DVD Review: Source Code

Director Duncan Jones’ second film is another intelligent, eloquent science fiction thriller.

Sincere without growing mawkish, intelligent without becoming geeky or pretentious, Duncan Jones’ Source Code justifies the promise the director showed with his similarly ambitious science fiction mindbender Moon. Like that debut effort, Jones’ second film reveals a warm and compassionate concern not just for the workings of the science fiction elements of story but also for the human emotions spun out of their wake, and the emphasis – especially in the last half-hour – is on character development and interaction.

Army captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the covert operative for Project: Beleaguered Castle, an Air Force counter-terrorism group that can project his consciousness into the “after-image” of recent temporal events and allow him to occupy a host body of comparable age, height, and size. It’s complicated science, though explained via simplified metaphor by the project’s direct Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright.) Source Code technology is not exactly time travel, and not entirely jumping between parallel worlds, but Stevens’ jaunts into the remnants of immediately recent events allow the project to gather intelligence about upcoming terrorist attacks.

His current mission involves finding the bomb secreted aboard a Chicago-bound commuter train before those responsible detonate a dirty bomb within the city itself. But increasing disorientation hampers Steven’s effectiveness, even as he’s increasingly distracted by Christina, the woman (Michelle Monaghan) accompanying his host body into the city. Stevens tries, tries again to locate the bomb and the passenger he believes may set it off. But each failure – he has only eight minutes to complete his mission – results in the train’s explosive destruction and a painful jolt back to the project’s headquarters.

Worse, he suspects the doctor as well as Goodwin, his mission control operator (Vera Farmiga) are less than candid with the information they provide him, both about his role in the project as well as the events surrounding his recruitment into it. Stevens remembers serving as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan but nothing of the last two months, and Goodwin’s evasion of questions, as well as Rutledge’s condescension, make him even less trusting.

The second act centers on Stevens’ abortive attempts to apprehend the bomber and disarm the bomb, even while he draws closer to the girl. Stevens also reasons he can use his time on the train to research the project itself and his service in Kandahar, the better to fill in the blanks of his memory. Each return trip home – he fails many times, often in ways that ought to evoke pity from the audience – reveals his mission capsule in greater disrepair. Pressing Goodwin for more information, he learns he may not be in the capsule at all but that his physical body may reside somewhere else entirely.

But he eventually prevails, locating the bomber and confronting him – once disastrously, the second time with success. With a train full of suspects, Ben Ripley’s script has fun manipulating audience expectations regarding the bomber’s identity: the nature of his evil more closely resemble homegrown anarchist Timothy McVeigh than 21st Century notions of Islamic extremism. The remainder of the film focuses on the nature of the bottle reality itself, whether Stevens can escape his real-world fate, and whether he can mend his relationship with his estranged father and jumpstart a romance with Christina. The willingness to devote so much time to events and details outside the ostensible main plot thread is a curious structural decision, but thanks to Ripley and Jones’ expert handling the film never once sags in suspense or pace.

We’ve said this before. It bears repeating: pretty.

The actors are perfectly if sometimes predictably cast. Gyllenhaal is a talented and versatile actor who’s still yet to find his niche with audiences, but here the action chops that went largely unnoticed in last year’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (coincidentally, another adventure driven by short-distance time travel) get better use in the heightened tension of the railway plot. Still, he fares better in the character-driven scenes, especially with Farmiga and the actor playing his father (the actor’s identity is too much of a treat, and concession, to long-time sci-fi fans to divulge). As the sweet, beguiling Christina, Monaghan plays to the type she’s already performed in a half-dozen films. She’s a lovely and talented actress, but the role does little to showcase the range she’s demonstrated elsewhere.

Wright is spot-on as the pompous doctor who sees Stevens as nothing more than a resource, and Farmiga’s character arc – efficient to humane – may make her the film’s most fully development personality. Whereas Moon was centered – and carried – by the formidable acting talents of Sam Rockwell, the larger script gives Jones time and space to explore more complicated character interactions. Like Moon, the protagonist is separated by space and technology from the answers he needs; the answers this time rely less on shock value and more on character sympathy.

As with probably any great science fiction film, enjoyment relies somewhat on your willing suspension of disbelief, in giving the film license to let a hole slip into the plot when perhaps you’re less likely to notice. But in the meantime it offers the best kind of not just science fiction but fiction itself – rooted in humanity and letting emotions rather than spectacle guide its way. Source Code brings that all together while still maintaining its action-charged momentum – it’s a lot more movie than it seems.

- Michael Kabel

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Review: Source Code

Director Duncan Jones’ second film is another intelligent, eloquent science fiction thriller.

Articulate and emotional without ever growing maudlin, intelligent without seeming geeky or pretentious, Duncan Jones’ Source Code justifies the promise the director showed with his similarly ambitious science  fiction mindbender Moon. Like that debut effort, Jones’ second film reveals a warm and compassionate concern not just for the workings of the science fiction elements of story but also for the human emotions spun out of their wake. The high energy marketing campaign focuses on the film’s time travel and exploding train aspects, but don’t be fooled: Jones and his cast and crew have created a film as much about loss and its aftermath as much as bombast and adventure, and the emphasis – especially in the last half-hour – is on character development and interaction.

