Really, Ridley?! Alien: Covenant Is The Best You Could Come Up With?!

The Good: Directing and acting in the first third, Michael Fassbender's performance for most of the movie
The Bad: Entirely formulaic plot, Ridiculous reversals, Michael Fassbender's acting is too good to make the end convincing, Stupid, stupid characters, Emotionally unrealistic characters
The Basics: Alien: Covenant is an utter disappointment for anyone who loves the franchise . . . or movies in general.


For the past few months, the film I have been most excited about seeing has been Alien: Covenant. For sure, the Alien franchise (reviewed here!) has had some duds, but one of my strongest moments of cinephilic joy came in seeing Prometheus (reviewed here!) in IMAX 3-D. So, tonight, I schlepped out 85 miles to a theater with a 70 ft. screen to see Alien: Covenant. And, sadly, it was not worth it.

Alien: Covenant is, sadly, garbage. Everything that was good and clever in Prometheus is missing from Alien: Covenant. Everything that made Alien scary is passe in Alien: Covenant; the elements that made Aliens a great sequel seem cheaply recycled in Alien: Covenant. Even the darkness of Alien 3 that robbed fans of the prior episode's "happy ending" is presented in Alien: Covenant as a glossed-over, expository afterthought. The inventiveness of Alien Resurrection even is lacking from Alien: Covenant.

Sadly, by the point Alien: Covenant was made, the Alien-franchise films have developed into something of a formula. Introduce the characters and setting (usually Ripley), isolate the characters, introduce some form of the alien life form, the alien is hunted while the alien(s) hunt the human characters, drama with an android, someone makes it to safety . . . psych(!), resolution. Alien: Covenant only minimally challenges that well-established formula. In fact, the big differences of Alien: Covenant are pretty easy to define: this time the chestburster comes out the back, there are no real chestbursters (just tiny xenomorphs), and the aliens are not really the villains this time. And, apparently, Ridley Scott listened to the commentary track on Alien and decided to side with Veronica Cartwright; Alien: Covenant features a character actually making a good-faith attempt to communicate with the xenomorph and it positively responds. Take that, Tom Skerritt!

So, what actually happens in Alien: Covenant and why is it so bad?

Opening with David being brought online by Peter Weyland, David and Weyland discuss the nature of creators and the created. Leaping forward to ten years after the Prometheus disappeared and was presumed destroyed, the Company has sent the colony ship Covenant into deep space to colonize a distant world. The synthetic human, Walter, is acting as custodian of the ship, crew and cargo (colonists and embryoes) when a nutrino pulse cripples the ship, forcing him to wake up the crew. In the process, the captain is killed, leaving Daniels a widow and making the faith-based Oram Captain. While Tenessee is out fixing the solar collectors, his helmet intercepts a message. Returning to the Covenant, the crew works to decipher the message, but all they can do is identify that it includes John Denver's "Country Roads." Walter discovers that the signal came from a previously undiscovered planet that is both closer to Covenant's current location and is a better match for a human population. Given how the captain died in his cryotube, the crew is resistant to returning to sleep, so over Daniels's objections, Oram reroutes the Covenant to the new planet.

Arriving at the planet, the Covenant crew is surprised by the volatility of storms in the upper atmosphere, so they leave a skeleton crew aboard and take most of the crew down to the surface. There, they split up and two of the crew step on spores that they then become infected by. By nightfall, the two infected crewmembers are killed birthing xenomorphs and more of the crew is lost when their dropship is destroyed. When all looks bleak, the colonists are rescued by none other than David, who takes them to safety in a city that was once home to the Engineers. There, Daniels recognizes him as twitchy and she sends Walter in to learn the truth of what happened to the Prometheus and how he got to the alien planet in the alien ship. Soon, though, Walter's loyalties are tested as David's experiments using Engineer technology are slowly revealed and various xenomorphs start hunting the crew!

Alien: Covenant takes a lesson from, of things Alien Vs. Predator in that it includes facehuggers that impregnate at ridiculously fast speeds. That is paired with a first xenomorph style creature that gets huge very fast and skips the larval chestburster stage. And, apparently, people in the future lack a sneeze reaction.

Fundamentally, the big problem with Alien: Covenant is in the acting of Michael Fassbender. Fassbender is a great actor and he convincingly creates two distinctly different characters in Alien: Covenant in Walter and David. The problem is that he's such a good actor that he fails to sell the film's supposed big surprise reversal because of how he is playing his character. As Spock once noted: it's easier for an enlightened person to play a barbarian than for a barbarian to portray an enlightened. By similar extension, it's much harder for the mad scientist to play the lovelorn android than for the loving synth to play the madman.

Finally, many of the characters in defy sensibility. I like a good satirical commentary on the intelligence of people who make decisions based primarily on faith, but Oram is played as just plain stupid (sorry Billy Crudup!). Having encountered David cozied up to a xenomorph (who looked like it was designed by Guillermo Del Toro), Oram follows David literally into the dark basement. On the commentary track for Prometheus, the writers discuss how they were painfully aware that they had characters walking into the (figurative) haunted basement, so they worked hard to make that apparent defiance of reason character-driven. And it works. There is no such attention to detail or reason in Oram's decision.

The surprises in Alien: Covenant are often more obvious than surprising. Ridley Scott telegraphs a lot of the big moments and makes explicit almost everything in the film in a way that diminishes the mystery that Prometheus established well. In fact, the only element that is not overly-explained (arguably) is that the recorder David and Walter play is made of bone and probably came from Elizabeth Shaw's corpse. But, Scott didn't need to make that explicit when he has David holding it like a weapon when the object is taken out of frame. Does Scott truly think that the audience is so stupid they've forgotten it is in David's hand?! And while there is a lot of carnage in Alien: Covenant a lot of it happens so fast that its graphicness is undone by the speed of the effects.

Alien: Covenant has a few good moments, but the promise of its opening scene is that it will be philosophical and/or clever. But the moment the first whatever-morph appears on screen, Alien: Covenant degenerates into an over-the-top bloodbath orchestrated by a mad scientist and it stops being satisfying, smart or even enjoyable unfortunately early.

For other movies currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2
Colossal
Life

3.5/10

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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More Serious And Violent Than Funny, The Interview Is Erratic, But (Surprisingly!) Not Bad!

The Good: Character, Much of the acting, Moments of concept
The Bad: Overbearing soundtrack, Repetitive
The Basics: The Interview oscillates between smartly critiquing U.S. the media and intelligence communities and body-type/sex jokes and a violent series of confrontations that are unpleasant to watch.


After all of the controversy and threats from hackers and SONY pulling the wide-release of The Interview (check out the commentary on SONY’s actions here!), SONY has released The Interview in limited release and on-line. Here in Michigan, the local theater Michael Moore subsidizes is one of the theaters that got it in. The controversy means that instead of art theaters showing films like Inherent Vice this Christmas, they are screening what would have been a mainstream comedy instead. And, for all the hype and leaked internal criticism, The Interview is a very mainstream, shock humor comedy film.

And The Interview can only benefit from the hype that surrounded it. It is a Seth Rogen and James Franco film that suffers from a number of issues familiar to fans of the duo’s work; it is short, James Franco is essentially playing a mild permutation of himself (Franco has “serious” and “complete stoner” characters and this is “serious, but with lines that seem familiar from his drug-addled characters), and the humor gets mixed with violence. And, like Observe And Report (reviewed here!) and Pineapple Express (reviewed here!), the violence becomes troubling and is so over-the-top that is sucks the humor that preceded it right out of the film. The thing is, despite the violence and the jokes that don't land, The Interview is surprisingly watchable and is nowhere near as bad as it seemed like it would have been!  Unlike Observe And Report, for example, The Interview does not leave the viewer with a gut-wrenching sense of being horrified and grossed out, despite some pretty over-the-top blood spurts in the film's latter half.

