Faster
The movie dispenses with pointless things like names for its characters, and instead refers to its main characters by titles. First we meet "Driver" (Johnson), a getaway driver just out of jail after a 10-year stint, and eager to kill the people who put him there in the first place, as well as killed his brother. He wastes no time. As soon as he's released from prison, he goes running along a long stretch of desert road like a badass Forrest Gump, and makes his way to an abandoned junkyard, where he still has his car, gun, and vital information on how to find the people who wronged him waiting for him after all this time. Before the movie's hit the 10 minute mark, he's forced his way into an office building, and murdered a telemarketer in front of everyone - the first person on his hit list.
The murder (the first of many) is brought to the attention of "Cop" (Billy Bob Thornton), a strung out detective with a drug problem, an angry wife threatening divorce who recently kicked him out, and a partner on the case (Carla Gugino), who is not happy to be paired up with him. The Cop also has a secret and personal connection with the Driver, which anyone who is half-awake while watching this movie should be able to figure out in 10 seconds. Finally, we have "Killer" (Oliver Jackson-Cohen), an internet billionaire and thrillseeker who does hit man jobs on the side for fun. He's been hired to go after the Driver, but finds it hard to concentrate on his work having recently been married to his long-time love (Maggie Grace), who wants him to quit killing people and start a family with her.
Of the main characters, "Killer" should have been the first to go in a much-needed rewrite, as his plot never really seems to go anywhere, nor does it hold much weight with what's going on. But, at least he's in good company, as very little in Faster holds any weight. This is a grim little movie that's only concerned with building a body count for most of its running time, only to have a tacked on message about forgiveness near the end, only to climax with more murdering. Now, I'm not a prude. I can enjoy a violent movie as long as I find it done well. (See my review of Machete for proof of that.) But Faster is just repetitive and dull. I never felt excited, the action sequences are tame for the most part, and a lot of the movie just made me feel uncomfortable. (Did we really need the scene where an old man tries to drug and rape a teenage girl before the Driver shows up and shoots him in the head?)
What's perhaps most bizarre is why anyone thought this would be a good action role for Dwayne Johnson. He is a charismatic, charming actor, but he doesn't get to show it here. He has little dialogue throughout the entire film. Most of his scenes simply require him to look pissed off before he kills someone. Anyone with the right build could play this part, and the role does not play up to his strengths in the slightest. As for Billy Bob Thornton, he has the appearance of a homeless man who somehow got his hands on a police badge, and started hanging out at the station. If this movie were animated, there would be flies buzzing around his head, and a cloud of dust following him everywhere he goes.
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Instead of the fun, raunchy movie we should have, we get a sanitized movie musical that's built as a vanity project for its star, Christina Aguilera. Much of the film's screen time is devoted to her singing one elaborate Broadway-style musical number after another, while the rest of the cast stand in the dark shadows, smiling, and nodding with approval. Aguilera plays Ali, a girl who gets tired of working at a dead end bar in a small dead end town as the film opens, and decides to take every bit of money she has to catch a bus to L.A. While hunting for various acting and singing jobs around town, Ali comes across a Burlesque club run by the lovely Tess (Cher, in her first acting role since 2003's 
Ali does not have to wait long for her big break. A hole in the line up needs to be filled when one of the girls gets pregnant. Ali auditions, and gets the job. Not long after that, the "bad girl" of the club, Nikki (Kristen Bell) shows up drunk, and Tess gives Ali her big number for the night. This proves to everyone that Ali has a powerful voice, and can bring the house down. It's also the first of many, many scenes that the movie devotes to nothing but Aguilera singing on the stage, while everyone else looks with approval. Ali becomes a singing star, and everyone else who works at the club pretty much gets shoved in the background, except for Tess and her gay best friend and business partner (Stanley Tucci). They have the money problems to deal with. There's also a love triangle for Ali to get involved in, as she finds herself torn between the kind and handsome bartender at the club (Cam Gigandet), and a millionaire who can offer her anything (Eric Dane).
