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Twilight (Movie Review)

By Andrew on April 26th, 2010

Originally written and posted on December 10, 2008.

Twilight

Agony. This one word effectively sums up Twilight without exaggeration. More of an endurance test than an actual film, Twilight fails to impress on any level.

I’ve never read Stephanie Meyer’s novels about the love between a human girl and a vampire boy, largely because my imagining of a vampire involves the creature bursting into flames in sunlight and not sparkling as if a barrel of glitter had just been dumped on them. Vampires are supposed to be soulless nocturnal beasts that prey on the harmless and stupid humans of the world, not vegetarian pussies who play baseball in the rain or hop around the treetops. I thought that was the allure of vampires for sexually frustrated females in the first place? That they are tortured and misunderstood shells that would just as easily rip out your jugular as they would write you angsty poetry in eyeliner and brood over you for eternity. You remove that, and they become miserable sad sacks with the compelling force of a fridge-magnet. Thus the chief failing of Meyer’s vampires is that they are not badass and ethereal, just wimpy and pathetic.

Seventeen year old Isabella Swan moved from Arizona to the shady and sleepy little town of Forks Washington, possibly because of her inability to tan well. Here, she meets the Cullens, a clan of covert vampires of similar complexion who remain isolated from the community. Not for any particularly sinister reason though, it’s just the way they are. About an hour and a half of atrocious dialogue later, Isabella becomes the target of a rogue pair of vampires named James and Victoria who become terribly bored with un-life and decide to try and murder Isabella because… I don’t know. Maybe they like a challenge? The narrative, much like everything else about the film, isn’t handled very well.

The dialogue is horrendous. There are times where the lines and their delivery warrant an audible screech of disgust because they’re so awful:

Edward Cullen: “Hello. I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself last week. I’m Edward Cullen. You’re Bella?”
Bella Swan: “Um… Yes.”
Edward Cullen: (While sliding a microscope to Bella) “Ladies first.”
Bella Swan: “You were gone.”
Edward Cullen: “Um… Yeah. I was out of town for a couple of days. Personal reasons”
Bella Swan: (Pointing out the first stage of mitosis) “Um. Prophase.”
Edward Cullen: (Reaching for the microscope) “Do you mind if I… Uh… Look? (Checking the microscope) Prophase…”
Bella Swan: “Like I said.”

This is the first exchange in the history of Bella and Edward, speaking together as if they were a long standing couple, yet utterly contrived and devoid of any appreciable conviction. Every character – be they vampire, human, or confused parent – speaks like this. Every character has the same confused attitude and disposition, lacing any vulgarity or passion. Having to listen to this for two hours is torture.

Additionally, the pacing is clumsy and erratic. There are sections of awful banter that appear to drag on endlessly. Significant action does not occur until the eighty minute mark, which renders the first chunk of the film boring, and the last bits rushed and unsatisfying. The special effects of the film, notably the pieces where a vampire is running and jumping in an attempt to seem menacing or cool, aren’t even worthy of an episode of Heroes. The whole film lacks polish, as if no one in post production paid attention to how the film looks or flows.

The built in audience of not just adolescent girls, but women in general, ensures the demand for additional adaptations of the other books, but are these people blind to the level contempt the creators of Twilight impressed on them? The film is not just poor as a matter of opinion, but poor as a matter of overall quality. Granted, a lot of this has to do with the very restricting $30,000,000 budget. Considering the financial aspect, Twilight seems more like a cash grab than an actual film; an attempt to milk an audience with no concept of quality or sense of taste. To that effect (and that effect only) does Twilight stand as a success, and the film proves this by grossing enough to pay for itself four times over in three short weeks. The only people who stand a chance of liking this movie are the people who are already a fan of the series, and it’s a very slim chance at that.

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The Wrestler (Movie Review)

By Andrew on April 26th, 2010

Originally written and posted on January 6, 2009.

The Wrestler

There’s a scene in The Wrestler where Randy “The Ram” Robinson is psyching himself up for his first shift behind the deli counter at the local supermarket. The subtle roar of a fervent crowd permeates the theatre as he patiently waits in the shadows of the employee’s entrance. At the precise moment the restless horde collectively sets free all their enthusiasm, The Ram breaks through the plastic barriers to a deafening din, and calmly makes his way to his designated work station. The applause suddenly dissipates into the nothingness from whence it came, and another day in Randy’s washed up life commences.

