Movie review: Speed, 1994

I had recorded this one on DVR a few weeks ago after noticing it was scheduled to be on and seeing that it starred Keanu Reeves. I was unimpressed by the John Wick series (at least the two movies of it I've seen), but I figured I ought to give some of his other work a chance, him being a famous actor and all. And this movie presented itself. 

I have to say, this one did a much better job of showcasing Keanu's acting talents and range. (I also think he looks better clean shaven) He really doesn't talk much in the John Wick movies; he mostly just kills people and his character doesn't seem particularly developed or to have much depth, even though he is the main character. After awhile, I got to thinking, why didn't his character in John Wick just kill *himself* as opposed to all the other people? It is left unspecified. Those movies are pretty much only good for watching Keanu's character kill a bunch of people; there is very little depth to the plot, in my opinion. His character does get a fair amount of facial cuts, which reminded me of a post I did years ago analyzing facial cuts in various movies... I've digressed. 

The premise of Speed has to do with bombs and terrorism -- a bomber sets various bombs and is in a game of suspense against Keanu's character, a SWAT team member with the LAPD named Jack Traven, who is working to disarm the bombs and save civilians held hostage by them. At first, I assumed his last name would be pronounced rhyming with raven, but it actually rhymes more with haven('t). It is a very suspenseful and thrilling movie but it's also very well done, quite well-written. The scenarios presented in the movie happen to mean Keanu gets to express a wider range of emotions and tones in the character of Traven. The stakes in this movie feel more realistic and therefore more engaging compared to the John Wick series. 

Even though it's an action movie which you don't generally expect to have that much depth, it was somewhat surprisingly a bit thought-provoking. There's even a little bit of a media ethics angle in there you could contemplate. It made me wonder what it might be like to be in a situation like the one(s) depicted in Speed. It also kind of made me think my life isn't thrilling enough, but on the other hand, maybe that's actually a good thing. 

I was contemplating rewatching Shattered Glass today instead, but I don't know where my DVD copy of that is. That's a good one too though. Maybe Keanu is known for starring in action movies; I'm not entirely sure. I'd be willing to watch some of his other work beyond this, particularly anything that's a little more drama-based, not action. I do wish Keanu had more non-action movies in his filmography because I wouldn't mind watching more of him as an actor, but at a glance, it doesn't really look like it. 

In terms of the types of roles/movies an actor has been in aligning with my tastes in film genres, I'd say Jake Gyllenhaal or Peter Sarsgaard's filmographies fit fairly well. James D'Arcy too, but I haven't watched any of his movies that recently. Somewhere I have (had?) a list where I wrote out which films I'd seen starring specific actors, but I don't have that handy right now. It would be interesting to maybe track/analyze that a bit more closely. 

Movie review: John Wick Chapter 3 Parabellum

This movie review brought to you by: random movies that happen to air on cable channels. I saw this one happened to be on tonight and I was vaguely curious and bored enough that I started to watch it about 1/3 of the way in. I am completely unfamiliar with the series aside from the title being something I'd heard of at some point in the past.  

From what I can tell (and the brief summary shown in the channel guide), this is a movie about an assassin/hit man, John Wick. He did something, perhaps betrayed someone or his assassin cult/organization and now they want to kill him and his allies, while he is trying to escape being killed and kill his pursuers. Eventually in the movie, he makes a deal to spare his life and agrees to carry out the orders of the assassin cult/organization again, even though he had previously defected, and that's why they had now been trying to kill him. Essentially, he has to kill on their orders or they will kill him. Apparently there is some tragic backstory about his deceased wife, who I think was killed by the organization in retaliation for Wick's defection.  

There are plenty of extensive fight scenes; in fact, the movie is almost one long continuous fight scene with brief pauses for plot advancement. The fight scenes are action-packed, highly (perhaps gratuitously) violent and rather unrealistic, even for an action movie. They did seem to focus on showing John Wick reloading his weapons regularly, which adds a touch of realism. However, these fight scenes were so extensive and over-the-top that they kind of just seemed like silly filler. I suppose the plot of the movie doesn't necessarily have much meat to it, so I guess they have to go overboard with the fight scenes. I get that no action movie will be totally realistic, but at least the Daniel Craig era Bond movies (and semi-counterpart Jason Bourne series) keep fight scenes to a scale that seems realistic enough for suspension of disbelief. I don't really mind violence in movies overall (I watch plenty of movies with darker, grimmer themes), but in this one it was just so excessive it did not add much.

