Dave On Film

Review: "Alice in Wonderland"

2010-03-05T07:00:41Z

Lewis Carroll's immortal story Alice in Wonderland has been brought to the big screen many times, notably 1951's animated Disney classic that memorialized the different characters in the story for many adults. With 61 title matches in the Internet Movie Database, it's safe to say it's a popular starting point for movie makers.

That's an intimidating challenge, especially for a director like Tim Burton who generally tackles stories that haven't been shown in film before and can be crafted in his own unique style. Think of A Nightmare Before Christmas, Edward Scissorhands, Big Fish and Mars Attacks! Prior to this, the most popular story he'd tackled was Willy Wonka, which he twisted unpleasantly with his muse Johnny Depp proving too creepy in the title role.

And so it's with a palpable sense of relief that I can report Alice in Wonderland is terrific. It's the kind of story where Burton's dark vision works perfectly, where the strange, moody and oft-sinister fantasy world Carroll described in the book (and its sequel Through The Looking Glass) can finally be brought to the big screen in glorious 3D.

There are nods to other films -- the opening is very reminiscent of the 3D fly-through of London that opens A Christmas Carol, some scenes look like they're from The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus and Underland (you read that right, "Wonderland" was a mis-pronunciation by Alice, according to the film) at moments looks an awful lot like the planet Pandora from the blockbuster Avatar -- and the ending is typical clunky Burton, but it's still a fresh and delightful take on the story.

]]> waistcoated rabbit with a pocket watch hopping through the garden, muttering "I'm late, I'm late", plummeting down a rabbit hole into a world where everything's upside down, creatures talk, potions can make you shrink and cake can make you grow enormously big, and a deck of cards has become a palace full of soldiers, royalty and knights.

Burton plays with our memories of Wonderland in the film, however, and so we first meet Alice in mid-1800's Victorian London as a young girl of six (played by Mairi Ella Challen) troubled by recurring dreams of rabbit holes, red queens, mad hatters and a little dormouse. "It's only a dream, nothing can harm you there" her father Charles (Marton Csokas) reassures her. Zoom forward thirteen years and Alice is nineteen, traveling by coach to meet her paramour Lord Ascot (Tim Pigott-Smith in an entertainingly priggish role), who, we learn, is going to ask her to marry him in front of hundreds of estate guests.

Alice, however, is an independent young miss who earnestly wants to determine her own path in life and is more interested in her father's business than any sort of soppy romantic entanglement with Ascot and his ghastly mother Lady Ascot (Geraldine James). Rather than answer his offer to marry her, Alice spots the waistcoated rabbit and follows him down the expected rabbit hole and into Wonderland.

At that point Burton does a terrific job of letting us know that the storyline is going to diverge from the original rather than just be an update to make the story more contemporary. "You've brought the wrong Alice!" we hear one creature tell the other as they (and we) peek through a keyhole into the room where she drinks the potion labelled "drink me" and tries to figure out the puzzle of becoming small enough for the tiny door while still having the key that's otherwise out of reach on the table to unlock it.

In this scene as with many others later in the film, the visual effects are splendid and the film constantly toys with our sense of scale. At some points Alice is considerably smaller than Tweeledee and Tweedledum (Matt Lucas in both roles), while at other points she towers over them. In another scene, she's small enough to ride on the brim of The Mad Hatter (Johnny Depp)'s hat, while in others she is much bigger than he is.

The Red Queen plays croquet on the grounds of her castle

Alice quickly learns that the world of Underland is torn between the evil Red Queen (Helena Bonham Carter with a very swollen head) and the weird, but ostensibly nice White Queen (Anne Hathaway), and with her ephemeral guide the Cheshire Cat (voice of Stephen Fry) and champion The Mad Hatter (Depp), she travels through the dark, twisted world trying to avoid her destiny foretold, being the one to slay the terrifying Jabborwocky.

Filling out the roles, Crispin Glover brings a sense of melodrama to his role as the Knave of Hearts, a dastardly character if ever there was one in a fantasy film, Michael Sheen voices the White Rabbit, and Alan Rickman does a splendid job with his sinister voicing of the trippy Blue Caterpillar. Recognize his voice? He's the hated Professor Snape from the Harry Potter movies.

After the excruciatingly poorly acted Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief, I was quite impressed with every performance. Mia Wasikowska did a splendid job as Alice, and Burton even tamed Depp and while the publicity machine emphasizes his crazy makeup as the Mad Hatter, he was relatively calm and didn't at all overshadow the other players (rather to my surprise). The weak link has to have been Anne Hathaway as the White Queen. She's certainly pretty, but she just can't act and film after film I watch her and shake my head sadly.

I will warn parents that there are some intense scenes, particularly tense chase scenes and the climactic battle between Alice and the Jabborwocky that could prove quite upsetting to younger children if they're not used to the dark visions of Tim Burton. There's also precious little that's amusing or funny in the film, certainly too little for a children's movie. You might want to screen the film yourself (popcorn in hand, of course) before you bring them along.

Near the end of the film, Alice crossly says "Since the moment I fell down the rabbit hole, I've been told who to be and how to act, but I'm going to make my own path!" That's exactly what Tim Burton has done with this wonderful and visually inventive retelling of the Alice in Wonderland story. Even though it's a bit sterile, it's still well worth seeing in the theater and will prove a great Blu-Ray purchase when it's available for home viewing.

Review: The Messenger

2010-02-26T07:01:11Z

What does it take to be a soldier on the Casualty Notification Team, the "Angels of Death Squadron", traveling the United States and letting spouses and parents know that someone has died while in the Army? And at what cost personally?

That's the question underlying The Messenger, a stark film that follows decorated and troubled Staff Sergeant Will Montgomery (Ben Foster) as he joins with Captain Tony Stone (Woody Harrelson) on this detail. "Captain Stone will show you the ropes, he's the expert" Colonel Stuart Dorsett (Eamonn Walker) promises, but what kind of man would be an expert in this task?

Stone explains the importance of clarity and sticking to the script but the entire process of notification is so abstracted that he doesn't talk about the people receiving their tragic news, but refers to "noks" (next of kin). There are no hugs, no gestures of sympathy, no touching at all allowed.

There are the occasional moments of wry humor to relieve the intensity of the film: their pagers play a tinny funeral dirge when there's news to be shared, and Stone delivers a amusing monologues on stopping for directions and inappropriate doorbell songs.

Still, the power of "The Secretary of the Army has asked me to express his deepest regret..." is overwhelming, a wave of sadness that washes over both Montgomery and us, the viewer, scene after scene. The Messenger is one of the most moving films I've seen in a while, well crafted and provocative, well worth a viewing.

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Stone, we learn, has been married three times and is again single. Is it any surprise that someone who has become an expert on imparting the tragic news of death would be extraordinarily cynical and jaded?

Montgomery was in a relationship with Kelly (Jena Malone), but broke up when he joined the service over fear that someday someone from the Death Squad would be knocking on her door. Later he calls Kelly to say hello but hangs up when a man says "Kelly's home, this is Alan." Who is Alan? Montgomery holds it all in, hiding the turmoil and pain of his personal life even as we know the pressure's building and something's going to explode. Later she calls and leaves a message about a wedding party, telling him "don't come, just forget about the invitation, just forget about me." He reacts by smashing a hole in the wall of his crummy apartment.

Captain Stone (Woody Harrelson) and Sergeant Montgomery (Ben Foster)

Shaky hand-held camera work and moody lighting combine with anytown USA exteriors give the film an almost documentary feel. There's always background noise in their cheap apartments, angry rock playing on the car stereos and train whistles in the distance, it's never peaceful in The Messenger.

Do the recipients accept the news gracefully? Certainly not always. In one intense scene when Dale Martin (Steve Buscemi) is told that his 20yo son has been killed by Iraqi sniper fire, he confronts Montgomery and screams in his grief, "Why aren't you over there? Why aren't you dead? Cowards!"

Olivia Pitterson (Samantha Morton) demonstrates a far more pragmatic response to notification that her husband has been killed in action, calmly asking if she should contact her in-laws to let them know and looking around to ensure that her son doesn't show up and learn the tragic news from the soldiers. "I know this can't be easy for you" she tells them, to their surprise.

Something about Pitterson catches Montgomery's eye, and soon he's lurking outside her house, then keeping an eye on her as she shops at the mall. Is their bond loss? Pain? He intervenes when she starts berating soldiers trying to recruit some local high school kids and then we see him diagnosing her car problems. From there the relationship proceeds, even as Montgomery drunkenly attends Kelly's wedding and weeps for a future not found.

The song "Home on the Range" recurs in different ways throughout the film, a poignant wish for a world where "seldom is heard a discouraging word..." and that's ultimately the message of this powerful, moving film. How did we end up in a world where we need a Casualty Notification Team anyway?

