The Mummy

C'mon: Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, a damsel in distress, and more aristrocratic English accents than you can shake a walking stick at. If you don't like Hammer's take on THE MUMMY, you don't like movies.

Alvin and the Chipmunks

Consider, if you will, two children's films: UNDERDOG and ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS. Both are Product with a capital P, lowest common denominator entertainments designed to keep the kids occupied while their parents (first run) get in some shopping or (DVD) take care of some chores. Sure, somewhere in the productions there are people who are actually passionate about the work, but pretty much everyone knows what they're about on projects like this.

The two films have similarly innocuous leads, follow predictable arcs, and have nothing to offer anyone much past age ten. But there's a difference between them, and that difference is worth noting.

Peter Dinklage plays UNDERDOG's villain, and Patrick Warburton plays his henchman. Both actors know what kind of movie they're in, yet they bring their A games to their work. They craft near-perfect kids'-movie villains, threatening but not too threatening, funny but not too funny, and they make roles that must have looked pedestrian on the page absolutely sing in production. David Cross plays the villain in ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS, and his contempt for the material seeps into everything he does. There's something of a sneer in the guy's performance - it's as if, in his heart of hearts, Cross knows he's too good for this movie. It kills his scenes and hurts the picture, and it makes troupers like Dinklage and Warburton shine all the brighter.

Ok, but is the overall movie any good? Well, it's about what you'd expect: something to keep the little ones occupied while you fold the laundry. So I guess it does its job.

Crash

I wanted to like David Cronenberg’s CRASH. I really did. But it didn’t give me anything to hold on to.

The film is ostensibly about a sexually adventurous couple who enter the world of automobile crash fetishisation (Note: As far as I’m aware, so such world actually exists. But the internet is a big place. It could be out there somewhere.). It’s really about compulsion and the proper location of boundaries on sexual experience. That makes it interesting, but it fails to be engaging because its characters are too remote, its music is too remote, and even its photography is too remote.

All that remoteness makes CRASH a cold, dull experience. It’s like reading an encyclopedia article on sexuality. All the words are there, but it fails to capture the essence of the subject. At no time in the course of the film did I feel like I was watching real people have real experiences or speaking in real ways. At no time did my pulse quicken or eyes dilate. CRASH is an exercise in observation, and observe it does, but it’s more science than art. Had the film given me even one character to whom I could relate, one situation that I could even tenuously connect to my life, it might have engaged me more thoroughly.

As it was, I had to will myself to power through to the end. What a disappointment.

Iron Man

There’s a sequence in IRON MAN in which protagonist Tony Stark builds and tests his Mk II fighting suit. It’s 5-10 minutes of a guy turning a screwdriver, doing some tests, and turning a screwdriver some more. The sequence requires an actor of exceptional magnetism and charisma to pull it off, and there are only two contemporary mainstream leading men who could do it.

Which is why I think it was written into the movie after Robert Downey, Jr. signed on.

I’ve been in Downey’s camp since CHAPLIN. The guy has had his ups and downs, but he seems to have hit his stride somewhere around KISS KISS, BANG BANG (touched upon here). In IRON MAN, the guy is so charismatic, so much fun to watch, that we love him when he’s a shallow billionaire and we love him when he gets a conscience. I think it’s because Downey has so much fun with the role, and director Jon Favreau lets him run.

Downey couldn’t cut loose without a strong supporting cast to keep the picture grounded. Jeff Bridges, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Terrence Howard are every bit as good as you’d expect and, heroes or villains, they keep us believing in what’s transpiring onscreen. By the time IRON MAN becomes a third-act CGI slugfest, I’m sufficiently involved in its world that I forget I’m watching pixels and hearing foley – these are real people onscreen, and I care about what happens to them.

Superhero movies are hard to do. Just ask the people behind KRRISH. But Jon Favreau really nails it with IRON MAN. I can’t wait for the sequel.

Sergeant York

hagiography, noun, pl. -phies.
1. the writing of saints' lives.
2. a book about saints' lives.
3. (Figurative.) a biography that adulates or idolizes its subject.

