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Safe House

February 27, 2012 by

And now for a most novel idea in motion picture plotting: The CIA and other foreign government intelligence are corrupted by several bad bad bad agents.  These agents are so bad that they’ve killed innocent civilians to cover up their own double dealings and double crossings within these agencies.  Pure genius!

I’m hooked, right?  Right?

Enter Ryan Reynolds working for the CIA as Matt Weston, a young housekeeper of a ‘safe house’ designed for suspected terrorist interrogations.  He’s never even seen live field duty because he spends his time monitoring empty rooms while waiting for an interrogation party to come his way.  He also lives with a French lady friend who knows nothing of his secret government occupation.  Matt dreams of getting out of the watchdog business and into some real field work, but his mentor, operative David Barlow (Brendan Gleeson), instructs him to be patient.

His days of tossing tennis balls against a bare wall come to a halt when suspected double-agent Tobin Frost (Denzel Washington) finds himself captured by the American government.  These armed men attempt to torture Frost for information on his recent shady activity involving the interception of a very important flash drive.  Frost keeps hush and smiles for more abuse.

Suddenly the safe house is breached.  Cue the large shootout.  Everyone dies except for Frost and Weston.  Weston, not knowing what to do, trusts the hierarchy above him, and attempts to transport Frost to the next safe house.  Things don’t go as planned and Weston must attempt to figure out why Mr. Frost is wanted dead by so many people if he wants to stay alive himself.

As swiftly stylized and edited as Safe House can be, almost completely mimicking a Tony Scott film, writer David Guggenheim and director Daniel Espinsosa (both first-timers) find little excitement in developing a ho-hum story.  They are preaching their ‘ideas’ as though they haven’t been sitting stale in a fridge for several weeks.  Instead, Safe House best functions as a Bourne copycat, resorting to the now-standard slice-and-dice editing style that replaces the need for believable fight choreography.

Not to say that action in Safe House is bad—it’s not.  In fact, it can be particularly thrilling.  But why?  The filmmakers have given us a Denzel Washington thriller that unwisely focuses on a boring Ryan Reynolds-played character who offers nothing in the way of audience attachment.  Since he’s not remotely interesting, and his motives for ushering around Washington’s dangerous character are purely a means of furthering the narrative, we only have the great Denzel to root for.  And I’m sorry to say it, but his villain/anti-hero fence walking never had me convinced that he was anything but a hero, despite fractured motives.  I won’t even get into his age issues—as good as he still looks for late 50s, I don’t buy him snapping necks like Bourne and dodging machine gun fire from multiple assassins.  He and Liam Neeson should think about Expendables 3.

The film is also saddled with supporting actors in Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson and Sam Shepherd.  These names have side-splitting talent, and wouldn’t you know they’re wasted on one-note characters?  Perhaps Gleeson gets a little more to do here, but ultimately this megawatt cast has been assembled to deliver by-the-numbers action and story that is only elevated by the fact that we have these actors that are far better than the material would have you believe.

If I’m making Safe House sound awful, I apologize.  It’s not.  Since I recognize that I’m continually veering into negative-town here, I will attest I didn’t have a bad time at the film.  It’s adequately shot, very violent, gritty, just not for any particular engaging reason.  The movie gets a pass because the actors elevate it and make it plenty watchable, even if it’s plenty forgettable.  Ignore the ads.  Safe House is plenty safe, but you won’t have a bad time.

[Rating:3/5]

 

Filed Under: Action Tagged With: , , , , , ,

The Grey

February 15, 2012 by

THAT’S IT ?!?!?!

I literally shouted those words at the screen when it went black after The Grey. In a full theatre, no less. I couldn’t believe it. I felt like an 18-year-old groupie who had been picked up at a night spot by director Joe Carnahan, titillated and swept off my feet with rides in sports cars and parties at private pools, enraptured in building anticipation, only to find out in bed that Carnahan has this … “little problem.”

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this let down by a movie. Perhaps it is partly my fault for allowing my expectations to get so high. Since our daughter was born, it’s gotten much harder to get to the theater, and last weekend was the first time I had been since the Fourth of July, when I reviewed Green Lantern. But after seeing the trailers, I couldn’t wait to see The Grey. It had all the ingredients for a perfect wilderness adventure:

A group of tough guys who know a thing or two about the out doors (in this case oil-rig workers in Alaska),

A plane crash in a harsh, remote location with little hope of rescue,

A pack of very large, very hungry wolves on the hunt (the trailer made it clear this movie was not afraid of PETA),

and Liam freaking Neeson, who, in the closing seconds of the trailer, is surrounded by wolves. He tapes a bunch of empty bottles to his left hand and smashes them against a rock. Then he tapes a combat knife to his right. The Alpha wolf lunges forward, then Neeson does the same, and we see the title. I was hooked. I knew whatever happened in the moments after Neeson charged that wolf, was going to be AWESOME!

