Tag: Chiwetel Ejiofor

Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness (2022)

Marvel opens up its infinite universes as it lays the groundwork for bringing back old characters with new faces in this corporate outing

Director: Sam Raimi

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr Stephen Strange), Elizabeth Olsen (Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch), Rachel McAdams (Dr Christine Palmer), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Karl Mordo), Benedict Wong (Wong), Xochitl Gomez (America Chavez), Michael Stuhlbarg (Dr Nicodemus West)

Spoilers: The main spoiler would be looking at the cast list. I won’t name the cameos are but I do mention a main plot development revealed within 15 minutes.

Parallel universes have infinite possibilities. These are largely not found in this lumpen, fan-service obsessed and (whisper it) slightly dull film that fails to follow-up on either the promise of the first film (to which it makes awkward call-backs) or its main concept. It allows Raimi scope to indulge his Evil Dead style visuals, but all within the confines of producing another entry in the series that feels like a bridge between chapters rather than an interesting story in its own right.

Dr Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) attends the wedding of former girlfriend Christine Palmer (Rachel McAdams), when he’s torn away to fight a squid monster chasing a teenager, America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez). America has the power to travel between parallel universes – and is dragging behind her the dead body of a parallel Strange who failed to protect her from a mysterious foe trying to steal her power. Strange, Wong (Benedict Wong – the most engaging performance in the film from this under-rated actor) and the Sorcerers protect America – but Strange’s attempt to recruit Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) goes awry when it turns out its she hunting America, using dark magic in an attempt to find her parallel versions of her lost children.

DSITMOM has been called the MCU’s horror film: which by no means it’s The Exorcist. It’s a sort of very, very gentle entrée to the genre – like Cronenberg’s Videodrome was turned into a kid’s TV series or a comic-book version of Raimi’s The Evil Dead. It has a few flourishes, but none of this is allowed to get in the way of the corporate enterprise. It’s more interested in giving people what it feels they want and fitting itself into the timeline of a series.

In fact it sometimes feels like an attempt to mirror the success of Spider-Man: No Way Home (I wonder how many of the cameos were added after that film’s release?). It takes the elements of guest stars and parallel universes and presents them in ways that provide little insight or long-term reward. In No Way Home alternate versions of characters are used to explore how different events could have shaped our heroes. The returning stars aren’t just thrown in, they have arcs and emotional journeys. The whole is both fun and an engaging story but also nostalgic. Compare, as well, the TV series Loki (by the same writer) that brilliantly used parallel versions of its lead to deconstruct and develop his character.

DSITMOM does none of this. There are rich opportunities to see how Strange may have developed in different universes: after all this is the closest thing to an “ends justify the means” character in the MCU. Would different versions of him go more or less further – and how might it make our Strange reflect on his occasionally ruthless ‘big picture’ thinking (this is after all, as the film mentions, the guy who allowed half of all life to blink out of existence as part of a masterplan only he knew). We don’t get nearly enough of that. In fact, we get virtually none of it.

These opportunities are ignored in the two parallel universes we spend the most time in, where Strange is either a dead war hero or an insane hermit corrupted by dark magic. Neither of these characters is really contrasted effectively or interestingly with our version. A faint plotline of Strange learning trust from the mistakes of others is threaded through, but only lightly. Instead, the film focuses more attention on Strange’s lost love for Christine Palmer, an oddly unsatisfying focus since Strange has appeared in at least four films since his first solo effort six years ago, and the franchise has failed to mention this motivating loss once (not even a throwaway line in No Way Home to build it up).

Mind you it’s better than the development Wanda Maximoff gets. DSITMOM is pretty much impenetrable unless you’ve watched WandaVision. Even if you have, as I have, you’ll probably be a little annoyed at the ‘development’ she gets here. At the end of that series, Wanda had accepted the damaging consequences of her grief and started moving on. Here though, she’s a sociopathic monster defined solely by her motherly grief and her ruthless determination to tear universes apart to heal it. It feels retrograde to, essentially, be saying “women who suffer loss go axe-crazy” or to double down on her willingness to harm others to cling to a ‘normal life’ fantasy (as well as contrary to the hopeful tone the series ended on).

That’s not to mention the clumsy fan service peppering the film. The main outing to a parallel universe is basically an excuse for fan-pleasing cameos. These amount to nothing more than a series of actors popping up say “Hello I’m Y” and promptly suffering terrible fates (because it’s a parallel universe and your plot armour means nothing there). Like Yoda fighting Christopher Lee, it’s cool when you first see it but risks becoming less and less rewarding overtime because it’s utterly insubstantial.

