‘It’ (2017)

King novels typically fall into two modes: novels like “Gerald’s Game” and “Misery” consist of one or two characters alone in a house for 300+ pages, whereas novels like “The Stand” and “It” follow vast casts of characters for 1000+ pages as they deal with internal and external trials and tribulations. However, King’s imagination, ambition and humanity are on display at all times despite the number listed on the bottom right-hand corner of the final page.

In his novel “It,” Stephen King explores real horrors such as racism, homophobia, misogyny, and mental and physical abuse, through a filter that is at times surreal and supernatural, and at other times brutally realistic. There is an inherent cinematic quality to many King novels, but “It” is the adaptation that I have been waiting to see for what feels like my entire adult life. As a constant reader who also has seen most of the screen adaptations of his work, I can say cleanly that we now have the definitive film of King’s terrifying, cosmic coming-of-age epic.

Updated from the late 1950’s of King’s novel to the late 1980’s, director Andy Muschietti’s “It” unfolds as an unflinching coming-of-age story about a group of outcast kids who deem themselves “The Losers’ Club,” who form a special bond to face their worst fears, and track down and destroy the eternal evil that lurks below their city of Derry, Maine.

The film opens with a tour de force opening sequence in which little Georgie Denbrough (Jackson Robert Scott) meets a cruel fate during a rainstorm after his paper boat sails into a storm drain. His big brother, Bill (Jaeden Lieberher), makes the boat for him as a gift, and the two share a tender scene before Bill sends him out to sail the boat along the flooded street gutters.

As Georgie kneels down to peer down into the sewer, two glowing eyes open and a clown emerges from the damp shadows, greeting the boy with a warm, almost cartoonish “Hiya, Georgie.” The clown cheerfully introduces itself as “Pennywise the Dancing Clown” (Bill Skarsgård).

“It” gets off to such an impressive start with this sequence. Muschietti manages make what is arguably the most iconic scene from King’s novel feel fresh, unnerving, and unpredictable—in an interesting twist, Georgie’s fate remains unknown to the citizens of Derry, as his body is never officially recovered.

The film keeps up this momentum as it transitions to the summer after Georgie’s disappearance. Bill spends his days hanging out with his friends Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard), Eddie Kaspbrak (Jack Dylan Grazer), and Stan Uris (Wyatt Oleff). Richie is a loudmouth smartass, Eddie is an over-medicated germophobe, and Stan is a timid neat freak.

We also are introduced to the new kid in town, Ben Hanscom (Jeremy Ray Taylor), who is terrorized frequently by a gang of bullies led by Henry Bowers (Nicholas Hamilton). Ben has a serious crush on Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis), who refuses to let her abusive father or the bullies at school break her spirit.

We also meet the town butcher’s son, Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs), who struggles with having to kill sheep as part of the family business—they use a small gun that fires out a steel rod through the animal’s skull and into its brain, killing it instantly. After all seven of the “losers” are united, each of them reveals that they have had some kind of terrifying personal encounter with Pennywise, who has the power to shape shift into your greatest fear. Ben’s love for the library comes into play here, as he recounts to his friends all of his research into Derry’s sordid history.

Determined to learn the fate of his brother and the countless other missing children of Derry, Bill emerges as a natural leader—he develops a plan to hunt down Pennywise and, with the help of his friends, destroy It once and for all.

Like all of the best King adaptations, “It” has a stellar creative team behind the camera that understands and embraces the source material, but also contributes a strong, confident style that is unique from King’s approach. Muschietti directs the hell out of Gary Dauberman’s screenplay that, like Pennywise himself, existed in many different forms before evolving into this permutation. Many thanks to credited screenwriters Cary Fukunaga (“Beasts of No Nation,” “True Detective”) and Chase Palmer for taking a swing at adapting the story first and pushing it closer to the place where we are now.

Dauberman’s draft is an extraordinarily streamlined version of the children’s half of King’s story that still preserves the soul of the novel—it also sprinkles in plenty of deep-cut details for fans of the book to savor, which further shows how this team has really done its homework. Pieced together with Muschietti’s confident, stylish directing, pitch perfect casting, and a fantastically detailed and imaginative production design, “It” achieves the honor of being one of the best big studio horror movies to come out in years.

To adapt “It” into a successful film cannot have been an easy process. The one rendition that we have had to rely on for the last 27 years has been the 1990 Tommy Lee Wallace directed miniseries, starring the incomparable Tim Curry as Pennywise. Taken as a whole, it has not aged well and offers only a handful of treasures to us now, including Curry’s iconic performance.

Now we have Skarsgård’s performance, which is equal-parts animalistic, maniacal, erratic and childish. His is a completely different take on the character that carries shades of Heath Ledger’s Joker, Freddy Krueger, and a creepy Jim Henson Muppet. His volatility exponentially ratchets up the tension, and leaves us wondering when Pennywise—or one of Its other forms—is going to appear.

And then there are the young actors playing the “Losers’ Club,” who are firing on all cylinders at all times in this movie. The VIP’s have to be Wolfhard, who goes full trash mouth and kills it with the best one-liners, and Lillis, who brings Bev Marsh’s power, wit and general badassery to life in a way we’ve never gotten to experience before now. Everyone is terrific, and as we see these kids facing the demons of growing up, as well as the literal demon Pennywise, we believe them. That’s half the battle, for once we feel the pain and desire of the characters, the scares come and our skin crawls appropriately.

★★★★  (out of 4)

‘Captain America: Civil War’

Those rascals at Marvel — they won me over in 2008 with Jon Favreau’s nearly flawless “Iron Man” and lost me big-time last year with Joss Whedon’s lumbering “The Avengers: Age of Ultron.” It’s been a roller coaster franchise with a lot of other highs (“Guardians of the Galaxy,”  “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”), lows (“Iron Man 2,” “Captain America: The First Avenger”), and middling entries that were decent enough despite their overall ephemeral quality (the “Thor” films, “Ant Man,”).

 Interestingly enough, “Captain America: Civil War,” the newest addition to the Marvel comic universe, feels like more of an appropriate sequel to Whedon’s “The Avengers” than “Age of Ultron,” and also improves massively on that film’s energy, focus, story, structure, humor, and creativity.

Hot off of their taut espionage thriller “Captain America: Civil War,” the Russo brothers (Anthony and Joe) manage to successfully tame and take strong command over this overwhelming smorgasbord of superheroes with some of the finest action directing I’ve seen in recent years. 

