adventure

Sci-Fi AMAD September: The Eliminators (1986)

Sep 5 2011

Sci-Fi AMAD September: The Eliminators (1986)

“What is this, anyway, some kind of comic book? We got robots, we got cavemen, we got kung fu.”

Some kind of comic book indeed. The Eliminators is a great example of why the 1980s was such a fun decade for movies. You could head into your local multiplex and find oddball craziness like this right alongside big-budget blockbusters. The whole thing plays like a 12 year old boy’s wish-list for a movie; cyborg heroes who are part tank, hot babe scientists, time travel, centurions, flying robots, cavemen, ninjas, pirates, butch lesbian river boat captains. Ok, maybe that last one is too esoteric, depending on the twelve year old.

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By Bartleby • Film, Reviews • 5 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2′ Review: A kind of magic

Jul 13 2011

‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2′ Review: A kind of magic

PCN RATING:

After ten years and seven previous films, Harry Potter, boy wizard and Chosen one, finally faces his destiny and the end of one of the most successful and daunting franchises in film history. With the help of David Yates and his astoundingly large cast of British talent, Potter gets a send-off worthy of the best fantasy adventures. This isn’t just a satisfactory wrap-up, it’s a victorious epic, bringing terrible magic and poignant beauty to the end of a long journey.

Although the first cinematic chapter of Deathly Hallows felt sternly committed to the grounded muggleness of life in war time—it’s been called ‘the camping trip movie’—this one evokes the outsized myth-making of post-war survival ballads. David Yates has been streamlining the series and keeping it firmly rooted in a recognizable and plausible universe, skimming off most of the bombast. Yates has been holding back before, but here he crafts such big, out-sized adventure that the best of it ends up as iconic and sweeping as classics like The Wizard of Oz and The Fellowship of the Ring.

Dizzying descents into goblin vaults, escapes on the backs of winged dragons, and armies of stone automatons marching on squadrons of dark wizards are amongst the exhilarating flights of fancy given refreshing realism via Yates understated visual touch. Through it all, the director and long-time Potter scripter Steve Kloves keep their focus on the characters, making this last film a testament to movie escapism both large and small.

While massive giants hurl gnarled clubs at good wizards, dark ones come behind, storming the grounds of Hogwarts like a plague of shadowy locusts. Severus Snape, serving as headmaster, skulks forebodingly in the shadows, Nagini the snake slithers along behind its master, and those spider progeny of Aragog skitter up and over the courtyard walls. Neville Longbottom, now leading the concscript army of students, joins Harry, Ron and Hermione in Hogsmead, and with the help of Aberforth Dumbledore (Albus’ brother), take back the school just in time to witness Voldemort’s forces cascade over the hill outside the Dark Forest.

And yet, fans of the series didn’t just show up to see a conflict of special effects and production design slamming haphazardly into one another. Most of us are in this for the characters, whether having fallen for them on the movie screen or the printed page, and seeing those relationships, suspicions, and tragic choices finally pay off will resonate far more deeply than any fantastical siege.

Thankfully, Yates doesn’t make us choose, and gives us both. He follows the basic battlefield strategy Rowling has set-up, but changes the emphasis in several places. This forces Harry mostly into the foreground, showcasing Radcliffe and trusting him to carry the emotional brunt of this dramatic crescendo. The young actor handles it admirably, and it’s amazing to see how much he’s grown as a performer and as Harry Potter, rising to meet the character’s legacies, both literary and fantastical. By the time Potter grabs Voldie, both of them positioned over a broken rampart, and Radcliffe fiercely intones ‘Let’s finish this Tom, the way we began it—together!’, he’s well and truly established himself as the Chosen one.

But this has never been a one-man show. Potter has always been a tale enriched by its colorful characters, of which there are a whole school full. How do you do all of them—living, dead, and in a few cases, undead—the justice they deserve in the space of a little over two hours? Rowling had more leeway on the printed page, where she took the time she felt she needed to close up shop. Yates has a ticking clock of sorts; he’s got to give them screen time, but momentum is also important to the success of the story.

For the most part, he triumphs in this regard, sometimes trumping the author herself when it comes to satisfying send-offs. Rupert Grint and Emma Watson aren’t quite as accomplished as Radcliffe in the acting department, but both hold their own, and Watson in particular illuminates small moments with a nervous/concerned energy that make more than a few scenes positively shine. Grint’s Ron mostly shambles about muttering ‘brilliant’ and being Han Solo to the bond between Harry and Hermione. At the end of the day he may get the girl, but today he’s got to hold it all together as sidekick. An additional, wonderful little kiss between he and Watson in the basilisk chamber offsets the rampant darkness with the giddy joy of life. It’s both actors best moment in the film, and possibly the franchise.

Of the other characters, two stand out above the rest; Severus Snape and Tom Riddle, both linked by tragic, odd childhoods and the twisted wreckage of dark choices. Snape and the eventual revelation of his back-story form the centerpiece of Deathly Hallows 2, and as a sequence, it’s probably Yates finest work in the film. For most of the series Alan Rickman has humbly done his Snape schtick as little more than a cameo, waltzing in, stealing a scene here or there, and waltzing back off. When Harry looks in the pensieve to see the memories of the teacher that gave him the most trouble, it’s a winning moment. Rickman sells Snape’s last scene as legitimate tragedy; in the final unfurling frames, his character is seen in full for the first time, no mask necessary.

