After A Good Start, The Campaign Becomes Stubbornly Mediocre.

The Good: Humor, Zach Galifianakis’s performance, Initial plot
The Bad: In the middle, it stops being as funny
The Basics: Not a bad Will Ferrell comedy, The Campaign starts as a smart treatise on American politics before degenerating into a very standard comedy film.


Now that the 2012 election cycle is finally over, my wife and I took in the latest Will Farrell magnum opus, The Campaign. My wife is a big fan of Will Farrell and I tend to enjoy politically-themed movies. For sure, I never expected The Campaign to be as civically-minded as, for example, Swing Vote (reviewed here!), but given how the comedy actually begins with some decent moments that imply the importance of political activism, the movie quickly raised my hopes. Sadly, though, for as good as The Campaign begins, it quickly degenerates into a very standard Will Farrell comedy.

Actually, The Campaign stops being funny right around the middle as it strives for absurd humor instead of keeping a tight, political comedy that worked. After a time, The Campaign simply drags and recycles its own jokes.

Cam Brady is a North Carolina Congressman in the House of Representatives who spews obvious slogans and has affairs with young women who show up at his ridiculous campaign rallies. Looking forward to his next unopposed election to the House, Cam is shocked when the odd local, Marty Huggins applies to run against him. Supported by the Motch brothers, who have an agenda to turn the district into a Chinese sweatshop district, Marty begins a campaign, ostensibly to make his former politician father less disappointed in him.

While the odds seem exceptionally long for Marty, calling Cam out on his non-answer at their first debate gives the outsider some real support. That support is quickly increased when Marty accidentally punches a baby following the debate. As the neck and neck campaign commences, both Marty and Cam try various tactics that further take their campaigns away from the issues and gut their integrity.

The Campaign has some smart issues, but it buries them so far down as to make one think they were more of an afterthought. For example, writers Chris Henchy and Shawn Harwell insert the idea that the Motch Brothers run the company that makes the voting machines. This is a very real problem, as made obvious by politics in Ohio. Yet, The Campaign refuses to actually address this serious issue. It appears near the climax of the film as a single, visual joke and it does not quite work as well as it could have because it is not followed up on with anything remotely resembling intelligent discourse.

Such is the real folly of The Campaign; it starts off with decent issues – the corruption of American politics by big business and the importance of people actually joining in the political process – but then ignores them in order to make silly jokes that slowly bleed the film dry. Using Cam to hit a dog late in the film feels less clever than like a motif and the fact that Mitzi goes through with sleeping with him seems unfathomable, despite the fact that the writers do continue to have her character frustratingly mention that she wishes Marty was around more.

The Campaign is seldom about actual character development; it is very predictable on that front and in no way audacious.

Fortunately, the acting in The Campaign is solid. John Lithgow seems professional in a way that I’ve not seen him in other films of late. Far away from the doddering, aging characters, like the one he played in Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes (reviewed here!) , Lithgow seems like exactly what he is supposed to: a businessman in the prime of his power.

Zach Galifianakis shows a delightfully ridiculous side as Marty Huggins that is different enough from his other fool or ridiculous characters that makes him seem distinctive and worth watching. The best that may be said about Will Ferrell is that he is not simply recapping his usual George W. Bush impersonations as Cam Brady. Ferrell’s character is a smart parody of John Edwards and he plays it well.

Ultimately, The Campaign is fine, but in no way exceptional. It is a fine cap to this year’s political season and worth one viewing, if not purchasing for one’s permanent collection.

For other political comedies, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The American President
American Dreamz
Man Of The Year

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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A Fine Historical Document, Nothing More Saturday Night Live - The Complete First Season On DVD.

The Good: Moments of humor, Great historical relevance
The Bad: Becomes far too self-referential, Early episodes are scattered, Repetitive, Does not use whole cast well.
The Basics: A trip down memory lane for those who lived it, a mediocre historical document for the rest of us, NBC's Saturday Night's first season is unremarkable.


Every now and then, I come across a work that I pick up on DVD to review and when I'm done, I know that an objective review of the material I've just witnessed will bring about a small storm of negative comments. As I finish my viewing of the mistitled Saturday Night Live - Season 1, I find myself overwhelmingly underwhelmed. Yes, I am overcome with how unimpressed I am with this boxed set. Capturing the 1975 - 1976 season of the sketch comedy show NBC’s Saturday Night and Saturday Night, what would become Saturday Night Live, this eight disc set follows on the heels of years of terrible "Best Of" collections which focus on individual performers from the Saturday Night Live family of performers. What this boxed set reveals, more than anything, is how tenuous a start the cultural phenomenon that is Saturday Night Live had.

With all twenty-four episodes on eight discs, the first season of the show that became a sketch comedy series is presented almost as it originally appeared in the mid-1970s. NBC’s Saturday Night starts out as a variety show, with almost all of its parts divorced from one another. Executive Producer Lorne Michaels assembled a show that featured a guest star - usually a comic or musician -, musical guest(s), Muppets, and a sketch comedy troupe that soon became known as the "Not Ready For Prime Time Players." That troupe was quickly whittled down to Dan Aykroyd, John Belushi, Jane Curtain, Chevy Chase, Garrett Morris, Laraine Newman, and Gilda Radner.

The series began as far more of a variety show, with the "Not Ready For Prime Time Players" contributing far less in the beginning than they did by the middle and end of the season. So, for example, the first episode starred George Carlin, who held court on an open stage several times in the episode. But less of his standup routines, he presented himself in a more philosophical light. And he bombed. That's not just me saying that, listening to the audience reacting, I was wondering if they had a cricket machine they could have plugged in to give feedback! Alas, they did not and it took until the last set before Carlin began to get laughs from the audience. His musings now seem somewhat banal and very dated. And I like George Carlin!

In addition to Carlin, there were two musical guests who each did two sets, a short film presented by Albert Brooks, the Muppets from the land of Gorch, and a few sketches, most notably the news, which was hosted by Chevy Chase. I swear I cannot recall what any of the sketches that first episode were. But there were very few. And they were fairly unmemorable as they squeezed in between Carlin mellowly lecturing the audience, rock stars of the day and the somewhat surreal experience of adulterous monstrous Muppets.

