The 3rd Annual Reel Stinkers Awards
It's time to draw the curtain on 2008. As I reflect back on the year concerning movies, I think I will always remember it as being one of the best years for summer movie viewing in recent memory. There was quite a bit of good stuff outside the summer as well. Naturally, there was more than enough bad films that tried to steal money from the innocent movie-going public. That's where this comes in. The time has come to take one last shot at the worst films of 2008, before I try my best to forget most of them ever existed. You'll find a wide variety of them here - Over hyped potential blockbusters that didn't work out, misguided dramas, bad comedies, and some films so terrible I couldn't wait for them to end. So, let's take one last look back at the Reel Stinkers of 2008, laugh, and hope the people involved with them get a chance to make a good movie in 2009.
THE WORST FILMS OF 2008
Well, we've cracked the Top 5, but there's a lot more where that came from. Here's the rest of the stinkers from the past year who weren't quite terrible enough to earn the top spot, but they certainly gave it their all...
DISHONORABLE MENTIONS:
One Missed Call, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A Vegitales Movie, 27 Dresses, Untraceable, Meet the Spartans, Over Her Dead Body, Strange Wilderness, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, Step Up 2 the Streets, Penelope, College Road Trip, Doomsday, Drillbit Taylor, Superhero Movie, The Ruins, Nim's Island, Prom Night, 88 Minutes, Made of Honor, What Happens in Vegas, The Love Guru, Meet Dave, Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Mirrors, Babylon A.D., Disaster Movie, Bottle Shock, Righteous Kill, The Family That Preys, My Best Friend's Girl, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Eagle Eye, Blindness, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, An American Carol, Max Payne, Fireproof, Saw V, The Haunting of Molly Hartley, Twilight, Transporter 3, Punisher: War Zone, Delgo, The Spirit
THE INDIVIDUAL REEL STINKER AWARDS:
WORST SEQUEL:
Punisher: War Zone
MOST UNNECESSARY SEQUEL:
Saw V
WORST PERFORMANCE BY A GOOD ACTOR/ACTRESS:
Tie between Mark Wahlberg in The Happening and Al Pacino in 88 Minutes
WORST PERFORMANCE BY A BAD ACTOR/ACTRESS:
Donny Osmond in College Road Trip
WORST ANIMATED FILM:
Delgo
WORST POTENTIAL FRANCHISE:
Twilight
WORST REMAKE:
Prom Night
WORST IDEA FOR A MOVIE THAT NEVER COULD HAVE WORKED:
Tie between The Love Guru and An American Carol
REPEAT OFFENDERS (THE ACTORS WHO APPEARED IN THE MOST STINKERS IN ONE YEAR):
Al Pacino in 88 Minutes and Righteous Kill
Martin Lawrence in Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins and College Road Trip
Mark Wahlberg in The Happening and Max Payne
WORST ON-SCREEN TEAMING:
Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz in What Happens in Vegas
WORST "COMEBACK":
Mike Myers in The Love Guru
MOVIE BLOCKBUSTER THAT DIDN'T DESERVE TO BE:
Twilight
Well, there you have it. It's time for me to kick these movies to the curb, forget they ever existed, and hope they don't spawn any imitators. Despite my grumblings here, 2008 wasn't all bad for movies. My "Best of..." list is coming eventually once I see some of the films that are currently stuck in limited release. Until then, I wish all of you a happy 2009. Happy viewing to one and all.
THE WORST FILMS OF 2008
Well, we've cracked the Top 5, but there's a lot more where that came from. Here's the rest of the stinkers from the past year who weren't quite terrible enough to earn the top spot, but they certainly gave it their all...
DISHONORABLE MENTIONS:
One Missed Call, In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale, The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: A Vegitales Movie, 27 Dresses, Untraceable, Meet the Spartans, Over Her Dead Body, Strange Wilderness, Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins, Step Up 2 the Streets, Penelope, College Road Trip, Doomsday, Drillbit Taylor, Superhero Movie, The Ruins, Nim's Island, Prom Night, 88 Minutes, Made of Honor, What Happens in Vegas, The Love Guru, Meet Dave, Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Mirrors, Babylon A.D., Disaster Movie, Bottle Shock, Righteous Kill, The Family That Preys, My Best Friend's Girl, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, Eagle Eye, Blindness, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, An American Carol, Max Payne, Fireproof, Saw V, The Haunting of Molly Hartley, Twilight, Transporter 3, Punisher: War Zone, Delgo, The Spirit
THE INDIVIDUAL REEL STINKER AWARDS:
WORST SEQUEL:
Punisher: War Zone
MOST UNNECESSARY SEQUEL:
Saw V
WORST PERFORMANCE BY A GOOD ACTOR/ACTRESS:
Tie between Mark Wahlberg in The Happening and Al Pacino in 88 Minutes
WORST PERFORMANCE BY A BAD ACTOR/ACTRESS:
Donny Osmond in College Road Trip
WORST ANIMATED FILM:
Delgo
WORST POTENTIAL FRANCHISE:
Twilight
WORST REMAKE:
Prom Night
WORST IDEA FOR A MOVIE THAT NEVER COULD HAVE WORKED:
Tie between The Love Guru and An American Carol
REPEAT OFFENDERS (THE ACTORS WHO APPEARED IN THE MOST STINKERS IN ONE YEAR):
Al Pacino in 88 Minutes and Righteous Kill
Martin Lawrence in Welcome Home, Roscoe Jenkins and College Road Trip
Mark Wahlberg in The Happening and Max Payne
WORST ON-SCREEN TEAMING:
Ashton Kutcher and Cameron Diaz in What Happens in Vegas
WORST "COMEBACK":
Mike Myers in The Love Guru
MOVIE BLOCKBUSTER THAT DIDN'T DESERVE TO BE:
Twilight
Well, there you have it. It's time for me to kick these movies to the curb, forget they ever existed, and hope they don't spawn any imitators. Despite my grumblings here, 2008 wasn't all bad for movies. My "Best of..." list is coming eventually once I see some of the films that are currently stuck in limited release. Until then, I wish all of you a happy 2009. Happy viewing to one and all.
Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me first say that Valkyrie is a very well made film. It's technically well done, the performances are generally very good, and director Bryan Singer (Superman Returns) keeps things moving at a brisk pace as it recaps the last assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler's life within his own army. That right there should kind of tell you one of my main reservations. I think it's safe to assume that I'm not exactly spoiling anything by telling you that the attempt is not successful. The movie tries to draw suspense out of having the characters wondering if Hitler is dead or not, while we the audience can only sit back and wait for the inevitable. Another sticking point is that the performances, while good, are somewhat distracting. And no, believe it or not, I'm not talking about the fact that Tom Cruise has been cast as a German colonel. Hollywood has had a strange obsession with casting British actors as Nazis, and while sometimes it works (Ralph Fiennes in Schindler's List), here it kept on taking me out of the movie. I'm sorry, but when I see an actor dressed in a Nazi uniform, I don't want to say to myself, "Hey, that's the guy from The Full Monty".
