Tenet

Christopher Nolan is an ambitious filmmaker that with every movie he makes sets out to challenge himself, whether its an unconventional narrative with Memento (2000) or making a non-franchise movie like Inception (2010) at a time when studios rarely greenlight projects not already based on an established property. He is a rare Hollywood studio filmmaker capable of making original big-budgeted movies that make hundreds of millions of dollars. This has given him the clout to make his boldest movie yet – Tenet (2020), a sprawling spy thriller that explores the manipulation of time.

This movie is a testament to the kind of juice Nolan has within the industry. He is able to command a budget over $200 million starring John David Washington, whose casting as the movie’s lead must have raised eyebrows with studio executives as he has no experience with a project of this magnitude or the kind of drawing power of someone like Leonardo DiCaprio or Matthew McConnaughy – actors who helped sell Nolan’s previous ambitious fare. Even the casting of Robert Pattinson as Washington’s co-star was something of a risk as he is no longer the bankable Twilight heartthrob he once was having rejected Hollywood for the most part to appear in foreign and independent films.

Nolan is also employing a deliberately demanding narrative at a time when Hollywood wants to spoon-feed audiences that have been conditioned over decades to expect formulaic product. This may explain why his name factors so prominently in the movie’s marketing as with the absence of a big name movie star he has become the star. Is this something the ambitious filmmaker wanted all along – to be a distinctive brand name like George Lucas or Steven Spielberg? Or, has he bitten off more than he can chew and will Tenet finally end his streak of profitable popcorn movies with more on their minds than car chases and explosions?

The movie begins with an impressively orchestrated sting operation at the National Opera House in Kiev with an unnamed CIA operative known only as the Protagonist (Washington) liberating an exposed spy and obtaining a mysterious device. He’s caught and tortured by Russian agents but manages to take a cyanide pill before divulging any information and dies. Or does he? He wakes up in a hospital bed from a medically-induce coma. Officially declared dead, thus taking him off everyone’s radar, he’s given an assignment by his boss (Martin Donovan): prevent World War III from happening. This is tagged with a bit of advice: “All I have for you is a gesture with a combination with a word: tenet. Use it carefully. It’ll open the right doors but some of the wrong ones, too.” This last line is particularly relevant to understanding what happens later on in the movie.

With the help of a fellow operative named Neil (Pattinson), the Protagonist discovers that the man responsible for triggering World War III is a powerful Russian oligarch by the name of Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh). To get close to him, he befriends his unhappy wife (Elizabeth Debicki) by appealing to her interest in fine art. The rest of the movie plays out the Protagonist’s mission to get to Sator and discover how he’s going to bring about the end of the world and stop it from happening.

Some have complained that Tenet is too complicated and the plot too hard to follow. Is it maybe that we’ve had our senses dulled by an endless stream of mostly mindless big budget blockbusters that do little to challenge us? Nolan provides plenty of exposition rest stops along the way to explain what’s going on, such as the scientist (Clemence Poesy) the protagonist meets early on that gives us a taste of movie’s central conceit: a technology known as “inversion” that sees objects and people traveling backwards in time by reversing their entropy. Or, as she puts it at a gun range where the bullet travels back into the gun instead of hitting its target, “You’re not shooting the bullet, you’re catching it.” He gradually fleshes this concept out over the course of the movie until the last third where, admittedly, things do get a little tough to follow but not enough to ruin the enjoyment of the exciting climax.

Tenet features some of Nolan’s best choreographed action set pieces, from the opening sting in Kiev to the stealing and crashing of a jumbo jet liner into a building that is as impressive as anything in Inception. The opera house sting, in particular, is right out of the Michael Mann playbook in the way it is staged and the use of dense tech lingo as Nolan drops us right into the middle of the action with little to no explanation, reminiscent of the opening sequence in Miami Vice (2006).

John David Washington is excellent as the no-nonsense protagonist who tells someone early on, “I’m not the man they send into negotiate. Or the man they send in to make deals, but I am the man people talk to.” The actor deftly juggles action sequences with dialogue-heavy ones effortlessly. He plays a rather enigmatic fellow with little to no backstory thus forcing us to get know him through his actions in the movie.

He plays well off of Robert Pattinson’s quirky operative. It’s the juicier role and the actor has fun providing much-needed levity at just the right moments in this otherwise po-faced movie, much as Tom Hardy did in Inception. For example, when he and the Protagonist are talking about stealing and crashing a jumbo jet liner, the latter asks, “How big of a plane?” to which the former says sheepishly, “That part is a little dramatic.” The way Pattinson delivers this line is a wonderful bit of subtle comic timing.

Kenneth Branagh plays a vicious Russian billionaire with malevolent intensity. Nolan wisely prolongs his introduction for as long as he can so that the character’s reputation precedes him and our anticipation of his first appearance increases. Sator is a power hungry bully with a crucial edge – he communes with the future for a very specific reason that isn’t the usual mad man villain stuff we’ve come to expect from these kinds of movies.

