Kirsten Dunst greets the apocalypse

“Melancholia” is Lars von Trier’s intelligent, melodramatic, achingly beautiful and wickedly funny new film. It tells the story of Justine (a transcendent Kirsten Dunst), a severe depressive, and her doting and practical sister, Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg). Justine’s depression takes the corporeal shape of a planet called Melancholia, which is on a steady collision course with Earth. In the film’s stunning prologue, Mr. von Trier tactfully relieves the audience of any suspense concerning Earth’s fate, allowing the tone to shift from an end-of-the-world thriller to a character and relationship study. “Melancholia” uses the premise of an apocalypse to expose the frays in familial bonds — specifically, the intricate bonds and dynamic between two sisters; a bond that is both affectionate and cruel, supportive and insensitive.

The film is divided into two parts named after each of the sisters. Although part one is named after Justine, the “melancholic” sister, this section of the film proves to be the most humorously absurd. Mr. von Trier is—gasp—having a bit of fun as we follow Justine through the grand charade of her wedding celebration. He has reined in all of his pals from films past to play members of the wedding party, including Charlotte Rampling and John Hurt as Justine’s backbiting parents, and Udo Kier the prim and fretful wedding planner. And despite Justine’s deep sadness during what is supposed to be the happiest day of her life, Ms. Dunst is luminous. Instead of portraying Justine as incessantly bleak, Dunst’s performance during this half the film is almost sphinxlike in its spontaneity. She does not skulk around in her wedding dress (although she does, at one point, gracefully urinate in it beneath the moonlight), but rather ventures in and out of the festivities like an elusive specter. And because von Trier has revealed the fate of these characters in the first ten minutes, the audience can empathize with Justine as she views her wedding with a growing sense of dread and indifference.

Part two is named for Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), Justine’s pragmatic but anxious older sister. Although Claire grows weary and frustrated with Justine’s erratic behavior, she understands her sister’s illness and knows how to take care of her. Claire’s relationship with Justine becomes increasingly complicated in the film’s second half, as Claire grapples with her own growing anxiety over the path of Melancholia while simultaneously caring for Justine, who has become incapacitated by her depression. In contrast to the darkly sumptuous aesthetic of part one, with an alluring Justine wreaking havoc in a wedding dress, part two is more subdued and more painful to watch; Justine has lost her enigmatic glow, and von Trier, who has long suffered from depression himself, depicts Justine’s descent with alarming candor. It has been suggested that Mr. von Trier uses female characters in his films to represent his own struggles with depression. If “Antichrist” was too vicious and misogynistic, his rendering of Justine’s inner turmoil in “Melancholia” is as upsetting as it is compassionate.

But part two is named “Claire” for a reason. As Melancholia becomes more of a threat, (the planet and the illness) Claire becomes fraught with worry that the end is near, and the sisters’ reactions to the planet begin to diverge. Justine begins to emerge from her depression and becomes more lucid, but is callous towards Claire’s distress. Justine feels a kinship with Melancholia; she embraces the planet as an actual representation and justification for her chronic illness. Yet, just as Claire strove to comfort Justine during her lowest points, Justine’s coldness turns into an intense stoicism, and eventually, into her own display of compassion, especially towards Claire’s son, Leo.

In “Melancholia,” the end of the world is not rendered with mass hysteria or with an overblown sequence of natural disasters, but rather with understated beauty. Bugs creep up from the soil, hail the color of pure white flower buds falls from the sky, all as Melancholia—massively exquisite in itself—looms closer and closer overhead. Despite its morbid theme, bone-rattling soundtrack straight from Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde, and the fact that it’s a Lars von Trier film, the tone of “Melancholia” is almost soothing. Mr. von Trier proposes that the end of the world, like his film, may just be a thing of beauty.

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Vanessa is the press representative/blogger for The Plaza Cinema & Media Arts Center in Patchogue, NY. You can read her blog at stickyourthumbselsewhere.wordpress.com

Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Seth Rogen star in "50/50"

Making a comedy about cancer is risky business. Making a comedy about a young, attractive person with cancer is self-sabotage. People don’t go to mainstream movies to be bummed out, or to be offended by the trivializing of something that should bum them out. Director Jonathan Levine (“The Wackness”) has a simple solution to this dilemma. He didn’t make a comedy — or a movie about cancer. Contrary to the marketing, “50/50″ isn’t a laugh-a-minute raunch-fest aimed at teens and 20-somethings; it’s a sweet, balanced drama for adults about the utility and power of friendship and family in the face of life’s cold, indifferent realities. Sometimes relationships don’t work. Sometimes dear friends and loved ones die for no reason. Sometimes young people get cancer. But these facts, immutable as they are, are not immune to the marginalizing power of context.

Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a 27-year-old public radio journalist in Seattle. His swanky pad houses his gorgeous artist girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), his dapper wardrobe and all the hope and anticipation of a life that’s just getting going. But wait, what’s this lump on my back? Oh probably nothing. It really hurts though. Better get it checked out. How the fuck did I get spinal cancer? Or more accurately, how the fuck did I get spinal cancer? And so the battle begins.

“50/50″ could have easily been one of the worst films of the year. It tip-toes around so many potential pitfalls and clichés it’s a marvel it turned out as well as it did. Cancer movies are generally composed of a series of teary melodramatic scenes that serve only to teach the characters some pseudo-profundity and set up a sentimental payoff, usually in the form of a tortuous (for the audience) hospital bed death scene. That the screenplay was written by Seth Rogen’s real life friend, Will Reiser, who really had cancer is probably a major factor in making this movie feel so balanced, honest and non-manipulative. It never feels like there’s a lesson necessarily attached to the struggle, or that the filmmaker expects any specific emotional response from the audience. The fact that the principal character wrote the script makes it obvious he survives the cancer, but since the story isn’t driven by suspense, the effect is a positive one.

As good as the script is, it’s really the cast that pulls this thing together. Gordon-Levitt, after a stilted performance in “Inception,” is a welcome surprise. And though their scenes sometimes feel forced, the presence of fellow chemotherapy patients played by Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer, when it works, adds a pitch-perfect mix of levity and perspective. But, the real star of the show is Seth Rogen. His role as the goofy unflappable optimist with a heart of gold is the best of his career. It’s hard to imagine even the most ardent Rogen-haters won’t be won over by this, the most naturally likeable character I’ve seen all year.

The director of other style-over-substance masterpieces such as “Bronson” and “Valhalla Rising” makes a neo-noir arthouse action flick that has a lot more in common with “Yojimbo” than it does with “The Fast and the Furious.” In other words, if you’re a gearhead looking for high octane, macho machine porn, look elsewhere. Well, let’s not get carried away. There is enough savage violence to satiate the callow Tarantino fanboy (not that Tarantino’s work is defined by its loyalists), if he’s willing to sit through a more European, or Sofia Coppola-esque if you like, interpretation of the classic badass myth.

Ryan Gosling plays The Driver, a semi-modernized version of Clint Eastwood’s Man With No Name, a direct outgrowth from the films of Akira Kurosawa. The Driver is quiet, brooding, smart and brutally just. He’s so quiet, in fact, he could probably pass as autistic, though his smoothness with the ladies lessens the effect. During the day, he drives for the movies. During the night, he drives for anyone who’ll hire him — usually criminals looking for a getaway driver. The money is good, but, naturally, he’s in it for the thrill. After killing a few mob foot soldiers in the aftermath of the a job gone bad, The Driver finds himself in a pickle. His cold brutality, superhero abilities and underlying humanity are his only means of survival.

“Drive” is a strange little picture. It’s cheap, but looks fantastic. It’s drenched in 1980s nostalgia, but feels like a 1990s crime thriller. It’s trailer feels like a mechanical 2000s explosion-fest, but the film itself feels like a criticism of that trend. It feels heartless and amoral, but features touching moments of genuine humanity. In all it’s contradictions, derivations and conceits, it manages to find a nugget of originality, which Refn pinches, molds and polishes into a picture of cinematic vitality. Over the last decade, television, with original dramas like “Mad Men,” “The Sopranos,” “The Wire,” and “Breaking Bad,” has slowly been stealing cinema’s thunder. While the big screen seems unable to satisfy anyone other than fanboy teenagers these days, television has been telling the kind of serious, adult stories once only available in films. “Drive” proves that there are still some things you can only find in a darkened theater.

