Last weekend, possibly my favorite installment so far of The Modern School of Film's series, Film Acoustic, went down in Durham: Jeff Tweedy of Wilco screened and discussed Chris Smith's 1999 cult favorite documentary AMERICAN MOVIE.
The film was well received by the audience at Fletcher Hall at the Carolina Theatre - many of whom had raised their hands when MSOF founder and moderator Robery Milazzo asked afterwards how many had never seen it before - and I enjoyed seeing it on the big screen for the first time, especially considering it was an original 35 mm print.
AMERICAN MOVIE focuses on aspiring Milwaukee filmmaker Mark Borchardt's attempts to complete his short horror film COVEN, so that he can finance his dream project, an epic full-length feature named NORTHWESTERN.
Borchardt's sidekick, the lovably sclubby Mike Schank, who composed the music for movie, got a lot of laughs, but it was the director's Uncle Bill, who skeptically financed the project and is recruited to act, that most got the crowd rolling.
After the screening ended, Milazzo relayed a message from Schank: �Happy Memorial Day. Thank for showing the film and thank you, Jeff Tweedy.� Milliazzo then added, �An hour later he texted me back and said �Oh, if there are any hot girls in the audience that would like to call me, you c an give them my number.� And then he texted me a half an hour later � �Girls only though.�
Millazzo introduced Tweedy as �former lead singer of Land Ho! And Black Shampoo,� and the Wilco singer came out to rousing applause.
Tweedy discussed the film and several other subjects with Milazzo, including the Wilco rock doc I AM TRYING TO BREAK YOUR HEART, his contribution to the BOYHOOD soundtrack, and his mother's love of movies. Tweedy's 15-year old son Sam also came on stage for a brief bit and answered some questions.
But the best news for fans was that Tweedy had brought his guitar and performed solo acoustic versions of �Less Than You Think,� �I Am Trying To Break Your Heart� (see video below), �The Losing End (When You�re On)� (Neil Young cover), �One By One,� and �You Are Not Alone.�
Here are some other highlights from the excellent evening:
On why he choose AMERICAN MOVIE:
Tweedy: �One of the reasons that we wanted to watch this movie together is the idea that making things and immersing yourself in making things is an incredibly healthy and sustaining thing to do. I really have this fantasy that if everybody in the world were given the opportunity to make things, uh, it sounds pretty na�ve and simple saying it out loud, but I think the world would be a much better place. Everybody would be on the side of existence as opposed to destruction. Creation as opposed to destruction.
That�s the main focus in our house that it�s �study hard, do good, try to be kind to people, and try to make stuff � it makes you happy.��
�I see him (Borchardt) as a very optimistic and vocal person. He preaches it to everybody around him. To Bill, to everybody in the community, you know �Do something! You gonna die and not do something? Do something!�
I think people might, on one hand might be sort of cynical in indulging him, On the other hand I think that there�s a deep sense that they have to honor that. They have to honor that least there�s somebody in their midst that doesn�t feel like giving up.�
Milazzo: �You guys are roughly the same age, you and Mark, I think there�s a year apart � what separates you from Mark?�
Tweedy: �I ask myself that question all of the time. I think that anybody that has had any modicum of success whatsoever asks themselves that question periodically. �Why me? Why not a lot of other people that have worked very very hard or our very talented people.�
Milazzo:�Was it a big decision to kind of open yourself up that way?�
Tweedy: �No, I can honestly say it was a na�ve decision. I didn�t feel like Wilco had a persona worth any spending any amount of effort to prune or shape, I just didn�t think there was anything that could come from it that would be that, I don�t know. I felt that a lot of people who spend time on their personas, and their image, were people like Madonna, and I don�t know, maybe Bob Dylan, somebody like that, but it has never been a part of how I view what it is that I�m doing.
But I learned a lot - after the fact I realized that I would�ve never done that again. We basically just let him make the movie, and we didn�t have any say. Well, I mean, we probably could�ve pulled our songs from the movie, you know, so we could have some control if it was really really terrible, but we didn�t. We didn�t do anything. We just saw it when it was done, and said �oh, that�s uncomfortable.� Imagine how very similar Mike and Mark might�ve felt if they went to a screening of this when it first came out.�
Milazzo: �What did you learn about yourself though? You know, in the sense of watching the documentary of Wilco, did you ever have a moment �oh, that�s my response� or �that�s my process�? In a sense worrying that you don�t want to put yourself in that again, did you see yourself differently?�
Tweedy: �Yeah, there are�I haven�t seen it in a long time, but there were a lot of moments watching that movie, well, there were a lot of moments during the filming of that movie where, uh, the first time there was an observing ego in the room � the camera��
Milazzo: �Camera � you do such a beautiful song called �Kamera,� which speaks to that�
Tweedy: �It just felt like, I don�t know if I�ve ever been able to put myself outside of myself enough to see what a camera might be seeing. And so there were a lot of moments during the process of making that record where I was like �oh, no � oh, no, that�s what the camera is seeing.� Obviously, this is not � our relationship with Jay (Bennett) for example was made painfully obvious that there was a big problem in the way we were interacting, the way he was interacting with the band. And it�s really sad that it took a camera to do that or that we weren�t together enough, or grown up enough as people to see that without a camera.�
On Tweedy's mother, Jo Ann Tweedy, who passed in 2006:
Milazzo: �One thing I thought was interesting about your cinema DNA is how it connects for your Mom, and Judy Garland of all people. Because when we asked about a movie I thought we�d be getting a Judy Garland film, not that that would�ve been wrong at the time. But what about when you were young and your Mom watching films with you or around you��
Tweedy: �My mother was a night owl. She was a high school drop-out who had my sister when she was 16 years old, and I was born much much later than everyone else in my family. I�m 10 years younger than my youngest brother. And so by the time I came around, she had really given up on parenting. You know, there weren�t a lot of boundaries so I was up all night watching movies while my Mom fell asleep with cigarettes in her mouth.
Yeah, right, it sounds like a terrible parenting thing � it is. But my memory of it looking back is actually really warm. It�s a warm feeling. It�s actually one of the images that comes to mind when I miss my mother. But in St. Louis, the St. Louis TV stations had a movie program, or a late night movie called the �Bijou Picture Show.� I think that�s kind of a Midwestern thing. There were a lot of Judy Garland movies that they would show, a lot of black and white, now it�s Turner Classic Movies � it�s the same thing.�
Milazzo: �If performance cures a sort of anxiety, what does writing cure for you?�
Tweedy: �Well, I think that, I have a lot of thoughts about this. Because I can�t help myself, we�re pretty philosophical in our house and we end up talking about a lot of things like this. I think the best that I can come up with, is that it�s like a really really healthy way of killing time for me. It�s actually, uh, I don�t know, I like not being there. I like to be gone, unburdened enough of having an ego. Which is like what happens when I get completely immersed in the process of making a song. Or making something � it becomes, you become this thing � it�s a maker.
But it�s not necessarily�in fact the more the ego gets involved, the more it suffers. It really suffers when you start to think �well, are people gonna think I�m cool because this is so great?� Then you�re done. The song is done and you can�t return from that. You should put it away until some other time when you can get lost in it again.
That�s why I said �once a song is done, it�s on a record, or finished recording it, or finish writing it even, it�s already done all the good stuff that it was going to do for me. After that it�s all pain and suffering. Because even if people like it, it�s never enough. Or they see it somehow different, or they�re indifferent � that�s the worst of all. �
On his songs in BOOYHOOD:
Milazzo: �BOYHOOD, the great Richard Linklater film, which to me was the best film of last year��
Tweedy: �I think it should�ve been called �Motherhood.� (Audience applauds) I think the most compelling character in the whole movie was Patricia Arquette. Beautiful.�
Milazzo: �Speaking of beauty, one of your songs is in it. How did that come about? Could you demystify that process? What�s it like to hear your song in a really killer movie in a really killer moment?�
Tweedy: �Well, in that movie there�s a Wilco song �Hate it Here� is in a scene, an actual scene where they�re talking about the song. And I didn�t know it was in there, so it was a little, it actually took me out of the movie a little bit which is kind of a drag. I was like �Abbey Road�?�
But anyway, and then the song �Summer Noon� is in the movie also, but it�s kind of on the radio in the background, and I think they wanted something that would be really contemporary when the movie came out. And so they asked me to write a song for the movie and I was working on �Suikerae� so we sent them that. �How about something like this?� Then they said �great,� and they put it in the movie. And then for some reason it was disqualified for an Oscar though. So Maybe you could talk to somebody about that.
�Summer Noon� is basically cut and pasted like a Warhol, like Zerox. I thought, people do that with art, why don�t they do that with songs? I had a minute and a half long song, and I thought, why don�t I just put it on the record twice? Back to back.�
On Wilco�s breakthrough album �Yankee Hotel Foxtrot�: Milazzo: �The first attempt at a release was at an interesting moment in history, because the first attempt at release was��
Tweedy: ��Yankee Hotel Foxtrot,� the original release date was September 11th, 2001. The artwork, the entire package, everything was done. And we were dropped so we lost that release date. Obviously, over time it�s weird that it�s become associated with that.
�The lyrics on the whole record were really meant to be�I was thinking a lot about America, and I really wanted to know what I thought of America. Having grown up being somewhat skeptical of America, growing up in a time where I was heavily influenced by punk rock as a young teenager. Very, I don�t know, not willing to submit to the party line of America. I don�t know, I just really, I think a lot of things, �oh, there�s a cash machine, is that evil? Is a cash machine evil, or is it just blue and green. You know, what actually is the evil part of America? Because I really don�t think like anything I grew up seeing was particularly evil, but I also knew a lot of things weren�t right.
