Reel Thoughts - My Favorite Musical films

Nothing good in cinema this week. Great Gatsby coming out on Thursday, so for now, I'll do a Top 10 list because it seems to be a topic that will eventually surface in most movie review blogs/vlogs.


I am fairly nostalgic when it comes to movies, especially good ones, and the ones that impress on me the most as a child are the ones I could sing along with, or hum the tunes during a grueling day stacking milk in Coles (back when I worked there part time during high school/uni).

Music adds an extra dimension and depth to the emotions and colors of a film, whether it be in theater or at home. Musicals are distinct from music videos because they are not standalone. They are part of a larger world that wasn't fabricated for the song, but rather the song for the world. Their melodies paint the picture of a scene or the mind of a character. The catchiest ones can instantly suck us back into the film that we haven't seen in a decade. If they're really well composed you only need to hear the opening sequence and you already know what song it is. In the case of musicals, the catchiness factor is even more pronounced because when we hear the song we directly associate it with the film and not just the characters (like the Superman theme does for Superman).

And so, I am here to recommend 7 musicals on film that have greatly impacted me and from which I have either tried to learn their songs on piano, or memorise the lyrics. This list is subjective, and there may be a few worthier candidates but I'm solely going by how these musicals have affected me personally.


No. 7 - The Sound of Music (1965, Broadway)

This film I like a lot, but I put it at the bottom of my 'favorites' list because it is set in World War II. and even though I saw this film when I was only 11 or 12, by that point I've already come across a dozen films about the holocaust, the rise and fall of Nazis, and other war stories and I just wanted something else. Granted this musical is more about Maria and her relationship with the von Trapp family, the backdrop of Germany invading Austria darkened an otherwise very light-hearted and child-friendly film that I wouldn't hesitate to show my kids in the future (if I ever have any, but probably not as many as Captain Georg).

As far musicals go, The Sound of Music greatly impacted how singing is taught in music schools. Its almost infamous song Do-Re-Mi is so instructional that it almost appears that the whole idea of using Do Re Mi Fa So to learn vocal pitch originated from this film; kind of like a pre-Internet meme. But apart from that, songs like My Favorite Things and Climb Ev'ry Mountain are household classics (in Hollywood-loving countries), and being able to remain appealing to people over 60 years since its theatrical release, that's a pretty respectable feat given how fast music comes and goes nowadays.


No. 6 - Mary Poppins (1964, Book to Film)

Supercalifragelisticexplialodocious. Need I say more?

The story itself is a very fun adventure, though I cannot remember the moral of the story except that "family is important" I guess. Mary Poppins was a very fun character to watch and follow around, although the fact that she literally blew away her competition nannies makes her morally grey. This film blurred my perception of reality and imagination, with the whole jumping into the chalk paintings and all. It was really mind-boggling for me when I was six. Half the time I couldn't tell if things were really happening or were the kids just hallucinating/exaggerating it. It was an inventive film to say the least, and makes Inception feel amateurish by comparison.

The songs from this film that secures Mary Poppins in the 6th spot of my list is pretty much Supercalifragelisticexplialodocious. It is a catchy tune at the very least, but that word...I think after my first viewing of this film I spent a good 3 weeks trying to spell it correctly, and was frustrated when Microsoft Word (and even Blogger right now) didn't consider it a real word and red-lined it. It also propelled me into competing with other nerds to memories increasingly long and legit words, starting with antidisestablishmentarianism and ending with Pneumono...something. It was a long time ago. And I think I lost that competition anyway.

Mary Poppins is that spoonful of sugar you need when you're feeling down.


No. 5 - The Butterfly Lovers (1950, Chinese Opera)

I first saw this opera at a period of my life when I finally found passion in music, and began taking my piano lessons more seriously. While Chinese Opera in general is an acquired taste for most, including me, The Butterfly Lovers is one of the few that not only falls into the standard repertoire of all Operatic troupes, but has even found a mainstream audience of adorers.

This is perhaps the result of its Romeo and Juliet-like story (but told about a millenium earlier), or its melodious theme song that expresses holding onto forbidden love in such tragic grandeur, it is perhaps the best musical to introduce the uninitiated to the colorful world of Chinese Opera. I even had the opportunity to play a piano version of its theme song for a cultural festival with a small opera group that my mum is a part of. And while I wouldn't 'highly' recommend it to everyone (like most of the other musicals on this list), I would at least suggest you check out its main song in a violin concert version. Tread carefully.


No. 4 - Aladdin (1992, Disney)

When it comes to musicals, you really do have to give credit to Disney. Every feature animation they have made since at least the 50s has introduced memorable and influential songs that finds its way into the leisure piano players' repertoire, orchestral covers. The Lion King, Mulan, Beauty and the Beast and Tangled are just a few of the films that contains songs I love to watch even as an adult, and every time the song numbers pop up I would find myself humming along to it.

