Last Week of Summer 2013 Movie Round-Up #7: Man of Steel

[Spoilers! Beware]

There is one -- and only one -- moment of humanity in Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel (2013).

It arrives near the very end of the over-long, over-stuffed film, and provides the blockbuster enterprise a final, long-missing, and much-needed quality of soul. 

Specifically, Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) relates to his Mom (Diane Lane) that he wishes his deceased dad could have seen him become the man he grew into.  

Ma Kent replies with earnestness that Kent does see, and then the film cuts to this incredibly tactile, incredibly human moment (from years earlier…) in which Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) is fixing his pick-up truck on the family farm while young Clark is nearby. 

Jonathan gazes up over the vehicle's hood to see his boy -- his young son -- playing at being a superhero in the nearby yard. Unobserved, the innocent boy plays his game with abandon, and here -- at long last -- we see, and sense, and truly feel some rush of genuine emotion: the love a father feels for his child; and a bit of the anxiety associated with that paternal love too. 

Encoded in this beautifully-shot grace note in Man of Steel is the idea that all fathers both love their sons and mourn their own mortality in relation to that powerful love.  

For -- because of the particular nature of our life-spans -- we can only catch glimpses of the future and shall not always know, in the end, what kind of men our sons will become.  We can have confidence.  We can have optimism.  But we aren’t necessarily going to be physically present to see that boy’s final chapter of maturity.

The final miles our sons must walk without us....  

He will have our words and our lessons, and his memory of us to guide him in times of difficulty, but not our presence, not our reassurances.  As much as we want to be there, we can’t stand with him in those last years. There's a deep pain associated with these facts, and this short sequence beautifully expresses that feeling of melancholy. Of simultaneous joy in the boy, and mourning for the time when we cannot be with him.

This brief, lyrical scene in Man of Steel features no dialogue yet is visually powerful and more importantly, intimate on a breathtaking scale.  The moment feels almost like a lost or forgotten memory, and is truly, uncompromisingly, superb.  It embodies the reason I generally admire Zack Snyder's work as a director.  He can craft images of real emotional power when given the opportunity, and the right script.

I very much wish there were more moments like this one in Man of Steel.

But there are not. 

Instead, the film is dominated by action on such a ridiculously grand scale that you can't relate to it.  And there is not one moment of this destruction, death, fire, rage, or combat that touches the human heart in the way that this single, elegiac sequence manages to do.

Indeed, this small, human sequence pops up -- like some unwanted ghost or glitch in the machine -- in what is otherwise an incredibly generic, incredibly excessive demolition derby of cinematic destruction that lacks soul, humanity, humor, and most of all, hope. 

Make no mistake: this 2013 franchise film is actually embarrassed by the very name of its hero -- “Superman” -- and goes out of its way to eliminate or subvert long-enduring aspects of the franchise so as to somehow render its familiar origin story “new and fresh.”  Much material, a lot of history -- and almost all humanity --are entirely sacrificed in this rush to make the Man of Steel seem “relevant” or "timely."  

Yet seeing the uninspiring results, this was a fool's errand.  The audience never connects on a human scale with the titular character, or even the constantly-screaming, bulge-eyed villain.

In short, The Man of Steel is a colossal, robotic, lumbering disappointment, a non-stop industrial machine that relentlessly extrudes destruction and despair as a substitute for entertainment and humanity.  

“You're not just anyone. One day, you're going to have to make a choice. You have to decide what kind of man you want to grow up to be…”

On distant Krypton, the great scientist Jor-El (Russell Crowe) warns the planet’s ruling council that the mining (or fracking?) of the planet's core has caused irreversible geological instability.  In short, the planet will soon destroy itself, and the technologically-advanced culture it has long-nourished. 

Jor-El boasts a plan to save the planet’s genetic “codex” and restore the Kryptonian race on another world, but the Council rejects his idea.

At the same time, General Zod (Michael Shannon) attempts a bloody coup.  While pandemonium reigns on the planet, Jor-El and his wife Lara launch their new-born son Kal-El -- the first child born naturally on Krypton in generations -- towards Earth, where he shall live out his life.  

Although General Zod and the ruling council don’t know it, Jor-El also downloads the Kryptonian genetic codex into Kal-El’s very bloodstream....

Following Zod’s banishment in the Phantom Zone, Krypton explodes, and Kal-El begins his new life on distant Earth.

In Kansas, Kal-El (Henry Cavill) is raised by corn-fed farmers Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) and Martha Kent (Diane Lane).  They raise him to hide his alien powers, fearing that the human race is not ready to accept an alien in its midst.  After graduating from high school, Kal-El holds down lonely, odd jobs, and seeks some clues as to his alien nature.  He gets one in the Arctic, where a Kryptonian spaceship -- buried in the ice for 18,000 years -- is discovered.

Using a command key from his own spaceship (which remains stored in the Kent homestead’s barn...) Kal-El activates the systems on the scout ship, and meets a hologram image of his father, Jor-El.  Jor-El provides him a special Kryptonian suit to wear, and informs him that he is now a child of two worlds.  

Unfortunately, the command-key has also sent out a homing signal, one which General Zod and his fanatical, militaristic followers are able to trace back to defenseless Earth.

Even as a reporter, Lois Lane (Amy Adams) begins to track down the mystery of Clark Kent, Zod and his forces approach Earth with the agenda of finding the genetic codex, establishing a new Krypton, and wiping out (or at least enslaving…) the human race.

“Make a better world than ours, Kal.”

Sometimes, I wonder if the ubiquitous “geek” or “fan” culture has been done a grave disservice by the Internet, where its loudest (and sometimes most radical...) members declare what they want, desire and demand out of Hollywood adaptations of favorite properties.  

