Film Reviews, Interviews and Articles
The Purge had a fascinating conceit – that society was allowed to kill, steal, and rape with carte blanche for one 12 hour period annually – but was ultimately a bitter disappointment. The characters were thin, the home invasion plot familiar and it just generally lacked on tension and legitimate scares. For having launched from such a strong starting block, it face-planted like an Olympic athlete with her shoelaces tied together. Read More
Too many times, that overused phrase “It made me feel like a kid again” has stood as a defense for liking sub-par movies. But with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, a truly magical work that had me giddy, mouth agape in sheer wonder (like a big-mouth bass caught hook, line and sinker) I will happily cloak myself in that tired sentiment. Dawn of the Apes made me feel like a kid again, and it was amazing.
From the very first opening sequence that gently reminds us of the outcome of the first film, director Matt Reeves shows a delicate patience and proclivity for understatement that will go on to define his picture as a whole. A collection of news clips detailing the global calamity that has been termed “Simian Flu” fill in the outline of countries and continents as a spiderweb of the virus’ migration connects the world as if in an Indiana Jones flyover sequence. A solitary piano note rings out as the lights of Earth are slowly extinguished, blip by blip, until darkness reigns. The title card creeps from the inky black with a brown note fanfare: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Chills race up my spine.
From here, Reeves takes us into the world of Caesar (Andy Serkis) and his super-simians. These uber-intelligent apes are New Age noble savage; they live harmoniously with the land, hunt in packs, have a cool, Endor-like treetop village and don’t need the extraneous comforts that humans rely so heavily upon, likes beds and fast food and cars and electricity.
Since the events of Rise, Caesar and his Hominidae cohorts have established their own utopia where apes don’t kill apes and a dwindling human population poses little threat to their way of life. Like the phoenix from the ashes, they rule in peace in their hard-won isolation. That is until a band of human travelers wander into the outskirts of their village and happen upon two young apes – one of whom is Caesar’s son, Bright Eyes (a name you may recall from Rise as that of Caesar’s deceased not-quite-super-ape momma). Fearful and jittery, Carver (Kirt Acevedo) plugs a bullet into one, inviting the entire troop of PO’ed apes to come swinging into defense. Our homo-sapien protagonist Malcolm (Jason Clarke) steps up to decry the incident as accidental but when Caesar barks “Go!”, the ragtag band of human survivors realize a. they’ve opened a whole box of Pandora’s boxes and b. holy shit, apes talk now.
This chance encounter leads to rabbling discussions on both sides. Gary Oldman‘s Dreyfus, who seems the de-facto leader of this scrambled human brigade, lays into Malcolm on why they must return to the ape enclosure in hopes of accessing a downed electrical dam. But Malcolm’s already on the same page as him. You see, when the lights went out years back, unspeakable things happened in the darkness. Things he won’t allow his new family to revisit.
Back in the ape world, Caesar is pressured by milky-eyed confidante Koba (Toby Kebbell) into a show of force. They’ve crossed a line in the sand and must be put in their place, Koba roughly signs out in ape sign language. Though weakened, humans possess the power to destroy all that we’ve built and must be put in their place. As the Ape leader with a royal name and his (si)minions march in on horseback, the humans of this blown-out San Fran are as dumbfounded and outraged as Charlton Heston at a Gun Control meet-and-greet. Again, holy shit.
The remainder of Reeve’s film is history. Cowboys and Indians, The Civil Rights Movement (with strong analogies to Malcolm X and Martin Luther King), Manifest Destiny, WWI and the assassination of Franz Ferdinand. War; what is it good for? Asserting yourself as the dominant species.
As Reeve’s film leaks historical allegories like a zesty geyser, his political astuteness pans to a smart dissection of why we choose war in the first place. War is a side effect of fear, fear a scar of misunderstanding. Koba’s are scars that cannot be healed. Dreyfus won’t stand for Three-Fifths of a vote. Peace is a process. Wars start inevitably. It’s not that these two civilizations could not peace co-habitate, it’s that sometimes a punch in the face seems like a more swift resolution than drawn-out talks. History however says otherwise (look no further than the 11 year War in Iraq for proof of that). Peace isn’t easy but it sure saves on carnage.
That said, boy oh boy does the carnage look good here. Though much of the beginning of the film is occupied by a sense of quiet contemplation and even quieter sign-talking – a bold stance in a blockbuster in and of itself – when things do get heated, the conflagrations rise quickly. A mid-stage set piece involving Koba (who could easily go down as the best villain of 2014) is so masterfully rendered, so perfectly shot, and so breathtakingly epic that I had to collect my jaw from the floor after watching it. And this is where the effects wizards over at WETA, whose anthropomorphic achievements are simply unmatched, should take a bow.
