“Evolution Of The Daleks” Is The Worst Of The Daleks!

The Good: One or two seconds of performance
The Bad: Melodramatic acting, Preposterous plot, Terrible effects, Poor character development (when there is any)
The Basics: Saving the past from crazed, diluted Daleks and Dalek-hybrids makes “Evolution Of The Daleks” an impossible-to-recommend episode of Doctor Who


The second part of an episode is very rarely better than the first part, I have found. I think that might be because it is so easy to set-up a compelling conflict, but resolving the situation that puts beloved characters into the worst possible situation almost always undermines the set-up. In the case of Doctor Who, “Evolution Of The Daleks” the pay-off was almost guaranteed to be a failure given how mediocre “Daleks In Manhattan” (reviewed here!) was. Despite confirming that Dalek Sec was the Dalek that disappeared from an emergency temporal shift at the climax of “Doomsday” (reviewed here!), “Evolution Of The Daleks” has very little to offer fans.

At the climax of “Daleks In Manhattan,” which left four Daleks in 1930 Manhattan reconstructing their race using DNA from humans and creating human/pig hybrids. The Dalek that escaped the future has gone somewhat crazy and melded with the foreman who was picking off the residents of Hooverville. The result was a ridiculous creature – Dalek in human form – that makes it entirely impossible to take the Daleks seriously as a menace.

Confronting the new biped Dalek/Human Sec, The Doctor taunts the Daleks and escapes using a radio to confuse them. Fleeing back to Hooverville is a futile plan for The Doctor, Martha, and the rest. The Daleks attack and after Solomon attempts to reason with them, he is exterminated. The Doctor convinces the Daleks to spare the residents of Hooverville in exchange for his going with them. While Martha tries to figure out why The Doctor gave her the psychic paper before leaving her, The Doctor learns the final plan the Daleks are preparing. The Daleks have harvested a stockpile of near-corpses and plan to reanimate them as human/Dalek hybrids.

Getting into the Empire State Building, Martha works to figure out what the Daleks have done to change the Building. On a lower floor, The Doctor figures out the final plan and he begins to assist Dalek Sec in creating his new race of Dalek/human hybrids. But the remaining three Daleks revolt and in the ensuing encounter, the Doctor puts his life on the line to stop the Daleks and the Dalek humans.

“Evolution Of The Daleks” offers the chance for the Daleks to be altered and it is hard to take the episode as credible given that it occurs in the 1930s. The concept of Dalek Sec desiring a new home for a new Dalek race is not a terrible one, but the execution of the idea in “Evolution Of The Daleks” is pretty awful. At the top of the problems, “Daleks In Manhattan” created a plot that needed so much explanation that “Evolution Of The Daleks” is saddled with delivering a lot of exposition.

The second problem with “Evolution Of The Daleks” is the supplemental characters who flesh out the episode. Tallulah is essentially a pathetic stereotype of a 1930s New York City woman; she resonates about as realistically as a soap opera character. It seems like the whole point of Tallulah is to give Martha Jones someone to have “girl talk” with. Almost completely absent from the episode is Martha Jones’s strength, intelligence and resilience. Instead, Martha Jones fawns over The Doctor and laments his lack of romantic interest in her.

Despite a decent monologue from Hugh Quarshie, most of the acting in “Evolution Of The Daleks” is pretty terrible. Miranda Raison’s performance as Tallulah is over-the-top and ridiculous. Even the usually-wonderful Andrew Garfield has moments where his Southern American accent comes across as canned and awkward.

The Doctor’s high moral stance is virtually negated by the cheesy reuse of the same cheap plot technique used to get the Daleks into the situation; it assures that the Daleks will return yet again. After the sour taste left by “Evolution Of The Daleks,” that is the last thing fans might want!

For other works with Andrew Garfield, please visit my reviews of:
The Amazing Spider-Man 2
The Amazing Spider-Man
The Social Network
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Third Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the second season of the Tenth Doctor here!
Thanks!]

.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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This Is Where They Lose Me On The Daleks: “Daleks In Manhattan!”

The Good: Decent acting, Moments of character
The Bad: Packed with irrelevant and distracting guest characters, Ridiculous plot, Mediocre special effects.
The Basics: The Daleks surface in 1930 New York City where they are experimenting with humans and building the Empire State Building.


At this point, I will watch pretty much anything with Andrew Garfield in it. Garfield is, easily, one of the best actors of the day and while Benedict Cumberbatch gets a lot of attention and is taking a slew of roles, Garfield could go toe to toe with him dramatically in virtually anything. As it turns out, Andrew Garfield was in a two-part episode of Doctor Who before he started getting big movie roles. Unfortunately for me as a fan of Doctor Who and Andrew Garfield, the episodes Garfield was in were some of the most problematic.

The essence of my problem with “Daleks In Manhattan” is that the formidable adversary that has been the Daleks are further weakened by the way they are presented in the episode. The Daleks seem to escape through time and space as much as The Doctor does and while Russell T. Davies made some intriguing arcs with them, when Helen Raynor took the reins for writing “Daleks In Manhattan,” she created a preposterous story and one of the weirdest allies to the Daleks ever. Amid the story of Daleks living in Earth’s past are a new race of human/pig hybrids and the idea that humans at the technological level they were at in the 1930s could adequately combat the Daleks is a pretty ridiculous notion.

After Laszlo, a pretty regular guy in 1930, who is involved with the dancer, Tallulah, disappears, The Doctor and Martha Jones arrive in New York City on November 1, 1930. Martha is excited because she has always wanted to go to New York City and she sees that they have arrived at an intriguing time; the Empire State Building is not yet complete. The Doctor sees on a newspaper headline that people are disappearing from Hooverville and the pair begins to investigate. Checking out Hooverville, The Doctor meets Solomon, a community organizer among the impoverished living in Central Park. When Mr. Diagoras visits Hooverville after the Daleks insist he finish the Empire State Building that very night, The Doctor, Martha, Frank, and Solomon take some work going into the sewer. While they are running into weird biological matter in the sewers, Diagoras is enforcing the will of the Daleks with completing the spire on the Empire State Building.

Diagoras is brought before Dalek Sec, the leader of the Cult Of Skarro, the surviving Dalek from the future. Sec is experimenting upon humans, creating human/pig hybrids with the citizens of Hooverville. In the sewers, The Doctor and his team encounter one of the people abducted, who has been altered by the Daleks. In escaping, Frank is abducted by the pig men and the group meets up with Tallulah. Solomon suspects The Doctor is not what he seems when The Doctor tries to analyze a jellyfish-like creature they found in the sewers. While Dalek Sec makes a move on Diagoras, The Doctor realizes just who he is fighting!

In “Doomsday” (reviewed here!), the survival of the Daleks was virtually assured when one made a temporal leap to escape the trap The Doctor and Rose set. So, the idea that Dalek Sec survived is not actually surprising. Near the climax of the episode, Sec gives a decent monologue which explains his concept of evolving the Daleks. The idea of Daleks willing to use human DNA undermines the whole idea of what the Daleks are. After all, if the Daleks are the last remaining creatures from the planet Skarro, the idea of going to Earth to try to resurrect the race is a ridiculous one. Moreover, the writers do not seem to actually understand what DNA is; if DNA is a blueprint, a chain of amino acids in a specific order, one can pretty easily replicate alien DNA from any building blocks once they have the full blueprint. In other words, Daleks that had the full record of Skarran DNA in their database could simply reconstruct pure Skarran DNA from any genetic material, i.e. frogs, with vastly less risk than they take on in “Daleks In Manhattan.”

