Bumblebee

Mild spoilers.

BUMBLEBEE. (As Optimus would say.) Set in the late 80's this is the origin story of the best Transformer character, and how the group of Transformers established their base on Earth. The main character is 18-year-old Charlie (Hailee Steinfeld) and the movie is essentially what you might imagine if someone attempted to combine Michael Bay with John Hughes.

Directed by Travis Knight. He brings genuine sweetness to this bizarre friendship. Better writing and this could've been a top film.

From moment one I was wowed by two things: First how unmistakably EIGHTIES it looks. The first shot is of a city on the Transformer home planet of Cybertron, and that's not something that's necessarily 80's, so how loudly it screamed 80's made me extremely happy as a fan of the era. The only thing that really fails the 80's tone is the characters, but I'll get to that. I was pleased as punch by the song choices and the fashion, and even the plot took some cues from fare of the era. Yes, they played Tears for Fears' most known song, but they played Tears for Fears. And The Smiths. And Take On Me by Aha. I was all for it.

The second thing to wow me was the design of the Transformers. They are much simpler and more clearly visible than the shiny mess they are in the Bay films. They're distinct, recognizable, and still fit in with the other movies. When they transform it gives you the impression that you can almost tell how the mechanics work, and when they fight each other you can tell who's who. The next best choice the movie made is to have the main conflict of the story be only between Bee and two Decepticons. No huge mishmash or trying vainly to figure out what "that one's" name is (though there's plenty cameos for the fans). I also appreciated how Bumblebee himself was the MacGuffin. He's the thing everyone's looking for, AND an actual character at the same time.

Haha I just saw that Dylan O'Brien voices Bee (for the brief time he has a voice) I KNEW he sounded familiar!

From there, things spiral down a bit. I get the appeal of the Bay films; nothing looks like them, and certainly not this, as nice as it looks. But while this flick finds satisfactory replacements for "the Bay" in the look by setting it in the 80's, it also seeks to be a coming-of-age teen flick in the style of John Hughes -- most obviously, specifically Sixteen Candles -- and in that, it seems oddly misguided and distracted by what it must perceive to be modern boxes to tick. The tirade that is to proceed may seem a bit like nit-picking, but it really does bring the movie down a notch or two with its sadly degrading persistence.

Charlie is quite a good character and her tom-boyishness makes her fit into the world of fighting-robots-that-can-turn-into-cars excellently. She's likable and easy to cheer for but has a nice, frustrated edge. Literally every character that surrounds her is a degradation. Her oblivious mom, her idiot of a step-father, a brat brother, and worst of all, a neighbor who has crush: Memo (Jorge Lendeborg Jr.) Today, a geek is the coolest thing you can be, but you'd never know it watching this pathetic excuse for a character. Beta-male, stumbling over himself, completely accepting of his position on the absolute bottom of the food chain. Think Anthony Michael Hall in Sixteen Candles but with no self-confidence and never tries.

She's so effortlessly The Best™.

It was as if they had a good side-kick character written, but because GIRLS can't lead movie or something, they had to destroy him, to be sure he never overshadows her. Dumb, because Hailee Steinfeld won't even let the likes of Jeff Bridges overshadow her. I honestly can't remember anything helpful this kid does. Several times they make it a joke how useless he is. It isn't funny, and he drags Hailee down with him. Weirdly, there's a "hot dude" that she interacts with a couple times (think Jake of Sixteen Candles) but I could never figure if we were supposed to like him or not. He hangs out with the Mean Girls, but seems a friendly guy when he talks to Charlie.

Instead of the story pursuing this guy as romantic interest on the side (as cliche as it might be, it matches the 80's theme perfectly) it stubbornly shoehorns in Memo at every opportunity, only to sideline him for a laugh. The actor seemed perfectly capable of playing a fun, cool geek in the same vein, but the script goes out of its way to emasculate him and turn him into a useless, irritating punchline. And while he's clearly interested in Charlie, she friendzones him brutally. I'm all for a good friendship, but they set up romance here; only to swat it away when payoff time came.

Looking at him you wouldn't think it, right? He looks cool. They should've cast a more waify actor, OR let this guy be normal! (Or cut him completely!)

