Django Unchained

Django Unchained is a revenge fantasy set in the pre-Civil War American South. It doesn't have any vampires.

It heroes are Jamie Foxx and Christoph Waltz, neither of whom slay vampires. Its villains include Leonardo DiCaprio, Samuel L. Jackson, Don Johnson, and Bruce Dern, none of whom are vampires. Its Designated Damsel is Kerry Washington, who does not kill a slaveholding vampire with a silver crucifix shot from a Spencer 1860 carbine.

In short, Django Unchained is a slavery revenge fantasy that is not Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter. This is too bad. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter is a great movie, while Django Unchained is merely good. While AHVH is fun and creative and downright wicked in its portrayal of the Slaveholding South as an undead empire and Jefferson Davis as its knowing stooge, Django goes the more obvious route of painting its villains simply as venal, stupid, cruel, or some combination of the three.

The result? A perfectly serviceable revenge fantasy populated with world-class actors, aided by Quentin Tarantino's dialogue and unique eye, and made with every bit of goodwill all hands could muster. I chuckled. I grooved. I was entertained. But it was no AbrahamLincoln: Vampire Hunter.

Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer

Y’know what I liked about the FANTASTIC FOUR: RISE OF THE SILVER SURFER? Its sense of fun. This film takes plenty of time for gags, and this lightness works toward creating a pleasant, rather innocuous entry in the series.

The Silver Surfer, who actually looks more like a mercury surfer, is an extraterrestrial being who, um, surfs around the galaxy preparing life-bearing planets for consumption at the hands of another, larger extraterrestrial being. When he shows up on Earth, its up to the Fantastic Four, with a combination of help and interference from old nemeses Victor von Doom and some U.S. Army general with Canadian jump wings and jurisdiction in London and Siberia. (Aside: Andre Braugher plays the general. Whenever I see him, I recall the top-notch Iago he played in a production of Othello opposite Avery Brooks. Suffice it to say that Iago is a more interesting character than the stock “military guy as imagined by people who’ve never been in the military” he’s stuck with here.)

That’s a fine setup for a superhero movie, but what makes F2S2 a pleasant time at the movies is the interaction between the members of the Fantastic Four. These people care about one another, and I enjoyed their interactions as they tried to both save the world and lift one another up.

Is F2S2 a particularly good movie? Not really, and I’d skip right by it if I ran across it on a hotel TV. But it’s fine and, if your kids want to watch it, it won’t kill you to sit down and watch it with them. Tepid praise, but praise nonetheless.

The Last King of Scotland

When callow Americans need to grow up, they buy a backpack and hustle off to Europe. When callow Scotsmen need to grow up, they go anywhere but Canada.

In THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, callow Scotsman Nicholas Garrigan heads off to Uganda in search of mission, meaning, and adventure. Apparently, he doesn't bother to read the paper first, because Uganda is a nation in turmoil. He has barely arrived when General Idi Amin Dada takes power in a bloody coup and, before he knows it, he's treating the General for an injury incurred near the medical mission at which Garrigan works (alongside a fetching Gillian Anderson). Amin takes a shine to Garrigan, invites him down to the capitol to offer him a job, and Garrigan's off and running in the adventure of a lifetime. Of course, if he only bothered to read the paper, he might have second thoughts. But he doesn't.

Garrigan's willful stupidity could sink THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND, but we can understand it, at least at first, as the film introduces us to Forest Whitaker's Idi Amin. Amin is charismatic, exciting - he's a doer, and he offers privilege and adventure beyond Garrigan's wildest fantasies. But we know things Garrigan doesn't know and, as Amin's facade slowly crumbles to reveal the monster beneath, we come to fear not only for Garrigan and the rest of the General's inner circle, but for Uganda itself. Amin is so evil, so controlled, so utterly without boundaries that, by the end, we have no idea where he'll stop. It's captivating stuff, and it rests on the shoulders of Forest Whitaker as Amin. Fortunately, Whitaker delivers his best work since GHOST DOG: WAY OF THE SAMURAI. He's human and alien, the kind of man another man could follow and the kind of man another man could kill. Whenever he's on screen, there's a palpable tension in the air; and he never releases it, even in moments of levity.

THE LAST KING OF SCOTLAND does a masterful job of portraying its time and place. I believed in the Uganda it showed me, and I believed in the people I met there. More importantly, this movie wrapped me up in knots for nearly two hours. It was terrific stuff.