Movie Review: Judge Dredd (1995)

Genre: Science Fiction Action Thriller  

Director: Danny Cannon  

Starring: Sylvester Stallone, Armand Assante, Diane Lane, Max von Sydow, Rob Schneider, Jurgen Prochnow  

Running Time: 96 minutes  

Synopsis: In a dystopian future, humanity is packed into megacities to shelter from the devastated Cursed Earth. "Judges" act as police officers, juries, and executioners to try and keep the peace. Fearless Judge Joseph Dredd (Sylvester Stallone) is a protege of Chief Justice Fargo (Max von Sydow), whose rival Judge Griffin (Jurgen Prochnow) advocates for a stricter law-and-order agenda. Dredd is framed for murder, Fargo is sidelined, and Dredd's former partner Rico (Armand Assante) is unleashed to cause mayhem. With help from Judge Hershey (Diane Lane), Dredd has to exonerate himself and uncover a conspiracy involving his own past.

What Works Well: This comic book adaptation is packed full of special effects and quirky humour, and provides a sturdy platform for star Sylvester Stallone to deliver plenty of zingers. The plot is a familiar conflict between the light and dark sides of human aspirations, but never takes itself too seriously. Director Danny Cannon inserts action interludes at regular intervals to maintain momentum, with most of Rob Schneider's comic relief contributions landing just on the right side of the line separating entertaining from annoying.

What Does Not Work As Well: The visual style and star salaries appear to have consumed most of the budget, resulting in a short running time and a sense of muddled expediency. Ideas introduced but truncated include the complex relationship between Dredd and Rico, the rupture between Rico and Griffin, the genetic cloning sub-plot, and the role of Dr. Ilsa Hayden (Joan Chen). What remains is more a highlight reel than any attempt at serious world building or character depth.

Key Quote:

Rico (to Dredd): The only difference between us, Joseph, is you destroyed your life to embrace the law. And l destroyed the law to embrace life.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Three Days Of The Condor (1975)

A spy thriller and romance, Three Days Of The Condor uses slick energy and a conspiratorial attitude to fly over a bumpy plot.

In New York City, a quiet CIA station is attacked by a murderous team led by the shadowy Joubert (Max von Sydow). The only survivor is Joe Turner (Robert Redford), nicknamed Condor, who escapes the mayhem because he was out picking up lunch. Turner is a bookish researcher, with a job to read espionage books and feed knowledge to the CIA's computers. Now he is on the run and unsure who to trust.

The CIA's Higgins (Cliff Robertson) arranges for Turner to reach safety, but unknown to Higgins, this turns out to be a trap, and Turner barely survives another assassination attempt. Desperate for cover he randomly abducts Kathy Hale (Faye Dunaway) at a boutique, and forces her at gunpoint to provide him with refuge at her apartment. As Turner tries to piece together the motivations and perpetrators behind the station hit, his relationship with Kathy evolves towards a romance.

An adaptation of a James Grady novel written for the screen with dark cynicism by Lorenzo Semple Jr. and David Rayfiel, Three Days Of The Condor springs into action with an explosive first act. Director Sydney Pollack sets the stage at a sleepy CIA research station occupied by bookworms rather than spies, then unleashes the fury of assassins. Turner loses all his anchors, including girlfriend/co-worker Janice (Tina Chen), and suddenly has to dredge up and apply basic agent training just to stay alive.

As Turner uses Kathy's apartment as a base and works hard to outhink his foes, Pollack maintains quick pacing and a sense of coiled tension. Redford and Dunaway do their part as a dream photogenic couple. But all the good thriller intentions and attractive visuals cannot quite conceal a potholed plot unravelling into a mess of grey men engaging in internecine warfare and conspiracies to cover conspiracies. It all has something to do with Turner stumbling upon a mysteriously published book exposing a secret CIA plan to control Middle East oil fields, but the nefarious scheme is barely explained and ultimately irrelevant.

The affair between Turner and Kathy smolders with pent-up sexuality but strains credibility and ultimately leaves a sour taste. She is forcibly abducted, held hostage, and roughed up by an agitated, almost incoherent man, but within a hours they are making passionate love (not to mention he is being pursued by assassins and just recently stumbled upon the bullet-riddled corpse of his girlfriend). Kathy is well-defined as a lonely amateur photographer with a different perspective on life, but her uniqueness does not nearly justify the narrative rush to wedged-in passion. Equally befuddling is Turner's seamless transition to a smooth field agent capable of outsmarting and overcoming seasoned veterans.