But if Rowling’s prose expanded and vindicated Snape as a rich character, her writing of Voldemort did nothing to solidify the fearsomeness and mystery of the dark lord. In the book, he comes off like a prideful thug; a schoolyard bully writ large. This might have been partially Rowling’s intent, but he lacked real threat and menace. On screen Feinnes better understands his dichotomy; he’s more frightening, loathsome and even pathetic than the novels’ version. Without Feinnes imposing, yet restrained, performance he wouldn’t be nearly as memorable.

The supporting players are all wonderful. I nearly clapped aloud when Maggie Smith’s ancient Professor McGonnagal picks up her wand and works REAL magic. Her protective shield over Hogwarts physically trembles like the membranes of a leaf, and when she wills the very architecture of the castle to rise up and defend it, she summons memories of fellow classy Brit broad Angela Lansbury animating medieval armor to fend off Nazis in ‘Bedknobs and Broomsticks’. Warwick Davis, an underrated film presence of there ever was one, does double duty as two characters. Although goblin Griphook is a fascinating turn, diminutive Prof Flitwick gets lost (figuratively not literally) beneath the tramping armies of the final milieu. Matthew Lewis as Neville has grown right out of his gawkiness to be a heroic everyman; the books made him a kind of counter-Harry, a chosen one for the underdog. Yates cut those bits from Phoenix that suggested Neville might have been the prophesied warrior, but he delivers the same implication via Lewis’ strong, steadfast delivery of a touching battlefield speech. Ciaran Hinds as Aberforth is a really effective addition, and it shows how carefully cast these things are because he’s only got one real scene to his name. All of the others you are wondering about are here too, given varying amounts of screen time and/or things to do. Victims of an overstuffed adventure, the Malfoys are probably the most ill-used. Then again, this was also true of the novel.

At the end of the day, this is a great fantasy, and one of the finest caps to a long-running saga that I’ve ever seen. From Alexander Desplat’s moody and engaging score, that knows just when to evoke John William’s iconic theme, to Eduardo Serra’s cinematography that casts light and shadow in their own war for dramatic substance, this is a film of handsome craft and emotional urgency. With so much moody splendor on screen, the 3D version of Potter just gets in its own way. No matter, that’s not the best way to see it anyway. Yates understands that all the extra dimensions we need look for are hiding there under the skin of the characters. And in the end, when we reach Rowling’s gentle but silly epilogue, there’s an honest to goodness farewell for the series that just feels right.  

That’ll do, Harry. That’ll do.

By Bartleby • Featured, Reviews • 1 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Cool new poster for this summer’s ‘Conan the Barbarian’!

Jul 10 2011

Cool new poster for this summer’s ‘Conan the Barbarian’!

As the release date for Marcus Nispel’s  Conan the Barbarian gets closer, I find myself cautiously optimistic for it. The previous posters and trailers have made it look like a potentially good time at the movies. The cast is good, the production values are there, and there looks to be more Robert E. Howard here than in Milius’ 1982 version with Arnold Schwarzenegger. Additionally, after seeing Jason Momoa do his berserker thing on HBO’s Game of Thrones, I’ve convinced he can give us a Conan worthy of the character’s legacy.

Now we have this latest poster, which will no doubt look nice sitting in a theater lobby. Still, Nispel’s last movie, Pathfinder had some striking posters and still amounted to a limp swashbuckling disappointment.

What do you think? How does it fare against the promo art for previous Howard adaptations?

Check them out below. For kicks, I’ve even included Kull the Conquerer. 

 

By Bartleby • news • 1 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

‘Cars 2′ Review: Running on Empty

Jun 23 2011

‘Cars 2′ Review: Running on Empty

PCN RATING:

It was bound to happen eventually.

 Even the best and brightest produce a dud, and Pixar has dodged that bullet eleven times in a row. Looks like it’s 12—instead of 13—that’s the unlucky number for the studio, because their newest, ‘Cars 2’, is a real beater. Trading up the original’s wistful tale of of the fading glory of Route 66 for a convoluted stab at the globe-trotting spy genre, Cars 2 manages a hat trick; it doesn’t really work for anyone.

The story follows a big international racing circuit that gives an excuse for Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) and Mater (Larry the Cable Guy) to leave sleepy-little Radiator Springs and travel to picturesque  locales like Italy and Japan. When Mater publicly embarrasses McQueen (sadly, this involves too much wasabi, an automated toilet, and redneck antics) he puts a strain on their friendship and it opens the door for misadventures. Before you can say ‘Da’gum!’ the dippy, hay-seed tow truck gets caught up with British spy cars Finn McMissle (Michael Caine) and Holly Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer). They are investigating the sabotage of race cars and mistake Mater for a double agent. The rest is more or less a tongue-in-cheek romp through James Bond set pieces and stale automotive one-liners.

2006’s Cars is by no means my favorite of the Pixar cannon, but I do find it a cute movie with an endearing core that fell short of the other entries. This one doesn’t have the same heart and it shows. Presumably made to cash-in on the little kids who made the first a post box-office smash, it forgets an important fact: none of them were sitting in a theater for the original. Watching something at home between snacks and naps, while running your toy cars to and fro in front of the television is much different than being slammed into a booster seat in a dark, crowded room for a little over two hours. If you count the twenty minutes of additional shorts, previews, and promos Disney crams at the start, there’s little here to justify the crankiness most parents are going to get for their time, trouble and money.