DSITMOM is basically insubstantial. It drags on – it’s a chase film that largely lacks momentum – it has a series of slightly bored looking actors (Ejiofor wins, with a Mordo who seems to have become Strange’s nemesis in the interim between this and the first film despite never being mentioned in any other film since), gets absorbed in a MacGuffin filled plot (there are no less than two Magic Books of Wham-a-bam that are being hunted or fought over) and flattens down most of Raimi’s style into a corporate product with little heart (compare this to his Spider-Man films which look like Citizen Kane or Vertigo next to this).

There are about two moments of invention: a sequence when Strange plummets through a series of bizarre parallel universes (including one where he’s made of paint) and a battle between two Stranges that utilises musical notes as weapons. Everything else feels production flattened, as do the actors, and ends teeing you up for a third film with another “whoop” cameo. Flat, lumpen and failing to capitalise on its possibilities, this is a big disappointment, an empty lightshow with brief but shallow pleasures.

Children of Men (2006)

Clive Owen and Claire-Hope Ashitey could be the last hope for mankind in the masterful Children of Men

Director: Alfonso Cuarón

Cast: Clive Owen (Theo Faron), Julianne Moore (Julian Taylor), Claire-Hope Ashitey (Kee), Michael Caine (Jasper Palmer), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Luke), Charlie Hunnam (Patric), Pam Ferris (Miriam), Peter Mullan (Syd), Danny Huston (Nigel)

Children of Men was overlooked on release. But the more it ages, the more it clearly hasn’t aged it at all. Criminally ignored at the major awards, this might well be the finest film of 2006 and certainly one of the best movies of the noughties. Rich in thought-provoking content and cinematic skill, this is truly great-film-making from Alfonso Cuarón. Dark, grim, edgy but also laced with hope, faith and kindness, Children of Men grows in statue with each viewing, rewarding you more and more.

It’s 2027 and the world has gone to hell. Mysteriously mankind became infertile 18 years ago, and faced with the despair that the extinction of the human race is inevitable, society has collapsed. Cities lie in ruins and war has torn countries apart: Britain “stands alone”, one of the few with a functioning government – even though that government is a totalitarian, nationalist police state. Aggressive campaigns are waged against refugees from around the world, who are herded into hellish concentration camps. In this chaos, Theo (Clive Owen) is a disaffected civil rights activist, now plodding through a dead-end job and smoking weed with his friend, ex-newspaper cartoonist Jasper (Michael Owen). All this changes when he is entrusted by his activist/’terrorist’ estranged wife Julian (Julianne Moore) to protect Kee (Claire-Hope Ashitey) who carries inside her something that could change the whole of humanity: an unborn child.

Today Children of Men seems alarmingly prescient. In a world of migrant crises, Brexit, Trump and coronavirus (the film even refers to a flu pandemic of 2008!) the vision of the future it presents seems only a few degrees away from our reality. Rather than a hellish view, it seems more and more like something that could happen. Everything is worn out and grubby. Streets are lined with rubbish, buildings coated with graffiti. Televisions and advertising screens alternate between demands to report immigrants with promotions for “Quietus”, a suicide pill. Fences, armed police, barbed wire and crowds of filthy, terrified and brutalised people are common. Humanity has given-up: there is no hope in the world.

It’s that collapse of any sense of hope and optimism that has driven this collapse of society in Cuarón’s vision. In a world where the extinction of mankind is inevitable, what’s the point contributing to society or worrying about your legacy or the future? Why preserve anything when no-one will be around to see it in a hundred years? By such fragile threads, does society hold itself together. The crushing depression of knowing you live in the final days of humanity is everywhere. There is not a single person alive in their teens: a fact hammered home by the characters visiting a deserted and derelict school. Everyone has lost any sense of purpose, with life a grim daily grind.

Perhaps that’s also why physically the world hasn’t changed much. Unlike most “future set” dramas, this view of 2027 could be 2006, just dirtier and with a few more electronic screens (in fact this has helped hugely in not dating the film). It’s like all life has stagnated. And liberals like Theo have turned into apathetic drunks, drifting blithely through life not bothering to engage or change anything about the shit show all around them

All this makes the film sound impossibly grim – and Cuarón is superb in building this world (including the genius stroke of never explaining, even in the smallest detail, what has caused this pandemic of infertility – the film is refreshingly free of any clumsy scene setting) – but it works because it’s a film laced with hope and a belief in the fundamental goodness of people. The story has overtones of a religious fable: Theo and Kee as a sort of Joseph and Mary travelling to protect an unborn child whose birth could save the world. Specially composed choral music, rife with religious overtones, underplays key moments and scenes subtly leaning into this spiritual journey.

