Interstellar (2014)

Interstellar (2014)

Director: Christopher Nolan

Cast: Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, Michael Cain, Jessica Chastain, Wes Bentley, John Lithgow, Ellen Burstyn 

I’ve always been interested in the far reaches of space, because to me, it’s out there where the greatest mysteries lie. Where does the universe end and what is out there in the vastness of space? And of course, the big one is: are we alone in the universe? I can go on and on formulating questions about space, because that’s all it is, one big question, one gigantic mystery. Which is why I love movies like Interstellar; they play with the idea that the universe begs to be explored. Why the hell isn’t an effort being made to truly explore the universe? Why isn’t a huge spaceship being built for humans to travel through space for long periods of time like in Star Trek or The Black Hole (1979)? I mean, I don’t think that idea is that farfetched. Instead, as of 2014, funding has been cut for NASA, so there’s less of an interest in space exploration, at least from the government’s point of view. Their logic is being that we have more pressing problems to deal with down here on earth; space exploration isn’t really a priority for the United States right now. Sigh. But anyways, at least we can toy with the idea through films like Interstellar.

On this film earth is being ravaged by dust, huge dust storms are engulfing the earth and its becoming mighty hard for humans to live here, everyone is getting sick, coughing, dying. But worry not! The scientists at NASA have discovered a black hole near Saturn. They've sent astronauts through it and discovered that said black hole can lead us to another part of the universe with 12 possibly habitable planets.  But all connection with these astronauts has been lost, and so NASA has decided to send a second mission to see if they can reconnect with these lost astronauts and at the same time explore the planets, to see if it is at all possible to start life in them. Their ultimate goal is to save the human race from extinction. Is this mission a one way ticket to hell? Or will the astronauts get to come back home to their families? Is humanity destined to disappear?

I’m a huge science fiction buff, and while watching Interstellar, I couldn’t help and notice how much the filmmakers borrowed from Arthur C. Clarke’s novels. You see, it just so happens that I’m a devout Arthur C. Clarke reader, I’ve read a lot of his work and well, I just couldn’t help seeing how the guys responsible for Interstellar borrowed heavily from Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010: Odyssey Two, 2061: Odyssey Three and 3001: The Final Odyssey. They even borrowed a bit from the ‘Rendezvous with Rama’ novels, especially when it comes to a cylindrical spaceship that has an artificial sun and an entire community living in it. Landing on a planet made up of a gigantic ocean was seen in 2061: A Space Odyssey, the idea of a man from another era waking up years later to encounter an evolved humanity was swiped from 3001: The Final Odyssey. The robots in the film, which look like walking, talking monoliths are a big wink to fans of 2001; but this was all done purposely, it is quite obvious that Nolan has a hard on for Arthur C. Clarke and his works, so when you watch Interstellar, expect a film with Arthur C. Clarke’s DNA engraved deeply into it.

And it’s not just from Arthur C. Clarke’s books that Nolan borrowed heavily from, he also took a bit from  Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1969), both films are similar in structure. We have super intelligent computers able to think for themselves, we have astronauts going up into space to explore a mystery, we have that whole idea that we are going to be entering and exploring a place never before seen by humanity, “boldly going where no man has gone before”. We even get a scene like the scene in 2001 in which David Bowman goes inside The Monolith and the film turns into this visual trip. So yeah, both of these films share many similarities, there’s even some visual references to Kubrick’s film, but I’ll let you guys spot those.

The biggest mystery in Interstellar is of course, the black hole which the astronauts must traverse. Black holes have always been a mystery to me as well; at one point I started to ask myself, are these things real? I mean, sure we've all heard about black holes, and most of us believe they exist, but has anyone actually ever seen an actual black hole? No, we haven’t. We simply have an idea of what it could be. Much like in 2001: A Space Odyssey, where we have this strange and mysterious monolith floating up in space, we also have a strange space anomaly in Interstellar: the Black Hole. From what I hear, Nolan enlisted on the help of a physicist in order to get the whole concept of black holes and worm holes as accurate and scientifically correct as possible. From a visual angle, the whole black hole/worm hole thing looks fantastic, it is obviously a highlight of the film. On the other hand, when the film starts talking about fourth and fifth dimensions, relativity theory and multiverses, things might get a bit convoluted for some, but you won’t be able to deny that visually, it’s stunning. I did manage to hear an “I don’t get it” from the audience.

