Joining the show this week is James Vanderbilt, a veteran screenwriter whose directorial debut, Truth, is out in theaters this weekend. The movie stars Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford and revolves around a the controversial report Dan Rather gave on 60 minutes in 2004 about the alleged fraudulence of George W. Bush’s military record, a piece that would lead to Rather (Redford) and his longtime producer, Mary Mapes (Blanchett) losing their jobs. Also on the show Bernard and CJ run their mouths (as always) about the Mill Valley Film Festival and festival fatigue as well as share their Indie Picks of the Week.

Topics

• Indie Picks (1:17)
• MVFF38 (7:18)
• Festival Fatigue (31:27)
• James Vanderbilt Truth Interview (39:57)

WTI Articles Referenced in the Podcast

MVFF38 Diaries
I Smile Back TIFF Review
Room TIFF Review
Son of Saul Cannes Review
The Forbidden Room Review

Subscribe to the Way Too Indiecast

• Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes
• Subscribe on Stitcher

At this point in the festival, I was more than a little burned out on movies that made me feel down in the dumps. Every single movie I’ve covered so far has dealt with dark subject matter, from Spotlight‘s Catholic church scandal to Miss You Already‘s cancer coping, to I Smile Back‘s onslaught of misery and moping. Even Here Is Harold, while incredibly funny, follows a character digging himself out of a suicidal hole.

My dumpiness reached critical mass when I started day four with Son of Saul, a grimy Holocaust drama by debuting director László Nemes. Suffice it to say, I was not a fun person to be around following the screening. I dreaded heading into my next film, Mitchell Lichtenstein’s Angelica, which was advertised as a “haunting tale of unfed appetites and the damage they can wreak.” That sounded like the last thing I needed to see at the time—but it turned out to be the best thing and my biggest surprise of the festival.

Right Behind You

Before we get to Angelica, I need to talk about Son of Saul, which was, as I alluded to, a devastating experience, and yet also a beautiful, unforgettable one. I’ve been wanting to see it since it won the Grand Prix at Cannes, and it surpassed my expectations. Géza Röhrig plays Saul, a Jewish prisoner of the Nazis and member of the Sonderkommando unit whose job is to stack corpses for incineration. When he finds a body he believes to be his son’s, he makes it his mission to arrange a proper burial while the rest of his unit plots a rebellion against their captors. Immediately striking is director László Nemes and cinematographer Mátyás Erdély’s camerawork, which for long stretches stays inches behind Saul, almost filling the screen with his back as he hurries around the camp, the world around him a literal blur of movement, shape, and color. The effect is astonishing and views the Holocaust in a nightmarish way I’ve never seen before. As you can imagine, an experiential Holocaust film is one of the hardest things one could sit through, but Son of Saul is an outstanding, transcendent work of art that, amazingly, came from a first-time director.

Mommy’s Mental

Heading into Mitchell Lichtenstein’s Angelica, I was a bit of a mess, still reeling from Saul. But my spirits were promptly lifted when the lights dimmed and I was treated to a wonderfully weird Victorian ghost story that had the audience cringing and gasping in the most fun, wickedly delicious way. The movie follows Constance Barton (Jena Malone), a mother forbidden to make love to her husband (Ed Stoppard) following the complicated, life-threatening birth of their daughter, Angelica. When sexual frustration and obsessive over-protectiveness of her daughter begin to wind Constance up beyond recognition, a spectre begins visiting the house, sexually tormenting her and threatening to do the same to young Angelica. Angelica is a deliberately paced mind-bender with exquisite cinematography (from the great Dick Pope) that gets more bizarre and frightening as it goes.

The film lifted me out of my emotional slump, and for that I’m thankful. I was also thankful to be in attendance for the subsequent Q&A with Lichtenstein and Malone, who made a surprise appearance. The audience and talent had a nice rapport, volleying ideas about the film’s rich themes and influences like Henry James and Edgar Allen Poe. Malone even went so far as to say it was the best Q&A audience she’d ever been in front of! My favorite insight came from Malone, who recalled her sister taking the film as a lesbian love story, an angle Malone hadn’t considered.

It’s here. In anticipation for the culmination of the Hunger Games franchise, Katniss and Krew are taking on the Capital in full force. Peeta seems like he’s mentally back…fortunately for the sanity of us all; that might have been the pinnacle of tension to see him flip out on Katniss in the movie prior.