Valkyrie is narrowly focused, and not really interested in the historical people who inhabit the story. About the only thing we learn is that there were a lot of people within Hitler's Reich who had grown to question what he was doing, and what was to become of Germany under his rule. The person at the center of the story is Claus von Staufenberg (Tom Cruise). He had already started to question Hitler's authority before he was severely wounded in an air strike attack. When he returns home, he teams up with Major General Henning von Tresckow (Kenneth Branagh) to join a resistance against Hitler. The plan that they and fellow conspirators dub Operation Valkyrie involves a new government that would take control after Hitler's passing, and secretly make peace with the Allied forces. Anyone who managed to stay awake in History Class will know well in advance that this plan is not going to work out as planned. What little suspense the film does manage to drum up is wether Claus' family will be able to survive once the assassination attempt goes wrong. And even this plot point is largely ignored, and pretty much resolved with a single throw away sentence during an epilogue at the very end of the film.
When James Cameron made Titanic 11 years ago, there's a very good reason why he didn't make his movie entirely about a ship hitting an iceberg. Valkyrie expects us to be entertained with its conspiracy plot, but I found it hard to get excited about anything. Part of this was because I knew what to expect, and part of it was due to the screenplay by Christopher McQuarrie and Nathan Alexander. They seem so enamored by history and the setting that they completely forgot to give their characters personality or even lives outside of the situation at hand. We know that Claus' decision to participate in the Operation has to do with the safety of his family at home, but since we seldom get to see his family, it kind of turns into a plot gimmick instead of an actual motivation. The movie is built on a flimsy foundation of facts and statistics, but very little drama to drive the characters home.
As I said, the movie looks good and is well made. While Tom Cruise is a bit distracting at first, making no effort to hide his American accent, I got over it quick enough. Besides, there's very little for him to ruin, since the most distinguishing thing about Claus in this movie is his eye patch he's forced to wear after suffering injuries early on. The supporting cast is made up of very fine actors including Branagh, Tom Wilkinson, Billy Nighy, Eddie Izzard, and Terrance Stamp. Unfortunately, they're mainly required to sit around and discuss the plot and statistics with grave seriousness. Their presence brings a lot of automatic prestige to the picture, but they seldom get to lift it up by showing their usual charisma. Because many of their characters are so underwritten, they often come across as historical caricatures instead of historical figures.
Make no mistake, this is an Adam Sandler comedy. Despite the PG-rating and the fact that it's being released by the Disney studio, the movie has everything we've come to expect in a Sandler film. He once again plays a likable screw up, there's a cameo from Rob Schneider at one point, and there are also a surprising amount of respectable actors you wouldn't expect to see co-starring in one of his movies. The actors this time around include Jonathan Pryce, who plays Sandler's father in the early scenes, but doesn't have a very large role. Much larger roles are given to Richard Griffiths (as the germophobic boss whom Sandler's character works for), and Guy Pearce as the smarmy villain who exists simply to be humiliated. Eight years ago, Guy Pearce was starring in movies like Memento. Now he's playing the foil to Adam Sandler. If he's not having a long talk with his agent about where his career is headed, he should.
But hey, at least Sandler is managing to dip his toe into family comedy without betraying his roots. If only the same could be said of Eddie Murphy. Here, he plays Skeeter Bronson, a guy who works as the handyman at a luxury hotel his father once owned, and doesn't seem to be going anywhere in life. His only hope is that the current owner of the hotel is planning to open a new one, and may give him a chance to run it if Skeeter can impress him at a presentation coming up. Meanwhile, Skeeter's sister (Courteney Cox) has been laid off, and has to go to a job interview out of state. Skeeter is given the task to look after her kids each night. The kids are young Patrick (Jonathan Morgan Heit) and Bobbi (Laura Ann Kesling). They take a liking to Skeeter and especially to the elaborate bedtime stories he tells, which are loosely based on his personal experiences, only they are set in medieval times, the old west, ancient Rome, and outer space. To Skeeter's surprise, he finds his real life begins to mirror the stories that he tells the kids. He initially uses this to his own advantage in getting ahead in life, but when he discovers the kids' school is in danger of being torn down, he realizes he has to do what's right.
There's also a romantic triangle subplot here, involving Skeeter trying to choose between his boss' spoiled daughter (Teresa Palmer) or his sister's sweet and responsible best friend, Jill (Keri Russell). No prizes for guessing which one he picks at the end. Bedtime Stories is safe and completely harmless entertainment, and in a way, that's its biggest problem. Director Adam Shankman (2007's Hairspray), along with screenwriters Matt Lopez and Tim Herlihy, never let the imagination truly take off. There are some moments of spectacle, and the special effects used to bring the stories to life as Skeeter is telling them are impressive, but spectacle and imagination are two completely different things. If you're going to go through the trouble of giving us a horse that's as red as an apple, have it do something special. Don't just make it a horse that just happens to be red. I'm sure any kid watching this movie could come up with more imaginative ideas for stories than the kids in this movie do.
And yet, in all honesty, the movie charmed me in a lot of ways. Sandler may be relying on the same likable goofball routine he's been doing for over 10 years, but it's effective here. The kids are cute, the romantic subplot is underdeveloped but has its moments, and there are a couple moments I found myself laughing. Most of these laughs come from British comic, Russell Brand, who plays Skeeter's best friend at work. While it could be argued that Brand was put to much better use earlier this year in Forgetting Sarah Marshall, he's still fun to watch here. Some of the visual gags are cute (I liked the roaming band of angry midgets), but the film's most repeated sight gag didn't work on me. That gag is Bugsy, a guinea pig that belongs to the kids that has large, computer enhanced eyes that makes it look kind of sad in a pathetic way. Still, the kids at my screening laughed every time the movie cut to a reaction shot from him, and he does supply the film with its required fart humor.
Who is The Spirit? I'm still trying to figure that out myself. We know that he's a cop who died in the line of duty, and somehow has come back to life as a nearly immortal crime fighter. He doesn't know how exactly, but he does eventually find out in a scene that involves Samuel L. Jackson dressed in a Nazi outfit and melting a cat so that only a puddle and a pair of cartoon eyeballs remain when he is finished with the feline. The Spirit is played by Gabriel Macht, and he dresses like the Lone Ranger with a black leather fetish. He stalks the streets, searching out evil-doers. Many of those evil-doers come from his arch nemesis, a crime lord who calls himself The Octopus. That's Jackson's character. He has an army of cloned goons who are not very bright, and act like the kind of comic relief we used to see in TV cartoons like the Super Friends. The plot involves The Octopus seeking some kind of fabled blood of ancient gods that could make him immortal. He's already pretty much immortal, just like The Spirit himself, but he wants to be completely immortal. Did he come back from the dead too? The details are a bit murky, but I say yes.
