Welcome to the confused underbelly of Tim Burton’s wild imagination, and though I wish that would make for an illustrious compliment, the large-scale director has seen his best days over a decade ago and still can’t regain his footing.  Lately the man has been choosing source material (Sweeney Todd, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) so in tune with his sensibilities that I couldn’t dare to dream why ‘Alice in Wonderland,’ perhaps the perfect mold for Burton to shine in, comes off as a lacking spectacle in every way.

Audiences seemed to be ready for this latest incarnation. It has become the biggest film of Burton’s career and marks Johnny Depp’s second film to cross the billion-dollar mark worldwide.  All that to say I can’t imagine anyone being thrilled by such an obnoxiously odd mind-trip that fancies endless oodles of hack-job computer generated visual effects and accomplished actors playing otherworldly versions of children dressed up for the circus.  While “Avatar” seems to have become the end-all to special effects extravaganzas, I think “Alice” really suffers in the wake of James Cameron’s heralded accomplishments.  Burton’s landscape barely makes for comparison, and disappoints in nearly every frame.  However, it seems easy to assume the younger demographic will still be engulfed in this CGI theme park.  But it is a bit odd that Disney went full-steam ahead on a project that lends itself to such dark corners and is a story not well-suited for its target demographic.  The only obvious choice was to saddle Alice (Mia Wasikowska) as a late-teen dreamer caught up in an arranged marriage, needing an escape to a world that awakens her to her own desires.  Down the rabbit hole she goes.

A cast of twisted talent: Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Alan Rickman, Crispin Glover and more get to lend their gravitas to the most outrageous characters.  To go into their detail would seem insignificant, but essentially Alice enters Underland with the assumption that she is in a deep-sleep dream.  Until she wakes up, she must dethrone the Red Queen (Carter) by slaying the dragon Jabberwocky.  In doing so, she will rescue the inhabitants of Underland by giving the crown to the Red Queen’s sister, none of other than the White Queen (Anne Hathaway).  The incomprehensible events leading up to this dual seem to be nonsensical filler for a story that seems to want get to an action climax.  None of it seems fitting for the film, especially the third act’s battle sequence, but every encounter throughout even leading up to this point has so little structure or any driving plot.  Several of the characters are meant to represent real humans in Alice’s world back home, but so little character development is given that this task of associating the characters becomes extremely difficult.  I watched this entire film feeling as though these characters are extras in a stage play without the focus and are compelled to keep doing something so as not to break the illusion, but their actions have no meaning.

This ‘Wonderland’ is not a terrible film by any means.  If the writers had lent just a hint of coherence to the plot, I may have enjoyed it more.  The movie plays out as a sequel without a prequel, with the realization that Wonderland is a real place underneath the earth, and that this teenage Alice has been there before and can’t remember her previous journey.  This reminded me of Steven Spielberg’s “Hook” without any of the, you know, kid-friendly stuff.  It is understandable that the studio had to find a way to connect this film to young teens that turned “Twilight” into such a phenomenon.  The problem is that Mia Wasikowska never makes Alice seem fearful nor enchanted.  She seems content to tread through this world awaiting her waking moment.  Without her pulling me into this journey, despite her talent, I couldn’t react to anything.  Even still, the end result here feels completely phoned in.  Burton has crafted a film a bit edgy and scary for Disney, but not haunting enough to fully connect with Lewis Carrol’s pages.  The visual effects fail to excite the senses, and even the eccentric efforts of Helena Bonham Carter and Johnny Depp feel like a well-worn shirt.  Nothing about the entire film strikes me as though creative effort was put to the test and wrung out for all it was worth, and that’s a major disappointment for a story that commands limitless imagination.

Family Alan Rickman, Anne Hathaway, Crispin Glover, Helena Bonham Carter, Johnny Depp, Mia Wasikowska, Tim Burton

We all gotta start somewhere. Robert Rodriguez, one of the few mainstream directors who could hold his own opposite Quentin Tarantino, began his career with an extremely low-budget film called El Mariachi. He soon followed that with 1995′s Desperado. And while neither film was a cinematic masterpiece (I reviewed the former and latter), they were interesting and somewhat compelling character pieces focusing on a somewhat mysterious wandering mariachi who had a guitar case full of guns and squared off against local drug kingpins.  The third in the Mariachi trilogy, however, is a different story (har!) altogether.

Before I get to the meat of the review, though, take a moment to read the IMDB plot summaries of each.

El Mariachi: A traveling mariachi is mistaken for a murderous criminal and must hide from a gang bent on killing him.

Sounds interesting enough, right?  Simple, effective, and to the point.

Desperado: A gunslinger is embroiled in a war with a local drug runner.

Again, this seems like a decent storyline with room for some good conflicts.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico: Hitman “El Mariachi” becomes involved in international espionage involving a psychotic CIA agent and a corrupt Mexican general.

Wait a second…hitman? International espionage?  psychotic CIA agents and corrupt military officials?  If brevity is the soul of wit, this movie has its work cut out for it.

Antonio Banderas reprises his role as El Mariachi once again. He's ready to bust some heads, but not even he knows why.

I have no problem with thinking big.  In fact, some of my favorite movies are epic in scale.  But big just for the sake of big is usually a recipe for failure.  Unfortunately, like George Lucas cluttering up Star Wars with all sorts of meaningless characters and contrived conflicts in Episode I, Robert Rodriguez took a perfectly good character and transformed his (presumably) final chapter into a mess of politics and poorly-executed government intrigue.  The result is a movie that wanders from character to character, in which the Mariachi himself is almost an afterthought.  Meanwhile, the storyline is so convoluted that it becomes a chore to try and keep up with it all.  “Mexico” is a film that strives for too many things and ultimately succeeds at almost none of them.

