Captain America: The First Avenger

Captain America: The First Avenger (2001) by Joe Johnston

There is a part in Joe Johnston's Captain America where Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) is performing onstage with a chorus line of star-spangled girls, dressed in the somewhat ridiculous red-white-and-blue garb of his soon-to-be trademark uniform, and I just started to chuckle. Not out of spite, not out of irony, not because the whole premise of a superhero singing and dancing punching out an actor portraying Hitler is utterly ridiculous, but simply out of the fact that it was so charming and fun that I'd almost forgotten how great it is to just have fun at a comic book film. This, and Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class (why haven't I written my review for that one yet?!), are two of the better comic-book based films to come out in the past few years due simply to the fact that they are both returns to the good old-fashioned "let's just have a good time and make a fine, polished film" era of comic book film-making. Again, these aren't the best in terms of long-term appeal, or in accomplished film making, but they never lose track of creating a spectacle for the audience.

The film in question is the origin story of the star-spangled man, Captain America, AKA Steve Rogers, who starts off as a determined, idealistic 90-lb. weakling constantly being shut out of the chance of fighting the Nazis overseas due to his small stature. Seeing potential in his determination and character, scientist Dr. Abraham Eskrine (Stanley Tucci) hand-picks Rogers to be the first of the proposed "Super Soldier" program, meant to inspire Allied troops in the face of Nazi propaganda (an interesting concept: a superhero created as a propaganda ploy). Due to sabotage (planned primarily by Johann Schmidtt, AKA the Red Skull, played with a German accent worthy of Werner Herzog by the ever-great Hugo Weaving), Rogers is the only Super Soldier to see fruition, and his work as a USO stage-player leads to his eventual rescue of a group of captured infantry that would, in the comics, be known as the Howling Commandos. Rogers eventually faces his doppelganger, Red Skull, himself the result of Eskrine's super-soldier program, and the latter's attempt to shift the course of the war with sapce-age weapons powered by the Cosmic Cube (which is alluded to in 2011's other Marvel Studios release, the rather inferior Thor). That the Cosmic Cube plays into Marvel's Phase 1 series of films is a given, provided by the heft of weight placed upon it. The film ends with a preview of The Avengers, the tie-in film that finds all of Marvel Studios' characters united in a single film.

As a stand-alone film, Captain America serves a dual purpose: tying together most of the loose threads leading up to The Avengers, and introducing one of Marvel's top tier characters in a worthy feature film. However, the inclusion of the Cosmic Cube and its importance in the larger scheme of things sometimes feels a bit rushed, as if the studio is more concerned with throwing as much continuity into the film as possible in the lead up to The Avengers, as opposed to just letting the film develop naturally. And while director Joe Johnston is certainly guilty of allowing the bloating to occur (in fact, he's beholden to do so, if he wants to get paid), he still manages to create a fun film.

Again, "FUN" is the key component here. There are very few instances or standalone story lines that feature Captain America entering into dark, gritty territory, and thankfully this film doesn't adhere to the modern trend of superhero films fitting into "real world" scenarios. Captain America embodies all that is great and best not only of this country (which, honestly, needs an image boost), but of humanity in general. We need to be reminded that sometimes a hero can save lives, punch bad guys, throw jokes, and be just an overall good guy. Too cynical is the world in which we live, and that's sad. There are sequences in this film that remind me that, yes, Joss Whedon is a great writer (almost every line that Tommy Lee Jones says is golden,), and that Joe Johnston (who cut his teeth with Steven Spielberg on the Indiana Jones films) is a competent action director, if lacking any visual flair. Is this movie a classic? Not at all, nowhere near a classic. But it's fun, and that's more than I can ask for in an action superhero comic film. I'd never ask my mom to watch The Dark Knight, but she and my dad and I had a blast with this film. That in and of itself is an achievement.

Look, we live in dark times that are confusing, and sometimes even I get angry about all the shit going on around me. But it's wonderful and refreshing to go to a movie where we see people working together to fight a common evil, who are just outright good people, no matter what, and are willing to risk their lives for a greater cause. Is Captain America my favorite superhero film? No, that will always, ALWAYS be relegated to Superman: The Movie, but for a Marvel Studios film that just has a great vibe, solid cast, and a lot of fun? Well, it kind of takes the cake in that regard.

