Reel Opinions

One for the Money

2012-01-30T18:11:00.000-08:00

You may have heard by now that not only was One for the Money not screened for critics last weekend, but that it has received some of the worst reviews of the films released in January this year by the critics who did see it. This would probably lead you to think that the movie was terrible. In a way, I wish I could say it was, as that would mean there was something that stood out about the movie. As it turns out, One for the Money doesn't have the gumption to shoot for terrible, or even average. It's just a very underwhelming, bland-as-cardboard movie.

The film is based on the first in a series of books by author Janet Evanovich, that chronicle the adventures of female bounty hunter, Stephanie Plum. I have not read the books, but I am giving them the benefit of the doubt, as they have to be more interesting than the movie, which has this bland and overly sanitized feel of a failed TV show. If this were on television, it would be one of those shows that would be canceled in less than a month, and no one would notice it was gone. Katherine Heigl plays Stephanie in the movie. She's a divorced, down on her luck woman who got fired from her job at Macy's six months ago, and hasn't been able to find work since. She has no money for food, so she has to eat dinner at her parent's house every night, which includes her nagging mother (Debra Monk), her long-suffering father (Louis Mustillo), and her feisty granny who likes to fire off guns at the dinner table (Debbie Reynolds). The scenes with the family are obviously supposed to be comic highlights in the film, but there's no energy to the humor. Let me tell you, when you have Debbie Reynolds as a crazy grandma, and you can't think of anything to do with her, you're not trying hard enough.

Desperate for work, Stephanie blackmails her cousin Vinnie (Patrick Fischler) to give her a job at his bail bonds business. The first case she's given as a bounty hunter is to track down a rogue cop named Joe Morelli (Jason O'Mara), who is wanted for his suspected connection in a murder. This works out nicely for Stephanie in two ways, as catching Joe not only means a $50,000 pay day for her, but it just so happens that Morelli is an ex-boyfriend of hers that she's still sore about him dumping her after a one night stand back in high school. (When she finally tracks Joe down, it turns out he's still sore too, but about the fact that after he broke things off with her, she hit him with her car, which she claims was an accident.) Stephanie's not on Joe's trail for long until she starts to discover that he just may be innocent, and that there may be a bigger crime syndicate involved in a heroin ring behind it all.

One for the Money tries to combine a gritty crime thriller, with goofy female-centered humor, and the two elements just don't mix. The jokes aren't funny enough, and the mystery at the middle of it all just isn't engaging enough to grab our attention. The movie just doesn't do enough to get us involved with the characters - Not Stephanie herself, not Joe, and certainly not the two comic relief prostitutes who act as Stephanie's main informants, and just seem to be tossing about various sassy urban slang in their dialogue, and hoping to get a laugh. It also doesn't help that the movie's energy is just completely off. This should have been a fast-paced, exciting, and funny movie. Instead, everybody seems to be slogging through this movie as if they're wearing concrete shoes. First-time feature director, Julie Anne Robinson, just can't get her cast to sell this material.

Equally off is the romantic chemistry between Heigl and O'Mara. We don't believe that they still have feelings for each other after all this time. Come to think of it, they're not that convincing when they're supposed to hate each other, either. Their banter has no life to it. It's stilted, sounds scripted, and the two act like they're total strangers in some scenes. These characters require lightning-quick dialogue and wit, and a building passion. We don't get that from the stars here. This sense of weariness carries through to the entire cast. The villains aren't evil enough, nor are their identities surprising in the least. This is yet another case of if you want to know who the real villain is, look for the semi-recognizable actor in a tiny role who seemingly has absolutely nothing to do with anything throughout the entire movie.

Lionsgate is obviously banking on this to become a franchise, and to adapt the other books in the Plum series. I wish them the best of luck, as they've stumbled pretty hard out of the gate. Not hard enough that I don't want to see someone try with these characters again, mind you. With a different director, screenwriter, and a cast that could sell this material, I could see this working. As for what we've been given as the start of what the studio hopes will be a long series of films, I can only say I hope they try harder next time, provided there is one.

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The Artist

2012-01-29T17:40:00.000-08:00

With so many movies looking to advance technology and special effects, The Artist stands out by going all the way back to the silent era of black and white films. This is a charming little movie that I think younger viewers might just enjoy as much (if not more so) than older viewers or those steeped with knowledge of film history, as it will truly be unlike anything they've probably ever seen before. Director Michel Hazanavicius has essentially made a filmed experiment, trying to capture the look, feel, and tone of a lightweight romantic comedy-drama from the 1920s. He has succeeded, and in my mind, this is all The Artist should be viewed as.

What I mean by that is this should simply be viewed as a very sweet and charming experimental film, not as a life-changing experience. With all the awards hype and critical praise that has been heaped upon the film, I'm already beginning to sense a bit of a public backlash. I don't know what some people were expecting out of this movie. They complain that it is formulaic, predictable, and steals from old movies. To those people, I can only say congratulations on pointing out the obvious. I'm sure that Hazanavicius intended that all along. He's not trying to reinvent the silent movie, or make some kind of daring comment on it. He's simply replicating the kind of simplistic and melodramatic storytelling that was common in the era. I've also heard people complain that the plot wouldn't hold up if the movie was in color or in sound. Of course it wouldn't, that's the whole point. There's not a single modern element to this movie's presentation, acting, or storytelling. And in a way, The Artist is better for it.

I apologize if I sound somewhat bitter, but I have spent part of this weekend listening to certain people criticize this movie for the very things it was striving to do, which makes little sense to me. In the case of this movie, the cliches and the melodramatic storytelling are not faults, but part of the experience. Maybe these people had inflated expectations due to the award hype it's been getting. For me, I was just happy to be watching a movie I felt was worthy of the awards it was getting, after recently being disappointed by Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (Best Picture...Really, Oscars?...) and The Iron Lady (a great lead performance searching for a movie worthy of it). I would still pick The Descendants over The Artist, but that's a personal call. I can still honestly say that I was smiling while watching this movie from the first frame to the last. The filmmakers show that they not only know the conventions of the genre from the cinematic time period this movie honors, but that they know how to do so with a touch of wit.

I realize I've gone pretty far into this review without talking about the plot. In the case of The Artist, I think the story it tells is oddly the least important element. The joy and the thrill comes from the experience of watching a black and white silent movie (well, mostly silent...there's a very clever nightmare sequence that incorporates sound) in the theater. But as for the plot, it covers a five year period from 1927 to 1932, and concerns itself with the fall of silent movies, the rise of talking films, and the early days of the Great Depression. We witness these events through the eyes of George Valentin (Jean Dujardin), a silent screen star who, as the film opens, is on top of the world in Hollywood, despite a loveless marriage to his wife (Penelope Ann Miller), who seems to get less attention at home from him than his faithful and ever-present Jack Russel dog, Uggie. While posing for photos outside the theater at the premier of his latest film, George has a run-in with a hopeful young actress named Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo). There is an instant connection between the two, and when Peppy gets a job as a dancing girl in George's next movie, sparks fly.

But before sparks can fly too much, both of their fortunes change. The Hollywood landscape is changing with the introduction of talking films, and while Peppy's career advances, getting larger roles to the point that she is getting top billing in her films and being seen as "America's Sweetheart", George remains stuck in the past, believing that talking pictures are simply a novelty. When the studio lets him go from his contract, George puts all of his money into an expensive and independently made silent movie, which is a massive bomb at the box office, and all but sinks the last bit of his career. With the Depression hitting America and George's fortunes all but gone, he is forced to sell everything he owns, and move into and share the tiny apartment owned by his former chauffeur (James Cromwell). The remainder of the film switches back and forth between Peppy's increasing fortune, and George's descent into alcoholism and depression. And yet, there is a somewhat playful tone throughout the movie that all but assures us everything will be all right in the end. Here, a happy ending is not just anticipated, it's etched in stone, as the two actors find each other once again, and Peppy attempts to get George back on his feet.

If Hugo served as Martin Scorsese's love letter to classic Hollywood, then The Artist is a successful attempt to replicate it as closely as possible. Despite the presence of recognizable actors (other familiar faces in the film include John Goodman, Malcolm McDowell, and Missi Pyle), they never become a distraction, nor do they seem out of place in a 1920s light melodrama. Just look at Goodman portraying an early Hollywood era, cigar-chomping, gruff studio exec, and tell me the guy just doesn't embody the part. This is a movie that could have been sold to an audience of the time it tries to recreate, but more than that, it's appealing to today's audience, because there's simply nothing else like it on the screen anymore. Not only that, the movie's just a great entertainment - Charming, often very funny, romantic, and nostalgic all at once. You can tell that this was a labor of love for everyone involved, and nothing has been overlooked.

It would also be a crime not to mention the music score by Ludovic Bource, as it is the only thing we hear for almost the entire film. His score is often playful, sometimes ominous and somber, but always sweeping as it underscores every scene and emotion up on the screen. This is a rare treat for fans of film music, as it's one of the few times in a theater that you get to solely concentrate on the music, and just how it brings out the emotions of a scene as much as the actors. His score should be studied by both film and music enthusiasts, and I'm sure will become an important and valuable lesson in film scoring in the near future.

The Artist is a simple, graceful little film, and should be viewed as such. I had a great time, and as long as your mind is open to watching a silent movie (I have heard reports of people walking out, because they didn't know it was a silent movie.), you should find a lot to like, if not love, here. I, for one, view this as a cinematic experiment to go back to the early days of film, and see it as a rousing success at just that.

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Man on a Ledge

2012-01-28T18:12:00.000-08:00

In order to enjoy Man on a Ledge, one has to check their brain at the door. I'm perfectly willing to do just that, and for a while, the movie was kind of entertaining in a silly sort of way. But then, the movie just kept on going, and kept on asking me to dumb my brain down more and more to accept what was going on up on the screen. At a certain point, my damn brain just started resisting, and I just wasn't enjoying myself as much as I was.

Those of you who have seen the ad campaign know that the film has a great hook, with Sam Worthington playing a man staging a publicity stunt on the ledge of a building, threatening to kill himself, all the while distracting everybody from a heist going on at a nearby building. But this is not a crime movie. Worthington plays Nick Cassidy, a former cop who is in prison for a crime he claims he had nothing to do with. When he is let out of jail briefly to attend his father's funeral, Nick decides to stage a daring escape by getting in a fight with his brother (Jamie Bell) and the two cops who are escorting him. He winds up stealing one of the cops' gun, and swipes the brother's car in the process. A chase ensues, in which Nick is able to lose the pursuing cops by driving in the path of an oncoming train. Did he know the train was going to be crossing the tracks at that precise moment? Was it part of his plan? This is not the first time we'll find ourselves questioning Nick's plan to supposedly clear his name.

Flash forward one month later, and Nick is still on the lam, and checking into the Roosevelt Hotel in New York City under a fake name. He takes a room on the 21st floor facing a certain side of the city, treats himself to some room service, writes what looks like a brief suicide note, and then climbs out onto the ledge of the window, where he is quickly spotted by some bystanders on the street below. The police and news media instantly swarm to the scene, and we're introduced to our other key characters, including a sarcastic cop named Jack Dougherty (Edward Burns), and a NYPD crisis negotiator named Lydia Mercer (Elizabeth Banks), whom Nick asks for specifically by name. While all this is going on, Nick's brother from the funeral, Joey (who it turns out was in on the escape play the entire time) and Joey's girlfriend Angie (Genesis Rodriguez) are breaking into a building across from the hotel. They're climbing through air vents, rigging security cameras, and disabling heat sensors. If we didn't see this kind of stuff done a lot better in the last Mission: Impossible movie, I would have been more impressed.

It's about this time we are introduced to one of the film's central villains, a cold millionaire named David Englander (Ed Harris). Harris plays the role as an almost cartoonish villain to the point that he starts to resemble a live action version of C. Montgomery Burns from The Simpsons. When his secretary tells him that traffic is tied up due to a man threatening to jump from a building, he simply rolls his eyes and says, "Why don't people just shoot themselves anymore"? We know that the suicide stunt going on at the hotel, the heist (that's going on at a building owned by the millionaire), and the evil millionaire all will eventually be tied together. I won't go any further into the plan or the plot in order to avoid spoilers, but I will say this - Man on a Ledge relies on way too many coincidences and chances to make me comfortable enough to go along with.

Okay, I can sort of believe that Nick could stage an incident where he almost falls off the ledge, so that he can distract everyone, so they won't notice his brother and his girlfriend setting off a small bomb on the building across the street. But the way everything just falls into place completely baffled me. The funeral, the publicity stunt at the hotel, the heist...Everything would have to be planned out to a ridiculous degree in order to work successfully. And when the movie tries to explain how these people were able to pull it off, it becomes even more implausible. We can only go along with this plot so far. By the time people are jumping off of the roofs of 20+ story buildings, and landing on the street with hardly a scratch or a limp (even if they did land on a giant inflatable air cushion used to catch jumpers), my brain was saying no more.

Man on a Ledge is dumb fun up to a point, but then it just sort of turns dumb. It's not a total lost cause, and like I said, I was willing to go along with it for a good part of the movie. There just comes a point where the audience becomes disconnected, stops having fun, and just starts marveling at the implausibility of it all. I've seen much dumber and much more impossible action thrillers. This one's mainly a disappointment because it starts out being so interesting and fun.

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The Iron Lady

2012-01-28T05:56:00.000-08:00

If you were to judge The Iron Lady simply on its star performance by Meryl Streep as Margaret Thatcher, the controversial U.K. Prime Minister who held power from 1979 to 1990, you would probably be looking at one of the best films of the year. It's no surprise that Streep's performance is amazing here, but what really captivated me is how complete the transformation is. I never once felt like I was watching a celebrity playing a famous figure, she is that convincing. Not only is it accurate, but its incredibly moving at times as well. It's definitely one to remember in her long line of acting achievements.

Too bad the movie the performance inhabits is almost a total mess. As a bio-picture of Thatcher, you probably couldn't even get any sloppier or historically disjointed, and you would probably end up learning more about her by reading the Wikipedia page about her. The screenplay by Abi Morgan is completely disorganized, jumping from one crucial moment to the next, with nothing in between. Also annoying is the film's narrative. A majority of the film is set two decades after her time in power, with Thatcher as a doddering old recluse, senile and suffering from constant hallucinations of her long-departed husband, Denis (Jim Broadbent). The movie will then flash back to an important moment in Thatcher's life or political career, which naturally grabs our attention, only to have the movie pretty much skim over all the major details, and just give us a bare bones recreation of her career. We don't learn about the people in Thatcher's life or career, nor do we discover anything about why she made the decisions she did. The movie's too preoccupied with having Thatcher hanging out with the ghost of her dead husband.

Such important events that The Iron Lady decides to completely gloss over include the Falklands War (which is pretty much covered in a montage), and a bombing attempt on her life while she was staying in a hotel with her husband. These things simply happen, and then the movie moves on, expecting us to fill in the blanks. We don't even really get to know the people who influenced her, or were part of her life. This is surprising, since the movie spends so much time with the elderly Thatcher having visits from her dead husband, while the flashbacks never really tell us anything about them in the first place. We never learn why their love was so strong for each other, or even why they really seemed to fall in love with each other in the first place. This is an obnoxious screenplay, where obviously no real research has been done. It simply gives us the "Greatest Hits" of the woman's life, and thinks we know what it's talking about, so it doesn't have to explain any further.

The flashback narrative that the filmmakers have used also gives the movie an annoying "stop and go" quality. Just when we're getting involved in the story, such as when it depicts a young Thatcher (played by Alexandra Roach) forcing her way into a male-dominated political system, it goes right back to the modern day scenes with Thatcher as an elderly recluse, and the entire momentum of the film simply just stops dead. The movie is constantly teasing us with intriguing details of her life, only to just give us either the bare essentials, or nothing at all. At one point, the movie talks about political relationship with U.S. President Ronald Reagan, but all we get to see of this is a brief glimpse of the two dancing together at some kind of political ball. The movie's disjointed narrative ensures that nobody gets developed, sometimes not even Thatcher herself. We are watching some great performances up on the screen (everyone here is great, but lack the transformative quality of Streep's performance), but the acting has no role to inhabit.

I'm hard pressed to remember the last time a film about an important historical figure simply glossed over every single detail the way The Iron Lady does. It criminally wastes the wonderful talent the screenplay somehow managed to attract, and by doing so, it only ends up wasting the time of its audience. This is a D-Level screenplay that lucked out and managed to rope in an A-Level cast and production. I guess that averages out to being a C-Level movie.

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The Grey

2012-01-27T18:30:00.000-08:00

I would classify The Grey as a very near miss. That said, I would agree there is a lot to recommend about it. The movie is a well made "man vs. nature" story, with a strong lead performance by Liam Neeson, and some stand-out individual moments throughout. I think that there was my problem. The movie worked only in parts for me. The rest, I got a little restless. You may feel differently about it. The movie's already racking up some very good word of mouth. I can agree up to a point, but not enough to fully get behind it.

Based on the short story "Ghost Walker" by Ian Mackenzie Jeffries (who co-wrote the script along with director Joe Carnahan), the movie takes us to a frigid Alaskan wasteland, where some of the worst people society has to offer ("men not fit to live among men", they're described in a melodramatic voice over by the main character) have found work as oil pipeline workers at the very end of the world. Our focus is John Ottway who, as played by Neeson, is a rugged man with a painful past concerning a woman (more on that later), and a skill for sharpshooting. His job on the oil field is to kill any wolves that may try to attack any of the workers out on the vast frozen land. We don't know much about John, other than he is haunted by the memories of a woman he once loved. The movie is sort of intentionally vague, but I got the impression that the woman had died somehow. Whatever happened in John's past, it's painful enough that in one of his early scenes, he's sticking the barrel of his shotgun in his mouth, and contemplating pulling the trigger. Only the sound of wolves howling in the distance bring him back to reality, and help him realize he still has more to do in this life.

The wolves are somewhat invisible predators, always lurking just out of sight, sometimes seen only as glowing yellow eyes in the night. When they are off in the distance and stalking the human characters, they are effectively chilling. It's when they come up close that the movie falters a little. Whenever the wolves attack, they turn into CG or animatronic creations, losing much of their mystery. It doesn't help that whenever this movie depicts a wolf attack, it does so in such a way as to suggest a slasher movie, with the wolf or wolves suddenly leaping out of nowhere, and then a bunch of tight cuts while the camera violently shakes and sputters to represent a struggle. At times, it almost looks like a wolf skin rug is being shaken about in front of the camera, while an actor rolls around and screams incoherently. It's disappointing to say the least, especially since the movie does such a good job of creating mounting tension with the wolves, only to give us the same old thing when they get up close to their victims.

Despite his skill and expertise in dealing with these predators, John finds himself helpless, along with a small handful of survivors, when a plane carrying them home crashes in the middle of the frozen wasteland. With very little chance of them being discovered, John immediately sets about taking charge of the frightened and wounded men, barking out orders to create shelter, and trying to keep them alive from the elements, and the wolves that seem to constantly be watching the party from the distance. The Grey is not really big on characterization. Aside from a scene late in the film where John is looking at the wallets of some of the other survivors, learning about their lives back home through their photos, we don't learn much about the group of men who survive the plane crash, only to find themselves facing an even bigger test of survival.

Some of the survival stuff is interesting, and there are some pretty tense moments, such as when the men have to cross over a wide chasm to the other side. My problem is that a predictable pattern eventually settles in. The men fight and argue amongst themselves, the wolves attack, the men band together, one of the men inevitably gets picked off, and the survivors carry on. The movie repeats this simple formula with little alteration. Eventually, we begin to anticipate the wolf attacks, even the "surprise" ones that seem like they were lifted out of a bad horror movie. I found that I was constantly at war with myself while I was watching the movie. The stuff that was good about the movie was so good, I wanted to forgive the flaws. But, I just couldn't get over the predictable pattern, nor the fact that many of the characters seemed to exist simply so they could be killed off in the first place.

And yet, I found a lot to like here, as well. I enjoyed Neeson's performance as John, and I liked the way the character finds himself facing mounting odds and guilt over not being able to protect certain people, yet still finds different ways to carry on. The movie also has a very harsh and grim quality that I think worked very well for this particular story. John and the other survivors of the crash know that they are facing a doomed situation, and so they sometimes turn to dark humor or acts of violence in order to keep themselves strong. (One of the men cuts the head off of a dead wolf, and throws it off into the surrounding woods, hoping the other wolves will find it.) The movie is filled with a lot of good individual moments that are surrounded by stretches that are either repetitive, or don't work as well as they should, such as the wolf attacks.

The Grey manages to end on a somewhat ambiguous note, that I found intriguing, though many I fear will think is abrupt or anticlimactic. For those people, I suggest a bit of patience. Just sit through the end credits, and you'll get the answers you seek. Personally, I would have been fine with the more open ending, but it's nice that the after credit scene is there for those who need it. This is a very well done movie that I really tried my hardest to embrace completely. There were just too many nagging doubts in my mind, most of them swirling around the screenplay.

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Red Tails

2012-01-25T17:47:00.000-08:00

Whenever Red Tails takes to the skies with its air combat sequences, the movie is quite literally breathtaking. The special effects and the camera work not only recreate what it must have felt like to experience aerial dogfights during World War II, but do a remarkable job of putting you in the middle of the action. It's whenever the movie is on the ground that things get a little more questionable. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot to admire here, and I'm certain it will be a big crowd-pleaser. But in telling the true story of the Tuskegee Airmen, an all African American squadron of fighter pilots, Executive Producer George Lucas (who's been trying to get this movie off the ground for over 20 years) emphasizes spectacle over heart, dialogue, and brains.

Maybe that's no surprise, knowing Lucas' past works, but I was hoping that his interpretation of a more factual story would be a bit more grounded in reality than his usual Sci-Fi fantasies. No such luck. Ham-fisted dialogue, stock characters, and underdeveloped melodrama is the name of the game here. I will admit, I was sort of entertained by a lot of the film's corniness. The movie has the feel of a B-1940s war movie spruced up with modern day effects. This is not the first time the story of the Tuskegee Airmen has been set to film, as there was a very fine HBO movie made about their exploits back in 1995. That was a more factual account of the story. This is a much simpler affair, emphasizing the big effects and the easy to read character types that come right out of a screenwriting handbook. If you accept that this is the style over substance version of the story, you'll probably enjoy Red Tails. I did a lot of the time, but found myself irritated by this film's thin attempts at character building.

The four main characters that the screenplay focuses on are the sort you'd expect to see in a movie like this. There's Marty "Easy" Julian (Nate Parker), who is the team leader struggling with alcohol, and a low self image in himself that sometimes leads him to question his own decisions in battle. His best friend is Joe "Lightning" Little (David Oyelowo), the resident "maverick" of the squadron who likes to take big risks in battle and doesn't follow orders. Next up is Ray "Junior" Gannon (Tristan Wilds), the youngest member of the Airmen who wants to prove himself, and not be seen as a "kid". Finally, there's Samuel "Joker" George (Elijah Kelley), who as his nickname hints, provides much of the comic relief. To the credit of the actors playing these characters, they are all fine in their roles, especially Parker and Oyelowo, whose friendship creates probably the closest thing to real emotion that this movie gets. The problem lies in the screenplay by John Ridley and Aaron McGruder, which gives the characters half-baked personalities and motivations.

A romantic subplot that sparks between "Lightning" and a woman he meets in Italy is a fine example of just how thin the dramatic material is. The movie keeps on constantly cutting back to this plot, which is supposed to show the relationship building between the two. But the thing is, the movie forgets to give the two lovers anything in common. They barely speak each other's language to begin with, so it's kind of hard to swallow when he gets down on one knee and asks to marry her after only being with her two times, and even harder to swallow when she agrees. We're supposed to get behind these characters and feel for them, but the movie completely forgets to give them any real chemistry or personality when they're together. Whenever the movie cuts back to the love story, you can almost feel the film's energy deflating right up there on the screen.

Fortunately, Red Tails devotes most of its two hour running time to its strongest aspect, the World War II air battles. Initially, the Airmen are restricted to clean up missions, taking care of munition trucks and trains that were left behind after an earlier air battle by other squadrons. The racist head generals in Washington are reluctant to give them a chance to see real combat, but after a high ranking official pulls a few strings, they are assigned their first real air battle, and get to show their skill. This leads to more missions, including a bomb strike in Berlin. These air strikes and battle sequences obviously were given the most attention by director Anthony Hemingway (a TV director making his feature length debut). They feature an intensity and attention to detail that the rest of the film lacks.

I would define Red Tails as an admirable, but flawed film. It's obviously been made with care, but the storytelling, characterizations, and dialogue prevent me from fully getting behind it. That said, for all of its obvious faults, the movie does work at times. The cast of relative unknowns that make up the main characters show a lot of talent, and definitely know how to rise above some of the leaden dialogue they've been forced to recite. In fact, they end up being a lot more memorable than the two more well known actors who get their names above the title - Cuba Gooding, Jr (who also acted in the 1995 film about the Tuskegee Airmen) and Terrance Howard. Gooding is given little to do but bark orders and chomp on a pipe as one of the head officers, while Howard just never really stands out as the commanding officer who helps the Airmen get real missions. Neither get to make an impact like the younger actors do.

While I can't give the movie a full recommendation in all honesty, I do have to say that this is a well made and well acted film. A better script would have really pushed this thing over the top. As it is, it's a sometimes-enjoyable piece of patriotic cheese filled with some impressive aerial fight sequences. This is a movie that improves when it has its head in the clouds, rather than its feet on the ground.

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Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

2012-01-25T13:21:00.001-08:00

On paper, Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close sounds like a heart-stirring drama. But, the movie left me completely cold. Did something get lost in the transition from the original 2005 novel by Safran Foer, and the screenplay by Eric Roth (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)? The movie is far too cute and whimsical, when it should be emotional and powerful. It's about a young boy's quest for closure concerning the senseless death of his father on September 11th, and how his quest winds up touching the lives of many different other people, who were also effected on that tragic day. But this element doesn't come across as strongly as it should.

Instead, we get a movie that is far too nice and pat, and doesn't dig strongly enough into its own material. If features two big names above the title (Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, specifically), but they are given so little to do in the movie, this must have been like a paid holiday for them. The movie's not really about them, anyway. It's about young Oskar (Thomas Horn, a child Jeopardy champion making his acting debut), a 10-year-old boy who has Asperger's syndrome. I've been seeing a lot of characters in movies with Asperger's syndrome lately, leading me to believe that it is Hollywood's current "disease du jour". Oskar is a smart, but heavily withdrawn boy. He's inquisitive, has a real eye for detail, likes to figure out complex patterns and riddles, and is obviously bright, but has a hard time relating to other people. We witness in flashbacks how his father, Thomas (Tom Hanks), used to encourage his son's inquisitive nature by sending him on scavenger hunts across New York City. This was done not only to to fuel young Oskar's thirst for knowledge, but to also allow him to explore the outside world, and meet people.

Thomas dies on September 11th, which Oskar refers to constantly as "the dark day". Since then, he has become emotionally distant to his grieving mother (Sandra Bullock), and spends most of his time locked away in a secret shrine he has built devoted to his father, the centerpiece of which is an answering machine containing six different messages Thomas left before he died. One day, Oskar works up the courage to go into his dad's closet to look through the belongings he left behind. Amongst those belongings is a small key in an envelope labeled simply "Black". Thinking that the label must refer to someone's name, and that this person must have known his father and knows what the key is for, Oskar begins an exhaustive search across New York City, tracking down every person he can find in the phone book with the last name of Black. This leads to a number of encounters, where young Oskar meets various people who are either grieving in some way (either through September 11th, or other means), or spark a special relationship with the boy.

These sequences where Oskar tracks these people down seem forced, and don't have the slightest bit of realism to them. First of all, there's the obvious issue of building your entire story around the idea of a small boy going out on his own into the city, and encountering numerous strangers, seemingly without his mother knowing. Yes, the movie does address this issue at the end, by throwing in a last minute revelation about how the boy was really in no danger whatsoever the entire time he was going off on his own, meeting these people. But it feels so completely shoehorned in, it didn't calm my nerves about just how wrong the concept sounds. It simply seemed like a manipulative way to explain a logical hole in the story. And then there's the fact that the people little Oskar encounters don't seem like real people, nor do their conversations sound honest. Take the very first person the boy meets on his quest, a woman (Viola Davis) whose husband is in the process of leaving her when Oskar shows up to ask her about his father and the key he found. Their conversation about elephant tears sounds scripted, and doesn't have the slightest bit of plausibility behind it.

The one person Oskar does encounter during his journey that does work in the movie's favor is a mysterious old man who is renting a room in the apartment where Oskar's grandmother lives. He's referred to simply as "the Renter", and is a broken down man who hasn't spoken ever since a tragic event in his past, and communicates simply through hand signals (he has the words "yes" and "no" written on the palms of his hands), or writing down messages on a set of index cards that he always carries with him. The Renter, as portrayed by Max Von Sydow (giving the film's best performance) is portrayed as an unlikely friend and guardian to Oskar, teaching him how to conquer his fears concerning other people, and public transportation. I liked the relationship that he builds with the boy, and how the child slowly warms to him, to the point that he almost becomes a father figure.

But as soon as the Renter character and Sydow's performance leaves the movie, we're back to where we started, with an emotionally distant story anchored and narrated by a young boy who just sort of rubbed me the wrong way. I understand that the character of Oskar is supposed to be isolated and socially awkward, but the way the character is written and portrayed (I have nothing against young Thomas Horn's performance) just alienated me. I never warmed up to him, not even when he is supposed to be finally bonding with his mother. It doesn't help that Bullock hardly shows up in the movie, and that her fading relationship with her son is barely addressed. Yes, the movie once again addresses this issue at the end, but much like its explanation on how Oskar was in no real danger going off on his own and meeting strangers, it doesn't ring true. The movie is supposed to be about emotional healing, and how this boy's journey touches the lives of the people around him. But since the people keep on disappearing before we get a chance to really know them in the first place, the whole movie ends up feeling pointless. Well meaning, but ultimately pointless.

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close really deserved a more honest treatment. I can easily picture this movie working, but it would require a different screenplay. Director Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot) gives us some nice images, and the cast is game. They're just held back by a script that is calculated, when it should be truthful. When the movie is centered around September 11th, and you end up not believing a single moment of what you're watching, you know the film has failed in some way.

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Underworld: Awakening

2012-01-24T18:26:00.000-08:00

Before Underworld: Awakening started, there was a preview for the next entry in the Resident Evil films. This got me thinking how similar both franchises are. Both are distributed by the same studio (Screen Gems), both are rapid-fire action films with horror undertones, both feature stone-faced, ass-kicking heroines designed to bring in the male teen demographic, and both are inexplicably popular, despite the fact that each movie in both franchises have been consistently terrible. Underworld: Awakening does not buck the trend in quality, which pretty much nixes any hope that the next Resident Evil installment (due this fall) will aim higher.

