Battleship

“This could be like Columbus and the Indians,” a nerdy radio astronomer worries. “Except we’re the Indians.” From a powerful transmission facility in Hawaii, he’s supervised the transmission of a signal to the Earth-like Planet G in another galaxy, and with a blink of an eye, aliens arrive. Roger Ebert said in his review, “Considering that they arrive in weeks, they must have discovered faster-than-light speeds, so it's a little strange that when they arrive they're strictly analog.” Their huge warships land in the Pacific (except for parts that destroy Hong Kong in one of those towering skyscraper scenes so liked in disaster movies). However, these alien ships are only armed to a point that makes their fight with U.S. warships more or less a standoff.

Ebert is right when he said, “Why would the U.S. fleet conveniently already be near the splashdown point? It's involved in war games with allies such as Japan, which provides an excuse for a Japanese officer to take temporary command of one of our ships and thus boost the grosses of "Battleship" in Asia. It's also handy that the aliens create a force field that forms an impenetrable barrier around their craft, which seals in three U.S. ships, locks out all other ships and explains why our jets don't simply nuke the SOB.”

In the old B-movies, the response to the alien visit is immediately military. There’s not one word of discussion about the aliens possibly just calling. We invite them, they come and we open fire. Ebert noted, “This despite the fact that they're remarkably humanoid; when we finally remove the helmet from one alien's spacesuit, he turns out to look alarmingly like James Carville.”

In the film, we meet a beach boy named Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch), whose brother Stone (Alexandar Skarsgard) is a naval officer. In a bar, Alex hits on the flexible Samantha Shane (the hot Brooklyn Decker), who is surprisingly the daughter of the admiral of the fleet (Liam Neeson). Breaking into a convenience store to get her a burrito, Alex is arrested and his brother delivers an ultimatum: Join the Navy or else.

Meanwhile, the nerdy Cal, played by Hamish Linklater, supervises the transmission of the signal to Planet G, and before Alex can even get into uniform and on board a U.S. destroyer, five alien spacecraft enter our solar system in tight formation. Ebert said, “One alien craft then levitates from the ocean depths, as large as a skyscraper and bristling with ominous protrusions.” You can say it takes the audacity for a communications officer, played by singer Rihanna, and two seamen to speed over to it in a rubber boat armed with just a machine gun.

In a different story, we learn Samantha is a physical therapist working with the Army vet Mick Canales, played by real-life Iraq hero Gregory D. Gadson. She takes him on a hike up the mountainside where the big NASA radio satellites are located, they meet Cal, and all that depends on preventing the aliens from calling home. In the Pentagon situation room, officials freak. There’s the necessary montage of cable news reports on the alien invasion, and the U.S. ships exchange fire with the aliens. Two ships are destroyed, including the one led by Stone, and after several officers on Alex’s ship die, he ends up being next in command and becomes the captain of the surviving U.S. ship. That’s convenient. The characters we met at the beginning all become essential characters.

“Battleship,” released in 2012, is based on the Hasbro board game of the same name, which I have played a little. You get the idea of that when the radar doesn’t work, and Rihanna figures out a way to assume the underwater movements of the alien ship by tracking wave patters on a grid with old-school weather buoys. The film eventually comes down to lots of scenes where things get “blowed up real good.” One alien weapon is especially fearsome: a large metal ball with spikes, which rolls through things and flattens them. Ebert asked, “Were less sophisticated versions of this used in medieval times, maybe made of flaming tar balls?”

The film is in the same vein as the “Transformers” movies, also based on Hasbro games, and you get the feeling that Hasbro showed director Peter Berg some Michael Bay movies and told him to go and do likewise. To his credit, “Battleship” is a more entertaining film than the “Transformers” franchise, because it has a little more fully developed characters, a better plot and a lot of naval combat strategy. Ebert credited, “The work of Gregory D. Gadson, as the disabled vet, is especially effective; he has a fierce screen presence.” Rihanna is as convincing as the character allows, and Taylor Kitsch makes a strong if predictable hero.

