FILM

Break on through

Breaking Bad, one of the greatest TV series of all time, ended six years ago. Since then, series creator Vince Gilligan has been serving up a nice extension of the Breaking Bad universe with Better Call Saul, soon to air its fifth season.

If you’ve never seen Breaking Bad, and still plan to watch the show, do not read further into this review. There are spoilers.

Since Saul is a prequel, the Breaking Bad timeline came to a stop six years ago, and the universe has been playing around in the past. So, what happened to Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) after Walter White (Bryan Cranston) liberated him from captivity at that American Nazi compound? When last we saw Jesse, he was looking like John the Baptist and speeding off into the night, laughcrying hysterically.

Knowing full well that the fanbase is itching for more Jesse, El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie has made its way to Netflix (and a select few big screens). The film picks up where the Breaking Bad series left off, with Jesse in a pinch as “a person of interest” after the White assault, and still very much in need of a shave and a shower.

It’s a great thing to see Paul back in his wheelhouse as Pinkman, even if the character has become a bit dour after the hell of being held prisoner in a hole in the ground. Jesse’s screen time during his captivity on the TV show was limited as the story, logically, focused primarily on Walter White’s last days. We only really saw Jesse eating ice cream and failing in an escape attempt. He became a background character.

El Camino gives Gilligan and Paul a chance to flashback and explore some strange adventures Jesse had with his captor, the quietly evil Todd (Jesse Plemons). Plemons actually plays a big part in this movie, and thankfully so because he’s just a badass in the Todd role. A seemingly sensitive, lowvolume man, alas, with a psycho streak that poses all kinds of threats to Jesse’s well-being.

Other characters we see again include Mike (Jonathan Banks), who makes an appearance in flashback (his character having been dispensed by White in the original show). Skinny Pete (Charles Baker) and Badger (Matt Jones) show up early and haven’t lost a step providing comic relief. Most notably, the late Robert Forster, whose passing was announced the very day El Camino was released, returns as Ed the vacuum salesman, who does something a little extra on the side.

For those who loved the show, El Camino is a must. It just sort of fits right in, like two episodes that were hidden in a secret vault for six years. I’m not revealing some of the other special cameos that occur but, trust me, Breaking Bad fans, you won’t be disappointed.

If you haven’t seen the show, stay away from the movie until you have seen it. This is a movie that reveals virtually everything that happened in the show that preceded it. If you’ve been harboring plans to see Breaking Bad, then watch something else on Netflix until you have absorbed all of the seasons into your face.

The movie comes to a satisfying conclusion for Jesse Pinkman, a more poetic sendoff, if you will, than him screaming like a banshee. While I think this might be the end for future Jesse, chances are high that past Jesse will appear again somewhere within the Better Call Saul timeline, which takes place before the events of Breaking Bad. I’m sure Gilligan has a few more Jesse stories up his sleeve. Ω

“What’s wrong with two first names?”

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2Ad Astra Director James Gray and Brad Pitt come up with a halfway decent-looking, meditative and ultimately unsettling mess of an attempt at meaningful science fiction. Pitt plays Roy McBride, an astronaut following in his father’s (Tommy Lee Jones) footsteps decades after his dad disappeared on a scientific expedition searching for alien life somewhere around Neptune. When major power surges start threatening the planet, it’s believed Roy’s still possibly alive father is the culprit, so Roy is sent on a mission to reach his father and get him to knock it the fuck off. This leads to a journey that involves a lunar buggy shootout on the moon, an unimaginative visit to Mars, and, finally, a trip to Neptune. On top of the major scientifically impossible things that happen in this film, it’s stitched together with the ultimate crutch, the ApocalypseNow voiceover. Pitt is restricted to sad puppy eyes duty as his character deals with his daddy issues in a cosmic sort of way. They throw in a space monkey attack to try to liven things up, but it doesn’t work. The movie is a missed opportunity, strung out, and a little too boring and listless.

2Downton Abbey This movie is a mess, although it’s the sort of mess a true fan might be willing to tolerate. Director Michael Engler seems to be working with enough subplots in this movie to fuel an entire season of the former TV show. The big plot twist here is that King George V (Simon Jones) and Queen Mary (Geraldine James) are coming to Downton Abbey, a big estate with a reasonably sized staff, for a quick visit during one of their tours. So the staff, taken a bit by surprise, must prepare for a visit from the royal family. Much of this movie is staff running around trying to prepare for this visit. In fact, the first half of this movie is almost entirely about preparing for the visit. They go to the store for eggs. They try to fix the boiler so the Queen will have hot water, and they endure some minor staff shake ups in anticipation of the big visit. Then the visit happens, and then the visit ends. That’s the main thrust of the movie. In the background, there are all sorts of little affairs and plot threads that even the most hardcore fans might have a hard time keeping track of. There’s even a blink-and-youwill-miss-it assassination plot involving King George that just sort of happens, without any attention to anything resembling details. Hey, a movie where King George V almost gets assassinated should be at least slightly exciting.

2Joker This new take on DC’s Clown Prince of Crime will go down as one of the year’s big missed opportunities. Director Todd Phillips, mostly known for his Hangover movies, apparently got the green light to do whatever he wanted with the Joker mythos. He managed to get Joaquin Phoenix, pretty much perfect casting, to sign on for the title role. This was a chance to tell a dark origin story from the Joker’s point of view. Phillips blows this chance. Phoenix is otherworldly good as Arthur Fleck, a severely troubled clown and standup comedy wannabe—and mama’s boy—with a condition that causes him to laugh uncontrollably at inappropriate moments. He physically and mentally disappears into the part, to the point where you may become concerned for the actor’s well-being. He accomplishes this in a film that has a major identity crisis. When we first see Fleck, he’s dressed as a clown, spinning a sign and generally having a good time. He promptly gets his ass kicked, and not for the last time. We then see him in therapy and living in poverty with his quirky mother (Frances Conroy). Fleck slowly but surely starts to lose all sense of his humanity as he grows into a criminal monster. Phillips even casts a game Robert De Niro to play a talk show host that winds up being a nod to Miller’s David Letterman riff (David Endocrine) in The Dark Knight Returns. At its most derivative, the screenplay echoes A Beautiful Mind, filmed in a way that feels like a hackneyed Shyamalan twist. In the end, it’s an unoriginal film only partially buoyed by an incredible performance. 2 Hustlers Hustlers, starring Jennifer Lopez as a stripper who goes smooth criminal during the Great Recession, is getting some great reviews. I’m going against the grain on this one, for I find it derivative, boring and hampered by a shallow script. Why has the film been receiving Scorsese comparisons—hey, it has tracking shots!—and high scores on Rotten Tomatoes? I think it’s because of the powers of Jennifer Lopez’s multimillion dollar ass. No question, as talented an actress as Lopez has been in the past (Selena, Out of Sight, shit, I liked her in MaidinManhattan), this is a movie in which Lopez bares and displays her crazily potent ass. I think that this has caused some sort of distraction—disruption if you will—in the movie critic ecosystem. People are so hypnotized by her backside that they fail to recognize the movie kind of blows.

2Little Monsters What starts off as a very funny movie about a loser musician (Alexander England) in Australia goes south fast when it switches to horror after a zombie attack. England is very funny as Dave, who is having relationship problems and winds up living with his sister Tess (Kat Stewart) and nephew, Felix (Diesel La Torraca). The rapport between these three characters is actually really good, but then the action switches to a field trip Felix and Dave go on, one that is quickly besieged by zombies. Lupita Nyong’o is on hand as a music teacher chaperoning the kids as they face the zombie apocalypse, and she does all she can do to make the proceedings interesting. Josh Gad costars as a children’s show host taping an episode on the field trip, and his character is an annoying waste of time. Writer-director Abe Forsythe proves adept at filming straight comedy, but he’s completely lost when it comes to putting worthy zombie mayhem to film. It’s too bad, because England and Nyong’o are quite good together. Maybe they’ll get a chance to share the screen again in a better movie. (Streaming on Hulu.)

4Memory: The Origins of Alien There have been plenty of looks into the making of Ridley Scott’s Alien, most notably when the director’s cut Alien DVDs came out years ago, followed by the special feature saturated Blu-rays. This documentary from director Alexandre O. Philippe is one of the best, although it doesn’t feature new interviews with the likes of Sigourney Weaver or Ridley Scott, who has a couple of archived interview moments. Instead, it talks to folks like Roger Corman, who almost made Dan O’Bannon’s original Alien script on a shoestring budget, while getting the likes of Tom Skerritt to sit down for some original insights on the filming. Veronica Cartwright also joins the fray, once again recounting the great story of witnessing the chest-burster scene live. The movie goes beyond typical behind-the-scenes looks, tracing the origins of Alien back to some old timey comics depicting Navy sailors accidentally eating alien eggs. For fans of the movie and moviemaking, it’s fascinating. (Available for streaming during a limited theatrical release.)

1Rambo: Last Blood Sylvester Stallone takes his iconic John Rambo character and places him in what amounts to little more than an ultraviolent MAGA wankathon in Rambo: Last Blood, easily the worst film in the franchise and one of the worst in Stallone’s career. The Rambo movies have been on a slow downhill slide from the beginning. First Blood was awesome, Rambo: First Blood Part II was fun and silly, Rambo III was passable action fare but a little tired, and Rambo (2008) was a bit of a drag, albeit with some decent action scenes and carnage. Rambo: Last Blood is an abomination. As a Rambo/ Stallone fan, I wish I could pretend it didn’t happen. Stallone has said he will continue to play this character if the film is a success. I almost want this piece of crap to be a success so we can get a better swan song for Rambo. It would be a shame for the saga to end this way. 10.17.19 | RN&R | 23