It was the perfect formula: a primal battle! Brain against brawn! Teeth against tools! What could possibly go wrong? I walked into the theatre thinking I might be about to witness the greatest man vs. beast movie since Jaws.

It starts out well enough. The plane goes down in the subarctic tundra, and John Ottway (Neeson) and six other men crawl from the wreckage. Once they pull themselves out of the shock, they begin to build a fire, make a shelter out of the plane and look for food. Their spirits have begun to lift when their dinner around the fire is interrupted by a howl. They stand up to see a huge wolf just inside the campfire light, and a sea of glittering eyes behind it. After a standoff, the wolves retreat into the darkness. A few hours later, a member of the group gets up and actually walks away from the fire to urinate. After what he’s seen, this makes no sense, but whatever; I guess it’s kind of a movie staple. He dies, of course.

The next day, Ottway, the group’s wolf expert , decides that if they can reach a forest some distance away, they could better defend themselves. On the day-long trek through knee-deep snow, they loose one more to the wolves. As night falls, they reach the forest, just as it begins to fill with the dinning and barking of the wolves. They hastily build a fire to keep the wolves at bay, then build four smaller fires to make a perimeter that they can sit inside. Ottway produces five straight branches and five shotgun shells he salvaged from the plane, and begins to instruct the others in making bang sticks to fight the wolves.

Alright. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Out of nowhere, a wolf jumps on John Diaz (Dallas Roberts), despite the fire. There follows a wild flurry of yelling, thrashing, and a couple of loud bangs, presumably bang sticks, and finally, we see Diaz on top of the wolf, thrusting his knife in and out of it. The thing is, we never really saw the fight with the wolf. So far, we’ve had a lot of great buildup and a lot of great suspense. The movie has created an atmosphere where we can never really relax, and the wolves, even when not seen, are always felt. But we really haven’t seen any good action.

But that’s okay, because the climax is going to be awesome.

This is where the movie starts to go downhill. Ottway decides for some reason that they have to move, and they go walking through this forest full of wolves in the dark. For some reason, there is never an attack, and they stop at a place where Ottway decides they will be safe. And they build ONE campfire. We’ve already seen how the wolves have become bold enough to enter the circle of fires they made earlier, but all fear of the wolves seems to have flown away for some reason. Even more strangely, the wolves seem to oblige. The next day, the group reaches a canyon and decides to climb across. They manage to attache a rope to a tree on the other side through means very hard to swallow, but whatever, it’s a movie. As the last member of the group (Durmot Mulroney) climbs across, the rope breaks and he swings across, hitting the tree hard and falling to his death. His body is then immediately pounced upon by the wolves, almost as if they were waiting at the base of the tree! Now, how did that happen? How did the wolves climb down one side of the canyon and then up the other? And even then, how did they know exactly where Mulroney was going to fall? And why hadn’t the rest of the group shouted anything to him about wolves at the base of the tree? Why did the wolves magically disappear the night before when it would’ve made sense for them to be attacking, only to reappear in such a ridiculous way here?

Let it go. The climax is going to be awesome.

Neeson poses and never delivers in “The Grey.”

The group presses on, as their number continues to dwindle. Strangely, we never hear a word about the bang sticks after that first campfire in the woods. It sounded like they used one or two during the attack at that point, but they have to have some left. The other reason this doesn’t add up is that, shortly after the plane crash, there is a scene where Ottway is attacked by a wolf. It latches onto his leg, and two other survivors run up and apparently beat the wolf to death with bits of the plane. This confirmed my impression from the trailer and set a good tone for the movie: these are tough guys. Some of them have been in prison; all of them have spent months working an oil rig in Alaska. They’re used to these elements. Even in a situation this bad, they would have a fighting chance. But now, every time the wolves show up, all they can think of to do is run. And as anyone who has spent time around dogs knows, as slim as your odds might be fighting a wolf pack, they’re going to be even slimmer running. When am I going to get what I paid for?

That’s okay. The climax is going to be awesome.

As predicted, Ottway is the last one left alive. Trudging through a clearing with most of his equipment gone, he suddenly finds himself surrounded by wolves. The Alpha advances from the pack. The excitement builds as he empties the contents of a back pack. He kisses a picture of his wife, tapes a bunch of empty bottles to his left hand and smashes them against a rock. Then he tapes a combat knife to his right.

Oh, boy, this is it!

Ottway reaches inside himself and recites a short poem composed by his father. Then we see his eyes, now devoid of fear. The Alpha lunges forward, Ottway does the same, and …

THAT’S IT?!?!?!

