Brave

Princess Merida loves her archery in Brave

*** out of ****

Brave is a sign that Pixar is taking a break from being ahead of the curve in computer animated cinema. It's really no better than a movie like How to Train Your Dragon but that's not a terrible thing. I give Pixar a lot of credit for trying something new but if they really wanted to be daring, they could have scrapped the standard flow of comic relief. There aren't enough serious scary kids movies. This movie is a medieval fantasy set in Scotland starring a female hero in a story that has nothing to do with her finding a true love. It's a story about the struggle and bond between a mother and daughter and it's a good one, even if it feels kind of conventional. 

Sure, movies from Pixar tend to be more interesting than Brave, but if Brave came from any other animation studio, I wouldn't be so fast to make comparisons. If it were a Dreamworks movie, I'd be calling it their masterpiece. So I'll shut up about Pixar's legacy and pick on them when Monster's University comes out.

Brave has a gorgeously rendered atmosphere filled with castles, foggy moats and wooded areas. It also has a great lead heroine with flowing curly red hair that looks like a new technical achievement in CG rendering. It's filled with whimsical characters with cute idiosyncrasies, especially the young triplet princes who never speak a word but get into constant mischief. There's also a wonderfully rendered scary bear!

The plot is about a wild-spirited Princess unhappy with the fate chosen for her by her parents and finds a possible way to cheat this fate through dark magic. I was a little surprised that the trailer for the film didn't spoil the direction the film takes, which wasn't necessarily an amazing rout but an unexpected folk-tale-like passage.

As always, the voice cast is top-notch. Generally, this was a fun movie but not a magical experience.

Check out David Edelstein's review on Fresh Air.  

IN RETROSPECT: Blade Runner (1982... and into the future))

Harrison Ford does what anything does with an ounce of humanity in a mechanized future: He dangles for his life. Ridley Scott's Blade Runner turns thirty.

Today, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner is thirty-years-old. Today it is also regarded as something it wasn't on the day of it's release: A great movie. Blade Runner suffered at the box-office, wasn't well reviewed, and was easy to overlook during the cluttered year of cool movies, 1982. Young geeks of the time were understandably impatient for this meditative approach to the sci-fi genre amid all the sensationalistic thrills they could get from other movies during the Star Wars era. Critics were right to be put-off by the films awkward film-noir narration combined with a lack of substance and a bad ending scene that attempted to be uplifting. It wasn't till it hit video, that it became a must-own for collectors of the new home-viewing format. It seemed that people felt like it was a movie worth watching multiple times even if they didn't like it at first.

A fan-base for the film grew over time and it wasn't until a rare work-print (lacking most of the narration and the stupid ending) was accidentally screened at a festival, that people saw a possibly superior design for how the movie could be cut. This inspired Scott to release The Directors Cut in early nineties that followed the work-print's alternate editorial design. Sci-fi fans and critics gave it a second look and it became something more of a classic.

The Directors Cut has become the standard version of the movie we know today and a few years ago it was given a high quality digital remaster with subtle computer-generated alterations.  This was titled, The Final Cut. It was an example of how to visually improve a classic film without pissing off your fans. It also gave Roger Ebert the opportunity to give the film a final consideration.

I first saw this movie when I was in middle school in the form of a pan & scan VHS which was the international cut. This contained the narration and a few extra shots of graphic violence. I was turned-off by the movie. Probably because it was too dark for my taste at the time. I also didn't find the story to be engaging. 

When I was older, I found an interest in the work of Philip K. Dick who I learned was a great inspiration for science fiction films I liked. I found myself reading his book which inspired the film, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?. Shortly after, I watched the movie again (This time, The Director's Cut) and was amazed at what a selective and altered adaptation this movie was. I also liked it a little more this time around. Then I was lent the book, Future Noir: The Making of Blade Runner by Paul M. Sammon and found myself reading it's extensive coverage of the film's making during a summer family vacation. The book gave me more appreciation not just for the film but for the process of every aspect of filmmaking. 

My current love for Blade Runner isn't about the story it tells, it's for the movie's undeniable power as a testament to great film production. This is a film that is vague in message, character, and narrative but atmospherically captivating. The cinematography, special effects, and music create a theme, which is dehumanization through technology.