Bryan Singer's Superman Returns (2006), for instance, was met with widespread fan scorn because it was, overall, a human-scaled story, featuring a human villain, and a sensitive hero.  It resolutely did not feature the world-shattering, city-destroying action that some fans of Superman, apparently, desired.  

The fans want super villains and super-battles!

Well, the overall message of Man of Steel must certainly be a  cautionary one: Be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.

With this proverb in mind, Man of Steel is an endless, tiring -- nay numbing -- paean to falling skyscrapers, vehicles tossed into the sky, and super-powered people throwing each other into the air at near warp-velocities.  

The rampant destruction continues for such a long time in the film -- and is so colossal in scope -- that, in the end, not a single action scene actually packs much of a psychic punch, or has the tiniest emotional impact.  The makers of this film never heard that less can be more, apparently.  And their choice to make the third act of Man of Steel all-action-all-the-time consumes precious moments (or hours?) that would have been better spent establishing the characters and their lives.

In fact, Man of Steel’s climax eventually becomes unintentionally funny.  The whole of Metropolis -- literally entire city blocks -- are destroyed and aflame, but Superman rescues Lois Lane in the nick of time from a singularity that has been intentionally opened-up over the city (good grief…).  Superman lands her on the street...er rubble, safely and a Daily Planet intern soon shouts triumphantly: “He saved us!”

This is an optimistic opinion, for there are precisely four people left standing and visible in the frame: Perry White, the intern, another Daily Planet reporter, and Lois.  

Meanwhile, the city smolders, and the landscape appears positively post-apocalyptic.  The "he saved us!" line actually elicited laughs in the theater from other patrons because the staging -- and the overt, monumental destruction --suggests that Superman hasn't really “saved” much at all.  

Of course, we must assume there are other survivors beyond these four, but Metropolis now looks like the victim of 1,000 9/11 attacks, and a hundred super-storm Sandi-type incidents.  I half-expected to see in the background some graffiti that read: "Roland Emmerich was here."  

Despite the fact of rampant destruction, the screenplay does not provide a single line -- not one word -- about the herculean task of re-building the city, which now looms.  Indeed, the film ends with Clark Kent merrily taking his place at the Daily Planet, which looks clean and orderly...as if nothing ever happened.  

Just think for a moment about how long it took to clean up Ground Zero.  Now multiply that destruction times a thousand and start to reflect on the size of the job at hand...

Perhaps Superman could help with the efforts, but again, the film might make note of that fact.  Given what our lying eyes show in Man of Steel, it would be years -- perhaps decades -- before anybody was even going to work in Metropolis again, or frequenting the Daily Planet building.

The entirety of Man of Steel’s last act is filled with oversights of this dramatic and clumsy nature.  As I noted above, the plan to get rid of Zod involves creating a singularity -- a black hole, essentially -- just a couple of hundred feet over downtown Metropolis.

Yes, you read that right.

Fair is fair: I complained in my review of Star Trek (2009) when a singularity was opened in the Earth's solar system, but the proximity of the singularity here to a major city is much more egregious, and much more dangerous.  And again, the film never includes even a single line of dialogue to suggest how the singularity is to be closed.  

All that is discussed, if memory serves, is the connecting of two phantom drives to create the black hole in the first place.  Still, you’d think that “opening a singularity” would require, as well, an exit strategy.  

Also, in one of the film’s more far-fetched moments, Lois Lane falls away from the opened singularity, even as material is being sucked up from the ground, towards it.   So...she weighs more than a car? Or a huge chunk of asphalt?

This isn’t just bad writing...it’s Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987) bad writing.  But because the special effects are so good, no one comments much on the gaps in situation logic.

I’ve written about blockbusters of this type before, and it saddens me to see the Superman franchise to succumb to this sad trend.  In short, this movie all about pummeling the audience with destruction, with special effects depicting massive carnage.  Incident piles upon incident and the writers clearly hope that the viewer will be so throttled, so overwhelmed, that he won’t notice that there’s no plan to close the singularity opened over Metropolis proper.  Or that the very idea of opening up a black hole over a city is really, really reckless..

Or that Superman “saving” Metropolis actually ends up being the greatest loss of human life and treasure since the bombing of Hiroshima or Nagasaki.  

My point is not that the movie can’t feature rampant "super" destruction; but that it shouldn’t feature such destruction, and then turn around to end the movie, moments later, with Clark happily joining the Daily Planet staff.  The latter scene boasts no credibility if this much destruction actually occurred.   Cities can be easily destroyed and re-built with CGI effects, but real life is much more problematic in this regard. 

Man of Steel possesses no sense of verisimilitude at all.  It's just explosive eye-candy, with frayed connective tissue occupying the small spaces between action scenes.

The same problem of clumsiness recurs with the depiction of the Kryptonians.  One of Zod’s underlings informs Superman that he is crippled by morality, but that she is not.  This is a throwaway line, but it causes all kinds of problems.  Are all Kryptonians sociopaths by nature?  Has Clark escaped that fate because of his human upbringing?  Or does the line about possessing no morality apply only to genetically engineered soldiers? Again, the problem here is follow-through: the line has no explanation, and therefore nothing beyond a momentary resonance.  It means nothing in the scheme of things, and raises questions that needn't be raised.

The desire and willingness to bury Man of Steel in special effects sequences also leads to other bad creative decisions in terms of storytelling.  In many depictions of the Superman origin story, Jonathan Kent dies of a heart attack (think Superman: The Movie [1978] or even Smallville [2001 – 2011]).  

Here, he literally gets sucked up into a Category Five Tornado that is spitting out cars and other debris with typical CGI efficiency.  