And yet Three Days Of The Condor is never less than gripping. The New York locations provide an organic backdrop to an unyielding battle of wits, the action never dawdles, and Turner's trenchcoat-and-raised-collar look exudes effortless dominance. This big bird has some clumsy proportions, but still soars.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Robin Hood (2010)

A medieval drama and romance, Robin Hood creates an epic backstory for the legendary outlaw.

The year is 1199, and Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) is an archer in the army of Richard The Lionheart (Danny Huston), as England's King fights his way back home from the crusades. But Richard is felled by an arrow at a battle in France, and his weakling brother Prince John (Oscar Isaac) ascends to the throne. Robin impersonates the dead knight Sir Robert Loxley and along with a small group of men they make it back to England.

Meanwhile John is being undermined by his double-crossing friend Godfrey (Mark Strong), who is really working for France's King Philip to weaken England and enable an invasion. In Nottingham Robin meets and falls in love with Marion Loxley (Cate Blanchett), while her father, the elderly and blind Walter (Max von Sydow), helps Robin understand his lineage. 

John's extreme taxation policies and Godfrey's raids on fellow Englishmen push the country towards civil war and serve Philip's agenda. Robin teams up with Lionheart loyalist William Marshal (William Hurt) to try and avert disaster.

Running a luxurious 140 minutes with content to match, Robin Hood is an engrossing drama, mixing historical factoids with plenty of rambunctious fiction. Director Ridley Scott re-teams with his Gladiator star Russell Crowe, and although the results are not quite as spectacular, this is still a finely crafted tale of swords, bows, and arrows, rich with story lines, court intrigue, memorable characters and no shortage of large-scale bone-crunching battles.

The Brian Helgeland screenplay steers well clear of the frivolity, simplistic heroics and light-heartedness associated with previous cinematic Robin Hood versions. This is a mud-splattered and grim outing, levity limited to a couple of brief dialogue exchanges, the merry men pushed well into the background. In search of a wider audience Scott avoids blood and gore visuals, but this adventure would have benefited from more realistic representations of the era's brutality.

Crowe's dour Robin suits the England-in-crisis surroundings. Untethered from any clan, he is haunted by a lost father and too many battles on the way to and from Jerusalem. The supporting cast is brimming with talent, von Sydow, Isaac, Hurt and Strong joined by Matthew Macfadyen as the Sheriff of Nottingham (here a relatively minor character), Léa Seydoux as Isabella (Prince John's ambitious lover) and Eileen Atkins as Eleanor of Aquitaine (his concerned mother).

The narrative weakness resides in Robin's relatively limited influence on events around him. For the most part he is on the edge of the major plot points, first with Richard the Lionheart's army then back in England where John, Godfrey and Marshal are driving the agenda. Even in the quieter moments at the Loxley estate, Robin's surroundings and fate are defined by Walter's wisdom and Marion gradually learning to love him.

Robin's personality does emerge on a few occasions, speaking truth to power (and paying for it) when invited to do so by Lionheart, recognizing the opportunity to impersonate a knight as a ticket home, and then helping Marion's fledgling estate avert starvation by plotting his first steal-from-the-rich escapade. 

Now provided with a pre-banditry history of hostility and hurt, Robin Hood emerges as a more hardened legend.



All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Command (2018)

A drama about the Kursk submarine disaster, The Command (also known as Kursk and Kursk: The Last Mission) is a well-constructed and multi-faceted recreation of a tragedy at sea.

In 2000, Captain-Lieutenant Mikhail Averin (Matthias Schoenaerts) and his crew mates celebrate a colleague's wedding. They then depart on the submarine Kursk out of Vidyayevo port in Murmansk to participate in Russian Northern Fleet naval exercises in the Barents Sea. The crew members notice one of the torpedoes running hot, but their superiors ignore the warning. The faulty torpedo explodes, triggering a catastrophic secondary explosion of all other munitions. The Kursk sinks.

Mikhail leads a group of 23 survivors who take refuge in a sealed-off compartment. Admiral Andrey Grudzinsky (Peter Simonischek) leads the rescue efforts, but is hampered by inadequate and poorly maintained equipment. Back in Murmansk, Mikhail's pregnant wife Tanya (Léa Seydoux) and other relatives desperately seek information but are stonewalled by navy officials.

