Showing posts with label Tiffany Boone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tiffany Boone. Show all posts

Friday, December 20, 2024

Mufasa, The Lion King: Roars with energy

Mufasa: The Lion King (2024) • View trailer
Four stars (out of five). Rated PG, and rather generously, despite considerable violence, peril and dramatic intensity
Available via: Movie theaters
By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 12.22.24 

This film’s look is nothing short of spectacular; the blend of animation, photo-real CGI and cinematographer James Laxton’s live-action contribution is amazing. All the animals, as well, look and move with impressive authenticity.

 

You’ll wonder, repeatedly, where actual African vistas surrender to CGI make-believe.

Ideally, though; you shouldn’t spend much time wondering, thanks to Jeff Nathanson’s riveting screenplay. He includes everything: family bonding, friendship, love, betrayal and often brutal Shakespearean drama. Indeed, this film’s PG rating seems generous, given the level of violence and nature’s harshness.

 

The often varied African landscape can be unforgiving.

 

Mufasa opens as Simba and his mate, Nala (Donald Glover and Beyoncé, returning to their roles from 2019’s The Lion King), temporarily leave their young daughter, Kiara (Blue Ivy Carter), in the care of the wise mandrill shaman, Rafiki (John Kani). The cub is frightened by a ferocious thunderstorm, so Rafiki calms her with the saga of her grandfather, Mufasa, who rose from humble origins to become the beloved king of the savannah.

 

This story frequently is interrupted by the antics of wisecracking meerkat Timon (Billy Eichner) and gassy warthog Pumba (Seth Rogen), who attempt to interject their trademark slapstick ... along with repeated attempts to sing “Hakuna Matata.”

 

(Children will find their antics hilarious. In point of fact, they quickly become distracting, even annoying.)

 

The core tale thus unfolds via a lengthy flashback. It opens under grim conditions, as young Mufasa and his parents, Masego (Keith David) and Afia (Anika Noni Rose), join other desperate animals in a search for water during a lengthy drought. Masego celebrates his son’s speed and adventurous spirit; Afia regales him with stories of Milele (“forever”), a cherished savannah “beyond the last cloud in the sky.”

 

A sudden monsoon rainstorm initially seems like salvation, but the resulting flash flood separates Mufasa from his parents; the helpless cub is washed many, many miles downstream.

 

Exhausted when the current finally recedes, barely able to keep his head above water, Mufasa escapes becoming an alligator’s dinner thanks to the timely intervention of Taka (Theo Somolu), a kind-hearted cub from a nearby pride. Alas, this generous act violates the pride’s rule that forbids outsiders, strictly enforced by Taka’s father, Obasi (Lennie James). His more forgiving mate, Eshe (Thandiwe Newton), perceives Mufasa as a lion capable of enhanced senses. Mufasa is allowed to remain.

Friday, January 15, 2021

The Midnight Sky: Oppressively cheerless

The Midnight Sky (2020) • View trailer
Two stars. Rated PG-13, for dramatic intensity and fleeting profanity
By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.5.21 

Check a dictionary for the phrase “profoundly depressing,” and you’ll find this film.

 

There’s a tiny cinematic sub-genre that I’ll call “futility drama,” wherein a given premise is catastrophic from the onset … and then gets progressively worse. Heroic action is either inconsequential or useless; failure is inevitable. Recent examples include 2003’s Open Water and the 2009 adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.

 

Sully (Felicity Jones) and Adewole (David Oyelowo) can't understand why they aren't
picking up any transmissions from Earth's numerous spacecraft support facilities.

The Midnight Sky — exclusive to Netflix — isn’t quite that bleak, but the distinction is so insignificant, that you’re unlikely to find it comforting.

 

The setting is February 2049, three weeks after “the event.” This incident never is specifically disclosed, but visible computer modeling screens reveal that it began in major metropolitan centers and then spread outward; the implication is the mutually assured destruction of war. The result is that Earth’s air has become radioactive and/or poisonous, killing everything: all plant and animal life forms.

 

The effect hasn’t yet reached the Arctic Circle’s Barbeau Observatory, which has been abandoned save for Augustine (George Clooney), a scientist who — alone among the facility’s sizeable staff and research team — chose not to return home, and to certain death. The irony is rich: Although he suffers from some undisclosed medical condition that requires frequent blood transfusions, he already has outlived everybody else on the planet. He’s literally the last man on Earth.

 

(Right away, the psychology feels totally daft in scripter Mark L. Smith’s adaptation of Lily Brooks-Dalton’s 2016 novel. Everybody else left? Nobody else remained with Augustine, in order to live a few more weeks? That’s ridiculous.)

 

Augustine has everything he needs, and — as flashbacks soon make clear — he’s a loner by nature anyway; his entire life has been consumed by his research. Clooney persuasively depicts the grinding struggle of a man in constant discomfort and pain, who nonetheless goes through the motions, valuing each fresh moment of survival. Even so, he’s spent: bone-weary and resigned to an inevitable fate.

 

On this particular day, he’s reminded of the spacecraft Aether, returning from a two-year mission to explore K-23, a previously undiscovered moon orbiting Jupiter. The five-person crew, commanded by Adewole (David Oyelowo), has no idea that they’re returning to a dead planet. They need to be warned, but the Aether still is too far away; the observatory’s antenna isn’t strong enough for a signal to reach them.

 

Thus, the challenge: Can Augustine figure out a way to contact the Aether, and — even if he does — would such information even be useful?