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The Amateur Missed the Mark

The Amateur wanted so badly to be a Jason Bourne movie. Unfortunately, it missed the mark. It was an entertaining movie with nice performances from Rami Malek as Charlie Heller, a CIA decoder whose wife is killed in a terrorist attack, and Laurence Fishburne as the CIA trainer, Henderson, who must get Heller ready for the field if he is to get revenge on those who killed his wife. Rachel Brosnahan also gives a nice performance as Heller’s wife, Sarah, who is tragically killed in a terrorist attack gone wrong. Holt McCallany is solid as Director Moore, a rogue CIA director directing illegal black ops who wants Heller out of the picture. Finally, Julianne Nicholson balanced Moore as the Director of the CIA, whose idealistic idea of cleaning up the CIA is threatened by Moore’s rogue actions.

That should have created a deep story with a compelling narrative and a dramatic plot. Unfortunately, director James Hawes gave us a film that was wide but shallow. It never allowed us to properly engage emotionally with what was happening in the story. Screenwriters Ken Nolan and Gary Spinelli also seemed to struggle with the source material provided by Robert Littell’s novel. It’s unfortunate that the screenplay and the film didn’t turn out better because the screenplay had the ingredients for a solid dramatic structure.

Adapting novels into screenplays is challenging.

This is an adaptation of a novel, and novels can be challenging to adapt to screenplay format. Getting everything from a novel into a two-hour movie is impossible, so important story points almost always must be omitted. While watching The Amateur, I could tell early on that key story elements were being glossed over or left out entirely. Screenwriters often have a choice when adapting a novel into a screenplay. They can attempt to get as much information into the script as possible without diving too deeply into it. Or they can turn the screenplay’s focus onto a few key elements of the story from the novel and explore them more deeply. Hawes, Nolan, and Spinelli chose the former. They gave us a screenplay that was wide but shallow. They wanted to give the audience as much from the novel as possible, so they did that without deeply exploring any one component.

That gave us a fun film, but not an emotional one. That wouldn’t matter if they didn’t give us scenes that were clearly intended to elicit emotional responses, only to fall flat because not enough work was done to get us emotionally involved. We can’t get emotionally involved when the story and characters are flat. There’s not enough for us to latch our emotions onto. Again, that’s fine if this film wanted to be Commando. It was clear, however, that it was striving for more than that.

This is a good but not great film.

This is an entertaining film. It’s a popcorn movie that will give you your money’s worth if you see a matinee screening of it. The action sequences and some of the VFX make it worth seeing on the big screen rather than waiting for it to make it to your favorite streaming service. However, for whatever reason, Hawes couldn’t give us the drama we needed for the film to go from good to great. That is where the lack of structure in the screenplay comes in. As I often tell screenwriters for whom I provide screenplay coverage, story structure isn’t an arbitrary idea that producers and studio executives need to understand screenwriting. Dramatic story structure is integral to building drama in a story. It marks the protagonist’s progress towards accomplishing his goal.

Heller has a clear goal in The Amateur. He wants to get revenge on the men who killed his wife. The inciting incident, or the Call to Adventure, happens when his wife is murdered during a terrorist attack in London. He works for the CIA, and he wants them to bring the perpetrators to justice. He does what he’s good at and breaks the codes that allow him to discover who they are. His call is Refused by Dir. Moore, who gives him a line about this being a part of a bigger conspiracy. From there, Heller provided evidence that Moore is engaging in illegal black ops and blackmails him into allowing him to train as a CIA agent. At that point, Heller Crosses the First Threshold from Act I to Act II when he begins training. The issue is that this doesn’t happen until we’re 40 minutes into the film. That takes too long, leading the first act to drag. That delays the drama that should be building in the second act, which makes it more difficult to engage the audience.

