Movie Review Batman Begins (2012)

Batman Begins (2005) 

Directed by Christopher Nolan 

Written by Christopher Nolan 

Starring Christian Bale, Liam Neeson, Katie Holmes 

Release Date 

Published 2012 

Henri Ducard: Are you ready to begin?

Bruce Wayne: I-I can barely stand...

Henri Ducard: [kicks him] Death does not wait for you to be ready! Death is not considerate, or fair! And make no mistake: here, you face Death.

And that is how Bruce Wayne began his journey some seven years ago in writer-director Christopher Nolan’s first Bat-masterpiece, “Batman Begins.” It’s appropriate that Bruce Wayne, the man who would be Batman, would be trained as a ninja; the nerd culture that deified the caped crusader are of the same ilk who’ve turned the Asian legend of the ninja warrior into an outsized caricature.

It’s that knowing of what the audience wanted combined with his own particular, peculiar interests that have made Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy both crowd-pleasing and deeply personal. We will see in “The Dark Knight Rises,” Nolan’s Batman thesis statement, just how well the director combines his ability to dazzle the masses with his deep seeded philosophical aims.

“Batman Begins” is certainly a remarkable opening statement. In retrospect it’s much easier to see in the film how Nolan wanted to use this iconic character not merely to entertain but to critique and enlighten. From the opening moments when Bruce Wayne loses his parents to crime informed by poverty to the attempt by Ra’s Al Ghul to raze Gotham City by rotting it from within the philosophical aims of Nolan and his co-writer and brother Jonathan Nolan are vague but emerging.

We will get to the philosophy in a moment; let’s dig in to the surface story first. Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) lost his parents to a horrendous murder in a back alley. With years of guilt and anger boiling within Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham City from a failed stint in college with the intention of purging himself by killing his parents killer. When the man is murdered by a Mob Boss, Carmine Falcone (Tom Wilkinson), Bruce needs a new path and winds up somewhere in Asia.

In Asia Bruce meets and becomes a student of a man calling himself Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson). He’s allegedly a minion of a man known as Ra’s Al Ghul but we will come to know that Ducard is Ra’s and he has plans for his new pupil that involve the destruction of Gotham City. Ra’s Al Ghul is the head of a secret society that has for years restored the balance of the world by laying waste to areas of the world that have grown decadent and out of control and Gotham City is set to join Rome, Sodom & Gomorrah and others on the ash heap of history.

When Bruce leans of Ra’s Al Ghul’s plans the compassion instilled in him by his late father compels him to hope for Gotham City and soon defend it. Bruce’s decision sets the stage for what will be a clash of will and philosophy that will carry audiences through “The Dark Knight Rises;” Ra’s Al Ghul’s cynical belief in the cleansing fire and Batman’s scarred optimism that good can somehow triumph over even the worst evil.

Is it really as simple as a glass half empty versus a glass half full? Of course not, though Ra’s Al Ghul’s nefarious plot to poison and weaponize Gotham’s water supply has a certain ironic quality in my thesis. The deeper meaning of “Batman Begins” and what carried forward through “The Dark Knight” and comes to fruition, allegedly, in “The Dark Knight Rises” is a belief in hope against great odds; the belief that a once great city or country can be great again but only after a great struggle.

Surely, Christopher Nolan’s vision of America in Gotham City is one on the road to complete ruin. It’s a vision that is littered with the bodies of the brave and beleaguered, the good and the evil, but is still a vision of hope. Is not America’s past stained with the same blood? Are we not hopeful that from the horrors of the past greatness can be recovered?

Hope, dear reader, is at the heart of Batman and “Batman Begins” is a far more hopeful movie than many are willing to give it credit for. Just check that hopeful happy ending as Bruce Wayne and his best friend Alfred ponder a future where the ruins of Wayne Manor are restored to an even greater and more effective glory.

Not having seen “The Dark Knight Rises” my theory of hope among the darkness of the Batman series may be completely disproved but I don’t think so. Christopher Nolan may have dark visions of a rotting society but he’s far too savvy to give into the cynicism that is the true enemy of his vision. Batman/Bruce Wayne himself may not be so lucky, but Gotham City will survive and a new hope will be born from the ruins with Batman, man or legend, as its symbol of hope.