Style-over-substance isn't always a bad thing. Style against substance is. Getting an audience invested in the substance of a film and having a style that doesn't blend well with it is a problem. Just watch the medieval fantasy Ladyhawke and try putting up with the Alan Parsons soundtrack. Blade Runner, like Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (both films had the same genius special effects artist, Douglas Trumbull), is strong because it's environment and theme created by style transports us to a place that feels very real. If it had more defined characters and story it would rob us of that feeling. Shifting constantly between the internal and external is jarring. This is why the original cut never worked for me. Harrison Ford's narration doesn't only sound unenthusiastic, but it's an inept attempt to make the film feel personal. 

 

This footage is from the epic documentary, Dangerous Days: The Making of Blade Runner, which is one of the most extensive 'making-of' works I've ever seen and proof that this film was beyond ambitious. It's included on current Blu-ray and DVD versions of the film

Leaving out the narration does so much for a movie that words can't define. Fans of this film who are more devoted to it's story than I am, may argue with certainty that there is definite meaning to the film. Stylized atmospheric films can be powerful because they allow people to bring what they want to it. Even Ridley Scott in interviews seems back and forth when it comes to how his films are supposed to be interpreted. He's really smart but I've always thought of him as a director who gets off on ideas flowing out of a movie even if they don't mesh with the narrative structure. Without spoiling anything, a lot of fans obsess over a subtle suggested twist at the end of the film involving Ford's character. Scott, years ago confirmed that their suspicion was correct. But it really isn't something to dwell on because it doesn't work as well with the film's story as it does with the theme.

This is Ridley Scott's masterpiece, because it shows the best of his ambitious craft as an atmospheric filmmaker. He started off doing television commercials and that is enough to tell me his focus is on pushing the envelope of cinematic aesthetics. To this day, it is a movie that has a unique look that is fantastic, even by today's standards. It's thought-provoking, visually astounding through special effects and cinematography, contains great -even if mysterious performances, and has done something that only great movies do, it's aged well.

For those who have never seen it, this is the film's opening scene:

Hysteria

Jonathan Pryce, Rupert Everett, and Hugh Dancy prepare to pleasure a woman in the name of science.

**1/2 out of ****

Hysteria is a romantic-comedy-period-costume-drama about an unusual subject: The invention of the vibrator. I never saw The Road to Welleville, but it was the only movie that came to mind before seeing this one. It's generally an enjoyable movie but a bit uneven.

The movie begins as a whimsical comedy that gave me the desire to see the characters break into song. Well... one eventually does but that doesn't make this a musical, which it could have easily been. The film never feels one-hundred-percent sincere which allows the absurd standards of Victorian-era medicine and the condition known as Female Hysteria to work in the service of the film's comedy. Hugh Dancy is in the lead as Dr. Mortimer Granville, a progressive doctor struggling with superiors who won't believe in germs. Rupert Everett plays Lord Edmund St. John Smythe, his roomate, who was developing the first electrical fan with an unexpected destiny. Jonathan Pryce is a successful doctor who hires Granville into his practice and the lovely Felicity Jones is his self-repressed daughter who he hopes Granville will marry. Then his other rebelious daughter played by Maggie Gyllenhaal walks in the room as the protagonist's second love interest and the film feels different.


I love Maggie Gyllenhaal but her style of acting collides with the tone of this film. Her character is so forward-thinking, she might as well be a time traveler. Her acting is also very naturalistic and lacks the theatricality of the rest of the cast. Maybe this was deliberate on the part of director Tanya Wexler, but it didn't work for me.


Still the film has lots of laughs through it's unusual history lesson involving doctors who treated 'hysterical' women oblivious to the fact that their treatment was only popular because it was bringing women to orgasm. This film doesn't take a very complex look at this bit of history. Why should it? This is such a hilarious historical fact, it is right for it to be turned into a comedy as accessible as this one. 

Check out The AV Club's slightly less-positive review.