However I put Aladdin as my recommended one because the arabic flavor Prince Ali and the duet A Whole New World came to me at the perfect time where society was becoming more and more open to new ideas, to exploring the frontier of science and technology, and also became more aware of the issues with classism. Not that the film was a commentary on these issues, but many did subconsciously associate the story of princess Jasmine being shown the world by the common peasant Aladdin with how the wealthy are blind to the lives of the common folk.


No. 3 - Amadeus (1984, Historical Fiction)

This film has no songs; it only has Mozart's works. In fact, by definition this isn't a musical. But it is such a powerful drama that makes flawless use of the namesake composer's music that I just never tire of watching it. The acting in this film is great, the story (despite being fiction-y) is great, Mozart is great, and compared to many other historical dramas/fictions about other composers in the classical/romantic era, this is a film that even non-musicians would be influenced by and perhaps even get a glimpse into the psychology of the gifted savant. It may not be a musical that you can hum the tunes of, but it is a film that can change the tempo of your heart.


No. 2 - The Phantom of the Opera (1986 version, Broadway)

While I actually don't like the story of The Phantom himself (who is basically a creepy musical version of Quasimodo), in terms of the total number of songs I like within one film, this one takes the trophy. So which songs do I like? All of them (with the exception of maybe Prima Donna). In my opinion if you have never experienced Andrew Lloyd Webber before, this is the one you absolutely must check out.

And please don't get me started on the 2004 film version. Gerard Butler singing is one of the few things I wish to blot out from my memories before I turn 30. Come to think of it perhaps it's a good thing I gave Les Mis a skip this year given what everyone's said about Russell Crowe singing.


No. 1 - Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971 version, Book to Film)

This film made me like sweets. I'm not even joking.

Prior to seeing this film on one of my family's Tuesday video rental nights (a family tradition before I turned 16), I didn't care much about sweets. Not that I wouldn't eat them, but I had no preference and just munched whatever was available in the kitchen or on the receptionists' desk at the dentist. Once I saw the wonderful world inside Wonka factory, it granted my eyes the ability to taste the sweets. It realized fantastic snacks that I could only hope to try.

I became obsessed with trying every type of sweet in the world and planning to own a candy bar in my own home some day with the flavors, shapes, colors and brands that I enjoy. This obsession didn't fade until I was well into my uni studies. In fact right now I have partly realized this 'dream' by having a row of confectionaries on my tallboy, which I deliberately keep out of immediate arm's reach so I don't gobble them up so quickly. (The kitchen on the other hand is too far!)

Aside from my nostalgia, Willy Wonka is an overall perfect musical. The story has a clear lesson for kids, the songs are wonderful (especially the Oompa Loompa ones), and it creates exactly the feelings and atmospheres you'd want to be feeling as you entered the factory with the main characters, or as they went through the crazy tunnels, or when one of the kids gets picked off. While I haven't watched it in a long time, I still remember most if not all of the scenes because they are all so wonderfully colored, which made me feel so many things when I watched it. Willy Wonka certainly created the sweetest nostalgia for me of any musicals I have seen (so far).


Notable mentions:

• Wizard of Oz (1939, Broadway)
• Fantasia (1940, Disney)
• West Side Story (1961, Broadway)
• Beauty and the beast (1987, Disney)
• The Lion King (1994, Disney)
• Mulan (1998, Disney)
• The Prince of Egypt (1998, Dreamworks)

Review - The Call

The Call is my first true thriller/suspense film I have watched since Panic Room. I rarely watch them because they rarely provide the 'thrill' or 'suspense' the namesake suggests. Paranormal Activity being the least effective of these, and perhaps Stephen King's stories-made-to-film being the more effective ones within the genre for me. Nonetheless I haven't checked out a thriller for a while so I decided to give this one a try in place of tired alternatives currently showing in theatres near me.

The premise? Jordan is a 911 operator who was traumatized by directly witnessing her failure to help one of her callers out of trouble, and when the same person attacks again, she makes it a personal mission to stop him from getting away.

For a film that claims itself to be a suspense, only near the end did I find myself occasionally at the edge of my seat. Rather, I think The Call is better described as high-stakes mystery solving. There are elements in this film that are quite baked, lack of character design, and mostly weak ideas recycled from other films and even television shows (in particular Dexter), but the execution of some scenes and Halle Berry's performance fully justify for the rest of the film.

The creative use of camera focus, the film's heavy investment in Halle Berry's character and sparing use of one-liners pushes this film into the realm of high-concept films, but most audience would probably be deprived of these subtleties due to the rapid editing techniques chosen to supposedly create tension, but really just interrupts us holding our breaths. It also offers an unclear or unconvincing message which I couldn't really take home.