And when I say wizards, I don’t mean it lightly. Dawn is not the work of some pea-brained Hogwarts first years so much as a cloned army of Dumbledores, who’ve worked tirelessly to make CGI characters so picture perfect that sometimes you have to pinch yourself to remember that these are not actual talking apes onscreen. Maurice the orangutan in particular is the product of effects on the edge of tomorrow (in addition to being a joy to watch.) The hairs on his body alone boggle the line of what is and isn’t real. While Rise proved that these visual acrobatics were possible, Dawn takes them to the next level, plants them on horses and charges them over flaming barricades while pumping off automatic rifles in both hands. Epic is the only adjective that fits.
Beneath that FX artistry, Serkis shines as much as ever. His Caesar is more confident, more defined in his role as a leader, and all around more stoney than before. But it’s this resolve that makes his oncoming break so much more potent. Assuming the Academy won’t be budging on their ancient rulings anytime in the near future, it’s still worth taking time to note just how much of an avant-garde artist this man is. Props.
But it’s not Serkis alone this time round who furthers the medium of motion capture. Toby Kebbell as Koba is the teeth-baring, power-seeking, fear-totting equivalent of Lion King‘s Scar in that his devious maneuvering are matched only by the penchant for fire-filled battles. A scene when he switches from playful circus monkey to dead-eyed killer ape lets the chills fly fast and loose, reminding us this is not an ape to be f**ked with and that Serkis has taught his co-stars in the art of mo-cap well.
Although the human side doesn’t really have an equal to Dawn‘s simian counterpart, Clarke is a strong lead; wide-eyed, charismatic and caring, even without much of an arc of speak of. At one junction, Caesar calls him a good man and that about sums up his characterization. Malcolm’s small familial unit, including son Alexander (Kodi Smit-McPhee) and whatever they call a girlfriend after the pretty-much Apocalypse, Ellie (Keri Russell), get even less fleshing out, but still provide just enough to give Clarke’s Malcolm the needed stakes to take big risks. If anything, they’re ample window dressings to move the larger story forward.
For the first time this year, I cannot wait to rush back to the theater and shell out all the money to see Dawn of the Planet of the Apes on an even bigger screen. Because this is the definitive movie that demands an IMAX screening, even if it does mean wearing those obnoxious 3D glasses. Not only is Dawn the best Apes movie since the 1968 original, it’s one of the finest sci-fi movies to grace the silver screen in decades.
It’s that impossibly rare blockbuster that shimmers with intelligence and has the FX razzle-dazzle to leave you dazed and amused, grinning from ear-to-ear and stunned by it’s impeccably told story. If we’re lucky, we’ll see a follow up tagging close behind (hopefully with Reeves returning) and I’m willing to wager a pretty penny they call it War for the Planet of the Apes. But no need to look too far into the future, just start lining up for this one right about… now.
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Begin Again is the type of movie that comes with a set of instructions: Pre-heat oven to 400°. Mix divorce, heartbreak, success, failure and teen angst in a bowl while stirring in heavy doses of music. Cook for 104 minutes or until golden brown. Your film is now done and ready to enjoy!
What you see is what you get. Alcoholism is communicated via bottle: whiskey on the table and a beer in the fridge. You don’t get to witness any of the debilitation or struggle that comes with it. An empty drink is supposed to fill the gap. This is like journeying through South America and filming the mosquito bites. Or, you know, casting Maroon 5 lead singer Adam Levine as a pop star and covering all the tattoos.
Director/Writer John Carney is a good enough cook to blend his ingredients just right without getting into the complicated stuff. He knows when to flip the dish and what to stuff it with, and sometimes he’ll throw in a dash of spice to give it a kick. It may not turn out perfect, but he’s put enough love and time into it to make a good meal out of it.
Luckily for Carney, it’s hard to screw anything up when your main dish is a 5« serving of Mark Ruffalo. No, he’s not doing any detective work in Begin Again, save maybe gumshoeing his way into our hearts. Ruffalo is simply ‘Dan,’ a music producer who started his own record label from scratch alongside Saul (Mos Def)—Carney doesn’t bother to give any of his characters a last name. As good music gave way to pop and a divorce with his wife took its toll, Dan found the bottle and never took his lips from it. After an outburst in front of some high-profile customers, Saul cans Dan, who tries to take some paintings and employees with him. “This isn’t Jerry McGuire!” Saul says.
