About Time

About Time is a romantic comedy that poses the question, “Could you find love if you had unlimited do-overs?”  Here’s the setup: Domhnall Gleeson is an insecure young Briton who learns that he has the ability to travel backward in his own timeline and relive any moment.  Say the wrong thing at a dinner party?  No problem.  Go back and try again.  Twist your knee skiing?  No problem.  Go back and take a different rout next time.  And away we go.

It’s a fine setup for a romantic comedy.  As with any endeavor, however, it’s all in the execution.  And it’s in the execution thatAbout Time stumbles in two key areas:  it fails to give us a reason to fall in love with its leading romantic couple, and it actually focuses on the wrong couple 

Let me explain:  for a romantic comedy to work, the audience must fall in love with the couple at its center.  That’s a tall order – it can’t be easy to craft characters who appeal to (potentially) millions of people.  Still, About Time doesn’t give us much to fall in love with.  The protagonist (Gleeson) isn’t a particularly interesting figure.  He has interesting parents, an interesting sister, and an interesting roommate, but he’s just … some guy.  A well-meaning guy, sure, but there isn’t anything about him that particularly captures the imagination.  The object of Gleeson’s affections, played by Rachel McAdams, is little more than an object.  The film doesn’t work to give me the sense that she’s anything greater than your Mk 1, Mod 0 Dream Girl.  She spends the film being manipulated by a Gleeson character with the ability to manage their every moment.  She has no agency of her own, and the film expects me, as the viewer experiencing the film through the eyes of the male protagonist, to fall in love with her simply because she looks like Rachel McAdams and she seems nice. Buddy, that’s not going to do it.

Gleeson’s parents, however – that’s a different story.  The couple, Bill Nighy & Lindsay Duncan, are delightful.  Yes, Nighy also has the ability to travel backward in his timeline and get the little things right, but one gets the sense that he does so more to savor his time with his family than say and do the right things to keep his wife happy.  Lindsay Duncan, for her part, is a mature, together woman who knows how to make things happen.  These are interesting people, played by fine actors, and I wanted to spend more time with them.

Alas.  We don’t always get what we want.  Perhaps someone can give About Time a do-over.

The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

If you enjoyed The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, I have good news for you.  The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel offers another ninety minutes with the first film’s delightful cast.  These ninety minutes are warm, they’re cozy, and they offer more than a few opportunities to wipe your eyes.

The story picks up perhaps a year after the close of the first film.  Your favorite regulars remain at the hotel, and Sonny & Sunaina are preparing for their impending marriage.  There’s a primary story involving a hoped-for acquisition of a second property and the threat of a rival for Sunaina’s affections, but the magic of The Second Exotic Marigold Hotel happens around the periphery of that story, as the hotel’s pensioners and assorted guest stars live their own small dramas.

So, the question to ask yourself is simple:  Did you enjoy spending time with Judy Dench & Bill Nighy, Maggie Smith & Celia Imrie, Ronald Pickup & Diana Hardcastle, and assorted other stars familiar to those who spend a lot of time watching PBS and BBCA during The Exotic Marigold Hotel?  I did, and I thoroughly enjoyed spending another ninety minutes with them.  I look forward to The Third Exotic Marigold Hotel.

Wrath of the Titans

I enjoyed Clash of the Titans.  It was a juvenile action-adventure, but it was juvenile action-adventure done right.  Its sequel, Wrath of the Titans, continues in the same vein.  This is a fun time at the movies.

The film is structured around the Hero's Journey, with a reluctant Perseus called upon once more to play a role in the struggles of the gods.  He's assisted on his journey by a cast including Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Rosamund Pike, and even Bill Nighy (CDNW) as Hephaestus.  He confronts elaborate, beautifully designed and realized monsters and obstacles, clashes swords in energetically choreographed battles, and even finds time to squeeze in a character arc.  Star Sam Worthington sells all this, acting mostly against green screens and tennis balls and making us believe he is actually riding, fighting, or conversing with all manner of creations.

