The Rise And Fall Of A Great Video Game: Destiny: The Collection

The Good: Graphics, Playability, Story/concept
The Bad: Story becomes dependent upon multiplayer mode
The Basics: Destiny begins as a compelling solo video game that decends into an unfortunate social exercise that makes it impossible to finish as one began it.


I have, only as I reached middle age, gotten into playing video games. I found I actually enjoy the reinforcement of little goals and playing games that have intriguing stories and good graphics. I never would have guessed that I would have gotten into first-person shooter games, but when the stories are interesting, I find I can get captivated by them. While going through my year of playing Star Wars: Battlefront (reviewed here!), one of my real-life friends recommended that I try Destiny. As Star Wars Battlefront became more of a repetitive exercise for me, I decided to take her advice and my wife picked me up Destiny: The Complete Collection.

I got Destiny: The Complete Collection for the Playstation 4 (reviewed here!) and I have been playing it for the past nine months on that system.

Basics

At its core, Destiny is a first-person shooter game in a science fiction warfare setting. The game is broken into three essential modes: Story, Co-operative missions, and player vs. player combat.

The story mode is a single-player experience that has the player portraying a Guardian, one of the last surviving people in the solar system tasked with protecting the remaining human population. The player makes a journey to Earth, the moon, Mars, Venus, and a massive alien ship embedded in Saturn's rings (the Dreadnaught) to fight little rogue aliens (The Fallen), massive war robots (the Cabal), mindless alien drones (the Vex), a race of killer humanoid insects (the Hive) and a sinister race invading the solar system that absorbs entities from all those races and makes them into shadow warriors (The Taken). In the main story mode, the player explores the remaining habitable portions of Earth and its colonies within the solar system to protect the Visitor and the remaining humans from the invading forces, while collecting artifacts and weapons to level up.

The multiplayer mode allows players to team up to do specific missions that involve bigger bosses than one player could reasonably handle. Players work together to perform complicated story missions that cannot be done by one player and do mini-strikes that allow them to work together in variations of other story adventures. There is also a very basic combat experience where the team of players combats enemies in an arena setting as part of the expanded training.

Unfortunately, this is where Destiny goes horribly wrong. Destiny begins as a single-player game that allows players to move through the world at their own pace, explore aspects of the setting that interest them and accomplish goals in their own desired order. Where I wrote "allows" at the top of the paragraph above, the terminology was imprecise; "compels" is a far more accurate word. Players begin the game and can make the journey as they see fit and take their time. But, at the end of every major map, there comes a point where the player cannot play on their own. Bungie, the makers of Destiny, force players to connect with other players and form a six-person Fireteam to accomplish important story points like killing every major Big Bad. It's like Bungie is the stereotypical doting parent, concerned that their kid is playing too many video games and forces playdates with other children. As a forty year-old, that's pretty shitty to me.

The multiplayer story modes are not labeled and are not intuitive. So, players who come to the game on their own will suddenly get to an important story point (like killing the leader of the Hive or eliminating the Taken King) and find themselves locked out of progressing . . . not through any clear mechanic, but rather taking the next labeled step in the game and finding it impossible to progress. So, for example, after spending hours and hours trying to get to more than three checkpoints on "Crota's End" (called Lanterns) without being blown up, swarmed by so many Hive that no single combination of weapons can thin the herd enough to survive or fall down pits in the darkness, players who have started the game on their own are likely to just give up.

But, alas, to continue playing the game where the single player was the hero in their own story, players must log onto Bungie's message boards on the internet, find a fireteam and join it. I came to Destiny late - the game was released at least two years prior to me even hearing about it - and people who continued to play the multiplayer story modes have, generally, become an intolerant bunch. Whatever process of discovery existed in the early days of Destiny gameplay by which players figured out what the team members had to do in each of the forced team play story adventures - where people had to stand, when they had to move, what order to accomplish things in, etc. - has long since passed. As a result, players who play the multiplayer story modes are (by a vast majority) made up of people who know what they are doing and have very specific goals to accomplish with continuing to play those modes. As a population, as a player community, they are not overly tolerant of newbies or those who have different skill sets. So, for example, I am not a professional player and one of the aspects of gameplay that I tend to have difficulty with jumping. I am not a strong jumper in video games. So, on a multiplayer mission that requires all of the players to cross a massive chasm within the Dreadnaught while avoiding getting knocked into said chasm through well-timed jumps . . . I am a clear liability to the team. One need not possess much imagination to guess how a team of five players who are ready to confront a Big Bad might react to being held up for an hour while the sixth player attempts to jump across a chasm that everyone else has already crossed.

This style of gameplay is incredibly frustrating for new players and players who are not social. The most common result is that the Fireteam leader, fed up with the team's weak link, will simply jettison them from the game. So, a player might begin one of the story missions they require to advance and conclude a level, but will end up entirely at the mercy of other players and their impatience. It's a sucky way to design a game and it is not at all player friendly. Any game that requires solo players to rely upon the kindness of strangers and live up to their standards to conclude the game is poorly designed. It's a system that invites bullying, so it was utterly unsurprising to me as a non-professional player that I would have numerous portions of gameplay where I was unable to complete the story and would be made to feel terrible by other players who accepted my presence on a team for a portion of the story's gameplay, but then threw me off the team because I was not as good as the rest of the team.

Emotionally, the only real recourse a player has is in the player vs. player mode. In the player vs. player mode, players either join a randomly assigned team or assemble a team of like-minded murderers and they go out to fight in various settings against other players. The Player Vs. Player modes range from games where the players must hold control points to "ignite a rift" using a "spark" (it's essentially Capture The Flag with massive casualties when the flag is destroyed) to free-for-all combat between players.

At the end of virtually every mission or round of combat, players are awarded points, artifacts, and/or weapons and armor to level up their character.

Story

To its credit, Destiny has a pretty cool story. Opening in the present day, astronauts reach Mars. There, they uncover and encounter the Traveler, a massive satellite that reinvigorates and inspires humanity. Humans spread out throughout the solar system and enter a new golden age. After eons of expansion, The Traveler's enemy finds it and virtually wipes out humanity.

The solar system is overrun by Taken, Vex, Cabal, Hive and Taken forces. But, one day, the little mechanical device known as a Ghost resurrects The Guardian (the player) and helps them to escape the Fallen-infested Cosmodrome. The Guardian is then reunited with the leaders of Earth, who work with the Traveler to retake the solar system.