With North Korea getting nuclear missile capabilities, the world is abuzz with journalists pounding the fearmongering . . . except Dave Skylark’s entertainment news show. On the night of their 1000th episode, Dave Skylark and his best friend, executive producer, Aaron Rapaport, break news that Eminem is gay. On the night that North Korea gets full nuclear capability, after Rapaport has had a run in with a former classmate who does not respect his style of entertainment journalism, Skylark’s show breaks a Rob Lowe baldness story. When Dave Skylark learns that Skylark Tonight is Kim Jong-un’s favorite Western-produced show, Skylark and Rapaport decide to try to get an interview with Kim Jong-un. Rapaport is sent to a meeting in the middle of nowhere, China, where the North Korean liaison, Sook, gives the executive producer the terms of the interview. While the terms are not journalistically ethical, Skylark convinces Rapaport to agree to the terms to get the interview at all.

When the duo agrees to the interview terms, Agent Lacey of the CIA approaches Skylark and Rapaport about the opportunity their trip represents: they are wooed to kill Kim Jong-un. While Skylark wants to take the North Korean dictator out in a blaze of glory, Lacey and the CIA train Skylark to deliver a ricin poison handshake, which will kill the Supreme Leader after twenty-four hours. Unfortunately, the poison looks like gum and the North Korean inspectors consume it, leaving the CIA struggling to come up with a back-up plan. They send a drone with a back-up supply of poison . . . which Rapaport has to smuggle back into the room in his butt. When Skylark is greeted by Kim Jong-un, he discovers how Jong-un is basically just a fanboy and when they spend the day together, Skylark bonds with the dictator and has second thoughts about killing him. After Skylark witnesses Kim Jong-un’s temper, he has a change of heart and embraces the mission . . . though the poison is no longer available to the guys.

The reason The Interview is likely to benefit from the hype is that there is a whole audience of people who are likely to see the film based on the controversy alone. Fans of James Franco and Seth Rogen films have never had so much free publicity. For two of America’s biggest comedic box office draws, the publicity the hackers gave the film is more than enough to make up for the drop in revenue for the film appearing on so many fewer theater screens. Unfortunately, the internal criticisms of The Interview that were leaked as part of the hack are mostly accurate. More than the premise problems, The Interview suffers because it is billed as a comedy and it falls a bit short on that front.

At the outset of The Interview, the film is not very funny because it is establishing the premise and characters. In establishing the characters, The Interview works to make Rapaport serious and smart and the movie makes most of its social commentary there. Despite a pretty overtly hilarious interview with Eminem, much of The Interview is concerned with making social commentary before it degenerates into a bloodbath. As a result, the scenes with Seth Rogen’s Rapaport are a smart dose of realism in an otherwise absurd film premise.

The discontinuity gets worse and goes in a different direction at the hour mark. Despite ridiculous dialog about “pulling out,” The Interview turns disturbing when the poisoned military officer starts to die. Putting himself out of his misery as the ricin kills him, the officer blows off his own head and the shot is one that rivals the on-screen carnage of The Walking Dead. After Skylark commits to the film’s premise, having realized he has been played as a tool of Kim Jong-un, the film turns heavyhanded and, frequently, violent.

The issue here is that The Interview starts surprisingly smart, making a subversive and intelligent commentary on the problems with the American media. The culture is groomed to be stupid and ignorant, focusing on media infotainment instead of substantive journalism. The Interview sets out with that in mind and in its latter half it actually proposes the smartest way to combat Kim Jong-un; destroy his propaganda machine. But then The Interview becomes unhinged. The long sequence focusing on Rapaport sticking the drone’s package up his butt and the protracted bit wherein Rapaport and Sook hook up try desperately to recapture a sense of humor for the movie.

All that is undermined by the film’s final half hour. As the actual interview occurs, violence breaks out. This follows on Skylark realizing he has been lied to, which is an insulting and obvious sequence that overstates what is on screen. As Rapaport tries to hold the control room and the interviewers attempt to escape, The Interview degenerates into violence. Despite that, The Interview does what it sets out to do, which is entertain and while it might not be incredible, it is not the complete lemon it might have been made out to be.

The Interview is a triumph of performances for Randall Park and Lizzy Caplan. While the film is a Rogen/Franco vehicle, it is Park and Caplan who get the film’s most substantive moments as actors. Lizzy Caplan has been in a ton of movies and television works, but she has not had such a substantive role near the top of a cast list like in The Interview. Caplan is serious and completely credible as Agent Lacey, even if her part in The Interview starts out as a display of her cleavage (which is addressed in the film). Randall Park plays Kim Jong-un and he gives a performance that is anything but monolithic. Park presents Jong-un as a master of propaganda and, surprisingly, never really goofy.

Perhaps the funniest lingering aspect of The Interview is that Katy Perry is utilized as a weapon. Beyond that, The Interview is a half-boring, quarter-violent comedy that fails to land more often than it hits, but has an ambitious premise and concept that takes a one-line idea and makes it work better than expected.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
To Write Love On Her Arms
The Voices
Love, Rosie
The Seventh Son
Song One
Match
Vice
American Sniper
Paddington
Inherent Vice
Selma
Still Alice
Predestination
The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies
Expelled
Annie
The Imitation Game
Birdman

5.5/10

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

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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SONY And The U.S. Government’s Reaction In Cancelling The Release Of The Interview Proves Throwing Money At The Military Is Money Poorly Spent!

The Basics: With SONY capitulating to (supposed) North Korean threats over its release of The Interview, citizens of the United States should demand their tax money go other places than the U.S. military.


This week’s news has been dominated by stories surrounding the hack of SONY Pictures’s servers and threats surrounding the imminent release of the film The Interview (reviewed here!). Amid all of the stories planted by the hackers and leaked as a result of the hack, there has been one glaring one that has not been reported that I have been waiting for: SONY executives had to know of the risk in making The Interview . . . and they disregarded it entirely.

The Backstory

The Interview is a film starring James Franco and Seth Rogen with a basic premise that Americans visiting North Korea for business are conscripted by the CIA to kill Kim Jong-un. About a month ago, SONY Pictures Studios’s servers were hacked and after digitally-releasing at least four of the studio’s films online, the hackers began to leak e-mails and other private information they stole from the servers to mainstream media and online sources. While North Korea initially denied being the hackers, after the hackers threatened an attack on movie theaters that showed The Interview, the United States government claimed that North Korean sources were responsible for both the threat and the hack. The Interview was subsequently pulled from SONY’s Christmas release roster.

Red Flags In The Backstory

When the SONY hack became a major news story, virtually anyone with any intelligence and insight had to notice some gaping holes in the story of the hack and where blame was being spread. While North Koreans were almost instantly scapegoats for the hack, when they denied involvement, but praised the attack, there were certain questions that remained unanswered in the media. If North Koreans were responsible for the hack, they had to be North Koreans that were fluent in English. Supposedly, the hack occurred on November 24, when SONY personnel turned on their computers to a message warning that more damage to the company was to come. It took about a week for the hackers to start releasing more information taken from SONY.

That makes perfect sense; if you’ve just stolen a treasure trove of information in a foreign language, you need some time to sift through the data to figure out what will be useful (i.e. damaging or damning) in ruining your target. A quick online search estimates that the percentage of North Koreans who are fluent in English range from 1 – 10%. One has to believe that the number of North Koreans who are both expert hackers and fluent in English would be well-below 1% and if the motive was protecting the head of state of North Korea, that number has to be pretty small. So, if the U.S. intelligence community was looking at suspects in North Korea, it seems like their pool would have been ridiculously small.

As information from the hack continued to disseminate, it became more and more clear that The Interview was the source of ire for the hackers. But, even in releasing internal documents with executives panning The Interview showed a level of consideration to what the hackers were releasing . . . and it makes one wonder just what kind of publicity machine SONY actually has working for it.

