Aiming For Humor, Baywatch Plays Down To Its Low Expectations.

The Good: The acting is not, actually, terrible
The Bad: Obvious character arcs, Predictable plot, Not actually funny
The Basics: Baywatch is about as bad as one might expect it to be.


My wife has had Futurama on as our background show while we sit together and work in our living room. I was amused when Pamela Anderson's head popped up early in the series to reference the Baywatch movie, the first film to be shown in all slow motion. The joke was enough to get me to bother with the theatrical release film version of Baywatch.

I was not a fan of the television show Baywatch, but it was on quite a bit when I was childsitting in the 90s, as my charge liked it. So, I had a pretty basic idea of who the characters were in Baywatch and the basic plot when I went into the new Baywatch film. And yeah, it's about as good and as bad as one might expect of a movie based upon the television show Baywatch. Baywatch is an R-rated comedy and it very quickly lives up to that with multiple characters saying "fuck" pretty early in the film to establish the tone.

The Emerald Bay lifeguards under the leadership of Lieutenant Mitch Buchannon and Stephanie Holden are holding their annual lifeguard try-outs with an uncommon three positions available. Ronnie Greenbaum, a generally out-of-shape young man who has a crush on lifeguard C.J. Parker, and Summer Quinn are among those competing for one of the three positions. Leading up to the try-outs, Mitch notices an increase in the drug Flaca literally floating into his beachfront. Mitch is also saddled with Matt Brody, a past Olympic swimmer, appearing and telling him that he has been assigned to the baywatch. Mitch and Stephanie reject the idea that he was assigned without him having to try out. Matt actually manages to prove himself as having potential to be a good lifeguard, so he joins the team.

While Ronnie, Summer and Matt are trained, Emerald Bay falls prey to the machinations of Victoria Leeds, a woman who owns a local club and is in the process of bribing a city councilman for a real estate deal. When the Councilman fails to deliver, he winds up dead and the Emerald Bay lifeguards become involved when his body is disposed of on a flaming boat with a handful of women who are aboard the boat when it is blown up. While the lifeguards protect swimmers, sailors, and sunbathers from drowning, thieves and accidents, they work to thwart Leeds's plans and stop the drugs that are being smuggled through the beach.

Baywatch is not at all intended to be high-minded or complex. Instead, it plays off the nostalgia for 90's television, much the way 21 Jump Street (reviewed here!) did before it. Baywatch shakes up the familiar slow-running, boobs(!), formula by adding an element of crude humor. The humor is generic - Ronnie falls on a wooden walkway and gets his penis and balls lodged between two slats, Mark is pranked to fondle a corpse - and not overly funny.

Baywatch is a flick that follows the predictable formula otherwise. The movie includes several rescues, characters running in slow motion and plenty of plot conceits that (regardless of what the characters within the movie argue) should be handled by the Coast Guard, FBI and/or local police. Baywatch is momentarily fun in that it references its own plot faults and its own appeal. Alexandra Daddario's Summer calls out Mark for checking out her breasts, for example.

The character arcs and plot conceits are both fairly predictable; Baywatch is not seeking to redefine its own appeal, rather play to its base. That said, the performers in Baywatch do a decent job with the material they are given. Dwayne Johnson does fine as Mitch, though it is not a role that requires him to actually utilize much of his range, and he gets through the physical aspects of the role without any apparent strain. Zac Efron bulked up for the role of Mark and he is credible in the role of an arrogant athlete who feels entitled to his position. Ilfenesh Hadera has a delivery that lends authority to her lines and Priyanka Chopra is a very good villain as Leeds. Alexandra Daddario has had vastly more complicated roles than her position in Baywatch as Summer, but she does what she can with the material she is given. Similarly, Kally Rohrbach and Jon Bass might have a painfully obvious arc to play, but Bass does fine as the butt of a lot of jokes and Rohrbach manages to appear sympathetic to his character.

Ultimately, Baywatch is exactly the type of vacuous comedy audiences expect of a comedy competing during Summer Blockbuster Season; it is not intended to be great or even enduring entertainment, but it is enough to justify spending a couple bucks on for people who don't have air conditioners at home.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Wonder Woman
Alien: Covenant
Guardians Of The Galaxy, Volume 2

2.5/10

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

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Funny Until It’s Not, Pain & Gain Is An Entertaining Mix Of Humor And Violence!

The Good: Funny, Darkly funny, Decent acting, Interesting characters
The Bad: After a lot of absurdity, it turns very dark and prioritizes action over the humor it started with, Stupidly homophobic
The Basics: A pretty ridiculous caper, Pain & Gain is verbally humorous and a ridiculous situational comedy before turns unsettling and somewhat oppressively dark.


At this point, it takes quite a bit for a preview (trailer) to sell me on a movie. I have seen so many and I’ve seen so many films that it is a rare thing where a trailer intrigues me enough to believe it and convince me that the movie it advertises is actually worth watching. So, I was surprised recently when a Michael Bay film’s trailer actually got me wanting to see it. The movie was Pain & Gain and while it took me a few extra weeks to see it, I was actually excited to see it.

The thing about previews is that they can, at their worst, completely mischaracterize a film. Such is what happened with Pain & Gain, at least from the first trailer. Pain & Gain is presented in its trailers as a somewhat violent, near-action film. As it is, it is far more comedic, though it is darkly comic for most of the film. That is not to say that the movie is not funny, but the humor in it is delivered in wry lines as opposed to more overt slapstick and consistent ridiculousness. What humor there is comes between pretty violent moments and occasionally boring monologues. It only becomes something gruesome and not terribly funny around the hour mark when the humor is replaced with a pretty gruesome near-murder. Still, Pain & Gain is a black comedy, an abduction caper that is entertaining, even if it has characters so stupid, they could only have come from reality. Pain & Gain is loosely based upon a true story.

Opening on June 17, 1995 with the arrest of Daniel Lugo, Daniel espouses his personal philosophy of fitness and self-improvement. Though he is found guilty of his crimes, he is able to secure a job at a local fitness club where he guarantees the owner he can triple the gym’s membership. There he meets Victor Kershaw, an investor who is incredibly proud of his sandwich shop above his other investments and who has had a far easier time of it than Daniel. After attending a seminar by self-help guru Johnny Wu, Daniel decides that he is going to make his American dream come true by robbing Victor blind. He recruits his friend Adrian and soon they recruit Paul Doyle, an ex-con, ex-junkie, to kidnap and rob Victor.

As such things go, their attempt to abduct Victor goes poorly. After a false start and a botched attempt where Paul mixes up the BMW he needs to block in, the guys tazer Victor in broad daylight and manage to abduct him. After weeks of torture, Daniel and his team work Victor over to the point where he signs over all he owns to Daniel. Following that, the guys take Victor out to kill him, but they botch that job and Victor begins to hunt Daniel (with the aid of a retired private eye) for revenge. As Adrian moves on and marries the specialist who diagnosed him as a steroid user, Daniel settles into his new neighborhood and tries to become a good influence. Paul, however, falls back into cocaine and alcohol and tries to lure the guys into a second get-rich caper. Daniel is surprised when Adrian seems like he might be down with a second job.

Pain & Gain is funny mostly because it is a seriously-delivered crime caper populated by the stupidest criminals to hit the big screen in years. Utilizing frequent voiceovers, Pain & Gain has a series of ridiculous circumstances that spin out of control because Daniel is a man who adapts more than he thinks ahead. Daniel is a parody of a businessman for half the movie and a stupid fitness guru the rest of the time. As the events spin out of control, though, Daniel’s strength is in the way he adapts and presents himself with a supreme level of confidence. Still, even as things go bad, he says some of the most ridiculous things. Fortunately, many of the lines are actually funny: “If I learned anything this last year, other than what a notary was . . .”

