Quick takes on Gran Turismo and other films

Readers of my blog know of my allegiance to the Marvel universe over DC’s. We’ll see if that holds up after a bumpy few movies now (will be seeing The Marvels early next week), but looking back at my ratings of DC’s films over the last 3 years, they’ve done very well. I liked The Flash a whole lot (more than many, it seems), and also thought very well of The Suicide Squad and Zack Snyder’s version of Justice League. Blue Beetle is yet another hit, so maybe I need to stop thinking of DC as the “lesser” of the comic book-turned-movie universes. The film stars Cobra Kai’s Xolo Maridueña as Jaime Reyes, a recent college grad who returns home to find his family in dire financial straights, a fact they’ve hidden from him till now. Through a turn of events, Jaime meets Jenny Kord, wealthy heiress to the Kord Industries conglomerate. Jenny is at odds with her aunt Victoria (Susan Sarandon); Victoria wants to take the company in a direction of military weapons, and Jenny wants to follow in her father’s footsteps and pursue more humanitarian efforts. At the heart of Victoria’s research is a super soldier program built around an ancient artifact known as the scarab. The scarab has the ability to meld with a person of its own choosing and bequeath super human powers. Of course, Jaime becomes the lucky person, and he finds himself with powers to fight Victoria and her private army. Lots of action obviously, but also a lot of humor, and the film reminds me of what Marvel use to be, before they took themselves too seriously. These movies are supposed to be fun obviously, and Blue Beetle definitely delivers that, in an all-family accessible format with laughs, thrills, and heart. ★★★★★

In the history of film adaptations from video games, there’s a whole lot more misses than hits. Gran Turismo falls somewhere in the middle. Based on a true story, it follows a young man named Jann Mardenborough, an avid gamer, especially of the racing simulator Gran Turismo (don’t call it a video game!). Jann has dreams of being a real race car driver, believing that the realness of the game would translate to a real course, but it’s an expensive sport so he has little chance of ever realizing his dream. He gets his opportunity when Nissan puts on a challenge to give Gran Turismo gamers the chance to race for real, in hopes of tapping the next generation of car buyers. Nissan brings in an old racer to properly train the young drivers and see if their video game skills can translate to the race track. The movie slows (too much) in between the races, and hokey dialogue and subpar acting (even from establishers actors like David Harbour and Orlando Bloom) really drag it down. There’s no drag in the races though, which are definitely the highlights, and really the only saving grace. They are exciting and completely captivating from start to finish. Still, as a whole, a very average film. ★★½

War Pony is an indie film from a lot of first-timers (actors and crew alike, though co-director Riley Keough has acted in plenty, but is perhaps more famously known as Elvis’s granddaughter). The film follows two people living on an Indian reservation in South Dakota. 23-year-old Bill is basically a two-bit crook. He’s got a couple babies from two different women (the first of whom is currently in jail; that’s the kind of group they run with) but doesn’t support them, leaving the kids with his mom while he goes out and gets high with his friends. He finally lands a job from a white farmer, which may at last be Bill’s ticket to something stable in his life, but even then, the owner uses Bill to do a few unsavory jobs in addition to his normal duties. The other main character is 11-year-old Matho, who seems to be following Bill’s trajectory. Throughout the course of the film, Matho bounces from house to house (when he isn’t straight up homeless), but nowhere does he find anything resembling a normal family life. He deals a little in drugs (easily gotten from the so-called parental figures at each house) and seems to sink further and further from any hope of a successful future as the film goes along. After awhile, you definitely get the sense that Matho and Bill could be the same person; Bill is who Matho will become if nothing changes in his life. It’s a bleak thought. Much has been written and said about poverty on reservations, and this movie gives a good glimpse into why. When faced with no opportunities, the youth are left to fend for themselves or just give up. Very uneven acting (though young Matho is a bright spot) but a strong, realistic story. ★★★½

After Murder on the Orient Express and Death on the Nile, super sleuth Poirot is back again in A Haunting in Venice, with a whole new all-star cast around him. Once again, the cast is the best part, and it hides problems in the film, though it’s not entirely without some fun. At the start of the film, Poirot (Kenneth Branagh, who also directed again) has retired and is living in Venice, but is called on by a mystery writer, Ariadne (Tina Fey), to come to a “haunted house” with a checkered past. Rumor has it that years ago, many kids died of plague in the house, and recently, a young woman committed suicide by jumping from the upper floors to the canal below. On this evening, the woman’s surviving mom, Rowena (Yellowstone’s Kelly Reilly), has hired a psychic medium (Michelle Yeoh) to reach to her daughter from beyond the grave. Poirot, who doesn’t believe in any of that stuff, is brought by Ariadne to find holes in the medium’s seance, and, if possible, look for clues as to what brought the daughter to her death. The cast also includes Camille Cottin and Jamie Dornan, and there’s some stellar acting, especially from Yeoh who is always fantastic, but the film skirts the line of mystery and horror, and it doesn’t really work. You can be a murder mystery or a supernatural thriller, but you can’t really be both, and sometimes the film comes off as silly, even if they try to explain it all at the end. So far, all of the films in this series have been OK, but nothing spectacular. ★★★

Jules is an endearing low-key sci-fi comedy starring Ben Kingsley, Jane Curtain, and Harriet Sansom Harris as a trio of older retirees living in a quiet small town in Pennsylvania. Milton is 78 and lives alone, though his daughter lives in the town too as its veterinarian; he is estranged from his son, who lives in California. Milton is a simple man who cares deeply for the kinds of things that older people take to heart but which the younger generation just doesn’t: he goes to the weekly city council meetings to urge changing the town’s motto and to put in a crosswalk on a busy street. No one takes him seriously, so when a spaceship crashes in his backyard and an alien is left stranded, they think crazy ol’ Milton is just being Milton. But Milton starts feeding the alien, and then the alien starts fixing up his ship to leave. Two other older ladies in town, Sandy and Joyce, find out, and they do what they can to help “Jules” get back to space. They have to do it before government agencies, who have been asking the public for help in locating a “downed satellite” descend on them, or before Milton’s daughter, who notices that his mental capacity is slipping, puts him in a home. Very funny movie and oddly heartwarming too, with Sir Ben Kingsley great as always. The film can be enjoyed at face value, or if you want to delve deeper, it offers a look at how our society views the elderly. ★★★½

• TV series recently watched: Doom Patrol (season 4), Loki (season 2), The Continental (series), Jack Ryan (season 4)
• Book currently reading: The Eve of the Maelstrom by Jean Rabe