In FREE FIRE (2017), an arms deal in a derelict Boston factory goes south, pitting two rival groups in a gun battle to see who walks away with the money and their lives.

It’s the 1970s, and Justine (Brie Larson) and Ord (Armie Hammer) have put together an arms deal between IRA members Chris (Cillian Murphy) and Frank (Michael Smiley) on one side and South African arms dealer Vernon (Sharlto Copley) and former Black Panther Martin (Babou Ceesay) on the other. Both sides are supported by a few hired thugs. The deal proceeds smoothly despite friction between Chris and Vernon, who grate on each other. When one thug recognizes another and starts mauling him for a personal offense, people start shooting and it all spirals into a free fire zone.

There’s a large ensemble cast thrown at you quickly, but luckily we’ve got interesting characters who quickly stand out as individuals. We’ve got plenty of gun play blended with enough 70s kitsch, swagger, and macho witty banter to make even Tarantino happy. There are a few funny moments. The actors are all terrific. There’s a lot to like here. Unfortunately, it’s a short film that feels way too long. None of the characters stood out as interesting or strong enough for me to care whether any of them survived. This is a film where cavalier swagger during a gun battle works against tension, because the gun battle is most of the movie. Another problem is almost everybody is wounded in some way very quickly, so they spend most of their time crawling through dirt gasping.

Overall, FREE FIRE is a fun movie with plenty of potential suggested by its fun trailer, but in the end I found it somewhat monotonous as I just couldn’t get invested enough in any of the characters.

GHOST IN THE SHELL (2017) is a somewhat dystopian film set in a future in which humans routinely modify themselves with cybernetic enhancements. Major (Scarlett Johansson), an agent combining a human brain and software, represents the ultimate in merging human and machine. She works for Section 9, a secretive group designed to fight terrorism. The film is based on the classic manga and anime adaptations of the same name.

The film opens with a mysterious man named Kuze who is able to control anything using the Internet, and who appears interested in both Major and the corporation that created her. While chasing him down, Major continually yearns to learn more about her past, most of which was erased. As a result, she doesn’t feel connected to anything. She has a ghost (mind) in the shell (android body), but is she human? In the end, she learns her past is a lie, discovers her true past, and comes to terms with what she is.

It’s a visually faithful adaptation that for me lacked the magic of the original, but I wonder if that had to do with me seeing the anime first. The American version westernizes the story a bit, streamlining it while also taking out some of its more interesting philosophy, such as the quest for the soul. The beginning is a bore, the usual phoned-in superhero origin story nobody cares about. The ending is changed so that it ends in a predictable manner, including leaving the door open to a sequel, which is unlikely to happen as the film was considered a box office bomb. The best thing about this live action version is it provides a deeper connection between Major and Kuze. Otherwise, in between, there are some good action scenes.

The film was criticized for whitewashing, particularly the role of Major. They claimed Major in the anime is Asian, which was news to me. She looks White in the anime.

Despite my criticisms, it is a fun movie. I’d give is a solid B, maybe a B+.

When it first came out several years ago, THE LEFTOVERS blew my mind. I just finished the third season and had mixed feelings about it. While I found it affecting in parts and powerful in its conclusion, it relies too heavily on weird plot twists and ultimately unexplained dead-end plot lines to keep itself going.

Created by Damon Lindelof (who also created ABC’s LOST) and Tom Perrotta (on whose novel the series is based), THE LEFTOVERS tells the story of those left behind after 2% of the world’s population mysteriously vanishes into thin air. Set three years after this Rapture-like event, the world is still reeling. As science and religion don’t have definitive answers, cults have sprung up. Many can’t let go of those they lost. Many others, faced with an impossible event that cannot be explained, lose their sense of purpose. They don’t know whether to feel lucky they weren’t taken or rejected because they weren’t. In short, the world has gone into a slow burn mode of haywire. They’re trying to move on but don’t know where to go. They only know they want to stop feeling bad.

The result is a definitive portrait of loss and the search for meaning.

THE LEFTOVERS centers on a family–a police chief who lives with his daughter, his teenage daughter, his wife who now lives with a cult created in response to the event, and his son who works for another cult out in the desert. These and other characters populate a world rife with anger, violence, despair and religious hysteria. Two other characters become more important as the series develops. Nora Durst, who lost her entire family the morning of the event, and her brother Matt, a preacher who rejects the idea the Sudden Departure was the Rapture and who continually butts heads with the Guilty Remnant, a cult whose membership in the area keeps growing.

Unfortunately, I missed the second season, as I don’t have HBO and for some frustrating reason, Google Play didn’t carry it. I read Wikipedia to catch up to Season 3. In Season 3, all the main characters have moved to Miracle, a town in Texas where nobody disappeared. As a result, it’s a magnet for cults and weirdos believing in various theories about the Sudden Departure, particularly as the seventh anniversary of the Sudden Departure looms. In Season 2, Kevin found out that when he dies, he goes to another (strange) world and then returns from the dead; in Season 3, he struggles with this and what it means. His dad is in Australia believing if he enacts a ritual, it will prevent an apocalyptic flood. Nora hears about a machine that sends you wherever the departed went and goes to Australia to investigate it, though we suspect she may want to go through to be with her children at last. And Matt is writing a new Testament about Kevin’s miraculous return from the dead. All of these characters end up in Australia for conclusion to the series.

Season 3 shines in many respects. Where the episodes focus on genuine issues of loss and the characters’ relationships, it’s as deeply affecting as Season 1. The last episode is perfect in just about every way, bringing the main character arcs to a satisfying close while explaining the Sudden Departure and what it meant. However, the odd LOST-like elements kept forcing me to emotionally disengage. Weird things happen for no reason, Kevin’s trips to another world during death appear to serve no purpose other than to give him personal peace, and almost everybody is wrong about the personal meaning they have found. I think that in itself would be wonderful–everybody finds meaning in a bizarre but meaningless world-changing event, but they’re all wrong–but the show gave enough credence and reality to the weird events to suggest a higher purpose, guiding entity, even a plan. But no, it’s all meaningless. As a viewer, you could almost see how hard the show’s creators were working to keep it all going, right down to the overbearing music deviating from the first season’s beautiful score by Max Richter. A quote attributed to Chekov is if there’s a gun over the mantle in Act I, somebody has to fire it by Act III. Season 3 of THE LEFTOVERS takes you into a gun store and not a single gun is fired.

So yeah, mixed feelings on Season 3. Loved it going in, loved the parts that were true to the emotional punch of Season 1, but overall it could have done without the dead-end spiritual story lines.