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Taifû kurabu (1985)
More than a slice of life
Somai captures the time and place of his setting in a way that's so much more deliberate than having shot it in Japan during the 80's. At the same time, the small town restlessness, horniness, and longing for something bigger than what is offered in your surroundings make the film timeless.
So much of the production is obviously great. How the camera follows the actors over chairs and desks and sliding doors make the school feel so personal. The cast is perpetually drenched during the second half and I just wanted to give someone a blanket, the tactility of the storm is inescapable. The few scenes in Tokyo are likely orgasmic to anyone who's listened to Plastic Love more than a handful of times.
With all that it's still the incredible cast of young performers that is the most impressive part. At first the carefree idiocy of all of them make the characters blend together, but each one have realistic traits that are discovered. Most are silly, but some are genuinely tragic.
The nostalgic indulgence of youth can be a bit overidealized, but there are parts that are stark and strange reminding the audience that being young isn't all the singing and dancing that the film seemingly wishes it was. Still, the clouds part by the end and what is left is an ultimately wistful impression of youth.
Pacific Rim Uprising (2018)
An embarassing sequel
The introduction of characters so generic you could find them in any other ensemble action film. There is the leading man, the son of Idris Elba's character from the first film, who is bafflingly given the identity of hoodlum rogue which contradicts his heroic, military background that was established in the prologue and is only there to have a forced "you could have been somebody" (there is an actual line of dialogue that says this almost exactly) character arc. There is a feisty newcomer who is suitably annoying given how juvenile she is (somewhere around thirteen years old) compared to the adult tone and subject matter of the movie, another forced archetypal jock rival whose adversarial attitude towards the protagonist is never given any real explanation, and a token love interest who the main two male characters obtusely squabble over. This love triangle, both thankfully and bafflingly, is dropped from the story almost immediately and is left inconclusive. Two of the best characters from the first film, the characters played by Rinko Kikuchi and Charlie Day, return here and tease some potential charm and personality in the film.
Unfortunately, the writers have no idea what to do with Kikuchi's character and she is killed off early on. Day's character has a larger and more embarrassing role than in the first film. In the third act it is revealed that Day had been working for the monsters the whole time and the audience is asked to believe that he is some kind of evil mastermind. It's understandable how the writers would want to beef up Day's role, as no one else in the cast has even an ounce of charisma, but there is a reason he is cast almost exclusively as a goofy comedic side character.
The film is directed by Steven S. Deknight who was one of the showrunners Daredevil and Angel, genre action shows that worked well because they focused on soapy character dramas rather than excessive special effects and action. I was worried that the larger budget of a big Hollywood production would steer focus away from character development and interactions and go for pure spectacle instead. There is actually a lot of attempt at emotional grounding, but the efforts come too late in the film for the audience to care and the characters lack the depth or pathos to reach the kind of emotional peaks seen with both Daredevil and Angel.
The opening set piece of the film had no robots or monsters, which is the entire conceit of the series, and instead there is a generic heist wrong scenario which can be found in any number of other action films. This is followed by another paint by numbers chase scene which, while utilizing some special effects and robots, could easily be inserted into any other Hollywood action film. About an hour into the film there is one almost good scene. In the cadet program, with the little kid character, there is a fight between her and an aggressive older girl with a little bit of martial arts and some genuine emotion displayed by the actors which is unseen throughout the rest of the movie. The setup is typical for a scene in a military boot camp but the young age of the characters makes it a bit more unique, with the tension placed on soldiers in training amped up with adolescent angst. The problem is that the story is focused on three separate narratives: the main protagonists conflict of fighting rogue robots and monsters, the cadets' interactions in robot boot camp, and Charlie Day's story gradually building towards the final conflict of the film. Nothing gets the attention needed to develop in any interesting way, everything is glossed over from one cliche and uninteresting plot point to the next.
A big problem with the main conflict is that the robot fights are boring. The first film was colorful and focused on the gigantic heaviness of the action. In the sequel, everything is grey and cold and lifeless. The fights happen mostly in flat, wide open spaces, where the size of the robots is meaningless. The action only sort of comes together at the very end where they fight in the dense metropolis of Tokyo: how they didn't think do something like this earlier in the film is beyond me. This scene also delivers the only "oh, cool" moment I had which was when several giant monsters morphed into an even more giant monster. Somehow I feel like this was the first thing the writers thought of when coming up with ideas for this sequel and just never came up with anything better.
Alien³ (1992)
Alien3 Assembly Cut (Spoilers)
There has been a lot of discussion regarding the Alien franchise lately due to news that Neill Blomkamp and Sigourney Weaver will be reviving the series. Apparently the new film will take place after the second movie and ignore Alien 3 and 4, to the delight of many Alien fans. I have fond memories of the goofy, fun and bizarre Alien Resurrection, but referencing the convoluting events of that film would be tedious. Alien 3 has many, many problems and would be hard to include in further canonical instalments, but is worth revisiting.
The messy plot begins with Ripley's ship, with a face hugger in tow, crash landing on an all male planet of murderers and rapists. Corporal Hicks and the 12 year old Newt, whom Ripley had spent all of the previous film struggling to save, are killed off screen in the first few minutes.
The production and script problems are famous and impossible to ignore. The worst part of the movie is the titular Xenomorph itself. The special effect of the creature superimposed into scenes are ugly and destroy the suspension of disbelief. It is also confusing how sometimes the creature looks like a small animal, and other times looks like the traditional Alien as seen in the previous films. The slasher horror scenes are tedious and often interrupt the few plot lines that actually have potential. There are at least two moments where a character gives a glimmer of a reason for viewers to care for or take interest in them only to be then cut off and killed. This is a common horror cliché that seems to be misunderstood by the filmmakers and is executed poorly.
The only positive aspects of the film are original ideas never explored before in the Alien franchise, but all of these thoughts are either abandoned or fall flat in execution. There are religious overtones throughout the film that sometimes hint at Ripley being the "saviour" to the den of sinners and the Xenomorph acting as the wrath of God. This subplot is actually pulled off well and begins to make sense until it is frustratingly set aside about halfway through.
There is also a subplot about Ripley hooking up with Clemens, the prison's medical officer, and the secrets they keep from each other. Ripley's secret is that there could possibly (or, most definitely) be an Alien inside the prison encampment. Clemens' secret is hinted at being something that would disturb Ripley and destroy the relationship between the two, but is eventually revealed to be something that she easily shrugs off. There is so much tension in this movie with no satisfying release for any of it.
Despite being an overwhelming mess, there are thematic and visual elements that make Alien 3 a movie that won't be easily forgotten, even after the future films make a point of disregarding it.