Recovery

★½
“PTSD might be preferable.”

Dear god, this is tedious. It takes forever for anything to happen, and when it does, the impact is less than overwhelming. Ronnie Price (Pearson, occupying territory somewhere between Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted and Michelle Rodriguez) is a former GI, suffering from PTSD after three tours in the Middle East, who took to “self-medicating” herself with heroin in an attempt to deal with what she went through. This doesn’t do too much for her anger issues, and after one brush with the police, she’s made to choose between prison and a spell in a remote, women-only rehab facility. Reluctantly, she chooses the latter, though it’s not long before her PTSD flashbacks kick in, and threaten to make her stay a brief one.

Before she can be expelled and handed back to the authorities, a blizzard conveniently settles in to the area, cutting the remarkably understaffed clinic off. Then, some of the other residents start turning up dead, and Ronnie’s history of violent rages makes her the prime suspect for the attending physicians, Dr. Barnes (Quattrocki) and Taylor (Starr). With no help from the outside, she’s going to have to prove her innocence, and also use her military skills to protect the rest of the patients from the real killer.

Some credit is probably due – presuming this was a deliberate choice, at least – to both director and lead actress, for making the heroine thoroughly unlikable. When we first meet, Ronnie she’s not a nice person at all, with no apparent interest in getting clean, and only there at all because it seems easier than the alternative of jail. The main problem is, Ronnie never seems to develop from that point. There’s no sense of her coming to terms with her situation and resolving to be a better person, or rising above her issues to acts of heroism and valour.

Instead, it feels as if the audience is supposed to empathize with Robbie, simply because she’s being falsely accused of murder. She can’t even be sure of her own innocence, due to the blackouts. She certainly still isn’t a nice person, and there is hardly anyone else in the film capable of eliciting any empathy from the audience: Dr. Barnes perhaps comes the closest, though she too has her problems. After being largely a dull, druggie drama for the first hour (how many group therapy sessions do we need to see?), it shifts genres for the final third, and becomes a slasher film.

Unfortunately, Liang seems to have no experience of, or expertise with, the horror genre. This would explain why the last act descends into little more than a series of uninspired cliches, Ronnie and the women creeping around the poorly-lit corridors of the hospital and doing battle. I did find slight interest in the realistically brutal approach to the violence: when the “heroine” [quotes used advisedly] administers a beatdown, it feels like the kind of thing a borderline psychotic ex-soldier might do. But as a whole, the cover is a far better film, than the film actually is.

Dir: John Liang
Star: Stephanie Pearson, Hope Quattrocki, Liz Fenning, Mike Starr

Ready or Not

★★★
“Samara saves the day.”

When I settled in to view this, I didn’t realize it starred Weaving, who was the best thing about the very entertaining Guns Akimbo. She’s also the best thing about this, and it largely solidifies my opinion that she’s one to watch in the future. By the end of this, her character has gone through an absolute meat-grinder of punishment, and she is literally drenched in gore. It’s all a very slight work, a comedy-horror that skews heavily towards the first of its genres, and is little more than a disposable bit of fluff. But I’m a sucker for a spot of wedding-dress mayhem – see also Queen’s High and Bloody Mallory.

Weaving plays Grace, about to be married to Alex (Brody), a son from the rich Le Domas family, who made their money in cards, board games and sports teams. The wedding is taking place at their immense country mansion, with his family largely looking down their noses at Grace, believing her to be a gold-digger. Family tradition has new members pulling a card with a game on it, which they must then play. Except, Grace draws “Hide and Seek”. Which means she gets to hide, and quickly discovers that if found, she’ll be killed. This is the result of a pact with the devil made generations ago, the source of the Le Domas fortunes, which on occasion requires a sacrifice. Tonight being that occasion, and Grace being that sacrifice.

The main problem here is, the family are so inept as to pose no credible threat whatsoever. They may have the benefit of numbers, and operate on home-turf as well. Yet they are, in fact, more of a danger to each other or their (rapidly diminishing number of) servants than to Grace. In their defense, it’s not often that their sponsor demands blood, so it’s not as if they’re experienced at ritual murder. Yet, is a basic degree of competence too much to ask? Instead, they spend much of the night bumbling around and/or bickering with each other, and it’s not as funny as it thinks. I will exempt Aunt Helene (Nicky Guadagni) from this, who has both an appropriately brutal approach and a nice line in deadpan familial snark. e.g. on being greeted by a disliked relative, she responds with, “Brown-haired niece. You continue to exist.”

