Downsizing (4 Stars)

"Downsizing" has one of the most brilliant science fiction concepts in recent years, then spends the next two hours trying to avoid it.

The opening act is wonderfully inventive. Scientists discover how to shrink human beings to five inches tall, promising a future where overpopulation, climate change and financial inequality might finally be solved. Matt Damon's everyman sees downsizing as a chance to escape his ordinary life, and the film initially feels like a sharp satire of consumerism and modern economics.

Then it changes its mind.

What begins as a social comedy becomes a marital drama. That soon gives way to a fish-out-of-water story, before turning into a romance, then a critique of wealth inequality, then a meditation on global poverty, followed by an environmental apocalypse and finally a philosophical search for the meaning of life. Each new theme pushes aside the previous one, leaving the fascinating central premise increasingly forgotten.

The result is a film that feels less like a carefully constructed narrative and more like several unfinished screenplays stitched together. Every time "Downsizing" finds an interesting idea, it abandons it in favour of another. The miniature world itself, arguably the film's greatest attraction, becomes little more than a backdrop for subjects that could have been explored without shrinking anyone at all.

The real disappointment isn't that "Downsizing" has too many ideas. It's that it refuses to develop any of them fully. Rather than exploring the social, political and ethical consequences of its extraordinary premise, it keeps jumping to the next big theme before the previous one has had time to breathe.

"Downsizing" is an ambitious film that deserves credit for thinking big, but its constant thematic detours prevent it from becoming the great science fiction satire it could have been. It shrinks its characters, but never quite decides what it really wants to say.

Success Rate:  - 1.2

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Despicable Me (4 Stars)

Amazon Friday #43

Today I collected my granddaughter Evelyn from kindergarten. On the way home I asked her if she wanted to watch a film with me. That was an important question. She recently turned five, and she's never watched a film. She's happy watching videos on YouTube. Now it's time for her to move up to the next level. I picked the film "Despicable Me", better known as "the Minions film". Isn't that what everyone calls it?

I thought she might get bored, but she didn't. I'm sure she didn't understand everything. The film started with the Egyptian pyramids being stolen, but she doesn't know what the pyramids are. Nevertheless, she watched the whole film intently, bursting into laughter at any slapstick intervals. The film was a success, and there will be many more.

By the way, she drew this picture for me today. The two hearts are her heart and mine. Forever together. I love her so much.

Success Rate:  + 5.9

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Despicable Me 4 (4 Stars)

No review today. I'll wait until my writer's block passes.

Although, to be honest, it's not writer's block preventing me from writing anything. It's writer's distraction, if there's such a thing. My daughter Fiona is visiting me with her children for the next two months. That leaves me little time to watch films, and even less time to write about them. I had to see "Despicable Me 4" in the cinema today, because my grandson Oliver was desperate to see it. Now that I'm back home my other grandchildren are running around shouting "Opa! Opa! Opa!" Blogging is tough!

Ghostbusters [2016 version] (4½ Stars)

If I were a ghost I'd lie down and surrender to four sexy Ghostbusters like Kate McKinnon, Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig and Leslie Jones. I wouldn't take Chris Hemsworth seriously, with or without his hammer. He's just a stupid men that the girls keep around for his good looks. There's been gender reversal in films before, but I can't think of any other film where it's pushed as far as in this film. Why shouldn't women objectify men? Men have been objectifying women for hundreds, maybe thousands of years.

When I reviewed the first Ghostbusters film two days ago, I said that I didn't know whether the 2016 film is a sequel or a reboot. It's irrelevant what the director or the screenwriter says, I'm only interested in what the film itself says. The trouble is that the film itself isn't clear. It doesn't reference the original film, which makes it a matter of choice. The original actors appear in cameo roles playing different characters, which suggests that it's a reboot. So my decision is that it's probably a reboot.

Or a remake? In film jargon, a remake is when a single film is made again, whereas a reboot is when the first film in a series is made again with the intention of making a new film series. The correct word for this film is definitely reboot, because the post-credits scene contains a hook for a sequel. Whether or not a sequel will be made is in doubt. The fans rejected the film, and it was a box office failure.