So, the idea of Daleks experimenting on humans and creating a race of human/pig hybrids is absurd and the episode “Daleks In Manhattan” does not justify its concept well-enough to be convincing.

Similarly unfortunately, “Daleks In Manhattan” is crowded with guest characters who fail to resonate. Laszlo and Tallulah are hardly compelling and their arc and reuniting feels like filler. Laszlo serves mostly to provide exposition late in the episode and Frank is not developed enough to truly be vital. Similarly, Solomon is a good idea, but more of an archetype than an actual character.

Martha Jones stands out in the episode. Jones is defined as having superior intelligence in “Daleks In Manhattan” by the Daleks and the episode marks the first time that Martha explicitly declares that she has romantic feelings for The Doctor. Jones is smart and resourceful as ever in “Daleks In Manhattan” and Freema Agyeman plays her well, as always. David Tennant is given shockingly little to do in “Daleks In Manhattan,” especially with the cluttered guest cast.

Perhaps that is why “Daleks In Manhattan” fails; it’s so much set-up and the set-up is more silly than compelling to the characters viewers love and respect.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Third Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the second season of the Tenth Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with resurrected villains, be sure to check out my reviews of:
“Dark Frontier, Part 1” - Star Trek: Voyager
“Tempus Fugit” - The X-Files
“The Only Light In The Darkness” - Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.

3.5/10

For other Doctor Who episode and movie reviews, please visit my Doctor Who Review Index Page!

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The 2014 Web-Slinging Wonder Amazing Spider-Man 2 Ornament Succeeds!

The Good: Good casting of the character, Decent coloring detail. Good balance, Price.
The Bad: No special features, Very obvious seam in the crotch!
The Basics: Web-Slinging Wonder celebrates Spider-Man for the DVD release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2.


Spider-Man is the subject of a surprising number of Hallmark ornaments over the years. Hallmark has done a decent job of oscillating between cinematic renditions of Spider-Man and the comic book version of the hero. This year, the Spider-Man ornament is Web-Slinging Wonder and it is the Spider-Man from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 that is the subject of the ornament. There are only a few differences between the cinematic Spider-Man from The Amazing Spider-Man 2 and the comic book version of the character. The major difference for this ornament is the size and shape of the spider logo on the character’s chest.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, this summer there a sequel to the reboot of the Spider-Man film franchise with the release of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (reviewed here!). In The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Peter Parker and New York City are besieged by Electro and Norman Osborne’s alter-ego. The film has Spider-Man evolving into more of the traditional super-hero that one expected him to be instead of the amateur from the first film, though that is not really reflected in the ornament.

It is Spider-Man, mid-leap, that is the subject of the 2014 Hallmark Web-Slinging Wonder ornament!

Basics

The Web-Slinging Wonder ornament recreates the young hero in solid plastic. The ornament, released in 2014, is a pretty incredible recreation of the popular character as he appears in the film The Amazing Spider-Man 2. That said, because the ornament features no fleshtones, it is colored vibrantly and well and does not suffer for lacking realistic depth and shading to it.

Spider-Man is the masked hero of New York City and for this ornament, he appears to be leaping with his arms raised and his legs in a crouching leap! The ornament, like the character, is dominated by red and blue with black spider webs spread all along the red portions of the outfit. The detailing is as good as one might expect with the vibrant colors broken up well by the finer detailing of the webbing on the costume. Inscrutable and ready-for-action, the Web-Slinging Wonder looks incredible! On the sculpting front, the Web-Slinging Wonder is very basic, as is appropriate for this incarnation of Spider-Man.

The Hallmark Web-Slinging Wonder ornament is made of a durable plastic, but has some unfortunate seams. The crotch has very noticeable seams that stand out ridiculously, compared to the smoothness of the rest of the ornament. The Web-Slinging Wonder ornament measures out at 3 3/4" tall, 4" wide and 2 1/4” deep. His coloring is expertly executed, though to be fair, he is cast in monotone colors, as is appropriate.

In fact, the only serious detraction to the ornament is the very deep seam on the Web-Slinging Wonder’s crotch that makes him look entirely manufactured.

Features

As a Hallmark Keepsake ornament, the Web-Slinging Wonder could have a function like a sound chip or light effect, but does not. This is just an ornament, a low-cost (comparatively) option for those who might not want to shell out for the more expensive ornaments. The Web-Slinging Wonder ornament simply hangs.

Balance

As with all ornaments, the intent of the Hallmark Keepsake The Amazing Spider-Man ornament is to be hung on a Christmas Tree. For those creating the ultimate Marvel Universe Christmas Tree, a Spider-Man ornament is essential and this one is as good as any number of other ones that Hallmark has produced. The ornament has a steel hook loop embedded in the back, between the shoulders of the ornament. From that hook, the Web-Slinging Wonder ornament hangs without any awkward bias or balance issues. It still moves when one’s tree is knocked, but generally, this hangs quite nicely and looks very well-balanced, like Spider-Man is mid-leap.

Collectibility

Hallmark Keepsake began delving into the collectibles market in 1991 with Star Trek when it introduced the exceptionally limited edition original U.S.S. Enterprise ornament (click here for my review of that!). Since then, Hallmark has gotten into every major franchise from Disney to Twilight to the Marvel Comics universe. The Web-Slinging Wonder ornament was not at all limited, but given how none of the Spider-Man ornaments have actually exploded in value, it is hard to recommend the ornament as an investment piece. One suspects that the Web-Slinging Wonder will at least maintain its value at $14.95, even if it does not appreciate significantly in value.

Overview

The Web-Slinging Wonder ornament recreates Andrew Garfield’s costumed crusader in a good, albeit indistinct way with only one serious manufacturing issue.

For other Marvel Hallmark ornaments, please check out my reviews of:
2014 War Machine ornament
2013 Iron Patriot Iron Man 3 ornament
2012 Captain America The Avengers ornament
2012 Iron Man The Avengers ornament
2012 Thor The Avengers ornament
2012 The Amazing Spider-Man ornament
2011 Spider-Man ornament
2011 Thor ornament
2010 Defender Of Justice Iron Man 2 ornament

8/10

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

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Counting Up To Six: How The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro Loses Its Way. . .

The Good: Good performances, Pretext of character development
The Bad: Over-the-top special effects, Entirely derivative plot, Lack of spark
The Basics: The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro starts off remarkably well, but continues to add in elements until it is diluted into being Just Another Superhero Sequel.


I went into The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro with reasonably high expectations, despite having never been a fan of the Spider-Man franchise. I enjoyed The Amazing Spider-Man (reviewed here!), but found it largely to be an example of “better ingredients, better meal.” In other words, the reboot started out from an advantageous place considering that the actors in it were of a higher caliber than those who began in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man Trilogy. So, bolstered by the success of the reboot a few years back, I turned to The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro ready to be solidly entertained.

