65

Stars: Adam Driver, Ariana Greenblatt, Chloe Coleman and Nika King.
Writers/Directors: Scott Beck and Bryan Woods.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

There was a filmgoing era, not that long ago (certainly not the 65 million years referenced here), when the dark shadow of ‘tentpole cinema’ did not loom so large as to dwarf films like 65. Films such as Christian Duguay’s Screamers (1995) or David Twohy’s Pitch Black (2000) were given time to breath during their release; they would build reputations as well-told, mid-tier sci fi action/thrillers with smart scripts and committed leads and grow appreciative audiences with word-of-mouth.

65 is that sort of film. Adam Driver (pictured, above) dons his ‘movie star/action hero’ hat as Mills, the pilot of a deep-space expedition craft that spectacularly crashes after straying into an uncharted asteroid belt. Gripped by survivor guilt, he is about to end it all when he learns one of the cryogenically frozen crew is still alive - teenage colonist Koa (Ariana Greenblatt; pictured, below). The pod they must launch to rendezvous with the rescue craft is 15 kilometres away; the terrain is prehistoric Earth, inhabited by the great, snarly thunder lizards of yore.       

It is a cracking premise upon which to build some old school Hollywood thrills, and that is what co-directors Scott Beck and Bryan Woods pull off with their feature debut; they earned the keys to the studio coffers after their script for A Quiet Place hit big. 65 is a similarly lean but skilfully realised genre exercise; a two-hander that is emotionally bolstered by Mill’s longing for his terminally-ill daughter, Nevine (Chloe Coleman) and Koa coming to terms with the loss of her parents in the crash.

If the forced-together father/daughter psychological complexity of The Last of Us has you in its grip, you’ll likely draw comparisons with the HBO hit series; the handful of hardcore sci-fi fans who also saw Pedro Pascal and Sophie Thatcher in Christopher Caldwell and Zeek Earl’s Prospect (2018) will nod knowingly, too . The emergence of Ellen Ripley’s maternal streak alongside Newt in James Cameron’s Aliens (1986) is another clear influence. The ‘ticking clock’ device that Beck and Woods employs is legitimately nail-biting and spectacularly envisioned, offering an element of inventiveness in a film that sometimes wears its influences a bit too prominently on its spacesuit sleeves. 

With Driver earning above-the-title credit and the high-concept ‘dinosaurs-vs-rayguns’ narrative recalling event films like Jurassic Park or Starship Troopers, there is the expectation of commercial filmmaking grandeur about 65. If that’s what you (or the studio) was expecting, that’s not this film; 65 is a taut 93 minutes of sweaty tension, appropriately scaled action and surprising tenderness. The modern film distribution model won’t allow 65 to find its most appreciative audience in its initial run, though it will certainly grow in cult stature.

AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER

Stars: Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldaña, Stephen Lang, Britain Dalton, Sigourney Weaver, Cliff Curtis, Joel David Moore, CCH Pounder, Edie Falco, Jemaine Clement, Giovanni Rabisi, Kate Winslet and Brendan Cowell.
Writers: James Cameron, Rick Jaffe and Amanda Silver.
Director: James Cameron.

Rating: ★ ★ ★

 Screened Wednesday, December 15 at Event Cinemas George Street, Sydney, on VMax 1 screen at High Frame Rate projection in Dolby Atmos.

Avatar: The Way of Water has splashed down amidst a wave of pre-promotion that has zeroed in on the dazzling eye-candy offered by its watery alien landscape; a marketing blitz imploring us to deep dive into an azure wonderland, its spectacular grandeur subliminally promising to satiate the wanderlust that has brewed within us all over the pandemic years. Top Gun: Maverick soared to box office glory on jet plane joy rides beyond the clouds; James Cameron’s long-in-production sequel hints at a similarly pure escapism, this time underwater.

And the visual splendour that Cameron’s obsession with all things aquatic promises is delivered upon. His photo-realistic rendering of the forest home of the Na’vi and then the coastal realm of the Metkayina, as well as the glistening hi-tech hardware of the ‘Sky People’ (aka, the human colonists), is all-encompassing and often remarkably beautiful. The island of At’wa Attu, the idyllic tropical wonderland to which Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), now a human/Na’vi half-breed, and his wife Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña; pictured, above) flee with their four children, is like a Planet Maldives. The unified world of the sea creatures and the indigenous clan is a One Planet wet dream, an exaltation of the denizens of the deep and the bond they share with the Maori-like community, led by Tonowari (Cliff Curtis), Ronal (Kate Winslet; pictured, below) and their own teenage children.