And the goodness that people find in themselves is inspiring. Theo, brilliantly played by Clive Owen who has just the right dissolute cynicism hiding crusading courage, may have given up but actually he’s a deeply empathetic and caring man. Animals instinctively love him. He’s a natural protector, who shows concern in all sorts of ways for people him, who puts himself at risk to protect people and refuses to ever accept defeat. But he’s a million miles away from a super-man, getting increasingly dishevelled, bashed and brutalised, while his struggles with footwear (he carries out action sequences wearing just socks, then flip-flops and finally barefoot) is both a neat little gag and also a sign of how vulnerable he is in this dangerous world.

Cuarón’s film builds brilliantly on his empathy to carefully and beautifully build the growing understanding and trust between Theo and Kee (equally well played by Claire-Hope Ashitey). Again, it stems first from his protectiveness (Theo also works hard to protect people around him from disturbing sights, twice urging Kee not to look back and that whoever has been left behind is fine), but also from her instinctive trust in him as a good man and above the only one who seems to have her interests at heart (everyone else is concerned only with what Kee can symbolise – Ejiofor’s vigilante Luke can’t even get the sex of the baby right). Kee is vulnerable, but strong and determined, someone trying to carry the burden of being the hope of mankind.

She’s also brilliantly a member of the very migrant community that the government is trying to destroy. Cuarón’s film wants us all to remember that we are all the same deep down, that what happens to one affects us all. The horrors of what the British government are doing in the war-torn slums of migrant prisons (all of Bexhill has become a lawless hell hole, where executions and riots are daily occurrences) reek of everything from Auschwitz to Guantanamo. But amongst these migrants come the only strangers who seek to help Theo and Kee out of simple goodness and humanity. Strangers put themselves at huge risk, and in many cases sacrifice their lives, to help them. It makes a stark contrast with the revolutionaries who claim to fight for the migrants (but show no compunction in shooting them when needed), but really are only interested in their own selfish battles with no understanding of the bigger picture.

This bigger picture is very much like the thematic richness of the film that was missed on its released. It’s almost a victim of its own technical brilliance, which attracted much more attention at the time. Cuarón constructs several sequences to appear as single-takes, and the stunning camera work really helps establish this grimy, brutal world. It’s a wonderfully immersive film, a technical marvel. Every single part of the photography and design is pitch-perfect, and the key sequences are stomach-churningly tense, inspired by everything from The Battle of Algiers to A Clockwork Orange.

But the film works because it is underpinned by faith and trust in the human spirit. Mankind is being challenged like never before, but Cuarón shows us that the human spirit can survive. That simple acts of kindness can still happen. That there is a chance of hope. The final conclusion of the film is both sad but also upliftingly hopeful. Cuarón’s direction is just-about perfect, as are the performers (not just Owen and Ashitey but also an almost unrecognisible Caine as an ageing Hippie). With its acute and brilliant analysis of humanity – both in its grimness and capacity for goodness and selflessness – and with its prescient look at how easily our world could collapse, Children of Men is vibrant, brilliant, essential film-making.

American Gangster (2007)

Denzel Washington leads his brothers in a life of crime in American Gangster

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Denzel Washington (Frank Lucas), Russell Crowe (Richie Roberts), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Huey Lucas), Josh Brolin (Detective Trupo), Lymari Nadal (Eva), Ted Levine (Captain Lou Toback), Robert Guenveur Smith (Nate), John Hawkes (Freddie Spearman), RZA (Moses Jones), Yul Vazquez (Alfonsa Abruzzo), Malcolm Goodwin (Jimmy Zee), Ruby Dee (Mama Lucas), Ruben Santiago-Hudson (Doc), Carla Gugino (Laura Roberts), John Ortiz (Javier J Rivera), Cuba Gooding Jnr (Nicky Barnes), Armand Assante (Dominic Cattaneo), Joe Morton (Charlie Williams), Idris Elba (Tango), Common (Turner Lucas), Jon Polito (Russo), Ric Young (Chinese General), Clarence Williams III (Bumpy Johnson)

In 1970s New York there was only one organisation that ran crime: the mafia. The idea that anyone else could get a look in was unthinkable: to the cops, the government and the criminals themselves. Frank Lucas (Denzel Washington) was the guy who was going to shake that up: a resident of Harlem and former right-hand man of crime boss “Bumpy” Johnson (Clarence Williams III), Lucas saw an opening to bring in cheap, high-quality drugs from Vietnam (hidden in the temporary coffins of deceased servicemen). With this product he could take over crime in New York – and run it as he thinks it should be run, with the mentality of a FTSE 500 company and a gun. Frank is helped by the fact no one knows who he is. But that is all about to change as honest cop Richie Roberts (Russell Crowe) sets up a task force dedicated to finding, and arresting, the drug kingpins in New York. He’s as surprised as anyone to find the trail leads to Harlem.

