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Movies

Sabotage (2014) a (mildly) belated review

When Arnold Schwarzenegger left movie making for politics and subsequently returned to the movies, I figured he’d have a relatively easy go.  He left the movies, after all, still a potent box office draw, though perhaps not quite as big a draw as he was in his prime years.

Since his movie making return, he’s appeared in a total of six films.  The first Expendables movie hardly counts as he had a single scene.  The other two Expendables movies have featured greater amounts of screen time, but it is an ensemble work with many actors sharing screen time.  In Mr. Schwarzenegger’s other three movies he’s had the starring role.  Unfortunately, The Last Stand and Escape Plan, the later of which he co-starred in with Sylvester Stallone, haven’t exactly lit the box office on fire.  With 2014’s Sabotage, he’s an unfortunately three for three.

The biggest crime of both The Last Stand and Escape Plan, to me, were that they were both rather mediocre features that didn’t really dazzle or excite you beyond the time you were watching them.  With Sabotage, written and directed by David Ayer, whose past credits include writing such features as The Fast and the Furious, Training Day, and End of Watch (which he also directed), you at least figured you’d have an interestingly written work.

But a busy plot, as is the case with Sabotage, doesn’t equal a good film.

Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as John “Breacher” Wharton, a head of a deep undercover drug investigation unit who, at the start of the movie, is watching some gruesome footage which amounts to the last living moments of his wife.  As we soon find out, she and his son were kidnapped by some mean drug cartel types (the why’s are revealed a little later on).  She -and we assume his son- were tortured and eventually killed.

From this point we move to several months later.  Breacher and his crew are about to pull off a big bust of a drug cartel member’s mansion.  Their mission, however, has a dark side: Breacher’s crew knows there is a palette of 100 million dollars hidden in this mansion and they intend to steal a good chunk of it for themselves.

They manage to take approximately $10 million and hide it in the mansion’s sewage but when they return to pick up the money, its gone.

The DEA and the cartel the unit hit quickly figure out there is money missing (it is never really stated within the context of the film how both entities find out, but people on comment boards have noted it could involve weighing the money.  Though Breacher and company blew the remaining $90 million in bills apart, a thorough examination of the ashes and surviving bills would have revealed a weight, hence cash, discrepancy).

The DEA boys go hard after Breacher and his gang, separating and interrogating them while trying to get them to flip on each other.  No one, in the end, talks or admits to the theft.  After several months and no new evidence found, the “higher ups” give up and decide to allow Breacher and his gang to get back together again.  I found this part a little hard to swallow but, whatever.  I accepted the initial premise and figured that from there, things would get interesting.

Because of the dark nature of their work, Breacher’s crew are far from angels.  In fact, they’re only a small step away from the nasty characters they’re tasked to bust.  They’re loud, perverse, and cruel.  They’re hard drinking and hard charging, and with $10 million taken and the DEA no longer breathing down their back, it seemed to me obvious where the movie would go from here: The boys -and woman- of the group would start looking at each other, seeing which one of them took the money.  Which one of them is a bigger rat than the others.

Soon, members of this elite unit wind up dead and I figure we’re moving into Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None territory, a murder mystery as well as a crime drama.

Unfortunately, it was precisely at this point, the point where everything was well laid out and you’re eager to see how this murder mystery plays out, that things start to fizzle.

Badly.

To begin, the unit getting back together was totally mishandled.  I figured they’d all be on guard, watching their backs and not exactly “chummy” with each other.  It seemed logical that they would suspect one of their own of taking the money, yet none of them shows any outright suspicion in those early going scenes.

Yes, there is a lack of “trust” among the group, but the way its presented it seems to be more related to the fact that they’re rusty.

Anyway, when the first of their members is killed, another police officer joins the mix.  She is investigating the death and while all indications are that it was a drunken accident, the death of a second member of the squad changes things.

From there, we have Breacher and the investigator checking leads and using each other.  Frankly, credibility gets stretched waaaaay too far by this point.  Breacher should be a suspect by this point and its very hard to believe the investigator would welcome him at her side.

On the movie runs and on come the bodies.  Graphic, bloody.  The film looks to straddle the line between horror and crime drama, but as the minutes tick by you care less and less.  When the final revelation comes, the guilty party appears only too obvious.  When you find out why the money was stolen, an already heavily strained plot snaps completely.

Did the thief really need all $10 million to accomplish his/her goals?  Seems really far fetched.

In the end, I can’t recommend Sabotage despite the fact that it features a fascinating cast of characters and a, at least at the beginning, fascinating plot concept.

Too bad.

Movies

Under the Skin (2013) a (mildly) belated review

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I first heard about Under the Skin shortly before its release.  I became really interested in seeing it when the theatrical trailer/teaser was shown.

Heady looking stuff, right?

The movie came and went, scoring a super strong 86% positive among critics but a far less impressive 56% positive rating among audiences from Rotten Tomatoes.  Essentially, almost all critics liked it but only half the audiences cared for what they saw.  Looking at some commentary from audiences, it is clear the film has strongly divided viewers and, as the saying goes, they either loved or hated it.  Now, having finally seen the film, which side of the fence am I on?