In the desire to “throttle” the audience, the movie-makers thus skip one of the most critical life lessons for Clark Kent: that there are some things, and some deaths, that he can’t avert. 

Even as Superman, he can’t control everything.   Clark can’t save his father because he is not master over all life and all death.  Being "super" doesn't mean being God.  This simple human truth is Clark's most important connection to humanity on Earth. Ultimately, no matter our planet of origin, we are all the same when it comes to dealing with the mortality of our loved ones.

By replacing a heart attack with a scene-stealing tornado -- that Clark can stop, but doesn’t -- the film misses this key moment in Kent’s maturation process,  A human scene has been replaced with spectacle, and the spectacle, ultimately, has no point.  

What precisely was the lesson learned here?  As the state-of-the-art special effects so adroitly dramatize at other junctures in the drama, Clark can move so rapidly that he could have picked his father up in a blur, rescued him, and not revealed himself to anyone.  The Kent death scene in Man of Steel carries no psychic weight as drama, because Jonathan's death is arbitrary.  It's just another opportunity for good effects work, not for character growth.

I wrote about this a little in my introduction, but it seems to me that the whole “re-imagining” of the Superman legend as seen in Man of Steel originates from a point of vast insecurity and embarrassment about the character.  

First, the film tries to (over)compensate for the perceived failings of Superman Returns by featuring city-shattering action by the boatload, instead of actual human interaction.  

Secondly, it won’t even let characters say the word “superman” without making it a joke, as if the Man of Steel’s superhero name is any cornier or cheesier, intrinsically, than Batman, Spider-Man, Iron Man, or Hulk.  

Thirdly, the film skips the whole concept that Lois Lane does not know that Clark and Superman are one in the same.  Why?  Well, it’s a defensive and insecure posture too: how could anyone believe that mere eye- glasses could hide a person’s identity...especially from a Pulitzer Prize-winning author?  

Well, how could any author write the words “to see what is under one’s nose needs a constant struggle?” 

Indeed, that's another dramatic point and theme of the Superman myth.  Supermen hide among us all the time: everyday heroes whom we might dismiss as a nerd or klutz, but who -- in a moment of crisis -- rise to the occasion.   We dismiss them, on a regular basis, as ordinary Joes.

This huge change in tradition will have serious ripple effects in the movie franchise.  Now Lois boasts no defining struggle as a character, no hurdle to overcome. She can’t even be jealous of or competitive about Clark’s journalistic skills, because she knows she would be competing, essentially, with Superman.  And that would be foolish, wouldn't it?

Of course, iterations of the myth, across the long years, have reached the point where Lois knows the truth about Clark Kent.  But that knowledge is almost universally hard-won.  

Not so here.  

Here it is the starting point, and thus there is no sense of character conflict between Clark and Lois.  This Lois is even -- gasp -- warm-hearted and soft.  She decides not to pursue Clark’s story after meeting him, when he convinces her (in one brief conversation...) that he should be left alone.  Again, she doesn't know him at this juncture...at all. So why go all wobbly?  Because he's "kinda hot," in the film's vernacular? 

In 2013 -- especially with all the battles about the role of the press in security and privacy --  to feature a Lois Lane who is so weak virtually qualifies as writing malpractice. The Man of Steel does feature a character called "Woodburn" (an amalgamation of "Woodward" and "Bernstein"), but it the truth is that the movie has approximately zero curiosity in the ideals of journalism (free speech, etc) which have been a key component of the Superman mythos for decades.   

Instead, there are just more buildings to blow-up, and more trains to throw in the air...

Finally, I find it spectacularly lacking in creativity and imagination that Man of Steel ends with Superman breaking Zod’s neck, rather than finding a way to neuter him, banish him, or otherwise defeat him.  I can’t fathom how Superman can be said -- in this film -- to be a figure of “hope” when he pulverizes half of Metropolis (and Smallville too) with his own hands, and then, for his last act, commits murder.

People wouldn't be inspired by this Superman.  They'd be terrified of him.  

The merits of Zod's murder can be debated, of course, given the specifics. There was a human family to rescue, and Zod clearly wasn’t going to stop fighting, no matter what.  

Essentially, he picked suicide by Superman as his manner of death. 

Yet virtually by definition, being “Superman” means finding good, creative, meaningful alternatives to murder in times of crisis, pain, and suffering.  On top of all the excessive carnage highlighted in the film, the murder of Zod simply confirms the film’s ugly, dark, misunderstanding of a great American icon. 

What Man of Steel profoundly misses is that Superman is designed to be symbol of all that is good in America, and all that is right.  He represents a romantic but worthwhile ideal (truth, justice and the American way...), and is supposed to be a role model for children and adults alike.  To have him in his first re-booted adventure pulp a city, a small town, and mete out death to his enemy with his bare hands, suggests the kind of “reboot” of a beloved character I simply can’t get behind.  Star Trek Into Darkness handled this idea far better.  You aren't a hero at all when you descend to your enemy's level of barbarism. 

Instead a man -- especially a superman -- must take the hard route and be better than his enemies.  He must be smarter, more creative, and more merciful.  But the shadow of the Dark Knight is a considerable one, and these days, all superheroes most be tortured, dark ones apparently, even beacons of hope like Superman.

Man of Steel might more accurately titled Heart of Steel, because no light, no love, no humor, no soul is allowed -- except for one brief interlude -- to shine its light in the film.  The result is a movie that is both computerized (in terms of effects) and robotic (in terms of story and character).

So, if you want to believe a man can fly -- and that a movie can soar -- check out Superman: The Movie.  

If you want to see skyscrapers collapse, jets hit the ground and explode, trains fly through the air and then land on people, and super-strong people punching each other at high-speed velocities, this is the Superman interpretation  you've been waiting for.

