King Arthur: Legend of the Sword

Where's a Pepsi when you need one?

Grade: B

Director: Guy Ritchie

Starring: Charlie Hunnam, Jude Law, Àstrid Bergès-Frisbey, Djimon Hounsou, Aidan Gillen, and Eric Bana

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 2 hr. 6 min.

Whether or not you enjoy King Arthur: Legend of the Sword hinges on whether or not you embrace director Guy Ritchie’s distinctive, roiling filmmaking style. This isn’t Camelot, or Excalibur, or First Knight, or one of the several Arthurian revivals over the past decade or so, including Antoine Fuqua wretched 2004 update. There isn’t any sight of Guinevere and Lancelot, and only a passing mention of Merlin. It’s a gritty, grimy reimagining of the Arthurian mythos that’s overwrought and even confounding, but never dull or uninteresting.

Arthur is recast as an orphan in a basket, spirited away after the murder of his father, King Uther Pendragon (Eric Bana), at the hand of Uther’s brother, Vortigern (Jude Law, stealing every scene). Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) is raised in a Londinium brothel, a street urchin with a millennial sensibility. Back in Camelot, the sword Excalibur is plunged in a rock and can only be removed by Uther’s heir. So, King Vortigern pulls a Herod and conscripts every young male to give it a pull in order to root out the lone lurking threat to his throne.

Arthur removes the sword from the stone, then he’s saved from beheading by mates with such kitschy names as Wetstick (Kingsley Ben-Adir), Backlack (Neil Maskell) and Chinese George (Tom Wu). He’s also recruited by a woke resistance movement that includes the imposing Bedivere (Djimon Hounsou), Goosefat Bill the archer (Aidan Gillen of Game of Thrones), and a magical creature called the Mage (Astrid Berges-Frisbey). Together, they put the recalcitrant Arthur through his paces, including a test in the wilderness and using Excalibur's mystical properties to recall how his parents died.

Ritchie unabashedly pilfers a number of narrative inspirations. The Game of Thrones allusions are obvious. There’s some of The Lord of the Rings. There’s Jesus, Moses, and even Batman. And amid all the bloated bombast, hyper-editing, and steel guitar riffs, there are several crosscut dialogue sequences styled straight out of Snatch that mainly left me longing for Ritchie’s cockney gangster fare.

What’s inarguable is that the Arthurian legend needed an alternate approach beyond romance and show tunes, something to shake up its tired conventions. Ritchie does that lock, stock, and two smoking barrels. Audience reaction will determine whether Ritchie and Co. make good on a planned six-film Arthur series, much less one sequel. If Legend of the Sword is all we get, well, I’ve seen much worse.

The Finest Hours

Is somebody going to help me carry this movie?

Grade: C +

Director: Chris Gillespie

Starring: Chris Pine, Holliday Grainger, Casey Affleck, Ben Foster, Kyle Gallner and Eric Bana

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hr. 57. min.

It’s always jarring while watching the Turner Classic Movies network to stumble across an old film populated by a cast steeped in traditional stage acting, yet with one young outlier emoting Method, Meisner or some other modern acting technique—think the early films of Montgomery Clift, Marlon Brando and Gregory Peck.

At the risk of overstatement, a similar sensation washed over me seeing Casey Affleck in The Finest Hours, based on Michael J. Tougias and Casey Sherman’s book chronicling the true story of a daring Coast Guard rescue off the coast of Massachusetts in 1952.

On February 19 of that year, two oil tankers, the SS Fort Mercer and SS Pendleton, were split in two by a fierce nor'easter. The film focuses on the Pendleton rescue by a Coast Guard lifeboat out of Chatham, Massachusetts. Directed by Chris Gillespie, the narrative oscillates between the rescuers, led by coxswain Bernie Webber (Chris Pine), and the survival efforts by the Pendleton crew, a fractious lot held together by assistant engineer Ray Sybert (Affleck) striving to keep the stern section of the ship afloat long enough for help to arrive.

The fractured screenplay never gels its three fronts, which also includes Webber’s fretting but resolute fiance Miriam (Holliday Grainger) alongside some inexplicably neurotic townsfolk back on the mainland. Meanwhile, the rest of the “Coast Gaahd” crew grapple with dueling bad accents, from Pine and Ben Foster’s warbly Boston brogue to Eric Bana as Chief Warrant Officer Daniel Cluff, whose Virginia-born drawl seemingly takes a detour through backwoods Alabama. Indeed, the overall portrayal of Cluff is thorny, as the decorated WWII boatswain is cast as stubborn and uninformed during an ill-fitting face-off with Miriam for ordering Webber and his crew on their treacherous rescue mission.

