Movie News

Live Free or Die Hard

2007-07-03T02:09:00.000-07:00

After twelve years haunting the shelves of video stores, John McClane (Bruce Willis) has been exhumed. The indefatigable hero of three Die Hard films during the 1980s and 1990s appeared to have reached his "sell by" expiration date with the lackluster Die Hard with a Vengeance, but Fox decided there was still room for the old school cop in the digital age. So John McClane is back - sort of. For, although this guy looks like McClane, sounds like McClane, cracks wise like McClane, says "Yippee kiyay" like McClane, and gets bloody like McClane, he doesn't always seem like McClane. Instead of an everyday guy getting the crap kicked out of him as he soldiers on to save his family, this guy is a superhero without the costume. If we, as the movie-going public, weren't so obsessed with familiar faces, there would be no Live Free or Die Hard. Take away Bruce Willis and this is straight-to-video material.

The filmmakers fixed one mistake of Die Hard with a Vengeance, but left two in play. This time, John is again fighting for a loved one, although now it's daughter Lucy (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) instead of wife Holly, whose only appearance in this movie is via a still photograph. Unfortunately, the film forgets that the Die Hard formula works best in confined spaces, and has John zipping all across the East Coast, with stops in Camden (New Jersey), Baltimore, Washington D.C., and West Virginia. Worse, the lone wolf has been saddled with a partner. If it didn't work when the sidekick was Samuel L. Jackson, how's it going to work when that guy is Justin Long, the dweeb forever known as Mac from the Apple TV ads?

The story goes something like this: a cyberterrorist, Thomas Gabriel (Timothy Olyphant), is about to unleash Armageddon on the United States. As in all Die Hard movies, his motives are purely financial (only William Sadler in Die Hard 2 had a noble cause). He has a sexy henchwoman, Mai Lihn (Maggie Q), whose leg kicks are high enough to earn her an instant spot with the Rockettes. Meanwhile, our hero is at Rutgers, upsetting his daughter by interfering with her date and threatening to do nasty things to her would-be boyfriend if he rounds first base. That's when John gets the call - head to Camden to pick up hacker Matt Farrell (Justin Long) and bring him to D.C. for questioning. Unfortunately, John's not the only one who wants Matt. Gabriel wants him in little pieces - he knows too much. John arrives just in time to get involved in shootouts, car chases, and really big explosions. Eventually, when Gabriel gets tired of having an annoying New York City cop systematically whittle down his fighting force, he decides to even the score by kidnapping Lucy.

Director Len Wiseman at times forgets that he's directing a Die Hard movie, not another Underworld installment. Color desaturation might work well with vampires and werewolves, but it's not a great enhancement to McClane's world. Also, while the action sequences are assembled with workmanlike efficiency, they skate past preposterousness into the realm of outright silliness. I'll buy John jumping off the roof of an exploding building with a fire hose as a tether, but playing chicken in an 18-wheeler with a fighter plane while double-decker highways pancake all around him? Yippee kiyay, indeed.

The character of Matt Farrell is a major annoyance, and more than one audience member will wish that Gabriel would hit the mark and leave John on his own. Long isn't right for the part - he's too closely associated with the TV commercials (and, in an instance of "clever" product placement, the computer Farrell uses is a Mac) - but the writers exacerbate the situation by making him an irritating whiner. John may be a fly in the ointment, but Farrell is an albatross around the fly's neck. As the head villain, Timothy Olyphant isn't the best bad guy in the Die Hard series (hands down, that's Alan Rickman's Hans Gruber). In fact, he's not even the best bad guy in this film. That would be Maggie Q, whose role as a henchwoman ensures she won't be around for the finale. Then there's Kevin Smith. What's he doing here anyway, besides sticking out like a sore thumb? There is one bit of casting the movie got right - Mary Elizabeth Winstead, who had the lead in Final Destination 3, is great as Lucy. In my dream version of Live Free or Die Hard, she would have teamed up with Dad and things would have gotten a lot more interesting.

In some ways, Live Free or Die Hard is the perfect summer movies: there are lots of explosions, the action verges on maniacal, it takes an act of God to kill a character (whether good or bad), and the running length tops two hours. The movie generates some excitement and releases the occasional burst of adrenaline, but at times it feels more like a big-screen episode of 24 than another Die Hard. John's one-liners have become as mechanical as his methods. There are times when the old John peeks out from inside The TerMcClaneter, and we smile, but those moments are too few. Much has also been made about the PG-13 rating, but that's a red herring. This film is as violent as its predecessors, and the profane part of the tag line is still there. In fact, it's a wonder that the MPAA allowed this to pass without an R.

