Film Friday: Source Code (2011)

I see why Source Code made a good deal of money. You’ve got the kind of science fiction premise which makes people think something deep is going on, even though there isn’t. That makes people feel smart. You’ve got an up and coming star who is being pushed as a blockbuster hero, a real Ethan Hawk. The film is pretty and has lot of big explosions. But this isn’t a very good film. Here’s why.

** spoiler alert **

Source Code stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Capt. Colter Stevens, an Army chopper pilot who thinks he’s in Afghanistan, but soon discovers he’s in a capsule of some sort. Before he even knows what’s happening, Jake gets sent back in time to eight minutes before a commuter train blows up outside of Chicago. Once there, he quickly discovers he’s inhabiting the body of a man who was on the train. His mission is to locate the bomber because the bomber plans to explode a dirty bomb in Chicago later in the day. At first, Stevens has a hard time understanding what is happening. But slowly, he accepts the mission. Then the “big secret” is revealed, I yawned, the movie played out exactly per formula, and the credits did roll mightily.

Source Code should have been a good movie, but it wasn’t because it was beset by several problems which just smothered the film. Jake Gyllenhaal is about as believable as Capt. Stevens as Denise Richards was believable as a nuclear scientist. The film crawls with product placements to the point that they become distracting. You can actually play “find the Dunkin Donuts logo” in each scene. The science fiction behind the idea was nonsense and felt like nonsense. The bad guy sucks. But most importantly, this film undercut itself time and again.

Let’s start with the bad guy. This guy is awful. He looks like something out of Office Space and he’s far less menacing. He’s a nerd who want to kill millions of people because that’s what the plot requires. Indeed, when he’s asked to explain why he’s doing this, all he manages to babble is something about people being bad or something like that. Nor does Mr. Dull seem competent enough to put together the dirty bomb Jake is looking for. Did he find the plans online? Did he scrape the radioactive material from the copier at work? The film doesn’t go into “how” at all, but it seems fairly clear this idiot couldn’t build a bomb. And why the heck did he blow up the train at all if his real goal was to blow up the dirty bomb a few hours later? I can’t imagine why anyone would do that? Do bank robbers rob liquor stores on the way to the big robbery as a warm up? Always stretch!

Gyllenhaal similarly strains credibility throughout. First, there is nothing about Jake which lets us think he’s a pilot. Military pilots are always in complete in control. They are confident, dare I say cocky? They are Type-A personalities with exacting attention to detail. Yet, when you first meet Jake, he acts like he’s intimidated by rank, like some kid fresh out of training. Then he decides the mission is really a simulation so he goes goofy and treats it like a kid playing a videogame. Then he alternates between stupid and whiny, taking pointless and poorly thought-out risks, and he flops all over the place emotionally. Not once does he show military discipline or show the kind of confidence military training and combat experience bring. Nor does he have the slightest chemistry with either Christina Warren (Michelle Monaghan), who he falls deeply in love with in eight minutes, or Capt. Colleen Goodwin (Vera Farmiga), his controller who decides this program is wrong for no reason whatsoever except that it helps the plot.

Even worse, however, Jake is told that he cannot save the people on the train because of something-something [fake scientific term] something-something. But Jake decides he knows better, based on nothing more than wanting it to be true. So he insists he’s going to save these people despite the scientists telling him that’s impossible. Naturally, he’s right and they are wrong because that’s how the movie wants it to be. There is no reason to think Jake would be right, nor is there anything which causes this belief in Jake. He just decides that he can do it, and so shall it be because the hero gets what he wants. No attempt is even made to explain how this could work (or how the ending works), it just IS because that’s the ending the writer wanted. That’s pathetic writing.

This type of writing-failure is actually a problem throughout. When Jake acts up on the train, the reactions of the other characters feel like movie characters rather than real people. They protest just enough to let him deliver his lines while looking tough, and then sit quietly as he does what he needs to before he moves on to mess with the next person. Nobody calls the conductor or cops or attacks him. When we find out “the secret” (that Jake is actually dead), we suddenly get treated to this “I need to talk to my father” subplot which Jake isn’t able to sell convincingly. Of course, Jake gets his hands on a phone and calls his father while in the other body, and his father gives the perfect responses (without a hiccup) to resolve this issue happily within the deadline Jake needs.

Moreover, the science is flaky. And even worse, it feels flaky and they know it, so they try to hide it behind evasions: “you wouldn’t understand if explained it.” Basically, this program lets Jake occupy the body of anyone who died, somehow, but he can only occupy it for eight minutes, for some reason. How does he do this and why only dead people, you ask? That would require complex physics to explain. . . you wouldn’t understand. When he’s in that body, he can move around and interact with the people of that time, i.e. changing the time line, but he’s not changing the timeline, he’s really causing new dimensions to form. I’d explain it to you, but you’d need a PhD to understand. Oh, but wait, it turns out he actually can change time, for some reason, and he can stay in the body of the guy who never really died now. Don’t ask me to explain it, though, you wouldn’t understand.

This is a sign of a writer who has no clue (0.0%) of how his idea is supposed to work. And it gets really annoying to hear Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright), who invented the Source Code Program, be incapable of explaining how this works and then giving mental placebos like saying this isn’t time travel, “it’s time rearrangement.” This very much undermines the film because they never establish any real rules for what is going on, so you don’t know what is really possible or what isn’t or why things happen.

But the real problem at the core of this film is the utter lack of consequences. We are told that everyone onboard the train died and that Jake cannot save them. This turns out not to be true, but we don’t discover that until the end. So for the first hour plus, you never really worry about the characters on the train because you know they will be dead no matter what Jake does. And later, you don’t worry about whether or not they will be saved because this film makes it clear Jake will get whatever he wants. We are also told up front that there is no danger to Jake, so we don’t worry about that either. Nor do his actions travel over into future loops, where they could have negative consequences, nor is there a limit on the number of jumps he can make. Essentially, there is zero risk. Indeed, the only possible negative consequence is that some nerd may set off a dirty bomb in Chicago, but we know this film won’t let that happen. Nor are we shown anyone who would really be in danger from such a bomb, so this risk never feels real to us. Similarly, the big secret is that Jake is already dead, which is supposed to create some moral dilemma. Only, they never really explain why this is a problem. Also, there really isn’t any tension because wanting to die is hard to support (especially as he's not suffering), and because Capt. Goodwin decides to help him die for no reason. So again we know Jake will get his wish.

You see the problem? No one can really get hurt in this film because we’re told everything is inevitable and we aren’t given clues that events could really be changed. Moreover, everything in this film comes so easily to Jake that there’s no suspense that he won’t get what he wants, especially as he can just keep trying until he gets it. That sucks the drama right out of the plot.

This is why Source Code stinks. It completely lacks suspense, it lacks interesting characters, difficult choices, recognizable motives, and the big idea science fiction films always try to send you home with. . . the “what if” thought. This film is Groundhog Day without the growth, the humor, or the humanity.

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Film Friday: The Thirteenth Floor (1999)

The Thirteenth Floor is a film I should like more than I do. It’s thoughtful and is premised on a truly inspired science fiction idea. And that should easily vault it above most of the garbage that is out there. But The Thirteenth Floor isn’t all that great, and while I recommend seeing it, my recommendation is lukewarm.

