FILM REVIEW OF ''D-DAY SURVIVOR" (2017)

Amateurish writing, directing, and editing undermine director Ian Vernon’s “D-Day Survivor” (** OUT OF ****), an interesting, low-budget World War II indie epic about a ‘lost patrol’ during the historic Normandy Invasion.  A staple of war movies is the saga about soldiers separated from their command with no idea where they are in the general scheme of things.  Clocking in at a sluggish 95-minutes, “D-Day Survivor” generates occasional bursts of violence, but the film loiters all the way to its explosive finale.  The first third introduces the offbeat characters, with a minor skirmish involving attempted homosexual rape.  Eventually, the last third drums up some traditional combat, with an assault on a German pillbox.  Independent filmmakers deserve more leeway because they have nowhere near the resources of their major studio counterparts.  Compensating for his tight-budget, Vernon breaks new ground in “D-Day Survivor” with the depiction of deviant sexuality in the ranks.  Meantime, cinematographer Ivan D. Rennov, who has worked with Vernon on three earlier films, exploits the lush color and idyllic rural setting to make everything appear scenic.  Despite its picture-postcard splendor, “D-Day Survivor” suffers from a hopeless lack of momentum, until an inevitable rendezvous with the French Resistance.  Predictably, the underground allows filmmakers to send a woman into combat and add a trifling romantic subplot. Vernon’s lack of creative polish undercuts his best intentions, but his thematic concerns redeem his derivative narrative.

Mind you, a title with “D-Day” in it conjures up images of Darryl F. Zanuck’s “The Longest Day” (1962), Robert Parrish’s “Up from the Beach (1965), Samuel Fuller’s “The Big Red One” (1980), and Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” (1998). Sadly, we see only the “Survivor” and nothing of “D-Day.”  You won’t see any big ships and landing craft with soldiers scrambling across barb-wired beaches while machine guns stitch the sand.  Once you get over missing the historic, June 1944, Allied beachhead landings, you can understand the different direction that Vernon pursues because he lacked the budget to recreate the landings.  Instead, he presents an obnoxious, homosexual, British soldier who holds his unwilling prey at gun point and threatens to rape him.  Nothing like “Deliverance” occurs, but the gay soldier’s aggression makes homosexuals look depraved. You won’t find material like this in most traditional World War II movies, apart from “The Imitation Game” (2014) with Benedict Cumberbatch.  Classic novelist James Jones depicted instances of this in his World War II book trilogy that contained “From Here to Eternity” and “The Thin Red Line.”  Vernon scores a first with this unsavory subject matter which would have been objectionable in traditional World War II movies.  Happily, Vernon’s use of the initiation theme, plunging innocents into combat for their first baptism of blood on the battlefield, bolsters “D-Day Survivor.”  These characters and their actions stand out in “D-Day Survivor,” especially a reflective U.S. Army private. The quartet of young men who constitute the collective protagonist here face a gauntlet that shapes their respective fates.  Some characters can be annoying, particularly a vulnerable soldier who repeats virtually every word uttered by the other characters. A hopeless cretin who comes through at the least expected moments, he provides comic relief that is rarely humorous. 

British Army Paratrooper Private Johnny Barrows (newcomer Paul Harrison) finds himself alone in a field somewhere in France.  He bailed out over France with his battalion of paratroopers, but they missed their drop zone (like so many did on D-Day), and the Germans wiped out his comrades, leaving him the sole survivor.  Barrows crosses paths briefly with an affable German soldier, and they swap candy.  Later, our hero differentiates Germans from Nazis during a conversation with an arrogant Gestapo officer, Sturmbannfuhrer Dishelm (Richard Dobson of “Brood Parasite”), that they have captured.  Anyway, as they go their separate ways, the German soldier dies from a bullet in the back.  A British soldier fired on the German after Barrows allowed him to leave. Reluctantly, Barrows joins up with two lost British soldiers, Private Murphy (television actor James Boyland), his moronic, simple-minded friend, Private Fily (Guy Wills of “Looking for Eric”), and a taciturn American paratrooper, Private George (Adam Woodward of “The Black Prince”), who is suffering from shell shock.  This quartet trudge through rural France, with Murphy behaving like a bully.  Eventually, they come upon a U.S. Army jeep, with a dead driver and a defunct American general.  Since both jeep passengers are dead, Barrows suggests that they appropriate the vehicle.  They cruise down a road with Barrows behind the wheel.  Little do they know a German sign warning them about land mines on the road has been knocked down.  They hit a land mine, but they survive the explosion.