A Good Day To Die Hard (2013) by John Moore

It had been quite a fucking while there, no?

By all accounts, it is unfair of me to review this movie because I only saw about an hour of it. I couldn't stand to see the rest, and this is only one of two films I've ever walked out on, and the first during which I'd actually fallen asleep. From its loud, obnoxious, confusing, insipid and uninspired action, to its massive plot holes and droll, unhappy characters, I couldn't stand this film and was happy when my date turned to me, eyes sad and depressed, and sad, "Can we please leave? This film is depressing".  And that is a massive, MASSIVE shame, because, despite all the negative reviews I'd read regarding this film, I still wanted to at least enjoy it on the same level as I had the previous entry, 2007's ridiculous Live Free Or Die Hard, which, while a "Die Hard" film in name only, remains my "start of summer" fun movie. I can honestly enjoy it for what it is, despite the fact that it is a bad, idiotic film. This latest entry though? It's just...sad. It exists and simply remains there, loud and obnoxious and telling us that this is what "Die Hard" is about and, God damn it all, it is anything but.
The plot, so far as there was one, involves a character who happens to be named John McClane, played by Bruce Willis, who played a more interesting character of the same name from 1988 through 1995, and his trip to Russia to rescue his son, Jack (played with a wasted determination by Jai Courtney) who is implicated in the attempted assassination of a Russian politician (played by Sebastian Koch? I honestly don't know. There's only so much movie one can pay attention to in between naps). There are apparently double- and triple-crosses, and victims are really villains, and ultimately all paths lead to Chernobyl. For some reason.
There is such lifeless banality to John McClane this time around that the entire film is a lifeless, joyless affair that, unlike Live Free..., is so un-fun it ruined the entire film and for me made me even question the notion of "fun" as a concept. Plot holes trip over themselves in a vain attempt to escape the confines of celluloid, such that what I am about to write in the exact next sentence is something that actually happened: so John McClane finds out his son is arrested in Russia, and his cop friend hacks some Russian files so John can study them; McClane, on a plane headed to Moscow, studies the Russian ploice files on his son. Close-ups indicate that, yes, they are indeed in Russian. The exact next scene finds McClane in the back of a Russian taxi, using am English-to-Russian dictionary to direct the cab to the courthouse. In the only instance where John McClane resembles anything like a human being, McClane flubs his translation. Here's the point: on the plane, McClane's reading the Russian file on his son like it ain't no thang, but in the cab he can't even say that he wants to go to the courthouse. Can the motherfucker speak Russian, or can't he? Please, be consistent with me movie. Be honest. If Live Free... can make me believe that McClane can fly a helicopter despite the fact that flying is one of his mortal fears, I will accept that the man can at least speak Russian...if you can at least meet me halfway. 
Immediately following this scene is a shootout in the courthouse, followed by one of the most confusing, overdrawn chase sequences since the entirety of Quantum Of Solace. McClane, having literally randomly run into his son as Jack is trying to escape with an informant he is to protect, leaps into a flatbed truck and, knowing nothing about any of the proceedings or why his son is being chased by who, rams his vehicle into oncoming traffic, eventually slamming the truck head-on into parked cars, where it flips over, completely destroyed.
John McClane climbs out and walks off like absolutely nothing happened, gets back into another car, and continues as if nothing out of the ordinary is going on. 
It is around this scene that I started to pass out. And that's the biggest shame of it all; in the middle of a "Die Hard" movie, with elaborate set pieces, and which is shorter in length than any of the other four films, I was bored out of my mind.
As I've stated before, I can enjoy a big dumb movie so long as it's consistent with it's gaps in logic and it's leaps in believability, and so long as it is earnest and fun. This is a dark (not tonally, just in terms of lighting), empty, soulless, sad affair, a film made simply to keep the rights to a character and name that rightly had no place being the fuck in the middle of Russia (or Chernobyl, for that fact...a location the characters actually go without ANY RADIOACTIVE PROTECTION WHATSOEVER).
Gone are the days of slow character development and cleverness, where the pacing pushes the story in such a palpable, concrete way it is almost a character of its own (for example, the slow build up in the first Die Hard film, establishing McClane's fear of heights, lack of shoes, indecision when it comes to saving Takagi...this is all slow build up, leading to an establishment of character. We get to know these people, and take the time to know not only their strengths, but their fears and weaknesses as well. By the end of the first film (hell, by the middle of the second act of the first film), McClane is beaten, bloodied beyond compare, walking on sliced up feet, exhausted, and almost defeated entirely. Here, in this film, there's an unstoppable thing called "John McClane", who seems to come alive only when he's killing bad guys and firing guns and surviving insane car crashes and making limp puns over the deafening sound of gunfire with too much bass. Here there is a film who's mid-act stunt involves jumping out of a window to avoid a helicopter gunfire, whose climax is set in MOTHERFUCKING CHERNOBYL, and whose main character comes away with less physical bodily damage than in his last film, in which he surfed an F18 jet before shooting a bullet through his already-shot shoulder. Here is a John McClane who has evolved, fully, into the very action caricature that he was the absolute antithesis of in 1988.
And therein lies the irony. At least Sylvester Stallone had the good sense to ground the last Rambo film with some sense of realism (make Rambo part of a team; address his age, address the previous films while developing off of them; have some Goddamn PACING, sure, 2008's Rambo was essentially a two-act film, but it didn't try to shove in some familial issues or sappy romance or confusing action). For a Die Hard film, this movie has more in common with XXX or Abduction or any other cheap action flick.
The cinematography is beyond confusing, the script (by The A-Team's Skip Woods) has such lapses in logic and coherence as well as a complete disregard for everything that made the previous entries fun that it's difficult to tell if the film is even trying to be serious (the entire climax takes place in Chrenobyl...where there was a giant fucking radioactive meltdown? And John and Jack run around with absolutely no protection whatsoever? And the audience is reminded at least 3 times throughout the film about what the fuck Chernobyl is, because apparently a major global event from the past 30 years is inconsequential?)
The Die Hard series is done, it's gone. With the last film it lost its sense of realism and depth, and with this film it lost its sense of fun. The quips are gone, none of the characters are real people (or even the exaggerated, broad-strokes "character types" that most modern action films tend to exhibit). Perhaps this is the modern state of action films now. Perhaps this is what we demand of our heroes: unstoppable, inconsequential, all-knowing, indestructible, and ultimately boring. 
So perhaps the Die Hard series is dead.
It had its run, it's finished.
Let's just leave it be and move on, shall we?

