Review - John Carter

Grade: D

Yin: Uneven tone, sluggish pacing, and weak performances fail to elevate material beyond expertly crafted crap.

Yang: Visually stunning, mostly faithful adaptation that is generally hollow.

In-between: Dejah Thoris (Lynn Collins) in the original Barsoom series by Edgar Rice Burroughs was naked except for some fancy jewelry. This is a Disney production. Do the math.

So He-Man, Master of the Confederate States of America, goes to Mars, hooks up with this naked red Martian princess, fights big green four-armed Martians, giant white King Kongs, and.....zzzzzzzzzzzz......

There’s no way I should be able to describe a narrative with such fantastic elementsand feel so demoralized in doing so. Should there? But, that is exactly how I felt after leaving a screening for Disney’s latest stab at recapturing the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise formula, John Carter.

Carter is based on one of Tarzan author Edgar Rice Burroughs earliest pulp confections, the Barsoom series. The Barsoom series centers on Virginian John Carter, a former captain in Jefferson Davis’ Confederate army who, in his post-Civil War disillusionment, drifts to Arizona and discovers a wealth of strangely-marked gold in hidden cave. The cave itself happens to be waystation for a interplanetary highway that allows Carter to travel to the planet of Barsoom, also known as Mars. Once on Mars, Carter becomes embroiled in civil war between the humanoid red Martians and finds new purpose as a warlord, savior, and lover of buxom red Martian princess Dejah Thoris. Now, I’m no expert on the Barsoom series, but I do--at least from reading a few of Dynamite publishing’s comic adaptations--the basics and I know that 99% of the martians bop around the Red Planet in their birthday suits--especially Dejah Thoris--and some of the finest bling on this side of the Milky Way.

The fact that John Carter is a Disney production, helmed by Pixar pro Andrew Stanton who is directing his first live action feature, pretty much assures that there’s no nudity and, relatively, minimal gore--this is Disney after all. That is a little bit sad because somewhere there as porn director Aside from missing those major points, Stanton’s adaptation gets most of the basics right, but it absolutely drops the ball with tone, pacing, performances anything other element that may contribute to consistent entertainment value. John Carter is, in effect, the legendary piece of well-made crap that is often saved for Memorial Day weekend.

Carter is visually pretty stunning. Mars itself looks fairly impressive and tangible, and most of the creatures look slightly better than the average green screen creations, often showing more life than the human performers. Sadly, Carter falters on anything unrelated to visual effects. Tonally, Stanton and Disney try to have their cake and the guilt that comes after it. Parts of Carter are clearly designed to be lighthearted and pulpy while the majority of the ‘epic’ is sullen and heavy-handed, especially in its anti-war moments. This imbalance would be fine if Disney wasn’t positing this as some kind of serious epic, despite the fact that this is a movie about a guy dressed like He-Man saving Mars from evil monks. Worse than the uneven tone is the limp pacing. I understand taking time to establish character and atmosphere, but both are so thin that neither deserves the amount of time Stanton affords each development. This leads to serious drag in each act, enough to drag out the snores pretty early. With so much time devoted to setting up character and atmosphere, there is precious little time to develop the background of what is clearly a dense narrative, one that is desperately in need of establishing multiple motivations clearly. As a result, the feel of the world is better established than the specifics, which would help to clarify the multi-layered conflicts at the heart of the narrative.

The performances don’t help to strengthen the proceedings. Taylor Kitsch, who was never the most standout performer on Friday Night Lights--at least not compared to the rest of the cast--shows almost negative charisma as Carter. He can pose and pout for the camera, but emoting like a human being is almost out of the question. As the face of the flick’s audience surrogate, Kitsch needed to desperately turn up whatever reservoirs of personality he could access, and he just falls completely flat. Leading lady Lynn Collins doesn’t fare much better as a far more clothed Dejah Thoris, who, while assertive, is so cold that it is hard to see why Carter falls for her other than the fact that she seems to be the only reasonable attractive woman around. Dominic West is on hand as a self-serving warlord who follows the lead of evil monk, Maitai Shang, played by Mark Strong. Both are so classically evil and lack any notable shading or nuance to make them remotely accessible. Sadly, Strong and West, often superior performers, do little to enliven these characters. Even voice work by Willem Dafoe, Thomas Haden Church, and Samantha Morton, all as green martians, show little more life than glorified voiceovers that may have been equally tepid in a typical CGI animated release.