In the process of saving the lives of innocent citizens from super villains such as demigod Loki and maniacal robot Ultron, the Avengers have caused a ton of collateral damage including the deaths of several of the innocent citizens they set out to liberate from global (and intergalactic) villainy. The eponymous “Civil War” refers to a rift that has formed between the Avengers over whether or not superheroes should be policed, restricted, and held culpable for said damages.

Heading up one side of the civil war is Tony Stark, A.K.A. Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), who believes that the Avengers need lawful limits in order to protect future incidents of innocent bloodshed—he’s joined in this belief by War Machine (Don Cheadle), Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), the Vision (Paul Bettany), and newcomers to this franchise Black Panther and Spider-Man (Chadwick Boseman and Tom Holland, respectively). 

Captain America (Chris Evans) believes in the status quo of the Avengers operating as an independent outfit, but in this story cares far more about his former friend Bucky, A.K.A. the Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan), who was brainwashed after WWII and has since been a volatile sleeper cell for the terrorist organization HYDRA.

The Captain therefore spends far more time focused on the repercussions of his friend’s framing in a terrorist plot than on the proposed U.N treaty to sign over the Avengers operation to the government — regardless, a team of heroes does join the Captain’s side against Iron Man’s, and includes Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), Falcon (Anthony Mackie), Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Ant-Man (Paul Rudd), and the Winter Soldier himself.

Of course, there always is a wild card. In this case, that would be terrorist Helmut Zemo (Daniel Brühl), who has a plan to take down the Avengers once and for all — in my mind, the execution of this plot ends up being the most satisfying, surprising, dark and ingenious thing Marvel studios has ever released, as the final act of this film takes a devastating turn that changes the nature of a few key scenes that came before it.

Despite my attempts to free myself of this cinematic universe, the folks at Marvel keep managing to pull me back in like Michael Corleone. Something just clicks when the Russo brothers, directing a pretty remarkable screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, take control over this material. I call the screenplay remarkable because although they’ve been tasked with the mundane job of having to connect this film with future projects, they have nevertheless managed to come up with spectacular set-pieces and story developments that allow “Civil War” to succeed on its own merit, and not just as a bridge to other events.

That’s why “Civil War” feels like a greater success than “Age of Ultron,” because that film bent to accommodate studio plans for the future, and bent so far that in fact by the end it was a broken effort. “Civil War” bends toward the same ends, but is made from far more pliable and sturdy material so that even as it does make accommodations here and there, it mostly lives and breathes within its own atmosphere without getting too ahead of itself.

The challenge of these Marvel films as a whole has been to not lose sight of the importance of building individual entries that can represent one independent vision, as well as serve as one piece of a bigger puzzle. That’s a tough balancing act, but fortunately “Civil War” does it tremendously well and reignites excitement in the series.

Could it stand to shed some fat? Of course, but is there enough fun and entertainment to be worth the investment? Absolutely. Audiences, assemble!

★★★½ (out of 4)

My Top 10 Films of 2015

1.

Mad Max: Fury Road (★★★★)

Directed by George Miller

Written by George Miller, Brendan McCarthy and Nico Lathouris

Bold, ingenious, and completely bonkers all the way through, George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road” is a visual masterpiece with a story so concisely drawn out and to the point, full of convincing characters with curtly explained backstories that it elevates an already brilliant film to the level of near-perfection.

The story is so concisely drawn out and to the point, and full of convincing characters with curtly explained backstories that it elevates an already brilliant film to the level of near-perfection. Furiosa, simply put, is one of the coolest characters ever created, her face smeared with black engine grease serving as her war paint, the fire in her eyes. There is a real passion to Charlize Theron’s performance as Imperator Furiosa that drives the story forward, as she strives for hope in a hopeless land, and carries scorn for those who have scorned her, but not malice.

It helps that she is paired with an engaging band of characters, including five excellent actresses as the wives, the oft-silent Max, played by Hardy with subtle brilliance in a performance that is a lot of physicality, but also a lot of expressions and eyes, and wasteland tyrant Immortan Joe’s sickly soldier, Nux, played by Nicholas Hoult in a revelatory performance full of humor and sadness.

It’s remarkable to notice this in a film with so few quiet scenes, but I emphasize that “Fury Road” is not your run of the mill summer blockbuster. I wish this was the standard, as opposed to soulless, dull and dead-eyed stuff like the “Transformers” franchise or  even movies that are playing it safe with formula and repetition, like many (not all) of the Marvel universe movies. Maintaining the sensibility and atmosphere of the previous “Mad Max” movies, but cranking the energy up exponentially, Miller realizes the full potential of this universe with “Fury Road” in a way that unsurprisingly took more than a decade to complete.

“Fury Road” establishes such an exciting new era of filmmaking for Miller, and proves promising for the modern action genre by indicating that there’s still hope to be foraged in what was starting to look like a hopeless genre. It’s the best film of the year.

 

2.

Anomalisa (★★★★)

Directed by Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson

Written by Charlie Kaufman

Leave it to writer/director Charlie Kaufman to give us the most human, soul-piercing film of the year and to do it entirely with stop motion miniatures, and the voice talents of only three actors.

“Anomalisa” introduces us to Michael Stone (David Thewlis), a renowned self-help author who is visiting Cincinnati to speak at a customer service convention. We follow him as he arrives in town, takes a Taxi to the hotel where the convention will take place and where he will be staying. We also come to realize that everyone he meets has the same voice — that would be the great Tom Noon, who is credited for this film as playing “everyone else.”

That is Michael’s affliction, or perhaps it could just be Kaufman’s fascinating way of presenting a person’s perception of his or her life as having become completely mundane and passionless. Either way, what we experience with “Anomalisa” is a man caught in a strange, Kafkaesque state of mind where he no longer enjoys any kind of modulation among the people he meets — everyone is the essentially the same person with the same voice, even in the music that he hears through his ear buds and in the hotel lounge.

This monotony of spirit is brought to a sudden, startling halt when Michael, from his hotel bathroom, hears someone outside in the hallway… someone whose voice is different than all of the others — that would be the great Jennifer Jason Leigh, who creates a fully fleshed out and complex character here and helps us to forget for a time that these are just miniatures, and that we aren’t actual watching living, breathing actors on screen.

While “Mad Max: Fury Road” is certainly the finest crafted BIG movie of 2015, it goes without saying that “Anomalisa” is the most beautifully and meticulously crafted miniature movie. So much work went into making this small world a reality, and all efforts have led to this final masterwork of human communication, heartache, pettiness and hope.

