This was my catch-up weekend for Hollywood blockbusters, so here's the quickie round-up of impressions of some of the big summer movies. (Mild spoilers ahead.)
Wedding Crashers - This was a much quirkier movie than I expected; somewhere in the third act it really took a turn for the weird, which I liked, but at the last moment it righted itself with a conventional finale. I hadn't heard about the Will Ferrell cameo, so it came as a pleasant surprise, but then I was disappointed by the way he overdosed on the lowbrow antics. Pumping your fist lustfully once would do it, Will. Repeating the gesture twelve times sucks all the humor out. Vince Vaughn seems to really be coming into his own, and Owen Wilson
almost broke out of the character he plays in every single movie. The real standout performance, however was Isla Fisher, who seems to be the Swiss Army knife of actresses. If I were her agent I'd be really excited right about now.
The Island - What can I say, with Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson involved, I was suckered into buying a ticket for a Michael Bay movie
again. Fortunately I was rewarded with a (relatively) smart story, agreeable performances, and some stupendous action scenes. Yeah, yeah, Michael Bay relies too much on big dumb action sequences, but that bit with the train wheels actually made me squirm in my seat a bit. One of those action bits should probably have been replaced with a bit more reflection on the implications of the plot, but that's not really what Bay knows how to do. I never thought I'd say something like this, but I enjoyed Michael Bay's latest film quite a bit more than George Lucas'. We live in some pretty weird times.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Speaking of weird, we all knew we were going to get something bizarre from Tim Burton and Johnny Depp's adaptation of the beloved Roald Dahl book, but I really didn't expect anything quite this soulless. Or familiar. Did anyone else have flashbacks to "Floop's Fooglies" from
Spy Kids while watching this? Most tragic was the complete unlikability of just about everyone in the film. Willy Wonka is supposed to be artificial and weird, but by the end he should be quite a bit more human, a state Depp approaches with the character once or twice but never quite reaches. The only character for whom I ever felt an ounce of sympathy was Wilbur Wonka (Christopher Lee), when he sighs and bemoans his son's unwillingness to floss. It's kind of sad that the man behind a picture as touching as
The Nightmare Before Christmas forgot to give this film a heart, but with any luck he'll have remembered to put one in the upcoming
Corpse Bride.
