Epic

Aziz Ansari doesn't make as good a slug as Amanda Seyfried makes a beautiful girl.

 ** out of ****

Epic is an ideal airplane movie. The kids can listen in on the dialogue via headphones, giggling at the dumb jokes and the adults can appreciate the eye candy of its beautiful animation, without the burden of following its soulless storytelling.

It’s funny to realize that as a fan of animation -of all kinds- that this is the first production from Blue Sky Studios (Ice Age) that I have seen. I guess that it is the first one I've felt drawn to. Majestic forest settings tend to guarantee aesthetic pleasure. The movie does deliver some beautiful imagery if not the most original designs. There is an undeniably glowing presence to the cute red headed teen heroine and Amanda Seyfried brings to her a charming voice.

The movie is about a magical world of tiny warriors who guard the woods. Then it’s about the teenage girl, Mary Katherine (who goes by “M.K.”), from our world who has just lost her mother and is going to stay with her estranged father (Voice of Jason Sudeikis). The man is an eccentric scientist living in a house next to the woods where he obsesses over his theory of these little people’s existence.

A warrior (voiced decently by Colin Farrell) defends the forest from the vicious creatures called Boggans, lead by an evil conqueror (appropriately voiced by Christoph Waltz). The Queen of the Leafmen (voiced boringly by Beyonce Knowles) is to pick a successor who may rule when she is gone. A battle starts during the ceremony before anyone is chosen and the Queen is mortally wounded. By some miracle of perception, M.K., while chasing her Dad’s three-legged one-eyed pug (the most entertaining character of the movie) through the forest, sees the Queen and attempts pick her up and help. Somehow in doing this, she is magically miniaturized and the queen gives to her a mission, as a dying request.

While comparisons to FernGully: The Last Rainforest are inevitable, the beginning of the story reminded me of 1982’s Tron for its horribly rough start. Cutting back and forth between a magical world and the real one during the introduction, can demand a lot out of an audience.

I enjoyed the touch of making the world of tiny things something that exists within an advanced plane of time, which explains their ability to slip past normal people very quickly with the same speed and reaction ability of a fly. Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, in his review for avclub.com, said that this is the most entertainingly creative aspect of the film, and sadly, only put to use in one major sequence. The rest is all mindless battle stuff we’ve seen before.

When a kid’s movie isn’t entertaining me, all I can think to do is look for educational value. I don’t know what this movie is trying to teach kids. The good guys are are like little humans allied with flowers and pretty-looking things of the forest. The bad guys are like bugs who ride bats and enjoy making the forest rot and die… What?

As I said at the beginning, for an adult, this movie is better to look at than listen to. Of the all-star voice cast, only certain key-plyers provide decent work. Josh Hutcherson as the young Leafman warrior sounds a little distanced from his role. Chris O’Dowd and Aziz Ansari provide the comic relief for the movie as a snail and slug with delusions of grandeur. For two people I generally find funny, I couldn’t stand them here. I also don’t ever want to hear Steven Tyler’s voice in an animated movie again. Big names don’t always mean effective voices. Cartoon voice work easily suffers because the environment in which it is recorded is so easily impersonal. Pixar is one of the only companies who excel in it. 

Danny Elfman provides music that sounds like leftovers from his boring Oz the Great and Powerful score. He really needs to stick to drama movies. It’s the only area where he does anything original anymore but I’m sure this pays better.

This review may seem obsolete, as many people considering the movie just want their kids to be entertained. They will be. It just seems like the kind of movie a kid will easily grow out of. There is something cynical to me about children’s entertainment playing dumb. A Kid’s movie is more valuable when one can return to it at an older age and feel an enduring nostalgia.

Star Trek Into Darkness

It was already a stretch to show the Enterprise built in the atmosphere of a planet. Now it can function underwater?! Some limitations need to be maintained... Looks cool though.

*** out of ****

In the new Star Trek, the needs of the many always outweigh the needs of the few… or me.

With Star Trek Into Darkness, screenwriters Alex Kurtzman, Robert Orci, and Damon Lindelof continue an incredibly shallow take on the Star Trek franchise investing more thought towards action setpieces than profound science fiction concepts. Like many flawed Trek films, it deliberately stands in the shadow of a much better film in the series. If you don’t know which one, it’s best left unsaid… It’s The Wrath of Khan. There are plot holes aplenty and ethical decisions that would have Gene Rodenberry rolling in his grave… So why did I have so much FUN watching this movie?