I get the feeling there is some class criticism going on here, albeit at a lower level than, say, Knives Out, so that can safely be ignored. For it’s the Samara show, and whenever we are watching Grace’s beautiful wedding-dress disintegrate into a blood-drenched mess, it’s an unexpected delight, especially since Alex is next to useless. I’m not sure I’ve seen such a character arc, going from victim to bad-ass so completely, since Evil Dead II. I also did enjoy the ending, which looked like it was going to zig, before zagging in no uncertain terms. While it would have been nice to see Grace administering the startlingly messy coup de grace, I’m okay with settling for what we get.

Dir: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett
Star: Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Mark O’Brien, Henry Czerny

Rudhramadevi

★★½
“A two and a half-hour gender reveal party.”

Not unlike the saga of Manakarnika and its various adaptations, this is based on a figure from Indian history: Rani Rudrama Devi, who ruled over the southern Indian area called Kakatiya in the second half of the 13th century. Her father had no genuine male heirs, so to ensure succession, declared her legally to be his son. When the king passed away, some nobles attempted to rebel against being ruled by a woman, but she and her army prevailed, and she subsequently sat on the throne for 30 years. That’s very loosely echoed in the story here. However, King Ganapatideva (Raju) carries out the pretense from the birth of Rudrama Devi (Shetty), with only a few aware of her true gender.

It is successfully hidden for 25 years, until mounting pressure forces Ganapatideva to get his “son” married off. Probably inevitably, this leads to the secret becoming discovered by his enemies. Murari Devudu (Adithya Menon) and Hari Hara Devudu, nobles long opposed to Ganapatideva’s rule, attempt to use it to force the king out. He tries to gets ahead of them by revealing it first, but a disgruntled population allows Murari and Hari to stage a coup. Their harsh rule allows Rudrama, with the help of childhood friend and long-term rebel, Gona Ganna Reddy (Arjun), to gather her own army. She prepares an assault on the heavily-fortified capital where her enemies lie in wait.

At 158 minutes, including a clunky wrap-around sequence involving… uh, Marco Polo, this certainly takes its time to get going, and only redeems itself with a somewhat impressive finale. Beyond the problems of the pacing, there are a bevy of issues on the technical side. This was made in 3-D, and it’s often painfully obvious, in a House of Wax way. There are also a lot of digital effects, most of which are second-tier in quality. They’re the sort which work fine off in the distance, such as the finale where army formations take the shape of snakes and eagles. But these are much less effective close-up, such as the CGI elephant which Rudrama has to tame. Overall, it’s severely jarring, and much less successful than Manakarnika, due to the obviously digital nature of many of the elements here.

Shetty doesn’t really have the presence necessary to command the screen. Arjun does a much better job, though it was nice that Reddy steps aside at the end, allowing the title character to take center stage. Her sidekick even explicitly explains himself: “If I killed him it is not a big deal. The Kakatiya people who dreamt a male royal heir will protect them, their expectations should be met by a woman. In no way is a woman
any less brave… So Rudrama must kill him.” It’s a shame the rest of the players, and indeed the film-makers, didn’t realize this over the first 145 minuts of the film, and give their heroine room. Instead, I’m left with no real explanation of why she is still remembered, 650 years after she took the throne.

Dir: Gunasekhar
Star: Anushka Shetty, Allu Arjun, Adithya Menon, Krishnam Raju

Ring Girls

★★★
“Punches above its weight.”

This dates back from 2005, before Carano was a household name in the world of mixed martial arts, or a somewhat successful actress. At this point, she was only involved in the sport of muay thai, which as it’s name suggests, is a martial art originating in Thailand. She was one of five girls training in Las Vegas under Toddy – a nickname given because the teacher’s real name of Thohsaphol Sitiwatjana was too unpronounceable to Westerners! The goal of both Toddy and his students was a trip to Thailand to take on the best local practitioners of the sport. This “documentary” covers both their training and the visit itself, climaxing with Carano’s battle against the Thai champion.

Quotes are used advisedly around documentary, because of two elements – neither of which help the film. The first is some kind of beef, I’m guessing entirely fabricated, between Toddy and his brother “Master A”, who is a muay thai trainer back in Thailand. Apparently Toddy brought disrespect to the country by teaching their skills to foreign devils or something. [I think this may have been lifted from the life of Bruce Lee?] It’s a bit silly and pointless, but at least it can easily be ignored. Worse are the fake sounds added to the fights, when punches and kicks land. They’re not even well done, and rather than enhancing things, make the contests seem fake.

This is unfortunate, as there’s otherwise a lot to like here. Even though an unknown at the time, you can see why the film focuses on Carano, who is clearly not just the best fighter, even to my amateur eyes, she is also the most charismatic. Sometimes, this works against it: we barely get to learn the results of the other four fights in Thailand. But it mainly helps, like a low-budget movie which lucks into starring a future Oscar winner [hello, Cyborg 2!]. And despite the post-audio’s relentless attempts to derail things, the fights are quite impressive, with the impact of the blows apparent purely from the visual side, such as the reaction of the punchee.

