“Missing some very key nuts and bolts”

Moviegoers were treated to a breath of fresh air in 2008 when the original Iron Man was released. On the preface of The Dark Knight, Iron Man became the type of comic book movie everyone wanted to see.  It achieved on a lot of levels; inciting a new fanbase, creating allusions toward future movies and pleasing fan boys. In short; there was just something refreshingly different in the first Iron Man. Whether it was Robert Downey Jr. or the general supporting cast or the tone of the film or both, this felt like a superhero movie that kind of sat better than some previous incarnations.  That being said, what happened here?

The big issue Favreau has in Iron Man 2 is making the next chapter as refreshing.  Iron Man isn’t a particularly interesting hero, but his alter ego is a fascinating character.  Robert Downey Jr. again proves up to the challenge of emobdying Tony Stakr and sprinkles his normal magic over this preformance with nuance, fun and pain. And for the majority of the supporting cast, we get what we came for, which are solid preformances.  My problem isn’t with how they play, it’s about why they play.

In Iron Man 2, things happen on screen but not much occurs.  I’m watching Tony Stark and Co. go through all these events but theres no thread really connecting the events.  Iron Man 2 is all about the spectacle and not enough about the story. It’s as if someone said: “Lets trot out RDJ, Mickey Rourke, Sam Rockwell, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle etc. and have them do things. It will be interesting”.  And because these actors are so accomplished and seasoned, they can for the most part, hide a lot of what is wrong in the movie.  It’s an interesting example in smoke and mirrors.  Much like all the hidden macguffins toward future franchises which pull the movie down even more.

The wink-wink relationship Favreau employed in the first Iron Man was a perfect amount to get fanboys and even casual viewers to appreciate what the movie was trying to do outside of being just a film; it was building an event and making the movie even that much more like a comic book.  In Iron Man 2, the viewers are hammered with wink after wink after wink.  Can we just focus on making this movie good and not as a stepping point towards the next film?  Somewhere in that process we lost what made the first movie good.  The scenes with Scarlett Johannson and Samuel L. Jackson and that side plot are useless.  This movie was way too heavy on the allusion to future story and not enough about the story of the film.

If any of the characters had stakes that lasted longer than 5 minutes, I think the film could play as choppy.  But in the world of hyper kinetic, “whats-next” film-making, it’s not good enough to depend on an emotional heartbeat to drive a spectacle movie.  I didn’t feel like anything was totally at stake, except with Tony Stark and Pepper Potts. That really is part of the heart of this film.  I clearly had a lot of problems with this film, as it was not really entertaining nor emotional, but flat and empty.  For what it’s worth, RDJ is the emotional anchor of this film and were it any other actor, this movie would fall completely flat. I don’t reccomend this movie and it get’s a 4 out of 10 Bones for being a lot of show and not much else.

RATING:

“I’d let you kick mine, but I’m just not buying it”

It would be hard to find a kid in the world who read a comic book and didn’t want to become a hero.  Such is the premise of Kick-Ass, the latest comic book adaptation by Matthew Vaughn, he of almost X3 fame.  But the story of Kick-Ass is much more involved than just simple hero-worship turned vigilante behavior; it is a true discussion on the very apathy of humans to accept violence, crimes and sins being committed in front of our eyes.  Or at least that’s what I thought for the first 40 minutes.  Because what follows disrupts your sense of place and understanding to such a degree, it’s hard to divulge the true purpose.

See my big problem with Kick-Ass is that it starts off wanting me to think it’s heading into Taxi Driver territory.  And for the first 30 minutes or so, we get that and it works.  And even when it devolves to include budding story lines and other colorful characters, mainly Hit-Girl and Big Daddy, it still works.  But what’s presented as a very human story about a kid who wants to take matters into his own hands and then realizes how very much in over his head he is, turns into ridiculous popcornery that totally invalidates the way the first 40 minutes sets up the film.

It was really hard trying to connect with any of the characters when you can’t decide in what way to take them.  There are two schools operating here; the very realistic world where our heroes bleed and get hurt and the super-power, action packed world where crazy situations are the norm.   The preformances range from good (Aaron Johnson, Chloe Moretz) to lame (Kick-Ass’ girlfriend) to WTF?(Nicholas Cage). It’s hard to entirely gauge the preformances from anyone being that I was never quite clear what way I was suppose to interpret each scene: Is this a realistic part or comic book fantasy time? I had a hard time suspending belief to buy into character motivations and actions for this simple reason.

