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“Battleship” -– based
on the board game -– bombed in theaters, and a viewing reinforces its death as deserved. The is an ugly CGI-drunk mess, taking 40 minutes to start as
director Peter Berg (“Kingdom”) and his screenwriters break their backs
and our patience introducing a screw-up U.S. Navy hero (Taylor Kitsch) destined
for greatness when evil aliens invade Earth. Plot? Aliens attack. Navy fights back. That’s it. Unless you count the burrito subplot as vital. I do not. This could have
used a rewrite and a butcher’s knife in the editing room because even Liam
Neeson, onscreen for 15 minutes, looks bored as the Navy commander/father of Kitsch’s girlfriend. Here’s the real riddle: Despite the
dull rip off of “Transformers” and “Halo” that defines 95 percent of the flick,
Berg coolly employs real veterans young (Gregory Gadson, amazing)
and old (WW2 and Korean vets) as saviors of our Hollywood-cast cardboard heroes and this move openly calls bullshit on every rah-rah action hero ever made. Corny? Yes. But it works. Alas, inept studio mentality sinks smarts. Bombs away! C
“Sleepy Hollow” is perfect Tim Burton id: Gloriously dark atmosphere spiked with a wicked sense of
humor, misfit characters that can only be saved by love, surreal violence, and
a god-awful story with stabs of brilliance, but mostly ugly exposition. Burton
and screenwriters Andrew Kevin Walker and (un-credited) Tom Stoppard take
the Irving story and dump the school teacher for a NYC police constable (Johnny
Depp, brilliantly good) advocating science forensics to his detriment in an age
-– 1799 -– drunk on religion. Crane is sent to Sleepy Hollow to investigate a
series of lobbed-off heads by a demonic man on a horse, minus his own head, and
the latter is no joke, because this is Burton, and magic, evil, and trees of
death puking blood abound. Crane’s arrival –- filmed by Emmanuel Lubezki, scored
by Danny Elfman, with a set from purgatory –- is marvelous, fused with old Hammer Films and 1931’s classic “Frankenstein.” Brilliant: Depp plays Crane as a
heinous wus, using a teenage boy as a human shield. Weak: Huge story
errors and a conspiracy-heavy reveal that defies reason. Christopher Walken plays the horseman, growling with devotion to Burton’s majestic dark yearnings. I
miss this Burton. B
In “Looper,” director/writer Rian Johnson (“Brick”) takes the worn idea of time travel and renews it, not just with vigor, wit, and head-turning suspense, but strong characters that act in ways never touched on before -– suicide. Well, not exactly suicide as we know it.
Joseph Gordon Levitt (“Inception” and also “Brick”) plays Joe, a hit man who kills mafia castoffs delivered from 30 years in the future where time travel is possible but illegal. Crazy? Don’t mind it. Joe is known as a Looper because, literally, one day he must execute himself, his older late-50s self. Close the loop. Get it?
The scratch in this time trick: Old Joe turns out to be a vengeance-seeking raging pissed-off man-of-action embodied by Bruce Willis in full “Die Hard” mode, ready to hunt and kill a mysterious young boy who decades later will become an evil Keyzor Soze-like crime boss that will ruin Joe’s — both Joes — life. (A day without referencing “The Usual Suspects” is a day wasted.)
This is trippy, shocking story-telling, and Johnson dares play his hand wide open by admitting onscreen that time travel is pure bunk, a mind screw that is best left unraveled, and then he stomps the gas hard for go, non-stop. He also goes “meta” by having Young Joe’s mafia boss (Jeff Daniels) sulk around as the world’s laziest mobster, opting for PJs over clothes, but able to pop off dark and violent when his underlings fail.
Best bits: Daniels as this mob boss denounces Young Joe’s motives as a hit man who has watched too many movies about hit men, and then Johnson goes onto practically film and his cast act out a full-on worship sequence of mafia hit man classic “Goodfellas.” Time is not just twisted here, but the world of movies, inside and out, is tweaked and turned on its head. Also up for debate grabs: The effects of child abuse, loveless parenting, and how we change — and in many ways remain stunted — as we age. Heavy, wonderful stuff all around.
