Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2

First Hit:  At times funny, tongue in cheek and farfetched, but isn’t strong enough to make it memorable the next day.

The best parts of Volume 1, was the irreverent humor used to make the unbelievable story and places they visit, fun. Volume 2 does all this a little better.

Star-Lord AKA Peter Quill (Chris Pratt) is with his compatriots; Gamora (Zoe Saldana), Drax (Dave Bautista), Baby Groot (Vin Diesel), and Rocket (Bradley Cooper), and they are off on another adventure. They saved the galaxy before now they're here to do it again.

Whom do they save it from? Peter's father Ego (Kurt Russell) and a reluctant Mantis (Pom Klementieff) who is the one person that can make Ego sleep and relax. Also, for different reasons, Yondu (Michael Rooker) and Nebula (Karen Gillan) want to hurt Peter and his crew as well.

After years of not knowing who his father was, all of sudden Peter is confronted with his father, Ego. Ego lives on planet Ego and is a God of sorts. He traveled to many planets to plant his lights, which he controls through his powers. He's looking for a progeny that can assist him in making the light devices to bloom and take over the worlds he’s planted these things on. Additionally, while on the planets planting his light plants, the story has Ego planting his seed in many women on these planets as well. One of them was Peter’s mom, Meredith (Laura Haddock). However out of all the progeny Ego tests to see who can help him activate the lights, Peter is the only one who shares, and has, Ego's super powers.

The problem is Peter’s eclectic family doesn’t buy the Ego’s premise about wanting to be a loving father and when Peter figures out that Ego is planning control and destruction, he knows he has to kill his father.

All through this, Nubula is trying to kill Yondu now that he’s teamed up with Peter and his team. Then there is Stakar Ogord (Sylvester Stallone) who wants to kill Yondu as well.

In the end there is a life and death struggle for the galaxy and the team wins again and I know I’m letting the cat out of the bag, but we all knew the ending anyway.

Pratt is fun, on the edge of silly, but carries the ability to be both serious and irreverent all at the same time. Saldana is wonderful as the illusive Gamora. Bautista has some of the funniest lines and it’s fun to watch him. Diesel is funny and appropriately constrained as small Groot. Cooper as Rocket was fantastic. Klementieff was great as Mantis. I loved the way she danced between surety and lack of confidence. Russell was really engaged and full of life in this part. Gillan was strong as the golden leader of another planet’s race. Rooker was perfect as the guy who wanted to be good and support the team, but also live within the rules of his own clan. Stallone was OK as Ogord. James Gunn and Dan Abnett wrote a perfect irreverent script that held together through a highly improbable story. Gunn did a great job of providing the right level of effects and joyful fun scenes. Everyone got a chance to shine.

Overall:  This was as good and probably better than Volume 1.

The Circle

First Hit:  Wonderfully interesting in many ways including how close we are to actually having this technology being available today. I grew up being much more private that I am today. Today’s technology makes being open and transparent much easier. This film is about technology and how it could be used to control, expose, and create full transparency among people. It also exposes some of the privacy and freedom of choice issues that we, as a race, may have to face.

In 1999 there was a Ron Howard film called 'Edtv' with Matthew McConaughey in the role of Ed, who was filmed by a camera crew while he lived his life and eventually got the girl despite being exposed this way. What made this interesting was how much equipment and production was required to film this one man.

It's all different in 'The Circle'. Here the company resembles a conglomeration of Apple, Google, and Facebook and the technology they develop is the star. It is a social media platform that also provides other services.

Mae (Emma Watson) is stuck in a part-time customer service department for a utility company. Her mom Bonnie (Glenne Headly) and dad Vinnie (Bill Paxton) want their daughter to be happy, but she’s been hanging around because Vinnie has Multiple Sclerosis. Her high school boyfriend Mercer (Ellar Coltrane) still pines for Mae and is more interested in a life without technology.

Mae gets hired by ‘The Circle’ because her friend Annie (Karen Gillan), who has a high level position with the company, gets her an interview. Drinking the Kool-Aid of ‘The Circle’ philosophy, Mae slowly gets inducted to the group by going to the company parties, staying in the company dorms, eating the company food, and participating online with the supposed “friendships”. Getting a company physical, she ingests a small device that will track her and provide the company with her vital data.

At a company meeting they announce a small inexpensive camera which they begin placing all over the country. The camera provides 'The Circle' clients with ways to view and experience lots of different places and never leave their seat in front of their computer screen or phone screen.

The founders, Eamon Bailey (Tom Hanks) and Tom Stenton (Patton Oswalt), promote openness while there is a slight sub-current of wanting control and data on everyone and everything. The cameras are part of this data collection. By recording the camera data and the data from their employees ingested monitors, the collection becomes very personal very quick.

Because of the cameras, Mae is saved from drowning in San Francisco Bay. This emotional event further convinces Mae that ‘The Circle’ is on to something and volunteers to be the first person to be online fully transparent 24/7 except for the 3 minutes when she’s on a toilet or when she's sleeping. Of course now she has millions of followers and as people do today, many make snide, dumb or derogatory comments about Mae as well as others who make supportive comments.