Now, I'm kind of a literate guy, and this is the part where I think it's expected of me to opine that if this film inspires one person to read up on the gods and legends of Greco Roman civilization, it will have served its purpose.  Forget that.  The legends of Greco Roman civilization were, as much as anything, entertainment, and Wrath of the Titans is a proud claimant to that inheritance.  By making legends anew in the form of the big summer blockbuster, Wrath continues a storytelling tradition as old as language.  I'm all for it, I loved it, and I look forward to screening this film for my boys as much as I look forward reading to them from our tattered copy of D'Aulaire's Gods of the Greeks and Romans when I get home.

Rango

Rango is a great Western.  It’s a great kids’ movie.  It’s just plain great.

This beautifully animated film both ribs and pays homage to the Western, and particularly the spaghetti Western.  It’s a tale of an evil boss and a new sheriff, and it references enough classics of the genre to keep the aficionado in deep clover.  More importantly, it tells its own Western story, and it does so well enough to capture the imaginations of children for whom it represents their first exposure to the genre.

Johnny Depp voices the titular Rango, a chameleon who dreams of adventure and heroism.  When he wanders into an Old West town populated with (beautifully rendered) desert creatures, he tries to blend in.  After all, that’s what chameleons do.    Next thing he knows, he’s the sheriff.  Now, if he can only figure out how to work that gun …

And away we go.  Rango has gunslingers, saloons, jailbreaks, and even a plucky belle struggling to save her ranch.  It also has great music, funny jokes, and the most beautiful animation I’ve enjoyed since Kung Fu Panda.  I loved it, my wife loved it, and my kids loved it.  Now, if only I can get ‘em to watch Stagecoach.

Valkyrie

VALKYRIE is the saddest film I’ve seen in ages.

Had the conspirators depicted in VALKYRIE succeeded, Germany could have thrown off the shackles of Nazi oppression and redeemed itself. It could have saved countless lives in the camps and on the battlefields. It could have prevented millions from living and dying under the boot of the Communists.

But, of course, the conspirators failed. Modern Germans still wrestle with the legacy of Nazism. Memorial walls carry the names of the countless victims of Nazis and Communists alike. Eastern Europe still struggles to catch up with the West.

Amazingly, VALKYRIE infuses this elegy with sympathy and tension, keeping us engaged and hoping, though we know how things end. It does so through the canny use of all-star casting, leveraging the recognizability of players such as Carice Van Houton, Bill Nighy, Kenneth Branagh, and Tom Wilkinson to build instant rapport with and sympathy for a cast so large it might be easy to lose track of who’s who. It does so through the efforts of Tom Cruise, a man who has been criticized for his offscreen behavior but who remains among the most gifted and charismatic stars of his generation. It does so by leveraging our knowledge of the broad outlines of history against our ignorance of the details: we all know things went wrong, but wmost of us don't know how.

This film largely succeeds in portraying its time, its place, its people, though it missteps in failing to recreate the paranoia that the all-seeing Gestapo engendered at the time. Its period details feel right, as does its grasp of German culture. While VALKYRIE, with its serious subject matter and foregone conclusion, may not appeal to everyone, it meets it goals.

If only its subjects had met theirs.

Underworld: Evolution

UNDERWORLD: EVOLUTION is impressive. It boasts imaginative set, costume, and makeup design. It weaves CGI and practical stuntwork into a rousing whole. Its set pieces are creative and interesting and, while it never manages to rise above being a bunch of actors and stuntmen hamming it up on increasingly complex movie sets, it’s a bunch of good actors and good stuntmen hamming it up in a fantastic (if barely plausible) world that’s an entertaining place to visit.

I first mentioned the set design because it really is remarkable. From the rustic inn where the first film’s Scott Speedman learns he can no longer eat normal food to the functionally baroque headquarters of franchise newcomer Derek Jacobi to the multilayered, rich-with-possibility crumbling ruin of the climax, every inch of the screen is filled with detail and imagination. Well done.

While I still can’t get past the idea of the leather corset as functional combat wear (Where does Kate Beckinsale hide all those weapons, anyway?), the leatherwork has details that relate to the decorative flourishes in the costumes of heroes and villains, suggesting a deeper mythology behind the story of this film. It’s neat, carefully crafted stuff, and indicates an attention to detail far beyond what one might expect in a vampires vs. werewolves movie.