But the stultifying 192 minute running time demands that Cameron and co-writers Rick Jaffe and Amanda Silver put meat on their CGI bones, and it is in the narrative structure and dialogue that the first of four planned sequels doesn’t hold water. The arc that propels the story centres on the previously-perished Col. Quaritch (Stephen Lang), resurrected and re-engineered as a Marine/Na’vi hybrid, who is offered a second shot at Sully (now, essentially a deserter/traitor in military terms) and Neytiri, who killed his human form over a decade ago. Quaritch makes his way to At’wa Attu in typically ruthless style, utilising the Sully kids and the native population as leverage whenever he can. The inevitable confrontation between Sully and Quaritch plays out over a final 50-odd minute third act that is pure Cameron in its scale and staging.

Quaritch and his Marine unit offer up the kind of alpha-human action movie ‘bad guy beats’ that Cameron and his imitators mastered and discarded as tropeish decades ago. Similarly, Sully and his ‘Family is our Fortress’ schtick is one-dimensional to the point of distraction, robbing Worthington and especially Saldaña of the emotional engagement they established in the first film, both with each other and the audience.

The groaningly uninteresting second act, in which the Sully kids - teenage wannabe-warriors Neteyam (Jamie Flatters) and Lo’ak (Britain Dalton), daughter Tuk (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) and adopted daughter, Kiri (Sigourney Weaver) - struggle to be accepted by their tribal peers, devolves into sequence after sequence of rite-of-passage underwater adventures, with blossoming teen romance and beautiful dangers around every coral reef; it’s The Blue Lagoon-meets-any number of already-forgotten YA stories that have come and gone since this film went into production, melded with a travelogue-like fetishistic self-admiration for the colours and wildlife it conjures.

The most troubling take-away from Avatar: The Way of Water is that of James Cameron exhibiting self-referential indulgences. While his creative energies have been ignited by the thrill of crafting groundbreaking interplanetary wonders, Cameron rehashes the Marine unit dynamic and weaponry hardware of Aliens; the teen-hero exploits of Terminator 2 Judgement Day; the luminescent underwater wonders of The Abyss; and, the water-will-have-its-way inevitability of Titanic. Factor in the often overly reliant inspiration it draws from its predecessor, and one can’t help feeling that the team of contributors who have helped visualise the Avatar universe have spent too many workshop hours under the tutelage of their boss. 

I’ve ultimately fallen on the side of positivity and rated Avatar: The Way of Water based on its status as a visual effects groundbreaker. Viewed in the crystal clear ultra-high-definition 3D afforded those lucky enough to see it in a high frame rate presentation, the film is a visually transcendent work, as close as mainstream cinema has come to a virtual-reality feature (despite the failings of The Hobbit as a HFR experiment, I’m now sold on the tech). If only James Cameron had loosened his technician’s labcoat and rediscovered the joys of storytelling with the same crisply etched clarity of his images.

THE ADAM PROJECT

Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Zoe Saldana, Walter Skobell, Jennifer Garner, Mark Ruffalo, Alex Mallari Jr. and Catherine Keener.
Writers: Jonathan Tropper, T.S. Nowlin, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin.
Director: Shawn Levy

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½

At the risk of putting offside all the theoretical physicists who read Screen-Space, time travel is stupid, can’t exist, doesn’t work…except in the movies. So movies can make up whatever rules they want about time travel, and that’s fine by me, as long as it forges its own logical path and, in doing so, is entertaining.

Which brings us to The Adam Project, the latest high-concept action/comedy/thriller to draw from the Ryan Reynold’s charm and sarcasm trough like it’s a bottomless resource. This Netflix blockbuster is the latest pairing of Reynolds and director Shawn Levy, who last pulled off this critic’s favourite Hollywood hit of 2021, Free Guy.

In 2050, a 40-ish Adam is a pilot, who steals a ship so that he can make the jump to 2018, stop his dad Louis (Mark Rufalo) from inventing a hard drive that makes time travel possible and foil his colleague Maya Sorian (Catherine Keener) from betraying their goals for her own personal gain. But 40-ish Adam punches in 2022 instead of 2018 and finds himself face-to-face with his 12 year-old self (Walter Skobell), a smart mouth mini-Reynolds who is coping with the sudden death of his dad by making life hard for his mum, Ellie (Jennifer Garner).