Sergeant Alvin York won the Medal of Honor in WWI for killing 22 Germans and forcing 132 others to surrender in battle in the Argonne Forest. French Marshal Ferdinand Foch called it "the greatest thing accomplished by any private soldier of all the armies of Europe." Hollywood told his story in 1941, just as America was gearing up for another go at the Germans.

Gary Cooper played the titular soldier, a man who sought conscientious objector status but rogered up when his application was denied. Though hampered by clunky dialogue (“I’m’a tellin’ ya that I’m’a gonna marry ya!”), Cooper gamely played the wide-eyed innocent, relying on the same bag of tricks he’d later use in PRIDE OF THE YANKEES. He does a fine job of giving us the sinner turned saint turned hero, and he’s aided by the great Walter Brennan in the role of backwoods pastor.

But there’s a problem with SERGEANT YORK. I fired up this movie expecting a WWI drama. What I got was a roughly 1.8-hr celebration of rural Tennessee wrapped around a brief military interlude. While I understand that I was watching a hagiography, I’d have been very interested to learn about how backwoodsmen like York fit into the Army culture of the WWI era. The more I think about it, the more this movie makes me want to see a modern retelling of York’s story. What was it like that day in the Argonne? How did York adjust to his status of national hero (This version tells us that he shrugged it off and went back to farming.)? Who was this guy?

On second thought, I don’t think a movie can answer all my questions about this interesting character. I’m off to the library.

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep

THE WATER HORSE: LEGEND OF THE DEEP is your basic “boy befriends wild animal” movie. In this case, the wild animal is the Loch Ness Monster, so there’s your hook.

I like “boy befriends wild animal” movies, and I like the actors in this one (Brian Cox, Emily Mortimer, the kid from MILLIONS and some guy who looks familiar). It moves along quite well, and it’s appealing enough to young and old that my 8-yr-old turned to me and said, “Thanks for making me watch this, Dad.” What more can you ask for?

The Butterfly Effect

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT is so depressing, so unrelentingly bleak, that I have no idea how any film executive ever said, “This is a movie people will want to see on a Saturday night. Green light it!”

Here’s the setup: Ashton Kutcher has a profoundly terrible childhood. While in college, he discovers that he has the ability to inhabit his pediatric self and change the course of past events. When he does so, however, things get even worse. And worse. And worse. This movie is like some kind of weird exercise in excruciation, daring the audience to hang with it a little while longer in the hope that things will improve. They never do. THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT is hopeless, depressing, and a lousy way to spend a Saturday night. I wish I could go back in time and tell myself to skip it.

Snakes on a Plane

During one of his promotion interviews for SNAKES ON A PLANE, star Samuel L. Jackson said, “Look, it’s all there in the title. Either you’re down with snakes on a plane, or you aren’t.”

I’m down with snakes on a plane.

Now, make no mistake: there is no way SNAKES ON A PLANE qualifies as a “good” movie. It’s high B-grade, at best, and it boasts a blatant disregard for even the most basic research on snakes or planes. But it you’ve ever wanted to see someone take a snake in the eye, this is your movie. If you’ve ever wanted to see a giant boa constrictor eat a snotty jerk, this is your movie. Heck, you find the idea of Mr. Jackson shouting, “I have had it with these @#$%ing snakes on this $%^ing plane!” amusing, this is your movie.

Just, please, if you know anything about aviation, let it go. If you know anything about human nature, let it go. It’s snakes. On a plane. With Samuel L. Jackson.

Dig it.

THX-1138

THX-1138 is solid, ‘70s experimental science fiction. It presents with an antiseptic Orwellian world and one man, THX-1138, who begins to realize that there’s more to life than he’s been led to believe. Robert Duvall plays THX-1138, and it’s a masterful, understated performance. THX lives in a society in which emotion is discouraged, and Duvall is a master of showing us the deep currents swirling beneath his character’s calm exterior.

