olivia_sutton | Entries tagged with gina torres

Title: Serenity
Director: Joss Whedon
Date: 2005
Studio: Universal
Genre: SF, Action
Cast: Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Alan Tudyk, Morena Baccarin, Adam Baldwin, Jewel Straite, Sean Maher, Summer Glau, Ron Glass
Format: Color, Widescreen
DVD Format: R1, NTSC

"This is the captain, we have a little problem with our entry sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then explode." -- Capt. Mal Reynolds

"I aim to misbehave." -- Capt. Mal Reynolds

Another film I received as a gift, though I had seen Serenity in the theater, and liked it. Mind you, I liked it, not loved it. Serenity is the film sequel to the short-lived television series, Firefly. What is it about Firefly that its fans are about as rabid as Fundamentalists - and about as hard to convince you're really not interested? I've seen the TV show, and it just didn't catch my interest, for many reasons, only one of which is it's a Western (and a thinly disguised one at that) -- the heroes are also soldiers of the South who lost a Galactic Civil War. Think about that.

The film starts, without credits, with a prologue or teaser, showing Simon Tan breaking his sister, River, out of a government "research" facility. Yes, this is another "science is bad; government is bad" science fiction movie. I miss when SF meant adventure, wonder, and fun, instead of the now popular anti-science and anti-government parables. Anyway, Simon succeeds in getting River out, as we know, since the two were passengers on Capt. Mal Reynolds ship, Serenity. However, the film does, to it's credit, have a much more linear sense than the television series ever did, which helps considerably.

Mal and his crew are on a job, but River accidentally sees a subliminal message in a very weird commercial - and goes bonkers, then knocks out or kills everyone in a frontier bar. Mal and company return to Haven, Shepherd Book's community for shelter. They leave to pick-up the Companion, who had left to conduct her own business, and return to find everyone in Haven dead. But through River's actions, they now have a problem to solve: What is Miranda? Why does the Alliance (a system-wide government of several planets) want River dead? Just what is going on?

Eventually they discover Miranda is a planet -- a planet no one knows and no know talks about. They discover it's located beyond the Reaver band. Reavers are vicious killers - cannibals, and violent criminals. We see a Reaver attack early in the film, to explain to the audience how awful they are. Mal disguises his ship as a Reaver ship, to get through the band, un-harassed. This works. They find planet Miranda, but everyone there is dead. At first, it seems there's no obvious reason that everyone's dead -- no signs of environmental disaster, no signs of violence. But they discover a recording. The Alliance put Pax, a drug in the air system -- the drug had such a calming effect people stopped doing anything. But for about ten percent of the population, it had the opposite effect -- people went wild, and became monsterous, violent, killers. It other words, a bad drug reaction created the Reavers. The ultimate "bad trip". Not to mention that Pax, the drug that calms people to death, sounds an awful lot like "Bliss" - the drug that did the same thing in the Doctor Whoepisode "Gridlock". But ideas do run around.

Mal and company then have to get the recorded message to Mr. Universe, the ultimate TV/Media fan so he can broadcast it on all screens. The government agent who's been chasing them throughout the film gets there first, and kills Mr. Universe. But, Mal receives a message about a secondary transmitter (unfortunately, Mal does not erase or destroy the message -- so the agent also hears it). The conclusion of the film has what's left of Mal's band fighting a historic last stand, and getting injured one at a time, while Mal goes one on one against the agent before he can send out the message. Course, Mal wins, and he also doesn't kill the agent, just ties him up. River defeats the Reavers who had been after the remainder of Mal's shipmates. Book was killed in Haven and Wash is killed when Serenity makes a less than perfect landing.

Overall, though not a bad film by any means (the acting is very good, and the film has some very strong, and very different female characters), it also doesn't stand up that well. Some of the "shocks" of the film I remembered from having seen it six years ago, weren't shocking now because you expected them (the biggest of these is Wash's death, which really seems like a waste, and pointless). It's not a bad film, not by any means, but it's not a exceptional film either.

Recommendation: Do see it.
Rating: 3 out of 5 Stars
Next Film: Shall We Dance (1937)

Current Location: my home office
Current Music: nada

Posted to movie blog on 9/13/2011, somehow I forgot to cross-post it. Sorry about that folks. Remember, new movie reviews are always posted to my movie review blog on Blogger first.

