Review: The Theory of Everything

by Trevor Kirkendall

★★★★

Everyone knows Stephen Hawking and the impact he has made in the field of science. He’s a man of genius regardless of weather you agree with him or not on his stance of God and religion.  And the fact that he contributed that much while affected by such a debilitating disease makes his achievements even more astounding. But who exactly is Stephen Hawking? Sure, scientists and admirers alike could tell you a little about his life story, but what about the rest of us? “The Theory of Everything” explores the life of Hawking, but does so in a more unique fashion that a typical biopic. The film casts very little light on his research, and instead focuses on his relationship with his first wife Jane Wilde.

The film begins with Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) studying for his PhD at Cambridge in the early 1960s. He’s having a difficult time picking out what he’d like to do for his doctoral research. During this time, he starts to lose the ability to pick things up off the ground, write legibly and even walk properly. After an accident on campus, he’s diagnosed with motor neuron disease and given only two years left to live. This is shocking news for him, to say the least, but it also provides him a topic to research: time. He intends to come up with a mathematical equation that can prove the universe began as collapsing black hole.

There are no words to accurately describe Redmayne’s portrayal of Hawking in this film. He is absolutely astonishing and plays the role to absolute perfection. He begins the film as a man who is completely able to form perfect sentences and walk, but then slowly begins to deteriorate with each passing scene. Eventually, he ends up unable to move on his own and becomes confined to a wheelchair. Redmayne is so believable in this performance that he literally becomes Hawking. It’s hard to even believe that this is someone other than Hawking himself in this film. It’s a breathtakingly good performance.

But Hawking alone is only half the story. Hawking’s love interest from the very first scene is Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones), a French and Spanish literature major at Cambridge who is instantly taken by Hawking’s shyness. Their relationship is still relatively new when he’s diagnosed with the disease. Already, Jane feels that she is in love with Stephen and refuses to let the disease come in between them. They marry and have a son, followed shortly thereafter by a daughter. Eventually, Stephen’s disease becomes a burden on her that she enlists the help of her church’s choir director Jonathan Jones (Charlie Cox) who becomes a wonderful help around the house to both her and Stephen.

As good as Redmayne is in this role, Jones is his equal in all aspects. Her performance is nothing short as astounding as well. In my opinion, she has a much taller task than Redmayne because she’s asked to carry the weight of the film’s emotional aspect. Jones has the vast majority of the dialogue – especially throughout the film’s second half – which carries with it a great emotional weight. She delivers the role to the audience with the perfect amount of empathy. She’s not asking for your pity or your sympathy, but she doesn’t want you be able to feel her emotions along with her. That is no easy task, and she executes it flawlessly.

“The Theory of Everything” comes to us from Oscar winning director James Marsh, who directed the sensational documentary “Man on Wire.” Here, we see a filmmaker who knows exactly what he wants out of his cast and exactly which elements of his story he wants you to grasp. He could have easily focused the story on just the love element and left everything else as a second rate plot point. Instead, he wants us to see the elements that challenge Jane and Stephen’s marriage. At one point, Stephen says they’re just a normal family and Jane has to remind him that they’re not normal. And she’s right. A big aspect that ultimately doomed their marriage was their differing views on God. It’s a big issue, one that Marsh never loses site of that throughout the film.

“The Theory of Everything” is truly a showcase is acting perfection, if nothing else. Neither Redmayne nor Jones has been around for a terribly long time. This just shows how talented they are at such a young age. I would look for both to be mesmerizing audiences with powerful performances for a long time. This is also a testament to director Marsh as well for being able to get such realistic performances out of his two stars. Every moment of this film beautifully captured on film and flawlessly acted by Redmayne and Jones. And the final 20 minutes of are both heartbreaking and heartwarming at once.

Review: Horrible Bosses 2

by Trevor Kirkendall

★

Sequels, sequels and more sequels. When will it end? It never will. Especially when movies that were relatively decent don’t necessarily require a second serving. I could watch Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy go back out for another story in a sequel to “The Heat,” but that’s looking less and less likely to happen. Never once did I think that I wanted to see more of Jason Bateman, Jason Sudeikis and Charlie Day’s characters from “Horrible Bosses” again, despite liking that movie. But here we are.

After escaping jail time from their antics in the first film, Nick (Bateman), Kurt (Sudeikis) and Dale (Day) have decided they want to be their own bosses. They’ve come up with a product fit for Skymall called the Shower Buddy, which automatically dispenses shampoo and soap onto your person in a effort to cut shower times down. But they need investors to make it happen.

