ReelReviews #12: Push (2009)

APRIL 3, 2013 SCREENING: PUSH (2009)

 

I’m not really sure what to make of Push (2009). The film marked Dakota Fanning’s first transitional role from child to adult actor, and did so with a bang. Everything about Push seems to make the film compelling. As Fanning explains in the opening narration, the film is basically an X-Men like setup about a future society where a group of people born with superhuman abilities are being persecuted by the government. They are classified by what type of ability they have: “Movers” have telekinetic abilities to move objects, “Pushers” have psychic abilities to manipulate people’s minds and push thoughts into head, “Watchers” – which is what Fanning’s character is – have the ability to foresee the future, and so on. She goes on to cite other types of mutants, for example, “Bleeders”, etc. I was instantly hooked on the movie, and looking forward to finding out what the heck those “bleeders” did, at least.

Fanning is a bit older than her character, a rebellious 13 year old runaway who sets up the story when she approaches an adult “mover” (played by Chris Evans) to try and get his help in uncovering answers about her past. There’s some great character interaction between the two, and he abruptly leaves, having no interest in helping her. She is determined to go after him, and then… I don’t know what happens, because as much as I wanted to watch, I kept getting distracted.

The really weird part is that this movie has an interesting setup, some great character acting, cool special effects, and a very cool tone and theme that set it apart from the typical superhero movie that it seems inspired by. The film is really its own genre, and tells its story through a combination of mystery and thriller, rather than the typical superhero adventure. The question is thus why I can’t connect with this film? I’m been trying to put my finger on it and I really can’t explain it. I really was interested in Push and tried 3 or 4 times to connect with this movie, but I kept losing interest and my mind went elsewhere. It’s as if the movie itself has the superhero abilities of its characters, and is able to manipulate the audience into paying attention to something else.

The good news here is I’m apparently not alone in feeling this way. A quick scan on IMDB.com for the film’s message boards, and I found others had experienced the same phenomena while watching the movie. Dakota Fanning might be a “Watcher”, but Push is a “Snoozer”. Other comments on IMDB.com noted: “I am crazy about Dakota and I liked the film. However, for some strange reason I almost fell asleep as well. Perhaps there was some hidden hypnotic spell in the film that caused us to be sleepy?” and “It actually took me 3 attempts to finally see the whole movie… The first two i felt asleep… I never fell asleep while watching a movie, even if its a boring one.” and finally “Glad I’m not the only one, seemed like it’d be really good but I dozed off quite a bit during the second half. I believe there was a lot of potential for this film to be great, a cult classic even.”

Individual scenes is this movie are really wonderful, and Dakota Fanning’s lunch conversation with Chris Evans, as well as the first scene where she comes home drunk, are classic stuff. But overall, Push just pushed me away. I refuse to give it less than two stars because this movie was truly a great concept and it looked and sounded great. Too bad it has some magical spell that makes it a Snoozer.

 

** out of ****

ReelReviews #11: Ender’s Game (2013)

 

 

MARCH 28, 2013 SCREENING: ENDER’S GAME (2013)

 

Hollywood, sometimes you surprise me. The very fact this film exists is proof enough of that. In an era where movie studios hate to take risks and give us endless sequels and remakes packaged as big budget brainless action movies, here comes an original film that is based an intelligent classic sci-fi novel from the 1980s, and one written by a very polarizing author.

Orson Scott Card’s “Ender’s Game”, while I’ve never read the book version (but definitely hope to read soon), turned out to be a damn good movie. It’s also a good movie in spite of the fact its very hard to tell the story in a two hour live action format, especially because much of the book has to deal with the internal conflicts and emotions in his own head that Ender narrates to the audience. If Hollywood could make a decent version of Ender’s Game, there’s hope that someday we’ll see The Catcher in the Rye on the big screen and it will do justice to the source material.

For those unfamiliar with the story, Ender’s Game takes place in a future society where earth has been devastated by two major wars waged by an aggressive insectoid race. Earth is on its last legs, so they are desperately training children to be the “new generation of soldiers”, preparing them to be military leaders and eventually to wage a preemptive strike on the insect’s home world.