Beginning with the second episode, Chevy Chase opens each episode with a pratfall, which he begins to reference as the season progresses. But the second episode is an exceptional example of how different NBC’s Saturday Night is from the Saturday Night Live it became. Paul Simon was the host, not the musical guest, and almost the entire program involves him singing. The show opens, he sings two songs, Art Garfunkel is brought on, they do two songs together, Garfunkel does one alone and Simon gets an additional song (maybe two) on his own. Before you know it, the episode is over. And, again, sketches are stuck in between the other stuff.

That said, this season introduced the world to the physical and satirical comedy of Chevy Chase. He falls into most episodes and relentlessly mocks president Gerald Ford and the deceased president Franco of Spain. He fumbles his way through the news and has the honor of delivering the "Live from New York, it's Saturday night!" line every outing. As well, it contains the Samuri (he's a tailor, deli chef, divorcee etc. depending on the week), Gilda Radner's hearing-impaired social activist Emily Litella, and the Headmaster for the New York School For The Hearing Impaired. As the season progresses, the sketches begin to be tailored to the guest host, like a short film containing Raquel Welch dancing (and nothing else!), Ford's Press Secretary portraying Press Secretaries Through History, and Buck Henry playing nervous white guys.

It's intriguing to watch the first season and see who was considered famous and cutting edge enough to present the show as a guest host. The first season was hosted by: George Carlin, Paul Simon, Robert Klein, Buck Henry, Dudley Moore and Peter Cook, Rob Reiner, Lily Tomlin, Candice Bergen, Peter Boyle, Dezi Arnez, Madeline Kahn, Ron Nessen, Raquel Welch, Anthony Perkins, Elliot Gould, Dyan Cannon, Louise Lasser, Kris Kristofferson and Richard Pryor. The musical guests are interesting for their mix of artists that have remained well known, like Paul Simon, Patti Smith, Abba (who lip-synched one of their songs for some reason), Gordon Lightfoot and Carly Simon (who had a recorded performance, though it's cool because Chevy Chase actually joined her on "You're So Vain!") and those who seem to have been either one-hit wonders or whose works faded from the general popular rotation, like Janis Ian, Betty Carter, Martha Reeves, Phoebe Snow, John Sebastian, Leon Redbone, Harian Collins and Joyce Everson, and Leon and Mary Russell. Indeed, two of the most memorable musical performances involve Garrett Morris singing an opera piece and John Belushi's one-trick pony sweaty rock star (it starts as a Joe Cocker impression) interrupting Leon and Mary Russell. It is also worth noting that Howard Shore, the composer for Peter Jackson's Lord Of The Rings films (among others) is the band leader and composer for the orchestra this season!

And I'll admit, I was cheesed when Belushi cut Gordon Lightfoot's guitar strings because I was hoping he might perform "Sundown!" The problem here is that this DVD set is presenting a sketch comedy/variety show that is very dated. The reason is simple; the humor is topical. It's fresh and funny in 1975 to comment on Gerald Ford and the wide-open 1976 Primary contest. Those of us who lived through the Reagan Regime will delight to hear Chevy Chase (and others) relentlessly mock his first presidential bid as he loses the Republican primary to Ford (which ought to have been the death knell of his political career!). But it's pure nostalgia and it often makes references that will leave the less educated viewers completely lost. So, for example, most high school history courses will not teach students that George Wallace was a vociferous racist, which becomes the focus of all non-wheelchair jokes pertaining to Wallace.

There are two general categories of sketch comedy series: current events and broadbased satire. Cultural Events sketch comedy rely heavily on observations of politics, societal trends and pop culture of the day. Broadbased satire attempts to more frequently comment on the nature of human existence and immutable social institutions. It's the difference between comedy that pokes fun at Gerald Ford and Jaws (reviewed here!) and comedy that lashes out at Monarchy and male/female relationships. Are the two mutually exclusive? Absolutely not, but very few comedy troupes find a decent balance (though most do a Jaws, Star Trek, - the first of many Trek parodies appears late in this set! - and Star Wars parody at some point) and Saturday Night, when it becomes more of a sketch comedy show leans heavily toward the Cultural Events category as opposed to the Broadbased Satire grouping.

The final problems with the content are that as it evolves, the show begins to take some weird turns and becomes much more self-referential. Albert Brooks's short films, which were generally not terribly funny to begin with (though some were not supposed to be), were replaced by similar short films from someone whose name I don't even remember now (it's Weis, by the way). Come to think of it, I couldn't tell you the subject of even one of his short films despite having just finished watching the first season finale less than two hours ago. Albert Brooks, by the way, had short films that included him performing a bypass surgery and searching for the next big thing (there was a blind cab driver in that one); I might not have dug them, but they were vaguely memorable. Come to think of it, the other guy did one where he intercut a p.i. recalling how he catches cheating spouses and a new couple expressing their love for one another. The thing is, as the season progresses, fans were invited to send in home movies and they included peanuts slicing up a guy who ate a ton of peanuts, a choral song presented from a men's bathroom, and apple strippers (peelers); I recalled three instantly.

The point here is that the show is dramatically erratic, episode to episode and within episodes. It does not take long before the adult Muppets are canned, as are some of the writers who begin as part of the Not Ready For Prime Time Players. But most of all, it's dated. As well, there are several bits that are repetitive. The season featured parody commercials, many of which are replayed more than once, which is accented as a problem on the DVDs when one sits and watches them back to back.

Saturday Night Live - The Complete First Season goes a long way toward proving the argument I made when I reviewed Star Trek - The Complete First Season (Remastered), which is that the technology exists to clean up the old series', but it is often too costly to be realistic for restoration. Recently, Star Trek has been given a complete face-lift for HD and while the visual effects have been altered, the cleanup for HD removing film imperfections and the general grain of 1960s filmstock makes for a decent presentation. What we get with this DVD set is a series plagued by light burns, dust spots and the grainy quality that comes with the filmstock of the time. Yes, there has clearly been some remastering (though there are still fall-outs on the soundtrack at various points), but this is not the archiving of a historical document, nor the restoration of it to the best it could possibly be. Instead, we get a half-measure, a compromise print that makes the thirty year-old series look respectable, but not as good as it could look (and sound).

