excuse for it. All the new planets and sets are rather drab with dull colors, not to mention derivative of earlier Star Wars and countless other sci-fi movies. Even the grand finale’s location looks like it was filmed on a tropical resort, one where they barely even bothered to disguise the swimming areas. And for the first half or more, when there’s action, it’s mostly standard shaky cam and uninspired CGI.

The only part of the whole thing that looks like it was made with care and skill is the final act. It’s as if they came up with this ambitious sequence and worked backward from it. And they pulled it off wonderfully; I’ll reiterate that it’s a fun and exciting 30 minutes or so. But it might have been better off as a short film, rather than the climax of an otherwise thoroughly unexceptional work.

The Handmaiden

South Korea’s Park Chan-wook is probably best known to American audiences for making movies with brutality that would make Hollywood wince. That’s a vast oversimplification, as he’s far from a simple gory schlock-master. Intertwined with the sometimes extreme content in his work is deep, palpable emotion that’s as visceral on the viewer as the most shocking moments. This is perhaps best exemplified by 2003’s Oldboy, arguably his most famous picture. The film is quite violent and depraved, but emotionally shattering and moving in ways few pictures are. It’s one of the best movies of the 21^st century (the American remake, no so much). 

The Handmaiden reigns in the extremity to a degree (most, though not all, of it is implied or described rather than depicted). As a result, its passions burn even brighter, enrapturing the viewer and exhibiting a total control of their emotions that’s awesome. This is a great picture, at different times romantic, mysterious, disturbing, sorrowful, and sexy as hell.

The film adapts the Sarah Waters novel Fingersmith, changing the setting from Victorian England to Japanese-occupied Korea prior to World War II. The plot follows a young Korean thief (Kim Tae-ri) who becomes handmaiden to a shut-in Japanese heiress (Kim Min-hee), the niece of a cruel, perverted nobleman and rare book collector (Cho Jin-woong). Her employment is secretly part of a scheme to convince the heiress to marry a Korean conman posing a Japanese Count (Ha Jung-woo), so they can dump her in a mental asylum and steal her fortune. This plan is complicated, however, when a mutual attraction develops between lady and servant.

There’s much more to it, of course. The plotting has the definite construction of a thriller, presenting two side-by-side narratives covering the same events from different viewpoints. This approach sees story points or progression that would seem natural in a linear narrative become unexpected twists and revelations. Except, piecing together the jumbled storyline isn’t really the point.

Rather, this is an intense trek across the emotional spectrum. At different times, the film shifts from romantic to tragic, from desperate to uplifting. There’s even some sick humor thrown in to throw the viewer off. One truly doesn’t know what emotional peak or valley they’ll travel next, but feels every single one of them. It’s amazing work from the two lead actresses, letting the audience intimately know their feelings, yet detached and secretive enough to give no hint of what’s in store before it happens. And their chemistry is white-hot, but with a touching sweetness instead of steamy salaciousness.

This time, the not-safe-for-Hollywood material isn’t violence. This is a very sexual film, though consistent with Park’s direction, not just for the sake of meaningless titillation. There’s a deliberate repugnance to much of it, particularly in regards to the male characters’ tastes. The men in this story are awful people, viewing women as little more than instruments to fulfill their wants. This sharply contrasts with the impassioned moments between the two women, a stark bit of beauty in the otherwise ugly world they’ve known. The love scenes between the two aren’t so affecting because they’re graphic or incredibly sexy (though they certainly are), but because they’re an emotional release for the characters as well as the viewer.

Despite some of the off-putting subject matter, the film is absolutely beautiful, in both spirit and to look at with its gorgeous landscapes and period recreations of Korea and Japan. Particularly stunning is its cinematography, a mix of lush color and sinister (and moody) dark amplifying the feeling of any given scene. Aesthetic aside, though, it’s the picture’s raw emotional power that makes it such a fulfilling experience.

South Park season 20

**SPOILERS HEREIN**

Is it too soon to declare South Park’s adoption of season-long storytelling a failure?

We’re only three seasons into this experiment, and they only just (sorta) pulled it off successfully last year. I wouldn’t call this season a success, but it’s hard to write it off completely because great comedy and sharp satire has coexisted along with some really bad, sometimes painfully unfunny stuff since the show’s earliest days. Such is kind of the nature of the beast for a show produced in less than a week’s time. However, this season suggests that the show is much better-suited to a standalone episodic structure (and tonight’s episode title would seem to be an admission).

As a continuing narrative, it was a mess of ideas that never really gelled. A lot of them were just bad ideas. Cartman's dreams of going to Mars didn’t have much to say and weren’t very humorous. Neither was the riff on Colin Kaepernick or the subplot of Butters and and the boys’ inappropriate protest, both of which were left dangling. The election stuff was pretty bland (the show recovered well enough from having to make changes at the last minute due to the result, but it was apparent they were unprepared to tackle it). The commentary on women and comedy came off as way out-of-touch, like Matt Stone and Trey Parker were vaguely aware of the subject but didn’t know enough to say anything about it.