It sounds cheesy (and perhaps the worst part of the movie was the really fake looking CGI queen insect at the end of the movie) , but Ender’s Game plays it all very tensely and thrilling. There’s little traditional humor to be found in this movie, the situation is bleak and the scenes with the recruits being trained are often brutal and engaging. One of the best parts of the movie is the teen and pre-teen recruits learning how to think tactically in a zero gravity laser tag game, and Ender being tested psychologically with a no-win strategy game that he plays in his bunker during off-hours. Ender’s Game is compelling from start to finish, and you won’t believe two hours have gone by when it ends.

There’s been some controversy because Ender is only 8 years old in the book, but a 16 year old plays the title role in the movie. It worked fine for me because the actor in the role looks about 12ish anyway, and convincingly shows the audience how he has what it takes to make a great military commander, even if he physically appears scrawny and weak. Much of the supposed “controversy” has nothing to do with the film itself, but with “gay rights” activists opting to boycott the movie because they don’t like the authors beliefs on gay marriage. I choose to boycott Gravity for a similar reason (I can’t stand George Clooney as a powerful smug Obama-loving celebrity), so while I can’t condemn their personal reasons for refusing to see the movie, I will say that the only thing it accomplishes is encourages Hollywood to take less risks and give us more empty popcorn thrillers. Ender’s Game is a smart film with depth, and it deserved much more attention and acclaim that it received.
If you watch Ender’s Game at face value, without any preconceived notions, I think you find this is one terrific little film that has a much bigger idea than its initial premise, and has a really great twist ending that took anyone by surprise that hadn’t read the book (including me). Since it wasn’t given its due in 2013, my hope is that Ender’s Game will eventually become a beloved cult film in future years, with the same kind of quirky buzz that films like A Christmas Story and Donnie Darko get today. It really deserves nothing less. If you’re looking for something that breaks out of the usual Hollywood cookie-cutter mold, consider Ender’s Game.

 
*** out of ****

ReelReviews #10: Frozen (2013)

 
MARCH 27, 2013 SCREENING: FROZEN (2013)

 

Disney has finally done it!

I grew up in the late 80s and early 90s when the Disney Renaissance was in full bloom, having been kick started by The Little Mermaid in 1989. At that time, Disney was making their best animated films since their heyday in the 40s and 50s. Unfortunately, the track record couldn’t be sustained, and it seemed as though Disney was losing their ability to make great animated films at the same time that I was going through my teens and losing interest in Disney films. This eventually lead to a dry spell for Disney in the early 2000s. The “Walt Disney Animated Masterpieces” during those days were films like Dinosaur (2000), Treasure Planet (2002), and Home on the Range (2004). films which I doubt you’ll be telling your grand-kids to see.

As we entered the 2010’s, Disney had somewhat of a “comeback”, and the era has been dubbed the Disney Revival. Of course, their all CGI movies like Toy Story had always been strong, but Disney finally made something decent in the traditional fairy tale genre when they did The Princess and the Frog (2009). It was a very creative film, and loud and colorful, but it was hard to follow and didn’t connect with audiences the way their past classics had. (I also thought the music was fairly bland, aside from the awesome villain song) Then came Tangled, and it was also pretty decent but perhaps in the opposite way – audiences and especially kids flocked to it, it really seemed to capture that old Disney style and strong musical traditions, but it was pretty bland and predictable. Finally, we had film’s like 2013’s Wreak-It Ralph, which did great at the box off, got great reviews, and were overall excellent movies that were perhaps underrated, because Wreak-It Ralph lost the “Best Animated Feature” Oscar to Disney’s own “safer” princess film, Brave, despite the fact Brave wasn’t nearly as memorable or fun as Wreak-It Ralph.

Finally, in 2013, Disney seems to have hit the jackpot. Here comes Frozen. I didn’t see it in theaters, so I managed to catch this one on DVD when it was first released on video – figuring that it might be my last chance to see a famous “winter” themed cartoon while it was still freezing outside.

Frozen, simply put, is the best Disney animated film of the 21st century. They get everything right in this film – its an old fashioned fairy tale story, it has a memorable princess (actually, in this case, a queen) character. The music is amazing and catchy, the story captures your attention and keeps you interested – the art design and effects are awesome, the acting is inspired, and so on, and so forth. There’s no traditional “villain” to speak of, but the antagonist in this movie was incredibly well thought out and perhaps one of the most clever and manipulative characters in Disney history – neither the main characters or the audience figure out the scheme until near the end of the film.