The second act begins with the archetypal Tests, Allies, and Enemies stage of The Hero’s Journey, with Henderson training Heller. This part of the story should have been dramatic, showing the challenges Heller faces in being a field agent. Hawes gave us this to a degree, but it is glossed over so quickly in the film that it might as well not have happened. We then learn that Moore and his team feel they cracked the code to prevent Heller’s evidence from going public and order Henderson to kill him. However, when Henderson gets to Heller’s room, he discovers he’s gone with multiple passports and plenty of cash to travel the world. Henderson then tells Moore that Heller took advantage of all the training he gave him. However, that line even falls flat because we didn’t see any of that training happen.

This film needed a tight 4-act structure.

Most people will tell you that screenplays are written in a 3-act structure. As I have pointed out, the best screenplays are written in 4 Acts. The Amateur would have been a more compelling story with a 4-act structure. The first two acts could have been written as I showed above; however, with the first act ending by page 30, and more time focused on Heller’s training. This would have allowed Heller’s relationship with Henderson to develop more, and that development was needed. We needed that relationship to be more than it was in the film. Henderson is Heller’s archetypal mentor, and this script would have been a lot more emotionally engaging, and things in the final act would have made a lot more sense and been a lot more plausible if Henderson was more of an archetypal ally to Heller as well. `

The third act, or Act IIB if you prefer, should have shown Heller killing the villain’s henchmen. Act IIB does end with an all-is-lost moment, as Heller loses his longtime ally, Inquiline (Caitriona Balfe), who has been helping him find the killers, is killed. Again, because Hawes didn’t do the heavy lifting of showing that Heller couldn’t do what he needed to do without help, this moment falls flat. The final act is about him finding the person who pulled the trigger, the group’s leader, and coming up with a creative way of bringing him to justice. Without giving too much away, this is another key moment where the terrorists are connected with Moore, but it’s nothing more than a coincidence that they were responsible for killing his wife. This script would have been much more effective if it had shown that Moore was pulling the strings the whole time. That would have provided the depth to the story that we would have needed, but the director and screenwriters opted for wide and shallow rather than a narrower but deeper approach.

The other thing the script lacks is stakes. Heller’s wife is already dead. He has nothing else to lose if he fails, other than his life. That should be enough, but it isn’t because we don’t care about him. Another thing I tell aspiring screenwriters is to give us the stakes and raise those stakes whenever you can. Heller needed more than just revenge. He needed some personal growth or to save something or someone else. The filmmakers attempted to show him growing as a person and getting over some internal fear, but it’s never clear what that fear is.

It’s a popcorn movie that could have been so much more.

Again, this is an entertaining movie. If you’re just looking for something to kill a couple of hours while you gobble down popcorn and soda, this movie is for you. What I find frustrating about it is that I can see that it could have been better, and I have opinions on how it could have been better. Unfortunately, the filmmakers had other motivations. They made the movie they wanted to make, but it didn’t accomplish what they wanted it to achieve.

Know the Audience For Your Screenplay

“Know your audience” is an oft-repeated phrase in Hollywood. Most ideas target specific audiences, and some of those audiences are larger than others. Naturally, if you have an idea for a high-concept blockbuster, the audience is going to be huge. However, there is much value to be found in something that might be more niche. Screenwriters must also remember when shopping their screenplays that the audience they hope will eventually see this in the theater is not the only audience for them to satisfy. First, they must impress an audience of studio executives and producers.

Knowing the audience is critical to setting your script on the path to success.

Another phrase people often hear is, “throw enough shit against the wall and something will stick.” It is very tempting to apply that philosophy when it comes to shopping your screenplay. You see value in getting as many eyeballs as possible on your script to increase the odds that two of those eyeballs will be attached to a brain that will react favorably to your script. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way.

Several years ago, I was a reader for Walden Media. They became very popular and successful in the first decade of this century primarily for producing The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, as well as the subsequent Narnia films that followed over the course of the next few years. However, they also did very well by producing family-friendly films based on YA novels, like Hoot, Nim’s Island, Because of Winn-Dixie, and many others. Walden was primarily interested in adapting novels into films, but they would consider screenplays that met certain criteria.

