2017 - The Highlights (lionsroar)

Films watched for the first time and reviewed in 2017

Note: Since Trophy Unlocked has to pay for most of the movies we see in the theaters and for most of the films we watch at home, we don’t have the scope of a newspaper reviewer. We don’t see everything that’s out, so our ratings of films are based on what we decide to spend our money on.

Top 5 Best Films of the year:

In No Particular Order:

Wonder Woman

Finally the DCEU gets one right. Wonder Woman establishes Gal Gadot as the best thing in this comic book-based universe. Gadot is not only beautiful but also atheletic, strong and with a real screen presence. It's too bad that she alone is not enough to save this franchise which seems almost doomed from the start.

Hidden Figures

Well-done biographical film that rather than one person concentrates on the fate of three brilliant African-American women at NASA -- Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer) and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monáe) -- who worked in virtual obscurity during the Mercury missions which launched the US manned space program.

Logan

Not all comic-book films are made solely for the fan base. In what maybe a victory lap for his portrayal as Wolverine, Hugh Jackman co-stars with Patrick Stewart as  Charles Xavier / Professor X: in a story that takes place in the future. Now an older man, Wolverine must cope with old age while fighting to save a young girl Laura (Dafne Keen) from the evil Transigen corporation that made her. Also available as Logan - Noir, the same film but in black and white. This presentation tones down the blood, but also makes this feel what is, the kind of movie that they don't make anymore.

Loving Vincent

After his suicide, the postmaster of Saint-Rémy, Joseph Roulin (Chris Dowd), discovers a letter that the late artist had sent to his brother and sends his son, Armand Roulin (Douglas Booth), to find Theo, not realizing the brother is also dead. Armand develops a fascination with the late artist and spends an extended time trying to find out the truth about Van Gogh's death.  A fascinating story told exclusively through the use of paintings in the artist's style.

Wonderstruck

The stories of two deaf young people separated by 50 years are interwoven in this film based on the novel of the same name by Brian Selznick. Each must go on their own journey of discovery, which takes both to New York City and eventually to each other. Heartwarming story with good acting make this one to watch.

Best Classic Movie Reviewed:

Key Largo (1948)

It's very hard to go wrong with Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall, Edward G. Robinson,  Lionel Barrymore, and Claire Trevor. Deported gangster tries to make a comeback during a hurricane that hits the Florida Keys. Post-war gangster film with a solid cast directed by John Huston. Honarable mentions: King Kong (1933) and The Lady Vanishes (1938).

Disappointments of the Year:

In No Particular Order:

Justice League

Is it really a disappointment when you sort of expect it to not be very good? I go hoping for better, but come out resigned to know that it is. Having killed his greatest ally, Batman has to put together a team of others with superpowers, Aquaman, The Flash, Cyborg and Wonder Woman to fight an exterrestrial with an Oedipal complex who is out to cleanse the Earth. But things are going well for the team until they manage to resurrect the fallen Superman.

Spider-Man Homecoming

Sony doesn't seem to know what to do with Spider-Man other than reboot the franchise and each time with diminishing returns. On its third try, Spider-Man is really Spider-Young Adult, which is the literary genre the film mimics when telling the story. Does the super-hero film have to be so high school? While I like the actor playing the title role, I can't wait for him and the series to grow up.

Despicable Me 3

Third time is not the charm with Despicable Me. Seems that they've gone to the well one time too many and now its really running dry. Too many storylines for this animated film to juggle. And, frankly, the Minions are a little over-exposed and getting a little old, sort of like bananas that have  been out too long.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

I remember really looking forward to the new Kingsman film. The original seemed to be so interesting and fun. The premise of a secret British secret service was too quickly disposed of in my opinion. Now strapped to an American version, which sadly is so stereotypical as to be embarrassing. Can Americans ever be depicted not wearing cowboy hats as our native dress? The film tries too hard for its own good.

Arrival

Started off the year watching one of last year's Best Picture nominees. Restrained science fiction, read that low on its reliance on special effects, the film features some pretty good acting from its leads. Still, the film goes one step too far and loses out when it makes time seem too circular. 

Worst Classic Film Reviewed this Year:

Detour (1945)

Don't believe the hype that this is one of the great film noirs. Low-budget feature includes the worst of the genre with a plot based almost solely on the protagonist making the worst decision possible in any situation and an over-reliance on coincidence. To top it off, the acting is wooden.

