Sorry for the lack of posts. Been very busy with writing and some personal stuff (which thankfully is outside the scope of this blog). Loads of back-posting to come. That said...
There are some directors who keep making the same movie over and over again, with diminishing results. Wes Anderson and M. Night Shymalan come to mind. Guy Ritchie is another. I loved LOCK STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS and really enjoyed SNATCH (mostly because of Brad Pitt’s crazy accent).
SPOILERS, LIKE BAD TEETH, ABOUND
ROCK’N’ROLLA is yet another crazy caper film with a cast of dozens. Only this film has serious flaws in it. One, the voiceover from Archy (and from other characters later in the film) often just describes what’s going on onscreen. This is the worst use of voiceover ever; if we’re seeing something, we don’t need to hear about it too. Voiceover should add something – a hint of irony, a lie, some character details.
Next, Ritchie sucks all the tension out of the story with some truly odd choices. Like SNATCH and LSATSB, he paints his lead characters into a corner – they owe $2m to Tom Wilkinson’s sleazy gangster. But they immediately get out of their situation by robbing a Russian billionaire's accountants of $7m; in perhaps the easiest robbery of all time. This is a really dumb choice for the story – without that threat hanging over their heads, there’s nothing at stake. Even odder, the Russian doesn’t seem that mad that he was ripped off. He doesn’t do anything about it until the second time he’s robbed. So without the threat of imminent death for our heroes, the only thing attempting to drive the story is Tom Wilkinson trying to recover the Russian’s lucky painting from his drugged-out stepson.
There are too many characters and we’re not invested in any of them. Gerard Butler and Idris Elba are fine, but there’s no reason we’re rooting for them. There’s also Jeremy Piven and Ludacris, playing managers/club owners who are going to lose business if they don’t track down the junkie. But that’s not something that makes us care about them; they’re two more people in a cast of dozens; does it really matter if they take a hit because their club gets shut down? It’s only until very late in the film that their lives become at stake.
Finally, there are some weak character moments that feel completely out of place. Would a ruthless Russian billionaire really let himself be robbed of $7m without any repercussions? Wouldn’t he at least try to find out who stole from him? Perhaps he’d ask Tom Wilkinson for help? And when the Russian turns on Tom Wilkinson – whom we know is insanely vindictive – wouldn’t Wilkinson try to have the man hurt or killed in return?
In order for these types of character-driven, plot-twisting heist films to work, we have to care about the characters and believe that what they’re doing comes out of who they are. ROCK’N’ROLLA fails on both counts, leaving us with a music video instead of a film – all flash, no substance.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
DEATH RACE - Ben Franklin's Third Certainty in Life
DEATH RACE is a film that delivers exactly what you’d expect. If you’ve seen the trailers, you’ve basically seen the film.
SPOILERS PEELING OUT BELOW
It’s a solid genre effort, with some good chase scenes and a lot of creative violence. Unfortunately, it doesn’t provide any surprises. What you expect to occur in the story happens in every single beat – from the frame-up that lands our hero in prison and the Death Race to the double-crosses and the eventual team-up with his chief rival.
While it’s a competent film, a little more imagination could’ve resulted in something we haven’t seen before, something that would take the film out of mediocre territory.
One thing I would’ve done is to delay Jason Statham discovering who set him up until later in the story. The audience knows he’s been set up – clearly he didn’t kill his wife; he’s the good guy. And having him try to find the culprit is good. But it should be more of a struggle, not something so blatantly obvious as the henchman giving the same finger-gun gesture after he kills the wife and in prison. Statham should have a few dead ends before he finds the guy, and then it’s a further revelation that he was sent by the warden (right now, it’s also blatantly obvious the warden sent him; the guy’s a prisoner).
But even for all its predictability, it wasn’t the worst film I’ve seen in a while.
SPOILERS PEELING OUT BELOW
It’s a solid genre effort, with some good chase scenes and a lot of creative violence. Unfortunately, it doesn’t provide any surprises. What you expect to occur in the story happens in every single beat – from the frame-up that lands our hero in prison and the Death Race to the double-crosses and the eventual team-up with his chief rival.
While it’s a competent film, a little more imagination could’ve resulted in something we haven’t seen before, something that would take the film out of mediocre territory.
One thing I would’ve done is to delay Jason Statham discovering who set him up until later in the story. The audience knows he’s been set up – clearly he didn’t kill his wife; he’s the good guy. And having him try to find the culprit is good. But it should be more of a struggle, not something so blatantly obvious as the henchman giving the same finger-gun gesture after he kills the wife and in prison. Statham should have a few dead ends before he finds the guy, and then it’s a further revelation that he was sent by the warden (right now, it’s also blatantly obvious the warden sent him; the guy’s a prisoner).
But even for all its predictability, it wasn’t the worst film I’ve seen in a while.
Tropic Blunder
TROPIC THUNDER was the most buzzed-about comedy of the summer. So I was very much looking forward to seeing it.
Once again, we have another sloppily-plotted comedy. Fortunately, it’s funny, so the humor carries the weak plot. But with a little more attention to the characters and the plot, the script and film could have been much stronger.
SPOILERS
We’re introduced to a cast of mostly bratty actors and a rapper. Because they’re all more or less self-absorbed jerks, it’s hard to find anyone to root for. Script gives us Jay Baruchel’s rookie actor, but he’s barely defined so we don’t particularly care about him. Making him more of a focal point would help the audience care about what happens to these guys; otherwise, we’re waiting to see what befalls an insanely dedicated method actor; a clueless action star; a junkie; and a closeted rapper.
The movie also never makes us feel like any of the characters are in danger. One major mistake is the way in which Steve Coogan’s director character is killed. He steps on a landmine and explodes, which is a funny beat. But it doesn’t serve the story. It would have been easy to have the Laotian drug dealers stealthily shoot him with an RPG. This accomplishes the same exploding gag and still allows Ben Stiller’s Tug to idiotically assume Coogan’s playing a joke on him to enhance the realism of the shoot; it also sets up that the drug dealers are a threat. I would’ve also had one or two more disposable good guys who could get shot and killed in the course of the action to up the stakes. When we’re watching the climactic rescue and there are 100+ armed drug farmers facing off against five actors with blanks and nobody’s dying, it’s a little ridiculous.
The big rescue also falls flat in terms of motivation and believability. There’s no reason for any of the characters to risk their necks to save Tug; most of them are wholly selfish and all of them are grossly unsuited to the task. A better and more plausible way to achieve the rescue would be to give Jay Baruchel’s character a big, rousing speech about how they have to go help their brother actor. All of the other characters ignore him. Jack Black, in the throes of heroin addiction, begins a solo raid on the bad guy camp to score drugs. Everyone else thinks he’s being heroic. Then Robert Downey, Jr., still locked in his Black sergeant character, goes in after Black. And everyone else follows suit. By the time they realize Black was just looking to get high, it’s too late and they’re already committed.
A final note is that the tone of the film veers around a lot, from satire (with Tom Cruise’s studio chief and the fake trailers that open the film) to buddy comedy to near-action at the end. If the movie picked one of these, it could have been stronger. But since it made a fortune anyway, I doubt anyone really cares.
Once again, we have another sloppily-plotted comedy. Fortunately, it’s funny, so the humor carries the weak plot. But with a little more attention to the characters and the plot, the script and film could have been much stronger.
SPOILERS
We’re introduced to a cast of mostly bratty actors and a rapper. Because they’re all more or less self-absorbed jerks, it’s hard to find anyone to root for. Script gives us Jay Baruchel’s rookie actor, but he’s barely defined so we don’t particularly care about him. Making him more of a focal point would help the audience care about what happens to these guys; otherwise, we’re waiting to see what befalls an insanely dedicated method actor; a clueless action star; a junkie; and a closeted rapper.