Ebert credited, “But the nicest touch is that "Battleship" has an honest-to-God third act, instead of just settling for nonstop fireballs and explosions, as Bay likes to do. I don't want to spoil it for you.” People can say the Greatest Generation still has the right stuff and leave it at that.

Sorry to say guys, but this is one bad board game adaptation. If this was just an adaptation like how the board game is played, which is a naval ship war, then it would have been fine. However, they mixed in aliens and Battleship doesn’t have anything to do with aliens. When did aliens ever become a part of the game? This is why this film is a failure. Don’t see this one, just avoid it all cost, it’s very bad.

We have now reached the end of “Liam Neeson Month.” I’m sorry that most of the movies were bad, but unfortunately these were the only films of his that I hadn’t reviewed yet. Stay tuned next month for more excitement.

Madame Web

Tonight, on Netflix, I watched “Madame Web,” released theatrically back in February, but on Netflix 11 days ago. After hearing all the bad stuff about this latest in the “Sony Spider-Man Universe,” what’s my take on it?

Thus far, Sony’s “Spider-Man” spinoff films have been some pieces of work. Starting with “Venom” in 2018, the film may have taken quite a critical thrashing, but that didn’t stop it from having a crazy impressive box office hit that reached over $800 million worldwide. Three years later, “Venom: Let There Be Carnage” also received quite a bad reception, but still brought in $500 million worldwide. However, when it came to the third film, “Morbius,” things didn’t turn out very well, not only having terrible reviews, but also a disappointing box office. This brings us to the latest in the spin-off franchise, “Madame Web,” another attempt to introduce some new characters trying to once again find great success as they had previously with the “Venom” films.

Starting in the ‘70s, we follow the mission in the jungles of Peru led by Ezekial Sims (Tahar Rahim) and his colleague Constance Webb (Kerry Bishé), who happens to be pregnant. When they find a rare species of spider that has special healing abilities, Ezekial turns against the team, steals the spider, and shoots Constance. However, thanks to the help of a local tribe, she is able to give birth shortly before she dies.

Thirty years later, we find Cassandra Webb, played by Dakota Johnson) working as a medic in New York City. After surviving a near-death experience on a particularly rough call, she begins having visions, which she slowly finds out are giving her looks into the future. Meanwhile, Ezekial has been having dreams where Julia Cornwall (Sydney Sweeney), Mattie Franklin (Celeste O’Connor), and Anya Corazon (Isabela Merced) kill him, causing him to do everything he can to find them. Cassandra’s visions bring her into the situation, leading her to find the girls first so she can protect them from Ezekiel, who will stop at nothing to save him from his demise.

If the first three films in this spin-off franchise is any indication, it would appear that the goal of these films were never really to create a film that would get praised by critics and audiences, but rather to make films that might be able to compete with the true comic book franchises at the box office, and as we’ve seen, it’s been somewhat successful so far, at least as far as the “Venom” films go. Jeff Beck said in his review, “The trouble has been trying to find something else in the limited number of characters they have access to that could achieve a similar level of prosperity.”

Sadly, just like “Morbius,” “Madame Web” has proven not to be that film either, from either a critical or financial point of view. Beck noted, “As a comic book film, it falls prey to the same pitfalls that many of these films have fallen into of late, including featuring a bland/uninteresting plot with sub-par writing and flat/unengaging characters that you end up not caring about in the least. On that basis, the film never stood much of a chance, not if the goal was to make an entertaining experience that comic book fans could get excited about, one that would have them riveted to the screen with impressive action and a compelling plot. Anyone who read the screenplay well before production commenced would've been able to tell you as much.”

That said, while many audiences have had fun criticizing on the film over the last few months, the strange thing is that it’s really not worse than any of the other subpar comic book films we’ve seen over the last couple of years, like “Shazam: Fury of the Gods,” “Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom,” “Black Adam,” or “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” all of them share those similar traits listed prior. Beck said, “"Madame Web" is merely another entry in a continually growing line of disappointments in the genre, a line that shows a clear, unfortunate lack of effort from the filmmakers behind these unremarkable outings.”