John Boyega leads a street gang of alien-killers in "Attack the Block"

It’s Guy Fawkes Night, and the South London sky is pulsing with brilliant explosions. In the midst of the celebration, Sam (Jodie Whittaker) is mugged at knife-point by a gang of teen hoodlums. Before they get away with their meager take, however, a flaming object smashes into a nearby car. Moses (John Boyega), the gang’s leader, looks for valuables amidst the wreckage rather than investigating its cause. He’s greeted by a nasty little ball of white fur and teeth, which the gang promptly kills. Soon thereafter dozens more flaming projectiles fill the sky, which arouse in the hoods uncontrollable excitement at the prospect of an intergalactic rumble.

“Attack the Block” is a movie made by people who love movies. First-time director Joe Cornish, with help from Big Talk Prods. (“Shaun of the Dead,” “Hot Fuzz”) assembles a collection of monster movie, coming-of-age and action flick tropes into a seamless, original work of modern cinema, with equal parts subversive social perceptiveness, indie wit and Hollywood bombast. It’s as if Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Quentin Tarantino, Richard Donner, Danny Boyle and John Carpenter got together and decided to create a balanced blend of their respective sensibilities.

The pace is blistering, the humor is tack sharp and the action is clear and exciting. But, the feature that gives “Attack the Block” the advantage over even the best monster flicks of recent years is its creature design. Hairless, slimy, tentacled creatures of the invertebrate variety are a well-worn style. Repulsive insectoid aliens, like those in “District 9,” are also becoming a little tired. Instead, Cornish and his design team have opted for radical simplicity. Deep black fur, an ape-like gait and rows of glowing teeth are about the only distinguishing features of the invaders. This ingenious design feels instantly iconic, and, what’s more, aptly represents the film’s lurking subtext.

Hitting theaters in the wake of London’s recent riots, “Attack the Block” couldn’t have come at a better time. The film’s heroes are the same disillusioned youths accused of instigating the mayhem that brought large swaths of the city to its knees last month. They are the first villains of the film, that is, until an even greater evil falls from the sky. It seems clear that the black, purposeless aliens, bent only on destruction, are meant to symbolize the way in which England’s upper classes, even further removed from the proletariat than in America, view the lower classes. That the invasion is limited to only a few city blocks, and that police are generally oblivious to it, seems to confirm this. And by giving our hoodlums a purpose and a powerful foil, Cornish, without condoning it, helps us understand their misdeeds; a key moment being when Sam finally joins her assailants’ anti-alien attack squad. She presses them on why they would rob a defenseless nurse on her way home from work. They respond by saying they wouldn’t have done it if they had known she lived in the same building that they do. With that 15 seconds of dialogue Cornish elucidates England’s congenital subterranean class warfare, and allows us to root for whom we earlier dismissed as street thugs.

But, for most people, “Attack the Block” will be seen as nothing more than a fantastically entertaining B-movie-style monster flick. And considering how well it does that, everything else is just icing on the cake.

This is the tale of three roommates – Tashi (Imran Khan), Arup (Vir Das) and Nitin (Kunal Roy Kapoor) – who get into trouble with the underworld (Vijay Raaz) after one of them doesn’t deliver a package, another one delivers it for him and the third spends most of his time dealing with the titular stomach ailment by excreting at various moments in the movie.

The problems with the film are manifold but, at the outset, I would like to tackle the loud proclamations of this being “just like Guy Ritchie or Quentin Tarantino” or whichever English language filmmaker has ever made a gangster flick. Um OK. Ritchie and Tarantino are derivative enough to have never been able to come up with anything more interesting than their debuts, although “Pulp Fiction”  is world-class stunning enough for us to forgive QT that. Let’s all acknowledge that everyone in mainstream cinema the world over is ripping each other off, calling it a homage and backslapping one another at festivals. We must base the criticism of these works on stronger foundations than Spot the Magpie. The real consternation at the heart of films like “Delhi Belly” is not that they are reviewed by Anglophone film watchers and compared to Western films to be found wanting but that they basically fetishize the very Indo-Anglian, upper middle class double-consciousness that sneers at them afterwards. The spectacle of Indian bourgeois values and monotony challenged and subverted by the clash with the criminal “other”, that has come to dominate respectable Bollywood fare in recent times, definitely has some link with our national social reality.

Self-congratulatory excess is the main problem of “Delhi Belly”, whether it’s the gratuitous swearing or sometimes smug jokes (“Mill On The Floss”?) or even some carefully affected shots that implore the viewer to pay attention lest they miss all this ridiculous cleverness. In contrast to the throwaway ironic dialogues that elevate the film, the filmic grammar is often contrived. It is a well cinematographed film though, the fulgent lighting and vivid palette arresting the eye even as the story becomes sluggish.

