Review: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Sherlock Holmes A Game of Shadows one sheetWhile I quite enjoyed the 2009 Guy Ritchie reinvention of the fabled observant detective in Sherlock Holmes, applying the same formula in this newer film Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows proved more a boring, tedious exercise in special effects and self-conscious film making and less an engaging and narratively ingenious film.

In the original books by Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes is a fastidious, rather odd bird with extraordinary knowledge and powers of observation. Famously able to deduce things from the tiniest speck of dust or wrinkle in a hem, he was the anti-hero, someone who was generally unlikeable but brilliant. Reimagined by directory Guy Ritchie and action star Robert Downey Jr. (think Iron Man), Holmes is completely different in A Game of Shadows and looks more like a homeless vagabond than a celebrated detective.

As with the books, the narrative is from the perspective of his long-suffering companion and friend Dr. John Watson (Jude Law), who applies his medical background and experience to aid in solving particularly perplexing mysteries. Except in A Game of Shadows, there's not much mystery, there's not really a case, there's no client, and the story unfolds in an increasingly baffling and incoherent manner.

The story revolves around Holmes uncovering a plot by the nefarious Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris) to start a world war and then profit by selling arms and ammunition to both sides. Holmes rival and love interest Irene Adler (Rachel McAdams) appears for a short time, to be replaced on screen with the more interesting Gypsy fortune teller Madame Simza (Noomi Rapace). Watson has just married Mary (Kelly Reilly) and it's during their honeymoon that Holmes intervenes in a plot by Moriarty to murder Watson, conveniently sidetracking Mary for the rest of the film and forcing Watson to reluctantly take on this, their last case together.

The special effects are impressive, but even there the innovations of the first film are overused in this sequel to the point where it's bizarre and at one point even breaks the narrative wall. Near the end of the film, Holmes plots out the specific moves he'll use in a fight against arch-enemy Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris), who then looks at Holmes and says "two can play at that, sir" and similarly plots out, in graphic slow motion, his anticipated moves in the upcoming scuffle. But how does Moriarty know that Holmes was figuring out his attack?

I've always been a fan of the enigmatic, brilliant Sherlock Holmes, but I think that from a cinematic and narrative perspective Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows leaves a lot to be desired. It's visually pretty, but there's much that doesn't make sense and Ritchie and Downey have created a completely new Holmes that has nothing to do with the fictional creation of Doyle and while it's entertaining, it's also overly long, tedious and confusing as heck. I'd wait until it's on DVD and make sure you've got some popcorn to munch on during the overly long later scenes.
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By Dave Taylor on January 3, 2012 10:02 AM | 1 Comment

Review: The Iron Lady

the iron lady one sheetOn the surface, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher might not seem like a good subject for a biopic. She wasn't flamboyant, there's no romantic back story, and she was more known for her steel will than her diplomacy. In these politically charged times, however, The Iron Lady is surprisingly timely, with its profile of the greengrocer's daughter who rose through -- fought her way through -- the British political ranks to become one of the most powerful women in the Western Hemisphere.

The narrative roughly follows her personal history, starting with her school years and showing how she rose to become the first female Member of Parliament, then Prime Minister of Britain for eleven years, during which time she wrestled with the recession of the 1980s, the birth of the European Union, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, a massive miner's strike, the Argentine fight over the Falkland Islands and the bombings and rebellion of the Irish, including frequent bombings -- emotionally portrayed in the film -- from the Provisional Irish Republican Army.

As Thatcher, Meryl Streep is superb. From her makeup and wardrobe to her speech and the behaviors and mannerisms of a woman in her forties, fifties and older, Streep vanishes in her portrayal of the Iron Lady and it's a wonder to behold in an era where films are about their stars as much as they are about the characters in the movie. It's the anti-Tom Cruise, if you will.

The film opens with a touching scene where Thatcher is retired, her husband Denis (well played by Jim Broadbent) has passed away a few years earlier but is still very much a tangible, physical presence to her, and she has avoided her minders and gone down to the local grocers for a pint of milk. Shocked at the price, she comes back and discusses it with Denis. Except he's been dead for a few years at that point to everyone but Thatcher. Dementia? Yes, but also seemingly the logical consequence of a life well spent on public service, though her daughter Carol (Olivia Colman) might not entirely agree when her Mum's still correcting her in public.