The movie also never makes us feel like any of the characters are in danger. One major mistake is the way in which Steve Coogan’s director character is killed. He steps on a landmine and explodes, which is a funny beat. But it doesn’t serve the story. It would have been easy to have the Laotian drug dealers stealthily shoot him with an RPG. This accomplishes the same exploding gag and still allows Ben Stiller’s Tug to idiotically assume Coogan’s playing a joke on him to enhance the realism of the shoot; it also sets up that the drug dealers are a threat. I would’ve also had one or two more disposable good guys who could get shot and killed in the course of the action to up the stakes. When we’re watching the climactic rescue and there are 100+ armed drug farmers facing off against five actors with blanks and nobody’s dying, it’s a little ridiculous.
The big rescue also falls flat in terms of motivation and believability. There’s no reason for any of the characters to risk their necks to save Tug; most of them are wholly selfish and all of them are grossly unsuited to the task. A better and more plausible way to achieve the rescue would be to give Jay Baruchel’s character a big, rousing speech about how they have to go help their brother actor. All of the other characters ignore him. Jack Black, in the throes of heroin addiction, begins a solo raid on the bad guy camp to score drugs. Everyone else thinks he’s being heroic. Then Robert Downey, Jr., still locked in his Black sergeant character, goes in after Black. And everyone else follows suit. By the time they realize Black was just looking to get high, it’s too late and they’re already committed.
A final note is that the tone of the film veers around a lot, from satire (with Tom Cruise’s studio chief and the fake trailers that open the film) to buddy comedy to near-action at the end. If the movie picked one of these, it could have been stronger. But since it made a fortune anyway, I doubt anyone really cares.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
AMERICAN TEEN – The Documentary Is All Growns Up
While not a narrative feature, AMERICAN TEEN can provide a lot of insight into what to do right to feature writers.
SPOILER TANTRUM
The film follows a group of high school seniors as they navigate their way through their last year of high school and the beginnings of adulthood. Each kid has one issue – Hannah trying to find her place as an alternakid with big aspirations in a close-minded, small town, Colin hoping to land a basketball scholarship so he can go to school, Megan wrestling with getting into Notre Dame like the rest of her family, or Jake trying to get a girlfriend. By focusing on one storyline per kid, the film has a chance to develop a character arc – for example, Hannah getting dumped, dating a popular kid, and deciding to move away to San Francisco over her parent’s objections – for each of the major characters. It also chooses a wide variety of different social strata to pick the characters from, from the most popular kids in school to an attractive weirdo to a friendless loner.
There are some moments of real humor as well, made even more funny by the fact that they’re unscripted. These come out in interesting places, like when Jake gets dumped, and help leaven the pathos a bit.
Ultimately, the film feels so universal because if you weren’t one of these kids in high school, you knew them. And in retrospect, you’ve gone through all of the things these kids are going through, things that felt so important at the time but you later realized weren’t so pressing.
Watching the film, I realized that I still do and feel a lot of the same ways that these kids do. I may have grown up, gotten a job and my own place, but emotionally, my life hasn’t changed that much since high school. Only I get laid a lot more.
SPOILER TANTRUM
The film follows a group of high school seniors as they navigate their way through their last year of high school and the beginnings of adulthood. Each kid has one issue – Hannah trying to find her place as an alternakid with big aspirations in a close-minded, small town, Colin hoping to land a basketball scholarship so he can go to school, Megan wrestling with getting into Notre Dame like the rest of her family, or Jake trying to get a girlfriend. By focusing on one storyline per kid, the film has a chance to develop a character arc – for example, Hannah getting dumped, dating a popular kid, and deciding to move away to San Francisco over her parent’s objections – for each of the major characters. It also chooses a wide variety of different social strata to pick the characters from, from the most popular kids in school to an attractive weirdo to a friendless loner.
There are some moments of real humor as well, made even more funny by the fact that they’re unscripted. These come out in interesting places, like when Jake gets dumped, and help leaven the pathos a bit.
Ultimately, the film feels so universal because if you weren’t one of these kids in high school, you knew them. And in retrospect, you’ve gone through all of the things these kids are going through, things that felt so important at the time but you later realized weren’t so pressing.
Watching the film, I realized that I still do and feel a lot of the same ways that these kids do. I may have grown up, gotten a job and my own place, but emotionally, my life hasn’t changed that much since high school. Only I get laid a lot more.
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS - Character Development Up in Smoke
Comedies have it easier than almost any other kind of movie – if they’re funny, that’s really all that matters. While some of my favorite comedies are well-written (IT HAPPENED ONE NIGHT, PHILADELPHIA STORY, GROUNDHOG DAY, and TOOTSIE come to mind), others (CADDYSHACK, NATIONAL LAMPOON’S VACTION, etc.) are not.
A BONGLOAD FULL OF SPOILERS BELOW…
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS has a lot going for it. It features two likeable leads and is consistently funny. Even though half the movie is watching guys getting stoned and hanging out, it’s very enjoyable.
It could have been an even better movie with a little more focus on the story and the characters however. The biggest flaw is that all of the friendship material that comes about at the climax of the film (Dale realizing he’s been a dick and that Saul is his best friend) is great stuff. Unfortunately, it’s not set up at all that his character weakness is not having any friends. So it comes out of nowhere and ultimately doesn’t amount to much. And it would have been very easy to integrate this setup in the existing structure of the film. When Dale goes to pick his high school girlfriend up and bumps into the creepy teacher played by Joe Lotruglio – that’s a missed opportunity. The creepy teacher could have gone to high school with Dale. And instead of just telling him to leave and being off-putting, he could have said something like “Oh, I see you’re still a stoner loser with no friends. That’s why you’re out trolling the high schools for chicks.” Not only would this have gotten across that Dale doesn’t have any friends, but it would’ve amped the tension up in the scene.
Saul doesn’t have much of a character arc either. Rogen and Goldberg could’ve given him something – perhaps building on his dream of becoming a civil engineer and having it where he goes back to school after all the events unfold.
The bad guys are similarly underdeveloped. While Craig Robinson and Kevin Corrigan have some meat to their relationship, Rosie Perez and Gary Cole are almost cardboard cutouts in terms of character depth.
And I don’t care how funny and charming Dale Denton is – there’s no way that someone who looks like Seth Rogen and who isn’t Seth Rogen with his fame and millions of dollars would be dating a hot high school senior.
A BONGLOAD FULL OF SPOILERS BELOW…
PINEAPPLE EXPRESS has a lot going for it. It features two likeable leads and is consistently funny. Even though half the movie is watching guys getting stoned and hanging out, it’s very enjoyable.
It could have been an even better movie with a little more focus on the story and the characters however. The biggest flaw is that all of the friendship material that comes about at the climax of the film (Dale realizing he’s been a dick and that Saul is his best friend) is great stuff. Unfortunately, it’s not set up at all that his character weakness is not having any friends. So it comes out of nowhere and ultimately doesn’t amount to much. And it would have been very easy to integrate this setup in the existing structure of the film. When Dale goes to pick his high school girlfriend up and bumps into the creepy teacher played by Joe Lotruglio – that’s a missed opportunity. The creepy teacher could have gone to high school with Dale. And instead of just telling him to leave and being off-putting, he could have said something like “Oh, I see you’re still a stoner loser with no friends. That’s why you’re out trolling the high schools for chicks.” Not only would this have gotten across that Dale doesn’t have any friends, but it would’ve amped the tension up in the scene.