Based on a true story, Scott’s American Gangster is assembled with Scott’s usual professionalism and assured touch, using top actors in well-assembled, well-shot scenes. It’s glossy, entertaining and enjoyable. But it’s not quite inspired or stand-out. Despite everything, it doesn’t really show us anything new and lacks either the fire of inspiration or the sort of poetry and energy the likes of Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino or Steve McQueen could have bought to it. It tells an interesting story, but manages to be pretty much by the numbers – albeit those numbers are flashed up with as much pizzazz, drama and entertainment as you could wish.

The most interesting themes are questions of class and racial politics. The film’s version of Frank Lucas is successful because he runs his crime empire not like a gang but like a company. He dresses plainly and simply, so as not to draw attention (unlike the flamboyant criminals played by Idris Elba and Cuba Gooding Jnr). He talks in terms of supply and demand, brand loyalty and being a chairman. In one particularly well managed scene, he pontificates to his brothers on his ideology of business, excuses himself to walk across the street and shoot a rival in the head, then returns to calmly finish his breakfast. It’s the ideas of Wall Street applied to gangster crime. Lucas is all about bringing a smooth, modern, professional thinking to crime – but with the gun still up his sleeve.

But another reason why Frank Lucas needs to be as professional as he is, is because he’s loathed by all other parts of the criminal system. It’s a system that is racist from top-to-bottom, where black men are unwelcome as anything other than foot-soldiers. The elite criminals – most of them tracing many generations back to Sicily – smile at Frank for his money, but never see him as an equal. Even the government can’t begin to imagine a black man could be running such a huge empire – Robert’s AG boss spews out a racist diatribe, rubbishing any idea that a black man could achieve something the Mafia has failed to do. Frank though is just as wary of the flashy ostentatiousness of most black criminals in New York, telling his brother that the quietest man in the room is the most powerful.

It’s those brothers who Frank relies on – only family can be trusted. They’ll also be his Achilles heel. Because even his most competent brother (played by a sharp Chiwetel Ejiofor) is as much a liability as he is a good lieutenant. His brothers are innocents turned by their brother into tools for his crime empire. Frank hands out beatings to cousins who are unreliable. He’s bitterly disappointed when his nephew chucks in a baseball career because crime looks more fun. As his mother – an impassioned performance from an Oscar-nominated Ruby Dee – tells him, the rest of the family looks to him and follows his lead. There is a clear tension between this family – whose benefactor is also its corrupter – but it doesn’t quite come into focus.

This is partly because the film is covering a lot, and partly because it finds itself falling a bit in love with Frank Lucas. Not surprising when the part is played by Denzel Washington at his most magnetic – if strangely not quite as energised as you might expect. Washington gives Frank a dignity and cool that the real Frank – by all accounts a much cruder, ruder, less able man – never had. The film doesn’t really want to explore the darker side of Frank. Instead it invites us to sympathise with him, as an outsider made good. To feel sorry for him when he makes a fatal error (wearing an ostentatious fur coat to the Ali/Frasier “Fight of the Century” – an act that blows his carefully preserved anonymity). The film doesn’t want us to feel the damage of the drugs Frank is pouring into New York, since it might damage our respect for his triumph against the odds.

The barriers that Frank has to overcome – from arrogant Mafia kingpins, to local crime lords and corrupt cops (Josh Brolin has fun as a prowling bullying detective) – are in the end more interesting than the procedural struggles of Russell Crowe’s Richie Roberts (on solid form). Roberts is also given a rather cliched (and fictional) custody battle that hardly justifies its screentime. The cops definitely get the short end of the stick – and a stronger film might have focused just on Frank Lucas and really explored the struggles of a black man in white crime world, dealing with racism and trying to apply Wall Street ideals to street violence.

American Gangster doesn’t quite succeed with its dark commentary on the American dream – but it’s as entertaining as you could hope and while it lacks in inspiration, it’s also hard to find too much fault with. One of Scott’s most solid works, with a charismatic Washington doing decent work.

Amistad (1997)

Djimon Hounsou excels as a slave longing for freedom in Amistad

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Djimon Hounsou (Sengbe Pieh/Joseph Cinqué), Matthew McConaughey (Roger Sherman Baldwin), Anthony Hopkins (John Quincy Adams), Morgan Freeman (Theodore Joadson), Nigel Hawthorne (President Martin van Buren), David Paymer (John Forsythe), Pete Postlethwaite (William S Holabird), Stellan Skarsgård (Lewis Tappen), Razaaq Adoti (Yamba), Abu Bakaar Fofanah (Fala), Anna Paquin (Isabella II), Chiwetel Ejiofor (James Covey), Peter Firth (Captain Fitzgerald), Jeremy Northam (Judge Coglin), Xander Berkeley (Ledger Hammond), Arliss Howard (John C Calhoun)

After the American Revolution, independence left one issue in America that would profoundly split the country: slavery. This was a land divided, between abolitionists and plantation owners, the more emancipation-minded North and slave states of the South. Slavery was – and remains – the ugly stain on the American soul. Steven Spielberg’s film uses a significant court case of its day to shine a light on these contrasting and conflicting priorities in American society throughout much of the early 19^th century, that would eventually lead to civil war.