Anyway, lyrics aside, I don�t know how cinematic they might be, but the actual construction of that record, very very consciously constructed with the idea of cinematic pacing.
Milazzo: �And the transitions, the lack of thereof��
Tweedy: �Everything was recorded in a lot of different formats, and what we would end up doing is we would mix the first verse of a song and then completely wipe the board and everything completely clean, and start all over for the second verse. And then splice those two together. So we could never remix that record if we wanted to � it doesn�t exist.
And one final thought from the evening:
Tweedy: �It�s one of the weird things about rock music � it�s a youth obsessed culture within a youth obsessed culture, and it�s disheartening sometimes when you start to become known as �Dad Rock.� That doesn�t help.�
The next installment of Film Acoustic, on Monday, June 22nd, looks like another winner: Will Butler of Arcade Fire screens and discusses Terry Gilliam's 1996 sci-fi thriller TWELVE MONKEYS. Tickets are on sale now.
Despite the fact that I believe "pure objectivity" in criticizing films, entertainment or anything else is impossible, largely useless as a pursuit and shouldn't be of primary import either to critics or people reading them; I do worry about times when my own biases might get in the way of things. Not because I might violate some nimrod's vision of "ethics" (whatever the hell that means anymore) but because I don't want to write anything I'll be embarrassed about a year or so later.
So, if nothing else, I can say I appreciate having seen TOMORROWLAND in exactly one respect: This is a movie that's made by people I like about a subject that's near and dear to my heart and has a bunch of Big Idea moral/philosophical points to make about humanity, society, art, culture and the ordering of the world itself that could've been pulled wholesale from own psyche... so I'm kind of glad that I found it so plodding, patronizing, preachy and wrongheaded - at least I'm "unbiased" enough to have been able to look past all the stuff I'd otherwise be desperate to like (or even to excuse.)
SPOILERS (which are unavoidable) after the jump:
TOMORROWLAND comes courtesy of director Brad Bird and writer Damon Lindelof, so it's not exactly a shock that it's a longform fable jointly extolling the virtue of individuals not following society's prescribed roles and encouraging society to get the hell out of the way of its more exceptional individuals so they can get busy improving the world for everyone (Bird is best known for RATAOUILLE and THE INCREDIBLES) ...that fails completely as a work of storytelling, is more interested in thematic sleight of hand than a cohesive narrative and is alternately boring and confusing with all the clarity (and more interesting details) relegated to "mystery box" lore-building in the margins and online-"ARG" bullshit (Lindelof is guilty of both LOST and PROMETHEUS.)
It's a feature-length first act full of hints and mysteries amid generic action/road-trip beats, all building to a profoundly unsatisfying denouement wherein characters deliver truncated TED Talks directly to the audience and a coda (which I've already seen one person aptly describe as "United Colors of Benetton Randianism") that actually gets across Bird's apparent point so powerfully that it makes the preceding rest of the movie feel even more disposable. There's a big, richly-concieved mythology to this story, hinted at in the background details of the film itself; and yet it feels like, having mapped out the history and future of the titular Tomorrowland, Bird and Lindelof decided to make a movie about the least interesting portion of it. Imagine if the original STAR WARS TRILOGY was just one movie entirely about Luke visiting Yoda for the second time, but the much more interesting events of A NEW HOPE, EMPIRE and JEDI were constantly being talked about (unseen) the whole time, and you'll have an idea of how self-defeating TOMORROWLAND feels.
The film opens at the 1964 World's Fair, where a kid inventor loses an invention contest because his jet pack doesn't work but receives an "invitation pin" from a mysterious little girl named Athena that activates when he takes a spin on the Mark I version of "It's A Small World" and beams him to what looks like The Future... as imagined in 1964 (gleaming cities of scientific progress, robots, automated-everything and, of course, jet-packs, etc.) The story then leaps forward (there's a dumb "feels-like-a-rewrite" framing device) to The Future... as it actually turned out, aka our own present: Everything sucks, everyone gobbles up doomsday news reports and dystopian futurism without trying to fix or prevent it, pessimism reigns and the future-forwardism symbolized by the World's Fair scenes seems dead; symbolized most iconically by the dismantling of the NASA Space Shuttle program. This is where I was sure the movie had me: I am, and forever will be, an unapologetic "Where's My Jetpack?" futurist in both my gooey "Rocketships! Wheeeee!" heart and my cold, hardened technocratic brain.
Anyway! An optimistic, science-loving girl named Casey (Britt Robertson) has been trying to sabotage the decomissioning of a NASA launch platform, which nets her a visit from the somehow still young Athena (I know you've already guessed, but the movie wants you to play along) and a pin of her own that produces a timed holographic projection of Tomorrowland; where she's told that special, exceptional people like her are welcomed to put their gifts to greater, unencumbered use. But it also leads to her being hunted by a succession of humanoid robots (I know, I know, and they still drag out the reveal for no reason...) and ordered by Athena to seek out help from a Tomorrowlander in exile: The kid from the opening, now grown into a hermit/inventor named Frank (George Clooney) who can help them get back "there" if the robots don't get them first.
So... yeah: Driven young woman disillusioned by a world sinking into mediocrity seeks out gruff genius for access to a secret city where humanity's betters can ply their craft without the petty normals holding them back - if Brad Bird really does want people to stop bugging him about what some see as "soft Objectivism" in his movies (INCREDIBLES in particular); putting together what boils down to "Walt Disney's ATLAS SHRUGGED For Non-Sociopaths" might not've been the most logical next career move. Either way, from that point on the film is effectively "Tween TERMINATOR as a road-trip," as Casey and (eventually) Frank and Athena make their way to the goal while veeeeeery slooooooooowly teasing out the details of what's going on and why for no discernible reason beyond Lindelof's continued fealty to the worst impulses of his mentor JJ "Mystery Box" Abrams.
I want to be clear here, for the record: I purposefully didn't watch any of the ARG/backstory/mythology stuff online until after seeing the movie, so my objection to how long it takes TOMORROWLAND to get to the point isn't based on some kind of fanboyish desire to get to the "cool stuff" I already knew about. Even taken strictly on its own merits, the slow-drip plotting combined with super-generic "go here, do this" Dan Brown-esque storytelling is labored and mechanical, transparently serving zero purpose other than "We're building to a reveal, okay?"
So what's the Big Idea? Starting at the turn of the century, an organization of the world's best and brightest innovators (scientists, engineers, artists, writers, thinkers, activists, etc) conspired to set up a safe-space (in what appears to be an alternate-dimension) where they could innovate and create their way to solutions for a utopian future free from the interference of greed, profit, politics or (unsaid, but implied) the nagging of narrow-minded normals. "Tomorrowland" is the fruit of these so-called "Plus-Ultras" labors (membership including Edison, Tesla, Eiffel, Verne, Amelia Earhardt, Einstein, Ray Bradbury and Walt Disney himself) and their long-term plan was to A.) send robo-kids like Athena to Earth scouting for potential exceptionals to recruit and B.) ultimately reveal Tomorrowland to humanity and make that "model future" the actual future. But something went wrong involving an invention of Frank's, leading to his exile and Tomorrowland's cynical Governor Nix (Hugh Laurie) cutting off contact between the two worlds; which has had the side-effect of turning Earth into the progress-resisting pit it (in the film's and evidently Bird's jetpacks/NASA/robots/gadgets = The Good Future view of things) is today.
Heavy-handed, sure, but not totally a lost cause premise-wise. But the film doesn't stop there - it can't leave well enough alone, can't trust the audience to grasp an esoteric concept like imaginative-entropy as an antagonist; ultimately insisting on thuddingly literal "explanation" that, yes, resorts to creating a singular Bad Guy to punch and a Doomsday Machine that just needs to get turned off. I'd like to think that these are concessions to a story that just wouldn't come together - that Bird didn't start out with such a crummy setup, or that maybe this is once again Lindelof doing what he does. But as the climax plods on and one character after another explains their motivations in droning philosophical lecture-form, I just kept sitting there being astonished (and yet bored) by just how badly this was all falling apart - and I don't just mean the fact that someone thought it was a good extra plot detail that Frank's grumpy disillusionment mostly comes from having fallen for Athena when they (looked) the same age, freaking out when he realized she was a robot and still not being "over" her as an adult.
No, really.
Symbolically, it makes sense: She's a walking-metaphor representing the promise of the future that drew Frank to Tomorrowland in the first place but turned him off as the difficulties behind realizing that kind of promise becomes more clear... but in practice? Onscreen? Yeah... it's George Clooney mooning over a "wise beyond her years" child; and I can't comprehend how that got through production with no one asking if it added anything (it doesn't) to justify how creepy it was bound to come off?
But I digress. Big-But-More-Simplified-Idea #2 is that before leaving Tomorrowland Frank invented a machine that could calculate and predict the future, and images if impending ecological-disaster on Earth ultimately led Nix to terminate the "integrate normal-humanity and Plus Ultras" plan: See, he decided to start beaming the machine's "the end is near" message into humanity's subconscious, hoping it would scare us into fixing the future ourselves... but instead it just made us start accepting and even "worshipping" the idea of innevitable dystopia - which in turn (drumroll) is actually causing the downbeat, anti-progress societal entropy that Casey has been fighting against. This, then, is TOMORROWLAND's (and, one can only infer, Bird and Lindelof's) Message to The Masses: The current popularity of dark/dystopian futures is literally ruining the world by way of self-fulfilling prophecy, and if only we all shared Bird's preference/affection for Kennedy-era "everything is possible" futurism we'd instead be once again driven to repair and improve the world.