Since Cars 2  is basically a Star Wars-esque  movie event for the 3 to 6 crowd,  it makes sense that Lasseter and the writers would go for something more adventurous this time around. But while changing the cars whizzing ‘zoom!’ to an exploding ‘boom!’ seems like a bang-up idea at first, it ends up being a bit too fearsome for the target audience, who may be likely to cry when they see the bad guys attempting to straight-up assassinate Lightning McQueen Lee Harvey Oswald style. Before that, some cars (in this universe that means some characters) get compacted into squares of trash, blown up with cannons, and in one case, purposefully incinerated.

 The plot is a giant mess. If it’s not enough for parents to endure a kid’s film with Larry the Cable Guy as a lead, they will also get a car ride home where they can explain to their children what clean-burning fuel is and why it made the bad guys go crazy. Larry’s character Mater isn’t cut-out for the spotlight and his meager brand of comedy only highlights his awkwardness. This shifting focus feels much like what would happen if someone made a Toy Story movie that revolved completely around the slinky dog or Hamm the piggy bank.

 Yes, the animation is beautiful and the technical team does their usually stunning work. There is no lack of detail and innovation in the world created, but I’m not exactly taken with this strange universe—for one thing, it still doesn’t follow any kind of logic, child-like or otherwise. There are other machines and buildings but they don’t speak, and apparently things like fossil fuels and wasabi are organic even though nothing else appears to be.  Why does any of it exist if there are no human beings?  When our hearts fail to be engaged, our minds wander, and there’s much to puzzle at here.

Cars 2 may not be a terrible kid’s film, but it’s a sorely disappointing one, especially for parents gearing up to take their Cars-obsessed tykes out to the theater.Trimming to a sleek 80 minutes with a tighter, wittier script would have improved the movie immensely. That isn’t the movie we got though. Better luck next time Pixar. If you can make Brave as engaging as the teaser trailer, all will be forgiven.

A note on the 3-D: Yes, it’s handled well enough, but it causes the film to seem far less colorful and bright than it’s predecessor. Better save those few extra bucks for emergency snacks.

CARS 2 GALLERY:

  

By Bartleby • Featured, Reviews • 1 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Is Emma Stone ready for more ‘Zombies’?

Jun 23 2011

Is Emma Stone ready for more ‘Zombies’?

 

Ah, Emma Stone. She fought the undead in Zombieland and skewered classic literature in Easy A. Now, it seems, she might be set to do both at the same time.

Stone, who has this summer’s The Help coming up, as well as her role as Mary Jane Watson in the next Spiderman, has been offered the role of Elizabeth Bennett in the irreverent Jane Austen adaptation, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.

Helmed by Craig Gillespie, whose horror comedy Fright Night also opens this August, P&P&Z has been trying on a few different female leads over the past months. Previous potential Elizabeths have included Anne Hathaway, Mia Wasikowska, and one of the film’s producers, Natalie Portman. So far, no one has signed on.

Personally, I quite enjoyed the book and found it to be surprisingly respectful of Austen’s spirit and intent while gleefully adding in things like the undead eating their way through Regency England and secret cults of ninja assassins. Emma Stone, who has a terrific gift for comedy and playfulness, would no doubt bring the necessary charm and goofy energy to the role.

What do you think? Is it too soon for Emma Stone to return to zombie land?

By Bartleby • Film, news, Uncategorized • 0 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Second trailer for Fox’s ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ gets wild!

Jun 5 2011

Second trailer for Fox’s ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ gets wild!

PCN posted the original teaser trailer for ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ a few months ago, but now Fox has released a longer trailer that focuses on Caesar and the eventual revolution staged by he and his simian counterparts.

 

Although it’s obviously borrowing from 1970′s Conquest of the Planet of the Apes–sans the civil rights angle of that picture– this new version looks intriguing. I’m sold, based on the Weta FX and those scenes of the apes crowded on rooftops carrying some form of makeshift weaponry.

 

The big question for the film comes down to the script. Based on this trailer, Caesar releases the toxin that increases ape and chimpanzee intelligence into the air. Still, even excessive smarts aren’t going to help a much smaller population without the benefit of technological advancement against the entire human race.

 

I’m guessing that another toxin–or perhaps a byproduct of ‘the cure’– will assist in decimating the human beings. If the film can find the right balance between the fantasy of the scenario and the speculative heart of the story itself, this could be a summer sleeper hit. 

 

Either way, this one looks a cut above Tim Burton’s tepid 2001 Planet of the Apes ‘reimagining’.  Rise of the Planet of the Apes will release on August 5th.

By Bartleby • Featured, news • 0 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

‘Fast Five’ Review: Bigger, Faster, Dumber, Better

Apr 29 2011

‘Fast Five’ Review: Bigger, Faster, Dumber, Better

PCN RATING:

It was recently announced that Justin Lin might be taking over the Terminator franchise with Arnold Schwarzenneger in tow. After seeing the director’s latest, dumbest—and best!—entry in the Fast and the Furious franchise, I can understand why. Working from a lackluster series of carsploitation flicks, Lin and his team take the most insanely idiotic script of the year and turn it into a high-octane crowd pleaser that actually gets the blood pumping. This is the film last summer’s The Expendables wanted to be.

 Picking up where the fourth film left off, Fast Five begins with Dominic Toretto (Diesel) on his way to prison. This self-imposed (sort of) incarceration is short lived—about 40 seconds or so – because his spunky little sis Mia (Jordana Brewster) and  ex-FBI officer Brian O’Connor (Paul Walker) show up in race cars and annihilate the laws of physics in order to bust him out. Flash now to Rio, where O’Connor and Mia are prepping for the arrival of a baby and Dom and Vince (the original film’s Matt Schulze) have set-up a new gig to grab some stolen cars.

