The attempt this movie tries to make, trying to define the 3 main abstractions of life: the search for love, the desire for more time and the fear of death is extremely ambitious, perhaps too ambitious. One problem with a film like “Collateral Beauty” is no matter how you approach 3 such difficult and abstract subjects as a writer or a director or even an actor, you run the huge risk of sounding like you are preaching your beliefs to other people. All of us, no matter how rich or poor, or fortunate or unfortunate has to reach conclusions and rationalizations about life that work for us and no movie, writer or even religious counselor can reach these conclusions for you. The other ambitious part of this movie is that it has many many twists, turns and symbolism, some of which work and some not only don’t work but make no sense and could be considered absurd.

Will Smith plays Howard, who is the head of an advertising firm in New York and at the start of this movie he is full of life and enthusiasm about his work with this colleagues and business partner played by Edward Norton. The next scene jumps to 3 years later and Howard is a shell of his former self, almost like a zombie barely talking to anyone and building strange structures with dominoes and then knocking them over. The reason for his insane behavior is understandable as we soon learn that his only daughter has died and later in the film we find out that he was divorced because of his daughter’s death and that 79% of all couples divorce after their child has died. Like the recent and great movie “Manchester By The Sea”, also reviewed in this blog, the grief that the character Howard shows in this film is manifested by zombie-like behavior and occasionally lashing out at the world with anger. This part of Will Smith’s acting in this movie works very well and is believable, but what is not believable is the strange scam his 3 friends play on him to not only try to knock him out of his 2 years of depression but also in the process try to save their failing advertising firm. In my opinion, this strange scam his friends play on him is another attempt by a screenwriter to try something new and unique and in the process, an unusual storyline is created that does not work. Why this idea didn’t work for me is that the scam they played to help their friend, comes off as more cruel than helpful and there is no way what they tried to do would ever work in the first place. I have noticed more than a few reviews on the internet about this film are very negative, including the overall score on IMDB at only 5.3 and the very low score on Rotten Tomatoes. In my opinion, the reason why some of the opinions are so low is because so much of what is trying to be unique and innovative in this film comes off as either not making sense, or downright ridiculous.

The ending of this film definitely did surprise me but there is a second surprise ending that for me was another example of something that was illogical and just didn’t make any sense, considering the linear sequence of events that lead to the ending. The problem with screenwriting in recent movies I have seen is that when you try and write something that is new and unique, you run the risk of thinking of things that ultimately in real life just doesn’t make any sense. A much better example of a film trying to deal with horrible grief and the loss of a child is the movie “Manchester by the Sea”, which has no far-fetched story at all and everything is believable. The point here is that, what is run of the mill and real life and perhaps done before in some way, can still be a great movie. It’s OK to be different, but this can be taken too far.

The term “Collateral Beauty” is also never really explained and considering this movie is mostly about the horrible grief following the death of a child, how can anyone preach to notice collateral beauty when being faced with life ending grief. On top of this, the person who talks about collateral beauty at the end of the movie is part of the surprise ending that makes no real logical sense. This second surprise ending is probably one of the several reasons why so many reviews for this movie are bad.

I did not think that this movie was necessarily bad. But because of the many flaws and lack of any logic with so many plot points, this is not a good movie either. At best, this film is average but could have been great if they just cut out the several different insane plot points. The acting is overall good, and includes Edward Norton, Keira Knightley, Helen Mirren, Kate Winslet and
Michael Peña, so it’s a shame there were so many mistakes made in this story. For all of these reasons, I cannot either recommend or completely reject this film.

In this history of all movies and movie franchises, there is no doubt that the most prolific and lucrative of all time, is the Star Wars franchise, that is now almost 40 years old.  One can only imagine the hundreds of billions of dollars in total profits these movies have generated when you consider the profits from the many Star Wars movies, peripheral movies,  TV shows, cartoons, toys and games over so many years.  I remember the first movie when it came out seemed at first almost like a B-movie, but when you saw it for the first time, the quality of the special effects, the story and the overall production was great enough to break box office records and change science fiction films forever. It is impossible to imagine that Star Wars will ever become unpopular because the stories and the characters have always been so compelling. You can even argue that maybe 100 or 200 years from now, they will still be making new Star Wars movies.