Amongst it all, Affleck appears to be occupying in an entirely different, better movie, far from the amber-soaked, saccharine performances of Pine, Grainger and the rest of the cast. While everyone else dutifully recites their uninspired dialogue, Affleck proceeds at his own pace and cadence. In the process, he somehow crafts a fully formed character.

Gillespie’s GGI visuals are suitably harrowing in a Perfect Storm sort of way. But The Finest Hours is at its finest only when Affleck is on-screen. Unfortunately, that’s not long enough.

Lone Survivor

When did the Funky Bunch get so serious?

Grade: B

Director: Peter Berg

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, Ben Foster and Eric Bana

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 2 hr. 1 min.

It’s dicey to label Lone Survivor, director Peter Berg’s film about a 2005 military operation in the war-torn mountains of Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of 19 American sailors and soldiers, as jingoistic. Indeed, Berg—an expert director when he wants—ably captures the proficiency and camaraderie of the Navy SEAL community, chiefly the four brave teammates ambushed by scores of Taliban fighters during the botched mission.

Mark Wahlberg stars as Marcus Luttrell, the SEAL whose firsthand book serves as the film’s source. Unfortunately, other compelling performers—including Ben Foster—bid a too-hasty exit due to the narrative’s “and-then-there-was-one” format.

Berg spends an inordinate amount of time earnestly extolling the military milieu, as if sharing each gung-ho incantation is a rite of passage for the honor of telling this tale. For the target audience, the firefights take on a video game quality where it takes multiple hits plus tumbles down a rocky crag to stop a SEAL, whereas faceless enemy killers go down with a single sure shot framed through a rifle scope. ‘Murica

Hanna

Cate, have you seen the script?

Grade: B –

Director: Joe Wright

Starring: Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana, Cate Blanchett, and Jessica Barden

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 1 hr. 51 min.

Hanna isn’t merely a departure from director Joe Wright’s mannered filmography. It feels more like his antidote for it.

A stylized fable whose substance does not fully measure up to its resounding razzmatazz. Hanna blends a breathless chase thriller with a fairy tale conceit. It’s as if Wright is trading in his high-lit reputation from Pride and Prejudice and Atonement for the sake of proving his mettle as an action director.

The result is not without success. For all its Grimm allegory, the film is like an alt-universe continuum of Luc Besson’s The Professional filtered into the visual stylings of Run Lola Run. (Hanna’s final act is also set in Berlin.)

The first 16 years of Hanna’s hardscrabble life take place in the wintery woods of Finland. There, Hanna (Saoirse Ronan, whom Wright directed in Atonement) and her father, Erik (Eric Bana), live in a spartan shack devoid of modern creature comforts. Erik has taught his daughter the fine art of bow hunting, hand-to-hand combat, multilingualism, and a virtual memorization of the encyclopedia.

All this preparation is a prelude for a nebulous mission targeting Marissa (Cate Blanchett, doing her best Tilda Swinton impersonation), a fastidious, hard-edged CIA operative who shares an unpleasant past with Erik and a mysterious connection with Hanna. Once Hanna decides she is ready to leave the roost, it triggers a chase to kill Marissa before she can return the favor.

For all Hanna’s superhuman fighting skills, her sheltered upbringing makes her ill-prepared for life outside the forest, or even basic human interaction. She flees her first night in a hotel room in terror, petrified by the technological cacophony sounded by whirling ceiling fans, showers, televisions, and an electric teakettle.

And, although the film couches Hanna’s affinity for Sophie (Jessica Barden) – a glib Brit teen traveling through Morocco with her hippy parents – as vaguely sexual, it is actually the awkward reactions of a pubescent girl struggling to understand, much less cope with, an unfamiliar rush of feelings.

Hanna ends up with a chase through Berlin’s now-defunct Spreepark, notably its replica Grimm Haus. Indeed, all the metaphor-making quickly elbows out any emotional grace notes. Hanna is the fairy-tale princess, Goldilocks, and Red Riding Hood rolled up into one pint-sized Nikita. Meanwhile, Blanchett’s Marissa is a mash-up of the wicked stepmother/witch and Big Bad Wolf – there’s an unfortunate trip to grandma’s house and other delicious kitsch like the row of electric toothbrushes Marissa uses to scrub her incisors until the gums bleed. The better to eat you with, my dear?