As one might expect, the characters in Pain & Gain are largely unlikable. This is not a caper with a charismatic protagonist like I Love You, Phillip Morris (reviewed here!). Instead, Pain & Gain illustrates well how enough is never enough and one bad idea often leads to another. Daniel’s plan is ridiculous, but it is complicated by the fact that he enlists a man who falls easily back into his addictions and another who idolizes him and is willing to go along with any bad idea Daniel comes up with.

What makes Pain & Gain worth watching – outside some choice lines that are actually hilarious – is the acting. Dwayne Johnson proves once and for all that he is not just a giant with physical presence and muscles that are scary huge. Instead, he has the ability to be hilarious through deadpan deliveries and the ability to undermine expectations by looking like a terrified little boy when the circumstances call for it. Johnson is very funny as the coked up Paul. He is even funnier as the earnest Jesus freak who struggles with doing the right thing even as he consistently goes in the wrong direction.

Tony Shaloub and Anthony Mackie give great supporting performances as Victor and Adrian. Shaloub trades in his goofy reputation from Monk for a cold and dangerous façade that he pulls off completely. Mackie does the sidekick thing well as Adrian Doorbal opposite Mark Wahlberg’s Daniel Ludo, but he really shines when he is opposite Rebel Wilson, who plays his character’s love interest. Mackie holds himself with dignity most of the film and he is credibly powerful in the scenes where he is physical and hilariously cold in one of the film’s later scenes at a Home Depot.

Mark Wahlberg manages to blend the earnestness of his usual dramatic performance with the goofiness of his usual comedic role. As a result, Daniel Ludo comes across as a weird mix of Dirk Diggler from Boogie Nights (reviewed here!) and his absurd cop from The Other Guys (reviewed here!). Daniel Ludo might not be a likable character, but Mark Wahlberg makes him a watchable one who solidly entertains for the two hours of Pain & Gain.

Ironically, Pain & Gain manages to deliver what Identity Thief (reviewed here!) only promised. It is a solidly entertaining crime caper that has moments that are laugh-out-loud funny and, outside a gruesome middle, is very enjoyable overall.

For other works with Anthony Mackie, please check out my reviews of:
Man On A Ledge
The Adjustment Bureau
The Hurt Locker
Half Nelson
Million Dollar Baby

6/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Somewhat Banal, But Typical For An Action Flick, G.I. Joe: Retaliation Was Not Worth The Wait.

The Good: Decent action sequences, Entertaining, No truly bad performances
The Bad: No character development, Gaps in storytelling, Not particularly interesting
The Basics: Despite the conceits of the characters and the giant leaps in the G.I. Joe narrative, the beleaguered G.I. Joe: Retaliation arrives with surprisingly little flair, but nothing unexpected from an action-adventure film.


I cannot recall, in recent memory, any film quite as beleaguered as G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Regardless of the reasons (which change between market testing to put Channing Tatum into more of the film and revamping the film for 3-D effects), there was something deeply amusing to me about a film whose toy line has already hit the clearance rack before the movie even premiered! In that way, there is something almost impressive about G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

Unfortunately, that’s about all. To be sure, I was not a huge fan of G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra (reviewed here!). That film was so unmemorable that I had to check the IMDB to confirm that Jonathan Pryce was the President in that movie, in addition to G.I. Joe: Retaliation (he was). To start off with something overwhelmingly positive, G.I. Joe: Retaliation feels like what it is, a guy’s movie, a military-themed action-adventure film. Gone are the ridiculous Transformers-like tech suits from the first film. Also, G.I. Joe: Retaliation does not seem to be obsessed with making a joke out of itself. The result is that the heroes in G.I. Joe: Retaliation actually have to live by their skills and their wits and not all of them survive as a result.

Unfortunately, beyond that, G.I. Joe: Retaliation is a boring and obvious action-adventure film.

Following the assassination of the President of Pakistan by Snake Eyes (under the orders of the American President), the G.I. Joe team of Roadblock, Flint, Lady Jaye, and Duke are ordered on a mission to recover a nuclear bomb stolen after that incident. In the desert, the G.I. Joes are attacked, the team is almost wiped out (Duke is killed) and Roadblock, Flint, and Jaye go on the run. The President, who has been replaced by the COBRA operative and master of disguise, Zartan, uses the incident to publicly disgrace and disband the G.I. Joe unit. The Joes go on the run.

Zartan’s plan quickly becomes clear when Snake Eyes is captured and put in the same prison as COBRA Commander and Destro. Unmasked, this version of Snake Eyes is revealed to be Snake Eyes’s adversary Storm Shadow. Storm Shadow breaks out the COBRA leadership and returning them to power, Zartan as the President calls for a nuclear disarmament summit. As Snake Eyes and Jinx (Storm Shadow’s cousin) train to return to the Joes and recover Storm Shadow in order to learn COBRA’s plans, COBRA holds the world hostage for nuclear disarmament and an even more terrifying weapon.

G.I. Joe: Retaliation is a pretty obvious hero/villain movie; there is no real moral ambiguity here (though Storm Shadow’s backstory leads him to believe the path of his life is the result of him getting played) and the lack of complication leads to the viewer accepting most of the film’s conceits. I found I didn’t moralize over why Cobra Commander wanted to rule the world, but I was caught up on a number of details that just did not fit the film and the established characters. Destro was pretty badass in the first film and he is dispatched remarkably quickly in G.I. Joe: Retaliation, undermining how interesting he was in that film. But when Cobra Commander gets rid of him, the line is a quip that does not fit Cobra Commander’s more serious and obviously megalomaniacal character. On the flip side, in order to expose Zartan, Jaye must get into an event the President is at. Flirting her way in, she is added to the list of permitted attendees as the Chief Of Staff. How a member of the Secret Service would not recognize the Chief Of Staff, especially when the one in the film is male and Jaye most certainly is not, is utterly inconceivable.

Fundamentally, the issues with G.I. Joe: Retaliation are issues with the genre, not this specific iteration of it. In fact, G.I. Joe: Retaliation is remarkable only in how it does not strain any of the conceits of the genre. The G.I. Joes – and the film focuses mostly on Roadblock with the return of the General after whom the G.I. Joes were named – are loyal and respect their democracy and President and it is only the villains who torture and use questionable means. They do not even object to the implications of military downsizing that might come from a nuclear-free world. Actually, G.I. Joe: Retaliation is too busy with pounding out plot details and building up to the next fight to explore anything truly philosophical (outside the obvious honor, duty, loyalty stuff that the genre exploits and utilizes).

As for the acting, G.I. Joe: Retaliation does no real service to the careers of anyone involved, though – truth be told – it does none of them a disservice, either. G.I. Joe: Retaliation is just “that kind of film.” Dwayne Johnson’s Roadblock and Channing Tatum’s Duke are appropriately manly and joke between one another with very typical guy humor. And it’s not a stretch for either of them, Neither is it a stretch for Jonathan Pryce to play the dignified leader of the free world or Adrianne Palicki to show up and look good (though she is not quite muscular enough in this to plausibly be a soldier).

No great characters, no great performances, no real plot twists of audacious ideas; G.I. Joe: Retaliation is exactly what one expects from the March doldrum.