Anyway. For thriller/suspense addicts, this is a lighter but zesty choice for a night screening at home, but I wouldn't recommend to see in the theater as its suspense is not grounded in sound effects or gruesome imagery, which is unfortunate in my opinion.

Overall Rating: 6 out of 10.

Spoilers Ahead!

Halle Berry

Basically everything good and bad about this film can be summarised by looking the character of Jordan. The opening sequence of this film shows what happened 6 months earlier, and quickly establishes the personality, character and role of Jordan in her work environment. It introduces a whole host of character we can recognise by their stereotype relationships to the main character (friend-colleague, boss, boyfriend, boyfriend's friends, etc). These characters are glossed over so quickly and given such a placid script it is hard to care about them. Perhaps that was the director's intention but that's an awfully large gamble that we like the main character.

And this type of gambling pops up again with the next victim Casey (Abigail Breslin) who we (and Jordan) follow through the rest of movie after the time jump, just as we were given seemingly unrelated scenes of her going girlfriend-shopping, and is suddenly launched into a main character role after being kidnapped. But since our brains hadn't decided if we needed to pay attention to her up till that point, it is hard to recall her face and personality when it's so dark in the trunk. And again, her personality didn't matter except for her transition from the "I'm afraid, help me!" to the "I'm a strong woman capable of defending myself", which only works in a few moments.

Jordan is also the lone wolf protagonist in this film. This is the character whom, when the system fails, must abandon the system to solve the case by some other rogue means. Hollywood action films love exploiting this template till we're tired of it, but here it actually works for the better instead of making me want to rub my face with sandpaper. The ending does paint a few darker streaks in her character which I enjoyed, as it shows how ethically ambiguous people in the police force can be. They are humans firsts and public servants second. And judging by the tone of the ending, it almost feels like the intention was to leave it an open-ended question of whether the girls had the right or moral justification to leave him for dead like that.

One of the big opportunity this film discards was fully exploring the psyche of the serial kidnapper/killer Michael (Michael Eklund), and giving him and Jordan a few more lines. The film leaves enough clues about his character/motivations by trailing the police officers who raid his family's house, and by showing his 'process' with his victims. But these scenes passes so quickly, I think the screenwriter's only interest was to create an artificial path for Jordan to be able to sneak in and save Casey.

The locus of this film is really Jordan, and where she is written well, the film works, and where aspects of her are overlooked or poorly scripted, the film falls apart and sucks us out of the story. Casey doesn't leave an impression, while the serial killer does, and Jordan's boss is perhaps the only other person that does as well, mostly because for half the film it's hard to gauge where on the good guys/bad guys spectrum she sits on, and her personal relationship with Jordon. Her professionalism in spite of the situation is surprisingly compelling, and I was surprised they just cast her aside after she sends Jordon home. No commentary or deeper message?


Disproportionate suspense

As I mentioned, I don't watch a lot of suspense/thriller films, so I may be a bit harsh in how I view these films and perhaps not understand why they exist. I find that people who watch different genres of films tend to be filling some sort of philosophical gap in their life. Those who like comedy tend to have unhappiness or disappointments in their own lives. Those who like action tend to have overprotective/restrictive parents, and those who like fantasy/sci-fi genres tend to have social anxiety.

Of course this is a generalisation that no longer applies when put in context, but my issue is that I don't know what 'stereotype' of people tend to watch thrillers/suspense. I have friends of all sorts that enjoy Silence of the Lamb, so it's really hard to pin down what part of our emotions or life does it compensate for. Do people just like subjecting themselves to tension because their lives are too relaxed and easygoing? Does it help us mold our own survival instincts?

In any case, this film does provide the suspense they want, but in an uneven distribution across the film. There are like 3-4 tense moments almost consecutively, not allowing the audience to become satisfied, and then 20 minutes goes by without another tense scene because it's just 'clockwork CSI stuff happening' but not 'something horrible might happen any moment'. So it doesn't cue the audience to get suspenseful; it just kind of throws it at you before you're ready, leaving you to wonder "was I meant to be tense just then?"

6 months of guilt 

A lot of what happened to Jordan between in the 6 months time jumps are summarized by Anxiety meds in her locker and her retasking as an trainer instead of an operator. All we are shown is that she is still on the road to healing and self-forgiveness. It is effective in itself, and her redemptive arc isn't contrived, but something still feels disconnected.

On the way home I did think about it and it finally hit me; her redemption is at the cost of being a role model protagonist. It rings closer to home when I thought about the ending to Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins. In that film after seeing how Bruce grows and embraces his avatar to be a symbol for justice, we expect him to make a righteous decision when fighting Ra's al Ghul on the train. But no, he decides to just let Ra's die even though he could have saved him and handed him to the police force. His "I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you either" was not a neutral stand morally speaking. In fact, he did indirectly kill Ra's since he instructed commissioner Gordon to take down the tracks so the train wouldn't make it to Wayne Tower. So in fact he broke his 'one rule' (The Dark Knight) very early on in his career as Batman. It wasn't even a dilemma, it was simply "something that had to be done and there was no other way I could have done it".

