The Invisible Tower

This is the last of the middle school novels I had on my shelf that were coming out in January. The Invisible Tower, by Nils Johnson-Shelton, is the first of a new series, Otherworld Chronicles, and it's a decent book. There's still something about the writing style that is probably how middle school novels are supposed to be written but that strikes me as too direct and simple since I was reading much more complicated books at that age. But the story is engaging, and I enjoyed the direction it ultimately took.

Artie Kingfisher is a quiet, nerdy boy who's just discovered how to beat a difficult dragon on a video game called Otherworld. But when a message addressed directly to him appears as an easter egg in the game, his true destiny is revealed. Young Artie is really King Arthur of Avalon, reborn, and the wizard Merlin needs him to retrieve a key in the real Otherworld, a magical sister world to Earth. Artie teams up with his sister (in his adoptive family) and a few new friends to pull the sword from the stone and Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake. But many trials and real dangers await Arthur and his new knights on their way to releasing Merlin from his long imprisonment, the most terrifying of which is the sorceress Morgaine. She wants Excalibur, and Merlin wants his freedom. But what does Artie want?

This idea is a very clever way of bringing Arthur back to life. It's very fantastical and quite a bit over the top. It's not particularly close to the original stories of King Arthur, but it's not meant to be either. Different fictional worlds are thrown together; it appears the author really enjoys Alice's Adventures in Wonderland since he borrows heavily from that. Hardcore Arthurian legend fans probably won't like this rendition, but imagination and creativity are certainly not lacking in Johnson-Shelton's Otherworld.

The pure imagination of it is what kept me reading. There are little things I could nitpick at in the story. I'm annoyed by the fact that the kids' dad is initially put under a spell so that the kids can do whatever they want around him and get away with it. But they eventually feel bad about using him, and he's finally brought into the loop.

I don't think it's accidental that Merlin is introduced in the prologue the way he is. For most of the book, he seems like a great guy looking out for Artie, but right off the bat, we're told that his priority is finding a way to escape. And the end leaves you wondering about Merlin, whether he's good or bad or somewhere between the two. It's a great cliffhanger for the rest of the series. I think I was particularly struck by Merlin's possible duality because the rest of the book is so forthright, telling things as they are. I admit, I was a bit caught off guard to learn at the end that Merlin's actions might be self-serving, yet I think it was at the back of my mind for the whole book, due to that nice bit of prologue workmanship.

Despite the book's flaws, I think story trumps craft, so I give this one a thumb's up.

Sucker Punch

When I first saw a preview for this movie, I was sure it was something I'd never watch. But when later previews revealed that it was more than just scantily clad women beating up monsters, I reconsidered.

Sucker Punch is actually about a girl trying to escape an insane asylum, using two fantasy worlds to do it. It's similar to Inception, actually, in that most of the plot takes place in one of these two fantasy worlds and you have to remind yourself that she's actually still in the asylum. Also similar to Inception, the fantasy worlds are like levels in the mind, one within another, time expanding as you go deeper.

In the real world, Baby Doll, as the heroine is called, is about to get a lobotomy. She enters the first fantasy world, which is just a glorified version of her bleak situation in the real world. In this fantasy world, she's been sold to a brothel, and there, she meets four girls who are willing to try to break out with her. These four girls are also inmates in the asylum. In the brothel, she's being saved for a high roller, and she is ordered to create a dance that will entice him. Each time she dances, she enters the second fantasy world, one where she wears leather, wields a sword, and kicks butt, essentially a video game world. We never see her dances, only her fights. Her four friends enter this world with her and battle monsters, dragons, and villains, searching for five items that will allow them to escape. These five items exist in each fantasy world and in the real one.

It's a very interesting concept for a film, and I was thoroughly intrigued by it. Having said that, however, I do have disclaimers. The movie is rated PG-13 for sexuality, violence, and mostly mild swearing. I would bump that rating up to an R. There is no actual sex, just the existence of the brothel with its scantily clad women, but the very idea that it takes place in a brothel seemed too mature to me for PG-13. But the brothel is not simply a ploy of the producers to get more viewers. Its existence makes sense in the context of the film, whether I condone it or not. Baby Doll is sold to the insane asylum by her stepfather after a series of tragic events, one of which is that he tries to rape her and her younger sister. This takes place at the beginning of the film and was impressive to me cinematically (not morally) because it's all told visually. There's little narration or dialog. As to the existence of the brothel, in light of this beginning and the lascivious asylum worker who takes the money, it makes sense for Baby Doll to imagine that the asylum is a brothel.

I don't want to spoil the end for you, but I'll say its bittersweetness worked for me. It's mostly sad with a ray of hope, and I would have preferred a slightly happier turn of events. Nonetheless, it wraps up neatly with some nice parallelism. As Baby Doll says, it's not her story, after all.