Game Progression

The main story of Destiny has pretty reasonable progression. The player starts on a map and, while they might explore almost any part of it, there is a pretty linear sense of movement throughout the story. When a player encounters a story node along their current plotline, they begin a well-contained mission, like having to climb up one of the remaining rockets on Earth to recover computer codes for one of the surviving military leaders or bring the Queen in the Rift the head of one of her enemies in order to prove loyalty and competence to her.

In general, the story mode follows a linear progression from Earth to the moon to the planets Venus and Mars before the solar system is invaded by the Taken out near Saturn.

That said, Destiny, at least in the form of The Complete Collection, is severely weakened in its progression by its open format. Destiny has "social areas," where players go to store excess weapons, decrypt found blueprints into weapons and armor and meet with non-player characters who assign missions and goals. Unfortunately, there is no linear progression to the types of missions or goals that the non-player characters give. So, for example, a player who meets with the Titan Leader Zavala and sees that there are missions he has to help one level up might accept them . . . without any indication that a low player-level character cannot possibly accomplish, much less enter, them. So, for example, Zavala has goals pertaining to Nightfall Strikes that a Level 1 player might take on . . . not knowing that Nightfall Strikes are not accessible to anything but the highest-level players. In a similar vein, players might easily pick up weapons from the weaponsmith that are well above their player level to use or involve targets the player does not yet have access to (like a weapon that is to be used exclusively against the Cabal before player has access to the Mars map). Going through the game a second time as a different type of character, I was instantly miffed that in the first group of goals my character was given, two required high-level characters, requiring me to either hold the quests for considerable time before I could attempt them or forcing me to abandon/decline them.

Similarly, Destiny goals are often neither intuitive nor self-explanatory. So, for example, one is given a speeder to move around on and the mechanic in the Last City can assign the players goals. I have had a goal of "Overcharge 3 Reached." I have no idea what "Overcharge 3" is. I've tried many different things; I could find the answer easily enough by looking it up, but the game should not require players to go to a completely external source just to learn about the goals they are supposed to accomplish!

That said, weapons and armor upgrades are entirely intuitive and well-executed. Players are given a lot of direction at the game's outset for how to acquire and upgrade weapons and armor, so as the game progresses, that becomes intuitive pretty fast. . . as does collecting resources so one has the continual ability to upgrade one's weapons and armor.

Effects

The effects in Destiny are homogeneously amazing. The visuals for the environments look fantastic and the animation is usually clean and flows exceptionally well. Destiny is remarkably glitch-free on the visual effects and it creats an impressive setting that looks great.

As an older player, it is worth noting that while the speed of the graphics are good and the rendering of adversaries is excellent, the scope, scale and lighting are frequently problematic. To see and, usually, to aim, I almost constantly had to engage the scope on whatever weapon I was using. This has the unfortunate consequence of removing the radar, which informs players where the enemies and goals are! That said, Destiny has superior directional information. Enemies in Destiny can shoot players from a decent distance, outside the effective radar range; the on-screen graphics that indicate where a player is being hit from attacks are excellent.

Arguably the most impressive effect in Destiny is the quality of the voice acting. Bungie employed genre favorite actors like Nathan Fillion, Gina Torres, Lance Reddick, Erick Avari and Bill Nighy to voice non-player characters who pop up during the movie portions of the game (Peter Dinklage was originally in the game, but apparently got edited out when the expansions began). The actors create distinctive characters for the Ghost and the leaders of the surviving factions within the Last City, making for an exciting sense of flow and continuity through the different story elements.

Replayability

Destiny was, at least until today when Destiny 2 was officially released, constantly adding challenges, weapons and events to Destiny, so the game appears to have incredible replayability. As well, there are three different styles of character a player may create - Titan (essentially brute soldiers), Hunters (more mobile and precise operatives, like bounty hunters) and Warlocks (essentially magic-users) - that each have different strengths, capabilities and forms of attack. As a result, players may play through the story portion of the game multiple times and have very different experiences with each run through. Going back through the game, for example, reminded me of one of the irksome aspects of the environment that allows multiple people to be playing in the same spot at the same time; when one is playing their own personal mission, they might have specific goals, like "make ten headshots" and when other players are playing around you, they might have similar goals. In areas where there are very few enemies, the game gets bogged down by several people all trying to kill the same enemies to accomplish their goals!

The player vs. player portion of the game changes with each and every attempt and events like the Iron Banner insure that there is always something for a Destiny player to do in the game environment!

Overall

Destiny is an excellent idea for a video game for those who want a role-play first person shooter game. Unfortunately, the forced community quality of it - the way the game abruptly transitions from a solo-player game to one that absolutely forces player interaction without any way to complete the story or have the full player experience without having to join an online community and interact with other people is a serious detraction to casual players and solo players alike and ruins the overall experience of Destiny.

For other game reviews, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Injustice: Gods Among Us Ultimate Edition
Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham
Middle Earth: Shadow Of Mordor

7/10

For other video game reviews, please check out my index page on the subject by visiting my Software Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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"Vincent And The Doctor" Is A Powerhouse Episode Of Doctor Who!

The Good: Incredible performances, Memorable characters, Decent plot development
The Bad: Mixed special effects, Predictable plot
The Basics: "Vincent And The Doctor" takes an average Creature Of The Week Doctor Who episode and makes it extraordinary through impressive performances and cool supporting characters.


When it comes to Doctor Who, one of the conceits of the new Doctor Who is the inclusion of historical figures for guest shots in the episodes. Usually, the famous historical figures pop up at a rate of one per season, so when Matt Smith took over as The Doctor, fans had good reason to figure the pattern Russell T. Davies had created would endure when early in the season "Victory Of The Daleks" (reviewed here!) included Winston Churchill. But the pattern was altered by Steven Moffat took over as Executive Producer and multiple historical figures popped up. "Vincent And The Doctor" featured the second appearance of a historical figure in one season.

"Vincent And The Doctor" is notable both for bringing Vincent van Gogh into the Doctor Who narrative and for the fact that it was written by Richard Curtis. Richard Curtis is a genius who might well have been the one who made dramedies popular. After getting his start with audacious comedies, Richard Curtis began a film career where he wrote brilliant movies that effectively blended humor and drama. For his Doctor Who outing, Richard Curtis brings the incomparable Vincent van Gogh to life and combines the tragedy of a man struggling with his own sanity with the absurdity of an invisible alien creature. "Vincent And The Doctor" is memorable for how it effectively blends humor and angst.