If anything, these films, and the disappointing box office numbers they’ve made, have shown that audiences aren’t going to work for averageness anymore. They want fun and excitement, along with engaging characters and storylines that give them a fun experience, not something that puts them in the position of sleeping or just simply shrugging wen everything is done. Beck suggested, “Perhaps it's simply time to go back to the drawing board with these spinoffs, much like DC is doing with their entire collection.” One thing’s for sure, it’s true that changes are most definitely needed, for if things simply stay the same, the list of criticisms will just continue to grow.

“Madame Web” is just another addition to the continually growing list of average comic book films that show a simple lack of effort being put into their stories and characters, leaving viewers with just another entry that gives a little more than a shrug, other than the fun and exciting time these films should be giving.

As you might have guessed, which is universal, this film doesn’t make any sense. Things just seem to be all over the place and it’s hard to connect everything together. You just wonder why certain things are done, especially when it starts borrowing pages from “Doctor Strange.” I don’t recommend this because of how it doesn’t make sense, but then again, this is one of those films that is bad, you start to laughably enjoy it.

Thank you for joining in on this review tonight. Stay tuned next Friday for the finale of “Liam Neeson Month.”

Wrath of the Titans

Roger Ebert started his review out by admitting, “Maybe it was the three exploding mountains too many. Or the dozen surplus fireballs. Or too much noise. "Wrath of the Titans" relentlessly wore me down with special effects so overscale compared to the characters in the film that at times the only thing to do was grin. The characters, to be sure, are gods and not humans, but they are human-sized gods. Give it a moment's thought: What chance does your average muscular god have against the grinding stones of a labyrinth as large as a volcano?”

Hold on there. You may be asking, “Why are the Titans feeling wrathful?” Their feelings of discontent can go back a decade or two to what transpired in “Clash of the Titans,” where Perseus, played by Sam Worthington, defeated the Kraken and retired to raise his son. You may remember that Perseus is a demigod, the son of Zeus, played by Liam Neeson, and a human mother. Or maybe you don’t remember. Perseus doesn’t settle down for long because there is a worldwide catastrophe with the gods. Humans have stopped believing in them, and the gods, no matter what anyone have been led to believe, depend on their power on the faith of those who believe in them. Ebert admitted, “I was reminded of Tinker Bell, and toyed with the notion of Perseus turning to the audience and asking, "Do you believe in gods?"”

We see that Perseus is not very fond of Zeus, who did assault his mother. However, the time has come to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. Zeus is being held prisoner by Hades, played by Ralph Fiennes, who hopes to steal his power. Now Perseus must go to the underworld to rescue his father, restore his power, and prevent Hades from taking over the world. This he and his team must do by negotiating a labyrinth and descend to Tartarus.

The labyrinth scene isn’t bad. This contraption was built from the outside in, we see, leaving only one escape route. It has an insane maze of giant rocks, arranged like a clockwork instrument so that its elements grind and shift change forms. The stones appear to be able to sense where the gods are and play with them. Ebert said, “It is frankly impossible to see how the (human-sized) gods have half a chance in its bowels, especially since exits become dead ends, narrow corridors begin to crush in upon them, and so on. If you were to quiz me on how they escape, I would be puzzled. They just ... found their way out, I guess.”

Never mind, “Wrath of the Titans,” released in 2012, is obviously not concerned with believability. Ebert admitted, “It lacks a comprehensible story, and you won't need your Cliff Notes on the Greek myths.” You get an idea of who the protagonists are, and then they spend a good amount of time saying laughable dialogue at one another while being forced off the screen by special effects.