Little did I know that Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci (the two who brought us the reboot of Star Trek, reviewed here!), and Jeff Pinkner were basically going to turn in a rewrite of Batman Forever (reviewed here!) for the Spider-Man franchise. Okay, it’s not quite that bad, but The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro has a primary villain who bears a striking resemblance in terms of character arc to the Edward Nigma character in Batman Forever and he is juggled clumsily between other budding villains so he never quite pops the way viewers might hope. In fact, The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro is such a jumbled mess of elements that it would be more accurately subtitled (for those markets that include the subtitle): The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Set-Up For The Sequel.

Therein lies the fundamental problem with The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro: the whole film has a grossly assembled feeling to it. Of course The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro is an assembled work: there was a writing team, a director, the actors add their own stuff, the studio comes in with notes, etc. Almost all films are collaborative works that start as a work cobbled together from ideas that writers hope will work together. The trick in moviemaking is that the film’s elements need to feel organic, not assembled. When the great moments of reversal come, the viewer should be able to say, “that makes sense” even if they did not see it coming. The best films make one stop looking for the tricks and get so engrossed that when the surprises pop up they truly are surprising. Unfortunately, The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro doesn’t do that. Instead, the film follows a troublingly rigid formula that cobbles together elements from The Amazing Spider-Man, Batman Forever and classic Spider-Man comic book storylines that are so well known that even non-fans like myself are entirely aware of them. In short, The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro has no surprises for anyone who is awake and has seen any five comic book-based films over the last ten years; what’s worse is that it misuses the talent present in the film in a way The Amazing Spider-Man did not.

Opening with a ballsy rehash of Richard and Mary Parker fleeing Oscorp and New York City (which keeps the protagonist of the film off the screen for the first seven plus minutes!), Peter Parker’s parents meet an untimely end, this time on-screen. As their plane goes down, Richard sends his files to a secret Roosevelt facility using wi-fi technology I’m pretty sure we didn’t have during that time period. In the present day, New York City is besieged by deranged thief Aleksei Sytsevich, who has stolen some vials from Oscorp and is fleeing through downtown with his thugs when he runs into the New York City police department and Spider-Man. Spider-Man manages to foil the robbery, much to the chagrin of Detective Stacy, who – like Peter Parker (Spider-Man’s mundane alter-ego) is kept from the high school graduation by the chase. Parker makes it to graduation just in time (just in time for an awesome Stan Lee cameo!), but having seen Detective Stacy recently, he feels conflicted about actually taking Gwen Stacy up on her generous offer to join the Stacy family for dinner that night. Appearing at the restaurant, Peter tells Gwen he can’t really keep seeing her and Gwen breaks up with Peter for not having the balls to break the promise he made in the prior film to her father outright.

Following their break-up, Max Dillon, an Oscorp employee who has created a revolutionary new power grid for New York City, which is housed in Oscorp, finds himself alone and stepped on by everyone around him. Having been rescued by Spider-Man during the Sytsevich heist, he has a bit of hero worship for Spider-Man. On his birthday, the lonely engineer – who is stepped on by everyone around him, most notably an Oscorp employee who is many years his junior, but seems more outwardly ambitious and a bit of a jackass – meets Gwen Stacy and is thrilled by the simple fact that she remembers his name. Unfortunately, that is the day that Norman Osborn, the founder of Oscorp, dies. Norman dies after having recalled his son, Harry, from prep school and revealing to him that he has prolonged his life using terrible means which have mutated him into something not-quite-human. Harry inherits Oscorp and the employees are all sent home. Unfortunately for Max Dillon, that means his jack-ass superior is unwilling to turn the power off in the conduit he is fixing for the company and Dillon is electrocuted and falls into a tank of electric eels . . . which naturally turns him into a glowing blue man who resurrects in the company morgue hours later.

Scared and unsure of his own abilities, Max Dillon walks out into New York City where his thirst for electrical energy leads him to absorb massive amounts of electricity in Times Square. This makes Peter Parker’s spider-sense tingle (though not explicitly referenced) during his conversation with Gwen Stacy, with whom he is attempting a friendship. Spider-man arrives on the scene and, despite having one of his two web-slingers knocked out by the electrified Dillon, he is able to incapacitate Max Dillon (largely because conversation with Dillon was going remarkably well until one of the police snipers jumped the gun and shot at Dillon). While Peter Parker reaches out to the mourning Harry Osborn, Max Dillon is experimented upon at the secret Oscorp facility, Ravencroft Institute. But soon, Harry’s quest for a cure to the genetic disease that killed his father and whose first symptoms he is now experiencing hits dead ends and corporate intrigue. Following Kurt Connors’ experiments in The Amazing Spider-Man, Oscorp destroyed a number of experiments to avoid lawsuits, including the radioactive spiders that bit Peter Parker. Harry’s right hand man at the company, Donald Menken, is working against him to advance to the CEO position himself. So, when Harry realizes he needs Spider-Man’s blood, he asks Peter Parker for help (thinking Peter knows Spider-man because he has photographed the superhero). But Peter Parker’s own quest for answers has led him to discover the Roosevelt facility and, in the process, he has learned the circumstances under which his father fled. Peter knows that his blood cannot help Harry, but when he and Spider-man refuse to help Harry, Harry takes a different path. He breaks into Ravencroft to free Electro (Max Dillon’s now-villainous alter-ego) and set him upon Spider-man. With the power out in New York City and a determined Gwen Stacy insisting on helping him, Spider-Man must stop Max Dillon and an obsessed Harry Osborn before they destroy New York.

The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro juggles a lot and while it is not too much for a single film, it is too much for this particular film. The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro is an odd film as far as pacing goes. It starts out with an interminably long sequence with Peter Parker’s father, becomes engaging for the bits involving Peter, Gwen and the actual rise of Electro, but stumbles through the entire Harry Osborn plot. The Harry Osborn plot is good, but it feels like it is part of another movie entirely. And, in order to make it work and all come together, the writing team and director Marc Webb seem to have given up. Much the way Princess Leia in Return Of The Jedi (reviewed here!) bears almost no resemblance to the character seen in the two films that precede it, Max Dillon/Electro bears no real resemblance to the character seen in the first two-thirds of the film. Harry Osborn gives Dillon the weakest argument for turning against his hero, Spider-man, ever conceived and Dillon just goes right along with it. In a film where the viewer knows so much of the mythos (Sam Raimi’s Spider-man movies are not terribly old and it’s not like they were not popular!) (It’s hard to call Gwen Stacy’s fate a “spoiler” when it was the subject of a comic book FORTY-ONE YEARS AGO!), the team that assembled The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro takes all of the easiest possible ways out. Max Dillon spends the first two-thirds of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 being set up to be Spider-man’s sidekick. He’s a likable guy, stepped on by schmucks around him until he is given a series of powers he does not at all understand. Then, he’s tortured by the same people who screwed him over his whole life so . . . how is it we’re supposed to believe he goes after entirely the wrong guy in the last act?! Did the writing team learn nothing from Star Trek: Nemesis* (reviewed here!)?!