Enter Burt Hanson (Christoph Waltz) and his son Rex (Chris Pine) who place an initial order for 100,000 units. The guys borrow money from a bank to make the order and finish it ahead of schedule. But then Burt cancels it, steals the idea and announces his intention to make their product himself under a different name. The guys are furious, so they cook up a plan to kidnap Rex and hold him ransom for the amount of money they’re going to owe the bank. The only variable they didn’t count on is that Rex wants to be kidnapped so he can take part in this dastardly plot and pocket some of his dad’s money too.

While the original “Horrible Bosses” was certainly enjoyable, the follow up falls into the typical traps that doom most Hollywood sequels. While some filmmakers have figured out how to avoid these issues – many sequels have been pretty decent over the past few years – others have not. Director Sean Anders is a filmmaker who has not, which is surprising given that he’s responsible for the scripts to “Hot Tub Time Machine” and “We’re the Millers,” two very respectable comedies. I guess working off of someone else’s material is much harder to do.

There are two things wrong with “Horrible Bosses 2” and both are cardinal sins when it comes to making a successful sequel. The first is repeating the previous installment’s plot points. Since the majority of the audience saw the first film and liked it enough to pay to see the sequel, the theory is that they’ll enjoy this one if it retains some similarities of the first. But that just shows lazy writing. If you played “Horrible Bosses” alongside “Horrible Bosses 2,” all the plot points would happen at the same time. This is the same aspect that doomed “The Hangover Part II.” These are the exact same movies we’ve seen before.

The second sin is an over embellishment of the character’s personalities. These writers have made everyone a ridiculous caricature of themselves. For example, Sudeikis’ Kurt showed the least amount of smarts in the original. He wasn’t an idiot, but would have been ranked third in the group of three on an intelligence-ranking list. In the sequel, he’s a straight up moron. The things he says in this film will induce many facepalms among the audience. I’m embarrassed for Sudeikis. Then there’s Day’s Dale, who couldn’t stop talking in the first film. Here, he never shuts up and rambles on about the most asinine things. He was so annoying I wanted to slap him.

You can tell these actors were here for a paycheck. All of them looked so uncomfortable doing this film, especially Bateman. I thought he was smarter than participating in a film for such an obvious cash grab. His successful directorial debut earlier this year – “Bad Words” – shows that he has the brains and the talent to accept better roles and work on better stories that this garbage. I guess everyone needs to pay the bills somehow, even Hollywood millionaires.

Furthermore, the presence of two-time Oscar winner Waltz gave this movie a bit of intrigue from the advertisements, but he’s completely misused in every aspect. He’s given one scene where the dialogue sounds like complete swindles of his lines from Tarantino films; it’s very out of place. Then he only appears in about three more scenes. That’s a horrible waste of talent.

While the first “Horrible Bosses” was enjoyable and relatively entertaining, it hardly deserved a sequel. I guess it’s a cheap enough concept so the risk of losing money is rather slim. Truthfully, though, the only person losing money here will be you when you shell out the funds to watch this abomination. I understand that it’s supposed to be mindless and humorous fun. It is indeed mindless, but humorous? Hardly. It’s that awkward laugh you make when a friend tells you a joke that’s not funny, but he’s had such a bad day already that you can’t help but give him a little morale boost by laughing back. This is a quick throwaway film. Seriously, I saw it two days ago and I’m already wracking my brain trying to remember exactly what happened in it. And by the time you read this, I will have already forgot I saw it entirely.

Review: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part I

by Trevor Kirkendall

★★★ 

For a big budget and over-produced film with “Hollywood” written all over it, “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part I” is a well put together film, rarely lacking in dull moments. I say “rarely” because there are a few yawn-inducing moments here or there that probably could have been easily left out. But overall, there’s a bit more genuine emotion coming through here than you normally would see from they typical crap the studios have been producing lately, which is nice.

“Mockingjay – Part I” picks up almost immediately where “Catching Fire” left off. District 12 is gone. Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is now hiding out in District 13 with former game designer Plutarch Heavesbee (Philip Seymour Hoffman), former Hunger Games victor Finnick Odair (Sam Claflin), romantic interest Gale (Liam Hemsworth) and her former sponsor Haymitch (Woody Harrelson). Her mom and sister are also there. But not Peeta (Josh Hutcherson). He’s being held captive in the Capitol.

