Review - Colombiana

Grade: C

Good: Action and sexiness, as promised; Amandla Stenberg as young Cataleya shows intelligence, capability and range that outdoes her older counterpart.

Bad: Blatantly contrived plotting; clichéd, underdeveloped characters; stock performances by actors who have all played these roles before; uninspired action and cheap, old fashioned exploitation.

Ugly: The aping of Tony Scott’s visual style

Zoe Saldana has been prepping for her role as aggrieved cartel princess Cataleya in Colombiana for a few years now. She started way back in 2003 with a minor role in the first Pirates move then escalated as she became the go-to action girl with roles as Uhura in the Star Trek reboot, Neytiri the Na’vi in Avatar and, more recently, as the enigmatic Aisha in The Losers. Now, Saldana is essentially taking her role as Aisha and stretching it across an hour and a half feature. Sadly, the Losers aren't around to support her, and, boy, does she need them.

Oliver Megaton’s (seriously? Transformers are directing now?) Colombiana harkens back to the good old days of exploitation cinema with nonsensical plotting, an unequivocally badass heroine who is unafraid to deliver dirtnaps in her skivvies and, seemingly, copious amounts of bullets and explosions. Colombiana follows Cataleya Restrepo, the daughter of a Colombian cartel enforcer (Jesse Borrego) who turned state’s evidence on his employers and was promptly erased for his betrayal. Unfortunately, Cataleya witnessed her parent’s deaths firsthand—see Mr. Wayne, you're not the only one—as a child and is now possessed with a thirst for vengeance. After her parent’s death, Cataleya makes her way to Chicago, where her Uncle Emilio (Cliff Curtis) reluctantly schools her in the art of assassination. As an adult, Cataleya has become a proficient contract killer—22 kills to her name—who tags her killers with her namesake, a rare Colombian orchid. When Cataleya’s signature draws the attention of dogged FBI agent Ross (Lennie James), she finally gets close to drawing out the men who took her parents from her.

Colombiana is as much an exercise in exploitation as it is in inorganic plotting. Nothing in this movie, after the opening scenes, occurs without contrivance, and rarely is there an excuse for Saldana to do something while rocking a pair of pants. While I realize every piece of fiction is contrived, it’s incumbent on the creative talent to at least make it seem like it isn’t. On that point, Megaton and his team have failed. When ten-year old Cataleya starts free-running through the slums of Colombia—mind you, being pursued by Colombian freerunners, in 1992—the audience should know something’s amiss. Clearly, Megaton and crew thought they could splice together some loosely-connected action—filmed in the annoyingly hyperkinetic style of Tony Scott—over a toilet-paper-thin plot and sell it because the lead is hot. There’s no doubt in my mind this will sell, but it’s a shame nobody took the time to make this work because Colombiana could have been something more than just the sum of it's parts.

When the story isn’t following Cataleya as she exterminates random targets who are only tangentially attached to her main targets, it’s tracking her life as a cold detached assassin, which somehow both sucks and blows because it’s so boring and clichéd. Cataleya can’t have any attachments, not to her family or her “boyfriend”/sex buddy (Michael Vartan, as a clueless artist who is so bland and dense that it would be hard for anyone to be attached). All Cataleya does throughout the movie, is slither sexily—whether she’s randomly dancing in her apartment or showering or just walking down the block—and plan her hits, which are dishearteningly hands-off. There’s nothing about her that seems remotely human. That maybe Megaton and screenwriter Luc Besson’s—clearly trying to recapture the feel of his legendary La Femme Nikita, point—but it seems like they were trying to humanize her and couldn’t decide which way to go. As a result, Cataleya just doesn’t connect. It doesn’t help matters that her motivation is a bit tainted, as her father was clearly involved in the drug trade and probably wasn’t totally innocent. As such, there’s a degree of empathy that’s lost because how can an audience root for someone who is trying to avenge a cold-blooded killer. These types of questions will plague attentive audience members as they try to digest this hokum that looks like it was made on the same set as Tony Scott’s Domino back in ’05.

The performances in Colombiana barely help elevate the material because they’re so shallow and perfunctory. Saldana could likely play this role in her sleep, and to a degree it seems like she’s sleepwalking through this. If Cataleya had more depth there might be a challenge for Saldana to rise to, but as it stands all she does is saunter while either looking sad, sexy or angry. Conversely, Amandla Stenberg, who plays young Cataleya and looks like the one of Will Smith and Jada Pinkett's lost children, shows great restraint as a traumatized girl who is capable and smart while trying to deal with the shock without breaking down. The supporting cast, on the other hand, are vapors and cutouts. Lennie James’ Agent Ross is no revelation. He’s the same persistent soul who is smarter the average agent that has been done in every movie like this; however, those other agents didn’t have the added benefit of a magical supercomputer that can identify anybody in the world using a fraction of an image. Vartan again plays a dope with a taste for dangerous women who are clearly too good for him, doing so with his standard lack of emotion, charisma or charm. Cliff Curtis tries to throw some gravitas and humanity into his role as Cataleya’s uncle, but his moments are too short to register him as more than a dissenting, albeit concerned, voice. Cataleya’s chief target, Marco, is played by Jordi Molla who isn’t doing much more than rehashing his slimy drug dealer from Bad Boys II, leading me to believe that Hollywood doesn’t know what to do with this poor guy besides make him a drug lord. Curiously, there’s a dearth of female presence in this flick aside from Cataleya, which is odd in something that seemingly champions females as powerful and smart. I guess it would upset the balance to have this movie actually pass the Bechdel Test.