Johnson scores a knockout, too, because his cast, writing, emotion, and the action are all stellar. Levitt -– under makeup -– makes a believable Willis. All the junk on his face is off-putting at first, but Levitt moves beyond it, and the story is so strong, such complaints fall by the way side. I’ll take occasional makeup mishaps any day over a plot-empty, CGI-drunk stinker such as “Battleship.” I thought “Brick” far too clever for its own good, setting a film noir mystery in a high school. It never earned the raves. This does, easily so.
Also, check out Paul Dano of “There Will be Blood,” playing a fellow hit man who meets a horrifying fate right out of the nastiest episode of “Twilight Zone” ever imagined, but never filmed. More so than even Levitt, Dano is an actor we’ll be talking about decades from now as the best of his generation, his and our time. A-
With “Paranormal
Activity 4” topping the box office this weekend, I realize I only ever saw the
first film, and bypassed a crop of sequels. Until now. “Paranormal Activity
2” may have been titled “Paranormal Activity Too” as it follows the sister (Sprague Grayden) of the woman (Katie Featherston) haunted and left fate unknown in the low-budget, hand-made 2009 box office smash. This is a prequel, stand-aside, and carbon copy, with the same
found home surveillance and video camera “evidence” footage showing a
mysterious force ripping apart a family. Cue slamming doors, bizarre attacks,
and -- one hour in -- a frying pan falling off one of those pot hanger thingies in a
kitchen I envy. “PA1” was a surprise film made by a guy who wanted
to scare the crap out of folks, and he made it in his own home. “PA2” has
moments –- floating baby does provide spooks galore -– but it’s studio product made
to make coin, and that’s very normal activity. The entire film builds up and previews “PA3.” Should I see that? B-
My PR job allows
me to work with humanoid robots, so I was ready for the sci-fi drama “Robot and
Frank” big time. With sometimes clunky bodies, humanoid robots are still in
developmental infancy and several decades will pass before ’bots hit, say,
toaster status. But, Sundance wiz “R&F” matter-of-factly shows a future
with automatons all about, in libraries, homes, and on the street. Frank
Langella plays Frank, a 70-year-old ex-thief with prison and a broken family behind
him. Frank is sliding into dementia when his son (James Marsden) buys him
a mechanical housekeeper/mother hen robot. Frank balks and fumes until he
learns that the ’bot can be taught … um … unlawful night activities. Frank’s
back in the game, and the scores revitalize him, and that’s the sweet/powerful
joke behind director Jake Schreier’s and writer Christopher D. Ford’s feature
debut. Crime pays and robots rock. Langella nails the part -- no show-off old-man
breakdowns, but pure frail human emotion. The script gives Frank a romantic interest
(always lovely Susan Sarandon) and it’s great until fate (the pen) insists on a
wild card that feels forced. B
“Equilibrium” is sci-fi loaded with dystopian fears of left-wing fascism zinged up by woo-hoo martial arts action set pieces. But it’s a shrill, dull, laughable
rip-off of “Matrix” made for folks who have vaguely heard of “THX-1138” and never actually read “Nineteen Eighty-Four” or “Fahrenheit
451.” It’s recyclable parts from the start, melted down and served up with
a cast that makes eating nuked leftovers almost palpable. Pre-“Batman” Christian
Bale is our Winston Smith-meets-Neo hero, a futuristic soldier for a Big
Bro gov’mint that has banned emotion and arts through drugs and force, all in
an effort to prevent war. Irony being “Father” kills all
protesters. Poo politics though, writer/director Kurt Wimmer (“Salt”) salivates
over slo-mo fights with dudes dressed in black long coats stomping,
kicking, and shooting each other into oblivion, until the finale when Bale (and his double) dons a white suit that would make Mr. Roarke’s tailor swoon during
an anti-climactic O’Brian kill zone. Bale stars, the lovely Emily
Watson plays a dissident, while Taye Diggs co-stars as a rival. All are
upstaged by a puppy. No, really. C
In “There will be Blood,” Paul Thomas Anderson told the
story of America’s greatest gifts -- capitalism and religious freedom –- gone
mad. “The Master” does not rise to such heights, but it never could have. It also
follows two men -– again representing one idea -– at odds. Joaquin Phoenix plays Freddie
Quells, a World War II vet who is violent, perverted, alcoholic, immature, and
a drifter, until he literally stumbles onto the yacht of a man close in age, but
light years beyond Freddie’s mental reach. Lancaster Dodd (Philip Seymour
Hoffman) is a scientist, writer, philosopher, and cult leader of a trillions-year-old
self-help religion known as The Cause. (Scientology? Maybe.) Dodd has a family and scores of admirers. Quells wants it all, to be Dodd, but can’t
recognize that impossibility. It is clear that Quell stopped maturing at 13. He’s
all awkward male poses and farts, a hormonal teenager. Dodd sees Quell as a pet
project, and Quell pings-pongs, loving and loathing Dodd as others point out
the man’s fakery. Yet, Dodd is convinced of his own powers. So, who truly is the
better man? Like “Blood,” Anderson offers few answers, but provides another
riveting, fascinating, and endlessly debatable story. A
No one gets abducted
in “Abduction,” but for a “Bourne Identity” Junior knock-off staring the
scowling werewolf from “Twilight,” I guess the title “Who’s My Daddy?”