The makeup, particularly that of the villain in full monster mode, is not only scary and convincing, but also bears marks of the costumer’s design sensibility, with patterning in the monster’s back that, you guessed it, shows up in the corset, Jacobi’s coats, and even the film’s Maguffin. It’s crazy; it’s lavish; it’s just the thing.

The action sequences (which comprise most of the film) build from the exaggerated to the just-plain-crazy, but that’s not their best quality. Not only do they blow lots of stuff up real good, but they actually advance the story and keep us in the loop of who’s doing what to whom and why. Sure, they defy the laws of physics and aerodynamics. So what? It’s a v vs. w movie. I went with it.

The whole thing combines to make for a film that’s better than its predecessor. It doesn’t share insight into the human condition, no, and it doesn’t make us laugh or cry. But it looks great, it sounds great, and it’s great fun.

I can’t believe I’m writing this, but bring on UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS.

Underworld

I'm not UNDERWORLD's target audience, really. I'm not a gun, leather, or goth fetishist. In my action pictures, I like to know who's shooting whom, and why. And I hate having to constantly adjust the volume on my headphones so I can hear the dialogue one minute without blasting out my eardrums through gunfire and explosion the next. But I liked it anyway.

I mean, c'mon, Bill Nighy and Michael Sheen hamming it up in a vampires vs. werewolves movie? Y'know, the kind of movie in which everyone has machine guns but the big battles are all hand to hand? The kind where the bad guy is named Kraven and everyone's a fashion model who spends a minimum of three hours in the gym every single day? How can that not, at least at some level, speak to you? What, you don't like wirework? You don't like contact lenses? You don't like extremely loud and extremely bad rock music? You must like it when the good guy gets thrown through a wall and falls to a puddle below, and the masonry that hits the water with him floats. No? What's wrong with you?

Well, I thought it was silly fun, just the thing to pass the time while stuck in an airport lounge waiting for the weather to clear. Sometimes, that's all that's required.

Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD'S END (POTC 3, henceforth) isn't very good. It wants to be an exciting, family-friendly adventure, but it begins with the hanging of a child. Now, I now that to somebody in Studio City, nothing says "entertainment" like the twitching feet of a dying juvenile. But I hate to break it to you, buddy: you hamstrung yourself very early on. The stakes are too high here, the villains too villainous, the deaths too real for POTC 3 to be fun. Yet this is a POTC movie, not NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN, so it's not like you were going to sell it as a drama.

Early pall aside, POTC 3 makes no sense. It would have us believe that Pax Brittania was a bad thing, that the world is much better off with pirates disrupting the global economy than with trading vessels being able to ply the seas, and that the life of a felon is somehow noble. The earlier POTC movies at least kept the pirates morally ambiguous - here, they're good guys who do a little raping and pillaging in their spare time.

And yet, POTC 3 does have some things to recommend it. The performances are great fun, with Geoffrey Rush and Bill Nighy chewing the scenery with gusto comparable to Johnny Depp. The special effects are magnificent, and the set design is out of this world.

If only the movie hadn't gone so dark so early, it might have swept me away. Alas.

Hot Fuzz

HOT FUZZ is better than SHAUN OF THE DEAD. And I liked SHAUN OF THE DEAD.

SHAUN breaks down a bit in the third act, when it transitions from "zombie comedy" to "zombie horror." FUZZ, on the other hand, benefits from the action tradition it gently mocks - there's plenty of room for comedy in an action picture, and this film uses every square inch of it.

Here's the setup: Sergeant Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is such a great London cop that he's superiors (Martin Freeman, Steve Coogan, and Bill Nighy) transfer him to a quiet little village in the country, where he won't make everyone else look so bad. Once he gets there, he finds that someone, presumably the creepily hale proprietor of the local supermarket (Timothy Dalton, finding the scenery delicious), is committing murder that would be most foul if it weren't in retribution for doing things like putting on laughably bad productions of "Romeo and Juliet." From there, as any action-movie aficionado can tell you, it's but a short step to massive explosions, the crackle of automatic gunfire, and a fugitive swan.

