Movie Review: Batman - Under The Red Hood

There's a rather unfortunate trend going on when it comes to Batman: as the song goes, "can't read his, can't read his, no you can't read his poker face." Whether it's comics or direct-to-DVD animated movies like this latest WB offering, Batman has become a complete and utter cipher in recent years; beyond secretive, beyond unexpressive, beyond stoic. And, in my opinion, this has stripped away the character's most endearing quality: his humanity.

It's certainly true that Batman has never been the kind of superhero who wears his emotions on his sleeve. But what made him so appealing to me was precisely the fact that every now and then, the mask would slip. (Can't find any clips, but basically, any early episode of the Timm/Dini series that featured Two-Face demonstrates this quite nicely.)

That doesn't happen anymore. And "Under The Red Hood" is a perfect example of the result. Spoilers ahoy.

On paper, this should've had an emotional payload that would put "Mask of the Phantasm" or "I Am The Night" to shame. Jason Todd, Batman's second sidekick (and his self-proclaimed "greatest failure") was brutally murdered by the Joker. Five years later, the titular Red Hood emerges to wage war against Gotham crimelord the Black Mask, as well as Batman himself. He's fast, he's smart, and he knows every move Batman makes. A DNA sample just confirms what Bruce already suspects: Jason, his lost Robin, has been resurrected. And he's out for blood.

In terms of straight-up action, this one does quite well for itself, much like the previous "Crisis on Two Earths": the best and most effective scenes are the ones where the Red Hood effortlessly evades Batman's standard attempts to capture him, showing an awareness of the Dark Knight's tactics that's beyond even his oldest enemies.

The voice talent is a bit uneven - I'll admit my difficulties in accepting anyone other than Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamill as the voices of Batman and Joker, respectively, but Bruce Greenwood acquits himself quite well. John DiMaggio's Joker is quite different - the manic edge is intact, but there's a much darker and threatening undertone to this version, which suits the plot and atmosphere perfectly. I'd say the only real weak link is Jensen Ackles' Red Hood/Jason: he just doesn't reach the emotional high notes that the dialogue demands, especially in that pivotal scene where Jason finally reveals his real motives.

And that actually leads me to the biggest problem with this whole movie: there's no emotional core. The setup is there, and there are some very poignant flashbacks (the very last scene is the only one that moved me, as it really drove home the underlying tragedy of the whole story), but Batman doesn't react - at all - to the impossible return of his surrogate son. He's not horrified, he's not upset, he's not the slightest bit grateful that Jason's back. Even that critical moment where he explains why he didn't "avenge" Jason's death is delivered in the same flat monotone used when analyzing clues at a crime scene.

Bearing in mind that I haven't read the original storyline, I'm going out on a limb here and guessing that that utter lack of emotional response to the situation is something that was drawn from the comics themselves; if that's the case, then more's the pity. The failure of "Under the Red Hood" is that it promises a story that cuts to the heart of Batman the person, rather than just Batman the superhero, and it doesn't deliver any of that. So much more could have been done on that level, and instead we get explosions and shoot-outs and violent physical combat. Exciting, yes... but dramatically satisfying? Not even close.

Ye GODS...

I just got back from "Twilight: New Moon".

Yes. Yes, obviously I know better.

The whole thing started as an experiment: my best friend Anita insisted that if you view the work of Stephanie Meyer as a comedy, and assume the horrifically awkward and over-the-top aspects are completely intentional, you can actually enjoy it as a send-up of Anne Rice.

So we had free tickets and figured we might as well give it a try; at the very least we could provide a running commentary in the style of Waldorf and Statler. And since we checked the theatre on the day of the screening and it seemed pretty empty, the plan was set.

Ominous Portent #1: The theatre was bloody packed when we got there.

Ominous Portent #2: We were surrounded on all sides not by prepubescent girls, as I'd thought, but 20-plus-year-old women and three men who were very obviously over 40, and as later events would show, they weren't there for the same reasons Anita and I were.

So the film starts with the social exploits of Bella, and almost immediately both Ani and I agreed that if we knew this girl in real life we'd thrash the living daylights out of her. A complete shrew to anyone and everyone who shows her the slightest bit of consideration, Bella is precisely the type of person who deserves to be utterly alone.

Of course, as we said, the point was to try and recontextualize the film as a comedy, and I have to admit that we both started laughing when we interpreted Bella's desire to become a vampire as basically admitting that she didn't have a soul to begin with so it wasn't much of a change for her. That and the whole "I want to come / I don't want you to come" had us in tears ten minutes into the movie.

And then things got ugly.

A woman sitting next to Anita - thirty-five if she was a day, so help me God - leans over and asks us very pointedly to shut up so she can enjoy the movie.

A 35-year-old woman is taking this movie seriously.

Naturally, we flipped her the bird and kept going - normally we're not those types of people, but by then we couldn't help it: Bella sits in a chair for three months? Anita actually choked on popcorn at that point. Bella tries to compliment her Native American friend by telling him he's "kinda beautiful"? I'm reasonably sure I turned purple by then, tears in my eyes, whispering as quietly as I could to Anita that Cher called and she wanted her hair back (which pretty much sent her into an epileptic fit).

At which point one of those older gentlemen I'd mentioned got up, turned to face us and roared to shut the fuck up.

So we left.

I guess the moral of the story is that "Twilight" can be hilarious if you look at it from A Certain Point of View (tm Obi-Wan Kenobi), but for best effect, do not watch it with diehard fans. For some reason, they tend to take this very seriously.

And as an aside? This justifies the existence of Youtube. That is all.

Movie Review: Otto

It's been a while since I've reviewed works in other media... as usual, HERE BE SPOILERS.

"Otto" (or "Up With Dead People") is a trippy, surreal, metafictional German movie about zombies. Sort of. Otto is an undead teenager in a world where fringe society has embraced the image and concept of the zombie as the ultimate outsider, representing the corruption and rot of the mainstream. The opening narration also informs us that zombies have evolved and now exhibit a semblance of intelligence, though their hunger for living flesh is still their most prominent feature.