ANTICIPATION: SUMMER 2012

Total Recall
The original 1989 Total Recall was the end result of a project that exchanged many hands and finally wound up with the maniacal director Paul Verhoven and muscular mutant Arnold Schwarzenegger. It had come very close to being a very different movie in many different ways. Check out it's trivia section on IMDB. Even if someone as brilliant as David Cronenberg had his vision destroyed by what the movie wound up being, I can't deny that the original Total Recall is awesome on so many levels. It stayed true to the mind-bending concept from Philip K. Dick's short story, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale. It gave Verhoven the opportunity to continue his legacy of satire-laced ultra-violence. It was also a fantastic production of innovative special effects, had a killer score by Jerry Goldsmith, and unforgettable makeup by Rob Bottin. It's filled with over-the-top character actors who behave like they are constantly involved in a dick-measuring contest -even the females. Then there is the entertaining performance by Schwarzenegger, which is kitschy and contains a huge amount of his animal-like screaming. SO... It's obvious why I carry on about the original: All this awesome shit is synonymous with the title, Total Recall. Trying to cash in on the fame of the name, Total Recall is low. Now I can't deny that this remake looks cool. It appears to stay true to the science-fiction concept and this time around it's filled with something I'm a sucker for, flying cars and mega-cities. I'm on the fence as to whether I'll enjoy a movie by Len Wiseman. The potential insult to doing a remake of anything, is that it implies that the original is expired and has little value to a modern audience. I just can't think that way about exploding heads on Mars.

Brave

It's good to know that Pixar is still willing to try new things. This looks like a different genre for them. It's a little hard to tell what the plot is within this trailer, but I can usually expect Pixar to deliver a good story. My only disappointment with them lately, is how WALL•E reached the peak of their ambition to make animation that rivaled all the other computer animation houses in the business. Nowadays Pixar movies look hardly different from those of Dreamworks. That's not a terrible thing. I'm just pointing out that computer animated movies today seem as though they're settling down and sticking to a visual formula so they can focus on other things like story. Or maybe they're preoccupied with prepping them for a 3D release.

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

I.... don't....know.... 
I am aware that this is the work of Seth Grahame Smith who delights in deliberate bad ideas as a writing challenge. This has humorous kitschy results. I do believe that the work of a great artist, is someone who can turn crap into gold. The most questionable choice, however, is Timur Bekmambetov as director. This weirdo Russian made the Nightwatch series and the stupid but kinda-fun Wanted. This is a dangerous experiment Mr. Burton.

 

Seeking a Friend for the End of the World

In spite of his talent, Steve Carell's track-record for good comedies isn't very impressive to me. I wish him the best though. I also love Keira Knightley. 2012 is a great year for the movie's theme. Superstition aside, there is a big wave of apocalyptic-themed works in popular entertainment recently. I can imagine that this aims to be a relief comedy like Dr. Strangelove. The question is, will it wimp-out on it's heavy subject like another nearly-profound comedy called, The Invention of Lying? 

To Rome with Love

I love Woody Allen films. Though he may be in for another dud. He's made too many good movies in a row lately. Italians aren't too impressed with it but that just may be their bias. I'm not too thrilled that it's an inter-connected character movie. I feel like that approach is getting worn-out.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Oh my god! Can't wait! The director of Step Up 2: The Streets is making the long-awaited sequel to the beloved G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra movie? I'm sure no one else can wait as well- OHHH! It's release got pushed back to March 2013. Don't worry. They know they've got a masterpiece on their hands and it deserves the nine extra months for a 3D conversion to make it even better!

Magic Mike

Soderbergh got Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey to be in a movie about male strippers. This director won't retire until he's tried everything possible.

People Like Us

Wow. Some writer's normally associated with sci-fi, fantasy, and comic book movies are doing something a little more down-to-earth. Could this result in being a movie like The Big Chill? Let's hope not.  

The Amazing Spider-Man
I'm not sure if this movie will be good or not. Will it please fans of the comic book? What is on my mind, is that it is too soon for a reboot of Spider-Man for people to get very excited. It's also a slap in the face to Sam Rami for making a couple decent Spider-Man movies only a short time ago -and that there isn't much in the trailer to suggest that the approach to this movie is dramatically different from Rami's. I will judge this movie on it's own but making comparisons will be tough to avoid.

Savages

Oliver Stone's been on a steep downhill ride for the past decade or more. Maybe distancing himself from politics and going back to drugs will help him.

Ted

Yes, I'm a Seth Macfarlane fan. No, I don't think he's good at story-telling or knowing how to keep any kind of thematic or tonal focus. Ted will most likely have those problems. But like Family Guy, it will probably function as an excuse to feature a lot of very funny characters and jokes. That's good enough for me.

The Dark Knight Rises

Cross your fingers. Will Christopher Nolan's ambition be to this film's merit or detriment? Will the dreaded curse of the 'Part III' bring down this amazing series? We'll see! Same Bat time! Same Bat IMAX theater!

