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Miami Herald
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Miami Herald
Review: ‘Nautilus' gives Capt. Nemo a swashbuckling origin story
Certain elements of Jules Verne's 1870 novel "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea" have become a TV series, "Nautilus," on AMC, which picked up the show after Disney+, which ordered and completed it, let it drop. Created by James Dormer, it's not an adaptation but a prequel, or an origin story, as the comic book kids like to say, in which Nemo, not yet captain, sets sail in his submarine for the first time. Verne's imaginative fiction has inspired more and less faithful screen adaptations since the days of silent movies. (Georges Méliès 1902 "A Trip to the Moon," based partially on Verne's 1865 "From the Earth to the Moon," is accounted the first science-fiction film.) For a few midcentury years, perhaps inspired by the success of Disney's own "20,000 Leagues" - a film they continue to exploit in its theme parks - and Mike Todd's "Around the World in 80 Days," it was almost a cottage industry: "Journey to the Center of the Earth," "In Search of the Castaways," "Five Weeks in a Balloon." I grew up watching these films rerun on TV; they are corny and fun, as is "Nautilus," with fancier effects, anticorporate sentiments and people of color. We have seen Nemo played by James Mason, Michael Caine, Patrick Stewart, Ben Cross and Robert Ryan, but in "The Mysterious Island," Verne's sort-of sequel to "Twenty Thousand Leagues," he identified Nemo as an Indian prince, as he is shown here, played by Shazad Latif, deposed by an imperial power, his wife and child murdered. The character is usually a bit of a madman, and this Nemo - pigheaded, bossy - is not wholly an exception, though he is also a young, smoldering, swashbuckling hero and a man more sinned against than sinning. We meet him as a prisoner of the British East India Mercantile Company, "the most powerful corporation to ever exist, more powerful than any country," which is building the Nautilus in India with slave labor, in pursuit, says villainous company director Crawley (Damien Garvey), of "prying open and exploiting the Chinese market." I'm not sure how a submarine is supposed to do that, but, eh, it's a reason. Nemo has been collaborating with the submarine's inventor, Gustave Benoit (Thierry Frémont), who had accepted the corporation's money under the promise that it would be used for exploration - scientists can be so dense. Nemo, whom the professor credits as the mind behind the ship's engine, has his own use for the Nautilus and executes a hasty escape with a half-random crew of fellow inmates in a deftly staged sequence that borrows heavily from "Indiana Jones," an inspirational well to which the series returns throughout. And we're off. On the agenda: escaping, revenge and finding buried treasure to finance revenge. When the Nautilus, hardly on its way, cripples the ship they're traveling on - under the impression that the sub is under attack - the crew is joined, unwillingly, by Humility Lucas (Georgia Flood), a science-minded British socialite with super engineering skills, who is being packed off to Bombay to marry the abominable Lord Pitt (Cameron Cuffe). She's accompanied by a chaperone/warder, Loti (Céline Menville), a Frenchwoman who has a mean way with a dagger, and cabin boy Blaster (Kayden Price). And a little dog too. Sparks obviously will fly between Nemo and Humility - bad sparks, then good sparks, as in an Astaire and Rogers movie - and there are actual sparks from a bad electrical connection Humility works out how to fix. Apart from Benoit, Humility and Loti, a big fellow named Jiacomo (Andrew Shaw), who hails from nobody knows where and speaks a language no one understands, and a British stowaway, the crew of the Nautilus are all people of color - South Asian, Asian, Middle Eastern, African or Pacific Islander. Few are really developed as characters, but the actors give them life, and the supporting players carry the comedy, of which there's a good deal. One episode inverts the tired old scenario in which white explorers are threatened with death by dark-skinned natives; here, the captors are Nordic warrior women. The show is anticolonial and anti-imperialist in a way that "Star Wars" taught audiences to recognize, if not necessarily recognize in the world around them, and anticapitalist in a way that movies have most always been. (The final episode, which has a financial theme, is titled "Too Big to Fail." It is quite absurd.) It can be slow at times, which is not inappropriate to a show that takes place largely underwater. But that its structure is essentially episodic keeps "Nautilus" colorful and more interesting than if it were simply stretched on the rack of a long arc across its 10 episodes. It's a lot like (pre-streaming) "Star Trek," which is, after all, a naval metaphor, its crew sailing through a hostile environment encountering a variety of monsters and cultures week to week; indeed, there are some similar storylines: the crew infected by a mystery spore, the ship threatened by tiny beasties and giant monsters, encounters with a tinpot dictator and semimythological figures - all the while being pursued by a Klingon Bird of Prey, sorry, a giant metal warship. The greatest hits of underwater adventuring (some from Verne's novel) are covered: volcanoes, giant squid, giant eel, engine trouble, running out of air and the ruins of a lost civilization (Is it Atlantis? Benoit hopes so). Less common: a cricket match on the ice. Apart from a pod of whales outside the window (and, later, a whale rescue), not a lot of time is devoted to the wonders of the sea - the special effects budget, which has in other respects been spent lavishly, apparently had no room left for schools of fish. But these submariners have other things on their minds. The odds of a second season, says my cloudy crystal ball, are limited, so you may have to accommodate a few minor cliffhangers if you decide to watch. I did not at all regret the time I spent here, even though I sometimes had no idea what was going on or found it ridiculous when I did, as there was usually some stimulating activity or bit of scenery or detail of steampunk design to enjoy. I mean, I watched an episode of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" recently, a 1960s submarine series, in which guest star John Cassavetes created a superbomb that could destroy three-quarters of the world, and almost nothing in it made any sense at all, including the presence of John Cassavetes. "Nautilus" is actually good. Copyright (C) 2025, Tribune Content Agency, LLC. Portions copyrighted by the respective providers.