Saul doesn’t have much of a character arc either. Rogen and Goldberg could’ve given him something – perhaps building on his dream of becoming a civil engineer and having it where he goes back to school after all the events unfold.
The bad guys are similarly underdeveloped. While Craig Robinson and Kevin Corrigan have some meat to their relationship, Rosie Perez and Gary Cole are almost cardboard cutouts in terms of character depth.
And I don’t care how funny and charming Dale Denton is – there’s no way that someone who looks like Seth Rogen and who isn’t Seth Rogen with his fame and millions of dollars would be dating a hot high school senior.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Comic Collection
As a fillm/sci-fi/fantasy dork, I have over the years amassed a giant comic and graphic novel collection. Which is now mostly taking up space in my brain and my home.
So, this is incredibly off-topic, but I will refer any interested readers to my Craigslist posting:
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/clt/784188242.html
Someone, please -- take these off my hands.
So, this is incredibly off-topic, but I will refer any interested readers to my Craigslist posting:
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/clt/784188242.html
Someone, please -- take these off my hands.
Monday, August 4, 2008
THE MUMMY 3: THIRD TIME’S EVEN MORE MEDIOCRE
I didn’t like the first MUMMY film and hated the second. So of course, I saw TOMB OF THE DRAGON EMPEROR opening weekend.
It has the same goofy tone as the rest of the MUMMY films. It also has the same weak plotting.
SPOILERS 3: TOMB OF A LAME SCRIPT
There are numerous times our hero and heroine are rescued by other people – by their son and his potential girlfriend in a museum; twice by Yetis (that are called by the girlfriend, beat up some soldiers for them, and shield them from an avalanche), one time by Michelle Yeoh’s magic fountain, once by an army of good undead guys, and once by John Hannah dropping the world’s most ineffective bomb on a car.
In order for an action adventure movie to be engaging, our hero has to face off against a villain who constantly backs him into a corner. And when all seems lost, our hero defies the odds and gets himself out of it. This makes him seem clever and effective. Having Rick and Evy constantly get into jams and other people then rescue them makes them seem weak and stupid. It's also unsatisfying to watch. We want to see Neo fight and defeat Agent Smith on his own, not have some CGI Abominable Snowman show up and bail his ass out.
Arcwise, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar give us a little of two things and not enough of either. Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello are married and bored because they promised each other not to adventure. And Brendan’s been a distant father to his son who desperately seeks his approval. Done right, the first arc gives us MR. AND MRS. SMITH, a great film about a couple whose marriage had gone stale because they lied to each other and how once they know the truth, it becomes exciting again. In M3, we don’t get anything of the sort other than some weak comedy about the two of them trying to have sex in the beginning and it not happening. As far as the father-son-arc, this all comes about through dialogue and doesn’t add up to much. A better way to have gone with it is to show O’Connell junior at the beginning, taking some crazy risks because he wants to make a name for himself and get out from under the shadow of his parents. Later in the film, Rick and Evy can save him from trouble and try to keep him safe. Then he sneaks out, getting in trouble trying to save the day on his own. By the end of the film, they’re all working together to beat the enemy.
The script also suffers from major logic problems. It feels like a few disconnected things that were thrown together. Rick and Evy happen to have a magical doohickey that can revive the Dragon Emperor; then the guy comes back as a terra cotta mummy for some reason; then he needs to find Shangri-La and get to its magical fountain to revive himself and become immortal; except there’s a cursed dagger that can kill him anyway (which means he’s not immortal), etc. It got muddled and confusing.
Making matters worse, he raised his terra cotta army – which if they reach the Great Wall would be unstoppable; but they’re not unstoppable before then, you can beat them by hitting them with a shovel. So that’s not very fearsome. Do they suddenly become non-crappy when they cross the wall?
And then after the DE is partially defeated, his army of lawn ornaments in ruins, for some reason he goes inside his old tomb and starts swirling mini-planets around. The movie never explains why he’s doing this or what the danger is. Without an army, he’s not that scary anymore. And he’s defeated by Brendan Fraser stabbing him with the magic knife, which is rather anticlimactic (and unrealistic) after we witness the DE turn into a dragon, a monster, and kill about a million zombies with his bare hands and magic.
There’s also some really weak humor, including two bits involving a yak. Sadly, the screening I attended was almost sold out (thanks to dopes like me), so I’m sure a fourth installment is on the way.
It has the same goofy tone as the rest of the MUMMY films. It also has the same weak plotting.
SPOILERS 3: TOMB OF A LAME SCRIPT
There are numerous times our hero and heroine are rescued by other people – by their son and his potential girlfriend in a museum; twice by Yetis (that are called by the girlfriend, beat up some soldiers for them, and shield them from an avalanche), one time by Michelle Yeoh’s magic fountain, once by an army of good undead guys, and once by John Hannah dropping the world’s most ineffective bomb on a car.
In order for an action adventure movie to be engaging, our hero has to face off against a villain who constantly backs him into a corner. And when all seems lost, our hero defies the odds and gets himself out of it. This makes him seem clever and effective. Having Rick and Evy constantly get into jams and other people then rescue them makes them seem weak and stupid. It's also unsatisfying to watch. We want to see Neo fight and defeat Agent Smith on his own, not have some CGI Abominable Snowman show up and bail his ass out.
Arcwise, Alfred Gough and Miles Millar give us a little of two things and not enough of either. Brendan Fraser and Maria Bello are married and bored because they promised each other not to adventure. And Brendan’s been a distant father to his son who desperately seeks his approval. Done right, the first arc gives us MR. AND MRS. SMITH, a great film about a couple whose marriage had gone stale because they lied to each other and how once they know the truth, it becomes exciting again. In M3, we don’t get anything of the sort other than some weak comedy about the two of them trying to have sex in the beginning and it not happening. As far as the father-son-arc, this all comes about through dialogue and doesn’t add up to much. A better way to have gone with it is to show O’Connell junior at the beginning, taking some crazy risks because he wants to make a name for himself and get out from under the shadow of his parents. Later in the film, Rick and Evy can save him from trouble and try to keep him safe. Then he sneaks out, getting in trouble trying to save the day on his own. By the end of the film, they’re all working together to beat the enemy.
The script also suffers from major logic problems. It feels like a few disconnected things that were thrown together. Rick and Evy happen to have a magical doohickey that can revive the Dragon Emperor; then the guy comes back as a terra cotta mummy for some reason; then he needs to find Shangri-La and get to its magical fountain to revive himself and become immortal; except there’s a cursed dagger that can kill him anyway (which means he’s not immortal), etc. It got muddled and confusing.
Making matters worse, he raised his terra cotta army – which if they reach the Great Wall would be unstoppable; but they’re not unstoppable before then, you can beat them by hitting them with a shovel. So that’s not very fearsome. Do they suddenly become non-crappy when they cross the wall?
And then after the DE is partially defeated, his army of lawn ornaments in ruins, for some reason he goes inside his old tomb and starts swirling mini-planets around. The movie never explains why he’s doing this or what the danger is. Without an army, he’s not that scary anymore. And he’s defeated by Brendan Fraser stabbing him with the magic knife, which is rather anticlimactic (and unrealistic) after we witness the DE turn into a dragon, a monster, and kill about a million zombies with his bare hands and magic.
There’s also some really weak humor, including two bits involving a yak. Sadly, the screening I attended was almost sold out (thanks to dopes like me), so I’m sure a fourth installment is on the way.
