The Mauritanian (2021) Review

rating: ****

the story: A Guantanamo Bay detainee struggles to win his freedom.

review: There are plenty of people who would assume they know exactly how to respond to a movie with this subject matter. And yet, here is The Mauritanian being more or less released to little enough attention. 

It deserves better. It is of course an incredible story, and a true one, about the most controversial of the responses to 9/11 (no shortage of material there), and relentlessly sure that it is in fact representing an innocent man caught up in it.

Tahar Rahim plays the suspected terrorist Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Jodie Foster and Shailene Woodley his public defenders, and Benedict Cumberbatch the face of the prosecution, who quickly enough questions if he’s on the right side of justice.

Rahim became an instant favorite of mine from Mary Magdalene, where he played a surprisingly sympathetic Judas (so he has clearly found himself a type), Foster is Foster, Woodley has the trademark random moment where she seems to forget she’s not a model (for me, anyway; it popped up in the Divergent movies when she’s flying in a futuristic helicopter; I don’t get why she keeps getting away with it, although otherwise she’s a fine actress). For Cumberbatch, putting on another fine vocal performance, it’s an interesting companion to the equally compelling The Courier, also released this year. Zachary Levi has a supporting role as a part of the system that let everything happen to Slahi. It’s another chance to broaden his range, a full dramatic turn where he’s not a good guy.

At the end there’s footage of Slahi himself, which lends credibility to the idea that this story can be taken at face value, that the film’s positive opinion of him is a reflection of how positive he himself is, so many years after all this began, everything he endured.

The effect is to put a face on the whole thing, not just to say there’s been gross injustice or that everyone detained there has a similar story and is worth rooting for, but that so few stories have come out, much less one this seemingly unlikely. Many reviews have suggested it’s some sort of confusing mess, which it is not. Presumably so the critics don’t come off as sympathetic to a terrorist.

Foster’s character has a response to that kind of reasoning right in the movie. Don’t let such nonsense get in your way.

Doctor Strange (2016)

rating: ***

the story: An arrogant doctor loses the use of his hands, but his mind becomes greatly expanded.

review: The MCU Avengers cycle is a full-blown phenomenon that has come to define the modern cinematic era, and the twenty-three movies to date that comprise it have seemingly explored just about every kind of superhero movie imaginable.  Doctor Strange did it with magic (although it's also one of the few outright examples of superpowers in the franchise, too).  That's the main calling card here.

A lot of fans saw too many parallels between Stephen Strange and Tony Stark.  One of the few criticisms fans have leveled against these films is that the plots tend to be the same: brilliant individual has a fall, builds themselves back up, defeats villain in spectacular fight.  And the villain tends to be fairly uninspired (with a few exceptions).  But you can level the plot critique against just about any story.  I tend to think the specifics are worth considering.  Strange and Stark are only tangentially worth comparing at that level.  Stark may be a tech genius, but he's also building on a family legacy.  Strange is a brilliant physician.  They both may possess out-of-control egos, but Strange is far more likely to use his skills to actual benefit than Stark, who initially just wants to make easy money, without caring about the consequences.  For Strange, he may alienate colleagues, but he's undeniably saving lives.  He believes he can save more lives if he can just perform his research undisturbed.  Essentially, Stephen Strange is House on a grander scale.  (It's really hard not to envision the producers using the Hugh Laurie breakout role as a pattern for Strange, and how they determined Benedict Cumberbatch to be the best pick for the role.)

Then Strange goes on the journey to becoming Doctor Strange, and the visuals take over.  Clearly the movie itself was inspired as much by Inception as the Harry Potter films, and letting the blend of them run wild.  Too wild, really, however awesome the results.  The characters never really treat them as anything but meaningless backdrop.  They're audience eye candy, nothing more.  But still hugely notable.

Doctor Strange is the "Sorcerer Supreme," but he is also, essentially, a superhero wizard.  And that's the role he fills in the MCU.  The ending features a nifty time-repetition that the character's later crucial appearance in Avengers: Infinity War suggests is how he discovers the only way to beat Thanos (in all fairness, that's probably the best sequence of this film, watching Strange repeatedly confront what is otherwise a pointless CGI effect just as doggedly each time, so it would probably have been just as pointless to repeat the sequence, especially when we know Strange can't win this time).

Cumberbatch has a meaty role to play in this appearance (he doesn't have nearly as much to work with in later appearances to date), and is once again thoroughly Cumberbatch.  Rachel McAdams is probably the most credible female supporting player, having often played this type where others in the MCU felt hamstrung in similar roles.  Tilda Swinton is perhaps about as perfectly cast as she's ever been as the Ancient One, Mads Mikkelsen letting his eyes do all the work in the way he so creepily often does.  Benedict Wong is the kind of actor who doesn't need much to make an impact.  Benjamin Bratt has a tiny role that makes you kind of wonder why they even bothered.  Chiwetel Ejiofor is the most baffling case.  He went from starring in the highly acclaimed 12 Years a Slave to this rather than, say, Black Panther (who instead is played by Chadwick Boseman, who is an utter charisma void).  I don't get it. 

