The Creator (2023) review

rating: ****

the story: A vet in plunged into the endgame of a war between humanity and AI.

the review: Here's another movie I have no clue hasn't had far more praise than it's received.  It's damn near a work of genius.  It's close to a masterpiece.

I'm starting to implicitly trust John David Washington's instincts.  He's had a whole string of fascinating projects under his belt in recent years (Tenet, Amsterdam, and now The Creator), pushed himself well beyond dad Denzel Washington's shadow, and establishing his own definitive screen presence, not the calm cool of dad, not necessarily capable of more, but very much his own, and with the capability to fit in effortlessly into sweeping situations without being lost in them.

The Creator is more than Washington, of course.  It's Gareth Edwards' directorial follow-up to Rogue One, which is the leading candidate for Star Wars fans as best of the current cinematic era.  I personally was not a fan of Rogue One.  No, I was very much the opposite.  In context, now, however, it makes a lot more sense, since in a lot of ways The Creator is a response to and continuation of its ideas, which makes much more sense, to me, in this context.  The Creator itself also serves as that elusive concept Hollywood chased for years after 1977, a movie that evokes Star Wars without buckling horribly under the pressure, a thing that was almost impossible for twenty years.  (Incredibly, although I have no idea when I myself will be able to consider the results, 2023 potentially gave us two such movies, with Rebel Moon also clearly envisioned from the bones of Star Wars.)

This is familiar territory, whether you consider the classic I, Robot stories, the movie that eventually resulted from it, the Terminator franchise, the Matrix movies, or even current fears of emerging AI prominence (although The Creator features traditional robots, its was heavily marketed with the concerns sweeping through the culture at the moment, and viewed from that light by critics and likely audiences).  It doesn't matter.  You've never seen anything like this.

I even say this as someone who loved Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen's Descender/Ascender comics, which have a number of parallels to The Creator, including a child robot destined to play a climactic role in events desperately sought by numerous figures.  Doesn't matter.  Visually the results are astonishing, exactly what modern filmmaking should be accomplishing (and not just an endless stream of superhero movies), but narratively, the results are equally assured, deliberate, and where all the critics complaining otherwise are coming from, I haven't a clue, since the central message is as relevant as it's ever been: the oppressed just don't want to be oppressed anymore, they just want to be free to live.

And that's really what's so great about The Creator, that it finally boils the robot story to what it really always was.  We keep dreading the robot apocalypse, and yet...why?  Why assume they're just gonna want to annihilate us?  When do we figure out the best solution will always be the one that benefits everyone?  That's what intelligence tells us, and the "i" in "AI" literally means "intelligence," so again...why?  

That's what The Creator answers.  That's what pushes it toward greatness.  

Along with Washington are a few name actors, Allison Janney representing the humans and Ken Watanabe the robots.  Isn't the presence of Watanabe itself an indication of quality?  He's another actor who's consistently selected great material, always unfailingly delivering quality performances in roles intriguing and relevant to the success of the films around them.

Trust Ken Watanabe.  Trust John David Washington.  There are built-in moments just waiting to be enshrined in the pop canon.  Help make The Creator a cult sensation at the very least!

Amsterdam (2022) Review

rating: *****

the story: Three friends make a pact during WWI, and unexpectedly find themselves having to fulfill it during WWII.

the review: The movies one considers a classic are sometimes confused with personal favorites, especially when critics have decided to ignore, overlook, or downplay their worth for whatever reason.  I suspect this occurred with Amsterdam since director David O. Russell has had bad publicity in recent years stemming to his treatment of Amy Adams on the set of American Hustle, and he hasn't produced a wide success on the order of Silver Linings Playbook, despite high expectations for both Hustle and Joy after it.  I've been a fan of Russell since Three Kings, which remained my favorite of his efforts despite his critical reputation blowing up with Playbook, and while I loved what he did with Christian Bale in The Fighter (a showy supporting role, but one that took pressure off an actor who can sometimes get lost in his performances, and thus became a career highlight), I hadn't been wowed by one of his films again.  Russell is an idea guy in the vein of Orson Welles, and the way he achieves his results can lead to complicated productions, but the results speak for themselves.  George Clooney found his first great film in Kings, when he was often typecast as a rogue (Out of Sight being the exception that proved the rule) without a way forward.  Russell used the film to make a bigger point about the chaos of war, and how even the worst of intentions (stealing Iraqi gold) can lead to altruistic results (saving the innocent lives being ground up by the war).  That Russell shows up in Amsterdam, plus a cast I couldn't resist (and certainly Russell has developed a reputation for great casts, regardless of what he does with them) in Bale, John David Washington, and Margot Robbie.  So when I saw the results for myself, I found myself with an instant personal favorite, which for me turned out to be a classic waiting to be discovered.