Last Week of Summer 2013 Movie Round-Up #6: After Earth

When I was a young boy, I received for Christmas one year a book with the (now politically-incorrect…) title Adventures for Boys. 

After avidly reading the selections within that anthology, I devoured other, similar stories of outdoor adventure such as Jack London’s (1876 – 1916) The Call of the Wild (1903), and White Fang (1906). 

Those tales featured genuine simplicity -- or clarity -- of theme and morality, and to this day, I find that writing voice and style appealing.

Almost universally set in a harsh climate or natural terrain, these “adventures for boys” also concerned,  specifically, a character’s rite of passage, even if the character in question happens to be a canine.

M. Night Shyamalan’s new and much-maligned science fiction movie After Earth (2013) is an affair in an almost identical vein. It’s a boy-against nature, rite-of-passage movie, and one uncluttered by story fat or extraneous plotting and incident.

In fact, After Earth is a stream-lined, enjoyable adventure for boys and girls.  And likes its literary antecedents, the film even focuses on a very specific philosophy of life, and explores that (spiritual) way of knowing with a surfeit of clarity, even grace.  And I'm not talking about Scientology, either.

In short, the film is more enjoyable, and worthwhile than I anticipated it would be, and much more so than most reviews have indicated.

After Earth is set in the distant future. Man has left Earth behind after polluting and ruining it.  

One thousand years after that exodus and re-settlement on another world, Nova Prime, man has established himself as an interstellar presence. 

Unfortunately, a competing alien race has bred monstrous predators called the Ursa who can smell our fear, and who are engineered to do nothing but hunt and murder humans.

On a routine space mission aboard a ship called the Hesper, a hero father, Cypher Raige (Will Smith) and his estranged, troubled teenage son, Kitai Rage (Jaden Smith) face danger when their ranger ship encounters an “asteroid storm.” 

The ship crashes on wild, untamed Earth, after cracking into pieces.  Alas, a rescue beacon is located on the tail section of the ship…located more than fifty miles away from the fore section’s crash site.

Side-lined by a severe leg injury, Cypher must send his inexperienced son into the wild alone to retrieve the rescue beacon and send a distress call to the authorities. 

Making matters more dangerous, the Hesper was carrying in its hold a deadly Ursa captive, a creature now unloosed on Earth and ready to resume hunting human survivors.

Cypher has mastered the art of “ghosting,” of suppressing his fear so that the Ursa can’t detect his presence.  But his son, Kitai, has no such experience…

In my introduction above, I wrote about After Earth’s central, fully-explored theme or philosophy. That philosophy of life -- short and sweet -- is mindfulness: the attentive awareness of the reality of things; of the happenings of the moment.  It’s a Buddhist belief, but also one that has been adopted in contemporary psychological counseling.

Mindfulness is considered one way of understanding life, and of vanquishing emotions that aren’t important, or serve no useful purpose.  And in After Earth, mindfulness is the gateway to adulthood and the key to survival in a frightening situation. 

Specifically, Cypher delivers a lengthy monologue about the nature of fear, and how, via the auspices of mindfulness, he was able to subtract fear from his mental gestalt.  Cypher describes danger as “real” but fear as nothing but a choice, an emotion that is “imaginary.”  

Hence, it can be controlled.

Cypher’s key to short-circuiting the un-real aspect of fear, as he describes it, is his recognition of his immediate, surrounding environment.  He describes a terrifying battle with an Ursa, and how fear left his body.  His eyes registered sunlight.  He describes the sight of his own blood.   But Cypher distanced himself from his emotions even as he tuned into his environment, so he could survive. In a crisis, Cypher suggests, we must deal with what surrounds us, instead of imaginary boogeymen that are unreal, and therefore unrelated to the life-and-death struggle at hand.

Mindfulness is the philosophy that guides and informs After Earth, but the mode of that philosophy’s transmission is of equal interest to the message itself.  This is a film about generations, and about fathers-and-sons, specifically.

Indeed, one might gaze upon the film in its entirety as a metaphor for fathering (or on a bigger scale, parenting in general).  Here a father must share with his child the way he sees the world, and then hope that this very knowledge will be useful when that boy must stand up and fight alone.  

Without being maudlin about it, the movie is about the wisdom we impart to our children.

And, of course, it’s absolute murder to see the boy stand up and fight alone, when it’s clear that Cypher wants nothing more than to fight Kitai’s battles for him. 

That’s an urge all parents feel and yet, in some important instances, must resist.  We send our children out into the world knowing that we can’t always be there for them, but that, hopefully, the things we taught them will resonate and prove meaningful. Those seeds will sprout in their memories, and they will survive and endure, and then -- one day -- pass on their version of that knowledge to the next generation.

The father-son relationship in After Earth is emotionally-moving because even a helpful philosophy such as mindfulness can be perceived, in certain situations, as negative.  

From the outside, it looks a lot like distance, or the lack of feeling...the lack of love. As Kitai's mother suggests, he is a sensitive, intuitive, feeling boy, one who needs a father, not a philosopher or commander.  He doesn't understand why his father is so remote.  There is a price to pay for mindfulness, for always living life in the "ghosting" mode, in the film's vernacular.

In terms of family issues, Cypher and Kitai both experienced a tragedy involving a family member, and Cypher doesn’t know how to handle his guilt.  So he deploys mindfulness in his family life too, but there is a cost to those around him.  

Cypher -- adhering to the stoicism of mindfulness -- can’t reach out emotionally, because he believes emotions don’t help in a crisis.  Cypher has been practicing mindfulness in his personal life for so long that he forgets what it means to really connect with someone.  In other words, the very philosophy that keeps him alive is the thing that keeps him from truly connecting with his son.