Actually, it kind of is. A beleaguered and stressed agent gets fired and starts over with a new philosophy and a new client. This time it’s Greta (Keira Knightley), a British singer-songwriter whose boyfriend Dave (Adam Levine) gets caught up in his newfound fame and cheats on her, leaving her alone in New York City. She’s got a meek voice and some strong lyrics, but it takes a drunken Ruffalo to notice her talents. He tells her he’ll use his connections to get her a record deal. Soon they’re recording an entire album on New York streets with a full band provided by Cee Lo Green, Julliard and some random kids Ruffalo finds in an alleyway.
Ruffalo sets the beat. He’s endearing, keenly funny and he’s got one of those smiles that make you smile back. Carney’s given him something to do with his hands as he’s always got some booze tightly grasped. Mark’s drunk is a jolly one, more tipsy than dizzy. He’s the type who’ll wake up in a dumpster and giggle about it then start drinking again. It makes you wonder if he’s even acting. Ruffalo toes the line and he’s having fun with it. He’s the main source of comedy. You can’t help but want to grab a beer with him. But, his sober side shows a hidden tenderness, a latent passion. Hailee Steinfeld is strong as Ruffalo’s neglected daughter, and their father-daughter relationship makes for good moments.
Knightley’s the kick. She’s got a shy voice but a strong personality: she’s always wearing a confusing amount of fabric, which seems to fit the layers of depth she’s getting at in her role. Ruffalo and Knightley spend a night together in New York, dancing and sharing music on a CD player like old friends. Their relationship is so fun that you hope Carney doesn’t ruin it with romance. Her smart performance and Carney’s shrewd writing keep you guessing. Surprisingly, she’s even able to bring out the best from first-time film actor Adam Levine. In a fantastic break-up scene, Levine plays a song he’s written on the road. Knightley can tell it’s not for her; she slaps him across the face. When he smashes his glass of wine, Knightley’s the one that’s shattering.
Maroon 5’s head man is a strange case as he isn’t really acting so much as pretending. A pop star in real life, it’s difficult to look past Adam and see the ‘Dave.’ Carney gives him enough that he isn’t reaching: he’s calling upon real experience. Though he keeps up with the cast, it’s hard not to wonder why he was chosen for the role. You wouldn’t cast Peyton Manning in a football movie and call him Jim. Carney’s pushing suspension of belief too far.
Overall, it’s hard not to like what Carney’s cooked up here, though at times it gets uppity. There’s a lot of “it’s all about the music man!” thrown around, when the music is nothing you haven’t heard before. Instead of the songs, it’s the quirks—touches of comedy, theg dynamic between Ruffalo and Knightley, genuine performances from the whole cast—that get you tapping your feet right along with it.
With music and New York serving as backdrops, Begin Again is touching, funny and lively enough to merit a taste. Imaginative and different, it challenges what you would normally expect from a rom-com. Carney doesn’t overcook it, and there’s spice enough to defy expectations. I left the theater full. Maybe even a little too full.
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Einstein said that “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
You have to be insane to be a Minnesota Timberwolves fan. Heading into tonight’s NBA Draft, I was resolved for the worst, because you can expect nothing more from one of the worst professional franchises in sport, an organization that’s run like a penny-saving ma’ and pa’ store with Enron savvy.
This is a team that’s drafted a guy they vowed not to draft because they hadn’t planned for a scenario where they wouldn’t get the guy they wanted. This is a team that puts players they don’t want into a so-called “S Box.” This is a team that drafted a 21 year old player who turned out to be 26 years old. This is a team run by Flip Saunders, a GM/Owner who hired himself as coach and wrote down his draft pick on a sheet of paper like Kevin Costner in Draft Day. And yet, here I was thinking we could get it right this time around.
We ended up getting Zach LaVine, a Point Guard from UCLA who didn’t start this year and seems to have all the qualities that would make one good at being a gazelle, and none of the talent that lends to being an actually good basketball player. He responded to being drafted by banging his head on the table and saying “Fuck me,” then proceeded to call Minnesota a “great city.” This guy’s a gem.
Somehow, I expected something better from Transformers: Age of Extinction—something sane. Maybe because Director Michael Bay’s on his fourth installation in the franchise, maybe because Mark Wahlberg is starring in it, maybe because the girl that plays Wahlberg’s daughter, Nicola Peltz, is super hot. Instead, Bay’s two and a half hour robokkake elicits the same response as Zach LaVine: “fuck me.”
In Transformers: Age of Extinction, Bay spends his seemingly endless time pouring salt on the barren wounds left by Transformers 1, 2 and 3, but this time it’s with a smirksome eff you to the audience. Everything is turnt up past 11 in this $165 million film: the jean shorts shorter; the sweat sweatier; the muscles more rippling; the cars more decadent; and worst of all, the Transformers are souped up. Dinosaur. Transformers.