The Spirit is an odd character. He likes to deliver long monologues and provide his own narration when no one around is listening to him. Sometimes there's an alley cat who he talks to, as if the cat could somehow understand him. When he's not talking to himself, there's plenty of women for him to seduce and be seduced by. There's a girl from his past named Sand Saref (Eva Mendes), who has returned to the city under mysterious circumstances. In one of the film's few character-building moments, we see a flashback when The Spirit and Sand Saref were friends as teens. She walked away when her father died, and now she's back in town, searching for the same ancient blood The Octopus is. Sand Saref is not a very interesting character, but I will give her this - You've gotta be pretty confident in yourself to deliver dramatic dialogue while taking a Xerox copy picture of your own butt. Other women who fade in and out of the film's muddled plot include Spirit's somewhat girlfriend, Ellen Dolan (Sarah Paulson) and The Octopus' main henchman, Silken Floss (Scarlet Johannson), who despite her great name doesn't get to do a whole lot.
I stopped trying to make sense of the movie about 20 minutes in. I don't think it took that long for Miller and his crew. The Spirit holds so much half-baked dialogue and wooden performances that it had to be some kind of inside joke on the set. It frequently switches tones, sometimes acting deadly serious, and sometimes being so wacky that The Spirit breaks the fourth wall, and starts delivering one liners directly to the audience like in an old Looney Tunes short. The only people in my audience who seemed to be enjoying the movie were those who were laughing at it (at it, not with it, mind you). A couple behind me walked out about the point Jackson's character showed up in Nazi garb to torture the Spirit, and never returned. That means they missed the scene where the Octopus explains how he got his name (he has eight of everything), but stuck around long enough to see the scene where the Spirit has to drop his pants in front of a crowd of onlookers and use his belt to swing across a building. This is the kind of movie actors fire their agents over.
In case you didn't know, Frank Miller is mainly known for his work in the comics field. So, it's only natural that the movie has a very comic book look to it. The Spirit's trademark red tie glows like neon against his black silhouette, the city he inhabits is a dark and cartoonish imitation of film noir, and the actors (especially Samuel L. Jackson) overact as if they wish the entire movie itself was animated. At least then they wouldn't have to show their faces. I guess there is something to be admired about the technical wizardry on display, but it's hard to pay attention to it when the awfulness of the dialogue and the plotting keeps on distracting you. How can we ignore it when lines like, "This is big - Octopus big!" are delivered with such breathless enthusiasm? Another distraction is the music score by the usually reliable David Newman, who here seems to have taken Danny Elfman's score to 1989's Batman, and robbed it of all personality.
The movie faithfully follows the original story, and successfully manages to cover 13 years or so in the life of Grogan into a film that runs just a little over two hours. John is portrayed in the film by Owen Wilson, giving one of his better and more nuanced performances of late. When we first meet him, he's still in the honeymoon phase with his new wife, Jennifer (Jennifer Aniston). The two have a lot of hopes for the future (both in terms of career and their life together), and even have a list made up of everything they want to accomplish in their lives. They move to South Florida, they both get jobs working for different newspapers, and they want to start a family. John figures the best way to start a family is to get a dog, and surprises his wife for her birthday by taking her out to a local breeder to pick a yellow lab puppy. The dog they choose is cheaper than the rest of the litter, and they think nothing of it until it's too late. Little Marley (as John names him) is a home wrecker with a bottomless pit for a stomach, the ability to break through screen doors in a single bound, and put terror into the hearts of dog trainers and dog sitters everywhere.
The Grogans hold onto the little destructive yellow ball of fur because beneath his bad boy exterior, they know he has a heart of gold and supports them in their weaker moments, such as during their initial failed attempt to have children. A family soon comes for John and Jennifer (two boys and a girl), and this is when I started to be reminded of why I enjoyed the original novel so much. Marley & Me is not just a "funny dog" story, it is mainly a story about maturity, the trials of a relationship, and the joys and sorrows of family. Life obviously does not work out the way the couple planned early on. John's boss at the paper (Alan Arkin, in a wonderfully dry comic role) gives him the job of being a columnist instead of being a real reporter. Though he finds success with his column, John quietly grows envious of his co-workers covering real stories, such as his best friend Sebastian (Eric Dane), who does freelance and eventually full-time work for the New York Times. As for Jennifer, she quits her job to be a full-time mother, and goes through the phases of stress and depression as she feels overwhelmed. The struggles and doubts of the Grogans makes up as much of the story as Marley's antics.
That's because the screenplay by Scott Frank (The Interpreter, Minority Report) and Don Roos (Single White Female) manages to avoid the manipulative and cute approach, and gives the movie an adult and honest perspective. Marley plays a big part in the story, and in his own way helps John face the responsibility of being a real adult and a parent, but the movie remembers that it's not all about him. Director David Frankel (The Devil Wears Prada) successfully juggles the multiple themes and storylines, not letting one overpower the other. He also allows Marley to act like a real dog. I was grateful that there were no "cute" reaction shots, or attempts to make him seem like he knows more about what's going on than he does. He's just a wild, but loyal and friendly dog. I also appreciated the film's low key humor that comes out of real situations. Anyone who has owned a dog or had kids are sure to nod their heads many times throughout the movie. It constantly finds the right tone, even the later "tear-jerker" moments that come near the end, which I was thankful to find earns its tears truthfully instead of through heavy-handed manipulation.
Despite best being known for their comedic work, both Owen Wilson and Jennifer Aniston deliver some very strong dramatic work here. Wilson, in particular, is wonderful as a man who feels like he's constantly faced with things blocking his path the life he thinks he truly wants. His acceptance and realization about his life comes naturally, and mainly through his expressions and performance, instead of long-winded dialogue. As for Aniston, she's an actress who has never completely stood out for me in most of her past films, but she grabbed my attention here with her honest and heartfelt portrayal. She's very believable in how she tries to be supportive, while at the same time wanting more, just like her husband. Both do a wonderful job of portraying the couple at different stages in their lives and relationship. As for Marley, we buy into the illusion that we've been watching the same dog the entire time (he was actually portrayed by 22 different dogs in different stages of his life), and we come to love him for his faults just as the Grogans do.
In bringing his Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play to the screen, Shanley has not only held onto its undeniable energy and quietly engrossing storytelling, but has assembled the finest cast I could think of to tell the story. Meryl Streep is Sister Aloysius Beauvier, an old-fashioned battle ax of a nun who serves as the Principal of The Saint Nichols Church School, and always manages to place fear in the hearts of her students and even some of her staff. She is determined, and set in her ways. When someone suggests they use "Frosty the Snowman" for an upcoming Christmas concert the students are giving, she is against it, thinking the song promotes Satanism with its talk of magical hats bringing snowmen to life. Philip Seymour Hoffman is Father Brendan Flynn, a priest who represents a new more open-minded look at religion, and is quickly gaining popularity with both the staff and the students. There is obvious tension between the two, and both are set in their ways. Caught in the middle is Sister James (Amy Adams), an idealistic and optimistic new teacher at the school who sets the main conflict into motion when one of her students, Donald Muller (Joseph Foster II), is called to see the Father, and returns to class deeply troubled and with the smell of alcohol on his breath.
