Clash Of The Gargoyles And Demons: I, Frankenstein Is Entirely Campy!

The Good: Acting is generally good, Special effects are fine
The Bad: Dull plot, Unimpressive action sequences, Messy concept, Light on character development
The Basics: I, Frankenstein is a rework of Underworld which sloppily puts the Frankenstein monster in the middle of a war between gargoyles and demons.


When a film is released tells a lot about what the distributors and movie studios think of the project. As sad as it is to say, when a studio believes an a genre film (fantasy, science fiction, action/horror) it does not release the project during award’s season (which is where we are now). When I first heard that Aaron Eckhart was going to lead the fantasy/action (it’s not scary at all, so “fantasy horror” does not apply at all) film I, Frankenstein, I was pretty psyched. There is, in my estimation, very little Eckhart cannot successfully tackle as an actor. When I heard that I, Frankenstein was slated for a late-January release, I just felt bad for Eckhart; clearly this was a film that the studio was not banking on (or else they would have carved out a niche for it during Summer Blockbuster Season or at least waited until March – following the February Slump – to try to give it a better chance at box office success). Having now seen it, I, Frankenstein suffers on so many fronts that it is not at all surprising that the studio and distributors did not give it a fair shake. What is amazing is that the movie was made at all.

I, Frankenstein is Underworld (reviewed here!) recast. Trading out a death dealer for the Frankenstein monster, viewers are given the story of an age-old war between two supernatural powers. Instead of vampires and werewolves, which was the story in Underworld, I, Frankenstein features gargoyles and demons. I, Frankenstein feels familiar for anyone who is a fan of genre films and while it plays the story much safer than Constantine (reviewed here!), the very fact that the usually-wonderful Bill Nighy is cast as Naberius (which is essentially this film’s version of Viktor) illustrates a profound and problematic lack of imagination on the part of director Stuart Beattie and Lakeshore Entertainment.

In the late 1700s, Dr. Victor Frankenstein successfully creates a new life form from corpses cobbled together. Stronger, faster, and without any noticeable human deficiencies, the creature feels betrayed by Frankenstein and he kills the doctor’s wife and lets the doctor hunt him until the human freezes to death. After burying his creator, Frankenstein’s creation is attacked by demons and rescued by gargoyles. The queen of the Order Of The Gargoyles, Leonore, names the entity Adam and asks Adam to help the gargoyles in their fight against the demons. Adam refuses and runs off.

Pursued for 200 years by the demons, Adam returns to the world of man where he finds the war between the demons and gargoyles is still going on. Under the direction of the evil demon Naberius, Dr. Wade is unwittingly replicating the experiments of Dr. Frankenstein to bring life to dead bodies. When the gargoyles recapture Adam, the demons seize the opportunity to mount an attack that has the apparent goal of capturing Adam, though Leonore is their true target. Attempting to trade Leonore for Dr. Frankenstein’s journal, Naberius tries to get Dr. Wade all the information she needs to create an army of living vessels for the fallen demons killed over the eons. Adam has reason to recover the journal himself and his hopes, too, rest on Dr. Wade as he seeks to gain the mate promised to him hundreds of years before.

In addition to the casting, which makes the movie seem even more familiar, I, Frankenstein suffers from severe conceptual problems. The nature of the demons hiding on Earth in plain sight is not made nearly clear enough. They look human and yet have the ability to transform to full demon form upon demand. When they are killed, they explore in an orange column of light and descend (the gargoyles die by a similar mechanism, save it’s blue and they ascend). But the premise of I, Frankenstein is that Naberius needs flesh automatons to bring back all the previously-descended demons. But if the demons did not have that technology to begin with, what are the demons who look like humans to begin with?!

The gargoyles are not sufficiently explored to be interesting at all. Are they actually stone during the day and only animated at night? Or are they entirely organic, though immortal, heavenly beings? I, Frankenstein doesn’t bother to clearly define them.

The romantic relationship between Adam and Dr. Wade is obvious and feels very much like the relationship between the death eater and werewolf in Underworld. Instead of working so hard to set up a sequel or franchise – which the film does when Naberius pointedly mentions that Dr. Wade’s facility is not the only one he has working on the reanimation process – or presenting hero shots that make significant chunks of the movie feel like they were made for the trailer alone, it would have been nice to see writer and director Beattie develop the relationship more. Instead, Adam and Wade are thrown together because Adam saves Wade and Wade is the film’s resident Available Blonde.

Sadly, Wade is not even given enough character to be an interesting damsel in distress. She’s not stupid or needy, but she is a virtual nonentity. For milliseconds early in the film, I, Frankenstein seems like it might be smart enough to challenge the paradigm and pair Adam with Leonore, but like so much of the movie, I, Frankenstein treads toward the obvious and familiar. Even the fight sequences are dull. Ever since The Matrix (reviewed here!), directors seem obsessed with slow motion battle scenes that lack immediacy and promote style over realism.

Adam gives exposition that reveals all the viewer truly needs to know about him and it’s troubling how little else there is to the character. Adam is supposed to be coming into his own over the course of I, Frankenstein, but the way the character is buffeted around, it seems like little more than his own attempt to survive than an actually realized series of epiphanies. Dr. Wade is given less character and Leonore and Naberius are monolithic archetypes rather than truly realized characters.

That said, despite all of the issues with character and plot, the acting in I, Frankenstein is fine. Bill Nighy does not give viewers anything he has not given viewers in the past and Miranda Otto’s role of Leonore is so lacking in substance that she is not given the chance to shine, so most of the film rests on the star power of Aaron Eckhart. In the film’s opening scenes, Eckhart is entirely unrecognizable as the Frankenstein “monster;” throughout the film, he becomes more and more recognizable despite the fact that his face is scarred for the role. Eckhart does not play off his natural charisma as Adam and he is bulked up for the role, but I, Frankenstein basically has him in the role of troublingly monolithic action hero.

In the end, I, Frankenstein is a predictable flop and its loose ties to other fantasy action films make it seem all the more mundane.

For other science fiction action movies, please check out my reviews of:
Star Trek Into Darkness
Robocop
Minority Report

3.5/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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At Least It’s Not “Home Alone In The White House:” Olympus Has Fallen

The Good: Decent performances, Attempts at character/character development, Effects/tension.
The Bad: Increasingly absurd and predictable plot
The Basics: Shakier than many might want to admit, Olympus Has Fallen is engaging . . . so long as one shuts off their brain.


Sometime, admittedly, a work suffers in my estimation because of when I encounter it. It shouldn’t be that way, but it is true. In the case of Olympus Has Fallen I feel less bad about my bias. My wife and I have been watching Babylon 5 (reviewed here!) nightly and that show features a cast of characters who tend to have a sense of personal ethics and a backbone. One of the themes of the show is the value of sacrificing the individual to service the greater good. Apparently, the writers of Olympus Has Fallen either never watched Babylon 5 or did not embrace the themes.

It’s too bad, because Babylon 5 is quite a bit smarter than Olympus Has Fallen and I spent much of the film waiting for one of the characters to make things easy and thus defuse the entire situation. Up until the film’s last ten minutes, a perfectly reasonable solution to the hostage situation the film focuses on was for any one of the four relevant hostages to sacrifice themselves and thus effectively neuter the hostage-takers. In fact, the President makes things more dangerous for the members of his staff whom he encourages to surrender!

At Christmastime, the American President, Banjamin Asher and his family are headed to an event when their motorcade is attacked and the first lady is killed. A year and a half later, the secret service agent (Mike Banning) who was blamed for failing to protect her is eager to return to White House Security. Asher has the South Koreans to the White House to talk about the growing nuclear threat from North Korea. At that time, the White House is attacked and in securing the President and his guests in the subterranean bunker below the White House, the President and Secret Service inadvertently lock themselves in with the masterminds behind the attack. The North Korean terrorist Kang, who had worked with the U.S. as a South Korean diplomat to carry out his acts of terrorism and the traitorous American, Forbes, take the President, Defense Secretary and others hostage in order to get the codes to a nuclear weapons deactivation system known as Cerberus.

