Suicide Squad (2016)

 

Suicide Squad has too many characters and too many backstories to be a coherent film. Simply put, there’s just too much stuff to keep track of. The great Viola Davis plays government official Amanda Waller, who recruits a group of supervillains to help with Task Force X. Well, “coerces” might be more accurate than “recruits.” They all have a bomb implanted in their necks that will be exploded if they try to escape or refuse to help with the dangerous missions with which they’ve been tasked. The actors playing the parts of the villains are all first-rate: Will Smith is Deadshot, Margot Robbie is Harley Quinn, the underrated Jay Fernandez is El Diablo, Jai Courtney is Captain Boomerang, Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje is Killer Croc, and Adam Beach is Slipknot. Each one has special talents, and each one gets a bit of a flashback to when she/he became a villain before the film returns (somewhat, temporarily) to its main narrataive. Jared Leto portrays the Joker, the lover of Robbie’s Harley Quinn, but Leto’s performance suffers from the inevitable comparisons to Heath Ledger’s Oscar-winning performance as the same character. At the center of much of the narrative is a character known as Enchantress, a witch who is building a machine that will destroy humanity, very typical “end of the world” stuff for superhero movies. However, the building of said machine seems to take forever, and the movie keeps taking side trips to those very underdeveloped stories about how the villains became who and what they are. Davis is tough and effective, but this character doesn’t really challenge her abilities. She almost coasts throughout the film. Robbie steals the movie from the rest of the large and talented cast. She seems to be having the most fun, and she shows the most emotional range of any of the actors. That is due, in part, to the script that gives her character the widest range of possible emotions to feel, particularly in the scenes she gets to play opposite Leto’s Joker. A more streamlined film, one that doesn’t include cameos from almost all of the DC Comics heroes (Batman, Flash, even Aquaman), one that primarily focuses on a rich character like Harley Quinn, would be much more exciting.

Oscar Win: Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling

Florence Foster Jenkins (2016)

 

Florence Foster Jenkins is based upon the life of the 1940s-era socialite once known as “the world’s worst singer,” and if you’ve ever heard the one recording that she made during her lifetime, you’d know how she earned that moniker. Meryl Streep plays Jenkins as she prepares for a performance at Carnegie Hall, the prestigious venue that represents a sign of having achieved greatness as an artist. Only those of (alleged) great merit get to perform there. Florence, as revealed in several sequences, is not a talented singer and likely does not belong in such a hallowed performance space. No one can quite understand if she hears something different from what everyone else hears when she sings, but her love of music and her support of the arts are certainly evident. She’s also supportive of many charitable causes, and she manages to get others to let her provide entertainment as a way to raise money for those causes. The film begins with the hiring of Cosme McMoon (played with great deadpan facial expressions by Simon Helberg) to accompany her on the piano during her rehearsals and performances. McMoon realizes that Carnegie Hall will be quite a change of venue for Jenkins, given that her recitals are most often held in very controlled atmospheres. She’s typically surrounded by sycophants and/or by people paid off by her husband (Hugh Grant, slyly funny). Her husband has always tried to keep bad reviews out of her hands, and one of the funniest sequences in the film involves him trying to purchase and destroy every copy of the New York Post with an unflattering review that she might encounter. Everyone seems to be trying to bolster her ego, but she doesn’t truly come across as necessarily egotistical. In fact, her personal life is rather tragic and she herself is rather fragile. She’s dying from advanced stage syphilis and the horrific treatments for it. Her husband is cheating on her with a girlfriend he’s been keeping in another home. The balance of comedy and drama (well, maybe melodrama?) in the film is carefully maintained, and one of the centerpieces of the film, the performance at Carnegie Hall itself, is a delight with the outlandish (and deservedly Oscar-nominated) costumes and the audience participation and/or involvement in the show. It's little surprise to a current audience that gay men at the time were in on the joke for the camp value that Florence’s shows provided. What’s more notable is how Florence Foster Jenkins could overcome the resistances of the rest of the audience and make them enjoy the show too. They seemed to recognize the heart with which she performed. Through the performances of all of the key actors and the delicate handling of sensitive matters such as Florence’s illness and her marriage, Florence Foster Jenkins achieves more than just a few laughs at the expense of “the world’s worst singer.”