Since Doubt is mainly set in and around the school itself, it is up to the performances and the characters to grab our attention. The moment each of the main cast sets foot on the screen, we can scarcely take our eyes off of them. Putting two of the biggest acting talents, Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman, in the same movie can only raise our expectations, and they are fortunately able to meet our demanding hopes. Streep completely disappears into the role of the steely and determined Sister Aloysius, being forceful and narrow-minded, but still human. Her character is not two dimensional, as her final scene shows. We get the sense that she's held onto her beliefs because they are all she has left. Whenever doubt settles in, she battles it with determination, wether she is right in her thinking or not. As her rival, Hoffman is charismatic and sympathetic, but able to cast just enough shadow upon his character to make us question him. He finds the right balance of light and shadow in his character, and never lets one aspect overpower the other.
The experience of watching this film is something I always go for the movies for, but seldom get. It's the experience of knowing you're watching something great. Sometimes it sneaks up on you about the halfway point, and sometimes you can tell pretty early on. This movie lets us know pretty early on where it's headed, and doesn't ever veer off course or take a wrong step. In telling its story, it takes its time but doesn't waste a second or scene. If you've seen the ad campaign, you know the basic premise. The title character is a man who was born under mysterious circumstances. As a baby, he has all the physical characteristics of an elderly man with one foot in the grave. (Cataracts, lack of hearing, crippling arthritis) His mother dies giving birth to him, and his father Thomas Button (Jason Flemying) is so terrified at the sight of his bizarre newborn son that he flees with the baby right there, briefly considers drowning him, but instead leaves him on the step of an old person's home. It's there that Benjamin will grow up under the watchful eye of one of the workers at the home, Queenie (Taraji P. Henson). Benjamin will eventually get to meet his father again, but initially won't know it.
The story of Benjamin's life is meandering, and I mean that in the best way possible. Much like life itself, it is a series of experiences and small personal journeys that make up the entirety. He is born at the end of World War I, and we follow his life as the decades roll by. Under mysterious circumstances wisely unexplained by the film, he is forced to live life in reverse, at least physically. When he is a child, he appears to be a crippled old man, though shorter than most. As everyone surely knows by now, Benjamin is played by Brad Pitt, and it is a credit to the filmmakers that we never once tell ourselves we're watching Pitt under a lot of make up. The special effects used to age and even shrink him are subtle, never once drawing attention to themselves, which is probably a technical marvel in itself. It takes the movie about two hours until he becomes completely recognizable as the big screen idol we know, but we don't grow impatient. Because he is forced to age backwards, he can never truly have a real life, but he tries. He works on a boat for a few years, he serves his country when World War II comes around, and he also attempts to win the heart of a woman named Daisy (Cate Blanchett), who enters and leaves his life at various points in the story.
If that description made the movie sound similar to 1994's Forrest Gump, it's probably not a surprise that they share the same screenwriter, Eric Roth. Both films are about outcasts who experience and participate in history in different ways. Benjamin's tale is much quieter and a bit darker, though. It's also more elegantly told. The idea of Benjamin aging physically backwards may sound like a gimmick, but the movie never treats it as such. We believe in what we're seeing, and we also believe in the relationship between Benjamin and Daisy. We first meet Daisy as an elderly woman on her deathbed as her adult daughter (Julia Ormond) watches over her. Benjamin's tale is told through his diary that her daughter reads. The story is just as much about Daisy as it is about him. They first meet when she is about 13, and Benjamin is forced to admit to her he's not as old as he looks. Over the years, they grow apart, but never forget each other. She goes on to become a professional dancer, until an accident cuts her career short. (This is another common theme in the film - Chaos, and how a single second can change the outcome of an event.) It will take decades before they are brought together, and try their best to have a real relationship despite the fact they are aging in opposite ways. It's to the credit of the movie that their realization of the truth is not treated with melodrama, but with subtlety and honesty.
Subtle is the right word for the movie in general. Director David Fincher (Zodiac, Fight Club) finds the right relaxed tone, and never tries to drum up our emotions. Even when Benjamin is at war, it is a fairly low key affair, with only one battle sequence which is beautiful in its own way, instead of being a spectacle. Despite the film's quiet nature, he certainly brings the film a lot of visual flair. This is one of the most beautiful looking movies I've ever seen, with an attention to detail we seldom see. The set design and special effects work with each other for once, and create a visual experience that absorbs its audience into its setting. I liked the way that flashbacks were told in different film styles. The story that the elderly Daisy tells her daughter which opens the film is told in washed out colors with lines and scratches added to make it look like a worn out film. And Benjamin has frequent encounters with an old man who claims to have been hit by lightning seven different times, each time depicted like an old silent movie. His style helps the film, and adds to the somewhat fairy tale-style telling of the story. However, he mainly stays grounded in reality, and never tries to distract us.
To further draw us into the story, the performances are memorable, even some of the smaller roles. Tilda Swinton (as a British woman whom Benjamin has a brief affair with), Jarred Harris (as the captain of the boat Benjamin works on), Jason Flemying as his father, and Taraji P. Henson as the woman who looks after him may have small roles in the context of the story itself, but leave unmistakable marks with their limited time. Julia Ormond also brings a lot of emotion to her role set in the present day. In the two central roles, Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett have wonderful chemistry together and successfully bring their characters to life, but there is a small problem with Pitt's performance. It doesn't occur until late in the film, so it takes us a while to notice, but he plays the physically younger Benjamin not as an old man trapped in a young man's body, but rather ordinary. He seems to lose some nuance as his performance goes on. It is a small gripe, and one that was not big enough to break the spell of the movie over me.
Some of my confusion probably has to do with the fact that I have not read Kate DiCamillo's acclaimed children's novel that the film is based on. The story is set in the kingdom of Dor, where everyone used to be happy, and soup was so celebrated that it had its own holiday. One year on that holiday, the kingdom's finest chef presented his latest soup creation to the king and queen, only to have a rat (who was only trying to smell the creation) fall into the soup. The queen was so startled by the rat that she died of a heart attack. Due to his grief, the king banished soup and had all rats and mice forced underground. Since that day, Dor has fallen into sadness. The skies are constantly gray, but it never rains so nothing can grow. The villagers have fallen into depression, the king does nothing but long for his dead wife, and his daughter Princess Pea ( voiced by Emma Watson, from the Harry Potter franchise) sits in her room looking out the window, wishing things could be like they were before.