For the fourth time, J.J. Abrams, as a movie director, has gotten away with a weak story because he puts on a strong show. This is the second in his reboot/prequel/alternate timeline Star Trek movies and in his version of the universe, there’s more attitude, personality and action… and it mostly works in spite of the nerd heresy that comes with it.

Just like the last movie, there is hardly a boring moment in the film. Any fan of action movies, no matter how much they may think they hate science fiction, will get a rollercoaster ride out of it. Abrams movies are always a rush of bright colors and kinetic energy of gorgeous proportions. He knows how to entertain.

He has successfully revitalized an old and ailing franchise and given its fans and non-fans alike a portrayal of its universe that seems more real and alive than ever before. This is almost to a fault, because the more real its characters and environments seem, the more noticeable are the failures in the story’s logic.

In this story, Kirk (Chris Pine) is briefly demoted for a mission he botched by disobeying a well-known Starfleet regulation in order to save Spock’s (Zachary Quinto) life. Later on, a renegade terrorist played by the amazing Benedict Cumberbatch, attacks Starfleet headquarters and takes refuge in Klingon space. Kirk winds up back in the Captain’s chair with special orders from Admiral Marcus, amusingly played by Peter Weller, to take the Enterprise on a mission of questionable retaliation. 

That’s all I’m giving you on the story. The rest is full of surprises -and I must admire the studio for the secrets that were kept in the marketing for the film.

Getting back to the “nerd heresy,” I mentioned earlier, it is a complicated subject. I don’t mind the personality makeovers these classic characters got in their recasting back in 2009. This new version and its alternate timeline stand as a good excuse to give this series an upgrade. I’ll spare you the list of actor acknowledgements and simply say that I approve of EVERYONE they cast. It is so clear that the casting was based on essence and not physical similarity. What I do mind is the risky business of “fan service.” References to the things of Star Trek past, range from gratifying to groan-inducing.

Near the end, this movie features what is supposed to be a key dramatic scene that echoes and inverts one of the most touching scenes in Star Trek history. How conceited were the writers and Abrams, when they decided to take the movie in this direction? I have to be vague, but if you’re a fan, you’ll know what I’m talking about. They may have thought it belonged, but this incarnation of Trek is too young to have earned the right to pay an homage to drama of this level. As a result, it borders on parody.

My real gripe with this movie is that it may be built strong, but not to last. It’s instant gratification cinema, with loud personality and the best special effects ILM can deliver, yet, I can imagine with repeat viewings, when the rush of the production has worn off, I'll be left with little to think about. 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is corny, with goofy acting and simple sets, yet the movie still endures as a story about the sacrifices that come with age.

When I think about it, Star Trek Into Darkness is about the post-9/11 atmosphere, but what action movie isn’t lately? This franchise has its fair share of plots revolving around the Federation failing to live up to its ideals, which acknowledges the cynical outlook Americans may have about their own country. I’m done with “war-on-terror” themed fantasy. It has nothing new to say or do but make us think about mass destruction and that’s not what Star Trek is about.

It’s about exploration and learning from new discoveries, for which this movie wisely sets the stage -when a third movie is made. Let’s hope J.J. succeeds at making a Trekier Trek movie with the same level of entertaining production he guarantees. However, he has Star Wars: Episode VII next -and the lively adrenaline rush that is Into Darkness lets us know he’s unquestionably the man for that job.

Listen to David Edelstein's review here.

...and for 45 minute of respectable spoiler-filled criticism, here's the Half in the Bag review. 

The Great Gatsby

*** out of ****

 

I am one of those horrible people who have never read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. I have, however, read the novelization of Back to the Future Part II, which gave me great insight on the character structure that exists beneath a film. So I will not be making any comparisons –or even guesses as to how true an adaptation Baz Luhrmann’s new movie is to the literary classic. I will only be addressing its merits as a standalone movie… and how interesting a future novelization might be. If there is one, it should be called “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Leonardo DiCaprio."

