St. Helens has one of the older theatres still operating. When The Maltese Falcon (1941) was a new release it played in St. Helens. A couple weeks ago it did so again. And there was still at least one patron there who had seen it in new release! That was impressive. Even more impressive, they somehow made it into the balcony.
Anyhow, Maltese is a classic movie. It shows a good size stable of character actors at their most effective...Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet in particular...and has Humphrey Bogart in one of his more notable roles. As an example of film noir it is a must-see. The lines are cheesy, many of the characterizations weak, but it really stands out in the plot. The twists and turns are often unforeseen for the first time viewer and you want to see the Falcon, to find out what happened to it. And the ending leaves it wide open for a sequel, something along The Third Man (1949) line where the criminals are the heroes.
The story follows Sam Spade (Bogart) as he tries to solve the murder of his partner Miles Archer (Jerome Cowan) while dodging the police and also dealing with 3 groups trying to access the Maltese Falcon; the gang of Kasper Gutman (Greenstreet) and Wilmer Cook (Elisha Cook Jr.) on one side, Joel Cairo (Lorre) on another, and femme fatale Brigid O' Shaughnessy (Mary Astor) on yet another with Spade being hired by Brigid.
Throughout the movie they spout one-liners ("When you are slapped you will take it and like it" snarls Spade to Wilmer), have melodramatic love scenes, and get to the bottom of a tangled web. If you prefer the acting of today you will not like it, but if you take it at face value it provides an entertaining hour and a half or so with a great finish that really shows why Bogart, Greenstreet and Lorre got so much work.
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Doomsday
Remember the Road Warrior franchise? Somebody thought it would have been better with mass amounts of blood, some decapitations, some blood, burning someone alive, some blood, some decapitations, a weak storyline, some blood, some cannibalism, some blood, and some bloody decapitations. Hence they made Doomsday (2008), the latest in a long line of apocalyptic dystopian films serving as vehicles for political commentary.
Of course, in Doomsday there is no attempt at subtlety. Just to make sure the audience understands the political they have one of their politicos flat out say they intend to let the plague run its course to narrow down the population since there are too many people living in London.
So the plot summation is simple: plague wipes out Scotland, wall built around it, decades later the same plague occurs in London, survivors found in Scotland so combat team sent in to find cure while plague devastates London, team fights a lot, finds unexpected cure, gets it out of Scotland. Now on to the real review.
The people left behind in Scotland when the plague breaks out are victims. They were promised help. That help never comes. Now, normally this would position the survivors as heroes. They have all the earmarks of being heroes; they survive against all odds, they are kept as unwilling prisoners by unscrupulous politicians...however, in this movie they are just cannon fodder. Okay, fair enough. Who doesn't like seeing a few hundred outlandishly clad maniacs mowed down? So they provide the homage to the villains in the Road Warrior series with vehicles and costumes lifted straight out of that or out of The Postman (1997) or a host of other post-apocalyptic flicks.
Yet the heroic doctor who stayed behind to find a cure is no sinecure either. He has set up a kingdom modeled on King Arthur apparently with shades of Roman gladiatorial games. His band of killers is modeled on Vlad the Impaler, the 15th Century King who was the model for Dracula. It was pretty jarring having knights on horses roaming about, then having a one-on-one combat in an arena. So finding the hero of the piece only to find out he is ALSO a psychopathic killer and a villain...well, we were still looking for the heroes of the piece.
The British politicians are shown to have known A) there were survivors, B) there was a cure, and C) the plague would break out again. Yet they did not allow the survivors to be rescued nor the cure to be developed. Clearly they are not the heroes.
So in the end the only heroes are the small group who invades Scotland to find Dr. Kane (Malcom McDowell). Of course, all but 2 of them die, too. Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) is the centerpiece as the story follows her exclusively as one by one she loses her entire team except one guy, rescues Cally (MyAnna Buring) for her representative survivor aka cure, and then goes back to lead the cannibalistic hordes.
One question the movie leaves open has to do with why they became cannibals. There are cow herds reminiscent of the buffalo herds that clogged railroad tracks in 19th century America. Why, then, were they unable to obtain food? Of course, this is just one of many ridiculous moments in the movie. For example, in a Scotland allegedly devoid of all sources of energy for 3 decades there are lots of cards running around, not to mention a steam train. Curiously, these vehicles that have been cobbled together and look like they will fall apart if they hit a speed bump are fast enough to keep up with a brand new, out of the box Mercedes which, in turn, is tough enough to drive through the side of a bus.
So the movie ends up being an excuse for lots of people getting their heads cut off, copious amounts of blood spatters in particularly gruesome death scenes, and a pretty entertaining if nonsensical car chase.
If you really want to see a great dystopian post-apocalyptic film, I can honestly give a strong recommendation. Of course, that recommendation would be to rent the old Road Warrior/Mad Max movies...but at least you get a recommendation.