I write that for multiple reasons, but the chief among them are these: if one wanted to ruin The Interview, releasing it for free would have been a pretty decent way. Hackers who released The Expendables 3 (reviewed here!) online this past summer have been credited with causing that sequel’s grosses to take a noticeable hit. Or, if hackers truly wanted to stop The Interview from being released, the hack of SONY’s servers should have targeted the digital copies of The Interview and destroyed them!

Second, SONY has not leaked what should have been its ace card on the matter: the hack of SONY’s servers and subsequent release of private e-mails illustrates that virtually every conversation at the company is fairly well-documented. What is missing from all the leaked documents are any executives who said anything to the effect of, “Hey guys, I read the treatment for The Interview and I’ve got to ask . . . should we really be pissing off the North Koreans by making this movie?” And the reason the hackers, if they truly were from North Korea, would not release those e-mails is because the two most-probable responses to them are: 1. “Who the fuck cares?! It’s North Korea, what are they going to do to us?!” and/or 2. “North Korea doesn’t have a leg to stand on; just last year, there were two blockbusters that dealt with terrorists attacking the White House” (White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen, reviewed here!). So, SONY’s affirmative defenses to threats against The Interview had to be that North Korea couldn’t touch the U.S. militarily and “we’ve already done movies that attack the heart of the U.S., so it’s not a big deal to have a screwball comedy about killing another country’s Head Of State.”

So, why hasn’t SONY leaked those e-mails to show they are not afraid and/or The Interview is hardly groundbreaking for its potential offensiveness?

The Logical Answer

When the hackers released a direct threat against theaters that showed The Interview, the United States government went from “actively investigating” the SONY hack to actually making statements and throwing around allegations. The intelligence community publicly accused North Korea and, while SONY’s problem has been not poking the bear, the intelligence community has reason to take the opposite tact. In intelligence, one does not give away anything one does not have to: you don’t let your enemy know you’ve cracked their codes and you try to keep your methodology as secret as possible. So, why is the intelligence community now publicly blaming North Korea? That surprised me quite a bit. In fact, while SONY’s approach could easily have been “We were worried about North Korea, until we realized their opinion didn’t matter,” the U.S. intelligence community’s approach should have – at best – been dismissive: “The Interview has been screened multiple places and there have been no attacks on any of those venues, so this seems like a fear tactic to us.”

And, in the e-mails or memos that have not been leaked, SONY executives would be right: North Korea does not have the ability to launch any sort of offensive that would destroy every movie theater screening The Interview. So, it begs the question, why capitulate to the hackers’ demands?

There are only two logical answers to capitulation at this point (considering the film is made and people have already seen it): the intelligence community in the United States has a credible threat or SONY’s executives are so gunshy that they are broken. Fear is a powerful motivator and certainly someone at SONY’s legal department figured out that the liability for attacks to theaters across the U.S. would be astronomical – like, enough to destroy the mega-corporation. But even if such attacks occurred and SONY was sued for liability, precedent shows that free speech is not to blame for violent attacks and the liable parties should be the attackers, not incidental department (suing SONY for any attacks that resulted from releasing The Interview would be analogous to suing the Department Of The Navy for building a base at Pearl Harbor . . . instead retaliating against the Japanese military for attacking the base there).

In Light Of It All. . .

So, that brings us to the second possibility and what it actually means. Right now, the hackers are bullies and SONY (and theater owners) are wusses. If North Korea is the source of the hack and the threat, SONY and theater owners are expected to believe that North Korea has the resources to blow up thousands of targets (the number of screens The Interview would have released on) simultaneously on Christmas Day. According to CIA sources from 2013, North Korean missile technology was only advanced enough to get missiles to the West Coast of the U.S. So, the threat from the hackers was either a bluff, North Korea has advanced its missile technology dramatically within the last year . . . or we are to believe that North Korea has a network of several thousand agents working in the United States who would have delivered the threatened explosives to the theaters when The Interview was released.

And here’s where American citizens should be outraged and have a course of action against the United States government: under any of those circumstances, our tax dollars are just being thrown away. According to usgovernmentspending.com, in 2014, $605 billion were spent on military defense (the deficit was some $483 billion). What the reaction to the SONY hack and alleged North Korean threats tells us is this: that is money poorly spent.

Seriously.

Let’s say the intelligence community is doing its job. The CIA and FBI have identified a credible threat. They say, “Hey, theater owners and SONY, we’d really appreciate it if you didn’t release this movie because North Korea is making threats and they can actually back them up.” That’s the job of the intelligence community. They find the threats and if it’s domestic, they arrest suspects to prevent them. If there were a massive terror network of potential North Korean bombers in the United States ready to actually blow up every theater that screened The Interview (despite the fact that they did not blow up any of the theaters that screened it already for press and potential audiences). Given how the media is all over this story and there have been no stories of arrests or interrogations around the country of North Korean nationals being rounded up by the CIA, logic suggests that the intelligence community discovered that North Koreans were responsible for the hack, but there is no network of bombers in the U.S. ready to blow up theaters here. They turn their intelligence over to the NSA, who shares it with the military.

At that point, the issue becomes a diplomatic and military matter. The diplomats should be saying “Hey, North Korea, you guys can’t just threaten us!” (albeit not the most receptive or rational audience in the world). The military, though, should be saying “before you can launch one missile, we will reduce your arsenal to ashes.” And we have a new Bay Of Pigs or another bloodbath in Asia. The reasons not to pursue a military option are either because it would not work or because it is not going to get the desired results (The Interview, North Korea attacks, the U.S. counter-attacks, China launches its missiles, WWIII, Armageddon). So, what does it mean that it would not work, then? Capitulating to North Korea, if the threats are coming from North Korea, as a military solution is a de facto admission that the U.S. military cannot defend the United States from North Korean missiles.

So then what are we paying our military for?

The United States is a big continent (just drive through Kansas!); taking the United States might be second only to taking and holding Russia in the world. North Korea does not have the military resources to launch a land war to take the U.S. and while it might have some missile resources that could harm the U.S., what are we paying the military for at this point if not to have such overwhelming might that even an egotistical dictator would think twice about attacking us? In order for any threat from the North Korean Head Of State to be deemed “credible,” one has to believe that enough of the high-ranking military officers in North Korea would also be willing to martyr themselves and have their nation reduced to ashes for that leaders vision. Is The Interview being buried because it hits too close to an actual CIA plan to take out Kim Jong-Un? That seems doubtful (the cat’s already out of the bag on the “how” of the assassination attempt in The Interview), so it inevitably points back to the idea that the U.S. military is unable to defeat North Korea without taking what they have already calculated as “acceptable losses.”

North Korea is a nation of approximately 24.45 million people and is about 60% the size of Kansas, located thousands of miles away from the continental United States. If it is a credible military threat to the United States then spending hundreds of billions of dollars on our military is a waste of money. I am a pacifist and I don’t think anyone should die to see a movie, certainly not The Interview (Cheap Thrills, maybe . . . ) and if North Korea could deliver on its threats then that should be taken seriously. But if our military cannot defend against North Korea, that’s just a jobs program that is not advancing anyone’s best interest. The $122 billion dollars spent on military defense (after eliminating the entire deficit of overspending that the military represents) represents $336 each and every American citizen living in the United States could be paid for health care, healthy food, or education. Hell, we could even use that money to go to the movies.

For other reviews and commentaries, please check out my Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Veronica Mars Comes Full Circle With The Film Continuation Of The Series!

The Good: Funny, Wonderful character development, Good acting, Engaging story/references
The Bad: Some underdeveloped threads, Much of the case hinges on a retcon that is unsatisfying.
The Basics: Surprisingly satisfying on its own, Veronica Mars progresses the story of the title character and Neptune, California in a compelling way.