Enter Medea Yarn, the bastard offspring of Wednesday Addams and Karl Marx. She's working on a movie called "Up With Dead People", a semi-pornographic tale of gay zombies revolting against the capitalist upper classes. (Just to point out how weird this movie is: Medea's girlfriend, Hella Bent, literally lives in a bubble of silent film - whenever she's around, her section of the screen goes black-and-white, piano music starts playing, and her dialogue appears on plaques after she speaks. It's whimsical, but amusing.)

Medea sees herself as a champion of the downtrodden, so when she meets Otto - a filthy, shambling, bloodied mess who can't remember his previous life - she takes him under her wing and casts him in "Up With Dead People". But the joke's on her, because Medea thinks Otto is just a method actor wholly dedicated to his role.

That's what makes this movie so interesting: at some point, we're led to question whether zombies even exist in this world, because aside from Otto, every walking corpse we see turns out to be an actor in Medea's film. In fact, it eventually becomes clear that we've been alternating between "reality" and "Up With Dead People" all along, and maybe there were never any real zombies at all.

But if that's true, what about Otto? There's a twist here that's basically an inversion of Ryan Reynolds' "The Nines", because we expect a bizarre and unnatural resolution to that question - maybe, by some freakish coincidence, Otto is the only real zombie in a world that has appropriated his condition and made it completely symbolic - but we eventually get a perfectly rational explanation for what's going on. It may not be true, because Otto's damaged memories can support either scenario, but I always prefer narratives that leave the choice to the audience rather than raise an ambiguity and then force the audience down one path of interpretation; it didn't work for "The Nines" and it hasn't worked for "Battlestar Galactica" (as evidenced by the fact that the mumbo-jumbo has been mostly absent since Earth).

Most movies like "Otto" tend to straddle a very thin line when it comes to suspension of disbelief, and it's very easy to cross that line: in fact, I'd say the overwhelmingly dominant trend is to strain that suspension until it snaps and can't be restored. This is exactly where "The Nines" or "Jacob's Ladder" would go wrong, by creating an unstable and ambiguous world and then going just a touch too far for us to follow. It's relatively rare to find a narrative that toes the line without crossing it... but "Otto" does so very nicely.

Movie Review: "Boy A"

It's taken me a bit longer than usual to put up this review, mainly because I've been crying so I can barely see the keyboard. "Boy A" broke my heart into little pieces.

Jack Burridge - played to perfection by Andrew Garfield - is a sympathetic young man trying to start a new life, having spent most of his childhood and teenage years in prison for a terrible crime. He gets a job, makes friends, falls in love, all with the wide-eyed amazement and gratitude that comes with having a second chance. But deep down, he's still scarred by his past, and by his constant fear that someday it'll catch up with him. In that sense, he's traded one prison for another.

In my opinion, this movie isn't so much about the question of criminal rehabilitation as it is about the things people do to each other, good and bad. Chris drugs Jack without his knowledge - it's a friendly gesture on his part, but it leads to Jack losing control at a point where he's desperately trying to pull his fragmented life together. Zeb destroys everything simply because Terry loves Jack more than his own son. Philip is a victim who became a victimizer.

In fact, of all the characters in the movie, Jack's the only one who doesn't do anything wrong. One of the most heart-rending scenes is when his secret is discovered, and he breaks down crying that he's "not that boy". This is where Garfield's brilliant acting comes in: he's so sweet, so easy to love, so grateful for the simple kindness people show him, that you want him to be right, you want to believe that whoever he used to be died in prison and he's someone different, someone with a clean slate. Tabula rasa. But, of course, it doesn't - can't? - work that way.

It helps that the film is ambiguous as to whether Jack actually committed the crime he was accused of... but then, ambiguity is something "Boy A" uses very well. Certain questions are raised that go without answer: what really happened to Philip? Was Michelle there on the dock, at the "end of the line", or did Jack just imagine it - wishful thinking for the life he almost had and then lost? And what really happened to Angela Milton that day under the bridge? We don't know, because there are no easy answers.

A powerful film, all in all. I salute director John Crowley and the cast of "Boy A" for putting together a superb drama. I'm less happy that my eyes are all red and I look like Puffy the Vampire Wailer, but it was worth it.

Movie Review Double-Shot: "The Incredible Hulk", "Iron Man"

I guess time really does heal all wounds. If you'd asked me a few years back whether a Hulk movie could work after Ang Lee Set Up Us The Bomb, I'd have been skeptical at best - it took the Batman franchise almost a decade to bounce back from Joel Schumaker (you'd think all that rubber would've made it easier), and Batman's A-list; the Hulk may be popular but he's hardly Marvel's most visible property.

To be fair, it's not that Lee's approach was wrong on a conceptual level - the psych angle was the foundation of Peter David's seminal 11-year run, so it pretty much proved itself in that respect. But the execution was sluggish and sedate: not enough adrenaline to be considered an action movie, not enough complexity to be considered a psychodrama. It fell between the cracks and that was pretty much the end of it.

"The Incredible Hulk" is much more traditional: Bruce/The Hulk runs around a lot and soldiers run after him. Simple, yes, but that may be exactly why it works so much better than its lethargic predecessor. There's so much energy here - even Liv Tyler steps up from her usual Thorazine-like state, and the action sequences (particularly the chase scenes) are exciting. Casting was particularly good: Eric Bana was way too hunky to work the nerd archetype, but Ed Norton pulls it off while maintaining his usual cuteness. Tim Roth creeped me out. William Hurt was precisely the kind of Obnoxious Military Guy you want to slap until his face falls off.

One thing I particularly enjoyed about this movie was the way it dealt with the backstory in the first few minutes, getting it out of the way as quickly as possible. It's been a pratfall of comic-to-film adaptations that you can't really help using the origin story as the basis for the first (and, in many cases, only) movie; think of "Batman Begins" and "Spider-Man", for example. They're complete in terms of their own internal plots, but with regards to the characters' larger storylines they only really cover the first act, so to speak. "The Incredible Hulk" gets past this very easily: Bruce Banner experimented with gamma radiation, he was in love with Betty Ross, he mutated and accidentally injured her and her father, and he ran away. That's really all you need to know. And the fact that the story moves past that point so quickly lets things move along at a much better pace.

