Edge of Darkness
The movie throws him into a complex, and somewhat silly conspiracy theory thriller, where he plays a grizzled but kindhearted homicide detective named Thomas Craven. Thomas is tough as nails, but generally a good guy. He doesn't seem to have any vices (he prefers a ginger ale over any alcoholic beverage), and his 24-year-old daughter Emma (Bojana Novakovic) is the light of his life. When Emma pays a surprise visit, Thomas notices that something is wrong. She seems violently ill, and suffers from brief bursts of nausea. Thomas tries to take her to the hospital, but as soon as they step out the front door, a masked gunman cries out and shoots Emma dead before fleeing. The authorities and the press assume that the bullet that killed his daughter was intended for him, but he's not so sure when he searches through Emma's belongings and finds a loaded gun. Digging further, Thomas discovers that there are a lot of people connected to his daughter fearing for their lives, including Emma's boyfriend (Shawn Roberts) and a former co-worker (Caterina Scorsone). The signs all seem to point that Emma was trying to be a whistle blower at the corporation where she worked, Northmoor Research Facility, which handles nuclear materials for the U.S. government.
Edge of Darkness doesn't rewrite the rules of the thriller genre, but it plays by the rules well enough to entertain. The film itself is based on a five part British TV mini series, and although I can't compare it to the source material, the film does not feel too rushed or tossed together. The screenplay by William Monahan (The Departed) and Andrew Bovell has to pull a difficult balancing act of juggling a convoluted and sometimes confusing plot, with a lot of characters. First and foremost, there's the shady boss at the corporation where Emma used to work, who is obviously hiding something. He's played by Danny Huston, who portrays the character as a smarmy villain who thinks he's above it all. He sometimes comes across as almost a James Bond villain, hiding in his sleek fortress-like corporation, poisoning and gassing his victims, and dumping bodies in the water, using his connections to cover them up as "accidents". Meanwhile, there's a shady government operative (Ray Winstone), and equally shady government figures and Senators who all have plenty of secrets to hide. It's not very hard to point out the bad guys in this movie, as they usually drive around in big, black, suspicious-looking vehicles that practically scream "property of evil henchmen".
It's all ridiculous, of course, and we usually are one step ahead of the characters. Not even the seemingly innocent character who ends up double crossing Gibson's character and selling him out to the bad guys is much of a surprise. Despite it all, I found it enjoyable in an escapist, popcorn entertainment sort of way. You pay to see Mel Gibson pissed off and seeking revenge against slimy corporate and political people, and you get it here. You also get it done rather well. The entire cast is strong, and director Martin Campbell (Casino Royale) keeps the pace lively enough so that we're engaged in the search for the truth. The movie makes some missteps, such as some scenes early on when Gibson's character has "conversations" with his dead daughter, and the film's final scene is kind of goofy in the way it tries to put a feel good spin on a relatively downer ending. Fortunately, it does not step into the area of wrong-headedness too often, and managed to hold my interest.
The movie all rests on Gibson, however. His character of Thomas Craven sometimes seems kind of one note in his quest for revenge, but he manages to sneak in a little sly, vicious fun here and there, such as a scene where he tells a person he's interrogating to take off his glasses, and when the man complies, Gibson punches him in the face. We don't exactly get a chance to feel for the character. Aside from a scene where he scatters his daughter's ashes on a beach they used to visit when she was a child, we don't really get to see him truly mourn for her. Still, he fits the role of the angry vengeance-driven hero pushed to the edge well. We can sense his fuse getting shorter in each passing scene, and he does get to show that intensity that made him famous. He gives just the right amount of rage to get the audience behind his quest for revenge. Now if he could have actually brought some genuine characteristics or emotion, this could have been a good movie, instead of a fun escapist thriller.