Kate Beckinsale returns as the vampire warrior, Selene, after sitting out on the third movie, which forced the filmmakers to make that one a prequel. This movie picks up where 2006's Underworld: Evolution left off, with Selene and her half-Lycan (this movie's term for werewolf) half-vampire hybrid boyfriend, Michael (Scott Speedman) attempting to escape just as humanity has found out about the existence of the vampires and Lycans (who have been at war with each other for centuries). The humans stage a mass "purging", killing any creature of the night they spot. The first five minutes or so of the movie is devoted solely to Selene slaughtering random cops and other humans as she attempts to join Michael, who is waiting for her to join him so they can escape. Alas, the lovers do not reunite in time. They're caught, gunned down, and Selene is frozen in ice and sent to a science lab, while Michael is apparently killed by the humans.

Flash forward 12 years later, and Selene is freed from her cryogenically frozen prison by an unseen person. She's been the prisoner of mad scientist, Dr. Lane (Stephen Rea) for the past few years, but as soon as she's thawed out, she slips on her skin-tight black outfit, and picks up where she left off, slaughtering countless humans who seem to think running at her mindlessly will somehow stop her, or prevent her from ripping their heads off. She eventually meets up with some fellow vampires, who have been hiding underground ever since the humans declared war on their kind. The Lycans are still around too, and they're apparently not afraid to run about out in the open, and hunt down the hiding vampires. The fact that we see so much of the Lycans is unfortunate, due to the low budget and unconvincing CG used to create them. The movie tries to hide this fact by having the monsters stand in dark corners or shadows as much as possible, but it doesn't do a good enough job of hiding the fact that you've probably seen more convincing monsters while playing your Xbox 360.

There's a little girl thrown into the plot as well. She's Eve (India Eisley), and much like Selene's lost love, Michael, she seems to be a hybrid of both monster races. For the sake of what little plot this movie has, I won't reveal her connection or her significance, but you'll probably figure out just who she's supposed to be and the part she plays much quicker than it takes Selene to put it together. The remainder of the movie is devoted to non-stop action sequences, which are of the particularly mindless and gory variety, and a silly conspiracy plot involving the Lycans trying to use technology to make themselves stronger. All we get for our troubles of trying to follow this goofy thing is an ending that acts as a set up for the next movie, which I'm certain has already been grenlighted, due to the fact that this movie had a strong opening weekend. Oh goody.

Underworld: Awakening is a nondescript little movie. It throws a lot of action, CG blood, and monsters around, but can't think of anything to do to really entertain us. In the lead role, Beckinsale does her best to give an icy stare to everyone she meets, hoping we'll be intimidated or impressed with her, but her fight scenes are so choreographed and aided by special effects and wires, we start focusing on the trickery, and not the fights themselves. The fact that I saw Haywire right before this movie probably didn't help matters. That movie's star, Gina Carano, convinced me that she was a true force to be reckoned with in her fight scenes. All Beckinsale convinced me is that she had some talented special effects artists helping her out.

Like the previous Underworld movies, this one's shot entirely in grays, blues, and blacks, giving the movie an unattractive muddy look. The fact that the filmmakers decided this would look good while wearing 3D glasses baffles me. I, fortunately, saw this movie in 2D, and saw no evidence that an added dimension (or being forced to watch the already dark images with dark glasses) would have added anything to the experience. If you must see this movie, skip the added charge, and catch it in 2D. Not that I recommend you see it in the first place.

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Haywire

2012-01-23T17:48:00.000-08:00

It's no secret that Haywire exists simply to promote former MMA fighter, Gina Carano, as the next big action star. In fact, judged solely on this level, the movie's a resounding success. Carano is a beautiful, yet imposing figure. And naturally, given her background as a professional fighter, she gets to show off her physical prowess more than once. You can tell that this movie has confidence in her just in the way her fight scenes are shot. Rather than being filmed up close with tight edits like a lot of recent action movies, Haywire's fight scenes are shot at a comfortable distance, so that we can see everything, and admire Carano's fighting technique. If this was a straight-up, dumb fun movie, I could give it a full recommendation. But I have a sneaking suspicion that director Steven Soderbergh was hoping his movie would be seen as a little bit more artful than your standard action film, and at that, the movie stands on less solid ground.

The talent both on and behind the camera help raise our expectations from the get-go. Soderbergh is directing, and the screenplay is provided by Lem Dobbs, whose past credits include Dark City and The Limey. And then there's the supporting cast that surrounds Carano in her acting debut - Names like Michael Douglas, Ewen McGregor, Bill Paxton, and Antonio Banderas. And yet, despite their presence, they're not really given real characters to play. They're obviously here because of Soderbergh's influence. Okay, you say, well that's fair, considering this is supposed to be Carano's movie, right? Well, even here, I have my doubts. Whenever she's performing her stunts, she's splendid, and you can understand why someone could easily see her as a bankable action star. But the movie barely gives her a character to play. She comes across a mostly-emotionless female Terminator that I never really had a grasp on how I was supposed to feel about her. She has no real emotions, and aside from a loving past with her father that the movie hints at now and then, no real background story. Her character exists simply to be dragged from one end of the plot to another, kicking and punching anyone who crosses her path.

Speaking of the plot, it too is somewhat disappointing in its over familiarity. Carano plays Mallory Kane, a covert operative on the run ever since she was double crossed while on a mission from the U.S. government. Who betrayed her and framed her? We learn in an extended flashback that it could be anyone from partners on different missions, like Aaron (Channing Tatum) or Paul (Michael Fassbender), to her long-time boss Kenneth (Ewen McGregor), to a shady government official (Michael Douglas), or a Spanish operative (Antonio Banderas). Mallory's search for the truth is told in a minimalist style, emphasizing visuals over dialogue. I was reminded of last year's Drive, which used a similar style, but was much more successful at it. I think a big reason it worked in that movie is that I was drawn in by Ryan Gosling's mysterious character, and certainly his performance. There's no real mystery behind the character of Mallory Kane. She comes across as someone who prefers to punch someone's teeth out, then doesn't bother to ask questions. And while this creates some impressive action sequences, it never really makes her into an interesting character, or even someone we can get behind.

Haywire seems to be cut to the very core essentials. And while this means there is no filler or scenes that seem unnecessary (the movie flies by at a very brisk 90 minutes), it also means that everyone who pretty much walks onto the screen suffers, because we don't know anything about them. We get the motivations, but we don't get the why behind them. I think the movie's tone and pace kind of threw me off. With its minimalist tone, and slightly slower pace from what we've come to expect in action movies, I thought maybe the screenplay would take the opportunity to strengthen the characters, or our connection with them. But everyone is given such shaky motivations, the filmmakers would have been better off making this a big, dumb loud movie, rather than a thin movie passing itself off as an artful one.
I can certainly see Gina Carano going on to do other things in Hollywood, hopefully a movie that allows her to play a character as well as successfully show off her fighting ability. As a launching pad for that career, Haywire shows us a lot of potential. But then it kind of stops there, and expects us to be satisfied. I don't know, maybe Carano's fans from her Mixed Martial Arts days will be. I just know I wanted more.

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The Descendants

2012-01-21T17:49:00.001-08:00

It may have been eight years since Alexander Payne has made a film (his last was 2004's Sideways), but he hasn't lost his touch of quiet observation, his gift of dark humor, nor his ability to perfectly capture a man silently breaking down in the midst of a personal crisis. He displays all of this in The Descendants, which could easily qualify as his strongest film to date. It's certainly his most real, his wittiest, and probably his most heartbreaking. Much has been made of the lead performance by George Clooney, and while he certainly deserves all the praise and awards he has received so far, he is met every step of the way by a cast that is his equal. This is the rare film where there's hardly a weak link in the entire composition.

On the tropical island of Oahu, Matt King (Clooney) seems to have it all. Yes, he lives in a place that many people would consider to be a "paradise", but as he informs us, the people who live here have the same problems as everybody else on the mainland. And yet, it's obvious that there is a different attitude toward life on the island. Even the powerful businessmen come to work dressed in Hawaiian shirts and sandals. (As Matt observes in narration, "some of the most powerful people look like bums and stuntmen".) As for Matt himself, he owns 25,000 acres of untouched wilderness on the island of Kauai that has always been in his family legacy. Matt will soon be forced to sell this land to someone who wants to build a resort and residential area. Everybody on the island seems to be aware of this, and is awaiting Matt's decision.

While Matt is dealing with the legal and business issues that comes about from selling the land, he is struck with a personal problem at home - His free spirited wife, Elizabeth (Patricia Hastie), falls into a coma after she is involved in an accident on a speedboat. He is forced to put his business life aside, and focus his attention on his two daughters, 10-year-old Scottie (Amara Miller), and 17-year-old Alex (Shailene Woodley). This is new territory for Matt, as he's pretty much devoted his life to business and making money. His wife always took care of the kids and their home. At first, he sits by his wife's bedside, hoping that she will wake up soon and life can return to normal. But then, the doctor brings up the fact that Elizabeth is likely not to improve, and according to her living will, they cannot keep her on life support. Now, Matt finds himself not only in the position of being a real father for the first time, but also in the difficult position of preparing his daughters, friends, and family (as well as himself) to say goodbye to his wife.

With a set up like that, The Descendants could have easily gone into tear-jerking melodrama territory, and probably still would have been successful. And yet, the film is even more successful due to the fact that Payne (who co-wrote the script, along with Nat Faxon and Jim Rash) keeps everything at a quiet, human level. There are surprisingly no big blow ups, not even when Matt learns from his eldest daughter that his wife was having an affair with another man, and was even thinking of leaving him prior to her accident. Instead of the blow up we expect, Matt seems hurt and confused. Yes, he realizes that he never had a lot of time to spend with his family, but were things really so bad that Elizabeth was planning to give it all up? The movie explores the fine line between grief and anger, and how people deal with it differently. Matt finds himself torn when he looks at his wife lying comatose and dying, now that he has the knowledge of how she really felt about him. Meanwhile, other people in the family, like Elizabeth's father (Robert Forster), blame Matt for everything, and believe if he had been there for her and his family, none of this would have happened.

The movie itself walks a lot of fine lines, as well. It can be powerful and sad (the scene where Elizabeth's father has his last visit with his dying daughter is positively heartbreaking, all without any dialogue whatsoever), and yet it also lets in some humor, whether it be from some sly observations about human nature, or some dark humor that inexplicably rises from some of the somber situations. This is not a depressing movie, despite its heavy story tones. It can be sad, but it's also uplifting, quite beautiful, and sometimes very surprising in how it expertly weaves humor into its situations. This is as tight a screenplay as I have encountered in quite a while. Not a single character or scene comes across as unnecessary. Even characters who initially seem to be placed strictly for comic relief (like the idiot boyfriend who hangs around Matt's teenage daughter) eventually reveal more layers and purpose than we initially expect.

And then there are the performances that accompany these memorable characters. Clooney is rock-solid as always, encompassing the complex emotions of his character with ease. But the real surprises here are the two youngest actors in the cast, playing his daughters. Newcomer Amara Miller (playing his youngest daughter) not only gets some of the film's biggest laughs, she does so in a way so that she seems natural, and not a "child actor" playing to the camera. She's also a wonderful little dramatic actress, as the scene where she learns that her mother is going to die is one of the more honest moments of grief I've seen from a child on the screen. As Clooney's troubled teenage daughter, Shailene Woodley has more acting experience (she's mainly worked on TV), and makes a very smooth transition to the big screen. She's very honest, and her scenes alone with Clooney show that she could grow into some very capable adult roles. Special notice must also go to Matthew Lillard and Judy Greer, who play a married couple that get wrapped into the central plot in a way I'll leave up to you to see how it happens, and the role they play.
The Descendants is a remarkable movie, and a top achievement by the very talented Alexander Payne. His years away from the camera have fortunately not reduced his talent in the slightest. If anything, this movie shows he has grown even more as both a director and a storyteller. He has made something poignant, powerful, and unforgettable. He's also made one of 2011's very best films.

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Joyful Noise

2012-01-14T18:26:00.000-08:00

Oh, what a labored movie this is. What forced sentiment. What cornball humor. What contrived situations. Joyful Noise is a supposedly uplifting movie about a church choir made up of people who could never exist, and act like no church choir that has ever existed. It's surprising in its awfulness. Writer-director Todd Graff fills his movie top-to-bottom with calculated audience-pleasing elements, but because the characters are so unbelievable and act like nobody we know or would want to know, the whole thing falls apart into a cluttered mess.

The setting is a small town in Georgia that's been hit by hard times. We know this, because seemingly every building has a "going out of business" or a "foreclosed" sign in their window. The only place in town that seems to be thriving is the local church, and that's largely due to the donations and influence of the wealthiest woman in town, G.G. Sparrow (Dolly Parton), who just happens to be married to the church choir director (Kris Kristofferson). When her husband dies of a heart attack while leading the choir at a national competition, G.G. expects that Pastor Dale (Courtney B. Vance) will name her as the new choir director. Instead, he chooses Vi Rose Hill (Queen Latifah), a feisty mother taking care of two teenaged kids while her husband is away on military duty.

This sparks a rivalry between the two women, since they both are members of the same choir, and have different views on how it should be run. The choir itself is an odd one, indeed. It's made up of thin, stock characters (an Asian man, a woman unlucky in love, a woman who laughs at just about anything, even if it's not that funny), and the only time they seem to sing inside of a church is during rehearsals. The rest of the time, they're traveling around, competing in national choir competitions. When they get to play their big number, they don't even seem like a choir. They seem like an overly choreographed rock musical act, full of sexy costumes, flashing lights, and special effects. They're probably the least spiritual choir ever captured on film, which makes me wonder what kind of audience the movie is going after.

Back to the plot - G.G. has a grandson named Randy (Jeremy Jordon, who's been a big hit on Broadway recently), who comes to live with her for reasons that are murky at best. He has a reputation for being a troublemaker, but we don't really learn that much about him, other than he comes from New York City, and you know how those small town folks don't like any city slickers muscling in on their territory. Randy becomes smitten with Vi's daughter, Olivia (Keke Palmer), who is the lead singer in the choir. He joins the choir too, they fall in love, and they start spending a lot of time together, despite the fact they have little in common, and Jordon and Palmer have little on screen chemistry. Vi naturally finds out, and becomes mad that her daughter is dating the grandson of her rival. This leads to a jaw-droppingly awful scene where a fight breaks out between Vi and G.G. at a restaurant, and they start throwing food at each other, and wrestling in front of the other patrons.

I'm going to stop now, and try to think of one single instant in Joyful Noise that remotely rings true, or doesn't fall completely dead on arrival. I'm thinking...I'm thinking...And I get nothing. Nobody in this movie talks like a real person. ("You look happier than a dog wagging two tails!") Nobody gets to have a real, genuine thought or feeling. And then there are the film's subplots, of which there are many, though none of which are developed in any satisfying way. There's the town bully who is initially jealous of the fact that Randy is dating Olivia, but apparently gets over it off camera, and joins the choir band by the end. There's Vi's teenage son (Dexter Darden), who suffers from Asperger's Syndrome, and wishes God had made him normal. There's the woman who sings on the choir who is afraid to fall in love with anybody, after a man she sleeps with dies overnight. Naturally, all of these plots are given quick conclusions in the film's happy ending, but they hold absolutely no dramatic weight.

I'm sure there will be those who defend this movie by saying it's a silly little piece of fluff, and I shouldn't be so harsh on it. I will remind those people that even fluff needs some kind of solid structure to build itself on, or at least some likable characters, and this movie has none. What writer-director Todd Graff has given us is a shockingly inept little movie that treats its characters poorly, and its audience even worse. There's not a lot of joy to be found here, but there sure is a lot of noise, most of it the incoherent and obnoxious kind.

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Contraband

2012-01-13T18:21:00.000-08:00

A Hollywood remake of the Icelandic thriller, Reykjavik-Rotterdam, Contraband is a strictly by the book and workmanlike action movie that is energetic and well made, but just doesn't stand out in any way. The story moves along well enough, and it's certainly never boring, but I kept on having this nagging thought in the back of my mind telling me I had seen this all before. Of course, I had. The movie plays it completely safe, and is a perfectly adequate January release, which means I'll probably have forgotten about it completely by the time Spring comes around.

Mark Wahlberg brings the minimum amount of personality and charisma needed to portray Chris Farraday, a low-key family man with a wife (Kate Beckinsale), two kids, his own business, and a secret past as a criminal smuggler who was famous for being able to pull off just about any job. When he got married, he decided to get out of the business and go straight, but as Hollywood has told us time and time again, the past has a way of catching up with you. In Chris' case, his young brother-in-law, Andy (Caleb Landry Jones), is responsible for forcing him back into a life of crime. As the film opens, Andy is forced to dump a load of drugs that he was transporting for a local dealer named Tim Briggs (an over the top Giovanni Ribisi). When Tim finds out about this, he stages an accident that lands Andy in the hospital. It doesn't take long before Tim starts making threats to Chris, demanding that he gets his money from the failed shipment, or else he'll start going after Chris and his family. With no choice but to get back into the smuggling business he thought he'd left behind, Chris teams up with his best friend Sebastian (Ben Foster), and gets the old crew back together in order to pull off one last job.

Contraband is made up of a non-stop series of close calls where Chris just nearly gets caught, shootouts, double crosses, betrayals, and male bonding over counterfeit money. To its credit, the movie seldom slows down, and we are at least interested in what's going on. But, we'd be even more interested if we cared more about the characters, which we don't. We never learn enough about Chris (either as a master smuggler, or a reformed family man) to make him a hero we can truly get behind. Wahlberg is fine enough in the role, but we get the sense he knows his character is more or less a cipher, and he's not really giving it his all. At least he fares better than Kate Beckinsale, whose role basically consists of her sitting and staring at her kids fretfully over and over. And just when the film's third act makes it seem like she's going to get involved in the action, the screenplay goes and basically makes her a plot device.

This is one of those movies that's made well enough, but not enough to be memorable. Nobody goes the extra mile, and nothing really grabs us like it should - Not the plot, not the violence, and certainly not the numerous narrow close calls where Chris is almost caught, which are obviously supposed to be suspenseful, but oddly never build like they should. I think this movie would have benefited greatly from more familiarity amongst its characters. When Chris reunites with his old crew members, we never quite get the sense of closeness or comradeship that we expect. The movie oddly keeps Chris apart from his team as much as possible, so we never get a sense of what they mean to each other, or their pasts. And when the plot reveals a double cross, we react with indifference, as the character in question never really had a chance to grow on us. We understand why Chris feels the way he does about the betrayal, but we're not that surprised or involved.

If Contraband works in any way, it's only because the movie has been made with a certain degree of skill. Not enough to make it worth watching, but certainly enough to make it not seem like a waste of time. The film's director is Baltasar Kormakur, who was the lead actor of the original film. He gives us what we expect in a light crime thriller like this - The action flows smoothly, the story never drags or gets bogged down in pointless exposition, and we never become lost amongst the increasingly complex and convoluted plot. He has these basics down pat. Now he just needs to find a way to make us care about the characters inhabiting his plot. This is where he's on less stable ground. I would love to see what he could do with a stronger script. He shows signs that he knows what he's doing here. He's just got to find that project that lets him knock it out of the park.

I think the studio is smart to release this film so early in the year, when the pickings at the multiplex are fairly slim, or holdovers from the holiday season. Wahlberg's star power is sure to bring in audiences, and while it won't wow them, it's certainly not a bad time. It's a fine little time waster, really. I just hope the filmmakers have slightly loftier goals for their next film.

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The Devil Inside

2012-01-06T18:17:00.000-08:00

It's nice to know that the movies are still trying to teach us valuable lessons. Case in point, The Devil Inside - It teaches us the very important lesson that if someone you know is possessed by the Devil, it is not a smart idea to tear them away from the hospital they're currently confined in, throw them in the backseat of your car completely unguarded and unprotected, and then drive recklessly down a busy street with your back turned to said possessed person. What's that? You say that sounds incredibly stupid and completely implausible? That's okay. The rest of the movie is kind of the same way.

The Devil Inside is another one of those micro-budget horror films that are done in the style of a documentary, much like The Blair Witch Project or the Paranormal Activity films. It's easy to see the appeal of these movies to a studio head - They cost next to nothing to make, so even if they flop, there's really no damage done. Just drum up an aggressive Internet and television ad campaign, and you're guaranteed at least one good weekend. Sometimes these kind of movies can be clever and fun. More often, they're banal and uninspired, as is the case here. There's not a single original moment or decent scare in the film's brief 85 minutes. Really, the only good things that can be said about it is that it's not aggressively awful, and it's over before you know it.

As the film opens, we see random news and police footage talking about a woman named Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley), who murdered three people from her church group in the basement of her home back in 1989. 20 years later, Maria's now-adult daughter, Isabella (Fernanda Andrade), learns from her father the truth of what happened that night - That the people who died were trying to perform an exorcism on her mother. This inspires Isabella to take a trip to Italy, to learn about exorcisms and to visit her mother, who is residing at a mental hospital there. She brings along a documentary filmmaker named Michael (Ionut Grama) to chronicle her trip and her discoveries. While visiting the Vatican, Isabella gets to sit in on an exorcism class, which apparently allows people to just walk in from off the street whenever they want. Oh, and if you listen to the professor's lecture very closely, you might hear him foreshadow some upcoming plot points!

While attending the lecture, Isabella befriends two priests named Ben (Simon Quarterman) and David (Evan Helmuth). They have a hobby, which is to perform illegal and unsanctioned exorcisms on people that the church has given up on. It's a good thing too, as when Isabella visits her mom at the hospital, it seems she's still possessed by whatever caused her to kill those people 20 years ago. She enlists the aid of Ben and David to help her mother. What happens next will be familiar territory to anyone who has seen The Exorcist, or the dozens of cheap knock offs it's inspired. We get people speaking in tongues, booming demonic voices on the soundtrack, and possessed bodies twisting and writhing themselves into unnatural positions. What we don't get is an explanation as to why we're supposed to care about anything that we're watching.

Maybe I missed it, but I don't remember hearing why Isabella brought a cameraman along with her in the first place. And what is her relationship to Michael the cameraman? Did they know each other beforehand, or did she hire him? Even the most minimalist of character motivations are skipped over in The Devil Inside. Instead, we get a whole lot of set up, which ultimately leads to a lot of missed opportunities. The mother and daughter relationship could have built up some genuine drama, but Isabella frequently seems unconcerned about her mother's condition, and it ends up playing a minor role in the overall story. The movie tries to fool us into thinking there's character development by having the main characters talk directly to the camera in recorded "confessional" segments. These scenes don't flesh out the characters in the slightest, however, making me wonder why the filmmakers left them in.

The Devil Inside is pretty much what you would expect for the first major theatrical release of the year - It's not that memorable, and not inspired in anyway. But, it's being backed by an expensive ad campaign, so it's certain to make money. Anyone looking for a movie this weekend would be wise to look and see if any of the smaller December movies that are slowly expanding through January are playing in their local area. If they are, skip this movie. If they're not, skip this movie anyway. There's bound to be something playing that's better.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

The 6th Annual Reel Stinkers Awards

2011-12-31T04:29:00.000-08:00

As the final hours of 2011 tick down to the promise of a new year, the time has come for an annual tradition I have here at Reel Opinions - Looking back on the worst films of 2011. The films so bad, I was already thinking ahead to December when I saw them, so I could save them a special place on this list. As most critics confess, I'm not really a fan of making lists at the end of the year. But there is something oddly satisfying about giving the movies that stole my time one last knock before I forget about them.

As always, my "best of" list is still on the way, since there are still some movies stuck in limited release that I will hopefully see. I usually get that out Oscar weekend, so it's still a little ways off. Well, enough of this intro. Time to give some bad movies the punishment they deserve.

THE 10 WORST FILMS OF 2011:

10. I AM NUMBER FOUR - I'm kicking the list off with a movie that is, yes, very bad, but I would be lying if I didn't say it wasn't entertaining for all the wrong reasons. This Michael Bay production is a hilariously misguided attempt to mix a bad teen romance drama with supernatural themes (ala Twilight), with the big, dumb, and loud action sequences from Bay's own Transformers film franchise. I Am Number Four is a soulless corporate product without a scrap of imagination, and nothing that hasn't been borrowed from something else. And yet, when the film's big climax came around, which features a battle between alien forces on a high school football field, and a cute little dog (who's been following the teen hero around the whole movie) suddenly morphs into a monstrous alien, revealing that he's been a shape shifting monster the entire time, I was laughing out loud at the ineptitude of it all. There are comedies with less laughs than this Sci-Fi "drama" that was supposed to kick off a franchise, but since hardly anyone went to see it, will go forgotten.

09. SUCKER PUNCH - Director Zach Snyder's attempt to mix video game and Japanese anime imagery with a thinly told story of female empowerment brought about one of the most chaotic, loud, and incomprehensible films of the year. In Sucker Punch, things are constantly happening, and special effects keep on being thrown up on the screen, but we have absolutely no involvement at all, because the characters and plot are so thin, they might as well not exist. We are initially drawn in by the visuals, but then we quickly begin to discover that the movie is not interested in really going anywhere, and the truly tedious and repetitive nature of the film's structure reveals itself. There is absolutely no joy to be found here. It's just a lot of high tech CG garbage, while attractive young actresses stand around, trying to pretend there's a point to all of this. One of the most empty-headed spectacles I have seen in years.

08. MONTE CARLO - This past summer, Bridesmaids proved that comedies aimed at women could be truly funny enough to appeal to just about anyone who watched it, regardless of gender. The same summer, we got Monte Carlo, a comedy aimed at women that is so vapid and idiotic, you would have to have gone through a recent frontal lobotomy to find any of it amusing. This tale of three young friends who con their way into having a luxury overseas vacation was a tired and endless exercise in the Idiot Plot, in which everyone is forced to act like a total moron in order for there to be a movie in the first place. The lead characters are clueless and unlikable, the supporting characters are oblivious morons, and nobody gets to act like a real person. When this movie came out, I read that this was originally intended to be a starring vehicle for Julia Roberts and Nicole Kidman. For some reason, Kidman stayed involved as one of the film's producers. Roberts got out while the getting was good.

07. THE ROOMMATE - This early-year thriller stood out as one of the first truly awful movies of 2011, which earned it an automatic spot here. The Roommate is nothing more than a watered down remake of the 1992 thriller, Single White Female, only set on a college campus, and the characters are about five times dumber and less interesting than the ones in the earlier movie. Leighton Meester (who appears in back-to-back stinkers, having also appeared in Monte Carlo) plays a psychotic young girl who becomes obsessed with her new roommate, and starts mimicking her look, style, and eventually, starts taking over her life. The problem is, the movie doesn't really have a handle on her as a villain, as she seems to do a lot of her evil deeds (like throwing kittens in washing machines, and taking lesbians hostage) just for the sake of being evil. It doesn't help that Meester's performance is so over the top, it's more humorous than scary. Funny thing about The Roommate - It flat out steals from a lot of movies it wants to be like, but doesn't manage to capture even a fraction of the tension or memorability of the films it desperately wants to mimic.

06. New Year's Eve - If anyone wants a textbook example of everything that's wrong with modern day romantic comedies, they need look no further than the dull, boring, overlong, unfunny, idiotic, and completely contrived New Year's Eve. This movie tackles multiple plots, and features a cast of 20+ celebrity actors, but can't think of a single thing to do with any of the actors, the characters, or the plots. Hilary Swank plays the woman in charge of the Times Square New Years Eve party, who just wants to make sure the giant New Years ball drops on time. Robert De Niro plays a man dying of cancer, who wants to be wheeled up to the roof of the hospital, so he can watch the ball drop one last time before he dies. Ashton Kutcher plays a New Year Grinch who hates the holiday, but learns how to love it after he gets stuck in an elevator with a young woman who teaches him how to enjoy New Years. Jon Bon Jovi plays a rock star who wants to patch things up with his ex-girlfriend (Katherine Heigl). Sarah Jessica Parker wants to find her teenage daughter (Abigail Breslin) who has run off with her friends to party, even though she didn't want her to. While I was sitting through this movie, all I wanted to do was bolt for the nearest exit.

05. THE CHANGE-UP - Thanks to movies like The Hangover and Bridesmaids, raunchy R-rated comedies aimed at adults are big business right now in Hollywood. If we get anymore movies as bad as The Change-Up, that could change very soon. This raunchy take on the moldy old body swap comedy formula is bad in just about every way you can think of. But mostly, it's just a very vile and hateful little movie. It hates men, women, children, and babies. It has no respect for anyone, and just expects the audience to laugh at the characters out of spite, instead of humor. The movie concerns two best friends (Jason Bateman and Ryan Reynolds) who are as different as can be, and switch lives when they both take a piss in a magical fountain that allows them to switch bodies. The problem is, we never believe that Bateman and Reynolds are friends, or even like each other. They have such terrible chemistry together, they look like they can't wait to get away from each other during a lot of their scenes together. This would be bad enough, but throw in how unfunny and how much contempt this movie has, and The Change-Up easily ranks as one of the more unpleasant movie experiences of the year.

04. JACK AND JILL - The first of two movies from Adam Sandler's Happy Madison production company to appear on this list. 2011 was not a good year for Adam Sandler. He once seemed unstoppable, really. Sure, his movies were always blasted by critics, but they still managed to be massive success stories at the box office. This year, he released four movies (and acted in three of them), all of which underperformed. Anyone who actually sat through Jack and Jill has a pretty good idea why. This is a misguided and stupefyingly dumb comedy that has Sandler in a dual role as brother and sister. This is a movie built entirely around the gag of seeing the actor dressed in drag, and talking in an annoying screechy voice. This would have been tiresome in a three minute sketch back on Sandler's Saturday Night Live days. In a 90 minute movie, it's excruciating. Throw in a bizarre and over the top performance by Al Pacino playing a caricature of himself, and you have a movie that pretty much defines the phrase "what were they thinking"?

03. BUCKY LARSON: BORN TO BE A STAR - The other movie from Adam Sandler to appear on this list. He was wise enough not to actually act in it, but his name is still all over the movie, both as lead writer and producer. The fact that he released both Bucky Larson and Jack and Jill within two months of each other makes you wonder if he was going for some kind of endurance test. Bucky is a goofy and not very interesting young man (played by Nick Swardson) who talks with a lisp and has all the common sense of an escaped mental patient. He heads to Hollywood to get a job in the porn business, after he finds out that his parents were porn stars in their younger years. It may sound dirty and raunchy, but the movie itself is so mind-numbingly boring. Nothing happens during the course of the movie, there's next to no plot, and the movie is so concerned about getting us to fall in love with Bucky that it never allows him to do anything truly funny. He's just a dorky, overly-nice sap of a guy. The character is a total bore, and so is this lifeless and completely inert movie.