When it comes to pure, turn-off-the-brain action, Live Free or Die Hard delivers and it's at least a little less burdensome in doing so than any of the summer of 2007's other to-date blockbusters. While it would be nice to trumpet that John McClane has returned in triumph, that would be a lie. Twelve years is a long time between sequels and, while it can be said that absence makes the heart grow fonder, this length of absence encourages forgetfulness. Bringing back John after all those years might have made sense if the script was great, but this is pyrotechnics 101 with a side order of computer-geek-speak. Strangely enough, Live Free or Die Hard may work better for an audience that doesn't know much about the series is than it will for Die Hard die hards, who will be wondering who that impersonator is and what he did with the real John McClane. The original Die Hard came out of nowhere to blitz the 1988 summer box office. The fourth installment arrives with a weight of expectations that Atlas would have trouble shouldering and, when the dust settles in September, it's unlikely that Live Free or Die Hard will be one of this year's big success stories.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

2007-05-30T17:00:00.000-07:00

ACTION/ADVENTURE
United States, 2007
U.S. Release Date: 5/25/07 (wide)
Running Length: 2:48
MPAA Classification: PG-13 (Violence)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1

Cast: Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Kiera Knightley, Geoffrey Rush, Chow Yun-Fat, Jack Davenport, Bill Nighy, Jonathan Pryce, Kevin R. McNally, Tom Hollander, Naomie Harris, Stellan Skarsgård, Lee Arenberg, Mackenzie Crook
Director: Gore Verbinski
Screenplay: Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio
Cinematography: Dariusz Wolski
Music: Hans Zimmer
U.S. Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures

When it comes to the final hour, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, delivers the goods. The last 60 minutes offer adventure as rousing as anything provided in either of the previous installments, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Unfortunately, that doesn't account for the other 108 minutes of this gorged, self-indulgent, and uneven production. During the course of nearly two hours of exposition and setup, there's little in the way of charm or action. There are memorable moments, to be sure, but the overwhelming sense is that the film is desperately spinning its wheels trying to shock and awe with unexpected plot developments.

As an end to a trilogy, At World's End does its job, although with less flair and economy than one might hope. It resolves myriad subplots and gets the surviving characters to places where their stories can end or go on, as future sequels demand. Like the other two entries in the series, it's too long and needlessly convoluted. The movie is also more ponderous than the previous Pirates. The defining quality of Curse of the Black Pearl and Dead Man's Chest was a sense of breezy fun. This movie lacks the same feel. Perhaps it’s the weight of expectations and the need to top what went before. The thrilling final hour is almost enough to make one forget how much of a labor it is to trudge through the first two-thirds - almost, but not quite.

The movie's first act concentrates on the rescue of Cap'n Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) from Davy Jones' Locker, where he ended up after dueling the Kraken at the end of the second installment. Jack and his ship, The Black Pearl, are stuck in limbo, where's he's seeing multiples of himself and being followed by a crab that looks like a rock. Meanwhile, his former companions - including Will Turner (Orlando Bloom), Elizabeth Swann (Kiera Knightley), and the newly resurrected Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) - go to the Orient to enlist the help of Pirate Captain Sao Feng (Chow Yun-Fat). Their goal: travel to the land beyond death and retrieve Jack. Then, with him in tow, they can attend a gathering of the Nine Lords of the Brethren to determine the future of piracy in the Caribbean. With Davy Jones (Bill Nighy) in his thrall, Lord Cutler Beckett (Tom Hollander) and his lacky, Admiral James Norrington (Jack Davenport), have control of the seas. No normal ship can stand against The Flying Dutchman.

At World's End doesn't blend the humor and the derring-do as well as its predecessors. For the most part, the jokes are lazier and Cap'n Jack has lost some of his zing. Maybe it has something to do with his being killed at the end of the last movie. Geoffrey Rush's Barbossa is more restrained; the intimidation factor is gone. Maybe it has something to do with his being resurrected at the end of the last movie. The on-again/off-again love affair between Will and Elizabeth is on again (following her brief dalliance with Jack) and, while sparks don't fly, at least both characters evidence more pizzazz this time 'round. Meanwhile, Cap'n Jack finds his screen time leeched away to others. A late entrance and too may extraneous side-stories take the focus off our swishy hero, and that's not a good thing.

Three films into what could be a very long run (as long as the box office holds up and the actor remains interested), Depp has found his alter-ego's skin to be a comfortable fit. He's a little less flip this time around, but he still has a good one-liner or two reserved for special occasions. Kiera Knightley continues the ascendancy she began in Dead Man's Chest, evolving from damsel in distress to full-fledged pirate and swordswoman. Is there anything sexier than a woman with a naked blade? Sadly, her sparkling chemistry with Depp is absent this time around - the two say no more than a handful of words to each other. Orlando Bloom has grown into his role. Finally, Will Turner has becomes something a little more interesting than a one-dimensional hero type. There's a little Han Solo in this Luke Skywalker.