** spoiler alert **

On the surface, The Thirteenth Floor is about the murder of Hannon Fuller (Armin Mueller-Stahl), the owner of a billion-dollar computer company which has created a virtual reality simulation of 1937 Los Angeles. But in reality, this is a science fiction story of a world within a world within a world. The story follows Fuller’s protégé, Douglas Hall (Craig Bierko), who is the prime suspect in Fuller’s death, as he investigates the murder in both the world of 1990’s Los Angeles and the virtual reality world of 1937 Los Angeles. In the process, he runs across the same people in each world and he learns a shocking secret.

If you just look at the concept of this film, this film should be fantastic. Not only does it promise the always fascinating idea of multiple realities overlapping, but it involves intrigue which spans each world in the form of a killer on the loose. This should be a nearly can’t-miss prospect. But it does miss.

The first reason this film misses is the acting. I like Armin Mueller- Stahl and Vincent D’Onofrio, and they are fine as always. But after that, things get dicey. Gretchen Mol plays Fuller’s daughter and Bierko’s sort-of love-interest, but there’s no point where you get the sense she cares about anything. Even when she’s confronted by the killer, she just stands there and hopes the scene works out. All-State Insurance Rep. Dennis Haysbert plays the detective who is investigating the murder. He doesn’t care either. He doesn’t even seem to care when he learns about the multiple worlds and that people are traveling back and forth. The worst offender, however, is Bierko who plays the protégé. He also never cares about anything, which is problematic when he needs to project wonder and terror at his discoveries. And at times, it almost seems like he thinks he’s in a parody (fyi, he was the lead in Scary Movie 4 and his acting there is indistinguishable from here).

The sets are bad too (except the fantastic effect of 1937 Los Angeles), and that’s problematic. The payoff of the film is that you’re supposed to wonder if we might not be inside a machine right now and not know it. But the world the film presents as real never feels like a real world. It feels like a movie with people who don’t change clothes, don’t have homes or friends, and spend their lives in smoky dramatic shadows. There are no personal effects anywhere and no sets that look like anywhere we work or live. This makes it hard to see ourselves in this world.

The dialog is bad too because it lacks grace, subtlety and cleverness. The film starts with Descartes’ quote “I think, therefore I am.” This is a bad omen because this quote is THE generic quote about the nature of existence. It’s so generic it’s almost cartoon-level. And this foreshadows the level of what is to come as throughout the film you get quotes like: “what is real?” and “maybe we’ve met before in another life?” This is the sledgehammer approach to dialog. This is like lovers saying, “I love you” or killers saying, “I am going to kill you.” Also, there is no wit anywhere in this film. And the characters never discuss the philosophy of what is going on -- a glaring omission for a film premised on a philosophical point. Essentially, the dialog in this film is blunt plot and nothing more.

There are also deeper problems. The murder which is meant to keep you interested until the reveal is little more than a pretext. There is no motive for the audience to latch onto until the end and the investigation is little more than a collection of scenes that don’t logically relate to anything. For example, Bierko runs around meeting people but we have no idea where he got their names or why these people matter. The cops don’t seem to follow up on leads. There’s also no sense of urgency. You’re never told the cops are closing in or that the killer is planning to strike again. It seems that Bierko has as long as he needs to solve this.

The machine they are using makes no sense either. They have created an independent simulation of another time and place for no apparent reason. In fact, when the detective asks why they’ve done this, Bierko tells him that is a company secret and he can’t share that information. While that’s a valid answer at that moment, the problem is it leaves the audience with a machine that does nothing except drive the plot. Even when the characters in the simulation discover the truth and demand to know why they created the simulated world, Bierko still has no answer.

The reveal is problematic as well. For one thing, the idea that there’s another world comes from out of the blue, and the idea that characters can somehow move up a level to the real world seems like deus ex machina as it is never explained and seems like a cheat to resolve the plot. Also, the way the movie ends makes everything we’ve seen irrelevant. But worst of all, the ending ties in poorly with the rest. Yes, it explains the murders, but it’s not something anyone could have guessed and really is better at explaining “how” the murders happened than “why” they happened. Indeed, there is a disconnect here because there is nothing happening in the real world which would force the murderer to come commit the murders. That makes the ending feel entirely random.

Finally, where this movie really fails is its utter lack of consideration of the psychological aspects. For a film like this to work, i.e. a film based on the confusion of multiple realities, there must be a sense that the realities really are blurring and that the character we are meant to follow is losing their grip on reality -- you can’t just occasionally have a supporting character ask, “what is real.” None of that happens here. Only the Vincent D’Onofrio character ever seems to grasp the sense of confusion at finding out his world is not real. Bierko and the others remain perfectly clear throughout and it never takes them more than a moment to realize when someone is being inhabited by someone from another reality. Because of this, it’s impossible to wonder, as the film hopes we do at that end, if our world might not be fake as well.

I also wonder if another problem with this film isn’t the concept itself? Perhaps the idea of a simulated world within a world has been done so often that audiences are just too wise to the clues and have seen it all before?

Despite these problems, the film is worth seeing. It presents an interesting take on the idea of a world within a world and it has some clever moments. For example, how people come to realize they are in a simulation is well thought out. And the mystery is enough to keep you wondering, though it’s ultimately disappointing.

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Film Friday: Triangle (2009)

This film is brilliant. It’s tense, it’s incredibly well-written and well-directed, and it’s thought provoking. Unfortunately, non-spaceship science fiction films have a hard time finding audiences. Plus, the whole Bermuda Triangle angle has been saturated by a bevy of lousy films. But this one deserves to be noticed and you should see it.

Triangle is a science fiction, suspense movie about a group of people who find themselves on an abandoned cruise ship, the Aeolus, when their sailboat overturns during a freak storm. Once onboard the Aeolus, they quickly come under attack from an unknown enemy, a crewman who is wearing a bag over his head. Up that point, this is a fairly straight forward Bermuda Triangle film. But then the film takes an incredible turn into the unexpected as each of the survivors is killed except a young mother named Jess. Jess manages to kill the attacker just in time to see the survivors board the Aeolus again. . . including herself. Soon, events repeat from an entirely different perspective.

Why This Is A Brilliant Film

This film is brilliant on so many levels. For one thing, the twist of finding Jess repeating events rather than simply finding a creepy ghost ship presents something not seen before in Bermuda Triangle films. Ditto on her observing the loop as an outside witness rather than just being aware she is personally repeating events. The ending is also genius. And even more importantly, this film never cheats.

When I finished watching this film the first time, the ending blew me away. It was like The Sixth Sense in the way it fundamentally changed the nature of the story and I immediately started the film over again just to see if the director had included any clues, because I never saw the ending coming. Imagine my surprise to find that not only is all the evidence there, but the film keeps pounding you in the face with the clues. . . yet you never see them!

** MAJOR spoiler alert, I am about to discuss everything **

Before I can continue, I have to lay out the ending and the twists. When the survivors first board the Aeolus, they are attacked by what appears to be a rogue crewman, a man wearing workman’s clothes and a sack over his head. Jess eventually kills him by pushing him over the side of the ship. That’s when events begin repeating. As they do, Jess first tries to help the other survivors, but then decides she must kill them so she can complete the loop and return home to save her son. That’s when you learn that she was in fact the mysterious crewman all along. She is eventually killed the same way she killed her other self before, and she wakes up on the shore. Once there, she rushes home to her son expecting a happy ending. Only she sees another version of herself with her son. She kills this other self and claims her son, but the trauma of seeing his mother killed by his mother upsets the boy and they fight. This causes an accident, which kills her son. That’s when she realizes that the only way to save her son is to go to the marina and start the loop over. Essentially, she voluntarily re-enters the loop with the intent of killing her friends so she can return and save her son. Wow!