Oscar Nominations: Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role (Meryl Streep) and Best Achievement in Costume Design

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2016)

 

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them is the first spinoff film from the Harry Potter movies, a prequel to the events of that impressive series. Soon after Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne), a magizoologist, arrives in New York in the 1920s, he encounters Mary Lou Barebone (Emily Watson), leader of the New Salem Philanthropic Society, a virulently anti-witch and anti-wizard group. Barebone’s group wants to expose and kill witches and wizards. A mix up of briefcases leads to several creatures escaping from Newt’s magical case. Thanks to the chaos they create, Newt gets accused of being in league with evil wizard Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp), who has been wreaking havoc throughout New York City. Scamander surrounds himself with an intriguing array of friends in his quest: Jacob Kowalski (Dan Fogler), a frantic “non-maj” (non-magical person, or Muggle) baker; Tina Goldstein (Katherine Waterston), a witch no longer in good standing with her community; and Tina’s sister Queenie (Alison Sudol), who has psychic powers. They make an interesting cadre of adventurers. For much of the film, Newt tries to recapture various animals that got out of his briefcase, the cutest of which is the Niffler, a thieving little animal reminiscent of a platypus. Getting to see the imaginative creatures and their quirks is a delight, one of the best aspects of the film overall. There’s also a narrative thread about the Obscurus, a parasite that develops if you suppress your magical powers. Unsurprisingly, Barebone’s family has an Obscurus in its midst. Director of Magical Security Percival Graves (the dashing Colin Farrell) looks out for and tries to protect wizards, and he works with Mary Lou’s adopted son, Credence (Ezra Miller), to get the family away from their monomaniacal mother. By the way, Graves is a suspiciously snappy dresser for a wizard, and he and Credence develop what can only be described as a homoerotic relationship as the film progresses. Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling has always included a range of sexualities in her books, and the movies have sometimes followed suit. Being well-versed in the Harry Potter universe would undoubtedly help a viewer. Scamander, after all, writes one of the textbooks that Harry will read when he gets to Hogwarts. Otherwise, there are lots and lots of details to keep track of, lots of character names and lots of creature names and lots of terms associated with wizardry and witchcraft. It’s easier for someone like me, who’s familiar with the movies and has read one of the books, to focus instead on the basics of the plot and the outstanding production design, which creates a rather magical world in the midst of early 20^th century New York.

Oscar Win: Best Achievement in Costume Design

Other Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Production Design

Hacksaw Ridge (2016)

Hacksaw Ridge tells the real-life story of Desmond Doss, the first conscientious objector to receive the Medal of Honor. Doss demonstrated remarkable bravery as an Army medic in World War II in rescuing dozens of wounded soldiers even though he himself refused to carry a gun due to his religious beliefs. It’s an interesting choice of topic for a film, given that it could examine our national obsessions with both religion and military strength. Unfortunately, given that the film is directed by Mel Gibson, it instead at times becomes a treatise on the persecution of Christians more than a representation of Doss’ accomplishments. Hacksaw Ridge is certainly an accomplished film in many ways, its editing and sound quality and cinematography, for example, but its simplistic approach to portraying most characters besides Doss as being too weak in their faith actually works against its impact.

Historically, the feats that Doss accomplished were truly astonishing and deserving of tribute and recognition, and the film does a fine job of demonstrating just how astonishing those feats were. Doss rescued dozens of wounded soldiers even after the battlefield was abandoned by the rest of the division, much to the amazement of his commanding officers and fellow soldiers. He keeps dropping them down the side of a cliff with nothing more than a rope and his own stamina. Much of this happens while the risk of enemy fire surrounds him and those he is trying to rescue. This is made all the most amazing given his status as a conscientious objector who refuses to use a gun to kill a fellow human being.

Given how many people in his Virginia hometown had already volunteered, including his own brother, Doss feels like he should be contributing to the war effort even if he’s not going to fire a gun. He wants to become a medic, helping to save lives rather than take them, but he’s assigned to a regular unit filled with men who ridicule him for his adamant refusal to even pick up or otherwise touch a gun. He’s physically and emotionally harassed. His superiors, Sergeant Howell (Vince Vaughn, playing that one note of stupid anger for all it’s worth) and Captain Glover (Sam Worthington, surprisingly more low-key than Vaughn), try to get him discharged for psychological reasons. When that fails, they punish him with extra duties and then punish the others too so that they will turn against Doss. However, even when he is brutally beaten, he refuses to back down from his convictions.