What is important to know about my perspective, is that I am a Baz Luhrmann fan. I see all of his movies and feel the manic impact of his excessive stylization as though I am attending a crazy party filled with a wild bunch caricatures. I feel the rush but wonder if I want to stay. Then there comes a moment in which I meet someone at the party with whom I connect. This is the first Luhrmann party when that moment never came. So instead I sat in the corner and enjoyed the spectacle alone.

Some people have told me that they feel this way about all Luhrmann films. Many people hate them and feel so assaulted by his in-your-face cinema, that they might as well be watching a Michael Bay movie. I have always defended the director. I feel that his extreme choices are those of a creative visionary with big ideas that always have a theory or a dream behind them.

Like his Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge! and Australia (Yes, I like that one too), Gatsby dabbles in strange music choices and deliberately heavy theatrics. I loved it when Quentin Tarantino once said, during an interview with Elvis Mitchell, that English-speaking audiences feel too “sophisticated” for melodrama these days. While over-the-top drama may remove an audience from the feeling of reality, there is still an art to it and I believe that this is what Luhrmann’s work is all about.

In this telling of The Great Gatsby, Tobey Maguire portrays Nick Carraway recalling a unique friendship, which must have ended in tragedy. We are shown his memory of arriving in New York in the early twenties and taking up a residence in Long Island, across the water from his cousin Daisy -and her wealthy tyrant of a husband. Carraway’s residence is also next to a castle-like estate belonging to the millionaire Jay Gatsby, who throws enormous parties that explode with jazz and booze.

The movie uses the hip-hop production talents of Jay-Z and other contemporary artists to put a spin on the music and environment. Like Moulin Rouge, the point is to connect a modern audience with the nature of an environment that may seem alien now. It correctly emphasizes what jazz music meant to these rich party-goers. It was new and it had a dangerous thrill. Interestingly enough, When Leonardo DiCaprio makes his reveal as Gatsby, the music goes classic, as Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue comes to a swell while fireworks go off behind the pretty-boy in the frame.

Gatsby forms a bond with Caraway. Caraway is in awe of his power and charm, but like everyone else, he is very curious of who the man really is and where his money comes from. Things become even more mysterious when Gatsby wants to arrange a meeting with Carraway’s cousin, Daisy, with whom he shares a past.

The cast is full good actors but very few of them seem comfortable in their roles. One of the best discoveries in this film is newcomer Elizabeth Debicki as Jordon, whose screen presence is energetic and so hypnotically beautiful, she outshines Carey Mulligan as Daisy, who is cute, but not the breathtaking beauty her character is implied to be. Maguire captures the awkward well-meaning observer of the story but never becomes real enough for me to care about the heartbreak he will feel. Joel Edgerton as Daisy’s husband, Tom, plays a rotten jerk quite well.

As for DiCaprio, I am unsure if his Gatsby falls short for me due to the actor’s limitations, or if Luhrman and his screenwriting partner Craig Pearce were in over their heads with a character much more complex than their standard fare.

Luhrmann and company usually romanticize a hero whose dreams are within reach and could be acquired, were it not for some powerful obstacle. Gatsby is a character who is powerful and in pursuit of happiness. He thinks he knows how to achieve it, but is tragically mistaken. I feel as though this character is harder to capture than Luhrmann, Pearce, and DiCaprio assume him to be.

Overall, I feel like this movie succeeds stylistically, but like I said earlier, I never felt the connection I wanted with the characters. The movie is a hell of a show, but now I feel like going to the original source to better understand the meaning of its story… and I will… as soon as I finish reading the novelization of Iron Man 3.

Mud

Tye Sheridan, Matthew McConaughey, and Jacob Lofland in Jeff Nichols' Mud

**** out of ****
 

Mud is like E.T. for southerners. It’s about a kid from a broken home wandering the surrounding wilderness where he discovers a secret friend who the authorities are out to get. Instead of the friend being a magical alien, it’s a Matthew McConaughey. Like E.T., he needs to build something that will allow his escape and the kid risks all kinds of trouble to help him.

“I’ll be right here… with all these high school girls. That’s right.”

Alright, alright, alright. Let’s get serious. Mud is a pretty great movie and I can’t help but notice how it follows the formula of a coming-of-age family film, yet it lacks the light-hearted conventions you would expect from one. Coming from writer/director Jeff Nichols (Shotgun Stories and Take Shelter) I was expecting something more adult in nature, but it turned out to be a movie with a strong relatable adolescent lead, played wonderfully by Tye Sheridan.