Green Lantern

Green Lantern (2011) by Martin Campbell

Green Lantern was a letdown, but I'm interested in the sequel. There is no other way to describe this film, an adaptation of the long-running B-List DC Comics cosmic superhero. There was so much potential with this film, so much for it to get right (an epic cosmic setting; a likable---if somewhat miscast---leading man; some decent-to-good supporting actors; the potential for images and set-pieces that go beyond anything that has so far been shown in comic book films; a director who knows how to stage exciting action as well as introduce audiences to action characters), but in the end it felt too much like a half-assed attempt to create a lower-budgeted, slightly less-charming, DC-version of Iron Man. DC's track history of adapting their characters into successful films seems to begin and end with Superman and Batman, and even then with mixed results.

The film introduces us to Hal Jordan (a charismatic yet miscast Ryan Reynolds), a hotshot test pilot working with Carol Ferris (a vapid Blake Lively), another test pilot whose father, Carl (Jay O. Sanders) owns the prestigious Ferris Aircraft company, and whose government contracts Hal jeopardizes during a test run of their drone fighter jets. Following his test flight, Hal encounters the purple-skinned alien, Abin Sur (Temura Morrison), who has crashed-landed off a beach in Coast City following an encounter with the fear-fueled entity Parallax. Hal, it is explained, has been chosen to be a member of the intergalactic Green Lantern Corps, essentially a galactic police force. Abin Sur's ring, powered by a central battery on the ancient planet Oa, chose Hal for his courage, spirit, and responsibility, features which he and his friends fail to see. Meanwhile, Professor Hector Hammond (the severely underused Peter Sarsgaard), having been hired by Amanda Waller (Angela Bassett) to perform a postmortem on Abin Sur, contacts a minuscule amount of yellow energy, which is what powers Parallax, and begins a bizarre transformation into a deformed, telekinetic villain.

