Quietly Through The Eastern Front: The Monuments Men

The Good: Interesting concept, Decent acting
The Bad: No real character development, When you’ve heard the concept, you’ve pretty much seen the movie . . .
The Basics: Releasing after awards season, The Monuments Men is a splintered historical drama that fails to go beyond its one-line concept to make a film of enduring greatness.


George Clooney’s production company, Smokehouse Pictures, had a good 2012. Their film, Argo (reviewed here!) won the Best Picture Oscar and Clooney’s partner at Smokehouse, Grant Heslov, decided to use that cache to further his writing career. Heslov and Clooney co-wrote the screenplay for The Monuments Men, which was adapted from the book by the same name. What is intriguing from a production perspective is how Clooney and Heslov opted to hedge their bets for the 2013 award season. Smokehouse Pictures released August: Osage County (reviewed here!) in time to get the inevitable nominations for the Golden Globes and Oscars that Smokehouse wanted, but to not crowd the field, they held The Monuments Men off until February. February is one of two death slots for films; it’s the Friday night prime time slot for movie releases. In other words, for a company that has taken a simple-concept film and made it into an award-winner – as they did with Argo - it seems like a severe lack of confidence in their own production to release a film in February.

When watching The Monuments Men, though, the lack of push for awards season comes to make a lot of sense. Given the stellar cast, I was eager to watch The Monuments Men, which is why I was surprised at how poorly the film landed. The Monuments Men is a film whose concept is not expanded upon, developed, or enriched beyond the one-line pitch for the film. In other words, with my next line, the entire film is pretty much spoiled (or, if you’ve seen the trailer or heard anyone describe the movie, it’s pretty much done for you). The Monuments Men is about a group of art experts who infiltrate France and Belgium in 1944 as the Germans are withdrawing from their occupied territories and attempt to recover and protect any artistic antiquities they can find before the Germans destroy them. Based on historical accounts, The Monuments Men is not a riveting adventure like Indiana Jones And The Raiders Of The Lost Ark (reviewed here!), but it is a story worth telling.

Sadly, the lack of comparative excitement or sophistication makes for a poor film. The Monuments Men is a ridiculously simple concept presented with historical realism as opposed to a sense of dramatic tension. As a result, the film does not develop characters, it does not illustrate a team coming together for common purpose, it does not involve clever people piecing together clues to save antiquities. Instead, a disparate group of individuals are tasked with an assignment, they break into small teams, and target specific locations operating mostly on hope or common knowledge until one of the least important characters finally realizes a pattern that could have saved a lot of time and lives if only he had looked at a map and used his brain a year and a half (and an hour in filmwatching time) earlier.

As the Nazis advance through Europe, they collect and steal artwork. In Belgium, the painting set known as the Altar of Ghent is protected by Belgian clergy until it is stolen as well. When Frank Stokes learns that Hitler is planning to build the world’s largest museum, he convinces FDR to commit some men to recovering and protecting the artwork stolen by the Nazis before they can destroy it or get it back to Berlin. In Paris, Claire Simone is forced to work for the Nazi, Viktor Stahl, in order to protect the works of art captured in France. When Stahl withdraws, taking what art he can with him, Simone is imprisoned as a collaborator.

Stokes assembles his team of art scholars, including James Granger, Richard Campbell, Walter Garfield, Preston Savitz, the Frenchman Jean Claude Clermont, the Englishman Donald Jeffries, and the young German Sam Epstein, who enter France through Normandy (quite a bit after the invasion). They then split into teams to try to recover sculptures, paintings, and other artwork the Germans have hidden. As one team works with the priests who have hidden artwork through the war, another finds Stahl’s hideout and another goes searching for the sculpture of Madonna and Child. As the different teams meet with varying degrees of success in their mission, they manage to uncover more obviously recognized valuables, are put in harm’s way, and suffer casualties just as any other unit would. Reuniting, the team’s mission becomes more important as the Nazis begin a scorched earth policy on their stolen antiquities as the war turns inevitably against them.

The problem with The Monuments Men is that it truly is over the moment the concept is revealed; the details beyond the concept are presented in such a listless and undramatic way. The film is not about the characters, so when the team (and I use that term lightly considering how the group is split up almost immediately in order to cover more ground) suffers casualties, it seems much more inevitable than dramatic. It is hard to empathize with the characters, especially when a scene reveals a collection of teeth fillings from executed Jews. Yes, antiquities are exceptionally important, but losing a person or two who is trying to safeguard them seems diminished when one looks at a pile of fillings and realizes that innocent people were simply executed for being who they were. In simpler terms, The Monuments Men is about guys who signed up to risk their lives to recover antiquities and some lose their lives in the process, but that sacrifice is one they were prepared to make. The film does not develop the characters enough to make those deaths resonate with the audience. In fact, there is a sense that some casualties were pretty much bound to happen given the nature of the characters (they are not professional soldiers).

The acting in The Monuments Men is fine, but there is nothing extraordinary delivered by the amazing cast. Bill Murray is used to deliver comic relief, John Goodman plays an understated good guy, and George Clooney . . . he shaves his beard as quickly as possible so he’s recognizable as George Clooney. Matt Damon, Bob Balaban, and Cate Blanchett also appear in the film. The acting is fine; none of it is spectacular.

Argo was a pleasant surprise; it took an event that the entire world knew about (the Iran Hostage Crisis) and told a story most people did not know – how some of the hostages were snuck out of Iran by the Canadians. The thing is, because the story became public knowledge, Argo had only one way it could end, with the successful execution of the plan. Yet, Argo has a dramatic tension and narrative quality that makes one forget they already know how it will end. It is easy to become immersed in the moment of the film. Unfortunately, The Monuments Men never gets there. This (previously) untold story of a lesser-known part of World War II history does not have an immediately obvious resolution – the mission could succeed or fail – and it is told in an unremarkable and zestless way. Smokehouse Pictures banked on creating a historical document, which they did adequately, but they failed to make a great, or even engaging, film.

For other works with Bill Murray, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
The Fantastic Mr. Fox
Zombieland
Get Smart
The Darjeeling Limited
The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou
The Royal Tenenbaums
Charlie's Angels
Cradle Will Rock
Space Jam
Saturday Night Live - Season 1

4.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an easy, organized listing by title of all the films I have reviewed!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Survival In Space Is A Matter Of Fighting For Life Against Gravity!

The Good: Good acting, Visually spectacular
The Bad: Light on character development. Incredibly simple plot.
The Basics: Gravity deserves its accolades for the level of moviemaking it represents, though the story it tells is ridiculously simple.