Now, thematically? That's music to my ears - see above. But as presented here it's a clusterfuck: We're told that Casey is "Special" and "Smart" and that's why she's The One who can avert the end of the world... but there isn't a "why" there in any concrete way. Her intellect is mostly expressed via a handiness with technology hand-waved by "She knows how things work," but not through anything else. Her gift is super-optimism (she literally makes the Doomsday Machine change the probability of armaggeddon by standing near it and being "plucky") but it only really manifests in the form of trite metaphors about the Power of Positive Thinking ("There are two wolves always fighting...") - which occasionally makes it feel like the film was aiming for "Atlas Shrugged" but slipped and settled for "The Secret" instead. Either way, it really doesn't matter because when we finally get to the finale... it turns out it's Frank's job to save world, instead.
Seriously. The one indisputably laudable aspect of this narrative, making the obligatory science-whiz do-gooder techie kid female without turning "It's a GIRL!!!???" into a surprise or plot-point, get's sidelined in favor of the more famous Name Star guy for the big finish. Once again, it makes thematic sense mechanically (Athena turns herself into a bomb for Frank to destroy The Machine with, a literal playing-out of his need to let go of both his youthful disappointments and the need to know/control the future born out of them) but it turns the plot into an even bigger mess: If Casey's Super Optimism Powers aren't enough to convince Nix to end his schemes and her ingenuity plays no real role in stopping the Big Evil, why is the whole movie up to this point about building her up?
And no, it's not so she can take Frank's place - they both survive to end the film on dispatching a new generation of Athenas to seek out and invite a new crop of (admirably diverse) exceptionals to become the next wave of Plus Ultras. We similarly never really get a sense of why Tomorrowland is also in a state of gloom, other than that it's aesthetically-appropriate to the finale: Wouldn't Nix make mollifying his own population a priority? The whole movie is like that: A confused, jumbled, self-defeating slog that can't keep anything about itself straight because everything is focused on getting us to the next opportunity for Casey (or Frank, or Athena, or even Nix) to scold the audience for not making "turn the world into a Popular Science cover" enough of a priority... and more troublingly, it's completely tone-deaf about how some of this sounds coming out of Frank: In 2015, there needs to be at least a fig leaf of self-awareness when a white guy in his 50s starts talking about how much better things were (regardless of context) "in his day" when "his day" still routinely included Civil Rights marchers getting hit with dogs and firehoses.
I really wanted to like this. I wanted to like it based on what I could intuit it was about/saying pre-release, I wanted to like it as it was going and when it finally got around to explaining itself I was in mourning for what could have been. The ideas here - the "Walt Disney Presents BIOSHOCK" skeleton of a story - are fascinating, and it has things to say that I happen to agree desperate need to be said and heard. But you have to make the movie first, or at least figure out what the movie is even about. TOMORROWLAND is a half-baked lecture in search of a movie to occupy, and if we really are doomed unless said lecture gets absorbed we'd best hope the Athena 2.0s' are a lot better at communicating a message than Damon Lindelof is.
Hey! Haven't done one of these in awhile, and now is as good a time as any. We're between Marvel Cinematic Universe movies right now, and while it's possible that ANT-MAN is going to drop some kind of important Universe-altering plot point, I wouldn't call it likely. Whatever really got between Edgar Wright and Marvel, everything about the production of this I've heard is that a big part of Marvel's solution to "what do we do with what pieces are already assembled from this movie?" will have been to frontload it with Continuity-Lover Cookies relating to the backstories of the other franchises; the gamble being that making this film/character "essential" to a completist's understanding of The Lore will overshadow any potential letdown feelings among the core fandom; whose inter-film chattering (yes, like pieces like this) the generation of is part of the MCU's long-term marketing aparatus.
And with the "things to come" tease from AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON being effectively the same as the one from AVENGERS ("That beefy purple guy is up to something!"), that effectively leaves the "where is everything going?" stuff up to rampant speculation until the trailers start hitting for CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR. But! These things are planned both long-term and with a lot of wiggle room for potentially go-nowhere threads (where's The Leader right now, again?), and with that plus a working knowledge of Marvel Comics history, it's occasionally been possible to work out where things are going.
So let's try some of that out. Obviously, everything from this point on (i.e. "after the jump") is chock full of **SPOILERS** for the existing Marvel movies and potential-spoilers for the ones that don't exist yet:
Okay! In list form: 1. CIVIL WAR WILL NOT BE VERY SIMILAR TO THE COMICS: If there's a working comics-to-screen adaptation "formula" for the Marvel movies thus far, it's this: Silver Age style/theme + Title/noteworthy character/macguffin from recent modern "event" book + original/"re-imagined" story = $$$. See: AGE OF ULTRON, which is as nutty as the nuttiest Lee/Kirby joint (killer robot exists for a few days, makes "logical" plan to levitate a country and drop it on Earth to simulate an extinction-level asteroid impact, this can be solved via men and women in Halloween costumes punching robots) and shares a name (and only a name) with a popular recent Ultron-centric comic miniseries but is otherwise a story original to the Cinematic Universe.
Thusly, I'd say it's fairly unlikely that CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR will follow the storyline of the "Civil War" comics event very closely. I imagine there will be marketing-friendly similarities (good guys fighting good guys, I bet they'll do some variation on the infamous "Who's Side Are You On?" campaign with the licensing - do you want Cap's Pizza Hut deal or Iron Man's!!??) mainly centered on Cap and Iron Man as enemies; but it won't be about a superhero version of gun control and I can even imagine there not being two "teams" of heroes arguing over whether or not to register their secret identities. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the "teams" are Captain America as leader of "all" superheroes versus Iron Man and The Government/Military.
That said: There's a wild-card here: AGENTS OF S.H.I.E.L.D, which has introduced three Big Ideas to the MCU (1. S.H.I.E.L.D is reborn, but now they're operations are even more secretive, 2. Coulson is building a "Secret Avengers" of superhumans, 3. An unknown but substantial number of humans on Earth are actually Inhumans whose latent powers can only be unlocked by exposure to crystals, a cache of which is unaccounted for and a rogue batch of which has accidentally been released into the world's oceanic food/drug supply) any one of which could be a tie-in to CW's plot if the positive reception for the series' second season means the Marvel TV/movie wall is about to come down.
2. CIVIL WAR WILL ALSO NOT BE "AVENGERS 2.5" The handwringing about the CAPTAIN AMERICA series' own storylines being derailed by what feels like a chance to squeeze an extra AVENGERS midquel is justified, theoretically, but I've yet to see/hear anything that convinces me that many/most of the "cameo" characters will be just that.
I can see the New (as of AGE OF ULTRON) Avengers team - Widow, War Machine, Scarlet Witch, Vision and Falcon - being main support-players, but Black Panther? He's a head of state in addition to being a hero, so it's sensible he'd have a presence for a scene or two in a movie about an "international incident;" but he doesn't need to be a featured player. Spider-Man? Well, they'll want him onscreen for at least one or two BIG pops, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's mainly there to share an exchange with one of the Big Guns and maybe relate a quickie version of his basic origin to somebody so they don't have to do it in his own movie... But! I can easily imagine "Peter Parker, nosy freelance news photographer" being a major side-character. Also: A storyline about things breaking down between the government/military and the superhero community would be a fine place for an Officer/Agent/whatever Carol Danvers to either acquire (or turn out to have always had) the powers of CAPTAIN MARVEL.
3. CAPTAIN AMERICA WILL "DIE" IN CIVIL WAR Why is there a new Avengers team at the end of ULTRON? Because most of the Original Six are almost done with their mandatory-appearances under the original contracts, and Marvel wants two AVENGERS movies before they say goodbye instead of just one - so the various storylines (allegedly) are conspiring to ensure that said O.G. Avengers sit outINFINITY WAR: PART I so they can make an epic One Last Ride return in INFINITY WAR: PART II. As of now: The Hulk is MIA (we'll come back to that). Iron Man is semi-retired and likely to be further ostracized after CIVIL WAR. Hawkeye has (literally) been sent away to live on a happy farm somewhere upstate. Black Widow was partially ready to bolt in ULTRON, could easily do so post-CW. Thor can always be easily sidelined by "He's busy. Asgard stuff," and the title of his next movie refers to the literal Apocalypse for the Norse Gods. That leaves Captain America, and if there's one Big Deal thing to keep from the "Civil War" comics apart from Steve vs. Tony it's that Cap ends up taking a bullet for his stand.
Furthermore: I'd bet that the "search for Bucky" part of this story ends more quickly than many are expecting. We know from the end of WINTER SOLDIER that he's at least somewhat "better," so it's not outside the realm of possibility that he shows up in CIVIL WAR long enough to complicate things (or maybe he and/or Daniel Bruhl's Baron Zemo are at the center of the "incident" that starts the war?), have it out heart-to-heart with Steve and then take his first step to becoming the new Captain America after Steve dies. Hell, the setup there writes itself: Cap and Bucky find themselves in other scenario where he (Bucky) is in mortal danger, and this time it's Cap who makes the ultimate sacrifice to save his buddy. Boom. Bucky becomes the new Cap, joining whatever The Avengers are post-WAR. Steve Rogers, of course, will still come back for INFINITY WAR: PART II. How? Well...