Frozen would be on par with the best known and loved Disney animated films like The Lion King, Sleeping Beauty, Pinocchio, etc., except for one – and only one – major flaw in the film: the talking snowman.

Yes, I hated “Olaf”, the “comic relief” wacky sidekick who neither funny nor relief. Another critic described him as the “Jar Jar Binks” of Frozen, and I’m inclined to agree. It would be like taking a bad Jerry Lewis character from a B-movie and giving him a supporting role in an amazing masterpiece like Singing in the Rain. The film is still strong enough to shine through despite his distracting presence, but it makes the film fall just short of being a masterpiece in its own right. What’s really sad is I was pleasantly surprised the female protagonists in this movie didn’t have any “super cute animal sidekick” character like is predictably used in other Disney movies, and it was working fine on own merits. Then along came “Olaf” – more than halfway through the film – to do his “loveable moron” routine and quip unfunny one-liners from scene to scene. Maybe its just seeing it through the eyes of an adult, but the character can’t compare to other “wacky sidekick” characters from true Disney masterpieces, like Timon & Pumbaa from The Lion King (which actually served an important plot point to transition the story in the middle of the film), or frivolous “wacky sidekick” characters like the mouse from Dumbo (who is actually funny, likeable, and helpful, unlike the dorky snowman). “Olaf” does provide one key point towards the end of the film where he helps the lead character make her escape, but another character could have been substituted for this scene and it would have given the film far more depth. Otherwise, you could cut him out completely and the result would be a true Disney masterpiece

There’s also a lot of heated debate from the world of politics on this film. Strangely, fringe groups on both the right and left despise Frozen, for completely different reasons. Some leftists have called for a boycott because the film largely consists of blond haired and blue-eyed characters (apparently they’re shocked people would like that in a film set in Scandinavia, and missed the fact Disney just did a big budget animated film with all black characters and a black princess a few years ago). Some on the right have claimed the movie is “secretly” sending pro-gay rights propaganda. It must be pretty “secret” indeed, since I’m an adult viewer and all I saw was traditional heterosexual romance throughout the movie. So in conclusion, Frozen loses half a star for one of the worst and least funny “wacky sidekicks” in history. Aside from that, this is the perfect Disney film

 
*** out of ****

ReelReviews #6: We Are What We Are (2013)

 

 

MARCH 14, 2014 SCREENING: WE ARE WHAT WE ARE (2013)

 
Two years ago, I screened both versions of Let the Right One In – first the American remake, Let Me In (2010) and months later I watched the original Swedish film Let the Right One In (2008). I quickly concluded the American film was one my favorite horror films of all time, only to discover fans of the original Swedish version thought the American version was a pale intimation. Could I be biased because I watched the U.S. Version first? I decided to try a similar experiment last week with We Are What We Are. I had hoped to see the 2010 Mexican version first, but schedule constraints left me watching the American remake from 2013 first. Yet surprisingly, my reaction this time around wasn’t the same at all.

We Are What We Are (2012) is a modern American horror film about a family of cannibals. With the overuse of zombie and vampire films clogging the market, I thought this would be an interesting idea. Here, we essentially have real-life monsters that prey on human beings, but there’s no supernatural element involved and theoretically this could happen in a real town. What’s more, the film doesn’t tell the story of how the characters became cannibals, but gives us a whole mythology where the cannibalistic tradition of this family (the Parkers) has been handed down from generation to generation for centuries. Intriguing idea – but not so intriguing film.

I thought most the elements in this film were well done – the atmosphere, music, set design, and especially the casting was spot on. The characters are really brought to life with the actors they choose for the roles of the dominating middle aged father, his older teenage daughter that follows in his footsteps, the younger more naive daughter that wishes to escape her family life, and the innocent five year old son. Although the actress playing the younger daughter is about 22 years old, she plays a much younger character and I bought it. There’s one particularly well done suspenseful scene where glares intently at a neighbor who is asking prying questions about her including her age, and bluntly tells him she just turned 14. It’s unfortunate that the spot-on casting for this movie didn’t result in an excellent film. The problem is the execution of the rest of the movie just isn’t very good. The film uses the tired cliché of uneducated backwoods strict religious zealots in the south as a reason why the family is cannibals, and that they believe eating people is some type of thing they have to do to maintain their “purity” in some twisted “holy book” the father has. This type of premise has been used in so many R-rated horror shockers that I expected them to take it a step further and have the whole family be inbred like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre or something. At the very least, I expected some kind of exciting twists to unfold and a thrill ride. There wasn’t any. Of course there was a subplot about them being investigated to drive the story, and the element that tipped people off sounded so convenient that I thought it was made up for the movie (specifically, the father and his family suffer from a rare disease that causes their fingers to twitch. A suspicious biologist in town looks up the symptoms and discovers its Kuru’s disease, which only effects people who engage in cannibalism). I googled it myself, and it turns out this a real disease – mainly found in cannibals of Papua New Guinea.