Since before it was released, there was a great deal of anticipation for the film Gravity, the latest cinematic outing from Alfonso Cuaron. Hailed as a visual marvel and making quite the impression at the box office, I was late to the party for the film. Still, having now watched it, I found it to be worth the hype, even if it was not the most exciting movie of all time. To be sure, this is a starkly realistic survival film in space and it defies the traditional Hollywood science fiction epic while still delivering a sense of visual majesty viewers hope for – especially when shelling out big bucks for an Imax or 3-D ticket, but it is not a thematically complex movie and there are no real morals to the film. Instead, this is a simple survival film told with pretty amazing cinematography.

The starkness of tone for Gravity is reminiscent of Love (reviewed here!), but Gravity lacks the twist or spark Love had. There are no alien influences, no other realities, no mysteries we need to come to understand. Gravity is painfully simple and while it is an engaging ride, it is hard to recommend it as a film that will endure or is likely to hold up well over multiple viewings. In fact, like The Artist (reviewed here!), Gravity strikes me as a film where the novelty will wear off and in the absence of hype, viewers will start to wonder what they saw in the film. That said, Gravity is lightyears more engaging than The Artist!

After a week in space, the seasoned astronaut Matt Kowalski and green mission specialist Ryan Stone are out doing a space walk, working on attaching a prototype device Stone designed to the Hubble telescope. While they are installing the hardware, a Russian missile strike on their own satellite leads to a chain reaction that knocks out communications with Houston. The debris strikes the telescope and the shuttle and launches Stone out into space. Recovered by Kowalski, Stone is tethered to the astronaut and the two recover their dead compatriot.

With oxygen rapidly depleting and the explorer shuttle open and exposed (the rest of the crew dead), Kowalski and Stone decide to make the treacherous float across the upper atmosphere to the International Space Station. Despite having dwindling oxygen reserves, Kowalski tries to keep Stone focused by talking with her. Reaching the ISS, Stone gets caught on a rope and, in rescuing her, Kowalski makes the choice to jettison himself and save her, helping guide her onto the station while he drifts off. After getting the oxygen she needs, Stone must make the journey with the Soyuz to the Chinese space station to return to Earth in their capsule.

Gravity is enjoyable, but not enduring. The truth is, while it is exciting to watch, it is very hard to get emotionally invested in the characters of Stone and Kowalski (Kowalski, especially, considering how briefly he is in the film and how his abrupt return to the movie is predictably a Mcguffin). In other words, whether or not Stone lives or dies matters less to the viewer. Unlike most of the characters in, for example, The Walking Dead, the fate of Stone has no resonance; the film is about the physical journey as opposed to character growth.

That said, Sandra Bullock is good as Stone. She plays Stone as realistically frazzled, just as George Clooney nails Kowalski as a plausible and authoritative astronaut. Both actors deliver their lines with a realistic sense of urgency and authority for who they are supposed to be.

The triumph of Gravity is very much the direction and cinematography of Alfonso Cuaron. Cuaron has an attention to detail that is impressive and the film looks and feels like it is actually in outer space and at no moment does the movie feel artificial or forced for the vastness of space that surrounds Stone for many of the film’s big sequences. Cuaron is virtually guaranteed a Best Director nomination and even if Gravity is not (at all) the best picture of 2013, he might well deserve the nod for Best Director for all he accomplishes, visually, in this film.

For other experimental science fiction films, please check out my reviews of:
Blade Runner
Branded
The Fountain

6.5/10

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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Two Directors Create A Series That Becomes The Best Cinematic Example Of The Law Of Diminishing Returns: The Batman Anthology

The Good: The first two films are good, Val Kilmer is decent, Great DVD/Blu-Ray bonus features!
The Bad: Joel Schumacher’s works, Repetitive plots, Series inconsistencies, Even the good films have not agd particularly well
The Basics: With no consisted story or direction, the Batman movies of Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher make for an unfortunately inconsistent series that gets worse with each installment after a point.


With the recent end of the Dark Knight Trilogy (reviewed here!), the cinematic Batman franchise is once again in limbo. That is a state not entirely unfamiliar to Warner Bros., who owns the rights to the franchise and is the studio that produces all of the films based on DC Comics properties. With the abrupt end of the Batman movies of the 1990s, the franchise had to regroup and reboot. Before the powerful, thematically complex and decidedly adult The Dark Knight Trilogy, there were the Batman films of 1989 – 1997, now encapsulated in a boxed set known as Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989 – 1997.

Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989 – 1997 is an incredible example of what happens when a surprise hit becomes a lucrative cash cow for a studio and that cow is milked too frequently and too hard. It is also a prime example of what happens to a franchise when the creative teams behind the camera and the talent in front of the camera are not kept consistent (in The Dark Knight Trilogy only one performer was recast!) and the vision by the later forces working on the series is clearly an attempt to capitalize on the formula as opposed to build upon the story and prior successes. The result is that Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989 – 1997 is a film series that starts intriguing, rises well, and then steadily declines until its abrupt and painful crash.

Batman: The Motion Picture Anthology 1989 – 1997 consists of the films:
Batman
Batman Returns
Batman Forever
and Batman & Robin. The first two are directed by Tim Burton, the latter two by Joel Schumacher and three different actors play Bruce Wayne/Batman over the course of the four films!

In Batman, a young Bruce Wayne witnesses his father and mother being killed by a mysterious assassin. As an adult, Bruce Wayne manages the giant company left to him by his father by day and at night, he takes up armor and a cape to dispense vigilante justice on the streets of Gotham City. As the press pushes the police to admit that the Batman exists, a local gangster is smoked during a robbery of a chemical factory that goes horribly wrong. However, when Batman accidentally lets the gangster fall into a vat of chemicals, the man is not killed, but rather transformed into a psychopathic killer. Waging a battle with chemical weapons, the Joker menaces Gotham City and threatens to undo all the good Batman is working for.

Batman Returns happens around Christmastime a short time later. Gotham City is hit with a crime wave from a gang of thugs who use old circus equipment. While Batman keeps them in check, he is not prepared for the city to have to deal with more threats. Those threats come in the form of a mysterious man, Oswald Cobblepot, who literally rises out of the sewers to save an abducted baby and a catburgler who seems bent on wreaking vengeance at night to make up for her unsatisfying daytime life (and the fact that her boss tried to kill her). While Bruce Wayne fends off a corporate attack from his rival, Max Shreck, he finds romance with Selena Kyle and it slowly begins to dawn on him that she is the same person as the mysterious Catwoman he fights at night. When Shreck uses Cobblepot as a pawn to take the mayor’s office, the fallout creates a villain who wants to kill all the firstborn of Gotham City.

Joel Schumacher took over behind the camera and Val Kilmer took on the role of Bruce Wayne in Batman Forever. In that, a demented former-District Attorney, Harvey Dent, begins a reign of terror and violence (focused on bank robberies) as the villainous Two-Face. Bruce Wayne’s problems are multiplied, though, when one of his employees creates a device that can drain the brains of the citizens of Gotham City and unlock all the secrets the people there have. As Batman squares off against Two-Face and the Riddler, he is aided by a forensic psychologist and a young acrobat who lost his parents and wants to fight crime as well . . . Robin.