Neil Morris

*Originally published at http://goo.gl/8nAdO

Star Trek

One Trek Hill

Grade: B +

Director: J.J. Abrams

Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Leonard Nimoy, Eric Bana, Bruce Greenwood, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, and Simon Pegg

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Running Time: 2 hours, 6 minutes

I’ll give this to J.J. Abrams: I never thought I would hear the Beastie Boys in a Star Trek movie. Yet, as a pre-pubescent James T. Kirk improbably barrels down an Iowa byway behind the wheel of a vintage C2 Corvette convertible, cheating both death and the pursuing police, the unbridled strains of “Sabotage” just seem to fit, no matter the stardate.

With its Gen-Y tableau and whiz-bang F/X, this isn’t your father’s Star Trek. And, although it is set during the formative years of the crew of the Starship Enterprise, it is not strictly a prequel. Rather, it is an alternate timeline, visited by a Romulan marauder from the future named Nero (Eric Bana), who’s looking to exact revenge on the Federation and one particular native of Vulcan for failing to save Nero’s planet from destruction.

Still, the homage Abrams employs is more dedicated to the original Trek television series rather than the Trek films and The Next Generation series that Abrams felt “disconnected” from. There are the familiar chuckles about the accent of Chekov (Anton Yelchin) and the irascibility of Dr. ‘Bones’ McCoy (Karl Urban), along with such inside-Trekdom allusions as the fencing skills of Sulu (John Cho) and Kirk’s bedding of a green-skinned Orion cadet. Introducing a romantic dalliance between Spock and a young Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana) shrewdly illuminates her flirtations with him during a few early episodes of the original series. And, among the superlative casting, choosing Simon Pegg as a brash, uproarious Montgomery “Scotty” Scott proves particularly brilliant.

But, for screenwriters and longtime Abrams collaborators Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, the story of Star Trek was always about Kirk and Spock. The early, uneasy years of their relationship are the backbone of this film as the ambitious, combative Kirk (Chris Pine, pitch-perfect) clashes with the cerebral, no-nonsense Spock (Zachary Quinto, ditto). Young Kirk’s goal is to occupy the captain’s chair, while Spock’s priority is keeping Kirk out of it, and even off the Enterprise altogether. The original Trek TV series launched during the Cold War and served up allegory for two conflicting approaches of American foreign policy: Kirk’s aggressive moralism versus Spock’s logical pragmatism. It is a dichotomy that has come full circle in our post-Sept. 11 world, although I would stop short of analogizing Kirk and Spock with George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Still, it’s fascinating that the ultimate resolution of their clash of ideologies and governing styles—and with it the crux of Star Trek’s storyline—lies in not just peaceful coexistence, but the necessity of Kirk’s accession to leader with Spock remaining the faithful, intelligent advisor.

The irony, however, is that despite Abrams’ faithful interpretation of the Trek universe, his film sizzles most when not mired in its iconography. The elaboration of Kirk’s and Spock’s boyhood roots is intriguing, including Winona Ryder as Spock’s mom (a role once played by Jane Wyatt). And, wider roles for Uhura and Capt. Christopher Pike (Bruce Greenwood) further this film’s goal of amplifying the Trek mythos.

But, the film’s most prominent cameo, 78-year-old Leonard Nimoy as an elder Spock, elicits both nostalgic glee and a whiff of musty air. Abrams walks a tightrope in trying to craft a fresh action movie that also appeals to Star Trek purists. The time-jumping (and hole-filled) plot, together with Nimoy’s appearance, go a long way toward accomplishing the latter while also allowing Abrams the leeway to deviate from the Trek canon, in this film as well as its inevitable sequels.

However, all symbolism aside, the Kirk/ Spock rapport has already been explored at considerable length during the first six Star Trek movies. More of the same is, well, more of the same. When Nimoy’s Spock introduces himself to the younger Kirk by reprising the declaration that “I have been and always shall be your friend,” it only made me want to watch The Wrath of Khan again.

The distinguishing feature is that Abrams, a clever and skilled filmmaker, understands how to make a rock-’em sock-’em piece of entertainment that can stand alone without its iconic underpinning. The action sequences are dazzling and fly toward the audience at warp speed, bolstered by a superb cast and the always-reliable Michael Giacchino’s exhilarating score. In short, Abrams boldly goes where no Trek movie has gone before, at least not since 1982. Set your phasers on “fun,” along with “impressed” and “relieved.”

Neil Morris