The film tells the true story of the slave revolt on the Spanish slaver ship Amistad. Here the slaves, led by Joseph Cinqué (Djimon Hounsou) escaped captivity, rose up and killed most of the crew (leaving just two men alive to sail the ship) and tried to return to their home in Sierra Leone. Arrested by an American naval ship while collecting fresh water, the slaves are transported to Connecticut where they find themselves on trial as escaped slaves, facing charges of piracy and murder. Their cause is taken up by Northern abolitionists Lewis Tappen (Stellan Skarsgård) and his black associate Theodore Joadson (Morgan Freeman), and their lawyer Roger Sherman Baldwin (Matthew McConaughey) a property lawyer. However, the case’s international implications for slavery attracts the concern of President Martin van Buren (Nigel Hawthorne), eager to support the prosecution, while former President John Quincy Adams (Anthony Hopkins), a lawyer and opponent of slavery, offers his advice to the defence.

Spielberg’s film has just the right balance of human interest and humanitarian concern to overcome its slight air of a civics lesson. Although largely a courtroom drama, what the film is really trying to do is capture in one moment the troubling contradiction of the land of the free built on slaves, and give a voice and empathy to the slaves themselves.

Although some have criticised this as a “white saviour” film, I feel that’s unfair. This is a film that starts and ends with Cinqué’s story and filters America through his perception. We can well understand why he rages at his lack of comprehension of laws that can be adjusted, court decisions overturned or how words can be twisted to take on other meanings. A film front and centred, say, by Matthew McConaughey’s Baldwin and focusing on journey from seeing this as just another case into a crusade would be a white saviour film. Instead the white characters drop in and out of the story as the narrative requires, and it’s the struggles and courage of the black characters that form the heart of the narrative.

Spielberg also brings to life the cruelty and inhumanity of slavery and what it does to all of us. The film opens with the confined, appalling conditions of the slave ship while Cinqué (with hands running with blood) tries to release a nail from the wood which he will use to free himself from his chains. The film intriguingly opens without the African characters being translated – giving us a sense of their isolation and perhaps also stressing how different they are from the Western “civilisation” that has taken them from their homes.

It isn’t until half way through the film, until a translator is found for Cinqué, that the film gives us the backstory that Cinqué has struggled to communicate. Spielberg spares no punches in showing the violence of abduction, the brutality and casual slaughter of the slavers, the starvations, the floggings that end in blood sprayed death, the cramped conditions practically designed to weed out the weak. A mother chooses drowning for herself and her child rather than life on the ship. Later the slavers chain unwanted slaves to a bag of rocks and cast them overboard to reduce their cargo load. If there was any doubt about the heart-rending evil behind slavery, it’s removed from your mind.

It also serves to hammer home the injustice of America’s own system. Under political pressure – van Buren is worried about the reaction of both Spain and the Southern States to the Africans being found innocent – the trial encounters interference and appeals every step of the way. It’s a system that prides itself on being the greatest in the world, but shows time and time again how it can be weighted against the weakest. The courtroom scenes – skilfully directed and played – show time and time lawyers valuing obscure property laws above right and wrong. And we are brought time and time again to the reactions and lack of understanding of the African characters, who come from a society where there is no equivocation and no words equivalent to “usually” or “perhaps”.

The film perhaps does take a little too long over its various legal machinations, and could do with losing a few minutes here and there. But that would be to sacrifice its many strengths. Looking wonderful, with a marvellous score by John Williams (riffing on the American pipes and African tribal influences), one of the strongest acting companies Spielberg ever assembled does outstanding work. Carrying much of the film is Djimon Hounsou, who makes Cinqué anything but a victim – he is a proud, defiant and intelligent man, humble enough about his qualities but quick to act to defend his rights. Uncowed but infuriated by the situation he finds himself in, he is never a passenger but at all times a key figure in his own liberation, even if his legal case must be fought by whites.

McConaughey enjoys himself under a bad wig, glasses and dirty teeth as the lawyer Baldwin, ambitious but with more than an air of decency. Postlethwaite is at his quietly authoritative best as his opposition counsel. Freeman lends the film a large part of his grace and dignity in a small, observant part of the freed-slave turned abolitionist, with Skarsgård more political as his white colleague. Hawthorne makes a van Buren a slightly flustered, impatient figure. Peter Firth demonstrates a great contempt for slavery behind an imperious exterior.

