FILM REVIEW OF ''EX MACHINA'' (2015)

Nightmares won’t trouble you after watching the subtle but suspenseful science fiction fright flick “Ex Machina” (***1/2 out of ****) about a sentient robot with enough cunning to escape from its crafty creator.  This cautionary futuristic fable about artificial intelligence dramatizes the quintessential question pondered by all classic robot movies: can man design a robot that is not only conscious of the world around it but also has awareness of itself?  In his dazzling directorial debut, British novelist-turned-scripter Alex Garland refuses to pander to us with a spectacular “Star Wars” universe as a setting.  Instead, he relies rather on the sheer simplicity of a condo lab facility nestled in the middle of a far-flung mountain paradise.  This ultra-literate, atmosphere-laden chiller, with just enough full-frontal female nudity to earn an R-rating, occurs in the near future, not a decade down in the road but right around the corner.  Although it is a foregone conclusion that the sagacious robot will triumph over her creator and break out of captivity, Garland’s staging of the action building up to the escape is just as hypnotic as his gifted cast with Domhnall Gleeson and Oscar Isaac as the humans and Alicia Vikander and Sonoya Mizuno as the automatons.  Sci-fi aficionados should know that Garland has disposed of Isaac Asimov’s three rules of robotics for this dystopian tale.  At 107 minutes, “Ex Machina” amounts to a contemplative, indie-style, art film rather than an obnoxious Hollywood blockbuster.  Mind you, “Ex Machina” boasts a wealth of computer-generated special effects, but nobody brandishes outlandish plasma pistols or ducks into a time machine.  Watching this movie is comparable to being mesmerized by a beady-eyed rattlesnake in an immense glass jar and then wondering what will happen if you place your hand on the glass.  Clearly, Garland has seen all the seminal robot movies, such as “Metropolis,” “The Forbidden Planet,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Blade Runner,” “Short Circuit,” “I, Robot,” and “Her,” and he is familiar with the formula.  Imagine a no-frills version of Steven Spielberg’s “Artificial Intelligence” (2001) transpiring largely in a laboratory setting with two human characters, one more sinister than the other, and you’ve got the gist of “Ex-Machina.” 

Garland’s film unfolds with a brief prologue set in New York City.  Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson of “Unbroken”) is a nerdy, sandy-haired, 24-year old, Internet programmer who works for the global computer search engine company BlueBook.  Comparatively, BlueBook dwarfs Google.  Smith wins a company lottery to spend a week with his eccentric CEO, Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac of “Sucker Punch”), who lives alone in a secluded research facility.  Suffering from a hopeless God complex, Nathan seems to be channeling Dr. Frankenstein.  Indeed, he named his company after Frankenstein’s notebooks.  He flies Caleb in by helicopter because his laboratory is basically inaccessible.  One look at Nathan and you’ll know he is villainous.  He sports a bushy beard but wears his hair shorn to the scalp in a gunpowder buzz-cut.  Heavy black horn-rimmed spectacles straddle his nose, and he uses words like “cool” and “dude” to sound like a friendly, ordinary geek.  We learn during the conversations between Nathan and Caleb that Nathan is a teenage progeny who wrote computer code at age thirteen and now owns the biggest search engine company in the world.  Meantime, Nathan implores Caleb to treat him like a pal.  Essentially, Nathan has summoned Caleb to participate in a “Turing” test, named after the real-life Alan Turing, the genius whose life was chronicled recently in the World War II movie “The Imitation Game.”  Nathan has designed a truly sophisticated, female-gendered robot that he calls Ava (Alicia Vikander of “Son of a Gun”) and has even endowed her with appropriate genitalia.  Nathan wants Caleb to determine if Ava is self aware or merely simulating self-awareness.  Ava looks like no other android in cinematic history.  She possesses soft, delicately-sculpted, distaff facial features with slender human hands, while the rest of her body consists of exposed wiring housed in a see-through mesh structure.  Bits and pieces of the exposition from this epic make the story really compelling.  For example, our mad scientist billionaire has drawn on thought patterns appropriated from data generated from computer search engines.  Most search engine corporations content themselves strictly to monetize their information about what consumers want.  On the other hand, our wily villain occupies himself with how people search for their needs rather than the needs and then he exploited this information to enable his robot to behave like a human.