George Clooney’s only outing in the cape and cowl comes in Batman & Robin where Batman and Robin are assisted by Alfred’s neice, who takes up the alter ego of Batgirl. The pair could use her help as they are bickering over how to take down the formidable Mr. Freeze and they fall under the love spell-style charms of Poison Ivy and her thug, Bane.

To his credit, Tim Burton’s two outings – in addition to being appropriately weird (as one expects from Tim Burton’s works) – have larger themes. Batman explores crime and the nature of justice vs. the pitfalls of revenge and Batman Returns has a great deal about empowering women and the snares of political corruption. Unfortunately, by the time Batman Forever comes up, the writers and director are working for big action, flamboyant villains, and star power, as opposed to trying to create films of substance. This is not to say that Tim Burton got everything right in his two films. While the miniatures look great, even by today’s standards, Batman is surprisingly slow and the focus on the Joker is far less compelling in-context of Batman’s story than it is as a stand-alone film.

That said, it is almost inarguable that Tim Burton helped effectively usher in the youth culture mindset of the 1990s with Batman and then the even more violent Batman Returns. The two films created a nihilistic sense of the world; crime ran rampant and the victories were more ambiguous than celebratory and the hero uses many of the same methods as the villains, just with nobler purpose.

Val Kilmer was not a bad choice to replace Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne and Batman and he had the physical presence to pull off the dual roles more plausibly than Keaton, who played the part of Bruce Wayne as more goofy than gallant. Kilmer, however, was saddled with a particularly weak script with Batman Forever and a film that was intended to be a Jim Carrey vehicle and ended up disappointing on so many fronts. Joel Schumacher’s Batman Forever also prioritized casting (the entire series has pretty impressive guest cast members from the major – Jack Nicholson, Danny DeVito, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones, Jim Carrey, Uma Thurman and Arnold Schwarzenegger – to the supporting players who flesh out surprisingly minor roles – Kim Bassinger, Robert Wuhl, Christopher Walken, Drew Barrymore, John Glover, Vivica A. Fox) over fidelity to the series thus far. To wit, in Batman, Harvey Dent was played by Billy Dee Williams and in Batman Forever he is recast with Tommy Lee Jones. It takes a lot more than an acid bath from a mobster to make Billy Dee Williams into Tommy Lee Jones!

The epitome of Schumacher’s obsession with star power and spectacle over substance is in Batman & Robin. There, Arnold Schwarzenegger appears as Mr. Freeze, a character written with a thin backstory surrounding his attempts to cure his wife (who is in suspended animation), but is executed as a character constructed almost entirely of catchphrases. To wit, his big monologue from the film’s trailer, where he introduces himself as a threat to Gotham City appears in the film’s middle, after he is incarcerated, when he introduces himself to two people (his jailers) who know exactly who he is! It is this type of stupidity that shook the series and almost gutted this franchise.

Performances in the Batman movies in this set are generally good. Michael Keaton is an intriguing Bruce Wayne and he pulled off the action sequences for Batman better than most might have suspected. Jack Nicholson performed opposite him in Batman with a flamboyancy and menace that worked beautifully to define the character of the Joker. Danny DeVito gives one of his most underrated performances as Oswald Cobblepot (the Penguin) and Michelle Pfeiffer and Keaton had great on-screen chemistry in Batman Returns. While Val Kilmer and Chris O’Donnell did fine as Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson, George Clooney seemed unusually stiff when he took up the mantle in Batman & Robbin. The less said about Jim Carrey, Uma Thurman, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, the better.

On DVD and Blu-Ray, the Batman Anthology is chock full of goodies. There are extensive featurettes on the production of the films, from concept designs through casting and the bonus features provide a wealth of insight into how moviemaking was done, especially at the birth of CG effects. Fans of Batman may want to champion the whole series, but given how most people will only watch bonus featurettes once, the full Batman Anthology is hardly worth investing in. Tim Burton’s works might be worth picking up, but Joel Schumacher’s outings oscillate between the disappointing and the outright insulting.

For other live-action DC superhero works, please check out my reviews of:
Green Lantern
Jonah Hex
Watchmen
Superman Returns
Catwoman
Batman & Robin
Supergirl
Superman
Wonder Woman

3.5/10

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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What Exactly Is Wrong With Batman & Robin?

The Good: Alicia Silverstone is fine, Clooney does okay, Moments of Michael Gough’s performance and Alfred’s character.
The Bad: Most of the acting, Terrible special effects, Atrocious writing, Crappy characters, Predictable plot
The Basics: Batman & Robin is easily one of the worst films of all time.


Every now and then, I try to experience something I previously experienced and did not enjoy. I like to see if the thing was as bad as I recall it being or if it was just a reaction at the time. So, for example, watching Zoolander (reviewed here!) with my wife, years after panning it, I probably did not hate it as much as I originally did. One of the first films I reviewed, back when I was writing for my college newspaper as a reviewer, was Batman & Robin. I remember it being unspeakably bad and my review rated it as such.

So, I took the flick in again, fifteen years later, to see if it was just horrible on the big screen or if, now that I have a more refined palate and standards, it was still just rotten. It was.

In fact, Batman & Robin is so bad that I can’t muster up the enthusiasm to go through one of my usual reviews of the film. The only things that really grabbed me about the movie were Alicia Silverstone (and if you just want Silverstone, there are plenty of pictures online or other, vastly better, films she is in to enjoy her actual acting ability) and a few moments of Michael Gough’s performance as Alfred. Unfortunately, though, it is also Gough who sets the pace for the movie. One of the first lines in the film is Alfred saying that he’ll have to cancel the pizza order and Gough rolls his eyes while delivering the line. It is very much as if Gough knew it was a shit line and he would be going through the motions of saying any of them throughout the film.

So, rather than go through the usual plot, character, acting, and special effects analysis of the film, I decided that I would just list the twenty-five most preposterous things in Batman & Robin. Enjoy!