Speaking of payoff, both Charlie and Bee have these moments where things built up in their characters come to fruition. Normal character arc stuff, you know? Bee's is a cute running joke that pays off into a surprisingly sweet moment; and Charlie's is an issue she struggles with the whole film, that lends her a lot of character depth and feels very unique in itself and I was compelled easily by it -- until the payoff moment, when it becomes completely irrelevant to the plot and feels weirdly anti-climactic. I still appreciate its inclusion, but it was disappointing that they couldn't find a better way to bring it back around.

Action was pretty good. The opening sequences were super engaging, but I did find myself zoning out during some of the later fights. Still they were staged sensibly and don't forget to bring emotional weight to the battle. Overall an excellent time at the theater, but I was surprised how hard the awful side characters hit the bottom line. They distracted me from the good, and there's a lot of good. Hailee Steinfeld has real chemistry with a CGI robot and it's genuinely sweet. The movie has a lot of fun with its 80's setting, and the plot holds together to the end, despite boring side scenes featuring villains and John Cena (who's actually the third best character to Charlie and Bee).

Because of them the movie shines.

I wish they'd given the side characters a bit more TLC and ultimate likability, or else just cut them altogether and focused more on Charlie and Bee's wonderful dynamic. When they're together the movie clicks, and in those moments, the Michael Bay and John Hughes amalgamation works unexpectedly well. Bumblebee, even at the disadvantage of occasional misguided writing, is still easily the best of the Transformer franchise. So far; the door is now open wide for better things to follow.

Mute

Spoiler free!

Leo (Alexander Skarsgård) is a lo-fi guy living in a hi-fi scifi world. He was raised Amish, and keeps up the plain and simple lifestyle, but not in an Amish community; in the bustling, grimy, neon-lighted city of near-future Berlin. A childhood accident left him mute, so his quiet life is literal too. He has one friend, Naadirah (Seyneb Saleh) his girlfriend. And she has been keeping secrets from him. When those secrets cause her to suddenly disappear, he goes looking for her, but he has no idea of where to start, or what he's getting into.

Directed by the wonderfully incorrigible Duncan Jones. Never, ever change.

This is the most pure scifi-noir film I've seen since Blade Runner, and it's about time. Science fiction and film-noir go together wonderfully, and often get paired up, but the tech-noir phase pretty much always puts the scifi first -- the noir is for tone and mood. I love that of course, but I also enjoy a noir-plot, and to get those you still have to go back to the 1940's. Until now. Mute follows a classic noir plot structure faithfully, and makes sure to include traditional elements of the genre. Then it uses scifi on the side to put cool twists on it all.

At its core, it's a mystery thriller, plain and simple. No time travel, no body swapping, no aliens, no distant galaxies, no extended action sequences. In fact the way the bits of action and violence is done is extraordinarily good -- brief, and shocking, and often shown passively, which only enhances the effect. And the intensity build throughout the plot is a thing to behold. That last turn was completely unexpected. But Leo spends most of his time following clues, and the truth is revealed to us slowly. The only thing that breaks the noir protocol is a parallel, bad guy plot involving American surgeon buddies Cactus Bill (Paul Rudd) and Duck (Justin Theroux). Clearly they're involved in the mystery, but we never find out how until Leo does.

He wears the best Hawaiian shirts.

Cactus, with his magnificent mustaches, has that Paul Rudd charm, and a daughter he cares about, but is not a nice guy. But Duck, complete with perfectly horrendous floppy hair, and an annoying penchant for the word "babe" is far worse; and as we learn this, it was interesting to watch him slowly surpass Cactus on the evil scale. He's a creep times a thousand. Rudd has never been this good in a role, and I've not seen him give one bad performance. It's like the character was written for him, yet he still gave it a steady stream of unexpected twists. And Theroux -- my goodness. He made me feel sick, and my skin crawl, and I might have hated it if it wasn't so incredibly impressive.