The Watch

Formerly known as Neighborhood Watch until an event during the past year gave that name a bad connotation. Written by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg who I still think of as a very good comic writing team. Directed by The Lonely Island's Akiva Schaffer. Sounds promising.

Killer Joe

William Friedkin still makes movies and evoke surprising performances out of his cast, no matter who they are. His last one was Bug, which proved him to still be really good at making me uncomfortable. This is a rare NC-17 release.  

The Bourne Legacy
No Jason Bourne in this movie. He's an all-new character who was in the same Treadstone program and he's played by Jeremy Renner. Conceptually, this is something that goes straight to video. It's clearly all about cashing-in on a franchise when you don't even have it's title character. On the other hand, it looks like they are being as creative as they can. The most promising element, is Tony Gilroy at the helm. Gilroy was a writer on all three Bourne movies and has since proven to be a very good director. The only screenwriter on the project besides him, is his brother. So we have a great actor, supporting cast, and a screenplay that didn't have too many cooks in the kitchen. This may work. 

360

Written by Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost Nixon) and Directed by Fernando Meirelles (City of God, The Constant Gardener). Starring Ben Foster, Rachel Weisz, Jude Law, and Anthony Hopkins... I don't even care what it's about. There's nothing but talent attached to this film.

The Expendables 2

When they decided to do a sequel, I though they were getting greedy. How could you get that testosterone overdose of an ensemble back together without causing the world to explode? Well they did and they got more. Looks like dumb-guy-fun... or dumb gay fun? Eh. Both. 

ParaNorman

Cool. Stop-Motion, kid-aimed Halloweeny fun. Why doesn't the movie industry ever try putting this stuff out in October?

Gangster Squad

Rueben Fleisher made a gangster picture. I'm not prepared to take any of this seriously. He's proved to make very fun dark and playful movies. This looks like an exploitation period action experience very far away from the Boardwalk. Can't wait. 

The Campaign
I'm Not a fan of Jay Roach movies from Austin Powers to Meet the Parents. But we do have a writer from Eastbound and Down on this funny looking flick with two great comic stars. It's also really cool to see Zach Galifianakis bringing his Seth Galifianakis persona to a movie for the first time.  

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil

Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk are two hillbillies who just wanted to enjoy a summer in the woods

**** out of ****

Tucker & Dale vs Evil is so funny! There wasn't a dead moment in this brilliant send-up to evil-redneck horror movies. I was constantly laughing and amazed at how long it made the plot's big joke last for an entire feature-length experience. This is an upside-down horror plot with all the conventions in perfect use for laughs. I love that it is about a couple of well-meaning hillbillies who dwell in a creepy cabin in the woods (their summer home) and fear the camping college kids across the lake. Brilliant.

The Woman In Black

Daniel Radcliff in The Woman in Black

*** out of ****

Following the tradition of Hammer films of yesteryear, The Woman in Black is a B-level movie in concept and setting but with all the modern techniques available to make the atmosphere more foreboding and the shocking moments more terrifying. It's a great movie for late night home viewing on the couch so you can expect the popcorn to fly all over the place when you jump.

It was a little difficult accepting Daniel Radcliffe in the lead role as a lawyer, widower, and father -even though it was common for someone so young to be all three in the Victorian Age. It's going to be hard for him to escape his reputation as the boy who lived.

In the supporting cast is Janet McTeer and Ciarán Hinds. This is a very well-produced period horror movie wrapped around a very simple ghost story. It's not very complex but it entertains.



  

Sound of My Voice

Christopher Denham and Brit Marling in The Sound of My Voice

***1/2 out of ****

Sound of My Voice is a low-budget psychological thriller that thrives on it's limitations. It's filled with thought-provoking concepts, good acting, and a realistically scary setting. This is a movie that is many things, but it is mostly about seduction. 

The plot is about a couple of documentary filmmakers (no, this is not a found-footage-style movie) who have taken on the dangerous task of infiltrating a cult that is so protective of it's secrets, it is natural to assume they are dangerous. Using a pair of glasses with a micro-camera built-in. They intend to expose this cult and their manipulative tactics.

The secret of this cult is Maggie, the leader they meet when they join. She claims to be from the future, but what she needs followers for stays a mystery for a while. She's just really good at controlling them. As the story develops, one of the two documentarians gradually becomes devoted to her. I was a little reminded of one of my all-time favorite films, Twelve Monkeys.

