“Gran Turismo” - Nerds...in...raaAaAAaaaAaaace.

Every video gamer dreams of playing video games as a career profession. I once seriously considered applying for job as a video game tester that listed among its requirements a “deep knowledge of baseball.” My childhood dream was to become a professional baseball player and a job playing a baseball video game sure seemed like a great consolation prize. Except, the job was located in San Francisco and paid like it was in Jackson, Mississippi. Dreams dashed again. But not every dream is crushed by the harsh reality of economics and, well, reality.

Gran Turismo tells the story of Jann Mardenborough (portrayed by Archie Madekwe), a video gamer who actually realized his dream of becoming a racecar driver. To be clear, the video game itself does not tell that story, just the film. As the film makes very clear, Gran Turismo the game is a racing simulator. The prologue of the film shows the game’s creator, Kazunori Yamauchi (portrayed in the film by Takehiro Hira), creating the game with the intention of making it the most realistic racing game possible. It will not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with sports movies that this little nugget of information will be leaned on by Jann on more than one occasion.

Following the film’s prologue, we meet Jann and he is every bit the stereotypical nerdy gamer. He’s an adult man living with his parents. He works as a salesclerk at a clothing store. He splits his free time between playing Gran Turismo in his room and playing Gran Turismo in an arcade. He spends all his money on the ultimate gaming setup. He’s socially awkward and hasn’t the slightest idea how to talk to his crush. Or to most humans, for that matter. The only thing missing is a subscription to a Funyun delivery service.

And, like all gamers, Jann’s parents (Djimon Hounsou and Geri Halliwell Horner) are very frustrated and disapproving of his lifestyle. At one point, his dad tricks him into working with him at the railyards to teach him a lesson about where his life is heading. And, of course, this just makes Jann more determined to chase his racing dream.

Luckily for Jann, Nissan marketing executive Danny Moore (Orlando Bloom) convinces Nissan to create and fund the GT Academy with the purpose of training sim drivers (a.k.a. gamers) as real-life racing drivers (no, seriously - the GT Academy was a real thing that operated from 2008 to 2016). Jann is invited to participate in a qualification race within the game where the winner earns a place in the academy.

Once at the academy, Jann meets chief engineer and former racer Jack Salter (David Harbour). Jack’s job is to train all the contest winners to be real racers and, in easily the best movie speech in years, tells them all he thinks the entire idea is stupid and dangerous. Harbour’s Jack is nearly identical to his Stranger Things Hopper character, and it works like a charm. He’s cynical and snarky, yet sympathetic and caring. He tells people what he really thinks and it takes all of Danny’s patience not to fire Jack on the spot.

Jann is one of twelve contest winners at the academy and they learn that they are competing with each other for a chance to race for Nissan in professional races. This being a sports movie, you know exactly how this act will play out. For that matter, you know how the rest of the movie will play out. One recurring element of the movie is that Jann can see “alternate lines” – driving routes that take risks and deviate from the standard lines he is supposed to follow. But the movie itself cannot see any alternate lines, and can only follow the established sports/racing movie formula. Specifically, Days of Thunder. Jann is the underdog who has to convince several people he is for real, has a grizzled old mentor, vanquish various racing foes throughout the film, overcome an incident on the track, and even gets a girl in the end. And just like Days of Thunder, the spectacular racing scenes are the best part of the film. That’s not to say that Madekwe, Harbour, and Hounsou don’t deliver some very good performances, but we watch racing movies for the racing.

Directed by Neill Blomkamp, Blomkamp injects a bit of the video game into the film in very creative ways. If you’ve ever played a PlayStation game, you will recognize several of the sound effects incorporated into the race scenes, as well as the visualized racing lines the racers are trying to follow. It also features several scenes where a hologram schematic of a car materializes around Jann, then dematerializes after a few seconds. Once he is driving real cars, the same type of effect happens, except we are taken into the inner workings of the car (usually the engine) and the effects look like real parts instead of holograms. It’s a neat way to engage the audience to make the point - Jann is in the zone, baby!

I admit that I expected this movie to be like most video-game based movies - mediocre at best and laughably bad at worst. Instead, I found myself thoroughly enjoying a film that wasn’t a video-game movie at all, but a biopic about a cool story that just happens to involve a video game. It’s a very well-constructed, albeit safe, film that immerses you in the story and the tension as if it is a new experience, even though you already saw this movie when it featured Tom Cruise.

Rating: Don’t ask for any money back and keep playing those games. You never know when the next executive will start a new academy.

“The King’s Man” - Run Conrad, Run!

To franchise or not to franchise? That is the question Hollywood grapples with on a daily basis. Just kidding. Hollywood would franchise your food pictures on social media if they had more than three likes. The only people having conversations about sequels, franchises, and remakes that go beyond how much it will cost are literally everyone who watches movies. As I wrote in my review of Kingsman: The Golden Circle, one of the common cliched movie conversations is to bash any movie not considered “original,” which is as nonsensical as putting pineapple on pizza.

