U-571 (2000)

 

The first ten minutes of U-571 are gripping and claustrophobic as we watch German sailors aboard a submarine enduring an attack of depth charges from a British destroyer. Their submarine gets disabled, and they are unable to defend themselves. It’s quite tense watching this opening sequence; it’s vaguely reminiscent of the great German film Das Boot from 1981. Unfortunately, after those initial moments, the plot starts to become rather preposterous. The Americans intercept the German sub’s distress signal and plan to get to the disabled sub before the Germans do. The goal is to capture an enigma code machine so that they can translate the messages being sent by the Germans. The plan involves using a submarine that’s been disguised to look more like a German one, including a Nazi emblem, and the sailors will also disguise themselves as Germans, putting on black leather jackets and carrying German guns. However, just as they capture the sub (far too easily, by the way) and get the German prisoners transferred to the American submarine and find the enigma machine (which looks very much like a plain typewriter, frankly), a German torpedo destroys the American sub. So the remaining American survivors (and one German prisoner, who you just know is going to try to sabotage their escape attempts) plan to use the disabled German sub to escape. They get into a torpedo fight with the resupply submarine that destroyed their American sub, and of course, in traditional Hollywood fashion, the German torpedoes miss (one of them just scrapes the hull), but the Americans destroy the German sub even though the firing mechanisms for torpedos on the disable sub were… well, disabled. The villains always are such bad shots in the movies made in America. As the Americans try to get the submarine to England, a German destroyer shows up and they have to dive to unsafe levels in order to avoid the potential danger from multiple depth charges. You should know how this ends, given that it’s an American movie about American sailors facing the Germans in World War II, and it’s already proven itself to be unrealistic. Both of the Oscar nominations for U-571 were for its sound achievements, and it really is a movie indebted to quality sound. The moments of fearful silence punctuated by the explosions of depth charges (punctuated by the visuals of those explosions) only enhance the power of those moments. Overall, the film is engrossing even though it stretches one’s disbelief. The plot also doesn’t help the actors much, though, putting them into situations whose resolutions are easy to anticipate. Matthew McConaghy plays Lt. Tyler, who at the film’s start is still upset over being denied command of his own submarine by his superior, played by Bill Paxton, because Lt. Commander Dahlgren doesn’t think Tyler is ready to risk the lives of the sailors he commands even if he has to do so for the greater good of the American effort during the war. You know what that means? Yes, he’ll have to take command of the submarine and he’ll have to quiet the resistance to his command and he’ll be awesome at commanding the submarine because he’s willing to risk the lives of the men under his command. If the rest of the movie were as compelling as the first ten minutes, which manage to avoid typical cliches of movies about submarines and war, U-571 would be a better film.

Oscar Win: Best Sound Editing

Other Nomination: Best Sound

Ad Astra (2019)

 

Visually, Ad Astra is quite a stunning film. It has been beautifully shot; the cinematography is superb. The film has been art directed to hell and back again, so the production design is also topnotch. However, watching Ad Astra is an exercise in tedium. I fell asleep while watching it in a theater, and I’ve fallen asleep both times I’ve watched it at home. It’s just a slow, boring movie. Maybe it’s time to stop making space films for a while, especially after this and First Man. Perhaps we just need a break until someone comes up with something more interesting to say about space travel? The plot of Ad Astra (Latin for “to the stars”) is rather straightforward. Major Roy McBride (Brad Pitt) has been asked to contact his father, the legendary astronaut H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) about whether his Lima Project near Neptune has been causing some sort of bizarre power surges. This is, naturally, a mission with a lot of emotional resonance for Pitt’s younger McBride because his dad always was more excited about journeying into space rather than staying with his family. Yes, he’s got “daddy issues” because, of course, his father abandoned the family when Roy was a kid, and a lot of the film features Pitt’s voice-over discussing his feelings about his father and about his own fears over repeating his father’s patterns of behavior. Roy has to go to Mars to send a message to his father since that’s the closest communications system to Neptune—and why wouldn’t it be? The film does have a few moments of intense action that interrupt the boredom. When Roy lands on the moon to catch a transport to Mars, he and Col. Pruitt (Donald Sutherland), an old friend of his father’s, get attacked by some sort of weird space pirates who kill their military escorts. The trip to Mars gets interrupted by a distress signal from a Norwegian ship, where Roy and the captain face attacks from some murderous baboons. No, you read that right: murderous baboons. However, these kinds of moments are too rare and too brief. McBride spends an extended period of time on Mars trying to make contact with this father and learning that his father killed everyone on board his ship when they wanted to return to Earth rather than follow the elder McBride’s deranged ideas about his mission. The director of the facility on Mars, Helen Lantos (Ruth Negga), helps him to get onto the ship that’s going to try to stop his father. Sadly, the three other astronauts die within minutes of his arrival on board—not through him killing them, no. They die from a series of rather stupid mishaps. People disappear in this movie very quickly. Part of the problem with Ad Astra is that it takes remarkably talented performers like Sutherland and Negga and even Jones and relegates them to minor roles (almost cameos at times) with only a limited amount of screen time. Instead, we get a lot of time listening to Roy’s inner thoughts. While Pitt is always a welcome presence to gaze upon, his character is well known for his ability to control his emotions and never get upset. That’s tough to watch for almost two hours, no matter how high the quality of the cinematography or art direction or visual effects.

Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Sound Mixing