But does the beginning of the movie hold up to these new facts? Actually, it does. When Jess first shows up, she seems stunned, hesitant and upset. We are told something is wrong with her and that her story about her son being at school is lie. But we quickly dismiss this because we’re told she has an autistic son who could well be in school on Saturday and her being stunned could be the result of a fight with her son and with the cold reception she gets from her new boyfriend’s (Greg) friends.

Interestingly, the opening is crawling with double meanings. For example, she’s asked several times if she feels “guilty” about her son. Without knowing the ending, this sounds like her guilt is about leaving him at home while she’s having fun. Knowing the ending, this is a much more pointed comment. She’s also asked how her son is and she responds: “The same, every day is the same, if I do one thing differently, I lose him.” Again, this could be a mother struggling with an autistic child, but it’s also a clear description of the plot as it points to both the time loop and her need to complete the loop to save him.

Once they board the Aeolus, the clues become much more blatant. Jess says several times that she feels like she’s been on this ship before. Further, you learn that Aeolus was the father of Sisyphus, who cheated death and was cursed by the gods to push a boulder up a hill every day, only to have it roll back down, just as Jess is repeating events every day. There’s even a record player which keeps repeating the same few notes over and over (caused by Jess). These are major clues. Not to mention they find her keys, an impossibility, her watch alone is set to ship time, and the other survivors immediately begin swearing that Jess told them things we never saw her do, suggesting a double. The other characters also tell her several times that “this is all just in your mind” and they suggest that she’s in “her own world” at the moment and not reality.

There’s also one more major give away. We assume the crewman who is trying to kill them is a man because it looks like a man in the work clothes and with the bag over his head. But it turns out to be Jess. And when we learn this, we notice something incongruous about the crewman image: her shoes. Indeed, it’s blatantly obvious from her shoes at that point that this is Jess, and one of the characters even identifies her that way. But the viewer never notices this key clue until after the crewman is revealed to be Jess. So did the director cheat and not show us her feet before? Actually, no. They are clearly visible three times before you know this is Jess, but the director uses the action to pull your eyes toward other parts of the screen at those moments and you never notice. Once you know to look for them, it’s obvious, but until then, this major clue really is hidden in plain sight. Amazing.

Moreover, once events begin repeating and we watch Jess watching the loops, only certain portions of the original dialog get repeated -- the biggest clues as to what is going on. So you are constantly hit with these clues throughout.

All of this dangles before our eyes. We know something traumatic happened to Jess before she boarded the sailboat and it relates to her son, that she feels guilty about it, that she is doomed to repeat this day like a mythical figure who tried to cheat death, that she believes she must kill everyone to “save” her son (who we didn’t know needed saving), that she’s done this hundreds of times already, and that she is the attacker. She even tells us this is about her son, “if I do one thing differently, I lose him” and “I have to get back to save him.” And these things get repeated over and over. Essentially, the writer shows us his cards and dares us to solve the riddle. Yet we never notice any of this because the writer gives us other possible explanations which we accept because they are less fantastic, e.g. her behavior being the result of her autistic son. That’s great writing.

Finally, I want to comment on the ending, which is truly brilliant. One problem with time loop stories is that it’s usually easy to break the loop, so there’s often an unwritten rule in these films that everyone will agree to ignore that possibility. Here, you don’t need to. Early on, when she wants to break the loop, but her every attempt is frustrated by a later version of her. This tells us that the option of breaking the loop just isn’t available to her because the other hers will make it happen.

Then she decides she must complete the loop when she pieces together why all the other versions of her want to kill the other survivors. They are doing this because it’s the only way to get home and save her son. This means she actively wants to complete the loop, just as she wants to restart the loop after her son is killed. This is a fascinating twist that the looped character actually wants to complete the loop, and this eliminates the usual questions of why the loop character isn’t smarter.

The one complaint I have with the film is that her knowledge of her son’s death seems to leave her after she gets some sleep on the sailing boat. It’s possible she suddenly thinks this whole thing is a dream, or it’s possible the loop works that way and she needs to re-learn events once she’s in it. Either way I’m not sure and that’s one area where this film could have been stronger -- if she had simply bought into the need to finish the loop at all times. But in any event, this is truly thought-provoking, creepy, and exciting film. I highly recommend this one.

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Film Friday: Scott Pilgrim v. The World (2010)

When I first saw Scott Pilgrim, I did not enjoy it. The film lost me right away and never recovered. But I gave it another chance after realizing I had looked at the film in the wrong way. I thought it was a comic book film, but it really isn’t -- it’s a videogame brought to life. I am now of two minds regarding this film. If you have no affinity for videogames, then this movie is not for you. It stinks. BUT, if you enjoy videogaming, then this movie is a brilliant parody.

** spoiler alert **

Plot

Scott Pilgrim is the story of Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), a Toronto youth who fronts a band (Sex Bob-omb) with some friends and happens to be dating a high school girl named Knives Chau. His friends are all deeply-depressed slackers. As the film begins, he meets delivery girl Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and convinces her to go out with him on a date. Because of this, Scott soon finds himself under attack from each of her evil exes. In fact, they have formed the League of Evil Exes, and they attack anyone she dates. The rest of the movie involves Scott fighting each of these exes, while being stalked by Knives as his band tries to win a record contract.

You Will Not Like This Film

If you have no affinity for video- games, you will dislike this film. . . a lot. The film itself is nonsense. Its plot is an excuse for a series of fight scenes and little holds these scenes together. The characters are completely without depth and are hard to like because they are all angry, depressed slackers. Michael Cera is even harder to like because he’s lifeless and simply has no charisma -- he comes across as someone you would go out of your way to avoid in real life, and that makes him hard to watch on film. He’s also so whiny and so full of self-pity that you pretty much want to see him get hurt. Finally, the film loses touch with reality repeatedly as videogame elements suddenly appear, such as money raining from the sky whenever Scott beats a bad guy. For most people, these elements will make this an unbearable film.

You Will Love This Film

But let us assume you have an affinity for gaming. Then this film is something else entirely. What Scott Pilgrim really is at its core is a satire of a videogame tropes. It is the kind of film which points out things gamers laugh about.

Turning videogames into films has proven to be a challenge for Hollywood. This is because videogame characters tend to be two-dimensional and because gaming elements don’t translate well to film. So Hollywood has tried several different routes. Films like Prince of Persia and Laura Croft took the characters and turned them into generic action heroes. But these films ended up flat because neither the characters nor the plot offered much depth and fans complained they didn’t capture the spirit of the game. Films like Resident Evil and Hitman tried to include game-like dialog at points and game-like tasks to transfer “the feel” of the game. Unfortunately, “game feel” isn’t what most audiences are after, and these moments felt stiff. Doom actually gave the audience a first-person shooter view for a couple minutes, which seems pretty stupid in hindsight. Super Mario Bros. was made as a comedy with Bob Hoskins and Jon Leguizamo asked to breathe life into the characters. Final Fantasy came close to capturing the game feel, except it didn’t use any of the game characters. Nevertheless, it scored the highest of any videogame film at Rotten Tomatoes with a pathetic 43% (most of these films didn’t get out of the teens). To put a point on this, no one has really been able to adapt a videogame to the big screen yet because no one is quite sure what audiences want from a game adaptation.