I couldn’t believe it, but that was the end. There was nothing of that scene in the movie that wasn’t in the trailer. If fact, I got online when we got home and checked out the trailer again. They actually show you a little bit more in the trailer than they do in the film! Talk about false advertising! Where was my glorious man-wolf battle?? CARNAHAN! You lied to me!

A few hours later, I read that there was one more scene after the credits, in which we see Ottway and the Alpha, both on the ground. The Alpha is apparently dying; Ottway’s condition is harder to determine. Even if I had stayed for this scene, it would have been small consolation. That only means that Carnahan didn’t consider it a forgone conclusion that Ottway had no chance. So why didn’t I get to see him fight?

Anyway, for those of you that are complaining “you spoiled the ending,” I did so because, really, there was no ending. If you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the ending. All of it. I did you a favor, saving you time and money. And for those of you saying “you missed the point. The wolves are a metaphor for death and the story is really about being brave when death is coming for you …” I can understand that. But this is a movie. It’s based in the visual. What is the point of having a story of internal struggle leading up to a physical confrontation, if you’re not going to show the confrontation — especially when it would have been so simple to do! In Jaws, for example, we still have most of the same themes — over coming your fear, a bond that developes between three very different men when they face death together, etc. But we get the pay-off at the end. We get to see what happens. We get to see the symbol of fear and death destroyed. And even if said symbol had won, it would have been a more satisfying ending than that of The Grey.  And in any case, if all the movie was trying to do was tell a story about philosophical ideals, why was it sold to me as an action/adventure picture?

I can contemplate the meaning of life without buying a ticket, thank you.

[Rating:1.5/5]

Filed Under: Action, Drama, Horror, Movies, Western Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Courageous

February 5, 2012 by

The Kendrick Brothers of Sherwood Bible Church are at it again. No doubt hoping to match their home run of Fireproof of 2008, they’ve shifted their focus from taking on divorce to attacking fatherlessness in America. We’re still in Albany, Georgia, but this time, instead of following the heroics of the Albany Fire Dept.,  we’re on patrol with the Dougherty County Sheriff’s Dept. (Interesting that, Albany being a city of 77,000, it doesn’t seem to have its own police force, but I guess they had to trim the cast somewhere.)

The Kendricks have ramped the action up a notch with this one. Right at the beginning, we see Fireproof’s Ken Bevel, now playing Nathan Hayes, stop for gas, only to have his truck stolen by a dew-rag clad gang-banger (T.C. Stallings, a devoted husband and father in real life). He throws himself half-way through the driver’s window, and we are treated to a fist-fight with Nathan hanging out the window at 30 miles an hour. The movie eventually leads up to a climactic scene with guns blazing. In between is more action, more than a few laugh-out-loud moments, and a heart-felt message about how crucial a father is to a child’s development, and how those without fathers often become dew-rag clad truck thieves.

The story follows Deput. Hayes, a recent transfer to the department, three other Deputies, Adam Mitchell (Alex Kendrick), Shane Fuller (Kevin Downes), and David Thompson (Ben Davies), and Javier Martinez (Robert Amaya), a rarely employed construction worker, and their families. Javier breaks his back to provide for his family and eventually finds employment working on Adam’s house. He then becomes part of the group. David is the rookie of the squad who’s holding in a shameful secret. He has a daughter around three years of age, whom he has never met, and whose support he had not contributed a dime to. (Apparently, the Georgia Division of Child Support Services was vaporized along with the Albany P.D.) Shane struggles to be a dad to his son when he only sees him every other weekend.  Adam dotes on his daughter but refuses to join his son for the father-son 5K. And Nathan and his wife, Kayla (Elenor Brown), struggle to fend off the “saggy-pants boys” interested in their teenage daughter.

A tragedy eventually forces these men to reevaluate what they are doing as fathers. The story dives into Christian kitsch for awhile. Adam comes up with a written resolution and the five families actually hold a ceremony with their pastor in which they dramatically recite it. In a similar vein, we later see Nathan take his daughter to a very expensive restaurant (below), where he, again with great ceremony, presents her with a “promise ring.” Yeah, I know. I chortled at this scene, too, but then I found out my wife had very specific plans for me to do exactly that with our daughter one day.

But for all the kitsch, the film really is trying, and trying to do far more than just entertain. The problems with Courageous mainly serve to highlight the fact that most movies just fill themselves up with explosions and car wrecks and expect you to buy a ticket. Courageous sets the bar much higher, and does come close to clearing it.

There was a time when I would have been unable to enjoy this movie. I can enjoy it now largely because I have a wonderful wife, who makes my life very sweet. That said, there are still some key points of this film I can’t help but take issue with. A lot of the film’s attitude is summed up when Nathan delivers the curmudgeonly line “If fathers just did what they were supposed to, half the junk we see on the street wouldn’t exist.” This seems to be the mantra of conservatives and liberals alike: it’s all men’s fault. But if you look at the history of America over the last 40 years or so, men have not been the only – or even the primary – culprit of the breakdown of the family. History does not tell of a movement of men throwing off their responsibilities to society. We don’t see crowds of men burning their undergarments and demanding the right to kill their children. We do, however, see women doing all these things.

