Movie Review: The Way Back (2010)

Genre: Survival Drama

Director: Peter Weir

Starring: Jim Sturgess, Ed Harris, Saoirse Ronan, and Colin Farrell

Running Time: 133 minutes

Synopsis: During World War Two, Polish soldier Janusz (Jim Sturgess) is captured by the Soviets and dispatched to a Siberian prison. He meets a mix of political and criminal convicts including grizzled American Mr. Smith (Ed Harris) and scrappy thief Valka (Colin Farrell). Along with other prisoners they escape during a brutal snow storm, heading towards Mongolia. The mysterious Irena (Saoirse Ronan) joins the escapees en route, but the longer-than-expected trek to freedom will be tough to survive.

What Works Well: Inspired by actual events, this is a grim and determined battle for survival, first against the inhumanity of prison conditions, then trudging through an inhospitable natural environment fluctuating from extreme cold to insufferable heat. The long trip on foot is satisfyingly exhausting to watch, and director Peter Weir teases out character traits and the survivors' strengthening bonds. Russell Boyd's cinematography captures nature's dangerous grandeur.

What Doesn't Work As Well: With a limited - and familiar - thematic ambition of the human spirit yearning to live free or die trying, it's difficult to care too much about any of the characters. The less prominent members of the escape party are predictably lined up to expire. Janusz's flashbacks and hallucinations are flimsy, and the running time need not have competed with the actual duration of the journey.

Conclusion: A sturdy but emotionally parched hazard course navigation adventure.



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Movie Review: Geostorm (2017)

A science fiction disaster thriller, Geostorm is laughably inept.

A few years into the future the world unites to create a satellite-based system, nicknamed Dutch Boy, to combat climate change. American Jake Lawson (Gerard Butler) leads the global effort to build the system from the expanded International Space Station, but is then summarily fired for frequent insubordination and replaced by his more politically savvy brother Max (Jim Sturgess).

Three years later Dutch Boy starts to malfunction, causing multiple weather catastrophes and the threat of a globe-threatening "geostorm". President Palma (Andy Garcia) and Secretary of State Dekkon (Ed Harris) turn to Max for answers, and he convinces Jake to go back to the ISS and investigate. Jake and commander Ute Fassbinder (Alexandra Maria Lara) uncover evidence of an elaborate sabotage, while back on earth Max teams up with his lover, Secret Service Agent Sarah Wilson (Abbie Cornish), to identify the conspirators.

While the placement of climate change at the center of a large-scale disaster film is a laudable exercise in awareness-raising, it is worrisome that the solution conjured up by director and co-writer Dean Devlin seems to have nothing to do with curtailing carbon emissions and instead imagines an ability to zap the natural consequences.

Everything else about Geostorm suitably crashes to earth in a mess of bad writing and worse special effects. Both the science and the fiction are ridiculous, as are the overblown and overwhelmingly bad disaster visuals. The script consists of thrice recycled components, the animosity between brothers one of many cringe-worthy elements as Gerard Butler and Jim Sturgess struggle to produce any emotional resonance.

As for the conspiracy, it consists of a barely coherent power grab and weaponization of science by the usual disgruntled suits, although here the scale of global death and destruction unleashed in the name of seizing control of geopolitical destiny is well beyond comprehension and weighed down by juvenile CGI run amok.

Meanwhile back at the ISS the really old "self destruct" cliche is dusted off and trotted out, complete with a countdown clock and robotic warning voice. As massive explosions and fires devour everything surrounding Jake and Ute, somehow enough technology still functions to give them a chance to input "kill codes" to stop the carnage. The system reboot also still works and takes a matter a seconds, much faster than the typical cell phone, proof positive that technology will come a long way even as some movies eject intellect into a vacuum.

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Movie Review: Across The Universe (2007)

A jukebox musical drama and romance featuring the music of The Beatles, Across The Universe is a multifaceted but simple story inspired by the 1960s and the majesty of timeless songs.

It's the 1960s, and in Liverpool aspiring artist Jude (Jim Sturgess) leaves his shipyard job and girlfriend behind and heads to the United States for a life adventure. At the Princeton University campus, he meets free-spirited student Max (Joe Anderson), then finds his father, a World War Two veteran who abandoned Jude's mother when she was pregnant. Jude becomes friends with Max and also meets his more grounded sister Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood). She has a boyfriend who has already been drafted into the army.

