RED 2; Oblivion

RED 2

I enjoyed RED, the movie about Dame Helen Mirren machine-gunning baddies while wearing a slinky white evening gown.

RED 2 is more of the same, but it suffers from its lack of novelty. There are new baddies and a new evening gown, but the entire film basically exists to showcase older actors shooting younger ones while tossing off one-liners that make us worry more for their mental health than their physical safety. It's still fun, but it's not much of a surprise this time around. You may want to give this one a pass.

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Oblivion

Oblivion is a beautifully crafted, high-concept sci-fi action picture – the kind of thing I usually go for.

In the film, Tom Cruise plays a drone repairman in a post-apocalyptic hellscape. By night, he lives in a beautiful, modern outpost. By day, he braves the wilderness to find downed (alien-hunting) drones, fix them, and sic them on any Morlock-like aliens they should happen to find.

And away we go. As I said, I enjoy this kind of thing. And I enjoyed it well enough, but something about it seemed rote. Cruise ran away from an explosion. Cruise was forced to choose between improbably beautiful, age-inappropriate women. Cruise saved the world and earned a respectful head-nod from a reluctant ally. You know – the usual. The big concept was the metaphor for American drone wars in a part of the world that's basically a pre-industrial hellscape. And that was it.

I'm not saying that Oblivion was bad. Generally speaking, Tom Cruise doesn't make bad movies. It just seemed limp, uninspired. If you're in the mood for a Tom Cruise science fiction film, go see Edge of Tomorrow again. Now, that's a movie!

Red

RED is a silly, ultraviolent, pulpy action picture that features Dame Helen Mirren in a slinky white evening gown.

I know.  I had you at “Dame Helen Mirren in a slinky white evening gown.”  Now, try this on: “Dame Helen Mirren in a slinky white evening gown, wielding a machine gun.”

Woof.

Here’s the story: Bruce Willis is a retired CIA covert ops guy.  For reasons that will be revealed later, the CIA decides that he and his buddies all need to die, and quickly.  Well, as we’ve learned in The Losers, The Expendables, and The A Team, it’s always a bad idea to try to kill off covert ops guys – they can kill back.

So what?  What differentiates this from the other three “superduper commando teams solve the mystery and kill a bunch of people” movies that came out last year?

Um.  Helen Mirren.  Slinky white evening gown.  Machine gun.

Ok, there’s more to RED than Dame Helen Mirren mowing down hostiles while clothed in a slinky white evening gown.  Bruce Willis is a natural movie star who’s just plain fun to watch.  His team is made entirely of outstanding actors: Mirren, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Brian Cox, even James Remar and Mary-Louise Parker.  We also get the Great Ernest Borgnine in a crucial supporting role and Karl Urban and Richard Dreyfuss as villains.  We’re talking about serious wattage here: these people know how to own a movie screen.

And it works.  All that charisma carries RED’s wafer-thin story for a solid hour and a half of gunfire, ‘splosions, and a brand of carefree murder so blasé that we cease to think of the targets as characters and see them as the stuntmen they are.  Red turns out to be silly, fun, anarchic, and a great time at the movies.

I just wish I’d seen it on the big screen.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY is consistently amusing, occasionally hilarious, and always gorgeous.

Here's the setup: Arthur Dent's home is about to be destroyed, and there's nothing he can do to stop it. Sure, he lie down in front of the tractors positioned to destroy his house, but that won't stop the Vogon demolition fleet positioned to annihilate the Earth. Though it's a bad day for Earth, it's a great day for Arthur, however. His strange buddy, the one who doesn't quite fit in, turns out to be an alien. To make matters better, he's an alien who writes for _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, and he shows up just in time to help Arthur hitch a ride to, well, the galaxy.

The next 80 minutes or so bring us the horrors of Vogon poetry, a new definition of the technicolor yawn, the best extended riff on our sitting President I've yet to see in a motion picture, and the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Oh, and we find out who made the fjords. He won a prize.

Though the movie breaks down a bit during the second act, it pulls itself together admirably well and closes on a very strong note. I expected this movie to be reasonably amusing, but it wound up making my day. Have fun.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

PS While watching this movie, I couldn't help but compare it to I HEART HUCKABEES. IHH purported to be an existential comedy, but it was really a comedy about self-importance. THHGTTG is the real thing.

The Queen

Hellen Mirren can do no wrong.

Think about it - when have you seen a poor Mirren performance? Whether scheming against Arthur
solving mysteries, selling calendars, or ruling England, she's always absolutely believable and engaging.
Thus, it comes as no surprise that Helen Mirren is brilliant - absolutely brilliant - in THE QUEEN, a
Stephen Frears film that gives us Elizabeth as character study at the height of England's grief for
the just-killed Diana Spencer.

THE QUEEN balances Elizabeth's story with that of Tony Blair, the newly-elected Prime Minister whose view
of his sovereign, and of himself, matures over the course of the film. Blair's 10 Downing Street is shown in
frank contrast to the Queen's Balmoral and Westminster, setting it up as a stand-in for the New England
in its struggle and accomodation with the Old England the Queen represents. It's neat stuff, and it's well
executed, and I stayed thoroughly involved for every minute of it.

But what really makes this production stand out is Mirren's Queen. She's a fully developed character, totally committed
to her sense of herself, her office, her stoicism, and her duty as she sees it. In this role, Mirren's a mistress of the
subtle gesture, the emotion behind the control, and her performance is nothing short of delightful.

I don't particularly care about the Queen of England, to tell you the truth. I'm not English and I never "got" the
royals worship that's so common here in the States. But THE QUEEN made me care about Elizabeth and her world in a personal
way, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

What a winner.