Inevitably, the impressionable Caleb falls in love with Ava, while Nathan is monitoring their every move.  He has surveillance cameras planted in every room so that he misses nothing.  Ava wants so desperately to get away from Nathan’s laboratory that she turns Caleb against his boss.  Eventually, Caleb learns that Ava qualifies as just another prototype in Nathan’s chain of robots.  Indeed, Nathan reveals how he plans to download Ava’s brain into another newer version and scrap her memories.  This seals Nathan’s fate as far as Caleb is concerned, and he decides to help Ava find her freedom.  Before “Ex Machina” fades out, Caleb and Nathan are no longer friends, and Ava has acquired the upper hand, farther up than even her perceptive creator has imagined.  Moreover, Ava has turned Nathan’s personal sex robot Kyoko against him; Kyoko enjoys the freedom to roam around Nathan’s research condo.  When he isn’t satisfying his sexual urges with her, Nathan uses Kyoko as a personal servant.  Most of “Ex Machina” involves apparently monotonous conversations between either Caleb and Nathan or Caleb and Ava.  Nevertheless, Garland insinuates enough fascinating dialogue into those exchanges to make them more than just loquacious chatter.  The performances are robust, with Isaac and Vikander taking top honors respectively as the villainous Nathan and the deceptive Ava.  Sonoya Mizuno deserves honorable mention as the mute robot Kyoko who surprises Nathan in the final quarter-hour.  Don’t mistake “Ex Machina” for a run-of-the-mill female robot actioneer.

A FILM REVIEW OF ''RUN ALL NIGHT" (2015)

Liam Neeson embarks on an after-hours artillery barrage in “Nonstop” director Jaume Collet-Serra’s “Run All Night,” (***1/2 OUT OF ****), a vigorous, but formulaic, bullet-riddled, crime thriller that keeps the NYPD busy until dawn.   No, “Run All Night” doesn’t imitate Neeson’s “Taken” trilogy.   Neeson’s “Run All Night” hero qualifies more as an anti-heroic underdog, while “Run All Night” shares more in common with Neeson’s earlier abduction opus “A Walk Among the Tombstones.”  “Tombstones” cast Neeson as an ex-NYPD cop who quit the force after one of his stray slugs killed an innocent child.   Neeson’s “Tombstones” hero lived alone and attended AA meetings when he wasn’t trolling for clients as an unlicensed private eye who preferred to work off his pay in trade.   In other words, he wasn’t too fastidious about his clients and crossed the line between good and evil without a qualm.   Conversely, Neeson plays a washed-up enforcer in “Run All Night” for a merciless Irish Godfather (Ed Harris) who keeps his lifelong pal on the payroll because they started out together.   Comparatively, “Run All Night” is pretty grim, but it isn’t as creepy as “A Walk Among the Tombstones” with its pair of villainous homosexual maniacs who abducted women and carved them up for fun and games.   Moreover, these two movies make the three “Taken” thrillers appear hopelessly whitewashed.  Nevertheless, “Run All Night” is the kind of actioneer where you still root for the hero, even though you suspect he may have to confront consequences before fadeout.  Perhaps the closest thing to “Run All Night” would be Martin Scorsese’s Italian crime movies, like “Goodfellas” where Robert De Niro portrayed a trigger-happy lunatic.  Ultimately, the chief difference is Neeson’s itchy trigger fingered hitman redeems himself for his homicidal past.  While Neeson dominates the action, Ed Harris is no slouch as his no-nonsense, tough-as-nails, Irish mob boss.  Joel Kinnaman, Boyd Holbrook, Bruce McGill, and Holt McAloney round out the seasoned cast, with African-American actor Lonnie Rashid Lynn, best known by his nickname ‘Common,” standing out as an obnoxious assassin with a grudge against the Neeson hero.

Neeson plays Jimmy “The Gravedigger” Conlon, a notorious Irish gunsel who not only has managed miraculously to stay out of jail, but who also has rubbed out opponents by double-digits.  Since his wife died, Jimmy has spent most of his time nursing a bottle while he wrestles with his conscience about all those people he executed for infamous crime chieftain Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris of “A History of Violence”) who ruled the Irish mafia in New York City with a steel fist.   Mind you, this doesn’t mean Jimmy has lost his touch.   All that booze hasn’t diluted the ice water flowing through his veins.   He hasn’t lost that lethal knack that he perfected during his dark days of killing. Lately, Shawn has relaxed and has promoted his pride and joy, Danny Maguire (Boyd Holbrook of “The Skeleton Twins”), as head of operations.   Unfortunately, paternal love has blinded Shawn to Danny’s flaws.  Moreover, Shawn doesn’t realize the mistake that he has committed by turning over his largely legitimate empire to his decadent son.   Not only has Danny foolishly convinced himself that he is invincible but also that he is bulletproof.   Furthermore, Danny feels the desperate urge to prove himself to his dad.  He brokers a million dollar deal with some unscrupulous Albanian heroin dealers that he thinks his father will applaud.   The Albanians assure Shawn he will never regret their partnership.   Shawn surprises them when he turns down their deal and sends them packing.   Predictably, Danny is livid with indignation until Shawn explains how he pulled a similar stunt with cocaine twenty years before and had to wipe out half of his friends because they had become rip-snorting junkies.   Shawn doesn’t want to repeat his earlier mistake.   An irate Danny owed the Albanians already so he has no alternative but to blast both of them into eternity.   What Danny doesn’t plan for is the witnesses who saw him ice the Albanians.