Ludwig Göransson replaces Nolan’s long-time go-to composer Hans Zimmer and the movie is better for it. With a few exceptions, he eschews Zimmer’s sledgehammer orchestrations for pulsating electronics that provide the movie’s moody backbone and enhance Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography, which adopts a grounded, realistic look reminiscent of Inception.

It’s no secret that one of Nolan’s burning ambitions is to make a Bond movie. He doesn’t need to anymore. With Inception and now Tenet he’s made two spy movies jacked-up on science fiction steroids and done it his way with the kind of creative freedom the Bond producers would never allow. With this movie it feels like he has pushed the techno spy thriller as far as it can go by introducing grand science fiction concepts that turn the genre on its head.

What is Nolan’s ultimate end game? He has reached the point in his career where he has the creative freedom to control every aspect of his movies and so everything in it – the muffled dialogue, the overpowering music and sound effects – is intentional. Nolan wants to be regarded as a serious filmmaker such as Stanley Kubrick or Terrence Malick – two of his cinematic idols – are considered serious auteurs. He lacks that special something that those filmmakers have, transcending genre trappings to create films that are groundbreaking and unique in ways other than on a technical level.

Nolan is at his best when making cerebral spy thrillers like Inception or gritty comic book movies like The Dark Knight trilogy. He doesn’t do touchy-feely sentiment very well, which is why the emotions expressed in Interstellar (2014) felt forced. He’s not a warm filmmaker like Spielberg but more of a puppet-master like Kubrick. Nolan’s movies work best when he uses emotion like a garnish, sprinkling it sparsely over his story. Tenet is a strong, bold effort that invites repeated viewings, not to get past its aggressive sound mix, but to unravel the timelines of the three main characters who are complicated through the plot machinations of the movie.

Rollerball

“I thought that violence for the entertainment of the masses was an obscene idea. That’s what I saw coming and that’s why I made the film.” – Norman Jewison

For many years now, professional sports have been all about money. Superstar athletes earn huge salaries for their exploits while also enjoying lucrative endorsements. Meanwhile, wealthy businessmen and corporations make millions with ever-increasing ticket prices and merchandising. Hell, even the places where people gather to watch sporting events have become corporatized. Gone are the Maple Leaf Gardens and the Boston Garden, replaced or renamed Mattamy Athletic Centre at the Gardens and TD Garden respectively, which will last only as long as that corporate entity owns it to be renamed by the next corporate behemoth.

Director Norman Jewison’s Rollerball (1975) saw this coming. Set in the future, it features a world where the purity of a sport known as Rollerball (think roller derby meets hockey) is becoming increasingly tainted by the influence of corporations. He wisely starts things off by showing a match from beginning to end, which lets us see how it works – the rules and the dynamics of the game – and he thrusts us right in the middle of the mayhem, conveying the speed and brutality of the sport. Most importantly, it introduces us to the sport’s most popular player Jonathan E (James Caan), the captain of Houston’s team.

It’s a tough game with plenty of injuries. Much like with hockey, Houston has an enforcer named Moonpie (John Beck) whose job it is to protect top scorer Jonathan and provide the occasional cheap shot on an opposing player. Jewison sprinkles several little touches here and there that establishes the atmosphere, like how the corporate anthem is played before the game starts instead of a national anthem. There are no nations any more. There are no more wars. Corporations run everything.

The game plays on while the corporate overlords, as represented by Mr. Bartholomew (John Houseman), observe from on high and afterwards visits the team in the locker room, applauding them for the victory in his own benign yet smug way of a man that knows how much power he wields. Jonathan is a highly decorated player and as Bartholomew points they’ve run out of accolades to give him. As the team leaves the stadium we see how popular Jonathan is as a large group of fans chant his name, clamoring for his autograph.

The next day, he meets with Bartholomew who wants him to announce his retirement on a television special dedicated to his long and illustrious career. The executive offers him a cushy life with all kinds of perks but the athlete is still bitter over the past. An executive took his wife Ella (Maud Adams) away from him. Bartholomew doesn’t understand Jonathan’s reluctance to retire as he doesn’t know what it’s like to be on a team that has its own unique dynamic and way of playing. Everybody depends on each other and Jonathan doesn’t want to give that up. He has everything he could want but when the powers that be want to take that away from him he decides to push back. The rest of Rollerball plays out with his quest to find out why they want him to quit.

Jewison portrays corporate executives as pretty, shallow people that attend lavish parties and take high-end drugs. At one such gathering they take their escapades to the next level, mindlessly shooting and blowing up trees for fun. The idle rich are horribly drunk on destructive power. The image of a row of trees burning on a hill is a powerful one and makes us want to see Jonathan succeed even more.

The film also shows how the corporate machine tries to crush any kind of resistance to their edicts by changing the rules of the sport for the last two games to make it more dangerous. If Jonathan doesn’t quit, he’ll either die playing the game or his teammates will. The semi-final against Tokyo ups the stakes in violence not only among the athletes but in the stands as fans become increasingly hostile to the point where when their team loses they turn into an angry mob. Their rage spills out onto the track as they mix it up with the players. The game has gotten out of control with very few rules. The final championship game features no rules in a final desperate attempt to eliminate Jonathan.