Scott Pilgrim tried something unique -- it decided to be unapologetic about being a videogame. Hence, it follows the structure of a videogame and its characters are never phased by the game elements, like when people have strange superpowers, or when people explode into coins when they lose fights, or when scores and instructions appear on screen. Interestingly, this unique approach gives the film a neat vibe which easily allows the viewer to suspend their disbelief, something which is much more difficult in the films like Doom, which pretend they aren’t videogames.

At the same time, Scott Pilgrim mercilessly mocks videogames. For example, after an intro which feels like a slacker film shot on a budget not large enough to buy the crew lunch at the McDonald’s Dollar Menu, Scott engages in a series of what are called “boss battles” in videogame parlance. A boss is simply a named villain the hero must defeat to move on to the next level. Each boss is meant to have a unique power and is more powerful than the last. And that’s where the seven exes come in -- each has their own theme. For example, the first ex conjures Indian Bollywood dancers and tries to defeat Scott using a musical number. Another fights him with a skateboard. Another comes after him in a battle of the bands, and so on. In each instance, the powers they use are like the sorts of things you find in videogames, only these powers are utterly ridiculous. And therein lies the parody.

Further, the way the characters react also is parody. Indeed, all videogame characters are intensely earnest. Yet the characters here are downright blasé about everything. . . “Scott might die? Ok, we’ll be at the coffee shop.” Moreover, these characters constantly wonder why they are doing this. In effect, they marvel at the pointlessness of the game in which they reside. No videogame character would ever do that, but gamers laugh about it.

The conclusion of the film also completely mocks the idea that character’s lives can be relived with different choices made as Scott is able to come back from the dead and “try again,” a common occurrence in video- games. When he does, he rather hilariously rushes through the pre-boss challenges he faced on that level so he can get back to where he was when he died. . . just like every real gamer has done a million times -- right down to forcing their way through the henchmen without waiting for them to deliver their lines. And then he make a different choice and is awarded different powers to use against the boss, something which make no sense in a film, but makes total sense in a game.

What this film does, which no other film has done to date, is translate a videogame directly into a film without removing the ridiculous game elements. To the contrary, it embraces those elements, exaggerates them and mocks them. And in so doing, it creates a fantastic parody of the silliness of videogames. But it also makes this a niche movie. That’s why Scott Pilgrim will appeal to video gamers but probably no one else.

Finally, as an interesting aside, Scott Pilgrim doesn’t actually come from a videogame. . . it comes from a comic book, which makes its success even more intriguing. What’s more, this film received an 81% at Rotten Tomatoes -- almost double the next best videogame-to-film translation. Fascinating.

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

The Sound of Inconsistency

Humans are fascinated by time. We have a million words to describe it and explain it. We measure it and measure ourselves by it. And we wonder about its nature. Does it move in a straight line or does it exist all at once? Can we move through it? Can we go back in time and change the past or is the past simply gone? And science fiction loves this concept. But sometimes the concept gets mishandled.

In particular, I’m thinking about a film called A Sound of Thunder. This film bombed. Lousy effects, indifferent acting and a weak story all resulted in the film earning only $12 million against its $80 million budget. But I think the real failure was its utter misuse of the concept of time travel. Observe.

Based on Ray Bradbury’s short story of the same name, Thunder involves a private company that sells hunting tours to the past. For a large fee, you can go back in time and bag an Allosaurus. But wait! Won't that change the future? That’s what the butterfly effect tells us: if you go back in time and kill so much as a butterfly, you can change the present/future in unimaginable ways. Why? Because that's how butterflies roll.

To avoid changing history, this company has chosen a specific, doomed Allosaurus to be hunted. This Allosaurus is seconds away from sinking into a tar pit, and the tar pit will be covered by a volcanic blast a couple minutes later. Thus, killing the doomed Allosaurus a minute or two early won’t change anything.

But in the process of hunting the doomed Allosaurus, something goes wrong and one of the hunters steps on a butterfly. BamO! The future begins to change.

Right away, the flaws appear in this premise. For starters, how did they find this Allosaurus and pinpoint his time of death? And how can they take back more than one hunting party since each party will arrive at the same time? But much more importantly, how can killing the butterfly matter when the volcano will kill everything in the area, including the butterfly in a matter of minutes? In other words, if it’s ok to kill the doomed Allosaurus, why isn’t it ok to kill the doomed butterfly?

Then it gets worse. When they get back, nothing has changed. But a few hours later, things do begin to change. Only, they change in waves. At first, some of the plants become more jungle-like. Then some animals begin to change. Then some humans become more animal-like. Then new species begin to appear. And if our intrepid team can’t get back to the lab and go back in time and fix this by stopping the butterfly-slaughter (or maybe giving it mouth to mouth), then soon everything will change.

But this doesn’t really make any sense. Why would time change in waves? Further, why would it only change a little bit at a time, e.g. making some plants jungle-like, but not others, changing some humans, but not others. This reeks of "plot convenience"! Indeed, what’s going on here is rather than sticking with a consistent concept of how time should work, they are just doing whatever the plot needs. That makes the whole premise a joke.

This film highlights the real danger of doing time travel paradoxes in films. People find this stuff fascinating and they like to think about it. And if your theory isn’t consistent or doesn’t make sense then you’re doomed. You can’t just fake this stuff scene by scene because science fiction audiences are too savvy for that.

So while we’re on the topic, let me leave you with a couple questions.

1. Do you think time exists and can we change the past?
2. Would you change the past if you could?
3. What are some of your favorite time travel films/stories?

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Film Friday: Twelve Monkeys (1995)

I want to like Terry Gilliam’s films. I want to respect Terry Gilliam’s films. But I can’t. They’re a mess. Twelve Monkeys is an exception. Twelve Monkeys is almost brilliant. What makes it brilliant is its twist on time travel paradoxes. What makes it “almost” is Gilliam’s usual problems.

** spoiler alert -- I will talk about the ending **

Based on the French short film La jetée, Twelve Monkeys is a complex time travel story about a dystopian future. James Cole (Bruce Willis) is sent back in time from the future to observe key players who will cause a viral apocalypse. Specifically, he’s sent to observe Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt) who will form a group called the Army of the Twelve Monkeys, who appear to take credit for destroying humanity. Goines’ father (Christopher Plummer) owns a biotechnology firm, and the future scientists who send Willis back think Pitt stole a deadly virus from his father and unleashed it on the world. But things don’t quite turn out that way.

“Almost” Brilliant

Terry Gilliam is his own worst enemy. He loves including nonsensical images, characters who are too conscious of being on film, and chaotic scenes that fall apart immediately if you look at the chaos rather than the main characters. Essentially, he hamstrings his talent with his penchant for ridiculousness which he thinks is a statement about humanity. It’s not. Twelve Monkeys worked because Gilliam didn’t write it. It contains many of his trademark problems, but those things were not enough to ruin this strong script.