Movie Review Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania

Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania 

Directed by Peyton Reed

Written by Jeff Loveness

Starring Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michelle Pfeiffer, Michael Douglas, Jonathan Majors 

Release Date February 17th, 2023 

Published February 15th, 2023 

In the Quantum Realm Janet Van Dyne (Michelle Pfeiffer) believed she would live out her days alone and lost. Then, a spaceship crashed in front of her. Inside was a man with no name, though she would eventually know him as Kang (Jonathan Majors). For a time, Janet and this nameless man worked together to try and escape from the Quantum Realm. That partnership ended when Janet found out who Kang really was, an entity, a being, a God, known as Kang The Conqueror. 

Kang once held a mastery over time. His God-like powers allowed him to travel the multiverse where he destroyed entire branch universes in order to consolidate his own power. Trapped in the Quantum Realm after Janet betrayed him, Kang built an empire and kept searching for a means to escape. That chance to escape comes after Janet has managed to escape, with the help of Scott Lang (Paul Rudd), aka Ant-Man. It takes a little time but when Cassie Lang built a machine that could map the Quantum Realm, it opened a portal that sucked in Cassie, her dad Scott, Janet, her husband, Hank Pym (Michael Douglas), and Janet's daughter, Hope Van Dyne (Evangeline Lilly), aka The Wasp. 

Now trapped in the Quantum Realm and separated from each other, the family must find a way to reunite. All while being pursued by Kang who hopes to steal whatever means allowed Janet to escape from the Quantum Realm. That means being, Pym Particles, the creation that allows Ant-Man and The Wasp to shrink or grow in size and take advantage of the strength of ants. Kang believes that this technology could be used to restore the MacGuffin that gave power to the ship that stranded him in the Quantum Realm and allow him to travel to and conquer universes as he had done before he was exiled. 

And that's the plot of Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania. Can Scott Lang overcome the God-Like powers of Kang the Conqueror and keep him from destroying countless universes. It's a solid and relatively simple plot but one that lacks much in terms of depth. Scott Lang's character arc isn't much. He wishes he could go back to before The Snap and be with Cassie as she grows up. Kang, with his ability to manipulate time, might be able to give him that wish. However, though the trailer seems to indicate that Scott would be open to working with Kang, that doesn't happen in the movie. 

At no point is Scott not the Ant-Man we've always known, a slightly gawky devoted dad and practical screw-up. The movie doesn't change him much nor, does it appear that his experiences saving the world alongside the Avengers seem to have changed him much. He's perhaps become overly cautious when it comes to Cassie, urging her not to take risks or do anything that might risk her safety, even if said thing is the right thing to do. That's not really much of an arc but that's about all that we get in Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania. 

In terms of arcs, none of these characters seem to have much growth or change. Janet Van Dyne does open up to her family for the first time since she has been back in her own universe but that's only because of the dangerous circumstances at play and not due to any emotional growth on her part. As for Hank and Hope, they're mostly sidelined here. Hope especially, seems to have less dialogue and screen time than in the previous Ant-Man movies. Michael Douglas has a few moments where he looks cool but he's mostly superfluous to the plot. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media 

Spoiler Alert: Character Arcs and Functionality in Knock at the Cabin

Knock at the Cabin (2023)

Directed by M. Night Shyamalan 

Written by M. Night Shyamalan 

Starring Dave Bautista, Nikki Amuka Bird, Kristin Cui, Rupert Grint, Jonathan Groff, Abby Quinn, Ben Aldridge 

Release Date February 3rd, 2023 

Published February 3rd, 2023 

Knock at the Cabin is a horror thriller about the apocalypse. Four characters, played by Dave Bautista, Abby Quinn, Rupert Grint, and Nikki Amuka Bird, travel to a cabin in Pennsylvania where they hope to avert a worldwide apocalypse. To do this, they must convince a family of three, played by Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge and their daughter played by Kristin Cui, to willing sacrifice one member of their family. The four visitors have had a shared vision of the future and received a vague prophecy related to this specific cabin and whoever lives there. 

In this article we are going to examine the character arcs and how they function in M. Night Shyamalan's nightmare fantasy of the end of the world. To do that, there will be spoilers. If you are wanting to see Knock at the Cabin, you should see the movie first and then come back and engage with this article. 

Leonard - Played by Dave Bautista, over the course of Knock at the Cabin we learn that Leonard is a schoolteacher and that he coaches middle school sports. Leonard is big and imposing but has a gentle quality as he demonstrates upon meeting Wen, the young daughter of Eric and Andrew. As he joins Wen to catch Grasshoppers for a school project, Leonard gently works to make Wen comfortable before he is compelled to reveal why he has come to this mostly empty stretch of Pennsylvania forest. 