Rollerball was part of a fantastic run of films for James Caan in the 1970s. Starting with The Godfather in 1972, he delivered strong performances in Cinderella Liberty (1973), The Gambler (1974) and Freebie and the Bean (1974). He does an excellent job conveying Jonathan’s gradual self-awareness that starts simply: why is he being forced out of the game he loves? In a world where no one is supposed to ask questions, this makes him a dangerous person. He is no longer following the corporate script.

Caan’s on-screen presence demonstrates why Jonathan is such a charismatic player. He is loyal to his teammates and is a dynamic athlete that can make those clutch plays that win games. He is not particularly intelligent but is self-aware of this fact and has an innate instinct for what’s wrong and goes with his gut as he begins to question things. The actor also shows Jonathan’s vulnerable side in a scene where he gives a heartfelt speech to comatose teammate Moonpie on the eve of what might be his final game. Up until now he’s always been there to watch his back and for the first time Jonathan is going to have to go it alone.

John Houseman is excellent as the benevolent executive that speaks in a wonderfully condescending, cultured voice while also capable of stern, icy glares directed at the increasingly disobedient Jonathan. At one point, he finally lays it out for the star athlete: “No player is greater than the game itself…It’s not a game a man is supposed to grow strong in, Jonathan…You can be made to quit. You can be forced.” Of course, this makes Jonathan even more determined and defiant.

John Beck plays Moonpie as a racist good ol’ boy with little self-awareness. He understands his role on the team – to protect Jonathan and mess up players on the other team – but little else. He’s the kind of player that exists in all kinds of professional sports and the actor nails stereotypical enforcer, especially in the scene where he gives his teammates a rousing pep talk while a strategy coach (Robert Ito) tries to prepare them for the upcoming game with Tokyo.

The final match doesn’t feature a traditional pre-game pep talk as we’ve seen before – just grim determination as Jonathan goes out first while the crowds chant his name. Not surprisingly, this is the most intense and violent one yet as he survives, scoring the only goal in defiance to the corporation. Battered but not beaten he has become what they feared – bigger than the game and bigger than the corporation.

William Harrison was a professor of creative writing at the University of Arkansas and found himself obsessed with what he felt was the unsettling social and economic changes occurring in the world. He also witnessed a violent fight at a university basketball game. These things inspired him to write a short story called, “Roller Ball Murder,” which was published in the September 1973 issue of Esquire magazine.

Around the same time, filmmaker Norman Jewison had gone to a hockey game between the Boston Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers, which turned into an ugly mess: “There was blood on the ice and 16,000 people were standing up and screaming.” This led to him contacting Harrison. Both men were living in London at the time and the writer’s agent told him that Jewison was going to offer him $50,000 for the short story. He decided to ask for more money and an opportunity to write the screenplay. Six weeks went by and Harrison assumed that he had blown the deal but received a call from Jewison’s assistant who told him that all his demands had been met and they were in pre-production. When the two men finally met at Pinewood Studios they immediately bonded and spent all summer in London working on the script together.

When it came to designing the track for rollerball, Jewison and his crew decided that it had to be circular because of the roller-skaters and the motorcycles. British production designer John Box built a scale model of the track. Working with the art director and the track architect, they took a little ball, put a spring behind it and shot it around the track so that they could figure out the moment of gravity pull. The next step was to find a place to recreate the model. They found the Olympic basketball stadium in Munich. The production spent a large amount of the film’s budget building the track, complete with a banked surface of 40 feet and a total circumference of 190 feet.

When it came to casting for the pivotal role of Jonathan E, Jewison knew of James Caan’s love of “physical confrontation” and offered him the role. The actor liked the script but “I was really persuaded to get involved by the jock in me.” For team extras, Jewison recruited California roller derby athletes, English roller hockey players, and, of course, stuntmen. Caan and his teammates were sent to a California arena for four months before shooting to learn how to play the game. He said they skated seven times a week until they were good enough.

The actors thought they were ready to go until they arrived in Munich and saw the banked track they would be filming on. They had practiced on a flat track in California and had to learn how to skate on this new one. They quickly adapted and Jewison let them play for real, soon regretting it when a stuntman got injured and ended up in the hospital. Once they put on their uniforms, something changed as one extra on the Tokyo team said, “We want to skate the game. When we start up, everybody forgets the filming and we’re competing for the ball.” The director was concerned for the players’ safety: “There is a gladiatorial aspect to rollerball that frightens me. I keep cautioning the boys about it. They are all athletes…and they love body contact, they love playing with the ball, they love the speed and agility, and there is an enormous amount of skill involved.” Caan insisted on doing his own stunts and separated a shoulder and damaged a rib. He was less enthused about the non-rollerball scenes or, as he called them, “all the walking and talking shit,” because he had to play “a guy whose emotions had basically been taken away from him.”

The extras got so into the game that on the final week of shooting they put on a game for the public. Even though the stadium only held approximately 5,000 people, 8,500 turned up and the police had to be called in to turn away those that couldn’t be let in. According to Caan, gameplay never lasted for more than 25 or 30 seconds: “It was just one fight after another.”