Banding together because they share the DNA code that overrides his starship's security, the starship that will carry him back to the future, Adam 2050 and Adam 2022 pair up with love interest Zoe Saldana (future-Adam's wife Laura, who travelled back previously to make sure...oh, never mind) to derail villainy.  

Like Free Guy, The Adam Project takes a convoluted fantasy premise and turns it into an engaging, exciting romp with more effortless likability and heart than one should expect from stuff like this. Which is all on Reynolds, who somehow combines a Jimmy Stewart warmth with a Burt Reynolds aloofness to pull off a rather unique leading man type - he’s still the handsome, funny movie star who projects larger-than-life to us, but he also connects to audiences through empathy and emotion. Tom Hanks did it in Splash; Jim Carrey did it in The Truman Show. Reynolds has it in spades.

The first half is pure ‘80s-era Amblin-inspired set-up and adventure, and it’s the best part of the film. The second half gets clunkier, a bit too special effects-y and loses touch with its characters in favour of some heavy-handed plot resolution. But it plays out nicely, recovering that deft storytelling touch and sleight-of-hand human emotion that sneaks up on you when all the time travel malarkey is cleansed from the narrative.

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE FIFTH KIND

Featuring: Steven M. Greer
Narrated by Jeremy Piven.
Writer/director: Michael Mazzola

AVAILABLE ON:

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½

So you’re deep into today’s iso-skimming session on your preferred streaming platform and you happen upon Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind, the latest speculative-doco from UFO theoretician Steven Greer. You’ll have a look because...y’know, UFO stuff is pretty cool, and much of what makes ‘UFO stuff’ cool is certainly in the mix. Greer’s offsider, filmmaker Micahel Mazzola, has collated all manner of unexplainable points of light glimpsed by shaky-cam; woodlands lit by physics-defying ‘golden orbs’; and, incredulous accounts of bewildered pilots, trying to fathom the black-&-white footage from their cockpit cams.

But Greer, the movement’s opinion-dividing frontman (is he this generation’s Carl Sagan or a new-age P.T. Barnum?), claims to be at such an advanced communicative juncture with beings from beyond that his third feature documentary assumes that they not only walk among us but, if we invite them nicely, they’ll join us around a campfire. This head-first plunge into the maybe-world of extraterrestrial co-existence occasionally hurtles mesmerically into next-level conspiracy theorising, but there is undeniably plenty to mutter “Damn, I knew it!” about for those who want to believe.

The ‘Fifth Kind’ of close encounter (or ‘CE5’) involves the most spiritually enlightened amongst us reaching out with pure thoughts and kindly hearts to the occupants of interplanetary/transdimensional craft and beckoning them to our realm. A combination of Greer’s skill with the anecdote, a bevy of highly-credentialed talking heads and footage of CE5 disciples across the world staring longingly skywards build to a crescendo (and website/app plug) that feels legitimate. Single frames of ‘light beings’ walking amongst remote gatherings of believers and conjecture that these entities travel through portals to appear in our skies instantaneously is fascinating, but non-believers are likely to dig in over such claims.

It is on this point that Greer spins some of the uglier theorising inherent to his point of view. Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind posits that Joe Public has been sold a deceptive narrative by a covert government/mainstream news media/entertainment industry cooperative for the last 60 years. Mazzola uses clips from Mars Attacks, Predator, Men in Black and the Twilight Zone episode ‘To Serve Man’, to drill home the notion that the images fed to us are meant inspire fear in alien contact. Blame is placed at society’s feet for its blind subjugation to the 'lies' spun to us; an accusatory stance that states, ‘If you believe the establishment, you are part of the problem’. The hard-sell meanness of such an approach will turn the inquisitive away far quicker than harmless pseudo-science and new-agey spiritualism.

Whether he is a channeller of profound consciousness or a pitchman par excellence (most likely, a bit of both), Greer knows how to produce a speculative documentary that takes hold of the viewer and refuses to let go (for a whopping two hours, no less). The craft he and Mazzola employ to keep hearts and minds engaged even while eyeballs are heading backwards is often remarkable. Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind won’t make you believe any more than you do, nor will it spin too many sceptics 180°, but it will help us understand the complexity of a different set of beliefs. 

