An Ill-Executed Disappointment, Rock-A-Doodle Was Dated When It Was Released!

The Good: Interesting basic concept
The Bad: Poor special effects, Unmemorable music, Lousy characters, No superlative vocal performances.
The Basics: In a live-action/animated blended film, a young boy is transformed into a cat to journey to the world from a story his mother was reading him when a disaster struck.


One of the nice things about moving to a new area for me has been a brand new library system, which affords me thousands (probably tens of thousands) of movie options I did not have before. While this usually works out incredibly well for me, my wife has been using the same system to get in films that she loved as a child. Today, she subjected me to Rock-A-Doodle, a film that scared her as a little girl and one that, when it was released cinematically in my mid-teen years, my father told me I could not go see because he had read so many negative reviews of it, that he refused to spend money on it.

Well, score one for Dad!

Rock-A-Doodle is just terrible. It is the kind of movie that might have seemed clever at one point, yet is so dated in its execution as to be utterly laughable now. More than that, unless Don Bluth and his team were working on the animation and effects from the 1950s until its 1991 release, there is no excuse for how bad the effects and, more importantly, the script are. People in the 1990s were nowhere near as sexist or stupid as Rock-A-Doodle would have viewers believe and for a “family film,” Rock-A-Doodle has a number of negative and dated messages that make the film unwatchable.

Chanticleer is the rooster on a farm where he is idolized by the other farm animals. Chanticleer sings and dances and the other animals swoon and faun over him; they honestly believe that he makes the sun rise in the morning with his music. One day, the Grand Duke sends a thug to get into a fight with Chanticleer. The fight spills over into the morning and proves to the other animals on the farm that Chanticleer is not all that special. Such is the story being read to Edmond, a boy living on a farm that is flooding during a terrible storm. When his mother goes out to help his father and brothers reinforce the sandbags, Edmond opens the window, starts calling for Chanticleer, and his world abruptly changes.

Edmond is sucked into the world of his story by the Grand Duke, who is furious that the boy would call for Chanticleer. Transformed into a kitty, Edmond meets the farm animals from the story and sets out with them to find Chanticleer. Chanticleer is now performing in the big city where he is a celebrity, being used by the Grand Duke without his knowledge. Distracted by his celebrity and a chick named Goldie, Chanticleer has little incentive to return to the farm, though Edmond needs him to in order to return to his world.

Rock-A-Doodle is a blend of animation and live-action (a la Who Framed Roger Rabbit?) and it is a stunningly poor example of that style of movie. An obvious reworking of The Wizard Of Oz, Rock-A-Doodle - despite using the name Chanticleer – is not clever enough to be a reworking of the related story from The Canterbury Tales. Instead, it is a banal adventure that puts Midwestern farm characters on an adventure to Las Vegas (the big city is a stylized representation of Vegas) and populates the film with “types” as opposed to actual characters.

Chanticleer becomes an Elvis Presley-style performer and his celebrity makes him huge, vain, and a generic archetype of a celebrity entertainer. He is surprisingly lacking in genuine charisma, though, so clearly the writers are hoping the young audience will still be dazzled by the (super cheesy) special effects to not notice that he has no real character. Edmond is a pretty generic little boy who, for no discernable reason, comes to believe that a character in a book that he appears to have never finished, might be able to save him in the real world.

Most offensive on the character front is Goldie. Goldie is one of three female characters in Rock-A-Doodle - the others being Edmond’s mother and the nerdy Peepers – and she is the one granted the most screentime. Goldie is the archetypal whore. The Grand Duke’s people throw Goldie at Chanticleer to distract him from how they are taking advantage of him and to keep him in line. Goldie appears with the sole purpose of using her feminine wiles to keep Chanticleer in line. Her motivation? She wants to be a star. Being otherwise talentless, she uses the endowments she developed (she is drawn as painfully bust for a creature with such a little waist) to get close to Chanticleer and the relationship affords her the celebrity she wanted. More than being talented, Goldie develops “celebrity by association” and the message is painfully clear: women, if you lack ability, you can sleep your way to fulfillment!

Goldie is a dated, obvious stereotype and watching her it is virtually impossible not to find oneself cringing constantly. Her character is worse than the vocal performances, which are more unremarkable than actually bad. Christopher Plummer, who is one of my favorites, gives one of the most bland vocal presentations of his career as the Grand Duke, but it is more memorable than the other celebrities who participated in this cinematic travesty (Glen Campbell, Sandy Duncan, and Charles Nelson Reilly being the only others I recognized).

Ultimately, Rock-A-Doodle is an animated musical with a few scenes of live-action that create a pretense for including a terrible child actor and ridiculous subplot outside the main story in order to get the film up to time (though at only 77 minutes, it still falls short). The music is unmemorable, the messages are reactionary and the effects are just plain bad. Rock-A-Doodle is a children’s film that can easily be skipped.

For other animated films, be sure to visit my reviews of:
We’re Back! A Dinosaur’s Tale
Wreck-It Ralph
Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film For Theaters

1.5/10

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

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Leading The Klingons Through A Brief, Violent Period: The General Chang Action Figure Is Cool.

The Good: Decent sculpt, Generally decent accessories
The Bad: Accessory/detailing color issues
The Basics: A good, but fairly average Klingon action figure, General Chang is the only action figure from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country Playmates released!


In the realm of Star Trek toys and collectibles, there are few eras or groups that have been exploited less than the characters and situations of the Star Trek films. To be fair, film-based merchandise generally has a ridiculously short shelf life and with current blockbusters lining up to only take a single week at the top of the box office before they are ousted by the next week's planned chart-topper, it is hard to blame the licensees of larger franchises like the Star Trek franchise from being skittish about film-based merchandise. So, when Playmates toys went back and did a whole collection of action figures based upon the Star Trek films, it was a bit of a risk for them. One of the riskiest figures in that line was the General Chang figure.

General Chang, for those who are not so fluent in all things Trek was the Klingon villain of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (reviewed here!). Played by Christopher Plummer, Chang's role in The Undiscovered Country was that of an old war-horse who is unable to accept peace when the Klingon Empire and Federation reach a detente. Chang was a thorn in the side of Captain Kirk, whom he framed for the murder of the peaceful Klingon Chancellor, as well as the creators of The Klingon Dictionary (reviewed here!) who had designed the Klingon language around not having a verb "to be." Given that Chang was supposed to quote Shakespeare's "to be or not to be" soliloquy from The Tragedy Of Hamlet, this annoyed the linguists who had worked so hard on the language. Chang was a risk for Playmates to make an action figure of because he was never one of the most popular villains, like Khan. Still, they pressed on and now over a decade later, this remains one of the more sought-after figures from this particular collection!

Basics

The Classic Star Trek Movie Series Collection of action figures contained only ten figures and it was released late in 1995 right before Christmas. This line-up included the General Chang action figure which was quickly bought up and sought by collectors. The entire run of these figures was overproduced, but still the Chang figure seems to have retained his value on the secondary market as it was not as mass-produced as the figures from the main crew.

The General Chang figure is the Klingon general and military advisor as he appeared in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country for most of his scenes, most notably the ones at the film's climax. Chang here is dressed in heavy leather armor with an extended bandoleer draped over one shoulder. His hands are molded to be able to carry his accessories, but only the left hand is closed enough to actually do that, so the half-open right hand is pretty much worthless as far as play goes.

Standing just under five inches tall, this is a decent likeness of Chang immortalized in plastic. There is a fair level of uniform detailing, but to be fair, this was not the most detailed costume the franchise ever saw. Chang looks appropriately bulky from his armor and the molding and paint details of his costume - the seams in the leather armor are all black as opposed to the very dark blue the rest of the figure is cast in - are good and Playmates captures such details as the Klingon script on Chang's gauntlets. Chang's face is molded in a peeved expression, which is character-appropriate. His face possesses pretty decent amounts of details, though his lips are far too pink and noticeable. On the plus side, the forehead ridges are molded in and the eye patch which was screwed into General Chang's skull is present as well. Still the light flesh tones of Chang lack any subtlety or shading and the tiny ponytail on the back of his head looks utterly ridiculous.