With the two previous films there was no doubt about who the central character was: the Mariachi.  In the third film we have a handful of characters to follow:  Agent Sands (Johnny Depp, giving it his level best), the aforementioned “psychotic CIA agent;” Billy (Mickey Rourke), a convicted felon who is trying to right past wrongs; Ajedrez (Eva Mendez), a double-crossing government agent, Barillo (Willem DaFoe), the drug kingpin who is trying to stage a coup and take over the government…and oh yeah, El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas doing an excellent job considering what he has to work with), the mysterious guitar-playing gunslinger who doesn’t actually have much to do with anything.  In fact, it’s as if Rodriguez, who reprised his role as writer and director, constructed a plot about drug kingpins, double agents, government takeovers, and international espionage and then realized he had to find a way to fit his Mariachi character into it somehow.

Mickey Rourke and Willem Dafoe, tackling issues and taking names.

Even the shootouts and gunfights–Rodriguez’ bread and butter, and a hallmark of the Mariachi films–are kind of a mess.  One that takes place inside a cathedral, with the Mariachi defending himself against a small horde of nameless Bad Guys, is stylistically impressive but emotionally empty.  The same can be said for another gunfight in the middle of a crowded street later in the movie, as if Rodriguez knew he had to throw in some violence even though it doesn’t serve much of a purpose for the overall story.  But perhaps the worst transgression of this movie is its treatment of what little there is of the Mariachi character.  The Mariachi from the first two films plays by his own rules, and does what needs to be done.  The Mariachi in Once Upon a Time in Mexico is a government agent who is ostensibly going after the killers of his wife and daughter, but is mostly content to do what he is told by shady operatives.  Worse yet, Rodriguez turns the Mariachi into a parody of himself:  at one point Antonio Banderas literally rides his guitar case like a surfboard down a flight of stairs.  Worse yet, near the end of the film one of the men in his mariachi band pulls out a remote control and literally drives his guitar-case-on-wheels through the streets and underneath a truck, at which point it explodes and kills all the men inside.  I understand Rodriguez’ tongue-in-cheek style, but this is cinematic buffoonery.

There are a few redeeming qualities to be found here, despite the movie’s myriad flaws.  Agent Sands is one of the more interesting characters I have seen onscreen in quite a while, and the plot does have its share of compelling intrigue and backstabbing.  It’s just not very well put together, and doesn’t make for a fitting entry into the Mariachi franchise.

Rating:

Action Antonio Banderas, Johnny Depp, Robert Rodriguez

(Rated R, 143 min). Release Date: July 1, 2009.  Starring: Johnny Depp, Marion Cotillard, Christian Bale, Billy Crudup, Stephen Dorff, Channing Tatum, Leelee Sobieski, Giovanni Ribisi.

Synopsis: The Feds try to take down notorious American gangsters John Dillinger (Johnny Depp), Baby Face Nelson and Pretty Boy Floyd during a booming crime wave in the 1930s. (IMDB)

Review: Michael Mann’s ‘Public Enemies’ arrives just in time this season to remind audiences looking for some smart adult action, they needn’t venture into movies about robots and aliens, or endure John Travolta’s embarrassing rants and whines on a subway train. Instead, they can sit back and watch Johnny Depp, one of the greatest actors around, single-handedly take this movie and breathe life into celluloid.

Now, let’s get this out here right away, however: ‘Public Enemies’ is not a great movie. It’s far from Mann’s ‘Heat’, but it’s luminous when compared to 2006′s ‘Miami Vice’ adaptation.  In fact, I felt much the same way about this movie as I did with Ridley Scott’s ‘American Gangster.’ Now instead of Denzel Washington vs. Russell Crowe, we have Johnny Depp vs. Christian Bale — and the end results are pretty similar.  Both flicks are from master filmmakers, showcasing two stars in the lead performances, and each film is interesting and competently made — but neither sizzle.

‘Public Enemies’ most certainly has two things going for it. Johnny Depp is superb in the role. His Dillinger character is dark, mysterious, but also straight-laced. In fact, Dillinger as a character seems to have been written so mysterious that the audience never fully understands or feels that heroic connection with him. But Depp plays it up even when he’s not given dramatic scenes to shine in.  Michael Mann adds to Depp’s talent. The director cooks up shootouts with great intensity. And I suppose I can’t overlook Marion Cotillard. The Oscar-winning actress has an authentic romance with Depp’s character that never comes off contrived or tacked-on. The audience truly believes in their relationship, and it works.

The drawbacks really extend from the movie not involving the audience as it should. From Christian Bale’s straightforward and uninteresting performance as Agent Melvin Purvis, the man hunting Dillinger, to the confusing supporting characters that are never given the proper distinctive treatment, and finally the lack of excitement in the bank heists — I really wasn’t engrossed in the full spectrum of the picture. I greatly admired Depp’s work, some of the film’s intensity, and much of the ‘hunt’ of the storyline, but I didn’t feel quite as connected to Dillinger’s story and the men surrounding him as I wanted to be.  While those gripes didn’t make this a bad film, because this remains satisfactory work, this isn’t greatness. And from Michael Mann, that’s what I hope for.

GRADE: B-

-MJV & the Movies

Action, Drama Christian Bale, Johnny Depp, Michael Mann