Review: Shutter Island

2010-02-19T07:00:56Z

The film version of Dennis Lehane's creepy psychological thriller Shutter Island has taken a while to get on the big screen, but it was worth the wait. With Leonardo DiCaprio in the starring role as US Marshall Teddy Daniels, it's one of the best psychological thrillers in quite a while. With its leisurely pace, moody ensemble and positively sinister exteriors, it's also a nice reminder that intense movies don't need to involve massive explosions, zombies, vampires or the wholesale slaughter of innocents.

Set during a stormy weekend in 1954, Shutter Island, located in Boston harbor, is the home of Ashcliff, a mental hospital for the criminally insane, "the only facility of its kind in the whole world: people too dangerous for anywhere else", as Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley) explains to Daniels during the opening scene. Daniels, and his partner Chuck Aule (Mark Ruffalo) are Boston-based cops sent to the facility to help track down Rachel (Patricia Clarkson), an inmate and psychotic killer who has gone missing and ostensibly poses a threat to the Boston populace.

Daniels is only a few years out of the Army, where he was traumatized by his part in the liberation of the German concentration camp Dachau at the tail end of World War II. His flashbacks are shocking and create great sympathy, even as we begin to wonder who are the patients, who are the doctors, and who's really crazy in this place?

Shutter Island isn't a fast-paced horror film. In fact, I can't recall a single startling scene. The feel of this extraordinarily well assembled movie is more of a slow-motion train wreck, a story that unfolds in creepy, sinister and disturbing ways, even as you realize not everything is as it seems, nor is everyone who you think they are.

Unfortunately, the ending is a big disappointment. In fact, I really want to believe that Martin Scorsese knows this and that that there's going to be a "director's cut" when the film comes out on DVD that will tie everything together quite well (it'd only take about 60-seconds of additional footage to do so). As it stands, you might well be pretty unhappy about a two hour film that ends in this manner. You've been warned.

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Ward C is another story, a former Civil War fortress with sheer multi-story walls interrupted only sporadically by tiny windows and with armed guards patrolling the roof night and day. Ward C is for the most dangerous patients and the entire building only holds 24.

Daniels (DiCaprio) interrogates Dr. Cawley (Kingsley), while Aule (Ruffalo) looks on

The residents of Ward C also including Andrew Laeddis (Elias Koteas), who set the apartment fire that killed Daniel's wife Dolores (Michelle Williams). Aule is convinced that it's revenge that's brought Daniels to Shutter Island in the first place: to track down and kill Laeddis in retaliation for the death of his wife. For her part, Dolores keeps appearing in Teddy's troubled dreams.

The dream sequences are hallucinatory and visually stunning. In one it's raining ashes and while Teddy hugs her as tightly as he can, Dolores turns to dust and crumbles away. In another he revisits Dachau but finds that it's an even more surreal world. In a film about sanity and insanity, you'll do well to pay close attention to what happens - and who shows up - in these dreams, as they are clues to what's actually happening in the story.

Another clue that appears early in the film about what's transpiring is when Cawley explains to the Marshalls that the problem they're having trying to help the vanished Rachel is "her refusal to acknowledge her crime." Shutter Island is ultimately about the moral grey area between those who admit their crimes and those who aren't even aware that they were involved in a crime, let alone acknowledge what they've done.

To be fair, Shutter Island is a difficult story to tell on screen, because the weirder it gets, the more internal inconsistencies appear and the more you risk the danger of toying with the viewer. What if the scene you just saw wasn't real? And the one before it? What if later you realize that they actually were real? After a while, it just ends up being confusing. For example, we gain great sympathy for Daniels through his traumatic flashbacks from the War, but are they real? Did he really experience the liberation of Dachau while in the Army?

I'm already a big fan of Ben Kingsley, ever since his brilliant work in Gandhi, but in addition to his great, menacing performance, I have to compliment the entire cast: it's distressingly rare that a film comes out where every performance is great, but from DiCaprio and Ruffalo on down the list, everyone really digs into their part and brings it to life, innocent or sinister.

The surprise twist in the film was cool too, though I won't reveal it here. My disappointment with Shutter Island was that the ending didn't tap into the inherent ambiguity of a story about truth and fantasy, about reality and hallucinations, about paranoid delusions and secrets too horrible to share. It could have but instead we're left with a film that is beautifully assembled, stunningly photographed, superbly acted yet a bit of a let down. I'll recommend it nonetheless and will be curious to see what you thought of the last twenty minutes after you've seen it too, dear reader.

Review: Creation

2010-02-19T07:00:26Z

Charles Darwin was one of the most profound thinkers of the modern era, with his groundbreaking theory of evolution and idea that rather than being created by God in "his image", we evolved from monkeys. But who was Charles Darwin and where did he get this radical idea? That's the story behind Creation, as it explains in the opening titles: "Charles Darwin's "The Origin of Species", first published in 1859, has been called the single biggest idea in the history of thought. This is the story of how it came to be written..."

The film opens with Darwin (Paul Bettany) relating a story to his daughter Annie (Martha West) about an expedition to Tierra del Fuego, where three native children were taken by a British naval expedition, taught "Christian manners", even met the King and Queen when they arrived in London. When they return the children to their homeland, however, they promptly tear off their clothes and return to the savage ways they're familiar with. Nature, or nurture?

As Thomas Huxley (Toby Jones) explains to Darwin early in the film: "You've killed God, Mr. Darwin, and good riddance to the vindictive old bugger", to which Darwin almost faints, he's so shocked at being confronted with the blunt implications of his theories. Huxley then entreats Darwin to pull all of his notes together and create a book about his survival of the fittest theories, a book that can be their rallying point to push out the parsons and beetle collectors and turn science into a respectable profession.

Oct 1858, he's on Laudanum and has an ongoing stomach ache and shaking hands. He experiments with selective breeding of pigeons and is convinced that all breeds come from the common rock pigeon. "nature breeds for health, while humans breed for appearance". Ultimately, Darwin, for all his brilliance, was a dabbler, and if he hadn't been pushed, probably would never have published more than sporadic notes and observations.

It's a fascinating story, and Charles Darwin was unquestionably brilliant, but does his biography form the basis of a good movie? Sadly, the answer is no, not really. Creation feels more like a BBC period costume drama than a full cinematic production, and while it's well acted and assembled, it's also not going to engage any but the most dedicated of filmgoers.

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The scene where Charles is confronted with the profound implications of his theory ends with wife Emma Darwin (Jennifer Connelly) entreating Joseph Hooker (Benedict Cumberbatch) not to push Charles too hard, as he's not in the best of health. "He's a bit like a barnacle himself" Hooker says, and Emma responds "and like a barnacle, if you prise him off, he'll die."

Darwin reminisces during a picnic about his time on the H.M.S. Beagle, but we don't even see an exterior of the ship and all too quickly, it's back off screen and we're in picnic listening to people talk, talk, talk. His friends present the two basic theories of the world: either nature lives in harmony and is at peace, or nature is a battlefield and all creatures are at constant war. It's the latter that Darwin believes and that's what serves as the basis of theories.

Charles Darwin (Paul Bettany) studying while on the HMS Beagle

A fascinating, though not entirely explicable, series of high speed flash forward and backwards views shows us the death -> life -> death cycle, with a finch dying just to feed the creatures of the forest floor. It's a dream, and we gain the insight of how heavily his theories and views of the world weigh down Darwin. The result? He opens up a chest of notes, articles and clippings and commits to turning it all into a book, the book that ultimately is published as The Origin Of Species.

"What are you so afraid of," Annie asks, "it's just a theory."

"It's not just a theory, though," Charles answers, "Suppose the whole world stops believing that God had any sort of plan for us. Nothing mattered, not love, trust, fate, not honor, just brute survival. Apart from everything else, it would break your mother's heart..."

We learn how Darwin learned to appreciate the innate intelligence and tool making abilities of orangutans through his relationship with Jenny, the first orang brought to the London Zoo from Africa. We don't learn, however, how it was that he gained access to her cage nor how he could spend weeks studying her without having to earn a living. This is typical of what ails Creation, a lack of exploring why things transpired or from where his radical ideas arose.

Later Annie gets into trouble with Reverend Innes (Jeremy Northam), causing Charles to get upset and setting in motion the core conflict of the film, between Darwin and his theories of evolution and Innes and his unshakable faith in God and the divine order of things. This same fight rages today with the so-called intelligent design advocates and the theory of evolution, but, again, there's a lack of depth to the way this topic is addressed, as if Darwin is possessed by his theories but doesn't think deeply of them and their implications to people, particularly his troubled and beloved wife.