The Doctor and Amy Pond are on an art kick as The Doctor tries to comfort Amy, who does not know what she is missing. The Doctor and Amy are in Paris at an installation of Vincent van Gogh's work, when Amy Pond is enamored with his painting of a church and The Doctor notices something in the church's window in the church. Consulting the curator, Dr. Black, The Doctor learns exactly when van Gogh painted the painting and the pair goes back to meet the artist. Shortly after arriving and finding van Gogh at a cafe, a little girl is found dead.

Returning to van Gogh's home, Amy wanders off to look at some of his paintings, when she is knocked down. The Doctor and Vincent rush out to aid her and van Gogh finds himself fighting an invisible creature. After rescuing Amy, van Gogh sketches the creature and The Doctor takes the sketch to the TARDIS for identification. The Doctor identifies the entity as a Krafayis, but when The Doctor offhandedly remarks that once they find the creature, he and Amy can be out of van Gogh's hair, the artist freaks out. Soon thereafter, as The Doctor worries about what might happen to the Musee D'Orsay should they fail, van Gogh commits to painting the church. Once there, the trio has to survive the encounter with the alien that only van Gogh can see!

Tony Curran rules "Vincent And The Doctor" as Vincent van Gogh. Curran is moody and somber as van Gogh and he delivers the lines to characterize the self-defeated artist with a quality that never makes the viewer believe that he is casually whiny. Instead, Curran embodies van Gogh as a man absolutely passionate about art, while oscillating between mania and depression. Perhaps most impressive is how Curran performs opposite the invisible creature and his body language and eye lines are entirely convincing!

Amy Pond is incredibly careless in "Vincent And The Doctor." In addition to referencing things that indicate she is not necessarily native to the timeline, Amy goes off on her own even after she and The Doctor learn about casualties in the area. "Vincent And The Doctor" allows Doctor Who to explore the emotional ramifications of a non-event; Amy carries a sadness from losing Rory, but because he never existed, she does not recall him at all. The idea that Amy would feel the pain and loss without the memories is a clever one and Karen Gillan manages to find the right balance to embody that.

Gillan and Curran play off one another masterfully and Bill Nighy's two scenes allow the veteran of Nighy's works to absolutely steal the show. Matt Smith plays The Doctor is his most effective blend of humor and pathos in "Vincent And The Doctor." When The Doctor expresses concern over the potential of van Gogh getting killed, Smith is able to embody well that concern.

"Vincent And The Doctor" is a rare "creature of the week" Doctor Who episode that is little more than a monster hunt - and one that does not go in the typical Doctor Who direction. But Curtis, director Jonny Campbell, and the performers do an amazing job of making the predictable plot feel fresh again. While some of the effects - most notably the early moments of when the Krafayis is first spotted - are irregular, the episode is well-directed and there are some impressive visual effects with both creature design and editing.

Arguably the stand-out episode of Moffat's first season as showrunner of Doctor Who, "Vincent And The Doctor" is brilliant and fun and makes the audience wish it would just keep going on in this direction!

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

For other works by Richard Curtis, please visit my reviews of:
About Time
Love Actually
Blackadder

8.5/10

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

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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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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A Worthwhile Addition To The Richard Curtis Library, About Time Is Much More Than The Time Traveler’s Wife 2.0

The Good: Acting, Characters, Direction, Plot development
The Bad: Somewhat derivative
The Basics: About Time is funny and heartwarming and is arguably the very best alternative to the big, special effects-driven blockbusters this autumn!


When it comes to films, there are few that I will go back to and re-evaluate after my first viewing. I think that the purpose of a review is to give thoughtful analysis of the movie one is presented and to consider it for exactly what one sees on-screen. The only weakness of such an evaluation process is that it does not take into account how a film ages upon multiple viewings (unless one watches it multiple times before reviewing it). One of the few films I have gone back to and re-rated and found I appreciated it more upon subsequent viewings was the Richard Curtis masterpiece Love Actually (reviewed here!). Because I felt I had been too harsh on the movie the first time around, my enthusiasm for Richard Curtis’s new film, About Time was tempered with a reasonable fear that I might be too lenient in evaluating it. However, as the weeks passed and I struggled to get out to the movie theater to take in new movies, I was surprised to discover that the movie I was pining to see (having learned about it only a week before its U.S. release and having watched no trailers for the film) was About Time. After the brief, but intense, anticipation, I finally managed to get to a theater playing the film.

And it’s good.

Actually, About Time is great on a number of levels and the one that is most germane to me is this: it made me feel something. As a movie critic who has watched, literally, thousands of films with a critical eye, it takes a lot for a movie these days to get me to feel something. The ones that have the most difficult time evoking an emotional reaction are the movies that are romances. Romantic comedies are formulaic and romantic dramas are usually designed to tug on the heartstrings, so it is a tough sell for me because I come into the movie expecting the play on my emotions and I remain guarded against it for the sake of objectivity. With About Time, emotional barriers do not work; the film is smart and legitimately charming, without trying so hard. In fact, some of the best moments of the movie work because there is an effortless quality to the characters and the film’s direction that leads the viewer to witness and experience (what appears to be) genuine emotion and react accordingly.

The other big concern for me when going into About Time was that the plot seemed incredibly derivative of The Time Traveler’s Wife (reviewed here!), which also starred Rachel McAdams. Fortunately, writer and director Richard Curtis is aptly able to manage not making a cheap retread of the popular novel/film and he creates something legitimately smart on his own. Instead of belaboring the time-travel aspect in About Time, Curtis focuses on the human aspect and the way people relate. The film has a very brief lesson on the conceit before exploring the effects of how the protagonist, Tim, deals with having the ability to travel in time.

On New Year’s Eve, Tim goes through the usual routine with his family, which for that day includes a terrible party. At it, Tim knocks over some drinks while being rushed by his friend to the living room and then shakes the hand of the girl who clearly wants to kiss him. The next morning, his father – who mysteriously retired at age fifty and is always available to Tim for conversations and table tennis – reveals to him the big family secret: the men in the family have the ability to travel in time. They can only go back in time, to their own life, to make changes. Tim immediately tests this theory and is amazed when it works; he goes back to the prior night, misses the glasses and kisses the girl. The following summer, he spends attracted to his sister’s visiting friend, Charlotte. Through that incident, he learns that love does not change just because he can go back to influence events.