As well, this boxed set makes poor use of the DVD medium by presenting little in the way of bonus features. There are no commentary tracks and only two featurettes, both from 1975 - an interview and casting tapes. Those who are invested enough (emotionally) in this series to invest in the capital to purchase the set are likely to be disappointed that there are no featurettes discussing the cultural impact, the relevance or even the effect the show had. Some of that is addressed within the series in self-referential comments, but much of it is a complete mystery. The series is a fair historical document of mid-70's humor, music and celebrity, but there is nothing to make this set valuable for that by actually addressing it.

As it stands, the photo booklet gives the most information on that sort of thing and it is woefully little. Die-hard fans (the ones I lost with my opening lines of this review) who might have been waiting for this boxed set for the years it took to get all of the musical clearances needed to assemble this set are likely to be even more disappointed than I was (a lowly cinematic historian) by the lack of extensive bonus features exploring either the development of the season, commentary on specific sketches, or the impact or even any form of retrospective from surviving cast members on their impressions thirty years later.

But alas, there is nothing like that. Instead, we have endless references to Gerald Ford's stupidity, Patty Hearst (the O.J. trial of the day, I suppose), Francisco Franco's continuing death, and the rising political lights of the 1976 primary race. We have pained performances by Andy Kaufman (he comes on and lip-synchs, one of which where he has guests performing with him and he's electric on) that are sometimes more disturbing than funny, there is a broad array of musical guests that appeal to a huge segment of society as opposed to the narrow visions of 12 - 24 pop culture (that's something that actually is pretty okay), and the endless opening falls of Chevy Chase. And it might have been great in its day, but now, it's a historical document in a way that other sketch comedy shows are not (but someday The Daily Show will be!).

My final comment on this is this: this set is not ideal for fans of today's Saturday Night Live. If you have a youngster that loves Saturday Night Live, this is the ideal gift for that kid's parents, so they have something to bond over. Nowhere near as relentlessly (attempting to be) funny as today's Saturday Night Live, this requires a lot more patience and despite the supposed genius of the Not Ready For Prime Time Players, this is very skewed toward Chevy Chase and Jane Curtain (as the season goes on and Gilda Radner picks up the recurring Barbara Walters impression, she gets good airtime as well). How Dan Aykroyd made it big based on the first season remains a mystery. Laraine Newman, John Belushi and Garrett Morris are given ridiculously little to do as well.

Lopsided and dated, this boxed set is best for those who appreciated it the first time around, but it's more likely they'd get as much out of renting it as opposed to buying it; this eight-disc set has little to come back to more than once.

For more work with Lily Tomlin, please check out my reviews on:
The Pink Panther 2
The West Wing
A Prairie Home Companion
Orange County

4/10

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

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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And Yet, They Allowed Him To Continue Making Movies . . . 1941

The Good: I'm stretching here, so I'll say the cast
The Bad: Not funny, Acting is terrible, Just about everything
The Basics: Despite generally talented cast members, 1941 is terribly unfunny and it demeans the career of Steven Spielberg to consider he ever directed it.


Sometimes, there comes a movie that is so terrible that all one wishes to do is erase it from their memory. Wrong Turn, which is my all-time most hated movie is almost completely forgotten by me. I know I don't like Wrong Turn (reviewed here!), but I don't even remember why. I'd have to go read my review and I know enough about how much I hated that movie to know I shouldn't do that. Similarly, every now and then I hear a song from Bush's album Sixteen Stone (reviewed here!) and I develop a bit of a tick. Steven Spielberg, apparently tuckered out from making classic films like Jaws (reviewed here!) and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, squeezed out 1941 before making Raiders Of The Lost Ark (reviewed here!). Checking out the IMDB, none of the titles under his directing credit since then jump out as comedies. Perhaps he learned his lesson. I learned my lesson and I'm filing this movie in the Outbox of my brain with other movies I loathed.

1941, appropriately enough, happens in 1941. Approximately one week after the attack on Pearl Harbor, a Japanese submarine ends up lost near Hollywood, fueling the belief that the Japanese are about to attack California. Sgt. Frank Tree prepares for the attack by trying to get the military organized. The crazy and frenetic Captain Wild Bill Kelso is determined to keep the skies clear of Japanese and generally California goes into hysteria as relations between the Germans and the Japanese on the submarine fall apart.

1941 is a comedy with what could have been a clever concept. Instead, it's just plain dumb. Most of the humor is slapstick, which is the lowest form of comedy. None of it is particularly clever. Things crash, houses get run into by tanks, it's pretty basic stupidity humor. There is nothing clever in the execution of 1941.

The idea, though, is not bad. The idea of California going into hysteria following the attack on Pear Harbor is a decent enough idea. I'm not sure how well it works as a comedic idea, but it certainly does not work in this comic rendition of it. Instead, we are subjected to slapstick gags, banal character and obvious attempts for cheap laughs.

A perfect example of this is embodied by Captain Kelso. Wild Bill Kelso is played by John Belushi and the role runs like an extended Saturday Night Live sketch. Belushi as Kelso falls down, bugs out his eyes, chomps on cigars in a parody of masculinity of the time and blusters his way through even the least complicated of lines. The thing is, we've seen Belushi act like this. It's familiar. It's not Kelso, it's Belushi and that's poor use of the actor or poor acting.

Similarly, Dan Aykroyd, who plays Tree, is familiar for his overly serious delivery, much like how he played the anchor on the Saturday Night Live news. John Candy is in the movie far too briefly and if you blink, you miss Christopher Lee. In short, any talent that could have made the movie funny or allow it to possess a certain quality is lost in either preconceived notions of how the actors ought to be used or drown in a terrible script.

And Steven Spielberg phones this one in. There is nothing spectacular in the direction. In fact, there is nothing even visually interesting in 1941. And the problem is, where some truly lame movies do not take themselves seriously, like camp classic The Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes, 1941 does take itself seriously. So there are no gaffs with production design or production elements. Things like the house being barreled into with a tank happen in a meticulously constructed way that a serious director would.

Still, the net effect is garbage. 1941 is not funny. It is not entertaining and I shudder to think that there now exists an even longer Director's Cut. Part of the shudder is astonishment that Steven Spielberg would admit he remembered making this movie. I know I shall do my best to forget it.

For other works with Tim Matheson, be sure to check out my reviews of:
No Strings Attached
The West Wing
The Story Of Us

2/10

Check out all the movies that were better than this one and read reviews by visiting my Movie Review Index Page where films are organized best to worst!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Half Worthwhile, Half Annoying, Ultimately Worth Only One Viewing: Julie & Julia Disappoints.