Twenty years ago, Randy was at the top of his game. He even managed to sell out shows at Madison Square Garden, and accumulated a loyal and supportive fanbase of both his fellow peers and spectators alike. Sadly, time hasn’t been all too kind to him, and he has since fallen on hard times and now settles for minor gigs in tiny gymnasiums. The once mighty brute has become a broken relic, although he would never admit it to himself.

After a particularly rough bout of prop wrestling, Randy stumbles to the locker room. He gets patched up by the on site medics, lurches a few paces, vomits, and drops to the floor. He suffered a heart attack, and is now faced with the cold hard truth that if he ever wrestles again, he may end up dead. Battered, alone, and scared out of his wits, he spends his days trying to make sense of it all. He courts a stripper at a nightclub he frequents, attempts to reconnect with his estranged daughter, and tries his hand at an honest day’s work.

As is often the case, a rather simple and straightforward film is elevated above and beyond its humble synopsis thanks to exemplary acting and truly inspired narrative design. Rourke’s performance is excellent, and every bit as deserving of the Best Actor Oscar as Pitt or Eastwood. He sheds blood, sweat, and tears verisimilarly, and deftly contrasts his overzealous stage persona with his humble everyman nature. Marisa Tomei channels the same energy as Rourke (their characters are both performers well past their prime) but it feels as if she’s competing with him, and this almost relegates her involvement to being merely a footnote on the whole project. Evan Rachel Wood occasionally appears as The Ram’s daughter, but her role is nothing overly remarkable. She’s only in a handful of scenes, and the character’s sole purpose is to give emotional depth to Randy.

Stylistically, the cinematography is very candid, and very immediate. There’s very little post production work, and no jarring flourishes or oppressive flair. A good portion of the film is simply Rourke, a handful of extras or bit players, a camera, and a boom-mic. Some of the scenes are so intimate, you could rather easily be deceived into thinking you’re watching a solemn biography, and it’s moments like these that speak volumes of Aronofsky’s directorial prowess.

The narrative design and pacing is impeccable. No other film this year has nailed deliberate timing and masterful storytelling to such an excellent effect. There isn’t a single scene that drags or overstays its welcome. No line is miscalculated and no delivery is botched. It’s astounding how surprising and suspenseful a movie was made around a sport built on theatrics and predictability.

The underlying theme of The Wrestler is a message of acceptance. For this reason, Randy Robinson’s character development doesn’t stop at an arc. Rourke’s portrayal is virtually limitless in depth and possibility, and the film’s spectacular final shot is both a culmination and purging of a great deal raw unbridled emotion. I cannot recommend this film enough. I’m sick of racking my brain for synonyms for the same laudatory words. The Wrestler is the best film of the year.

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The Spirit (Movie Review)

By Andrew on April 26th, 2010

Originally written and posted on December 29, 2008.

The Spirit

One of the root problems with Sin City was that the city itself (Basin City) never actually felt like an inhabitable place. A city built exclusively on overt crime and corruption can’t possibly have a strong economy that merits growth, so while the surreal and exaggerated noir style did create a visually arresting feature, characterizing every single resident as either a foul mouthed brawler or filthy prostitute really threw a wrench in the immersive process. A nitpick perhaps, but it’s the most extreme characterizations that require a foil or antithesis, and Sin City was in dire need of one. In The Spirit, Frank Miller learned from this mistake and decided to insert a few likable characters into this feature’s Central City. They’re no less shallow and corrugated, but they provide the necessary balance between the protagonist’s unequivocal benevolence and the antagonist’s hyperbolic malevolence. One step forward, two steps back…

A plot summary of The Spirit presents problems in that there is no actual thesis or revelation to grasp until the final scenes of the film. For the bulk of the picture, the audience is bombarded with threads that never feel designed to confluence in any meaningful capacity. One might liken this design to the film noirs from the golden days of Bogart, but the key difference is that those characters had motivation (usually). The Spirit is hunting The Octopus. Why? The Octopus is neither unambiguously evil, nor does he have a bad habit of leaving dead bodies in his wake (clones don’t count). Sure, he’s a little megalomaniacal, but who isn’t? In order for the audience to understand the plot, the filmmakers elected to have The Spirit break the fourth wall and address the audience directly. They do this repeatedly, to the point where it becomes condescending. The frequent voiceovers and lingering looks to the camera eye are not effective expository devices.