It all makes for a rather inconsistent blend of fact and fiction, and everyone involved would have been better served by deciding in which camp they stood. If fictional, develop a better narrative, with setbacks (at the risk of spoilering, I’m not sure we see any of the girls ever lose a match). Or go strictly factual, and use the time spent on things like Toddy’s family issues, perhaps to give us deeper background on the fighters. Heck, more info on the Thai women would have been welcome, too, comparing and contrasing life in Bangkok to Las Vegas. However, you should not let these criticisms put you off watching this (I stumbled across it on Amazon Prime), as it’s still an interesting insight into the tough world of women (or the world of tough women?) in martial arts.

Dir: Jennifer Ferrara + Thomas Weber
Star: Gina Carano, Master Toddy, Ardra Hernandez, Lisa King

Revengence Superlady

★★★
“Sympathy for Lady Revengence.”

Despite a mangled title, what you have here is a straightforward tale of vengeance – and its attempts to diverge from that narrative are when the film is at its least interesting. Evil general Ji Xian Tang kills the parents of Ho Yu Fung (Ding): well, I suppose technically he only kills her father, her mother committing suicide by the corpse. In some remarkably unsubtle foreshadowing, Yu Fung is told, “This broadsword is our family heirloom. Our hope for vengeance is in your hands.” Given this, it’s no surprise she escapes with the help of a brave sacrifice from a servant, and becomes the pupil of a kung-fu master.

After what feels possibly as much as weeks of training, she heads out to get her revenge, though her first attempt succeeds only in killing one of Ji’s body-doubles. The film then drifts off-course, as she overhears the servants of traveling scholar Master An plotting to rob him, and helps him avoid that fate. He’s a supremely uninteresting character: they have absolutely no chemistry together and their relationship serves no purpose.  Meanwhile, the General has realized Yu Fung is after him – perhaps a result of her showing up at his residence, and going on about having been sent by “the souls of your victims.” So he unleashes the Iron Monk, a.k.a. Iron Sand a.k.a. Iron Buddha a.k.a. Lord Wang. The subtitles are kinda vague.

Mind you, if I was called Lord Wang, I’d probably have an a.k.a. too.

Anyway, Mr. Wang tries to force Yu Fung’s teacher to give her up, and Master An spends the night at a Buddhist temple run by cannibalistic monks(!). Yu Fung shows up to rescue him, and to do so, has to go through a spectacular series of traps. These made me strongly suspect this might originally have been shot in 3-D, since they tend to come straight for the camera. It’s certainly the film’s most memorable sequence, even in 2-D. Then she suddenly remembers about the whole familial slaughter vengeance mission thing, and it’s eventually off to battle past Wang, then face Ji around and up a large pagoda. You just know someone is going off the top…

Definitely getting an extra half-star for the Buddhist temple apparently run by people who’d seen Indiana Jones and Cannibal Holocaust, it helps that Ding kinda has a resemblance to a young Michelle Yeoh (at the time this came out in 1986, she was just getting started across the frontier in Hong Kong). She has a nice, acrobatic style; there were a couple of scenes where I thought she was being doubled, only for the camera then to show, no, it was actually her doing the moves. However, the pacing has a lot of room for improvement, grinding to a halt more or less whenever Master An is on screen. Between that and the entry-level nature of the storyline, this doesn’t manage to live up to the “Super” element of its title.

Dir: Tôru Murakawa and Qitian Yang
Star: Ding Lam, Yau Kin Kwok, Wong Jun, Lee Jun Fung
a.k.a. 13th Sister or Lucky 13

Rattlesnake

★★★
“A tale without enough to rattle you”

This occupies a rather odd middle-ground between a meditation on what it means to take a life, and a violent thriller. I’m not sure it manages to pull either off entirely successfully, yet some striking imagery helped sustain our interest. Katrina (Ejogo) is driving from Phoenix to Oklahoma City, with her young daughter, Clara (Pratt), to start a new life: it’s hinted that there may be an abusive partner in the rear-view mirror. The route takes her across the Texas Panhandle, and in an effort to avoid a traffic jam, she hits the back roads. This turns out to be mistake, as she first gets a flat, then Clara is bitten by a rattlesnake.

Fortunately, there’s a trailer nearby, where Katrina is able to get help; by the time mother and daughter reach the nearby hospital in Tulia, there’s no indication of any snakebite. But a stranger turns up in their room, demanding payment for the emergency assistance, and not the kind covered by their health insurance: a “soul for a soul”. If Katrina doesn’t kill someone by sundown, Clara’s life will be forfeit. After the validity of the threat is confirmed, Katrina seeks a victim, and seems to find one in another abusive man, Billy (Rossi), whom she encounters in a local bar, taking out his anger on his wife, Abbie (Greenwell). But even when her own daughter’s life is at risk, can Katrina find it in herself to go against all her morality, and take another person’s life?