For other films with Channing Tatum, please check out my reviews of:
21 Jump Street
The Vow
Haywire
Dear John

4/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Star Trek: Voyager Gives WWE It’s Due (I’m Not Sure Why) With “Tsunkatse”

The Good: Direction, Moments of performance
The Bad: Bland plot, Terrible neglect of characters, Boring for non-WWE fans
The Basics: Star Trek: Voyager dresses up “Tsunkatse” as part of a WWE cross-promotion that holds up exceptionally poorly now.


Sometimes, I wish I did not know anything about a show when I sat down to watch or rewatch it. I have a feeling, though, that even if I knew nothing about “Tsunkatse” before watching it, I still would have loathed it. After all, I try very hard to rate and review based on objective standards, not by how something makes me feel necessarily. “Tsunkatse” is an objectively underwhelming episode that is both unimpressive television and dismal science fiction.

The fundamental problem with “Tsunkatse” is that it is a gimmick episode that is used to fit into a corporate strategy as opposed to an organic episode that naturally flows from the Star Trek: Voyager episodes that preceded it. In fact, “Tsunkatse” all-but acknowledges its own inadequacies in a scene where the Doctor points out to Neelix that his behavior is very un-Neelix. As it is, the thing I knew about “Tsunkatse” prior to watching the episode is actually surprisingly obvious within the episode: “Tsunkatse” was part of a UPN tribute to WWE event. UPN, the network founded on the strength of Star Trek: Voyager had spent years absolutely floundering (from its original slate, Star Trek: Voyager was the only series it launched that lasted the first half-season and it took several seasons before the network landed anything that endured more than a full season. Then, they added WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment) to their regular primetime line-up and they finally had a ratings hit. Oddly, instead of using their hit to promote their other programming, they used all of their other programming, like Star Trek: Voyager for a crossover event that promoted their wrestling entertainment. “Tsunkatse” is the event’s Star Trek: Voyager entry and it features what amounts to a cameo by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. It’s actually weird, considering his fairly successful film career, to go back now and see him in “Tsunkatse” and credited there only as The Rock.

Voyager is visiting a Pendari outpost where B’Elanna, Chakotay, and several other key members of the crew find themselves enjoying a bloodsport fought between different alien races. With Janeway off the ship for her own shore leave, the Doctor is dismayed when Seven Of Nine utilizes her shore leave with Tuvok, going off on an exploratory mission. On the return trip, Tuvok and Seven Of Nine’s shuttle is hijacked by aliens: Pendari led by Penk. With Tuvok near death, Penk is fascinated by Seven Of Nine and eager to have a former Borg drone fight in his gladiatorial contest.

Seven Of Nine initially refuses to fight for Penk, but she barters her participation against Tuvok getting the medical treatment he desperately needs. While she gets her butt kicked by the champion, Chakotay and Voyager crew realize that she and Tuvok have been captured. They appeal to Penk and quickly learn that the fights are actually being staged elsewhere and holographically broadcast. As Seven Of Nine trains with an aged Hirogen for a life or death fight, Voyager’s crew works to find the actual arena Seven Of Nine will be fighting in and save her.

“Tsunkatse” is one of those episodes that has a ridiculously simple purpose or gimmick and the producers will be damned if anything like continuity or character is going to get in the way of it. A large part of “Tsunkatse” is simply to establish the fight and Seven Of Nine’s confidence while confronting the Champion, only to get her butt kicked. The other half of the fighting sequences – which dominate the actual focus of the episode – is thoroughly underwhelming (I suppose “The Rock” does add something for those interested in such things) and is a set-up for the reveal of Seven Of Nine’s opponent, which is utterly unimpressive. So, it’s two fights bookended by a minor conversation about the fights and the nature of sport and the hunt for the location the fights are taking place in. This is not at all a compelling episode.

It is, however, a fairly problematic one when one scratches the surface deeper than the gut-level enjoyment factor. Unlike in “The Fight” (reviewed here!) where most of the crew was indifferent to such things as boxing, in “Tsunkatse,” suddenly everyone is an enthusiast of violent sports! So, Neelix, who has always seemed far more gentle and interested in more educated pursuits, suddenly becomes a stereotypical “guy” to root for the Tsunkatse fights. Similarly, Tom Paris – who is the closest character to being a Trekker, whatwith his geekish love of serialized science fiction and kitsch, suddenly devolves into loving what everyone else does. So much for him actually doing his own thing and acting to temper B’Elanna’s violent nature!

But, because the episode focuses so much on Seven Of Nine (Tuvok is along as a cheap excuse for one pointless dialogue exchange and as a “price” that Seven Of Nine pays without any real emotional effect), it is germane to look at her. Seven Of Nine could have been a compelling choice for the subject of the episode had it gone for a strong emotional journey. Instead, the viewer is given a very quick emotional jerk that is surprisingly lacking in substance. “Tsunkatse” might have been vastly more interesting as a two-parter, one with the banal fights, one with the wrestling with the consequences. What if, instead of Jeri Ryan being forced to blandly shrug into a deathmatch against an opponent that renders no emotional catharsis for the viewer, Seven Of Nine suddenly became obsessed with the deathmatches and succeeded with them in an extraordinary fashion, killing alien after alien until she ended up in a match with Tuvok? Then, as a follow-up, rescued by Voyager, Seven Of Nine and Tuvok actually dealt with the ramifications of Seven complying instead of resisting the Pendari and Seven Of Nine having a difficult time re-acclimating to “civilized” life? Bang; that pitch is much more thought out for the character journey than “Tsunkatse” actually was. Seven Of Nine is not given that much of an emotional journey or even that much consideration in “Tsunkatse.”

To be fair to Jeri Ryan, she holds her own in the fight sequences. While her deliveries might rise to blithe at best with the character’s supposed emotional journey throughout the episode, she does a decent job with her physical performance throughout. Sadly, it is not enough to make “Tsunkatse” worth watching.

[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Voyager - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the penultimate season here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, be sure to visit my reviews of:
The Other Guys
The Tooth Fairy
Planet 51
Get Smart
Southland Tales
The Mummy Returns

2/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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So Bad It's Worth Watching, The Mummy Returns Is A Camp/MST3000 Must See!

The Good: Sense of movement/pacing, Acting in general, Moments of concept
The Bad: Ridiculous special effects, Light on character development
The Basics: When The Mummy Returns, the viewer is presented with such a preposterous movie that it appears Stephen Sommers is actually trying to write a great b-rate flick!


It is a rare thing that I step outside my reviewer's professionalism and actually recommend a film for reasons other than the concept that one should see it because it is a vital work or entertaining or the whatnot. I was not, for example, impressed by The Mummy (reviewed here!) but the longer I endured The Mummy Returns, the more I enjoyed it. Yes, unlike the first film in The Mummy movies - or the most recent installment The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor - The Mummy Returns is just plain, consistently, fun. The Mummy went comedic for too long before becoming an annoying overly-telegraphed action adventure, leaving the viewer feeling like they were watching a farce, but The Mummy Returns balances the comedy and action adventure far better than the first.

But more than that, The Mummy Returns is pretty ridiculous from the very start. The prologue, which explains the tale of the Scorpion King is a fairly insulting exposition that introduces the viewer to a character played by Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. Like the prologue to the first movie, the viewer can see what is being told as part of the voice-over, which left me immediately feeling like this was going to be a substandard rehash of an already average film. But then the movie filled up with past lives (implied in the first, made explicit here), hot air balloons, and special effects that are so deliciously campy, it is hard not to watch, turn off the brain and relentlessly mock. So, yes, The Mummy Returns is an average film, but it is worth picking up for a night with your funniest, most sarcastic friends because it has such a beautiful camp quality to it that it has to be seen to be believed. Yes, it's so bad it should be watched!