The Good: The entire Julia Child plot, Most of the performances
The Bad: Almost the entire Julie Powell plot, Moments when Streep slips out of character
The Basics: Erratic in the way it mixes a past and contemporary plot, Julie & Julia is lackluster chick flick fare which fails to resonate even with its target demographic.


[Note: As there are almost no experiences my mother and I shared together, I am opting to keep the opening to this review – which was originally written based on a preview screening of the film over a month prior to the cinematic release – unchanged. Enjoy!

There are few times I actually consider the theatrical experience, despite the fact that I often find myself these days in crowded movie theaters watching the latest movies with large audiences. But sometimes, I encounter something of note that leaves me baffled and feeling the need to discuss the phenomenon outside the work that inspired it. Today, what has me baffled was a result of the film Julie & Julia. I caught an early screening of the film a few nights ago - I was able to take my mother, which made her happy, as she is a big fan of Nora Ephron's works - and as the movie plodded along, I watched and listened to the audience. There were few laughs, few moments when anyone reacted. I thought this odd because preview screenings like the one I attended tend to be filled with people who are predisposed toward a work. Throughout the movie, the audience was largely quiet; they did not laugh, they did not cheer, they did not react for almost the entire film. But when the movie was over, the horde of women (the screening was predominately women) began to erupt into enthusiastic conversations about how much they had enjoyed the movie they had just seen.

Here's the thing, I'm a respectful first-viewer, but I find myself smiling, laughing or otherwise reacting during movies. As a seasoned viewer and reviewer, it did not take me long to realize that the reason I was able to observe so much of the audience during Julie & Julia was because I was largely bored with the movie. I suspect that most of the screening audience was and while there were certainly elements to praise about Julie & Julia, on the balance it is an erratic work whose most significant moments were shown in the preview trailers and that this is a film where the longer people have away from it, the less they will enjoy about it. In fact, my bet would be that people who were at the same screening as me would have little to say about the movie other than "Meryl Streep was great as Julia Child." She was, but even her performance was not flawless and one has to wonder why director Nora Ephron included certain takes in the film's final print.

Julie & Julia is a blending of two stories, poorly, one contemporary, one from the past. In 1945, Julia Child and her husband, Paul, arrive in France to work at the United States Embassy. As Paul establishes himself, Julia flounders and searches for something to do which will make her feel (and be) useful. In 2002, Julie Powell arrives with her husband Eric in Queens where the two take up residence over a pizza place so Eric may be closer to his work. Amid the pressure from her successful friends, Julie strives to actually do something with her life, as she spends her days working for the Lower Manhattan Development Corp and has no real authority of zest in her life.

Julie's solution is to start a blog and for one year, she begins going through the recipes of Julia Child from Child's famous book on cooking French cuisine. As Julie struggles to maintain her goal and grows in popularity on the internet, the film looks back to Julia Child, who becomes one of the first women to take advanced cooking lessons at the prestigious French culinary school, Le Cordon Bleu. As she learns to cook, she finds herself in the company of two French women who are looking to teach cooking and sell a book in the United States on French cooking.

The plot is remarkably simple and the title implies it all and the film's trailers reveal it all: Julie Powell seeks gratification and acknowledgment as a writer by taking on the task of cooking all 524 recipes in Julia Child's cookbook over the course of 365 days. While she wends her way through the cookbook, the film flashes back to the process of Julia Child becoming the world-renowned chef she was ultimately considered. The only question potential viewers will have after seeing the trailer is "Does Julie Powell succeed in her goal?"

The problem is, after the first few minutes of the movie, it is almost impossible to care. (Actually, attentive viewers to the trailer can figure out the answer as some of the final shots from the film are in the revealing promotional trailer.) The viewer knows the outcome of the Julia Child plot: Child will succeed in getting her cookbook published and readers everywhere will eventually flock to it. So, the only question in the Julia Child section is "how does Child get the book published?" Unfortunately, much of the beginning of the movie is bogged down with the Julie Powell plot and it is such a dud that it almost instantly crushes the momentum of the film.

Julie Powell, in Julie & Julia (I've never met the Julie Powell in real life) is boring, whiny and utterly without qualities worth watching. She complains about her job and the move with her husband and as she whines through the early scenes, viewers are unlikely to care whether or not she makes a goal and sticks to it, we just want her to grow up! In fact, her irksome tendency to complain is epitomized in such melodramatic phrases as "Ritual cobb salad lunch tomorrow. Dreading. Dreading. Dreading." In this stereotypical chick-flick scene, Julie gets together with her three friends, they all order variants of cobb salads and complain about their work (though her friends spend most of the time on their cell phones or digital voice recorders). Powell is characterized not so much as a woman who has friends with incongruent lifestyles, but rather as a woman content to be walked all over by her friends and otherwise neglected. When Powell declares that she has thoughts she could blog about, it comes at a point where most viewers will not care what those thoughts are and as she winds through the recipes in Julia Child's cookbook, the cooking takes place as quick cuts and final product shots and most of the plot is mired in the melodrama of Powell's home life.

By contrast, the Julia Child sections of the movie are wonderful and they become a welcome respite for the viewer from the whiny, annoying and over-the-top Powell. The irony here is that Julia Child is a tall, loud, energetic woman who is presented as over-the-top, but her struggles are more compelling and interesting than the faux-conflicts that come up with Powell, who has disproportionately (childlike) meltdowns over them. Child labors for respect only after she is actualized by her desire to be useful to herself and her husband. Her sections of the film are welcome respites from the Powell plot and the moment the film shifts back from the past to contemporary times, my stomach sank almost every time.

Nora Ephron, who adapted the books this movie was based upon into the screenplay and then directed the film, does a decent job of creating the two stories and developing them, but she is trapped using material that is half wonderful, half not so much. Ephron, who proved her ability to write complex and engaging romantic storylines with When Harry Met Sally is unfortunately given two stories that do not work nearly so well interweaving with Julie & Julia; and Ephron sure tries. Opening with what might seem like a schmaltzy shot of ground zero in Manhattan, Ephron quickly recovers by explaining away the use of the World Trade Center rubble for the necessary explanation of Julie Powell's ennui. Ephron then attempts to make parallels between not only the characters of Julie Powell and Julia Child (both government workers, both escaped their monotony through cooking, both were married, etc.) but the time periods. And while there are great parallels to be made between the early 1950s and the rise of McCarthyism and the reign of George W. Bush, Ephron makes weak connections. Paul Child is targeted by McCarthy and his goons and he and Julia suffer transfers as a result. Julie Powell and her husband have no similar political ramifications for their backstories, so Ephron's attempt falls terribly short (for a much better peek into the McCarthy-like parallels during the George W. Bush years, please check out Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip, reviewed here).