The problem with 
Regrettably, that's all the movie is - a showcase for Aguilera. We're denied the primal trashy pleasures that the film's title promise because of its star. Writer-director Steven Antin can't even hit the right notes when it comes to rivalry within the club. There's a subplot where Ali's sudden popularity upsets the former star of the show. We sit and wait for there to be some kind of standoff between the two women, but it never comes. They just exchange a few glances at each other backstage, and that's it. The former star gets fired by Tess, then comes back in the final scene and apologizes to everyone, getting her job back. Where's the tension? Where's the backstabbing? Where's the catty remarks we expect? How can a movie called 
The stuff that works is when the two leads, Jake Gyllenhaal and Anne Hathaway, get to be smart adults in a genuine sexual relationship. When they're lying in bed, or just talking to each other, the movie works, because they come across as real, interesting people. It also helps that Gyllenhaal and Hathaway have great chemistry, and make an attractive screen couple. It makes us wish that the movie could have just been about their relationship, but Zwick and his co-writers, Charles Randolph and Marshall Herskovitz, just can't leave it at that. They also want their movie to be a satire on pharmaceutical drugs, a raunchy sex farce, a Judd Apatow-style buddy comedy, a thought-provoking drama on Parkinson's Disease, and a melodramatic "love conquers all" tearjerker.
I guess I should commend the film for combining all these drastically different elements, and at least staying afloat. The movie's never boring, the lead performances are great, and there are a number of dramatic scenes that stand out. The problem is those dramatic scenes don't belong in a movie like this. Allow me to explain. As the film opens, we meet Jamie Randall (Gyllenhaal), a smooth womanizer who uses his charm with the ladies to have sex on a regular basis at his job as an electronics salesman. He gets fired for having sex with the boss' girlfriend while on the job, and quickly finds employment working as a pharmaceutical salesman. Jamie struggles for a while, trying to sell Zoloft, but then Viagra is invented, and suddenly, he's in demand, both on the job and in the bedrooms of various doctors' receptionists that he works with on the job.
This first hour or so has the feel of an adult sex comedy, maybe something Judd Apatow or the Farrelly Brothers would dream up. In fact, Jamie has a roommate who would be right at home in one of those movies - His younger brother Josh (Josh Gad), a sex-starved little dweeb who talks and acts like he models his life after past Jonah Hill performances. But then Jamie has a chance meeting with a beautiful young woman named Maggie (Hathaway). She's a free spirit, an artist, intelligent, and sympathetic. Best of all, she likes to have non-commitment sex. Jamie is obviously fine with this, but then he starts actually liking her for who she is, and actually wants to date her. There's a problem, naturally. The reason why Maggie does not want to have a real relationship is because she's in the early stages of Parkinson's Disease, and knows she will only get worse over time.
There are the tell tale signs (he hands shake a little every now and then), and when the disease starts getting worse, she pushes Jamie away. This is when 
And yet, even then, the movie finds some moments of truth. There's a great scene where Jamie comes across another man married to a woman dealing with an advanced stage of Parkinson's. He talks about the daily hardships they both face as a couple, and regretfully admits that although he loves his wife, he would probably leave before the disease got so bad if he had to do it over again. The movie needed more moments like this. More truth, rather than melodrama uncomfortably merged with gross out jokes. Ultimately, this is a movie that lacks focus. It's very good in parts, but the movie itself just never gets a grasp of what it is, and who it's speaking to. With a more certain approach, this could have been something.
Yes, I would go so far as to compare this film to some of the studio's modern classics like 
For everything the filmmakers have done right, however, the studio has made one very big boneheaded decision, which is to release the film in 3D. I have spoken out quite frankly about recent 3D technology in past reviews, and how I view it as probably the biggest scam in cinema so far this century. And as long as a majority of studios view it strictly as a cash grab opportunity to clean a few extra dollars out of the pockets of the audience, that's how it will remain. Watching 
But let's put that ugliness aside, and talk about the film itself. The plot concerns an evil witch named Mother Gothel (voice by Donna Murphy), who keeps herself eternally young with the aid of a magic flower with life-restoring powers. One day, the flower is picked by some royal guards, who need its powers in order to save the life of an ailing queen who is about to give birth. The queen is restored, thanks to the flower's magic, and the daughter that she gives birth to somehow inherits its powers. The baby's golden hair holds the same restoring magic as the flower. The witch finds out about this, and promptly steals the child away, locking her away in a tower, and forcing her to keep her eternally young with her magic. The child grows up to be Rapunzel (a surprisingly wonderful voice performance by pop singer Mandy Moore), a spirited girl not aware of her own past, but with a strong desire to explore the world outside the tower.