The movie actually has a very nice look and some really cool sequences.  It reminded me of a more enjoyable version of last years Wanted; flashy and edgy for the first 30 minutes, slowly then rapidly devolving to incomprehensible, except I like the characters and action of this movie quite a bit more. But even with Wanted, you were made to understand that you weren’t going to get realistic, whereas with Kick-Ass you’re treated to a nice dose of gruesome realism which instantly triggers empathy for the character. And then to cheapen it with over the top situations and general loose craziness really detracts from the films initial strength and core.

RATING:

“Probably a better book”

Taking a look at popular literature these days, I noticed this The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo book being featured in prominent magazines. I read a synopsis, found it intriguing and immediately started wondering when I’d be hearing about the movie version. I didn’t have to wait long, as I quickly found out it had already been adapted into a movie from Sweden. Upon hearing some general positive reviews of the book from friends, I opted to try my hand at what sounded like a layered noir-ish, detective story.

And for the most part, that’s exactly what the movie is; a densely layered mystery upon mystery that unfolds in a rather unceremonious way.  Not wanting to give away too much, suffice it to say, the way our two heroes meet is a rather unique affair. The movie very much feels like two stories mashed together that play toward a third act.  That being said, there are more than plenty of sequences in the film that play past their expiration date and really don’t do anything to move any of the stories further. But when the film goes to the darker areas, the scenes are arresting.

Some scenes in this movie are just brutal and so charged with a darkness that the movie uses them as tentpoles until the next plot point needs to be unveiled.  Put simply: When the movie is going right, it’s right up there with some of the darkest cinema you’ll watch.  When it’s not, it plays like a typical thriller filled with schlock and cheese.  I’m not sure how much the director trusts his audience in this film, having the characters constantly explain what they’re thinking and delving into pointless exposition.

For 2 of the 3 acts in this movie, there is enough of those tentpole moments and general intrigue to keep you interested.  By the third act, the mysteries are devolving and the edge is mostly gone. The people I went to see this with made note that the movie seems to play out a lot like a book should. And it is apparently part of a trilogy, so it should be interesting to see how the preceding films play out as well as the announced Hollywood version. Other than that, this film is nothing more than a decent thriller with spots of effective brutality, but not enough to keep it afloat.

RATING:

“Going nuts hasn’t been this fun since…well it is just a movie.  That was an overstatement. Sorry”

Setting up the mood in a genre movie is perhaps the most important thing a film-maker can do.  We know the dialogue may be crap. We know the story may be fantastical and ask us, the audience, to appreciate the stretch we have to make to buy in.  But if we can identify with some characters and some situations, it’s really enough to get us by.  In this latest installment of zombie-ish horror, The Crazies succeeds and then some.

The Crazies, a remake of a George Romero film, does nothing different with the genre.  It stays pretty close to the chest and stays within itself.  It doesn’t attempt to make empty messages or have the characters make hollow or transparent decisions.  Much like another sci-fi flick in Avatar, it’s really about buying in and director Breck Eisner does this to a pretty good degree.  This is mostly done in a pseudo documentary style of film-making which is intended to make the audience feel like it’s looking over the shoulder and in the thick of it with the heroes.

And the heroes are pretty good…when they’re not delivering dialogue.  All in all, the script of the movie had a solid story in tact and had to dress up some of the heavier dialogue scenes with pure cheese; where characters are dictating their actions as a means of their thoughts.  It’s clear that director Breck Eisner doesn’t really trust his audience enough to let us develop our own reactions and feelings toward the material.  But I didn’t find this a detraction.  I found the ride enjoyable and worth taking.  There are crappy scenes, crappy lines but all in all not enough to drag a final product down.

It’s clear Eisner isn’t comfortable really undressing this material.  He’ll let us see a man burn his family alive, but he won’t let us see a son seperated from his mother NOT get returned to her merely minutes later.  He’s willing to go just far enough to remind you that you’re watching a horror film, but not enough to really imagine the real horror.  But it does go further than other fare.  It is a step in the right direction.  If you’re looking for a movie that will keep the suspense and keep you in the story, The Crazies is in theaters now.  This movie get’s a solid 7 + out of 10 Bones for being just a by the numbers, entertaining, creepy movie.

RATING: PLUS!

