C.B. Pratt's Blog, page 3

Thor 2 -- The Dark World: Which One Was That Again?

It may seem odd to call a movie that cost approximately $200 Million to make 'a plucky little film' but that's how Thor 2 comes across. This is an action movie that could have easily sat on its Asgardian laurels with an attitude of 'yeah, I'm a sequel to a successful super hero movie, so let's play it safe and not screw this up.' Instead, it got in there and fought for every joke, every quotable moment, every second of emotion.

The actors turn in uniformly terrific performances, including Chris Hemsworth who only had two emotions in the first movie, angry and perplexed. Mind you, he does a great angry and his perplexed isn't bad either. But here he demonstrated a greater range, thanks in part to a script that let him be more than just a hunk with great hair and killer abs. Natalie Portman seemed a bit more committed this time to the role of Jane, though we still are never given any real reason for these two people to love one another. They are hardly ever alone, hardly ever given time to do anything but run, fight, and duck. Superhero movies almost always fall apart in the romantic area, so I don't think anyone should fault Thor 2 for not doing it any better. At least they didn't do any worse.

The supporting players made the most of their moments. Kat Dennings as Darcy continues to shine, getting some of the biggest laughs in the movie. Stellan Skarsgard is a riot...though I still maintain that they made the wrong guy pantless. Gotta keep it clean, I guess. The only disappointment was Anthony Hopkins, who just seems to show up for the paycheck now in almost every movie he does. He growls well, sneers on cue, and look appropriately hoary. The only time I bought him as Odin was in a brief moment when he attempts to matchmake for Thor. Rene Russo, however, was tender, strong and intelligent in her limited screen time. Why isn't Hollywood knocking on her door instead of Susan Sarandon's? No offense to Miss Sarandon, but come on, Rene could do a whole lot more work and not wear out her welcome.

And then, oh, you knew I'd get there, Tom Hiddleston as Loki. He just keeps getting better all the time. His smile is more frightening than most actors' intense Method-y glowers and you just wait for him to do something unforgivable so you can forgive him. Over and over again. Now, if they'd just give him a romantic foil...like Jamie Alexander's Sif. A girl who hates him and loves his brother? Sounds like Loki: The Musical!

Speaking of good bad guys, both Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Christopher Eccleston are more than a little intimidating, though I do wish we could have had much, much less makeup on them both. They are actors who could easily inhabit dark roles without spending hours every day in the chair if only some director would stop playing with toys long enough to see it.

My only real quibble with Thor 2: The Dark World is...which world was supposed to be dark? The Dark Elves' planet, where we spend very little time? Asgard, which was gorgeous but always seemed in the middle of a brown-out? Or Earth, where, surprise, surprise, the climatic scene is laid. My money's on Earth, especially now it looks as if Thor is here to stay...and The Avengers: Age of Ultron is in the works.

By the way, get there early enough to see the Captain America: The Winter Soldier preview. It was so good it made me forget that I wasn't there to see that movie...and a little disappointed that Thor 2 was up next. April 4 2014 can't come soon enough!

Problem Child: Ender's Game

I haven't read the books in probably 20 (?) years so I'm going to approach the movie as though I hadn't read them at all.

Ender is a kid with problems. His brother's psycho and, despite being kicked out of school for it, their mother and father don't seem to notice that he's still beating and terrorizing Ender. Ender is closer to his sister, Valentine, than to anyone else in the family. Despite this emotional coldness, despite kicking the crap out of another kid (psycho brother, remember), Ender is selected to be a member of an elite military corps.

If there's anything missing to screw up an already damaged child, have an authority figure (Harrison Ford in full-on grumpy old man mode) tell him that everyone expects him to be the next Julius Caesar or Napoleon. Good role models, if you really want him to turn out to be a megalomaniac with delusions of grandeur. Now let's seriously stress him out by making him an outcast, depriving him of sleep, and of contact with the only person he is really fond of. Oh, and throw in an attractive girl for no particular reason and a fellow suffering from a serious case of 'short-man's disease' who is jealous of Ender and has the authority to make his life even more miserable.

Not to mention telling him that the fate of the entire planet rests on his doing really, really well in school.