For what it’s worth, The Spirit is a virtually indestructible masked man with a red tie and an almost perverse love for his city. He’s a pussy enthusiast (in both the feline and naughty sense of the word) and despite a bad habit of running headlong into cross-fires, never actually carries a gun. The Octopus is a fan of grandiose villainy copy/pasted from Saturday morning cartoons, only heavily stylized with more blood. In an unexpected twist of genre conventions, the police force (led by Commissioner Dolan) is not corrupt and rather effective. There are at least five pieces of cardboard eye candy (two of which are the femme fatale variety), and a porky imbecilic henchmen clone with increasingly humorous monikers (pathos, ethos, logos, dildos…)

Plot details that aren’t spoilers are scarce. Essentially, The Octopus is on a quest for immortality that involves a passing knowledge of Greek mythology and the occasional gene splicing. The narrative design is almost Rube Goldberg in nature (obtuse, not ingenious).

Visually, the film flickers between engagingly stylish and unnecessarily garish. Sin City had two colour pallets: graphic novel style black and white, and gritty city black splashed with blue and red. Sin City’s palette was easy on the eyes while being occasionally provocative. Frank Miller dabbles with at least four palettes in The Spirit. While experimentation is something admirable, the palette changes don’t elevate the film nearly as much as they signify tone and genre changes. There is the violence of 300, the graphic nature of Sin City, the light-hearted shenanigans of Spider-Man, but never any consistency. The whole is only the sum of its parts provided the parts can fit together.

Had The Spirit maintained a steady atmosphere and style throughout the duration, the film would have been tolerable. Unfortunately, the visual style doesn’t draw you in so much as it compounds the awful narrative to the point of physical discomfort. The Spirit is a smorgasbord of visuals and unappetizing dialogue; a failed experiment. Not thoroughly detestable, just entirely disposable.

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The International (Movie Review)

By Andrew on April 26th, 2010

Originally written and posted on February 17, 2009.

The International

I don’t deal with banks very often. I don’t have a mountain of debts to pay, or endless streams of fine print to make sense of. I don’t even have a credit card to worry about. Perhaps it’s for this reason alone that The International perplexes me. Whereas in most thrillers of this sort the principle antagonist is a shadowy agency comprised of a corrupt sect of power players, the omnipresent evil in The International is a global private bank; a humble house of bureaucracy that isn’t a very malevolent institution by any means, unless of course you’re a person in dire straits from the inescapable economic turmoil. So while I don’t quite appreciate the real world resonance of the film’s adversary, I do appreciate the novel spin it gives to a rather by the numbers presentation.

The International Bank for Business and Credit (IBBC) is the 5th largest private bank in the world, and is also the object of observation from Interpol and various other police agencies. Apparently, the IBBC is involved in some shady business deals with terrorist organizations in unstable third world conflicts. The IBBC positions itself as an arms broker in a bid to control the amount of debt these conflicts create. Interpol is wise to these clandestine criminal transactions, yet justice is constantly impeded due to the tangled mess of international law and the fact that anyone willing to testify either disappears or ends up dead. Clive Owen is a frustrated Interpol agent who has spent the better part of two years trying to bring the IBBC down. Naomi Watts is a Manhattan Assistant District Attorney with similar objectives. They meet through the suspicious death of a mutual colleague investigating the IBBC, and conduct their own borderline illegitimate investigation.

For a film that spends so much effort trying to implicate the IBBC, it’s rather amazing how poorly characterized the villain is. While admittedly it’s somewhat difficult to antagonize a faceless mega-corporation, it doesn’t excuse most of the film’s reasoning from being exaggerated conjecture. Assassinating political figures and murdering defective allies isn’t very humanitarian, but these crimes pale in comparison to the magnitude of the other misdeeds the IBBC is accused of, mainly war profiteering. Yet all the audience is given by way of evidence is flimsy exposition that never effectively convinces the audience of the supposedly evil organization’s complicity. Failure to illustrate the IBBC as a reprehensible evil might be a narrative choice designed to evoke some sort of moral introspection on the audience’s behalf, but a poor script is a far more likely culprit.