As far as the bad guys are concerned, they're not an intimidating bunch. Without his Kraken, Davy Jones is just another fishy looking CGI creature. As Cutler Beckett, Tom Hollander does a good job being nasty, but one never gets the impression that he'll be able to get the better of Jack. Defining other villains could be misleading since numerous characters changes sides, some more than once. At times, a scorecard is needed to figure who's on which team at any given time.

Most of the film's special effects budget was consumed in the final 45 minutes, during which At World's End throws everything one could ask for from a pirate movie at the audience. There are swordfights in the rigging, sea storms, ship-to-ship battles between entire fleets, monkeys loaded into canons, a woman dissolving into crabs, and all manner of other excesses to shiver one's timbers. And, for those who are patient and willing to sit through the entire seven minutes of end credits, there's a nice reward at the end. I won't reveal anything about the "bonus" scene except to say that it's more significant than the one following the credits for Dead Man's Chest.

The need to make longer, more busy second sequels is an undesirable trend. By throwing so much into the mix, the filmmakers - including director Gore Verbinski, who has helmed all three pirate yarns - risk losing what attracted viewers in the first place. The initial Pirates was an unexpected hit. The need to do things bigger and more spectacular led to fissures in Dead Man's Chest. Those fissures have widened and deepened in At World's End.

Most Pirates aficionados won't complain (at least not too much). This is a chance to re-visit old friends and see where some of their stories end. It's a chance to sail with Cap'n Jack from death to life and meet his dad (played, as has been reported everywhere, by Keith Richards). The movie does enough things right that it won't leave scores of despondent fans in its wake. Unfortunately, it does enough things wrong to keep me from giving it a wholehearted recommendation. It could have been better, but it also could have been worse. We can be thankful it's not the latter while mourning it's not the first.

The Departed

2007-04-29T11:55:00.001-07:00

In view of its Oscar win, taking re-look at The Departed might be appropriate. I don?t think this is Martin Scorsese?s greatest work, but this will go down in history as the movie that made the Academy kiss and make up with one of the premier movie directors working in Hollywood. Apart from Best Director and Best Picture, William Monahan won for his adapted screenplay and Thelma Schoonmaker, a lifelong colleague of Scorsese, won for best editing.

I saw the movie on DVD a few weeks back. It just got released in Chennai, theatres obviously hoping to exploit the Oscar spoils.

Long after the movie was over, I keep hearing Jack Nicholson. "In this country, we don't come to a business meeting with automatic weapons, because in this country that don't add inches to your dick. It gets you in jail," he tells Chinese businessmen trying to buy stolen microprocessors from him.

Jack is playing Frank Costello, a mafia head based in Boston. But he is really playing himself or the screen persona that he has developed over the years. Not even Martin Scorsese, who has finally made a movie that audiences and critics alike have come to expect of him, can rein Jack in. Sometimes the swagger in Jack's tone is delicious, but in a couple of scenes it does grate a bit. Especially when he and DiCaprio are discussing the rat in their gang.

Scorsese has based his movie on the script of Infernal Affairs, a wildly popular Hong Kong film. Which is to say that screenwriter William Monahan said that he didn't see the original, instead choosing to just write his script based on the script of Infernal Affairs.

Jack gets the best of Monahan's lines; some of them will no doubt go on to become as famous as Travis's (Robert De Niro) monologues in Taxi Driver. The story revolves around Bill Costigan and Collin Sullivan played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon. Collin is groomed from his early teens by Costello and he becomes the gang's man inside the Boston police department. Costigan, whose uncle is a don, wants to join the police department but is forced to go undercover within the Costello gang.

In his speech at the Oscars, Scorsese said this was the first movie he made with a plot and that might be true. It is impossible to write the plot for a movie like Goodfellas.

Scorsese, much more than Coppola, is the granddaddy of mafia movies. Much like Goodfellas, The Departed is not romantic. There is no glorification of violence. Rather, the end that most characters meet in the movie is a sort of moral lecture Scorsese is making; for instance, violence begets violence. But it is incredibly interesting anyway.

Black Snake Moan

2007-04-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan is a film some audiences may reject, but at least they’ll have to reject it on its own terms. A winking, excessive burlesque starring Samuel L. Jackson as a lapsed bluesman and Christina Ricci as an oversexed Southern sex bomb, it’s a film filled with sly pleasures for those who can throttle their inner puritan to the floor long enough to find them. Brewer’s main mission is to poke fun at some old taboos about the supposed link between black sexuality and Southern white females, with Ricci as Rae, a sex addict with a taste for African-American companionship. It turns out in one of the later scenes that the film takes its title from a blues tune by Jackson’s character, the hyperbolically named “Lazarus,” but, until that scene, the title appears to refer to Ricci’s ferocious sex drive, which literally falls on her like a seizure when she hears a different kind of “black snake” moan. Dr. Freud, call your service.

