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movie reviews

TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN

by Albert DeSantis

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen suffers from sequel bloat. By being bigger it loses what made the original special. The flick bogs down in tedious plot diversions and some really lame characters, but what sells Revenge is unhinged destructiveness. Are we so cynical that we can’t enjoy a three–storey robot running over cars and then getting blown apart by another robot? You only get that kind of entertainment at the movies.
There’s a plot, but it’s not terribly important. [ more ]

mini movie reviews

NOT EVOLVED

For those who watched the L.A. Lakers spank the Orlando Magic in the NBA Championship, they may have noticed the recurring promos for Year One featuring Jack Black and Michael Cera. Astute viewers would also have noticed that these promos were an uncomfortable mixture of basketball jargon / buddy comedy / shilling for Year One. The good news is the actual film isn’t as awful as those NBA Championship promos. But the lameness of what you saw on the ads is mostly repeated on–screen.
Set in ancient times, Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Michael Cera) are thrown out of their tribe after Zed eats from the forbidden Tree of Knowledge and burns the tribe down. On their journey, the run into Cain (David Cross) and Abel (Paul Rudd), a devious king (Xander Berkley), his hot daughter (Oliva Wilde), a lecherous high priest (Oliver Platt), Abraham (Hank Azaria), his son Issac (Christopher Mintz–Plasse) and other biblical figures. Zed and Oh discover that girls they love, Maya (June Raphael) and Emma (Juno Temple), have been imprisoned in the city of Sodom, so the cavemen chuckle–buddies decide to rescue them. The plot is vaguely similar to the prehistoric clunker, 10,000 B.C., which is bad because nobody should EVER be reminded of 10,000 B.C. EVER!
As the leads, Cera and Black have two major drawbacks: A) it’s a simplistic straight man/crazy guy pairing, and B) they’re playing the same roles that made them famous, except in loincloths. Cera is George Michael from “Arrested Development” and Black is loud with a ragging libido and facial hair. Cera’s bag of mumbling tricks is starting to look particularly limited, considering his film output has just been variations upon George Michael. Yet he’s not a complete waste here as he manages to make some lines work. Black doesn’t fare much better and a lot of his bits feel repetitive, but he gets a pretty great speech at the end about how he everyone is special. There’s a needless running plotline about how Black is telling everyone he’s “The Chosen One”, and it’s supremely irritating because someone being a chosen ANYTHING is rapidly becoming a weak storytelling cliché.
Scene after scene of Year One is a parade of talented actors trying to bring the movie to life. Jack Black’s Tenacious D partner, Kyle Glass, pops up as a eunuch, and it’s just stupid/weird, not stupid/weird/funny. As the overblown drag–queen of a high priest, Oliver Platt hams it up so loud that people in the next theatre can probably hear it. Bill Hader has some good stuff in his 30 seconds as a tribal shaman, but his best gag – a There Will Be Blood reference – is buried in the end–credits outtakes. “Simpsons” veteran Hank Azaria is kind of using his Sea Captain voice, but he works well in his role as Abraham, the man who loves circumcision. One actor who nails every moment is David Cross (also from “Arrested Development”) as the whiny, homicidal and traitorous Cain. His introductory scene where he murders his brother Abel is very funny, and it’s hilarious how the entire movie he keeps trying to badly hide that he’s a cowardly killer. When a girl asks him how he got a scar, he immediately snaps back “I didn’t kill my brother!” He also has a lot of quick asides, like when he’s talking about vices and he offers, “You know what’s great about Sodom? The sodomy. You guys are in for a treat!”
The script was written by director Harold Ramis and a pair of writers for the American version of “The Office”, so they certainly have a decent background, but this is not their best work. There are some big laughs, like when Temple suggestively strokes two hunter spears at once and Cera quips, “Okay, she’s asking for splinters.” But most jokes are simply bad, such as the scene where Jack Black eats feces. Really, does anyone want to see that at all? Cera is stuck in a lot of forced socially awkward situations. He ends up in bed with another dude, and all the guy does is fart. How hilarious. There’s another moment when Cera is rubbing oil on a moaning Platt and it never seems to stop. He also has various scenes where he’s awful around girls, just like every single character he’s ever played.
Disappointing is a word you don’t want to associate with the guy who made Ghostbusters, but that’s simply what Year One is. There are a few good gags but there are mostly long, tedious spaces in between. This seems like a brain–dead version of Monty Python. It gets points for not being Meet the Spartans, but Year One is a leaden disappointment and simply not worth your time for a pittance of laughs. Go watch The Hangover or just rent Python’s Life of Brian. V [ALBERT DESANTIS]