Now, that might make it seem like the movie has some interesting points, and, to its credit, I loved the parts that were set in space. The Hal Jordan incarnation of the Green Lantern is a cosmic science fiction story, set in space and encountering aliens and bizarre forms of life. It's like a 1950's sci-fi serial, but with a superhero angle to it, and the potential for exciting, cosmic derring-do on the big screen (and in 3D!) were apparent. Sadly, though, this film feels like a bipolar patient: should it be big and swooping and grand and epic, or should it spend most of its runtime in an apartment spouting exposition? Should we see the character create matter out of pure thought and will, things that boggle the imagination and are limited only by the boundaries of human imagination, or should we continue to make the audience endure a trite love story involving two characters who have no chemistry and nothing in common aside from us being told that they grew up together and they're both attractive so...why the fuck not?! Should we show Kilowog for the briefest of scenes, and waste Mark Strong, perfectly cast as Sinestro, or should we allow Peter Sarsgaard ham it up in a role that was obviously edited down to something much more goofy and silly and nonthreatening? Should we show all the cool, kick-ass cosmic adventures, or should we, once again (***yawn***) have the characters just sit in an apartment and talk?

I mention the apartments because 1/3 of the movie is set in apartments; either Hal's or Hector's. And...it's unexplainable. One of the clearest examples of how convoluted this film is occurs late in the second act (**SPOILER ALERT...I GUESS**): Hector Hammond has broken out of being strapped to an examination table, and has threatened to kill his own father, Senator Hammond (Tim Robbins). Hector now exhibits telekinetic powers and is a viable threat to Hal Jordan. Jordan appears, the two fight each other briefly (Hector getting melted fucking glass thrown in his face), and then Hector disappears as Jordan remains, disturbed and dispirited by his failure to capture Hector. In the NEXT SHOT, Hector Hammond is in his apartment, writhing on his bed, and Jordan, too, returns to HIS apartment, and immediately sits down to feel sorry for himself. Next scene? Carol is giving Jordan a pep talk in his very apartment, telling him to get off his ass and use his crazy-ass space ring to save the world. The film went from telekinetic action fight scene, to both characters just wasting time at home. Again, it doesn't make a lick of sense, and tonally it's just bizarre.

The film suffers from an almost palpable sense of lack of self-confidence, and seems to be unable to decide whether it should go for the scope it deserves, or if it should just save that for the sequel. Hopefully, the inevitable sequel (it's already in the works by WB, which is desperate for a new, post-Harry Potter franchise) goes bigger and better and more fantastic.

Despite its lack of scale and cosmic scope, the two lead roles (Ryan Reynolds, and Peter Sarsgaard) do their absolute best to make the material work. Reynolds (while not my first choice; Nathan Fillion, despite his age, would have made the perfect Hal) is likable and charming enough to pull off the cockiness of Hal, and seems fit enough to pull off the physicality of the role, despite his range being slightly stunted (Hal is either doubtful of himself, or self-assured. That's about the range of his emotions. There is nothing else to him).I was never bored with Hal, but felt that he was sometimes a bit to hung up with the "I'm not good enough for the Corps" lamentation, nor could I stand the fact that it took his girlfriend to snap him out of his funk and make him man up and embrace his cosmic role.

Peter Sarsgaard, on the other hand, hams it up (after a build-up), offering a thankfully lively role to contrast against Blake Lively, who is beyond cardboard thin, and miscast as a test pilot herself. Sarsgaard's Hammond---a dweebish college science professor (who works in a building labeled “Science Building”)---plays the villainous role as broadly as a mustache-twirling mad scientist, and seems to be enjoying the change of pace, rather than continually playing psychologically heavy, flawed characters. Here, Hammond's biggest trait (aside from his grotesquely huge forehead and telekinetic power), is being a disappointment to his father, and Sarsgaard manages to portray this inner turmoil in a surprisingly nuanced manner (up until the point where he hams it up entirely in the aforementioned telekinetic fight scene). Knowing little about the comic incarnation of the character, I don't know how faithful Sarsgaard's interpretation truly is, and while there were a few abrupt scene transitions and motivations in his character, I attribute that more to the editing of the film rather than the script itself.

