12 Years a Slave is Painfully Good

12 Years A Slave is a brilliantly filmed, brilliantly acted movie, but, if you’re not careful, it may lead to a real-life sequel called Twelve Years in Therapy. This movie is the cinematic equivalent to being repeatedly kicked in the stomach. I’m not sure whether movies can induce post-traumatic stress disorder, but if any movie can, it’s this one.

Inevitably, 12 Years a Slave invites comparisons to Django Unchained, another ultra-violent movie about slavery that came out a year before. This movie is unquestionably better, in every way. The protagonist is likable and complex, the script is well written, and the characters are far better developed. Just like Django, 12 Years boasts a terrifying, insane plantation owner—but this one is a tortured, impulsive alcoholic, rather than a leering, mustache-twirling psychopath. Unlike Django, 12 Years doesn’t bother to invent horrors—such as brutal gladiator-style fighting or slaves being fed to dogs. Steve McQueen, the director, and John Ridley, the screenwriter, have the sense to know that slavery’s real horrors are more than horrifying enough. And it’s amazing just how many different aspects of slavery they manage to cram into one two-hour film without losing their focus on Solomon’s deeply personal struggle to maintain hope in the face of terror.

It’s not for the faint of heart. The cinematography itself is just as brutal and unflinching as the evil depicted on screen. A three-minute shot lingers on our hero, Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor) as he struggles at the end of a rope, slowly choking. Another, even longer scene depicts the agonized screams of an innocent woman as she is whipped at a post. The movie refuses to cut away or even change camera angles, making the audience suffer every last inch of its characters’ torment. There is no escape, the movie seems to be saying. It wants you to feel trapped as the slave are trapped, unable to look away or find respite from the brutality. Needless to say, this isn’t for the faint of heart. Even the sturdy of heart may find themselves deeply nauseated before the credits roll.

The trailer’s happy music is a horrible, horrible lie.

The acting in the film is superb all around, and there are Oscar nominations on the way for at least three of the major characters. Ejiofor is haunting as a man struggling to survive in a brutal world. Lupita Nyong’o plays a miserable, broken woman caught between her master’s lust and her mistress’s vengeful jealousy. Her desperate eyes will linger on into your nightmares well after the movie is over. Michael Fassbender is repulsive and absolutely terrifying as an insane plantation owner. There is no other word to describe him. Benedict Cumberbatch also shines in a smaller, but memorable role.

The two main characters take a break from being abused to share a tender moment.

Can anything bad be said about a movie that is a strong front-runner for Best Picture of the Year? If I wanted to quibble, I’d point out the lackluster opening. We never get a clear sense of Ejiofor’s relationship with his wife, and the opening few scenes are filled with 19^th century dialogue that may sound clunky, forced, or unbelievable (though, considering the movie’s investment in historical accuracy, is probably more realistic than it sounds). Solomon’s capture is handled with slightly less grace than the scenes that follow it. None of that matters once Ejiofor is forced onto a slave ship, though, because the movie quickly takes hold of your heart and never lets it go.

12 Years a Slave is a near-perfectly crafted descent into a nightmare. Enter at your own risk.

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Prometheus

Prometheus is a movie so out there that it’s enough to prompt a busy film-blogger who has been off the web for 5 months to finally return to business. The only thing I can think is that Ridley Scott decided to challenge 2001: A Space Odyssey for the title of most bizarre, incomprehensible sci-fi film. And though he may not have de-throned 2001, he sure came close.

Prometheus has some appeal. It’s visually stunning, in a dark, gloomy, and oppressive sort of way. It’s got a lot of atmosphere, and it at least tries to tackle some big questions. And it’s got something to say about the human quest to search for answers, the human need to believe in something bigger than ourselves, to cling to meaning even when meaninglesness stares us in the face.

At least, I’d like to think that that was what the movie was about, because if it was in fact about something else (which is entirely possible) then I completely misunderstood it. To be fair, that’s more Ridley Scott’s fault than mine, because this movie never really takes a second to step back and explain itself, ever. No matter how weird it gets. And it gets weird. So weird that one has to wonder just what the screenwriter was on when he made this stuff up.

A group of astronauts (and a creepy android named David), searching for proof that human beings were created by aliens, instead stumble upon a room full of black goo. What exactly the black goo does sis up to interpretation, but it seems to have the power to turn whatever it touches into some sort of randomly generated weird space monster. Whether that space monster is a squid, a zombie, or a giant penis-shaped snake with acid blood seems purely up to chance. There’s no real reason or logic to any of it–but that’s ok, because there’s no real reason or logic to anything in this movie.