Army captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal) is the covert operative for Project: Beleaguered Castle, an Air Force counter-terrorism group that can project his consciousness into the after-image of recent temporal events and allow him to occupy a host body of comparable age, height, and size. It’s complicated science, complex enough to stretch suspension of disbelief by force alone, though explained via simplified metaphor by the project’s direct Dr. Rutledge (Jeffrey Wright.) Source Code technology is not exactly time travel, and not entirely jumping between parallel worlds, but Stevens’ jaunts into the afterimage of immediately recent events allow the project to gather intelligence about upcoming terrorist attacks.

In particular, his current mission involves finding the bomb secreted aboard a Chicago-bound commuter train before those responsible detonate a dirty bomb within the city itself. But increasing disorientation hampers Steven’s effectiveness, even as he’s increasingly distracted by Christina, the woman (Michelle Monaghan) accompanying his host body into the city. Stevens tries, tries again to locate the bomb and the passenger he believes may set it off. But each failure – he has only eight minutes to complete his mission – results in the train’s explosive destruction and a painful jolt back to the project’s headquarters.

Worse, Stevens suspects the doctor as well as Goodwin, his mission control operator (Vera Farmiga) are less than candid with the information they provide him, both about his role in the project as well as the events surrounding his recruitment into it. Stevens remembers serving as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan but nothing of the last two months, and Goodwin’s evasion of questions, as well as Rutledge’s condescension, make him even less trusting.

The film’s second act centers on Stevens’  abortive attempts to apprehend the bomber and disarm the bomb, even while he draws closer to the girl. Stevens also reasons he can use his time on the train to research the project itself and his service in Kandahar, the better to fill in the blanks of his memory. Each return trip home – Stevens fails his mission many times, often in ways that will probably evoke pity from the audience – reveals his mission capsule in greater disrepair. Pressing Goodwin for more information, Stevens learns he may not be in the capsule at all but that his physical body may reside somewhere else entirely.

But he eventually prevails, locating the bomber and confronting him – once disastrously, the second time with success. With a train full of suspects, Ben Ripley’s script has fun manipulating audience expectations regarding the bomber’s identity: the nature of his evil more closely resemble homegrown anarchist Timothy McVeigh than 21st Century notions of Islamic extremism. The remainder of the film focuses on the nature of the bottle reality itself, whether Stevens can escape his real-world fate, and whether he can mend his relationship with his estranged father and jumpstart a romance with Christina. The willingness to devote so much time to events and details outside the ostensible main plot thread is a curious structural decision, but thanks to Ripley and Jones’ expert handling the film never once sags in suspense or pace.

We’ve said this before. It bears repeating: pretty.

The actors are perfectly if sometimes predictably cast. Gyllenhaal is a talented and versatile actor who’s still yet to find his niche with audiences, but here the action chops that went largely unnoticed in last summer’s Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (coincidentally, another adventure driven by short-distance time travel) get better use in the heightened tension of the railway plot. Still, he fares better in the more character-driven scenes, especially with Farmiga and the actor playing his father (the actor’s identity is too much of a treat, and concession, to long-time sci-fi fans to divulge). Playing the sweet, beguiling Christina, Monaghan plays to the type she’s already performed in a half-dozen films. She’s a lovely and talented actress, but the role does little to showcase the range she’s demonstrated elsewhere.

Jones wisely casts two ringer character actors to play the heavier parts. Wright is spot-on as the pompous doctor who sees Stevens as nothing more than a resource, and Farmiga’s character arc - efficient to humane – may make her the film’s most fully development personality. Whereas Moon was centered – and carried – by the formidable acting talents of Sam Rockwell, the larger script gives Jones time and space to explore more complicated character interactions. Like Moon, the protagonist is separated by space and technology from the answers he needs; the answers this time rely less on shock value and more on character sympathy.

Like probably any great science fiction film, enjoyment relies somewhat on your willing suspension of disbelief, and in giving the film license to let a hole slip into the plot when perhaps you’re less likely to notice; those flaws will also likely emerge with repeated viewing. But in the meantime it offers the best kind of not just science fiction but fiction itself – rooted in humanity, letting emotions guide its way, and dedicated to continuing larger traditions while modifying them for new audiences. Source Code brings that all together while still maintaining its action-charged momentum. Don’t let the slam-bang advertisements fool you – the film is a lot more than it lets on.

- Michael Kabel

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70s Cinema: Zardoz

Trying for a fresh perspective on one of the strangest science fiction movies ever made.

Beyond restraint. Beyond good taste. Beyond sense.

When subjects like “failed ambition,” “hubris,” and “wretched excess” come up among film enthusiasts and science fiction fans alike, inevitably John Boorman’s Zardoz enters their conversations. The head-shaking and long, confused sighs that inevitably follow are the film’s most enduring legacy. Ambitious to a catastrophic fault, packed with enough leering self-indulgence to capsize three smaller-scale films and seemingly crazed with adolescent sexuality, at its weird heart sits a nonetheless intriguing dystopian concept. If you can find it.

Yet for all that, and despite its many coats of oily decadence or possibly because of them, it’s a harder film to understand now than ever before. Almost four decades of social change have made its vision and sensibilities quaint but not charming, like a randy old man at an otherwise polite dinner party. Few science fiction films of the 1970s, with their precocious zeal for addressing the immediate social problems of their time, have aged well (though Silent Running and Soylent Green continue to grow perennial), and Zardoz’s pervasive subtext of sexual curiosity and exploration feels dated and shabby in this era of purity rings and government-backed abstinence education. It’s always strange to see a future that never happened, especially one that doesn’t come close; Zardoz isn’t even in the ball park, but the future it proposes (that kernel of an intriguing idea) is no less alluring.