4. DOCTOR STRANGE WILL BE A MOVIE ABOUT DEATH THOR did an adequate job introducing the one-sentence version of how mystical/magic stuff works in the MCU: "Magic and crazy comic-book super-science? Same thing." But apart from establishing that the Norse Gods were real but actually a race of super-strong, long-lived interdimensional aliens it didn't really go into any of the bigger questions that raises: What about ghosts? Demons? Other religious/supernatural things a lot of present-day people believe in? If Odin is (was?) a real guy, what about Zeus? Vishnu? Yahweh? It makes logical sense that DOCTOR STRANGE (the next release after CIVIL WAR) will be the movie to answer (or at least visualize) that stuff. Oh - I don't think the religious stuff will be addressed: Marvel is cautious when it comes to "real world" potential offense (look how much time the first CAPTAIN AMERICA spends making sure HYDRA and Red Skull can exist as bad guys with as little Nazi/swastika presence as possible) and the presence of supernatural stuff explicitly tied to currently-practiced world religions could be problematic in the Red States and render the film potentially unreleaseable in, say, China, which has strict rules about portraying mysticism and religion in film.
But! With the more D&D/LOTR/Potter-esque fantasy/magic stuff already being all over THOR and GUARDIANS now primed to handle the various space-beings and starchildren, Stephen Strange is going to need to need a unique Cosmic Marvel "niche" to set himself apart. Paying lip-service to the fact that he can also keep company with Asgardians and the cosmic-personifications of Infinity and Eternity (and Death, but we'll get to that) but mainly focusing him in the direction (at least for a debut) of the Marvel Universe's less-explainable (outside of "Magic, okay?") phenomena - two major aspects of which have already winked at the camera over on DAREDEVIL, incidentally.
Basically, I think they'll pitch Strange as an exorcist, but a non-denominational, more "wizardy" one; and that his first adventure will involve establishing (in safe, broad strokes) a non-denominational, possibly "everyone sees what they want to" MCU-version of The Afterlife as yet another plane for these stories to exist on... and a way for killed-off characters to still pop up as ghosts or even straight-up come back to life without needing half a season of a TV show to explain how.
Million dollar question: What does this mean about Thanos? For those who still haven't had a comic fan talk their ear off about this, the "to court death" line in AVENGERS is meant literally: In the Marvel Universe, sufficiently powerful/cosmically-aware beings can actually perceive and interact with personifications of esoteric concepts up to and including Death. Thanos is not only "aware" of Death, he has a literal romantic fixation on "her" and wants to massacre the universe as a token of romantic affection - that's, literally, his entire "thing." Do I imagine we'll see Death "herself" in this movie? Sort of... but only as a tease for a more important role later.
5. NOTHING LONG-TERM IMPORTANT WILL HAPPEN IN SPIDER-MAN Whatever reputation-solidifying (for Amy Pascal) niceties are on paper, the new SPIDER-MAN solo movie (the next "canon" Marvel movie after STRANGE) is a Marvel Studios production being undertaken "offsite" by Sony but still under orders from Kevin Feige and company.
Even still, given that they'd already started production on several subsequent Disney-branded Marvel movies before adding this one to the roster, I doubt this will connect to the "big doings" other than through references and guest-appearances (the prominent rumor is that the title is "SPIDER-MAN: THE NEW/NEXT/YOUNG AVENGER" and that the plot involves the high-school aged hero bugging Tony Stark for an "official" tryout) and if so I think that's for the best. Spider-Man is a street-level hero, he has no business involved in Thanos/Infinity/End-of-The-World level stuff unless it spills into his area and he becomes the "stand when others won't" guy. I'd be surprised (and disappointed, frankly) if Norman Osborn is walking around with an Infinity Stone in his lapel or something.
Honestly, though? The only "bigger MCU" person I'm really aching to see Spidey meet is The Kingpin. D'Onofrio is Marvel's new best villain, and he needs to meet the hero he originated with just once.
6. THE GUARDIANS WILL MEET THE HULK I feel much, much less confident about this than anything else in all this speculation, but I'm putting it here anyway. AGE OF ULTRON ends with The Hulk shooting himself... somewhere on a Quinjet. Supposedly, the plan was originally to make it clear that he's shot himself off the planet Earth itself to allow for PLANET HULK sometime down the line, but that plan changed and it's now unclear if Marvel has yet re-acquired the rights to solo HULK movies. That all seems fishy, and either way the possibility for Hulk to be in space is still right there.
So call this one a Hail Mary guess: Marvel knows that GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY is, however unplanned-for, it's second hottest solo property outside of IRON MAN, and they know people love Hulk. It makes sense to have them cross-over as a way of getting halfway to a solo HULK feature, at least for now. I doubt it'd be the plot of the entire GUARDIANS 2, but since the first movie used Sakkarans (natives of the planet "Planet Hulk" took place on) the door is already open for Starlord etc. to find themselves in, say, a Sakkaran gladiatorial arena and forced to fight... The Hulk! People would go nuts - you know they would, especially if they kept it a secret - and it would only take one quick narrated flashback for Banner to explain that he crashed on this planet. There's also a more pertinent reason for them to meet up: Banner has information The Guardians will want - there's an Infinity Stone on Earth, which means Thanos is going there. Remember, if you're Marvel your top priority should be figuring out how to the mega-popular Starlord etc onto the same screen-space as The Avengers.
7. THOR: RAGNAROK WILL BE THE MOST IMPORTANT PRE-INFINITY WAR MOVIE THOR's main job in Phase I outside of introducing its title character was kick-starting awareness of the "cosmic" side of the MCU. It's roll as the hub of cosmic worldbuilding in these films has likely been passed to the (unexpectedly) much more popular GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY), but the big strokes of this project were mapped out long in advance: Marvel wheeled out the full prop of The Infinity Gauntlet at SDCC a year before THOR or CAPTAIN AMERICA came out and then stuck it into Odin's vault as a background detail, for example (apparently it's not the same one Thanos has at the end of ULTRON), which suggests that Thor was originally going to be the vessel through which Big Cosmic Evil fell onto the rest of The Cinematic Universe... and I think it still will be. Partially.
"Ragnarok" is classical Norse mythology's version of The Apocalypse - a combination of wars, betrayals and natural disasters that will result in the death of most of the important gods (including Thor, Odin, Loki and Heimdall) and the destruction/rebirth of the human world. In the Comics Universe, Ragnarok is (generally, they've retconned this a few times) a prophecy that hasn't come true yet, but they keep coming close: A Godzilla-scale demon called Surtur nearly pulled it off in the middle of New York during Walt Simonson's legendary 80s "Thor" run, ultimately turned back by Thor himself leading the combined forces of Asgard and the U.S. Army against him. Surtur is slated to turn up in THOR: RAGNAROK, so... do the math: Whatever happens in the third THOR installment is going to be really big and really bad.
However! Thor's series also has plenty of loose threads to handle already: "Odin" is actually Loki in disguise, which (along with its own obvious problems) could mean that Odin is dead. In AGE OF ULTRON, Thor has a vision of himself (and others) in either a literal or metaphorical "Hell;" and though cut down to the point of incoherence in the theatrical release, it feels like Thor's return to the death-world "vision" to become the first (non-Guardian) MCU figure to know that the MacGuffins they've been chasing are actually Infinity Stones was meant to tie the two together.
Why is that important? Because in Norse mythology, Hel (single "l") is the Realm of The Dead - The Afterlife - for pretty-much anyone who isn't fit for Valhalla. And the god-figured tasked with ruling over it - "Hela" - is both a big recurring villain for the Marvel version of Thor etc... and also happens to be female. Get the picture? Marvel has gone pretty far in getting the weirdest parts of their Universe onscreen, but Thanos making goo-goo eyes at a vaugely female-looking black-robed skeleton is probably the one step too far. But a female Asgardian equivalent to the same basic idea... a "Goddess of Death" instead of an esoteric personification of the same (with some semantic "rose by any other name" handwaves courtesy of DOCTOR STRANGE if she does a walk-on in his movie first)? Audiences would probably swallow that much more readily.
SUMMATION:
So yeah - that's my Big Guess here: DOCTOR STRANGE confirms that there's an Afterlife/Beyond/whatever in the Cinematic Universe. THOR: RAGNAROK will involve Thor having/choosing to go to Hel - possibly to retrieve or converse with the presumed-dead Odin and opening the door for other "dead" characters to remain in the mix somehow - and meeting/clashing with Hela (traditionally she's Loki's daughter, by the way) who will turn out to be the MCU version of the paramour Thanos is scheming to woo by collecting Infinity Stones and doing... something bad with them; which will lead us right into AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR - PART I.
Agree? Disagree? We'll all find out over the course of the next few years... but I think when all is said and done I'll have more of this right than wrong.
After his phenomenal winning streak consisting of THE IRON GIANT, THE INCREDIBLES, RATATOUILLE, and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: GHOST PROTOCOL, Brad Bird gives us his most ambitious, and most personal feature yet: an epic adventure that shares its name, vision, and production company with one of Disney�s most popular amusement park rides.
Sadly, it�s also Bird�s most disappointing, and most thematically messy film. One which shares a lot in common with last year�s INTERSTELLAR, Christopher Nolan�s cosmically-minded misfire, in that they both aim for futuristic inspiration with the help of an A-lister, a few cute kids, and wall-to-wall special effects, but come up incredibly short in the movie magic department.