It does pose an interesting question: how far would a mother (or anyone, I guess) be prepared to go in defense of their child? As we learn, Katrina is prepared to sacrifice whatever might be necessary, but it’s a bit of a process to get there. For example, she spends rather too much time hanging around the hospital, hoping for a chance to smother an already-dying patient, conveniently nearby. And Billy is similarly convenient, a character so unpleasant, the resulting moral dilemma becomes massively diluted. It would have made for greater drama if there hadn’t been an easy candidate, and Katrina was forced to choose between her child and someone decent.

Hilditch has a good eye, however, and there are some striking scenes where the heroine experiences visions, reminding her of her task, and that time is running out. A priest spontaneously combusts; a little kid engages in equally self-destructive acts. These help create an unsettling atmosphere, which keep the film’s head above water, when the plot struggles to do so. Ejogo is also decent in the central role, making it relatively easy to put yourself in her shoes. But I’d have like to have seen more of the background filled in here. Katrina does some light Googling, which suggests she is far from the first person to have found themselves in debt. Yet this angle is severely under-explored, and the net result is something which almost feels more like a series pilot.

Dir: Zak Hilditch
Star: Carmen Ejogo, Theo Rossi, Emma Greenwell, Apollonia Pratt

The Rizen

★★½
“Tunnel of love-craft.”

This is about the third Lovecraftian film I’ve seen with a heroine in the past year or so, after Black Site and The Creature Below. While I’m not sure it’s still quite a trend, it’s notable, considering I’ve only seen three Lovecraftian films over that time. It certainly stands in sharp contrast to the original author, for whom women were very rarely the protagonists. However, this equally provides clear evidence that this isn’t enough, on its own, as a guarantee of quality.

It’s 1955, and Frances (Swift) regains consciousness to find herself being dragged through an underground tunnel by a half-human monster. She bashes its head in with a convenient rock, and starts trying to figure out what’s going on, since her memory is all but gone. She encounters a scientist (Tajah) and then a handcuffed soldier (Knowles) – neither of whom can remember much either – and more of the monstrous humanoids. As the trio make their way through the complex, fragments of flashbacks reveal this was a NATO project, using captured Nazi occult research with the aim of getting a Cold War edge. However, this has backfired, and control over things has been lost. With emphasis heavily on the “things”…

It’s one of the most blatant and annoying cases of amnesia as a plot device I’ve seen of late, with characters conveniently remembering things at the precise moments needed by the story-line. However, even to get to that point, you have to endure painfully repetitive meandering through dark corridors for what seems like forever. It feels like a bad RPG, in which the heroine picks up largely useless sidekicks to follow her around, in the expectation that they might eventually serve some purpose. Indeed, the whole thing resembles an unofficial adaptation of Resident Evil, made by people too concerned about loyalty to the game, rather than an entertaining movie.

To that Jovovich-shaped end, Swift is one of the film’s better elements – a stuntwoman, with a good physical presence which is (to some extent, deliberately) far better than those of her male co-stars. However, only to some extent: it doesn’t excuse the painful nature of Tajah’s performance, for example. This stands in awkward contrast to the “name” British actors whom we see in the flashbacks, including Bruce Payne, Ade Edmondson and Sally Phillips. Clearly the budget could only stretch to bringing them in for cameos, though it just emphasizes the gap in ability. The main problem, though, is a structure where the viewer spends the first hour with no clue what’s going on – and with little reason to care, either. There’s only so much slinking around dark corridors I can take. This movie delivers all of that quota, plus an extra 30 minutes for good measure.

It’s a shame, since if they’d started with the explanation, we could perhaps then have gone along with the characters on the journey. As is, we alternate for most of the running time between bored and confused. When everything eventually makes sense, it was good enough to leave me somewhat intrigued, on reading there is a sequel in production. Pity that intrigue comes an hour too late.

Dir: Matt Mitchell
Star:Laura Swift, Christopher Tajah, Patrick Knowles, Bruce Payne

Reset

★★★½
“Run Xia Tian Run”

China seems to have discovered SF in a big way of late, most recently with The Wandering Earth, the biggest blockbuster you’ve probably never heard of. At time of writing, it’s the #7 film at the world-wide box-office this year, though 99% of its tally came in its home country. A couple of years earlier, this film made much less impact, yet for me is superior. It’s a time-travel piece, not dissimilar to Run Lola Run, with a triptych repeating the same events in three different ways, as the heroine strives to achieve a satisfactory outcome.