The big problem with Ender's Game isn't the above concoction of psychologically unbelievable happenings. It's that the film-maker (director/writer Gavin Hood) cannot bring himself to trust the audience. He has to tell us, repeatedly, both in a pre-action intertitle and right out in dialogue, that Ender is actually a very loving guy, so much so that he even loves his enemies when he'd kicking the (bleep) out of them. The film doesn't show us that. Ever. We are just supposed to take his word for it.

Asa Butterfield does the best he can with the material. He looks about right for the role and is an excellent object lesson for anyone who thinks a skinny guy can't or won't fight back. Whether he's beating up on someone or manipulating their feelings so they don't beat him up, he's very good. You want to believe in that character and can see him growing up to be a con-man or a preacher, or both like Elmer Gantry. But he is not a military leader. Every time someone said, 'we're making him a commander', I was pulled right out of the picture.

All the young actors were excellent at delineating their character to the limits they were allowed. I would have liked a little more background on some of them, though I understand the movie depends on keeping tight focus on Ender. Hailee Steinfield is wasted as is Abigail Breslin whose role consists largely of looking skyward with soulful eyes. The picture livened up when Ben Kingsley appears, tattoo'd to the max, but his whole part seems to be a set up for the single line 'I am a Speaker for the Dead'. After that, for all the influence he exerts, he might as well have floated out the window.

I don't want to blow the ending for anyone, though probably you are already clued in to the 'big reveal' at the end. Unfortunately, the film-maker also didn't want to blow it, even though it would have made for a stronger viewing experience if he had. There was even a scene where he could have told us, could have ramped up the emotional tension for us, not just for Ender. Viola Davis and Ford have a scene together where their characters could have increased our emotional involvement in the pay-off. If the director/screenwriter had made that choice, to 'give it all away', the climatic sequence at the end would have meant something vitally important to us.

Right now, it's like watching your big brother (hopefully not a psycho) playing the video game he got for Christmas. You might find it interesting, you might enjoy the quality graphics, you might even pick up a few pointers. But you have no emotional stake in that game, or in Ender's Game.

Halloween is my favorite time for movies

Sure, there's a lot of grody horror movies being shown with tons of either realistic or ritualistic mayhem. But this is also the time of the year when the Gods of TCM open the vault and drag out into the moonlight a collection of great old horror movies from the past.

And I'll be there, down front, methodically working my way through a bowl of popcorn, while the incredible Vincent Price hams it up through a variety of hair's breadth escapes, alternating between tortured hero and even more tortured villain. I recommend The Masque of the Red Death, probably the classiest of the Hammer Horror output, and The Abominable Dr. Phibes, a combination of horror and humor.

We are also gifted this year with several films with the iconic figures of Messrs. Lee and Cushing. These include Castle of the Living Dead and the Devil's Bride -- watch out for those small town Satanists!

So set your DVR's or what-have-you to TCM tomorrow night to catch all the stylish horror films of a great studio.

Rush -- Boys and Toys

Sorry it's been a while since I blogged but I was off on a much-needed vacation.

While I was gone, several movies came out that fit my criteria for getting me out of the house and into a theater seat. Rush is the first. You've got expensive machines, danger, potential for explosions, and Thor.

It's a good old-fashioned rivalry movie -- just like the old Errol Flynn/Basil Rathbone films. Only instead of sneers at 10 paces followed up by sword play, you've got fine-tuned engines, speedy pit-crews, and the throwing of out-thrust middle fingers. Neither of the characters is 'good' or 'evil'. They each have definite goals that conflict because both want to win the same battle, the 1976 Formula One Championship.

Niki Lauda, played with fierce dislikability by Daniel Bruhl, brings a businessman's professionalism to a sport dominated by playboys. He can tune an engine like a violinist working on a Stradivarius. He doesn't care what anyone thinks about him personally, though he shows vulnerability eventually when he meets his future wife, Marlene, played with restraint by Alexandra Maria Lara. After her first appearance, where she runs a gamut of emotion from uncaring to reluctantly impressed to amazed that this quiet man can drive like a maniac, she has little to do but look anxious.

James Hunt is one of those playboys. Chris Hemsworth brings lots of sunny smiles to this character and it is some time before we see anything else in his characterization. Eventually, he does go a bit darker as well as showing some innate nobility, but for the most part, his character is pretty much all surface. This may be a function of the writing. We never really understand why he's so determined not to take his work or his life with any seriousness at all. A scene from his past or a moment with his family might have illuminated Hunt's carefree attitude toward a sport that could kill him any time he gets in an F-1 car, especially in light of the alcohol, drugs and cigarettes he consumed. Ah, the '70's.