In the U.S. today, more than two thirds of all divorces are initiated by the woman. And why not? The feminist political machine has tilted the legal game board of divorce ridiculously toward the woman’s pockets. (Please note: Every man in Iowa should carefully read chapters 236 and 598 of the Iowa Code before he even thinks about getting emotionally attached to a woman. As for the other states, talk to a lawyer there.) Millions of children in the U.S. grow up without fathers because their mothers want it that way.

My first year out of law school, I worked in a family law firm. I never had a man in my office who didn’t care about his children. Most of my clients were there because they were having to fight just to see their children. The slant in family court is based on more than gender stereotypes.  The judicial community includes many territorial lionesses. A child is power, and they are not about to share it. Conversely, male judges are of the old way of thinking, in which men are expected to take the lumps and bear the weight of the world on our shoulders without complaint. This combination of liberal women and conservative men, not only in court, but also in society, is a frustrating dynamic. While women are exhorted about their rights, men are flagellated with our supposed responsibilities. Lawyers aren’t supposed to get emotionally involved, but I couldn’t help feeling the pain my clients felt. Commanded to be fathers by the right, yet torn from their children by the left; commanded to “be a man,” yet emasculated.

Courageous never addresses any of this, failing to live up to its name. The Kendrick brothers buckle under the pressure of political correctness. Too afraid to take women to task for their desertion, like so many before them, they turn on men.

It’s hard to stay angry at a movie that has this much heart, and is actually trying to make a difference in the world. But while it’s a valiant effort, another Fireproof it is not.  Fireproof met

Actor-director Alex Kendrick takes aim at bad fathers.

people squarely where they were at. There’s no reason 3 billion men couldn’t have connected with Caleb Holt, the fire chief who shows valor in the work place, but doesn’t know how to love his wife. The story eventually shows that, only by first receiving the unconditional love of God can Caleb show unconditional love to the flawed and sinful woman he lives with. It would actually  have been fairly simple for Courageous to do the same thing. Shane Fuller is a character that millions of men would easily connect with, including unbelievers. He is divorced. He wants to be a father to his son, but, as he explains it, he only gets him every other weekend, after his mother has filled his head with her toxic opinions of him. He wants to provide for his son, but almost a third of his paycheck is swallowed by alimony. Shane should have been the lead role of this movie! He could have been the Caleb Holt of Courageous. How can Shane, and other men, be the kind of fathers God wants them to be, despite the obstacles? How can God help them to raise their kids right despite what they have  to deal with? This was a golden opportunity for the Kendricks to win the hearts of their intended audiece. Beating up on men will do nothing to fix the family. Ministering to broken men where they are at will do a lot more.

Sadly, Shane is confined to a small role as the bad cop we’re not supposed to like, and Courageous preaches to the choir. Most of the focus is on Adam, Nathan and Javier, who all have perfect wives, straight out of a Christian fantasy.

Overall, I recommend seeing Courageous. There’s a lot of great moments I didn’t want to spoil here. The fact that I can even disagree with it shows it had more of a brain than most movies. It’s not easy to make a movie that ministers. I still laughed and I was still swept along by the story. It was good to see Christian cinema taking another (mostly) positive step.

Number four at the box office in October of 2011. High-five!

[Rating:3.5/5]

Filed Under: Action, Comedy, Drama, Family, Independent, Movies, Opinion Articles, Uncategorized Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Chronicle

February 5, 2012 by

I’m waiting for the ‘found-footage’ fad to die out.  The format has been stretched so thin that Chronicle busies itself trying to bypass the roadblock of hopping around the perspectives of different cameras circling the action.  Since the filmmakers have bolder ambitions than shaking their cameras around, I still lost myself in this fresh superhero diversion.  The film’s young director, Josh Trank, is getting a lot of buzz for his first main feature here, and for a 26-year-old filmmaker, a lot of credit is actually due.

Even though I’m not the least bit interested in the visual style, the story of Chronicle nudged me into the theater.  The film opens with high school teen Andrew Detmer (Dane DeHaan), a loner outcast locked in his bedroom with his video camera while his drunken father pounds on the door with thunderous shouts at the boy.  His father is a laid off firefighter.  His mother is bed-ridden and dying from a serious medical condition.  If Andrew has anyone on his side, it’s his cousin, Matt (Alex Russell), who invites him to a party one night, despite serious objections to Andrew toting his video camera around.