The story revolves around Katniss becoming the Mockingjay, a poster child for the uprising among the various districts. The plan is put in motion by District 13 President Alma Coin (Julianne Moore). She sends Katniss out into the bombed out Districts with a propaganda filmmaker from the Capitol, Cressida (Natalie Dormer) to get some footage of her that can be used to rally the other Districts into fighting for the rebellion. But Katniss is cautious of her actions because she knows the evil President Snow (Donald Sutherland) has Peeta in a jail cell somewhere and torturing him. She doesn’t want him to die.

The biggest problem I have with this movie can be summed up with the title: “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part I.” We can’t just get an adaption from a book anymore; it has to be a series, or at the very least, it needs to have “series potential.” So all those good books you read that begin and end between the hardcover, forget ever seeing those on film. Unless some poor screenwriter can somehow concoct a sequel. That’s really the only reason Hollywood screenwriters exist anymore. What a pity.

So we have a series of books: The Hunger Games Trilogy. The trilogy has two great novels, and one crappy novel. “Mockingjay” is the crappy one. I’m sorry if you liked it, but I had to force myself to finish it. We’ve already seen the first two films made from the first two books, which were both pretty good movies. But now we get two movies out of this one crappy book. And for what reason? Because they know you’re going to pay double to see it.

After watching this film and investing two hours into the story, we will now have to wait another 12 months before we get to see the cinematic version of the second half of the series’ worst installment. I mean, if they really wanted to split a book into two parts and make four movies, “Catching Fire” would have been the appropriate candidate. But instead, we get this one, the book with one of the most wretched conclusions of any book I’ve ever read.

But it’s unfair of me to judge the film itself on the greedy aspirations of the executives at Lionsgate. Despite having three separate writers credited here (Peter Craig and Danny Strong on the screenplay and author Suzanne Collins credited with “adaptation” whatever that means – I’ve never seen anyone credited like that), the story is balanced out pretty well. Aside from the aforementioned yawn-inducing moments, the script never feels overinflated. It never feels like filler was jammed in just so that the story could be stretched out into two full-length movies. It actually works well, and yes, I am quite surprised by that, given the source material.

Julianne Moore is a nice addition to the cast this time around, even though her role is reduced to just a woman sitting there during some scenes and delivering morale-boosting speeches to her followers in others. I pictured President Coin with a little more drive behind her. Apparently that’s now how director Francis Lawrence saw the character. Oh well. Moore is always so solid and it’s nice to see her getting a chance to showcase her talents for what will no doubt be a large audience. But of course, the star of the film is none other than Jennifer Lawrence. This is the role that made her a mega-Hollywood superstar, after all.

The story this time around focuses more on her struggles of leading an entire nation in revolution rather than just hanging out in the forest or on a beach trying to avoid death. Here, we finally get to see a little bit more about what kind of a person Katniss Everdeen really is. I always felt that the love triangle between her, Peeta and Gale was a bit ridiculous and was designed to be overly complex just for complexity’s sake. But a lot more goes into her and her feelings toward her two suitors this time around. And Lawrence absolutely nails it.

She runs through the emotional gauntlet as well as she’s ever done. For my money, she’s never been better than her breakout role in 2010’s “Winter’s Bone.” Even her Oscar winning performance can’t touch that one. After watching “Mockingjay – Part I,” I still think my assessment is true, but who could have predicted a performance this good from a movie like such as this? Not me.

I had already written this film off when I went into it, but I must admit to being impressed. But the unfortunate thing is, I don’t feel like I watched a whole movie. A story is a beginning, middle and end. This is just a middle – a two hour second act. The third act is still a year away. I can’t support the studio executives in their blatant cash grab attempts but putting unnecessary yearlong breaks between movies like this. And it’s not going to stop anytime soon either. But, I guess I can’t really complain too much if the movies are good, especially from the studios. “Mockingjay – Part I” isn’t bad. It just shouldn’t be two parts. And while there might be a little bit more action in “Part II,” I just can’t get psyched up for it. At least not right now. I guess I’ll conclude my “Mockingjay” review next November. Tune in then.

Review: Interstellar

by Trevor Kirkendall

★★½

If Christopher Nolan didn’t direct it, would there still be all this mass praise for “Interstellar?” Or would we just be discrediting it and not paying any attention to it like almost every other original sci-fi film released by Hollywood? Don’t get me wrong, I do love it when an original film from the Hollywood studios gets release and people actually go see it. People always seem to be interested in a movie when Nolan is involved.