02. CONAN THE BARBARIAN - The only movie that can top The Change-Up in terms of sheer unpleasantness. This is an ugly, vile, movie that throws a lot of dirt, mud, blood, and gore up on the screen to try to hide the fact that there's absolutely nothing worth watching up on the screen. Conan tries to revive the long-dormant franchise (made famous in the 80s by Arnold Schwarzenegger), but ended up giving us a movie so bad and unmemorable that the fans pretty much stayed home in droves. It was cheaply made, badly acted, ugly to look at, reprehensible at its level of violence, and a total chore to sit through. The only saving graces were some moments where I found myself laughing at the film's ineptitude. There's even a moment where Conan is having a sword fight with the film's villain, and as they do battle, the villain cries out, "I don't like you, barbarian!" That makes two of us.

01. ATLAS SHRUGGED PART 1 - It was a very close call for the number one spot, but when I had to think of a movie I saw in 2011 that I would never in my life ever want to sit through again, Atlas Shrugged took the prize. This movie was so bad, I remembered I didn't even want to review it after watching it. I just didn't want to talk about it. Based on the controversial novel by Ayn Rand, this movie is really just an endless series of scenes of second rate actors sitting at tables, talking about nothing that remotely interests us, with random footage of trains and people putting together railroad tracks thrown in from time to time. Everything about this movie seems cheap and slapped together. The actors are second rate, it looks like a low budget made-for-TV movie, and it's probably the most excruciatingly boring movie I have ever sat through in a theater. This is one of those movies that required a superhuman effort on my part just to stay in my seat. Considering that nobody went to see this movie, I can at least take comfort in knowing that Part 2 won't be coming anytime soon. Now if only I could somehow go back in time, and stop Part 1 from happening...

Well, that covers the Top 10, but I'm far from done yet. It's time to cover the Dishonorable Mentions, the movies that were bad, but not quite bad enough to crack the upper tiers of awfulness. Most of these movies are out on DVD by now, so if you should see them, do not make eye contact, and proceed with caution.

DISHONORABLE MENTIONS:

The Green Hornet, No Strings Attached, Sanctum, Big Mommas: Like Father Like Son, Beastly, Battle: Los Angeles, Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, Your Highness, Priest, Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer, Green Lantern, Apollo 18, Shark Night 3D, Abduction, Dream House, The Three Musketeers, J. Edgar, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, The Sitter, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked, The Darkest Hour

THE INDIVIDUAL REEL STINKERS AWARDS:

WORST SEQUEL:
Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked

MOST UNNECESSARY SEQUEL:
Big Mommas: Like Father, Like Son

WORST PERFORMANCE BY A RESPECTED ACTOR/ACTRESS:
Al Pacino in Jack and Jill

WORST OVERALL PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR/ACTRESS:
Tie between Nick Swardson in Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star and Adam Sandler as Jill in Jack and Jill

WORST USE OF 3D:
Tie between Sanctum and Conan the Barbarian

WORST REMAKE:
Conan the Barbarian

WORST IDEA FOR A MOVIE THAT NEVER COULD HAVE WORKED:
Jack and Jill

REPEAT OFFENDERS (ACTORS WHO WERE INVOLVED IN MORE THAN ONE STINKER IN 2011):
Leighton Meester in The Roommate and Monte Carlo
Ryan Reynolds in Green Lantern and The Change-Up
Adam Sandler for writing and producing Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star, and for writing, producing, and starring in Jack and Jill
Alex Pettyfer in I Am Number Four and Beastly
Taylor Lautner in Abduction and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

WORST ON-SCREEN TEAM:
Three way tie -
Adam Sandler and Al Pacino in Jack and Jill
Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman in The Change-Up
Seth Rogen and Jay Chou in The Green Hornet

MOVIE BLOCKBUSTER THAT DIDN'T DESERVE TO MAKE MONEY:
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

STUDIO THAT RELEASED THE MOST STINKERS IN 2011:
Sony Entertainment, who through the multiple studios they own (including Columbia, Tri-Star, and Screen Gems), released The Roommate, Jack and Jill, Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star, The Green Hornet, Battle: Los Angeles, and Priest. Keep up the great work, guys!

And with that, I close the book on the stinkers of 2011. Here's to hoping that the people involved with these films learn from their mistakes, and appear in better films in 2012. I guess all that's left to say is let's put the ugliness of bad movies behind us, and look forward to the promise of a new year. Have a happy and safe 2012, everybody!

The Darkest Hour

2011-12-28T17:59:00.000-08:00

Whenever I see a movie as generic and as dull as The Darkest Hour, I have to ask myself if the filmmakers really actually believed that they were making something worthwhile, and would stick out in people's minds. Sure, nobody ever intends to make a bad movie, but when I see a movie like this that doesn't hold a single original idea, image, or character worth caring about, I wonder what the thought process was. Did they really say, "Hey, guys, let's play it safe, and make a movie that looks and feels like a million other movies just like it"? I hope not, but I have my suspicions.

Not that the movie didn't have all the tell tale signs of a stinker when I was walking into the theater. It's a moderately budgeted Sci-Fi thriller being released with little fanfare over the Christmas weekend, and was not screened for critics. In other words, it's designed to suck in bored teenagers who tried to get in to see Mission: Impossible or Sherlock Holmes, but they were sold out. The Darkest Hour is yet another post-apocalyptic movie, where a group of people try to cling to hope after a terrible catastrophe, usually caused by a natural disaster or alien invasion (in this case, alien invasion), has wiped out most of the people around them. You've seen dozens of movies just like it, and this one is no different. It follows the playbook of these kind of movies word for word, the only thing setting it apart from others is where the story takes place.

In this case, the film's setting is Moscow. Most post-apocalyptic films (especially ones aimed at a youth market) take place in New York or L.A., so I must give credit to the filmmakers for choosing a different backdrop to set their story. But, I'm afraid I must give partial credit, as they fail to think of anything interesting to do with their unique setting. Our heroes are a couple of young best friends from America (Emile Hirsch and Max Minghella) who come to Russia to become web entrepreneurs by selling a phone app they've designed. Unfortunately, their idea is stolen by a slimy business rival (Joel Kinnaman). Their hopes of becoming instant success stories shattered, the two friends head to a local bar to drown their sorrows and pick up women, specifically two young American women who are touring Moscow (Olivia Thirlby and Rachael Taylor). While they're partying, the lights in the building and the entire city go out, and the alien invasion begins.

Glowing spheres of yellow light fall from the night sky, representing the arrival of mostly invisible hostile aliens that can turn anyone they touch into ash. The effect of the aliens turning people (and in one scene, an unfortunate stray dog) into ash seems to be lifted entirely from Steven Spielberg's War of the Worlds film from summer 2005. The young people from the bar must now band together if they want to survive. Sure, we've seen this idea many times before, but it still could have worked if the characters had been written with some form of personality. No such luck. Nobody gets to show any personality or character development (other than one of the main characters falling in love with one of the girls they met at the bar), and their dialogue doesn't get much more complicated than "look at that", or, "hey guys, over here"!

The aliens are not much more interesting, since we usually can't see them in the first place. They're usually represented by long, whip-like strands of electricity that they use to capture human victims. I'm not saying the idea of invisible aliens couldn't work, but it would require an intelligent screenplay to pull it off, and a director who knew how to build tension and a sense of paranoia. Director Chris Gorak does not display this talent, as not a single sequence of the movie builds to any emotion except indifference. I should give him the benefit of the doubt, though. His last film was a horror movie called Right at Your Door, which I have not seen, but have heard very strong things about. I'm guessing this is a case of the director bending to studio pressure.

Another sign of studio interference - The movie is only 90 minutes long, and seems to end quite abruptly, as if there was supposed to be more. I'd say that they were hoping to get to do a sequel, but given the treatment the movie is getting (a quiet release over a big holiday, not being screened for critics), I doubt this is true. The Darkest Hour is the kind of movie that deserves to be swept under the rug. It's not memorable in any way, it's not well made or well acted, and it's yet another movie that proves my theory that movies that take place mostly at night should not be in 3D, as the glasses just make the picture extra muddy and murky. And no, the 3D effects are not worth the extra price of the ticket.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

My Week with Marilyn

2011-12-27T18:15:00.000-08:00

It's impossible to watch My Week with Marilyn, and not be drawn in by Michelle Williams' performance as Marilyn Monroe at the height of her fame, and just six years away from her death. In the movie, we can already see the warning signs that would later effect her career and private life. While it's true that Williams is not a picture perfect match for Monroe physically (though she's so close, I wasn't complaining), her performance, and how she is able to capture the multiple sides of the actress, both her private and her public image, is nothing short of remarkable. It's one of the great performances of the year, and is sure to earn Michelle Williams a gold trophy or two during the winter award season.

Despite the performance at the center of it all, the movie itself is not entirely about Marilyn Monroe. It is rather the story of Colin Clark, a man who in 1956 earned the chance to work as the third assistant to the director on a troubled film project titled The Prince and the Showgirl, a high profile film at the time that teamed up directing and acting royalty, Laurence Olivier, with the sexy young starlet. The film is not exactly remembered today, but due to Clark's two autobiographical books (which served as the basis of the screenplay) before his death in 2002, the behind the scenes story of the struggle to make the film, and the relationship that Clark managed to build with Monroe during the shooting of the picture have become quite famous. This is an accurate docudrama that, despite dealing with the serious topic of Monroe's early signs of descent into drinking and pill popping, manages to stay fairly light in tone for most of the film, and is highly entertaining. The movie manages to be warm and nostalgic, while not shying away from the darker edges of the story.

We meet Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne) as a young man obsessed with the movies, and dreaming about leaving his stiff, intellectual family home behind, and chase his goals of making movies. Through sheer persistence (he shows up everyday at the office of the studio head, and waits for any sort of job to open), he winds up getting a low level job on The Prince and the Showgirl, a romantic comedy that's viewed as a sure fire winner, as it stars the renowned Olivier (Kenneth Branagh), and Monroe, who is trying to branch out and be taken seriously as an actress. Almost from the beginning, there are problems, due to Marilyn's personal insecurities off camera with her recent marriage to playwright Arthur Miller (Dougray Scott), and her inconsistent performances on camera, which drive Olivier almost to madness. She is frequently late to the set (or sometimes does not show up at all), and despite emotional support from a fellow actress working on the film named Dame Sybil Thorndike (Judi Dench), and Monroe's personal assistant, Paula Strasberg (Zoe Wanamaker), Monroe still frequently feels lost or unwanted on the set.

Clark comes into the picture when he develops an unexpected relationship with Marilyn. He has always been fascinated by Monroe, and is awed simply to be in her presence. As for her, she senses a kind of compassion from him that she doesn't receive from anyone else on the set, and she begins to ask to see him privately at the home she is staying at while shooting the film. This leads to lengthy "dates", where Colin Clark gives her a chance to see London as a real person, not as a celebrity. As he is drawn into Marilyn's private life, he sees the warning signs of alcohol and pills, but he still holds a deep respect for her. Unfortunately, the time he spends with her puts a damper on the relationship he was building with a young woman who he likes that's working in the wardrobe department for the film (Emma Watson). But he is so drawn in by Marilyn, and the fact that she seems interested in someone as "small" and normal as him, that he does not care, or perhaps does not realize he is hurting someone.

During Clark's time with Marilyn, he gets to see all the different sides of her, and so do we, thanks to Michelle Williams' performance. She perfectly captures the "normal" and frightened Norma Jean who lost her mother when she was very young, and the sexy bombshell that is Marilyn Monroe. There are scenes in My Week with Marilyn that show how she could change from one personality to the other in an instant. One minute, she is a normal, timid woman, enjoying the city sights with Colin. But when the fans discovered who she was, and began surrounding her, she could turn on her sexy screen personality without missing a beat. We see that even though Marilyn Monroe may have been an image she created for the screen, it was still obviously a part of her.

We also get to see the growing relationship between Clark and Marilyn, due to the fact that the movie takes enough time to show the two together, talking, and being alone. Their relationship does not feel forced, and though we know that Marilyn's manager is right when he warns Clark not to get involved with her, as she will only end up breaking his heart, we still sense a genuine respect between the two. This is partly thanks to the screenplay by Adrian Hodges (which stays fairly close to the facts), but mainly to the wonderful screen chemistry between Williams and Redmayne. I have not seen Redmayne in much else, but his performance as Colin Clark is appropriately low key, without being boring or thinly developed. As for the rest of the cast, they don't get as much screen time or development, but they do get to stand out in their own way, especially Branagh as Olivier, who comes across as someone who is torn by his love and desire for Monroe, and his outrage over her sometimes flaky behavior on and off the camera.

My Week with Marilyn has been made with great energy by director Simon Curtis, whose previous jobs were mainly in television. He shows here a talent for staying true to the facts, while not getting mired in the details. This is a bright, entertaining, and informative look at the height and the early stages of the downfall of a classic star. It's certain to be a crowd pleaser to anyone who seeks it out as it slowly expands its theatrical release over the holidays. If anything, the movie deserves to be seen for Michelle Williams' performance alone. Fortunately, the film is good enough to stand on its own, as well.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

War Horse

2011-12-25T18:29:00.000-08:00

I remember seeing the stage play of War Horse during a trip to New York this past April, and thinking to myself that there was no way a film adaptation of the original source novel could live up to the experience of the play. After all, the story behind it is rather cliched and predictable. What made the play one of the better theatrical experiences of the year was the technical wizardry of the life-sized puppets used to represent the horses, battlefield tanks, and other effects. Would a straight forward adaptation be able to hold the same spell over me as an audience member?

In many ways, the answer that Steven Spielberg's film has given me is yes. Even though the film cannot match the "theatrical magic" quality of the play, it more than makes up for it in emotion and the realism of the battle scenes. While it is a far cry from his work in Saving Private Ryan (this is, after all, a PG-13 family film), you can still see Spielberg digging up the same emotions and raw tension that he put forth in that earlier movie's depiction of the chaos and senselessness of war. As in that earlier movie, we get a sense of actually being there on the battlefield. This is not the choreographed or staged battles that we get in so many movies. Spielberg has a talent of making war as dirty, lonely, and frightening as it is in real life. How he is able to tap into such emotions, I have no idea. All I can say is that the battle sequences on display are some of the most harrowing and heartbreaking to come in a while.

But long before that, War Horse is a simple story of a boy bonding with a farm horse in a plot that could have been lifted from any number of movies from the 1930s. The boy is Albert (newcomer Jeremy Irvine), a British teenager who acquires the horse when his alcoholic father (Peter Mullan) buys the animal with the money the family needs for the mortgage and food, just so he can show up their landlord (David Thewlis), who was trying to purchase the horse for his son. In order to pay off the debts they owe, Albert trains the horse (whom he names Joey) to plow and work in the fields. When heavy flooding rains destroy the farm's crops, Albert's desperate father is forced to sell Joey to the British military, as World War I is starting, and the army needs horses for their Calvary.

In the original novel by Michael Morpurgo, the story was told from Joey the horse's point of view. Fortunately, screenwriters Lee Hall (Billy Elliot) and Richard Curtis (Pirate Radio) find other ways to show the horse's story, without having to resort to an unintentionally comical voice over narration. They do this by following Joey's experiences in battle, and various situations he finds himself in, such as when he is involved with two young German soldiers deserting their duties, or when he is adopted by a young girl and her kindly grandfather. It does make the movie become somewhat fragmented, as Joey is dragged from one situation to the next, but it works in the case of this film. We also follow Albert, who joins the military in a desperate attempt that maybe he can find Joey, and bring him home with him. Seeing war from both a human soldier, and an animal that cannot comprehend what is going on around it is kind of fascinating in a way. Both are probably feeling the same emotions of confusion and terror. But only one of them went into war willingly.

I'm sure that there will be many who accuse the movie of being cornball, and the movie does certainly wear its heart on its sleeve. But unlike less successful films that try and fail to be heartfelt, I never got the sense that Spielberg was pandering here. He believes in the story he is telling, and he sells it effectively, too. His cast help sell the material, with veteran actors like David Thewlis and Emily Watson both giving fine turns here. They also come across as good sports, since pretty much the entire cast has to be upstaged by the horse in just about every scene. There are also some really nice smaller moments, such as when a British and a German soldier briefly put aside their differences to help Joey get free from some barbed wire he's trapped in. Can this movie be manipulative? Oh my, yes. But Spielberg knows how to do so in such a way that I wasn't annoyed. I was actually kind of drawn in.

I said earlier that War Horse is a PG-13 family film, and the studio is marketing it as their big Christmas release. That said, the movie does get pretty intense at times during its war scenes, too much so for very young children. Older kids will have no problems, but little ones who might be drawn in by the beautiful horse in the ads will likely be frightened by the death, violence, and trauma that Albert and Joey have to go through. This is a harsh film about war, that also manages to be sweet and heart tugging at the same time. Maybe that sounds like a strange combination, but this movie manages to make it work.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol

2011-12-24T18:07:00.000-08:00

It may seem like an odd decision on the part of the studio to hire Brad Bird, an animation filmmaker best known for his work with Pixar on films like The Incredibles and Ratatouille, to helm the fourth installment of the 15-year-old Mission: Impossible film franchise. But watch the first 90 minutes of Ghost Protocol, and you will see that Bird delivers some of the finest action, stunts, and special effects Hollywood has to offer. Wait, did I say the first 90 minutes? Indeed I did, as this is a 133 minute long movie, and the remaining 43 minutes unfortunately are not as strong. Still, the movie doesn't suffer too much, and even at its worse, this still stands head and shoulders above just about any action film release you could mention to come out in 2011.

Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt, who is this time on the trail of a madman named Hendricks (Michael Nyqvist), who wants to get his hands on some weapons and some nuke codes so that he can start a war. The movie doesn't go a whole lot deeper than that into Hendricks' motivation. Anyone looking for deep espionage would be better off looking elsewhere. The movie is almost pure action, with sequences sometimes coming one after another, such as when Ethan Hunt first has to climb up the outside of a 100+ story building, then pose as an arms dealer to fool the villains, then gets in a fistfight, and then gets in a high speed chase, while a massive sandstorm is closing in. I'm sure you can picture such a chain of events as being tiring and maybe even overkill, but the movie is skillful, the action sequences are clean and precisely edited, and the whole thing is just over the top enough that we are still able to suspend disbelief. The whole thing works quite beautifully on a thrill ride level.

Accompanying Hunt on his latest mission are Benji (Simon Pegg), a computer expert and the only returning supporting character from the last movie, Jane (Paula Patton), who delivers the film's sex appeal and gets to show off her fighting skills in a memorable girl fight sequence with an evil female terrorist, and Brandt (Jeremy Renner), who is just an analyst for Hunt's agency, but seems to have an awful lot of battle experience. Their mission to track down Hendricks becomes complicated when the villain blows up the Kremlin, and frames Hunt's team. Our heroes find themselves "disavowed", and the head of the organization sets up a Ghost Protocol, in which Hunt and his team can still continue their mission, but will have to do it on their own, without the help of the agency. This begins a world-wide chase across places like Dubai and Moscow in order to prevent Hendricks from setting off the nukes, and destroying the fragile relationship between the U.S. and Russia.

The first 90 minutes or so of Ghost Protocol left me nearly as breathless as the film's pacing, with Hunt racing from one location after another after Hendricks, and the movie leaping from one spectacular sequence after the next. After I saw the sequence where Hunt chases down the villain in the middle of a sandstorm, I actually found myself wondering how the movie was going to top itself. The answer, disappointingly, is that it doesn't even try to. Once this sequence is over, the movie seems kind of at a loss at what to do. While it never becomes boring, the remaining 43 minutes are never quite as exciting as what came before, and the climactic action sequence is somewhat of a let down. Please don't read this as me saying that Ghost Protocol is disappointing, as it certain isn't. It's just that everything that comes before it is spectacular, while the remainder is simply good.

As is to be expected, this is pretty much Cruise's movie, as he is not only the star, but also the lead producer. He gets most of the big stunts and action sequences, although co-star Jeremy Renner does get to perform a pretty big stunt near the end. Regardless, the movie is pretty much about Cruise and his fellow actors leaping from one big set piece to the next. The dialogue exists mainly to take us to the next sequence, or to give the characters some slight motivation. I think a big part as to why the film manages to still work is that despite its formula of all action-almost-all-the-time, director Brad Bird does know how to pace himself. He builds up our expectations, and then he manages to deliver. He also shows a sense of humor, giving Hunt and some of his supporting agents a few more one liners than I think they had in previous films. The fact that the one liners are actually funny manage to give the characters more personality.

The real test to which Ghost Protocol should be judged, however, is how does the movie make you feel during its action sequences. Let me tell you, when you see Tom Cruise climbing the outside of a massive shimmering building like Spider-Man, you won't be thinking about why doesn't anyone inside the building happen to look out the window and see him. You also won't be thinking about how the stunt was pulled off. All you'll be thinking about is the awe that the sequence is able to convey. I don't care if they used CG or a lot of film trickery, the sequence works, and the sense of danger it creates is palpable. That's all that matters. I'm sure the sequence is even more of a stunner in IMAX (which the film is also being show in, and has been designed for). Would it be worth it to check out one of the special IMAX screenings? Normally I would say no, but given the absolute power of some of these action sequences, it just might be worth it.

So yeah, the movie's not that well developed in its characters or plot. And no, I did not care for a minute. I really only started to get annoyed when the movie seemed to run out of gas slightly in the home stretch. But hey, if that was the worst thing I had to say about every action movie I saw, I'd be recommending them left and right. This is not a movie of tremendous brains, but it certainly took a lot of tremendous skill and talent to make, and it's all right up there on the screen.

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The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

2011-12-23T18:25:00.000-08:00

I walked into David Fincher's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo completely cold, having not read the books by the late Stieg Larsson, or seen the original Swedish film adaptation. Judging by other reviews I have read, this may be the best way to approach the film, as many reviews seem to lean too heavily on the novel or the foreign films. Having no preconceived expectations, I can say that this is a well made, but somewhat uneven film. On a technical level, the movie is flawless (as one would expect from Fincher), but I found the movie a little cold and distant on an emotional level. But then, I have a sneaking suspicion that this was intentional.

The story (adapted here by veteran screenwriter Steven Zaillian) is actually two different stories about two very different people. The first concerns a disgraced journalist named Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig), whose career has just fallen apart due to a libel suit around an article he wrote. It's around this time that he is invited to visit a wealthy old man named Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), who hires him to investigate a family mystery, under the guise of doing research to write a biography about him. The mystery in question deals with the disappearance and suspected murder of a beloved niece over 40 years ago. Henrik believes that the killer responsible is someone within the family, and as Mikael accepts the job and begins digging into the Vanger family history, he suspects that the old man might be onto something. Most of the family members he interviews or questions seem to be very guarded or secretive. Even the ones that are more open to him can't seem to be fully trusted. The premise of Mikael being drawn into this decades-old unsolved mystery, trapped on an island with all these possibly distrustful or even murderous people is when the film is at its most suspenseful.

In the second plot, we are introduced to Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), a bisexual goth girl who works as a computer hacker and researcher for hire, using her hacking skills to get information on anyone she's paid to investigate. Lisbeth has a complicated history of her own (which the movie is somewhat vague on, obviously saving it for the inevitable sequels), and due to her somewhat unstable and violent behavior, is under the care of a legal guardian. Unfortunately, her current legal guardian suffers a stroke, and she is placed under the watch of a crooked man who demands "sexual favors", including tying her to a bed and raping her. Lisbeth is able to get her revenge and escape from underneath the thumb of the man. It's at this point that Lisbeth is pulled into the plot concerning Mikael, when she is hired to help him dig up the complicated Vanger family history. The relationship that builds between Mikael and Lisbeth is a complicated one, built out of a business partnership, eventual respect, and then ultimately sexual.

You would think that the relationship between the two main characters would be fascinating, but I found it to easily be the most forgettable part of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Maybe something did not translate right from the page to the screen, but for me, a bigger problem was the fact that Craig and Mara, though they are both fine individually, never really created any strong chemistry in my eyes. Their relationship, and the path that it takes while they are working together, seems forced. It's almost as if the screenplay is hitting the highlights of the relationship from the original novel, but leaving out the stuff that comes in between. Like I said, I have not read the books, so I cannot judge. It's just how the relationship came across to me. Maybe the later books and films go deeper into the relationship, and help flesh it out a little more. I can only hope.

What works much better in the film, and what ultimately makes it a success, is the mystery that drives the plot. Fincher's last film, The Social Network, managed to take a subject that could have been technical and dull (in that film's case, the creation of Facebook), and turn it into a fascinating tale of jealousy and betrayal. Here, the mystery is mostly solved by digging up old photos and articles, which once again could have been very technical and dull, but Fincher and the script by Zaillian manages to keep the pace high as Mikhail and Lisbeth race about the island, bringing the past to light. The island itself actually becomes part of the mystery, as we are never sure just who to trust, and all the inhabitants don't seem to be very happy about their history being dug up by outsiders. There is a genuine sense of dread that the movie beautifully builds, and it's during these moments that the movie works the best.

What doesn't work is a lot of the stuff outside of the mystery. Until the two plots merged, I was not that involved with Lisbeth's story of being a victim to a cruel man, and then taking revenge on her. Yes, the violence during these sequences is quite shocking (although I hear they've been toned down considerably from the original Swedish film), but outside of that, I had a hard time caring about Lisbeth. This should not discredit Rooney Mara's performance, which manages to be quite subtle and quiet, with a lot of hidden strength, so we can believe it when she does suddenly lash out in violence or anger. I can't tell if something was missing, or if the script just did a poor job of drawing me in, but whenever the action would cut away from the mystery and focus on Lisbeth, the movie would kind of grind to a halt for me. I have a feeling this won't be a problem in future installments, but for now, I had a hard time being drawn into her plot.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I saw the movie. It's well acted, beautifully shot, and has a lot going for it. There are moments of intense power, and an intriguing mystery, surrounded by a lot of moments that just don't work as well as they should. Still, something tells me that Fincher is merely building up to something, and that the remaining two films will not only fill us in on some unanswered questions, but also be a lot stronger.

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The Adventures of Tintin

2011-12-21T17:59:00.000-08:00

In a lot of ways, The Adventures of Tintin is a pretty big gamble for director Steven Spielberg. Not only is it his first time directing an animated feature (his past efforts with animation have been as a producer), but it's a motion capture film - a technology that a lot of viewers are quite divided on as to its effectiveness of capturing human emotion. But perhaps the biggest gamble of all is Tintin himself. He is a famed comic book character known the world over...except for the US, where he is somewhat obscure.

Hopefully this will not keep audiences away, as they would be missing out on an exuberant adventure that's right up there with Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark. No knowledge of the character or the comics is required anyway. This is a fast-paced, frequently laugh out loud funny, and always exciting movie that evokes childhood fantasies of faraway places and dangers. It's impossible not to picture Spielberg having a big goofy grin on his face the entire time he was making this. He gets to play around with a lot of tools, and makes great use out of all of them. The fact that the film is animated allows him to create sensational action sequences that would be next to impossible to pull off with live actors. The film's 3D is used to enhance the look of the film, rather than be a tired gimmick. And finally, the motion capture, while by no means perfect (they still can't quite get the eyes right with this form of animation), is amongst the best around. Those who criticize the movie for having a lack of plot or strong characters can go see Spielberg's other movie this Christmas, War Horse. This is the director being a giant kid, creating and dreaming in a $100 million sandbox built of his imagination.

The character of Tintin (voiced here by Jamie Bell) is, despite his boyish appearance, an experienced journalist and globe-spanning adventurer. He doesn't seem very concerned with his job or deadlines, as he can just race off to the farthest corners of the Earth for a new adventure at a moment's notice. He is usually accompanied on these adventures by his faithful dog and sidekick, Snowy. Snowy is quite clever for a dog, although he can get easily distracted from the mission by unguarded food, or a bothersome cat. His other main sidekick is a burly and usually drunken man of the sea named Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis). He serves more as comic relief, but he can be quite useful to our young hero in a fight or a tough situation. The adventure kicks off when Tintin purchases a model ship from a street merchant, not knowing that an evil man by the name of Sakharine (Daniel Craig) is seeking it as well. The model apparently holds a clue to a great treasure, and Sakharine is not below killing in order to obtain its secrets. Tintin, Snowy, and Haddock must now stay ahead of the men they suddenly find pursuing them, in order to learn of the model's secrets.

In the tradition of the Indiana Jones films, Tintin concerns itself with harrowing escapes, daring plane flights through dangerous storms, deadly pirates, high speed chases in cars and motorcycles that usually result in massive property damage to whatever faraway place our heroes happen to be, and secrets of the past hidden by cryptic riddles that lead to lost treasure. When you consider that these are elements of both the film and the comics and inspired them, it's easy to see why the comic's creator, Herge, insisted that Spielberg was the only man capable of bringing his stories and characters to the screen. He was right. The movie is able to tap into that ridiculous classic Saturday matinee serial vibe that pays tribute to the great adventures of old, while having a little bit of fun at its own expense. Not only is the action frequently fast and tense (but never so chaotic that we feel overwhelmed), but they are filled with several blink and you'll miss it visual gags that the filmmakers have thrown in to show that this is all in fun.

And what fun this movie is. And if the screenplay by Steven Moffat (TV's Dr. Who), Edgar Wright (Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) and Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) seems like it was dreamed up by a child's imagination, then that's part of the fun, too. The movie is thrilling, exciting, funny, and upbeat enough that kids of a certain age (I'd say around 10) will find irresistible. Adults won't be left out of the fun, as the movie has plenty of sly dialogue exchanges, and a sense of wonder to many of its visuals. This is a beautiful movie, but most of all, this is a movie that is full of wonder. It's a rare combination of innocence and frantic action. I have a feeling that many young boys who see this will have a new favorite movie walking out. I know it would be one of mine had I seen this at their age.

It's hard to describe just how The Adventures of Tintin made me feel. It's so full of joy, action, and humor that I got lost in the thrill. I didn't care about the thin plot, or the somewhat two dimensional characters. I suppose there will be those who see them as shortcomings so strong, they can't enjoy the film. The way I saw the movie, I was having too much fun to care. I guess this is one of those movies that will either work for you or it won't. It worked for me in a big way.

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Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked

2011-12-17T18:30:00.000-08:00

In a season where wonderful family films like Hugo, The Muppets, and Arthur Christmas are playing, there is absolutely no reason to see Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-Wrecked. In fact, even if those other movies weren't playing, there would still be no reason to see this. The movie is a cynical cash grab targeting the kids who were delighted by the previous two Alvin films. It's an 87 minute dead zone devoid of imagination, wit, and substance. Parents who take their kids to see this get what they deserve.

Let's be honest, the Chipmunk movies haven't exactly been the cream of the kiddie movie crop. But, I found them mostly harmless, and kind of cute in certain moments. The latest entry, in comparison, is a total con. It lures kids in with the promise of more adventures with their favorite characters, and then gives them a movie where the Chipmunks and the Chipettes (girl singing chipmunks) doing very little for almost 90 minutes. The plot (such as it is) kicks off with Chipmunks Alvin (voice by Justin Long), Simon (voice by Matthew Gray Gubler) and Theodore (voice by Jesse McCartney), along with the Chipettes Brittany (voice by Christina Applegate), Jeanette (voice by Anna Farris) and Eleanor (voice by Amy Poehler) about to embark on a luxury cruise vacation with their human surrogate father, Dave (Jason Lee). The movie goes out of its way to make sure we know that they are sailing on a Carnival Cruise ship, through various signs placed strategically in the background, or having the name mentioned in the dialogue. Were it not for Jack and Jill managing to work Dunkin' Donuts into its own plot just one month ago, this would be the most blatant use of product placement I've seen in a long time.