Getting a glimpse of some of his final cinematic scenes, seeing Philip Seymour Hoffman won’t be easy for anyone and will add what can only be a sense of very real tragedy to what looks to be an already tragic final episode. For those that have read the books (we highly suggest you do) we know that there is going to be an overflow of impending bloodshed in store for many a beloved character.

With filming of the battle scenes in France and the Capitol in Berlin, Germany, we’re looking forward to more Natalie Dormer who, according to IMDB, has top billing in this film. However, it looks like Johanna Mason, played by Jena Malone, will officially have the most screen time with Jennifer Lawrence. And we are actually going to be introduced to some new characters in this final call including another familiar face from Game of Thrones, Gwendoline Christie, as Commander Lyme.

Look for the 2D and 3D versions (this is a first for the series) both set for November 19th.

Nicolas Winding Refn has found a trio of talented actresses in Christina Hendricks, Jena Malone and Bella Heathcoat to join his new film The Neon Demon, based on a script by Refn and Mary Laws. They join Elle Fanning and Abbey Lee, whose involvement was announced earlier. Also signed on is Keanu Reeves who is usually at his best when working with visually arresting filmmakers such as Refn.

The Neon Demon, described as a female-centric “horror film about vicious beauty,” will hopefully be yet another interesting entry in Refn’s filmography. Shooting begins at the end of March in Los Angeles, delightful news for anyone anxious to see the filmmaker return to the setting he captured so well with 2011’s Drive.

Paul Thomas Anderson makes time travel look so easy. His films jump into the era of their stories so wholly, you’d think Anderson walked into the past with his film crew and shot on location. Inherent Vice is no different, with a milieu perfected by shag carpet walls, leather couches, big cars, smoke screens, and plenty of ’70s Los Angeles pulp. So if you’re looking for a gumshoe noir, the credentials are there in abundance, right down to a deadpan narrator. But if you’re looking for a satisfying mystery, Inherent Vice is two and a half hours of brain-twisting that incites feelings, though satisfaction may not be among them. The plot of the film is secondary, nay tertiary, to the atmosphere and characters leading it. So don’t feel bad reacting with utter perplexity to the film’s storyline. And in fact if that’s what your after, maybe read Thomas Pynchon’s book first, because at least there you can earmark pages and underline names.

Watching the film is a bit like trying to grab a goldfish in water. The film begins when stoner private investigator Larry ‘Doc’ Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix) receives an unexpected visit from his ex-girlfriend Shasta Fay Hepworth (Katherine Waterston). She spills on him the story of her new man Mickey Wolfmann, a real estate mogul whose wife and her lover have a plan to send him away to the looney bin and take his money. The next day Tariq Khalil (Michael Kenneth Williams) visits Doc at his “office”—a room at a gynecology office Doc uses—and hires Doc to find an old jail acquaintance of his who owes him money. That acquaintance just happens to work for Wolfmann. Doc takes a trip out to see the latest land development of Wolfmann’s and finds a sex shop on the premises. He’s knocked unconscious and wakes up next to the dead body of Khalil’s jail buddy, surrounded by police.

Thus enters Detective Christian “Bigfoot” Bjornsen (Josh Brolin) a partner-less, Hollywood fame-seeking LAPD officer both determined to screw Doc and use him to help in his own investigation. The exchanges among Doc and Bigfoot are some of the best in the film. After Doc’s Gilligan’s Island-style maritime lawyer, Sauncho Smilax (Benicio Del Toro) helps him out of the police station, he is visited by yet another potential client. A young widow and ex-drug user, Hope Harlingen (Jena Malone) asks Doc to track down her husband, Coy, believing him to be alive. Doc finds Coy (Owen Wilson) easy enough—perhaps a little too easy—when Jade, a girl from the sex shop leads Doc to him while simultaneously warning him to “beware the Golden Fang.” When Shasta goes missing herself, more mystery unravels.

Like fellow LA-based noir Chinatown, the heart of corruption runs deep, and neither the police or FBI can be trusted. Doc is led all over town, and up to a backwards detox house in Ojai. Run-ins with an Aryan biker gang and an underground drug cartel invariably lead to higher stakes. But don’t expect to feel too much tension.