“Who knew that the Harbor Islands had cliffs? And not just cliffs but giant bluffs?”

Any time a movie is pushed back from a release date, it brings me cause for concern.  It’s like sending a message to the viewers, that someone thought it was ready and the people in charge ultimately of that decision, disagreed.  Usually, those people are not directors. I only see a room full of people making creative decisions that do nothing but hurt the intended message and overall quality of a film. So imagine my surprise to see Martin Scorsese’s latest movie, Shutter Island, fall victim to my paranoid scenario.  It was written off as a tactic to garner “Oscar buzz”.  But any movie fan saw that by the time Shutter Island came out, the nominees would have already been announced.  So really, now that it’s here and I’ve seen it, what’s the real story about what happened on Shutter Island?

Martin Scorsese is considered to be a master film-maker amongst the film-making community.  It would be hard to disagree with someone making that argument considering the resume of films and pedigree. And to that degree, when I heard that Scorsese was doing a “horror” movie, I was excited. I always enjoy watching directors work outside their regular genres and really stretch their style in other ways. So when I heard that Scorsese was making this movie based off a Dennis Lehane novel of the same name and working with Leo again, I couldn’t see what could go bad.  Because every collaboration of these guys has been a solid if not very good film. Which isn’t to say that Shutter Island is a bad film, but it has it’s limits.

Shutter Island is less horror film and more psychological thriller.  There are intense moments of suspense that are coupled with a really effective sense of place and art direction; everything looks good here but it doesn’t feel whole.  I found myself being bored throughout some of the middle parts, with straying strands of narrative branching here and there.  Nothing looks worn in or gritty, something I think Scorsese champions in many of his older films.  This film is more reminiscent of a Gangs of New York rather than a GoodFellas.  Which doesn’t make it bad, it just doesn’t for an overall atmosphere to go with the good use of tension employed. To speak of this grit, is the lack of style as a larger point that is absent for majority of this film.

There are flashes of Scorsese’s virtuouso musings in this, don’t get me wrong, but not enough to really make this movie feel much different than other mind-benders I’ve taken in.  I can’t knock on the movie for not doing things I wanted to see but I can criticize that what I did see felt standard and pretty safe. The preformances are fine and the one really effective part is the score. Other than that, it’s a fine way to take in a movie, but not much more.  If you want to be creeped out, then this will be fine.  Other than that, I wish I was let off the island a bit sooner.  This movie get’s 6 out of 10 Bones for being just fine.

RATING:

“A movie too big not to review”

I used to try and figure out what movies would gross a ton of money and which ones wouldn’t.  I would narrate to myself the specific qualities of these films that COULD make them the next big thing.  I deduced these few:

-A really good story or a mediocre story with a great payoff (i.e. A “didn’t see it coming” twist).

-Great preformances by noticeable actors.

-Great effects.

-Marketing.

In most ways these 4 categories are rudimentary and I’m sure I’m missing a lot, but let’s take The Dark Knight, for example. Good story? Check. Great performances? At least one, check. Great effects? Holy Checkmark Batman. And Marketing is a big fat checkola (pun intended).  So what am I getting at here? What I’m saying is that once in a blue moon, a movie comes along that may only have 2 of those check marks, but they are so definitively huge, that as long as the other two check marks hold water, you have a hit.  Ladies and gentleman, I present you Avatar.

James Cameron is into making big movies with new things that push cinema.  He also may be shorting some of that enthusiasm and skill in the areas that make films artistic.  Avatar has a used plot.  It’s nothing new.  The script is somewhat wooden, though certainly not as much as most people would make you think.  It’s the IT movie of now and has become the movie that your either cool to trash on or just apart of the masses who enjoy it.  There’s a lot to say against this movie in the areas of script and maybe acting.  But I bought the whole stinking lot of it.

Call me childish or blithe, but I enjoyed the experience of Avatar.  Having gone into this movie with shockingly little to no expectation, I found myself thoroughly enjoying trodden ground executed with just enough panache to match the spectacular effects.  Cameron has found a way to synthesize many different themes into his own to make a compelling sci-fi epic that holds water and delights your eyeballs.  Many people harp on the lack of originality in the movie with it’s story.  To that I say, look at some of our greater directors and tell me that they haven’t done the same thing.  One of them even won an Oscar for making a remake.