Los Angeles Times
7 days ago
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
‘Nautilus' gives Capt. Nemo a swashbuckling origin story
Certain elements of Jules Verne's 1870 novel 'Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea' have become a TV series, 'Nautilus,' premiering Sunday on AMC, which picked up the show after Disney+, which ordered and completed it, let it drop. Created by James Dormer, it's not an adaptation but a prequel, or an origin story, as the comic book kids like to say, in which Nemo, not yet captain, sets sail in his submarine for the first time. Verne's imaginative fiction has inspired more and less faithful screen adaptations since the days of silent movies. (Georges Méliès 1902 'A Trip to the Moon,' based partially on Verne's 1865 'From the Earth to the Moon,' is accounted the first science-fiction film.) For a few midcentury years, perhaps inspired by the success of Disney's own '20,000 Leagues' — a film they continue to exploit in its theme parks — and Mike Todd's 'Around the World in 80 Days,' it was almost a cottage industry: 'Journey to the Center of the Earth,' 'In Search of the Castaways,' 'Five Weeks in a Balloon.' I grew up watching these films rerun on TV; they are corny and fun, as is 'Nautilus,' with fancier effects, anticorporate sentiments and people of color. We have seen Nemo played by James Mason, Michael Caine, Patrick Stewart, Ben Cross and Robert Ryan, but in 'The Mysterious Island,' Verne's sort-of sequel to 'Twenty Thousand Leagues,' he identified Nemo as an Indian prince, as he is shown here, played by Shazad Latif, deposed by an imperial power, his wife and child murdered. The character is usually a bit of a madman, and this Nemo — pigheaded, bossy — is not wholly an exception, though he is also a young, smoldering, swashbuckling hero and a man more sinned against than sinning. We meet him as a prisoner of the British East India Mercantile Company, 'the most powerful corporation to ever exist, more powerful than any country,' which is building the Nautilus in India with slave labor, in pursuit, says villainous company director Crawley (Damien Garvey), of 'prying open and exploiting the Chinese market.' I'm not sure how a submarine is supposed to do that, but, eh, it's a reason. Nemo has been collaborating with the submarine's inventor, Gustave Benoit (Thierry Frémont), who had accepted the corporation's money under the promise that it would be used for exploration — scientists can be so dense. Nemo, whom the professor credits as the mind behind the ship's engine, has his own use for the Nautilus and executes a hasty escape with a half-random crew of fellow inmates in a deftly staged sequence that borrows heavily from 'Indiana Jones,' an inspirational well to which the series returns throughout. And we're off. On the agenda: escaping, revenge and finding buried treasure to finance revenge. When the Nautilus, hardly on its way, cripples the ship they're traveling on — under the impression that the sub is under attack — the crew is joined, unwillingly, by Humility Lucas (Georgia Flood), a science-minded British socialite with super engineering skills, who is being packed off to Bombay to marry the abominable Lord Pitt (Cameron Cuffe). She's accompanied by a chaperone/warder, Loti (Céline Menville), a Frenchwoman who has a mean way with a dagger, and cabin boy Blaster (Kayden Price). And a little dog too. Sparks obviously will fly between Nemo and Humility — bad sparks, then good sparks, as in an Astaire and Rogers movie — and there are actual sparks from a bad electrical connection Humility works out how to fix. Apart from Benoit, Humility and Loti, a big fellow named Jiacomo (Andrew Shaw), who hails from nobody knows where and speaks a language no one understands, and a British stowaway, the crew of the Nautilus are all people of color — South Asian, Asian, Middle Eastern, African or Pacific Islander. Few are really developed as characters, but the actors give them life, and the supporting players carry the comedy, of which there's a good deal. One episode inverts the tired old scenario in which white explorers are threatened with death by dark-skinned natives; here, the captors are Nordic warrior women. The show is anticolonial and anti-imperialist in a way that 'Star Wars' taught audiences to recognize, if not necessarily recognize in the world around them, and anticapitalist in a way that movies have most always been. (The final episode, which has a financial theme, is titled 'Too Big to Fail.' It is quite absurd.) It can be slow at