While the President holds out against torture and allows his brutalized staff to comply to protect them, the Speaker Of The House, Trumbull, is elevated to the Presidency to deal with the current crisis. Even as Kang and his forces work over the staff for the Cerberus codes, Banning infiltrates the wreckage of the White House to find the President’s son, Connor, to prevent him from being used against the President. As the effort to save the hostages and avert all-out war with North Korea comes from Trumbull’s apparent willingness to accede to Kang’s demands to remove U.S. troops from South Korea and the Pacific, Banning acts as eyes and ears inside the besieged White House.

The tragedy of Olympus Has Fallen is not that it depicts an incredibly brutal series of events (there is no entertainment value to watching Melissa Leo’s Secretary Of Defense McMillan getting brutalized), it is in that most of it is entirely avoidable based on a single act of sacrifice. But, more than that, on the character front, none of them are presented as being smart enough to realize that. Olympus Has Fallen features the obvious and familiar dichotomy of politicians being spineless jerks who fold and are generally unprincipled and only soldiers, secret service officers, etc. (who have a decidedly more militaristic bent) can hold out against violent adversaries. Accepting the conceit of the Cerberus device, which had the activation codes split up among four people, it makes perfect sense that either all four people would never be allowed in the same place at the same time (much like one of the members of the Cabinet being kept away from the State Of The Union Address in order to protect the line of succession) or, barring that, the moment one of the four people with the codes realizing what Kang had planned to commit an act of sacrifice.

So, I was a bit disappointed.

To be fair to Olympus Has Fallen, the film did not take the most obvious plot progressions it could have. I kept waiting for, late in the film when all else had failed, Banning’s partner, Leah, to get abducted and thus force him to stand down. Fortunately, that didn’t happen. Still, most of Olympus Has Fallen progresses in an obvious and pretty brutal way.

What is better-than-average is the acting. Gerard Butler is credible as Mike Banning and he, predictably, gets through the action sequences exceptionally well. More than that, he actually displays his charisma (which I usually refer to as “alleged charisma”) in the early scenes of the film, making the character seem likable and smart enough to be a credible secret service agent. To his credit, Dylan McDermott – who as recently as five years ago would have been credibly up for the role of Banning – plays Forbes with a character-appropriate level of dispassion and conniving, never hinting that he could have been the film’s action hero.

Rick Yune is decent as Kang, though he plays the most horrible version of a patriot. Kang is calculating, but comes in with a plan and an efficient demeanor which Yune plays perfectly. At the opposite end of the spectrum is Melissa Leo as McMillan. Leo’s performance is difficult to watch as her character is pretty horribly brutalized by the terrorists. It’s impossible not to watch Melissa Leo in Olympus Has Fallen and not have one’s stomach tighten in disgust; so realistically does she portray getting tormented. Aaron Eckhart is appropriately presidential in his bearing as President Benjamin Asher.

But, I suspect the reason Morgan Freeman is getting so much high praise for his performance in Olympus Has Fallen is that, in the role of Trumbull, he seems anything but Presidential. It’s hard to imagine Morgan Freeman as not being commanding, powerful, confident and smart enough to lead the free world, but he makes Trumbull uncertain and shaky at the beginning and the performance is a wonderful one because it goes against any number of other performances we have seen from Freeman (or interviews with the actor himself).

Still, it is not enough to save Olympus Has Fallen from “average” territory. Go in with low expectations and it is fine, but for enlightened folk, it is a much harder sell.

For other works with Melissa Leo, please check out my reviews of:
Flight
Red State
Welcome To The Rileys
The L Word - Season Two
Hide And Seek
Homicide: Life On The Street

5.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Christopher Nolan Makes Superhero Films Respectable With The Dark Knight Trilogy!

The Good: Interesting characters, Great thematic development, Amazing acting, Generally good plot progression.
The Bad: Pacing, Predictability of the final act
The Basics: With Christopher Nolan’s interpretation of the Batman mythos with The Dark Knight Trilogy, viewers are treated to a sufficiently adult superhero story that nevertheless drags at times.


As one who does not go back and re-rate products and media, it is a rare thing for me to have an opportunity to make commentary on something that I might have rated unfairly the first time around. When considering individual films versus the entire series or boxed set of a movie, there is the opportunity to consider how the pieces fit together. Sometimes, the sum of the parts is greater, like with The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy (reviewed here!), but more often than not, the full video collection forces one to realize that the pieces might not fit together as well as fans hope. With The Dark Knight Trilogy, watching Christopher Nolan’s Batman films back to back to back, one realizes how much the final act truly suffers in comparison.

I am one of the rare critics who was not entirely bowled over by Batman Begins; I found it slower and more ponderous than clever and engaging. Rewatching it, the pacing does not bother me nearly as much, and while I respect the thematic development in the movie, his exploration of fear is not as well-developed as the themes in the other movies. On the other end of the Trilogy, The Dark Knight Rises seems disturbingly predictable, formulaic, and unsophisticated coming off the complexity and perfection of The Dark Knight. Viewed in order, in the eight hours of The Dark Knight Trilogy is, hands-down the best superhero film series yet made and it owes much of that to the writing and the able direction of Christopher Nolan, but it is not at all perfect.

Comprised of: Batman Begins (reviewed here!), The Dark Knight (reviewed here!), and The Dark Knight Rises (reviewed here!), The Dark Knight Trilogy assembles the three films and adds the value of two bonus discs.

In Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne returns from years of wandering the world to explore what gives criminals their power to Gotham City, a city his murdered parents were influential in cleaning up. There, he rejoins his father’s company and uses the research and development department to equip himself for a nighttime war on crime in Gotham City. As Batman, he begins to strike fear into the mob, while during the day posing as an irresponsible playboy. Bruce Wayne’s efforts clash with the machinations of Dr. Jonathan Crane, the psychologist at Arkham Asylum, where he experiments on the criminally insane and the League Of Shadows, which seeks to destroy Gotham City as a statement against the decadence of the world.

After years of fighting crime, The Dark Knight sees the potential to retire when Gotham City’s new district attorney, Harvey Dent, begins his own war on crime in the city by prosecuting the mobsters. Wayne’s romantic life is complicated by the fact that his childhood love is romantically involved with Harvey Dent and his vigilante actions are met with resolve of the psychopathic Joker. Meant to bring chaos to the attempts at order of Batman and Jim Gordon, the Joker strikes at the heart of the city by attacking Rachel Dawes and working to corrupt Harvey Dent.

Eight years later, with Batman having been vilified, a mysterious woman breaks into Wayne Manor to steal a copy of Bruce Wayne’s fingerprints. As Wayne Enterprises stock suffers, with the research and development department sitting on an incredible power source that could be perverted into a weapon, a thug named Bane makes an assault on the Gotham City stock exchange. Bane shatters Bruce Wayne and deports him while taking over Gotham City. Cut off from the rest of the world when Bane steals the reactor and destroys the bridges out of the city, Bane crushes the spirit of the city by exposing the deception of Jim Gordon and holds Gotham City hostage. Bruce Wayne must physically recover, return to Gotham City and resume his role as Batman to save the people who turned against him.

The Dark Knight Trilogy smartly develops themes in each film and those themes interact well with one another. From fear to the struggle between order and chaos to an exploration on the nature of consequences, The Dark Knight Trilogy strives to be more than just a repetitive saga of superhero films. By developing themes over the course of the three films, Christopher Nolan and his co-writers manage to shake up the familiar and often formulaic superhero stories.

Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy is an epic of ever-increasing sacrifice on the part of Bruce Wayne. Starting as the man who has everything, Bruce Wayne’s character arc is far less defined by his romantic entanglements, as it is by the steep curve of his level of sacrifice. Bruce Wayne gives up more and more in order to combat evil in Gotham City. While his mansion is rebuilt, Bruce Wayne’s adherence to rules and his singleminded ambition are challenged before he encounters an enemy who he might have to give up his life to defeat.

The Dark Knight Trilogy is supported by wonderful supporting characters. Bruce Wayne is not in his fight alone. Supported personally by the family butler, Alfred, supplied professionally by his father’s trusted aid Lucius Fox, and directed on the streets by the one uncorrupted cop, Jim Gordon (and later Blake), Bruce Wayne becomes a viable character who seems to have a reasonable investment in the city he is trying to save. Instead of simply being a superhero motivated by some sense of idealism, The Dark Knight Trilogy instead develops a character whose family ties and then his own friendships motivate him to fight organized crime.

Just as the characters in The Dark Knight Trilogy are compelling and developed enough to have complex motivations that make for a surprisingly sophisticated series of movies, the performers are all top-notch and playing at the top of their game. Consistently great are Christian Bale (Bruce Wayne), Michael Caine (Alfred), Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox), and Gary Oldman (Jim Gordon), with wonderful supporting performances by Cillian Murphy (Dr. Crane), Liam Neeson, Aaron Eckhart (Harvey Dent), Heath Ledger (The Joker), Nestor Carbonell (the Mayor), Anne Hathaway (Selina Kyle), and Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Blake).

On DVD and Blu-Ray, The Dark Knight Trilogy includes the three films, with bonus discs for The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises, with enough behind-the-scenes content to please the fans.

Cinephiles enjoy The Dark Knight Trilogy and while the fans of superhero films reasonably go gaga over the set, discriminating film critics have to admit that the Trilogy is hardly perfect. It’s close, but the pacing and inevitable predictability of The Dark Knight Trilogy is off enough to make it just shy of absolute perfection.

For other live-action DC superhero works, please check out my reviews of:
Green Lantern
Jonah Hex
Watchmen
Superman Returns
Catwoman
Batman
Supergirl
Wonder Woman - Season 1

8.5/10

For other film reviews, check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Only Reservations About No Reservations, An Obvious, Sub-par Romantic Comedy

The Good: Looks good, Decent cast
The Bad: Poor use of good acting talent, Predictable story and character arcs, Not funny, Pacing.
The Basics: A surprisingly disappointing outing with cooking and Aaron Eckhart (two things that biased me TOWARD the movie), No Reservations sinks.


I watch a lot of movies, more since I started reviewing, but before that I used to watch movies for fun. I used to also enjoy watching a lot of television series' on DVD . . . before becoming a reviewer. In film and television, I have noticed, there are very few works that actually deal with cooking. In the movies, there are films set in places where cooking takes place, like Clerks II (reviewed here!), but remarkably few movies where people spend time cooking. The world of professional chefs has been glossed over in the short-lived television series' Kitchen Confidential and Chef! (reviewed here!). So, when I had the opportunity to watch No Reservations recently, I was pretty psyched because I heard that it was a romantic comedy about cooks.

If anything, I went into No Reservations with a bias for the work. The film starred Catherine Zeta-Jones who is pretty easy on the eyes and the immensely talented Aaron Eckhart who has not been praised nearly enough for his work in The Dark Knight (reviewed here!). But then, I watched No Reservations and it has taken me days to get up the enthusiasm to write about the experience because it was such a standard romantic comedy. Anyone who has seen a lot of movies and who loves films has seen this before. A lot.

Kate is a high-strung chef at one of New York City's most trendy and expensive restaurants. She is obsessive compulsive and cooking is her life, which makes her ideal for the elite cooking marketplace. Unfortunately for her, when her sister and niece are driving to see her for a visit, they are in a terrible accident and Kate's sister is killed and she becomes the guardian of Zoe. Zoe is young, misses her mother, and Kate is hardly in a place (emotionally) to raise her.

After taking the minimum amount of time her boss demands she take off following the death of her sister, Kate returns to work to discover Nick is working her job in the kitchen. Nick is talented and qualified, but his style is more laid back (he has music on in the kitchen!) and about the experience of cooking, as opposed to simply the results. Nick and Zoe bond almost immediately, much to Kate's chagrin and soon Kate is finding Nick's merit as a chef and lover.

No Reservations is exactly as it sounds: a romantic comedy where the child becomes the reason two people hook up. As a result, there are contrived concepts that have been done to death in the movies, like Zoe creating situations for Nick and Kate to spend time together and the inevitable "Zoe runs away, leaving Nick and Kate to find her" scene that seems like a standard the moment one has a young person trying to get two adults together.

The thing that doesn't make much sense is the character of Zoe. The argument can be made that she is striving to get Kate and Nick together to recreate the ideal family of mother, father and her. The thing is, she never had that. Her father split long ago according to the earliest scenes and so on some level she ought to be used to the single mother routine, even more than Kate would be. So, Zoe's seeming dependence upon Kate and Nick ending up together for her happiness seems far-fetched and problematic. One could argue that this represents the greatest opportunity for Zoe as far as wish fulfillment for a "normal," stable family, but it does not come across that way in No Reservations. Instead, it just seems sloppy and generic characterization and Zoe comes across more as a brat than traumatized.

No Reservations is not, truly, a cooking movie, though it does feature people cooking at various points in the film, as well as people eating. For those who love food, there is something to be said for the direction in the film. Scott Hicks directs the film well and presents a very sensual looking film. The food throughout looks edible and sumptuous and it's an easy film to watch in terms of the look of the movie.

Unfortunately, that's the best I've got for it. No Reservations is boring and its characters are hardly as mature or well-developed as one might want. Instead, this is a film trading on casting and it is an unfortunate use for virtually everyone involved. Patricia Clarkson is decent as Paula and Bob Balaban is stuck in the role of therapist playing it like we have seen him play so many other (similar) roles. And Abigail Breslin embodies Zoe, clearly trading on her popularity as a child actor in a very tight market at what might well be her peak years. Her performance is not the best one we've seen from her.

In addition to making all of the food and locations look good, director Scott Hicks deserves some real credit: he has the ability to make Aaron Eckhart bland. Eckhart's performance is the most dull I've ever seen from him. He was cast for his smile, no doubt, but the spark that defines his energy is completely lacking in No Reservations. It is almost like he knew he was stuck in a romantic comedy that had been done to death and he was playing an archetype as opposed to a character.

At least Eckhart had some talent to seriously compromise. Catherine Zeta-Jones might - most of the roles I have seen her in she is used for her physicality more than her Thespian qualities. In No Reservations, her part is pretty much relegated to pouting and staring blankly at the screen in shock as a vague expression of her character being lost. It flops horribly for her. Zeta-Jones fails to make an emotional connection with the audience before she begins these dazed looks and it further slows down the pacing of the film. If Eckhart is bland as Nick, Zeta-Jones is whatever state of uber-boring is beyond that as Kate.

The end result is a film that is not funny enough to be a comedy, not romantic enough to be a romance and too predictable to have any real dramatic tension. This was a surprise to me; unfortunately, not a pleasant one.

For other films with Abigail Breslin, please check out my reviews of:
Zombieland
Definitely, Maybe
The Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement
Signs

3.5/10

For other film reviews, be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Depressed People Theatre Returns With Meet Bill, Aaron Eckhart's Magnum Opus To Mid-life Crisis’s

The Good: Good acting, Interesting characters
The Bad: Oppressive mood, Light on plot, Surprisingly light on DVD bonus features
The Basics: Difficult to watch and hard to care about the protagonist, Meet Bill
presents a middle aged man whose wife cheats on him and thus inspires him to change his life.