This viscosity of narrative is a big issue I had with the film because it is one that is entirely centered on plot. Basically, the characters are funky archetypes without anything to propel them except the plotline; their motivations and minds remain a mystery and there is no sense of arc that emerges. The storyline is too far from a slice-of-life routine to justify the “suddenness” of these personalities, without any seeming consistency or coherence. There needs to be a dexterous balancing act in crime/comedy capers that allow us to become familiar with the protagonists even as the engine of the all-important plot continues running. The Delhi Belly that afflicts one of the main characters is supposed to be the cause of much sardonic, vaguely allegorical funniness and it’s a little too Vincent Vega for me to buy it, as blatant as this randomness was. Also, the intertextual patchwork in most Hindi films nowadays has officially reached critical mass with this one and is now on its way from cute to cloying; the throwback to disco days through diegesis and diorama is part of the excess I mentioned earlier.“ The world of “Delhi Belly” is like a glossy magazine with frivolous articles. As a friend pointed out, there’s no sense of even Delhi, the city, that manages to permeate this self-satisfied fortress of funnies. The only really enjoyable bits were those scored by Ram Sampath’s naughty and fantastic music.

The characters being almost empty, inhabiting them as skilfully as Vijay Raaz and Vir Das did, is commendable. Their acting consisted in fantastic timing and dialogue-delivery and, for this movie, that suffices. Kunal Roy Kapoor is an engaging debutant, doing a lot of heavy lifting rather well. The Love Interest is Maneka, Tashi’s colleague with and to whom he becomes infatuated and beholden respectively. Poorna Jagannathan who plays her, while nice enough to look at, slips a fair bit in portraying the kind of girl she’s meant to, something that alerted me to the lack of characterization in the film. Shenaz Treasury has little to do except be the stereotypically ditzy harpy of a bratty girlfriend who can be conveniently lampooned and Kim Bodnia, the Russian mobster, is ill-used.

Other Hindi filmmakers, from the hoary days of a dated Kundan Shah in the ’80s to piping hot Dibakar Banerjee in the last couple of years, have done a much better job of delving into these darkly funny spaces of Indian life. A flat, unevenly pitched film, “Delhi Belly” can be laugh-out-loud hilarious in bits but remains only an amusing little collection of a few smart zingers. Its ‘A’ rating by the Censor Board might be exciting for a while, but graded on merit, it doesn’t quite make the cut.

Logicians may balk at the application of this proof ahead of mathematical philosophy, but the basic principle is immutable in its genius and simplicity, and compelling when considered as the technical constant that frames Terrence Malick’s fluid emotional lexicon.

“The Tree of Life” is only the fifth film in Malick’s 40-year career. A former Rhodes Scholar and philosophy lecturer at MIT, the famously reclusive director has used each of his films as tools of philosophical expression. Existential themes, usually verbalized in rambling voice-overs and explored through the actions of deeply flawed characters, are a staple of Malick’s films. In “Badlands” (1973) it was a pair of murderous lovers set against the glory of the natural world. In “Days of Heaven” (1978) the impediment of love in the face of death emphasized the roles of both in giving meaning to life. In “The Thin Red Line” (1998) it was the warring impulses of creation and destruction, as experienced through the eyes of the innocent. In “The New World” (2005) it was the question of human exceptionalism and the accompanying problem of moral relativism. In “The Tree of Life” it is the darkness of the unknown, the affliction of perpetual ignorance.

“The Tree of Life” is an attempt to reconcile the deepest intrinsic yearnings of our species with the fundamental, arbitrary harshness of the reality in which we exist. We tend to separate ourselves from that reality. Our intellect allows us to think ourselves different from animals, disconnected from the world that spawned us and sustains us. It is that arrogance, coupled with the insurmountable ignorance implied by Gödel that gives rise to the notion of God, a concept which, despite the film’s Biblical undertones, seems almost secondary, as if one of many hypotheses unable to offer any more insight into the nature of existence than any other. Because if God is the answer for life, then what is the answer for God?

The brilliance of the film isn’t that it ponders the heavens or asks impossible questions. It is in the director’s method. After a relatively brief introduction to the human story, the film gives a spectacular visual history of the universe, chronicling what we know so far, more or less, from the Big Bang to abiogenesis. We even get a small glimpse of what “Jurassic Park” may have looked like if Terrence Malick had directed it. It is with that cosmological context that we return to the O’Brien family in sleepy 1950s Waco, Texas (Malick’s hometown). Now we are prepared to properly consider Mr. O’Brien’s (Brad Pitt) pressing feelings of inadequacy, Mrs. O’Brien’s (Jessica Chastain) split loyalties between her husband and children, and young Jack’s (Hunter McCracken) welling frustration and rage as he struggles to makes sense of his lot in life. Instead of diminishing the otherwise infinitesimal human story, the film’s cosmic mid-section amplifies it. Because for all the astonishing beauty of this sequence, it lacks the greatest development in the universe’s long history — consciousness. In this way we come to see the trivial problems of the O’Brien family — of our own families — as significant, even in the vastness and majesty of eternity.

“The Tree of Life” is the fruit of a lifelong internal struggle. It is imperfect, bewildering, beautiful, maddening, confounding, astounding and sublime. It is wholly without answers. Poetically incomplete. My gut tells me it is a masterpiece. An extension of Stanley Kubrick’s equally ambitious “2001: A Space Odyssey.” It represents the rarest of events in modern cinema, that is, naked ambition on the grandest scale met with the talent, funds, philosophical maturity and keenness of mind to realize that ambition. Whether history deems it an unabashed success or an abysmal failure, “The Tree of Life” is a risk few filmmakers would ever dare. And that, at least, deserves our applause.

Ralph Zavadil is Cap'n Video, subject of the new documentary "Beauty Day"

“I was dealing with human beings, and they’re a pretty fucked up breed.”

It probably wouldn’t surprise a lot of people if it were revealed that Ralph Zavadil, the source of the above quotation, weren’t human after all. (He made a name for himself by snorting raw eggs, squirting chocolate syrup on the backs of puppies and then licking it off and performing dozens of idiotic and dangerous stunts like “rooftop tobogganing” and “clothesline skiing.”) But after the revelations and insights of “Beauty Day,” a documentary about his life and times, it could be argued that Ralph Zavadil is a actually more human than the rest of us.

Better known to his fans as Cap’n Video, the unhinged host of The Cap’n Video Show, which disturbed and delighted cable access television viewers in St. Catharines, Ontario from 1990 -1995, Zavadil was the pioneer of gross-out, stunt-based reality television. As the film’s tagline states, “Before there was Jackass… before there was Tom Green… there was Ralph Zavadil.” And considering Ralph shot, starred in, edited and produced the viral video-style show himself, YouTube could be added to that list too.

For five years Ralph cultivated a small but loyal following in the sleepy suburban region surrounding Niagara Falls. It wasn’t until he broke his neck during an especially nonsensical stunt, which involved a cement swimming pool and a poorly secured ladder, that he received international attention. That, coupled with the outrage of animal rights groups angry with his treatment of a rabbit during his Easter show, got the Cap’n kicked off the air. 15 years later, Zavadil strapped on his goggles, powered up his light bulb helmet and packed the explosives for one last hurrah.

“Beauty Day” is director Jay Cheel’s first feature film, but it feels like the work of a much more experienced filmmaker. Clever edits, creative shots and a gorgeous, crisp image uncommon in the independent documentary world make “Beauty Day” stand out immediately from the bloated pack of ugly Morgan Spurlock imitators. Not only is it a lovely piece of visual filmmaking, it’s also embellished with an, at times, lyrical approach to telling the story. It’s both kinetic and meandering, peppy and tranquil. The camera never gets ahead of its subject and lets the story itself dictate the cinematography.

Zavadil, a funnier, less self-obsessed version of David Lee Roth, is the type of subject filmmakers dream about. Reticence is not part of the Cap’n's DNA. Coolly reclined with a cigarette and a beer, the arms of his light bulb helmet spiking out like antlers, Zavadil is just as comfortable confessing his character flaws and regrets as he his talking about snorting raw eggs. And his stubborn optimism in the face of crushing adversity is inspiring.

