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Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Thursday, December 15th, 2011

2011 (USA)
Director: Guy Ritchie
Viewed: December 12, 2011
Format: Digital Theatrical Projection (Wehrenberg Chesterfield Galaxy 14)

Guy Ritchie’s 2009 re-imagining of the Great Detective and his adventures in Victorian London proved to be a luscious guilty pleasure. To be sure, Sherlock Holmes is overstuffed with garishly rendered action sequences and rushed-over plot twists, but the past two years have been unexpectedly kind to the film. Robert Downey, Jr.’s portrayal of Holmes is fittingly charming, while also conveying a man who is supercilious, unpredictable, and deeply unhappy. It’s a performance that never fails to elicit a smile, while revealing the actor’s ability to convey nuanced characterization beneath his trademark rapid-fire witticisms. Moreover, repeat viewings have strengthened the triumph of Sherlock Holmes’ other pleasures: the staggeringly rich production design, the cunning nods to the Holmes Canon, and the sneaky strength of the performances from Jude Law as John Watson and—yes—Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler.

Unfortunately, the new sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, doesn’t possess the same spark as its predecessor, for reasons that are somewhat slippery. The banter between Holmes and Watson is a little slacker, the humor is a little more cartoonish, and returning director Ritchie doubles down on the over-long action sequences that groan under his heedless employment of showy techniques. These include stuttering shifts in speed, smudged and distorted images, CGI zooms on slamming firing pins, and the like. Such flourishes aren’t irksome in isolation, but A Game of Shadows employs them with wearisome consistency. The whole film feels somewhat undernourished and ungainly, especially the script, which is surprising given that Sherlock Holmes’ gaggle of writers (usually an ill omen) has been replaced by a mere duo for A Game of Shadows (Michele and Kieran Mulroney). None of these flaws is glaring, but together they make for a film that doesn’t live up to its potential.

Despite this catalog of gripes, A Game of Shadows works gratifyingly well as an honest-to-goodness sequel. It advances its predecessor’s story in appealing ways, changing the stakes while mostly preserving the inimitable snap-and-crackle tone. (In this, the film recalls, of all things, this year’s Kung Fu Panda 2.) Like the first Sherlock Holmes film, A Game of Shadows takes a peculiar approach to its source material. It cheerfully disregards the Canon while also weaving in a dizzying number of references and allusions to Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories. In particular, the film borrows some of its narrative turns and window dressing from the Holmes tale “The Final Problem”. (If you’re a Holmes purist, it’s probably appalling. If you’re a fan of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it will seem familiar.) The new film likewise recreates the style and ground rules of its predecessor. Although it is set in an anachronism-laden and steampunk-tinged England in 1891, A Game of Shadows is nonetheless firmly rooted in the twisted, secular world of cold-blooded criminality. Ghosts and goblins need not apply.

Indeed, the first Sherlock Holmes succeeded in part due to its nimble treatment of the villainous Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong). That film plays Blackwood’s B-movie menace for maximum effect, while also allowing the Great Detective to scoff at the man’s occult-draped theatrics and promise a rational explanation for everything (dutifully delivered by the end). In contrast, A Game of Shadows dispenses with the supernatural trappings altogether, presenting a grim tale of diplomacy, terrorism, and global conflict. It’s almost prosaic stuff compared to black magic and diabolic scions, but fortunately A Game of Shadows features the Canon’s most notorious villain, the esteemed mathematics professor and secret criminal mastermind Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris, an inspired choice). Moriarty makes a brief appearance in the first film, but for this outing the man Holmes calls the “Napoleon of Crime” is front-and-center.