would not drag in the non-teenage fans, huh? It’s almost unfair to dub
“Abduction” a “Bourne” knock-off, it’s a boot-licking mash note that name
drops Matt Damon. The plot: High school misfit Nathan Parker (Taylor Lautner) learns from a missing children website that he is not quite himself. Just as Nathan confronts his “parents” (Jason Isaacs and Maria Bello), goons storm the suburban home. Guns blaze! Mom down! Dad down! Boy on
the run, with a gal (Lilly Collins of “Mirror, Mirror”) in tow! See, Serbian terrorists
set up the very website knowing that one day Nathan would visit it and flee right
into their insidious trap to outsmart Nathan’s real father, a brilliant ex-CIA
agent. Whew! Why not a Craig’s List ad? John Singleton directs on snooze, his
“Boyz ’N the Hood” days long gone. Lautner acts listlessly here as he does in “Twilight.”
Suspense? Zero. Unintended laughs? A villain warns, “There’s a bomb in the
oven!” and our heroes run to check the oven! Hilarious. C-
“Jaws” is the
“Godfather” of beach movies. There is nothing better or scarier, even with all
the sequels (3-D!) and rip-offs and homages (“Piranha” and even “Alien”). All
the “Gidget”-like fun flicks from before? “Jaws” killed ’em. New to BluRay, “Jaws”
is better than ever in crisp, glorious widescreen with sound racketed up so
every thump of John Williams’ score booms inside your gut. The picture is so clean
one can see the horizon miles past the shaken trio of Roy Scheider, Richard
Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw as they battle a killer shark in the waters of New
England. I need not discuss plot, right? Everyone knows it. And no wonder: Steven
Spielberg, in his mid-20s, out of his league, and working with physical special
effects that barely functioned, pulled out a masterpiece that can never be
duplicated. Not with all the CGI in the world. The panic and confusion off
screen spills onscreen where anything can happen. The shark doesn’t appear for an
hour, but by then Spielberg has pulled us in with brilliantly drawn characters
and intense trickery. Shaw rules as the doomed shark hunter and
has the best intro ever in a movie. A+
Billy Wilder’s World
II spy drama “Five Graves to Cairo” starts off grim as hell: A Brit armored tank
drives aimlessly through the Egyptian desert, its crew dead except for one man
who falls from the vehicle onto the desert sand. John Bramble (Franchot Tone) stumbles
and then crawls his way to a nearby town, to a hotel called the Empress of Britain.
Recall, the Brits ruled this land, lock, stock and key. But the Brits scrammed.
The Nazis are in, full force. The sun-stroked Bramble is certainly dead. Except
the hotel owner (Akim Tamiroff) takes pity, and sets Bramble up as the
dead-by-bombing waiter Davos. Bramble as Davos learns the latter was a Nazi
spy, so now Bramble can play the espionage card triple against Rommel (Erich
von Stroheim). This is a great yarn, suspenseful, fun, gritty, and full of the era’s
patriotic Us-Against-Them/Country-First propaganda, up to a fault: See the
damsel-in-distress (Anne Baxter) of the pic is -– SPOILER ALERT! -– doomed
because she dares put family first. It smacks not so much of war-time tragedy,
but a sexist streak absent from Wilder in lighter classics a la “Apartment.” B+
“Whatever Happened to
Baby Jane” is lightning caught in a whisky bottle, a miracle film of casting, script,
time, and eerie black and white cinematography that can never be duplicated
despite all the remake plans. Bette Davis and Jane Crawford play aging sisters living
together in Hollywood Hell, their fame as movie stars forgotten.