That’s where the meteors and exploding mountains come in. Ebert said, “No attempt is made to achieve a consistent physical scale in the movie, nor a comprehensible spatial plan. I was never quite sure where anybody or anything was in relationship to anything else, and eventually I gave up trying: This is a montage of sweaty, dirty, bloodied faces and figures assembled to fit between balls of fire.”

Ebert continued, “I should have added that the movie is in 3-D. This is not a help. "Wrath of the Titans" is to begin with a dusty, murky pictorial confusion, not helped by dim underworld scenes, and although I'm sure the focus must be excellent, it had an imprecise feeling to me. Then the 3-D glasses did their bit to reduce the light level from the screen, and unlimited clouds of smoke, dust and sand were generated by the explosions, and finally I found myself wondering, just for the heck of it, how the movie might have played with a more traditional approach. You know. Literate, concise dialogue.” Characters we care about, with relationships that have meaning for audiences. Action set-pieces within well-established three-dimensional boundaries. Pacing that doesn’t go past viewers faster than we can develop interest.

As you may have guessed, this movie is atrocious compared to the first one. The first film was already bad enough, why did they need to make a sequel? As anyone can tell you, remakes are rarely any good and to make a sequel to the remake is a mistake. Never make the mistake of seeing this sequel because you will regret ever watching this.

Next week, I will ending “Liam Neeson Month” with a board game adaptation that was bad.

The A-Team

“The A-Team,” the 2010 adaptation of the famous television show from the ‘80s, is best compared to another 2010 film, “The Losers.” Both films are silly, over-the-top, and include action scenes that are hilarious, and even though the plots may be incomprehensible at times, they still give you one enjoyable time.

The film was directed by Joe Carnahan, who previously directed the wild action film, “Smokin’ Aces,” which also had somewhat of a dirty plot, but a lot of great action scenes to make up for it.

The film is about a group of Army Rangers who first met up in Iraq. The team includes Colonel Hannibal Smith (Liam Neeson), Lieutenant Templeton “Faceman” Peck (Bradley Cooper), B.A. Baracus (Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson), and Murdock (Sharlto Copley).

After becoming the first people to call for dangerous missions, they are told about a set of bars used in printing American money that are now in enemy hands. They are also specifically told not to go on this mission, but as you can guess, they go anyway.

After the mission is complete, their commander, General Morrison, played by Gerald McRaney, is killed in a strange explosion. They are then believed to have been helping the man who took the bars, a Black-Ops agent named Pike, played by Brian Bloom.

The team is sent to four separate maximum-security prisons after being dishonorably discharged from the service, but they are not there long before they are helped in their escape by a CIA agent, Lynch, played by Patrick Wilson. Now the team must recover the bars and prove themselves innocent in order to clear their names.

The highlight of “The A-Team” is its insanely imaginative, over-the-top action scenes. The action of this film plays out more so for the comedy it has rather than believability. If you try to take it too seriously, then there is a possibility that you are not going to have any fun watching it. For example, take one of the action scenes halfway into the film that involves the team trying to escape on an airplane. While airborne, the plane is hit by a missile, blowing it to pieces, but the team is alright because they’re in a tank. You heard right, apparently there was a tank on the plane conveniently including parachutes. Now they are slowly flying towards the ground in a tank with the jets that attacked them still circling.

Another scene has one of the protagonists swiftly climbing down a rope that is hanging along the side of a skyscraper while the enemy shoots at him. Surprisingly, the villain is unable to hit the protagonist with so many bullets from a machine gun despite the hero being completely open while descending the rope. Nor is the hero injured when he falls a good part of the way.

Jessica Biel plays Charissa Sosa and in a post credits scene, we see the original actors who played Face and Murdock with their film equivalents. Dick Benedict (the original actor who played Face in the show) plays Face’s (Cooper) fellow tanning bed client, credited as “Pensacola Prisoner Milt,” and Dwight Schultz (the original actor who played Murdock in the show) plays the German neurologist who examines Murdock (Copley).