As far as entertainment value goes, well, there’s lots of spectacle here, but let me tell it to you straight, this films emphasis is on teasing your brain, it’s more of a cerebral picture, it likes to explore ideas hardly explored, it likes to go places we haven’t been before. I mean, sure we’ve seen movies that depict black holes before, for example The Black Hole (1979) andEvent Horizon (1997), but none of these movies have shown us a scientifically accurate portrayal of one, and here we got Interstellar to do that. The movie is a love letter to Arthur C. Clarke, and really there’s no better sci-fi author that Nolan could be ripping off from. What I would like for Christopher Nolan to do, because it seems to me after seeing Interstellar that he’s one of the most qualified to do it, is direct a film based on Clarke’s Rama novels. Now those movies really do tackle the mysteries of the universe! A movie based on ‘Rendezvous with Rama’ has been planned for years now, but as I type this, it’s still in development hell. So anyhow, what we got here my friends is one of the best films of the year, if you enjoy films that dabble in philosophy and the mysteries of the universe. Me? I’m a sucker for the mysteries of the universe because if you ask me, it’s those big mysteries we should always aim to know more about. 

Rating: 5 out of 5

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension (1984)

Title: The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8^thDimension (1984)

Director: W.D. Richter

Cast: Peter Weller, John Lithgow, Jeff Goldblum, Ellen Barkin, Christopher Lloyd, Lewis Smith, Robert Ito, Clancy Brown, Vincent Schiavelli

Review:

Sometimes, a films premise can be so outlandish and weird, so unpredictable, that movie studios just don’t know how to sell it to the masses. As a result, these “weird films” usually die a quick death at the box office. An example is John Carpenter’s Big Trouble In Little China (1986) which 20^th Century Fox simply didn’t know what to do with. How the hell do you sell a movie about a truck driver who ends up fighting Chinese ghosts in an underground Chinese temple? Exactly! So Big Trouble in Little China went the way of the dinosaur and disappeared from theaters. These films aren’t necessarily bad films, sometimes they are just not what audiences are accustomed to, they can’t be explained in a simple way to the masses. And trust me, this is what studios prefer: films that can be explained in a sentence, a caption, a tagline. For Hollywood, when it comes to selling a film, simplicity is of the essence. If your movie is too complicated a sell, it will either get a limited release, or go straight to dvd, either way, your film isn’t going to get much exposure. Often time, the films tagline will let you know that you’re in for a weird movie, for example the tagline for Big Trouble in Little China was “A Mystical, Action, Adventure, Comedy, Kung Fu, Monster, Ghost Story!” The tagline for The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8^thDimension was “Expect the Unexpected. He does.” which I have to admit is pretty accurate description of the film, and it’s exactly what makes it so damn watchable. It is extremely unpredictable.

Buckaroo Banzai is a fascinating character in my book. He is that kind of character that is a genius and therefore knows how to do practically everything, which became a funny gag to me. Let’s see Buckaroo Banzai is an excellent brain surgeon, lead singer and lead guitar player of a rock and roll band called ‘Buckaroo Banzai and the Hong Kong Cavaliers', in which he also plays the trumpet! Buckaroo is also a scientist who experiments with interdimensional travel, and ends up being the first human being to travel  through solid matter! If you can believe it, he is also a Samurai. He part times as a super hero, and is also one of the founding fathers of the ‘Banzai Institute for Biomedical Engineering and Strategic Information’ amongst other things that I’m sure are not mentioned in the film. With the help of one Dr. Hikita, Buckaroo invents the ‘Oscillation Overthruster’ a device that allows humans to travel through solid matter and into other dimensions! Unfortunately, it also opens a door for aliens from Planet 10 (called ‘Red Lectroids’) to escape from the 8^th Dimension! Now, these Red Lectroids want to go back to their home planet so they can rule it with an iron fist and they want to use Buckaroo’s Oscillation Overthruster to do it! Will Buckaroo and his Hong Kong Cavaliers find a way to stop them before it’s too late?

So yeah, this movie is fascinating to me in many ways. I like it because you feel like your falling right smack in the middle of a movie already in progress; this my friends, is not a film that will stop and explain every single little thing for you. This movie might have an outlandish plotline and a comic book premise, but it’s a film that expects you to be quick, to pay attention, this is not the kind of film where your brain can just wonder off, you have to pay attention to every single bit of dialog, or you’ll be lost on your way. Which is what I like about it, it’s a strange thing: a silly movie written by intelligent people. Yeah, it’s complicated in some ways, but not impossible to decipher as some might have you believe. Actually, if you stick with it, the inside jokes can be very rewarding!

