Shaun Monson’s Unity; Marvel’s Fantastic Four

Humanity’s casual abuse of all creatures great and small is eye opening but tough to watch.

A scene from the Shaun Monson documentary Unity.

Shaun Monson’s Unity is a sequel to his hard-to-watch 2005 film Earthlings, which documents our daily, casual abuse of animals for food and clothing, entertainment and medical research. Both documentaries, and especially Unity, are oppressive, didactic, a bit patronising, leaky with logical holes and devoid of humour.

They are also among the more important films you are likely to see — potentially life-changing, in fact — provided you can sit through them. I watched both at home, and had to hit the pause button frequently to buy a few moments of composure.

Monson is a Los Angeles-based rights campaigner — for humans, animals, the planet. For him an earthling is any life form on Earth, each “not the same but equal’’. He is a vegan and a believer in the interconnectedness of all life.

Unity explores this last idea through five chapters titled Cosmic, Mind, Body, Heart and Soul. It considers the evolution of the universe, the freakish good fortune of being an earthling, the obligations of being human (most of which we dishonour) and the nature of love. It’s an unembarrassed quest for the meaning of life.

If this sounds a bit New Age, it is. But the film is grounded in age-old human problems: war and other violence, hatred, bigotry, greed, megalomania and all the isms: racism, sexism, speciesism and so on. At one point we are told mankind has been at war for 95 per cent of recorded history. The question is asked: Why are we still such savages?

That particular question is asked by the sonorous Edward James Olmos, one of more than 100 actors, musicians and other celebrities who provide the narration. The first voice we hear is an Australian one, Geoffrey Rush. Other locals to lend their support include Joel Edgerton and Rose Byrne. This is a public relations coup for Monson, as the involvement of famous names such as Kevin Spacey, Jennifer Aniston, Ben Kingsley, Helen Mirren and Marion Cotillard has generated a fair bit of pre-release buzz.

But the overlapping narration — with one star often finishing another’s sentence — has a bit of a Live Aid We are the World feel to it. Monson also stresses in a pre-title note that the opinions expressed are his alone and may not necessarily reflect those of all involved. For mine, these factors undermine the impact. Earthlings is solely narrated by Joaquin Phoenix (who returns here) and I prefer that approach.

I said Earthlings is hard to watch, and it is: there are several moments I wish I could unsee. But of course that’s the point. If more of us saw the inside of slaughterhouses — hell is the only word for what unfolds in scene after scene after scene — fewer of us would eat meat. Sometimes it’s important we are forced to look, even if the person making us do so comes across as a bit self-righteous. Not looking allows the sort of dissociation that sees us become outraged when an American dentist shoots a lion with a name, but indifferent to the pain and suffering of billions of nameless animals killed year in and year out for their meat and skin.

Unity starts and ends with desperately sad scenes involving animals: a cow trying to escape a slaughter chute and a fish being cooked and eaten alive. I suspect this remains Monson’s main area of activism, and I can understand why. Distressing as Earthlings is, there’s a sense that it’s not too late for us to change the situation for the better, or at least for individuals to adjust their personal involvement, to decide not to be complicit in the suffering.

Unity, in its gallop through crusades, inquisitions, lynchings, world wars, European, African and Asian genocides and the ongoing bloodbath in the Middle East, may leave the average viewer with a sense of hopelessness, which I’m sure is not Monson’s intention. Having said that, I suspect the average viewer will also leave the cinema promising to be a better earthling, and that’s not a bad first step.

Unlike Johnny Storm, aka Human Torch, Fantastic Four takes a while to warm up. This is not a sequel to the two Fantastic Four films of 2005 and 2007 but a reboot, so we go back to the beginning.

That is the garage of young Reed Richards, where he is building a machine to travel to other dimensions. He’s helped by his schoolmate Ben Grimm. These childhood scenes are well done, with hints of brutality in Ben’s home life that cast a poignant light on what will become his comic catchphrase as Thing: “It’s clobberin’ time.’’

Fast forward seven years to the grown-up (but still young) Richards (Miles Teller from Whiplash and the Divergent films) and Grimm (Jamie Bell, a long stretch from Billy Elliott) showcasing their contraption at a science fair.

They attract the interest of scientist Franklin Storm (Reg E. Cathey), who whisks them to a research facility in New York.

There they are joined by Storm’s two children, Johnny (Michael B. Jordan) and Susan (Kate Mara), and his moody protege Victor von Doom (English actor Toby Kebbell). Kebbell is arresting as the rebel genius who will become the super-powerful Dr Doom. When the facility’s suits make it clear any time-space bending will be used for military purposes, he sneers: “Send our political prisoners there ... waterboard them in the fourth dimension.’’

The machine works and the four men boldly go forth. Things do not go well. The ramifications of this spawn the freaks who will become the Fantastic Four: Invisible Woman (Susan Storm), the super-stretchy Mr Fantastic (Richards), the rock-hulk Thing (Grimm) and Human Torch (Johnny Storm). Waiting for them, somewhere, is Dr Doom, who is destroyer or saviour, depending on your point of view. On the evidence of this film, he has a lethally strict attitude to both the chewing of gum and the spouting of cliches, which I find refreshing.

Young director Josh Trank scored this blockbuster following the success of his first film, the 2012 found-footage science fiction thriller Chronicle, which made $US125 million on a $US12 million budget. This time he had $US200 million to play with, yet it’s hard to see where the money went. Fantastic Four is nowhere near as spectacular as recent franchise films such as Jurassic World, Terminator Genisys, Ant-Man or Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation, each of which cost less to make. The script is uninspired and lacks the famed Marvel Comics humour that makes The Avengers films such fun.

Overall, it’s a pass mark: an entertaining enough action-adventure about the genesis of a superhero group that sets the scene for a full-clobber sequel, scheduled for 2017.

Unity (M)

3.5 stars

Limited national release from August 12

Fantastic Four (M)

2.5 stars

National release