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The plot is strictly by the numbers, which is to be expected. Kristen Bell plays Beth, a museum curator who is married to her work, and doesn't have time for a relationship ever since her heart was broken in her last one. Early on in the film, she's approached by her little sister (Alexis Dziena), who is getting married in Rome after a brief whirlwind love affair. Beth is forced to drop everything and fly off to Italy to attend the wedding, where she meets a man named Nick (Josh Duhamel), who despite being highly accident prone and a magnet for pratfalls, could be the guy she's looking for. Just when Beth is about to make her move to get closer to him, she sees Nick seemingly being intimate with another woman. We obviously know it's not what it looks like, and the whole situation could be resolved if one of the characters just said a few words. But, Beth takes it the wrong way, gets drunk, and goes wading in the water in Rome's famous "Fountain of Love". There's a superstition that if you remove a coin that was thrown into the fountain, the person who tossed that coin will fall in love with you. Beth, in her drunken haze, removes four coins (and a poker chip), and when she returns home to New York, she suddenly finds herself stalked by four total strangers who seem infatuated with her, and won't leave until they profess their love to her.
The fact that these four people who tossed the coins into the fountain in Italy all just happen to live in New York and within walking distance to Beth is hard to swallow, but I digress. The men who start chasing after and following Beth everywhere she goes includes an insane artist with a foot fetish (Will Arnett), a vain and egotistical male model (Dax Shepard), a street magician who is obviously supposed to be a parody of stunt illusionist Criss Angel (Jon Heder), and a middle aged sausage tycoon (Danny DeVito). These characters can sometimes be funny (especially Heder), but they often come across as creepy, as a lot of the things they do to get closer to Beth would probably lead to them being arrested in real life, or at least a restraining order or two. And what of the poker chip she picked up from the fountain? Beth assumes that it belongs to Nick, since he starts calling as soon as she returns home, and seems genuinely interested in her. He explains the situation with the other woman that night, but she still thinks he's only after her because of the magic from the fountain. But then she starts to warm up to him the more time they spend together.
Are they destined to be together? Is it the magic of the fountain that is making Nick fall in love, or is it real? And if it is the magic, is it right for Beth to take advantage of it? These are the kind of questions you can only get away with asking in a movie like 
Outside of the charm of the two leads, there's not a lot that stands out. Director Mark Steven Johnson (
Things kick off when an angel named Michael (Paul Bettany) drops from Heaven, cuts off his wings, grabs some weapons, and swipes a police car to drive to a small roadside diner and service station in the middle of the desert. It's here that a young woman named Charlie (Adrianne Palicki) works and lives in a trailer behind the diner. She's eight months pregnant, and doesn't know that the child she carries will be mankind's last hope. It seems that God has lost faith in humanity, and is sending an army of angels led by Gabriel (Kevin Durand) down to Earth to wipe out all life. Her future child is the only hope we have for survival, though it's never really explained why, or what he is destined to accomplish. The angel Michael thinks that humanity still has hope, so he has disobeyed orders, and is fighting to protect Charlie and the few innocent bystanders that become trapped in the diner when the opposing angels begin surrounding the place.
The angels possess humans, and attempt to pass themselves off as being normal. In one memorable scene, an angel possesses a little old lady with a walker, and tries to act casual. She doesn't get very far, though, and arouses the suspicions of everyone else in the diner when she starts screaming that everyone there will die and burn. The angel gives up the charade, turns into a screaming monstrosity, and starts climbing the walls and ceilings. The owner of the diner (Dennis Quaid) doesn't know what to make of any of this, until Michael shows up, and explains the whole situation. Even then, Quaid's character is not convinced when Michael starts talking about angels. You'd think seeing a little old lady grow fangs, rip the lungs out of an unfortunate bystander with her teeth, and climb the ceiling, blood dripping from her jowls, would be enough to convince the guy that hey, maybe something's not right here.