Max quits college and with Jude they relocate to New York's Greenwich Village, where they meet aspiring singer Sadie (Dana Fuchs) and guitarist Jo-Jo (Martin Luther McCoy), who fled a Detroit beset by race riots. They are soon joined by Lucy, as well as Prudence (T.V. Carpio), a young woman from Ohio. Jude and Lucy start an intense romance, while Max receives his draft papers conscripting him into the army. Lucy joins an anti-war activist group led by Paco (Logan Marshall-Green), and eventually her idealistic dedication to peace protests strains the relationship with Jude.

An experimental fantasy anchored to the music and events of the 1960s, Across The Universe is reasonably successful in casting a unique spell. Director Julie Taymor and screenwriters Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais squeeze in more than 30 Beatles tunes into 133 minutes of running time. Helped by key characters carrying names straight from The Beatles' songs (Jude, Prudence, Lucy, Jo-Jo, Max), the songs are performed by the cast members and often seamlessly weave into the film.

The movie is an undoubted salute to the eternal genius of the band and a reminder of their catalogue depth. But bloat does creep in, and a more disciplined edit would have resulted in a sharper end product.

Taymor ties the music to often fantastical imagery, allowing the film to work as a feast for the eyes as well as the ears. The visuals are hit and miss, a combination of alluring, perplexing and trippy. For better or for worse, Across The Universe often evokes the 1960s as imagined through the prism of substance-enhanced nostalgia.

Within the swirling artsiness it's remarkable the film contains as much plot and history as it does, and these elements not only work but provide necessary cohesion. Social turmoil, protests, riots, hippie-inspired attitudes towards love and a burgeoning peace movement grappling with tactics are all here under the ever-present spectre of a worsening Vietnam War. The cultural references are enhanced by Sadie and Jo-Jo channeling Janis Joplin and Jimmy Hendrix respectively.

The story of Jude's father is a reminder these are the children of the World War Two generation, while the scenes back in Liverpool create a grim port city with a future fading into nondescript and depressing narrow alleyways. Jim Sturgess and Evan Rachel Wood delve into their roles as star-crossed lovers with appropriate solemnity, the cast playing it straight to provide necessary ballast.

A rich multi-sensory experience, Across The Universe is courageous artistry on film.

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Movie Review: 21 (2008)

Based on true events, 21 is an entertaining drama examining what happens when the glitter and seductiveness of the Las Vegas gambling world are used as ill-conceived shortcuts on the road of real life.

21 is based on the events described in the book Bringing Down The House, by Ben Mezrich. The movie was accused of white-washing what in reality was a predominantly Asian-American Blackjack Team. While the decision to cast white actors in all the leading roles is understandable from the perspective of increasing the film's marketability, it is a sad statement on society that actor ethnicity remains a major factor in determining commercial success.

Ben Campbell (Jim Sturgess) is a student at MIT, a math wizard, and looking to get into Harvard Medical School. He is recruited by one of his professors, Micky Rosa (Kevin Spacey), to join the Blackjack Team: a group of students organized by Rosa to use a card-counting system and win big at Blackjack during weekend trips to Las Vegas casinos.

At first reluctant but seduced by the idea of making enough money to pay for medical school, Campbell joins the team, falls in love with team-member Jill Taylor (Kate Bosworth), and over 17 glitzy Vegas weekends makes more money than he ever imagined possible. He enjoys the fast and loose life style of the big-time winning gambler, but things start to fall apart when he loses his friends at MIT; tensions erupt between the Blackjack Team members; and Cole Williams (Laurence Fishburne), a burly Vegas security chief with a mean streak, smells something wrong with Campbell's unlikely winning streak.

Director Robert Luketic ensures that 21 looks great, whether in luxury-drenched Vegas or the more staid and academic Boston environment. Kevin Spacey keeps his balance walking the fine line between smiling math professor and conniving blackjack strategist, alternating between charming and badgering his students to win him money. Laurence Fishburne does not need to bother with the charming part, he just bulldozes his way to uncovering those who try to win at Blackjack by counting. Jim Sturgess and Kate Bosworth are an appealing mix of student naivete and young adults forced to deal with the challenges of an alternate world.

Slick, engaging and thought-provoking, 21 doesn't bring down the house, but it does shake it up.

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