Kaufman is the man who brought us such cerebral masterpieces as “Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation,” “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and “Synecdoche, New York,” all four-star films in my book, and as with all of his previous work, “Anomalisa” reflects the serious questions, anxieties, feelings and observations about life, death, love and existence that are caught and sifted out of the fascinating filter of their writer’s mind, and what a mind it is.

 

3.

The Hateful Eight (★★★★)

Written/Directed by Quentin Tarantino

Funny, violent, mean, but certainly not lean, Quentin Tarantino’s 8^th movie is his longest (nearly 3 hours for the wide theatrical release, well over 3 hours for the 70mm roadshow presentation), and darkest cinematic outburst — I think outburst is just the right word for what Tarantino does. As with his previous work, “The Hateful Eight” feels like an erupting surge of ideas, a culmination of story, ideas and characters straight out of the B-cinema that Tarantino treasures so much.

This time channeling Sergio Leone, Agatha Christie and John Carpenter, Tarantino creates eight of his most dastardly characters yet, shoves them all into a haberdashery to wait out a blizzard, and blends in elements of a Leone western, a Christie locked-room mystery, and Carpenter’s “The Thing.” Paranoia, festering grudges and racism pervade this small space, where in a post-Civil War Wyoming we see the threads of Tarantino’s quirky, quixotic style intertwine with a dark and complex history.

What’s really great is the way in which Tarantino takes his grandiose ideas about the United States then and now, and fleshes them out on a small scale. These ideas are personified by the eight main characters, including Tarantino regulars Tim Roth (as Oswaldo Mobray – the little man), Michael Madsen (as Joe Gage – the cow puncher), Samuel L. Jackson (as Major Marquis Warren – the bounty hunter), Kurt Russell (as John Ruth – the hangman), and Walton Goggins (as Sheriff Chris Mannix – the Sheriff).

Among all of these revved up, larger-than-life performances is that of Jennifer Jason Leigh (as Daisy Domergue – the prisoner), who is a newcomer to the Tarantino universe along with Bruce Dern (as General Sandy Smithers – the Confederate), and Demian Bichir (as Bob – the Mexican). Leigh gives the most nuanced performance and nearly steals the show away from the others, although to do so in a Tarantino movie when Jackson is involved is not a task to be taken lightly.

It must be said that “The Hateful Eight” is not Tarantino at his very best – that would be “Jackie Brown,” a film that displays both his complete control as a filmmaker and his ability to pay homage to past cinema, while also paving an entirely new way for himself. It also shows a balance of violence and depth of character and startling sensitivity that this, his eighth and most brutal film, lacks — although it serves up plenty of terrific plot twists and turns, abundant cutthroat, vengeance-fueled brutality, and still proves, yet again, that Tarantino is a filmmaker to be reckoned with.

 

4.

The Stanford Prison Experiment  (★★★★)

Directed by Kyle Patrick Alvarez

Written by Tim Talbott

“The Stanford Prison Experiment” is a film of chilling relevance and brutal realism, in which director Kyle Patrick Alvarez weaves a disturbingly familiar portrait of how the power structures that we ourselves design can ultimately lead to a break down in our humanity in favor of something more animalistic, and more frightening.

What is perhaps most dramatic, upsetting, and infuriating about the results of the Zimbardo’s experiment is that although it featured only a mockup of these environments, and a simulation of the structure of power that exists in reality, between those who are trusted with the job of maintaining peace and order, and those who live behind bars, there is an undeniable and harsh reality that bleeds from that experiment and stains us as a society.

A rivalry that develops between the “guards” and the “prisoners,” all students who happen to be pursuing degrees at one of the world’s most prestigious universities. The question that the study poses is if these Stanford students will resort to this kind of behavior when placed within these circumstances, what does that suggest for actual correctional officers and prisoners who have to face conditions like this on an everyday basis, and for real? And how do these structures of power affect situations outside of the prison system?

Everyone’s performance in this film is incredible, and like so many great films, “The Stanford Prison Experiment” echoes the time and place in which it has been made. We see the everlasting significance of Zimbardo’s study, and the sweeping relevance of Alvarez’s film, which, with its impeccable timing, strikes a serious nerve and stays with you long after it’s over.

 

5.

Beasts of No Nation (★★★★)

Written/Directed by Cary Fukunaga

There is a tremendous sense of clarity and confidence built into Cary Fukunaga’s “Beasts of No Nation,” an incredible narrative and technical achievement featuring a powerful, ethereal score by Dan Romer, graceful writing, direction and cinematography by Fukunaga, and restrained, sincere performances all around.

Perhaps the most interesting observation I can make about this extraordinary film is how poetically the story is told. Fukunaga served as cinematographer on this film, as well as writer and director, and his visual style and fluid approach to storytelling calls to mind the transcendental work of filmmakers David Gordon Green (“George Washington,” “Joe”), Jeff Nichols (“Take Shelter,” “Mud”), and Terrence Malick (“The Thin Red Line,” “The New World”).

Fukunaga also has a way off taking more “showy” shots and blending them into the story without distracting us from it. There is one particularly amazing sequence that shows the fractured passing of time, and is communicates both Agu’s moral deterioration, and his lost perception of time and place, as the violence becomes such a frequent part of his everyday life that it actually begins to lose its impact on him.

The anonymity of the film’s setting enhances the urgency of the story and steers it out of the way of being a preachy, political sermon. This allows the film and us to focus on the real journey, where we witness a young boy’s loss of innocence as he is abandoned, and then rediscovered in a war-torn land. “Beasts of No Nation” above all is a human story, not one chiefly fixated on placing the blame, and who better than Fukunaga to guide us through the dark and find humanity living among the shadows?

 

6.

Entertainment (★★★★)

Directed by Rick Alverson

Written by Rick Alverson, Gregg Turkington and Tim Heidecker

When viewed shallowly, from a distance and with slightly squinted eyes, the very premise of Rick Alverson’s “Entertainment,” which he co-wrote with star Gregg Turkington and Tim Heidecker, is not an unfamiliar one. The idea here is that Alverson and company are taking something we have seen before in more conventional films about aging entertainers, and deconstructing it in order to get a fuller grasp, not on the story arc itself exactly, but more on what about this kind of story makes sense in a naturalistic sort of way, one that is not blurred or sweetened saccharine by clean resolutions or sentimental revelations.