Since I don’t believe words would do the film aesthetic justice, here’s the unbelievably NSFW trailer. See for yourself:

That in just its first few seconds the film bills itself as belonging in the company of (or even exceeding) Stanley Kurbrick’s visionary masterpiece or George Orwell’s classic of political allegory indicates how lofty the film’s self-image remains for the entirety of its runtime.

Its story is slightly easier to absorb: two centuries into the future, following a society-destroying cataclysm, the human race is divided into two sects. The lower class, known as “Brutals,” live in a state of near-barbarity within civilization’s wreckage. The upper class, the Eternals, live in idyllic, force-shielded protected valleys known as Vortexes. The Eternals, in particular the foppish scientist Arthur Frayn, dominate and police the Brutals with a militia known as Exterminators. However, the Eternals have grown sterile and myopic thanks to their endless lifespans spent under the supervision of a sentient computer called Tabernacle; some have given up living and exist in semi-catatonic states, becoming known as Apathetics. The Seniles, aged into decrepitude by Tabernacle in punishment for various crimes, live in a perpetual delirium resembling a grotesque dance ball.

Frayn surreptitiously manipulates the exterminator called Zed (Sean Connery, who in the early 70s was still pushing past his tenure as James Bond) into educating himself, planting clues within a library that prove the Eternals’ supremacy is only illusory. When the floating head that is Frayn’s transport for providing the Exterminators with guns and collecting their grain shipments next arrives, Zed stows away inside, shooting Frayn and sending him tumbling to Earth. Once in the vortex, he’s kept by May (Sarah Kestelman) and Friend (John Alderton), a pair of curious Eternals who want to study his “beastial” nature. Their colleague May (Charlotte Rampling) would rather see Zed destroyed outright, especially after Zed indicates an erotic attraction for her in front of the other Eternals.

The savior of mankind. No, really.

But Zed is smarter and wilier than the Eternals realize, and with Consuella and her followers’ assistance he helps his fellow Exterminators evade the force-shield protecting the Vortex, even while learning how to overcome the Tabernacle and the (feeble) resistance the Eternals offer. As the Exterminators  sack the Vortex’s riches and murder its inhabitants (who welcome death after their protracted lifespans), Zed and a repentant, love-struck May flee to the safety of  a cave, where they begin a normal human romantic relationship that culminates in the birth of a son. Some of the surviving Eternals flee the Vortex for a life among the Brutals, presuambly ending the centuries-old segregation. As the film ends Zed and May grow old in time-lapse progression, ageing and decaying in seconds.

Fashion zombies: Zed and the Eternals

Writer-producer-director Boorman runs into some of his biggest trouble imagining his future world and the distance between its social classes. Given the trope established by other caste system science fiction as found in The Shape of Things to Come or, less explicitly, Logan’s Run, the use of rural Ireland with its sweeping hillsides and rustic stone mansions as the residence of the chosen few seems an awkward choice; the super-science that they exhibit rests largely in their somewhat corny mental powers, a bauble ring that acts as communicator with Tabernacle, and a mirrored pyramid on the estate grounds. Far from an elite and elegant master race (as for example the Eloi of H.G. Wells’ The Time Machine), the Eternals are a faintly grungy-looking group of British hippies clad in pastel Renaissance Fair costumes that routinely prove unflattering for the men and exploitative of the women.

Boorman had complete creative control of the production after the box office success of Deliverance  the year before. Perhaps as a result, the mis en scene here remains a baffling example of uncompleted thoughts, of not following ideas and theories through to their logical conclusions but instead placing the “purity” of the narrative impulse over the pragmatisms of restraint and revision – the benchmark “freedom” of the 1960s, and the inadvertent cause of so much bloated overindulgence in the 70s. Zardoz looks very much a film of its era, with nudity that must have seen daring at the time but now seems – thanks again to changing public tastes – merely gratuitous, and even a little sleazy. Nudity appears whenever possible, not whenever and only whenever necessary. Sometimes it helps to further a point, sometimes not – more often not – and the extra use cheapens the ideas of class distinction and personal identity presented elsewhere.

There are a lot of things going on in this picture. A lot of things.

As a director, Boorman allows himself plenty of latitude in building a linear narrative. Scenes jump and cut away, especially those depicting Zed’s early confused rambles through the Vortex. Others, such as those set inside the Tabernacle, have a psychedelic goofiness that’s meant to seem powerful and dramatic but – again thanks to poor aging – fail to make much of an impact. This improves somewhat in the final act, when the Exterminators’ impending attack gives the story a momentum that prevents the preceding soup of exposition and sex from repeating their distractions. Except its tone is all over the place, and the confusion of ideas – especially regarding the merits of dying versus living forever  - get lost in a set piece that’s part gunfight, part orgy, part chase sequence.

