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Escape from New York (1981)
An American Anti-Hero
The Western anti-hero is an icon of American literature. He—and it's always a he—is a solitary man, rather gruff, with a mordant sense of humor. He knows how to use a gun. His moral sense is skewed, but in his heart, he's willing to sacrifice himself for the greater good. He's often the answer when the government just ain't up to snuff. Roland of Gilead, Rooster Cogburn, and the Man with No Name have brought the American anti-hero to life. Escape from New York's Snake Plissken, played with growling panache by Kurt Russell, is a memorable variation on this theme.
Snake Plissken wears a black eye-patch and tight-fitting clothes. His long unwashed hair and grizzled face bespeak a his nonchalance about the world. He does crime, and because of that, he's being sent to New York, a city that now serves as America's maximum security prison. But his country first needs him for a mission that only a man of his caliber can perform. He needs to save the President of the United States, who has ironically been trapped in the imprisoned city of his own making.
Escape from New York is arguably a bad movie. The plot is improbable. The sets are so dark that you strain to see the action. And the action scenes are paltry, involving a few punches and bursts of gunfire. Nevertheless, Escape from New York creates a world and characters that are deeply memorable. This is a New York permeated by darkness and crime. In this world, crazed prisoners crawl out of sewers at night and men perform bawdy musicals in dilapidated theaters. A loose hierarchy of criminals, crowned by a villainous Duke, triumphs over the city's population.
Snake Plissken enters this world and fulfills his mission, albeit for his own selfish and cynical reasons. Ultimately, though, he does what is right because the President just ain't a good man. That's an American anti-hero.
RoboCop (2014)
Interesting But Not Great
RoboCop, surprisingly, is a movie of big ideas. The indestructibility of the human soul; the rise of robotic warfare; the control of America by corporations. The movie is not entirely successful in dealing with these ideas, but is quite entertaining in its effort to do so.
RoboCop is our hero. In his former life he was Alex Murphy, a married man, a father, and a police officer. And then, he is tragically wounded, paralyzed from the waist down. An omnipresent corporation (appropriately named OmniCorp) took advantage of this situation, inducing Alex's wife to consent to a procedure in which Alex is inserted inside of a mechanical body. OmniCorp's motives are not altruistic. They wanted to create a RoboCop so as to promote robotic policing and warfare, an idea to which Americans are apparently resistant. OmniCorp wanted a machine with the appearance of humanity. However, as the movie develops, RoboCop turns out to be a human with the appearance of a machine.
As RoboCop/Alex begins his policing duties, OmniCorp repeatedly tries to stifle RoboCop's human emotions and tendencies. Yet this humanity consistently re-emerges, ultimately to OmniCorp's demise. The movie plays well the theme of human free will. The movie appears to take the stance that the human soul, though weak, can ultimately triumph over mechanical impositions. The movie also addresses the fundamental difference between mechanical and human bodies. There is a powerful scene in which OmniCorp's scientist (Gary Oldman) encourages a man to play his guitar with his new mechanical hands. The man tries, and yet the mechanical hands are simply not the same.
The movie, with less success, also addresses issues of corporate governance and robotic warfare. OmniCorp and its leader become conniving caricatures towards the end, unconvincing as candidates for a future of corporate control. Moreover, the movie never reaches a conclusion on the issue of robotic policing, but just lays out the pros and cons – greater efficiency but less humanity, greater protection but less control.
The movie's greatest flaw is that it is simply too damn serious. This is a plot that could use a healthy dose of humor. But Joel Kinnaman, who plays RoboCop, simply slides between being morose and snide. His sidekick hardly makes an appearance and never develops into a fulsome character. But of course, there is always Gary Oldman to save the day. RoboCop is not a great movie. The action scenes are slick and efficient, but ultimately the movie lacks a human heart. This is odd, considering the movie's premise. Nevertheless, the ideas are intriguing and make this movie worth a watch.
RoboCop (1987)
Robocop, Still a Classic
As the technical prowess and political power of corporations have grown, so have the people's fear and suspicion of corporate governance. Robocop brings these issues to the fore. In an unknown time of anarchic crime, a large corporation intends to privatize the police force by installing bionic police officers throughout the city. Robocop, a resurrected police officer, is the first of this kind. He is a machine and yet retains some of his humanity. As the movie progresses, he gradually rediscovers this humanity until he overthrows his corporate makers, who, of course, are not interested in people's safety as much as profits. The movie is hopeful: Corporations can never eradicate human morality and free will.
What makes Robocop great is its streamlined and to-the-point editing. The movie wastes nary a second. Every scene briefly illustrates a plot point or an action scene, and then moves on. The movie even ends at its climax, having no time for post-climatic sentiment and catharsis. Despite being thirty years old, the movie still feels fresh and futuristic, perhaps because it doesn't rely on special effects so much as hard metal and fiery explosions. Robocop is a classic. It brings up interesting issues that TV shows are still exploring (e.g., Continuum), all while being very entertaining.
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
Symphony of Steel
Terminator 3 is a movie that revels in the sheer power of steel, metal, and iron. The action scenes (and the movie is almost one continuous action scene) are like a symphony of metal pounding on metal. The two combatants are advanced killing machines from the future. The T-X's mission is to kill John Connor; the Terminator's to protect him. In carrying out these missions, they pound one another through walls, cars, helicopters, and even toilets. The T-X pursues John Connor in a crane truck, the truck's wrecking ball smashing dozens of cars. The Terminator shoots rocket propelled grenades into the T-X, the grenades blasting her down an elevator shaft. And the sound effects amplify every explosion and clash so that you feel enmeshed in a world of steel.