Andrew has decided he wants to document his daily life on film, which is hard to imagine considering his abusive treatment at home and uninteresting social life at school.  Apparently it gives him a time-occupying outlet.  At the rave party, Matt and his friend Steve (Michael B. Jordan) find Andrew and request he follow them into the woods to check out a sizable hole in the ground.  Andrew’s light on his camera could help them out.  With their ears pressed to the ground, the trio hear a bass-thumping rumble coming from the hole, so they naturally decide to make a descent inside to discover what’s lurking underneath.  As they wander their way down, they stumble upon… well, something—not of this world.  It appears large, glowing, crystallized, with an alien entity inside.  The video feed flickers.  Something is happening to the boys and their noses begin to bleed heavily.

The next we see of them, their not fully aware of how they got out of the ground.  Oh, and they have telekinetic powers.  The guys starting tossing baseballs around with their minds and constructing Lego buildings.  Their abilities increase as they ‘stretch the muscle’ of their power, pulling pranks on helpless shoppers, moving parked cars across parking lots, and delivering the ultimate magic act at their school talent show.  Once the boys learn they can fly, they realize their level of invincibility. Andrew captures it all on film, but his home life and awkward social interactions begin to distance him from his new-found friends.  His tragedy unfolds over a series of events that push him further and further into darkness and alienation.

In retrospect, Chronicle could be described as simply another X-Men story.  Boys gets powers.  They use them.  One of the boys turns to the dark side.  This creates a divide.  Who will protect humanity?  Is humanity worth protecting when you’ve become a higher species, or an ‘apex predator’ as the film calls it?  Max Landis penned the script, and he admirably combines realistic high school behavior with the deeper elements that give Chronicle the authenticity (despite some glaring holes) it needs to capture our attention over a brisk 80 minutes.  The story is never as deep as it think it is, but I’m guessing that’s why the filmmakers opted for the documented footage angle.  The audience doesn’t expect layers of depth if they are witnessing the events ‘as they really occurred’.

I personally would have enjoyed the film more had the filmmakers chosen to go deeper.  This sci-fi thriller is all surface details, comical interactions, and bloated action sequences.  Don’t get me wrong—it works.  But I can’t help thinking there is a larger, grander, better movie hidden inside this ambitious little cheapie that makes the most of its budget and young talent.  Chronicle is a fun little ride featuring unrealized potential.  Young viewers will eat it up.  And while the film may be satisfactory, I wanted more.

[Rating:3.5/5]

 

Filed Under: Action, Science Fiction, Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

The Captains

January 24, 2012 by

The CaptainsKirk. Picard. Sisko. Janeway. Archer.  Just hearing these names is enough to bring a smile of fond remembrance to Star Trek fans of all ages, and conjures images of heroism in the face of danger, face-offs with alien races, and some egregious fashion faux pas.  From the original Star Trek in the 1960’s to the 2009 movie by J.J. Abrams, the Star Trek franchise has been one of the most enduring and profitable in Hollywood history, and even though interest in the TV shows has waned in recent years (the recent series Enterprise was cancelled after four seasons), the characters and the actors who played them continue to be a force of pop culture with which to be reckoned.  But despite (or perhaps because of) the myriad documentaries, interviews, and convention appearances that the actors have taken part in over the years, it is the individuals who played the storied captains of the various vessels in the show who continue to fascinate millions of fans worldwide.  And it is with this in mind that William Shatner, who wowed audiences and wooed women as Captain Kirk in the original series, set out to create a film that offers a singular insight into the hearts and minds of the actors who have had the distinct privilege to sit in the fabled captain’s chair.  The result is a documentary consisting almost entirely of simple conversations between Shatner and these actors that is equal parts compelling and funny, while also managing to be heartbreaking and even a bit awkward.  Shatner, whose career includes high profile shows like Boston Legal, melodramas like Rescue 911, and a dose of sitcoms and commercials to boot, is clearly in his element as he interviews the actors–often providing a window into his own heart and even upstaging his subjects from time to time.  It all comes together to make The Captains a fantastic and singular work of art that boldly goes where no documentary has gone before, and offers Shatner the unique opportunity to blaze a trail that no one else could hope to trod.

What would you say if you could sit and chat with Patrick Stewart for an afternoon?  Would you ask him what it was like to play Jean-Luc Picard, one of the most recognizable figures in modern science fiction?  How about Kate Mulgrew, the woman whose Kathryn Janeway helmed the starship Voyager on its 70,000 light year journey through the Delta Quadrant? Or Chris Pine, the young actor who filled Shatner’s Starfleet-issue boots as Captain Kirk in the 2009 film?  What questions could possibly be worth their time–surely nothing these actors haven’t been asked hundreds or thousands of time before.

Shatner-Pine

Captain Kirk vs. Captain Kirk in the arm wrestling match of the century!