Writing coverage can vary slightly from one production company to another. However, the overall basics are the same. The companies want a logline; a brief paragraph on the overall plot and tone of the story; ratings on storyline, premise, dialogue, and character; if the script was a recommend, a consider, or a pass; a synopsis of the story, notes describing the reader’s thoughts and critique of the screenplay; and finally, screenplay’s commercial potential. To all of that, Walden required its readers to evaluate another component of the story: Learning Potential.

Walden wanted strong thematic components in their films that offered the potential for learning some kind of lesson. If a screenplay didn’t target a family audience or contain learning potential, Walden wasn’t interested in it. And yet, I had to read many scripts that didn’t meet either of those criteria. My comments often included notes that described the script as worth considering, but not the type of script that Walden produced. It was a waste of time and effort for this writer and his or her manager or agent to submit the script to Walden. We weren’t the audience, and our audience wasn’t their audience. Yes, I still got paid to read the script, but it was still frustrating for me to spend time reading and evaluating something that clearly wasn’t what my company was looking for. It also must have been frustrating for the writer to get their work passed on.

There was one time when I was reading for Walden when this was particularly painful for me. I was assigned a script to read, and I loved it. The style of the story was similar to movies like Clueless and Legally Blonde. It was a witty script with a ton of snark. The pacing was crisp, the dialogue biting, and overall, it was one of the most entertaining scripts I’ve ever read. It had several laugh-out-loud moments with characters who were likable and had tremendous character arcs. The story worked on multiple levels and had a ton of depth and drama. It also had a tight structure and biting dialogue that added to the protagonist’s wit, sarcasm, and cynicism. I could envision this screenplay as a film the entire time I was reading it, and I could totally picture Lindsay Lohan in the leading role.

And we had to pass on it.

While it was based on a Young Adult Fiction novel, this wasn’t family entertainment. It was probably closer to Mean Girls than it was to Freaky Friday. I gave it a CONSIDER, which I knew I shouldn’t have done. I knew the script, as good as it was, did not meet Walden’s criteria of strong thematic components leading to learning potential. This was simply a funny screenplay with some nice action sequences that had high entertainment value. But it wasn’t for families, and it didn’t have a lesson or a moral. I remember discussing it with the executive I worked with at Walden, and he asked me point blank, “Is this for us?” I could only sigh in disappointment and tell him, “I don’t think so.”

Either the writer or, more likely, the agent didn’t do their homework when submitting it. Walden was fresh off the success of the first Narnia movie at the time, so they were a hot commodity in town, and people were trying to take advantage of that momentum. They were sending Walden material even when they knew Walden was unlikely to bite on the off chance that they would. That is not a good marketing strategy for a studio that is well run and committed to its creative principles.

Whether you have an agent or not, it’s critical that you research the companies you’re sending your script to. This is especially important if you send it to a production company with a definitive niche. For example, let’s say you’ve written a script like Iron Claw or The Fighter about a guy who’s a wrestler or a boxer and struggling with his career and personal life. Don’t bother submitting that script to NEON Rated. They’ve been very successful as a production and distribution company with credits like Parasite, Anora, Anatomy of a Fall, and I, Tonya. Three of those films were nominated for Best Picture, and two of them won. Even if your script is tonally similar to those films, NEON won’t likely be interested in it unless your boxer or wrestler is a person of color or gay. But neither Iron Claw or The Fighter would have worked at NEON. They primarily focus on stories with strong female leads or on films about the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ community, and both of those films were led by white men.

You probably shouldn’t send it to Blumhouse either. They have done very well with films like Get Out, Paranormal Activity, and The Purge. They obviously focus on horror, so they would be a great option if you’ve written a supernatural thriller rather than a sports drama. Depending on how bold your creative choices are in your script, IFC might be an option. Their subject matter is more diverse, but their content is more auteur-driven.

Even A24 could present challenges. They’re currently one of the most, if not the most, successful indie production companies. They churn out a lot of interesting and critically acclaimed movies. They’re also comfortable in multiple genres and with various styles. That might seem like a green light to send them whatever you have. However, there is a commonality amongst many of their films. They’re all quirky in some way. They’re all strong thematically and have a lot of subtext. Their screenplays always have more going on under the surface than they appear to. Whether it’s the time-bending Everything Everywhere All at Once, the science fiction camp of Mickey 17, or the coming-of-age mother-daughter story of Lady Bird, A24 has an underlying signature style that your screenplay should possess if you want them to consider your work.

