Editor’s note: This local movie review by Karolina Garrett is a new weekly feature of the Big Island Entertainment Scene. Films are rated using a system of zero to five “shakas,” with five shakas being the best and zero the worst.
Editor’s note: This local movie review by Karolina Garrett is a new weekly feature of the Big Island Entertainment Scene. Films are rated using a system of zero to five “shakas,” with five shakas being the best and zero the worst.
‘Pan’
“Pan” opened Oct. 9 and for a 12:30 p.m. matinee debut screening at the Regal Cinemas Makalapua in Kona the movie theater seats were two-thirds filled, but an hour and 40 minutes later rarely was an audible laugh or scream heard. That is surprising since director Joseph Wright’s fantasy-driven movie gives the audience reason to wince, duck and chuckle — especially those flying pirate ships — as this quintessential fairy tale plays like “Raiders of the Lost Ark” meets “The Little Rascals,” or the little rascal; Peter Pan carries the flying adventures solo, becoming the predestined wonder child. But clever visual effects, turns out, cannot disguise over-predictable plot twists that leave an audience silent. No matter how earnestly the actors try to breathe 3-D life into the flat characters, the lackluster story arc fails to woo us into movie Never Never Land.
‘The Martian’
A few nights prior to the Oct. 2 opening of “The Martian,” the full moon shone so brightly that my 4-year-old son, who is mixed race African-American and Caucasian, stretched his long legs, resting his head back on the balcony lanai to peer through the $1 telescope we found earlier in the day at a thrift shop. Will my son grow up and lead NASA to an innovative solution as the nerdy astrophysicist does in Ridley Scott’s energizing multi-hero adventure “The Martian”?
Our uncertain age can lean us into jaded as an easy default, but even the familiar comfort zone cannot minimize how important the hero is in movies—every single one of them. “The Martian” has enough heroes to entertain and spike hope in diverse theater audiences that anyone can “just begin,” as Mark Watney (Matt Damon) declares to a class he teaches on how to reach Mars. Everyone can begin to take action on a dream — women and people of color included. Don’t believe yet? How about a soundtrack that belts out spring-in-your step Abba songs and Gloria Naylor’s disco anthem to keeping the self true, “I Will Survive.” The film creates an adventure story that depicts altruism in its infinite moves to launch a community of heros.