So back to this film. Jordon preaches several principles as a 911 operator to the interns/newbies, including "don't ever make a promise", and "don't get personal". Yet she broke both rules and yet everything worked out well for her and Casey. Where does that take us except nowhere? This type of message which makes us think but provides contradicting signposts and ambiguous conclusions we could draw, is what made the film surreal and hard to take fully seriously. In many ways the world on the 911 operator's side of the conversation did fascinate me, and Brad Anderson (the director) seemed to have done his research when trying to represent the real people in this profession. But with how this story takes a dump on the 911 operator's principles, rules, processes and purpose, all I can say is that they'll have to call me again to clarify what they were trying to say.

Maybe I'll take a look at this film again in 6 months and see how it holds up, and update this review if I've been unfair; my reviews have been more rants than fair analyses lately. Maybe I should try giving it a few more days to ponder before writing...though time is always against me (which was also the point)! >.<


Finally, the nitpicks

• While it is understandable that Jordan was deeply affected by her failure to help a girl from the prowler 6 months ago, why was that girl special compared to the other victims/PRs she had to deal with everyday? I would've thought suiciders and medical emergencies are equally serious and life-threatening.
• Apparently when there's a kidnapping happening, the other 911 operators are allowed to stop answering their 911 calls to stay tuned to what's happening with Jordan's. 
• When Jordon gives a tour of her workplace to some interns/students, it is implied that "The Hive" (the 911 call center) handles all the emergency call cases across greater Los Angeles. Given that LA has a population size of 3 million or more people, I would've thought they needed more people than the dozen or so staffs to handle the influx of 911 calls. And given they can seemingly choose to leave their station and go to a 'quiet room' at any given time, the caller queue must be super long!
• Who on Earth is Terence? This guy calls 911 so many times that the staff recognises him and knows his issues aren't emergencies, but shouldn't he get in trouble for holding up limited resources to respond to real emergencies?

Review - Star Trek into Darkness

Lets get one thing clear: I am not a trekkie. I have screened a couple of the Star Trek films and seen a few of the TV episodes in passing, particularly Wrath of Khan. I have also watched the previous Star Trek directed by J.J. Abrams, which I enjoyed (mostly) though I was told it lacked the philosophical depth and thematic layers most of its predecessors. As such, the non-spoiler part of the review will be strictly from my experience of the film in itself and as a sequel to the 2009 version only, not encompassing the rest of the franchise. However in the spoiler section I will let my sentiments about the earlier films in the franchise 'influence' my opinion.

In one sentence, Star Trek Into Darkness lives up to its name and is superior to its immediate predecessor, giving us fun characters, plenty of action and some food for thought about society. This one does explore darker themes than the original and poses interesting (though not very deep) questions in between all the fighting and often incomprehensible dialogue. It has a memorable villain in the form of Benedict Cumberbatch and some juicy performances coming out of the main characters, especially Zachary Quinto (Spock) and Zoe Zaldana (Uhura).

When you have a film that has an ensemble cast like in this film, it is demonstrably hard to develop every main character, but I do appreciate what little we get, even if it's almost feeling like a sitcom at times.

There are a few gaping holes in the story that distract the critical thinker, and many obvious establishing scenes which screams at you the potential resolution of the story, which disappointingly lightens up the film too quickly and strips it of the poignancy achieved just two scenes ago. But if you're willing to turn you brain down to "just here to enjoy some space adventure" this film is worth the price of admission, but I would say a rewatch is not warranted unless you want to learn all the jargon and intricacies of the Star Trek universe.

Overall rating: 7 out of 10.

Spoilers ahead!

To boldly go where Star Trek has gone before

The idea of reviving Khan with a slightly modified backstory was probably the strongest aspect of the film. The first half he was able to fool not only the crew of the USS Enterprise but also us the audience with his John Harrison persona the second half you really couldn't see what he's thinking except for what he shows you. Cumberbatch really respected the original character, and I feel that he pulled off the super-intelligent warrior character as strongly as Ricardo Montalban did back in the 1982, without all the mexican/native american dressup or lovely hair. Some might consider this casting choice whitewashing but it didn't bother me personally as I am not American or a Trekkie. It would have been too obvious who this character was if he resembled the original Khan.

There are a few other easter eggs in the film that may either appeal to or annoy fans of the rest of the franchise, especially with the role reversal of Kirk and Spock as Spock is the one who died in the original, whereas Kirk 'dies' instead. Spock's yelling of Khan's name out of rage and anger is nowhere near as impressive as William Shatner's passing a kidney stone, but I'm smiling for his attempt.