The film’s highlight performance though is Hopkins’ Oscar-nominated turn as John Quincy Adams. Adjusting his physicality to match the ageing ex-President, Hopkins captures his slightly nasal Massachusetts twang and adds a significant amount of twinkly charm and wry shrewdness to this adept political operator. A large chunk of the film’s final 20 minutes is given over to Hopkins, with the highlight a long monologue of Adams speech to the Supreme Court (in actuality a speech over eight hours in length!), that is a tour-de-force of skilled showmanship. It’s Hopkins’ last great performance of the 1990s.

Spielberg’s Amistad is a superb courtroom drama but also a heartfelt condemnation of the inhumanity man can show to man. It never forgets either that while this was a victory, it was only a skirmish not the war. While the film at times overplays the inevitability of Civil War (which did not exactly start over this issue), it skilfully shows the divide in the American culture between abolition and slavery – and how many felt for the first cause, but feared the supporters of the second so much they would rather not address it. Either way, Amistad may at times be a little dry – but that gives its moments of emotion even more force.

The Martian (2015)

Matt Damon is Lost in Space in The Martian

Director: Ridley Scott

Cast: Matt Damon (Mark Watney), Jessica Chastain (Commander Melissa Lewis), Jeff Daniels (Teddy Sanders), Kristen Wiig (Annie Montrose), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Vincent Kapoor), Sean Bean (Mitch Henderson), Michael Peña (Major Rick Martinez), Kate Mara (Beth Johansson), Sebastian Stan (Dr Chris Beck), Aksel Hennie (Dr Alex Vogel), Mackenzie Davis (Mindy Park), Donald Glover (Rich Purnell), Benedict Wong (Bruce Ng)

Imagine being abandoned somewhere really difficult to get out of. Now how about being abandoned somewhere where it’s literally impossible to escape? Well you can’t get much more impossible than Mars, a place so bloody difficult it doesn’t even supply you with such luxuries as oxygen, water or food. But that’s exactly what happens to astronaut Mark Watney.

Part of the first manned mission to Mars, Watney (Matt Damon) is struck by debris and presumed killed after a storm forces the crew to abandon their planet. With no one on Earth aware he is alive, Watney faces huge difficulties: the next Mars mission isn’t for four years, and will land over 2,000 miles away. He has only enough food for at best a couple of years, and his Mars Rover can only travel 70 miles before it needs to be recharged. Fortunately, Watney (as well as being incredibly inventive) is a botanist – and works out a complex improvised farm in the base to grow potatoes (the only potential crop he has) as well beginning to modify the Rover to drive to the next mission site in four years. But things change when NASA (after holding his funeral) spot his movements via satellite – and now the race is on to organise a rescue mission.

The Martian perfectly works out what we find appealing about survivor stories: a charming, easy to relate to, protagonist who inspires with his never-ending MacGyver-ish invention. The best sequences by far focus on this, as Watney uses whatever he has available, from radioactive waste to his own shit, to try and save his life. There is something hugely compelling about seeing such inspiration in the face of adversity – perhaps because you want to believe “heck that’s what I would do…”

The first half of the film is crammed with these moments, made even more enjoyable by Watney’s off-the-wall, amusing commentary on events via video diary. Watney never succumbs to despair but instead constantly puts as positive as possible a spin on his situation, aware that opening the door to despair is the road to the end. A lot of this works so well because of Matt Damon’s terrific performance in the lead role. It’s no easy thing basically holding the screen entirely by yourself, but Damon does an amazing job here. He’s not just funny and engaging, but he also subtly touches on deep inner feelings of isolation and loneliness.

Scott understands all this and shoots most of the sequences with Watney with a low-key, calm but technically assured simplicity. He lets the action here largely speak for itself, and shows a better ear for comedy than I think many people thought him capable of. He also uses Watney’s “suit cam” and the video diary format to constantly shake up the visuals and allow us to see Watney’s actions and decisions from different perspectives. His mastery of the sweeping epic comes into its own when the camera swoops over Martian panoramas, making the hostile red planet look unbelievably beautiful.

It’s easy to see why NASA supported this film so strongly, as the organisation comes out of this impossibly well. This is essentially a fictionalised retelling of Apollo 13, with the astronauts surviving above, while the ingenious techies below work miracles to first communicate with, and then devise a rescue mission, for Watney. The film is deeply in love with NASA – despite some personality clashes, the NASA characters are all shown to be highly intelligent, compassionate people. Even “the suit”, Director Sanders (played with a square jawed patience by Jeff Daniels), is basically a humanitarian who wants to preserve human life (and is cool enough to have a brilliant Lord of the Rings gag).