Xia Tian (Yang) is a research scientist working on time-travel for a corporation. She’s got to the point where they can send things back 110 minutes, though the process is imperfect for organic material. This attracts the attention of a rival company, who send Tsui Hu (Huo) after Xia. He kidnaps her son, Dou Dou (Zhang), as leverage to force her to hand over the research data. After Dou Dou is killed at the handover. Xia decides to use the time-machine to send herself back, effectively getting a do-over. And when things still don’t go as planned, it’s back for another attempt.

There are two main differences to Lola. Firstly, we have multiple heroines all occupying the same time-line, so there are three Xia Tians running around simultaneously, trying to save Dou Dou. Secondly, due to the imperfections of the process, they have different personalities, becoming steadily more aggressive. If you’ve seen Michael Keaton’s clone film Multiplicity, you’ll understand the idea. This is a result of the time-travel actually being hopping across parallel universes, a bit of a needlessly confusing detail, which we could have done without. Just handwave on the specific process – or, as Lola did, omit them entirely.

Yet there remains plenty to enjoy here, not least Yang’s performance as Xia #1, #2 and #3. It’s the kind of thing which could become horribly confusing, yet the subtle differences in the three versions of her, help them remain distinct, right to the end. Unsurprisingly, this site was particularly fond of the final iteration, which prefers to shoot first and ask questions later. However, all three have their moments, whether it’s driving at speed through a dockside obstacle course, of whipping up an impromptu smoke-bomb in an elevator, from a few household chemicals in the proper proportions.

The production values here are equally impressive, slickly depicting a future China (2025, to be precise) which is so clean you could eat your dinner off it. The set-pieces are particularly effective, such as Xia’s escape from the towering facility which houses her research, climaxing in a near-fall into the Garbage Disposal From Hell. There are elements which require the suspension of disbelief e.g. Xia surviving a car-crash into the bottom of a gorge, then being right back at her office in the next scene. It’s still a fresh and original concept, exactly the kind of thing which Hollywood desperately needs in the genre of late.

Dir: Chang
Star: Yang Mi, Wallace Huo, Chin Shih-chieh, Hummer Zhang

Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

★★★
“Girl with a ray-gun”

When this came out, all the way back in 2016 [so much has happened in the Star Wars universe since then and the way we regard LucasFilms…], it was met with a split reaction. Admittedly, the film never resulted in the kind of angry war that resulted from The Last Jedi the following year. While some praised Rogue One to the skies for being so different, dark and down-to-earth (some even went so far as to rank the film as the best movie of the series since A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, others – including myself – were more like: “…meh!”

This rather mixed reaction came after the entertaining roller-coaster ride The Force Awakens had provided. The more serious, less “fun” approach of RO made the new movie a much less-liked, some may even say “ignored”, entry in the new cycle of Disney-produced Star Wars movies. As usual, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Personally, I was left cold by the movie, after having really enjoyed TFA. But, while RO has some real flaws in my humble opinion, and a problem in its basic conception, it is not a bad or mediocre movie. Just a flawed,”okayish” movie, and I’ll explain why I think so in more detail.

The story begins a couple of decades before the events of A New Hope. Scientist Galen Erso (Mads Mikkelsen) is recruited by the Empire through Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn) to work on a new super weapon in development – which we all know today as the “Death Star”. Galen can’t refuse: he is abducted, his wife is killed during the kidnapping, and only his young daughter, Jyn, escapes.

Fast-forward to meet the now twenty-something Jyn Erso (Jones) again, as she is freed from prison by the Resistance. Together with spy Cassian Andor (Luna) and a couple of other misfits they meet along the way, they’re tasked to find out about that new deadly weapon in whose construction Jyn’s father was instrumental. That involves either freeing him from the Empire or, it’s implied, killing him so he cannot serve his masters any more. This could potentially pit Jyn against Cassian, though nothing is ever made of that interesting premise. As usual in Star Wars, it all ends in a big battle, this time, on and over the tropical island planet of Scarif. And [spoiler warning] this sees the surprising death of all the main characters, save those who will become main characters in its sequel, ANH, such as Leia, Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin.

It doesn’t sound uninteresting but despite all the good points, there are also some serious flaws. For much of the time, the film is dragged down by expository scenes, flying from place A to B to accomplish this or that, getting another new character onto the ship and so on. It also suffers from the common bane of all prequels: telling a story nobody ever asked for, where we all already know the ending! What saves the film mainly, is the finale. Unlike the duo of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller on Solo, director Gareth Edwards wasn’t fired; his name is still attached to the movie. Yet there were reports about massive reshoots of the ending, by Tony Gilroy who also was responsible (together with Chris Weitz) for the screenplay. Certainly, the surprise introduction of Darth Vader into the plot and many snippets of scenes which were only in the trailers, seem to indicate the movie may have originally had a different direction.

