Here

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Paul Bettany, Kelly Reilly, Michelle Dockery, Gwilym Lee, Ophelia Lovibond, David Fynn, Daniel Betts, Joel Oulette, Dannie McCallum, Nicholas Pinnock, Nikki Amuka-Bird
Running Time: 104 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★) 

It's safe to say that among universally beloved filmmakers, Robert Zemeckis' recent career trajectory might sting the most, with 2012's Flight frequently cited as the last real success. Because of this, he joins a long list of great directors who discovered their fiercest competition is themselves, or more accurately, their most remembered work. And while holding nothing against Forrest Gump or the idea of its stars reuniting, we all know Back to the Future will always be the first title everyone associates with Zemeckis. So it's ironic that even when again engulfing himself in cinematic technology, his latest, Here, marks a return to those roots by revolving around a similar theme. 

Based on Richard McGuire's 2014 graphic novel of the same name, the non-linear film takes place in a single location, simultaneously tracking its various inhabitants over different eras. And if it's disheartening to see something this experimentally ambitious get unfairly clobbered by critics and audiences, there's at least an explanation. It's that Zemeckis' current track record and a trailer filled with jarring, out-of-context shots of a de-aged Tom Hanks and Robin Wright caused many to declare it dead on arrival before viewing a single scene.

In a perfect world, Zemeckis could have utilized practical effects and makeup to film this directly following Gump, only substituting McGuire's original 1989 comic as its source. But after watching it, the best news is that the result wouldn't necessarily be better, with this standing as the first of his modern films where the effects mostly inform its story, quelling fears of another Polar Express or Beowulf. Employing a fixed camera angle, we're granted unlimited entry into the victories and disappointments of life, spanning from when dinosaurs roamed the Earth to present day. Characters are born, they die and the cycle repeats, but what happens in between is where Zemeckis and co-writer Eric Roth create flashes of magic. 

Taking place entirely within the confines of a New England home that was formerly a part of Benjamin Franklin's son's estate, John Harter (Gwilym Lee) and his wife Pauline (Michelle Dockery) move in shortly after its construction at the turn of the 20th century. They'll have a daughter, but his obsession with piloting planes causes a strain on their marriage that may prove insurmountable. Future inhabitants of the house include eccentric La-Z-Boy recliner inventer Leo Beekman (David Fynn) and his pin-up model wife Stella (Ophelia Lovibond) and married couple Al (Paul Bettany) and Rose Young (Kelly Reilly), who purchase the property following World War II. 

The Youngs raise their three children in the suburban home until 18-year-old son Richard's (Hanks) girlfriend Margaret (Wright) becomes pregnant with daughter Vanessa. As both generations attempt to co-exist under the same roof, Richard makes personal sacrifices to support his family while Margaret grows antsier for them to move out and start a life of their own. Various triumphs and tragedies occur, along with smaller moments that grow in importance for both as they drift apart and age, forever linked by their shared experiences and memories.

While none of the events take place in what we'd strictly consider chronological order, Zemeckis alternates between periods and characters for the first 45 minutes or so before spending the bulk of his time on Richard and Margaret. He also employs these boxes or comic book-like panels on screen to signal shifts between time periods within this living room and dissolve into another scene. It's initially jarring, but after a while you just settle in, grasping its larger purpose as the separate segments play out. 

For all the de-aging complaints, this attempt is more cleanly executed than in 2019's The Irishman, the latest Indiana Jones and even some of Disney's latest Star Wars offerings. And that's coming from someone who's no fan of the approach and thinks we're still years away from being able to rely on it to such an extreme. But having actors of this high a caliber tackling an ingenious conceit softens that blow considerably, relegating the only lackluster digitization to opening CGI shots of nature, dinosaurs and deer. 

Luckily, we get into the house quickly, and despite the fixed camera angle throughout, it never feels as if we're merely watching a filmed stage play. Characters come in and out of the frame while Zemeckis crafts some clever transitions that bridge the gap between eras, like an inspired cut from colonial times to a current day Mayflower moving truck. And while Ashley Lamont's production design for the living space has to span decades, it's filled with rich, precise period detail that joins Alan Silvestri elegiac score in supplementing a script that hops back and forth between years, often within minutes. 

There comes a point almost midway through where any justifiable skepticism disappears, resulting in not only the film's strongest stretch, but the kind of storytelling we hoped Zemeckis still had in him. And all of that begins and ends with the Youngs, as we see Hanks' Richard abandon his early painting passion for a more monetarily stable sales job to support his family. This while Margaret also puts her law aspirations on hold, desperately wanting for them to move out despite all his financial excuses not to.

