A Technical Breakthrough with De-Aging Samuel L. Jackson

Out story takes place in 1995 and starts with introducing our key character under the name of Vers. She’s living without any memory of her past in Hala, the capital planet of the Kree empire. She has super destructive powers and is training under Yon-Rogg, her mentor, to learn to control those powers. The Kree are in a war with the shapeshifting Skrull that has been going on for centuries and Vers is finally given a mission in this war. During the mission she crashes on earth and meets S-H-I-E-L-D agent Nick Fury, and they partner to fight off the Skrull that followed her there while she waits for backup from her fellow Kree.

The biggest problem with the film in my opinion is Brie Larson playing Captain Marvel. Not for a second did I feel she was comfortable portraying the super hero. Not in comedy, not in drama and not in action. And not for a second did I actually get to see her trying to express how her character is supposed to be feeling. I mean, we get from the story that she’s bouncing from lost to daring to liberated to triumphant, but did the acting offer any help with that? I don’t think so. I’m not inclined to blame the film directors Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck for that simply because they got amazing performances from Samuel Jackson and from the awesome Ben Mendelsohn, who for the greatest part performs without the help of his own face. Therefore, I believe that, if you’re a good actor, you get to perform under Boden and Fleck. But before we pass that judgment, let’s wait and see how Larson will perform under the Russo’s.

I don’t want to spend so much time speaking about flaws because honestly, this is not a bad film and the best aspect in it, in my opinion, is the screenplay. It follows the rule of the narrow time frame, which I believe we will be seeing a lot of in the MCU. All the events in the film take place over the course of 2 or 3 days .. if not 1. This is becoming necessary with the intertwining events of all the films in the universe. It’s much easier to reserve a few days for a story to be told rather than risk it tangling with another story from another film. This has been the case with all their films since Doctor Strange with the exception of Spider-Man: Homecoming. Because stories are much more efficient this way and not boring. That’s what we get here though some sequences were indeed boring, but since they move fast, you don’t get a chance to nod off.

We get a nice partnership between our hero and Nick Fury. We get various confrontations, though mostly shallow like I said, and we get a fair share of, not exceptionally smart, surprises. We also offer a good share of services to the upcoming “End Game”. Most of the weak spots come from the comics and of course we get to blame the film for that but with a bit of sympathy. Also maybe the comedy wasn’t very successful. I mean, it’s there and it’s not silly or anything but not very laughable. Especially with Brie Larson choosing to laugh with us instead of trying to make us laugh. Or maybe she was waiting for us to make her laugh, I’m not sure!

We have no problems with pace, no problems with directing in general and no plot holes as far as I’m concerned. Captain Marvel is an ordinary film in the place of the awesome film some of us were expecting. That is not a big problem for me since I’m trying to teach myself to deal with the film I’m watching, not the film I was expecting. However, in all honesty, it suffers from obvious flaws and it deserves to be considered as a set back when compared to most other MCU films. Also compared to its equivalent in the competitor universe. Oh yes, I didn’t hate Captain Marvel but I don’t dare say it’s better than Wonder Woman in any way, shape or form. Or maybe it does have a better soundtrack.

Brie Larson and Jacob Tremblay in Room

Following the familiar storyline of abduction, isolation and captivity, Room managed to inject two more ingredients that managed to transform the movie into an entirely fresh cinematic experience. First, we have the son, who was deliberately deceived in perceiving his own environment for the sake of his own sanity and safety, and second we have the events that took place after the release of the victims, where we followed how bad they struggled to find a place in the world.

Classifying “Room” simply as a psychological drama is an understatement. The true character of the movie is reflected in the amount of beauty that it contains. The first half of the movie takes place in a dark, cruel, small space that felt rather big and welcoming while we were seeing it from Jack’s perspective. The second half takes place in a much larger and brighter place that felt so narrow and strange once seen from the same perspective. The whole time we’re faced with situations that we don’t want to live and conditions that we don’t want to live in, however I don’t believe I will ever have a problem rewatching the movie, because Jack’s way of describing things makes it beautiful in a very poetic way.

Good luck holding your tears while you’re watching “Room”, mostly all kinds of tears, tears of sadness, tears of joy, tears to vent the cuteness overdose supplied by Jack’s character, and tears of sympathy with Joy and the choices she has to make. Portrayed perfectly by Brie Larson, Joy’s hardest moment comes when she needs to risk her only reason for living for the sake of his own salvation. The contrast between how determined she is to see her plan through and how heartbroken she is for having to do that to him, is the peak moment of her otherwise flawless performance. It’s kind of hard to believe now that I was first introduced to Brie Larson by her role in the shallow comedy “21 Jump Street”.

I can’t say that the consistency of Brie Larson’s performance was matched by similar consistency in the pace of the events. The first half feels much better tuned, to my surprise actually, because you could make a movie of 2 hours around the events of that half alone and yet, nothing felt rushed or badly introduced to me. Things were a bit too fast on the second half though, I don’t think the build up for every transformation was well served. I’m mostly disappointed because it all seemed avoidable to me, the movie is only 2 hours long, I don’t think it would’ve been a bad idea to add 15 minutes to that .. I mean, we have watched movies of 3 hours where nothing ever happens!

I also wouldn’t say that the movie did so well in making sure all the logic switches were checked, especially in the escape plan, but I don’t think I have the right to stop for long at this, especially with my eyes so red from crying most of the time, again, thanks to Jack. Jack was portrayed by 9 years old Jacob Tremblay who is a true discovery in this cinematic year, because of how emotionally demanding his role is. I would love to give most of the credit for Jacob Tremblay’s performance to the director, Lenny Abrahamson, who appears to have embraced a quick cuts technique to avoid having to request too much for too long from Tremblay and edited the whole thing perfectly that nobody in the academy felt that Larson’s performance was under-challenged.

“Room” is the black horse of the cinematic season and the greatest way to pay credit for independent cinema as well as authors getting the chance to turn their own production into screenplays.