Beauty and the Beast (3-D)

First Hit:  Although sweet enough, this film is why I generally don’t like musicals.

Those that have read me for years know I’m particular about and generally not a fan of musicals. The songs have got to work, not take me out of the flow and feeling of the film, and make sense. Songs that are difficult to understand or take too much thought, or fail to help the film’s flow, are not worth singing or having in the film. This movie fails to meet my tolerance levels from the get go and therefore it was hard for me to sit through it.

In the prologue, prior to being introduced to the oddity of Beauty (aka Belle - Emma Watson) and the townsfolk, the film sets up the reason why we have the Beast (Dan Stevens). He’s full of himself and because he doesn’t care about anyone else, a spell is put on him by the Enchantress (“Agatha” - Hattie Moran) that damns him and others around him to a life of non-humanness unless he is loved by another. The Enchantress gives him until the last petal of a rose, encased in a glass cover, falls to find someone to love him. When the last petal falls, he dies and the others are doomed to a life as inanimate objects.

After the brief prologue, we segue back into the local town we have Belle prancing and walking through town with the townsfolk singing out how odd she is because she reads books. Because we’ve no other background, except knowing that her dad Maurice (Kevin Kline) is a tinkerer, lives with his daughter and her mother is long gone; were just suppose to believe she's odd. It was hard for me to believe this. The film story just wants us to believe this "oddity" story.

Belle is being wooed by Gaston (Luke Evans) who is all brawn (self-labeled) and no brains. Belle sees through Gaston and spurns him at every pass. Gaston’s man Friday LeFou (Gosh Gad), is one of the best parts of this film with fanfare, flair, and a jousting way, he quips through this role only to backtrack on them later.

One of the difficulties of listening to the songs was that Watson’s singing was overly processed and, at times, sounded like it was through a vocoder and unnatural. I’m not sure if this was done for effect or because Watson doesn’t have the kind of singing voice that worked for the character. This use of processing singing voices cropped up in multiple places throughout this film.

Although many of the characters were cute, Lumiere (Ewan McGregor), Maestro Cadenza (Stanley Tucci), Cogsworth (Ian McKellen), Mrs. Potts (Emma Thompson), Madame de Gerderobe (Audra McDonald), Chip (Nathan Mack) and Plumette (Gugu Mbatha-Raw), I only found an occasional enjoyment watching their interaction with each other and with Beauty or the Beast.

For the most part, within fifteen seconds after a song started I wanted it to end as these songs were taking me out of story.

Watson was good and believable as Belle, although I really didn’t like what was done to her voice when singing. Her slight English accent and obvious intelligence was helpful in making this film seem enchanting. Kline was even keeled, believable and strong as Belle’s father. His character felt grounded. Stevens was OK as the Beast although the CG Beast was what the audience mostly experienced. Only in the beginning and end did we have Stevens as the Prince. Evans was good as the swashbuckling Gaston. Gad was the best part of this film. He was funny and was obviously committed to his role. The remaining of the actors were basically CG objects for most of the film which makes reviewing their work difficult. Stephen Chbosky and Evan Spiliotopoulos were responsible for the screenplay. Given it is an established story, their modifications were OK. Bill Condon had a clear vision of what he wanted and for the most part it was executed well, however it just isn’t my cup of tea.

Overall:  My wife loved the film, and I was occasionally amused and mostly bored because the songs took away from the actual story.

King Kong: Skull Island (3-D)

First Hit:  Although a couple of characters were OK and the CGI was strong, the film’s story lacked in generating any interest.

Really? The reason our government paid for this team of people to explore Skull Island was to beat the Russians to it. That this island had never been seen before, was clouded in its own weather system, and Bill Randa (John Goodman) believed it held secrets to ships sinking was neither believable nor explained.

What we got were strongly divided characters, a pacifist photographer named Mason Weaver (Brie Larson), mercenary James Conrad (Tom Hiddleston), angry Army helicopter platoon leader Lieutenant Colonel Preston Packard (Samuel L. Jackson) and an oddly lost WWII pilot Hank Marlow (John C. Reilly). All of these, except Marlow, make it through the island’s protective weather in helicopters and as they begin dropping sonic bombs to develop an understanding what is underneath the island’s surface, the disruption wakes up King Kong who knocks helicopters out of the sky.

Now they all think that Kong is the enemy. Because he hurt his team, Packard is hell-bent on killing Kong. The audience knows this is a stupid idea. While the remaining exploratory team members try to find each other, they run into very tall spiders and some mean flying reptiles.

During all the commotion, one group finds themselves surrounded by a silent tribe of painted and scarred men and women. Just as this tribe is about to hurt them, Marlow appears in a jokingly funny sort of way. He has influence with the silent tribe because they let these new island invaders go.

We are given the story that Kong protects the tribe and humans from the skull eaters which are lizard like animals that live below the surface. This storyline can get worse and it does, however the CGI of Kong fighting the skull eaters was effective and interesting.

The storyline is weak and made up to only have these great fights between these large creatures. The filmmakers have some of the landing team be kind and helpful towards Kong which makes Kong become a  positive sympathetic character as he helps them survive the attack of the skull eaters.