The paint job is fair, but the ponytail serves as an excellent example of where Playmates skimped. The monotonal gray/blue hair almost matches Chang's costume! Chang's skin tones are monolithic tan and lack any shading or subtlety. The uniform is appropriately colored and the figure looks decent in that respect.

Accessories

General Chang comes with five accessories, plus a trading card: A Klingon communicator, a Klingon blaster, a glass of Romulan Ale, a Klingon staff and an action base which was the standard style for the Movie Series collection. General Chang is unfortunately over-accessorized, especially given the way his hands are molded and some, like the staff, make no sense for the figure. The Action base is more than enough to support Chang and offer make the figure a decent display piece. The action base is a 2 5/8" in diameter black stand that raises the figure an additional half inch from the display surface and bears a StarFleet Delta symbol and a sticker at the base with the character's name on it. Near the top of the triangle in the symbol is a peg which fits into the hole in either of Chang's feet!

The Klingon Communicator is a one inch long choking hazard which is surprisingly well-detailed. Unfortunately, by its size it looks more like a Klingon tricorder and it has the ribs and buttons that define the small prop. This is a pretty cool accessory regardless and it offers more play options than just the weapon would.

Chang, of course, comes with a weapon and it is unfortunate that his Klingon blaster does not have a holster or attach to the General's hip in any way. That one must choose between "drinking Chang" and "shooting Chang" is unfortunate for collectors. Still, this one and a half inch gun fits perfectly into Chang's left hand and is very detailed with molded details like the double barrels that lead to the single firing point.

The glass of Romulan Ale is a conceptually decent accessory that falls down in its execution. The glass is simply a plastic flute drinking vessel that is empty and opaque. Nothing makes it "full" of Romulan Ale but one's imagination. This fits in Chang's left hand loosely and wobbles severely because of its shape.

The final accessory makes no sense for the Chang figure and that is the Klingon staff. Klingon Chancellor Gorkon arrives on the Enterprise in the film bearing a giant staff - almost a crutch, actually - made from the tooth or tusk of some giant animal. General Chang did not bear the staff in the film at all. Perhaps that is why there is no way to fit Chang's hand around it in any usable way. One may get frustrated and annoyed trying to balance it between the stand and Chang's right hand, but given how his character does not actually use it in the movie, most collectors will just skip the effort and arm Chang with other accessories.

Unfortunately, all four of these accessories are molded in a gold plastic that is lacking in realistic coloring detail and cheapens the overall appearance of the figure. Given that only the left hand can hold most of the accessories, Chang is over-accessorized and with the lame coloring of the accessories, it is tough to get excited about this.

The Movie Series line of Playmates action figures also comes with a very cool SkyBox trading card unique to the action figures. The Chang card is landscape oriented and features a headshot of Chang on the bridge of his Bird Of Prey. The back of the card has all sorts of vital information on Chang and the figure is highly sought by card collectors who collected the cards and disposed of the figures. Interestingly, many of the Movie Series figures often had multiple cards in the bag behind the primary card, so it can often save collectors money to pick up the figures that way for the multiple cards!

Playability

Chang helped continue a high level of quality from Playmates and he was quite good at the time, pleasing collectors and fans alike. Molded in a stately pose that makes him look dignified, but less active, this is a decent sculpt of Chang. Chang is endowed with eleven points of articulation: knees, groin socket, biceps, elbows, shoulders, and neck. All of the joints, save the elbows, are simple swivel joints. As a result, the neck turns left to right, for example, but the head cannot nod. Similarly, the shoulders are not ball and socket joints and only rotate. Still, Playmates dealt with this limitation by having a swivel joint in the bicep, that allows everything below to turn and offers real decent posability!

Moreover, for use with actual play, Chang may bend or extend at the elbows, which offers a greater amount of movement potential making him one of the more realistic Star Trek action figures to play with (for those who actually play with these toys!). Unfortunately, Chang does not bend at the waist and because of the costume, his legs only scissor-kick a few degrees open, so the groin socket joint is severely inhibited.

On his base, Chang is quite stable, making him a good figure for display as well as play, so long as one does not try to have him use the staff as well.

Collectibility

Playmates mass produced the first few waves of Star Trek figures, but by the time the Movie Series set came along, they were a little more conservative in their production. With this toy line, they incorrectly divined an enthusiasm for main cast figures (in their outfits from Star Trek: The Motion Picture) so villains like Chang were underproduced within the line. As a result, this Chang has actually appreciated! Seldom found for less than $10.00, Chang continues to grow in value as the years pass by.

Playmates tried to make the figures collectible. Each figure has an individual number on the bottom of his right foot. In the attempt to make them appear limited, they had numbers stamped on them, though one has to seriously wonder how limited something should be considered when there are at least 33,000 figures out there (my Chang is #032730!).

Overview

General Chang may be an obscure figure from a movie neglected in the merchandising, but Playmates Toys largely got the figure right, making it a decent addition to anyone's collection of Klingon toys!

For other Klingon toys, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Star Trek: Generations B’Etor
Playmates Klingon Bird Of Prey
Art Asylum Star Trek: Nemesis Commander Worf

6.5/10

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

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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DVD Extras Nudge An Otherwise Floundering Documentary Up: Lost In La Mancha

The Good: Interesting story, Decent amount of DVD extras, Good idea
The Bad: Even the DVD extras become repetitive, Documentary style is executed in a mediocre fashion
The Basics: A thin documentary, Lost In La Mancha stretches the collapse of a film into 90 minutes and is bailed out on DVD by the bonus disc.


For those unfamiliar with my many, many reviews, I am an avid movie buff, a fan of documentaries and a fan of the works of Terry Gilliam. Gilliam's masterpiece Brazil (reviewed here!) remains the reigning champion of American filmmaking in my pantheon and so when I learned of the collapse of his film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, I was instantly intrigued. Captured on film in the documentary, Lost In La Mancha, directors Keith Fulton and Louis Pepe chart the unmaking of a European film and possibly Gilliam's most public cinematic failure to date.

Clocking in barely over an hour and a half, Lost In La Mancha follows the preproduction for the Terry Gilliam film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote and it captures the six days of principle photography that occurred wherein the sets and props were destroyed by natural disasters and the film's star was plagued by a prostate infection that made him unable to perform. As the disasters converge, financiers for the film become agitated and bolt and Terry Gilliam and his crew are left in Spain with a few reels of developed film and nothing else.

The problem with Lost In La Mancha is that the back to the DVD pretty much defines exactly what the film is. It references the F-16s flying overhead to ruin the sound and the hail storm. Were it not for the problems faced by lead actor Jean Rochefort, the DVD box would give away all the documentary. The fundamental problem with Lost In La Mancha is that seeing the disasters occur adds little or nothing to the experience of learning about how the film The Man Who Killed Don Quixote failed to become.

It may seem spoiled to say that the documentary boils down to a two line water cooler discussion: "Hey Terry, I heard you were making The Man Who Killed Don Quixote and not it's not going to be made; what happened?" "Well, Keith, the sound was ruined by F-16s flying overhead while we were filming, the sets were ruined by a freak hailstorm which completely altered the landscape where we had already shot and our lead actor got a prostate infection that made all our European investors skittish and abandon the project." (Optional response: "Wow, that sucks.") This is the whole movie broken down into two lines. Seeing it adds little to the understanding of what plagued the production, especially after the third time the F-16s start flying about while Gilliam is shooting.

Honestly, I've discovered I prefer documentaries that are not simply a literal capturing of reality as it occurs. In a similar vein, I found I did not so much enjoy Shut Up And Sing (reviewed here!). I tend to enjoy documentaries that inform and convince the viewer of an argument, like Fahrenheit 9/11 (reviewed here!) or An Inconvenient Truth (reviewed here!). A documentary like Lost In La Mancha has to truly sparkle and shine to grab me and make me find value in it. The problem here is the story is not terribly compelling. A film, hamstrung by the beginning by a low budget is thrown into chaos when costly disasters and unforeseen events cripple it. Bummer, but it's not the end of the world. The novelty of watching a film disintegrate is just not there for me, especially when the root causes are so easy to describe and encapsulate as they are in this case.