25. Every line of Mr. Freeze’s sounds like a lame attempt to make an “Hasta la vista . . . baby”-style catch phrase,

24. During the proposal scene, George Clooney looks like he is reading his lines off a note on his lap,

23. Bane has no character or character development,

22. Poor John Glover! One of the most talented villain character actors appears as a ridiculous mad scientist and doesn’t pull it off convincingly,

21. Of all the characters to recur, the fact that the social newsmagazine hostess comes back is ridiculous,

20. Commissioner Gordon’s outfit makes him look more like a third world dictator than a police commissioner,

19. After the claim is made that Bruce has been dating his current woman “forever,” when she proposes, she says they have been together a year. Even for tabloids, a year is hardly “forever,”

18. Alfred ill and dying has more color in his cheeks and skin than Alfred healthy. What the hell?! Is he a reverse vampire?!,

17. Coolio has an even worse role than he does in Daredevil,

16. The computer voice changes from a stiff, mechanical computer voice into a pornstar voice when Barbara gets access to the file Alfred made,

15. Bruce Wayne witnesses Pamela Isley at a party in her mundane form when she could easily be apprehended, but does nothing,

14. Gotham’s newsmedia must be absolutely terrible. After multiple attacks and his apprehension, when Mr. Freeze attacks the observatory, one scientist has no idea who he is and the other’s solution to seeing a guy with a big freeze gun come in is to scream in comic horror. Yeah, most of the supplemental characters in this film are idiots,

13. Mr. Freeze refers to himself consistently as a villain, yet is supposed to be motivated by love,

12. Poison Ivy’s grand plan to save the plant world is to kill all of it, except her ridiculous mutants. This is not just a crazy or stupid idea, it completely nullifies what little characterization there is for the character,

11. Mr. Freeze’s henchmen are about a thousand times more ridiculous than the Penguin’s penguins,

10. After trying to get by most of the movie by performing Bruce Wayne with only his amazing smile, George Clooney gets into one of the stiffest cinematic arguments with Chris O’Donnell ever when he insists he will go after the villains alone,

9. When Barbara is hanging off the bridge, it is one of the absolute worst bluescreen shots of all time,

8. Batgirl is used to take out Poison Ivy so none of the guys punch a woman in the face,

7. The car race scene over the giant statues look like a bunch of Matchbox cars driving on a miniature,

6. The mutant plants of Poison Ivy’s are exactly what they look like: cheap puppets,

5. The introduction of Poison Ivy at the charity event is supposed to be erotic, but is executed as preposterous and anything but titillating (which is hard to do when the director is pretty much assraping Uma Thurmond with the camera,

4. Robin waits for Poison Ivy to blow her dust in his nose/mouth not once, but twice!,

3. The freeze ray special effect is so bad it looks just like what one assumes would be used in the porn parody of the film,

2. The giant statues in Gotham City have no real-world application, except to be driven over for action sequences,

1. All of the writing seems like it was done on cocktail napkins and given to the actors moments before they had to deliver each line.

There are more, but I cannot muster up the enthusiasm to waste my time writing them down.

For other live-action DC superhero works, please check out my reviews of:
The Dark Knight Trilogy
Green Lantern
Jonah Hex
Watchmen
Superman Returns
Catwoman
Batman
Supergirl
Wonder Woman

0.5/10

For other film reviews, 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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Quirky For The Sake Of Being Quirky, Burn After Reading Disappoints This Coen Brothers Fan.

The Good: Moments of humor
The Bad: Unlikable characters, Not overly funny or clever, Pacing, Nothing superlative on the acting front.
The Basics: Wasting the talents of those involved, Burn After Reading is a letdown by the Coen Brothers; involving a lost disc and a woman's attempt to make money off it.


Last night, I had the choice of rewatching a film I had seen before and loved or taking in Burn After Reading, the latest endeavor by the Coen Brothers. Given that I was a little tired, I opted for the shorter of the two movies and that led me to screen Burn After Reading. I have traditionally enjoyed the dark humor and quirky characters presented in Coen Brothers films and had seen a few previews for this movie which made me think it would be an enjoyable addition to their library. It was not.

As I contemplate Burn After Reading, I find myself thinking of David Lynch. Is it possible the Coen brothers want to be David Lynch? Lynch has a way of getting away with absurd and quirky for the sake of quirky. He pulled it off admirably with Mulholland Drive (reviewed here!) even though the film used a sense of random plot elements, purposely campy acting and obvious dream imagery intended to confuse viewers as opposed to telling a narrative with any real sense. The Coen brothers seem to want to do this at various points in Burn After Reading and they fail terribly. The story is confused (not confusing), pointless and ultimately unimpressive, leaving even a viewer who is predisposed toward the quirky and odd disappointed.

Osbourne Cox is an intelligence agent who is demoted and transferred within the CIA due to his drinking problem and erratic behavior. Rather than endure such humiliation, he leaves his job, much to the chagrin of his wife, Katie. Osbourne sets out to make a living by writing his memoirs, which he does with limited success while Katie makes moves to divorce him. In the process, Katie copies his memoirs onto a disc for her lawyer and that disc ends up left behind at a gym where Linda Litzke and Chad.

Linda and Chad come across the disc, access it and come to believe that it is not a memoir, but rather a collection of state secrets. They attempt to extort Osbourne for money for the disc and when he refuses to play ball, they take it to the Russians in hope of selling the information to them, all so Linda can get a boob job. Tragedy befalls Chad and Linda works to escalate things, mostly to impress Harry . . . and then the movie ends.

Outside that plot description, there are just minor details of character. For example, Harry, a Treasury Department worker, is having an affair with Katie and begins going out with Linda when he begins to tire of her. Linda works with Chad and under Ted, who has an obvious crush on her. Linda is motivated by a desire to make enough money so she can have cosmetic surgery. Only that last fact actually has a real effect on the plot and truth be told, it only explains why Linda does what she is doing.

Otherwise, Burn After Reading is a dark farce that is more about weird for the sake of weird than actually creating interesting, viable characters in absurd situations or absurd characters in realistic situations. Instead, the film is intentionally choppy, as if the Coen Brothers primarily learned from No Country For Old Men that they did not have to show vital parts of a story.

The unfortunate aspect of Burn After Reading is that the summary sections where an intelligence agent monitoring the situation discusses it with his supervisor are possibly the best, most direct, funniest portions of the movie. In these sections, the movie is recapped and events are filled in without showing them on screen. This saves the viewer from actually having to watch any of the primary characters do anything and this is, strangely, a relief given how tedious and unlikable they are.

Moreover, the acting in Burn After Reading is a terrible waste of the talent involved. Brad Pitt moves like his crazy character in Twelve Monkeys (reviewed here!) and talks like the character he portrayed on Friends for his guest shot there. Frances McDormand, who can usually be counted on for a solid performance seems to think that all she needs to do to be funny is bug out her eyes and talk in a slightly higher pitch. She plays Linda as the combination of an opportunist and an idiot and her acting is simply a bug-eyed, energetic recasting of her "Fargo" character in some ways. Regardless, there is something familiar and well within her established range in the way she plays Linda.

George Clooney is given top billing in Burn After Reading and he plays Harry, arguably the least significant role in the main plot. He is thoroughly unlikable as a slimy adulterer who talks his way into Linda's heart and . . . wait, yes, we've seen this before, too. The Coen brothers used him essentially the same way as the protagonist in O Brother Where Art Thou? And that the Coen brothers use John Malkovich to play a character with a short temper is hardly worth exploring. Even Richard Jenkins seems to have been more a function of casting as the love-struck Ted. One suspects the Coen brothers saw his work on the first season of Six Feet Under (reviewed here!) and said "That's our Ted!"