Legend tells of the Scorpion King, a warrior who attempted to take over the world, but was thwarted after years of campaigns. In his darkest moment, he made a pact with a dark god who helped him win for a while longer, until he was finally routed and the god collected his soul. Approximately every thousand years, the Scorpion King resurrects as a minion of that dark god and tries to conquer the world. This Year Of The Scorpion finds Rick and Evelyn O'Connell exploring a new set of ruins based upon a dream Evelyn had that disturbed her. Inside the ruins, Evelyn has flashes of what the place looked like at its peak, including people there and she and Rick liberate a box - and their son - from the structure before heading back to London.

In London, the O'Connell's prepare for a few days of less dangerous work when little Alex opens the mysterious box and puts on the Scorpion King's bracelet and they find their mansion under attack by agents of the museum curator. That same curator is working to raise Imhotep from his mummified status again and he has an ally; a resurrected Anck Su Namun. When Alex is captured, Rick, Evelyn, her brother Jonathan, and their mystical magi Ardeth, head off to Africa . . . in a dirigible to rescue him and save the world while Evelyn recalls her past life experience as Princess Nefertiri, Anck Su Namun's rival and witness to her and Imhotep's greatest crime!

Yes, The Mummy Returns has it all; mummies, stylized dogmen Egyptian warriors, and a CG-version of "The Rock" grafted to a scorpion's body. Yes, this is what schlock is made of! The thing is, while watching the film, I sat and knew just how bad it was, a feeling that was crystallized the moment Dizzy and his dirigible first appeared on screen. But the story elements of past life experiences, resurrected mummies and the god-bound soon-to-be-reanimated Scorpion King are all so delightfully cliche that the film becomes a terrible move, but a truly great b-film. In fact, so many action adventure films these days seem to try for greatness, but The Mummy Returns seems to concede very early in the film that it will not be and decides to just be pretty mindless fun.

Outside the ridiculous plot elements, the aspect that is most devastating to the credibility of the flick are the special effects. In the prologue, the effects are impressive, with the dogmen overrunning the desert and the effects are realistic and cool. Apparently, the prologue left the film drastically overbudget and the mummy Imhotep suffers from the same lighting problems as in the first film, bluescreen shots are painfully obvious and many of the mummy warriors are simply laughable. But the cream of the b-film criteria crop is the eventual rise of the Scorpion King. Poor Dwayne Johnson barely appears in the final scenes, replaced as he is by a poorly animated version of himself that on my HD-TV was tragically unterrifying.

On the character front, The Mummy Returns divides itself remarkably well between the passe and the utterly campy. Indeed, anyone who has seen any action adventure film - but especially sequels with a child from the two lead protagonists from the first - know that the kid is going to get abducted. Yes, the viewer waits for Alex to get abducted and the only real surprise is that in the process neither Ardeth nor the boob Jonathan bite the dust. In this way, The Mummy Returns is cliche and obvious as Alex is soon abducted by Imhotep as part of the resurrected mummy's plans to take on the Scorpion King.

But what is campy and almost clever is that The Mummy Returns mixes this obvious bit with a character twisting that is actually interesting; that of the past life story. While Imhotep is resurrected in the traditional necromancy sense, Evelyn has flashes of a past life experience as Princess Nefertiri that she does not understand. These flashes increase and reveal more about the story of Anck Su Namun, who has been physically reborn as Meela Nais. This idea at least plays out in an interesting fashion in the movie as Meela assists Imhotep in his plans and the flashbacks give a real sense of backstory to Anck Su Namun and Nefertiri. The viewer is almost able to accept, then, when Evelyn and Meela square off to do battle while Rick takes on the Scorpion King, as something other than just women pairing off to fight. No, The Mummy Returns tends to keep things as fair as fights tend to be with the men of about the same build taking on one another while the dainty women beat each other extensively to a similar pulp.

The Mummy Returns returns Patricia Velasquez (Anck Su Namun), Oded Fehr (Ardeth), and John Hannah (Jonathan Carnahan) to the screen while effectively mixing in Freddie Boath (Alex). Boath plays best off Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who is perhaps best known now for his role of Mr. Ecko on the second season of Lost (reviewed here!). Dwayne Johnson makes good use of his time in the prologue, but most of his late-film appearance has a clear digital rendering of the actor that he cannot take credit - or blame - for the performance. Sufficed to say, this is not his dramatic opus. But Arnold Vosloo's return as the menacing Imhotep seems much more developed and less monolithic than it did in the first film. Still, Vosloo gets quite a bit of mileage out of bugging his eyes out and yelling.

But the movie rests largely on Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz and Fraser shows up and plays Rick mostly the same way he did in The Mummy. But Weisz is given physical and emotional acting challenges to live up to and in The Mummy Returns she rises to the occasion. For sure, there are stunt actresses that do much of the work between Weisz and Velasquez, as Nefertiri and Anck Su Namun do battle, but the acting challenge comes in selling the coverage in those scenes that is clearly Weisz. Those moments bind the scenes and are perfect; Weisz makes the viewer believe it is truly her out of breath and in peril who we've seen doing all her character has been doing. At the same time, Weisz plays the befuddled librarian and archaeologist brilliantly and her character is a delight to watch.

And truth be told, The Mummy is simply fun and worth watching, if for no other reason than it it imaginative and fun . . . even just for "Mystery Science Theater 3000" fare, it is hard to ask for more sometimes.

For other works with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, be sure to visit my reviews of:
The Other Guys
The Tooth Fairy
Planet 51
Get Smart
Southland Tales

5.5/10

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

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

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The Mummy Multipack For Those Who Simply MUST Have The Mummy Trilogy. Meh.

The Good: Moments of humor, Moments of effect, DVD bonus features are thorough
The Bad: Recycled plots, Light on character development, Nothing amazing in the acting, Overbearing soundtracks.
The Basics: Fairly blase and average at best, The Mummy Trilogy is hardly essential for anyone's DVD library.


In the history of great motion picture trilogies, there are the inevitable multipacks that follow. And even the Trilogies that are not, ultimately, all that great, seem to end up as multipacks. I write that with some sense of disappointment because after years of hype, I finally sat down and watched the three Brendan Fraser Mummy movies and I found them to be alternately bad, campy and worse. As a result, the multipack which puts the three movies together is hardly enchanting and at best works itself up to the status of mildly entertaining.

The thing is, The Mummy films are essentially special effect action films. They have sub-par special effects in several key sequences that make them more laughable than exciting and the prevalence of humor throughout makes the menace hard to take seriously as well. One suspects this is why actress Rachel Weisz did not come back for the third installment of the franchise. The Mummy Trilogy is a bundle pack of the three two-disc versions of each film and it does not include any additional features or discs special for this set.

This is a simple bulk pack of:
The Mummy
The Mummy Returns
The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor

For those unfamiliar with it, The Mummy introduces Rick O'Connell. Rick O'Connell, while working with the French Foreign Legion, unearths the ruins of the ancient city of Hamunaptra. Unfortunately, his entire squadron - save the cowardly Beni - is slaughtered and only Rick survives. Eve and Jonathan Carnahan spring Rick from prison during his execution when they come upon a map and evidence that they think will help them find Hamunaptra. Impressed into service, as Eve has bought his life, Rick guides Eve toward Hamunaptra.

