Movie 43 (2013)

From the folks who gave us “Dumb and Dumber,” the skit comedy “Movie 43” is not the tortuous mess I feared. Oh, it’s ugly, ungainly, and –- far too often -– offensively bigoted against Asians and homosexuals, seriously, watch this film and you’ll think the worst of humanity is a gay Japanese man, but there’s bits of gold -– um, bronze -- among the acres of shit. OK, I enjoyed two shorts. The skits are all wrapped under a blanket story of an madman (Dennis Quaid) who threatens to kill a Hollywood producer (Greg Kinnear) unless the latter buys his abhorrent screenplay. The first story follows a woman (Kate Winslet) blind-dating a man (Hugh Jackman) with a neck scrotum, a malady no one else notices. Pass. It’s not funny. But there’s a later bit about a 1960s basketball coach (Terrence Howard) telling his team, of course, you can kick the white guys’ asses, what are you thinking?!? That’s deft satire. Maybe edging racist, but it’s funny. Also funny: A woman out to kill a pervy cartoon cat. Everything else ... hit that fast forward button when you see Halle Berry. “Catwoman” is no longer her lowpoint. C-

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Bryan Signer’s “X-Men: Days of Future Past” –- his first return to the Marvel Mutant franchise in 11 years -– has one of those plots that would jump several Marvel titles and have me buying and reading lest I miss a twist. “Future Past” is literal as we focus on clawed-hero Wolverine (Hugh Jackman, Marvel’s hardest working man) leaping from 2023 to 1973 to stop an Orwellian existence started by a mad scientist (Peter Dinklage) bent on domination. Indeed we get the heroes and villains of the two “X-Men” time-line franchises, with seniors Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellan and sophomores James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender respectively playing hero Professor X and (non)villain Magneto, all for one admission. Singer serves the giddiest fun scene of the entire “X” films -- a punk speed demon (Evan Peters) breaks Magneto out of a Pentagon cell -– but, damn it, all the time leaping and plot erasing reminds me of the futility of so many comic books. No one dies. Watch a well-known character perish? No worries, wait three minutes, it won’t matter. Emotional investment? Suspense? Wet fireworks. Pay up for the next chapter, please. In three-color print, it worked. On screen? It rings empty. B-

Scoop (2006)

“Scoop” is a Woody Allen thing so forgettable and oh-so-Woody Allenish bland, I watched it the other day and only at the very, very end did I realize, “Oh, I have seen this before.” Folks, that never happens. And it stars Scarlett Johansson and Hugh Jackman. That’s some feat. SJ is a college newspaper reporter who finds herself on the trail of a possible serial killer who also happens to be a royal Brit (Jackman) and she falls for him, to the chagrin of her unlikely pal (Woody Allen), an old magician who entertains tourists who’d rather be in Vegas. Not London. The story idea seems solid, even if our reporter first has sex with her interviewees before interviews. I could guess this another Allen fetish, but college girls seem too old for him. It’s the execution. From the absolute lack of any suspense, odd for a thriller, to Allen’s shit nightclub jokes older than his leads. Snooze. What are the chances he wrote this in 1966 and updated not a word? C-

Prisoners (2013)

Dark dramas about child kidnapping do not make for Hollywood fare. “Prisoners” breaks that mold with its unsettling story one that remains gripping –- for the most part -- to the end, with a cast that digs deep. It centers on a Pennsylvania family (an excellent Hugh Jackman as father and Mario Bello as mother) that believes in God, guns, and “be ready” survivalist skills. Their all-American spirit shatters when their young daughter disappears on Thanksgiving Day, along with the child of an African-American family (Terrence Howard and Viola Davis). Jackman’s father who demands self-control loses himself to rage and takes hostage and savagely tortures a suspect (Paul Dano) cut loose by police for lack of evidence. What would Jesus do? Does it matter? Meanwhile, a detective (Jake Gyllenhaal) searches for the girls, hitting roadblocks and errors: He causes a jailhouse death, a move that shatters not his confidence, but the story’s logic flow. Ugly move: Director Denis Villeneuve marginalizes the mothers as they play to weeping clichés as the men do Manly Things. I fumed. But I also loved many details: The turkey and pie leftovers sitting uncollected for days and the sheer dullness of next-door evil in our America. B

The Wolverine (2013)

Does a bear shit in the woods? What about a Wolverine? 