In other words, none of the performances in Burn After Reading are especially compelling, even Tilda Swinton, who I usually like. Perhaps this is because Swinton's character of Katie is usually relegated to listening to other people deliver their much more active lines leaving Swinton to perform mostly by staring fixedly at other characters. If it seems I am glossing over my usual analysis of plot and character, then I have not been clear enough:

The plot is a simple extortion character and outside a passing trait or two used to completely define them, none of the characters have character. They are types: Harry is the womanizer, Linda is an opportunist, Osbourne is the furious heavy, Katie is the wronged wife, Chad is the idiot sidekick and Ted is the honorable, love-struck guy. The rest of the movie is a series of quick cuts, quirky one-liners that fail to add up to anything substantive and jokes that are not nearly as funny as anything else the Coen brothers have done.

Instead, Burn After Reading is problematic in its pacing, rushed in its resolution and populated by characters who are thoroughly unenjoyable to watch. Life is too short and those who want something funny will do better by tuning into . . . pretty much anything else.

For other works by the Coen Brothers, check out my reviews of:
No Country For Old Men
O Brother, Where Art Thou?
Miller’s Crossing

4/10

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

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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The Understudy Parent Sells The Viewer Completely On The Descendants!

The Good: Funny, Interesting characters, Wonderful performances, Not oppressive in the mood
The Bad: Does not do much with the idea once it is established.
The Basics: The Descendants is funny and difficult without being miserable to watch, making for a solid character drama.


Usually, right after the Oscars, I have movies that competed for the Best Picture Oscar that I want to see, regardless of the fact that they lost for the big prize. It is also a time of year that it is especially difficult for me to get my wife to watch movies with me because she usually rails about how I am (largely) watching movies for the purpose of reviewing. I think, however, that I must have asked her out to see The Descendants enough times while it was still in theaters to convince her that I actually wanted to see the movie. So, last night, we sat together and took in the film The Descendants, which did not win the Best Picture, but I already add to my list of movies that should have beaten The Artist for the grand prize (I understand, I am going into The Artist biased against it!). And we enjoyed The Descendants.

The Descendants is a thematically gloomy movie that manages to deal with difficult issues that surround death without ever being oppressive. My wife, who has never quite forgiven me for having her watch Magnolia (reviewed here!) with her on our first weekend together, enjoyed the fact that while The Descendants wrestled with many of the same issues, it did not make her want to take her own life when the film was over. I like any movie that is smart and does not make my wife contemplate suicide just by watching it! In all seriousness, though, The Descendants deserves most of the accolades heaped upon it and is a solidly good movie. The Descendants is based upon a novel that I have not read, so (as always) this is a very pure review only of the cinematic rendition of The Descendants.

Matt King is a Hawaiian lawyer whose family owns the last virgin land on the islands, land that is in a trust that will be legally dissolved within seven years. Matt is the trustee of that land and he is working with the rest of the family to determine which bid for the land the family will accept, making everyone much, much richer in the process. But Matt’s focus is divided when his wife is in a boating accident and falls into a coma. As Matt struggles to pay attention to his ten year-old daughter, Scottie, who has begun trying to express her feelings regarding her comatose mother, he discovers how ill-suited he is to being a single parent. Matt and Scottie hop a plane to one of the other islands to recover Alex, Matt’s seventeen year-old daughter. Alex, who is in a boarding school for youth recovering from drug addition and behavioral problems, hardly comes willingly and when Matt reveals to her that Elizabeth’s living will is in effect, she reaches out to Sid.

Despite Sid tagging along, Alex’s revelation to Matt that Elizabeth was having an affair on him – which is quickly confirmed by some neighbor/friends of the family – sets Matt on a quest to find the man who his wife was in love with. After meeting with Elizabeth’s parents, Matt and the other three head to the island with the King family land to track down Brian Speer, a real estate agent who was the man Elizabeth was having the affair with.

The Descendants is a weird emotional journey where, once the pieces are on the board (in this case, the impending death, the affair, the children and the identity of the man with whom Elizabeth had the affair), the film has to figure out what to do with them all. The Descendants has a decent set-up and the truth is, it did not go in the most predictable or disappointing direction it could have. Instead, The Descendants works very hard to illustrate a profound and adult emotional journey and it succeeds as much as a movie can. One of the few serious detractions to The Descendants as a movie – which contains several memorable lines and a few very funny moments in between the hard-hitting emotional scenes – is that much of the focus is on an intangible emotional journey. As a result, portions of The Descendants come across as slow and moody as opposed to anything that uses the visual medium well.

This is not to say that The Descendants is a bad movie. It is not. But co-writer and director Alexander Payne has to let the camera linger on George Clooney’s Matt and the Hawaiian scenery several times throughout the film simply to let the movie breathe and give moments their proper weight. Payne succeeds, though and watching The Descendants is like watching someone else’s real life. The problematic aspect of that, of course, is that not every moment of real life is engaging and dramatic or even noteworthy. Especially when internal emotional processing is what one’s life has become, it is hardly cinematic and there are several moments in The Descendants where Matt is processing, making a decision (punch Sid or not, kick him out of the car or not, what to say to Brian Speer, etc.) where it is clear Payne is capturing the character mulling over his next move.

The Descendants is a character-driven piece that works, as much as it can, because the characters are generally interesting. Matt is appropriately shocked to learn his wife was having an affair and he balances his anger with his desire to give his family a chance to remember Elizabeth in a positive light. But Matt does not truly develop or change in the course of the film. Instead, he meanders through the land decision and once he learns of the affair, he becomes fixated on meeting Brian Speer, without a real plan about what he intends to say or do when he does. In fact, once he declares that he wants to meet Brian Speer to give him the opportunity to say goodbye to Elizabeth, he pretty much does just that (and not much more).

In some ways, The Descendants is really about Alexandra’s journey through her anger at both Elizabeth and her father. Rebellious and willful, Alex had a falling out with Elizabeth before the film began, over her knowledge of the affair. Over the course of The Descendants, Alex overcomes her raw anger to help empower Matt to live up to his desire to face Brian Speer. More than that, she comes to recognize that Matt is actually trying to parent now and she comes to respond to that effort in a way the girl at the beginning of the movie would not have. Even Sid is given a scene where he is able to illustrate he is more than just a dumb sidekick, so The Descendants takes a lot of time to develop memorable characters, both primary and peripheral.

On the acting front, The Descendants is very good. While early in the film, acting from child actors, like Amara Miller (Scottie) is shaky and Nick Krause as Sid seemed awfully derivative of Patrick Fugit’s performance in Saved! (reviewed here!), The Descendants has all of the emotional gravitas one expects from a film starring George Clooney. Clooney expertly slouches his way through the role of Matt King in order to more realistically portray a regular guy (albeit with a lot of money) who feels the weight of the world bearing down upon him. Judy Greer is her usual wonderful self as Julie Speer, but her performance is easily trumped by Matthew Lillard, who plays her character’s husband, Lillard deftly proves that he can play a dramatic part without even a hint of irony, humor or stupidity and he is the pleasant surprise on the acting front of The Descendants.

