I'll Be Watching You

 EAGLE EYE (2008)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

"Eagle Eye" is basically Shia LaBeouf running down one busy street after another with an intelligent woman in tow. They run, they hide, they drive, they run again and hide. All this time a female computer-generated voice is calling Shia's cell phone repeatedly, telling him where to go and where to be. If he doesn't answer his phone, the voice sends messages through visual bulletin boards or on highway signs, etc. "RUN" or "GO TO GATE 17" - you know, basic commands from the old days of BASIC computer language. 

How is this happening? The computer voice yields from a new surveillance system straight from the Pentagon that has gone haywire. How haywire? It not only deposits money in Shia's bank account to the tune of 750,000 dollars, in addition to sending him tons of guns and bombs in his apartment which he never gets to use, it also wants to assassinate top officials in the government starting with The President of the U.S. Now if this computer has such top-notch surveillance across all 50 states and can even kill someone by somehow cutting live power lines (!) then why does it need Shia or a poor, single mother (Michelle Monaghan) at all when it can accomplish its own dastardly methods?

This supercomputer is known as ARIIA and it is the most evil computer since HAL 9000 yet not the most challenging - how exactly did this evil technology suddenly became automated is not clear. While watching the movie's hyperkinetic Hitchcockian turns courtesy of director D.J. Caruso (who helmed the underwhelming "Disturbia," a knock-off of "Rear Window"), "Eagle Eye" is run-of-the-mill running and jumping and copious car-crashes that are at best generic with not enough of a visual eye. Headache-inducing with whirlwind use of hand-held camera moves and Michael Bay millisecond cuts, "Eagle Eye" is never believable and feels like a more high-tech version of "Enemy of the State" though any stimulating questions about government surveillance are zapped by the movie's falsely urgent explosive action scenes. You might get exhausted by the end but you'll come up empty.

Joyless Tolkien mixed with Star Wars clone

WILLOW (1988)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

Sword-and-sorcery swashbuckling, epic battles on horses with spears thrown, giant castles too high to scale, revolting witches, beautiful princesses, chivalrous heroes, boar-like creatures - geez, what's not to like? "Willow" has an assembly line of all the expected tropes of such fanciful tales of yore yet there is no real sense of fun or magic. Sure, a few thrills but nothing you haven't seen done before and better. It's "Princess Bride" mixed with some "Star Wars" and that is no surprise the latter comparison, considering "Willow" is a story conceived by George Lucas.

Warwick Davis is Willow, a little person in a village full of them. His prospects are not high but he is married and, one day, finds a baby on a raft floating on the water. The villagers and some Merlin-like wizard (Billy Barty), whose tricks are not always up to snuff, decide that Willow along with another villager should take the baby back to the Kingdom of Daikini after being attacked by those aforementioned man-eating boars! Now mind you, they should be aware that Daikini is where the baby came from in the first place, and there is a cruel Queen Bavmorda (Jean Marsh) who kills mothers that send their babies out of the kingdom! Didn't anybody from this village read the Daikini Gazette? 

Along the perilous journey, Willow (who can assume wizard-like powers summoned with a stick) meets a Big Person named Madmartigan (Val Kilmer), a Han Solo-like warrior, who can be clumsy and has a sense of humor (he wears a full female costume after being caught committing adultery). Along the way we also meet a couple of Lilliputian-like people who even tie up our heroes (Gulliver's Travels, anyone?) They are known as Brownies! And you Star Wars fans went psychotically nuts when Lucas went into his midichlorians phase in "Phantom Menace"?

As you can tell, I came in late to this mediocre cinematic 1988 offering clearly pilfering from the J.R.R. Tolkien bible. There is plenty of clanging sword action, an extended battle climax with one character wearing a Skeletor-like mask and a few chase scenes that do work, but the joy is not quite there. Kilmer and Warwick Davis are up to the task and they give animated performances but the movie directed by Ron Howard never quite takes a real flight of imagination. Aside from a fire-breathing two-headed dragon, nothing in "Willow" will surprise or delight you with sights and sounds you haven't seen or heard before.   