Moving out to London, Tim moves in with a playwright (Harry) who knew his father and one fateful night, he has a date in a blackened restaurant where he meets an amazing woman. Meeting Mary out on the street after the date, Tim and Mary hit it off and he gets her phone number. Upon returning home, though, he learns that Harry’s play was an utter disaster and, in fixing things for Harry, Tim and Mary never meet. Recalling that Mary is a big fan of Kate Moss, Tim spends the summer hanging out at London’s art museum where there is a Kate Moss photo exhibit. When she finally passes through the exhibit, he learns she has a boyfriend she met about a month before and he goes back in time to stop them from meeting so he might meet her instead. Having managed to finally meet Mary and get her interested in him, Tim and Mary develop a real relationship going forward. Though their love grows, Tim finds complications in marrying, having a child (which becomes a fixed point he cannot travel back before, lest he unmake his daughter), and tragedies surrounding his impetuous sister and loving father.

About Time is one of those films where one knows almost immediately that the two top-billed actors in the film are going to end up together. Fans who recognize Rachel McAdams’s voice will know the first time Mary speaks in the dark that Domhnall Gleason’s Tim has met the woman he will be with and the magic of the film is in how the two actually come together and then the effects their being together have on the other people in their lives. Tim sets of a potentially catastrophic series of events in motion when he tries to save his sister, Kit Kat, and rectifying his temporal mistakes is glossed over (does he simply fix the mistakes of traveling back before fixed points by then willing himself to not make the disastrous time travel attempt? It’s not clear). Instead of worrying about much in the way of temporal mechanics, Richard Curtis smartly remains focused on the human element.

The love story in About Time works in large measure because Rachel McAdams and Domhnall Gleason have great on-screen chemistry. While there seems to be a wink and a nudge to the audience from McAdams in her describing Mary as “plain” when she’s a Hollywood-beautiful actress, the somewhat goofy and very real-looking Gleason compliments her look marvelously. The two sparkle on screen and they interact like a realistic, viable couple which entirely sells the realism of the fantastic elements.

The supporting cast, which includes the ever-magnificent Bill Nighy and versatile Lindsay Duncan and Tom Hollander, makes About Time seem much more realistic, as opposed to larger-than-life. Richard Curtis, in addition to delivering a mostly-solid script with a lot of charming lines, directs About Time wonderfully. He uses music as an auditory cue in several of the time travel scenes and when he defies that convention while using recognizable music, that plays well to the audience that is trying to anticipate the film’s next move.

Curtis is also smart enough to not bombard the viewer with clichés, as well. When Tim runs into Charlotte after having a pretty magnificent run with Mary, he neither blows the relationship with Mary, nor takes the cheap opportunity to have sex with Charlotte and then go back and “fix” the infidelity. Instead, it leads to a deeper character revelation for Tim and that plays as remarkably fresh.

Ultimately, About Time succeeds where so many romantic films fail: by creating viable characters and putting them in a situation where it reminds the viewer of the delights of love in our complicated world.

For other films featuring time travel, please check out my reviews of:
The Back To The Future Trilogy
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Men In Black III

8.5/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Party Movie Turns Invasion Flick At The World’s End!

The Good: Good plot development, Moments of humor, Moments of actual character development, Effects
The Bad: Opening voiceover is pretty tired, It stops being funny and turns into a very different type movie for most of it.
The Basics: Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright take a dumb drinking movie and make it into a surprisingly engaging science fiction invasion film The World’s End.


In recent years, American audiences have been bombarded with films focused on the young and drunk. Since The Hangover (reviewed here!) became a surprise summer hit a few years back, filmmakers have tried to recreate it for a younger and (frankly) dumber audience with movies like Project X (reviewed here!) and 21 And Over (reviewed here!). Comedians Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright decided to go in the opposite direction with The World’s End. The World’s End focuses on five men reaching middle age that act young and dumb when they have quite a bit of alcohol in them.

Fortunately, The World’s End turns into something very different. What begins as an awkward, British comedy with slow deadpans and dull voiceovers evolves nicely into an Invasion Of The Body Snatchers-type science fiction adventure. In The World’s End, though, the protagonist is not particularly smart and certainly not invested in saving the world at large. So, The World’s End has an actual character journey as Gary King evolves from a guy trapped twenty years in his past to a man at the crosshairs of a dangerous conspiracy that threatens the human way of life.

In 1990, five friends, led by Gary King, tried to go bar hopping across twelve pubs in the crappy little village they lived in, Newton Haven (England). When they didn’t make it to the final bar, The World’s End, it left King unfulfilled. Now, King is struggling to get his friends – who are more successful and adult than he is – back together to try to hit all twelve pubs in one night again. His best friend from childhood, Andy, is the most reticent to rejoin the “quest” (whatwith not having had a drink for sixteen years), but pressured by King, the five begin a night of debauchery, though Andy’s is tempered by water as he is in recovery.

The twelve pubs start slow, with surprisingly few people present. Even as they drink, Gary, Peter, Oliver, Steven, and Andy begin to realize that things are not quite right in Newton Haven. People look at the quintet funny and when Gary gets into a fight with a teenager in the bathroom, he discovers the boy is not human at all. Instead, he has blue blood and is a robot. When Gary and his friends confront one of the robots, they find that the others do not like that term, so Gary and his friends start calling them “blanks.” The group is soon joined by Sam, Oliver’s sister, and in trying to protect her and his friends, Gary tries to make the journey through all twelve pubs to The World’s End, while uncovering and doing his best to stop the blank invasion.

When The World’s End stops being about a thirtysomething obsessed with recreating a meaningless event from his past, it really begins to get going and become something special. At that point, the movie transitions from being an awkward comedy entirely dependent upon clunky exposition and entirely contrived character positioning. Especially given all they went through in the past, that Oliver and Andy agree to come to Newton Haven is entirely unrealistic. For sure, Gary lies to Andy, but the lie is a pretty transparent one and that Andy, who seems to be a professional, could have easily checked on.

The character revelations in The World’s End come almost too late for the viewer to care, but Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright seed the important character clues early and the pay-off is worth it. Sprinkled in among the revelation of the robot invader conspiracy are deeper character motivations that are compelling and interesting. Gary is lost and an addict who illustrates well just how people trapped in addictive behaviors can get trapped. He, Sam and Andy have strong motivations that make them seem like real people – if not entirely sympathetic, though the point of Sam seems largely to be to bring someone obviously sympathetic into the film – in what soon becomes an extraordinary circumstance.