One area that really hurt is the film is that the ending really came across as forced to me. Without giving any too much detail, of course the family is discovered and escapes, the girls end up turning on their father and then bizarrely biting away at his body (which appears to be done merely for shock value, as the family had always cooked and prepared human meat in stew, not gnawed away at corpses, and certainly not their own relatives), and the final shot is the two girls driving away holding the family’s “religious” book, showing us that “the cycle will continue”. Yep, lame and predictable.

After seeing the movie, I felt “dirty” watching it. I can take a lot of gross, sick horror movies, if they have some compelling idea behind them. This one didn’t. It simply exists to gross the audience out and provide cheap scares. There’s nothing particularly bad about the movie, but there’s nothing particularly good about it, either. It uses the revolting subject matter of cannibalism to create a generic, paint-by-the-numbers horror film, and its helped along by an excellent cast, good atmosphere, and smart set designs and music. My parting thought was hoping it’s not a Let Me In situation where the American version is more polished than the foreign original. If that was the main way this film distinguished itself from the original, I wasn’t looking forward to seeing the original.

** out of ****

ReelReviews #5: Jonah Hex (2010)

MARCH 13, 2014 SCREENING: JONAH HEX (2010)
Having just reviewed a movie based on Marvel comics, its time to give DC their due and take a look at one of the more obscure DC adaptations: 2010’s Jonah Hex. This film was a box office flop when it was released (grossing only $10 million on a $47 million budget), so I think its safe to say that they’re won’t be a sequel. Instead, DC is pressing ahead with ideas like “Superman vs. Batman”. If there’s one problem with the recent trends in comic book movies, its the constant recycling of the same villains and plots in endless Batman and Superman movies. Worse, some “fans” applaud Hollywood for taking the lazy route, and since they make money they keep doing it. Jonah Hex was an example of doing something different, but since it failed, its unlikely DC will take that risk again. Jonah Hex, after all, got terrible reviews. But here’s the most unfortunate thing: Jonah Hex is actually a pretty good movie.

Maybe its lowered expectations, but since I knew critics hated this film, I was a bit wary of screening it, and hoped I wouldn’t be sick of the movie and tune out after 15 minutes. I’ve had similar experiences on many occasions. (Critics hated 2010’s The Nutcracker 3D, but I was willing to give it a chance and thought they were too harsh – as I watched the opening credits, I thought “Hey, this is actually a very nice presentation that sets up the mood nicely!” Unfortunately for me, by the time the “mouse king” showed up 20 mins. later, the movie had worn out its welcome and was a train wreak from that point on). With Jonah Hex, I was pleasantly surprised. There’s a great intro showing how the main character came to have his horrible facial scar, then some very artsy animated opening credits letting you know you’re watching a comic book movie (with strong narration from Josh Brolin as the title character), and then a solid 25-30 minutes that sets up the movie and has a raw, gritty, outlaw feel to the whole thing. Perhaps Jonah Hex would have done better if it had simply been marketed as an old fashioned anti-hero western, instead of a hip “comic book movie” for teens.

Of course, this doesn’t mean the movie is not without flaws. I wasn’t pleased with Megan Fox as the female lead in a 70s Clint Eastwood type film, but she does an adequate job. The film also has an additional plot device that looks cool but didn’t really suit its world or have much relevance to the plot. Jonah is able to communicate with the souls of the dead by touching their corpses, and there’s an additional twist that he only has some much time to speak to them before their bodies begin to turn to ash (only to return to their “normal” dead state when he stops touching them). This supernatural element added a bit of eeriness to the movie, but it has nothing to do with the Jonah Hex comics so I can see why fans of the comic book hated it. Ia also felt the movie simply fell apart at the end, and the last 20 minutes of the film de-evolved into some silly over-the-top CGI fight that was reminiscent of Will Smith in “Wild West West”. The recent trend in Hollywood has been “steampunk” (having stuff in a late 19th century setting presented in a futuristic sci-fi angle). That’s fine, as long as there’s a reasonable technological explaination and it looks believably retro. Giving us slick CGI, frantic editing, and heavy metal and rock themes for the movie’s music soundtrack doesn’t work at all. (and I actually liked the non-modern music used in Jonah Hex, but I hated a “western” with heavy metal songs).