Do you know how when you learn a new word, all of a sudden you tend to hear it everywhere? I am convinced that a similar thing happens with actors and actresses; once you become aware of an actor, they suddenly pop up everywhere. In my little film appreciation series for Aaron Eckhart, I have noticed Elizabeth Banks, specifically when she appeared in Meet Bill. And then there she was on my television in previews for the new Kevin Smith movie, Zack And Miri Make A Porno (reviewed here!) and checking out the IMDB, it turns out she has been in several movies I have seen. It's enough to make me wonder what I was paying attention to in The 40 Year Old Virgin if not her!

Well, Elizabeth Banks shines in Meet Bill and her performance in this is making me look forward to Smith's new movie even more than I already had been. And Aaron Eckhart continues a generally winning tradition of proving to me he has some serious acting ability, forsaking his trademark smile and any light in his eyes for one of his most bleak, difficult-to-watch performances yet. Meet Bill, alternately titled simply Bill, is a movie that is somewhat tough to define, but I suspect the closest I will get is that this is combination of American Beauty (reviewed here!) and Charlie Bartlett.

Bill is a man who pretty much loathes working for his father-in-law at the bank and after a groundbreaking ceremony for a new facility the bank is sponsoring, he discovers his wife is having an affair with the local news anchor, Chip. This comes more or less at the same time that Bill is dragooned by his father-in-law and brother into mentoring a drug dealing high school student. After covering for the kid when the principal pursues him into the bathroom, Bill and the teen he is tagged with mentoring begin to bond.

Determined to win his independence from his father-in-law, Bill quits his anxiety eating, begins swimming to lose weight, tries to dye his hair (mimicking the guy his wife is having an affair with) and investigates opening his own Sweet Sweet doughnut franchise. As he continues to feel pressure to live up, he takes a cue from the irresponsibility of the kid he is supposed to be a role model for and he kicks back, uses a lingerie saleswoman, Lucy, to pose as his wife for the Sweet Sweet franchisers and turns the course of his life in a different direction.

Part of the reason American Beauty worked as well as it did was that Lester Burham is treated as a loser, but from the outset, it seems like he has essentially been screwed over. He has a wife and child who do not love him, but he works hard for and random, unfortunate things happen to him (like his briefcase falling open and scattering his papers when he is in a hurry for work). Bill, unfortunately, has no such empathetic qualities. He's just flat out pathetic.

Bill opens the movie with whining about being married to Jess and having to put up with her father. The problem here is that, one assumes, no one put a gun to his head and forced Bill to marry a Hollywood beautiful woman whose father was absolutely loaded. Bill never in the course of Meet Bill shows any inkling toward anything that he might be good at outside the bank. The Sweet Sweet franchise is one that he becomes interested in because he loves sugary snacks and because he hopes it will buy him the financial freedom to be rid of his father-in-law, but it never is illustrated that he might have an actual aptitude for it (and indeed, the resolution to the movie suggests he is just aimless, if not talentless).

Similarly, there is nothing that illustrates or explains what Jess saw in Bill originally. In the course of Bill's exercise regimen to lose his gut, Bill slims down and gets fit in a way that seems quite new to him. One suspects that from the lack of hair management and the persistent frown on Bill's face that he has never been much of a catch in a physical sense and that when Jess met and married him, he was not exactly a model for the Atlas folks. So, why Jess initially hooked up with Bill, who seems to have no dreams or ambitions that aren't reactive to the situation he finds his marriage in, is a complete mystery to the viewer. But the better question is why has Jess stayed with him this long if she was so unhappy with him?

Jess is a character who makes little sense in this regard and her fury over being caught on tape by Bill having sex with Chip reads as false. I'm not saying her indignation does not make sense, because it does. But here's a woman who has been lying to her husband and is caught having an affair and she acts like only her anger about being caught ought to matter.

The other half of the story is the mentoring bit with Bill and the Kid. Bill is, naturally, a pathetic mentor and the dynamic quickly becomes the Kid corrupting Bill. It is, for example, the youth's idea to try to have Bill win Jess back by getting her jealous through Lucy. The Kid also leads Bill into a situation where they get high and Bill has sex with one of Lucy's friends. In general, I am not so keen on films where the kids are smarter or more emotionally connected than adults, but there was something watchable about this scenario in Meet Bill. This probably comes down to the kicker lines as far as the Kid is concerned, when he observes to Bill that he will not be the same guy in ten years, so he is simply enjoying who he is now. That maturity to realize and accept that people constantly grow and change might not read quite right coming from that character, but it is a worthwhile message regardless and deserves to be expressed, lending some value to Meet Bill.

I tend to be one who argues for realism in film and Meet Bill seems to almost be a counterargument to that. I like movies where people struggle and there is a realism to that. The problem with viewing Meet Bill as that sort of film is that it still struggles with the basic reality of everyday problems. In other words, it is one thing to watch a common person suffer and struggle and either overcome or be destroyed by the circumstances they find themselves in. It is entirely a different thing to watch a guy who has a huge house, knockout wife, great job, and access to do pretty much what he wants complain and eventually change his life when the people around him get sick of him. Within five minutes of starting Meet Bill, I was sick of Bill, too!

One of the nice things about Meet Bill is that it does have a generally positive view of gay relationships. Writer and co-director Melissa Wallack provides a rescue for Bill in the form of his homosexual brother and his partner, Paul. Craig Bierko and Reed Diamond play the couple with minimal camp and a generally decent embodiment of a normal, loving relationship (which, despite the presentation in many films, it more like reality than what we see in the movies). I use "generally decent" because some of the usual anti-gay pejoratives are tossed out and it would have been nice if Wallack could have gotten through the film without making an issue of the
relationship.

What makes Meet Bill watchable is the acting. Craig Bierko and Reed Diamond give solid supporting performances that make clear differentiations from the characters they played on Boston Legal and Homicide: Life On The Street, respectively. Logan Lerman illustrates a lot of potential as the Kid and one suspects that when directors stop using him for his youthful smirk, he will actually be able to carry scenes with real gravity. As mentioned before Elizabeth Banks is vital and engaging as Jess, even if her character is a somewhat annoying cheat.

But it is Aaron Eckhart that ultimately pulls Meet Bill up out of obscurity. Eckhart tends to have active, verbose roles and in this film he is constantly somber and dead-eyed. He is completely convincing in the part, as well, making the viewer believe completely in his pathetic reality, even if it is hard to empathize with his character.

On DVD, Meet Bill is presented with minimal DVD extras. After a bevy of previews for other films, there is only a collection of about ten deleted scenes, some of which are actually noteworthy enough to be missed from the actual film. But for the most part, the DVD is as barren as the protagonist's trademark expression.

For other works with Kristen Wiig, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Bridesmaids
Paul
Despicable Me
Date Night
How To Train Your Dragon
Whip It
Forgetting Sarah Marshall

6/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the movies I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Witty Satire Of P.C. And Nicotine, Thank You For Smoking!

The Good: Funny, Good characters, Decent acting, Entertaining
The Bad: Plot gets fairly stale quickly, Pacing
The Basics: While Nick Naylor gallivants around the U.S. justifying the continued existence of cigarettes, he finds himself targeted by reporters, Congress and a hitman.


I feel like I have been watching a lot of documentaries lately, but with my latest viewing, Thank You For Smoking, I rationally know I did not. It's certainly a mocumentary, but it is written so real and with such clever attention to detail that it is almost impossible not to believe that it represents an expose into the world of Big Tobacco.

While Nick Naylor works through the morally ambiguous place life has left him as the voice of the tobacco industry, he finds himself kept from his son and fairly alone in the world. Naylor continues to view representing Big Tobacco as a job that is essentially about debating and he classifies himself as a king of debate. When the U.S. Senate starts a cry for even stronger warning labels on cigarettes, Naylor finds himself targeted by a reporter, a senator and an assassin. As his life spins out of control, his relationship with his son begins to become a priority and he begins to seek a new direction.