ANOTHER PLAN FROM OUTER SPACE

Stars: Jessica Morris, Augie Duke, Scott Sell, Hans Hernke, Minchi Murakami and Elizabeth Saint.
Writer/director: Lance Polland

Available from April 10 on Amazon Prime and Vimeo on Demand from Bounty Films.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ½

Another Plan from Outer Space is an endearingly schizophrenic oddity, the latest typically atypical subversive genre lark from the increasingly ambitious shock-auteur, Lance Polland. Back in the hard desert setting that he favoured for his previous features Crack Whore (2012) and Werewolves in Heat (2015), Polland this time employs, dare we suggest, nuance and subtlety in a talky but well-told ode to old-school sci-fi B-pics.

Rich in influences that run the gamut from Rod Serling’s classic TV series Twilight Zone to Kurt Neumann’s Rocketship X-M (1950) to Stewart Raffill’s The Philadelphia Experiment (1984), Polland envisions a (very) near-future setting where Mars has been colonised and shuttles regularly ferry the common space traveller back and forth. The Genesis One is returning to Earth when solar flares send the ship hurtling into the desert soil. In true B-movie fashion, the Genesis One explodes in a massive fireball, only to have all but one of the six crew members thrown clear, largely unharmed and fully clothed.

Assuming command, Captain Jackson (Scott Sell, pitching for ‘Charlton Heston’ but landing on ‘Bruce Dern’, which is fine) rallies the survivors – the increasingly erratic Commander Strickland (Jessica Morris, terrific); medico, Dr Yushiro (Minchi Murakami, a regular in Polland’s troupe); chief engineer Hudson (Augie Duke); and, 2IC Lieutenant Brooks (Hans Hernke, the pic’s producer). The team know they have crashed back on Earth, but are bewildered by anomalies that begin to present themselves, such as radioactive shacks, distant music, unexplainable visitations.

Polland signals from the first frames that he has higher artistic goals than any time previously. The opening credit sequence is pure dazzle, melding visions of space travel and life on Mars with archival footage of U.S. Commanders in Chief (Kennedy, Obama, Trump) re-affirming the sense of exploration that demands Americans seek the great unknown that The Universe offers.

For much of the first two acts, he also allows his actors room to breathe life into what, on paper, may have amounted to fairly stock caricatures. The downside to this freedom is that scenes sometimes drag; editor Polland does writer/director Polland a slight disservice, with some of the film’s 98 minutes ripe for a pruning.

The other irreconcilable aspect of Another Plan from Outer Space is that title, which unavoidably conjures images of a certain Ed Wood film better known for its giddy awfulness. Lensed with consummate skill in affecting monochrome by Vita Trabucco and enlivened by Alessio Fidelbo’s appropriately theremin-flavoured score, Polland pays homage to the same films that inspired Mr. Wood, but offers a much more narratively assured and professionally packaged work of the imagination than anything from any ‘Worst Movie Ever’ list.

Polland has ambitions that Another Plan from Outer Space will spawn a sequel (stay through the credits). The film plays its Shyamalan-like ‘twist card’ particularly well, though the open-ended denouement may irk some. As the film morphs from ‘desert planet survival’ story into something else entirely, however, there is a sense that a further 90 minutes with these characters under this director’s guidance would be a very welcome development.

THE WAVE

Stars: Justin Long, Donald Faison, Katia Winter, Sheila Vand, Tommy Flanagan, Bill Sage, Sarah Minnich, Monique Candelaria, Ronnie Gene Blevins and Blythe Howard.
Writer: Carl W. Lucas
Director: Gille Klabin

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★

A riff on A Christmas Carol in which Ebenezer Scrooge swallows The Red Pill is a good starting point for those readying to partake of Gille Klabin’s trippy, challenging, wholly satisfying freak-out, The Wave. The debut feature for the music vid/short film director utilises skills honed over a decade in that visually exciting sector in its representation of one morally wayward man’s descent into a drug-fuelled world of paranoia, psychedelica, time-tripping and life lessons.

With always engaging leading man Justin Long (pictured, above; with co-star Donald Faison) ensuring audiences stay connected despite some often out-there narrative developments, The Wave will play as well with those that dig anxiety-inducing adventures like Martin Scorsese’s After Hours as it will with those still under the influence of whatever helped them just enjoy nine hours of nightclubbing.

Long plays Frank, an insurance lawyer introduced salivating over the career opportunity that denying benefits to the family of a dead fireman will bring. Too long in the professional trenches and with a cash-strapped domestic life teetering on the abyss of banality, Frank decides to connect with his partying workmate Jeff (Donald Faison) for some midweek bar-hopping. The pair are soon doing shots with cool twenty-somethings Natalie (Katia Winter) and Theresa (Sheila Vand; pictured, below), who convince them the night is young (it isn’t) and a party with harder narcotics ought to be their first destination (it oughtn’t).