Much of the performance front for The Descendants is dominated by Shailene Woodley. The Descendants is the first work I have seen Woodley in, but she seems to fill the same essential niche as Emma Roberts. Woodley plays the role of Alex with an evolution from bratty to mature that works surprisingly well. She develops the character from one who is outwardly emotional to one who can show some restraint in the film’s later scenes. Even as Alex bites her tongue, Woodley infuses a sense that the character still has something to say, in the set of her jaw, the way her shoulders tighten, the determination in her gaze. Woodley is the one to watch in The Descendants.

Now on DVD, The Descendants comes with trailers, a commentary track (which we did not have a chance to listen to before we had to return the disc) and featurettes on the making of the film. The Descendants is a solid movie, even if it is not always the most interesting one or does not have much of a statement to make beyond “this is life.”

For other films with significant emotional journeys for the protagonist, be sure to check out my reviews of:
American Beauty
The Road Home
The Royal Tenenbaums

7/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to check out my Movie Review Index Page for other films and television shows I have reviewed!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Coldness Of Politics, The Ides Of March.

The Good: Decent story, Most of the acting, Most of the character work
The Bad: Details with the characters, Clooney's acting, Some of Clooney's directoral choices.
The Basics: The Ides Of March has most of the makings of a great film, but never pops to get out of the "good movie" rut.


It is a rare thing that I have the chance to talk with someone right after a movie is over about the film, but tonight, when someone at the screening for The Ides Of March politely asked me to move seats so she could sit beside her husband, I tried to discourage her by telling her I was a reviewer and that I'd be writing with my left hand, which might be inconvenient to her. This did not have the desired effect. And, after the film was over, she asked me what I thought of the movie and after she left, the guy on my other side struck up a conversation with me on it. I was surprised because I actually had some real concrete thoughts on the film immediately and when he asked questions about how the movie could have been reordered to make it more interesting, I had thoughts on his ideas, pretty quickly. But what struck me was right off the bat, his question to me was, "what are you going to rate it?" and he didn't seem at all phased when I came back pretty much right away with "seven out of ten."

The Ides Of March is a seven out of ten film; it could have been great, but it doesn't quite get there. And it won't be reworked, because it comes out tomorrow. But the film was one I was excited to see, because when I saw Crazy Stupid Love. (reviewed here!), I was more than a little wowed by Ryan Gosling. The idea of a political thriller with him, George Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Paul Giamatti was enough to get me to go out on a cold night. And when Evan Rachel Wood made her first appearance, I thought, "Yea! This is going to be wonderful!" But the movie never quite popped and the unfortunate truth is that most of the problems come from George Clooney. Clooney takes an uncharacteristic amount of blame because he is surprisingly uncharismatic as an actor, focused on poorly when he is directing himself and he co-wrote the script which had some moments where smart characters do uncharacteristically stupid things for people in that business.

Mike Morris is the governor of Pennsylvania and he is in a tight Democratic primary for president against Arkansas senator Pullman. Neck and neck going into Ohio, it appears that Morris has a slight advantage and might well be the Democratic nominee in a contest where it appears the Republicans cannot mount a victory. Working for his campaign are Stephen and Paul, with Paul working as chief campaign strategist. While Paul solicits an endorsement from the influential senator from North Carolina that will put the Morris campaign mathematically over the top, Stephen works to keep things at headquarters running smoothly. Following the debate between Morris and Pullman, though, Stephen is given an enigmatic phone call from Pullman's Campaign strategist, Tom and against his judgment, Stephen takes the meeting.

Tom shares with Stephen internal tracking numbers that show Pullman winning the Ohio primary because of that state's open primary ballot, where Independents and Republicans can vote in the Democratic primary. Tom asks Stephen to jump ship and join Pullman's campaign to help take the heat off the Right helping Pullman with the state. As Stephen wrestles with both the decision and whether or not to disclose to Paul and Morris himself, Stephen gets involved with a senior interns, Molly. And as he and Molly become closer, a late-night phone call to her phone clues Stephen in to the idea that all is not right with the campaign.

The Ides Of March does some things very right. First, it is stylish in the way it is shot, in terms of color schemes. Clooney films the movie to look perpetually cold and there is a strikingly sterile mood to the piece that accents the ugly dogfight between the two Democrat candidates.

As well, the characters are universally interesting. Morris is a likable enough guy with a real sense of vision. Stephen describes him idealistically as a man who will actually change people's lives and when he says it to the jaded reporter, Ida, it is almost enough to make us believe it. Stephen seems caught in a real bind and watching him wrestle with that decision is interesting at the very least. But watching Tom explain his game is even better. There is a magnetic quality to politics when it is played and The Ides Of March captures quite well the sense of gamesmanship that professional politicians are engaged in.

And most of the acting is decent. Evan Rachel Wood steals virtually every scene as Molly. She becomes the new Meryl Streep as Molly and had the film been made forty years ago, it would have have been her. But the movie is now and Wood rocks the part with more than just Hollywood good looks. She has matured into a woman with substance, quiet and precise delivery and a real presence. She holds her own with Gosling and dominates on a screen where Giamatti and Hoffman are playing some of their best game.

But the wonderful performances highlight just how frigid Clooney is and the movie gets too many things wrong to allow the viewer to become fully immersed. First, Clooney seems to be shooting himself in the foot twice as fast and with unusually heavy gauges of shotguns. Pardon the splitting metaphors, but the two notes I have for Clooney's acting in my notes are "stiff" and "restrained." And I have a theory. . . .

. . . welcome to Oscar Pandering Season! Here's the theory: George Clooney is a nice guy, but with The Ides Of March he is making a serious bid in the 2011 Oscar Pandering Season. My theory is, Clooney's a swell enough guy to think there's enough to go around and this year, what he's after is the Best Director nod. Sure, he'd like The Ides Of March to get Best Picture (it won't happen), because with him as an actor, director, producer and writer for it, his already golden name becomes platinum for five year's worth of contracts. But I don't think Clooney is greedy, I think he wants his Best Director award, so he is setting Gosling up for Best Actor and maybe Wood up for a Supporting Actress. And they deserve it. But I think Clooney purposely is taking himself off the field for the Best Actor.

And that kills The Ides Of March. Here's why the above paragraph isn't just Monday Morning Quarterbacking: Clooney kills too much of The Ides Of March by setting Gosling up for Best Actor without performing to his own strengths. Clooney is so cold as Morris that virtually every viewer will watch the movie and ask, "Is this the best he can do?" and "How did this guy get to the place where he could credibly run for President?!" It's true. Clooney has any number of Presidential qualities, but in addition to being articulate and strong, he has always had charisma. Except in this movie. Morris is dull and when he pitches a plan to educate all of the children in the U.S., he sounds like he is writing a menu. When he gives speeches, he sounds like he is reading poorly off a teleprompter. It is only in the film's final speech that he actually becomes vibrant enough to be believable.