Mae comes up with ideas to take this one more step and suggests that everyone become part of ‘The Circle’ and if you are, then you’ll automatically be registered to vote and will be required to vote. One of her co-workers, Ty Lafitte (John Boyega), shares information with Mae which supports concern for The Circle’s plans for the data they are collecting. She also discovers that Ty is the third founder who no longer has an active part in the company.

The ending scenes are great because it starts to bring up the concept and issues around true transparency for all people, including the founders. The questions this film brings up are important to all of us because almost all of the technology shown in the film is available. Would you act better, or as your better self, if everything you did was being able to be seen by everyone else? Would you be OK with everyone having the ability to view all your communications with anyone? Is total transparency of everyone the best path? Or, do we need to have individual privacy?

The film puts forth this question and actually it is a great question because the technology is just around the corner to make ‘The Circle’ happen soon.

Watson is great. She did a wonderful job of portraying her own questions about what she was getting into and then shifting to be the person who leads ‘The Circle’. She had great transitional moments and she performed them very well. Hanks was perfect as CEO because he’s just so nice and believable. You wouldn’t think there was an underlying theme that wasn’t transparent. Oswalt was excellent as the COO because he, more than Hanks, showed a sense of an underlying darker theme. Paxton was wonderful in his final film role. His performance as a man with MS was spot on. Gillan was strong as the overworked believer who started seeing her power fade. Coltrane was wonderful as Mercer the guy who just wanted to live his life his way. Headly was very good as Mae’s mother. Loved how she created support for her husband and empathy for her daughter. Boyega was strong as Ty, the architect of ‘The Circle’ and saw the issues early on. James Ponsoldt and Dave Eggers did a wonderful job of creating a script and screenplay that reflected the way people act today with their mobile devices and bringing up the deeper questions about transparence and control. Ponsoldt did a great job of using his actors to show how companies in Silicon Valley coddle their employees; with transportation, food, parties, concerts, and activities.

Overall:  A very interesting story and it brings up questions that will have to be addressed and resolved soon.

Ghost in the Shell

First Hit:  Interesting to watch but not very engaging. This is one of those films that with the right use of computer generated graphics and a great story we’d have a wonderful film. However, I think the script failed to create the sense of urgency this film can create.

A couple of the questions this film brings are: Will we all become a brain inside a hi-tech mechanical robotic body? Will the brain be able to embrace all our memories and our souls while operating without the rest of the body and all the other cells that hold memories of their own?

Here we have Major Mira Killian (Scarlett Johansson) waking up from a procedure that implanted her brain into a cyborg body. She struggles with memories because the lines between humans and robot are becoming blurred and therefore, she is as well. She was built to be a weapon.

She’s not the first and one of her predecessors Hideo Kuze (Michael Pitt), has become an enemy of the company manufacturing both him, Major, and other robotic cyborgs. He foils many of the company’s plans and when Major does a “deep dive” into a robotic that had been compromised by Kuze, she learns something about Kuze and has a stronger desire to find him.

Major’s support comes from District 9 Chief Daisuke Aramaki (Takeshi Kitano), friend and solider Batou (Pilou Asbaek), and her direct creator Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche). Additionally, she learns of her real history when she meets Motoko’s (Kaori Yamamoto) mother. She learns and figures out that she is Motoko.

Most of the film is shot at night or in very dark scenes which made this film more difficult to watch in that there was little in the way demonstrating light and hope. However, from a filmmakers point of view, they couldn’t create the interesting CG figures that are as tall as buildings that grace the skyline if it wasn't dark.

In general, there wasn’t enough digging into the issue that's behind the story, the issue of combining mankind and machines into one unit. The film just danced around the subject.

Johansson was good but she lacked a great story, poor direction or, more than likely, both. Knowing her capabilities in roles like this (think “Lucy”), in this film she felt lifelessness. Pitt’s role was supposed to be intelligent and dark. It was dark but didn’t really work in the intelligence arena as the script was limited. Kitano was one of the best pieces of this film. He was clear in his role and delivered aspects of what this film could have been. Binoche was almost out of place. She's fresh and alive, and although I bought her role, I’m not sure she couldn’t have known more about her boss’s intention. She doesn't do naive well. Yamamoto was exquisite. I loved how she related the story of losing her son and daughter. Asbaek was great as Major’s friend and fellow soldier. Jamie Moss, William Wheeler, and Ehren Kruger wrote a mediocre screenplay as the dialogue did not create much interest. However, the direction by Rupert Sanders was as much to blame for the failure of this film as well.

Overall:  This film comes from great stock, but fails to really engage the story and therefore the audience.

Life

First Hit:  This film tried to be a horror thriller in the science fiction genre, but ended up being lifeless.

The film starts a little confusingly but with some interest. For some reason there wasn’t enough clear back fill as to how a space probe left Mars, heading for Earth and a space station had to catch it or…. Once I got past this unsolved puzzle, watching the team’s pilot Rory Adams (Ryan Reynolds) move a space arm to catch this thing in space was cool. However, any probe coming from Mars would be traveling much faster than it shows here, another puzzle to solve.