Also on board the cruise ship is Ian (David Cross), a former music executive who served as the villain in the last two movies. His career has been ruined, and he's hit hard times, so he's now forced to work on the ship as a costumed mascot character. David Cross can be very funny, as anyone who has seen his work on the TV shows Arrested Development or Mr. Show already knows. The fact that he spends the entire movie dressed in a cartoon pelican costume shows that he's a pretty good sport. The fact that he can't think of anything funny or interesting to do during the film's running time shows that he probably should have walked away from this one. But, I digress. Alvin, the Chipmunks, and the Chipettes all get separated from the ship during a mishap with a kite that carries them out to sea. They wash ashore on a deserted island, and wait for Dave to rescue them, who is forced to team up with Ian, after both men go overboard as well while trying to rescue Alvin and the others.

This makes up the bulk of the film, with the Chipmunks and Chipettes trying to survive, while Dave and Ian put aside their past differences and look for them. This is where the movie sputters into hopelessness. The stuff with the Chipmunks trying to live on the island is not funny or interesting, there's a subplot where the brainy and cautious Simon gets a spider bite, which somehow effects his way of thinking, turning him into a dashing and suave adventurer named Simone, and there's a volcano off in the distance that looks like it's getting ready to erupt and threaten the entire island. There is nothing exciting in any of these storylines, especially the stuff concerning the volcano, which includes some of the least convincing special effects I've seen in a big budget movie in a while when it finally goes off. There's also a woman who lives on the island named Zoe (played by Saturday Night Live's Jenny Slate). She's looking for a lost treasure, and has been isolated on the island so long, she talks to volleyballs with faces drawn on them in a ten years too late parody of Tom Hanks in Cast Away.

Everything unfolds in such a sluggish manner. The previous movies never wowed me, but at least I wasn't completely bored like I was here. This is a movie where it looks like everybody came back just because of the paycheck. Nobody's heart is in it, the sets and special effects look surprisingly chintzy this time around, and there's just an overall feeling that nobody cared about making a good movie, and just slapped a product together. Chip-Wrecked is like one of those cheap made for DVD movies that parents sometimes use to appease kids when they want time to themselves. The only difference is that you have to pay theater prices to watch it. And once the theater has your money, the movie doesn't have the decency to give the kids anything of value. It's just a lot of bright colors and mindless music montages.

There are plenty of great movies for kids out there that spark their imagination, make them think, or inspires something within them. This is a soulless cash grab that doesn't want to do any of those things. This is cinematic junk food that nobody needs, especially young children, who deserve much better.

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Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

2011-12-16T17:53:00.000-08:00

Those who found little to like in 2009's relaunch of Sherlock Holmes will probably feel the same way about its sequel. Returning director, Guy Ritchie, still prefers big explosions, action set pieces, and fist fights over deductive reasoning, although that is present here. Those who did enjoy the earlier film, however, are sure to have a lot of fun here. A Game of Shadows features a much tighter (if not somewhat overly convoluted) plot, and more of what made the original a blockbuster. This would primarily be the winning chemistry between Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law in the lead roles of Holmes and Watson, which is wisely given as much attention here as the big budget action sequences and effects.

A brief word of warning - Don't even think about walking into the sequel if you have never seen the original, or haven't seen it in a while. The movie dives immediately into its plot, with Holmes (Downey Jr) still dreading the upcoming marriage of his partner-in-fighting-crime Dr. Watson (Law), and his mind still occupied with the criminal, Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams), who these days seem to be taking orders from the mysterious "Napoleon of Crime", Professor James Moriarity (Jarred Harris). Holmes suspects that the esteemed Professor is planning something by buying and taking over various companies and manufacturers, and the trail of death that seems to follow in his wake would seem to point in this direction. Unfortunately, Holmes has been unable to find any hard evidence to directly link Moriarity to the murders and bombings that have been happening lately.

As Watson prepares for his upcoming wedding, Holmes pursues the case, always making sure that his partner is involved in some shape or fashion. For example, at Watson's party the night before the wedding, Holmes has a run-in with a with a gypsy fortune teller named Simza (Noomi Rapace from the Swedish Girl with the Dragon Tattoo films). She works into the plot, as her brother and her were once involved with an anarchist group. With the series of bombings that have been going on, bringing Europe closer to war, Holmes suspects that Moriarity is somehow responsible for it all. His hunch is correct, and before long, Watson's peaceful honeymoon train ride is interrupted by gunfire from evil henchmen aiming to kill him, due to Holmes' interference with Moriarity's plans. This forces the two friends to go back into business together to uncover the evil scheme, with Simza's help, while Watson's long-suffering wife, Mary (Kelly Reilly) most likely wonders what she has gotten herself into. (Although, she does get to play a small part in Holmes' plan.)

Surprisingly, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, does not go for the bigger and louder approach that most sequels to action films do. While the sequences included are appropriately grandiose and well done (such highlights include a massive gunfight on a train, and a chase and fight sequence during Watson's bachelor party), the movie wisely does not oversell them or make them come so frequently that we grow weary. It knows that the chemistry and banter between Downey and Law was one of the more successful elements of the original movie, and husband and wife screenwriting team, Michelle and Kieran Mulroney, are wise to play upon it. They also add a new and far more menacing form of chemistry, in the form of the quiet but obviously bitter rivalry between Holmes and Moriarity. When they face each other, they duel mainly with words and mental challenges, rather than weapons. Character actor Jarred Harris makes a wonderful intellectual villain, who hates getting his hands dirty in any way possible, and passes himself off as a member of high society, despite his twisted actions.

Another welcome addition to the cast is Stephen Fry as Holmes' brother, Mycroft - a man with a talent for observation just as precise as his brother, and a passion for walking around his home in his birthday suit, even if he has company over. Fry provides some of the bigger laughs in the film, and I am hoping to see him used more in future sequels. As for the new female lead, Noomi Rapace, she does manage to prove that she can hold her own in an English language role, even if the movie unfortunately gives her little to do, outside of a fight scene or two. What struck me while I was watching the film is how Ritchie is able to draw upon the strengths of the original, without making it seem like a rehash, while also knowing just what to add and how much to add. It's quite a well-balanced movie, and quite a beautiful one to look at, thanks to some impressive settings and art direction, as well as Ritchie's skillful use of slow motion during certain action sequences.

There will be many, I'm sure, who will moan the fact that Holmes prefers to use his fists over his brain for most of the film. There are some wonderful moments involving Holmes' power of deduction and reasoning (the most memorable revolving around a very intense chess game he shares with Moriarity), but for the most part, this movie plays out kind of like a big budget comic book adaptation of the Holmes universe. I have come to accept this, and enjoy it for what it is. Purists will have to look elsewhere for their fix, I guess. For what the movie is (sheer big budget entertainment), I think it works, and works quite well. The dialogue quips are funny, the cast is having fun, and the movie is big and silly, without being dumb. The original movie set the tone, and this sequel fine tunes it. Not quite to perfection, mind you, but I'm certain there are more sequels on the way that will try.

I can't say whether I enjoyed A Game of Shadows more over the original. A bit of the originality is gone, but that's to be expected in a sequel. I think I would judge the two movies as being equal to one another. The first one was a bit more fun, but this one's a bit tighter, so I think it balances out. I guess what it all boils down to is whatever your thoughts were on 2009's Sherlock Holmes, are likely to be your thoughts on the new one.

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New Year's Eve

2011-12-10T18:08:00.000-08:00

You may remember last year, director Garry Marshall and screenwriter Katherine Fugate brought us Valentine's Day, a romantic comedy that featured a large group of Hollywood stars playing undeveloped characters in a series of stories that were all built around the title holiday. You may also remember that the movie was pretty mediocre. Now the same two people have brought us New Year's Eve, a pseudo-sequel that switches the setting from L.A. to New York, and features a slightly different large group of Hollywood stars (a couple from the first movie return) playing undeveloped characters in a series of stories built around the title holiday. The big difference this time around? Instead of being merely mediocre, this movie manages to be flat-out terrible, and a strong contender for one of the worst films of the year.

So we have the same basic idea and premise, only instead of the characters being bland and unmemorable, they now talk, act, and think like no sane person ever would. It's like watching a movie where the entire cast hails from Mars. As if to follow suit, none of the multiple stories that make up the plot manage to be funny or interesting. Here is a movie that gathers together Hilary Swank, Cary Elwes, Robert De Niro, Halle Berry, Jessica Biel, Carla Gugino, Jon Bon Jovi, and Sarah Jessica Parker (just to name a few), and can't think of a single thing to do with any of them. Anyone with the cast this film assembles could have just followed them around with a camera, and come up with a documentary infinitely more interesting than anything that happens in this movie. At least in that case, we'd be watching the actors being real people, rather than watching them play the hollow and uninteresting characters they're forced to portray here.

The movie gives us Hilary Swank playing Claire, the new Vice President of the Time Square Alliance, who is in charge of making sure the ball drops during the countdown to New Year. Her best friend is a cop (played by recording artist Chris "Ludacris" Bridges), who serves absolutely no purpose, and could have been written out entirely without consequence. Meanwhile, we have a guy who hates New Years (Ashton Kutcher) stuck in an elevator with a young woman (Lea Michelle), who is a back up singer of a popular rock star (Jon Bon Jovi), who is supposed to perform during the New Year festivities, but is more interested in trying to mend a broken romance with a woman (Katherine Heigl) he still has feelings for. In yet another plot, two competitive expecting mothers (Jessica Biel and Sarah Paulson) are fighting to give birth to the first baby of the new year, so they can collect a cash prize. In still yet another plot, a mousy secretary (Michelle Pfeiffer) tells off her boss (an uncredited John Lithgow), and goes on quest to fulfill all of her resolutions such as "go to Bali", or "be amazed" with the aid of a bike messenger (Zac Efron).

But wait, there's still more! I'm forgetting about the old man who's dying of cancer (Robert De Niro), and who's last wish is to go up to the roof of the hospital, and watch the New Year ball drop before he dies. And don't forget about the worried mother (Sarah Jessica Parker) who is chasing after her teenaged daughter (Abigail Breslin) who ran off on her to attend a party with friends. There's also a young man (Josh Duhamel) racing to get from Connecticut to New York, so that he can have a date with a mystery woman he met exactly one year ago, and is fated to meet again. All this, and I'm forgetting the wacky foreigner (Hector Elizondo) who is hired to fix the New Year ball when it malfunctions, and Halle Berry as a friendly nurse who is watching over De Niro's character, and has a lover fighting in the war overseas. You might say this movie is overstuffed with plots and characters, but that would convey that this movie was actually about something. New Year's Eve has no such lofty goals of being about anything. It is simply a cinematic dead zone where we watch a bunch of highly paid actors cashing a paycheck for a day or two's worth of work.

The whole movie has a slapped together feel to it. None of the individual scenes seem to go on for more than two minutes, so we're never given enough time to get to know this large cast of characters. This would be a great movie for those with short attention spans, as this movie doesn't require you to look or focus on anyone or anything for too long. And when the characters do open their mouths to talk, nothing they say sounds natural in the slightest. Here's a bit of sample dialogue - "There are so many things we can't control in this world - Earthquakes, floods, reality shows". Does that sound like something anyone you have ever met would say? It sounds to me like a bad joke from the first draft of a script. That's just one example, of course. To list all the examples would probably require a run through of the entire script from top to bottom.

For all the festive feelings and good spirits this movie tries to bring, I found myself quickly bored, and increasingly irritated at what this movie was trying to pull off. It's soulless, cynical trash filled with a bunch of talented people who should have known better, and probably were thinking of their more interesting projects coming up while they were filming this. While I was watching this movie, I started thinking of more interesting projects myself - Like the laundry I have to do tomorrow.

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The Sitter

2011-12-09T18:15:00.001-08:00

Like any job, a film critic has its highs and lows. Just last week, I saw Hugo, a wonderfully imaginative film filled with great characters and storytelling. And now today, I saw The Sitter, a painfully generic action comedy that supplies no laughs, no inspiration, and revels in unlikable characters and negative stereotypes. I know that not all movies can be winners, but do we really need more junk like this?

The movie, directed by David Gordon Green (who after his last film, Your Highness, and now this, really should be a bit choosier about the projects he signs up for), concerns itself with a 20-something loser named Noah (Jonah Hill). His life seems to revolve around watching TV, and making bad decisions concerning his somewhat-girlfriend, Marisa (Ari Graynor). She's the kind of girl who insists on him doing sexual favors for her, as well as picking up illegal drugs when she needs them, but won't do any favors for him when he asks. The fact that Noah seems fine with this arrangement makes him out to be an insufferable sap within the film's first few minutes. His mother (whom he still lives with) talks him into taking a babysitting job, and watching over three of the neighborhood kids. This ragtag group of children include an over-medicated closet homosexual with anxiety issues (Max Records), a little girl who wears too much make up and dreams of being a Manhattan socialite and "party princess" (Landry Bender), and an adopted Latino boy with a passion for explosives and running away from home (Kevin Hernandez).

The plot kicks off when Noah gets a call from Marisa while he is watching the kids. She invites him to a party, and promises him a night of sex if he can get out there in time. Of course, first, she asks him to pay a visit to the local drug dealer (Sam Rockwell), and pick up some cocaine for her. Noah loads the kids up in the family minivan, and drives into the city. This is where the hijinks are supposed to begin. Naturally, Noah runs afoul of the drug dealer and his henchmen, so he and the kids spend the rest of the night running for their lives. They have run-ins and misadventures with crooked cops, stereotyped black "gangstas", and spoiled high society snobs. You would think since we've seen all this stuff before, that the material would write itself. But first-time screenwriters Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka fail to find the laughs in just about every situation.

Even with a running time of just 80 minutes, The Sitter is an exhausted and labored movie that doesn't even seem to be trying. There seems to be no thought put into the characters, the dialogue, or the situations. The jokes are mainly comprised of toilet and sexual humor, with the characters repeating the same four letter words over and over. I have no problem watching a comedy with a dirty mind, but it at least has to look like it gives a damn. None of the jokes here hit, and everybody recites the dirty words with no feeling. You may ask yourself, what's worse than a dirty movie that just doesn't try hard enough? How about if that same dirty movie actually tried to make you sympathetic to the characters? Every now and then, the movie stops focusing on the cursing, shootouts, and drug kingpins, so it can concentrate on schmaltzy moments where Noah sits down one by one with one of the three kids, and talks them through the emotional problems they're having. Of course, by helping these kids, they wind up helping him realize what's truly important in life, and how he's wasting his potential.

What are these scenes doing in a movie like this? Not only are they out of place, but I don't think the audience who would pay to see a raunchy comedy like this care about quiet, reflective moments where kids learn life lessons while sappy music plays in the background. The Sitter wants to offend, and warm our hearts at the same time. This is a tricky balance to pull off, and like a lot of other films that tried, it fails. This is also one of those movies where everything is telegraphed well in advance. When Noah befriends some scary black hoods in a bar, we know they're going to come back and save his life by the end. When it's revealed that the little Latino boy has a history of running away at a moment's notice, we know that part of the film is going to involve a mad dash through the city, searching for him. When Noah has a run in with an old flame from school, we know they're going to end up together by the end. And so on.

There's not a single original thought to be found in the entire movie. I wouldn't mind so much if there were some genuine laughs or energy provided by the cast, but the movie is lifeless and completely forgettable. It's sad seeing Jonah Hill in something like this, since anyone who has seen him in Moneyball, or last year's dark comedy-drama, Cyrus, knows that he's capable of doing much better. I know movies like this are easy money and probably fun to make. But if he takes on too many projects like this, the end result will be costly.

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Hugo

2011-12-03T04:21:00.000-08:00

As 2011 draws to a close, I believe it will be hard for me to think of a movie as beautiful or as completely involving as Martin Scorsese's Hugo. I haven't been this smitten with a movie in years. And even though my screening got out over 16 hours ago as I am writing this, the feelings it created within me have yet to fade. This is a wondrous movie full of imagination, passion, charm, memorable characters, ingenious set designs, and a sense of wonder that most big budget epics can only dream to match. The movie is also available in 3D, and from what I have heard, puts most uses of the technology to shame. I don't know yet, as I saw it in 2D. The key word is "yet", as I plan to see it again in 3D next week.

Young Hugo (Asa Butterfield) is a boy who lives alone within the walls of a massive train station in Paris in the 1930s. His main skill is keeping the clocks within the station running, something that was taught to him by the alcoholic uncle who has been taking care of him since his father, a clockmaker, died in a tragic fire accident. We witness in flashbacks (where Hugo's father is played by Jude Law) that of all the gadgets and clockwork items his father kept, his favorite and most mysterious was a mechanical man known as an automaton that he rescued from the attic of a museum that was just going to throw it away. Hugo's father spent years trying to repair the thing and get to work, but died before he could finish. Hugo now carries on his father's work, wanting to get the automaton running again in his spare time. Since Hugo lives alone (the uncle who he was placed in the care of has mysteriously gone missing) and is too young to hold a job, he steals what he needs from the different booths and shops placed around the train station, whether it be food, or gears and clockwork pieces that he needs for the automaton.

He gets those parts from a small toy shop that specializes in wind up toys, which is managed and run by the grumpy Georges Melies (Ben Kingsley). If the name sounds familiar to film fans and historians (as it should), that's because the character is indeed supposed to be the legendary filmmaker from the early 20th Century, best known for the 1902 silent classic, A Trip to the Moon. Georges has fallen on hard times since his heyday, and doesn't like to think about the past. When he catches Hugo trying to steal something, and discovers the boy's notebook containing his dad's notes and drawings about the automaton, it instantly triggers painful memories within him. He won't say how or why, however, and takes the prized notebook, threatening to burn it when he gets home. Hugo's only ally in getting the notebook back and in uncovering the connection between the lonely old man and his father's mechanical man is Georges' goddaughter, Isabelle (Chloe Moretz). They will have to search the past, as well as the past of cinema itself, to uncover the answers, all the while avoiding the Station Inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), who wants to capture Hugo and send him away to an orphanage.

As expected from Scorsese, Hugo is a true visual triumph, from the set design of the train station itself (both the main passenger and consumer areas, and the secret back areas and clock towers that Hugo calls home), right down to the dream-like vision of the streets of Paris that Hugo watches from his window. The train station itself kind of becomes its own world, which makes sense for a boy who lives there in secret, and knows the ins and outs of the entire place. That's why the arrival of young Isabelle is so important. She is the first friend Hugo has had since his father died, and she introduces him to books with the aid of a kindly old bookseller (Christopher Lee), while he introduces her to the world of film. In fact, it's when the young heroes start digging into the past of cinema, looking for answers, that the movie truly reveals itself for what it is - a cinematic love letter to the "magicians" (in Georges case, quite literally) who saw early film as a tool for grand storytelling and visual effects.

This is Scorsese's thank you to the pioneers of the film medium. Filmmakers like Georges Melies were the first to create new worlds on the screen people hadn't seen before, and this movie serves not only as a history lesson of those pioneers, but also as a lesson for current filmmakers. The imagery, the art direction, the design of the mechanical sets with the various cogs, wheels, coils, and springs clanking all about young Hugo as he runs through the inside of a massive clock, the feather-like snow that falls on the streets of Paris, as well as the use of CG effects is a textbook example on how to make a truly remarkable looking film, but have it not be so overpowering that we lose the story being told. The screenplay by John Logan (Rango) tells a simple story that is filled with memorable characters and performances. There's hardly a misstep to be found in terms of casting (especially young actors Butterfield and Moretz, along with Ben Kingsley delivering one of his better performances in a while) or in the handling of the characters they play.

All that said, I do somewhat question the studio's decision to market this film as a whimsical kids' movie. Not that I think it's misleading, as there are certainly moments of whimsy to be found, and there's nothing offensive here for kids. It simply seems like a disservice to what the film really is. In fact, small children will most likely be bored by the film's somewhat leisurely pace, talky nature, and a running time that goes just over two hours. Older children and their parents (especially those with a love of film history) will no doubt be enthralled. But for younger children, there are better options more suited for them, such as the equally wonderful The Muppets or Arthur Christmas. Hugo is indeed a special film, and one which I'm surprised even got made. It's scope and scale are quite grand and epic, but the story itself is very personal and nostalgic. Despite the PG-rating, and the fact that it's being marketed as a holiday fantasy for the whole family, I definitely think adults will get the most out of this film.

Mixing elements of film history, a little bit of Charles Dickens, and Scorsese's mastery of filmmaking, Hugo is truly unlike anything you've seen on the screen this year. I'm not sure about its chances at the box office, but I'm almost certain that it will be remembered by many long after its theatrical run is over. And really, it's the films that have a life long after the box office numbers have been tracked that really come across as being important to you. Hugo is one of the very best films of the year.

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We Bought a Zoo

2011-11-27T18:12:00.001-08:00

WRITER'S NOTE: This is an advanced review from a preview screening that was held on November 26th. The movie opens in theaters on December 23rd.

Cameron Crowe's We Bought a Zoo is a harmless movie about some very nice people who, yes, end up buying a zoo when they go looking for a new place to live. Unfortunately, while the movie is harmless, it's also not very interesting. Same goes for the people. They're nice and all, but don't seem to have a lot on their minds. Even the zoo animals seem kind of bored. This certainly isn't a bad movie, just a very familiar one.

The film is based on the true story of Benjamin Mee (played here by Matt Damon), a single father who is coping with the recent passing of his wife, and having to raise his two children on his own. His teenage son, Dylan (Colin Ford) is your typical isolated young man, who expresses himself by getting in trouble at school, and drawing graphic pictures of death in class. His younger daughter, Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones), is one of those cloying little movie kids who always has something cute or clever to say on cue whenever the camera is pointed at her. He also has a supportive brother (Thomas Haden Church), who is mainly there for sarcastic comic relief. Benjamin decides the time has come for a change when Dylan is expelled from school, and he himself becomes fed up with his newspaper job, and walks off. He wants to start a new life for himself and his family.

He finds the perfect home somewhere in the Southern California countryside. Naturally, it's the one that the realtor seems the most nervous about, due to the fact that the house comes with its own struggling private zoo. In what has to be one of the biggest impulse buys in the history of cinema, Benjamin decides to buy the house when he sees how happy his little daughter is around the animals. I certainly hope there was more than that behind his decision to buy the property in real life. The family moves in, and they take charge of the zoo, which comes with its own staff of colorful stock characters. There's Kelly the zookeeper (Scarlett Johansson), who serves as somewhat of a love interest for Benjamin. The zoo's staff even has a teenage zookeeper (Elle Fanning) to act as a love interest for Dylan. There's an attempt at a subplot about Fanning's character trying to help Dylan come out of the emotional shell he's been in since his mother died. Too bad it never really works on an emotional level. Maybe if she had been written as an actual character, rather than someone whose main character trait is to smile a lot.

The rest of the staff is made up of eccentrics and oddballs that the movie can't think of anything to do with, so they're not worth mentioning. I understand what Crowe was going for here - He wanted to make a big-hearted movie about a family's emotional healing after a crisis, and how this family adventure of trying to run the zoo brought them closer together. You can literally see the screenplay co-written by Crowe trying its hardest to push our emotional buttons. You can also see him throwing just about every audience-pleasing trick in the book. A cute child, a shy teen romance, the struggle to save a sick tiger, a monkey who makes cute little reactions to what the characters say, a father trying to move on from his painful past, as well as connect with his emotionally distant son...It gets to be a bit much. I have not read the book that inspired this film, so I don't know if things actually happened this way. But, it felt awfully manipulative and contrived to me.

I was also put off by the severe tonal shifts that go on throughout the movie. The stuff concerning Damon and his son are actually pretty good, and there are some honest moments. But then, there are a lot of moments that are so overly sentimental or broad that they seem like they belong in a different movie. Thomas Haden Church is one of my favorite actors, but his role as the dry-witted brother is out of place. He's like a character on a sitcom, his every word a sarcastic quip. Equally out of place is John Michael Higgins, who plays the film's villain, a safety inspector who wants to close down the zoo, and does his best to find problems with it. Higgins plays the part too broad. As soon as he steps out of the car with that confident and smug smirk plastered on his face, you know what role he's supposed to play. And that smirk never leaves his face. It's like he's silently telling us at all times, "Yep, I'm a jerk. How can I be so terrible to these nice people? Don't you just hate me?"

We Bought a Zoo wants to wear its great big heart on its sleeve, and it does. But then, for some reason, it thinks we don't notice, so it keeps on hammering good, sunny feelings into each scene to the point that I started to feel assaulted by the film's manipulations. Like I said, I have not read the book that the film is based on, but I have a sneaking suspicion it's more honest and subtle than what's up on the screen. It has to be, because it's real life. This movie is an overly sunny, sitcom-level imitation of real life.

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Arthur Christmas

2011-11-25T11:57:00.001-08:00

It's hard enough to make a Christmas movie that is heartfelt and sentimental, without being sappy, but combine that with making a family movie that works for both kids and adults, and you're looking for a small miracle. Arthur Christmas is that small miracle. A collaboration between Aardman Animation (the Wallace and Gromit films) and Sony Pictures Animation, this is a pleasant and zippy little animated film that hopefully won't be overlooked amongst the heavy family film competition this Thanksgiving.

We've seen lots of holiday movies built around the story of Santa Claus, and how he is able to pull off his yearly run of delivering presents all over the world in one night. But, in my opinion, Arthur Christmas does it best. We learn that Santa is not really just one man, but really a family dynasty, with the title passing down each generation. The current Santa (voice by Jim Broadbent) currently serves as kind of a figurehead representing Christmas, and all it stands for. The real work is done by his eldest son, Steve (Hugh Laurie), who with the aid of his millions of elf helpers, has made Santa's workshop and the process of dropping off gifts on Christmas Eve into something that looks like a cross between Star Trek and James Bond. The old fashioned reindeer-driven sleigh is gone, replaced by a massive airship that intentionally brings to mind memories of the Starship Enterprise. As the ship zooms about the world, it drops off the elves, who go on elaborate stealth missions, using the most advanced spy technology to drop the gifts off without being seen.

Santa has another son named Arthur (James McAvoy) who, despite the fact that he pretty much radiates Christmas cheer from every fiber of his being (right down to the musical reindeer slippers he wears on his feet), is basically seen as the black sheep of the family. While older brother Steve gets all the glory at the North Pole, and is expected to become the next Santa after their dad retires, Arthur is pushed aside to the letter department, answering children's letters to Santa. This does allow Arthur a chance to have personal experiences and feelings for the children of the world, since he's required to read their letters and hear their deepest wishes. This probably explains why Arthur is so horrified when he discovers that a little girl's present has gone undelivered during Steve's most recent Christmas Eve run. Being a bean counter, Steve sees the undelivered gift as a simple oversight, and nothing to be concerned with. But all Arthur can think about is how disappointed the child will be.

The remainder of the film deals with Arthur's attempts to deliver the gift on his own before the sun rises, and it's officially Christmas Morning. He teams up with Grandsanta (Bill Nighy), the cantankerous old Santa (before Arthur's father's time) who still believes that the old fashioned reindeer-driven sleigh is the way to go over Steve's hi-tech operation, and leads Arthur to a room where the sleigh, magic flying dust, and reindeer have been locked away in secret. With the sleigh, Grandsanta, and a stowaway elf named Bryony (Ashley Jenson), who shares Arthur's views on no gift going undelivered, Arthur begins a series of misadventures to deliver the present, which include a stop in Africa, and a lot of unintended damage as they fly around the world.

Arthur Christmas is that rare animated film that prides wit and storytelling, over merchandising and celebrity names. While there are a few famous voices to be heard, they're not so distracting that we're paying attention to who's doing the voice, rather than the character up on the screen. The action is always lively (almost as soon as Arthur takes to the skies to deliver the present, the action hardly stops), there are a lot of fun individual sequences, and more than a few one liners tossed in by screenwriters Peter Baynham (who previously worked with Sacha Baron Cohen on Borat and Bruno) and director Sarah Smith that's sure to go over kids' heads, but make the parents laugh. There's nothing inappropriate to be found, despite the PG-rating, and the movie has a surprising amount of heart, which allows us to sympathize with the characters.

Whenever a studio tries to make a Christmas-themed movie, it's often too easy to get wrapped up in sappy sentiment, or corporate greed. Fortunately, this movie avoids both traps, and manages to be a true delight. Yes, the animation's not quite up to the efforts we got last week from Happy Feet Two. But then, this is the much better scripted movie, so Arthur Christmas wins in the end. My only advice is that you seek out the 2D version over the 3D, as I did. I did not see much that would have benefited from the extra dimension, and you don't have to wear those awkward glasses while watching the film. I've been tending to avoid 3D movies, unless I hear unusually good things about the effects, so I guess you can consider this my blanket response to which version to see from now on.

Now that I think about it, I have one more piece of advice. If you can, arrive a little late to the film. Before the movie starts, there's a three minute tie-in music video with Justin Bieber performing "Santa Claus is Coming to Town". Even by teen idol standards, Bieber's rendition is particularly bland and grating. I simply closed my eyes, and waited for the movie to start. At least it offers a chance to hit the concession stand if you haven't already.

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The Muppets

2011-11-24T05:29:00.000-08:00

As this movie actually suggests, there is something charmingly dated about Jim Henson's Muppet characters in this day and age of CG animation and special effects. Their warm, non-cynical humor, plush felt bodies, and ping-pong ball eyes make them actually look like they've come from a different and much calmer age. The new movie, The Muppets, openly acknowledges this, and attempts to reintroduce them to adults who grew up on the show (whether during the original run, or syndicated reruns), and introduce them to a new generation of kids.

Reviving a beloved franchise is always a risky proposition, and one I would not wish upon anyone. This time, the task fell to comic actor and writer, Jason Segel, who, as anyone who has seen his film Forgetting Sarah Marshall already knows, holds the Muppet characters near and dear to his heart. Fortunately, he's much better than that. Not only does he love the characters, he understands them, the world they live in, their personalities, and their humor. He and co-writer Nicholas Stoller, along with director James Bobin, have succeeded where past films to keep the Muppet tradition alive after Henson's death failed, in that there are no attempts to modernize the characters with pop culture humor, references and music. (Unlike 1999's dreary Muppets From Space, the last film featuring the characters to hit the screen.) Much like the characters themselves, the movie is charming, old fashioned, and just plain fun.