It’s a harder question to answer than you might think.

On the plus side, Under the Skin is an intriguing, visually striking film that drew my attention while playing out slowly, almost naturally.  The dialogue, what there is of it, is conversational and often (ahem) skin deep.  We are taken through a series of scenarios which in turn form a story about an otherworldly alien predator (Scarlet Johansson) who, like the black widow spider, draws in and then kills men.

Almost from the beginning its clear director Jonathan Glazer is emulating the works of some very well known filmmakers.  In Under the Skin, viewers familiar with the style of directors Stanley Kubrick and Andrei Tarkovsky will see stuff that looks an awful lot like their work.  Likewise, the film’s plot bears some resemblance to the classic Nicholas Roeg/David Bowie The Man Who Fell to Earth.

Unfortunately, when one sees so many familiar echoes to the brilliant works of other artists, one can’t help but compare them to Under the Skin.  Doing so, even more unfortunately, reveals that this film doesn’t quite live up to what came before.  To begin, Under the Skin’s plot is far, far simpler than the works listed above.  In fact, one might well argue this movie’s plot is almost too simple:  An alien predator picks up a series of male victims and eventually (though never clearly stated why) feels empathy for them, then tries to “join” them but cannot.  Tragedy ensues.  The end.

The simplicity of the plot leads me, in turn, to another problem I had: There are story irregularities that are bothersome.

To get into these problems however, I’m going to have to get into SPOILERS, so before I move on let me give you the bottom line:  Under the Skin is a decent, slow moving film that at times will really creep you out (there are, to my count, three absolutely knock out scenes).  Unfortunately, character inconsistencies and a very simple plot may take away from one’s enjoyment.

Now then, what were the problems I had?  I’ll get into them after this warning…

SPOILERS WARNING!!!!!

Still here?  Ok, don’t say that I didn’t warn you.

When we meet her, Ms. Johansson’s alien is presented as an emotionless, cold and calculating predator whose eyes are always looking, looking, looking for their next victim.  Once spotted and when confronting said potential victim, she turns on the charm, speaking perfectly well while luring said victim.  Eventually, she gets them into her car and, eventually, her lair.  We also find she has an assistant, a mysterious man (perhaps even more than one!) who rides around on a motorcycle and cleans up after her.

Given the fact that these aliens know how to use vehicles and are smart enough to know how to blend in with society and, even more importantly, clean up any potential messes after themselves, one can reasonably assume they have a decent, if not great, understanding of how people “tick”.

And yet the seductive predator appears at times confused and/or oblivious to what happens around her.  In one of the film’s most effectively terrifying moments, she meets up with a swimmer in a very remote location and witnesses a double drowning.  She gets her victim in the end but leaves behind the drowning victims’ crying infant, oblivious to the fact that by doing so the child will likely die.

As effectively creepy as this scene was (this would be my favorite scene of the film, by the way), I was left with questions.  If our aliens “feed” of men/people, why leave behind a potential source of nourishment in this infant?  Secondly, after she’s gone her motorcycle assistant goes to the beach to “clean up” the scene and take away any evidence they were there.  It is now dark and the poor child is still there, crying.  The assistant ignores the infant yet takes away towels and any other evidence of our victim’s presence.  Once again: Why leave the infant behind?  Isn’t that something that one would want to clean up as well?

Later still, the seductive predator meets a deformed man and attempts to seduce him.  This scene, another of my favorites though I will freely admit the coincidence of finding a deformed man is somewhat hard to swallow, nonetheless plays out well because our alien seductress is unaware the man’s severe facial deformities make him a pariah to society.  Despite my problems with the scenario, it was a fascinating scene but unfortunately it leads to the movie’s concluding act: By being near this deformed man our alien seductress comes to some mysterious resolution.  She ultimately, allows him to get away while deciding she no longer wants to be this black widow.  She wants to join humanity.

Does she feel sorry for this man?  If so, why exactly?  When she meets him she doesn’t see him as anything more than another victim yet in their very brief time together she decides to renounce her entire being and decides she wants to be human.  Again, why?

I truly don’t know and the film frustratingly doesn’t offer viewers a clear answer as to why.

What follows is the film’s climax, wherein the motorcycle assistant tries to find his now missing mistress while she walks the lonely countryside alone, first trying to eat human food (she cannot), then trying to find actual love (she cannot love because, she finds, she has no vagina.  Not to sound like a smart-ass or anything, but didn’t she notice this before?), then becoming the victim of a human predator.  This resolution, unfortunately, proved as difficult for me to swallow as the coincidence of her finding an incredibly deformed man.  An alien predator becomes victim to a human predator?  Oh the irony!

It was following the movie’s conclusion that I really began wondered what Under the Skin would have been like had Stanley Kubrick made it rather than Mr. Glazer.  Mr. Glazer has made good films in the past and while Under the Skin is not a bust by any means, I can’t help but think that in other hands -or perhaps with a little bit more time to develop the story- this pretty good film might have been absolutely great.

Take of that what you will.

Movies

The White Buffalo (1977) a (very) belated review

If you’ve watched as many films as I have, you’ve certainly stumbled upon some that were stranger than others.  Perhaps some of them weren’t just strange, but off-the-wall bizarre.  Usually, those type of films register on my radar for all the wrong reasons.  Bizarre usually equals “not very good”.