Despite this, the struggles of the various bigwigs at NASA to save Watney are slightly less interesting than the opening half of the film based around Watney’s struggles to survive. Perhaps because, well done as it is, we’ve seen this sort of stuff before, done better – not least in Apollo 13 – and partly because what NASA is trying to do is not quite clearly explained in layman’s terms. Think of the simple brilliance of Apollo 13 when the engineers need to create a filter using only what the astronauts have on the ship: it’s easy to understand, clear, brilliant and gripping. Comparative scenes in this film just don’t land as quickly.

The film also struggles as events and twists in the midway part of the movie lead to Watney losing a lot his agency. Since most of the film’s unique enjoyment is seeing Watney conquer his environment, and gain mastery of the rotten hand that fate has dealt him, as soon as that element is removed and Watney turns into more of a man in distress, the film struggles to maintain its unique interest. It makes the second half of the film more conventional (Damon is noticeably in this much less, considering how much he dominates the first half) and also ends up comparing unfavourably with other, better films (sorry I mean Apollo 13 again…)

But The Martian is crammed with good lines, fine jokes and some good performances – even if some of the characters seem a bit sketchily drawn. Benedict Wong is very good as NASA’s top techno bod. Chiwetel Ejiofor and Sean Bean do well as the most clearly sympathetic senior NASA bods. Up in space, the rest of the crew are very lightly sketched, but Jessica Chastain gives a fine sense of authority to the Mission Commander. But make no mistake this is Damon’s movie – and he dominates both the audience’s interest and the film’s.

The Martian is a very well made, intelligent crowd-pleaser. It’s not a classic – and it’s slightly in the shadow of better movies – but it’s brilliantly put together and hugely engaging. The second half of the story is less compelling and more conventional than the first, but there is more than enough invention and enjoyment there for you to want to come back and see it again.

Triple 9 (2016)

An all-star cast fail to make Triple 9 a classic, or even a decent watch

Director John Hillcoat

Cast: Casey Affleck (Chris Allen), Anthony Mackie (Marcus Belmont), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Michael Atwood), Clifton Collins Jnr (Franco Rodriguez), Woody Harrelson (Jeffrey Allen), Aaron Paul (Gabe Welch), Kate Winslet (Irina Vlaslov), Gal Gadot (Elena Vlaslov), Norman Reedus (Russell Welch), Michael K Williams (Sweet Pea), Teresa Palmer (Michelle Allen)

Triple 9 that never gets anywhere near fulfilling its potential. You look at the cast and you think “Wow! That has got to be one of the films of the year! Right?” Wrong. Triple 9 is another journey into the macho bullshit of the criminal underworld, where the “good” thieves have honour, the bad thieves are unscrupulous, the cops are all sorts of shades of grey, and the real baddies are foreign gangsters exploiting American criminals. All told with a backdrop of shouting, shooting and doping. You feel, and I suspect the filmmakers feel as well, that the film must be about something – but it really isn’t, it’s a super violent, dark Rififi with none of that classic’s touch.

Michael Atwood (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a crack crook, leader of a gang that executes difficult jobs on demand for their Russian paymaster, mob boss’ wife Irina (a showboating Kate Winslet). Atwood’s crew includes dirty cops Marcus Belmont (Anthony Mackie) and Franco Rodriguez (Clifton Collins Jnr). Tasked to steal federal investigation data on Irina’s husband, Michael and his crew decide their only chance is to distract the police with a Triple 9 call out – the shooting of a cop. Their target? Belmont’s new partner, hotshot honest cop Chris Allen (Casey Affleck).

Triple 9 isn’t particularly inventive or unique. The problem is it also isn’t very interesting. This is largely because you don’t engage with any of the characters. Atwood is a blank, played by a disengaged Chiwetel Ejiofor. He has a standard sub-plot of a son he isn’t allowed to see. But it’s not enough to get us caring about him. Chris Allen isn’t particularly likeable (Casey Affleck is not the most relatable of actors) so it’s hard to get worked up over whether he’s going to be killed or not. The most interesting character is Anthony Mackie’s Belmont – but he has been saddled with an “I feel growing guilt” sub-plot that you’ve seen dozens of times before.

Perhaps aware that a lot of the writing was paper-thin, the film recruits a number of familiar actors to “do their thing” so that we can shortcut to what sort of person the character is meant to be, by seeing crude drawings of their more famous, nuanced roles. Aaron Paul’s performance will be familiar to anyone who has seen Breaking Bad; Norman Reedus essentially reprises his role from The Walking Dead. Woody Harrelson does his grizzled half-genius, half-dope fiend, difficult man schtick he’s done many times. Only Kate Winslet is cast against her type – and her scenery-chewing enjoyment of the role makes her feel like an actress doing a guest turn, rather than a real person.