Between the generally soggy performances, the uneven tone, sluggish pacing and the general listlessness, John Carter to proves to be another stunning failed role of the dice for Disney in the epic franchise game. The latest ads are touting this as “from the studio that brought you Pirates of the Caribbean”, as if they’ve some how recaptured the magic that eluded them with Prince of Persia, Tron, and the latest Pirates movie. Disney fails to realize that what made the first Pirates, and its sequels to a lesser degree, successful was the quality of the story and the charming characters, not the spectacle.

Review - Wanderlust

Grade: C-

Yin: Faux-clever rehash of yuppie out of water narrative. Rudd and Aniston do little more than play toothless versions of their trademark character types while Director David Waid squanders a bit of the good will he earned with Role Models.

Yang: A few well-earned chuckles from Joe Lo Truglio, Alan Alda, and Ken Marino aren’t enough to turn the tide.

In-Between: Grape smashing in the nude. ‘Nuff said.

It used to be a thing to make fun of yuppies, didn’t it?

At least it was until most of them went broke.

I suppose enough time has passed and since 2008 and 2009’s crippling economic crises that it’s okay to get back to plucking at those overeager paper-chasers because that is the bread and butter of 90% of the jokes in David Waid’s occasionally funny but mostly painful Wanderlust.

Jennifer Aniston and Paul Rudd star as George and Linda, a New York couple enamored with a high-speed Manhattan lifestyle they can barely afford. When they’re forced to sell their brand new “micro-loft” after Linda fails to sell a half-baked documentary on penguins to HBO and George loses his job in light of an FBI raid at his stock brokerage, the pair heads south to Atlanta, where George’s cartoonishly obnoxious brother (Ken Marino) is offering work and a room in his McMansion. Along the way, the pair stop at the writers-think-it’s-cleverly-named Elysium Bed and Breakfast. For one night, George and Linda are privy to a pure Woodstock experience—complete with weed and didgeridoos--when the encounter the calculatedly wacky residents of the “intentional community”—never a commune—that houses Elysium.

From spacy nudist Wayne (Joe Lo Troglio) to foul-mouthed former porn star Karen (Kathryn Hahn) to expecting Earth momma Almond (Lauren Ambrose), the denizens of Elysium never fail to fulfill old school hippie stereotypes, but none moreso than fellow New York escape and free love child Eva (Malin Akerman) and de facto leader Seth (Justin Theroux). Seth, in particular, challenges George and Linda to leave behind the rat race and embrace nature’s bosom. After a straw-breaks-the-camel’s-back moment with George’s brother, the two take a shot at living like 21st century hippies, but is that life really all it’s cracked up to be?

Aniston and Rudd do the best they can with the mostly limp material. While Rudd delivers another toothless variation on his trademark snarky smart-ass, Aniston continues to elevate herself above Kate Hudson and Katherine Heigl as queen shrew--how she managed to do that with a character who is supposed to be an aimless free spirit is a bit of a mystery. Theroux gives a heroic effort as the extra smarmy and self-righteous Seth, but like Rudd and Aniston’s, he is saddled with a trite character with a fairly telegraphed arc. Alan Alda--as the aging founder of the Elysium commune--Joe Lo Truglio, and Ken Marino, on the other hand, deliver some consistent humor with their off-kilter characters that contributes to a few of the flick’s more chuckle-worthy moments. The rest of the cast, unfortunately, fades into the background, barely able to do more than exist as hopelessly dated cartoons.

Director David Waid, who first collaborated with Rudd on the far superior Role Models, probably viewed Wanderlust as some sort of insightful commentary on Americans incessant desire live beyond their means, clearly ignoring the economic developments of the past four years, and the toll it takes on their ability to enjoy life. Despite Waid’s subpar effort, Wanderlust is probably not the best vehicle for such introspection. The fact that the humor is too broad and sparse to be considered anything other than remotely clever doesn’t help matters either. With a serious overall to the half-baked cliché of a premise and at least a pound of nuance, Wanderlust might have captured the zeitgeist of the moment to make a relatively profound statement on “keeping up with the jones” when the jones’ are broke. Instead, he settles for limp rehash of the yuppies out of water narrative that barely inspires more than a few errant chuckles.