The illness of his favorite child, Annie, pushes Darwin to the church and then to reject the whims of a cruel and unthinking God when she dies, finally finding the motivation to finish The Origin of Species. Where the film could have offered up some insight, it offers instead Charles explaining to a colleague that "since Annie's death, Emma has found solace in religion, and I in science."

The performances are good, the sets are as you would expect from a costume drama, but in the end, Creation doesn't answer any questions, it just lets events unfold without any attempt to offer anything deeper or more profound. It's all about "how" without any attempt at "why", and this will ultimately relegate the film to the "period biopic" bin in the rental store.

Review: "From Paris with Love"

2010-02-16T03:10:36Z

With a story from action wizard Luc Besson and a comfortable, if detached performance by bald, tattooed John Travolta, you can easily imagine what the actioner From Paris With Love is going to be like, and you'd be right. It's fast-paced, only makes sense some of the time, has nice visual effects, and zooms along its 92 minute running time, an entertaining bit of cinematic fluff.

The film centers on awkward wanna-be spy and US Embassy staffer James Reece (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who, when he isn't managing the daily schedule of stereotypically priggish Ambassador Bennington (Richard Durden), is skulking about switching license plates on parked cars, clumsily planting bugs in diplomatic offices, and dreaming of saving the world while viewing everything as a simplistic black and white chess game. His beautiful fiancée Caroline (Kasia Smutniak) encourages him while pursuing her own work as a clothing designer. She is, no surprise, more than she appears.

Tough secret agent/special forces outsider Charlie Wax (Travolta) shows up in Paris and Reece is assigned as his partner, though he's clearly just a driver and awkward straight man for the profanity-laced and extraordinarily violent agent as they create a swath of destruction through Parisian alleyways, Chinese restaurants, office complexes, and even some Parisian low income housing.

There are attempts to make the story deeper and more interesting, particularly how it glibly transitions from being a story of poisoned innocent American girl vengeance against a drug cartel to an anti-terrorist theme, but From Paris With Love never really bothers to take itself too seriously and nor should we. If you like the action genre, it's a diversion and that's about all.

]]> One interesting aspect of From Paris with Love was what I can only describe as a MacGuffin: a Chinese urn full of heroin. You can see it in the photo below, actually, and Reece dutifully carries it for most of the movie, even as they go through security at the Eiffel Tower, take public transportation, and more. I mean, that's believable, right? 5 kilos of heroin in an urn and no-one notices?

When Waxman first shows up, there's a ridiculously implausible scene where he's swearing and arguing passionately with a French customs guard about bringing in a duffel bag full of "Rattle Snake" energy drinks. That scene has enough uses of the f-word to fill up a regular "R" movie all by itself, but it also offers up some ostensible insight into Waxman's character when he explains to Reece that the obscenities were intended to be a diversion. There are other scenes throughout the film that suggest Waxman is a slightly deeper character than the wise-cracking, hyper-violent, obscenity-laced superagent, but it's not really that much at the end of the day...

Waxman (John Travolta) and Reece (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) with a prostitute and The Urn.

The movie also suffers from what so many action films seem to be afflicted with: bulletproof hero syndrome. In one notable - and exciting - shootout in a mannequin factory, Waxman, armed with a pair of pistols not only survives a shootout with about a dozen semi-automatic toting gang members, but manages to kill them all without even getting a scratch. The scene is reminiscent of a memorable one from The Matrix in its slow-motion glory, but still, ya gotta wonder about how immune anyone would really be from the flying bullets.

There are also moments where we almost get a thoughtful dialog, like when Reece asks Waxman, after learning that there's a terrorist component to the situation, "What if it's never over? What if we can't win?" But then *poof* the moment vanishes and we're back to tallying up the bodies as the swath of murder and destruction continues from reel to reel.

Having just seen Besson's District 13: Ultimatum, I particularly enjoyed the scenes when Waxman is chasing one of the terrorists across the rooftop: she keeps up a good pace, slipping down surfaces and ladders, jumping across gaps, but he's not a spring chicken and so his efforts to keep up are clearly those of an older man. A nice acknowledgement of Travolta's increasing age, even if the rest of the film shows him as extraordinarily fit and dangerous as heck, even against a half-dozen Asian street thugs.

Roger Ebert talks about "guilty pleasure movies", films that you know aren't great, don't necessarily make sense, and might be asinine or idiotic, but somehow, just somehow, they're fun and entertaining anyway. From Paris with Love isn't a great action film by any means, but it is an entertaining 92 minutes. Grab a six pack and invite a couple of buddies over, it'll be a fun rental.

Review: "District 13: Ultimatum"

2010-02-12T07:00:04Z

Six years ago a highly athletic sporting event burst on the scene from France called "Parkour". It was a bit hard to describe, but agile participants would leap off buildings, slip through tiny spaces, bounce from wall to wall, race down staircases a flight at a time and generally fly through urban landscapes, miraculously not slipping or injuring themselves. The activity was captured in a mediocre French action film called Banlieue 13 (District B13 in the USA), quickly forgotten by all but the most devoted fans.

District 13 - Ultimatum picks up the story five years later and is set in a futuristic Paris where the poor are isolated in a walled ghetto called District 13. The main characters are again the D13 guerilla fighter Leïto (David Belle) and special forces captain Damien (Cyril Raffaelli). Like the first, it's a French film with English subtitles.

District 13 has devolved into a rough neighborhood where everyone's involved in drugs, prostitution or gambling, as is shown in a visually exciting -- though overly long -- high-speed fly-through set to thumping urban hip-hop music. Leïto is fighting to break down the walls and bring opportunity to the residents of D13, even as the ganglords threaten to kill him for bringing the attention of the police and changing things, and the fly-through ends with him sticking mines on segments of the wall separating D13 from the rest of Paris.

For reasons that aren't entirely logical, the mines have about a ten second timer, so he slaps the mine on, pushes the "activate" button, and runs to the next segment, as the last explodes. No surprise, the police show up and the first Parkour chase sequence is in motion. The illogic of placing mines with very, very short fuses is typical of the weak story in this otherwise exciting action film. If you insist on stories that actually make sense and comprehensible dialog, this isn't the movie for you. If, however, you're okay occasionally laughing in disbelief while watching one terrific action sequence after another, District 13: Ultimatum could prove one of your favorite films of the winter.

]]> The Transporter, Taken, The Fifth Element, The Professional and La Femme Nikita, he's mastered the art of high-energy action cinema. Besson is both the writer and producer of District 13: Ultimatum, and it shows. There are many inside jokes and amusing homage scenes to both Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon and Jackie Chan in any of the zillion movies he's made, and it's no accident that the evil corporation behind the story is "Harriburton", with a logo startlingly similar to the real-life Halliburton Corporation.

The storyline has the evil Minister Gassman (Daniel Duval) being paid off by Harriburton to destroy District 13 so that they can put up a trendy apartment highrise that looks like it'd be more at home in Dubai than Paris, but that's another story. Problem is, how do you displace millions of poor without looking heartless? The solution: create a gang war and when the tension is sufficiently escalated, push that the only viable option is to evacuate the law abiding citizens from the District and destroy everyone who's left, along with all the structures.

We don't learn of this dastardly plot for quite a while, however, and we first meet Damien in an undercover operation in a flashy nightclub where he's under cover as a startlingly attractive exotic dancer. One by one, he knocks out the criminals who have shown up to complete drug deals, and at one point is attacked by a half-dozen thugs while trying to preserve an original Van Gogh. It's a scene very reminiscent of Jackie Chan and it's pretty darn cool how it transpires.

That sequence opens, however, with a truck full of watermelons being driven out of D13 and to the nightclub, watermelons that are dropped down a chute and cut open to reveal smuggled drugs! Ta daa! Which begs the question: how did they get the drugs into the watermelons in the first place? Grew 'em around the bags of heroin?? As I warned earlier, plotline is not a strength of District 13: Ultimatum. This is the kind of thing I mean!

Leïto (David Belle) leaps out of the window

In a nod to the YouTube generation and the ubiquity of cellphones (not to mention a blatant rip-off of the key story element from the action film Enemy of the State), some kids are enjoying music from their cars when the police show up, then the bad guys show up. Evil deeds transpire without them knowing that the kids are busy videotaping. That videotape then becomes the proof that Leïto and Damien need to show Le Présidente (Philippe Torreton) that Gassman and his crew are up to no good.

There's not much more to say about the story and dialog in District 13: Ultimatum. This is not an indie film that showcases extraordinary storytelling and beautiful, carefully crafted speeches, but a slam-bang action film that showcases stunts and action sequences with just enough of a storyline to give it a narrative direction.

To be fair, though, I really enjoyed District 13: Ultimatum because the action sequences are terrific, even with an occasional wry line of dialog that underscores Besson and director Patrick Alessandrin were well aware that they weren't creating a profound contribution to the art of cinema.