This leads me to the subject of expectations. I recently saw a clip where some celebrity remembered an experience he had years before: “I saw Pulp Fiction in the cinema and in front of me were two teenagers who where definitely displeased by the movie, which I thought was great and original. On the way out, I overheard one of them say: “That must have been the worst Bruce Willis movie, I’ve ever seen!” That shows me, cinema has a lot to do with your expectations and your anticipation!”

That hits the nail right on the head, and I feel the same here. For some people RO was satisfying enough (or even great) because they got their “dark, gritty Star Wars-film”. Every fandom seems to have people who can accept something only if it is “dark and gritty”, which has led to some very unpleasant DC and James Bond movies in the past decade. However, I was disappointed, because I expected not only something very different, but also imagined a movie much better than the one I was served.

It all started with the trailer, that introduced us to Felicity Jones’ Jyn Erso like a hardened criminal in handcuffs with SW-regular Mon Mothma (Genevieve O’Reilly) listing off what seems to be Jyn’s juvenile record. Honestly, I wouldn’t have minded that at all, and would love to see a character like that in a SW movie. But they should have gone full throttle, and made her like Revy from Black Lagoon. Heck, make her the Snake Plissken of SW! But unfortunately, they didn’t do that.

Even her lines in the trailer: “This is a rebellion, isn’t it? So I rebel!” are just pretense: a hardness that is never proven, only claimed. But this line is also never said in the final movie. “Trailer-Jyn” seems to be a tough one, rejecting authority, while “Movie-Jyn” seems toned-down, and therefore quite a bit more bland. This had the potential to be highly interesting, and unfortunate that they never followed it up in the movie. For example, at the beginning we meet Cassian Andor: he shoots another spy who delivers vital information to him, fearing the comrade could endanger him by getting captured by Stormtroopers. You can think of many scenarios how Jyn and Cassian could work together, what kind of uneasy relationship they would establish. Cassian might be ready to kill her father – and potentially also Jyn when she causes trouble.

I do remember how my head-cinema went into overdrive when I heard Forest Whitaker’s voice in the trailer proclaiming: “What will you do when they break you? What… will you become…?” That really got my mind going, in combination with Jyn appearing in the trailer in a civil Imperial uniform. What could that mean? Would she go undercover, maybe for years to spy within the Empire? Leave her comrades and everyone she did know for good? Maybe figure as an elder version of herself in a future “Rey”-movie, or even turning out to be Rey’s mother? Remember, at this point I didn’t know anything at all about the upcoming movie. Would she have “Force powers” like Rey? Fall to the “dark side”? Perhaps, having been kicked around her whole life, she would decide that the “rebel scum” had no chance of winning at all, and join the Empire? After all, Telly Savalas was instrumental to the downfall of The Dirty Dozen, and this plot claimed to be cut from the same cloth.

Another ideaarose on hearing that Mads Mikkelsen would be cast as her father. Jyn having to decide between accomplishing her mission, which would mean killing him if he tried to stop her, or joining him because she wanted to be reunited with her father. [In today’s SJW-storytelling environment that kind of plot wouldn’t be very far-fetched anymore…] And when I heard Darth Vader was in the movie it became even more fascinating. Would she maybe fight him, with Force powers? Would Vader threaten to behead her father in front of her, if she didn’t give up? “What… will you become?” indeed!

Or, hearing about martial arts actor Donnie Yen playing Chirrut (whom I thought of as a blind Jedi master at that point), my head-cinema saw the first Kung Fu-based “Force fight” between Darth Vader and Yen (with Yen obviously losing, since we all know Vader is alive in ANH). See how many colourful and fascinating ideas a few trailers, pictures and cast announcements can generate in someone’s mind? And you can also understand how terribly disappointing the movie we were served, proved to be for someone like me.

Understand, that I’m always looking at things from a dramatic standpoint. I want great drama that has an impact on me as an ordinary cinemagoer. I find it deplorable when I see good story material, not living up to its potential. I somehow can’t help feel that in all the original shot material that was indicated in the trailers, a much better, more interesting and dramatic film is hiding. It’s one we are never going to see because it either was never assembled or that edit vanished in Disney’s cupboard. But maybe I’m just as delusional as those DC fans who still call for the “Snyder-cut” of Justice League

My personal feeling is that, maybe the first version of the movie was too hard and uncompromising for Disney and Kathleen Kennedy. Or higher-ups above her decided they didn’t want to reject the dollars of the 12-year olds, resulting in a much more toned-down version that, frankly, appears tame and comparatively harmless. Remember, this was supposed to be the “war” movie of the SW-franchise. But if you want a “hard, dark and gritty war movie” than for heaven’s sake do it, don’t make something that’s only half-baked!