Charlie's reaction to the news that she will give birth to humanity's savior is priceless. When Michael informs her of her destiny, she replies with, "I'm just a waitress. I don't even own a car"! I was having a lot of fun with 
Speaking of the survivors, they're your usual stock group. There's Jeep (Lucas Black), who's the son of the diner's owner and an all around nice guy, so he falls into the hero role. There's also a dysfunctional family with a troubled teen daughter (Willa Howard) that's run into car trouble, a religious cook (Charles S. Dutton) who begins to question his faith, and a shady guy (Tyrese Gibson) passing through. Most of these characters spend a lot of time looking out windows, or picking off any angels that get close to the diner, so we never get to know them that well. Of the characters, Jeep obviously plays the biggest role, as he protects Charlie. The ending also hints that he will play some kind of part in the war for humanity to come, but it's not very clear on the details.
The film stars Dwayne Johnson, whose charisma and screen presence seems well suited for a kids movie. He plays Derek, a former professional hockey player who was sent back to the minors after an injury. The injury has long healed, but he's stayed put, giving up on his dreams. This has made him somewhat bitter and cynical at the world. Despite this, Derek has found fame in the minors as being "The Tooth Fairy", as his fans have dubbed him. He's called this, because he specializes in powerful body blows that, yes, knock the teeth out of his opponents. He's good at playing for the crowd, and even has his own personal recliner chair in the penalty box. Off the ice, Derek is dating a single mom named Carly (Ashley Judd) with two kids. One fateful night while taking care of the kids, he tells Carly's six-year-old daughter Tess (Destiny Whitlock) that the Tooth Fairy she's anxiously waiting for to leave money under her pillow does not exist.
This angers Carly, and someone else unexpected as well. We learn that the Head Fairy (Julie Andrews) up in Fairy Land, who is in charge of all the Tooth Fairies in the world, has had enough of Derek shattering the hopes and dreams of children with his cynicism. She summons him up to Fairy Land, where he is sentenced to be an actual Tooth Fairy himself until he can learn to be a better person. This is where the movie starts to have a little fun with itself. Derek is assigned a case worker named Tracy (Stephen Merchant), who dreams of being a tooth fairy himself, but since he doesn't have wings, he has to settle for supervising Derek in his new job. There's a lot that goes into being a Tooth Fairy, it turns out. They have special equipment that can be used to avoid detection (amnesia dust, invisible spray, devices that can scare away pesky cats or dogs), which are provided by a fellow fairy named Jerry (Billy Crystal). Merchant and Crystal are both naturally skilled comedians, and they get to slip in some funny bits of dialogue, most of which I imagine were improvised on the set.
The film somewhat resembles the tone and structure of 
Too bad the conventional plot has to keep on getting in the way. While it never becomes unbearable or sappy, the scenes concerning Derek softening and warming up to Carly's two kids seem rather uninspired compared to the scenes that do work. Some parts of the movie seem to be clever and sly, while others seem to be written on total autopilot. The fact that there are five writers credited to the screenplay (the script's apparently been floating around Hollywood for almost 20 years, and was originally set to star Arnold Schwarzenegger) explains this. There's just such a huge difference in the quality of the writing from scene to scene. Whenever Johnson and Merchant are trading barbs and insults with each other, the dialogue is lively and fun. The dialogue whenever Johnson is talking to the kids or to his on-screen girlfriend seem to have been written by committee. It doesn't quite drag the film down, but it's disappointing none the less.
During his search for information, John comes across an article about a medical scientist who is working on a cure, but can't find funding for his research. In real life, that scientist was Dr. Yuan-Tsong Chen, but since there are no Asian male actors working in Hollywood capable of having above the title status in a medical drama, Dr. Chen has become Dr. Robert Stonehill. He's played by Harrison Ford, a marketable name. Dr. Stonehill is a bit of a wild card. He's reckless, he has a short temper, he doesn't listen to authority, and he likes to blast rock music while he works at odd hours, which annoys his fellow scientists. But, John sees something in his theories, and thinks he could find a cure with the proper funding. John gathers up the money Stonehill needs, and the two go into business together.