Thankfully, we don’t have to struggle through another Sam Witwicky slog because Shia LaBeouf and his head-sack are nowhere to be seen. This time, we’ve got Cade Yeager (Wahlberg) as a ripped inventor whose inventions don’t work. He fixes up neighbors’ old trash for cash and builds malfunctioning robots that explode and combust, like a guard dog that couldn’t guard Zach LaVine.
He’s also an overprotective father of a gorgeous 17-year old (don’t worry I checked: she’s actually 19!) because he knocked up his wife when he was 17 and doesn’t want the same problems to befall his soon-to-be-graduated daughter. Turns out she’s hooking up with an incredibly handsome Irishman behind his back, Shane (Jack Raynor), who races cars for Red Bull. T.J. Miller (HBO’s Silicon Valley) is Wahlberg’s comic relief buddy who quickly gets burnt to a literal crisp and displayed on-screen as a carbonated trophy for a traumatic twenty seconds.
When Wahlberg finds an old rickety truck and discovers that it’s Autobot leader Optimus Prime in disguise (gasp!), the story starts to unfurl. The good Transformers who fought to save the world in Transformers 3: Revenge of the Bots are almost extinct as the government—headed by evil agent Harold Attinger (a bearded Kelsey Grammer)—tries to kill them all. Now there’s only five left.
In the mind-numbing two hours of battling and running and slow-moing and close-upping that follow, Wahlberg and friends team up with Optimus and his crew (notably John Goodman voicing a fat cigar-smoking Transformer and Ken Watanabe as a super-offensive NinjaBot) to ride some dinosaur Transformers and fight Kelsey Grammer, Stanley Tucci, a bomb called “The Seed,” a Transformer whose face is a huge gun, and some mechabot thing called Galvatron. None of this shit made any sense to me either.
MY FACE IS A GUN!!!
Granted, visually, this film is probably the most gorgeous thing that’s ever graced a silver screen. To his credit, Bay has perfected the Transformer graphics to the point that now he’s just playing with it like an infant with a toy chest of action figurines. Explosions boom in IMAX 3D. The cars, planes, alien ships and Transformers glimmer and shriek as they come apart and fit back together. The gun-head Transformer and the DinoBots are definitely the craziest, most preposterously incredible creations Bay has ever come up with. Bugattis and Ferraris flip and twist into robots. It’s astronomically cool.
Despite the glorious IMAX 3D monster that Bay’s created to top the box office charts for months, this flick reeks of #2. He’s trolling us now: Victoria Secret ads are blown up, US Banks are crushed under a Transformer’s boot, and Wahlberg stops in the middle of all the chaos to drink a Bud Light. There was even a quick intro before the movie where everyone involved just talked about how awesome Michael Bay is. Really, Age of Extinction is one big commercial, and the product placement made it seem like Transformers had accidentally wandered into a GQ photo-shoot and just decided to blow everything up.
Optimus Prime is awesome as usual, but there’s just so much crazy and absurd stuff happening to really get anything more than a headache. Plot points are brought up then completely dropped, like when Optimus is said to need repairing and then just magically repairs himself. Close-ups of actors were too jarring in 3D, and Bay too often forces the shots in. Though Tucci and Grammer are outstanding in their villain roles, it’s problematic when you find yourself hoping the good guys lose.
Though Mark Wahlberg is great at playing Mark Wahlberg, anything involving him, Peltz and Raynor is utter garbage. We’re subjected to almost three hours of “you can’t date boys until you’re 18” discourse that never ends. Peltz’s outfits get increasingly tighter, so much so that they look—as the country-folk say—painted on. Luckily she’s really hot, which distracts from how utterly annoying the overprotective Dad shtick gets. Otherwise, my main complaint comes with hotty racer Raynor: why couldn’t he be fat and nerdy and play League of Legends? Why do these guys always have to be way too good-looking?
Age of Extinction is just too long. It’s arduous work just watching because so many things are crammed in. This film could have been an hour long, and it might’ve been fantastic. Too often it dragged out unnecessary plot and confusing battles. There’s a Jaw-like wait just to see the DinoBots. Wahlberg amps up the Wahlberg, and seems to be made out of the same stuff as the Transformers.
At the end of the night, you wonder how you ever expected anything more. History repeats itself and so does Transformers, ad nauseam. One has to wonder if Flip’s “S Box” stands for “Shit Box.” If so, cram Age of Extinction in an S Box and never let it out.