There was a lot of controversy with Thomas Jane being turned down in favor of Josh Brolin as the title character. I could see Thomas Jane in this role (he was solid as The Punisher), but Brolin was awesome as Hex and easily one of the best parts of the movie. The still photos aren’t very impressive, but his presence on screen easily made him a great western anti-hero, and he carries the film in every scene. Considering that his father (James Brolin) and his stepmother (Barbra Streisand) never impressed me as actors, I find that Josh Brolin has consistently proven to be a great character actor and is probably one of the most underrated people in Hollywood today. It’s a shame he won’t get a second chance to play this character again.

Jonah Hex has a brisk 80 min. running time, so its one of the shortest modern super hero movies, and its also one of the most interesting, since its not really a superhero movie at all, but an outlaw bounty hunter telling the audience his life story. (Technically, its not even a “western” either, since most of the action takes place back east in the former Confederate States of America – Virginia, Georgia, etc.) Bottom line, the film has its problems, and the ending was terrible, but it really drew me into its world and I liked it. It’s definitely worth taking a look at.

 
** ½ out of ****

ReelReviews #4: Iron Man 3 (2013)

 MARCH 12, 2014 SCREENING: IRON MAN 3 (2013)

SPOILER ALERT! IF YOU HAVEN’T SEEN THE FILM YET, PLEASE READ NO FURTHER.
For the last several weeks, I’m been doing “RetroReviews” of classic and obscure fantasy films that I screened last summer. Not only has it started to get old, but I’ve run out of fantasy films that I screened. It’s time for something different. Today is a return to contemporary reviews, and the best way to kick it off was by finally taking a look at last year’s big budget action film Iron Man 3. So what can I say about this film that hasn’t already been said in hundreds of other reviews. Let’s find out.

A lot of my friends saw this film in theaters last May, and the consensus opinion was they thought the plot twist and the ending ruined the movie. Nobody would even tell me what the twist was! I managed to accidentally stumble on it myself last month, before I had even watched the movie to judge it on my own. Simply put, the major “bad guy” in this film, the Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) turns out not to be the Mandarin at all. He’s actually a drunken British character actor that was hired to play the Mandarin in order to fool Iron Man and general public into targeting the wrong enemy. This relevant isn’t a shocker at the end of the film, but is actually revealed a little more than halfway through the movie. Did I like this twist? No, I thought it was stupid.

Now, that being said, I didn’t think the silly twist “ruined” the movie, as others have claimed. It was a bit annoying, but the rest of the movie was funny and entertaining. As others have observed, I also thought the “fake” Mandarin was a worthy villain before the twist, and I wish Ben Kingley had just been the real Mandarin instead of the movie trying to give us a “clever” twist. I also had no problems with the real end of the film, which consisted of Iron Man deciding to be with the girl he loves and giving up his Iron Man persona in a flashy climax where he blows up all his armored suits in a fireworks-like spectacle. The only problem here was Marvel’s PR department: we already know Robert Downey Jr. will be returning as Iron Man in Avengers 2 next year, so the ending is pointless. (Had I not known that, it would have been a much more satisfactory ending)

There are good points and bad points throughout the story. Compared to Iron Man 2, the third installment seemed a lot more exciting to me. I hardly remember the second one and just had a collective feeling of “it was okay” when the film finished. The events in Iron Man 3 are much more memorable, but there’s also more cringe-worthy stuff and much of the movie consists of Tony Stark constantly trying on new Iron Man models and comedic situations that arise from this – it seems he doesn’t really go into full superhero mode and heroically spring into action until the last 1/3rd of the movie. A new twist in this film is that Stark creates an Iron Man suit that launches itself to his destination and automatically attaches itself to him piece by piece. The special effects here are very impressive but the whole idea seemed over-the-top to me, and its used way too much for comedic effect when he’s missing some pieces or they attach themselves to the wrong person, etc. etc. The rest of the humor worked well for the movie, and there’s some very witty exchanges throughout the film. There’s also a lot of name dropping about the events of other Marvel movies and the fact this film is set after The Avengers. Those were fine, and serviced this story. However, there’s no surprise cameos from other Marvel characters. I think that’s actually a letdown at this point.