An unlikely hero comes in the form of little Despereaux (Matthew Broderick), who lives beneath the kingdom in "Mouseworld". Despereaux is different from all the other mice, because he is brave, does not scurry, and is not afraid of the things mice are supposed to be afraid of. While exploring the castle up above, he comes across a book that tells stories of brave knights and fair princesses. He decides he wants to be like the heroes of the story, and when he hears the real Princess Pea's story of sadness, he decides he will become her "gentleman" and help her restore happiness to the kingdom. When his fellow mice learn that he has been going above and talking with humans, he is banished and sent to "Ratworld", which exists even further down below the land of the mice. Despereaux finds the rats to be scheming and greedy creatures, except for one - the same rat who accidentally caused the death of the queen, and is truly sorry for his actions (Dustin Hoffman). The mouse and rat decide they will work together to fix their relations with the humans above. As for the Princess, she has her own problems in the form of Migerry Sow (Tracy Ullman), a servant girl who dreams of being royalty herself, and will go to any means to achieve her goal, even if it means working with the scheming rats.
I liked the leisurely way that directors Sam Fell (Flushed Away) and Rob Stevenhagen, along with the screenplay by Gary Ross (Seabiscuit), set up the story and introduce us to the world it's set in. The title hero does not appear until a good 20 minutes into the movie, but I did not feel impatient and was enjoying the art style and look of the film. The movie is animated in CG, but its use of warm colors give it a sort of old fashioned look to it. The movie charmed me even more when Despereaux was introduced, and we got to see the world of the mice. The scenes featuring the school for mice (where kids learn to be afraid) were cute, and the design of the underground world was so imaginative, I wish I could have seen more of it. Despereaux is also an immediately likable little hero, with his large ears and even larger heart and soul. Broderick's spirited voice performance only adds to the character's charm. What impressed me the most were the complex relationships the characters hold. The synopsis above did not mention certain twists of the plot that surprised me in a movie that supposedly caters mainly to children.
Besides the actors listed above, the film's voice cast also includes Frank Langella, Kevin Kline, William H. Macy, Christopher Lloyd, Stanley Tucci, Robbie Coltrane, and Signourney Weaver, who narrates the tale like a mother telling a bedtime story. (Which is appropriate here.) This is one of the few times when an animated film's all-star cast does not act as a hindrance, as many are not instantly recognizable. Therefore, we're not playing a game of "guess the voice", we're concentrating on the story at hand. Many of the actors disappear into their roles, and while some voices are instantly recognizable (like Broderick and Hoffman), I truly did not know who played many of the characters until the end credits informed me. In a way, this helps with the illusion of making the animated characters seem more real. It's something I wish other animated films (especially those out of Dreamworks) would apply more often.
And yet, the entire time I was admiring the film, a nagging question was in the back of my mind - Will children like it? While the movie is never inappropriate, it does contain some dark imagery. The rats lounge on human skulls and decaying corpses, and are so vicious that when they get a hold of Princess Pea, they tie her down and plot to eat her alive. The entire movie also has a surprisingly somber and very serious tone to it. While some of the characters look cute, they deal with issues such as death, depression, and isolation. All this, and the film's leisurely pace may turn some kids (and maybe some adults, expecting a fast-paced laugh-a-minute comedy) off. Some character motivations also seem kind of sketchy. Dustin Hoffman's rat character has such rapid changes of heart during the course of the story, it's somewhat comical. Still, I have to remember the filmmakers were working with a roughly 90 minute running time, whereas the author of the original story had hundreds of pages.
What does it all mean? To get those answers, we unfortunately have to sit through a very long and dull story where the pieces slowly fall into place. When they do, we realize the reason the story is told out of sequence is not for any artistic reason, but rather we'd walk out the door and demand our money back within the first 20 minutes if we knew what was going on too soon. Seven Pounds is a dreary and manipulative melodrama that keeps on pounding away at our emotions, but never gets the response it desires. This is not a confident movie. A confident one would have let the drama build from the characters. This movie frequently hits us over the head, while the music swells on the soundtrack. We eventually learn that Ben is a man who seeks out people in tough personal or financial situations, and tries to help them. Amongst those he wishes to help is Harrelson's character (and yes, we do find out why Ben acted the way he did over the phone), and a woman (Elpidia Carrillo) with two children involved in an abusive relationship, but too afraid to leave her boyfriend.
Ben works for the I.R.S., and uses the information on his clients to find people worthy of his help. The person whom the movie focuses the most on is a pretty young woman named Emily (Rosario Dawson). She's suffers from congenital heart failure, and needs a donor or else she will die. Ben enters her life, and the two strike up a friendship and a potential romance. Of course, Ben has sadness in his life, also. The movie is vague, showing brief glimpses of flashbacks, or him having conversations with people who know his past where the dialogue is intentionally written in a way to give as little info as possible. We have to wait for the final moments to learn the truth behind Ben Thomas, but honestly, I had a pretty good idea early on. We're supposed to be intrigued and asking a lot of questions. Why did Ben give his lovely beach house away and move into a roadside motel? Why is he so reluctant to accept Emily's affections? Why does he keep a live jellyfish in a water tank? All of these elements play into the plot, but the movie's glacial pace all but guarantees we won't care by the time they're finally revealed.
Seven Pounds is shameless in the way it desperately pushes all our emotional buttons. It got to the point where I wanted to start pushing back. A big reason why the movie misfires is that for all his Good Samaritan work, Ben Thomas is not that likable of a character. Will Smith gives the guy as much of his natural charm and screen presence as he can, but Ben is written as a mainly mopey individual. Rosario Dawson as Emily comes across much stronger, because there's a lot more life to her character, even though she knows it could end at any time with her situation. The movie wants us to get drawn in as the two are drawn together the more time they spend with each other, but I kept on thinking to myself that Emily could do better. Ben's attitude drags down the entire movie, making this a very dark and moody "feel good" movie. The only source of humor in the film is a dog Emily has, and a snide worker at the motel Ben is staying at. When Ben tells the worker he's planning to die, the man says Ben should pay him in advance for his room. Ho, ho.
The movie is directed by Gabriele Muccino, who previously worked with Smith on The Pursuit of Happyness. They worked well together on that film, but here, they are saddled by a manipulative screenplay by Grant Nieporte. For all of its trickery and attempts to keep us in the dark about Ben and what he's trying to do, the script is simple minded as it relentlessly tries to wring emotions from its audience. I never once teared up while watching it, because I could tell the film was trying too hard. I don't respond well to movies that seem to be screaming, "Isn't this terrible? Isn't this awful? Don't you feel sorry for these people?" with every frame. Tragedy should come from subtle beginnings, and grow. This movie is relentlessly downbeat, overwrought, and often ridiculous. The fact that I just didn't care that much about the characters to begin with certainly didn't help.
