Here are brief comments on recently released movies. SPOILER ALERT! The plots will be discussed.
After watching this film, written and directed by
Francis Ford Coppola, I thought that it was an over-the-top, self-indulgent
mess, but I was still glad I saw it. It is fascinating to look at, with its
imagined futuristic look, and it has interesting themes. However, it comes off
as a bombastic piece, with silly, instead of satiric, characters, like Shia LaBeouf’s
Clodio Pulcher. So, I guess I was conflicted. In the film Wonder Boys,
Katie Holmes’s character tells the writer, played by Michael Douglas, that he
made no choices to leave out material in his overstuffed novel. I feel that is
what happened here.
Coppola had been working on this project for a long
time and ended up contributing $120 million of his own money to get it made. He
recently stated that his main purpose in the story was to compare the United
States to the Roman Empire. Thus, the names of the characters and even the male
haircuts conjure up that ancient civilization. Adam Driver is Cesar Catilina
and Giancarlo Esposito is Mayor Cicero. Lucius Sergius Catilina and Marcus
Tullius Cicero were citizens of the Roman Republic and were political enemies.
Coppola said that the film suggests that the United States is like Rome, which
had a republic with senators, and great thinkers, like Marcus Aurelius (who is
quoted in the movie). However, Rome succumbed to self-indulgence and a lack of
morality, which led to its fall, and the United States can be headed that way,
too. IMDb notes that “several of the famous New York landmarks referenced in
this movie are actually mirrored or transposed from their real-life
counterparts. The Statue of Liberty is shown with the torch in her left hand,
and the Nedick's restaurant in the historic Madison Square Garden is shown on
the opposite side of the entrance in the movie.” Those reversals may symbolize
how American civilization has changed course and is headed in the wrong
direction.
Cesar is a brilliant architect who has invented an indestructible
substance. In addition, he seems to be able to stop time. Yet, he uses a
T-square, an old-fashioned technical drawing device. There are other analog
elements, non-digital clocks for instance. Coppola possibly wanted to show that
there has been progress over time. The quotes from Aurelius and Shakespeare may
be stressing the highlights of civilization despite the downturns. Fundi
Romaine (Lawrence Fishburne) has a cautionary remark when he says, “When does an
empire die? Does it collapse in one terrible moment? No, no... But there comes
a time when its people no longer believe in it.” Cesar says, “Don't let the now
destroy the forever." Coppola said that there is the hope that people can
still use their strengths to create a positive future.
However, Fishburne’s character is a narrator at the beginning
of the movie, who looks like he will be a major character, but then he and his
voice disappear. Dustin Hoffman’s character is suddenly killed off by a tumbling
building. Again, the film lacks focus and needs editing.
Those used to superhero films may find this movie a
bit wordy and lacking in action. But the words here are significant, and this
movie uses the death of a pope and the process of choosing a new one as a metaphor
for the division between different factions in our world today.
After the pope dies, Cardinal-Dean Thomas Lawrence
(Ralph Fiennes, in an excellent performance) oversees the conclave in the
Sistine Chapel in Rome where the cardinals must choose the new leader of the
Catholic Church. The film conveys the claustrophobic atmosphere of the
situation as these men are locked in together until they reach a decision. Instead
of this gathering being a peaceful, inspirational process that Lawrence
anticipates, it turns into a “war,” as Cardinal Bellini (Stanley Tucci) loudly
informs Lawrence. There are liberals (such as Bellini), conservatives, and even
a racist reactionary, Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitto). Bellini says that
Tedesco and his group were “savage” in their treatment of the late pope, trying
to desecrate his memory. The film suggests that this kind of nastiness is what
is happening in the world outside the supposed insulation of the church
members. That connection is reinforced by terrorist attacks outside the
conclave which cause debris to invade the religious sanctuary and crash down on
the interior of the chapel.