Britt Marling, who plays Maggie, is also the co-writer of the film. She also served as actress and co-writer in Another Earth. Both are low-budget dramas which lean towards science-fiction. She is a beautiful talent and asset to these productions. Marling's gotten off to a good start in the current world of independent cinema. Her next collaboration with this film's director Zal Batmanglij, is called The East and is described to be thematically similar to this one except it is about the infiltration of an anarchist group. I look forward to it.

Prometheus

Michael Fassbender is David, the robot -who could have been the main character and the movie would be better for it.

*** out of ****

I am torn on my stance towards this movie. It's scary, gorgeous, and exciting. It's also clumsily written, pretentious, and unfocused. John Spaihts and Damon Lindelof wrote a screenplay that is incompetent and sometimes stupid. At the end there is almost nothing gained from the journey of any of it's characters. It's not that I wanted this film to have an ultimate answer. I just wish it hadn't wasted the further exploration of the given plot with distracting new plot elements introduced every ten minutes -most of which go nowhere. They seem to have the goal to make every last thing in the story a mystery. So there is no anchor. Nothing to go with. No one to trust except for an underdeveloped main character.

Ridley Scott has never struck me as a very personal director. He's great at establishing an atmosphere. In Alien and Blade Runner, that worked well because the personal side to the characters were kept at a distance. In his best movies, his characters are more like surrogates for the audience to experience the elaborate atmosphere through. In this film, Dr. Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) is on a mission to look for the beings who created humanity on earth with a vague religious motivation. This gets us interested in her. But she will barely be developed any more than what we're given at the beginning. In Alien, we don't know anything personal about Ripley. Not even her first name. The reason why we like her, is because she seems to be the wisest person on board the ship. Horror movies suck when we watch characters make dumb decisions that advance the horror of the film. The only character in Prometheus who seems to be aware of what he is doing is the artificial life-form, David, wonderfully played by the great Michael Fassbender. I imagine a much better movie where not only he is the main character, but we are let in on his overall agenda no matter how sinister.

Here's a guy from Aintitcool discussing the flaws of Prometheus. It's filled with SPOILERS.

What's funny, is how my biggest worry about this movie before seeing it, was that Ridley Scott might have shown Rusty Director Syndrome. Sure he's continued to be ambitiously producing and directing giant movies, but he hasn't made a science-fiction film since 1982. The temptation to fall back on CGI as a solution to every problem was probably very strong. Thank goodness Scott is still a very hard-working director, no matter what the genre is. The sets, real landscapes, costumes, and everything wonderfully designed and sought out for this film's production is meticulously captured with perfectionism. If you choose to see the movie in 3D, which I recommend, you will see that 3D was part of this movie's design from day one. The CGI is heavy as well, but only used out of necessity and wonderfully executed. The score by Marc Streitenfeld brings a mythical weight to the movies tone, to remind us of the man-pursuing-god theme of the movie.

Tasha Robinson of The AV Club, points out in her review that Scott's return to the Alien universe shows maturity that George Lucas lacked whenever he re-approached Star Wars in any way.  

It's tough to criticize a movie I want to love. It's conceptually something better than a sequel or prequel. It's purpose is to advance our knowledge of a universe established by another movie while giving us a fresh story that is filled with terrifyingly awesome scenes and it did all those things. There was one scene that had me squirming in my seat both times I saw it. This movie is flawed yet unforgettable. A must-see for geeks.  

And even more spoilers hilariously conveyed... 

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Maggie Smith, Ronald Pickup, Bill Nighy, Penelope Wilton, Celia Imrie, Judi Dench, and Tom Wilkinson are all ready for a long nap.

**1/2 out of ****

A cast of great veterans of British stage and cinema, music by Thomas Newman, and an exotic setting wonderfully framed by cinematographer Ben Davis makes The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel cinematic comfort food. This film's spell was not-so-strong for me. It's a good choice for a family outing to the movies but I thought it was only momentarily challenging and sometimes too simple. 

This is an ensemble movie of interlinked characters who are experiencing the same setting in different ways. This group of retirees all have a different motivation and purpose for visiting the same incompetently-run hotel in Mumbai, India and they all seem to shift between comedy and drama as Judi Dench's emotional testimonials through her diary serves as the film's narration -which seems to be tying everything together. But does it? 

Roger Ebert points out how the ensemble is the ultimate strength of this film in his review.