The plot is the stuff of ancient Hollywood cliches that Henson and his team loved to simultaneously spoof and celebrate back in the day. Segel plays Gary, an ordinary guy who lives in Smalltown, USA, along with his sunny long-time girlfriend, Mary (Amy Adams, who is just as charming here as she was in Enchanted.), and his brother and best friend, Walter (voice by Peter Linz), who just happens to be a Muppet himself. As much as little Walter loves Gary's company, it's never been easy for him being a felt person in a flesh and blood world. That's why he's always idolized the Muppet characters ever since he saw them on TV the first time, and longs to join them so that he can truly fit in somewhere. As the film opens, the three friends are headed off for a long-awaited vacation to L.A., where Walter hopes to visit the Muppet Studios and Theater, and meet his icons. When they arrive, however, they are met by grim news. The world has basically forgotten about the Muppets, the studio itself is in shambles, and a greedy oil tycoon named Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) is plotting to dismantle the whole place so he can drill for oil that's supposedly beneath the studio.

Determined to not let the Muppet name die, Gary, Walter, and Mary track down Kermit the Frog (voice by Steve Whitmire) in his secluded mansion, and tell him what's about to happen to the Muppet Studio. After some hesitation and personal reflection (in a lovely musical number that harkens back to some of the Muppets better melodies), Kermit agrees to join the trio, and they begin traveling the world to track down the other Muppets, so they can get the old group back together, and put on a show to raise money to save the Muppet studio. I liked seeing where the different characters had ended up since going their separate ways, such as Miss Piggy being a fashion magazine editor in Paris, Gonzo being a tycoon in a toilet seat business empire, and Animal being in anger management, with Jack Black as his personal counselor (just one of the film's many cameos).

So yes, it's the old "let's put on a show" formula that Mickey Rooney used to appear in, which is why it's fitting that the veteran actually makes a brief appearance in this movie. But really, the plot fits the Muppet characters, who have always been about charm and simplicity. Charm is one thing this movie has by the bucket-load. It's so warm, sunny, cheerful, and heartfelt, I can't imagine anyone flat-out hating it. What's amazing is how perfectly this movie understands the nature of Henson's classic humor, mixing nostalgic, old-fashioned elements with sharp satire and wit. The cast is equally sharp here, with Segel proving himself to be quite a capable song and dance man as well as a comic, Amy Adams being effortlessly charming, and Chris Cooper obviously relishing his comic villain role, and getting to do something different from the heavy dramas he's usually known for. From the lead stars to the numerous celebrities making cameos, everybody seems to be having a blast here, and it carries through out to the audience.

I wish I could say that The Muppets was a classic along the lines of the best films featuring the characters, but there is one major problem that holds it back from greatness, and that is the fact that the movie frequently comes across as unfocussed in its plotting. Outside of the main plot of saving the theater, there are numerous subplots that compete for our attention, and make the movie feel a little too crowded. There are just too many ideas, plots, and characters to support a 100 minute long movie, so a lot of potentially interesting ideas are either underdeveloped, or not developed at all. Of the ideas that I didn't feel got developed enough, the one I'm most sad about is the plot concerning "The Moopets", a gang of edgy and dark Muppet-wannabes who want to replace the original characters, and give kids the cynical and sarcastic humor that we've come to expect from some modern day entertainment. Just the idea of an edgy and sarcastic Fozzie Bear makes me laugh. Alas, he only gets one line in the film, and the characters themselves are introduced, and then basically forgotten about.

I didn't complain much, though. Everything else about The Muppets is so right, you don't really care when it goes wrong once in a while. I've read some reviews complaining that the movie does not come close to the original genius of Henson and his team. While this is true in some cases, I also think that the current team have their hearts in the right place, and are doing the best job possible to keep the legacy alive. This movie is all about fun, and in that regard, it's a resounding success.

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Happy Feet Two

2011-11-19T18:50:00.000-08:00

One of the first images we see in Happy Feet Two is the sight of literally hundreds of penguins dancing and singing in perfect precision to Janet Jackson's "Rhythm Nation". This immediately sets us in the right mindset, and makes us remember the joy of the original film from five years ago. The same thing happens every time there's a musical sequence, all of which are exquisitely done. It's when the penguins stop singing, and the movie focuses on the plot that things drag a little. While the movie remains cute, brightly colored, and entertaining for the most part, you can't help but feel that returning director George Miller and his team of writers were at somewhat of a loss as to how to continue the story.

We are reunited with the tap dancing penguin, Mumble (voice by Elijah Wood), who still can't carry a tune, but has managed to start a family with his young love Gloria (recording artist Alecia "Pink" Moore, stepping in for the late Brittany Murphy from the first movie), and their young chick, Erik (Ava Acres). Much like Mumble in his younger years, it seems that little Erik is having a hard time fitting in with the other penguins. He can't dance like his dad, and his singing doesn't match that of his mom. Because of this, Erik runs away from home with two of his little friends. Not long into his journey into the arctic wild, little Erik comes across the Mighty Sven (Hank Azaria), a puffin who is passing himself off as a penguin who can fly, and is treated almost like a god because of his flight abilities by a different clan of penguins. Seeing Sven flies puts the idea into Erik's head that maybe he can fly too if he puts his mind to it.

Mumble tracks his wayward son down, and as he tries to set the boy straight during their walk home, catastrophe strikes - Global warming causes the ice shelf to shift, stranding most of Mumble's tribe in a gorge where there seems to be no escape. Gloria is down there amongst the penguins, and unless something is done, they will all starve and die. Desperate for help, Mumble will turn to anyone he can think of, including a hard-headed elephant seal, the loopy penguin guru, Lovelace (Robin Williams), and even the Mighty Sven. As for young Erik, he will have to look within himself to find his own abilities and talents that make him special, and will help save his mother, as well as the other penguins in his tribe.

I wasn't exactly expecting complexity walking into Happy Feet Two, but even by kid's movie standards, the plot is pretty thin. It's basically comprised of Mumble and his friends standing around a giant gorge, trying to figure out how to free the other penguins that are stuck inside. The action never strays very far from the gorge, so it sometimes feels like we're watching a bunch of CG animated characters standing around, wondering what they should be doing. Fortunately, Miller and his team seem to realize this, so they do anything in their power to try to keep things interesting, including elaborate music and dance sequences, and a genuine energy that keeps things from lagging. We understand that a lot of the additional sequences (such as Mumble squaring off against an elephant seal dad) is strictly padding, but it's entertaining padding, at least.

In fact, one such subplot brings about the film's two most memorable characters - A pair of krill who go by the names of Will (Brad Pitt) and Bill (Matt Damon). These underwater crustaceans are tired of being at the bottom of the aquatic food chain, and decide to try their hands at being predators, going after animals and fish five times their size. The banter between the two actors is amusing, and while their plot has nothing to do with the action itself, the bug-eyed duo deliver some of the biggest laughs in the film, so I didn't care all that much. I actually wouldn't mind seeing the characters appear in a short cartoon or something. They wind up stealing the show, and offer a light comic touch to the somewhat dark main story that concerns itself with death and uncertainty.

So yes, Happy Feet Two is not quite the movie the first one was, and the plot is as thin as ice that is slowly starting to thaw. But the movie is filled with various stand out moments that help make the movie worth watching at least once. Such moments include the energetic music numbers, the best being a hopeful ballad sung by Gloria called "Bridge of Light", that is not only beautifully sung, but also features a gorgeous depiction of the Northern Lights. The movie is also a marvel to look at, with a somewhat photo-realistic appearance at times. There's some beautiful motion capture here, giving the penguins precise and lifelike movements. The animation, character designs, music, and voice acting can't be faulted in any way, and are top of their class. If only the script lived up to the qualities of everything else, we'd be looking at one heck of a movie.

As it is, I am recommending Happy Feet Two with big reservations. It's cute and all, but there is some pretty big competition coming up just around the corner in the family film market, including The Muppets, Martin Scorsese's Hugo, and The Adventures of Tintin. If those films manage to live up to expectations, I have a feeling that this movie will feel even thinner and slight than it already seems. Still, this movie is fun. Kind of unnecessary, but still fun.

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The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1

2011-11-18T17:55:00.000-08:00

I firmly believe in walking into every movie I see with an open mind. And so, I walked into Breaking Dawn Part 1 in the highest of spirits. The weekend was just starting, it's a holiday next week, which means a short work week, and I was at the movies, one of my favorite places of all to be. I took my seat, and as the film started, I tried to hold onto that good mood, hoping it would keep me positive. I would love to give a Twilight film a good review for once. Alas, it was not to be.

I tried, dear reader. Oh, how I tried. I tried to get involved in the love story between 18-year-old Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and her vampire lover, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), as they prepared to walk down the aisle and begin their lives together. But I cannot see the appeal of such a shallow couple, and why millions of women around the world find theirs to be one of the great love stories. I most likely never will understand. But, for those of you who are the faithful of this franchise, this is the movie I assume you've been waiting for. Bella and Edward finally say "I do", they have sex for the first time (off camera, of course, as this is a PG-13 movie), and Bella becomes pregnant with a half-human/half-vampire child. This leads to one of the bloodiest childbirth scenes in cinema history, and also makes me question, why is it not okay to show people making love in a PG-13 film, but it is okay to show Bella's spine literally twist and snap in labor, with blood strewn about the bed?

Bella's best friend, Jacob (Taylor Lautner), is back as well. If you recall, he's the guy who can turn into a wolf simply by running, and tearing off his shirt. I noticed something odd, however. Whenever he's about to turn into a wolf, he rips his shirt off, yet leaves his pants on. And yet, as soon as he assumes his wolf form, the pants simply disappear. I don't recall seeing them fly off him during the transformation sequence. They're just simply not there anymore. Anyway, Jacob's role in the story is to stand around and pout over the fact that Bella has chosen to marry Edward over him. He stands outside their house a lot, looking tortured and pained. Or, at least the closest to tortured and pained that Lautner can put across in his traditionally wooden performance. How vows to protect Bella when she becomes pregnant, but doesn't end up doing a whole lot.

The main plot involves Jacob's wolf pack wanting to kill Bella before she can give birth to her child, while Edward and Jacob try to protect her. What this ultimately boils down to is a lot of scenes of the main heroes pacing around inside the house, wondering what to do about Bella, while the wolves pace around outside the house under the cover of trees. Breaking Dawn seems to be stuck in permanent slow motion. The wedding preparations go on forever, the wedding itself seems endless, and the honeymoon is a long, pointless collection of scenes that consist of music montages, playing a lot of chess, and Edward and Bella staring off into space. And just when the plot looks like it's picking up, the movie ends up being simply nothing but the characters standing around and talking. Nearly nothing happens during the film's two hour running time, so by the time the movie ends on a cliffhanger, I really didn't care anymore.

There's a lot of sulking, a lot of pouting, some cornball romantic dialogue to tie everything together, an uninspired fight scene between the vampires and the wolves that is so incompetently shot, it often looks like a tangled mess of human actors and flashes of CG fur, and then it ends. I can't think of another movie this year that's ended up being a bigger non-event. So, is it all a total waste? Not completely. There were two moments that made me smile. One was when Bella's dad (Billy Burke) gave a very funny speech during their wedding, and the other is when we see the aftermath of Edward and Bella's lovemaking, which results in the girl waking up in the middle of a bed that's been mangled and smashed by her vampire lover's strength and passion. It's one of the few moments when the characters are allowed to smile, or at least show an emotion other than blank indifference.

As the Twilight series winds down, I realize I've come to the conclusion that the franchise was not for me from the beginning. But, why are so many enthralled with such a soulless love story? I ask, only to see that I am not missing something. After four movies (with one more to go), I find that I know about as much about these characters as I did walking into the first movie.

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Immortals

2011-11-13T18:22:00.000-08:00

The filmmakers behind Immortals must have known that their movie wouldn't be able to stand out in any way without some impressive visuals, so they hired Tarsem Singh (The Cell) to create some lively CG images, and some impressive money shots for the ad campaign. Their plan worked, as this is a sometimes very pretty movie. It's also completely dead on the inside. And while the images stand out, they never build to anything. They're just there to wow us, and then we wait for the next one to come along.

The plot couldn't be simpler, and will most likely fit right in when the inevitable video game tie in comes out in a few months. Set in the time of Greek Myths, an evil king by the name of Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) wants to take vengeance on the gods above after they did not answer his prayers to save the life of his wife and children when they became ill and died. He decides to take his anger out on the world by seeking a magical bow and arrow known as the Epirus Bow, which has the power to free the Titans that are locked away deep within Mount Tartarus. Standing in Hyperion's way is Theseus (Henry Cavill), a peasant and former slave who wants revenge on the king after Hyperion's army raided his city and killed his mother. Theseus is joined in battle by an Oracle (Freida Pinto from Rise of the Planet of the Apes), who has the gift (Or is it a curse?) to see the future, and a thief (Stephen Dorff) who always fights by his side.

As a villain, Hyperion spends most of his time shoveling food in his mouth, when he's not torturing his own soldiers, or sticking attractive young women in a silver statue of a bull where he burns them alive. As for our hero, Theseus is of the square-jawed, bare-chested variety. He's handy with a blade, which he uses to hack Hyperion's many armored and faceless soldiers to bits. It's not surprising that he's a skilled fighter, since he's been trained since he was a child by Zeus himself, who takes the form of a kindly old man (John Hurt) when he's down on Earth amongst the mortals. (Luke Evans portrays the actual Zeus during the scenes when the gods watch the action going on down on Earth from above.) But then, does he really need training by a god when the enemy's main attack seems to be to rush blindly at Theseus, and hope for the best? The action and fight sequences are of the mindless "hack and slash" variety, and look oddly like a demo for a video game tie in. The only thing missing are the button prompts popping up, and a score counter.

At least Immortals looks impressive most of the time, with its vast CG produced landscapes, its vast CG generated armies, and a general sense of majesty in a lot of the shots. The director is obviously trying to create a realized fantasy world, and he succeeds, with religious shrines placed upon scenic cliffs, and sweeping shots of cities and battlefields. But I couldn't help thinking that it would be even more impressive if the characters were as fleshed out as the locations. It's hard to care when a majority of the cast exists to be carved up like meat, with cartoon CG blood flying at the camera. (Did I mention the movie's in 3D?) Watching this movie, I thought back on the fantasy stories I used to read when I was younger. They were filled with fantastic worlds too, but they had characters, and drama, and emotion. This movie gives us a realized world, with nothing to inhabit it.

Immortals is already on its way to becoming a box office hit if the weekend totals are to be believed, so I guess their strategy worked. But still, how cynical of the filmmakers to give us such a beautiful world, and then just stop there. It's not like the Greek Myths were lacking in characters or drama that the script could draw upon. This is a movie that calls out for imagination. What we end up getting are cardboard cutouts in front of some pretty pictures.

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Jack and Jill

2011-11-12T18:51:00.001-08:00

Is it me, or are Adam Sandler movies getting stupider with each passing one? Oh sure, Sandler's sense of humor has been pretty dumb from the beginning, sometimes in an enjoyable way. But lately, his movies seem to be reaching for a lower form of humor than I even knew existed. I'm guessing it won't take long until we get a movie comprised of nothing but Sandler sitting on the toilet and belching for 90 minutes straight.

But, I'm here to talk about Jack and Jill, a stupefyingly dumb comedy that places Sandler in a dual role as both an uptight ad executive and family man, as well as his loud, obnoxious sister. The movie was a miscalculation from the start. Seeing Sandler dressed in drag and talking in a whiny voice probably would have been pushing it in a three minute sketch back in his Saturday Night Live days. In a 90 minute movie, the performance is excruciating. Was there no one around to stop him and tell him the performance, and the character in general, was just a bad idea? No one to say that it just wasn't funny? Seeing a movie like this makes you want to sit Sandler down, and make him watch his performances in Punch Drunk Love, Spanglish, Funny People, and Reign Over Me to remind him that he is so much better than this.

The plot (such as it is) concerns Jill (the sister) coming to visit her brother Jack and his family for Thanksgiving. She's only supposed to be there for a few days, but she extends her vacation time, and winds up staying almost to New Years. During that time, we get a lot of toilet humor (much more than a PG-rated comedy aimed at kids needs), a ton of product placements (How much did Dunkin' Donuts pay to get their brand worked into the plot of the movie? And would it have been better for business if they had just stayed out of the movie all together?), and a lot of celebrity cameos that include Sandler's friends, as well as some big names cashing a paycheck. The cameos in this film include David Spade (in drag, no less), Dana Carvey, Johnny Depp, Regis Philbin, John McEnroe, Shaquille O'Neal, Drew Carey, Christie Brinkley, and Bruce Jenner. Oh, and then there's Al Pacino.

Yes, I said Al Pacino. Only he's not making a cameo, he's a main supporting character. He plays a caricature of himself as a raving oddball who speaks gibberish in order to fool people he can speak other languages, and becomes inexplicably attracted to Jill when he happens to meet her at a basketball game. Jill has no interest in Pacino, but Jack's ad agency wants to hire the actor for a Dunkin' Donut campaign, so he tries to bring the two together. When Jill further resists, Jack is forced to dress up as his sister and be seduced by Pacino. But never mind. The important thing is Pacino gets the film's only laughs, because he tackles the material head-on and with full passion. He obviously knows this material is stupid, but he gives such an energetic performance, you sometimes find yourself laughing, even if what he says isn't that funny. Say what you will about his decision to appear in this movie, but he earns every cent of that paycheck when he appears in trash like this.

Outside of Pacino's off the wall performance, I can't say I laughed very much at Jack and Jill. The movie's just not that funny. Don't tell that to the guy who was sitting two rows behind me at my screening, though. Every tired pratfall, every loud fart that blasted on the soundtrack, and every knock to the head caused him to erupt in extremely loud fits of laughter, stomping of feet, and slapping his knees. I wanted to ask him what he found so funny about the movie. Most of all, I wanted to be enjoying myself as much as he was. That's obviously the intention of the movie. It wants to make us laugh and forget our problems for 90 minutes or so. That's admirable. But it fails on both counts. My guess as to the reaction of the man sitting behind me? He's been locked away somewhere for a very long time, and has never seen a movie in his life.

I won't go so far as to say that Jack and Jill is the worst comedy of the year, as there's much worse out there. But, it's certainly one of the most annoying. This is the kind of movie where the filmmakers started with the idea of Sandler playing brother and sister, and then stopped there, not developing the screenplay, characters, or the jokes. Considering that the initial idea wasn't that hot to start with, maybe they shouldn't have even gone as far as they did.

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Anonymous

2011-11-12T16:45:00.000-08:00

Disaster filmmaker Roland Emmerich takes a break from destroying the world with aliens, giant lizards, and mother nature itself, and tries to get a little more serious with Anonymous, a film that argues that William Shakespeare did not write the plays he is credited to. This is a sometimes entertaining, sometimes laggy, but genuinely well made costume drama that can be entertaining, as long as you don't try to make sense out of the numerous historical inaccuracies that can be found throughout. As a history lesson, it gets an F. As escapist entertainment, I'd give it a B-.

There have been many speculations and conspiracy theories that Shakespeare did not write his plays. Many names as to the true author have been kicked about over the years. The one that Emmerich and screenwriter John Orloff run with is Edward de Vere, the Earl of Oxford (Rhys Ifans). He is a man of high standing and power in the court of Queen Elizabeth, whom we see as both a young woman (Joely Richardson) and late in her life (Richardson's real life mother, Vanessa Redgrave). Edward longs to write plays and poems, but his position prevents him. He decides to strike a deal with struggling playwright, Ben Jonson (Sebastian Armesto), and offers him money if Jonson will publish and perform his plays under his name, instead of Edward's. Jonson balks at the idea, but not before he happens to tell about his meeting with the Earl to a young actor named Will Shakespeare (Rafe Spall).

Shakespeare is portrayed here largely as a lout, hungry for fame and attention, but not really holding any qualities that can earn him what he desires. He's often drunk, he's lewd, he's crass, and he does not share Jonson's qualms about putting his name on someone else's work. Edward's plays, with Shakespeare's name attached, become instant hits, stirring audiences like no one has ever seen. The drama mainly stems from Ben, and how he is forced to watch his undeserving friend suddenly become the toast of society. While he struggles to get his own plays performed, he watches Shakespeare swindle and blackmail his way into getting a theater constructed especially for his works. As for Edward, there is plenty of drama within the walls of the castle, including the lusty desires of Queen Elizabeth, and her many illegitimate children, including one with Edward.

Is all of this ridiculous? Absolutely. The fact that Anonymous plays this material completely straight is both a strength (the actors are able to sell this material quite well, even if we know it's rubbish), and a weakness (the movie has more turgid melodrama than an afternoon soap opera). This leads to my conflicted view upon the film. On one hand, Emmerich should be commended. He's made an attractive looking film, and has filled it with a fine cast. On the other hand, you get the sense that he really does believe the story he's telling us. The movie presents itself largely as a "what if", but doesn't dig deep enough into its own theories. Its main arguments for Shakespeare being a fraud is that he was largely illiterate. This is really only addressed in one or two scenes. The rest of the time, its main argument seems to be that Shakespeare was largely an ass and a glory hound.

And much like the historical drama I saw yesterday (J. Edgar), this movie likes to be loose with its timeline, jumping about to different points in time, seemingly at random. It's not quite as annoying as it was in Eastwood's movie, but there were still moments where I needed a second or two to figure out where we were supposed to be in the timeline of the story. A straight, cohesive narrative flow certainly could have only helped things. Still, faults aside, there is a lot to admire, especially the scenes focusing on the odd relationship between the Earl of Oxford, Shakespeare, and Jonson. These sequences create the most tension. The drama concerning the Queen and her subjects and family is slightly less successful, but the performances at least keep things afloat.

I would not recommend Anonymous as a teaching tool, or as something to introduce someone to the works of Shakespeare. But, I still managed to enjoy large parts of this, despite the huge leaps of faith and logic the movie often asked of me. I will say that Emmerich has struck out of his comfort zone of dumb special effects spectacles, and has mostly stayed afloat. Well, he doesn't strike too much out of his comfort zone. He does get to blow up a theater in the film's opening scene.

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J. Edgar

2011-11-11T18:39:00.000-08:00

Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar is the result of a filmmaker who is talented, but can't find the heart of the story he is trying to tell. This is a beautifully shot movie, and it has a passionate lead performance by Leonardo DiCaprio. But so what, when the movie itself is as dull and as lifeless as any bio-drama I can think of in recent memory. This is what happens when a studio has award aspirations for a movie, but doesn't have the script to back it up. It looks nice and all, but it's impossible to care about.

J. Edgar Hoover served as the head of the F.B.I. from 1924, right up until his death in 1972. He made it what it is, with his at the time unorthodox approach to investigating crimes with fingerprints and preserving evidence. He was a controversial figure in a lot of ways, and it's easy to see why Hollywood would be interested in his story. We see bits and pieces in J. Edgar that could serve to be a thrilling film. But it's surrounded by a turgid screenplay that shifts uncomfortably between stuffy dialogue, and over the top theatrical melodrama. This is a shapeless and sloppy movie about an interesting man and subject. It jumps back and forth between different time periods, sometimes without reason or consequence, and simply seems to be a bunch of ideas and facts tossed at the screen at random, as if Eastwood and screenwriter Dustin Lance Black (2008's Milk) don't even know what order they want to tackle things.

The two main time periods that the movie concerns itself with are the 30s, when Hoover is setting up the F.B.I. and making a name for himself, and the 60s, when he is telling his story for a memoir. The later scenes contain some very uneven make up work, in order to make the actors look older. The work on DiCaprio as the elder Hoover looks fine, but some of the other characters look comically bad to the point where it looks like they're wearing an old man's mask over their face. We meet some of the more important people in Hoover's life, such as his mother (Judi Dench), who he lived with most of his life, and a woman named Helen Gandy (Naomi Watts), who became his loyal secretary for most of the years he was in office.

The most important person in Hoover's life, however, was his second at the F.B.I., Clyde Tolson (Armie Hammer from The Social Network). As this movie shows us, Tolson was not only his most trusted agent on the force and personal friend, but also secret romantic interest. And yet, the movie skillfully ducks and weaves on this subject. Oh sure, we get to see them exchange glances that seem more than a little friendly, and even some rather sly hand holding while watching a movie at a theater. But the screenplay pretty much stops there, not really diving into the relationship itself. There's a bombastic scene where the two have a fight about their feelings for each other, complete with throwing glasses, shouting, and a fight that ends in a passionate kiss. The scene ends with Tolson walking away, and Hoover whispering "I love you" as he leaves. Okay, why? The movie keeps us at such a distance from the characters, we never get a clear sense of how they feel about each other, or why.

J. Edgar is the kind of movie that feels like it was researched, but the writer pretty much stopped there. He didn't try to truly make us understand Hoover. We get a bunch of facts spilled out on the screen, but there's no emotion or connection in the material. We see bits and pieces of character development that don't go anywhere. We see Hoover's descent into paranoia and narcissism, but there doesn't seem to be all that much behind it. This is a mechanical product. It spits out information, but it never gets close to the heart of the matter. We can see that DiCaprio is trying to humanize Hoover in his performance, but it doesn't work when the script constantly keeps us at a distance. Maybe historical buffs will be able to fill in the movie's blanks, but I have a feeling that most audience members will be left cold by a lot of the characters, and their actions.

This is a long, dry, and pointless costume drama that never comes close to making a point, other than nobody's actually made a movie about Hoover before. Fair enough. But that's only Step 1. You have to go further, and give us a reason to want to see a movie about him. Aside from some good performances, and some very nice images, there's just not enough incentive to see this. In fact, I suggest you skip it completely. Eastwood has done better, and will most likely do better in the very near future.

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A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas

2011-11-05T18:20:00.000-07:00

It's a sad truth that by the time most comedy franchises have hit their third movie, a lot of the inspiration from the earlier films has run dry. Here's another sad truth - A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas does very little to buck this trend. Oh, there are still laughs to be had, though not as many as before. And Harold and Kumar themselves are as likable as ever. We're simply looking at a franchise that might be running out of steam.

After their adventures trying to track down a White Castle restaurant (in the 2004 original film), and their time as fugitives having escaped from Guantanamo Bay (in the 2008 sequel), it would seem that best friends Harold (John Cho) and Kumar (Kal Penn) have parted ways. Harold is now married to his long-time girlfriend Maria (Paula Garces), has a job as a powerful businessman, is trying to start a family, and has just bought his first home. With Christmas fast approaching, Harold is dreading having to spend the holidays with Maria's extended family, particularly her eternally-snarling father (Danny Trejo), who seems to have a certain vendetta against Koreans based on a past trauma. As for Kumar, not much has changed, except for the fact that his girlfriend Vanessa (Danneel Harris) has dumped him. He spends his days in a cramped and dirty apartment, smoking pot.

The plot kicks off when a mysterious package is dropped off at Kumar's doorstep, which leads to fate reuniting the two friends. Their reunion has hardly begun when an accident occurs, causing Harold's prized Christmas tree (which Maria's father brought to their home, and spent eight years growing himself) to completely burn up. The friends must now put aside their differences, and go on a madcap race through New York City on Christmas Eve to find a suitable replacement tree. As is to be expected from a Harold & Kumar film, this simple task turns into a series of misadventures which involve Russian mobsters, a coked-up baby, Santa Claus, killer Claymation snowmen, robots, and a return of series regular, Neil Patrick Harris, who once again plays a caricature of himself as a deranged, drug-addicted sex fiend.

The Harold & Kumar franchise has always taken a rather slapdash approach to its comedy, throwing as many ideas and gags as they can up at the screen, and seeing which ones stick. Their Christmas adventure takes the same approach, but there are less jokes that work this time around. I don't think it's quite that the movies have lost their edge. Screenwriters Jon Hurwitz and Hayden Schlossburg still enjoy playfully skewering just about every race, religion, and belief that they can think of. I think it's just the whole thing has become familiar by now. We expect it, so it's not as shocking as the filmmakers seem to think. You know you've become jaded when the movie you're watching contains a scene were people urinate on and throw feces at a car, and you don't react out of disgust. Just another day reviewing another gross out comedy. I will give the filmmakers this - They have achieved the first 3D penis in cinema history. Whether or not you view this as an accomplishment depends on your personal taste.

Speaking of the 3D, it's surprisingly underused. There's a clever scene early on that kind of pokes fun at 3D movies in general, but outside of that and a couple gimmick shots, there's really nothing here that takes advantage of the technology. I was able to watch I'd say about 85% of the movie without the glasses just fine. So, if you have the option, see the cheaper 2D version. But, back to the movie - John Cho and Kal Penn once again slip back comfortably into their famous roles, and show some great chemistry as they toss one-liners back and forth at each other. With the guys getting older (Cho is about to hit 40), I don't know how much longer they'll be able to play these stoner friends who always seem to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, but for now at least, they still pull it off, and give the movie most of its comic energy.

I think I would have liked this movie better and laughed even more if I felt like I hadn't seen it before. It's a little sloppier and not as sharp as before, but it's not a total wash. As I mentioned, there are some laughs to be had, and the movie seems to have fun playing with different cinema conventions, including everything from stop motion animated Christmas specials, to a lavish musical number. The movie's so darn eager to please and willing to try anything for a laugh, you can't really hate it, even when disappointment sets in. At least this movie seems to be trying, which is more than I can say for some. So, I guess I'm saying I can't really recommend A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas, but I can't suggest you completely skip it. You might even end up liking it. If you were a fan of the past films, you'll find something to like here.

I suspect those fans will view this as comfort food - They know what to expect, and the movie delivers, just with less inspiration than before. Yes, I laughed a few times at the movie, but those laughs were surrounded by long periods of silence. I will say this, though. On my way out of the theater, I noticed a grandmother being talked into seeing the movie by her two young grandkids, who both looked to be less than 10. She obviously thought it was a family film, given the Christmas theme. Don't make the same mistake she was about to.

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Tower Heist

2011-11-04T18:17:00.000-07:00

It's a good thing that Tower Heist is a comic action movie, because if it had attempted to be straight up action, the heist at the center of it all would have been completely implausible and idiotic. It still is, but since the movie is a comedy, and stars the likes of Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy, we can suspend our disbelief. This is a fast-paced, check your brain at the door kind of movie that kind of works on that most basic level. It's not much more than that, though I don't think it wants to be.

Despite both Stiller and Murphy sharing top billing above the title, this is really Stiller's movie, with Murphy giving a lively supporting performance when he shows up now and then. Stiller plays Josh Kovacs, the building manager of the upscale Tower apartment complex in Manhattan. Any resemblance between this movie's Tower building, and the real life Trump Tower in New York is entirely intentional, I'm sure. The residents of the tower are wealthy people who rely on people like Josh for everything from opening the doors for them, to walking their dogs. Chief amongst these residents is billionaire Wall Street tycoon, Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), who resides in the building's penthouse. He's a Bernie Madoff-inspired figure being investigated for securities fraud. As it turns out, Shaw had agreed to handle the pension funds of the entire working staff of the Tower, so now with the financial scandal unfolding, Josh and his fellow workers realize they're broke, and Arthur has tucked away their life savings.