The member berries were a great idea, one of the show’s surreal allegories that’s close to brilliant. This device made commentary as astute as any the show has ever given us, exploring how nostalgia is like a drug that clouds our minds and holds us back. The show presented a smart slice of cultural criticism by positing that obsession with “sacred” stuff from one's childhood and the desire to return to a better bygone era that never really existed aren’t that far removed from one another.

But the most cutting plot, for me, was Kyle’s dad Gerald as the king of the Internet trolls. Think about it: The man attacks targets of all kinds simply to get a laugh. Despite having a following that insists his actions mean something, he's adamant that he does what he does only because it’s funny. But when the Danish anti-trolling program is revealed to be the biggest troll job of all, one that will hurt many people, suddenly he doesn’t think it’s so funny anymore.

One can see Gerald as a vessel for Parker and Stone. And though none of what they’ve done over the years amounts to abuse, their comic viewpoint has always been “screw everybody,” rarely taking any issue seriously and never above mining a laugh from it even if it’s something that shouldn’t be laughed about. But now, the world suddenly seems less friendly and less stable than before. This plotline almost seems like they’re apologizing for displaying this attitude for so many years, and for all the much meaner nihilistic trolls out there who’ve applied this approach to comedy to real life, and hold the show up as one of their edgy, un-P.C. inspirations.

A good idea, but it could have been a single episode, or at most a two-part episode. Same goes for any of the aforementioned ideas. And even if the bad ones still didn’t work by themselves, standalone episodes would have allowed the season to more easily move on from the bad. The late 90s and early aughts are considered the show's classic era; no one dwells on awful entries from that period like “Quest for Ratings” or “City on the Edge of Forever” because the show would reset every week.

At the end of the day, the show’s problems are more structural than of substance. In outlook and humor, it’s the same old South Park, funny (not quite as much as a decade or so ago, but still funny) and full of ideas (good and bad ones). Maybe it’s just the member berries talking, but rather than trying to tie them together into some bigger whole, the show would benefit by going back to tackling one issue at a time.

Bad Santa 2

2003’s Bad Santa was cringe comedy at its most cringeworthy, a “feel-bad” movie that not-so-facetiously embodied the term. Its humor lay in the vulgarity clashing with family-friendly holiday aesthetic, but it really landed because there was a real desperation underneath. For all the laughs (and there were plenty), the movie never let you forget that Billy Bob Thornton’s mall Santa thief was a pathetic alcoholic mess, and the not-all-there kid he befriends (Brett Kelly) a heartbreakingly sad case.

Thirteen years later, the envelope for R-rated comedy has been pushed further and further, to the point where little of what happens in the film would be truly shocking today. So, the belated sequel ups its game to keep up with the times. The dirty gags are grosser and more pronounced. The “horrible” jokes and un-P.C. barbs are more in-your-face about it. The raunchy sex, while showing little skin, is more explicit.

Only this time, it’s about as real as a pre-lit plastic tree. Thornton’s protagonist is practically a living cartoon, never really impaired by the gallons of booze he downs unless the joke calls for it. He, as well as his criminal co-conspirators (Tony Cox as his dwarf partner, Kathy Bates as his rotten mother), are less detestable human beings than an artificial sort of nasty for comedy’s sake.

As the film opens, life has not improved for drunken lowlife Willie Soke (Thornton) since last time. His mother and his recently-paroled ex-partner manage to lure him to Chicago to participate in their latest scheme: working as bell-ringing Santas for a charity in order to rob it during a concert on Christmas Eve. Willie’s reluctant at first (and that’s an understatement), but through planning the job and the spirit of the season, he starts to reconnect with his family, real or surrogate.

I’m not exactly kidding about that schmaltzy stuff. The original went very light on the sentiment, and what bit it had only highlighted the contrast with the dark and dirty. But this time, the film tries to sincerely squeeze some unironic holiday cheer into the mix, and presents the closest thing to a heartfelt ending a movie like this could possibly get. And it’s the fakest thing in the entire picture, which is really saying something in a movie where the main players are basically cartoon characters.

Phoniness aside, it’s mostly funny in a lowbrow cartoonish way. The cast plays off each other well and is visibly having a good time letting loose (especially Bates), even though the film's idea of “loose” isn’t that outrageous in 2016. The only exception is Kelly, who comes off like a Z-grade knockoff of Zach Galifianakis in The Hangover. His severe social ineptitude was hilarious (if a little painful) as a kid, but it’s just grating and a little uncomfortable (not in a funny way) from an adult. 

Bad Santa still endures as a demented December classic for a certain audience (I count myself among them). Bad Santa 2 is about as memorable and special as a chocolate Santa from a gas station. But, a chocolate Santa is still enjoyable enough while you're consuming it.