For all its faults, Colombiana succeeds on some level because it delivers what the trailers and ads promised. There’s a sexy, tough woman shooting suckers and blowing sh!* up. Truthfully, that’s probably all that’s expected of this, so on that level Megaton and his Decepticons have hit the mark. Unfortunately, the scenes of mass destruction are capped at the standard three per action movie and they're sandwiched between stretches of the aforementioned contrived plotting coupled with scant characterization. Sadly, everything about Colombiana is so uninspired that it’s hard to recommend this to anybody but an action movie virgin. So, for those who’ve never seen Saldana in an action flick and don’t mind a gaping disparity between weak plotting and some undercooked, over-edited action, Colombiana will deliver the basics, and nothing else.

Review - Drive

Grade: A-

Good: Refn’s striking visual style highlights an ultraviolent tale that blends the audio and visual into a killer cinematic experience. Gosling leads a cast of top-notch actors with reliable performers like Mulligan and Cranston deftly balancing the exaggerated and the restrained; unflinchingly, brutally violent.

Bad: A bit glacial in the early acts; romance subplot is a rehash of overused “monster becomes human through love plot; unflinchingly, brutally violent.

Ugly: The results of a shotgun blast to the face.

Anybody who drives stick knows that shifting is all about tension. Feeling the car strain under stress tells a good driver it’s time to shift gears and make a move. Ryan Gosling’s character, Driver—the second lead character, in a year’s time, named Driver since Dwayne Johnson’s turn in the thematically similar Faster—in Nicholas Winding Refn’s Drive is essentially shifting personified. Idling with unnerving calm, but displaying magnificent aggression when in motion.

Gosling shows a ridiculous amount of control as the possibly unhinged Driver, a preternaturally icy and fearless stuntman by day and a brutally efficient wheelman by night. Driver’s partner/mentor, Shannon (Bryan Cranston, again over his head in criminal activity), has dreams of making Driver a professional, ostensibly on the NASCAR circuit. Shannon’s dreams come, as they always do, with a heavy cost, which puts Shannon in debt with local producer turned heavy Bernie Rose (Albert Brooks, in a welcome diversion from his trademark L.A. neurotic) and his unstable partner, ironically Jewish Guido, Nino (Ron Perlman, extending his streak of playing unrepentant badasses). Meanwhile, Driver, who, for undisclosed reasons has found a way to live in relative isolation in the City of Angels, strikes up a friendship with single mother, Irene (an equally, amazingly restrained Carey Mulligan) who lives down the hall with her son Benicio—seriously, is Benicio Del Toro that popular that someone’s naming kids after him (which probably isn’t the case, but the name does stand out)? When Irene’s husband (Oscar Isaac) is released from prison and promptly forced to commit a stickup with the aid of the supple Blanche (Christina Hendricks), Driver is thrust into a tense web of ultraviolence and betrayal that may shift him completely out of gear (oh, the marketing folks should pay up for that one right now).

One thing Drive has that most mainstream films today lack, but indy and foreign films have in spades, is a wonderfully distinct visual style. Refn does an amazing job creating a palpable visual signature marked by a high contrast palette that gives L.A. a unsettling twilight glow after dark while days in the city are drenched with blinding white sunlight. Against this backdrop, Refn stagesa few—not enough for my tastes, especially in a movie about a wheelman—some simple, tense car chases and shockingly violent confrontations that occur with the sudden viciousness of a car accident. He combines these arresting visuals with a sublime aural experience, due mostly to a striking, if idiosyncratic score by Cliff Martinez that channels bubbly 80’s European electropop in a fascinating juxtaposition with savagery and vehicular aggression.

As overwhelming as Refn’s masterful marriage of sound and image is, Drive is blessed with a collection of top-notch talent delivering solid performances all around. Gosling’s performance as Driver is an intriguing experiment in restraint, as his nearly emotionless character rarely exhibits emotions beyond unsettling serenity and detached rage. Gosling’s, who is having such an amazing year that iTunes is hyping a collection of his most notable works, quality is well-known, and with Drive he only solidifies the validity of the acclaim despite being saddled with what is clearly a spin on the Dexter archetype (though Drive narrowly predates Dexter by about a year). Mulligan more than matches internalized intensity with her quietly suffering single mother. She gives Irene a shell-shocked quality that seems to mimic Driver’s detachment, but she grounds it with flashes of emotion, particularly when interacting with Driver or her son, that show she is not as lost as Driver. While reliable heavyweights like Cranston and Brooks perform with expected excellence, Perlman and Isaac sneak in to steal a few scenes as men at the end of their rope who are forced, like Driver, to make uncertain moves. Both make their character’s frustration and fear, respectively, so tangible in different ways—Perlman going more over the top and Isaac showing more reserve—that it's hard not to applaud their efforts. Hendricks role is, unfortunately, quite minor and never gives her a chance to show the charm that makes her such a draw on Mad Men.

Despite visuals, music and performance that are firing on all cylinders (I promise that will be the last car reference), Drive is weakened by glacial pacing in the first two acts and anchored by a clichéd human-love-heals-the-monster storyline that make it slightly less unique. The European influence is thick in Drive and some of the early acts are bound to lose viewers with weak attention spans, or at least those who are slavish to the rapid-fire movement of most modern mainstream cinema. The heavy focus on visuals, silence and atmosphere are candy for those who love the artistry of film, but those who are more riveted by a forceful story may feel a bit cold. Also, while Drive is an adaptation of James Sallis’ 2005 novel of the same name—which dug much deeper into Driver’s motivations—Refn’s choice to emphasize the dangerous-loner-falls-in-love-and-may-change-for-the-better angle is not particularly inspired. Anyone who has even seen at least one movie or show with that storyline as a central thread knows where Drive is headed. On a somewhat related note, Drive is brutal. The violence in this is shocking, sudden, and gory. To the faint of heart, you’ve been warned. To those who aren't, you've been prepped.