In a race against a rival team - of Americans - led by Beni, Rick leads Eve and Jonathan to the ruins. Once there, the Americans steal several artifacts and in the meddling, the body of the mummy of Imhotep is disturbed. Awakened from his long slumber, he begins to hunt Eve, thinking she is the love of his immortal life, Anck Su Namun. And Rick, seeing Imhotep slaughtering the Americans to get more of a corporeal form, works to save Eve from death . . . or worse!

The Mummy is fairly solidly entertaining. While it is often compared to Raiders Of The Lost Ark (reviewed here!) the enduring themes of greed vs. culture are entirely lacking from The Mummy. It does not seem to strive to be anything more than what it is. As a result, it is fun, mildly funny, but not much more than that. In other words, the one-liners do not so much add up to characters as simply fill in the gaps between action sequences and expositional dialogue. In fact, the film often feels like it has a multiple personality disorder: it oscillates pretty radically between campy, comedy and over-telegraphed action adventure.

The first sequences in the movie involve the backstory of Imhotep and Anck Su Namun and with the voice-overs narrating the events that are already pretty obvious, the sequence is pretty campy. While it provides the requisite backstory, the voice-over is somewhat insulting to the viewer, who sees the affair and the implication of it and does not need the additional reinforcement of being told it as well.

After the campy opening which provides the history of Imhotep and his lover and how he was mummified, the film turns into a comedy with Rick and Beni fighting in Africa. Beni's comical running in the face of danger is genuinely worthy of laughter, but some of the early catch phrases and Rick's next appearance in the prison are hardly funny. The Mummy degenerates into something of a farce as it becomes a race movie between Rick's team and the Americans. The movie wastes some time trying to be funny aboard the boat to the desert near Hamunaptra and it is because of the amount of time the film devotes to slapstick farcical comedy in this section that the movie fails to come back from it. It is pretty basic moviemaking; if you set the film up with forty-five minutes of laughter, it is hard to expect something different in the last hour.

And by the time the film decides that it wants to be an action-adventure film, it goes over-the-top in that regard, too. Jerry Goldsmith's fanfares are ridiculous and intrusive, playing along each and every movement in the film in a way - like the voice-overs at the beginning - that telegraphs the emotion the viewer is supposed to be feeling. It is like the soundtrack is an obnoxious kid sitting next to one at the movie, tugging on one's sleeve piping up with, "Hey! Isn't this exciting! I'm excited! I'm so excited! You should be excited too!" over and over again. We get it by the running, the stabbing, the jumping, and the sudden reversals where the mummy armies are in front of Rick instead of behind him. We get it, it's exciting. Sit down and let us be excited about it, as opposed to reminding us to stay excited! This is not one of Goldsmith's better soundtracks.

But to be fair to Jerry Goldsmith, it is not like he had a wealth of truly great material to work with. The Mummy is an attempt at a big-budget special effects comedy or action adventure and that is what it is trading on. As a result, it is not like there are a lot of tender character moments or compelling dialogue to hold the movie when the characters aren't cracking wise or running from CG monsters.

This is especially problematic in that Rick O'Connell is not exactly a great character. Rick stumbles upon clues and the solutions to problems and is not even the driving cognitive force of the movie. For that, one needs to look at Eve. Eve is smart, educated and clumsy. Those three traits are at least one more trait than springs to mind about Rick. Even Beni has his cowardice and the cowardice as a character aspect works to serve the plot; Beni's freak-out as the Mummy moves in to kill him leads him to go through an encyclopedia of protective prayers, one of which allows him to survive as the mummy's slave.

But even Eve's surplus of character is soon sacrificed to service the plot. Strong and intellectual, Even soon is relegated to the role of damsel in distress when the reanimated mummy begins his reign of terror. It is Rick and force that are used to hold off the mummy long enough for Eve to come through (with the assist by her brother). But the amount of time Eve spends as the damsel is distressing given how strong her character begins the film as.

That said, the acting in The Mummy has its moments. They are not the traditionally great moments of acting that one would expect. But, for example, Kevin J. O'Connor is great in The Mummy. How can I say that? He performed as an awkward doctor who practiced hard science in a television series called Gideon's Crossing. He plays Beni in this so radically different, yet with equal conviction, that it affirms the quality of his performance abilities.

Also entirely convincing is Rachel Weisz as Evelyn Carnahan. Weisz is articulate around every bit of the technobabble and she does an amazing job with the physical comedy when she is compelled to play the role of Eve as clumsy. She speaks her most difficult lines with articulation and there is not a moment while she is on screen that the viewer suspects she is anyone other than Evelyn Carnahan.

The best of the bunch, The Mummy Returns, continues the story by retelling essentially the same plot with an additional villain. In it, a legend tells of the Scorpion King, a warrior who attempted to take over the world, but was thwarted after years of campaigns. In his darkest moment, he made a pact with a dark god who helped him win for a while longer, until he was finally routed and the god collected his soul. Approximately every thousand years, the Scorpion King resurrects as a minion of that dark god and tries to conquer the world. This Year Of The Scorpion finds Rick and Evelyn O'Connell exploring a new set of ruins based upon a dream Evelyn had that disturbed her. Inside the ruins, Evelyn has flashes of what the place looked like at its peak, including people there and she and Rick liberate a box - and their son - from the structure before heading back to London.

In London, the O'Connell's prepare for a few days of less dangerous work when little Alex opens the mysterious box and puts on the Scorpion King's bracelet and they find their mansion under attack by agents of the museum curator. That same curator is working to raise Imhotep from his mummified status again and he has an ally; a resurrected Anck Su Namun. When Alex is captured, Rick, Evelyn, her brother Jonathan, and their mystical magi Ardeth, head off to Africa . . . in a dirigible to rescue him and save the world while Evelyn recalls her past life experience as Princess Nefertiri, Anck Su Namun's rival and witness to her and Imhotep's greatest crime!

Yes, The Mummy Returns has it all; mummies, stylized dogmen Egyptian warriors, and a CG-version of "The Rock" grafted to a scorpion's body. Yes, this is what schlock is made of! The thing is, while watching the film, I sat and knew just how bad it was, a feeling that was crystallized the moment Dizzy and his dirigible first appeared on screen. But the story elements of past life experiences, resurrected mummies and the god-bound soon-to-be-reanimated Scorpion King are all so delightfully cliche that the film becomes a terrible move, but a truly great b-film. In fact, so many action adventure films these days seem to try for greatness, but The Mummy Returns seems to concede very early in the film that it will not be and decides to just be pretty mindless fun.

Outside the ridiculous plot elements, the aspect that is most devastating to the credibility of the flick are the special effects. In the prologue, the effects are impressive, with the dogmen overrunning the desert and the effects are realistic and cool. Apparently, the prologue left the film drastically overbudget and the mummy Imhotep suffers from the same lighting problems as in the first film, bluescreen shots are painfully obvious and many of the mummy warriors are simply laughable. But the cream of the b-film criteria crop is the eventual rise of the Scorpion King. Poor Dwayne Johnson barely appears in the final scenes, replaced as he is by a poorly animated version of himself that on my HD-TV was tragically unterrifying.

On the character front, The Mummy Returns divides itself remarkably well between the passe and the utterly campy. Indeed, anyone who has seen any action adventure film - but especially sequels with a child from the two lead protagonists from the first - know that the kid is going to get abducted. Yes, the viewer waits for Alex to get abducted and the only real surprise is that in the process neither Ardeth nor the boob Jonathan bite the dust. In this way, The Mummy Returns is cliche and obvious as Alex is soon abducted by Imhotep as part of the resurrected mummy's plans to take on the Scorpion King.

