Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle (2017)

I don't remember much about "Jumanji" (1995). Just that I liked it back then. I also don't remember much about "Zathura" (2005). Just that I liked it more than "Jumanji". I'm pretty sure I won't remember much neither about the new "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle" (2017). Unless that maybe it's weaker than the first, and clearly below "Zathura".

The new version doesn't seem to be a sequel for the old one, but more towards a remake. The "cursed" board game is replaced by an old arcade that absorbs the players into a jungle where they have to save Jumanji (= the jungle). It's obvious that in such a movie you need to accept a certain level of "SciFi", but somehow the entire bit of grabbing/passing the players into the game seems a bit too childish... I don't know, the initial version, as also the closet in Narnia, or to be more close to the current setting the arcade in "TRON" seemed much more... believable. Anyway... On the good side, leaving the intro apart, the idea of a cursed arcade in which you're trapped has quite a potential to explore. Each player has an avatar in the game that is pretty far from the real form. We have a number of lives and the respawn concept. We have strengths and weaknesses. Unfortunately, even though the movie covers quite a bit of all these, it loses on the script. The jokes sometimes work, sometimes they don't. The dialogue has a clear age target in the range of 10-16. The story does not offer much surprise - the always present action is running from the bad guys towards the final objective to get the job done.

It's curious how the new "Jumanji" still managed to please enough the critics and didn't land exactly close to the trash bin. I assume it's more about politically correctness than how good is the movie. For instance "Journey to the Center of The Earth" in the same niche is somewhere at 61 on RT in comparison 77 here, and I think it's a bit better than this one. But well... as a family/kids movie I guess it works.

I would've liked to end 2017 with something better, but unfortunately I doubt I'll have time to watch any other movie and also write an entry until the 0:00 between years... so that's it for now. I have to notice that it's the first year, after 10 of blogging, when I didn't have a movie with the maximum rating among my entries. Maybe I got too picky... Maybe I got old and my chemistry with the new releases is fading... Maybe I don't have enough time to watch enough or to choose what to watch... Anyway, Happy New Year! & hopefully next year will be better ;)

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

Wind River (2017)

From the first scene "Wind River" reminded me of "Winter's Bone". We have the same harsh reality, isolated location, a community at the edge of poverty, lack of police, uncontrolled crime. The similarities stop here. The story is different. In "Wind River" everything starts with the corpse of an 18 years old girl, with rape marks, found frozen at several miles distance from any residence, in the middle of an Indian reservation from Wyoming. The body is discovered by a local hunter, who alerts the local chief of police, who asks the presence of FBI for investigating the case. Tha follows is a drama with crime thriller accents (not the opposite, as it might look like). We have a much stronger accent set on the geographical-social context, starting with a snow storm up to the specific community customs. The crime/thriller part is relatively linear, unlike for instance "Winter's Bone". To make another comparison, Taylor Sheridan who directed and wrote "Hell or High Water" does the same here, and you can feel the same touch, every detail in the whole story/setting being carefully taken care of. To conclude: if you want a mystery story it's probably not the best option, but as a composition movie it's highly recommended.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

The Foreigner (2017)

"The Foreigner" is one of the few movies seen since quite a while that hides more than what's shown in the trailer. And that's good... Another good thing is Jackie Chan's presence in a western production that's not a comedy. Otherwise said, you have the opportunity to also see the other face of the actor, who besides the remake of "Karate Kid", didn't really have any drama parts in movies made outside Hong Kong.

The movie is an adaptation of a thriller novel. We have an Asian immigrant, owner of a small London restaurant, whose daughter is killed in a bomb attack set up by a new faction of IRA that breaches the non-aggression agreement with the British government. Our man is not pleased with the answer of authorities who need more time to find the perpetrators, and decides to take the matter in his own hands. That implies traveling to Belfast and contacting the local deputy PM (Pierce Brosnan) an ex-IRA member, who doesn't seem to know much. But "the Chinaman" wants names. From here onward there are two action lines splitting and intersecting again repeatedly until the end. On one side we have a revenge story, where a Chinese in his '60s goes against the whole IRA (let's say that the exotic side of the situation and the way the action's built compensates the Special Forces background cliche). On the other side we have a political thriller with enough threads bound together (that's the surprise part, so let's not detail it).