Between the two men, we have a set-up for a classic situation, the old-style vs. the new. This works well in all sorts of stories, from innumerable Hong Kong Kung-Fu films to Red River. Then comes a near-fatal crash for one man. It would be difficult at this point to continue to keep a balance between the two characters and the movie does fail to do so.

Technically, the movie is great fun to watch. I would have appreciated a slight poetic departure from historical reality by making either Hunt or Lauda's car a different color. Ferrari Red and McLaren Red may be different to the eye of love but to the average viewer, like me, it was often difficult to tell which man was leading in which race. Nevertheless, the rapidly-shifting focii gave a 'in-the-moment' feel to the racing sequences. Hans Zimmer's score was energetic without being intrusive.

While not my usual fare -- no space-ships, no monsters -- Rush was an enjoyable time at the movies, especially for a die-hard Top Gear fan. British version, of course.

It's just the End of the World, man.

Many movies start out great. The big idea at the heart of the picture is right there, ready to roll from the first frame. But many fizzle out before the end, leaving you disappointed with the failure to build on that first great notion.

The World's End, the final (?) episode in the Cornetto Trilogy, written and directed by Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg, didn't have that problem. The ending of the film (no spoilers) was unexpected, delightful, and strange. It was a Big Finish with capital letters, starbursts, and a full-fledged kazoo chorus.

At the same time, however, The World's End was also about people, flawed, hurting, frightened people...and that was before the blue-blooded 'bots showed up. I've long thought that Simon Pegg has in it him to be a really good actor, not just someone playing variations on himself. He's been a very Peggish Scotty in the Star Trek Reboot and a very Peggish Boffin in the latest Mission Impossible. In The World's End, he plays a character unlike himself -- or so I hope.

Gary King is a mess. He's never grown up, and not in a good way. He drives the same car, wears the same clothes, listens to the same music, does the same drugs that he did when he was eighteen. His friends have all grown up, and not in a good way. They are stuck in ruts so deep that it looks like night when they look up, even in broad daylight.

Simon Pegg is very good in this movie, but the revelation here is Nick Frost. Usually a second-banana, backing up Simon Pegg and acting as his conscience, here he becomes an actor impossible to ignore. His range is amazing and you find yourself rooting for him even when he's being rather a drag.

The rest of the ensemble turns in stellar work, even if some must contend with people in the audience saying 'he was in Harry Potter!' It's a British film, guys. *Everyone* was in Harry Potter. Eddie Marsden (not in HP, but in S.H....Sherlock Holmes) is rapidly becoming someone I look for in a movie. He's always good and here does an amusing take on cowardice. The beautiful Rosamund Pike is rather wasted in this as she mostly just runs in and out and looks surprised. Martin Freeman's character is the most underwritten of the group and there's a reason...but that would be a spoiler.

Ah, but the ending. I don't often recommend you see a movie just for the ending but this one, I do.

'The Gorgon'

As I haven't been able to get out to see 'The World's End' yet, though I'm looking forward to it, I thought I'd talk about an old movie.

When I was small, I'd watch the wonderful Hammer Studio horror films on Saturday television, sitting really close to the screen. Partly because I didn't want to miss any dialog; I had to keep the sound down, and partly because I needed glasses and nobody knew it yet. Anyway, I'd watch with great glee, giggling at the funny parts and sitting wide-eyed at the horror. My parents didn't think these movies were doing me any harm. It took them a while to figure out why I was waking up screaming at night.

That was the end of the first phase of my love affair with these movies.

Along comes VHS and I was back in the game.

'The Gorgon' is a 1965 gem from Hammer Studios, who were the premier horror-film makers of that era. That's not to say they had high quality special effects or lavish production budgets. This was a strictly shoe-string operation. They were so cheap that, in at least one 'Dracula' movie, they didn't give the Count any dialog because they didn't want to pay the actor (a guy called Christopher Lee) extra money for a speaking part. The sets were flimsy, the scripts full of holes, and the direction often murky. One-take was the rule rather than the exception.