Selling a screenplay is, in many ways, more difficult than writing the screenplay. Marketing it to the right people can be frustrating, and the temptation to just blast it out into the world is very strong. At least initially, writers and their agents and managers should consider a targeted search for production companies that consistently work in the space in which the screenplay lives. It’s not a guarantee that you will find someone who is interested in it, but it actually increases your odds to target your search than to just flood the market. Not only should you look into production companies, but if you work with an agency, find out if they represent any actors who have worked on similar projects. Having an actor attached to your script always makes it more attractive to any production company, especially those who produce films similar to what you’re working on.

Overall, be patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day. It’s more difficult to sell a screenplay now than it ever has been. But it’s not impossible, especially if you do your research. It’s not glamorous, but attempting to get your script in front of as many people as possible is the wrong tack. Do the legwork and get your script in front of the right people.

Snow White: Please, Disney, Stop This Madness

After seeing Snow White a couple of weeks ago, I’ve wanted to write about it for a while. Unfortunately, as often happens, life gets in the way. I wanted to write a blog begging the good people at Disney to stop this madness. Then today, we found out that Disney is “pausing” the live-action remake of Tangled. I find that particularly interesting since Snow White’s story was more like Tangled than the original Snow White. I tend to stay away from the Disney live-action remakes. Most of my professional experience is in animation, and I feel that the live-action remakes diminish the legacy of these animated classics, so I choose not to support them.

However, I saw Snow White because MacKenzie and I planned to discuss it in our podcast. I was also mildly interested because I saw that, even though the Rotten Tomatoes critics’ score was low, the audiences generally rated it a bit higher. So I went in with an open mind, but with low expectations.

I was still disappointed.

The first thing I will say is that I have no political beef with this film. While I’m not a fan of what Rachel Zegler (Snow White) said about the original, it’s her opinion and she’s entitled to it. You don’t have to agree with it, but she has a right to feel about the original however she feels about it. While I wish Gal Gadot (The Stepmother) felt a bit differently about what’s happening in Gaza, I can’t blame her, as an Israeli citizen, for having the opinions that she has about what is happening in that part of the world. Perhaps the most interesting thing about Snow White is that it’s that rarest of movies that equally pisses off both the left and the right.

My main beef with this film is that it honestly didn’t even look like they were trying. It didn’t look like the actors were trying. It didn’t look like the screenwriters were trying. It didn’t look like the costume designers were trying. It didn’t look like the director was trying. It certainly didn’t look like the VFX team was trying.

A lot of ire has been directed at the film for using CG dwarfs instead of hiring little people as actors to play them. I get the decision to go with motion capture because it presents a greater opportunity for interesting looks, and it adds to the fantasy elements of the film. But the motion capture was among the worst I’ve seen in a long time. This was much closer to The Polar Express than to Avatar. Dopey was the worst of all. They tried to humanize him too much, which made him look creepy. Also, they make him talk at the end, which totally destroys the iconic nature of that character.

The Original Deserved Better

It is not hyperbole to say that the original Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is probably one of the top-5 most important films of all time. It’s not one of Disney’s best, but it is great, and it showed that animation could work and be successful in feature-length films. Had it bombed at the theater, there might not ever have been another animated feature, and animation would have continued to be relegated to short and eventually television. Instead, it racked up $8 million at a time when a movie ticket cost a dime for kids and a quarter for adults. It remains in the top-10 box office rankings in terms of number of tickets sold. It cannot be understated how important the film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs is.

For that reason, it should have been left the hell alone. You’re not going to remake Casablanca, Citizen Kane, or The Godfather. So leave your stinking mitts off Snow White. This epidemic of subpar live-action remakes must stop. Thankfully, Disney might be getting the hint. Snow White appears to be a box office failure, to say the least. While I never wish for movies to fail because I know how hard they are to make, I am happy that the market is telling Disney to move on to other things. If the remakes of Lilo and Stitch or Moana do well, then the train could be restarted, but for now, it looks like the studio could start to look for content in other places.