So, Electro . . . utterly generic villain after one of the coolest super hero origin stories that could have been. That leaves The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro with two villains and a phantom antagonist. First, the villains. Aleksei Sytsevich is cartoonish in his original appearance and when he pops up at the climax of the film as the Rhino, it embodies a problem that has been present through the entire film: the special effects. The special effects in The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro are just ridiculous. Gone is a sensible proportion, a realism of physics that was more apparent in The Amazing Spider-Man than in anything from Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man Trilogy. In fact, from his first moments on screen as a CG webslinger, the Spider-man in The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro looks like a collection of b-roll from Sam Raimi’s trilogy. The attempt at spectacle is over-the-top, distracting and makes the film look like an animated film as opposed to a serious super hero work. But when the Rhino, in this incarnation a massive tank-like mech blasting through New York City, makes his appearance, it is much more worthy of a groan than a gasp.

Then there’s Harry Osborn. Harry is played by Dane DeHaan and he is, to be entirely fair to him, really good in the role. DeHaan holds his own opposite a heavily made-up Chris Cooper who plays the dying Norman Osborn and he has enough on-screen gravitas to be a compelling leader of Oscorp. DeHaan is as good in The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro as Andrew Garfield was in The Amazing Spider-Man. And it’s not DeHaan’s fault that the character is written so thinly, cramped in between two other villains and manages to absurdly talk Max Dillon into completely betraying his established character. I can understand why the studio did not want to risk everything on Dane DeHaan and a Spider-Man film that focused on the Green Goblin as the villain . . . no, wait, they risked at least as much on a reboot of the franchise and won, so why wouldn’t they play to their known strengths for the mythos?! Yes, one of the big reasons The Amazing Spider-man 2 is likely to be released in the U.S. without the Rise Of Electro subtitle is because audiences will recognize the film to be equally the Rise Of The Green Goblin and wonder why the hell Sony isn’t touting that. If you’re going to turn the story on its ear from what fans of the Spider-Man film franchise know anyway, why not completely reinvent the origin of the Green Goblin and give him his own film?!

Then there’s the phantom antagonist. Detective Stacy has no real presence in The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro. He pops up, glowers once or twice and disappears from the narrative. In fact, anyone who looks at basic movie structure will look at the film’s climax and wonder just where the hell Detective Stacy is. Peter Parker stands around at the same location for quite some time, a place where Detective Stacy would be bound to go, and yet there is no scene where the law and order cop who spent the entire first film loathing Spider-man’s vigilantism appears, sees Peter Parker and snaps just long enough to kick the kid’s ass. Detective Stacy is recharacterized in The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro as a complete wuss. In fact, the only analogy I have is to my own life. When I met the woman who became my wife, we met online and for our first in-person meeting, we met at the restaurant at which she was working at the time. I was caught in a snowstorm and was late and her friends had been ragging on her and when I finally appeared (an hour and a half late), she was relieved and her friends were wary. Her friends, protective as they were, said to me, “If you hurt our girl, we’ll kill you.” Well, me being a pragmatist, bored, and wanting to spend time with the woman I had come to see, I said, “Didn’t you say that about the last guy she dated?” The answer from her friends were, “Well . . . yes.” So, I won some points with some and made some pretty freaked out when my response was, “Well, it’s hard to take your threat seriously when I know for a fact he’s still walking around above ground.” Detective Stacy, like my wife’s friends, talk a good game, but when confronted with everything he feared . . . the good detective completely disappears from the storyline. It’s impossible to take him seriously and I know if I ever go back and rewatch The Amazing Spider-Man, I’m going to laugh my ass off at Denis Leary’s over-the-top indignation as Detective Stacy.

That brings us to the big plot event that anyone who knows comic book history knows would eventually come to one of the key characters in the Spider-man cinematic stories. Without revealing that “spoiler” to those who are not so well-versed, it does happen in The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro . . . in exactly the way it was done in the books (which I was surprised by because I thought it happened differently, but upon further research, yup, it was right on the mark!). That brings a decent tragic element into The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro.

Unfortunately, it comes too late and after so many other threads have been introduced and disappointed the viewers and quite a bit before the ultimate climax to the movie. Moreover, the impact on Spider-Man is not one of a vigilante hero. Spider-Man is given an arc that is pretty much the opposite of Batman in The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro; in analogous terms, Spider-man’s arc here would be like if Batman were an established vigilante and the death of his parents led him to hang up the cowl, as opposed to hunt down the mobsters that killed them. That Spider-Man spends no time on-screen hunting the villain that instigates the tragedy that knocks Peter Parker off his game makes one wonder just who Spider-man was setting out to help when he put on the mask (it clearly wasn’t himself!).

The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro is a good example of better casting than performances. Jamie Foxx is good as Max Dillon . . . unless one has seen him in The Soloist (reviewed here!) in which case he’s adequate and peaks at reprising his role from that film. Colm Feore is given too little to do in the underdeveloped role of Donald Menken (which would have been a much more effective role had the character appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man as an ambitious up-and-comer who was screwed over by Harry’s return in this film) and Felicity Jones (who has given some amazing performances in the past) could be replaced by a house plant for all that the role of Felicia offers her . . . or the film. Paul Giamatti’s role of Aleksei Sytsevich is presented with so much enthusiasm that viewers have to wonder how much is the character and how much is Giamatti laughing at the studio for paying him so much for such a ridiculous role (and the promise of future appearances as the Rhino!). Sally Field, Chris Cooper, and Marton Csokas (Dr. Kafka at Ravencroft) are all adequate in their roles, sometimes even good.

But The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro is headlined by Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone and for two performers who can usually do no wrong, they fall unfortunately flat in this film. Gone entirely is the on-screen chemistry between Garfield and Stone . . . and that has severe ramifications for the movie’s climax. The two have mediocre banter that is delivered adequately, but from Stone and Garfield, viewers expect sparks. Garfield’s initial voiceovers are quips as the CG Spider-Man flies around and Garfield sounds bored delivering the lines. Not to be outdone, Emma Stone’s valedictory speech for Gwen Stacy is delivered with such a lackluster quality that I was bored . . . and it wasn’t as long as a real graduation! Sadly, the pair reaches their peak for a scene in a maintenance closet where they almost break the fourth wall by acknowledging the cliché of hiding in the janitor’s closet whilst being pursued by company thugs (who, like Star Wars Stormtroopers see a closed door and assume that those they are hunting cannot possibly be on the other side of it). That banter is good, but subsequent scenes simply throw the pair together after months of being apart without any organic incidents to allow them to truly rethink the decisions that drove them apart. Could Garfield and Stone have sold it? It’s possible, but they don’t and that undermines The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro.

Despite the over-the-top web-related effects, Electro looks pretty awesome in The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro. Sure, Marc Webb essentially resurrected Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen (reviewed here!) for Electro in the film, but the effects work better than almost anything else in the movie. Sadly, given that Doc Ock’s tentacles can be seen in the Oscorp lab and rumors have leaked for months that the Sinister Six (six villains from Spider-man who team up but never seem to quite be able to actually kill Spider-man once and for all) might well get their own film, The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro seems largely like a set-up film for that. The essential Spider-Man characters are present, they are doing their own things, but every opportunity to look back (for a dead character, Richard Parker spends a lot of time on-screen in this film!) and look forward is utilized to push those characters out of the way for painfully obvious foreshadowing moments. The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro is almost enough to make viewers wish for six stand-alone films featuring the rise of each of the Sinister Six . . . just so long as they bothered to develop each one well. As it stands, The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro puts three potentials in play, but does so in such a way that the viewer doesn’t give a damn if they ever grace the screen again. At least Webb and his team were smart enough to not recast J. Jonah Jamison on-screen (Sam Raimi got him absolutely, perfectly right, with J.K. Simmons!).