Jane (Davis) was the vaudeville child star clipped by Blanche (Crawford) who
became the Hollywood starlet. Now Jane is a psychotic alcoholic permanently and
by choice 6 years old. She walks around in children’s clothing, hair in curls,
and giggles like a demon kindergartner. Her only kicks: Torturing Blanche, now paralyzed
and virtual prisoner. The twists in director Richard Aldridge’s flick are sick and quick: Jane cooks up pets and
rats to drive mad and starve Blanche, but when panic hits, “child” Jane runs to
Blanche for help. The film and the actresses pull no punches: Davis and
Crawford famously loathed each other and the seething torches every frame right
up to an uncertain and shocking finale that will send you right back to the start.
Davis is spectacularly grotesque, while Crawford is marvelously panicked. A+
As
Disney’s Pixar continues to dazzle eyeballs with animated CGI fare such as
“Incredibles” and “Toy Story” sequels, it’s easy to forget the unbeatable magic
of hand-drawn animation, and “The Lion King” is absolutely one of the best of now extinct ink-and-paint glories. This is a jaw-dropping beautiful epic with a
capital “E” movie with music catchable, happy, and chilling, and characters straight
from Shakespeare. You know plot: Young African lion cub Simba is the apple of
his father/king’s eye until the latter is killed, leaving Simba on the run, under the impression that he did in his daddy. It is, of course, the uncle, to
blame. In other words, “Hamlet.” The voice cast is perfect, from James Earl
Jones as the king/father, and full “Reversal of Fortune” evil Jeremy Irons as Uncle Scar, to Jonathan Taylor Thomas and Matthew Broderick as young and
adult Simba. But it’s visuals I love -– the exact strokes made by men and women, not
computers, of a cub sinking in the grass in fear of dad’s wrath or the
same cub trying to awaken his dead father. Breathtaking. Amazing. Art. The
18-year-old “King” has aged like royal wine. Classic. A+
John
Carpenter’s cult-classic, >$100,000-budget action thriller “Assault of
Precinct 13” is the parent to all “siege” movies that would come a decade
later, including “Die Hard.” Itself a modern re-make of “Alamo”-type
flicks, this also was to be set in the West, but Carpenter could not swing the
budget. The bare plot: A mysterious pack of gang members attack a L.A. ghetto
police station on the eve of its closure, trapping a stalwart African-American
officer (Austin Stoker), several women, and convicted felons (including Darwin
Joston) inside. “Assault” is a midnight feature that can play as a maybe-zombie film -– the gang members dabble with bowls of blood and are all but suicidal. Deep-thoughts: It’s a post-Vietnam American meltdown, or a satire on
1950s films that celebrated white heroics and all but demeaned blacks, flipped
on its, middle finger held out proud. But the heck with deep anything, this is a blazin’ cool cheap “B” flick that excels its origins and is seriously nasty fun. The title,
by the way, is infamously wrong. The besieged station is District 13, Precinct 9. “Assault of Precinct 9”?
Hmmm. Na. “13.” B+
“Safe
House” is another corrupt CIA thriller that plays with the Hollywood
rule that if a hotshot star (Ryan Reynolds) is the young hero and a middle-aged
actor (Brendan Gleeson) of Oscar-winning fare plays the mentor/father figure,
then the former must pop a lot of James Bond stunt work as the
latter plays cool and adds another villain to his resume. Seen “Recruit”? This
is it, again. Spoiler? No. “Safe” takes no chances and delivers just as many thrills,
its script also Xeroxing “Training Day.” How so? Denzel Washington is back in
bad-ass mode as Tobin Frost, a rogue CIA agent who lands under the care of
Reynold’s Boy Scout as they lock horns while fleeing across South Africa from countless assassins.