While Arthur is locked away in his penthouse under house arrest, with FBI agent Claire Denham (Tea Leoni) trying to put the pieces of the crime together, Josh decides that it's time for a little payback. He figures that the money Arthur is hiding might be stashed away in a secret safe within the walls of the penthouse. Wanting to reclaim what Arthur has stolen from him and his fellow employees, Josh devises a plan to sneak in and steal the money. After all, who knows the patterns, and the way the building's security systems work better than them? He gathers up a small crew to assist him in the heist including the building's concierge, Charlie (Casey Affleck), rookie elevator operator Enrique (Michael Pena), Odessa the maid (Gabourey Sidibe), a former resident of the Tower who is now down on his luck named Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick), and a small time neighborhood thief named Slide (Eddie Murphy), who will train them in the art of breaking and entering.

Despite the obvious parallels to today's economic headlines, Tower Heist doesn't really dig deep into its own plot or issues, nor does it want to. Director Brett Ratner (the Rush Hour films) is in his comfort zone here, giving us a sleek, well-made, and goofy action comedy that goes in one ear and out the other. The movie works on an escapist level, with some sly one liners delivered by its talented cast, a lot of big over the top set pieces (which involve everything from the Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, to a priceless Ferrari being dangled by a giant crane outside of a building), and a general sense that everyone up on the screen is having a blast, and they want the audience to join the fun. That's where this movie works. It's energetic, its fast, and it barely slows down long enough for us to think too much about the numerous plot holes, or the general implausibility of the heist plan that Josh and his friends dream up.

So, the movie itself is fairly flimsy, and the caper that drives the plot is ridiculous. It's a good thing Ratner's gathered a cast that knows how to sell this material. Stiller delivers probably one of his better performances in a while, getting to mix in some genuine emotion and feeling with his one-liners. He also has some very funny moments with Eddie Murphy. Speaking of Murphy, he gets to show a bit of his old edge here, after years of playing kindly dads, talking donkeys, and hiding behind fat suits and make up. The movie's PG-13 rating seems to be holding him back a little, but it's still nice to see his comic edge return. Other notable performances are delivered by Tea Leoni (who gets a very funny bar scene), Gabourey Sidibe (in her first major role since her breakout in 2009's Precious), and Alan Alda, who makes for a wonderfully silver-tongued villain.

If Tower Heist never comes across as being truly memorable, it's not for a lack of trying. Like I said, this is a fun movie, and I'm sure it will end up being a crowd pleaser. But there are issues, like the way there seems to be scenes missing from the film. Certain details of the plot could have been explained better, and it feels like there's some information that got left out. A lot of this has to do with the planning of the heist itself, which the movie just seems to breeze over. Certain elements of the preparation should have been cleared up, especially considering how the heroes threw together a phony court date for Arthur Shaw to ensure he'd be out of the building at the time of the break in. Sometimes it doesn't pay to think during a movie, I guess.

Regardless, something tells me thinking is the last thing this movie wants out of its audience. I admire and understand that. Escapism is a vital part of the movie experience, after all. But this is not great escapism, it's serviceable. When it was over, I admitted to myself that I had fun watching it, but I probably wouldn't remember much about it not long after it ended. It's been 4 and a half hours since my screening got out as I am writing this sentence, and it looks like I was right.

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The Rum Diary

2011-10-29T18:25:00.000-07:00

I have a feeling that those who are already fans of the writings of author Hunter S. Thompson will get more out of The Rum Diary than I did. The movie is a hazy and often muted look into the author's world, with distant characters, and a narrative that comes across as a series of anecdotes. Some of these are quite funny and entertaining, but more often, I was bored, and found myself missing the visual style that director Terry Gilliam brought to the last film based on one of Thompson's works, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

The story behind the film is that Johnny Depp (who starred in Fear and Loathing..., and stars once again here) discovered Thompson's unpublished manuscript for The Rum Diary while preparing for the earlier 1998 film. The actor convinced him to publish the book, and now, has played a large part in it reaching the big screen. He managed to coax director Bruce Robinson out of retirement to helm the film, and helped secure some strong acting talent to tell the story. But the movie failed to connect with me. The semi-autobiographical story that Thompson wrote inspired by his early days as a journalist is missing a fresh look at the material. Much like Depp's downplayed performance in the film itself, the movie seems to be downplaying itself, as well as the absurd aspects that might have made it stand out.

Depp plays Thompson's on screen persona, Paul Kemp, who arrives in Puerto Rico in 1960 to take a job at a struggling English-language newspaper. He arrives at the job drunk, but at least he seems to be in good company, as everyone else who works there seems to be drunk or high, much to the chagrin of his new boss (Richard Jenkins). His fellow employees include a photographer named Sala (Michael Rispoli), who has a passion for cockfighting, and the bizarre Moburg (Giovanni Ribisi), who delivers the most interesting performance in the film as a guy with an interest in Hitler and top secret illegal substances. Kemp arrives at his new job with little ambition other than to make some money. But he soon gets involved with a wealthy American entrepreneur named Sanderson (Aaron Eckhart), who is trying to pull off a land development scheme on the island. Kemp's main interest in Sanderson stems from his beautiful young fiance, Chenault (Amber Heard), whom he harbors strong feelings for.

The movie forms a loose narrative, hopping from one subject to the next, or sometimes a funny sequence, such as when Paul and Sala are driving along the street in a hollowed out car. But there's no real emotional investment to anything happening on the screen. The intensity that Thompson was famous for in his writings is missing here. The movie drags, when it should be wild. Likewise, we have a very strong cast, giving some rather muted performances here, save for a few exceptions. Aside from the previously mentioned Ribisi, Amber Heard manages to give some personality and warmth to a character who easily could have come across simply as an object of desire. The most baseless character in the film is oddly enough Paul Kemp himself, who often comes across as a blank slate we know little to nothing about. We hear Thompson's words coming out of his mouth in both his dialogue and occasional narration, but we don't get any of his passion.

Since The Rum Diary ends up having very little to say, it does not take long for boredom to set in amongst the audience (the man sitting behind me fell asleep a couple times, only to be aroused by his companion), and for the two hour running time to feel a lot longer than it actually is. It's well known that the movie's been sitting on the shelf for a while before its release, and it certainly shows signs of an intriguing, but troubled production. Despite Depp's obvious passion in getting the book on the screen, none of it comes through in the movie itself. I'm sure he was thrilled to be taking on Thompson's material and character again, and there's a nice little tribute to the author at the end. But really, the movie feels like it's excluding anyone who does not share Depp's passion and interest for the man.

There are moments that amuse and lead one to think that The Rum Diary is finally going to find its footing, only to have the movie go back to its same sluggish approach to the material. The movie doesn't even take advantage of the natural beauty of the island setting. While it's not without its charms, this movie ends up being a big disappointment.

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Puss in Boots

2011-10-29T06:15:00.000-07:00

I love the idea behind the character of Puss in Boots - a Latin lover and swordsman (with the voice of Antonio Banderas, no less) who seems to have no idea that he's in the body of a cat. The idea is funny enough itself, but is it funny enough to carry a movie? Well, not this movie, at least. I kept on waiting to get wrapped up in what was going on the screen, but the movie remains surprisingly lethargic and kind of dull. Puss in Boots (which serves as an origin story of sorts for the feline) just didn't work for me.

Those expecting a formula similar to the Shrek films where the character originated (rapid-fire dialogue, modern day jokes and references, peppy pop music on the soundtrack) will be disappointed. You'll also be disappointed if you're looking for any connection to the Shrek universe, as there is none. Instead, director Chris Miller (Shrek the Third) has given us an adventure story that mixes elements of the Zorro films, classic Spaghetti Westerns, and some fairy tale references thrown in to give it at least some loose relationship to the earlier movies. It's a great idea in theory, and I wanted to like this movie a lot more than I did. But it's surprisingly lacking in energy, and aside from one mild chuckle, I didn't find myself laughing at all. I guess jokes about cat behavior and their nature (which seem to make up a majority of the gags) don't get you far.

We learn the story of Puss, and how he was abandoned at an orphanage as a kitten. He was treated as an outcast by the other kids, but quickly befriended fellow outcast, Humpty Dumpty (voice by Zach Galifianakis). Humpty was obsessed with finding the magic beans that could grow a beanstalk leading up to the Land of the Giants, and the treasures it holds. Their friendship grew as the two became older, going on various adventures to search for the fabled beans. But, one fateful night, it all ended when Humpty attempted to rob a bank (he owed some thugs some money), and Puss became an outlaw for being associated with the thieving egg. Since that night, Puss has become a wandering adventurer, stealing what he needs from the evil and greedy, and helping the poor and oppressed when he can. He still searches for the magic beans, however, which he learns are currently in possession of the outlaw couple, Jack and Jill (voiced by Billy Bob Thornton and Amy Sedaris, respectively).

There is another adventurous cat seeking the beans, and her name is Kitty Softpaws (Selma Hayek), a master thief who is just as much of a romantic and as quick with a sword as Puss is. When the two join up, Puss learns that Kitty is working for his former friend, Humpty. The two rivals must put aside their past differences and work together in order to steal the magic beans from Jack and Jill, with Kitty's help. There are a couple of high speed chases, and a journey up to the Land of the Giants in order to steal the goose who lays golden eggs. It certainly sounds like a plot that should work, but Puss in Boots is never funny enough or imaginative enough. The new characters are not that interesting, Jack and Jill (despite game performances from Thornton and Sedaris) never come across as villains we can get involved with, and the whole thing seems surprisingly low key for an animated feature. There are some fun action and chases sequences thrown in, but they are separated by long periods where not much happens.

The film is certainly beautifully drawn and animated, as we have come to expect from Dreamworks, so there are some really nice images to look at. But that only takes the film so far. The main character, and Banderas' lively voice performance, also manage to only take things so far. Puss remains essentially a one-joke character here, just as he does in his supporting roles in the Shrek movies. I was hoping this film would maybe open him up a little as a character, but despite learning his background story, he gets very little development here. Maybe there's only so much you can do with someone like Puss in Boots. I hope not, because I really do love the character, and I wanted to love this movie. I found myself smiling quite a lot during the first 20 minutes or so, but then that smile faded as I started to wait for something to happen, and it never came.

In recent years, Dreamworks has released a string of very strong animated films including How to Train Your Dragon, Megamind, and Kung Fu Panda 2. Puss in Boots represents a small step back. I'm sure they'll find their footing again soon. And in case anyone's wondering, no, I don't want to see any of the other Shrek characters getting their own spin off movie.

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In Time

2011-10-28T18:12:00.001-07:00

Writer-director Andrew Niccol likes to give us worlds that resemble our own, but differ in intriguing ways. In his breakout film, Gattaca, he gave us a world where human reproduction had been replaced with genetic splicing. In The Truman Show, he gave us a world that was completely under the control of an ego-maniacal TV producer, who was filming the life of a simple man 24-7. His latest film, In Time, explores a world where time itself is the most valuable asset, and can be bought, traded, stolen, used as currency, and even fought over. It's a fascinating idea, but instead of fully exploring this idea or the world itself, it opts for a more conventional action thriller approach that is certainly watchable, but somewhat disappointing given the possibilities on display.

The imaginative world and the idea behind it serve merely as a launching point for a Bonnie and Clyde-style story of fugitive lovers on the run, with plenty of chases, shootouts, and high speed cars fleeing from danger. All of this is done with a certain amount of skill, and Justin Timberlake and Amanda Seyfried (as the fugitive lovers) are fun to watch. I just wanted the movie to slow down long enough for me to enjoy the world Niccol has created for his characters. I'm uncertain if the film is supposed to take place sometime in the distant future, or perhaps on an alternate version of Earth. We learn early on that people age normally on this world until they reach the age of 25. At that point, they simply stop aging, and a green digital clock that's permanently on their arm begins to tick down their remaining time. Everyone starts with one year worth of time left to live on their clock. But in this world, time can be bought, sold, gambled, and traded by simply clasping hands with someone else. Everything costs time in this world, and some have more than others. The wealthy elite are allowed to live for centuries, as they add more and more time to their clocks. Meanwhile, the lower class citizens who live in the slums must literally live day-by-day, and minute by minute.

We meet our hero, Will Salas (Timberlake) - a working class man who punches his clock at the factory every day, and has a mother (Olivia Wilde), who looks the same age as him, but is actually 50. Both live a modest life, adding whatever minutes they can to their remaining time. One day, Will saves the life of a wealthy man with over a century left to live from some thugs who wanted to steal his remaining time. After they've escaped and they are alone, the man is grateful to Will, but also admits that he has lived longer than he would like, and wishes he did not have to wait so long to have to die. He gives most of his remaining time to Will, and dies shortly afterward, letting his remaining seconds run out. With time literally now on his side, Will decides to see how the other half spend their prolonged existence. At a high scale gambling casino, he encounters one of the world's richest men, Philippe Weis (Vincent Kartheiser), as well as his lovely daughter, Sylvia (Seyfried).

There is an instant connection between Will and Sylvia, but it is cut short when a police detective known as a Timekeeper (Cillian Murphy) begins pursuing Will for information on the dead man he was seen with. (A security camera filmed Will being nearby the man who gave him his time right before he died.) Will flees, taking Sylvia hostage. As the two try to stay ahead of the pursuing lawmen, Sylvia gets a first hand look at how the poor scrape by to survive with their few minutes each day, whereas the rich live forever. They soon become a pair of noble outlaws, stealing precious time from banks, and delivering it to the needy. There are some fascinating ideas of class warfare at the center of In Time, with the wealthy passing down such few time limits to the working poor each day. It may be obvious, but it's effective, and it would be even more so if Niccol was allowed to truly explore his world.

This seems to be where the movie is going during the first half. We don't fully understand the world or its rules, but we are intrigued, and we want to learn more. We get some tasty tidbits of info, but for the most part, the movie eventually downgrades itself into endless action and conventional stunts. The movie remains watchable throughout, we're just left wondering what the movie could have been if it had stayed as intelligent as the first hour or so was. At least the movie doesn't sell itself completely short. I kept on dreading the movie would go into full-on brainless mode, which it never does. And Timberlake and Seyfried make an attractive couple, even if these aren't the most interesting characters they've played.

I guess I could be considered of two minds regarding In Time. I was entertained, but not enough that I didn't sigh a little when the movie took a turn from the intelligent to the contrived. I also didn't care about the characters enough to fully get involved with the movie. And yet, I'm glad I saw it. There are certainly some inventive ideas on display, and when you see as many movies as I do, any film that attempts to do something a little different is always welcome. The idea is there. The potential is there. I don't know, maybe the screenplay needed another draft or two to flesh things out. Or maybe it was studio interference, demanding more action set pieces. Whatever the case, I would love to hear Niccol talk about the world he created, and hear some of the ideas he wasn't able to use in his script.

Please don't read this review as a straight-out pan. Read it simply as this is a very interesting movie that could have been so much more.

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The Mighty Macs

2011-10-27T17:59:00.001-07:00

Tim Chambers' The Mighty Macs is agreeable and inoffensive, G-rated, and will probably be a hit with young kids. I didn't much care for it, but I don't think this movie was made for me. It's a movie for people who just want to see a nice little uplifting story. Nothing wrong with that. I just would have wanted some originality, or at least one interesting character to go along with everything else.

"Inspired by a true story", the movie is about Cathy Rush, a real life girls college basketball coach, who is played in the film by Carla Gugino. As the film opens, it's 1971, and Cathy has recently married to an NBA referee named Ed Rush (David Boreanaz). Ed is "old fashioned", to put it mildly, and chauvinistic to be more blunt. He thinks his new wife's place is at the home, and is not really supportive about the idea of Cathy taking a job as the new basketball coach at Immaculata College. As is tradition in these kind of formula films, the school has a last place girls basketball team, as well as other problems, such as the school only having one ball, and the gym has recently burned down. The President of the school, Mother St. John (Ellen Burstyn) warns Cathy not to expect much. Naturally, she will defy all expectations, mold the girls into a championship team in a few montages, and they will head for the big championship game, bringing honor to the school, which is in danger of being closed down.

We don't find out much about the girls Cathy coaches, or really what made this team so special that the previous teams obviously lacked. I don't expect originality in these kind of underdog stories, but some individuality is often nice. The girls who make up the team are pretty much treated as a singular unit in Chambers' screenplay. There's also Sister Sunday (Marley Shelton), a young nun who is having a crisis of faith early on when we first meet her. Supposedly becoming the assistant coach to the basketball team helps her with this problem, as we never hear about it again, and she seems perfectly fine. This is the kind of movie that knows the formula, and knows what notes to hit, but it oddly keeps on skipping over the stuff that should come between.

Take Cathy's husband, Ed, for example. For the first half of the film, he keeps on voicing his displeasure that his wife is working, and that he never gets to see her. Tension is established in the marriage, and we wait to see how it is resolved. Lo and behold, it's apparently resolved off camera (or in another draft of the screenplay), as with very little explanation, Ed suddenly becomes much more supportive of his wife's dream after a simple phone call where she tells them her team won. From that point on, he's showing up at all the games, and cheering them on. It feels like something is missing in this character. We have a beginning and an end, but he's missing a middle where he's supposed to be wavering between his old ideals, and slowly starting to accept those of his wife.

And yet, I can't really hate the movie. It's so darn eager to please, and the performances are actually pretty good. It's the kind of movie where you hate being a cynic towards it, but you can't help it, because what's up on the screen is likable and all, it's just not very good. The movie is missing that special something that a formulaic sports film needs to stand out. Things like strong dialogue, or strong characters, or maybe an unexpected turn from the rigid and predictable plot. This never happens, so The Mighty Macs ends up being nice and all, but really quite bland. There's just nothing to get excited about here.

Like I said before, little kids, and people who just want to see a harmless movie where nothing really bad happens will no doubt enjoy this. I'm not disappointed that I saw this movie, really. It's just nothing you need to race out and see at the theater. Luckily, this should be appearing on DVD fairly soon.

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The Three Musketeers

2011-10-26T15:57:00.000-07:00

The filmmakers behind The Three Musketeers started with a simple idea - Take Alexander Dumas' classic adventure story, and update it for today's youth with a lot of out of place weaponry (like mechanical guns and flame throwers), CG effects, and slow-mo fight scenes. Next, hand the screenplay off to Alex Litvak and Andrew Davies, and order them to make it as inane and idiotic as possible. Then, hand the movie over to Paul W.S. Anderson to direct, since his past efforts like Mortal Kombat, Alien vs. Predator, and the Resident Evil films obviously make him a likely candidate to helm a rousing adventure story. Finally, cast a bunch of actors but give them absolutely nothing of note to do, and blow up the budget to the point that the movie looks like money is being burned for no reason in every frame of the film. Add it all up, and you have a candidate for one of the very worst films of the year!

Where do I begin? More importantly, where do I end? This movie is such a mess in so many ways, it's hard to know. The film is set in 17th Century Paris, but everybody who lives there either talks with modern day British or American accents. When we first meet the Musketeers, they are dressed like ninjas, and using stealth to attack the guards protecting Leonardo da Vinci's secret vault. Our Musketeers include the leader Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), the spiritual Aramis (Luke Evans), and the muscular Porthos (Ray Stevenson). They have been teamed up with Milady de Winter (Milla Jovovich), who is very good at dodging and disarming the various booby traps that guard the treasure they seek within the vault - secret plans for a battle airship that da Vinci designed, but apparently forgot to tell anyone about. The Musketeers and Milady do a lot of martial arts sword fighting, and slow-mo dodging, until they are finally able to find the plans they're looking for. Before they can celebrate, Milady betrays them, and delivers the plans to England's evil Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom), who is a villain of the mustache-twirling Snidely Whiplash variety.

"One year later", the movie tells us, and the Musketeers have fallen on hard times. The evil Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) has put his army in charge of keeping the peace in France, so the three heroes have mostly disbanded. Along comes the young D'Artagnan (Logan Lerman), who is sadly to be the hero of our picture. Despite the title, the Three Musketeers actually have very little to do with anything after the opening sequence, and the shallow, wooden D'Artagnan takes center stage for the rest of the movie. He's come to Paris to be a Musketeer himself, and finds the city under the cruel law of the Cardinal's soldiers. He likes to pick fights with random people he meets on the streets, even the Musketeers themselves, so naturally, they decide he'd be a good candidate to bring the team back together, and fight back against the tyranny in the city. Meanwhile, the scheming Richelieu is trying to provoke a war with England by setting up a fake affair between France's Queen Anne (Juno Temple) and England's Buckingham. And then the Queen's jewel necklace is stolen. Oh, and there's a really silly subplot involving the foppish King Louis XIII (Freddie Fox) always being behind in fashion. It serves as both a lame running gag, as well as a lame plot that the movie spends too much time on.

It all leads up to a ridiculous climax involving warring airships. There are a lot of CG effects, explosions, and people running around on fire. I guess we're supposed to be so impressed, we're not supposed to ask how the French forces managed to build an airship of their own during the short time the Musketeers were sent off to England to rob from the Tower of London. Unfortunately, the sequence isn't impressive enough to prevent us from asking logical questions like this, as the whole thing has the feel of a video game. And why did the French make theirs look like a pirate ship, complete with a giant skeleton carved up front? And why does a secondary character like the Captain of Richelieu's guard, Rochefort (Mads Mikkelson), suddenly become the main villain of the movie during this sequence? And who thought it was a good idea to give the Musketeers a fat comic relief sidekick who looks and acts like Chris Farley?

I could go on, of course, but I'll spare you and stop. I don't want to give the impression that I am against the idea of turning The Three Musketeers into a campy movie spectacle. I've never actually read the book, so it's not like I was sitting there, gnashing my teeth over what was being done to these characters. All I ask is that if you're going to take this intentionally ridiculous approach, please do it well. Paul W.S. Anderson gives us performances that are all over the map, ranging from wooden and dull, all the way to awful scene-chewing. He also seems to be at a loss as to how to make this material work, so he just throws more money up on the screen, and hopes we won't notice. The bigger this movie gets, the stupider it becomes. I actually considered walking out early a couple times, but some strange force kept me in my seat, wanting to know just how much dumber this thing could get. At least I got my answer. Oh boy, did I ever.

In what can only be called hopeless optimism, the movie has an open ending that seems to suggest that a lot of sequels are on the way. I have a certain admiration for that level of optimism, but if it means me having to sit through more of this junk, then I'd rather be pessimistic myself. Whenever a bad movie ends, I'm usually happy to be finally free. Not this time. I was saddened by how so much had gone into so little.

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The Way

2011-10-26T05:37:00.000-07:00

In The Way, a somewhat cynical and bitter old man (played by Martin Sheen) learns that life is a journey, and while there will inevitably be problems along the way, there is beauty everywhere. This conclusion is certainly nothing new. In fact, there's very little if anything in The Way that we haven't seen before. But Sheen's son, Emilio Estevez (who wrote, directed, and has a cameo in the film), has made a genuinely heartfelt, if not somewhat plodding, movie that should prove to be a genuine crowd pleaser.

Sheen plays Tom, an eye doctor in L.A. who, as the film opens, devotes his life to his job and hanging out with his work friends on the golf course. Whether or not he is currently married or divorced is not revealed, but he does have a son named Daniel (Estevez). We witness in flashbacks that a few years ago, Daniel quit the medical field so that he could journey around the world. Tom did not approve of the decision, and he has not spoken to his son since. But then, he receives word that Daniel was killed in a storm while backpacking across the Pyrenees Mountains. Daniel had just started out on a pilgrimage along the Camino de Santiago, a 500-mile trek that people have been making for 1,000 years. Tom must fly to France to identify his son's body, and collect his ashes.

Tom's initial intention is to fly back home with the ashes after the body has been incinerated, but looking through his son's belongings and learning about the journey he was taking inspires a spur of the moment decision in Tom to complete the pilgrimage of the Camino de Santiago, and to spread his son's ashes along different markers along the way. He is somewhat unprepared for the journey ahead, but at least he is not alone for long, as he meets some fellow hikers along the way. These include an overweight Dutchman (Yorick Van Wageningen), a chain-smoking woman from Canada who comes across as being very cynical, but is generally goodhearted (Deborah Kara Unger), and an Irish writer who is suffering from writer's block, and hopes the journey along the Camino de Santiago will inspire him (James Nesbitt). No prizes for guessing that this initially dysfunctional group will have many moments of soul-bearing, and end up changed for the better by the end of the journey.

The Way follows a predetermined path, but its heart is in the right place, and it has some strong performances to its credit, particularly from Sheen and Unger. This may be a feelgood movie, but at least it doesn't get trapped in syrupy sweetness, or forced sentiment. It's well made, has some gorgeous scenery, and the overall message of the film rings true. Sure, it would have been nice if the movie had been less heavy-handed in delivering that message, but I guess you can't have it all. There's also some clunky dialogue in Estevez's script, such as when Tom is told "You don't choose a life, you live one". This line comes early in the film, and it made me wince and worry about what else was to come. Fortunately, the movie ends up working as a travelogue, as well as a silent meditation on the lives of these characters Tom meets along the way.

What saves the film from falling into mediocrity are some genuinely touching moments, such as when Tom thinks he sees Daniel at different points during his journey. There are also plenty of colorful locals for Tom and his fellow travelers to interact with, so the movie never becomes monotonous. It probably could have been trimmed just a little, though. At just over two hours, the movie feels a little padded sometimes, but at least it's not terribly so. At least the picture never stalls, or stays in one place for far too long. And when Tom and his friends arrive at the end of the journey, we can understand their feelings of exhaustion and accomplishment. The emotion rings true throughout, but it's at its best at the end. The movie itself is a mixed bag, but it works enough that I'm recommending it.

The Way does what is expected, I guess. It's a quiet little spiritual film about personal journeys, and I'm sure some audience members will like it even more than I did. I admired the performances and the characters, but thought that the script stumbled a few places along the way. At least it manages to recover, which is more than what some films can do. I guess that's enough in the end.

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Norman

2011-10-25T18:20:00.001-07:00

Here is a small little indie movie that will probably go undiscovered in theaters, and I doubt will have much of a life on DVD. That's a real shame, because Norman is a sweet and smart movie. Best described as a coming of age story set around a teen faking his own death, director Jonathan Segal and screenwriter Talton Wingate have given us a film full of quiet humor, and emotional depth.

The film is a starring vehicle for young actor Dan Byrd, who broke out in last year's Easy A, and here proves he has what it takes to carry a film by himself. His character is Norman, a quiet high school student who pretty much keeps to himself, and goes to great lengths not to draw attention to himself. Part of this is that he knows no one at school likes him, let alone accepts him. A bigger part is that Norman does not want anyone to know what kind of a life he leads at home. His mom was killed not long ago in a car crash, and now his father (the invaluable Richard Jenkins, who is great as always) has developed stomach cancer, and is wasting away right before Norman's eyes. He knows he will be alone when his dad dies, and that thought scares him. He's been keeping these problems bottled up all this time to the point that Norman himself is starting to contemplate suicide.

With all these problems and frustrations at home mounting, who can blame Norman when he blows up at his best friend James (Billy Lush) during a heated argument, and tells a life-changing lie that he has cancer - stomach cancer, of course. He even shows James his dad's x-rays for "proof" that he is dying. He tells James not to tell everyone, and figures that will be the end of it. Naturally, before the school day is over, everyone in the different student cliques knows, and Norman suddenly finds himself the center of attention for the first time. His English teacher (Adam Goldberg) is sympathetic to him, and even enlists him to give a speech at a school-spirit assembly. Of course, in order to keep this lie going, he has to continue to keep his home life and the physical state of his father a secret.

While all this is happening, Norman also happens to meet a pretty young blonde girl named Emily (Emily Vancamp), who genuinely seems interested in him. She's cute, she's sunny, and it seems like an impossibility to Norman that a girl this cute and smart could actually like him. It also complicates the whole "death" thing, now that the kid's found a reason to live. Where Norman goes from here is fairly predictable, as he is forced to choose between living a lie, and admitting everything (including his feelings) to Emily. What carries the film are the heartfelt performances, especially from Byrd and Jenkins. Their father and son scenes have real emotional weight. Norman is doing his best to stay strong and supportive in front of his dying father, while we get the sense that the dad would probably be happier if his son broke down and cried right along with him. Both are straining to be strong, and it's wearing them down. Their scenes together are the strongest in the film.

The relationship that builds between Norman and Emily is also sweet, but doesn't have quite the same emotional depth. Emily is a likable character, if not a bit underwritten, but the two young actors have good chemistry together. Their scenes together are a cute little teen romance, but don't stand out much. What does stand out is the movie's sly sense of humor. It's very subtle. This is not a laugh out loud movie, but there are definitely some moments or a quick line that will catch you off guard, and make you chuckle. But it's Byrd's lead performance that really carries the film. He has a "quiet rage" that seems to constantly be bubbling under the surface that fits the character. His pain and anger is visible just enough for us to notice, but is subtle enough for us to buy that no one around him would notice it until maybe it was too late.

Norman works on the strength of its cast, and it has a lot of very good and truthful scenes. At the very least, it cements my belief that Richard Jenkins is one of our most valuable actors, and gives it his all in just about every performance, and this is no exception. If the movie stunk, I would still say it was worth seeing once for his performance. Fortunately, there's a good movie here to go along with his great performance.

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Paranormal Activity 3

2011-10-24T13:38:00.000-07:00

2009's low budget Paranormal Activity was a clever little ghost story that used our fear of the dark and the unknown to great effect. It was such a big hit at the box office, it managed to officially replace the Saw franchise as the annual Halloween horror release. Last year's sequel, Paranormal Activity 2, was a disappointment to me at least, as I thought it played too close to what worked last time, and much of the thrill was gone. For the latest installment, directors Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost still stick a little too close to tradition, but manage to throw in an ingenious new method of shooting the action, and a lot more genuine thrills and scares than the previous sequel. It might not be very original, and I don't know how long this formula can last, but Paranormal Activity 3 worked for me, at least.

Said formula revolves around two sisters, Katie (Katie Featherston) and Kristi (Sprague Grayden), who have been haunted by a demonic and invisible entity most of their lives. In the past films, we watched the ghostly happenings around them via video camera equipment that each of their husbands had set up to record the strange goings on in their suburban homes. The main gimmick of Paranormal Activity 3 is that the movie is set in September 1988, when Katie and Kristi were still children. In this film, Jessica Tyler Brown (young Kristi) and Chloe Csengery (young Katie) portray the sisters, and we get to see the very beginnings of the hauntings, when little Kristi starts talking about and to an imaginary friend who may or may not be more real than anyone suspects, and whom goes by the name of "Toby".

Toby supposedly lives in the crawlspace in the little girls' bedroom, and wakes young Kristi up in the middle of the night to talk to her. Strange things start happening around the house, such as mysterious sounds or bumps in the middle of the night, and the girls' electronic toys turning on by themselves. Their mother, Julie (Lauren Bittner), doesn't think much of the strange things happening, but her boyfriend Dennis (Christopher Nicholas Smith) just happens to be a professional video editor for wedding videos, and starts using his equipment to tape the stuff happening around the house around the time Toby shows up. He hooks cameras up to every room in the house, including one attached to a rotating fan, so it can pan back and forth between the connected kitchen and the living room. Unfortunately for Dennis, and the rest of the family, Toby obviously does not like to be videotaped, and he lets it known with doors slamming, furniture smashing, and soon putting the lives of Kristie and Katie in danger.