Ultimately, "The Incredible Hulk" doesn't reinvent any wheels; it doesn't need to do that. It's fun superhero action that hits every mark it's aiming for, and that's good enough.

---

Marvel was two-for-two this week, because I wasn't expecting much out of "Iron Man" either and I ended up being pleasantly surprised again.

My enjoyment of "Iron Man" comes down to a single factor: Robert Downey Jr. I've never been much of a Tony Stark fan, especially given the most recent turn as a mega-fascist douche, but Downey's portrayal makes the character charming, funny and compelling. When we talk about specific roles that specific actors were "born to play", it's Downey as Tony Stark that seems to be the strongest example of that elusive connection between an actor and the role he plays: the look, the body language, all the little tics Downey threw in, it all works perfectly.

It's nice to see that Jon Favreau understood the way "Iron Man" should be about the man behind the tech and not the tech itself - the movie could've easily turned into another hollow special-effects gallery a la "Transformers", but this is still Tony's story, and it shows with every little "wake-up call" he gets that bring him closer and closer to that last revelation.

And there are actually a lot of amusing moments, which I honestly didn't expect; I mean, the movie opens up with an abduction in Afghanistan, not exactly light-hearted stuff. But we also have Tony's hilarious field-testing of the armor and its components, and the dialogues with Pepper, JARVIS and Rhodes have a swift, comedic touch. It makes for a nice blend of laughter and excitement.

Of course, the scenes where the Iron Man armor actually does its work are duly impressive; we get to see multiple incarnations of the familiar design in rapid succession, which sells the idea of Iron Man as an identity that evolves even as Tony himself is evolving. And, as tradition dictates, the final showdown is suitably action-packed and dynamic.

So I can definitely say that "Iron Man" is deserving of the praise it's received; like "The Incredible Hulk", it doesn't really do anything that could be considered ground-breaking by comic book standards... but what it does, it does very well.

Movie Review: Batman - The Dark Knight

My God, where does the time go? Seems like I turn my back for two seconds and a whole month goes by. July's been pretty crazy for me, so much so that I ended up skipping the usual "season premiere" review that I usually do (to recap, it's currently "Middleman", "Weeds" and "Burn Notice"). But things'll get quieter after Monday, so I expect to be back with some frequency then.

In the meantime: "The Dark Knight". The quick verdict is that I liked it a lot, but I didn't love it. I'm not going to review it at any great length because it's being swarmed and picked at like a roast beef at an Oprah Winfrey picnic, but here are some of the good points and flaws I picked up:

* It's been an unfortunate tradition that whenever you get the Supervillain Team-Up in comic book films, it never quite works on a thematic level. Going all the way back to "Batman Returns", the Penguin and Catwoman were equally captivating, but they're both targeting very different aspects of Batman: he goes after the mask, she wants the man behind the mask. I'll skip over the Schumaker films (for obvious reasons), but "Batman Begins" had the same problem: the Scarecrow and Ra's al Ghul had little to no common ground. Venom and Sandman in "Spider-Man 3"? Nope. Phoenix and Magneto in "X-Men 3"? They try, but Phoenix is written as so aloof and detached from what's actually going on that any link is utterly meaningless. This is the first film I can recall where the bad guys are broadly dealing with the same themes and issues, and it's a nice touch.

* Much has been made of Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker, and to be fair, he certainly does offer an interesting interpretation of the character. A bit too serious for my tastes, to be honest - this Joker doesn't tell too many jokes - but disturbing? Absolutely. It helps that unlike Burton's version, we don't know anything about the character's history: he walks into the opening scene fully-formed, ready to make his move, and to paraphrase the infamous Alan Moore story "The Killing Joke", if he has a past, it's multiple-choice (of course, in Moore's story, we pretty much do have a clear, reliable telling of the Joker's origin, which sort of undoes the point - perhaps one reason why Moore is so critical of that particular work). I do, however, appreciate the emphasis on the Joker's strategic capabilities: his schemes reminded me of Timothy Zahn's character Grand Admiral Thrawn, from the "Star Wars" novels - a mastermind whose actions are like circles within circles, and the heroes are constantly being blindsided. It's quite entertaining to watch that sort of multi-tiered plan unfold. At the same time, he's not infallible, and the moment he hinges his plan on a random factor, it all collapses.

* I think the reason I didn't enjoy this movie as much as I could have is because it felt very, very fast. The pace is just a touch too accelerated, despite the fact that the film clocks in at around two and a half hours. I kept wanting the plot to slow down for a moment just so the viewers (and the characters) could catch up, because what I noticed was that most of the secondary characters really don't have room to grow: Alfred's presence is minimal, Lucius Fox has some entertaining moments but is left mostly where he's at, Rachel... well, Rachel's problematic for reasons I'd rather not discuss in case someone's reading this who hasn't seem the film. And while an attempt is made to give Bruce a real ethical dilemma, not enough screen time is devoted to his possible options and their consequences - so when it looks like he's going to make this huge, dramatic gesture, there's not enough gravitas attached to really draw us in.

So that's about it, more or less. A solid, entertaining film, but I hesitate to heap the sort of praise and adoration on it that others have.

Quick-Shot Movie Reviews

Madea Goes To Jail: Tyler Perry's plays always feel like two very different stories fighting for control of the screen/stage. On the one hand, Madea is a very amusing character, and her antics provide plenty of comedic moments; on the other hand, there's this whole layer of obnoxious Christian proselytizing and saccharine melodrama that you're apparently meant to take quite seriously. It's a schism that's impossible to reconcile, because the tone of the Madea scenes is very light and entertaining and then you're brought down to baby-mama-drama and accepting Jesus' love. The end result, for me, was much like "Diary of a Mad Black Woman": fast-forwarding through most of the movie looking for the funny parts (read: Madea's scenes).

Corrina, Corrina: One of the less interesting Whoopi Saves The Day films, part of a whole sub-genre where Whoopi Goldberg plays a wise-cracking outsider who enters a hopeless situation and turns it around for everyone, like a '90s version of Mary Poppins. I'll admit I have a soft spot for "Sister Act" and "Jumpin' Jack Flash", but "Corrina, Corrina" doesn't quite do it for me: Goldberg's performance is too sedate, the other characters are dull, the story takes a last-minute leap into romantic territory that would've been better left unexplored. And you wouldn't know it from "Veronica Mars", but Tina Majorino was one scary-looking moppet. Brr.