Sort of.

More than the tobacco industry, what Thank You For Smoking is truly about is the lengths our society goes to to cater to big business at the expense of human health. What the movie is truly about is freedom and choice vs. political correctness. It's an interesting argument and the movie is very funny.

Unfortunately, it's something the viewer tires from quickly. The pacing of the movie is seriously off. There are tracks of the movie that are slow and ponderous and seem to go nowhere, not even to building mood. Instead, the movie drifts between frenetic scenes as Nick Naylor goes from talking fast to driving slow. His relationships fade in and out throughout the movie at rather plot convenient times. So, for about five minutes his relationship with Heather - the reporter - is incredibly important. Then, she disappears from the movie for a significant chunk of time, pops up for two minutes, disappears until the end.

I can live with movies that have moments where nothing happens; in fact, on The West Wing (reviewed here!), one of the things that impresses me most is the amount of time devoted to reaction shots. The camera stays on characters at times long after the character they are speaking to has left the room. In Thank You For Smoking, there are long interstitial passages where we aren't learning more about the character or anything, the camera is just sitting waiting for action to happen.

Outside that, Thank You For Smoking works. It's funny and it's very intelligently written. Jason Reitman, who wrote and directed the film Thank You For Smoking has a great sense of comic timing. When Nick Naylor is talking spin, Reitman wisely keeps him smiling and moving. Some of the most dynamic moments occur when the only thing moving is Naylor's mouth and that takes some serious talent.

The talent that is evident from the first moments of the movie is in the casting. This is an accomplished and exceptional cast and it's clear that Reitman knows how to use them. Cameron Bright plays Naylor's son and here he does an excellent job of supporting the lead through subtlety and a strange dignity beyond his age. Kim Dickens and Maria Bello give wonderful roles that are too brief in the film a good shake with implications of depth that feel very realistic. Both make us believe their characters have significant backstory that they are bringing to the table. And William H. Macy, one of my personal favorites, does a great job acting as the virulently anti-cigarette Senator Finistirre. He is funny and gets out some of the most overly humorous lines with a straight face that is impressive.

It is Aaron Eckhart who the movie lives or dies on and he plays Nick Naylor impressively. I had never seen Eckhart perform before but he glues the viewer from his first moment appearing on screen. He is charming and disarming, perfectly timing a twinkle of his eyes or the barest hint of a smirk. His genius in Thank You For Smoking comes from his ability to deliver complex lines of dialogue that are almost entirely morally objectionable or ambiguous in a way that is absolutely convincing. We never once feel like we are watching a actor in Eckhart's performance (sadly, the same cannot be said for Robert Duvall in this). Eckhart convinces us of the reality of Nick Naylor and by the end, the audience is rooting for freedom almost solely based on his performance.

Thank You For Smoking is an ambitious project and it's easy to see why it took so long to bring it to the screen (and now DVD), but it's worth the viewing. It's very hard to say if this one is worth adding to one's permanent collection; I think it's definitely one to see before making that choice.

For other works with Aaron Eckhart, check out my reviews of:
Battle Los Angeles
Love Happens
The Dark Knight
Towelhead
The Wicker Man
Frasier Season Eleven

7/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012, 2006 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Racism, Teen Sex, And Molestation: Towelhead Is Too Difficult For Me To Recommend.

The Good: Great acting, Great directing
The Bad: Unlikable characters, Graphic depictions of difficult situations, Utterly unpleasant to watch.
The Basics: A difficult film to watch, Towelhead is all over the place with its story of a young teenager coming into her own while she is taken advantage of.


For one of the rare times, I'm going to jump to the end of the review first and discuss why I am rating Towelhead so low. It wasn't long into watching this film that I realized that there were no circumstances under which I would ever recommend Towelhead to anyone, friend or not. I'm in the habit of objectively reviewing films under a pretty strict system from zero to ten and while Towelhead scores rather high on that scale on the technical merits, I kept feeling the wrenching in my stomach as the movie progressed and the protagonist, Jasira, went from being smacked around to sexually assaulted. So, for a moment, I'm ignoring the technical merits of the movie for my rating and going with my actual recommendation, which is "Avoid It!" There should be a lot more exclamation marks after that.

I went into my viewing of Towelhead excited. Alan Ball, who wrote American Beauty (reviewed here!) and created Six Feet Under (reviewed here!) adapted Towelhead for the screen and directed it. From the name alone, I knew the movie would undoubtedly be difficult in one form or another, but I was unprepared for the gutwrenching, unrelenting nature of the movie and had I known it from the outset, I probably would have been more guarded about watching it. It didn't help that Aaron Eckhart, whose works I am becoming quite a fan of, was top-billed and that helped generate even more enthusiasm for me.

When Gail's sleazy boyfriend, Barry, helps her thirteen year old daughter, Jasira, shave in her pubic region, Gail ships her daughter off to her ex-husband in Texas. Jasira finds her father strict and conventional - their first morning together he smacks her when she comes to breakfast in shorts and a t-shirt. Jasira begins to adapt to living in Texas and even takes up babysitting next door for the Army Reservist, Travis, and his family. But soon, Travis's attentions become obviously inappropriate and he begins to make advances on her when he catches her and his ten year-old son in his collection of erotic magazines.

As Jasira begins to figure out what she likes and doesn't, she falls for Thomas, a boy at school who initially joins in calling her racist epitaphs with their classmates. Jasira's father disapproves of Thomas because he is black and he forbids her from seeing him again. But, by that point, Jasira and Thomas are having sex and when her mother dumps her boyfriend and wants Jasira back, she does not want to go. As Travis continues his advances, Melina, another neighbor, takes a concerned interest in Jasira and she moves to protect the girl with the help of her husband.

What puts Towelhead into a category where its greatness may even be debated is the quality of the acting and direction. Towelhead is packed with great performances. Aaron Eckhart enters the film darkly with a subtle sense of menace for Travis which his trademark smirk is completely absent from. Instead, he is quiet, holds his body tight and the viewer almost instantly feels the threat he represents. On the flipside, Peter Macdissi bursts into Towelhead with no subtlety. As Rifat, Jasira's father, he is forceful, authoritarian and shows no hints of his Six Feet Under character, the promiscuous metrosexual art teacher Olivier. And I cannot recall a role I've ever enjoyed Toni Collette in more than her part of Melina. Collette comes into the film rather late, but she starts to steal scenes as the savior character Melina. She is likable, smart and she makes the role resonate wonderfully.

But it is Summer Bishil who has the lionshare of work to do to make Towelhead work. Bishil plays Jasira and she is fearless in the role of the early-bloomer. Bishil, who was over eighteen when the movie was filmed, is entirely credible in the demure way she plays the thirteen year old Jasira. She plays Jasira as smart, but uncertain, intelligent but ignorant and the full range of emotions she is forced to play illustrates that she is not a monolithic actress. As well, Bishil's portrayal of experiencing pain is so convincing that her performance is part of what makes the movie so hard to watch.

The other aspect of the technicals that makes Towelhead difficult to watch is the direction. Alan Ball's directing, like Bishil's acting, is fearless and as a result, the viewer is compelled to endure shots that put the viewer rather unfortunately in the head of some of the film's sickest characters. Travis is a pedophile and the way he looks at Jasira is disgusting and lurid; when Ball gives the viewer no choice but to see what Travis is looking at, the movie takes a turn into the pornographic (whether or not Bishil was over eighteen when the movie was filmed, her character is thirteen). This makes the movie uncomfortable and - for lack of a better term - just plain icky.

And here is where Towelhead falls down: it's in the content. The movie could have worked as a girl's sexual exploration. Thirteen year olds are known, wrongly or rightly, to have sex, usually with people just outside their peer group. That type relationship makes it into the movie with Jasira and Thomas. If the movie focused on young love, that would be one thing, but for far too much of the movie, Towelhead is consumed with sexual abuse and it's unpleasant and lacks anything in the way of entertainment value.