Alverson’s film doesn’t contain a single disposable scene, or a scene out of place. It is refreshingly efficient in its storytelling, and proves Alverson to be one of the most focused, confident and uncompromising directors working today. He makes confrontational movies about confrontational people, and there’s something both unsettling and somehow completely brilliant and refreshing about his approach.

Turkington as a truly strange and fascinating to watch as he re-interprets his own real-life character for the film, which has been digested and reinterpreted by Heidecker, Alverson and himself, and then switches it off and becomes the hollow shell of a man. As the film progresses, the comedian struggles to communicate with others, both through his belligerent stage character (based on “Neil Hamburger,” a character that Turkington performs as in real life),  whose act is made up of subversive, carefully constructed hacky jokes of misogyny, homophobia and overall distaste, and in his life off-stage.

That inability to communicate builds, driving the always restrained and subtly affecting story into increasingly surreal territory that paints the American Southwest as somewhat of a wasteland of washed up opportunity and spent talent. There is a lot of humor, but none of it comes without a little bit of a sting. That’s the kind of film Alverson is interested in making.

 

7.

Spotlight (★★★★)

Directed by Tom McCarthy

Written by Tom McCarthy and Josh Singer

“Spotlight” is a quietly harrowing thriller based on the 2003 Boston Globe investigation of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church. The Globe’s “Spotlight” team of investigative journalists published a story that year that revealed a staggering statistic, that 6% of Catholic priests have been guilty of pedophilia, and that the church itself has done everything in its power to conceal this fact from the public.

As we watch the true story of the investigation unfold, and witness the slow uncovering of this massive scandal by the Boston Globe journalists, the tension builds and builds. So does the characters’ (and our) exasperation with how far the corruption spans, within the church and beyond. There are scenes where victims are interviewed about their experiences of abuse that are completely devastating, and then there are scenes of rage where we see the lies and moral decay of the abusers and their allies.

There is also triumph, as the “Spotlight” team, with the publication of the story, at last reveals this issue to the world, and by extension provides a new avenue for hundreds of victims of abuse to come forward with their stories.

The best ensemble cast of 2015, including brilliant performance from Michael Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Live Schreiber, John Slattery, Stanley Tucci, Billy Crudup, Brian d’Arcy James and Mark Ruffalo, and a slow-burning and emotionally searing screenplay by Josh Singer and director Tom McCarthy, make “Spotlight” one of the great investigative journalism films — “All the President’s Men” and “Zodiac” are perfectly fair comparisons.

 

8.

The Revenant (★★★★)

Directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu

Written by Mark L. Smith and Alejandro González Iñárritu

Last year, mad-scientist Mexican filmmaker Alejandro González Iñárritu managed to grab 3 of the big Oscars for Best Picture, directing and writing for “Birdman,” a razor-sharp take on acting, theater, blockbuster movies and… well, whatever else “Birdman” was about, it was a wild ride, shot and cut to appear as though the entire thing was done in one single shot — this was, I think, used to great effect, and helped to earn another Oscar for Emmanuel Lubezki’s cinematography, which will again be noticed in Iñárritu and Lubezki’s new collaboration, the equally insane and technically breathtaking frontier film, “The Revenant.”

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as fur trapper Hugh Glass in this blisteringly cold but beautifully savage story of suffering and revenge. Glass was a real person who, in the 1820s, was abandoned by his men after being mauled within an inch of his life by a grizzly bear while on a fur expedition. In “The Revenant,” we act as witness to this harrowing and prolonged attack, and then watch as his team of hunters, led by Captain Andrew Henry (Domhnall Gleeson) attempt to resuscitate him and carry him onward back to camp.

Henry decides to lead all but two of the men back, and leaves the cutthroat John Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy), the younger and more naïve Bridger (Will Poulter), and Glass’ half-native American son Hawk (Forrest Goodluck) to watch over Glass and see to it that if he is given a proper burial should he perish from his wounds. Fitzgerald is a true snake who decides he’s had enough, and after killing Glass’ son, convinces Bridger that they must leave Glass to die in order to escape an impending attack by supposedly nearby hostile natives.

Glass survives once they’ve left, and film then follows him as he journeys through a frozen hell, returned from the dead, and fueled by a thirst for retribution against those who abandoned him.

“The Revenant” is a technical marvel, and features some of the most brilliantly framed and captured photography we have seen on screen. The production was shot in staggeringly cold conditions, in entirely natural light, and in geographical locations that are so isolated and unlivable that many cast and crew have come back with utter horror stories of working on this.

All of these touches and sweeping decisions layered in have made “The Revenant” a truly remarkable experience. With a sad, sometimes eerie and often atmospheric score by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto, and brilliant work by both DiCaprio and Hardy, as well as Gleeson and Poulter who are great young actors working among giants and holding their own just fine.

Iñárritu is a treasure in the world of cinema, and carries onward a great legacy of films, from “Babel” and “21 Grams,” to “Birdman” and “The Revenant,” he has tirelessly delivered striking works of art that challenge, thrill and make us feel deeply.

 

9.

Sicario (★★★½ )

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Written by Taylor Sheridan

Haunting: That is the word to describe “Sicario,” director Denis Villeneuve and screenwriter Taylor Sheridan’s descent into the dark world of Mexican drug cartels and CIA intrigue.

Hold tight for the first quarter of this film, as it’s a slow burn in which we are pulled gradually into an increasingly disquieting realm of secrecy, drug trade and unimaginable atrocities via our avatar, FBI SWAT agent Kate Macer (Emily Blunt, never better), whose relatively naïve and innocent point of view — despite having helped discover dozens of decaying corpses hidden in the walls of a house, all victims of the cartel — matches ours. We know there are gruesome things going on, but are less aware perhaps of the extent to which the cartels are in charge. We also come to discover, as Kate does, the extent of our own country’s culpability for the drug-trade crimes being committed, and that is where the haunting really begins.

There are touches of Alfred Hitchcock and David Cronenberg here, as Kate is left in the dark about her involvement with the CIA task force led by Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), and for an inordinate amount of time knows close to nothing about why she is being assigned to join Graver and his mysterious partner Alejandro Gillick (Benicio Del Toro) on a Cartel-related mission in Mexico. She eventually discovers the truth, as we do, and her reality spins faster and faster out of control until everything she though she understood about right and wrong, good and evil, and who she can trust is tested.