But what is campy and almost clever is that The Mummy Returns mixes this obvious bit with a character twisting that is actually interesting; that of the past life story. While Imhotep is resurrected in the traditional necromancy sense, Evelyn has flashes of a past life experience as Princess Nefertiri that she does not understand. These flashes increase and reveal more about the story of Anck Su Namun, who has been physically reborn as Meela Nais. This idea at least plays out in an interesting fashion in the movie as Meela assists Imhotep in his plans and the flashbacks give a real sense of backstory to Anck Su Namun and Nefertiri. The viewer is almost able to accept, then, when Evelyn and Meela square off to do battle while Rick takes on the Scorpion King, as something other than just women pairing off to fight. No, The Mummy Returns tends to keep things as fair as fights tend to be with the men of about the same build taking on one another while the dainty women beat each other extensively to a similar pulp.

The Mummy Returns returns Patricia Velasquez (Anck Su Namun), Oded Fehr (Ardeth), and John Hannah (Jonathan Carnahan) to the screen while effectively mixing in Freddie Boath (Alex). Boath plays best off Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who is perhaps best known now for his role of Mr. Ecko on the second season of Lost (reviewed here!). Dwayne Johnson makes good use of his time in the prologue, but most of his late-film appearance has a clear digital rendering of the actor that he cannot take credit - or blame - for the performance. Sufficed to say, this is not his dramatic opus. But Arnold Vosloo's return as the menacing Imhotep seems much more developed and less monolithic than it did in the first film. Still, Vosloo gets quite a bit of mileage out of bugging his eyes out and yelling.

But the movie rests largely on Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz and Fraser shows up and plays Rick mostly the same way he did in The Mummy. But Weisz is given physical and emotional acting challenges to live up to and in The Mummy Returns she rises to the occasion. For sure, there are stunt actresses that do much of the work between Weisz and Velasquez, as Nefertiri and Anck Su Namun do battle, but the acting challenge comes in selling the coverage in those scenes that is clearly Weisz. Those moments bind the scenes and are perfect; Weisz makes the viewer believe it is truly her out of breath and in peril who we've seen doing all her character has been doing. At the same time, Weisz plays the befuddled librarian and archaeologist brilliantly and her character is a delight to watch.

The final installment (for now) is The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor. Alex O'Connell, now grown up a bit, is a young adventurer exploring ruins in China when he discovers a chamber of terra cotta warriors. When the cursed leader, the Chinese Emperor Han suddenly sprouts back to life, he continues the megalomaniacal quest to take over the world that he began before he was cursed and mummified. Undead and powerful, the Dragon Emperor and his legions of warriors - also reanimated by Alex's clumsiness - begin to illustrate a capacity for world domination and Alex flees in desperation to his father. Rick O'Connell, a noted archaeologist and adventurer, has experience with returning the dead to the undead and when Alex returns home to beg his help, he jumps into action.

Soon, the O'Connell family is all in China, hunting clues to stop the Dragon Emperor, while Han returns to the ways that got him cursed in the first place. The O'Connells take on a sorceress ally who has intimate knowledge of Han's curse and works to thwart him . . .

Where to start with the problems of The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor? It is plagued by moments that feel like it is utterly the same movie we have seen before in virtually every other action-adventure film ever produced. Indeed, there is nothing truly new in Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor and it comes through on all of the important levels of plot, character and acting and the supplemental front of special effects.

First, I have some respect for Eastern philosophy and for a movie taking place in China, the way maturity and age is revered is almost entirely lacking. For sure, the O'Connells employ a respectable woman whose powers only come from the wisdom of age (sort of), but the lack of respect illustrated between Alex and Rick is very American. Instead of having any sense of reverence for Rick's experience, Alex is reluctant and arrogant, defiant while requesting his aid. And Rick doesn't help things. He is characterized as somewhat buffoonish in too many parts. Sure, he looks good in a tuxedo and when he has to move, he has all of the choreographed grace of an action hero, but the character is otherwise dull. Indeed, the best elements of Rick are all characterized by his ability to move and movement does not equal character.

As one condemned to any number of movies this summer, I am getting sick of writers and directors who seem to work by that equation under the mistaken belief that those who watch movies will accept bland characters so long as they run, jump and shoot things. I do not.

The only thing less fortunate than Rick's characterization is that of the characters who accompany him. Evelyn lets off a number of wry comments and Alex seems dimly aware of the consequences of his actions early in the movie. Indeed, amid all of the forced family drama between Rick and Alex, one almost finds the rise of Han forgettable. And that type of conflict and bland acceptance that fathers and sons will not see eye-to-eye is anything but entertaining; indeed, we have seen it before. I am certain that there are any number of comparisons between the Indiana Jones films and the movies of The Mummy, but the truth is, that would be a false analogy. The Indiana Jones movies (especially the first one and, admittedly, even the latest cinematic outing) had some substance, some philosophy, something the movie wanted to say other than "hey, look at Harrison Ford run around with various costars!" Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor has nothing so smart as Nazis looking for a supernatural way to win the war and Indiana Jones fighting for freedom by recovering paranormal artifacts.

Moreover, Emperor Han is given nothing so glamorous as a reason for wanting to take over the world. World domination no longer satisfies the viewer for motivation; don't obsessive warlords realize yet that it is easy to take over the world, but impossible to keep control of it once you do?! Emperor Han seems to be bent on taking over the world and employing his seemingly invincible undead warriors simply by rote; it is what he did before, so he'll continue doing it now. The best villains have a reason and one that makes them seem more human. The reason the world isn't overrun by impractical jerks who are trying to take everything over is because it is not human nature to want to control everything (and fortunately for all of us, those who are most prepossessed toward the type of egomania needed to believe that their way is unquestionably the right and only way, tend to not get very far - usually Congress, where they are met by 534 people like them and accomplish nothing!). Watching The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor, then, is made all the less entertaining by the monolithically bad way Han is portrayed.

At least it does not challenge Jet Li to have to do much outside yell, fight and look menacing.

As for the special effects, they are able to cover up virtually everything, save the lousy acting. The performers do their best to look like they know what they are seeing when they end up in giant scenes filled with virtual characters, but there are many, many places where the characters seem detached from the world they supposedly occupy. This is an unforgivable sin in this day in age and Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor cheapens the serious movies that use effects to simply augment the good story. Here, the massive armies of undead are asked to carry the weight of the lousy script and they are crushed under that. Far too often, the special effects look like special effects and the real flesh and blood people only serve to remind the viewer of how unreal much of the rest of the movie actually is.

That said, I will admit that the dragon - even when improperly lit for the surroundings it occupies - does look pretty cool. Sadly, its presence does not justify the rest of the movie.

Brendan Fraser is saddled with the duty of selling the reality of The Mummy: Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor and unfortunately, through much of the film, he seems tired and bored of the role himself. For sure, his performance is different from, say, his role in Still Breathing (reviewed here!); there is nothing quirky or quiet in his performance. Instead, he is forceful, physical and he has a somewhat ridiculous obsession with screwing his face up to emote. Fraser might be an adept physical comedian, but at many points in Tomb Of The Dragon Emperor, the role does not call for that type of performance, yet that is what he gives.