The music is also worth a mention: it's solid hip-hop and goes very well with the movie, one of the best action soundtracks I've heard in a while. I hope that the US distributors, Magnet Entertainment and Magnolia Home Entertainment, make it available. It's that good.

Finally, I'll just reiterate that there's not much to District 13: Ultimatum other than a loosely connected series of action sequences, but that they're generally so good that I was easily able to forgive the shortcomings of the film and have a good time in the theater. Don't expect a masterpiece, even in the action genre, but yeah, District 13: Ultimatum is a pretty darn entertaining film nonetheless.

Review: "Edge of Darkness"

2010-02-06T03:14:28Z

Mel Gibson has made a lot of films where he's the simple-minded tough guy, notably the Lethal Weapon series, but the last few years have seen his personal life overshadow his career, as he careened from one gaffe to the next. Edge of Darkness represents him trying to get back into the groove, to recover his acting career, and it's an exciting but distressingly formulaic film.

The film, based on a mid-80's BBC drama also directed by Martin Campbell, opens with choppy home movies of daughter Emma (Gabrielle Popa) at the beach when she was seven or eight, cutting directly to Tom Craven (Gibson) waiting for the adult Emma (Bojana Novakovic) at Boston's South Station. She arrives and is visibly ill, throwing up multiple times in the first few minutes and even having a nose bleed at one point.

He asks about her job and she responds that he has "no idea what I do for a living". That's the starting point for the movie because she's right, Tom has no idea what Emma does for a living. Moments later masked thugs show up at the door and shoot her dead, in one of the most cheesy and melodramatic death scenes I've watched in the last decade. Surprise, the police blithely assume the criminals were gunning for Tom and it's up to him as the rogue cop and avenging angel to launch his own investigation and figure out who killed her and why.

I was bored by this film. The overall storyline was so predictable and there were so many laughably stupid moments (which I can't detail without adding spoilers to this review) that I was glad when the closing credits began to roll. Gibson plays exactly the same slightly unhinged, slightly crazy tough but anguished cop that he played in the Lethal Weapon series. My advice? There are lots of good avenging rogue cop movies. Rent Dirty Harry instead.

]]> As is unfortunately too common in modern movies, narrative threads are lost as the film proceeds, people are introduced as sympathetic characters, killed, and then never mentioned or referenced again. It's the sort of zeal that makes me yearn for a day when directors had the freedom to make movies as long as they needed to fully explain the entire story, not just the main character's experience in the situation.

In a strange nod to The Sixth Sense, Tom constantly talks with dead people too, once his mother, but mostly Emma. As the viewer, it was disconcerting because Emma would show up in scenes and reveal a critical observation, then vanish again after he acknowledges her existence. It often made Tom seem more like a homeless person, particularly in one scene at a public park where he's dressed in a long raincoat and sits on a bench talking "to Emma".

The other thing that bothered me is that because the bad guys are so darn evil, anything that the good guy does in bringing them to vigilante justice is acceptable. Tom tracks down Emma's boyfriend, David Burnham (Shawn Roberts) then promptly breaks into the man's apartment and gets into a fight with him. No problem, though, he's on the trail of the bad guys.

In the next scene we find that Craven's broken into Emma's apartment and is going through her stuff. Yeah, he's her father, but this is clearly not acceptable police procedure, he's no longer in Boston and is out of his jurisdiction, and it's not a problem?

He learns that Emma worked for Northmoor, the cliché Big Evil Corporation peopled with slick executives and emotionless security personnel. Tom meets with Northmoor executive Jack Bennett (Danny Huston), a senior corporate executive, and tries to learn more about what Emma did for the company, but predictably is rebuffed that her work -- even as an intern -- was classified and can't be shared.

Jack Bennett (Danny Huston) and Tom Craven (Mel Gibson) have a heavy conversation

More characters show up as the story unfolds, including the mysterious government agent Jedburgh (Ray Winstone) and the naive Senator Jim Pine (Damien Young). Eventually there are a couple of important themes that emerge, but by that point it's clear that the reason for Tom's actions are irrelevant, he's just a broken, nothing-left-to-lose rogue cop who is going to ploddingly figure out what's going on, even if he has to kill everyone along the way.

Ultimately, Edge of Darkness is what I'd expect to get if I threw Lethal Weapon and two other Gibson films, Conspiracy Theory and Payback, into a blender. He's the same character, the same flat, troubled, slightly clueless man in all of them. Perhaps Gibson has lost whatever emotional range he had earlier in his career, but in this film, he just seemed lost and upset throughout.

Edge of Darkness wasn't even that interesting: I found it so predictable and rife with cinematic cliches that it only barely held my interest for its two hour running time. My suggestion? Find another paranoid rogue cop film and skip this one completely.

Review: "The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus"

2010-02-01T03:27:04Z

If you've never seen a Terry Gilliam film before, you'll be baffled and likely frustrated by the storytelling style and visual exaggeration that are trademarks of his weird and wonderful movies. A former member of the comedy team Monty Python, a peculiarly English sense of humor suffuses his films too, from Time Bandits to The Adventures of Baron Munchausen to Brazil. In the spirit of disclosure, I am a big fan of Gilliam's work and have looked forward eagerly to the cinematic release of The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, and really enjoyed it.

A more accurate title for the film would be "The Imaginarium of Terry Gilliam", because so much of the film takes place in a trippy, surreal world that borrows many story and visual elements from his earlier work. Doctor Parnassus (Christopher Plummer) is an immortal storyteller who helps keep the universe on track. At one point he explains: "we tell the internal story of the world, without which the universe would cease to exist." Gilliam is just that sort of storyteller, taking on profound, deep and challenging questions of good and evil, of truth and lies, of real and surreal.

The imaginarium itself is a looking glass, a gateway to another world where your dreams are realized and you can wander through your fantasies and most astonishing wishes. For some people it's a dark place, a spooky forest, while for others it's a children's dream park of candy and rolling green hills. It's also a gateway into Doctor Parnassus' mind and a place where visitors must choose between the path of good and the path of evil, as added by Satan (called "Mr. Nick" and played by Tom Waits).

The film gained much notoriety because gifted young actor Heath Ledger (who plays Tony) died during the production, leaving this as his final work and Gilliam with a half-made movie. Rather than scrap it, however, Ledger's death was woven into the storyline and at various points we see Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Colin Farrell as Tony, within the unreal world of the Imaginarium itself. It works surprisingly well, and when we see these other Tony's doing double-takes at their reflections, we understand the confusion. At one point Tony/Farrell is talking to Valentina (Lily Cole) and she looks at him, puzzled, and asks "Who are you?" to which he answers "use your imagination".

That's a splendid bit of advice for anyone who is going to see this amazing, albeit slightly unpolished gem from Terry Gilliam: to truly appreciate The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, you too will be required to use your imagination, in a way quite unlike just about any other film you'll see this year.

]]> The Dark Knight and while I could objectively see that his performance as the Joker was terrific, it was also troubling and twisted, a sufficiently unpleasant role that it was hard to appreciate the actor beneath the makeup. The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus offers a much better vehicle for his acting prowess and I was quite pleasantly surprised at what a splendid performance he gave. He'll be missed.

The imaginarium is the centerpiece of a traveling carny show built around a massive wooden stage that folds up neatly into a horse-drawn cart that's about the size of a London double-decker bus, just twice the height. In an inspired bit of story, the troupe, consisting of Parnassus, his daughter Valentina, eager young beau Anton (Andrew Garfield) and midget Percy (Verne Troyer). travel through contemporary London, setting up in front of nightclubs, bars, a DIY store similar to Home Depot, and a trendy outdoor shopping district. The stark contrast between the modern people -- all of whom are unpleasant, selfish and brutish -- and the nostalgic troupe with their fantastic costumes and run-down stage production are but one of the many metaphors throughout the film that question what price we pay for modernity and progress.

As the film opens, Valentina is about to turn sixteen, which we learn is a problem because years ago Parnassus made a deal with the Devil to win her mother's heart. As a result, any children he fathered would become the Devil's when they turned sixteen. Mr. Nick reappears and offers Parnassus a different bet: if Parnassus can get five souls first, he can keep his daughter. Bet made, deal accepted, and the race is on...

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

We are first introduced to Satan in a scene that takes place in a monastery far in the Tibetan mountains, where Parnassus oversees monks who are reading the story of the world while hovering on small floating rugs. As with so much in the film, the visual is astonishing, and the scale and complexity of the monastery are fantastic, even as the story winds upon itself. This is just one of the amazing visuals that highlight the film, each more delightful and surreal than the previous.

The initial bet between Parnassus and Satan is revealed at the monastery, offering an insight into who Parnassus really represents: if Parnassus can attract twelve disciples before Satan can, then he'll be granted eternal life. Later in the film we learn that Parnassus has been alive for two thousand years. I'll let you connect the dots.