Of course, in Doomsday there is no attempt at subtlety. Just to make sure the audience understands the political they have one of their politicos flat out say they intend to let the plague run its course to narrow down the population since there are too many people living in London.
So the plot summation is simple: plague wipes out Scotland, wall built around it, decades later the same plague occurs in London, survivors found in Scotland so combat team sent in to find cure while plague devastates London, team fights a lot, finds unexpected cure, gets it out of Scotland. Now on to the real review.
The people left behind in Scotland when the plague breaks out are victims. They were promised help. That help never comes. Now, normally this would position the survivors as heroes. They have all the earmarks of being heroes; they survive against all odds, they are kept as unwilling prisoners by unscrupulous politicians...however, in this movie they are just cannon fodder. Okay, fair enough. Who doesn't like seeing a few hundred outlandishly clad maniacs mowed down? So they provide the homage to the villains in the Road Warrior series with vehicles and costumes lifted straight out of that or out of The Postman (1997) or a host of other post-apocalyptic flicks.
Yet the heroic doctor who stayed behind to find a cure is no sinecure either. He has set up a kingdom modeled on King Arthur apparently with shades of Roman gladiatorial games. His band of killers is modeled on Vlad the Impaler, the 15th Century King who was the model for Dracula. It was pretty jarring having knights on horses roaming about, then having a one-on-one combat in an arena. So finding the hero of the piece only to find out he is ALSO a psychopathic killer and a villain...well, we were still looking for the heroes of the piece.
The British politicians are shown to have known A) there were survivors, B) there was a cure, and C) the plague would break out again. Yet they did not allow the survivors to be rescued nor the cure to be developed. Clearly they are not the heroes.
So in the end the only heroes are the small group who invades Scotland to find Dr. Kane (Malcom McDowell). Of course, all but 2 of them die, too. Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) is the centerpiece as the story follows her exclusively as one by one she loses her entire team except one guy, rescues Cally (MyAnna Buring) for her representative survivor aka cure, and then goes back to lead the cannibalistic hordes.
One question the movie leaves open has to do with why they became cannibals. There are cow herds reminiscent of the buffalo herds that clogged railroad tracks in 19th century America. Why, then, were they unable to obtain food? Of course, this is just one of many ridiculous moments in the movie. For example, in a Scotland allegedly devoid of all sources of energy for 3 decades there are lots of cards running around, not to mention a steam train. Curiously, these vehicles that have been cobbled together and look like they will fall apart if they hit a speed bump are fast enough to keep up with a brand new, out of the box Mercedes which, in turn, is tough enough to drive through the side of a bus.
So the movie ends up being an excuse for lots of people getting their heads cut off, copious amounts of blood spatters in particularly gruesome death scenes, and a pretty entertaining if nonsensical car chase.
If you really want to see a great dystopian post-apocalyptic film, I can honestly give a strong recommendation. Of course, that recommendation would be to rent the old Road Warrior/Mad Max movies...but at least you get a recommendation.
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Semi Pro
Will Ferrell has had a checkered career. I do not know if I just don't "get" his humor or what...maybe it is too sophisticated for me. (Insert eye-roll here). At times he gets into the slapstick which has seldom really amused me. I did not find the 3 Stooges remotely entertaining, for example. Jim Carrey at his best...the face-pulling, over-the-top antics, etc. just makes me want to hurl. And there are elements of that at times in Ferrell's work. Aside from that, perhaps it was just the subject material.
I was not nearly as amused by Old School (2003) for example as most of my friends were...but I can chalk that up to them having lived on campus whereas my university experience was primarily working 40 hours, then going to night classes, then home so I never experienced the bong-driven college party life. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) had its moments but is nothing I feel compelled to inflict on myself again, the eye candy of Christina Applegate aside. In fact, after Anchorman I was on the verge of putting Ferrell on my "save your money, do not see his stuff" list. But then came Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) and my perceptions changed.
It would be easy to credit it to the source material...except I don't really get neck-car racing. I tend to be in the "mock them for turning left" crowd. I do not get...or care about...nuances such as drafting, setting up cars, tire selection, fuel management...to me it is watching cars turn left. I just don't enjoy watching any sort of races.
No, the charm of Talladega Nights was in the story and the characters. It was a funny, funny movie with great, quotable lines. Even today I have the Shake and Bake confrontation and the his going off on "I hope you have sons...handsome, beautiful sons" while in the hospital as ring tones on my phone. He was back on the hot list.
He followed that up with Blades of Glory (2006) which, again, is something where the source material...well, let's just say I have spent more time watching NASCAR than I have watching ice dancing. Blades was pretty funny, though certainly not in the same class as Talladega. The ending veered back into his hyperbole arena for sheer outlandishness and stupidity but the rest of the movie was good enough that I liked it well enough.
So when I saw the previews for Semi Pro (2008) I ignored the lackluster, non-funny trailers and decided to give it a shot. After all, I am a huge basketball fan and loved the old ABA so the source material was good and he seemed to be in a funny arc of sports movies. This one came with a strong supporting cast of players.