Composer Jóhann Jóhannsson delivers a brooding score that further enhances our sense of foreboding, and cinematographer great Roger Deakins captures some of the most striking and strange overhead shots of the Mexican desert I’ve seen, framing it almost as an alien place that could stand in for another planet in another galaxy. This adds to the out-of-place out-of-time anxiety that Kate begins to experience as she realizes she is way over her head.

Villeneuve, whose previous work includes “Prisoners” and “Enemy,” once again reveals as he did with those films his fascination with the fragile morality of man — this time, he layers it further into genre than ever before, weaving his themes into a story that is both a taught, nerve-shattering crime thriller, and a relevant web of horror that exists just south of the border.

 

10.

Krampus (★★★½ )

Directed by Michael Dougherty

Written by Todd Casey, Michael Dougherty and Zach Shields

Writer/director Michael Dougherty’s “Krampus” is perhaps one of the most unlikely and surprising genre masterworks in years. With his family cooped up in a house in the midst of a sinister winter maelstrom, 12-year-old Max Engel (Emjay Anthony) is teased and tortured by his visiting cousins, and angry about his parent’s looming separation, and so loses his temper, rips up his carefully composed letter to Santa Claus, tosses the shreds of paper to the wind, and unknowingly summons Krampus, the mythical demonic shadow of Father Christmas himself.

What follows is a tour de force of filmmaking, with creature and sound design that will rival any movie of its kind that has been released in the past decade. Drawing from a more practical bag of tricks than audiences are used to seeing these days (George Miller’s “Mad Max: Fury Road,” notwithstanding), Dougherty crafts a truly masterful series of set pieces in which we witness the wrath of Krampus and his minions — these include demonic Gingerbread cookies, man-eating toys, and eerie elves wearing elaborate masquerade masks. Krampus himself is saved for the final course, and trust me on this: he’s a doozy.

As with Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” series, though, there is a great deal of humor cut with the cries of terror and bewilderment. Dougherty manages to establish a solid tone throughout the film, from the confidant set up of the family quarrels, to the sinister snowstorm that drifts in and turns the neighborhood into a claustrophobic winter wasteland, a nightmare reminiscent of Frank Darabont’s world in his screen adaptation of Stephen King’s “The Mist.”

Dougherty’s film takes a well-earned place beside Joe Dante’s “Gremlins” and Ron Underwood’s “Tremors” as one of the great horror-comedies. It offers real scares and real laughs, often times simultaneously, and with a pitch-perfect ending, invigorating practical effects and sincere performances that seriously invest in the material rather than treating it with a wink and a nod, “Krampus” has true potential to reach holiday-tradition status — families hopefully will try to squeeze a movie about a Christmas demon somewhere in between “It’s a Wonderful Life,” “Elf” and “A Christmas Story.”

 

HONORABLE MENTION:

“Chi-Raq”

“Creep”

“Crimson Peak”

“Ex Machina”

“Inside Out”

“It Follows”

“Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens”

“What We Do in the Shadows”

‘Entertainment’ (2015)

Rick Alverson’s “Entertainment” is a film that subverts all connotations surrounding its title, and rather than directly entertaining us, actually challenges us by inspiring these questions: “What is ‘entertainment,’ why do those who seek to entertain do so, and what do we, the ‘entertained,’ expect from our entertainers?”

“Entertainment” follows an aging comedian (Gregg Turkington) as he travels across the California desert, performing at seedy clubs and prisons, all the while making his way toward some big Hollywood gig, and perhaps an estranged daughter.

As the film progresses, the comedian struggles to communicate with others, both through his belligerent stage character (based on “Neil Hamburger,” a character that Turkington performs as in real life),  whose act is made up of subversive, carefully constructed hacky jokes of misogyny, homophobia and overall distaste, and in his life off-stage. That inability to communicate builds, driving the always restrained and subtly affecting story into increasingly surreal territory that paints the American Southwest as somewhat of a wasteland of washed up opportunity and spent talent.

When viewed shallowly, from a distance and with slightly squinted eyes, the very premise of Alverson’s film, which he co-wrote with Turkington and Heidecker, is not an unfamiliar one. The idea here is that Alverson and company are taking something we have seen before in more conventional films about aging entertainers, and deconstructing it in order to get a fuller grasp, not on the story arc itself exactly, but more on what about this kind of story makes sense in a naturalistic sort of way, one that is not blurred or sweetened saccharine by clean resolutions or sentimental revelations.

Consider one scene where, after a typically lousy show, the comedian tries to explain to his cousin, John (John C Reilly), how he doesn’t really have an audience anymore that “gets it.” Meanwhile, John clearly doesn’t get it either, and offers the comedian some advice, that he should just try to be less weird, and maybe more people will get it.

This is a funny scene, but it also plays realistically with these opposite character types while again subverting expectations of some kind of cathartic moment between them. In this scene and many others, we witness the breakdown of direct communication and sense that no one is really on the same level of understanding. The comedian calls his estranged daughter frequently throughout the film, and always ends up having to leave a message — unable to reach her, unable to reach his audience, unable to reach himself. There is a lot of humor, but none of it comes without a little bit of a sting. That’s the kind of film Alverson is interested in making.

“Entertainment” doesn’t contain a single disposable scene, or a scene out of place. It is refreshingly efficient in its storytelling, and proves Alverson to be one of the most focused, confident and uncompromising directors working today. He makes confrontational movies about confrontational people, and there’s something both unsettling and somehow completely brilliant and refreshing about his approach. Alverson previously made “The Comedy,” a staggeringly unflinching foray into an aging yuppie-hipster played by Tim Heidecker, whose boredom and apathetic amusement with playing pranks on strangers in and around Brooklyn leaves him somewhat of a shell of a man. “Entertainment” can be viewed as a companion piece to that.

Turkington as a truly strange and fascinating to watch as he re-interprets his own real-life character for the film, which has been digested and reinterpreted by Heidecker, Alverson and himself, and then switches it off and becomes the hollow shell of a man (à la Heidecker’s character in “The Comedy”). As he journeys forward, the comedian wanders through the desert in search of something intangible, and visits various tourist attractions, including an airplane graveyard full of hollowed out shells of once were magnificent machines, an oil field where the derricks continuously drill and drill without repose, and an old West ghost town, all of which are better at indicating what is going on with the comedian than he himself is able to express to others. It also could be that Alverson is poking fun at metaphors — that also would be the kind of film that he is interested in making.

“Entertainment” is one of the best pictures of the year.