The mystery gets more knotted as this film goes on, broken up with moments of drug-addled weirdness and flashbacks of Doc’s memories of being with Shasta. But like I said the point isn’t exactly to follow along. There’s a lot of dialogue, most of it directly related to the plot, so missing any of it can seem frustrating, but this seems to be Anderson’s intention. In this drug-fueled reverie we’re at the liberty of a distractible hippie. The side-show of interesting things happening around Doc, not to mention the rambling nature of most of the loopy and stoned characters, make it easy to miss key revelations Doc encounters as he sleuths. It’s probably the closest thing to being high any clean person could experience.

The momentum sputters somewhat when the film’s MacGuffin is revealed and suddenly Doc’s motivations seem iffy. And there’s still quite a bit of film left after that point. Things get a little too languid before we’re thrown back into the tornado, almost too confused to feel invested. At that point Inherent Vice becomes more about its moments than its whole, but there are some great ones.

An attempt to track down the people behind the Golden Fang corporation leads to an amusing, jittery, dope-fueled escapade with a coked-out dentist, Dr. Blatnoyd (Martin Short at his weirdest best), and an addict runaway named Japonica (Sasha Pieterse). The huge cast is rounded out by Reese Witherspoon as Doc’s Deputy DA girlfriend, Penny, who simultaneously helps and hinders him in his sleuthing.

Despite the obvious adaptation flaws that make for a more unrealistic mystery—the ratio of discoveries Doc makes versus those that seem to just find him is rather disappointing—Anderson has crafted a two and a half hour dream sequence that is trippy but also diverting. And believe me it’s even better the second time around, not to mention necessary if you want to feel that you’re truly grasping the plot.

Phoenix proves over and over that in the hands of Paul Thomas Anderson he’s quite malleable, and with his mutton chops and a simultaneously stoned but pleasant expression, he’s a surprisingly likable anti-hero. Brolin and his flat-top haircut embodies menacing and ridiculous with an interesting charisma. But as Doc’s dream-girl, Katherine Waterston is the obvious breakout from the film. She really does shine, though it’s interesting to note that in many ways Inherent Vice is more of a bromance than a romance as Doc and Bigfoot, and to some degree Doc and Coy, have the more curious dynamics.

Anderson is nothing if not a man attuned to detail and the film’s visuals reflect his carefulness. It’s at all times psychedelic and beautiful. Adding ballast to each crafted frame is a perfectly curated soundtrack. Anderson may have erred on the side of density for what will most likely be considered a stoner film, and it’s not likely to earn respect as his best film by any means, but there’s always pleasure in watching an auteur work. If you give yourself up to the madcap kookiness of it all, Inherent Vice will lead you down the rabbit hole on an enjoyable escape and leave you with a contact high that isn’t at all unpleasant.

Following this morning’s debut of Inherent Vice, writer/director Paul Thomas Anderson and a slew of the film’s cast took the stage at the Walter Reade Theater for a Q&A with assorted press & industry members. Along with Anderson, actors Joaquin Phoenix, Katherine Waterston, Benicio del Toro, Maya Rudolph, Joanna Newsom, Michael K. Williams, Hong Chau, Jena Malone, Owen Wilson, Sasha Pieterse, and Martin Short were all in attendance for the film’s first public screening and subsequent press conference. Tonight, the New York Film Festival and the Film Society of Lincoln Center has uploaded the full talk to their YouTube page for a those eager to hear more about the mysterious new project.

“I saw The Big Sleep and it made me realize I couldn’t follow any of it, and it didn’t matter, ’cause I just wanted to see what was gonna’ happen next anyway,” said Anderson of his influences for Inherent Vice, along with answers to why he shot the film flat vs. scope and how his actors prepared to evoke the 1970s. Check out the full Inherent Vice press conference from NYFF52 below:

Inherent Vice Press Conference

Joaquin Phoenix wanders through a 70s minefield of strange characters with some impressive sideburns in the first trailer released by Warner Bros. for Paul Thomas Anderson‘s new film, Inherent Vice. In the film, based on the Thomas Pynchon novel, Phoenix plays Doc Sportello, a druggie detective searching for his missing ex-girlfriend. Filled with plenty of 70s craziness, the trailer is a bit hard to follow plot-wise, but features the impressive cast joining Phoenix including Josh Brolin, Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson, Jena Malone, Benicio Del Toro, and an incredibly haggard looking Martin Short.