Commodore David Russell (Colin Firth) of the British Navy is monitoring the disaster and offers to help, but the Russian bureaucracy represented by Admiral Petrenko (Max von Sydow) refuses foreign assistance. Meanwhile the survivors face cold, wet and cramped conditions, and dwindling oxygen supplies.

Directed by Denmark's Thomas Vinterberg, The Command adapts the book A Time To Die by Robert Moore with grim realism. The Kursk tragedy resulted in 118 deaths, and the film approaches the drama with a clear-eyed objective to trace events and decisions above and below the waves. Once the calamity strikes the mood is almost uniformly grim, and the sense of impending doom only tightens as rescue efforts flounder.

The Robert Rodat screenplay invests plenty of time on-board the stricken vessel as the explosion survivors struggle to stay alive. These scenes explore the limits of human endurance, acts of heroism and camaraderie coming together to solve problems, momentarily raise spirits, and expand the survival window.

But events on the surface are not shortchanged. The perspective of the families is expressed through Tanya's ordeal, the inept response of the bumbling Russian command is painfully exposed, and the British Navy's readiness to assist represents the international community's willingness to set politics aside and attempt to save lives. 

The multiple viewpoints provide relief from on-board claustrophobia, and ensure the two hours of running time never drag. The cameras of cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle capture the cramped and crumbled conditions on the stricken submarine, the grey aesthetic of Tanya's environment, and some impressive flotilla landscapes.

Matthias Schoenaerts leaves an impression as an even-tempered leader maintaining his wits to focus on the immediacy of the crisis. But while The Command salutes individual moments of courage, this is a story about the damage caused by the immense failure of big machinery.



All Ace Black Movie Blog Reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Quiller Memorandum (1966)

A spy thriller, The Quiller Memorandum investigates a group of ultra nationalists in Germany. Compact and often intense, the film targets disposition and tension more than outright action.

After two British agents are killed, Agent Quiller (George Segal) is dispatched to Berlin to continue an investigation into a shadowy neo-Nazi group. He connects with his controller Pol (Alec Guinness) and shakes off his guard Hengel (Peter Carsten). Investigating reports that one of the neo-Nazis worked at a school Quiller meets teacher Inge Lindt (Senta Berger) and romances her to try and extract additional information.

Quiller antagonizes enough people to prompt the extremists into action: he is drugged, kidnapped and comes face to face with Oktober (Max von Sydow), the leader of a far-right group. At a secret location Oktober tries to extract from Quiller information about counterintelligence operations in Berlin, and a dangerous battle of wits and wills erupts between the two sides.

A Harold Pinter adaptation of the Elleston Trevor book directed by Michael Anderson, The Quiller Memorandum dives into the world of undercover spies poking around dangerous corners to uncover existential threats. Partially shot on location in Berlin, the film carries a British sensibility. The action is measured, talk is important, mindgames matter, and mood predominates.

But the film also skips past several gaps in logic. Quiller is an American seemingly working for the British, German authorities are nowhere to be found, and on more than one occasion Oktober and his men leave loose ends to better serve the script than their cause. Anderson allows some scenes to run too long, and most of the secondary characters, particularly Oktober's many henchmen, are statuesque in presence and stiff in character.

Max von Sydow and Alec Guinness add welcome gravitas, but both are marginally over the top and edge towards caricaturish representations of master villain and master spy respectively.

The central passionate relationship is handled better. Notwithstanding the speed with which Quiller connects with Inge, Anderson delicately weaves in the complex romance, with Senta Berger enigmatic in the pivotal role. When Oktober injects the spy with a truth serum Inge as a notional lover suddenly becomes vital for his survival; later her role seeps into the investigation, lapping on multiple shores of subtle danger.

More famous for comedic roles, George Segal is a revelation. He adds oodles of character, staying on the appropriate side of determined but pushing all the boundaries in an unconventional and acid-tongued pursuit of proven killers. Countering extreme nationalism is a dour mission, but Quiller brings individual swagger to the game of shadows.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Hawaii (1966)

A historical epic about Christian missionaries, Hawaii aims for a spectacular scope but has to settle for competently stodgy.

It's 1819 in New England, and the strictly idealistic Calvinist Reverend Abner Hale (Max von Sydow) heeds the call from Hawaii's Prince Keoki (Manu Tupou) and volunteers for a Christian mission to the islands. The Reverend Dr. Thorn (Torin Thatcher) insists that Abner first get married, and connects him with the eligible Jerusha (Julie Andrews), the daughter of church member Charles Bromley (Carroll O'Connor).