Here, Sheridan is Ellis, an Arkansas boy who often steals away from his family’s houseboat to explore the Mississippi riverbank with his friend Neckbone (Jacob Lofland). At the beginning, the two make their way to a small island, where a flood was said to have left a boat up in a tree. They find the boat, and to their surprise, a homely man named Mud, played by McConaughey, who is using the boat for shelter.

The two kids make frequent visits to the island to supply the mysterious man with food. Neckbone is skeptical but Ellis is intrigued by this self-reliant recluse with interesting stories and beliefs, which make life sound much bigger and more romantic than Ellis’ difficult home life with a mother (Sarah Paulson) who wants a separation from a father (Ray McKinnon) who vents his personal frustrations and shame towards Ellis.

Ellis soon learns that the police are searching for Mud and that he is wanted for murder in Texas. Ellis confronts Mud on this issue and Mud tells him that he killed a man in defense of his girlfriend Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) who is in town waiting to be contacted so they can flee together. Ellis is charged with the feeling of importance as a messenger with a quest to aid a hero who must reunite with his love. Neckbone is still skeptical.

Listen to Teri Gross interview McConaughey on Fresh Air. 
 

Jeff Nichols is working on a bigger budget than normal here and puts the money in the right places with vivid - yet natural looking - 35mm cinematography and actors like McConaughey (continuing his recent hot-streak of interesting roles) and Witherspoon, who both have a kind of fame that runs parallel to how Ellis looks up to them. Also in the cast, is legendary actor/playwright Sam Shepard as a former mentor of Mud’s and neighbor to Ellis. Joe Don Baker is the angry father of the man Mud killed and Nichols-regular Michael Shannon plays Neckbone’s strange uncle. 

Mud is a movie that perfectly captures the hopeful perspective of a youth who has discovered a role model, no matter how seedy and questionable the details and circumstances surrounding this man are. The movie contains an innocent charm contrasting an environment of cynical ugliness, similar to last year’s Beasts of the Southern Wild but is a bit more accessible, like Stand by Me.

Listen to Jeff Nichols discuss the film with Elvis Mitchell on The Treatment -KCRW 

Iron Man 3

Shane Black's Iron Man 3

**1/2 out of ****

Iron Man 3 is everything you should expect: Astounding special effects driven action set-pieces with vivid color, sardonic charm from Robert Downey Jr., and a killer cast. Still, I never felt like anything was at stake the entire film as the movie relaxed in the comfort of comic book movie contrivances. With every "intense" situation, Tony Stark has some sort of gadget coming around the corner.

Christmas-obsessed writer/director Shane Black (who directed Downey in the awesome Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) only applies so many limitations to a hero who can get his way out of anything, but inserts much more effective humor than the sloppy second movie. Part three is not as good as the first and definitely not as epic as The Avengers but is still good popcorn fun. I had a grin on my face the whole film, but I didn't care what was happening. There's something wrong with that.

Oblivion

Olga Kurylenko and Tom Cruise in Joseph Kosinski's Oblivion

*** out of ****

In Oblivion, director Joseph Kosinski follows his 2010 Tron: Legacy with another gorgeous production that tells a weak story. Everything about the look and sound of this movie is top-notch in design and gratifying to experience. The strength of the science-fiction concept, however, is shaky. Despite its intrigue, it borrows shamelessly from other sci-fi movies –some recent. To name these titles would spoil a few surprises.   


While not entirely original, these ideas work well for the movie and unlike the similarly beautiful-yet-flawed Prometheus, most of the important questions will be answered if you give the movie your attention and patience.

Tom Cruise, hate him or accept him, is fitting in his role as a man who is only beginning to discover who he really is. Kosinski's most impressive casting is still concentrated on the uniquely photogenic women in his movies and in this one, Andrea Riseborough and Olga Kurylenko are no exception.

Morgan Freeman is Morgan Freeman... I've got nothing.

Kosinski is a director I believe in and I think he shows astounding skill and taste but needs a great screenplay to fall in his lap and he'll make a great movie. Compared to recent action fare, his work is slower-paced and more meditative. In both of his movies he's also managed to recruit electronic music groups to produce the soundtrack which give the movie's music a unique edge that so many films, these days, are in desperate need of. 
 