Hillcoat’s direction doesn’t bring any of the film’s threads together. It never feels like a film that is about something. Where is the depth, where is the interest? It’s not even a particularly exciting film to watch, with the heist moments not particularly exciting or interesting, and its shot with a wicked darkness that never gets the pulse going. After some initial build-up, the plot never really goes anywhere unexpected, and the final pay-off is stretching for a narrative weight it just doesn’t have.

Hillcoat and crew obviously feel they are making a higher genre film – but this is really just a pulp thriller, with actors acting tough but never convincing. None of the major events make a massive amount of sense: characters run into each other in a way that stretches credulity, the Russian mob runs its business with a counter-productive brutality, the dirty cops alternate between super cunning and horrendously dumb. It’s a dumb, badly written movie that never comes to life. It doesn’t even have the real moments of excitement you need to at least grab you while the rest of the film drifts along. Not good. Not good at all. Triple 9? Not even triple stars.

Doctor Strange (2016)

Benedict Cumberbatch goes into battle with magic. Silly but in a good way.

Director: Scott Derrickson

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch (Dr Stephen Strange), Chiwetel Ejiofor (Karl Mordo), Rachel McAdams (Christine Palmer), Mads Mikkelsen (Kaecilius), Tilda Swinton (The Ancient One), Benedict Wong (Wong), Michael Stuhlbarg (Dr Nicodemus West), Benjamin Bratt (Jonathan Pangborn)

Arrogant surgeon (is there any other kind in the movies?) Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) loses the fine motor control of his hands after a car crash caused by his reckless driving. With science unable to find a cure, he travels across the world to find another solution, eventually joining a secret group of sorcerers, led by The Ancient One (Tilda Swinton), who use energy from parallel universes to perform feats of magic in our world. Trained by Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) he is absorbed into a clash between the sorcerers and a rogue former protégé of The Ancient One, Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) who wants to destroy the boundaries between worlds and unleash chaos.

In a film franchise that threatens to get increasingly samey, Doctor Strange is in many ways a breath of fresh air. Its twisting, mind-bending special effects (part Escher, part Inception) are stunning and showcase a great deal of visual and narrative imagination in the film, immediately making it look different from the dozens of city-smashing films we’ve seen in the Marvel franchise. It’s also told with a fair amount of wit, tongue-in-cheek beats and some lovely sight gags (Strange’s Cloak of Levitation is clearly inspired by the Carpet from Aladdin). This lightness of touch is essential to stop this concept feeling silly: with a more po-faced style this story, full of magic and things like “the Eye of Agamatto”, would have stumbled over its own ridiculousness.

This is however pretty close to being the best comic-book origins film, and certainly in the top five of this franchise. For a start, despite the visual glory, it feels like a focused more personal story: there are only really 6-7 characters (compare that to the sprawling cast of Captain America: Civil War), and the real heart of the film is the lead character’s struggle to overcome an existential crisis and find a new purpose while rediscovering his humanity. Even the final confrontation is a spin on the formula, avoiding city-wrecking super-punches in favour of intelligence and humour saving the day. It still crams in the action, and the characters are still cartoons made flesh, but at least they have been given a real depth here. There is an emotional weight to the story that makes you care about Strange and his world.

No actor right now is better able to embody intellectual brilliance matched with cool arrogance and societal disconnection than Benedict Cumberbatch. So in many ways, Strange is a part that falls well within his comfort zone. But Cumberbatch shows he can carry a major motion picture by making Strange a charismatic lead who grows and develops. Strange is deliberately unlikeable at first, but Cumberbatch invests him with an underlying vulnerability and a cocky charm that is increasingly broadened and shaded as the film progresses. Almost without realising it, you find yourself actually rather liking him halfway through (while still happy to give him a smack in the mouth for his cockiness). Cumberbatch is in almost every scene and carries the film effortlessly.

The film is dominated by it’s lead character, but gives moments to the rest of the cast. Tilda Swinton overcomes the controversy of her casting by investing The Ancient One with both a serene wisdom with dark hints of anger and impatience bubbling under the surface. Ejiofor is good as an increasingly disillusioned mentor and Wong has some great comic beats. Mads Mikkelsen, one of the greatest actors in the world, is rather wasted as a villain who never becomes quite as interesting as you’d hope. Most misused is Rachael McAdams, whose character serves very little purpose other than “ex-girlfriend” – even the director, in an interview, described her role as being there to love him, so that we can see why we should love him.

It’s still a Marvel film, and it still follows the Marvel formula, however newly presented it might be. The arc of despair, rejection, slow progress, revelation, disillusionment, rallying and overcoming personal problems is pretty recognisable from everything from Thor to Iron Man. But it is enough of an inversion, it’s got a good enough script, it’s directed with enough focus on character as well as action, and it has a sufficiently good leading actor to lift and elevate the whole idea into something that feels richer while keeping it entertaining. It’s a very good comic book movie, and it’s trying to do something different, And it mostly succeeds.