Two new forces threaten the makeshift Toretto clan. One is a corrupt Rio drug lord named Reyes (Almeida) who has the city more or less in his pocket and the other is Special Agent Hobbs (Johnson), a relentless muscle-bound tracker who won’t stop until he’s got Dom and Brian in custody.  A new plan is born when they realize they have the drug delivery schedules for all of Reyes’ operations and assemble a team to steal his empire out from under him.

The smartest turn of the story—indeed perhaps the only one—is the way the film nonchalantly slips from illegal street racing (there’s not a single action scene dedicated to it) to a more traditional heist film that blends The Italian Job and Ocean’s Eleven with the decidedly low-brow FF franchise. It’s here that Lin connects the comic-book infused earlier segments with the central story by bringing in a rogue’s gallery of returning characters from every last one of the other films.

All of the performers are right on target for the material, and Diesel and Johnson in particular know how to respond to those safe pitches the script keeps throwing them. Both actors have untapped stores of charisma and energy in them, but Fast Five never requires any of that. It only wants them oiled up, muscles rippling and  scowls raised as they charge like stampeding bulls over the rickety corrugated tops of the favelas.

When the film eventually gets around to their big brawl, Lin makes it a bone-crunching and virile affair with all the right intensity and impact. There’s a third act arrangement that might not ring completely true, but it fits with the rest of the whacked-out script and deserves to exist for no other reason than to provide the best mutual bicep squeeze since Carl Weathers and Ahnuld had their testosterone-soaked reunion at the start of Predator.

The action in the film is of course the main reason to see it and as presented is the connective tissue that stands in for character motivation and psychology. Everything on the script level is either a brittle cliché (It always had to end like this,’ ‘I won’t lose you again’) or something wonderfully bone-headed. Take for instance one of Hobb’s lackeys saying ‘I’ve got good news and bad news for you’ and then Johnson growling out impatiently ‘You know I like dessert first. Then give me the veggies!’  So, what characters punch, drive, or blow-up defines who they are and in a film like Fast Five, that’s a whole lot of definition.

About those action scenes. They are spectacular,  wildly implausible, and refreshingly coherent visually.  The laws of physics and gravity aren’t simply ignored, they are outright erased from the universe. The set piece involving Dom and Brian racing next to a speeding train and literally ripping a hole into one of the compartments so they can drive off the stolen cars is even less logically motivated than the dreamy action scenes in Inception. But look at it as a piece of kinetic, escapist filmmaking, throwing away earthbound limitations in favor of pure adrenaline, and it becomes a thing of crazed beauty. This is The Great Train Robbery puffed up and inflated for the Grand Theft Auto generation.

The second half of the movie that develops the heist is surprisingly covert in the way it prepares us for the mind-numbing action of the final chase. Lin keeps marching you through the steps,  the practice, a turn here, a turn there. We know how it’s supposed to go down, and so when lunacy breaks out, our mind fills in the parts we have already seen. It boils the scene down to its purest action beats and that’s one of Fast Five’s greatest strengths in general. Despite an overflow of content, it’s surprisingly economical.

This economy also hampers the pic to some degree. Yes, the script is expected to be undercooked, but sometimes it’s baffling in what it leaves out. Dom’s relationship with Elsa Pataky’s noble police officer is occasionally confusing; we suspect she knows something he doesn’t and the script is so vague it’s hard to know if it’s being clever or clumsy. The final revelation after the credits also suggests that some things may not be what they seem. Or maybe FF just dumps in events without thinking about them. It hardly matters because it’s all about the moment here, a visceral thrill, and on that level it’s hard to criticize the film too harshly.

It would be easy to consider Lin’s film a guilty pleasure or a good ‘bad’ movie, but it’s simply too well made for that, no matter how trashy or implausible it gets. Lin elevates willful stupidity to nearly an art form. There’s no better way I can think to start the  summer movie season than with Vin Diesel dragging a bank vault the size of a small apartment through the streets of Rio De Janeiro with nothing more than a nitrus-charged car and one hell of a sturdy chain.

By Bartleby • Featured, Reviews • 0 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Two new trailers for ‘X-Men: First Class’ reveal new footage!

Apr 27 2011

Two new trailers for ‘X-Men: First Class’ reveal new footage!

There’s only a month or so between us and Matthew Vaughn’s X-Men prequel ‘First Class’ and today sees the arrival of not one but two new trailers.

The first of the two is the last full U.S. trailer to debut before the June 3rd release date. There’s more of the relationship between Erik (Michael Fassbender) and Charles (James McAvoy) and new sequences during the Cuba campaign that feature some impressive special effects. There’s also more of the team, including some sweet shots of Banshee, Beast and Mystique.

I’m enjoying the interplay between the actors and the emotional beats in this particular trailer. There’s a story to tell here and Vaughn seems to have grasped the tone, something that it took Singer at least one film to grasp and Ratner missed completely.

The second trailer is an international trailer and does a better job of demonstrating the dramatic context for the film. Both highlight the action scenes, but the second one is the first footage to actually make excited for the movie on a story level.

 I’m also looking forward to seeing current indie darling Lawrence take on a genre role like Mystique, and Fassbender’s Magneto looks more compelling with each new scene revealed.

By Bartleby • Featured, news • 1 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

By the Gods! New trailer for Tarsem Singh’s ‘Immortals’!

