GRAVITY (2013)

Director Alfonso Cuaron begins his film orbiting over Earth with Emmanuel Lubezki’s fluid camera moving languidly toward the Hubble Space Telescope where a tethered Mission Specialist Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) works on the satellite, fighting the queasiness of zero gravity. Meanwhile veteran Mission Commander Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) cracks jokes and darts around on a jet pack, hoping to break the spacewalk record. This first shot lasts over ten minutes and has a beauty and serenity that lulls us into forgetting the opening title card’s admonishment: “Life in space is impossible.” The voice of Houston (an unseen Ed Harris) breaks in with the news that a cloud of debris moving at great speed is on a collision course with the astronauts. Before the crew can escape, the shrapnel strikes, leaving their spacecraft devastated, communication with Houston disrupted, and Kowalski and Stone stranded. Armed with a depleted jet pack, dwindling oxygen tanks, and a tether holding them together, the castaways make their way toward the nearest potential refuge, the International Space Station. Cuaron’s screenplay, which he co-wrote with son Jonas, makes space the ultimate antagonist – dispassionate and merciless. Every action Kowalski and Stone take for survival is fraught with obstacles and mortal danger, which makes for riveting, breathless cinema. The writers stumble (most likely at the studio’s behest) when they add a maudlin human-interest back-story for Stone in which she lost her daughter in an accident years ago and must learn to let go. That quibble aside, you are unlikely to see a more economical, pulse-quickening adventure this year. Bullock is compelling, and Clooney is Clooney, which is just fine. The film’s technical achievement is as brilliant as it is subtle. With the help of ace cinematographer Lubezki and a battalion of special effects gurus, Cuaron drops us into the action and completely convinces us that we, like Stone and Kowalski, are adrift in space. When we emerge on shaky legs from the theater (where the movie should be seen, dare I say in 3-D) gravity never felt so good.

12 YEARS A SLAVE (2013)

Near the end of his remarkable film, director Steve McQueen holds a close up of the anxious face of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor). The slave has convinced Bass (Brad Pitt), an abolitionist from Canada, to send a message to his former employer in the North to help him regain his stolen freedom. But hope has been stymied and trust betrayed before, so he waits. And for a brief moment Northup looks directly at the viewer, not accusing but with anguish. This startling shot reminds us that this is not merely a film about humanity’s capacity for both shocking cruelty and unfathomable resilience, but a jolting glimpse into our at times shameful collective national history. In recounting this history McQueen and screenwriter John Ridley, who adapted Northup’s book of the same name, refuse to indulge in cheap melodrama and allow a muted tone to provide apt counterpoint to the oppression on display. The filmmakers let shots linger past comfort and deny the viewer easy catharsis. We watch the horrific particulars of life in the antebellum South through the eyes of Northup, an educated free black man who lived comfortably as a musician in upstate New York with his wife and two young children before being lured to Washington, D.C., for a job, kidnapped, and sold into slavery under a false name to a plantation owner in Louisiana. He manages to hide his ability to read and write, but his organizational and carpentry skills earn him the favor of kindly master Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch) and escalating hostility from construction supervisor Tibeats (Paul Dano). This conflict forces Ford to sell Northup to jealous master Epps (Michael Fassbender) whose green eye frequently wanders to hardworking slave girl Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o) over his wife’s (Sarah Paulson) violent objections. Rounding out an exceptional cast are Paul Giamatti and Alfre Woodard in small but memorable roles. Ridley’s episodic script weaves a rich tapestry with matter-of-fact care, anchored by McQueen’s striking visuals. However, Ejiofor carries the film on his broad shoulders and in his eloquent eyes with a quiet dignity that speaks volumes.

THE WORLD'S END (2013)