The result is something smarter and more polished than The Watch (reviewed here!) and it does not force the humor after a point. Ultimately, The World’s End is an action-conspiracy film that develops into itself and it becomes a worthwhile movie instead of the stiff comedy it begins as. Simon Pegg is seldom goofy as Gary in The World’s End, though Nick Frost dominates the scenes they share as a man who spends most of the film clinging to his sobriety for good reason. Frost makes Andy realistic and interesting and he helps keep the film grounded when it goes into potentially absurd territory.

Ultimately, The World’s End is entertaining, but hardly timeless, making it a good film for the end of Summer Blockbuster Season and one of the few reasons to go out to theaters in September.

For other works with Simon Pegg, please check out my reviews of:
Star Trek Into Darkness
Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol
Paul
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader
Star Trek
How To Lose Friends And Alienate People
Run, Fatboy, Run
Mission: Impossible III

6/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Dark, But Over So Much Quicker Than It Actually Is: The Constant Gardner Is A Good Idea Done Poorly.

The Good: Decent concepts/themes, Moments of plot, Direction
The Bad: Unremarkable acting, Unremarkable characters, Plot structuring
The Basics: The Constant Gardener is a conspiracy theory thriller where the characters undermine the realism of the movie and the structure makes it virtually impossible to care.


My wife and I have been sharing movies a lot lately. After almost five years of knowing one another, my wife finally watched Bound (reviewed here!) and did not completely hate it (yea!). She recalled that she had seen, enjoyed, and thought I would like The Constant Gardener. When the movie was done, I asked her why and she said that it had all of the elements (she assumed) were important to my love of films: lots of characters, convoluted plots, and depressing as all hell. While I contested that those were the essential elements of a great film in my mind and tried to illustrate the other factors that were important to me (depressing is no longer terribly compelling to me). Regardless, I was not fond of The Constant Gardener and my wife felt annoyed that she had picked a movie that didn’t grab me. Telling her that I appreciated her thinking about me meant a lot to me did not change much, but it was the truth; I was glad she thought about me and tried to share a movie with thoughts about my preferences in mind.

The level of emotion my wife expressed in trying to choose a movie I might actually enjoy based on my prior preferences is deeper and better presented than the emotions in The Constant Gardener. The Constant Gardener has some incredible issues that are poorly presented and resolved in utterly uncompelling ways. In fact, while there are important concepts that actually resonate with me that appear in The Constant Gardener, the movie is put together so poorly on the plot and character fronts that the thematic issues that I care about are undermined.

Justin Quayle is a British High Commissioner working in Kenya when his wife, Tessa, is killed. The story flashes back to how Tessa met Justin while undermining a speech he was giving in the UK. They sleep together and Justin goes back to work, more or less forgetting about Tessa. Shortly thereafter, Tessa appears and asks to come with Justin to Kenya and in order to make that happen, they get married. In Kenya, Tessa begins doing some investigative work on the health organizations working in the country. Working with Dr. Arnold Bluhm, Tessa begins to expose the actions of pharmaceutical companies in Kenya.

Tessa discovers that a major pharmaceutical conglomerate is paying off the British government to allow them to perform drug trial experiments on Kenyan citizens without their knowledge. Despite ruffling the feathers of administrators and getting into a devil’s bargain with Justin’s co-worker Sandy Woodrow, Tessa continues her investigation. After her murder, Justin begins putting the pieces together as to why she was killed and ends up in a collision course with the forces who killed her.

The fundamental problem with The Constant Gardener is in the characters and the fact that it is revealed fairly early in the movie that Tessa has discovered that the pharmaceutical companies are experimenting on people. After that point, The Constant Gardener is like a murder mystery after the killer has been revealed. The movie loses some serious punch after the reason for Tessa’s murder is given and the film meanders through all of the motivations of characters who are largely inconsequential.

The real kicker comes in the form of the characters. Justin and Tessa make a generally unemotional decision to get married; it is a marriage of convenience for Tessa. So, while there is a human element to the murder of Tessa, Justin’s obsession with finding out what she knew is not compellingly presented. Neither the characters, nor the performances between Ralph Fiennes (Justin) and Rachel Weisz (Tessa), resonate with even a hint of chemistry. As a result, The Constant Gardener seems like a drastic overreaction to the murder of someone who is not even particularly friendly to Justin.

The Constant Gardeneris long and it feels long and the intricacies of the conspiracy take up a lot of the film’s time. There might be more to say about the movie, but the truth is, I can’t muster up the enthusiasm to write about it because the two main leads have no chemistry and their characters are inorganically thrust together, but act like they have a great romance (which they do not) and the conspiracy is interesting, but revealed far too early to keep the movie interesting for so much of what follows.

For other reviews of films with Pete Postlethwaite, please visit:
Inception
Clash Of The Titans
Aeon Flux
Dark Water
Romeo + Juliet
The Usual Suspects
Alien 3

4/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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March Rushes In Like A Lion With Jack The Giant Slayer And An Army Of Giants!

The Good: Special effects, Acting, Moments of character
The Bad: Very predictable plot, Obvious romantic subplot, Generally light on interesting character development.
The Basics: Bryan Singer taps into the current fairy tale fad with Jack The Giant Slayer, which is bigger on effect than originality.


Nicholas Hoult is having a good year so far and it is bound to get better for the young man. It seems like his career had a slow burn following X-Men: First Class (reviewed here!), but he seems to have found his audience with Warm Bodies. That audience is likely to grow with Jack The Giant Slayer. The draw for me in Jack The Giant Slayer was the combination of Christopher McQuarrie and Bryan Singer, who wowed me so many years ago with The Usual Suspects (reviewed here!). Singer has had a pretty impressive career since, arguably kicking off the current run of blockbuster super hero films with his X-Men (reviewed here!). With Jack The Giant Slayer, he seems to be much more content to follow the current trends, as opposed to lead the charge. Jack The Giant Slayer is very obviously attempting to capitalize on the current market for re-imagined fairy tales. Fortunately for viewers, Singer, and Hoult’s career, Jack The Giant Slayer is much more analogous to Snow White And The Huntsman (reviewed here!) than it is to Mirror Mirror (reviewed here!).