Review - 21 Jumpstreet

Grade: B-

Yang: Relentlessly entertaining, sometimes sharp, and darn near uproarious. Tatum, Hill and Cube play versions of their typical archetypes with a solid degree of near-parody. Offers a few entertaining non-surprises.

Yin: Juvenile humor is unrelenting and will surely sour members of the audience expecting something more than a parody remake, but they should know better

In-Between: 21 Jumpstreet officially ends with a shot to the neck

There is no way this should have worked.

A hipper-than-thou self-aware remake of a three-decade old gimmick procedural with a scowling Ice Cube, Channing Tatum being Channing Tatum (and making jokes), a slim Jonah Hill playing the "straight man", and slight commentary on today’s over-aspiring teens should not work.

But, somehow—mostly through a deft combination of brash, relentless humor and affectionate parody—Phil Lord and Chris Miller’s big-screen remake of 21 Jumpstreet proves to be one of the most entertaining flicks of this young year.

21 Jumpstreet takes the 80’s Johnny Depp Vehicle and runs wide left, eschewing the original show’s earnestness and topicality for a, mostly, relentless stream of sight gags and penis jokes. As bad as that sounds, the approach brings 21 Jumpstreet closer to the off-the-wall loopiness of 2005’s Starsky and Hutch remake than 2002’s dour Mod Squad rehash.

Lord and Miller’s version follows rookie cops Jenko (Channing Tatum) Schmidt (Jonah Hill), two underachievers who are making a real go at being the worst cops ever to have been sworn in. Jenko can barely recite the Miranda Rights while Schmidt constantly chokes in the face of pressure. The root of these ne’er do wells’ abject failure is linked to their high school experience, where Schmidt was a shy nerd and Jenko was the dumbest of all of dumb jocks. Luckily, Jenko and Schmidt still look exactly like they did when they graduated from high school seven years prior—though Jenko’s full–grown frame would strain credulity--which makes them perfectly qualified for an undercover unit that sends youthful cops into high schools to uncover major crimes. Under the leadership of Ice Cube’s perpetually grouchy and abrasive Captain Dickson, Jenko and Schmidt are charged with infiltrating a group of teen dealers led by the younger Franco—Dave, looking every bit like older brother James from his Freaks and Geeks days--who are slinging a designer drug with probably the best name for an illicit substance, ever. The deeper Jenko and Schmidt fall into their roles, the more they learn that the high school landscape has changed significantly in half a decade.

What makes the 21 Jumpstreet work is a collection performances by a cast that plays precisely to type. Ice Cube scowls and makes edgy racial comments and slurs. Channing Tatum plays a red-blooded, hot-headed meathead with limited intelligence. Jonah Hill is the awkwardly sly nice guy who can sneak a burn in without missing a step. And…well, let’s just say everybody plays heavily on the archetypes that have defined most of their careers to a tee, and beyond. Thus, you don’t see a great deal of depth in the performances—and why should we—but it’s funny to see these character types played out to a humorous, if not logical, ends. By letting these archetypes loose in a narrative that doesn’t actually “respect” the archetypes, the characters and the performance actually become more effective for stepping squarely into the realm of near-parody.

By embracing the inherent ridiculousness of the characters and the premise, 21 Jumpstreet follows the path worn by remakes like the Brady Bunch and Starsky and Hutch. Not that any of the original shows couldn’t be translated into respectable dramatic fare; it’s just that the original premises are so ingrained in our cultural conscious as relics of a bygone era that treating them with any degree of earnestness would quickly lead to derision. 21 Jumpstreet sidesteps that problem by embracing the absurdity and letting the low-brow jokes flow fast and furious, with only a lull post-midpoint.

Granted, the humor isn’t always the sharpest, but it is relentless to the point that you’ll be hard pressed to not laugh at something. That said, 21 Jumpstreet is ribald and crude to a fault, and anyone expecting this to be a revelatory masterwork should try to measure their expectations a bit more carefully. The flick even manages a few surprises that may not be particularly shocking but are solidly. If anything, that’s what this flick does fairly well; it entertains, and how much more can one ask from a remake of an 80s teen cop procedural from a studio that has probably run out of new ideas.

Review - Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance

Grade: D

Yin: Cage’s wacky acting overshadows a tedious script. Neveldine/Taylor bring a style to the proceedings that remains a true acquired taste that few will ever understand.