Despite the family crisis angle, and the race against time to find a cure, 
That leaves us the adults. They're certainly all played by fine actors. Ford is obviously an old pro, and Fraser and Russell are both underrated as actors when it comes to drama. But here, they all seem to simply be filling the roles, or giving just enough that the material requires. We never get a sense of the relationship between Fraser and Russell, as all of their scenes are based around worrying about their kids. The fact that Russell is pushed into the background once Ford's character enters the plot doesn't help matters. Speaking of Ford, his portrayal of Dr. Stonehill can best be described as predictable. He's a gruff, cold-hearted cynic whose heart slowly melts the more time he spends with the Crowleys and their adorable dying children. He plays the role well enough, but there's nothing that comes through in his performance. We learn so little about Stonehill, I wouldn't be surprised if the entire performance was based solely on a brief character description given to Ford by screenwriter Robert Nelson Jacobs (
The movie itself is just as sketchy as the main characters, and that's just the problem. The whole thing feels like it's been clean and sanitized, and often feels like a not very memorable made-for-TV movie being projected on the screen. Perhaps this is the influence of the film's distributor, CBS Studios. Whatever the case, the movie feels toothless instead of engaging. We can't get behind the thinly developed characters, and the story is so paint-by-numbers, it never gets off the ground. As 
Just like in the original story, we are introduced to 14-year-old Susie Salmon (Saorise Ronan), who narrates the film, and tells us up front that she is dead, and that she met her end on December 6, 1973, at the hand of a man from her own neighborhood. We see glimpses of Susie's life - The love for model sailboats that she shared with her father, Jack (Mark Wahlberg), how she dreamed of being a photographer, and the building feelings she felt for a fellow and older classmate (Reece Ritchie). All of this came to an abrupt end while crossing a cornfield on her way home from school. She had a run-in with the man across the street from her home, George Harvey (Stanley Tucci), who lures her into an underground room, and murders her. Susie is sent to an afterlife, where she watches her family get torn apart by her disappearance. Jack becomes obsessed with finding information on Susie's killer, her mother Abigail (Rachel Weisz) has to leave when she can no longer stand the pain, and Susie's younger sister Lindsey (Rose McIver) becomes suspicious of Mr. Harvey, when he begins stalking her as well.
All of this is emotionally gripping on the written page, but the screenplay by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Jackson misses the point, or sometimes takes some extreme short cuts in order to fit it all into a two hour narrative. The actions of the characters sometimes make little sense in the script. and the movie never focuses on them enough to the point that we become emotionally attached to them. One of the key victims of this treatment is Susie herself. As soon as she is murdered, she becomes rather boring. We see her wander around in the afterlife, which is pulled off beautifully on a technical level with special effects creating a dream-like landscape, but never grabs us on any emotional level. It quickly turns into Susie walking around a technical demo, and grinds the narrative to almost a total halt whenever the story switches over to her.
So, the obvious question becomes, would I like the film better if I had no knowledge of the source material? I think I would have been even more confused, frankly. The choppy narrative, under-written characters, and sometimes confused editing prevent us from getting a real handle on what's going on. I think this is a case of the filmmakers feeling so close to the source material that they forget to clue us in. Or maybe years of handling epics like
The plot casts Chan as an international secret agent named Bob Ho. We see his heroics during the opening of the film, but it seems that Bob has had enough of saving the world from evil Russians who plot to manipulate the world's oil supply. He's been dating a pretty single mom who lives next door to him named Gillian (Amber Valletta), and is ready to retire from the spy business to get closer to and possibly marry her. Gillian has three kids from past marriages, and they all don't like Bob, especially oldest daughter Farren (Madeline Carroll). She still thinks her dad will come back, and get together with Gillian. The other two kids, Ian (Will Shadley) and Nora (Alina Foley) just think he's boring. Gillian has to leave to take care of her sick father, so Bob volunteers to watch over the kids. He teaches them how to stand up to bullies and not to lie, they teach him about Halloween. (I find it hard to believe an international secret agent, even a foreign one, would have absolutely no idea what Halloween is.) Meanwhile, the Russian villains start snooping around. They're after a top secret file that Ian accidentally downloaded. Fortunately, the villains are of the comical variety, not very smart, and all talk like they learned English by mimicking Boris and Natasha from the old 
This is one of those movies where there's just not really a lot to say about it. There's a subplot about a mole in the spy organization feeding information to the Russians, and Billy Ray Cyrus turns up as a fellow secret agent who helps out Jackie Chan from time to time, and that's about it. It always boggles my mind when I see a movie as bland as 
Kids will have an easier time buying all of this than adults will. They won't question things like, how did the mom know where to pick up the kids when she finds out Bob is a spy? When Bob and the kids arrive at a Chinese restaurant to hide from the Russian villains, how did one of the evil operatives get their first? How did they know they'd be at the restaurant in the first place? And why does Bob think it's a good idea to teach little Ian how to use deadly spy weapons? Does he somehow know it will come in handy later during the climax? I know, I'm not supposed to be asking these questions, but my mind does tend to wander if the movie I'm watching fails to give me anything else to think about or notice.
