Reminiscence (2021)

I've had enough "red flags" for "Reminiscence" to skip it, but I didn't do it. 46 on Metascore, 37 on RT and a puny 6.0 on IMDb didn't convince me. I thought that it couldn't be that bad with such a promising trailer. A SciFi packed with time travel, as it looked like, it already scored some winning points from start. But, finally yes, it is that bad...

First, we don't have any time travel. In a future that seems a prequel for "Waterworld" (we can add an extra red flag) = in a semi-flooded Miami sem, an advanced tech (pretty much the only advanced tech actually) allows re-living memories while some stasis is induced to the body. Nick Bannister (Hugh Jackman) is a private contractor that offers this kind of service, offering his experience accumulated during the latest war, when the memory machine was used for interogations. One day, Mae - "la femme fatale" - enters his shop as a client needing to figure out where she lost her keys, and from that point we also enter into a deeply entangled neo-noir romance, with even more deep plot holes. It's a waste of time to write more about it...

The most frustrating part is that the story in "Reminiscence" has potential. But it's ruined by the directing and the writing. It might look like something between "Inception" and "Blade Runner" but it doesn't get close to any of these two. Probably a more appropriate comparison would be with "Strange Days", an older, less known movie, but much much better than what we have here. The actors are struggling, but you can't do much with cliche lines or ridiculous parts of talking with yourself to tell the viewer what can be seen already on the screen. Besides this, the whole plot is bound weirdly as a whole - my feeling was of some series episodes that are shortened and just edited together to rush out a two hour movie without much polishing. Add to that also a sound mixing that normally doesn't stand out, or if it does it's in a positive way. Rarely it happened to watch a movie that catched my ear for how bad the tracks are mixed together, even if it happened in one or two scenes. The only part that's ok-ish are the visuals... and the trailer. Too bad for what it promised.

Rating: 1.75 out of 5 (with a reminiscence of 0.25 for what could've been)

The Green Knight (2021)

The story of "The Green Knight" is part of the Arthur and the knights of the round table lore. In essence is a typical "quest for glory" fantasy tale, and not a very complex one. That's why I didn't expect much potential for a movie made out of this. After watching it I stick to this opinion, however limiting it to the narrative side. Besides that, "The Green Knight" can be a lesson of what can be achieved visually in a movie, even one with a somewhat simple subject.

I think that the director, David Lowery, was quite happy with the space offered by the vague context of the legends, which gives indeed quite some freedom of expression. On the other hand that's probably exactly what will confuse somebody who doesn't know much about the subject. It's probably one of the few situations where is actually recommended to know the story in advance in order to figure out what the movie wants to say. Pretty much the same as in the case of a known play you see the n-th time, when you'll probably focus mostly on how it's stage, and not on what's about.

A while ago I've read a written version of the legend, and from what I still remember probably mixed up with what the movie reminded me, the story went something like this. "The Green Knight", a mysterious character shows up during the Christmas day before king Arthur's table and proposes a game: he offers to be hit by anyone who wants to do it given that who does it has the guts to receive the same strike after one year. Gawain, the youngest of the knights, and also the one lacking any acts of courage, accepts the challenge, confident that this will be done by beheading his opponent. To everybody's surprise the green knight picks up his head from the bloody floor and leaves not before reminding Gawain that within a year he'll wait for him at the Green Chapel to close the game. The year passes, and Gawain is pressed to honor his word, starting his journey towards the meeting place. When he's about to end it, Gawain stops at some castle where another mysterious knight and his wife offer him shelter for a couple days. This knight proposes another game - for the time of Gawain's stay, his host will go hunting and will provide Gawain with what he's catching given that Gawain gives him whatever he will receive while staying in the castle. From that point on, I don't remember that well how the legend moved on, except the fact that Gawain respects the deal up to the end when the wife of his host trying to seduce Gawain kisses him and offers a sash to protect him from any physical harm. Gawain offers to the master of the castle the kiss back as agreed, but keeps the sash for himself hoping it'll protect him in his final confrontation. It all ends with the showdown, when the green knight just makes a scratch on Gawain's neck, after which he discloses his identity as his former host and the scratch being the punishment for hiding the sash, but also harming him so little as a reward for honoring the rest of the deal.