One thing Gilliam does do right, however, is present a fascinatingly nuanced peek at insanity. Twelve Monkeys involves three purportedly insane characters, and each gives us a different take on the subject:

● Willis isn’t actually insane, though he thinks he is. His problem is he’s weak-minded and feels out of place when he gets sent back in time to a world he doesn’t understand. But he only truly loses touch with reality when he tries to conform to a world he knows to be wrong.

● Pitt is a spoiled rich kid. He isn’t insane, but he likes the idea of being insane because he thinks it makes him special and it affords him the freedom to lash out at those around him. Pitt’s insanity is most like the insanity Hollywood villains normally portray and ironically, our belief that he’s insane leads us on a wild goose chase.

● Finally, Dr. Goines’ assistant Dr. Peters (David Morse) is truly insane as he becomes fascinated with the idea of wiping out the human race. He is the ultimate example of power corrupting, only it corrupted his mind.

Brilliance: Time Travel Paradox

What makes Twelve Monkeys so brilliant is how it deals with time travel paradoxes. Hollywood generally uses two types of time travel paradoxes, but rarely combines them. This film combines them and then adds a fascinating twist.

The grandfather paradox is the idea that you can’t go back in time and kill your grandfather because then you would never exist to go back in time in the first place. Ergo, you can’t change the past. On its surface, Twelve Monkeys is about that paradox. Willis gets sent back in time to our present by future scientists. They want Willis to observe events and discover how the virus that destroys humanity gets released. This will allow them to go back to that exact moment and get a sample of the virus before it mutates, which they can use to stop the virus in the future. And indeed, pay attention and you'll see one of the scientists sitting next to Peters on the plane for that very purpose.

But why not stop the virus being released? Because of the grandfather paradox. If they stop Peters, the future will change BUT then they wouldn't exist to come back and stop Peters -- hence Peters still releases the virus. Ergo, time can’t be changed. To pound this home, we see all of Willis’ attempts to change the future fail. By trying to disavow his mission when he first arrives in the present, he actually gives Pitt the idea to destroy humanity, which sets everything into motion. By trying to tell Pitt’s father what will happen, Willis causes Pitt’s father to change his security protocols, which allows Peters to steal the virus. Finally, by trying to stop Peters at the airport, Willis’ gets himself killed right before a young boy who happens to be Willis and who will be scarred from this, which will cause him to become maladjusted, which is what gets him chosen by the scientists to go back in time. In effect, the more Willis tries to change the future, the more he causes it.

That’s what most reviewers got out of the film -- that Willis made his own destiny and couldn’t change the future. But something even more interesting is going on.

Brilliance: The Second Paradox

There is a second time travel paradox, which involves someone from the present bringing something back from the future which causes the future. For example, bringing back DNA from a killer monkey, which then gets used to create the monkey, which otherwise wouldn’t have existed. Logically there cannot be a killer monkey until it is created, yet in this scenario they skip ahead and steal its DNA before they actually create it. Is that possible? Logic can’t help us answer this because it is a paradox -- it exists outside logic.

From Willis’ perspective, Twelve Monkey involves the grandfather paradox. He wants to change events, but can’t. But from our perspective, Twelve Monkeys involves the second paradox, because Willis comes from the future and causes the very future he wants to stop. Including both paradoxes in the same film is already a fascinating twist. But there’s more.

Anyone trying to stop Willis will be subject to the grandfather paradox because he is now part of the past. It would be the same thing as if they tried to shoot Peters. They would cease to exist and thus events would continue as before. It is an inescapable loop. But there is one way out: Willis can change the past. Think about it. The reason the grandfather paradox is a problem is that once the time traveler changes the past, the future changes, which prevents the time traveler from coming back and changing the past, which resets the past to the way it was before the time traveler intervened. But that isn’t what would happen here because it was Willis’ actions which caused the timeline in the first place. If Willis doesn’t speak to Pitt or Pitt’s father, there will be no virus and no future from which Willis can travel to the past. But since the new virus-free timeline doesn't depend on Willis coming back and doing something, it won't revert to the virus timeline Willis wanted to change. The loop is broken. But only Willis can make this change because he’s in the unique position of being the cause. Anyone else would be subject to the grandfather paradox.

Now here’s a fascinating question. Can Willis change the future by shooting Pitt? Yes, he can. If he shoots Pitt, then the future is never created. That means Willis can’t come back to shoot Pitt, but it also means Willis can't start the events that release the virus. Hence, again, the timeline is set to its normal virus-free course and the loop is broken. But does the answer change if he shoots Peters? By the time he would shoot Peters, he’s already set events in motion in the past by talking to Pitt, so that part of the past is written, meaning the grandfather paradox should apply... but if he shoots Peters and the virus never gets released, then how can he talk to Pitt? There’s no true answer.

These are the kinds of fascinating ideas science fiction should always be striving to achieve, and that’s what makes this film so brilliant.

Bonus Question: Finally, I leave you with one last question. Throughout the film we work on the assumption the scientists realize they can’t change the past. But why does Willis “accidentally” get sent to World War I in such a coincidental way that he ends up in a photo for Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe) to see? Is it possible the scientist are manipulating the past to intentionally cause their own present? And if so, why?

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Reality Ain't What It Used To Be

I often wonder about the effects of videogames and films on the human mind. In particular, they seem to be changing the way we perceive reality and I wonder if they aren't making death seem less permanent?

It’s fairly obvious to me that films, television and videogames are distorting our perceptions of reality. The clearest example of this comes from what they’ve done to our expectations regarding human interaction. In films, characters always know the perfect things to say. Politicians always deliver the cleverest lines seemingly off the cuff. Lawyers always say the exact thing that triggers the needed response from the witness. Jokes are always well set up by their victims. And dates are unbelievably perfect. Indeed, characters in romantic films always say just the right thing to keep conversations moving in the right direction, to excite the other person, and to win the moment.

Unfortunately, people seem to be confusing this with reality. Indeed, I’ve heard many people bemoan the fact their dates didn’t come across like the ones they see on films. They never had the right word for the moment. Their conversation often stalled out. And worst of all, when they tried to hit the proverbial "verbal homerun," they just came across as creepy.

But here’s the thing: that’s how real life works. What these people don’t grasp is the difference between a conversation involving two independent human beings, whose reactions are largely unpredictable, engaging in an off-the-cuff conversation versus a manufactured situation where two characters exchange words that have been pre-written after a great deal of thought and editing and where each character is guaranteed to respond in precisely the perfect way, i.e. there is no chance of failure. The two situations just aren't comparable. Yet, many people now judge real life based on the false standards set up by films and they wrongly downgrade individuals who can’t live up to those impossible expectations.

The same is true in sports, where slow-motion instant replay has changed the perception of what athletes should achieve. Go to any sports bar and you'll hear a gaggle of idiots talking about how they would have “turned this way and grabbed the ball and then flipped over that way and etc. etc.” The reality is the action they are talking about occurred in less than a tenth of second, too fast for the human nervous system to respond, yet these idiot are demanding actions that would have taken 8-10 seconds. . . the length of the replay they are seeing. Again, their perception of reality is false yet they can't tell the difference.