Man Version of Events

 PRISONER'S DAUGHTER (2022)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

If it wasn't for the magnetic, ironclad presence of Brian Cox, it might be easy to turn away from this oft-told story of a rough prisoner with a horrible, criminal past who is returning home to rekindle what he lost. Yet Cox is not the only one on board; there is also Kate Beckinsale in an almost unrecognizable turn as this prisoner's troubled daughter and Christopher Convery as her intelligent, bullied son that gives this movie a higher pedigree and a few rich layers in its characterizations.

Cox is Max, a cancer-stricken prisoner who is being let out of jail to stay with his daughter since he only has a few months to live. Beckinsale is Maxine, who begrudgingly lets her dad stay with her and her smart-alecky son prone to epileptic seizures, Ezra (Christopher Convery). Naturally, this will not be a smooth transition and Max and Maxine's troubled history involving Maxine's drug-addled, suicidal, long gone mother is brimming to the surface. Max has an ankle monitor so he can't venture far from his home, and Maxine wants her son to believe he is his "uncle and not blood related." Ezra catches on fast that his uncle is his grandfather. Meanwhile, Maxine has her own problems including trouble holding down a job and dealing with Ezra's drug-addicted drummer of a dad. Ezra is being bullied at school yet it takes Max to teach his grandson how to fight back, thanks to Max's past days as an amateur boxer.

"Prisoner's Daughter" is nothing new and will not score points on originality (though I was shocked by the brutal ending) but I don't go to see movies like this for original plots. The purpose of "Prisoner's Daughter," keenly observed by director Catherine Hardwicke ("Thirteen"), is to illustrate a complicated, unsentimentally portrayed family dynamic and that is where the movie really sings. Brian Cox is absolutely credible as a prisoner with a hinted barbaric past and a desperate need to belong to a family again despite being out of the picture for 12 years. Kate Beckinsale proves what an astute actress she is, displaying calm and muted rage with knowing touches of humor to show she can recognize how awry her present situation is - her scene with Cox where she tearily mentions the parental neglect that made her into an adult is impactful. Kudos also go to Christopher Convery who conveys the weaknesses and the intelligence of a 12-year-old readying for adulthood, seeing beneath the surface of everything and always wanting to hear the "man" version of unfolding events.

Most of "Prisoner's Daughter" can be predicted yet I never felt as if I was travelling the same old waters of an aging man learning to pick up the pieces of a tough life. The actors give it enough dramatic pull and emotional honesty to make it seem new all over again.   

DISAVOWED, again and again

 MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - ROGUE NATION (2015)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

After the grandly entertaining and furiously intense "Ghost Protocol," I came in with higher expectations for "Rogue Nation," the fifth in the "Mission: Impossible" movies. I rank it higher than the first three in the series but it is not nearly as explosive as "Ghost Protocol." Still, I imagine you will not leave wanting more after it is over but you might still want more depth.

As "Rogue Nation," the crazy Tom Cruise plays the equally insane Ethan Hunt, a daredevil of an IMF agent, who has to get a "package" inside an airbus. How does he do it? He grabs onto the outside of a plane as it takes off and is waiting for his computer hacker agent, Benji (Simon Pegg, always animated and comical fun) to deactivate the door to enter. This is an astounding sequence to marvel at and you almost assume Cruise must have had a safety wire attached to him (apparently, he did not) but it is not nearly as hair-raising as the Burj Khalifa tower climbing scene from "Ghost Protocol." Nevertheless, this erratic sequel begins and eventually IMF is dissolved by a disapproving Senate committee and a blustery CIA Director Alan Hunley (Alec Baldwin) due to the IMF agents embroiled (though not responsible for) the Kremlin bombing last seen in "Ghost Protocol." Meanwhile, Ethan is nearly tortured to death before being saved by a possibly duplicitous undercover MI6 Agent Ilsa Faust (Rebecca Ferguson) - she has been "disavowed." Hunt is a wanted man and IMF no longer has any function. "He is a man without a country," a quote I've heard many times in other similar movies but I don't go to hear original lines of dialogue in a "Mission: Impossible" movie. Everyone is always getting "disavowed" in these movies. 

