Saturday, January 16, 2010

The Book Of Eli ( 2010 )

Starring: Denzel Washington, Gary Oldman, Mila Kunis, Ray Stevenson, & Jennife Beals.

Directed By The Hughs Brothers


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1037705/
I want to make this clear right at the start: "The Book of Eli" is derivative as all get-out. It's an action movie smashed together from the pulp of seemingly every post-apocalyptic flick ever made, from "The Omega Man" to "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" to "Children of Men," with Westerns and biblical epics thrown in for good measure.

But as derivative movies go, "Eli" goes down fairly smoothly, thanks to an unusually strong cast and visual ideas from co-directing brothers Albert and Allen Hughes.

The story sort of plays like a thrill-ride version of "The Road," with healthier-looking cannibals and a sillier ending. Eli (Denzel Washington) plays that most clichéd of apocalypse heroes: the lone man walking the post-nuclear wasteland in slo-mo, looking incredibly cool and somehow possessing morals and ammunition the rest of society lost long ago.

The twist is that in addition to his machete and 9 mm (and working iPod -- don't ask), Eli also carries a Bible. It's apparently one of the last tomes of Christian Scripture on Earth, and our hero is bringing it West with a holy sense of mission.

Unfortunately, Eli's scavenging, slo-mo walking and well-choreographed brawls with cannibal rapists are interrupted when the leader of a start-up community (Gary Oldman) decides he needs the Good Book all to himself. Oldman is always fun to watch in genre pieces, because there's a chance he'll indulge his hilarious tendency to yell his lines and twitch (see: "Leon: The Professional"). He doesn't disappoint here, snarling at his henchmen that he wants the Bible because "It's a WEAPON!!!" he can use to control the illiterate masses.

Of course, if no one can read or remembers that the Bible even existed 30 years after a nuclear war, I'm not sure why Oldman can't just crack open any old book and tell the townsfolk it's the Word of God. But whatever. This is the sort of movie that crumbles into dust under that sort of analysis. Best not to bother asking why the roads and machined metals are in such good shape, either.

I enjoyed "Book of Eli" for exactly what it is, a slicker-than-usual genre piece with some nicely bleak special-effects landscapes, but I'm also well aware that it's a movie that wants to have its cake and eat it, too. Eli is decidedly Old Testament about protecting the New Testament, for one thing.

The Hughes brothers and screenwriter Gary Whitta thieve mightily from other future wasteland flicks -- they even seem to work in a few nods to "The Postman," I swear -- but they're fairly skilled thieves. Of note is one single-take gunfight that plays like a Joel Silver-ized "Children of Men."

The movie also makes the goofy-but-fascinating choice of taking Eli's mission from God very, very literally in a genre environment that's usually a lot more punk-rock about its cynicism. This makes "Eli" sort of wonderfully silly toward the end, as if the Hughes brothers set out to make the first-ever faith-based "Mad Max" movie.

Overall Rating ( * * * )

Mr. What?

The Lovely Bones ( 2010 )

Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weiz, Stanley Tucci, Susan Sarandon, & Saoirse

Directed By Peter Jackson


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0380510/

At first glance it seems an odd match:  “The Lovely Bones,” Alice Sebold’s massively best-selling novel about a murdered girl watching over her family and her killer from heaven, brought to the screen by Peter Jackson, the bearded uber-geek behind “The Lord of the Rings.”

But remember:  Jackson came to world attention in the mid-‘90s with “Heavenly Creatures,” a film about teenage girls and fantasy lives and a killing, and he has written his scripts since even before then with his wife, Fran Walsh, adding, more recently, Phillippa Boyens to his screenwriting team.  So there’s always been a significant influence of womanly wisdom countering Jackson’s most boyish tendencies. 

And if that doesn’t convince you that he’s qualified to adapt “Bones,” well, who among working filmmakers is as likely to whip up a dilly of a vision of the afterlife?

As it happens, the paradisiacal home of Jackson’s fallen heroine, Susie Salmon, is more candy-colored and fanciful than you might expect from the man who made us believe in Mordor.  Particularly in contrast with the detail-rich 1970s suburbia “The Lovely Bones” depicts, its heaven is an airy play-scape that morphs in color and form like the innards of a lava lamp -- recollecting the afterlife depicted in Vincent Ward’s groundbreaking, under-seen “What Dreams May Come.”   But, then, Susie is 14 years old at the time of her death, and it’s thus not surprising that her paradise is fluffy, cutesy and girlish.

And, truly, there’s little else about the film for which those adjectives are fit.  Streamlining Sebold, Jackson and company build a zippy, heated, harrowing drama on a triangle of characters:  Susie, her grief-torn father Jack, who seeks his daughter’s killer zealously, and the murderer himself, the grim recluse George Harvey.  With infectious confidence, Jackson switches between the perspectives and obsessions of these characters, as well as those of Susie’s mother, Abigail, her sister, Lindsey, and Ruth Connors, whom Susie barely knew in life but who has an uncanny connection with the dead.  It’s truly virtuosic moviemaking.

But for all the motion and energy and attention to décor and wardrobe and hairstyles, the foundation of the film is emotional.  The devastation of losing a child; the nervous titter of puppy love; the frenzied pursuit of justice; the icy calm of a killer:  Jackson builds and conveys it all with unswerving certainty.  There are moments of heartrending grief in “Bones,” and of sickmaking dread, and of breathless exhilaration.  And in all, as ever, Jackson proves himself a born filmmaker.