Yang: More focused narrative and an earthier Ghost Rider give this a slight edge over the original, but neither is enough to save this flick.

In-Between: Pissing fire is kind of cool.

You will believe a demon stunt cyclist can piss fire. You just won't care.



Crank maestros Neveldine and Taylor's shot at the once thought dead Ghost Rider franchise, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, is a oddly frantic yet tedious exercise. 

Picking up some time after the first movie, Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage) has run to Europe in an effort to escape the clutches of the devil’s dealmaker, Roarke (Ciaran Hinds)--because there's no way a demon can travel across time and space without using his frequent flier miles. Resigned to remaining in hiding for fear of the rider overtaking his fragile soul, blaze is approached by French holy warrior Moreau (Idris Elba), who enlists the rider's aid in finding one--because there must be more--of the devils offspring. This offspring (Fergus Riordan) and his mother (Olga Kurylenko knock-off Violante Placido) just happen to be on the run from a rakish gun-runner Ray Carrigan (Johnny Whitworth) who has been hired to retrieve the boy for a mysterious benefactor with a vested interest in awakening the child's inner hellfire. Goaded on by the surefire promise of reclaiming his soul, blaze must try to control the rider and race against time to stop the boy from becoming some kind of Antichrist.



Neveldine and Taylor have found a perfect collaborator in Nicolas Cage; Ghost Rider just isn't the right project for either. I hate to call for more grim, gritty comic adaptations, but the story of a guy who sold his soul to the devil and is tormented by his decision probably isn't he best fit for Neveldine/Taylor's spastic stop and go vision. The mythology also doesn't Mach cage's unrestricted scenery chewing. Ghost Rider doesn't need to be dour and grim throughout but it deserves some reverence. In Spirit of Vengeance, Neveldine/Taylor, and cage seem to balance a minimum of reverence--they at least acknowledge the fact that ghost rider is actually an angel, per the current comic mythology--with a tongue in cheek outlook, which would be something if the flick was remotely funny or clever.

In lieu of legitimately intelligent or clever moments, Neveldine/ Taylor allow Cage to chomp down on scenery and tweak about like he just snorted three lines of primo white. Cage’s Rider doesn’t rein hellfire and brimstone down on the evil; he stutter steps and stares and jerks and schleps around, casting quizzical glares. This languid approach carries over to at least two of the three mediocre action scenes that populate this farce with only the climatic chase—curiously the only action scene shown in any length in the trailers—offering any significant energy.

The performances—actually, performance because nobody else really tracks in Cage’s shadow—don’t particularly help to elevate the proceedings. With Cage’s wackiness dominating nearly every scene, only Idris Elba makes a go at competing for attention, with his curiously accented Moreau. Johnny Whitworth’s Carrigan gets a character upgrade midway through the flick that gives him a chance to try to out ham Cage, but he is hopelessly outmatched. Hinds and Placido do little more than meet the bare minimum requirements of playing Rosemary and Rosemary’s baby’s daddy—to snatch a corny line that could only come from Cage’s Blaze.

Performances and vision aside, Spirit of Vengeance shows marked improvement over the first movie. The plot is far more streamlined and focused, as less time is spent on fleshing out Blaze’s backstory and more attention is given to thrusting the, admittedly thin, narrative forward. Also, the Rider is a much more authentic and visually threatening presence. Far less shiny, but no less cartoonish, the Rider is noticeably dingier and earthier than his previous incarnation—the fiery skull alone crackles with more authenticity than before. As mentioned earlier, the climatic chase is also a solid set piece that, while mediocre by modern standards, is leagues beyond the travesty that wrapped the original.

Despite these improvements, Spirit of Vengeance does little to improve the state of the franchise. Ghost Rider has always been one of Marvel’s most off-the-wall creations, and in the right hands an clever adaptation is surely possible, not related to the X-Men, Spider-Man, or the Avengers, and thus one if its red-headed stepchildren. Maybe be one day we’ll get a better Ghost Rider movie, but that day won’t come until Nicolas Cage becomes solvent.

Review - Project X

Grade: C

Yin: Narrative is thinner than the paper the script was printed on. Performances were ripped so thoroughly from 2007’s Superbad that they trot into parody. Rarely funny from a narrative or character perspective, but more for sheer audacity.