Jerusha is still nursing a heart broken by whaler Captain Rafer Hoxworth, who loved her and abandoned her. After a brief and awkward courtship she agrees to marry the stiff and clumsy Abner. They travel to Hawaii on an arduous sea journey including traversing the Magellan Strait. Upon arrival they are welcomed by Keoki's mother Malama (Jocelyne LaGarde), the local ruler considered sacred by the natives.

As per tradition to preserve the purity of bloodlines Malama is married to her brother Kelolo (Ted Nobriga), one of many examples of adultery and incest that Abner immediately starts raging against. Jerusha is more patient and teaches Malama how to write, while Abner builds his first church and slowly starts to exert influence, although changing deeply entrenched local customs proves difficult. Abner and Jerusha start a family, but further complications arise when Captain Hoxworth (Richard Harris) appears in Hawaii and reinitiates his romantic pursuit of Jerusha.

An adaptation of one chapter from James A. Michener's 1959 book, Hawaii is ambitious in scope and proficient in execution but hamstrung by dry subject matter and an aloof protagonist. The beautiful scenery and grand Elmer Bernstein music score ensure a base level of entertainment. But the story of humourless missionaries browbeating locals into redefining themselves as worthless sinners is grating.

While Julie Andrews receives top billing after achieving stratospheric success in The Sound Of Music, Jerusha is very much the secondary character. Instead the script by Daniel Taradash and Dalton Trumbo chooses Reverend Abner Hale as the focal point. His uncompromising view of the world and Bible-thumping attitude defines the fire and brimstone style of proselytizing, and makes for an exceptionally dour central character. Three hours is a long time to spend with anyone, but three hours with Abner are more than enough to capitulate and buy whatever he is selling just to avoid his continued wrath.

Relatively unknown at the time, director George Roy Hill replaced Fred Zinnemann and was himself reportedly fired and rehired several times during the course of the troubled production. To his credit, Hill does tease out the agonies (including loss of culture and rampant diseases) experienced by the natives due to the missionary invasion, and raises questions as to whether the locals ultimately benefited from welcoming and trusting the social and religious fundamentalists.

With Max von Sydow in full preacherman mode, it is left to Andrews to prove she can handle dramatic roles. She effortlessly passes the test in the two key scenes, first Jerusha explaining to Abner intimacy's place in marriage, and much later awakening him (somewhat) to the power of love over dogma.

Native Tahitian Jocelyne LaGarde earned an Academy Award nomination for her one and only screen role as Malama, who injects much needed spirit whenever she is on the screen despite LaGarde not knowing any English and reciting her lines phonetically. As Abner will spend a lifetime learning, sometimes what matters is not what needs to be said, but how the message is conveyed.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Dune (1984)

A science fiction fiasco, Dune is a disastrous epic, the ineptitude registering at a jaw-dropping scale.

Set in the distant future, the plot is convoluted beyond belief. The comprehensible core is a battle for control of the desert-like planet Dune, which is the only source in the universe for "the spice", which is required to fold space and enable "travel without moving". Paul Atreides (Kyle MacLachlan), the son of Duke Leto Atreides (Jürgen Prochnow), is a "chosen-one" type destined to save the local population of Dune, while Padishah Emperor Shaddam IV (José Ferrer) and the despicable Baron Vladimir Harkonnen (Kenneth McMillan) are engaged in power hungry conspiracies.

The production of spice on Dune is hampered by giant subterranean worms that eat anything they deem annoying, and a large assortment of nondescript people, creatures and places enter and exit the plot with little consequence, but blue eyes and the "Water of Life" are important parts of the fantastical universe.

For anyone unfamiliar with Frank Herbert's source books, Dune the movie is overwhelmingly incomprehensible within five minutes. A barrage of names, places, clans and concepts is unloaded onto the screen through narration (including the disembodied head of Virginia Madsen, who otherwise barely features in the movie), and voice-overs that tell us what characters are really thinking once they stop talking.

Director and writer David Lynch appears utterly clueless on how to translate Herbert's admittedly difficult epic onto the screen, and the bumbling storytelling on display is something to behold. It's impossible to follow who is who and why, and scene after scene comes and goes featuring barely defined people and creatures conspiring with and against each other.