Hanks and Wright are again extraordinary together as a couple frustrated by an inability to reach their respective potentials due to a combination of fear, gender expectations and monetary realities. Unfairly labeled by detractors as a schmaltzy, life affirming fable, the film's more accurately viewed as the slow decay of the American dream with two generations battling to deal with the hands they're dealt. And hanging over it all is the familiar specter of illness and death, like in one scary scene where a friend face plants on the floor following a fatal heart attack. 

As Richard, Hanks creating a complicated portrait of an everyman whose fear of moving past childhood keeps them in this house, even remarking at one point that he actually thought his constant worrying would stop bad things from happening. And though Wright imbues Margaret with a glowing, youthful optimism, that too will gradually fade under the weight of insecurity and societal pressures, leaving her to find the joy in tinier, seemingly throwaway moments that will grow monumental in retrospect.

Paul Bettany gives the film's best performance as Al Young, a flawed, cynical war veteran with a rock hard exterior that seems impossible to crack, making it easy to see how his stubborn traits influence and even traumatize son Richard when he starts a family of his own. Very much a product of his era, Al drowns his pain with booze and smoking while keeping a firm, overprotective grip on Kelly Reilly's Rose who, like Margaret, put her own goals on the backburner.

As Rose and Al advances in age to the point that his son and daughter-in-law become their caretakers, Bettany's turn grows even more interesting, displaying a vulnerability that provides valuable insight and justification into his more prickly behavior. And of everyone, Zemeckis really hits it out of the park with this character's visual presentation, believably aging him on screen from a young man in his twenties to an ailing senior citizen.

Despite feeling epic in scope, the film clocks in at just over an hour and a half, carried by Jesse Goldsmith's seamless editing and the fact Zemeckis moves so fast, with years and decades passing in the blink of an eye to replicate the experiences of these characters. As time flies, we're transported to the near-present where the home's latest occupants Helen (Nikki Amuka-Bird) and Devon Harris (Nicholas Pinnock) confront the issue of police violence and deal with the COVID pandemic. Inevitably, side stories like that, the The Franklin vignettes and a subplot involving Indigenous Native Americans receive less attention due to the unusual structure. But while the overall narrative may lack the unity of The Tree of Life, it's still hard to complain when so many of its scenes still manage to  powerfully register.

If nothing else, Here is a brutally honest, unapologetically melodramatic look at the passage of time that uses its unique, experimental single location narrative to magnify the minutia of human experience. It's not for everyone, but even those who consider it a failure would be forced to admit Zemeckis takes a huge risk in giving audiences this much to unpack. With a format that practically invites repeated viewings and reevaluation, it'll be fascinating to gauge how it ages once the vitriol dies down, leaving us to appreciate the reality we at least have a director bold enough to try.                    

Flight

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Denzel Washington, Kelly Reilly, Don Cheadle, Bruce Greenwood, John Goodman, Melissa Leo, Nadine Velazquez, Brian Geraghty, James Badge Dale
Running Time: 138 min.
Rating: R

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

Remember that last section in Cast Away when Tom Hanks finally makes it home and is faced with the trauma of seeing how life just went on without him? His girlfriend's now married with kids. He's sleeping on the floor with a volleyball. That third act made the movie for me. It would have been so easy to stop and just call it a win when he got off the island, but director Robert Zemeckis just kept plowing through, knowing full well that the story was just starting and it would have been criminal to deprive viewers of at least a piece. Now with Flight, he's made an entire film about it. The script begins where most movies end, using its entire running time to explore an aftermath and dispense fascinating details we're unaccustomed to getting.

The happy ending comes first, or so it seems. Facing massive equipment failure and diving fast, Airline captain William "Whip" Whitaker (Denzel Washington) rolls SouthJet flight 227 upside down before crash landing in a field outside Atlanta, saving almost all the 102 passengers and crew on board. The only problem: He was drunk and high on cocaine after having spent the night with a flight attendant (Nadine Velasquez). That his condition didn't cause the crash (we think) is one of the screenplay's most creative touches since going that route would have been way too easy and a lot less morally complicated. In fact, the film's quite clear in presenting the notion that there's a better than great chance no other pilot, sober or not, would have known what to do in that situation, much less been able to execute it. If not for Whip, everyone would likely be dead. The bad news is that six people still are, and he and the airline have to answer for it.

At its core, Flight is really an exploration of addiction and guilt. If an event like this can't get someone to stop drinking and using drugs, what can? For Whip the downward spiral is just starting. A deadbeat dad in full denial about the severity of his problem, he miraculously walks away from the crash with minor injuries, only to turn on the news and discover he's a hero. What's strange is that he mostly is. But the NTSB's investigation is heating up and the toxicology reports are coming in. His biggest ally in the battle is an old buddy named Charlie Anderson (Bruce Greenwood), a pilots union rep. Joining him is criminal attorney Hugh Lang (Don Cheadle), whose soften-spoken demeanor belies the fact that he's great at what he does and works tirelessly to keep Whip out of jail. They really want to help but he's having nothing of it, instead hiding out at his parents' abandoned farmhouse and drowning his sorrows in a bottle. His enters a complicated relationship with a heroin addict named Nicole (Kelly Reilly), whom he meets at the hospital and is trying to turn her life around following a near-fatal overdose.