The irony of Bartholomew’s reasoning – that no one player is bigger than the game – is exactly what happened. Jonathan is an icon thanks to corporate machinations and his own natural talent. Most sports are designed to be all about teamwork. It is all the things outside of the game – the merchandising, pundits, corporate puff pieces, and so on that puts an emphasis on the individual player, elevating them to heroes in the eyes of their fans.

Rollerball is a classic man against the system film. It features a man who has it all but when he refuses to do what he’s told, is pressured in all kinds of ways, from changing the rules so that he’ll either quit or be killed, to reuniting him with Ella – a bittersweet experience as she admits to being told to try and convince him to quit. These tactics only strengthen his resolve, making him even more dangerous because all that ever mattered to him was the game. At the end of the film he transcends it to become something else.

SOURCES

Delaney, Sam. “When It Comes to the Crunch.” The Guardian. April 20, 1999.

Gammon, Clive. “Rollerball.” Sports Illustrated. April 21, 1975.

George Lucas vs. Star Wars

Now that I've had some time to reflect on Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) and the entire Disney trilogy, it has me thinking about Star Wars without George Lucas. The spark of inspiration came from this 2012 interview on StarWars.com with head of Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy and Lucas, which is very interesting, especially in regards to the following quotes:

At one point, Kennedy says, "The main thing is protecting these characters." Really? Then how does she explain killing them off over the course of the new movies? For me, I think that is the hardest thing to accept - characters that I love and cherish from the Original Trilogy being killed off and in ways that feel cheap. For example, I don’t mind the idea of killing off Han Solo (Harrison Ford) in Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), but it is the way in which it was done that rankles me. It rang false and I expected a very heroic end for a character that deserved a proper demise. I was also fine with Luke Skywalker’s (Mark Hamill) death in Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2016), which was pretty badass but why did the filmmakers feel the need to kill him off? I’ve always felt that in the Lucas-controlled Star Wars movies, when a major character was killed off it meant something, it was significant – the notable exception being Boba Fett, which was silly and did a great disservice to such a cool character.

In the 2012 interview, Lucas sums up his vision of Star Wars brilliantly:

"There are people out there who don't play by the rules and if you're not careful you're going to lose all your freedoms. At the same time, those people that don't play by the rules because they are selfish and greedy, and turn themselves into evil people who don't care about other people."

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but I don't think he's talking about Star Wars. He's talking about Hollywood and the studios. He's always been wary and suspicious of them going back to THX 1138 (1971) when the studio cut out five minutes of the film against his wishes. Perhaps that's why he sold off Lucasfilm. He was tired of all the bullshit and baggage that comes with dealing with them.

Check out the body language between Kennedy and Lucas in the 2012 interview and it is very telling indeed. One person can clearly state his vision for his cinematic world. The other basically parrots what has been said and some of what she says feels like lip service. Now, before you say it, I don't bear Kennedy any ill will and I don't buy into any of the conspiracy theories in regards to why Lucas sold off his company, but the more I think about Star Wars since he sold it off the more I find it less and less like what he originally envisioned it to be. Say what you will about the Prequel trilogy but at least it was the vision of one person as opposed to the Disney trilogy, which, at times, lacks focus – due in large part to the switch of directors on The Last Jedi and then back again on The Rise of Skywalker.

In some respects, I feel sorry for Lucas, especially in light of the excerpts from Robert Iger's book where he writes about how Kennedy, director J.J. Abrams, et al ignored Lucas' ideas for the new movies and went in a different direction. I understand the notion of striking out in a new direction but they didn't really do that did they? The Force Awakens is basically a rehash of Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) and Lucas wasn’t happy about that as Iger’s book states:

"Things didn't improve when Lucas saw the finished movie. Following a private screening, Iger recalls, Lucas "didn't hide his disappointment. 'There's nothing new,' he said. In each of the films in the original trilogy, it was important to him to present new worlds, new stories, new characters, and new technologies. In this one, he said, 'There weren't enough visual or technical leaps forward.' He wasn't wrong, but he also wasn't appreciating the pressure we were under to give ardent fans a film that felt quintessentially Star Wars.""

There it is in a nutshell the biggest problem with The Force Awakens and The Rise of Skywalker: the filmmakers were more concerned with giving fans what they wanted instead of staying true to Lucas’ artistic vision. I’m willing to give the former a pass as it managed to renew my love for Star Wars, getting rid of the bad taste left by the Prequels, and introducing us to some wonderful new characters. It doesn’t hold up as well to repeated viewings now that the initial glow has faded. Lucas has made it clear that he was never concerned with what the fans wanted. He had a definite story he wanted to tell and knew how he wanted to tell it whether the fans liked it or not. This may explain why Rian Johnson’s installment – The Last Jedi – is so reviled in some corners of Star Wars fandom as he adhered to Lucas’ notion of remaining true to your own artistic vision. He said in an interview:

“I think approaching any creative process with [the purpose of making fandoms happy] would be a mistake that would lead to probably the exact opposite result. Even my experience as a fan, you know, if I’m coming into something, even if it’s something that I think I want, if I see exactly what I think I want on the screen, it’s like, ‘Oh, okay.’ It might make me smile and make me feel neutral about the thing and I won’t really think about it afterwards, but that’s not really going to satisfy me.”