Paranormal Activity 3 is the kind of movie you need to see in a theater with the right crowd to get the full effect the movie's going for. It's the kind of movie where you jump at the slightest sound, or the slightest notion that something's there that wasn't there before. (Is that someone's shadow, or is it something...else?) You laugh when it turns out to be nothing, and then BAM...the real jolt hits. Sure, this is nothing new, but this movie knows how to dish out the jolts and make them hit hard. It does a great job of creating tension and suspense out of very little, or sometimes nothing at all, and then rewards us with a strong payoff as Toby increasingly makes his presence known to people other than Kristie. There are some clever bits involving Julie and a babysitter that is watching the girls, and the whole set up of the camera hooked to a rotating fan creates some memorable imagery.

It could be argued that the movie is all jolts and no brains. Anyone who goes to these movies to think will be wasting their time. There's the whole situation with Dennis filming certain events that just simply shouldn't be. There are moments where he should just put the camera down and run, but he keeps on filming for the sake of the audience. Maybe we should be grateful, but it still requires a great leap of logic to swallow the fact that hell is breaking loose all around him, and all he cares about is getting that perfect shot. There's also the film's ending, which I will not reveal, but generates more questions than answers, as well as creates some plot holes concerning the earlier two films. The earlier entries seemed to be pretty self-contained, but this ending seems to be a set up for the inevitable fourth movie coming next year.

It would also be a great disservice not to mention that the film's ad campaign is made up largely out of footage that is not in the final film. This puzzles me, obviously. Yeah, it's kind of nice for once not to have the best scares in the film ruined in the ad campaign, but it still seems very misleading. Comparing the movie on the screen with the movie in the trailers, it's almost like two completely different films were shot. Was that the case? Are they saving this stuff for the DVD? Will the footage appear in the next one? Was there a lot of last minute editing? I figure we'll know the answer soon enough, but it's still a little frustrating. The footage in the trailer even seems to hint at a completely different ending, one that fits a little bit better with what has been established in the earlier films. Why the filmmakers went the route they did, I don't know.

That being said, I guess the ultimate question is Paranormal Activity 3 scary? In a quick jolt kind of way, yes. It made me tense and uneasy, and while it played out during its brief 80 minute or so running time, I was completely involved. You walk out of the theater, you laugh, and you remember having fun watching it. Those who didn't like the other movies won't like this one, I gather. But, if you've been with the series up to this point and generally had fun, this one won't disappoint.

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The Skin I Live In

2011-10-24T06:57:00.001-07:00

Sometimes I walk out of a movie knowing exactly what I thought of it, and what I have just seen. And then there are movies like Pedro Almodovar's The Skin I Live In, which completely challenged me, and made me think quite a lot about my feelings on it. It is a thriller, complete with a mad scientist and a tortured victim, but that is where the traditional aspects end. The movie is like a dream - somewhat fragmented, recognizable yet strangely alien, and completely existing within its own rules and understanding.

In a brilliant bit of casting, Antonio Banderas plays the "mad doctor" role. It is brilliant, in that when we initially see Banderas, we are drawn to him, and actually like him. But then, the movie peels apart his personality, little by little, and we begin to become fascinated. It certainly helps that this is probably Benderas' most commanding performance in a long time. He plays a surgeon whose specialty is facial restoration. As the film opens, he has perfected his research into synthetic skin that will revolutionize the treatment of burn victims. Of course, we soon learn that it's not entirely synthetic. It is a combination of human and pig skin created through unethical science. Banderas' character is obsessed with the human skin and form. If the many paintings hanging in his luxurious mansion home depicting nude bodies don't tip you off, than his other obsession will.

His "other obsession"? Well, that would be the young woman he keeps imprisoned in his home, Vera (Elena Anaya). She wears a flesh-colored bodysuit, is locked away in a secret room in the house which is under constant video camera watch, and seems to act as a human guinea pig for the doctor to perform and test his skin experiments on. We can tell by the way that the doctor watches his prisoner on a giant big screen monitor that he has a fascination with her, something that is tied into something other than scientific research. The doctor's housekeeper (Marisa Paredes) offers a clue when she reveals that he has given Vera a new face through plastic surgery - one which greatly resembles his dead wife.

This is all we learn for at least the first half of the movie. The true relationship between the doctor and Vera, the genesis of his experiments, and even the role that the housekeeper plays in it all is eventually revealed quite slowly and with grace. To reveal any more information of the plot would cheapen these revelations, so I will say no more. I will say that The Skin I Live In does not treat its bizarre subject matter with total horror and dread (though there are certainly moments of that), but rather with bizarre fascination. We get the sense that Almodovar is just as interested in these characters as we are watching them. The movie is more about the relationships and the motivations, than it is about shock value. We may feel uncomfortable watching it, but we're also enthralled and want to know more.

The movie is a foreign film, in Spanish with English subtitles. This might hurt the film at the box office, but I hope it doesn't. The thrills and the ideas explored here are as scary as any haunted house or mad slasher Hollywood has thrown at us this past year. I was sucked in by the way the movie rewarded my fascination with these characters, and how it actually managed to pay off that fascination. What worked less for me is how the movie jumps around to different points in time. In adapting the novel "Tarantula" by Thierry Jonquet, Almodovar stumbles a little with a somewhat graceless out of sequence narrative. It's not that it's gimmicky or even unnecessary, it simply did not work as well as I thought it should.

This aside, The Skin I Live In is one of the most graceful and calculated thrillers I've seen this year. It may fall short of greatness, but that doesn't change its effectiveness. Just don't expect to fully understand this one, or maybe even your thoughts on it, as soon as you walk out the theater door. This movie will haunt you, and that's probably the best recommendation I can give for it.

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The Big Year

2011-10-16T05:56:00.000-07:00

I was not encouraged by the opening moments of The Big Year. The movie seemed pleasant and harmless enough, but it seemed to lack energy, particularly the energy you would expect in a movie that teams up Steve Martin, Jack Black, and Owen Wilson. But then, a funny thing started to happen. I found myself liking the characters they were playing, and getting wrapped up in the year-long competitive birdwatching contest they were in. The laughs found in film aren't exactly big ones, but the movie gets by on plenty of charm and some gorgeously shot nature footage.

The title refers to an event that attracts birdwatchers from all over the world as they compete and travel across the US to spot as many different species of birds as they can within a single calendar year. The current champion is Kenny Bostick (Owen Wilson), a cocky and arrogant contractor who has put so much into gaining his champion title, as well as defending it, that his marriage to his wife Barbara (Rosamund Pike) is starting to suffer back home. Our other two main characters are upstarts, hoping to top Kenny's current record. First we have Brad Harris (Jack Black), a guy who has never finished anything he attempted in life, still lives with his parents (Brian Dennehy and Dianne Wiest), and thinks having a "big year" could turn things around for him. His mother supports him, giving him plenty of credit cards to use to travel across the US, while his father thinks the kid's wasting his time. Finally, there's Stu Preissler (Steve Martin), a wealthy businessman on the verge of retirement, who wants to kick things off by going on the year-long "birding" expedition he's long dreamed of.

The bulk of the film consists of the three men going cross country for 12 months, with Brad and Stu eventually teaming up with each other, while Kenny mainly acts as the film's antagonist, and resorts to various betrayals and tricks to throw the other two guys (and the other competition) off the trail, so that he can hold onto his record. Along the way, we meet a wide variety of other "birders", who are played by such recognizable actors as Anjelica Huston, Tim Blake Nelson, Rashida Jones, and Jim Parsons (from TV's The Big Bang Theory). The birdwatching stuff is oddly compelling. A score counter occasionally pops up, keeping track of how many the three main characters have spotted so far. Their journey across the U.S., as well as their down time during their travels, also allows for some interesting self-inspection, as the three men look at their current lives, and where they are. There's also some drama back at home, such as when Brad's father falls ill, or Kenny's increasingly-frustrated and pregnant wife. These moments are honest and heartfelt, giving some actual weight to a movie that could have been total fluff.

The film is also beautifully shot, and gives us a travelogue of such far off places as the barren reaches of Alaska, all the way to the deep South. Watching the film, I was also impressed to learn how much goes into one of these competitions. Competitive "birders" must constantly be on top of changing weather patterns, as a rare storm could bring out a large number of rare birds from hiding. The Big Year takes this stuff as seriously as the characters do, and while it certainly loses some opportunities for big laughs, I did find it oddly compelling. It was quite amazing how much goes into the competition, and how much money these people spend traveling to some far off place at a moment's notice, because they heard that a rare snow owl was spotted somewhere. How wealthy does one have to be to pull off a big year? Martin's character, we understand, is a millionaire and practically retired, so that makes sense. But, I did sort of wonder about Black (who is shown having a job from time to time) and Wilson (who is never shown at work once).

Leaps of logic aside, this is a gentle, and oddly intriguing little movie that won me over as it went along. Director David Frankel (Marley & Me) keeps things relatively grounded in reality for the most part, focusing on his likable characters, rather than on broad comic set pieces. There's very little slapstick to be found, most of the humor coming from how passionate these men are about their hobby. Would I have liked to have laughed out loud at the movie more? Of course. But, I did chuckle from time to time, and smiled even more while watching it. That's proof enough for me the movie was working the way it was intended. This is a "rainy day" movie - Nothing that you need to race out to the theater to see, but if you're bored, or if it's ever on TV, you'll probably find yourself wrapped up into it.

If anything, The Big Year surprised me in how it made competitive birdwatching fascinating. I walked in knowing what the movie was about (the ad campaign has kind of covered over the whole birdwatching aspect), and wasn't exactly thrilled about what I was about to see. But, I guess you could say I walked out a changed man. I'm not about to go on my own big year anytime soon, but I now have more respect for those who do.

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The Thing

2011-10-15T16:49:00.001-07:00

Yes, The Thing is yet another movie where a slimy, tentacled monster travels millions of miles through space to arrive on Earth, just to leap out of dark shadows and scream at people before it eats them. But, the movie is better made than you might expect. The effects are strong (and quite gory), the acting is better than we usually get in these kind of movies, and it's generally well made. It's not great, but for the Halloween season, it will definitely do.

Even though the film shares the same title and basic plot of John Carpenter's 1982 cult Sci-Fi horror classic (which itself was a remake of 1951's The Thing From Another World), it actually serves as a prequel to Carpenter's film. There are some fun references for fans to pick out, especially at the very end. (Don't get out of your seat at the last fade out, and when the end credits start to roll.) Mostly, the movie works in that it pays respect to the '82 film, without feeling the need to endlessly mimic it, like this weekend's Footloose remake. Yeah, it's certainly not perfect. The characters could have been fleshed out more. But, what can you do, it's a monster movie. Most of these people exist to be killed in horrible ways by the Thing. They serve their purpose. At the very least, the movie meets expectations.

The Thing of the title is an alien that is discovered encased in a block of ice by a Norwegian science team doing a study in the Arctic. They find the crashed vessel it arrived on Earth in first, then later uncover the frozen body. The arrogant scientist heading the team, Dr. Sandor Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen) wants to drill into the block of ice, and take a tissue sample from the creature. Forensic paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) thinks this is a bad idea, so naturally, Halvorson goes right ahead with his plan. The combination of drilling into the ice preserving the creature, and the eventual thawing of the ice itself, frees the creature. It's here that we finally get a good look at the Thing in all its slimy glory. It has rows and rows of teeth, scuttles around dark corners, and has the ability to assume the form of anything it kills. Much like the earlier film, paranoia sets in with the team members each suspecting each other of being the Thing in disguise.

Director Matthijs van Heijningen sticks closely to the narrative created in Carpenter's movie, and gives us the story of just what happened in that Norwegian science station that the main characters in the '82 film found. What he doesn't do is make us care about the characters the same way Carpenter did. Kate at least makes for a decent heroine, but everybody else is pretty forgettable. What the movie does have is some good atmosphere (the isolated arctic setting still works), a strong effects budget, and an overall mounting sense of dread that a lot of recent horror movies just can't quite achieve. Sure, it's pretty easy to figure out who will survive (Being able to speak English, and not in subtitles, seems to be a key to living longer in this movie.), but it still manages to create some tension when the characters are either turning against each other under suspicion, or trying to track down the monster in dark corridors.

The Thing plays most of its cards right. We do get plenty of good looks at the monster, but I never found it to cheapen the effect too much. It plays to the fans, but does not alienate newcomers. It has lots of jump moments, but they are spread out enough, so they don't feel forced. I wouldn't exactly call this a smart movie, but it at least knows what it's doing. That's smart enough for a movie like this. The actors know what they're doing, too. Winstead is calm and strong, while everybody else (made up of character actors and unknowns) fill their roles until it's time for them to become one with the monster who's killing them all. I found myself intrigued, grossed-out, and sometimes even interested in what was going on. Call it lowered expectations, but all of these feelings were surprising to me, and enough for me to recommend the film.

Did we need a prequel to The Thing? Probably not. But, if we must have one, this one's a pretty good effort. I wasn't sold on the characters, but I was sold on the Thing itself, and the fact that Heijiningen could create some decent tension to go with the killing, and the creature leaping out of the shadows. Sometimes that's all I'm looking for in a movie. I liked this more than I thought I would.

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Footloose

2011-10-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

Aside from some plot details and a few modern references, 2011's Footloose is pretty much the same movie as 1984's Footloose, the surprise hit that helped launch the career of a young Kevin Bacon. It follows the same plot, features the same dialogue, plays the same music, and even has some of the exact same scenes, right down to the camera angles. So, much like last month's faithful to the point of ridiculousness remake of Straw Dogs, the question instantly becomes why should we pay to see this movie, when we can watch the exact same thing at home on DVD? And much like Straw Dogs, Footloose fails to provide an answer.

The plot was pretty old hat back in 1984, and feels downright outdated and corny now. Rebellious teen Ren McCormick (played by 28-year-old Kenny Wormald) is a big city kid who has just got off the bus in the small Southern town of Bomont to live with his Aunt and Uncle, after his mom passed away from a long bout with leukemia. (His deadbeat dad's long gone off somewhere.) As if that's not a big enough bummer for poor Ren, the town of Bomont is currently under the thumb of the well-meaning, but hard-headed preacher, Rev. Moore (Dennis Quaid), who has outlawed all dancing and loud music in Bomont, after his teenage son and some of his friends were killed in a car crash while driving home from a high school tailgate party. What's a goodhearted kid who doesn't play by the rules to do, other than befriend a slow-witted jock named Willard (Miles Teller) and Rev. Moore's equally rebellious and booty-shaking daughter, Ariel (Julianne Hough), and try to convince them and the entire town to overturn the town's stance on public dancing and music?

To its credit, there are moments of energy in Footloose when the actors get to dance. This makes sense since, if the performances on display are any indication, the main young actors were hired for their dancing, rather than their acting ability. Unfortunately for the movie (and us, the audience), the movie puts a lot more emphasis on the dialogue and the drama, rather than the stuff that works - namely, the music and dance sequences. Instead of the high energy sequences we've come for, we get endless long-winded scenes where the young actors try to show emotion, and needless subplots, like Ariel being involved with Chuck the town bully (Patrick John Flueger), until she realizes that Ren's the better guy. There's also a running subplot about Willard not being able to dance, and Ren trying to teach him. I know these plots were in the original movie, but they hold absolutely no weight here, to the point that you wonder why director Craig Brewer (Black Snake Moan) bothered to carry them over to his remake.

The new young cast are certainly attractive and dance well, but as mentioned, seem to have a hard time drawing emotion. In the lead role, Kenny Wormald seems to be competing with Twilight's Taylor Lautner as to who can be a less expressive actor. Julianne Hough makes for an attractive female lead (and also somewhat resembles a young Jennifer Aniston), but brings nothing to her performance in general. Normally in a movie like this, I would say it'd be up to the acting veterans to carry the weight. In this case, that would be Dennis Quaid and Andie MacDowell (looking astonishingly the same way she looked 20 years ago in films like Four Weddings and a Funeral and Groundhog's Day), who portray the preacher and his wife. However, both of them seem to be pushed into the background for most of the movie. Quaid gets one or two confrontational scenes with his young daughter, while MacDowell pretty much stands around, until it's time for her big scene where she tries to convince her husband to let the kids dance.

Right about now, I should be saying something along the lines of Footloose wasn't for me, but fans of the original should like it. However, this movie sticks so close to the original, I have to wonder if the fans even need it. This is like watching a high school production of a Broadway show. Everything's there as you remember it, but something's just off, or not as professional. The 1984 movie is remembered for launching the careers of some young actors at the time. This movie will most likely become a forgotten little oddity before too long.

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The Ides of March

2011-10-09T18:02:00.001-07:00

I don't think anyone will be surprised by one of the main themes in The Ides of March - that there is corruption and betrayal everywhere within politics. What did surprise me is how director George Clooney (who also co-wrote and co-stars in the film) manages to create such a bleak world and story, yet still make it tremendously entertaining, instead of relentlessly downbeat. The movie is dark, cynical, angry, and a thrill to watch. He introduces us to the film easily enough, with a light touch, and even a sense of humor. But as things begin to develop, and we pick up on what's going on and where these characters are going, we mourn for them and their lost innocence.

The film opens on the eve of the Ohio presidential primary, where a heated battle for the Democratic nomination is being played out by two competitors who are virtually neck and neck. The favorite at the moment for the nomination is California Governor Mike Morris (Clooney), who has the integrity and the warmth that draws people to him, and the ideas that could carry him to the White House. These are the exact qualities that appeal Mike to his idealistic campaign aide, media expert Stephen Meyers (Ryan Gosling). Stephen is certain that he's found a candidate that he can really believe in. There are cynics all around him, like New York Times reporter Ira Horowicz (Marisa Tomei), who thinks Stephen is hopelessly naive, accusing him of "drinking the Kool-Aid", and that Morris is bound to let him down sooner or later. Stephen ignores these warnings, and goes on believing that Mike really can change the nation for the better.

The first half of The Ides of March is set up almost like a behind the scenes look at what goes on during a campaign tour. We're introduced to the characters, such as Morris' campaign manager (Philip Seymour Hoffman), as well as the campaign manager for the other guy running (Paul Giamatti), who does not make it secret that he would like Stephen to switch sides and come work for him instead. We also meet a pretty young intern on Morris' campaign staff (Evan Rachel Wood), who strikes up a romantic relationship with Stephen early on. These characters are set up in such a light and offhand manner, we have no idea how important a role they will play later on. That's the whole idea, of course. The screenplay by Clooney, Grant Heslov, and Beau Willimon introduces us to the world and the characters in a way that's easy to relate to. We've seen these people, or maybe we know them. But then the plot kicks in, which I will reveal very little of, except to say a lot of these people who we thought we knew are hiding something.

This is a movie that knows what it's doing every step of the way, and never hits a wrong note. When the darker sides of these characters are revealed, it seems natural, instead of forced. The sharp script features dialogue that sounds honest, not scripted, and the emotions it seeks are genuine, not manipulated. Clooney also finds the perfect tone for the movie. The first half is kind of fast-paced, loose, even a little bit comical at times. When the true nature of the plot kicks in, he wisely does not treat it like melodrama. It's more like a simple and sad truth. It was perhaps inevitable that Stephen would learn something that would shake his belief in the man he was so blindly supporting during the first half of the film. It's equally inevitable that the people he trusts the most would either turn on him, or reveal to be working mainly for themselves. This does not surprise us. Heck, anyone who follows politics knows that this kind of stuff is sadly all too common. What does grip us, and what makes the film so powerful, is the gentle and sad realization it reaches, rather than a dramatic and bombastic one.

This is a very cynical, yet even-handed movie. Clooney is openly a supporter of the Democrats in real life, but they don't get off any easier than the Republicans do in this film. Everything and everyone's fair game, which makes the movie more even-handed than you would expect walking in. It's also a very well made and well-acted film. Ryan Gosling (who has been having a fantastic 2011 with Crazy, Stupid Love, Drive, and now this) once again delivers another stirring dramatic performance, as do veterans like Hoffman and Giamatti. Even Marisa Tomei (who is usually known for lighter roles) does an excellent job as a reporter who is ultimately just out to help herself, and isn't afraid to hurt those she considers her friends if it will get her ahead. No performance or character is wasted, or seems underwritten here. Even characters that would normally come across as minor overall (like Jeffrey Wright as a failed presidential contender that both sides are trying to get his support) come across as being more fleshed out than we initially expect.

The Ides of March may not say much that is new, but it's great filmmaking, and continues to cement George Clooney as a strong director who is not afraid to take some risks, while at the same time, giving the audience an entertaining film. He succeeds here at storytelling, character, and tone. I have intentionally been vague during this review, as I walked into the theater knowing very little about the actual plot, and hope anyone who reads this can have a similar experience. The story the movie tells may have been told before (both on the screen and, sadly, in real life), but it's worth telling. And this is definitely a movie worth seeing.

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Real Steel

2011-10-07T18:08:00.000-07:00

By all accounts, Real Steel should be a disaster. It's a movie that combines giant fighting robots, every underdog sports movie cliche in cinema history, and a father and son bonding story - The premise alone sounds like every forced crowd pleasing element crammed into one big monstrosity of cinema. You can also add to that the fact that the movie is entirely manipulative, wallows in cliches, and doesn't have a single moment or character we can't predict. I knew all this while watching it, and I strangely didn't care. This movie is goofy fun, and I have to admit, kind of enthralling in an odd way.

I think a big part of the film's success are the robots at the center of it all. These are not the giant, walking, fighting scrap heaps we have come accustomed to in the unfortunate live action Transformers films. These robots have personality, are agile and fun to watch, and blended so seamlessly with the live actors, they're a special effects marvel just to look at them. It's nice that they're fun to watch, but that's the easy part. The hard part that Real Steel pulls off is making us care about them. When Atom, the scrappy little underdog junkyard robot steps into the fighting ring up against the current champ, the towering Zeus, we get the same rush as we did during the climax of the Rocky films. We're not just watching CG characters pummeling each other, we're invested in the action, and we want to see Atom win. Atom's human owners and trainers, a father and son who have bonded during the robot's rise to the top of the fighting circuit, cheer on the sidelines, and we silently cheer right along with them. It's an odd feeling, but it also tells you that the movie is working.

The plot is set sometime in the near future, and centers on Charlie (Hugh Jackman), a down on his luck former boxer who could have gone all the way to the championships, but a life time of bad decisions, not to mention the fact that human boxing has been replaced with giant robots fighting one another in the ring, has left him broken down, drunk, and bitter. He's a drifter who drives across the US, training and promoting his own personal fighting robot in a series of third rate events at county fairs and illegal matches. Charlie is next to penniless, and when his current robot gets dismantled in battle, he needs to get money for a new fighting 'bot fast. His long-time friend and possible romantic interest, Bailey (Evangeline Lilly from TV's Lost), is also on his case for money he owes her that could help keep her father's training gym (which she inherited) in business. With his debts and troubles mounting, it's probably not the best time to add a son from a former relationship into the picture.

The son is Max (Dakota Goyo), whose mother is a former girlfriend of Charlie's that he walked out on shortly after Max was born. With the recent death of the boy's mom, Charlie has been given custody of Max, at least for the summer, while the kid's wealthy aunt and uncle (who stand to gain custody of him) are away traveling in Italy. Charlie wants nothing to do with the kid, but Max comes equipped with his father's smart mouth, and knows how to talk his way into and out of any situation. He's also skilled with knowledge of robot boxing. When Charlie and Max are searching a junkyard for salvageable robot parts, Max uncovers an antique fighting robot named Atom that doesn't look like much at first, but is light on his feet, and fast in the ring. Atom was originally designed as a "sparring robot", which means he's designed to take a lot of punches and punishment without falling down. This naturally gives him an advantage in the ring. And with his ability to shadow the movements of his human trainers, Charlie uses his former boxing expertise to train Atom to become an underdog champion, and make his way up the fighting robot ranks.

If this all sounds ridiculous, it is, but Real Steel treats the material with a kind of sincerity that works. Jackman and Goyo have chemistry together as the estranged father and son, and while we know we're being manipulated every step of the way in their relationship, we buy into it because the actors sell it so well. This may be a goofy movie, but it's also highly energetic, and kind of infectious with its good spirit. The father and son stuff may be predictable, but its heartwarming just enough to work. Most of all, the robot fight scenes (which are obviously the big attraction) are splendid, and hold some of the best effects work I've seen this year. The action is edited clearly and cleanly, so we can follow each and every moment and punch. So many times in big budget films, the CG characters start doing stuff that's completely impossible, so we know we're watching something computer generated. But the robots here are grounded in some sort of reality. It helps that their fighting styles are based on real boxers (Sugar Ray Leonard served as a consultant on this film.), and they've been animated in such a way that they seem to have real weight and mass. It's 100% convincing, and certainly thrilling.

The film was directed by Shawn Levy, a filmmaker who I have not been very fond of in the past. But, maybe that's because he's usually been paired with such horrid (the Cheaper by the Dozen and Pink Panther remakes with Steve Martin), or downright mediocre (Night at the Museum) projects. Here, he shows a real mastery for staging and editing big special effects sequences in such a way that they are exciting, and never become a confusing mess of close ups or using dark lighting to hide questionable effects. He also finds the right tone to carry the film. It's constantly uplifting, flying just under the radar of schmaltz. He knows when to pile on the good feelings, and when to hold back. It's a balancing act to be sure, and he pulls it off. He also gets good performances out of his human cast, and knows just how to divide the human element and the spectacle of the giant fighting robots.

The fact that Real Steel manages to stay afloat for two hours, when it easily could have crashed and burned into a sea of forced sentimentality is some kind of small miracle. The movie works as a goofy crowd pleaser - Kids will no doubt love it, and adults will be entertained. All too often, when I sense that a movie is trying desperately to push my emotional buttons, I resist and end up with a cynical view of the film. This time, I'm pleased to report, I got wrapped up in it all, had fun, and walked out of the theater with a smile on my face.

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Dream House

2011-10-01T18:25:00.000-07:00

For a movie boasting such an amazing staff of talent both on and off the screen, it's mind-boggling just how silly Dream House is. Let's just take a closer look at who got suckered into this project. The director is Jim Sheridan, the acclaimed filmmaker of such movies as My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father. The cinematographer is none other than the five-time Oscar nominated Caleb Deschanel. And the cast includes names like Daniel Craig, Rachel Weisz, and Naomi Watts. With this kind of talent involved, you'd expect some kind of A-picture. But, nope. What we have is a dreary and dumb psychological thriller that the studio had so little confidence in, they didn't screen it for critics this weekend.

Before I go into too much detail about this film, I feel I should talk about the film's ad campaign, particularly the trailer that's been playing in theaters for a couple months now. For whatever reason, Universal Pictures has decided to reveal the film's major plot twist that comes half way into the movie in its ad campaign. This brilliant decision naturally hurts the enjoyment of the audience, as they already know the big reveal before it even happens. Why this idea was approved, I have no idea. Trailers are supposed to get us intrigued about a film, not tell us everything about them. So, if you do have any desire to see this film, I suggest you stay away from watching the advertising. It will probably improve your chances on enjoying the first half of the movie. But nothing can help you appreciate the idiotic revelations lying in wait in the third act. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. More on that later.

Daniel Craig plays Will Atenton, who quits his job at a big city publishing company, so that he can move to a small suburb in New Oxford with his wife Libby (Rachel Weisz), and their two angel-faced little daughters. Will sees this as a chance to start a peaceful life, and work on that novel he's always dreamed of writing. But, since this is a thriller, we know the guy's kidding himself. As soon as he moves into his new home, things seem amiss. All of the neighbors are strangely nervous around him, or glare at him suspiciously as they drive by his house. The ominous signs keep on piling up - The daughters start complaining that there's a man watching them through the windows, shadowy figures start lurking about outside the house late at night, and weird Goth kids are sneaking into his basement, so that they can perform weird rituals.

Those kids leave behind some clues scribbled on the basement walls that seem to hint that the home's previous owner was involved in murdering his wife and children, and now resides at the local asylum. Will tries to gather some information about the home's previous owner from neighbors and the police, but nobody seems willing to help him. The woman who lives across the street, Ann Patterson (Naomi Watts), probably gives Will the kindest treatment, but even she seems to be holding something back. Finally, Will decides to take the investigation into his own hands, and visit the asylum with the information he's gathered on the house's previous owner - a man named Peter Berg. What he learns there, I will not reveal, but the trailers have already revealed the answer to this mystery, so there's really no point. Where the movie goes after this revelation is to one of the dumbest third act reveals in recent memory.

How could anyone look at the third act of Dream House, and be satisfied with it? Especially with people as talented as Sheridan, Craig, and Weisz on board. Was this the direction that the screenplay by David Loucka really went? Was it studio interference? I'll probably never know, but the last 15 minutes are almost the definition of a Hollywood hack job. Even before the movie completely collapses, it's never that interesting to begin with. Sheridan directs with a lethargic and melancholy style that seems more dull than artistic. The film's not very scary to begin with (though Sheridan does try to throw a couple jump moments in there), but the sluggish storytelling will challenge anyone to stay awake while watching it.

And maybe it's just me, but Daniel Craig seems a bit miscast as a loving husband and father. That kind of part calls for a "warm" actor, and Craig does not exactly bring forth warmth in his performances. He's not bad, particularly, and he does what he can with the role. I just had a hard time buying what he was selling. The lead female roles for Weisz and Watts are surprisingly underwritten. Weisz is given little to do, other than clasp her hands together and fret for the safety of her family, while Watts character is too thin to really become attached to. The only person who really seems to be on his game is cinematographer Deschanel, who gives the movie a surprising amount of visual beauty. This is a great movie to look at, but not so great to actually watch and pay attention to.

Dream House is a very odd and frustrating movie. You can see potential just about everywhere, but it keeps on coming up short. The movie seems to want to be a fairly intelligent psychological thriller, but something got severely dumbed down somewhere along the way. I personally would love to see this director work again with this cast. Hopefully with a project worthy of attracting their talents.

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What's Your Number?

2011-10-01T05:26:00.001-07:00

One of these days, Anna Faris is going to find a comic vehicle that really gets to show off her talents. I've admired her in a lot of films, and she has the personality and timing to get laughs, even if the film she's stuck in isn't really working. Sadly, What's Your Number is yet another case of this. This is a generic and overlong romantic comedy that gets by for a little while solely on Faris' humor and charm, but the recycled plot and rehashed cliches come at the audience so strongly, we lose interest. The movie tries to grab our attention by being a vulgar and raunchy female-centered comedy, but that only makes us think that Bridesmaids this past summer did it better.