The conflicting forces here are either looking to the
past or the future. There is a new cardinal, Benitez (Carlos Diehz), who was a
late moment appointment by the dead pope. He brings real life experiences of
war to the cloistered group. He announces his view when he says, “The Church is
not the past. It is what we do next.” There is also the battle between certitude
and doubt. Lawrence, who is a questioner, delivers a homily where he says,
“There is one sin which I have come to fear above all else … certainty.” He
goes on to say that “certainty is the great enemy of unity … the deadly enemy
of tolerance.” The film says that those with absolute stances that demonize others,
who are different, will perpetuate war among the world’s inhabitants.
The resolution of the story is unexpected and
conducive to discussion.
This film reunites the Forrest Gump team:
actors Tom Hanks and Robin Wright, and director Robert Zemeckis. The title
refers to all action taking place on one spot on Earth in what becomes Pennsylvania
since the extinction of the dinosaurs from a meteor strike, through the Ice Age,
pre-Columbian times, the American Revolutionary War, and parts of the 20th
and 21st centuries. Most of the early images are brief, and the
story becomes more detailed once it gets to the WWII era.
The uniqueness of the movie comes from the fact that
the camera is fixed (until the very end). It does not pan or do close-ups. The
actors approach the camera lens when a close-up is warranted. Most of the
activity takes place in the living room of one house that is bought by
different occupants. The film jumps back and forth in time by opening what are like
computer “windows” to transition between scenes.
The action primarily focuses on the Young Family. One
can hardly recognize the beautiful Kelly Reilly of Yellowstone as the conservatively
dressed matriarch, Rose. Likewise, her husband, Al, is portrayed by Englishman
Paul Bettany, who gets the American accent perfectly. Zemeckis has always been
a technically savvy director (Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Contact,
and the Back to the Future films), and he uses computer de-aging
technology to present the younger versions of Hanks and Wright.
There are historical backdrops in the movie in the forms
of music, a TV showing programs, and references to the Spanish Flu, WWII, and
even COVID. But the plot centers on the characters and their relationships. Zemeckis
uses the image of a hummingbird in several shots. It suggests a feeling of
continuity that links the shifting events he depicts. It may remind one of the
feather in Gump, which implied change, arbitrariness, and union in one
symbol.
There may be too much sentimentality here, and the film
could have used a bit more humor, but it is an interesting piece of filmmaking.
This movie is grand in the old epic sense, with
sweeping vistas and grand sets. The CGI use is well done, although the killer
baboons, while scary, look fake.
This film is definitely a sequel to the initial film
released in 2000. Ridley Scott is again the director, and Connie Nielsen
reprises the role of Lucilla, the daughter of slain Emperor Marcus Aurelius and
brother of the dead Emperor Commodus who had their father murdered.
There are many other ties to the previous film.
especially in the form of the main character, Lucius (Paul Mescal), who turns
out to be the son of Russell Crowe’s character, Maximus, in the original movie,
and the grandson of Aurelius. Mescal brings gravity to the role as he deals
with his being exiled by his mother, Lucilla, and the fact that she married General
Acasius (Pedro Pascal) who is responsible for the death of his wife. Lucius
loses his wife as did his father. Lucius, like his dad, also becomes a
gladiator after becoming a captive. Lucilla eventually realizes Lucius is her
son when he exhibits similar fighting techniques, such as planting his sword in
the sand and grabbing a handful of the dirt in the Coliseum. In the original Gladiator
Maximus is already a general and there is more time spent developing how he
wins over the following of the other gladiators, while Lucius’s ability to lead
appears abrupt.
While all the performances are solid here, the one
that stands out is that of Denzel Washington’s Macrinus, an ex-slave of Marcus
Aurelius, who became a gladiator and then won his freedom. (Don’t be surprised
if Washington is nominated for a supporting actor Oscar). He now provides
gladiators for the games and supplies arms, food, and oil to the empire. He is
an Iago-like figure, who implements chess-like moves as he plays others,
including the two co-emperors, against each other as he plots to gain power.
Scott may be making a reference to current times as the senators compromise
their morality by caving to the whims of those in power.
Macrinus is a realist who says that only the strong
should survive. Lucius fights for the idealism for which Rome once embodied, a
place which stands for liberty and justice. As Francis Ford Coppola said about Megalopolis,
comparing America to the Roman Empire, he wanted to show that the ability to
forge a positive future is still present.