Unfortunately it came without strong writers. Ferrell veered back into the realm of "it's funny because I am Will Ferrell" and away from "it is funny so I will play the part". The laughs are few and far between. The quotable lines are all but non-existent with probably the best one coming in an exchange between broadcasters Lou Redwood (Will Arnett) and Dick Pepperfield (Andrew Daly). Redwood constantly does color commentary with a scotch in one hand and cigarette in the other. At one point on their daily television show Pepperfield gets tired of the cigarette smoke:
Pepperfield: "Lou, would you mind putting out that cigarette, it's very unprofessional."
Redwood: "No. I like to smoke when I drink."
Most of the laughs in the movie come not from the dialogue or the acting but rather from the hideous sartorial selections. There are a few exceptions but they are mostly from the supporting cast. Redwood and Pepperfield are by far the funniest characters.
In the end there is a happy ending for about everybody with appropriate amounts of cheese and some nice cameos but overall it was a huge step backwards for Ferrell. Fans of his older movies will probably love this one, those who thought they were pedestrian will not like this one, either. For example, the Goose loved it. I felt like, had I not gotten the Tuesday free popcorn deal it would have been two wasted hours of my life...
I was not nearly as amused by Old School (2003) for example as most of my friends were...but I can chalk that up to them having lived on campus whereas my university experience was primarily working 40 hours, then going to night classes, then home so I never experienced the bong-driven college party life. Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004) had its moments but is nothing I feel compelled to inflict on myself again, the eye candy of Christina Applegate aside. In fact, after Anchorman I was on the verge of putting Ferrell on my "save your money, do not see his stuff" list. But then came Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) and my perceptions changed.
It would be easy to credit it to the source material...except I don't really get neck-car racing. I tend to be in the "mock them for turning left" crowd. I do not get...or care about...nuances such as drafting, setting up cars, tire selection, fuel management...to me it is watching cars turn left. I just don't enjoy watching any sort of races.
No, the charm of Talladega Nights was in the story and the characters. It was a funny, funny movie with great, quotable lines. Even today I have the Shake and Bake confrontation and the his going off on "I hope you have sons...handsome, beautiful sons" while in the hospital as ring tones on my phone. He was back on the hot list.
He followed that up with Blades of Glory (2006) which, again, is something where the source material...well, let's just say I have spent more time watching NASCAR than I have watching ice dancing. Blades was pretty funny, though certainly not in the same class as Talladega. The ending veered back into his hyperbole arena for sheer outlandishness and stupidity but the rest of the movie was good enough that I liked it well enough.
So when I saw the previews for Semi Pro (2008) I ignored the lackluster, non-funny trailers and decided to give it a shot. After all, I am a huge basketball fan and loved the old ABA so the source material was good and he seemed to be in a funny arc of sports movies. This one came with a strong supporting cast of players.
Unfortunately it came without strong writers. Ferrell veered back into the realm of "it's funny because I am Will Ferrell" and away from "it is funny so I will play the part". The laughs are few and far between. The quotable lines are all but non-existent with probably the best one coming in an exchange between broadcasters Lou Redwood (Will Arnett) and Dick Pepperfield (Andrew Daly). Redwood constantly does color commentary with a scotch in one hand and cigarette in the other. At one point on their daily television show Pepperfield gets tired of the cigarette smoke:
Pepperfield: "Lou, would you mind putting out that cigarette, it's very unprofessional."
Redwood: "No. I like to smoke when I drink."
Most of the laughs in the movie come not from the dialogue or the acting but rather from the hideous sartorial selections. There are a few exceptions but they are mostly from the supporting cast. Redwood and Pepperfield are by far the funniest characters.
In the end there is a happy ending for about everybody with appropriate amounts of cheese and some nice cameos but overall it was a huge step backwards for Ferrell. Fans of his older movies will probably love this one, those who thought they were pedestrian will not like this one, either. For example, the Goose loved it. I felt like, had I not gotten the Tuesday free popcorn deal it would have been two wasted hours of my life...
Vantage Point
From time to time a Japanese movie will be so important that it is referred back to again and again and again. One obvious example would be The Seven Samurai (1954), a movie so influential it spawned the four Magnificent Seven movies and a host of others. You will still hear it referred to from time to time as an influence on various action/adventure type movies and occasionally other genres as well.
Even more influential was an early silent, Rashomon (1911), a story that was told multiple times from multiple points of view that each put vastly different spins on it. The concept has been done numerous times with varying levels of success, from the slightly shifted take on it in Run Lola Run (1998) to the animated Little Red Riding Hood riff Hoodwinked (2005) and now the latest entry in the genre, Vantage Point (2008).
Vantage Point is the story of an attempted assassination/kidnapping/assassination of the U.S. President by an unnamed dissident group during an anti-terrorism conference in Spain. 1 20 or 30 minute sequence of events is told repeatedly from a variety of angles...Secret Service Agent, President, media hack, various conspirators...and each time the story is told a bit more is revealed and often from an angle that shifts the meaning of events, sometimes subtlety and sometimes quite seriously.