Upon co-writing the film’s novelization in 1974, Boorman stated in its introduction that perhaps the story would have been better presented not on the screen but in print. That’s an odd capitulation to make considering the entire film is so much the evident result of a singular – if confused and tumescent - artistic vision. Perhaps the filmmaker realized there was so much to explore in the premise that two hours of film wouldn’t give it ample breathing room. Or that the film had wasted time appealing to instincts that had nothing to do with its ideas. In the four decades since, as Western cinema has moved away from the auteur model and towards standardization of aesthetic and theme, the mis en scene of most science fiction has become numbingly uniform. Zardoz is its own creation, a fascinating oddity that’s now more relic than prophetic. Not to be mistaken for a good film, but rather a curiosity, it’s a bold and frightening journey into the past.

- Michael Kabel

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Preview: Repo Men

Jude Law and Forrest Whitaker star in a grim, probable sci-fi thriller.

Mixing cutting edge medical research with a heaping dose of present-day corporate cynicism, April’s Repo Men posits a world in which you can buy artificial replacement organs on credit. If you can’t pay, the ruthless Union simply sends repossession agents to track you down and remove the organs by whatever means necessary, including on-the-spot surgery and organ removal.

Directed by Miguel Spaochnik (his feature debut) and based on Eric Garcia’s novel Repossession Mambo, the script by Garcia and Garrett Lerner imagines the widespread use of artiforgs: expensive, mass produced mechanical organs that outperform their natural counterparts in almost every way. Remy (Law) and Jake (Forest Whitaker) are the Union’s top enforcers, lifelong friends now under the ruthless employ of Union executive Frank (Liev Shreiber.) When a botched repossession causes Remy to need a new heart, of course his associates give him the top-of-the-line artiforg model. But the new heart brings a…. well, a change of heart, and he’s unable to summon the detachment needed to do his job. This causes him to fall behind in his payments, necessitating a flight from Frank, Jake, and the Union’s other agents.

The cast probably ought to be doing higher-brow work, but we’re not complaining. Law seems in fine leading man form in the trailer, and a solid turn here could help him further build the comeback begun with Sherlock Holmes after years of pretentious drivel like Cold Mountain and All The King’s Men. Once upon a time, in fact, he was the go-to guy for thought-provoking science fiction, with winning performances in Gattaca, A.I., and eXistenZ. For their parts Whitaker and Shreiber are always fun to watch, even when sort-of slumming in expensive B-movie fare such as this. The international cast also includes Dutch actress Carice van Houten (Black Book) as Remy’s current wife and Brazilian actress Alice Braga (Crossing Over) as his former spouse.

The concept, seemingly equal parts Philip K. Dick and Logan’s Run, feels creepily plausible, at least compared with recent sci-fi fare including Surrogates and Daybreakers. Long-delayed and the survivor of a  lengthy production and numerous cast changes, the story nevertheless bears strong resemblance to last year’s Repo! The Genetic Opera, which went nowhere upon release but has since become a minor cult favorite. Expect at least a flare of comparisons when this film hits. Finally, its early release date gives it a wide berth on the action/sci-fi schedule, making it a likely warm up for later high-tech based summer releases including Iron Man 2 and Predators.

Repo Men opens nationwide April 2.

- Michael Kabel

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DVD Review: Moon

One of last year’s best releases arrives on DVD and Blu-Ray today.

One of 2009′s best films and among the best sci-fi cinema of recent years, first time writer-director Duncan Jones’ near-future drama Moon is intelligent, well-crafted, and restrained, thanks to a perfect (if derivative in a well-intentioned way) production design and great performances from stars Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey. A small-scale film that articulates its simple ideas while managing some new twists to familiar tropes, it’s must-see viewing for anyone interested in realistic space exploration cinema, as well as anybody who enjoys an old-fashioned corkscrew plot.

Rockwell (Confessions of A Dangerous Mind) plays Sam Bell, the sole human occupant of the Sarang mining facility on the dark side of the moon. The station uses huge robotic crawlers to mine for helium-3, a rare isotope powerful enough to solve the world’s energy needs. After three years on the station Bell is weary, melancholy, and eager to return to the wife and daughter waiting for him on Earth, and kept company only by taped messages from home and by GERTY (voiced by Spacey), the station’s artificial intelligence .

Two weeks before his homecoming, Bell goes out to investigate a malfunction on one of the crawlers, leading to a collision that knocks him unconscious. When “Sam” wakes up in the station’s infirmary, he feels confused and alienated but also paranoid. Returning to the crash site, he finds himself – an exact copy of himself – still in the wreckage. Bringing the “other” Sam Bell back to the station, the two men try to discern what’s happened and whether either of them is actually genuine, a clone, or something more insidious.

The film’s story gets an energizing boost from Tony Noble’s production design, which while borrowing liberally from 1960s and 70s genre classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Silent Running, and Alien provides enough scruffy detail to take those classic images a step further along a realistic timeline. Sarang looks and “feels” shopworn, with dirt and scuff marks seemingly everywhere, and hints of mildew and other signs of long use always in its cracks and crevices. Yet the familiarity also grounds the film, from a viewer’s perspective, as part of a larger continuity of science fiction film not really in evidence since the early 1980′s realist heyday of Outland, Blade Runner, and 2010: the sense of outer space and whatever fragile habitats mankind eventually builds there as lived-in environments subject to the wear and tear typical of Earth. So much sci-fi casts the future as either antiseptically barren or completely dystopic, with little or no gradation between. In striking a middle ground, the sets give both Bell’s character and the story important depth and texture.