I only saw parts of episodes of the original show, but I never sat down and watched an entire episode nor have I gone back to see the original show from beginning to end. I can’t really compare this adaptation to the original show and say how good or bad of an adaptation this is. However, from what I can remember, I thought this film was just fine. I probably liked the silly action in this film and thought that the film was just a nice little popcorn flick. If you want to see it, this is currently streaming on Max. Check it out if you want. If you don’t like it, I understand.

Next week, we will look at the “Clash of the Titans” sequel in the continuation of “Liam Neeson Month.”

Clash of the Titans (2010)

Thirty years after the original film's release came the 2010 “Clash of the Titans” remake, and many things were changed. Perseus now starts as a humble fisherman, Princess Andromeda is not his love interest, Hades is the main villain, Pegasus has changed from white to black, and the robotic owl Bubo has been replaced by a young girl who never ages. Mike Massie said in his review, “While much of it has been altered for no apparent reason, some things have received an overhaul appropriate to the advancements in technology – namely the special effects and creature designs.” Even though a lot may feel that no CG can replace the classic look of Ray Harryhausen’s inspired creations, updates to the Kraken, the Stygian Witches, and the giant scorpions, and even new additions like the Djinns, are creative and can be very impressive. However, when it comes to Medusa, the stop-motion Gorgan still wins.

A child found abandoned in the sea, Perseus (Sam Worthington), is taken in and raised by the fisherman Spyros (Pete Postlehwaite). When Hades (Ralph Fiennes) kills his adoptive family, Perseus discovers his true lineage as the son of Zeus (Liam Neeson). Driven by a desire for revenge, he embarks on a seemingly impossible mission—to vanquish the Kraken, a creature so formidable that even the gods of Mount Olympus fear it.

Even though he hates his demigod origins, Perseus won’t make the journey alone. A mighty sword forged by the gods themselves is his weapon, and accompanying him is Io (Gemma Arterton), a beautiful woman “cursed” with not aging (along with flawless makeup and a healthy glow), and the soldiers Draco (Mads Mikkelson), Solon (Liam Cunningham), Ixas (Hans Matheson), and more, including volunteers, scorpion-riding desert people, and other fodder for the various beasts they meet. Like the original, their first stop is to find the Kraken’s weakness in the garden of Stygia, and the last is to cross the River Styx into Medusa’s liar.

The costumes, armor, castles, makeup, creatures, and special effects are all larger in scale than the original. Still, the cheesiness hasn't left despite some ridiculous dialogue, Zeus’ shining wardrobe, and unnecessary flashbacks. At least an intelligent homage or two is inserted. However, where’s the groundbreaking music or the chance to surpass the classic design of Medusa? Why does the use of 3D in this movie have such little impact on the visual appeal? Massie said, “This remake is also just in time to have the Kraken (a cross between the “Cloverfield” behemoth and the enemy soldiers in the “Gears of War” video game) belittled by the flying colossus in “How to Train Your Dragon.” With larger roles for lesser characters, the ferryman’s upgraded boat (possibly due to bribes), a pitifully uncreative alteration for Calibos, and Ralph Fiennes’ portrayal of a character noticeably too much like Harry Potter’s Voldemort, this not-so-epic odyssey is more tedious, generic, and recycled than it ought to be, especially considering the time the filmmakers have had to polish the story and imagery.”

As everyone might have guessed, this remake could be better. It does not hold a candle to the classic original film, especially with the lasting effect of Ray Harryhausen’s work. This is another example of CG not making a remake better than the original. I don’t recommend seeing this because of how forgettable it is. I honestly had forgotten what I thought of this film after a while, which gives you an idea.

Next week, I will examine an adaptation of a classic TV show in the continuation of “Liam Neeson Month.” I apologize for the late posting. I fell asleep because I was so tired after work today.

Wonka

A special treat tonight everyone: I just finished watching “Wonka,” which came out in December 2023, on Max while exercising. Since everyone knows the original film is one of my all-time favorites, I think it would be best to let everyone know what I thought of this latest film.

