The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005)

Director: Garth Jennings

Cast: Martin Freeman, Mos Def, Sam Rockwell, Zooey Deschanel

Have I Seen it Before: I’m fairly sure I had? Although, as  the ending of this version of the story plays out, my memory felt a little fuzzy. That might have more to do with me having read the novel a few times over the years, and that version remains solid in my head.

Did I Like It: At the time of release, a number of sources questioned the casting of Mos Def as Ford Prefect, despite Adams himself saying that Arthur Dent (Freeman) was the only character who needed to be British. I don’t need to guess as to people’s objection to Mos Def, because it’s pretty obvious on the face of it, and I think he’s perfectly cast in the role, channeling a being of pure eccentricities through the film.

The problem is that Prefect is far too truncated in the context of a feature motion picture, so much so that he is delightfully daffy for the film’s opening minutes, and then is relegated to merely a passenger on board the Heart of Gold. It’s a real shame that the film felt the need to find some kind of restrictive structure for itself, and in doing so opted to be a romantic comedy film which could just as easily been titled When Arthur Met Trillian.

I’ve often thought that certain properties are best suited to certain formats. Batman is more at home in a monthly comic book. Star Trek is at its best on hour-long TV. Star Wars reaches its maximum potential in feature-length movies*. Hitchhiker’s is probably better off as either a radio series or in prose. Things are less limiting there.

*And can we be really honest? Only did so in its first two times at bat.

Cowboys & Aliens (2011)

Director: Jon Favreau

Cast: Harrison Ford, Daniel Craig, Olivia Wilde, Sam Rockwell

Have I Seen it Before: Yep.

Did I Like It: On spec, this a movie I’d be there for opening weekend, which I was. Harnessing the best parts of John Ford and Sergio Leone to tell a hybrid tale incorporating the quintessence of Spilebergian awe and wonder? The film practically makes itself.

Except, it didn’t. For the years since the film’s release and lukewarm reception, that failure seemed like a mystery to me. Were people so bothered by the mere existence of a post-modern western that they couldn’t wrap their heads around the idea of having fun with the prospect? Is the same thing that causes people to bafflingly look down on Back to the Future Part III (1990) still unfairly affecting the moviegoing public twenty years later?

On this viewing, I don’t think so. At the very least, I don’t think that reflexive boredom with cowboys doomed this film to be instantly forgotten. That sense in the movie watching public may yet exist, but the movie’s problems exist beyond. For two out of three acts, the film is a good homage to those classic westerns and is well on its way to be one of those brilliant genre mashups that—like the Cornetto films of Edgar Wright—stand the test of time. And then the conclusion is a mishmash of cliches not of every movie it is trying to emulate, but every frozen TV dinner action movie released around the same time. Many of those films were written by the same writers who wrote this film, and that is a pretty good reason why most of them don’t write feature films anymore*.

The film has good performances. Daniel Craig cuts a convincing mysterious cowboy figure, especially when one considers that Robert Downey Jr. was originally cast in the role. While charming, he would have been completely wrong for the role as it was eventually presented, and even for the genre, now that I think about it. Even Harrison Ford looks like he’s mostly awake through the film, in an era of his performances where that was pretty rare. Had the film tried just a little bit harder and reached for a little bit more in its conclusion, it could have been something really great. Then again, Favreau certainly has proven his adeptness with similar material with The Mandalorian. Maybe if the focus had been on the aliens, and the cowboys were secondary, we’d be having a different discussion now.

*Granted, Lindelof was always better at TV and returned where he could unfurl his true skills. Kurtzman is a better producer than he ever was a writer, although many current viewers of Star Trek might take great pains to disagree that he’s worth anything. Roberto Orci can’t seem to get projects off the ground anymore, which feels like something approaching justice.

Never Give Up, Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary (2019)

Director: Jack Bennett

Cast: Sigourney Weaver, Tim Allen, Sam Rockwell, Justin Long

Have I Seen it Before: Nope. It had been on my list of things to watch on Amazon Prime for a while, though.

Did I Like It: It’s a mostly fine film, of a piece with other fan celebration documentaries like Back in Time (2015), Ghostheads (2016), or What We Left Behind (2019). The stars are interviewed. The fans are interviewed. Hopefully a couple of things the viewer didn’t previously know are examined, or at least examined more deeply than they were previously known. Everyone who liked the original thing comes away with a nice warm feeling. It isn’t the cutting edge of documentary, but I can easily think of worse ways to spend an hour and a half.

I had known at one point that the late, great, Harold Ramis had once been on board to direct the film but dropped out. He made Analyze This (1999), a film that would have likely collapsed in on itself without Ramis, so everything worked out. I had no clue that it was largely over the casting of Allen, and it was nice to hear that there were no harsh feelings over the issue, just an honest disagreement.