Part of what makes this one so enjoyable is the amazing ensemble cast! We get Peter Weller playing Buckaroo, the main character in the film. He comes off as totally likable, like he’s this guy who knows everything about everything, the kind of guy you wish you could be, if you had the brain of a genius. I wish we could have seen more of his Samurai side. Then we have his gang of sidekicks, The Hong Kong Cavaliers, all geniuses themselves. One of them is played by Jeff Goldblum, who for some reason dresses up as a cowboy for the whole freaking film! Then we get the beautiful Ellen Arkin playing the role of Penny Priddy, boy does she look hot on this one! She pops up in the film as this depressed girl who wants to commit suicide, but is saved by Buckaroo, who detects her sadness in the middle of one of his rock and roll shows. Then we get a trio of Red Lectroids played by Christopher Lloyd, Dan Hedaya and Vincent Schiavelli. I mean, what’s not to like about this awesome cast? Everybody seems to be having a blast here; everybody got the spirit and tone of the film just right.  

There are political symbolisms to be found in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai and I think that in order to completely understand it, we have to be conscious of the political climate of the 80’s, the fear of nuclear meltdown and the cold war.  This is yet another film that reflects society’s fears and concerns of the time. Like many of the films of the 80’s (War Games (1983) and The Manhattan Project (1985) for example) the fear of nuclear meltdown at the hands of the Russians is felt. The “Red Lectroids from Planet 10” are a clear allusion to the Russians, who were enemies to the Americans at the time. Russians have always been described as “Reds” by the Americans, same as the villains in the film are the “Red Lectroids”. The fear of nuclear meltdown is felt in one scene in which an alien race threatens to destroy Russia, and Perfect Tommy, one of Buckaroo’s right hand men says “The Russians might misinterpret the attack as an American strike; they’re already a little trigger happy!” and yet another allusion to how conscious people where of this nuclear tension can be seen in a moment in which an alien being tells Buckaroo and his team:  “If you fail, we will be forced to help you destroy yourselves” In this way, the filmmakers point at humanities tendency to threaten our own existence with nuclear weapons. 

The villain of the film is played by the great John Lithgow, who is running on all cylinders on this one, playing the over the top villain ‘Lord John Whorfin’ a.k.a. Dr. Lizardo. He is the leader of the Red Lectroids that are scattered on earth. Lord John Whorfin is portrayed as a crazy fascist dictator “not unlike your Hitler”. He runs a company called ‘Yoyodine Propulsion Systems’; which is really a front for the Red Lectroids headquarters. The Red Lectroid’s headquarters has speakers blaring systematic brain washing messages like “The only joy is the joy of duty! Work, work, work!”  So this is a film that though funny and totally zany, is also heavy on political themes.  The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai might seem like a crazy movie to some, but at heart, it plays with a lot of important issues; the filmmakers where just having fun (and lots of it) as they said their piece with this film.

But I don’t want to make it sound like this is a film with a boring political agenda or what have you, nope; this movie is tons of zany fun. It is a completely offbeat film, right down to it's closing credits. It has so many ideas going for it that you feel like it is a set up for future films, as if a whole universe had been created and we were just seeing the tip of the iceberg. In actuality, more Buckaroo Banzai films were planned, proof of this is the promised sequel mentioned during the closing credits: Buckaroo Banzai vs. The World Crime League. They even hint at this planned  sequel when they talk about a villain called ‘Hanoi Xan’, the leader of the World Crime League. Sadly, this sequel never came to be because the first and only film failed horribly at the box office. Its failure can be attributed to its convoluted nature, but it also faced tough completion at the box office! Buckaroo Banzai went up against such smash hits as Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) and Ghostbusters (1984), so it didn’t exactly get it easy at the box office; plus it was released in only a limited amount of theaters. But as it often happens with good films, Buckaroo Banzai has found its audience in home video, and its cult following grows. There’s been various Buckaroo Banzai novels and comic books released throughout the years, so you might want to look into those of if you can’t get enough of Buckaroo Banzai. Here’s hoping some day it gets the reboot treatment, because if you ask me, this things got potential!