Accordingly, After Earth reaches its zenith of emotion during its climax, when Cypher attempts to express his new-found regard and respect for Kitai in a kind of socially-acceptable but ordered and restrained gesture: a military salute.

Delightfully -- and outside of movie tradition -- Kitai doesn’t reciprocate.  

Instead, he hugs his father, an absolute assertion that sometimes emotionality, not mindfulness, is the key to life.   

Thus, like all children, Kitai has taken his father’s “lesson” and interpreted it in a way that is meaningful to him as an individual.  

That is the very rite-of-passage meted in the film: Kitai’s ability to understand his father’s choice, and then to make his own meaningful choice about whom he hopes to be.

The movie is about nothing more and nothing less than that kernel of an idea: one man’s way of seeing the world and his son coming to understand that “vision..." and divine his own belief system from it.

Sadly, you likely won’t read about any of this thematic substance in the majority of mainstream critical reviews.  Instead, the reviews for After Earth have been harsh, even savage.

That rampant negativity is a result, I suspect, of a perfect storm of bile and jealousy: the continuing backlash against Shyamalan (because he dared to trick us with The Sixth Sense [1999] and then minted a fortune), and the relatively fresh backlash against Will Smith and his son Jaden.

So if hating is the game, After Earth is a two-fer!

I should also state this fact: After Earth isn't a movie about Scientology.  I've read reviewers insist it's about Scientology because -- wait for it -- there's a volcano placed prominently in the action.  I suppose this means that Star Trek: Into Darkness and Revenge of the Sith (a whole planet of volcanoes there!) are also about Scientology.  Who knew?

Perhaps more to the point, even if After Earth did feature principles of Scientology, would that fact immediately, a priori, render it a bad film?  Does the same rule apply to Catholicism or other branches of Christianity, or only to unpopular religions?

But I'm not in the business of defending movies, only watching them, interpreting them, and presenting my analysis.  Having seen and enjoyed the film, I conclude that it is a well-made, enjoyable “adventure for boys” (and girls too…) -- nothing more, nothing less --  with an authentic sense of humanity. It is a simple, straightforward "shipwreck" movie, and parts of the adventure reminded me of Robinson Crusoe and Swiss Family Robinson.  The production design is original and compelling, and the location shooting transforms Earth into the most vividly dangerous of wildernesses.

We live now in a culture of noisy, hectic movie blockbusters, where event piles upon events, where there are feints and counter-feints, and where “surprises” and reversals come at the audience by the dozen (and often in 3-D to boot).  We leave the theater after such films not exhilarated and moved, but throttled.

Refreshingly, After Earth doesn’t care about throttling you, or layering on a multitude of high-intensity incidents.   Instead -- and much like The Call of the Wild or White Fang -- the film simply and directly vets its adventurous tale of extraordinary survival, and of a father and son discovering each other.

The key is that After Earth accomplishes those tasks with heart, and a considerable degree of humanity.  It's a shame people aren't looking at the movie with open eyes and open hearts, but bitterness instead.  It's more fun, I suppose, to fit the movie into another edition of the "M. Night Shyamalan-has-lost-it" narrative than to grapple with the ideas the movie actually presents.

Frankly, I think the critics could use a lesson in mindfulness.  

So you may love After Earth, or you may hate it, I guess.  But when you watch  the film, at least do this much: drop your expectations and biases, be in the moment, and judge the work for yourself.

Last Week of Summer 2013 Movie Round-Up #5: Star Trek: Into Darkness

(Note: In the following review, I will discuss, obsess on, and lovingly caress spoilers of all kinds, so be warned now, before you proceed…)

“There will always be those who mean to do us harm. To stop them, we risk awakening the same evil within ourselves. Our first instinct is to seek revenge when those we love are taken from us. But that's not who we are...”

Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), in Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013).

I now understand that the thing which really primed me to enjoy and appreciate Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013) is...Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby (2013).

I screened that movie adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel on opening day, and was blown away by how relevant, experiential, and intimate the director had made the familiar material. 

Although I love and admire the original book, there can be little doubt that the legions of high school students reading it right now find it a chore, or worse: a “dead text.”  

But negative reviews be damned, Luhrmann has revitalized Gatsby and made it live and breathe for modern audiences.  Rap music, 3-D photography, and other contemporary stylistic touches have rendered it entirely of the moment, and will open up an understanding of Fitzgerald’s work for generations yet to come. 

For example, Luhrmann’s modernization of the work permits viewers to understand that the American Dream hasn’t changed much hanged in ninety years -- nor has Wall Street --  and thus help us to identify with Nick and Gatsby in a way that a traditional period piece simply would not.

Well, Star Trek lives again too, and in very much the same fashion I describe above, thanks to the efforts of J.J. Abrams and Into Darkness.

Although it may be sacrilege to say so in some circles, there are probably folks who would also consider Star Trek a “dead text” at this point.  The franchise began almost fifty years ago, and the milieu which gave rise to it -- Kennedy’s Camelot -- began and ended before I was even born.

However, in ways large and small, epic and intimate, Star Trek: Into Darkness breathes fresh life into the franchise, and makes it relevant to today’s world.   Although the narrative concerns the future of the 23rd century, the movie is really about today -- the world around us -- and its message is transmitted in the way that contemporary audiences can best receive it:  in 3-D, with lots of lens flare, and in J.J.’s preferred mode of expression: pastiche.

The film’s story is not -- as I had feared and fretted -- all about a revenge-mad terrorist armed with a weapon of a mass destruction, but rather about the ways that heroes respond to acts of terror, and fear. 

