The Divergent Series: Allegiant (2016) – My rating: 8/10

Confusing is not the word for the new category of “the world has ended” movies. Usually the youth are shut out, which causes them to fight the older population for any information that can lead to their freedom and a better functioning world.  Their goal is a world that will allow them the right to make their own decisions with less stringent rules and a more flexible future for all. Included in these world ending series where people are also categorized by class, is the Maze Runner/Scorch Trails, The Hunger Games trilogy, Tomorrowland, The Giver, District 9 and Elysium. I found myself getting confused and overlapping stories, making Divergent and Maze Runner fitting nicely together as one story. Having pointed out Hollywood’s new obsession, let me add that it isn’t all bad. While these movies are dealing with similar themes, some are doing it better than others. I like the Maze Runner series better than the Divergent series. I found the Hunger Games to be a little over the top, given the ending. In this third installment of the Divergent series, we find Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) along with her brother Caleb (Ansel Elgort) and Peter (Miles Teller) running away from their home.  No one is allowed to approach the wall which is heavily secured by members of Evelyn’s (Naomi Watts) coalition.  However, they manage to get through and are greeted by an unknown army.  The soldiers take the them to the Bureau of Genetic Welfare, a highly advanced city where they learn the truth about their society. Many years ago, the government believed that society’s problems were caused by “bad genes”. In an attempt to create a better society, they began to modify people’s genes, with disastrous results. The government set up “experiments” in an attempt to repair this mistake, establishing isolated cities across the remains of the United States. The hope was to raise enough genetically pure Divergent individuals to fix the “genetic damage” left in the wake of the Purity War.  The bureau is headed up by David (Jeff Daniels) who deems Tris to be a pure Divergent and is therefore suited to help him get funding from the council he reports to in order to extend his experiments that will ultimately include the destruction of Chicago.  Of course there is much more going on, but as usual, I don’t want to give away any more of the plot.  Allegiant concludes with some very good turn of events. In my opinion, Allegiant is the best of the trilogy. The director (Robert Schwentke) ties events together quite nicely bringing good closure to this final sequel. Great acting and great special effects. There’s lots of adventure and the story is interesting and will keep you guessing.

THE MARTIAN (2015) – My rating: 10/10

Look for The Martian to be nominated for best picture and more.  It is worth every second of it’s 141 minutes.  When I heard The Martian being compared to Gravity, I didn’t want to see it because I didn’t particularly like Gravity.  The only similarity is deep space aliened with crisis.  Matt Damon plays Mark Watney, an Astronaut on a manned space mission to Mars along with five other crew members, Rick Martinez (Michael Peña), Beth Johanssen (Kate Mara),  Chris Beck (Sebastian Stan), Alex Vogel (Aksel Hennie) and Mission Commander, Mellissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain).  During a daily routine task, the crew was hit with an intense storm that caused Mark to disappear from their sight while also putting the lives of the crew at stake. Considering the situation, Mark was presumed dead forcing the Mission Commander to reluctantly leave Mark behind as the crew fled from planet Mars.

Mars provides nothing we as humans would need to survive.  Water, oxygen, fertilized soil, gravity, animals and for the most part, no light exists on Mars.  Unable to contact NASA, Mark uses his knowledge as a botanist to grow potatoes within the mission’s artificial habitat, anticipating that he will need to survive for at least four years before the next crew was scheduled to land.  He would have to  journey to the landing site of Ares IV which already has some infrastructure on Mars. To maintain morale, Mark begins to modify the habitat’s rover to make it capable of long journeys while keeping a series of video logs.  Without giving away the whole movie, I will conclude the revealing the plot at this point saying that NASA does find out that Mark is alive and though some ingenious manipulations and thought process, he finds a way to communicate.

Between the efforts of  Jeff Daniels who plays Teddy Sanders, Head of NASA, Chiwetel Ejiofor who plays Vincent Kapoor, NASA mission director, Mackenzie Davis as Mindy Park, satellite planner in Mission Control, Donald Glover as Rich Purnell, NASA astronomer, Sean Bean as Mitch Henderson, NASA mission director and Kristen Wiig as Annie Montrose, NASA spokesperson, the journey becomes both enlightening, intense, complicated and exciting.  Involvement from the China National Space Agency (CNSA) offers NASA classified information and help which was both exciting to hear and learn what they had to offer.

From the cast to the plot, to the intensity of the story to the brilliance of the acting and the efforts and planning of all who worked on this movie, I applaud The Martian and thank Hollywood for a movie that truly makes a difference when we really needed one.  There is so much more that I couldn’t tell as not to spoil any more than I did.  Whether you like science or not, The Martian is worth seeing.  Great job, great directing, great writing, great movie!

[THE MARTIAN is nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Cinematography, Costume Design, Best Director, Film Editing, Makeup and Hairstyling, Production Design, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing and Visual Effects]
 

 

THE NEWSROOM – My rating: 8.5/10

The Newsroom is an excellent series presented on HBO about just that, a newsroom and the goings on that go on.  Jeff Daniels, one of my all time favorites, plays Will McAvoy, the Head Anchorman and Emily Mortimer plays Mackenzie McHale, the Program Manager and former girlfriend to Will.  Sam Waterston plays Charlie Skinner, the General Manager of the whole news team and Jane Fonda plays as Sam’s boss.  This is a well put together cast and the dialogue is absolutely brilliant.  I’ve been glued to my seat since it started. It is fascinating to watch what it takes to put on a news show and be politically correct while pleasing the public at the same time.

I’ve just learned that The Newsroom has been cancelled after just 3 seasons.  I’m not sure why but I am terribly disappointed.  There is talk that perhaps Netflix will pick up the series and stream it.  I surly hope this happens.  It seems the good ones always gets canned.