And so Shatner wisely stays away from all of the topics that would, on the surface, be of most interest to fans.  Instead, his conversations with the “captains” wander back and forth from pop culture to horseback riding to philosophy, religion, and even death and the afterlife.  Heavy subjects to be sure, but counterbalanced by a liberal dose of Shatner’s off-kilter sense of humor and glowing charm.  The most profound and compelling segments come from his discussions with Patrick Stewart, where things start off cordial but end up digging deep, exposing a side of both actors that has rarely been seen in public.  Stewart goes as far to divulge regrets that are as deeply felt today as they were back when he was filming The Next Generation, and Shatner likewise comes to a realization about his role as Kirk that has haunted him for decades.  I doubt the two are best friends, but it’s clear there is an incredible mutual respect and genuine appreciation for the contributions both have made to science fiction and modern culture.

His visits with the rest of the captains may not be at heart-wrenching, but each is compelling in its own right.  It’s hard to not smile as Shatner and Scott Bakula (Captain Jonathan Archer) shoot the breeze over drinks at a diner, talking about the acting profession and their appreciation of each other’s work.  He visits with Mulgrew on stage at a New York theater, where the two discuss the pioneering work she did as the first female captain in Star Trek and how the work put impossible demands on both of them–the effects of which were bitterly felt by their spouses and children.

While these conversations are thoughtful and compelling, Shatner’s afternoon with Avery Brooks (Benjamin Sisko) goes somewhat off the rails.  Brooks improvs jazz licks on a piano while Shatner provides a somewhat bewildered impromptu lyrical accompaniment, and the two go off on metaphysical tangents that make me wonder if part of Brooks is still lost in the wormhole somewhere.  The weakest link by far is Shatner’s all-too-brief conversation with Chris Pine.  Even though the two men give it a good honest try, their segments are brief and lack nearly all the chemistry from the other interviews.  To their credit, neither actually has much in common besides the Kirk character, and Shatner is old enough to be Pine’s grandfather.  But whereas the role of captain serves as the genesis of Shatner’s conversations with all the other actors, it actually seems to hamper his dialogue with Pine.

There are plenty of other Star Trek documentaries and behind-the-scenes featurettes out there, but none so personal and intimate as the portraits Shatner constructs in The Captains.  It is an impressive labor of love that could have been made by only one man, and as a lifelong Star Trek fan I am grateful for the work Shatner has done to assemble this collection of interviews–if nothing else than for sheer posterity.  I would imagine this film would come across as boring or obscure to non-Trek fans, but if you wouldn’t feel at home in a Star Trek convention rubbing elbows with Klingons, Cardassians, and Orion Slave Girls, this is definitely not your kind of movie.  However, for those of us who have spent years venturing into the final frontier with the Star Trek captains, this film is a jewel and not to be missed.

Rating: [Rating:4.5/5]

Filed Under: Documentary Tagged With: , ,

Goldeneye

January 17, 2012 by

GoldeneyeFew movie franchises are as enduring and influential as the James Bond films.  From the early days of Dr. No and From Russia with Love to the modern incarnations including Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace, James Bond has been a fixture in worldwide cinema for almost 50 years.  But in 1995, things were looking rather uncertain for the storied franchise.  The previous film, License to Kill, bombed at the box office and audiences and critics were leery of Timothy Dalton’s uncharismatic portrayal of the iconic secret agent.  Meanwhile MGM studios, who owned the rights to the films, was in the middle of financial turmoil and legal disputes.  Soon Dalton, who was originally cast to play Bond once again, resigned and was replaced by Pierce Brosnan–a British actor who was virtually unknown to American audiences.  The original story for the film was scrapped and instead an original plot was written–the first time a Bond movie had been filmed which was not based on one of Ian Fleming’s novels.  The resulting film was widely seen as a successful reboot of the franchise in decline, and Brosnan went on to star in three subsequent Bond films as the titular character.

I must admit my knowledge of James Bond movies is somewhat limited, having seen all the recent incarnations since Goldeneye, but only brief snippets of the classic Sean Connery and Roger Moore films.  Even so, I know a good action movie when I see one, and on all accounts Goldeneye does not disappoint.  From the opening 750-foot bungee jump to the climactic battle on the largest radio telescope in the world, the film is brimming with high-intensity setpieces and explosive conflicts.  The storyline is as convoluted as ever–something about a magical satellite that fries computers that has been hijacked by Russians, then re-hijacked by a rogue MI6 agent who wants to take down the city of London for some reason.  Halfway through the film you will want to just stop thinking entirely and enjoy the ride, which is probably the best way to enjoy most films like this.  There’s also a checklist of Bond prerequisites like a gadget exposition scene with Q, heady personality conflicts between Bond and his boss M (played for the first time by a woman, the classy British dame Judy Dench), car chases, and double-crossing women.  But director Martin Campbell (who would later helm Casino Royale with Daniel Craig) goes entirely for broke with a few over-the-top scenes like a blistering tank chase through St. Petersburg and a stunt near the beginning involving a motorcycle and a runaway Cessena airplane that is so ridiculous, yet strangely compelling, that you can’t help but enjoy it.