In the opening minutes of “The Wolverine” -- the latest cinematic chapter of the X-Men mutant superhero saga -- we see the former, but thankfully never the latter as our fast-healing, metal-clawed, highly disgruntled hero Logan (Hugh Jackman) has taken to living in a remote Canadian cave to escape humanity. (OK, it’s a piss, not a shit, but damn the details. And if you don’t know who Wolverine is, just stop reading. I can’t help you.) This miserable life follows the unfortunate events of the unfortunate “X-Men: Last Stand” that left power-crazed Jean Grey dead by Wolverine’s claws. 

He killed her to save himself and the world, because that always happens in comic books. Yet, her ghost (Famke Janssen, also returning) appears in Wolverine’s dreams, her dressed in lingerie and in his bed as never happens in comic books. But this is the movie, and she’s not the only specter haunting Logan, whose only friend is now that bear. (Let the snickering begin.) Wolverine’s long past a century old, his genetically-mutated-at-birth healing powers keeping him eternally alive and at middle age. He has seen so much horror, death, and pain, his every moment is clouded by anger, ghosts and lost voices. 

Among the dark memories: His saving of a young Japanese prison guard as Nagasaki is obliterated by an American atomic bomb on 9 August 1945. That scene opens the film. The guard has since grown to become an old, dying billionaire owner of a tech company and he has plans for Logan: Mainly taking that eternal healing power for himself, allowing the Wolverine to finally die, and rest in longed for peace. And Logan indeed see his powers seeped away courtesy a villainous mutant known as the Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova), a literal snake-like woman who excretes maddening and deadly poison. 

A now vulnerable Logan soon finds himself inside a ticking bomb Japanese samurai/gangster drama that touches government powers and includes the old guy’s 20-something granddaughter, Mariko (Tao Okamoto), who is the target of assassins, family jealousies, and dull acting. 

A wounded, bleeding, off-his-game Logan and the woman go on the run and on the train, to Nagasaki and beyond, all leading to a climax atop a high-tech castle that recalls at once samurai classic drama “Ran” and also – head desk slam -- every other freakin’ superhero movie made, most especially a metal man/monster right out of a certain Robert Downey Jr,. franchise starter. (Mimicry is, what, flattering?)

Comic book geeks such as myself -- weaned in the 1980s and on the high-mark of Wolverine’s Japanese origin stories, with him taking on black-clad ninjas in a snowy mountain village, no noise but the slicing of bodies and clanging of sword on claws in the cold snow -– have long looked forward to the story of Logan told on film. To the saga of Wolverine, it’s as important as Krypton to Superman. 

The 2009 “Origins” Wolverine prequel was a bust on every level, as we were robbed of this story that fired our imagination and made us feel like we were watching a forbidden film of grisly violence. So, this sequel provides a double-edged sword as we do –- finally! -– get to see that very story told. 

But –- head desk slam part two -– the showdown is dispatched in such a quick a flash, I felt gutted. Director James Mangold and his writers (Scott Frank and Mark Bomback, plus an uncredited script doctor Christopher McQuarrie, and Lord knows who else) already were pushing the PG-13 line with blood. Was this too far? Whatever the case, it disappoints. 

Yes, I’m on a fan boy nitpick. Screw my geeky expectations, right? OK. 

The film’s a mess in myriad ways leading to these final battles, from the listless romance between Logan and Mariko -- half the age of Jackman, and likely a tenth of Logan’s age, to the absolutely blank spot of villainy. We are served betrayals that fizzle, a big reveal that could only shock a comatose child, and as the main threat -– Viper, the snake woman with layers of skin –- a vapid actress unqualified to sneer candy from the grip of a baby. The film dies, I kid not, when Khodchenkova opens her mouth. (Language issue?) But she is not all to blame. It’s not just miscasting, the character of Viper has no motive, no purpose, she’s just there. She’s an afterthought in tight, ridiculously revealing outfits.

Maybe that’s enough for some filmmakers. (Mangold put Cameron Diaz through the clothes trials in “Knight and Day,” for sure.)