Ernesto Diezmartínez started his review by noting, “Since the great Hollywood studios immersed in the swamp of intellectual property, that is, the endless production of sequels, prequels, remakes, reboots and films based on comics and youth and children's best sellers, the largest and most influential film industry of the orbe has punished us with a series of commercial products as interchangeable as disposable. Some examples: Marvel's stories can spread from cinema to television and vice versa, we see without blinking the continuous replacement of actors who play any superhero (be Batman or The Spider Man) and we run into the small screen or the big screen with the origins of any more or less canonical saga, whether it's Star Wars, Harry Potter or The Hunger Games. The result of this more than creative business bet is that the great Hollywood productions have been stuck in frank puerility for two decades, but in the intranscendence. Or, to put it in the measured words of Alejandro González Iñárritu, in the open and frank cultural genocidal.”

Diezmartínez continued, “Of course, within this ill-styled Disney model - that is, in this type of production and exhibition centered on intellectual property - there are exceptions to the rule: tapes that, even coming from this same iterative impulse, manage to rescue with dignity well-known stories (Batman: the knight of the night, Nolan, 2008), turn a shameless commercial product into a contradictory topic of cultural conversation (Barbie, Gerwig, 2023) and, now, with Wonka's recent premiere Wonka(United Kingdom - U.S. Canada, 2023), successfully rethink the origin of a certain classical film/literary character from another perspective and even from another genre, because we are faced with a musical film clearly anchored in the Hollywood tradition of My Beautiful Lady (Cukor, 1961) and, above all, Mary Poppins (Stevenson, 1964), because Neil Hannon's songs open directly from his tones and even some of his melodies.”

“Wonka” is a prequel to a story that has been told in two film versions, the classic 1971, directed by Mel Stuart and starring Gene Wilder in the role of Willy Wonka, and Tim Burton’s 2005 remake with Johnny Depp playing the titular character. Both, as you know, are based on Roald Dahl’s original novel, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a classic children’s book that, as a good serious story (not serious), manages to combine the creation of a delightful place consisting of magic and fantasy – the chocolate factory of the oddball Willy Wonka with an exemplary story where the main child – the Charlie of the title – must learn what he should accept and which cons he should avoid, facing some challenges that, as Diezmartínez describes, “in the best style of the Welsh writer,” do not lack either fun or cruelty.

The argument for “Wonka,” written by director Paul King, raises the arrival in London of a young Willy Wonka, played by Timothée Chalamet, who arrives in the big city with the dream of opening a chocolate shop. Although he shows his unique talent by giving locals a magical and flying chocolate, the imagined and excited Wonka ends up as a slave to a landlady, Mrs. Scrubbit (Olivia Colman) who forces him to work day and night washing sheets with another group of prisoners like him. Unfortunately, Wonka has more trouble, as the evil chocolate cartel led by the crooked Slugworth, played by Paterson Joseph, has already tasted his magical chocolate, so he won’t allow that competition to have the smallest chance to open his shop. Meanwhile, Wonka ends up befriending the cheerful orphan Noodle (Calah Lane), who dreams of escaping Mrs. Scrubbit, while the unfortunate young chocolatier, always positive, finds out a strange and small individual of orange skin and green hair (Hugh Grant as the best one here) has been stealing his chocolates at night. With the help of the other prisoners (Jim Carter, Natasha Rothwell, Rich Fulcher, and Rakhee Thakrar), Wonka manages to escape Mrs. Scrubbit’s workshop to start making chocolates made from giraffe milk but Slugworth, his colleagues (Matt Lucas and Matthew Baynton), and the chocolate-addict police chief (Keegan-Michael Key) destroy his plans.