Usually.

There is at least one big exception to that rule, and it is the Charles Bronson starring film The White Buffalo.  Released in 1977, the film features Mr. Bronson as Wild Bill Hickok, presented as a man who is suffering mightily from bizarre, nightmarish dreams of confronting a, you guessed it, white buffalo.  Only this white buffalo seems larger than life.  Mythic, in fact.

So disturbed by the dreams is Hickok that he returns to his old stomping grounds in the far west.  This, we find, is a place where Hickok is no longer welcome.  Hoping to avoid confrontation, he adopts a fake name, James Otis, and works his way through a couple of small towns while heading to the high country where the white buffalo, he knows, awaits him.

Meanwhile, an Indian village is attacked by the white buffalo and many of its people are slaughtered.  The village’s leader, Crazy Horse (Will Sampson), cries at the loss of his daughter and, in an interest parallel with Hickock/Otis, is forced by tribe elders to renounce his name and be called “worm” until he hunts down and kills the white buffalo.

Meanwhile (part deux!), Hickok/Otis’ journey to the high country proves a somewhat difficult one.  He alternately finds deadly enemies and friends in the towns on his way out, including an old army officer, Tom Custard (I couldn’t help but think they were hinting at this actually being General George Custard, but for whatever reason they didn’t call him that), who very much wants him dead and Poker Jenny Schermerhorn (a still stunning Kim Novak), who hopes to rekindle their old fire.

Later still, Hickok meets up with Charlie Zane (played by Jack Warden), an old time tracker with a glass eye and together they confront Whistling Jack Kileen (a very menacing Clint Walker) before heading out to the high country.

It is there that Crazy Horse/Worm and Hickok/Otis eventually join forces to take on the white buffalo.  Their union isn’t an easy one.  Hickok is forced to keep his alias as he is hated by the Indians for murdering one of their most respected peacemakers years before.  It is implied in the early going that Hickok still has no love for Indians, but in working with Crazy Horse, he comes to realize the mistake of his ways.

As I said before, The White Buffalo is a damn strange film.  Coming a mere two years after the release of Jaws, it is clear the film is, at least thematically, going for a similar vibe.  The fact that the buffalo the hunters are after is white makes you think this movie also pays tribute to Moby Dick.

However, the first 2/3rds of the film are clearly meant to be a “mythic” view of the wild west, complete with dingy border towns, larger than life characters (some based on real people, some not so much), trains, Indians, gunplay, etc. etc.

When the final confrontation between our heroes and the buffalo arrives, it is, frankly, a bit of a dud.  The effects for the white buffalo aren’t terrible, but they aren’t exactly wonderful either (check the trailer below).  On the plus side that final confrontation has a wonderful, almost dreamlike element to it, which is very much in keeping with it being a manifestation of Hickok’s own dreams.

As for how this now thirty seven year old film works “today”…well, I suspect modern audiences might find it hard to sit through the movie.  While there is action and suspense, compared to the hyperkinetic action found in more modern films, this one might play too slow.

Regardless, for those who want to take a walk on the weird side, The White Buffalo has its pluses.  Where else can you find a western with such a large, recognizable cast that features a story as strange as this one?  If you’re in an adventurous mood, give it a try.  You may be surprised by what you find.

Movies

No One Lives (2012) a (mildly) belated review

A while back, while about to watch a film on DVD, I was intrigued with one of the movie previews presented at the start.  It involved a couple (they sported British accents so I assume it was a British film) driving through very dark woods and getting lost.  This being a horror film, all hell breaks loose.  The trailer stated the film was very well received at movie festivals and several critics made note, if memory serves, of its “ingenious” and “surprising” plot.

I’m a fan of genuinely suspenseful horror films, and the trailer to this film looked to be right up my alley.  Having said this, I’m not a huge fan of the over the top “gory” horror films.  I’m old enough (*hack* *wheeze*) to recall the first wave of such “gory” features, perhaps started with The Exorcist and continued with the original The Omen (two films I like quite a bit) but rendered progressively sillier in the 1980’s with the Friday the 13th films and their like.

I know there are those out there who love gory films and revel at the “creative kills” featured within them.  That’s not me.  It’s not that I’m squeamish.  Gore in a horror film is fine, especially when it adds to the overall suspense/tension weaved by a strong story, good acting, and good direction.  However, when the gore becomes the only thing, and it seems all the film wants to do is showcase bloody special effects, I tune out.

Anyway, I have the trailer I described above in mind when I spot the description of the film No One Lives on the Netflix list:

Robbers run a couple off the road and discover a kidnapped heiress in their custody.  But they’re all about to face something even more dangerous.

While I couldn’t remember the name that belonged to that horror film trailer, this description sounded close enough to what I saw that I thought it might be it.

I was completely wrong.

To begin, this is clearly not a British film as the couple we meet at the start do not sport British accents (nor does anyone else! 😉 ).  It was pretty clear pretty quickly that I had picked out the wrong film.

Nonetheless, I gave it a try.