I can applaud movies that seek to expose the crimes of suburbia and I appreciate when Towelhead breaks the mold to present a story of sexual abuse, but frankly, I don't want to see it. I could live the rest of my life without seeing another movie containing explicit sexual abuse. Not all of us live in a cave on the issue; we know sexual abuse happens and, like Melina in the movie, we intervene when appropriate. But there's enough of that in real life that when I sit down to watch a movie, I'm not in the mood to watch that. Ever.

On DVD, Towelhead features only a featurette on the movie's controversial nature. Alan Ball participates in two panel discussions - one with actors, one with the novelist upon which this movie is based - to explore what the film is trying to say and they are interesting and appropriately academic. They did not, however, make me want to watch the movie again.

In conclusion, I don't fail to acknowledge that Towelhead is great for the very reasons it is difficult, but I don't think it's worth watching. I suspect it would be traumatic to survivors of abuse, titillate pedophiles and make everyone else incredibly uncomfortable, I know it has bugged me since I watched it. Ultimately, that made it easy for me to say "avoid it."

For other works with Aaron Eckhart, check out my reviews of:
Battle Los Angeles
Love Happens
The Dark Knight
Frasier Season Eleven

7.5/10 (not recommend)

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Despite The Preview Trailers, Love Happens Is Surprisingly Good!

The Good: Excellent casting/acting, Decent pace, Good story
The Bad: A bit predictable
The Basics: Charming, if occasionally predictable, Love Happens brings the year to substantial films with great dramatic performances by Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Aniston.


As students go back to school and films gear up to Oscar Pandering Season (wherein all of the major studios release the less-mainstream films that they hope will garner them attention for awards) there is a brief period wherein there are substantial films released that often get overlooked for Oscar season. To be sure, there are occasionally performances that deserve attention during this season, but more often than not, early September is back-to-school dating fare and a few years ago the most promising entry into the milieu is Love Happens.

When Love Happens was released, I was still smarting from the prior year's neglect of Aaron Eckhart around award season for his performance of Harvey Dent in The Dark Knight (reviewed here!) and Love Happens represented the best chance Eckhart had in 2009 to get heaped with the praise he so justly deserves. Paired with Jennifer Aniston, Eckhart once again makes a bold cinematic performance as Burke Ryan in Love Happens, portraying a character who is moody, has a real conflict and undergoes a profound transformation in the course of the film.

And had it not been for the annoyingly explicit preview trailer, all of this might have been a surprise. As it is, as I came out of the screening of Love Happens my only regret was knowing so much of the film from the trailer. That said, this is a solid romantic drama and it is truly only marred by predictability.

Burke Ryan is in Seattle as part of his book tour for his bestseller on getting through loss when Eloise stumbles in. Distraught and lost from her last relationship and her unfulfilling life, she and Burke sit down, talk and bond. While Eloise is hesitant to get into a new relationship, she finds herself drawn to Burke, who is a widower and whose book was based upon his healing process after the loss of his wife. Encouraged by her best friend, Eloise continues to see Burke and when the going between them gets tough, Burke confesses to her.

Burke's book, it turns out, is based on his wishful thinking, the ideal he had when he lost his wife. With that confession comes a renewed bond between Eloise and Burke and the pair sets out to follow Burke's advice in his book. This leads the two to grow closer, heal, reconcile with estranged family and fall in love.

Writers Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson (Camp also directed the film) have a good eye for a fairly original story and the film deals much more with healing and reconciling the past than the love story between Eloise and Burke. Instead of belaboring all of the cliches of two people falling in love, Love Happens focuses more on putting the old love to rest when the new love begins, making it ideal for those who have lost love in the past or who are suffering "second wife syndrome." Eloise is certainly empathetic to those who are going through the latter as she lives in the specter of Burke's dead wife until the two of them actually begin dealing with his lack of closure.

This is not to say that the film is without cliches. The estranged parent introduced early on and the gossipy best friend both raised my eyebrow when they first appeared. Still, Love Happens is surprisingly strong because it maturely explores an adult relationship and the idea that Burke has managed to become a success based on how he wishes he could have reacted to his wife's death is quite original.

As well, the film is remarkably well-cast for the roles. Jennifer Aniston has proven she can play miserable - Friends With Money aptly illustrated that - but Love Happens puts her playing a character in a dark emotional place that the viewer actually cares about. Eager to get the most out of life and to recover from her own losses, Eloise arrives at Burke's seminar with a load of potential and an instantly likable cast to her. She is exactly what most of us are or want to see; a person who is struggling to get by and who wants the tools to live a better life. Aniston convincingly portrays this with a body language that has sagging shoulders through the beginning of the film and she actually makes her usually expressive eyes more dead.

This, then, becomes a wonderful character performance for Aniston as she slowly reverts to a more confident persona with a straightened spine and eyes that scream adoration and joy. That Aniston takes the transformation slowly makes the role work and Eloise is bound to be considered one of her best as time goes by. Similarly, Martin Sheen's role in Love Happens is arguably the most memorable one he has had outside The West Wing in years. He and Eckhart play off one another masterfully as their characters move toward an emotional understanding.

But it is Aaron Eckhart who masterfully carries most of Love Happens. As Burke, the focus is frequently on him, especially after his confession to Eloise. First, Eckhart is quite able to do the sympathetic damaged man role without it ever seeming over-the-top or melodramatic. In Love Happens, he plays the emotional chords perfectly and the contrast between Eckhart's portrayal of Burke on stage and off is striking and well-directed. Second, like Aniston, Eckhart draws out the emotional realizations, so even as his character begins to get closure, Eckhart does not take Burke into "everything's fine" territory. And when the film calls for it, Eckhart is appropriately charming with great on-screen chemistry between him and Aniston.

Director Brandon Camp makes Love Happens look good as well, keeping his protagonists well-lit. There are scenes in the film that look different from most dramas - the first meal that Eloise and Burke share seems especially charming and well-presented - and for that Camp deserves some credit. He and his writing partner might not have written the most original film of all time, but he does what he can to make it seem new and the effort works well. This is autumn's first must-see movie and it has been a while since I have wanted to see a film a second time the way I want to see Love Happens again.

For other works featuring Jennifer Aniston, please visit my reviews of:
Horrible Bosses
The Bounty Hunter
30 Rock - Season 3
Friends

6.5/10

For other movie reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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If You Think You've Already Seen All Of Battle Los Angeles Already . . . You're Mostly Right!

The Good: Solidly entertaining, Decent character development, Decent acting, Good special effects.
The Bad: Derivative plot structure, Character cliches, Revealing previews, Pulls punches
The Basics: Battle Los Angeles may be shockingly derivative of Aliens, but it work . . . for anyone who has not seen any previews for it.


There has been an annoying trend in current cinema where previews for a film become more and more revealing such that one is left with the feeling it is not even worth bothering to go see the actual movie being advertised. I was actually getting quite excited about the potentials of Battle: Los Angeles up until the advertising campaign for the last few weeks stepped up how much the previews revealed. So when my wife managed to snag me screening tickets to the movie, I was a bit less excited about it than I had been months ago.

And now having seen Battle Los Angeles, the biggest surprise for me was how very much I actually enjoyed the film. Battle Los Angeles is almost completely ruined by the previews and this is an instance where the journey could have been filled with some real surprises, were it not for the previews. While virtually anyone with a brain who saw even the final movie poster to Battle Los Angeles could tell that the giant alien device rising out of the ground came very late in the film, the real disservice for viewers comes in how the advertising campaign for the film featured alien air support. Without beating that mistake by revealing too much, those who enjoyed the advertising campaign will find that they are just waiting for the characters to catch up with them based on the weeks of advertising they had seen in advance of the film. Even so, Battle Los Angeles is incredibly entertaining and is 2011's first legitimate blockbuster film.