Pump Up The Volume: This would've fit in nicely when I did that "Ferris Bueller's Day Off"/"Dangerous Minds" comparative review, because it's an interesting middle point in the continuum. Thematically, the conflict is still between teenagers and an actively oppressive authority, as it was in "Ferris Bueller", but that movie was about individual rebellion. "Pump Up The Volume" prefigures "Dangerous Minds" by making that rebellion a collective experience, and we're still years away from bringing any ethnic context into the mix - it's still very much the white suburban middle-class kids who declare war. On that level, though, on the brink of the shift where unity becomes fragmentation and The Enemy becomes other teens, this film does the job well.

The Conrad Boys/Shelter: Broadly speaking, these movies both tell the same story, which is why I'm reviewing them together: a teenager has been saddled with heavy responsibility and has to choose between obligation and love. Of the two, I think "The Conrad Boys" did a better job with the story because it's more complex - appearances can (and do) deceive, Charlie's options aren't quite what he thinks they are, and most importantly, the choice is precisely that: a choice. By picking one, Charlie forfeits the other, and that's good drama. "Shelter" falters in this sense because not only is Zach's dilemma external (someone else is forcing him to choose), he ultimately walks away with everything he wanted. For obvious reasons, that's a less-compelling take on the story.

Movie Review: Cloverfield

"Cloverfield" is one of those movies everyone's talked about that somehow went clear over my head, so I finally decided to check it out last night.

Strictly on the level of plot, it's surprisingly similar to another movie I'd seen last month, "The Mist": in both films, something otherworldly comes out of the darkness and wreaks havoc, but the story works around the monster rather than be about the monster; the human element is where the true focus lies. I actually prefer this approach to monster-centric stories where the people are little more than cannon fodder, so that worked out nicely for me.

If "The Mist" demonstrates how horror can bring out the worst in humanity, I think "Cloverfield" delivers the opposite message - faced with a threat beyond comprehension, Rob's determination to save Beth is nothing less than heroic, and that plays a big part in the way the audience is swept up into the action.

The most controversial (and innovative) aspect of the movie is the way it was filmed: the entire narrative is presented to us in the form of a digital recording from a handheld camera, wielded by various characters throughout the movie. It's disconcerting to say the least, but highly effective, because it enables a handful of cinematic and narrative tricks that couldn't have been done otherwise. For example, since we're basically seeing through the cameraman's eyes, anything that happens to him disrupts our field of vision as though it were happening to us. That puts the viewer into the story in a way the traditional "omnipresent observer" never is. I also think that, because we're so closely linked to these characters, we sympathize with them despite the lack of characterizataion - going back to my discussion of "Torchwood" with kazekage, it's broadly possible to create ciphers you can care about, and "Cloverfield" does this quite well.

Another trick has to do with apparent damage the tape has sustained (foreshadowing the film's penultimate moments): on several occasions, the tape skips back to a recording of Rob and Beth from a month ago, creating a powerful contrast between the idyllic "good day" they shared and the hellish present that threatens to engulf them. It's rather clever.

I ultimately ended up liking "Cloverfield" very much; the gimmicks work much better than I expected, without overwhelming the movie.

Movie Mini-Review: Requiem For A Dream

Bloody hell, that was awful. Ninety minutes of utter misery. Whatever artistic merit "Requiem For A Dream" may have is totally lost beneath a black, miasmic depression so all-consuming, so complete, that enjoyment of any sort is practically impossible. I pride myself on being able to "take" hard-hitting dramatic elements, but when 100% of a story is human ugliness... to be totally honest, I just don't see the point.

Quick-Shot Movie Reviews

30 Days of Night: I liked it. It's always been the scratchy, confusing artwork that put me off the "30 Days of Night" comics, but the film manages a suitably creepy contrast of the vampires' warped, unearthly features and the realistic world around them. The acting was a bit sketchy, though ultimately tolerable. And I haven't seen many other horror movies that successfully depict mass slaughter (as opposed to individual kill-scenes): the overhead shots of Barrow being decimated were very effective.

Phoenix: Too cheesy for my tastes, though it deserves some points for getting a touch inventive with the standard "love triangle" formula, in which the person torn between two lovers is entirely absent from the story.

Spiral: On the one hand, there's an absolutely brilliant double-twist at the end of the movie. On the other hand, the middle act drags a bit mostly because of the lead character's laconic state; a lot of time is given over to Amber Tamblyn's ramblin' (take that, Stan Lee!) and the pace slows down as a result (though, as it turns out, the double-twist ends up linking to the whole verbosity issue). Zachary Levi cleans up surprisingly well - the curls were doing him no good in "Chuck". Definitely worth watching.

After Sex: An adorable series of vignettes with a common premise: each story takes place immediately after the two protagonists have had sex. It's basically a wide array of character moments, ranging from sweet (Kristy and Sam, Christopher and Leslie) to dramatic (Freddy and Jay, David and Jordi) to hilarious (Trudy and Gene, Marco and Alanna, Neil and Bob if only because looking directly at Neil opens a time-warp near your computer that sucks you into 1981). Clever at some points, anvilicious at others.

Slipstream: Not a single fucking clue. I prefer being eased into the weirdness as opposed to spending ninety minutes having no bloody idea what the hell is going on.

Movie Review: Beowulf

Despite taking substantial liberties with the source material, I've found the most recent adaptation of Beowulf to be one of the more thematically faithful interpretations.

Let's start with general comments first: the CGI is very impressive, closer to reality than anything I've seen before. At first, I was curious as to why the creators would bother with CGI, given how closely the characters resemble their actors... but the story of Beowulf is, at its core, a fantasy, and a world rendered entirely in CGI (as opposed to the sort of CGI/live-action hybridization you'd find in, say, the later Star Wars films) creates a seamless visual experience, where men and women are as real as the giants, dragons and demons that menace them. The voice-acting is also superb across the board, from Ray Winstone's bellowing, blustering Beowulf to Anthony Hopkins' weakened, decadent Hrothgar. The action sequences are flawless and truly epic in scale.