Characters get face-raped by tentacles, burned alive, beaten, and dismembered, and it’s hard to care about any of them because they don’t feel like real people. Everyone in this movie says and does things that are so bizarre you have to wonder if they’re all secretly androids like David. They seem to have no instinct for self preservation, taking off their helmets and refusing to bring a weapon with them when they leave the ship. Maybe they WANT to die?

Later, a woman staggers into a room full of people, naked except for a few bandages, covered in blood and sweat wit ha huge gash in her abdomen. They all just look over at her and go back to what they were doing. No one says “are you all right?” or “what happened to you?” or “do you need medical help?” They all just go back to what they were talking about before. What callous dicks.

The worst part has to be when one character deliberately poisons another with black go, apparently for no better reason than “that he can.” Was this just some sort of sick science experiment? Why infect an innocent man with some unknown alien substance that, for all you know, could turn him into a giant squid monster? Surely there must be some hidden plot afoot. Well, if there is, we’re never going to get a scene that explains it.

SPOILERS

As the film progresses, we learn that the goo is some sort of weapon that the aliens who created humans were planning to use to wipe out earth. For some reason, they decided their own creations needed to be destroyed. Why? We never learn. Luckily, before the aliens could destroy earth, something wiped them out and left their little anthill of horrors abandoned. What wiped them out? We never learn. Why did the aliens (who have bases on other planets) not just send another ship to wipe us put when the first one failed? Did they change their minds? Maybe, but again–it’s never explained. This movie isn’t about to answer any questions for us, which is irritating, because it’s a mystery movie that derives its very plot from the existence of these questions.

END SPOILERS

Sure, it’s possible to explain all of this, if you work at it. There are some pretty deep thinkers on the internet who have done a decent job of it. I’ve heard that this movie is actually about how Jesus was an alien, and it was the murder of Jesus that prompted the aliens to destroy earth. I’ve heard it’s all a metaphor for some Persian mythology. But the thing is this–the movie forces you, the audience to write its script for it. It leaves you grasping at threads, instead of weaving the threads together into something resembling a satisfying story.

Somehow, despite its shortcoming,s Prometheus remains strangely watchable, even enjoyable. It’s just so weird you can’t help but be somewhat enthralled by it. The prospect of telling your friends that (spoilers?) you just watched a woman give birth to a giant squid with a toothy vagina-mouth that then raped a giant bald alien that looks like Voldemort and caused that alien to give birth to a cone-headed alien that came bursting out of his chest is enough to keep you going. Because really, who is ever going to believe this crazy sh–?

Centurion

Sometimes, less is more.

Centurion could have been a successful acton-thriller and a fine entry into the “dwindling party” tradition. Because, at its essence, that’s what it is. A story about a bunch of Romans who flee for their lives and get hunted down by a bunch of Picts.

This type of movie needs a few things to work right. It needs creative action sequences, which it’s mostly got. It needs a menacing enemy to add some healthy suspense into the works. And most of all, it needs to have characters you care about or a goal you can get behind so you do’t get bored. I mean, it’s not as though the complex, riveting storyline or snappy dialogue is going to keep you interested.

The problem with Centurion is that the movie establishes pretty early on that the Romans are assholes. Of course, considering that this is a Hollywood movie about Ancient Rome that isn’t called Gladiator, the fact that the Romans are assholes is pretty much a given, but I thought that I’d mention it anyway.

Anyways, it turns out the Romans were trying to conquer the Picts so they could steal their land, because that’s what Romans do. They get a mute, scary-looking Briton woman named Etain to guide them to the leader of the Picts, because gettign a creepy-looking woman who is a member of the tribe you are trying to exterminate is a good idea, always.

Oh, wait…

Spoilers await, mostly in chronological order.

In a twist of fate no one could have seen coming, Etain betrays the Romans and they all get slaughtered. All except for Magneto and a few other people who you just know are going to die.

Let’s play a game called guess who’s going to live. The Old Guy? The Black Guy? The Middle Eastern Guy? The Hot White Guy? 

These guys decide to go and rescue their Centurion, who has been captured by the Picts.

We then have a scene of the Centurion yelling at Etain because she betrayed him. It is now that we discover the backstory behind our villain–as a child, her village was slaughtered by the Romans. Her dad got killed, her mom got killed, and then she got raped and had her tongue cut out so she couldn’t talk shit about the Romans.