What saves this disc from the trash heap (I'm so glad now I did not see it in the theaters, because I likely would have panned it and not given it a chance on DVD), is the second disc. After a mediocre documentary (I loathe the way it begins, for example, without a strong sense of purpose in a random scene), it took a lot of faith in Gilliam and Fulton and Pepe to get me to pop the second disc into the player. On the second disc there are additional interviews with Terry Gilliam, Johnny Depp (the biggest name star of the botched film), and the directors. The producers, script writers and prop departments find their voices as well and the treasure trove of additional interviews includes a great deal of material not in the prime documentary.

As well, the bonus disc includes deleted scenes - including two alternate openings to the documentary that are better than the actual opening to it, "soundbites" which repeat much of what is said elsewhere on the discs, and a trailer. The gems of disc are the two interviews with Terry Gilliam that are about an hour each in length. The first interview is with Salman Rushdie and he and Gilliam have an intriguing and insightful conversation on cinema in general and Gilliam's works in particular. The dialogue is frank and honest and refreshing. The other interview is an IFC Focus on Gilliam where the interviewer does a poor job of making the conversation interesting, but Gilliam bears with him through it.

For some inexplicable reason, this film is rated "R," perhaps for the profanities Gilliam screams as he watches the hailstorm and flood blow and wash away his sets and props, but it's disturbing that the MPAA feels it warrants such a harsh rating. For those worried about how appropriate it is for those under 18, I suggest it's more likely to bore those under 18 rather than shake up their sensibilities in any inappropriate way. After all, how many Gilliam (or documentary) fans are there truly who are under 18?!

And in the end, this is a rather esoteric niche that I'm even recommending this disc to. If you're a fan of Terry Gilliam's work, this is a DVD worth seeing (if you can rent it or watch it for free), but mostly just for the bonus features. Having watched the documentary twice now, I can honestly say it does not hold up over multiple viewings as anything special. Fans of cinema in general are likely to get all they need to know from the DVD box.

For other documentaries, please check out my reviews of:
Roger & Me
Why We Fight
This Film Is Not Yet Rated

5/10

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

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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12 Monkeys: Classic Science Fiction Psych Out!

The Good: Amazing acting, Good story, Interesting character work, Great DVD extras.
The Bad: Not as mind-bending as I would like (sort of).
The Basics: With 12 Monkeys, director Terry Gilliam presents a science fiction masterpiece or a psychological drama that knocks Bruce Willis through time on an unlikely quest to save humanity.


As I prepare to watch the latest cinematic endeavor from genius filmmaker Terry Gilliam, I found myself disconcerted to find I could not find my review of 12 Monkeys. So, I went to Google, typed in my name and 12 Monkeys and a list of my reviews came up . . . where I had referenced the film. As it turns out, I've not gotten around to reviewing one of my favorite films until now!

12 Monkeys is a science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam that I recall enthusiastically going to the theater to see. The thing about it, though, was that the woman I saw the film with and I disagreed so strenuously about the end that after a month of fighting back and forth about it, we simply vowed to never speak of the film again. As a result, she is one of my oldest friends and we almost never take in movies together, lest another film come between us in a similar fashion. The thing is, after holding out for years to wait until a DVD version of 12 Monkeys came out that had a commentary track and decent bonus features, watching those featurettes and hearing what the cast thought would be controversial about the move versus what my friend and I argued about fascinates me.

Decades after the vast majority of the worlds' population is wiped out by a biological plague, scientists who rule over the survivors offer a prisoner an opportunity to help change the world. Having developed the ability to send individuals back and forth in time, the scientists offer Cole - a condemned criminal - a chance to find the source of the virus that nearly wiped out mankind so they may study it and reclaim the surface of the Earth by developing a cure. Cole, then, is sent back in time where he arrives, naked, in the early 1990s. His attempts to prove he is who he claims to be wind him in an insane asylum where he meets Jeffrey Goines.

Escaping back to the future with only minimal clues, Cole begins to feel like a failure and is derided by the scientists who trusted him to carry out the mission. Sent back to the proper time - the mid-1990s - in the days before the viral outbreak, Cole begins to hunt down clues that might reveal where the virus originated. With the help of his psychiatrist, whom he has taken hostage, Cole sets out to save the world, make sense of his recurring dream, and differentiate between what is real and what is a delusion in his disoriented mind.

The wonderful thing about 12 Monkeys is that the entire film contains elements that simply do not work and that level of realism is something too frequently lacking from the Star Trek school of science fiction. Cole is sent back to the wrong time not just once, but twice, ending up in the middle of a battle during World War I where he and one of his cell mates reunite and Cole is actually shot! That the mechanics of time travel do not work precisely and malfunction, throwing Cole about works brilliantly and it keeps the viewer attuned because the process is not smooth for him.

Similarly, the hunt for the group that set off the plague is based on only the most vague clues, a symbol Cole found on the surface in Philadelphia in the future. He traces it back to the headquarters of the Army Of The Twelve Monkeys and as he desperately tries to investigate them, he discovers that he may be responsible for unleashing the plague based on comments he made to Jeffrey Goines while hospitalized with him!

Either way, despite the convoluted plot, Cole makes for a compelling antihero. Having been called crazy on his first trip back through time, he finds himself hunting down his psychiatrist, Dr. Kathryn Railly when he is sent to the proper time. Far from heroic, he abducts her, menacing her at almost every opportunity as he begins to legitimately unravel. Confused about what is real and what is not, Cole finds himself troubled because he knows events native to the time he is visiting as an adult because he recalls them from when he was a child. So, for example, the news is ablaze with the story of a child who has fallen down a well, but Cole knows - and tells Railly - that the boy will be found safe in days hiding in a nearby barn. As Cole begins to become disoriented from the time traveling and becomes susceptible to the idea that he is merely imagining the future he thinks he experienced, he becomes more violent.

When 12 Monkeys was first released in theaters, I remember reading an article about how deplorable the film was because of the violence against women in it. I am very sensitive to violence against women in films and in reality and I don't see that in this movie. Cole is hardly a misogynist; he is blindly violent to virtually everyone as his mental state degrades. Indeed, the most violent on-screen images all include Cole bloodying up men.

So, Cole is no saint. Not by a long shot. He makes for a wonderful antihero as he struggles to understand what is happening to him and what is real. Bruce Willis portrays Cole and he is a natural as a protagonist who is an everyman. Indeed, it is hard to believe that Willis' portrayal of Cole did not influence M. Night Shyamalan when he cast Willis in Unbreakable (reviewed here!). Willis's acting genius is illustrated in the way that he plays two characters where extraordinary circumstances thrust them into roles well outside what a normal person could be expected to cope with and he makes both of them distinct, different and wonderful. With Cole, Willis has the opportunity to explore a character who may be mentally ill and he makes Cole empathetic in small moments when it is clear Cole is tormented by the uncertainty. Willis screws up his face and emotes - or simply stares and drools when appropriate - beautifully making Cole distinctive and different.

12 Monkeys has a mature cast and it managed to attract actors like Frank Gorshin and Christopher Plummer to roles that are essentially cameos or minor supporting roles. Yet, both Gorshin - as Railly's supervisor - and Plummer as Dr. Goines, Jeffrey's father, make the most out of their bit roles. Madeleine Stowe plays Railly and she has the tough task of playing yet another strong woman who is also a damsel in distress, much like she did in The Last Of The Mohicans. Stowe pulls it off well by playing Railly as angry and a victim who refuses to be victimized. She makes Railly a woman of reason and passion and the slow transformation from skeptical doctor to sympathetic co-conspirator is made realistic under Stowe's acting guidance.

But this film is the work Brad Pitt was made for. Those who say his role in Fight Club (reviewed here!) made him need to rewatch this and consider that it preceded Pitt's bloody opus. Pitt plays Goines and he is flat-out crazy. As part of the DVD bonus features, viewers are treated to behind-the-scenes footage of Pitt being coached by a psychologist on how to act after Pitt had observed some genuine institutionalized schizophrenics. The result is that Pitt turns in a performance that is energetic, enthusiastic, disturbing and . . . well, crazy. And he maintains it every single frame of the film that he is in. So unlike anything else he's played, this becomes the marker for Pitt's range that he has, arguably, never surpassed.