Jack The Giant Slayer takes the relatively simple fairy tale of Jack And The Bean Stalk and fleshes it out with a romantic subplot, palace intrigue and a feisty princess. While Jack The Giant Slayer is very likely to be analogized by most to Snow White And The Huntsman, there are a number of similarities between it and Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl (reviewed here!), most notably in the character arc of Princess Isabelle. Just as in the Pirates Of The Caribbean film, the initially feisty woman of high social standing goes on an adventure, becomes a damsel in distress and ends up romantically entangled with the less-desirable (from her social standing) character who, in turn gives men without money an absolutely unrealistic idea of what kind of woman they might actually draw out here in reality. That said, Jack The Giant Slayer is fun, even though it is hardly original or as substantial as one might hope. While the original fairy tale had a purpose of sharing a moral, Jack The Giant Slayer focuses on spectacle and adventure, as opposed to developing truly deep or important themes.

Jack is a peasant, raised on adventure stories, living in a small hovel. One dark and stormy night, he gives shelter to Princess Isabelle, whom he recognized from a prior gathering in the nearby city. The storm feeds the magic bean underneath Jack’s hut and while he is knocked out of his home, the massive vine that sprouts up, whisks Isabelle up into the clouds and the floating city of the giants. When King Brahmwell investigates and discovers what has happened, he assigns the knight, Elmont, to rescue his daughter from the giants. Jack volunteers to accompany him and Elmont, Jack, and a squadron of knights ascend to the fantastic land of the giants.

In the giant’s realm, there is unrest from the capture of Isabelle; her presence in their realm and the subsequent appearance of the knights, leads the Giants to believe the peace between the Giants and the humans is at an end. Further manipulated by the villainous Roderick, the Giants prepare to invade the human portions of Earth to conquer it. As Jack and Elmont recover and work to keep Isabelle alive, the Giants assemble and Isabelle and Jack begin to grow closer. Fleeing the realm of the Giants, the kingdom faces an attack they cannot hope to repel.

Jack The Giant Slayer is fun and seeing it on the big screen is really the only way to get the most out of it. Director Bryan Singer and co-writer Christopher McQuarrie seem to have capitalized on a winning formula, though it is unfortunate that they stoop to something so formulaic. The treachery of Roderick and the burgeoning romance of Jack and Isabelle seem much more obvious than original and clever. And while Jack The Giant Slayer is as visually impressive as film buffs have hoped for, the movie lacks a sense of thematic importance that make it into something more than a popcorn movie.

That said, the acting in Jack The Giant Slayer is decidedly above average. Nicholas Hoult continues to expand his on-screen range and give viewers something they have not seen from him yet. In Jack The Giant Slayer, he portrays Jack with a sense of responsibility and a quiet, geeky, sense of heroism that is very endearing. He manages to play Jack as somewhat quiet and withheld in a way that is different from how he played Hank McCoy in X-Men: First Class and given how similar the characters could have been, that is a testament to Hoult’s performance.

While Eleanor Tomlinson is pretty much a generic Hollywood beauty (sure, she plays Isabelle up as adventurous and rebellious initially, but she ends up as a damsel in distress for a troubling portion of the film where she is not given as much to do but react), Tomlinson, Stanley Tucci (Roderick), Ewan McGregor, and Hoult all play incredibly well off the virtual settings, objects and characters they encounter in the land of the giants and in the subsequent battle on Earth. Tucci plays Roderick as over-the-top and there is little to his character and performance that does not make the viewer think he is hamming it up and playing the role as something of a parody of a megalomaniacal villain. But, even with those limitations of character, Tucci is fun to watch. Ewan McGregor is all right as Jack, but the over-confident, somewhat arrogant Elmont is not a role that capitalized on his usual range or depth of his charisma.

Fans of fairy tales will undoubtedly flock to Jack The Giant Slayer and while it is easy to predict that it will do well in theaters, it is a movie that seems virtually impossible to bank on the movie doing well after it leaves theaters. Jack The Giant Slayer is a big movie, banking on spectacle and I don’t believe it would play nearly as well on a smaller screen.

For other works with Ian McShane, please visit my reviews of:
Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Coraline
Death Race
Scoop
Babylon 5: River Of Souls

5.5/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Not The Most Compelling Story Backs An Incredibly-Animated Film With Rango!

The Good: Decent animation, Good voice performances
The Bad: Predictable plot, Very obvious character arcs
The Basics: Rango is a surprise winner for Best Animated Film, considering it is a very obvious Western.


It is a rare thing for me to sit down to a film from Nickelodeon Films, despite the fact that I truly enjoyed Hotel For Dogs (reviewed here!) from the company. So, when my wife’s family came for a visit, it was somewhat surprising to all of us that I had Rango out from the library. I got out Rango for my wife, who tends to like animated films. I was unsurprised when she told me she actually watched Rango over the summer, but I was surprised when she informed me she did not actually enjoy it. But, given that she and I have different tastes in movies, I decided to watch the movie with my in-laws while she was at work anyway.

My wife was right.

Rango is a remarkably underwhelming, average-at-its-peak, movie that might have impressive animation, but not enough to back it up on the character and plot fronts. The animated film is a Western populated by animal characters and it is surprisingly unoriginal and lacking in humor needed to sustain an animated film.

As part of a move, a domesticated lizard is keeping himself occupied in his aquarium, making theatrical presentations to keep himself entertained, when the car swerves and the aquarium goes flying. The lizard ends up on the road, then after a near-death experience, lost in the desert. Chased by a redtail hawk, the lizard ends up running into the small town of Dirt. There, he begins bragging about how he has killed the local villainous gang (with one bullet) and he takes the name Rango. Having befriended a lonely woman named Beans, Rango’s bragging and posturing earns him the role of Sherriff in the town of Dirt.

As Sherriff, Rango vows to discover how the bank is running out of water. He quickly uncovers a plot by a family of thieves. After riding out and thwarting their plans, Rango is replaced by Rattlesnake Jake and he must come to rescue Dirt. Exposing the corrupt Mayor, Rango risks life and limb to bring water back to Dirt.

Rango is a Johnny Depp vehicle and it is hard to see how the film did any business outside his fan base. The animation is well-rendered and all of the animals look good and move with a surprisingly realistic sense of physics. The character designs are very cool for the lizards, scorpions, turtle, cat, and bats; Rango has a vivid visual palate.

Unfortunately, effects are a small portion of evaluating a film and Rango is not backed up by an interesting series of characters or a remotely good plot. Movies like this usually trade on having great lines that are enough to amuse adults, but Rango lacks anything so clever. The characters are unmemorable and the plot is predictable.

The vocal performances are decent, though Johnny Depp does not present anything that viewers have not seen or heard from him before. Backed by talents like Isla Fisher, Ned Beatty, Bill Nighy, Abigail Breslin, and Alfred Molina, the characters in Rango are expressive, if not impressive.