Iron Man hasn’t worn out its welcome, and I always enjoy seeing Robert Downey Jr. in the title role. I’m also looking forward to Avengers 2 – I hope they find something new to do with the character, and I hope its better than Avengers 1 (I must be the minority, because the first one got rave responses from the public, but I just thought it was an average overblown popcorn movie with an awesome premise). All that being said, the conclusion I have to draw is that the first Iron Man movie was the only one that was truly great and pleasantly surprised me. I have no dog in the DC movies vs. Marvel movies fight, but a quick observation is that Marvel movies have been making a lot more money lately, but they’re also starting to get a bit too predictable. I hopeful that Guardians of the Galaxy breaks out of the old pattern. In meantime, here’s to you Tony Stark, we know you’ll be suiting up against next year. But if you ever return for Iron Man 4, let’s hope its worth it.

** ½ out of ****

RetroReviews #49: Jabberwocky (1977)

 

JULY 7, 2013 SCREENING: JABBERWOCKY (1977)

July 7-12 was “Terry Gilliam” week for me, and I screened all the movies directed by Terry Gilliam that I hadn’t previous seen. Jabberwocky was the first solo film by Terry Gilliam, the only American-born member of the famous British Monty Python troupe. Gilliam seemingly did the impossible and made a narrative film out of the surreal Lewis Carroll poem “Jabberwocky”. Gilliam is one my favorite directors, and Carroll is one of my favorite authors, so its unfortunate that I believe Jabberwocky is probably Gilliam’s worst film.

I didn’t enjoy having to sit through Jabberwocky, but that’s not to stay the film is completely terrible. Aside from turning a “nonsense” poem into a literal story, it has several other things going for it as well: although its a comedy, it stays faithful to the source material and uses lines from the poem verbatim What’s more, the on screen visuals make sense and show the action in a way that the viewer can follow the narration. Overall, the narration is quite wonderful to listen to. This is also the most “Pythonesque” of Gilliam’s films, which is not surprising since it was done shortly after Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The setup and gags are very reminiscent of the earlier film. Finally, the appearance of the Jabberwocky creature itself was very impressive, and was faithful to John Tennial’s original illustration, and very impressive for a low budget 1977 film. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked great within the context of the film,

So why didn’t I like Jabberwocky? I felt the rest of the elements of this movie were just plain lousy. None of the slapstick gags worked for me – Gilliam may have been emulating his earlier Python humor but when he did it a solo project the film time, it simply fell flat. Variety wrote a negative review of this movie claiming it was “long on jabber but short on yocks”, and I have to agree. Jabberwocky is very talkative trying to stretch out a short poem into a feature length movie, and all the characters babble on endlessly, with completely uninteresting and irrelevant conversations. The film is dark and dreary (which again, worked in Holy Grail but doesn’t work here because of the pacing), the music is bland and forgettable, and all the battle and action scenes seem to be unfocused and shabbily shot).

I don’t blame Gilliam, since he had the other five Pythoneers contributing material on his earlier movies, and here he only has Michael Palin, who stars in the film but apparently didn’t contribute anything more than acting. Gilliam’s movies are always “out there” and his material isn’t for everyone, but his incoherent weird movies became more polished and sharper later on. The ultimate test for an adaptation like Jabberwocky is would a huge Lewis Carroll fan like myself want to add this movie to my collection, or even watch it again? The answer is no, and worse, that answer is not because the film wasn’t faithful to the source material or only used the title to cash in on Carroll’s name. The film is actually very faithful despite being a tongue-in-cheek satire. In this case, merely being faithful isn’t enough. You could film a twelve hour audio reading of James Joyce’s Ulysses, narrated by Jerry Seinfeld, and I wouldn’t want to sit through that, either.

Jabberwocky had good intentions, and it has a lot of good things going for it. But overall, Terry Gilliam’s first movie simply sucks. Sorry, Terry. On the plus side, he got much better.

* ½ out of ****

RetroReviews #46: Ella Enchanted (2004)

JULY 3, 2013 SCREENING: ELLA ENCHANTED (2004)

 

Having watched Enchanted (2007), I figured I should follow it up with a similar sounding fantasy movie, thus my decision to give Ella Enchanted a shot. There are some similarities – both films deliberately parody various aspects of “princess finds true love with a handsome Prince” fairy tale, but Ella Enchanted is more of a romantic comedy. I have to give it credit though – it may be from the point of view of the princess and revolve around her getting the handsome prince, but is it infinitely more watchable than numerous other chick flicks I’ve had the misfortune of sitting though.

 

Ella Enchanted’s strength for comedy is also the film’s greatest weakness, however. It knows its mocking perfect fairy tale words, so it goes over the top at times and beats the audience to death with its parody. A perfect example is the prince character. Named Prince Charmont, he is lovingly referred as “Char” for shot, and is depicted as a Justin Bieber-like teen icon with thrones of adoring fans who carry signs around cheering him on. This absurdity of putting modern teen culture in a medieval setting is very funny at first, but quickly overstays its welcome. The magic element of the story also becomes less effective over time – Ella has a spell placed on her as a child that forces her to obey any direct command she’s given (hence the title of the film). Naturally the movie exploits this for several very funny scenes, but it gets really stupid after a while. It also leads to several plot holes, as there are at least two errors in the screenplay where someone directly tells Ella to do something, but she doesn’t comply. That is an inexcusable mistake when you make your main plot revolve around the concept that she has no choice but to obey all direct orders.

 

Although its not meant to be taken seriously, the film does do a suitable job creating its only fantasy world, complete with different types of fairy characters, giants, ogres, and a talking magical book. Most of them were a pleasant surprise, especially considering how poor mythological creatures have been depicted in Hollywood movies from time to time.

Apparently there is some controversy over this film because it is based on a book of the same name, which is follows only loosely. Having never read the book, I can’t judge how it deviates from the source material, and whether it does so for good or ill. I can say that the way it is presented is pretty much a mixed bag. A lot of the humor works, but it gets on your nerves after a while, and the basic storyline pays off, if you shut off your brain and ignore numerous errors that occur within the film’s setup. It’s fun while it lasts, though I doubt this film will have much lastly impact on you. If you have any daughters between the ages of 7 – 13, this might be a good film to check out.

 

** out of ****

RetroReviews #45: City of Angels (1998)

 

JULY 2, 2013 SCREENING: CITY OF ANGELS (1998)

If some overly weepy sentimental romance movie starring Meg Ryan can move a guy like me, it’s pretty darn good. I am definitely not “into” Meg Ryan romance movies, and the very thought that I will have to sit through some chick flick about one of her characters falling in love makes me ill.City of Angels was made at the height of Meg Ryan’s chick film romance movie career (thankfully, those days seem to be over now) and its actually one of the best, in spite of the many flaws of the movie.

In many ways, this film is the exact opposite of the film that inspired it: Wings of Desire. It’s so far removed from the original German film, I don’t think its even fair to call this movie is a remake. Rather, it takes the same basic premise – a guardian angel watching over a city falls in love with a mortal city – and turns it into a mainstream Hollywood movie. In most cases, that would ruin the integrity of the original film by dumbing it down into a generic formula film. In the case of City of Angels, however, its really the only thing that redeems the movie.

Nicholas Cage plays the angel Seth, and he’s thoroughly miscast in the role, in my opinion. I’m not a fan of Nick Cage (especially his post-1995 roles), but I can’t really blame him here. He is faced with the almost impossible task of portraying a totally pure and loving immortal being that watches over mankind. Such an acting role would be extremely difficult to cast, and require an actor that is not only physically attractive but universally seen as warm and loving simply by his presence. When Cage plays the part, his angel comes across as more like a creepy stalker who hang around, dressed all in black, and silently stares at people. What worked in the script definitely doesn’t convey the same idea on screen.

In spite of this big problem with one of the film’s two leads, it still works. I really felt for Meg Ryan’s character (who is a heart surgeon and faces death and dying every day), and the situation she finds herself in really makes it understandable why Seth is drawn to her. One particularly strong and emotional moment is when a very sick hospital patient, played by Dennis Franz, turns out to be an angel himself, but one who “fell” to earth and took human form years ago. What sounds cheesy on paper is quite moving in the film, with Franz still aware that guardian angels are among us, and still being able to sense their presence (remarking to Nick Cage “I can’t see you, but I know you’re there”). Franz is quite despondent over the way the world has become, saying people no longer have faith and would never accept the truth.

Of course, this eventually leads Seth the angel to seek mortality, and the scene where he actually “falls to earth” and becomes a mortal being is really well done and shows a complete change in the way the character sees and interacts with the world around him. Its reminiscent in many ways of when Dorothy discovered Oz for the first time, and the film famously switched from black-and-white to color. Seth is able to be with the mortal woman he loves, but there’s a twist at the end of the film that provided a real tearjerker for the audience.

City of Angels is certainly not my kind of movie, and yet it found a way to make me a fan of it. I’m not even sure how this movie sold me on its world given all the flaws that can be found in the film itself, but the overall results simply worked. City of Angels may be a mainstream Hollywood romance film and a conventional fantasy story, but its far from being light-weight, silly, or filled with dumb jokes. It presents a lot of very interesting ideas and scenarios, and the way it presents them makes it well worth the watch.

*** out of ****

RetroReviews #30: Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief (2010)

JUNE 11, 2013 SCREENING: PERCY JACKSON: THE LIGHTNING THIEF (2010)

I had no idea what this film would be about when I went into the screening, so I’ll summarize it very easily for my readers. Percy Jackson is an action-adventure Greek Mythology story combined with a teen high school drama. In short, it’s a cross between Clash of the Titans and Harry Potter. Like Harry Potter, an ordinary kid discovers he has extraordinary abilities and is sent off to a far away school to train at his new occupation. But in the case of Percy Jackson, he finds out that he isn’t a wizard but a demi-god, and that his biological father is Poseidon, god of the sea. It turns out that many people around him had known this all his life but kept his true origins a secret from him. His best friend is a satyr and was assigned to be his protector, so he went undercover at his high school as a boy on crutches to hide his goat legs. One of his teachers at the school is really a a centaur with the body of a horse, and he trains heroes on Mt. Olympus and has been monitor’s Percy’s progress all this time.

Yes, the way the story unfolds is ridiculous, and I wasn’t really buying the world that the story was trying to sell. That being said, I had a thoroughly enjoyable time watching the movie, because it has so much fun with its setting. There are plenty of clever ways they spin traditional Greek mythology, and a lot of the jokes in the film were hilarious, particularly the scenes set in the underworld. Just on the humor alone, I highly recommend this film for all ages – you’ll get a kick out of it.

The story isn’t as strong, and part of the reason may be that many of the events invite constant comparisons to other Greek mythology scenes that were covered by different movies. I found myself constantly comparing Sean Bean’s Zeus scenes on Mt. Olympus to the same type of material that Liam Neeson did in Clash of the Titans – albeit with a more “serious” portrayal of the Greek legends. The same was true when our heroes had to slay Medusa – I found myself comparing it to all the other “slay Medusa” scenes in other movies, only this time it was presented with the Harry Potter like protagonist doing it. One scene I did think worked it is own right was the way a particularly Greek mythology story was reinvented for modern times. It involved the characters stopping at the “Lotus Casino in Las Vegas” where the three of them eat lotus flowers and forget their reason for being there. It turns out that the casino is run by the Lotus-Eaters, and they had been keeping people captive for the last few centuries. This segment of the movie wasn’t even particularly humorous or adventurous, (it also doesn’t make sense that teenagers would be admitted into a casino the first place), it was one of the most innovative examples of using Greek mythology in a modern setting.

My guess is we owe much of the film’s tone, story, and characters to the Percy Jackson novels. How much of it was original material invented for the film adaptation, I can’t say. As it stands, the movie is a mixed bag and works better as a series of individual sketches than the “big picture” story it was trying to tell about a meek dyslexic sixteen-year-old American boy discovering that he is half-God and rising to the occasion to become a hero, etc., etc.

Of course, I’m also mindful of the target audience. Twilight was aimed at teenage girls but had nothing of substance from vampire mythology and filled its content with idealized sappy teen romance pap instead. Percy Jackson at least fills its world with clever ideas, funny puns, and cool action-adventure scenes, so it’s much more highly recommended. It’s shallow, but at the same time its compelling.

** ½ out of ****