On DVD, 12 Monkeys looks great and the one-disc special edition is loaded with as many bonus features as a single disc may handle. In addition to full-length commentary by Gilliam and his producer, the disc contains the original short French film that 12 Monkeys was based upon (La Jette) and "based" is used very loosely. There is a whole documentary on the making of 12 Monkeys and all that Gilliam went through. He wanted to document everything given that the last time he worked for Universal, a decade prior with Brazil, (reviewed here!) he ended up in the epic fight between artist and industry. As well, there is the theatrical trailer and a collection of still images of production notes. In all, this makes excellent use of the DVD medium and will enhance the experience for anyone who loves 12 Monkeys!

And if you haven't seen it, who would enjoy it? Certainly anyone who likes the works of Terry Gilliam. This is classic Terry Gilliam, even though he had no hand in the writing of it. In terms of directoral style, vision and even prop selection - Gilliam's movies tend to have a rather "assembled" look to the props, things are not neatly mass produced in his futures - this is very much a Terry Gilliam film. Anyone who likes science fiction will enjoy 12 Monkeys. As well, anyone who likes a good psychological thriller will find merit in this film. The conflict between reality and dementia is well-related in this film, making it accessible to those who are more drama-oriented as opposed to science fiction oriented.

But it requires a stomach and patience. And it pays off when it reaches its resolution. It pays off in a way that will make viewers want to rewatch it again and again, making it pretty much a must-own DVD!

For other works featuring Bruce Willis, please be sure to check out:
Friends - Season 6
The Story Of Us
The Verdict

8.5/10

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

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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It's Not Going To Start A Stampede Toward Dickens, But Nicholas Nickleby Is All Right.

The Good: Decent acting, Interesting engaging characters
The Bad: Very obvious Dickens story, Nothing incredible in the DVD bonus features
The Basics: A good movie set in Industrial England, even if it uses pretty much every Dickens conceit, Nicholas Nickleby is well acted and entertaining at its worst.


I have no problem in admitting when an actor or actress has gotten my attention and I have decided to focus on their works. It happens about once a year; I see a movie where a performance surprises me and I pick up a stack of DVDs that feature the performer in them. Right now, I'm actually bombarding my local library with interlibrary loan requests for two actresses: Ellen Page and Anne Hathaway. I vaguely remember when Anne Hathaway was the breakout performer on an insipid show on Fox (was it Get Real?), but I think at the time I saw one commercial that featured her and wrote her off as another Hollywood-beautiful teenager who was likely to burn out, blow up or otherwise disappoint. Well, I have been known to be wrong before.

Seeing Anne Hathaway in Get Smart (reviewed here!), I was astonished by her ability to act and she played off Steve Carell expertly. She compelled me to give her career and performances a second look (by actually giving her body of work a first look). I started that search with The Devil Wears Prada, which I in no way regret seeing, but did not thoroughly enjoy. So, when Nicholas Nickleby came in on DVD, I rushed out and gave it a spin. And Anne Hathaway is in it - in the last half or third - but largely, this is a Dickens movie and not an Anne Hathaway vehicle. That said, it is what it is and it is fine for that.

My usual disclaimer applies: this is a review of the 2002 film of Nicholas Nickleby, not the Charles Dickens novel upon which it is based. I have not read that particular Dickens novel and as a result, anything that explains deficiencies in the movie that might be explained in the book, I do not apply.

Nicholas Nickleby is born to Mr. and Mrs. Nickleby and he grows up under his father, who is part of the emerging lower middle class in 19th Century England. When Mr. Nickleby has enough money, he speculates - emulating his fabulously wealthy brother, Ralph - and the prospect is a complete bust. So, Mr. Nickleby dies, leaving his wife, Nicholas and his daughter Kate as paupers. Nicholas sets the women up with Ralph and sets out to earn his keep in the world.

While Nicholas journeys to a school with an abusive family, the Squeers, Kate is left in the company of Ralph, whose friends leer at her and attempt to rape her. Nicholas rebels against Wackford and Mrs. Squeers, freeing the much-abused Smike from their "care." He then heads out to join an acting troupe and finds himself in more trouble when Kate requests he come home to save her. His return has dramatic consequences for Smike, Ralph and himself, leading to the revelation of many family secrets that have long been buried.

Okay, Nicholas Nickleby is pretty much your standard Charles Dickens plot: there are poor people, there is an inheritance, there is a person who could die and who he might leave everything to is up in the air, there are orphans whose parents may yet be alive and there is a heroic young man who falls in a sort of bland, predictable version of love. I'm not saying that if you've seen one movie based on a Charles Dickens novel, you've seen them all, but just as 18th Century British literature involving female protagonists tends to follow a dreadfully predictable formula, so too are Dickens' stories often made up of similar elements to one another.

As such, Nicholas Nickleby tells a story that generally focuses on Nicholas, but has him wander from one metaphor to another to allow for observations on the 19th Century to be made through Dickens' satirical lens. As a result, characters like Wackford Squeers is not so much a character but rather an archetype of the abusive schoolmaster of the time; greedy and henpecked. In Nicholas Nickleby he is a literal cyclops and one imagines that his lost eye came from some form of abuse much like what he inflicts upon his young charges. Similarly, when Nicholas encounters the Crummles and their roving troupe of actors, Vincent Crummles (played wonderfully by Nathan Lane) is not so much a character with distinctive traits as a wandering commentary on the state of theater in Britain at the time.

In fact, one of the few characters who actually seems like a character - an irony given his rather standard traits almost universal to Dickens' stories - is Ralph Nickleby. Ralph is essentially a Scrooge (another Dickens character!) and in this incarnation of Nicholas Nickleby, he is played by Christopher Plummer. Plummer may almost seem like an obvious choice for such a role, but he fits this cast perfectly as he brings a gravitas and serious quality to the role that counterbalances Nathan Lane's just-on-the-right-side of over-the-top performance (despite the two not sharing any scenes). Plummer has the ability to emote with his eyes with the most subtle downturn of his head to indicate his character is deep in thought. Throughout Nicholas Nickleby, it is Plummer who engages the audience and shows the viewer what his character is going through, as opposed to telling.

Sadly, though, this is very much a Dickens story and as a result, the movie builds and builds toward a very simple and direct reveal, wherein all of the "clues" to the backstory around Nicholas, Smike, Kate and Ralph are told to the audience. I'm not so thrilled by long scenes of exposition, but it being Dickens, that's what you get. Douglas McGrath, who adapted the book for the screen and directed the film seems unwilling to go against that formula and we forgive him that because he makes the movie look as good as it does.

Indeed, for a movie about Industrial Era England, this film looks surprisingly good. The pacing is set fast enough so it never seems like it is plodding along and McGrath manages to provide the viewer with the vague sense that the movie is actually going somewhere. While it might not be anywhere particularly surprising, the film IS going somewhere and it is not a bad story.

And hey, it does have Anne Hathaway, who turns up as a love interest for Nicholas. She pops in and does her thing quite well, though the role is essentially a supporting part.

This leaves me with praises to heap upon Charlie Hunnam. Hunnam plays Nicholas and is thus given the bulk of the work to do in the movie. On the DVD bonus features, he appears an unshaved, Bohemian looking guy when in the film he could be the natural heir to the niche occupied by Brad Pitt. Seriously; seeing him in the bonus features it surprised and terrified me because he was virtually everything that Nicholas is not (down to mumbling his way through the interviews on the bonus features when his character is soft-spoken, but articulate). But this might well be the best possible argument for the quality of his acting. He is thoroughly convincing as Nicholas and we never once suspect that he might be something other than a quiet man who is keeping his inner violence at bay. He is truly impressive in the role.

On DVD, Nicholas Nickleby appears with an interview on the cast, talking about how it was to work with one another. As well, there is a commentary track by writer-director McGrath, the theatrical trailer and a featurette on adapting the book into a movie. They are pretty much the typical bonuses for this style of movie and they work fine for giving viewers who like the movie a little extra.

Nicholas Nickleby is not going to start a revolution in cinema, but it's an adequate and entertaining movie that tells an engaging enough story to watch, if not purchase for one's permanent collection.

