Month: November 2019

Review: Maleficent: Mistress of Evil (2019)

Popcorn
My first impression of Maleficent: Mistress of Evil questioned how much of the magical side of the river was animated. I wondered where did the performers end and the CGI teams jump in? At first, I felt that the movie used too much green screen.

However, there weren’t seams where a character didn’t mesh with their surroundings. They were all successfully placed in the fantasy world of the story. I needed to get over wondering “how?” so that I could enjoy the spectacle.

As I started to write this review, I realized that the synthesis was successful. I never thought of the fairies and the others in the magical world as actors and actresses. The seamlessness extended beyond perfectly aligned lighting. The movie made the Fey characters seem real.

Early in the film, there was some creative use of the camera. It flew playfully through the enchanted moor. All of the Fey characters were bouncy and energetic and full of life. The humans were plodding drudges in comparison. As the film progressed, the playfulness was lost. However, that matched the increasing danger of the climactic battle.

The castle was a weak spot to the illusion. The practical effects of the ramparts being crushed were incompatible with the magic of the continuing battle. It was jarring. The lacy castle seemed rooted in mangled physics rather than magic and imagination like the land across the river.

I was grateful that the film corrected my pronunciation of Maleficent. It is one of those words where changes at the end of a word affect how you say the beginning. I was thinking that the word started “MAL-e-.” That makes the rest of the word awkward and I wanted to add an extra vowel. However, the stress is on the second syllable “ma-LE-fi-cent” so that the name ends up easy to say.

In the credits, I noticed at least a dozen people labeled as apprentice or trainee. I liked that. That helps add to the talent pool of professionals who can present a story as magical and energetic as Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.

Review: Gemini Man (2019)

Film canister
In Gemini Man, we meet a 50-year-old assassin who is retiring. Henry Brogan (Will Smith) starts the movie carrying out an astounding assassination on a train. After his retirement, strike teams attack him to “tie up loose ends.” The Gemini company attempts to kill Brogan, but he foils their plans. Brogan has an almost mystical level of vigilance that lets him escape. His gun acts with unbelievable precision. Without Brogan’s perfection as an assassin, the secret agencies would have been able to kill him.

On a fantasy/realism scale, Gemini Man takes a different turn than many movies. Commonly, a film tries to have realistic people who have physical fights that don’t injure the film’s heroes. In contrast, Gemini Man has heroes rooted in fantasy, possessing amazing skills and sketchbook characters. This film aspires to realism by showing real injuries after its knock-down fights. Smith and his allies undergo sutures and clean their wounds after the fights.

After the strike team fails, a mysterious figure comes to kill Brogan. That man is quickly revealed to be a clone of Brogan, 25 years younger. After their initial gunfight and chase, Brogan learns that the attacker is genetically identical to himself. Gemini had created the clone, Junior, to build a perfect soldier.

Gemini Man has successfully simulated a younger Will Smith with computer modeling. Junior is indistinguishable from a 25 years younger Will Smith. It’s commonplace to make an actor look older, but Gemini Man’s filmmakers worked hard at renewing the youth that Smith once had.

One conceit in the movie is that the genetic duplication of the character leads to identical struggles, weaknesses and attitudes. It works ok for making the plot flow, but it is another way the film is filled with caricatures.

Gemini Man was an average quality action movie. I went mainly to see the cloned Will Smith. It was an entertaining movie and left me with a positive feeling as I was leaving the cinema.