Long story short?  Remember what I said above, that I get bored of horror films that are essentially gore showcases?  No One Lives is pretty much a gore showcase.

Yes, there is an interesting twist at its start (this twist is almost completely given away in the brief synopsis I’ve transcribed above and most certainly given away in the trailer below), but the film’s plot is barely worth bothering with: A bunch of for the most part unpleasant cardboard characters meet their grisly end at the hands of a “super” killer (Luke Evans), who looks kinda like Errol Flynn.

There’s really not all that much more to it, unfortunately.

Perhaps one day I’ll find that film I was actually looking for.  In the meantime, I can’t recommend No One Lives to anyone but the gore hounds.

Movies

Edge of Tomorrow (2014) a (very mildly) belated review

Count me among the very few who are not big fans of the Bill Murray film Groundhog Day.

Blasphemy, you say?

I suppose.  Mind you, I like the movie’s concept and the fact that it presents a potentially fascinating story about how a self-centered person, through the magical repetition of a single day, becomes a better man.

But the film, for whatever reason, just didn’t do all that much for me.

In Edge of Tomorrow, we have Groundhog Day’s essential plot transposed into a sci-fi/action milieu.  In fact, the less charitable might say this film pretty boldly rips off Groundhog Day’s essential story to an almost alarming degree, and that its surprising lawyers aren’t swarming the studios for compensation.  I don’t know how closely the movie adheres to the novel it was based on, though my understanding is that the central conceit remains the same.

But that, in the end, didn’t bother me all that much.  In fact, as I sat back in a pretty empty theater and watched the film, I was pleasantly rocked by what may be the best Tom Cruise sci-fi films of them all.

By my count, Tom Cruise has starred in, including Edge of Tomorrow, five sci-fi films: Vanilla Sky, Minority Report, War of the Worlds, and Oblivion.  I consider Interview With A Vampire a “horror” film and Legend a “fantasy” film, thus do not include them in this list.  But even if you were to do so, Edge of Tomorrow still pulls ahead of the pack.

I liked it that much.

Tom Cruise is Cage, a military officer who is often found on the news “rah-rah”ing the military’s victories against a vicious alien menace that has taken down almost all of Europe, killing millions in the process.  In London, he meets up with the allies’ commander on the eve of a second Normandy Invasion.  If the allies successfully get a foothold into Europe, they can start the long process of kicking the aliens out of this world.

If they don’t…

Thing is, regardless of the outcome the Invasion occurring the next day will be heavy in casualties.  That’s why the commander wants Cage to be on the front lines (albeit in an area less fighting is expected) filming what’s going on.  If the beach landing fails, the commander will obviously be crucified, but it won’t matter as Earth, and humanity, will be decimated.

But the commander also knows that if the landing succeeds he may very well be crucified because of the expected amount of casualties.  So he wants Cage to document the events in a positive light and show that his decision to invade was a good one.

Only problem?  Cage is a sniveling coward.

He has no problem going in front of cameras and building up the military for the masses.  But he absolutely, positively, does not want to be anywhere near actual life-threatening danger.

He tries to sweet talk his way out of the assignment and, realizing this isn’t working, makes the mistake of trying to blackmail the commander.  Sure, Cage says, he can “rah-rah” the commander’s invasion from the front lines.  But he can also present the commander’s decisions in a far less pleasant light, so wouldn’t it be better if he weren’t there at all?

The commander, understandably, isn’t too happy to hear this.  He has Cage arrested and boots him down to a squad involved in the invasion’s first strike.  Most of the people he will fight with are not expected to survive.

The next day the barely fight-ready Cage is rigged to a metallic battle suit and dropped into the heart of the new Normandy Invasion.  He survives for a while out of sheer luck as his fellow soldiers are brutally cut down.  He even sees Rita (Emily Blunt), the allies’ almost mythical soldier who against all odds won a battle against the aliens, before seeing her also killed.

Cage huddles with the remains of his group but one particularly nasty alien appears in their foxhole.  It kills the rest of his fellow soldiers and sets its sites on Cage.  Trying to defend himself, Cage grabs a directional mine and holds it to his chest.  It explodes, killing the alien creature instantly but not quite killing Cage.  As he dies, the alien’s blood flows into him and…

…he awakens at the moment he is about to join his squad and the day before the deadly beach assault.  He comes to realize that every time he “dies”, he awakens at that moment, over and over again.

What follows is an at times riveting film where Cage slowly learns from each relived day and, in the process, discovers the secret as to why he’s reliving this experience over and over again.  The science of it may be hockey, but there is no denying the excitement generated.

But what is the most exciting, to me, was the evolution of Cage’s character.  When we first meet him, he is the walking definition of an empty suit.  He may look handsome on the outside and has a charming, camera ready smile, but he’s a coward and not a very pleasant character at all (shades of Groundhog Day).

It is his evolution into something else that is the heart of the film.  His interactions with the battle tested Rita further add to the fun as her character, we find, also has hidden layers and is a great foil to Cage.

In the end, Edge of Tomorrow is an easy recommendation.  No, it is not a “perfect” action film as there are a few minor things here and there that make no sense (I would point them out, but we might get a little too spoilery…well, without getting into too many details, one of the biggest issues is that the aliens should probably be a little more careful with the units they send into battle.  I’ll say no more.)