Later in the film, Parnassus explains to a distraught Tony that the visions in the Imaginarium are not his, but are those of the person who enters the looking glass. "I'm the facilitator - I just create the opportunities." That's unquestionably Gilliam speaking, and given the lackluster reception that the film has enjoyed in the cinematic community, it appears that there are too many critics who want to be handed a fully realized vision, not an opportunity to consider their own.

Ultimately, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus is a splendid addition to Terry Gilliam's body of work, featuring strong performances from its cast, astonishing visuals and surreal sets, and a story that gets more profound the more you think about it and let the film take you on the journey into the imaginarium itself. As Percy explains at the end, when a child asks him if the Imaginarium comes with a happy ending, "Sorry, we can't guarantee that." Indeed.

Review: "A Serious Man"

2010-01-27T17:30:13Z

When does a dark satire about life transition into a marathon of bad luck and suffering by a hapless, spineless man? Though I'm sure that's not what the Coen Brothers intended when they created A Serious Man, that's the experience I had when I watched the film.

A Serious Man is about the trials and tribulations of Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg), and it's an ostensibly retelling of the story of Job from the Old Testament. Bad things happen, then worse things happen, then even worse things happen, all while Larry hangs on to his faith in Judaism. If you go back to the Bible and read the actual Book of Job, however, the story is about a bet between God and the Devil, where Job is the sucker who has more and more bad things happen, all as he retains his faith in the Lord. In the end, his family are killed, his servants are killed, all of his livestock dies, but somehow he still praises God and God ultimately rewards his unbending faith.

It's an interesting and thought-provoking story and would make for a good film (as it has done in the past), but that's not what happens in A Serious Man because Larry doesn't really have any sort of crisis of faith and the ending most assuredly doesn't have him seeing any sort of reward from God for his faith. Instead, we're left being rather amazed at what a spineless loser Larry is, unable to stand up for himself, unable to value himself in his family and without any self respect at all. This is comedy?

]]> A Serious Man was terrific, and the langor and insular nature of the Jewish community within which the Gopnicks live was beautifully captured, to the point where you never think twice at an attorney suggesting Larry visit with the Rabbi before he proceed with any sort of legal action.

Having said that, though, I will also say that there's precious little depth to any of the characters in the film and generally their motivations and behaviors are inexplicable. A film populated by stereotypes gets rather tiring after a while, as you keep hoping for something interesting and surprising to happen and someone to react in a manner other than formulaic. As you would expect from a story based on the depressing Book of Job in the Bible, the film really consists of "and now what bad thing is going to happen?" turns every few minutes.

Larry shares a 70s tract home with his wife Judith (Sari Lennick), children Danny (Aaron Wolff) and Sarah (Jessica McManus), and his brother Arthur (Richard Kind) is staying temporarily, but has clearly overstayed his welcome, particularly with Sarah, who has that mysterious teen need to occupy the bathroom for long periods of time. Judith is having an affair with the local widower Sy Ableman (Fred Melamed) and, adding to the mix, Larry's a professor at the local college and is up for tenure as the film proceeds too.

It might be the case that I'm just not the right person for a dark comedy of this nature, but while the Coen Brothers are highly respected in Hollywood, I don't really understand why this film has received such critical approbation. It was even a nominee for Best Picture from the Denver Film Critics Society, of which I'm a member, though I didn't vote for it personally.

Larry (Michael Stulberg) talks on the phone while his divorce lawyer (Adam Arkin) waits

In the world of comedy, there are jokes where you laugh with the character or laugh at the situation, but there are also jokes because you're laughing at the character, and it's their pain, their problems, their misfortune that's somehow supposed to be entertaining. The most extreme form of this latter type of comedy is Jackass, a film that I think is idiotic and not even the slightest bit amusing.

I'll just end this by saying that if the idea of a film about a hapless, spineless man who has misfortune after misfortune piled onto him, without ever redeeming himself or getting a glimpse of the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is your idea of a good premise for a comedy, however dark, then you might well enjoy A Serious Man.

Review: "The Lovely Bones"

2010-01-23T03:12:09Z

When someone is murdered, their spirit lingers on, observing and trying to influence the course of justice, a ghost seeking revenge or simply to experience the karmic balance that we hope will transpire. But what of the ghost during this period of time, what's their experience and what if there is no peace, no justice, nothing but someone who refuses to let go, who refuses to accept that they have died?

That's the basic story behind The Lovely Bones, an ethereal and moving film by Peter Jackson based on the best-selling book by Alice Sebold and starring the lovely and haunting Saoirse Ronan as Susie Salmon, the victim of the crime.

Set in the mid-1970's, it contrasts the deep love of a father, Jack (Mark Wahlberg), against the naivity of the times, where when a child went missing no-one thought she was abducted because "people believed this sort of thing couldn't happen." Yet it does, and it's the creepy but unthreatening neighbor, George Harvey (Stanley Tucci) who commits the crime.

Within a few minutes, we know who the murderer is and how the crime transpired and are symbolically brought on the same journey that Susie is, stuck in the "in between" that's not quite heaven. We hope that that George doesn't get away with the crime and despair when everyone misses the clues he leaves.

I found some interesting parallels with the fascinating What Dreams May Come, another film that takes on the challenge of visualizing the afterlife, but The Lovely Bones stands alone as a moving exploration of karma, justice and belief. It's an intense film though the ending was weak, but perhaps that's the point of the story after all, that justice doesn't come from detectives and investigations, it doesn't even come from devoted parents, but rather from the cosmic balance of all things.

]]>

The Lovely Bones is narrated by Susie and we share her confusion about the afterlife and her frustration with things she's missed, having been murdered at the young age of fourteen. We flip back and forth between her in the afterlife and what's happening on Earth, where things get increasingly tense and desperate.

Cinematically, I found some of the shots effective and simultaneously self-conscious, as if testing us to see if we understand the language of cinema and get the profundity of what's in front of our eyes. We first meet murderer George Harvey and learn he's a dollhouse maker from the vantage point of within the doll house. A very symbolic, Hitchcockian point of view that's repeated when detective Len Fenerman (Michael Imperioli) later interviews him.

Before she's raped and murdered (at least, in the book. In the movie she's tricked into going into an underground cell then angrily murdered, an editorial decision that garnered director Jackson much criticism) Susie has a crush on the romantic Ray (Reece Ritchie), a senior who she fears is out of her league in the hierarchy of high school.

Susie (Saoirse Rona) and Grandma Lynn (Susan Sarandon) spy on the object of Susie's crush

Jack (Wahlberg) is an accountant who also builds models, though his are an attempt to capture dreams: ships in a bottle. He's an appealing, low-key father who is clearly in love with his daughter. Mom is Abigail (Rachel Weisz) and she's more detached and ultimately flees the tension of a household minus Susie. Her mother, Grandma Lynn (a delightfully eccentric Susan Sarandon) is an alcoholic, perpetually-smoking presence who, in her weird way, helps the family return to some semblance or normalcy after the murder, even as they all leave Susie's bedroom intact.

The film shows us a beautiful Technicolor afterlife, complete with dreamy visuals and saturated colors, seamlessly transitioning between seasons and environments, even sporadically bringing us deep underwater. George is stealthily and methodically destroying the evidence of the crime even as Susie tries to understand how to release her hate and complete the journey to heaven, a place where Earthly emotions are forever gone.

Susie meets Holly Go Lightly (Nikki SooHoo) who acts as her tourguide to the afterlife, a place that's "not really one place, but not really the other place either". She's in the "in-between". She still experiences much of the afterlife solo, including one powerful scene where Jack despairs, destroying the ships in a bottle he's created as Susie sees full-size ships beached and destroyed, with massive sheets of glass around them, as she runs down the beach screaming "Dad? Dad!"

For the years that transpire between when Susie is murdered and the crime is resolved, Jack dutifully lights a candle and put it in the bedroom window, night after night after night. It begs the question: when do you give up hope, give up faith, and let the past drift away, even as it's harrowing and traumatic?

Ultimately, The Lovely Bones is a profound movie that carries a heavy karmic storyline but suffers from an unsatisfying ending. Too heavy for American filmgoers, The Lovely Bones hasn't fared well in the movie theater and having seen it, I can now understand why: after such an intense experience very few people would recommend it to their friends. Still, it's worth seeing if only to see how Alice Sebold and Peter Jackson together create a vision of what has come and what will come.

Review: "The Book of Eli"

2010-01-15T07:00:59Z

The 23rd Psalm of the Bible, in case you haven't memorized the entire Old Testament, goes like this: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies...

The 23rd Psalm is also the inspiration for the dark, moody film The Book of Eli, and though it takes quite a while to move beyond its Mad Max roots and get into the main storyline, it is ultimately a dark, modern religious parable.