I've probably already revealed too much, as the rest of the film is full of tiny details concerning the fallout from the crash and how those involved with it (directly or indirectly) view Whip's responsibility in it, which is anything but cut and dry. You can only imagine the amount of aviation research Oscar nominated screenwriter John Gatins had to put in to make sure all those details came out right and the work Zemeckis had to do the insure the crash at the beginning has the emotional impact it does. We've seen a lot of terrifying plane crashes on film but this is the first to literally take us inside the cockpit and give us a feel for what it must be like for the pilot and co-pilot when all possible options have been exhausted. And for the passengers certain they're all going to die and appear to be right.

Oscar nominated Denzel Washington gives one of most affecting performances in years as a tortured addict caught in a web of his own lies.Whip knows his silence is morally, if not criminally, reprehensible but he's too consumed by his own demons and false pride to admit a problem, much less accept help. What's most shocking is just how much damage it takes for him to get there, with Washington providing unflinching insight into how addiction grabs hold and doesn't let go, practically writing a person out of their own life. Matching him scene-for-scene in her first major co-starring role is relatively unknown English actress Kelly Reilly, who in addition to pulling off a really credible southern accent, is altogether heartbreaking as a junkie torn between trying to turn her own life around and salvaging whatever relationship she has with this total stranger. In a crowded year full of great female supporting turns, hers still stands out out from the pack, making it a bit of a mystery that she really hasn't been recognized for it.

The film is also filled to the brim with scene stealing cameos, the most memorable of which coming from John Goodman, who couldn't be more entertainingly insane as Whip's hippie best friend and drug dealer Harling Mays. His two appearances make a big enough impact that he even gets his own entrance music. Then there's James Badge Dale as a philosophical cancer patient who's either a twisted genius or has just watched too many episodes of Lost. He has only a single scene that can't be spoiled, but it's the film's because of his disturbing brilliance in it. Melissa Leo doesn't play the NTSB official as the villain she could have been, but instead as a fair, intelligent woman asking all the right questions to get to the truth. It's hard to dislike her. The same could be said for Cheadle's attorney, who at first appears to be a pushover but ends being tougher and more determined than anyone expects, even as he's constantly pushed away by his own client. We want to root for him because he's technically and legally right about the crash's cause but the means he uses to make his case are questionable. There are so many grey areas here, but none greyer than the situation involving Whip's co-pilot, well played by Brian Geraghty. When we finally do hear his take on what happened up there, that powerful scene definitely doesn't disappoint.

As we get closer to to the moment of truth for Whip, it's clear things can only end one of two ways. Dark or darker. Neither outcome can in any way be viewed as a win for the protagonist, though one is decidedly less bleak for the audience. The story is the very definition of hitting rock bottom and it's easily the edgiest, darkest thing Zemeckis has ever done. But most will just be happy that he's gone back to directing live-action, at least temporarily abandoning the motion capture CGI silliness he's been dabbling in with clunkers like Beowulf and A Christmas Carol. This picture demonstrates in full why that career diversion was so upsetting and he should have taken those complaints as a compliment. His real gift has always been in telling distinctly human stories and it's great to see the visual effects used more sparingly and effectively in helping to further that. A nearly two and a half hour, R-rated character study about an addict is probably the last thing anyone expected from the director of Back to the Future and Forrest Gump, but it couldn't have possibly been a more welcome departure. Leaving you with a lot to consider and never taking the easy way out, Flight ends up being anything but predictable.

Beowulf

Director: Robert Zemeckis
Starring: Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Robin Wright Penn, Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich, Brendan Gleeson, Crispin Glover, Alison Lohman
Running Time: 113 min.
Rating: PG-13

** (out of ****)

I own a Playstation 2 but I hardly ever use it. Why? Well, for one I was never really that skilled at video games. Truthfully, I'm pretty awful. And second, I just don't like the way the images look. They're too crisp to really even be considered a video game, but look too fake to pass as the real thing. The movements are awkward and choppy and the designers' attempts to give the characters facial expressions are particularly pathetic. Hook me up with a good old school N.E.S. or a Nintendo 64 and I'm happy. So what does this have to do with Robert Zemeckis' motion capture adaptation of the Old English epic poem Beowulf? You see, this just may be the very first feature length Playstation 2 movie. And it also happens to be an unnecessary exercise in self-indulgence and silliness.