In addition to a fascinating and reasonably neutral political narrative that focused on Thatcher and the cost her family paid in her single-minded devotion to her service to Britain, The Iron Lady was surprisingly touching and more than once I felt a wave of emotion sweep over me as I watched her children fight for attention, a beloved advisor killed in an IRA bombing, or her long-suffering husband Denis sit on the sidelines as he realized yet again he couldn't compete with her passionate love of service.

Still, the best part of The Iron Lady is Streep's performance. It's truly that good. The film itself is a touching and engaging biopic, but will ultimately be of more interest to students of history and those who seek a sense of the battles she had to fight as the first woman Member of Parliament and the first female head of a Western Power. Well worth watching in this context, it's a reminder of the power of cinema to let us peek into the life of a powerful, amazing woman.
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By Dave Taylor on January 2, 2012 9:30 AM | No Comments

Review: The Way

the way movie posterThere's no more essential story than that of the Hero's Journey, and when you combine that with a tale of redemption and spiritual awakening, you should have all the ingredients necessary for a moving, powerful film. That was what Emilio Estevez undoubtedly had in mind when he adapted, directed and gave himself a key role in the film The Way.

The titular Way refers to El Camino de Santiago, an ancient 800km pilgrimage from France to Spain, and the reluctant pilgrim is Tom (Martin Sheen, father of Emilio Estevez), who has flown to France from his comfortable suburban life to claim the body of his 40-something son Daniel (Estevez), who has died unexpectedly on the first day of his own journey towards Santiago de Compostela.

As with many men of his generation, Tom has poured all his wishes and dreams into his only child, Daniel, and the few scenes where we see them converse are hard to watch as each hovers in his own corner, afraid of really seeing the other for whom they truly are and acknowledging that love isn't about approval and expectations, but something a lot deeper.

Unfortunately, the parallels of real life paternity only work for so long and within ten minutes of The Way, it's painfully obvious that Martin Sheen is terribly miscast in the role of the confused, withdrawn, grieving father. He just doesn't have the acting range to convince us that he is a man deeply grieving the loss of his only child, something that no parent should ever have to experience and that should create a profound, breathtaking sadness. Sheen's a one-note actor and while being "distant" or "disconnected from his feelings" could work for the first part of his ultimately inexplicable journey along the entire 800km Camino de Santiago, by the end of the film it's embarrassing to watch him react to the overt religious overtones of his pilgrimage with no more emotion than he'd have ordering a cappuccino at his favorite Starbucks.

There's a warm, thoughtful and moving film waiting to be made from the Jack Hitt book, but Estevez didn't capture it with his banal script and Sheen was just, well, awful. Skip this one, even if your "enlightened" friends tell you how deep and profound it was...
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By Dave Taylor on November 28, 2011 11:37 AM | 2 Comments

Review: Hugo

hugo one sheetOnce in a while, a film comes along that defies simple explanation. The story proves complex, the characters unexpectedly nuanced, and the entire narrative experience is beyond anything you expect. Hugo is just such a movie, a story that succeeds as a children's fable in the spirit of childhood fantasies like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and City of Ember, and simultaneously offers a surprisingly deep and profound exploration of love, family and what it means to be human.

Hugo (Asa Butterfield) is a scruffy orphan who lives in forgotten spaces hidden in the walls of Gare Montparnasse, a bustling train station located in the center of Paris. It's 1931 and memories of The Great War are fresh, even as everyone tries to resume their normal lives. 

How Hugo became an orphan is a major story element and at one point we meet Hugo's father (Jude Law), a watchmaker and tinkerer. His mother has long since vanished, and Hugo clearly adores his happy, upbeat father. They tinker with an automaton that they've salvaged from a museum until his father dies in a mysterious fire. Hugo is then adopted by his alcoholic Uncle Claude (Ray Winstone) and moves to the station. His job: keep the station clocks working.