So what about death? Nobody dies permanently in films or on television. If your main character dies in a science fiction story, you can be pretty sure they’ve been secretly cloned and will be back. If they die in a drama, they’ll be back in dreams. Everybody died at the end of your film? Don’t sweat it, just do a reboot or prequel or a sequel that pretends they didn’t die. Death just isn’t a permanent state of being in entertainment, not as long as audiences want the character to return. Heck, even villains need to be killed twice before they finally die.

Videogames are even worse -- death is never the end. In fact, death is nothing more than a chance to start over and try a different path, i.e. the one that didn’t get you killed. Went down the wrong alley? Ducked when you should have jumped? Tangled with the wrong Nausicaan? Don’t worry, you’ll be dead in a moment and you can try it differently.

Having played a lot of games in my time, I can tell you that if you play them long enough you will occasionally find yourself thinking in terms of “next time.” For example, “next time I’ll go to that college instead” or “next time I turn 40, I’ll skip the ‘Mount of Donuts Cake’ and have the ‘Sausage Platter Cake’ instead.” This is classic game thinking that your mind is expressing. . . planning for the next time. The only problem: there is no next time in life.

So what’s the point? The point is that I suspect our entertainment dramatically affects how we perceive the world. I don’t know if this ultimately changes our actions, but I'm pretty sure it influences our judgment to varying degrees. Maybe we should think about that the next time we go writing a film or videogame that promotes really bad thinking?

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Film Friday: eXistenZ (1999)

Written and directed by David Cronenberg, eXistenZ is one of those films. It’s got a great science fiction concept, a quality cast (Jude Law, Willem DaFoe, Ian Holm) and enough mystery to hold your interest. I generally enjoy it and even find it strangely fascinating. Yet, it’s unsatisfying. And the more I think about it, the less satisfying it gets. The reason for this, sadly, is that Cronenberg has created a mess and he tries to cheat his way out of it.

Before we go further, let me give two warnings. First, there will be serious spoilers, including discussions of the twists. Secondly, you can enjoy this film if you don’t think about it. So if ignorance is bliss, then skip this review.

1. The Plot:

eXistenZ starts as the story of Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and Ted Pikul (Jude Law), who are on the run from people trying to kill Geller. Geller is the world’s greatest virtual reality game designer and she has a new game called eXistenZ, the only copy of which is in her game pod -- a living game machine that ports into your body. Pikul is a marketing guy assigned to protect her. The people trying to kill her are a nebulous group of “realists,” who are waging a vague military style insurgency against her company for distorting reality.

As they run, Geller’s game pod is damaged in an assassination attempt and she decides to test the game to make sure it still works. Inside the game world (“Cort-Stim world”), they discover a somewhat parallel world also with a violent struggle between virtualists and realists. Numerous twists and turns later, they return to the world in which the film started (“eXistenZ world”) only to discover that realists have launched an attack on them. This leads to a quick series of betrayals, which end when it is revealed that this world is actually a videogame called tranCendenZ and the people they’ve been running into are other players who are test marketing the game in the real world (“tranCendenZ world”).

2. Failure of Concept:

You should recognize this as the classic science fiction theme of a reality within a reality, as seen in films like Inception and The Thirteenth Floor. These stories work by blurring the worlds and causing the characters to lose track of which reality is real. Indeed, these films invariably end with some character asking “but what if this isn’t real?” eXistenZ is no different. It tries very hard to make us think the characters are losing track of what is real and what isn’t and it even ends on the line: “are we still in the game?” Yet, eXistenZ fails entirely to pull this off because it never presents anything to make us believe the characters could be the least bit confused about what is reality and what isn’t.

Consider the “reality” in which most of the movie takes place -- Cort-Stim world. We know from the get go that this world exists solely inside a videogame and at no point is it ever suggested that this world might be real. Thus, the whole concept of having a world within a world is undercut from the beginning because both the audience and the characters know this is just a videogame. Further, there is no bleed through from one world to the other, there is no threat that can travel back and forth, and there is no possibility of getting stuck in Cort-Stim world. Moreover, Cort-Stim world is full of obvious game elements (like characters going into game loops) which don’t exist in eXistenZ world, and thus make it easy to tell which world is which.

Despite this, Cronenberg tries to sell the audience on the idea of confusion by filling Pikul's dialog with comments about having a hard time telling the difference between the "real" world (eXistenZ world) and the game world. But this makes no sense. Pikul knows he’s plugged into a game and he’s only been playing for a few minutes. So why would he be confused? Also, to convince the audience that this confusion is real, Cronenberg has Pikul spend his time in the game being pensive about the dangers they are facing and asking repeatedly to leave the game before something bad happens. But this is as nonsensical as worrying about getting hurt in a car race game.

Further, this game world bears no relationship to an actual game. It has some classic game elements, but it has no goals or objectives or instruction to players. It offers only one path to the players, with no choice to be made or tasks to be completed, and it lasts only a few minutes and ends with no possibility of victory. All in all, nothing about this feels like a game at all; it just feels like plot filler used to give the characters an appearance of doing something before the film ends, especially the supposed “game urges” which are little more than gratuitous sexual moments that have no purpose in the game (there is oddly out-of-place gratuitous gore too which you don't expect in this kind of film).

eXistenZ world fairs no better. Things seem to happen randomly and much of it is unbelievable and contradictory. The attack of the realist in particular was poorly done. For example, you see them setting off explosions where there are no targets and firing wildly at nothing. Then one of the rebels declares victory, but against what? Then he decides to kill Geller, only Geller gets saved by a man who then tries to kill her, only to have another man try to kill her who has also saved her a couple times and could have killed her at his leisure many times before. Why does everyone who wants to kill her try to save her first? The explanation given by the final assassin is ridiculous: “I wanted to get to know who I was killing first.” Yeah, sure, so much for the dedicated revolutionary.

A good example of this illogic comes from Willem DaFoe’s character. He decides to kill Geller to get a five million dollar reward. But rather than just kill her, he first agrees to install a bioport into Pikul. Why? Because he wants to install a defective bioport in the hopes of killing Geller’s game because there is a bonus reward for killing the game. But how does this make sense? If he kills Geller and Pikul as he plans, then he has the pod and he can burn it or shoot it or whatever. Why go through the elaborate hoax? Also, does it really make sense the people offering the reward would pay for a burned out pod or would they want to verify the game was on the pod? Also, how does he know they will play the game at his gas station so that he gets a chance to kill them after they play? And how does he even know this is the only copy of the game? Essentially, he has to know the plot before his actions make any sense.

Pikul and Geller’s characters fall apart too once we learn eXistenZ world is a game as well. If this world isn’t real and Geller isn’t actually the designer of the game, then she has too much intimate knowledge of the game and of Cort-Stim world. Her knowledge goes way beyond what a first-time player would know. And if the object of eXistenZ is to kill Geller, why doesn’t Pikul just kill her the first chance he gets and win the game? Also, when she shoots her friend, why does Pikul lecturer her that she might have just killed a real human being? This is nonsense. Both Cort-Stim world and eXistenZ world are game worlds. So unless he's claiming confusion with tranCendenZ world, these couldn't possibly be real people -- and he never claims such confusion.