The Abrams-directed movies are attempting to give the fans what they want instead of staying true to an artistic vision, while Johnson's movie refused to pander to the fans and they crucified him for it. Interestingly, it is the only one of the new movies that Lucas has publicly said he liked. As a result, we get Abrams returning to the fold to "right the ship" as it were with The Rise of Skywalker. The more I think about them, the more I find that they are lacking. I love the new characters but was disappointed at how the Original Trilogy characters were treated. I don't mind killing off characters but have it mean something, which I felt wasn’t the case in some respects. Again, why do they need to be killed off in the first place? It can be a cheap, narrative ploy. Why couldn't some of them just ride off into the sunset? Admittedly, these sentiments come from having grown up with these characters and having genuine affection for them. I feel protective of them.

Love or hate the Prequels at least they did tread new ground in terms of technology and refused rehash what came before in terms of plot and story. Lucas took us to new worlds and introduced us to all sorts of new characters. The problems with these movies is that Lucas surrounded himself with Yes-men whereas on A New Hope and Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back (1980) he had people, like his wife Marcia and producer Gary Kurtz, keeping him in check, curbing his worst tendencies. It really started with Episode VI: Return of the Jedi (1983) where Lucas freed himself of anybody who would say a critical word, allowing him to indulge himself. It would only get worse on the Prequel trilogy with the awkward racist stereotypes, ruining the mystique of The Force, and the clumsy direction of young, inexperienced actors.

This is why I find myself enjoying and revisiting the non-Disney trilogy movies/shows, like Rogue One (2016), Solo (2018) and The Mandalorian (2019), more as they are in keeping with the same spirit and tone as Lucas' original vision. Maybe, just maybe, I judged the Prequel movies a little too harshly (well, Episode I: The Phantom Menace is still horrible) and I feel like I need to revisit them in light of now finally seeing the last installment in the Disney trilogy. Maybe my opinion of them will change.

SOURCES

Parker, Ryan. “George Lucas Thinks The Last Jedi Was ‘Beautifully Made’.” The Hollywood Reporter. December 12, 2017.

Parker, Ryan. “Rian Johnson Calls Pandering to Star Wars Fans a ‘Mistake’.” The Hollywood Reporter. December 18, 2019.

Super 8

J.J. Abrams picked the wrong time to be a filmmaker. With his love of genres like horror and science fiction, he would’ve thrived in the 1980s alongside the likes of Joe Dante, John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, and Steven Spielberg. Instead, he emerged at a time when Hollywood is only interested in remakes, reboots, sequels, and building up existing franchises. As a result, his directorial debut was a sequel (Mission: Impossible III) and then he went on to reboot two existing franchises – Star Trek and Star Wars with massive commercial success. He did manage, however, to make an original film amidst all of this franchise work.

Super 8 (2011) saw Abrams team up with one of his cinematic heroes and mentor, Spielberg. His presence, along with the film’s story about a group of kids getting involved with an extra-terrestrial, led many to claim that the former was merely paying homage to the latter. While this is true to a certain degree, it is only a superficial reading of the film as Abrams draws on other cinematic influences while also incorporating his own sensibilities to make a film that is his personal and best one to date.

Set in an American steel town called Lillian in 1979, we meet Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney), a young boy that has just lost his mother in an accident at the plant, leaving him alone with his father Jackson (Kyle Chandler), a police deputy who has no idea how to raise his son. Cut to a few months later and school is out, which gives Joe plenty of time to hang out with his friends, Charles (Riley Griffiths), Cary (Ryan Lee), Preston (Zach Mills), and Martin (Gabriel Basso), as they work on a zombie movie. Charles is their enthusiastic director that needs a female lead and asks Alice (Elle Fanning), one of their classmates, and she agrees much to Joe’s delight as he crushes on her from afar.

One night, they all sneak out to shoot a scene at the local train station and, as luck would have it, a train goes by while they’re filming. Charles decides to incorporate it into the scene (“Production values!”), however, Joe notices a truck driving onto the tracks and it crashes head on with the train, derailing it in an impressively orchestrated scene that our heroes narrowly survive. Something emerges from the wreckage, something not of this world, that goes on to terrorize the town, crossing paths with Joe and his friends.

One of the most striking things about Super 8 is Abrams’ deft touch with the young actors in the cast. They have to carry most of the film as they are in almost every scene and so casting is crucial. This is where the film excels as evident early on when Joe applies makeup on Alice before she films a scene for Charles’ movie at the train station. It is a marvel of understated acting from these two young people. It isn’t what’s said during this moment but what isn’t as they exchange looks – too shy to say what they’re really thinking. Instead, Abrams has them convey it through the looks they exchange.