"Rogue Nation" is fast becoming a nerve-jangling James Bond-type series with impossible, improbable stunts, shootings, elongated fistfights, and vehicle chases in cars and motorcycles at impossibly fast speeds. There is also an underwater sequence that almost made my heart stop. A "Turandot" opera sequence involving an assassination attempt brings up memories of Hitchcock and Puccini, both I love so I am good with seeing both. The ending is a little underwhelming which involves Britain's Prime Minister and the whole business of a data file with the identities of "The Syndicate," operatives who may have been MI6 agents, is not the most interesting MacGuffin since these movies always feature discs or encrypted data files. Of course, it all comes down to money, money, money, hence why I found it less than an enthusiastic finish.

As I said, I don't care too much about the MacGuffins but I still wanted to know more about Ethan Hunt and, after five movies, we don't know much at all. Since he is a superspy to a degree, I guess the enigma makes sense. I don't think he goes home much. 

Quarantine and aliens in an unreal town

 ASTEROID CITY (2023)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I love reading and watching anything involving the 1950's, a time that had an implied turbulence about it without making itself manifest. There were atomic bomb testings in the desert, racism was sky high, economy was booming yet the Red Scare was full-throttle and the Roswell alleged alien ship crash was the government conspiracy of the day. Watching Wes Anderson's "Asteroid City" reminded me of the implications of an era when all seemed well, but really wasn't. Here we have people arriving at a pastel colored desert landscape spot whose only reason for existence is the novelty of an enormous impact crater. When "Asteroid City" focuses on the desert landscape, I was enthralled. When director Anderson switches to the black-and-white footage of a teleplay in progress titled "Asteroid City," I felt lost despite its clever meta narrative which is all too familiar at this point.

The fictional Southwest desert town of Asteroid City is phenomenally presented. We see the gas station, the cafe, the rock formations that look like papier mache constructs, and the various bungalows for rent. It is an astounding sequence, beautifully filmed in one take by Wes Anderson and his imaginative frequent cinematographer Robert Yeoman. Once we are set up with the characters, they are a quirky bunch that includes Jason Schwartzman as Augie Steenbeck, a war photographer who has brought along his "brainiac" son, his three daughters, and his wife's ashes in a Tupperware container; Scarlett Johansson as a movie star actress, Midge Campbell, who covers up her eye bruises with her sunglasses; General Grif Gibson (Jeffrey Wright) who opens the Stargazer Awards ceremonies with spun tales that sound like newspaper headlines; Tom Hanks as the grandfather of Steenbeck's kids who senses serenity in this town, and Tilda Swinton as a scientist at the observatory. 

There is also Bryan Cranston as a TV host of the play "Asteroid City" though I was left aghast at the inclusion of this box-within-the box ploy. When Anderson switches to a 1.37: 1 aspect ratio of the black-and-white play and the semi-documentary about the play, I was confused and simply bewildered. What is the point of such scenes that are rather flat despite a cast that includes Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton, Margot Robbie and others. These scenes have none of the spark of inspiration from the pastel colored hues of the town itself and are rather dull. Nothing compares to the buoyancy and whimsical nature of Asteroid City and its inhabitants (one of the renters of the bungalows has to settle for a tent due to an electrical fire). In fact, many of the jokes and visual puns really work and made me laugh like the addition of several vending machines, one of which can be used to buy a small plot of land that won't be worth much for 50 years, and an alien that shows up at the crater and steals the small asteroid. I also adore the smart, alert teenagers who love science and create contraptions that could almost disintegrate someone. To top it all off, there is a military quarantine order thanks to that googly-eyed alien.

"Asteroid City" is a decent, marginally entertaining Wes Anderson flick and you'll admire its originality and its audacity. Still, the constant switches to its teleplay origins will leave you with a headache. If we are to think that this fictional city is just a construct, isn't that obvious from its placid, prefab-looking, pastel-colored setting that makes you feel like drinking a glass of orange juice or the cartoonish critter that runs through the sole road that cuts through this town? These unreal, colorful and dramatic scenes already look like a Warner Brothers cartoon. I don't need Bryan Cranston to remind me.