Neil Gaiman's rewrite of the epic poem makes some intriguing alterations, and yet I find that the story's heart remains unchanged: it's still pride and hubris that leads to Beowulf's downfall, in that pride leads him to make a bargain that ultimately destroys him. Gaiman's version also turns the story into a cyclical narrative, as we learn that Hrothgar has made a similar compromise in his past, and Wiglaf (Beowulf's successor) is tempted to do the same as well. Much like the poem, there's a comment here on the human condition as it existed in the pre-Christian warrior culture of the fifth century: at what point do the supreme values of honor and glory become too costly to maintain?

A key element of the film is humanization, or rather, a reduction of absolutes and ideals. The movie's Beowulf is not the perfect, archetypal warrior-king-hero that he was in the poem (where his only true flaw was growing old). In fact, one layer of complexity the film introduces has to do with The Legend of Beowulf versus the man himself, and it turns out there's a bit of a gap there: we, the audience, are privy to information that contradicts Beowulf's exaggerated tales of his own heroism. He becomes an unreliable protagonist, where in the poem you never really had reason to doubt what was said about his battles and his character.

Similarly, Grendel is more than just a vile hellspawn. In the film, he is depicted as a childlike creature, his attacks on Heorot a response to the physical pain the Danes cause him. I'm on the fence about this: on the one hand, Western literature has long since made the move from moral motivation to psychological motivation, so asking us to sympathize with Grendel, even to a slight extent, is understandable. On the other hand, this drains Grendel of his "evil" context, in the sense that he's no longer a foil for Beowulf. Of course, that shift moves Grendel's mother up the hierarchy and makes her the true villain of the story, rather than just another Monster of the Week as she appears in the poem, so that's a step up.

On a final note, here's something I found particularly clever: Crispin Glover, as Grendel, speaks Old English while his mother (Angelina Jolie) has a Slavic accent. Language is used not just to separate the demons from humanity but to separate Grendel and his mother as well. Grendel's speech pattern is archaic, but still native to the land he's in; his mother comes from Somewhere Else, a place that's altogether foreign. And it's little touches like that which elevate a pleasant action-fantasy film into something more.

Movie Review: The Nines

It's been a few days now since I saw The Nines, and despite the amount of time and thought I've invested, I'm still no closer to resolving my own ambivalent feelings with regards to this movie.

Broadly speaking, "The Nines" is a rubber-reality movie in the vein of "Jacob's Ladder", "The Machinist" and "Stay", in which the world seems to come unglued around our protagonist(s) and a final twist unveils the plausible and quasi-rational explanation, causing us to look at the entire film in a new light.

"The Nines" does this... after a fashion. It presents a series of three subtly-interconnected stories in which a trio of actors - Ryan Reynolds, Melissa McCarthy and Hope Davis - play three different sets of characters, each with their own stories to tell. There's little point in analyzing each segment separately, because the pattern is the same every time: weirdness escalates until an abrupt ending materializes, at which point we're shunted to the next story without any real resolution.

When it comes to the rubber-reality sub-genre, the critical eye tends to fall most strongly on the denouement, the moment where the big twist comes into play and everything is meant to make sense. In "The Machinist", this was when Trevor finally recognized his "stalker"; in "Stay", it was after Henry's self-destructive guilt finally came to a head. Even "Donnie Darko" follows a sort of internal logic, provided you don't overanalyze the mechanics of time travel (that way lies madness and unhealthy attachments to websites promising you bigger breasts and penile enhancements).

But what happens when that ultimate explanation doesn't quite work? What if the denouement comes so far out of left field that suspension of disbelief - the mechanism that allows you to watch these movies in the first place - collapses? That's exactly what happens with "The Nines", in which the twist goes cosmic in, like, a Jim Starlin way, and I still don't know if I can accept the "truth".

Said "truth" is as follows: Ryan Reynold's character (we'll call him G for short) is "a multidimensional being of vast, almost infinite power" that has been creating, decreating and recreating the world, casting himself as a character in his own story. So Gary the actor, Gavin the writer and Gabriel the loving husband are all one and the same, and he's been doing this for so long that he doesn't remember where he came from. In comes Sarah (who is also Susan, who is also Sierra), another demigod who's come to break G out of his self-constructed prison and take him home. Unfortunately, he's become rather attached to Margaret/Melissa/Mary, a human woman who forms a connection with G in every incarnation (it's not clear whether he created this woman each time, or whether he just rewrites her identity after every "reboot").

And by the way, the film also establishes that koalas are weather-controlling telepaths, so now we know who's to blame for Hurricane Katrina. I just know that somewhere out there, Grant Morrison has woken up in a sweat, inexplicably feeling like he's missed an opportunity.

It's... a bit much, really. Setting aside the obvious question - if G creates both the world and his role in it, why is he so miserable each time? - this revelation isn't really contingent on the story that preceded it. I could've accepted a psychological explanation (because that's where the movie seemed to be heading), or even some kind of Matrix-ish "fake world" scenario... but cosmic godlings hooked on MMORPGs? Really?

On the other hand, the fact that the twist completely shatters my suspension of disbelief is partly because it's so unorthodox - I mean, of all possible explanations, I would never have guessed that particular one was the answer. And I have to admire the brass tacks it'd take to produce something so outlandish, regardless of the fact that it problematizes the film's final act - once the truth was revealed, I spent the rest of the movie in "Yeahbuhwhat?" mode and that was that.

This is what makes the rubber-reality sub-genre so frustrating: "The Nines" has a lot going for it, not least of which is its cast - Davis, Reynolds and McCarthy do a great job playing very different personalities in the space of ninety minutes. It'd be easier to write the film off had it been a complete dud, but it's not. At the same time, the denouement is so "out there" that, in my opinion, it derails the whole momentum of the story. Still, I suppose it's worth watching at least once, just for the severe head-trip that's sure to follow.

Movie Review: Persepolis

I'm just going to come right out and say it: I don't like "Persepolis". I've never liked it, not as a film and not in its original graphic novel format. And I'm uncomfortable admitting this, given the practically unanimous support and praise it receives from critics, readers and viewers.