Twenty-four hours before an alien assault begins - Battle Los Angeles opens with the bass of explosions and Spanish news reports revealing the attack as helicopters fly over a beach that is under attack - Staff Sergeant Michael Nantz is outrun by younger Marines and decides it is time to quit the military. Peppered in with introducing the young officers and enlisted men training at Camp Pendleton are news reports about a meteor shower which will be hitting various points on Earth the next day. When the next morning comes, Nantz, Stavros, Harris, Adukuwe, Martinez and Lockett (among others) are recalled to active service when the military realizes that the meteors are not natural occurring phenomenon - because they decelerate before impact - and that Earth is under attack. As the troops move out, CNN illustrates what the military suspected when civilians on the Los Angeles beaches are slaughtered wholesale by armored alien beings advancing out of the ocean.

Nantz and his team are dropped into the war zone that is Los Angeles with a simple mission: help clear civilians out before the Marines fire-bomb Santa Monica to destroy the alien ground forces. Nantz and his team are sent behind the advancing alien front to a police station where civilians were trapped when the firefight began. With three hours until Santa Monica is liquidated, Nantz finds himself and his men outgunned by aliens. And the news goes from bad to worse when a tech Sergeant from the Air Force, Santos, finds her way to the unit with news that her team was tracking a much larger alien force before they were wiped out. With time running out, the humans on the ground and in the sky above struggle to survive extermination.

I feel the need to reiterate two things before I go into more analysis of Battle Los Angeles: 1. I actually enjoyed the movie and 2. It was ruined by the advertisements. I feel it is important to reiterate that first point because the more I think objectively about the movie, the more I find myself nit-picking it. Throughout Battle Los Angeles, news reports feature scientists doing their best to explain the invasion and the conclusion that the aliens have come for Earth's liquid water. Given that, one has to wonder why the aliens are bothering to try to wipe out humanity at all. The middle of the ocean is much harder for humans to defend and it could be a much more powerful position for these particular aliens. Come to think of it, if aliens decided to claim a giant chunk of ocean, there wouldn't be much we could do about it ("Mr. President, I'd like to nuke the Pacific!" "Gosh Gary, that sounds idiotic, you're fired"), so the basic premise of Battle Los Angeles doesn't make that much sense. Or I'm just that much smarter than the invading aliens in it. But I liked the film.

But it doesn't take a very sophisticated reviewer to notice that Battle Los Angeles is plotted identically to Aliens (reviewed here!). If you're looking for the parallels, it's pretty simple. In Battle Los Angeles, the marines are introduced (like in Aliens), they go to the front, which is like when the marines in Aliens encounter the aliens on the colony, they find the civilians and Santos, like finding Newt in Aliens, drive a bus (like the all-terrain vehicle in the classic), and barricade themselves before a firefight which involves one of the people blowing themselves up and ultimately face the Big Bad (in Aliens it was the Queen). Battle Los Angeles lacks the quips from Aliens and the sense of mood is constant and impressive for the sense of futility that pervades the movie.

Unfortunately, the character arcs are almost entirely cliche. Harris is preparing for his wedding, Martinez is married with a pregnant wife at home and Nantz is plagued by his prior mission where the men he led were killed. The lieutenant leading the company is fresh out of officer training (hmmm . . . wasn't Gorman in Aliens on his first actual combat drop?!) and one of the men is the brother of a man who had been in Nantz's last squad. Battle Los Angeles makes a decent showing of attempting to insert some sense of individuality to the characters, but because many of them get glossed over, some seem like real cliches. The most notable of these is Martinez with his pregnant wife.

What the viewer is left with, then, is a pretty solid experience piece. This is The Hurt Locker meets Independence Day and the combat in it is intense. The dialogue is very military oriented - measurements are in "clicks" and the phrase ". . . asset fell off the grid" insinuates authenticity - so the movie feels like what it is supposed to be, a bunch of Marines fighting for the survival of humanity. The only truly disturbing aspect of the Marines buckling up and doing what has to be done is that in the closing credits there are credited members of the military (entertainment liaison), so there is a sense that this could be just one real long advertisement to go enlist with the Marines.

But director Jonathan Liebesman deserves a lot of credit for not making seriously annoying - and common - mistakes that his contemporaries make. Cloverfield and District 9 leap instantly to mind as films where the directors overused handheld cameras to make frenetic movies that ended up as just nauseating. Liebesman seems to have a strong grasp on the idea that if one is making a movie where there are lots of explosions, advancing aliens and realistically obscured eyelines, that the camera shouldn't make the movie more difficult to watch.

Unfortunately, Liebesman seems to be a Hollywood wh . . . um, director, of the caliber who is more determined to make a PG-13 film than a good one. Battle Los Angeles too frequently pulls its punches to make the movie kid-safe. The one use of the f-word comes late in the film and is used to refer to the aliens, as opposed to any of the Marines getting upset over either the casualties the squad is taking or the destruction of their homeworld. The bodies that are seen littering Los Angeles are not frequently burned, maimed or otherwise anything but window dressing and many of the casualties of characters happen very quickly and without too much realism to their demise. The most problematic way the film is cropped, though, is in a scene in the middle where Nantz, Santos and a civilian veterinarian find an alien and basically vivisect it to figure out how to kill it. The creature is never focused on enough to truly tell where the organs they are pulling out are coming from or what they are actually doing.

But for all my griping, Battle Los Angeles has some pretty decent acting. Aaron Eckhart is a favorite of mine and he does not use his trademark smile through the entire film. His smirk is only hinted at and it never reaches his eyes, allowing Eckhart to establish Nantz as a deeply serious and humorless character . . . which makes him the archetypal Marine. The others in the work are convincing, though Michelle Roderiguez seems to have landed in this niche ever since she finished on Lost.

Battle Los Angeles is not troubled by an oppressive or overly bassy soundtrack, so Bryan Tyler deserves some credit for defying expectations in that regard. The special effects do look good, even if there is frequently a lot of realistic warfare going on around the aliens and their vehicles to prevent viewers from actually seeing them clearly. There is no real sense of catharsis to the movie or the few victories that happen early in the film. Even so, Battle Los Angeles is entertaining, worth watching and captivating from beginning to end. And while the DVD release date will almost certainly be August 12, 2011, perhaps by that time viewers will have forgotten how much was spoiled by the advertising and rediscover it as something even more thrilling than it was on the big screen.

For other works with Aaron Eckhart, check out my reviews of:
Love Happens
The Dark Knight
Frasier Season Eleven

7/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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While Few People Were Looking, Frasier The Final Season Ends Superbly!

The Good: Funny, Great character development, Wonderful performances
The Bad: Light on DVD bonus features, Issue with recurring characters
The Basics: With Frasier The Final Season, Frasier comes to a remarkable close on DVD with minimal extras.


As the year comes to an end, my wife and I are feeling a lot of sense of loss over what we watch together. As ridiculous as it may seem, when we get attached to characters on shows, we truly do get attached. Earlier this year, we watched all of Friends and I was unsurprised by how big a deal it was when we finished the series on DVD (I got it for her as a wedding gift, so this was an added component to her recollections of where she was in life when the series itself ended). While I had my hopes that she would enjoy Frasier (the whole series is reviewed here!), I had no idea how MUCH she would come to love the situational comedy that I had long enjoyed. So, when we slowed down our DVD viewing, it was with a cozy sense of melancholy that on Christmas night together we finished Frasier The Final Season. That’s Season 11 for those who actually follow such things, though the DVD packaging refers to it as the final season.