Apr 27 2011

By the Gods! New trailer for Tarsem Singh’s ‘Immortals’!

Relativity Media has finally debuted a look at its Greek mythology epic Immortals, directed by fantasist Tarsem Singh, the visionary director responsible for The Fall and The Cell. Built from similar materials as last year’s Clash of the Titans, Immortals looks far more compelling on a sensory level.

Telling the story of legendary hero Theseus (Henry Cavill), a young peasant rising up to fight evil warlord Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) with the helps of the Gods, Immortals looks to deliver tons of delicious eye candy and plenty of epic battles. As is usually the case with Singh’s work, the costuming and weaponry are of particular interest, especially Theseus’ magical bow and arrows. 

If Tarsem can make this hodge podge of fantasy and antique drama resonate in the way that The Fall did, then expect the geek world to take notice. Then again, he’s also responsible for The Cell, a garbled and downright irritating exercise in style suffocating substance. It’s still too early to tell if this is more the former than the latter, but this first peek has me intrigued to see more.

Immortals is produced by Gianni Nunnari (300) and Mark Canton (300)  and stars Henry Cavill, Isabel Lucas, Freida Pinto, Luke Evans, Kellan Lutz, Stephen Dorf and Oscar nominee Mickey Rourke. The film will release on November 11th, 2011 and will also be available in 3D.

By Bartleby • Featured, news • 2 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hail Caesar! ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ trailer hits!

Apr 14 2011

Hail Caesar! ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ trailer hits!

Well hello there, you damn dirty apes!

Rupert Wyatt’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, a  reboot of the classic sci-fi franchise, just got its first teaser trailer.

The buzz for this movie seems to have popped up from almost nowhere. Of course, that can be mostly attributed to this week’s earlier reveal of the ape effects, done by WETA (Avatar, Lord of the Rings) and the brief clips of Andy Serkis’ sentient simian Caesar glaring out at the internet community with suspicious eyes.  Now, the longer trailer is here. So, how does it look? See for yourself

Check the embed below or go watch it directly at Apple:

Incredibly far-fetched right? Beyond the realm of the plausible? Utterly ridiculous. No way is James Franco a brilliant geneticist. No way. As for all that stuff about the primates of the world getting a brain boost and defeating mankind armed only with grunts, feces and bananna peels? I think that’s reasonable.

Seriously, I think this one looks promising. I wasn’t expecting something as grounded in reality (well, to a point) as this one seems to be. The Apes films that have come to us previously, including the original, Burton’s film, and this entries’ most similar relative, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, have all been decidedly campy in one way or the other. Wyatt’s movie, freed from the constraints of the other stories, has some latitutde as it starts at the beginning. And for once, here’s a prequel that has a story to tell.

How did we get to that point where Charlton Heston is on the beach, screaming at a broken Statue of Liberty? The answer here seems to have something to do with Franco’s scientist, his collaborator Frieda Pinto, and a super-smart ape named Caesar. I like the overall look of the film; there’s something less shiny and more straightforward here. Also, the apes in the film are the first iteration, and therefore have no additional human attributes. No Roddy McDowell riding a horse, just armies of angry chimps and gorillas traipsing about the city streets.

If the script can build the same kind of humanity into the critters that WETA has built into Caesar’s eyes, then we might have the best Apes movie since the original. This has just leapt to the top of my most anticipated summer movies.

By Bartleby • Featured, news • 1 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

PCN Editorial: A Marine’s perspective on ‘Battle:Los Angeles’

Mar 24 2011

PCN Editorial: A Marine’s perspective on ‘Battle:Los Angeles’

It’s been bringing in the bucks at the boxoffice, had one of America’s esteemed critics call it a movie made for idiots, and incited alot of divided feelings among movie geeks here on the internet. Battle: Los Angeles might just be another popcorn movie, but it’s not just fading away or out of sight just yet. Personally, I had a good time with the movie and have felt the performance of Aaron Eckhart growing on me since the first viewing.

In fact, I’ve considered altering my original review. Ultimately, I shelved that folly in favor of printing another take on the film. This one from an PCN regular Xiphos, who has served the United States for many years as a Marine and has his own thougrhts on Battle: L.A. If you think his military service automatically qualifies a rave review, think again. Xi is the hardest critic of war pictures I’ve ever seen, and he’s found something in Battle Los Angeles that’s worth latching onto. Enough from me though, enjoy….

XIPHOS EXPLAINS WHY BATTLE L.A. IS A KICK-ASS WAR FILM

Battle: Los Angeles is an excellent movie unfairly and untruthfully maligned by well known critics and online wanna-be well known critics. Because of the flagrant and outright lies being ascribed to Battle: Los Angeles, Mr. Bartleby asked me to write a review for the movie because I am in the United States Marine Corps. Let me be up front here. Because I’m doing the same job as depicted in the movie isn’t why I am going to defend the movie. I am sticking up for the movie because it’s well crafted and is better than it has any right to be and well crafted movies from Hollywood are an increasingly rare event so excellent movies need to be championed and not burdened by the lies and envy of reviewers.

How this review is going to work is that I am going to follow Ebert’s hatchet job and lie-filled review and refute it point by knife in the back point. At the end of the review, I am absolutely going to eviscerate the single most stupid and politically motivated attack on the movie which I have seen in many places, namely that Battle: LA is a recruitment tool for the United States Marine Corps. During the review I am going to use specific points from the movie to show that Ebert deliberately lied between the times he showed his complete ignorance of how the Marine Corps works and the intellectually laziness of his review. So if you have not seen Battle: LA and want to be spoiler free, go somewhere else and stop hanging out in movie review sites.