Yang: Audacious and over the top to a fault. Not the most shocking party ever committed to film, but pretty close. You’ll forget almost everything about this flick except for the sheer carnage—and that’s saying something.

In-Between: Anything you did wrong as a teen pales in comparison to this party.

Pop culture analysis-wiki TV Tropes defines the concept of "Refuge in Audacity" as an approach to storytelling in which characters in a narrative can display immoral, illogical, or impossible behavior of the highest most off-the-wall order simply due to the sheer implausibility of such behavior.

Rookie director Nima Nourizadeh’s found footage experience, Project X, takes more than refuge in audacity; it hunkers down in its bosom for the long haul.

Produced by frat pack ‘auteur’ Todd Phillips, Project X is not so much a narrative, but a, roughly, 90-minute spectacle that allows viewers to experience the sickest—I mean that in both connotations—party ever committed to film. Project X follows three friends pulled straight from the mold of proto-Project X, Superbad, as the plan an epic birthday bash for Michael Cera knock off Thomas (Thomas Mann) while his parents are out of town. While Thomas takes the central role as the awkward nice guy, he is flanked by his motor-mouthed, tragically unhip buddy, from Queens, Costa (Oliver Cooper)—our Jonah Hill substitute—and chubby, even more awkward J.B. (Jonathan Daniel Brown)—think Christopher Mintz-Plasse’s McLovin with Jonah Hill’s old waistline. The early going follows the three as they take the requisite steps of planning: invite girls, hire a DJ, invite girls, buy drugs, invite girls, warn the neighbors, invite girls. With everything in place, the boys are expecting about 50 heads to stroll through Thomas’ parents’ Pasadena McMansion, but thanks to Costa’s prodigious advertising efforts the guest list swells to over 1000. Chaos of the highest order, literally, ensues.

For anyone who fancies themselves a mature adult, the happenings in Project X are a nightmare. For anyone who is 18, or 18 at heart, this is the greatest party you never got to attend. Beer flows like water. Breasts are bared. Midgets are stuffed in ovens. Virgins are deflowered. Bones are broken. Blood is spilled. Cars are crashed. Fires rage. The amount of energy and time devoted to documenting this chaotic party essentially diminishes any sense of narrative, which, to be honest, is nothing more than a limp rehash of the same old high school losers try to get laid and become popular narrative—right up to Thomas being forced to choose between the girl next door and the hottest girl in school. Unwisely, Nourizadeh--through the mostly steady lens of suspiciously parent-less amateur documentarian, Dax (Dax Flame)—spends more time building the spectacle to an insane crescendo than building character or even consistent humor—there were significant stretches of time where the screening audience sat dead silent, more bemused than amused. It is apt that Project X is a found footage film because it is essentially a horror movie. We don’t care about the characters we just want to see how out of hand this party can get, and on that level, Nourizadeh does not disappoint.

With all the focus on the near-anarchy of the party, performances pretty much slip into sketches. The main three are essentially draft versions of the main characters from Superbad, lacking any of the slight—very slight—nuance that Cera, Hill and Mintz-Plasse brought to Superbad. Oliver Cooper’s Coasta was likely framed as the breakout character—what with his Pimp Cup and blisteringly foul tongue—but he is so hopelessly uncool and lacking in self-awareness that you have to wonder if this isn’t a calculated parody of those instigating horndogs from prior party movies. Mann and Brown, unfortunately, shrink in Cooper’s presence by being so relatively passive, leaving the audience with little reason to invest in either. The only performances that truly deserve highlighting belong to Nick Nervies and Brady Hender as two overeager pre-teen security guards for the party. Nervies and Hender sell their to dedication to the point of overselling, but their attempts to ‘safeguard’ the party from threats that are consistently bigger than them leads to some of the film’s few purely hysterical moments.

Performances aside, Project X is not really a bad movie because it is not really a movie; it is an experience. As the second found footage movie in as many month’s it lacks the narrative ambition of the much smarter and more focused Chronicle, but it comes thisclose to matching the destruction and carnage of Chronicle’s climax, only on a more grounded scale. Occasionally funny, narratively bankrupt, but shockingly, to a fault, audacious, Project X will never be confused as the touchstone of a generation, but it is undoubtedly a disturbingly magnificent, over-the-top encapsulation of the teen party fantasy writ large.