The multitude of characters brings forth a massive cast featuring the likes of Francesca Annis, Brad Dourif, Patrick Stewart, Linda Hunt, Freddie Jones, Silvana Mangano, Dean Stockwell, Max von Sydow and Sean Young. They mostly stand around, often in a crowded flat line, and spout gibberish in full pantomime mode. Then there is a Sting, who tries to introduce menace but only succeeds in further escalating the madness quotient.

The special effects are worthy of B-movies from the glorious cheap sci-fi era of the 1950s, while the set designs are a garish steampunk nightmare. The action scenes appear staged by children, and mostly consist of dorky extras aimlessly running around the desert.

It is exceptionally difficult to avoid the impression that Dune is intended as a bad joke, a big-budget reimagining of Plan 9 From Outer Space to stake out new boundaries of awfulness. But unfortunately it's not a parody, just a sad exercise in large scale incompetence.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Hannah And Her Sisters (1986)

A social comedy, Hannah And Her Sisters delves into middle class and middle age emotional crises, and represents one of Woody Allen's finest cinematic moments.

In New York City, Elliott (Michael Caine) is an investment banker married to Hannah (Mia Farrow), a once aspiring actress who has settled into a life of domestic bliss. Although he loves his wife, Elliott is also secretly lusting after Hannah's more free-spirited sister Lee (Barbara Hershey), who is currently in a relationship as the muse of conceited and reclusive artist Frederick (Max von Sydow).

Hannah's other sister Holly (Dianne Wiest) is a former drug addict, always asking Hannah for money and still dreaming in vain about making it as an actress. Hannah's ex-husband Mickey (Allen) is a television producer going through his latest health scare related to hearing loss. Elliott contrives an "accidental" on-the-street meeting with Lee and finally gathers up the courage to express his love, but he is torn between the thrill of an affair and the stability offered by Hannah. Meanwhile the relationship between the three sisters ebbs and flows with the passing seasons.

Directed and written by Allen, Hannah And Her Sisters features a collection of New Yorkers struggling with typical Allen issues over two years book-ended by the anarchic warmth of Thanksgiving family gatherings. Elliott is imagining the greener grass on Lee's side of the sistery fence, Lee herself is feeling stifled by the egotistical and older Frederick, Holly is pursuing a career that does not exist and hypochondriac Mickey is dealing with his latest health scare and concluding that a change in religion is in order.

Meanwhile Hannah's parents do not offer much in the way of guidance -- or maybe they do. Norma and Evan (Maureen O'Sullivan and Lloyd Nolan) are living out their years with plenty of fire and ice, bickering as much as they are reminiscing, their lives having consisted of conflict, tumult, betrayal and an abundance of love.

Only Hannah herself appears to want to chart a steady course, and pays the emotional price for it. She happily gave up an acting career in exchange for relative domestic bliss. Stable, steady, the rock for her family and her sisters, Hannah is accused of being too perfect, her advice too pragmatic. Both admired and resented for the resilience, organization and warmth she provides, Hannah is an example that is too obvious to emulate.

These are all of course first world problems of privileged New Yorkers, but there is no denying the affinity Allen has for all his characters. The dialogue is sharp, funny and rings relatively true. Allen laughs at the situations surrounding the characters, not at the people themselves. And the multiple story arcs do spring some lifelike and unexpected surprises, some apparent dead ends proving to be pathways and other promising opportunities only leading to cul-de-sacs.

The film is perfectly paced, the multiple stories balanced, Allen mastering the juggling act and never staying in one place for too long.

The cast is deep with talent and absolutely stellar, Allen's prominence attracting a star in every role, and they equitably share the screen time. Farrow, Hershey and Wiest have rarely been better, benefiting from Allen's genius in creating well-rounded female roles. Caine acts with sorrow-filled eyes, nailing the middle-aged man willing to risk stability at home to chase one more fling.

The cast also includes Daniel Stern, Carrie Fisher (as Holly's frenemy), Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Julie Kavner, J.T. Walsh, John Turturro, and Richard Jenkins, as well as Tony Roberts and Sam Waterston in uncredited roles.

Hannah And Her Sisters is sly social commentary in a perfect package, clever enough to tease out human foibles and warm enough to understand their essential nature.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)

A slow-moving version of Jesus' life story as described in the Gospel, The Greatest Story Ever Told lacks cinematic heart and soul. The film best resembles a well-intentioned but creatively challenged Catholic high school play on a big budget.