Meanwhile, Jimmy has an estranged son, Mike (Joel Kinnaman of “Robocop”), who took a swing at professional boxing but crapped out.   Mike is nothing like his father.  Mike has kept his nose clean.   He drives a limo, has two adorable little daughters, and has gotten his wife Gabriela (Genesis Rodriguez) pregnant with their third child.   Mike leads a budget-pinching, but largely happy life on a blue-collar income.   When he isn’t driving the limo, Mike mentors an orphaned African-American teenager.   He is coaching Curtis 'Legs' Banks (Aubrey Joseph of “Fading Gigolo”) in the art of boxing at the local gym.   When he isn’t boxing, ‘Legs’ fools around with his new smart phone.   Mike encounters ‘Legs’ one evening after he has taken the two Albanians to confer with Danny about their abortive heroin smuggling deal.  Danny tosses the Albanians a satchel bulging with bogus bills, laughs at them, and then perforates them.   After he caps the second Albanian, Danny discovers that Mike has been sitting nearby in the limo that delivered the two Albanians.   Naturally, Shawn is infuriated about this unforeseen turn of the events.  Things grow complicated because Danny fears that Mike witnessed one of the murders. What he doesn’t know is that Legs captured the murder on video.  Worst of all, Danny doesn’t count on Mike’s father showing up and shooting him in the back of his head before he can blast Mike.   Now, a grieving Shawn launches a full-scale war against Jimmy for bumping off his only son. 

Director Jaume Collet-Serra allows “Run All Night” to unfold in flashback, but this gimmick doesn’t sabotage the suspense.  The resourceful Neeson is about as devastating against his own bloodthirsty mob as Denzel Washington was against the Russian mafia in “The Equalizer.”  Collet-Serra orchestrates an exciting car chase through traffic congested Big Apple city streets that will keep you squirming.  He also relies on snappy Google Earth transitions to maintain spontaneity. “Run All Night” runs out of neither momentum nor surprises during its 114 minutes.

FILM REVIEW OF ''TED'' (2012)

The crude but clever Mark Wahlberg comedy “Ted” (*** out of ****) resembles something you’d expect from Adam Sandler. Cretinous heroes, gross out humor, wanton drug abuse, and offensive profanity constitute the primary elements of this witty satire. Indeed, this far-fetched, off-beat, politically incorrect farce is the last thing you would expect from a mainstream actor who specializes in straightforward action thrillers. While it doesn’t qualify as the kind of movie Wahlberg typically makes, “Ted” is precisely what you might expect from cheeky “Family Guy” creator Sean MacFarlane who penned the outrageous script with “Family Guy” co-scribes Alec Sulkin and Wellesley Wild. This amusing but brazen, 115-minute nonsense veers from bromance to romance with our hero caught between his pot-smoking, potty-mouthed teddy bear and his drop-dead gorgeous brunette girlfriend. Aside from its impudent title character, “Ted” doesn’t look like a run-of-the-mill summer movie with its $50-million budget about a walking, talking teddy who delivers the best lines. Not only do Wahlberg and Mila Kunis hold their own against the cuddly CGI hero, but also this unusual threesome generates tangible charisma. Wahlberg and Kunis make their relationship with the eponymous character appear believable even though we know they were not interacting spontaneously with Ted as they do in the finished film. Moreover, MacFarlane and his writers keep things breezing along in this contentious relationship that generates suspense about whether our hero and heroine will survive as a couple. One thing is unmistakable; “Ted” has nothing comparable to compete with in the genre of supernatural characters. The closest thing to “Ted” might be the extraterrestrial comedy “Paul” about an E.T. type alien who lands on Earth and befriends two British tourists in the American Southwest. Some critics have compared “Ted” to the Mel Gibson movie “The Beaver,” about a depressed, suicidal fellow who wears the puppet of a beaver on one arm and becomes its pawn.