To impress Theresa and share in some tongue-led dual drug taking, Frank allows himself to be led astray by charismatic dealer Aeolus (a terrific Tommy Flanagan). Much to Frank’s increasing panic, the chemical indulgence leads to a lost wallet, an angry wife, hours of blacked-out time, a nightmarish psychotic episode during a boardroom presentation and, most troublingly, instantaneous jumps in time and place. The misadventures lead to a life-threatening few hours in the company of unhinged lowlife Ritchie (Ronnie Gene Blevins), until Frank comes to terms with his newly-acquired superpower and sets about making right the insanity of his life, past and present.

With Carl W Lucas’ script wisely building character and tension before transitioning into its clever, more fantastical genre twists, Long and Klabin craft an everyman’s journey through an otherworldly landscape that is both familiar but off-kilter enough to intrigue and ultimately amaze. It is to the actor’s credit that Frank is more than just the scumbag attorney/unfaithful spouse the first act of the film allows him to be. Klabin’s faith in Long’s empathic qualities (underused by Hollywood in leading parts, for some reason) pays off when the narrative niftily reveals its ace-in-the-hole. As the hedonistic bud who leads Frank astray, Faison is funny and suitably incredulous when the laws of physics are restructured in front of him; as Theresa, the girl for whom Frank is willing to alter his life’s trajectory after a few minutes in her company, the lovely Vand is well cast.

The transition from real world stability into time-leaping psychosis is made all the more convincing by the rich aural depth the production constructs. Tech contributions from sound design vet Eric Offin and mixer Carlos Garcia’s team heighten the already pretty ‘high’ visuals that Klabin and effects supervisor Eric Thelander conjure. That The Wave works with such transcendent qualities on the heart as well as the head is indicative of the great work done by all departments.

The Wave Official Trailer from Epic Pictures Group on Vimeo.

FIRST LIGHT

Stars: Stefanie Scott, Théodore Pellerin, Saïd Taghmaoui, Percy Hynes White, Jahmil French, James Wotherspoon and Kate Burton.
Writer/director: Jason Stone.

Reviewed at Monster Fest 2018 at Melbourne’s Cinema Nova on November 23.

WINNER: Best International Film, Monster Fest 2018

Rating: ★★★★

Millennial types that stare blank-faced and shrug when you mention the great films of 1970s Hollywood make a grab at one the decade’s best with First Light. In Jason Stone’s low-key, highly charged UFO drama, an alien encounter imbues an everyday suburbanite with an inexplicable connection to lights in the sky. Whether you know it or not, kids, you’ve now got your own generation’s Close Encounters of The Third Kind.

Steven Spielberg’s 1977 sci-fi classic featured a thirty-something Richard Dreyfuss as a contactee strangely obsessed with visions of a distant mountain. ‘Thirty-something’ protagonists are way too old for the modern movie audience (unless they are comic-book hero alter-egos), so a savvy Stone has recast his lead as high-schooler Alex (Stefanie Scott). Also, ‘strange obsessions’ are hard to conjure, even for the modern effects wiz; having survived a near drowning via the visitation of glowing orb entities, Alex doubles-down on that distant yearning with telekinetic powers (good, especially when called upon flip ex-boyfriend’s cars) and high-radiation levels (bad, especially for…well, everybody).

Along for the ride is Sean (Théodore Pellerin), the audience conduit whose doe-eyed, unshakeable commitment to Alex provides the emotional core of Stone’s narrative. Scenes of the young man’s home life establish him as a teen of integrity and character; parent-less, he hangs with his smart-mouth, street-wise younger brother Oscar (a scene-stealing Percy Hynes White) and cares for his near-catatonic grandmother, whose arc is small but provides one of the year’s great movie moments.

Sean yearns for the closeness he shared with Alex once before, a wish that is granted after her near-death encounter, the bubbly teen queen now a sullen, silent introvert, clearly not herself. The pair are drawn into a chase drama enabled by rogue UFO chaser Cal (Said Taghmaoui) and driven by Federal agency head Kate (Kate Burton), their open road odyssey affording the actors space to build a warm, sincere chemistry. It also allows a further ironic nod to old-school Hollywood - Sean compares their plight to Bonnie and Clyde, to which Alex replies, “I don’t know who that is.” 