Where THX-1138 triumphs in the performance of its lead, however, it flounders in its actual story. Though the film begins with an intriguing vision of a dystopic future, it ends as one extended chase, going from foot to high-speed vehicle to foot again. Nothing really happens during this chase, story-wise. THX doesn’t learn anything about himself, nor does he develop in any way. It’s as if the film didn’t know where to go, but figured audiences love chases and that would do as well as anything.

So, should you see THX-1138? If you’re a fan of George Lucas, whose first science fiction feature this was, then I suppose you should. If you’re a fan of Robert Duvall, then you definitely should. If you’re neither, it may be worth your while if you find it on cable. That’s good enough, I suppose.

Transformers

If you like your movies bright and loud, then TRANSFORMERS is for you. I like my movies bright and loud, so I blocked out a chunk of time, darkened the basement, fired up the big screen, and got the surround speakers humming. I was ready to be blown away.

And TRANSFORMERS tried hard to blow me away. Lots of stuff blew up. It was very bright. And loud. But it was so unreal that I was unable to suspend my disbelief enough to care about any of the giant robots or believe, on a visceral level, that the havoc they were wreaking was anything more than a combination of pixel arrangement and foley work. In fact, during the climactic battle, I was more concerned with whether protagonist Shia LaBeouf was gonna score with the apple of his eye than I was with the fate of the world (There's something unsettling about Megan Fox, the romantic interest, btw. Since she reminded my of a psycho ex-girlfriend, I was torn between rooting for LaBeouf and urging to run far, far away.). Romantic subplots are great and all, but that’s no way to run a movie.

On the up side, LaBeouf is a likeable presence, and John Turturro was utterly brilliant in his role as a slightly unhinged Man in Black. Never before have I seen a government heavy played for laughs in an action movie such as this, and it was a wonderful choice. Every time Turturro showed up on screen, the film recaptured my complete attention, making TRANSFORMERS worth watching for him alone.

I didn't go into TRANSFORMERS expecting CRIES AND WHISPERS, but I was hoping for something more evenly entertaining than Michael Bay's latest turned out to be. A little more Turturro and a little less CGI, and this one could have been a winner.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I had no intention of ever seeing this movie.

But one of my nephews had it and showed it to my 8-yr-old, who showed it to me.

Y'know what? I liked it.

Sure, the CGI overlays on some of the actors were wierd, Depp was wierd, and the whole thing was wierd. But I like wierd. I like Danny Elfman's music. I like Johnny Depp. I like any mainstream movie that shows some real originality, some creativity.

Did I believe in this film's worl? Not for a minute. Did I enjoy spending some time there? Sure, sure I did.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

Two years ago, CHUD.com’s Devin Faraci wrote a glowing review of BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON. [It’s right here.] I banked the positive review, but I didn’t rent the movie because I’m just not a fan of the slasher genre. Last week, I saw the disk on the shelf at the local library. The price was right, and I remembered that excellent review. “Perhaps,” I thought, “this will be the one slasher movie I actually like.”

I loved it.

BEHIND THE MASK follows a team of young documentary filmmakers as they take on the subject of one Leslie Vernon, a bright and charismatic young man who aspires to join the greats of the “creative slaughter” world. In the film’s universe, Freddy and Jason and Michael are real people who, through preparation, determination, and talent, have emerged as superstars. Leslie’s just getting started, but he has all the tools: a spooky backstory, a strong work ethic, an eye for detail, and a wickedly sharp set of gardening tools.

The movie works because it so thoroughly understands and embraces the conventions of the slasher genre that the documentary footage detailing Leslie’s preparation for the big night (putting dead batteries the Target House’s flashlights, choosing the proper Survivor Girl) feels real. Further, the boyish enthusiasm of the industrious Leslie contrasts to great (deadpan) comic effect with the growing moral uncertainty of the documentarians, leaving us cheering at Leslie’s small victories while questioning our own championing of murder. When the film switches from documentary to third-person slasher in the third act, the transition feels organic and fun. We see how Leslie’s preparation has paid off, in everything from the creepiness of his mask and makeup to the strategic placement of bodies. Even so, we still feel the quickening of fear, and we shudder along with the victims.