Denzel Washington is the main character, Eli, and he's spent thirty years slowly walking through a vast American wasteland, carrying the precious Book of Eli, a mysterious leather-clad tome that he dutifully reads every day and hides from anyone else who might see it. He walks into a cliché post-apocalyptic bar full of ruffians owned by scroungy tough guy Carnegie (Gary Oldman), who has spent years questing for The Book. And so begins the battle of good and evil that is at the heart of the film.

The premise is interesting and as a parable, a story told in broad sweeping strokes, The Book of Eli is reasonably satisfying, but it's also deeply flawed with poor pacing, unceasingly gloomy cinematography and surprisingly poor acting on the part of just about everyone in the cast. It's the cinematographic equivalent of hard Christian rock, awkwardly balanced between the religious message and the desire to be an aggressive post-apocalyptic film. It doesn't quite succeed on either front.

]]> The Road to Terminator: Salvation. The Book of Eli joins the list and at times I was sure I was seeing the same destroyed urban and suburban exteriors that we've already seen on screen in these other films. Is the end of the world really that fascinating a premise?

The film starts out misleading us, intimating that a massive nuclear explosion has just taken place and slowly panning through a gloomy grey forest covered in the ash that slowly falls from the heavens. Suddenly one of the bodies moves, shoots an animal, and bags it: Eli has captured his dinner. In this first scene he's wearing a gas mask, which shortly changes to a black-and-white Keffiyeh covering his lower face, to just wearing dark shades. My interpretation was that it represented time passing and the world clearing from the radiation and stench of post-bomb decay, but as with many nuances in the film, it didn't have any deeper meaning, and it didn't represent any sort of time passing.

Eli (Denzel Washington) and Solara (Mila Kunis) trek through the wasteland

As Eli travels his slow and deliberate journey through the wasteland, he encounters the typical low-life types you'd expect in a Mad Max-esque film, including a gang of hijackers who try to jump him but find he's more than a match for the five of them, with his machete-like sword able to neatly parry even a chainsaw-wielding thug. As with subsequent fight scenes, this is very well choreographed, exciting, and rather fast: it's not many seconds before they're all down and he's putting his blade away, without having broken a sweat or had any emotions at all.

When he arrives in the city run by Carnegie (Oldman), he goes directly to an inventor and merchant, seeking to have his portable battery unit recharged (he listens to a second generation iPod, and the one time we hear the music he's listening to, it's a cover of How Can You Mend a Broken Heart). The merchant pulls a gun on him, but after checking that his hands aren't shaking, determines that Eli isn't "one of them". Later, we learn that "them" are cannibals and in the thirty years since the war, that's how many people have managed to survive. Fortunately, that's only hinted at in passing, though it certainly could have been more integral to the story.

In the worst story twist in the movie, while a captor of Carnegie's, Eli has lovely Solara (Mila Kunis) visit to offer him, well, she's an attractive young woman and it's a rough post-apocalyptic setting, you can guess the rest of this sentence. He refuses, but she stays with him anyway, and before the eat the food he's been given, he says grace. She's never experienced such a thing and is fascinated, so much so that the next morning, when she's then having breakfast with Carnegie's girlfriend (and her mother) Claudia (Jennifer Beals), she takes her mother's hands and says grace over their food. Even with the massive amount of suspension of disbelief required for a film of this nature, this narrative device was ludicrous and disappointing.

She escapes and joins Eli on his continued journey West, while Carnegie learns of The Book that Eli is carrying and tries time and again to get the book. Ultimately, he does, but by that point in the film you understand the logic of the underlying story and know that things aren't what they seem.

While the cinematography was grey and depressing, the film itself was well constructed. The music was properly -- and endlessly -- tense and gloomy, and everything looked and felt, well, like we imagine it would decades after The Big One in a society that hasn't been able to advance beyond the crudest of civilizations. The acting, though, that was really one of the weakest points in the film and many times I just looked at the screen in astonishment at just how badly the actors were reciting their lines. From Kunis to Beals, Washington to Oldman, there wasn't a single actor in this film who seemed to be in the film. It hurt the movie almost as much as the poor story.

I liked certain elements of The Book of Eli, and I'm generally quite a fan of the acting troop, notably Gary Oldman and Mila Kunis, but none of them gave a strong performance in this throwaway post-apocalyptic religious parable. If you're interested in a film based on the 23rd Psalm and don't mind some explicit, violent scenes, then this could be a good film for you. If I were involved in a 10th-12th grade bible study group, for example, this could be a great field trip. But if you're looking for a satisfying cinematic experience, I think you can skip this one.

Review: "The Spy Next Door"

2010-01-15T07:00:36Z

Modern writing is all about disclosure, so in that spirit, let me disclose that I'm a lukewarm Jackie Chan fan. He's been in some terrific action and comedy films, notably Rush Hour and The Forbidden Kingdom, but he's also been in a lot of dreck, movies that are just downright stupid, like the Rush Hour sequels, Shanghai Knights, and the worst of the lot, Around the World in 80 Days. He's a successful action star, but not so good at picking projects.

Which brings us to his newest film, The Spy Next Door. One of the first releases of 2010 it's positioned as a sort of kung fu version of Kindergarten Cop, where the running shtick is that he's a super-spy with great martial arts skills, but his cute neighbor Gillian (Amber Valletta) and her three children think he's a bumbling salesman. The kids, in fact, are puzzled by why Gillian is dating Bob (Chan), as are we viewers, because there's absolutely zero chemistry between the two of them on screen.

The fundamental problem with The Spy Next Door is that it's more a Jackie Chan movie than a G-rated family film, which is what it appears they started out making. Comic violence is marginally acceptable in a children's action film, but there's a lot of violence in this film, including Jacking slamming a bad guy face down into a coffee table in one scene, and the kids seriously injuring other bad guys in other scenes. What the heck? That's why it got a "PG" rating, I'm sure.

There's a storyline of sorts, but it's rather incidental to the stunts and action sequences, very much a trademark of a Jackie Chan movie, and in this case, it doesn't work. I compare it to the witty Robert Rodriguez film Shorts (see my review) and the difference is that there's no real sense of style, no sense of humor, no narrative cohesion to make this newer film hold together. The most amusing part of the film is the bloopers during the closing credits, which is most assuredly not a good sign.

]]> To be fair, there are some elements that director Brian Levant absolutely nails, including the contemporary dialog of the children. In fact, at one point as Gillian and the children are running out to the car, the older daughter Farren (Madeline Carroll) yells "shotgun!" just to have her brother Ian (Will Shadley) say that it was his turn to be in the front seat. I hear that every week in my family, and I smiled to see it on screen.

The story was one for our modern times too: Gillian is a single mom whose ex has vanished, leaving her not only with her own two children, Ian and Nora (Alina Foley) but with step-daughter Farren, who constantly frets about the situation and sits on the roof of the house, waiting for her real Dad to come and rescue her. Meanwhile, Bob Ho (Jackie Chan) is a spy on loan to the US from the Chinese government and is working with Colton (Billy Ray Cyrus) and Glaze (George Lopez) on an unspecified project.

Problem is, Bob is being sent back to China and has fallen in love with his pretty neighbor and feels he needs to disclose his true profession to her. He wants to get more serious, and she does too, but she feels the children need to warm up to him before they can get more serious. Before he can tell her he's a spy, she's pulled away to Denver on a family emergency and Bob volunteers to babysit the three children while she's gone.

sf/x:

v/o: and so our story is set in motion.

There are some funny lines in the film too, including Chan saying "I brought down dictators, how tough can three kids be?" and another point when his outfit is described by Farren as "fashion armageddon". There are even some great sight gags, like when Chan climbs on Gillian's roof and fixes her satellite dish reception by using his super-spy gear to actually reorient the satellite.

Geeky neighbor Bob Ho (Jackie Chan) asks Nora (Alina Foley) about her Mom.

Still, it just doesn't add up, the story is too incoherent, and the bad guys, Poldark (Magnús Scheving) and his evil gal sidekick Creel (Katherine Boecher) are ghastly bad even in a film that's absolutely full of poor acting.

This is the kind of movie that feels like it started out as an idea for a few sight gags generated over an evening of one bottle of Chardonnay too many, and by the time it ended up in the screening room at the studio, too much money had gone into the production to just axe it. Yes, there are some cute elements to the story and some good action sequences, but it's a Jackie Chan movie awkwardly lobotomized to be what some high-priced producers in Hollywood thought would be appropriate children's fare.

My recommendation? If you're a hard-core Jackie Chan fan, The Spy Next Door will be a good rental or HBO film to record with that handy DVR, but I really wouldn't recommend anyone pay to see it in the theater, and definitely don't take your kids unless they're fine with rather intense "comic violence" that felt a lot too violent for my tastes. Maybe Chan's next film (The Karate Kid remake) will be a keeper.