Stone opens on some thrill-inducing images of the orbs illuminating the early evening sky, before settling into a long passage of character definition and tension building - another common trait it shares with CE3K. If Stones skimps on the grand effects sequences that made Spielberg’s work so memorable, Stone doesn’t let us forget that his characters are always being watched. His expert use of drone footage to capture the ‘God’s eye’ perspective, or more precisely that of the inhabitants of the orbs, represents some of the most effective creative use of the technology yet.

In working through Spielberg’s familiar story beats, First Light plays like an American-indie-meets-X-Files spin on Romeo & Juliet; there are also some unmissable nods to John Carpenter’s Starman and Douglas Trumbull’s Brainstorm (two more ‘oldies’ the target audience won’t know), as well the inevitable and not unfounded YA comparisons that pitch it as, though remarkably better than, the Twilight series.

Also like Spielberg’s film, momentum drags a little in its third act when the G-men and their tech take over the film. It’s a minor period of disconnect in a film that mostly feels gritty, human and real, despite its otherworldly premise. First Light builds to a soaring denouement (pumped by some demographic-appropriate musical accompaniment from M83’s ‘Outro’) that reassures the audience that, in this world or beyond, we are not alone.

SOLO: A STAR WARS STORY

Stars: Alden Ehrenreich, Emilia Clarke, Donald Glover, Woody Harrelson, Joonas Suotamo, Thandie Newton, Paul Bettany, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Jon Favreau, Linda Hunt.
Writers: Jonathan Kasdan and Lawrence Kasdan, based on characters created by George Lucas.
Director: Ron Howard.

WARNING: CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS.

Rating: 3.5/5

Despite jettisoning much of the franchise mythology like a shipment at the first sign of an Imperial starship, ring-in director Ron Howard still feels bound to his Lucasfilm overlord for much of Solo: A Star Wars Story. The latest ‘expanded universe’ episode in Disney’s brand expansion offensive, the origin backstory of roguish space scoundrel Han Solo is a lot better than fans had any right to expect, but it is not the ripping yarn we collectively yearned for when the project was first announced.

With no title crawl, no Force, no Darth (Vader, at least), no Death Star and only a smattering of Rebellion angst, Solo is about as ‘stand alone’ as the franchise has allowed itself to become since it was re-awakened in 2015. Yet there is a structural through-line that ties Howard’s film to the series earliest installments, most notably A New Hope. Both films kick start on a remote, unremarkable planet (first up, it was Tatooine, here it is a scummy industrial city on Corellia), where our hero comes into possession of a small but plot-spinning Macguffin (then, it was R2 and his Death Star plans; now, it is a vial of superfuel).

Like young Skywalker, young Solo (Alden Ehrenreich), is motivated by notions of romance; his sweetheart Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke) is left behind as a fleeing Han signs up with the Imperial infantry, yelling to her he will return, Last of The Mohicans-style. While in the midst of combat on a mud-soaked outer world, he meets his paternal mentor, Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson in the Alec Guinness part, although more Fagin than Obi-Wan), the leader of a small but high-stakes criminal outfit that includes a terrific Thandie Newton and multi-limbed pilot Rio Durant (the voice of Jon Favreau, in a part that veers too close to the tone and function of Guardians of The Galaxy favourite, Rocket Racoon).

So sets in motion a well-paced, serviceable heist thriller that Howard handles with the assured slickness of an old school Hollywood pro. He calls upon his preferred support player Paul Bettany (The Da Vinci Code; A Beautiful Mind) to chew the scenery as the key villain, Dryden Vos, as well as demanding career-best work from DOP Bradford Young (Arrival; Selma), who proves adept at both murky/grainy and stark/crisp. Howard also conjures a cute bit part for a franchise favourite, whose career he bolstered with his fantasy epic Willow, 30 years ago.

Along the way, loyalists learn the answer to questions they never asked, including ‘How did Han get his surname?’, ‘How did Han get his iconic pistol?’, ‘How did Han meet Chewbacca?’ (Finnish actor Joonas Suotamo, stepping into the hairy feet for the third time, for a meet-cute that harkens back to Luke’s encounter with the Rancor in Return of The Jedi) and ‘How did Han win the Millenium Falcon from Lando Calrissian?’ (the super-smooth Donald Glover).