Even if I don’t look at Rogue One from the perspective of what it could or should have been, just from what could have been objectively expected, the film sits well below the bar. For example: you hire the original “Ghost Dog” as stepdad for Jyn, then don’t have him fight with a laser-sword in the big battle? You only give him a small supporting role, playing “exposition dwarf” for Jyn? Really? Same with Donnie Yen, whom I imagined doing so much more. Why even bother hiring a famous and well-beloved martial artist, then not using his abilities. That hardly makes sense.

But you have to wonder why somebody thought it would be a great idea to make a Star Wars film without the Force in the first place. Isn’t it the kind of wish-fulfillment that makes these movies partly so great? Instead, the approach of this movie makes as much sense for me as a James Bond movie without any gadgets (sorry, Mr. Craig!) or the second Wolverine movie, with the hero robbed of his quick-healing abilities.

I do understand that certain people love to make stories which are more “realistic”. Yet why are these people (screenwriters, directors, whatever) hired at all to make movies that are MEANT to be escapist fantasies? That just doesn’t gel with me. While acknowledging how successful the Nolan Batman movies were, I really think it’s time to return to the FANTASY in big fantastic movies. Embrace those aspects wholeheartedly, instead of always putting a tight leash on the stories, and showing the audience what a “grown-up” storyteller you are.

Then there is Darth Vader. He might be the most “beloved” villain in the SW-universe. But instead of showing what he may have been doing between Episodes 3 and 4, he is terribly underused in all the Kennedy productions. I do understand the character was brought into this at the last minute, and as fan-service goes, he does miracles – as shown by the reactions of SW fans when his involvement was announced. His role here is still too small, merely an after-thought to save a probably not too satisfying movie. If I had been a decision-maker on this movie, believe me, he would have been much more central to the storyline and made a much bigger impact on the heroine. There would definitely have been a face-to-…helmet battle against Whitaker / Yen / Jones in my version.

Then there are conceptual flaws. Another appearance by Peter Cushing might have looked like a great idea on paper. The actual CGI-translation looks quite awkward to me; not directly cringe-worthy, yet definitely “off”. Even more than 20 years after the death of this iconic character actor, his subtle facial expressions are still so deeply ingrained in our memories, that CGI-Tarkin appears almost a cartoon character. The impression is that the artists were so enthusiastic about what they could do, within a short period of time all possible expressions run over the character’s face. Less would have definitely been more here.

Another justified complaint is that the whole movie undermines the importance of Princess Leia (here, also played by CGI) in ANH. While we never did know exactly how Leia got the plans of the Death Star, the feeling was always that she put herself on the line and retrieved the important data despite much personal danger. RO kind of retcons this: Leia’s contribution to the whole operation is being handed over the disc, safely on her ship after it felt like hundreds of people had died to get it. That’s suboptimal, as a friend of mine would say.

That all sounds probably very negative. And yes, it is. But the above focuses only on what I thought were the shortcomings and flaws of the movie. It also has moments one can appreciate. I like Mads Mikkelsen who gave a surprisingly emotional performance. I find it always surprising how good some actors can be when cast against their usual image e.g. Christoph Waltz in Alita. Mikkelsen comes across as both a loving, caring father and a scientist with principles. It would have been so easy to make him the stereotypical villain of the piece, and the decision not to do that pays off greatly, especially compared to his terribly uninspired and bland performance in Doctor Strange.

Also, Ben Mendelsohn as Director Orson Krennic is a great casting choice. Looking like a younger Ian McKellen, Mendelsohn plays Krennic as an over-ambitious employee who is instrumental to the Empire’s power. But he never gets what he wants: neither Darth Vader nor Grand Moff Tarkin (changed here characterwise to accommodate the story), both higher in command, ever respect him or feel the need to grant his wishes. That makes the character actually more human. Sometimes even Empire officials have bad days.

I didn’t think much of Felicity Jones or her “brothers-in-arms”. While Jones is probably not a bad actress, there’s little to chew on acting-wise: a couple of moments here and there, such as when she meets her father again, and I like the way she moves. But Jyn Erso is under-served by the script; we needed to see more of her past in order to connect with her on an emotional level. As this didn’t happen, neither her death – as surprising it was to see in a Disney movie – nor those of the other combatants, had the emotional impact they should have.

Thinking back to other movies that dealt with a group of diverse misfits in an extreme situation, despite being over 130 minutes long, the big problem here is time. If you watch The Dirty Dozen, you see plenty of the protagonists preparing and bonding for their great mission, establishing a sense of who they are. A classic like The Magnificent Seven constantly gives you little snippets of how these characters react, telling enough to the audience about the characters that you care for them. Heck, even epic war movies of the past like The Longest Day or The Great Escape did better, despite it seeming half of all the actors in the world appeared in them. You could still make them out as characters, and care about their success or death.