The others range from adequate to terrible, from those who are comfortable working in environments opposite nothing and guessing (Jet Li) and those who seem stymied by how to act when the setting and adversaries are not present (Luke Ford). Much has been made about Maria Bello, who plays Evelyn. She apparently takes over the role from another actress and - because I have not seen those movies - I shall not comment on that. Bello does seem a little stiff though.

Some of that stiffness is hard to blame on Bello; she is given a role that is very much a sidekick and sharing that role with Ford. In other words, her stiffness might well come from being uncomfortable with having so little to do.

Sadly, by the end of these movies she is not alone; that is how the viewer feels.

On DVD, the movies come with commentary tracks and featurettes, largely focused on the special effects. They get decent participation from actors and producers for the interviews in them, but they are hardly enough to make them worth buying for those who were not grabbed by the source material.

For other trilogy or saga multipacks, please check out my reviews of:
The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy
Star Wars Saga
Back To The Future Trilogy

4.5/10

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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Get Smart: Summer Blockbuster Season Gets Fun And Funny!

The Good: Surprisingly well constructed, Funny, Well-acted, Engaging
The Bad: Some of the humor falls flat and obvious, Not a huge character film.
The Basics: Get Smart is a flat-out fun movie that is enjoyable, surprisingly clever at parts and laugh-out-loud funny in others, making it worthwhile.


Lately, I've taken a notebook with me to the theaters to watch movies so I remember things better. Unlike DVDs, which I rewatch and pause and fast forward and the like, in theaters, I concentrate and make notes. I was honestly not anticipating Get Smart living up to the amusing potential of the previews because I found I had more notes on a pretty extensive rant about how the previews began. Yes, I was prepared to rant at some length about how I, as a United States Citizen and taxpayer should not have to be subjected to a commercial for the National Guard - which, as a taxpayer, I paid to have made (against my will, in case anyone from the Congressional Appropriations committees are reading this) - featuring a band whose c.d.s I'd not buy (Three Doors Down, not my favorite and their jingoistic "Citizen Soldiers" which played for the commercial did not sell me on them), and be forced to pay to watch it! Yes, I've got some pretty righteous points on this one and after the huge disappointment of The Love Guru I was prepared to waste much of my review space with said rant.

The thing is, Get Smart was so good that I stopped taking notes. Seriously. Get Smart lured me in with its preview before Iron Man (reviewed here!) and the truth is, I haven't enjoyed a film this summer this much since Iron Man. Get Smart is funny and entertaining and surprisingly, it is well constructed in a way one would not usually think of from a comedic action-adventure film.

It is also worth noting that I've never seen an episode of Get Smart. This review will make no comparisons between the current film incarnation and the original television series. Other reviewers might have that knowledge and experience; this review is solely for the current film. It's a movie that works and truth be told, if it becomes a franchise, that might not be the worst thing in the world (assuming they all were this good).

Maxwell Smart is an analyst for CONTROL, a U.S. superspy organization that for all intents and purposes appears shuttered since the collapse of Soviet Communism. CONTROL's arch-nemesis, KAOS, appears to be as alive and well as CONTROL actually is and the villainous Siegfried is acquiring yellow cake uranium for KAOS to distribute to unstable dictatorships around the world. When Max manages to pass his test to become a numbered Agent, he finds himself disappointed by the Chief, who needs him for his meticulous reporting ability and efficiency.

Shortly after Max is disappointed, a bloodbath ensues at CONTROL headquarters and it is hit by agents of KAOS. Max, Agent 99, and Agent 23 liberate the survivors, who include the Chief, 91, Larabee, and the technical wizards Bruce and Lloyd. Establishing a new control center from their safe house, the Chief orders the only two agents who have not been compromised into the field: Agent 99 - who just had extensive plastic surgery - and Max, as Agent 86. 86 and 99 track Siegfried and KAOS in an attempt to find the uranium and the agent who arranged the hit on CONTROL. In the process, they develop a friendship and escape escalatingly dangerous situations.

Get Smart reunites actors Steve Carell and Alan Arkin, who appeared together in Little Miss Sunshine. Carell plays Maxwell Smart with his trademark deadpan, but he manages to keep the performance as an actual performance. There is rarely a hint of his holier-than-thou irony that he infused to make his reporter persona on The Daily Show seem real and satirical. Carell plays Smart as a well-actualized character who has mannerisms that are unique to the actual character.

As a result, Carell establishes Max as an incredibly intelligent, thorough and engaged analyst. In short, Max is a fully believable special agent working for a secret government project that would be used to find and eliminate terrorists and other threats to the United States. He is has the ability to remember vast amounts of information and he there is evidence he has great insight into codes, psychology and using gadgets.

Paired with Agent 99, Agent 86 finds his technical knowledge blends well with 99's field experience. 99 is efficient, physically able and knows her way around a dance floor, high heels, and a firearm.

Get Smart works so well because it manages to blend telling a serious story with dialogue that is rich in double entendres. There is great physical humor as characters like the massive Agent 23 pounds a coworker with a stapler only to be told by the Chief that that is not the kind of people they are. The humor is very consistent and there is a lot for adults to enjoy. Indeed, this is the first time in a long time I found myself laughing out loud at a movie ("I'm suddenly feeling very sexually threatened"), even more than the other people in the theater. This is very rare for me; comedies usually suffer when I watch them because as someone who watches a lot of movies, it takes a lot to surprise and thrill me. Humor, being based largely on surprise, becomes very predictable to me. But in Get Smart, there are lines that were outright funny that managed to surprise even a seasoned cinephile, the most notable of which involves a swordfish. In a movie rich with deadpans that Carell delivers, physical comedy performed by Dwayne Johnson, it is the more subtle Alan Arkin who gets the best line.

In fact, the only real problem with Get Smart is when it diverges from the specific humor of this world to play on the more typical and obvious conceits of PG-13 comedies. To wit, the moment there is a flashback involving Carell in a fat suit, the viewer is pulled out of the movie. The typical fat person joke is challenged later on by a scene opened by the use of mocking a fat woman, who dances with 86 and yet holds her own with him. The thing is, analyzing the scene becomes a stretch of logic; in order for it to truly redeem the humor of the earlier scene, the dance scene can't be funny in a way that mocks fat people, which . . . it does not manage to do. The scene works as "Fat Person Pride" only in the last moments when Agent 86 dances with her and she is a magnificent dancer and she is able to give the finger to the skinny girls who had been mocking her. Two fat jokes, a pretty standard gay joke, and the use of a pretty lousy fat suit pull the viewer out of Get Smart.

And some of the jokes just seem to go a little far with the repetition. The mini-crossbow scene, for example, is just too much.

The only other serious problem with this movie is that it has elements that are timely that would have worked better unseen. References to the Vice President as a dismissive controlling demagogue and the President being portrayed as an ignoramus work remarkably well for today's audiences. The problem is, they work much better - especially the Vice President's new pacemaker remark - only today and would have been better as barbs with the characters kept off-screen. Instead, the Bush-Cheney references are muted by the actual appearances of the President and Vice President characters.

These may seem like nitpicky things, but they are enough to rob the movie of enough merit to keep it from a seven of ten in my usual rating system.

What works, even if the characters are not impressively developed, are the casting and the acting. Get Smart features appearances by Terence Stamp, Dwayne Johnson (known more commonly as the wrestler "The Rock"), Masi Oka and Nate Torrence. Also present and notable is Ken Davitian, who was the sidekick producer in Borat. Here he plays Siegfried's lackey and he's good in the role, even if it is not that meaty. As well, there is a recognizable cameo by Bill Murray and some that are no doubt associated with the original Get Smart series.