STEPBROTHERS MIA 2: I WANT TO BELIEVE
Saw a bunch of films because I have no life and that’s what I enjoy doing. Double-featured SB and MM.
Sadly, SB was the best of the bunch by far.
I’VE GOT SPOILERS FROM MY CHEST-PUBES TO MY BALL-FRO
STEBROTHERS
Criticizing STEPBROTHERS for having a weak script is like faulting McDonald’s for not being nutritious. I enjoyed the film and laughed consistently. There are some funny setpieces and several great jokes. At the end of the day, though, the film is forgettable because we don’t care about the characters.
As far as arcs go, Will Ferrell is a good singer but has stage fright (because of his dicky brother) and John C. Reilly owns a drum set and gets mad when you rub your sack on it. Since that’s all Ferrell and Adam McKay give us for goals and motivation, it’s not that big of a deal when the two rock out “Volare” (hilariously sung for some odd reason to the music for “Con Te Partiro”) at the end. With a couple less jokes and maybe a few more lines, these snippets of motivation could have been expanded into some additional dialogue and plot. Maybe John C. Reilly can’t work with other people. He’s been kicked out of fifty bands, despite his great drumming. Maybe we see him and Will try to perform, they get in an argument, and Will can’t sing in public. A little something would have gone a long way towards making us care that the two characters get what they want.
The script could also have used a little editing to parse the structure into a more traditional three-act template rather than the meandering flow it has going on for it.
But kudos for having a woman tell John C. Reilly she wanted to roll him up in a ball and carry him around in her vagina.
MAMMA MIA!
I love Abba. Some would say that makes me gay. But it doesn’t. My love of cock does.
I also love musicals. MM was very disappointing.
First, the story was lacking. Musicals don’t even need great stories or complicated plotting. My favorite of all time is CATS, and that’s basically just a thread of redemption plot used to string together unrelated cat songs (and damn those cats for not choosing Mr. Mistoffeles, the original conjuring cat, to go to the Heaviside Layer). MM gives us a girl whose mom was a bit of a player back in the day. She slept with three guys around the same time, leaving our heroine – who is about to get married – with no idea which one is her daddy. So she invites all three to the wedding, hoping to figure it out.
This leads to… Not much. Meryl Streep gets a little annoyed. And our heroine’s fiancé
is bothered that she snuck around and didn’t tell him. And that’s about it. What the movie should have done is have the heroine’s plan backfire horribly. Her fiancé calls off the wedding because he feels she doesn’t trust him. And her mom is so freaked out by the sight of these three men from her past that she goes AWOL. Then the heroine and her three possible fathers must track down the mom and the fiancée and make everything right again.
There are also way too many songs. I love almost everything Abba does, but by the time “Take a Chance On Me” kicks in, the movie’s ended. Then there are like ten more songs, including some credits numbers. And did we need Colin Firth singing about Paris?
Also, the film does things, like making Colin Firth gay – that happen too quickly. I was confused when he was frolicking around with a fey Italian guy. And please, Hollywood, let’s retire pairing everyone up at the end of romantic comedies. It’s enough the hero and heroine get together. We don’t need Stellan Skarsgard and the Hobbit ending up in love as well.
And Pierce Brosnan does a lot of things well, including being Bond and playing likeable scumbags. Singing is not one of those things.
X-FILES 2
Loved the TV show until it went off the rails. Liked the first movie and how it expanded the mythology and the characters.
X-FILES 2 hits the theme and characters correctly. It sets up a conflict between Mulder and Scully – he can’t stop his work and she can’t be with him unless he does. And we get some interesting scenes with a pedophile priest hoping for redemption through visions that may enable him to save an FBI agent.
But the rest of the script is awful. It’s fine to do a monster-of-the-week plot, those were some of the best episodes of the show. But this monster is a pair of completely mundane gay Russian organ couriers. That’s not scary, it’s just odd. Proving the bad guy is nothing special, Scully takes him out with a board to the head. Which makes the fact that he killed Amanda Peet’s special agent (by pushing her down an elevator shaft in a construction site) even sadder.
If we’re going to watch Scully and Mulder return after six years, let’s give them something worthy of their time – a vampire, aliens, a dude that eats peoples’ livers, even those inbred freaks from “Home.” This wasn't just a bad X-FILES movie, it was one of the worst episodes of the show.
Sadly, SB was the best of the bunch by far.
I’VE GOT SPOILERS FROM MY CHEST-PUBES TO MY BALL-FRO
STEBROTHERS
Criticizing STEPBROTHERS for having a weak script is like faulting McDonald’s for not being nutritious. I enjoyed the film and laughed consistently. There are some funny setpieces and several great jokes. At the end of the day, though, the film is forgettable because we don’t care about the characters.
As far as arcs go, Will Ferrell is a good singer but has stage fright (because of his dicky brother) and John C. Reilly owns a drum set and gets mad when you rub your sack on it. Since that’s all Ferrell and Adam McKay give us for goals and motivation, it’s not that big of a deal when the two rock out “Volare” (hilariously sung for some odd reason to the music for “Con Te Partiro”) at the end. With a couple less jokes and maybe a few more lines, these snippets of motivation could have been expanded into some additional dialogue and plot. Maybe John C. Reilly can’t work with other people. He’s been kicked out of fifty bands, despite his great drumming. Maybe we see him and Will try to perform, they get in an argument, and Will can’t sing in public. A little something would have gone a long way towards making us care that the two characters get what they want.
The script could also have used a little editing to parse the structure into a more traditional three-act template rather than the meandering flow it has going on for it.
But kudos for having a woman tell John C. Reilly she wanted to roll him up in a ball and carry him around in her vagina.
MAMMA MIA!
I love Abba. Some would say that makes me gay. But it doesn’t. My love of cock does.
I also love musicals. MM was very disappointing.
First, the story was lacking. Musicals don’t even need great stories or complicated plotting. My favorite of all time is CATS, and that’s basically just a thread of redemption plot used to string together unrelated cat songs (and damn those cats for not choosing Mr. Mistoffeles, the original conjuring cat, to go to the Heaviside Layer). MM gives us a girl whose mom was a bit of a player back in the day. She slept with three guys around the same time, leaving our heroine – who is about to get married – with no idea which one is her daddy. So she invites all three to the wedding, hoping to figure it out.
This leads to… Not much. Meryl Streep gets a little annoyed. And our heroine’s fiancé
is bothered that she snuck around and didn’t tell him. And that’s about it. What the movie should have done is have the heroine’s plan backfire horribly. Her fiancé calls off the wedding because he feels she doesn’t trust him. And her mom is so freaked out by the sight of these three men from her past that she goes AWOL. Then the heroine and her three possible fathers must track down the mom and the fiancée and make everything right again.
There are also way too many songs. I love almost everything Abba does, but by the time “Take a Chance On Me” kicks in, the movie’s ended. Then there are like ten more songs, including some credits numbers. And did we need Colin Firth singing about Paris?
Also, the film does things, like making Colin Firth gay – that happen too quickly. I was confused when he was frolicking around with a fey Italian guy. And please, Hollywood, let’s retire pairing everyone up at the end of romantic comedies. It’s enough the hero and heroine get together. We don’t need Stellan Skarsgard and the Hobbit ending up in love as well.
And Pierce Brosnan does a lot of things well, including being Bond and playing likeable scumbags. Singing is not one of those things.
X-FILES 2
Loved the TV show until it went off the rails. Liked the first movie and how it expanded the mythology and the characters.
X-FILES 2 hits the theme and characters correctly. It sets up a conflict between Mulder and Scully – he can’t stop his work and she can’t be with him unless he does. And we get some interesting scenes with a pedophile priest hoping for redemption through visions that may enable him to save an FBI agent.