I sometimes say, deliberately being provocative, that I'm the only person who likes "Ghostbusters 2016". The statement is obviously false, but I know that I'm in the minority. I'm willing to argue about the film with anyone, preferably over a glass of beer. It has a powerful villain (even if he's only a seedy hotel janitor), it has better special effects than the original, and it's funnier than the original. Most of all, it has four powerful women in the lead roles. Their gender isn't an object of humour, it's just taken for granted. The people who hate the film, most of whom hated it before they even saw it, consider it sacrilege that their four heroes from a classic film have been replaced by women. Is it misogyny? Of course it is! If a reboot had been made with male actors there wouldn't have been such an outcry.

Oh, and the film has a cameo by Ozzy Osbourne. That's a bonus in any film.

My Blu-ray contains two versions of the film, the theatrical version and an extended version. After watching both versions, I can definitely recommend the extended version. It's often the case that scenes are cut or shortened to improve the pacing of the theatrical version, but that's not the case here. I suspect that the extra scenes, approximately 17 minutes, were only removed to get the film's runtime below two hours. Nothing is superfluous in the extended version, it's a perfectly crafted film which only suffers from cuts being made.

Success Rate:  - 0.4

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Wonder Woman 1984 (5 Stars)

I missed this film when it was shown in the cinemas last year. I don't remember why. It's possible I was in bed with the flu. I just don't remember. All I can say is that I regret not having seen it in the cinema, all the more after watching it on Blu-ray today.

Apart from a few flashback sequences, the first Wonder Woman film took place in 1918. This film takes place in 1984, as you might have guessed. Diana's lover Steve Trevor is long dead, though the reason for his death isn't named. She's now working at the Smithsonian in Washington DC. Her specialities are cultural anthropology and archaeology. She makes friends with Dr. Barbara Minerva, whose specialities are geology, gemology, lithology and cryptozoology. I shan't deny it, I had to look up some of those words. However much I may love the English language, there are still some gaps in my knowledge.

Stolen relics have been delivered to the museum by the FBI for identification. One of the items is considered to be a fake, despite having an inscription in Latin that it will grant anyone one wish if made while touching it. Diana and Barbara each wish for something. Diana wishes that Steve Trevor would return. Barbara wishes that she could be more like Diana. Both wishes are granted.

Without going into too many details about the plot, the object is a Dreamstone, a magic artefact created the Greek God Dolos, the God of Trickery. Wishes are granted, but at the same time something is taken away, usually the thing that the person treasures most. Diana's powers slowly decline. Barbara's friendly nature slowly turns to cruelty.

Barbara turns from this...

... into this.

But at least she gets a better body. That's the reason she wanted to be like Diana.

I have to praise the actress Kristen Wiig who plays Barbara. She was 46 when she appeared in "Wonder Woman 1984", but she has an incredible body. She must work out a lot.

This wonderful lady also appears in the film.

I'll refrain from writing anything else about the plot until I watch the film again.

Success Rate:  - 1.2

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Despicable Me 3 (3½ Stars)

Amazon Friday #24

Two Grus are better than one? In the third film Gru finds out that he has a twin brother called Dru. Funny though. "Grus" looks wrong. I have the feeling that I should write the plural of proper names with an apostrophe, i.e. two Gru's, but I searched online and found out that an apostrophe would be false. I'll have to remember that. I love the English language and try to uphold it, but this is a rare example where my feeling leans in the direction of something that's wrong.

The two brothers look identical apart from Dru having a full head of hair. He also has blond eyebrows. They don't look very similar in the picture above. Maybe this one is better:

Or maybe not. Their radically different clothing hides their similarity.

The biggest difference between the two is attitude. Gru has now fully reformed and has given up his life of crime. Dru has never been a criminal, but he wants to be a criminal, so he's always pestering Gru for advice. It's advice that Gru refuses to give. He's now a married man with three adopted daughters, so he's settled down. He can't afford to be sent to prison for 50 years.

In my review of "Despicable Me 2" I included pictures of all three of Gru's daughters. This time I'll only show a screenshot of Edith, because she's the cutest. Just look at that face! Doesn't she melt your heart? Wouldn't she make you want to reform from a life of crime as well?. Her age isn't stated in the film, but her older sister is 12 and her younger sister is six, so she's somewhere in the middle. I have difficulties estimating the age of real children, so with cartoon children it's impossible. I just know Edith is cute.

The film begins with Gru as a permanent member of the Anti Villain League (AVL). In the previous film he was just assisting the AVL. His membership doesn't last long. He's fired because he fails to catch the new master villain, Balthazar Bratt, who's stolen the world's largest diamond. Gru wants to redeem himself by retrieving the diamond, so he enlists the help of his brother. Dru wants to become a criminal, so Gru deceives him. He just says he wants to steal a diamond from someone, without telling him that he's stealing the diamond from a thief to give it back.