The highly anticipated film has a December 12 release date and is world premiering this Saturday at the New York Film Festival. Be sure to catch our current NYFF coverage and enjoy the trailer below.

Inherent Vice trailer

Sleeping on park benches, in emergency room waiting areas, or the bathtubs of recently evicted apartments, Richard Gere is far from the suave, charming persona he normally assumes in his roles. Directed by The Messenger and Rampart filmmaker Oren Moverman, Time Out of Mind casts Gere in the role of the homeless, alcoholic protagonist shuffling down the busy urban New York City landscapes. As George Hammond (Gere) moves throughout the city he’s treated with varying levels of compassion, both from people he knows and complete strangers.

It’s not until nearly halfway through the movie that George enters a homeless shelter and begins to accept his situation as well as the realities of how much he can expected from those around him, including his estranged daughter (Jena Malone). In the time before then, Time Out of Mind uses an excessive amount short scenes that illustrate daily life on the streets to highlight societal indifference towards the homeless. These scenes intentionally obscure the focus by shooting through windows, the glass panes of doors, and off of rooftops. Likewise, Time Out of Mind layers in the incessant sounds of overheard cell phone conversation and distant police sirens that cannot be avoided in New York City. The effect allows the film to be one of the strongest auditory representations of how the city sounds, but it’s ultimately to the detriment of Oren Moverman’s movie. The techniques are jarring and become frustrating as they feature for a large part of the beginning in place of actual plot.

In his first two films (The Messenger, Rampart), Oren Moverman’s ability to draw nuanced performances from his actors (notably Ben Foster and Woody Harrelson, twice) is rooted in the movies’ thoughtful approach to character study. Time Out of Mind demonstrates a similar patience but fails to deliver as much depth. Gere delivers a quiet performance as George that is among the best roles in his career considering his limited range. Subjected to being outside the frame and in the background of many scenes, his limited opportunities to offer texture to the character are only a touch away from caricature. A greater actor might have been able to do more with the part, but it’s a decent turn from Gere.

The energy of the film changes considerably with the arrival of Ben Vereen’s Dixon, a homeless man of questionable mental health who talks nonstop but is one of the first people in the story to show any kindness towards George. Dixon aids George as he accepts his status and begins to work on improving his life in some of the few scenes that provide forward momentum to the movie. Like most of the elements in Time Out of Mind, the repetition in this section becomes wearing and the film does little to shed new light on the plight of the homeless.

The sentimentality in the second half of the film gives Time Out of Mind some redeeming empathetic scenes but is entirely expected, and indistinctive. By that point, the methods implemented by Moverman to show George’s invisibility to the outside world only serve to distract from the rest of the film. While many of the performances are solid, the content in Time Out of Mind is dull and insubstantial.

Weekends have only existed since 1908. Nirvana is as old now as The Beatles were in the ’90s. Betty White is older than sliced bread! These are pretty mind-boggling things to think about; time can be tricky like that. Matt Wolf’s Teenage, based on a book by Jon Savage, revolves around the origins of the titular phenomenon that in fact traces back only to the beginning of the 20th century. It’s a fact that’s hard to grasp in the overwhelmingly youth-driven culture of today. Using an innovative manipulation and melding of vintage film clips and photos, disguised reenactments, and narration provided by the likes of Jena Malone and Ben Wishaw, Wolf chronicles the emergence of teenage culture and attitude subjectively, intimately, through the eyes of the youth themselves.

The premise is that due to older people using youngsters to literally fight their wars for them, squandering the lives of their children to shape the world to their liking, the teens developed a feverishly rebellious and infectious mindset, a hunger to carve out their own version of the world to play and dance in, reclaiming their stolen youth. The film jumps between the teenage movements of three countries–America, England, and Germany–chronologically documenting the gaggle of subcultures and significant events that eventually evolved into the multi-billion dollar industry that’s conquered the globe.

Detailing various youth groups like the flappers, Hitler Youth, victory virls, and jitterbugs, the film is quite comprehensive in its mapping of the teenage origin story. It can be a bit dizzying, frankly, to keep track of which country’s youth we’re being shown at any given time, due to the fact that the film bounces between the three countries seemingly willy-nilly. There are four narrators to keep track of: a Hitler Youth (Julia Hummer), an English boy (Wishaw), an African-American boy scout (Jessie Usher), and an American girl (Malone). The actors read excerpts from the real diaries, giving the film a distinctly personal sense of proximity that few historical docs come even close to touching.