For works featuring Anne Hathaway, please check out my reviews of:
Anne Hathaway For Wonder Woman!
One Day
Love And Other Drugs
Family Guy Presents: It's A Trap!
Alice In Wonderland
Valentine's Day
Twelfth Night Soundtrack
Bride Wars
Rachel Getting Married
Passengers
The Devil Wears Prada
Hoodwinked!
Brokeback Mountain
The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement
Ella Enchanted
The Princess Diaries

7/10

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

© 2011, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Sound Of Music Is A Musical Anyone May Enjoy (Even Those Who Don't Like Musicals)!

The Good: Nice scenery, Funny, Good character development
The Bad: Direction, Somewhat predictable.
The Basics: A worthwhile Best Picture winner, The Sound Of Music tells a timeless tale of love, music and Nazi occupation set to a wonderful score.


It is amazing that for all of the movies I have watched, there are astonishing gaps in my cinematic education. As I sat down to watch The Sound Of Music for the first time - a somewhat astonishing feat given how many parodies I have seen and understood of the film - I realized two things. The first was that the film's director, Robert Wise, was best known to me for his film Star Trek: The Motion Picture (reviewed here!) and the second realization I had was that I've not seen Julie Andrews in anything save The Princess Diaries (reviewed here!). Yet, I approached The Sound Of Music with a fairly level temperament and few expectations.

Thus, it was a true delight to discover how much I came to enjoy The Sound Of Music. In terms of storytelling and character development, The Sound Of Music is remarkably tight and well-developed. Amidst the instantly-recognizable songs, the story develops as a fairy tale of sorts set in the 1930s as the Germans exert more influence over Austria. In addition to a very classic sense of storytelling - man falls for woman, villain pops up to challenge the lifestyle of the heroes - The Sound Of Music features an optimistic view of the world amidst changing times when innocence was hard to come by. The Sound Of Music is almost deceptive in its apparent simplicity and the true complexity of it only comes out in the later half . . . when the wartime story intrudes upon the love story.

Maria is a nun who has a musical obsession and a true delight in life. However, this leads her to be somewhat reckless and not truly fit in with the other nuns. She is given leave from the abbey to become the governess for the Von Trap family in Salzburg, Austria. There, she discovers five girls and two boys who need her guidance in the wake of their mother's death. The children of a sea captain, the children have lived a rigid life without his attention or affection. After gently chiding them for playing a prank on her, Maria begins to bond with the children by refusing to treat them like animals. Despite their various ages and needs, Maria makes the children feel loved by paying attention to them and offering them opportunities outside the rigid structure their father, including making them clothes from the curtains when the Captain refuses to get her fabric.

As the Captain and the Baronness work on their relationship, the Baronness becomes catty and eliminates Maria's position in the house when she suspects the Captain may have feelings for Maria. Maria leaves the household, but soon returns when the children are inconsolable without her. Soon after, the Nazis move in on Austria and the Von Trapp family is put into real peril.

The Sound Of Music is delightfully colorful and energetic, with wonderful color contrasts for the scenery that instantly transport the viewer to an enchanting world where it seems perfectly natural that the characters would break into song at any moment. And yet, the movie does not live in denial of the music that the characters break into. Captain Von Trap is characterized as a man so broken by the loss of his wife that he has lost music and the house has fallen quiet as a result. Maria, then, is the ideal character to come and rejuvenate the household and she fills exactly that role.

Despite the sense of simplicity that much of the film has, the characters actually develop and there is a decent sense of tension, especially at the climactic moments. Despite using young actors (and actresses), the acting is homogeneously wonderful, despite the unreality of characters breaking into song at a moment's notice. While the movie focuses on Maria and the Captain, characters like Lisle and her German boyfriend have integral roles and the relatively minor character of Ralph ends up having an important role.

What are more disappointing are the stylistic problems with the film. The realistic lighting in the dance number that puts Lisle and Ralph in the gazebo is problematic. It is not until it is lit with lightning occasionally that the scene is easy or enjoyable to watch. Instead, director Robert Wise trades realism - which leaves characters' faces obscured - for style and the comfort of the viewer. Similarly, during the classic song "Doe A Deer," the viewer is treated to the backs of all of the kid's heads to focus on Maria. Despite the beautiful backdrop, the movie has stretches where it is awkward to watch because of how Wise frames or lights the film. This is worse than the usual conceits of inorganic movement that comes with making characters dance in musicals. The movie has that, too (the children rocking back and forth on their knees in "Doe A Deer" comes instantly to mind), but the basic filming problems are worse in The Sound Of Music than the musical conceits.

On DVD, elements like obvious bluescreen shots are accented. Ironically, in cleaning up the print for DVD, shots like the background when the Captain is driving the Baroness back to his property look terrible.

Even the Captain has a decent character to him. He has moments when he is actually wit, like when he excuses himself from the company of Max and the Baroness and urges Max to step out of character and be charming. Despite his rigidity, the Captain has a sense of irony to him which is both refreshing and real. He is hardly monolithic and while he is stern, he clearly loves his children, he just does not know how to manage them (I suspect if I had ever been saddled with children, I would have ended up treating them like the Captain treats his . . . well, maybe without the whistle).

On DVD, the bonus features are surprisingly sparse. There is an audio commentary track and the option to play the film with the isolated score (without dialogue). This is remarkably lackluster DVD bonus features for such an acknowledged great film. No doubt as the film becomes re-released on Blu-Ray there shall be more robust DVD bonus features.

Unsuspecting as I was that I could enjoy The Sound Of Music, this becomes one of the few musicals I would ever want to see again (and not just for the flirtatious rendition of "Sixteen Going On Seventeen"). The movie is fun and a worthy addition to the cultural collective unconscious that great films have created.

[As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this film is part of W.L.'s Best Picture Project, here! Please check it out!]

For other musicals, please check out my reviews of:
Repo! The Genetic Opera
The Runaways
Corpse Bride

9/10

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

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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A Visual Marvel, 9 Is Not Just A Kid's Movie, It's Wonderful, Classic-feeling Science Fiction!

Pros: Animation, Pacing, Story
Cons: Somewhat repetitive, Light on character
The Bottom Line: Clever and often harrowing, 9 presents a dismal world where the last remnants of civilization (sentient sock puppets) fight for survival against killer machines!


I had hoped to get to New York City for the advanced screening of 9 I had tickets to, but money being what it, my wife and I opted not to drive a couple hundred miles just to see it. Instead, after a particularly rough day at work for her, I treated her to the rather short movie at a local theater where she could be comfortable and we could still afford one of her Big Blue drinks she grew to love over the summer.

9 is an animated film and given recent obsessions with making 3-D movies, it is a surprise that this was not this week's big 3-D adventure. With an animation quality that exceeds that of Coraline, I imagine much of the film would have been absolutely amazing in three-D. Even so, the film is a visual marvel and it is easy to watch and get carried away in the almost constant action, unraveling the mystery the beings of 9 find themselves immersed in. I use the word "beings" because the primary characters of the film are animated (literally for our world and in its secondary context for the in-film sensibility) constructs, essentially dolls that have been imbued with consciousness. Each puppet has a number on its back and 9 follows, appropriately enough, the journey of the ninth construct.

9 awakens to an empty city, frightened and alone. He soon encounters 2, though, a constructed sackcloth puppet with the ability to speak, an appreciation for 9's body and workmanship, and an interest in keeping 9 safe. He provides 9 with a component to allow the frightened young puppet to speak and they set off together. Almost instantly, though, they are ambushed and 2 - and a component he removed from 9 - is carried off by a mechanized dog. Terrified, 9 collapses and awakens in the company of 1 (a leader), 5 (a meek friend who has lost an eye), 6 (a somewhat crazy scientist), and 8 (a thug enforcing 1's will). 9 is eager to find and recover 2, but 1 forbids him.

9 finds a kindred spirit in 5 and together they set off to try to rescue 2. They find 2 and the evil mechanized dog, which is dispatched by 7, a warrior 1 had already written off for dead. Unfortunately, in the process of rescuing 2, 9 unleashes a great evil and 2,7, and 9 meet up with the remaining two (3 and 4 are mute scholars studying the world and what happened to it). As 1 tries to retain control of the community, 7 attempts to keep her peers alive and 9 tries to figure out how to stop the new monstrosity, it becomes clear that all of the creatures are imperiled and none might survive!