I wouldn't call this a perfect ride but it gave me that good ol' geek buzz I desire. I can't think of one bad special effects shot in the entire film, which is impressive, as the movie was crammed with computer-generated imagery. I recommend it, but with extreme caution for non-science fiction fans.

Pain & Gain

Anthony Mackie, Mark Wahlberg, and Dwayne Johnson in Michael Bay's Pain & Gain

*1/2 out of ****

Pain & Gain is inspired by the true story of three Florida bodybuilders in the mid-nineties, who teamed up to incompetently commit crimes of kidnapping and extortion. With dumb luck, they found surprising success until they wanted more and worked up another scheme that ended in carnage.

Mark Wahlberg plays Daniel Lugo, the leader of the group, who had a history of con-artistry prior to being employed as a manager/personal trainer at a Florida gym. Lugo takes credit for propelling the gym’s troubled state to enormous success and feels he is great at the job of getting people fit. However, he is unsatisfied, feeling he isn’t living out the “American Dream” -like some of his clients. He feels great frustration when dealing with the wealthy ones - like Victor Kershaw, played by Tony Shalhoub. Kershaw brags about his wealth and the dirty tricks he’s used to obtain it, making him the winner Lugo envies.

Lugo works up a scheme to kidnap Kershaw and recruits the help of two gym regulars - who he knows will be tempted by the reward. The first is Adrian Doorbal, portrayed by Anthony Mackie, whose steroid addiction has led to issues of impotence that can only be remedied by an expensive procedure. The other is an ex-con, played by Dwayne Johnson, who has purged his old habits of cocaine and burglary, and is a born-again Christian –but a very broke one. What follows are a series of black comedy scenarios of kidnapping and cruelty. Very soon, a private detective, played by Ed Harris, will be investigating them.

The screenplay by Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely (YouKill Me) has a lot of great one-liners and cleverly uses multiple narrators through the film’s characters to connect us with their motivations. The cast is unquestionably talented - including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, who I’ve always felt is underrated for his acting abilities due to a bad resume of stupid family films (I call it Brendan Fraser Syndrome).

The film I’ve described definitely sounds like a bizarre crime story of comic proportions reminiscent of certain Cohen Brothers outings. SO WHY DO I HATE IT?

If there is an art to dark comedy, director Michael Bay is oblivious to it. Then again, his entire career has proved, even through simple-minded mega-budget adventure flicks, that he is also clueless as to what makes a person interesting… or even likeable.

I hate Michael Bay. For me, he’s a director who can do no right. So maybe I have no business reviewing his films, but my distain leaves me obsessed with the guy. I’ve watched his movies, from Armageddon to the Transformers franchise, trying to detect some redeeming aspect of his artistry that might shine through his work. Every film of his, embraces a world of egotistical, materialistic, stripper-obsessed, homophobic, American-supremacist psychopaths with whom we are expected to identify.

Then there is his craft, which utilizes the sophisticated cinematography and kinetic editing of the half-minute commercials with which he started his directorial career, that in feature-length form, I find to be obnoxious, headache-inducing and graceless.

Regardless of all these things, people like his movies. And this one will definitely find its big audience -even movie fans I respect among them. Some will say that this is Bay at his best, grounding himself with a real story set in the real world. To me, it is just as overblown as one of his Transformers movies, lacking in intellect and emotion.

Nowhere in this film, do we see a small robot dry-humping a girl’s leg, but we do get Rebel Wilson, who is supposed to be funny because she’s fat, makes pornographic references, and has a British accent.

One may say, "Who better than a director with no class to tell the story of a sleazy group of people?" To be fair, it is a step in the right direction for him - but only a small step. I love Craig Brewer's Hustle & Flow, a story with characters submerged in sleaze but is told with empathy that allows us to see the human beings beneath.

Bay doesn’t have the right kind of mind or respect for an audience to present a story like this with the sense of irony that the screenplay probably called for. His setups can look beautiful and colorful but they’re never in tune with a sense of meaning. He just wants his shots to look good and his movie to be on a constant sugar-buzz, regardless of what any particular scene is about.

What ultimately doesn’t work for me in this movie is the conceit that it is making some sort of cultural commentary on American greed and stupidity but just looks like a big commercial for both.