Hugo is caught attempting to steal a small clockwork mouse by the gruff, unhappy Georges Méliès (Ben Kingsley), who takes Hugo's notebook, insisting that the young urchin work for Méliès to recompense him for the goods previously stolen. Méliès? Yes, that Méliès, one of the pioneers of cinema and most famously the director of the ground-breaking 1902 silent film Le voyage dans la lune. 

The intertwining stories of Hugo's experience at Gare Montparnasse getting by on his own wits while outwitting the comical and tragic Station Inspector (Sacha Baron Cohen), his budding romance with delightfully perky Isabelle (Chloë Grace Moretz) and his earnest passion for repairing the automaton in the hopes it hides a secret message from his father all combine to create an extraordinary -- if occasionally long-winded -- fantasy world and heart-warming film. Highly recommended.
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By Dave Taylor on November 23, 2011 12:00 AM | No Comments

Review: The Three Musketeers

the three musketeers one sheetThe Alexander Dumas book The Three Musketeers is one of the most exciting books of its era and still offers a thrilling adventure with the coming-of-age tale of D'Artagnon leaving home to join up with the fabled Musketeers, acting in the service of King Louis XIII against the evil Cardinal Richelieu. Sword fights, treachery, beautiful women, honor, it's a truly epic tale.

Which is why it's been adapter to cinema again and again, with predictably mixed results. In fact, this Paul W.S. Anderson production is the 28th time the Dumas story has made it to the screen, and there are rumors of another adaptation to be released early in 2013.

With a story this familiar, it's necessary for the writers to come up with a new twist, a take that weaves in the three Musketeers -- Athos, Porthos and Aramis -- and the familiar characters of Richelieu, Milady de Winter, the Duke of Buckingham and Rochefort with something new, something that'll capture our modern sensibilities. For this version, it's an airship that the Duke of Buckingham (a completely wasted Orlando Bloom, in a surprisingly minor role on screen) uses to visit King Louis XIII (Freddie Fox). The King must have an airship of his own, but evil Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) instead secretly builds one for his own nefarious purposes, having stolen the plans from the Duke by way of the feminine wiles of the equally evil Milady de Winter (Milla Jovovich).

Then there's the acting. While the cast was strong and each has turned in solid performances in films like Lord of the Rings, Inglorious Bastards, Death at a Funeral, Robin Hood, and The Book of Eli, none of them brought much more than minimal effort to The Three Musketeers, and it really hurts the film, ranging from Fox's painfully foppish performance as King Louis XIII to Jovovich's disengaged attempt at one of the great femme fatales of the big screen, Milady de Winter.

This is a completely forgettable version of a tremendously entertaining story and I strongly encourage you to check Netflix or the local video store for one of the many superior productions that preceded it. Yes, there are some nice visual effects, but not enough to justify a $10 ticket. You've been warned.
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By Dave Taylor on October 24, 2011 10:04 AM | 2 Comments

Review: Take Shelter

take shelter movie posterSomething really bad is coming, an impending apocalypse and only Curtis (Michael Shannon) can see it on the horizon. His Mom was institutionalized after a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia when he was ten, however, so are his dreams a prophecy of the future or his own mental facilities starting to fail?

Stuck in the chaos is his loving wife Samantha (Jessica Chastain) who want to support him and tries to understand what he's going through, but can feel his distance and fear, and can't avoid his increasingly bizarre, erratic and random behavior. When Curtis spends the money they need for their daughter's cochlear implant on an expanded storm shelter in their rural Ohio backyard, it's the last straw and Samantha leaves. But is he right? Is there a storm heading their way?

Take Shelter is a powerful film about mental illness that uses a very atypical narrative approach. There's a level of ambiguity throughout the film that leaves you wondering whether the apocalyptic visions are foreshadowing the future or whether we're witnessing a blue collar construction worker in rural America break down, day by day.