In analyzing my own response to the film (which, all things considered, is a fairly loyal adaptation of the source material), I've determined that my problem with "Persepolis" isn't intellectual: if I'm as purely critical and objective as possible, I can see that Marjane Satrapi's story is well-presented, that her technique of juxtaposing simplistic artwork and very complex/complicated life situations is as effective for her as it was for Art Spiegelman's "Maus". I can even give the film kudos for some amusing moments ("The Eye of the Tiger" comes to mind, as does Satrapi's depiction of puberty-related transformations).

But emotionally, it leaves me cold. And because that's a subjective issue, it's difficult for me to pin down exactly why it leaves me cold. I can certainly sympathize with Satrapi's avatar, and I can imagine how intolerable her situation must have been, but... the key to enjoying autobiographical stories, at least for me, is being able to form some kind of emotional connection with the protagonist/author. Other works like "It's A Bird", "Maus", "Pedro and Me" and even Brian Bendis' "Fortune and Glory" (written when he was far less insufferable than he is today) did just that - I began to care about the people very early in the story, and that was really what drove the reading. Satrapi doesn't provide that for me - at no point in her narrative am I ever really compelled to care about her story. And that's pretty much the deciding factor for me.

Movie Review: Ha'Buah (The Bubble)

Another "almost-but-not-quite" effort by Israeli filmmaker Eitan Fox, who - bless his little activist heart - keeps bringing up social issues in the most anvilicious and preachy ways imaginable.

Fox's movies are particularly frustrating, though, because he has a great knack for creating sympathetic and believable characters, and he always starts off so well, but his three most noteworthy movies - "The Bubble", "Walk on Water" and "Yossi and Jagger" - all implode during the final act, collapsing under the weight of the Issues (and I use that term in the Winickian Beat-You-With-A-Stick-Until-You-Get-It sense here) piled onto them.

The titular Bubble refers to Shenkin, a small area of Tel-Aviv where teenagers spend their time totally isolated from reality. This is something Fox actually depicts very well: Noam, Yali and Lulu see themselves as activists, lobbying to support the Palestinian cause and the desire for peace, but they don't actually do anything beyond staging raves which only they and their friends attend. This isn't to say that they're insincere, far from it - they just have no idea what they're talking about, because they're cut off from the real world.

The trouble starts when Ashraf, a Palestinian from Nablus, penetrates the Bubble by falling in love with Noam. It's a doomed relationship, of course - Ashraf finds acceptance and comfort in Tel-Aviv, but he doesn't belong there and he knows it, and Fox is basically using this as a vehicle to blame society for putting that wall up between them. There's no way Noam and Ashraf can have a happy ending, through no fault of their own.

Now, if that were the sum total of the plot, "The Bubble" would've actually turned out to be a much stronger movie. The problem is that, as with his previous films, the third act and the climax veer almost completely away from what had been going on up to that point. For most of the movie, we're concerned not just with Noam and Ashraf but with the colorful and interesting secondary characters (just what was Golan's deal anyway?), and suddenly we're moving into political tensions and suicide bombers and characters making decisions that don't really gel with what they'd been doing before.

I can sort of see Fox's point here - bursting our own "bubble" by interrupting the love story with some harsh reality - but while his social agendas are admirable, the resulting thud as you're beaned in the head with a bag full of Issue Bricks only leaves you with a migraine. Once the storyline turns to Ashraf's sister and her terrorist husband, I couldn't help feeling like I wanted to fast-forward through that part: again, Fox does such good work with the set-up, it makes the eventual derailing all the more annoying.

That said, I have to give the man props for finally overcoming a specific stumbling block: I'd always felt that "Walk on Water" and "Yossi and Jagger" lacked any kind of emotional impact at the end, because the Issues ended up pushing the characters to the wayside, so when they do reach some kind of psychological/dramatic climax, you don't much care anymore. But "The Bubble" ends with an especially poignant flashback narrated by Noam, and... I don't know, I thought it was genuinely touching. As though, for once, Fox managed to let the characters dig themselves out of the Issue Pit just long enough for one last glimpse.

And that'll do, I suppose. That'll do.

Movie Review: Enchanted

The name pretty much says it all: "Enchanted" is an adorable Disney film that may not breach any standards of cinematic excellence, but is nevertheless a solid, entertaining movie and a great way to spend a few hours.

I think what I liked most about "Enchanted" is the way it plays with the fairy tale formulas. Unlike the "Shrek" movies, which had fairy tale characters responding to their environment with realistic perspectives, "Enchanted" drops your stereotypical naive songbird, vapid prince and evil witch right into the heart of New York City (a transition that also moves the film from animation to live-action). The twist is that they arrive with their native qualities intact, so when Giselle, our Snow White-esque heroine, starts singing, animals respond as they do in her homeland... except, since she's in New York, she gets cockroaches, rats and pigeons rather than deer, bluebirds and chipmunks. And when Prince Edward valiantly slays a "steel beast" with his sword, he has to deal with a pissed-off bus driver.

I also appreciate the fact that the relationship between fantasy and reality is a two-way thing; the "Shrek" films were, in my opinion, wholly iconoclastic in that, by design, Shrek and his companions are always overturning and lampooning the age-old shlock Disney's been foisting on us for decades. But "Enchanted" takes a different approach: yes, we're certainly meant to find Edward's empty-headed preening amusing, and Giselle's blind faith in true love and innate goodness get her into plenty of trouble... but on the other hand, urban characters such as Robert, Morgan and Nancy don't really benefit from their realistic, sophisticated points of view. These are people who've taken practicality to its extreme, and find themselves stuck because of that choice.

It's rare to find a movie that doesn't ask you to choose sides in an ideological conflict: "Lord of the Rings" is pretty strongly biased against industry, and I can't see anyone agreeing with the Fairy Godmother that Shrek doesn't deserve a happy ending just because he's an ogre. "Enchanted" manages to pull off a nice balance between the two worlds it depicts, all the more impressive given that it's a Disney film.

Movie Mini-Review: Latter Days

This was originally going to be a full-length review, but I don't have anything interesting to say about "Latter Days": it's a hokey, over-the-top flick that falls way short of fulfilling any romantic aspirations; like "Brokeback Mountain", it's so fixated on sex that when we, as viewers, are asked to believe that the lead characters have fallen in love, my first response is "Whoa, when did that happen?" Pretty much "meh" all around, IMO.