BEHIND THE MASK: THE RISE OF LESLIE VERNON is so innovative, so enthusiastic, so fun that it makes me want to revisit the slasher genre. How bad can TERROR TRAIN really be?

Return to House on Haunted Hill

Ok, look: RETURN TO HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL is as “B” as B movies get. It’s a direct-to-video sequel to the remake of a classic B horror film that few people saw (but that I enjoyed). It stars none of the major players from the previous effort, puts the gratuitous in “gratuitous nudity” (seriously – there are random shots of naked women that do absolutely nothing to advance the story and serve only to up the film’s boobs per minute ratio) and spends more money on creature design than story development. Nevertheless, this movie is something special. To the best of my knowledge, it’s the first Choose Your own Adventure “B” horror movie.

That’s right. During pivotal moments of the story, a menu pops up and asks viewers questions like, “Should the heroine save the wisecracking good guy or get the map?” and “Should the henchwoman resist the charms of the spectral lesbians?” The movie advertises 96 possible paths through the story, though I only tried three. One of the paths, the first one I tried, got me all the way to the end. The second one cut the story short, as everyone died a grisly death. The third got me to a different ending, but without the added helping of gratuitous nudity offered by the first (Somewhere along the line, I must have chosen poorly.). If the movie had been better, I may have been tempted to try a few more options. Unfortunately, I couldn’t bear to. The acting was so poor, the story so uninspired, the villains so dull, and the motivations of the ghosts and monsters so incomprehensible that I just couldn’t take it any more.

But I must admit a grudging respect for RETURN TO HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL. It does sport some pretty cool creature designs. It unashamedly embraces its exploitative, B move pedigree. And it pulls off the branching paths gimmick pretty well, with each option a genuinely interesting choice. Is this a “good” movie? Not at all. Is it a “fun” movie? I suppose it is. But the number of journeys you’re willing to make through this particular labyrinth may be even fewer than mine.

Find Me Guilty

Sydney Lumet’s FIND ME GUILTY didn’t get a fair shake. I’m not going to argue that it’s brilliant, but it’s pretty good: it didn’t deserve its box office death. Perhaps the marketing had something to do with it. Remember all those posters with Vin Diesel dressed up as Willy Loman? At the time, I remember thinking, “How do you take a guy as charismatic as Diesel and throw all that away?

Well, the movie itself doesn’t throw Diesel’s charisma away. In fact, it relies on that charisma to get us through the true(ish) story of a charismatic New York mobster who charmed a jury into acquitting him and all of his friends in one of the biggest RICO trials to date. It works, and it does so because Diesel has the power to get an audience on his side, whether he’s playing the head of criminal enterprise, an alien convict, or a schlubby but funny gangster. I think the movie would work even better if it didn’t try to give some perspective to the proceedings by reminding us that, yes, the colorful mobsters really are bad guys and the vile prosecutors really are on the side of good. If you want to make us root for Diesel’s character, make us believe in his story, then put us in that juror’s box and convince us that he and his buddies are being unjustly persecuted. As it stands, the movie wants to have it both ways, a la “The Sopranos.” But “The Sopranos” had years to get us to know and love Paulie Walnuts. FIND ME GUILTY only has a couple of hours.

Nevertheless, FIND ME GUILTY stands as a reasonably amusing courtroom comedy, featuring a fine turn by Diesel and yet another remarkable performance from the formidable Peter Dinklage, who plays a co-defending attorney (Oh, how I’d love to have seen that Dinklage RICHARD III he did on stage a while back.). It didn’t make me laugh out loud, but it rocked along pretty well for its two hour running time. I suppose a guy could do worse.

V for Vendetta

I liked the filmed version of V FOR VENDETTA better than the comic. The comic felt like an overhyped revolt against Thatcherism, while the film makes the story more universal. While it gets in its digs at the Bush administration, the film feels more of piece with works like 1984, works which transcend the time in which they were created.