As Logan faces down enemies we don’t fear, fights for loves we don’t care about, and sees his powers restored -– naturally -– before any true pain hits, the razor sharp potential of this film is made soup spoon dull. I could not do better. But I expected better. Darren Aronofsky –- he made “Black Swan” and “Requiem for a Dream” –- was slated to direct this, and I marvel inside my own head at the film he could have made, talking Logan to the darkest reaches of a mind we see only hinted here. And putting buckets of blood on that snow. 

(The man cited family as a reason to not do the flick. Me, I think he wanted an “R” film, the studio tossed him aside. Such a rating would poison the box office. Bullshit logic. The movie opened soft anyway.) 

“Wolverine” is not terrible. Jackman is amazing, not just his bulked-out size, but the energy he brings to Logan. “X-Men” back in 2000 made the guy star, but he has stayed loyal to this character. Name another actor who has that dedication? If the film had his energy, it would be epic. But it’s only minor. Another scratch added to the list of disposable comic book movies that clog screens, not fill imaginations.

Stay for the end credits, a small teaser to the next “X-Men” film as two older gentlemen from the franchise take a defibrillator to this flick. Zap! The “ehh” audience I sat with got a jolt. I did. You will. Funny how I turn on myself, I’m growing tired of the genre, but bring on the next one, please. 

A question and from the first scene: How does Wolverine get taken prisoner in war to begin with, to set up this story? No answer there. B-

Les Miserables (2012)

The big-screen adaptation of the tragedy/musical “Les Miserables” is everything every N.Y. film critic has said: Bombastic, sentimental, and manipulative; it tosses out tragedies like candy at a parade and has a story arc that could rival the Bible, but -- so what? Have they read Victor Hugo’s novel? The contrivances that drive its plot are halved here, and still may produce viewer whiplash. Hugh Jackman plays the Job-like French peasant Jean Valjean who finds faith and wealth after serving a grueling 19-year prison sentence for stealing bread, and sees raising the child of a doomed street woman named Fantine (Anne Hathaway) as his God-ordered duty. Meanwhile, he dodges an obsessive police inspector (Russell Crowe) hell-bent on law and order. Directed by Tom Hooper (“King’s Speech”), “Mes” proudly defies cynicism, and my cynical-self fell for it, especially the actors who sing on and to the camera with none of the lip-syncing shit that makes most musicals a chore. Crowe may be a blank, but Hathaway gives a performance that left me rattled. Jackman, too. Yes, it oozes excess at every turn, but Hugo would happily hum along. I did. B+

Real Steel (2011)

“Real Steal” is a deft genre mash-up: “Rocky” meets “Transformers,” with a heavy dose of “The Champ” tacked on for good measure, and Hugh Jackman in the lead. My film snob tastes melted away. The boy inside me cheered. The simple story: In the near future, human boxing is outlawed, replaced by a Michael Bay fever dream: Massive robot boxers going at each other like Ali and Foreman in the ring, no blood or brain damage, just busted-up (and recyclable) metal junk. Jackman is an ex-boxer named Charlie who has gone from dishing and taking KO’s in the ring to running robot boxers for hayseed crowds. Here comes the Underdog Redemption kick as Charlie has an estranged son named Max who, A) Needs a dad after mom dies, and B) Happens to be a junior engineer and avid gamer. Hokey? Much. So what. This is a CGI-heavy effects film that doesn’t let computer wizardly bulldoze story and character. During the climax, Shawn Levy’s camera pans away from the robot action and focuses on the human players instead. We care about these people, lead robot Atom is a blast, and as Max, Dakota Goyo upstages Jackman and the CGI. KO. A-

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2011)

Windi Murdoch has a mean right hook. Mess with husband Rupert and she will fuck you up. No joke. Awesome wife, she is. But movie producer? Not so much. Ms. Murdoch’s first foray into Hollywood is “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan,” a sufferable drama about four women suffering in modern day and 19th century China. What we learn: Friendships among women are good, sexism is bad, and foot-binding is really bad. Confession: I already knew all this going in.