Now on DVD and Blu-Ray, Rango includes an alternate ending, two different versions, and ten deleted scenes. None of that makes it worth buying.

For other works with Isla Fisher, please check out my reviews of:
Rise Of The Guardians
Confessions Of A Shopaholic
Definitely, Maybe
Scooby-Doo

3/10

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

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Nearing The End Of Summer Blockbuster Season, Total Recall Is A Fun Popcorn Thriller.

The Good: Decent effects, Good action feel, Decent acting, Initially engaging plot
The Bad: So many reversals!, Lighter on character than I generally like.
The Basics: The new version of Total Recall is appropriately action-packed, clever and fun to round out Summer Blockbuster Season in a satisfying way.


Summer Blockbuster Season follows a few very well-established patterns. After the big budget, much-anticipated special effects-driven movies have dominated the summer, August hits. August, traditionally, is where comedies and the pre-back to school romances try to lure teenage boys and women raised on fairy tales back to the theaters one more time for the summer. There is also, usually, one last big action-adventure film. A few years ago, for example, Summer Blockbuster Season was pretty much pronounced dead by G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra (reviewed here!). The last big hurrah for 2012’s Summer Blockbuster Season is Total Recall.

It behooves me to mention, up front, that I had not seen the 1990 version of Total Recall, nor have I read the Philip K. Dick short story upon which both movies are based. As a result, I offer no comparison and any references between the two films were lost on me. This is a very pure review of only the 2012 film Total Recall. (I have since seen the 1990 Total Recall, but that is reviewed here independent of this version!)

Doug Quaid works in a dismal, filthy factory in 2084 where he is frequently tired and miserable. He decides to escape for a time within his own mind through a treatment from Rekall. Rekall allows him to have false memories implanted within him in order to feel like he is living a more meaningful and enjoyable life. But when the Rekall agents discover that Quaid’s mind has already been tampered with, they become alarmed and when the building is stormed, a bloodbath ensues . . . at the hands of Quaid. Surprised at his sudden abilities, he is told that he is a spy by his wife, Lori, who tries to kill him.

Suddenly on the run, Quaid, who may or may not really be Hauser, finds himself embroiled in a conspiracy that he has no memory of. Sought by government agents and aided by a rebel underground who he hopes will be able to restore his true memories, Quaid teams with Melina to try to stay alive long enough to learn the truth.

To dispense with my usual complaints about such movies, Total Recall is light on character development because that is the nature of the beast. Because the film deals so much with identity issues and what is real and what is not, Doug does not have a huge amount of character development. He’s running for his life and trying to figure out what is going on and the nature of the conspiracy means that other characters know more about him and what is going on than he (or the viewer) does. Doug is, as a result, more often than not confused and afraid, as opposed to enlightening or even particularly interesting.

The character element, then, is mostly handled by Lori and Melina. Lori is ruthless and efficient, but as a result, she is somewhat monolithic. From the moment she turns on Doug, she is single-minded, focused and ruthless in her pursuit of Doug. Lori is played by Kate Beckinsale and the level of action the role requires is not a surprise for the star of the Underworld films. Even so, despite the similarities in levels of action, Beckinsale makes the role distinctive by infusing strange humanity in the role. Beckinsale makes Lori seem like a character with a strange sense of principles; Lori seems to actually believe in the organization she serves and Beckinsale sells the viewer on her character’s loyalty in frequently unsettling ways.

Jessica Biel’s Melinda is not at the other end of the spectrum, though Melinda and Lori are framed as opposites in how they treat Doug. Melinda comes to Doug’s rescue and wants to get him to safety, ostensibly for how he might help the resistance. Biel has done action films before and in Total Recall she is convincingly cool; while she does physical work, her character strategizes and shoots more than she smacks around the obstacles she encounters.

Total Recall benefits from having a stellar supporting cast, in addition to having great special effects. In a film filled with flying cars, robotic assailants and the obligatory three-breasted woman, what stands out the most is how the minor roles are fleshed out with actors who shine for the entire time they are on film. John Cho’s appearance is brief, as is Bill Nighy’s, but Nighy especially dominates the screen while he is on it. The most significant performance out of the main three is from Bryan Cranston. As the Chancellor, Cranston is smart, authoritative and ruthless. While at moments the Chancellor seems like a hyperbole of a capitalist, he seems like a credible leader who would inspire the violence and loyalty that he does.

But, at the end of it all, Total Recall is largely a chase/conspiracy movie and it succeeds at that. Anyone hoping for more than an action-adventure film that is hinging on near-constant twists and fast gun battles will be disappointed, but for the last popcorn effects film of Summer Blockbuster Season it fits the bill.

For other works with Bryan Cranston, please check out my reviews of:
Argo
John Carter
Contagion
Drive
Little Miss Sunshine
Clerks: The Animated Series

6.5/10

For other film reviews, be sure to 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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It’s Not The Spitfire Grill; The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel Is Long, Cluttered And Predictable.

The Good: Exceptional acting, Decent cinematography, Moments of character
The Bad: Long and feels long, Exceptionally predictable, Tries to service too many characters
The Basics: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is about three characters heavy as a story of British senior citizens finding purpose in a rundown hotel in India.


I am not one of those reviewers who needs to have a movie that is big, full of explosions or exciting at every moment. Indeed, two of my favorite movies are slow - The Spitfire Grill (reviewed here!) – and filled with many characters Magnolia (reviewed here!). So, when I went to the screening of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel last night, I was not inherently prejudiced against it. In fact, I wanted to like it. I wanted to like it very much.

But The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is long . . . and it feels long. It is slow and the pace would not be quite as bad were it not for the fact that it results in characters getting lost for significant chunks of the movie, so by the time they pop back up, the viewer does not actually are about their arc any longer. The pace would not be so problematic if the film did not go in arguably the most predictable possible directions for the plot and character arcs. It’s insult to injury to sit through a long, drawn-out film only to arrive at pretty much where you figured you’d end up hours before.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is chock full of characters and it is three-quarters serious drama, one-quarter fish out of water comedy. The film establishes Evelyn Greenslade as a widow, whose husband took care of her for forty years and left her pretty much unprepared for life when he died abruptly. Graham Dashwood is a high court judge who is fed up and abruptly retires one day. Douglas Ainslie and his wife Jean have invested all of his retirement money in their daughter’s internet start-up and they have almost no money left to live on as a result, a fact which deeply angers Jean. Muriel is an old racist woman who needs hip replacement surgery, but cannot stand being around anyone who is not white British. Madge is a flirtatious woman who wants very much to land another husband (or just have lots of sex) and Norman is an enthusiastic old man who is looking for a young woman who can restore (or maintain) his sense of virility. All seven of these Brits end up headed to India and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel For The Elderly & Beautiful, a run-down old establishment that Sonny is still desperately trying to restore, with his severely limited funds.