Ok, quibbles aside, check the film out.  It is a great piece of entertainment.

Movies

The Lego Movie (2014) and 22 Jump Street (2014) a (mildly) belated two-fer review

Why put these two films together in one review?  The common denominator, for those unaware, is that the directors of both features were the duo of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller.  In the case of The Lego Movie, these two very gifted individuals were also involved in the screenplay.

I suppose that last statement above gives away what I think about both films, but let me nonetheless elaborate a little.

When I first heard of The Lego Movie, I scoffed.

Seriously?  A film based on Lego toys?  How cheesy.  How corporate.  Just what the movie going audiences need: Another commercial for a toy line disguised as a kid’s film.

Yet once the film was released, I was more than a little surprised by the wealth of very positive reviews.  When I investigated the film some more and the people behind it (again, Mr. Lord and Miller), I was intrigued.  Not enough to catch the film during its theatrical run, but enough to give it a look when, and if, the opportunity presented itself.

While sitting on the very looong flight to England (if you get a chance to go there, take it.  Lovely place!) last week, the film was one of many available to be seen through the passenger entertainment system.  Opportunity, present!  I gave The Lego Movie a whirl.

Frankly, I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Would the film be as good as others had said, or was this a case of mass exaggeration?  I had gone through that once before, with the first Charlie’s Angels movie.  It seemed every review was something along the lines of “It was actually good!  I expected total crap and it was actually very good!”  By the time I saw the movie, my expectations were high and, I found, the movie was a disappointment.

In this case, thought, I’m happy to say the critics were right on target.  The Lego Movie proved to far, far better than my low to cautiously optimistic expectations.  The film is a creative ball of wonder, one that uses astonishing lego scenery for just about everything frame of the film and every character within.  But astonishing visuals alone a good movie does not make, and it is the creativity in the script that really counts.

The story goes as follows: In Legotown, a worker drone (essentially a nobody) gets involved in the reality behind the scenes of his seeming placid world.  Evil doings are going on and, after bumping into the more than capable of defending herself WyldStyle (voiced by Elizabeth Banks), our reluctant would-be hero finds he might just be the savior of the entire Lego world.

I know, I know…if you think about it, the plot sounds suspiciously similar to that of The Matrix.  I’ll grant you this is indeed the case, but you’re in for so very much more.  The film takes you through delightful comedic stretches and worlds, bumping into an astonishing array of copyright characters while providing a healthy dose of laugh out loud moments.

But back to the characters encountered!

Where else do you have a film that features, I kid you not, Batman –THE Batman- along with several other superheroes (I won’t mention who as I don’t want to spoil things)?  Granted, Batman is a Lego version of the character, but he’s there.  Along with other superheroes are a host of well known and surprising characters.  How the studios managed to fit them all here in this one film (albeit in Lego form) is yet another thing of wonder.

So to those like me who scoffed at the idea of a Lego Movie, scoff no more.  If you still can’t believe this feature is as good as others say, give it five minutes.  If that doesn’t convince you to watch the rest, I don’t know what will.

So the ever active Mr. Lord and Miller followed up the impressive The Lego Movie with the sequel to their better than I thought it would be 21 Jump Street with… 22 Jump Street.

Now, mind you, I wasn’t in rapture with 21 Jump Street.  I thought it was a decent movie with some very funny humor but, overall, I thought it was a “good” but not “great” film.

Well, the boys behind that film probably felt the same -and decided to one up themselves- because 22 Jump Street is far, far better than the original film.

Years ago the movie Airplane! absolutely destroyed every cliche and situation regarding both disaster movies and airplane disaster movies in particular.  22 Jump Street does the same thing…but its focus is not only on buddy cop action films, it is on the very concept of movie sequels!

And what a skewering movie sequels get in this film!

From the sign next to the old 21 Jump Street church to the closing credits that effectively wring every last laugh on what sequels are like, 22 Jump Street hits every note and makes a meta-commentary on all it is to be a sequel, from the far larger budget to the fact that “you were lucky the first time”.

“How do we solve this crime?” one of the characters ask.  “How did we do it the last time?” the another deadpans.

And so it goes.  Self-referential and with tongue firmly in cheek, the hilarious 22 Jump Street might be one of the best comedies I’ve seen since the golden days of Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker.

Seriously, its that good.

Both films are highly, highly recommended.

Movies

RoboCop (2014) a (mildly) belated review

Count me among those who were damn near horrified to learn a remake of Robocop, the classic 1987 film directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Peter Weller and Nancy Allen, was in the works.

There were those that managed to temper their negative feelings a bit after the remake’s cast was announced.  You had Micheal Keaton.  You had Gary Oldman.  You even had Samuel L. Jackson!  Big name actors and an interesting bunch.  Then it was announced that Jose Padilha would direct.this remake.  While not a huge name in America, he had directed some fine works in his native Brazil and those in the know felt that, at the very least, he was an intriguing choice for this remake.

So some fans had their fingers crossed and hoped for the best.  Eventually, the film was released.