Diezmartínez mentioned, “Following the same path in his irresistible diptych about the charming Peruvian bear Paddington (2014 and 2017), King introduces us to a young Willy Wonka who lacks the dark features of his literary and cinematic incarnations. That is, Wonka captures the magic of the Roald Dahl universe but not its darkness, although this is more a characteristic than a defect. The infidelity of the original Willy Wonka has to do with the kind of stories that interest King: that of noble and good immigrants, faced with pettiness and greed. That barely grown-up child who is Chalamet's Willy Wonka may doubt at some point his dreams, but it is obvious that any hesitation is temporary, because for Paul King generosity and empathy have no choice but to succeed.”

Diezmartínez continued, “In the form, Wonka is a typical musical of our century, that is, more musical-opereta than musical-ballet. As Bob Fosse understood in his time, King knows very well that his star doesn't sing badly the rancheras, but it's clearly not made for the dance seriously, that is, it's not Fred Astaire or Gene Kelly (although, who is?). So, if Chamalet doesn't dance much, as was the case with Shirley MacLaine or Liza Minelli in Fosse's cinema, then let him dance the frame, let the rhythm mark the cuts between taking and taking. In this way, Mark Everson's montage gets some musical numbers - especially "Scrub scrub" and the second performance of "You've never had a chocolate like this" work not as mere illustrations of the sticky melodies, but as genuine and proud cinematic pieces.” The image is the one that dances in front of us and our feet, from our seats, join them. That is a good thing.

I found myself thoroughly enjoying this film. If you have Max and have liked the story of Willy Wonka, then see this movie. This one should not be missed; I promise you that. You will find yourself loving this movie and might be going out to get chocolate, but I wouldn’t recommend that.

Thank you for joining in on this review tonight. Check in this Friday for the continuation of “Liam Neeson Month.”

Schindler’s List

For this month, I had a few ideas of what I wanted to do, but I decided I would dedicate this month to the great Liam Neeson. Let’s start with the 1003 classic, “Schindler’s List.”

Oskar Schindler would have been easy to understand if he’d been a predictable hero, fighting for his beliefs. Seeing that he has cons – drinking, gambling, womanizing, being controlled by greed, and wanting an upper-class life – makes his life a problem.

This is a man who saw his opportunity at the beginning of World War II and moved to Nazi-controlled Poland to open a factory and hire Jews at wages they could barely live off of.  He wants to become a millionaire. Roger Ebert said in his review, “By the end of the war, he had risked his life and spent his fortune to save those Jews and had defrauded the Nazis for months with a munitions factory that never produced a single usable shell.”

Why did he change? What happened to make him change from a villain to a savior? Thanks to Steven Spielberg’s film “Schindler’s List.” it does not try to answer that question. Any possible answer would be too easy, which would not keep the mystery of Schindler’s life. Ebert noted, “The Holocaust was a vast evil engine set whirling by racism and madness. Schindler outsmarted it, in his own little corner of the war, but he seems to have had no plan, to have improvised out of impulses that remained unclear even to himself. In this movie, the best he has ever made, Spielberg treats the fact of the Holocaust and the miracle of Schindler's feat without the easy formulas of fiction.”

The runtime is a little over three hours and like all great movies, it seems too short. It starts with Schindler, played by Liam Neeson, a tall, strong man with an intimidating presence. He dresses in expensive suits and frequently goes to nightclubs, buying caviar and champagne for Nazi officers and their women, and he likes to get his picture taken with the top brass. He wears a Nazy party emblem proudly on his button. He has perfect black-market contacts, he can find nylons, cigarettes, and brandy: He is the right man to know. The police are happy to help him open a factory to build protected cooking utensils that army kitchens can use. He is happy hiring Jews because their wages are so low, and Schindler will keep getting rich that way.

Schindler’s skill is in bribing, scheming, and conning. He knows nothing about running a factory and finds Itzhak Stern, played by Ben Kingsley, a Jewish accountant, to handle that side of the business. Stern moves through the streets of Krakow, hiring Jews for Schindler.

Because the factory is a protected war business, a job there may guarantee a longer life.