Ehrenreich brings enough charisma in the title role to (mostly) convince that he could morph into the ‘Han Solo’ that launched Harrison Ford into Hollywood history. He proves physically capable when carrying the action sequences, especially the film’s highpoint – a freight-train hijacking set amidst rugged, ice-covered mountains (one of many nods to the series’ Western genre origins); his rapport with his romantic lead needed another polish, with Clarke’s underwritten part a let-down given the strong roles usually afforded women in the Star Wars universe.

The film takes a left-field spin into contemporary politics with the introduction of Lando’s droid offsider, L3-3L (voiced by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, channeling the vocal intonations of Tilda Swinton). Spouting ‘equality for robots’ speeches and leading a ‘free the repressed’ mini-revolt at one stage (not to mention an open attitude to human/android coupling), her presence may be construed as either an honouring of or pandering to the #MeToo movement, suffice to say such outspokenness was not founder George Lucas’ strongpoint. Of the two scriptwriters, her voice sounds most like that of the younger Kasdan, Jonathan (he penned 2007’s In The Land of Women); the rest of the script is pure Lawrence – commercially instinctive, effortlessly heroic with endearing human fallibility, all a bit macho.     

Gareth Edwards’ rousing Rogue One still remains the most emotionally resonant and fully satisfying work of the post-Lucas films. Ultimately, there is not enough at stake in Solo: A Star Wars Story to up the narrative ante into that white-knuckle, crowd-stirring realm. It’s a romp, albeit a bit clunky at times; a space-opera, but one that needed a bit more tuning up. Howard delivers an enjoyable US summer movie ‘event’, but as an entry in the greatest science-fiction film series of all time, it is far, far away from the best of them.

ERRATUM 2037

Stars: Elie Benoît, Timothe Beugnet, Alex Lanz-Ketcham, Mariano Vicente and Emilien Benoît.
Writers/directors: Elie Benoît, Johann Benoît and Emilien Benoît.

Screening April 8 at L’Aquarium Cine-Cafe as part of the ‘SF Made in France’ strand of Les Intergalactiques Festival de Science-Fiction; Lyon, France.

Rating: 3.5/5

If ever doubt mounts as to how influential 1980s American cinema has been, one need only watch Erratum 2037, a wonderfully inventive French time-travel/conspiracy theory headscratcher utterly riddled with reverential film references. This staples-and-sticky-tape labour-of-love has been conjured by the Benoit brothers - Eli, Johann and Emilien – who were themselves only future concepts when their clear inspiration, Back to The Future established its own timelessness under Messrs Spielberg and Zemeckis.

The DNA of that classic comedy courses through every frame of Erratum 2037, but so too does that of Wargames, The X-Files, Looper, Sleeper and The Terminator. That the three frères français should craft such a consummate homage while also finding their own storytelling pulse suggests the trio may be destined for a broader canvas and bigger budgets.

A briskly unfolding prologue sets a dark tone, when a police operation to investigate lights in the night sky melds with a mother’s concern about her missing boy. Post-opening credits, we travel back in time, briefly, to meet our heroes Leo (Elie Benoit, the youngest of the co-directors) and Antoine (Timothe Beugnet) as they riff on the how cool the vehicular mayhem is in the latest Grand Theft Auto gameplay. The irony is lost on them when they are run off the road by a speeding van; the only upside of the near-miss a device, the BC-180, that falls from the truck.

The boys fire up the machine, to no immediate affect; Leo observes, “It’s a car stereo,” which it clearly is, but ‘in for a penny…’ at this point. Later that night, however, Leo’s room pulsates to a Spielberg-ian light show (recalling Gary Cuffey’s bedroom encounter in Close Encounters of The Third Kind). This opening sequence is so rich in Back to The Future references as to almost be distracting. Phil Garbutt’s original music echoes Alan Silvestri’s 1985 masterwork; Antoine notes the BC-180 needs ‘2.21 gigawatts’, an exact gigawatt more than that required by Doc Brown’s flux-capacitor.

Leo awakens in an alternate future-world, a hunted man for the role he unwittingly plays in the rebellion against enigmatic villain Emeric Boldenberg (Emilien Benoît). Our hero becomes a passive observer in the second act, unlike Michael J Fox, whose stardom was assured thanks to the charm he brought to the middle section of BTTF. Leo falls in with surviving agents of the resistance Pedro (Mariano Vicente) and Binglinger (Alex Lanz-Ketcham) when not in the clutches of Boldenberg’s buffoonish foot soldiers. The plot convolutes in that now typical ‘time-travel paradox’ manner that is too layered (and, occasionally, confusing) to detail here, suffice to say the filmmakers generally stay one step ahead of their own plotting, even when it threatens to careen out of control.