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With Animal Kingdom, David Michôd proved that Australia had a place at the table when discussing great new cinematic voices globally (and all but introduced the world to Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton and Jackie Weaver). With The Rover, he’s taken the next step towards auteurship in a stripped-down, sand-blasted, shaggily-moraled, post-apocalyptic Western saga. In it, Robert Pattinson‘s star shines bright, offering the best performance of the year so far and one certainly worth of chatter come Oscar season. It’s magical enough that Michôd has culled a truly jaw-dropping performance from the oft reviled Twilight icon (who was also strong in Cronenberg’s Cosmopolis) but his minimalist take on what remains after society crumbles is a rawhide-tough slice of devastation pie. Read More
Clint Eastwood‘s latest biopic, Jersey Boys, paints Frankie Valli as some sort of falsetto-ing saint – an absentee father, yes, but a take-it-on-the-chin, bootstraps machismo with the voice of an angel and a bleeding heart for his down on their luck, criminally-inclined best buddies. And though the man has a range that reaches into the high soprano section like a eunuch in a Roman cathedral, this cloyingly old-fashion, family friendly biography follows the familiar conceit of rise-fall-rise that we’ve seen in many biopics of pop stars past. No matter how many high notes Valli hits and how hard the familiar musical numbers pop, it’s a tedious and long-winded encounter that fails to deviate from the course of previous entries into the genre.
Based on the Tony-Award winning jukebox musical of the same name, Jersey Boys sees a young Valli transform from a mop boy into a certifiable All Star and the many bumps in the road along the way. Now if you can only ignore the fact that the story begins with a 16-year old Frankie Valli (born Francesco Castelluccio, but I don’t think we have to get into why he slimmed down that clunker) being portrayed by a 38-year old, grown ass man (John Lloyd Young) then you’re probably off to a pretty good start.
The film begins amicably enough with a light-hearted heist-gone-wrong, window-dressed with an amusing visual gag and narrated in fourth-wall breaking virility by a slick-backed and vain Tommy DeVito (Vincent Piazza). In media res, DeVito retrospects on how Valli was essentially his creation and of course, he has the tale to convince us. Christopher Walken stops by as mob boss-lite Gyp DeCarlo and sheds some quick, unearned tears over Valli’s warbling descant. Keep up your exercises, he cautions, you’re gonna be a star some day.
Bing, bang, boom, lo and behold Castelluccio becomes Valli and The Four Lovers become The Four Seasons and start churning out poppy top charters like hot cakes at a Sunday morning Dennys. Still, no matter how many bitter berries are spread throughout the lives of Valli and his compatriots, the story still deals with their lives in a syrupy, surface-level manner. I will credit Jersey Boys for giving me a new found appreciation for Valli and The Four Seasons but I wouldn’t say that I actually understanding how these people operate.
The fact that none of the cast is particularly stirring doesn’t make it any better. There’s nothing especially poor about the performances that pepper the film so much as there’s hardly anything in them worthy of note. Considering that Young received an acting Tony for the very same performance on Broadway speaks largely to the contrast between what works on stage and on screen, as his Valli never feels like a living, breathing character so much as a stage version of a character. That’s not to say his portrayal of the pop icon is to blame for the shortcomings of the film as Eastwood’s troubled hand adapting it from one forum to another is the real issue at stake. Even during the high points (which surprisingly enough came during the songs for me), it’s easy to spot some janky lip-singing and the musical numbers reach a stasis when they drag on for too long or hit one right after another.
With all the high-pitched crooning and retro set pieces and costumery, Jersey Boys just feels like a dated effort, an breezy, over-the-plate adaptation of already beloved source material that fails to bring anything new to the table. Fault Eastwood’s more recent tendency to miss the forest for the trees or his inexplicable need to put young actors in old people’s makeup. To quote Murtaugh, I think he’s getting too old for this shit. As it stands, Jersey Boys is probably exactly the entertainment your grandma is looking for but may prove tiring for all once it snails over the two hour mark.