The gist: In modern day Shanghai, successful businesswoman Nina (Li Bingbing) is set to move to New York when she learns estranged BFF Sophia (Gianna Junn) has been in a terrible accident. A distraught Nina rushes to the hospital to be by Sofia’s bedside. There, Nina finds a typed manuscript in Sophia’s belongings, an account of two women in 1800s China growing up and marrying in a society where women were mere son-bearing sex objects. I was never certain if the manuscript was fiction, or a historical record. I don’t care enough to know.

Director Wayne Wang (“The Joy Luck Club”) desperately wants us to care for these four women, but the heart just isn’t there. Nor the punch-in-the-gut drama. Riffing on “Godfather Part II” style editing, he cuts back and forth between past and present, making the audience work to keep up with what’s going on when, and who’s who, and giving us a clear choice in deciding which story is more boring. I vote for the modern tale as it was written fresh for the screen. It has female struggles that are just laughably bad, with high school drama galore and adult Sophia living in a “poverty” that half the modern world would kill to experience. The hokey English-written lines do not help.

The book, from which this film is based, focuses solely on the 1800s. Yet this historic portion is never allowed to dig deep. Yes, we see terrible sexism, and beatings, and cruel mothers-in-law, and it all happened to some one, but it has been played in a hundred other films. The editing does not help, denting emotional impact. Case in point, we witness a village massacre and the cold death of a child, but the scenes trip across the screen with a shrug, almost as if the script blankly stated “Insert Massacre Here.” The running villages scene could be stock footage for all I know. The music is standard issue, too.

Several unintended LOL moments derail this snoozer into distracting life: Hugh Jackman saunters on screen as a charismatic lounge singer because … I have no idea. Is he pals with fellow Aussie Rupert Murdoch? A woman near me yelled, “Oh, good! He’s gorgeous!” Worse still, the four women cross into each other’s time lines, because it’s … a trite liberal salute to women facing oppression throughout history? A stab at saying everything changes even as nothing changes? “Doctor Who” time travel? I have no idea. I burst out laughing, and others did near me, as two centuries-dead women with bound feet sipped coffee on an art deco high-rise patio. Not what Ms. Murdoch or Wang were going for, eh? D+

The Fountain (2006)

Darren Aronfsky does “Love Story”? The guy who made “Requiem for a Dream” and later “Black Swan”? Yes, please. “Fountain” was met with indifference upon release, after years of production woes. A pity. This is a cracked genius ode about obsessive, passionate love, in all its glory and pain. Hugh Jackman is a researcher seeking to cure brain tumors in apes. His artist wife (Rachel Weisz) is dying of just that, a brain tumor. Tom’s reasoning: If I can save them, I can save her. He only needs time. Time: It’s smashed and splintered, jumping from 1500s Spain to modern day America to a distant future in outer space. Jackman is Tom in all three, and Weisz is there as well. The question lingers: Are we seeing three Toms, and three women? No. It’s one man who defies time, space and God for his one love. Also defiant: Aronofsky. The film has faults, but it is an amazing testament to love. Passion. It jumps off the screen like a golden light blasting all logic, and goes straight for the heart. A

‘The Illusionist’ and ‘The Prestige’ (Both 2006)

I saw the magic-themed “The Illusionist” and “The Prestige” back-to-back in 2006, on purpose. Just recently, I re-watched them within a week of each other by mere coincidence. My reactions remain just about the same.

“Illusionist” is a star-crossed love story about a wildly imaginative magician and the love of his life. Magic man Eisenheim (Edward Norton) and princess-to-be Sophie (Jessica Biel) loved each other as children, but life shit happened. They split. Decades later Eisenheim arrives in Vienna, ready to woo Sophie from the cruel prick Crown Price Leopold (eternal bad guy Rufus Sewell). To grind Eisenheim down, the prince has a lapdog policeman (Paul Giamatti) who is corrupt, but yet a fan of showmanship and art. This is Giamatti’s film. He outclasses everyone, without raising his voice or getting all puppy-eyed. Norton and Biel provide kennels full of puppy eyes. The film tosses out a “gotchya” plot that’s not nearly as clever as it wishes to be. Norton’s stage presence as Eisenheim is winning, even if the magic is too CGI-heavy. The much-praised cinematography is a pitch too arty even for me. B