In short, Into Darkness is a spell-binding, thrill-a-minute film that accomplishes the one thing that the 2009 reboot did not, and which I desired to see more than anything else in a sequel.  Star Trek: Into Darkness restores the Gene Roddenberry franchise as a vehicle for social commentary by noting that the bad guys win when we go “dark” in response to bad deeds.  

Accordingly, the film plays as a recap of the difficult "War on Terror" years since 2001, years in which America condoned torture, holds suspects in perpetuity without trial, launched a pre-emptive war, and has relied on advanced, push-button technology to destroy enemies from afar, in violation of law and perhaps morality.  Into Darkness is about who we have let ourselves become…all out of irrational, overwhelming fear and anger.

But, as Star Trek has long suggested, the best way to battle darkness is to bring it into the light…to expose it for what it is.  To my delight, this J.J. Abrams film understands and transmits that notion in a fashion that a dozen interchangeably “dark” superhero movies simply do not.  Kirk in this movie is angry about his loss and looking for vengeance, but because of his friendship with Spock, Scotty, and others, he is soon able to see that revenge cannot be the quality that defines him.  He's better than that.  

We should be better than that too.

The purists will complain -- just as they complain over Gatsby, and just as they complained when The Next Generation first premiered in 1987 -- but in their stubborn refusal to accept the passage of time and embrace modern audience appetites and movie techniques, these folks will also miss out on the best and most relevant Star Trek movie in possibly thirty years.

“The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

In Star Trek: Into Darkness, the U.S.S. Enterprise under command of James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) undertakes an unauthorized mission on the inhabited world Nibiru. 

In contravention of the Prime Directive, Kirk and his crew, including the half-Vulcan first officer, Spock (Zachary Quinto) attempt to save the primitive inhabitants from extinction by volcanic eruption.   The mission to quiet the eruption is a success, but with qualifiers.  The natives, for instance, see the Enterprise in their sky, and begin the worship of it as a God…

Upon return to Earth and Starfleet, Kirk is called on the carpet by his superior at Starfleet Command, Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood), for his actions on Nibiru. Those incidents were reported by Spock, who Kirk saved from certain death on the planet.  Spock believes Kirk should not have violated Starfleet Regulations, while Kirk believes that Spock should have trusted him.

Meanwhile, the shadowy John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) -- an agent for the secretive security branch of Starfleet called Section 31 -- goes rogue and launches two terrorist attacks against his former superiors.  He destroys an archive in London, and attacks command personnel in San Francisco. 

Captain Kirk requests permission to pursue the terrorist to the end of the galaxy if need be, and in that quest is provided a new, highly-advanced weapon by Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller): 72 highly-advanced stealth torpedoes. 

Marcus orders Kirk to go to the edge of the neutral zone near Klingon space, where he is to fire the torpedoes from a safe distance at an uninhabited province on the alien home world of Kronos.  There, intelligence suggests, Harrison is believed to be hiding.   

Spock objects to a kill order for a man who has not even stood trial for his crimes, and Scotty (Simon Pegg) resigns his commission rather than take aboard 72 weapons of unknown origin that could damage the Enterprise.

Upon reaching the neutral zone, Kirk reconsiders his orders, and takes a team down to Kronos to arrest and bring back Harrison.  

This act which enrages Admiral Marcus, and opens up a world of secrets involving Section 31, the true identity of Harrison, possible war with the Klingons, and the existence of the first battleship in Star Fleet history…`

“I surrendered to you because, despite your attempt to convince me otherwise, you seem to have a conscience, Mr. Kirk.”

One important thing to understand about Into Darkness is that it is indeed the victim of a terribly generic marketing campaign. 

Previews and trailers stress a mad man, acts of terrorism, and even the dreadful line “I will have my vengeance,” which -- if memory serves -- does not appear in the film.

As I described in my post, Threading theNeedle, the advertisements and posters evoke memories of The Dark Knight (2008) and Iron Man 3 (2013).  

Similarly, the title Into Darkness is also outright dreadful, and a deliberate misnomer.  This is not a film about Kirk, Spock and the Enterprise crew traveling into darkness, but rather about finding the antidote to the darkness in their lives -- in friendship, for instance -- and staying true to their convictions and beliefs in the process.   T

he movie isn’t angst-ridden or broody, or particularly dark for the apparent sake of narrative and thematic “maturity.”  It isn’t a film about ugliness.  Instead, Into Darkness is about finding the best within oneself when times are worst, and that path of light being the key to dispelling encroaching darkness.

In terms of the social commentary, Star Trek’s (2009) destruction of Vulcan is now, clearly, the 9/11 of the franchise and the galvanizing incident behind the plot line of the sequel. Star Trek: Into Darkness follows-up that context, and reveals a Starfleet Command in chaos  and confusion over how to respond to looming threats.

There is a direct, multi-faceted parallel between the years 2001–2013 and the events in the new Trek timeline.  I’ll enumerate as many as I can, for they are legion.

Point 1: The John Harrison/Bin Laden connection

John Harrison, the villain of Into Darkness is a former agent of Section 31, a shadowy covert organization in Starfleet.  He was "awakened" by Admiral Marcus and trained in 23rd century technology and intelligence to help Marcus countenance looming threats such as the Klingon Empire. 

Osama Bin Laden, the late terrorist who struck America on September 11, 2001, is, in some circles, believed to have been trained by the CIA (corollary to Section 31, in Star Trek) to battle the Russians in Afghanistan with the mujahedeen.  

In this case, Harrison also turns against those who trained him, and uses that training and knowledge to strike back at his former masters.

After two devastating terrorist attacks on Starfleet and Earth, in London and San Francisco, Harrison escapes without a trace to an uninhabited province in unfriendly territory.  