It's all too easy for a filmmaker to oversimplify the anguish and confusion of a mental illness, just as alcoholics "just stop drinking" in movies, or bigots "just see the light" and reform. Were the film to have just a slightly shorter running time and ended just a few minutes earlier than it does, Take Shelter would be a powerful and provocatively ambiguous movie about mental illness, but the final scenes that suggest one ending, then switch to another, highly ambiguous one hurt the story a bit too much for me to recommend this without reservation, though I still felt it was quite compelling.
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By Dave Taylor on October 21, 2011 9:28 AM | No Comments

Review: Contagion

contagion one sheetThere are specific genres of films, certain themes, that I find highly appealing, and one of those is apocolyptic events. From the daft The Happening to the cheesy The Day After Tomorrow, if the world's ending, if we're all facing extinction as a species, if something really terrible is going to happen, I'm interested. I think this started with classic old sci-fi like The Day of the Triffids and The Day the Earth Caught Fire, but that's another story.

One of the most powerful - and frightening - of these film themes is global pandemics. Diseases already seem to spread without us fully understanding or being able to control them, and given that they rapidly evolve to become resistant to our defenses, it's not much of a leap to see a very bad future or to imagine that they might be bioweapons or even alien life forms. My favorite film in this genre is the original 1971 thriller The Andromeda Strain, a film that's still anxiety-provoking 40 years later.

That's why I was perfectly primed for Contagion, though was a bit disappointed how cerebral and unthrilling it was for a film marketed as a tense action thriller. Filmed in a documentary style (think District 9) and with an interesting, if occasionally complicated timeline that jumps back and forth, the film is a fascinating primer on how an illness can spread rapidly and how difficult it is to identify, contain and cure.

The film initially focuses on international traveler Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow) who returns from a trip overseas to her home in Minneapolis and then, in front of her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) collapses and soon dies. Who did she interact with? What did she touch? How is the as-yet unidentified disease transmitted?

Contagion then moves to the Centers for Disease Control, as represented by Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne) and Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) and the World Health Organization and its field specialist Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard). Their job: figure out the transmission vector, slow down the spread of the disease and ultimately come up with both a cure and a vaccine. To do that, however, they need to be able to replicate the disease (shades of The Andromeda Strain), which proves very difficult to accomplish.

Meanwhile, people are dying and Alan Krumweide (Jude Law) is causing trouble and creating even more paranoia with his wild conspiracy theories about drug company schemes to make millions, even as he double-deals and insists a homeopathic treatment is the only cure for the H1N1-like disease.

It's not a thrill ride with amazing special effects, but I found Contagion to be a tense and alarming medical mystery with great verisimilitude and a style well matched for its cool presentation of the spread and consequences of a pandemic that rapidly spreads around the globe. And yes, I thoroughly washed my hands afterwards.

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By Dave Taylor on September 9, 2011 11:18 AM | 1 Comment

Review: "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" (1920)

cabinet dr caligari one sheetA silent film from the beginning of cinematic history? We don't even have a good quality print - the best digital restoration available is flawed and has frequent glitches, lines running through the image and more. I'll also admit that I'm not much of a fan of silent films and without focused study my attention wanders and I find something else to do.

But there's something oddly compelling about the nightmarish vision of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari with its weird, skewed sets and mythic story of charlatan Caligari (Werner Krauss) and his enslaved somnambulist Cesare (Conrad Veidt) who exhibit at the Holstenwall town fair.

At the heart of things is a surprisingly modern triangle of best friends Francis (Friedrich Feher) and Alan (Hans Heinrich von Twardowski) and their mutual love Jane (Lil Dagover). When Alan is mysteriously murdered after Cesare eerily predicts his death while at the fair, Francis is suspicious and investigates, even as the town constable arrests another man for this and another murder, a man who swears his innocence but is locked up nonetheless.

Cinematically, director Robert Wiene offers one of the first examples of a film narrative where the viewer knows things that the characters in the story do not. We see the crimes and the perpetrator even as Francis cannot. Indeed, there's a complex temporal facet to the film too, where it opens with Francis explaining to a stranger what's happened to Jane, his fiancee, which then switches back to the story as it unfolds. Complex elements that we appreciate almost 100 years later demonstrated for perhaps the first time.

Does the criminal meet his moral comeuppance? For that matter, who is the criminal in this story, the somnambulist Cesare who is bewitched by Caligari, or Dr. Caligari himself? In the film world of 1920 there's never a question that crime does not pay, and there's something satisfying about the unambiguous ending.

Silent films with their slow pacing, hand-lettered dialog cards and rough, jumpy prints can be difficult for modern audiences to watch. This is a perfect film to DVR when it shows up again on Turner Classic Movies (that's what I did). Look for The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and enjoy a brilliant film from the beginning of cinematic history.

Oh, and if you recognize the name Conrad Veidt, it's because he appears in dozens of films subsequent to The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, most notably as Major Heinrich Strasser in Casablanca...
By Dave Taylor on September 4, 2011 7:23 AM | No Comments

Review: Seven Days in May (1964)

What if the US military couldn't get behind a Command in Chief who supported a nuclear disarmament treaty with the Russians and instead planned a coup so that it could replace the "dove" president with its own "hawk" leader, General Scott (Burt Lancaster)?


The thoughtful and disturbing film Seven Days in May, written by Fletcher Knebel, Charles Bailey II and Rod Serling, and directed by The Manchurian Candidate director John Frankenheimer explores just this scenario and it's a doozy of a film where you're never sure whether Colonel Jiggs Casey (Kirk Douglas) is paranoid, spinning a fantasy about nothing more than a military exercise scheduled for a few days in the future or blowing a whistle on a carefully planned, widely supported military coup.

What most interests me about Seven Days in May is its snapshot of the paranoia of the Cold War era, where the enemy -- the Soviet Union -- was big, powerful, well-armed and dangerous and where a single nuclear missile could change the balance of world power and spark World War III. It was a dark time in history and comparing it to the abstract psychological war that we're facing now with the suicide bombers and terrorists who have infiltrated our society, it's amazing to see the clarity, the black-and-white situations that are no longer part of the military equation.

And back in 1964 when the film came out, were there thousands of troops secretly training at a military base known as ECOMCON to overthrow the government? As Casey explains to President Lyman (Fredric March) part-way through the film, he thinks the troops will be deployed to Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Utah. "Why Utah?" "The telephone company has important relays for all its long lines going through Utah, sir."

Could we ever see a military overthrow of the government? You'll have to watch this dark and frightening movie to find out.
By Dave Taylor on August 28, 2011 9:07 PM | 1 Comment

Review: Rise of the Planet of the Apes

rise planet of the apes one sheetWhat if there was a research drug in the laboratory right now that had a good chance of curing Alzheimer's but it needed more testing on animals before it could be released for human trials? And what if that same neurogenesis drug made its research subjects smarter? That's the premise of the exciting and surprisingly thoughtful Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Will Rodman (James Franco) is the lead genetic researcher working on the miracle drug for Gen Sys Corporation, but he has a driving motivation of his own: his father (John Lithgow) is rapidly descending into dementia.

Clinical trials for the ALZ-112 drug go well, but when they inadvertently treat a pregnant chimpanzee then separate her from her newborn, she goes on a rampage and the project is shut down. Except for Caesar, the baby chimp who Rodman takes home to prevent it being killed. Caesar turns out to be an extraordinarily intelligent chimp but after an incident where he attacks a neighbor who was assaulting the now-cured father he's sent to monkey jail, the San Bruno Primate Shelter.

Not only does Caesar not like the primate shelter, but is also constantly taunted by malevolent employee Dodge Landon (Tom Felton). Enough is enough, and he escapes, steals some of the more powerful ALZ-113 from Rodman's house then goes back and exposes the hundred or so primates at the Shelter to the drug.  The stage is set and the monkeys break out en masse.

The original 1968 Planet of the Apes is an iconic science fiction film, with imagery notably including Colonel Taylor (Charlton Heston) finding a half-buried Statue of Liberty on a beach in the monkey-dominated future Earth. I'd always wondered what happened for that to transpire and Rise of the Planet of the Apes does a good job of explaining, even through some vital information the happens in the last two or three minutes of the film.

I really enjoyed the new film and found it mostly plausible. Director Rupert Wyatt has captured the essence of the San Francisco setting and produced many iconic images of his own, including when the angry simians encounter SFPD on the Golden Gate Bridge. It's fun. Go see it.
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By Dave Taylor on August 5, 2011 2:40 PM | 1 Comment
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