Review: "Armored"

2010-01-07T14:06:43Z

Ever wonder what kind of guy drives an armored car full of thousands - if not millions - of dollars worth of cash, securities, checks, credit card transaction receipts, etc? Yeah, I never did either, but that's the environment that Armored presents us with: a bunch of edgy, tough-guy losers who somehow have ended up as employees of Eagle Shield Security.

Chief tough guy is Baines (Lawrence Fishburn), whose first on-screen scene has him lovingly gazing at a rifle and saying "that's what I'm talking about, M4-Vanilly Scattergun. State of the art, BLAM!" and pretending to shoot one of his colleagues. The main characters in the film are Mike Cochrone (Matt Dillon), and Ty (Columbus Short), who is new on the job and learning the ropes.

Ty, it becomes somewhat clear, is the son of a guy who was part of Eagle Shield Security, and he's in financial straits ever since returning from a stint in the military. Without any warning or lead in, Cochrone turns to Ty in an early scene and says "We're not going to let the bank take your house. We'll think of something."

What we have is a poorly plotted rehash of Training Day or any of a thousand other cop movies, but this time with armored car drivers. It has all the attitude, poorly lit scenes with gritty settings, moody music and tough-guy camaraderie of the genre, even to the obligatory serious tough-guys-bonding toast by Cochrone to his partners in a blue-collar bar. I like the genre, but found Armored tedious, predictable and highly unengaging.

]]> Film opens with the armored truck Cochrone's in suddenly stalling in the middle of nowhere (do armored trucks drive down abandoned roads?) just to have a black van pull up behind and affix a bomb to the back window. Baines, who was boasting about his new weapon and wanting to have a chance to use it, doesn't respond at all, and Ty gets quite anxious but still remains cool under pressure. Except it's a setup (as revealed in the trailer, so no, this isn't a spoiler), though confusingly, the two guys driving the trailing van, who are presumably also members of Eagle Shield Security don't join in the laughter and good-natured teasing once the joke is revealed.

Even more confusingly - but typical of the ragged script of Armored - in the previous scene the boss Duncan Ashcroft (Fred Ward in a throwaway role) has explained to the crew that "All new trucks will be equipped with GPS and this is mandatory training" Wait a second. What year was this film made? Every money truck in the US already has redundant positioning systems, built-in alarms, and more, because the cost of equipping them is far less than even a single heist. But that troubling little fact would ruin the entire movie so it's ignored.

The obligatory "briefing" scene from the clunker Armored

The dialog is banal and rife with cliches. Typical dialog: Baines asking Ty in the bar: "Not everyone's a hero, soldier boy. What are you going to tell us about all those kills you got in Baghdad?" Ty's response: "I'm going to take a leak" Not enough to convince you? When Ashcroft finishes his morning briefing, he says "Alright, keep your eyes open out there" and the tough guys all dutifully parrot his words. Apparently that's become a staple of cop movies now?

In case you didn't think that there was sufficient motivation for Ty to get involved with the heist, an unsympathetic white child welfare agent (Lorna Raver) shows up and explains to him that his younger brother James (Andre Kinney) has missed lots of school, had a few brushes with the law, and that The State is considering putting him into foster care.

They cook up some goofy heist idea when the truck will be carrying $42mil in cash, and in a pivotal scene, Cochrone explains to Ty that the spoof attack of the previous week that opened the film was "a test run". "We stash the money and tell 'em we got jacked." "Are you crazy? The cops are going to be all over us!" "Forget about the cops, we have a rock-solid alibi. It's clean, there are no bad guys, no-one's going to get hurt."

This was one of the worst films I've seen in the last year and it was tempting to just walk out by the halfway point. There are massive, gaping plot holes and a complete inability to track logical storyline elements. You might enjoy it if you're a big fan of tough-guy films, but there are plenty of DVD rentals you can choose instead. My advice? Just skip this clunker.

The Best Films of 2009

2010-01-02T16:25:02Z

I've spent the time to rant about the films I saw last year that I thought were the worst of the bunch, not just middling experiences, but genuinely "how on Earth did they ever raise the money to make this abomination?" movies where they either started out okay and slowly collapsed on their own weight (like Knowing) or were daft from the get-go (like Transformers 2).

The worst of the bunch, though, must have been Land of the Lost. When it was rewritten as a so-called star vehicle for Will Ferrell, the writing team managed to take a sweet if shlocky TV series about a Dad, older son and younger girl mysteriously thrust back to a parallel world that included both dinosaurs and the mysterious Sleestaks and turn it into a modern drug and sex innuendo laced mess that not only failed with critics but also turned out to be a failure at the box office too.

Okay, okay, you can read more of my worst films here: The Worst Films of 2009.

So what about the flip side of the coin? What films did I think exemplified the best of cinema, either as pure entertainment, as thought-provoking narrative, or simply as something that captured my imagination or piqued my curiosity?

Let's see...

]]> Dave's Best Films of 2009

Coraline -- This is the only animated film on my list, in a year that saw a lot of animation, from the critically acclaimed Up (though I didn't think it was that great) to the cyberpunk film 9 to Astro Boy, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Monsters vs. Aliens and Ponyo, to the novel Fantastic Mr. Fox. What makes Coraline stand alone is the edge, the darkness that slowly expands to encompass the story. Starting with a workaholic parents and an isolated, abandoned girl in a new town, the film travels in entirely unexpected directions with an extraordinary sense of visual style. Watch it, no question, but no question, it's not for kids.

Watchmen -- So many of my friends recommended the graphic novel to me but when I bought it and read the first 20-30 pages, I didn't really get it, wasn't impressed, and almost put it down. Then I continued reading and was blown away by the deep, epic story. Director Zack Snyder did a terrific job of bringing the story to the big screen in a sci-fi epic that is a worthy addition to the genre. From its glossy visual style to the inner challenges of its characters, to the visual inventiveness of the sets and exterior shots, it's a perfect demonstration of why Blu-Ray and an HDTV can truly help you enjoy a fine film again and again.

Star Trek -- I've never been a hardcore Trekkie but certainly enjoyed the TV series when I was younger and yes, I have seen all the Star Trek films. None of them left me grinning from ear to ear, thrilled at the action and story presented, enthused about the sheer audacity and verve of the reinvention of a well-loved media franchise, though. But that's exactly what J.J.Abrams did with his 2009 release of Star Trek: reinvent the story and even make the goofy Captain Kirk (originally played by William Shatner) into a tough punk with a major attitude (Chris Pine). Backstory films can be tedious (see Batman) but when done right, it's terrific, and action sci-fi doesn't get much better than this fine film!

The Brothers Bloom -- I'm a sucker for caper films, crime movies where the stories are intricately plotted and where we, as the audience, are just as suckered as the characters in the movie. Think Oceans Eleven, or, better, The Italian Job. The very best of the genre are when the criminals themselves aren't sure what's happening either, and that's what Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo bring us as The Brothers Bloom: two con-men who from their earliest years are hustling people and running from con to con. But what happens when con-men get older and decide that maybe they're done with the game?

Moon -- There are different types of sci-fi films, ranging from the fun, whimsical to complex science movies that emphasize the technology, often at the cost of characterizations. Moon falls into the "hard sci-fi" category, but it's almost all character development, and as the film unspools you get to see astronaut Sam Bell (a solid performance by Sam Rockwell) slowly go crazy as he's manning a lunar mining station solo. But things aren't quite as they appear and while the big twist isn't a complete shocker, it was sufficiently novel that Moon made my list of best films. It's well worth a watch.

(500) Days of Summer -- I'm not a huge fan of romances, as is probably obvious by this list of action and sci-fi films with precious little "chick cinema" present, but this film was a delightful exception. Employing a unique and somewhat complex narrative technique, director Marc Webb made a romance for our modern times, where it wasn't about seeking a happy ending as much as seeking to simply continue our optimistic travels through life, looking for love and not always finding it where we expect. A delightful film and Zooey Deschanel is just splendid. The best "date film" of my list, no question!

Inglorious Basterds -- Take the tension of Jews versus Nazis, add the sweeping canvas of World War II and glue it together with the aggressive and visually striking style of Quentin Tarantino, then sprinkle in an extraordinary performance by Christoph Waltz as the terrifying and urbane Col. Hans Landa and you have one hell of a great movie. Tarantino still has some of his signature touches -- including a few cringeworthy, violent scenes -- but Inglorious Basterds really demonstrates his growing mastery of his craft as he becomes one of the best filmmakers of our times. If you think you've seen all that can be shown on screen in the WWII genre, you're wrong. This film is suffused with a raw energy and features a nerve-wracking cat-and-mouse game. And who knew Brad Pitt had such acting abilities?