As a special treat, Refn’s was on hand after the credits rolled to hold a Q&A session, where he discussed the development process for Drive, the perils of the studio system and how he wooed Ryan Gosling while he was high on flu medicine. Refn offered some telling insights into his method and thematic focus for the film and the three—though I only counted two—car chases that served as Drive’s major set pieces. The session was valuable not only for the behind the scenes information, but for Refn’s insight on what he was trying to say with this intriguing piece of cinema. Suffice to say, without Refn’s comments, I would not have aligned my interpretation of the work with his. Take that as you will.

Overall, Drive is remarkable for being a fairly unique, yet undeniably effective cinematic experience, all without the aid of a third dimension and jacked ticket prices. It is indicative of a welcome trend where action movies are becoming more low-tech and simplistic in an era where such films can no longer compete with tentpoles that rest on CGI and built-in audiences. For those with the patience, appreciation for the visual artistry of cinema, and the stomach for brutality, Drive is definitely worth a ride (sorry, that's absolutely the last driving reference).

Review - Don't Be Afraid of the Dark

Grade: D

Good: Classic Del Toro horror, similar to, but nowhere near as profound as Pan’s Labyrinth with its mix of the frightening and the fabled. A slightly inspired ending. Bailee Madison shows some range as a kid creeped out of her mind.

Bad: No true scares at all. Predictable clichéd haunted house story frames the proceedings. Holmes is predictably lackluster, as is Pearce, sadly.

Ugly: A Dead Tooth Fairy

**MILD SPOILERS AHEAD**

Hellboy II is one of my absolute favorite movies by Guillermo Del Toro. He not only took the Hellboy concept and ran with it, but he managed to weave his own voice into the narrative, creating a fascinating tale about the death of the faerie folk. The main antagonist, alabaster-skinned elven pretty boy, Prince Nuada, even used swarms of ‘tooth faeries’ to attack the humans who threatened the dominion of the fae.

Del Toro clearly loved those little buggers because his latest producing effort, the Troy Nixey-directed Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, is all about the horrors of tooth faeries.

No joke. Though, I wish it was.

Dark, a remake of the 1973 TV movie, begins with sullen tween Sally (an accent-less Bailee Madison, last seen dialing up the precociousness in Adam Sandler’s Just Go With It) moving to Rhode Island to live with her estranged father, Alex (Guy Pearce) and his new (read: young) girlfriend Kim (Katie Holmes) in what is obviously the Addams Family’s summer home, but is actually said to be the home of long deceased nature painter Edward Blackwood. For a change, the family actually has a fairly viable reason to inhabit an undoubtedly haunted mansion: Alex and Kim are remodeling the home to, in a tip of the hat to a modern look-at-me culture that is also broke, show it in an Architectural Digest spread then flip it for cash. Luckily, Sally has arrived just in time to make Alex and Kim’s job that much harder by discovering a hidden basement that is home to horde of filthy critters that are blinded by light, but obsessed with consuming humans and their teeth. Per usual, Sally’s too-busy father dismisses her while eager to please Kim slowly warms to the idea that Sally may not be as damaged as her Adderall prescription would imply, as they face of with a threat that could probably be managed in one episode of Billy the Exterminator.

Sadly, there is nothing to be afraid of in Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark. I have a pretty good idea of what Del Toro and Nixey were aiming for with Dark—a traditional haunted house story with a fantastic twist—but their efforts fall distressingly flat. Dark opens with a slow burn that’s filled with creepy atmosphere, which would be great if it wasn’t so identical to any other haunted house flick made in the last five to ten years. Once, the menace behind the eeriness appear, nearly an hour into the movie, it’s pretty underwhelming. The creatures are far squickier than they are terrifying—think Gremlin rats—seeming more like an annoyance than a credible threat. It’s sad to say, but Del Toro and Nixey would have been better off following the cliché all the way through and just using a ghost. Nixey does an ample job aping the visual style that Del Toro perfected in genre greats Pan’s Labyrinth and Cronos, but because it’s so identifiably Del Toro, the audience never gets to absorb the fullness of Nixey’s vision, if it is at all different from Del Toro’s.

Nixey and Del Toro aren’t helped by the all-around lackluster performances from the cast. Katie Holmes is predictably bland, but it’s disappointing to see the typically phenomenal Pearce slumming it. Holmes plays the same eternally forlorn girl-next-door character she mastered back when Dawson's Creek was popular, and which she drudged up in Batman Begins and last year’s The Romantics while Pearce is saddled with the thankless role of the father too busy, blind and jaded to see the obvious problems within his family and the house. Young Madison, on the other hand, has to anchor the film by showing more range than both Pearce and Holmes. While Holmes is mostly doe-eyed and Pearce is aggressively oblivious, Madison gets to play frightened, sullen, pensive and inquisitive. Granted, Madison’s Sally isn’t a revelation in terms of children in horror, but it’s still heads and tales above Holmes and Pearce. Ultimately, Madison’s performance is the bright spot in a dim proceeding.

Despite the evidence, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark isn’t a complete wash. Fans of Del Toro’s unique view on fairy tale creatures and his work on Hellboy can view this as an curious side-story for one his more memorable creations. Also, the ending, while not remotely surprising, offers an inspired bit at the end that of course sets up potential sequels and franchises, which this project probably doesn’t deserve. Aside from those, admittedly, weak platitudes, Dark offers little reason to lighten your wallet this weekend, so don’t be afraid to avoid it until it hits the TNT Saturday movie marathon in 2015.

Review - Final Destination 5

Grade: D-

Good: At least one of the death scenes is bound to make you smirk or flinch; mildly clever twist at the end.

Bad: Forgettable performances from expendable ciphers; a stunning lack of creativity in regards to death scenes; A new rule that does little to improve a decidedly stale formula.

Ugly: Death’s first victim. You’ll never watch gymnasts doing a routine on the bars the same.