The leading factor in my evaluation is Bale's performance.  I haven't seen all of his films (much less some of his more famous, or infamous, ones in American Psycho and The Machinist), but he's long been a favorite, so I have a decent idea of his range, and certainly his willingness to transform himself for a role.  One of the great joys of following a career is seeing an actor age, and what they do with that.  Amsterdam is the first time I've seen him lean into his aging as part of the performance, not merely because the film covers more than a decade of time, but that instead of gaining or losing weight to inform a character, he gets to showcase how his face has changed over the years.  This time it's very much the hair that helps shape the look, a period style that accentuates the effect of seeing Bale look older.  Besides that, he gives an atypically lively performance, a comedic one that gives the film its voice.  I've read critics suggest there's no memorable dialogue in Amsterdam, and even if that were the case (which it is not), the pleasure of Bale's phrasing keeps things moving along nicely.  Too often we take for granted the mere acting, unless it's filling out a greater message, which Bale's does not.  All he does is set the tone.  This film, as a result, is very easy to watch.  It's unlike anything Russell has done before.  Even Clooney didn't get into his Golden Age act until well after Kings.

Washington, who was a breakout star in both BlacKkKlansman and Tenet, has his first real chance to shine on his own merits.  Putting aside my reservations of his physical appearance (how Spike Lee designed the distracting afro) in the former, and Christopher Nolan's patented ambition in the latter, in Amsterdam Washington has a part that rises or falls on its own, how he plays against other actors.  He couldn't ask for better partners than Bale and Robbie, both of whom could very easily swallow him whole if he couldn't keep up with them, but he can.  He's not his father, who commands effortlessly any scene he's in, sometimes with very little dialogue at all.  He doesn't even particularly look like Denzel Washington.  Clean-faced, he almost looks anonymous, but Amsterdam soon gives him a look to match Bale's, and the result is more proof that the man pulls off a beard as well as anyone ever has.  The undercurrent of race relations that never plays out in conflict with Bale or Robbie, or any other character who carries weight in the movie, is instead moved to subtext, a complementary commentary to the reasons for the conspiracy the characters unite against as they attempt to solve a murder mystery.

Probably the critics poopooed the movie since they feared it went against their chosen narrative of the present, a conspiracy plotted against FDR and therefore the country itself that perhaps suggests too closely the Trump debacle.  Whether you choose to interpret it that way isn't mandatary; like any good story it's merely a cautionary tale, and that becomes its second key selling point, a story with an actual point, and one that doesn't lose its compelling lead characters in the process, but rather one that gives them their weight.

There is of course Robbie rounding out the leads, and Hollywood has found another way to explain her volatile charm, like I, Tonya a movie asking you to sympathize with her despite the insane circumstances around her, which her other big 2022 movie, Babylon, didn't quite pull off, leaving the viewer to be lost mesmerized by the spectacle she inevitably creates, in very much the Harley Quinn way.  This girl was determined not to be just a pretty face.  She's the Brad Pitt of actresses, and Amsterdam is ultimate proof.

Rounding out the cast are Robert De Niro, Anya Taylor-Joy, Zoe Saldana, Rami Malek, and of all people Mike Myers (who previously appeared with Robbie in Terminal), a small but crucial role deftly walking the tightrope between comedic and dramatic, evoking his appearance in Inglourious Basterds.

If The Batman hadn't pulled off a miracle by once again redefining its title character and thus further developing one of the modern era's defining fictional creations, I wouldn't hesitate to call Amsterdam the best film of 2022.  It is a masterpiece, and by all rights should have swept all the awards ceremonies.  Hopefully it'll be rediscovered in time.

Tenet (2020) Review

 rating: ****

the story: In order to prevent the end of the world, a man must travel back in time.

the review: All of Christopher Nolan’s films are about cause and effect. Usually but not always it’s easy to tell which, um, comes first. Of course, he made his name with Memento, which plays out chronologically in reverse. Tenet is sort of like that, except this time it isn’t merely for storytelling effect but built into the plot.