And Clooney directs as if his intent is to let everyone but him shine. In one of the film's more important, but subtle, scenes, Morris and his wife are talking in the car about the campaign. Clooney focuses more on her than on himself; for most of the scene only his lower jaw is in frame. Thus, the viewer is not privy to his reaction shots or even most of the emotion in his face and eyes and he conveys important ideas to the one character his character is supposed to be intimate with. So, he pretty much guts his own part in the movie and the only saving grace is that the other actors pick it up wonderfully.

Even so, the movie is not flawless. Marisa Tomei's reporter character Ida, ostensibly in the movie to illustrate Stephen's arc from idealist to jaded may add realistic depth and complexity to the movie, but it beats the thematic horse to death. But the biggest problems in character come from Stephen. Stephen is supposed to be an expert gamer in the political machinations that surround him. And yet, he makes three mistakes that I caught instantly. Without ruining anything substantive to the film, here are some political mistakes made that "experts" in the field do not usually make:
1. They do not sit and have drinks with underage campaign interns (Molly in 20 and she is drinking in Kentucky at a bar with Stephen, where the drinking age is 21),
2. They do not pull money from the campaign to pay hush money from (always have your own cash on hand to pay off people!),
and 3. When dealing with unstable people whom you have just fired, always make sure they actually go in to their appointments; don't leave them in a waiting room.

Sadly, my biggest gripe with the film is that the movie isn't quite smart enough to make issues with these, instead focusing on a much more manageable faux pas with Stephen taking Tom's meeting. Those of us spoiled by The West Wing (reviewed here!) will be underwhelmed with the conflict in The Ides Of March and miss snappy dialogue and characters that pop and candidates we actually care about. The Ides Of March is cold, primary politics cold and while it does a lot right, it mostly just leaves the viewer feeling frigid.

For other political movies, please check out my reviews of:
Fahrenheit 9/11
Charlie Wilson's War
You're Welcome America: A Final Night With George W. Bush


7/10

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

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

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O Brother, Where Art Thou? Here We Are!

The Good: Funny!, Well-written, Good protagonist, Cinematography, Soundtrack and use of it.
The Bad: Flat peripheral characters, No superlative acting
The Basics: O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a clever, funny film that focuses on one man's attempt to return to his wife in the Deep South.


Well, readers of my reviews know I'm almost constantly looking for a comedy I'm willing to recommend and often falling drastically short of such. My main beef with comedies these days are I tend to find them predictable, not funny or something I know will not hold up on further viewings. And then there's O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a comedy I can and will recommend.

First and foremost, the film is funny. It's actually laugh-out-loud funny in parts. The allusions to Homer's The Odyssey are sometimes overt (Big Dan Teague as a reference to the Cyclops) and other times subtle but hilarious. For example, I laughed aloud when I realized the reference to The Odyssey in the scene with the KKK was to the scene where Odysseus thwarts the cyclops. In The Odyssey, the protagonist hides under sheep. In Oh Brother, Where Art Thou?, the protagonists hide as Klan members, thus the gag is that the KKK are a bunch of sheep, which I think is both true and hilarious. It works out quite well in the film, but without knowing The Odyssey, that specific humorous poke, for one, is lost.

That is not to say one must be a mythology scholar to get the most out of the film. In addition to The Odyssey, the allusions are to Southern U.S. mythology. If one is not versed in that, which I've never been, one loses some allusions as well.

O Brother, Where Art Thou? is a film about Ulysses Everett McGill, a Southern gentleman and his two companions from the chain gang, Pete and Delmar. Ulysses organizes an escape from the chain gang with the other two and attempts to get through Mississippi to his wife. Along the way, the trio encounters many obstacles including Southern Baptists, seductive washerwomen, and a vicious bible salesman. In addition, the three fugitives are hunted by the sheriff from whom they escaped.

The film is a modern (Depression Era) adaptation of the Greek classic The Odyssey. Ulysses is an intellectual and a con artist of sorts, attempting to be something he probably is not. He swindles his companions into the jail break on false pretenses and his constant elitism over a specific type of hair pomade indicate a desire to be a different class of man than the felon he is. His wife, Penny, seems to recognize the truth, though she clearly needs convincing.

The film is a journey and the peripheral characters tend to be allusions more than actually fleshed out individuals. They are an eclectic collection of classic (Big Dan as the Cyclops) and American (George Nelson and Tommy Johnson in lieu of Robert Johnson) history and mythology. These characters are less drawn out and more fitting an image than I usually prefer.

Outside of the cameo by Michael Badaluco (of The Practice, here he appears as the psychotic George Nelson), none of the acting is particularly wonderful. I have high expectations for John Turturro and he probably slid right under them or met them, but did not exceed them. George Clooney, on the other hand, I have no expectations for and he met them, but did not exceed them. He plays an excellent character, but seemed to bring little to the role. Of all the actors in the film, I expect a lot of Michael Badaluco and he delivered more than I anticipated. His character is so very different from Jimmy on The Practice and he pulls it off so perfectly; it's truly what a great actor does.

Ulysses, however, is well defined as a character and the reasons to watch the film are clear. It's an intelligently-written comedy. It's refreshing. The soundtrack fits the film perfectly and while it is almost always noticeable, it is never overbearing. The washed look of the film is also wonderful. It gives everything a dry, burned appearance that is appropriate to the story and character.

And in the final analysis, it's funny and I know when I see it next, I am going to enjoy it at least as much as I did the first time. Finally, a comedy I want to rewatch!

For other films with John Turturro, please visit my reviews of:
Transformers: Dark Of The Moon
Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen
Transformers
The Luzhin Defence
Rounders

8.5/10

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

© 2011, 2002 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut An Exceptionally Funny Musical, An Average Film.

The Good: Funny, very funny, Catchy musical numbers.
The Bad: Terrible animation, Light on character development
The Basics: An exceptionally funny movie, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut has a Canadian film sparking off a war between the U.S. and Canada as a result of children swearing excessively.


Until last night, the most South Park I had watched was about five minutes worth of one of the television episodes. I do not have cable and knowing that the animated comedy is supposed to derive much of its adult humor from language and political situations, I made a conscious effort to avoid the syndicated repeats that began popping up on my broadcast television statements last year when the show was played on the airwaves. But last night, my wife said, "I want to watch the South Park movie; I think you'll like it!" So, she removed the DVD box for South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut from her DVD shelf and we sat and watched it. She was right; I did enjoy the movie, but even as it made me laugh a lot, it is hard to consider it a great movie.

