REVIEW: Leave No Trace

One of the great, quiet films of 2018 is Leave No Trace, a very emotional father-daughter movie.  For any of you who get teared up when watching movies about the bond between a parent and their child, this one may choke you up.  Director Debra Granik works through the entire film to build in the audience an understanding of the key relationship, both the positives and the negatives that flow from it.

The film is about Will (Ben Foster) and his daughter, Tom (Thomasin McKenzie), who live in the forest together.  For the most part they exist off of what the land has to offer, but they do venture into town to get supplies when needed.  To get money, Will would visit the hospital to get his prescribed medicine as a military veteran, and then sell it.  Their existence is peaceful and serene, much like the beautiful forest that surrounds them.  The tension that looms over them is that of being discovered, and Will works to make sure Tom can hide her tracks and flea if needed.  Of course, they do get found and brought back into society.  Will is set up with a job, but Ben Foster's face shows that this type of living is painful for him.  The temptation to return to the forest never leaves.

One of the really nice elements of this film is the incorporation of the landscape.  Our characters are put against a number of backdrops, and Granik does a wonderful job of having them weave directly into their location.  We see how where they are affects them mentally and emotionally, and the world around them is always dynamic and working with them to tell the story.

Three times throughout the film, pets are introduced to Tom.  The first time it happened, I wondered if Granik was trying to say something.  When it happened two more times, it was apparent that she is making a point about both Tom and Will.  While it is the father's responsibility to take care of his daughter, the use of the animals shows us that their relationship is not what it should be.  Will isn't like a domesticated animal, but one meant to be in the wild, and his handler (Tom) must come to make some major decisions.  I could be way off in my interpretation here.

I always knew Ben Foster was talented, but had never heard of Thomasin McKenzie before.  This is a young lady who was thrown in a movie with a veteran actor and charged to be the lead.  McKenzie was able to show so many different sides and emotions.  Her character was written to experience almost all of the feelings a human could go through, and not a single one feels forced.  She is a talent that has a great deal of potential, and I am sure she has an incredible future ahead of her.

In a way this is a coming of age story, but the reality of the relationship Tom has with her father makes it deal with very mature themes as well.  She is turning into an adult, but I think she eventually realizes that she was already the adult.  The emotions that are cultivated throughout the film make it a rich experience, and there is a universal message in here that I believe goes beyond just the parental relationship.

Rating - 3.5 stars out of 4

REVIEW: Warcraft

The movie is based off of a video game of the same name, or it could be based off of the video game World of Warcraft.  I have seen debate on gaming forums as to which is most true, but it seems to be that most people feel it is based off of the hugely successful World of Warcraft.  The player base for that game peaked in 2010, making the film six years late to the party.

The world of orcs is no falling apart and is not longer habitable.  It's a shame, really.  This means there needs to be a new land to travel to and claim as their home.  That's bad news for the humans of Azeroth, as they seem quite happy to be living in peace.  It is also bad news for all the poor bastards who are imprisoned by the orcs, as their souls are used to create the portal needed for the orcs to travel to Azeroth.  It sounds like those damned orcs only care about themselves.

A war party of orcs is sent through the portal to capture humans to fuel the 'fell' (the dark magic power used by the orc leader Gul'dan) in order to open the portal a second time to bring the rest of the orcs through into Azeroth.  It is quite reasonable to believe that this plan does not sit well with the humans, who rely on the leadership of King Llane (Dominic Cooper), the mighty warrior Sir Lothar (Travis Fimmel), and the guardian Midivh (Ben Foster), who is a very powerful magic user and protector.

What does this all lead to?  Well, it leads to a story with an exorbitant amount of alliances made and broken, as well as one of battle, blood, and anguished faces.  Thrown into the mix is Garona (Paula Patton) who is a half breed orc that is captured by the humans and finds her allegiances challenged.  There are a lot of players involved in this movie, I haven't even mentioned the main orc Durotan (Toby Tebbell) or magic user Khadgar (Ben Schnetzer).  With so many key members of the cast, there is a lot of ground to cover in showing why each is important and motivated.  This does not do well at keeping the pace of the film clipping along in the realm of completely enjoyable.

The story itself feels like nothing new, but director Duncan Jones and fellow script writer Charles Leavitt do something that a lot of films are too afraid of when it comes to movie making - they are not ashamed of killing major characters.  This addition into the story, and the fact that it clearly becomes and introductory piece to what is a hopeful franchise (the title has just now been changed to Warcraft: The Beginning), allowed me to still predict how it would end but with no idea as to who would survive.  Predictability along with doubt is the best thing that this movie offers.  That being said, there were certain characters that the audience knew would not be killed.