It's loads of fun, with wonderful comic turns from a cast that includes Cate Blanchett, Jim Broadbent, Paddy Considine, and even Peter Jackson. It features gags from broad to subtle, as well as surprising performances from Timothy Dalton and Paddy Considine, two actors I don't normally associate with comedy. HOT FUZZ kept me chuckling from beginning to end.

What a delightful film.

Flushed Away

Poor Hugh Jackman. The guy's trying to be a movie star: he really is. He made a romantic comedy with Meg Ryan, an action movie with Stephen Sommers, even a prestige picture with Christopher Nolan. What does he have to show for it? More flops than a skid row hotel. FLUSHED AWAY, with Jackman voicing the lead, was another in the long list of studio loss-makers. Check off "kid's film," Hugh. Perhaps you'll have better luck in a zombie movie.

FLUSHED AWAY looks like a successful kid's movie. It's structured like one, with all the beats, gags, and character moments we'd expect, and it's a perfectly fine entry in the genre. It's lacking something, however - that heart, that hook, that special something that makes it the kind of picture you don't mind seeing again and again. Here's the setup: Roddy (our hapless Hugh) lives the sweet life in Kensington, which, I infer, is a posh London borough. He's a housepet, and a happy one, until circumstance conspires against him and he's literally flushed away into the London sewers. There, he discovers Rat Culture, finds a place in it, and even defeats the evil Mr. Toad (whose toadies include Le Frog, whose henchmen respond to the command, "Fight like Frenchmen!" by raising their hands in surrender).

The movie's visually rich, it has gags galore, it features character design in the beloved Aardman style, and it feels like the kind of thing that went through committee after committee until every cog in a soulles creative machine was happy with the output, right down to the musical number that closed things out. There's no "there" there and, compared with a masterpiece like RATATOUILLE, FLUSHED AWAY is merely a trifle, something to sedate the kids while you mow the lawn.

Better luck next time, Hugh. And really, think about that zombie movie. It might finally put you over the top.

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY is consistently amusing, occasionally hilarious, and always gorgeous.

Here's the setup: Arthur Dent's home is about to be destroyed, and there's nothing he can do to stop it. Sure, he lie down in front of the tractors positioned to destroy his house, but that won't stop the Vogon demolition fleet positioned to annihilate the Earth. Though it's a bad day for Earth, it's a great day for Arthur, however. His strange buddy, the one who doesn't quite fit in, turns out to be an alien. To make matters better, he's an alien who writes for _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_, and he shows up just in time to help Arthur hitch a ride to, well, the galaxy.

The next 80 minutes or so bring us the horrors of Vogon poetry, a new definition of the technicolor yawn, the best extended riff on our sitting President I've yet to see in a motion picture, and the Ultimate Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. Oh, and we find out who made the fjords. He won a prize.

Though the movie breaks down a bit during the second act, it pulls itself together admirably well and closes on a very strong note. I expected this movie to be reasonably amusing, but it wound up making my day. Have fun.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.

PS While watching this movie, I couldn't help but compare it to I HEART HUCKABEES. IHH purported to be an existential comedy, but it was really a comedy about self-importance. THHGTTG is the real thing.

The Constant Gardener

THE CONSTANT GARDENER disappointed me. It had an excellent script and a first-class cast, but it was hobbled by photography and music so distracting that I spent more time thinking about how annoyed I was than I did actually engaging with the film. Bummer. Danny Huston did provide one very bright spot, however. After enjoying his performance in SILVER CITY as a good guy who's trying to be bad, it was fun to watch him flip the characterization on its head for this picture.

Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

What's not to love about PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST? It has fun characters, terrific monsters, plenty of swordplay, and great set-pieces galore. It's just plain a fun time at the movies.

Here's the setup: well, on second thought, who cares? Here's what you really need to know: all the principals are back, some cool new monsters get added to the mix, and the movie rocks along with just the right combination of action, humor, and character to keep you well entertained for its full 2+ hour running time.

Enjoy.