This is particularly used to make the Spanish cop look by turns guilty, innocent, more innocent, guilty, and dead...which reveals both the strengths and weaknesses of Rashomon type films. On the one hand the various viewpoints provide a refreshing way of viewing a story...the non-linear development allows an otherwise basic, by the numbers spy thriller to become a fascinating story, though the repetitiveness can wear on you after a while. It also allows you to spot clues if you are paying attention and allows the director some freedom to hide the good guy or bad guy nature of particular characters until the last possible second. That tension adds to the enjoyment of the movie. At the same time, the weakness would be in the dreaded loose thread. If you are the type of moviegoer who wants to know what happened to Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer) at the end of Heat (1995) then things such as the ultimate decision on this character...Javier? (Edgar Ramirez)...is he a good guy or bad guy? When that is left hanging, you might not like it. And that is one weakness of these stories for some viewers as many threads simply cannot be carried through to the conclusion. On the other hand, if you do not mind loose threads then that can be a strength. You can choose to regard Javier as a hero who was betrayed by his girlfriend and martyred at the end or you can see him as a villain who participated in the plot and got his just due at the end.
Overall the acting was pretty solid with one interesting exception. Forest Whitaker plays Howard Lewis, an estranged husband touring Europe who is videotaping the speech of the President. I have seen Whitaker in a lot of movies and he is, as a general rule, a really solid actor. For whatever reason in Vantage Point director Pete Travis elects to have him portray a childlike buffoon who drools in delight over the most mundane things...his facial expressions and verbal cues sound like a 4 year old receiving a helium balloon. His sense of childlike wonder at everything he sees would be well understood if he were 12 and scoping out the Grand Canyon...but on a middle age man it was so out of place. The internal mood of the movie was dark and gritty with bombs, blood, carnage...and mixed in with that you have a guy in a Disney feel good setting doing the Jim Carrey Overactors Anonymous recovery session. Again, I have seen Whitaker often enough to know this was on the director, not the actor.
Be that as it may, Vantage Point was an interesting flick. The clues were there early as to who the turncoat was...I actually had him pegged from his first line as a suspect and was sure about him before the first run-through...but not everyone picked up on those clues. Some of the other good/bad guys were less obvious and the political commentary was pretty heavy without always being heavy handed.
Best of all, the movie delivered what it should even with the ham-handed acting and politics...it entertained from beginning to end including a spectacular car chase that would make a lot of top car chase of all time lists if not for the insipid ending to it...as the Goose pointed out it is a bit unbelievable that terrorists who would bomb and kill thousands of people, shoot others at will, and just generally show little to no regard for human life would swerve so hard that they roll their rig because a little girl stood in the road. No, they would have pile driven her and kept on going. So there could have been a better end to the car chase, but for all that it was a fun, entertaining movie.
Even more influential was an early silent, Rashomon (1911), a story that was told multiple times from multiple points of view that each put vastly different spins on it. The concept has been done numerous times with varying levels of success, from the slightly shifted take on it in Run Lola Run (1998) to the animated Little Red Riding Hood riff Hoodwinked (2005) and now the latest entry in the genre, Vantage Point (2008).
Vantage Point is the story of an attempted assassination/kidnapping/assassination of the U.S. President by an unnamed dissident group during an anti-terrorism conference in Spain. 1 20 or 30 minute sequence of events is told repeatedly from a variety of angles...Secret Service Agent, President, media hack, various conspirators...and each time the story is told a bit more is revealed and often from an angle that shifts the meaning of events, sometimes subtlety and sometimes quite seriously.
This is particularly used to make the Spanish cop look by turns guilty, innocent, more innocent, guilty, and dead...which reveals both the strengths and weaknesses of Rashomon type films. On the one hand the various viewpoints provide a refreshing way of viewing a story...the non-linear development allows an otherwise basic, by the numbers spy thriller to become a fascinating story, though the repetitiveness can wear on you after a while. It also allows you to spot clues if you are paying attention and allows the director some freedom to hide the good guy or bad guy nature of particular characters until the last possible second. That tension adds to the enjoyment of the movie. At the same time, the weakness would be in the dreaded loose thread. If you are the type of moviegoer who wants to know what happened to Chris Shiherlis (Val Kilmer) at the end of Heat (1995) then things such as the ultimate decision on this character...Javier? (Edgar Ramirez)...is he a good guy or bad guy? When that is left hanging, you might not like it. And that is one weakness of these stories for some viewers as many threads simply cannot be carried through to the conclusion. On the other hand, if you do not mind loose threads then that can be a strength. You can choose to regard Javier as a hero who was betrayed by his girlfriend and martyred at the end or you can see him as a villain who participated in the plot and got his just due at the end.