Movie Review: Luster

Trying to reassume some semblance of normal posting again... let's hope it works. :)

My movie club tends to designate certain months as Theme Months - we did Horror in June, and Psychodrama in January. October is Gay Cinema Month: over the next four Saturdays, we'll be getting together to watch gay-themed films from all genres. Technically, we were supposed to start this Saturday, but Daniella's going abroad so we bumped it up a bit.

This week's entry was a charming indie film called "Luster". Like most gay films, it's primarily centered around a mixed group of friends in an urban setting; I'm not sure why that format is such a solid mainstay of the genre, though I guess it's to do with an inherent, implicit social agenda. The gay character starts off with a pre-existing social network that already accepts him or her, so being gay - that dreaded categorization which usually overshadows all other character traits - isn't really the issue at hand.

"Luster" actually reminded me quite a bit of "Heights", in the sense that my appreciation of both films is largely due to their proper use of the slice-of-life drama. As in "Heights", there aren't any over-the-top dramatic situations here, no outrageous moments that strain our suspension of disbelief. It's about ordinary people going about their ordinary lives, and if some of them (Billy) are much more fucked-up than we might initially expect, it's still within the bounds of normalcy. As with the best slice-of-life tales, the characters make the story.

That said, what makes this film particularly interesting is that the plot takes its cues from the way the characters define themselves. Jackson, our protagonist, is a blue-haired twenty-something aspiring poet who kills time in a record store that only sells albums by bands no one has ever heard of. Jackson, and his friends, are classic "alternative" archetypes (in other words, virulently opposed to the mainstream), and as a result the storyline makes a point of twisting around mainstream plot conventions. A character commits suicide for reasons that are never fully explored, even though the rules of drama necessitate closure (despite the fact that, in reality, suicide doesn't always make sense). Derek's infatuation with Jackson is this huge, looming cliche - love at first sight, opposites attract, constance and patience bring reciprocation, etc. - but the cliche gets cut off at the knees before it can fully play itself out.

"Luster" demonstrates its desire to be different (or, at the very least, to be perceived differently) through every aspect of the movie: visually, the film has a very unpolished look, decidedly unglamourous, with fresh-faced actors who straddle the line between awkward and genuine. Narratively, character development is a touch erratic - we're probably not supposed to understand Jed's motives, but he has such a profound impact on the people around him that it seems a bit odd we never get into his head. Then again, if we are to see "Luster" as a conscious rebellion against the Hollywood formula, I assume the point is to break that tradition of "endings" in film - whether happy or sad, practically the entire cinematic medium is geared towards the notion that when the credits roll, you can safely walk away with "The End" of the story. But it's unclear whether Jackson's fate gives us closure: things just seem to go on after the plot climaxes, and while our protagonist does get to make a final choice, it's pretty obviously not the choice he would have made under different circumstances. It's a very ambivalent and ambiguous conclusion, and yet it's so appropriate to the story that I can't see it ending any other way.

All in all, I enjoyed "Luster" as a sort of momentary departure from the more tired trends of mainstream film - you don't have to know the conventions to get the point, but if you do, it makes for a much more interesting viewing experience.

Next week's film is "Latter Days", review (probably) to follow.

Oh, and by the way...

Sorry about being MIA lately... I've started a new job and the training schedule is insane. It hasn't left me much time to blog, read or do just about anything that isn't work-related, though I'm trying to post at least once a week at the Savage Critics (most recent review was DD #99; Brubaker continues to infuriate me by being consistently good enough that I have nothing constructive to say about him).

Some comments about movies I saw over the weekend:

Disturbia: Does what it says on the tin, I suppose. It might be that I've grown accustomed to mindfucks, but this came off as a little too straightforward, in that the killer is so obviously the killer. Still, it has some nice moments, and the cast is comprised of actors who aren't so high-profile that their presence damages the atmosphere (this being one of the reasons "Scream" did as well as it did).

As an aside, I find Shia LeBeouf intriguing; a few days after "Disturbia", I realized LeBeouf had played Chaz in that horrible, horrible Keanu Reeves version of "Constantine", and was pretty much the only bright spot in a two-hour miseryfest. If I had to narrow down his appeal to a single factor, I'd say it's the way he projects both vulnerability and rage, so that you don't know whether to cuddle him or hit the deck. Like I said, intriguing.

The Joy Luck Club: I'm planning a double-shot review of the film and the original novel at a later date, but suffice to say, I loved it. The format, the way the tales intertwine across two (sometimes three) generations of women, the sharp contrasts drawn between the Chinese mothers and their American daughters... it's a very powerful, very moving tapestry of stories.

The Simpsons: Honestly? I never expected it to be so funny. IMO, the show's heyday had come and gone, and suddenly this movie comes out and nails every single humorous and parodical moment. I laughed my ass off, and left the theatre hoping the movie would give the show a shot in the arm. Who knows, maybe it will.

And finally, some notes about the upcoming TV season. I'm waiting until early October to do the big premiere round-up - "Weeds" has already started airing, but "Heroes", "Supernatural" and "Dexter" aren't scheduled for another month or so, and "Jericho" doesn't even have a relaunch date. The plan for mid-season will be a little different this year, as I'm going to focus on the following new series: "Chuck", "Burn Notice", "Reaper", "Bionic Woman", "Pushing Daisies" and "The Sarah Connor Chronicles". Basically, I don't want to get attached to series destined for premature cancellation (fans of "The Dresden Files" and "Drive" probably understand where I'm coming from), so it's "wait and see" for the lot of them.

Movie Review: Spider-Man 3

What.

The.

Fuck.

As I was trying to break down why "Spider-Man 3" left me so unsatisfied, I suddenly had a sense of deja vu. So I looked back, and discovered that I'd said all this stuff before. When I saw "X-Men 3".