Title: Justice League Crisis on Two Earths
Directors: Sam Lui, Lauren Montgomery
Date: 2010
Studio: Warner Brothers Animation
Genre: Action, Fantasy, Animation
Cast: William Baldwin, Mark Harmon, Chris Noth, Gina Torres, James Woods
Format: Color, Widescreen
DVD Format: R1, NTSC

"I can't believe we're having this discussion. Of course we're going to help." -- Wonder Woman
"She's right, that's what we do." -- Superman

"Might doesn't make right. It might seem that way sometimes, but in the long run it's the other way around. We're always stronger when we're doing the right thing." -- Rose Wilson (the alt-Earth president's daughter)

The movie opens with Lex Luther in the midst of a robbery and about to get caught. His partner, a guy in a jester's outfit gives his life, so Lex can escape. We soon discover this is an alternative Earth, and this Lex is a good guy -- the "Justice League", on this particular Earth, are known as the "Crime Syndicate" and are the bad guys. Lex dimension jumps to the Justice League Earth to ask for help.

After a short discussion, six of the seven Justice Leaguers go with Lex to his Earth -- Batman stays behind to oversee the construction of the Watchtower. On the other Earth, the Justice League discovers things are as Lex said -- the crime syndicate uses bribes and muscle to prevent police, attorneyes general, governments, etc from stopping them and the populace lives in limited terror (their day-to-day lives are "free" but if they don't toe-the-line in bowing down to the crime syndicate, they are subject to possibly even lethal rebuke), One person standing up to the crime syndicate is Rose, the president's daughter, much to her father's chagrin, as he made a deal with the crime syndicate years ago.

Unbeknownst to the president, things are about to go from bad to worse -- the crime syndicate now has a device that can destroy the whole planet. And Owlman (the evil Batman) wants to do even worse than that and destroy all the alternate Earths by unleashing the device that will destroy all realities on Earth Prime.

Meanwhile, Owlman sends Superwoman to the JL's reality to steal the trigger for the device. She fights Batman and gets the device, but Batman follows her when she escapes, by flinging himself into her transport beam. This costs him, as Superwoman beats him up again in another fight.

There is a fantastic fight sequence with each of the Justice Leaguers fighting their opposite numbers on the crime syndicate's home base on the moon. However, Owlman is able to locate Earth Prime and take the device there. Batman theorizes the only way to get to Owlman now is to have someone vibrate quick enough to open a portal. Convincing the crime syndicate they have to work together or all realities will disappear, Batman gets Johnny Quick to open the portal. Batman leaps through, he and Owlman have a philosophical discussion, then fight, then Batman sends him to an abandoned Earth. Owlman could escape, but he's so insane he decides not to, and is destroyed.

The movie is quite, quite good. The fight scenes are extremely well-realized, especially the climatic fight between the Justice League and their opposite numbers. James Woods is chilling as Owlman, reminding me a bit of characters from the film, Watchmen, though not his namesake (who was sort of a good guy). However, he's completely insane, having decided that because every choice results in a new reality -- nothing has any meaning, leading to his idea to destroy all reality (Hum, sound like Davros and his reality b*m b from DW?). There's a couple of other references to DW as well -- Owlman's plane has a Chameleon circuit, though I think it was Flash who asks 'What does that do?" before nearly getting run over by the invisible plane. The device itself, abbreviated, Q.E.D., , which was not working, is said to work when the Blinovitch Limitation Effect is eliminated.

Owlman's speech on Earth Prime is chilling -- but his decision to not save himself when Batman sends him to an abandoned world is even more so. Superwoman is also a complete psychopath, who enjoys hurting, maiming, and playing with people -- she and Owlman have a very twisted relationship. In one of her fights with Batman, she says to him, "That's going to cost you a rib," then takes her thumb and presses his side hard enough to break a rib. Batman is left gasping in pain.

Overall, definitely one of the better WB Animated DCAU movies, and I recommend it.

Recommendation: See it!
Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars
Next Film: L.A. Confidential

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