Walking into the movie, I thought maybe they would explain the fact that his character could not say no due to some magical circumstances. I was reminded of Carrey's 1997 comedy, Liar Liar, where he played a lawyer who could not tell a lie due to a birthday wish his son made. It was a pretty loose concept to be sure, but hey, I was able to buy it. Here, there's no magic or wishing at work. His character simply decides to say yes to everything, no matter how dangerous or stupid it may be, because he feels like he's missing out on life. Carrey plays Carl Allen, a guy who's been in a funk for the past three years ever since his wife walked out on him. He says no to everything, generally ignores his friends, and seems destined to lead a sheltered and lonely life. That's when one of his friends takes him to a "Yes Seminar" hosted by a new age self-help guru (Terence Stamp). The guru's advice to his followers is to say yes to life by saying yes to all opportunities that present itself. The entire time I was listening to the concept, I thought it sounded like a dangerous notion, but Carl takes it to heart.
His new look on life starts right in the parking lot outside of the seminar, where Carl gives a ride to a homeless man who winds up taking all of his money and using up all the batteries in his cell phone. Just when Carl is beginning to regret his decision, he has a chance encounter with a cute woman named Allison (Zooey Deschanel), whom he strikes up a relationship with. This is enough to convince him that his positive encounter with Allison is all due to him saying yes to the homeless man, so he starts saying the same thing to everything. He says yes to the horny old lady who lives in the apartment next to him and is always trying to invite him over, which leads to a scene that is better off left to the imagination rather than described. He also uses his new look on life on the job. He works at a bank, and begins approving every single loan that walks up to his office. Given our current economic situation, you have to wonder if somehow this screenplay got in the hands of some real life bank workers a few years ago. In this movie, Carl saying yes to every loan gets him promoted.
Yes Man plows ahead with its own premise, never realizing how underdeveloped or hard to swallow it really is. The situations it sets up are also seldom funny. Carl says yes to a bar fight with a man twice his size. Carl is told to go jump off a bridge, so he tries his hands at bungee jumping. Carl says yes to learning Korean, so he can later speak fluently with a Korean woman who works at a bridal shop and is having relationship problems. None of these situations are funny by themselves, and the screenplay seems stuck in finding ways to make them funny. Carrey does his usual lovable goofball act, twisting his rubber face and riding around on a motorcycle in a hospital gown just so the movie can give us a bare ass shot as the back of his gown blows in the wind. His heart doesn't seem to be in this kind of stuff as it used to be, however. Maybe it's the fact that he's pushing 50 in real life. It's not that he doesn't try to rise above the material he's given, it's just that he seems to be at a loss as to how.
After a series of slapstick and bizarre set ups, the movie tries to get serious on us when Carl starts questioning if his new approach to life isn't hurting those around him. His friendly co-worker and former boss at the bank (Rhys Darby) does not get promoted along with him, and even winds up losing his job. And when Allison discovers that Carl has been saying yes to everything, she questions if he truly wants to be with her. Carl's efforts to win her back seemed half-hearted, and did not really deserve the final half hour of the movie or so that it takes up. I kept on waiting for the movie to connect with me on some level. Aside from a few scattered laughs, it never did. Not even the film's final gag hits home. And trust me, if you can't make Terence Stamp standing in front of a room of naked people funny, you're not doing your job right.
As soon as I got home, I fired up the Internet and did a quick search for Leonard Chess. It turns out that yes, he did indeed die of a heart attack, but it wasn't until months after he sold the company. This is not the only way in which writer-director Darnell Martin stretches the truth, as that same Internet search also revealed that Leonard was not the only founder of Chess Records. His brother, Phil, was right there with him but he is nowhere to be found in this movie, nor is a brother ever mentioned. Perhaps it's for the best, as if there is anything Cadillac Records does not need, it's another character. In trying to tell the story of Leonard, all the recording artists who worked for him, and how they broke barriers in the music industry, the film tries to cover too much in too short amount of time. Martin has had most of his directing experience working in television, and this film's overly loose narrative shows it. The whole project has a made for TV movie vibe that never quite grabs our attention.
When we first meet Leonard, he's living in a shack and in a relationship with a woman who has a father that doesn't approve of him. We never see this woman again, nor do we learn the significance of her. Instead, we jump ahead to Leonard already being a club owner in Chicago where he books rising young jazz and blues talents, hoping to get them discovered. One of his first discoveries is Muddy Waters (Jeffrey Wright), who becomes a faithful member of the "Chess Family" early on. Muddy brings along with him Little Walter (Columbus Short), a violent man who will have his music career cut short due to his short temper and alcoholism in a predictable and underdeveloped story arc. Once Muddy Water's career starts to take off, the movie once again skips ahead to Leonard starting his own record label. He suddenly now has a wife and kid who come out of nowhere, only to disappear again, and his wife expresses concern over how big of a gamble the company will be. The movie keeps on doing this, jumping from each major point in life, with little to fill in-between. Faces fade in and out of the screenplay, not a single one of them creating an emotional bond with the audience.
Many of those faces belong to the label's most successful recording artists. Besides the previously mentioned Muddy Waters and Little Walter, we also get glimpses into the lives of Chuck Berry (Mos Def), Etta James (Beyonce Knowles, who also serves as one of the film's producers), and Howlin' Wolf (Eamonn Walker). We're usually introduced to these people by them showing up at the company's door from off the street, then singing one of their signature songs. While the narrative may be a mess, the music in the film is first-rate. The actors create beautiful recreations of such memorable songs such as Etta James' "At Last", and Chuck Berry's "No Particular Place to Go". The music is so good, I advise you spend your money on the soundtrack CD rather than a ticket to this movie. The screenplay tries to generate some drama by focusing on the personal problems of each of these artists. For example, we learn in the movie that Etta James believed that her father was the famous pool player, Minnesota Fats, who had a one-night stand with her mother. Leonard arranges a meeting between Etta and her father, and it should be a powerful moment, but it is treated in such a curious and off-handed manner, that it hardly even registers.
This keeps on happening, to the point that I was getting frustrated. There's a potentially powerful moment when Muddy Water's wife (Gabrielle Union) discovers her husband has been seeing other women when one of those women arrives at her house and drops off her baby, saying Muddy is the father and she can't take care of it anymore. Again, a chance for drama is ignored, as we never truly learn what the wife thinks of this. She decides to stay faithful to her husband and look after the baby as if it were her own, but we never truly learn why. It just happens, and then we move on. We also learn very little about the company itself. We learn how it received its nickname, by the fact that Leonard would give his most famous artists a free Cadillac car when they hit it big. We also learn that many of the singers who worked for the label broke the color barrier back in the 50s and 60s, but that's about all we do learn. Cadillac Records casts its net too wide, trying to cover too many topics, too much history, and too many people. If it had just focused on one person or one particular story, this could have been an emotional story. We constantly feel like we're getting the short end of the stick, and never the whole story.