Goldeneye: Pierce Brosnan

"Just another day at the office...here in my tank."

Much of the success of Goldeneye rests on the shoulders of Brosnan, who handles his leading man duties with aplomb and is nearly dripping with panache in the classic Bond tuxedo.  He fills the shoes left by his predecessors quite well, and brings his own winking charm and charisma to the role as well.  But the character of James Bond wears somewhat thin by the end of the film, and comes across as more of a cartoon than a character with whom we can relate.  He flies planes, drives tanks, and handles all manner of weaponry so smoothly it’s almost annoying, as if this super-spy can do absolutely no wrong.  Between that and his ability to woo any woman he chooses, Goldeneye is a prime example of escapist male fantasy.  But faulting a James Bond film for being over-the-top is like faulting a Toyota Prius for being too fuel-efficient.

Aside from Brosnan, the supporting cast does an admirable job of portraying their one-dimensional characters.  Sean Bean plays the same character as in most of his movies: The Bad Guy Who Sneers. In this case it’s the sinister Alec Trevelyan, a former MI6 agent gone sour with some post-teenage angst issues that call for some serious counseling.  Famke Janssen and Izabella Scorupco have the thankless task of portraying this film’s female window dressing, and Robbie Coltrane steals every scene he’s in as the mafia boss Valentin Zukovsky.  And while the storyline is convoluted and, at times, undecipherable, it walks a fine line between realistic and outlandish–no heroes dangling over pits of alligators, or megalomaniacal monologuing from the villain, but plenty of unbelievable scenarios peppered by self-deprecating winks that ensure the film resides firmly within the James Bond universe.

Goldeneye essentially accomplished what it set out to do: reinvent the Bond franchise for a new generation, with a slick new star, witty script, and dazzling effects (the St. Petersburg chase is all the more remarkable given that this was filmed before the advent of computer graphics. Everything in the film really is blown up or destroyed, even if it’s just a model).  It became the highest-grossing Bond film up to that point, and set the tone for the franchise for the next decade.  And after seeing Daniel Craig’s moody, boorish portrayal of the spy with a license to kill, watching Goldeneye makes me hope Mr. Craig is out there somewhere taking notes.

Rating:[Rating:4/5]

Filed Under: Action Tagged With: ,

War Horse

January 4, 2012 by

Steven Spielberg has always been a fan of history and science-fiction.  Often the master director will release a big-budget science-fiction blockbuster and a profound historical drama within the same year.  We’ve seen this in 1993 when Jurassic Park dominated the box office and Schindler’s List lifted a Best Picture Oscar.  In 1997 he returned with the Jurassic Park sequel and the overlooked slave drama Amistad.  In 2005 he unleashed Tom Cruise’s greatest worldwide hit War of the Worlds and followed it up with the Oscar-nominated Munich come awards season.

Within a matter of days Spielberg has managed to deliver his first animated film The Adventures of Tintin, an action-adventure closely mirroring Raiders of the Lost Ark, and he now aspires to melt icy hearts with the overtly sentimental War Horse, a World War I drama seen through the eyes of a horse sent off to fight for both the English and Germany.

Set on the eve of WWI, War Horse tells the tale of Joey, a young horse purchased at an auction by Ted Narracott.  Ted is a drunken war veteran and owner of a farm on the verge of financial collapse.  The survival of the farm depends on Joey learning to plow.  Ted’s teenage son, Albert (Jeremy Irvine), develops an instant bond with Joey, and he becomes determined to train the young steed to plow for harvest season.  That determination unsurprisingly pays off until a rainstorm floods the entire field of crops and leaves the Narracott family unable to make ends meet.

Ted sells off Joey to an English regiment officer (Tom Hiddleston) about to leave for war.  Albert flips out, chasing Joey down and pleading for his companion back.  Unable to sway the genuine soldier, Albert promises Joey they will be reunited.  The horse heads off to war and survives a massacre after an intercepting German fleet overruns the ill-advised English troupe.

Joey becomes German property and ultimately finds his way into the hearts of every man overseeing him.  The story has Joey entering and exiting the lives of several different individuals, each drawn to the animal’s power, understanding, and gumption.  From young boy soldiers, to French civilians, to artillery gunmen, Joey persists in survival.