One of the things Ephron does quite well is not insult the intelligence of her audience. Julia Child is motivated in this by a need to feel useful, at least in part, by the fact that she is barren. One scene easily establishes this idea without making it explicit and another reinforces it wonderfully. Ephron never states it directly and this is a pleasant surprise for viewers. Unfortunately, so much of the rest of Julie & Julia is formulaic in the most unpleasant ways. As a result, Julie and her husband have all of the predictable conflicts and reconciliations that the film seems to feel the need to have. Unfortunately, they are formulaic and they are presented without any real emotional depth to them.

What Ephron does well is she fixes her mediocre recipe using great ingredients. Amy Adams is hard to discuss as Julie Powell because the character is so annoying and difficult to watch and her costar, Chris Messina is relegated to generic spouse status as Eric Powell, but both seem to be adequate in Julie & Julia. Meryl Streep is amazing as Julia Child, though. Ephron cast Streep perfectly and Streep lives up to the challenge, creating the flamboyant and fun Child in a way that makes it possible for the viewer to close their eyes and hear Julia Child perfectly. Unfortunately, even Streep's performance is not the absolute gem most would want it to be. While Streep is great, there are at least three moments in the film where Streep stops using the Julia Child voice and falls into her own. These moments stand out as memorable because in those few moments, Streep does not even carry herself the way she does the rest of the movie.

But the one who never slips is Stanley Tucci. It might seem odd in a film geared toward women with an amazing cast of prestigious or great actresses that the most laudable performance would come from a man, but Stanley Tucci does it perfectly as Paul Child. He plays Paul with a great emotional range, from quiet and supportive to eager and giddy and in every moment, he is unlike any other character he has played. His performance is so good, one wishes that he were in the movie more and that this had simply been a film about the life of Paul and Julia Child.

Ultimately, the best I can recommend is if you have the chance, see Julie & Julia once, but when it comes out on DVD don't bother with adding it to your collection. And in the hard and fast system of "thumbs up, thumbs down" or "recommend, not recommend," this is too tough a sell to advocate recommending. There is just not enough to keep viewers engaged and certainly not enough to come back to again and again.

For other works with Amy Adams, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Leap Year
Charlie Wilson’s War

6/10

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

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Disappointing, But Still Enough Good To Recommend, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry.

The Good: Moments of humor, Ultimately a pro-tolerance stance, Moments of acting, DVD bonus features
The Bad: Pulls punches, Pacing, Predictable plot
The Basics: Funny, but hardly a timeless comedy, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry has a basic premise and ultimately promotes tolerance of gay and lesbian civil rights.


Lately, I have found myself watching a lot of movies to keep my partner happy, though I am generally glad to do that. The other day, she had a rough day at work - she works at a pet store and a puppy had to be put down because another worker administered the dog a pill, which ended up in the animal's lung! - and she wanted a movie to take her mind off her day. So, we went to our library and I let her pick out a film. The one we ended up watching was I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry and it served its purpose, to distract her from what was going on.

The problem with I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry is that once one hears the title, they pretty much get the entire concept of the movie and the execution of that concept offers few surprises or laughs. The movie is entirely predictable, is unimpressive in terms of scope or even the delivery of its message. For those looking for a pro-gay rights film, the comedy makes jokes that are often too awkward to be considered truly open minded and the movie takes no real risks in terms of storytelling. In many ways, it becomes a very typical Adam Sandler film.

Chuck and Larry are New York City firefighters who are best friends. They wisecrack as they put out fires and perform rescues and their lives seem generally content. Chuck is a womanizer who is happily promiscuous and untied to any one woman, while Larry is a widower raising two children. When Chuck nearly plummets to his death during an investigation of a burnt-out building, he is rescued by Larry. Larry, in the process, comes to realize that his children are not protected by his benefits package, which still names his dead wife as the beneficiary. Because of an administrative error, the benefits cannot be transferred unless Larry gets married.

Larry, then, decides to call in Chuck's promise of doing anything for his friend in gratitude for being saved by him; he asks Chuck to be his domestic partner so his if he dies, Chuck could take care of his kids. After a patent reluctance, Chuck agrees. Soon after they become domestic partners, a special investigator - Clint Fitzer - is dispatched to look into the partnership, alleging fraud. Chuck moves in with Larry, their boss finds out about the partnership and subsequent marriage and soon all of the firehouse is disturbed by Chuck and Larry being "out." As the two men work to save themselves from jail, Chuck finds himself attracted to their lawyer, Alex, who is eager to defend the two men and their right to their marriage.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry is a pretty standard Adam Sandler vehicle, including appearances by Sandler's Saturday Night Live alums Rob Schneider - in an utterly insulting role as the Asian priest who marries Chuck and Larry in Canada - and David Spade. This means that Adam Sandler plays yet another generally mild-mannered guy who speaks abrasively with a sense of innocence about him. Sandler as the womanizing Chuck has little real difference from his character in Mr. Deeds (reviewed here!), save that Chuck is smarter. As is his (apparent) trademark, there is also the requisite scene of extreme violence where Sandler beats the crap out of someone with a supposedly comedic flair. Sandler's characters almost always have an angry outburst and Chuck is no exception. This is disturbing more for what the screenwriters are apparently saying about women - virtually everyone who looks at Chuck and Larry as a couple suspects Chuck takes a traditionally feminine role in their relationship - than it does about gays.

Kevin James plays Larry and this might be the first role I've actually seen James play that is a major film role. He seems pretty much like he appears in the few clips of King Of Queens I've caught which suggests that his presence as a good, generally happy guy is the result of good casting as opposed to any form of inspired acting. The problem here is that Larry has moments when he has a melancholy that James seems unable to play. He does not carry the emotional resonance of a man pining for his wife who has been dead for two years. Instead, he slouches through the role alternating the comedic and dramatic moments with little differentiation in his performance.