9 is not, truly, a kid's movie. It is fast-paced and violent for most of the film with the characters running fast or dying graphically. Given how quickly there is a casualty in the film, it ruins nothing to reveal that there are characters who are killed and it happens graphically on screen and little children are likely to be freaked out. My wife (not a child) squeezed my hand when there were several quick reversals as characters found themselves at the mercy of the mechanized spider-like claws of the film's primary villain. And while I was never scared when she asked me if I was, I felt concern for the film's protagonist; given how quickly 2 is dispatched (and how horribly) there is a very real sense throughout the entire film that any character's number could be up.

To that end, 9 has a very simple plot. This is a classic science fiction premise where machines and man have done battle and the Earth has been left a wasteland. While the film is touted for having Tim Burton as its executive producer, co-writer and director Shane Acker presents a film that has more of an adult sense of darkness and depth to it. As a result, producer Timur Bekmambetov's Nightwatch and Daywatch are more apt comparisons. Though Acker is not as outlandish as that director, he creates a creative piece that is intense and viewers care about the peril the characters are put in.

However, much of the film is pretty predictable. 9 is at fault, 9 is on a quest for redemption and he goes through the pretty obvious steps of figuring out how to make right what he has done. In this sense, this is a very simple fantasy story with a predictable hero arc. Fortunately, 9 does not have all of the answers or even all of the tools at his disposal to figure out what to do. For that, he relies on some of the others. 7 is a traditional action hero (almost a ninja) who has the physical speed and strength to stop mechanized baddies the team encounters, as well as some training to apply her strengths. Similarly, 3 and 4 are wonderfully efficient at finding the information that the others need to figure out what has happened to the world and how best to survive.

1, voiced by Christopher Plummer, is an archetypal fearful leader whose conservative approach is making those he tries to protect afraid and dead more often than not. While 9 might have unleashed a great evil into the world, 1's "run away" policy is not making anything better. Plummer lends a dignity and power to the role through the strength of his voice acting. He is a professional who has done this sort of thing before and he has a wonderful vocal presence that emotes well beyond the animation.

John C. Reilly (5) and Jennifer Connelly (7) do good work as well, but they tend to have supporting roles. Reilly has a chance to deliver a comedic line that is very much in his sensibility for timing and delivery and he makes it work as 5. Connelly seems to relish voicing an action hero and she delivers the few lines her character is given well. Elijah Wood, however, is called upon to carry most of the movie as the film's title character. Wood is able to convey emotions well, especially the sense of sorrow for what happens to 2 as well as the sense of determination to stop the big machine that is pillaging the ruins, but his character is somewhat monolithic. From the outset, 9 is trying to figure things out and rebelling against stagnation. He wants to charge into the fire; rescue 2 and stop the machine. So 9 does not have a lot of range for Wood to play with.

9 is entertaining and it is dark and well-animated. The idea is clever and the film's departure from ongoing action sequences for a history lesson to explain the origins of the characters as well as the state of the burned-out world are well-presented and well-timed. Viewers are not likely to get tired of the characters or the action as a result of the effective blend of the two. But this seventy-nine minute movie (disgustingly short for the price of a movie ticket!) is largely about spectacle and it delivers on that front. This is a distinctive animated world and it is one that it is easy to get lost in, even if for such a short time.

For other post-apocalyptic visions or invasion movies, please check out my reviews of:
Doomsday
Cloverfield
Zombieland

7/10

For other movie reviews, please click here to visit my index page!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Derivative Post-Vietnam Themed Work Insures A Slow Weekend At The Box Office: Priest

The Good: General story points, Actors do what they can with limited roles, General special effects.
The Bad: 3-D effects add little, Plot is derivative, No real character development, Pacing issues.
The Basics: When it is not incredibly boring, Priest is pretty typical post-apocalyptic vampire filmmaking.


One thing I love about Summer Blockbuster Season is that it certainly encourages me to go out to the theater! I've been a little lax in this regard of late, though I did get to Thor (reviewed here!) its opening weekend. I also managed to get into an early screening of Priest in 3-D and now I find myself wishing I had more to write about in regard to it. Priest is short, but is paced excruciatingly slowly, so it feels much longer than it actually is. It is more average than bad and it is clearly sanitized to get its PG-13 rating. Priest is the highlight of mediocrity and one suspects that it will not break Thor's hold on the top spot and will not likely beat Bridesmaids for the opening weekend, either.

It is worth mentioning that I went into Priest blind. I had seen a single preview several months ago and I'd not seen anything since. I have not read the graphic novel upon which the film is based, but one suspects that it followed the book fairly closely. I make this assumption because having read a number of graphic novels of late, I have become attuned to some of the conceits of the genre. I felt, watching Priest I could see the different chapters of the book (different issues of the initial comic book release), as the protagonist went from his city, encountered a Hive Guardian and ultimately faced off with the Big Bad. Priest follows a very predictable formula, but whether that is because of the source material or in spite of it, I am not an authority to write about.

From the dawn of time, there has been a war between the humans and the vampires. As the vampires looked like they might succeed in wiping mankind out, the Church developed the tools needed to thwart the vampires. There rose a class of warriors trained in the fighting style of the vampires and the priests turned the tide of the last great vampire war. At the end of that conflict, the humans took to fortress cities run by the Church which offer the appearance of absolute protection and the vampires were segregated to subterranean reservations where they were no longer a threat to men. And the priests became disenfranchised citizens looking for work in the cities, qualified only for the lowest, entry-level jobs.

But the peace between the vampires and the Church is broken when Lucy Pace is abducted by a particularly cunning vampire warrior. Lucy is the girlfriend of Hicks, a sheriff from the wastelands around Sector 10. Hicks journeys to Cathedral City to enlist the aid of Priest, who tries to get permission to leave Cathedral City to save his brother's family. The Church, in denial of the continuing vampire problem, refuses to grant him leave, so the Priest goes anyway. In defiance of the Church, on the outskirts of human civilization, Priest and Hicks search for Lucy while they are hunted by other priests sent to stop them. But their enemy, Black Hat, is more cunning and more powerful than any could have guessed and the bad situation grows worse in a hurry.

Priest reminded me most of the recent film Daybreakers and the work has a gloomy, oppressive feel to it that never lets up. When the vampires are not the immediate threat, humanity itself acts as an adversary, making one wonder what Priest is actually fighting for. Those who like nihilistic, post-apocalyptic scenarios will have something to cheer in Priest, but for those hoping for something deeper, this popcorn film is remarkably unsatisfying.

So, what actually works? First, there is a whole, powerful, analogy in Priest to veterans, with strong allusions to post-Vietnam handling of U.S. military personnel. The priests are disenfranchised in the same way as the soldiers who served their country and as the Iraq and Afghanistan wars come to a close, Priest illustrates some good, cautionary messages about how to treat those who have done so much for us. Unfortunately, while it raises the points, it offers no real solutions either for our society or our disenfranchised soldiers. Instead, Priest only paints a picture that the soldier's work is never done and that the war never ends. Not exactly stirring optimism.

Second, the acting is all right. I write "all right" because the principles are not given very much to work with. Paul Bettany and Karl Urban are great in the minimalist roles of Priest and Black Hat, respectively. Both roles are not exactly ripe with character growth, but for the most part, they make their characters viable in a way that reminds one of great Western actors, like Clint Eastwood or James Coburn. Urban, especially, deserves a lot of credit for his performance in that it wasn't until the final credits rolled that I had any idea who the actor was. Cam Gigadent, who plays Hicks is fine and Lily Collins makes for a decent damsel in distress as Lucy.

Finally, the effects are all right. The vampire design is pretty cool and it is explained in the film. But what doesn't work are the 3-D effects. Those hoping for a visual marvel like Tron: Legacy (reviewed here!) will be utterly disappointing. In some places, the 3-D effect is simply a digital setting model with ash falling in the foreground as the effect. At least, I assume it was supposed to be ash; the screen was very dark in many points, making the image utterly unclear.

Thematically, Priest is a jumble as well. If it is intended to be satirical, it flops as the characters clearly exist in a world of fate. Sure, the Church may be corrupt or blind, but the warriors are the pure of faith and they use instruments with such obvious Christian iconography as to feel like a science fiction-horror attempt from the Religious Right. Slogans like "To go against the Church is to go against God" are repeated frequently as an obvious means of controlling the city-based populations, but Priest is just balanced enough to illustrate that the Church cares about humanity's fate.

