The Storyteller's Journal-Celebrating The Best of Storytelling in Film, TV, Games, and Comics

Review - Project X

2012-02-13T07:32:00.000-08:00

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.

Review - Safe House

2012-02-08T09:03:00.000-08:00

Grade: C+

Yin: Another spin on the Denzel+young actor formula. Generally unoriginal and uninspired all-around, from the plot to the performances to the aesthetic. Trust me; you’ve seen this movie a dozen times, just with less blood. Poor Denzel seems exhausted from doing the same movie over and over again.

Yang: Action beats are pretty solid despite bringing nothing particularly new to the table. Decent pacing keeps things moving with only a few signs of sluggishness in the middle. Bloodier than most movies of its ilk—if you enjoy that sort of thing (I do.)

In-Between: How many shanty towns in developing countries must be destroyed so Hollywood can make a buck? Just saying…

It’s been little more than ten years since Training Day was released, so Swedish director Daniel Espinosa must have thought it was high time that classic was remade.

He was wrong.

For what seems like the twelfth time in as many years, Denzel Washington teams with a rising, or falling as the case may be, young white star—this year’s model is the woefully beat-upon Ryan Reynolds—in a middle-of-the-road actioner that is besieged with jump-cut editing and barely comprehensible set pieces.

As another play on the disenchanted mentor/wide-eyed mentee narrative, Safe House tells the tale of legendary CIA operative turned rogue intelligence dealer Tobin Frost (Washington)—like out in the cold? How clever—who is captured by a CIA detail in Cape Town after violently eluding a cadre of scowling, ambiguously Middle Eastern and African assassins. Frost is promptly delivered to a CIA safe house monitored by the mild-mannered Matt Westin (Reynolds), a bored “housekeeper” who is bored out of his skull and constantly bugging his gruff superior (Brendan Gleeson) back in the states for an opportunity to become a case officer. When the CIA unit charged with “encouraging”—with the use of a towel and a gallon of water—Frost to reveal the extent of his treasonous actions is wiped out by the same assassins who thrust Frost into their hands, Westin is forced to keep his “houseguest” secure until an extraction team arrives, which, of course, proves far easier said than done.

Recalling a spate of genre thrillers from the aforementioned Training Day to 16 Blocks to Unstoppable, Safe House treads so much familiar ground and apes so much visual panache from better films that it barely registers as original. The through-line of the plot is fairly threadbare, but the implications that every player involved is more than meets the eye telegraphs the “twist” at the end before the first half-hour is up. The twist at the end is of course directly related to some crowd-pleasing anti-government, anti-CIA rhetoric that has been warmed over so much that one audience member stood up at the end of the screening and announced to all within earshot, “News flash: don’t trust the CIA.” Adding to the stale subtext and flimsy plot is Espinosa’s visual style, which rips off frequent Denzel Washington-collaborator Tony Scott so thoroughly—complete with grainyness, oversaturated palette, and spastic edits—that I had to triple check the credits and IMDb to ensure Scott’s lack of involvement. To those who haven’t seen a Denzel Washington movie in the past five years, this visual style may seem like an energetic revelation. The rest of us know better.

I hear you out there: “So, the plot’s weak and it kind of looks like crap, but Denzel is in it, so at least there’s some solid acting, right?” To which I would respond, “Sadly, no.” Poor Denzel looks tired in this flick. He’s not tired in the dismissive sense that his skill has been compromised, but he appears exhausted, as if he’s finally had enough of this charade. I get it. He wants to challenge himself. He wants to perform theater rather than hoisting up the flavor of the month. I understand completely, and it’s clear that this is his “one for them” movie, which will allow him to make some pocket change then go do whatever he wants for the rest of the year—meaning we should expect another variation on this formula in either January or November of 2013. While Denzel may not be putting his Oscar-winning best on display, his turn as a smirking trickster is saddled with enough weariness and resignation that his performance becomes a intriguing case of art imitating life. Reynolds, on the other hand, is pushed way out of his comfort zone into a role as a sad-eyed, tight-lipped action star that prevents Reynolds from playing the smart-ass joker he’s famous for playing. I suppose this was a bold decision, but it seems unwise to rein in Reynolds and keep him from adding his trademark humor to the flick’s generally dour proceedings, but what do I know. With Reynolds and Washington dominating the screen time with their redo of Washington and Ethan Hawke’s chemistry in Training Day, the rest of the notable cast is saddled with thankless roles as shady CIA spooks who forgot the Cold War ended. Brendan Gleeson does little with his role as Westin’s superior besides grumbling, placing his hands on his hips, and barking orders. Vera Farmiga is also forced to play below her ability as a stateside unit director desperately searching for Frost in a sour variation on Joan Allen’s role from the Bourne Trilogy. Sam Shepard shows up for a few scenes, as well playing a CIA deputy director who obviously believes in the Patriot Act a bit too deeply. Honestly, I would feel bad for all the actors involved if I wasn’t sure this was going to be at least a modest hit.

In fact, I have no doubt that audiences will eat this up. It’s ridiculously violent, generally well-placed, and not the least bit challenging or surprising--why ask for more? I will not deny that there are some solid action beats and some spectacular carnage that occurs between the opening and final frame, but so much of Safe House is nakedly unoriginal and rote that the weaknesses outweigh the occasional high notes. Personally, I think everybody involved—audience included--deserved better—except for Espinosa, and that’s only because I don’t know his work that well. That said, if you’re looking for some fairly muscular if unoriginal action, or you absolutely love Denzel, feel free to check out Safe House, but you would be better off just renting or downloading Training Day, Unstoppable, and Man on Fire.

Review - Chronicle

2012-02-01T07:14:00.000-08:00

Grade: A

Yang: Strong performances by Dane DeHaan and Michael B. Jordan are the highlight of this clever spin on the people with powers narrative. Stunning practical effects and top-notch destruction don't hurt either.

Yin: Found footage format, shaky cam effect, and city-scale carnage recall less than fond memories of Cloverfield, but doesn’t diminish the effectiveness of

In Between: The feeling of having one’s teeth yanked out by telekinesis must be the most unpleasant experience imaginable.

Dear Warner Brothers,

Re: Live-action Akira remake

Authorize a ten-dollar per suit budget. See Josh Trank’s Chronicle. Drop this whitewashed Akira remake business and save your money for some other trite comic book movie or remake.

Thanks,
Fans of Common Sense and Good Taste

To say Chronicle is one of the best movies about superhumans of the current era of superhero blockbusters is probably the most hyperbolic of overstatements possible, but not by much. Not since M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable—remember that movie from the brief period where Shyamalan was respectable—has there been a film about people with powers that is as believable and affecting as first-time feature director Josh Trank’s Chronicle. In short, Chronicle puts on a clinic in how to make super-powered beings relatable, believable, and interesting. Marvel, DC, and any other publisher or film studio in the business of selling the dreams superpowers in four colors or on the silver screen, take note. Take copious notes.

At first glance, Chronicle seems to be simply aping the current trend of found footage filmmaking—and, indeed, this does contribute to some of the few flaws in the film, which is the overly-expository nature of the narrative and the ever-irritating shaky-cam effect—but Trank uses this technique to great effect as it speaks directly to a generation that is beyond comfortable with documenting their every thought and footstep. In Chronicle, HD handycams follow three Seattle teens--the moody, abused Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan); his cousin, the philosophical, good-natured Matt Garetty (Alex Russell); and their new friend, goofy, easygoing political hopeful Steve Montgomery (Michael B. Jordan). After dragging the camera-happy Andrew to his first rave, Matt and Steve discover a gaping mile-deep hole in an empty field that just screams, “Come on in. It’s safe.” In a clear case of teens being brilliant, the three investigate and find a glowing structure inside that delivers nosebleeds and superpowers at no extra cost. The three emerge with burgeoning telekinetic powers that they promptly misuse for garden-variety mischief and tomfoolery. As their powers grow stronger than they imagined, evolving to include the ability for flight, the three are faced with the reality of Ben Parker’s famous adage about power and responsibility, particularly as the tortured Andrew discovers the upper limits of his power. What results is a clever examination of the corrupting influence of power, the effect of environment, and, oddly, the strength of friendship that is rivaled only by anime classic, Akira.

What makes Chronicle so effective is that it is not bound to any pre-existing material—aside from a climax that’s a almost note-for-note rip of Akira’s climax--or comic book dogma. Yes, the concept of “with great power comes great responsibility” surfaces, but there’s no wise man to guide Andrew, Matt, and Steve. There’s no higher purpose. 80% of the runtime is devoted to the characters engaging in full on wish fulfillment, and Chronicle is better for it because, truth be told, these characters react to getting powers the way most people would. Chronicle also isn’t handicapped by adherence to any current or past comic series, and, thus, is not required to hit any narrative predetermined narrative beats or ensure that characters look or act according to a decades-old character model. This freedom allows Trank and screenwriter Max Landis to craft a narrative with deeper characters and more tangible consequence than half of comic-based movies released in the last five years. Trank takes ample advantage of this freedom, as the film peels the layers back on a character who would rarely be the focus of a traditional superhero narrative, Andrew. Chronicle is unequivocally Andrew’s story, and his response to receiving powers is far more believable than the arc of similarly put-upon geek loner Peter Parker.

A character like Andrew could have descended into a cartoon if not for the grounded direction and Dane DeHaan’s strong performance. DeHaan gives Andrew an consistent sense of perpetual discomfort and anxiety rooted in the abuse Andrew suffers at home. This unease is well-layered thanks to DeHaan’s mostly restrained performance, as Andrew mostly avoids delving into the over-the-top megalomania that paints similar characters. DeHaan’s performance is ably balanced by, the ever-reliable, Michael B. Jordan and Alex Russell’s performances. Jordan brings an infectious exuberance to his role as the big man on campus who is constantly geeking about his new abilities. It’ a bit of a stretch to see his character become so close to Andrew and Matt so quick because no history is established, but damned if Jordan doesn’t sell it, especially in one crucial scene that packs a solid wallop. Russell flies under the radar, especially in the presence of Jordan and DeHaan, as Andrew’s concerned cousin and the anchor and moral compass of the group, but he too gets a true moment to shine in the film’s climax that proves that Chronicle should be mentioned in same breath as X-Men: First Class.

Where this film differs from something like First Class is that the friendship between Andrew, Matt and Steve seems real. When Charles and Erik met in First Class, there was a requisite tension between the two that prevented them from ever being close friends, even before their split. In Chronicle, there’s a similar tension, mostly based on Andrew’s home life, but it doesn’t dominate the interactions between the three. The tension doesn't truly surface significantly until late in the film because more time and care is spent developing these characters friendship—even when the three get a bit sappy, they are still believable close—a narrative approach far more common in manga and anime than western comics. That care really pays off in the end, and, thanks to the quality of Russell, Jordan, and DeHaan’s performances, there’s never a moment second that the payoffs don’t feel earned.

In addition to great performances and a solid narrative, Chronicle delivers some of the most “authentic” displays of superpowers on screen in sometime. Chronicle doesn’t have the benefit of the audience willingly suspending disbelief because they know the characters in advance. Instead, director Trank earns the suspension of disbelief with mostly practical effects and some exhilarating scenes of the guys in flight—logically, they dress in down coats and ski pants because, wouldn’t you know, it’s frigid in the upper layers of our atmosphere—that rival, and maybe surpass, flight scenes from Superman Returns. Admittedly, the action is occasionally obscured due to the found footage format, but generally, Trank uses the format skillfully to make the action far more realistic than the average superhero flick. Between the great action, strong performances, and affecting narrative, surely Hollywood and the comic industry will soon be clamoring to replicate the formula, but they’ll likely fail to match the sublime combination of narrative and character that makes Chronicle one of the best ‘real-world’ superhuman flicks to date.

Review - This Means War

2012-01-26T06:05:00.000-08:00

Grade: C+

Yang: Occasionally funny with a few decent moments of spy vs spy action; Tom Hardy elevates his role as a hopelessly romantic superspy who could probably break you in two if he wasn’t such a nice guy.

Yin: Slight and weightless rip-off mash-up of buddy action flicks and Reese Witherspoon romantic comedies. For good and bad, director McG fails to deliver the stylistic flourish that marked his early efforts.

In-Between: Never challenge Tom Hardy to a game of paintball.

From the look of him, you’d never know that Bane is Captain Kirk’s type. Yet, their romance is at the heart of McDirector McG’s latest, This Means War.

Now, the ads, trailers and TV spots will try to convince you that Tom Hardy and Chris Pines’ superspies are fighting over Reese Witherspoon’s lovelorn career gal, but she’s really just a fly in the ointment of their—God help me— “bromance”.

War is a slight, occasionally amusing romantic comedy with a featherweight spy story grafted on its bookends as a way of setting up a few serviceable action beats and hopefully keeping the males in the audience awake. War centers on CIA operatives FDR (Chris Pine)—every character calls him by his initials without blinking, seriously—and his partner Tuck (Thom Hardy), who were both obviously birthed from the buddy movie mold with FDR being the slick ladies man and Tuck being the gentle romantic with a British accent. As a former family man who is clearly still in love with his ex-wife, Tuck’s longing for the love of a good woman leads him to post a profile on an online dating site, which leads to a blind date with jaded, yet ever hopeful, consumer product tester Lauren Scott (Reese Witherspoon). The two hit it off smashingly and it all seems well until Lauren runs into the cocky FDR, who was on backup detail for Tuck’s blind date, and sparks fly. Soon enough the two once–inseparable partners find themselves locked in a battle of subterfuge and counterintelligence over the hand of a woman who seems a lot shallower than she thinks she is. Meanwhile, an international terrorist (Til Schweiger) is hot on Tuck and FDR’s tails after the two killed his brother in a sting gone haywire. Hijinks and dash of hilarity ensue.

War is no doubt descended from the Lethal Weapons and Bad Boys of the 80s, 90s, and early 00s, right down to the perpetually angry and disappointed chief, a criminally underused Angela Bassett who is clearly still in Amanda Waller-mode, and a goofy support team. War is also a typical Reese Witherspoon romantic comedy, complete with blissfully unrealistic lifestyle porn and a wacky, self-deprecating sidekick, Chelsea Handler who is stepping dangerously close to edge of overexposure. Viewed separately, neither narrative thread would hold a Dixie Cup worth of water; together, the two threads lead to some decent laughs and serviceable action after a slow start, but the whole thing still falls way short of being remotely memorable. Most of the failings could be placed on McG’s workman-like direction. Aside from his trademark sun-drenched palette and a few high-energy set-pieces—the highlight of which is Tuck’s assault on an army of paintballers—McG’s footprint is minimal. Sadly, the failure of Terminator: Salvation and the passing of time have taken its toll on a director who at one time could at least be regarded for an identifiable visual style. Now, he’s delivering flicks like War that are no more unique than offerings from any journeyman director.

Despite its somewhat limp direction, War is saved to a large degree by Tom Hardy’s performance. The man who would be Bane has shown remarkable range throughout his career and continues to do so in War, almost single-handedly outclassing everyone else involved by showing that human beings have more than two emotions. Chris Pine, on the other hand, is quickly proving that he may be a one-trick pony by making FDR little more than a smirking jackass. While Hardy clearly outclasses Pine, the two have a solid chemistry that lends to the theory that their relationship is the actual focus of the flick. Their banter and attempts to outflank each other setup a majority of the film’s funnier moments and the strain on their relationship proves far more interesting than their courtship of Reese Witherspoon’s Lauren. While Hardy and Pines spies fall deeper in love with each other, Reese Witherspoon does her “Reese Witherspoon thing” where she plays spunky mixed with a dash of tartness, hitting a lot of the same beats from one of her early hits, Sweet Home Alabama. Chelsea Handler bats about .400 with her performance, mostly by making fun of herself or letting the rest of the cast make fun of her. Sadly, strong performers like Angela Bassett and Til Schwieger are relegated to extended cameos that severely undercut their ability.

While War fails to make even adequate use of its strongest assets, it does entertain on a fundamental level, providing just enough romance and action to satiate almost any audience. Yes, it’s a bit safe and only a handful of the actors seem reasonably engaged, but, as one of this year’s big Valentine’s Day release, it’s much better than tripe like 2010’s movie star paycheck-generator Valentine’s Day. On its own, War is nowhere near as tight and unique as it could be, but, thankfully, Tom Hardy’s performance as well as some decent action and moments of hilarity elevate the flick beyond total mediocrity.

Review - Contraband

2012-01-11T07:25:00.000-08:00

Grade: D

Yin: Languid pacing and one-note characters quickly undo this rote rehash of typical criminal actioners.

Yang: Grim and dingy aesthetic reveals the griminess of often-overlooked smuggling culture.

In-Between: Ever wonder if Memphis Raines little brother turned his life around? He didn’t.

TV networks are always trying to mimic the HBO formula. Their attempts to create compelling, meditative dramas that peek into unexplored cultures has led to turgid, funereal, slow-paced exercises in character and plot building with variable success. This approach is acceptable on TV because languid pacing is part and parcel of the medium. Applying such an approach to film can be successful depending on the genre or narrative, but it is not necessarily the best approach for a “white-knuckle” action thriller. Hence the problem with Mark Wahlberg’s latest, Contraband.

Based on 2008 Icelandic film Reykjavik-Rotterdam, which starred Contraband director Baltasar Kormakur, Contraband follows retired smuggler Chris Farraday (Mark Wahlberg) as he is forced to do the requisite ‘one last job’ after ne’er-do-well brother-in-law Andy (Caleb Landry Jones) gets in deep with some local heavies led by Giovanni Ribisi, here practically reprising and extending on his role from Gone in 60 Seconds. Chris reluctantly takes the job, much to chagrin of wife Kate (Kate Beckinsale), but seemingly to the reserved agreement of longtime friend and recovering alcoholic Sebastian (Ben Foster). All Chris has to do to save his brother-in-law is forge his way onto a Panama-bound freighter, pick up some primo counterfeit sheets, and drop the load back at the Port of New Orleans. Simple, right? Of course not. Complications and the occasional gunfire ensue, and Chris is eventually forced to outrun drug lords, a slimy sea captain (J.K. Simmons), and, most frighteningly, US Customs and Border Patrol as he attempts to save his brother-in-law and return to his family in one piece.

On paper, this sounds terribly exciting. In fact, the TV ads sell Contraband with shots of slow-mo explosions and gunfights, all with rap music thumping in background. It’s a shame that action makes up less than five minutes of this crawling bore. While I can appreciate Kormakur’s ambition to establish atmosphere and play around with typical action movie pacing, Contraband suffers immensely for such experimentation. Nothing truly compelling happens for the first half-hour, at least nothing that seasoned filmgoers haven’t seen more than a dozen times. Screw-up brother. Check. Square-jawed roguish protagonist who loves his family and only wishes to leave behind his regrettable past. Check. Shady best friend. Check. Dangerous thug/criminal who is nowhere near as smart or tough as the hero. Check. This is, note for note, the setup for any typical crime actioner with criminal protagonists. If Kormakur thinks he’s doing something different by setting this in N’awlins and trying ape the feel of HBO’s Treme then allow me to direct him to a little movie called 12 Rounds, also starring a square jawed Boston tough guy ‘actor’. Making matters infinitely worse is the snail’s speed pacing that is common for most European films, often a boon but outright detrimental here. I was impressed I made it through the first half awake because nobody else in my row did.

The performances in Contraband do little to ease the suffering. Mark Wahlberg continues to play the smartest, toughest guy in the room, despite wandering around with a confused look on his face until things get serious. Kate Beckinsale shows little range in the consistently thankless role of the simultaneously disapproving then supportive then disapproving wife and mother. Poor Ben Foster and Giovanni Ribisi fare even worse as they are saddled with broadly drawn roles as shady and slimy, respectively. I feel particularly bad for Ribisi who is forced to use a pitiful squeaky voice throughout in a half-assed effort to appear dangerous and grimy.

Interestingly, griminess is the one thing, aside from languid pacing, that Contraband excels at. Everything about Contrband looks dirty, dark, and dingy, from the characters to the settings to the aesthetic. Sure, New Orleans and Panama have their fare share of unkempt, less-than-desirable neighborhoods, but, based on Contraband, that’s all these cities seem to have. Despite general underachievement on almost all fronts, Contraband does provide some insight into an culture of criminal activity that hasn’t been explored, at least in American television and film, since the second season of The Wire, which addressed this type of crime far more masterfully despite being one of the least popular seasons of the show. You could do far better things with your time and money than wasting them on Contraband. Come to think of it, if you really want to see a gripping, slow burn drama, albeit with slightly less action, about smuggling, just rent or download season 2 of The Wire. I assure you the twelve hours will feel infinitely shorter than the two you would be tempted to waste on this clunker.

Review - Man on a Ledge

2012-01-11T07:10:00.000-08:00

Grade: B+

Yang: Fun mash up of heist flicks and hostage thrillers with a brisk pace, constant thrills and a few charmingly clever moments. Standout performances by Jamie Bell and Ed Harris as a smart-ass thief and a ruthless real estate tycoon.

Yin: Predictable and swimming in cliché, but still entertaining to a fault. Smart viewers will figure out all the angles halfway through, and some great talent (Anthony Mackie, Edward Burns, etc.) is woefully underused.

In-Between: Ever get that feeling of being in a high place, and you just want to jump? This film may help calm that feeling.

A few years back Colin Farrell starred in Phone Booth, a gimmicky thriller about a man trapped in a phone booth by an unseen stalker.

A few months ago, Ben Stiller starred in a Tower Heist, a hokey heist comedy about a barely competent gaggle of working class schmoes trying to rob the shady investment banker who depleted their retirement funds.

Asger Leth’s Man on a Ledge takes some of the better ideas from Phone Booth and Tower Heist and rolls them into a unseasonably entertaining thriller heist movie that succeeds despite wading neck deep in predictable plot turns and clichés.

The titular man on a ledge is Sam Worthington’s ex-con Nick Cassidy, an ex-cop who is seeking to prove his innocence by, logically, threating to jump off the 21st floor of New York’s Roosevelt Hotel. To help in his quest for self-exoneration, Cassidy enlists the aid of disgraced hostage negotiator Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks, adding to her list of dramatic roles), who is constantly second-guessed by the NYPD boys club detectives like Edward Burns’ Detective Jack Dougherty. With the local constabulary’s attention focused on Cassidy’s potential pavement dive, Jamie Bell’s Joey and girlfriend Angie (the biblical Genesis Rodriguez) stage an elaborate heist of a priceless diamond from Ed Harris’ Lex Luthor-esque real estate shark, just across the street from Cassidy’s scene. There’s no way these two events could be related, right?

While the twists are pretty well telegraphed and the characters are all archetypes firmly entrenched in hostage and heist narratives, Leth has managed to arrange these overused elements in a solidly entertaining configuration that proves to be wonderfully tense from start to finish. The key to Leth’s success is solid pacing and a welcome lack of pretension, as there’s enough light humor to keep the proceedings from becoming too dour. Man on a Ledge wastes little time getting Worthington up on the ledge and drawing all sorts of atypical griping from cranky New Yawkas. Admittedly, watching Worthington on a ledge for 90 minutes could have been excruciating, but the light intrigue of Cassidy’s motivation and the focus on the diamond heist keep the plot moving and investment high, if only because audiences are trying to figure how all the pieces fit together, which is never a bad thing. Also, it doesn’t hurt that the heist itself is a marvel of amateur larceny that makes the efforts of Ben Stiller’s Tower Heist crew seem desperately pedestrian by comparison. Suffice to say, there are very few, if any, dull moments in this flick, topped of by a climax that delivers exactly what any crowd wants from of jumper situation in fashion so spectacular that it won’t be forgotten until the bigger budget blockbusters arrive in a few months.

Man on a Ledge’s solid pacing and action is complemented by decent performances, particularly from Jamie Bell and Ed Harris, Elizabeth Banks and , to a lesser extent, Edward Burns. Bell and Harris standout as the high notes among the cast by bringing a wicked liveliness to their roles that as a brash thief and a ruthless tycoon, respectively. Banks does her best to anchor this movie as seemingly the only sane woman on the NYPD, in the process showing that she’s becoming increasingly comfortable expanding her range beyond comedy with an earnest, smart performance. Burns balances his trademarks smarm with some reasonable charm as one of the few detectives who’ll abide Mercer’s hunches.