I was pretty sure the Final Destination franchise—as if the first film ever deserved to kick off a franchise—peaked right after that phenomenal crash sequence that opened the second movie. Yes, the first FD was novel, especially following the advent of the first Scream trilogy and the brief resurgence of slasher flicks it birthed, but nothing about it screamed (sorry), “carry on with further tales.” But, Warner Brothers did carry on and here we sit on the precipice of the fifth entry, only two years after what was billed as the final entry in the series. So, what happened? Final Destination 4 (aka THE Final Destination) earned $28.3 million in its first weekend, more than half of its $40 million budget. It stayed on top for another week, and despite dropping to a million dollar take in its third week it managed to gross $66.4 million domestically and $119.3 million in foreign sales, totaling $186.5 million worldwide. The moral: as long as there’s money to be made, people may have to die.

The fifth Final Destination treads precious little new ground, save for a new rule and an increasingly self-aware sense of humor that would have been more effective in the second installment. This time, Death is chasing a group of co-workers from an Office-inspired paper company who have dodged the Grim Reaper’s icy grip by getting off their retreat bus just before the bridge it’s parked on collapses. Prompted by a vision from aspiring chef, Sam, (Nicolas D’Agosto, showing some of the same range that made his character, West, so popular on the late Heroes) five forgettable faces who likely just escaped from the soaps or the CW’s farm team when their age monitors flashed ‘30’—including Megan Fox and Tom Cruise lookalikes (Jacqueline MacInnes Wood and Miles Fisher, respectively), two bland and nearly interchangeable girls next door (Ellen Wroe and Emma Bell) and a token black guy (Arlen Escarpeta)—plus a goofy slimeball (P.J. Byrne) and the reliably hokey David Koechner as their jerk of a boss. Lest ye be deceived, none of these characters is at all likeable, save for Sam and his girlfriend, Girl Next Door #1(Emma Bell). At this point in the franchise, it’s a given that the ‘victims’ are not deplorable, but are at least grating enough that the audiences won’t mind seeing them die horribly. Which is all that matters, right? Final Destination hasn’t been anything like a movie since the first entry; it’s a spectator sport. Audiences come to see creatively gruesome deaths that are just as likely to make them laugh as flinch.

With Final Destination 5, the creativity that was at least serviceable in prior installments has taken a sharp nosedive. Director Steven Quale probably thought he was being pretty clever with FD5, and in some ways he was, those ways just weren’t the death scenes. The outrageous death scenes audiences have come to associate with Final Destination are present but they’re so over the top and implausible that there’s no way to respond other than flinch-then-laugh and repeat. Now, looking for plausibility in this series is like looking for the holy grail in North Dakota, but is it too much to ask for a shred of realism. It seems, as far as Quale is concerned, that it is asking too much. Where the deaths in FD1 were at least somewhat grounded in identifiable reality, the unfortunate accidents in 5 devolve straight into moments plucked from a Looney Tunes short. Quale and screenwriters Eric Heisserer and Jeffrey Reddick add an extra dimension to the insanity with the new rule that taking a life will save the character’s from their fate—as introduced by horror legend and series mainstay Tony Todd—which will probably seem clever to anyone who missed On Stranger Tides. There’s another semi-clever twist at the conclusion that, depending on your appreciation for the series, is generally underwhelming. Visually, FD5 is on par with any random SyFy series shot north of the US/Canada border, but FD5 brings the added bonus of 3D! FD5 has a few scenes that get a slight boost in entertainment quality thanks to addition of 3D, but those scant moments are hardly worth the extra price. Unless, you enjoy arterial blood seemingly sprayed on your face.

The first Final Destination was released at the turn of the millennium and, in a sense, it ushered in the wave that would welcome Japanese ghost stories and torture porn, both which are pretty much following the dodo into oblivion (at least in the U.S.). Yet, somehow, Final Destination has survived and, seemingly, thrived. By my estimation, its success is directly proportional to the number of teens turning 17 or those whose IDs say they’re 25. This is a formula that truly only surprises once. Even with a bit of limp ingenuity, any audience who knows the routine is probably past tired of the Final Destination rigmarole. If they aren’t then FD5 offers more of the same hilariously gory deaths and stupid, forgettable jerks that have made the series so profitable. With no end in sight to this franchise, Final Destination is becoming as inevitable as taxes and death (sorry, again; it was too easy), but if you’re smarter than the characters, as I know you are, you’ll find a way to avoid it…for a little while.

Review - The Help

Grade: B+

Good: An affecting, heartwarming account of the trials of African-American maids in the early 1960s anchored by superb performances by Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer; Character development abounds, even amongst the supporting cast.

Bad: Overstuffed by too many plot threads, leaving some underserved; A bit long at two and a half hours; Emma Stone wilts in the presence of stronger actors like Davis.

Ugly: It’s the story of African-Americans in Mississippi. In the 1960s. Probably doesn’t get much uglier than the way they were treated

Mad Men is pretty popular, right? Its precise restoration of the world of advertising in 1960s New York coupled with its incisive critique of American life during that period has won more than its share of critics and, to a significantly lesser degree, viewers. For a while, Mad Men stood alone, a paragon of biting nostalgia for halcyon days. Then, the networks wanted a piece of the pie and devised a pair of copycats, see ABC’s Pan Am and NBC’s The Playboy Club. Each show, Mad Men included, hopes to lovingly recreate the past while offering a sly critique of the time and its people, but none seem daring enough to make viewers remember just how bad the 60’s were for anyone who wasn’t a white male. Now, an adaptation of Kathryn Sockett’s New York Time’s Best Seller The Help has come along to show just how blinding the glaze of nostalgia for the 1960s really is.