A Game of Shadows presents Moriarty as a dark reflection of Holmes, an intellectual equal who possesses the respected public persona and daunting political clout that the Great Detective lacks. Moriarty’s reach is seemingly limitless. In one of the film’s most chilling moments, the fiendish professor clears a crowded restaurant simply by clinking his glass. (How does that work? Is every Londoner but Holmes and his allies on the underworld payroll?) A Game of Shadows opens with Holmes and Moriarty already locked in conflict, despite the fact that they have not met face-to-face. Taking place several months after the events of the first film, the sequel finds Holmes more unbalanced than ever, obsessed with the web of crime that he sees radiating out from the professor. Moriarty’s master plan alights on simmering Franco-German antagonism, Continental anarchist plots, and a caravan of French gypsies—including Noomi Rapace as a fortune-teller in search of her missing brother—but the details matter less than the archvillain’s persona.

Harris portrays the professor as unassuming and unflappable on the outside, but vain and sadistic within. It’s no mistake that Moriarty emerges just as Holmes’ loneliness begins to prick him, nor that the professor seems to take pleasure in his crimes on a visceral level, much as Holmes views each case as a personal challenge. Both men seem self-aware that their rivalry is one for the ages, which allows the film to set up some delicious scenes between Downey and Harris. Most memorably, the crescendo of Moriarty’s plot takes place off-screen as he and the Great Detective play chess, with each man narrating the events in the adjacent room. (This also permits Watson, bless his mustache, to play the part of both sleuth and man of action as he unravels Moriarty’s scheme without Holmes’ lead.) It’s a gripping scene, crisply edited and directed by Ritchie with more restraint than elsewhere. And it ends bleakly, in a manner that echoes Yimou Zhang’s martial arts epic Hero. Even as Holmes’ ability to peer into the future with his vaunted logic sidesteps the need for a brawl, it ultimately leads him to one final, inescapable conclusion. It’s a good thing that Ritchie’s playfulness wins out before the credits roll, lest the film be saddled with a discordantly glum ending.

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Rise of the Planet of the Apes

Wednesday, September 7th, 2011

2011 (USA)
Director: Rupert Wyatt
Viewed: September 3, 2011
Format: Theatrical Print (AMC West Olive)

As near as I can discern, Rupert Wyatt’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes is partly a reboot-prequel to the well-regarded 1968 science-fiction landmark Planet of the Apes, and partly a spiritual remake of that film’s less-well-regarded sequel-prequel from 1972, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Setting aside the convoluted, essentially distracting matter of the film’s status within the wider franchise, however, and what you have is a pretty standard science-fiction action flick. As a finger-wagging fable about humankind’s disheartening failures towards its scientific monsters, Rise is meaty, entertaining stuff, a popcorn-movie complement to James Marsh’s more sobering documentary Project Nim. Unfortunately, there’s plenty of flaws to pick at in this post-Darwin Frankenstein tale. There’s the cartoonish simplicity of its heroes and villains, and its lazy re-imagining of the original film’s nuclear apocalypse as a corporate biotechnological doom. There’s the useless female love interest, the awkward homages to the original film, the sci-fi gobbledegook that strains credibility, and the scads of gaping plot holes.

And yet… The motion-captured performances—including a lead turn from mainstay Andy Serkis as chimpanzee revolutionary Caesar—while plainly computer-generated, are as captivating as any of the work by the flesh-and-blood actors. That’s not to dismiss the talents of James Franco, Brian Cox, John Lithgow, and the rest of the ensemble, but it’s evidence that digital performances have reached the point where they can be downright absorbing in their own right. (It’s also evidence that the human dialog from scripting team Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver might be part of the problem here.) What’s most interesting about Rise is how thoroughly its asks us to sympathize with Caesar, and how relatively modest its spectacle ultimately proves to be. Culminating in a stand-off on the Golden Gate Bridge between a SWAT team and a group of fugitive apes bound for the sanctuary of Muir Woods, the film offers but the first few steps in the apes’ eventual conquest of Earth. It’s a visually invigorating climax, but qualifies as but one encounter in a larger origin story, rather than a genuine turning point in the war between hairy ape and less-hairy ape.