The movie deviates a bit towards the end, but anyway the differences aren't that far from the above version. Initially I was surprised by the turn it took, just to understand where it wanted to get at the final scene. But to figure it out you probably need to know the story from start. The adaptation has anyway lots of symbolism integrated in it, but unfortunately I didn't have patience to properly digest that. I couldn't say it did bore me, but clearly, it's not a movie with a typical action development. The main attraction remain its visuals. In brief, "The Green Knight" really deserves a watch for that only. The rest depends on your mood.

Rating: 3 out of 5

The Orville

I've had "The Orville" on my "to watch" list for quite a while. There aren't many new SciFi series and it didn't have many episodes released, so I finally found some time for it. The verdict after is similar to most of the other opinions I found online - it's probably what you'd expect to see in a "Star Trek" series (well, at least if your "first contact" with ST was with TNG, DS9, Voyager, or even with Enterprise or the original series, and not with the more recent ones). I don't think that limits though the potential audience. And that's because "The Orville" has something of its own: the humor.

It stands clear from the first episode that "The Orville" starts as a parody of the classic recipe for a SciFi series, where we have an exploratory ship going bold into space "where no one has gone before". It's probably something to expect given that it's a series created + partially also written by Seth MacFarlane, in whose CV you won't find much stuff beyond the comic genre. Moreover, here he's also taking the part of captain Ed Mercer, leading a crew who seems more fit for a sequel of "Galaxy Quest" (another parody following the same pattern, for who still remembers it). It takes a while to get the interesting part, which gets more obvious as you advance in season 2 = the themes of the episodes start becoming more seriouse, even philosophical sometimes. If my first impression was of some easy comedy set in outer space, I definitely can't say that anymore after two seasons.

Indeed "The Orville" has its own specific humor, which you have to like. Otherwise, it might seem that it disregards some subjects. Actually, it's probably the perfect way to avoid getting into the area where life is seen either in white, or in black, sometimes derailing into some wannabe lessons of right and wrong. Unfortunately that seems to be a common trend lately, and "The Orville" has its own share of episodes trying to teach you some morals, but stil it doesn't dismiss the grey area. Even if sometimes it's present only as a discreet nuance, it's there, and the humor somehow helps keeping it.

Not long ago I wrote about the first season of "Star Trek: Picard" and I was saying it's much better than "Discovery" (at least compared to the first five episodes, because I couldn't handle more). Still, not even "Picard", for its first season at least, wasn't a Star Trek in it's "classic" sense, where the majority of the episodes were focused on a separate subject, even if we had elements of a global story arc. From that perspective "The Orville" is much closer to what Star Trek once was, possibly also due to including in the production team some ST veterans (Brannon Braga - one of the main writers from TNG to Enterprise, Jonathan Frakes - Riker from TNG, directing here some episodes, and others).

To conclude, I don't think I've seen a SciFi series structured like that since "Stargate: Atlantis" incoace, and even though in general I prefer a series that follows a more complex and continuous narrative line, which is obviously more engaging than stand-alone episodes, I still felt the need for something more "light". And what I can say until now is that "The Orville" seems to fill perfectly the place of that.

Pig (2021) vs. Nobody (2021)

If I would've watched only one of the two movies, either "Pig" or "Nobody", probably I wouldn't have written anything. By chance though, I've seen them both recently, and I think this context deserves a blog entry.

"Pig" starts as a low budget John Wick. Some guy (Nicolas Cage) lives like a hermit deep in the forest, with his truffle pig, his only contact with the outside world being the distributor who sells the mushrooms. All nice and well until one night when two thieves beat him up and steal the animal. From here on, it looks like what you would expect - the payback - the guy wants his pig back. What you would not expect is how this moves on. I didn't see the trailer before the movie, and I think it tells too much already. "Pig" deserves watching mostly for the surprise you'll get, delivered piece by piece. It starts with some minor details about the guy in the woods: a name that still seems to open doors in the city he had left 15 years back, a beating taken in the some sort of an "underground fight club" in the basement of a former hotel just to receive a clue for his search, after which at some point his former job comes up, moving further on with a confrontation with an "underboss" and finally "the showdown" with "the big boss". It looks like a typical template for a revenge story :) Well, it's not.. We don't get guns and explosions, what we have here is.. knives and forks. And I won't say more.