Flow and the Art of Visual Storytelling

Imagine a screenplay without a single word of dialogue. Imagine further that screenplay telling a story so complete and compelling that it conjured up feelings of empathy and pathos that were so emotional as to keep the audience glued to the edge of their collective seats. Take it one more step and imagine that screenplay producing a film that beat films from powerhouse animation studios like PIXAR and DreamWorks to become the winner of the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. If you imagined all that, you would come up with Flow.

Flow might be one of the most impressive cinematic accomplishments I’ve ever seen. This animated team made a film with hardly any money at a studio with hardly any people and produced a film that took the world by storm and awards season by the balls. This plucky studio and its pluckier film about a cat leading a band of misfit animals roared onto the scene like a lion and brought a tiger-like ferocity to the world of animation in a film that has all the emotion of the birth of a newborn baby. It might seem like I’m getting a tad hyperbolic, but it’s hard to overstate how impressive a work of art Flow is.

An underdog story about a cat

Why was Flow such a success? How did this simple film from a small studio in Latvia become such a worldwide sensation? The easy answer is that it had a great story. But what does that even mean? A great story is more than a compelling plot. As I tell screenwriting clients all the time, the plot is what happens, but the story is why we care. What can screenwriters do to get the audience to care? There are so many tools in the screenwriter’s toolbox that it’s impossible to name all of them. However, it’s easy to pick out what the filmmakers of Flow did. They included strong thematic components of coming together as a community to accomplish more than we could accomplish on our own and the idea of overcoming phobias and fears to make your life more complete and happier.

They also effectively utilized The Hero’s Journey to tell a riveting, dramatic story.

Warning! Spoilers!

Ordinary World

  • The cat lives alone in a house surrounded by statues of cats.
  • Humans used to live here, but for reasons we don’t know, they’re gone.
  • A pack of dogs runs by. The cat steals a fish they caught before being chased away.
  • We also see a flock of large secretary birds that will play a key role later in the story.

Call to Adventure

  • The dogs run by the cat without giving it a second look, followed by a herd of deer.
  • Flood waters carry the cat away.
  • The cat gets to land with a friendly dog (a Labrador) from the pac,k and the Labrador follows the cat back to his house.

Meeting the Mentor

  • The cat wants nothing to do with the Labrador until one of the secretary birds confronts him, and the Labrador barks it away.

Refusal of the Call

  • They get back to the house, and the cat leaves the Labrador outside.
  • The floodwater continues to rise. A boat flows by, and the Labrador encourages the cat to get in. The cat refuses after seeing the rest of the dogs on it, so the Labrador hops in, and they float away.
  • The water continues to rise, and the cat gets as high as it can and sees a giant sea monster swim by, terrifying him.

Crossing the First Threshold

  • Finally, a boat with a capybara flows by, and the cat hops on it.

Tests, Allis, and Enemies

  • The cat is initially frightened of the capybara but quickly realizes he has nothing to fear.
  • Rain comes in, and the cat must share a sheltered space with the capybara.
  • The next morning, a flock of secretary birds flies by. One of them startles him off the boat, but the bird seems more curious than hostile.
  • The cat tries to catch a fish but can’t and struggles to catch up with the boat.
  • The sea monster swims by him, saving him from drowning, but he’s picked up and carried away by a secretary bird.
  • The bird drops the cat and lands on the boat, where the other secretary bird stares him down before flying off.
  • The cat takes control of the rudder from the capybara.
  • They come aground at the home of a lemur, who has scavenged all kinds of shiny objects,
  • They put them in a basket and the capybara drags the basket on the boat.
  • The flood continues to rise, and the lemur jumps on the boat with them before looking longingly back at his flooded home.
  • The capybara shows the lemur a mirror that was lying on the deck and the lemur loves it.
  • The Capybara grabs a bushel of bananas and offers one to the cat, but he doesn’t eat them.