Sam Worthington here is fine as the hero.  Zoe Saldana is fine as the heroine. The supporting characters are fine.  I don’t see many problems with any of the acting here as they hold water.  The script certainly has it clunkers for scenes and may have been able to be trimmed.  It maintains a certain George Lucas, wooden doll acting approach at times.  But none of this ever for very long or frequently.  Not enough to bring you out of it.

I won’t deny that it’s kind of clunky and overly sentimental.  The bad guys wear black, the good guys white (metaphorically speaking) and we’re told who to root for.  But sometimes thats not all that bad, especially when you BUY into what you’re seeing.  Don’t go see this movie if you have a preconceived notion of whether or not you’ll like, which I’m guessing at this point would be really tough. If it’s possible, however, go and sit and just BUY into what you see.  Not lemming like, because the film doesn’t push back.  But enjoy it for what it is.  Because for all the criticism I hear about this movie and for all those same points I may slightly agree with, I bought the movie and enjoyed it.  Avatar gets a solid 7+ out of 10 Bones for being a fun, enjoyable film that had it’s clunky parts.

RATING:  PLUS!

“First-class film-making”

Something of a marriage happens in Up in the Air, the new film by Juno-director Jason Reitman.  That marriage is one between a big Hollywood billing and star with an independent films sensibility.  That relationship as something that occurs in the same film is quite a feat unto itself as it represents the amount of grey area film has left to remain both emotionally and fiscally rewarding.  Take this as a divine compliment, as Up in the Air is a joy to take in.

Based off the novel by Walter Kirn by the same name, Up in the Air is the story of Ryan Bingham, a “termination technician”, who travels around the country terminating employees from their jobs.  Or as he would put it, “Giving them a beginning”.  And the insane part is, you kind of buy it.  Clooney brings the exact amount of charm and charisma to the role that makes this seemingly anti-hero…well…heroic.  He’s a man who very much enjoys his job and the way his life operates around that job. He’s not looking to change in anyway (he’ll even try to get you to change with a speech about backpacks), but he will convince you that everything is going to be OK.

And of course theres a love interest. Duh! How else would he have a dramatic turn?  But in this case it takes the place in the very sexy, very convincing Vera Farmiga.  The banter that occurs between the two is really fun and believable. Clooney and Farmiga both respect each other enough as actors as well as characters that they don’t feel the need to act outside of their direction.  Newcomer Anna Kendrick also throws her weight around with some great moments as well.  What could have easily fallen into film cliche between these characters, turns out to be very personal relationships that we have the pleasure of watching unfold. Clooney really does feel like he knows everything and has an answer for venerably anything.  But we know he doesn’t.  We know theres another shoe and we know it’s dropping.

It’s in watching how everything unfolds about Clooney’s plot that maintains the tension.  The care and effort employed by Reitman is that of respect for his material and for the audiences.  He makes these characters worth caring about.  Clooney doesn’t start to realize until it’s potentially too late that all these places he goes to and all the miles that he accumulates are just points on a map. He has been there, but he has nothing but miles to prove it.  It’s not until one scene that presents itself as minor, that he has the major revelation; Life isn’t life unless it’s talking back.

Irksomely, Reitman does revert to some indy quirk, which waters down the final product a bit, but not enough to merit huge criticism.  His visual takes and the way it changes depending on the situation, deviating from polished and smooth to the faux-documentary nature of his Office days are very effective and help move the story.  Reitman once again lands a solid film that is totally worth seeing.  This movie gets a 9 out of 10 Bones for charm, wit and a reminder that we are the pilots of our lives if we just take the controls.

RATING:

“Creeeeppppyyyy”

There are definetely situations I know I’d never want to be in.  Sometimes those situations arise in movies and it makes the connection to the flick that much more.  The Strangers is not a new story or situation by any means, but it does represent a terrifying possibility: What if help weren’t a phone call away? In this generation where cell-phones, texting, laptops etc. help keep us connected 24/7, is there anything more frightening to know that you may not be able to?  Scream used the concept of cell phones to it’s advantage.  The Strangers uses cell-phones as extensions of the people who can’t use them and to how lost we are without them.

Ok so that’s pretty critical and maybe a little hefty in the analysis.  The Strangers is an above average horror movie that is truely creepy.  From first time director Bryan Bertino, this movie looks and feels like a poor mans Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Which is a compliment, not a detraction.  From the moment the movie starts, you care about the characters and what will happen to them from their little back story.  I like that there isn’t much exposition, but enough to know you should care.  There’s a history and clearly something at stake. Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman do this in the little screen time dedicated to the topic at a wonderful rate.