As with so much Southern-themed moviemaking, Tennessee Williams is a touchstone here, but it’s the odd, nervy comedic eroticism of Elia Kazan’s least seen Williams adaptation Baby Doll (1956) and not the bathos of Streetcar Brewer is channeling. Like Williams, Brewer depicts Southern femininity as a kind of nymphomaniac pathology. After finding Rae beaten and left for dead on a country road, Lazarus revives her, only to watch in horrified wonderment as her “sickness” activates, and she begins to writhe and beg and scream for any kind of sex she can get. Lazarus goes for his Bible, and who can blame him? Ricci’s Rae is Maggie the Cat possessed by demons, and her need is so raging and bestial it wouldn’t be a surprise if her head started to revolve.

What isn’t concerned with the cinematic deflowering of Southern womanhood takes its themes and structures from the archetypes of classic blues tunes (the soundtrack is a superb blending of old recordings and contemporary recreations that might do for the blues what O Brother Where Art Thou did for Appalachian throat yodeling). Lazarus’ wife runs off with his brother. Ricci’s discharged soldier boyfriend (Justin Timberlake, taking another baby step toward acting cred) goes hunting for the platonically loving Lazarus and Rae with a gun. Preachers and churchy sopranos hover around the margins of the action like the angels of redemption a real bluesman is supposed to always see just out of reach. It’s meant to be a blues song come to life, though the at-times wearing soap-opera machinery required to keep these relationships in motion is the furthest thing from the stark narrative economy of a good blues.

There are other non-fatal flaws as well. A studio pseudo-indie financed by Paramount, Black Snake Moan is occasionally overwhelmed by the production resources put at its disposal. When Timberlake has a claustrophobic anxiety attack while surrounded by trucks on a freeway, the engine noise and widescreen photography are so ominous and enveloping you’d swear he and Ricci were about to be run off the road by mobsters. When Jackson performs in a club for the first time in decades, the screen overflows with phony shots of shimmying audience members overreacting with picturesque carnality to musicianship and vocals that are, shall we say, slightly better than might be expected from the star of Snakes on a Plane.

In what will surely be the most talked about aspect of the picture, Lazarus attempts to “cure” Rae of her nymphomania the way a drug addict is cured in a B-movie — by chaining her to a radiator like an unruly pet. The sight of Ricci in her scanties writhing in 10 yards of chain link is fetish territory, moving Black Snake Moan down the kink scale, away from Tennessee Williams and toward Jean Genet. The same yahoo bluenoses who picketed Hounddog at Sundance without having seen it will no doubt go into moral-outrage mode, because it takes a sense of humor to be in on a joke, even when it’s a willfully perverse one. Brewer seems to have anticipated this reaction. With its suggestion of offbeat sexual fantasy, chaining Ricci to a radiator is Brewer’s modern equivalent for Kazan’s then-scandalous Baby Doll image of buxom Caroll Baker, sucking her thumb in an oversized crib.

Intentional or not, there’s a serious joke embedded in all the Bizarre Magazine and Mudhoney kink. What better comedic reversal of the often tragic history of American race relationships than a black person chaining up a white one as an act of kindness, rather than a black being chained by whites out of hate? Black Snake Moan isn’t unflawed, but it marks Brewer as a much more interesting filmmaker than his over-regarded debut film Hustle & Flow did. Here’s hoping sensationalism and Brewer’s giddy willingness to muck around in areas a more tasteful filmmaker would run from screaming draw enough of an audience that we get to see what he has in mind for major-studio-release number 3

The Good Shepherd

2007-04-17T15:11:00.000-07:00

Robert De Niro, directing for the first time since 1993's A Bronx Tale, has a grand ambition: to use one fictional character, Edward Wilson (Matt Damon), to tell the story of the CIA from its post-World War II roots to the botched Bay of Pigs mission in Cuba in 1961. Talk about biting off more than you can comfortably masticate, even at two and a half hours. But you have to admire De Niro's moxie. He's mounted a handsome production (Robert Richardson is a camera god), opted for facts instead of spy-flick cliches and cast it with heavyweights. Besides Damon, whose implosive quiet evokes Al Pacino in The Godfather II, there's Angelina Jolie, wasted as his unhappy wife, and Alec Baldwin, William Hurt, John Turturro, Billy Crudup, Michael Gambon and De Niro himself as various operatives. I could go on, which is the problem. The film is stuffed with undeveloped characters far worthier of screen time than Edward's domestic crises with his wife, deaf mistress (Tammy Blanchard) and resentful son (Eddie Redmayne). The film cuts back and forth from present to past, when Edward, as a 1939 Yale undergrad, is inducted into the secret Skull and Bones society and gets hooked on stealth. Shepherd wants to say something profound about the effect of a deceitful government on human values. But it's tough to slog through a movie that has no pulse.