So, since she has never set foot outside of her room, what is she to think when a dashing young thief named Flynn Rider (Zachary Levi) enters the tower, hoping to escape from the authorities? The movie gets some big laughs out of their initial meeting (she conks him on the head with a frying pan, then tries to hide his body when Gothel comes home), but we can see a glimmer of the relationship that will grow during the film. Rapunzel soon realizes that Flynn is no threat to her, and sees her opportunity - He will be her guide to explore the outside world, in exchange for his freedom and escape from the various guards, knights, and rival thieves pursuing him. Flynn reluctantly agrees, and the two go on a series of misadventures in the kingdom, as Rapunzel slowly puts together the pieces of her past, and they both develop romantic feelings for each other. As is the cardinal rule in these sort of films, there are animal sidekicks along for the ride. This time, there are two - A clever chameleon who is loyal to Rapunzel, and a very smart horse, who loses the knight riding him early on, but continues to chase after Flynn. These two do not talk at all, but still manage to be full of personality.
So yeah, we expect all that in a Disney fairy tale film, but 
That's why it's a shame that the lead character has to be played by someone like Russell Crowe. It's not that he's bad in the role, he just never quite comes across as an everyman pushed to his limits. He seems like someone who was pretending to be an everyman at the beginning, and as soon as the opportunity comes, he reveals his true self. It's the wrong choice for the character he plays, John Brennan. John is a bookish college professor. He's meek, he's a devoted family man to his wife Lara (Elizabeth Banks) and young son Luke (Ty Simpkins), and he's supposed to come across as the kind of guy who's never done anything risky or dangerous in his life. Crowe looks a little too rugged to be playing such a character. I don't really have anything bad to say about his performance, he just doesn't fit who he's playing.
The movie follows what drove John from being an average law-abiding father and husband, to someone who would be willing to risk everything on a dangerous gamble. That moment occurs early on, when the Brennan family is having breakfast, only to have the police suddenly rush in, and arrest Lara for murder of her boss at work. The next time we see her, it's a couple years later. The trial is over, Lara's been convicted, and is facing a long sentence. But John knows his wife is innocent, and when he runs out of appeals, he turns to the advice of someone who has broken out of many prisons in the past (Liam Neeson) as to how to stage the perfect prison break, and escape the country with his family to a place that does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S. government.
We witness the events of the murder through a flashback, and it's an exercise in plot convenience. First, we see how Lara and her boss had a very public and heated argument that a lot of their co-workers happened to see. Later that night, as the boss walked to her vehicle, she was attacked by a mugger, who beat her to death with a fire extinguisher, then took her money. As the mugger fled the parking garage, she happened to bump into Lara, who was entering, allowing the victim's blood to get on Lara's clothes without her knowing. Not only that, when Lara gets to her vehicle, she sees the murder weapon lying in front of her vehicle (but not the body), so she picks it up and moves it, allowing her prints to get on the weapon. Writer-director Paul Haggis has always been a sucker for coincidental plotting (see his screenplay for 
No matter, though. 
For all it's problems, I'm recommending the film. It's entertaining, it kept me intrigued, and aside from Crowe, the rest of the performances fit. Banks is very effective and sympathetic here, as is Olivia Wilde (TV's 
That kind of summarizes the film itself, as young heroes Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), Hermione (Emma Watson), and Ron (Rupert Grint) find themselves exposed and out in the open for most of the film. The number of friends and allies they can turn to seem to be depleting by the second as the evil Lord Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes) continues to grow in power and build his army. Harry and his friends are now seen as wanted enemies by the Ministry of Magic, and are forced to go into exile as they search out an ancient power that can save them. All of this, of course, is the build up to the ultimate confrontation to come. In fact, that's what 
I'm not trying to scare anyone away from the film, as it's very well done. Just as a casual fan whose only experience to the 
Much of the conflict in the film is actually internal, which surprised me, given how action-heavy the first half hour or so is. After a harrowing chase through the skies and even the streets of London early on, the remainder of the film deals with Harry, Hermione, and Ron slowly piecing the clues together of what they're supposed to do to stop Voldemort. It begins to resemble a two and a half hour scavenger hunt, as the heroes visit one location after another, gather information, and then move on. Fans familiar with the original novel will no doubt be fascinated, as they'll hold knowledge that other viewers do not. Those who are not familiar may find the pace uneven. Although I was never bored, I did find the pace dragged from time to time.