If you feel you must watch The Amazing Spider-Man 2: Rise Of Electro, I’d say hold out for its appearance on DVD; this is one of those films that the more one contemplates, the more faults they see in it and I cannot imagine it will age any better.

For other movies based upon the Marvel comic books, please check out my reviews of:
X-Men: Days Of Future Past
Guardians Of The Galaxy
The Wolverine
The Avengers
Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance
Captain America: The First Avenger
X-Men: First Class
Thor
Iron Man 2
The Incredible Hulk
Spider-Man 3
Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer
Blade: Trinity
Elektra
Daredevil

4/10

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

*For those who don’t catch the reference, in Star Trek: Nemesis, the villain was tormented by Romulans, discarded and despised by Romulans, and when he assembled a massive military power that would have allowed him to actually get proper revenge on the Romulans, he instead turned his aggression toward the Federation, which made absolutely no sense whatsoever. Come to think of it, his whole mission in life was blood, too, so between Harry Osborn and Max Dillon, the writing team just picked all the worst aspects of villain motivations from Star Trek: Nemesis and ran with them!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Even An Unsightly Seam Cannot Sink The Amazing Spider-Man (Ornament)! (My 100th Ornament Review!!!!!)

The Good: Good casting of the character, Decent coloring detail. Good balance, Price.
The Bad: No special features, Very obvious waist seam!
The Basics: Capitalizing on the release of the new film, The Amazing Spider-Man, Hallmark’s 2012 The Amazing Spider-Man ornament is wonderful, but possesses a pretty singular flaw.


As I observed in my review of the 2012 Disney It’s All About The Hair Tangled ornament (reviewed here! ), 2012’s Hallmark ornament line has been plagued by great sculpts with decent coloring and painfully obvious seams in many of the best ornaments that are robbing what could have been the best year yet for Hallmark ornaments of quite a few perfect ratings. The new The Amazing Spider-Man ornament is one of the ornaments that falls into that unfortunate category. Were it not for an unsightly waist seam that breaks up the ornament in a way that makes the ornament look manufactured and assembled, the Amazing Spider-Man ornament might well have been perfect.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, this summer there has been a reboot of the Spider-Man film franchise with the release of The Amazing Spider-Man (reviewed here!). Telling the origin story of Spider-Man with more of a technological (as opposed to biological) twist, The Amazing Spider-Man follows Peter Parker in high school fighting crime using mechanically-based webslinging devices.

It is Spider-Man, mid-leap, in the process of setting off one of the wrist web-devices that is the subject of the 2012 Hallmark The Amazing Spider-Man ornament!

Basics

The The Amazing Spider-Man ornament recreates the young hero in solid plastic. The ornament, released in 2012, is a pretty incredible recreation of the popular character as he appears in the film The Amazing Spider-Man. That said, because the ornament features no fleshtones, it is colored vibrantly and well and does not suffer for lacking realistic depth and shading to it.

Spider-Man is the masked hero of New York City and for this ornament, he appears to be leaping with his left hand raised ready to sling a new web and swing off to stop crime! The ornament, like the character, is dominated by red, black and blu. The detailing is as good as one might expect with the vibrant colors broken up well by the finer detailing of the webbing on the costume. Inscrutable and ready-for-action, this The Amazing Spider-Man looks incredible! On the sculpting front, The Amazing Spider-Man includes the requisite mechanical wrist web-shooters. Very coolly, Hallmark’s sculptors also included fine details on the bottom of Spider-Man’s feet. His feet have treads and he looks truly viable in the costume. For those who are into accuracy, The Amazing Spider-Man also has significant butt cleavage.

The Hallmark The Amazing Spider-Man ornament is made of a durable plastic and has him in an action pose, so those inclined to set the ornament on a desk can use it that way well beyond the holiday season. This The Amazing Spider-Man ornament measures out at 3" tall, 4" wide and 3 1/8” deep. His coloring is expertly executed, though to be fair, he is cast in monotone colors, as is appropriate. Still, the finer details of the webbing on his costume is impressive.

In fact, the only serious detraction to the ornament is the very deep seam on The Amazing Spider-Man’s waist that makes him look entirely manufactured.

Features

As a Hallmark Keepsake ornament, The Amazing Spider-Man could have a function like a sound chip or light effect, but does not. This is just an ornament, a low-cost (comparatively) option for those who might not want to shell out for the more expensive ornaments. This The Amazing Spider-Man simply hangs.

Balance

As with all ornaments, the intent of the Hallmark Keepsake The Amazing Spider-Man ornament is to be hung on a Christmas Tree. And for those creating the ultimate Marvel Universe Christmas Tree, a Spider-Man ornament is essential and this may well be the best one for that purpose. The ornament has a brass hook loop embedded in the back left shoulder of the ornament. From that hook, the The Amazing Spider-Man ornament hangs without any awkward bias or issues. It still moves when one’s tree is knocked, but generally, this hangs quite nicely and looks very well-balanced.

Collectibility

Hallmark Keepsake began delving into the collectibles market in 1991 with Star Trek when it introduced the exceptionally limited edition original U.S.S. Enterprise ornament (click here for my review of that!). Since then, Hallmark has gotten into every major franchise from Disney to Twilight to the Marvel Comics universe. The The Amazing Spider-Man ornament was not at all limited and given how neutral the box office response to the film has been, I suspect it will be available after the holiday as well. Given how the other Marvel ornaments have met demand without leaving a lot of people wanting, this is not likely to be an incredible investment piece.

Overview

The Amazing Spider-Man ornament recreates (mostly) well the latest costume version for a cinematic Spider-Man and makes for an ornament worth picking up, despite its fault!

For other Marvel Hallmark ornaments, please check out my reviews of:
2011 Spider-Man ornament
2011 Thor ornament
2010 Defender Of Justice Iron Man 2 ornament

8.5/10

For other ornament and toy reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Stacking The Deck Does Not Always Make A Winner: The Amazing Spider-Man

The Good: Great acting, Moments of character development, Special effects
The Bad: Very predictable plot progression, Telegraphing music
The Basics: As Peter Parker explores his father’s legacy, he struggles to find his own identity and come into his own as a vigilante superhero and a young man.


For those who do not read my many reviews, there are two things at the outset of my consideration of The Amazing Spider-Man that you ought to know: 1. I was not wild about the Tobey Maguire Spider-Man movies and 2. I make a pretty firm distinction between great actors and great acting. The Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies garnered an incredible amount of attention and praise at the time for their special effects and the casting. While it is virtually impossible to come up with a better J. Jonah Jameson than J.K. Simmons and he performed the role exceptionally well, the rest of the acting, plot and character elements in the Spider-Man movies were tired. It didn’t wow me and I was very much not impressed by the series.

So, when I heard about The Amazing Spider-Man, I thought nothing of it. Then, the casting announcements for The Amazing Spider-Man began. Martin Sheen . . . love him, Andrew Garfield . . . I’m a fan, Emma Stone . . . whoah! She even looks amazing as a blonde! Sally Field and Denis Leary have both done things I’ve liked, but I began to worry. When I applied to colleges, one of the schools I went to apply at left me very underwhelmed. They were looking for the best and brightest students and even offered me a full scholarship, the very best financial aid package I was offered. The thing is, when I sat in on classes, I was bored and so were virtually all of the students I met. It did not take long for me to realize exactly what the college was doing; it was getting a higher caliber of students to raise the overall G.P.A. as opposed to investing in good teachers or innovative programs. As casting for The Amazing Spider-Man continued, I had the horrible feeling that that was what might be happening.