The script itself isn't as bad as others might make it out to be. In fact, again, I felt that all of the cosmic, space-set scenes worked perfectly. I imagine that the prospect of introducing a B-list comic character, one based in science fiction and with a villain none might not recognize outside of the hardcore fans, would have been an incredibly hard sell. That is the only reason I can imagine for the film's insistence on staying in Coast City, in Hal's apartment cracking wise and continually doubting his worthiness of being a Lantern: we can all relate to someone just sitting around an apartment, as opposed to someone with a cosmic space ring. Sure, it's easy to relate, but it makes for lackluster storytelling.

Green Lantern is another example of DC's inability to allow its loftiest characters truly bloom into the epic adventures they deserve (just look at Superman Returns for another recent example). It has a very checkered history of success, with its best recent films (the rebooted Batman series; Constantine, and even the flawed if incredibly ambitious Watchmen) being based mainly on its Vertigo line, or in its animated features. DC, as opposed to Marvel, is and has always been in the nature of creating gods, beings from other worlds with incredible super powers. Green Lantern's main flaws, again, is in failing to trust its own strengths, its own mythology, and in assuming the audience wouldn't want to care about anything set in space. The set pieces seem sadly sedate (Hal embraces his role as Green Lantern following a lackluster helicopter near-crash), except, of course, when set in space (Hal's training on Oa is probably the best part of the whole film, but even then it feels like a few scenes were cut for brevity's sake, since Hal quits the Corps after only about a day of training).

A sequel is already greenlit, and hopefully this time around, the filmmakers will allow Green Lantern to truly soar to the heights only hinted at here. This is an epic, grand, cosmic world with an immense scale...surely, audiences would rather see Hal and Sinestro duking it out in deep space, rather than some brown cloud floating in and gobbling up nameless people running around in a city. Despite its flaws, I'm hoping that since all the mythology introduction is out of the way and the character established, we can move on to the grander scales. If Thor (a cosmic/science fiction/action/comic book/fantasy film) could be entertaining, despite featuring a character few non-comic fans can even mention, then there's no reason why a Green Lantern sequel has to suck. And for God's sake, cut out the post-converted 3D...it's distracting. Some scenes were slightly out-of-focus, or suffered from a ghosting of the images on screen. And, ultimately, it didn't add anything to the film (aside from another $5 to the ticket price).