Unfortunately the film's abundance of reference to the rest of the Star Trek world is also what strips it of potentially something more influential. Its unwillingness of the J.J. Abrams to actually kill off either Khan or Kirk in the film rings weak to me, given one of the themes in this film is about self-sacrifice for the greater good. Instead, we get a fake out death with Kirk, and Khan goes back into hibernation. In fact it's been a while since I've seen a franchise movie where they actually kill off one of their main characters. While it's understandable they want to keep their doors open for more sequels, wouldn't it be more interesting if the next film opens with the lementing of a fallen ally?

This is the element they changed from how Wrath of Khan that would've made the film work for me. Indeed they brought him back to life in the next film but nobody knew that at the time, and they were genuinely shocked and affected by the sacrifice Spock made for his crew, leading to the legacy of his philosophy "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few".

So this halfway approach to paying homage and being its own creation stunts the impact it has on the audience from a story telling point, as the only major change they made in this film is arguably the one thing I thought they should have kept, even if it was Kirk in place of Spock.


Everyone can be captain

There are three issues raised and discussed in this film: the role of logic versus instinct, the power of emotions such as anger and compassion, and finally the role of the captain. The last one is perhaps the only one I felt was not addressed properly.

I love how casually the seat of the captain is passed around. First film we saw Pike, Spock, Kirk and Chekov "take the captain's seat". Now we see Hikaru Sulu take the seat for a bit as well. While I understand the chain of command style of starfleet contingency planning, I sense the film is promoting the concept that anyone can be captain, provided they are brave enough to take the seat.

This democratization of authority actually messes up the lesson Pike was trying to teach Kirk at the beginning of the film. What are we supposed to take from this film about leading a crew? Anyone can do it as long as they have to? Only those who are mature and wise should lead? Or those who are willing to put their lives on the line for his crew? I felt that the lesson Kirk learns is just the result of him unlearning his development in the previous film, or that it wasn't an issue he had to begin with. Also the fact that Kirk and Spock, being the most senior officers on the ship, is always doing the things themselves, defeats the whole point of delegation and having a crew.

You know the funny thing too is that, I think Spock should be USS Enterprise's captain. He is logical, but he  does have feelings, and after the first film he recognizes it, and has since learned when it is appropriate to feel the emotions. Kirk on the other hand has all the wrong motivations at every step. First he chases after a villain simply as a revenge for Pike, secondly he disobeys his directive because he has compassion for a criminal, and thirdly he sacrifices himself to save the ship even though a ship without a captain is far more severe than a ship without its backup engineer. This type of cinematic cliche makes you wonder whether there is any value in being the leader of a pack when you do everything yourself anyway. All the redshirts ever do is die or look really intense and scared.


Klingons!!

One thing Star Trek fans would appreciate about this film over the past is that there are Klingons speaking Klingon, as well as Uhura who gives it a shot as well. While this scene was brief and they get wiped out embarrassingly quickly, we the audience sorely needed to see some more aliens. I guess the only problem with this is that the warping technology has obstructed our ability to geographically pinpoint the Klingon empire. All we know is they are far away from Earth but have no idea in what direction or how far away.

This is important because for all the filmmaker's effort to integrate this film into the original canon, they are showing surprisingly little of the overall universe, and typically the scenarios are all isolated and feels detached from the rest of the universe, and thus the concept and scale of the 'federation' can yet be appreciated.

Perhaps this was the limit to which Abrams was willing to show. Just cameos of notable elements, characters, species and cliches of the original, but no substantial exploration of the world in which we want to immerse ourselves in. It may be out of fear of the reprecussions from trekkies for misrepresenting or deviating from the franchise, it may just be out of calculated decision in marketing, but again a franchise film has been stripped of a 'great' status in exchange for profitability and general acceptance.