The debate over the casting of Jason Nesmith/Commander Taggart is the most revelatory information. Ramis’ number one choice of Kevin Kline would have been interesting, as he is a comedic actor of the first order, but his on screen persona has always felt far away from the Shatner energy that Allen would be charged with channeling. Bruce Willis and/or Alec Baldwin might have worked, but only if they believed in the movie. Either one of the sleep walking through the film wouldn’t have worked, and the whole film would probably be unwatchable in the here and now if Mel Gibson fought the rock monster.

The one failing of the film is that it didn’t take a deeper dive in the one subject this film could touch on, and we aren’t likely to see any elaboration on anywhere else. Just before the inimitable Alan Rickman passed away, production was going full speed ahead on a sequel miniseries for Amazon Prime. They talk about briefly, and with appropriate sadness, but What We Left Behind creates hypothetical future material for that series out of nothing. This film doesn’t touch on where the characters ended up and what they would be doing now, and there were even scripts written on that project. It’s a missed opportunity in an otherwise perfectly fine experience.

Galaxy Quest (1999)

Director: Dean Parisot

Cast: Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shaloub, Sam Rockwell

Have I Seen it Before: Oh, come on. What do you think? I saw it opening weekend.

Did I Like It: It’s beloved for the reason. Many people count it among the best Star Trek films, and even a few people place it as number one, ahead of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982). That, to me, feels like too much.

The special effects don’t age exceptionally well, yet another casualty of relatively early CGI without a lot of artistry behind them. The space battles and weird phenomena (more on that later) probably wouldn’t pass muster on a Star Trek television series from the same era.

But that hardly matters. The Wrath of Khan is the best version of these films, and large swaths of its VFX footage are pulled directly from the previous film. This film is great great. Every joke lands, and the thought that Tim Allen could give a performance that has any sort of dramatic believability without shielding himself with Pixar’s plastic seems ridiculous, but there he is, making us believe in Nesmith’s anguish at having to be found out as a fraud. The movie absolutely hinges on that scene, and he delivers.

I would say it is inarguably in the top half of Trek films, and just precisely where in the ranking depends on your average. The film precisely hits all of the targets it wishes to satirize, while never looking down on the subject, minus a chomper sequence or two. There are few comedies that work on the same level. A film like Last Action Hero (1993) may aim for the same territory, but struggles to connect on almost every level. The only film I can think of that qualifies is Young Frankenstein (1974). Even Blazing Saddles (1974)* never quite works for me, and I’m imagining most of the world does not want to hear the aggressive shrug I have for Spaceballs (1987).

So why am I not putting it at number 1? Well, primarily, I don’t think I’ll ever let go of my perhaps irrational love of The Wrath of Khan, but more specifically, there is a moment in this film that grates on my nerves and feels like rocks rattling around in my head whenever it plays out. Just at the end, when Tommy Webber (Daryl Mitchell) flies the Protector back to Earth, he says that he has to go through a black hole. Which they then do.

I wouldn’t normally want to reach for the Neal deGrasse Tyson angle of criticism, but that isn’t how wormholes work! Nesmith even asks if there is any objection to going through the black hole, and everyone sort of goes along with it. I do. I have an objection, but they didn’t ask me. Trek and other space opera clearly flies in the face of real science regularly by virtue of its very existence, but that just seemed like a silly moment that doesn’t even function as a joke.

If they had said wormhole, I’d be fine. They edited around Sigourney Weaver saying “fuck,” they couldn’t have fixed this? If it had been, the whole thing might be, as David Mamet of all people claims, one of the few perfect films of all time. As it stands, it is quite excellent.

*Hard to deny that Mel Brooks had a hell of a year in 1974. Regardless of my particular tastes, the only other single calendar year where a single director made two verifiable classics that stand the test of time, is 1939, where both The Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind were credited to Victor Fleming. Although the auteur theory was at least two years away from having any undeniable case studies, and he had to abandon the former in order to take over the later. Here’s a good question: why am I spending all of this time on my review of Galaxy Quest talking about this? The world may never know.

Iron Man 2 (2010)

Director: Jon Favreau

Cast: Robert Downey Jr., Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sam Rockwell

Have I Seen it Before: Sure.

Did I Like It: Yes… But at the same time, it is in fair competition for the worst MCU movie so far.

Just as the original Iron Man (2008) is a great example of the need for shared cinematic universes to start with a great movie first, and then build from here, its sequel is a pointed example of where Marvel has occasionally mis-stepped, and the Distinguished Competition has wallowed. Too much of the movie is devoted to setting up future films. Indeed, the strangely turgid scenes featuring Phil Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) make them seem like their in a waiting room for their future appointments with Thor and Captain America. Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) has the same problem. See Man of Steel (2013), Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), Suicide Squad (2016) and even the supposed culmination of all their efforts, Justice League (2017), or really any DC film that isn’t Wonder Woman (2017) or, maybe, Aquaman (2018) for other examples.