Dinner and a movie: 'TMNT' and pizza

2007-03-30T05:49:00.000-07:00

The return of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is right on schedule.

People say that trends recycle every few decades. So, too, do cultural markers like clothing and musical styles from childhood become popular again 20-30 years after they faded. Considering the cartoon series "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" premiered in 1987, 2007 fits right into the formula.

"TMNT," currently in theaters, attempts to reinvent the once-popular series combining the dark look of the original comic books with the fun vibe of the popular television show.

For anyone in the dark about "TMNT," here's a brief history according to the TV show. Four turtles are exposed to a strange ooze in a Manhattan sewer where they're discovered by a banished ninja. The ooze causes the ninja to mutate into a rat, named Splinter, and the turtles into humanoids. Splinter begins training the turtles to fight crime and names them after famous painters: Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo.

Though the comics and television incarnations of the Turtles were radically different, what really made them popular was the Playmates toy line. They also spawned three live action movies.

This new movie is all computer-generated, though, and picks up where those films left off, with the defeat of the Turtles' worst enemy, Shredder. With no supervillains to fight, each of the Turtles goes out on his own, waiting for the day when the team will reunite. A cataclysmic event 3,000 years in the making forces that to happen.

Acting as both a sequel and reinvention of the franchise, "TMNT" is sure to generate new fans while rekindling the spirits of the old ones. It's a truly fun movie.

Any Turtle fan worth his shell knows the favorite food of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle is pizza. Though it's only touched upon in this movie, there's no better option for dinner before seeing "TMNT." So grab a slice at any one of the hundreds of local pizza places, or one of these restaurants that has delicious brick oven pizza.

Movie Review: Dead Silence

2007-03-19T14:28:00.000-07:00

Beware the stare of Mary Shaw
She had no children, only dolls
If you see her in your dream
Please be sure not to scream

The minds that created the Saw phenomenon have reteamed to try and forge another new direction in horror. Unfortunately, it is not so much a new direction as it is a mash-up of previously mined ideas. Fortunately, they have merged those elements with style and have created a film that is seriously creepy, not necessarily scary, but definitely creepy. James Wan and Leigh Whannell have set aside the copious amounts of blood spilled in their prior creation, in favor of a ventriloquist's dummy. As you all know, there is always room for another creepy doll in the horror genre.

The story centers on Jamie Ashen (Ryan Kwanten). It opens with him enjoying an evening home with his wife, when a package arrives mysteriously on his doorstep. Inside is a box containing a puppet, which sparks talk of Mary Shaw and the legend surrounding her demise. You see, Jamie comes from a town that is paralyzed with fear from this legend. Soon enough, his wife is dead and Jamie is the number one suspect, and is being hounded by a disheveled detective by the nane of Jim Lipton (Donnie Wahlberg). What follows has Jamie returning to the town of his birth, determined to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Mary Shaw and what she has to do with the death of his wife.

Jamie returns home to bury his young bride, and find out what he can about Mary Shaw. The more he uncovers, the more he discovers that the life and death of Mary Shaw is quite entangled in the roots of his own family tree. In a plot point worth of A Nightmare on Elm Street, we learn that Mary Shaw was... I fear I have already said too much. Suffice to say there is a distinct similarity between Mary and the legendary Freddy.

It is fabulously creepy, if not all that scary. That is, you won't find yourself jumping, or being grossed out, but when that doll's eyes move, your skin will crawl. There is something inherently scary in puppets and clowns (oh yes, there is a seriously messed up clown puppet). The way the blank, emotionless eyes and expressionless faces stare back at you from their resting place, the way the shadows play on their faces in the darkness, you will be creeped out. Just imagine yourself alone with the movie's Billy, and you will be sure to have some bad dreams crop up.

As I mentioned earlier, there is considerably less blood and gore than can be found in the Saw films. In its place is a much creepier atmosphere, and a more stylish approach to the presentation. Whereas Saw had style, it was more concerned with the plot; Dead Silence is a much better looking film, and James Wan has grown as a director.

There is a distinct difference in the approach he has with this film. There is some blood, to be sure, but this is a definite throwback to the days of atmospheric horror. Wan, and editor Michael N. Knue, employ interesting wipe cuts, and a variety of transitions in combination with off-angle shots always increasing the atmosphere. Never do they call attention to themselves, but they add so much to the feeling of doom that surrounds everything.