The performances here are a mixed bag, with the weakest unfortunately being right at the very center. Adrien Brody seems to wander through his scenes, chain smoking or nodding his head in approval as we hear his latest hit song. He never gets to come across as a character or a real person, so we wonder why we're supposed to care about him. The underwritten screenplay gives us no reason to. The people who work for him come off much better, with Jeffrey Wright and Beyonce Knowles being two particular standouts. Even if their personal storylines seem rushed and unfocused, they still give very emotional performances, and are able to perform their musical numbers flawlessly. Also impressive is Mos Def's portrayal of Chuck Berry, mainly because he comes across as the most energetic and fun of all the characters in the film. It's a shame that the screenplay sets him up then completely forgets about him, never really giving his story proper closure, except for a couple words that pop up on the screen before the end credits, stating what happened in the years to come to everyone.
This may be an independently-funded animated film, but that's no excuse for Delgo's complete lack of imagination, choppy storytelling, lame dialogue and humor, and some genuinely ugly character designs. The story is set in a far-off fantasy world that, like a lot of recent bad fantasy epics, looks like a low rent version of Peter Jackson's Middle Earth from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The world is inhabited mainly by two races - the lizard-like Lockni, who look kind of like dinosaurs crossed with Jar-Jar Binks, and the Nohrin, who fly around with wings on their back. The two races were previously at war, but are currently upholding a shaky truce despite the fact both races don't trust each other much. Delgo (a Lockni) is voiced by Freddie Prinze, Jr. The Lockni seem to hold mystical powers that are not really explained very well in the screenplay, and hold the ability to make special rocks glow and fly around. This is an important skill for Delgo to learn apparently, as his mentor Elder Marley (Michael Clarke Duncan) keeps on pushing Delgo to master it. Elder Marley is the "wise old master" type who gets to say dialogue that even Yoda wouldn't be caught dead saying. Stuff like, "there's only honor in fighting for what you believe in if what you believe in is honorable". Uh-huh.
While jaunting about with his best friend and obnoxious comic relief sidekick, Filo (voiced by Chris Kattan, in a particularly grating and unfunny performance), Delgo happens upon the Nohrin Princess, Kyla (Jennifer Love Hewitt). The two know they are supposed to hate each other, but they don't because...Well, the movie never tells us. There's no time for that anyway, because there's danger afoot. We learn that an evil Nohrin by the name of Sedessa (Anne Bancroft) was banished and had her wings cut off by the King (Louis Gossett, Jr) for her cruel ways in war. Since then, she's been plotting revenge and building an army of orcs and monsters to attack both races, and take the Nohrin throne. She kidnaps the Princess, and has her spy within the King's castle (Malcolm McDowell) spread rumors that the Lockni were responsible. With war between the two sides about to be reignited, it's up to Delgo, Filo, and the disgraced Nohrin General Bogardus (Val Kilmer) to rescue Kyla and stop Sedessa.
This is one of those movies that just makes you wonder why did anyone involved feel that this was a story worth telling? Not only is it as old as the hills, its poorly developed and explained in such a minimal sense that you wonder if the six credited screenwriters even knew what it was supposed to be about. Delgo simply screams of desperation on ever level of concept. The story is uninspired, the characters are non-existent, and nothing is able to hold our interest. The fantasy world the animators have created for these characters to inhabit isn't even all that imaginative, nor does it hold anything we haven't seen before. I blame this on a total lack of imagination on the part of the filmmakers, not on its low budget. Speaking of the budget, the movie's animation leaves much to be desired, as does the character design. Whoever approved of these designs must have been joking. When I saw the lizard-like Delgo, I was repulsed instead of drawn to him. That he's the hero of the story is not a good sign. The uninspired line readings by Prinze, Jr only adds to the overall unappealing nature. And the Romeo and Juliet-style relationship between Delgo and Princess Kyla is so underdeveloped, I'm still trying to figure out why they were drawn to each other.
And what about the cast? While it's great to hear Anne Bancroft one last time, most of it is comprised of actors who never quite became famous or are on their way out. Burt Reynolds pops up as the voice of Delgo's dead father in one or two flashbacks. Sally Kellerman provides a lengthy and drawn out narration setting up the story at the beginning. Former Monty Python member, Eric Idle, has his talents wasted in a very unfunny role as one of Sedessa's comic relief minions. But that's nothing compared to Chris Kattan who, after this movie, I never want to see in a film again. He's the main comic relief in the film, and made me groan a little every time he showed up on the screen. His character, Filo, is probably the most obnoxious CG creation since the infamous Jar-Jar Binks made Star Wars fans the world over lose their faith in George Lucas. As for the casting of Bancroft as the lead villain, it had an odd effect on me. I ended up liking her, because it was Bancroft. Seriously, if you were asked to take sides and had to choose between siding with Freddie Prinze, Jr and Chris Kattan, or Anne Bancroft, who would you choose?
Their children, and the others who drop in on the Rodriguez family home, each have their different take on the impending divorce, and their own stories to tell. Youngest son, Jesse (Freddy Rodriguez), has just returned home from a service tour in Iraq, and is haunted by the death of a fellow soldier. He also finds himself tortured by the sight of a young woman who lives nearby (Melonie Diaz). They dated for five years, he broke up with her, and now that he sees her with a child and another man, he realizes the mistake he made. Mauricio (John Leguizamo) has become a successful businessman in New York, and is trying to help his Jewish wife, Sarah (Debra Messing), fit in and avoid his mother's constant questioning as to when they're going to have children. Finally, Roxanna (Vanessa Ferlito) is a struggling actress in Hollywood, waiting to hear from her agent if she got a part in a mid-season replacement TV series, while at the same time striking a budding relationship with family friend Ozzy (Jay Hernandez), a former street thug who is still burdened by his brother's shooting death and the man who shot him.
Despite the fact it's being billed as a comedy, Nothing Like the Holidays is mainly a drama that contains a surprising amount of honesty in its performances and the characters. These are simple, realistic characters may be driven by somewhat predictable plot arches, but the movie still manages to find truth in them. It does this by avoiding simple or manipulative melodrama. The drama is never too broad, nor does it feel overly scripted. A lot of the film's ability to win me over is how natural the relationships in this movie seems. When everyone's gathered around the dinner table, they really do seem like a family, rather than a bunch of talented actors reciting dialogue. And they are indeed talented. Elizabeth Pena and Alfred Molina find the right balance as the heads of the household. She's a woman who feels like she lost her husband a long time ago and wants to move on, and he never seems to be able to open up and say what he really feels. It's obvious they still care for each other, but she's tired of his secrets.
In the movie, an alien who goes by the name of Klaatu (Keanu Reeves) has come to Earth to determine if the human race is worth saving. We see in the film's opening sequence that Klaatu is an alien inhabiting a human body. Klaatu is gathering intelligence, so to speak. His mission could be either one of mercy or of destruction, if he decides that humans are too dangerous to live and are mistreating the Earth itself. To gather this information, he must speak with another alien who has assumed the form of an Asian man, and has been living amongst us for years. Klaatu is initially captured by the military, but he escapes with the aid of a woman named Dr. Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly). Helen obviously sees something in Klaatu's mission, and drives him to the meeting place where the fate of the entire human race will be determined. And where is that meeting place, you ask?