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Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

2011 (USA)
Director: David Yates
Viewed: July 17, 2011
Format: 3D Digital Theatrical Projection (St. Louis Cinemas Moolah Theater)

[No significant spoilers below, although at this point I assume that the need for such forewarnings is virtually nil.]  It’s a safe bet that anyone who settles in to savor Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows: Part 2 has already committed themselves fully to the pop cultural phenomenon of the Potterverse, either as a devoted fan of J.K. Rowling’s novels or as an admirer of the films’ dense, highly burnished stripe of fantasy entertainment.  Appropriately, the second half of director David Yates’ Deathly Hallows adaptation wastes no breath bringing the viewer up to speed, but rather plunges forth almost precisely at the point where Part 1 concluded.  To wit: Harry, Ron, and Hermione are desperately searching for the three remaining Horcruxes that house the fragmented soul of the Dark Lord Voldemort, who is unfortunately now in possession of the fabled and all-powerful Elder Wand.

Warner Brothers’ decision to split Deathly Hallows into two feature films had the unfortunate effect of rendering Part 1 a little aimless, as Harry and his friends spent an undue proportion of the film’s running time wandering in the wilderness, far removed from the comforting familiarity of Hogwarts and woefully uncertain of their next move.  Part 2, on the other hand, functions as a fairly unrelenting action-adventure picture from roughly the ten minute mark all the way to the end.  This lends weight to the notion that the two parts balance one another, and are best considered as a single four-and-a-half-hour work.  The Harry Potter films’ propensity for flavoring Rowling’s stories with plenty of cinematic spectacle and derring-do–mounting since Azkaban, and conspicuous since Yates took over directing duties with Phoenix–has been one of the more exhilarating aspects of the adaptations, and here that same approach pays bountiful dividends to those viewers that have stuck it out to the end.

The first section of Part 2 comprises a break-in and subsequent break-out of the goblin-run bank Gringotts, a sequence that plays a little too much like a echo of the Ministry of Magic heist from Part 1. From there, the myriad threads of the story converge on Hogwarts, as Harry and his friends search for the final Horcruxes while Voldemort and his Death Eaters lays siege to the castle. This is, undoubtedly, what devotees of the franchise have been waiting for: an all-out, life-or-death melee featuring familiar faces both benevolent and malign, with the environs of Hogwarts as a poignant, rubble-strewn backdrop.

Gratifyingly for Potter aficionados, the filmmakers take pains to reference a staggering numbers of characters, creatures, locations, and events from previous chapters in the series. It’s a testament to both the richness of Rowling’s universe and the maturity of the film series’ approach that these nods come not as gratuitous shout-outs but natural outgrowths of the concluding chapter’s panoramic scope.  Nonetheless, Yates and series screenwriter Steve Kloves wisely maintain a scrupulous focus on Harry’s personal journey, even as they convey the sprawling chaos of the final conflict.  The entire cast is in characteristically fine form, and the final appearance of the superlative Alan Rickman as Severus Snape is naturally a treat. However, Deathly Hallows: Part 2 is absolutely Daniel Radcliffe’s film.  It’s his best performance in the franchise, and the film’s lump-in-the-throat moments work primarily due to the skillful blend of rawness and delicacy that Radcliffe brings to the role.

Snippets of authentic artistic triumph have appeared fleetingly within the Harry Potter films–a breathtaking shot, a masterful action set-piece, a deliciously delivered line–but the series has concerned itself first and foremost with escapist entertainment, albeit entertainment of a first-class sort.  Deathly Hallows: Part 2 does nothing to alter this formula, and it concludes the story of the Boy Who Lived with the sort of exacting extravagance that the hardcore devotees expect and the casual fans admire.  Now that we find ourselves at the end, particular accolades belong to production designer Stuart Craig, who has dedicated over a decade of his life to these damn films.  More than any other person aside from Rowling herself, Craig has been responsible for conjuring the indelible fantasy vision of the Potterverse.  Whatever the series’ merits and flaws, his work has been so consistently exceptional in quality and so staggering in scale that I sincerely doubt it will be equaled in my lifetime.