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Global climate change threatens the way of life as we know it (just ask Bill Nye for proof of that.) But not every ailment has an ointment as not every disaster has a solution. Snowpiercer examines a world where a fix-all mechanism for global warming has gone horrible awry and left the world as we know it in frosty tatters, where the only few survivors occupy a train that hasn’t stopped circling the planet for 17 years. It’s a bleak glance into a natural disaster the scope of which we can forecast but not prevent but the true terror lies not in the world outside the train, but the social order which takes hold within it. It’s a distinctly international story (with a cast that’s one gay guy shy of a Benetton ad) about standing up for what’s right and blowing shit up when it refuses to nudge. Rife with sociopolitical commentary and brimming with one-of-a-kind world-building, South Korean director Bong Joon-Ho looked like the perfect guy to take on a thinking man’s actioner of this breed. After all, who else would have dared to end this movie like he did? Read More
A truly great comedy movie requires three things: pitch-perfect chemistry between its charismatic stars, a treasure trove of visual gags (preferably sans dongs, ball sacks, and/or fecal matter) and a waterfall of jokes that feel rightly organic; ad-libbed zingers that don’t come across like sweat-shop products whittled down by mouth-breathing jurors in some distant focus-lab. Overstuffed with these three golden characteristics, 22 Jump Street has all the makings of a comedy classic. A healthy improvement over the original, this higher budgeted follow-up chiefly takes on sequels and bromance in a deeply meta and surprisingly charming manner. Directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller‘s saucy avenue for comedy is aptly winking and righteously unbarred, stirring up just the right amount of chagrin for the platitudes of (notoriously lame) studio sequels. In acknowledging the shortcomings of what their product could have been, Lord and Miller’s film is transcendent. It’s smart, funny and flowing with in-jokes for industry insiders and casual filmgoers as well. It’s a comedy for movie lovers by movie lovers and joke for joke, the funniest movie of the year. Further, it’s one that will likely remain in the “best of” comedy conversation for years to come.
The table is set with a playful “Previous on 21 One Jump Street” recap that doubles as an homage to the original Johnny Depp-lead television program while still providing a brief summation of the first film for people like me who haven’t seen it in a number of years. We reacquaint with odd couple cops Schmidt (Jonah Hill) and Jenko (Channing Tatum) as they’re about to intercept a drug deal, or so they think. A hilariously off Mexican gangster impersonation follows and hijinks quickly sour with Schmidt receiving hickey by octopus and Jenko strung up from the heels.
Even though they majorly biff their first outing, these two flunky street cops soon find that the higher ups have them squarely in their sights. After the success of their first “mission”, the Mr. Money Bags on top are gambling even more on Schmidt and Jenko this time around. They’re dished out more money to throw around but expect an even greater degree of success. “You need to do things exactly as you did last time,” Nick Offerman‘s mustache of a Deputy Chief commands. The only way to achieve success after all is to play it safe. As the film pitches this very concept, the bastions of this artfully devious script do all they can to switch hit and deliver much meatier blow for it.
Screenwriters’ Michael Bacall, Oren Uziel and Rodney Rothman‘s gumming is a devilishly obvious allusion to the studio system’s tight grip on franchising – whose “creativity” is more in tune with reproduction by assembly line than true originality – with third wall breaking so mightily pronounced that Hill and Tatum all but stare directly into the camera. But the irreverence of the entire cast and crew is deeply comic. Its seven layers of meta has sarcasm running so deep that their pot shots come fast and loose. Tatum essentially acknowledges how bottomed out White House Down was just as they later acknowledge how easy it would be to milk this franchise for all its worth. Also with a higher budget, we get things like Ice Cube‘s Ice Cube office. That’s right, Ice Cube has an office shaped like a cube of ice.
Schmidt and Jenko make their way to their next assignment, investigating a hybrid drug called WHYPHY (pronounced wifi and standing for Work Hard? Yes, Play Hard? Yes) at a local community college. While there, the two best buddies/partners begin to tear in different directions as Tatum and his bulbous throwing arm fall into the frat bro crowd, leaving Schmidt to find sentimental solace in gallons of ice cream and Friends re-runs and the artsy, fartsy community.
As far as ying and yang go, Hill’s wounded fay routine synchs perfectly with Tatum’s prom king duncemanship. As a college football announcer says (however not about their two characters) “They’re two peas in a pod.” Their comic timing is perfect as it their oddball dichotomy of character. Tatum’s cob-webbed thought process is blunted by Hill’s smart aleck ways and Lord and Miller find many opportunities to exploit their differences in hilarious and oft-kilter ways. Even if some of the laughs are expected, the amount of them will catch you off guard. It’s a non-stop flight of guffaws, a bullet train of side-splitters. Also, be sure to stick around for the credits which will likely have you rolling on the floor.
With their tongues planted deeply in cheek, Lord and Miller bring the same slapstick routine that defined The Lego Movie to this more adult adventure and it’s nothing short of a riot-fest to watch them peel back the many layers of this joke onion. But licking your way to the creamy center, one might be surprised to find some real heart buried amongst the awkward and yet sweet relationship between Hill and Tatum. While their matching at first looked like some kind of Frankenstein’s monster, in 22 Jump Street, they really are two peas in one hell of a funny pod.