A McDonald's restaurant. You just can't buy product placement like that anymore. I especially loved the way the movie would occasionally cut from the aliens' conversation about humanity's future to shots of Helen's stepson, Jacob (Jaden Smith, son of Will), enjoying his cheeseburger and fries. This moment made me laugh a little, but there's very little joy or humor to be found here. Despite being advertised as a big action blockbuster, The Day the Earth Stood Still is a solemn and somewhat sad film about aliens who decide that we have put the Earth itself in peril. Those who have seen the original 1951 film that this movie is an update of already know this. Klaatu arrives on our planet with steely determination. He's here on a mission, and won't let anyone get in his way. He's accompanied by a giant robotic-like creature whom the military dubs G.O.R.T. It stands menacingly, guarding the giant sphere of light which crashed in New York's Central Park, and attacks anyone or anything that is aggressive toward it. The military tries to figure out what to do, while Secretary of Defense, Regina Jackson (Kathy Bates) slowly puts the pieces together about the aliens' reason for being here.
All of this is quite fascinating, and leads us to believe that this will be the rare remake that treats its source material with intelligence and respect. Aside from the blatant and ridiculous product placement, there was nothing to offend, and I found myself being drawn into the story. It's in the second act that The Day the Earth Stood Still seems to lose interest in itself, and turns into a tedious chase picture with Helen, Klaatu, and little Jacob on the run, as Helen tries to convince the alien that humanity deserves a second chance. This is combined with a lot of scenes of the military trying to contain the giant G.O.R.T., and Secretary Jackson watching a bunch of monitors of news reports with growing concern. The movie never seems to want to slow down and explore its own ideas. It races full speed ahead to a climax that is so anticlimactic and abrupt, you wonder why the movie was in such a rush to get to it in the first place. It keeps on teasing us with potential. There's a scene where Helen takes Klaatu to meet a professor friend of her's (John Cleese), and the conversation between the professor and the alien is quite interesting, if not painfully short. It seems as if most of this scene was left on the cutting room floor to make room for more special effects shots.
It's always sad when a movie sells itself short, but I had a particularly empty feeling when the end credits came. A lot of this had to do with the good will it built with me during its effective first half. The arrival of the sphere of light in New York, along with the first appearance of the alien Klaatu are fascinating, and builds our hopes up with a sense of awe. That's because director Scott Derrickson (The Exorcism of Emily Rose) seems to be trying to make an actual movie about Earth's first contact with a life form from another world. The fact that it ditches this approach smells of interference, either on the studio level, or somewhere in the editing room. The movie's just over 100 minutes long, but still feels like its been butchered in some way. It's not as severe as say Babylon A.D. (which was edited and cut to the point that the movie ceased to make any sense), but I constantly felt like I was missing out on something.
This is Marvel's third attempt to bring their Punisher character from the comics to life, but don't worry if you haven't seen the previous films (and you probably shouldn't). War Zone gives us just enough explanation in brief flashbacks to inform the uninitiated as to why its hero is running around, killing any and every criminal and bad mobster stereotype who crosses his path. Frank Castle (Ray Stevenson) used to be a family man until the day his entire family was wiped out by criminals during a picnic. Now he calls himself the Punisher, lives in an underground base below a subway tunnel, and spends his time moping and looking forlorn when he's not snapping necks and blowing people into dust with his trusty shoulder mounted rocket launcher. The movie makes a small attempt to bring some moral questions into what Frank does. He kills an undercover FBI agent early on while raiding a mobster's hideout, and he gets kind of choked up about it. He even tries to apologize to the dead agent's wife by offering to let her kill him in front of her young daughter, who's not much more than seven. (Gee, how thoughtful.) Fortunately, his buddy and weapons supplier, Microchip (Wayne Knight), is there to remind him that the city needs his special brand of vigilante justice. That's about as deep as this movie ever gets. The Punisher is supposedly not superhuman, like other comic book heroes, although Castle does at one point punch a hole in a guy's face with his fist without blinking. That's gotta count for something.
The hole in the face is actually one of the more subtler means of killing the Punisher uses. He also stabs someone in the eye and through the back of the head with a chair leg, decapitates I'd say about 50 or so extras, snaps a lot of necks, fires a lot of bullets, and pushes a guy into a bottle recycling machine which ends up hideously disfiguring the criminal's face. This mobster used to be known as Billy the Beaut (Dominic West), but after his face gets shredded beyond recognition during his encounter with the Punisher, he comes to be known as Jigsaw. He's the main villain in this installment, and West plays Jigsaw as if he studied Jack Nicholson's performance as the Joker in 1989's Batman a little too closely. He's frequently campy and over the top, but nothing he says or does is as devilishly funny as he seems to think it is. He's backed up by his insane, cannibalistic brother, Loony Bin Jim (Doug Hutchison). They want to rally the city's criminals against the Punisher, and kidnap the wife and daughter of the undercover agent, since the agent was pretending to work for Jigsaw and hid some money from him. Meanwhile, there are some agents trying to track the Punisher down and arrest him, but end up helping him. And meanwhile...
You know what, I'm going to stop right there. This isn't a movie about plot, this is a body count film. Each scene is a set up for either the Punisher, Jigsaw, or Loony Bin Jim to kill someone (or a large group of faceless extras) in horrific and graphic ways, which is captured in a detailed manner by director Lexi Alexander. When I reviewed Transporter 3 last week, I complained about the trend of action films using rapid cuts that prevented us from seeing what we paid to see. Now we have an action movie that is competently shot and edited, but shows us things I probably did not need to see. The bare bones plot pretty much crumbles when logical thought is applied to it, and all we're left with are a series of death scenes that would be more at home in a cheesy 1980s slasher film than an action movie getting a theatrical release in 2008. The whole enterprise feels dated and exploitive. I did not feel anything for Frank Castle, nor did I cheer for him when he started taking out the bad guys. I fear that this is intentional. We're supposed to get a rush out of the sadistic violence on display, and not feel anything else. I say if you see one exploding head, it kind of loses its impact the 50th time you've seen it.
Whenever I'm faced with a movie that seems exploitive to me, I find myself asking who is this movie made for? The obvious answer would be fans of the Punisher comic book. But then I'm faced with another question - What is the appeal of the Punisher to begin with? In the three films I've seen based on his character, he's never come across as anyone particularly interesting. He's a guy who shoots first, doesn't ask questions, then shoots some more just for the heck of it. (And if there's time, he decapitates a head or two.) I can see the appeal of other comic book heroes like Iron Man, Spider-Man, heck even Hellboy. And hey, Batman is just as tortured as the Punisher usually is, but at least he gets to drive the Batmobile. The Punisher just hangs out in a dank room, waiting for the right time to kill people. Comic books are a form of escapism fantasy, and I can't imagine who would want to fantasize about being a depressed and brooding vigilante who is as sadistic as the bad guys he fights.