Approach

  • The cat dreams about being surrounded by marching deer before a giant wave sweeps him away. He wakes up and steers the boat to shore.
  • The lemur discovers a glass ball, like one that was in the cat’s house.
  • The Labrador shows up and wants to play.
  • The cat tries to catch fish but can’t.
  • The secretary bird leaves him one until two more birds arrive and eat it themselves.

Supreme Ordeal

  • The cat climbs a hill and sees a flock of secretary birds.
  • The other animals rush up and knock him down the hill. and
  • The birds get aggressive.
  • The cat runs away, and the birds give chase.
  • The one friendly secretary bird holds the others off, and the leader challenges him.
  • The leader wins the fight and breaks the nice bird’s wing.
  • The birds fly away. The nice secretary bird tries to keep up but can’t fly due to its injury.
  • The cat befriends the secretary bird, and the bird joins the crew on the boat.
  • They continue to flow down the river.

Reward

  • The animals’ different personalities come out.
  • They come across another boat, also with lemurs scavenging.
  • The lemurs hop on board and want the mirror, but the cat chases them off.
  • The cat shows trust in his crew for the first time.
  • They come to some old ruins that appear to be a place they could stay.
  • The dog is excited, wanting to play fetch with the bird, but the bird kicks the glass ball into the water, causing the lemur to attack it.
  • The fight knocks the cat and the capybara overboard.
  • They’re surrounded by fish. The cat marvels at them. The capybara tries to retrieve the ball, but the sea monster swims by, leaping into the air and almost capsizing them.
  • The cat finally starts catching fish. He is out of his shell.

The Road Back

  • They come across the pack of dogs stranded on ruins.
  • The Labrador and capybara try to get the bird to sail to them.
  • Finally, the cat agrees, and the bird relinquishes the rudder.
  • They let the dogs on, and chaos ensues.
  • One of the dogs breaks the mirror.
  • The sea turns stormy, and the cat is knocked unconscious.
  • He wakes up as the storm subsides, and the bird gets off the boat at the bottom of a cliff.
  • The cat gets knocked off and chases the bird even as the boat sails away.
  • The cat finds the bird as bubbles float in the air.
  • The cat and bird are lifted off the ground as the bubbles turn into lights, and the heavens shine.
  • The bird goes to the bright light in the sky as the cat falls back to earth.

Resurrection

  • Left alone, the cat is on the same ground as his dream.
  • He races back and swims to the boat.
  • He latches on to the glass globe floating in the water and kicks towards the boat.
  • The flood waters recede, and the cat is on solid ground.
  • After searching, the cat finds the lemur’s basket and then finds a colony of lemurs.
  • He’s not afraid of them. Then he finds his lemur, who initially stays but then follows the cat.
  • They find the boat caught in a tree. They help the dogs out, and the cat leads them to hold the rope so the capybara can get out before the tree collapses into a ravine.
  • The cat has gained real courage.
  • The other dogs take off, and the Labrador wants to follow them but stays loyal to his real friends.

Return With the Elixir

  • The new family celebrates as a herd of deer gallops by them.
  • The cat follows them and finds the sea monster grounded and dying.
  • The other animals catch up, and the cat looks at his reflection in a pool of water.
  • The others join him, looking at their new family.

There it is—a complete Hero’s Journey and a complete 90-minute film without a single word of dialogue. This story has everything a story needs: emotion, suspense, humor, pathos, and hope. The protagonist experiences a complete character arc matching the story’s strong thematic components. And the story is told 100% visually.

This is a film that any screenwriter or filmmaker should study when they want to learn the art of visual storytelling.

Captain America: Brave New World – It’s Time for Marvel to Move On

I saw Captain America: Brave New World a couple of weeks ago, and I didn’t feel all that compelled to write about it until now. I won’t waste a lot of time lamenting the lack of story. Especially lately, anyone who goes into a Marvel movie expecting an award-winning-level screenplay gets what they deserve. With respect to Martin Scorsese, people do go to Marvel movies for the same reasons they go to amusement parks. Where Mr. Scorsese and I part ways is that I don’t consider that to be a bad thing.