It begins at the 1964 World's Fair in Queens, New York where we learn via an 11-year old inventor wannabe named Frank Walker (Thomas Robinson), the kid in this world who�ll grow up to be George Clooney, that there�s a portal to another dimension accessible though the �It�s A Small World� ride.
Frank was let into the alternate realm which encases an elaborate CGI-ied shiny city full of jet packs, flying cars, and gravity-defying wonders (like floating pools) of all kinds, by a young girl (Raffey Cassidy) named Athena, but he's discovered and kicked out by the Governor of Tomorrow, David Nix (Hugh Laurie).
Flashing forward to the present we meet Florida teen Casey Newton (Britt Robertson), the daughter of a NASA engineer (Tim McGraw), who finds a mysterious pin with the Tomorrowland logo. When she touches the pin it transports her to the same parallel dimension we saw previously, but, trouble is, when she moves forward she walks into the walls of the real world.
To figure out what�s going on with this alternate realm and to save both worlds from, of course, impending destruction, Casey teams up with the grown up and Frank (Clooney) and Athena. Our heroes are chased by black-clad MATRIX-style robot bad guys led by the slick Matthew MacCaull, through a few explosive set pieces that have some instances of violence that are a bit surprising for a PG-rated family film.
My friend Will Fonvielle, of the blog Filmvielle, joked that INTERSTELLAR could�ve been named EXPOSITION: THE MOVIE, but this film could easily win that title as there�s so many talky passages between the fights and the chases bogging the pace down. And that dialogue is so full of earnest yet infinitely tedious clich�s, about how mankind has invented its own doom, and how if we have faith we can change things, that even Clooney�s charm can�t elevate or make gel any of this mediocre material.
Bird, who co-wrote the film with Damon Lindelof (Lost, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS, WORLD WAR Z), cinematographer Claudio Miranda (LIFE OF PI), and scores of visual design artists craft an immaculately vivid landscape, but it�s not anything we haven�t seen before. The imagery that they keep trying to wow us with is the kind of stuff that whizzes by in the background in like say, the city in GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, but here as the main attraction it loses my interest pretty quickly.
That�s not to say there�s no fun to be had here. Several sequences have supreme watchability (I stole that from a Bud Light ad: �supreme drinkability�), like one involving a hidden rocket inside the Eiffel Tower. But the film speeds through its best ideas such as that there was a secret society founded by visionaries Gustave Eiffel, Tesla, Thomas Edison, and H.G. Welles at the 1889 World�s Fair, while it lingers on its worst ones - i.e. the inconsistencies of how this alternate retro-future dimension and our world intersect.
There�s also the factor that there folks like Keegan-Michael Key and Kathryn Hahn, as the proprietors of a sci-fi toys and comics store called �Blast from the Past,� (full of Easter Eggs like IRON GIANT memorabilia), in a big shoot-out/fight scene that doesn�t play at all to those comic actors� strengths. Same could be said for Laurie in the extremely anticlimatic finale, though he at least gets the obligatory speech in before the end.
After the heights of AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON and MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, Bird has the first big spectacular dud of the summer on his hands. As much as I admire the ambition, and all the attempts at mind-bending spectacle, this film's ultimate message of hope rings hollow.
Upon seeing that it all comes down to the exclusionary notion of a select group of visionaries being chosen by the superiors from an unknown dimension to save the world, I couldn't help but wonder how all those folks popping up in the vast fields outside the art deco streamlined utopian city won't just be walking into walls over and over.
So it's FUNNY GAMES if FUNNY GAMES wasn't pretentious self-fellating bullshit - color me onboard. The hook this time is that Roth is (supposedly) dialing back on the gore in favor psychological torment, which I don't think the radical prospect it'll likely be treated as by mainstream critics: Roth's secret has never been his willingness to spill blood, but his willingness to spill it in defiance of audiences' expectations of narrative "rightness." The notorious blood-bathing sequence in HOSTEL II isn't just horrifying because of what's happening, but because it's happening completely without reason to the most likable/vulnerable character in the film without even the fig-leaf of "the naughty kids die first" perverse cosmic justice of the FRIDAY THE 13TH or NIGHTMARE cycles. Which, unfortunately, means that French bulldog is probably toast :(
He's also insidiously skilled at breaking movie-taboos you don't realize are taboos until you see them broken: the shots showing the girls' (apparently?) destroying his wife and childrens' belongings just to fuck with him are for some reason so much more distrubing conceptually than the torture shots. He's also delightfully unafraid to follow the story to a logical point without caring if there's a "bad" message you could take away - it's easy to imagine a version of this premise framing the home-invaders' as sort-of righteous ("angy angels of vengeance punishing a suburban patriarch for adulterous Skinemax-fantasy indulgence") but you can likely count on Roth to stick with his favorite themes of innate human shittiness and evil existing for its own sake.
Either way, we'll find out whenever Lionsgate decides to release this. I imagine it's going to be a limited-theatrical/VOD thing like most semi-indie horror these days, but I'd hope the studio who knew a phenomenon when they saw it in the original SAW would understand what they've potentially got here. Keanu is very much "back" in the wake of JOHN WICK, and even if Roth's name doesn't carry the cache with mainstream audiences it does with horror fans the "Every dude's fantasy goes baaaaaad!" hook in the trailers could easily turn this into "see it to discuss it" phenomenon like FATAL ATTRACTION (or, more recently, GONE GIRL.)
Okay, you're in charge. I just really didn't expect this to be the second most-request thing to see written up. But, okay. Here's how I'd pitch a hypothetical re-invention of CAPTAIN PLANET to a movie studio.
To be fair, this one presents a different challenge from MEGA MAN: Instead of trying to stretch a plot out of a fairly simple (storywise) set of video games, the goal here is not simply to turn a superhero cartoon into a feature film but to "retool" the mythos of the franchise itself from the ground up. To put it charitably, CAPTAIN PLANET was a weird creature - ostensibly an bit of well-intentioned ecological-proselytizing aimed at 90s schoolkids, it was also filtered through the... interesting prism of creator/back Ted Turner's eccentric personal take on the subject and the genre. On top of all that, a lot of it's then-relevant political/social/scientific context has shifted over the decades and likely needs a second look.
Anyway...
Here we go: OPEN on pre-historic Earth. We witness the animal residents of a small island frantically fleeing what at first appears to be a huge earthquake.
The "quake" is actually the arrival of ZARM, an absolutely massive creature moving across the ocean and soon overtaking and obliterating the island. Zarm is pure Lovecraftian nightmare-fuel: Tall as a mountain and wide as a continent, so big it's almost impossible to comprehend. What of it is visible above the ocean surface (presumably it's "legs" go all the way down to the sea floor) is a mass of heaving, slime-covered bulk, with seemingly thousands of eyes, hundreds of "mouths" and dozens of huge arms, all ranging in shape from resembling the limbs of humans, mammals, reptiles, insects, even tentacles. It's very presence is toxic - the sea boils for miles around it, and "vents" in its body spews clouds noxious smoke into the air... and it is heading for the mainland.
On a cliff overlooking the sea stand four SHAMANS (think wizards, but as cavemen) staring out at the approaching Zarm with grim determination. Each holds a staff topped with CRYSTAL representing (respectively) Earth, Wind, Water and Fire.
The Shamans exchange a look and raises their staffs in unison, creating an energy-storm over the water from which emerges CAPTAIN PLANET...
...but not the one we know (and not called that yet - if the Shamans spoke, they'd call him "The Champion.") This guy looks more like Zeus: Burly, bearded and wearing a toga (the blue skin/green hair look is in effect, but with an "inner glow" - think Doctor Manhattan.)
The Champion engages Zarm, firing energy-blasts, calling down lightning, summoning wind conjuring tidal-waves and even heaving massive chunks of earth; but none of it is effective. The monster cannot be stopped.
At the cliffs, one of the Shamans notices a fifth man (looking similar to the others) crouched amid some rocks away from them, also watching the action. Whoever this is, he's recently lost a fight: covered in bruises, cuts and blood; he watches the battle with a mysterious, dark gaze.
The Champion sees something on one of the island-size mounds of rock he's unsuccessfully tossed into Zarm's path: The revealed fossilized skeleton of a Dinosaur. It gives him an idea.
Using what appears to be an utterly tremendous reserve of his strength, The Champion takes command of gravity itself, willing Zarm almost completely out of the water and manipulating huge energy fields to compress and crush the creature alive. It roars in anger and (maybe?) pain, which thrills the Shamans but seems to concern the mysterious fifth man.
With the last of his power, The Champion forces Zarm (now compressed almost-entirely into a churning mass of viscous liquid) down through the water and into the crust of the Earth itself, using the last of his power to seal the somehow still-living beast there for good. Exhausted to the point of breaking, The Champion sagely intones (in caveman-speak) "The Power is Yours!" before once again becoming energy and scattering to oblivion.
Victorious, the four Shamans walk away from the cliffs. They pass by the fifth man in the distance, deliberately paying him no mind. Lingering, we now see that he, too is a Shaman - or at least was: We see that his Staff is broken in two, and he carries pieces a broken Crystal.
We cut to The Present, HOPE ISLAND - in this version a small privately-owned island in general area of MICRONESIA.