 Basically, Wahlberg plays a physically grown-up but mentally immature adult who has put his life on hold to raise hell with his party-animal teddy bear. What sets “Ted” apart from other comedies is the unconditional love that a 35-year old loser shares with his childhood plush toy. Our hero leads a sheltered life as a youth in a town just outside of Boston. The neighborhood kids refused to play with John Bennett. When eight-year old John interrupts several kids in the middle of beating up a Jewish boy, all of them—including the victimized Jewish child—send him packing without a qualm. Since he had no friends, John makes a wish on Christmas Eve in 1985 that his teddy would be his best friend. Little does John know that when he made his wish that a falling star plunged from the night skies. Miraculously, John’s wish is granted, and the teddy bear talks to him the next morning. Overnight Ted turns into a national media sensation. At one point, he appears as a guest on the Johnny Carson late night talk show. Ted enjoys his fifteen minutes of fame before he resumes living life as usual with John. Eventually, John has reaches a turning point with his long suffering girlfriend, Lori Collins (Mila Kunis of “The Book of Eli”) who urges John to kick Ted out so they can have a life alone. Evicting Ted proves to be  virtually impossible for our hero. Surprisingly, Ted makes the transition from staying with John to landing a job in a supermarket as a check-out clerk and getting an apartment of his own. Nevertheless, although he has given Ted the boot, poor John cannot resist Ted’s invitation to visit him daily. Everything isn’t fun and games for Ted and company when a creepy admirer, Donnie (Giovanni Ribisi of “Contraband”) and his weird son Robert (Aedin Mincks of “Faster”) show up and try to buy him for John. These two characters are obnoxious and their appearance ushers in a grim and unsavory air of reality to the action.

Rookie writer and director Seth MacFarlane has forged the funniest cinematic character in a long time with the wise-cracking, title character. Ted looks cute, but he is rude, crude, and lewd. He curses like a sailor, smokes a bong like a chimney, and likes to date prostitutes. “Ted” qualifies as an unforgettably funny, live-action/CG-animated comedy. Happily, the “Ted” character is seamlessly integrated into the action, and his shenanigans are consistently hilarious. Whether he is driving his best friend to work with extensions so his short legs can reach the brake and the gas pedals or performing T.J. Hooker leaps from the rear of a station wagon to the hood of our heroine’s car, Ted looks as life-like as a CGI character can. The motel room fistfight that he has with John where he pummels him into submission and his amorous stockroom assignation with a sexy cashier emphasizes Ted’s rowdy as well as randy antics.

While teddy bears have been fodder for children’s movies over the years, “Ted” is nothing like “Winnie the Pooh.” When MacFarlane isn’t having fun with Ted and company, he appropriates a cult science fiction film and integrates it as an essential element of this whacky fantasy. Ted and John grew up watching the movie “Flash Gordon” (1980) with Sam J. Jones and have enshrined it. However, MacFarlane isn’t content merely to insert excerpts from the film. Since both Ted and John worship Sam J. Jones, the “Flash Gordon” star winds up making a cameo for two rip-roaring scenes. MacFarlane borrows a mocking scene or two from the spoof masterpiece “Airplane” when our hero meets the heroine on the dance floor of a 2008 disco and mimics the movements of John Travolta’s “Saturday Night Fever” romance. Patrick Warburton of the “Rules of Engagement” television series and “Green Lantern” lead Ryan Reynolds have a scene where they play two gay guys who kiss. 

“Ted” is never tedious.

"SHARK NIGHT 3-D" (2011)

"Shark Night 3-D" (* out of ****) bites!

Unfortunately, "Snakes on a Plane" director David R. Ellis plays everything straight in "Shark Night 3-D." Meaning, you had better prepare yourself for clichés galore without a smirk in sight. This derivative, PG-13 rated, 91-minute, yarn concerns three stereotypical, mean-spirited rednecks who drool at the chance to feed stuck-up college kids to ravenous sharks of all sizes. Of course, most of the ocean's deadly predators prefer to prowl the briny blue, but these three rednecks own a stunning device that enables them to paralyze these predators, attach mini-cams to them, relocate them to a Louisiana salt-lake, and wait for them to start chomping. Furthermore, they plan to make big bucks by selling their shark snuff videos to die-hard “Shark Week” addicts after the real thing. Think of "Shark Night 3-D" as "Jaws" trying to meet “8MM." Everybody sports serious expressions because everything is serious. Nevertheless, everybody behaves like idiots, too. A one-armed college jock with a spear wades into a shark-infested lake with revenge in his heart. Hammerheads, threshers, cookie cutters and bull sharks assemble to make munch-meat of him. Sadly, not only are these sharks either digitally concocted or animatronic, but they also act like SyFy Channel sharks. These synthetic sharks swim with such speed that our heroes, when the latter have either a boat with an outboard motor or water bike at their disposal, cannot out leave them in their wake!