After Alice mentions that her dad (Ron Eldard) works at the mill, this triggers painful memories for Joe. He wants to say something but it is still too painful and the look she gives him suggests that she understands. Then, when Alice rehearses a scene with her co-star Martin she delivers an emotional monologue, her expressive eyes on the verge of tears. Alice captivates not just us but the other characters as well. It is an incredible bit of acting from Elle Fanning and it announced her as a young actress to watch. She has an enchanting screen presence and a knack for a light touch as evident in the scene where Joe teaches her how to act like a zombie. He’s clearly smitten with her and we are too.

Joel Courtney plays Joe as a sensitive boy coping with the death of his mother whom he was very close to and fills that void by hanging out with his friends and making a movie. Like Fanning, Courtney has very expressive eyes and uses them effectively to convey his character’s feelings. They also share the film’s strongest scenes together, giving Super 8 its heart. Both deliver emotional, heartfelt performances, playing damaged characters as a result of absent mothers. Hers left an abusive situation, his died in an accident that shouldn’t have happened. They elevate the film above its genre trappings, giving us something to care about as we become invested in their lives.

The always reliable Kyle Chandler is well-cast as the savvy deputy that quickly figures out there’s more to the train wreck than meets the eye and doesn’t buy the military’s official stance. He’s also believable as a man too busy being a cop to be a proper father until forced to when his wife dies. There is a Gary Cooper-esque quality to the actor, playing a stand-up guy that gets tired of the military lying to him and decides to do something about it. Chandler does an excellent job conveying his character’s dilemma: he has the whole town looking to him to keep them safe while also trying to be a good father to Joe. There’s a scene halfway through the film where Jack forbids Joe to see Alice and the latter finally confronts the former about how little he knows about him. Courtney is so good in this scene as Joe’s hurt feelings come to the surface.

While Joe and his friends live in Spielbergian suburbia complete with dysfunctional families and kids that dream of becoming filmmakers, Alice lives on the wrong side of the tracks with a screw-up for a father, which echoes the character of Darren in Joe Dante’s Explorers (1985), who also lives in the poor side of town with terrible parents. Abrams, however, has different cultural touchstones than Spielberg as evident with a soundtrack that features the likes of The Knack’s “My Sharona” and ELO’s “Don’t Bring Me Down.” The kids are making a zombie movie, which is an obvious reference to George Romero and Charles even has a poster of Dawn of the Dead (1979) hanging up in his room as well as John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978).

The original idea for Super 8 was, according to Abrams, to make a film about “that time in my life and my friends’ lives making these Super 8 films.” To that end, he incorporated aspects of himself in the kids. He made moves like Charles, but “felt like I experienced the world through the eyes of Joe,” while he also took apart firecrackers and blew up models like Cary. Over time, Abrams incorporated the monster movie genre into the film. Growing up, he had friends whose parents were getting divorced and was afraid that could happen to him. While working on Super 8 he came up with the idea of what if “the mother is suddenly gone and this boy didn’t have the greatest relationship with his dad, what is that relationship once she’s gone?”

While Abrams was clearly inspired by Spielberg and his early Amblin films, he didn’t want to have any overt references to his films even though posters for them would most definitely be hanging on the kids’ walls. Instead, he made Charles a Carpenter and Romero fan. The Carpenter influence extended to the structure of Super 8 itself as Abrams wanted to combine “the sweetness of the autobiographical stuff with the horror of the John Carpenter-type of conditional terror, the premise of something monstrous out there.”

Super 8 is a coming-of-age story as the lives of Joe and his friends are changed forever. They see not just their town, but the world in a different light as their lives are put in real danger and are forced to grow up. A father and son relationship lies at the heart of the film, surrounded by genre trappings. Much like he did with Cloverfield (2008), Abrams wisely waits as long as he can to reveal the alien, building suspense by expertly staging a few attacks on random people by an unseen force. The last third of the film delivers the kind of expectations that are intrinsic with this kind of big budget genre film as the alien presence becomes more overt.

Where Super 8 falls apart somewhat is the last third as Abrams relies on the traditional tropes of the blockbuster action movie as Joe and his friends engage the alien. It is here where Abrams tries to fuse Cloverfield with Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and stumbles. For most of the film we are meant to fear the alien as its motives are unclear. By the end of the film it is revealed that the alien had been captured by the United States government and tortured for years, which certainly justifies the swath of destruction it leaves in its wake.

The moment, however, where Joe gives up his mother’s pendant so that the alien can complete its spacecraft and go home rings false. Through the whole film Abrams makes a point of showing how important this object is to Joe. It is the last, significant tangible link to his mother. Why he would give that up doesn’t make sense. Is Abrams trying to tell us that symbolically it means that Joe is finally letting go of the hurt and pain he feels for the loss of his mother? It hasn’t been that long and why does the alien need that particular piece of metal? There is plenty around for it to use. Abrams should have removed that bit and instead played up the fact that Joe and Alice finally connect with their respective fathers who, in turn, have settled their differences between each other. Instead, we have a decidedly bittersweet ending, which is more Abrams than Spielberg.