To aid him, he’s got a solid cast on hand.  Saoirse Ronan is as persuasive as Susie as she was when she stole “Atonement” from the grownups.  Here, doe-eyed and confounded and rent, she’s fully compelling.  But she doesn’t overshadow Mark Wahlberg, desperate and determined as Jack, or Stanley Tucci, pursing his mouth and composing his body into silent predation as the killer.  Compared to these, the estimable trio of Rachel Weisz (Abigail), Susan Sarandon (Abigail’s mother, Lynn) and Michael Imperioli (the investigating detective) feel a bit like background, which is less a judgment on their work than a reflection of the relative weight their characters bear in the adaptation.

It’s not clear, of course, what the admirers of the novel will make of Jackson’s “Bones”; readers have a habit -- annoying to filmmakers, no doubt -- of having strong ideas about books they love.  But as someone new to the material, I found Jackson’s film soulful, respectful, masterful, horrifying, rending and emotionally true.  It may not be the “Lovely Bones” that you have in mind, but it’s a fine and powerful one.   

Overall Rating ( * * * * 1/2 )

Mr. What?

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Daybreakers ( 2010 )

Starring: Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, Sam Neil, & Mungo McKay

Directed by The Spierig Brothers

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433362/


     The Wife said it best.  "The movie was original and kept me interested."  I would also like to point out that there were almost NO TEENAGERS in the movie either.  I'm just as tired as everybody else with Tween Movies, and was totally excited to see a "Real" vampire movie again.


     It seems that in the last 3 years Vamp flicks have become something of a Joke.  Either it's too mushy and EMO, or the gore hounds scream like Banshee's for more blood.  30 days of night was an excellent movie that gave everybody something and didn't let up on the gore.


     The same can be said about Daybreakers.  Just about everything in this movie was solid.  Some are calling it Ethan Hawke's return, and others are calling it a solid original vampire story.  I feel the same way....  Sort of.

      Daybreakers is a great film.  I did like alot of the content, but at the same time feel like its a waiting game until somebody compares it to something else.  Maybe there is some other Vampire film out there similar to Daybreakers, but I cannot find one.

     so enough with the babble....

     2009 brings us a massive vampire plague.  Over the next 10 years the human race is almost extinct.  Nearly everybody is a vampire now and the shortage of blood is causing the world to freak out.  Time after time the Vamps try to find a blood substitute  but have violent results.

     Head Corporate Scum bag Charles Bromley (Neil ) plays off the crisis as nothing more than a bump in the road, but behind closed doors he is noticing his stock of Human Blood dwindling fast..

      With the extinction of Vampires possible, and some very nasty side effects from the blood substitutes, Bromley turns to the top Hemotologist around Dr. Edward Dalton.
Dalton ( Hawke ) is a Vampire trying to stay Human Blood free and find a solution to the blood shortage. 

     Dalton tries in Vain to find any solution possible.  Nothing seems to work.  After a car accident Dalton discovers human beings and decides to shelter them from the Vampires.

     This is where the story gets interesting.  Tons of twists and turns, and gallons of blood later we have a great movie.  Dalton go's on the run with Bromley puts Dalton on the Hit list and it's all downhill from there.

    I really like the futuristic look of the movie.  It's not cheesy and Sci Fi Channel'ish.  Everything is darker but with some color like the Vampire Toothpaste...Classic.
Also it was awesome to see decent special FX without counting on Digital Blood.

     Overall Daybreakers is a great film and was released at the right time.  From Sherlock Holmes to Avatar, the last month in movies seemed really slow and meant for Teens.  Good thing somebody broke up the Dull Family fest and broke out something for the latenight crowd.

Overall Review ( * * * * )

Mr. What?

Youth In Revolt ( 2010 )

Starring: Micheal Cera, Portia Doubleday, Jean Smart, Zach Galifianakis, & Steve Buscemi

Directed by Miguel Arteta


http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0403702/

The rap on Michael Cera is that, however charming and watchable he is, he is always playing Michael Cera.  Aside from noting that the same thing was said about, oh, John Wayne and George Clooney, it’s also worth declaring that his new film, “Youth in Revolt,” gives the young actor a chance to prove that criticism right and wrong.

In Miguel Arteta’s adaptation of C. D. Payne’s novel, Cera plays Nick Twisp, one of his patented neurotic niceboys but one whose romance with the elusive Sheeni Saunders (the improbably but gorgeously named Portia Doubleday) leads him to create a new persona, the wicked Francois Dillinger, whom Cera also portrays.

Within his rebellious guise, wimpy Nick can lash out at his divorced parents (Jean Smart and Steve Buscemi), mom’s boyfriends (Zach Galifianakis and Ray Liotta) and the leaden weight of an equally nebbishy best friend, Sheeni’s uptight parents, and all the moral certainties with which he was raised.  And in so doing he has a blast -- literally.

Cera plays both parts well enough to make you see that the usual thing he does is just that -- a thing he does (I believe it’s called ‘acting’).  And Arteta (“Chuck & Buck,” “The Good Girl”) is completely at home with this kind of DIY-scale production.  It’s not earth-shaking, but it’s diverting and polished.


Overall Review ( * * * )

Mr. What?
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