Conversely, star Sam Worthington and second leading lady, Genesis Rodriguez, are the weak links with Rodriguez faring slightly better than Worthington, who is continuing to find ways to avoid acting in favor of dropping his voice and glowering. Rodriguez, unfortunately, is mostly called upon to show off her assets and play-up the spicy Latina stereotype. Luckily, she gets to offset those less-than-pleasant stereotypes by being one of the more competent and perceptive characters. Anthony Mackie is also on hand, skulking around the periphery as Cassidy’s former partner who seems to be more than he lets on, in a role that sadly handicaps Mackie’s wonderful energy and range. Thankfully, the brisk pacing, unrelenting tension and energetic set pieces more than make up for the weaker performances.

Admittedly, as a January release, expectations for Man on a Ledge are probably low, but this flick will surprise audiences. Sure, Leth’s not reinventing the wheel when it comes to neither the hostage nor the heist genre, but he has mashed the two up into a fun exercise that is fairly clever and consistently enjoyable. The typical disclaimer for flicks like this is that not every movie has to be a masterpiece or a blockbuster. And, that’s true. Man on a Ledge may not be slickest, cleverest, most profound, or revelatory entry into the hostage/heist thriller, but it is slick enough, clever enough, and entertaining enough to get more than a few gasps, chuckles and cheers from its audiences.

Top Ten Films of 2011

2012-01-03T11:52:00.000-08:00

This year, I didn’t get to see as many indies and non-mainstream films as I wanted, but, in general, this was a decent, if less than momentous year for film. If anything, the best films of the year were those that simply made me smile. My top ten for the year are, uniformly, crowd-pleasers with one or two notable exceptions. While none of the selections in this list are in any danger of changing the way audiences think, feel, or live, each selection managed to entertain and keep the doldrums of the day jobs and drudgery of daily duties at bay.

10. Hanna

Grade: A
Thanks to a confident, atmospheric visual palette from director Joe Wright and disgustingly lethal beatings courtesy of waifish Saoirse Ronan, Hanna delivered an indie take on the Bourne series that easily overtook the farce that was Sucker Punch in the Girl Power division.

9. Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol

Grade: B
Tom Cruise continued to tempt death in this exciting entry that expanded the scope and ambition of the series far beyond the previous installments. Kudos to Brad Bird, in particular, for translating some of the old animation magic into his first live-action feature.

8. Real Steel

Grade: B
Easily dismissed as the Rock’em, Sock’em Robots: The Movie--which it is—this Rocky for the Transformers-set is far more entertaining and affecting than it had any right to be. Despite having a grumpy lead and a precocious kid, Real Steel proved its mettle (sorry) with solid robot-on-robot violence and an underdog narrative that rarely fails.

7. Warrior

Grade: A
In training to break the Dark Knight, the man who would be Bane (Tom Hardy), shows raw physical and emotional range in this Rocky for the MMA-set. Hardy’s performance is thankfully only one of the many highlights, as Joel Edgerton and Nick Nolte both shine as Hardy’s brother and father, respectively.

6. Fast Five

Grade: B+
Fast Five is a trade off: it relinquishes the negligible street cred—as if it ever had any—of focusing on underground street racing to become Toretto’s Seven, using any trick in the heist flick glossary to put on a show like no other Fast &Furious movie has before. It takes a moment to accept that a Fast & Furious movie can be guilt-free fun, let alone, good, but this one is both.

5. Hugo
G

Grade: A
Touching to a fault and submerged in a wonderfully luminous visual style, Hugo takes two well-worn narratives--the young orphan in search of a home and the idealistic youngster who
warms the heart of an old curmudgeon—and weaves them into a moving story that honors the early days of film while making at least 90% of the audience cry--almost.

4. Attack the Block

Grade: A
In the vein of Scott Pilgrim (which was directed by Block’s producer Edgar Wright), British import Attack the Block is a unique, underrated vision that never got the attention it deserved. More people probably saw this movie for free than any other flick this year. For those who did, they were treated to a topical twist on the alien invasion narrative that speaks to anybody who lives in a ‘ignored’ part of town.

3. Rango

Grade: A
Somehow, Johnny Depp and Gore Verbinski managed to roll up Spaghetti Westerns and Gonzo journalist adventures into a visually stunning and idiosyncratic take on Chinatown that was aimed at kids, but easily entertained all ages. Easily Johnny Depp’s best animated performance this year, with Captain Jack’s return in On Stranger Tides a slightly distant second.

2. Captain America

Grade: A
Easily the best superhero movie this year. Possibly the best Marvel movie since Blade II. Joe Johnston’s Captain America was a throwback to an era where heroes were uncomplicated and unashamedly earnest. Evoking memories of Johnston’s 90’s cult classic, The Rocketeer, Captain America, played ably by Chris Evans, showed audiences that heroes can be heroes without angst, armored suits, or ambiguity.

1. The Artist

Grade: A+
An all-around crowd pleaser fronted by two of the most winning leads of the year (Jean Dujardin and Berenice Bejo). Following the tale of a falling silent movie star and the rise of the spunky young starlet he’s fell in love with, The Artist is light-hearted but affecting and a wonderful experiment in the power of performances and visual over dialogue. Filmed in the manner of silent films that predated Hollywood’s golden era, The Artist may seem like it’s based around a gimmick, but rarely is a gimmick attached to such an entertaining and touching narrative.

Review - The Artist

2011-12-21T07:20:00.000-08:00

Grade: A+

Yang: Outstanding performances by Dujardin and Bejo highlight a wonderfully charming and funny film that recalls the best of Hollywood’s silent and Golden Eras. Superb turns by supporting cast, especially James Cromwell and Uggie the Dog

Yin: Weaker in any scene where Dujardin and Bejo are off-screen; could prove baffling for audiences unfamiliar with the elements of silent film.

In-Between: Hopefully, the screening audience understands the value of “show don’t tell”. If not, prepare for more dialogue in the seats than on the screen.

Movie marketers are always in search of a film they can sell as a “feel good” experience. Outside of Pixar films and the occasional poignant indie, there are few films that truly qualify as “feel good”, and even fewer actually make audiences feel anything

The Artist is not one of those films.

A charming, moving, and inspiring recreation of the magic of old Hollywood, writer-director Michel Hazanavicius’ The Artist is one of the very few cinematic experiences in recent years to legitimately make an audience feel good.

Filmed in the manner of silent films from the Hollywood’s Silent Era (1894-1929)—complete with title cards for occasional bits of important dialogue—The Artist tells the tale of Clark Gable-esque silent film star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), a charismatic triple threat performer on top of the world—with the exception of a clearly loveless marriage to Penelope Ann Miller’s Doris—thanks to his dashing good looks, charm, quick feet, and faithful sidekick, a scrappy Jack Russell terrier. At the premiere of George’s latest, he bumps into gorgeous, spunky aspiring starlet, Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), as she is caught among the throngs grasping for George’s autograph. George and Peppy’s meet-cute is rare in that it is actually funny and cute, especially when Peppy quickly turns on the spunk and reveals herself to have the ever-elusive ‘it’ factor. From there, Hollywood’s newest “it girl” lands a role as a dancing extra on George’s next film. The two share a brief scene and—for lack of a better cliché—figurative sparks fly. Everything’s coming up rosy for George until studio head Al Zimmer (John Goodman) introduces him to the next big thing in film: talkies. George laughs off the idea, believing that no audience would want to hear his voice. Meanwhile, Peppy is climbing her way through the ranks, from extra to supporting actress to star. While Peppy’s star rises astronomically, George sees his fall after Zimmer’s studio closes shop on the production of silent films. A proud man, George decides to produce, write and direct a silent film that will outdo any talkie Zimmer and his studio can produce. George quickly finds himself running out of money and headlong into a divorce and the 1929 stock market crash. Facing obscurity and destitution, George will find that the love and support of his “replacement” may be enough to help him shine again.

Hazanavicius did a simply amazing job constructing this heartfelt homage to the filmmakers and actors of Hollywood’s silent and golden eras. As much as The Artist is a film in love with films and filmmaking, it is one that equally cherishes actors and character. Dujardin’s George and Bejo’s Peppy are two of the most genuinely charming and likeable characters to grace a silver screen since the end of the Golden Era. Their burgeoning romance is palpable because neither character engages in the selfishness and deceit common to contemporary romantic leads. It is clear from their first meeting that these two artists have compatible personalities and, shockingly, actually like each other. With the exception of one scene that dips its toe in the pond of modern romantic comedy contrivance, neither character tries to actively outwit or harm the other in the name of love. Additionally, neither character falls into a paralyzing depression because of lost love, though George has a pretty rough time—to say the least—dealing with his diminishing relevance. The reason these characters work is as much the work of Hazanavicius writing and directing as it is the work of Dujardin and Bejo’s performances. In truth, these are Oscar-level performances, and it is hard to see how an academy that champions anything that honors Hollywood could avoid bestowing at least one of these fine actors with a nomination—and this is from someone who truly believes award shows are irrelevant. Dujardin, in particular, anchors the film with a winning performance as George, a dignified, proud, but eminently likeable star who seems to represent the best of what movie stars could be. Bejo is an equally luminous presence, radiating a beauty and liveliness that could outshine the sun. I don’t think there are many actresses today—maybe Anne Hathaway—who emulate the pure star power and personality that Bejo displays as Peppy, and that is a dreadful shame.

Bejo and Dujardin may carry the film, but they are not alone, as they are supported by superb cast. John Goodman does an able job delivering laughs as the beleaguered studio head, who, despite his best efforts, is frequently at the mercy of his stars. James Cromwell also makes an indelible mark as George’s loyal driver, Clifton. Cromwell’s Clifton is the Alfred to George’s Batman, and the, here’s that word again, dignity Cromwell brings to the role goes a long way to helping audiences understand why the two are so loyal to each other. Penelope Ann Miller is unfortunately submerged in the thankless role as the one mildly detestable character in the film, but her time on screen is fairly limited and does little to interfere with the proceedings. The only supporting star to outshine these other wonderful performers is Uggie, the animal performer who plays George’s Jack Russell terrier. Yeah, it’s kind of corny that this grown man’s sidekick is a dog, but it is another example of the loyal friendships George has fostered. Early in the film, George comes home to a cold wife who barely greets him, but his dog eagerly jumps into his open arms. The way is Uggie hits the perfect play dead or shame posture beats is wonderfully funny and will never fail to get a laugh from anyone with a warm heart.

The Artist is able to showcase this string of great performances thanks in large part to Hazanavicius central conceit of using silent film techniques throughout, with only two notable and necessary exceptions. The silence enables this film to do something few modern mainstream films do well, particularly in terms of developing character: show instead of tell. Spoken dialogue would only diminish the emotion of this film, as The Artist is the rare film that truly earns every laugh and near tear from the audience simply due to the clarity of character’s motivation and action. Additionally, Hazanavicius has faithfully recreated the dream of Hollywood in a manner almost completely devoid of cynicism. This is a film about decent people doing their best to adhere to their principles while being decent to each other. In a way, it reminds of this summer’s Captain America. Sure, life wasn’t a peachy in the early days of the twentieth century as both films would like their audiences to believe, but, for two hours, it’s nice to think it was, and that is the feeling that sticks with audiences. Very few contemporary films can create such a feeling, earn the emotions they aim for, and remain in the audience’s hearts and minds. The Artist is one of the few films this year that has easily accomplished all three feats.

Review - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

2011-12-20T08:07:00.000-08:00

Grade: B-

Yin: Languid pacing and extensive length could put some folks to sleep. Material is far less shocking than advertised. A true late-90s vibe from music to visuals to narrative.

Yang: Great atmosphere. Strong performance by Rooney Mara as Goth hacker Lisbeth Salander. A true late-90s vibe from music to visuals.

In-Between: Pipes aren’t meant to fit into certain crevasses.

I often ask the women in my family, “What’s the appeal of Law & Order: SVU?” or “What’s the appeal of those Lifetime movies where the women are brutally assaulted and raped?” I rarely get a definitive answer outside a noncommittal, “It’s interesting,” but I continue to ask because I can’t wrap my head around the appeal of watching women be viciously abused and subsequently receive only a modicum of retribution.

I assume I could ask the same of fans of the film adaptation of the first book in Steig Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and receive roughly the same answer. The difference between Law & Order and a Lifetime movie and Dragon Tattoo is simple: you can watch L&O or a Lifetime movie and be bored and appalled at the same time for free; Dragon Tattoo will cost you at least $11 and three hours of your time.

Is it worth it? For die-hard fans of moody Goth hacker Lisbeth Salander, Sweden, and the 21st century equivalent of a dime store mystery, definitely. For anybody who has seen the original Swedish version or prefers to see gruesome, misogynist mysteries wrapped up in an hour, for free, maybe.

From the post-teaser opening—filled with discordant, abstract images of naked bodies drenched in oil or black paint that look like escapees from a Madonna or, shockingly, a Nine Inch Nails video from 1997—to the names on the credits—especially a score by the once ubiquitous alt-Goth rock king Trent Reznor—it is clear that director David Fincher’s remake of the 2009 Swedish adaptation of Dragon Tattoo is a product of a bygone era. Dragon Tattoo is almost a note for note remake of the 2009 version, with the exception of an extended epilogue that rivals the conclusion of the Return of the King in terms of length. Fincher’s Dragon Tattoo follows disgraced Swedish financial journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), publisher of fictional Swedish expose rag, Millennium, after his falling from grace when he libels a powerful industrialist, Hans-Erik Wennerström. Having lost his life savings and forced to relinquish his title as publisher, Mikael is inches away from losing everything he holds dear—including his relationship with paramour and Millennium editor Erika Berger (Robin Wright) and his religious teenage daughter—when he receives a call from the reclusive, mysterious, and affable Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), the former CEO of Swedish conglomerate Vanger Industries. Vanger needs Mikael’s keen investigative instinct to solve the case of Henrik’s great-niece, Harriet, who disappeared 40 years prior. In return, Vanger will provide Mikael with a substantial payment and enough information to bury Wennerström. The only impediments to Mikael’s investigation are the isolation of the Vanger’s hometown, an insular island community known as Hedestad, and Vanger’s duplicitous and reclusive relatives, including the accommodating Martin Freeman (Stellan Skarsgrard), current CEO of Vanger Industries.

Mid-way through his investigation, Mikael finds himself lacking options and access to information and enlists the aid of the “investigator” who helped discredit him in the Wennerström case, Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara). As with the original Swedish version, Lisbeth receives a significant amount of buildup and back story before she and Mikael ever cross paths. A freelance super-hacker with a preference for Macs, Lisbeth is a striking if rather conventional character. She dresses like a Numetal Goth from the early 00s, complete with stacked spike boots, leather jacket, and enough asymmetrical hairstyles that she could give Derek J and the Hair Battle Spectacular judges pause. She is cold, pragmatic, and frank about her flexible sexual interests. She uses this rigid exterior to mask a soul that has been deeply wounded by abusive men. Before hooking up with Mikael, Lisbeth found herself under the thumb of a cartoonishly sadistic guardian who forced her to perform “favors” for her weekly allowance. When said guardian forces himself on her, Lisbeth delivers an appropriately cruel amount of justice that will allow her to act freely and continue monitoring Mikael, who she believes is a good man despite the libel case. Soon after being freed from her guardian’s control, Lisbeth is hired by Mikael, and they begin their quest to find Harriet, which involves a string of montages where each stares pensively a computer screens and dusty tomes to uncover the Vanger family’s dark secrets.

Dragon Tattoo is a well-crafted, but generally unnecessary work that doesn’t offer any profound visual or textual twist on the original material, which isn’t as shocking as the hype would like audiences to think. Fincher does an able job recreating the cold and quiet atmosphere of Hedestad, but brings nothing new beyond the his personal style and the style of the original film, which mesh together so well that it almost works against Fincher’s version. As with the original Swedish version, Fincher’s Dragon Tattoo is sprawling and languid. Its slow pace and meticulousness will likely deter audiences with short attention spans, but, ironically, it is a fairly simple, if grim and cynical, narrative with a mystery at its core that seasoned cinephiles and television fans will likely be able to uncover by the midway point. The grimness of the proceedings is nothing particularly unique or revealing, especially for those familiar with Fincher’s Se7en, but it is masterfully rendered through Fincher’s steady vision and some decent performances.

As Mikael, Daniel Craig tones down the intensity that has marked his turn as James Bond in the recent 007 features, opting for a more Clark Kent-like mild mannered journalist persona. Craig’s Mikael is a bit of a cipher. The audience knows why he’s investigating Harriet’s disappearance, but the lack of shading and detail prevents the audience from achieving a strong connection to the character. This is less of a concern for Rooney Mara’s Lisbeth, who is fully developed and receives a full character arc despite having no direct connection to the main mystery until halfway through the film. Mara gives Lisbeth even more vulnerability than Noomi Rapace—whose role as a knife-wielding gypsy in this year’s Sherlock Holmes sequel coincidentally preceded the Dragon Tattoo remake by four days—did in the 2009 version. Lisbeth’s sadness is far more palpable in Fincher’s version whereas her aggression was the highlight of the Swedish version. That palpable melancholy lays the foundation for the extended epilogue, which, despite its length, provides even more insight into the pain that lies within Lisbeth. In presenting this vulnerability without sacrificing some of Lisbeth’s more idiosyncratic tendencies, Mara deserves a more than fair measure of acclaim. Stellan Skarsgard fares less favorably than Mara and Craig, emitting a smarmy eagerness in the early goings that telegraphs far too much. Plummer and Wright perform with dignity in their supporting roles, with Plummer offering some necessary heart to counter Dragon Tattoo's bleakness, but have little opportunity to truly make a mark.

While not every performance or visual decision is revelatory, Dragon Tattoo is a well-made film that qualifies as a true “love it or hate it” experience. Dragon Tattoo will not appeal to everyone, and fans of the original book and movie are surely to get a bigger kick out of this than those who are unfamiliar with the material. The length could also turn off some audiences—which it shouldn’t in light of gargantuan epics like Transformers—and it is very possible that despite the craft invested in this film, some folks will fall asleep. But, for those who hang in there, they will find a film that, while not as shocking as advertised, does a fair job remaking a film that didn’t need to be remade.

SPOILER ALERT: Review - Dark Knight Rises Prologue

2011-12-15T07:55:00.000-08:00

Tell someone they’re smart enough for long enough and sooner or later they start to believe it.

Contrary to popular, and surely his personal belief, Christopher Nolan isn’t as smart as everyone thinks he is, himself included.

This is not to say Nolan isn’t an intelligent auteur with the rare gift of vision in an era where mainstream cinema is bewilderingly bereft of directors with a unique voice. It does, however, mean that his approach to storytelling can be rather sterile—which isn’t news to the mildly observant—and less dynamic than the throngs of Nolanites might suggest.

SPOILER ALERT

Two nights ago, I had the fortune of catching the 6-minute prologue to next summer’s The Dark Knight Rises. The clip, and make no mistake that’s all it is, opens with Gary Oldman’s Commissioner Gordon delivering a eulogy at Harvey Dent’s funeral. It is a quick scene punctuated by Gordon’s dignified remark, “I remember Harvey Dent.” From there, the clip jumps to what appears to be South America (a subtitle might help, just for the sake of geography and those who don’t know that big bad Bane is from the Caribbean).

On a desolate airstrip, Mayor Carcetti (Aiden Gillen, genre film and TV’s fastest rising go-to slimeball) is double dipping as a smarmy—shocking—CIA agent who is awaiting the delivery of three poor unfortunate souls (read: hooded prisoners) who are clearly on their way to the Nolanverse version of Abu Grahib. The requisite heavily armed paramilitary pseudo-spies flank Carcetti and exchange tales of the man called "Bane". “Why does he wear the mask?” they ask. Isn’t it obvious or do that not realize that eight years prior some damaged rich boy in a Kevlar gimp outfit “escalated” the war on crime to a point where a jacked mercenary from the South American Alcatraz has decided the best way to intimidate innocents is to wear a third of Darth Vader’s mask and talk through a vocoder?

The three prisoners are soon delivered along with a Dr. Exotic Name (Pavel, actually, and thanks to IMDB for that info because the sound was for crap.). Apparently, Dr. Pavel has some kind of MacGuffin, but since cryptic is the order of the day, it is not really clear if it’s a formula like the well-known Venom that turned comic book Bane into a supersized luchador or something more sinister. Carcetti is surprised to see the three prisoners, having only expected two, and begrudgingly brings them on the plane in hopes of learning about "Bane".

Once on the plane, Carcetti tries to pull some of that bull-in-a-china-shop shit that never flew in Baltimore and threatens to shoot the prisoners or throw them off the plane. Of course, no one talks after the first two threats. After the third threat, one of the prisoners speaks. In a voice that is virtually indistinguishable from a cashier speaking through a drive-thru microphone, the hooded prisoner says something. Whatever he says forces Carcetti to rip off the hood and….dun dun dun…reveal Bane, complete with a Darth Vader muzzle that covers his mouth with what look like metal teeth. From here, Bane (Tom Hardy, still sporting the muscles he earned on the MMA Rocky movie, Warrior) rambles some completely incomprehensible rhetoric that is enough to rattle Carcetti and spur Carcetti’s bodyguards to train their guns on Bane’s head.

While Carcetti and his crew are distracted, another plane, a longer black plane, flies above Carcetti’s plane. A squad of paratroopers drops from the rear of the black plane and attaches to Carcetti’s plane with suction cups. Through a ridiculously complicated process, the squad strings up the wings and tail of Carcetti’s plane, attaching it to the black plane, then shoots out the windows of Carcetti’s plane. The black plane pulls up just enough to rip the wings and tail of the plane off, turn the plane vertical, and throw it into freefall. Bane, Carcetti, the bodyguards, Dr. Exotic Name and the other prisoners flop around the plane like Joseph Gordon Levitt and Dream Soldier #695 did in level 2 of Fischer’s dream in Inception. With the tail nothing more than a gaping hole, the paratroopers drop in and, through another complicated series of actions, place harnesses on the doctor and Bane, while lowering a fresh corpse into the cabin. Bane administer a funky blood transfusion between the doctor and the fresh corpse in what appears to be a poorly planned attempt to convince the world that the doctor will die in the impending crash. As Bane, the doctor and the paratroopers prepare to be ejected from the falling plane, in a manner much like Batman and his ‘skyhook’ escape from Hong Kong in Dark Knight, one of the formerly masked prisoners asks Bane for a harness. Bane grumbles indecipherably again and the prisoner nods and slides into the seat that will carry him to his grave. The black plane then releases Carcetti’s plane, which nosedives into oblivion and a disgusting wreckage that will likely kill at least five unsuspecting innocent people, all while Bane and doctor are safely lifted into the black plane.

The scene cuts and a far more fascinating sizzle reel plays, showing in quick succession: Bane arriving in Gotham with a boss chinchilla down coat, an collision between two tumblers, Batman arriving in Batman-style, a collision between the tumbler and a dump truck, Anne Hathaway dressed up as a cat and sneaking around, Bane punching Batman, Batman punching Bane, the 99% finally fighting the 1%, Anne Hathaway frowning (because that’s what Catwoman would do), Bane dropping Batman’s broken mask, and—the coup de grace—a Tumbler-fied Batwing flying over a camo tumbler!

Without question, the sizzle reel was far more engaging than the prologue. Finally, Nolan and crew are showing something more than stills and, so far, it seems as impressive and morose as expected.

There’s no sense of the overarching theme, but, knowing Nolan, it will be stated early and often. The prologue itself truly pales compared to the Joker prologue from a few years ago. It’s not news that the Joker is a hard act to follow, and this prologue proves it. Bane is an average villain at best, despite being nudged into two Bat-films, and this prologue didn’t go a long way to making him any more memorable than KGBeast. The heist itself is needlessly convoluted, as movie heists often are, and lacks the slight innovation and personality of Joker’s heist. Also, the widely reported problems with understanding Bane prevent the audience getting any sense of his personality or purpose beyond being a plane-jacker with a muzzle.

Bane can be an interesting villain—think reverse Captain America. He was born in a South American Prison that is compared to hell and subjected to a super steroid treatment. He demonstrates gray morality yet orchestrated a plan that lead to Batman taking a year off to recover. He could be something. The fact that he was born in a prison, alone, presents an opportunity for a great short origin. In fact, I’d like to offer this idea as a better prologue:

Bane, wearing a simple black balaclava and a prison jumper, is restrained and being prepared to receive his treatment. For months, he has heard his doctors discuss “The Batman” from Gotham city. For months, someone has been planning Bane’s escape. Before receiving his first shot, Bane finds his restraints are looser than normal. He gets his first shot. His muscles bulge. He breaks the restraint. The doctors notice much too late. He advances on them. They sound the alarm. Five guards rush in. Bane lays waste to them in a manner reminiscent of the beatdowns from the Arkham game series, complete with swift counters, reversals and punishing finishing blows. He escapes the treatment room and makes his way from the bottom of the jail to the top, using his memory to beat the locks and his physical prowess to punish wave after wave of guards. He reaches the outside. He breathes in the fresh air for a moment then looks to the sky. A black plane flies above. He ponders for a moment then runs about five yards from the prison gate and starts digging. He retrieves a harness, a grappling gun, and a newspaper clipping that reads “Batman: Scourge or Savior?” He pockets the clipping, steps into the harness, and points the grapple gun to the sky. The black plane circles while opening its hatch. It closes in on Bane. Bane fires the grapple, shooting off a skyhook like Batman’s, and is lifted by the plane. He is reeled into the hatch as the plane changes trajectory, flying north towards Gotham city.

That’s for free, Nolan.

I'm Back

2011-12-15T07:51:00.000-08:00

After a few quiet months, the reviews and insight are back!

I apologize for the disappearing act--it was for a good reason I promise--but I hope to bring you more valuable reviews in the coming weeks.

For starters, check out my review of the Dark Knight Rises Prologue. It's something...

Review - Supernatural 7x03: The Girl Next Door

2011-10-08T09:13:00.000-07:00

Grade: B-

Wow, Dean. Really? After all you’ve learned and grown in the past few years, you’re still taking a hard line on monsters.

I generally have a lot of faith in Supernatural’s writers room, but it seems like years of development went out the window when Dean offed that pleasant Kitsune, a brain-eating monster with Catwoman’s fingernails. Yes, I know Dean has always taken a very black-white view of monsters, but he seemed to have grown a little over the years, gradually accepting that not all monsters are…well, monsters. Didn’t he?

I’m getting ahead of myself. The Girl Next Door opens with Sam and Dean trapped in Sioux Falls General and at the mercy of the LeviaDoc. Bobby, who is as not dead as originally thought, comes to the rescue, only to find Dean with a broken leg and Sam on his way to becoming dinner. After a half-escape, the three settle in at one of Bobby’s safehouse. With Dean on injured reserve, Sam picks up a case that seems connected one he investigated as a teen, which means…flashbacks!

As Sam starts tracking a mysterious Ice Pick Killer who drains its victims’ brains, he recalls a similar pattern from years ago. Colin Ford returns as young Sam, growing enough that we probably won’t see flashbacks before the boys’ teen years anymore. The young Sam flashbacks are interesting because, for what seems like the first time, Sam is hunting alone. I always assumed the boys stuck together when they were younger and didn’t separate until Sam went to college, so this is an interesting twist on their history. Of course, young Sam is a capable hunter but pretty inept with these young ladies. It’s pretty funny to see young Sam ask his big brother not for advice on hunt but for advice on talking to girls.

With a little advice from Dean and a timely thrashing of some bullies, Sam sparks a cute fledgling relationship with young Amy Pond (for the Doctor Who fans out there), and her mother just happen to be the objects of his and, to his surprise, Dean and John’s hunt. With Sam’s father and brother closing in, Amy’s mother outs Sam as a hunter, forcing young Sam to contemplate killing Amy and her mom. But, young Amy provides him an out by killing her own mother. Obviously, a sacrifice like that means Sam has to let Amy go, with the caveat that she never kills again.

Back in the present, Amy seems to be killing again. In actuality, she feeds on dead bodies, but her son needed live brains to fend off an illness. Amy, as Sam tells Dean, did what anyone would do to save their child and offed some criminals. This development puts this week’s story clearly in the gray area that works so well for Supernatural. It is also a return to the notion that monsters aren’t evil, which leads back to my problem with Dean’s actions. The show has always seen the world in gray terms despite Dean’s moral absolutism. Over the seasons, Dean’s gradual shift from a black/white view to a more balanced vision of the world and creatures in it has been one of Supernatural’s strengths. Yet, seeing Dean kill Amy, in front of her son no less, is either a bold step or a discouraging misstep. Dean’s actions are also going to cause a brand new rift between him and Sam, as Sam specifically asked Dean to let Amy go. Thus, we have another slight regression, as the brothers are back to hiding things from each other, something I thought they’d learned not to do, especially after Sam’s openness about his mental wall.

Thankfully, it looks like next episode will directly address Dean’s actions. How effectively it will address those issues remains to be seen, but Dean has to feel the pain for this, either by his own hand or others. If not, Supernatural’s writers will come off as painfully inept, and they’re better than that. Aren’t they?

On the side:

Besides the Amy Pond reference, this episode is stacked with easter eggs. Anybody else catch the ad for My Bloody Valentine, in 3D, or the Batman: Under the Red Hood t-shirt on the convenience store clerk?

Review - Real Steel

2011-10-07T07:31:00.000-07:00

Grade: B

Yang: Awesome robot-on-robot violence that rivals Transformers; a surprisingly heartwarming story centered on human beings rather than CGI creations; a classic Speilbegian tale of a boy with daddy issues and his robot.

Yin: Jackman is playing Wolverine with a kid; the kid (Dakota Goyo) is a love-hate character; May insult Transformers fans with its ambitions to replicate over-the-top robot action; a classic Speilbegian tale of a boy with daddy issues and his (fill in the blank with fantastic creature).

In-Between: The main robot, Atom, learns to dance like Justin Bieber. Take that as you will.

Who watches boxing these days? Honestly. I occasionally hear people talking vaguely about organizing a fight party, but, outside of a few whispers from folks old enough to remember when Mike Tyson was actually a pugilist, I don’t hear much in the public consciousness about the sweet science. The media has, in particular, long left the sport behind, with the most recent kerfuffle over the Mayweather-Ortiz bout being the most significant ping on the cultural radar in years. So, when Hugh Jackman’s character, ex-prize fighter Charlie Kenton, in the new Rock’em Sock’em Robots movie (and make no mistake, this is Rock’em Sock’em Robots: The Movie), Real Steel, tells his son Max (the chipper, fey, Bieber-esque Dakota Goyo) that the fight game left humans behind decades ago, it’s a not-so-subtle commentary on the very real phenomenon of sports fandom abandoning boxing.

Despite sports fans generally ignoring the once-dominant spectacle of pro boxing in favor of MMA tourneys, moviegoers have not abandoned movies about boxers. In the past year, audiences have seen awards heaped on David O. Russell’s The Fighter while smaller pictures like the MMA drama Warrior draw consistently positive reviews. Why? My theory: America, despite being top dog for decades, has always loved an underdog story, even more so now that the country is sliding right into underdog status among world powers. Real Steel is the perfect flick to satiate that taste and it does so by combining the mainstream audience’s ‘love’ for a calculated combination of gloss and heart. Run Transformers into Rocky, add a dash of Over the Top and a pinch of The Iron Giant and witness the unsurprisingly fun, but shockingly heartfelt, Real Steel.

Real Steel follows Jackman’s Charlie Kenton as he scrapes out a living by fighting remote-controlled giant robots with jackhammers for fists and wicked names like Ambush, Zeus, Midas and Noisy Boy. Kenton is a bit of a deadbeat, a could’ve-been-contender with a propensity for welching on debts. When he loses two robots to separate hubris-inspired tragedies, he is forced to find something, anything, to keep him in the game. To complicate matters, the son he long abandoned, Max, has resurfaced after the death of his mother, one of Charlie’s old girlfriends. Forced to hold onto Max for the summer after making a deal with his son’s adoptive parents, Charlie is now backed into a corner where he just may have to bond with the son he never wanted to know. Things turn around for the Kenton boys when a trip to scrap yard leads them to discover Atom, a sparring robot with a smile carved into its faceplate and, maybe, a soul. Atom is special because he is the rare robot who doesn’t require remote control—he shadowboxes—and can, literally, take a licking and keep on ticking. With a new robot in tow, the three begin a journey to learn about each other—Charlie and Max teach Atom how to fight, and dance like Justin Bieber, while Max teaches Charlie how to be a father—and climb their way from unknowns to genuine contenders, in the ring and in life.

Real Steel seems terribly hokey at first glance. Nobody asked for a Rock’em Sock’em Robots movie, but now we have it, and it’s so much fun that it qualifies as something audiences didn’t know they wanted. This is a far better merging of the Speilbergian, an executive producer on the film, ethos with contemporary tastes than Super 8 ever was. The fights, alone, are amazing. Taking a note from Michael Bay’s Transformer epics and delivering ridiculous robot-on-robot violence in far clearer manner. Director Shawn Levy (Night at the Museum I and II, and Date Night) shows a much better command of an action scene with CGI ‘bots than Bay did on his first time out. While Steel doesn’t come anywhere close to the carnage of Transformers, particularly Dark of the Moon’s assault on Chi-town, it is still frenetic and colorful enough to match, and surpass, some of Transformers' lesser action scenes.

One thing Real Steel has over Transformers is the necessity of the human performances. Real Steel is about people first and that bodes well for the schmaltzier material, which keeps scenes between humans from appearing like a stopgap. Jackman is adequate as washed up ne’er-do-well, but much of what he brings to the table is just toned-down Wolverine. Dakota Goyo actually carries more of the movie as Max, building a makeshift father-son relationship with Atom that recall’s Brad Bird’s underrated animated classic The Iron Giant. While Goyo carries a lot more of the film than the trailers would lead one to believe, he can be grating. His character was obviously based of the kids from 80's blockbusters, either total enthusiasm or overwrought attitude and angst. There will be no in-between in how audiences respond to him. He’s either adorable or insufferable. Evangeline Lily shows up for a few scenes as the daughter of Charlie’s former trainer who probably, definitely is in love with Charlie, but offers little more than a voice of concern or support when necessary. The ever-reliable Anthony Mackie is also hanging around the edges of the proceedings as an underground fight promoter, being underutilized, as usual.

Thankfully, the story has enough heart to overrun the stock performances. The underdog fight plot and the father-son reconciliation threads are typically win-win scenarios, and those threads are even more effective when woven together. Audiences may not be moved to tears, but even the most jaded viewers will feel that weird warmth in their left ventricle, if only for a second. Between the solid action and legit amount of heartwarming, Real Steel proves to be a surprisingly entertaining, and slyly moving, summer flick stranded in the middle of Oscar season. It may not knock audiences out, but it will surely make them smile.

Review - Supernatural 7x02: Hello Cruel World

2011-10-01T23:13:00.000-07:00

Grade: B

Cas is gone, but Dr. Sexy M.D. is still on the air. Somehow, the Winchester’s world just got a little bit darker.

I want to take a moment to lament what is, ostensibly, the last we’ll see of Cas for a while, hopefully. When Bobby asks Dean how he’s holding up in the face of Sam’s hallucinations, the rise of the Leviathans, and the “death” of Cas, he mentions that Dean just lost one of the best friends he’d ever had. Hindsight being 20/20, Bobby’s right. For the past couple of seasons, Cas and Dean were, at times, closer than Sam and Dean, despite Cas’ weak grasp of human emotion. So, when Dean fishes Cas’ trenchcoat out of a river after Cas explodes into an ink stain and releases the Leviathans into the local water supply, it’s a tough moment. Cas was a welcome counterpoint to the brother’s constant angst. His lack of any discernable emotion besides confusion was necessary in a series that saw its leads become more hopeless with every episode. Cas wasn’t the brightest sign of hope, but he was never trapped in his own despair like the Winchesters do.

Now, it seems like the fellas won’t be getting that break Dean was looking for last episode because the Leviathans are loose and they’ve already started wreaking havoc. The Leviathans are essentially a cross between Supernatural’s demons and vampires. They possess any unlucky souls who, in this case, ingested the polluted water then they maneuver themselves into positions and places where they can unlock their bottom jaw and become Pez-like people eaters. Like Supernatural’s demons, these new beasties have a pecking order. Apparently, there’s a Big Bad leviathan behind everything, but he/she/it is relaying its orders through a leviathan inhabiting the man who was once The Shield’s Capt. Aceveda (Benito Martinez). A few more leviathans have possessed a pair of teens from a local swim team and another inhabits an innocent young girl. In an effort to circumvent the pattern of Supernatural’s baddies being young women, the little lady leviathan quickly switches to the body of a cheeky surgeon.

The leviathans’ need to satiate themselves leaves a trail of bodies that hits the news, landing them right on the Winchesters’ radar. Normally, this is the point where Sam and Dean mount up for one of their DIY-style hunts, but our boys have learned from their past mistakes. Sam fesses up to his hallucinations, letting Dean and Bobby know exactly how bad it’s been. Dean is only shocked for a second before he benches Sam, and Sam agrees. All the while, Lucifer—Mark Pellegrino delivering finely-tuned villainy that tiptoes between unnerving and hammy—is poking at Sam—who is spending most of his time field stripping and cleaning his guns—urging the poor kid to kill himself and rejoin him in the cage. It occurs to me that Sam has been constantly besieged by mental torment since the first episode, and now, seven seasons deep, is no different. As much as Dean needed that break from hunting last season to live a normal life, I can’t help but think Sam needs it a lot more. While any Supernatural vet knows the boys will always face torment, with Sam more often than not getting the lion’s share, this feels like a retread of many of the Sam arcs from years past, but this time, at least, the brothers have learned enough to avoid avoidance and try to head the problem off.
With Sam benched, Dean on the hunt and Leviathans on the loose, everything seems totally disjointed until Bobby gets a call from Sheriff Jody Mills, last seen in Season Five’s Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid. See, Sheriff Mills was in the Sioux Falls, SD hospital for a routine appendectomy when she spotted LeviaDoc kidnapping his dinner. Bobby wisely leaves Sam by his lonesome and thus at the mercy of Lucifer, who lures Sam to an abandoned warehouse tailor made for suicides. Dean arrives just in time to pull Sam back, thanks to dropping a GPS on him earlier in the episode. This all sets up the standard Winchester heart-to-heart albeit with a lot more honesty than the average post-game wrap between these two. Of course the post-game wrap came about ten minutes early so there was more left to this fairly stuffed episode.

When the boys get back to Bobby’s, they run into Captain Leviathian who gives Sammy a pipe to the head before Dean manages to drop a car on him. Worse for the wear after their first run-in with the Leviathan, Dean and Sam end up in a ambulance on its way to Sioux Falls Hospital while, back at Bobby’s, Captain Leviathan proves that dropping a car on them isn’t enough to slow a leviathan.

This episode was mostly a place setting ep. Hello Cruel World merely put all the players in place and set the stage for the conflict between the Winchesters and the Leviathans that will form the spine of the season. Compared to last year, this is a much more serialized approach, which isn’t a bad route for a series as seasoned as Supernatural. I know and most longtime viewers know that eventually Supernatural will get around to the one-off episodes that are its bread and butter, but, for now, this is a solid way to build the season. Hopefully, the Leviathan arc won’t get buried, forgotten like some of the major arcs introduced early last season. As long as the writers keep with this momentum, we’re looking at the beginning of one of Supernatural’s most promising seasons.

Review - Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #2

2011-09-29T11:52:00.000-07:00

Grade: A

Let me start this review by thanking Brian Michael Bendis for showing the comic-reading public that some African-American fathers do stick around to raise their children.

Conversely, I’m saddened that, by the same token, he also perpetuated the stereotype that most Black man are or have been incarcerated. But, since Bendis focuses more on showing a powerful father-son relationship, I’ll let him slide on the jailed Black man stereotype, no matter how unfortunate and uncomfortable its truth may be.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #2 continues the excellence of the first issue, this time focusing more intently on Miles. The last issue of UCSM ended with Miles being bitten by a genetically-engineered spider and then discovering he has the ability to become invisible. Issue #2 picks up right from that moment and follow Miles as he discovers some of his new abilities. While wandering towards home, Miles finds he has the ability to not only disappear but to jump and, when he runs afoul of some bullies, emit a shocking sting like a spider. Scared to death of being a mutant in a world where the remaining free mutants are quickly on their way to a days of future past scenario, Miles rushes to share his fears with his friend Ganke, a chubby, intelligent Asian with a passion for Legos (one stereotype out of two isn’t bad; kudos, again, Mr. Bendis). Not long after showing off some of his new-found powers, Miles’ father, last seen arguing with Miles’ uncle Aaron, arrives to reclaim his son.

The second half of the issue is dedicated to an awkward but moving conversation between Miles and his father, where his father reveals that he was once imprisoned—after running and robbing with Aaron—and how he hopes Miles will never have to face such a fate. This moment, which took at least three pages, is a pitch-perfect example of why decompression is a viable approach to comic storytelling. Allowing the conversation between Miles and his father to continue unburdened by a rushed gives the characters a chance to breath and enabled Bendis to employ some very human pauses and reactions. That scene single handedly shows that the best written and illustrated comics can easily match television or film in their ability to capture emotional truth.

But Bendis and his alone do not carry this issue, artist Sara Pichelli continues to deliver some of the best art of the year on this title. Pichelli is already well known for ability to add essential details to her illustration without overstuffing her panels (***coughJimLeecough***). Rather than rehash that praise, I’ll point to a couple of exemplary panels. Page 1, Panel 1 is an establishing shot of the hustle and bustle of Brooklyn focused on the varied faces of modern New Yorkers. The variety of faces in that panel is exemplary. There are no lookalikes or switched templates. Each face is unique and utterly human. The splash on page 14 is superb, delicately revealing the emotion on both Miles and his father’s face while showing that life goes on around them. Bendis is very lucky to have Pichelli on board with him because, despite the current praised heaped on writers, comics live and die based on the quality of their illustrations. As long as Pichelli continues to bring her gorgeous pencils to UCSM the comic should enjoy a long, prosperous existence.

While I’m hoping UCSM will enjoy a long run, this is just the beginning for Miles. By the end of this issue Ganke has reasoned that Miles is not a dreaded mutant but the survivor of a freak accident like the now-legendary Spider-Man, a conversation told completely through text. On that note, I’d like to heap some more praise on the writer, as many are wont to do these days. Bendis’ decision to eschew narration boxes in favor of a dialogue driven issue is not just inspired it’s a welcome. Today’s audiences, or at least those who Marvel and DC hope to court with initiatives like Ultimate Comics and the New 52, are used to entertainment, like television and film, that typically avoids narration. In using the non-narration approach, Bendis is delivering information in a more contemporary manner and delivering a product from the Big Two that is starting to look like it wants to shake off the shackles of tradition. To Bendis, again, I say kudos. Wisely, Bendis ends this issue where any story about Spider-Man should rightfully begin with Miles crawling the wall of his bedroom. Miles may be frightened of what comes next, but I, for one, am eager to see this kid ascend to the heights only spiders can reach.

Review - Machine Gun Preacher

2011-09-29T08:35:00.000-07:00

Grade: C

Good: Brings much needed attention to a serious issue and offers heartwarming moments, in the most conventional of terms. Performance by Savane and Magale rise above the weaker efforts of more recognizable stars.

Bad: Another spin on the white-man-saves-the-savages narrative, that seems to willfully lack awareness of its inherent, potentially offensive redundancy. Butler fails to capture the fire behind the real-life Childers in favor of playing a super-cool tough guy who is in the wrong movie.

Ugly: The abject suffering the people of the Southern Sudan and Northern Uganda region face is deplorable.

One of dour comic Louis C.K.’s most popular bits is a rant on “white people problems”. White people problems, or first world problems as they are occasionally known, are those mundane problems that seems to cripple the well-fed, educated and housed people, generally Caucasian, of developed countries like the United States , the United Kingdom, and France. These problems can be anything from Starbucks running out of milk temporarily to upper middle class professionals being forced to devote a fraction of their $100,000 salary to pay for an electric bill that jumped from $150 to $250. All problems that cannot remotely compare to the suffering of people in developing countries like Uganda and Sudan, where children are routinely abducted while their families and villages are brutally destroyed by warlords and their subversive armies.

The majority of the population in developed countries knows little of the strife and suffering the people of these countries face on a daily basis. An even smaller number is aware and able to help, until they forget. Reformed biker and preacher Sam Childers has never forgotten the people, particularly the children, of Northern Uganda and Southern Sudan, and has devoted his life to defending their right to live in freedom and safety.

Marc Forster and screenwriter Jason Keller’s Machine Gun Preacher is solemn, if occasionally disconnected, testament to a man who will not quit and the seemingly-impossible mission has saved his life as much as it has threatened to destroy it. Gerard Butler stars as Sam Childers, founder of Angels of East Africa, a former biker, junkie, small-time hood who lived life beyond the wild side until a violent encounter with a hitchhiker forces him to rethink his way of life. Baptized and committed to Christ, Childers opens a construction company and begins to make a better life for his wife Lynn (Michelle Monaghan) and his daughter, Paige (Madeline Carroll). During a routine trip to Sunday service, Childers is moved by a missionary who spent many years working with the people, particularly the children, of war-ravaged the Southern Sudan-Northern Uganda region. Not long after, Childers visits the region as part of a Habitat-for-Humanity-style program and witnesses the shamefully high amount of suffering. Childers, inspired by a higher power, returns to build a church/orphanage in the region. When his church project is decimated by warlords, Childers takes a radical approach to saving the people on the border of the Sudan and Uganda, one that involves a many guns as it does gauze and one that may push Childers further from the family that saved him.

Gerard Butler does admirable work as Childers. Of course, the former-Leonidas excels when he’s called to be an action hero with a cause. A Rambo of Northern Africa, if you will. But, when forced to delve into the emotion and fire that lives within Childers, he’s a bit muted. Sure, the quiet, reflective man of action archetype fits well within this type narrative, but there seems to be a spark missing from Butler’s performance that would have made Butler’s interpretation of Childers as memorable as his mission. I know there’s a spark missing from Butler’s performance because Childers was present at the screening and to see the literal fire that emanates from this man is to see why Butler’s performance skews wide left of perfect. Childers is ferocious in his passion for his cause—this is a man who, in personal footage shown during the credits, is cocking a shotgun one-handed and firing in a smooth succession(top that, Ms. Connor)—and it bleeds through him. Butler, on the other hand, gives his interpretation of Childers as cool countenance that belies this intensity and his performance suffers for it. Despite the incongruity between real and movie Childers, Butler still owns the movie above and beyond all the supporting cast. Michelle Monaghan is adequate as Childers long-suffering wife, who deals patiently with her husband’s issues no matter what side of the law he’s on. Michael Shannon is sadly underutilized as Childer’s best friend, a recovering junkie who goes through the typical recovery arc, which gives less screen time to deliver the unsettling quality that Shannon typically brings to the big and small screen. Souleymane Sy Savane fares a little better than the rest of the supporting cast bringing a quiet dignity to his role as Childers right-hand man in Africa—jeez, that sounds bad—Deng. Young Junior Magale also deserves praise for his role as pre-teen who has lost all of his family and is desperately trying to find his lost brother, a plotline which probably would have made for a far more compelling narrative.

Forster does an able job of interpreting a script by impassioned screenwriter Jason Keller, who was also present at the screening—an oddity considering how quickly screenwriters are excused from the creative process. Unfortunately, Forster’s vision is serviceable and workmanlike rather than revelatory. Preacher is visually no different or unique than any meditative action film that Clint Eastwood may have made. There’s no visual signature or particular insight that elevates this above the material. Even worse, Forster, who doesn’t shy away from showing the horrors of the war in the region and its devastating impact on non-combatants, fails to present the region as something other than a catalyst for Childer’s redemption, and that’s the inherent problem with this story. No matter how you spin it, this is another “white man-saves-the-savages” narrative. Despite the honesty that I’m sure Keller and Forster infused Preacher with, it’s very hard to conquer that mental hurdle of “here we go again.” I wish Forster and Keller would have been able to introduce some awareness to film, considering that most cultures are cognizant if through visual or written literature that this is a common trope. That effort would have at least proven that the good people of the Sudan-Uganda region weren’t completely hopeless without a man like Childers. And, truthfully, at the rate Childers loses as many lives as he saves, one has to wonder how much good he is actually doing.

As it is, Preacher is an admirable effort, but it could have been so much more. From performances to direction, it seems like it’s going through the motions and hitting the exact same notes as similar stories have in years past. Preacher is a film that will surely make some members audience cringe, albeit for many different reasons, but it does make an effort, if not a particularly effective one, to bring attention to a cause that may go ignored in light of more popular issues. As Keller said during the Q&A that followed the film, this movie isn’t for those who know about the suffering in the Sudan and Uganda; it’s for those who don’t. While this may not be the optimal vehicle to enlighten those masses, you can’t fault Forster and co. for trying.

Review - Supernatural 7x01: Meet the New Boss

2011-09-24T09:37:00.000-07:00

Grade: A

Dean’s right. The Winchesters never catch a break, do they?

Supernatural returned last night and started right where it left off with Castiel having become ‘God’ after absorbing all the souls in purgatory.

One of the most priceless moments of the premiere was Bobby’s reaction to GodCas. Upon realizing that he and the Winchesters are completely outmatched, he kneels. Dean and Sam promptly follow suit. It qualifies as maybe one the smarter things the guys have done and one that is slyly funny because, heck, that’s what most people would do.

After subduing Sam by poking at the walls Death erected to protect Sam’s mind from his memories of Hell, GodCas goes a mission from God to make things right in the world, a totally Cas thing to do. His first stop is at church where a fiery anti-gay preacher is whipping his flock into a frenzy against those ‘degenerates’. Cas arrives, announces he’s God and proceeds to smite the preacher in the way that only the God of the Old Testament would savor. Later, he forces the KKK to disband and restores sight to a blind man. You’ve got to love Cas for at least making an effort to do some good with the Power Cosmic.

Meanwhile, the Winchesters are, in a change of pace, resigned to their fate. Dean, clearly stumped at how to beat God despite their track record with taking on deities, is convinced they’re out of options, while Sam is haunted by visions of his time in the cage with Lucifer and Michael. Sam’s visions are quite reminiscent of those that plagued Dean after his stint in the eternal boiler room—all hooks, chains, and flame. At this point, it’s abundantly clear that Sera Gamble and the good people in the Supernatural writer’s room will never, ever let Sam go even half a season without excruciating torment. That said, it’s hard to blame Dean for feeling like giving up is the best option. No matter where the Winchesters go or what good they do, some higher power, real and/or fictional, has it out for them. But, there’d be no show if the Winchesters didn’t suffer, so here we are. As much as I love Supernatural and kind of wish it would never disappear, I’d like to see the guys catch a break and sometimes it seems like cancellation would be the only way they would get a reprieve.

As the Winchesters lick their wounds, Cas visits the we-always-think-he’s-dead-but he-never-is Crowley. He strikes a deal to restore Crowley as King of Hell with the condition that Cas gets to choose which souls go where. Sounds familiar. I love how the writers at Supernatural actually maneuvered Cas into striking the exact biblical deal the real ‘God’ enforced with Lucifer. Clever those writers are.

Cas obviously has a plan, but he has never been known to be particularly strategic or subtle. When word of Cas’ exploits spreads, the Winchesters finally stop their moping and devise a plan of their own, with some urging by Crowley, to ‘enlist’ the aid of the one force that can stop God, Death. Now, the Winchesters typically come up with some dumb plans—in the sense that their plans are often fly by the seat of their pants bold—but their plan to bind Death, with some old-fashioned spellcasting, and use him to kill Cas might not have been their wisest. Once Cas finds the boys and the recently bound Death, he is visibly disappointed that he’s going to have to kill his old ‘pets’. Cas promptly un-binds Death, but Death notices that Cas is physically falling apart. Apparently, Cas can’t control all the things in heaven, earth and purgatory that man never dreamt of. The worse of those beasties being the ominously named, vaguely–defined Leviathans, who apparently predate humanity. Dinosaurs on Supernatural? They’ve had dragons, so why not? Despite this demoralizing new knowledge, Cas promptly un-binds Death and disappears to enact more divine justice.

While I’m 50-50 on if the Leviathans are actually a reference to dinosaurs, it’s obvious from Death’s response that they’re not to be taken lightly. Cas’ struggle to control the souls inside culminates with him massacring an entire office of political staffers for a congressional candidate he deemed as evil. Cas has always been a moral absolutist—in fact, his struggle to see the gray in the world has been a source of some the series’ best examples of character development—but mass murder is beyond the pail. Thankfully, Death dropped a bit of knowledge that could help the Winchesters and Cas before he goes even further. All Cas has to do is release the souls back to Purgatory. No problem.

The Winchesters draw Cas back to the abandoned hospital where he absorbed the souls of Purgatory and open a portal—more spellcasting here than on The Secret Circle—for Cas to toss the souls into. Everything seems on track until Sam goes missing. The walls in his mind have completely collapsed and Lucifer appears to tell Sam that he’s still locked in the cage. Dun-dun-dun. On the other side of the hospital, Cas successfully releases the souls, dies and returns as everbody’s favorite simple-minded Cas. But, Cas didn’t get rid of all the souls. One of the Leviathans held on and now Cas is possessed, and he’s already starting to ham it up with classic madman villainy. Knowing Supernatural’s propensity to drag out the conflict between the boys and the big bad—and the fact that Misha Collins isn’t a regular this season—it’s likely the brothers won’t be going head-to-head with LeviathanCas anytime soon, which is sad because it would be nice to see a different side to Cas, even if he is at the Winchester’s throats.

And with that, the season is off to an impressive start, especially compared to the more deliberate opening of last season. Gamble and Co. really set the bar with this opening and managed to do a lot in 43 minutes. Not only have they established a viable opponent with a personal connection to the Winchesters, they accelerated the issue of Sam’s growing madness and set Crowley up as a potential thorn in everyone’s side. Sure, some of these beats are just continuations of arcs that could have, and probably should have, been wrapped last season, but the momentum these arcs have right now is pretty fascinating. Hopefully, Supernatural will avoid some of the feet-dragging and tonal swings that defined last season and embrace the madness. And, if they keep up the momentum from this episode, not only will our boys never get a break, but we might be staring down the barrel of season 8. But, that’s just wishful thinking...

Review - Ultimate Comics Spider-Man vol. 2 #1

2011-09-15T07:57:00.000-07:00

Grade: A

Good: Amazing art, non-stereotypical characters, authentic dialogue and a plot that incorporates real-world phenomenon like lotteries for public charter schools are the highlights of the first chapter of the new Spidey’s story.

Bad: Bendis’ preference for decompression means no ‘Spider-Man’ action, at all.

Ugly: Me, after having to wait for the next issue. Thankfully, it’s less than two weeks away.

SPOILERS AHEAD

In the middle of DC Comics month-long stunt relaunch of its entire line, Marvel staged its own stunt: relaunching Ultimate Spider-Man sans Peter Parker (RIP) and leading with multi-racial teen Miles Morales as the face behind ol’ webhead.

The controversial response to Miles taking the Spider-Mantle has been “illuminating” to say the least. For as many fans who support and are genuinely enthused or proud of Marvel’s, and writer Brian Michael Bendis, in particular, decision there is a seemingly equal number who feel this change is an affront to the Comic Gods. In between are fans who are cautiously skeptical, aware that part of this is likely a stunt, but still relieved to see a measure of progress applied to one of the medium’s icons--albeit an alternate universe version, but. Count me as one of the fans in the middle. Yeah, I know it’s a timely stunt in light of increasing criticism of the whitewashed world of superhero comics, but I’ll be damned if I’m not the least bit proud to see someone who looks like me become one of my, and the world’s, favorite superheroes. Even more rewarding is seeing the story of Miles Morales begin with a level of quality and authenticity rarely given to superheroes of color.

Ultimate Comics Spider-Man opens its second volume with a fraction of a full story, but it is a fraction that is so replete with subtle charm and an attempt capturing the zeitgeist of the African-Latin-American experience in New York that it quickly and effectively rises above being a stunt. For the uninitiated, the Ultimate, now Ultimate Comics, imprint of Marvel comics is centered on an alternative Marvel Universe where Captain America swears, Samuel L. Jackson is Nick Fury and anyone can die, permanently. The Ultimate Universe was established by Marvel in the early 2000s as an initiative to entice readers with comics unhindered by Sisyphean continuity (sound familiar?). The imprint was fairly popular, boasting some of the top creators in industry for a number of years, until about 2005 when Marvel decided to reshape their main line, known as the 616 Universe, to align with the increasing popularity of movie releases like Spider-Man, X-Men, and, their first studio venture, Iron Man. With the 616 Universe returned to prominence, the Ultimate Universe fell by the waste side, culminating in a series of events where Ultimate versions of the X-Men and Avengers saw their ranks dwindle after a series of violent deaths by the hands of Magneto and his Brotherhood of Mutants. Earlier this year, the Ultimate version of Peter Parker met his own demise at the hands of a collection of his worst enemies—including the Green Goblin, Doctor Octopus and Kraven—popularly known as the Sinister Six. The tragically noble death of Peter Parker, who died protecting his beloved Aunt May and girlfriend Gwen Stacy, opened the door for Miles Morales to become the next Ultimate Spider-Man.

Miles’ story begins with the ultimate version of the Prowler, an African-American character who emerged in 1969 as a criminal-turned-hero dressed in a goofy purple and green ensemble. When the Prowler breaks into the ruins of Oscorp—the evil corporation run by Spidey’s archenemy Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin—to loot the one of its vaults, he leaves with a stowaway: a genetically engineered spider with remnants of Peter Parker’s DNA. From there, the story shifts to introducing Miles, an average thirteen-year old from Brooklyn, and his family as they make way to participate in one of those increasingly common and nerve-racking lotteries for students who wish to attend charter schools. At this point, it’s clear that not only has Bendis done his homework, or at least taken a passing glance at Madeline Sackler’s wonderful documentary The Lottery, but that he is aiming to incorporate some real-world authenticity into the realm of the fantastic. That's not to say that most comic writers don’t aim for such heights, but the world of superhero comics can at time seem so divorced from reality, and with good reason, that readers, and creators, forget to ensure their work is grounded in a world that at least reflects the real world.

Miles is lucky enough to win a spot at the Brooklyn Visions academy, which leads to his parents—something I also love about this comic: a minority child with TWO parents because that does actually happen—a moment that should ring true to any readers, of any race, who are parents and want more for their children. It is a touching, honest moment that is rare in the world of superhero comics, and I am absolutely pleased that Bendis had the sensitivity to include it. After the Lottery, Miles rushes to share the good news with his favorite uncle Aaron, a seeming ne’er-do-well who has a contentious relationship with Miles’ father. Aaron’s congratulatory words to Miles are colored by a tangible pride that echoes Miles’ parents’ response. Now, this may seems like a bit redundant in light of the earlier scene at the Lottery, but it is necessary to show how important the concept of hope is to people who have abandoned their own sense of hope. At this point Miles’ story intersects with Peter’s and starts to mimic the first Spider-Man’s origin. Miles’ uncle has the bag from the Prowler’s robbery sitting on his couch. When Miles plops down for a seat, he is bitten by the spider from Osborn’s lab. Miles collapses suddenly, waking just in time to see his father arrive and engage in a particularly heated argument with Miles’ uncle. Then, Miles disappears. Literally. He becomes invisible and the audience is left hanging on the edge of a cliff, not a very steep cliff, but a cliff nonetheless.

Now, decompression can be as much a bane to comics as overpricing and poor advertising, and the cliffhanger here, while peaking curiosity, isn’t all that welcome because the audience never sees Miles do anything remotely Spider-Man-like. For new readers, that will be beyond disappointing. But, for those familiar with Bendis’ style, this ending is par for the course. Luckily, there’s only a two-week wait until the next issue, and the issue was available for digital download, so that should help maintain interest. Hopefully.

As much as Bendis is on his game with this first issue, bringing his trademark ear for dialogue as well as sluggish pacing, Artist Sara Pichelli is the real draw (pun only partially intended). Pichelli’s rendition of Miles, his family and their fellow Brooklynites is positively sublime. Pichelli--best known for her work on the last volume of Ultimate Spider-Man, Runaways, and the similarly-themed NYX—illustrates with a keen eye for detail. Pichelli’s details are not superfluous exaggerations, as seen in Jim Lee’s art for the DCnU’s Justice League #1; rather, they are the details that make individuals unique. Her characters look like real people because they demonstrate idiosyncrasies in fashion, posture, and demeanor. Take a look at Page 13, Panel 4, when Miles get bitten by the Oscorp spider goes to his Uncle’s: he is rocking black and white Adidas shelltoes with untied wide red laces. That is an amazing, and contemporary, detail, and it is one of a dozen. Pichelli’s characters look alive and the world around them has true ‘lived-in’ quality. This is not a pristine, blue-sky version of New York; it is New York at its most grounded: endlessly cluttered and a just a wee bit dirty, even in the best parts of town. Perhaps the best example of the reality of Pichelli’s New York is Aaron’s ‘apartment’. For those who know, his apartment is housed within a ‘traditional’ apartment building; it’s in a housing project, which is obvious through design and color—a tip of the hat to colorist Justin Ponsor for making Pichelli’s work really pop—of the hall and the apartment’s interior, all without one hint of dialogue.

Between the art and the writing, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man vol. 2 is off to a superb, if slow-paced start. As a longtime fan, I know the drill: wait two to four weeks and there will be more story, but this is one of the few times I cannot wait for the next issue. Despite my enthusiasm, I am concerned about new readers because while I think this is a great starting point and generally solid, I know they may be discouraged about the value of picking up a fraction of a story, much less in a plastic bag that harkens back to the collector-inspired crash of the nineties and prevents them from flipping through before purchasing. Between Marvel’s collector-inspired polybagging and Bendis’ proclivity for sluggish pacing, trade-waiting may seem like the wisest option for both new and veteran readers. But, I promise this issue is well worth the money. Sure, it’s seems like a great start to a collection of negligible value, but it’s definitely a wonderful start to what seems like a great story.

Review - Warrior

2011-09-09T07:27:00.000-07:00

Grade: A

Good: Amazing performances from Hardy, Edgerton and Nolte; Superbly filmed and choreographed MMA fights; Great dramatic restraint that prevents taxing melodrama.

Bad: Plot is a nakedly contrived.

Ugly: All of the submission moves used by Edgerton’s character.

Earlier this year, David O. Russell’s The Fighter won a few people some awards, and rightly so. Stars Melissa Leo and Christian Bale deserved to be recognized for their superb performances as the most co-dependent mother-son duo south of the Merrimack. As good as the performances in the Fighter were, it didn’t exactly re-invent the wheel that is the sports movie, but it did show how the traditional framework could amplify a narrative built around family drama. Now, a few months shy of a year later, Gavin O’Connor tries his hand at the family drama-sports movie hybrid with Warrior, a deceptively moving film that transcends a contrived plot and delivers a legitimate emotional gut punch.

The plot for Warrior sounds like it was copied straight out of a Street Fighter instruction manual. Former marine Tommy Reardon (Tom Hardy) has returned to the Pittsburgh home of his father, recovering alcoholic and ex-boxer Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte), after years of estrangement. Tommy wants nothing to do with his father, who apparently spent most of Tommy’s formative years beating his wife and terrorizing his family, but he needs Paddy to train him for an upcoming Mixed Martial Arts tournament, cleverly named SPARTA, with a $5 million purse that he desperately needs to help the family of one of his lost squad mates. On the other side of Pennsylvania, the brother Tommy hasn't spoken to in years, former UFC competitor Brendan Conlon (Joel Edgerton), is family man who spends his days teaching high school physics and his nights competing in bush league MMA fights. His luck hits the skids when he is suspended from teaching for coming into work looking like Edward Norton after a night at Fight Club, and, adding to the misery, his bank threatens to foreclose on his family's home. With his world falling apart, Brendan decides to give it another go as a fighter. After getting the begrudging support of his wife (Jennifer Morrison), hooking up with ace trainer Frank Campana (Frank Grillo) and benefitting from a cruel, contrived twist of fate, Brendan finds himself in position to enter the SPARTA tourney. The two brothers arrive at SPARTA and set forth on a collision course that includes a litany of brutal beatdowns and moments of measured catharsis that threaten to tear the family apart as much as it may bring them together.

As the leads, it is implied that Warrior is a showcase for Hardy and Edgerton, but both truly own this film with superb performances that show a restraint and humanity that few films like this ever possess. Hardy does an outstanding job as Tommy, a literal caged animal haunted by the pain of his past. Hardy avoids making Tommy a moper and a whiner, and opts to present Tommy as reticent when outside the ring and frighteningly ferocious inside of it. If this is what audiences can expect from him as Bane in next year’s The Dark Knight Rises then Christian Bale better bring Mickey Ward’s kidney punch. Joel Edgerton may not play the flashier of the two brothers, but his performance as Brendan is noble and relatable in the way that classic underdog sports heroes should be. Brendan’s attempts to deal with very real issues motivating his pursuit is laudable for its avoidance of melodramatics and embrace of dignified control. Probably the most impressive part of both performances is how well both actors translate their characters personalities into physicality. As Tommy, Hardy is constantly moving and shifting in the cage, as if he cannot wait to knock his opponent on their back. Conversely, Edgerton gives Brendan a patience that manifests in superb timing and an aptitude for eschewing the knockout and making his opponents tap out in the most painful way possible. When these two bring their physicality and emotion to their respective final bouts, they do so in a way that tells a story better than any words on page ever could.

Hardy and Edgerton’s performance are only elevated by the strong work Nick Nolte does as their father, Paddy. Nolte carries the weight of past sins deep inside much like his sons do, but his quest for redemption balances exaggerated desperation with honest compassion. Nolte never lets Paddy devolve to the point where his love for his sons is questioned. As haunted and demolished as the man is, he carries on because the love of his sons is pretty much all he has, and Nolte plays that beat perfectly. The rest of the supporting cast is fairly marginalized with Morrison having a bit more impact than the rest, playing the beleaguered, reluctantly supportive wife that is required for any boxing/fighting drama. Pro wrestling fans will be interested to see that Olympic Gold medalist, TNA wrestler and all around all-American Kurt Angle has a fairly significant role as, ironically, Russian powerhouse Koba. Thankfully, he doesn’t speak; he just annihilates opponents, which is probably the wisest use of a wrestler who is untrained in more traditional acting.

Director Gavin O’Connor, best known for the underrated Miracle, does a superb job in keeping the affairs outside of the ring fairly low-key. By avoiding melodramatics and grounding the character’s motivations in relatable, contemporary issues, he allows Warrior to reach beyond the expectations of the average sports film. Admittedly, the plot is a bit contrived in the sense that the two brothers both enter the same tournament at the same time, but without it there’d be no movie. Ignoring the plot contrivances, audiences will find that O’Connor, who manages a cameo as SPARTA organizer J.J. Riley, has a strong hand for not only storytelling sans dialogue, as evident in the fights and the scenes of utter quiet, but also for atmosphere. As artificial as the plot may seem, the atmosphere is absolutely tangible, as the darkness and claustrophobia of the character’s lives at home provides a powerful contrast to the spectacle of MMA competition. O’Connor is also no slouch with filming the superbly choreographed MMA fights. The fights are appropriately brutal without being overly bloody and deliver an impact that should ring true to most fans of the sport. The balance of restrained drama, tangible atmosphere and solidly filmed and choreographed fights that O’Connor brings to the table is crucial to giving the film an authenticity and an insight that many may not find when watching a real MMA competition.

All things considered, Warrior is a remarkable achievement. It brings a new twist to the genre of boxing/fighting sports film and shines a light on the contemporary successor to the sweet science. Based on the cheap-ish commercials, Warrior seems like something better suited to a late-night run on FX or Spike TV, but make no mistake this is as good as a movie like this can be. Like its two leads, Warrior is much more than it appears and deserves to mentioned in the same breath as champions of fight films like Rocky, Raging Bull, and The Fighter.

Review - Colombiana

2011-08-26T07:11:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-25T06:56:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-24T06:46:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-11T21:13:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-09T18:25:00.000-07:00

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)

2011-08-07T09:22:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-03T09:07:00.000-07:00

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

2011-08-01T07:48:00.000-07:00

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.

Review - 30 Minutes or Less

2011-07-26T14:36:00.000-07:00

Grade: B+

Good: Hilarious performances from McBride, Swardson and Ansari; Eisenberg anchors the flick as an edgy, clever slacker; Consistent laughs born from solid pacing and deft balance of strong comedy and light action.

Bad: Racial comedy may be off-putting to some audiences; less of an action film than trailers would lead audiences to believe

Ugly: Man+Alcohol+Flamethrower. Do the math.

About ten years ago, the R-rated comedy didn’t hold nearly as much weight as it does today. In wake of The Hangover—the first one, the good one—the stable of Judd Apatow films, and a select few surprise hits in the vein of both, audiences are getting their fill of risqué comedies. That’s not news. What’s also not news is the fact that this glut has allowed for some inspired genre mash-ups. From Hangover’s Memento style mystery to stoner caper Pineapple Express to zombie homage Zombieland, some of the best R-rated of the past few years have successfully spliced genres to provide great stories and big laughs. Of course, genre mashing works as often as it fails (looking at you, Your Highness). But, when it works, something great is born.

Like some of the more successful comedic genre splicers, Rueben Fleischer’s 30 Minutes or Less offers a riotous, irreverent take on two seemingly incompatible genres—heist and slacker flicks—that pretty much tramples the limits of good taste. In 30 Minutes, Fleischer reunites with the lead from his superior cult hit Zombieland, Jesse Eisenberg, who plays Nick, a slacker pizza delivery boy with no clear ambition beyond getting drunk and watching action movies. Nick appears to be a kick-ass driver who can easily, but never actually does, beat his crap pizzeria’s 30 minute or less delivery credo. On one of his deliveries, he runs afoul of doofus underachievers, Dwayne (Danny McBride) and Travis (Nick Swardson), who have hatched a plan to get a million dollars. All they have to do is kill Dwayne’s father, a retired Marine Major (Fred Grandy) who hit the lottery and is steadily burning through his winnings. The hitch is that these two amateur criminals are just clever enough to devise a plan that will keep them far south of implication. To that end, they kidnap Nick and strap a bomb to him with the condition that he must rob a bank in ten hours, netting them enough money to hire an “assassin” (Michael Pena) to kill the Major. Nick turns to his friend and roommate Chet (a stiff, but hilarious Aziz Ansari) for help as tries to rob the bank and outsmart a collection of criminals that are far more dangerous in their ignorance. Hilarity, of the highest order, ensues.

Eisenberg, fresh off the triumph of playing Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the Social Network, continues show why he is so much more than the Michael Cera clone many predicted he’d become. He brings a jittery quality to Nick that belies his slacker tendencies. From the very beginning, Eisenberg’s Nick seems clever and possessed of some skill, but unmotivated, coming off as cross between his on the edge interpretation of Zuckerberg and his smarter than the average slacker Columbus from Zombieland, with a dash of Adventureland’s James. While Eisenberg doesn’t get to deliver a ton of punch lines, Ansari, McBride and Swardson more than make up the slack. Ansari proves as stiff as he was when he hosted the MTV Movie Awards last year, but still delivers some quality jokes that would never get pass network or basic cable sensors. Hopefully, in the very near future, he’ll become more comfortable in front of the camera or else this kid is going to be banished to the comedy clubs. Danny McBride carries the heaviest loads with a Kenny Powers-esque performance as spiteful, ambitious and slightly racist Dwayne. McBride’s commitment to playing straight-faced slime balls is pretty unmatched these days, and McBride’s performance in 30 Minutes only helps prove that point. Swardson proves an ample sidekick and moral counterpoint to McBride, using his dimwitted, good natured charm to make McBride’s Dwayne appear even more outrageous. Michael Pena arrives midway through the flick as a “skilled assassin” whose sketchiness adds some solid laughs while escalating the stakes significantly. Unlike Fleishcer’s Zombieland, female roles a pretty underserved here, with only Greek’s Dillshad Vadsaria (Kate, Nick’s crush and Chet’s sister) barely registering more than a damsel in absence then distress.

Fleischer is wise to let his cast do most of the heavy lifting in 30 Minutes as their performances keep the laughs consistent, but 30 Minutes is so well-paced and slyly furious that even a lesser cast would have needed to go out of their way to screw this up. For all the sly digs and farce he and screenwriter Michael Diliberti pack into 30 Minutes, neither eases up on showing the ugliness of the characters or the inevitable violence that results from Dwayne and Travis’ twisted endeavor. Aside from Nick, Chet, Kate and possibly Travis, these are not good people—even Nick and Chet stretch the limits of likability by being such pricks to each other in the early going. The litany of racist slurs some of the characters sling would be enough to turn off most if they weren’t executed by such dopey, and obvious, villains. Fleischer makes another wise move in having the characters almost constantly undone in the vein of classic heist movies where everything goes to hell because no one trusts each other—think the Fargo or Ladykillers, or, heck, any of the Cohens’ more comedic crime films, only more vulgar, and you’d have 30 Minutes. When things fall apart for the characters in 30 Minutes, Fleischer steps up to offer some decent action sequences, including a well-staged, if brief car chase and a sidesplitting take on a failed money drop. While not as creative as some of the action in Zombieland, the scenes are exceptionally effective as comedy, even at the expense of genuine thrills. Fleischer may not pack a great deal of thrills into his action scenes, but at least he keeps things moving, never leaving a minute for this flick to drag. 30 Minutes clocks in at a scant 83 minutes, a fine shift in an age where movies are becoming increasingly longer for no good reason.

As brisk and hilarious as 30 Minutes is, some of the racial gags can really sneak up an unsuspecting audience, so consider this a warning, and, despite what the trailers are selling, it’s not overly action packed. 30 minutes is a comedy first, crime film second. Also, humor is totally relative, so if the comedic stylings of Ansari, McBride, and Swardson as well as Fleischer’s own skewed senses of humor aren’t your cup of tea then everything after the credits will pretty much fall flat. If, however, you enjoyed Zombieland and the Cohens’ comedic crime films, and don’t find Jesse Eisenberg to be a nauseating Cera-clone, then you’ll find 30 Minutes to be one of the best R-rated comedies this year and one of the better genre mash-ups in the past three years.

Review - Captain America: The First Avenger

2011-07-21T08:59:00.000-07:00

Grade: A-

Good: Good old-fashioned superheroics with an earnestness missing from most superhero movies; Anchored by solid, likable performances from Evans, Atwell and Jones; Cool Easter eggs for comic fans

Bad: Some weak CGI and needless special effects; rushed ending

Ugly: When the Red Skull loses his face.

When I was about ten, my favorite superhero movie was not Superman or Batman, but Disney’s adaptation of The Rocketeer. I didn’t recognize the nostalgia for what it was at the time, but I knew Nazis were bad and a guy with jetpack strapped to his back, which was as likely to kill him as propel him into the air, would never be anything but cool. Seeing the movie again earlier this year, I realized how great it really was. It was an earnest piece of nostalgia—almost twenty years later and I get it—that was unafraid to be simple, good old-fashioned superhero fun. Marvel’s Captain America: The First Avenger is the perfect heir to the Rocketeer’s legacy, delivering a plain old fun superhero tale that recalls the virtues of Golden Age comics with little of the angst and pretense of most superhero movies.

Captain America breaks the cycle of rote origin stories to become Marvel’s best movie since the first Iron Man thanks in large part to its likable cast and commitment to unabashed, uncomplicated superheroics. Chris Evans, the former Human Torch, stars as the titular Sentinel of Liberty, Steve Rogers, who begins the movie as a 98 lb. weakling desperate to join the allied effort to battle the Third Reich in 1942. Evans plays Rogers perfectly as a hero with a heart bigger than Spider-Man’s and easily more willpower than Green Lantern. Evans’ Rogers is tough and patriotic, but not overbearing as one might expect from a hero draped in the flag, and this is all before he becomes Cap. After four failed attempts to enlist, Rogers is handpicked by genteel, noble German refuge Dr. Abraham Erskine (Stanley Tucci, playing another sublime variation on the world’s coolest mentor), at the Stark Exposition no less, for an experimental procedure. With the help of austere British agent Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell) and the father of the future Iron Man, Howard Stark (Dominic Cooper), Erskine subjects Rogers to a super scientific procedure that basically equates to an injection of steroids in an industrial strength tanning booth. Rogers emerges as the picture of human perfection, with peak human agility, speed and strength. Ironically, he’s the embodiment of Hitler’s Aryan ideal sent to sock Hitler in the face.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the result of Erskine’s first experiment, Nazi malcontent with a severe skin condition Johann Schmidt aka The Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), is building an army known as Hydra that will break away from the Third Reich and bring the world to its knees. As the Red Skull plans to take over the world with the help of a cosmic device yanked from Odin’s treasure room—see, it’s all connected—Cap slogs through a stint as a USO mascot and war bonds salesman before single-handedly rescuing a unit that includes his best friend, one James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes (Sebastian Stan), and setting himself on a crash course with the Skull and Hydra.

While Evans does a great job toning down his typical snarky charisma and imbuing Cap with a respectable, genuine sincerity, he is supported by a more than able cast that includes Tommy Lee Jones and a number of familiar, if not overly famous, faces. Hayley Atwell’s Agent Carter is a solid romantic foil for Cap. She is competent and tough, but shows feelings for Cap without being schmaltzy. Jones plays the Colonel of Cap’s unit with the rugged toughness that has defined Jones career. In Cap, he seems to be rehashing his Agent K persona from Men in Black while seeming to have as much fun in a comic-based film as he’s had in a long time. Sebastian Stan is great in a smart turn as Bucky Barnes. Comic fans will be familiar with Bucky as essentially Captain America’s Robin, a teenage sidekick thrust into a ridiculously dangerous situation. Here, Director Joe Johnston and a screenwriting team led by Christopher Markus make a smart move by aging Bucky to adulthood and establishing a more storied rapport between the two. Dominic Cooper brings a cocky spark to Howard Stark that mimics Robert Downey’s performance as Howard’s son Tony.

Hugo Weaving does a serviceable job as the Red Skull, a villain who is not as flamboyant as the Joker or the Green Goblin. Due to the focus Red Skull as the force behind on Hydra rather than a weapon of the Third Reich, Skull loses a bit of his edge. Weaving doesn’t help by dropping the German accent a few times and wavering between slightly over-the-top villainy and believable menace. On average, the performances in Cap are uniformly great in their balance between cockiness and grit that many, right or wrongly, believe defined the WWII era.

Director Joe Johnston was seen as a questionable when announced, but, as the man who helmed The Rocketeer, he’s actually perfect. With Captain America, he did a great job of recreating the visual feel of 1940s serials, complete with sepia filter and halo effect. It was an especially wise choice on his and Marvel’s part to avoid temptation to bring Cap into the modern age too soon. The war era setting makes the characters earnestness much easier to digest and seems to deflate any cynicism very quickly, mostly due to the rose-colored glasses through which many view WWII. Marvel Zombies will also be pleased with Easter eggs of some notable heroes and villains from the era and nods to classic Cap mythos, including a pretty faithful recreation of the original costume used in serials from the 40s—though, it must be said, the new costume is pretty cool and is probably the most practical superhero costume since Batman’s Dark Knight variation.

Captain America fails a bit with some visual effects that can be a bit hokey with the main offender being the CGI de-muscling of Chris Evans. One thing about Cap that Johnston may have missed is that he’s not superhuman. Cap is the peak of human physical ability, so there’s no need for him to toss guys around like superman. If Johnston and Marvel would have looked to the Bourne trilogy for inspiration, they could have made Cap a living weapon with a minimum of special effects. Captain America also suffers from a rushed ending that removes the possibility of some very necessary character development for Cap. In the Marvel Universe, Cap is known as a master strategist who has logged hundreds of missions. The movie glosses over the mission’s that would have built Cap’s legend in effort to jump forward. Hopefully, there will be a sequel that eschews a modern adventure for a look at the parts of Cap's legacy that Johnston skipped.

I don’t normally call for sequels, but I want to see more Captain America. Not many superhero movies have been this enjoyable, likeable and just plain fun. It may not have the edge that more jaded members of the audience are looking for, but it trades the snark and angst that defines Marvel for a genuineness that is sorely lacking in most superhero films. Many in know will only see this as another of Marvel’s 90-minute commercials for next year’s Avengers, but Cap, just like Steve Rogers, is so much more and that’s worth saluting.

Review - Friends with Benefits

2011-07-15T07:42:00.000-07:00

Grade: C-

Good: A few clever observations on modern technology and consumer habits; For the guys: shots of Mila Kunis’ bare backside; For the ladies: shots of Justin Timberlake’s bare backside.

Bad: Slightly detestable leads; a script that thinks it’s cleverer than it actually is; Becomes the same trite romantic comedy cliché it pokes fun at.

Ugly: Gags about going to bathroom during sex. With visuals.

In the 2003, MTV’s True Life, the closest thing the network has ever had to a reality show, featured a special on the “friends with benefits” phenomenon (because casual sex between acquaintances was news to anyone who missed the history lesson on the late 60s and the sexual revolution). In January 2011, pixie-ish Natalie Portman and debatably charming Ashton Kutcher starred in No Strings Attached, a breezy romantic comedy about the highs and lows of a no strings attached relationship. In July 2011, debatably appealing Justin Timberlake and spunky Mila Kunis star in the “were not even trying to be clever with the title anymore” Friends with Benefits, which is exactly what it says on the tin: a breezy romcom about the highs and lows of a friends with benefits relationship. How timely.

Dueling movies is nothing new. Anybody old enough to legally see Friends should remember the late 90s heyday of Armageddon and Deep Impact, released within months of each other in 1998, or Volcano and Dante’s Peak, both released in 1997. Originality, despite their claims to the contrary, has never been the studios’ strong suit, and that’s fine. The real issue is does the audience want or need these double doses. Sadly, it doesn’t matter; they’re getting them anyway, and with no marked improvement or originality in sight.

Friends with Benefits is qualitatively no better or worse than No Strings Attached. It is a middling romcom that thinks it’s much smarter than it actually is. Friends brings together Justin Timberlake’s cocky—in a shocking case of casting against type—Dylan Harper, a new media wunderkind from the West Coast who runs a gossip blog and is up for a job as Art Director at GQ. Seriously. Mila Kunis—falling into a pattern of playing herself in everything like a real movie star should—plays the brassy Jamie Relis, a stereotypical tough city girl from New York who makes her living as an executive headhunter. Ignoring the fact that neither seems “seasoned” enough for either position, Jamie brings Dylan to GQ and sells him on taking the job and moving to the “Greatest City in the World” under the pretense that she’ll get a bonus if he stays at GQ for a year. After Dylan takes the job, Jamie recognizes his potential loneliness and offers herself as his guide to the city, complete with a whirlwind tour of Manhattan and Brooklyn—those other boroughs don’t count anymore. With both reeling from recently failed relationships and clearly physically, if not emotionally (yet), attracted to each other, they agree to engage in a no strings attached—see how that works—sexual relationship sans emotion, despite their growing friendship. As they navigate the emotional, and occasional physical, pitfalls of this “relationship”, they uncover the reasons behind each other’s emotional issues and learn about the power of true love. No joke.

It’s hard to watch this movie without rolling one’s eyes into the back of one’s skull. From the overwritten, overeager leads who spend so much time poking fun at romcom conventions that the irony becomes thicker than molasses to the late-in the game attempts at sentimentality, Friends is exactly what it thinks it isn’t: a stereotypical romantic comedy, albeit with three or four extended sex scenes that fall just below the softcore threshold. A movie like this is built on, at bare minimum, the chemistry and likability of its leads. While there’s little debate about the undeniable chemistry, the likability of the leads, despite Director Will Gluck’s best efforts, is questionable at best.

Justin Timberlake continues to play characters who I’m sure he believes are lovable, charismatic jerks. One out of three ain’t bad… Clearly still in Sean Parker mode, Timberlake’s Dylan is kind of a douche with severe intimacy issues. Unfortunately for Dylan, the only reason to empathize with him is because the script says so. He’s not particularly nice or self-effacing. He’s the shit and he knows it, which makes for a terrible way to connect with audiences, especially in this kind of movie. Kunis’ Jamie, on the other hand, is a walking cliché. She’s the tough New Yorker with a wounded heart of gold. Apparently, in 2011, this is a radical concept. Kunis’ typical quick wit and brash abandon keep the character from being too grating, but she’s such a walking billboard for New Yorkahs that she might cease to exist when she’s more than ten miles west of the Hudson.

As usual, the leads are backed by varying degrees of goofy and schmaltzy sidekicks and family members who press them to make a more traditional commitment. Woody Harrelson plays up his effete gentleman angle as the flaming sports editor at GQ—more clever irony—who acts as the devil on Dylan’s shoulder. Patricia Clarkson delivers another retread of the loopy middle-ager as Jamie’s aging love child mother, who couldn’t identify Jamie’s biological father if she tried, serving as both part of the reason for Jamie’s issues and a motivator urging Jamie to pursue true love. Jenna Elfman brings a better balance of sentimentality and humor as Dylan’s sister who takes of care their Alzheimer afflicted father (Richard Jenkins) while Nolan Gould, of Modern Family fame, brings his absent-minded Luke persona for the big screen. By the way, apparently the only people of color in New York or L.A. are cab drivers, flash mobbers and a random Amazon executive.

Director Will Gluck, best known for the slightly above average teen comedy Easy A, must have filmed Friends with a dirt brown filter—either that or the theater holding the screening desperately needs new bulbs in the projector—because this movie is darker than a post converted 3D cash grab. Everything is muddy and muted, even on sunny days. Maybe this is a jab at the overproduced quality of most romcoms, but that’s no excuse. While the clear appeal of a flick like this is to see attractive movie stars get naked and hookup, the sex scenes can become a bit uncomfortable. This isn’t because of the act itself, but rather because they’re repetitive and long. Honestly, by the fourth scene, the audience gets the point. I realize that this is essentially a sex comedy, but two or three scenes would have done the trick. Five is petitioning for a slot on Cinemax’s late night schedule.

Friends is not without a few clever gags here and there, including some smart shots at iPad functionality and book buying habits of the American consumer. Overall, Friends is too impressed with itself for being resistant to the very same clichés it slaves to. If this movie were made seven years ago with a less of an agenda against romantic comedies and some likeable leads, it would have been mildly entertaining. As it is, it’s maybe worth a rental down the line when a pair of friends are killing time until they cash in their benefits.

Review - Winnie the Pooh

2011-07-14T07:18:00.000-07:00

Grade: A-

Good: Charming characters are at the center of a brisk, loose story with some quality situational and character humor and a dash of heart.

Bad: Short run time; A bit unfocused and episodic

Ugly: The Backson.

A.A. Milne hated Winnie the Pooh. He blamed the good-natured, absent-minded, honey-addicted teddy bear for ruining his career and forcing him to a life of writing children’s books. How dreadful. Honestly, I can’t understand the hatred because Pooh and Piglet and Tigger and all their friends in the Hundred Acre Wood are terribly charming.

In another welcome return to traditional feature animation, the most recent since 2009’s The Princess and the Frog, Disney’s Winnie the Pooh is a wonderful slice of nostalgia that will probably track as a cute Toy Story knock-off despite coming first and offering its own fun spin on toys that come to life. Favoring character and situational laughs over and archetypes and sight gags, Pooh was clearly cast in the Pixar mold—definitely showing the influence of executive producer John Lassiter—which is never a bad thing. If anything, Pooh comes off as an indie version of an animated feature. Like its titular character, it moves at its own pace, but still proves brisk and consistently entertaining.

Pooh follows the Hundred Acre Wood gang—including Owl, Rabbit, Kanga and Roo—as they try to figure out what happened to the eternally depressed Eyeore’s missing tael (I mean tail) and rescue Christopher Robin from a mysterious menace. Along the way, the story takes a number of detours into vignettes based on three of Milne’s classic Pooh stories—"In Which Eeyore Loses a Tail and Pooh Finds One" and "In Which Piglet Meets a Heffalump" from Winnie the Pooh and "In Which Rabbit Has a Busy Day and We Learn What Christopher Robin Does in the Mornings" from the House at Pooh Corner—that reveal the character’s all-too human foibles, from Owl’s misguided arrogance to Rabbit’s crankiness and, of course, Tigger’s “bull in a china shop” exuberance. Despite the focus on eccentricities of the cast, Pooh eventually works its way back to the effortless interactions between this makeshift family and simple lessons on friendship.

Pooh is woefully short, clocking in at just over an hour and playing like an extended episode of the Saturday morning series from the 90s. Pooh is far more energetic than the trailers and commercials with the sappy, sad Keane song would lead potential audiences to believe. It’s episodic structure and swift pacing keep it from dragging (a true blessing to the parents with young children in the audience). Despite its length and pace, Pooh gives a good amount of attention to each of the inhabitants of he Hundred Acre Wood, even giving Christopher Robin more to do than take a casual stroll with his favorite golden bear.

Now, Pooh’s (voiced by the unfailing Jim Cummings) name may be in the title, but every character gets their time to shine. Pooh’s honey obsession is ever present, as usual, but his affable, laid-back nature and flashes of sharpness still make him the bear everybody wishes they had. Owl (voiced by Craig Ferguson) has a pretty significant role this time, grabbing more screen than favorites Tigger and Piglet, and his pretentious loquaciousness and overbearing confidence make for some of the movie’s better laughs. That doesn’t mean the others don’t make a mark; it’s just surprising to see Owl play such a significant role.

As strong as Pooh is in terms of character and plot, visually it is equally as successful. Disney animators have taken the simplicity of the older Pooh cartoons and polished the animation to near perfection here, even including the classic interactions between the characters and the storybook text. Aside from a few mildly lavish, but still inventive, musical numbers with some snazzy CGI, nothing is over-designed or unnecessarily glamorized. The Hundred Acre Wood is a simple place and neither it nor its inhabitants need to be overly impressive. Pooh lives and dies by its ability to create a simple world where mildly complex personalities come together to realize uncomplicated truths about friendship and family. Thanks to the animators and writers, Pooh achieves that elegant tone visually and textually.

Winnie the Pooh is perfect for parents looking to briefly divert their children’s attention from outdoor activities. However, just because it’s a diversion, doesn’t mean it’s not worthy of attention. The humor is consistent and is just as likely to grab laughs from the adults as it from kids. The short length is as much a benefit as a drawback, as maybe ten more minutes would make room for perennially underserved characters like Kanga and Roo to do more than make a few timely quips. Also, the episodic nature can make the movie seem a tad unfocused, but, all in all, Winnie the Pooh is a fine way to spend an hour. There’s even a quaint animated short, The Ballad of Nessie, at the beginning about the Loch Ness Monster that falls just short of the superior Pixar shorts. As a lapsed fan Pooh’s adventures, I am proud to recommend this gem, which hopefully won’t be overlooked in the wake of the end of all things wizardry.

Review - A Better Life

2011-07-13T09:22:00.000-07:00

Grade: B-

Good: Demian Bichir’s powerful performance as Carlos; Affecting portrait of a father’s struggle to provide, survive and thrive.

Bad: Grating, rote anti-gang subplot; Jose Julian as Carlos’ son Luis can be annoying in the early stages; Hints of a political agenda.

Ugly: The treatment some of the illegal immigrants face just to pursue a dream Americans take for granted.

Anytime I hear someone refer to the “American Dream” I can’t help but think they’re being a bit disingenuous, and arrogant. Americans aren’t, and never have been, the only people pursuing happiness, and America isn’t the only place to live a comfortable, fulfilling life. But, for so many, it offers the hope, and often nothing more, of a better life. Director Chris Weitz examines how far one father will go in pursuit of a better life for himself and his son in Summit’s new drama, A Better Life.

The immigration debate is at the center of this drama, which follows illegal Mexican immigrant Carlos Galindo (Demian Bichir) as he comes within reach of escaping a life of inconsistent work and constant paranoia. Carlos makes his living as a day laborer in East Los Angeles, using the scant, menial wages he earns to support his son, Luis (Jose Julian), a restless teen tempted by the gang life that swallows so many young men of color whole. When Carlos’ friend and most “reliable” employer, Blasco (Joaquin Cosio), offers to sell him a truck filled with landscaping tools, Carlos sees the opportunity to run his own business and pull his family away from the hard life in the East L.A. barrio. For a day, Carlos sees a better future, but, after the truck is stolen, he embarks on a desperate mission to reclaim his future and reconnect with his son.

No matter what side of the immigration debate you fall on, you will be moved by Bichir’s restrained, yet powerful performance as Carlos. Bichir is superb, giving Carlos the quiet dignity and reserve of a leading man from a bygone era. Bichir’s Carlos is selfless—he sleeps on a couch while his son has a bedroom to himself—fearless—he climbs an easily five-story palm tree without hesitation just to cut a few leaves—and genial—in the search for his truck, he shows all those who help him the utmost compassion, often offering what little money he has in return for information—in a way that few lead characters are today. In the era of the HBO-style anti-hero, Carlos is refreshingly retro, an old-school “man’s man” hero in the place where audiences would least expect him. He is also a man of resounding depth. He may bottle up his emotions, but he does not disregard them. When Carlos faces a devastating circumstance near the film’s end, every ounce of emotion he reveals rings true and will surely move the most jaded viewers to tears.

Jose Julian, as Carlos’ son Luis, fares less impressively, playing a fiery counterpart to his father’s noble stoicism. Luis is unmotivated, aggressive and annoying, everything his father is not—and seeing Carlos forced to deal with his son’s brattiness is infuriating. Even worse, he’s saddled with a rote subplot about potentially joining a gang that is populated by some pretty sad Chicano stereotypes, including the tatted gangster (Gabriel Chavarria), boorish chola (Chelsea Rendon) and mouthy wannabe (Bobby Soto). As a counterpoint to his father and an example of the disconnect between American-born children of immigrants, Julian’s Luis is effective, but he’s so unlikeable that it’s hard to connect with him until the midpoint of the film. A scene where Luis and his father attend a traditional Mexican rodeo is particularly effective in making Luis more than a typical movie teen while cementing his father’s motivations.

Despite some missteps with Luis, director Chris Weitz, best known for daring to tackle adaptations of The Golden Compass and Twilight: New Moon, paints a solid picture of the immigrant struggle. Granted, images of East LA filled with day laborers, gangs, and muted sunshine are not terribly original, but Weitz never plays the exploitation angle. The people of these neighborhoods are generally rendered with the respect and compassion they are due. Just seeing so many of the adult East Angelinos working crap jobs under discouraging conditions shows how far these folks are willing to go to survive and, maybe, thrive. If anything, Weitz film shows that the “American Dream” is still alive, even if Americans aren’t the ones pursuing it.

Aside from its compassion toward its subjects, the film’s greatest assets are the simplicity of its plot and the palpable air of paranoia. Carlos is not pursuing some one in a million opportunity to become extraordinarily wealthy. He simply wants the opportunity to work and provide for his son. The fact that this all revolves around a pickup truck with tools is great because that truck is no mere McGuffin; it is both a symbol of that better life and the means to reach it. The only thing that stands in Carlos’ way is the possibility of being caught and deported. There is an inconsistent sense that any mistake Carlos makes will expose him to the authorities. In the early goings, the concept of deportation seems like a boogeyman, but near the climax it becomes a true threat. If Weitz had put a bit more emphasis on this throughout, the film would have been measurably stronger.

A Better Life is at its best when it allows the audience to witness and empathize with Carlos’ struggle. Sure, Carlos comes off as a little bit too good to be true, but who’s to say that a fair number of people in his position aren’t decent and hardworking. Conversely, the portions focused on Luis and the encroaching threat of gangs is hackneyed and grating. Audiences may roll their eyes at Luis storyline, but they’ll be hard pressed to not feel something when the movie zeroes in on the growing connection between father and son. Now, folks in the audience who are sensitive on the immigration issue may bristle at this film—as there is a clear agenda in place—but if they can get beyond their views, they’ll be rewarded with an affecting portrait of the new face of the American Dream.

Review: Larry Crowne

2011-06-29T07:51:00.000-07:00

Grade: B

The Good: Charming and consistent in delivering heartwarming humor. Hanks and Roberts deliver as only Academy Award winners could.

The Bad: Crowded cast leads to some underserved performances from great actors. Clearly designed as older-skewing counterprogramming.

The Ugly: Hanks in tightie whiteys. Nuff’ said.

Full disclosure: I’m not a big Tom Hanks fan. There’s nothing intrinsically wrong with his acting or even his films. They’ve just never really captured my attention. If I had to venture a guess, it’s because most of Tom Hanks performances occur in classically styled movies that hearken back to a more innocent era of filmmaking and storytelling that runs counter to the edgier cinema I grew up with.

That said, I was genuinely charmed and entertained by Hanks’ Larry Crowne, a cute comic tale of one man’s journey through his first semester of college after his life is turned beyond upside down. Crowne, directed by and starring Hanks, follows former retail specialist the eponymous Larry Crowne as he navigates his first semester of college in the wake of being fired from big box retailer, UMart (a fictional, but still unholy, merging of Target and Wal-Mart). In his first semester, Crowne, who went from high school to the navy to retail work, encounters bubbly free spirit Talia (Gugu Mbatha-Raw of NBC’s Undercover fame), eccentric Econ maestro Dr. Matsutani (George Takei, clearly enjoying himself way too much), and disenchanted speech professor Mercy Tainot (Julia Roberts, delivering wonderful energy and range), who just might change Crowne’s life, or vice versa.

Crowne opens with some solid, if not entirely original, observations on life in recession-afflicted America. When audiences first meet Larry, he is the master of his domain. He is fully invested in his, admittedly unglamorous, job. He drives a gas-guzzling SUV and lives in cozy rancher that he probably shouldn’t be able to afford on a TargetMart salary. Larry’s unceremonious firing—for what has to be the most contrived reason possible (lacking a college education is reason enough to fire a long term employee in retail, really?)—and some nudging from his wacky next door neighbor, yard sale entrepreneur Lamar (Cedric the Entertainer), leads him to enroll in his local community college, trade his SUV in for a hip fuel-efficient scooter and start rocking vintage threads. The problem with most of these changes is that they are all thrust upon Larry rather than being the result of active personal growth. The fact that Larry is a bit of a passive lead doesn’t cripple the story, but it does keep him from truly owning his growth.

Every person or class Crowne encounters challenges him to rethink his life, but none more so than Julia Roberts’ Mercy Tainot, who is facing her own life crisis with a middling career and a lazy husband (Bryan Cranston) who would rather surf for porn than work. Roberts doesn’t bring her trademark high energy to the proceedings until the midpoint, but her evocation of Tainot’s crushing ennui in the early goings is pretty spot-on. Anybody’s who’s been generally fed up with where life has taken you will find a lot of common ground with the early stages of Roberts’ performance. Interestingly, Roberts spends most of the movie dealing with her circumstance in relative isolation. Sure, any viewer with a passing familiarity of popular cinema knows how her story will end, but allowing her character, and Hanks’, to grow without sharing every scene helps to dial back some of the typical rom-com tropes that sneak into better films.

By avoiding some clichés of modern dramedies, Hanks, directing his second feature since 1996’s That Thing You Do, focuses intently on a charming cast of slightly off-kilter characters. Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s is the breakout here, playing the manic pixie dream girl the way it should be played, as the agent of change rather than the object of affection. Here infectious positivity and freewheeling attitude recall that of a young Julia Roberts, whose early subtle antagonism with the character could double as commentary on the way older actresses view their “replacements”. Mbatha-Raw is only one of a star-studded cast that is so packed with talent that many are criminally under- or misused, especially Bryan Cranston and Taraji P. Henson. However, the sheer abundance talent in front of and behind the camera—including My Big Fat Greek Wedding’s Nia Vardalos as co-writer along with Hanks—ensures that Crowne is no amateur night. It may not be riotous, but it is consistently funny, due in no small measure to performances that focus on character-based humor rather than sight gags or cheap shots.

Some more full disclosure: I’m probably outside of the target demo for Larry Crowne, but as adjunct at my local community college, I was intrigued to see a big screen take on the institution. Between this and Community, it’s almost as if community college is becoming a thing. Almost.

Regardless of content and target demos, Larry Crowne is the definition of a feel-good movie going experience. It’s not particularly edgy or challenging, but the great character work and consistency of good-natured humor should hit the sweet spot in the hearts of audiences of all ages. Sadly, Crowne is clearly being setup as counterprogramming to some movie about robotic cars, or some such nonsense, but that doesn’t mean it deserves to be overlooked. Take a cue from Larry Crowne himself and do the opposite of what is expected of most moviegoers this holiday weekend by giving this flick a chance.

The Mainstream Niche - How DC and Marvel Can Expand Their Audience

2011-06-15T06:36:00.000-07:00

DC Comics announced a line-wide reboot last week in which 52 of their most popular superhero comics, along with a smattering of new titles, will start over from issue #1.

This is not even a remotely shocking move. DC has officially rebooted its entire line at least once, and that’s not even counting semi-reboots like the recent ‘One Year Later’ and countless restarts for titles with beloved characters and weak sales. The more significant news to come from this announcement—despite the insistence of major media outlets and comic snark forums that are wasting time analyzing the DC pantheon’s new costumes—is DC’s new digital sales strategy, which will see the publisher releasing digital versions of its comics on the same day as print versions. Besides siphoning a few customers from the comic book stores on Wednesdays and drastically undercutting the retailers the industry has depended on for almost twenty years, this initiative is a step in the right direction to grabbing the mainstream market.

The industry has been flopping around like a sturgeon on the deck of the Pop Culture Entertainment yacht for years now with sales decreasing, across the board, steadily since the early ‘00s. After its recent re-organization under the DC Entertainment banner brought it more closely in step with Time-Warner’s multimedia strategies, DC Comics quickly became a target for the bigwigs at Warner looking to actually turn a profit from “funny books”. The decision these clever folks arrived at after months of reshuffling DC’s upper echelons was to restart the line and go digital. An interesting strategy, but it’s not enough to capture the unicorn that is new readership and it will likely diminish the already miniscule hardcore enthusiasts.

Assuming hardcore fans will stay, in some capacity—those who don’t might simply migrate to Marvel for a moment then drift back, but eventually most will age out of collecting—how does DC, and Marvel, capture the elusive mainstream niche. Simple, follow the models of television and film to make these stories more accessible, available and captivating. Today’s comic publishers and creators need to realize that consumption of media has changed significantly since the 1930s and to catch up with the times they need to seriously revise their approach to the quantity, frequency and style of comic storytelling.

Accessibility of material and story is the key to grabbing and retaining a larger, more mainstream, audience. Digital distribution is the most logical step for any comic publisher to take in today’s marketplace, but it’s not enough. Comic publishers need to push their comics through the same distribution channels that major film studios and television networks use. New issues of comics could be available not just through iTunes, Amazon or Comixology, but through cable providers’ On Demand services and video game marketplaces like the PlayStation Network (PSN)—securely, of course—and Xbox Live. Imagine downloading a comic to flip through on an HD screen, using the remote to scroll and zoom from the comfort of the couch. Such an approach would give the art the chance to breathe and allow visually impaired readers a chance to see the words on page without squinting. Voice and soundtracks could even be added to make the comics come alive—not necessarily as motion comics, but closer to audiobooks. To my knowledge Marvel sells some of its motion comics collections through the PSN and Xbox Live, which is genius because gamers are more of a target market for comics than they’re willing to accept.

If these companies really want to capture a growing audience like gamers, and impress casual audiences, they need to consider interactive comics in the vein of Square-Enix’s mobile app Imaginary Range. Imaginary Range is an interactive comic that blends simple point and click gameplay with elements of motion comics. The app lacks static images with creepy moving mouths and swinging limbs; instead, the camera sweeps and scrolls across panels like a movie allowing users to watch and read panels individually, outside of a page construct. Thus, Imaginary Range unfolds like an animated movie rather than a comic. Square-Enix adds value to the app by dropping in short click/drag/point mini-games—such as locating a lost character by dragging a rifle sight around the screen or pointing missiles at a killer robot’s weak spot—at crucial plot points. The plot progression that follows these games may be predetermined, but at least the readers aren’t just passively responding to the material. The game-comic is reloadable like a video game—complete with save points—and offers some bonus material like image galleries, all for free, which is more content for 100% less than the average $4 comic.

If a free mobile app can has the potential to offer more entertainment value and interactivity—a relative distinction, but one that shouldn’t draw too much argument—than a costly weekly comic then there’s no reason to wonder why the industry is having trouble making significant profit. As publishers expand their digital distribution, either through Marvel’s subscription models or DC’s new initiative, they need to seriously consider reducing the prices of digital, and print, comics that will be available. DC is planning on continuing to charge $2.99 for print and digital versions at the time of the relaunch, which is roughly equal to the cost of purchasing or renting a TV episode on iTunes or Amazon. An hour or 45-minute long TV episode, which is about 45 to 60 pages of script on screen, is the same amount of money as a 20-page comic—that’s not even considering shows available for free on network television. Makes sense. Doesn’t it?

…

No, it doesn’t. Publishers need to deliver content that is equal in quantity, frequency and form to that of their biggest competitors: television and film. As a writer-artist, I understand that developing a monthly comic is an often time-consuming, painstaking, solitary process. Most comic creators don’t have the personnel resources available to them that TV and film productions do—and asking these creative minds to increase their output is like asking a fish to walk—but they would need to increase their output for new strategies to work. In terms of scheduling and distribution, the closest analogue to monthly comic production would be the weekly, daily in some cases, model used by television networks. Yes, new comics are released every week, but generally readers must wait a month between installments for each series. As long as TV shows release new episodes each week and the Japanese have mastered the art of weekly/bi-weekly manga, the monthly model of comic distribution will not stand.

Readers should not have to wait a month to find out if the Black Hand will upend Batman after a taught cliffhanger. Comic readers deserve to have content with, at bare minimum, the same frequency as television viewers. If the publishers are unsure of how to pull this off, they should consider this strategy: rotating creative teams produce a season (13-22 issues) well in advance of release, allowing publishers to distribute these “episodes” on a weekly basis, digitally and in print. Using this model, the publishers will not only rival the release schedule of television shows, but they will invariably keep readers hooked and prevent, to some degree, impatience among casual readers. The weekly/bi-weekly model has proved a boon to the Japanese manga market, which releases new chapters of its series on a weekly or bi-weekly basis, and manga thrives—maybe not as much as it used to, but more so than American comics—as a mostly mainstream form of entertainment in Japan.

Staying on the topic of manga, Japanese creators publish monthly/bi-monthly tankobons (paperback sized collections of ten chapters) at half the cost of American comics’ graphic novel collections. These tiny books are cheap and collectible, just what the hardcore fans like. More importantly, they offer nearly 200 pages of content each month for a few dollars more than the average 22-page American floppy. Publishers could follow this trend by swiftly compiling a 13/22-issue season of a comic—like a DVD set of a TV season—and selling it on Amazon or in the few remaining big box bookstores at a reasonable cost that will not alienate cost-conscious consumers of the casual or hardcore variety.

Traditionalist comic creators may balk that adhering to such intense scheduling would be impossible, nay blasphemous. However, if the medium—which is exactly what comics are—is to survive, this is the type of change that must occur. Change of this nature will have to stretch far beyond increasing distribution schedules. It will need to be supported by a renewed approach to storytelling that unchains itself from complicated continuity, stifling events and the insular, albeit colorful, elements that have defined comics for nearly a century.

The seasonal publishing schedule presented above is one of the most effective ways to push creators toward a more accessible storytelling model. Publishers and creators will find a great avenue for creating more focused, accessible stories by releasing comics on the 13- or 22-issue season schedule. Publishers can divide this schedule into two to three seasons (fall, spring, summer) per year, with a different creative team crafting the story for each season. The seasons will each focus on one extended arc that could be peppered with one-off stories as part of the main plot or as backup stories from other creators. Continuity—the age-old of enemy of the casual reader—can be loose with a few elements of character and plot development carrying over between seasons, but, generally, each new season will be a fresh start with a new story.

In-between or alongside the seasons, publishers can release mini- or maxi-series events that are divorced from the current season’s continuity—think Elseworld, annual issues, or movies for anime series—which could serve as source material for feature film releases. This new approach to event comics would eschew the tie-ins that most readers, hardcore and casual, loathe and focus on a central mini-/maxi-series based on major adventure affecting one family of books (i.e. the Bat-family) or a small number (1-2) of loosely connected books (e.g. Teen Titans and Justice League). These isolated event comics will serve not only as the high points of the year, as current summer events do, but they can also function like blockbuster films. Events will be independent of continuity and the excess of tie-ins, becoming quick, exciting, high profile reads that any reader can pick up and use as a gateway to the weekly issues.

Once the events and weekly issues hook readers, a dash—and nothing more—of continuity will keep them hooked. With respect to the intelligence of modern audiences, continuity will not be overwhelming nor will it be completely abandoned in either the weekly issues or event series. Instead, it will become loose, pliable to the whims of creators and, primarily, sound storytelling. Plot arcs and character developments that creators wish to retain or that publishers want to promote will be available to mold at their discretion, but the canon will be simple: an origin story plus a supporting cast and a rogues gallery, and nothing more. Much like any of the hundreds of variations on NBC’s Law & Order, there is a foundation for the characters and the purpose of the series, but each week, or season, the leads face different criminals. Sometimes, plot threads carry over from season to season. Most of the time, they don’t. That degree of flexibility is essential to making comics as widely accessible as possible, and that is the cornerstone of DC’s new storytelling strategy, for now. The publisher who holds fast to that philosophy, long-term, will see readership grow and witness respectable turnover because the moat of continuity will be drained.

Loosening continuity will also allow creators to use superheroes the way they were intended, as archetypes that could be grafted onto and enliven a variety of narrative genres. Superheroes will no longer be the draw in and of themselves. Instead, Batman may become more of a gritty crime comic with cases dragged from the headlines that just happen to be committed by his creepy rogues. Catwoman may be a weekly heist comic in the vein of Ocean’s Eleven. Imagine Superman as a weekly reflection on immigration and the thrall of the American dream like an HBO series with earth-shattering battles and none of the TV-MA trappings.

This strategy could also work at Marvel. Spider-Man could exist as teen/young adult drama with a running commentary on the loss of innocence as reflected in his aging adversaries. Conversely, X-Men could work as a soap-ish drama rife with racial tension and cover military action. Captain America could be Jason Bourne with a slick jumpsuit and Nazi villains. Not that these series weren’t already steeped in genre tropes, but going full bore could give each series a clearer voice. In addition to inserting superheroes into popular narrative genres, publishers can ease their way into releasing popular non-superhero comics based on westerns, crime drama or spy fiction. Publishers who apply a multi-genre approach to comics storytelling will not only widen the field for consumers who may desire more than flights and tights, but they will open the doors for creators who’ve grown beyond writing superhero stories.

In truth, if the publishers really want to grab an audience beyond the hardcore, they may need to accept that contemporary audiences have, to a large degree, grown out of viewing superhero comics as they did at the height of the Silver Age. Many of the trappings that defined comics of that era simply don’t appeal to a majority of the contemporary audiences. The formatting of comics, the costumes, and some of the more explicitly fantastical elements can work for or against comics. These days, they mostly seem to hinder a mainstream audience’s desire to pick up the latest issue.

Creators should consider how audiences absorb visual information when formatting comics, as a way to make the panels easier to follow. Artists should learn from the lessons and mistakes of the first generation of widescreen comics. Horizontal paneling would be a real draw to audiences who are acclimated to widescreen HD viewing options. Publishers could also provide primers on how to read comics from panel-to-panel like many of the American manga distributors did when manga first hit the scene. Retaining the “Previously in…” sections and character guides at the front of issues will also help. Costumes, one of the most important visual touchstones of the industry, could stand to be toned down. There’s no need to eliminate costumes and switch to civvies for every hero, but give the characters something respectable, modern and realistic to wear so that when it comes time to adapt the characters to film they don’t look like plastic statues. Some of the hottest properties of the past decade—Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, Vampire Diaries, Buffy, Heroes(I said hottest, not necessarily the best)—have found a way to ground the fantastic in a reality bereft of characters running around in gaudy armor or colorful speedos. In turn, these works do the same job as comics without the packaging that may keep a wider audience at a distance.

With the desire of expanding the audience comes the need to acknowledge that females will read comics. As such, the level of misogyny and objectification of female characters must disappear. Creators will need to cease storytelling that hangs on stuffing girlfriends in the fridge or finding new ways to stick powerful women in bikinis and bustiers. Also, publishers should avoid trying to appeal to female readership solely with rehashes of Twilight or any other romantic twist on the medium. Not every female reader enjoys those type of stories, and many would relish a good superhero yarn as much as the next guy. This shouldn’t be news, but, in an industry where women and minorities are grossly misrepresented on both sides of the page, a reminder seems absolutely necessary. Respect the female audience and they will flock to the stories right next to the male readers. Fail to respect them and risk alienating over 50% of the potential audience.

Finally, and above all, creators and publishers must work together to make the fantasy of comics real and relevant. Comics are more than throwaway entertainment. It is a medium with the same inherent power as any art form. Unlike film or television, comics can swiftly respond to changes in the social climate and examine the human condition with the reverence of literature and the bombast of film. It is a medium where imagination can run wild, but it is also one where the fantastic can touch upon the mundane with profound insight. If creators and publishers can look beyond what comics where and push them forward to become more than what they are, they just might save the medium before the contemporary audiences find a cheaper, more entertaining and accessible alternative.

Review - Super 8

2011-06-08T07:34:00.000-07:00

Grade: B

Good: Great performances and old-school flair give Super 8 more heart and character than most modern summer movies. A couple of amazing sequences--particularly the early train crash--are thrilling and well staged.

Bad: Pacing suffers from significant drag in the middle. Focus on nostalgia and old-school storytelling leads to a slightly less entertaining experience than some recent similar films.

Ugly: The big secret. Trust me.

Nostalgia’s a funny thing. Invariably, it pulls us back to a time, a place, a moment that defines some aspect of our being. Occasionally, it can push us forward, using our memories to fuel our ambitions. J.J. Abrams’ and Steven Spielberg’s Super 8 is a pitch perfect example of the regressive and propulsive qualities of nostalgia, with all the shine and warts such an endeavor would entail.

Set in 1979 Lillian, Ohio, Super 8, named for the classic super 8mm camera, is a throwback to the first generation of summer blockbusters (apt considering the influence of that era’s most iconic voice). In the vein of classic Spielberg, the retro-styled flick follows a group of young aspiring filmmakers at the start of a summer they will—clichéd as it sounds—likely never forget. In the midst of filming an ambitious, if amateurish, zombie flick, the group of middle schoolers—led by director-in-training Charlie (Riley Griffiths), best friend Joe Lamb (Joel Courtney), and lead actress Alice (Elle Fanning) —witnesses the most spectacular train crash ever committed to film. The cause of the crash is a mystery that will threaten their hometown, pushing Joe’s father, town deputy Jackson (Kyle Chandler), to his limit as he attempts to contain the mysterious chaos—including the antagonism of the U.S. Air Force in the form of shady Col. Nelec (Noah Emmerich)—that follows. Beneath the wreckage and chaos is a mysterious presence that will force friends and family members alike to re-evaluate their ability persevere in the face of tragedy, great and small.

Everything about Super 8, from plotting to setting to characterization, is gloriously old school. The main group of tweens working to uncover the mystery of the train crash is composed of charming, if rote, archetypes culled straight from 80’s classics like Stand by Me and The Goonies. De facto leader Charlie is every neurotic chubby sidekick rolled into a ball of anxious energy, while Joe and Alice play variations of the sensitive, damaged youth coping with life-changing tragedies and parent issues, respectively. Even the adult characters, such as the beleaguered deputy and the town drunk (Ron Eldard), hearken back to an era when character types were more common than pure characters. All of these great character types exist in an environment where they can encounter the unknown without the cynicism and irony of more contemporary characters, but rather the innocence and pluck of a bygone era.

Super 8’s late-70s setting is rendered perfectly as a mix of tight-knit, small town community and late 20th century Americana best remembered in films like Spielberg’s 1975 blockbuster, JAWS. Despite a frustratingly mysterious marketing campaign, Super 8’s plot is fairly light, allowing for less of a focus on plot mechanics and more on pure character development. While the plot jumps through some hoops to drag out the central mystery, Super 8 is, at its heart, a coming of age story built around characters struggling to recover from unforeseen tragedy. A narrative made all the more effective by some uniformly wonderful performances from both the teen and adult casts.

Joel Courtney delivers a superb subtle performance in his breakout role as young Joe Lamb, the tortured anchor of the amateur film crew. Courtney gives Joe, reeling from the passing of his mother, an air of shell-shocked detachment, but that quality never overwhelms the performance. Joe still shows spark of youthful enthusiasm when working on the film, and even genuine nervousness in the presence of his crush, Alice. Elle Fanning mirrors the detached quality of Joel Courtney’s Joe as Alice, who is also affected by the tragedy that befell Joe’s mother. Fanning, much like her older sister, Dakota, displays amazing restraint that lends a sublime gravity to her performance as Alice. She portrays Alice as even more haunted, rightfully so, than Joe, with scant flashes of true happiness tinged with a longing for escape. The remaining teen cast are mostly two-dimensional, ranging from the cowardly actor Martin (Gabriel Basso) to the smart-alecky pyro Cary (Ryan Lee), with the standouts being Griffiths’ panicky director, Charlie, and Ryan Lee‘s quick-witted fireworks enthusiast, Cary.

With respect to the adult cast, Friday Night Lights star Kyle Chandler delivers, as always, an awesome performance as Joe’s father, Jackson. Chandler brings the same simmering intensity that defined his five years as Coach Taylor to his role as Jackson, who, like his son, is struggling to contain his grief over the loss of his wife. Chandler’s Jackson is nowhere near as “warm” as Coach Taylor, routinely marginalizing and snapping at his son. However, Chandler uses the distance and intensity to setup some affecting growth in Jackson that will move some of Super 8’s more jaded viewers, but won’t surprise FNL fans at all. With Super 8 largely focused on the kids, few of the other adult characters shine like Jackson, with the exception of Alice’s father Louis, played by Ron Eldard, who brings a melancholy pathos to this broken character.

Abrams wrangles these solid performances in a film that is unsurprisingly biographical—focusing on a group of young filmmakers who grew up during the 70's is a pretty clear tip off. Abrams familiarity with the material is especially evident in the scenes of the kids attempting to become master filmmakers with limited resources, which are comical and a bit inspiring to young filmmakers. However, they smack of an indulgence that may push some viewers away who may care more for the stories filmmakers tell than the stories about filmmakers.

The autobiographical slant is not Abrams only indulgence, as a few of his narrative and visual trademarks surface early and often. Yes, the lens flares are back, and they are far more out of place in this earthy story than they were in Star Trek. Also, anyone with a keen eye and a familiarity with Abrams filmic oeuvre will figure out the big secret by the Super 8’s midpoint. Despite his indulgences and stylistic flourishes, Abrams excels in capturing the simplicity and warmth of small town America, giving it a respect and majesty usually reserved for indies, and the power of human connection in quiet, albeit powerful, scenes between cast members of any age. He also staged one heck of a train crash, and ramps up suspense with some great Hitchcockian leave-it-to-their-imagination shots.

Super 8 is a solid piece of late 70s/early 80s filmmaking thrust into the 21st century. Being significantly retro in tone, style and content, Super 8 drags significantly in the middle. And, as par for the course with Abrams, the mystery drags on longer than it should to less than stellar results. While this approach might appeal to moviegoers who fondly recall the age of E.T., it will definitely challenge younger audiences, and that’s okay. Not every modern blockbuster has to be all bombast and spectacle, but that doesn’t mean pacing should suffer. I’d say Super 8 would make a phenomenal TV series, but then the pace would slow even more, so maybe it’s for the best that it landed as a feature.

The closest current comparison to Super 8 may be Joe Cornish's Attack the Block, which also deals with teens coming of age during an extraordinary event. Whereas Block balanced humor, heart and action, Super 8 places heart heads and tails above humor and action. Super 8 may not be as wholly entertaining as fare like Attack the Block, but it does have a heaping of warmth and will likely be a touchstone for future film auteurs. For families and fans of old school summer blockbusters, Super 8 is a decent way to spend a Sunday afternoon, but it may be best to just give this one a few months and enjoy it in the comforts of home where its more deliberate pacing, nostalgia and character focus can be better appreciated.

Review: X-Men: First Class

2011-06-03T06:52:00.000-07:00

Grade: A-

Good: Slick, intelligent spy-fi with superheroes instead of super-spies that puts a very cool twist on the comic book film genre. Uniformly great performances, with Michael Fassbender’s Magneto and Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique as the high points.

Bad: Some of concessions to comic design legacies; Can delve into melodrama on occasion.

Ugly: The fact that the last three films under the Marvel banner can’t even compare to First Class.

X-Men: First Class is a spectacular gamble. None of the popular X-Men take center stage. The few characters who are familiar to audiences look completely different than their older, more memorable incarnations. And, perhaps the biggest challenge, it is set in a time well before many of its target demographic were born.

Yet, First Class is an exceptional superhero film that exceeds not only the three previous installments of the franchise, but it easily surpasses many of the superhero flicks crowding the multiplexes these days. Smart, compelling and respectful of the source material’s central themes, First Class is everything hardcore comic geeks and casual moviegoers could ever want from a superhero film.

Matthew Vaughn puts on an absolute clinic in the art of properly making a superhero film that clicks on all levels with First Class. Tracing the origins of the X-Men before well-known mainstays Wolverine, Storm, Cyclops and Rogue ever joined, First Class follows a just-out-of-grad school Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) as he begins his life-defining quest to seek out beings with mutant powers and bring them together to face an unimaginable threat.

The threat(s) in First Class are far more tangible—relatively—than any villainous force outside of Christopher Nolan’s Batman films. Set just before the Cuban Missile Crisis, an event that defined John F. Kennedy’s presidency and set the stage for a near-30 year cold war between the U.S. and Russia, the first generation of X-Men deal not only with coming to terms with the world that hates and fears them, but a world being nudged to the brink of nuclear war by the subversive Sebastian Shaw— played with a delightfully affable and polished smugness by Kevin Bacon—and his proto-Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, the Hellfire Club.

While the burgeoning Cold War drives much First Class’ plot, the heart of the movie is the fragile relationship between friends-and-soon-to-be-rivals Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender), better known as Magneto. First Class fills in the blanks of how Xavier and Magneto came to be such bitter enemies by looking at the precipitating events behind their disparate philosophies. Between the two, Magneto, or Erik for the purposes of this film, gets a superb level of development, far outpacing the attention given to Xavier. Erik, a survivor of the Holocaust, begins the film as a man on a mission of revenge fueled by haunting memories the inhuman punishment of the Nazis and the heinous actions of the one of their less than ethical doctors.

Fassbender does a superb job of capturing Erik’s edgy intensity, releasing it in explosive bursts of physicality and fiery dialogue that will easily convert viewers to ranking Magneto just below the Joker as most badass comic book villain. Conversely, McAvoy breathes an ample amount of life into Xavier, making a more of charming cad with the best of intentions. Suffice to say, this is not yet the stuffy bald guy with the bitchin' wheelchair. He’s on his way, but, as a man just out of college, he’s just as interested in chatting up the ladies and getting plotzed at the local pub, all of which come of wonderfully through McAvoy’s mellow charisma.

As one of the most equitable X-Men films since…well, ever, First Class gives solid screen time to develop ‘supporting characters’ like Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), pre-Beast fur Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) and Emma Frost (January Jones). Behind Xavier and Erik, First Class belongs to Jennifer Lawrence’s Mystique. Playing the shape-shifting temptress when she was still young enough to be somewhat innocent, Lawrence gives Mystique the right balance of optimism, shame and resentment that will turn her into the scene-sealer of the earlier—chronologically later—X-films. Together with Hoult’s understated performance, Lawrence tackles the unavoidable, angst at the core of every X-Men story, but does so with a fire that renders Mystique's plight—the struggle to be respected as normal despite looking like an overgrown Smurfette—far more believable than a pretty girl with a skunk stripe and opera gloves ever could.

Even Shaw’s compatriots, including sly telepathic seductress Emma Frost and Satan’s night crawler, Azazel (Jason Flemyng), get more into the action than any of the ‘evil’ mutants from the previous X-flicks, with each getting some great scenes that highlight their abilities. It’s a testament to Vaughn that he includes so many under-the-radar characters as more than cameos (though there are a few choice cameos). With some uniformly dignified turns across the board, these characters, who surely would have been rendered unbearable by another director (cough*Ratner*cough), come off even cooler than they do in the comics.

The performances in First Class are anchored by Vaughn’s—who has now delivered the most entertaining and thematically cohesive X-film to date—deft direction. Vaughn positions First Class as pure spy fiction with mutants instead of possibly super-powered super-spies like James Bond. In grafting superheroes onto a specific narrative genre, Vaughn succeeds where other superhero directors have failed by using super-powered characters as part of a larger story rather than forcing the audience to simply marvel (sorry) at seeing these characters on screen behind a flimsy concept.

Despite a two hour plus run time, Vaughn keeps the flick tight and focused like his last turn at superheroes, Kick Ass. What begins as somewhat amorphous and deliberate quickly gains shape and immediacy, as the players are drawn together—on both sides—to face common enemies. That patience in a director is rare in superhero films, but it bears excellent results in First Class. Vaughn allows the audience time to absorb each characters story motivation completely before thrusting the events of the plot forward, and even offers an extended training sequence that finally shows the X-Men learning to use their powers.

Visually, Vaughn captures the essence of the sixties with a naturalistic touch that avoids overstatement or parody. The world of First Class looks and feels very real for about 95% of the film. It is only when Vaughn incorporates some of the more outrageous design elements that the film loses some visual weight. Actually, it’s only one element that hurts the film--Magneto’s goofy helmet. Even in the comics that thing looks silly. The helmet aside, the other design elements lifted from the comics--such as the X-Men uniforms--look better here than perhaps any superhero outfit on screen. Flight suits with a simple yellow stripe down the middle? Genius.

Vaughn also stages some superb action scenes that somehow make people waving their hands and touching their temple appear compelling. Trust me when I say the money shot of Erik force choking a submarine is not the only highlight. Azazel’s teleporting attack at the midway point, Erik’s attacks on his tormentors, and the final showdown off the shore of Cuba are all well worth the price admission.

First Class, as mentioned earlier, is a major gamble. Many of the characters are unfamiliar and that may keep less adventurous audiences at bay, despite the power of the X-men brand. Additionally, there some racy content in the form of a mutant sex club that parents may need to be leery of, but it’s truly not as bad as it sounds. However, the emphasis on the political strife of the early Cold War may be too distant for some viewers. The performances, in spite of their general excellence, fall into mild melodramatics. While it’s expected to a degree, the melodrama can be unbearable to more discerning tastes. Overall, the missteps don’t even equal a fraction of the successes with this flick, and it’s not an overstatement at all to start proclaiming this as the best X-Men film. Period.

Marvel take note. The one franchise not in your control has easily surpassed your last three films. You might want to do something about that.

Check Out the Storytelling in Games Article Series on IGN

2011-06-01T08:01:00.001-07:00

As a lifelong gamer, I have had the privilege of watching the medium develop its approach to storytelling, from lamentable, intrusive 8-bit cut scenes to interactive, cinematic experiences like Metal Gear Solid 4 and Rockstar Games latest, L.A. Noire.

Starting this week, IGN's Australian division has published a series of articles on the development and challenges of stroytelling in interactive media. With some great insight from game developers and writers, this series is delivering a welcome look at the future of games as storytelling engines.

Part 1, Part 2

Review - Attack the Block

2011-05-26T08:03:00.000-07:00

Grade: B+
**for the uninitiated, see the trailer below**

Good: Great characters; consistently, but cleverly funny; a welcome twist on a tired genre with a deeper than expected theme at its core

Bad: Language barrier (not an actual bad, but a deterrent for some); may be heavier than audiences expect; no 3D (again, not a bad, but a deterrent to studios, theater owners and a pocket of moviegoers)

Ugly: the first alien that lands and—not to be mean—but baddie Hi-Hatz is pretty tough to look at.

High concepts films invariably produce one of two results: either the concept will overwhelm the story or the concept will set sage for a story with a tangible degree of nuance and depth.

Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block takes a simple, if not entirely unique, concept and runs wild with it. The winner of the 2011 South by Southwest Midnight Screening Award, Attack the Block delivers a thoroughly entertaining spin on the alien invasion genre, complete with memorable characters, solid thrills and some to pointed insights on class and race.

Falling somewhere between popular British series Misfits, 80’s ‘classic’ Red Dawn, and Battle: Los Angeles, Attack the Block pits a motley gang of lower class teen miscreants--this time from a South London project affectionately referred to as the ‘Block’--against forces far beyond their control. In the process of mugging nurse, and fellow Block resident, Sam (Jodie Whittaker) at knife point, the gang--led by the stoic and obviously damaged Moses (John Boyega)--encounter a gross Gears of War-style third kind that plummets from the sky. Logically, the gang--including mouthy smart-ass Pest (Alex Esmail), nebbish doubter Jerome (Leeon Jones), brash risk-taker Dennis (Franz Demah) and talky ‘coward’ Biggz (Simon Howard)—hunt down the creature and kill it. With that one act, they endanger their entire block, which is home to a number of colorful natives like weed dealer Ron (Nick Frost), and foul-mouthed pre-teen wannabe troublemakers Mayhem (Michael Ajao) and Probs (Sammy Williams). As they struggle to save the Block, the boys must evade volatile gangster Hi-Hatz (Jumayn Hunter) and the local authorities that are more interested in arresting the Block’s inhabitants than helping them.

Block has a laundry list of strengths—from its witty, pop-culture tinged humor (a true sign of executive producer and Scott Pilgrim director Edgar Wright’s influence) to its cleverly designed aliens and its gory, blood stained action scenes—but its greatest strength are its quirky characters, unexpected depth and undeniable personality. Setting the action in a housing project already brings some welcome uniqueness to the invasion genre, as it highlights both characters and complications rarely introduced in most mainstream invasion flicks. The main characters are hardly meant to be sympathetic—not because they’re smarmy jerks who should die for being pricks, but because they’re literal criminals. Other characters like Ron, the lazy cowardly weed man—played with appropriate sluggish aloofness by Nick Frost—and stoner Brewis (Luke Treadaway) clearly escaped from the set of Pineapple Express, which would be the kiss of death in a typical invasion flick. Even bratty standouts Mayhem and Probs are the type of kid characters who survive invasion films by being puppy-dog-eyed plot tokens rather than mischievous hellions. The fact that all these characters are pulled a decidedly tarnished background speaks not only to Director Joe Cornish’s willingness to play loose with convention, but it allows him to engage in some light, if damning, criticism of the treatment of people from such lower class neighborhoods—in any country.

Throughout Block, the local authorities are either non-existent or antagonistic. With no clue of the invasion and seemingly no interest in helping, they exist in a space unfamiliar to most audiences, who can always count on, at least, the military to mount some spectacular counterattack. The concept of an ignored populace is best anchored by the simmering tension between Moses and mugging victim Sam. Their interactions do a superb job of highlighting how this community and its citizens have become isolated from the world next door and retreated into protecting themselves and no one else. It’s not an entirely original idea for a more purely dramatic film, but when woven into an invasion flick it’s nearly revolutionary. Despite some of the heavier thematic material, Block still manages to expertly show trademarks of the wit and, on occasion, heart found in modern genre bending classics like Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz. Block may not deliver the shock gags that knock’em dead in the era of the R-rated comedy—with many jokes potentially flying right over the heads of non-British audiences—but it consistently delivers character and situational bits that never get stale.

Performances in Block are uniformly solid across the board. With many of the characters written in broad strokes, most of the cast hits their notes with equal parts subtlety and exuberance, no more or less. The joy Moses’ gang has when preparing to do battle with the aliens is played perfectly by the young actors, evoking the enthusiastic response that a generation raised on video games and blockbusters would have when faced with such absurd circumstances. Undoubtedly, the strongest performances belong to John Boyega (Moses) and Jodie Whitaker (Sam). Both imbue their characters with quiet strength and a tangible resolve as they are forced to gain insight into each other, and the community.

Director Joe Cornish shows off some solid visual style with block, giving the project a true sense of foreboding before the aliens even arrive. Color pops with a fluorescent glow that gives scenes an unsettling ambiance, while some of the vertical shots of the ‘Block’ are outright intimidating (especially when viewed from a bottom row seat). Granted, some of the visual cues are aped from similar flicks like 28 Days Later (isolation) and Blade II (eerie nightglow), but Cornish gives it the right amount of pop to make his own mark.

Block may be unrated now, but an R for language and violence is pretty much a lock. The blood flies as fast and furious as the British swears and slang, which, admittedly, could lose a lot of viewers. On the upside, the pacing is exceptionally brisk with flick running a swift 88 minutes. It’s not in 3D, so audiences, studios and theaters who love 3D will be disappointed while the rest of us rejoice. My worst fear for Block is that it gets remade and watered down to a shadow of itself. Between the language barrier—which, mind you, shouldn’t be an issue for most audiences—the diversity of the cast and the heavy themes, Hollywood is bound to find a way to ruin this one. Unfortunately, a US release for Block is still pending, but, thankfully, with Screen Gems as a distributor it’s only a matter of time. When Block does reach the States, get out and see it and enjoy it before it's swallowed whole by the Hollywood remake machine.

Review - Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

2011-05-17T07:21:00.000-07:00

Grade: A (for Pirates fans) B (for everyone else)

The Good: Capt. Jack and his wily antics (as always); intriguingly complex plotting with some relatively challenging issues at heart; Expands Pirate-verse with trademark charm and intrigue.

The Bad: Complex to the point of complication; Cruz and McShane are a tad overhyped and nowhere near as interesting as original cast members. Murky pallete+3D glasses make some action tough to see

The Ugly: The price of a ticket to see this in IMAX 3D (no matter how much it’s worth it).

There’s one consistent truth to Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Johnny Depp’s Jack Sparrow—excuse me, Captain—is unquestionably the star, but the stories never truly belong to him. Capt. Jack is a scene-stealer, for sure, and the character generations will remember when they think of Pirates of the Caribbean, but even relieved of the Turner-Swan saga, Jack still hasn’t completely taken center stage.

That’s not a bad thing. Captain Jack prancing through the proceedings as a devil-may-care, sharper-than-he-looks trickster may keep him from being the chief protagonist of the Pirates films, but it allows these blockbusters to engage in complex—some may say complicated—storytelling with charismatic characters whose conflicting motivations reveal more depth than most movies like this ever dare to.

On Stranger Tides, based on Tim Powers 1987 novel of the same name, follows Capt. Jack as he is forced by a piggish King George (a goofy cameo by occasional Depp costar Richard Griffiths) to lead perennial rival, and newly minted privateer, Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) to Ponce de Leon’s legendary fountain of youth, which our wily anti-hero had his sights set on at the end of the first trilogy. Along the way, Jack runs afoul of old friends—including steadfast first mate Joshamee Gibbs (Kevin McNally)—and new frenemies like the duplicitous Angelica (Penelope Cruz), daughter of a fairly unknown pirate, Edward Teach, who goes by the nickname Blackbeard (Ian McShane). Cajoled into serving on Blackbeard’s living ship, the Queen Anne’s Revenge, Capt. Jack must outwit all sides to reach the fountain before his multiple enemies allies do. Also charting a course to fountain of youth are agents of Spain’s King Ferdinand VI, who have their own agenda for the source of the mystical aqua de vida.

Johnny Depp brings Capt. Jack alive as only he can after a few years away from the character. This time, Jack is a bit more subdued, but no less crafty. The Pirates movies have gotten less and less lighthearted and humorous as they increase in complexity and ambition, but Capt. Jack continues to make audiences snicker with his sly subversive digs and observations. The good captain may not be as riotous as he was in the initial installment, but audiences can still count on Depp to deliver a winking performance that’s rife with mischievous charm. Geoffrey Rush continues to prove himself Depp’s perfect foil. Ever eloquent and consistently cunning, Rush’s Barbossa nurses some new wounds that make him even more dangerous. Rush rises to the challenge—as if there was any doubt—by balancing Barbossa’s trademark civility with a simmering anger.

New to the Pirates-verse are Penelope Cruz’s Angelica and Ian McShane’s Blackbeard, who are truly the engines of this story. Their quest for the fountain is driven as much by their connection to each other as it is by deeper issues of fate and redemption (yes, these concerns really do surface in Pirates movie, again). Cruz plays Angelica as a slightly feistier version of most female characters who cross paths with Capt. Jack. She’d be in love with him if she didn’t want to smack and/or kill him. As such, she barely registers as significantly different from Kiera Knightley’s Elizabeth Swan and Angelica’s journey is not likely to endear her with fans of Mr. Sparrow. McShane’s Blackbeard brings his silver-tongued menace to the table as the merciless pirate, who may or may not be particularly interested in redeeming his soul before a prophesy that will claim his life comes to pass. Essentially, he’s just playing Al Swearengen in the Age of Discovery. The fact that Blackbeard is so detached from characters who aren’t Angelica makes him a cold, but not a particularly engaged threat on the level of Barbossa or even Davy Jones, who both had a personal stake in challenging Capt. Jack.

Director Rob Marshall does a fine job of aping the visual template Gore Verbinski laid forth in the first trilogy. The world of Stranger Tides is visually on par with the later films, particularly Dead Man’s Chest, albeit darker and earthier. The darker palette makes a few of the elaborate action scenes a bit murky, but this is as much a visual issue as a problem with watching the flick through 3D glasses. Marshall also shows a deft hand at Pirates’ kitchen sink approach to the supernatural. In Stranger Tides, Jack and his compatriots encounter more than a few “beasties”, from zombified pirate slaves—again—to mermaids and magical ships. As usual, the supernatural aspect is never obnoxious or overplayed. Thanks to some exceptional work by ILM and the practical makeup teams, the creatures, especially the mermaids, don’t look as cartoonish as Davy Jones’ barnacled crewmen. But, the most impressive thing Marshall does—and I believe a lion’s share of the credit here goes to Pirates’ screenwriters Ted Elliott and Terry Russo—is graft some significant layering to the story.

Essentially, Stranger Tides is a fetch quest, as most fantasy/action/sci-fi flicks are these days. However, the character’s reasons for pursuing the fountain are rooted in some fairly challenging issues. Questions of faith are raised by the presence of not only the Spanish Catholics, but by missionary Phillip (Sam Claflin), a prisoner of Blackbeard and another would-be successor to the Will Turner spot. Phillip may seem to only be around as an extra piece of eye candy and half of a romantic subplot, but he, much like the Spanish, represents the presence of organized religion and monotheistic faith in a world of magic and superstition. The conflict between the two worlds is something that, with more time, could prove very intriguing for this film series. Questions of redemption and family responsibility, present in Dead Man’s Chest and World’s End, resurface and form the crux of the Angelica-Blackbeard arc, in a sinister twist on the William-Bootstrap plotline. All in all, Stranger Tides continues the trend of the last two Pirates movie by daring to be complex at the risk of losing its audience.

Folks who were exasperated by the intrigue and dueling machinations of World’s End and Dead Man’s Chest may be miffed at the maneuvering in Stranger Tides, which is significantly lesser than in other Pirates movies. Thankfully, the pacing is smooth—moving from action packed set-piece to exposition with ample balance—and should retain most viewers’ attention for the length of its two and a half hour runtime (fans should of course hang back at the end for the after-the–credits stinger). For those who weren’t fans of the last two, Stranger Tides won’t change any minds, but it does offer a more streamlined approach with less mythology and characters to follow. For those who love Pirates or want to see a fantasy that delivers a great balance of action, character and slightly complex storytelling, Pirates is as perfect as it ever was. So, go ahead…follow that horizon. It’s worth it...mostly.

Review: Priest

2011-05-13T12:08:00.000-07:00

Grade: C
The Good: Serviceable actioner with a some occasional thrills

The Bad: Bland and generally uninspired with wooden characters and now true creative spark to make it stand out from any other gloomy sci-fi action flick

The Ugly: The master vamps, the dialogue, and the wire-fu.

Priest is a Korean graphic novel, or manhwa, series by writer-artist Min Woo Hyung about an undead holy man who hunts vampires in a post-apocalyptic frontier. It hearkens to classic Sergio Leone spaghetti westerns with a heavy dose of the supernatural and the pseudo-religious.

I used to read this series. Faithfully. I have ten of the sixteen volumes published by now-defunct American manga publisher Tokyopop. The art was phenomenal and the story was dark and ridiculous enough to earn a place in the annals of manga cult-hood.

Screen Gems adaptation of Priest has nothing to with this great series. And it is worse for it.

Priest is a bland, barely serviceable actioner culled from so many superior action and sci-fi films that I spent more time picking out familiar scenes and concepts than absorbing the trite plot.

Paul Bettany stars as a soldier in a secret religious order for the third time—once is a opportunity, twice is a coincidence, three times is bordering on pathology—as the lead Priest. His unnamed stoic is meant to evoke old school gunslingers like Eastwood’s Man with No Name, but he’s mostly a hollow vessel--this time with a spiffy cross tattooed on his t-zone. Bettany’s Priest exists is a world where a vampire apocalypse leaves the little more than Blade Runner-esque walled cities and desolate western outposts with nothing in-between. After the stodgy leaders of Priest’s order, the Church, retire their Super Secret Ninja Priests, Priest, who struggles with faith and the ability to hold a steady job, is called into action, against the will of the all-powerful Church, to rescue his kidnapped niece from an army of faceless vampires.

I’d take time to describe the performances in Priest, but how many ways can one describe deadwood. Accompanying Bettany’s sullen hero is Cam Gigandet--one of many vampire flick/shows rejects in attendance (for those who care, check out how long Bill Compton has managed to survive without being dusted)--as Hicks, a young sheriff out to face the vampire army for his own mysterious reasons. Gigandet shows a hair more personality than Bettany, but he spends just as much time being moody and stoic to make the difference negligible. Maggie Q, TV’s Nikita, shows up halfway through to act as tough girl/chaste love interest. She too has no personality to speak off, so her and Mr. Priest are perfect for each other. Karl Urban turns in a hammed up performance as a former priest turned vampire, but it is nowhere near outrageous enough to compete with the likes of classic villains like Heath Ledger’s Joker or even tepid antagonists like Stephen Dorff’s Deacon Frost.

Director Scott Charles Stewart creates a post apocalyptic landscape that looks just like post apocalyptic worlds from any number of live action and animated sci-fi epics. Endless cities cloaked in perpetual midnight lit only by neon signs, just like Blade Runner? Check. Expansive barren desert wastelands, just like Mad Max? Check. Majority of the movie filmed through a blue filter, just like Underworld? Check. Vampires that look more like quadrapedal aliens than shimmering pretty boys, just like I am Legend? Check. Slick slow-mo action scenes with guns, blades and stylish wire-fu, just like Underworld, the Matrix, and even the laborious Sucker Punch? Check.

I realize no work of art can be completely original, but very little is original in Priest. With a plot ripped out of any classic western and character types rather than characters, it’s painfully clear that “going through the motions” was the unspoken motto on this project. Not to say that there aren’t a few thrills here and there—and they are very few—but most are nothing to write home about, even the climax is painfully anti-climatic. Thankfully, the films pacing is pretty solid with the plot moving at a breezy clip to keep the audience distracted from paying too much attention to the uninspired proceedings. For those in the audience who’ve never seen Underworld, Van Helsing, or Blade this may be exciting new territory, but for those of us who’ve digested a steady diet of stylish sci-fi actioners, this is old hat. And for those of us who consider ourselves fans of the manhwa, this is the worst kind of backhanded compliment.

Review - Rio

2011-04-15T07:29:00.000-07:00

Grade: B-

The Good: Colorful and lively, with some catchy musical numbers and a few honest chuckles. Shows some degree of social awareness amidst the candy coated fun.

The Bad: Not a particularly revelatory addition to the modern animated canon. Voice performances aren’t terrible, but lack an identity outside of the actors’ pre-established quirks.

It’s a given that studio films, especially animated features of the 3D variety, are generally unoriginal, yet I still find the concept of dueling movies—or at least the kind that have extremely similar elements—fascinating. Now, Fox and Blue Sky Studios Rio has very little in common with the upcoming fourth Fast and the Furious sequel, save for the setting of Rio de Janiero, Brazil. But, with these two movies being released mere weeks apart, it’s likely that most perceptive moviegoers will surmise that—hyperbolic and obvious as it may seem—Brazil is hot.

It’s too early to tell if Fast Five’s exotic setting is just a backdrop or a vital character in its own right, but Rio makes the home of Carnaval equally as important as any of its main characters with a colorful palette and a lively samba beat at the heart of a not-so original tale about learning to fly outside of one’s comfort zone.