Writer/director Edgar Wright and writer/actor Simon Pegg’s first feature, SHAUN OF THE DEAD, paid hilarious homage to George Romero by asking the question “What if there was a zombie apocalypse and nobody noticed?” HOT FUZZ, their second film collaboration, poked fun at action movie tropes while exposing an underbelly of fascism hidden beneath the civility of a quaint English country village. This third installment in their so-called Cornetto Trilogy follows middle-aged Gary King (Pegg), an alcoholic poster boy for arrested development. He drives the same car and has the same goals from when he was 18. To that end he persuades his four best mates from high school to return to their hometown and finish what they started 20 years earlier – the Golden Mile, twelve pints in twelve pubs. Unlike Gary, his friends surrendered years ago to the compromises of adulthood but agree, as men of a certain age do, to this one night of drinking and (limited) debauchery. As the pub-crawl proceeds the men stumble upon regrets and missed opportunities from their past. Shy Steven Prince (Paddy Considine) confesses his feelings for Sam Chamberlain (Rosamund Pike), brother of fellow crawler Oliver (Martin Freeman), and meek Peter Page (Eddie Marsan) confronts a former school bully. Andy Knightley (Nick Frost), meanwhile, works out his boiling resentment at Gary’s sins against him. For much of its first half the script by Pegg & Wright moves briskly along in this fashion, a bittersweet musing on the perils of mourning lost youth. Then the robots turn up, and comic carnage ensues. How this transpires is far more enjoyable than why, so I will forgo the former for the sake of surprise and spare the latter. In this outing director Wright tones down his somewhat tiresome visual flourishes and relies instead on generous writing and an excellent cast. The tone shifts between the serious and the silly work well until the filmmakers paint themselves into a corner, which leads to a less than satisfying ending. Although there’s a part of me that longs for Wright and Pegg to just grow up, I’m not so secretly glad that they haven’t. Go figure.

STOKER (2013)

South Korean director Park Chan-wook’s English-language debut feature starts off as a family drama about introverted India Stoker (Mia Wasikowska) whose father Richard (Dermot Mulroney) dies in a fiery car crash on her 18th birthday. Her less-than-grief-stricken mother Evelyn (Nicole Kidman) remains cold, so the girl retreats further inward, getting what comfort she can from family housekeeper Mrs. Garrick (Phyllis Somerville). The arrival of Richard’s brother Charles (Matthew Goode) at the funeral reception begins the film’s subtle evolution into chamber horror, complete with cruelty, violence, and dark family secrets. Neither Stoker woman has set eyes upon the prodigal before, but Charles, tacitly receptive to Evelyn’s flirtation, insinuates himself into the household over the open suspicion of India, the unspoken disapproval of Mrs. Garrick, and the concern of meddling relation Gwendolyn Stoker (Jacki Weaver) paying an unexpected visit. Despite her initial reservation India finds herself drawn to her enigmatic uncle, who likewise shows an unsettling interest in the inner life of his withdrawn niece. This mutual fascination turns deadly, however, when India spurns a local teen’s hormonal advances. Compared with his notoriously violent OLDBOY, the revenge tale as perverse Greek tragedy, Park’s stylish work here feels subdued. He embraces the gothic elements in Wentworth Miller’s spare screenplay, and his cool visual palate clashes with his saturated images, which seem ready to burst like overfed parasites, and add to the film’s perpetual sense of unease. But its rich atmosphere cannot compensate for its meager story. When major revelations finally arrive late in the film, even patient viewers may be past caring. More problematic, the deliberate pacing undermines the grisly potential of certain sequences, eliciting chortles of disbelief rather than gasps of terror. Mulroney and Weaver are engaging but have far too little to do. Goode’s creepy turn feels plastic, while Kidman sleepwalks through much of her role. Wasikowska, on the other hand, makes India’s psychological awakening both relatable and mesmerizing.

PACIFIC RIM (2013)

Guillermo del Toro is a versatile cinema fabulist. PAN’S LABYRINTH, his heartbreaking dark fairy tale set in 1944 fascist Spain, stands as one of the finest films of the last ten years. Meanwhile, on the other end of the tonal spectrum, his freewheeling adaptation of HELLBOY, a series of graphic novels about a coarse, sulfurous, cigar-chomping hero, overflows with goofy humor and infectious energy. In del Toro’s latest fantasy opus Earth becomes the target of regular assaults by giant monsters called Kaiju that rise up at increasing intervals from a portal in the ocean’s depths and wreak havoc on seaboard cities. To combat these alien behemoths the military develops Jaegers, a fleet of titanic robots manned by neural-linked pilot/fighters. For a time this stems the tide of destruction; however, budget cuts shut down the official Jaeger program and replace the robots with towering, supposedly impenetrable, coastal walls. But the Kaiju learn and evolve and soon break through these barriers. Luckily Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) has quietly kept the Jaeger program on line. He enlists former pilot Raleigh Becket (Charlie Hunnam) to rejoin the ragtag remainders, including grizzled veteran Herc Hansen (Max Martini) and his hotheaded son Chuck (Robert Kazinsky), and, after extensive try-outs, Stacker’s aide Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi) proves the best neural match to co-pilot a Jaeger with Raleigh. Meanwhile bickering scientists Dr. Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day) and Gottlieb (Burn Gorman), desperate to permanently close the Kaiju portal, turn to underworld black marketeer Hannibal Chau (Ron Perlman) for help. In the final analysis a movie like this is measured by the quality and quantity of monster vs. robot mayhem, and in this regard the filmmakers deliver spectacularly. The script by Travis Beacham & del Toro also provides enough satisfying if superficial character moments to appease those who prefer the IRON MAN series ethos to that of the TRANSFORMERS. The solid performances are serviceable, and Perlman brings some welcome humor to what is otherwise an overly serious summer popcorn picture.