Fortunately, I was wrong.

The Amazing Spider-Man does not suffer excessively from stacking the deck; there is enough character development and enough opportunities for the actors to perform that make the film work. While the film occasionally treads close to “mediocre greatness,” The Amazing Spider-Man’s most stifling issue is that the plot follows a very predictable progression and it relies upon the special effects being visually overwhelming at times, as opposed to truly incredible. “Mediocre greatness,” by the way, is my term for incredible casting that does not stretch the abilities of the actors. Related to stacking the deck, “mediocre greatness” casts all of the right people in exactly the right positions and, as a result, there is no room for the performer to actually grow. Instead, even at their best, they can only rise to what the viewer expects knowing their range and abilities. Martin Sheen’s Uncle Ben in The Amazing Spider-Man is pretty much that. Fortunately, the rest of the cast (largely) is given room to give viewers something new.

Peter Parker lives with his Uncle Ben and Aunt May, following his abandonment by his parents. He is exceptionally smart, but an outsider as a high school student. He has a crush on the brainy Gwen Stacy, but is quiet and bullied. Parker finds a case at his Uncle’s home that provides him with clues on what his father was working on when he fled. This leads Peter Parker on a journey that takes two forms. He encounters Dr. Curt Connors, who is working on similar research – mixing genetics from different animals in order to try to isolate a single benefit. Connors wants to use lizard’s regenerative properties to regenerate human limbs, a cause very dear to the one-armed scientist.

Peter swipes and modifies a mechanical device from Oscorp that gives him the ability to sling webs, much like a spider (though far, far stronger). He uses this newfound technology and his reaction to being bitten by a spider at Oscorp to help people and, after a few problematic attempts, he creates a costume and alter-ego to become a vigilante crime fighter, Spider-Man. While the police are handed criminals by Spider-Man, NYPD police Captain Stacy cannot abide by a vigilante running around (and causing some collateral damage, in addition to embarrassment for the police), so he begins a nightly manhunt for Spider-Man. As Peter gets his chance with Gwen Stacy, Dr. Connors makes his most bold attempt at scientific advancement, testing a serum on himself . . . with disastrous results.

The Amazing Spider-Man, is very good, but I could not help thinking - even as I watched it – that it was depending too much on giant and impressive special effects. For those who just tool toward the bottom line on these things, I oscillated between the 6.5 and 7 at various points in my analysis. While The Amazing Spider-Man is good, it is not great and the plot, especially, makes it feel quite a bit more average than one wants out of an action-adventure superhero film. If anything, The Amazing Spider-Man might be pioneering a new class for me. Instead of “mediocre greatness” where amazing actors are cast in decent roles for films where they can pretty much only rise to our expectations, The Amazing Spider-Man takes an almost boring and droll plot and makes it feel interesting by populating it with great actors who are portraying characters who are different from those we have seen them as before. This “superlative averageness” is what, at the very least, pulls The Amazing Spider-Man up to a level of film that the prior cinematic Spider-Man was not.

The Amazing Spider-Man is Peter Parker’s story, though Gwen Stacy and Curt Connors have enough to do in the film to make them interesting, at the very least. Peter Parker is delightfully smart and it is refreshing to see a protagonist who uses his wits instead of brawn or an inflated sense of ego. That does not stop Andrew Garfield from taking the role and making it physically and psychologically interesting. Outside the annoying penchant for commentary while swinging around on his webs (Hollywood seems to have a real problem with characters who are quiet when they are focusing on survival), Garfield’s Peter Parker is smart, witty and a good kid. Garfield’s strong dramatic roots play out well for him in The Amazing Spider-Man. While Garfield, no doubt, has the ability to be funny, some of the attempts in The Amazing Spider-Man work too hard to get him to be that way. While he sells some of the funniest moments with a lighter sense of humor (the very popular clip of Spider-Man mocking a criminal about his knife stands out), some of the other lines seem slightly out of place; Garfield could have sold them with his more serious delivery.

Rhys Ifans is good as Dr. Curt Connors, but the caliber of performance in The Amazing Spider-Man is dominated by the performances of Denis Leary and Emma Stone. Denis Leary plays Captain Stacy and while one might predict that he could play a grizzled police captain who has seen a lot on the streets of New York City, it is unlikely that most people could have predicted the authority he would carry in the role. Leary plays Stacy as smart and determined, a true leader and he manages to pull it off. While one or two of his lines seem tailored to Leary’s sense of sarcasm, Leary manages to present them without the acidity he is usually known for.

Emma Stone makes The Amazing Spider-Man into a movie that should make it popular with young women, as opposed to just a comic book geek hit. Stone makes Gwen Stacy smart, funny, and emotionally intelligent. In The Amazing Spider-Man, Gwen Stacy is useful to Peter Parker and the result is that Gwen Stacy is not a damsel in distress who is some form of “prize” for the hero. Instead, she uses her own sense of judgment to try to solve the problem represented by the Curt Connors Lizard and she helps make another Marvel superhero seem anything but invulnerable (which is much more interesting on the character front anyway). Stone is a brilliant choice for the role, as she is ridiculously smart and makes Gwen Stacy plausibly brilliant. She also has the dramatic gravitas to play off Garfield in a way that makes it entirely reasonably that Peter Parker and Gwen Stacy would be interested in one another. In other words, the romantic subplot feels far less like a conceit and more an organic relationship than in many such films. Stone deserves a lot of credit for that.

Predictably, the effects in The Amazing Spider-Man are truly incredible. The Amazing Spider-Man is summer fare; it is big, action-filled, and it has its moments of being both smart and making the viewer care. But on a smaller screen, away from the spectacle and hype, it is hard to imagine The Amazing Spider-Man will appear to be more than a well-made, overly familiar, movie.

For other movies based upon the Marvel comic books, please check out my reviews of:
The Avengers
Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance
Captain America: The First Avenger
X-Men: First Class
Thor
Iron Man 2
The Incredible Hulk
Fantastic Four: Rise Of The Silver Surfer
Blade: Trinity
Elektra
Daredevil

6.5/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the movies I have reviewed!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Terry Gilliam's Visual Masterstroke And Heath Ledger's Final Performance Astound: The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus!

The Good: Direction, Acting, Plot, Character development, DVD (Blu-Ray) bonus features, Effects
The Bad: None
The Basics: A film by Terry Gilliam, The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus is an adult fable where a man liberates visitors to his roadshow through dreamscapes which remind them what is important and ties for best movie of all time in my reckoning!


Last year, something rather extraordinary happened. Yes, I had to alter my list of Best Movies Of All Time. The weirdest aspect of it might be the footnote, which is this: I think Watchmen (click here for that review) was the best film of 2009, but the moment my wife brought home the DVD of The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, I realized I was seeing a movie on par with the very best film I had ever seen. So, while Watchmen might be the best movie of 2009, this is tied for best movie of all time in my pantheon of reviews.

