A gripping survival story in the Andes

 

Wait. Haven't I seen this movie before? 

Vague memories of Frank Marshall's 1993 Alive flickered through my mind while watching Society of the Snow, the real-life story of the crash of a 1972 flight that was transporting a Uruguayan rugby team to Chile for a tournament. 

  Sixteen people survived the crash after spending 72 days in a frozen section of the Argentine Andes. Twenty-nine of the passengers died, either in the crash or shortly after it.

   Director J.A. Bayona’s  version of this harrowing story may have a predecessor but its vividly created drama of survival still grips us.

  Bayona replaces American actors with a Spanish-speaking cast that gives the movie an authenticity that matches the frozen world he convincingly depicts.

  Wear a sweater while watching because you’ll feel the bone-chilling cold that threatens the lives of passengers stranded with so little food that they ultimately face an horrific decision. Would they eat the dead?

  Bayona and his team recreate the horror of the crash, the bone-rattling impact that occurs when the plane flies into a mountain, shearing off its back end. 

  What begins as a celebratory trip for the Old Christians Club rugby team becomes a sustained nightmare. Planes fly overhead, but don't spot the survivors. Hope begins to wane.

  The characters spend much of their time huddling in the carcass of the downed plane as the prospect of cannibalism looms. The decision prompts serious discussions about the implications of the choice. Do such extreme circumstances justify extreme actions? 

  The forbidding environment and the battle against it dominate character development, although Bayona includes enough background about a few of the characters to flavor the movie with humanity.

   Society of the Snow works as a stripped-down survival epic, but its moral questions are as stark, alarming, and real as the rugged peaks that trapped those who lived through the crash.

   

The dinos return, but where's the fear?

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom falls short as big helping of entertainment.

If there's any emotional heft in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, it stems from the fate of the movie's genetically engineered dinosaurs. At this point in their big screen lives, these innocent creatures have come to represent a natural state that greedy humans have altered and abused. Some will get behind the wrath of the dinos, which is directed mostly at bad folks who want to profit from their revived existence (Gasp!) even turn them into the world's most deadly weapons. Had the picture been better, I might have joined them.

Director J.A. Bayona, known for his 2007 horror opus The Orphanage, limits his achievement by adhering to the required action formula. Here's a clue: The movie's dialogue relies heavily on the word "run." The fact that people need to tell one another to flee as massive thundering creatures approach at full speed stands as a greater indictment of human intelligence than anything else in this protracted stompfest.

Fallen Kingdom leans heavily on action while shortchanging build up, but I took the multiple instances in which Chris Pratt -- reprising his role as a kind of dino whisperer -- was slimed by various creatures as a welcome helping of self-mockery on the part of Bayona and his CGI crew. The movie could have used more such flippancy.

In the last Jurassic World film, Pratt teamed with Bryce Dallas Howard . The two reunite for an adventure in which a wealthy benefactor (James Cromwell) tries to save dinosaurs from imminent extinction by taking them off an island on which an active volcano is about to erupt.

Howard's Claire recruits a Pratt's Owen, who -- of course -- initially plays hard to get. He's busy building a cabin in the isolated woods and has had enough of dinosaurs. Still, he answers Claire's call.

Additions to the series include a nervous computer expert (Justice Smith) who provides some of the movie's many screams and a young woman (Daniella Pineda) who seems to function as a kind of punk veterinarian.

Of course, an evil military type also must crop up. Enter Ted Levine as Ken Wheatley, the brutally duplicitous organizer of the rescue mission. Keep your eye an assistant (Rafe Spall) to Cromwell's character, a guy who immediately becomes suspect by being too damn nice for his own good.

The movie divides its time between the island and the estate created by Cromwell's Benjamin Lockwood. Thanks to manipulations of plot that needn't be spelled out here, the dinos wind up on the estate, where they eventually race around, somewhat unexpectedly, indoors.