Faris plays Ally Darling, a 30-something woman who has just lost her job, but seems much more concerned by the fact that she still hasn't found the man she wants to spend her life with. It's been on her mind a lot, especially since she's been helping her sister (Ari Graynor) prepare for her wedding. One day on the subway, Ally reads an article in a magazine that talks about the significance of the number of men a women has slept with, as apparently 20 or more will doom a woman to eternal single status. Ally goes through her own personal sexual history, and is shocked to discover she's at 19. The fact that all of her friends are at much lower numbers doesn't help matters. With this information fresh in her mind, Ally becomes determined that her "number 20" will be special, as well as the one that she spends the rest of her life with.

Not long after making this proclamation, Ally has a run-in with one of her ex-boyfriends, who is not only a lot more handsome than she remembers him being, but is also getting married to a beautiful and intelligent young woman. This gets Ally wondering if any of the other 18 men she slept with might have gotten better over time, and maybe she is missing out. To find out, she enlists the aid of Colin (Chris Evans), the man who lives in the apartment across from her, and is always sneaking into Ally's apartment in various stages of undress, so that he can avoid the current woman he's just had a one-night stand with the night before. Ally decides to strike a deal with Colin - She'll continue to let him come and go from her apartment as he pleases, and use it to hide out from his bad dates, if he will help track down all of her ex-boyfriends.

This makes up a majority of the picture, with Ally tracking down all of her exes. There are some likable actors appearing in cameos in these roles, including Martin Freeman, who goes on a very funny date with Ally (Ally starts the date off pretending she has a British accent, but as the date goes on and she becomes more drunk, her accent keeps on changing during the course of the night.), Saturday Night Live's Andy Samberg as a geeky guy obsessed with puppets, Tom Lennon as a Florida gynecologist who only remembers Ally when she spreads her legs on his examining table, and Anthony Mackie as a Washington politician who only wants to marry Ally to help his career, because he's secretly gay. While all this is going on, naturally Colin (who has been helping her find all these guys) begins to become interested in Ally. It's glaringly obvious the entire time that Ally is starting to fall for him also, which makes the entire middle section of the film completely pointless.

What's Your Number does have a few laughs, most of them provided by Faris' natural comic charm and timing, and some provided by the disastrous dates mentioned above. But mostly, this is strictly a paint-by-numbers screenplay that follows a rigid course of predictability. There's nothing here to surprise us, and despite the natural charm of the lead actors, no one that we really like enough to carry us through the entire movie. As the cliches and romantic comedy conventions start getting piled on, the film actually becomes tiresome. I was ready for it to end long before it did. There's just very little life to give the rehashed material the lift it needs. Director Mike Mylod (a veteran TV director) makes everything so bland, it's hard to care about what we're watching. The likable chemistry of Faris and Evans helps for a little while, but they just can't carry the dead weight all by themselves.

What we have here is yet another case of Anna Faris brightening up material that is obviously far beneath her talent. She deserves better, and so do audiences. Maybe the filmmakers knew that the material was tired old hat, and thought Faris' presence alone would fix things. I can only hope that someday someone puts her in a movie that really uses her talent, instead of simply using her to salvage a sinking project.

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50/50

2011-09-30T18:27:00.000-07:00

My main concern regarding 50/50 is that it will be largely ignored by audiences during its theatrical run. Already I've spoken to a number of people who state that they do not want to see a (using their words) "comedy about cancer". They are most certainly missing out, as this movie manages to be so much more. It's thoughtful, wise, uplifting, hilarious, sad, dramatic, and highly entertaining. Like the best movies, it refuses to be pigeonholed to a specific genre. It's most certainly not just a "comedy about cancer".

As has been widely publicized, the film's screenwriter, Will Reiser, based the film on his own experiences on being diagnosed with, and surviving cancer. The film's co-star, Seth Rogen, is an old friend of Reiser's in real life, and plays the best friend of Reiser's on-screen counterpart, Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Walking into the movie, I expected a wonderful performance from Gordon-Levitt (and I got one), but I was especially impressed with Rogen, who I am not a particularly huge fan of. Oh sure, I've enjoyed him in some films (most notably Funny People and Observe and Report), but more often, Rogen as a lead actor does not sit well with me. But here, I found him quite funny, and surprisingly sensitive. Sure, he's pretty much doing the same big, dopey lug routine that he does in almost all of his movies, but here, there's a bit more sincerity behind his performance, and his one-liners are funnier.

As the film opens, Adam is a happy young man with a supportive artist girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard), and a job writing for a local radio station. He's had some nagging back pains lately, but he's not very concerned about it, until his doctor comes back with the diagnosis that Adam has a rare form of spinal cancer. The doctor is vague about Adam's chances for survival, but doing some private research on his own, he learns that he has a 50% chance. He breaks the news to his girlfriend, his best friend Kyle (Rogen), and finally to his mother (Anjelica Huston), who is already dealing with having to take care of her husband, who is suffering from Alzheimer's, and now finds herself constantly fretting about her son. Of the three, Kyle takes the news the best, and sticks by Adam to the end. The extent Adam's girlfriend does is get him a dog to cheer him up, and drive him to the hospital sometimes. She soon breaks down from the pressure of having to deal with Adam's illness, and leaves him.

The movie follows Adam as he goes through the different stages of anger and eventual acceptance about his disease. He's helped along the way by Katherine (Anna Kendrick), a young therapist who is assigned to help Adam work through his feelings, and winds up getting more involved in her patient's situation than I think a therapist is supposed to. He's also helped by a pair of fellow cancer patients played by Philip Baker Hall and Matt Frewer, who provide a witty commentary on what Adam is going through, and what he can expect. While a lot of things have clearly been simplified, there is a lot of honesty in the screenplay, and you can tell that Reiser is writing both from experience and his own imagination. The movie uses a fairly basic formula, but it is smart and well-written, and often quite hilarious. It knows when it's okay to laugh, and when it has to take itself seriously. Best of all, it never feels like a "disease movie", nor does it feel overblown. When the time comes for Adam to have surgery to have the tumor removed, very little is said, or needs to be, as the physical performances of the actors say plenty.

What impressed me the most about 50/50 is how interesting the characters are. These are well-developed people who change during the course of the film, and don't just stay on one course. Of particular note is Anjelica Huston as Adam's mother, who could have easily have been made out to be an overly protective and smothering shrew, but thanks to some third act developments, comes across as being much more human than we anticipated. Even Adam's friend Kyle, who spends most of the film trying to teach Adam how he can use his cancer to pick up women, ends up being more sympathetic. Best of all, these don't feel tacked on, as if the screenplay is suddenly asking us to feel for these characters. The changes and developments feel natural.

I'm sure there will be those who think the movie glosses over the more serious reality of living with cancer, and those people would probably be right. But, it would also be right to say that the movie is engaging, funny, and warm. To me, those qualities win out in the end. This movie is a wonderful entertainment, and while I doubt it will hit gold at the box office, it's a movie well worth seeking out.

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Killer Elite

2011-09-27T18:00:00.000-07:00

All things considered, Killer Elite is a standard Jason Statham action vehicle, only with a bit more class than you would expect. That class comes from the fact that Robert De Niro and Clive Owen co-star in the film. While De Niro is pretty much pushed aside in an extended cameo, Owen proves to be quite the magnetic presence. With some very well handled action sequences, the movie becomes a pleasant diversion. If we cared more about what was going on, it could have been so much more.

The movie claims to be based on a true story, although the book it is based on ("The Feather Men" by Ranulph Fiennes) has largely been challenged in its authenticity, and even debunked in some cases. I highly doubt most in the audience will be concerned with this knowledge, as people don't usually go to Statham movies to learn something. The action is set in 1981, and is focused on a professional assassin named Danny (Statham) who wants out of the business after his conscience gets the best of him during an assignment. He goes into hiding for one year, but is forced back into action when he finds out that his friend and former partner, Hunter (De Niro) is being held captive by a sheik in Omar. If Danny wants Hunter's freedom, he'll have to kill some of the sheik's enemies for him, and bring back proof.

The enemies in question are three British SAS officers who were responsible for the deaths of the sheik's sons during a period of war. Danny must not only kill these officers, but he must also get a videotaped confession before the murder. He also has to make it look like an accident instead of a murder. Helping him in his mission are fellow assassins Davies (Dominic Purcell) and Meier (Aden Young). As the three set about their mission, they are eventually discovered by ex-SAS officer Spike (Clive Owen), who pieces together that someone or a group of people are murdering his former colleagues, and goes about trying to track them down. The action unfolds as you would expect, with some lively action and chase sequences, and the most minimal amount of character development possible to make the characters seem somewhat human, but not too deep, so as not to divert us from the action.

Despite a running time of nearly two hours, we don't get a lot of details. There are a lot of political and power figures behind the scenes pulling the strings, but their involvement remains mostly murky. Likewise, a romantic subplot between Danny and a woman he's left behind because he doesn't want her to get involved (Yvonne Strahovski) largely goes nowhere. Where Killer Elite is at its best is when its focused on the antagonistic relationship that grows between Danny and Spike. Statham and Owen develop an interesting chemistry, as they are constantly trying to one-up each other, and either hunt the other down, or throw them off the trail. You wish there was more to both of the characters, especially late in the film. But, the movie largely treats them as two guys constantly trying to outgun and outrun one another. It's fun, yes, but not very substantial.

At least Owen gets plenty of opportunities to be interesting, and does what he can with the limited resources of the script. De Niro largely disappears for a long period of time, other than the beginning, and the last half hour or so. It's a shame, because he's quite likable here. Sure, it's not up to what we expect from an actor of his legacy, but at least he doesn't come across like he's cashing a paycheck here, even though he obviously is. The rest of the cast, and the movie in general, is largely interchangeable. There are some nice action sequences throughout, but the plot never really grabs us like it should, nor does it delve deep enough. We're entertained enough, and we're certainly not bored, but we're also left wanting more.

Killer Elite should be more than enough to satisfy Statham's fans, or anyone looking for a movie with lots of gunplay and explosions. As for me, I admired it, but wanted to like it more than I did. It's almost like first-time director Gary McKendry thought the presence of stars like De Niro and Owen alone would help lift the material. They certainly help, but any good filmmaker knows that a star is only as good as the material they're given to work with.

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Dolphin Tale

2011-09-25T18:02:00.000-07:00

I would describe Dolphin Tale as being nice and pleasant, but not very interesting. This is a sappy and drippy little family film inspired by the true story of a little dolphin who had her tail amputated after getting it stuck in a crab trap off the coast of Florida back in 2005. The movie takes this simple idea, and then adds a lot of unfortunate Hollywood elements, like a pair of plucky kids who befriend the dolphin, a comic relief pelican, and Morgan Freeman and Kris Kristofferson playing wise old men.

One interesting element of the film is that the actual dolphin (who has been given the name "Winter") plays herself in the movie. Sure, it kind of lessens the drama about whether or not the dolphin will survive, but it's still nice to see. The human hero of the story is a sad-faced and isolated 11-year-old kid named Sawyer (Nathan Gamble), who lives alone with his mother (Ashley Judd). It's summer vacation, but all Sawyer has to look forward to is summer school after flunking almost all of his classes. To make matters worse, his best friend and cousin Kyle (Austin Stowell), is a soldier and has been called into duty to fight overseas. One morning, on his way to school, he happens to see a beached dolphin caught in a crab trap. He helps a marine animal rescue crew free it, before it is taken to the local marine hospital. Worried about the dolphin, Sawyer begins skipping his summer classes, so that he can hang around the animal hospital, and help nurse Winter the dolphin back to health.

The marine hospital is run by a loving family that includes head veterinarian and father Clay (Harry Connick, Jr), his plucky young daughter Hazel (played by plucky young newcomer Cozi Zuehlsdorff), and kindly grandfather Reed (Kris Kristofferson), who mainly stays out of sight, except for when the screenplay requires him to dispense words of wisdom to either young Sawyer, or to Clay. The chances for Winter to recover from the injuries she sustained while in the trap look slim, but then Sawyer begins to bond with it, and the dolphin starts regaining its strength little by little. Of course, there are plenty of problems along the way. These include Sawyer getting in trouble at school for missing so many of his classes to be with Winter, cousin Kyle coming home from the war injured after an explosion and being depressed, and the marine hospital facing huge financial debt, and being in danger of being bought out by a millionaire tycoon who wants to tear the place down and put up a luxury resort.

But the biggest problem revolves around Winter, and the fact that she can't swim properly after her tail is forced to be amputated when the wounds become infected. She does learn how to swim by twisting her body side-to-side instead of wagging her tail up and down, but this could have great health risks for the dolphin, as her body is not meant to move that way, and could lead to spinal problems. Fortunately, just when things seem bleak, a kindly old man named Dr. Cameron McCarthy (Morgan Freeman) enters the picture with an idea on how to create a prosthetic tail for Winter. That's the kind of movie Dolphin Tail is. It never lets itself get too bleak or sad. Even when things do seem bad, the music is still kind of upbeat, and the characters are constantly smiling, as if they just know there's a ray of sunshine waiting behind the gloom. Every problem brings about a life lesson, as well as a last minute miracle solution that wraps everything up so nicely, the word "contrived" doesn't even begin to describe it.

I don't like giving bad reviews to movies that obviously have no desire other than to be uplifting family entertainment. It makes me sound like a bitter and cynical person. But I can't help it, Dolphin Tale did not interest me in any way. I didn't care about the human characters or their problems, and while Winter the dolphin is definitely cute, she doesn't really get any big scenes all to herself. There are times when the movie almost seems to treat her like a prop for the actors to manipulate. The movie tries so hard to be nice and uplifting that I eventually felt like I was being assaulted by the good feelings it was trying to bestow on me. I like a feel-good movie as much as the next guy, but there's a line this movie crosses when I start to feel overly-manipulated.

The movie ends with some real life documentary footage of Winter's rescue and rehabilitation, and this is when the movie comes the closest to working because it feels real. The movie that comes before it is too cold, calculated, and mechanical. It's been engineered top to bottom to win our hearts, and it just tries too hard. I've been able to put aside my cynicism and enjoy movies like this. I did my best to do so while watching Dolphin Tale, but I'm afraid my efforts were in vain, and my cynicism won out. Or maybe this just isn't that good of a movie to start with.

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Abduction

2011-09-24T18:09:00.000-07:00

John Singleton's Abduction is not the goofiest action movie I've seen this year (that honor still belongs to I Am Number Four), but it certainly makes a good effort for the title. Let's take the title for starters, which is completely mind-boggling, as no abduction of any kind takes place during the course of the film. Yes, there is a point where its young hero Nathan Harper (played by Taylor Lautner, the shirtless-wonder from the Twilight movies) thinks he was kidnapped as a small child, when he sees his photo on a missing persons site. But, the whole site turns out to be a ruse set up by the film's villain. No abduction ever took place, making the title all the more bewildering.

And what about that missing person site, which turns out to be a major part in the villain's plot? For years, the villain has been hunting Nathan down, for reasons that remain unclear for most of the movie, and when the reasons are revealed, you kind of wish they were unclear all over again. So, he posts a photo of Nathan as a small child on a website, and posts a phone number to contact. When Nathan discovers the website and the photo while doing research for a school project, he contacts the number, which tips the villain off to where Nathan is located. So, let's think this through - The villain somehow knew that Nathan would one day have to do a school project that would lead him to the fake missing person's website he set up years ago as a way to track Nathan down. Surely there must be easier and less convoluted ways to track someone down. I'd hate to see how this guy goes about having someone murdered, if he goes through all this trouble just to find somebody.

But, I digress - Abduction is intended to be a starring vehicle for Lautner that shows off his skills as a leading man action hero. It fails on all counts. There is very little action to speak of, other than a scuffle with a bad guy on a train. The rest of the time, Nathan spends his time running along side his somewhat-girlfriend Karen (Lily Collins) from evil terrorists, C.I.A. agents who can't be trusted, and other shady individuals. Heck, for a movie that is supposed to be grooming Lautner as the next big action star, you'd think the movie would give him the chance to battle the lead villain in a big standoff scene. But nope, he just runs away, and is saved by sheer dumb luck. Say what you will about Schwarzenegger as an actor, but at least he always took care of business in his movies. Lautner shows not the slightest bit of charisma or personality, as he spends most of the film's running time staring blankly at whatever might be happening (his parents being murdered, his house blowing up, his girlfriend being put in danger). I suppose this was a choice on the part of the filmmakers, trying to make him look deep and edgy. Instead, it makes him look lost, as if he's not sure what he's supposed to be doing whenever on camera.

So, the plot - Nathan stars the movie as an ordinary suburban teenager who likes partying and getting drunk, while his parents (played by Jason Isaacs and Maria Bello, both of whom should have known better) enjoy kicking the crap out of him, and disguising it as a martial arts workout, when he comes home with a hangover. Nathan stumbles upon the missing persons website while researching a school project, and a short while later, some mysterious men show up at his doorstep to kill his parents. Nathan and his girlfriend from across the street are forced to run when they discover that the villains somehow managed to stick a time bomb in the oven during the time they were having a kung fu fight with Nathan's parents. The house blows up (which oddly does not bring any gawkers or neighbors out of their homes), and Nathan and Karen are now on the run.

At the hospital, they come across Nathan's therapist, Dr. Bennett (Sigourney Weaver), who tells Nathan not to trust anyone, especially not a C.I.A. agent named Burton (Alfred Molina). The whole thing has to do with some foreign assassins led by a man named Kozlow (Michael Nyquist). He was the man responsible for the fake missing persons website, as well as the one responsible for the death of Nathan's parents, as well as his real mother when he was a young child. It turns out that the parents Nathan was living with were special agents who had adopted him after the death of his real mother. Dr. Bennett is an agent too, and all of them have been looking after Nathan, in case Kozlow would ever find him. Why is Kozlow trying to track him down? I'll leave you to discover that for yourself if you're unwise enough to see this movie. If you do, expect to be asking a lot of questions, as very little in this movie makes any real sense.

Director John Singleton burst onto the scene in the early 90s with his acclaimed film, Boyz 'n the Hood. Since then, he's usually been slumming it in action junk like this, so it's not really a big surprise to see his name attached to Abduction. He shows no sense of timing, pace, or energy here, however. For an action movie, everything's set at such a casual pace. There's too much set up, and we don't get our first real action sequence involving Lautner until about the 75 minute mark. Watching the movie, I felt like everything was just completely off - The performances, the editing, and especially the pacing. A good action movie makes you feel like you're being taken along on a thrill ride. This movie only makes you feel like checking your watch every 15 or 20 minutes, to see how close it is to the film being over.

I won't go so far as to say that Lautner has no future in action films, as I don't think this is the best movie to judge. However, if he really does think a movie like this will win him new fans, he's completely delusional. I won't go so far as to say this is the worst movie of the year, as there's much worse out there. But it has to be one of the dumbest.

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Moneyball

2011-09-23T18:03:00.000-07:00

Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (who co-wrote Moneyball alongside Steve Zaillian) has a talent for taking dry, nerdy business-oriented subjects, and turning them into great entertainments. Last year around this time, he hit critical and box office paydirt with The Social Network, a movie about the creation of Facebook that could have been a dullard, but wound up being my favorite movie of last year, thanks to its sharp dialogue, great direction, and an emotional theme. All the facts, numbers, and complicated statistics were there on the screen, but it was moved along by a very human story.

Moneyball tries for a similar formula, and though it comes up short compared to Sorkin's last film, it's still a much more entertaining film than one could imagine walking in. This is an unconventional sports movie, in that it's not about the players or the game itself, but about the General Mangers who work behind the scenes, pick the players, make trades during the seasons, and do a lot of wheelings and dealings. Once again, we have a sharply written and well acted movie that manages to make what could have been a dry and dull subject matter (or at least something that sounds like it would have worked better as a documentary), and make it completely fascinating. The only thing holding it back from the greatness Social Network achieved one year ago is that it's not quite as emotionally compelling.

Based on the 2003 nonfiction book of the same name, the film takes a look at the baseball team the Oakland A's about a decade ago, when the team had such a low budget to work with, they couldn't afford the top players that were up for drafting. General Manager Billy Beane (Brad Pitt, who hasn't been this charismatic in a performance in a while) is a man who is tired of losing. He had a career as a professional player in the 80s, only to have it not lead anywhere. As the film opens, he's faced with more losses, as the Oakland A's have just lost the 2001 World Series, and three of their best players have been lured away to wealthier teams with deeper pockets. Billy knows he doesn't have the money or the resources to create the kind of team he wants. Until he learns of an alternative method of hiring players from Peter Brand (Jonah Hill), a Yale graduate who came up with a system to hook up overlooked ball players at dirt cheap prices.

Peter's system uses statistics and stats to show potential in undervalued players. Using this system, Billy is able to drum up a dirt cheap team that at first looks like a joke, even to those on the team. Why is Billy listening to this pudgy, withdrawn Yale kid, rather than his fellow managers, who have years of baseball experience? The team seems like a losing gamble at first, but as the season goes on, and Billy makes some smart trades and actions, the Oakland A's begin to have a record-setting string of winning games. But, Moneyball is not really interested in the big game, or the A's winning streak. It's mainly set behind the scenes. Billy doesn't even usually like to watch the games. He'll turn the game on once in a while, to see how things are going, but for the most part, we follow him through the corporate offices of the team, not through the ballpark itself.

This becomes both one of the strongest aspects of the film, and also one of its failings. The strong comes from the fact that this is a side of the sport that we haven't really seen in movies before, and it's kind of fascinating to see what goes on with the business side of things. The failing comes from the fact that although the screenplay is often very technical and fascinating, it comes at the sacrifice of some human emotion. While it is there in some form (particularly a subplot concerning Billy and his 12-year-old daughter from a failed marriage), the movie is almost entirely "inside" the sport. I think this will be a bigger problem for some than others. The movie runs a bit long, and sometimes becomes a bit too obsessed with stats and numbers, to the point that the characters and emotions almost seem to be second.

But, the movie always pulls through, and is never once boring. It has a wonderful star turn from Pitt, who shows a great deal of personality for playing a character who's a bit of a shut in, and doesn't even really like mingling with the players all that much. His life is his job, aside from the time he spends with his daughter, and Pitt is able to show both the intensity, and the humanity of his character. As Peter Brand, Jonah Hill is very quiet, but likable, as a guy who is out of his element with all these grizzled baseball pros. He's confident in his ideas, and by being around Billy, he's able to have the confidence to speak up about them. We get the sense he's someone who hasn't been taken seriously a lot in his life, so the fact that Billy is willing to put so much stock in his unorthodox ideas to picking players is the first vote of confidence he's heard in a while, if not ever.

Moneyball is a movie filled with great moments, but just misses the mark of greatness itself by being too wrapped up in its own technicalities. Some viewers may be divided, but I don't see a lot of complaints coming. Even if it doesn't reach the heights it aims for, it's still immensely entertaining, and holds wonderful performances by Pitt, Hill, and Philip Seymour Hoffman, who plays the team's coach. I would have liked a bit more emotion, but this is still one of the finer baseball movies to come out in a while.

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I Don't Know How She Does It

2011-09-18T18:06:00.000-07:00

It's futile to complain that I Don't Know How She Does It is essentially a feature length sitcom. It knows it is, and revels in it. From the stock character types and situations, right down to the moments when the main character literally pauses the action around her, and breaks the fourth wall, talking directly to the audience - This movie exists in a cookie cutter romantic comedy universe. Would I have preferred a more honest approach? Of course. But, what's up on the screen isn't all bad, thanks to some likable performances and some nice moments throughout.

Sarah Jessica Parker is Kate Reddy, an overworked Boston financial analyst, wife to her faithful husband Richard (Greg Kinnear), and hurried mother to two young children - One who is six, and old enough to be sad that her mom has to go away for work so much, the other who is two, and is to young to complain. Kate is a "supermom" at home, doing her best to organize everything and keep her family running smoothly. (Instead of sleeping at night, she lies awake in bed, and composes a list in her head of things she has to do.) But, it's getting harder for her to balance her home life and her career when her boss (Kelsey Grammer) is constantly sending her away on business trips. It's about to get even harder now that one of her original projects has caught the attention of Jack Abelhammer (Pierce Brosnan), a New York power player who could bring about big things in Kate's career, but it would also mean a lot more time away from home.

This being a fluffy comedy, we get the expected contrivances and bizarre situations. Right before her first big meeting with Jack, Kate gets a text that her daughter has lice, and that Kate just might have them too. (No wonder she's been scratching her hair so much lately.) Just how fluffy is this movie? One of the big plot points revolves around whether or not Kate will be able to keep her promise to her daughter about them building a snowman together the next time it snows outside. This works about as well for the movie's favor as you would think, which is not very. And yet, I can't deny, parts of the movie worked for me. I especially liked Kate's personal assistant, Momo (Olivia Munn), who vows never to get married and have children, and throws herself entirely into her work to prevent either from happening. Her character is not only funny, but she gets a couple sweet moments near the end.

I also liked the Jack Abelhammer character, who as played by Brosnan, is quite charming and likable. His character is also handled quite well. When we learn that he's a widower, and when the movie starts throwing suggestions that he is starting to like Kate during his time working with her on the project, I sunk in my seat, certain that he was going to go through a sudden change and become a villain, determined to break up Kate's family. Thankfully, the movie is smart enough in this department to keep him honest. Yes, he does have very strong feelings for Kate, and yes, he does admit them to her. But, she doesn't give it a second thought - her heart is with her husband. What's more, he understands, and does not pressure her. Sure, the ending the character does have is a bit too pat and perfect, but at least the movie doesn't suddenly make him a jerk for the sole purpose that the screenwriter thought the film needed a villain.

Even Parker gets some nice moments in the lead role. She's a lot sweeter and more sympathetic than she's allowed herself to be in the recent Sex and the City films. She also has some good chemistry with Kinnear, and especially with Brosnan. This is a strange movie. It would just be going along, not really impressing me all that much, and then something would stand out, only for the movie to go back to its regular routine. There aren't enough stand out moments for me to recommend the film fully, but I'd be lying if I didn't say the movie won me over from time to time. No, it's not as smart or as funny as Crazy, Stupid Love. But, as far as fluff women-centric comedies go, this one's not bad.

I imagine that most people will find I Don't Know How She Does It comforting. It's non-threatening, it's kind of sweet, and it does absolutely nothing to challenge the viewer. Sometimes that's a good thing. For what it is, the movie works enough for me to say this isn't a movie I would go out of my way to see, but I'm glad I did anyway.

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Straw Dogs

2011-09-17T15:46:00.001-07:00

The problem with remakes is universal - The original movie is always hanging over the memories of the audience, so we're constantly comparing it to what came before. The problem with the remake of Straw Dogs is that it virtually asks us to compare it to the original. Writer-director Rod Lurie has stayed so faithful to the original movie, we can't help but draw comparisons. And while I'm not one to complain about a filmmaker being faithful or paying tribute to the original work, there's a fine line between being faithful and just plain ripping it off. A line this movie crosses many times.

Let me first say that on the whole, and taken solely on its own, this movie is certainly not bad. The location where the story is set, and some other details have been changed, but for the most part, this is the same as the original 1971 controversial film. It's been simplified in some ways, I guess to reach a wider audience. Many of the film's themes aren't explored as well as the first time around, and there's some dialogue that's been added that literally spells out to the audience what the title is supposed to refer to. Other than that, the movie sticks note to note to the original. So, why can't we just watch the original? That's the question this remake fails to answer, and it suffers because of it. The movie is never boring, but it's softer, and maybe a little too sanitized at times. (The film's infamous rape scene is in tact, but features a lot more cutaways.) Something tells me the people who have made Straw Dogs a cult classic over the years have not exactly been wishing for this.

The setting's been switched from a small English town, to a small town in the deep South, and the professions of our two leads have been changed, but otherwise, the set up is exactly the same. Hollywood screenwriter David Sumner (James Marsden) and his actress wife Amy (Kate Bosworth) have returned to Amy's hometown, so that David can escape from his usual hectic L.A. lifestyle, and focus on writing his latest script about the 1943 battle of Stalingrad. Amy's hometown is a secluded place called Blackwater, where everyone's lives seem to revolve around the high school football team, and the local bar is filled with every colorful (and shady) sort imaginable. Obviously, when David and Amy pull into town in David's classic Jaguar car, they don't exactly fit in with the locals. Oh, did I mention that many of the locals look like every dangerous Southern redneck stereotype known to man?

Our main antagonist is Charlie (True Blood's Alexander Skarsgard), who also just happens to be Amy's former flame back in high school. He hasn't forgotten her, and spends most of his time not-so-subtly towering over David, as if he is silently challenging his manhood. David plays up the passive nice guy aspect around Charlie. He doesn't want to mingle with his sort, but he doesn't have a choice, as it just so happens that Charlie and his gang of redneck ruffians are the team that have been hired to fix the roof on the house that David and Amy are staying in while they're in town. David simply does not want to start any trouble - Not when Charlie's friends walk around the house like they own the place, raiding the fridge whenever they please, and not even when Amy starts complaining about Charlie leering at her while she's out jogging. This obviously becomes hard when Charlie and his friends start upping the stakes, first by killing Amy's pet cat, and then by threatening Amy herself.

Straw Dogs wants to ask a lot of tough questions, such as how far can a "civilized" man be pushed until he is forced to fight back, or if a part of Amy does not in fact miss Charlie. As I mentioned, while these points are still present in the remake, they have been simplified, and kind of muddied. What we get here is a movie that hits the same beats as its predecessor, just not as effectively. The violent and sexual nature of the story has been muted, even though the film's famously violent climax (right down to the bear trap and the nail gun) has been recreated top to bottom. This makes the remake a bit of an oddity. It's well-made, well-acted, and obviously has been made by people who want to respect the original. But something is constantly off. It's like watching a stage show, where the original cast is long gone, and the new cast is trying their best to capture the feeling of the show, but just aren't grasping it. Nothing hits as hard as it should.

That certainly doesn't mean that the cast doesn't try. James Marsden (looking a little like James Franco here) doesn't have quite the "quiet nerd pushed to the extreme edge" intensity that Dustin Hoffman had in the 1971 film, but I really didn't have any big complaints about his performance. Likewise, Skarsgard does a good job of seeming intimidating just in the way that he seems to tower over his enemies. He smiles, and does his best to come across as being someone you can trust, but he's clearly a wolf, and brings a lot of intensity. Bosworth, in the lead female role however, suffers from the same problem as in the original - She's more of a pawn to be used by the two lead men, than she is an active participant in the story. All three of these performances manage to be restrained at least, which is more than I can say for James Woods, who leaves no piece of scenery standing in his performance as the drunk and dangerous football coach.

The 2011 Straw Dogs manages to be almost exactly like the original, only tamer and not as dangerous, which I guess is to be expected. Judged on it's own, it's pretty decent, with a couple over the top performances thrown in. I would recommend it if you haven't seen the original, but why, when the original can easily be rented? This is not really that bad of a movie. I just see little reason for it to be out there in the first place.

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