John Wick doesn't really talk that much in the film. He says "Yeah" blankly enough times that it was notable. Keanu Reeves played John Wick. This movie did not really showcase the depth of his acting skills, whatever that might be. It doesn't have much merit in terms of substance. 

The last part of the movie includes a long fight scene that takes place in a historic New York City hotel, the Continental. I assume this is a real place that actually exists. It would've been interesting to me if the architecture of this building had been showcased a bit more in the movie, but I get that wasn't the point of it. The scenes that occur in the hotel really aren't focused on the architecture at all, only the fighting and shooting. I was being too logical and disbelieving and was theoretically concerned about collateral damage to the interior of the hotel from all the gunshots. Imagine how much money and work it'd take to restore things after all that presumed damage. Anyways, I just looked it up and it is not a real place that exists. The exterior was filmed at one actual building and the interior shots were filmed in various different buildings to depict different parts of the fictional hotel. Additionally, some interior hotel scenes were shot on a set built in a studio.

Apparently this is the third movie in a series, so I assume there is useful context in the earlier two films that may have increased my understanding of this one. I'm not really sure what the point of the assassin cult/organization is and why it needs to exist -- are there really that many people that need to be assassinated? 

Overall it was a strange movie and just not that impressive to me. In one scene, John Wick is forced to chop one of his fingers off, which is mildly gruesome to think about. It's also vaguely reminiscent of something that occurs in Stephen King's novel "Misery." 

I had to look up the meaning of "parabellum" because at first I thought maybe it had something to do with a brain area, like a cerebellum. It is not a corresponding brain area; instead it comes from a Latin phrase. It is also the name of a type of ammunition or firearm, apparently. 

Movie review: Life

Interestingly, this marks a year to the date I last posted anything here and coincidentally, both these posts are about Jake Gyllenhaal movies. I just finished watching the last 45 minutes or so of the movie "Life" from 2017, in which Jake Gyllenhaal acts. 

It is a space movie; it seems that those were trendy in the 2010s and there are a number I'm aware of but haven't seen and don't really have much of a desire to: Interstellar, Gravity, The Martian, perhaps others. I actually wasn't really aware that Jake Gyllenhaal had been in a space movie; I possibly had been aware he was in a movie with this title but I didn't realize it was about space. He plays an astronaut on the space station. 

The premise of the movie is that life has been found on Mars and astronauts on the space station are studying it. The Martian lifeform evolves rapidly and becomes a threat to human life, both the astronauts' and potentially people back on Earth if the alien being manages to get there. The alien (it its later form towards the end of the movie) resembles a space squid-tick and appears to feed off of human flesh/blood (which gives me the tick portion of "space squid-tick") and oxygen. 

It's unclear how it survived on Mars without humans to feed on, or perhaps it evolved its taste for human flesh after the astronauts captured it. Maybe this was explained earlier in the movie. It's somewhat implied that it goes after humans since they contain oxygen in their bodies, but maybe it could also survive from other sources of oxygen, like an oxygen tank -- no human-devouring necessary? It's unclear if it absolutely needs to consume human flesh and blood or if it could survive off vegetarian oxygen, so to speak.     

Thematically, (the last 45 minutes of) this movie reminded me somewhat of the Doctor Who episode "The Waters of Mars" which was the closest thing I could think of because I haven't watched any of the other space movies. I thought the latter portion of the movie was fairly interesting, although apparently this one may be somewhat of a ripoff of a previous space/alien movie. Which I haven't seen, nor have I watched other space movies, so to me personally this was a fairly fresh concept. 

There's a bit of a twist to the ending, which I won't spoil too much here. It does make me contemplate what would happen in the real world if something like that ending were to happen -- the results/aftermath of the ending are not shown; the movie cuts off and leaves it up for imagination. There's an interesting discussion from the Verge about which parts of the movie are realistic and which are not. It features the lady who used to write a Jake Gyllenhaal newsletter. 

One of the smaller details of the movie is the existence of things called "oxygen candles," which are handheld torches (in the British sense of the word) or wands that emit light and apparently oxygen as well when activated. The mechanism of action re: how the oxygen is produced and emitted from these oxygen candles is unclear, but they are somewhat reminiscent of reverse dry ice, if dry ice gave off oxygen instead of CO2. 

If I ever get a chance I wouldn't mind watching the earlier part of the movie I missed, but I did rather enjoy the latter part even just by itself.