There is no (real) incarnation of Gaia in this version. Hope Island, we soon learn, is owned by movie star BAMBI BLYTHE and serves as a fully-staffed research facility for Bambi's scientist sister DR. BARBARA BLYTHE, who oversees a staff conducting experiments in geo-engineering and environmental science.
Blythe (Barbara) is brilliant and cares sincerely about saving the planet, but is a figure of controversy, viewed as the walking symbol of the "Silicon Valley-ification" of environmentalism by supporters and enemies alike for her willingness to embrace unorthodox chemical and technological solutions to pollution-reduction. Detractors in both mainstream and radical-but-in-the-other-direction environmentalism have nicknamed her "Doctor Blight."
Most controversial are implications that she supports radical approaches to ecological-restoration, such as forced-relocation of human populations to "re-wild" key areas and reducing aid to both at-risk people and animals in order to encourage eco-beneficial population-reduction in the long-term. Privately, Blight is adherent of the Earth-Echinus Hypothesis or "Gaia Theory," a belief that Earth itself is a sentient organism which she hopes to communicate with. She shares this extent of her philosophy only with MAL, an artificial intelligence program similar to IRON MAN's J.A.R.V.I.S.
This information is conveyed during a charity event on the island, which includes the introduction of four exceptional teenagers from around the world who have been selected as Blythe's top interns (a public-goodwill stunt mostly of Bambi's design that Barbara essentially tolerates). Yup, this is where our re-imagined PLANETEERS will come from:
WHEELER: On the series he was the dumb, boorish, conspicuously-consumptive American who was wrong about everything (so lessons could be learned). This Wheeler is an entirely new guy: A crunchy, dreadlocked, stoner-affecting skateboard enthusiast from Portland. A good guy and smarter than he lets on, but it's clear that his environmentalism (like his vegetarianism and "spirituality") are things he first came to for very surface-level reasons.
SABIYA: A bookish, self-consciously serious woman of Saudi Arab descent and of Muslim heritage, replacing Linka because it's no longer "novel" in 2015 for a Russian to be on the same team as an American and inexcusable for an "international" team to not feature any membership from the Middle East. The "hardcase" of the team.
KWAME: The oldest (but only by a few years) of the team, the son of a wealthy Rwandan businessman who instead wishes to study geology and worked for a time fighting poachers in wildlife preserves. Kind and generous, but also a reflexively skeptic who does not fully trust Blythe.
GI: Effectively the same character as the series, but definitively from China instead of "Asia." Physical and fun-loving, the most outgoing and "social" of the group; but also the most reflexively loyal to Dr. Blythe, whom she idolizes more like a rock star than a scientist (or a boss.)
We witness Gi's devotion firsthand when she (nearly) physically assaults a JOURNALIST who corners Blythe with "gotcha" questions at the event. Specifically, why have geologists traceable to her been seen around an (allegedly) grossly-exploitative mining operation run by the notoriously-unethical minerals-speculator LUTIN PLUNDER in South America?
The reason? Well, as far as the press and her interns known, Blythe is merely trying to conduct a secret survey of pollution caused by Plunder's mining. But in reality, Blythe believes that Plunder has unwittingly unearthed evidence of... "something" tied to an old legend about Shamanic crystals that could summon an Earth Spirit, which she believes to be tied to her Gaia Theory fixation. You see where this is going.
Blythe and the interns travel to the mine, ostensibly so that they (the interns) can collect samples but mainly so that she can try to purchase Plunder's aid in looking for "her" crystals.
A protest group of locals shows up (flanked by a NEWS TEAM) to cause unrest at the mine, inadvertently drawing the interns into a messy brawl. In the chaos, one of the protesters - a young teenaged boy named Ma-Ti - manages to fall into a deep pit, so the interns work together to get him out.
While extracting Ma-Ti, the team serendipitously discovers the hiding place of The Crystals, which Gi discreetly takes away to Blythe (but not so discreetly that Ma-Ti doesn't notice.)
At her "pop-up" camp/lab nearby, Blythe explains to the interns what's what: The Crystals are part of a legend about a Shamanic order on pre-historic Earth that could call on the elements to conjur a Champion who would fight for the Planet. She hopes to awaken their power and use The Champion's power to save Earth.
Wheeler notes that some of the "evidence" (mainly scans of cave drawings and old tablets) shows five Shamans, not four. Apparently, part of the legend involves the excommunication of a "betrayer" Shaman whose fifth crystal was a corrupting force that led him to side with The Destroyer (Zarm.) Final victory came only when he was cast out and his crystal neutralized.
Everything is interupted by an explosion at Plunder's mine that shakes the area, causing Ma-Ti (who'd been on the roof) to fall into the room.
Blythe and the Interns go to the mine (Ma-Ti chases after), where they discover that Plunder's cut-rate techniques have set an underground gas pocket on fire, which has set off multiple fires around the mine and threatens to blow up Ma-Ti's village nearby.
An explosion causes Blythe to drop the case with the crystals, scattering them. By happenstance, Gi picks up the Water Crystal and accidentally conjures a blast of water that douses a nearby fire.
The other Interns (and Blythe) exchange glances and get to work, haphazardly claiming the Crystals analagous to their powers from the series (Sabiya takes "Wind") and set about using them to contain the chaos... with mixed success. Frantically pulling old translations of the legend out of Mal, Blythe instructs them to do the "Let our powers combine" routine, summoning The Champion.
The Champion appears as before, but only at first - his physical form shifts around based on which power he's using or which Intern is calling out commands. He contains the explosions and secures the area, but while the others are impressed, Ma-Ti takes notice that The Champion appears indifferent to the humans or property amid what he's "saving."
The Champion senses that the gas pocket is still burning, set to cause another explosion "near the lake" and takes off. Ma-Ti tells the others that's where his village is, and they need to go control his (demonstrably) actions so he doesn't destroy it trying to save everything else.
Plunder boards his escape helicopter, ordering his underlings to "destroy the files, remove all traces." His assistant, already on the chopper, informs him that they should head out to sea because "Sludge has made a find."
The Champion wants to prevent the animals in the lake from being hurt by the explosion under the surface, and is blasting an "escape channel" for the water - right through the village, with only a cursory order for the people to get out of the way. The Interns arrive as the makeshift "river" ferries the fish etc into a temporary new pond, but the gas-explosion sends rocks and fire raining down on the village.
Ma-Ti and the Interns secure/evacuate the village (Ma-Ti rescues his pet monkey, SUCHI) while The Champion subdues the explosion and returns the lake to it's place, departing when the work is done. The villagers are confused and upset, and the News Team from before is capturing images that make the ostensible heroes look less than heroic by the time Blythe arrives - explaining to an questioning Mal that the best way to come out on top here is "Publicity."
Ma-Ti catches a fleeting glimpse of a strange figure (the "Betrayer" Shaman?) watching the scene, then vanishing.
At a huge press event on Hope Island, Blythe rolls out "THE PLANETEERS" (the Interns in modern variations on their uniforms from the series) as an initiative of her foundation, also revealing the conversion of the Crystals into RINGS and an intent to "re-brand" The Champion ("a manifestation of both The Elements and The Planeteers' collective will,") as CAPTAIN PLANET ("Superheroes are very big right now.") Furthermore, Ma-Ti has been brought-on as an "honorary" Planeteer for his heroics at the mine (and a face-saving gesture.)
But privately, Blythe has kept fragments of the Crystals left over from the Rings, and has Mal constructing a machine she believes will let her communicate with The Earth itself - not just the "avatar" her interns can now summon.
Plunder meets with his associate, SLY SLUDGE, on an oil-scouting ship in the middle of the ocean. Sludge reveals that he has discovered "seismic evidence" of a massive oil deposit in place under the seabed where "no oil has any business being, geographically speaking." Plunder orders his lackeys to start securing drilling rights to the area and to "Call the pig man."
You see where this is going: The "oil" Sludge has discovered is the spot where the remains of Zarm are still trapped.
On Hope Island, The Planeteers train to understand their new powers and to get "in sync" to better command Captain Planet when summoned. Officially, Ma-Ti's "honorary" job is to help them help Planet act with greater empathy, but Blythe is more interested in them getting Planet to manifest in the form that "tested well" (read: the version from the show.)
During this training, The Planeteers' personalities and relationships develop. Wheeler thinks it's a big game, and bonds with Ma-Ti through shared (relative) immaturity and Ma-Ti's ability to detect his (Wheeler's) growing, akward crush on Sabiya - who has become fixated on doing her own studies of the legends they've now found themselves participating in. Kwame emerges as the presumed team leader, but also bonds with Ma-Ti over similar family backgrounds.
Only Gi is cold to the younger member, owing to her unquestioning loyalty to Blythe; whom she hopes to impress with her creation of a supersonic, solar-fueled transport vehicle (The GEO-CRUISER.)
We also witness broadcasts (from the PLUNDER NEWS CHANNEL - Fox News, basically) of an editorial show hosted by DUKE NEWCOMB, a blustering bully in the Hannity/O'Reilly/Limbaugh mold who wears a Hawaiian shirt and rails against environmentalists in general and Blythe's Planeteer Initiative specifically; even taking exception to their use of "pagan witchcraft" re: the Rings. He also reports (unfavorably) on international political movements attempting (with little success) to stop Plunder Inc. ("Damn right he's my boss - he's a lot of people's bosses, because Looten Plunder is a job creator!") from buying the previously mentioned drilling rights.
Ma-Ti has a nightmare-within-a-nightmare wherein he sees a glimpse of Zarm, "wakes" to see The Betrayer standing over his bed, then wakes up for real.