The commercial and critical success of Super 8 should have paved the way for more original films from Abrams but instead he went back to Star Trek and has directed two Star Wars movies, which should give him the kind of creative control that Christopher Nolan enjoys. Perhaps Abrams simply hasn’t found something personal enough to motivate him into making another original film, or perhaps the flaws in Super 8 demonstrated that he was still learning, trying to figure things out and going back to franchise movie work allowed him to not only increase his industry clout but also gave him a chance to practice with the big toys and budgets that studios provide while working out things for when he decides to do something original.

SOURCES

Billington, Alex. “Interview: Bad Robot’s J.J. Abrams – Writer and Director of Super 8.” Firstshowing.net. June 10, 2011.

Knolle, Sharon “J.J. Abrams on Why Super 8 Is His Most Personal Project Yet.” Moviefone. June 9, 2011.

Ordana, Michael. “J.J. Abrams Combines Childhood’s Wonders, Horrors.” San Francisco Chronicle. June 3, 2011.

Sciretta, Peter. “JJ Abrams Talks Super 8, Bad Robot, Lens Flares, LOST, Spielberg and the Mystery Box.” /Film. June 10, 2011.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

When it was announced that a movie featuring a young Han Solo was in the works, the Star Wars fanbase took to the Internet to complain, their collective outrage came on two fronts: the casting to Alden Ehrenreich as Han, the role originated and made iconic by Harrison Ford, and the very existence of this movie would ruin the mystique of the character. Much like the other non-saga Star Wars movie, Rogue One (2016), Solo (2018) had a well-documented troubled production with the original directors replaced midway through principal photography by Ron Howard.

While the movie garnered strong reviews, it underperformed at the box office – the lowest of any of the Star Wars movies, which led pundits to speculate that its poor performance was due to it being released too close to Star Wars: The Last Jedi (2017) and people were sick of Star Wars movies (and yet Marvel doesn’t seem to have this problem). Was it merely a matter of timing, its thunder stolen by superhero movie juggernauts Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Deadpool 2 (2018) or were audiences simply not interested in a Han Solo movie that didn’t have Ford reprising the role? Ultimately, all of this is meaningless in the face of a much bigger question: is Solo any good?

We meet a young Han (Ehrenreich) struggling to survive on the dangerous streets of Corellia with his girlfriend Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke). They live by their wits, scamming and scheming a way off this dead-end planet. All Han dreams about is being the best pilot in the galaxy but he has very few options except for the Empire. He enlists in the Imperial Navy and finds that he doesn’t take orders too well and this lands him trouble. It also puts him in contact with two people who will be the important figures in his development as an outlaw – Chewbacca the Wookie (Joonas Suotamo), a prisoner of the Empire, and Tobias Beckett (Woody Harrelson), a veteran criminal who becomes a mentor to Han, schooling him on how to be an outlaw. They introduce the young man to an exciting and dangerous world populated by colorful characters, none of whom he can trust.

Director Ron Howard wastes no time jumping right into it as Han and Qi’ra try to escape local gangsters via an exciting hover vehicle chase that shows off not just his piloting skills but also his willingness to take chances and press his luck. That being said, Solo starts off a little awkwardly with Han and Qi’ra’s downtrodden street urchin beginnings coming off as Charles Dickens by way of Blade Runner (1982). It isn’t all that interesting but from a story point-of-view I understand its purpose. It establishes the unbreakable bond between them. They grew up on the streets together and learned how to survive by sheer cunning and wits. It also establishes Han’s legendary lousy negotiating skills. Perhaps the movie should’ve started in medias res with Han and Qi’ra on the run from Lady Proxima’s goons. It would’ve been a bolder move to just drop us right in it and establish Han’s formidable piloting skills. In addition, getting separated at the Imperial checkpoints is an excellent way of showing how close they are and how painful it is for them to be torn apart (Han giving Qi’ra his lucky dice is a nice touch) by the Empire. Although, the moment where we learn how Han got his surname is clumsy and unnecessary as it awkwardly references The Godfather Part II (1974). I do like how this scene ends – with Han alone and afraid, which is a scenario we rarely see him in.

Solo really gets going when we catch up with Han three years later fighting for the Empire and meets Chewie and Beckett. It is also a brief albeit fascinating look at the Empire from the P.O.V. of the foot soldier: they are cannon fodder in a dirty chaotic battlefield that Han is lucky to survive. As bonus to film buffs, there’s even a nice visual nod to Stanley Kubrick’s World War I film Paths of Glory (1957). Once free of the Empire and in the employ of Beckett, Han enters a bigger world and the movie opens up as well.

It doesn’t take long for Ehrenreich to slip effortlessly into the role and make it his own. He doesn’t really look like Ford and doesn’t try to imitate the actor either, but instead adopts a few choice mannerisms of the character. He captures Han’s swagger and smartass disregard for authority brilliantly and in a way that shows the beginnings of the man we see in Star Wars: A New Hope (1977). In Solo, Han still trusts people and has a sense of wonder, which Ehrenreich conveys quite well when he witnesses his first jump to hyperspace aboard the Millennium Falcon as he finally realizes his dream to see the galaxy. The actor is playing Han at an age that we never saw Ford play the character. It isn’t like Ehrenreich is replacing Ford but instead playing Han at a young age much like River Phoenix played a young Indiana Jones in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).