Leonard is the de-facto leader of the four people who come to the cabin. It's Leonard who reveals the prophecy and the details of the apocalypse and that each of his fellow visitors will die until Eric and Andrew make a decision about which of them should die to save humanity. And that's pretty much it. Leonard appears wise and Dave Bautista invests him with a particular passion that is very compelling but, he doesn't change much as we see him. The biggest change in Leonard's life happens entirely off-screen. 

By the time that Leonard has arrived at the cabin, he's a devotee of this apocalypse plan and doesn't waver. Perhaps his arc is coming to accept his own fate, dying by his own hand, but again, it's not an arc. Instead of having an arc where he starts at one point of an emotional or physical journey, Leonard is a functional character. Leonard exists to motivate change in Eric and Andrew. I am not saying this as a negative critique, I'm just establishing how he functions in this story. 

Abby - Abby is a line cook and a mother of a son named Charlie. She enjoys cooking and likes making people happy. Like Leonard, the biggest arc of her life happened off screen. Finding Leonard and the rest via a message board and going to Pennsylvania to carry out their role in trying to prevent the apocalypse, happens before we meet Abby. What we see of Abby is that she is manic, anxious, and a little panicked. And that never changes until her character is killed to set off another plague of the apocalypse. Like Leonard, she functions as a motivator for Andrew and Eric. 

Sabrina - Sabrina is a nurse and a supremely kind woman. Though she uses a weapon to break into the cabin in violent fashion, when Eric is injured during the home invasion, Sabrina tends to him and cares for him. She goes out of her way to make Eric comfortable as he has suffered a concussion during the brawl. It's likely just how she was as a nurse, a caring, loving presence. Like her fellow visitors, her arc happened offscreen as she went from a full time nurse with a family to someone who drove 6 hours to be at this place, at this time, to try and stop the apocalypse. Her death doesn't go as planned but she seems prepared to accept it when it comes. 

Redmond - Redmond is the last of our foursome and the only one who gets a scene outside of the main narrative. Redmond is belligerent and agitated but that's explained by the fact that he knows he's the first to die if Andrew and Eric fail to make a choice. It will come about through the arguing back and forth between Eric and Leonard, that Redmond knew Eric and Andrew before coming to the cabin. As Eric recalls, Redmond approached him and Andrew at a bar in Boston and assaulted Eric with a beer bottle after having overheard the two men professing their love to each other. 

Find my full length Spoiler Alert Article at Geeks.Media. 

Spoiler Alert: The Absence of Consequence in Infinity Pool

Infinity Pool (2023)

Directed by Brandon Cronenberg

Written by Brandon Cronenberg

Starring Mia Goth, Alexander Skarsgard, Cleopatra Coleman 

Release Date January 27th, 2023 

Published February 3, 2023 

This article contains spoilers for the ending of the new movie Infinity Pool. I highly recommend you see the film before you read this article. Infinity Pool is a mindbending, genre-defying, exploration of unchecked privilege. Writer-Director Brandon Cronenberg takes influence from his father, David Cronenberg, in crafting eye-catching body horror while using his film to explore themes he finds interesting such as the notion of identity and the unchecked privilege of the uber-rich. The title alone, Infinity Pool, suggests an unending lavish and luxurious privilege reserved only to those who could afford it. 

SPOILERS AHEAD JUMP NOW AND SEE INFINITY POOL... 

The plot of Infinity Pool comes into focus when Alexander Skarsgard's James Foster is arrested for vehicular homicide. The previous night, he'd gone out with his wife, Em, played by Cleopatra Coleman, and a couple they'd just met, Gabi and Alban Bauer, played by Mia Goth and Jalil Lespert. They foursome got drunk and while driving back to their resort, with James behind the wheel, they struck a man crossing the street, killing the man. Gabi then convinces them to leave the scene without reporting the incident, compounding their legal problems the following day. 

James is arrested while his wife and the Bauer's are detained. The investigating detective, played by Thomas Kretschmann tells James that the punishment for his crime is death. The family of the man he killed is allowed to exact their revenge by executing him themselves. But, there is a way out. For a free, the cops will make a complete clone of James, one with all of his features and memories, and that clone will stand-in when James is put to death. The only catch is that James will have to watch his own execution. James agrees and is forever changed by seeing himself be gutted by the oldest son of the man he killed. 

This death sentence is James' initiation into an exclusive club. The Bauers inform James that they've also been through their own execution after an infinity pool that Alban installed at another resort, went to pieces and killed two workers. Since seeing their own execution, the Bauers have built a hedonistic group of fellow Americans who've committed death sentence offenses while staying at this resort. Having seen their own deaths, the group finds that there are really no consequences for their actions and thus they seek to engage in even greater debauchery to achieve an ever more elusive high. 