Plunder begins construction on an oil-drilling platform, overseen by his underling HOGGISH GREEDLY, who is indeed pig-like in appearance.
Ma-Ti questions Sabiya about The Betrayer's role in the legends, which all appear to say the same thing: The Betrayer's Crystal held a non-elemental power, and whatever it was was "corrupt" and led him to side with "The Destroyer" (Zarm) over Earth; leading him to be cast out and enabling Earth to be saved. The translations are all rough, but they call this fifth power "HEART" ("What kind of stupid power is 'Heart?'" asks Wheeler) which most scholars have taken to mean that it had emotion or mind-control functions.
The Planeteers and Blythe watch Newcomb report on a protest against an aging nuclear power plant in the American Midwest. The protesters believe that the plant had a near-meltdown days ago, and that repairs are being covered up "in house" to avoid inspection. Blythe decides that investigating this issue could be a perfect opportunity to introduce Captain Planet to the public, and over Ma-Ti's concerns dispatches The Planeteers to the scene.
At the plant protest, Kwame and Sabiya's powers detect irregularities in the air/earth that indicate something has indeed gone wrong at the plant. Inside, we see that the containment systems are failing and the workers are furious that they are being prevented from summoning more substantial help.
Over Ma-Ti's protestations (too soon, not ready, etc) they summon Captain Planet - this time looking like the one you remember from the show but affecting a patronizing "50s Superman" overconfidence - to go investigate/help the situation. Seeing Planet fly into the plant, Duke orders his camera-crew to follow him into the buildings.
Planet begins to secure the core from meltdown, but the Planeteers (prodded by Ma-Ti) entreat him to rescue the workers first. He does, but only after prodding and it's clearly not his first priority: When he attempts to extract Newcomb, the bigmouthed journalist scoffs and feigns resistance... and Planet lets him be and immediately moves on - leaving Duke incredulous.
The workers are safe (but no one can find Newcomb...), but the meltdown begins to occur anyway. The Captain prevents mass-disaster by drawing all radiation and fallout into himself and expelling the energy as a concentrated beam safely into the sun. It works, but he collapses and returns to the Rings; explaining that prolonged contact with pollution/impurities can weaken him.
None the less, Captain Planet & The Planeteers are heroes. We see them hit the talk show circuit, parade and sports-event appearances, multiple vignettes of Captain Planet and his "pals" fighting back against various ecological calamities: Forest-fires, drought-blighted cities, chemical spills, dust-storms, garbage overflow, e-waste dumping, etc. The public loves it - and even Plunder News is getting rich off anti-Planeteer stories and the "mystery" of the still-missing Duke Newcomb.
Amid the world-saving, we also see the Planeteers adjusting to their new roles: Wheeler takes to celebrity like he was born into it, and when the press zeroes in on the obvious chemistry between him and Sabiya she finds herself coming out of her shell, too. Kwame is the "serious" face of the team, appearing on news shows, speaking at graduations, meeting with fundraisers and businessmen, etc; but he's also bonding more strongly with Ma-Ti (who, incidentally, still finds himself glimpsing "The Betrayer" in crowds and shadows.) Gi is also friendly with Ma-Ti, and confides in the boy that she's confused by numbers and data Blythe now has her crunching and testing without any research context...
Meanwhile, the countdown to completion continues at Plunder's oil platform, with a test-probe finding access to the Zarm "oil" - a bit of which leaks into the water, mutating some small sea-bugs into dog-sized insect creatures that climb up onto the platform, only to be driven off by Greedly's mercenaries in a brief action beat. Plunder orders it covered up, and also receives "big news."
Plunder News broadcasts "recently recovered" footage uploaded to their servers automatically by Duke Newcomb's remote cameras, showing Cap leaving Newcomb to die edited to remove Newcomb making a scene just beforehand. The media turns against The Planeteers.
An argument breaks out, wherein Ma-Ti angrily tells his older friends that they ARE partly to blame, because Captain Planet follows their lead and they have not given sufficient care to make him empathetic. He runs away.
The older Planeteers go to Doctor Blythe, inadvertently interupting her in the midst of "secret research" - they discover that she has used leftover material from converting the Crystals to Rings to build a device through which she is trying to communicate with Earth itself... and what communicating she's done has driven her a bit mad: She's been purposefully avoiding overly-humanitarian missions for the team, because she now firmly believes that saving The Planet at the expense of human life/safety is the PROPER course of action because drastic population-reduction is the only long-term solution to reverse ecological decline.
The Planeteers (especially an enraged/betrayed Gi) demand to know whether she planned to use Captain Planet AGAINST humankind, but her answer (which was feeling like a "yes") is interupted by Plunder News running "shocking footage" of the aftermath of the mutant-critter attack on the oil platform with the heavy implication that the creatures could have been called forth by The Planeteers. Lutin Plunder himself appears and announces (along with the activation of the oil platform) that armed troops under orders from Interpol are heading to secure Hope Island and "question" the now-hated Planeteers and Blythe.
The troops arrive. The Planeteers decided against summoning Captain Planet, instead using their Ring powers to subdue but not harm the attackers while they try to escape.
Ma-Ti is injured amid the chaos but is saved from capture by... The Betrayer, who "teleports" himself, the boy and Suchi away.
Blythe is too immersed in her Earth-communing machine to even try escaping, but when troops enter to take her she throws a fit - setting off a chain-reaction that overloads the equipment and triggers an electrical explosion.
The Planeteers hide out in the underground launch-platform of the Geo-Cruiser, which they conceal themselves inside by way of the craft's cloaking technology.
Ma-Ti finds himself recupperating in a mysterious cave with The Betrayer, who shows him a strange pool of water that shows images of his thoughts.
Plunder holds a gala press-event for the activation of his platform (with Greedly out of sight), but after the initial burst of proper oil something strange begins to happen: The liquid coming up isn't "normal" oil, and it's moving on it's own! Down below, the familiar tendrils and arms of Zarm - but now "made of" oil - are punching up through the sea bed.
From inside the Cruiser, the Planeteers observe international news reports of a "monster" attacking the drill platform, with Sabiya recognizing Zarm from the legends. They decide they have to go and use Captain Planet to stop it, even with Ma-Ti still missing.
Blythe - not dead, but with a horrible burn-scar now covering one side of her face - is shocked awake within the rubble of her lab by the same reports appearing on Mal's screen. She also recognizes "The Destroyer," but looks perversely glad about it.
The Betrayer shows Ma-Ti the truth of his own story via the pool: His Heart powers led him to understand "something" about Zarm that others didn't...
The Planeteers arrive at the oil platform, hovering over the scene as the writhing mass of oil continues to take Zarm's original form to a greater and greater degree - so massive they can't even begin to imagine how to beat it.
The oil workers and Greedly's mercs scatter and flee in terror. So does Greedly, but a spellbound Plunder holds him back: "Do you realize what that is? Living oil! Endlessly renewable... not that the customers need to know that! And it could be mine - all mine!" He's gone mad.
The Planeteers summon Captain Planet, who immediately glitches back into his earlier "Champion" form upon recognizing Zarm. He engages the monster like a "man" possessed - recognizing no commands from the Planeteers. "I hope he knows what he's doing..."
Scattered fire and energy blasts cause the oil platform to become unstable and catch fire. The Planeteers argue over aiding the escape of the workers or trying to reason with Captain Planet - who Sabiya argues will NOT be convinced to put a rescue over the battle.
Calling "Enough!" to the argument, Kwame grabs the Cruiser controls and steers for the platform - "Because that's what Ma-Ti would want."
Back in the cave, Ma-Ti's visions become clearer as he suddenly finds himself glimpsing the "origin" of Zarm: A seemingly harmless moss-like organism that crashes to prehistoric Earth attached to a meteorite and grows rapidly after exposure to the planet's resources.
On the platform, Wheeler and Sabiya use their powers to mitigate the fires while Kwame and Gi use theirs to create a combination land-bridge/parted-sea for the escaping workers to flee on, with Gi raising several sunken ships to use as lifeboats.
Sabiya is attacked by Greedly, who overpowers her until Wheeler knocks him away using an equipment dolly as a makeshift skateboard. They wrestle, eventually tumbling to a lower part of the platform. Sabiya tries to aim her Ring at them...
...but Plunder sneaks up and whacks her hand with his cane, causing her Ring to fall off!
Planet/"Champion" is thusly robbed of his power to fly - he tumbles down to the ocean and is promply smashed by one of Zarm's increasingly-solid tentacles. He explodes - the energy dissapating back to the Rings.
The workers arrive at the mainland. Kwame and Gi turn the Cruiser back to the battle, unsure what comes next.
Wheeler breaks free of Greedly, but the pig-man deftly avoids his fire blasts: "Are you insane? You should be helping us fight that monster!"
Back at the cave, Ma-Ti's visions crystalize as he begins to see the original battle, but from Zarm's perspective - complete with The Champion calling it "monster." Ma-Ti wakes up in a fit, shouting "I AM NOT A MONSTER!!!" Then, to The Betrayer: "You saw. You understood it... and they didn't want to listen."
The Betrayer nods, hands Ma-Ti the broken Crystals... which magically transform into a Planeteer HEART Ring in his hand. The Betrayer turns into a spinning column of smoke, which engulfs Ma-Ti...
On the platform, Plunder pulls a SWORD from his cane and swings it at a diving Sabiya, keeping her from her Ring and ranting about his "right" and "destiny" to control Zarm.