Serenity

Serenity (2005) by Joss Whedon

I'm reviewing this film because I got into a debate with a Browncoat over this film. And you know what? You assholes are taking a good thing and blowing it up to proportions that it has no right being. Alright? This is a horrible film. Period. It fails as a film. Taken apart from the rest of the series (I admit I wasn't a fan until recently, but even now, despite that changing, I can still say this is a bad fucking movie), it doesn't hold up its own weight, much less that of an aborted television series that should have gotten another chance. Look, I'm a Star Trek fan, and I'm a James Bond fan; but even I can admit that more than half the Star Trek movies (including all of the Next Generation films) are Godawful, and that there are sadly more Moonrakers than From Russia With Loves when it comes to Bond. I can love a series more than the sum of its parts, and can acknowledge that even some of the films I do like are just as bad and dumb as you think, and will happily agree with you (the reboot of Star Trek, while enjoyable, is a fucking mess plot-wise, but still watchable and fun) just as I can like and appreciate FireFly while watching Serenity and thinking, "What a smelly piece of shit".
The opening scene shifts perspectives several times, from an omniscient, passive point-of-view, to becoming somewhat of a classroom-like overview, to changing its focus onto River (the equally bizarrely-named Summer Glau). While it was necessary to give new viewers an overview (I had only seen a vaguely admired the first 2 episodes when I first saw this film), the shifting point-of-view also makes it difficult for those same viewers to know who is doing what and why. The long-takes in Serenity itself introduced each character individually, but, again, due to the time constraints, they were played slightly more broadly than on the show, and as such, it did little justice to the characters themselves, who I now appreciate and enjoy, nor to the actors, who'd spent so much time developing their characters into individuals. Hell, even two of the characters are killed for what seems to be arbitrary reasons.
Chiwetel Ejiofor, what the fuck are you doing in this movie? Why are you hamming it up? And why does the set of your Alliance vessel look like something out of Space Mutiny? Where is the rest of your massive vessel? We only ever see about 3 rooms. As a villain, he was much too goofy and over-the-top to truly be terrifying and formidable, and the protracted fights (between him and Mal; River and pretty much everyone else in the movie) paradoxically stop the film cold. While the cinematography would have been impressive on the small screen, again, in a movie theater, it feels sadly confined.
I can imagine that the prospect of finishing an unfinished television series on a budget less than half of what typical sci-fi actioners traditionally go for (and what Universal was willing to supply), by a first-time feature film director who initially started with a script that was over 3 hours long...well, the final product feels rushed, confined, and oddly anticlimactic. If this film had been a television special, or mini-series or made-for-TV film, I would not have been so vehement. But the production design, music, and effects work are what killed the film for me, simply because the scale did not translate to "science fiction action Western feature film event!" This was SciFi Channel's The Shining remake: as dull, boring, and bereft of action that the budget would allow. They killed Book and Wash, and I didn't care (and, well, the characters didn't seem to care either. Hell, when Spock died, that added a heavy weight to the entire Star Trek series that needed another film to undo.) Here, two of the main characters die and there was no real time to mourn or move on, and their loss wasn't really felt after the film ended. I walked into the theater hoping to see what the big deal with the series was, and walked out not wanting to have anything to do with it.
Look, if you're going to kill off one of the main characters, it needs to mean something. Spock died to save every other character we love. Vader died to save Luke and, ultimately, redeem himself. Hell, even when the Terminator died in Terminator 2, it was after he'd developed as a character and made a fundamental change and made the audience root for him. Wash and Book died...okay. Did they make a personal change or sacrifice? No, Wash just crashed the ship trying to land it, because he did another crazy maneuver the ship wasn't designed to make. Now they have no ship. (Oh man! Now the stakes are raised! We don't know who'll live or who'll die!!!...*after the film*...Oh, nope. No, they just had nothing to do anymore. They weren't intrinsic to the plot).
And finally: why show the Reavers? The one thing that stuck with me in the show was the concept of the Reavers, and how fucking insane they are. Yet when they are (for whatever reason) revealed? They're like fucking Native American zombies. And their backstory sadly makes them less interesting (again, having unexplained evil threaten characters is so much more interesting: that's the difference between Silence Of The Lambs and Hannibal Rising; or Batman and The Dark Knight: getting to know the history of embodiments of evil makes them relative, and thus removes the veneer of danger and mystery they have). For an expansive universe that seemed to stretch out so much, with such an interesting rich fictional history on the series, the film pares everything down to a bite-sized chunk, where everything intertwines and is woven together in a neat package. The mess that was the gritty world of the series is replaced with low-budget facsimiles of sprawling sets and city-scapes, and an epic space battle that, sadly, I'd played back in the day during Colony Wars (where's the movie for that?!)

Serenity fails as a film. Period. It goes for the scope that it can't handle, and instead implodes into something much more confined and exclusive than it wanted to be. If it hoped to attract new fans...well, I doubt it did. I was indifferent to FireFly before I'd seen Serenity, but after Serenity, I wondered what the big fucking deal was and wanted nothing to do with either. I couldn't remember anything about the movie, and it took me looking up IMDB, wikiPedia, and watching the damn thing on YouTube to remember anything about the film aside from the main characters, Wash getting killed (I forgot Book dies too!), and the failure of showing the Reavers. If I walk out of a movie theater and forget what it was that I'd watched...guess what? That movie failed, even to entertain. It was a missed opportunity that I can't blame on Joss Whedon, who did everything he could for the show and the film, or the cast, who seemed to enjoy revisiting the characters one last time. But if this was to be a send-off, then make it Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country, not fucking Star Wars Episode III.