YEAR ONE
HHIII
Directed by Harold Ramis
Starring Jack Black, Michael Cera,
Oliver Platt + David Cross

Defiance

Writer/Director Edward Zwick’s Defiance is an uninspiring inspirational tale presented as Hollywood pablum. Using the Holocaust, one of the most horrific atrocities in mankind’s history as fodder doesn’t give the filmmakers a “Get Sympathy Free” card. We still have to care about characters, not just the cardboard heroes presented here. The fact that Defiance opens up with a stark title card proclaiming “A True Story” (note the absence of the traditional “Based On”) makes the film’s generic blahness more disappointing. It’s pretty damn certain the real-life situation didn’t play out this cinematically.
On the run from the Nazis during World War II, Jewish brothers Tuvia (Daniel Craig) and Zus (Liev Schreiber) unexpectedly create a makeshift community of other Jewish refugees in the woods. At first they’re simply a rag–tag group of survivors with only one gun, but eventually their numbers swell to the hundreds as they save Jews from all across Europe. Constantly on the run, they try to live with Tuvia as their leader, but there is dissention from within and the Nazis are searching for them.
Craig’s generic Eastern European accent has the interesting tendency to completely vanish when he screams. There’s an effectively disturbing scene when Craig seeks vengeance for his murdered parents, but he just did the revenge bit in Quantum of Solace a few months ago. Flashback anyone? Did somebody run over Daniel Craig’s dog or something? He’s been such a downer lately. Sheesh. Later, he even gives an inspirational speech on horseback — a cliché that wore out its welcome sometime around the release of Braveheart. At least the eventual fate of the horse is unexpected and even darkly funny.
The lovely Alexa Davalos plays Lika, a refugee who bats her sympathetic eyes at Craig a lot. Along with Chronicles of Riddick and The Mist, this is the third tragic character Davalos has done in a short while. Somebody run over her dog, too? Liev Schreiber does some of the best work as Zus, the other brother who struggles for power with Tuvia. When Liev is overcome with a righteous fury, you buy it. Schreiber’s character is also possibly half Terminator because there’s a scene where he’s shot, like, 10 times and the only result is that he gets his arm temporarily in a sling.
The first hour has the pacing of a traffic jam. A really slow one. Aside from walking in the woods, there’s an overuse of dramatic pauses, meaningful stares, mournful violins, building makeshift homes, and too many scenes of people not having enough to eat. Oddly, there’s this jokey tone that is rather discordant with the sombre story. It’s good to let the air out of the tension balloon once in a while, but when you have long stretches of Really Serious Stuff contrasted with Wryly Dry Smirking, Defiance seems to suddenly develop a multiple personality disorder.
Things get better near the end. When the makeshift community begins to degenerate and the village idiot takes control of the food rations, Craig deals with disobedience in the very matter–of–fact way he seems to have down pat at this point. Later on, the Jews capture a Nazi solider and, while he begs for mercy, the citizens violently take years of torment out on him. Craig’s reaction is nicely ambiguous as he stands back, silently. As expected, there is an eventual showdown with the Nazi army and Zwick proves that he is very good at staging chaotic war action. However, it’s frustrating that Defiance doesn’t spark to life until the third act — had it kept up this kind of tempo throughout the entire movie, things could have come out quite differently.
Ultimately, Defiance never becomes the moving tale it’s trying to be. Their plight doesn’t click on an emotional level, the struggle to survive feels tedious, the characters are never more than simplistic caricatures of WWII characters we have all seen before, and all the sweeping music gets really irritating after a while. Defiance will do if you’re running late and feel like catching the last hour for some mild entertainment…maybe.