Lockwood's granddaughter Maisie (Isabella Sermon) joins in an effort to save the dinos from profiteers who eventually bring in an auctioneer (Toby Jones) to conduct the world's most malign rare species sale.

The dinosaurs have human allies, but the movie's heart belongs to Blue, a human-friendly velociraptor that was trained by Owen in the last movie. Unlike any of the human characters, Blue shows a degree of inner conflict: She must decide which humans to protect and which to turn into lunch.

The movie also includes a prologue and epilogue in which Jeff Goldblum, as a scientist testifying before a Senate Committee, condemns the hubris that was required to create these genetic marvels in the first place. He advises against rescuing the dinosaurs; for him, the pending volcanic eruption represents an opportunity for a reset.

Bayona can't entirely escape the trap of open-mouthed acting that often results from an extensive reliance on CGI: This involves asking actors to gawk at the special effects or scream with fear as the digitally created dinos bear their predatory teeth.

Braced by familiarity with this franchise, I seldom -- if ever -- shared the fear. We know the genre too well (and so does Bayona) to get beyond the rote deliverance of one action set piece after another as the movie stomps its way toward the ending that inevitably (and finally eerily) opens the door for the next chapter. I'm betting we'll see a lot more running, chomping and wholesale swallowing of those who trample ethical considerations in their relentless quest for profit.

What exactly these miscreants will do with all their money in a world they seem eager to destroy remains a mystery.

A monster calls, a boy listens

A 12-year-old struggles with the looming death of his mother.

Few movies deal with what happens when a child must confront the death of a loved one. Fair to say, then, that A Monster Calls musters considerable courage in taking on a difficult subject by telling the story of Conor (Lewis MacDougall), a 12-year-old boy who's losing his mother (Felicity Jones) to cancer.

Adapted from a YA novel by Patrick Ness, who based his story on an idea by Siobhan Dowd, another YA novelist who really did die of cancer, A Monster Calls plumbs young Conor's imagination by introducing him to a tree monster (voiced by Liam Neeson) who guides the boy through what may turn out to be the worst period of his life.

The monster follows a tough love approach, reinforced by Neeson's fine voice performance. The monster doesn't coddle Conor, but informs him that he'll be told three stories (beautifully animated set pieces within the movie) before learning the most important truth pertaining to his situation.

Conor isn't entirely captivated by the stories, which the monster concludes with some observations that probably are too directly expressed: People occupy various places on the moral spectrum at various times; few are entirely good or irredeemably bad; sometimes bad deeds have positive outcomes.

Aside from his mother's condition, Conor has other worries. He's bullied at school, and he dreads the prospect of living with his stern grandmother (Sigourney Weaver) after his mother dies. Conor's dad (Toby Kebbell) has moved to America, and has started a new family.

Director J.A. Bayona does a fine job mixing the movie's live action, animation and effects-driven scenes, so much so that the movie's somber mood may remind you of something that another Spanish director (Guillermo del Toro) might have rendered -- albeit in even more ominous fashion.

The performances are all good; it's particularly refreshing that MacDougall isn't a generically cute movie kid.

It's also touching that Conor and his mom are soulmates in the world of the imagination. Both have artistic inclinations. Perhaps that's how Conor learned to use his imagination both to cope with and escape from a situation he doesn't want to face.

I could go on, but let me say the most important thing: The movie put a lump in my throat, even as I wondered whether adults will want to see what can be construed as a kids' movie -- even if it really isn't a kids' movie of standard-issue variety. It's possible that A Monster Calls is more a movie about a kid than a movie for kids, particularly younger ones.

And some of the scenes may challenge parents to do some explaining, notably one in which a furious Conor destroys his grandmother's living room, an instance in which Conor vents his darker impulses.

Despite such cautions, Bayona and company have managed to make a movie that doesn't shrink from a difficult subject. Good for them -- and good for those viewers willing to give it a try.

After all, it's worth remembering that not everything that happens in childhood qualifies as kid stuff.