"...believe me when I say that this movie finds rich opportunities for all of them (the cast). Director John Madden (Shakespeare in Love) has to juggle to keep his subplots in the air, but these actors are so distinctive, they do much of the work for him."  

I absolutely agree with that statement. The ensemble in this film is very strong and live up to their reputation. I was even treated to the rare experience of watching Bill Nighy play someone who is charming rather than one of the bitter or antagonistic roles he's often typecast as. I also got to see Tom Wilkinson use his normal accent which is also seeming a bit rare these days. 

Wilkinson's story of a man who has returned to India to atone for an event in his youth, was the most interesting part of the movie. Maggie Smith's old bigot character, forced into a situation that allows her to relate to another culture was also well-played.


I think it was very difficult for me to watch a film about elderly English people coming to personal revelations amidst third-world surroundings. Topping the film off with a shallow love subplot between the Hotel owner (Dev Patel) and his forbidden girlfriend (Tena Dasae) didn't help either.

I recommend this film but I didn't feel as transported as others around me did in the theater. There is a lot to enjoy and characters to care about but it all felt so tainted by undesirable subplots and the illusion of culmination. 

The Dictator

Anna Farris and Sacha Baron Cohen in The Dictator

*** out of ****

Sacha Baron Cohen moving from prank interviews to fully-scripted and staged comedy was inevitable. I guess he'd done it before, but everyone I know who saw it, advised me to avoid the Ali G movie. Even if there's still a chance that he can invent a character no one will recognize for candid stunts again, his new character, Aladeen is no ideal candidate for such a venture. There are very few people you could convince to participate in a documentary about a non-existent dictator. So in The Dictator, Cohen and regular collaborative director Larry Charles made a pretty funny traditional comedy even though it is disappointingly formulaic.

There are plenty of laughs through Cohen's usual fare of nastiness and biting satirical criticism of the world today. With this movie, there are some supporting actors who add quite a bit of extra fun, particularly with Anna Farris as a feminist running a globally conscious health food store where Aladeen winds up working.

Thematically, you get the same style of humor you have come to expect from him. However, with a controlled environment, there is no gratification to be had from his amazing talent for staying in character in the midst of tense embarrassing situations like the ones he created in Borat, Brüno, and Da Ali G Show.

Listen to Sacha Baron Cohen talk about his career with Terry Gross.

 

Battleship

ZUMP! Kaboosh! Crrrashhumpzipppvvvvvddd. CRAAAAGAGKRRRRR!

** out of ****

A movie based on a board game is so funny in concept, it demands to be a comedy (like Clue). This movie isn't a comedy even if you try to imagine it as one while watching it. What it also isn't, is faithful to the nature of a strategy game about nautical war. It's an alien invasion flick and for a time, it's a disaster movie.

There are giant explosions, mostly good special effects, kinetic editing, high contrast imagery, shaky-cam action scenes (where sometimes you can't tell what's happening), geeks and angry people providing comic relief, demonstrations of high-tech military vessels and gear (Recruitment film friendly) and terrible song selections. In other words, Peter Berg's Battleship is a Michael Bay experience without Bay even being involved. The only credit I will give him here, is that he aims kind of low but not nearly as low as Bay's standards for how to depict humanity. The characters are all given superficial desires, but at least there are a few witty exchanges. Still, his wound up being yet another action movie that was so busy trying to be exciting, it was boring. BORING. 

It all gets off to an embarrassingly rocky start. First the science-fiction cold-opening spews off a bunch of jargon-'who cares'-exposition type stuff to give an excuse for why alien battleships will be drawn to earth later in the film. Then, we get another pre-title scene with our lead character (Taylor Kitsch) to show what an undisciplined under-acheiving maverick he is. This is all completely unnecessary. He's told by his mysteriously Swedish brother (Alexander Skarsgård) that he needs to join the Navy and then the title comes up. Several scenes then ensue where our main character who is now an officer on a Destroyer... is still an undisciplined maverick! How did he get through basic training? What was the point of introducing us to the main character twice when he's not why we're here to see this movie?

Watch Mike and Jay sink this Battleship

I was kind of hoping that Liam Neeson being in this movie would guarantee him saying as intensely as possible, "You have sunk my Battleship!". That expectation didn't deliver. Just Michael Bay didn't manage to put the song, You've Got the Touch in any of his crappy Transformers movies just so I could enjoy something. 