Battle: LA is about an Alien invasion of LA and in Ebert’s words it’s “noisy, violent, ugly and stupid. Its manufacture is a reflection of appalling cynicism on the part of its makers, who don’t even try to make it more than senseless chaos.” In the immortal words of the useless baby boomer generation, if it’s too loud you’re too old and Ebert, you are a fossil whose time has passed. Could you please point me to a war movie or a war for that matter that is quite? I’ve been in a few and they’re loud. You have Marines firing M4 Rifles, M249, M204 40mm Grenade launchers, dropping M67 hand grenades, M9 Pistols and an AT-4 and using C4 which gives you primary and secondary explosions. You have Alien armament and human and Alien aircraft all of which are LOUD old man and the movie reflects this. It’s “violent”. Well DUH, it’s a war movie. Was the movie supposed to be a peaceful invasion movie?

How the heck does that work? Of course it’s violent. It’s an INVASION of Alien soldiers. The thought of a war movie not being violent is laughable in the extreme and shows that Ebert was grasping for anything he can find to bolster his already weak arguments against the movie. Uh Rog, how was the movie ugly? Santa Monica was getting destroyed and not just by the Aliens and by human fixed and rotary wing aircraft. I really don’t understand this argument at all. If it’s about the cinematography then Ol’ Rog is just flat out lying, the movie is beautifully shot. What cynicism? The movie is earnest and straight forward. You’re whining about senseless chaos in a war movie? I have news news for you Rog, war is chaotic and they capture this idea perfectly. Often times when you are a forward operating unit you don’t know what’s going on except for what’s right in front of you. It IS chaotic. Oh, and by the way Rog, the movie isn’t Sci Fi, it’s a straight up men-on-mission movie straight out of the 60′s studio pipe line. You could easily replace Alien raiders with Nazi, Japanese, Al Queda or Apaches. It’s not totally sci fi, it’s men with a dangerous job to do in unnatural brutal circumstances or as it’s known colloquially, WAR. It just uses sci fi tropes to stage the story.

So Rog, you need everything explained to you? Why would we know right off what the Aliens were up to? Sweet fancy Moses, this is picking at some very small nits. Especially since you have praised other movies that use ambiguity. Since you decided to dislike the movie from the get go you were happy to play the hypocrite card.

The Alien design needs a Razzie? How do we know those were the actual Aliens and not bio mechanical Alien soldiers? Because to me those things were expendable drones used as shock troops and nothing drives that point home than by the fact that they lost their air support when the commo hub was blown up. They were not the Aliens themselves, they were just worker bee’s like most of the prawns from District 9. Oh by the way, didn’t District 9 use a throw away line as to why the Aliens were in Jo Burgh? You liked that movie, didn’t you? The design of the Aliens troop and air assets were perfectly serviceable in the manner of what is know as “industrial”.

Here is the one point we will agree on before I disagree. Aaron Eckhart as SSGT Michael Nantz was phenomenal in the role. To me, Eckhart has never been much more than mayonnaise on white bread and nothing more but in Battle: LA, Eckhart found a whole other gear and was spectacularly believable as Nantz (although there is no way an obviously competent guy like Nantz would be a SSGT after 20 years but that is a minor quibble.) He was note perfect and found a depth to the character that was as surprising as it was moving. Eckhart did admirable and honorable work as SSGT Nantz.

The rest of the Red shirts and survivors of the squad (they were only a squad reinforced with an element from the weapons platoon. They were never a platoon. I’ll let you off on this one Rog since this mistake is on the writer) did good work with what they were given to do.  Let’s be clear here this movie belongs to Eckhart and to a lesser extent Michele Rodriquez, Michael Pena and Bridget Mondrian. The last two were essentially working a long cameo.

Rog. your comments about the dialogue are a flat out lie and you know it. Yes,  there was screamed dialogue DURING the combat scenes because you know combat is LOUD, you twerp, but you know that was less than 50% of the dialogue. More than 50% of the time conversation involving multiple words occurred. For instance, in the Santa Monica PD, in the house the Marines held up in before they reached the PD, at the convenience store after they cleared the PD, the FOB, the tunnels before the commo ship attack, etc. There were others times but I believe I have made my point. You should apologize for this lie and for the next one. Oh and the Nigerian “surgeon” isn’t a surgeon you fool, he was a Navy Hospital Corpsmen that is assigned to a Marine Infantry platoon. Traditionally Corpsmen are refereed to as “Doc”. Did they take your hearing out along with the jaw bone? It was explained in the flashback before the action started.

Here’s the next lie you should apologize for sir. You know perfectly well that the ship you are referring to was the command and control hub for the drones and not a battleship. You don’t have memory issues do you? You can remember the raiders came from space and have some more advance technology than earthlings, right? Yet you construct a straw man argument around this nonsensical issue? For shame Roger, for shame. Also the “cluttered” look on the attack drones (not battleships) looked to me like weapons platforms and propulsion hubs. I agree they weren’t “pretty” space ships but they were functional and deadly or did you miss that part?