Supporting roles by Jessica Biel, Ving Rhames and Dan Aykroyd all outshine Sandler and certainly James. Biel plays the lawyer, Alex, and while she and Sandler might have only minimal on-screen chemistry, she plays the role with an earnest innocence that makes her part funny and believable. She plays Alex as educated in her field, but somewhat ignorant outside it, which works. Similarly, Aykroyd's supporting role has him as a believable gruff leader and he pulls the part off quite well.

I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry is alternately funny and offensive and this is a movie where it largely gets away with its gay jokes because Chuck's use of an anti-gay slur change by the end of the movie. As well, the ultimate message of the film is one of tolerance, that homosexuality ought not to be a limiting factor to one's quality of life or experiences and as a result, there is still some social value to the movie.

Realistically, that value is somewhat limited and there are much better movies about actual gay or lesbian love, like The Incredibly True Adventure Of Two Girls In Love whereas this explores a legal loophole in domestic partnership law which few gay and lesbian activists care about (i.e. we'd rather have domestic partnership and actual marriage laws that heterosexual couples might abuse as opposed to being denied them entirely). The plot is entirely predictable, as are the character arcs. Because the "rightness" of freedom and the rights of all people to be married and be happy are so strong, the viewer knows that Chuck and Larry will not get away with their deception (it's that kind of movie where an absolute right must be preserved for any suspension of disbelief to be maintained). As well, because Chuck is a womanizer, the viewer pretty much figures that he will grow by the end and lo and behold, he does.

The DVD presentation of I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry includes about ten minutes of deleted scenes, one of which answers the question of how a guy like Chuck manages to go so long without having sex with a woman once he is married to Larry. There is a commentary track and a featurette and these are pretty much standard for a comedy of this type. They are not bad, but they are hardly exceptional.

But that is pretty much how best to define I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry; it is remarkably average, but not superlative in any way.

For other works with Nick Swardson, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
Jack And Jill
30 Minutes Or Less
Just Go With It
Bolt

6/10

For other movie reviews, be sure to visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the films I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Sandler's Continued Reinvention Leads To Dramedy With 50 First Dates

The Good: Funny, Sweet - in a kind or lame way, Character, Acting
The Bad: Mostly predictable plot, Somewhat repetitive
The Basics: When Henry falls for a woman who continues to relive the same day of her life, he must woo her each day in a surprisingly good dramedy.


I'm not, per se, a fan of Adam Sandler. Nor am I particularly endeared with Drew Barrymore. Actually, that part may not be entirely true; I'm not a fan of the "Hollywood Rumormill Drew Barrymore." That is to say, I get pretty sick and tired of hearing all of the b.s. gossip about her, but have nothing in particular against her as a person nor as an actress. So, in short, my expectations were pretty low for 50 First Dates.

50 First Dates, then, came as a pleasant surprise. That was a kind of backhanded way of recommending this movie; I would have recommended it regardless of my expectations. It was that much better than I had anticipated. Basically, I've seen a string of bad movies that I had high expectations for, so that when a movie meets or exceeds my hopes it's something these days! But I digress.

50 First Dates follows Henry Roth, a geeky marine biologist in Hawaii who meets Lucy Witmore one morning at a local restaurant. Taken with her, he arrives the next morning to discover she has no memory of him. Locals quickly reveal to Henry that Lucy had a severe accident and has spent some time reliving the day over and over again. Her father and brother continue to protect Lucy by allowing themselves to be trapped in Marlin's (Lucy's father) birthday day after day. Henry shakes up Lucy's world and he falls in love with her, trying each day to get her to fall in love with her while earning the trust and respect of Marlin.

The thing about 50 First Dates is that it's not entirely absurd or without its charms. In fact, the only real drawback of the movie is that the plot becomes somewhat repetitive. Henry's attempts to woo Lucy begin to get old around the middle of the movie and that is where the film takes a shift from absurd comedy into something endearing and dramatic. There's also a stretch where the movie becomes less about Henry and Lucy and more about Marlin and Henry, shifting from the romance into the story of a man convincing a protective father he's an all right guy.

The other drawback is the beginning; the movie sets itself up as a ridiculous comedy that isn't quite sure what it wants to be. In establishing Henry at work, the viewer is treated to lame animal gags, stupid vomit humor and a pointless androgynous coworker character that dilutes from the movie's sensibilities and sensitivities.

Once the movie decides to be about Henry's infatuation and growing love for Lucy, it begins to hit its stride. There is genuine humor - though most of those scenes were in the previews - like Henry's use of a penguin to get Lucy's attention and him staging a mugging with his friend Ula. Lucy's psychopathic romp on Ula is hilarious and her brother's steroid-lisp scenes are enough to keep the audience smiling.

What makes this dramedy shine, other than the fact that it quickly rejects the ridiculous humor that would have made it like most any other Adam Sandler movie, is that the characters are interesting and the acting clicks. Henry is pretty much the standard quirky, repressed maniac that Sandler does in just about all of his movies. However, Henry is surrounded by characters that force his realism and make him have more depth. Lucy is more than just a pretty face and an amnesia patient; she is a realistic young woman struggling through her days with different moods and reactions. Part of the charm of 50 First Dates is in seeing Henry adapt to the fact that what works one day will not necessarily win Lucy over the next.

A lot of credit has to go to the acting. Sean Astin plays Doug, Lucy's brother, with an incredible ridiculous quality that is a refreshing change from his role in The Lord Of The Rings. Moreover, Astin's weird lisping character forces Adam Sandler to play Henry more straightlaced. Sandler continues to extend his range beyond what we've seen of him in Mr. Deeds and Punch-Drunk Love, to include more subtlety and less of his rehashing of his Saturday Night Live characters. In 50 First Dates, Sandler explores the depth of sincerity that he began to reveal in Punch-Drunk Love (reviewed here!). Thus, it is Sandler's acting that convinces the viewer of Henry's genuine nature and makes it believable that he could convince Lucy's dad.

Blake Clark plays Martin, Lucy's dad. He's a character actor that usually plays blue collar father-figures and here he plays pretty much the same thing. However, unlike the slacker dad he played in Boy Meets World, his genuine, down-to-Earth nature prevails and makes for a very believable, very loving father. Clark has an aspect to him that makes his characters instantly likable and plausible and it is a pleasure to see him getting work in a decent movie.