Jesus is born in a Bethlehem barn, in the presence of three elderly men who traveled a long distance guided by a bright star. The Roman client king Herod the Great (Claude Rains), fearing a prophecy about the birth of a great leader, orders the killing of all infants in Bethlehem, but Jesus is smuggled to safety. More than thirty years later John the Baptist (Charlton Heston) is proclaiming the imminent arrival of God's messenger, calling on all to repent and baptizing them in the Jordan river.

Jesus (Max von Sydow) appears and is baptized by John, before heading to the hills and meeting the Dark Hermit (Donald Pleasence), a personification of Satan. Jesus then returns to civilization and starts preaching his teachings of love, tolerance and humility, gaining followers including James, Matthew, and Judas (David McCallum). King Herod Antipas (Jose Ferrer) starts to hear of Jesus, his followers and his healing miracles, as does the prefect of Judaea Pontius Pilate (Telly Savalas). With Jesus' followers multiplying and his reputation spreading, King Herod and Pontius Pilate conspire to arrest him.

A grand, costly film produced and directed by George Stevens, The Greatest Story Ever Told arrived late in the cycle of Hollywood's historical epics, and helped bring to an end the popularity of the genre. For all its good intentions, the film is stiff, overly reverential, and awkwardly staged. At close to three and a half hours (there are also longer and shorter versions), it is also protracted and tiresome, with a snoozy Alfred Newman music score.

Adding to the sense of stagey aloofness, the film was shot with the single camera Cinerama process. The already slow pacing suffers from the resultant stiff character placement and interactions, with very few close-ups and characters seemingly never facing each other even when exchanging dialogue. Many scenes feature static postcard-style arrangements, and most of the film suffers from Every Spoken Word Is Important And Shall Be Recorded In A Future Film syndrome.

The film runs through most of the highlights of Jesus' life, although surprisingly his walk on water and feeding the multitudes occur off-camera. The raising of Lazarus is a highlight, but Stevens focuses on reactions rather than the event itself.

Continuing the trend previously seen in The Longest Day and How The West Was Won, Stevens employed pretty much every star name in Hollywood. A familiar face appears in almost every role, including Van Heflin, Dorothy McGuire, Martin Landau, Roddy McDowall, Michael Ansara, Carroll Baker, Angela Lansbury, Robert Loggia, Shelley Winters, Sal Mineo and Sidney Poitier. Most of the stars get one scene, and some have literally a few seconds of screen time. And it only takes about two seconds for John Wayne's cowboy drawl to ruin the film's emotional highlight.

Faring better are Max von Sydow and Charlton Heston in the two most prominent roles. von Sydow was cast because he was a relative unknown, and brings a quiet dignity to the proceedings, doing his best in difficult circumstances. Heston knows a cheesy epic when he sees one, and tears into the role of John The Baptist with venom.

The Greatest Story Ever Told is useful as a straightforward history lesson on a familiar topic, but is much less engaging as a movie.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

Movie Review: Minority Report (2002)

A science fiction thriller, Minority Report offers up thoughtful questions about societal justice, the nature of crime and free will, packaged with plenty of futuristic action.

In the year 2054, the PreCrime corporation has successfully implemented a crime prevention pilot program in Washington D.C. Using the predictive powers of three "Precogs", police detectives can uncover the intent to commit murder, and stop the killers before they strike. Chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is the main enforcement officer who swings into action to arrest would-be murderers. He is both haunted and motivated by the abduction of his young son Sean, an incident which fractured John's marriage to Lara (Kathryn Morris). Lamar Burgess (Max von Sydow) is the founder of PreCrime, and the plummeting murder rate in Washington has resulted in his rise to prominence and a push to expand the program nationally.

The Department of Justice sends in agent Danny Witwer (Colin Farrell) to audit the program before it expands, and he uncovers John's drug habit, as well as the program's dependence on the three Precogs: a woman named Agatha (Samantha Morton) and twin brothers kept in a drugged state of suspended animation where they see visions of the future and predict the names of would-be victims and perpetrators. With PreCrime's future looking good, John's life is thrown into turmoil: the Precogs predict that he will murder a man named Leo Crow. John has to go on the run, his own team in hot pursuit, to clear his name, uncover who Crow is, and why the Precogs could possibly be wrong.

An adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story directed by Steven Spielberg, Minority Report is a glossy, well-polished thriller, featuring an athletic Tom Cruise in fine form and a thought-provoking premise. The film grapples with the fundamental issue of whether a crime is still a crime when it has not yet been committed, and weighs society's desire for public safety against the liberty of individuals apprehended for their thoughts.