Overall the acting was pretty solid with one interesting exception. Forest Whitaker plays Howard Lewis, an estranged husband touring Europe who is videotaping the speech of the President. I have seen Whitaker in a lot of movies and he is, as a general rule, a really solid actor. For whatever reason in Vantage Point director Pete Travis elects to have him portray a childlike buffoon who drools in delight over the most mundane things...his facial expressions and verbal cues sound like a 4 year old receiving a helium balloon. His sense of childlike wonder at everything he sees would be well understood if he were 12 and scoping out the Grand Canyon...but on a middle age man it was so out of place. The internal mood of the movie was dark and gritty with bombs, blood, carnage...and mixed in with that you have a guy in a Disney feel good setting doing the Jim Carrey Overactors Anonymous recovery session. Again, I have seen Whitaker often enough to know this was on the director, not the actor.
Be that as it may, Vantage Point was an interesting flick. The clues were there early as to who the turncoat was...I actually had him pegged from his first line as a suspect and was sure about him before the first run-through...but not everyone picked up on those clues. Some of the other good/bad guys were less obvious and the political commentary was pretty heavy without always being heavy handed.
Best of all, the movie delivered what it should even with the ham-handed acting and politics...it entertained from beginning to end including a spectacular car chase that would make a lot of top car chase of all time lists if not for the insipid ending to it...as the Goose pointed out it is a bit unbelievable that terrorists who would bomb and kill thousands of people, shoot others at will, and just generally show little to no regard for human life would swerve so hard that they roll their rig because a little girl stood in the road. No, they would have pile driven her and kept on going. So there could have been a better end to the car chase, but for all that it was a fun, entertaining movie.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Jumper
The previews for Jumper at first looked quite good. It looked like David Rice (Hayden Christensen) would be battling fellow jumper Griffin (Jamie Bell) in a teleporting battle of epic proportions. How exactly the Paladin Roland (Samuel L. Jackson) fit in was not quite clear but the general outline had Rice romancing eye-candy Millie (Rachel Bilson), protecting her from Griffin and maybe Roland working with Griffin to take down Rice.
The movie started out with a tough sell. Rice does a voice-over in which he says, "I was once a nobody...a chump like you" or something along that line but he clearly refers to the audience as chumps. Not exactly a great way to get the audience to empathize with him or root for him as the hero.
Flashback to when he is 15. He makes shy, awkward social gaffs that result in him being first ridiculed by the class bully and then him nearly drowning and accidentally discovering his ability to teleport. He leaves a gift so Millie knows he isn't dead and disappears from her life.
In another voice-over he says something like, "I was 15. What would you have done?" to justify his bank-robbery. So far they have not done a lot to endear this character to us. He has looked by turns arrogant, pathetic, and whiny. Not exactly the makings of a modern day Errol Flynn here. Then again, choosing the guy who made Darth Vader look like a whining, weak character to play your lead may not be great casting anyway...
The next few scenes show him touring the world. Leaving his New York apartment he appears on the clock hand of Big Ben. And this is one of the real problems with the movie.
They have no clearly defined rules for the jump. They say to jump you have to have been to a place before. Can someone kindly explain to me how he could have been on the hand of Big Ben in London? Or on top of the Sphinx? Or... but apparently, if you get CLOSE to a place and can SEE it, then you can jump there...sometimes. But only for certain lengths of jump...and SOMETIMES if something is in the way it will knock you down as the tree does to Rice when he is learning to jump. Oh, and you can also jump after someone who has just jumped by following their jump scar. Or you can jump if...
In other words, they set up the rule you can only jump to a place you have previously been, then get written into a corner or just want a shot of a guy hanging off the Big Ben clock or eating on the Phoenix and add that rule and so forth. So there is no rhyme or reason to when or where they can jump or why they can't jump.
Come to think of it, that describes most of the movie...there is very little rhyme or reason to things. Paladins hate jumpers because they can jump. There is a throw-away line that the Paladins are "right wing religious fanatics" and loose lip service is paid to that by having Roland say, "Only God should have that power" 2 or 3 times...but it is at best a very loose reason to chase Jumpers for hundreds of years. Very, very weak motivation. Yet someone is financing the Paladins as evidenced by their ability to fly around the world at a whim, drive very expensive cars, develop and use prohibitively expensive equipment. Other than having no believable motivation or source of income they serve only to provide foils for the jumpers. Without conflict there is no movie...
So just to hammer home the point that real motivations, believable actions, and coherent plots have no business in this flick Rice returns home to Detroit after 8 years and things pick up right where they left off 8 years previously. Mark Kobold (Teddy Dunn) recognises Rice, calls him names, acts like a high school bully...even though he should now be out of college. Millie, after not seeing him for 8 years, instantly leaves her job in the bar to fly to Rome with him...11 hours after meeting again they are in a hotel room together in Rome.