Jones, who wrote the story, keeps the film moving forward, using Rockwell’s relaxed screen presence and precise conveyance of emotion to keep the tension building. An exception to this comes about a third of the way through, when an important story development is accomplished largely thanks to some judicious editing. Some viewers might feel cheated, or feel that the film was anyway trying to cheat them a bit. Nathan Parker’s screenplay isn’t overly talky or given to monologues and spoken exposition (no doubt a tempting pitfall, given the film’s man-alone conceit), though it allows Rockwell and Spacey room to flesh out their characters in ways that distinguish them from the influences listed above. Spacey is a natural fit to play an electronic presence immediately reminiscent of the HAL 9000, though the script and his performance take GERTY’s personality in unexpected directions.

But the film rises and falls with Rockwell, who in essentially playing the same person at different points of their life is able to build two very different characters out of one role. It’s an important, but subtly given, plot device that Bell had a violent temper before arriving at Sarang. Rockwell makes one of the Sams impulsive and brash, while his doppelgänger, from a later point in time, is serene and lonesome. You never doubt you’re watching the same person, or the same actor, even as the two go very separate emotional directions. As good as he is, Spacey’s GERTY is somewhat underused, arriving at times seemingly only to nudge the plot in the right direction. His ostensible warmth and compassion for Bell’s welfare could have used a bit more explanation, too.

But at any event science fiction is at its best when it’s topical, and relevant. Since the film’s theatrical release last summer NASA has made several important steps towards lunar colonization, putting the United States again and at long last on the path towards the future presented with the story’s simple scale and subtly realized scope. An actual return to the moon is a long time coming, and it’s sometimes hard to remember that films like this one once carried the standard towards that lofty goal. Now here comes Duncan Jones to remind us. With its few flaws and earnest ambition, Moon is a sight worth seeing.

- Michael Kabel

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(Note: An earlier version of this review was originally published for the film’s theatrical release.)

All These Worlds Are Yours…

Remembering 2010, the gritty follow-up to 2001: A Space Odyssey

Star Wars and The Godfather films notwithstanding, the sequels to the great films of the 1960s and 70s were rarely as successful as their antecedents. Whether because audience expectations grew too high, because the pressure of mounting a follow-up worthy of the original proved too great, or (most probably) a combination of the two, second offerings seldom experienced the reception or the staying power enjoyed by their “parent” film. Movies like The Two Jakes, The French Connection II, the myriad Rocky sequels and no doubt many others have become, in a way, stepchildren to the stature their parents possess; they’re not quite embarrassments, but they’re not quite equals, either.

Given the reverence bestowed upon its parent, 2010 could easily have become a much worse film, if only by virtue of a giant choke on the part of its cast and writer-director Peter Hyams (Capricorn One, Outland). Instead, it’s a more sober, clear-eyed look at the near-future space exploration set forth by Arthur C. Clarke’s series of novels, trading the balls-out psychedelic audacity of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey for Reagan-era Cold War skittishness. It’s as much a film of its time – 1984, ironically – as 2001 was a work of its own day, and if it doesn’t succeed as the continuance of Kubrick’s vision, that’s only because it wasn’t trying.

The story, at least, picks up where the events of 2001 left off. Nine years after bearing the blame for the disastrous Discovery One space mission to Jupiter, project director Heywood Floyd (Roy Scheider) has withdrawn into academia and obscurity. Yet both the Soviet Union and the United States are preparing missions to find the vanished spacecraft, even as political tension between the two superpowers gradually mounts towards nuclear conflict. Nevertheless, the Soviets invite Floyd on their mission, to help manipulate the ghost ship’s computers, and since the Soviets have a faster mission timetable Floyd agrees. Also along for the ride are Dr. Walter Curnow, the ship’s designer (John Lithgow) and Dr. Chandra (Bob Balaban), the creator of its  infamous HAL 9000 artificial intelligence.

Floyd and the others make an uneasy peace with the Soviet crew, who are charged with investigating the alien monolith circling Jupiter, determining why the earlier mission failed, and how David Bowman (Keir Dullea), the mission commander, disappeared. Tensions between Floyd and the Soviet captain (Helen Mirren) build as relations between their nations grow dramatically worse. Meanwhile Bowman’s spirit has begun appearing to his loved ones on Earth, wishing them good-bye and warning that “something wonderful” is about to take place. That something relates to hundreds of monoliths, their goal to create life on the Jovian moon of Europa, and a climax that alters the structure of the solar system.

Hyams’ script is simultaneously character- and technology driven, rather than reliant on spectacle – though the spectacles presented are enthralling all the same. If Kubrick wanted to see eye-to-eye with the cosmic scope of Clarke’s vision, Hyams is more comfortable inspecting it from ground level, and his approach is correspondingly gritty. The Soviets’ Alexei Leonov vessel bears more resemblance in design and aesthetics to the Nostromo of Ridley Scott’s Alien than the austere symmetry of the Discovery One: conditions are cramped, readout lights and monitors cast everything in a forbidding glow,  sterility and mechanical precision abound. Both Russian and American crews, Floyd and Curnow especially, seem weary and a little pissed at the state of the Earth and their fates: they expected something grander, just like we do now. Scheider, always an actor who understood the value of reserve, plays Floyd as a man willing to travel millions of miles to escape his own regret. Mirren is excellent as well, as a soldier turned explorer who still understands loyalty and obedience more than wonder and curiosity.