Greedly nearly crushes Wheeler by throwing a heavy iron box at him, but the timely re-arrival of the Geo-Cruiser knocks him off the platform and into the ocean below. Kwame, Wheeler and Gi assemble to help Sabiya... but are stopped when Ma-Ti materializes in from of them! "Geez! You almost gave me a heart attack!" "Funny you should say that..."
Plunder prepares a killing blow for Sabiya, who rolls out of the way, grabs the other half of his cane and engages him to a near standstill... until the others arrive.
Ma-Ti (having arrived with the others) shouts Plunder's name, subsequently blasting him with energy from the Heart Ring: Plunder is struck by a vision of himself as a child living in poverty in rural Australia. As he longingly eyes the shiny, stuff-packed car of a wealthy family driving past, he asks his (saintly-looking) mother why must they have so little; with her cautioning that "Some folks need to have much because no matter what they get, they'll always want more. Think how sad that must be." Shell-shocked, as if in a teary-eyed daze, the adult Plunder drops his sword and staggers away, mumbling "What have I done?" to himself.
The Planeteers - at last including Ma-Ti - assemble, with Ma-Ti explaining to the others what he's learned: "Heart" power grants him (among other things) the ability to feel the emotions of all things... including Zarm!
"It's not a monster or a destroyer... or at least it doesn't mean to be! It's an animal - meant to live in deep space, but it fell here! It's frightened, confused, just trying to survive - and it just keeps growing because nothing on Earth can kill it. The fifth Shaman tried to tell the others... but they didn't understand. They thought he betrayed them..."
The other Planeteers exchange looks, understanding that they cannot make this mistake again. They summon Captain Planet again (with Kwame finally saying "Let our powers combine!" for the first time) ...and this time (at last!) it's fully the Captain you remember from the show - with the sunny personality and the punny wisecracks.
Planet engages Zarm, but this time fighting to control instead of harm. Unloading all his various powers in well-timed combinations to weaken the creature and ultimately calm it down. Summoning the power of gravity, he returns Zarm to outer space where it belongs, with Ma-Ti informing the others "I think it is... happy."
As a final touch, Planet rounds up Greedly and Plunder, depositing them in front of The Planeteers before returning to the Rings with "The Power is Yours!"
News reports worldwide herald the vindication of The Planeteers and the heroism of Captain Planet. Hoggish Greedly and Sly Sludge are sentenced to prison, but legal manuvering keeps the (evil again) Looten Plunder free to continue aquiring wealth (and obsessing about Captain Planet...)
Bambi Blythe apologizes to the team for the behavior of her sister (who is still "missing") and announces that she intends to continue funding Hope Island; but as a base of operations for The Planeteers and their missions - in fact, a lot of other famous donors have stepped up to help as well (read: cameo-time for Ted Turner, Jane Fonda and whichever of the original "all-star" vocal cast wants to show up.)
EPILOGUE: The site of the power-planet meltdown, night, months later. Someone in a biohazard suit is examining the wreckage with a geiger-counter hooked up to an iPad. There's a rumbling, and up from the crumbled concrete emerges... Duke Newcomb - alive, but transformed into the familiar rock-skinned glowing DUKE NUKEM from the cartoon!
"Who are you?"
There's laughing: "Who indeed?" It's MAL's voice - he's on the iPad. The mask comes off the biohazard suit, revealing Dr. Blythe now wearing her hair to cover her facial-scar.
"...Barbara Blythe?"
"Blight. DOCTOR BLIGHT."
THE END.
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For the first time in a long time, I feel like I�ve been derelict in my duties as a Generation X film geek. Oh sure, me and my kind have done a fine job making sure that STAR WARS, RAIDERS, GOONIES, EVIL DEAD, RAMBO the collective John Carpenter and even fucking TRON remained at the ubiquitous forefront of pop-culture to such a degree that our Millennial ascendants couldn�t have avoided absorbing their supposed import if they wanted to� but I now realize we kinda forgot to tell you how great the MAD MAX movies were. Which means a lot of my audience probably only knows legendary Australian filmmaker George Miller as the guy behind� eh, well, a string a beloved childhood classics � but still! He did also invent the post-apocalyptic automotive warfare movie.
So� sorry about that, but in our defense the guy who played �Mad Max� went all cuckoo for Christ and then just plain cuckoo and everything he was associated with got kinda uncomfortable to talk about. But whatever! Now Tom Hardy is playing Mad Max, so it�s all good again.
If you�ve never seen a MAD MAX movie before� well, it�s the future, we�ve almost run out of oil but instead of being in any way responsible about that we�ve basically let the entire planet go to shit except for all the gas-guzzling jacked-up cars on which we now rely more than ever and� egh, look, back in the 80s this sounded like ca-raaazy Science Fiction instead of an eventuality potentially only ONE more Bush Administration away.
But whatever! We rejoin mentally-unhinged wasteland-wandering hardcase Max Rockatansky doing what he does best: Getting swept up into chaotic events he wants no part of but can�t bring himself to abandon. As the film opens, he�s captured to be used as a human bloodbank for a heavily-armed death cult led by the bizarre tyrant Immorten Joe. But no sooner does Max get there than all-out war breaks out when Joe�s general Imperator Furiosa is revealed to have helped The Immorten�s private harem of breeding wives escape to the open road; triggering an extended (and I do mean across the entire length of the film) combat car-chase � with Max finding himself reluctantly joining Furiosa�s quest and helping her fend off the three or four maniacal factions pursuing them across the desert.
Yeah. That�s pretty much the movie: The good guys are driving a truckload of hotties across the apocalyptic outback, Death Metal Darth Vader and his skinhead-tweaker suicide army want them back, and they all chase eachother around in crazy customized battle-cars wailing on eachother with insane weapons and nature occasionally intervening in the form of a death-trap marsh and a sandstorm lightning-hurricane. The result is an action film the likes of which you�ve largely never seen before, a seamless fusion of the old-fashioned gritty lunacy Miller made famous in the original films and cutting-edge 21st Century digital technology and editing techniques that looks even better in the hands of a seasoned master � action filmmaking that blows by so fast and so confidently you almost don�t realize how hard it hits until a bit later; when the real depth beneath its deceptive simplicitly of storytelling.
It�s a conceit of both prior sequels in the franchise that Max is a charismatic candide-like figure who stumbles into other people�s adventures, but in FURY ROAD it�s more apparent than ever: This is very much Furiosa�s movie � she takes all the initiative, drives all the plot, has all the skin in the game, she even gets to drive the big main battle-truck and have the cool robot arm! Max spends most of the first hour with his mouth muzzled so he can barely speak, and even once he�s free he doesn�t talk all that much. This isn�t one of those movies where the title character is the only person on Earth who can save us all because the movie says so � he�s capable and good to have around (and, for the record, Hardy is a commanding enough presence as to make you forget the role was ever recast), but you get the sense Furiosa would�ve worked this one out okay enough on her own.
Theron proved herself a fearlessly great actress a long time ago, but Furiosa is a revelation � there likely won�t be a more strikingly original hero onscreen this year. Attention also needs to be paid to a revelatory strong turn by a commanding Rosie Huntington-Whitely, and a nuanced showing from Nicholas Hoult as a luckless would-be foot-soldier whose arc forms the philosophical spine of the story � and yes, I said philosophical!
While the subsequent-superstardom of Mel Gibson and the endlessly ripped-off popularity of the wacky custom cars have been the most enduring elements of the original MAD MAX movies, Miller�s *truly* fascinating conceit was imagining what a future of newly re-barbarianized humanity trying to assemble new cultures and civilizations out of the half-remembered remains of our own might look like. This time, though, there�s actually a big, loud, radical point being made; in a manner that would probably seem overly blunt and on the nose but feels downright subtle in a movie where one of Immorten Joe�s war rigs comes with an array of speakers and a guy with a flame-throwing guitar strapped to it like a human hood-ornament because why wouldn�t he have one of those?
See, Furiosa isn�t simply helping The Immorten�s wives get away from HIM, she�s helping them escape to her own homeland � a far-flung Matriarchy reigned over by grandmotherly Amazonian motorcyclists who follow a gentle path of nurture and nature-cultivation (but, y�know, with sniper-rifles and dirtbikes because this is a MAD MAX movie) where they hope to raise their offspring as anything BUT warlords, under a philosophical rallying cry of �Who killed the world?� asked in a way that leaves no doubt as to what the answer is. By contrast, the obscenely evil Immorten Joe rules over his subjects by way of a self-conjured religion comprised of equal parts car-culture, gun-worship, repurposed Viking mythology other and uber-masculine �honor culture� staples that�s yielded (among other things) an army of Skinhead suicide-soldiers called �Warboys� eager to die in battle for their surrogate daddy�s approval.
Yes, this time it�s a battle for the future course of human civilization, with the heavy implication that it�s stern father-figure patriarchs like Immorten Joe that got the world into this mess while Furiosa�s Amazon naturalists represent hope and progress. These are the kind of weighty ruminations you don�t generally expect from movies where flame-thrower guitarists are part of the set decoration.
Bottom line: This time, you can believe the hype. MAD MAX: FURY ROAD is one of the most brutal, bone-crunching action films recent memory, one of the boldest most original visual experiences of the year and � improbably � one of the smartest works of dystopian scifi to emerge from the current deluge. I know the film critic collective has overhyped this sucker to kingdom come, but� seriously, just go see it anyway � it kicks ass.