Now, I am a big believer in suspending disbelief in movies. I happily watched a semi outrun a collapsing freeway, a cab blow up a helicopter, a genius who could shut down the government send out his minions one by one in Live Free or Die Hard (2007) without batting an eyelid...because those things were internally consistent within the movie. Jumper did not bother with internal consistency...or, for that matter, having a likable main character. I would even argue the only LIKABLE character in the flick is Griffin.
After Griffin rescues (for no discernible reason) Rice and Millie from Paladins in the Colosseum and promises to help Rice (during a mad-cap, violent, bizarre car drive through China for no apparent reason other than to offer exposition) against the Paladins, Rice and Griffin separate; Rice to rescue Millie and Griffin to arm himself. Yet another inexplicable thing; in Rome Griffin packed a bat. For this he grabs...wait for it...a flame-thrower. Why would he not carry a gun some times...like, all the time, knowing these Paladins are trying to kill him and he wants to return the favor? The baseball bat was fun but non-sensical. After an interesting battle in his lair with Roland Millie gets captured.
Griffin and Rice then argue over whether to bomb the Paladins into oblivion. Rice seizes the remote, Griffin chases him to get it back and they engage in an admittedly entertaining jump-battle over a remote that has a very strange ending that leaves Griffin theoretically alive, though incapacitated in an electrical transformer. Why does Rice turn on him? Sure, I get the "Millie will die if you set off a bomb" but several possible ways for them to still work together exist...none of which they examine for no apparent reason.
Well, after defeating Griffin Rice heads off to rescue Millie from the Paladins. Despite his skillful defeat of Griffin, he walks into a trap so elementary even Fettermen would have seen it coming. Whatever. He then proceeds to, without explanation, escape the devices that scramble his ability to jump. Again, no internal consistency.
Whatever. The heavily advertised, barely there Diane Lane, playing his mother Mary Rice, turns out to be a Paladin who will give him a head start. Nothing really says love quite so much as a mother saying, in effect, "Oh, I hate you enough to kill you but I will give you a head start in the chase because you are my son and I love you". So at the end of the movie Millie and Rice jump away knowing Mary will chase them, Griffin is probably still alive and will want vengeance, and Roland is still alive. So yeah.,..expect a sequel. Hope it is better than this one. And makes more sense.
Too bad. This could have been a great movie. It nearly was. The only things standing between this movie and greatness are sensible motivations, likable heroes, intelligent plots, internal consistency, good acting, and some relationship between the billing of the actors involved and the amount of screen time they get. Other than those things it was half-way to being perfect.
On the bright side, Griffin is just plain fun, the special effects are fun, and the premise is fun. So there is potential.
The movie started out with a tough sell. Rice does a voice-over in which he says, "I was once a nobody...a chump like you" or something along that line but he clearly refers to the audience as chumps. Not exactly a great way to get the audience to empathize with him or root for him as the hero.
Flashback to when he is 15. He makes shy, awkward social gaffs that result in him being first ridiculed by the class bully and then him nearly drowning and accidentally discovering his ability to teleport. He leaves a gift so Millie knows he isn't dead and disappears from her life.
In another voice-over he says something like, "I was 15. What would you have done?" to justify his bank-robbery. So far they have not done a lot to endear this character to us. He has looked by turns arrogant, pathetic, and whiny. Not exactly the makings of a modern day Errol Flynn here. Then again, choosing the guy who made Darth Vader look like a whining, weak character to play your lead may not be great casting anyway...
The next few scenes show him touring the world. Leaving his New York apartment he appears on the clock hand of Big Ben. And this is one of the real problems with the movie.
They have no clearly defined rules for the jump. They say to jump you have to have been to a place before. Can someone kindly explain to me how he could have been on the hand of Big Ben in London? Or on top of the Sphinx? Or... but apparently, if you get CLOSE to a place and can SEE it, then you can jump there...sometimes. But only for certain lengths of jump...and SOMETIMES if something is in the way it will knock you down as the tree does to Rice when he is learning to jump. Oh, and you can also jump after someone who has just jumped by following their jump scar. Or you can jump if...
In other words, they set up the rule you can only jump to a place you have previously been, then get written into a corner or just want a shot of a guy hanging off the Big Ben clock or eating on the Phoenix and add that rule and so forth. So there is no rhyme or reason to when or where they can jump or why they can't jump.
Come to think of it, that describes most of the movie...there is very little rhyme or reason to things. Paladins hate jumpers because they can jump. There is a throw-away line that the Paladins are "right wing religious fanatics" and loose lip service is paid to that by having Roland say, "Only God should have that power" 2 or 3 times...but it is at best a very loose reason to chase Jumpers for hundreds of years. Very, very weak motivation. Yet someone is financing the Paladins as evidenced by their ability to fly around the world at a whim, drive very expensive cars, develop and use prohibitively expensive equipment. Other than having no believable motivation or source of income they serve only to provide foils for the jumpers. Without conflict there is no movie...
So just to hammer home the point that real motivations, believable actions, and coherent plots have no business in this flick Rice returns home to Detroit after 8 years and things pick up right where they left off 8 years previously. Mark Kobold (Teddy Dunn) recognises Rice, calls him names, acts like a high school bully...even though he should now be out of college. Millie, after not seeing him for 8 years, instantly leaves her job in the bar to fly to Rome with him...11 hours after meeting again they are in a hotel room together in Rome.
Now, I am a big believer in suspending disbelief in movies. I happily watched a semi outrun a collapsing freeway, a cab blow up a helicopter, a genius who could shut down the government send out his minions one by one in Live Free or Die Hard (2007) without batting an eyelid...because those things were internally consistent within the movie. Jumper did not bother with internal consistency...or, for that matter, having a likable main character. I would even argue the only LIKABLE character in the flick is Griffin.
After Griffin rescues (for no discernible reason) Rice and Millie from Paladins in the Colosseum and promises to help Rice (during a mad-cap, violent, bizarre car drive through China for no apparent reason other than to offer exposition) against the Paladins, Rice and Griffin separate; Rice to rescue Millie and Griffin to arm himself. Yet another inexplicable thing; in Rome Griffin packed a bat. For this he grabs...wait for it...a flame-thrower. Why would he not carry a gun some times...like, all the time, knowing these Paladins are trying to kill him and he wants to return the favor? The baseball bat was fun but non-sensical. After an interesting battle in his lair with Roland Millie gets captured.
Griffin and Rice then argue over whether to bomb the Paladins into oblivion. Rice seizes the remote, Griffin chases him to get it back and they engage in an admittedly entertaining jump-battle over a remote that has a very strange ending that leaves Griffin theoretically alive, though incapacitated in an electrical transformer. Why does Rice turn on him? Sure, I get the "Millie will die if you set off a bomb" but several possible ways for them to still work together exist...none of which they examine for no apparent reason.
Well, after defeating Griffin Rice heads off to rescue Millie from the Paladins. Despite his skillful defeat of Griffin, he walks into a trap so elementary even Fettermen would have seen it coming. Whatever. He then proceeds to, without explanation, escape the devices that scramble his ability to jump. Again, no internal consistency.
Whatever. The heavily advertised, barely there Diane Lane, playing his mother Mary Rice, turns out to be a Paladin who will give him a head start. Nothing really says love quite so much as a mother saying, in effect, "Oh, I hate you enough to kill you but I will give you a head start in the chase because you are my son and I love you". So at the end of the movie Millie and Rice jump away knowing Mary will chase them, Griffin is probably still alive and will want vengeance, and Roland is still alive. So yeah.,..expect a sequel. Hope it is better than this one. And makes more sense.
Too bad. This could have been a great movie. It nearly was. The only things standing between this movie and greatness are sensible motivations, likable heroes, intelligent plots, internal consistency, good acting, and some relationship between the billing of the actors involved and the amount of screen time they get. Other than those things it was half-way to being perfect.
On the bright side, Griffin is just plain fun, the special effects are fun, and the premise is fun. So there is potential.
Definitely, Maybe
How do you turn the story of a guy getting divorced telling his daughter the story of his pathetic, failure-laden dating history and failed idealistic career that started in politics and ended in newspaper advertising into something interesting for the audience?
Flashbacks. Lots of flashbacks. Now, from time to time the flashback or the using of cuts from a fictionalized story to the "real-life" story can work...it was used to good effect in The Princess Bride (1987) for example. Other times it is just annoying. This had a bit of each. Whenever they wrote themselves into a corner they simply flashed to "real life" and basically reset the movie.
Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) tries to be likable...but it is hard when he puts his career ahead of his college flame, cheats on every girl he is dating, and will give up nothing himself. There are interesting dilemmas such as when his girlfriend writes an ethically correct article that derails the chances for the candidate Will is working for...and he dumps her over it. Right? Wrong? There are several possible answers and Definitely, Maybe (2008) wisely does not try to answer it. Nor does it answer the brilliant question posed by Maya Hayes (Abigail Breslin).
First she asks why Will fell in love in the first place to which he gives a pat answer variation on, "she was smart, funny, and pretty" to which Maya asks something along the lines of "So when and why did she stop being smart and funny?"
There is no good answer to that one, is there? Sometimes I suppose it just happens. The movie never explores it but does come up with a typical improbable yet believable within the framework of the movie solution to make sure everyone goes home happy.
Abigail Breslin is turning into the go-to girl for sad-toned romantic comedies such as No Reservations (2007) and this...but she has the sad, pathetic look to go with it. She turns the mood somewhat more somber than it would otherwise be...though how happy you want a child to appear whose beloved mother was killed (No Reservations) in a car accident or whose parents are divorcing in this one is an open question. She does a creditable job, however.
The story, once broken down from the flashbacks, is pretty mundane and the interest comes primarily from the flashback angle. The acting is okay, with the best scenes coming from Hunter S. Thompson rip-off Hampton Roth (Kevin Kline). The cinematography is fine, not too distracting and overall, it is fine for what it is...a movie intended to make money by being released at the right time instead of by being a good movie.
Flashbacks. Lots of flashbacks. Now, from time to time the flashback or the using of cuts from a fictionalized story to the "real-life" story can work...it was used to good effect in The Princess Bride (1987) for example. Other times it is just annoying. This had a bit of each. Whenever they wrote themselves into a corner they simply flashed to "real life" and basically reset the movie.
Will Hayes (Ryan Reynolds) tries to be likable...but it is hard when he puts his career ahead of his college flame, cheats on every girl he is dating, and will give up nothing himself. There are interesting dilemmas such as when his girlfriend writes an ethically correct article that derails the chances for the candidate Will is working for...and he dumps her over it. Right? Wrong? There are several possible answers and Definitely, Maybe (2008) wisely does not try to answer it. Nor does it answer the brilliant question posed by Maya Hayes (Abigail Breslin).
First she asks why Will fell in love in the first place to which he gives a pat answer variation on, "she was smart, funny, and pretty" to which Maya asks something along the lines of "So when and why did she stop being smart and funny?"
There is no good answer to that one, is there? Sometimes I suppose it just happens. The movie never explores it but does come up with a typical improbable yet believable within the framework of the movie solution to make sure everyone goes home happy.
Abigail Breslin is turning into the go-to girl for sad-toned romantic comedies such as No Reservations (2007) and this...but she has the sad, pathetic look to go with it. She turns the mood somewhat more somber than it would otherwise be...though how happy you want a child to appear whose beloved mother was killed (No Reservations) in a car accident or whose parents are divorcing in this one is an open question. She does a creditable job, however.
The story, once broken down from the flashbacks, is pretty mundane and the interest comes primarily from the flashback angle. The acting is okay, with the best scenes coming from Hunter S. Thompson rip-off Hampton Roth (Kevin Kline). The cinematography is fine, not too distracting and overall, it is fine for what it is...a movie intended to make money by being released at the right time instead of by being a good movie.
Rambo
Rambo (2008) has a unique feeling to it. That feeling builds if you saw Rocky Balboa (2007). The same paradigm is in effect here. An aging Sylvester Stallone is revisiting his star-making roles as John Rambo and Rocky Balboa to bring closure to them. Rocky was about leaving the character in a place the fans could feel good about. This time he was not helping someone else, he was the centerpiece of the movie and it showed that he was done as a movie character. Now Stallone wants to do the same for Rambo.
In this movie review you won't hear the names of any character or actor other than John Rambo (Rocky Balboa) because they are not important to the story. The missionary girl provides some undefined, tenuous reason for Rambo to dust off his trusty bow and go to war to rescue some other missionaries he doesn't like or care about. Along the way a few political comments are thrown in, mostly to the effect that people trying to do good deeds such as bringing education, religion, or medical help to people without packing guns are not changing anything.
Meanwhile, Rambo himself is a tormented soul unwilling to find out if he is able to go home and clear things up with his family. While he considers it he joins some mercenaries in a rescue of the captured missionaries, blows lots of things up, fires lots of bullets and arrows, rigs booby traps, and basically clear-cuts a few square miles of jungle with bullets and claymore mines.
After the blood it ends with him walking back up the lane to his United States house with the implication he is, at last, able to find peace with himself and at home.
As an action movie there is too much pondering and as a character study there is too much over the top action. As an end to the Rambo series, however, it fits and makes sense. If you are a Rambo fan this is a must-see, if you are an action fan it is a see on a slow night, and if you are neither...well, you won't like this much. Implausible characters, bad dialogue, confusing interactions, and cheap shots at good-hearted people just combine to be too much to overcome.
In this movie review you won't hear the names of any character or actor other than John Rambo (Rocky Balboa) because they are not important to the story. The missionary girl provides some undefined, tenuous reason for Rambo to dust off his trusty bow and go to war to rescue some other missionaries he doesn't like or care about. Along the way a few political comments are thrown in, mostly to the effect that people trying to do good deeds such as bringing education, religion, or medical help to people without packing guns are not changing anything.
Meanwhile, Rambo himself is a tormented soul unwilling to find out if he is able to go home and clear things up with his family. While he considers it he joins some mercenaries in a rescue of the captured missionaries, blows lots of things up, fires lots of bullets and arrows, rigs booby traps, and basically clear-cuts a few square miles of jungle with bullets and claymore mines.
After the blood it ends with him walking back up the lane to his United States house with the implication he is, at last, able to find peace with himself and at home.
As an action movie there is too much pondering and as a character study there is too much over the top action. As an end to the Rambo series, however, it fits and makes sense. If you are a Rambo fan this is a must-see, if you are an action fan it is a see on a slow night, and if you are neither...well, you won't like this much. Implausible characters, bad dialogue, confusing interactions, and cheap shots at good-hearted people just combine to be too much to overcome.
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