The Help is a fairly meta tale of three women living in Jackson, Mississippi in the early 1960s—Aibileen (an amazing, as always, Viola Davis), Minny (Octavia Spencer, showing sublime wit and range), and Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan (a typically spunky Emma Stone)—whose lives intersect when Skeeter starts to work on “The Help”, a non-fiction novel recounting the experiences of African-American maids who work in white households. Skeeter gets the idea for her novel after returning to Jackson in the wake of her graduation from Ole’ Miss. She meets Aibileen—a quiet and dignified maid who just lost her only son, but has raised a gaggle of children better than their parents and is currently the caretaker of chubby toddler, Mae Mobley Leefolt—at a bridge party organized by contemptuous bigot Hilly Holbrook (a particularly evil Bryce Dallas-Howard) and, being the educated scion of a relatively progressive white family, is inspired to document Aibileen’s story. After conquering an early, rational reluctance due to a understandable fear of retaliation, Aibileen provides Skeeter with a collection of heartwrenching stories that tell of the suffering many African-Americans faced silently, but Aibileen’s stories are not enough. Aibileen drafts her closest friend, the strong-willed and cleverly witty Minny Jackson, to provide more stories. In time, and in response to growing tensions flamed by several key moments in the Civil Rights movement, Skeeter is collecting the tales of most of the town's overworked and criminally mistreated domestic labor force. While the three continue to clandestinely compose Skeeter’s tome in hopes of publication, each will find their lives significantly changed by the experience.

Three major arcs compete for attention in The Help, but only two are strong enough to really leave an impression. Unsurprisingly, Aibileen and Minny’s arcs are the strongest, anchored by superb performances and motivated by true dramatic stakes. While Emma Stone delivers one of her trademark performances as the obviously-to-smart-for-this-backwater-town Skeeter, her arc is far weaker than Aibileen’s and Minny’s because it tries to do too much with too little time. Skeeter’s arc tries to address the emergence of white guilt and the place of women in the workplace all while attempting to build a scant romantic subplot. Not only are Aibileen and Miny’s arcs blessed with the exemplary work of Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer, they boast a simplicity and a fascinating insight into how these women dealt with the struggle of their circumstance. The thread that ties the three stories together, aside from the book, is Bryce Dallas-Howard’s Hilly Holbrook. Today, one of the easiest ways to build an effective villain is to make the that villian a racist. Hilly is a spectacularly devilish bigot. A selfish social climber who had her own mother, Sissy Spacek in a wonderfully irreverent turn, She seems to hate everybody, or at least believes she’s better than everybody in Jackson, but maids like Minny and Aibileen get the lion’s share of her wrath. Since the heart of the conflict in The Help is between Hilly and Aibileen and Minny, Stone’s Skeeter and her story seems ancillary with some of the very same concepts that are succinctly measured in Aibileen’s arc being retread in Skeeter’s. The Help will certainly win cheers and tears by its end, but any those emotional acclaims will come in response tothe fine work of Davis, Spencer and Dallas-Howard and the poignant simplicity of their conflict and growth.

Despite packing The Help with one arc too many—which, I know, can’t be helped, as Skeeter’s arc is crucial to the original novel—Director Tate Taylor adequately paints a picture of the American South in the 60’s that is never too pristine or ugly. There’s a welcome balance to the visual palette that brings the antebellum and the modern, for the time, into perfect contrast, from the lush views of Skeeter’s family’s plantation to the on point recreations of big fin Cadillacs and all-night diners. Apart from the visuals, Taylor shows a solid hand at developing characters without melodrama. Early scenes of Aibileen’s life are understated and moving combinations of visual and narration that tell a better story than dialogue ever could. Taylor also adds a healthy dose of humor to a potentially depressing story through characters like Spencer’s delightfully straightforward Minny and Spacek’s slightly loopy Missus Walter, but he never lets the humor overwhelm the gravity of the tale and it never comes at the expense of making the characters less than human. Because The Help is so jam-packed with character arcs for not only the main three, but a fair number of the supporting cast as well, Taylor has to employ a great deal of visual shorthand to give attention to the plethora of stories. While a few characters are notably underserved in the development department (e.g. Hilly), most of the character arcs are well attended by Taylor’s command of simple visuals and judicious editing that leaves some of the more unnerving sights to the audience’s imagination.

The Help succeeds despite being a bit overstuffed and trying to serve too many stories. It is sure to trend well with the built-in audience that has already read the book. As I have not read the book, I can’t accurately comment on the faithfulness of this adaptation, but if the book shares the spirit of this film then I probably need to get to a bookstore, or at least Amazon, fairly soon. While The Help is clearly aimed at its faithful, it does not alienate the uninitiated, offering a tale that many have heard details about, but never witnessed from such an intimate perspective. Sure, it’s nothing explicitly new—especially if you grew up in a household where your great-grandparents could tell stories like Minny and Aibileen’s from a personal perspective—but The Help is necessary as an affecting reminder that the old days weren’t particularly good to everybody.

Review - Fright Night (2011)

Grade: B+

Good: Good old-fashioned vampire horror with slick wit, an endearing campiness and solid performances from Colin Farrell and David Tennant.

Bad: Trudges a little in anticipation of each encounter between Yelchin and Farrell; Collette is sadly underserved; A bit too geeky for its own good, which could be off-putting to the uninitiated.

Ugly: Colin Farrell’s vamp face.

Word on the street is moviegoers are getting sick of vampires, reboots, remakes and overpriced 3D movies. Clearly, the studios have heard their customer’s complaints and responded with Fright Night, a 3D remake of a 26-year old vampire flick.

With the odds overwhelmingly in its favor, Fright Night has to do something special to capture an audience that would sooner roll its eyes at it than give it an honest look. But, Fright Night does work, and excels, by eschewing pretension, ridiculous rules and overwrought teen melodrama in favor of campy, bloody fun with a skewed sense of humor.