Em leaves immediately, not remotely interested in James' new friends. Thus, James is left free to indulge in drugs, group sex, and murder, all with no consequences. If the group is caught murdering a local official who ticked them off, they won't die. They can simply pay a fee for another clone and enjoy the incredibly morbid show of watching themselves die again. As you can imagine, this kind of unchecked privilege leads James to his darkest depths. Reaching a nadir, he will try to save himself, but what is he saving himself from? 

The final act of Infinity Pool is basically James becoming a plaything, a toy for Mia Goth's Gabi to play with as she pleases. The game she chooses has James killing one his own clones in a fight to the death. It's a horrific death and since James can never be sure whether he is himself or a clone of his original self, there is an extra kick of desperation, confusion and anger that underscores the fury he lets loose on this other version of himself. 

Find my full length Spoiler Alert Article at Geeks.Media linked here. 

Movie Review Ocean Boy

Ocean Boy (2023) 

Directed by Tyler Atkins 

Written by Tyler Atkins 

Starring Luke Hemsworth, Rasmus King 

Release Date February 3rd, 2023 

Published February 1st, 2023 

Ocean Boy, or Bosch and Rockit in many other, non-American markets, is an Australian crime, surfing and family drama. The film stars the Zeppo of the Hemsworth clan. Luke Hemsworth as Bosch, a farmer and small-time drug kingpin. Bosch sells weed and does pretty well with it. His crime empire is threatened when a corrupt cop tries to force Bosch to start selling cocaine. Bosch is, at the very least, smart enough to recognize the dangers of selling cocaine versus the relative safety of sticking with pot. 

Meanwhile, Bosch's teenage son, Rockit, is basically feral. Though being 13 or 14 years old, Rockit can't read. All Rockit ever wants to do is surf and or, hang out on the beach. At school, on the rare occasion that he goes to school, Rockit is mocked and mistreated by his schoolmates. His teachers are not much better as they've clearly not bothered to actually try to teach the kid, preferring to pass him from grade to grade without question. 

The plot of Ocean Boy truly kicks in when a wildfire destroys Bosch's crops, and he loses the cocaine that he was supposed to sell. Going on the run with his son, Bosch tries to put a positive spin on things by convincing his son that they are simply on holiday and camping on the beach in a resort town. This lie can only carry things so far and soon, father and son are deeply at odds. Meanwhile, the baddies are hot on Bosch's trail. The cocaine he lost was very expensive and the corrupt cops want their money back. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media linked here. 

Movie Review Children of the Corn 2: The Final Sacrifice

Children of the Corn 2: The Final Sacrifice 

Directed by David Price 

Written by A.L Katz, Gilbert Adler, 

Starring Terrence Knox, Paul Scherrer, Ryan Bollman 

Release Date January 29th, 1993 

Published January 31st, 1993 

Children of the Corn 2: The Final Sacrifice is a bonkers disaster of a horror sequel. Produced 8 years after the original Stephen King adapted horror flick, the film is laughably out of touch with even the minor pleasures of the 1984 film. Comically inept director David Price, the son of the head of Dimension Studios at the time, starts bad and builds one unintentionally comic scene after another until the whole thing crashes off the rails in a beautifully unintentionally hilarious train wreck. 

Children of the Corn 2: The Final Sacrifice begins in Gatlin, Nebraska, the setting of the original, Children of the Corn, where a group of children are being rescued. Somehow, 8 years later, law enforcement caught wind of what happened in Gatlin. Rather, they heard all of the adults had died and figured they should rescue the supposedly innocent children of Gatlin. I think that's what is happening but the comic ineptitude of the direction of Children of the Corn 2 makes it appear as if the kids boarded a bus in their new hometown and then immediately got off and joined new families. 

Meanwhile, journalists are covering the carnage in Gatlin, specifically a newsman and his camera operator who stop for a moment to give our protagonist a hard time. Terrence Knox stars in Children of the Corn 2 as John Garrett, a tabloid journalist coming to cover the story. Out TV journalists mention that Garrett is a disgraced former TV reporter but that is not something that will ever come up again or be remotely important to his 'arc,' to use a phrase that barely applies. 

After acting like High School bullies, the TV guys head to a nearby cornfield to shoot some B-Roll. This is the filler material you see editors use to transition from one part of a story to another. There, in one of the great unintentionally comic moments in this rather brilliant unintentional comedy, Corn comes to life and kills the TV guys. Stalks of literal corn come to life and use their sharp leaves to slice the throat of the cameraman while another corn stalk launches itself like Poseidon's Trident through the window of the newsman, impaling the reporter. 