A musical, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut - yes, the title is a penis joke, so that pretty much tells you how the film is going to be - is a crudely animated movie which is so self-referential that the jokes are almost entirely aimed at those who hate South Park and crude humor. The movie has predictable character arcs, poorly animated nudity, possibly more swearing than Clerks and a plot that actually develops from one thing to another as the movie progresses. This is actually the first movie in a long time that I have laughed out loud almost entirely through, so I enthusiastically recommend it for anyone who is looking for a good laugh and enjoys raunchy humor with the occasional bit of political social commentary thrown in. But it is what it is and while it is hilarious, it is not a timeless or great cinematic experience.

Happy to live in the redneck town of South Park, the kids of South Park Elementary - Kyle, Stan, Cartman and Kenny - get into the R-rated animated Terrance And Phillip movie, which is a Canadian duo who swear a lot and make constant jokes about farting. Returning to school, the boys become exceptionally popular for having seen the forbidden movie and they begin swearing up a storm. This leads the guidance counselor to rehabilitate them, a process which lasts only as long as until the kids go see the movie again. This leads to Kenny getting killed by lighting his own fart on fire and being sent to Hell.

Furious about this, Kyle's mother, Sheila organizes the PTA and blames Canada for the corruption of the children in the United States. Overwhelming President Clinton, Sheila essentially declares war on Canada by using Conan O'Brien to capture Terrance & Phillip. But, from Hell, Kenny tries to send Cartman a dire message; that Satan and Saddam Hussein will come to take over the Earth if the Canadian comedic duo is killed. Stan tries to impress a girl he likes by becoming more political, Kyle tries to stand up to his mother and Cartman tries to overcome a V-chip installed in his brain as all-out war breaks out between the United States and Canada.

South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is a relatively short collection of fart jokes, expletives and songs about corruption of minors and foul language. But, to their credit, writers Trey Parker and Matt Stone (and Pam Brady) make the songs catchy, funny and ultimately memorable. I suppose this ought not to be surprising to me as the same writers did the music for Hamlet 2 and I can still recall the tune to "Rock Me Sexy Jesus." My wife, as it turns out, has been singing me songs from South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut for months now and I just did not know the source.

What the film does surprisingly well is tell a story that was socially ahead of its time. in 1999, before the fear-mongering that led the U.S. into wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut was illustrating just how a few hot heads could set off international turmoil. When the film isn't being socially ahead of its time, it is playing with absurdist humor - Satan and Saddam Hussein are essentially gay lovers and Satan wants to talk, while Saddam just wants to have sex - and showing remarkably astute political humor. In a critique of the Bush Administration, a Barenaked Ladies song ("Fun And Games") references how the poor and black are frequently lured into the military and used as cannon fodder. In South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut, Parker, Stone and Brady make the same observations with the military strategies employed against Canada.

What South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut is light on is character development. The love story involving Stan and the area good-girl seems forced and the generic love plot (which only goes so far) feels like exactly what it is. Moreover, Cartman is entirely undeveloped; the is the same crude, foul-mouthed child at the end that he was at the beginning. Even Kyle's attempts to stand up to his mother seem like forced, obvious attempts at character development in a movie that does not actually need it. Instead, most viewers would have been content to just keep the jokes coming; it's that kind of movie.

But this is also where South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut gets itself into some trouble. Amid the jokes about farts and swearing and the political messages, the movie actually goes somewhere. As such, the movie's plot actually starts with one story and turns into another. This is fine, but in tying up the plot, the movie loses some of its punch and the final act has less music, less memorable music, and even less humor. As the war progresses, the movie becomes less funny as the characters try to get themselves out of the situation and the viewer has the feeling the writers were not sure how to both wrap it up and keep it as funny as the first three-quarters.

On DVD, South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut comes with only three theatrical trailers as bonus features, at least for the one-disc original version my wife has. Even so, this is not a movie where tons of bonus features would help. The movie feels complete enough without any scenes which may have been deleted and there's hardly a need for a commentary track. This is certainly funny enough to watch, even multiple times, but it's not more than it is. It's a series of poorly animated characters running around swearing and farting. But it feels good to laugh at that.

For other animated movies, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Family Guy Presents: It's A Trap!
The Lord Of The Rings (1978 animated)
Despicable Me

5.5/10

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

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



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Regicide: Three Kings Works!

The Good: Well-acted, Superb direction, Interesting characters
The Bad: Occasionally obvious, "Preachy."
The Basics: Surprisingly good, Three Kings mixes irony and violence to make a statement on the end of wars.


Three Kings has a lot to recommend it for those who aren't fanatics about things like violence and gore. If you're someone who freaks out about violence, you won't like this: it's a postwar atrocities film, the body count is quite high. If you're someone upset by gore, this film is not for you: we see gunshot wounds from the inside. We see a collapsed lung and other internal injuries that are rather graphic.

Three Kings takes place following the Gulf Conflict. Four soldiers go off to find a bunker of stolen Kuwaiti gold. The characters are interesting: Archie Gates is driven by necessity, Troy Barlow is attempting to give his wife and daughter a better life, Chief Elgin is just happy to be on vacation and Conrad Vig just wants to be like Troy. The characters are easy to watch on their quest to steal Kuwaiti gold from the Iraquis. When Troy gets captured by Iraqui forces, he even becomes intriguing.

Outside his brief characterization and the desperation of his capture, the characters aren't particularly compelling. They're interesting to watch, but we don't know what truly makes them tick, what compels them to act beyond one or two things. For instance, Gates' insistence on "necessity" works until he suddenly develops a conscience. Given what he has encountered directly and in orders up until that point, his switch makes little sense. Moreover, why Vig idolizes Troy is a mystery and why Elgin is where he is in life is elusive.

For the most part the characters react, rather than initiate real, meaningful acts. Outside their decision to steal the gold, they make no decisions not based on circumstances surrounding them. They react to their own troubles, never initiating actions to get ahead of the current curve.

That said, the film is surprisingly good. What makes the film is the directing. Despite the occasionally preachy feel of "do the right thing," the movie is dominated by harsh angles, excessive wash outs, then vivid colors, and varying image speeds. The film warns us that these things are intentional, but the warning isn't truly needed. It comes across quite clearly as a statement on war and destruction.

The acting is pretty good. Mark Wahlburg was surprisingly good. This is the first film I've seen him in to my knowledge. Stealing her scenes, though is Nora Dunn as an uptight reporter. She's a character. Her acting is tight, her character is possessive and neurotic and she plays that well.

The pace is excellent. The fast-paced, action packed film makes a statement while being original enough. The postwar film is pretty rare and Three Kings deals with it well. If you're sick of emotional drama and actual war stories, the complexity of Three Kings works wonderfully.

For other war films, please check out my reviews of:
The Hurt Locker
All Quiet On The Western Front
Wings

7.5/10

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

© 2011, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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