MAN OF STEEL (2013)

With Bryan Singer’s dull SUPERMAN RETURNS reboot forgotten, the franchise turned to Christopher Nolan, the man who saved Batman from camp, to give the comic book hero another new beginning. He produces and shares story credit with David S. Goyer but abdicates directorial duties to Zack Snyder. Most of the film’s first half embellishes upon and modifies Superman’s well-trod origin story with some degree of success. On dying planet Krypton General Zod (Michael Shannon) stages a military coup and attempts to stop Jor-El (Russell Crowe) from sending newborn son Kal-El off the doomed home world to Earth. The babe escapes, Zod and his cohorts are captured and exiled, but Krypton explodes. Kal-El’s craft lands in Kansas where farmer Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) and wife Martha (Diane Lane) adopt him and name him Clark. As the boy grows his powers become evident, but Pa Kent asks him to refrain from using them, even to help others, in order to hide his otherness. This conflict drives adult Clark (Henry Cavill) into the wide world doing odd labor-intensive jobs until drawn inexorably to the Arctic and the spaceship buried beneath the ice, where he learns his true identity. There he also meets Daily Planet ace investigative reporter Lois Lane (Amy Adams) and begins to confront his destiny as Superman. While Goyer’s screenplay focuses on Kal-El as the stranger in a strange land and the fear his alien origin engenders, the film flirts with unexpected poignancy. Costner and Lane exude homespun decency, while Adams elicits sparks from an otherwise somber Cavill. However, once Zod and his minions arrive intending to turn Earth into a new Krypton, director Snyder jettisons any thematic groundwork laid and commences a 40-minute aural and visual assault that leaves viewers’ ears ringing and heads pounding. Most distressing, the numbing carnage undermines Superman’s established moral character, because he seems to tacitly accept the unseen but inevitable casualties incurred during his devastating battle with Zod. In reimagining Superman the filmmakers have obliterated him beyond recognition.

THE HEAT (2013)

After striking gold in the crude yet warm-hearted BRIDESMAIDS, director Paul Feig and star Melissa McCarthy return to the crass comedy well with this sporadically funny but overlong female buddy cop movie. Despite an impressive success rate, FBI agent Ashburn (Sandra Bullock) rubs colleagues the wrong way with her strict adherence to procedure and a know-it-all confidence. Supervisor Hale (Demian Bichir) transfers her to Boston to apprehend a drug kingpin, with the hope that she may learn people skills by interacting with local law enforcement. Enter foul-mouthed force of nature Detective Mullins (McCarthy), a tough native who follows her instinct wherever it may lead (usually into chaos) to the resignation of her demoralized sad sack Captain Woods (Thomas F. Wilson). Of course these polar opposites must team up in the investigation, and of course both will come to like and respect each other before the end credits role. Katie Dippold’s script leans heavily on the gender switch concept and finds little else that’s fresh. The story is meager, and the characters are mere sketches filled in perfunctorily by a game cast. In his previous feature, director Feig paced his film and shaped each scene to perfection. Here he attempts to bolster the thin script with improvisation, and the results are decidedly mixed. In scene after shapeless scene the gifted McCarthy seems to have been given free rein to embellish dialogue. But her riffs miss more than they hit, and the pace drags. It comes to a standstill during the unfunny Mullins family scenes, noisy nadirs that waste the talents of Jane Curtin and Michael Rapaport, among others. Furthermore Feig fails to maintain a consistent tone, with the humor lurching from the bellicose to the heartfelt to the violent. (Want to see a tracheotomy played for laughs? This is your movie.) Although Bullock makes an amiable foil for McCarthy, her evolution from straight-laced agent to rebellious rogue fails to convince. However, Michael McDonald’s subtle, knowing turn as sadistic villain Julian proves the axiom forgotten by too many actors and filmmakers nowadays. Less is more.