Each of the people have their own reason for traveling to India. Graham is searching for someone from his past, from when he lived there forty years prior. Jean feels trapped, though Douglas starts to explore the city around the hotel. Evelyn visits an Indian call center, ostensibly for a cathartic moment from the trauma of calling one (when her character is introduced) and being treated poorly. As Sonny works to get the hotel up and running while reconciling his love life, Muriel has her surgery and recovers, tended to only by an Untouchable woman (Anokhi). The other two work on landing their next partner.

From there, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel becomes a waiting game. Will Sonny be able to maintain control of the hotel once his overbearing mother arrives? Will sonny actually tell Sunaina that he loves her? Will Graham find the love of his life (a man he had a summer with forty years ago)? Will Douglas get sick of his nagging, bitchy wife and leave her? Will Evelyn find happiness? Will Norman or Madge manage to hook up with someone who will keep them in a lifestyle they find appealing for the rest of their life? It’s almost hard to care. And it is not because The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel does not set up the premise well, it just seems to be That Type Of Movie. So, for example, you might note I didn’t ask if Muriel would kick her racism and become a decent human being.

The reason that question is not posed is that it is obvious from the beginning. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is That Type Of Movie where the moment Muriel is established the viewer pretty much figures her character arc will be to soften some to people of color and “surprise” everyone with a sense of decency. It takes most of the movie, through which Maggie Smith’s Muriel is absent from the film. In fact, while The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel adequately explores Graham and Evelyn’s characters and keeps Douglas and Jean on-screen enough to give viewers a sense of what is going on with them, Norman, Muriel and Madge each disappear from the film for significant amounts of time.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is not all bad; in fact it is far less bad and more tedious for the most part. First, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel has some very funny lines. The film is set up as a comedy and for the first half hour, it is frequently laugh-out-loud funny. The humor in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel dies a pretty quick death in India. I became aware of the utter absence of laughter or humor pretty much the moment Graham admitted to Evelyn that he was gay. After that point, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel becomes a drama that is almost as oppressive as the heat of India onscreen.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel employs far too many clichés after the point where Graham comes out. Jean, who might have simply been interpreted as terribly pretentious before that, becomes insufferable and increasingly mean through the rest of the picture. The viewer is given no reason outside inertia as to how Douglas can stand her, a motivation that becomes less and less satisfying as Douglas grows from his experiences in India. Even Norman, who barely has a part in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel suddenly becomes reason for a senior citizen virility cliché. Norman does manage to find a woman, one who he woos by stopping the airs he puts on and instead exposing his rawness to her. He and Carol are simply two lonely older people. Fine, that works. Norman wants to give Carol a night of passion, so he gets some pills. I bought that premise, but later in the film when Carol tells Madge that she swapped out the pills, it felt like a cheap cliché. It felt familiar.

What The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel does exceptionally well is use the cast. John Madden, who directed The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel assembled some of the most impressive talent in acting today (albeit a very BBC bunch!) by bringing together Judi Dench, Tom Wilkinson, Bill Nighy, Norman Pickup, Maggie Smith, Celia Imrie, and Penelope Wilton. Putting such a seasoned cast with the enthusiastic young Dev Patel, who is still probably best known for his performance in Slumdog Millionaire (reviewed here!), works.

What is arguably most impressive in the casting and acting is how relative newcomer Tena Desae holds her own, especially opposite Judi Dench. Dasae is much more than just a pretty face/beauty queen; she has a surprising amount of gravitas as she uses her face to perform. In fact, one of the best moments in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a simple look in Dasae’s eyes as Sunaina empathizes with Evelyn’s plight from her former interaction with a call center worker. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is smart enough not to make it explicit or sappy, but I have a sneaking suspicion that rewatching the film would reveal that it was Sunaina who spoke with Evelyn at the outset of the film.

As far as the acting, it pretty much flawlessly creates the world of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. In fact, the only notes I had on the performances were related to Bill Nighy. I have, largely, been a fan of Bill Nighy’s works. I have seen him in many things and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel is a great example of him at his best and worst. On the “best” front, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel features a sequence where the Brits react to the Indian food they are given . . . with prolonged time in the bathroom. During this somewhat predictable comedic montage, Bill Nighy gives one of the most subtle and funny performances of his career. As soon as Jean leaves the bathroom, Douglas enters and as he turns to close the door, Nighy does the most simple raising of an eyebrow as he glances at the camera. It is the closest The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel gets to a fart joke and Nighy sells it in a very funny way.

But Nighy is problematically underused through much of the rest of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. In one key scene where Douglas, Graham and Evelyn go to follow up on a lead for Graham’s search for his lost love, Douglas’s presence is inexplicable. Douglas and Graham have had almost no interaction before that and as the three walk down the street, all I could think was, “They needed this shot with Bill Nighy for the promos.” It is, honestly, that out of place; the lead up to one of the most powerful scenes in the film feels like an advertisement playing off the star power of Tom Wilkinson, Judi Dench and Bill Nighy, down to their stride. This might not have been so bad were it not for two early shots in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel that feature all seven of the esteemed actors for what is undoubtedly a banner poster in some country (I can picture it slathered on the subway stations of London, actually). In short, despite my love of Bill Nighy, there are a few moments where Douglas seems much more like the genial, goofy, off-screen Bill Nighy that I’ve seen on talk shows and the like. In other words, this is not Nighy’s best-ever performance, despite his ability to emote without saying a word!

Judi Dench and Tom Wilkinson are characteristically wonderful in their roles, though as a style aspect, the inconsistent use of voiceovers for Evelyn’s blog posts was more annoying than satisfying.

Ultimately, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel did teach me (or remind me of) something: it is perfectly possible to have a movie affect me without me liking it. I did have an emotional tug at points in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. But, ultimately, the fact that the movie got me to feel something for a few moments does not make it a good, great, or even enjoyable film. Sadly, that was my final assessment of The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

For other works with Maggie Smith, please check out my reviews of:
The Harry Potter Saga
Becoming Jane
Gosford Park
A Room With A View

4/10

For other film reviews, 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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