But the rest of the script is awful. It’s fine to do a monster-of-the-week plot, those were some of the best episodes of the show. But this monster is a pair of completely mundane gay Russian organ couriers. That’s not scary, it’s just odd. Proving the bad guy is nothing special, Scully takes him out with a board to the head. Which makes the fact that he killed Amanda Peet’s special agent (by pushing her down an elevator shaft in a construction site) even sadder.
If we’re going to watch Scully and Mulder return after six years, let’s give them something worthy of their time – a vampire, aliens, a dude that eats peoples’ livers, even those inbred freaks from “Home.” This wasn't just a bad X-FILES movie, it was one of the worst episodes of the show.
Friday, July 25, 2008
THE STRANGERS - Strange Script
This was another film I was jazzed about. I'm a huge horror fan, and I'd heard great things about Bryan Bertino's script, which was a quarter-finalist in the Nicholl Fellowship competition the Academy puts on.
SPOILERS, SCHMOILERS...
I thought the setup was good -- we got two people deeply in love with each other who have a problem. He proposed and she said no, now it's awkward and they're stuck in a remote vacation home together for the weekend dealing with the consequences.
The first time one of the strangers pops up with a mask on, standing in the background, it scared everybody in the audience. But the film repeats this shot about twenty times, so it quickly loses its impact.
The story suffers from a lot of poor choices. The heroes don't seem particularly intelligent. It's a guy and a girl in a house with a gun. Verus a fat wheezy guy and two seemingly hot girls. Shotgun should win out every time. Even after the hero accidentally kills his friend, there's no reason for him to leave the safety of the closet he's in and give up his advantage.
There are other dopey decisions the hero and heroine make. At one point, they're in their car trying to back out of the driveway and escape. The bad guy's truck rams them from behind. In front of them -- a chick in a mask. What does the hero do? Get out of the car and run. How about running down the asshole in front of you? They're not stronger than a truck.
The guy and girl get into and out of the house so many times, it becomes exhausting to watch and suck all the tension out of the proceedings. There's nothing for them to do other than react in shock every time a masked weirdo shows up; so Bertino tries to give the script some business by having an old CB radio out in the garage. As soon as the heroine gets to it, the bad guys smash it. Not very interesting or unique.
And the script doesn't even have a point at the end -- we watch as the good guy and girl are brutally stabbed. If I'm going to watch someone be terrorized for an hour and a half, I at least want them to kick some ass on the bad guys at some point (the major flaw of FUNNY GAMES as well -- although that sucks worse because the heroine gets her revenge and the director "rewinds" the movie and undoes it).
Smart heroes are always more fun to watch. And how do you make them smart? By having the bad guys do intelligent things that back the heroes into a corner, then the heroes figure a way out of it. Having mundane bad guys do boring things leaves our protagonists simply reacting. And that's not satisfying dramatically.
SPOILERS, SCHMOILERS...
I thought the setup was good -- we got two people deeply in love with each other who have a problem. He proposed and she said no, now it's awkward and they're stuck in a remote vacation home together for the weekend dealing with the consequences.
The first time one of the strangers pops up with a mask on, standing in the background, it scared everybody in the audience. But the film repeats this shot about twenty times, so it quickly loses its impact.
The story suffers from a lot of poor choices. The heroes don't seem particularly intelligent. It's a guy and a girl in a house with a gun. Verus a fat wheezy guy and two seemingly hot girls. Shotgun should win out every time. Even after the hero accidentally kills his friend, there's no reason for him to leave the safety of the closet he's in and give up his advantage.
There are other dopey decisions the hero and heroine make. At one point, they're in their car trying to back out of the driveway and escape. The bad guy's truck rams them from behind. In front of them -- a chick in a mask. What does the hero do? Get out of the car and run. How about running down the asshole in front of you? They're not stronger than a truck.
The guy and girl get into and out of the house so many times, it becomes exhausting to watch and suck all the tension out of the proceedings. There's nothing for them to do other than react in shock every time a masked weirdo shows up; so Bertino tries to give the script some business by having an old CB radio out in the garage. As soon as the heroine gets to it, the bad guys smash it. Not very interesting or unique.
And the script doesn't even have a point at the end -- we watch as the good guy and girl are brutally stabbed. If I'm going to watch someone be terrorized for an hour and a half, I at least want them to kick some ass on the bad guys at some point (the major flaw of FUNNY GAMES as well -- although that sucks worse because the heroine gets her revenge and the director "rewinds" the movie and undoes it).
Smart heroes are always more fun to watch. And how do you make them smart? By having the bad guys do intelligent things that back the heroes into a corner, then the heroes figure a way out of it. Having mundane bad guys do boring things leaves our protagonists simply reacting. And that's not satisfying dramatically.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Hell, Boy!
Benicio Del Toro is an extremely talented filmmaker (and a pretty damn good writer too -- the script for PAN'S LABYRINTH was near-brilliant). I like that you can tell one of his films -- whether it's a more personal effort like PAN'S or a big film like BLADE II -- instantly. And he has a gift for making flawed characters, whether they're a young girl with an overactive imagination, a dicky vampire hunter, or a big red demon, sympathetic.
I quite liked HELLBOY. I'd read the comics and enjoyed the first movie. Del Toro did a great job capturing Mignola's difficult tone -- pulp fiction by way of Lovecraft with a dash of humor.
So I'd been looking forward to HELLBOY II, particularly after the kick-ass trailer showing sword-wielding elves and a giant ogre with a metal hand.
SPOILERS UP IN THIS BITCH!
The film delivers on the story and visuals. Hellboy has to stop an evil elf from unleashing an unstoppable mechanical army, all while fighting with his beloved, plus Abe Sapien falls for the elf's twin sister. And there are plenty of interesting action setpieces involving tiny carnivorous faeries, monster fights, and a battle with elf-robots.
Here's where the film goes off the rails a bit.
1) Hellboy's arc. Hellboy and Liz are fighting because he's a slob and doesn't listen to her. Hellboy also wants to "come out" into the public eye. So what does his story become? He outs himself, gets a little famous, people don't like him that much because he's a freak, Liz doesn't like his need to be loved by everyone, the evil elf tells him he should join the elves/freaks, and then he realizes he loves Liz. This is all a giant mess.
If Hellboy's going to be in the public eye, go with it. He becomes famous. He becomes a famewhore and a bit of a dick. That throws his team into jeopardy and eventually he realizes he loves Liz and gives up the public eye for her. In the film, it's a bit of a mish-mosh -- a lot of little bits of things that don't all go together. He never has to make a choice between the public and Liz, and that's unsatisfying the way his character need is established.
2) Hellboy being stabbed with a magic sword/spear/whatever. Hellboy is wounded. He's going to die unless the magical spearhead is taken out. So his team trundles him up to Ireland to go looking for faeries. They can't find a way into the faerie realm. And they happen to bump into a mysterious figure (the Dwarven Metalsmith/whatever) who not only can let them into faerieland, but also knows a guy who can take out the arrowhead. This is doubly convenient for our heroes.
Del Toro tries to gloss over this lazy writing by having the guy who can remove the arrowhead be Death (with a capital "D"). And Death warns Liz that if she saves Hellboy, he'll destroy the world. But that's a false choice. We know she loves him and is going to save him (both because of her nature and because the movie breaks if she says "No, let him die.").