Goodman is mediocre as someone who lost his son and wants to uncover the mystery of this island. Hiddleston is OK and is above the fray of this film's poor story and poor script. He’s believable in an unbelievable story. Larson is good as the photographer who is looking for shots that make her known. Jackson is fine but it is his character that I didn’t like. He was way too hawkish and illogical to make me care or want him to succeed. Reilly was the most interesting and amusing character in the film. He brought levity and fun to the overall experience. Jing Tian had a minor part and seemed out of place.  Dan Gilroy, Max Borenstein, and Derek Connolly wrote a very mediocre screenplay that had little depth. There were moments that they tried to create back stories for the characters, but there was little effort in this and therefore it failed. Jordan Vogt-Roberts did what he could with the story. Many of the shots were well crafted, but it is hard to make a good film with a mediocre story and script.

Overall:  This film fails to entertain and is lost because of the story and script.

The Great Wall

First Hit:  Although visually arresting at times, there's nothing believable about this story.

The problem with fantasies are that if they aren’t done well, the audience slips out of the story and is left with just watching interesting pictures and waiting the next piece of action. That is what happens here.

It begins with a group of horsemen being chased by another group of horsemen in the middle of a desert. How did they get there, where did they come from, why are they there?

We don't get much background, but when William (Matt Damon), the main character, speaks, because of the film's time period, it is hard to buy his American accent and dialect because the English hadn't occupied the United States yet.

This isn't the only problem in this film, but it is one of the first the audience encounters. We learn that his band of marauders is in search of gunpowder as it has been rumored that the Chinese have discovered a black powder that can kill many people with one use. After the initial chase scene, the men are getting restless because they've not found the powder and they keep losing men. William's closest ally in this ever decreasing small group of men is Tovar (Pedro Pascal) who at least has an appropriate European accent.

While hiding in a cave from the latest group trying to kill them, they get attacked by some beasts. The beasts kill everyone except Tovar and William. On the run again, they ride into The Great Wall with warriors all around them and dressed in beautiful, colorful, and striking uniforms. It is a wonder of the world. The warriors are manning the wall because a 60 year cycle is complete and the beast are coming to kill them, get past the wall and head towards the capital of China.

The warriors on the wall have various skills and techniques to kill the beasts. Catapults that use large balls covered with oil and lit on fire. There are bow and arrow teams. There are spear teams and teams of women who jump off the wall tethered to the top of the wall and are pulled up once they throw their spears. The leader of this bungie team is Commander Lin Mae (Tian Jing) who is also in line to be a higher-level leader. She has learned English from a previously captured man named Ballard (Willem Dafoe).

When the beasts come, William shows his bravery and kills many beasts and earns the respect of the Chinese Army leaders.

The film goes on, and on, which is part of the problem because, nothing is explained or validated and the audience is supposed to just accept the premises and buy into the story. This is the failing of this film to me.

It seems as though this film was created to show something about the wall, the glory of big and beautiful sets, bravery of Chinese warriors, and that they alone invented gunpowder. I kept thinking why didn’t they use the gunpowder against the beasts at the beginning?  Why did they wait until near collapse of the capital? And even in the end, I kept asking where did William come from?

This question and many others kept coming up while watching the film and made the experience rather unfulfilling.

Damon was OK, but I never bought his accent or his story. Doing this may have been a good idea, but in the end I would sense that Damon would like to forget it. Jing was too beautifully made up in each of her close-ups to believe she was in a war for her life and the life of her country. Pascal’s was one of the best parts of the film. There was a level of irreverence in his character’s dialogue that made the film fun. Dafoe was wasted in this role. Seemed as though he was only there as a way for Mae to learn English so that she could speak to William. Carlo Bernard and Doug Miro wrote a skeptical screenplay. There was little to get the audience to buy into, engage with, or believe about the story. Director Yimou Zhang seemed far more interested in big picture beauty and chorography versus putting a story together that engages the audience.

Overall:  The pictures were pretty; the story flimsy and execution was mediocre.

A Monster Calls

First Hit:  Although intellectually interesting, this film fails to engage.

This film deals with acceptance, letting go, and facing fears. Conor (Lewis MacDougall) is a pale and frail young man who is picked on in school, is keeping house because his mum (Felicity Jones) is very sick, and has horrible dreams at night.

This film is dark not only in color in the scenes and topic it addresses, but in the way, all the characters are drawn. Although mum was optimistic in her engagement, there was a melancholy nature in her scenes that seemed to drive all the movie’s scenes.

The main part of the story is about Conor and how his dreams fuel his ability to create an alternate reality by which a Monster (Liam Neeson) appears to Conor at 12:07 and tells him three stories. In return the Monster requires that Conor to tell his truth and tell the Monster his horrible dream.

Adding to the difficulty Conor was having with his mom’s illness and dreams, his Dad (Toby Kebbell) lived in the United States, schoolmate Harry (James Melville) was beating him up, for no reason, on a daily basis, and his Grandma (Sigourney Weaver) was very strict and seemed unloving.