While some key plot points are lost in the dazzling early barrage of technology, Spielberg generally controls the pacing with expert precision, taking the necessary time to introduce a fairly complex premise before delving deep into a labyrinthine conspiracy involving a secret from the past threatening the march towards a society free of murder.

The action scenes are not as strong, and do drag the film down. Spielberg adopts a CGI-heavy aesthetic featuring plenty of pod-like cars zooming at insane speeds in all directions, including vertically. It's a child-like idea of transportation's future, all image and no logic, and sure enough John is thrown into Frogger-type situations of hopping from pod to pod to escape his pursuers. Not much better and just as juvenile are officers equipped with cumbersome jet packs, all too easily dispatched by the under-equipped John in over-the-top hand-to-hand combat scenes.

The film is lengthy at 145 minutes, and fortunately Spielberg steers the final third towards the more cerebral elements, as John continues to peel away the layers of his own destiny to uncover a convoluted but clever plot. Here again the film asks good questions, about the value of one crime being committed to help prevent many others from taking place.

Tom Cruise slices through the film with professional ease, never stretching as John Anderton but finding the requisite intensity as a hero forced to clear his name. Max von Sydow lends his distinguished brand of gravitas to the role of Lamar Burgess, the old man gradually emerging as a key character in the second half of the film. In relative terms, Colin Farrell is a black hole, unable to bring any convincing menace to the role of Danny Witwer.

Late in the film, Samantha Morton steps out of the small precognition pool of milky fluid and into a more active role as Agatha. Peter Stormare enjoys a small but memorable turn as an underground surgeon who helps John with a new pair of eyes to defeat the pervasive retinal scan security systems.

Minority Report has its flaws, but provides substantive futuristic entertainment with plenty of bristly concepts worthy of debate.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Awakenings (1990)

A medical drama set in the world of catatonic patients, Awakenings benefits from an inspirational story and extraordinary performances, but does suffer from some excessive dosages of syrup.

In 1969, the socially awkward Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) joins the staff of a New York Hospital and stumbles upon an almost forgotten wing where unresponsive patients in long-term catatonic states are cared for, including a man called Leonard (Robert De Niro). With help from nurse Eleanor Costello (Julie Kavner), Sayer discovers that the patients do respond to sudden stimuli. He suspects that their brains may still be functioning at some level, and investigates a potentially common cause for their condition: they all contracted encephalitis as children.

After consulting with expert Dr. Peter Ingham (Max Von Sydow), Sayer hypothesizes that the patients are suffering an extreme form of Parkinson's disease triggered by the encephalitis. When the new experimental drug L-Dopa becomes available, Sayer administers it on a trial basis to Leonard. It takes a strong dose, but Leonard is suddenly awakened, and appears to make a remarkable recovery. With Leonard exploring the world around him including befriending frequent hospital visitor Paula (Penelope Ann Miller), Sayer convinces the hospital administrators, including the skeptical Dr. Kaufman (John Heard), to similarly treat all the catatonic patients. But the euphoria of success is soon tempered by the emotional and physical implications of the medication.

Awakenings is based on a true episode from the life of British neurologist and author Oliver Sacks. Directed by Penny Marshall from a Steven Zaillian script, the film opens with Leonard as young boy gradually losing his ability to write coherently, before jumping ahead about 40 years. From then on Awakenings is almost entirely set at the nondescript hospital, a kind and gentle place where the catatonic patients receive decent care but are otherwise all but forgotten.

The film proceeds at a slow and steady pace, Sayer (a restrained Robin Williams performance) the one major character exploring his way through the hospital and other than Costello, finding few sympathetic ears. Kaufman and his colleagues are not too interested in doing much of anything for the long-term catatonic patients, and Sayer faces passive negativity in trying to overcome the inertia of a do-minimum treatment regime.

Once the L-Dopa medication is administered, Leonard awakens and becomes the second major presence. This gives the film a major boost as De Niro steps forward and gets to deploy his impressive skills as a man getting reacquainted with a world he unwillingly left as a young boy decades ago. Leonard then begins to struggle with unanticipated side-effects, and De Niro lets loose in an impressive display of physical discomfort and mental anguish. The combination of Williams and De Niro (who was nominated for the Best Actor Academy Award) both in top form is irresistible, and they carry Awakenings towards some impressive emotional peaks.