"Nobody" is a John Wick, or better said a retired John Wick (Bob Odenkirk), working a management job in a company owned by his father-in-law, and living a monotonous life. All nice and well though until one night when two thieves break his home, steal his change from the living room and his wristwatch, give a black eye to his son, and leave our guy being asked by cops, relatives and his kid why he didn't use his golf cross. From here on is what you would expect - the payback - but this ends quickly. So quickly that being already in the kick-ass mood, "the nobody" breaks the bones of a five member gang harassing a lone girl in a bus. One of them, unfortunately, being the brother of the local Russian mafia kingpin. Obviously, now the bad guy wants revenge. And now, we're getting here too some details about our "nobody": again somebody who's identity is blurry but freaks everybody out, again somebody who retired a long ago, having his basement secured as a nuclear bunker that not even his kids seem to know about, and again at some point we're given more info on his former job, and we move further on to fighting the Russian army an finally "the big boss". From its half onward the movie gets very similar to John Wick (first), which can be explained by having the same screenwriter who didn't even bother to use, I don't know.. yakuza, or some other mob organization as bad guys (it's probably more politically correct to be the Russians lately in this position). What else to say... Obviously we have lots of guns and explosions. Practically, the only original part of the movie is the main character - who indeed at a first sight is in a total contract with the classic image of an action hero.

"Pig" is a movie that's a bit too pretentious for what's left in the end, and there are parts where it's a bit exaggerated, but it gets as much as possible from a surprise character, and not a "surprise" like a former secret agent/assassin/etc who, wow, we find out what army skills possesses. Objectively, that's the impression I was left with after my initial view. Which, unfortunately was before "Nobody". Because if it would have been after, probably I would have seen it more positively in the above comparison. It's too much to say that "Pig" is a "thriller" as IMDB labels it, but that completes well the subliminal irony towards the typical action movie. We don't have any gratuitous violence in "Pig", where we could draw statistics on shot bullets vs. "Rambo III". Such as we could do for "Nobody", which even if it tries in its first part to make fun of some cliches, finally it ends up with the ususal liniar development of the genre, where bad guys are taken out one by one until the last who obviously needs the "boss fight". For its first part that seems promising, it's probably acceptable as an average popcorn movie, but that's all of it. So, "Pig" wins :)

Rating:
Pig - 3.5 out of 5
Nobody - 2.5 out of 5

The Courier (2020)

In a genre that seemed obsolete at some point = cold war spy thrillers, surprisingly we still get new releases, not very frequent, but I think more often than for instance SciFi movies, Last year I was writing about "Jack Strong" inspired from a real case. We could say that "The Courier" is its prequel. The subject here is pretty much the same - a high ranking officer from the Eastern block decides that's more healthy for the good of the international politics of the time to start leaking classified info to the CIA. In "Jack Strong" the main character was a Polish officer, who in the beginning of the movie was attending the execution of colonel Penkovsky, an example given by KGB for the risks of collaborating with the capitalist enemy. Well (mega spoiler), here it's where the movies connect - Oleg Penkovsky is another real character, whose career as a spy is presented in "The Courier".

Now that we know the ending, what's left to be said is that the title character here is not Penkovsky, but the "courier" - Greville Wynne, an average businessman residing in London, unfortunately for him having plenty of customers in Eastern Europe, but fortunately perfect to be recruited by the British intelligence to provide a connection with the Eastern source. The action follows the more or less romanticized history (let's be fair - more) from recruiting Greville to the not so fortunate ending, but where Mr. Wynne's nationality provides hime a chance to survive.

What saves the movie is probably the fact that's based on true events. What drags it down is that the true events are a bit too "filmic". "The Courier" feels based on actual facts as much as "Titanic" feels to be a hystorical movie. The aproach is just too.. light - very theatrical and filled with stereotypes, clearly less realistic than "Jack Strong", but still acceptable if you're looking for something lighter. Anyway, coincidence or not - the two movies not being related production wise - at some point in the first part of "The Courier", we have a "deja vu" scene where colonel Penkovsky attends the execution of major Popov, yet another real spy discovered by the KGB. So we have a subject for the prequel's prequel.. :)

Rating: 3 out of 5