Marvel Long Ago Staked its Claim on Entertainment Value.

We go to Marvel movies to be entertained, plain and simple. Any thematic value, story depth, or character depth we get out of them, and we have gotten each of those components a few times, is purely gravy. However, even the most basic story must have a little dramatic arc and a little character arc. That is where Captain America: Brave New World began to lose its way and caused it to be one of the least entertaining Marvel movies of all time.

Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) was a terrific character in a supporting role. While I applaud and appreciate what Marvel is doing by making him, as a person of color, the new Captain America, it isn’t enough. Mackie is also an executive producer on the film, so he almost certainly had approval of the script. The problem with that is that he made his character flawless. Flawless characters are flat characters, flat characters are uninteresting characters, and Sam Wilson is an uninteresting character. In fact, at the end of the film, there is even a moment when a character asks him why he’s perfect, and he says that he has to be. His lack of need for growth removes any possibility for drama in the story. Without drama, the story falls flat, and this story is as flat as a smooth road.

Harrison Ford is my favorite actor of all time, and his character, President Thaddeus Ross, was much more interesting than Sam Wilson was. He was the villain of the film, and he had depth. They added components to his character, like having an estranged daughter that he wanted to reconnect with, which humanized him and allowed the audience to relate to him. Ford is obviously no stranger to blockbusters, and he did what he could, but it wasn’t enough to save this movie from itself.

It Felt Like the Effort Wasn’t There.

I would never accuse filmmakers of giving anything less than one hundred percent when working on a film. But like any endeavor, sometimes your heart isn’t in it. It’s difficult to watch Captain America: Brave New World and believe that everyone was totally into making this movie. There were times when it seemed like they just weren’t into it. I noticed this in some of the Marvel and Star Wars TV shows. When characters run, they’re not going all out. They’re giving it about a 75% effort. That is what the storytelling and direction felt like. It was almost like they didn’t want to make this film but were contractually obliged to, so they gave it the 75% effort that it needed to get done. That is ultimately why this film is disappointing.

It’s Time for Marvel to Move On.

Ultimately, it’s time for Marvel to move on from Captain America and the Avengers. We got an awesome arc from the original Avengers, and it’s hard to imagine a reboot could do any better. What will a new team of Avengers bring us that’s different or more exciting than what the original Avengers brought us? There isn’t anything. It can’t be done, and it shouldn’t be done. Marvel should focus on other properties like the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the forthcoming Thunderbolts. This iteration of Marvel hasn’t tackled those ideas, and they could provide fresh ideas that people will be excited about, not only to see but also to work on. Instead of retreading the same tired, worn-out properties, take a chance on fresh ideas that can give us new stories and characters to fall in love with.

Give us something new, Marvel!

Mickey 17 – No Wonder It’s a March Release

Release dates might not mean what they used to. For the last several years, March has had its share of surprise hits at the box office. The Batman had an impressive run at the box office that was kicked off on a March 1, 2022, release date, and as recently as last year, Dune Part 2 kicked off a successful theater run that also began on March 1. Other relatively recent March release success stories include Captain Marvel (2019), Zootopia (2016), Logan (2017), and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016). March is not the box office black hole that it once was. That being said, it’s also not Memorial Day weekend, mid-June, or Thanksgiving. March seems to be a time when studios release movies that they’re not sure will be hits, hoping for the best but expecting the worst.

This brings us to Mickey 17.

Directed by Oscar winner Bong Joon Ho and starring Robert Pattinson, this science fiction adventure had all the makings of a summer blockbuster. My personal expectation was for this to be a fun and entertaining film reminiscent of Edge of Tomorrow. That isn’t what we got. Instead, we were exposed to a meandering, clownish film that attempted to portray itself as a morality play for our times but ended up being a circus. While it was almost saved by a strong ending, it still painted itself into a corner that Joon Ho had to contrive himself out of.