As this film works through this story to resolve the character’s difficulties, I struggled to stay engaged. This film seemed to languish as it unfolded. The slowness of the film, the lack of  character development, and the darkness left me wondering, through sections of the film, what was next.

This is not a children’s film although it is told through the eyes of a young boy. It is complex as the Monster tells stories that are supposed to help the boy however they are a bit esoteric and were lost on the boy and maybe the audience.

MacDougall was amazing in this role. He was very good at being, sullen, a picked on weakling and strong in the face of his mother’s death. Jones was OK. Unfortunately, it was my perception that her youngish look in this film made it hard for me to believe she was Conor’s mom. Neeson’s voice for the monster was really good and portrayed the darkness of this film really well. Kebbell was good as Conor’s dad who loved his son but not enough to bring him to the US and live with his current family. Melville was OK as the bully. Weaver was oddly cast and only until the end of the film did I engage with her in this role as Grandmother. One failing of this film was that there was little back story of the characters which caused me to have too many questions while watching. Patrick Ness wrote the screenplay. The lack of each character's history made it a difficult to believe and engage with. J.A. Bayona created some interesting segues between the fantasy of the dream world and the real world, but the lack of backstory, left me wondering most of the time.

Overall:  The film was lifeless with sparks of wonderful engagement.

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (3-D)

First Hit:  Engaging at times, wonderful visualizations, and slightly misguided.

Although I left the theater thinking that this film was very entertaining, upon reflection it seemed like the film was too convoluted and didn’t know what it wanted to be in the end. Granted it was fun to watch, the beasts were extraordinary, and Newt (Eddie Redmayne) was very good as the kind hearted magician coming to New York with a goal of freeing his Thunderbird in Arizona, but the sweetness got lost in the hoopla.

There is a lot else going on in this film, however it is really enough to say that the beasts are extremely well done? Probably not.

Although wizardry and the like is viewed as naturally dark, Redmayne did a great job of bringing some light heartedness to the story as did Dan Fogler as Kowalski. What also added to the darkness of this film was watching a 3-D version which reduces the light on the screen.

The basic story is that New York is being attacked by an Obscurus (a dark entity) and MACUSA (Magical Congress of the United States of America) is trying to find a way to capture and stop the Obscurus from destroying New York as this sort of entity also puts magical wizards and witches in the public eye which isn’t good and Newt, just arriving from England and Hogwarts, gets caught up in this battle.

Arriving via ship, he’s carrying a suitcase filled with an odd assortment of creatures, including the Thunderbird, some of whom are mischievous and occasionally escape the case. Although this part of the storyline is entertaining it really didn’t work for me in that I kept wondering why he didn’t get a case with more secure locks.

During his first few hours in New York, he ends up entangling with Kowalski (Dan Fogler) who is going to a bank to ask for a loan to open a bakery. The reason for the engagement of these two is that they both have the same type suitcase. Kowalski’s is filled with pastries he wants the bank loan officer to taste.

However, with the cases switched, three of the beasts get out including a platypus looking animal called a Niffler, that steals anything shiny like coins and jewelry, adding additional complications to a troubled city. While the Niffler is ravaging jewelry stores filled with shiny bangles, Newt is desperately trying to find his suitcase of creatures, and capture the escapees. When he finds Kowalski, and hopefully his suitcase, he realizes that this person could help him despite him being a “muggle” or “no-maj.”

This is part of the overall story as muggles and no-majs cannot know about wizards, magic and witches therefore Kowalski, knowing about this magic, puts himself in danger for getting part of his mind erased. But being open and kind towards Newt, accepting of the wizard’s way, and being liked by a beautiful witch named Queenie Goldstein (Alison Sudol), he gets a temporary pass. Queenie’s sister Porpentina “Tina” (Katherine Waterston), who is a previously demoted inspector for MACUSA, captures and arrests Newt for using magic publicly. When she takes him to a MACUSA hearing, they ignore her and see Newt as an odd misplaced individual. However, as Tina learns more about Newt, she befriends him and hides Newt and Kowalski in her and her sister’s home.

When MACUSA learns that Newt has real experience capturing Obscurus types of entities they support him, with the assistance of Tina, Queenie, and Kowalski, in helping MACUSA rid New York of this entity.

Redmayne is very good as an introverted wizard that relates more with his fantastic beasts than people. He’s good at acting clumsy around people and great when in his own world. Fogler is really good as the budding baker and muggle who helps the wizard Newt. Sudol is wonderful and the engaging witch sister of Tina. Her brightness was welcomed in the film. Waterston was strong as the demoted investigator of MACUSA. Carmen Ejogo is good as President Seraphina Picquery of MACUSA. Colin Farrell is OK as Percival Graves a high ranking and powerful wizard in MACUSA. J. K. Rowling wrote this somewhat predictable script that seemed more complex than needed. There is limited character development which makes the story somewhat shallow. David Yates who directed three of the Harry Potter films, knew what Rowling wanted and outside of doing a great job of making the beasts fantastic, he did his best with Rowling’s limited vision.

Overall:  Although I was, at times, enchanted during the film, my interest and fascination faded away too quickly.