Wait, what? This is the villain we are supposed to be rooting against? Sorry movie, but now I jsut feel sorry for her. I understand that having a sympathetic antagonist can be a boon for a film, but when your antagonsit is more sympathetic than your protagonist, it may be time to re-evaluate your script.

Still, I have to give the movie credit for having a female character who is not a generic love interest. That automatically lowers its suckiness meter. Here I was worried that there would be some contrived, tacked-on love story between Etain and Magneto. you know, some corny Hollywood romance about the imperialist falling in love with the noble savage. Thank goodness that never happened.

No caption required.

Oh wait, nevermind, that comes later.

Anyway, the trouble with all this is that we learn more about Etain than we ever do about our heroes, even Magneto. All I know about him is that his father was a gladiator. This fact doesn’t really add much to his character or the story, and was probably just thrown in there becasue most gladiators are something modern audiences know about ancient Rome.

Magneto and the other survivors, isntead of doing the smart thing and running ofr their lives, decide to go and rescue their commander. Unfortunately, rescuing a man who is chained up turns out to be surprisingly difficult, so they decide to run for their lives. This wise decision comes too late, because now the Picts know about these Romans and are determined to hunt them down, every last one.

Oh, one last thing. During the rescue attempt, one of the Romans strangles the Pict chief’s son (who looks to be about nine or ten) to death.

So now they evil forces of the tongueless rape victim and the man whose kid  just got strangled set off to hunt down our intrepid band of imperialist heroes. Will they manage to escape? Do I even care?

The action scenes are thrilling enough to keep you engaged, I guess, at least for most of the movie. The scenery is pretty breathtaking, too, and the script isn’t that bad. At about the hour mark, Centurion is actually at risk of turning into a fairly decent movie.

For some reason the scriptwriters seemed to be upset by this prospect. Determined to ensure Centurion’s suckiness, they  threw in the most contrived and stupid last-thirty-minutes they could think of.

First, Magneto meets a witch in the middle of the woods and falls in love. For some reason Etain, who seems to possess the powers of a bloodhound or Jack Sparrow’s compass from Pirates of the Carribbean, is unable to find them in this witch’s hut even though she has had no trouble tracking them through mountains, rivers, and forests for most of the movie. This allows for about twenty minutes of that contrived love story I mentioned earlier I was so glad didn’t happen between Etain and Magneto. I guess I spoke too soon.

After Magneto and the last few survivors leave the hut (the Middle-Eastern dude, the Greek dude, and the black dude surprisingly not among them, who would have guessed?) Etain finds them in about five minutes. Because the witch’s magic wasn’t protecting them anymore, I guess? Instead of running, the last THREE survivors decide to stand and fight. Interestingly enough, they win, which begs the question of why they didn’t do that when there were still seven of them instead of three.

Then Magneto returns to the Roman camp (all those of you who answered the hot white guy for the question may no pat yourselves on the back), and, for no real reason except that Romans are assholes, his commander decides to kill him so the embarrassing story of how a legion of Rome got owned by some chick without a tongue never gets out. Magneto escapes and goes to live with the witch he met in the forest. It’s happy, I guess, except for the fact that everyone else is dead. The fact that the whole movie revolved around Magneto trying to get back to join the Romans only to find out that the Romans were assholes makes it all feel a bit pointless. It makes you wonder why they didn’t just stay with the witch to begin with. Then a lot more people wouldn’t have died. What was the point of all that running and fighting? I wish I knew.

I guess the movie was trying to have some sort of message or something? Shouldn’t have bothered. Shouldn’t have bothered with the romance, either. Should have just kept it a simple movie about people getting killed off by a badass woman with a spear. An hour into a 90minute movie is a bit too late to start trying for depth and messages.

X-Men First Class

Wow. Where to begin?

As we exited the theater, my brother said to me that this movie was a mix of the very awesome and the very hokey. That about sums it up. Luckily the awesome just slightly outweighs the hokey.

X-Men First Class, unlike X Men Wolverine, will not make you wish you can take an adamantium bullet to your head to forget the past two hours. So that’s something.

I like to think of this movie as a better version of Star Wars Episode III. Both films are prequels that tell a similar story–two former friends, here Magneto and Charles Xavier, who, due to ideological differences, end up having a violent falling out. Except in this movie, the ‘bad’ friend (Magneto) is played by someone who can actually act.

This really is a classy trailer. And that was a really bad pun.