“Prestige” is based on a favorite book, so it has a lot to live up to. The plot concerns two rival magicians in London who start as friends, but soon enter a game of one-upmanship and then deadly, bloody games on and off stage. The instigation: An on-stage death of one’s beloved. Angier (Hugh Jackman) is a stage natural, but needs help pushing the core of his trade. Borden (Christian Bale) is the opposite: He is genius at magic design, but a boorish stage presence. Merged in one body and soul, the men would make one hell of a talent. Director Christopher Nolan has a long obsession with what forms a person’s identity, or breaks it. The reveals of “Prestige” allow Nolan to play large. But this isn’t “Memento” or “Inception.” It’s too cold and calculated, and in need of magic dust. So to speak. Nolan avoids supernatural themes that ruled the book, and some acts don’t come off justified: When a major character commits suicide, it seems only blasé inevitable. B+

X2: X-Men United (2003)

“X2” -- Bryan Singer’s sequel to 2000’s “X-Men” -- goes deeper, darker and more politically blunt with barely veiled references to discrimination, imprisonment or murder of any group (Muslims, gays) deemed “dangerous” and “subversive” by right-wing flag waivers. In a LOL scene, a mom asks her super-powered son: “Have you ever tried not being a Mutant?” Nearly all of the heroes and villains of the first chapter return and reluctantly bond when threatened by a third party, a wild horse Army Special Ops guru named William Stryker (Brian Cox, making sinister look easy). Tones of faith, religion, trust, and the lure of evil are mixed in with a strong plot that further makes Professor X (Patrick Stewart) into an MLK Jr. figure and Magneto (Ian McKellen) into an early Malcolm X gone evil, while pushing the story forward. Hugh Jackman rocks as Wolverine, tough guy and babe magnet. I still hate the title: There’s not much uniting here. A-

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009)

“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” is not a disaster. It is miles ahead of the lifeless dud “X-Men: Last Stand,” the finale in an otherwise stellar film series that concerns superheroes born with their powers, Mutants. But this is far from razor claw sharp. It is dull, all CGI razors, no steel, or that whatzit metal in our titular hero.

If you’re an X-Men fan, you know the details on Wolverine (Hugh Jackman). He has the ability to heal, doesn’t age, and can grow deadly sharp claws from his knuckles. Impressive, eh? After a long-ass set up, this prequel rockets to post-Nam America as Wolverine – a.ka. Logan – finds himself working for renegade Army colonel Stryker (a ho-hum growling Danny Houston). Crimes are committed. Bodies piled high. Logan quits in disgust. But half-brother Victor – a.k.a. Sabretooth, who has very similar powers with an evil streak -- loves the job. Liev Schreiber plays this role. If you are lost at all these names, just quit reading, save yourself the trouble, film and review are for fan-boys, and I presume the review is better, eh?

So, blah plot blah, Logan – having never seen a conspiracy movie or read a comic book – midway through the film stupidly commits to becoming a super soldier, and his bones are filled with a crazy-strong liquid metal that will make him not just unkillable, but the bane of TSA agents. This is where Wolverine truly is “born.” The film version of Wolverine, anyway.(More on that in a minute.) In an act so dumb it made me groan, Stryker, the obvious bad guy who Logan trusts like Mother Duck, loudly announces that he will erase Logan’s memory and make the mutant his bitch. Post surgery. We get lots of these logic lapses that occur for no other reason than they must for the plot to grind on. So, plot, Logan escapes, and seeks revenge.

“Wolverine” lacks many things, other than logic. But what this PG-13 flick most needs is blood. Grisly, eye-popping blood. I read piles of Wolverine comic books with our anti-hero slicing through armies of ninjas, the Hulk, or any number of opponents with animalistic glee. Wolverine was bloody, dangerous, unpredictable, and that was a nasty, fun thrill to read. Red blood was forbidden by censors, so comic book artists poured blobs of black ink onto the page to represent Wolverine’s wild carnage. I got that ink on my fingers.

Don’t get me wrong. There’s action aplenty and Jackman is game and wildly buff. A climatic fight involving Wolverine, Sabretooth and a Frankenstein-like Deadpool (Ryan Reynolds) has a somewhat cool Three Mile Island meltdown meets “Star Wars” mash-up that zings and pops. It’s a hint of the wild menace that should have been there from the film’s start. But back story should have been put on the back burner. C+