What they did have were terrific actors. 'The Gorgon' alone has Peter Cushing (Star Wars), Christopher Lee (Star Wars, LOTR), and Patrick Troughton (the Second Doctor, Doctor Who). The lady in the case was the lovely Barbara Shelley who brought a cool elegance to her roles at the studio, that elevated them beyond the mere 'scream-queen' level. They all took their jobs quite seriously, no side-smirks at the absurdity of it all, though the sets were apparently full of jokes off-camera.

'The Gorgon' is a simple tale of murder, passion, and possession. Being very interested in Greek mythology (see my books!), I had to watch it when it came up on the Retro channel this weekend. You've got the noble father, the steadfast son, the beautiful woman, and the scheming doctor and his henchman, aided by the police. Yet each actor manages to make their limited parts moving and believable. Though the story departs quite a lot from the classic myth -- even changing Medusa's name -- the glimpses we have of the monster are sufficient to ramp up the suspense beyond anything mere bright red blood can offer.

Everyone talks about the cheap special effects that rather ruin the Medusa's final appearance. Yes, they're bad compared to today's but not enough to completely ruin what had come before. Nobody ever talks about Christopher Lee's mustache, which looks rather like Albert Einstein's after a dose of Miracle Grow. It's a cookie-duster and a half which almost conceals him completely. Here Lee gets to play the Van Helsing part while Cushing is the scheming keeper of an asylum, a switch for these two old friends.

One thing the Hammer Studios had going for it is their filmstock. I don't know if it was old Technicolor material from the 1940's or if it was the developing process. But Hammer Films have a look like no other movies made in the same era. There's a soft richness to the color that makes even quite a schlocky movie seem like it was painted by a Renaissance master. The green of the Gorgon's robe, the amber of Miss Shelley's cloak, even the dust in the olde castle has a mellow beauty.

To people raised on the Friday the Thirteenth films, zombie movies, and blood-boltered horrors like 'Saw' and 'Hostel' franchises, 'The Gorgon' might seem tame. But this a movie that whispers in your ears, that trails cold, would-be loving fingers over your flesh, and that makes you rather nervous around reflective surfaces. It steals into your thoughts, to remind you that you only think you're alone, but that evil can move swiftly in the shadows. Somehow that sort of thing sounds so much more convincing in a British accent.

The Wolverine: Meh

Don't get me wrong. I like Wolverine. I think he's one of the most complex and interesting characters in all comic-dom. He's got issues that can't be easily rectified. A lot of them he doesn't even want to rectify. He's happier hanging out in the woods than in civilization and who can blame him? Civilization has sold him out in every conceivable way.

So when the film-makers drag him, willy-nilly, from his woodland retreat, there should be a darn good reason for him to go.

The Wolverine does not provide one.

It's like they had two good ideas. 1. Let's put Logan in Japan -- alien language, clash of culture and hey, samurai swords against adamantium claws! 2. We can use the Silver Samurai.

The whole movie is spent waiting for the second idea to show up. Meanwhile, we've got 'Logan hates to fly', odd but fun Japanese girl with a great sword she actually knows how to use, and a family inheritance squabble right out of an old Dynasty episode. I couldn't summon up a particle of 'give a damn' about the dying old man or his badly-written granddaughter.

Poor Mariko. We don't know what she is like, we hardly see her smile or cry or anything emotional, she's just a 'poor little rich girl' written with all the depth of a caption on a paper doll. But she's pretty so Logan falls for her. Seriously?

Not Yukio, the one with the killer-sword skills who desperately fights off someone trying to kill him while he's helpless, the one with a sense of humor, a real, complex past, and mutant skills. Nope. The conventionally pretty one. Who ignores the fact that he was wounded while trying to protect her to the point where she puts in ear-buds on a train rather than have to deal with him. There is a great fight scene on that train, even though nobody on board seems to notice gun-fire or huge rents ripped in the side.

Hugh Jackman gives his performance all he's got, but the writers didn't give him much to do except glower, have a bath and bleed. The director must have used the 'out-of-focus shot to show Logan's pain/distress' about 16 times. Rila Fukushima (Yukio) and Tao Okamoto (Mariko) give good performances within the limits of the script.