From the moment it was first announced, there have been few films I have eagerly anticipated the way I have looked forward to Veronica Mars. In fact, the only reason it has taken me two weeks to watch and review the cinematic rendition of Veronica Mars is that I was going through the entire television series (reviewed here!) with my wife (who had not seen it before) (and in Michigan, it didn’t remain in theaters very long). Given the terrible and abrupt nature of the show’s series finale to Veronica Mars, the show made for a natural subject for a cinematic follow-up. Like Serenity (reviewed here!), Veronica Mars is based on a television series that had an uncommon level of complexity and a number of characters that could not be properly serviced in a single 107 minute film.

Fortunately for fans of Veronica Mars who might have been wary of a film based upon the fourth season presentation presented in the bonus features to the Season Three DVD set, the film Veronica Mars is a return to form . . . and Neptune, California. In fact, the film Veronica Mars makes a conscious choice to disavow the Season 4 Presentation as part of the Veronica Mars canon. Early in the film, Veronica details her nine years since she was last seen and it is a very different path – Stanford, then Harvard Law – than the FBI Academy. My big fear before watching Veronica Mars was that, with so many characters to service, they would gloss over most or try so hard to give everyone a fair amount of screentime that they would not tell a coherent narrative. Veronica Mars is a surprisingly balanced film, with only one of the primary characters from the series being given a truly underwhelming place in the film. Regardless, it did not feel like a film that was just a random collections of allusions to the television series or cameos by beloved characters from the series.

Living in New York City now, and having recently reconnected with Piz, Veronica Mars has gone nine years without taking a case. Instead, she is now interviewing at a prestigious New York law firm where she illustrates her resolve and lack of ability to be flustered when one of the partners brings up her sex tape from college while in the interview. Having pointedly ignored the pleas from Wallace and Mac to return to Neptune for their ten year high school reunion, Veronica Mars feels a tug to return to her hometown when a pop star she went to high school with is killed. The primary suspect is Veronica’s former boyfriend, Logan Echolls. Feeling like an addict, Veronica takes a call for help from Logan and leaves Piz in New York to help Logan find a good lawyer to represent him.

Arriving in Neptune, Veronica finds herself returning to many of her old ways. Logan is, despite the murder charges against him, a stand-up guy who has joined the military and flies missions over Afghanistan (and he looks damn good in his uniform when he meets Veronica at the airport). Wallace is now a teacher at Neptune High, Mac has taken a job for Kane Software and Dick is still Dick, spending his days surfing and screwing. Underwhelmed by the lawyers she meets, Veronica starts to help Logan develop his defense, which is finding a more compelling suspect than Logan. Investigating the murder itself, Veronica encounters the pop star’s number one fan (and another former-classmate of Veronica’s), Gia Goodman, and others from her past, including Madison Sinclair and Weevil. Digging into the relationships of those she left behind in Neptune brings to light a missing person’s murder from ten years ago and puts Veronica in the crosshairs of a killer looking to protect their interests and secrets.

Keith Mars is, fortunately, not neglected in Veronica Mars. He is given a subplot, with Weevil, that puts him at odds with the new Sheriff Lamb (Dan Lamb, Don Lamb’s brother). Sheriff Lamb is not only incompetent, he is outwardly corrupt and Neptune, California is a much darker place than it used to be. Gone is the bright veneer that covered the seedy underbelly of the filthy rich city and Keith Mars’s plotline in Veronica Mars reflects that.

First and foremost, Veronica Mars is a darker, more adult continuation of the characterlines from the television series. The big moments of Veronica Mars (the film) are violent and abrupt. This is a film with a body count, wounds, and some particularly gruesome and tense moments. But, it’s still Veronica Mars. As such, the film is packed with witty banter, tongue-in-cheek humor, and lovable moments that remind viewers just why they loved the television show upon which the movie was based. Most of the relationship moments satisfy as well. Wallace has grown, but still has loyalty to Veronica, Mac is dismayed with herself for having gone over to the Dark Side for cash, and Dick is as vacuous as ever (in fact, despite him being a reasonable suspect in the film’s backstory murder, during the inevitable exposition wrap-up of the backstory, the guilty party goes to sufficient lengths to exonerate Dick for any involvement). Piz is still rather white bread, Gia is still pretty shallow, and Logan and Veronica instantly have more chemistry than Veronica and Piz, so most of the pieces in play are familiar.

As one might suspect, the film Veronica Mars is largely about Veronica. The story is one that gives her a decent character arc. She was out of the private investigation business and, more than any of the influences exerted upon her by other characters, Veronica Mars is about her willing return to the lifestyle she has run away from. Thematically, Veronica Mars is largely about one young woman discovering her passion in life and realizing that the things and people once important to her were not necessarily self-destructive as they might have seemed.

In fact, the biggest gripes I had with Veronica Mars was how it fit in with the larger series, as opposed to anything within the film itself. That means that while those who might watch Veronica Mars will not appreciate the full depth and range of the allusions in the film, those who are attentive to details will find some aspects of Veronica Mars unsatisfying. I was less than enthused by the resolution of the Weevil character arc in the film, after initially being impressed by his character growth. But there are other details that the film inexplicably flubs. Chief among them is in the corrupt sheriff plotline. The television series “resolved” itself with an election between Keith Mars and Vinnie Van Lowe for sheriff of Neptune. The presumption, given the plot that preceded it, was that Keith would lose the election because of corruption charges that surfaced the night before the election. The problem, though, is that we see Veronica’s ballot: Keith and Vinnie are the only two people on the ballot. One of them must have been elected – Dan Lamb could not have become sheriff after that election. As a result, Vinnie’s place in the film (without any acknowledgment of his disastrous tenure as sheriff) makes painfully little sense.

As well, the murder plot in Veronica Mars hinges on an unsolved case . . . that was never once mentioned in the television series. Sometime between the second and third season of Veronica Mars, presumably, there was a boat trip that resulted in a death. It’s never mentioned before and the retcon case is an unfortunate contrivance for the film. In addition to forcing fans to believe in yet another young person killed at Veronica’s high school (so soon after Veronica’s tenacious pursuit of the bus crash victims) was part of a case that neither Veronica, nor Keith, pursued, the resulting case hinges largely on characters that the viewer is not invested in. Gia Goodman was only present in the show’s second season and was not particularly missed in the third; Logan is never treated as a viable killer in Veronica Mars, and Dick Casablancas continues to be such a hapless dupe that he is never believably a suspect. Thus, all the suspects are reliably among the newcomers to the film, which leaves the viewer without a real emotional tether to the crimes past and present.

That said, Veronica Mars has wonderful acting. Kristen Bell, Enrico Colantoni, Jason Dohring, Ryan Hansen and Chris Lowell each fall perfectly back into their old, familiar roles. Percy Daggs III, Francis Capra, and Tina Majorino evolve their characters credibly to make their new personalities seem less abrupt and more plausible. Jerry O’Connell, Gaby Hoffmann, and Martin Starr blend well with the seasoned cast. Martin Starr is like he has never been before; he is downright creepy, with a dangerous quality to him that he’s not portrayed before. Starr gives one of the notable performances in Veronica Mars, even if some of his character’s arc is telegraphed by his performance.

Ultimately, Veronica Mars is well worth watching. It’s enough to please fans and get a whole new audience to pick up the television series. For a film that had such a public battle to get made at all, that is truly a mission accomplished!

For other works with Krysten Ritter, be sure to visit my reviews of:
She’s Out Of My League
Confessions Of A Shopaholic
27 Dresses
Gilmore Girls - Season 7
Veronica Mars - Season 2
Someone Like You

8/10

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

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Ultimate Tale Of Peer Pressure: Lovelace

The Good: Acting, Interesting character struggle.
The Bad: Very predictable plot
The Basics: Pounding the independent film circuit at the end of Summer Blockbuster Season, Lovelace should be Amanda Seyfried and Peter Sarsgaard’s ticket to Oscar nominations.