Historically-speaking, we know that Bin Laden sought sanctuary in the rough mountain patch separating Pakistan from Afghanistan, particularly the inhospitable landscape of Tora Bora. 

Bin Laden’s proximity to a sovereign country possessing nuclear capability and a population by-and-large hostile to America, became a central issue in tracking him down, and contending with him. 

That precise dynamic plays out in Star Trek Into Darkness as Kirk must negotiate his proximity to the Klingons, and not allow Starfleet to become visibly involved in an incursion into such sovereign territory.  Provoking the Klingons -- like provoking Pakistan -- could mean "all out war."

Finally, John Harrison is called his full-name only once in the film, and though it is abundantly familiar to Star Trek fans, it plays differently in terms of the post-9/11 milieu.  Khan Noonien Singh sounds not entirely unlike Osama Bin Laden.  Three word names, both consisting of apparent Middle Eastern-sounding origin.  This resemblance may seem slight, but played out in this alternate universe timeline, I believe the connection is significant.

Point 2: Photon Torpedoes and Drones

The way to get and destroy Harrison, ostensibly, is by use of new, modified 23^rd-century torpedo in Star Trek: Into Darkness. 

These torpedoes can be fired from a great distance to destroy the terrorist.  As others have written persuasively, this aspect of the Star Trek plot boasts a clear corollary with our continued drone attacks in foreign countries, including Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan.  This “push-button” war raises questions of morality in both circumstances.  

In neither instance is there a declared state of war, and therefore no permission to launch decapitation strikes deep inside sovereign territory.  

But in both cases there exists the opportunity to kill with impunity, without repercussions, and to do it in such a way as there are no casualties for the “heroes.”  This opportunity tends to make war seem "clean" and "pretty," especially to a detached citizenry.  No pilots endangered, no boots on the ground.  Just death from above, and from a great distance.

Point 3: The Klingons and Iraq

Following Al-Qaeda’s surprise attacks on New York City and Washington D.C. on September 11, 2001, the Bush Administration immediately began conceiving a way to legitimize a war…with Iraq.  

Al-Qaeda was headquartered in Afghanistan and had no links to Iraq or its despotic ruler, Saddam Hussein, and yet the Administration began to lobby for war with that state.

This fact is revealed in Bob Woodward’s text Bush at War, which notes that “Before the attacks, the Pentagon had been working for months on developing a military option for Iraq…Rumsfeld was raising the possibility that they could take advantage of the opportunity offered by the terrorist attacks to go after Saddam immediately.”

In Star Trek: Into Darkness, Admiral Marcus is similarly, unhealthily obsessed with the Klingon Empire and believes that war with the Empire is inevitable.  He is looking ahead to a next, possible enemy, instead of dealing with the enemy that already exists (John Harrison).

Accordingly, Marcus and Section 31 have begun to hyper-militarize Starfleet, and laid the ground-work for a new war against an enemy who has not yet struck.  The U.S.S. Vengeance, a super-battleship, has been secretly commissioned for a war that, as of yet, has not been launched.  

In fact, a torpedo strike into Klingon territory would be just the thing to give Marcus his desired war, wouldn’t it?

And at one point in the film, Marcus yells at Kirk that if war comes, Starfleet needs a decisive man like him making decisions, calling the hard shots.  

In other words, he's the decider. 

And if Starfleeet dare pick someone else, someone open to facts instead of fear (someone like John  Kerry or Jim Kirk perhaps), you might risk "nuclear mushrooms" over American cities.  

The corollary to the War on Terror Age couldn't be more precise.

Point 4: The Private Soldier

Star Trek: Into Darkness also suggests that because Starfleet boasts clear regulations and orders of conduct that its officers must heed and obey, other, less “principled” soldiers may be required in the event of war with the Klingons...to fight in accordance with Marcus’s cut-throat new principles (learned from Khan?).  

Accordingly, U.S.S. Vengeance is manned with “private” security forces, just as a private security firm, Blackwater operated in Iraq.  

The idea here, roiling under the surface is that Starfleet Regulations -- like the Geneva Conventions -- are "quaint" relics of a bygone time, not to be honored in a time of war-mongering and fear-hysteria.  Good soldiers no better than to break the laws of engagement, but what about hired guns?

Point 5: The Torture Debate

In Star Trek: Into Darkness, Captain Kirk accepts John Harrison’s surrender, and then spends the next minute-and-a-half beating him, attacking his prisoner for his murderous deeds in London and San Francisco.  

But Harrison is stoic, and endures the abuse without pain, or even expression.  Finally, Kirk must stop.  He has achieved absolutely nothing through his display of brutal and primitive violence.  He has not weakened Harrison, and he has not learned anything whatsoever about Harrison’s motives or plans.  

Again, this moment in the film is very clearly a corollary for the on-going debate about the use of torture on “enemy combatants.”  

Notably, Kirk only succeeds in hurting himself -- embarrassing himself, too -- in physically attacking his prisoner, a man in his custody and therefore under his protection.  This brutal physical assault has the effect of making him look weak, not Khan.  

Worse, it makes Kirk lose the moral high ground for a time.  

And again, that’s exactly what happened to America at Abu Ghraib and in covert CIA bases the world over. Instead of living up to our ideals about how to treat prisoners, we sacrificed our ideals out of fear and anger. 

One of the most intriguing aspects of Star Trek: Into Darkness is that its writers show the courage to diverge from our dark recent history in their idealized version of the future. Kirk eventually realizes it is wrong to kill a man from a distance without benefit of a trial.  He hunts down Harrison/Khan and captures him for just such a trial (though we don’t see it).  The best way to deal with terrorists is in the light of day, not in the shadows.