At the time I saw this, this was only the second film I had seen featuring Anne Hathaway. Hathaway, in addition to being astonishingly good looking in a very classy way, is articulate and has a great physical presence in Get Smart. Hathaway plays Agent 99 and when she needs to, she emotes beautifully and presents the hints of fragility within her character. And the rest of the time, she has a cold, efficient facade that makes her a believable - if young - agent. Hathaway is great as 99. Sigh.

But much of the film hinges on Steve Carell. Actually, it hinges on how Carell and Hathaway act together and they have some real chemistry. Carell is able to infuse wit into a character who could be very dull and dry as an analyst and genius. Instead, from the moment Hathaway appears on screen with Carell, the film becomes about revealing the very human side of Max and Carell plays it out perfectly.

And in writing that, it brings me full circle to what made Get Smart such a fun and worthwhile movie. This is an exceptionally well-constructed movie. In his initial briefing for CONTROL, Max makes the point that everyone working for CONTROL and KAOS is, at the end of the day, human. This seems like a throwaway line, but it is the line the entire movie hinges on, not just a few convenient plot twists. As a result, the level of character that is more subtle than any other is the journey whereby Max and Agent 99 realize that they are more human than Agents and this is what will make Get Smart worth seeing more than once.

As it is, it's certainly worthwhile summer fare and I cannot imagine that when it is released on DVD this would not be a fun addition to anyone's collection. On DVD, Get Smart is indeed fun. It comes with a few featurettes on the making of the movie, including a fun one with Steve Carell in Moscow (or on a soundstage). There is no commentary track, but there is a decent gag reel and an advertisement for the straight-to-DVD sequel.

For works featuring Anne Hathaway, please check out my reviews of:
Anne Hathaway For Wonder Woman!
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
Hoodwinked!
The Princess Diaries

7/10

For other movie 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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Weird, Dark And Complicated, Southland Tales Might Be The Best Political Film In Years.

The Good: Pleasantly weird, An amazing cast, Surprisingly good acting
The Bad: Light on bonus features/No director's cut
The Basics: Delightfully confusing, but with the realistic complications of a vast network of individuals acting on their own motivations, Southland Tales mystifies its way to success.


When it comes to watching new films, there are very few films I want to see without knowing something about them on one level or another. Life is too short to waste my time with lousy movies (though, strangely, when it comes to new films, I seem to be willing to sit through anything I can screen for free), so I usually like going into movies knowing something about them. The exception to that is when there is a director I trust. If a film is good enough, it "buys" my immediate interest in the writer/director's next film. So, for example, P.T. Anderson and Terry Gilliam get my money consistently because they have both made films which are perfect. So, when I saw and enjoyed Donnie Darko (reviewed here!), writer and director Richard Kelly instantly earned my attention for his film Southland Tales.

Truth be told, getting Southland Tales out from my local library was not a random thing. I wanted to see Southland Tales, because I had followed the tumultuous history of its production. The SciFi Wire reported extensively on the problems Richard Kelly was having in getting the film released and I was completely fascinated about it. Unfortunately, the SciFi Wire upgraded to a more flashy, Flash-based system that takes forever to load on my computer (or crashes it altogether), so I never learned how the problems were resolved and that the film hit theaters. As a result, I was pleased to get this in and watch it.

Southland Tales, which had a plot that I knew nothing about in advance, is just what I would have expected by the writer and director of Donnie Darko. Richard Kelly both wrote and directed Southland Tales and it is stylish, weird and smart. It is like a postapocalyptic story that mixes Dark City (reviewed here!) and Mulholland Drive. Usually, if I figure out what other movies a film is like, I tend not to enjoy it, but Southland Tales got me into it right away.

Following a nuclear attack in Texas in 2005, the United States goes to war throughout the Middle East and Asia. As the wars rage on, the oil supply is so compromised that alternative fuel research becomes a real, vital and immediate need. The United States fractures over opposing viewpoints and the 2008 election hinges entirely on California's electoral college votes. In order to influence the 2008 election, a network of seemingly unrelated people attempt to affect vice presidential candidate Senator Bobby Frost.

This takes the form of Frost's son-in-law, actor Boxer Santaros waking up with amnesia and taking up with porn star Krysta Now, who is trying to sell a reality show. Boxer is manipulated through an encounter which puts him at an apparent crime scene where a racist cop shoots two people and he suffers a psychotic break. But the wrong cop is actually the twin brother of a man close to the conspirators. As he and Boxer each try to figure out what the agenda is of the neo-Marxists, the creator of an energy source called Fluid Karma and a pilot who has gone missing (and probably crazy) they both find themselves running for their lives or beaten on by friends and enemies alike.

Sound weird? It is. Does the plot summary read as confusing enough that you're still not really sure what the movie is about? Well, then, you're on the same page as virtually everyone else who has seen the movie. Southland Tales is a trippy film (the story takes an abrupt stop to have Private Pilot Abilene, the missing pilot) experience a drug trip music video which arguably has nothing to do with the rest of the film. This is a movie that puts style in front of comprehension and it does that magnificently, though it is presented with voiceovers which explain a lot of the most basic plot points. The only real issue viewers are likely to have is with figuring out how what they are told relates to what they are seeing on screen at any given moment.

Fortunately, there are answers, but the viewer must be patient for them and they have to put up with a lot of technobabble to get there. The film is deeply concerned with politics in one scene - not just American electoral politics, but radical feminism and antiwar messages - and alternate realities in another. Throughout the film, the government is painted as a nefarious spying organization which has taken over the Internet as best it can. And with the mix of advertising saturation, violent crime and the creation of a feasible pop culture in this altered United States, this all seems real . . . when it is not being completely surreal.

Part of what makes it work is the amazing cast. In addition to great character actors like Wallace Shawn and Miranda Richardson and dignified mainstays like John Larroquette and Seann William Scott (who is plausibly dark and humorless in his part), the cast is driven by unlikely cast members who give great performances. Bai Ling has a weird, minor role which she carries wonderfully and Mandy Moore's few scenes have her portraying a character who seems about as confused as the audience. Even Sarah Michelle Gellar gives a decent performance, though she is playing a somewhat over-the-top ridiculous porn star.

The true acting surprise comes from none other than Dwayne Johnson. Johnson plays Boxer and he has an unlikely sensibility to his performance in this. Instead of playing the heavy, he plays a realistically confused man, damaged by the machinations he is a pawn in. What makes his performance so good is his body language. When menaced, Boxer has a nervous tick and it is weird, consistent and well-conceived.

On DVD, there is only a featurette on the government spy network and an animated short. They are cool, but viewers who either enjoy or don't understand the film are likely to want quite a bit more.

Amid spiritualism, alternate energy sources, drug use and government spying, there is a story in Southland Tales. But to understand it all is likely to take multiple viewings and the film does not fall into any easy niches. As a result, it becomes difficult to discuss. Those who like science fiction with political depth and movies that are surreal, like those of David Lynch, are likely to love this film. I'm one who likes dramas to have a story and character development, but when there's enough to come back to because I didn't understand all the layers, that's a rare thing. Southland Tales is one such film and I'm looking forward to my next viewings, though honestly, I am hoping there comes a time when a director's cut with Kelly's true, original vision, becomes available. I'm betting it wouldn't have the explanations and lacking the voiceovers, it's quite possible the movie becomes even more ambiguous. I could live with that.

For other trippy films, please check out my reviews of:
Inception
Sucker Punch
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus

8/10

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© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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