The editing wasn’t lazy it was appropriate for the movie and it looked like it was a mix of steady and “shaky” cam. The mix gave the movie a suitable gritty and disorienting feel, when NEEDED. That is an important distinction to make since they don’t abuse shaky cam and quick editing. You want to see laughable editing techniques, look at Matt Damon in those awful Bourne movies. They try hide they fact that Damon can’t fight worth a bucket of spit by close-up shaky cam and fast cuts. That close-up style leaves the viewer disoriented and at a loss as to what is going on. In Battle: Los Angeles they kept the camera pulled back so it anchored the viewer with a sense of geography and you knew what was happening.

The Gunfight at the OK Corral? Geez Louise, you are a fan of straw man arguments, aren’t you? You are comparing a short relatively fast gunfight in a western to a war movie with sci fi elements? Rog, you really need to retire before you embarrass yourself any more. You know insulting people that disagree with your take on a movie isn’t the best way to go. In the case of Battle: Los Angeles, I am proud to accept the title of “idiot” from you for liking a well crafted well acted WAR movie with some emotional depth.

Lastly and probably the most offensively stupid notion about Battle: Los Angeles I saw was that somehow the movie is a recruitment to for the marine Corps. How? Did any of you genius reviewers see that the Marines took a physical and mental beating in the movie? And that most of the squad got killed along with one of the civilians? Did any of you ax grinders notice the toll that was extracted from SSGT Nantz? No, you were too busy figuring out how to quell the voices in your heads that said you were scared and weak and don’t pack the gear it takes to serve in the Navy let alone the United States Marine Corps.

By Bartleby • Featured, Film • 2 • Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Mar 5 2011

‘Super’ Trailer

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Feb 27 2011

‘Age of Dragons’ Trailer

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‘The Bleeding’ Review

Feb 25 2011

‘The Bleeding’ Review

Rating: R for violence, language and brief nudity. Directed by: Charlie Picerni Written by: Lance Lane (screenplay) Starring: Vinnie Jones, Michael Madsen, Armand Assante, Katherine von Drachenberg, Michael Matthias

PCN Rating:

Charles Picerni’s The Bleeding is exactly the sort of movie the poster is selling, with not a single jot of anything extra. Boasting a line-up of third tier actors like Michael Madsen, Armand Assante and Vinnie Jones, this horror-action mash-up plays like Blade if he were moonlighting on The Fast and the Furious. The difference, of course, is that Picerni (brother of the late stuntman and actor Paul Picerni) made this movie for maybe one-fifteenth the cost of those aforementioned pictures. It isn’t original but it chugs amiably along like a low-rent beater, running on the fumes of action classics past.

Trudging through whole stolen sections of bigger and better movies, Picerni and his scriptwriter Lance W. Lane spin the reheated tale of an orphaned hero stalking a clan of vampires whose leader murdered his parents. Bald and buff Michael Matthias, looking like the bastard love child of Vin Diesel and John Cena, plays lead as Shane Black, a hulking Army ranger who has spent most of his life hunting down the villainous Cain, who also happens to be his brother.  

Now imagine Vinnie Jones in a hilariously unconvincing performance as a vampire who dresses like a color-blind 70’s pimp with Amy Winehouse’s overbite. That’s Cain, and his big plan is to make an army of clubbing, white-trash vampires intent on ruling the world and sticking it to all clubbing, euro-trash vampires who think they own this tired-ass genre. Jones is usually menacing when he’s capitalizing on his bruiser’s mug and brick layer’s façade. Stick him in seersucker and he becomes a vision of stone-faced death, ala Midnight Meat Train or the raucous Survive Style 5+. Here he looks like he just missed a ride on the shoe bus with Priscilla, Queen of the Desert.

From Matthias’ over-serious pot-boiler narration to the insignificant side-players like DMX’s sidekick and Kat Von D’s slutty vampiress, The Bleeding is stuffed full of out-dated clichés and dialogue designed to make it seem cooler than it is. The budget, which is admittedly thin, doesn’t help proceedings because even though everything looks glossy and shiny, there’s not a single scene that can really wow. If you are going to rip-off the greats make sure you have the resources to make an impression.

Picerni has plenty of experience in the stunt arena and he does stage some surprisingly competent chase sequences, including a Road Warrior homage at film’s end that sees Matthais mounted on top of a truck firing his shotgun at pursuing vamps in muscle cars and motorcycles. It offers up a few minutes of goofy, kuckle-headed fun but it comes off as ‘workmanlike’ and is far-and-away from ‘impressive’.  It still doesn’t make up for the numerous scenes of tedium and the cringe worthy and half-baked image of vampires writhing under strobe lights with Jones watching on like a demented carnival barker.

There’s some effort expended to make Rachelle Leah’s Lena an appealing love interest for Matthais’ Black, but neither of them is convincing as a character and together there’s zero chemistry. Clearly over his head, Matthais throws himself into the role and struggles to make his physicality carry the movie when his line reading comes up DOA. To be fair, he’s given dialogue that would make Ed Wood cringe, so the fault doesn’t lie completely with him. Both he and Leah do improve as they go along and I’d not be opposed to seeing either in a film that knew better what to do with them.

Even though he misses the boat with the newbies, Picerni’s television pedigree has actually made him a reasonable director of veteran actors. He lets Jones mug so ferociously that he almost transforms Cain into welcome comic relief, and helps Michael Madsen give a performance that actually displays the actor’s talents. Madsen, usually a notorious paycheck casher in roles like this one, is enjoying himself as Father Roy, the prerequisite hard-drinking, swearing, man of faith who would have already rid the world of vampires if not for that pesky eternal hangover he’s always got.