It's as if whoever wrote this opening sequence hadn't seen the original movie and believed it was literally about killer corn stalks. Oh, and this NEVER happens again in the movie. Yeah, the movie employs actual Corn as a killing device and then never uses this motif again. It's cheap schlock of the highest order, a bit of complete nonsense that is so tasty in its unintended brilliance that I can't help but admire how awesomely stupid this sequence is. 

Back to our protagonist, he along with his son, are staying in the same neighboring town that the kids of Gatlin have been brought to. In fact, they are staying at a Bed and Breakfast with Micah (Ryan Bollman), who is the new leader of the Children of the Corn cult. It is Micah who now carries out the wishes of He Who Walks Behind the Rows. This essentially boils down to wearing black and having his voice pitched in a funny overdub intended to make him sound possessed by a demon. It's quite funny, especially when his sacred robe looks like a cozy Snuggie that he cut the arms off of. 

The ineptitude of the scripting and direction of Children of the Corn 2: The Final Sacrifice is a perfect example of that sweet spot for so bad its good movies. It's so bad you might think it was done intentionally but so obvious that it comes from a lack of care and talent that it becomes kind of poignant. Poignant in that you almost feel bad laughing at the effort that went into creating something so very, very, unintentionally funny. 

There are so many great so bad its good moments in Children of the Corn 2: The Final Sacrifice. A famous one finds the titular child cult menacing an old woman in an electric wheelchair. The kids have an R.C car and somehow, Micah uses his dark magic to hack the woman's wheelchair so that he can control it. Micah rolls the poor old lady into the street where she is hit by a car. This creates a remarkably funny visual in which a very obvious dummy in an electric wheelchair goes flying through a plate glass window, interrupting a bingo game. That Wheelchair Old Lady is not a meme is a missed opportunity for our entire culture. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media linked here. 

Movie Review Free Skate

Free Skate (2023) 

Directed by Roope Elenius 

Written by Veera W. Vilo 

Starring Veera W. Vilo, Leena Uotila, Karolina Blackburn 

Release Date January 27th, 2023 

Published January 27th, 2023 

Free Skate boldly and starkly explores the abuses of the Russian sports infrastructure in damning and artful fashion. Veera W. Vilo plays an unnamed figure skater who is discovered lying unconscious in a Finnish roadway at the start of the film. From there, the movie jarringly shifts back and forth in time. In one timeline, we see the figure skater living in Finland with her loving grandmother and being part of a loving and caring team with her new figure skating coaches and trainers. 

In a timeline another timeline, our vulnerable, shy, and achingly sad figure skater is coming up the ranks of Russian figure skating. Her relationship with her coaches and trainers is antagonistic and cruel. The Russian approach to training is not what anyone would call nurturing. Rather, it involves terrifying the skaters into on ice perfection that is unattainable. Skaters who don't show enough improvement are punished by being forced to stand outside in a dangerously cold Russian winter in little more than a leotard. 

Success and improvement however, may be even worse than the tortured failure. As our figure skater protagonist becomes a figure skating star, she becomes the object of the Russian oligarchs who fund the Russian figure skating team. You can imagine, this funding for figure skating comes with a cost and that cost is paid not by the Russian government, the trainers or the coaches, it's paid by the skaters who are tasked with doing whatever it takes to secure further funding for the figure skating team. Free Skate is unflinching in showing you exactly the price that is paid. 

Cut back to Finland and our shy, sad, figure skater, haunted by her past, thrives under the more caring and nurturing environment of Finland but also lives in fear of her past. One of her trainers in Russia who did little to protect her from the horrific abuse of other coaches and the rich creeps who funded the skating team, was her own father, a man she now fears seeing anywhere she goes. The threat of being sent back to Russia hangs over the head of our figure skater as she makes a move to expose the horrors she experienced under the Russian regime. 

Free Skate doesn't claim to be based on a true story. That said, rumors about the horrors of being a Russian athlete date as far back as pre-World War 2. The Cold War ramped up the mistreatment of Russian athletes who were tortured and threatened with death if they did not achieve to a level that reflected well on the Russian leadership. Thus, it is not a major reach on the part of the makers of Free Skate to draft a story that focuses on athletes being violently, sexually and mentally abused. And yet, it's still shocking and appalling when you are forced to confront it as boldly  as it is presented in Free Skate. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media linked here.