A couple of extended flashbacks are meant to explain the depth of Doss’ resistance to using a gun. However, the two reasons on which the film focuses seem to be rather pat explanations. He almost killed his brother with a brick when they were young boys, and his shock over how easily he could have ended his brother’s life sends him to a drawing of the Ten Commandments in the family’s home. “Thou shalt not kill” becomes his mantra. Later we learn that his father, an alcoholic still suffering from PTSD from seeing all of his friends die in World War I, almost killed his mother when Doss was older, only to have Doss take the gun from his father and almost shoot him. Surely, the film could have done more work examining how Doss’ faith deepened from these and other incidents in his life. Instead they are presented as self-evident. Of course, the film seems to suggest that no reasonable person would want to kill another human being after these two near-misses.

Instead the film seems to want to show the horrors of war. It certainly emphasizes the violence of battle even from its opening sequence. We learn quickly that Doss has been injured and his fellow soldiers are taking him to safety. Rather than tell the story of his life chronologically, the film instead flashes back to Doss’ childhood to provide some explanations for why he opposes killing other human beings. It’s almost halfway through the film before we return to what is revealed as the Battle of Okinawa in May 1945, one of the bloodiest and most protracted battles of World War II. To gain control over the ridge that serves as the title of the film, the 77^th Infantry Division of which Doss is a part must replace the dead and wounded from an earlier division. It’s in this half of the film that the destruction of war is most apparent. We get spared very little visually in terms of the damage that war inflicts. Bodies are mutilated and exploded and shot. The film is particularly graphic in these scenes, an interesting addition to all of the violence that increasingly typifies Gibson’s films.

A subplot involving Doss’ relationship with a nurse who later becomes his wife is charming but hardly revelatory. It primarily serves to reveal that he has always been against killing (and that even his fiancé did not always truly understand what his religious faith meant to him). A court martial against Doss is also a failure other than as an excuse to redeem Doss’ father. The screenplay fails to provide sufficient details about either of those characters or much of the rest of the supporting roles, by the way. Some, like Vaughn’s Sergeant Howell, rarely rise above caricature.

The Christ imagery here becomes rather self-indulgent and heavy-handed at times, undercutting some of the other strengths of the film. This is not meant to diminish in any way what Doss achieved or to belittle his faith; it’s just that the moments outside of the battle sequences seem primarily designed to support an assertion about Doss’ righteousness and right-ness. During his “purification” ritual,” for example, as he washes the blood of battle and rescue off himself, the light that shimmers through the red-tinged water glows almost like a halo. And when he is being taken down the cliff, the lighting wouldn’t have been out of place in King of Kings or any other Biblical epic from the 1950s or 1960s. Even when he’s jailed to await trial, he’s bathed in golden light. All of this would be a lot easier to take if it were possible to overlook that many of the other characters in the movie (also based on real people) probably had very strong religious convictions too and had somehow addressed those beliefs with the need to use force during wartime. However, their faith gets downplayed or even overlooked (even ridiculed a bit) in order to strengthen Doss’ depth of faith and ensure that he is portrayed as a “savior” not just in terms of the men who owe their lives to his rescues.

In many ways, it’s easy to see why Gibson would choose this story. Here’s the tale of a Christian being unfairly persecuted because no one truly understands the depth of his faith. Everyone seems to be against Doss, and they all have to be proven wrong. Actually, the film demands more than that. Almost everyone who doubted Doss or criticized him during the film has to realize that he’s actually a better man than they originally realized. The plot demands that they face him and tell him that they misjudged him. Imagine how satisfying that must have been for someone like Gibson, who has honed his persecution complex for decades both in public and in the angry, violent films he has produced, directed, and starred in.

Oscar Wins: Best Achievement in Film Editing, Best Achievement in Sound Mixing

Other Oscar Nominations: Best Motion Picture, Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role (Andrew Garfield), Best Achievement in Directing (Mel Gibson), Best Achievement in Sound Editing