This is a movie that is a damn good example of how desperate studios are to cash-in on familiarity: Just make a movie named after something people have at least heard of and they'll feel safe buying a ticket to go see it. 

There's a scene attempting to relate to the original game which is laughable but not as laughable as a scene near the end which I think I was supposed to laugh-with... but I couldn't help but laugh-at. 


I like congratulating directors who have the ambition to do really long uninterrupted takes. However, there is a new kind of long take that I'm seeing quite often. It's the kind that is powered by special effects. Battleship has a long sequence like this involving a sinking ship and all the action-involved characters that on it. None of this is practical. That would have been impossible or beyond reasonable expense. All of the artificial camera moves from one situation to the next display a lot of action without the normal kinetic shakiness this movie has. Yet, it just feels so phony. Avengers did the same thing but got away with it... I guess because it's comic book world.

Men in Black III

Josh Brolin, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Will Smith in Men in Black III

**1/2 out of ****

I'm recommending this movie with reservations. I think most people will have a good time watching it just as I did. It's generally fun, humorous, and filled with Barry Sonnenfeld's regular whimsical eye-candy. It also has a half-assed story at it's center, and a time travel plot that is even lazier.

I am fan of the first Men in Black film. Like Ghostbusters, it had a perfect balance of humor and special-effects-driven fantasy spectacle. That's a tricky thing to pull off but it's great when it works. And it's only likely to work as one movie. Introducing us to the world these characters inhabit is more than half the entertainment. After that stuff is out of the way, all you're left with are action scenes and jokes which need to deliver. The final act of the original Men in Black is the weaker part of the movie. So when it's sequel came out and looked absolutely banal (judging by it's trailers), I skipped on it and still haven't seen it to this day.

It says a lot that the trailer for Men in Black III, had me interested and the movie itself didn't break any promises that the trailer made. We get to see the Men in Black headquarters in the nineteen-sixties filled with aliens that look like the ones thought-up during that era. Rick Baker's creature and makeup effects are a great sight. And we get to spend the movie with young K played by Josh Brolin who does perfect work as a young Tommy Lee Jones.  

The movie has plenty of memorable set-pieces like a jump off the Chrysler Building, a visit to Andy Warhol's The Factory, and an action showdown on the launchpad of Apollo 11 at Cape Canaveral. Despite being a post-conversion 3D film, Barry Sonnenfeld's wide-angle-lens-obsessed imagery lends itself to 3D-viewing more naturally that a lot of native 3D movies do.

I normally don't like to write about the movies plot, because it creates temptation for spoilers. More often than not, as with this movie, the story has no lasting impression on me. It was more about the sights, sounds, and ideas.

Sonnenfeld gives this movie a consistent tone -or mood, which makes it a generally enjoyable ride even if it's in the service of a time travel rescue story that's more conceptually improvised than Back to the Future Part III.

Michael Stuhlbarg lends a borderline-annoying performance as an interesting alien who perceives multiple timelines wherever he goes. He's a fun invention but a little too obvious of a plot convenience. 

Jemain Clement, normally know for his dry delivery, is hidden beneath some great make-up and snarls with ferocity in a one-note performance that made him look like the wrong man for the job. It made me think back to the first MIB and what an incredibly good job Vincent D'Onofrio did as Edgar, the giant bug crammed inside a man suite.  

I think where Men in Black III really fails though, is that it has the great intention of giving us a theme that doesn't deliver entirely. The heart of this movie is J and K's friendship and how J feels like he has spent years working with an emotionally closed-off man. The time-travel story is supposed to allow J to understand K a little more. Wonderful moments surrounding this theme are sprinkled throughout the story but I wanted to see them develop more. 

I would compare this movie to Jurassic Park III. It's an unwelcome sequel that isn't trying very hard to exceed people's expectations while at the same time seems pretty focused on delivering the sensational goods so people can say, "That was pretty cool", then go home and forget about it forever. 

If there is one more thing I want to say, it is that I am tired of the name David Koepp. I used to think of him as a great screenwriter for his association with a lot of cool movies. In recent years, however, his career has been plagued with movies he had some participation in the writing of, and in most of these, the screenwriting seemed to be the most problematic element. I'm not saying that screenwriting is easy, but there are great minds out there who can put together a story that makes enough sense to be worthy of a sci-fi comedy. I think most of them work in television though... Wait. I just checked IMDB and found that David Koepp went back in time and took his name off the credits. Somehow I am the only one who remembers.