Such grounding works towards the film’s overarching attention to veracity: from the thrilling space walk sequence to the terrifying consequences of celestial mechanics, the film never once feels unrealistic or fanciful. Watching it twenty-six years later, there’s a sense that whatever interplanetary missions we eventually undertake will look an awful lot like this, at least on a day-to-day level. Such a realization feels both daunting and exciting. The world didn’t move in the direction the film predicted, and space travel in particular has been short on achieving its promise. Still, the honesty throughout redeems the ending (if just barely) from the cosmic hokum of too much modern sci-fi, helping us believe something wonderful might and still actually happen. That’s no little accomplishment, for a sequel or any other kind of movie.  

- Michael Kabel

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Time Enough For Love

Five love stories with a time travel twist.

Seeing the trailer for the upcoming The Time Traveler’s Wife got us thinking about other love stories hinging on the science-fiction trope of time travel. There’s more than you might think. The blending of the two genres also serves a more pragmatic purpose, too, bringing the male-friendly sci-fi genre together with the female-dominated romance.

Actually, science fiction authors have understood this from the beginning: H.G. Wells included a love interest for the hero of his The Time Machine – the progenitor of most time travel stories – and more recent successes like Quantum Leap and even the Terminator series played on the bittersweet pathos of lovers separated by and through time.

We have mixed expectations regarding The Time Traveler’s Wife. Though screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin did pen the 1990 scare-your-ass-off thriller Jacob’s Ladder, director Robert Schwentke’s only major directing credit so far was the 2005 Jodie Foster vehicle Flightplan. Audrey Niffenegger’s bestselling source novel looks like weapons-grade chick lit but was shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award for science fiction; yet the film’s emphasis, judging by the trailer, is on the romance side of the story. Stars Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana are always welcome screen presences, though, and are almost certain to generate more heat than Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock managed in 2006′s vaguely similar The Lake House.

There are more time travel romances then the five listed below, though these are the ones we can recommend.

Time After Time (1979): Speaking of Wells,  co-writer-director Nicholas Meyer (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) adapted Karl Alexander’s novel about the author (Malcolm McDowell) time-travelling to the present day in pursuit of Jack the Ripper (David Warner.) The movie Wells finds love with bank employee Amy Robbins (Mary Steenburgen, Step Brothers) but (because they’re in a movie) she becomes the Ripper’s next target.

Though its premise may politely be described as “contrived,” the film works largely because all three principals are at the top of their games. McDowell is charming as a Victorian Utopianist lost in Disco Era Manhattan, and Steenburgen is as lovely and graceful as ever. On the other hand, you sort of expect Wells and Jack to square off more than they do, building more tension for the inevitable plot twists that happen later. With a heavyweight ringer like Warner playing history’s most notorious killer, the tension is there from jump.

Somewhere In Time (1980): A playwright (Christopher Reeve, Superman) falls in love with the woman (Jane Seymour) in a portrait he finds at a resort hotel. Using hypnosis, he travels back to 1912 to find her, even as her manager (Christopher Plummer) conspires to keep them apart.

The elaborate plot, written by Richard Matheson and based on his own novel, includes lots of smart paradoxes and complications. Unfortunately Reeve is somewhat miscast as a brainy playwright desperate to find his romantic ideal, though Seymour is spot-on as a Victorian stage actress. Director Jeannot Szwarc (Jaws 2) soaks the film in soft-focused opacity to recreate the sumptuous pre-World War I era, even if its pace often stalls out.

Made In Heaven (1987): The time travel method in this overlooked melodrama by eclectic director Alan Rudolph (Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Cirlce) isn’t a machine or hypnosis – it’s the afterlife. After dying heroically in the 1950′s, Mike Shea (Timothy Hutton) goes to Heaven and falls in love with a “new soul” (Kelly McGillis) soon to depart for a life on Earth. The powers that be allow him to return to Earth and find her – but he only has thirty years, and they return on opposite ends of the economic ladder. They arrive in the 1980s, which as the trailer below demonstrates was the worst decade ever for men’s hairstyles.

Besides the leads, the film features pitch-perfect turns by Maureen Stapleton, James Gammon, Amanda Plummer, Tim Daly, and Mare Winningham. Debra Winger steals her scenes, however, unrecognizable in an uncredited turn as Shea’s redheaded guardian angel.

Late For Dinner (1991): A cult movie fan’s cult movie, W.D. Richter’s (The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai) weird, oddly-paced romance puts two 1960′s New Mexico everymen (Brian Wimmer, Peter Berg) on the run from the police after a shootout defending their property. Fleeing to Los Angeles, they’re taken in by a scientist (Bo Brundin) who cryogenically freezes them for thirty years. Upon their awakening, the two men attempt to reunite with their family, despite the passage of time and their relative lack of aging.

Marcia Gay Harden plays the wife and sister to whom both men try to return, while 90s indie mainstays Peter Gallagher and Janeane Garofalo also appear.  Like Made In Heaven, the film isn’t available on DVD, though it sometimes shows up on cable movie channels.

Happy Accidents (2000): The time travel edge to writer-director Brad Anderson’s (El maquinista) indie effort saves it from its bevy of period romcom tropes, many of which seem dated just a decade later. Lovesick big city girl Ruby (Marisa Tomei) almost gives up on men until meeting, seemingly by chance, the sensitive and charming Sam (Vincent D’Onofrio, beta testing Robert Goren’s weirdness). They meet cute and have a thrilling romance until Sam divulges he’s from 500 years in the future. Ruby’s taken aback, and Sam works to convince her of his veracity and – you guessed it – save her life from an approaching traffic accident.