[ALBERT DESANTIS]

Defiance
HHIII
Directed by Lexi Alexander
Starring Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber,
Jamie Bell, Alexa Davalos,
Allan Corduner + Mark Feuerstein

SEVEN POUNDS

Seven Pounds
HHIII
Seven Pounds has no business being as decent as it is. It is actually quite predictable but manages to rise above its flaws because of the always dependable Will Smith and Rosario Dawson. Overtly sappy and transparently emotionally manipulative, Seven Pounds succeeds as a Christmas/New Years time movie about giving, rebirth, redemption, and all that warm and fuzzy stuff. It isn’t great, but it is an effective three hanky weepie.
Ben Thomas (Will Smith) is an IRS agent out to change the lives of seven different strangers. Amongst others, they include blind telemarketer / musician Ezra (Woody Harrelson) and weak hearted Emily (Rosario Dawson). Ben’s motivations are ambiguous and possibly menacing at the beginning, but soon Ben is presented as a selfless hero. During the course of his quest, he begins to grow closer to the at–death’s–door Emily. Both actors have good chemistry, but the situation is predictable. When Emily is told that a bum ticker means she has only a month to live, you can easily imagine Ben’s selfless act instantly.
Will Smith is much more introverted here. He shows a lot by showing very little. He also has various moments where he seems to be putting on a good face for the outside world, but you see the smile die rather quickly. Unfortunately, his opening scene taunting Ezra over the phone and then yelling the name of seven people is not very good. It seems too “Look! I! Am! Acting!” Happily, he tones it down after that. Smith’s final scene is… odd. He sells it well, but it’s really hard to overcome the bizarreness of a computer generated jellyfish being a central plot point. It looks a tad goofy.
Rosario Dawson is the most improbably beautiful looking terminal case ever. At one point she says her face is a sickly blue colour but it sure doesn’t look like it. If the makeup job fails her, her physical mannerisms pick up the slack. She looks perpetually tired, out of breath, and frail. In one scene she passes out on a sidewalk and does a face plant that looked quite painful. As always, Dawson is very good at finding an emotional truth. Simplistic as the character may be, you always believe what Dawson is feeling. Maybe she feels too much because, quite literally, her heart is too big. Isn’t it tragic?
The other people that Ben helps aren’t really that interesting, such as the over the top histrionics of the single mother trying to escape her abusive boyfriend. Harrelson is basically doing the Saintly / talented blind guy act done before in quite too many movies already. Seeing a digital print of Seven Pounds at the brand spanking new Silvercity Hamilton Mountain (great legroom!), you can clearly tell that Harrelson is wearing contact lenses to make him look blind. While digital projection is fantastic for the image quality, for Seven Pounds it can ruin the suspension of disbelief. As for the other actors, Michael Ealy plays Ben’s brother who spends a lot of time looking distraught over the phone, and Barry Pepper plays Ben’s friend who spends a lot of time crying.
Director Gabriele Muccino also made The Pursuit of Happyness with Smith, and Seven Pounds feels similar. Seven Pounds has a great central performance by Smith that holds together a shabby, melodramatic plot. Muccino seems in love with cinematic clichés like the emotionally cleansing power of a torrential rainstorm. Musically, there is a very effective score by Angelo Milli. The music is a lot of discordant notes and some mild electronic elements that seem mildly unsettling yet uplifting.
Seven Pounds doesn’t have anything deep to say even though it seems to think it does. Frustratingly, the titular Seven Pounds are never explicitly explained. You just have to kind of guess. However, it manages succeed emotionally because of Smith and Dawson and the tragedy of their lives. The plot twists you’ll see coming, but it’ll still hit you in the gut. V [ALBERT DESANTIS]

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