Sucker Punch

Sucker Punch (2011) - Zack Snyder

I love Sucker Punch the way Touchy the reformed Molesto-Clown loves summer vacation at an all-boys' Catholic elementary school (or all-girls' school; I'm not going to discriminate): he loves it, but he knows he shouldn't, and secretly there's a pang of shame...but that sadly won't stop him. NOTHING CAN STOP HIM. HE IS ALWAYS WITH YOU. HE EATS YOUR SMILES. YOUR FROWNS AND SCREAMS BRING HIM CLOSER....(*cough*) Sorry about that...

I'm seriously torn with this film, and it boils down to two things: the movie is awesome visually, very much an exercise in style; however, it is cheap exploitation wrapped up in a slightly-heavy-handed preachy "grrl power" message that comes off as slightly trite. However...it's so visually beautiful and full of great moments that I still like it. It's...so...difficult having an opinion about something that is paradoxical...
Or is it?
Emily Browning stars as Baby Doll, a 20-year-old girl institutionalized by her abusive stepfather (Gerard Plunkett) looking to get a hold of her inheritance after her mother dies. Once institutionalized, her papers are forged by the corrupt lead orderly Blue Jones (Oscar Isaacs) in order to get her admitted for a lobotomy. Baby Doll conjures up an invented reality wherein she and the other patients of the institution are actually imprisoned in a brothel, and within this reality she conjures up a plan for escape, utilizing the help of Sweet Pea (Abbie Cornish), Rocket (Jena Malone), Blondie (Vanessa Hudgens) and Amber (Emily Cheung). Within this imagined reality, Baby Doll conjures yet another alternate reality, wherein the quests to acquire the tools of their escape are visualized as literal battles in strange, alien lands. The film keeps this charade up rather well, until abandoning it at the end of the second act, which is something I wish hadn't happened. Even though the audience knows how the ending is going to play out (and happily forgets the set-up until the last 5 minutes of the film), we're still excited to see how Baby Doll is going to get out of the institution (or brothel, as it's that reality that's really at play in the film, and not the institution part).
This is a case of a fantasy within a fantasy (within a fantasy: the film itself opens up on a stage, whereupon the events of the opening scene of the film play out.) In fact, nothing about this film is real, and, perhaps, nothing in it matters because it never really happened (even in the context of the film's reality: again, the film begins on a stage. It's almost as if everyone and everything in the film knows it's inconsequential and they're just joyfully eschewing any sort of pretense otherwise). That being said, it was still a blast to watch the escalating set-pieces (my favorite being the steampunk WWI trench battle scene replete with bunny-faced mech suit. Wow...that is a sentence that describes something I can watch...), and it's truly during these sequences that the film flourishes. In fact, if the film had been a series of vignettes with the main characters just hopping from reality to reality and fighting hordes after hordes of monsters...I would not have complained. Sort of a live-action Heavy Metal...)
Speaking of which...
I'm not entirely sure how to address the exploitation of the girls in this film. I say "girls" and not "women" because they're designed to look much much younger than they are (Baby Doll is 20, but she looks about 11), and despite that, they're still very much invested in how sexy they can appear while still kicking ass. I take this to be more an attempt to facilitate the male fantasy of what we wish ass-kicking women looked and acted like (not to say that Ellen Ripley or Emma Peel or Honey Rider or Bonnie Parker or Beatrix Kiddo don't have their place in the list of badass women...), a direct result of the influx and influence of comic books in our modern film culture. At the same time though, while the girls are sexualized in their attire, they're not sexualized entirely in their attitudes: they use the prospect of sex (rather than the act itself) to influence others and achieve their goals, and the one aspect of the film that should be the most vividly sexual prospect, the one thing that stops every character in their tracks and in fact propels the plot (and perpetuates the fantasies), is in fact never seen: Baby Doll's dance. We can only imagine what it is based on the reactions of everyone else in the film...but that's all we can do: imagine it. After watching a bunny-face mechsuit trample steampunk Germans, or a dragons chase down a prop-driven bomber, or a lone girl take on and defeat 3 giant stone samurai, there shouldn't be much else to imagine. And it would be weird for me to even point out the sexism and exploitative nature of the film, because that might be the point: all of Baby Doll's fantasies involve images of exploited girls...even the ones where they're the heroes and kicking fantastic ass. Although this might be just the male mind imagining what an exploited girl might imagine herself imagining? Perhaps. Or maybe it's just good old fashioned exploitation? An elaborate exploitation film given a massive budget and special effects and great production design and gussied up as a fantasy film, but actually slightly more tasteful than the exploitative films of the 1970's because...well...no women get raped? And all the violence is imagined?