In fact, I’ve talked about the topic several times; in 2013, 2014, and 2016 (I’m sure there are more). My 2016 discussion - the unnecessary sequel - is the one I want to focus on here because the Kingsman franchise makes for a very intriguing conversation in this context. On the one hand, Kingsman: The Secret Service was a highly entertaining movie that came out of nowhere. On the other hand, Kingsman: The Golden Circle was a shart in the hot tub, indicating that maybe The Secret Service should have remained a standalone film. But British spies as a concept could very much lend itself well to being a franchise, considering the longest running franchise in history is about British spies.

(SPOILER ALERT - You know the drill.)

Rather than continue on with the characters from movies one and two (at least for this film), The King’s Man is a prequel, taking us back in time to the 1910s to show us how the Kingsman organization came to be. Not only that, but the overall tone of the movie is different than that of the first two. Instead of being an over-the-top, sometimes flamboyant, romp of dry British humor and bloody action, The King’s Man is a mostly serious, straight-as-an-arrow film that sporadically remembers that it can go bonkers.

Orlando Oxford (Ralph Fiennes) is visiting a concentration camp in Africa run by British General Kitchener (Charles Dance). Orlando is representing the Red Cross and has come to discuss the treatment of the prisoners. In tow are his wife, young son Conrad, and his butler Shola (Djimon Hounsou). Tragedy quickly ensues and Orlando promises his wife that Conrad shall never see war. This becomes Orlando’s guiding principle and a constant reason for melodrama throughout the film.

Jump ahead a few years and World War One has started. Conrad (Harris Dickinson) is now nearing the age where he can enlist in the army and Orlando is dead set against it. Luckily, Orlando also happens to be the Duke of Oxford, a decorated war hero, personal friends with King George V (Tom Hollander), and still friends with General Kitchener, so it’s quite easy for Orlando to prevent Conrad from ever being put in harm’s way. That is, except for the fact that Conrad is dead set on joining the war and also happens to be an impulsive teenager. As this squabble is the over-arching plot of the film, it casts a pall over what are supposed to be the fun parts of the film.

While Orlando is buying Conrad a new suit as a way to distract Conrad from the war *deep breath*, a mysterious, Scottish-accented, bald, goat farmer living on top of a towering Swiss mesa has gathered a bunch of nefarious co-conspirators to set in motion a plan to topple the English, German, and Russian monarchies and take over the world. *deep breath* Ahhhhhh...there’s the insane thing we were expecting from this movie.

This goat farmer’s plan plays out as the key major events of WWI we learned about in school and the Oxfords end up enmeshed in nearly all of them. The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, Rasputin’s (Rhys Ifans) influence over Tsar Nicholas II, the Bolshevik Revolution, Mata Hari, the Zimmerman Telegram, trench warfare, and Kaiser Wilhelm’s abdication of the German throne at the end of WWI. It’s essentially the idiot’s guide to WWI. Imagine if a violent Forrest Gump did World War I.

While the movie did have some good action scenes and interesting characters (as well as an astonishing and skin-crawling sequence with Rasputin), it almost goes out of its way to keep you from investing in them, including the Kingsman organization itself. In fact, the Kingsman don’t become official until the end of the film, after all of the conflicts are resolved. Until then, they consist wholly of Orlando, Shola, and Orlando’s head maid Polly Wilkins (Gemma Arterton); the three of them quietly trying to prevent Britain and friends from losing the war. Conrad is let in on their secret little band, but they never fully invite him in as a member due to Orlando’s vow to keep him away from war. This bothered me through the entire film because it was the extremely obvious solution to Orlando’s problem. Get King George to officially sanction them as a covert government organization, enlist Conrad as a member, then, make him the gadget guy or research guy as they try to thwart the evil Scot. That way, he’s fighting the war without fighting the war and Oxford can stop being the worst helicopter parent ever. Problem solved.

Inevitably, the question people want answered is how does it compare to the other Kingsman films? Compared to The Secret Service, it’s definitely not as good. It’s not as charming, exciting, fresh, or funny, but has enough good scenes to keep the viewer interested and entertained. Compared to The Golden Circle, it’s far better. It’s not a hot tub shart.

Rating: Ask for four dollars back and wait an hour until you get back in the tub.

“A Quiet Place Part II” - Everything can hear you scream.

Since I did not write a full review of A Quiet Place, just noted it as arguably the best movie of 2018 in my year-end review, it is worth spending a little time here to talk about it before getting into Part II. A lot of horror movies are cheap, barely coherent films aimed solely at getting a couple of jumps or screams out of the audience. If they do that, they win. That cheap part is key, just look at The Purge series. Each of the four movies (with a fifth coming out soon) cost between $3-$13 million to make and each pulled in around $100 million at the box office despite the movies featuring almost no actors you have ever heard of and writing that, at best, can be described as words on paper.