And yet, in the back of our minds, we all know that this is leading up to something big - the final showdown that we've been waiting to see on the screen for almost 10 years now. As everyone knows, the studio has decided to divide 
I think what I appreciated the most about this film is seeing how far the actors have come over the years. Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint have obviously grown into their roles so much to the point that it's impossible to picture these characters as anyone else. And all the returning actors and characters are sure to delight long-time fans. It really makes you appreciate just how well cast these movies have been from the very beginning. The franchise has been lucky, not only for being able to keep pretty much all their regular actors from the very beginning to the end (except, obviously, for original "Dumbledore", Richard Harris), but for finding actors who could grow and keep up with the characters as the series went along.
One of the big reasons I could never embrace the film is that I did not agree with its central message for a second. The movie seems to argue that the news should be dominated with trivial reports, and wacky stunts, like weathermen riding roller coasters, and anchorwomen sumo wrestling. It seems to think that a news program lowering its standards in order to get ahead in the ratings is a good thing. The closest thing to an antagonist in the film is the grumpy old anchorman, Mike (played by Harrison Ford, who has the best stone face and gravely voice outside of Clint Eastwood). Mike is a once-respected anchorman who once covered big stories and wars. Now his career is on the skids, and he finds himself hosting a fluffy last-place morning news show called Daybreak. When the show starts devoting more time to fluff pieces and soft journalism, he becomes upset, thinking that they should cover...well, real news. I remind you, this is the character we're supposed to be disagreeing with.
These changes in the program come about due to our heroine, Becky (Rachel McAdams), a chipper and plucky young woman who is charged with the task of saving the program before it gets canceled. She fires the old, creepy anchorman who has a foot fetish, and replaces him with Mike, thinking that alone will boost ratings, due to his history and status. When that doesn't work, she begins putting more stunt pieces on the show in a desperate attempt to boost ratings. This is seen as a good thing, but I couldn't get this nagging thought out of my mind that I was not buying what the movie was selling. It's true, Mike does finally get a big scoop by exposing a political scandal on live TV, but the movie doesn't consider it a happy ending until he finally gives in to Becky's point of view, and starts doing improvised cooking segments live on the air.
It's not that I didn't like Becky, or McAdams' performance. The character is so gosh-darn spirited and sweet, it's impossible to hate her as a person, and McAdams brings a lot of charm. It was the message behind the character that did not sit well with me. Screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna (
In 
Another knock against the film is that the characters we are stuck with for the majority of the running time are a rather shallow bunch. It would be one thing if these were interesting people waiting out an invasion happening just outside, but the people we're asked to follow hold no personalities that I could gather. Our heroes are Jarrod (Eric Balfour) and Elaine (Scottie Thompson). They're in love, and vacationing in L.A. to visit one of Jarrod's old childhood friends, Terry (Donald Faison), who is now a Hollywood big shot. The other characters include Terry's wife Candice (Brittany Daniel), Terry's mistress Denise (Crystal Reed), and a worker at the apartment building named Oliver (David Zayas). There. That's all you need to know about the characters right there, other than Elaine has been sick a lot lately, and may be pregnant.
Normally in a movie such as this, we can forgive the weak characters and dialogue if the special effects and action are truly a sight to behold. But, this never happens. Part of this has to do with the fact that directors Greg and Colin Strauss (
It also doesn't take long for the screenplay by Joshua Cordes and Liam O'Donnell to start repeating itself. The characters bicker with each other, almost get sucked in by the mother ship's beam of light, try to look for a way out, run to the roof of the building, go back to the apartment and bicker some more...It's almost amazing how little tension or suspense the movie is able to build. You would think something, heck anything, would happen eventually. All we find is tedium as the movie goes through the same motions. The actors aren't talented enough to rise above the thin material, either. They succumb to it, becoming so boring that we don't feel anything for them. It gets to the point that we want the camera to check on other apartments in the building, to see if there's something more interesting going on in any of them.