The International is largely an intellectual thriller, or at least that’s what it aspires to be, so the insertion of CSI style forensic investigation and a very Die Hard-esque firefight strikes me as rather curious. When an Italian presidential candidate is assassinated at a public assembly, our two heroes inspect the scene. Owen and Watts turn into Grissom and Willows for the next twenty minutes or so analyzing footprints, bullet holes, and speculating as to exactly what happened. While the tonal shift does pique interest, its inclusion is wholly unnecessary, as is the firefight in the latter half of the film where Owen and two detectives tail the suspected assassin to the Guggenheim museum in New York where an excellent grandiose action scene breaks out that’s not unlike anything McClane or Bond might stumble into. While these scenes in themselves are not bad by any stretch of the imagination, it’s hard not to feel that they found their way into the wrong movie.

By and large, The International is so entangled in the accoutrements of a wide array of styles that no clear and concise film is able to emerge. Enjoyable elements mingle with some rather bland moments, which is par for the course for most middling movies. The root problem is simply that these elements don’t belong to the same film, which speaks of trying to work Lego, K’Nex, and Meccano into the same structure.

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The Hangover (Movie Review)

By Andrew on April 26th, 2010

Originally written and posted on June 5, 2009.

The Hangover

I’m not a very big fan of comedies that build themselves entirely around a bunch of guys, a car, and a few hundred miles of open road. Maybe I’m being narrow, but they always seem to function on the presumption that tits and beer always equate to a good time as a sort of mathematical law, and while this is indeed true if you’re the one doing the drinking and fornicating, it’s rather boring to watch. Sorry, but I never found very much creative energy at the bottom of a bottle, and such films tend to tick along at a lethargic pace appropriate for the cinematic equivalent of an alcoholic fool. Having said this, I must admit I didn’t have high expectations for The Hangover, a film that features a bunch of guys, a car, and a few hundred miles of open road that lead into the alluring neon glow of Las Vegas. While The Hangover isn’t the most original movie in the world, it’s refreshing to know that even at this stage of advanced cynicism, even I tend to be surprised every now and again.

Doug is about to get married, but he heads off to Vegas before he does in order to have one last night of freedom in the typical male bachelor fashion. He brings his two friends, Stu and Phil, and his future brother-in-law Alan with him, and together they tear up a luxury hotel room and have a night to remember that is ironically immediately forgotten the next day. They wake up after a rough night to strange realizations with no reasonable explanations for what happened to them. Stu is missing a tooth, Phil has a hospital admissions bracelet, Alan is slower than usual, there’s a tiger in the bathroom, etc. It was indeed the perfect night, with the tiny exception of losing Doug in their alcohol fuelled mayhem. Now they must retrace their steps in order to find Doug and remember what they’ve done before what happened in Vegas leaks into the real world.

So The Hangover is about as generic and uninspired a premise as any other film that revolves around a hard night of substance abuse in a land of questionable ethical fibre, but where the film really begins to score points is in presentation. Instead of starting at the beginning of the boys’ odyssey and following their night of depravity, we start at the end of the movie and piece together the events that preceded the film with them. It’s a mystery movie, and just about the funniest damn mystery around. It’s terribly easy to write the film off as being merely common when the trailers and ads paint it as just another sleazy saga in sin city, but there’s a certain ingenuity and, dare I say, “genius” in the way the film unravels. Director Todd Phillips places the fun in discovery and not in the adventure, which gives the audience a sense of participation in their debauchery instead of merely being a witness to it.

Aside from that, not very much else needs to be said. The script is remarkably clever for the type of film it’s attached to, filled with actual dialogue and banter for the characters as opposed to having them dispense trite witticisms and observations. Effort was put into turning the characters into actual people as opposed to variations on the archetypal man-child, a sentiment echoed in the casting. The three main leads (Doug is missing in action for the most part) are unremarkable with the intention of connecting with the audience as normal people and not in the sense of being bland. Phil is a laidback well-to-do fellow, Stu is struggling with the fact he might spend his life with a complete bitch back home, and Alan is a peculiar savant, a by-product of a somewhat spoiled upbringing isolated from how the world works. They’re occasionally odd, but never aggressively bizarre and are immediately relatable because of this.

I guess this means that the review is shorter than usual. Sorry about that, but I assure you The Hangover will be a good time, especially if you like that sort of movie. I’m avoiding saying too much because the plot is rather delicate and easy to spoil, so just take my peculiarly brief review as the glowing recommendation that it appears to be. It’s funny, clever, and that’s all you really need to know.