My love for Frasier came at a weird time and when the episodes were airing, there were a surprising number of episodes I had not seen until I managed to get the DVD set. In fact, it is only on DVD that one comes to realize just how tight the final season is. Unlike other seasons of Frasier (or of other television shows, for that matter), the writers and producers had a clear idea of where they wanted to go with the show and as a result, they plant the seeds for it rather early. I had seen the series finale, for example, but it wasn’t until I was watching the episodes that preceded it that I came to realize just how well the show had prepared viewers for the ultimate leap the series takes as it went off the air. It’s wonderful when a show is that well-constructed.

Unfortunately for the writers and producers of Frasier, where they had left the series at the climax of season ten meant they had to clean some things up. Do not read on if you want the surprise (it’s not honestly much of a surprise) of how the tenth season ended! Fans of the series had a feeling that elements from the tenth season that were left dangling would be resolved, but the speed at which they get tied up is somewhere between alarming and ridiculous to many fans, myself included. As a result, the final season actually starts off feeling like many of the other seasons of the show.

Having chosen Julia as a lover over Roz as a friend, Frasier finds himself scrambling to replace his producer. But after her first day at the rival radio station in Seattle, Roz finds herself absolutely miserable. Acting upon a sarcastic quip from Niles, Roz returns to KACL as if nothing had happened and soon “The Frasier Crane Show” is up and running well again. Frasier’s personal life, however, takes an abrupt turn when Julia meets the family and the dinner goes so poorly that he breaks up with her on the spot. In the process, Niles – who was worried about his low motility – discovers Daphne is pregnant with his baby and the family prepares for a new life. Frasier returns to the dating scene, but discovers that his former babysitter who has come back into his life is more interested in Martin than she is Frasier. This leads Roz to set Frasier up with an odious insurance adjustor who robs Frasier of a night with Ms. Right (literally, her name is Ms. Right!).

It is around this time that Maris resurfaces . . . as a murderer! On trial for killing her lover, Niles becomes a local celebrity, which makes Frasier jealous. Lilith returns, as does Frederick (who is anything but interested in spending Christmas with the good doctor) and in an act of rebellion, Niles accidentally gets Martin high with a pot brownie! Frasier’s first ex-wife shows up as well and in a practical joke, Frasier give Martin a heart attack. This leads Martin and Ronnie down an unexpected path. But as he becomes more unsatisfied with his work at KACL, Frasier succumbs to the services of a matchmaker, but finds himself falling for her instead! When Frasier falls in love with Charlotte, his matchmaker who is involved with an environmentalist, it truly changes his life.

Right off the bat, I have a real gripe with the eleventh season of Frasier for the recurring character of Ann. Ann is the insurance adjuster Roz sets Frasier up with who turns out to be exceptionally litigious. Ann is, arguably, the first realistically-proportioned character to pop up on Frasier. The problem I have with this is that she is also in the running (with Julia) for the character with the absolute worst personality the show ever created. She is noisy, mean and just obnoxious. Every frame she is on screen is unpleasant and it stinks that Frasier succumbs to the rather base stereotype of equating inner and outer beauty by illustrating that the “worst looking” (i.e. not Hollywood thin or classically beautiful) character (to show up in eleven years!) also possesses one of the worst personalities. By similar extension, Julia – who was played by Felicity Huffman, who landed her role on Desperate Housewives and had to be written out – goes from being a deeply sarcastic and irritable character to outright classless in her final appearance on the show. The writers did not continue the character well and as a result, fans were quite pleased to see her depart.

Conversely, Frasier The Final Season makes excellent use of the time it had remaining in the forms of Ronnie, Charlotte and her boyfriend Frank. The use of great guest stars Wendie Malick, Laura Linney and Aaron Eckhart, respectively, helps, but the roles are exceptionally well-written. Malick as Ronnie, especially, is able to pull off the part of a character so vital that she fits into the cast as if she had been there forever. Ronnie is a great addition to the character mix as she is a middle-aged woman who falls for Martin and has a real sense of humor about her place in Frasier and Niles’s lives. As well, she becomes a great source for character revelations: a joke she once played on Niles is arguably what led him to his compulsive cleaning!

What works as well is the show’s fearless nature about doing concept shows. The penultimate episode of the series, for example, takes the cast back through several different eras in the series. My partner initially groaned as “Crock Tales” began and it appeared to be a flashback episode, until she realized the “flashbacks” were actually new material! Similarly, in “Detours,” Frasier presents its final farcical episode when Frasier tries to drive Charlotte to a conference and his car dies, stranding them in a house with a dead body, hillbillies and the creepiest adult child to be shown on television in years! As well, the series is unafraid to present episodes that illustrate a deeper understanding of the psychology of the characters on the show. So in “Freudian Sleep,” each of the main characters has a dream or nightmare which reveals where they are in life and their insecurities about that. It’s a very smart episode (though a bit derivative of the M*A*S*H episode “Dreams”) and the characters are well-presented in it.

As usual, it helps to know who the characters are in a series and what their struggles are. In the final season of Frasier, the principles are:

Dr. Frasier Crane – Alone again after Julia insults everyone in his life, he finds himself tied to Ann when she hurts herself in his apartment. When he manages to rid himself of her, he struggles with boredom at his job. He and Lilith say a very real “good-bye” and he tries to relate to Frederick when his son visits for Christmas and has gone Goth! He and Niles compete less as Frasier prepares to be an uncle and Frasier starts to envy what Niles has with Daphne. He inadvertently dates a prominent – but very gay – theater director who offers him all the trappings of a life he wants . . . with an obvious catch. His chance at real love comes when he works with a matchmaker who is struggling through her own divorce and he finds himself more than smitten, but truly in love,

Roz Doyle – Unsatisfied with her new job, she immediately returns to KACL as Frasier’s producer, but starts to suffer ennui when the show begins to slow down. She gets a boyfriend who seems like he might be gay and ultimately finds herself still looking for the right man. As well, Frasier’s advice to Kenny to return to what makes him passionate (in this case, being a d.j.) leads Roz to a career opportunity that suits her,

Dr. Niles Crane – Now expecting a child with the love of his life, he is shocked when Maris’s new lover turns up dead . . . with a murder weapon Niles gave to her! He becomes less secure when he realizes what fatherhood might do to him, but after a brief (annoying) sympathetic pregnancy, he finds himself prepared and happy. This season, he becomes supportive of Frasier when Frasier makes a real effort to find love after Julia departs,

Daphne Crane – Thrilled that her mother is no longer living with her and Niles, they set about to get pregnant and soon discover she already is! Jealous when Niles starts giving Maris attention, she is part of Maris’s plan to flee the country, though she does not know it at the time. She gets moody as she gets further along and she begins to be afraid that Niles will leave her after the baby comes,

And Martin Crane – Competing with Frasier for Ronnie’s affections leaves him the victor and he does his best to impress Ronnie and her very conservative mother. He plays a practical joke on Frasier, which backfires when Frasier plays it back on him and scares him into a heart attack. This brings him and Ronnie closer and provides Frasier with an example of real love to follow to his next stage in life.

The acting on the show by this point is exceptionally honed and none of the performers do anything we have not seen from them before in terms of acting. That said, it is hard for fans to not tear up in the final scene Kelsey Grammar and Bebe Neuwirth share in “Guns ‘N Neuroses.” By that point, of course, both performers knew they were saying good-bye to their characters (arguably for the last time) and the scene is sad and sweet, just as the finale is.

Even so, the show is very funny, as well as a series of protracted “good-byes.” On DVD, “The Final Season” comes with two featurettes on the ending of the series and the final episode. This is underwhelming, but continues predictably the Paramount “F-U” to the fans by not giving them much value for their DVD buying dollar. This is, arguably, because they know fans who bought the other ten seasons are going to want to buy this boxed set, if for no other reason than to see how the show ends.

In this, at least, Paramount is right.

For the final seasons to other television series’, please check out my reviews of:
The West Wing – Season 7
Heroes – Season 4
Lost – Season 6

7.5/10

For other television reviews, please visit my index page!

© 2010, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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