This makes Black Hat an entirely ridiculous villain in some ways. As the first of his kind, he could be an avatar of change, but he sinks to a pretty ridiculous archetype. Moreover, Priest sets up a sequel with so little going for it that one has to wonder why the writers and director Scott Stewart bothered. In the end, Priest is more boring than thrilling and more gross than either scary or gory. Sanitized to get its PG-13, most of the most horrific moments are merely implied and when the film fails to be ballsy - in addition to having monolithic characters - it flops.

For other films with vampires, please check out my reviews of:
Let The Right One In
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Blade: Trinity

4.5/10

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

© 2011 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Up: A Good Movie I'm In No Hurry To Ever See Again.

The Good: Emotional resonance, Opening, General animation
The Bad: 3-D effects are entirely underwhelming, Entirely predictable
The Basics: Fairly depressing, Up has a good protagonist and tugs the heartstrings, but is not at all worth seeing in 3-D!


Two summers ago, as Summer Blockbuster Season heated up, I was one of the few (only at the time, actually) to enthusiastically pan the boring, predictable and utterly disappointing WALL-E, which was Disney/Pixar's big outing that year. I enjoyed that film up until the first appearance of people, which took the movie on the fast track to Crapville. So, to say I was at all excited about seeing Up, last year's Disney/Pixar attempt to recapture animation magic in the summer, when my wife said she wanted to see it would be an outright lie. I was mortified to be giving Disney eleven bucks for each of us to see this movie in 3-D; the special effects for the three-dimensional effects are entirely underwhelming. In fact, my wife, who ooh'ed and ahh'ed over that year's Monsters Vs. Aliens when we saw that in 3-D barely gasped once from the effects in Up.

That said, Up is vastly better than I predicted - though I did call it quite accurately as yet another movie where the big character journey was getting the cranky old man to hug the supposedly-cute little boy - and has some real moments of emotional impact, especially for anyone who has ever lost a loved one. But in this way, Pixar continues its tradition of starting the film amazingly, then drifting off. In this case, Up is an erratic character journey that has truly adult levels of emotional pathos in its protagonist in the opening sequence, devolves into a buddy action comedy and ends up as a pretty predictable story that even children are unlikely to be surprised by. And if the damned thing hadn't made me cry a couple of times, I'd be able to pan it as being terribly unoriginal and dull. As it is, Up is a good film, but it is far sadder than most animated films and it carries those emotional moments remarkably well. Where most Pixar films include a bevy of adult jokes to keep the adults stuck with children seeing their moves mildly entertained, Up keeps adults engaged by illustrating with stark realism loss and the effects of life on the plans we make.

Carl Frederickson and Ellie are childhood sweethearts whose relationship is based on a common interest in the adventures of explorer Charles Muntz. Ellie dreams of going to South America, to Paradise Falls and she and Carl grow up together. They marry, buy a house, and begin working together at the Zoo, with Carl selling balloons and Ellie working with the animals. They save money to go to Paradise Falls, but broken roofs, busted tires, and accidents force the pair to use that money for other things life throws at them. When Ellie is unable to have children, they look to Paradise Falls again for their dreams, but life puts that plan on the back shelf until Carl is a widower living alone in their house with developers building skyscrapers around him. He is visited by Russell, a Wilderness Explorer, who wants to earn his Assisting The Elderly badge to advance, whom he sends on a snipe hunt the night before he is to be sent to a retirement home.

Carl has a plan of his own, though, and when the nursing home workers come, he releases the anchors on thousands of helium balloons he has inflated and connected to his house. The house lifts off and on his journey away from civilization; he discovers that Russell has tagged along. Carl awakens with the house and Russell just a canyon away from Paradise Falls and he and the boy begin lugging the house to its intended resting point. On the way, they encounter an actual snipe and a dog outfitted with a collar that allows him to talk (Dug). Dug, though, is not alone; he is part of a team of dogs sent out by an aged Muntz, who is hunting the snipe for his collection. Carl, Russell and Dug must team up to save the snipe from Muntz and his dogs while protecting Carl's floating house.

Up is a film preoccupied with missed opportunities and it is genuinely sad. Writers and directors Pete Docter and Bob Peterson (who voices Dug, despite sounding like Seth Rogen) manage to pull on the viewer's heartstrings quite effectively by continually bringing back a book of adventures Ellie started as a little girl and illustrating the intended resting place of the house. For anyone who ever had dreams to have adventures with someone who died, the opening sequence is a tear jerker, as is the final shot of Paradise Falls in the movie.

That said, the effects are underwhelming in 3-D and for those thinking of seeing it that way, save your money; there are very few shots that are visually complicated enough to justify the additional expense of the three-d ticket. As well, the Pixar artists cheat on this one in ways that only a child would not be annoyed by. The best example is in the initial liftoff sequence. Russell is nowhere to be found. While he claims he was under the porch, he is not visible there, nor is he on the porch as the house sails off. As well, Pixar has some pointless sequences that seem like they work better for the trailer than the actual film, like Carl descending the stairs on an electric chair system, which is a protracted scene of Carl sitting and his chair going slowly from top right to bottom left of the screen.

What the movie has going for it - outside a very Disney sense of schmaltzy "heart" - is a character who is more likable than I anticipated. Carl makes the movie - in fact, I loathed Russell for his canned sense of childish selfishness used to motivate Carl at turning points in the movie - and he is an interesting and viable character. Having lost his wife, he is a reasonable hermit and he is quite well-conceived. When Carl finds the Spirit Of Adventure, he becomes the boy in the movie and that is refreshing and fun. Moreover, he is not a curmudgeon the whole movie; the opening sequence makes him emotionally realized and funloving in a way that viewers instantly empathize with him.

The animation is good, though it is somewhat limited by Pixar's obsession with one style of person for their human models. Still, they pull off a few cute moments like the way the clouds Carl and Ellie look at all turn into babies. They also pull off a wonderful sense of tension in chase sequences, though the movie is entirely family friendly with dogs all clearly surviving huge falls and explosions. There is enough movement to keep little children entertained and enough depth to keep adults from being miserable through the movie, save that the themes of the movie are often about loss and missed opportunities, which are more likely to depress adults.

But the character arcs are predictable, especially as more information is given about Russell. Abandoned by his father, he looks to Carl as a fatherfigure and Carl's journey is to rise to that. The character arcs here are entirely predictable. The dialogue is generally good and the writers get some real laughs from all of the dialogue given to the dogs. I think, though, the only other time I laughed in the movie was when a frog mimics an alarm clock in South America.

And that is why Up won't have the leg some seem to be predicting for it. This is a largely depressing movie and it is thematically more heavy than its title suggests. Sure, there is movement and energy, but largely it is about a man giving up the dreams he can no longer live with the person he wanted to and making new adventures with those he suddenly finds himself with. It IS better than I thought it would be, but it is not one children are likely to get excited about returning to over and over again and adults who have lived through enough death will want something more uplifting than this.

For other Disney works, please check out my reviews of:
Tangled
Oceans
Toy Story 3

5/10

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

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


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Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, A Last Hurrah That Works More Than Just Metaphorically!

The Good: Good plot, Nice message, Decent acting, Most character work
The Bad: Returned scenes garble everything, Spock's character
The Basic: Despite some serious character and plot flaws, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country remains a solid film that illustrates a diplomatic process that meets with resistance.


"All good things must come to an end," goes the old saying and as the actors portraying the primary cast of the classic 60's science fiction show Star Trek aged and decided they were done with their occasional outings into the final frontier, they closed the series with Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Not ones to go out on a low note, the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701-A is charged with essentially creating universal peace and making the 25th Anniversary of Star Trek an event.

When the Klingon moon Praxis explodes, the Klingon homeworld's environment and power supply is crushed. Unprepared for the magnitude of the environmental disaster, the Klingons turn toward their old enemies, the Federation for help. Captain James T. Kirk and the U.S.S. Enterprise head to a rendezvous with the Klingon flagship that ends with an unfortunate incident wherein the Enterprise apparently fires on the Klingon ship and StarFleet officers beam aboard and kill the Klingon Chancellor.