The film touches on interesting inter-cultural dynamics like kids in England and Germany being infatuated with American music, smuggling records into secret parties and obsessing over them ravenously. “Why do you like jazz music?” a British mother asks her son. “Because it’s American!” he answers defiantly.

It’s tragic that so many youngsters were forced to work countless hours in factories for almost nothing, only to be sent off to be killed in World War I for their troubles. Wolf makes crystal clear the injustices imposed by the older generation that compelled their children to impulsively, eruptively band together and give them the proverbial middle finger.

The film does a good job of deceiving us, making the vintage footage look indiscernible from the modern reenactments. The downside of this is that, because there is so much ground to cover in terms of information (we’re talking a span of 40 years, here), the smooth, organic flow of the film makes everything feel a bit too ephemeral, never taking the time to stop and really delve into the massive issues at hand–like teens’ gigantic effect on consumerism–in-depth. The film is deeply atmospheric, an admirable feat considering it consists of mostly washed-out photos and footage, but its subjective format only allows it to nibble at the historical meat of the story. Teenage casts an intoxicating spell, but in the haze of war and underground dance parties, it doesn’t have the time to help us understand what the hell it all means.

Teenage trailer

A Field in England

Ben Wheatley’s fever dream of a film, A Field in England, will have you scraping your brain off of the floor by the time the end credits save you from the madness. Set during the English civil war, we follow four blokes as they flee the field of war and turn from soldiers to wanderers, trekking through the titular field in search of an alehouse. They inexplicably unearth an Irish alchemist (or something like that), and the dark man proceeds to abuse the sorry souls (and us) into a state of helpless insanity. Wheatley utilizes a barrage of strobing diabolical imagery, grimy black and white photography, and disorienting narrative leaps to jostle loose your grip on reality, and the effect is astonishing. As an experience, it’s truly something else. Something that must be seen to be believed. [Bernard]

Proxy

Proxy opens with a scene so disturbing it’ll be too repulsive and morally disagreeable for most (walk-outs are almost guaranteed). In the scene, our main character, Esther, walking home from a prenatal doctor’s appointment, goes from pregnant to not pregnant in the worst way possible. Let’s leave it at that. It’s an upfront declaration of the film’s wickedness, and should vex the weak of stomach and delight those with a taste for the twisted, gruesome, and psychotic. The vile tone never lets up, as the film explores the darkest corners of mental illness in graphic, sadistic fashion. Director Zack Parker’s images, despite their repulsiveness, look slick and often poetic, and his cast (including indie favorite Joe Swanberg) is solid. [Bernard]

Teenage

Teenage is an earnest examination of the teenager’s role in culture. It may not provide many new insights, but it does use an impressive array of archival footage to convey the shifting ideals and subcultures of the early 20th century. Though the film’s attempts at character-driven diversions feel a bit muddled, director Matt Wolf overall does an effective job of showing the similarities of teens through the years. Featuring narration by actors including Jena Malone and Ben Whishaw and a vibrant score by Bradford Cox (Deerhunter), Teenage feels like an elegant though somewhat on-the-nose love letter to rebellion and identity. [Colleen]

How to Be a Man

Mark (Gavin McInness) is a retired comedian faced with terminal breast cancer (hmm…) who wants to make a series of man-advice videos for his unborn son. He finds a young man (Liam Aiken) to film it for him and, predictably, they form a quick father-son bond. How to Be a Man is an Apatow-ish,  toilet-humor fueled, raunch-comedy that manages to be pretty funny despite its derivative makeup. McInness is a gifted funny man, and director Chad Harbold gives him space to strut his stuff. (A public sexual instruction scene is given ample screen time, and McInness shines.) Aiken almost gets lost completely in McInness’ shadow, however. The film isn’t as edgy as it thinks it is, but neither are most films of its ilk. A solid effort. [Bernard]

Much like its successful predecessor, The Hunger Games: Catching Fire–directed by Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend) and based on the book series by Suzanne Collins–features rock-solid performances, great writing, and inventive action set pieces set in a sci-fi dystopia. The Hunger Games was a largely enjoyable and entertaining blockbuster romp, but its sequel betters it in every respect, a tightly-woven, thrilling, adrenaline-pumped beast of a film with a 146-minute running time that feels like 60. Like a bulldozer, the film plows forward, never stopping, sweeping you up in its sci-fi action clutches and never letting go.