Indy's past is his history

 INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY (2023)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

I had to check myself while watching "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" in a theater full of presumably septuagenarians and octogenarians and wonder, am I enjoying this movie or am I just nostalgic for the escapist action-adventures of Indiana Jones? Is the movie fun and is there a sense of adventure? The answer is yes to all! Is it better than the much maligned "Crystal Skull"? Oh, yes, but keep in mind - I love all four films, unequally. I want to say that "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" is a movie you can comfortably watch and be wowed by its grand adventure scale - you know, somewhat critic-proof. Only most movies today feature caped superheroes that are meant to be fun and critic-proof, not 80-year-old retired soldiers of fortune. But we can still assess and debate a film's quality and I am happy to report that I love "Dial of Destiny" and found it also emotionally overwhelming - the latter I did not expect.

No Paramount mountain fades to anything, this time, only a Lucasfilm logo superimposed on a door lock (ever since Disney took over Lucasfilm, we have had changes like no 20th Century Fox fanfare during the opening credits of the "Star Wars" sequel trilogy but that is a topic for another time). We dive right into WWII in 1944 with Indy disguised as a Nazi with a bag over his head. When the bag is pulled over his head, it is a young, deaged Harrison Ford, you know Indy trilogy years not "Hanover Street" mileage. Before you know it, he's almost hung on a rafter, escapes near death with a missile that penetrates the floor from underneath his feet! Indy saves the life of his archaeology buddy, Basil Shaw (Toby Jones, whom you do miss once he disappears from the flashbacks), and there is some business involving the Longinus Spear (a fake) and the Antikythera mechanism that is about to be taken by a new suave villain, Jurgen Voller (played with delicious malice by Mads Mikkelsen). In terms of extended Indy serialesque prologues, this one has Indy on a motorbike chasing a train, several explosions, and a few fistfights in and out of train cars with Indy and Basil trying to escape with the dial. Cut to modern day, 1969 in New York City with Indy a much older man, unable to interest Hunter College students in archaeology when they are glued to TV screens showing the moon landing. Indy also has to contend with young neighbors who love to blast The Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" at 8 am (well, who wouldn't?) 

Indiana is retiring from teaching and dealing with a separation from his wife Marion. Before you can say "are we watching a James Mangold drama?," Indy is thrust into action immediately when his goddaughter, Helena Shaw (a brilliantly animated Phoebe Waller Bridge), tells him of the Antikythera device that has been split into two halves and can create fissures in time. Action starts with henchmen working for Voller attempting to get both halves of the mechanism resulting in Indy and Helena escaping, well, separately since Helena may have double-crossed him. Indy escapes riding a horse at an Apollo 11 ticker-tape parade and in the subway system avoiding a collision with a train! He has also been accused of murder - so much for retirement. Helena is much more of a grifter, someone who steals artifacts and sell them in the black market or to the highest bidder. When Indy tracks her down in Morocco, all hell breaks loose with Voller and company in hot pursuit of the powerful artifact.

"Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" is oodles of cliffhanging fun with some remarkable, eye-popping chase scenes and whip smart dialogue, courtesy of Mangold writers Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth. Phoebe Waller Bridge has priceless scenes where she banters with Indy, seeing herself as just the opposite of Jones and her own father. She is only in it for the money (a hark back to Ray Winstone's double-crossing Mac from "Crystal Skull"), a snarky "self-sufficient" capitalist who is up for danger every step of the way. What is tremendously fun is seeing how Indy disapproves of her motives yet sees the intelligence of a woman who shares the love of adventure just like our grizzled adventurer, and she begins to understand his pain and his own life and his history. 