I did wonder why they were so heavily featured, especially as their plot goes down a dark and seemingly unnecessary path. But when the two plots merge, it all makes sense and ties importantly into the theme. Also, Leo doesn't talk, so his scenes get to the point fast. They have to. But Cactus and Duck get to banter and chit-chat, and take their time. Then their side of things actually serves Leo too. Their being fully developed characters whenever they meet him helps things make sense, and allows the movie to focus on developing Leo in those scenes, instead of being distracted with villain motive. Whenever Leo is present in a scene, that scene serves him; doggedly. It refuses to become distracted, and I love that.

He certainly has a presence. And if looks could kill, his sad faces would be as deadly as his angry ones.

My dad suggested that Leo could have done noir-style narration via inner dialogue, and I half expected him to constantly use sign language which would then be captioned for us, but no; narration and captions are both cop-out solutions to a challenging character. Jones took the hard route, and the result is worth the trouble in spades. Alexander Skarsgård portrays Leo's every emotion, thought, and intention physically; expressions, body language, and actions. He signs and writes down a handful of things -- all minimally. Like the tagline says, he doesn't need words. They made sure that was true, and it works beautifully; he is heartbreakingly raw and open, and absolutely mesmerizing.

And he's not only an exceptionally interesting, different, well acted and written character; he really does lead the film. Even with the significant handicap of never speaking; the story revolves around him, and it's him that we care for. We get to see -- not only hear -- that he's kind and gentle, innocent bordering on naive, but will literally fight to protect the people (person) he loves. Naadirah, a blue-haired beauty instead of a blue-eyed beauty, at work seems just a part of the neon bustle, but then she washes off her garish makeup and treats him with equal love and respect a she does her. Their relationship is so unexpected, yet makes so much sense.

They're so sweet together.

This is another great example of a film where the darkness makes the light brighter -- the goodness of their relationship and his character, poised against the movie's many deplorable beings; some of whom accept the grime and depravity of the city's dark neon underbelly; others who create it. I ran the movie through VidAngel to remove the sex and nudity, but the film still deals with mature and dark things; all the better to explore a character who is defined by innocence and morality. The conflict was as contrasted as the neon and black visuals.

Besides the basic plot structure, Mute's atmosphere is decidedly noir, with a Blade Runner-like city of casually-used run-down technology. The best way to describe it is "neon-noir" as it often takes place at night, lit exclusively with neon lights. And that femme fatale character... all I can say is that it was unexpected, and worked perfectly. I also liked that it was set in Germany, and featured a few German characters. Maybe because I like German, maybe because of the tone it helped create too. It remembers to be depressing and pessimistic, but doesn't leave us hanging heartlessly. Like I said, there's light here, and hope, and it looks fondly on the purity of innocence.

Too bad none of the characters smoke. Watching people smoke in dramatic lighting is one of the finer things in life. And super noir.

All the elements I love in modern films are here -- a compelling lead with meaningful arc, moral exploration without preachiness, plot complexity that requires attention, and attention to detail and visual beauty. That is all paired with noir film tone, tropes, and structure; violence that isn't glorified or stylized; and emotion that isn't heavy-handed or exploiting. I have literally wished for a movie like this. I can hardly believe it exists as a real thing now, let alone works as well as it does. Striking on every level; compelling from its first moment to its last.

Duncan Jones obviously had a specific vision for this film, and it clearly was the last thing anyone expected. It's non-conforming, and non-traditional for these modern times. I know it's not something that everyone should be able to enjoy. It's niche -- but not that niche. People aren't saying it's just not for them, they're saying it's badly made. But it was made purposefully to mimic an old film noir, and that it undeniably does, so I say it's undeniably successful. That's why the plot is hard to follow, and "strangely" structured. There certainly aren't any glaring holes. It doesn't exposition us to death; character is revealed naturally; and it stays focused on what's important -- on what it wants to say.

And it's beautiful, but doesn't get hung up on being beautiful.

Appropriately, everything it says is said without words. It's all conveyed through subtext, imagery, even symbolism; and of course, expressions. With a title and a hero like it has, why in the world should it be expected to outright declare what it is? It gives us enough clues, if only we could shut up and listen. A throwback to the filmmaking past, a neat speculation into a realistic future, and a thoughtful and hard examination of good, evil, innocence and corruption; Mute is a scifi-noir film for the ages.

Perhaps age will see it gather the understanding it deserves.