There are so many facets to the average person that it is sometimes hard to reconcile the different aspects of them. In truth, the moment the death of Heath Ledger was announced, the cinephile beat out the human being within me and I found myself asking "What does that mean for The Dark Knight?" When I learned that The Dark Knight was not suffering as a result of Ledger's death, I became human enough to say "How horrible!" Then I learned that he died while making Terry Gilliam's latest film.

There are few directors whose works I am so engaged by that I want to see their entire pantheon of works. There are even fewer directors whose works I enjoy watching again and again such that I'll see their movies when they come out in theaters or will buy right away when they are released on DVD. In fact, only three names (and it is a decidedly eclectic collection) jump right to mind and the common element is that they are all three writer-directors and they have all three pulled off perfect films. They are P.T. Anderson, Kevin Smith and Terry Gilliam. So, when my partner brought home The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus, I was thrilled because we had missed it in the theaters when it was originally released and because it was hailed as a masterpiece. In truth, Terry Gilliam's Brazil was the writer-director's masterwork, but it is impossible to watch The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus and not be blown away by the pure magic of the story and this film rivals it on every level.

The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus is a wealth of creativity, amazing performances and characters who resonate with the viewer long after the film is over. Now on DVD, one finds themselves wishing that Terry Gilliam would re-release the films to theaters because no matter how big one's television screen is, there must have been no experience quite like seeing this one on the big screen. Terry Gilliam paints with a giant canvass in this film and his tools are ones I have not traditionally enjoyed - Jude Law and Collin Farrell have never wowed me as they do in The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus - but Gilliam gets the best out of them, while also presenting incredible performances by several lesser-known performers.

After a thousand years of life, Doctor Parnassus is dragged through London in an antiquated carnival style stage attempting to enlighten anyone who might actually pay attention to him. Accompanied by his diminutive assistant Percy, his daughter Valentina and his assistant, Anton, Doctor Parnassus bewilders most people he encounters by appearing to be a comatose man as a traveling sideshow act. But his act is far more than that, as a boy discovers when he crashes through the prop mirror in the wagon and is transported to a dreamworld where the fantastic is all around him and he has the chance to choose the direction of his life. Doctor Parnassus, however, is troubled as Valentina's sixteenth birthday is near and Mr. Nick, the devil, pops back up in Doctor Parnassus's life. While attempting to tell his daughter Valentina the truth about his past, the group rescues a man hanging from a bridge.

The stranger awakens, unsure of who he is or how he came to be hanged under the bridge. Enamored with Valentina and distrusted by Anton, the stranger - who soon comes to be known as Tony - begins to overhaul the traveling show to try to help Doctor Parnassus win his bet against Mr. Nick. As the truth comes out about Tony, Valentina's life hangs in the balance to see whose perspective: freedom or destruction those around Parnassus will choose!

The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus is more than just a visually spectacular film, it is a statement on society and humanity that resonates well with those who love great films, have the patience for a story's development and enjoy a story which has a timeless feel to it. Terry Gilliam has created a well-rounded film that is bound to stand the test of time, largely because it is visually innovative while telling a story which is timeless and reveals the essential human struggle. Mr. Nick, who is the devil, presents Doctor Parnassus with a very standard bet scenario which sets Parnassus up as an agent of freedom and imagination vs. conformity and temptation. The notion of sacrifice is explored thoroughly and cleverly in The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus.

Terry Gilliam makes the old new with this movie as the essential character struggle is a Faustian deal with the devil that has gone awry. Gilliam does a good job of setting the story up and one of the nicest aspects of The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus is that Gilliam does not simply tear all of the elements down to be a nonconformist. So, for example, Anton clearly has romantic feelings for Valentina from the beginning and Gilliam acknowledges that there is a very traditional attraction going on here through some wonderful dialogue between Percy and Parnassus. Similarly, when Tony appears, Mr. Nick is nearby and this sets the story up to include elements of treachery from Tony which Gilliam does an amazing job of expressing through Tony's dream sequence.

The film is also clever in the way it deals with the death of Heath Ledger and viewers who know this film was his last are likely to be surprised how little of the film he isn't in. It appears Ledger died when there were only three essential sequences left to create and Gilliam's working around it is brilliant. By establishing that in the dreamscapes of Doctor Parnassus individuals may see themselves differently, Gilliam is able to recast Tony in three dream sequences using Johnny Depp, Jude Law and Collin Farrell. The sequences work and they give Depp, Law and Farrell chances to utilize their talents in amazing ways, presenting clever performances unlike any others in their careers.

Most of the film is ruled by Christopher Plummer, who plays Doctor Parnassus. Plummer once again illustrates how he is an actor uninhibited by any range issues. In his portrayal of Doctor Parnassus, Plummer explores a wild range, from aged and tired to spry and feisty. He becomes lovable as Doctor Parnassus from his opening scenes where he is almost catatonic through flashbacks which characterize him as a man of faith and devotion to an ideal. All the while, Plummer is able to infuse a fatherly love for Valentina in his every look and action when costar Lily Cole is around.

Cole is an astonishing beauty and she plays off Plummer, Andrew Garfield (Anton) and Ledger exceptionally well. She has a playful quality that is innocent and rambunctious which make Valentina instantly lovable, not just a draw to the eyes. Even Verne Troyer is able to give a performance that gives him an emotional depth beyond most of his other characters. And Tom Waits is brilliant casting for Mr. Nick, easily making the devil seem almost real and complicated.

But from the moment Heath Ledger enters the film as Tony, he rules it. Ledger plays Tony first as a hapless amnesiac and later as a devious salesman and the character arc is matched by acting which makes the transitions and realizations make perfect sense. Ledger is dynamic and in his final performance, he illustrates even more depth and range than he did in The Dark Knight.

On DVD, there is an extended scene and the film looks great. Despite being called a "deleted" scene, the extra scene is actually just an extended version of one of the dream sequences in the movie which did not have special effects finished for it. Terry Gilliam also introduces the movie and there is a wonderful and thorough commentary track for it which is informative and entertaining. As well, there are casting sessions with Heath Ledger and special effects featurettes that are cool to see. There are also dozens of movie previews for this and other films. On Blu-Ray all of the above are included, plus a few extra goodies, most notably the cast and crew giving Heath Ledger a final sendoff.

The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus is an adult fable which reminds us that we have one life and it is wasted without a love for life. It's not possible for there to be a better tribute to an actor who died so young and this becomes a film which should be a wake-up call for millions trapped in mundane lives they cannot truly stand.

For other works creative films, please check out my reviews of:
Dark City
Zombieland
Battlefield Earth

10/10

For other film reviews, please check out my index page for a comprehensive listing by clicking here!

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



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Oscar Pandering Season Comes Early (And Rightfully) With The Social Network!

The Good: Great dialogue, Wonderful acting, Engaging plot/development
The Bad: Underlit, Unempathetic characters
The Basics: The Social Network, the latest Aaron Sorkin endeavor, has all the makings of a successful film . . . except characters to care about.


