Battle of the Sexes (2017) review

In tennis, the term ‘Battle of the Sexes’ is used to describe an exhibition match that’s held between male and female tennis players. Since 1973, there have been various ‘Battle of the Sexes’ matches that have been played over the years, but only three of these have been primarily designated as such. And in today’s film of the same name, we get to see the true story of what is easily the most famous of these particular tennis matches, the 1973 nationally televised exhibition match between Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs. King’s victory in the match proved to be quite a game-changer when it came to female tennis players earning more respect in the sport, and she would later go on to become the founder of both the Women’s Tennis Association and the Women’s Sports Foundation. And in this film, we learn the full story behind this milestone moment in her life thanks to the directing team of Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris. This husband and wife duo has been responsible for some well-received films over the years, including 2006’s Oscar contender Little Miss Sunshine, which ultimately won two Oscars for Best Original Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor for Alan Arkin, and 2012’s Ruby Sparks, a film written by its main actress, Zoe Kazan. And with their latest directorial endeavor, they give us a captivating true story drama with a well-executed feminist undertone and an outstanding lead performance from its leading lady in the role of one of the most famous tennis players of all-time.

In 1973, Billie Jean King (Emma Stone) is the top-ranked female tennis player in the world. At the same time, she’s also been quite an outspoken activist when it comes to male and female tennis players earning equal payouts from their victories. Unfortunately, she and her friend Gladys Heldman (Sarah Silverman), the founder of World Tennis magazine, haven’t been able to make much leeway on that front. At the time, male players were earning eight times more than female players which, as explained to the two women by US Lawn Tennis Association chief Jack Kramer (Bill Pullman), was because “the men are more exciting to watch”. In response to this, King, Heldman, and eight other players decide to hold their own tournament which ultimately becomes the Virginia Slims circuit, even though it also ends up getting them kicked out of the USLTA. While all this is going on, cocky former tennis star Bobby Riggs (Steve Carell) comes up with a crazy idea. He gets in touch with Billie Jean and challenges her to an exhibition match with a purse of $100,000. Billie Jean declines, though, and Riggs plays her longtime rival, Margaret Court (Jessica McNamee), instead. However, when Court ends up losing to Riggs in an embarrassing blowout, Billie Jean decides to finally accept Riggs’ offer and compete against him so that she can redeem the reputation of female tennis players in the male-dominated sport.

Battle of the Sexes is a highly engaging sports drama, even when considering the fact that those going into the film most likely know the outcome of its story (I mean, heck, I kind of already spoiled it in the intro). But even with that in mind, the film’s focus is geared more towards the build-up to the main event and Billie Jean’s efforts to champion equal pay amongst her fellow tennis players than the actual match itself. And through it all, the best thing about this film is that by the time the iconic match finally occurs, we are fully behind Billie Jean because of how important it is for her to win. That and she also proves to be quite a likable protagonist with a solid emotional arc based partially around her growing relationship with her hairdresser Marilyn (Andrea Riseborough) despite her marriage to Larry King (Austin Stowell (disclaimer: not THAT Larry King)). It also helps that she’s played by one of the most charismatic actresses in the industry, Emma Stone, as this is easily one of the best performances of her career. Meanwhile, Steve Carell is great as well as he slips into the role of the loud-mouthed, self-promoting Riggs with ease. In short, Battle of the Sexes reminds me a lot of another sports film that came out last year, Eddie the Eagle. These two films, both of which were based on true stories, ultimately succeeded because of how effective they were in making us sympathize with their main protagonists in their athletic endeavors. And thanks to strong direction from Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, as well as an excellent ensemble cast highlighted by Emma Stone in what could potentially be another Oscar-winning performance for her, Battle of the Sexes is quite the rousing affair that couldn’t be more timely.

Rating: 5/5!

Independence Day: Resurgence (2016) review

In 1996, director Roland Emmerich released what would become his first major foray into the disaster film genre, Independence Day. Starring a large ensemble cast that included Will Smith, Jeff Goldblum, and Bill Pullman, the film revolved around a massive alien invasion and the efforts of various people across the world to combat the alien threat, which just so conveniently happened to occur during the Fourth of July weekend, hence the title of the film. Independence Day was a massive commercial success upon release, grossing over $817 million worldwide and becoming the highest grossing film of its year. Seriously, no other film released that year even came remotely close to reaching those kind of numbers at the box-office. But even though the film ended up being one of the most successful blockbusters of all-time, it took quite a long time for a sequel to get made. It wasn’t until a few years ago when Emmerich and Dean Devlin, who co-wrote the original film with Emmerich but hadn’t worked with him since 2000, finally got an idea down for not one but two sequels to the original film with the goal being to shoot them back-to-back. And while it’s unclear at the moment if a third film will ever get made, we finally have a sequel in the form of Independence Day: Resurgence. Mirroring the gap in years between films, this new film takes place 20 years after the events of the original film and once again finds the people of Earth dealing with a massive alien invasion. And even though the film is most certainly just as cheesy as its predecessor in terms of its execution, it also carries the same sort of playful tone that is just enough to make it an enjoyable popcorn flick even when taking its shortcomings into account.