Which brings me to the next exciting point.  Once shit starts hitting the fan, it does so at a break neck pace, never really allowing the viewer to feel safe or take a deep breath. Our heroes always seem to be one step behind the heartless villains.  Speaking of the villains they are pretty well done.  They lack just the right amount of emotion and mess with the heroes enough to know something about them without them having to say a line. Tonally, visually and conceptually the movie is very well executed and certainly scary.

Which brings me to it’s detractions.  Like many horror movies of this generation, there is a sense of  “Why would you do that?” when watching the heroes.  There are many moments in the movie where it seemed that they were doing what they were doing for the sake of making the situation more frightening as opposed to what a logical decision would be.  Of course these moments mean you’re following the story, but also take you out of it for a moment as some of the situations seem written for that reason.

Other than that, The Strangers doesn’t try too hard to be scary and that’s what ends up making it scary.  It doesn’t depend on gore or indestructible villains to be what it is. Ultimately, The Strangers is a very creepy movie and definitely worth checking out.  I’m giving this flick a very solid 8 out of 10 Bones for being creepy, visually impressive and overall a good first effort for Bryan Bertino.  Let’s just hope theres not any bad sequels.

RATING:

“Carell and Co. make it fun and funny but nothing special”

Not expecting too much from a film is sometimes a nice feeling.  I notice that a lot of the movies I go to see I’ve somehow built up in my mind in some way or the other.  Whether it be really excited, or totally not giving it a chance, rarely do I frequent the cinema without having some basis for stepping through those doors.  Get Smart wasn’t entirely that, as I certainly had pre-conceived notions, but ultimately I wasn’t expecting comedic genius. 

And it wasn’t genius.  It was pretty fair though.  Steve Carell exhibits in this movie that he is a worthy leading man for other franchises as well as the potential franchise that Get Smart may ultimately spark.  I’ve always liked Steve Carell, but rarely give comedies free passes.  What the movie tries to do is reboot the popular TV series of the same name and inject some modern day lewd humor and edge.  They certainly succeed, but the product is somewhat clunky.

Don’t get me wrong; I was entertained.  There are very funny moments in this movie.  The action isn’t all that half bad either.  Carell and Hathaway share some great chemistry.  This movie is meant to be taken lightly, and in doing so, you may have a fun time.  In being critical however, the movie’s dialogue and half-hearted attempts at high-brow humor fall short.

There isn’t much bad I can say about Get Smart, being that it’s fun and likeable.  But being that the bar wasn’t really set that high and it reached it’s bench mark as an average adventure comedy, I can’t really endorse the movie as something to run out and see.  If you’re at the movies and trying to decide ,however, and it’s been a long week and you need a few cheap laughs, Get Smart will suit your fancy.  This movie get’s a 6+ out of 10 Bones for being slightly above average adventure comedy fair.

RATING:PLUS!

“(Insert ‘This Didn’t Happen’ pun here)”

M. Night Shylaman is a talented dude (What does the M stand for anyway?). Regardless, he’s gotten this reputation for being a total diva.  I guess I can see it, but I don’t particularly care.  His writing, in general has ranged from clever and masterful (Sixth Sense) to not good (Lady in the Water).  When the first pieces of The Happening started leaking onto the net, I was as interested in anyone else.  What ended up happening at 9:30pm the night of 6/13/08, was a force of nature.  A movie so bad, that I couldn’t find much right with at all.

This movie is not good.  At all.  The acting is so confusing, the writing so lost that I found myself laughing at the scary parts.  Clearly his attempt is at Hitchcock and he ends up at Wood (and not in the good sense either).  The movie is so laughably confused between it’s attempt at satire and horror, that I find it very hard to gravitate toward any portion of the film, character, plot or otherwise.

The imagery he has at some parts is actually pretty good.  He’s a very good visual director and certainly has very prevalent and haunting images.  Without a story, however, these images are hollow points of value.  The twist in the film is pretty lame as well.  The characters go from point to point without any real purpose or reason.  I found myself watching a movie about something that just didn’t make me care.

Overall, I think this is another failure for M.Night.  I don’t really have too much to say about the flick that’s positive so allow me to stop bashing it and assign it a Bone value of 2 out 10 for being a really boring, poor attempt at…something.

RATING: