Divergent (2014)

Dystopian future youth dramas are getting as much cinema attention as comic book movies, so watching “Divergent” will give you nothing no one has not seen in “Hunger Games” -– good films -– and “Host” –- terrible, awful flick. “Divergent” takes place in a post-war Chicago where humanity has been divided up into factions according to dominant virtue -– smart, giving, war-like, servant, you get the idea. To have multiple virtues, being divergent, is a mark of death under the city’s queen bee (Kate Winslet, all cold). Our heroine is Beatrice (Shailene Woodley, star of near every movie this year), who is from a servant family, but cops multiple traits, mostly warrior. This makes her No. 1 target, assuming she can survive the hand-to-hand and gun/knife combat training of her new war tribe. Does she? Of course, she does. This is film 1 in a series. Woodley is great in the role, going from young and unsure to a survivor of tragedy, so she more than makes up for the ehh side-characters and an odd lack of true horror. I might be playing unfair as no one here carries the menace of Donald Sutherland leering at Jennifer Lawrence. B

Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Live. Die. Repeat. That’s the smart mantra behind “Edge of Tomorrow,” the unfortunately titled but damn entertaining Tom Cruise sci-fi actioner that marries “Groundhog Day” to “Starship Troopers.” The trailers promises action and explosions. Those we get. But it’s also a surprisingly funny romp about a pompous PR-hack-turned-soldier (Cruise) who resurrects every time he is killed in battle against alien creatures that mesh robotics and Red Lobster dinner fare. How so? Not important. What is of interest: Dozens of those deaths are comedy gold such as when Cruise -– let’s face it, the guy has ego to spare –- eats some tires getting run over while escaping push-up duty. But there’s a better reason to cheer: Emily Blunt plays the kick-ass hero who pummels Cruise’s worm into a deadly warrior. Blunt -– best known for comedy -– is damn good. Never weak per some script mandate. Cruise again gives his all, his eyes going from vacant to deadly smart. Director Doug Liman (“Bourne Identity”) wraps up with a popcorn friendly finale, but the ride is worth repeat views. Female hero. Pure send-up of macho action tropes. Bill Paxton satirizing “Aliens” bravado. Far better than its given title. B+

Her (2013)

“Her” is the perfect Spike Jonze film. It smashes story-telling ground with a keen eye on a misfit that takes an outlandish idea -– think mind travel in “Being John Malkovich” –- and makes it instantly accessible. Now. Beautiful. Dark. The story: Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) is a writer for a website that provides “real” hand written letters for other couples, but he knows little about love himself. His marriage crashed, and when a date suggests a relationship, Theo bolts. Prone to online porn and games, Theo to his mild dismay falls in love with his newest gadget, an OS that’s therapist, camera, encyclopedia, and lover all in one. She names herself Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) and is everything Theo ever wanted in a woman: On when he needs her, off when he does not. The idea is ridiculous. Jonze lets us know that as Theo hides his burgeoning love until he succumbs truly, deeply to Sam’s charms. We fall and hurt with him. Yes, “Her” is about our IM/texting-mad world and the disappearing art of and yet longing for human touch, but it also is flat-out perfection for anyone ever in or out of love, and future curious. A

Rollerball (1975)

In 2018 super-corporations rule the world in a soulless oligopoly as every need is served by nameless businesses. Government and freedom of choice is dead. Citizen-consumers are told to do their part and buy, buy, and obey, making the corporations even wealthier. It’s the dream world of the modern Koch Brothers, Consumers United, and right-wing GOP greed. I digress, but that’s the world behind 1975’s “Rollerball,” a futuristic nightmare flick that focuses on a roller rink blood sport that’s like basketball on wheels, with spikes, motor bikes, and death. James Caan is Jonathan, the Michael Jordon of the sport, a long-time veteran at the top of the game. Until the Corporate Gods tell him to stop. Why? No man can rise against the Corporate Elite. Damn, this is a fine premise. It’s predictions are crazy eerie. The film itself, directed by Norman Jewison? A dud. Caan -– who can deny his screen power? -– appears bored, the pace glacial, and the cheapo imagery amateurish. Oh, there’s a fantastic bit that foresees the rise of the ’Net and the fall of books, but like the Koch Brothers warning, it belongs in a better movie. C+

Dredd (2012) and Mad Max (1979)

It’s the future, so bring on the apocalypse. I downed cheapo, gonzo 1979 Australian classic (and Mel Gibson debut) “Mad Max” as a fast antidote to “Dredd,” the second cinematic coming of comic book anti-hero killer cop Judge Dredd after the God-awful, terrible 1995 Sylvester Stallone film of the same name that put freakin’ Rob Schneider in the sidekick role. 

(The less said about that debacle, the better. It took me months to recover from just one viewing.)

Is “Dredd” better? By far. Miles. It’s still crap. For myriad reasons. The plot: It’s post-nuclear war U.S. of A., and the whole East Coast is a godless concrete jungle of high rises and crime. The police and courts have been merged into the Judges: Leather-clad, masked cops with guns and a glint to kill. Basically, it’s like present day America except everybody is an unarmed young black man. You can get “judged” and end up in a body bag just for walking. Sorry, I digress. Still on a “FrutivaleStation” kick. Can’t help it.

Anyway, Dredd (Karl Urban) is the best (read: most ruthless) cop in Mega-City (because Metropolis was taken) and we follow him here as he takes on a high-rise apartment tower that reaches for the heavens, but might as well plunge low to the pits of hell. As in 1995, Dredd has a sidekick. And it’s a she, and not Schneider in drag, thank the gods. Helmetless because why stump the fan boy’s eye candy factor, Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby) also is a mutant who can read the thoughts of others. Why are there mutants popping around? No idea. 

Dredd and Anderson enter the complex to investigate a grisly drug-related triple murder and within minutes find themselves at the mercy of the building’s ruthless drug lord (Lena Headey). Mama she is called, and she places the building on lockdown and tells every thug ruthless, shitty, one-eyed, tenant over an intercom that she wants Dredd’s head now. From there it’s war, the tenants attack our hero (and the girl rookie) and he shoots, bombs, kicks, scowls, and grimaces his way through the lot to the top.

If One Man Against an War Zone Apartment Complex and the intercom bit sounds familiar it’s because the plot and details were done exactly point-for-point in “The Raid,” an kick-ass Indonesian action/blood fest also from 2012. Literally, this is a replica. Down to camera angles. Everything says director Pete Travis is innocent, it’s a mere coincidence. If it is, “Raid” is still the better film. And Travis has the luck of a rat. “Raid” has a hero that means something and is one hell of a sight to behold, has a human trait, and a reason not to fail. It’s also a spectacular feast of stunts. Seriously, see it.

This has CGI glut, a zero hero with Urban (good actor, no slam, I like him) doing Eastwood as an unkillable tank, and it all means nothing. Absolutely nothing. I get it. Dredd is supposed to be the darker Dark Knight. Great read for a book, I’m sure, bur a lousy watch and with so many wasted opportunities. Dig it: Mama has created a nasty drug that slows the brain to a crawl so every movement feels wicked trippy, lights pop, and rushing water stands still, and the effect is crazy wicked on screen. So let’s see Dredd on that shit, right? No. Dude just kills and scowls. I won’t watch a third film. C 

“Mad Max” I can watch endlessly. You know the plot: It’s the near-future, meaningful authority is dust-bin history, and the highways are open roads of lawlessness akin to old Australia or the American West than anything we’d call the future. Zero horses, all cars. Gibson is Max, a highway cop trying to maintain some order against roaming bikers who steal, rape, and kill for the pure glee. The bikers make the error to wrong Max’s friends and family, and Gibson as Max explodes like a fuel-air bomb in a film that feels not scripted or planned, but captured out of a complete drug-fueled nightmare. Not slow like in “Dredd,” but warp-speed head-rush fast.

Whole sections of “Max” are incomprehensible and wreck loud, but few films -– especially chase ones -– have ever felt more in the moment. It vibes like a tale that had to be made or writer/director George Miller and his star would just die. And for all the story’s debauchery, Miller shows little blood or gore. It’s just over the camera frame’s edge, way deep in our skull, and that is scarier than anything anyone can put before our eyes. Gibson is young and scary fanatical, is that acting? A-

Oblivion (2013)

Futuristic thriller “Oblivion” is a surprising effort from Tom Cruise and director/writer Joseph Kosinski for all the wrong reasons: It’s a dud film timed for Earth Day. Every scene, fight, character, and reveal is recycled from better films in my DVD collection. 

Cruise is Jack, a memory-wiped repair guy on a wasted 2077 Earth who looks after massive machinery that provides energy for humanity, now stored up on a spaceship and ready to bolt for distant refuge. Jack is alone but for his monotone (and ginger-haired) companion (Andrea Riseborough) who runs his life. A robot in high heels, her.

“Oblivion” is a knock-out artistically, but it’s also -– in case you haven’t been paying attention -– a nonsensical awful reverse of “Moon,” a new-classic sci-fi films. Yes, Jack meets another Jack. Really. Duncan Jones could sue. Also lazily ripped: “2001,” “Star Wars” and “Independence Day,” among others. No moment of this thriller thrills, it rehash future where reveals land like bricks.

When Cruise’s hero inexplicibly (mind wipe!) recalls a football game, I forgot I like him as an actor. Kosinski made “Tron: Legacy,” another great-looking sci-fi epic stuck in the past. Pattern? C

Robot and Frank (2012)

My PR job allows me to work with humanoid robots, so I was ready for the sci-fi drama “Robot and Frank” big time. With sometimes clunky bodies, humanoid robots are still in developmental infancy and several decades will pass before ’bots hit, say, toaster status. But, Sundance wiz “R&F” matter-of-factly shows a future with automatons all about, in libraries, homes, and on the street. Frank Langella plays Frank, a 70-year-old ex-thief with prison and a broken family behind him. Frank is sliding into dementia when his son (James Marsden) buys him a mechanical housekeeper/mother hen robot. Frank balks and fumes until he learns that the ’bot can be taught … um … unlawful night activities. Frank’s back in the game, and the scores revitalize him, and that’s the sweet/powerful joke behind director Jake Schreier’s and writer Christopher D. Ford’s feature debut. Crime pays and robots rock. Langella nails the part -- no show-off old-man breakdowns, but pure frail human emotion. The script gives Frank a romantic interest (always lovely Susan Sarandon) and it’s great until fate (the pen) insists on a wild card that feels forced. B

Equilibrium (2002)

“Equilibrium” is sci-fi loaded with dystopian fears of left-wing fascism zinged up by woo-hoo martial arts action set pieces. But it’s a shrill, dull, laughable rip-off of “Matrix” made for folks who have vaguely heard of “THX-1138” and never actually read “Nineteen Eighty-Four” or “Fahrenheit  451.” It’s recyclable parts from the start, melted down and served up with a cast that makes eating nuked leftovers almost palpable. Pre-“Batman” Christian Bale is our Winston Smith-meets-Neo hero, a futuristic soldier for a Big Bro gov’mint that has banned emotion and arts through drugs and force, all in an effort to prevent war. Irony being “Father” kills all protesters. Poo politics though, writer/director Kurt Wimmer (“Salt”) salivates over slo-mo fights with dudes dressed in black long coats stomping, kicking, and shooting each other into oblivion, until the finale when Bale (and his double) dons a white suit that would make Mr. Roarke’s tailor swoon during an anti-climactic O’Brian kill zone. Bale stars, the lovely Emily Watson plays a dissident, while Taye Diggs co-stars as a rival. All are upstaged by a puppy. No, really. C

Underworld: Awakening (2012)

My wife loves the “Underworld” flicks, she thinks Kate Beckinsale as bad ass vampire assassin Selene who kicks ass in a slick tight black jumpsuit is a hoot. That’s true, but “Awakening,” the fourth pitch in the creaky vampires-and-werewolves-live-among-us action series is so short on story and reason to exist, it’s painful. Here Selene –- centuries old and still sporting hair and skin only a salon can provide -– is iced for 12 years, wakes up in a  badly lit lab run by an icky corporation that must share a set with the “Resident Evil” films, slices though a busload of men, hunts for her lover (Scott Speedman) who is starring in a better film, and tries to protect her new tween-scream daughter. It’s all set in a dark Orwellian world where all the survivors pimp “GQ” threads, the lighting –- inside and out, night or day -- is all black-blue, and “The Matrix” is the only film ever made. This is a cheat on every level, an extended trailer with 1,999 shots of Beckinsale standing in front of a massive fan just off camera, her black leather slicker blowing righteously so. D+

Priest (2011)