I think its fair to say that the general reaction to the 2014 version of RoboCop was something along the lines of “It wasn’t as bad as it could have been”, which is as backhanded a complement as you can probably get.  Looking at the hard numbers, Rotten Tomatoes has the film scoring a mediocre 49% positive among audiences and a not all that much better 55% positive among critics (In comparison, the original Robocop scored a far more impressive 88% positive among critics and an 83% positive among audiences).

For my part, I wasn’t exactly dying to see the film.  Even after learning who was in it and who directed it (I remain unfamiliar with all his previous works), I was certain whatever was produced wouldn’t hold a candle to the original.  Yet when the opportunity presented itself to see RoboCop 2014, I gave it try.  As best I could I put my mind in neutral.  I didn’t expect much, but was hoping for the best.

So…was the film better than I thought?

In a word, no.

I didn’t like the film.  I didn’t like it much at all.  Yet before I go into what went wrong, I need to give the creators behind this movie credit as it certainly appeared they took the time to try to come up with a new, somewhat unique, and interesting “take” on the whole RoboCop concept.

The movie begins with U.S. armed forces in some unnamed Arabian country.  Over there the U.S. is using robots to “protect” the peace, a not so subtle jab at the current drone wars, only these forces are actually patrolling the ground (and obviously making the locals very nervous).  The company behind the robots, OmniCorp, wants to increase their profits by expanding the robot program into the United States as an aid to fighting crime.  But while we can use terrifying robots “over there”, politicians are far less inclined to allow their use within U.S. soil.

The company, headed by Raymond Sellars (Michael Keaton) figures out an end around to the politicians: It will create a man/machine hybrid and hopefully its success will allow them to convince the politicians to fully implement their profitable robotic forces on our soil.

All they need to do is find a police officer severely injured enough to put these robotic parts on what remains of his person.

Enter Alex Murphy (a very bland Joel Kinnaman) who is the proverbial “honest” cop in a den of dishonesty.  He is pursuing illegal gun sellers who are apparently getting their weapons from the police themselves.  His investigation creates too many waves and Murphy is dispatched with a car bomb.

Now severely injured, our two stories intersect as OmniCorp deems the fallen officer prime material for their RoboCop program.

And off we go.

Again, I like the fact that the creators of this film decided to use current events to fashion their movie’s concept.  I also like the fact that when RoboCop is created, they question just how far a human being can be cut down and “augmented” with artificial components before he is no longer a human.  These prove to be surprisingly weighty issues…but unfortunately tackling interesting concepts alone does not a good movie make.

The original RoboCop also dealt to some degree with the issues of man and machine interaction.  Unlike this remake, it gleefully presented itself as an ultraviolent comic book (I say that in the best way).  We had high level emotions and strong action sequences.  We had suspense, we had humor.  Like it or not, the original RoboCop moved.

Something that, unfortunately, cannot be said of the remake.

The first major mistake the film makes, ironically enough, goes back to its biggest strength.  The movie winds up wallowing a little too much in the questions of what makes a man and at what point is he a machine.  Worse, we’re given no strong villains for RoboCop to fight against.  Sure, we know two of his fellow officers are corrupt, but they’re for the most part in the background doing very little.  The head gun seller and man who was behind Murphy’s near death is also presented in only a couple of scenes and never merits much thought before he’s dispatched.  There are two other villains who appear later in the film, but one is meant to be a total surprise so we can’t root against the character and cheer her fall.  The final villain reveals his villainy only in the film’s last ten or so minutes, also making that character someone hard to root against.

What we’re left with is a film that Rottten Tomatoes’ score hits perfectly.  RoboCop 2014 is certainly not a terrible film, but neither is it particularly good.  In the end, it winds up being little more than mediocre.  And that winds up frustrating you all the more.  With a little more effort, RoboCop 2014 might have been memorable in its own way.

Too bad.

Movies

The World’s End (2013) a (mildly) belated review

Movie “coincidences” are a curious thing.  I’m referring here to the times when very similarly themed movies are released at roughly the same time.

Sometimes such coincidences are anything but.  A long while back, after the tremendous success of both The Terminator and Aliens, it was announced that director James Cameron’s next project was to be set in an underwater facility.  Rival movie studios, hoping to steal Mr. Cameron’s lightning (and box office gold), set about making their own films set in underwater facilities.  Thus it was that in the year 1989 Mr. Cameron’s The Abyss was released at roughly the same time as both Leviathan and DeepStar Six.  The Abyss would turn out to be completely unlike Mr. Cameron’s previous white knuckle thrillers but Leviathan and DeepStar Six were essentially what the studios thought Mr. Cameron was up to: A variation of Alien/Aliens set in an underwater facility.

While this was a case where the studios were emulating (or, to not be quite so polite: ripping off) each other, there have been other occasions where “coincidental creativity” has appeared.  One has to look no further than the 2013 release of the comedies The World’s End and the somewhat similarly themed (and very similarly titled) This is the End.

This is the End (you can read my full review here) was a film featuring comedy actors playing exaggerated/cartoon versions of themselves while the Biblical Apocalypse rains down on Earth.  For better or worse, much of the humor felt improvised and the plot was rather simple.  On the other hand, The World’s End feels like a more thoroughly thought out story which is just as likely to be bittersweet as it is humorous.