As the film begins, we find our teen heroine Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence, the backbone of the film) in a traumatized state after “winning” the last Hunger Games–a Battle Royale-style arena challenge used as a tool of oppression by a totalitarian government called “The Capitol”–for the people of District 12, the place she calls home. She and her friend Peeta (Josh Hutcherson), who represented District 12 with her in the games, found a way for them to both survive the contest, outsmarting the Capitol and irritating President Snow (Donald Sutherland) in the process. The bow-wielding huntress’ cunning defiance has made her something of a symbol of hope for the destitute, violently oppressed districts of Panem. In retaliation, the malevolent Snow has finagled the next games so that Katniss and Peeta are thrown in again, along with other winning tributes from previous games.

As Katniss and Peeta are sent on a Capitol-mandated “victory tour”, paraded around in front of the districts whose tributes they’ve killed in the games, they wrestle with overwhelming PTSD and winners’ guilt (they’re plagued with constant night terrors and visions of death), though they’re forced to feign happiness (and love for each other) when in public. Katniss is reluctant in her new role as revolutionary, to say the least. Disgusted is a better word. Though she’s ignited a spark of revolution in Panem, all she really wants is to keep her loved ones safe and lead a normal life–a fool’s dream at this point, tragically.

The tension is thick and the stakes are sky-high from the opening moments of the film, and the intensity never ever lets up. This is mostly thanks to Lawrence, who sells the gravity and magnitude of the drama every second she’s on screen. With the Capitol bearing down on her and the rebellion holding her up her up, she’s being crushed in the middle, and the anguish is written all over her face.

In a terrific scene, Katniss stands in front of a district whose deceased tribute was one of her allies in the games. She sees the family of the tribute, and guilt, sorrow, fury, and regret slowly crush the pretty princess charade forced onto her by the Capitol. She gives an impassioned, mournful eulogy of her fallen friend, and inadvertently inspires the downtrodden citizens to show transgressive signs of revolt against the Capitol guards, who respond with lethality. Katniss is dragged away, heart shattered by the consequences of her accidental incitation, and we see her soul break in front of our eyes. The grand, sweeping themes of gender expectations, mental oppression, feminism, and violence as entertainment are siphoned through a relatable, layered, human character in Katniss, and Lawrence gets the message across superbly.

The supporting cast rises to the occasion, too. Phillip Seymour Hoffman, a new, fantastic addition to the cast (no surprise there), plays the new “game designer” (a sadistic position, in the context of these “games”.) Stanley Tucci returns as the absurdly jubilant Hunger Games host, and matching his pizazz is the also returning Elizabeth Banks as the gaudily attired Effie Trinket, Katniss and Peeta’s den mother, of sorts. Jena Malone is a standout as Johanna, an axe-wielding, F-bomb-dropping punk queen who spits in the face of the Capitol.

The love triangle between Katniss, Peeta, and hunky huntsman Gale (Liam Hemsworth) is downplayed here, as are the games themselves. It’s appropriate, since the real story here is one of people vs government. Fear not; nearly half of the film is spent with Katniss fighting for her life in the games, but the light of the rebellion and shadow of the Capitol pervades it all. Like the first film, the actions scenes are slick and imaginative, and Lawrence sells the games’ danger just as well as she does the dramatic beats. Francis Lawrence has a good eye for action, and infuses the action set pieces with so much suspense and terror it can feel like a horror movie at times. The set and costume design are also excellent, and Lawrence’s lush visual style magnifies their craftsmanship.

The one major weakness of the film is an unavoidable one: the ending is such a cliffhanger (it follows the book to a T) that it makes the film feel more like an episode than a complete, contained story. It’s noticeably manipulative, but for the life of me I can’t begin to think of an alternative narrative route. This is a series, after all.

Despite sharing a similar narrative structure with the first film, Catching Fire ups the ante and heightens every element of the storytelling, from the drama to the stakes to the performances to the action. All of the elements of the film work so well in concert that it’ll capture your attention entirely, and you’ll forget that it’s a tentpole studio film meant to sell merchandise. It transcends the category of “young adult cash-grab” many are so quick to shove it into, next the Twilights of the world. It’s so much better than that; this is a high-quality science fiction series for a new generation, and it’s one they can be proud of.