As Summer Blockbuster Season winds down, with a particularly crowded release weekend, there are a number of independent films being released alongside the mainstream ones that are largely getting neglected. One of the most anticipated ones that is nevertheless being overlooked by mainstream audiences this weekend is Lovelace. Lovelace is a drama/biography starring Amanda Seyfried and for those who are only into the salacious, there is no need to read any further: Amanda Seyfried gets naked in Lovelace. For those looking for something more substantive, there is plenty more to read, but for the audience who just wants to see more of Amanda Seyfried, the bottomline is that yes, Lovelace lives up to the potential of its subject by showing off more of Amanda Seyfried than in her other films.

For those unfamiliar with her, Linda Lovelace was the star of the classic porn film Deep Throat. Apparently, she was the first breakout, mainstream porn actress to capture the imagination of viewers in Deep Throat. It is worth noting up front that I knew nothing about Linda Lovelace and have never actually seen Deep Throat, so this review is only on Lovelace, not how it recreates reality on screen. Lovelace is essentially this year’s Boogie Nights (reviewed here!) where the protagonist is female. Structured in plot very much like Boogie Nights, Lovelace features a woman who is pressured by her husband into entering the porn industry.

Before she was a mainstream porn breakout, Linda Lovelace was just a girl. Hanging out with her friend Patsy, Linda is something of a prude who is pressured by Patsy into go-go dancing at a local roller skating rink. There she catches the eye of Chuck, who starts hanging out with her and actually works to impress her parents. Linda confesses to Chuck that she had a baby whom she was forced to give up for adoption by her mother and shortly thereafter, Linda and Chuck move in together. At Chuck’s house, she is exposed to porn movies and after she bails him out of jail six months later, Chuck reveals what his real business is (he is essentially a pimp for a topless bar’s women).

After Linda bombs an audition for Chuck’s backers, Chuck plays a home video of Linda giving him a blowjob and that captures the attention of producers Butchie and Gerry. Linda is pushed into doing a porn movie,

While Lovelace is a predictably dark plot progression of a character in an industry that is unforgiving and punishing to women. As After Porn Ends (reviewed here!) adequately documented, porn and erotica do not have a huge regard for women and Lovelace illustrates that women in the industry are often manipulated and pushed farther than they might want to go. As well, the aging porn star Dolly illustrates that the industry does not prepare women in the biz for other vocations, but the ones who are best prepared for life after porn are those who take on other vocations (Dolly is a make-up artist).

As these stories frequently go – in reality and in virtually every fiction about them - Lovelace starts as the story of a person with a singular talent filling a niche in the industry and quickly turns into a story of abuse, drugs and personal horror. What separates Lovelace from many other films, like What’s Love Got To Do With It? is a lack of pretense, a focus on overcoming, and some pretty amazing performances.

The lack of pretense manifests itself instantly in the form of Chuck. Chuck is a dirtbag and the moment he first arrives on screen, the viewer knows he is bad news for Linda. We see his arc coming a mile away. Lovelace does not try to shield or confuse the viewer. Instead, Chuck is a dirtbag, but Linda is not an innocent. Linda is not at all thrilled by all of Chuck’s mannerisms, but she goes along with him and is beaten by him long before he pushes her into porn. Lovelace is smart enough to leave some ambiguity; do the producers send Chuck away the day Linda is going down on co-star Harry Reems because he will inhibit her performance or because she is more likely to be easily manipulated without him looking out for his “investment?”

The seduction and calamity of Lovelace happens at a roller coaster speed, which leaves a significant chunk of the film exploring how Linda deals with her celebrity and overcomes the negative influences of Chuck. While the movie never quite gets into “inspirational” territory, it smartly does not sink so low as to be unwatchable or continually oppressive. The focus on Linda overcoming Chuck and their shared poverty and problems keeps Lovelace watchable.

The acting in Lovelace is so good it is hard to believe this film is not breaking out in mainstream theaters. With a supporting cast that includes Chris Noth, Wes Bentley, Hank Azaria, Sharon Stone, and Robert Patrick, Lovelace is an incredible presentation of talent in every frame. Amanda Seyfried is perfectly cast as Linda Lovelace. If for no other reason than Seyfried is able to perfectly embody both innocent and sultry, she seems like the ideal choice for Linda Lovelace and she sells the life story of the actress as compelling and engaging.

It was Peter Sarsgaard who rocked Lovelace for me, though. Sarsgaard has none of the creepiness of his villain from Green Lantern (reviewed here!) in his portrayal of Chuck. As a result, he is able to play Chuck first with credible charisma and then as a manipulative bastard who rules all of Linda’s life. The key to such a role is in making the character seem like one the woman would initially be drawn to and he manages to do that. The layered performance of Peter Sarsgaard and the on-screen chemistry he shares with Seyfried make it seem like a no-brainer that a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination is in his future.

Despite its tone and subject matter, Lovelace is a very accessible film that becomes one of August’s few “must watch” movies!

For other works with Amanda Seyfried, please check out my reviews of:
The Big Wedding
Les Miserables
In Time
A Bag Of Hammers
Red Riding Hood
Letters To Juliet
Dear John
Veronica Mars - Season One
Mean Girls

6.5/10

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

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Fun Apocalypse Theater Continues With This Is The End!

The Good: Largely funny, Decent direction, Good enough acting and character development, Surprisingly good special effects.
The Bad: Some of the humor does not land, Mortgages some of the real acting talent for cheap jokes.
The Basics: A surprisingly smarter comedy than one might expect going in, This Is The End satirizes the Apocalypse as a buddy comedy with some of today’s most talented young comedy actors.


When it comes to movies, more often than not it seems these days that you get what you pay for. If you’re going to see the latest Transformers movie and you expect Casablanca, you will be disappointed. So, when This Is The End made its debut during Summer Blockbuster Season, it was hard to go into it expecting greatness. And, given that the cast was made up of stoner movie staple actors like James Franco, Seth Rogen, Craig Robinson, Danny McBride, and Jonah Hill, it was hard to imagine that This Is The End would be substantive or more than just mildly amusing. Fortunately, This Is The End is more than just a series of dick and fart jokes which one might expect from this type movie. For sure, there are a number of cum and weed jokes, but This Is The End gets away from that with remarkable speed to become something somewhat more clever and one of the better independent comedies of the summer.

In fact, there is a lot to celebrate in This Is The End, which is very much a “guy’s movie” packed with guys as they rather stupidly try to survive the apocalypse in James Franco’s house. This is basically a buddy comedy with Seth Rogen and Jay Baruchel surrounded by their contemporaries. And while it is very much not appropriate for impressionable children who can’t take jokes about just how much coke Michael Cera could do (we’re talking well beyond lethal levels here!), it makes some decent jokes and points on how the younger generation acts. It is smart enough to be satirical in places and dumb enough to be blandly entertaining to the young audience that will shell out for a summer popcorn flick. And for a movie that is a summer comedy, This Is The End has surprisingly good special effects, making it worth seeing at least once on the big screen.

Jay Baruchel returns to Los Angeles to hang out with Seth Rogen. The two have drifted apart over the years, so Jay is giving their friendship one last chance. Arriving at Seth’s apartment, the two smoke a lot of weed and Jay reluctantly accompanies Seth to James Franco’s housewarming party. There, Jay feels uncomfortable seeing a ton of celebrities, including peers who are not his favorite Hollywood people, most notably Jonah Hill. When Jay tires of the party, he convinces Seth to come with him to the local gas station to get some cigarettes. While there, there is an earthquake and Jay watches in horror as some people nearby are caught in blue beams of light and pulled up into the sky. Running back to the party, Seth denies seeing the people pulled skyward, but soon it is clear that there is something more going on other than a simple earthquake.

When a fiery sinkhole opens up in front of James Franco’s house, the party guests flee (most are killed outright, including Michael Cera who dies pretty horrifically and hilariously at the hands of a light post) leaving only Baruchel, Franco, Hill, Rogen, and Craig Robinson alive in Franco’s house. Waking up the next morning, the guys discover that Danny McBride (who crashed the party the night before) is also alive in the house and has cooked up at least half the house’s food. What follows are a series of short excursions out of and incursions into the house broken up by ridiculous postulating on what exactly is happening in the world at large. Jay asserts that it is the Revalations-style rapture and apocalypse while others guess it might be zombies. Broken up by hilarious moments like Emma Watson making it back to the house and leaving on her own volition, the group pushing Danny out and Jonah Hill getting violated by a demon and possessed, Jan and Seth try to repair their friendship and survive long enough to get raptured themselves.

This Is The End has its moments and once one accepts that everyone in the film is playing fictionalized versions of themselves (unless Michael Cera’s good kid acting career is covering a legendary coke addiction) and buys the premise of the film, it is actually quite enjoyable. This Is The End is funny, though most of the humor is over-the-top gross-out humor. For example, Danny McBride going on at length about all the places in the house he has masturbated and left his semen is initially quite vile. However, the joke is taken to such a length and is such obvious hyperbole that it becomes incredibly funny.

There is nothing funny about rape. Period. There is no “but” after that sentence; rape jokes are universally in bad taste and, as an example, have contributed with constant incest jokes to the destruction of the once cutting-edge and hilarious Family Guy. To its credit, This Is The End avoids making any rape jokes (even the rape of Jonah Hill by a demon is treated with the appropriate horror and obvious distress). Upending the expectations when the film seems to be nearing the bad taste of rape humor, it takes a turn for the clever. When Emma Watson arrives in the house, Jay tries to raise the issue of how the guys will keep themselves in check (in terms of libido), which Watson overhears and misinterprets as a conversation of who will be allowed to rape her first. Never making a rape joke, This Is The End turns to a miscommunication joke about someone protecting a woman from the potential of rape being accused of plotting the very same. It’s very funny and well-delivered by all involved.

On the character front, This Is The End actually has a significant and decent character thread. Jay Baruchel is a friend estranged from one of his oldest friends and Seth Rogen is experiencing the familiar push-pull between his old friends and his new ones (James Franco’s prized artwork in the film is the Seth Rogen hanging in his living room). Amid all of the external conflicts from demons, cannibals, hunger and firepits, This Is The End plays beats that are easy to empathize with by grounding the scenes in Jay and Seth working on their relationship.

On the acting front, This Is The End is good but utterly unchallenging for the performers. All of the celebrities are playing fictionalized versions of themselves and they seem entirely comfortable with that. What stood out was that directors Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg made This Is The End look fabulous. For such a low-budget film, This Is The End never feels low-budget or even remotely cheap.

Entertaining and worthwhile, This Is The End is worth watching for anyone who enjoys humor, even when it pushes the envelope and pokes at the pretenses of the Evangelical Christians.

For other apocalypse films, please check out my reviews of:
Rapture-Palooza
2012
Left Behind: The Movie

6/10

For more 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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Three Years Later, Disney Repackages Its Last Weird Success With Oz The Great And Powerful

The Good: Decent special effects, Good pacing
The Bad: Predictable plot, character arcs, and themes, Relies far too much on spectacle over effect.
The Basics: Cinephiles and actual witches will have plenty to complain about when Disney repackages its 2010 film Alice In Wonderland as the astonishingly similar and familiar special effects-driven Oz The Great And Powerful.


Coming out of the yearly cinematic doldrums of February (one of two times of the year where movie releases go to die), March inevitably kicks off the big-budget films that the studios release early so they will not have to compete with the ultra-blockbusters released during Summer Blockbuster Season. Unfortunately, March is not known for releasing truly great films, just big films that are in a better market position than the February releases. This year is, of course, no different. However, it is hard not to feel like audiences are being taken as suckers this particular March with the release of Oz The Great And Powerful. Disney is releasing Oz The Great And Powerful to be the first big blockbuster of the year and it is a tactic in 2010 when they released Tim Burton’s vision of Alice In Wonderland (reviewed here!).

Disney is, no doubt, hoping that people will not notice the similarities in release date (Alice In Wonderland was released on March 5, 2010, Oz The Great And Powerful will break to the public on March 8, 2013), merchandising push and attempts to tap the virtually identical fan-bases. No doubt, Disney publicists are pushing talking points for all of the talent should any of them be asked about Oz The Great And Powerful and Alice In Wonderland (you can pretty much bet that within the first five interviews of actors/directors/producers/etc. someone will very pointedly note that Alice In Wonderland was a reimagined sequel, while Oz The Great And Powerful is a prequel to the previously-established The Wizard Of Oz. It is important for the producers to make that distinction; they need the audience to believe they will be watching a different movie.

It is, alas, all window-dressing. Oz The Great And Powerful is essentially Disney’s Alice In Wonderland set in Oz, where the protagonist is not struggling to remember herself and her past, but rather to grow into a man who will lead a very different future. Both are very obvious stories about a hero in the process of becoming, both rely heavily on spectacle over strong storytelling and both made reviews utterly pointless to 90% of the potential audience. Oz The Great And Powerful will be a smash success for Disney, just like Alice In Wonderland was, not because of any inherent quality of its own, but rather because it comes with such a massive fanbase that it cannot be anything but a success.

That said, Oz The Great And Powerful is not unenjoyable, but it is thoroughly obvious and it is, at best, a popcorn movie that seeks to entertain and overwhelm as opposed to telling a story that is worthwhile or compelling.

Starting in Kansas, Oscar Diggs is a simple illusionist. He entertains at the carnival, but he is a magician who is engaged in slight-of-hand and simple science, not one who calls upon any magical forces. So, when his balloon is whisked off in a funnel cloud, he is shocked to awaken in a world where magic is very real. After quickly determining that he is not, in fact, dreaming, Oscar is told where he is by Theodora, a woman who treats the magical Land of Oz as mundane. Theodora takes Oscar to her sister, Evanora, who believes she can use Oscar against her enemies.

Quickly seduced by the potential of the vast wealth of gold, gems, and treasures found in Oz, Oscar slowly comes to realize that Theodora and Evanora are not exactly who they claim to be. When he learns of the plight of most of the citizens of Oz through Glinda, Oscar must choose a side and raise an army to stop the oppression of the people of Oz, in the process becoming the great man – and a man of substance – that he never was before.

First, the good: Oz The Great And Powerful is as visually amazing as fans and cinephiles would hope it could be. Disney has, apparently, used the last three years exceptionally well. While Alice In Wonderland had moments that looked exceptionally like one was watching an awkward animated movie, Oz The Great And Powerful does not; it looks like a true, real setting. The 3-D is incredible and the creatures look like they match the real-world (which is mostly CG in Oz, though the actors are, largely, real). While some of the creatures look derivative – one of the earliest creatures seen in Oz bears a striking resemblance to the Tooth Fairies from Hellboy 2: The Golden Army (reviewed here!) - Oz The Great And Powerful tries hard to make the sense of magic and wonder match The Wizard Of Oz while employing the latest technology to push the envelope of what can be done.

As well, the pacing in Oz The Great And Powerful is good. The film is long, but it does not feel long, it moves at a decent pace, establishing wonder and reversal with a very steady sense of movement.

Unfortunately, where the movie is going is hardly original . . . on pretty much any front. One of the key battles between Glinda and the Wicked Witch was shot in a way that reminded me a great deal of the final battle in Dark City (reviewed here!). Everything else just seemed like it was plotted out from Alice In Wonderland, though Oz The Great And Powerful does not belabor Oscar whining about whether or not Oz is real (unlike Alice’s prolonged whining in the other film), which is nice. Heroes in the process of becoming are familiar stories and it is tough to do something new with that, especially in a single movie, but Oz The Great And Powerful does not even try; it goes with an obvious, formulaic progression as Oscar is tempted, learns the truth, learns a deeper truth, and digs into his soul to take the obvious high road. Hell, in true Disney form, he goes with the blonde!