While the film has undoubted good intentions and plenty of heart, the lingering suspicion begins to creep in that the story is much ado about not very much. Sacks was adept at writing about his achievements, Hollywood is always good at manufacturing heroes and inflating accomplishments, and the two come together for a grand rendition of what ultimately was a limited success story, more a footnote than a breakthrough.

Which still takes nothing away from a well-constructed and human-centered drama, an uplifting but grounded story of hope and science briefly lifting a dark veil of despair.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Never Say Never Again (1983)

An independently produced but big-budget James Bond adventure, Never Say Never Again has Sean Connery returning for the last time to the role of Bond after a 12 year absence. He enjoys poking gentle fun at his image in an otherwise unnecessary remake of Thunderball.

While at a health clinic to get back into shape, Bond (Connery) notices a nervous patient called Jack Petachi (Gavan O'Herlihy), an airforce pilot, undergoing a retinal procedure and being tended to by the luscious Fatima Blush (Barbara Carrera), a SPECTRE agent pretending to be a nurse. Bond survives an assassination attempt, then Petachi uses his fake eye to help SPECTRE steal two nuclear warheads from NATO before being killed by Blush. The plot is the brainchild of Maximillian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer), a senior SPECTRE operative who now wants to blackmail the world.

Bond tracks down Largo to a yacht in the Bahamas, where he meets Domino Petachi (Kim Basinger), held by Largo as a combination hostage and lover, and as a lever to control her brother Jack. Bond and Largo duel over an elaborate video game, then Bond attempts to turn Domino into an ally by informing her of her brother's death. After a stop in Nice where Bond tangles with Blush, Bond has to try and rescue Domino while stopping Largo from proceeding with plans to bury one of the warheads below the oilfields of the Middle East.

Co-produced by Kevin McClory as part of his long-running claim to elements of Ian Fleming's Thunderball story, Never Say Never Again enjoys a reasonably brisk opening 45 minutes. Connery quickly gets back into the groove, not shying away from plenty of comments about his age, and criticisms about his abilities from M (Edward Fox). At 53 years old Connery looks passably fit and reasonably believable as a secret agent, and he brings enough intensity and his trademark confidence to generate satisfactory dynamism.

The scenes at the health clinic, the video duel with Largo, and the tango dance with Domino are sharply executed and classy, and carry enough of a dangerous edge to build up adequate momentum. But the film then stalls quite noticeably, with the second half drifting into slow moving non-event. Largo's yacht seems to take forever to reach its final destination. A detour to an encounter with Arab slave traders proves to be a perfunctory excuse to tie a half-dressed Domino to the stake and surround her with medieval tribesmen foaming at the mouth, as a hackneyed set-up for an unconvincing rescue. Rowan Atkinson does not help matters with a comic relief appearance as a Foreign Office representative in the Bahamas, neither do ridiculous remote-controlled live sharks.

A motorcycle chase between Bond and Fatima Blush livens things up, the maniacal assassin proving to be a colourful and demented adversary. Barbara Carrera has plenty of fun in the role, her wild costumes and supreme self-confidence creating a combustible combination. In contrast, Basinger is given next to nothing to do, her early dance with Connery the only highlight as she gradually disappears into a passive non-entity. Her late commitment to avenge her brother's death is unconvincing. Brandauer gets plenty of screentime but is nevertheless one of the less memorable Bond villains, while Max Von Sydow appears briefly as a Blofeld.

Director Irvin Kershner sleepily steers the action towards a limp climax, a shoot-out in an underwater cave where Largo's men are clumsily attempting to place the warhead just so, giving Bond and the CIA's Felix Leiter (Bernie Casey) plenty of time to mount an offensive. Never Say Never Again uncovers just enough of the old Connery magic to justify the effort, but although never is a long time, even he can now say enough is enough.

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.

The Movies Of Max von Sydow

All movies starring Max von Sydow and reviewed on the Ace Black Movie Blog are linked below:

The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965)

Hawaii (1966)

The Quiller Memorandum (1966)

The Exorcist (1973)

Three Days Of The Condor (1975)

Escape To Victory (1981)

Conan The Barbarian (1982)

Never Say Never Again (1983)

Dune (1984)

Hannah And Her Sisters (1986)

Awakenings (1990)

Judge Dredd (1995)

Minority Report (2002)

Shutter Island (2010)

Robin Hood (2010)

Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close (2011)

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)

The Command (2018)

All Ace Black Movie Blog reviews are here.
The Movie Star index is here.