It's rather discouraging to see that the same idiot mistakes were made all over again. To wit:

1. Under the mistaken assumption that "more is better", the film's primary characteristic is going over the top with pretty much everything - too many subplots, too many villains, too many battle sequences placed too closely together, too many faux-dramatic or melodramatic moments stacked so that there's no opportunity to really process what's going on - and the end result is uncomfortably reminiscient of the way Anna Nicole Smith used to try and squeeze herself into those tiny dresses, with all the wrong body parts spilling out at inopportune times.

1a. With multiple villains running around, the spotlight goes to the one who's least deserving of it. Don't get me wrong, I love Ian McKellen, I really do, but we'd already seen Magneto dominate two previous X-Men films. The Dark Phoenix completely overshadows him in "The Last Stand", but she's kept in the background for most of the film. Likewise, "Spider-Man 3" is divided between Harry Osborn's transformation into a Days of Our Lives character and Thomas Haden Church's moping Sandman, a glorified CGI effect. The bad guy who should have been given the floor is Topher Grace's Venom; the casting was perfect, not just because Grace puts a dark twist on his usual comedic tone but because he's so physically similar to Tobey Maguire (bright blue eyes, pale, soft-spoken, very much rocking the geek chic) that the theme of mirror images becomes that much stronger. If properly paced, Peter's conflict with himself and subsequently with Eddie would have been enough for the whole film, just as the X-Men's struggle against one of their own would have done the job nicely without pointless distractions (the Cure, the Brotherhood, the insipid Rogue/Bobby/Kitty triangle).

2. Because more thought is put into the spectacle than the story, you'll usually get massive quantities of contrivance to roll the movie along. With "Spider-Man 3", Alfred comes out of the Batcave to tell Harry "the truth" about Norman (you know, Alfie, you just might have gotten a raise out of the boss if you'd mentioned that before he got half his face blown off!). With "X-Men 3"... wow, take your pick, but I'll go with Wolverine being the only one who can survive the Phoenix's power despite the fact that, as a telekinetic, there's really no reason why she doesn't just pick him up and throw him into the ocean.

3. Any genuinely emotional moments are undermined by the fact that we, as the audience, are not allowed to dwell on them. Ten minutes after Xavier's death and nobody's feeling the loss (Cyclops who?). Peter comes to the realization that he murdered a man for absolutely no reason and oh look he's been possessed by John Travolta's Body-Thetan and it's making him relive Saturday Night Fever!

4. These films are at least partly perceived as conclusions to their respective trilogies, but they both end on rather sour notes. "Spider-Man 3" has this whole poignant moment where Peter and MJ try to rebuild their relationship, which might have worked if the script gave us any reason to care about the relationship beyond the "our wuv is like a wuving wiver of wuv!" bits. "The Last Stand" has Halle Berry taking over the X-Men (and boy, if that isn't metatext...), with a lot of interesting characters left dead, marginalized or just plain ignored.

I've also lost interest in Maguire's depiction of Peter Parker; bearing in mind I haven't seen the first movie in quite some time, I don't remember Maguire being so... well... femme. He spent a lot of time in this film alternating between falsetto whispering and shrieking like Rosie O'Donnell when the latter is denied her fifty-sixth twinkie. Now, I'd probably be quite tickled if this were a conscious choice, because that'd certainly put a unique twist on the whole Eddie/Gwen/Peter/MJ/Harry situation (not to mention, I think it'd be quite good to have a hero and a paragon who isn't and doesn't have to be the Alpha Stud of Ultimate Manliness), but I kind of doubt Sam Raimi told Maguire to channel his inner Gothic Bimbo. I mean, hell, they actually did a shower scene - if he'd buckled down crying under the water stream, it would've provoked laughter instead of "Huh?"

All in all, it's a film that suffers from a colossal lack of subtlety: musical cues for various characters are insanely overwrought just so you know who's good and who's bad, the dialogue is corny and cliched beyond belief, characterization exists more in terms of what could be than what is... it's just terrible, the result of carelessness more than any real inadequacy. I mean, we can always blame "The Last Stand" on Ratner's idiocy; what possible defense could Sam Raimi have?

Movie Review: TMNT

Even taking into account the revival of certain '80s properties such as the Transformers, I could never have anticipated the Turtles clawing their way out of the grave. Here was a franchise that had been pronounced dead, autopsied, cremated, its ashes buried at the bottom of the Dead Sea. Surely any attempt to bring them back would result in nostalgic mush, at best.

Imagine my shock - and delight - when Kevin Munroe's efforts produced the best Turtles movie to date, genuinely entertaining and a powerful reminder of why I liked them in the first place.

It's not just the new look, though the CGI is a major improvement over old-school animation or rubber suits: fight scenes are graceful, fast-paced and exciting, the Turtles are more expressive (Raphael's rage is particularly well-communicated) and the human characters such as April and Casey have a touch of the cartoonish to them without being huge-eyed anime monsters.

But the visual aspect is secondary to the movie's real strength: its script. Let's face it, virtually every adaptation of the Turtles has been campy to some extent or other - the '80s animated series was watered down (for obvious reasons), the live-action films better defined the four as separate individuals but still erred on the side of being a little too wacky (not to mention, Vanilla Ice? No. Just no. DO NOT WANT). Munroe's script balances humorous situations like Splinter's certainty that "Cody is going to break up with Donna" or Raphael's battle with the adorable demon imp with real drama that comes from within the family, from the complicated relationships between the four brothers. I think that really grounds the movie even while dealing with an A-plot about living statues and monsters running amok in New York City.

The voice acting's quite good all around - if anything, I'm surprised by how toned down Sarah Michelle Gellar and Chris Evans are, given their more dominant tendencies in live acting. Patrick Stewart is awesome in anything, of course, and Zhang Ziyi's heavy accent lends a stronger air of credibility to her portrayal of Karai (not to mention her deadpan delivery of "You've got to be kidding me" right before the climactic battle). The Turtles themselves are flawless.

What really pleases me about this movie is the feeling of authenticity - that this is what the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would have been all along had there been no need to dumb things down for the kiddies or rely on slapstick and celebrity cameos to break the box office. So while "TMNT" may not be the definitive, be-all end-all Turtles' Story (in fact, there's a pretty blunt sequel set-up during the final minutes), it's still a good and proper example on how to do this franchise right. And if this marks the start of a Turtles revival, it'll at least have kicked off on the right foot.