The story eventually returns to Albert having finally entered the war years after we first met him.  We know at some point the story will in fact reunite Joey and Albert, but the journey in getting there is simultaneously beautiful and obtuse.  Spielberg has over-fattened the calf with a 2 and 1/2 hour epic that wastes too much time on thinly drawn characters.  Despite well-intentioned performances from an extended cast, War Horse strays too far from Albert before sticking him back in the thick of the plot.  Joey dominates the proceedings while the humans fade into the background.  The horse being constantly intercepted by a new set of characters only hinders the film because those small side stories never amount to anything substantial.

Since the film is built entirely on coincidence, such as the fact that Joey never encounters a ruthless overseer in his WWI experience, the film falls victim to too much sappiness.   The characters, the writing, the dialogue – all of it bathed in soapy sentimental hogwash where scenes exist and speeches are made to simply extract tears from the viewer.  There’s no authenticity behind it.  Spielberg has walked this territory before, such as Hook and Always, but never masking it as earnest sincerity.

Even though War Horse stalls, it is more a dramatic miscalculation than a complete mess.  When a movie attempts to manufacture emotion rather than draw it out naturally through well-written characters, I tend to immediately disconnect from the narrative.  However, Spielberg’s film still creates lasting imagery that imprints on your mind and sticks with you despite all of the faults.

The film boasts an involving musical score and amazing cinematography.  The combat sequences aren’t shortchanged for all the heart-melting.  A particularly memorable sequence has Joey leaping through an open battlefield, fleeing over trenches of men and nearly escaping before slamming into a heaping of barbed wire.  If prestigious award ceremonies gave out nominations for memorable scenes, War Horse would bring in a few nods.

And what about the horse Joey?  After all he’s the main character of the story.  Really, this isn’t Albert’s story.  This is Joey’s. I’ve heard reports indicating that 8 or so horses were used to portray the character.  It’s a marvelous effort.  Joey comes to life and really delivers as the hero of War Horse, portraying just as much emotion as his human counterparts.  That in and of itself makes War Horse a small miracle worth checking out.

I think many people will overlook the flaws here and end up loving this movie.  I also think many people, like me, will be turned off by how schmaltzy it is.  This isn’t just a tip of the hat to old school filmmaking.  I can appreciate that as much as the next film lover.  The problem is that War Horse boasts a level of schmaltz that detracts from the story.  Spielberg keeps it from being a colossal failure.  His attempts are genuine, but the story is convoluted.  Upon understanding that the source material for the film is a children’s story, I can understand why.  For a gorgeous film that’s minor-Spielberg, a man from which we are burdened with great expectations for, War Horse is both a major and minor disappointment.

[Rating:2.5/5]

 

Filed Under: Drama, War Tagged With: , , , ,

The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn

December 26, 2011 by

Director Steven Spielberg and Producer Peter Jackson collaborate for their marvelous adaptation of The Adventures of Tintin.  As a welcome Christmas gift to fans of the classic long-lived European comics as well as the uninitiated, this is the first motion-capture animated film I can fully praise with an abundance of exclamation points.  Spielberg has directed a sprawling action-adventure film for families that springs with life and leaps with wit.

In the 1940s, young reporter Tintin (Jamie Bell) purchases a model collector’s ship, the Unicorn, that immediately thrusts him into danger.  The model contains a riddle and secret code, but what does it mean and where does it lead?  Accompanied by his trustworthy pup, Snowy, Tintin must elude several dangerous characters seeking to steal his rare artifact.  This leads the young adventurer to Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis), a notorious drunk who may be the key to solving the secret of the Unicorn.

With Tintin, the infamous Steven Spielberg finally returns to light up cinemas following a 3-year absence.  Ironically, this film may have more in common with Raiders of the Lost Ark than his last disappointing outing with the famed archeologist. Tintin is full of exciting mystery and grandiose action sequences, brilliant animation, shades of inviting humor, and a gorgeous 3D presentation.  This is easily the best animated film I’ve seen all year, and contains one of the year’s most entertaining action sequences, live-action or animation.

As for the motion-capture technique, Spielberg and Jackson know what they’re doing here.  I’ve found the work done by Robert Zemeckis (who’s recently been obsessed with the technology) over the last seven years to be a total snooze.  The Polar Express, Beowulf, and Christmas Carol never got it quite right despite painstaking efforts to be sure.  Tintin, however, is a visual marvel.  The animation is spot-on, and the performances behind the characters onscreen, chief among them Jamie Bell, Daniel Craig, and Andy Serkis, are uniformly excellent.

The film ends with the setup for another adventure, and I hope American audiences seek out The Adventures of Tintin, as it is not a well-known property here.  Forget about needing to know anything.  Walk in blind and let the film dazzle you from beginning to end.

[Rating:4.5/5]

 

Filed Under: Action, Animation, Comedy, Family Tagged With: , , , ,
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