Arrival

Arrival (2016) Starring Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Forest Whitaker, Michael Stuhlbarg. Directed by Denis Villeneuve. Screenplay by: Eric Heisserer. Based on Short Story: "Story of Your Life" by Ted Chiang. Produced by Shawn Levy, Dan Levine, Aaron Ryder, David Linde Run Time: 116 min. U.S.A. Science Fiction, Fantasy

Films about encounters with aliens from space are nothing new; Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T., The Thing From Another World, Galaxy Quest, This Island Earth, It Came From Outer Space, Earth vs. The Flying Saucers, Independence Day and 20 Million Miles to Earth come to mind, to name a few. What sets one apart from another is taking a different approach to the topic. Arrival, which arrived in theaters back in November, does that, examining the encounter as a linguistics challenge.

When 12 monolithic spaceships show up at different locations around the globe, the U.S. military, in the form of Colonel GT Weber (Forest Whitaker), come to Louise Banks (Amy Adams) for help. They’ve had some brief encounters with the aliens, but they don’t understand what they’re saying, so they come back to Banks, who had helped translate some Farsi for the military earlier, to see what she can make of their language.

The aliens' language is pretty hard to decipher in Arrival.

Joining Banks on the encounters is Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner), a theoretical physicist, also recruited by Weber. Over a period of months, Banks is able to decipher the aliens' language, but she is not the only one working on the project. There are eleven other groups around the world working on the same issue, but with different interpretations of the aliens' language and that spells trouble.

Since the film is still in theaters, I won’t go any further into the plot than that, except to say there’s more to the story than the alien encounter and its aftermath. Louise has a painful past that also impacts her and how she works through the problems presented by the encounter.

Amy Adams plays Louise Banks, a renowned linguist called into help with an Alien language in Arrival.

While that might be intriguing enough, the film takes things a step further, and maybe a step too far, as it makes an obvious effort to play with the concept of time; making it seem non-linear. Is that a memory from the past or the remembrance of a future event? That makes things extra and overly complicated.

Jeremy Renner plays Ian Donnelly, a theoretical physicist also brought in on the encounter.

The acting is pretty good. All three of the leads do good work here. It is well-known by now that Adams is being considered for the Golden Globes and there is buzz about the Academy Awards, you know because NBC wants us to think the Golden Globes are pre-cursors to the Oscars. Jeremy Renner, who is perhaps best known as Hawkeye in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, proves that he is a good actor as well. Whitaker hardly ever disappoints and that’s true again in Arrival. I don't think the man gets enough of the accolades he deserves. The minor characters are good as well with Michael Stuhlbarg making the most of his somewhat stereotypical role as a CIA agent.

Forest Whitaker as Colonel Webber in charge of the U.S. encounter.

Any film with aliens requires a certain amount of special effects, but this film seems to keep them reined in. Arrival is not as dependent on them as say Close Encounters or Independence Day. Instead, the film is more introspective than those, making it less dependent on really wowing you into submission. The aliens, who for the most part are never seen in detail, reminded me of Octopuses. This is reinforced as they appear to communicate with humans through an inky substance they excrete.

But the film fails on several fronts. To begin with, the film never really explains how Louise does what she does. I know, linguistics sounds about as exciting as dishwater, but when that is the main focus of a film, a cursory explanation, even if it’s made up, might have helped me connect with her better. I see that she gets it done, but I’m not sure how. All I know is that if you spend enough time at something the code will get broken. Now Ian does help with the breakthrough, but his explanation is more math than anything else, which frankly makes it more confusing than ever. I don’t like it when films try to bowl you over with a lot of $13.99-sounding words to hide the fact that it can’t explain what is really happening in the story.

The film sort of ends without really resolving its two main issues. The aliens just disappear all at once, so that problem resolves itself. There are vague reasons why they came in the first place, but nothing concrete, though one gets the idea they’ll definitely be back. The film likes to credit them with bringing the world together, but we have that, it’s called the United Nations and it doesn’t work as well as it should. Aliens are not going to change that.

The time issue that the film sets up is sort of left dangling as well. One of the benefits of being able to look ahead, one would think, would be to know what pitfalls lie ahead and to avoid them, but that’s definitely not what Louise does. Even knowing what is going to happen in her life, because it has already happened, does not prevent Louise from making the same mistakes again. She seems to have figured out some things, we hear cryptic utterings, but we don’t know if that new knowledge will have any effect on her choices.

While I wanted to like Arrival, the film didn’t live up to my expectations. Louise is a likable character, but she goes on this great journey and ends up right back where she started, no better off than she was at the start. We as the audience unconsciously expect that our heroes and heroines will somehow grow or be changed by their experiences, but in this case Arrival does not meet that expectation.

I’ll give Arrival style points, but I could not recommend it to others.