Mads Mikkelsen is frequently insidious in his overall demeanor as Voller (catch the scene where he makes it subtly clear to a black waiter that the Nazis should've won the war. It is one of the most startlingly effective scenes in any Indiana Jones movie). Boyd Holbrook also lends formidable support as a trigger-happy henchman, and there's the welcome and brief return of boisterous Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) who went from Indy's Middle Eastern contact to a simple cab driver. My one bone of contention is the underused and undernourished role of Shaunette Renée Wilson as Mason, a CIA agent who has a file on Helena and her illegal activities - is Mason truly working undercover or is she aware of Voller's need to update Hitler's Final Solution by, gulp, killing him? We do have a pickpocket kid named Teddy from Tangier (Ethann Isidore) who hangs around with Helena and he's rambunctious fun for a while, though this Short Round clone is of mysterious purpose.  

"Dial of Destiny" is far from perfect and director James Mangold's proficient action choreography is not as elegant as Steven Spielberg's, who serves only as executive producer this time around. "Dial of Destiny" still moves at a snappy pace and has an emotional finish with a certain character from previous movies that should make most jaded moviegoers and Indy fans shed a few tears (Mangold does handle dramatic scenes better than most). I love the backstory of the artifact and its genius inventor, Archimedes, so much so that I wish there was more of it. But we are here for thrills, chills and spills and the movie offers all that including various insects, bugs and a new creepy crawly, eels, though hardly any booby traps. It's still pure Indiana Jones, with a few aches and pains, and I am happy to see him back. Like vintage wine, he ages well. 

Dad bought an Edsel!

 PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED (1986)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

It has to be a jolting, incredible feeling of rejuvenation to go back to the time of being a high-school teenager. I don't think I would want to yet the idea of knowing how it all turned out, that is to say an adult transposed in the body of a teenager, leaves a lot of questions about fate and circumstance. Can one say that if I was a teenager again, I would do it differently. Well, the knowledge is there but the adult woman, Peggy, can't really change things yet her reality as an adult can become that much clearer. "Peggy Sue Got Married" is a joyful, subtle adult comedy that ends on a positive note with a dose of reality attached it. 

Kathleen Turner turns in one of her most precise dramatic performances ever, showing a woman in the 1980's reluctantly attending her high-school reunion. She is Peggy Sue Kelcher-Bodell and she's going through a separation with nasal-voiced Charlie "Crazy Charlie" Bodell (Nicolas Cage - an insanely over-the-top yet finely tuned performance). At the graduation, she's crowned queen of the night and faints. When she wakes up, she's back in 1960 as a high-school teenager giving blood at a blood bank. Her friends are concerned (after they drop off Peggy Sue at her house, she tells them "Hey, keep in touch") and her parents don't understand her when she starts drinking - never mind Dad buying an Edsel. Even more nonplussed is Charlie, a wannabe rock singer whose nasal-voiced tone seems to charm Peggy Sue despite the fact that she wants nothing to do with him. Charlie can't understand her mercurial behavior and she is shocked that he wants to date other girls, giving a hint of what's to come. It is that antediluvian thinking that can only come from a teenage mind - if they date other people, then they will know they were really meant to be. Only Peggy Sue's life has become far more complicated from her future marriage with Charlie and she begins to seek out other guys, including a future brainiac billionaire and a beatnik poet type. The billionaire inventor (Barry Miller) is the class nerd who has to be punctual at his Rocket Club meeting! Peggy asks him about the possibility of time travel and then further reveals the price of sneakers in the future, not to mention the moon landing. With the poet who has issues with Ernest Hemingway's writing (Kevin J. O'Connor), it is about attraction and a quickie, nothing more. He of course imagines a strange existence in a Utah cabin where he believes in polygamy. Eh, stay away from that guy, Peggy. 

This is one of Francis Ford Coppola's most beguiling and becalming movies ever, and the temptation to get sentimental is shrugged for a muted emotional reunion (the short bit about Peggy visiting her grandparents, one played by Maureen O'Sullivan, is a cinematic treasure to behold). Although I would've loved more emphasis on Peggy's relationship to her parents and her pigtailed sister (Sofia Coppola), I can't fault a movie for its dreamlike power overall. "Peggy Sue Got Married" is not so much a fairy tale or a time travel movie but actually about a woman who is uncertain about her future and yet so confident and upbeat about her past. An emotional marvel of a movie.