I’ll admit I went into Fright Night as a virgin. I was four years old when the original was released and somehow I’ve managed to avoid ever seeing it. But, I did my homework and the new remake doesn’t diverge significantly from the ’85 version. Now set in the suburbs of Las Vegas, Fright Night follows high school senior Charley Brewster (Anton Yelchin, who is only adding to the geek cred he built with roles in Star Trek and Terminator Salvation), a former ‘dweeb’ and LARPer, who has recently upped his social status by dating ridiculously attractive exchange student Amy Peterson (Imogen Poots). Thanks to his newfound popularity, Charley has gained a new cadre of dickish friends and left behind his brotherhood of geeks, including awkward fledgling vampire hunter Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse, McLovin himself, who is also building a solid repertoire of geek-targeted roles). When some of Charley’s classmates go missing, Ed reaches out to his former friend and blackmails him into investigating a trail of strange disappearances that lead to Charley’s new next door neighbor Jerry Dandridge (a slimier than usual Colin Farrell), who just might be a bonafide bloodsucker. Soon after, Ed goes missing and Charley starts connecting the dots, even turning to Criss Angel-knockoff Peter Vincent (the former Doctor Who, David Tennant), a goth illusionist who dabbles in vampire slaying, for advice. All the while, the ever insatiable Jerry, who is in fact a vicious vampire, has set his sights on Charley’s mom (Toni Collette) and Amy as his next meal. With his mother and girl in danger, Charley must use all he knows about vamps to kill one of toughest, unrelenting vampires to stalk the outskirts of Vegas.

There’s no way around it. Fright Night is pure fun, and it really has no reason to be as good as it is. A clear sense of humor and willingness to embrace camp combined with a truly frightening vampire action and some clever, cheeky performances make this a real late summer treat. Probably the most endearing of Fright Night’s myriad good qualities is its how the flick fails to take its self too seriously. In the wake of the Twilight saga, there have been campy twists on vampires on TV—the waning True Blood, of course—but everything on the big screen has been needlessly sullen and pretentious. Director Craig Gillespie smartly embraced the camp and ridiculousness of the Fright Night premise to make something that never stops to be maudlin, yet is never afraid to bear its teeth. And, boy, does this thing bear its teeth. There’s no shortage of bloodletting, explosions and forceful limb removal in Fright Night. In fact, this is probably the most visceral vampire action moviegoers have seen since 30 Days of Night. The only difference is where it took a tribe of vamps in 30 Days to decimate a city, it only takes one oddly-named vamp in Fright Night to unleash a river of blood. Colin Farrell’s Jerry the Vampire is a wonderful bastard, constantly acting like a lion playing with its food. He slinks around using a disarming charm to lure in his victims then turning unrepentantly vicious when challenged by Yelchin’s Charley. Yelchin may anchor the film with a wry, courageous turn as Charley—who, come to think of it, isn’t much different from Kyle Reese—but Colin Farrell unquestionably runs away with the show until David Tennant arrives as the wonderfully wacky Peter Vincent. While Farrell may run away with the show in the early acts with his slithery Jerry, Tennant straight up jacks it after the midway point. Tennant’s Vincent quickly evolves beyond overblown Criss Angel impersonation to a cleverly irreverent goofball who is far more useful than he appears. Toni Collette and Imogen Poots make a little headway with their roles as they play Charley’s mother and girlfriend, respectively as too smart to become pure damsels in distress. However, Collette fares better than Poots by showing some of the grounded cleverness and sly wit that marked her turn on United States of Tara.

Fright Night rarely stumbles, mostly because it moves at a steady clip and only gets boring when jaded anticipation comes into play. There is a faint sense in the beginning that Gillespie was being a bit too tentative in building to the confrontation between Charley and Jerry, but, mostly, he’s just doing a solid job of developing palpable tension. On a similar note, the ending is—to use an overly misused term—epic considering the scale of the movie. At least the last half hour is dedicated to a multi-locale chase between Jerry and Charley, along with his mother and Amy. It’s a solid and lengthy segment that includes a welcome, if not surprising, cameo. Admittedly, that cameo is an appeal to the geek crowd, which may or may not play well to the mainstream, but judging by this film’s tone and welcome embrace of all its inherent geekiness, the crowd who gets it will love it, others be damned. Unfortunately, Fright Night is being pushed as a 3D release, which means a dimmer visual experience and a disgustingly higher ticket price. On the up, Gillespie and his crew did manage to do a few cool tricks with the 3D that help Fright Night bypass the glorified diorama effect, but this flick is just as watchable in 2D.
Fright Night continues a subtle trend of late summer movies proving far more entertaining than any of the big draws released in May, June and early July. Personally, I’m starting to prefer late summer releases to early summer releases because it at least appears like studios and filmmakers are offering modestly budgeted fare with more personality and creativity than the glut of fantasy, superhero and toy movies can deliver. Hopefully, this mini-trend continues and audiences can continue to be rewarded for surviving blockbuster season with more gems like Fright Night that come in under the radar and surprise as they enliven the dying days of summer.

Review - The Change-Up

Grade: C+

Good: Reynolds and Bateman are solidly funny with Bateman doing a class-A impression of the old snarky Reynolds from the days of Van Wilder. Laughs are fast and furious in the opening and middle acts. Leslie Mann and Alan Arkin are great, as always.

Bad: Plot is predictable and trite, but who needs depth when you’ve got laughs; Falls off the rails and becomes a snore without the comedy to pull it through; Not enough screen time for Arkin and Mann;

Ugly: Baby poop+open mouth. ‘Nuff said.

The studios don’t make comedies that aren’t rated R anymore, do they? Not that there’s a problem with adult-geared raunchfests with a touch of heart, but their popularity is evolving beyond niche and zooming past trend. Now, it seems, these comedies are becoming staples of the studios’ annual release schedules that are just shy of being considered tentpoles, which leads to experimentation—however light it may be. That leads the studios to greenlight something like Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman’s latest, The Change-Up.

Do audiences really need a raunchy remake of Freaky Friday centered on a bromance—it’s way past respectable to use that word, I know, but it applies here, honest—instead of a mother-daughter relationship? Probably not, but that doesn’t stop Reynolds, Bateman and Director David Dobkin from giving it a good ol’ college try.