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X-Men: First Class

Thursday, June 9th, 2011

2011 (USA)
Director: Matthew Vaughn
Viewed: June 8, 2011
Format: Theatrical Print (St. Louis Cinemas Moolah Theater)

Now that a fifth (Really? Fifth?!) X-Men film is upon us, most fans of the long-running, perpetually evolving, multi-titled comic series have likely accepted that the appearance of their favorite mutant in the films amounts to little more than a shout-out intended to elicit squeals of delight. The characters and stories from the source material have now been so thoroughly scrambled in the films that the franchise can barely be regarded as an adaptation at all. (Not that fidelity to the comics is that salient when said comics are laden with reboots, relaunches, reimaginings, and parallel universes.) What’s left is that tonal and thematic core that’s often called “the spirit” of the comics, and although the quality of the X-Men films has swung about fairly wildly, they have at least been consistent in their evocation of that spirit.

Accordingly, I’m not especially interested in parsing exactly what X-Men: First Class gets “right” or “wrong,” vis-à-vis the comic series. Nitpickers will doubtlessly hash it out ad nauseam somewhere on this Internet thing, as comic fanatics are wont to do. As a film, The First Class is a perfectly serviceable little actioner, one that pivots on its most simple, superficial components. These include the slick retro design by Chris Seagers, a criminally rousing score by Henry Jackman, and the charisma of a few lynchpin actors: Michael Fassbender, Rose Byrne, Jennifer Lawrence, January Jones, and an unexpected Kevin Bacon. Their agreeable presence is key, since the performances are nothing to write home about–even, lamentably, Fassbender’s–hobbled as they are by the expected silliness of the dialog. Certainly, none of the principals have mastered the gratifying blend of credibility and camp that Ian McKellan and Hugh Jackman brought to earlier entries, a balancing act that allowed them to rattle off the goofiest lines with aplomb and still menace the ever loving hell out of a room.

This prequel of sorts to the filmic X-Men saga tells the secret history of a Cuban Missile Crisis packed with mutant meddlers, most prominently Sebastian Shaw (Bacon). Shaw is a cocky mastermind with the tastes of a Bond villain, who thinks World War III will make for an atom-smashing good time. Luckily for both the U.S.A. and the Evil Empire, Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lehnsherr (Fassbender) are on hand to stop him with a nascent team of young mutant heroes. Helming this chapter in the franchise is Matthew Vaughn, who last year delivered the incongruous and strangely overrated Kick-Ass. Vaughn at least conveys that X-Men spirit capably, and maintains a vigorous sense of momentum (often to the detriment of narrative clarity) that has thus far been lacking in the series. Unfortunately, four writing credits (including Vaughn) and two story credits (including original X-Men director Bryan Singer) is practically a recipe for committee-born tone-deafness. Hence the film’s creaky aura of determinism; its typically overstuffed roster of ancillary, paper-thin characters; its suspect, should-goddamn-well-know-better treatment of minorities; and its sporadic corniness. (I counted two ironic gags about Professor X’s future baldness. One is too many!)

Still, one five-second cameo and one F-bomb made the price of admission worthwhile.

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Robocop

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

1987 (USA)
Viewed: May 22, 2011
Director: Paul Verhoeven
Format: Blu-ray - MGM (2007)

I’ve always struggled a bit with Paul Verhoeven’s peculiar stripe of satire. The director’s ironic films look awfully similar to his genuinely brainless, lurid genre works, to the point where distinguishing between the two can be challenging. I’m comfortable placing Flesh+Blood, Basic Instinct, and Hollow Man unambiguously in the latter category, but films like Showgirls and Starship Troopers straddle the kitschy and satirical in a way that’s strangely slippery. It’s telling that a decade and a half later, enthusiasts and critics still debate whether those two films in particular are actually colossal jokes.