Mickey 17 was a massive disappointment.

Another thing I was expecting was a thematically strong film about life and death from a more existential point of view. While many people ask Mickey what it’s like to die, and there is a strong story point about him being erased once he’s duplicated while still being alive, Joon Ho, who also wrote the screenplay, never gave those ideas anything more than surface-level treatment. Mickey 17 had a chance to be a deep science fiction/action film that made you think and feel just as much as it excited. What we got was a shallow, boring film that I couldn’t wait to end.

To say that Mickey 17 was boring would be an understatement. The premise of the film has Mickey signing up to be an Expendable on a space mission in order to escape Earth and his debt to a deadly loan shark. The purpose of an Expendable is to experience deadly situations that usually cause death so that the crew can learn how to survive them. After being killed, another body is created, complete with the memories and personality of the original, so it’s like he’s just waking up for the next day’s work. The problem occurs when everyone thinks that Mickey 17 has been killed by an indigenous species on the planet they arrive at, so they create Mickey 18. Since it’s against the law to have duplicates, both must be killed, and Mickey’s information permanently deleted.

That’s a very cool premise that should be ripe for conflict and the aforementioned existential questions about life and death and what happens to us when we die. Is death permanent? Do we have a soul that lives on? Or is it simply the end? These questions have bothered humankind for as long as we’ve walked the earth, and Joon Ho had an opportunity to explore those ideas in a meaningful way but came up way short.

A frame of mind film.

It’s also entirely possible that I was not in the right frame of mind when I saw this film. It’s not the movie’s fault that I was expecting something other than what it delivered. However, the meandering pace of the storytelling, the flat nature of the storyline, and the clownish nature of the humor did little to make this film appealing. The first act dragged on forever. There was entirely too little action for a science fiction film, and the conflict in the movie never reached the point where I felt like the stakes were adequately raised.

There should have been a lot more conflict between Mickey 17 and Mickey 18. There was at the beginning, as the two of them tried to kill each other to save themselves. This is also where the thematic idea of the fear of death could have been explored. Instead, it was given a cursory look with a couple of throw-away lines before the two of them allied with each other to defeat Marshall.

It was almost like they were making it up as they went along.

It felt like there was no plan with Mickey 17. There was clearly a script of sorts, but it felt like Joon Ho didn’t know where he wanted the film to go or even what kind of film he wanted to make or what kind of story he wanted to tell. I’ve used the word “meandering” a couple of times, and that’s how the story felt. It felt like the story was lost in itself, and it was never able to get on track. Even at the end, this felt like a story that still hadn’t found its way. It looked like Joon Ho was going to give us a suspenseful twist that would have turned the story on its ear, but he bailed himself out with the mother of all contrivances. I honestly don’t think Joon Ho’s heart was in this, and that comes out in the filmmaking and storytelling.

Too on the nose

Finally, the film was too on the nose. Kenneth Marshall, the film’s antagonist played with over-the-top bravado by Mark Ruffalo, was such an on-the-nose caricature of Donald Trump that it wasn’t even funny. Daniel Henshall, who played Preston, Marshall’s spiritual leader and propaganda minister, was a clear representation of the religious right and the rightwing media who unapologetically spread Trump’s ideology to the masses. The indigenous lifeforms inhabiting the planet represent the people who just want to live and be left alone but are persecuted under the chaotic reign of terror that Trump and his minions have unleashed. A little subtlety would have gone a long way in making this a smarter film that would have been emotionally more satisfying.

Overall, Mickey 17 was a dud of a film that didn’t deliver what it promised. It gave us unlikeable characters trudging their way through a flat story that we don’t care about. It feels like a lot of lazy filmmaking was happening by a guy who really didn’t want to be making it. Pattinson and Ruffalo give excellent performances, as do Toni Collette, Steven Yuen, Naomi Ackie, and really all of the actors in it. The visual effects are terrific, and the visual effects involving the creatures are terrific. Unfortunately, the storytelling is so subpar that this isn’t a film anyone should rush to see.

It’s no wonder that this movie was a March release.