Maybe the film just relishes being exploitative because, well, fuck it, let's not tiptoe around pleasing everyone nowadays, let's not be polite and inoffensive and safe. Maybe Joe Wright is correct in calling this film "bullshit" and "exploitation disguised as empowerment"....it's still a damn good ride, as good a damn ride as his Hanna was, but without the goofy plot point (still not revealing what it is in Hanna). To me, this is a much more tame version of the resurgence of the exploitative thriller genre, much as Death Proof and Kill Bill were. And you know what? I'm okay with that. The film itself acknowledges the fact that it is a fantasy, and if we, the audience, can't remember that when the movie starts off onstage, then we shouldn't be going to the movies should we?
Anyway...
The production design is beautiful on this film, and editor William Hoy and cinematographer Larry Fong create beautiful counterpoints to each other. The Zach-Snyder-slo-mo action is in full effect here, but here it seems oddly necessary (unlike in Watchmen, where it seriously should have been avoided at all costs): revving the action as he does works not to make it more exciting, but to make it more fantastic. However, there were a few shots where this effect created some seriously stunning images, such as Baby Doll performing a backflip in the air as flames explode in the background; or the sword-cam (if you see the movie, you'll know what I mean). Snyder stages the action with a bit more clarity this time around (aside from the Jupiter train heist), and Tyler Bates' and Marius de Vries' score, while understated for most of the film, compliments the set pieces perfectly (true, most of the music cues are covers of pop songs, but they're still utilized damned well...the use "Tomorrow Never Knows" during the train heist added the aural kick to the visual one.) This is very much an art department movie...which, again is fine, so long as the final result is as beautiful as this.
One can almost count down all the references to pop culture that the film plays with and employs: zombies? Check. Steampunk? Check. Anime? Check? Dragons/fantasy? Check. Science fiction? Check. The film is a complete hodgepodge of all the visually tasty goodness that makes pop culture exciting and refreshing. Snyder creates something out of the mishmash of disparate parts, something visually exciting to look at, and at least flirting with an interesting subtext (although I do wish Tarantino would utilize this ability more often: enough with the movie mix-tapes, and let's get back to telling an interesting story. Give us another Jackie Brown! Okay...well, give me another one...)
The film does have its flaws. Again, the most glaring is the exploitation, but if you can get past that, then the next is the makeup. I know it's supposed to look gaudy and staged...but still Carla Gugino's "mole" was too fucking distracting, and her accent unbearable. And it might seem odd for me to say this after praising it two paragraphs ago, but the use of "Sweet Dreams" for the opening scene seemed to be much too obvious (although it wasn't as horrible as Snyder's use of "Hallelujah" in Watchmen...wow. That was horrible). I know Snyder isn't known for his subtlety, but still...the last act abandons the pretense of the previous two, forgoing with the "action fantasy" aspect of Baby Doll's fantasy, and instead just staying in the "stuck in a brothel" fantasy. After going all-out for so long, I wish it would have stayed in that realm for just a bit longer. And, finally...Jon Hamm's character. I won't reveal what he does, but at the end, he displays (and then talks about, excessively) a bit of doubt that he'd had. He does a pretty important job in the film, and apparently his character had been doing this job for a while, and had been wondering why he had been called so often. But yet, he just continues with what he does, and doesn't talk about any doubt or worries he'd been having until it's much too late. Also, the fucking voice-over that bookends the film. Get rid of it, just walk out of the theater after the last shot, before it starts up. Talk about heavy-handed.
You know, now that I think of it, I think this truly is meant to be an empowering "grrl power" sort of film...it just got developed by a director who cannot do (and seems incapable of doing) subtlety. My biggest qualm with Watchmen was its overacting (for the most part) and the rote characterizations (especially for Rorschach). That film glorified the violence where the source material didn't...it wasn't making the characters or violence (or even the plot) over-the-top or theatrical or exciting. It just was. Like real life, the characters and situations just occurred and that was that: it was complex and messy. The film seemed to telegraph how the audience was to respond and react (remember when Rorschach killed his first victim? Read the graphic novel to see how much more creepy and complex a character he should have been). And 300...well, I hate that movie. Here, the film is honestly trying to empower its characters, but it does so with the wit and sophistication of a 12-year-old boy. Again, I'm okay with that, knowing that that's just the sort of director that Snyder is. His heart is in the right place, and he put on a great show, but at the end of the day, it's just pretty girls doing kick-ass things to an impressive soundtrack and visuals. He just doesn't seem to know how to be nuanced, or how to create any subtlety at all. Maybe that's why that awful voice over is there.