The problem here is that the point Cronenberg is trying to make doesn't come naturally from the story's plot elements, so he's trying to force it by having the characters just say it. But that doesn't work. If the characters really are losing touch with reality, the film needs to show that through its story and the characters’ actions; the writer can’t just have the characters say “gee, I’m losing touch with reality.” What's happened here is Cronenberg made a mess of the underlying concept and he never bothered sorting it out before he made the film. Instead, he hopes to hide this fact by covering up the mess with forced dialog. This doesn't work. In fact, compare this with Inception, where the story methodically builds all the elements needed to let the audience question whether any of the worlds in which the characters find themselves can ever be proven to be real and leaves them wondering how the characters would actually know.

If Cronenberg had bothered solving his plot problems rather than just covering them up, eXistenZ could have been Inception before Inception.

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Film Friday: The Matrix (1999)

By any measure, The Matrix is easily one of the greatest science fiction films ever made. It’s a thrilling action movie, which brought in half a billion dollars. It has a great story with jaw dropping twists and turns. It's presented with an incredible sense of style and innovative special effects. And, most importantly, it takes several science fiction themes to the next level, creating one of the philosophically deepest films on record.

** heavy spoiler alert **

Directed by Larry and Andy Wachowski (Bound), The Matrix is a mind-trip that takes place in a world where machines have enslaved the human race and the human race doesn’t know it. The film can be enjoyed either as a simple rousing action flick or as an intelligent science fiction film with almost limitless depth.

The Matrix As An Action Flick

The Matrix is the story of Thomas Anderson, aka Neo (Keanu Reeves), a computer hacker who feels that something is wrong with the world, something he can’t put his finger on. Through a series of seemingly impossible events, Neo is contacted by a shadowy man named Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne), who offers him a choice: go back to his life or see the real world. Neo chooses reality, and discovers that he’s been living his entire life in a computer simulation. He learns that in the real world, humans fought a war against an artificial intelligence they created, and lost. Now the remaining free humans hide in a city called Zion near the earth’s core, from which they continue to fight against the machines. The rest of humanity, the vast majority, live unaware in the virtual world created by the machines, as their bodies act as batteries for the machines. According to Morpheus, Neo is prophesized as “the One” who will end the war and free humanity.

The Matrix excels as an action flick. It’s stylishly shot with a strong techno soundtrack and totally hip costuming. The fight scenes are incredibly well choreographed, taking wire fighting to new highs, and it introduces “bullet time” effects, where the scene appears to freeze as the camera rotates around live action. The acting is solid, the dialog is almost-noir but packed with meaning, and there is significant character growth throughout the movie, but never at the expense of the pacing. And the story is clever and exciting. All of this combines in The Matrix to create some truly unique and iconic images, moments and characters. Thus, like most great films (like Star Wars and Close Encounters), The Matrix has inspired much (see, e.g. Inception), but it’s essentially been impossible to copy.

Based on this alone, The Matrix is well worth seeing. But this isn’t all it offers.

The Matrix As Ultra-Intelligent Science Fiction

Beyond the action, The Matrix becomes an extremely intelligent science fiction film. Most science fiction films address only one theme, and usually, the whole film revolves around revealing that theme, like a twist. The Matrix forswears that formula and instead mixes multiple themes, which it then approaches from new perspectives.

The main theme of the The Matrix is an old philosophical/religious question: free will versus predetermination. Free will is shown through Neo, who makes many choices. He must choose to see reality instead of the false reality he lives. He must choose to accept the role of savior. He must choose to stand and fight. And he must choose to believe reality will bend to his will. Even after he has made these choices, he still only has the power to free people if they choose to believe him, i.e. they have free will too. Indeed, the film ends with him telling the machines that he’s going to give humanity a choice.

But is free will an illusion? On the side of predetermination, the movie presents the Oracle and Morpheus (references to Ancient Greece), who see Neo as a prophesized “the One” who will end the war and free man from the machines. Neo objects to the idea of predetermined fates, but every move he makes seems foretold. Thus, it would seem The Matrix believes in predetermination. But wait, the Oracle herself casts doubt on this when she points out that he could be causing his own destiny simply by knowing it: “Would you really have knocked over that vase if I hadn’t mentioned it first?” Moreover, she manipulates Neo by lying to him to get him to act in predetermined ways. . . but then, he does act in predetermined ways.

While this battle rages, the film explores another common science fiction theme: man versus machine, but it does so in much greater depth than this issue normally gets. Science fiction often deals with machines turning on their creators, everything from intelligent computers, like Skynet and HAL, to killer robots in I, Robot. But beyond the shock of the machines rising up, there isn’t usually much more to these stories. The Matrix, by comparison, takes this as a mere starting point and then adds layers of depth from there. Thus, for example, in The Matrix, mankind doesn’t even know its been conquered, which is a rare take on this theme. Also, the machines are not as unified as they seem, as rogue programs like the Oracle help Neo and as the machines begin to lose control over Agent Smith, as he develops a blinding hate for humanity. Moreover, we’re told the machines aren’t all bad because they recognize they are dependent on humans, and they actually tried to make the matrix into a paradise. . . only, the humans wouldn’t accept the programming -- raising questions both of the nature of the human psych and whether a gilded cage is still a cage? These are all aspects that are rarely, if ever, seen in stories dealing with this theme.

What’s more, the man versus machine theme gets brought into the film’s other big theme: perception versus reality. This again is a common theme in science fiction and usually is enough to occupy an entire movie. Indeed, when this theme is used, typically the entire plot will center around the discovery near the end of the film that reality isn’t want it used to be. The Matrix goes deeper. It lets Neo in on the secret early in the film. Then it sets about asking questions that have almost never, if ever, been asked: (1) would you want to know about the real world if you were happy with your perceived world, (2) could you live happily knowing the world you perceive is fake, (3) at what point does perception become reality (if everyone thinks this is how chicken tastes, does that make it so), and (4) if our perceived reality is merely implanted in our minds, can we manipulate it?

The Matrix weaves these themes and questions together into one story, in which Neo must decide to break with the reality he knows so he can fulfill a prophecy and thereby set mankind free from a prison they don’t even know exists.

Adding even more depth and flavor to the exploration of these themes, The Matrix calls upon a treatise in philosophy and religion to inform its characters. For example, a large portion of The Matrix is a Christian allegory, complete with dozens of Biblical references, with Neo playing the role of Christ, as the savior of humanity if only mankind truly believes in him. At the same time, the film tosses in elements of a half dozen other religions like the Buddhist child bending the nonexistent spoon, plus philosophical concepts like Rene Descartes’ evil genius (a faulty argument for why God must exist), and more recognizable references to things like “Alice in Wonderland.” Indeed, this movie is exquisitely made with no single object, name, word or image appearing in the film by chance.

Finally, let me say a word on the ending. Roger Ebert (and others) criticized the movie because he viewed it as a “letdown” that a movie about “redefining the nature of reality” would end in a shootout. But he’s missing the point. The shootout is not the ending. The ending comes when Neo finally realizes that he need not obey the physical laws of reality. Thus, he need not dodge bullets, he can will them to stop. It is his triumph over perception that gives him his victory, not fancy shooting on his part. And thereby, Neo proves man’s superiority to the machines, as our minds can do something the machines cannot -- they cannot imagine outside the bounds of reality -- and he fulfills his destiny through the exercise of free will.

This is why The Matrix is a great film. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...