And that’s a good thing, by and large. It’s always a good thing when an auteur such as Nolan is allowed to thrive without too much studio interference. If this were anyone else, the studio would have demanded cuts to drop its 170-minute runtime down to a more acceptable two-hours. They would have also demanded the scientific/technical jargon be completely cut out since you – as an audience in the opinion of a studio – are too dumb to figure complex language and plot devices out for yourself. Studios think so little of their audiences today.

We’ve been on the lookout for “the next Spielberg” for a long time now. A filmmaker who is just as much of a draw to moviegoers as the A-list actors at the top of the poster. Let’s face it; people aren’t going to see this film because two Oscar winning actors have their names at the top of the poster. They’re going because it’s a film by Christopher Nolan. So if anyone is still looking for “the next Spielberg,” I say look no further. But even the great Spielberg can’t always crank out winners every time. While “Interstellar” is by no means a dud, it’s one of the weaker films Nolan has put together.

“Interstellar” begins at some undisclosed time in the future. The world is falling apart thanks to all the food supplies dying out. We meet Cooper (Matthew McConaughey), a former NASAS pilot turned farmer and widowered father of two. Corn is about the only crop that can still be grown on the dusty planet earth. But some mysterious circumstances around the house lead Cooper to Professor Brand (Michael Caine) and his daughter Amelia (Anne Hatahway). They help make up what’s left of NASA and are attempting to come up with a plan to save the people of earth.

Over 10 years ago, NASA sent a team of explorers out to travel through a newly found wormhole and see if they can find other planets capable of supporting life in different galaxies. They think they have three promising possibilities. They are asking Cooper to pilot a mission out there with Amelia and a crew of two others. The duration of their flight: unknown. Much to the dismay of Coopers daughter Murph (Mackenzie Foy), Cooper reluctantly goes.

Much like any other Nolan film, you’re expected to pay attention because the script is packed with many different twists wrapped inside a complex story structure. There’s no denying Nolan and his writing partner/brother Jonathan are gifted screenwriters. After all, they’ve been able to make films with complex plots that leave their audiences with a desire to see it again and again to catch the things they’ve missed.

That being said, their screenplay for “Interstellar” is a bit overinflated. It takes almost an hour for us to get into space, yet the setup of the characters and the initial plot points are rushed through. Cooper is determined to take on the mission, but there’s not a whole lot given in his development that would lead us to believe he’s the kind of person to give up everything that a bunch of strangers tell him. Sure, the script provides all sorts of explanations as to why, but they’re not satisfactory answers.

“Interstellar” is a visually stunning film, there’s no denying that. It looks great on the large format IMAX screens. Nolan has always been one to use more practical effects in his films rather than relying on CGI like some of his contemporaries. But for the first time in his career, Nolan has relied on the effects – both practical and CGI – to be the focal point of his film. With “Inception,” the effects were eye-popping, but they were secondary. The story was the star. Here, it’s the other way around.

And with a lack of attention on the humans, I find my willingness to care about them greatly diminished. Cooper wants nothing more than to get back home and see his kids again. He continues to see them in video messages from earth even as time moves a bit faster there than it does in the deep reaches of space. Soon, his kids become grown adults (Jessica Chastain and Casey Affleck). Cooper, of course, hates that he’s missing their lives and McConaughey portrays this misery well, but it just doesn’t have the emotional impact it probably could have. The further along the movie got, the less I started to care whether or not he gets to see his kids again.

Much like last year’s “Gravity,” “Interstellar” is all about the experience and I think most people who will watch this movie will enjoy it immensely. It’s just a flawed film from a storytelling standpoint. Like every other Nolan film, a repeat viewing might be necessary. However, I’m inclined to think that there might not be much more to get out of it, especially on my home TV where the magnificent effects might not look nearly as amazing. At least it’ll be quieter. For crying out loud, this movie’s sound is mixed way too damn high! And Hans Zimmer’s score is so overpowering that it’s almost unbearable. I swear I had to strain to hear what these characters were saying to one another during the action sequences.

Many people will love this film, but I wonder if they would still love it if it were directed by a lesser know – yet still relatively proficient – filmmaker.  Will all the love be because Nolan’s name is on the screen, or will people love it just because it’s something grand and extravagant? I may seem to be bashing this movie a little bit, but I did like it. I just expected more out of Nolan given his sensational history. But this film is by no means a new “2001” for this generation, as I’ve heard a few people call it. “Interstellar” is good in its own right, but it is nowhere near the level of mastery of “2001.” And it’s certainly one of the weaker films Christopher Nolan has put out.