times, which is not inappropriate to a show that takes place largely underwater. But that its structure is essentially episodic keeps 'Nautilus' colorful and more interesting than if it were simply stretched on the rack of a long arc across its 10 episodes. It's a lot like (pre-streaming) 'Star Trek,' which is, after all, a naval metaphor, its crew sailing through a hostile environment encountering a variety of monsters and cultures week to week; indeed, there are some similar storylines: the crew infected by a mystery spore, the ship threatened by tiny beasties and giant monsters, encounters with a tinpot dictator and semimythological figures — all the while being pursued by a Klingon Bird of Prey, sorry, a giant metal warship. The greatest hits of underwater adventuring (some from Verne's novel) are covered: volcanoes, giant squid, giant eel, engine trouble, running out of air and the ruins of a lost civilization (Is it Atlantis? Benoit hopes so). Less common: a cricket match on the ice. Apart from a pod of whales outside the window (and, later, a whale rescue), not a lot of time is devoted to the wonders of the sea — the special effects budget, which has in other respects been spent lavishly, apparently had no room left for schools of fish. But these submariners have other things on their minds. The odds of a second season, says my cloudy crystal ball, are limited, so you may have to accommodate a few minor cliffhangers if you decide to watch. I did not at all regret the time I spent here, even though I sometimes had no idea what was going on or found it ridiculous when I did, as there was usually some stimulating activity or bit of scenery or detail of steampunk design to enjoy. I mean, I watched an episode of 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea' recently, a 1960s submarine series, in which guest star John Cassavetes created a superbomb that could destroy three-quarters of the world, and almost nothing in it made any sense at all, including the presence of John Cassavetes. 'Nautilus' is actually good.
Los Angeles Times
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Los Angeles Times
Dazed and amused, ‘Elio' is Pixar on a spaced-out psychedelic trip
'Elio' is a breezy Pixar adventure, the studio's pivot back to making original, rip-roaring children's yarns. Launched by 'Coco' co-director Adrian Molina and steered to completion by Madeline Sharafian and Domee Shi, it's got a setup simpler than whatever credit negotiation happened behind the scenes. An 11-year-old boy, Elio (voiced by Yonas Kibreab), looks at the sky and wonders who's up there. This classic plot hook harkens back to 'Close Encounters of the Third Kind' and 'A Trip to the Moon,' and if I had to place a bet, it's the oldest story mankind's got. Depending on the era and zeitgeist, the heavenly strangers gazing down upon us in judgment could be anyone from Zeus to 'Dr. Who's' Zygons, and their interest in us capricious or cruel or kind. We've got lightyears' worth of these speculative tales. They're really asking: Does our species have value? In Elio's case, he's a recent orphan living with his aunt Olga (a warm and frazzled Zoe Saldaña), a major in the Space Force who monitors satellite debris (which the film convinces us is more exciting than it sounds). Everyone in the movie is surrounded by technology — radios, computers, monitors — and yet most of them seem disconnected. Olga thinks that alien chatter is for crackpots like her colleague Melmac (Brendan Hunt), so named for Alf's home planet. She's paused her own astronaut dreams to take care of her brooding nephew. In return, the boy wants little to do with her or any other earthling. Preteen Elio is on a misanthropic trajectory that, if not recalibrated, could result in him growing up to marry a pillow. When Olga takes Elio to a space museum, he falls in love with the solitary crusade of the Voyager probe whose golden record of wonders, curated by the astronomer Carl Sagan, is hurtling through the galaxy in search of someone who will listen. (Sagan's own voice is heard throughout the movie, though he goes uncredited.) Enthralled, Elio plops a colander on his head and pleads for aliens to touch down and 'take me with you — but not in a desperate way.' Elio doesn't do too much sulking before he's beamed up to the Communiverse, an interplanetary take on the United Nations. He's not alone in the universe, but now he has to earn his place. From there, his quest vrooms at the pace of a Flash Gordon serial — or, for that matter, the first 'Toy Story.' Kids Elio's age