Here’s the setup: we’re in England, and things have gone sour. It’s roughly ten years after a political shift that ushered in an authoritarian government, but still thirty years or so before the system gets so entrenched that we’d be in the world of a 1984. Big Brother is everywhere, but the tvs still only go one way, if you will.

V4V asks the question, “What if someone rebelled before Big Brother could really get his hooks into everything?” In this case, that someone is an anonymous gent in a Guy Fawkes costume, a gent who was wronged by this regime and has taken is time, a la Edmond Dantes, to construct the perfect revenge. His plan? To move the people of England to rise up against their oppressors.

How he executes his plan, and how his actions affect those around him, I’ll leave for the viewer. Right now, I’m more concerned with how well the film executes its intentions; I’m happy to report that it does so quite well. Natalie Portman, the audience surrogate, reminds us that yes, she can actually act quite well. Hugo Weaving as the guy in the Fawkes costume, joins Willem Dafoe in the limited club of guys who can emote even when their face is hidden. John Hurt, who played Winston Smith in the filmed version of 1984, is a marvelous Big Brother, and the remainder of the supporting cast (including favorites Stephen Rea and Stephen Fry) also turns in professional work, without a single performance that pulls one out of the moment. The film looks slick, professional, and seamless. I bought everything it showed me, and I enjoyed the ride.

I picked up V4V on a whim – it was sitting right there on a counter at the library, and I knew I’d have a little free time coming up. I’m glad I did. V FOR VENDETTA turned to be pretty good.

Krrish

I just scouted around the internet for reviews of KRRISH, Bollywood's first big-budget superhero movie. The movie has a 100% positive rating on the tomatometer, and everyone seems to love it.

All of these people are on crack.

Somewhere in Krrish's two hours and fifty-five minutes of bloat, there's a solid little 85-minute superhero movie. Unfortunately, the filmmakers couldn't or wouldn't edit their work sufficiently ruthlessly to get to that good, fast-paced movie, so we're left with an incredibly long shampoo commercial.

Here's the setup: young Krishna is a supergenius whose grandmother hides him in a remote mountain village, far away from the eyes of evil men who would use him, if they could. The village appears to be populated by a gang of good-natured youths, a goofy sidekick, a brilliant dentist, the world's greatest hairdresser, and at least one guy who owns a gym and has access to steroids. Krishna grows up in an extended woodland idyll, maturing into an innocent gym rat with perfect teeth and hair that would put Robin Shou to shame. Oh, and he has superpowers.



Soon enough, the inevitable occurs. Krishna meets a girl, an ethnic Indian on holiday from Singapore, whose hair is even better than his.

He follows her to Singapore, where he dazzles the locals with his flowing mane.


But it isn't long before evil intervenes, and Krishna must assume a new identity - Krrish!- and save the day through the power of wind-blown locks (btw, Krrish's locks are always windblown. One of his superpowers must include the ability to levitate an invisible fan two feet from his face.).


Damn. There's slo-mo closeup of Krrish, having just risen from the sea, whipping his head about and sending perfectly lit drops of water flying everywhere. Google image search is turning up nothing.

Anyway, back to the recap. Krrish saves the world, wins the girl, and even gets a shave. There's your movie.

And it's a perfectly fine template for a movie, but it doesn't quite work. The guy who plays Krishna, Hrithik Roshan, is a skilled dancer and a fine stuntman, but his three expressions seem to be winning grin, winning grin, and palsy. The gal who plays the eventual damsel in distress (oops - spoiler!), Priyanka Chopra, appears to be more talented, but director Rakesh Roshan (Hrithik's dad, which makes the lingering shots of Hrithik's muscles, hair, and teeth kinda creepy, now that I think about it) must've told her to play to the cheap seats, because there is absolutely no mystery in her face whatsoever. It's all right there. Add astoundingly poor special effects, a score that's a direct ripoff of Danny Elfman's work on SPIDER-MAN, and the incongruous musical numbers that Bollywood demands, and you have a movie that wears out its welcome at the 90-minute mark. Had this film been edited from three to 1.5 hours, the actors would have had less time to grate; the poorer CGI sequences could have been edited out, and we might have been left with a fun, masala-flavored masked avenger flick.

