Okja (2017)

There’s a certain cognitive dissonance in eating meat.  We like meat.  It tastes good.  At the same time, we know where it comes from.  We know that steak comes from cows.  We know that bacon comes from pigs.  Yet, we still eat meat.  When Lucy Mirando introduces her company’s new food source, she dresses it up really nice.  The super pig, as she calls it, is non-GMO and environmentally friendly.   It can potentially end world hunger, or at least put a serious dent in it.  As part of a publicity campaign, she sends 26 piglets to farms in 26 different countries to be raised.  In a decade’s time, the most beautiful one will be given a parade.

Mija is a girl living on one of those farms.  She lives there with her grandfather and plays with the pig, named Okja.  As Okja is the title character, we can imagine that the pig will be picked as the best one and brought back to the United States.  When the time comes, Mija has to be led away so as not to interfere.  When she finds out, she chases after her beloved companion and eventually catches up with her.

This leads her on an odyssey wherein she meets the Animal Liberation Front, a group dedicated to eliminating the suffering of animals and people.  Their plan, should Mija give consent, is to use Okja as a Trojan Horse to get footage of Mirando’s facilities.  This footage could bring an end to the mistreatment of animals.  If you’ve ever seen similar movies or TV episodes, you know that this isn’t going to be a pretty picture.  We’re not shown everything, but the movie does like to push it to the edge.  We’re shown live animals in deplorable conditions.  We’re shown dead animals being processed.  Make no mistake:  This is not meant to be a cute, kid-friendly picture.

It’s hard to tell where, exactly, Joon-ho Bong was going with the movie.  (He both directed and wrote it.)  On the one hand, it is a very serious message.  We’re given an animal that means the world to a little girl and she’s serious about stopping the death of her best friend.  Then again, many of the other characters are caricatures to varying degrees.  One member, in an effort to reduce his carbon footprint, won’t eat a tomato that was transported using fossil fuels.  Johnny Wilcox, a washed-up TV personality, is basically a flamboyant drunk.

Then there’s Lucy Mirando, who is capitalism incarnate.  She seems nice until she brings it back to money.  It’s worth noting that she has a twin sister who’s even worst.  Both admit that they couldn’t hold a candle to their father, who was primarily described as psychopathic.  (Coming from those two, that means something.)

The movie is entertaining.  The use of a super pig as a stand-in for meat ends up being a wise choice.  Despite the size of the animal, we still feel for her just as Mija does.  Okja shows us the evils of meat processing without actually putting us off from any meat in particular.  It’s not clear if the movie is meant to be an indictment of eating meat or just the way meat is processed.

When I first came across the movie, I added it quickly.  After reading descriptions, I wasn’t sure if I’d like the movie.  I finally decided to just watch the movie.  It wasn’t until later that I realize that the director also made The Host, another movie that I liked.

I’d say it was definitely worth the two hours for me.  I did enjoy the movie and felt it worked well.  This is what movies with a message could aspire to.  I found the balance of message and story to be good.  I don’t know that everyone is going to like the movie.  As I said, other movies and TV episodes have dealt with the topic.  If it at all makes you squeamish, I’d avoid the movie.  There are a few scenes that will probably necessitate you ending the movie early.  This is really the only issue that I’d warn people about.  I’m not saying that it will be a deal breaker, but I should at least put it out there.  Overall, I didn’t find it as over the top as I expected.  The eccentricities of Lucy Mirando and Johnny Wilcox weren’t enough to turn me away from the movie.

IMDb page

Looper (2012)

Note:  This review was originally posted to my Epinions account.

WARNING:  I’m going to give away major details about the movie.  If you’re not into that sort of stuff, now’s the time to stop reading.

Time travel is one of those things that, when used in a movie, will either attract or repel people.  It’s almost like anime in that you either love it or hate it.  You either love to pick apart the physics and paradoxes or you don’t want to be bothered.  In the world of Looper, time travel has been invented sometime between 2044 and 2074.  It’s immediately outlawed, which means that it’s used only by outlaws.  Organized crime has taken over the technology, primarily because it’s nearly impossible to kill someone in 2074.  Their solution?  Send bodies back to 2044 to be killed and disposed of by loopers.  The targets are sent back with four bars of silver as payment.

The name comes from the fact that loopers will one day find a body with a crapload of gold instead of the usual silver.  This will be their future selves.  The looper has thus closed their own loop and has 30 years of retirement to enjoy before the mob comes knocking on their door.  Joe is a looper.  He waits at the same location for his targets until one day, his load of gold arrives.

There are several things keeping loopers from not closing their loop.  First off, the targets come with a hood that usually conceals their identities.   Second, loopers tend to shoot immediately, thus preventing someone from warning themselves or using any information to escape.  If someone does escape, the present version of the looper is captured and tortured in hopes of compelling the future version to come in.  (If you’re thinking of letting your small children watch this movie, they will get to see this in graphic detail.)

Another important aspect of life in 2044 are people with telekinetic abilities.  Most are at the parlor-trick level, able to make quarters float.  It’s not as impressive as they think it is.  There are a few with better abilities.  Of notable concern is someone called The Rainmaker.  It turns out that he’s taken over in 2074 and is closing all the loops, including Joe’s.

This leads to two timelines.  In one, Joe does his job and properly closes his loop.  In another, Joe is able to go back without his hood, thus causing his younger self to hesitate.  This give Old Joe time to escape.  He has information on who The Rainmaker is.  He’s able to narrow it down to three children who were all born on the same day in the same hospital.  Like The Terminator, Old Joe goes about hunting down all three children.

Young Joe is a bit more optimistic.  He hopes that killing The Rainmaker isn’t necessary.  In fact, it turns out that The Rainmaker may have gone bad after seeing his mother killed.  Erasing the traumatic event coupled with having a loving parent may be enough.  This is where the luck is a bit cliché.  Old Joe first targets the two children that aren’t The Rainmaker whereas Young Joe manages to rip off the piece of paper that happens to have the correct child.  Thus, he’s able to protect the child and his mother.

There are a few things that I got to thinking about and it’s not the good kind of thinking where the movie inspires all sorts of moral and/or physics questions.  Instead, it’s more about the story.  First, the mob gains control of a contraband technology and they use it solely for killing people?  Ok.  They say that going back isn’t so easy.  Isn’t that what cryogenics is for?  You could have a black-market tourism service.  You could also send back people to take advantage of the stock market.

There was also someone sent back to recruit loopers.  Couldn’t someone find this boss’s younger self and use that as leverage?  I don’t recall if it was mentioned.  It may have been one of those things that was mentioned in passing and I just missed it.  Still, I’d be worried that someone would figure it out.  Someone has to be thinking it.

I’d also get into the whole aspect of preventing Hitler from coming to power, but that’s sort of what this is about.  The Rainmaker supposedly takes on the whole mob without being seen and without any help at all.  The entire mob just ups and dies in a short span of time.  Joe comes to realize that this is not good.  At the very least, they killed his wife.  That has to be stopped.  The issue is how.  Do you just kill the person outright or do you attempt to work with them?

I also won’t go into the issue of time travel.  The physics aren’t really discussed.  If you try to think of all the paradoxes and science and stuff, you’ll go crazy.  I find that it’s better to focus on the story.  It was an interesting story, but not an amazing movie.  I had gotten this using a free code on Redbox.  (I was going to use the code on Total Recall, but I paid for it by accident.)  It’s one of those movies that I don’t mind having rented for free. 

IMDb page