Not so with Robocop, which I regard as Verhoeven’s best film precisely because it so effortlessly and successfully exemplifies the bloodthirsty excesses of the Reagan era while also viciously dismantling those same excesses. In short, it functions as both a satire and the target of that satire, and it does so without feeling clunky or smug. Unlike Showgirls and Troopers, which I find exasperating in places, Robocop is juicy R-rated entertainment from beginning to end. Verhoeven is clearly having a grand old time, and his unflagging, demented playfulness shines through every frame.

Case in point: Just before the climax, the film spends several minutes observing the Bad Guys as they turn a city block of Old Detroit into rubble with a pair of gargantuan assault cannons. Verhoeven presents the scene in a manner that suggests spoiled little children at play with their shiny new toys. This sort of gratuitous digression–reveling in violence and also mocking it–is emblematic of Robocop’s approach, but also conspicuous in a film that is otherwise fairly lean and mean. The smash-cut opening and closing shots in particular make me long for the days when action films presented themselves with such ruthless, no-bullshit efficiency.

It’s tempting to laud the film’s futurist vision of nihilistic consumerism, corrupt privatization, and acute economic stratification as eerily prescient. However, I think that vision says less about the soothsaying abilities of Verhoeven and screenwriters Edward Neumeier and Michael Miner than it does about their ability to discern the most enduring warts on the American character. The casting provides some hefty backup in this respect: Ronny Cox and Miguel Ferrer practically ooze loathsomeness as caricatures of the 1980s Corporate Asshole (Veteran and Young Turk models, respectively). When Cox sneers that his company’s “urban enforcement” robots don’t have to work properly, they just have to generate a lucrative parts-and-maintenance contract, you have to pinch yourself and recall that this film was released sixteen years before Halliburton became a household word.

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Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

Monday, May 23rd, 2011

2011 (USA)
Director: Rob Marshall
Viewed: May 20, 2011
Format: 3D Digital Theatrical Projection (St. Louis Cinemas Moolah Theater)

We all have our guilty pleasures, and where the contemporary cinema is concerned, mine is without question the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. I defer to no one in my utterly indefensible affection for them. Of course, under a candid appraisal, the Pirates films are the embodiment of Hollywood’s recent summer blockbusters: loud, garish, bloated things, weighed down by convoluted plotting and an elaborate, sketchily-conveyed mythology. They are, without a doubt, Bad Movies… and yet, there’s something enthralling in the franchise’s kitschy Disney heart.

Paradoxically, part of the thrill lies in that aforementioned mythology, the creation of series scribes Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio. If the Pirates films could be said to have auteurs, they would unquestionably be Elliot and Rossio, rather than directors Gore Verbinski or Rob Marshall. (One should also acknowledge Johnny Depp himself, who allegedly defied the studio in establishing Jack Sparrow as a swishy ne’er-do-well, a choice that has been thoroughly vindicated.) Elliot and Rossio amalgamate an unexpectedly deep appreciation for nautical and historical detail with a diverse array of familiar fantasy influences. The result is a playful and tremendously rich (and yet curiously unheralded) feat of cinematic world-building. Also crucial to the films’ appeal are a crop of deliciously memorable and game performances, not only from Depp, but also from Geoffrey Rush, Kevin McNally, Bill Nighy, and many others.

Fortunately for viewers, the story arc of Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) and Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) concluded with At World’s End, permitting the series to jettison its dreary romantic leads. On Stranger Tides presents a new story mostly unconnected to the prior saga, with Depp, Rush, and McNally being the only significant faces to return. Perhaps “new” isn’t entirely accurate, as the fourth film is based on Tim Powers’ 1987 novel On Stranger Tides. Yes, 1987, as in “predating the film franchise by sixteen years.” Therein lies a tale…

Powers’ historical fantasy novel weaves together Blackbeard, voodoo, and the Fountain of Youth, but it had nothing to do with Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean theme park attraction. However, both the novel and the ride were key influences on video game designer Ron Gilbert when he created LucasArts’ popular Monkey Island adventure game series in the 1990s. Monkey Island, in turn, is assumed to be a major and unacknowledged influence on the Pirates film franchise, due mainly to Elliot’s work on a Monkey film adaptation that perished in Development Hell. Disney evidently acquired the right to Powers’ novel long ago, and when the time came to churn out another Pirates film, Elliot and Rossio reworked On Stranger Tides into the mythology of Jack Sparrow’s world. Accordingly, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides is something like the bastard progeny of a film series by way of its own grandfather.