Destruction played a major role in The Cap’n Video Show. Whether it was setting a Christmas tree on fire, razing a backyard shed, demolishing what seemed like dozens of old television sets with a sledgehammer or methodically and incessantly abusing his own body, Zavadil took intense pleasure in making mayhem. But, considered in the context of the idyllic, revelatory “Beauty Day,” it becomes clear that The Cap’n Video Show was really about creation. More than just a spectacle, Cap’n video became the outlet through which pencil pushers and cubicle captives could, once a week, experience a world of zaniness and freedom, even if it meant watching a lunatic smash a toilet.

“Beauty Day” is a genuinely funny, affecting and poetic character piece about an extraordinary character, who managed to find the humanity in the absurd, and make a lot of people laugh along the way.

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To find out more about “Beauty Day” visit the official website. Watch the trailer below:

Paul Bettany as the ass-kicking, vampire-slaying "Priest"

Critics can be a fickle bunch. Lavishing this, lambasting that. But with most films it’s relatively easy to predict the critical response. Originality, cohesiveness, perky dialogue and fleshed out characters get the O.K. Convoluted stories, dull characters and shameless wish-fulfillment fantasies are blasted. But since “Jaws” gave birth to the summer blockbuster in 1975, and that genre’s integration with B movie and exploitation sensibilities thereafter, schools of critical thought have diverged radically.

Such is how Justin Lin’s “Fast Five,” a stupid, stupid movie featuring the worst performance of the year, via Paul Walker, can charm critics with its gleeful inanity, but Scott Stewart’s silly but visually interesting “Priest” is readily dismissed with a faint, collective, critical shrug.

Considering their altogether different cinematic aim from serious artistic efforts, should we subject B movies and summer blockbusters to the same scrutiny? Modern critical theory says no. So do I. But the wild inconsistency in the evaluation of these films is baffling. “Priest” is the superior film artistically, and more successful in pandering to its intended audience.

Paul Bettany (“A Beautiful Mind,” “Legion”) is the titular “Priest,” one of a superhuman race of pious vampire-slaying warriors — a less mystical, but more overtly religious version of the Jedi in “Star Wars.” He lives in a muddled future world mash-up of Western, sci-fi, medieval and fantasy elements. With the help of his kind, humans have ostensibly won the ancient battle against savage, eyeless vampires. That is, until a half-priest, half-vampire, all cowboy super villain (Karl Urban) kidnaps a rural family’s daughter to bait Priest into embarking on a reckless rescue mission.

If you’ve seen John Ford’s 1956 Western classic “The Searchers” you know the story already. In fact, if you’ve seen a movie before, you should have no trouble predicting every plot turn. But “Priest,” which is an adaptation of a Korean graphic novel and revels in genre cliché, isn’t about originality. It’s about interesting landscapes, badass heroes fighting badass villains and cool special effects. All of which it delivers. And despite the silly dialogue and sometimes unbearable melodrama, it more than fulfills the measure of its creation. It even dares, albeit briefly and without much sophistication, to question the rationality of theocratic government. Good luck finding that in a “Fast” movie.

“Priest” is a B movie through and through. It’s got cheap thrills, train fights, beheadings, a Bible full of throwing stars and a cowboy-vampire-priest. What more could you possibly want?

Saoirse Ronan with a blood-spattered face in "Hanna"

Up-and-coming auteur Rian Johnson recently tweeted, “The filmmaking in Hanna was pretty humbling.” That’s high praise coming from the man behind the indie caper sensation “Brick” and the quirky con flick “The Brothers Bloom.” But high praise is old hat for “Hanna” director Joe Wright who’s used to being gushed over by cinephiles. The minutes-long Dunkirk beach tracking shot in “Atonement” practically sent movie geeks into heat. But with “Hanna” Wright deliberately sheds his austere period-piece elegance and opts for a more modern, frenetic style of showing off.

Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is a 16-year-old super-soldier who lives in a cabin deep in Finland’s icy forests with her father Erik (Eric Bana). Trained in martial arts, literature, language and mathematics since she was a small child, Hanna has been forged into one of the most skilled and vicious assassins in the world, though, she doesn’t really know why. And her father, a former government agent-turned fugitive, isn’t too keen on telling her the whole story. She knows only that she must kill CIA agent Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett) to avenge the death of her mother. When Hanna finally feels her training is complete, she pushes a red button that alerts the CIA of her location. And the bloodsport begins.