After bringing the soil samples into a sealed (not really because there were vents) bio-testing chamber, British biologist Hugh Derry (Arilyon Bakare) starts fiddling with the samples and finds a living one cell protoplasmic entity. Adjusting the mixture of oxygen and stuff, it grows. As Dr. Miranda North (Rebecca Ferguson), Quarantine Officer states; “…all muscle, all brain, and all eye.” It is named “Calvin” by some school children. I liked the reference in some ways because “Calvin and Hobbs” was one of my favorite comic strips and the character Calvin was a handful.

Hugh is like a child with this discovery and Rory states “there’s going to be a huge custody battle over this”, mostly because the space station has multi-national people working on board and it is the “International Space Station” (ISS).

To give some character to the team, Sho’s (Hiroyuki Sanada) wife gives birth while he watches it on a personal video device. Commander Katerina Golovkina (Olga Dihovichnaya) is Russian and is ultimately responsible for the safety of the crew. Dr. David Jordan (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the medical officer and has been in space longer than anyone 400+ days. He likes it there because being on the ISS it is a controllable environment for him.

So what happens? Calvin gets loose and attacks people because humans are filled with the type of liquid nutrients it needs to survive. As Hugh states at one point, it is just trying to survive. All havoc breaks loose, Earth loses communication contact with ISS and decides to send a Soyuz capsule up to push the ISS into deep space forever, killing everyone and everything on the ship. However, when this plan fails, the last two living humans make a decision to try to save Earth from Calvin.

Part of the problem, is that Calvin wasn’t interesting, I didn’t care about the characters, and it seemed like a fight in futility from the get go. Then there were the logistics issues that I pointed out above.

Reynolds had little screen time and maybe the film would have done better with his presence extended. Bakare was OK, but a bit too inquisitive in trying to make Calvin respond to stimuli, which wasn't scientifically stringent enough if this were real. Ferguson was bland and didn’t really add much to the film. Dihovichnaya was OK, but didn’t seem to be controlling her team much, which caused part of the problem. Gyllenhaal was good and one of the better parts of the film because you can tell he pours himself into each part. Sanada was OK and didn’t add much to the overall picture. Writers Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick were both probably aiming for an “Alien” type film but ended up alienating this audience – some actually walked out during my viewing. Daniel Espinosa had some great photography, and visual effects, but the weak script and story deflated the overall presentation.

Overall:  This film will not get reviewed well and just didn’t work

Logan

First Hit:  As a superhero movie, it's realistically dark and thoughtful.

Most superhero films are either tongue in cheek, lighthearted, go overboard on the superpower action, or all of these things. This film doesn’t do any of this. It is downright about the characters some who have superpower traits.

We have Logan (Hugh Jackman) as Wolverine who is aging, ill, and driving a limousine to make enough money for him and Caliban (Stephen Merchant) to take care of X-Men leader Charles (Patrick Stewart) who is dying. They are living out in the middle of nowhere and seem to be counting their days till they fade away and die. There haven’t been any new mutants born in the last 25 years and the clan is dying out.

However, a Dr. Rice (Richard E. Grant) has been experimenting with genetics on embryos and young children trying to create warriors/soldiers with superpower abilities. He's trying to create his own mutants. However, he's discovered that they have feelings and minds and cannot be controllable easily. He thinks he's got a way to make mutants that don't act on their own so he decides to kill all his previous experiments. Learning this, the young kids who are still alive, stage a revolt and escape.

Laura (Dafne Keen) is assisted by a nurse in the clinic and is in search of finding Logan because Laura has Logan's genetics and his wolverine superpower. The story is about how Logan helps Laura escape Pierce (Boyd Holbrook), Dr. Rice and a group of soldiers whose job is to kill all the remaining mutant children.

The effective parts of the story include strong acting by Jackman as a superhero whose both aging and slowly being poisoned by the adamantium (fictional metal alloy) that is imbedded in his body. The high-strung touchiness by which Logan and Caliban have towards each other while taking care of an ever-fragile Charles is indicative of their fading lives. The scenes are designed to breathe and nothing was rushed to show the strength of the mutant children, Laura, Charles, Logan, or Caliban. However, the ending fight was a little elongated and the men brought in to capture the mutants were too large an army to be believable.

From an acting point of view Jackman was perfect. It would be my guess that he’s probably glad to end his reign as Wolverine. He ends it with dignity which is a good thing because Marvel has let other characters in its stable get too far afield to enjoy or believe. Merchant was wonderful as Caliban with his ability to track and find. He made this role work. Stewart was wonderful and, like Jackman, is probably glad to have this role end because series like these can get too wildly convoluted. Grant was appropriately arrogant as Dr. Rice. Keen was mind-blowingly sublime. I loved her character and silence throughout the film until the end. She was totally believable. Holbrook as the soldier tasked with finding Laura was appropriately demonized. Scott Frank, James Mangold, and Michael Green wrote a very solid, strong and not overdone script. Characters could grow and develop which is rare in a superhero type film. Mangold did a wonderful job of directing this story and making it work.

Overall:  This was one of the best superhero mutant films on the books.