Film Friday: Inception (2010)

Inception is a well-made, thoroughly enjoyable movie, but it’s not a “great” film like so many people say. In fact, I suspect this is yet another in a long line of films that seemed special at the time, but will quickly be forgotten. The reason for this is that Inception offers nothing new and, ultimately, it makes no sense.

** heavy spoiler alert **

The Plot

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) can enter dreams and extract information. He and his partner are caught entering the mind of a man named Saito, who makes them an offer they cannot refuse. If they agree to place an idea into the mind of a competitor, Saito will clear-up a murder charge which keeps Cobb from returning to the United States to see his children -- the murder charge is the result of his wife’s suicide, for which the police blame Cobb. The concept of planting an idea into a mind is called “inception,” and this is supposed to be impossible, except Cobb has already done it once. Saito wants Cobb to cause a competitor to break up his own corporation. And while this sounds rather undoable at first, they come up with a very plausible way of making this idea take hold.

To plant this idea, they drug the competitor and force him into a shared dream controlled by one of Cobb’s team members. Once inside the dream, the team causes him to enter a second dream state and then a third to disorient him. This also has the benefit of giving the team more time, as each additional dream state feels an order of magnitude longer than the prior. Thus, a minute in the first dream feels like five minutes in the second and days in the third. But there’s a catch. To create three dream states requires a sedative, which makes it nearly impossible for the team to wake themselves from the dream and will cause them to fall into a limbo state, should they die in the dream. In this limbo state, they would spend a lifetime all by themselves before they awake in their current bodies -- this happened to Cobb and his wife, who now intrudes into his subconscious and creates problems. Also inside the dream, the team will be chased by trained killers from the subject’s subconscious. Despite these challenges, the team completes the mission successfully. However, as the movie ends, questions are raised as to whether or not they succeeded or whether Cobb is actually stuck in a dream state.

Before I discuss the problems, let me be clear. I enjoyed Inception very much. I thought it was well written, well acted, and well directed. Director Christopher Nolan (Memento, The Dark Knight) does an excellent job of walking the tightrope between keeping the mystery alive and confusing the audience and he provides a compelling, fast-paced story that keeps you guessing what will happen next and what will happen at the end of the film. He found excellent locations and he made the smart decision to keep the special effects shots to a minimum; this film contains only 500 such shots compared to an average of around 2000 for other similar movies, which gives the film a strong sense of realism. The acting was also quite good. Indeed, I find DiCaprio to be an excellent actor and he again delivers a solid performance. The supporting cast did a great job as well, except for Ellen Page, who is miscast as anything more than a teenage girl. Thus, I happily recommend this film.

But there are problems, and these are the kinds of problems that prevent the film from being memorable over the long term.

There’s Nothing New Here

The first problem strikes you the moment the film ends: this film offers nothing new. The concept of a dream world within a dream world has already been done in films like The Thirteenth Floor and The Matrix. And while there is nothing wrong with repeating a concept, you need to offer something new to keep the concept fresh -- either a new twist or an examination of some new aspect. Inception doesn’t do that. In fact, it offers nothing that wasn’t already in The Thirteenth Floor.

Why does this matter? It matters because great films always spark the imagination. Inception offers nothing to make you think. Compare Inception to The Matrix, both of which deal with the concept that the “real world” is not “real.” Unlike Inception, The Matrix is packed with shocking twists, philosophical conundrums, and a fascinating religious analogy. Thus, when The Matrix ends, you are left with a massive puzzle with many layers, and you can spend hours contemplating how the ideas in the film relate to our world. That’s not the case with Inception. Inception leaves you with only a single question: “was Cobb dreaming.” Once you’ve answered that, the film offers little else. It doesn’t even delve into topics like exploring the nature of dreams or what this limbo state would really be like. It tried at times to talk about how a kernel of an idea can change a person, but that was never developed. And that makes Inception forgettable, except as an action movie.

The Film Makes No Sense

The second problem arises because the film’s central mystery makes no sense. There are three possible states for Cobb: (1) he succeeded in his mission and woke up, (2) he could not wake up from the mission and remains in a dream state, or (3) the entire movie was a dream. But none of these can be true.

Cobb cannot be dreaming throughout the film because we can see what is happening to people who are not within sight of Cobb. Why does this matter? Because if this film was Cobb’s dream, then we are seeing what Cobb is dreaming, and he would know that he is dreaming because he can see plot points happening which he could not actually observe. But Cobb doesn’t realize he is dreaming, thus either Cobb can’t be dreaming or the story makes no sense. Yet, Cobb must be dreaming. Why? Because the film tell us he’s dreaming. The ending in particular indicates he’s dreaming. For example, he sees his children in the same poses and clothes he’s always seen them in throughout his dreams. They have not aged, despite the years he spent outside the country, and not a speck of dust has changed in his home since he fled it years before.

So maybe he’s only dreaming at the end, right? Except there are clues in every scene that Cobb is dreaming throughout the movie. For example, scenes start and stop suddenly, like in a dream, something Cobb himself notices. We are similarly told by numerous characters that his entire life has the quality of a dream, and it does -- faceless people try to kill him, people shoot at him at point blank range but somehow miss him, he has implausible run-ins with main characters like Saito in Mombasa, there are no transitions (bamo you’re in Paris, now you’re in Mombasa, now you're in Paris, now you’re in Sydney), and people act in ways that are entirely Cobb-centric (what exactly is his team being offered to do this? and doesn’t Saito have a company to run? and why would Cobb’s father in law pimp his illegal scheme to his best student?). These things only make sense if you accept that he is dreaming. Moreover, consider his children. When he calls them in the real world early in the film, the children are seen playing outside, again in the exact clothes and positions they exist in during his dreams, and again they haven’t aged. Secondly, who is the guy who gave him the ticket to escape the country? And why couldn’t he take his children with him? Or why can’t he be reunited with his children in another country? These are questions that can be overlooked in a dream, but not in reality, and they are overlooked here.

So he must be dreaming, but he can’t be dreaming, and that’s a contradiction which calls into question the entire storytelling technique. If he is dreaming, why are we shown things that can’t be part of the dream? But if he’s not dreaming, why does so much happen so conveniently, so impossibly, or so nonsensically? The answer is that we’re being tricked and manipulated to generate a mystery and that’s an unforgivable sin in this kind of storytelling. Manipulating the audience to hide the truth would be acceptable, because people see these kinds of stories as a mystery to be solved, i.e. they want to dig for the truth. But manipulating the audience to give two distinct impressions (dreaming/not dreaming), when neither is actually possible, is egregious. It would be like Agatha Christie giving you hints that Person A or Person B was the murderer and then concluding that the victim was murdered but no one could have killed him.

It is the nature of the insolvability of this story that will keep it from being remembered with other science fiction stories that have crossed into the “must see” category. Stories like The Matrix present us with mind-opening thoughts about reality. Stories like Blade Runner make us question what makes us who are. And to achieve that, they give us a genuine mystery to solve which requires us to question our own realities. Inception give us nothing of the sort. It offers nothing new and it never manages to call anything into question because the mystery is fake, we are simply being offered two choices, neither of which is real, in the hopes that we mistake the two choices as some sort of philosophical depth.

Thus, all we’re left with is an action movie. A good action movie, but an action movie nevertheless. Hence, while I enjoyed the film a good deal, I don’t see it having any significance nor do I see it lasting very long.

[+] Read More...

[-] Collapse Post...