Anderson wisely envisions Sam’s 25th Century as a hellish mire of eugenics and deprivation, lending plausibility to Sam’s claim that its inhabitants time travel virtually out of necessity. Tomei and Donofrio have real screen chemistry, and the plot is smart enough to keep you guessing until the last minutes, when everything comes together with an ingenious twist.

- Michael Kabel

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Preview: District 9

Gritty sci-fi thriller explores an Earth in which aliens suffer apartheid.

Would we welcome alien visitors if they weren’t attractive? What if they needed our help? What if they couldn’t offer us anything? Those are the questions posed by the setup for this month’s District 9, a South Africa-set thriller about oppressed aliens and the human corporation exploiting them for money. It’s the first feature-length effort from commercial and short film director Neill Blomkamp, based on the 2005 short Alive In Joburg that he co-directed. 

Youv’e probably seen the murky, cryptic ads online and on television already. The story takes up 28 years after an alien vessel appeared without warning above Johannesburg, carrying refugees fleeing the destruction of their world. The aliens have precious little in technology or resources to offer humanity, and in time find themselves restricted to the titular outlying area of the city. Most of the world views them as a frustrating letdown, unwelcome tenants better left forgotten. The world governments have left their welfare to the Multi-National United, or MNU, a conglomerate about as interested in the aliens’ welfare as most HMO’s care about their patients.

MNU stands to reap huge profits if they can adapt the aliens’ technology for human use. Without alien DNA such access remains impossible, unti employee Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) contracts a virus while participating in a forced relocation of the aliens’ ghetto. The virus changes his DNA to more closely resemble that of the aliens, instantly making him the target of his former employers. Seeking shelter, he hides among the aliens inside District 9′s network of shacks and warrens. 

We’re intrigued enough by the Alien Nation meets Catch A Fire setup to forgive the kinda stale running-man premise, which for a while now has seemed too much like the default story structure for great settings that need a plot. The alien DNA plot device feels pretty familiar, too, though no real examples of its overuse come immediately to mind outside of the Species franchise and we imagine tons of straight-to-DVD stuff. But there’s an additional potential story potential, presented by some promotional materials, that show some humans working to extend equal rights to the aliens. That would be so much more interesting than the stormtroopers-chase-man footage of the trailer, adding as it would another layer of allegory to the premise.

Still, the film looks great, with tons of gritty veracity and sun-soaked menace, sort of like Terminator: Salvation but without the patina of big money that left so much of that misfire feeling disingenuous. The aliens are oddly pitiable, lonely and disadvantaged even before the plot’s revelations come to light. As such, we hope the cruel streak that has snaked through much of producer Peter Jackson’s work doesn’t extend to Blomkamp’s direction, too, or the film could prove tedious pretty quick. Leaden, heavy-handed science fiction is still leaden and heavy-handed.

Jackson hired Blomkamp after plans for the long-hyped Halo movie fell through, and it’s possible fans will see District 9 as thin soup compared to the big-screen translation of the staggeringly popular video game. It’s been a while since the Lord of the Rings auteur really surprised us, and Blomkamp is largely an unproven talent.  But its mid-August debut puts it as the first real science fiction to come out since July’s Moon, and if it’s half as good as that debut effort by Duncan Jones it’ll make a fine end-of-summer surprise.

District 9 opens nationwide August 14.

- Michael Kabel

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Review: Moon

Duncan Jones’ debut feature gets all its retro details in smart order.

How welcome, and even encouraging given this summer of disappointments, to discover Moon. Co-writer and first-time director Duncan Jones’ near-future drama is intelligent, well-crafted, and restrained, thanks to a perfect (if derivative in a well-intentioned way) production design and great performances from stars Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey. A small-scale film that articulates its simple ideas while managing some new twists to familiar tropes, the film manages to do what Captain Kirk, the Terminator, and Optimus Prime together could not: bring intelligent science fiction to summer movie theatres.

Rockwell (Confessions of A Dangerous Mind) plays Sam Bell, the sole human occupant of the Sarang mining facility on the dark side of the moon. The station uses huge robotic crawlers to mine for helium-3, a rare isotope powerful enough to solve the world’s energy needs. After three years on the station, Bell is weary, melancholy, and eager to return to the wife and daughter waiting for him on Earth, and kept company only by taped messages from home and by GERTY (voiced by Spacey), the station’s artificial intelligence .

Two weeks before his homecoming, Bell goes out to investigate a malfunction on one of the crawlers, leading to a collision that knocks him unconscious. When “Sam” wakes up in the station’s infirmary, he feels confused and alienated but also paranoid. Returning the crash site, he finds himself – an exact copy of himself – still in the wreckage. Bringing the “other” Sam Bell back to the station, the two men try to discern what’s happened and whether either of them is actually genuine, a clone, or something more insidious.