The World’s End, for those who don’t know, is the third of the so-called “Cornetto Trilogy”.  The other two films in the trilogy, all of which feature director/co-writer Edgar Wright and stars/co-writers Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, were the zombie comedy Shaun of the Dead and the “Dirty Harry” meets Agatha Christie comedy Hot Fuzz.

Thus, the two previous Cornetto films take on popular movie genres and create their own humorous riff on them.  So, for The World’s End, what movie/genre did the trio decide to focus on?

Try Invasion of the Body Snatchers married with Peter Pan and a hint of The Big Chill.

The story goes like this: Back in the 1990’s a group of High School friends got together for one big -and they thought last- night of debauchery before graduating and heading off to “real” life.  They intended to visit (and drink at!) the twelve bars in the small town they all lived in, progressively getting wasted in “epic” fashion.

However, they didn’t quite make it to the last of the twelve bars, the titular The World’s End, so their epic journey ended in failure.

In the present, this group of friends have grown and have careers and family.  But their one-time leader, Gary King (Simon Pegg), appears to have never grown up.  When first seen, we find he’s in some kind of group therapy and talks about that magical night twenty some odd years before and laments that the group never quite finished their adventure.  One of his fellow therapy partners asks if he thinks about doing this again, to finish what he started, and so begins the adventure…

In the course of the next few minutes of screen time, we’re introduced to the now-aging gang via Gary.  He meets up with each of them individually and does what he can (usually involving sweet talk and/or white lies and flim-flammery) to convince them to go back to their home town and finish their bar hopping adventure.  In the end, Gary succeeds in getting everyone together and they start their day of bar hopping…

…until things get decidedly strange.

As I noted above, this film owes its central plot to Invasion of the Body Snatchers just as previous Cornetto films owed their plots to other films/genres.  It is this element which becomes the movie’s main focus, though there are other additions to the mix.

The comic elements are fun, though the film is just as often rather sad.  The fact of the matter is that Gary is, for the most part, a pathetic figure.  He is a warning to everyone of the dangers of living in the past and refusing to accept one’s present.  Indeed, as the movie progresses, his friends are more and more turned off by him and are about to leave him to his windmills and return to their adult lives when the strange stuff begins.

Given how “normal” the first third or so of the film was, the arrival of the strange stuff creates a rather jarring turn, and I suspect the film would have been a little better if they made the transition more subtly than they did here.

Still, this was their choice and the final parts of the film involve the characters still navigating their way through the bars while dealing with, potentially, the end of the world.

The World’s End is an amusing enough film that entertained me through its runtime without necessarily knocking my socks off.  While it didn’t wear out its welcome like This Is The End, the mix and mash use of different genres didn’t work quite as well here as they did in Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, at least for me.

Regardless, the film was far more enjoyable -again, to me- than the somewhat similar Seth Rogan vehicle.  If you’re already a fan of the Cornetto films, this is a no-brainer.  Others not quite as familiar with the Wright/Pegg/Frost collaborations may take a little more time to warm up to their particular brand of humor.

Movies

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) a (very) belated review

I’m a sucker for “deleted” scenes from films as well as movies that were trimmed down from the director’s vision and subsequently “restored”.

Perhaps the most famous of this later bunch -and easily one of my all time favorite films- is the 1927 sci-fi classic Metropolis.  Because of the high costs associated with the production and its too long run time which lead to fears the film would not recoup its expenses, Metropolis was cut down in length shortly after its premiere and the cut scenes were thought lost forever for many, many years.  That is, until a relatively complete print was miraculously found in South America.  The “restored” version, which still doesn’t include a couple of too far damaged scenes, is an incredible experience despite the blurriness of the reinserted lost scenes, especially if all you’ve ever experienced of the film is the “cut” version.

But restoration doesn’t always mean a superior product from the one released theatrically.  As much as I loved Apocalypse Now and as much as I was intrigued with seeing Apocalypse Now Redux, director Francis Ford Coppola’s extended version of the film, that version of the film wound up being an incredible disappointment.  The extra sequences proved, at least to me, forgettable and wisely trimmed from the film.  A good example is checking out the Redux version of the full Robert Duvall sequence and comparing it to the theatrical one.  In the theatrical version, those scenes are among the best of the film, concluding on a bizarre, wistful Duvall speech (“One day, this war is going to end.”).  In the Redux version, the scene goes on and on, bringing us an unnecessary -and silly- bit involving the boys stealing Duvall’s surfboard.  Similarly, The Warriors was, again IMHO, a great film in its theatrical form and a mess -again IMHO- in its expanded director’s cut.

Regardless, my interest in seeing “restored” versions of films remains very high and the latest example of just such a creature is the Criterion company’s release of the 1963 comedy It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (I’ll refer to it as IAMW from now on).

The theatrical cut of the film runs 154 minutes but most fans of the feature know there was a 202 minute pre-release version that was subsequently trimmed and no longer exists.  Criterion nonetheless searched long and hard and found as many of the lost elements as they could and the restored version presented on their BluRay runs a lengthy 197 minutes.

Does this version add to the film like Metropolis or subtract like Apocalypse Now Redux and The Warriors?