It was a good show, it's ABOUT TIME Jena Malone shows up on the radar again, and I, for the life of me, want a mech suit. I just hope Snyder manages to bring something much more subdued to The Man Of Steel...if I go see it, that is. I'm kind of done with the Superman origin onscreen...and I'm WELL beyond being done with Zod. Man.

Inception

Inception, (2010) - Christopher Nolan

Just look at that fucking trailer...
Alright, it's about time I review this sucker...

Inception is not that confusing of a movie. I start my review thus, as I feel that the most resounding expression I hear from those to have seen it is "It's so confusing!". I don't think it is, but perhaps that's a result of my having weaned myself on the non-linear timeline films, such as Rashomon, Christopher Nolan's own Memento, and all of Quentin Tarantino. And, no, Inception has no instance of a skewed timeline to be confusing in that regard, but in a narrative sense it seems just as dense as those films, if just more emotionally distant and cold, and considerably more self-contained. Is it a good movie though? Yes. It is undeniably good, and is one of the most entertaining big-budget movies this year, and possibly the best blockbuster of the summer (though not as fun as Scott Pilgrim or The Expendables).

However, that being said, it's fairly straight-forward, and all the talk of "It's so confusing!", or "I was lost the whole time", I just can't understand. Sure, the physics and reality of the film is heightened, but the whole thing is a heist film in retro science-fiction clothes, with a bit of character-driven angst really driving the story forward. The characters explain the logic behind the "kicks", and the levels of the dream state, and why limbo is such a horrible place to get stuck (it appears that you get old and then go insane). Even the famous final shot of the film is pretty straightforward: who cares if the totem falls or not? The key point is that Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) learned to change and face his fears; even if it is all a dream, it doesn't matter because the character remains changed regardless. And all this talk of revisiting the film to "find clues" as to whether it is a dream or not is nonsense...the film ends. Simple as that. There isn't much else to explore. What's in the film is in the film, and there isn't anything else to look at.

Alright, so in the story, Cobb and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are corporate spies that use a stolen military dream-sharing device to infiltrate and steal corporate secrets from targets. This is called extraction. After botching a job on the venerable Saito (Ken Watanabe), Saito propositions them to instead plant an idea in the mind of a business rival, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), who is poised to inherit his late father's energy conglomerate. The idea needing to be planted is that Fischer needs to break up his family's company, lest there be a monopoly. Cobb enlists the aid of the bright "architect" Ariadne (the ever-reliable Ellen Page), chemist Yusuf (the charismatic Daleep Rao), and con-artist/master-of-disguise Eames (my man-crush Tom Hardy). Saito eventually gets dragged in as well, in order to protect his investment and make sure that the job gets done. What results is crazy zero-gravity action, and bunch of shootouts and the literalism of dreams made apparent.

A lot has been made of the symbolism apparent in this film (hell, Devin Faraci commented how each character of the film represents a different faction of film-making...and I agree with that representation to a point); but at its core, the film really is about Cobb coming to terms with the suicide of his wife, Mal (Marion Cottilard), and relieving himself of the guilt he's felt for years (a very well-deserved guilt, come to think of it). The driving point for the film is one character's emotion; the core of a big-budget science fiction action film is a character's emotions. That's pretty unique stuff, and also pretty thrilling. The climax of the film comes not when Cobb and Ariadne find Fischer and ride the kicks up through each layer of the different dream levels (although it is exciting visually); the climax comes when Cobb learns to let go of the memory of Mal, and to accept her loss.

On a technical level, the film is gorgeous. The score by Hans Zimmer is bombastic and iconic (although lacking in the blowhorn department); Wally Pfister outdoes himself yet again with his beautifully precise compositions; and Mr. Nolan himself finally manages to direct an action scene that isn't confusing as hell (well, it's confusing, but in a good way; you know which one I'm talking about). This film is a hodgepodge of other films, celebrating the creation of film as art and returning the film-going experience as the thing it always should be: an event. The retro costume design evokes memories of other films, such as To Catch A Thief or North By Northwest, classic, debonair thrillers that had a class and style all their own; the Morocco chase evokes just enough of Casablanca and Raider Of The Lost Ark to feel familiar, but not so much as to feel contrived; the mountain-based climax felt familiar enough due to the countless iterations in the James Bond films (right down to the literally faceless and expendable henchmen; hell, the avalanche is right out of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, although that film used an avalanche as a means of pushing the plot, rather than purely as a set-piece); and, of course, the zero-gravity sequence (my favorite in the entire film) that is as much an homage to Stanley Kubrick as one could hope. The beauty of these sequences is the practicality of each: there is no computer rendering hackneyed images of the actors, only the actors themselves going through the danger, and that in turn makes it a much more exciting prospect to watch. Cinema, at least for the duration of this film, has become a spectator sport once again: the audience is thrilled and excited, and finally there is something worth going to the theater to see.

While not as obsessed with the film as others might be, I appreciate it for its ability to return film to the event showcase it should remain (going to a theater should be an event, I could care who you are). And, yeah, the film has its flaws (why doesn't Cobb just have his children live with him in Europe instead of risk going to America? What happens to that company that was chasing Cobb throughout Morocco? They just sorta disappeared after the chase...), and, yeah, it might have been based on a Donald Duck comic book, but it is thrilling entertainment, an exciting breath of fresh air during a summer that was bogged down with shit (Y ear One) and over-produced crap (Iron Man 2). The fact that Warner Bros. could back a high-concept piece like this is inspiring, and the audience response (in the tune of at least $700 million worldwide) is also a great sign. This could be considered a classic of the genre in a few years, but it would no doubt have any less of an impact for first-time viewers. Hell, here I am, nearly a year later, and getting thrilled just thinking about the zero-g fight. Now that's staying power.

Hanna

Hanna, 2011 - Joe Wright

This is a great movie, so unlike the other Wright-directed picture I'd seen, Pride And Prejudice (which I admit I love), that it's surprising that it's from the same director. I watched it in a packed theater (which I think is great for a film such as this), and must say that despite this being the first film I'd seen since Tron:Legacy (and we know how much I enjoy that film), this is one of my favorite films of 2011 already. So often I'd felt as if I were watching a gritty '60's spy thriller, like The Ipcress File, or any of the Harry Palmer films, or even The Spy Who Came In From The Cold. Ir felt so much like a Cold War thriller that it was exciting (and not in a retro, meta way). This isn't a spy film comprised of other spy films, this is its own entity, and such a beautiful combination of action, story, and style that it really is inspiring for the state of modern action films.