have mostly seen Pixar rehash itself with sequels or hunt for Oscars in a therapist's couch (where lately it's been coming up with lint balls). Here, trauma is merely the framework, not the focus. The highfalutin prestige animation studio is signaling to the 'Minecraft' generation that they can do fun new movies too. The film's earthbound sequences boast staggeringly beautiful shots of the ocean under a night sky. But the galaxy above is a fractalized freak-out: a psychedelic rainbow of delights that makes you think that more than one animator has spent time grooving to Phish in a Berkeley dorm. (No doubt some of the grade-schoolers seeing the movie on opening weekend will, a decade from now, watch it again in their dorms under heightened circumstances.) Multiple extraterrestrials appear inspired by a lava lamp. Others resemble wireless earbuds and stress balls and decks of cards, the type of creature design that might happen when you're in your own alternate dimension grokking at the stuff on your dresser. I'm not casting aspersions on anyone's sobriety, I'm just noting that Pixar was founded on musing, 'What if my lamp could jump?' Elio will befriend Glordon (Remy Edgerly), a larval goofball from the Crab Nebula who has a dozen wiggling limbs with various protuberances. Off-planet, the boy readily drops his defensive shields and opens himself to the excitement that's been promised since the epic opening notes of Rob Simonsen's eclectic score. In a sequence set to a Krautrock-esque banger, Elio and Glordon enjoy a montage that's essentially a teaser for an amusement park experience that's probably already in its drafting stage, with the buddies frolicking in waterslides and chugging a beverage called Glorp, styled so that it can be readily re-created with boba. As ever, everything is tethered to what our earthbound brains can imagine. Even the names Glordon and Glorp might be a nod to the Voyager's known flight plan, which in 40,000 years is expected to have its first-ever close encounter with a star named Gliese 445. Bonding with the miscellaneous beings of the Communiverse does spur Elio to be nicer to Olga, but admirably, the script (credited to Julia Cho, Mark Hammer and Mike Jones) doesn't take the easy escape hatch of sending the earth boy into the beyond only to realize that everywhere else is even worse. Space isn't the enemy. If anything, space is too nice. Most of the aliens Elio meets insist that they believe in tolerance and open-mindedness. You're waiting for that to be a big lie, but it's not. Voiced by Jameela Jamil, Shirley Henderson, Atsuko Okatsuka and Matthias Schweighöfer, they can get a tad snippy, but otherwise these galactic Neville Chamberlains cower when a bruiser named Lord Grigon (Brad Garrett), who stomps around on thick metal legs, lands on their base spoiling for a fight. The cartoon well calibrates its PG thrills to give kids a mild case of the shivers. More spunky than saccharine, Elio spends most of the film wearing a bandage over a black eye. Back home, he's pursued through the woods by masked bullies (and when he gets an opportunity, he kicks one of them in the head). In space, Elio stumbles across adorable skeletons and shimmies through gacky pipes. Meanwhile, Lord Grigon's dastardly hobby is skeet-shooting fragile, flowerlike critters. When hit, these living daisies don't die — they're just pitifully embarrassed to lose their petals. It's refreshing to see a romp this spry. 'Elio' isn't trying to reinvent the spaceship — it's after the puppyish charm of sticking your head out the window as marvels whiz past. Some of my favorite gags just sparked to life for an instant, like an all-knowing supercomputer who is a bit put out that Elio accesses its wisdom simply to learn how to fight. It's offering to teach our species the meaning of life; we want the art of war. 'Why should an advanced society wish to expend the effort to communicate such information to a backward, emerging, novice civilization like our own?' Carl Sagan wrote in his 1973 book, 'The Cosmic Connection.' Yet more than half of Americans believe that aliens exist. A third think they've already come to visit. Like Elio, we yearn for cosmic validation. The great scientist wouldn't have put 'Elio' on his golden record. It's a trifle, not a cultural touchstone. But while Pixar has anthropomorphized ants and rats and cars and dolls and emotions, this lonely boy feels stirringly human. Yes, the movie says, go ahead and look for connection up in the sky or under your feet. But also seek it out in each other.