First off, let's talk about the look of the film. It's another one of those doomed depictions of a ruined Earth that's struggling to survive after a war wiped out most of humanity. The scattered remains of society seem to have built their lives around the styles and teachings of old Westerns, and every other post-apocalyptic movie ever made, but mainly the 
How does Eli know which way he's going, and what's waiting for him? "Faith", he replies simply. He says a voice within him guided him to the book, and now he must deliver it. It's a dangerous world, full of thieves and motorcycle biker gang rejects. Fortunately, Eli is pretty handy with a gun, blade, spear, arrow, or just about anything sharp and pointy he can get his hands on. These skills come in handy when he wanders into a town run by the evil Carnegie (Gary Oldman, who seems to have been paid by the amount of scenery he chews). Carnegie has been having his henchmen search the land for a book that could help him rule not just his current town, but many others. It just so happens to be the one that Eli carries. I'm being intentionally vague as to what the book is, but it's not hard to figure out while you're watching the film itself. Eli is joined by a young woman named Solara (Mila Kunis), who used to work for Carnegie along with her blind mother (Jennifer Beals), but teams up with Eli when she realizes the power the book he carries holds.
Because nothing grabs our attention, we're left to concentrate on some of the many lapses of logic the film expects us to believe. I especially love the fact that Eli's female companion, Solara, constantly has perfect hair and make up. This cannot be easy, given she lives in a world where water is scarce, everyone else is forced to wear rags, and generally look like they have sand and dust coming out of their pores. Even escaping from an armored vehicle that's flipped over leaves little more than a scar, and maybe slightly messed up hair. (The captors within the vehicle that she escapes from aren't so lucky to get off so easily.) As an actress, I've always found Kunis more comfortable in comic roles. She's not as out of place here as she was in 
Based on a series of novels by C.D. Payne, 
Nick returns home, and is determined to get back to Sheeni at any cost. His estranged birth father (Steve Buscemi) lives near where Sheeni does, so if he could somehow live with him, all his problems would be solved. He decides that if he's ever going to be with his true love, he's going to have to get kicked out of his mom's house by rebelling against authority. In order to inspire him, Nick creates a bad boy alter ego to help. This is Francois Dillinger. He looks exactly like Nick (he's also played by Cera), except he has a pencil-thin mustache, and he doesn't take nothing from anybody. With the help and advice of this imaginary alter ego, Nick manages to raise enough hell that mom and her latest boyfriend (Ray Liota) can't take it anymore. He's sent to live with his dad, only to learn that Sheeni's God-fearing parents have sent her to live in a French boarding school, due to the fact they think Nick is a bad influence on her. Not only that, the police are on Nick's trail, after an accident he tried to cause so his mom would kick him out ended up destroying part of the town.