3) Abe's romance. It's nice to see Abe bonding with the elf princess. And we get why they like each other -- they're almost the same person, intuitive palm-reading included. But that's about all we get for their relationship. And once it's established that elf-chick and elf-dude share a sympathetic nervous system, it's pretty clear she's going to have to die so that he can go down too. This was a missed opportunity.
4) The Evil Elf. What's his motivation? This is delivered almost entirely in dialogue/exposition, and it feels a little weak. He hates the humans for trashing the world and forgetting the old gods. Well, show us that -- show us faeries living in ruin, show us more than one shot of E.E. twirling his sword in the subway. SHOW US why he feels this way, then we don't need him to say it. And we'll understand why he kills his own father (and about forty other dudes) in order to wreak havoc on the humans.
So the movie's a lot of fun, and it looks really cool. You get to see a demon fight an ogre and elves and elf-robots. And that's worth the price of admission.
But all the emotion falls a litle flat -- both for Hellboy and Abe (the real emotional center of the movie). And the entire Third Act feels like a bit of a cheat, due to the heroes doing nothing other than bumping into someone who can get them into faerietown and save Hellboy's life.
I quite liked HELLBOY. I'd read the comics and enjoyed the first movie. Del Toro did a great job capturing Mignola's difficult tone -- pulp fiction by way of Lovecraft with a dash of humor.
So I'd been looking forward to HELLBOY II, particularly after the kick-ass trailer showing sword-wielding elves and a giant ogre with a metal hand.
SPOILERS UP IN THIS BITCH!
The film delivers on the story and visuals. Hellboy has to stop an evil elf from unleashing an unstoppable mechanical army, all while fighting with his beloved, plus Abe Sapien falls for the elf's twin sister. And there are plenty of interesting action setpieces involving tiny carnivorous faeries, monster fights, and a battle with elf-robots.
Here's where the film goes off the rails a bit.
1) Hellboy's arc. Hellboy and Liz are fighting because he's a slob and doesn't listen to her. Hellboy also wants to "come out" into the public eye. So what does his story become? He outs himself, gets a little famous, people don't like him that much because he's a freak, Liz doesn't like his need to be loved by everyone, the evil elf tells him he should join the elves/freaks, and then he realizes he loves Liz. This is all a giant mess.
If Hellboy's going to be in the public eye, go with it. He becomes famous. He becomes a famewhore and a bit of a dick. That throws his team into jeopardy and eventually he realizes he loves Liz and gives up the public eye for her. In the film, it's a bit of a mish-mosh -- a lot of little bits of things that don't all go together. He never has to make a choice between the public and Liz, and that's unsatisfying the way his character need is established.
2) Hellboy being stabbed with a magic sword/spear/whatever. Hellboy is wounded. He's going to die unless the magical spearhead is taken out. So his team trundles him up to Ireland to go looking for faeries. They can't find a way into the faerie realm. And they happen to bump into a mysterious figure (the Dwarven Metalsmith/whatever) who not only can let them into faerieland, but also knows a guy who can take out the arrowhead. This is doubly convenient for our heroes.
Del Toro tries to gloss over this lazy writing by having the guy who can remove the arrowhead be Death (with a capital "D"). And Death warns Liz that if she saves Hellboy, he'll destroy the world. But that's a false choice. We know she loves him and is going to save him (both because of her nature and because the movie breaks if she says "No, let him die.").
3) Abe's romance. It's nice to see Abe bonding with the elf princess. And we get why they like each other -- they're almost the same person, intuitive palm-reading included. But that's about all we get for their relationship. And once it's established that elf-chick and elf-dude share a sympathetic nervous system, it's pretty clear she's going to have to die so that he can go down too. This was a missed opportunity.
4) The Evil Elf. What's his motivation? This is delivered almost entirely in dialogue/exposition, and it feels a little weak. He hates the humans for trashing the world and forgetting the old gods. Well, show us that -- show us faeries living in ruin, show us more than one shot of E.E. twirling his sword in the subway. SHOW US why he feels this way, then we don't need him to say it. And we'll understand why he kills his own father (and about forty other dudes) in order to wreak havoc on the humans.
So the movie's a lot of fun, and it looks really cool. You get to see a demon fight an ogre and elves and elf-robots. And that's worth the price of admission.
But all the emotion falls a litle flat -- both for Hellboy and Abe (the real emotional center of the movie). And the entire Third Act feels like a bit of a cheat, due to the heroes doing nothing other than bumping into someone who can get them into faerietown and save Hellboy's life.
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
THE DARK KNIGHT - Too Long to Be Perfect
I was really excited for THE DARK KNIGHT. The first Chris Nolan Batman film was amazing -- a great mix of casting (except for Katie Holmes), theme, story, and action. They really nailed the tortured nature of the Batman mythos and how he's not quite a regular superhero and just short of being a vigilante.
SPOILERS SMACKING YOU UPSIDE THE HEAD BELOW...
DK has its brilliant moments. All of the Joker stuff is amazing. Jonah (Jonathan) Nolan's script makes several great choices -- not giving him a backstory because he's just a random psychopath, introducing him in the midst of a great, twisty 70s-style heist scene, and unleashing him as an agent of chaos determined to plague the Batman and watch Gotham City burn. Christian Bale is great as always, and the casting is even better this time around, ditching Katie Holmes for the far-superior Maggie Gyllenhall, and adding in Aaron Eckhart and Eric Roberts to the mix.
Where the film veers off the rails of greatness is mainly that it's too damn long and the length -- and all the plot the filmmakers cram into the last hour -- make the film suffer from a split personality (fitting in a way because of Harvey Dent, but frustrating dramatically). The film has a natural endpoint -- in the hospital, when Harvey Dent is lying there scarred and the Joker comes in and hands him a gun and tells him to go cause chaos. That's your Luke Skywalker with his robot hand at the end of EMPIRE STRIKES back. The film should fade out there, and then the entire next film is about Harvey Dent as Two-Face -- his rise to villainy and his eventual death (and possible redemption). Instead, Nolan and company cram an entire film's worth of plot into 45 minutes or an hour, giving short shrift to Harvey and his story.
And that's not the only thing that happens at the end of the movie -- we also get the Joker and his ferryboat bomb plot -- the one scene in the movie that rang really false for me. The Joker's not out to prove everyone's crazy like him; he's just a nutjob out to shake things up. And the moment when Tim "Tiny" Lister grabs the bomb and throws it overboard is just plain cheesy.
The other action scene that feels tonally off is when the Joker tells everyone to kill the dorky accountant who knows Batman's identity or he'll blow up a hospital. As the film proves shortly thereafter with the disappointing ferryboat scene, regular people aren't killers. So it doesn't really work to see construction workers and cops ready to gun down a guy in cold blood because their mothers are having hernia operations.
Thematically, the movie gets a little heavy handed with all the talk about Harvey Dent being the shining face of Gotham and its white knight. I got it the first ten times I heard it, I didn't need the other 75. And he can't be such a white knight if he's willing to shoot a man in the head to find out where his girlfriend is being kept.
With a little focus and editorial strictness, THE DARK KNIGHT could have been the best superhero film of all time. As it is, it's a solid B.
Saturday, July 12, 2008
THE INCREDIBLE HULK - Much Better Than the Last One
Being a comic geek, I eagerly anticipated the last HULK outing. Eric Bana, Ang Lee -- what could go wrong? The answer was the Hulk battling a radioactive poodle and a giant electric Nick Nolte.
This time, I was a little more cautious, and waited to see the new Hulk for a bit. But the film gets it mostly right.
SPOILERS, beeotch!
Zak Penn's script does several smart things.