★★★★ (out of 4)

‘Pacific Rim’

Giant robots fighting giant monsters: This is the premise around which everything else revolves in maestro filmmaker Guillermo del Toro’s superlative summer blockbuster, “Pacific Rim.” It’s what the director promised to deliver, and boy does he deliver.

From a story by Travis Beacham (“Clash of the Titans”),  “Pacific Rim” charts the rise, fall and resurrection of a high-tech international military strategy called the Jaeger Program, which consists of an army of gargantuan, human-piloted machines designed to destroy an invading breed of equally massive monsters called the Kaiju, a Japanese word for “monster.”

Jaeger is a German word for “hunter,” we are told, and so the human race depends on these machines and their pilots to take down the beasts, which manage to enter our world through a inter-dimensional rift in the Pacific Ocean floor, a portal to another world.

Among the star Jaeger pilots are brothers Raleigh and Yancy Becket (Charlie Hunnam and Diego Klattenhoff), father and son team Herc and Chuck Hansen (Max Martini and Robert Kazinsky), and a couple of seriously intimidating blonde Russians, the Kaidanovsky’s (Robert Maillet and Heather Doerksen). To operate the Jaegers, each team of pilots must merge memories and form a strong emotional and cerebral bond — this ingenious component of “Pacific Rim” is known as “the Drift.”

Marshall Stacker Pentecost (Idris Elba) leads the program, and is assisted by his adopted daughter, Mako Mori (Rinko Kikuchi). They share a painful, emotional past that unfolds slowly but beautifully and effectively, leading to one of the most satisfying acts of retribution I’ve seen on screen.

There also is a pair of scientists: Newton Geiszler (Charlie Day), who is concerned most about the nature and biology of the Kaiju, and his uptight co-worker, Hermann Gottleib (Burn Gorman), concerned more with where the Kaiju come from.

The main flaws with “Pacific Rim” involve the lovingly but somewhat thinly drawn characters and their interactions in a few, not many, segments of the movie. But power through some clunky character development and dialogue, and you will be in for the ride of your life. Plus, as thin as they may be, that doesn’t really stop them from being fun, particularly a scene-stealing turn from del Toro favorite Ron Perlman as Hannibal Chau, who runs a black market specializing in Kaiju body parts.

This is a passion project for del Toro, whose romantic cinematic temperament and vision shine through almost every inch of this monster-robot fest. The combat sequences between the Kaiju and the Jaeger is shot and cut in a refreshingly coherent and exhilarating way, and reestablishes del Toro as a true visionary, and Michael “Transformers” Bay as a world-class boob — Bay can only dream of making a summer action flick with this much punch and panache.

In more ways than one, “Pacific Rim” tears to pieces Bay’s cynical, mindless, cold and callous style of filmmaking. Not an ounce of cynicism can be found in this film, and although there is a mindless quality to the experience of viewing it, “Pacific Rim” is intelligently made with care and attention to details left in the dust in most recent movies in this genre. You can almost hear del Toro whispering calmly, coolly, “This is how you do it.”

★★★ 1/2 (out of 4)

‘This is 40’

I am a great admirer of Judd Apatow and his work. From his work on two of the best television shows ever to air, “The Larry Sanders Show” and “Freaks and Geeks,” to “Funny People,” one of the funniest and sincere films of 2009, the writer/producer/director has been consistent and honest in his work, and has yet to make something I haven’t been able to enjoy in some way.

Unfortunately, I now have to draw a line in the sand when it comes to his newest film, “This is 40,” his least cohesive work to date and a semi-autobiographical reflection on middle-age and dealing with the troubles and inevitable obstacles that come with getting older and raising children.

Advertised as a “sort-of-sequel” to Apatow’s brilliant 2007 comedy “Knocked Up” starring Seth Rogan, “This is 40” catches us up with two of the supporting characters from that film, Pete and Debbie (played again by Paul Rudd and Apatow’s real-life wife, Leslie Mann) and their children, Sadie and Charlotte (played again by Apatow’s real-life children, Maude and Iris). The movie begins with Debbie’s “38^th” birthday party, what actually is her 40^th birthday party, but she wants to avoid that awful number as much as she can.

Throughout the rest of “This is 40,” Debbie and Pete argue and make up several times, and try to take control of their lives as they feel things slipping away. There is no way to explain the story without being vague because one of the biggest problems with the movie is that it is made up of a lot of nice moments, some laughs but ultimately nothing sticks and nothing comes together. The parts don’t add up to any memorable whole.

Until now, Apatow has written movies featuring scenes of raunchy but organic laugh-out-loud humor interwoven with scenes of painfully sincere conversations and confessions among deeply explored, human characters. The problem this time around could be a number of things, but the first that comes to mind is the lack of structure in “This is 40.” Apatow tends to allow for improvisation in his films, but this movie comes off as a loosely strung together series of potentially funny ideas, underdeveloped and rushed into an undercooked end product.

There are some terrific cameos by Jason Segel and Charlyne Yi, both returning as their characters from “Knocked Up,” and Melissa McCarthy, who unsurprisingly manages to steal all of the big laughs as an unstable mother to school bully (Ryan Lee, the pyromaniac from J.J. Abrams’ “Super 8).

Rudd and Mann are okay, but almost on autopilot for most of the movie, and Apatow’s kids are sincere enough. But “This is 40” lacks the scene-to-scene laughs that his previous work always had. It’s all too soupy and forgettable

One of the biggest disappoints of the year for me, “This is 40” marks a regrettable decline in substance for Apatow, who usually is brilliant and on point in his story and characters. Maybe because this is a continuation of characters from another story, and maybe it’s because Apatow’s formula has become tired. Funny People broke the mold from “Knocked Up,” but this returns to painfully familiar ground.

★★ (out of 4)

‘Cloud Atlas’

In the year 2012, filmmakers Andy and Lana Wachowski (“The Matrix Trilogy”) teamed up with filmmaker Tom Tykwer (“Run Lola Run,” “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer”) to adapt David Mitchell’s acclaimed novel “Cloud Atlas,” which consists of six stories set in different times (a few in different worlds), for the screen, a challenging task considering the complexity and richness of the source material.

Here is a brief breakdown of the stories:

In the year 1849, a young American lawyer named Adam Ewing (Jim Sturgess) travels by sea to the south pacific to finish singing a business contract for his father-in-law. On arrival to his destination, he witnesses the brutal whipping of a slave named Autra (David Gyasi), who plays a crucial role in Ewing’s return journey to San Fransisco.