The production quality is good. Besides the two parts excellently played by Jackie Chan and Pierce Brosnan one thing to notice is the editing, especially the audio one, which is well backed up also by surprisingly appropriate score given how minimalist is the composition. As a final note, the revenge story, which is as always catchy given the niche, it's much more diffuse and non-violent I'd say compared to what you might think, surprisingly even more than the other story line. Which again, it's something good :)...

Rating: 4 out of 5

Paths of Glory (1957) / Cross of Iron (1977)

There's already some time since I want to put "Paths of Glory" and "Cross of Iron" in a side-by-side entry, enough time to forget pretty much all I wanted to write. By chance, I've watched this year both movies, both of them being part of a similar anti-war niche. "Paths of Glory" is among the first movies of Kubrick, while "Cross of Iron" is an indie movie by Sam Peckinpah (probably the most underrated director of the 70s). Both movies are book adaptations and both have the same antagonist typology - a superior ranked officer, whose primary objective in a critical war situation is a "quest for glory" and (up to some point) also the same typology of the main character - the inferior ranked officer, sick of war, for who the glory equals zero.

In "Paths of Glory" we have on one side a French general during WW1 who, following a discreet suggestion coming from the army commandment, decides to sacrifice based on preliminary estimation more than half of the people under his command for conquering a hill, a strategic objective that will bring praise and a potential promotion. On the other side, we have a colonel who should carry the order till the end, but fails, the soldiers being unable to advance through enemy fire; consequence - he must choose 3 soldiers, one in each company, for bringing them in front of the martial court for cowardice. In "Cross of Iron" we have a captain of the German army, descending from an Prussian aristocratic family, who in the final days of WW2 asks for a transfer near the enemy lines because he cannot accept getting out of the war without obtaining an Iron Cross for bravery. On the opposite side we have a sergeant, commanding a group of soldiers, saviors of the company in difficult no-exit situations, who refuses to lie on witnessing his superior leading a heroic assault.

The closeness of the two movies is interesting, not necessarily from the war context perspective, but more for the general approach of life: the boss-employee relationship, the world in which each of them lives seen from above by one and closely within by the other, approaching impossible tasks, etc. The similarity has, however, a limit, the movies being split apart by their general feeling, and the character who struggling within the harsh reality takes different directions from some point onward. (Spoilers) One of the characters manifests a loyal insanity up to the point when the accumulated sickness reaches a limit, the other is also a sickened person but one who plans, trying all he can to solve the situation within its constraining bounds. In "Cross of Iron" the sergeant is offered with the opportunity to accuse his superior and he's not doing it. In "Paths of Glory" the colonel is refused on any attempt of defense. Which approach is the right one?... :) I'll just say that it's probably better to watch the movies in reverse chronological order ;) also because I find "Cross of Iron" much more harsh than "Paths of Glory".

Rating:
Paths of Glory - 3.5 out of 5
Cross of Iron - 3 out of 5

Possession (2002)

Old movie, short entry: Somewhere between a cold that I can't get rid of, end-of-year reports, unsolved family issues and other house issues, which again confirmed that December 25th is a backup day for unfinished business and to not expect more because it's not helpful for my morale, I said it might still be a good idea to search for a movie that's more in tone with the period. That didn't come so well either... "Possession" is an old romance, quite corny, that fooled me by being additionally classified as "mystery" by IMDb. We have a couple formed by an American assistant in a literature department somewhere in UK (Aaron Eckhart) and a doctor in another literature department also in UK (Gwyneth Palthrow) who team up for investigating a romantic affair kept secret by a (fictitious) British 19th century poet, whose work apparently dedicated to his wife had actually another target... (or that's left for you to understand by the ending of the movie). All this story has an academic touch of Indiana Jones in a literary version = all sorts of cryptic verse taking us through various deserted mansions, isolated cascades, up to digging up a grave. Besides that we also have a rival group hunting for the same "academic treasure", obviously for mean personal benefits = fame & glory for the century's literary discovery (it's not totally clear what's the difference in case of the first group for this part..., but well, we needed something to make the action slightly more dynamic). Besides the present side, for who's into pure romance we have the 18th century story narrated through flashbacks. With all the risk of seeming insensitive, this whole story is so dull that the main quality it has is to act as a sleeping pill... reason why it actually took 3 attempts to finish the movie. To conclude, maybe the summary and the idea itself might look ok, but the script is much much worse... Enough said.

Rating: 2 out of 5