One, it gives us Bruce Banner's transformation from regular guy to superpowered green monster in a credits/dream sequence. This gets across a lot of information that most of the world already knows after the comics, TV show, and last movie quickly, without bogging the film down with an origin story.
Second, it puts Bruce on the run in a favela in Brazil, a visually inventive and interesting choice that shows us the lengths he'll go to to spare the woman he loves, how his daily life is impacted by his curse, and allows some jiu-jitsu training from the Gracies. There's loads of good drama the special forces team sent to capture him and the local toughs out to beat him up, and a great chase scene.
Finally, the film gives the Hulk a worthy adversary, in the form of Tim Roth's power-obsessed soldier who becomes a monster in order to fight the Hulk. Since the Hulk is insanely strong and is shown swatting away bullets and explosives and blowing up tanks and military gunships, he needs another superpowered bad guy to fight in order to provide a good obstacle.
Finally, the film gives Bruce Banner a believable character arc. He goes from trying to control the Hulk outbreaks to trying to rid himself of them to finally accepting that he needs to use his power to stop an even worse threat. This is a true hero's journey.
The film misses the boat in two key areas. One, pacing. The first hour or so of the film is great, setting up where Bruce is and that the military is after him. After he returns to the US, the film drags a little because the story gets muddled. There's no clear throughline. Bruce wants to find the mysterious "Mr. Blue" he's been IMing with and get help, but the film has him go to Betty's university, stay overnight with her, and a few other things, as well as bouncing around to William Hurt's General and Tim Roth. It's not quite clear what Bruce is doing or why until he shows up at Mr. Blue's college. This could have easily been solved by adding in a couple of lines of dialogue where Bruce explains to Betty why he's back -- "I need to get the data and get it to Mr. Blue at such-and-such college."
Second, Tim Roth's Emil Blonsky character. Other than a single line of exposition -- "I wish I could take what I knew now and put it in my body ten years ago." -- we don't know why Blonsky is obsessed with power to the extent that he'd take two experimental serums to get it and risk turning himself into a monster. Because his motivation is expressed solely through one line of dialogue, it feels a little weak. It would have been better to set Blonsky up as the ultimate badass, a guy who never failed on a mission, even under impossible odds. When he meets the Hulk, it's his first failure, and he chalks it up to being too old and too slow. Then he could give his line of dialogue about sticking his mind in his younger body. This is a simple change that would have been easy to address in existing scenes, and it would have set him up as a guy who can't stand to fail and is willing to do whatever it takes -- including dosing himself with experimental drugs -- to succeed.
And the Tony Stark cameo was cute, even if it was basically the exact same epilogue as the one in IRON MAN.
HANCOCK - Where's the villain?
I was really looking forward to HANCOCK. I'd read Vincent Ngo's spec script a few years ago and was impressed by its dark tone and modern take on the superhero story. The final movie is decent, but suffers from a few major problems, all story-related.
SPOILERS BELOW, HOMIE
The tone of the film shifts significantly, veering from flat-out comedy to a bit of romance to more straight action.
The film has a split personality, being half the story of a PR guy out to change the world, and half the story of an asshole superhero who faces his past. Focusing the film on either one of these stories would have resulted in a better movie. Instead, we get less of both.
There's no villain in the movie. The film tries to introduce one, turning a dopey, easily defeated bad guy introduced about an hour into the action into the recurring antagonist. But this fails for several reasons. One, we've seen Hancock defeat him with little effort. Actually, not just defeat him, but chop his hand off like the guy was a total bitch. Second, we know Hancock is invulnerable. The film attempts to introduce some lame rules about how his invulnerability fails when he's near his "opposite," but this comes about ten minutes before the bad guy fight, so it feels weak and tacked-on. And basically just an excuse to make it seem like the bad guy might kill Hancock when we know he has no chance otherwise. And finally, the villain is such a pussy, Jason Bateman, an ordinary guy, is able to defeat him. And not just defeat him but chop his other hand off. A superhero needs a powerful villain in order to provide a challenge; if he can't be another Superman in terms of strength and power, he needs to have the smarts of a Lex Luthor; if he's not as combat-trained as Batman, he needs the craziness of a Joker. Not some schmo who keeps getting amputated every time he's in a fight.
Finally, the movie severely punks out on Hancock's character. In the spec script, Hancock is a giant asshole. Like the movie, the script tells the story of an immortal with amnesia who learns he's not the last of his kind. He has an opposite, a female whom he loves and keeps coming into contact with throughout history. The big reveal in the script, which is far better than what they do in the film, is that Hancock keeps fucking her over throughout history because he's such a dick. And he realizes this and goes away from Mary, leaving her to be happy with her new family.
Now that's a character arc -- an asshole who gives up the woman he loves because he knows she won't be happy with him. That's reminiscent of CASABLANCE, arguably the most romantic movie of all time. HANCOCK, which was presumably watered-down once Will Smith signed onboard, instead gives us a dick with amnesia. But the amnesia's not his fault, because a crowd beat him half to death due to his interracial dating in 1920s Miami. He just can't be with his soulmate because they make each other human and vulnerable, so he has to go away to make them both safe. So he's not really a dick at all, just an angry guy who didn't know why he was angry. While this may be a little more commercial, it's far less satisfying dramatically.
And the whole we-make-each-other-mortal business is extremely weak, coming as it does almost entirely through exposition and at the end of the movie. If this is what Will Smith and Peter Berg wanted to do, at least set it up in the first or second act. Have Will Smith suddenly have a nosebleed or skin his knees when Mary's around. Maybe a bullet grazes him and he wonders why he's suddenly feeling pain and getting wounded. If this was worked into the story, when it's revealed that the two of them make each other mortal, this would be a payoff rather than something that comes out of nowhere.
Overall, Hancock gets a B-. It's still enjoyable and there are some funny moments. But it could've been much better.
On an unrelated note, I can't wait until DARK KNIGHT comes out. I saw it four months ago (and signed an NDA), so I've been dying to talk about it. I will say there's some amazing stuff in the film, but that's all I feel comfortable saying until next Friday.
Sunday, July 6, 2008
INDIANA JONES - 18 Years for This?
I'm a huge Indiana Jones fan. The first movie is one of the great action films of all time, and the rest, for all their flaws, are eminently enjoyable. Which is why the last movie was so disappointing. It was a popcorn movie, but I expected better from everyone involved, especially since it was so long between movies. If we're going to wait 18 years and go out with one more movie, this was it?
I'm not even going to nitpick some of the goofy stuff, like the gophers. I'll let them go. The script had several major problems.
SPOILERS HO!!!!
One, the setup is clunky. Indy's in trouble. There are Russians after alien corpses. Indy escapes the Russkies. The government fires him from his university job. He goes looking for the skull with his son. He's not sure if he should return it where he found it or bring it to the lost city. Blah blah blah. Jeez. That's confusing. How about this instead?
You open with the current setpieces (Area 51 and the atomic bomb test) as Indy evades the Russians. But the baddies grab the crystal skull from Area 51. The FBI comes to Indy -- there are 13 crystal skulls. The Russians have 12 -- if they get the last one, they get the power of the skulls; it's like the Ark on crack. They'd take over the world. Indy says -- so you need my help? They say yeah, point us where the last one is, we're gonna go get it. Without you. You're too old. And then Indy hooks up with Indy, Jr. and goes looking for the final skull to save Professor So-and-So and the world. And has difficulty pulling off the tasks by himself because he is too old. He has to rely on Mutt (really, that's what you named him?) to help him out. It's a much cleaner setup, and it establishes a problem for Indy -- how can he save the world when he's getting on in years? It also intertwines a minor arc for Mutt -- how he goes from being a rebellious punk to a hero taking direction from Indiana Jones. You have some conflict built in -- Indy and Mutt butting heads over giving/taking orders, Mutt and Indy's whole relationship changing when they realize they're father and son, etc. All of which is better than what played out onscreen.