Rating:  4 out of 5

80’s Techno Thriller Double Feature: The Manhattan Project (1986) and WarGames (1983)

The 80’s were a fun decade for me; I lived through the whole Breakdance craze of the 80’s, with b-boys and girls breakin’ on the streets, I witnessed many a dance battle during my lunch break in school, I lived for collecting comic books (still do actually), I played street football, I watched ‘V’ and ‘Knight Rider’ religiously on television, and though I was having a blast, I wasn’t fully aware that the 80’s was also a decade were people lived “under the shadow of a mushroom cloud” meaning that nuclear holocaust loomed heavy on everyone’s mind. Dying in a nuclear attack was a very real possibility on peoples’ minds back in those days. Those were the days of the Cold War, when the Americans and the Russians had the whole world frightened with their nuclear possibilities. Though neither of the countries ever engaged in actual war, they had the nuclear capabilities to erase themselves from the planet, all they had to was press a button and we’d vanished in a matter of seconds, turned to cinders by political madmen.

During the 50’s, people were very afraid of the Atomic Bomb, this fear seeped into  popular culture and movies (as fears commonly do) and as a result we got a lot of movies about giant animals who mutated due to radiation exposure. Films like Godzilla (1954), Tarantula (1955) and Them!  (1954) appeared as a direct result of this Atomic Fear.  The Cold War, which supposedly ended in 1991 spawned its own nuclear themed series of films: The China Syndrome (1979), The Atomic Café (1982), Silkwood (1983), Testament (1983) and the two films I’ll be talking about today: WarGames (1983) and The Manhattan Project (1986), among other films made for television. I decided to talk about both of these films together because they are both about whiz kids who figure out a way to mess with nuclear weapons and the governments defense systems.  

In John Badham’s  WarGames we meet David (played by a very young Matthew Broderick) a computer whiz kid whose figured out a way to use computers and the internet in his favor. He hacks into airlines and reserves flights to Paris for him and his friends. With a few keystrokes, he both changes his grades and breaks into a video game manufacturers’ data banks to steal their latest video games. Funny thing is how out dated all the technology in this film is! I mean floppy disks where the size of vinyl records for crying out loud! To use the internet they had to hook up a real phone to a machine…it was funny to see all this old technology that at the time must have seemed like cutting edge stuff. Yet it’s still cool to see David hack his way through anything, even if he is using ancient technology, it’s the principal that counts. The guy can get away with bloody murder with a few keystrokes!  How cool! 

  

For David, problems arrive one day when he accidentally hacks into a government computer that simulates nuclear war scenarios. David innocently decides to play with the computer, thinking it’s just a game, but suddenly, the game turns real as the computer decides to really activate the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Things get pretty intense, because the fate of the human race rests in the hands of this kid and ‘Joshua’ the governments computer. This film reminded me a lot of all of those movies where computers go bad and want to destroy everything. Films like Stanly Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), in which HAL, the computer that flies a spaceship goes rogue and decides to turn against its creators. It also reminded me of Eagle Eye (2008) starring Shia LaBeouf, yet another film that presents us with the idea of a computer that starts thinking on its own and decides to kill everyone in government because according to it, they are not doing a good job of running the country. This also happens in John Carpenter’s Dark Star (1974), where an astronaut has to actually reason with a computer (by philosophizing with it) in order to make it understand that earth doesn’t have to be blown up with a nuclear device. In WarGames we have a computer named ‘Joshua’.  Will Joshua learn that with nuclear war nobody wins?

WarGames is all about how no one really wants to blow each other up to smithereens, not even the guys who are supposed to press the button want to do it. I liked how WarGames explored that idea; if the time came to push a button that would result in the death of 20 million people, would you do it? Would you press that button? Would you want to be the one responsible for that much death? The film helps us see that no one wants to have that in their conscience; that everybody is that much happier when the bombs don’t go off. It’s the idea that nuclear power is simply too much power in the hands of us bumbling, idiotic, mistake making humans. In the words of one of the characters in the film: “Your defense system sucks!”

There’s lots of tension in those scenes when the computer is just about to blow us all to hell, and I have to hand it to director John Badham for playing with the visuals during those last scenes in the war room. During those scenes, Badham expertly plays with sound, music and editing as if he was directing a philharmonic orchestra, great stuff. WarGames wasn’t the only technology gone bad movie Badham did, he also directed Blue Thunder (1983) where an ultra modern helicopter built for surveillance is taken by its pilot, who has a crisis of conscience as to the helicopters real purpose. He also directed Short Circuit (1986), a film in which a robot designed for military purposes becomes conscious of itself and decides that he doesn’t want to kill, he’d rather dance with Ally Sheedy and chase grass hoppers. So I’d say that this anti-military, anti-war message has been a constant in many of Badham’s films.