In Rogue One… not much, unfortunately. The characters stay ciphers, almost interchangeable. What do we know much about Chirrut or Baze or Bodhi Rook? Nothing really. I’ve heard there’s a “Cassian Andor” TV series in the making; so that may change for him in the future. That’s too late, and should have happened in the movie. But while the movie underwhelms in so many respects, I say again: It’s not a bad movie, just one that for numerous reasons didn’t live up to its potential. Here are some of the moments I liked:

  • Forest Whitaker in his small role
  • comic relief robot K-2SO who is so much different from someone like C-3P0
  • the scene with Jyn and her father
  • Krennic facing Vader
  • the scene where Jyn and Cassian have to retrieve the disc “manually”
  • the fight above Scarif with the protection shield that makes it other spaceships impossible to gain entry
  • the last confrontation with Krennic
  • Darth Vader slicing and dicing his way through a tube full of unfortunate rebel soldiers
  • and of course the consequential ending, saving the film from a far worse fate.

I like it shows that sometimes, protagonists just die and don’t “get better” like Superman in his tomb. or their death is not real like “Agent Coulson” of the Marvel movies. Sometimes the price for success is to give your all; that can mean death and sacrifice. May I refer you to the much darker TV-pilot of the Battlestar Galactica reboot from 2004? And it is almost Solomonic that they all die, the Rogue One crew as well as Krennic, leaving the future fights to all the other characters. somewhere in the stars. That’s a fine storytelling attitude, though my Shakespeare-approved sensibilities are used to more impactful, dramatic storytelling than this could provide. Which may say more about me than the movie!

What is my final verdict? Despite definite flaws the movie has its qualities. It may be a “low-key” entry in the series but that’s fine. It doesn’t have to be “the big story” every time. Yes, thinking what it could potentially have been, makes me a bit sad. But all said and done, it’s watchable. Maybe you should see it separately, rather than together with all the other movies of the series. Ranking-wise it is less enjoyable than The Force Awakens but much much better than that terrible mess of The Last Jedi. You can easily watch Rogue One when you feel like watching a big SF movie. And it doesn’t even have to be on a rainy Saturday afternoon!

Dir: Gareth Edwards
Star:  Felicity Jones, Diego Luna, Ben Mendelsohn, Donnie Yen

A Reckoning

★★★
“Much calm before the storm.”

Considering how little actually happens here, I enjoyed this considerably more than expected. It kicks off with 19th-century settler Mary O’Malley (Dietrich) being informed her husband has been brutally slain. Despite the warnings of fellow settler Henry Breck (a small role for Lance Henriksen), Mary heads out on the trail through Oregon for revenge, looking for the serial killer responsible. He’s known as “Marrow” (Makely), for reasons which eventually become clear. She encounters Jebediah (Robinson), a bounty-hunter after Marrow who doesn’t appreciate the competition, and Barley (Crow), a trader who offers and receives temporary companionship.

That’s pretty much it, up until the final, inevitable confrontation between Mary and Marrow, where we are reminded again of firearms’ role as a great equalizer. [Dietrich resembles a middle-aged version of Noomi Rapace, all slightly-built and cheekbones; Makely looks like he might have wandered out of a WWE ring] Read the reviews eviscerating this on the IMDb, and you’ll see a lot of people who appear very disappointed with the pacing and lack of action. For once, I wasn’t one of them. I was somewhat forewarned, wasn’t expecting non-stop gun battles or whatever, and was happy for this to proceed at its own, leisurely pace. I will say, it is probably not something you want to watch late at night, admittedly, as it could prove to be a little… too soothing. This likely worked much better in the Saturday afternoon slot where I viewed it, and could appreciate the landscapes as they unrolled.

It helps that the performances are mostly good to very good, with Dietrich’s performance the epitome of “speak softly and carry a big stick”. The film does a particularly solid job of setting up her character, both by her early interaction with Breck, and a subsequent conversation with Diana Maple (Meg Foster, an equally brief role as Henriksen’s), another settler who encourages and supplies Mary on her quest. However, some characters come off as slightly bland, or in Marrow’s case, over-the-top, and whenever the film is not exploring the countryside, the limited resources are painfully apparent. The “town meeting” at the start, for example, appears to take place in front of a bed-sheet, presumably intended to simulate a large tent of some kind. Given this, the amount of wilderness wandering makes considerable sense.

Lee seems to be a one-man film industry out of the Pacific North-west, with two other movies released in 2018 and two more in post-production. [Not sure I’ll exactly be chasing down Bigfoot pic Big Legend though] This one runs a relatively short 80 minutes, and is probably wise to do so. The film may not even be one to which you need to devote your full attention. The scenery is pretty, the cinematography does it justice, and the music fits in with the whole “chill out in the background” vibe. Pop your head up whenever you hear the sound of gunshots, and you’ll be fine.

Dir: Justin Lee
Star: June Dietrich, Kevin Makely, Todd A. Robinson, Kevin Crow