The story starts off near the Arctic Circle, somewhere in northern Russia, where the titular character, Hanna (played perfectly by Saiorse Ronan), an other-worldly-looking blonde 16-year-old girl, has been trained by her father, Erik Heller (Eric Bana...why doesn't he get more action leading-man roles? Hulk, as despised as it is, still showed him being amazing at action), a former CIA agent who has been put to ground and is in hiding. They live together, exclusively, and he has trained her in foreign languages (including Arabic, German, French, Italian, and Spanish...at least that's what we hear), physical combat, how to stay aware even in sleep, and how to live in the wold and maneuver on her own. The object of her training is to stay one step ahead of their CIA handler, the icy-cool Marissa Weigler (Cate Blanchett, with a Southern twang), evade her assassins, and eventually kill her as well. To do that, Erik abandons his daughter, allowing her to to be captured in hopes of reuniting with her in Germany.

With the exception of one plot point (which I won't mention, but when you hear of it you might realize that the movie would have been much more plausible without it), the film is perfect. The Chemical Brothers' score (an energetic, electri-pop) feels more like a complete album of theirs rather than a film score, and with each change in location, Hanna experiences more and more of the emotions that she'd been forced to abandon in her training to become a perfect killing machine. She befriends Sophie (Jessica Barden), who is traveling through Morocco and Spain with her hippy parents and younger brother, and who eventually help her get close enough to Erik to meet up with him in Germany.

However, their friendship is not one grown out of contrivance or for the sake of the plot; here Hanna meets someone her own age, who gets her to experience the first twang of emotion outside of devotion to her father, and whose fate is determined on what she (Hanna) can do. The stakes of the film are determined by how involved Hanna becomes with this traveling family, and that adds gravitas to the action. Each action beat is determined by Hanna's emotions, and by the emotions of the secondary characters (especially Sophie's younger brother, and, in an odd way, Weigler herself). Even the motivations of the Weigler's cronies---the sadistic Isaacs (played in a surprisingly, deliciously perverse way by In The Loop's Tom Hollander)---are driven by some semblance of distorted emotion. Emotions drive this entire film, and that's something that at least feels new coming from an espionage yarn.

That's not to say that the action isn't up to snuff either. Hanna's breakout from a CIA safe-house is incredibly exciting, and cut incredibly well (no montage-style fight scenes, or MTV-style cutting here! No Bourne-style shaky cam! And fuck hand-held! I love it!), bolstered by, once again, the Chemical Brothers' bombastic and energetic score. The highlight of the film is another Joe Wright trademark: a single-take long shot; here, though, we follow Erik Heller as he leaves an airport, gets followed first by one agent, then another, as he makes his way to a metro station, before coming up against no less than 6 agents. In the same shot, he takes them all down swiftly, before walking off. It's beautiful: a single-take tracking shot of a fight scene featuring the protagonist against multiple assailants, showcasing the actor's fighting ability, and shot clearly enough to know what the fuck is going on and who is hitting who. Why is this a rarity in action films? Why should I praise the fact that I can see what the hell is going on?! It should be common sense, especially if it's done as deftly as it is here!

I love this film, not just for the action, or the bad-assness of Hanna herself: this is a smart, thrilling, action-packed espionage fairy tale (yeah...a fairy tale. You'll see what I mean) that is brimming with emotion and subtext (which I would go into more, but it would ruin one of the seminal emotional scenes in the film). With the exception of two minor quibbles (the aforementioned plot point, and the ending, which my friend anticipated almost beat-for-beat), this is a perfect film, and great thriller, and one of the great, smart modern espionage films. If only the modern Bond films were this good...

Also, I couldn't get Isaacs' motif, the one he whistles throughout his appearances, out of my head for days. Now that it's gone, I kind of miss it...