This is not a movie that expects much from its audience, and so it doesn't really try much, aside from visually.  It slides by on mumbo jumbo.  Why Strange is as good at magic as he is at surgery, not particularly explained.  It just sort of happens.  But if you don't care, you get a movie that does just about what it needs to.  And at that, it's about as good or better than the average MCU film.  It knows what it really needs to accomplish, and at least nails that.  Knowing what Strange does in other movies is just kind of icing on the cake. 

Avengers: Infinity War (2018)

rating: ****

the story: Thanos collects the Infinity Gems and plows through superheroes left and right.

what it's all about: This is it!  This is what these movies have been working toward since Iron Man (2008) when Nick Fury strolls into the movie and talks about an "Avengers initiative."  And "these movies" includes...three Iron Man movies, three Captain America, three Thor, two previous Avengers, two Guardians of the Galaxy, a Doctor Strange, technically one of the Hulk movies, a third cinematic Spider-Man, Black Panther, and an Ant-Man...!  So, lots of material.  And aside from Captain America: Civil War, this is the first time since Avengers that there's been a real sense of momentum, and this is the most momentum these movies could possibly have built up.

And the movie delivers.  It's a perfect summation and justification of the whole thing.  I mean, not perfect.  Where Empire Strikes Back has its big moment at the end people will always point to as reason enough to declare it a classic even though it ends with a cliffhanger...ultimately Infinity War is all cliffhanger.  It's all big moments and clever quips and selling the concept of Thanos as the ultimate threat.  But it features no moment comparable to learning the truth about Vader.  The closest it comes is suggesting Thanos suffers at having to sacrifice his daughter, Gamora, a relationship we already knew about from Guardians of the Galaxy.  And that's ultimately a weakness.  If it were true masterful storytelling, Gamora would stand obviously at the center of Infinity War, but I can tell you the early response is that it's Thanos who does, and that is a weakness.  Thanos is not sympathetic.  He is a villain.  Black Panther introduced the concept of the supposed sympathetic villain.  That's one of the reasons I'm not eager to watch Black Panther, regardless of its rabid popularity, because it trades on responses that manipulate more than tell a credible story.  Infinity War itself sells Black Panther short.  Wakanda is just another in a series of weak superhero defenses.  In order to make Thanos look strong, everyone else has to look weak.  Actually, including Thanos himself.

So I am impressed with the results, and disappointed, too.  The best thing about the movie, because Gamora is held back, is watching all the various aspects of the Avengers movie landscape come together.  All the classic heroes are here, and nearly everyone else, too.  Since I still haven't seen Doctor Strange, this is my first opportunity to see Benedict Cumberbatch as Strange (a brief look from Thor: Ragnarok didn't impress me, and neither did the movie around it).  He comes off well.  I don't tend to like Cumberbatch's American accent, as he seems to be inclined to rob himself of his greatest asset, that deep boom in his voice, when he uses it.  Thankfully he pulls out the boom every now and then.  Zoe Saldana, robbed or not in the story, is the best actor in the movie, as Gamora.  She didn't really have such opportunities in the two Guardians movies to date.  Josh Brolin has been a favorite of mine since he started breaking out in 2007, and while some of his dialogue is clumsy he of course sells Thanos well.  Chris Pratt leads the rest of the Guardians as Star-Lord in typically Star-Lord material.  Chris Hemsworth has the biggest opportunity of the original set to stand out, and maybe because his work in Ragnarok was so recent the movie is inclined to give Thor useful material.  Robert Downey Jr, who has throughout the franchise been at its center, is strangely downplayed, for the first time ever, as Iron Man, despite having some fairly important things to do.  Chris Evans as Captain America has less than both of them but he still comes off as more immediately impactful.  Mark Ruffalo as Hulk (sort of) has strong character material.  Tom Holland's Spider-Man is about as good here as he was in Civil War, and better than he was in his own movie, Spider-Man: Homecoming.  I know Black Panther has been insanely popular, but I remain unmoved by Chadwick Boseman.  Of the many other actors in smaller roles, Peter Dinklage stands out (heh) as a dwarf (heh).  It's about time someone truly looks beyond his size.  And this movie, which like Justice League draws on the 21st century blockbuster legacies of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, was probably his best bet for such an opportunity.

For the first time, I find the results of an Avengers movie appropriately cinematic.  It's not ultimately just goofing around, but it's also not barreling toward seriousness like Civil War and its predecessor, Captain America: Winter Soldier.  Not that barreling toward seriousness is bad, but that it's always an awkward contrast.  So at least there's material that wants to be taken seriously that doesn't revolve entirely around Captain America. 

The other biggest problem?  The next Avengers movie really has to stick the landing.  If it doesn't, it makes everything else look weak.  Which, as Infinity War points out, is a bad thing.