Finally, the nitpicks

• Protocol emergency meetings for top senior commanders of Starfleet should not take place on high floors in publically accessible buildings with fully visible windows, and definitely shouldn't be written in a regulation book that every Starfleet officer has read.
• The torpedos are dumb. Aside from its double use as a cryogenic coffin, we see that Carol disarms the torpedo by simply ripping out some unit and bundle of wires, when not two minutes ago she implied that any incorrect severing of the wires would immediately trigger the warhead to explode. That's pretty poor design given it's from a supposedly super intelligent Khan (but more forgivable than Cerberus in Olympus has Fallen).
• Kirk and Scotty's cell phones. While Kirk is at Chronos (inside the Klingon space) he makes a phone call to Scotty who is on Earth. Even if I can accept that their communication seems to be instantaneous despite being many many light years apart, how can it be that, after USS enterprise's comms were disabled by Admiral Marcus, the cell phone still works? I mean I would have imagined that a communication blackout includes cell phones. Guess we'll be seeing Star Trek phone popping up in the shops soon!
• Running around on the ship. Given that they have beaming capability which can let them teleport from outer space onto precise locations in a planet thousands of kilometers away, you would think that they have built internal teleportation device to allow crew members to instantly access any part of the ship rather than having to run everywhere. This would be particularly important if say, some opponent shoots and destroyed sections of your ship. Oh wait...
• Why is Starfleet keeping these superintelligent humans alive for 300 years if they are too dangerous to awaken? They already tried to usurp humanity in a Eugenics war back then, so what makes them think keeping them frozen indefinitely might cause a change of heart/nature later on? I know simply executing them might sound bad, but it's 72 people against the safety, freedom and wellbeing of billions if not trillions. Plus the cost to keep them alive all this time must be burning a hole through their federal budget!
• Coordinates for Jupiter makes no sense. Khan gives Kirk the coordinates of where the secret advanced ship build by Admiral Marcus. But there can't be coordinates for a planet that is in active orbit. Jupiter is orbiting around the sun, moving at speeds of over 13km/s. The universe has no preferred inertial frame of reference, thus by the time Scotty got to those coordinate Jupiter would have flown away to another coordinate. Also given how large the universe is, and how much of it Starfleet seems to have explored already, an 8-digit coordinate would only give a resolution of a solar system, kind of like trying to find your street while Google Maps is zoomed to see all of Australia.
• The use of Khan's blood to revive Kirk was a bit too obvious.
• Jim Kirk's reading of the famous Star Trek quote isn't as powerful as Leonard Nimoy in the previous film.
• Carol sure got over the gruesomely visual death of her father fairly quickly! 
• 
  

Review - Olympus Has Fallen

After following the Malaysian General Election over the weekend I suddenly gained an appetite to watch an action flick about overthrowing governments, so this flick came to my attention. I originally had no intentions to watch it as I felt it was going to be another re-iteration of Die Hard or even similarly themed films such as Harrison Ford's Air Force One. But the original film I planned to see is not showing after work hours, I guess this will do for now while I wait for Star Trek to come out next Tuesday.

Olympus Has Fallen teaches me that Americans are proud to be Americans, and that the world would crumble if America falls. And if you forget this fact after Aaron Eckhart utters "don't negotiate" prior to capture, don't worry. They will remind you again and again and again between the action sets.

The story didn't surprise or thrill me due to its faithful following of the Die Hard formula (some bad guys take over a building to negotiate for something, using hostages as the bargaining chip, while a lone rogue picks off the bad guys one by one more effectively than the useless police/military/government sitting helplessly in the sidelines). Everything I thought would happen did happen, though compared to many of its predecessors, it takes a lot more liberties in the story's scenario, and seemed unashamed, without subtlety, of how it is just a weak effort to cash in on recent American interest in Korea. Removing the context reduces this film to be a 2 hour reminder that Americans should be very proud to be Americans, and if you are not American you should become American!

As an action film I cannot condemn nor condone it; there are nice fight scenes but nothing innovative or memorable. The fights are quite clear and easy to follow, but I have my reservations about whether the White House, or more accurately Washington D.C. is really susceptible to such an attack after 9/11. It's codenamed Olympus for a reason.

Gerard Butler portrays a convincing former Secret Service Mike Banning who is haunted by his failure to save the President's wife in the past and has burdened himself with the responsibility to save the President from the terrorists. Together with Kang, the main terrorist played by Die Another Day survivor Rick Yune, they are the most bearable part of the film to me because their chemistry and equally strong-willed personalities and motivations is all the real character interaction we get; everyone else in the film is just there to fulfill a cinematic function or character stereotype, and poorly at that.

To the casual movie going audience, I recommend if you just want to watch action and don't care about story and characters as me, you are still better off watching Iron Man 3, or the upcoming Star Trek film. To those who enjoy picking apart films like me, this one is gold, but don't expect to feel satisfied watching this film, unless you are proud to be American and need a 2 hour quasi-propaganda to remind yourself of it!

Overall Rating: 5 out of 10



Spoilers ahead...

Negotiating the plot.

One of the elements of this film that bugged me the most is its insistence that the United State of America does not negotiate with terrorists. And yet at every step of the story we see how not only the presidential/military staff at The Pentagon slowly give in to the terrorist demands, but even the president gives in not once, not twice, but 4 times to terrorist demands so that he doesn't have to be directly responsible for the deaths of his fellow hostages. The only person who personifies and stays true to this American principle is  the rogue who I guess at this point embodies the real America since he never gave in or gave up.

The end of the film shows the president embracing how American he is by saying that America has won again because they stayed true to who they are and stayed united even under despair, but really it was the underdog who did everything, and so really it is stolen glory and they neither earned nor deserved the proclamation of American supremacy.