The Benoit brothers were teenagers when they filmed Erratum 2037, and it is sometimes distractingly obvious. Teenage boys don’t know how girls talk, so there are no woman characters of note (save for a last reel surprise); their otherwise innocuous adventure occasionally indulges in some icky violence, which must have been fun to stage but does not enhance the narrative.

Where their film soars is as a passionate fanboy’s nod to the influences of their formative years. A terrific floating-car sequence looks like a school project but is so skillfully assembled, plays like similar moments in The Fifth Element, Star Wars: Episode II-Attack of The Clones and, of course, Back to The Future II; Boldenberg’s headquarters clearly resembles Tyrell’s office tower in Blade Runner; there’s even a Star Wars ‘wipe cut’, for goodness sake!

On a backyard budget and with friends and family filling out the cast and crew, the brother’s intuitive skill marks them as natural born filmmakers. Perhaps more importantly, they embrace the historical context of the films that inspired them and enhance the genre with their own love of the artform.

THE GATEWAY

Stars: Jacqueline McKenzie, Myles Pollard, Hayley McIlhinney, Shannon Berry, Troy Coward, Ben Mortley, Ryan Panizza and Shirley Toohey.
Writers: John V Soto and Michael White.
Director: John V Soto.

Opening Night selection of the 2017 SciFi Film Festival; reviewed at Event Cinemas George Street, October 11, 2017.

Rating 3.5/5

A compelling turn from a committed leading lady and a twisty premise skilfully executed will ensure The Gateway finds avid fans amongst sci-fi types seeking thoughtful, discussion-starting cinema. Having previously spun fan-friendly yarns in the fields of 80s-style erotic thriller (Crush, 2009), horror (Needle, 2009) and police procedural (The Reckoning, 2014), Perth-based auteur John V. Soto takes on the science-fiction realm with his typically slick visual style and strong adherence to that all-important ‘internal logic’.

Working with the learned mind of co-writer Michael White (co-author of non-fiction tomes profiling the likes of Hawking, Darwin, Asimov and Einstein), Soto explores the notion of parallel planes of existence via the science of particle and quantum physics. Providing the crucial emotional centre to a narrative that occasionally requires wordy exposition is the wonderful Jacqueline McKenzie, whose layered portrayal of a grieving woman willing to compromise time and space to reunite with her dearly departed is great genre acting.

McKenzie plays Dr. Jane Chandler, a particle physicist running a small-scale lab with offsider Regg (Ben Mortley), the pair on the verge of cracking the secrets of molecular deconstruction and teleportation. The experiments have led to the discovery of multi-dimensional realities; not only do teleported objects reappear, but they are tracked through alternate worlds, similar but distinctly different to our own.  

When Jane’s world is sent into a downward spiral following the sudden death of her partner Matt (Myles Pollard), she acts with her broken heart and not her level head (in scenes that recall those moments of Jeff Goldblum’s ill-fated melancholy in Cronenberg’s The Fly); the doctor teleports herself into a darker, more ominous other-world and re-acquaints herself with the ‘other-Matt’. Blinded by her sorrow to the trickle-down consequences of her actions, Jane puts herself and her shared worlds at risk, leading to desperate (and, frankly, slightly too convoluted to detail here) attempts to right her wrongs.

McKenzie is an actress confident within the sci-fi/horror milieu, primarily because she largely ignores the genre trappings and drills down on the emotional and psychological underpinnings of her characters. She wasn’t given that much to do in Renny Harlin’s Deep Blue Sea (1999), yet remains fondly remembered for the role; as the lead in the series The 4400, she imbued the entire production with immense integrity. Such is her impact in The Gateway; the actress explores the film’s soulful consideration of grief, desperation and compromised principles with maturity, warmth and insight.

At time of writing, The Gateway has already impressed those in the know, with trophies at Austin’s Revelation Film Festival and nominations from several other genre juries. It bodes well for Soto’s ambitious vision, which punches above its budgeted weight thanks to strong contributions from Western Australia's acting community, pro lensing by DOP David Le May and the production design of Monique Wajon.

Smart, emotionally resonant science-fiction is a rare commodity; The Gateway will chart a course through international markets that reinforces the Australian industry does it as well as any sector.