It has been 20 years since the aliens’ initial invasion of Earth was thwarted by the human race, primarily thanks to heroes like then-U.S. President Thomas Whitmore (Bill Pullman). Since then, humanity has come together to not only rebuild in the wake of the devastating attack but to also prepare for the likelihood of the aliens’ return. The latter goal comes primarily through the formation of the ESD AKA ‘Earth Space Defense’, a united global defense program led by fellow war hero David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum) and whose military force is captained by the late Steven Hiller’s son Dylan (now played by Jessie Usher). As the 20^th anniversary of the ‘War of 1996’ approaches, David finds an intact alien ship in Africa that had been drilling a hole leading to the planet’s molten core prior to the aliens’ defeat 20 years prior. This ship also ends up sending out a distress signal which leads to a new mothership that is, to quote David, ‘definitely bigger than the last one’ arriving to attack the planet, once again causing a considerable amount of collateral damage. With the odds once again stacked against them, David, Whitmore, and Dylan, along with others including Whitmore’s now grown-up daughter Patricia (Maika Monroe) and her fiancé, pilot Jake Morrison (Liam Hemsworth), once again look to stop the aliens before they can harvest the heat of the Earth’s core and destroy the planet. To do so, they end up acquiring the help of some of the aliens’ biggest ‘enemies’ who hold the key to defeating them.

Like the original film, there’s no denying that this alien invasion film is very, very cheesy in terms of its plot and overall execution. In fact, it’s so cheesy that if it wasn’t for the more elaborate modern-era visual effects, you’d swear that this film was made back in the 90’s when the original was made. But even with that in mind, the film actually does manage to maintain the same sort of light-hearted and action-packed atmosphere of the original Independence Day even after all of these years. A lot of this comes from the light-hearted comedic banter between characters that was also present in the original film, something that I’m sure was at least one of the reasons why the film was as successful of a crowd-pleaser as it was. Admittedly Resurgence does have a bit of a slow start and like its predecessor, more focus is spent on the action than it is on developing the plot and its large cast of characters. However, as the film went on, I gradually started to become more and more engrossed by it all to the point where I was totally hooked by the time the finale rolled around. Sure it may not carry much of the emotional depth that it wants to have but it’s still full of fun and exciting action sequences. It certainly isn’t boring, which is something that I’ve seen a few critics argue. Obviously the gap between films means that the sequel uses a lot more CG than the previous film, which actually did utilize quite a lot of practical effects. And with that said, the visuals in this film are quite excellent and they very much up the scale when it comes to epic alien vs. human action. That has usually been the case with most of Emmerich’s disaster films. For as ludicrous as they can get plot-wise, he certainly delivers when it comes to scenes of epic destruction.

The film’s ensemble cast is a mix of both new and returning characters, although some of the latter were re-cast. Specifically, Dylan Hiller is now played by Jessie Usher, having previously been played by Will Smith’s Fresh Prince of Bel-Air co-star Ross Bagley in the first film, and Thomas Whitmore’s daughter Patricia is now played by Maika Monroe, with the latter recasting attracting quite a bit of controversy over the supposed dismissal of Mae Whitman, who played the part in the 1996 film. But of course one of the most talked about developments regarding the film was the fact that Will Smith wasn’t returning to reprise his role as Steven Hiller. I’ll admit that I thought he was going to make some sort of cameo despite all of the denials but it’s true; the sequel is very much Will Smith-less as it’s established that his character died a few years prior to the events of the film. As a result, the film does lose a bit of the original’s charm that came courtesy of its charismatic lead star. But even if there may not be any ‘award-worthy’ performances in this cast, as was the case with the previous film, the cast still seems to be quite game for a film of this nature. While Smith doesn’t return, both Jeff Goldblum and Bill Pullman return as David and Whitmore, respectively, and both are still just as memorable as they were in the previous film, with Goldblum once again providing plenty of the film’s humorous moments and Pullman yet again proving to be quite a badass ‘leader’ as the former President that gave one of the most epic speeches of all-time in the original film. Plenty of the new additions are solid as well, particularly Usher and Liam Hemsworth who do actually manage to provide a good chunk of the charisma that someone like Smith was able to provide. Though as is the case when working with a large ensemble cast, some characters are fairly underused, including both new characters like David’s co-worker Dr. Catherine Marceaux (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and even some returning characters like Hiller’s widow Jasmine (Vivica A. Fox).

I’ve noticed that reviews for this film have gotten much more negative these last few days. For the record, it was faring pretty decently reception-wise before its release date, hovering around a 50% on RT. But once opening day rolled around, suddenly reviews for it started to get much more vitriolic with plenty of people calling it ‘one of the worst films of the year’ and so on and so forth. And I’m rather surprised by that because the film really isn’t as bad as those recent reviews imply. Now don’t get me wrong, this film is by no means perfect. Like its predecessor, it is very, very cheesy and definitely doesn’t really do that much in terms of story and character development. It could very much be argued that this is one of those cases of a sequel that came way too late given how much blockbuster films have evolved in the years since the original ID4 as this film feels very much like its predecessor in regards to feeling like a 90’s-esque action film. And yet by the end, I was legitimately hooked by it. Yeah it’s totally stupid but it is what it is. At its core, it’s just a fun little popcorn flick that never really tries to be something that it’s not. Yeah it does start off on a rather awkward note but it does manage to smooth things out for the most part by the end. And sure, the film does end on one hell of a blatant ‘sequel-baiting’ note and it’s unclear if a third film is even going to happen given the generally negative reaction to this film. Still, I won’t lie in saying that I would be interested in seeing how Emmerich and Devlin plan on concluding this supposed trilogy. Hopefully if a sequel does get made, it won’t take 20 more years to happen like it did the first time.

Rating: 3/5