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Since all the Groundhog Dog jokes have already risen, seen their shadow and retreated into the proverbial internet hole, let’s just settle with calling Edge of Tomorrow a slightly derivative but monstrously enjoyable blockbuster. In a time where any project commanding a budget north of 100 million dollars is either dumbed down to the broadest of international audiences or stuffed with pew-pewing superheroes, witnessing this brand of thinking man’s blockbuster illicits nothing short of a deep sigh of relief. It might not have the layers of Inception or the majesty of Avatar but its fleet-footed cadence, wily comic timing and crackerjack combat spectacles makes for one ace summer tentpole.
Adapted from Hiroshi Sakurazaka‘s popular Japanese manga “All You Need is Kill” (which once shared its name with this film adaptation), Edge sees an alien force invading Europe by way of asteroid-as-shuttle-ship that collides with Earth’s most tested continent. A discord of international new clips cue us into the ensuing chaos breaking loose like hounds of hell off Satan’s leash. As the world rallies to a united cause of defeating this unthinkably strategic force, the odds may never be in their favor.
However the Earthling forces attempt to smite their spindly-armed enemies in this David versus octo-predator Golliath combat ring, human advances are always halted with alarming precision by the preternaturally calculating Mimics. It’s like their adversaries know their every move before they even make them. Let the stank of foreshadow waft over you. Humanity is promptly six miles up shit creek with no paddle, advancing towards a waterfall that plummets towards pee-icicles and their opponents are snickering on the sidelines. Consider the apocalypse uncanceled; mankind faces imminent extinction. But not if Tom Cruise has anything to say about it (*guitar solo*). Still, it takes him a while to get to the point of Earth’s savior.
At first, Cage (Cruise) is nothing but a trumped up army lackey; a cheery filter for CNN-friendly update blurbs, a Buzzfeed of combat propaganda. He’s the door-to-door salesman of joining the army, the Uncle Sam of “We Want You (In a Mech Suit!).” But when he responds to orders to personally cover the front line of the new war effort with a not-so-cunning retort of blackmail, Cage winds up on the receiving end of handcuffs, stripped of his rank and thrown in with the underdog grunts of J Squad. His pissing contest ended with a definitive bitch slap and a lingering mushroom stamp, Cage has all but received a death sentence, which is quickly proffered up on the battlefield. But not before he gets a fat stream of inky alien blood all up in his grills. But this ain’t just any ol’ alien blood, this is Mimic blood; magical, time-traveling Mimic blood.
Cage dies (a particularly unpleasant death, I would add) and wakes up at the beginning of the day; handcuffed, confused and forced to leap into battle and die all over again. Begin his sentencing to ’93 Bill Murray antics except with more aliens and the pants-shitting knowledge that death is but a pre-destined misstep away. Let’s just say Cage wouldn’t be happily singing along to “Time Warp.”
But as the film transitions into this temporal stasis, director Doug Liman really hits his groove. In repetition, he finds opportunities to impress, integrating elements of comic mistiming in with increasingly impressive combat sequences. As Cage is forced to re-live the experiences of the same day over and over again, Liman is able to weave in moments of comic relief just as naturally as the beautifully choreographed – and often equally amusing – action sequences.
And like any time travel film ought, Liman manages to not take the affairs too seriously, pausing every now and then to fulfill audience skepticism by having Cage fail epically. Seeing Cruise poorly time an escape under a bus and getting chewed to road kill or aping that he doesn’t have a broken leg so he’s not forced to repeat the day by taking a slug to the noggin doesn’t take us out of the moment so much as cement us in it. Memory is imperfect and it’s grossly satisfying to see slight miscalculations lead to the day reboot we become so familiar with.
As we’ve come to expect, Cruise takes to the mantle of unlikely action hero with gallant aplomb. I mean, the man’s a professional. Step back and watch him work. Though Cage may lack definition as he blooms from green amateur into an improbable hero, his budding relationship with decorated veteran Rita (Emily Blunt) gives us something extra to cheer for. Blunt, for all her yoga-body beauty, is no ingénue. She’s a certifiably hardened BAMF, and goes by the somewhat uncomplimentary tag of “Full Metal Bitch.” With a handle like that (set with a sly tip-of-the-hat to Kubrick) assume that even in a robo-suit, you wouldn’t want to spar with her.
With a screenplay that might have turned into the brainchild of sub-committee (Christopher McQuarrie, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth are all credited screenwriters), it’s a wonder that the plot is as airtight as it is. Sure, there’s elements that may not stand up to the test of vehement scrutiny (particularly the somewhat indecipherable ending bits) but the yarn is engrossing enough and staged with just the right amount of ludicrous maneuvering to allow us to overlook them without much complaint. After all, seeing Cruise and Blunt strapped into mech suits and storming a nest of whirling dervish is all you really need. Well, that and kill.