Taken

Taken

After a trailer like that, how could you not want to see it?
When I first saw the preview for Taken attached to Punisher: War Zone, I was stoked. Luc Besson (of Leon the Professional and La Femme Nikita fame) produced this thriller which has little on logic, less on plausibility, and loads of ass-kicking. Director Pierre Morel previously worked as either camera operator or cinematographer on several of Besson's work, and his previous directorial effort is the parkour-centered thriller District B13. His latest effort is less fantastic than that film, but no less implausible...and no less fun.
The plot concerns Liam Neeson's Bryan Mills' (a retired special ops agent) growing concern over his daughter, Kim (Maggie Grace). Bryan and his wife Lenore (an underused Famke Janssen) are divroced, and she married to a rich businessman who spoils Kim and is undeinably charismatic (much to Bryan's chgrin). Kim takes a trip with her friend Amanda to Europe, intending to backpack throughout the continent while tracing thetour of U2, all while an unsuspecting yet anally worried Bryan worries about his daughter.
However, his worries prove to be founded as Amanda and Kim are kidnapped by white slavers. Using a recorded telephone call from Kim as a clue, Bryan has 72 hours to find his daughter before she is sold and he never finds her again. In order to find her he fights, chases, tortures, and drives cars into boats and Schindler kills hundreds of bad guys. And I loved it.
Neeson carries the film alot better than I'd expected, and that's saying a lot. The leading man in an action film is a new role for him, and the release date of the film gave me reservations (the first month or two of the year are usually dumping grounds for bad movies that can't get higher-profile releases). Neeson propels the film with an unerring energy, and his persona helps give Mills' world-weariness a visible reality. Neeson looks dogged and tired, having seen too much unspeakable horror...and that helps greatly with this film.
Unfortunately, I couldn't remember many of the secondary characters' names (and a lot of them looked too similar...blame that on ethnocentrism if you must), which is a shame because there were many standouts and none seemed to milk their scenes or ham it up (something that could have easily happened). And despite Famke Janssen's underused Lenore (why cast her and then not use her so much? I guess she's got to eat too...), and a few improbable situations (Mills at one point gets hit with a car and then shot...and just limps away), none of these gripes kept me from enjoying the film. (Oh, and I couldn't help but find Bryan exceedingly protective of his daughter. Sure, he was right about the world being a dangerous place...but he was WAAAAYYYY too protective and anal towards her even before the plot started rolling; and what was it with ALL the villains being Middle Eastern?)
Michel Abramowicz's cinematography provides a very cool palatte for much of the film once the action starts, with very saturated colors and vibrant lighting in the opening scenes and coda (a distinction which accentuates the dangerous foreign territories with the relative security of civilian life stateside). Abramowicz's fine cinematography also provides a picturesque view of the settings, showcasing the beautiful vistas and the grungy underworlds with equal attention to detail. The production design by Hugues Tissandier allows for a very grungy, dirty, gritty feel to the world in which these characters live, which, again, helps the story.
However, it is Morel who is to be applauded here. He shapes the script (written by Besson and Robert Mark Kamen) into a sparse, action-oriented thriller. Morel knows how to shoot a chase scene, how to shoot a fight scene, and how to pace the film expertly (finally! An action movie that knwos to put the camera far enough back, and to cut slow enough, for me to know what the hell is going on!). It is apparent that his prior work with Besson allowed him to hone his directorial skills.
I suppose the praise I heap upon this film is earned not only on the part of the filmmakers (obviously), but also on the audience with whom I saw this film. I saw this in Puerto Rico during my spring break earlier this year, and my girlfriend was with me (of the selections playing, this was the best). The theatre was moderately full (there were a few rows of empty seats), and we were relieved when the film had subtitles and wasn't dubbed (I could understand Spanish...but not that well). And, well, the audience loved the movie; their reactions really ramped up the experience for me and made me enjoy it that much more. Normally theatre audiences (at least most of the theatres I go to) tend to ruin the movie with their cell phones and texting and babies and blah blah blah...but these people, like us, were there just to see a kick-ass movie. And, well, again, it helped me enjoy the film that much more. If every movie-going experience were like this, I'd go every weekend (and if I had to money to do so, of course...)
As soon as this film comes out on DVD I'm picking it up (although it presumably already is, it was released in Europe over a year ago...), and I suggest you do the same if you love action movies and watching historical figures blow up bad guys.

Once again, leave it to Besson to show us how action movies should be made.