The Change-Up follows in the storied tradition of body switch comedies like the aforementioned Freaky Friday (both the ’76 and the ’03 versions) and other similar attempts—including Big and 17 Again—that met with varying degrees of success. Change-Up centers mostly on Bateman’s overachieving, workaholic lawyer Dave who is failing to balance his work—where he's up for partner—with his wife, Jamie (Leslie Mann), and three kids, which includes two frighteningly accident prone infant twins, at home. Dave’s best friend is struggling actor and professional man-child Mitch (Ryan Reynolds), who is on the verge of a big break. After a night of drinking where the two casually wish they had each other’s lives, they take a leak in a seemingly mystical fountain. The next morning, Dave is Mitch and Mitch is Dave. Hijinks, hilarity and horn-dogging ensue. Mitch must now face responsibility as he tries to live Dave’s hectic life while Dave learns the simple pleasures of being Ryan Reynolds. As the two beleaguered chaps search for the fountain and a way to reverse the curse, they experience the requisite moments of clarity and personal growth. But, the question remains: will they become the men they need to be?

Despite a strong supporting cast that includes a harried and wonderfully vulgar Mann, a stunning and unexpectedly, but not overly, funny Olivia Wilde and a severely underused Alan Arkin as Mitch’s father, Reynolds and Bateman carry this flick like champs. Before the body-switch, both play slightly amped variations on characters they’ve always played: Bateman as the wry straight man and Reynolds as the smug, asinine jerk with a heart of gold. Their performances really kick into gear once they switch with Bateman coming out on top by doing a dead-on impression of Reynolds mania while Reynolds shifts from the jerky smartass Reynolds, circa Van Wilder, to the slightly more earnest leading man he is today. While Bateman delivers the lion’s share of laughs as both the neurotic Dave and the more unhinged Mitch, Reynolds still brings his characteristic motormouth antics and colorful, creative language to bear for some solid gags throughout. Mann and Wilde both do admirable jobs as Dave’s alienated and exhausted wife and Dave’s work crush, respectively. Mann, naturally, shines a little brighter than Wilde, especially with the comedic material, but Wilde does show some comedic skill when teamed with Reynolds that hits some good notes but is a bit hammy in the presence of stronger performers like Mann, Bateman and Arkin. Sadly, Alan Arkin’s just above cameo role as Mitch’s father is so scant that even when it’s punctuated by some of the best lines in the movie that it’s not enough to register the way it should.

Director David Dobkin, of Fred Claus and Wedding Crashers fame, is lucky to have such strong performances to work with because, outside of those performances, The Change-Up is pretty rote. Dobkin does very little to put a notable visual stamp or perspective on the material, preferring to let Dave and Mitch experience some terribly predictable character arcs. Working from a script by The Hangover writers Jon Lucas and Scott Moore—who are interestingly used as selling points in a curious strategy that touts writers instead of stars—Dobkin proves generally efficient in moving the story briskly in the earlier goings, stacking the opening acts with some consistently chortle-worthy gags, but lets the flick drag when it deals with anything resembling character development. Thankfully, Dobkin knows to keep the laughs coming as fast and furious as possible because without them The Change-Up would somehow fall flat on its face and still bore the audience to death. For as much control over the proceedings as Dobkin may have had, it’s a good bet that there was some significant ad-libbing and rewriting on set because the voices of the characters—particularly Dave and Mitch—seem so specific to the actors that it’s hard for anyone familiar with the cast’s other works to deny their influence.

Fans of Reynolds and Bateman will find much to enjoy with The Change-Up as both actors’ trademarks are all over the flick. Of course, there’s potential for some overexposure backlash due to both Reynolds and Bateman having movies that may still be in theaters. But, seeing as how Reynolds’ Green Lantern and Bateman’s Horrible Bosses both met with fairly tepid audiences—and that’s being generous when it comes to Green Lantern—maybe their fans were holding out for the Change-Up. If they were, they’ll be entertained by the rapid-fire, lowbrow humor that dominates the first act and second acts, but be a bit bored by the weak, predictable plot at the movie’s core. Also, for folks looking for raunch to rival The Hangover then The Change-Up will fall short. It’s not good, clean fun, but it’s not the dirtiest comedy ever committed to film either. For the audience who is willing to ignore the Disney-esque tripe that floats in between the solid comedy, The Change-Up is at least worth a matinee, just don’t expect it to be a life changing experience.

Review - 50/50

Grade: A

Good: Amazing performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt is at the heart of this respectful take on a young man struggling with cancer. Seth Rogen’s raunchy comedy is actually a relief. Great supporting work from Anna Kendrick and Anjelica Huston; Tearjerker that earns tears by avoiding emotional manipulation.

Bad: Hits a few rote plot points with Bryce Dallas-Howard’s character and offers a predictable relationship subplot; Rogen does his typical schtick, so mileage may vary.

Ugly: Surgery sucks.

In my review of 30 Minutes or Less, I mentioned how the popularity of R-rated comedies has led to the use of comedy to examine other genres. I also made note that the popularity of R-rated comedies today is due in large part to the success of movies like The Hangover and Judd Apatow’s oeuvre. It’s been a while since audiences have had a Apatow-directed project hit the screen, the latest being 2009’s Funny People. Despite the current absence of an Apatow-directed project, his influence is still fairly ubiquitous in the realm of R-rated comedies. Apatow’s style of combining subtle raunch with pure heart has left an indelible mark on writers and directors of contemporary grown-up comedies, forcing many to consider their characters as human beings rather punch lines or stereotypes and to craft stories based around realistic issues such as unplanned pregnancy and terminal illness. As is par for the course in Hollywood, studios have tried to ape this format to mostly diminishing returns, but Summit’s upcoming 50/50 is probably the closest any studio has ever come to capturing Apatow’s magic touch.