As Kirk and McCoy are tried and convicted by the Klingons for failing to save the life of Chancellor Gorkon, a new Chancellor is named. Spock works to find the evidence to exonerate his friends before they are killed on an icy prison planet and in the process, he uncovers a plot that strikes at the heart of all he believes in.

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is one of those movies that comes in with a bang - the explosion of Praxis is quite impressive - and manages to go out with one as well. This is the end of an era, the cinematic adventures of Captain Kirk and his crew, and by the way the crew is split up, the viewer feels that. To wit, Captain Sulu is in command of the U.S.S. Excelsior and while he is invaluable to the film, actor George Takei is virtually relegated to a cameo role as a result.

The Undiscovered Country is hailed by many as the best of the Star Trek film franchise and while it is a wonderful film, three things keep the movie from rising to the level of greatness that was achieved by Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (click here for my review of that!) and Star Trek III: The Search For Spock (click here for that review! ), especially when those two are viewed together as one longer movie. The three things that keep The Undiscovered Country from being even remotely considered perfects are: the bastardization of the idea of the Federation and StarFleet for plot points, Spock's actions near the climax of the film, and the sloppiness of the writing as far as basic details go.

On the two-disc special edition DVD of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the director's cut of the film is presented, which simply reinserts a subplot into the movie that involves a rescue attempt for Kirk and McCoy by high command figures in StarFleet. Recutting the Colonel in with his essentially racist (against Klingons) viewpoints and remarks cheapens what Star Trek stands for.

I've vigorously argued that Gene Roddenberry's vision of Star Trek was not truly achieved until Star Trek: The Next Generation. Yet, in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the supplemental characters are all motivated by conservative ambitions to keep a cold war mentality going and they are almost universally prejudiced, barbaric and, well, dumb. In short, Roddenberry's vision is of a humanity that is not motivated by greed, war or prejudice and yet in The Undiscovered Country, the highest levels of StarFleet are filled with people who are only avaricious, barbaric and bigoted. It's insulting to anyone who has watched Star Trek and bought into concepts like Infinite Diversity through Infinite Combinations. It's a cheap way to flesh out the plot at the expense of the greater themes Star Trek had stood for for a long time before.

Moreover, the viewer is asked to believe that high level conspirators within StarFleet, the Klingon and Romulan Empires are working together to . . . prevent the major powers from working together. Wrap your head around that.

Even more troubling is what happens with Spock near the climax of the film (I'm writing around a lot of details here to prevent any "surprises" from being leaked!). On the bridge of the Enterprise, Spock roughly grabs a fellow officer and performs a Vulcan mind meld. The person resists and Spock pushes. In essence, the audience watches Spock rape another character and the scene is disturbing, treated as uncontroversial and guts the pacifistic, rational character that fans have loved for the twenty-five years before this film was made. The scene is violent and more than anything else in the movie is why the film ought to have been rated PG-13 (it escaped with a PG and for those who do not follow my reviews, I seldom bother even noticing ratings from the MPAA). Strange, considering Leonard Nimoy was intimately involved with the creation of the story, that the writers would so incredibly botch the character of Spock.

While the other two elements might only be appreciated by fans, the final problem is sloppiness that any moviegoer who is awake for this film will find troubling. The first words of the film are uttered by Captain Sulu, dictating a captain's log about how the Excelsior is returning from the Beta Quadrant where it has been cataloguing gaseous anomalies. At the climax of the film, Spock and McCoy retrofit a photon torpedo with . . . the sensor equipment that the Enterprise had used on its last mission, cataloguing gaseous anomalies. Now, I'm not saying that there isn't a whole lot of gas that needs to be catalogued in space, but it seems like the writers mixed up their two ships and that's just indefensibly sloppy. What's sadder is that Uhura's suggestion that they utilize this equipment is the strongest contribution she makes to this endeavor.

Beyond that, the movie is wonderful. Even if one does not like Star Trek (heretic, you!), The Undiscovered Country is a vital outing that is accessible to anyone. Like the very successful cinematic outing Star Trek IV The Voyage Home, The Undiscovered Country takes a powerful social idea and couches it in the science fiction/adventure trappings of Star Trek. In this case, the philosophical question of what happens when there are no more wars to fight is tackled.

The Undiscovered Country is a metaphor for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, with the Klingons taking the place of the USSR and the Federation embodying the United States. The tensions, mistrust and machinations are compelling. Sure, it buggers the viewer to see Klingons and humans working together so they won't have to work together, but the idea is very well explored.

In fact, outside the comedic elements that are thrown in to try to capitalize on the same formula as The Voyage Home, the dinner scene wherein the concept of peace and life without wars is debated is brilliant and vibrant.

The reason The Undiscovered Country ultimately works as well as it does is because it maintains the focus on the characters, in this case Captain Kirk and . . . well, virtually everyone else. Chancellor Gorkon is an idealist, General Chang is the fairly generic villain and Captain Spock is more diplomat than science officer here, which foreshadows his return in "Star Trek The Next Generation's "Unification, Part II.” Gorkon and Spock are rational, idealistic alternatives to the conservative, warring viewpoints expressed by Kirk and Chang. These other characters service Kirk by providing him with guides by which to grow.

And Kirk grows beautifully in The Undiscovered Country. While some die-hard fans seem to hate the idea that Kirk might hate Klingons, the motivations seem very vivid, considering what happened to his son in Star Trek III: The Search For Spock. Kirk's anger becomes something he must confront and a serious liability to his ability to perform his mission. Indeed, because he is clinging to his hatred of Klingons, he is easily convicted at his trial on the Klingon homeworld. Through the course of the movie, Kirk wrestles with his dislike of Klingons and his desire to see them suffer as a result of the actions certain individual Klingons have taken.

One person I know is deeply offended by Kirk's suggestion near the beginning of the movie that the Federation's response to the Klingon's desperate crisis is "Let them die." I believe his utterance, in the halls of StarFleet's most powerful people, is a shocking statement that serves the story well, while preserving the character of Captain Kirk quite well. It's hard to be high and mighty when you are hurt, no matter how evolved one is.

Moreover, how Kirk's reaction evolves from being willing to let the Klingons suffer and die without aid to his shock when Gorkon is murdered, is compelling. This leads the viewer on an emotional journey that is realistic, intense and wonderful to watch.

Part of what does this is the acting. Guest actors include David Warner as Chancellor Gorkon, Kurtwood Smith as the Federation president, Mark Lenard as Sarek and Brock Peters as Admiral Cartwright, all of whom are familiar to fans of the "Star Trek" franchise for other roles. Here they each perform wonderfully, contributing to their characters in ways that transform them from "types" on the page to vivid individuals on the screen.

Christopher Plummer plays General Chang and his performance is wonderful. Plummer is menacing, maniacal and clever as the one-eyed general. Plummer varies his performance between cultured and deadly with an ease that overcomes his prosthetics. He steals every scene he is in.

Having seen some episodes of Sex and the City, it's a pleasure to see Kim Cattrall acting in The Undiscovered Country. She plays Spock's protege, the Vulcan Valeris. She is emotionless and wonderful in the role and it's a big stretch for those who are used to her from the other show.

It is William Shatner whose performance rules The Undiscovered Country. Kirk's character journey would not be possible were it not for the depth and scope Shatner used to portray him. He throws his whole body into the role, playing sedate and intellectual in the dinner scene and making his brawl on Rura Penthe completely believable. Shatner earns his pay and it's a pleasure to see him redefining Captain Kirk as a truly dynamic character in this outing.

The two-disc DVD set is very much designed for the fans. Bonuses include commentary and a number of featurettes that explore the ending of the adventures of the original Star Trek. Virtually all of the bonus features explore The Undiscovered Country in the context of the Star Trek universe (including a wonderful one where guest actors are shown in their various other Trek incarnations), leaving little for those who are not fans of the franchise to celebrate.

And there is a lot in the movie that is geared toward a more mainstream audience. The conflict in The Undiscovered Country is one of life and death that is wonderfully open to anyone who likes a good political thriller. At the end of the day, The Undiscovered Country is about how governments relate and the machinations that are in place to create and disrupt peace. As a result, the film succeeds admirably in making a statement about what peace ought to cost.

That's a lesson anyone can appreciate.

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7.5/10

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© 2010, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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