Dead Silence just oozes creepiness. From the washed out color palette, to the cinematography, to the music, to those infernal puppets, everything is designed to give you that gnawing feeling at the back of your neck. As Jamie gets closer to uncovering Mary Shaw's secrets, the eerier the dolls become.

Then there is the sound design — it ties into the title and reminds me of Silent Hill. In Silent Hill, once you crossed into the other world, whenever a siren went off, you knew something was going to happen, something bad. You did not know what, but you were sure to be bracing yourself against the unknown. In this film, everything went silent, no music, no ambient sound, nothing. The sound would die down, you would brace yourself, and then something would happen. It is marvelously simple, and very effective at signalling the scares, but rather than the old standby of the fake scare, followed by the real scare, this has the real scares come straight away. I loved that about this. The silence, combined with the score from Charlie Clouser, brings the element of sound design and the place of a score into sharp focus, as they share an equal role in the atmospherics.

Is the movie perfect? Not by a long shot, but it is quite good. It brings together elements of Puppet Master and A Nightmare on Elm Street. You could even connect it to the Saw series, as that, too, contained a creepy puppet, a puppet that can be spied amongst the puppet parts of this film, if you watch closely. Perhaps the Saw killer is related to Mary Shaw, perhaps the puppet in Saw is more than just a pawn of its creator, perhaps the puppet is the one having an influence over the deadly games being played. I don't know, but it is a fun thought.

The film suffers the greatest in the acting department. Ryan Kwanten was rather bland in the lead role. I found myself distracted by how he didn't really seem like someone whose wife had been brutally murdered, and he is more just there propelling the plot rather than being a major factor. Amber Valleta, as Jamie's stepmom, doesn't seem to pull much weight either.

On the flipside, Donnie Wahlberg's perpetually shaving, rumpled detective was perfect, the non-believer who gets caught off guard when the reality becomes apparent. Is it a realistic portrayal of a lawman? No, but it works within the movie. There is also Judith Roberts, who is deliciously evil as Mary Shaw, a memorable new villain.

One more thing before I close. Whoever decided to make "Shaw" rhyme with "dolls" needs to try harder next time. I am all for close rhymes, but this one has bugged me since I first heard it in the trailer.

Bottom line. It is nice to see the creepy on the big screen. A definite departure from the torture horror that Wan and Whannell have championed prior to this. This is a movie that will make your skin crawl. I cannot say it scared me, but it did creep me out. Nicely done film with a nice sense of style.

Movie Review : 300

2007-03-11T06:41:00.000-07:00

Every few years, a sci-fi/fantasy film comes along that changes every thing; the rules, how films are made, our expectations, the industry, the whole enchilada. In 1968, the release of 2001 set it all off. 1975 gave birth to the summer blockbuster with teeth when Jaws scared the living crap out of its audience. In 1977, Star Wars rewrote the concept of sci-fi movies and the world's culture was changed forever.

Then in 1986, a sequel to a movie about a stowaway alien was taken to the next level with a commando of marines wiped out, leaving a woman and her flame thrower and an assault rifle. She took on a 15-foot tall alien queen and her army of drones in order to save a little girl and audiences in the theaters stood up in Super Bowl glee, cheering like mad raging fans when the bay door opened and Ripley stepped out with her yellow loader. With Aliens James Cameron re-wrote the "us vs. them" alien theme and created the first tough-as-nails heroine. That alone was a revolution that merited Sigourney Weaver the front cover of Time magazine.

But Cameron would come back a few years later, proving that with an astronomically insane budget (for the time) of 100 million dollars, one could make a special effects driven movie and still have a superb story to boot. And he also managed with great directorial skill to actually make Arnold Schwarzenegger semi-funny. With Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Cameron created a rift in cinema. Film buffs can now tell simply by looking at a movie's special effects, that the movie is either pre-T2 or post-T2. After T2 things changed. Movies like Jurassic Park were now possible. And the string of disaster movies that followed were also made possible. You can thank James Cameron's vision for this.

Then in 1999 the mother of all cinematic culture shocks took place when The Matrix gave birth to the third millennium. The Wachowskis simply tossed the book out of the window and inspired themselves from so many other sources it's hard to point to a sure source; but one thing is certain — The Matrix changed it all. Special effects were completely innovative. The storytelling was unheard of in mainstream cinema. The visuals were unparalleled. The philosophical complexity is still perplexing philosophers of all kinds to this day. The lay masses were prepared for some flashy, wire-fu, gunslinging, fast-talking coolness, but what we got was something that changed our culture forever.

It was time for the next step, the next bounding leap to the next level. There have been some contenders. The shoulda-coulda-beens, like the Sin City blunder. Or even the Lord of the Rings trilogy – which I affectionately call the Bored of the Ring trilogy – which was nothing more than a big bucks production of a not so interesting book which replayed variations of the same fringing score over and over again.

Ever since the first clips and stills from the production of 300 surfaced on the web, hopes had risen that perhaps this was the next step, the next cinematic evolution. It had all the promise, a classic telling of the mythological story of the Spartans; hero mythologies and archetypes is what the human psyche is built upon. It's why The Matrix was such a success. But sadly this film is not one of them.

But that’s not to say that the film isn't a great work of art. It is, succinctly put, a bloody fantastic work of art. The story is simple — very simple. The preview says it all. The thousand nations of the Persian Empire descend upon Sparta. There, it's said. But it's not a spoiler, everyone has seen the previews. But the simplicity of the story takes nothing away from the film. Is there nothing as simple as the smile of a child? Yet it fills us with happiness and contentment.

So can esthetically pleasing violence and death. In the end this film is all about death and meeting it with honor. The Spartans are a society of warriors, trained from birth. They are inspected at birth and if they are not perfect, they are discarded in a pit. If they are chosen, they are trained by men to fight and to never surrender, to never give up, and that death in battle is the greatest of honors. One must return from battle with his shield, or on it — any other way would be a disgrace. And this is how the film begins, a short training montage of sorts which shows our protagonist rapidly growing up into the warrior King Leonidas.

Leonidas soon gets a message by horse that the Persians are coming, the Persians are coming. The messenger ain't no Paul Revere but some arrogant Persian errand boy who gets quickly "dispatched" by the King after getting shot down by the queen in what is the most remarkable comeback in years. But then, it could only happen in such a movie. Les jeux sont fait. The war is inevitable. Leonidas must consult the Oracle. This time it isn't a little old lady baking cookies but a young naked teenager smoking who knows what and babbling into her attendant's ears that Sparta cannot wage war.

The King cannot in good conscience leave his country undefended so he takes 300 of his best "bodyguards" and goes for a stroll on the beach. Not very long afterwards, the all-out war begins, and this is where the film really shines. What did you expect? This film isn't about peace, bunnies, and daffodils. It's about the kill, the blood, ripping wounds, fire, screaming, chest pounding, testosterone, ferocity, manliness, honor, destroying your enemy, fun times.

If seeing Leonidas eating an apple with delight while standing on a pile of eviscerated bodies and speaking of civility doesn't crack you up, this movie isn't for you. This movie is for the animal inside — the one that wants to rip off the head of the co-worker who's pissed you off one time too many but you can't do anything about. For the one who's punched in a wall a few times. For the one who wants to scream. For the one who wants to fight. This is a man movie. It's not a girly movie, it's not a date movie, it's not a family movie, and it's not for the warm fuzzy people. This is for those who dreamed of being those Greek heroes.

I say this because when I was in the theater, there were all the people who could be offended by this movie. Young children under the age of ten should not being seeing decapitations and dismemberments the likes of which are shown in this film. Not to mention the orgy scene. I don't know if I'd like to answer those questions as a parent, after the movie. Then I got that funny feeling looking at all those hijabs in the row in front of me during the very nude sex scenes. Here we have a restrictive culture where showing a woman's hair is proscribed, coming to a movie with naked teenagers' breasts the size of a building thrown in their faces. Oh the irony. Plus, you'd think that the sight of a man's naked ass wouldn't incite so much giggling in 2007. But I digress; I should be reviewing the film.

From start to finish the film is visual feast that grips you from the fuzzy Warner Brothers logo to the end credits. Everything, every smallest detail is bathed in this light Gaussian blur with a golden overexposed hue. They never let go of it, except perhaps for the night shots, which take on a spirit of their own. Graphically from the start you know the movie is all CG with the exception of our heroes and their foes. But after maybe 30 seconds, you stop caring. You begin to look at it in another light, as perhaps the greatest mesh between live action and animation ever combined. All this latticing creates an ethereal glow to the storytelling that elevates it to its proper level, mythology. You feel now that you are neither in your time nor your world. It simply works.

To top it off, the story is very well laid out. For those expecting one great big battle scene and then a cut to credits, you'll be disappointed. The story, as stated earlier, is simple, but not feeble either. There are flashbacks. There is also the question of politics – it's Greece, if this film didn’t mention politics I was walking out – and with politics come political games and backstabbing. How little things have changed over time. There's also the passionate love story between Leonidas and his wife, who becomes influential during his departure. The meeting between Leonidas and Xerxes, the Persian God-King is intimidating and hilarious at the same time. Leonidas has the same funny bone has a certain William Wallace.

And the acting, for such an epic, effects-driven film, is rather impressive. Gerard Butler brings just the right level of intensity to his King Leonidas, which is, of course, kind of over the top. But a leader of men must be strong and intense to charge them into battle and almost certain glorious death. And Lena Heady, as Queen Gorgo, plays a rather strong woman in such a man's film and doesn't serve as set decoration, despite being very pretty. This review won't bother with all the players. But all of them are played very well. None stand out as bad apples. There is no Katie Holmes in Batman Begins here.

The film isn't a revolution for cinema as the trailers foretell, but it does open doors for the way we can tell other great stories of our mythological past with greatness, like never before. The CG effects are so perfectly well-mastered that at no time, lost and immersed in the story, could I tell this was shot in my hometown of cold Montréal and not in Thermopylae, Greece. This movie succeeds in the way that I want to see more mythological stories told in this fashion now. The stories are plentiful, and now the technology to bring them to life is more than advanced, and the creative minds born and bathed in comics, graphic novels, modern sci-fi and fantasy are making movies. The time has arrived.

Watch it before you trash it

2007-02-26T02:49:00.000-08:00

I'm not gonna say Ghost Rider was a perfect movie...but it doesn't have to be. We're talking about a movie about a biker with a flaming skull for a head...did I miss the English class or the film class where that was the main ingredient to deeply intriguing and emotional character drama. The answer in case your scratching your head is no I didn't miss a class and that topic was never covered. Ghost Rider is just a fun movie and that's all it sets out to be.

There were moments in the origin story at the beginning that I thought came off a little cheesy (although most of them pay off later) and I thought the movie could have benefited a little bit from a bigger climax. The climax features a lot of really cool stuff, but I was expecting a more intense fight between the lead rivals...that could just be me though.

Having said that the movie boasts a lot of really good stuff...lots of comic relief that doesn't come across as stupid, lots of action, great special effects, solid acting and ya maybe the script won't win a Pulitzer any time soon, but it certainly wasn't bad...not bad at all and if they get a chance to make a sequel that story can easily develop into something more.

Now I wanna mention some of the negative comments I've read about this movie. I'll start by saying...and pay attention because this important...WATCH A MOVIE BEFORE YOU SAY IT SUCKS. I can't get over how many crap reviews this movie got by people who hadn't even seen it. One comment went as far as to say that the movie was 80% percent CG. The movie when it comes right down to it, isn't really an effects extravaganza, in fact Ghost Rider himself, in his full on fired up mode is probably if anything 80% live action...obviously his head is CG and his hands occasionally but that's it...and the bad guys are all make up effects, CG only steps in to augment their powers and there's maybe two scenes (not including the scenes driving up buildings) where a CG double stands in for a second or two. Ya the trailer probably was 80% CG but that's what sells movie tickets...they zero in on the biggest action sequences and the most visually stunning parts...and people need to calm down when it comes to CG...because when those effects are done well they can conjure up some stunning imagery (and that's coming from a devout classical animator).

I'll go on to mention that I don't know why people had a problem with Nicholas Cage in the role. People bitched that he was a bad actor with no range, open your eyes people...we've seen this guy go from ridiculously over the top to almost painfully somber, and he mixes in new character ticks and traits all the time. Some people said he didn't have the physique to play a superhero...well not only are they wrong, they guy's in really good shape and always has been, but what difference would it make anyway...he's playing a skeleton for god sakes, he's not your average superhero.

Another note on actors, Eva Mendes is good and there was nothing in the trailers to suggest otherwise and Sam Elliot was perfect in his role. One comment I read complained because he was also Thunderbolt Ross in Hulk. He's an actor dude, he's aloud to be in more than one movie.

Lastly, someone compared Mark Steven Johnson to Joel Schumacers because they make bad comic book movies. Well ain't that a kick in the nuts? The reason the Schumacer Batman movies sucked was because they were unrelentingly cartoony and if it hadn't been for the dark costumes they would have been no different from the Adam West show(I'll say in his defense though that had more to do with pushing from the studio, the guy's made some pretty dark movies). Mark Steven Johnson makes dark and gritty as true to life as he can get away with comic book movies, ya there are those lighter moments but that's what comics are, even the darkest comic has those moments, some stuff in the Sin City novels are down right silly. The Spider-Man movies were better than Daredevil, I'll give you that, but they were a lot brighter and cartoony than Daredevil or Ghost Rider.

So to finish off my really over blown and long winded review. The movie's got a lot of action, a lot of humor, and everybody involved did a great job. It's a fun movie, and that's all it wants to be. Watch it and decide for yourself. Don't base your own opinions on trailers and comments by people you've never met(and yes I get the irony since you've never actually met me before).

My First Post

2007-02-26T02:48:00.000-08:00

Hello