Being a huge fan of Duncan Jones (Moon and Source Code), there was a certain level of expectation that followed me into this cinematic tale.  This is his first foray into a special effects fuelled spectacle, and there were times that sadly it felt like a really well done video game cinematic.  The visuals weren't awful, they just were not up to the standards that we have already seen set for 2016 from Jungle Book.

The action sequences were fun enough, with a no-holds-barred approach to showing people getting annihilated, something that most movies shy away from.  The unfortunate part is that these moments were scattered amongst some useless scenes that were over doing it with the bloated cast of characters.

In the end, it was just too much of 'already seen,' and it did not feel like a completely fresh product.  There have been many other fantasy films in the past, and the few things that this movie had going for it were not enough to elevate it above its contemporaries.  It is a fine movie, but that is about it.  Warcraft excels as a video game cut scene, but falls short of the quality and emotions needed for a tentpole flick.

Rating - 2.5 stars out of 4

Lone Survivor

For Peter Berg, getting Lone Survivor right was very important, and there are a number of reasons why its success was key.  First of all, it is based off of and honouring the service and sacrifice of soldiers in Afghanistan and a failed component of Operation Red Wings.  Also, this was a passion project of Berg’s, which he was able to do on account of accepting to direct Battleship.  Thirdly, Berg’s career was tarnished because of Battleship (I have not seen it, but can he really be blamed for a board game as such failing as a movie?) and success on Lone Survivor is what could restore his career to its previous state.

The movie follows the story of four Navy SEALs who were sent into hostile territory to perform recon before things become incredibly pear-shaped as their presence becomes known.  Playing the SEALs are Mark Wahlberg, Taylor Kitsch, Emile Hirsch, and Ben Foster, who are portrayed as a very tight group with a ferocious bond.  That theme is really what starts off the film, highlighting the training of endurance that they have to undergo and the brotherhood that forms.  I really do not want to sound too down on the film, but there were times where it felt like an advertisement for the Navy.

Perhaps it is because I am Canadian and not American, but it was at times almost over glorifying and romanticising the roles of the military and what they stand for.  I imagine that for a different audience, such as my neighbours to the south, there is a lot of built in pride for armed forces but that sort of thing if not properly tempered can fall victim to the cultural divide in other nations.  I do believe that perhaps the military nature of the United States and the more peace-minded nature of Canada allows for different interpretations of the film.

One thing that I find Peter Berg does effectively in action sequences is that he is able to keep them tight and quickly edited without being hard to follow.  As well, he once again proves that he has a skill of keeping action from being too ‘Hollywood’ like.  He does not focus on the explosions and the booming sound effects, but rather the scraps, bruises, shrapnel and bullets that the soldiers came face to face with.  The first action sequence has a very long build to it, and the sound track is silence, allowing a great deal of anticipation to properly build within the audience.  While I found the lead in to the first battle in the movie to be expertly done, the final conflict just sort of happened out of nowhere.  There were a few shots to establish its approach, but nothing to the extent that created the success of the first fire fight.

While the movie is called Lone Survivor, it focuses mostly on the group aspect of the battle, and less of the plight of the individual.  The movie was two hours long, but I feel like it could have used about another fifteen minutes to really catch the emotions of the experience that the one soldier went through in the ordeal.  Before anyone criticizes me for spoiling the fact that one of the soldiers survives, I refer you to the title and ensure you that it is no spoiler.  All of that to say, I felt like the singular experience was neglected for the sake of the group story and I think both could have existed in this film.

In The Kingdom, Berg does a wonderful job of taking away the concept of the blameless good guy and the pure evil of the bad guy, and was able to round out the tale with allowing perspective to the whole cycle of violence.  While he does not lend any relatable traits to the Taliban in this movie, he does work to insert bravery and morality into the people of Afghanistan to show that there is more to the story than just the American side.

In a time where action movies are pointless and supercharged with special effects and end of world consequences, Berg did a good job of delivering a more down to earth war movie.  While the action was very well done, it came off as almost over patriotic in creating these men as heroes.  I do not say that to diminish the work of the real life soldiers that it was based on, but it is more a comment in the tone of delivery.  The ending of the movie came off to be over dramatized, perhaps because of the slow paced nature and the slow tempo version of ‘We Could Be Heroes’ that played (it is a song about love, not war… maybe they should have read the lyrics).  I do think that it is important to pay tribute, but the pace of it did not fit in with the rest of the film and it felt like an over enthusiastic gut punch.

I don’t know.  Perhaps I am just a big meany, but I don’t think so.  This film is a real love letter to their legacy (almost to the point of making them a little unbelievably tough) and maybe it did not hit home because I am not within that kind of world… but is that not what a good movie does, or is supposed to do?  A great movie takes us by the hand and leads us into a part of life that we are not accustomed to and connects us with it, for good or bad, and leaves us touched by the experience. 

Rating – 2.5 out of 4 stars