Well, what of the new film? There’s nothing fresh to lure in viewers who long ago washed their hands of Jack Sparrow, but there’s plenty of the pulpy goodness that fans of the series expect from Elliot, Rossio, and Depp. Namely: cartoonish swashbuckling action, cunningly realized supernatural marvels, and a sense of humor that alternates between the groan-worthy and the deliriously offbeat. Happily, the writers seem to have learned a bit from the worst excesses of the past two films. The action sequences no longer go on and on to the point of monotony, and the plot is relatively straightforward compared to the tangle of double-crosses and triple-crosses that bedeviled the earlier entries. Blackbeard (Ian McShane) proves to be a menacing but thoroughly human villain, which is both a refreshing change of pace and a bit of a letdown following Nighy’s stupendous, tentacled Lucifer, Davy Jones. Despite the love-hate sparks between Jack and Blackbeard’s daughter, Angelica (Penelope Cruz), the series still insists on presenting a trite storybook romance between a couple of gorgeous white people. Instead of Bloom and Knightley, this time the chaste yearning is reserved for a sensitive missionary (Sam Claflin) and a distressed mermaid (Astrid Berges-Frisbey). It’s pointless, but at least it’s relegated to the background for this outing.

For hardcore devotees of the Pirates franchise, the most fascinating aspect of On Stranger Tides is the extent to which Jack Sparrow is actually evolving in his worldview and priorities. In this, and in an unfortunate number of plot details and gags, the writers seem to be drawing directly from the Indiana Jones films. Jack’s personality is just as cheeky and craven as ever, but the subtext running through the new film (yes, subtext!) is Jack’s emergent acceptance of mortality as a crucial component of his libertine values. Moreover, Jack’s tribulations in the first three films–and myriad off-screen misadventures–seem to have soured him on the supernatural as a shortcut to wealth and power. These wrinkles undeniably enhance the potential of the planned fifth and sixth films, especially given Jack’s predicament at the conclusion of On Stranger Tides. His unease with the confinements of the emerging eighteenth-century modernity raises the question that unabashed Pirates aficionados will have to confront: How will bonny Jack Sparrow finally meet his end?

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Quick Review: Tron: Legacy

Tuesday, December 21st, 2010

2010 (USA)
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Viewed: December 17, 2010
Format: 3D Digital Theatrical Projection (Hi-Pointe Theater)

C - Given that 1982’s Tron was intended primarily as a vehicle for bleeding-edge animation technology, it’s perhaps unsurprising that its belated sequel, Tron: Legacy, is so fixated on one-upping the original’s distinctive neon-detailed action sequences with all the eye-popping computer wizardry the twenty-first century can muster. While the sequel features appropriately gorgeous design and credible visuals—save for a creepy de-aging effect—almost every other component is dispiritingly slack or garishly off-key. This unfortunately encompasses Jeff Bridges’ performance, which presents fiftysomething, computer-entrapped Kevin Flynn as a cross between Obi-Wan Kenobi and the Dude. Garrett Hedlund, meanwhile, fits the textbook definition of the handsome cipher as Flynn’s restless, resentful son, Sam. (Do I smell a reconciliation coming? I think I do!) To its credit, the sequel presents a thoughtful thematic nucleus that legitimately builds upon the original film’s conceits: the Programs, having established the existence of Users, have now advanced to open rebellion against them, transforming their binary Eden into a terrifying Babel. However, Tron: Legacy is so preoccupied with overpowering, showy action set pieces that it doesn’t bother to properly explicate is baffling tale of virtual prisons and spontaneous digital life, or even to answer the most elementary questions raised by its wooly, convoluted science-fiction systems (see also: The Matrix Trilogy).