As fascinating as it was, the movie also disturbed me enough that I'm not sure whether to recommend it or not. The sexual element is pervasive, obviously, and that creates a moral dilemma for me. On one hand, you have a really creative movie with meaningful themes, something different from the norm, which as an artist myself, I really appreciate. On the other hand, the disturbing sexuality of this movie would normally have me ranting against it. I will say, this movie pushed the limits I would give it, but never quite far enough to lose me. There was never a moral ambiguity; the brothel was clearly a place of evil. You have to view it at your own discretion and certainly not with younger kids. I would steer teens away from this, too, except that many of them probably play video games that are far worse, unfortunately. The video game fantasy world of this movie, however, is probably the one safest for your kids to watch.

So, readers, as always, you are free to have your own opinions and make up your own mind, but I've tried to give you something to work with here. Two stars for pervasive scenes and themes of moral degradation. Four stars for originality and creativity.

Tron: Legacy (in theaters now)

I really wanted to see Tron: Legacy when it came out in theaters, but a few people I know saw it before I could and were disappointed, putting a damper on my excitement. All I knew about Tron, novice geek that I am, I had learned from playing the video game Kingdom Hearts, the only video game I have ever really played, which I am also proud and sort of embarrassed to say that I finished (let's not talk about the hours of my life invested). Anyway...I didn't know much, but the previews led me to believe it would be a visual feast.

Short but relevant digression...today is my wedding anniversary: seven years. We had a lovely weekend of celebrating, some of it with our one-year-old son and today by ourselves, haunting our old college hangouts. We returned to our favorite strip mall with its overly-priced Rave theater and almost flipped a coin (another old tradition that had a play in bringing us together, actually) over Tron: Legacy and Gulliver's Travels. But Tron was earlier, and that decided it. We did not see it in 3D, though Tron, being about a digital world, screams to be a 3D movie. We had been advised to save the money, so we lowered our expectations all-around for this movie and still forked out a nice chunk of cash for a 2D matinee.

Perhaps it was because of these lowered expectations, or perhaps the 3D effects were underwhelming, provoking the bad reviews...whatever the case, we enjoyed the movie. I won't say we loved it, but it was a good popcorn movie, a fun action flick.

Premise: Kevin Flynn has created a digital game world where he can go in actual physical form. He disappears when his son Sam Flynn is 12, leaving his legacy to his son. Sam discovers a way into the world when he is 27, but the world he finds isn't the happy world his father told him about. Clu and Tron, two "Programs" (as opposed to "Users" like the Flynns) Kevin was building the world with, have rebelled against him. The senior Flynn has been stuck in the digital world all this time, and Sam will soon be, too, unless he can get back to the portal before it closes and before Clu's evil plans can be realized.

This was a visual treat, as expected, despite the lack of 3D. The characters were interesting, and the acting was decent.

The complaints about the movie center around plot points, or the lack of them, really. Essentially, Sam gets into the world and then spends the rest of the movie trying to get out. Not a lot of depth there. The relationship between father and son is vaguely intriguing but doesn't make or break the movie.

There's a subtle jab at the way humans treat the earth that isn't long enough to be preachy, so I can overlook it. The possible political message of the movie annoyed others but wasn't blatant enough to bother me.

A few things don't make much sense or, being inessential to the movie, may detract from an otherwise shallow but straightforward plot. One is the miraculous life-forms that suddenly appear in the digital world, something almost human, looking human, a perfect being, of which only one remains for the plot. The idea is that she could be the key to curing mankind of its diseases (perhaps a political message really was trying to dig to the surface, but hazy plot development kept it mostly buried). The miraculous life-forms could have been left completely out of the plot and not changed the story's direction.

The second thing that is a bit out-of-nowhere and inessential is Tron himself. Weird, isn't it, when the movie is called Tron? He is a background character who does a few minor tricks in the finale of this story, but any Program could have taken his place and been as important. I guess they needed some reference to the original game, but why not name a more central character Tron or get him a more developed role? Who knows?

There are other minor pieces of the story that just need cleaned up to make this a tighter, neater film, plot devices that aren't used to their full potential or that don't serve any purpose at all, making them superfluous.

But it was an enjoyable two hours, nonetheless. Kudos for appearances by Bruce Boxleitner, best known for his leading role in the old sci-fi TV show Babylon 5, and Jeff Bridges, both stars of the 1982 version of Tron and reprising their roles as Alan Bradley/Tron and Kevin Flynn/Clu respectively.

It just now occurs to me that some of these superfluous plot points, like Tron himself, are supposed to be throwbacks to the original Tron movie and that Tron: Legacy is a sequel to the 1982 film. This may have been obvious to Tron lovers out there, but like I said, I'm just a novice geek, trying to catch up. As a sequel, I'm sure the movie was outstanding, by comparison to its forerunner, and had some nice insider references, but for those of us who were born in the year the first Tron was released, it didn't do a good enough job of catching us up on the past to feel like a clear-cut stand-alone movie.