In WarGames, David accidentally hacks into the governments computer and thinks he is playing a game called “Global Thermonuclear War” with the governments computer, but when he realizes what he’s done, he does his best to stop the computer from starting World War III, which makes him the hero of the film. This is not the case with The Manhattan Project (1986), which portrays the whiz kid as more of a threat because it puts the power of the atomic bomb in the hands of a high school whiz kid named Paul, who thinks it would be a good idea to steal plutonium from a government laboratory that’s in his neighborhood; in order to make his own home made atomic bomb and expose the militaries secret nuclear experiments.  Apparently, nobody knows that in this facility the military experimenting with plutonium and nuclear power. Paul thinks the people of his town have a right to know this, so he plans on building a bomb and submitting it as a project for his high school science project.

The whole thing starts when one of the scientists working in the military facility wants to date Paul’s mom. In order to get the kid to like him, the scientist (played by John Lithgow) decides to give Paul a tour of the lab. Paul is thrilled to get a tour of the place, because he is a geeky genius and he loves all that techno stuff. But he soon realizes that these scientists are playing with plutonium. He then decides to steal some of it to create his own bomb.

After that, it’s a game of “let’s chase the whiz kid before he blows us all up” type of deal. Again, same as in WarGames, there are some very tense moments when everyone is afraid to be blow to bits. That whole scene where they are attempting to disarm the bomb, was all played very well, the film ends up being entertaining; the difference between WarGames and The Manhattan Project is that The Manhattan Project gets a little more philosophical with its ideas; it has scenes of the scientist and the kid reasoning out things about the nature of nuclear weapons and the reason for their existence, I guess in a way it has more of an edge to it.

Another difference between these two films is the way their main characters are handled. While David in WarGames comes off as a hero, the same cannot be said for Paul in The Manhattan Project. Some people find the character of Paul controversial because he contradicts himself. He wants to expose the “evil government lab” but creating a nuclear bomb himself, and puts everyone around him in peril. Doesn’t Paul think he’s exposing himself, his family and friends, not to mention his town and hell, a couple of states to the dangers of nuclear holocaust? These questions are definitely worth considering, because when we get down to it, he is actually a terrorist. I guess one could argue that he’s trying to make a point in a very extreme way, or that the kid is simply a confused, messed up product of the times. He is scared of dying in a nuclear attack, but then again, Paul is never portrayed that way. Had they portrayed him as a kid who is up to date with world news, and worried about nuclear attacks, maybe it would have made more sense. Still, I get what they were trying to say with the film, and it’s an interesting premise, also, at one point Paul finds a four leaf clover and he thinks this is a mutation that comes as a result of the secret experiments, so that motivates him to do something, I guess he just went about it the wrong way. My only gripe with the film is that Paul’s actions defy logic and reason, and him being a whiz kid and all, he could have come up with something better. His actions come off as arrogant, he might want to expose the military, but it also seems he simply wants to have the glory of being the first kid to create a nuclear bomb in his own house, I just think they could have developed the character a bit further.

I personally liked WarGames a bit more because it’s more exciting, more cinematic. The Manhattan Project has a television movie feel to it. It does have the excellent John Lithgow to liven things up though; and I’ve always enjoyed his performances, in my book he is a solid actor that should have had a bigger career. In the end, I don’t think The Manhattan Project is a bad film, it does take its anti-war message across, it just does so in a strange way. The main character doesn’t come off as likable at all. In the end, he comes off as a crazy kid who could have killed a hell of a lot of people. He certainly could have found different ways to expose the military base, like maybe a protest? But I guess then we wouldn’t have a movie. In the end, what I like about both of these films is the message they want to give us: blowing people up with nuclear weapons is just not cool, pass it on.

Rating WarGames (1983): 4 out of 5

 Rating The Manhattan Project (1986): 3 ½ out of 5

The Campaign (2012)

Title: The Campaign (2012)

Director: Jay Roach

Cast: Will Farrell, Zack Galifianakis, Dan Aykroyd, John Lithgow, Dylan McDermott, Brian Cox

Are you a Republican or a Democrat? Do you believe in a form of government that works for its people? Do you hate the savage way in which political parties throw dirt at each other all over the media? These are the questions you gotta keep in mind when watching The Campaign. I live on the island of Puerto Rico, and boy, political parties here tear each other apart in the media, election time in my country is not not that different from what we portrayed in this new Will Ferrell/Zack Galifianakis/Jay Roach comedy ‘The Campaign’. This film is a sincere and savage satire at the way the political game is played and how dirty it can get. It’s the kind of film that politicians don’t want you to watch because it exposes them for what they truly are: showmen looking to sell you an empty spectacle.