In real life, we know that Bin Laden was hunted down and executed without trial, an act of revenge that in no way illuminates America’s true and hopeful nature as "the shining city on the hill."  The point is that we have to be better than our enemies in our beliefs. That's what attracts allies to America; that's what makes us strong.

Star Trek: Into Darkness thus suggests that the “good guys” win when they remember their true values, not when they descend to the level of barbarian, or give in to passing surges of blood-thirst or vengeance.  

This subtext represents a very Star Trek-kian principle, and I am happy to see it enunciated in an age of such thoughtless violence.  Every other blockbuster movie is about a hero meting revenge for some terrible wrong.  It's nice to see a blockbuster, for a change, where the heroes stop short of vengeance, take a breath, and remember who they are.

The Mirror Crack’d:  Into Darkness as a Pastiche affirming the universality of the Kirk/Spock Bond.

J.J. Abrams’ preferred mode of operation, I would submit -- based on his film career -- is pastiche.  

You can see it clearly in Super 8 (2011), a film that dynamically apes the Spielberg filming style, and uses and adapts elements from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982).  I have read some complaints by Star Trek fans about the ways that Into Darkness “apes” previous moments in Star Trek history, namely the denouement of The Wrath of Khan (1982).

A pastiche, of course, is an artistic work “in a style” that imitates that of another work or artist.  But I would submit where a film like Nemesis apes the plot-line of The Wrath of Khan, Abrams goes one better with his frequent, post-modern nods to the Trek franchise. 

His Star Trek is set in a different timeline, in an alternate universe (not unlike the Mirror Universe, for instance), so some events actually have legitimate cause to repeat.  History is going to repeat itself, more or less.  And it is in the excavating of that "more" or "less" that Abrams seems to have so much fun. 

The point seems to be that no matter how much the "new" time-line alters the course of cosmic events -- like the destruction of Vulcan -- some events are indeed pre-destined, or pre-determined  Kirk and Spock are meant to join up…in every universe.  And Kirk is meant to be Captain of the Enterprise in all realities too, at least for a time. 

John Harrison/Khan fits this same template of pre-destiny.  

In any universe, Kirk and Khan are going to meet, clash, and he will only be defeated by, in the words of Prime Spock (Leonard Nimoy), "a great personal cost."

The only thing that can defeat this powerful villain, is the combined force -- and friendship -- of Kirk and Spock.  In the canon universe, it is Spock who dies to save the Enterprise.  In Into Darkness, it is Kirk who goes into the warp core to face his own death. 

This is not a blind, empty repetition of Star Trek lore, it is an outright assertion of the importance of the Kirk/Spock relationship, and its value in the face of villainy.  

Those viewers who see Into Darkness as merely ripping-off the Wrath of Khan are missing the point entirely.  Instead, the “mirror” scene of Into Darkness at the reactor core is a beautiful statement about Kirk and Spock’s connection in any reality.  They will always be friends and they will always be willing to sacrifice themselves for their family: the Enterprise crew.  Khan will never win, in any universe, because he lacks the special bond that Kirk and Spock share.

Quite frankly, we could not get to this vision of a friendship that spans universes without Abrams’ penchant for pastiche, without his willingness to appropriate sign-marks and symbols from Trek history and re-purpose them for today's audiences    

The very thing that some Trekkers complain about as a weakness is, in fact, a strength of the film, and also of Abrams’ vision of Star Trek.  He is not repeating what has happened before, he is revealing to us how, in the face of a “mirror” universe, some values such as friendship -- and Starfleet Regulations -- endure.  

With Kirk and Spock together on the Enterprise, the universe shall, more or less,  “unfold as it should.”

This appreciation for Abrams’ modus operandi does not preclude me from criticizing certain aspects of the drama, however.  

Although everyone has bent over backwards to appreciate Benedict Cumberbatch’s villainous performance as Khan, I would suggest his success in the role arises from his own qualities as an actor, and not the writing of the character.  

I recognized him as a strong presence in the frame, in other words, but not as Khan.  I recognize Pine and Quinto and the others as the Enterprise crew, but the writers have brought almost no “old series” signifiers to allow permit long-time viewers to recognize Khan as the same man from “Space Seed” or Wrath of Khan. 

Would it have been too hard to have Cumberbatch quote Milton, or Dante, or Melville, just to remind us old folks he’s the same fellow from Space Seed?   

There is precious little of “Khan” in the writing of the Khan character in Into Darkness, which makes him seem a more generic villain than need be.  It’s a good thing they cast an actor with such strong physical and intellectual presence, but watching the film, I never felt like this Khan was the same man I had met before.  Cumberbatch brings immense focus to the role, but not the larger-than-life theatricality of Montalban.  I missed that aspect of the character, as well as his sense of literacy and history.

I also feel that some of the changes in this time-line are going to cause problems for the writers down the line.  If a man can trans-warp beam from San Francisco to the heart of the Klingon Empire, there is no need for Star Trekking of any kind whatsoever.  

Somehow, future movies will have to address the fact that the transporter device is now a better, more efficient means of travel than starship and warp drive.

But frankly, these are quibbles with a movie that is exciting, emotionally-affecting, funny, and incredibly entertaining.  The social commentary about the post-911 age permits this film to live up to Star Trek’s most noble tradition of being about something more than spaceships and lasers, and J.J. Abrams’ penchant for pastiche transforms the film into a meditation about the depth of the Kirk and Spock bond, no matter the universe, no matter the situation.

So like The Great Gatsby, Star Trek endures, and finds a meaningful place in the pop culture of the 21^st century.   

And again, once more the sky's the limit...the five year mission begins again.  I can't wait to see "what's out there...."