It is Drew Barrymore, however, who steals this movie. She's a likable person and the role of Lucy is perfect for her. It allows her to illustrate her cute, flirtatious persona, her fun-loving, genuine side and her angry and disturbed side. Barrymore convinces us that Lucy is more than a cheap joke of someone with memory loss. She enhances the character with unpredictable eye movements and body language, infusing the character with a realism that is seldom achieved in romantic comedies.

In the end, 50 First Dates is a romantic comedy with a surprising amount of depth to it and it's worth your time when you want something lighter, but don't want your intelligence insulted.

For other films involving Drew Barrymore, please check out:
Going The Distance
Whip It
He’s Just Not That Into You
Donnie Darko
Charlie's Angels
Ever After
Batman Forever

7/10

For other movie reviews, please be sure to visit my Movie Review Index Page for a complete listing of the films I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2004 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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With A Simple Story, Driving Miss Daisy Is Charming, But Forgettable.

The Good: Good tone, Decent acting, Good character arcs
The Bad: Very simple, Doesn't truly go anywhere
The Basics: Fun and charming, Driving Miss Daisy is a short film which has little real substance or sparkle.


As I take the final steps to completing my Best Picture Project, I found myself quite excited when my wife actually agreed to watch one of the Best Pictures with me. The film was Driving Miss Daisy, which I recalled seeing once as a child and enjoying, but had not seen since. Last night, that changed as we sat together and watched the light film and we both watched and felt generally sedate. Driving Miss Daisy is a very simple movie and it is one that has both little going for it and little detracting from it. It is so simple, in fact, that I'm struggling now to come up with enough to write about it.

This is not to say the movie is bad, but it is simple. And as an age of blockbusters was rung in with special effects driving them, Driving Miss Daisy stands as a testament to very simple moviemaking, though with all of the make-up effects, it does manage to use the medium well.

Daisy Werthan is a crabby old lady who crashed her car, had it replaced by the insurance company, but now needs a driver. At least, her adult son Boolie is convinced she needs a driver. In 1950s Georgia, Boolie encounters Hoke Colburn who stops by Boolie's work where he helps get an elevator up and running again and he hires Hoke to be Daisy's driver. Daisy is frigid to the idea and seems instantly at odds with Hoke, refusing to let him do anything around her house and rebuking him when he bonds with her maid, Idella. But avoiding embarrassment when Hoke insists on driving her to the store ñ by driving her cart beside her as she walks down the sidewalk ñ she finally lets the black chauffeur do his job.

From that point on, the loquacious Hoke uses the time with Daisy to bond and do his job as best he can. The two spar, converse and go on trips with one another. Daisy helps Hoke learn to read and Hoke gets Daisy to loosen up some, especially when Idella dies and Hoke helps her out more around the house. As the times change in the 1960s and 1970s, both Daisy and Hoke grow older and less able to remain independent. . .

Driving Miss Daisy is a film with a very simple plot, very simple character arcs and very simple direction. It is a mild comedy and most of the comedy comes in dry humor, like Daisy getting bent out of shape that Hoke ate a thirty-three cent can of salmon without her permission, dragging Boolie out of bed to help her fire him and Hoke coming through the door replacing the can before she can even force the issue! This is a paired character study and while Hoke learns to read (it seems), the character who actually changes is Daisy herself, though even that is a stretch to write.

I make that assertion because Driving Miss Daisy features leaps in time, from the early Fifties to a Martin Luther King Jr. rally to a decade after. As a result, Miss Daisy does not seem to change all that much, the viewer simply learns more about her. So, for example, she is uptight through almost the entire movie, arguably until the last two scenes. But when she converses with Hoke about King, she insists she has never been a racist and for all we know, she is telling the truth; we've not seen much of her outside a few scenes where she is generally ornery. It's hard to say a character evolves from being closed to open minded when they are an equal opportunity offender all the way through!

That said, this simple comedy does have its charms and its messages. While it stretches the historical realism, it does take time to make a lot of social commentary. The Werthans are Jewish, Hoke is black and they live and work in the South in tumultuous times. Hoke, for example, cannot use bathrooms at the gas stations and this becomes a problem when he is driving Daisy to Alabama. Similarly, Boolie becomes very anxious about Daisy's support of Dr. King because of the business opportunities that might not come his way as a result. There is even an anti-Jewish hate crime that is perpetrated, so the sense of ìeverybody is against our protagonistsî is pretty prevalent.

Even so, most of the film is simple, feel-good encounters where the likable Hoke slowly erodes the stiff and angry faÁade Daisy has in place. The reason it is worth watching is that the acting is quite good. Morgan Freeman plays Hoke and he plays him with a Southern dialect which is atypical for the performer. Instead, he drawls and he slurs through his stories, slowly making it more pronounced as the character gets older. He also has a wonderful physical presence in the role of Hoke, which allows him to be stiff with dignity in one scene and casual and loose in another. Costar Jessica Tandy does a decent job as Daisy for the same reason, though her performance is almost entirely stiff, which fits the character.

The real acting surprise comes in the form of Dan Aykroyd, who plays Boolie. The well-established comedian does an excellent job of playing the straightman for Morgan Freeman. In fact, there is no other role of Aykroydís with I can think of which was intentionally serious where he was so convincing in the part. Director Bruce Beresford does an excellent job of getting something different out of Aykroyd.

On DVD, Driving Miss Daisy comes only with the theatrical trailer and text notes on the production of the film. Fans of the movie will be disappointed, though one suspects that when it arrives on Blu-Ray it might have more bells and whistles.

Even so, it is tough to get excited about the idea of a Blu-Ray of this film. It is simple and fun, but after fifteen years (at least) since I last saw it, I discovered I remembered many of the key parts and even the specific imagery (like Idella's fall). It is hard to make the argument to add this very average film to one's permanent library, though it is worth watching.

[As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this is part of my Best Picture Project which is available here! Please check it out!]

For other films featuring Morgan Freeman, please check out my reviews of:
The Dark Knight
Million Dollar Baby
Unforgiven

5.5/10

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

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




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Too Much Mysticism And More Of The Same Kills Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom.