The relationship between Schindler and Stern is made by Spielberg with a large delicacy. at the beginning of the war, Schindler wants only to make money, and at the end, he wants only to save “his” Jews. We know that Stern understands this. However, there is no moment when Schindler and Stern clearly say what is happening, maybe because saying some things out loud could cause them to get killed.

This delicacy is Spielberg’s strength throughout the film. Ebert mentioned, “His screenplay, by Steven Zaillian, based on the novel by Thomas Keneally, isn't based on contrived melodrama. Instead, Spielberg relies on a series of incidents, seen clearly and without artificial manipulation, and by witnessing those incidents we understand what little can be known about Schindler and his scheme.”

We also see the Holocaust vividly and terribly. Spielberg gives us a Nazi prison camp commandant named Goeth, played by Ralph Fiennes, who is a subject of the stupidity of evil. Ebert said, “From the veran da of his "villa," overlooking the prison yard, he shoots Jews for target practice. (Schindler is able to talk him out of this custom with an appeal to his vanity so obvious it is almost an insult.)” Goeth is one of the weak hypocrites who upholds the idea but makes himself an exception to it. He preaches the murder of the Jews and then chooses a pretty one named Helen Hirsch, played by Embeth Davidtz, to be his maid and falls in love with her. He does not find it evil that her people are being murdered, and she is spared because he has an affection towards her. He sees his personal needs as more important than right or wrong, life or death. Ebert pointed out, “Studying him, we realize that Nazism depended on people able to think like Jeffrey Dahmer.”

Shot in black and white on many of the actual locations of the events in history (including Schindler’s original factory and even the gates of Auschwitz), Spielberg shows Schindler dealing with the evil of the Nazi system. Ebert noted, “He bribes, he wheedles, he bluffs, he escapes discovery by the skin of his teeth. In the movie's most audacious sequence, when a trainload of his employees is mistakenly routed to Auschwitz, he walks into the death camp himself and brazenly talks the authorities out of their victims, snatching them from death and putting them back on the train to his factory.”

What is amazing about this film is how completely Spielberg tells his story. The movie is perfectly acted, written, directed, and seen. Individual scenes are skillful in art direction, cinematography, special effects, and crowd control. Ebert credited, “et Spielberg, the stylist whose films often have gloried in shots we are intended to notice and remember, disappears into his work. Neeson, Kingsley and the other actors are devoid of acting flourishes. There is a single-mindedness to the enterprise that is awesome.”

At the end of the film, there is a heavily emotional scene, involving the actual people Schindler saved. We learn that “Schindler’s Jews” and their descendants today number about 6,000 and that the Jewish population of Poland is 4,000. The obvious lesson would be that Schindler did more than a whole nation to save the Jews. That would be too easy. The film’s message is that one man did something, while in the face of the Holocaust, others were damaged. Ebert said, “Perhaps it took a Schindler, enigmatic and reckless, without a plan, heedless of risk, a con man, to do what he did. No rational man with a sensible plan would have gotten as far.”

Ebert noted, “The French author Flaubert once wrote that he disliked Uncle Tom's Cabin because the author was constantly preaching against slavery.” “Does one have to make observations about slavery?” he asked. “Depict it; that’s enough.” And then he added, “An author in his book must be like God in the universe, present everywhere and visible nowhere.” That would describe Spielberg, the author of this film. He shows the evil of the Holocaust, and he tells an incredible story of how it was stolen by some of its planned victims. Ebert said, “He does so without the tricks of his trade, the directorial and dramatic contrivances that would inspire the usual melodramatic payoffs.” Spielberg is not present in this film. However, his restraint and passion are seen in every shot.

This is one of the most emotional films out there. Especially the ending with the breakdown, which you can see the emotions to it. A man who once was torturing the Jews tried to save them, but it didn’t work out the way he wanted. I do recommend this film, but this is a film that you may not be able to watch in one sitting. You might have to watch it in parts with the length of the film. Currently, it is streaming on Prime, so you can see it on there. Check it out and see for yourself.

Next week I will look at a terrible remake of a classic film in “Liam Neeson Month.”