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.

World's Greatest Dad

World's Greatest Dad (2009), Bobcat Goldthwait

I'm surprised at this movie. Everything about it says it shouldn't work at all, and yet, somehow it does. This is, so far as I know, Bobcat's first job writing/directing, and aside from a few poor performances, he does a decent job. His ethos of "fuck style, let's just shoot it with the most basic set-ups possible" works. There isn't much he needs to do, either, to accentuate just how fucked up this film is (in a good way). This is one of the blackest comedies I've come across since Lolita (or quite possibly Elephant. No one else laughed at that? That was just me? Huh.) and I love this film for that reason.
The film stars Robin Williams as Lance Clayton, a failed novelist who has since learned to settle in mediocrity. He can't get his works published, his job teaching poetry at the local high school is under-attended and thus in line to be canceled, his art-teacher girlfriend Claire (Alexie Gilmore) is a cocktease and indifferent to his needs (and possibly cheating on him, but definitely stringing him along), and his much more charismatic creative writing teacher coworker, Mike (Henry Simmons), has been published in the New Yorker on his first attempt. On top of all that, his son Kyle (Daryl Sabara) is an unlikeable, perverted douchebag and treats Lance like shit for no reason (although I guess "being a teenager" is reason enough), and has a total of one friend, Andrew (Evan Martin). Attempts to bond with his son fail, but he just keeps on trying, and Lance keeps up with the insufferable way Claire treats him due to genuine feeling for her. However, through a freak accident, Lance loses his son, and in order to cover up the cause (it's...well, it's masturbation related), Lance concocts an elaborate lie that exposes the "real" Kyle. As a result, everyone in the school relates to (and, ultimately, horrendously dishonors) Kyle. Lance rides this new-found exposure and publicity, making his son much more likable than he ever was in real life, but at grave costs of his own.
Again, this is a pitch-black film, and Williams sells it. He is a veritable revelation here, as I couldn't imagine him acting in such a subdued, sedate way (or "acting" at all! It's amazing!) He is absolutely believable as the man who has given up on being any success in his life, and he wears that sense of lost potential so well, leaving it etched in every line of his face. The scene when he discovers Kyle in his room is heartbreaking, and his attempts to clean up after his son, and the revelation that his son really was a perverted, unlikeable douchebag, points at so much disappointment it's incredible. His is the most solid acting job in the film (Kyle is played as too actively an asshole; Claire's motivations behind some of her expressions are a bit unclear---especially during the dinner scene between her and Kyle and Lance; and most of the actors playing the schoolmates come across as either flat archetypes, or as very obviously acting---especially whoever played the goth girl). However, that being said, I was still engaged in the film, completely engrossed and eager to find out just how shady a person Lance could become, and just how far he could take his lie. A film this bleak and heartless is so contradictorily refreshing that it's incredible.
Throughout this film, it was easy for me to visualize any person in real life playing off an unspeakable tragedy as this. This scenario seems to be the very thing that reality television is based on: success from someone else's tragedy. The fact that it's Lance feeding off the death of his own son makes it that much worse, but hardly that less unlikely. Bobcat's script explores the loss of creativity, family, love, and success, while being about a collective obsession with tragedy (which is itself it's own brand of tragedy). What would anyone do to be successful? And how does one measure that success?
I have an incredible amount of respect for Bobcat Goldthwait now (again, this is his first writing/directing gig), and I hope he follows this up with something equally gut-punching. Kudos to Richard Kelly for producing this as well. And God bless Robin Williams; I have a new-found respect for him. This is to him what A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints is to Shia LaBeouf: no matter what they get involved with in the future, I can never hate them simply because they've made these films. That being said, Williams needs to keep his clothes on in his next film. Like...totally on.

EDIT 4/17/11: this is NOT Bobcat's first directorial effort. Merely the first one I've seen. I guess 5 minutes on IMDB would have alleviated that, but what are you going to do?