Rio follows aptly named Blue Macaw Blu (Jesse Eisenberg), a rare avian species born in the rainforests of South America, as he and his lifelong, yet overprotective, human owner, Linda (Leslie Mann), venture to Rio at the behest of geeky ornithologist Tulio (Rodrigo Santoro). Tulio hopes Blu, the last male of his kind, will be able to mate with female Blue Macaw Jewel, the always-energetic Anne Hathaway, and repopulate the species. Unfortunately, Blu has spent his life in domesticity with Linda, and, unfortunately, doesn’t know the first thing about interacting with his own kind nor the defining quality of birds: flying. Once in Rio, Blu and Jewel are swiped by exotic pet smugglers after a botched escape attempt from Tulio’s sanctuary. As the two try to escape their captors and return to their respective homes, they learn about each other and the courage it’ll take to do the impossible.

The best word to describe Rio is colorful. From the stunning multicolor visuals to the wacky cast of characters to the lively Samba-tinged soundtrack, Rio is not lacking for liveliness. The artists at Blue Sky studio have composed a dynamic visual feat for its target audience to ogle while they bounce up and down in their seats. Rio’s crowded beaches, clamoring street life, dazzling Carnaval floats and performers, even the cluttered slums are rendered beautifully in some of the most vibrant CG animation this side of a Pixar project. Thankfully, the pricy 3D only enhances the experience so parents needn’t worry—too much—about dishing out the extra bucks for a muddy 3D conversion. While the kaleidoscopic animation might not track with most members of the audience, the movie’s main musical numbers are sure to catch their attention. Rio delivers at least three samba-infused pop performances that are sure to pull some butts—young and not-so-young alike—out of their seats. At least two of the numbers are clearly influenced by the Black Eyed Peas will.i.am, who contributes his voice to one of the film’s many feathered characters. Aside from the performances, there are a few chuckle-worthy scenes, particularly a mildly epic clash between bird and monkeys that evokes notions of the Pirates vs. Ninja meme, but nothing as riotous as last month’s Rango.

The all-star voice cast deliver performances that mimic their live-action performances so closely that it lead to one of the simplest games of ‘guess that voice’ I’ve ever played. Jesse Eisenberg voices Blu with that same amount of stammering braininess with a slight edge that makes him a much more digestible version of Michael Cera. Anne Hathaway delivers her own patented edgy, manic energy as Jewel, who could just as easily have been the pet of Hathaway’s character in Love and Other Drugs. A bit trickier to identify is Flight of the Conchords Jermaine Clement as the erudite and villainous Nigel. Clement hams it up, somehow managing to chew through animated scenery as a vain, yet past his prime, cockatoo who relentlessly pursues Blu and Jewel for the eeevil smugglers. George Lopez lends his voice to Rafael, a family man toucan playing a variation on the mystical minority guide, and Jamie Foxx and the aforementioned will.i.am play a musical Rosencrantz and Guildenstern who provide snarky and occasionally slapstick comic relief when they aren’t kicking off the musical numbers.

All in all, Rio isn’t terrible, and it’s not particularly revelatory. It’s middle of the road fun for families with a tepid lesson tacked on at the end. The humor is hardly the funniest, with mostly retreads of fish-out-of-water jokes that are stale by the second act. Commendably, Rio only slightly shies away from the realities of Rio beyond Carnaval with one human character, Fernando (Wizards of Waverly Place’s Jake T. Austin), representing orphaned, homeless Brazilian children who engage in a life of petty crime. Still, this awareness isn’t significant enough to elevate Rio into the ranks of recent animated gems like Up, Rango and How to Train Your Dragon. If you keep your expectations relatively low, you’ll enjoy yourself, even if you forget most of what happened once you drop your popcorn in overflowing trashcan. If set your expectations to high you’re cruising for disappointment. But, don’t worry parents, the kids will enjoy themselves either way.

Review - Hanna

2011-04-07T22:07:00.000-07:00

Grade: A

The Good: A true example of girl power on film, replete with amazing, grounded action; stunning cinematography, a stylish, well-integrated score. All revealed through a filmmaker with enough confidence and patience to let the film unfold at its own pace.

The Bad: Plot is scant and hits many similar plot points from recent actioners like Kick Ass and the Bourne Trilogy; May be too slow and spare to accommodate viewers of modern action films

The Ugly: The way the poor souls who pursue Hanna are beaten.

Re: Girl Power
Dear Zack Snyder,

Please see Hanna. Immediately

P.S. Take notes. Copious notes.

Hanna is easily one of the most refreshing action films in recent memory. If the current glut of increasingly soulless cg-laden superhero and fantasy flicks has audiences glazed and longing for a film-going experience that deftly combines intense action, relatively realistic characters and something resembling heart, then Hanna is the rain after a long dry spell.

Like the little lost sister of Bourne Trilogy, Hanna (Saoirse Ronan) is the eponymous tale of a 16-year old girl raised by her father, Eastern European Counterintelligence agent Erik Heller (Eric Bana), to be, literally, the deadliest teen in the world. After years of living and training like a hunting, gathering warrior monk in the forests of the Arctic Circle, Hanna’s curiosity about the world beyond her training ground pushes her to flip the switch on a transponder, bringing the attention of the duplicitous and layered CIA handler Marissa Wiegler (Cate Blanchett). Once that switch is flipped, Hanna goes full steam to complete the one mission her father has been training her for all her life. Upon completion of her mission, Hanna must reunite with her father, trekking her way from the deserts of Morocco to the gloomy cities of Germany, Along the way, Hanna is pursued by vicious skinheads lead a fey hired killer (Tom Hollander), meets a curiously dysfunctional British family on holiday and learns just how beautiful and terrible the world can be.

Director Joe Wright has crafted a sublime piece of filmmaking with Hanna. He keeps the plot scant so as to allow the film to truly breathe. And breathe it does. Alwin H. Kucher delivers some gorgeous cinematography highlights the frigid isolation of the Artic; the dusty expanse of the Moroccan desert and the grim, gray industrial pallor of Berlin. Those scenes are enhanced by a stillness and patience that lets the audience absorb these environments with the same sense of awe and wonder that Hanna does. The quiet beauty of the cinematography extends to numerous scenes of Hanna silently interacting with world, as if she’s always processing new information and looking for ways to follow her father’s golden rule: adapt or die. Adding to the Hanna’s spectacular mood and visuals is an amazing score by the Chemical Brothers that is absolutely integral to the experience. Like Tron and the Social Network before it, Hanna’s score moves beyond the traditional orchestral ebbs and flows, opting for an eclectic mix that combines dance, video game and techno music to create a sound that seamlessly evokes the emotion, pacing and tone of the film’s both the action scenes and the quieter moments.

Keeping Hanna from existing solely as a reflective, artsy European-style film are some of the best action scenes since the Bourne Ultimatum. Hanna is such a proficient human weapon that it’s hard to not feel concerned for anyone foolish enough to attack her. If not for the fact that she is a waifish 16-year old, there’d be very few stakes in the film. Hanna’s father/trainer is no slouch himself, delivering a chain of lethal beatdowns in a number sequences, including one that resembles, and improves upon, the Neo vs. Agent Smiths rumble from the Matrix Reloaded. What makes the action so effective in Hanna is the sheer practicality and grounded nature of the physical encounters. No wirework or CGI is evident, only hard-earned blows and bumps that would make an audience question whether Wright used any stunt personnel.

With or without stunt performers, Saoirse Ronan, Eric Bana and Cate Blanchett all do a phenomenal job of giving depth to characters that are normally little more than action figures. Academy Award nominated Ronan makes Hanna vulnerable without ever making the character appear physically or mentally weak. She plays Hanna with a sense of subdued curiosity that reveals just how deep her training has affected her, but that it hasn’t crushed her. For all she’s learned and become, Hanna always seems like a teen who is not as far from normal as circumstance has made her. Sure, she’s disconnected and lives primarily within her mind, but she’s not that different from the average 16-year-old. Hanna particularly comes alive when she crosses paths with the bawdy, vulgar Sophie (Jessica Barden) and her family, including her aloof mother (Olivia Williams) and eager-to-please father (Jason Flemying). Cate Blanchett chews scenery with style as Hanna’s desperate pursuer. Blanchett sports an slightly exaggerated southern accent as Wiegler that could land as more comical than true, but Blanchett’s ease with showing the layers of Weigler—from desperate and frazzled to cunning and treacherous, often within seconds—makes the character more than the run-of-the-mill CIA spook villain. Not to be outdone by the ladies, Eric Bana brings his trademark mix of earnest innocence and reluctant rage to the table as Hanna’s father/trainer. He gives the character a consistent calm that rarely belies the fury and violence that lies beneath. When he does unleash his skill with violent aplomb, audiences will not wonder why he was so feared by Blanchett’s Weigler.

As solid as the performances, the sound and the visuals of Hanna are, the film treads a lot of familiar ground, sharing a number of plot points with the aforementioned Bourne Trilogy. The scant plotting may not please viewers looking for twists and dense mythology in this age of winding, unnecessarily complicated mythologies. But, simplicity has and, never will, be a bad thing. Similarly, retreads of common plot machinations are only as weak as the creator’s imagination, or lack thereof. For the second year in a row, spring has brought a film with a functionally dysfunctional father-daughter/master-student dynamic at its core. Comparisons to Hit Girl and Big Daddy from last year’s Kick Ass are inevitable, but, for those folks who tired of Kick Ass’ teen comedy moments and wanted more of the Deadly Daddy Daughter Duo, this film delivers a near perfect example of what a film focused purely on Hit Girl and Big Daddy would look like.

Now, if only someone would get to work on the Hit-Girl/Hanna showdown we deserve…

Review - Soul Surfer

2011-04-06T07:33:00.000-07:00

Grade: B+

The Good: Subtle and humanistic interpretation of pro surfer Bethany Hamilton’s inspiring true story, anchored by superb performances and some genuinely thrilling surfing sequences.

The Bad: Treads a lot of familiar ground found in the most memorable underdog sports stories of the past 30-40 years.

Let me get this out of the way.

Soul Surfer is not 127 Hours for families.

While not as visceral or stylish as the James Franco starrer, Soul Surfer is consistently moving and heartwarming without pandering or tear-baiting. However, unless you’re soulless, there’s no way you’ll leave the theater without trying to swallow a cry bump.

More the descendant of underdog sports fables like Rudy and Rocky than a conveniently timed spin on the inspirational amputee ‘genre’, Soul Surfer tells the true story of pro surfer Bethany Hamilton, who lost her left arm at 13 after a freak shark attack in 2003. A rising teen surf star, Bethany (AnnaSophia Robb) was poised to ascend to the top of competitive surfing before the attack. The film, based on Hamilton’s 2004 autobiography Soul Surfer: A True Story of Faith, Family, and Fighting to Get Back on the Board, tracks her challenging recovery and subsequent journey back to competitive dominance. With the help of her tight-knit family—led ably by Helen Hunt as Bethany’s mother, Cheri, in one her strongest roles since As Good as it Gets and Dennis Quaid, reliably gruff as patriarch Tom, who is also battling a physical challenge that keeps him off the waves—and the community of Lihue, Hawaii—including Kevin Sorbo as Holt Blanchard, father of Bethany’s best friend and fellow pro surfer, Alana Blanchard (Lorraine Nicholson),and the man who helped save Bethany after the attack—Bethany retrains herself to not only live with her new condition, but to compete.

Key to Bethany’s journey is faith. Former American Idol winner Carrie Underwood plays an understated role as the Youth Group director at Bethany’s church, Sarah Hill, providing a spiritual counterpoint to Bethany’s emerging crisis of faith. It is Underwood’s character who plays a significant role in guiding Bethany to an event that renews her faith and her desire to surf, eventually culminating in a touching, rousing conclusion that only a film like this could earn.

Despite the power of its conclusion, Soul Surfer is more concerned with Bethany’s journey. A journey that is elevated by great performances all around. It’s hard to say an actor/actress stole the show when it’s their show, but AnnaSophia Robb does a phenomenal job as Bethany. Robb brings great composure and subtlety to her role, revealing the preternatural calm and resolve that defines Bethany, even before the attack. A true sign of not only great acting, but great material, is how well an actor/character earns their cathartic moments. When Bethany finally reveals how the weight of her injury has affected her, Robb plays it with just the right amount of reserve and release to avoid pandering melodrama. Hunt and Quaid provide more than ample support as Bethany’s parents with both showing the pain and pride of parents who must endure watching their child suffer and rejoice as that child shows a quality that exceeds their expectations. Hunt, in particular, shines, playing Bethany’s mother as a woman torn by personal grief and the need to provide strength for her family. Soul Surfer’s other main draw, Carrie Underwood, does an adequate job as Bethany’s ‘spiritual guide’. Her role is limited to essentially being a conduit for Bethany’s renewal of spirit makes allowances for occasions where the character is revealed as underdeveloped and Underwood comes across as wooden.

Not only did director Sean McNamara coax some great performances out of his actors, he managed to craft some stunning wave riding sequences that evoke the serenity, and thrill of surfing. The scenes of Bethany competing or just riding casually with family or friends may not be as fresh as the day Endless Summer was released—a poster of which adorns Bethany’s bedroom walls, as it should—but they are no less engaging or weighty. There are some neat insights into the art of surfing as shown through Bethany’s attempts to duck dive and ride the curl that are sure to catch the interest of those uninitiated in the ways of surf. McNamara balances these more active scenes with dramatic moments that are never showy, but are just quiet and bighearted enough to be genuinely affecting.

Being more of an underdog sports movie, Soul Surfer is, of course, victim to the clichés of the genre. Anyone who has seen a popular sports fable like Rudy, Rocky, or—more recently—The Fighter will know exactly where this film is going. To jaded filmgoers that, and some of the film’s leanings on faith and spirituality, could be a detriment. For those who are okay with a film that treads familiar ground, only with a solid helping of heart and subtlety, they will find a film that is as powerful as the best in the genre. And, yes, by the end, you will probably be crying and cheering.

Review: Sucker Punch

2011-03-24T11:23:00.000-07:00

Grade: D

Upsides: A unique vision that could only have come from 300 and Watchmen’s Zack Snyder. A few thrilling action scenes make the abundance of weaknesses somewhat digestible.

Downsides: Needlessly convoluted plot supported by 2D fetish fodder characters that are anchored by generally weak performances. A pure example of the worst qualities of style over substance.

There’s an easy joke that describes the experience of watching Sucker Punch.

I wish I was better than this, but…yeah…I got sucker punched.

Zack Snyder’s first directorial effort of original material is what some might term a “hot mess”. Vapid, incoherent and inherently fetishtic--and those aren’t even its worst qualities. Sucker Punch will mess with your head and you will feel like crap after it.

This clusterf-bomb, ironically, delivers its best punch first, but never follows up or surprises. A stirring dialogue-less sequence opens the film, introducing a nameless waif--in a timeless, unknown setting that may or may not be the 50's with Sin City trappings--who is committed to the, Arkham Asylum adjacent, Lennox House sanatorium after a violent encounter with her shady stepfather (Gerard Plunkett). Baby Doll (Emily Browning), as she is anointed, must find a way to free herself--and her coterie of cutely-named compatriots, including the aggressive Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish) and the raven-haired Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) (Clearly, someone looked up irony in the dictionary)--before a mysterious doctor arrives to “remedy” her disposition.

Now, that simple premise might be the foundation for a compelling story. But, therein lies the rub. Not content to tell a reasonably coherent or remotely human story, Snyder opts for a fable filled with fetish fodder and unfettered foolishness. Instead of having Baby Doll and her crew simply try to escape in the real world, Snyder and screenwriting partner Steve Shibuya have created a multi-layered dream world--the strangest this side of Christopher Nolan’s Inception--where Sailor Moon and the…I mean Baby Doll and her crew must recover the five mystical items they’ll need to bust out. Now, this dream world is a layer beneath the dream world where the girls are dancers in a seedy brothel/club that looks like an asylum (think the Pussycat Dolls LIVE at Arkham). Confused? Don’t worry. If you survived Inception, this is a cakewalk, only the cake is pretty nasty and the walk will kill your feet. That said, I feel bad for Snyder and the timing of this release. He may have conceived of Sucker Punch before Inception ever hit theaters, but since it shares Inception’s multilayered dream worlds and multi-plot structure, it will always be compared—unfavorably—to Nolan’s modern mindbending heist flick.

Sucker Punch’s visually distinct dream worlds are triggered by Baby Doll’s imagination, which is anchored by real world elements. Characters and items in real world appear as symbolically exaggerated versions of themselves in dream world. (Yes. Shades of Alice and Dorothy’s fantastic adventures abound.) Once inside the first dream, the girls are transported to the next dreamscape—one where robots, dragons, orcs and Nazi zombies try to stop them from obtaining mystical items in some occasionally thrilling action sequences—by Baby Doll’s supposedly hypnotic dance. How hypnotic is this dance? Good question. I don’t know because Snyder never shows it.

Even if Snyder did deliver a scene of this transcendent dance, Browning’s Baby Doll doesn’t have the charisma or coordination, based on her sluggish warm up maneuver--to command an audience’s undivided attention. Browning is a blank. As with most protagonists in today’s CG-heavy genre flicks, she lacks any discernible personality or allure beyond being a bleached blonde and harboring a curious affinity for Japanese schoolgirl uniforms (This is right up your alley Otakus, or so Snyder thinks). Abbie Cornish’s Sweet Pea and Jena Malone’s Rocket fare slightly better as sisters at odds over supporting Baby Doll’s “insane” escape plan. Of the two, Cornish fares better, showing a hair more subtlety and depth than any of the other cartoons on screen. Vanessa Hudgens and Jamie Chung are sadly—or not depending on your respect for their “talents”—relegated to thankless roles as badass action girl #4 and badass action girl #5, with heart! Before both signed on, someone should’ve told them that unless you’re blonde you won’t be clocking any significant screen time.

Antagonizing our intrepid heroines is the thoroughly underwhelming Blue Jones played by Oscar Isaac—who was equally smarmy and ineffective as Prince John in last year’s Robin Hood. I say this with no hesitation and total awareness of its hyperbole, but never has there been a less intimidating antagonist on film than Oscar Isaac's Blue. He is physically smaller than the heroines—and most of the cast for that matter—and he poses only the scantest of threats because it’s never made explicitly clear what he does to the girls until the end. Now, smart moviegoers can figure out Blue’s evil intentions and actions as soon as they see him, but the rule of “show don’t tell” exists for a reason. Carla Gugino plays counterpoint to Isaac’s Blue as psychiatrist/house mistress with a silly Polish accent Madam Gorski. Scott Glen shows up at the beginning of each stage—just like a video game tutorial—to gruffly give the girls their mission and drop a litany of goofy clichés like “if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything” as the film’s banal attempt at humor. Keep an eye out for Jon Hamm in a pivotal, but underserved role (Someone stop giving this man extended cameos, and offer him the lead. Please.).

Sucker Punch’s few redeeming qualities are hardly enough to save this muddled misfire, but they are worth noting. Above all else, Sucker Punch has vision. I don’t have the inside track, but I’m 90% sure Snyder told the story he wanted to tell. His visual signature is all over this flick. From an abundance of slow-mo shots to the charred earth settings and rusty sunset palette, Sucker Punch is clearly the love child of 300 and Watchmen. It also owes a debt to one of my favorite directors, Japan’s Kazuya Kiriya—a man also know for his style over substance approach. Take a look at Kiriya’s only feature film releases, Casshern and Goemon, then see if the seeds of Sucker Punch’s visual style weren’t planted in those gritty, CG-laden live-action anime. The CG in Sucker Punch does have its moments—a colossal dragon and some creepy giant samurai being the best examples—but generally it handicaps the movie into becoming the video game it so desperately wants to be. This is Gears of War writ large(r) with a sexy squad of soldiers facing down more epic movie clichés than the aliens in the Kia “Epic” commercial. This attention to eye-candy characters and spectacle is quickly becoming Snyder’s calling card and it makes me very concerned for the future of the Superman franchise. Here’s hoping we avoid Lois Lane in a leather corset fighting the denizens of Apokolips with a M5 in one hand and a samurai sword in the other.

Full disclosure: I’ve been waiting for Sucker Punch since last year’s Comic-Con. While my anticipation wasn’t at fever pitch, it was pretty high. So, to say I’m disappointed is beyond an understatement. I was preparing for what could’ve been, at bare minimum, one of the coolest visual experiences of the spring. But maybe I should’ve paid more attention to the tagline because I was not be prepared for a movie this bad.

Review: Battle: Los Angeles

2011-03-10T23:34:00.000-08:00

Grade:B-

Upsides: Aaron Eckhart’s alternately subdued and intense performance. Gritty military combat reminiscent of modern classics Black Hawk Down and Saving Private Ryan.

Downsides: Clichéd, disposable supporting characters and a bit of melodrama from the younger actors in the slower moments.

In any given alien invasion movie, there’s always vague talk of the military’s efforts to “halt” the invasion. We rarely see their efforts in these flicks outside of the irtrouncing at the beginning and the triumphant curb stomp they deliver to the once unbeatable invaders at the end.

Battle: Los Angeles earns that ending by actually showing the die-hard efforts of a—here it comes—“ragtag” platoon of Marines who “save” LA in the wake of an extraterrestrial Pearl Harbor.

As opposed to typical invasion flicks, which often serve too many masters with multiple interweaving plotlines, Battle: LA is lean and focused with some amazingly gritty set pieces. It only falters when it tries to be deeper than a men-on-a-mission/Independence Day mash-up and plunges into occasionally clichéd melodrama. In a sense, this is exactly what it says on the tin. Black Hawk Down with Aliens! As much as that sounds like a cheap pitch, it doesn’t hurt the quality of this flick one bit. This is a summer flick lost in the wrong season—or is it?—but that doesn't stop it from setting the stage for blockbuster season, two months early.

Aaron Eckhart anchors Battle: LA as haunted, exhausted Marine Staff Sargent Mike Nantz. On the day of his discharge, Nantz is forced into one final tour of duty as LA is besieged by a brutal alien force bent on decimating the population and co-opting the planet’s water (What is it with water as a MacGuffin these days? First Rango, now this.) Merged into unit of young soldiers who distrust him for a costly mistake from his past, Nantz must find a way to help the unit rescue a small group of civilians, and maybe find holes in the alien’s defenses, while struggling with an overwhelming case of survivor's guilt.

Of course Eckhart isn’t the only performer in the flick, but he is the only one the audience is going to care about. The rest of the cast, including Michael Pena and Bridget Moynahan as a pair of noble civilians trapped in the invasion zone, is practically disposable. Battle: LA opens by acquainting the audience with almost a dozen characters. Some are mildly remarkable, like virginal Pfc. Shaun Lenihan (Noel Fisher) and bitter Cpl. Jason Lockett (Corey Hardrict), but most are forgettable military clichés, ranging from the sly Jersey smartass (Gino Anthony Pesi) to the soon-to-be-wed (Ne-Yo) and the expecting father (Ramon Rodriguez). As soon as the audience meets the characters, they can begin taking bets on who survives and who doesn’t. Once Michelle Rodriguez arrives in the later half, all bets are off, thanks to her dubious survival record. Not to ignore the adequate efforts of the cast, but Eckhart’s Nantz is such a force—through big-time heroics and a subtlety in slower moments that escapes the younger actors—that none of the other characters stand a chance of stealing his spotlight. He is the perfect combination of the haunted, yet determined, hero, harkening back to the days of Eastwood and Wayne.

Not to be outdone by his performers, Director Jonathan Liebesman shows a deft hand at combining practical and computer generated effects to create a solid portrayal of decimated Los Angeles. The alien invaders have a look that falls squarely between Transformers and District 9. The grotesque insectoids are decked out in cluttered mechanical armor that makes them seem like one of the poorest and most desperate alien race to ever invade. The junky look of the aliens and their vessels creates a vulnerability that allows the aliens to avoid seeming invincibility. This vulnerability is invaluable in the combat sequences, which host some dirty and realistic, yet fairly thrilling, gunfights. By the end of Battle: LA, the amount of destruction to natives and invaders is astounding. There is a true sense of loss and defeat that is well captured by the Liebesman and his team—even if we've seen it all before—putting Battle: LA leagues above some weaker invasion films of the past decade (eyes directly on you Skyline).

On the surface, Battle: LA may seem like an obvious spin on the invasion formula, but it is a sometimes thrilling, adequately-crafted take with a compelling central performance. As one of the better invasion flicks in a long while, audiences would do well to get a front row seat to end of LA as we know it. Just don't start counting the references to other invasion flicks.