PhantomKnight Goes Spielbergian

I'll go one further and say it's one of his best movies, period.

Munich for me.

I'd love a UHD release of Minority Report. I watch it probably once a year.

Updated thoughts:


It's been a long road for me and A.I., but I think I'm ready to admit that this movie is amazing. It's one of the best movies Spielberg has ever made and more broadly an engrossing piece of science-fiction. Accusations that this movie are overtly sentimental or schmaltzy miss the point entirely. Spielberg draws on a lot of his usual tricks for heartwarming wonder, but it's all a little off, deliberately so. So much of this movie plays like a tonal equivalent of the uncanny valley, where it's almost saccharine and sweet, but there's this overriding layer of inhumanity that makes the whole far more uncomfortable than a more outwardly creepy movie might be. The structure of the film is also rather brilliant. I love that we spend much of the first-act in a bubble of privilege which only hints at how awful the rest of the world is. It makes our plunge into dystopia in the second half as eye-opening for us as it is for David. This is also where Spielberg shows some of his most exciting bits of visual imagination, particularly in the Flesh Fair and the architecture of Rouge City. The special effects hold up brilliantly, but the designs are also just fascinating in concept.

Beneath the visual spectacle and beauty, beneath the dystopic science-fiction, beneath the eccentric supporting cast (including a wonderful turn from Jude Law as a sex android), this is a quietly heartbreaking story about a little android boy who can never get the love he so desperately yearns for. And perhaps it's about more than that as well. David is a product, after all, and from start to finish he is used by those around him. Henry uses him to try and placate his wife's depression, Monica uses him to try to fill the void left by her real son, Martin uses him for fun and amusement, Joe uses him to escape the Flesh Fair. His entire adventure turns out to be orchestrated by Professor Hobby, a test to see how advanced his latest creation is and, again, an effort to fill his grief. Even at the end, when The Specialists grant David piece, they two are exploiting him for information about a world long past. Over and over again, A.I. makes one simple point: There's no such thing as unconditional love.

Also, and this will likely drive PhantomKnight and IanTheCool nuts, but Haley Joel Osment is brilliant in this movie. Watching him grow slowly more human (or, at least, more adept at mimicking human behaviour) is heart-wrenching. This may well be his best performance. It's also easily my favourite film he's in. Can't believe I slept on A.I. for so long.

A+

Don't worry we're basically eye to eye on Always.

Absolutely.

Which one is next? Lincoln?

He is saving Crystal Skull for when the James Mangold one comes out.

I haven't seen it in a long time but it's a lot of fun. It effortlessly blends being cool, funny and dramatic at all the right points.

The plot concerns Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks), a citizen of the fictional country of Krakohzia, who’s come to New York with the intention of taking care of a lingering bit of business left unfinished by his late father. But while he was in the air, a coup d’etat occurred back in his homeland, and the United States no longer recognizes Krakohzia’s government – or, at least, in its new form. This leaves Viktor effectively stranded in John F. Kennedy International Airport, where his plane arrived, because his passport is no longer valid as a result of the regime change: he can’t go back home, and he can’t set foot outside in the United States. And the situation shows no signs of changing anytime soon. This seems like such a wild situation/premise to think about, but I was surprised to learn that this movie is actually loosely/partially inspired by the true story of an Iranian man named Mehran Karimi Nasseri, a refugee who arrived at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport in 1988 without a passport and any papers to enter another country, and who stayed there until 2006, when the situation was finally resolved. Similarities between Navorski’s and Nasseri’s experiences include bathing in the washroom, erecting a living area with benches and accepting food vouchers from airport workers. Beyond that, the film obviously embellishes everything else to make it more suitable for the film treatment, but everything here just has an undeniably likable and endearing quality to it, that it’s hard to resist. In many respects, this is Steven Spielberg going for a Capraesque experience, and it’s something I think he pulls off very strongly.

A big part of why this movie works so well is Tom Hanks, of course. The role of Viktor Navorski allows him to showcase his natural charisma, but the key here is that he knows to not go overboard with Viktor’s various qualities. Hanks adopts an accent and plays Viktor’s initial cluelessness and naivete just right, without veering over into farce. That’s because he always keeps Viktor’s humanity at the forefront, and because Hanks effortlessly sells the moments when Viktor DOES realize the reality of his current situation. Within minutes of Viktor being let loose into the airport, you’re simply won over by the guy and invested in his plight, taking delight in the ways he figures out how to conform to his new circumstances. But he’s not the only endearing character in this film. Spielberg populates the rest of it with a whole cavalcade of charming characters, from Catherine Zeta-Jones’ zippy flight attendant to Barry Shabaka Henry’s security officer to Diego Luna’s food handler and Zoe Saldana’s immigration officer, the entire cast here is wonderful, and they and Spielberg really do get you caught up in their interactions and relationships. In large part because of these characters and their chemistry together, this is a movie that fixes a smile on your face pretty much for the entire runtime.

But make no mistake, Spielberg pours every ounce of effort he can into this film, because even if the subject matter may feel slighter than a lot of his other films on a thematic level, he still makes sure that the movie itself and the experience of watching it is as good as it can be. For instance, despite being set in just an airport terminal, the setting never gets dull. Spielberg finds a lot of ways of keeping the movie’s energy high and the pace constantly moving, from utilizing the setting in fresh ways throughout and always finding new ways to stage different scenes at familiar locations and whatnot. He said that his main goal with The Terminal was to make a film “that could make us laugh and cry and feel good about the world,” and he absolutely pulled it off. There’s not a cynical bone in its body. It’s a sweater movie: one that you throw on to feel nice and cozy. But at the same time, you’re presented with something sporting some real craft and skill, too.