I admired a lot of the unique, creative touches that director Arteta uses to tell the story. There are some clever and well done animated sequences placed throughout, as well as some very funny voice overs from Nick. These help the movie stand out, and prevent it from becoming a cliche. I also liked the slowly building relationship between Nick and Sheeni. It's love at first sight for him, while she likes him enough at first, but wants things to build between them. Portia Doubleday is a real find as the female lead. She only has two previous film credits (one of them being something called 
The film's first half hour gives us some intriguing images of the vampire world. We see a billboard with a patriotic Uncle Sam urging people to hunt humans. We see vampires using blood as creamer for their coffee. We see a little girl who has supposedly grown tired of being an immortal vampire, never to age, leaving a suicide note to her parents before leaving the safety of the underground city to expose herself to the rising sun. Filmmaking siblings Michael and Peter Spierig have obviously put a lot of thought into their nightmarish future world, and it shows in all the little details. We see how the vampires get around underground and on the surface. We see how the vampires have held onto their last bit of humanity by making their world as close to their old lives as possible, while making some obvious adjustments for their new lifestyles. We also get some glimpses early on that their way of life may be in trouble.
There are reports on the news that the world's blood supply is running out. Most of the surviving human population has been harvested, and the world's food population is dwindling. (We see a homeless man holding a sign saying "Starving. Need Blood".) Those who are deprived of blood too long begin to mutate into mindless demonic monstrosities that exist only to feed, and seem to lose all shred of humanity. With the blood sources dwindling, more and more vampires are mutating. It won't be long until their way of life is over. It is the job of Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) to see that this does not happen. Edward works for the world's main supplier of blood, and has been trying to come up with a blood substitute that could be used to feed the world's growing vampire population once the real thing runs out completely. So far, he has had no luck, and his boss at the corporation (Sam Neil) is getting impatient for results. Edward desperately wants to find a substitute. He looks at the humans that are hooked up to giant machines, draining them of blood, with pity. He doesn't want to harm them.
As long as 
The movie goes on autopilot here, as Edward and the few remaining human survivors try to stay ahead of the vampires. We get a lot of chaotic action, which is generally well shot, but all of the intriguing ideas set up by the opening half kind of all to the wayside. What we get is a fairly standard action thriller, with a ton of gore. Given the amount of times we see people explode in massive geysers of blood that fly at the camera, you get the sense that maybe the filmmakers were hoping for a 3D release. The movie is competently made throughout. It's attractively shot, the cast is certainly game and don't seem to be cashing a paycheck, and the filmmakers obviously made the most of a somewhat tight budget. It's just disappointing to see so many ideas wasted on what is basically a standard shoot 'em up picture. Also irritating - How the film keeps on mistaking loud noises and things popping out of nowhere for genuine terror.
Amy Adams plays Anna, a woman whose life is so structured, she seems to have everything under control. Her job as a "real estate stager" (her job is to set up open houses with flowers, furniture, and free cookies for potential customers) is structured down to the very last detail, as is her relationship with her long-time boyfriend, Jeremy (Adam Scott). He's a cardiologist she's been dating for four years, and Anna thinks Jeremy is set to propose to her during a dinner date right before he leaves for Dublin for a convention. He disappoints her with earrings instead, takes off for Ireland, and that's when Anna remembers an old Irish tradition that her father (John Lithgow, in a cameo that can't last more than three minutes) told her about, that on every leap year on February 29th, a woman can propose to a man. She's on the next flight to Dublin to track Jeremy down, and finds her life thrown into chaos when everything starts to go wrong.
The flight is diverted to a small Irish town, due to a severe storm, and as Anna desperately tries to find another way to Dublin, she finds herself in a pub run by the attractive, but cynical Declan (Matthew Goode). Declan is rude, short tempered, and doesn't believe in love. There's evidence that he did at one time (Anna finds a photo of him smiling with a pretty young woman, only to have him snatch it away from her seconds later.), but that was long ago. Fate brings the two together, and before either one of them knows it, he's offering to drive her to Dublin. The cliches of the romantic comedy and mismatched buddy road trip genres start flying fast and furious at this point. They deal with colorful locals, cows, mother nature, having to share the same bed, and their growing feelings for one another. Will both Anna and Declan have a change of heart, and begin to feel they're right for each other on their way to Dublin? Will the sun rise in the east and set in the west tomorrow?
It's these performances that keep our attention, not the workmanlike screenplay by Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont (