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No More Pencils, No More Books

Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1
UK / USA (2010)
Director: David Yates
Viewed: November 28, 2010
Format: Theatrical Print (Regal Biltmore Grande Stadium 15)

B- - The film adaptations of J.K. Rowling’s staggeringly popular fantasy novels have perfected a remarkable, distinctive formula. Once the banal hand of Chris Columbus was pried from the franchise following Chamber of Secrets, every chapter in the saga has exhibited the same characteristics: an ever-burgeoning cast of wizards, monsters, and other sundry characters seemingly destined to encompass every British thespian of note; maddeningly convoluted plots, conveyed so sketchily that only devoted fans of the books can hope to comprehend what the hell is going on; stunning, inspired production design overseen by the invaluable Stuart Craig; and exceedingly game, unfailingly charming performances from series principals Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson. The seventh film in the series, the first of a two-part finale, sticks closely to this template, a thoroughly unadventurous and (at this late date) sensible approach. Having shepherded the saga through its previous two chapters, director David Yates has learned that such a formula reliably bestows a patina of epic artistry on the franchise, inoculates it against conventional criticism, and just happens to reap billions of dollars. The films cannot be dismissed as trifling—they represent, for better or worse, the most ambitious work of long-form fantasy cinema in history—but as the series reaches its end, their significance as entertainment to viewers not already hooked on Harry’s adventures is doubtful. Which leads to the most essential question regarding Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1: How good is it, when approached strictly as the penultimate entry in the broader saga? The answer: Exactly as good as it needs to be to bring loyal Potterheads (including yours truly) back for one more outing.

(more…)

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Look/Listen: The Undiscovered Country

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010

In honor of the DVD / Blu-ray release of Toy Story 3, I’ve got a brief (but laudatory) piece up on the film at Look / Listen. Check it out.

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Metal on Metal

Monday, May 17th, 2010

Iron Man 2
2010 (USA)
Director: John Favreau
Viewed: May 16, 2010
Format: Theatrical Print (Hi-Pointe Theater)

B- - If one regards it primarily as the second chapter in a presumable trilogy of films about billionaire industrialist Tony Stark’s super-weapon persona, Iron Man 2 is a slick slice of cinematic entertainment. Director Jon Favreau and leading man Robert Downey, Jr. deliver heaping helpings of the essential vibrancy and wit that rendered the first entry in Marvel’s technophilic franchise such a giddy revelation. However, while it functions well enough as a sequel, or as a mere episode in a broader saga, Iron Man 2 is bit soggy when approached on its own merits. Favreau and scripter Justin Theroux—the actor/writer who penned the deliciously acidic Tropic Thunder—are aiming for too many targets in some scenes, while in others they seem to be spinning their wheels in anticipation of the next action set-piece. Accordingly, the film has trouble conveying the sense of nitro-fueled urgency necessary for the Iron Man myth, which is at bottom a Popular Science wet dream with a dash of guilt and ambivalence. The sequel just doesn’t hum along so effortlessly as its predecessor, which in retrospect, seems much leaner and more focused, as origin stories often are. Favreau gives us a middle chapter that is preoccupied with mortality, legacies, and thinly veiled allegories about geopolitical blowback and loose nukes. These elements are tackled with aplomb, but cobbled together in such a manner that Iron Man 2 feels a bit haphazard. Eh, no matter. We’re all just here for Downey’s quips, right?

The new film finds Tony Stark, now exposed as the man behind the crimson-and-gold suit, facing Congressional pressure to turn over his technology to the United States government. The response: “Thanks, but no thanks.”  Despite his new-found commitment to world peace, Stark’s craving for attention doesn’t seem to have diminished one iota, and when he’s not jetting off to compete in the Monaco Grand Prix, he’s producing an enormous World’s Fair-style Expo dedicated to cutting-edge technologies. Meanwhile, a nasty-looking Russian gorilla named Ivan Vanko (Mickey Rourke) labors in secret on a device that suspiciously resembles Iron Man’s arc-reactor. (When a heavily tattooed character dwells in a dank apartment with a wall of newspaper clippings about the protagonist, that character is by definition Up to No Good.) Stark has more pressings and visible concerns, however, such as the palladium in his suit’s power source that is slowly poisoning him, or his smug ass of a rival, weapons manufacturer Justin Hammer (Sam Rockwell).