But wishful thinking gets us nowhere. As it stands, KRRISH is a three hour long mess. This time around, I took one for the team.

Shrek the Third

SHREK THE THIRD ("Shrek 3," hereafter), is a joyless slog through a never ending stream of tired jokes. Sure, my kid liked it plenty, but my kid is eight years old. You gonna trust him?

Here's the setup: Just as Shrek departs on a voyage to find the heir to the kingdom, Prince Charming rallies the forces of evil to conquer said kingdom so he can, um, put on a show. Ok, fair enough. Problem is, Shrek 3 can't do anything more with this premise than it did with the two earlier, funnier installments. The fun of having fairy tales turned on their head has diminished, and this movie has little to add to that formula.

On the up side, Shrek 3 employs some terrific actors. It's always great to see Julie Andrews, John Cleese, Eric Idle, and (the surprisingly good and versatile) Justin Timberlake get work. There are no performances that pull one out of the viewing experience, though it's a shame that they're in service to such an uninspired story.

Ah, well.

Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia

BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA as a movie about constructs. More specifically, I see it as a movie about the constructs we use to give shape to our lives, and the ways in which he hold fast to those constructs even in the face of their absurdity. During the picnic, I saw two deeply damaged people trying to love each other; two people aware that a relationship was impossible, yet willing to believe in their hopes (if only for a little while).

Elita knows that Bennie knows that Garcia is her true love, and she knows that Bennie's trying to find Garcia for some malevolent purpose. Further, she knows that Bennie's no good -that no matter how much money he makes, it's all going to pass through his hands anyway. Still, she pressures him to propose to her, and she chooses to believe in her future by accepting his proposal. Later, when they're in Garcia's town, she points out that there's a church there. When Bennie doesn't so much refuse to follow through on his commitment as let it slide by him, Elita still chooses to believe.

Only when the construct is safely unattainable does Benny fully invest himself in it. When he does, he finds that the construct gives him something to live for and, perhaps more importantly, something to die for. We see this first glimmer of this fuller Bennie in the picnic scene, as he takes the first steps from nihilism to belief. Elita knows that belief will probably not end well, but she's willing to believe anyway. This is her wisdom and her strength.

Batman vs. Dracula

BATMAN VS. DRACULA retells Stoker's tale with Batman in the Van Helsing role, The Penguin as Renfield, and Vicki Vale as Mina Harker. It's a fine introduction to the Dracula story for the younger set, with the horror elements still present, if smoothed out a bit.

The animation is workmanlike, however, and the voice acting never quite captured my imagination. Further, the producers chose to make both Penguin and Joker super or, perhaps, para human, and I found that the fantastical elements of these characters detracted from the shock value of Dracula, who always works best as the unexpected supernatural player in a mundane world.

Nevertheless, BATMAN VS. DRACULA captured my boy's imagination and kept me mildly diverted. As far as kids' horror goes, you could do worse.

The Godfather, Part II

Here's the problem with THE GODFATHER, PART II: it doesn't add to the story of THE GODFATHER. Michael ends THE GODFATHER well and truly damned. By the end of Part II, all he's done is find out what hell's like. Vito ends THE GODFATHER a man of honor, by his own lights. That's how he ends here. There is nothing that happens in Part II that hasn't already been done, and done more elegantly, in the original.

So why is it so riveting? I believe that Part II's performances overcome its screenplay. Al Pacino's Michael Corleone is so interesting that I don't mind that all his character does in this film is live out the consequences of his earlier choices. Diane Keaton's Kay Corleone is so heartbreaking that I nearly wept for her. Robert Duvall's Tom Hagen is the most scarily efficient man I've seen in film in a long time. And Robert DeNiro's young Vito is everything we might have expected young Vito to be: cunning, brave, charismatic; a man who commands respect.

It's damn hard for actors to rise above their source material and bring real art from mediocrity, but this cast pulls it off. They're what make watching THE GODFATHER, PART II time well spent.