   

Ferrell plays the well oiled politician known as Cam Brady. He’s obviously The Republican candidate who’s the ‘All American Man’ he goes to church, he believes in his country and in supporting this nations troops, he’s a family man with a beautiful wife, and two kids! He also has a mistress on the side, and one night, when he decides to call her up and get kinky with her, he mistakenly ends up calling a Christian’s family’s home and leaves them a particularly nasty sexually charged message on their answering machine. This embarrassing turn of events causes a new candidate to move forward in the political race, his name is ‘Marty Huggins’ played by Zack Galifianakis. Huggins is a leader of the people, a person truly interested in doing something for his town. He tells the people to bring their brooms with him to Washingtonbecause, “It’s a mess!” Who will win this battle; the evil , selfish politician or the one who cares for the interests of the people? 

In my opinion, all the greatest comedies succeed because of the cast. Special effects movies, action movies, they can get away with having mediocre actors because there’s the action, and there are the effects to keep you interested. But in a comedy you can’t risk having bad actors. You have to get truly funny people in there or your reason for being is dead. In order to make your audience laugh, you need good comedians. Ghostbusters (1984), The Blues Brothers (1980), Coming to America(1988), Young Frankenstein (1974), all these super comedies worked because the cast is freaking amazing. Of course, great comedy directors where behind them as well, and it’s the combination of these two elements that make a great comedy. I think this was the case with The Campaign, a film made by some truly funny people and a trusted comedy director: Jay Roach.  

Director Jay Roach 

Ferrell, when he’s good he’s good and on this film he is truly on. I mean the guy is dead funny. I always enjoyed Will Ferrell’s take on president George W. Bush, he was so dead on with his Saturday Night Live sketches; it was always truly funny stuff in my book. The Campaign takes all those satirical sketches that Ferrell did on Saturday Night Live and takes them up to a hundred. Zack Galifianakis, I'm so glad he is on this one playing off of Will Ferrell's character, they are perfect for each other because they are both comedians that are very extreme, they'll go the lengths necessary to make us laugh, so this two explosively funny comedians on the screen is a match made in heaven as far as I'm concerned, I hope this film serves to push Galifianakis's career even further. There’s no mercy for politicians on this movie! I loved that about it, because come one, let’s face it, these political campaigns can get vicious and it’s that viciousness that works like magic on this movie. As it is in the real world, these guys really have no mercy for each other. And for those of you who think this film is only for liberals, well, I’m here to tell you that you’re wrong because both parties are made fun off, but its primordially the rich republicans who get the heat. In this films eyes, Big Money and the politicians who play their evil game are the true villain. In The Campaign big business only cares about financially backing up a politician that they can easily manipulate. Sadly, same as in the real world, there are always politicians more then willing to play along.  These millionaires with huge businesses are the ones who could turn this world around because they have the money to do it, but instead they choose child slavery as an option. They choose to buy the elections, play dirty, keep slavery going in the world, only now they call it ‘less than minimum wage’. So these are the guys that The Campaign aims its guns at, which is actually perfectly alright by me. I think the film has every right to say that Washington is “a mess!”

Jay Roach is a director who has made many a fine comedy, in my book all three of the Austin Powers movies rocked; these are the kinds of comedies I like to watch over and over again. Meet the Parents (2000) and Meet the Fockers (2004), both hilarious in my book. It’s safe to say that Jay Roach has turned into one of those great comedy directors; it seems like Roach will be a mainstay in Hollywood; his comedies are hugely successful most of the time. Ultimately, what I loved most about the film is how it comments on the fakeness of politics, on how it manipulates the masses to think a certain way. The political game portrayed on this film and the one we see in real life are both one big circus attraction, one big show that tries to attract as many zombies as it can with its bright colorful lights, loud music and it’s confetti. They are simply trying to sell you a product that you will ultimately be disappointed by. Wouldn’t it be great if for once they would try to sell us a politician that wouldn’t disappoint?  One that would be worth a damn? The Campaign is well worth the watch, funny every step of the way and unafraid to sshow things the way they are, it gets a couple of extra points simply for that in my book!

Rating: 4 out of 5