Along the way Frost schools Reynolds’ agent about the grim life working for Langley. Washington brings grace Frost barely deserves,
while Reynolds gets his grit on as a guy who can take car crashes, beatings,
stabbings, and a broken heart all in stride and still outsmart all his bosses. The
character is so magical he could send Gleeson’s Mad-Eye Moody’s fake
eye rollin’. C-
Mike
Judge’s “Office Space” is a classic comedy for anyone who works at a desk and
stores paper clips as if they were nuts for winter. “Extract” is another work
comedy from the man who also gave us “Beavis and Butthead,” but set in the
blue-collar arena. Jason Bateman is Joel Reynolds, owner of a company that
makes baking extract. Running a business is the American Dream, right? Not for Joel.
His desperate plan to sell out and retire with his wife (Kristin Wiig) is
undone thanks to a bizarre factory-floor accident, a goofball bartender pal
(Ben Affleck), and the arrival of a hot con artist (Mila Kunis). Judge makes small
comedies about real people – oddballs and eccentrics, sure – but people we all
know, and love and
hate, including the gabby neighbor. His targeting of the privileged is
ruthless, while his needling of common folk is rarely mean. Funny? Yes. But “Extract”
is scaled as a TV movie, even if the warped marriage comedy thread playfully
echoes “American Beauty.” B
My snob self
should hate the sandal-and-swords war romp “300” and its acid-trip
virtual reality CGI effects salted by cliché dialogue about oaths of brutality as
honor, and it’s need to be the War Porn film to end all War Porn films. Hell, it
pits brave European men against soulless Prussians, i.e., lots of white guys
squaring off against dark-skinned guys. But the hell with snobbery and politics,
“300” is a blood-in-the-head, scream-at-the-top-of-your-lungs shock-and-awe blast
for the eyes and ears that takes Frank Miller’s gloriously bloody graphic novel
of King Leonidas’ last stand against Xerxes and puts it on the screen frame
by panel, splatter by splatter, blood mixed with ink. Director Zack Snyder takes
all the carnage of the page and adds in screaming, raging men, and thundering music
primed for the male ego. Sexist? Homophobic? Ha. “300” has a massive female and
gay fan base. One guess why: Those 300 men. This is not Best of the Decade film
a la “There Will be Blood,” but when Gerard Butler -– in a star-making
performance -– as Leonidas screams “This! Is! Sparta!” and kills a dude … “300”
is my Guilty Pleasure of the Decade. A-
No matter one’s
politics, everyone knows the American economy started tanking in 2007 and
crashed in 2008, and has yet to really recover. The documentary “Detropia” is
about, of course, Detroit, and its past glory crushed by a collapsed auto
industry hit hard by economic woes, international competition, and its own greedy
execs who would rather pay foreigners pennies per day. Directors Heidi Ewing, a
native of the city, and Rachel Grady, from the East Coast, talk to union reps,
a retiree running a dying restaurant, and a video blogger among a few others helpless
to save their homes. The city’s broke and every cure is bad and –- in the idea
of creating massive farms -- lunatic. Ewing and Grady offer no answers or
judgments, nor do they talk to big wigs or CEOs, but they do show some ironies -–
including an opera house that plays to the rich, while the jobless suffer outside.
One man sings in an abandoned train station that must have buzzed with a few
hundred thousand people every day. It’s certain things will never be the same
in Detroit or in America. Grady said she wanted subliminal. That’s cool. But it’s
also fleeting. B+
The title of horror thriller “The Traveler”
means zip. It isn’t about a tourist, or salesman. Instead
former film star Val Kilmer plays a Drifter/Stranger/Nobody/Ghost who walks
into the police station of a deserted town one Christmas Eve and confesses to the
six officers on duty that he is guilty of six murders. He then proceeds to commit
his confessions in acts so supernatural you can hear Dana Carvey whisper “Ssssatan.”
The deeds -– whippings, hangings, shovel beatings, and suffocating -- are linked
to the torture of a suspect by the same officers a year prior. Director Michael Oblowitz cranks
down the mood with camera pans down dark hallways, but this is a “Tales from
the Crypt” episode stretched to 90 minutes, with violence repeated and
slo-mo’d to the point of tedium, hilarity, and eventually disgust. Kilmer is game, but appears uncomfortably overweight. Dude weighs
250, and people are worried about out-running him? The slapped-on title
says it all. Why care when the movie makers don’t. C-