The idea for the new Star Wars Movie is a great one and film is a prequel to the first movie in the franchise Star Wars A New Hope that was released almost 40 years ago in 1977.  The story behind this new film is about obtaining the plans to the Death Star in which a weakness was built into it by the father of the main character, Jyn Erso, played by Felicity Jones. The Death Star plans were obtained at the beginning of the first movie in 1977 by Princess Leia, played by Carrie Fischer so I thought this prequel idea connecting these two films was a very good one. I also thought that the building of a weakness inside such a huge weapon that could be figured out by the rebel forces just by seeing the plans was a flawed plot point. If there was some kind of a weakness in the Death Star that could be figured out just by seeing the plans that built the Death Star, then why couldn’t the empire figure this out for themselves while the Death Star was being built, long before the rebels could get the plans? Perhaps a better idea would be that the rebel forces would need some kind of code or primer to figure out what the weakness was with the plans, but I guess that the producers needed a less complex way to connect the first movie with this one. However, this part of the story as it stands, really does not make sense.

This film also used computer generation to have some characters from the film in 1977 appear in this movie, those being Peter Cushing who died in 1994 and Carrie Fischer, who appears at the very end of the film. The special effects, especially at the end of the movie were very well done, but I thought the story overall, was just average, and not outstanding like any of the first 3 movies. The beginning of the film had too many different planet locations that I thought at the early stages of the story, were not necessary and most of the scene locations were too dark, with the exception of the end of the movie. Some of the other big name actors in this film included Forest Whitaker and Jimmy Smits who was also played the same part in two other Star Wars sequels in 2002 and 2005. I thought that all the acting in this movie was well done, despite the story which I thought was only an average one.

Overall, I think this movie is a must see for all Star Wars fans, but for all others, I just give it a marginal recommendation.

Film

Motion picture, drama

“Hacksaw Ridge”
“Hell or High Water”
“Manchester by the Sea”
“Moonlight”
“Lion”

Motion picture, musical or comedy

“20th Century Women”
“Deadpool”
“Florence Foster Jenkins”
“La La Land”
“Sing Street”

Motion picture, animated

“Zootopia”
“My Life as a Zucchini”
“Moana”
“Sing”
“Kubo and the Two Strings”

Motion picture, foreign language

“Divines,” France
“Elle,” France
“Neruda,” Chile
“The Salesman,” Iran
“Toni Erdmann,” Germany

Actress in a motion picture, drama

Amy Adams, “Arrival”
Jessica Chastain, “Miss Sloane”
Isabelle Huppert, “Elle”
Ruth Negga, “Loving”
Natalie Portman, “Jackie”

Actor in a motion picture, drama

Casey Affleck, “Manchester by the Sea”
Joel Edgerton, “Loving” | Video Q&A
Andrew Garfield, “Hacksaw Ridge”
Viggo Mortensen, “Captain Fantastic”
Denzel Washington, “Fences”

Actress in a motion picture, musical or comedy

Annette Bening, “20th Century Women”
Lily Collins, “Rules Don’t Apply”
Hailee Steinfeld, “The Edge of Seventeen”
Emma Stone, “La La Land”
Meryl Streep, “Florence Foster Jenkins”

Actor in a motion picture, musical or comedy

Colin Farrell, “The Lobster”
Hugh Grant, “Florence Foster Jenkins”
Ryan Gosling, “La La Land”
Ryan Reynolds, “Deadpool”
Jonah Hill, “War Dogs”

Supporting actress in any motion picture

Viola Davis, “Fences”
Naomie Harris, “Moonlight”
Nicole Kidman, “Lion”
Octavia Spencer, “Hidden Figures”
Michelle Williams, “Manchester by the Sea”

Supporting actor in any motion picture

Mahershala Ali, “Moonlight”
Jeff Bridges, “Hell or High Water”
Simon Helberg, “Florence Foster Jenkins”
Dev Patel, “Lion”
Aaron Taylor Johnson, “Nocturnal Animals”

Director, motion picture

Damien Chazelle, “La La Land”
Tom Ford, “Nocturnal Animals”
Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight”
Mel Gibson, “Hacksaw Ridge”
Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea”

Screenplay, motion picture

Kenneth Lonergan, “Manchester by the Sea”
Damien Chazelle, “La La Land”
Tom Ford, “Nocturnal Animals”
Barry Jenkins, “Moonlight”
Taylor Sheridan, “Hell or High Water”

Original score, motion picture

Justin Hurwitz, “La La Land”
Jóhann Jóhannsson, “Arrival”
Nicholas Britell, “Moonlight”
Dustin O’Halloran, Hauschka, “Lion”
Benjamin Wallfisch, Pharrell Williams, Hans Zimmer, “Hidden Figures”

Original song, motion picture

“How Far I’ll Go” (“Moana”)
“City of Stars” (“La La Land”)
“Can’t Stop the Feeling” (“Trolls”)
“Faith” (“Sing”)
“Gold” (“Gold”)