The Good: Decent enough acting, Moments of character, Fun iconic moments
The Bad: Way too much mysticism compared to the former, Terrible supporting characters/performances
The Basics: In a lackluster sequel that goes in a completely different direction, Indiana Jones returns to go on a mystical journey to help recover magic rocks in India.


I've been challenging the old notion of "you can't go back" this week as I peruse the films in the Indiana Jones Trilogy. I recall as a child enjoying Raiders Of The Lost Ark" (click here for my review!) and finding a lot to enjoy in Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom. Having now rewatched the second installment - though chronologically it precedes Raiders Of The Lost Ark as far as the story it tells - of the Trilogy, I have to say that maybe I should have stuck with my youthful enjoyment of the film and left it at that.

Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom is not a terrible movie, but it is so thoroughly different from Raiders Of The Lost Ark that one wonders why Spielberg, Lucas and Ford were willing to collaborate and call it part of the same franchise.

Indiana Jones, having recovered an artifact for a Chinese gangster named Lao Che, finds himself fleeing Shanghai with his young sidekick Short Round and an annoying American lounge singer named Willie Scott. Alas, Indiana is betrayed once again when the pilots abandon the small aircraft and Jones, Round and Scott are forced to abandon the plane at their peril. After a rocky descent in a rubber raft, the trio finds themselves in India in a village where all the vegetation is dead and the children are missing, abducted by forces from a nearby spooky castle (no kidding).

Indiana, compelled by a sense of duty and intellectual curiosity, pledges the villagers to find the sacred stone that will restore the crops. With his sidekicks, he goes off to the castle to fight evil and superstitious nonsense with his sense of American intellectualism and his bullwhip. There he encounters a bloodthirsty cult led by Mola Ram, a high priest who is using the sacred stones of the Indian gods with the goal to take over the world.

Yes, it is just as hokey a plot as it might sound and therein lies the difficulty with accepting the Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom (perhaps from the same naming guide that brought the world Star Wars - Episode II: Attack of the Clones) as a part of the same franchise as the magnificent Raiders Of The Lost Ark. In Raiders, Indiana Jones is a man of science, an archaeologist and adventurer who uses reason, logic and a studious disposition to uncover clues and search for the truth or history.

In Temple Of Doom, Indiana Jones succumbs to a wad of mysticism whether or not he claims to believe in it. In the course of the film, such superstitious elements are entered into the Jones-universe as mind-controlling sacrificial blood, voodoo dolls, and the classic man with heart removed from his chest who continues to live until he is set on fire minutes later. Yeah, this is not the same guy who searched for the Ark of the Covenant for money and the principle of keeping the artifact from the Nazis. This is not the guy obsessed with artifacts for the purpose of filling museums and bettering humanity. This is Hero For The Sake Of Hero and one wonders what compelled Harrison Ford to participate in the debacle.

Outside Indiana's abrupt shift in character - the mysticism has an effect on him and the closing lines of the film are troubling in that regard - the supporting characters are far less likable than those of Raiders Of The Lost Ark. First, Willie Scott is no Marion Ravenwood. Scott is no doubt supposed to be completely different, but the problem with her character is that while Ravenwood complained about things and shrieked for "Indy!" when she needed help, she also grabbed a torch and kept the snakes at bay. Ravenwood drew a knife on Belloq; Scott does nothing so bold. Instead, she is a cinematic menace to feminism in any form, the archetypal damsel in distress and nag in one form. The only decent moment she has in the entire film is a brief scene wherein she and Indiana flirt. Sadly, this is not nearly enough to justify her place in the movie and she is a pathetic excuse for comic relief and an annoyance in virtually every frame of the film (if you haven't actually seen Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom, Willie Scott is the Jar Jar Binks of Indiana Jones).

Only slightly better than Scott is Short Round, an Asian Stereotype Child who makes quick quips throughout the movie up until the climactic moment when the boy tells Indy he loves him. It's so pathetic and formulaic that it could only have come from the pen of George Lucas.

Steven Spielberg and his henchmen (John Williams this means you!) are equally inept at creating something new in this movie. Spielberg makes scenes as unrelenting as possible without a real ratcheting up of emotion or menace. So, for example, at the castle, there is a banquet featuring dishes that gross Willie out. She's not into eating baby snakes or scarabs. We get that. She's grossed out. So, Spielberg throws in some eyeball soup. Willie is grossed out (we get it). So, Spielberg throws in chilled monkey brains. Willie is really grossed out (WE GET IT!). It's not any more funny with the second or third dish than it was with the first, especially considering the disgust Willie feels for . . . alternative cuisine is already made quite clear in a scene earlier in the film at the village.

The point is Spielberg tries the same hackneyed gags over and over. He tries to make menace by things moving fast (like the chase scene through the caves in the mining carts) and Williams comes along to telegraph the emotions musically, as if to keep saying "You need to be feeling more excited now!" The problem is, regardless of what the music is telling us, the film is hardly as exciting as it wants to be. Neither Lucas nor Spielberg is daring enough to add real jeopardy to the mix by offing one of the leads (if Short Round had been slain in Temple Of Doom it would explain his lack of presence in Raiders Of The Lost Ark) and the result is that the adventure never reaches the heights it could have.

This is, in part, because Spielberg surrenders to so many of the obvious cinematic conceits of adventure movies. Indiana is pursued by many warriors, none of whom may catch up to him. He is shot at by marksmen who are so inept they cannot possibly hit him even though they are supposedly otherwise quite formidable warriors. And of course, Mola Ram is as monolithically evil as his henchmen are stupid. This means, of course, that Ram will literally climb over his henchmen to save his own life and toss them to their deaths in the process.

The point in all of this is that Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom is a cinematic letdown and it's astonishing to see the film was made, much less got past the script stage. Sadly, the only reason to even watch the film now is the cinematic legacy it is a part of. Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom has iconic images that are heavily referenced in parodies and homages and as a result a true pop culture junkie must take in the film at least once. In order to appreciate such things as the heart getting ripped out, the twin coal car ride, and the chasm bridge being severed by the hero one has to endure Temple of Doom at least once to truly get certain allusions in The Simpsons, Family Guy, and the works of Kevin Smith (just to name a few) . . .

. . . but you're not compelled to enjoy it. And between Willie's whining and Williams' telegraphing score, it's not likely you will.

For other adventure films, please check out my reviews of:
The Fellowship Of The Ring
Sherlock Holmes
The Mists Of Avalon

4.5/10

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

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


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