I call this quasi-propaganda for this very reason. If the characters playing the White House administration truly wanted to portray America's "we are not afraid of terroists" then none of the hostages should have given up their bits of code to Cerebrus (we'll get to that), and the terrorist's real plan would have failed. They should have welcomed death as an honorable alternative to surrendering their keys to allow the enemy to open pandora's box. And as a side note, they should know they're dead no matter what; that's how skilled terrorists always work. People should know this fact if they studied a Bachelor degree in casual movie watching.

So a true "no negotiations" policy would have made the story much shorter, but the message would be much stronger and effective. Sure the president and vice president would probably have died before Butler could  finish all the levels to get to the big boss, but by not giving in they showed that you cannot terrorise America. You kill the president the Vice president will take over after SWAT eventually wipes you out. And even if you kill the Vice president too (which they did) there's the speaker of the house. The people will just elect another president after this blows over. And because the film took a more middle-of-the-road approach to show the humanity of Americans it actually illustrates how the "no negotiation" policy doesn't work in practice because it dehumanizes the leaders if they make immoral decisions on principle. But still, proud to be American!


The Butler vs The Kang

Gerard Butler's performance as the rogue is convincing and enjoyable, possibly due to my positive experience of his efforts in Law Abiding Citizen, and that he didn't sing in this film. His relationship with the president's family was established hastily, but not really explored after the first 5 minutes. You can only really see the relationship through Butler's disillusionment post-accident, and his determination to get to the bunker post-occupation.

Kang is also a rogue, except his motivations are even more deeply rooted in national grief, hoping for the reunification of North and South, while blaming Americans for interfering with the process. He is no different from any other hatred-driven, single-minded terrorists in hostage-rescue stories since the 1980s. However I am grateful they did find an ethnically Korean actor to portray the character at least.

Their banters are engaging, they have equally fierce spirits and know how to push each others' buttons, because they actually have similar personalities albeit different objectives. Sadly their fight scene at the end was far too short and honestly, I felt like they deserved a proper climax and some famous last words. But all we get is Butler keeping his promise to stab Kang in the brain with a knife.

All this positive about the film is easily offset by horribly written side villains, in the form of ex-secret service traitor Dave Forbes. While his acquaintance and colleaguehood with Banning is established prior to the terrorist occupation and him turning sides, his motivations and how he got engulfed in this conspiracy is really murky. From what the film has shown me he is the only insider who helped orchestrate and organise the stolen USAF warplane, the next-generation Hydra weapon (which by the way is not even close to this-generation weaponry) AND somehow managed to ensure he would be allowed to be part of a heads-of-state meeting despite no longer being in the secret service or having any ambassador/auditing responsibilities with the South Korean government.

This character's presence and role in the film is not merely a nitpick (don't worry will be quite a few), because he is perhaps the trump card of Kang, and so you would think he should have been the real villain and the one Butler has the most personal fight with. But no he gets taken out by Butler in 30 seconds, apologises for his actions, and dies after a redemptive act to help Banning, which totally and unforgiveably contradicts his deep hatred of the American way not 20 minutes earlier in the film. I guess he just couldn't resist the Butler charm.

Where is the love?

Another weak point of this film is Banning's love interest. After the opening scene we fast forward 18 months to see Banning has a neglected-but-still-important girlfriend/fiance/wife? She doesn't contribute anything significant to the story, and yet we get 5 scenes fousing on her. One where we establish she lives with Banning and is romantically attached to him, three where we see her at work as a doctor in the ER, presumably in a hospital close enough to be the emergency centre for the White House casualties. And the last one as she rode out with the ambulance to receive the wounded president, where she stares into Banning's war-torn body but with a facial expression of redemption, restoration, but says and does nothing. What was the point? Was there a message or is it symbolic of something? Not clear!

None of these scenes show how she helps Banning do anything. She doesn't even fulfill an emotional function because Banning sees her more as an obligation, a distraction, a personification of normality which he can't embrace. She doesn't get kidnapped, shot, killed or even know about Banning's journey into the terrorists' lair, so we don't see her crying or worried for her man in the cinematic cliche sense. You could write out her character and the story would be equally good (or bad). At least the president's wife had the excuse of needing to die to cause the distancing between the president and Banning. The use of the "Noooooo!" cliche when she died kind of killed the mood for me as well...moving on!

The relationship between Banning and the son is okay, and I characterized this relationship as love because we are supposed to see Banning as a godfather to the president's son (Connor is his name I believe). I mean they do pull Chekov's gun pretty early in the film with Banning testing the kid's intricate knowledge of the White House's secret passages and hiding spots. Guess this kid is also proud to be an American living in the most American building in America.


