Posts Tagged ‘Cailee Spaeny’

Civil War

Director: Alex Garland

Cast: Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura, Cailee Spaeny, Jesse Plemons, Nick Offerman, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Jefferson White, Nelson Lee, Evan Lai

Running Time: 1 hour 49 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

Novelist, writer and director assembles a grim dystopian future in his new film Civil War set in a strife ridden America in which the Western Forces (California and Texas) has waged a secession battle against the United States and what follows is a violent and bloody civil war waged across America leaving cities like New York, sparse and filled with refugees.

Civil War follows a group of war photojournalists lead by the hardened Lee Smith wonderfully played with a steel determination by Oscar Nominee Kirsten Dunst (The Power of the Dog), in a role which she plays brilliantly against type. Kirsten Dunst has often been seen in costume dramas and was a time a darling of the more Avant Garde directors like Sofia Coppola and Lars von Trier. Dunst plays this role perfectly and is the best in the film along with a brief but spine-chilling appearance by her real life husband Jesse Plemons (Killers of the Flower Moon) as a xenophobic militant in what is the best scene in the film.

Unfortunately for Civil War, Alex Garland creates a dystopian future with absolutely no context, it is just this bland violence filled American landscape with no rationale behind it. The only thing that seems to drive the soldiers of the Civil War is violence for the sake of violence. There are mass graves, executions and slaughter on a massive scale.

This level of atrocity seem surreal as Lee and her fellow photojournalists, the young Jessie Cullen wonderfully played by Cailee Spaeny (On the Basis of Sex, Vice) and hardened action man Joel played by Brazilian actor Wagner Moura, who seems to be immune to the bloodshed around him, travel from New York to Washington DC where the Western Forces are closing in on the White House.

The ineffectual President played briefly by Nick Offerman of HBO’s The Last of Us series, has too small a role to play in this film. Jefferson White of Yellowstone fame, also plays another eager photojournalist.

Two things that save Civil War and elevate the film is the superb editing by Oscar nominated editor Jake Roberts (Hell or High Water) and the use of sound in the film.

Civil War asks viewers some complex question about at what stage do journalists actually get involved in the military conflict? Do they take sides? Do they just capture the horror and slaughter? Do they only get involved when one of their own is threatened?

Without a cohesive narrative and lacking any backstory, Civil War has one brilliant scene in it involving the journalists and Jesse Plemons’s militant character, then after that the rest of the film just descends into meaningless violence without any cathartic release. Actors like Nick Offerman , Jefferson White and Jesse Plemons are just wasted in this nihilistic narrative without any moral redemption.

Civil War was too bleak and far too dystopian in a 2024 world in which regional conflicts seem to be growing globally. Despite high production values, Civil War does not reach its full potential as a cinematic story about photojournalists in a war zone. There have been far better films about this topic than this depressing tale. The Oscar winning films The Year of Living Dangerously, and The Killing Fields should be your filmic guide on this morally complex topic.

See this film at your own risk as it makes for grim viewing. Civil War gets a film rating of 7 out of 10, saved only by some crisp editing and stark visual imagery.

On The Basis of Sex

Director: Mimi Leder

Cast: Felicity Jones, Armie Hammer, Justin Theroux, Kathy Bates, Sam Waterston, Jack Reynor, Cailee Spaeny, Chris Mulkey

Oscar nominee Felicity Jones (The Theory of Everything) takes on the role of gender activist lawyer Ruth Bader Ginsburg in director Mimi Leder’s informative if slightly over talkative legal biography On The Basis of Sex.

Armie Hammer (The Social Network, Call Me By Your Name) stars as her supportive lawyer husband Martin Ginsburg.

Also in the cast are Justin Theroux (The Girl on the Train) as Mel Wulf a fellow human rights lawyer and Oscar winner Kathy Bates (Misery) as Dorothy Kenyon a lawyer that unsuccessfully tried to challenge the state and federal laws which discriminate against people on the basis of their gender.

Pay it Forward and Deep Impact director Mimi Leder does a reasonably good job of handling the legal subject matter although the material does not dazzle onscreen and this film will really only appeal to those interested in the legal precedent that Ruth Bader Ginsburg won and how she successfully reversed gender discrimination.

Felicity Jones does a brilliant job of portraying Ruth Bader Ginsburg, yet unfortunately On The Basis of Sex which was released amidst all the Oscar nominated films for 2019 does not shine as a particularly memorable film. On the Basis of Sex is a fascinating if slightly too talkative portrayal of a female lawyer who challenged the American legal established and reversed most federal and state laws which were based on pure gender discrimination, unfairly favouring men over women.

Jack Reynor (Detroit, A Royal Night Out, Macbeth) and Sam Waterston (Miss Sloane, The Killing Fields) play chauvinist lawyers Jim Bozarth and Erwin Griswold who are attempting to rebuke Ginsburg legal argument.

On The Basis of Sex gets a film rating of 7 out of 10 and given the acting talent in this film, this legal biographical drama could have been brilliant but falls short of the mark.

Yet, the film remains a fascinating portrait of a female lawyer who fought the establishment in the early 1970’s and irrevocably altered the legal precedent in America just as the climate of social change was sweeping through this influential democratic country.

Pacific Rim Uprising

Director: Steven S. DeKnight

Cast: John Boyega, Scott Eastwood, Cailee Spaeny, Burn Gorman, Charlie Day, Tian Jing, Rinko Kikuchi, Adria Arjona

Film Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Successful sequels only work if they have a cinematic uniformity of vision.

Unfortunately the sequel to Guillermo del Toro’s highly original Pacific Rim (2013) called Pacific Rim Uprising is a paint by numbers sequel without much depth to it beyond massive creatures attacking Tokyo and Honolulu and the defensive Jaegers trying to fight them off.

Featuring rising stars John Boyega (Detroit, Star Wars: The Force Awakens) as Jake Pentecost, son of Stacker Pentecost from Pacific Rim and Scott Eastwood (Fury, Suicide Squad) as Nate Lambert, there are only few of the original cast in the sequel including Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi (Babel) as Mako Mori and Charlie Day as the crazed tech genius Dr Newton Geiszler.

Unfortunately no Idris Elba or Charlie Hunnam to light up our screens and make this sequel dazzle.

In trying to prevent another attack of the Kaiju on the Pacific Rim cities around the globe, Jake teams up with a young delinquent Amara Namani played by Cailee Spaeny.

Tian Jing (Kong: Skull Island, The Great Wall) plays Liwen Shao , head of a shady Shanghai Tech giant Shao Technologies which plays on introducing drones to control the Jaegers as a defence mechanism against another impending attack of the nefarious Kaiju.

Jake and Amara try to rustle up a team of young recruits but that is soon usurped by a sudden attack in Sydney of a rogue Jaeger. The action moves swiftly onto Tokyo in the most impressive CGI sequence whereby the roaming sea monsters are intent on attacking Mount Fiji while Jake and his team have to fight them off before they reach their volcanic destination.

As an effects laden CGI movie, Pacific Rim Uprising is fun to watch but lacks originality and the script is lacklustre coupled with the uninspiring direction by Daredevil director Steven S. DeKnight.

Pacific Rim Uprising gets a film rating of 6.5 out of 10 and is recommended for only those viewers that loved the first film. Otherwise this sequel, like many, is not going to have a broader appeal.