Eventually, our heroes ambush three Germans in a staff car and capture a Gestapo officer.  Since he is carrying a satchel of papers, they decide to bring him back alive.  Later, they encounter the French Resistance, and Margaret (Sophie Skelton of “Another Mother’s Son”) helps Barrows and his men launch an attack on a German outpost with a Tiger tank parked nearby.  Tactlessly, the Tiger tank is never utilized.  Presumably, not only Vernon but also our heroes are searching for bigger game.  They find it after they confront a German pillbox that has kept American troops pinned down.  The problem with Vernon’s pillbox is that it isn’t as sturdy as the pillbox that is devastated in an infinitely better World War II movie, Don Siegel’s “The Hell with Heroes” (1962), where exhausted G.I.s sought to stay alive under worse circumstances.  The destructive toll that the pillbox exacts in “The Hell with Heroes’ is extreme.  Comparatively, the “D-Day Survivor” pillbox is a picnic.  Hampered by his shoe-string budget, Vernon focuses on how these young, inexperienced soldiers cooperate to accomplish their objectives.  Only after they succeed as a team are they prepared to destroy the pillbox.  Nevertheless, “D-Day Survivor” qualifies as a routine World War movie.

FILM REVIEW OF "WONDER WOMAN" (2017)

The Adam West & Burt Ward “Batman” (1966) movie qualified as the first costume-clad crime fighter epic of the modern era.  Although women have figured prominently in all superhero sagas, DC Comics’ latest superhero origins extravaganza “Wonder Woman” (*** OUT OF ****) marks only the fifth time a woman has been cast as the title character in a blockbuster actioneer.  Earlier entries included “Supergirl” (1984) with Helen Slater; “Tank Girl” (1995) with Lori Petty; “Catwoman” (2004) with Halle Berry; and “Elektra” (2005) with Jennifer Garner.  Unfortunately, these four films failed to recoup their respective budgets at the box office.  (Before in the 1970s, Cathy Lee Crosby and Lynda Carter broke through the TV barrier and portrayed William Moulton Marston’s comic book creation Wonder Woman.  Crosby made one television feature, while Carter cavorted about for three seasons in a starry, patriotic costume with lots of cleavage. For the record, the Wonder Woman character made her DC Comics debut in their All-Star Comics in December 1941, and she fought Hitler’s Third Reich.)  Anyway, “Wonder Woman” is the only superhero movie about a heroine that can be classified as both a smashing critical and commercial success.  At last, little girls and feminists alike have a larger-than-life heroine as a role model that they can applaud in the eternal struggle against evil.  

Meantime, Warner Brothers should have released “Wonder Woman” before “Batman Vs Superman: Dawn of Justice.”  The earlier blockbuster introduced audiences to the iconic Amazon warrior Princess Diana (Israel model Gal Gadot) with her incandescent Lasso of Truth and her ritualistic sword--something like King Arthur’s Excalibur--who came to the rescue in the darkest hour of need to vanquish Lex Luthor’s genetically mutated monster Doomsday.  Sadly, Wonder Woman tangles with an adversary far less frightening than Doomsday in “Monster” director Patty Jenkins’ “Wonder Woman.”  Instead, she clashes with Zeus’ son--the wicked God of War Ares--and triumphs over the dastard.  Primarily, “Wonder Woman” is a movie told in flashback about the formative years of the heroine’s life and the photograph taken of her with her mortal male companions in World War I.  Actress Gal Gadot will erase any memories of either Cathy Lee Crosby or Lynda Carter. “Wonder Woman” ranks as a spectacular movie until she scrimmages with Ares, who resembles the Wizard of Oz’s Tin Man high on bath salts.  Apart from that predictable climactic clash with Ares, “Wonder Woman” ranks as an exciting, first-rate adventure opus about our heroine shedding her naïve innocence as she blunders through an amoral world.