The best part of this movie (like in all the X-Men movies, really) is Magneto. I wasn’t sure any actor would be able to measure up to someone as great as Ian McKellen, but Michael Fassbender does a terrific job. Every second he’s on screen is a genuine treat, but my favorite moment has to be when he walks into an Argentinian bar (sounds like the setup for a joke, doesn’t it?) and butchers a pair of former Nazis. Chuck Norris wishes he were half as badass as Magneto in this scene.

The other mutants range from the very cool (the shapeshifting Mystique, and a red-devil-looking-teleporting guy) to the godawful (some woman who spits fireballs out of her mouth? Really? Are we meant to take this seriously?). Only a few actually have any depth, and honestly this movie could have done with a few less mutants. Maybe about five less. But I suppose all the angel fans out there (that’s the fire-ball spitter) have to be appeased.

The story is a mixture of hit-and miss. On the one hand, the character development is handled excellently. The opening scenes are near-perfect, as they show you the origins of Magneto, Mystique, and Charles Xavier. The movie does a great job of tying into the other movies, at showing the characters’ conflicting motivations and philosophies. The falling-out between Magneto and Xavier plays out excellently. MAgneto’s quest for revenge on the Nazis who destroyed his family strikes all the right emotional chords.

On the other hand, this isn’t the real ‘plot’ of the movie. The plot of the movie involves a bunch of mutants who want to start World War III by getting the Soviet Union and the USA to shoot nukes at each other. Their reason for doing this is one of the dumbest excuses for a motivation I have ever heard. They what the planet to be consumed by nukes so that the humans can be wiped out and only the mutants will remain. Good luck finding food to eat in the post-apocalyptic wasteland, dumbasses. It’s also worth noting that only one of these villains has the power of surviving deadly radiation.

The addition of these evil mutants, while making for some stirring battle scenes, actually detracts from the overall picture. These baddies suck up so much screen time that all the interesting character development feels rushed and incomplete. I would really have liked to see more of the friendship between Charles and Magneto and less of some asshole in a dumb helmet talking about how they’re going to rule the earth once everything’s a smoking black crater. The movie should have just focused on the cuban missile crisis, the mutants coming into their powers, and the slow erosion of the alliance between Xavier and Charles. Additionally, having a mutant be responsible for the atrocities committed on Magneto makes his whole backstory that much worse. He hates humans with a passion and believes strongly in the superiority of mutants, which is odd, considering that it was a mutant that killed his mother before his eyes.

The script is…honestly, it’s pretty bad. Half the time it’s cramming thinly veiled messages about gay pride down your throat (the words don’t ask, don’t tell are actually used, and the phrase “mutant and proud” is used at least 600 times). I honestly thought by the end if I heard the words “society” and “accept” together one more time, I would die of an aneurism. It’s interesting that in a movie so obsessed with promoting tolerance and diversity that the only black character is the first (and only) hero to die. Also, the Latina turns evil. So much for forward-thinking.

You know, for someone with serious body and self-esteem issues, that is a very low V-neck…

The other half of the time, the script is insulting you with science that doesn’t make any sense. This movie doesn’t even seem to have a clear concept of what a mutant is.  Even I have no idea what they are and I watched all five movies. At one point Charles Xavier tells a chick in a bar that her mismatched eyes make her a mutant. So these superpowers are like any other gene mutation, right? Then these people are still humans? Well, I guess not, because some military scumbag later states that the laws of the United States apply “only to humans. Not to these freaks.” I guess that means we clock all the auburn hair people in the country up without a trial. That should speed up the judicial process.

In all honesty, there’s no way anyone is going to believe that gene mutations will give you the power to shoot lazier disks out of your hands or lift submarines with your mind. Why the X-Men franchise hasn’t just dispensed with all the scientific mumbo-jumbo by now is beyond my ability to understand.

So, in short: if you can get over the preaching and the campiness of some of the super powers, you should enjoy yourself. As usual, Magneto and Mystique steal the show. I’ve always secretly been rooting for the bad guys, just because they are so much cooler and more fun than Charles Xavier’s crowd. The story is not as deep, or moving, or good as it should and could have been, but it’s also not as bad as it could have been (see X-Men Origins: Wolverine). All they really needed was Quentin Tarantino to write their dialogue for them.

Oh, one more thing. I’ve been told that the chess game between Magneto and Xavier does not make sense. Apparently Charles moves his queen next to Magneto’s king for no reason and Magneto then takes it. I will have to watch this movie again just to check this out.