In the year 1936, a gay English musician and composer named Robert Frobisher (Ben Wishaw) begins working for famed composer Vyvyan Ayrs (Jim Broadbent), all the while working on what will be his own masterpiece, “The Cloud Atlas Sextet,” and writing letters to his distant lover, Rufus Sixsmith (James D’Arcy).

In the year 1973, a journalist named Louisa Rey (Halle Berry) tries to uncover a nuclear conspiracy, and in the process becomes targeted by hired hitman Bill Smoke (Hugo Weaving).

In the year 2012, 65-year-old publisher Timothy Cavendish (Broadbent again) unwittingly ends up in a nursing home while on the run from some dangerous Irish gangsters.

In the year 2144, the world has undergone drastic changes and become an Orwellian dystopia. In New Seoul, Korea, a genetically engineered fabricant called Sonmi-451 (Doona Bae), before her execution, recounts her journey from being an enslaved server at a fast-food restaurant to leading a revolution against a totalitarian government.

In the year 2321, referred to as “106 winters after the fall,” all technologically advanced civilization has left earth, most others have died and the only remaining people live in a series of tribes. Some of these tribes are made up of peaceful hunter-gatherers, while others are violent barbarians. One peaceful tribesman named Zachry (Tom Hanks) experiences visions of a grotesque being he calls Old Georgie (Weaving again).

After witnessing the death of his brother-in-law at the hands of cannibalistic tribal leader (Grant again), Zachry returns home to his village where a woman named Meronym (Berry), a technologically advanced visitor, has arrived in search of an outpost station called Cloud Atlas. Meronym needs someone to guide her, and after she saves his niece from a venomous bite, Zachry agrees to lead the way.

Were the Wachowski’s and Tykwer successful in their endeavor? My answer is yes and no. Yes, because “Cloud Atlas” is a mesmerizing, beautiful film, and the work of passionate and dedicated artists who handle the material with brilliant visual style. They succeed in restructuring Mitchell’s story in order to give the six different stories — seven including a sequence by which the film is bookended — better pace and shared meaning in the moment. The special effects are tremendous but used sparingly; this is a dialogue driven film with instances of violence, suspense and humor.

But even though the film works on so many levels, where the incredibly ambitious “Cloud Atlas” occasionally stumbles is in the story department, as many of the finer details slip through the cracks, particularly in the two final segments. The filmmakers skim over a lot of concepts involving the exact hierarchy of humans in the future. There is mention of “pure bloods,” and I suppose everyone else is an “impure blood,” but I had trouble understanding who is who and why. I want to understand this more, but “Cloud Atlas” moves right along and I just ended up accepting that there are bad guys and good guys in the future, which ultimately left me feeling less attached to the 2144 segment of the film.

Some similar issues occur in the final segment, but these become a little clearer the more I think about them. They do not take away from the overall experience.

The performances in the film are consistent and entertaining, surrounded by gorgeous art direction and production design. Nearly every main actor appears in each of the segments, sometimes disguised by brilliant make-up effects to the point where I didn’t recognize otherwise very recognizable people. This is an incredible ensemble cast that works together in so many different ways that I kept sensing that “Cloud Atlas,” on top of being one of the most ambitious movies this year, could have been such a disaster under the weight of so many terrific actors in one place.

Fortunately, a disaster it is not. Tom Tykwer composed a beautiful score, and Cinematographers Frank Griebe and John Toll capture striking, memorable images that I won’t soon forget.

Aside from some story development issues, the Wachowski’s and Tykwer have done a fabulous job interconnecting the stories of “Cloud Atlas.” The directing duties were split between them. Tykwer handled the middle three segments, which I think are the best, and the Wachowski’s shot the first and final two, which are good but not great. But because they made the brave decision to intertwine the stories rather than present the movie as an omnibus of sorts, where each story is told separately, “Cloud Atlas” soars.

★★★ 1/2 (out of 4)

‘Django Unchained’

From the mind and pen of writer/director Quentin Tarantino, and in the style of filmmakers Sergio Corbucci and Sergio Leone, “Django Unchained” is a blood-splattered spaghetti-western set in the south two years before the Civil War, a tale of a former slave’s quest for revenge as he journeys to save his wife from the plantation to which she was sold.

The man’s name is Django (the “D” is silent) and he is played by Jamie Foxx in one of his best performances. While being transported along in a chain gang, his buyers, the Speck brothers (James Remar and James Russo) cross paths with German dentist/bounty hunter Dr. King Schultz (Christoph Waltz). Schultz is looking to purchase Django, who can identify the Brittle brothers, a new bounty that Schultz is trying to track down.

The Brittle brothers — Big Jim (M.C. Gainey),  Lil Raj (Cooper Huckabee) and Ellis (Doc Duhame) — are a nasty bit of business and only the first of many dangerous encounters Django and Schultz must face on their path toward Django’s wife, Broomhilda “Hildy” von Shaft (!) (Kerry Washington).

When the two bounty hunters finally find out where she is, they come up with a plan to infiltrate the plantation, owned by notorious slave owner and Mandingo fighting enthusiast Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio), a Francophile who cannot speak French but insists on being called Monsieur Candie. His plantation is called Candieland.

All of these characters are classic Tarantino, as is every drop of this violent, epic love letter to spaghetti-westerns. Indeed, “Django Unchained” may be termed the first spaghetti-southern, as it deals with America’s dark history of slavery in a profoundly subversive way.

But even while there are some brutal and disturbing events on display, Tarantino above all is an entertainer who balances the historical bits with pure cinematic bliss, merging fantasy and fiction with a reality many would rather forget. It’s a real showstopper, and in both showings I sat through, the audience reacted with overwhelming enthusiasm and standing ovations once the end credits began to roll.

As in “Inglourious Basterds,” Waltz’s delivery of Tarantino’s words is masterful, and proves that these two are meant to work together. The same goes for Samuel L. Jackson, who steals scenes a plenty in “Django Unchained” as Calvin Candie’s head house slave, Stephen. Jackson has been featured in five of Tarantino’s films including this, and as always, sparks fly when they join forces.

DiCaprio’s first part in a Tarantino movie is a juicy one that he has blast with. Tarantino has said Candie is the only character he has written that he hates, and indeed Candie is a vicious, immature monster who enjoys seeing black people tear each other apart in arranged fights. He has brown, rotted teeth. He drinks fancy mixed beverages from a coconut and considers himself an intellectual of sorts when it comes to the science of phrenology — the differences in skull shapes among slaves and their white owners. He is nasty business.