The answer is a little tricky, but ultimately my feeling is the “restored” version of the film is the superior product…with a mild asterisk.

Why the asterisk?  To begin, IAMW was already a very time consuming film experience and those who didn’t “get” the joke were bound to think negatively about the film in its shorter version and would no doubt feel even less for the longer version.  I suspect younger viewers, too, might find less in the film because it features a cast that, frankly, the younger set may not recognize at all.  At the time of its creation in 1963, IAMW featured just about every popular comedic actor there was out there.  The all star cast was crammed into a race to the finish type film, where the various groups of people hunt for a buried treasure while greed gets the best of them.

Though I’ll admit to not being a huge fan of some of the principle actors (Milton Berle and Sid Ceasar, just to name two, were a little before my time), I nonetheless got a kick out of seeing all the various faces parade before me.  And some of the set pieces, in particular the wayward airplane sequences, were outright hilarious and an obvious inspiration to things that were to come (I’m looking at you, Airplane!).

The restored sequences reinserted into IAMW are at times pretty ragged.  Some of them have the dialogue cut off at the last second.  But worse are other scenes, most notably one featuring silent comedy legend Buster Keaton, which only feature the dialogue recording and were presented, in lieu of the actual film, with stills.  Unlike Apocalypse Now Redux, I felt most of the “restored” scenes were, if not always vital, at the very least added to the story and, in certain cases, filled in a few of the story’s gaps.  Returning to the lost Buster Keaton scene, now I understand where Capt. Culpepper (Spencer Tracy) was going toward the end of the film.  As it was in the theatrical cut, he heads to Buster Keaton’s place but I was never exactly sure why.

That’s not to say all the restored bits are all long and involved.  Many of them amount to a nothing more than a few seconds of extended dialogue or film that are interesting enough but could have been lost without hurting the feature all that much.

Still, my daughter, who usually doesn’t care all that much for older films, nonetheless wound up watching the restored version with me from a little after the beginning to its end and enjoyed the feature.  Given that the only actors she recognized were The Three Stooges in their couple of seconds long cameo, it didn’t detract from her enjoyment of the madness before her.

In the end, I recommend the restored version of IAMW.  While the film is long and therefore requires a considerable investment on the part of viewers, it is an at times hilarious bit of madness, a comedy on a grand scale the likes of which hasn’t been made any time recently.

Check it out.  If you’re into this kind of comedy, you’ll have a good time.

Movies

Spione (1928) a (ridiculously) belated review

One of my all time favorite films is the Fritz Lang directed, Thea Von Harbou written 1927 sci-fi film Metropolis.  This film was incredibly influential in so many ways, including serving as a visual inspiration to designs in Star Wars and Blade Runner.

Incredibly, director Lang and von Harbou would follow that very influential film with a film that is THE great-grand daddy of all spy films, Spione (aka Spies).  If you want to see what is essentially a James Bond film made over thirty years before the release of Dr. No, look no further, for Spione features such by now familiar spy tropes as…a dashing, handsome hero known by his number rather than name (in this case, 326 versus 007), a villainous head of a vast criminal enterprise confined to a wheelchair, seductive femme fatales -one of which falls for our hero!-, world peril, secret documents, hidden listening devices, disappearing ink, globe trotting (to a degree) adventure, an extended chase scene, and, of course, danger danger danger!

Having said that, those looking forward to a proto-James Bond film should also realize this is a very old film and there will be things about it modern audiences will no doubt have trouble understanding and/or appreciating.  The acting, for example, is at times quite overwrought.  This is not an uncommon element in silent films, as emotions had to be conveyed without actual dialogue.

The story itself features a McGuffin at the central of its plot, and this McGuffin, unfortunately, winds up being not as well thought out as it could have been.  Basically, the Japanese and the Germans are working on some kind of treaty and the movie’s villain wants to get his hands on the signed paper before it leaves Germany, thus provoking war…or something.  The movie gives the impression there is only one copy of this treaty heading out, and for a treaty the movie conveys as being so important, that seems rather absurd.  You would think multiple copies of this treaty would exist and the fellows signing it would keep in touch with their respective superiors via some other form of communication instead of relying on getting that one copy of the treaty to their homeland safely.

Still, if you can look past these elements and appreciate the film as the time capsule it is, you will have plenty to admire.  Again, the most astounding things present in this film are the James Bondian elements.  One comes away from this wondering just how familiar author and creator of James Bond Ian Fleming and the makers of the Bond films were with Spione.

But they weren’t the only ones!

Remember this scene, from Blade Runner?

Starting from roughly the 1:38 mark, where Sebastian “finds” Pris, this scene is strikingly similar to one in Spione, where during a rainstorm the sympathetic Japanese agent Masimoto (who is in charge of the treaty our villain wants to get his hands on) “finds” a soaking woman at a doorway who he feels sympathy for and, like Sebastian, takes in…only to be betrayed by her later on.

So, if you’re in the mood for a prototypical James Bond film, give Spione a whirl.  While parts of it may be dated and the story may be a little absurd, you will nonetheless be astonished by how many elements of this film found their way to modern spy features.

Highly recommended.