Zemeckis has always had a flirty relationship with groundbreaking technology in previous directorial efforts like Back To The Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, Forrest Gump and Contact. But they were used sparingly (and carefully) to great effect, enhancing already wonderful films with great stories. That's why it's difficult for me to rationalize that the same man who prided himself on putting great storytelling first is responsible for an ill-conceived mess like this. We got a taste of it in The Polar Express a few years ago, but at least he was able to fall back on the fact it was an enchanting children's story.

Here he takes a serious sword and sandals epic into George Lucas territory where technology is king and actors are disposable. I should have known I was in for it when everyone kept telling me upon the film's theatrical release that "YOU HAVE TO SEE IT ON THE BIG SCREEN…AND IN 3-D!" or you won't like it. What does that say? And to think that Beowuf has been labeled as "the future of filmmmaking." If that's true then I'm jumping ship. Supposedly Zemeckis wasn't a fan of the original poem. That makes two of us. But his view is ironic considering both the poem and the film share an important common thread: They're both pretty much boring as hell. But even as bad this is, it isn't without its occasional moments. Especially one.

It's sixth century Denmark and King Hrothgar (Anthony Hopkins) presides over a celebration of drunken merriment in the newly constructed feasting hall with his warriors and his young queen Wealtheow (an airbrushed-looking Robin Wright Penn). Crashing the festivities is a REALLY ugly monster named Grendel (Crispin Glover) with serious mommy issues who, in the most graphic scene of this underratedly gruesome film, tears every partygoer limb from limb. Most of the battles in this film are so disgusting and graphic that the only possible explanation for it escaping an "R" rating is that the MPAA idiotically rationalized that everything was "fake" because of the motion capture technology.

Like 300 before it, this contains just as much blood and violence as some of the"torture porn" films the media has been whining about these past couple of years and even less of a plot. Seasoned warrior Beowulf (Ray Winstone) arrives by ship promising to slay Grendel and collect the hefty reward. He also has his sights set on the queen. The King's advisor Unferth (John Malkovich) is unimpressed by the arrogant warrior's boasts but he's soon proven wrong. However slaying Grendel is only the beginning of Beowulf's challenges, as he must contend with the monster's nude seductress of a mother (Angelina Jolie) who gives new meaning to the term "M.I.L.F." He's offered a deal that's very difficult to turn down even though he should.

With all this state of the art visual technology at his disposal how does Zemeckis choose to use it? By setting three quarters of the film in a dining hall. That's right, a dining hall! With all the beautiful landscape scenes this epic tale could potentially provide and with the technology at his hands to do it, Zemeckis wimps out. He instead assumes we'd be far more entertained watching a naked Beowulf run around the lunch room with his nether regions strategically covered as if he's auditioning for the next Austin Powers sequel. He does shift gears eventually, but it's to give us a final battle that drags on for eternity. Zemeckis seems to just be showing off the technology to either amuse himself or take us completely out of the story. Sometimes both like in a scene where he shows a gyrating woman's cleavage as she cleans a table. "Look, this technology is so awesome I can even make breasts LOOK REAL!" Congratulations Bob, your honorary technical Oscar is in the mail.

It is great to see Ray Winstone, a gifted supporting actor, finally get top billing, but forgive me if this isn't exactly what I envisioned for his first big starring role. He does commanding voice work, even if co-writers Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary give him clumsy dialogue worthy of a WWE Raw script and Beowulf is an egotistical jerk who's impossible to root for. Malkovich and especially Hopkins eerily resemble their real life counterparts to the point where it's downright creepy just looking at them. But Hopkins' King Hrothgar is by far the movie's most engaging, entertaining character and every time he's on screen it's a hoot.

Then there's Jolie. The motion capture version of her not only looks, but also acts better than the real thing and it's Zemeckis' most eye-pleasing visual achievement since Jessica Rabbit. It's the only moment of genius in the entire film and a glimmer of hope that maybe Jolie has finally given up in her ridiculous quest to be taken seriously as an actress and will go back to just entertaining us, which used to be her strong point. Sadly, this is her most exciting performance in years. And it's not even her…or at least not really.

I agree with Zemeckis that the original Beowulf story is dry and could use some freshening up but this isn't the kind of tale that benefits from this kind of technology. The story has potential and I couldn't help but think how much more interesting it would have been if the actual actors were in a live action adaptation of it. Something is lost here and the technology still isn't at the point where these avatars, with their dead eyes and lack of facial expressions, can duplicate a human performance and invest the story with that required emotion.

The original plan was for co-writer Roger Avary to direct a smaller-scale live action version from his own script but it got caught in production hell, freeing Avary up to direct The Rules of Attraction instead while Zemeckis took over the reins. No complaints there, but I do have the suspicion that whatever Avary had planned would have far surpassed this. I can see how some audiences would enjoy this, as it does have a kind of goofy tongue-in-cheek quality and sense of humor to it that 300 lacks. On all other fronts though, they're the same exact film. If you liked that, there's little doubt you'll enjoy Beowulf.