“Wonder Woman” unfolds in contemporary Paris, at the illustrious Louvre Museum. Diana works as a Curator in the Department of Antiquities.  A Wayne Enterprises armored car pulls up, and a uniformed guard delivers a locked valise to her office.  Diana recognizes Bruce Wayne’s logo on it.  Opening the valise, she admires a sepia-colored daguerreotype of her in her Wonder Woman outfit with four troubleshooters posed with her.  The significance of the photograph is that Wayne Enterprises, a.k.a. Batman, has sent her the original copy.  The picture revives Diana’s memories about her youth on the enchanted Uptonian island of Themyscira.  Eight-year old Diana (newcomer Lilly Aspell) yearns to be an Amazon warrior, but her mother, Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen of “Gladiator”) refuses to let her sister Antiope (Robin Wright of “Forrest Gump”) train her as a warrior.  Hippolyta warns her daughter, “Fighting doesn’t make you a hero.” Later, she calls Diana “the most precious thing in this world.” “I sculpted you from clay myself and begged Zeus to give you life.” Eventually, Hippolyta relents but tells Antiope that Diana must be the best Amazon on the island. Moreover, Diana should be able to defeat even Antiope!  Predictably, Diana (Gal Gadot of “Fast Five”) emerges from her training as the greatest Amazon.  Initially, when Zeus created the island paradise for the Amazons, he made it virtually impossible for anybody to find it.  As she is standing atop a cliff one day, Diana spots a plane as it penetrates the shield surrounding Themyscira.  The aircraft plummets into the ocean, and Diana plunges into the deep.  She rescues the aviator from the sinking plane and examines him on the beach.  Just as he recovers from the crash, Diana’s mother Hippolyta and her warriors ride up on a cliff overlooking the beach and spot German ships breaking through the invisible barrier.  Squads of German soldiers in the Kaiser’s Imperial Army storm the beach and open fire on the Amazons.  The intrepid pilot, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine of “Star Trek Beyond”), seizes a rifle from a soldier while the Amazon warriors let arrows galore fly at the Germans.  Incredibly, the Amazons repulse them!  Later, they learn from Trevor that he is an American secret agent masquerading as a German for the British.  Moreover, he has stolen a valuable notebook from a notorious German chemist, Dr. Mara (Elena Anaya of “Van Helsing”), who is testing a poison gas that will alter the outcome of the conflict.

The refreshing thing about “Wonder Woman” is her origins haven’t been told ad infinitum, like “Superman,” “Batman,” and “Spider-man.”  In fact, the set-up on Themyscira is one of the better parts, especially director Patty Jenkins’ choreography of the fight between the Germans and the bow & arrow wielding Amazons on the beach.  Anyway, Diana learns about the global tragedy of World War I and decides the only way the war will end is when she slays Ares.  Diana promises to help Steve Trevor escape from Themyscira if he will escort her to the war.  She takes the Lariat of Hestia, an incandescent rope that prompts captives in its twine to utter only the truth, her magical bracelets, and an impressive sword nicknamed ‘the Godkiller.’  The next best scene occurs on a World War I battlefield.  Wonder Woman emerges from the trenches and enters no-man’s land.  Germans from everywhere greet her with a hail of gunfire.  She uses her magical bracelets to deflect their bullets.  Gal Gadot acquits herself as well here as the eponymous character as she did in “Batman Vs Superman.”  Altogether, “Wonder Woman” amounts to a dame good movie!