“Hanna” is a fresh, exhilarating take on the revenge thriller. It’s a fast-paced chase movie with fantastic action choreography, a compelling and humanistic script and engaging performances. Wright even manages to slip in a few legitimate insights into the psychology of a directionless teenage girl. This is the movie “Sucker Punch” director Zack Snyder wishes he were capable of making.

The cast is rounded out by strong supporting players, notably Tom Hollander, who plays a deliciously loathsome contract killer employed by Wiegler. Blanchett, however, is the film’s lone dull spot. Her usually commanding presence is curiously absent. She feels out of place in a role that seems more suited for someone like Tilda Swinton. But a miscast central villain isn’t enough to derail the sheer thrill of this hard-hitting flick.

And underneath it all, crashing and spiking its way onto our eardrums, is the terrific score by British digi-musicians The Chemical Brothers. The duo’s industrial electronica soundtrack scoffs at traditional cinema sound cues and bullies its way into the spotlight. And it’s exactly the kind of overbearing, disorienting collage of sound “Hanna” needs.

Jokes about Hollywood’s increasing tendency to recycle old ideas in the form of reboots, remakes, sequels and prequels are more commonplace than ever. But “Hanna” is one of the few faces brave enough to stand out in the crowd.

What would it be like if Alfred Hitchcock directed an episode of “Quantum Leap” with a script based on “Groundhog Day”? Well, it wouldn’t turn out exactly like “Source Code,” but it’d be pretty close.

Duncan Jones (or Zowie Bowie if you prefer) wowed audiences lucky enough to catch his debut sci-fi thriller “Moon” (2009) during its short theatrical run. His technical wizardry and philosophical maturity helped him quickly escape the shadow of his superstar father. And now with Summit Entertainment’s “Source Code” Jones steps into the big time with a big budget, a big star and big studio pressure.

So how did he do? Don’t let the above description fool you. “Source Code” is a success.

After Captain Colter Stevens (Jake Gyllenhaal), a helicopter pilot serving in Afghanistan, flies into enemy gunfire he awakens on a Chicago-bound train with no memory of how he got there. He feverishly tries to figure out why he’s there and, after seeing a strange face in the mirror, who he is. But just as he starts to put the pieces together the train explodes, killing everyone on board. This time, he wakes up in a small, dark capsule, receiving mission instructions from a woman (Vera Farmiga) in a military uniform via video monitor.

Stevens slowly learns that he is the centerpiece in an experimental counter-terrorism program called Source Code, which allows his consciousness to be inserted into the last eight minutes of another person’s memory preserved in a computer program after they die. His task is to search this dead person’s lingering consciousness to find the identity of the terrorist who bombed the train before a bigger attack hits Chicago in real life.

If any of that sounds gimmicky, that’s because it is. Even though I count “Moon” as one of the best films of 2009, I had low expectations for Jones’s second effort. Something about the big budget polish, ultra high concept and pseudo-science air of the promotional materials turned me off. But “Source Code,” as much as it’s tangled up in that world, is ultimately a human story wrapped up in a sophisticated philosophical dilemma.

Beneath the quantum mechanics and theoretical physics gobbledygook is an age old ethical problem, which pits the rights and autonomy of the individual against the welfare and safety of the population at large. You see, Stevens (spoiler alert!) is actually dead. He was killed in action in Afghanistan. His consciousness, however, is being kept alive by machines so that he can execute the Source Code program and ostensibly save the lives of countless Chicagoans. The problem is that he basically has no choice in the matter. Disembodied consciousnesses tend to have limited options in the physical world. And, since his body is already dead, he doesn’t even have the option of suicide.

Jones, who holds a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, handles this dilemma with incredible awareness and skill throughout most of the film. The motives of all the players are clear and valid.

The film’s biggest problems stem from the myriad plot holes and logical inconsistencies of its concept. If Stevens is inserted into another person’s memories, how is he able to change things? or is he entering an alternate reality each time he enters the Source Code? But if that’s the case then how is he able to send an email to Vera Farmiga’s character in the current reality from a different reality? And what about the ending? Why is Stevens suddenly able to remain in the Source Code (or alternate reality) when he was unable to before? And is he seriously just going to take over the other guy’s life and live as Sean Fentress forever? That seems a little strange. Fraudulent even.

But the logic challenges of its concept seem irrelevant when “Source Code” really gets cooking. Jones makes sure its human core carries it across the finish line.