So I’m a big fan of Nolan’s. His existence in a persistent blockbuster moviemaking state, the sheer scale of his ideas, has of course existed since The Dark Knight. The opening of Tenet is perhaps the first time he’s consciously sought the feel of that particular achievement, which for a fan of that particular film was a great way to kick things off.

From there we eventually reach the time travel element. It’s called “inverting” in the movie, but it’s time travel. The cleverness is in how it’s executed. Visually it looks like effects being played backward. It’s memorable in that regard to how Inception most obviously presented its conceit, with the cityscape folding in on itself.

The cleverness, however, is that “inverting” essentially means time travel in Tenet is “rewinding the tape.” It reminds me of Source Code, another high concept movie using a repeating time conceit that turns into a chance to actually prevent (not merely inhabit the circumstances, as is originally believed) a catastrophe from happening. 

Unusually, Nolan lets the concept sell itself more than rest on the star power of the actors (although he did this in his last movie, Dunkirk, too). Since Memento (which for the general public was in casting a mini-reunion of actors from The Matrix), Nolan has consistently gone for as well-known a cast as he could get. His star this time, however, is as close to an unknown as he’s gotten since his first movie, Following. John David Washington (son of Denzel Washington) has one prior lead role to his credit (BlacKkKlansman), in which, for me anyway, he sported a distractingly fake-looking afro. Chances are more people viewed that as a Spike Lee movie than a John David Washington one. As a known commodity, then his screen presence is minimal. That allows the audience to follow him along in the movie far more than linger on him alone (which is half the danger of the rabbit hole Leo DiCaprio leads us through in Inception).

Robert Pattinson, still popularly known for starring in the Twilight movies, costars. He’s been making a new name for himself in recent years by pursuing the kind of “interesting project, interesting role” career that Brad Pitt and Johnny Depp previously pursued as “pretty boy actors,” though they never really succeeded in avoiding the spotlight. But these are far different cinematic times. Now if you aren’t starring in obvious blockbuster material your career plays out in relative obscurity. Pattinson plays his part in Tenet with no desire to upstage anything, and in the process is perhaps inhabiting his first mature role (a knack for which Nolan should be well-known).

The rest of the cast is filled with highlights. Clémence Poésy (like Pattinson a veteran of Harry Potter, same entry and all! as well as In Bruges) and Michael Caine trade off early efforts to guide the audience along. Elizabeth Debicki, who was a standout in a cast of standouts in Widows, takes on the role that might have been the lead in a previous Nolan project, the woman whose life unravels and is the chief beneficiary from the opportunity to rewrite things. Her nefarious husband is played by Kenneth Branagh, perhaps the best strictly villainous figure Nolan has yet conjured, in yet another mid-careee standout performance. Himesh Patel, so appealing in Yesterday last year, has a fun supporting role (which itself is not normally a feature of Nolan movies), while Aaron Taylor-Johnson, so often robbed of his ability to be the movie star he deserves to be, is unrecognizable in a performance that seems to riff on Christian Bake (a familiar Nolan presence).

The whole affair is a trademark example of Nolan’s effortless ability to create sensational moviemaking magic. It plays out like James Bond (that’s how a lot of observers seem to be simplifying it) but is fueled by clever execution of yet another stylistic gimmick, which to my mind Nolan has so far failed to make anywhere close to a routine affair. Christopher Nolan is the opposite of routine. If nothing else Tenet is the latest example of this.

I hesitate to boost the results too far. It’s bravura but stops just short of wanting to be seen as much more than an exceptional action movie. If you can wrap your head around rewinding time travel, then you aren’t left with the ambiguity that made Inception so intoxicating. It really feels as if it’s Nolan saying he could do Dark Knight without Batman. Where that film examines the surveillance state that was then hotly debated, Tenet is essentially an argument for intelligence agencies, which most often end up viewed with suspicion and distrust. It’s a sensational depiction of such work being incredibly effective.

So it’s very interesting, sometimes in ways Nolan hasn’t really pursued before. In the years to come, depending on what he does next, Tenet might be viewed differently, as the movie that transformed Nolan’s already extraordinary career. We’ll see!