Paul Bettany says he is an atheist. Yet the man seems obsessed with God. Overtly so. He played an outcast priest in “Reckoning,” an albino monk assassin (!!) in “Da Vinci Code,” a devout and troubled Charles Darwin in “Creation,” and a vengeful angel of God in “Legion.” In “Priest,” he scowls as a ninja clergymen battling vampires. Priests slicing vampires with swords! Makes sense. This ought to rock. But it’s a dull flick with “Matrix” fight scenes leftover from 1999, and art direction that marries blown-out white dessert to “Blade Runner” cityscapes. It’s all ugly, and PG-13 safe. The sullen Bettany – so cool in “Master and Commander” – is far less interesting than Karl Urban channeling classic Eastwood as the vamp leader or Christopher Plummer channeling a Republican-type giddy on church-state rule. The plot – the Priest must save his kidnapped niece – is pure “Searchers,” but the only thing found is another sinkhole franchise launcher going nowhere. And it was all in 3-D in theaters. Lord have mercy. C-

Book of Eli (2010)

Stop if you’ve heard this one before: A man walks silently through the remainder of an apocalyptic future landscape. Yes, “The Book of Eli” again goes where many films -- from “Mad Max” to “The Road” -- have gone before, but it jumps from the pack with an interesting – albeit failed – take on the double-edged sword of religion, particularly Christianity. Props for trying, anyway. Eli (Denzel Washington) has wondered like Moses for decades, carrying a book that was given to him by God. (Hint: It ain’t “The DaVinci Code.”) When the despot mayor (Gary Oldman) of a hellish town learns of Eli’s hidden treasure, it’s all out hunt and grab. The man knows religion is a deadlier weapon than all the guns and bombs ever made. The Hughes Brothers directed several great films – “Menace II Society” and “From Hell” – and they tackle big themes here. But they repeatedly break the 8th Commandment, with “Children of Men” being fleeced the most. The overblown video game violence and a miscast Mila Kunis (a great actress, especially in “Black Swan”) as a bad-ass tough companion also nuke the subtle, dark humor and genuine surprises. C+

P.S. The "+" is for a short, LOL riotous spoof of “Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," starring two of Harry Potter's adult pals.

Children of Men (2006)

“Children of Men’ is the movie 1984’s “Nineteen Eighty Four” wanted to be. It takes the DNA of P.D. James’ stellar dystopian sci-fi novel of the same name, and runs in a vastly different, but fascinating, direction.

On its bleak surface, it’s a nightmare about the collapse of civilization. Dig deep and pay attention, and it is apparent that director Alfonso Cuaron has made the redemptive film of our time, outpacing Mel Gibson’s torture-porn film, “The Passion of the Christ” by miles. "Children" also is one of the most pro-life films ever made despite the shocking violence. It is one of the best films of this young century.

Its 2027, London. The world has de-evolved into madness. No children have been born for 18+ years. The world’s youngest person has been stabbed to death. New York City has been obliterated. Entire nations have fallen. And the coffee shop that cubicle office worker Theo Faron (Clive Owen, robbed of an Oscar) has just walked out of explodes in a fireball. Theo drops his coffee cup. This is in the first amazing 5 minutes of “Children.” The film gets better, and remains mysterious. We never learn the cause of the infertility, and that unknown is vital. The unknown is ... vital. A must.

Faron is a dead walking soul who doesn’t give a fuck, living in a world that’s dying. Not even the sudden appearance of his radical ex-wife (Julianne Moore) spurs him to life. When she asks him for a favor – to help ferry a young African woman to safety – his only interest is money. In a quick scene of shocking violence along a rural highway, Theo’s world is turned upside down. I can’t give away the plot details here, but slowly and viciously, every one and thing in his life is ripped away. Even his shoes. As the film marches to its climax, though, Theo gains purpose. He finds his life and hope in a land of darkness.

Cuaron and his screenwriters use every ripped-from-the-headlines source they can, turning England into a Euro-Iraq, torn apart by terrorism. Mixed in are anti-immigrant mantras, Homeland Security and hate as a government-led religion and mafia, religious strife, privileged art collectors, and satisfaction guaranteed suicide pills.

That’s why this film is not just great, but masterful. It’s twisted mirror of our own existence, where some Fox News bonehead can tout his Christian faith in one breathe and call for the death of all Muslims in the next. I’m talking about O’Reilly, here. I’m not one to wax on about religion or church, but this truly seems to be the opposite approach: Love so strong, it's a sacrifice. In a world of madness, it’s the most lost soul who can save us.

The film's final chapter is among the greatest I've ever experienced. Heart-breaking, hopeful, shockingly violent, and unforgettable. Listen to that laughter. A+