When Han, Chewie and Beckett arrive on infamous crime boss Dryden Vos’ (Paul Bettany) “yacht,” Ehrenreich does some of his best work with low-key comedy as Han tries to follow Beckett’s advice only to quickly abandon it. He’s told to keep his eyes down and not look at anyone. For a few seconds he does and the actor’s slightly embarrassed look is amusing. This quickly gives way to a romantic vibe when he’s reunited with Qi’ra and Ehrenreich does an excellent job of showing the rush of emotions that play over Han’s face. This entire sequence shows Han clearly out of his depth and trying to convey a confident front. The humor comes from the brief moments where we get glimpses of cracks in this façade.

Han even comes up with an unconventional solution to the coaxium they need to get for Dryden or risk facing his wrath. The young man is bullshitting his way through the plan as fast as he can. Fortunately, Beckett and Qi’ra catch on the help flesh it out. The best moment comes when Han proposes that he’ll fly the coaxium to a refinery before it destabilizes: “We’ve already got the pilot.” Ehrenreich points to himself and flashes Han’s trademark cocky smirk. This is the moment that Han starts to become the character we all know and love. The rest of the movie sees the actor build the character of Han bit by bit, like when he first boards the Falcon and begins to adopt Han’s trademark stance, even the way Ford would lean against a doorway. These are little gestures but they all go towards building the character up.

Another inspired bit of casting is Donald Glover as Lando Calrissian, a smooth operator that knows how to invent his own luck, especially when it comes to games of chance. We meet him plying his trade: fleecing people of their money in a card game known as Sabacc. Glover exudes a cool sense of style and a confidence that is fun to watch, as is the amusing interplay with Han, most notably when they verbally spar while playing cards. Here are two arrogant smugglers facing off against each other for increasingly higher stakes. Glover is funny as Lando treats Han with whimsical condescension, much to Han’s chagrin, but his cockiness is put in check when Beckett steps in to negotiate his percentage of the take from an upcoming score.

Lawrence and Jonathan Kasdan’s screenplay invokes A New Hope and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) by paying homage to its roots – the old serials from a bygone era. Solo is structured as a series of cliffhangers as our heroes go from one sticky situation to another. The elder Kasdan slips right back into Han and Lando’s familiar cadences with ease, crafting a space western complete with chases, shoot-outs and showdowns.

The script also includes several character building moments between action sequences, like when Han and Chewie tell Beckett and his crew what they are going to do with their share from the loot in an upcoming score. It gives us insight into what motivates them. They’re not just mercenaries like Beckett and his crew. Han and Chewie have personal goals – the former wants to buy his own ship and go back for Qi’ra while the latter wants to free his people that have been enslaved by the Empire.

This is not to say that Solo doesn’t have its action-packed set pieces. The movie’s centerpiece is a thrilling train heist as Han, Chewie, Beckett and his crew attempt to steal a shipment of coaxium, a valuable commodity, from the Empire while also trying to fend off a gang of pirates led by the mysterious Enfys Nest (Erin Kellyman). There are plenty of tense moments as our heroes have to deal with multiple opponents whilst atop a very volatile and valuable shipment. This is the first time Han plays a pivotal role in something and he almost succeeds. He’s faced with a dilemma that forces him to take a risk or play it safe and he opts for the latter. It is an important lesson and from that point on he fully commits to being a risk-taking smuggler like Beckett who tells him, “You’re in this life for good.”

“You want to know how I’ve survived as long as I have? I trust no one. Assume every one will betray you and you will never be disappointed,” says Beckett to Han halfway through Solo. The young man replies, “Sounds like a lonely way to live.” The veteran outlaw simply tells him, “It’s the only way.” This exchange lays the down the foundation for the Han we first meet in A New Hope – a cynical smuggler that is out for only one person – himself. There’s an argument to be made that this movie is completely unnecessary and demystifies the iconic character. I understand this sentiment as I was initially resistant to this movie and the whole idea of it. Solo only sheds some light on the character of Han. There is still plenty of mystery to the character, like how does he go from this movie to what we see in A New Hope? What exactly went down between him and Jabba? Did he ever cross paths with Qi’ra again? What is Lando’s backstory? Or Chewie’s? We are only given small pieces of their story. There are so many adventures he and Chewie had between this movie and A New Hope that leaves plenty of gaps for us to use or imagination, especially since the disappointing box office results all but assures there won’t be a sequel anytime soon. Solo creates such a rich, textured world and introduces so many fascinating character that there are even more questions left unanswered about Han and his future.

I find myself enjoying these anthology movies more than the actual chapter movies. It might be that Rogue One and Solo don’t have to be too slavish to the style, tone and structure of the saga movies and this gives them the freedom to be their own thing. They also both explore the nooks and crannies of the Star Wars universe, showing us worlds we’ve never seen before and introducing us to all kinds of new characters we’ve never met. I have fond memories of reading the trilogy of Han Solo Adventures novels that came out in the late 1970s and they made me daydream about all kinds of adventures that Han and Chewie had pre-A New Hope. It was great to finally see a movie that realized those dreams and brought them so vividly to life.