An academically challenged Tulane University athlete, Malik (Sinqa Walls of “Choose Connor”), makes a B+ on a test and no longer fears flunking out of college. Malik rewards his dutiful tutor, Nick (Dustin Milligan of “Final Destination 3”), along with Nick’s nerdy roommate Gordon (Joel David Moore of “Avatar”) to join his friends for a good time at a remote lakeside estate. The wealthy parents of Sara (Sara Paxton of “Superhero Movie”) own a beautiful cottage secluded on an island which a sprawling salt-water lake surrounds. Naturally, nobody with a cell phone can raise a signal at Lake Crosby. Furthermore, the nearest hospital lies about two hours away. Little do our recreationally minded heroes know the ill-fate which awaits them. Meantime, Malik tries to play Cupid and get Nick and Sara together. As Malik tells Nick, Sara has not been on a date in three years. Later we learn why. Anyway, Nick and Sara grow chummy and Nick winds up steering Sara’s launch. While Nick is playing admiral, he has show-off Malik at the end of a tether skiing around the lake on a board. Malik impresses everything with his incredible gymnastic feats. He loves to perform flips. Suddenly, Malik feels something ram his board, and he takes a tumble. A shark attacks Malik and tears off his right arm at the bicep. Our heroes bandage Malik and rush him to the hospital. Malik’s blood drips into the lake and another shark slams into the launch so that Malik’s soon-to-be wife, Maya (Alyssa Diaz of TV’s “Southland”), topples into the water and gets gobbled up. Later, Malik storms into the lake with a spear and accomplishes nothing, except dying. The two river rednecks, Sara's ex-boyfriend, Dennis (Chris Carmack of “Into the Blue 2: The Reef), and his sidekick, Red (Joshua Leonard of “Hatchet”), offer to help Sara and her friends. Beth is so sickened by the tragic turn of events that she wants to ride with Dennis and Red back to the mainland. Gordon refuses to let Beth travel alone with them. Before it is all over with heroic Nick has to tangle with Sara’s ex-boyfriend and a shark.

Basically, "Shark Night 3-D" amounts to a complicated but predictable revenge thriller with nothing to recommend it either as top-notch entertainment or so bad it’s good. Freshmen scenarists Will Hayes and Jesse Studenberg neither do Ellis nor the audience any favors with their shallow screenplay that borrows extensively from other shark movies. Their dialogue is flat without any flair. The characters emerge as one-dimensional nitwits waiting for their moment to be eaten. Ellis deserves credit for keeping the action moving at a brisk pace. Nevertheless, he fails to generate any sympathy for our clueless heroes. The villains could be cousins of the rednecks in “Deliverance.” All of the ersatz shark attacks have been lensed before with greater realism in better movies. The 3-D delivers in only two scenes. The first involves an exploding boat flinging shrapnel, and the second shows a shark as its gory innards are blasted out of it. Considering the $28-million budget, you’d think they could have made more than one shark appear convincing. A bull shark does look supremely menacing in a scene straight out of the James Bond feature "License to Kill," but the rest look simulated and swim like torpedoes. Two sharks literally defy gravity by leaping out of the lake to chomp. A first girl caught alone in the lake is straight out of the original "Jaws" as well as the attack on a hapless skier is straight out of the "Jaws 2." If you want to watch a good shark thriller, and you cannot find "Jaws," then you might try "Deep Blue Sea" (1999), or the straight-to-video, outlandish "Shark Attack 3: Megalodon" (2002) and "Shark Swarm" (2008). The PG-13 rating rules out any chance of nudity, and the ability of sharks that can race through the water after speedboats eliminates any sense of credibility. Ellis generates a modicum of suspense when swimmers struggle to out-swim the sharks, but not enough to scare the daylights out of you.

"Shark Night 3-D" is munch-ado-about-gnaw-thing!