The best we might say about the acting in Oz The Great And Powerful is that almost all the time, the performers interact with the virtual sets and characters flawlessly. Beyond that . . . James Franco is stiff and he plays Oscar as a man playing charming, as opposed to a character who is innately charming. This is, unfortunately, not the worst the film has to offer in terms of performances. Mila Kunis often seems like she is sleepwalking through the role of Theodora and Michelle Williams’s performance of Glinda is monotonous. Williams plays in a narrow sliver of emotional depth for the character – quickly illustrating deep pathos for the citizens of Oz, but opting for an optimism that seems utterly simplistic in this day in age. Rachel Weisz abandons all subtlety as Evanora the longer the film goes on and her performance lacks any genuine emotional depth.

Oz The Great And Powerful is a popcorn movie and for those who go for family-friendly, big-budget special effects films, the film will satisfy. It is solidly entertaining. Unfortunately, it is nothing beyond that; Disney aims for spectacle over meaning and they nail it perfectly for that with Oz The Great And Powerful.

For other Disney live-action works, please check out my reviews of:
The Odd Life Of Timothy Green
John Carter
Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Tron: Legacy
Oceans
Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time
Old Dogs
G-Force
Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl
The Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement
The Princess Diaries
Tron
4/10

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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Oh Judd Apatow, You (Sort Of) Make Me Laugh! Knocked Up.

The Good: Moments of humor, Interesting enough characters, Good casting
The Bad: Nothing extraordinary on the DVD bonus features, Very predictable
The Basics: In a just-funny-enough-to-recommend movie, Judd Apatow uses Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl to tell the story of a stoner and a successful woman who have sex, then work to fall in love.


Culturally, it does seem like the United States is at a place where pop-culture is rather preoccupied with the whole concept of movies that start with sex and let the love come later. This was a pretty weak concept in Juno (reviewed here!), but it makes for a very simple and direct premise for Knocked Up. Knocked Up is another young stoner comedy film from writer and director Judd Apatow. I became familiar with Apatow's work when he was half of the creative genius behind the one-season-wonder Freaks & Geeks (reviewed here!). Since then, Apatow had been a writer and director who seems to have gone for some of the most obvious comedies and there has been a slight sense of disappointment from those of us who began our appreciation of his works with what appears to have been the high point in his career.

Knocked Up does not change that; while far funnier than many of Apatow's other cinematic attempts, it is still far too obvious and less well-developed than it could be. This makes for good, casual viewing for a night when one needs a laugh from something they do not have to think too much about, but it's a tough sell to argue in favor of buying the DVD. This movie has pretty limited appeal outside the target demographic of young college students who might well get drunk at a club, have fairly anonymous sex and end up pregnant. One hopes that is an ever-shrinking demographic, but I'm not holding my breath.

Ben Stone is a slacker who is living with his four friends and living off money from a lawsuit, money which is rapidly drying up. Ben and his housemates spend much of their time getting stoned and watching movies to find what celebrities get naked and at what point in a movie they are shown naked to make a website with that information. One night, after being promoted at work to on-air talent at E!, Alison Scott goes out to a club with her sister, Debbie. After a few too many drinks, Alison takes Ben back to her home - the pool house at Debbie's - and the two have sex.

Eight weeks later, Alison realizes that she is pregnant and decides to keep the baby. She informs Ben of the pregnancy and - despite his limited means and his initial freaked out reaction - Ben decides he wants to be there for Alison and his child. As a result, Ben and Alison begin dating in earnest to try to prepare for parenthood and in the process, they try to fall in love.

Knocked Up is a remarkably formulaic romantic comedy. Two people who have no real connection and few shared values begin to see the value in one another's lifestyles. There are the usual predictable events including attraction, repulsion, acceptance, misunderstanding and then resolution. This could pretty much be one of the defining films for following a formula for romantic comedy. Like many romantic comedies, Ben and Alison's relationship is set opposite a more obvious and loving relationship, that of Pete and Debbie. Pete and Debbie have their own fallings out which contrasts with Ben and Alison's and allows Ben to make a more normal and likable companion than his four stoner buddies.

The friendship between Ben and Pete allows Apatow to actually say something useful with Knocked Up, though, even if it is only one line in the entire movie. Pete's issue with Debbie has him sneaking around with his friends at odd times just to have some "me time," which is - of course - uncovered in the course of the movie. In trying to resolve this pseudo conflict, Pete realizes that the biggest problem in his marriage is that he has a wife who wants to spend more time with him. This is a concept too infrequently realized in any type film and it is refreshing to see it be realized in Knocked Up.

This also contrasts with the relationships of Ben's friends. Rarely has a more pathetic collection of miscreants been collected on film and while the sheer pointlessness of their attempted business venture eventually becomes revealed, far too much of their screentime is dumb jokes performed by post-teens who ought to know better. The peak of this is the character of Jodi who enters the household as Ben departs. She speaks in a giggly incomprehensible dialect that utterly wastes the viewer's time. Bad enough to be subjected to several minutes of stoners being idiots; even worse to have to watch the idiotic attempt to portray one of their wasted girlfriends.

Knocked Up manages to work - when it does - because even though it follows a remarkably predictable formula for romantic comedies, the concept is presented in a way that makes it feel just new enough to be amusing. Watching Ben and Alison learn about one another and discover the simple charms each possesses almost makes up for the fact that the viewer can see what is coming about a mile off.

Fans of Freaks & Geeks will enjoy seeing Knocked Up in that it stars Judd Apatow regular Seth Rogen, as well as Freaks & Geeks alums Jason Segel, Martin Starr (who looks nothing like he did in his television role) and a cameo by James Franco. Fans of Grey's Anatomy will no doubt enjoy seeing Katherine Heigl in a role outside her star-making role on that. Knocked Up works in part because when they sit opposite one another, Rogen and Heigl are able to portray a realistic amount of romantic chemistry.

Rogen has an unassuming quality to him and a look that is anything but Hollywood typical. As a result, Apatow frequently uses him in roles where he appears as a slouching slacker. In Knocked Up, Rogen is allowed just enough moments where his character assumes the mantle of respectability and comes into his own in a way that implies he might have the chops for serious drama. Despite things like the on-air prank that makes up the "topless" scene on the unrated DVD, Rogen has moments where he plays Ben quiet and contemplative in a way that genuinely works for him.

It is not a real surprise, for most viewers, that Katherine Heigl holds her own with Rogen. She has all of the qualities for a classic Hollywood star from the figure to her delivery of serious lines. She plays the straightman throughout the movie, while Rogen plays wacky. Heigl is a good choice, though (Anne Hathaway turned down the role) and she lends a seriousness that helps to exaggerate Rogen's absurdities. At the right moments, though, Heigl illustrates she has her own decent sense of comic timing, playing out a few physical gags in the movie.

Largely, though, Knocked Up is an unsurprising romantic comedy that unfolds in exactly the way a seasoned cinephile might expect it to. On DVD, there are a bevy of deleted scenes, a commentary track and a few alternate scenes, including a gag topless scene (It's not Heigl). The film looks good on DVD, but it's one I recommend solely for the rental as opposed to the buy. At least it is not unfunny and it's a fair way to kill an afternoon.

For other works with Seth Rogen, check out my reviews of:
50/50
Paul
The Green Hornet
Monsters Vs. Aliens
Observe And Report
Zack And Miri Make A Porno
Pineapple Express
Step Brothers
The 40 Year Old Virgin
Anchorman: The Legend Of Ron Burgundy
Donnie Darko

6/10

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

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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LONG After The Viewer Stops Caring, Nights In Rodanthe Becomes Interesting.

The Good: Moments of acting (mostly at the end), Message, Cinematography
The Bad: Terribly obvious plot, Characters that make no sense, Bland acting, Overbearing soundtrack
The Basics: One of the most obvious romantic dramas in years, Nights In Rodanthe is plagued by cliches and awful dialogue that encourages melodrama.