The film has all the slapstick and wild humour of the previous films, but something indefinable is missing. I can't say what it is. Maybe the problem is that we don't see as much of the Minions as we did in the previous films. That's just a Maybe. Early in the film they desert Gru because he refuses to return to a life of crime after being fired from the AVL. Only his two most loyal Minions, Dave and Jerry, remain with him. But evidently I'm in the minority with my opinion. "Despicable Me 3" is the most successful film in the franchise so far, and it's the fourth most successful animated film ever made.

"Lucy, please tell me what's wrong with this film".

Success Rate:  + 10.9

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Despicable Me 2 (4 Stars)

Amazon Friday #21

"Despicable Me 2" isn't as funny as the first film, but it's still a good film. It makes up for the reduced humour by having the atmosphere of a spy film. It's not overtly a spy film, but it still has a James-Bond-ish feeling to it. You need to watch the film yourself to know what I mean.

Scientists in the Arctic Circle have developed a potion capable of altering DNA. This is stolen by an unknown master criminal. The Anti Villain League approaches Gru as an ex-villain to recruit his assistance in finding the villain. Gru protests that he's not an ex-villain, he's just taking a break from crime, but he agrees to help. He teams up with the AVL agent Lucy Wilde. She secretly confesses that she's fascinated by Gru's past, and if he ever returns to crime she'll quit the AVL to become his accomplice.

There's a shopping mall where several master criminals lead innocent lives. Gru and Lucy are sent to work in the mall, opening a jam shop as their cover. While they're hunting for the criminal responsible for the theft a romance develops.

Lucy is pretty, in a cartoonish way. It's just a shame that her nose is bigger than her breasts.

But Gru doesn't notice her big nose. His eyes are elsewhere.

Gru has an even bigger nose. It makes kissing difficult.

Closer...

Closer.....

And they get there in the end!

The girls that Gru adopted in the first film approve. They want a mother.

I always get their names mixed up, so I'm including three posters here, more as a reference for myself than for my readers.

Now I have no excuse for forgetting their names again. Edith is disguised in her picture, but she's easily recognisable from her trademark hat. She's never shown in the films without it.

But as any young child will tell you, the film is all about the Minions. My grandson Oliver can't even remember the name of the film. "Despicable" is such a long word. He calls it the Minion film.

Success Rate:  + 10.8

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Despicable Me (4 Stars)

Amazon Friday #20

The hero, or rather anti-hero of this film is the master criminal Gru, but most people remember it for the Minions. They're small yellow beings whose only purpose in life is to serve criminals. They support Gru unquestioningly, even though his credentials as a criminal are in doubt. He's suffering from mommy issues. His mother always belittled him and told him he'd never be as successful at doing evil as his father. That's a lot to live up to.

This is Gru. He doesn't look all that evil, does he? He tries his hardest. He drives a large car that pollutes the air. Greta Thunberg would be furious. He bursts children's balloons and drops their ice cream on the floor. That would make Greta Thunberg cry as well. But it's not enough to make him a famous criminal. When he hears that his rival Vector has stolen an Egyptian pyramid, he wants to do something bigger. He decides to steal the Moon!

Gru has to apply for a loan from the Bank Of Evil. He prepares a presentation to explain his plan. He's old-fashioned. Most people today would use Powerpoint, but he prefers to use flipcharts. Maybe he doesn't want to make Bill Gates any richer? Come on, Gru! You're a master criminal. Why don't you just download an illegal copy of Microsoft Office from the Internet?

The first chart shows how he'll fly to the moon.

The second chart shows how he'll shrink the Moon with a Shrinking Ray.

The third chart shows how he'll grab the Moon with mechanical pincers.

The fourth chart shows how he'll relax on the toilet with a good book. Not a Kindle? Gru should get up to date if he wants to be a successful master criminal.

Did you notice that the last picture is signed by Edith? Gru adopts three orphans, Agnes, Margo and Edith, to help him with his plans. Vector has stolen Gru's Shrinking Ray, so he sends the girls to smuggle tiny robots into his lair which are disguised as cookies.

They're unwitting accomplices in Gru's master plan. They're good girls who say their prayers every night.

Ultimately the girls are Gru's downfall. They win his heart and he can't help doing good. Just look at them! Have you ever seen girls who're so sweet? They'd melt my heart as well. I don't know which one I'd hug first.