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Maleficent, starring Angelina Jolie‘s cheekbones and Elle Fanning‘s bleach blonde mop and shit-eating smile, is a movie designed for young, dim-witted children who fancy bright lights and high pitched voices and don’t yet understand the word “story”. It’s a retelling by way of obliteration, with debut director Robert Stromberg taking sledgehammer swings when he would have benefited so much more from the nuance of a scalpel. From the very first minute, it’s a total slog, a tonal nightmare. There wasn’t one moment where I wasn’t waiting for it to just end.
Up until Maleficent, Stromberg was a viz effects guy with a whopping 94 credits to his name. No wonder this is more spectacle than substance. Taking a page from the book of George Lucas, everything in front of us feels green-screened through and through. It’s FX prequel effect at its most barbarous and boring. Watch people act against CGI, on CGI sound stages with CGI effects. You can just feel the lifelessness waft over you.
With credits like Pan’s Labyrinth and The Hunger Games to his name, Stromberg may know how to paint a pretty picture, but he has no idea how to tell a story. In the comic world, there are artists and there are writers. Knowing your place is key. Stromberg has no idea of his and Maleficent is the 200 million dollar proof.
The story starts in the most precocious of ways with a young Maleficent (Isobelle Molloy), horned and winged, fluttering around an entirely computer animated set. She’s a “stop to smell the roses” kind of girl but somehow she’s also in charge of things around these fairy parts. Called upon by Ent-like creatures, she encounters the equally pubescent human Stefan (Michael Higgins), an ambitious peasant, and quickly harbors an unlikely friendship with him. For you see, humans and fairies are totally not cool with each other. Because the king is a dick, or something.
The long and short of it is Stefan (now Sharlto Copley) – in a Lord of the Rings, “all men are corruptible” sort of way – also turns out to be a grade-A toolbag and slices and dices Maleficent’s wings Benihana-style in order to take succession as the new king. Why the old king was willing to trade his throne for a pair of wings (meant to prove Maleficent is dead) is beyond me, as is the fact that no-one seemed to question the legitimacy of Stefan’s claim once Maleficent – soon after – pops back into the picture. It’s like everyone involved has a short term memory of about 17 seconds. A telling sign of Linda Woolverton‘s lifeless scripting skills.
Blah blah blah, Maleficent curses baby Aurora (Fanning), King Stefan goes into uber-depressive vengeance state, sends daughter off to the woods to live with rebel fairies to skirt spindle-charged curse. Because no one uses spinning wheels in the woods, duh. The turn though is that Maleficent watches young Aurora grow, harboring untold affection towards the child she has already doomed.
Earlier live action adaptations of similar style have used the “untold” preamble to attempt to flesh out characters that we know little about – see Oz or Huntsman (which themselves are almost – but not quite – as bad as this). Maleficent pulls from a very different page, contradicting the source material at every clunky, heinously predictable turn. Maleficent herself – played by a Jolie who sorely needs to eat a pizza – isn’t a complex character, she’s just another naive woman wronged by a douchey dude. Welcome to Disney 101.
In a way, Maleficent could have been a worthy successor to Frozen, in that it shares a similar shift away from an ideology in which a woman’s only savior can be the man. But it’s done so poorly here, and telegraphed with the cheapest, cheesiest brand of phoning it in that you’ve left hanging your head if not throwing your worthless 3D glasses at the screen. There are no characters here, there’s no story. It’s nothing but a 90 minute cash grab…in TECHNICOLOR! The only magical spell it casts is making an hour and a half feel like three hours. The only curse, having to sit through it.
It’s so far from the Sleeping Beauty that we know that when Aurora inevitably does go down for the count, she’s more Napping Beauty than Sleeping Beauty. Seriously, bitch dozes for about a scene and a half. And when Jolie strips down to a leather-mama Michelle Pfeifer Catwoman get-up, y’all know it’s go time. As in, just get up and leave the theater. There’s nothing to see here.
In a movie where every single character is a moron and everything feels like a chew toy, there is nothing of worth to be found. It’s like a bowl of porridge with no raisins or brown sugar. Just lumpy, cold, and pathetic. And what may be the worst crime is just how low the bar seemed to be for this project. There were no aspirations here that they failed to reach. It wasn’t a swing and a miss. Just a lazy bunt. It’s just blah; purified, sparkly blah. It’s like having the nerve to go on Iron Chef and bake up the blandest form of yellowcake adorned with rainbow sprinkles. You have literally the biggest resource in the world right in front of you and you aim for nothing. What a joke.
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