Mind you, Mariko looks mighty fine in either a pair of blue jeans or a lean black kimono. But long legs do not a character make. She's just there to be rescued, just another damsel in distress. Even at that, she's written better than the bad guys...who are just bad for badness' sake. If they had some other reason for being bad than money and power -- wanting to take over the world or something else grandiose -- I must have missed it.

Logan should have stayed in the woods.

Meh.

Is IMAX Worth It?

Is IMAX Worth It?

I had the chance to see Pacific Rim twice -- once in IMAX and once in a standard theater. It was everything an IMAX-sized movie should be, loud, flashy, explosive. You rocked with the body-blows. The screeches of the creatures blew the ear-drums. The grandeur of the sheer size of the creatures Director del Toro envisioned, especially in the epic shots of the first Kaiju moving behind the Golden Gate Bridge, reached out from the screen to drag you immediately into the story. I paid the ultimate movie-geek accolade of a whispered 'cool' when one Kaiju-monster took sudden flight. The battles between mechanical men and monsters, which seemed the whole reason the movie was ever made, put me on the edge of my stadium-seat. Much more so than the plight of the comparitively pitiful creatures inside the robots.

The emotionalism in Pacific Rim came across with greater strength in the standard theater. It is hard to empathize with people twenty feet tall. Even Gulliver had trouble with that one. I felt I understood the people in the movie much more when they were a bit more relatable on a human scale. In IMAX, the people seemed as large as the robots/monsters which made you wonder why they even needed the Jaeger-suits.

When so much acting is accomplished with small moves of eye or lip, making those features enormous means the acting can easily become caricature. This is all the more true when dealing with archetypes rather than characters. The lost but redeemable hero, the stern but inwardly tender commander, the girl striving to change her destiny were all there, their emotions sketched, their actions programmed. Idris Elba, Charlie Hunnam, and Rinko Kicuchi did the best they could with what they were given to do. And no Torchwood fan could ever complain about having Burn Gorman do anything, even quarrel pointlessly with his counterpart, played by Charlie Day.

Miss Meryl Streep will likely never see her accomplished self on an IMAX screen. Big shouty action films belong there. They look and sound great. Movies that have a script which cost more than whatever a producer fished out from the couch cushions don't.

So if you are fairly confident that the movie is a rock-em-sock-em explosion fest, IMAX is worth the extra ticket price. If, however, you are hopeful that there will be more to a movie than that, go for the standard theater.

Next up: Wolverine: 'Cause it's Hugh Jackman, that's why!

I love movies. Always have.But when I say 'movies', I...

I love movies. Always have.

But when I say 'movies', I don't mean 'film'. I'm not really all that interested in either long discussions of politics, intimate personal problems, or spending fifteen minutes out of a 90-minute film looking at a field of wheat in full color. I have nothing against wheat and I'm fascinated by politics, but I can find out all I want about them without spending $30, including popcorn, for the privilege. Personal problems...if I don't have 'em, some one I know probably does. And them I care about.

If, however, somebody makes a movie in which two people have to save the world while falling in love and getting away with $100 million dollars, I'm right there on the opening day. If stuff blows up, I like it. If stuff blows up and Bruce Willis or Channing Tatum is walking away in slow motion in the foreground, so much the better.

Many critics decry the loss of quality in the movies, that all the scripts are interchangeable and that they're written to appeal to world-wide audiences at the expense of well-written dialogue and deep characterization. Well, yeah, that's kind of the point. I see it less as a falling off in quality and more as opening the door to a greater understanding. If I and someone on the other side of the world can sit in a theater miles and miles apart and have the same emotional reaction to a film, that's a bond that can cross language, space, and time.

I remember going to Spain some years ago and falling into conversation with a local man about the movie 'How To Train Your Dragon'. His little boy adored that movie, and so did he. So did I. We had nothing much in common otherwise, but that cartoon made a little piece of ground where we could all stand and understand each other a little more. I can't see that as a bad thing.

So, instead of flacking my books (which you should definitely buy), I thought this blog could be about movies. Summer, of course, is the ideal time to write about new ones, especially in this year of 2013. There's something big and explosive at the theater almost every week...plus we've got an IMAX 3-D here. Love it when the whole building trembles with that sweet Dolby sound!

Next up: Pacific Rim...Rock'em, Sock'em Robots Meet Godzilla.