But as I already told you, the film is all about the Minions (with a capital M). They're tireless evil-doers, but we can't help loving them.

This is a fun film, very enjoyable for adults and children alike. In general I dislike modern animated films, but this is an exception.

Success Rate:  + 5.9

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Downsizing (4½ Stars)

If you've ever been to a Chinese restaurant in America you know about those funny little things they give you after the meal called fortune cookies. They're horrible tasting sweet biscuits which contain a strip of paper with a message. This message might be a prediction of what will happen to you, or it might be a wise statement. When I visited a Chinese restaurant with work colleagues in Poughkeepsie, New York, I found a message that I'll never forget:

"The man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest".

It didn't mean much to me at the time, but I'm glad I didn't forget it, because a few years later it become my life motto. After having a large income for more than 20 years my career collapsed and I earned less than 20% of what I'd had before. But it was enough. I realised that I could make do with my smaller income by being happy with less. I didn't have a car. I never went on holidays. I rarely ate out. My only luxuries were a good computer and a good stereo system, and even they were bought carefully after tight budgeting. Now, after spending 15 years getting by with limited resources I don't want to return to the days of having too much money.

Many people don't understand me because this way of thinking is so alien to them. Many don't believe me when I say I'm not interested in acquiring money. My brother-in-law, a very greedy man by nature, has repeatedly accused me of wanting to get my hands on the family inheritance. He's projecting his own faults onto me, but even people with greater moral integrity think in similar ways. The opposite is the truth. If I somehow won a million dollars today my first thought would be to divide it among my children, keeping only enough for my basic needs for the rest of my life.

That's what "Downsizing" is about. Paul Safranek is a man who learns to live a life of virtual luxury by reducing his size and reducing his needs. Then he loses the little he has left when his greedy wife divorces him, but he still manages to survive. He finds pleasure in things that don't cost money.

I'm pleased that this film is already included in Amazon Prime, less than a year after it appeared in the cinema. Maybe that's because it was a box office failure. That's a shame. It's a film that deserves to be watched, and it's a film that should make you reassess your life and your goals.

Success Rate:  - 1.2

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Ghostbusters [2016 version] (4½ Stars)

I know I only watched this film nine days ago, but I couldn't resist seeing it again. It has everything I want in a film: horror, comedy and strong women. Maybe not in that order.

One thing that I noticed in the Blu-ray release of this film is that the picture frequently stretches outside of the frame. This is obviously just a gimmick for the release on disc, because it's not possible on the cinema screen. Let me give you a few examples.

This is the usual aspect ratio of the film, 1920 x 804 pixels. The HD video format of the Blu-ray disc is 1920 x 1080 pixels, so there are black bars at the top and bottom of the screen.

 By the way, don't you think that intelligent women are sexy?

In this scene from the subway tunnel the sparks from Melissa McCarthy's machine shoot off the bottom of the frame. Framebusters! I have a "normal" HD television with a ratio of 16:9. I wonder how this scene would be displayed on a widescreen television with a 21:9 ratio. Would the bottom of the picture be cropped?

A few seconds later Kristen Wiig's machine shoots sparks out of the frame in both directions.

The ghost in the subway tunnel is too big to fit in the frame.

It's not all about sparks and ghosts doing the framebusting. There are more subtle scenes, such as Kate McKinnon needing extra room to do her gun-licking. Tasty!

It's not the first time I've seen this done. In "The Life of Pi" the dolphins jump out of the frame.

I've never known a film that so many people expected to be bad but ended up being so good. In my opinion it was all about prejudice. The original film, made in 1984, was so popular with fans that they couldn't imagine it being made with a new cast. That's the same as me not accepting the new cast in the rebooted Star Trek franchise. It was even worse for the fans that the new team would be all female. This drew out the lowest dregs of misogyny. When the first trailer was released on YouTube it received 12,000 Likes and 13,800 Dislikes within 24 hours, which showed how fans were polarised. That's approximately 45% who judged the trailer on its quality and 55% who rejected it because they were prejudiced. After two years the trailer has over a million Dislikes, making it one of YouTube's most disliked videos ever. Normally I would laugh about things like this, but the negative propaganda scared people away from the cinemas, and it ended up being only a lukewarm success. Plans to make a series of films with the new cast have been shelved.

I've cast three votes for the film. I "liked" the trailer. I laid my money down to see it in the cinema. I've bought the film on Blu-ray. If you like, my positive reviews in my blog can be considered a fourth vote.

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