Perhaps all that sounds like a giddy fanboy's reaction to an action movie. And perhaps that's fair. There's much to criticize here. The human characters are unbelievable. Nicholas Stahl as John Connor doesn't seem like the inspiring hero he will become. Claire Danes as Kate Brewster comes off silly and shy when she should be tough and grimacing. Moreover, the Terminator's one-liners are, well, corny. But this movie is like a heavy metal concert; the lyrics don't really matter.
Helix (2014)
Macabre Entertainment
Helix is a strange show. The show is both deadly serious and deliciously satiric, as exemplified by the title sequence where blood drips to the tune of elevator music. At times this unique mixture works; at others it becomes farcical. Helix is about a virus that breaks out in a mysterious science facility located deep in the Arctic. The virus causes humans to become violent zombies; a group of scientists (our protagonists) are sent to control the situation.
The show's modus operandi is to gradually reveal layer after layer of conspiracy and intrigue behind the virus, all while people die in variously horrible ways. The acting is relatively poor; the characters are fairly uninteresting; the plot-twists can be somewhat ludicrous. And yet, the show's macabre sense of humor and wonderfully absurd plot are appealing. How many shows gleefully display the explosion of rats in a microwave oven? Moreover, the facility isolated in the Arctic provides a perfect stage for violence and horror. As an enjoyable late-night diversion, Helix succeeds.
Continuum (2012)
Season 1 Review: Entertaining if not Electrifying
Season 1. While not electrifying, Continuum is entertaining. At the moment of their execution, a group of terrorists (Liber8) orchestrate a time warp that transports them from 2077 to 2012. Seemingly by accident, they transport policewoman Kiera Cameron along with them. Kiera quickly joins the Vancouver Police in an effort to fight Liber8—who are fomenting dissent in the present—and to find a way back to 2077. As the show progresses, it gradually reveals that something more than an execution escape was the cause of all these events.
Continuum is successful largely because of Rachel Nichols, who plays Kiera Cameron. She is beautiful and quite feminine, although not in a girlishly cute way. Rather, her femininity can be found in her shy but quiet strength; her resolute love for her son who remains in 2077; and her sense of duty in fighting Liber8. Rachel Nichols expresses all these qualities and creates a likable character. Carlos Fonnegra (Victor Webster) is her partner in the Vancouver Police Department. While not particularly interesting himself, his casual affability and occasional quirks play nicely with Kiera's character. Perhaps a fault in this show is that there are not many well-developed characters beyond these two. Alec Sadler is the genius teenager who will become the corporate giant of the future, but who in the meantime provides tech support and information for Kiera.
Rachel Nichols as Kiera Cameron animates a plot that would otherwise be merely interesting. The show could have closely examined the philosophy of time-travel. Instead, the show uses time-travel as a simple plot- device, and at times in a particularly heavy-handed manner—such as when Liber8 attempts to kill Kiera's grandmother in the hopes that this will erase her out of existence (the tactic doesn't work, though the show doesn't explain why). More troubling, the show occasionally descends to the level of police procedural, as Kiera and Carlos investigate various murders that seem only tangentially related to the plot involving Liber8. Double murder-suicides? Check. Journalist killed in political intrigue? Check. Ransom of a corporate CEO? Check. Nor are the members of Liber8 fleshed out into full characters. They veer from being political dissidents, to anarchic terrorists, to pawns in a corporate chess game.
Despite these faults, Continuum is an enjoyable show. The plots are snappy and the scenes from the future are particularly engaging. And overarching theme of a plot from the future being hatched in the present is tantalizing enough to keep a viewer engaged.
Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014)
Deep action, shallow characters
Although containing political innuendos and a conspiracy-laden plot, Captain America: The Winter Soldier is at heart an action movie. The array of action scenes in this movie is both dizzying and exciting. Captain America raids a cargo ship controlled by terrorists; Director Fury battles villains in a SUV that is also a weaponized tank; the 'Winter Soldier' fights Captain America atop a floating helicarrier. Yet, as is unfortunately common with action-laced movies, the depth of the movie's action results in the shallowness of its characters.
Steve Rogers (aka Captain America) is a soldier out of time. Having been asleep for sixty years, the filmmakers could have done much with the theme of a 1940s man living in a post-modern world. Instead, the movie regulates this theme to a brief scene of the Captain trying to catch up on pop culture. (Even 'Austin Powers' played this theme with more panache.) The filmmakers instead focus on the Captain as a conflicted man, who only knows how to be a soldier and yet feels an unease in the modern military establishment. While this is interesting, it doesn't go far, as the Captain quickly opts back into his soldier/hero mode after expressing his discontent. Natasha Romanoff and Director Fury are similarly underdeveloped, perhaps because the movie has so much going on. Samuel L. Jackson nonetheless succeeds in being as brash, curmudgeonly, and entertaining as ever.
Without delving too deeply into the plot, the movie is about a long- festering conspiracy that is about to transform SHIELD into the harbinger of a new world order. The movie's political message appears to be that complex governmental institutions that are designed for our defense can quickly become instruments of oppression. Within all this, there is a not-so-oblique reference to America's use of drones and NSA's intelligence-gathering. This is all interesting; and yet, the scope of the conspiracy and the sheer ludicrousness of its goals divest the movie's political message of seriousness.
While there is much to critique, there is also much to admire. The action scenes are creative and intense. The occasional humor is light and enjoyable. As an entertaining action movie, Captain America amply succeeds.