From the moment Black and company find him passed out behind a tombstone surrounded by empty bottles, Madsen steals the show. He’s having fun and generously allowing everyone around him to play off his energy. He even makes the religious mumbo-jumbo go down easy by growling lines like ‘It’s in the Bible…somewhere.’  Assante, as a hard-boiled cop tracking the vampire feeding frenzy, doesn’t fare as well because he’s only in one scene. Unlike Madsen, he’s not given enough time to overcome the vibe that he’s just slumming.

While it’s a relief to find that The Bleeding isn’t painful to watch I still can’t recommend it, even to those schlockmeisters looking for a bit of doltish Friday night fun. The truth is you have seen all this done elsewhere and better. There are moments here that reminded me of that king of camp, Roger Corman, and indeed this picture would have worked better in the era of the drive-in, when action audiences restless for a fix of their favorites couldn’t just turn on the Netflix or hit their dvd collection to satiate their urges. With access to Blade, The Road Warrior, and hell, even Vamp readily available there’s absolutely no reason to touch a single drop of The Bleeding.

 

By Bartleby • Reviews • 2 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Movie Review: I Am Number Four

Feb 18 2011

Movie Review: I Am Number Four

PCN RATING:

The aliens have arrived among us and they have officially claimed our movie theaters . Leading the next wave of interstellar cinematic invasions is the wispy little teen thriller I Am Number Four. Based off a series of young adult novels, Four mixes jittery teen anxiety with superhero wish fulfillment, throwing in some gnarly weapons and grotesque beasties for good measure. The film plays less like an original story and more like a greatest hits version of sci-fi classics but Caruso and his young yet endearing cast do a reasonable job of bringing all the borrowed bits together.

Brit Alex Pettyfer gives a likable if stiff performance as the alien teenager John, the fourth of nine cosmic children sent from the dying planet Lorien to Earth to hide from the Mogadorians. Bald-headed, razor-toothed monsters who decimate and stripmine the planets they visit, the Mogs are killing the nine in order. In the film’s rousing intro in the jungles of Africa, they dispatch number Three. Johnis hanging out on the beaches of California when he feels the death of  third Lorian via a psychic connection, sending he and his guardian Henri (Timothy Olyphant) fleeing to Paradise, Ohio.

 In Paradise, John begins honing his new-found ‘legacy’–the powers bequeathed him from his diminished homeworld– while Henri searches for a missing archeologist. Struggling through high school and coming to grips with his abilities as a ‘Lumen’ (shiny, glowy hands don’t ya know) John  falls in love with blond and quirky Sarah, played by the radiant Dianne Argon (Glee) who makes Bella Swan look like limp goth bait.  As the Mogdorians close in, John gains allies in the form of Sam Goode (Callan McAuliffe), a bullied student whose father is the missing scientist, and Number Six (Teresa Palmer), the bad-ass blonde Australian war-machine who’s taken the fight right to the alien menace.

The script by Alfred Gough, Miles Millar and Marti Noxon gives some nice texture to the world surrounding John and Sarah and some of the best sequences are also the most mundane; an off-the-cuff family dinner with Sarah’s family reveals the inner longings of alien Four’s heart while under-cover Mogadorians relieve a nearbhy supermarket off all their raw turkeys. Guillermo Navarro, lenser of Pan’s Labyrinth and the recent Sanctum, makes the pulpy imagery and silly special effects–like John’s glowing hands and the Mogs’ flying reptiles–resonate when Caruso’s pedestrian direction doesn’t.

The acting does the job across the board, with Cauliffe and Palmer shining as the secondary pair of heroes, Sam and Six. When Sarah and John prove too bland, this duo enliven the proceedings. Palmer trades up her faux yank accent for her native Aussie and steals the film in the explosive finale. Olyphant’s Henri doesn’t have much to do but the actor takes a throwaway part and builds underlying poignancy in the places where a more elaborate backstory should be. Kevin Durand is hidden behinds plenty of waxy makeup but he provides the Mogadorian leader with campy menace that works.

All of this would be more interesting with a more original story at the film’s center and with a more inventive director behind the camera. I’ve not read the source material but wikipedia confirms that the film has jettisoned most of the meatybackstory. In that version, a charm bestowed by the Lorians prevents the nine from being dispatched out of order. Onscreen, it’s never clear why the Mogs can’t just kill Six or the rest before capping Four. Caruso keeps the early chapters steeped in the familiar grounds of coming-of-age teen drama but at best it’s like a Disney special on steroids.

And then, there’s the movie’s final third, which unleashes the building action elements in a sustained stream of wild and kinetic combat. John, Sarah, Sam and Six battle the Mogs at the local high school and Caruso comes fully alive for the first time. Lasers are fired, monsters are unleashed, heroes leap through the air like human torpedoes and Number Six evokes  Buffy the Vampire Slayer in a scene wheres she reduces fanged creatures to ash in the shadowed halls of the school. When Four’s Chimera–his animal guardian in hiding–takes on the Mog’s winged hunters, the movie is channeling the spirt of Ray Harryhausen’s classic monster fights.

In the end, I Am Number Four is a bit too routine and unsteady to fully charm the hardcore genre crowd, but it will play well for younger audiences who have yet to discover the fantasy/sci-fi section of their library. There’s something charming and goofy about its adherence to older tropes and it understands the comfort and draw of Campbellian archetypes. In a world where Twilight and Transformers rule the boxoffice, a lively, if unoriginal, spark like I am Number Four is a welcome light in the dark.

By Bartleby • Film, Reviews • 3 • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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