Tonight I am in envy of Roger Ebert. There is a man who has seen more movies than I have and he still seems to love the medium. I mean, there are still movies I love, but as far as the history of films goes, there are so many conceits that have already been done ad nauseam. But there are great movies, like Casablanca (reviewed here!), that when they begin anything can happen. Seriously, with the opening of Casablanca, there are about a million ways the film could go.

Then there are movies like Nights In Rodanthe, which very quickly becomes a movie that will end one of two ways. By the end of the opening credits to Nights In Rodanthe, the viewer can narrow the movie down to: Adrienne (played by Diane Lane) either will go back to her husband or she won't. She will be with Paul or she won't. Technically, I suppose that's three options. But by the end of the opening credits, the movie is down to those options and how we get there becomes so tedious that now that I have returned from a screening I am absolutely baffled that the film was only ninety-seven minutes long. Seriously, the most fun I had tonight at the movies was in tormenting the two 10th grade girls who sat beside me by asking them to come up with the name of an author (it took them ten minutes - no kidding! - and they came up with Shakespeare and they had to ask someone nearby what his first name was, a terrible statement on the education system in the U.S. made even worse by the fact that they are currently reading "that play with the witches" [that being The Tragedy Of MacBeth]). My point here is that my dismay in the utterly laughable ignorance of the girls next to me was the high point.

Nights In Rodanthe is based upon a novel by Nicholas Sparks, whose cinematic adaptations include The Notebook (reviewed here!) and The Lucky One (reviewed here!). As my usual caveat, this is a review of the film presented, not of the book. That said . . .

Adrienne is a married woman who wakes up alone to send her children off to Orlando with her estranged husband, Jack. Jack ambushes Adrienne by letting her know that he wants to come home. Seven months after leaving, he is ready to work things out and he pressures her to come with him and the children on vacation to reconnect with him. Adrienne, however, promised her friend Jean that she would look after her inn, the Rodanthe, and she leaves to tend the inn and its lone patron, the dour Dr. Paul Flanner.

Flanner, it turns out, is in town because one of the locals is suing him because his wife died on Flanner's operating table. As a hurricane approaches, Adrienne and Paul find themselves growing together mostly because of proximity and yelling at one another until they fall in love and the inevitable resolution comes.

Nights In Rodanthe is absolutely agonizing to watch and frankly by the time it became engaging enough to be interesting, I had long since stopped caring. The film defied my early expectations only in that the first scene I anticipated would end with a kiss did not. Instead, the first kiss between Paul and Adrienne is delayed a scene. But other things, such as Adrienne's daughter Amanda slamming the door after storming off upstairs came exactly on cue, as did the ultimate resolution at the Rodanthe.

As I left the theater, one of the other viewers commented eagerly to another that "Wow, he sure can write them!" I beg to differ. I assume she was talking about Nicholas Sparks or in this case Ann Peacock and John Romano, who adapted the novel for a screenplay, but perhaps my standards are far too high. I did seem to be one of the few people who looked disappointed walking out of the theater, but the college aged woman on my left looked bored through most of it, so I didn't feel alone during the film. Ahhh, but the writing. The dialogue in this film is so terrible in its level of melodrama that one wonders if Nicholas Sparks is simply a pseudonym for a fourth grade girl. Seriously, much of the dialogue between Adrienne and Paul is expressed in angry, over-the-top cliches that are the staple of young writer dialogue.

Perhaps the reason Nights In Rodanthe suffers so much under my pen is because it was simply packed with all of the most predictable and boring conceits. There is overbearing music throughout the film to accent the important emotional moments by completely attempting to dictate what the viewer feels. This is especially noticeable in the opening shots of the inn where the music swells for dramatic appreciation. At her first opportunity, Adrienne goes through Paul's personal affects in his room. Why? Because that's what people do when they are alone, we are meant to believe.

We are meant to believe that much the same way we are expected to buy yet another romance where the prime motivation is simply two adults who are alone together. Paul and Adrienne have absolutely no sexual chemistry upon meeting, but it's that type of movie so within fifteen minutes they have begun shedding their pain, condescendingly judging one another and bonding. Perhaps even worse is how Jean and Adrienne speak when talking with one another. Their dialogue is dumb and girly, a parody of high school chicks that is entirely unrealistic for women of their ages and places in life. Again, it is all cliches.

And as bad as that assumption that just because two people are alone they will bond is the age old conceit that alcohol will solve virtually everything. I'm so tired of these boring conceits! Woman and man together in a house, they'll end up together. There will be a scene where they drown their sorrows with alcohol and usually, this will lead to some form of physical contact. It's that type of movie. The only remotely interesting aspect of this in Nights In Rodanthe is that (presumably to get the PG-13 rating) the actual drinking is edited out. Adrienne picks up a shot, prepares to drink it, the film cuts to Paul and when we see her next, she is removing the emptied shot glass from her lips . . . Hard not to love that wacky MPAA.

Finally, in the storm that inevitably comes, the emotions that Paul and Adrienne go through are so forced. Just as most of the dialogue is offensively simple, the range of emotions and the predictability that Paul will end up holding Adrienne is just gagworthy. The reason this is so bad is because the movie defies the characters within. Adrienne states that she admires her daughter, Amanda, because of how she speaks her mind, yet within a day, Adrienne is yelling at Paul and expressing herself in criticizing him on how he lives his life. Similarly, Paul is detached, estranged from his son and annoyingly does not close the door behind him when he first enters the inn (who does that?!), yet suddenly becomes the fountain of wisdom for how Adrienne can fix her life.

The problems extend from the characters who make little or no sense through to the acting. Richard Gere plays affectless remarkably well in Paul's establishing scenes but he smirks through his deep expository scenes. There's something unsettling about watching Richard Gere churn out lamentful dialogue with a subtle smirk in his eyes and a smile on his face. People don't - usually - smile when they lament things!

On the other hand, it was wonderful to see James Franco, who pops up as Paul's son. Equally good is Mae Whitman as Amanda. I had seen Whitman before in Arrested Development (reviewed here!) as the bland Ann Veal. Whitman is impressive as Amanda in that she is so annoying as the teenage daughter that she is utterly convincing for a girl of the age she portrays. As well, long, long after I stopped caring, Whitman delivers a performance in the final fifteen minutes that illustrates some real depth of understanding of the human condition and the mindset of her character. She's amazing; it's too bad so much of her role is so annoying. Other decent acting comes from Christopher Meloni in his brief role.

But much of the film hinges on the performance of Diane Lane as Adrienne. I had only seen Lane before in Under The Tuscan Sun (reviewed here!) and there was little in the first three-quarters of Nights In Rodanthe that illustrated any talent I had not already seen from her in that. For most of the movie, she simply seems well-cast or like she is acting like one might think Annette Bening would in the same role. But then, in the last fifteen minutes, she pulls out the stops and gives a very deep and real performance.

But by then, who cares?

There are serious problems with Nights In Rodanthe, not the least of which is a candle lit in a room no one has been in before Paul and Adrienne go up to it, but mostly the movie suffers because the characters are boring, poorly presented, and walking through the motions of a terribly predictable plot with dialogue that is largely cliches. There is a decent movie in the story here, but it comes in the last fifteen minutes or is given simply as a story. One whole movie could have been done based on the way the film resolves itself and been a beautiful character study. The other movie that would have been great to see would have been one based upon the story X tells Paul about his wife. That is an actual love story by the sound of it. But it is something the viewer is simply told.

Outside the magnificent acting in the very final act, the movie has decent cinematography. It's still not enough to recommend seeing this movie. There are far better romance stories on film. This one . . . will disappoint those who love movies, at the very least.

For other films featuring Christopher Meloni, please check out my reviews of:
True Blood - Season 5
Bound
NYPD Blue - Season 4
12 Monkeys

3.5/10

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

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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