(SPOILERS for the first film. If you haven’t seen it yet, go now, and be quick about it.)

A Quiet Place differed in three key aspects. The first is that it featured two well-known actors, Emily Blunt and John Krasinski. The second is that it was a well-written screenplay with an exceptional attention to detail (one of the writers was Krasinski, who also directed). The third is that it had a larger budget, though still inexpensive as movies go, at $17-$21 million. All three of those things as a group were crucial to the success of the film. While a larger budget for a horror flick is a great thing (they were able to hire Industrial Light & Magic for the creatures, rather than hope a couple of kids with MacBooks could do it for a couple thousand dollars and some lollipops), the key was two exceptionally good actors and that meticulously written screenplay.

The acting was notable in that the entire cast was six people, two of whom are barely in the film. Essentially, it was Krasinski and Blunt with a couple of kids (both of whom were also quite good) and a script asking them to deliver a convincing performance with virtually no spoken lines. Since the creatures in the film can hear the smallest of noises, the family has to do everything as silently as possible. This is where the amazing screenplay comes into play. In order to convince the viewer of the danger posed to the family (and all surviving people) and how they were able to survive for so long, we have to see and not hear everything they do. From their sign language, to the trails of sand they walk on in bare feet, to the sound-proofed basement, to the lights used for signaling, to the sheer terror and desperation in the actors’ eyes, face, and bodies whenever so much as a mouse farts, everything in the sets, acting, and production design conveys a singular purpose - shhhhhhh.

The entire film is done so exquisitely that the audience unconsciously becomes part of the film, not daring to make a sound lest we become the next victim or betray the family’s position. When Lee (Krasinski) hears that toy space shuttle break the silence in the opening scene, the terror in his eyes is palpable and we clench in anticipation of what he is so afraid of. While most horror flicks hope for a couple of scenes of great tension, A Quiet Place succeeded in creating an entire film of great tension. It isn’t until the film is over that you realize your fingers are two knuckles deep into the armrests.

A Quiet Place is also the kind of movie that makes you dread a sequel. For one thing, you are worried that you cannot handle that level of tension for another two solid hours. For another thing, trying to recapture the magic of a movie like this is almost always a fool’s errand. This time, the audience knows what is out there. This time, the audience knows the family has a way to fight back against the monsters. And when it comes to monster movies, sequels almost always try to double-down on the monsters. Super-hearing in the first film? How about we give them the power of flight in the second film? Also, they are twice as big. Oh, and they can breathe under water. If not this movie, then they can when this becomes a trilogy.

This is where a great talent like John Krasinski comes in handy. For the sequel, he is the sole credited writer, directs again, and is even in a prologue scene depicting the first day the creatures attack. While this first scene is a fun nod to the audience who all wanted to know where the creatures came from, the rest of the movie is shown the same amount of care and meticulousness as the first film. And if you were worried about the sequel curse, Part II isn’t a traditional sequel that happens sometime in the future, often with different characters. Once that prologue scene is over, the film cuts to where we left Evelyn (Blunt) and her kids at the end of the first film. And I do mean the exact moment we left Evelyn, standing there with a shotgun.

With Lee gone, Evelyn and her three kids (including their newborn infant) set off to find a new place to survive. They soon come across an abandoned factory and have to run for their lives when Evelyn trips a tripwire and Marcus steps in a bear trap. Quickly, daughter Regan (Millicent Simmonds) sets up their one defense against the creatures (a speaker and her hearing aid, which make a screeching noise). Watching this occur from within the factory is Emmett (Cillian Murphy), a friend of the family, and fellow survivor who lost his family to the creatures. Seeing them kill one of the creatures, Emmett dashes out to help them and we are treated to another harrowing scene in which the humans use a combination of luck and environment to survive the attack. And like with the entire first movie, your hands are knuckle-deep in your seat.

While recovering from the bear trap, Marcus comes across a radio station playing music on a radio in Emmett’s hideout. Regan concludes that the music is a message to survivors and decides that she is going to locate the source of the music, taking off on her own without Evelyn’s or Emmett’s knowledge. The rest of the film plays out this plot and continues on like the previous film and this film - very little spoken dialogue and an intensity that rarely dips below nine. Emmett goes after Regan and they must survive multiple encounters. Evelyn and Marcus must survive more encounters. A couple of new human characters are discovered and more encounters must be survived. And every bit of it as intense as the last film and none of it feels rote or less urgent.

Have I mentioned that this film was really good? It was really good. It is one of the few sequels that manages to be as good as its predecessor and shows that sequels don’t have to escalate from the first film to be good. It also helps that Part II got a massive boost in production funds ($61 million), kept its cast small, and featured two very good actors carrying the film. It is the perfect film to usher us back into theaters, especially since the audience unconsciously stays as quiet as possible. Because you never know what might hear you.

Rating: Do not ask for any money back and apologize for poking holes in the seats.