Directed by The Wackness’ Jonathan Levine, 50/50 stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Adam Lerner, seemingly the nicest 27-year old in the world. Adam enjoys a decent existence as a public radio producer in Seattle, where he works with his slightly dickish best friend Kyle (Seth Rogen). He lives with girlfriend, flighty artist Racheal (Bryce Dallas-Howard) and dodges calls from his smothering mother Diane (Anjelica Huston). All seems well for Adam until a routine trip to doctor reveals that a pain in Adam’s back is actually a malignant tumor. Adam is diagnosed—by a doctor so bereft of bedside manner that one has to wonder how he made it past his residency—with a rare form of cancer, Schwanomma, that is marked by a 50% survival rate. From there, the film follows Adam’s attempts to deal with the diagnosis and chemotherapy on the path to an extremely risky surgery. Along the way, Adam tries to cope with a seeming death sentence with the help of his friend, family and an inexperienced, yet optimistic therapist (Anna Kendrick).

From that description, 50/50—based largely on the experiences of screenwriter Will Reiser—sounds like straight-up Oscar bait, designed to mercilessly manipulate audiences into watching it with tense smiles and tear-stained eyes. In truth, this movie will really make audiences laugh, cry and cheer. What makes 50/50 different from a Lifetime movie of the week is that it earns those laughs, tears and cheers through an honesty and subtlety that it could have easily avoided for schmaltz, melodrama and tasteless gags. 50/50 succeeds mostly due to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s amazingly understated performance. Most actors would look at a film like 50/50 as an opportunity to devour scenery with overwrought emotion, but Gordon-Levitt wisely avoids this path, opting to play Adam as shell-shocked and generally taciturn. Many cancer sufferers like Adam struggle with phenomenal loneliness despite the presence of family and friends, and Gordon-Levitt superbly captures the quiet loneliness that is as deadly as the cancer. His restraint throughout the majority of 50/50 leads to the usual moments of breakdown near the film’s climax that are truly heart-wrenching. What makes these moments so potent is the fact that Gordon-Levitt earns them. They don’t come out of the blue or after a series of histrionics. These moments are the result of suffering in silence and isolation, and they are far closer to reality than any overblown emotion that a lesser actor might supply.

While Gordon-Levitt’s performance is the unequivocal highlight of 50/50, the work of Rogen, Kendrick and Huston is also quite splendid. Seth Rogen brings his trademark exuberant snark and bawdiness to 50/50, which counteracts what could be a significantly melancholy proceeding. Rogen isn’t stepping to far outside his comfort zone with his performance, often delivering the same type of dick and sex jokes with alternating smarm and mania, but in 50/50 it serves a greater purpose. The audience needs Rogen’s type of energy as relief, but Adam needs it to survive, and for that reason Rogen’s typical humor becomes far less grating than it normally is. Like Rogen, Anna Kendrick brings her familiar perkiness and subtle anxiousness to bear as Adam’s therapist, Katie. Kendrick plays Katie with a balance of nervousness and earnestness that is appropriate for the character’s therapist-in-training status and uses the doctor-patient barrier to restrain a growing attraction to Adam. While it’s pretty clear where Katie and Adam will end up, Kendrick gives Katie an air of reluctance that is sensible, yet obviously challenging as she is well acquainted with the consequence of Adam’s condition. That sense of realism is what grounds Kendrick’s performance, and most of 50/50, in the notion that a happy ending isn’t all that likely.

On the other side of Adam’s support system is his mother Diane, played with disturbing accuracy by Anjelica Huston. Huston role is smaller than Rogen and Kendrick’s, despite her playing the typical cornerstone of support, but it is significant in how well it reveals the motherly response to dying child. The old adage of “a parent shouldn’t have to bury their child” is clearly at the heart of Huston’s performance. When she delivers moments of pure elation sadness, or fear, all of which her son coldly rebuffs, she becomes the mother that, hopefully, most members of the audience can identify with. Rarely have I seen a concerned parent rendered so pitch perfectly on screen and Huston deserves a true tip of the hat for the honesty in her performance. The only main performance that fails to connect is Bryce Dallas-Howard’s role as Adam’s girlfriend, Rachael. Sadly, it’s a thankless role as the girl who might not have what it takes to support a dying man. With some more shading and depth, it could have been something remarkable, but alas it is the stereotypical character who is villainized without reasonable examination.

The misstep with Dallas-Howard’s Rachael is one of only a few that Director Jonathan Levine makes with 50/50. Generally, he offers a respectful honest and occasionally lighthearted look at Adam’s struggle cancer without ever resorting to melodrama. He intelligently applies a low-fi approach to 50/50, letting the actors do the work without beating the audience over the head with flashing signs that say “CRY HERE!” He employs a fairly dim visual style that allows the film to mimic the dreariness of Seattle while highlighting the Adam’s isolation. In addition, he reigns in theatrical displays of emotion among the cast to open the door for more honest responses to the grave situation, which shows a much-needed level of respect rather than milking cancer for melancholy. Even when focusing on the more challenging aspects of the treatment and coping processes, Levine never overdoes it, showing something once and letting it stand instead of repeatedly dragging the audience into Adam’s personal hell. Levine does so well with most aspects of the film that when he does falter it’s painfully obvious. Aside from the issues with Dallas-Howard’s character, the burgeoning relationship between Adam and Katie can be pretty predictable and Rogen’s schtick is a bit too similar to his other roles. However, these are minor issues in light of the myriad triumphs that dominate 50/50.

Fair warning for those who are prone to easy tears, 50/50 will make you bawl by the end, but it never feels like a cheap manipulation. This is an honest film that deals with cancer respectfully and uses the light touch and raunchy comedy to provide relief and perspective, never mockery. With some amazing performances and tight direction, this is definitely prime Oscar bait and a true descendent of the Apatow legacy, and it is the rare film that actually deserves to both claims.