It does not take much to become a fan of the works of Aaron Sorkin. Sorkin is a brilliant writer and while his show Sports Night (click here for review!) was truly what sold me on his exceptional talents, he is arguably better known for his show The West Wing and his film The American President. He is also known for being ridiculously smart and not being terribly concerned about raising the bar for dialogue in American cinema. Sadly, last night as I sat at a screening of his new film The Social Network, others seemed to find the intelligence of his writing and the characters he was portraying through his writing to be "too smart." I cringed when I heard one of my fellow viewers make that complaint as I honestly thought that the commercial success of The Big Bang Theory would have adequately softened up mass culture for a character like the Sorkin-written Mark Zuckerberg.

I write "character" for Mark Zuckerberg because The Social Network is loosely adapted from The Accidental Billionaires and it is played out like a drama, fiction. I am delightfully ignorant of the reality of the start of Facebook - or The Facebook, as it was initially known in the movie - so this is a pure review of the film as a film, not as any sort of documentary. The truth is Sorkin and director David Fincher have managed to create an entirely engaging movie without a strong enough protagonist to actually care about. While David Fincher, who is used to bending reality for films like The Game (click here for my review!), has The Social Network move along at a great clip for a two hour film, but the riches to riches story of Mark Zuckerberg is robbed of perfection by how he underlits most of the movie and how he and Sorkin fail to make the viewer truly care about the central protagonist.

At Harvard University in 2003, Mark Zuckerberg and his girlfriend Erica are having a meandering discussion about geniuses and final clubs when Erica decides the relationship is over. Walking out on Mark leaves the sophomore distraught and he returns to his dorm room where he begins blogging about the failure of his relationship - and Erica's many faults - and hacking the various Harvard clubs for photographs of women on campus. Mark's best friend Eduardo arrives, having actually read his blog, to comfort Mark and he shares a code with Mark which will allow the young genius to create a website by which visitors vote on which of any two young women Mark has taken the pictures of is hotter. As a party rages as Harvard's prestigious Phoenix Club, Mark's little Facemash site gets 22,000 hits in two hours, crashing the Harvard servers.

At that moment, The Social Network flashes forward to a near-future where Mark is being sued on two fronts, one of which is Eduardo himself. It is noted that Mark received a six month academic probation for crashing the servers and from that action, he draws the attention of the Winklevoss twins, who are also suing Mark in the future. Back in 2003/4, Mark is approached by Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss who want Mark to make an exclusive social website for Harvard which will allow only the cream of the Harvard crop to stay in contact with one another. After being asked to create this by the twins, Mark begins developing a social website with Eduardo's help and money. With Eduardo's $1,000 startup money for servers and other expenses, Mark and Eduardo begin developing thefacebook.com which goes live early in 2004. When that happens, Eduardo tries to turn the site from something that is cool and different into something which will help him make his money back (and make his 30% stake in the company mean something) and the Winklevoss twins begin complaining about how Mark stole their intellectual property (which he denies because he used none of their code). As thefacebook begins to make Mark and, to a lesser extent, Eduardo famous on the college campuses, Mark is wooed by Sean Parker, founder of Napster, who sees Mark's Facebook as a way to make money and screw over those who he believes wronged him in the past.

First, where The Social Network goes wrong. Why? Because there is so little wrong with the movie, I want to get what doesn't work out of the way. The first is that David Fincher does underlight far too much of the movie, making it visually murky which makes the viewer work unnecessarily just to catch movement in several of the scenes. Sure, there is some mood that is created from the smoky bar, the smoky party and later the bong-smoke in Mark's California residence, but even the scenes at the depositions are not terribly bright and that is distracting on a very simple level.

Beyond that, the only thing wrong with the movie is that the characters are not interesting enough to make us care about them. That is not entirely true. Mark starts out as engaging - even if Sorkin resorts to the annoying cliche that brilliant people are miserable and socially awkward - and Eduardo is likable throughout. The problem becomes that Sean Parker is utterly unlikable and when Mark starts associating with him, I quickly realized that I didn't care at all how the lawsuits against Mark turned out as a result. The viewer empathizes completely with Eduardo, especially after Facebook stock is diluted making him virtually irrelevant, but the Winklevoss twins seem like whiny elitist snobs and Mark's seduction by, frankly, the douchebag Parker makes one think he couldn't be all that smart to begin with. Parker pretty much ruins the relationship between Eduardo and Mark - and there's some implied love from Eduardo to Mark which is not developed well after it is heavily insinuated early on - and given the complexity of Mark's mind at the beginning of the film, the viewer is left a little disappointed that he was so easily duped. After all, it doesn't take a genius to see that when Parker has Mark tell Case financial "f-you" (which, given it is the only one I heard in the movie, seems to imply the film is aiming for a PG-13 instead of an R) that he is acting out of his own sense of spite and not in Mark's best interest.

Beyond that, though, The Social Network is homogeneously wonderful. Aaron Sorkin's dialogue pops and is predictably smart. This might go over the heads of many viewers, though, as I found there were lines that only garnered laughs from me at the screening, but Sorkin fans will be pleased. As well, despite not quite landing, the relationship between Mark and Eduardo is a refreshingly true relationship between two strong, likable young men. Moreover, the intertwining of the two lawsuits is done so well that the viewer is never confused about which proceeding is underway and it remains easy to follow the progression of the story. The story may not be terribly complicated, but the rise of the on-line social site is told with a surprisingly brisk pace and feels much shorter than the two hour running time.

The Social Network is also bound to get a lot of attention for the quality of the performances in it. Justin Timberlake makes Sean utterly unlikable, but he plays the founder of Napster with an arrogance and cocky quality that reads as very true. Moreover, Armie Hammer and Josh Pence play Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss perfectly. Indeed, it wasn't until doing fact-checking on the IMDB for names that I discovered the twins weren't! They perform with a synergy that is absolutely brilliant.

Jesse Eisenberg, whose only other work I've seen is Zombieland, adequately leads the cast of The Social Network. Despite the humor in Zombieland, Eisenberg has a serious quality to him that made his character in that completely credible. Similarly, in The Social Network, he is able to walk around with eyes narrowed and shoulders hunched. He makes it around Sorkin's fast dialogue expertly and he instantly convinces the viewer that Mark is exactly that smart and socially awkward. Eisenberg is credible, even if the viewer does not particularly care which lawsuit he might win or lose.

It is Andrew Garfield who steals The Social Network, both from his performance as Eduardo and the character he plays. Garfield has an instant dignity and humanity that he brings to the role of Eduardo. From the way he softens his expression the instant he first sees Mark after Mark is dumped by Erica to the way he steels his eyes when freezing the account that Mark has for Facebook, Garfield is in complete command of the role. Moreover, Garfield looks the part of a young businessman who is aware, clever and has enough heart (and capital) to fund his friend. From the moment Garfield is on screen as Eduardo without Mark, the viewer begins to root for him, to empathize with his struggle and care about the resolution of his character's arc.

Ultimately, though, The Social Network is a human rise-to-power story that makes it easy - because of the youth involved - to forget that it is the story of young rich, white kids making an obscene amount of money. It is well-told, but at the end of the day, for all its greatness, it is hard to overlook that it is a fight between a bunch of young people over what is cool. No matter how clever the dialogue is, it never snaps beyond that. Still, it is easily the best thing audiences are going to see up until the big push for Oscar nominations and it is refreshing to see The Social Network try for the attention of voters this early on. Hopefully, that audacity will be rewarded.

For other works by Aaron Sorkin, please check out my reviews of:
Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip
Charlie Wilson's War
The West Wing
Sports Night

9/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my index page!

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