The film feels less vibrant than its predecessor in other ways as well. I feel a need to not speak ill of any appearance of Robert Downey Jr. as the character, as it turns out those appearances are a non-renewable resource, but he feels less funny, more shackled to a pedestrian script here. It’s the last time it will feel this way, and is only more apparent as he continued to inhabit the role. Gone, too, is the visceral creative quality. The sequence of Stark creating a new element (?) is both tacked on and not nearly as satisfying as Stark’s initial creation of the suits in the first film.

And yet there are watchable elements to the movie. The idea of Sam Rockwell as a pale shadow of the cool watchability of Robert Downey Jr’s Tony Stark is the film’s most fully realized idea, and Rockwell swings for the fences. It’s unfortunate that Justin Hammer couldn’t appear in other films, but it quickly becomes clear that Tony Stark is moving on to bigger and badder things.

It sounds like from the above that I am down on the film. It’s still insanely watchable. It’s just not their best effort.

Vice (2018)

Director: Adam McKay

Cast: Steve Carell, Amy Adams, Sam Rockwell, and I shit you not, Richard Bruce Cheney, 46th Vice-President of the United States as himself.

Have I Seen it Before: No. I mean, I saw nearly all of the events indicated play out on TV as they did… But I never saw it like this

Did I Like It: More than I thought I would. Oliver Stone’s W. (2008) never quite came together because it felt like the events were too recent, and the examination of them was too shallow. This is a completely different movie. Richard Dreyfuss, eat your heart out.

We live in weird times. With a series of wacky poncho-related mishaps, becoming Michelle Obama’s refined sugar supply, and managing to join the rest of us in thinking that the clown in the White House needs to go, George W. Bush has increased his likability tenfold. He’s certainly not the worst thing that happened to the republic anymore, but more of a well-meaning idiot who couldn’t live up to the moment in history he inherited.

So, when Adam McKay’s frenetic, nearly schizoid film about the true President of the oughts unfolds, and I begin to respect—if not quite like—the second Vice-President in history to notably shoot a guy, it feels like the normal rules of the universe don’t apply anymore.

But then, McKay deftly pulls the carpet out from under us and reminds everyone that Cheney wasn’t an ironman who was willing to make the tough, yet perhaps, maybe necessary decisions to keep us safe, and has made absolute peace that he is a necessary villain, or to bother a line from a Christian Bale movie I saw once: He’s the hero we need, because he isn’t a hero, and he can take our hate.

Except, he isn’t. In truth, he slithers through the beginning of the movie with a chip on his shoulder, and after he gets his first taste of power, he barrels through the last forty years, wrecking everything along his way, even the things he might have claimed were more important than the power that lifted him from being a dirtbag in the first place.

Seriously, fuck that guy.

…wait, Christian Bale was in this movie? I didn’t notice him. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

The Green Mile (1999)

Director: Frank Darabont

Cast: Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke Duncan, Bonnie Hunt, Sam Rockwell

Have I Seen it Before: Several times, but not nearly as much as that other prison-set Frank Darabont-directed movie based on a Stephen King story.

Did I Like It: I think it’s objectively a depressing movie, so why do I always feel a little uplifted by it the end. Must say more about me than about the movie itself.

There is—to my mind—only one problem with this film. I don’t for one second believe that Dabbs Greer is an elderly Tom Hanks. That being said, somewhere out there in the multiverse is a version of me who watches this film and wishes that they hadn’t put Tom Hanks in old age makeup. So, in the end, art is often about living with imperfections.

Beyond that, the film is great. A year before Patrick Stewart relented to play Charles Xavier in X-Men (2000), Michael Clarke Duncan had the rare distinction of being born to play a particular role in John Coffey. Hanks is Hanks, which may sound like slightly damning praise, but who doesn’t want to watch Tom Hanks in a movie. The rest of the cast is perfection, right down to the slimy Doug Hutchinson playing the odious Percy Wetmore. Between this film and Galaxy Quest being released in the same year, I am struggling to find a one-two punch that introduced a screen persona more efficiently than Sam Rockwell.

A well-cast movie is one thing, but in truth not much of anything if the writing and directing aren’t there. See Justice League (2017) (minus the tag scene) for a pretty good example. Here, Frank Darabont’s skills are unassailable. It’s a shame that he hasn’t directed a movie since The Mist (2007). It’s an even bigger shame that he was fired as showrunner on The Walking Dead after its first—and only watchable—season. It’s yet a bigger shame still that George Lucas relegated Darabont’s draft for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of The Crystal Skull (2008) to the scrap pile. 

It’s a pretty miraculous film that deals with the guards of death row, and still make me want to somehow know these people in real life. They are decent, and in a time with little decency to show for it, that is uplifting, even in the face of tragedy.

Also, and on a slightly unrelated note: I think this book informs this first season of Castle Rock more than any other King work. At press time, there are still a few more episodes left to air. Let's see if I'm right.