In keeping with the first film, Downey is the real draw here, and as expected, he delivers the lighting wit and cocksure demeanor of Stark with swooning precision, even as the sequel grants him more scenes of private grimacing. The film’s headiest sequence involves not a robot suit soaring at Mach 3, but a moment of scientific revelation (re-discovery, really), tinged with familial warmth and painted with a whirl of holograms. Downey captures the bliss effortlessly. The cast of characters that Downey played off of so well in Iron Man has returned: Pepper Potts (Gwenyth Paltrow), James Rhodes (Don Cheadle, crisper and cooler than Terrence Howard, but much more believable as an Air Force officer), and even Favreau himself in a more substantial role as chauffeur Happy Hogan. Distracted by his crime-fighting duties, Stark elects to name a flabbergasted Pepper as CEO of Stark Industries. He then brings in a ravishing notary from the legal department, Natalie Rushman (Scarlett Johansson), to act as his new Girl Friday. (Of course, most notaries don’t have martial arts training…) Thankfully, Favreau doesn’t permit the trite girl-on-girl rivalry angle to blossom into ugly flower, and before the second act both women are butting heads with Stark over his juvenile behavior.

Favreau’s penchant for actor improvisation is on fine display here, perhaps even more so than in the previous film, with both Downey and Paltrow acquitting themselves marvelously with their effortless, rapid-fire banter. (Who knew Paltrow had it in her? Not me, certainly.) Rockwell is given free reign to create a thoroughly unlikeable villain, a whiny reflection of Stark who possesses all of his arrogance but none of his confidence. However, the character of Justin Hammer, while he might adhere to the principles of comic book villains, isn’t especially menacing. Rockwell is fun to watch, but he merely reveals how genuinely threatening Jeff Bridges was as Obadiah Stane in the first film, even (or especially) when he just wore a business suit. Sadly, Rourke seems a bit wasted here, mumbling out the odd line in a thick Russian accent and seemingly cast for his physical presence more than anything. Johansson is, well, Johansson, gorgeous but ultimately colorless, lending nothing in particular to an underwritten part.

Consistent with the first Iron Man, Favreau here exhibits his remarkable facility for rendering action sequences with clarity and drama, while maintaining the aura of cartoonish thrills that the source material fundamentally demands. Here the “shiny new toy” exhilaration of Stark’s outings is still present, but also complicated by the doses of selfish foolishness and strained friendship. There’s little need for Dark Knight chills in Favreau’s wily, jocular approach, which makes it all the stranger when the director and Theroux nod at graver thematic concerns. In one scene, an amused Vanko asserts that an attack on Iron Man doesn’t have to succeed to work: it merely has to put the scent of blood in the water. It’s an unsettling notion… until one recalls that Christopher Nolan conveyed far more with a single fearful line from Gary Oldman’s Lieutenant Gordon in Batman Begins (”What about escalation?”) Still, the result of this dire gesturing isn’t so much clumsy as cluttered, as it prevents the sequel from achieving the kind of propulsion that powered the first film’s neatly spun tale of a warmonger’s redemption. Ultimately, Favreau seems to be demanding too much of his second chapter. He wants to convey the rising global threats that Iron Man’s existence engender; conduct a corresponding critique of real-world arms races; warn of the hazards of turning to flawed Randian messiahs; and tackle the unresolved Daddy Issues that plague Stark as his own mortality creeps up on him. Meanwhile, the groundwork for the upcoming Avengers film keeps getting slathered on, which makes for some fun reveals, but diminishes the efficacy of Favreau’s proximal story. In this manner, a stirring adventure is made to feel unaccountably like a holding pattern.

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