District 9 -- Science fiction films have always offered a way to address deep philosophical topics indirectly. Think commie anxiety as portrayed in Invasion of the Body Snatchers, for example. What District 9 brings to the screen is the abhorrent practice of apartheid, as exemplified in the ghetto (really more of a concentration camp) in which the aliens in the film are forced to reside, right in the middle of Johannesburg, South Africa. With a cast of complete unknowns and a documentary-style narrative story, District 9 is a breath of fresh air in an oft-tired genre that forces you to ask uncomfortable questions about how we treat each other on a day to day basis.

Zombieland -- A comedy about zombies? Perhaps amazingly, that's exactly what first-time director Ruben Fleischer pulls off in this incredibly funny and entertaining film that has way more than its fair share of gross splatter moments. As I learned years ago while laughing through Dawn of the Dead with some friends, gross can be disgusting in one setting and quite amusing in another, odd as that may sound. Zombieland is definitely quite violent, but it works and add in the wonderful cameo from Bill Murray and you've got all the ingredients of a classic.

The Men Who Stare at Goats -- Based on the critical and box office reception of this film, which wasn't too strong, I surmise that we as a culture have lost the ability to understand and appreciate subtle satire. Go watch Catch-22 or Dr. Strangelove and you'll see superb films that highlight the idiocy and futility of warfare. In a very similar manner, George Clooney and Kevin Spacey force us to look at the impact of the "free love" era on the military. Did the Army really spend money on psychic warriors? Does it matter? The crux of the movie is that it's about the very fact that it's even marginally plausible, not whether or not it really happened, or happened in exactly that manner.

Up In the Air -- George Clooney again, this time in another story of our times, a modern romance of a middle aged man who has spent his entire life trying to run away from his family, his personal history and any sort of attachments whatsoever. They're the "backpack" of life that just weigh you down. But what happens when someone like that meets a kindred traveler and is forced to examine his life, the choices he's made and the future? A very good, touching film with a satisfying, non-Hollywood ending.

Avatar -- Finally, after years of anticipation, James Cameron finally finished years of invention, production, filming and ground-breaking special effects, folding them all together into the not-quite-epic sci-fi "going native" film Avatar. It's not a great story, honestly, but the completely immersive world of Pandora and the highly believable 10-foot tall Na'vi make for an astonishing cinematic experience, and a film that really must be seen in a theater (ideally in 3D) to fully appreciate. Like Titanic, don't expect a deep, thoughtful story, just enjoy...

Well, that's my list of best films for 2009. There are a few others that I thought were really good, but, frankly, I'm tired of typing, and it's quite likely that you're tired of reading. So let's call it a wrap and look forward together to the best -- and, inevitably, worst -- of 2010.

The Worst Films of 2009

2010-01-02T15:05:36Z

2009 was a big year: I started out as a film fan who went to the theater maybe once every 2-3 weeks and otherwise lazily waited until movies made it onto the premium cable channels before I saw them. Not a lack of motivation, just a busy life. Early in 2009 I started to write a series of columns for Linux Journal on how to create a Twitter queueing system and my example subject was film news. So birthed @FilmBuzz, a now-popular film news channel.

I also met professional movie reviewer Christian Toto of What Would Toto Watch and we became friends. Generously, he kept inviting me to join him at film screenings and I started to understand a lot more about how the system worked "from the inside", and saw a lot of interesting films. I'd sporadically written film reviews but decided that I'd leverage the growing popularity of FilmBuzz and created a film blog, Dave On Film.

Through tapping into my network of contacts, I was invited to submit a reviews to the Boulder Weekly, the largest circulation independent news weekly in the state of Colorado, and was also offered a reviewer's slot in the electronic edition of Colorado Business Magazine. I continue to write for those two outlets and it's a rare week when a review of two of mine aren't helping (I hope!) people throughout the state figure out what films to see in a theater and what films to avoid like the proverbial plague.

Suffice to say, I started 2009 as another guy in the audience and end 2009 as a widely published film reviewer who has a stack of screener DVDs from major motion picture studios and a significant published body of work. Thank you all for your help along the way and for reading my blog and reviews: If they've helped you make even one smart choice to skip a clunker or see a film you'd otherwise have skipped, I'm doing my job!

The best news? Since I am a film reviewer, this means I can indulge in the time-honored tradition of creating a best of list! I didn't limit myself numerically, however. Instead, I pored through a list of every film released in 2009 and constrained myself to films I'd actually seen, marking them as "terrible", "excellent" or "somewhere in the middle".

And... here's the result, starting with the worst...

]]> This is pretty much in order of when they were released in 2009 and I won't commit to having exactly ten so don't bother counting!

Inkheart -- Starring Brendan Fraser and based on a smart, creative book by Cornelia Funke, this was a flame-out disappointment because director Iain Softley forgot the rule don't let your special effects overtake your storyline! The result is a film that while visually striking, doesn't work and, worse, is too intense and frightening for its young target audience.

Knowing -- What's with Nicholas Cage? Did he alienate a gypsy fortune teller as a child and is therefore doomed to picking idiotic films forevermore? Knowing is one of those films where the premise is certainly interesting, the effects are sufficiently exciting that it piques your curiosity, but the ending is so excruciatingly bad (see also The Box) that you want to run out of the theater screaming. See it if you must, but pray to have the last reel lost or damaged so you're spared the incredibly lame ending.

Crank: High Voltage -- I've watched just about every Jason Statham film and really enjoyed it. He's yet another cookie cutter tough guy but has a little bit of verve and style. Certainly his film The Transporter is a solid entry in the action film genre and worth a viewing or two. But Crank: High Voltage? I couldn't even make it through the entire film, diving for the DVD remote within about five minutes. I actually tried to watch it a second time and made it to about minute 15. It's not only bad, it's insulting and chock full of offensive stereotypes too. What the hell, Statham, did the script look good but the project slowly died as you filmed it?

Land of the Lost -- This was the film where I lost my naiveté around what it meant to be a film critic. I went into the press screening of this film thinking my opinion mattered and as I sat through this rude, offensive, insulting dreck in a theater full of people cheering and laughing, the harsh truth sunk in: we critics are the ones out of touch with popular culture and our opinions are only relevant to ourselves. No-one else cares. Now, fortunately, this film was a box office bomb too, but I had the same reaction to Transformers 2 and that's gone on to make millions worldwide... Seriously, just avoid Land of the Lost. It's a testament to how Hollywood turns sweet childhood stories into drug and sex laced garbage.

The Ugly Truth -- Co-starring Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler, this film aptly demonstrates what happens to a marginally amusing story idea ("I know, let's have this misogynistic, self-assured oaf teach a stuck-up studio executive about relationships!") when it finally emerges from an untalented team: it stunk. Worst than just stunk, it was painful and insulting to watch and I was upset that I'd wasted an evening on this. It (and the next film, Gamer) also got me to do something I haven't done in quite a while: start to dislike an actor: Gerard Butler.

Gamer -- again, Gerard Butler. But this time he's smug and condescending in a complete mess of a futuristic sci-fi film that had a premise rather parallel to Cameron's Avatar, but failed, failed, failed to pull it off. Prisoners controlled like puppets by kids, forced to battle for their lives? Who the hell thinks up this stuff? Yech.

Whiteout -- Okay, Kate Beckinsale, you are a beautiful woman, and I'll even grant that you're a decent actor (though nothing in your filmography jumps out) but here's an important message to the casting director of Whiteout: cast for the role, not the marquee. This stands as one of the most astonishingly miscast movies of the year, and had they even glanced at the graphic novel upon which the film was based, they might have realized that a tough, capable woman could have made the film almost work, but a pretty face like Beckinsale doomed it to a cold, cold grave.

The Box -- There are a couple of films I've seen this year where the running commentary in my head sounds like "WTF? WTF?" and this was one of 'em. Like Knowing, the story proceeds in an interesting manner until a certain point and then it's like the writers dropped a quick tab of acid and said "duuuuuudddee, I know, let's have aliens, and this like, y'know, massive conspiracy going on, and let's make - hee hee hee - the government complicit!". Gad, probably the very worst ending of any film I've seen this year.

Whatever Works - I like Woody Allen. I also liked Larry David, though his eponymous show got exhausting after a while. In this film, however, the two conspire to bring one of the most thoroughly unlikeable, whiny kvetching Jewish stereotypes to the screen that I can recall ever seeing. As Boris Yellnikoff, he's a complete idiot and so bitter that it's like a drop of poison spreading through the entire water supply. I couldn't watch it all and hope for your sake you didn't get stuck in a theater watching this either.

Okay, that was fun. I've got that out of my system so let's switch gears and I'll share with you my Best Films of 2009.