Once again, all of the elements that make a Tarantino movie so good come together in “Django Unchained,” from the sublime music selections (including an original song by Ennio Morricone) to the stylized violence and the rhythmic dialogue. It’s better than “Inglourious Basterds” and shows that, at 49 years old, the master filmmaker is better than ever.

I’m calling it: “Django Unchained” is the best film of 2012.

★★★★ (out of 4)

‘Les Miserables’

Call me a square, but I shed tears no less than three times during “Les Miserables,” Tom Hooper’s gritty, not-so-subtle movie-musical adaptation of the Broadway hit written by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg.

Originally performed in Paris and London and based on the novel by Victor Hugo, “Les Mis” tells the story of unfairly persecuted peasant Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), a convict who steals a loaf of bread and serves 19 cruel years on a chain gang under the rule of a crueler police inspector named Javert (Russell Crowe).

Once Valjean violates his parole and seeks a new life as a factory director and mayor, Javert’s obsession grows and Valjean is forced into a life of fear, which is not a free life after all.

Much of Hugo’s tale is about Valjean’s quest for redemption and freedom from the law. He adopts the young daughter of one of his former factory workers, a broken, dying woman named Fantine (Anne Hathaway), he faces confrontations with Javert throughout his life and must try to escape his fate while also protecting his adopted child, Cosette (Isabelle Allen).

After nine years pass, Cosette (played as an adult by Amanda Seyfried) and Valjean have moved and live near the site of a group revolutionaries, one of whom is named Marius (Eddie Redmayne). Cosette and Marius fall in love, Valjean faces the impending doom of Javert’s ever-looming presence, and all of this takes place in the middle of a revolution.

Hooper’s movie makes for loud, relentless melodrama, and all of the elements that have allowed audiences to connect with the stage musical for decades come together more or less intact in adaptation on screen. “Les Mis” certainly has hit a cord or two with me since I first became aware of it as a kid, and to see it come together on screen so well is a joy.

The music is uncanny in its ability to pierce the soul. Boublil and Schönberg had angels on their shoulders when they originally wrote the musical, and in their composition of a new song in Hooper’s adaptation, the same angels have returned.

Hooper and his crew even returned to Hugo’s novel to draw out some of the details previously left out in order to enrich and tie the story together a bit better for the screen. Some added bits with Fantine’s suffering and the adjusted string arrangements of “Lovely Ladies” brought to mind Darren Aronofsky’s “Requiem for a Dream.” Indeed, some of this material has never seemed darker than it does now in the film, as the filmmakers drill down and find frightening places in which to place the beautiful, passionate songs.

What must be discussed first is Hooper’s brilliant choice to have the actors sing live on set rather than record a soundtrack months ahead of time, the technique nearly every movie musical every made has used. The tremendous, raw live performances in the movie are crucial to the integrity of the music.

Jackman, Hathaway and Redmayne are the highlights in terms of both singing and acting, and Crowe plays Javert in a refreshingly different way, more quiet and tortured by his obsession. Despite his weaker singing chops, he delivers an intense, brooding performance that does justice to the character.

“Les Mis” should be the standard for all future movie musicals until something more effective is realized because it charges forward through its own world without flinching and unapologetically tells its story to the audience with a special passion not found often enough. Hooper directs with confidence, even when he gets ahead of himself from time to time. His is a faithful adaptation that should satisfy existing devotees of the show, including myself, and garner some new ones.

Through dark, dirty and gritty streets, Hugo’s characters continue to plead, sing and suffer, and we continue to listen.

★★★ (out of 4)

‘Looper’

In writer/director Rian Johnson’s third film after “Brick” and “The Brothers Bloom,” the invention of time travel occurs sixty years from now. After it is deemed a hazard and made illegal, the mob continues to use it to get rid of its undesirables.

Mobsters capture the target and send him back in time 30 years to a specified location where a killer awaits their arrival. These contract killers are called loopers. The looper must execute the target when he arrives and collect a payment of silver strapped to his back before promptly disposing of the body in a furnace. It’s violent stuff, but the mob never was humane.

One such looper is Joe (Joseph Gordon Levitt), a hard-edged drug addict who lives alone in a broken society 30 years from now where everyone is armed to the teeth and either rich or poor. There is no middle class, and everything has gone to hell.

When a looper’s contract is up, and the mob is finished with him, he is sent a unique target: Himself. When that happens, a looper receives a huge payment and spends the next 30 years awaiting his death. This process is called “closing the loop.” Joe notices a lot of his fellow loopers are being ordered to close their loops,  and learns that there is one particular person, nicknamed the “rainmaker,” who is responsible.

Once the inevitable happens and Joe’s older self (Bruce Willis) shows up and manages to escape, “Looper” becomes a dark, complex thriller in which old Joe is trying to track down the rainmaker, who is a child in young Joe’s time, and young Joe is trying to kill himself from the future in order to avoid bone-shattering consequences from his mobster boss, Abe (Jeff Daniels).

As Joe the looper, Gordon-Levitt transforms into a character that is physically and behaviorally convincing as a man who grows up to be Bruce Willis. Willis, a great actor who seldom gets to show his real chops, brings much of the emotional weight to the movie as old Joe, who does not face lightly the self-assigned mission to kill the child who will become the rainmaker. In this sense, “Looper” recalls the philosophical question, if you could travel through time and kill Hitler as a child, would you?

There are also some solid performances from Daniels, Paul Dano as another looper who suffers a disturbing fate and Emily Blunt as the mother of one of old Joe’s child targets, a boy named Cid, played by incredibly intense seven-year-old actor. This kid can be sweet one moment and frightening the next, and shows the many notes he can play in “Looper.”

The abuse of the invention of time travel, and the consequences that follow are great cinematic elements, and in terms of the action/Sci-Fi genre, “Looper” is one of the best time travel movies I have ever seen. Johnson is an imaginative filmmaker with a vivid knack for storytelling and an eye for action that is sharp and refreshing in its clarity — the special effects in this movie are spot on, used sparingly and jarring in their realism.

There are elements of James Cameron’s “The Terminator” and dozens of other time travel movies in this film but, even so, “Looper” is one of the most exciting, original films of 2012, a fascinating vision of how time travel could be used in a practical sense by bad people. If invented, it could also potentially be used to kill Hitler as a child. The question is, would you do it?

★★★★ (out of 4)