And the useless, hopeless military that America is proud to step on

Another glaring problem with this film, as with many Hollywood produced action films is its irreverence for their own soldiers and generals and military scientists. These are the people who protect you from the terrorists, keep enemy nations at bay and assist you when natural disasters strike, and you repay them by portraying how ineffective, stupid and stubborn they are? The concept and design of Cerebrus (the self-destruct mechanism for America's nukes) is also extremely stupid but I'll get to that in the nitpick section.

I'll admit I don't read that much into America's military history, but as far as I know most of the international wars that included America, they were on the winning side right? What twisted enjoyment does the director/writer think the audience gets from seeing its own security walls crumble? To see their weapons used against themselves? Suddenly they're not proud to be Americans! The very thing that helped Americans win America from the British was war, and after a few centuries you'd think they are pretty good at their job, but movie logic trumps reality any day!

A final note about how American this film is: the music at the beginning of the movie; well it's totally a knock off of the anthemic opening to Air Force One, another very American film with a pro-American message aimed at making Americans proud to be in America! I personally think America is more than what these films portray it to be, just as most real Americans know Australia is more than Skippy the Kangaroo and Waltzing Matilda. So I hope Hollywood would stop making these kinds of stereotyping, unoriginal and over-patriotic films, and that I should avoid them myself.


Finally, the Nitpicks

• As part of the terrorist occupation of the White House, they managed to get their hands on a US Air Force plane to attack the White House and the nearby civilians from the air. It is intercepted by two fighter jets which are taken down pretty quickly but this all taking place right over the Capitol Building. Would the plane, given the know it's an unauthorized flight into a restricted airspace, really have allowed this plane to get so close to the White House before discovering it and threatening to shoot it down? Also given its location and trajectory, wouldn't shooting it down cause massive damage to the White House area and countless civilian casualties?
  
• While the compromised USAF plane is shooting at the ground, we are shown some of the guards on the ground have guns which they are firing back at the plane. Did they seriously think they could shoot it down? Guess when you're in a state of panic you'll do anything if you think it'll increase your chances.
  
• How did Forbes (the inside traitor) get access to so many things for the terrorists like the USAF plane, the Hydra weapon and (I presume) the garbage trucks with machine guns? Sure he was ex-secret service, but that's a very different government department to the Air Force, Defence Science and Waste Management. There must be another insider traitor!
  
• How Cerebrus can be activated is stupid. The point of giving multiple people bits of a password is so that access is only granted in the presence of all three individuals. But giving it to both the President and Vice President is dumb because the purpose of Vice Presidency is to be the acting President if something happens to the President. Cerebrus seems to be useful for one of those "if something happens to the President" and they can't both be essential personnel to the unlocking of the tool.
  
• How Cerebrus works is stupid 1. So in the film they say that Cerebrus is an isolated system which is why they can't turn it off from NORAD or Pentagon. But they can monitor how many of the codes have been entered and whether it is activated/deactivated as well as the missiles it has queued for self-destruction? So then how can it be called isolated if everyone can see the status? Also if it's so 'isolated' why is the deactivation code in the Pentagon? Shouldn't those three code-holders be the ones holding the means of deactivation? Yeah. Very isolated system indeed.
  
• How Cerebrus works is stupid 2. Cerebrus as the film states is intended to disarm any launched nuclear weaons by means of self-destruct, to prevent it from reaching its intended target. Firstly, most nuclear warheads in existence today already have a safe way to self-disable in case of misfire or change of plans mid-launch. Some do explode but not in a way that would excite the nuclear warhead and cause the holocaustic chain reaction. Secondly, even if you couldn't self-destruct the missiles without causing the nuclear component to explode, blowing them up in mid air is probably more harmful than to let them hit their target, as nuclear explosion higher in the atmosphere causes Electromagnetic Pulses, which cover a far greater radius and shuts down all electronics including pacemakers. Read the article on XKCD for more information.
  
• When the terrorists demanded Pentagon to pull out US troops from Korea, did they really have to comply? Why don't they just fabricate the news and 'tell' them they've done so? Also how did the media get wind of it so quickly? Was there a journalist sitting in the situation command center with the generals and surviving white house administration?
  
• How did Kang manage to get the last Cerebrus code when the president clearly showed his commitment he will not give his third? If it can be brute-force cracked (i.e. trial and error) then some computer programmer really needs to be dismissed over such a poor design. On that note, wouldn't it be an awfully risky to require the code-holders to remember their codes? What if one of them forgets? How will the reset their bit of the password? See what I meant earlier by taking liberties with the story's scenario?
  
• Countdown clock cliche which gives Bannings ample time to take out Kang and his last few henchmen, ensure the president is stable, and work on typing in the deactivation code. Because we might still want our missiles to hit our target in the end, so we must install an abort button for an abort button. Classic.
  

On a side note, someone actually brought their baby to watch this MA rated film in the session I went to. And no surprise, the baby started crying once the gruesome, unrelenting fighting started. Parenting lesson needed.