The film’s story gets a boost from Tony Noble’s production design, which while borrowing liberally from 1960s and 70s genre classics like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Silent Running, and Alien provides enough scruffy detail to take those classic images a step further along a realistic timeline. Sarang looks and “feels” shopworn, with dirt and scuff marks seemingly everywhere, and hints of mildew and other signs of long use always in its cracks and crevices. Yet the familiarity also grounds the film, from a viewer’s perspective, as part of a larger continuity of science fiction film not really in evidence since the early 1980′s realist heyday of Outland, Blade Runner, and 2010: the sense of outer space and whatever fragile habitats mankind eventually builds there as lived-in environments subject to the wear and tear typical of Earth. So much sci-fi casts the future as either antiseptically barren or completely dystopic, with little or no gradation in between. In striking a middle ground, the sets give both Bell’s character and the story important depth and texture.

Jones, who wrote the story, keeps the film moving forward, using Rockwell’s relaxed screen presence and precise conveyance of emotion to keep the tension building. An exception to this comes about a third of the way through, when an important story development is accomplished largely thanks to some judicious editing. Some viewers might feel cheated, or feel that the film was anyway trying to cheat them a bit. Nathan Parker’s screenplay isn’t overly talky or given to monologues and spoken exposition (no doubt a tempting pitfall, given the film’s man-alone conceit), though it allows Rockwell and Spacey room to flesh out their characters in ways that distinguish them from the influences listed above. Spacey is a natural fit to play an electronic presence immediately reminiscent of the HAL 9000, though the script and his performance take GERTY’s personality in unexpected directions.

But the film rises and falls with Rockwell, who in essentially playing the same person at different points of their life is able to build two very different characters out of one role. It’s an important, but subtly given, plot device that Bell had a violent temper before arriving at Sarang. Rockwell makes one of the Sam’s impulsive and brash, while his doppelganger, from a later point in time, is serene and lonesome. You never doubt you’re watching the same person, or the same actor, even as the two go very separate emotional directions. As good as he is, Spacey’s GERTY is somewhat underused, arriving at times seemingly only to nudge the plot in the right direction. His ostensible warmth and compassion for Bell’s welfare could possibly have used  a bit more explanation, too.

The nation sort-of took notice of the Apollo 11 moon mission’s 40th anniversary last week, even as NASA’s plans to return to the moon begin to percolate in the public consciousness. Amid such news, the film almost seems simultaneously like a coming attraction and a souvenir, prescient and old-fashioned at the same time. With its few flaws and earnest ambition, it’s a lovely reminder of what science fiction can be about. As one blockbuster after another falls flat, even given their diminished critical expectations, Moon is a welcome sight.

- Michael Kabel

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Preview: Moon

Sam Rockwell in an old-school science fiction thriller.  

Evocative of the more subdued and character-driven science fiction classics of the 1970s such as Silent Running and Solaris as well as 2001: A Space Odyssey, the new film Moon offers another entry into the present decade’s slow resurgence of intelligent sci-fi, seen in films including Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Primer, and 2046. It’s also got Sam Rockwell, one of our favorite actors, and includes Kevin Spacey in possibly the part he was born to play.

Co-written and directed by first-time feature filmmaker Duncan Jones, the story joins lunar prospector Sam Bell (Rockwell) at the end of his three-year hitch as the sole human occupant of Sarang, a remote mining station on the dark side of the moon’s surface. The largely automated station refines the lunar soil looking for Helium 3, an isotope used to end the world’s desperate energy crisis. Kept company by GERTY, the on-station artificial intelligence (voiced by Spacey), Bell has used the time wisely, working on his violent temper and getting his mind and spirit in shape for the early retirement with his family that awaits him on Earth.

With two weeks left on his tour, an accident sends Bell on an excursion to one of the camp’s roving processing stations. There he discovers a fully-grown copy of himself lying unconscious in a hatchway. Alone and feeling more isolated than ever, he must ask then himself if the being is real, calling into question his own sanity but also his very existence. 

Would you believe, they put Sam on the moon?

At first glance Jones’s film has done everything right to make a retro-cool science fiction thriller, most notably using a plastic-sleek design aesthetic both reminiscent of 2001 and about a thousand artist’s depictions of life in space from the last 50 years. Even the poster pays homage to the 70s era, its layout bringing to mind 1971′s The Andromeda Strain. The use of Helium 3 as a major plot point is also a timely and intelligent decision. That rare gas has been named by many futurists as the key to effective fusion power, and Russian and Chinese space experts have already called for exploring the moon for its presence. So for fans looking for something besides Transformers exploding  or something brainier than 2012,  Roland Emmerich’s latest apocalyptic hoo-ha, the film’s probably a can’t-miss.

Our skepticism comes from a couple of times we’ve been let down by such intriguing sci-fi spectacles before – and those from more accomplished directors. Brian De Palma’s 2000 clunker Mission To Mars shared Moon‘s attention to near-future space exploration realism but was crippled by a conclusion that made no damn sense given its setup. More recently, Danny Boyle’s Sunshine looked both realistic but imaginative at the same time. It too fell apart in the third act, once some kind of climax-focused tension became necessary. 

But performance counts, too. Rockwell is an intriguing choice to play an isolated astronaut, with his blank slate face that easily disappears into emotional complexity at a moment’s notice. And the idea of Spacey’s dry ice-on-tile voice animating a complex robot is a natural. (If 2001 were made today, who better to voice HAL?) The two of them together could probably wage a snark-off battle for the ages, but they’re also quite capable of subdued work that puts character first. Acting isn’t always the difference between good science fiction and bad, but it also never hurts.

Finally, there’s also something to be said for timing. Moon opens in limited American release June 12, just a little less than six weeks before the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing.

- Michael Kabel
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