Other major flaws include the double-agenting of Ray Winstone, which matters not at all in the film except for which Jeep he happens to be riding in; the fact that Karen Allen has nothing to do other than to get all misty-eyed when Indy pays attention to her; and that nobody even bothered to give an arc to Indy, Jr. So there's no emotional journey for anyone in the film, just chasing around and some action setpieces leading up to a murkily defined climax.
Throw in the most thoroughly unimpressive bad guy in the series and the fact that the ending manages to rip off both RAIDERS (in that Indy does nothing and the bad guy's head catches on fire; although in RAIDERS, it was at least novel and Indy proved he knew what he was doing by averting his eyes) and LAST CRUSADE (in that Ray Winstone greedily grabs for gold while a pyramid falls on his head) and you've got a movie that's instantly forgettable.
Obviously Steven Spielberg can direct, and David Koepp has writtten some of the best genre films out there, including SPIDER-MAN. So it's hard to understand why we got the movie we did.
Here's hoping Indy 5 is better.
WALL-E vs. KUNG-FU PANDA - Battle to the Death!
Saw both of these today. And both are good movies. KFP is the more enjoyable of the two, but WALL-E is the better movie, because of Pixar's continued emphasis on story.
---MORE SPOILERS, HOMIES---
SPOILER SPACE
---END SPOILER SPACE---
KFP tells the story of Po, a panda who dreams of becoming a kung fu master. All the other animals laugh at him -- he's a fat panda and can't possibly be The Dragon Warrior. And in true kids' movie fashion, you can't judge a book by its cover and fattie turns out to be the only one who can stop an evil Leopard creature from kicking all kinds of ass.
Jack Black turns out not to be annoying, the martial arts action is inventive and highly visual, and the representation of the animal styles of kung fu with their respective animals is genius. The weakness in the script is that, apart from a brief dream sequence at the beginning that establishes Jack Black's love of kung fu (and a couple of mentions to his father), we don't get much of a sense of who Po is or what he wants. Much is made about how the other animals, including the master, don't think Po is the hero everyone is looking for. And Po has a little breakdown where he talks about how he wanted to learn kung fu -- even at the expense of being berated by a man who hates him -- because it was so awkard being him he'd seize any chance to improve. But we never see that. The film misses a golden opportunity by telling, not showing. Late in the movie, Po tells his father that sometimes he wonders if he's his son; this is played purely for laughs -- Po is a panda and his dad is a stork or something. Instead, the film should've showed how Po doesn't fit in anywhere. Give him some brothers or sisters, he's the only panda there. He causes havoc in the noodle shop, knocking things over with his clumsiness and lack of attention. Maybe he takes kung fu classes, but he's stuck in the beginner class with children, never advancing beyond yellow belt; and the kids there make fun of him too. That way, when the turtle tells everyone Po's the Dragon Warrior who will save them, we know he's not -- he's a goofball who gets beaten up by kids and can't even make noodles properly. That sets up his arc even better by demonstrating he doesn't belong anywhere; when he breaks down and says this later in the film, it's been established visually and dramatically, instead of coming through pure exposition.
WALL-E on the other hand, has an amazing script. With very little dialogue, a character is established, given a goal (to find someone to love/hold hands with/dance with), meets his potential mate, who has a mission that interferes with them being together (her directive to find and protect plant life on the dying earth), and is opposed by a series of robot enemies and other obstacles. Visually, the movie uses several excellent cues to reinforce the action, such as the glowing lines the robots and floating couches follow, the giant versions of WALL-E, and the use of red clothing to identify "awakened" humans from the slumbering consumer blue blobs. They even introduce the Captain character halfway through the movie and manage to give him a complete arc. The film also pulls off the hat trick of visually/dramatically representing WALL-E's amnesia and recovery with animation tics like the way WALL-E's eyes click and the gesture of holding hands. By the time the film wraps up, we've seen two robots fall in love, hope return to a dying planet, and watched a story about the fall and rejuvenation of a generation ship, all thematically tied into a message about saving the environment and stopping mindless consumerism. Not bad for a cartoon.
It's still not as fun as watching a panda do kung fu while trying to eat a bowl of dumplings, though.
I WANTED a Little More Logic
MAJOR SPOILER ALERTS!!!!
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I was also jazzed that Timbur Bekmembatov (sp?) was directing. I saw DAYWATCH ages ago, and was blown away by his visual style. I couldn't wait to see what he'd do with a more linear (i.e. logical) story to anchor his amazing eye candy.
WANTED's got a decent main character and a good arc for him -- zero to hero -- even if the voiceover and coming-into-one's-own by way way of violence totally steals from FIGHT CLUB. However, the script/final film sags in three key areas.
One, pacing. The middle of the movie drags -- between when Wesley finds out his destiny and starts training until the big conspiracy reveals himself. I realize they need to service his whole training regimen, but this could have been helped with a little more conflict -- some additional missions for him, more reservations about who he's killing, etc. The movie basically delivers a 45-minute montage with little tension other than when will Wesley stop getting the crap kicked out of him.
Two, the whole device of the Loom of Destiny(TM). Basically, we're shown a loom that's supposed to randomly determine who needs to be killed to maintain balance in the universe. This fails for a couple of reasons. First -- that's moronic. How would a magical loom that spells out binary code come to exist and get the power and ability to figure out who needs to be killed? How would weavers figure out what it meant and crack the binary code (presumably a thousand years ago, there weren't many people familiar with computer languages)? Now granted, there's no logical way this could happen, but there are a few more plausible alternatives -- a specially-bred psychic or seer who figures out who needs to die, a computer program that prints out the results in plain English, etc. Either of those off-the-top-of-my-head suggestions would work better. Second -- the loom spits out coded messages that aren't visible to the naked eye. They need to be interpreted. So we have a bunch of sequences that are Morgan Freeman telling people -- oh, here's a sheet of paper with a fabric swatch, go kill this guy. And then our hero saying -- no, Morgan Freeman had a swatch, he was supposed to die. And Freeman retaliating with swatches of Angelina Jolie and all the other characters. To the audience, these are sheets of paper with fabric swatches -- they mean nothing. If you're going to stick with a Loom of Destiny(TM), at least have the loom weave in a name in the fabric or something else the audience can see.
The third is just a logic point, but a pretty large one. If Wesley's father wanted to save him from joining The Fraternity, and he was camped out in the apartment next door, why didn't he take one of the thousand opportunities to grab Wesley BEFORE any of the havoc happened? Or when Wesley was on his way to work after meeting Angelina Jolie for the first time? The only reason this didn't happen on any of those occasions is that the movie would totally break; and that's not good writing to just gloss over that. Figure it out -- give us a line of dialogue between Wesley and Terrence Stamp where Wesley asks if dad was next door all this time, why didn't he call him or stop by? And Terrence Stamp tells him that dad knew he was being watched by The Fraternity.
Oh, and did they really need to blow up nine hundred thousand rats? What'd the rats ever do to anybody?
Welcome
I am a screenwriter and this is my blog. It will be mostly about movies, mostly new ones, and what I like and don't like about them from a script/writing perspective. Occasionally, my personal life may bleed in, but I'll try to keep that to a minimum.
Screenwriting is a craft, and through analyzing what's out there, we can demand -- and get -- better movies. There's no reason a bad movie should be made.
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