"The Doctor's Wife" Is An Erratic Throwaway Episode Of Doctor Who.

The Good: Moments of performance, Moments of character, Concept
The Bad: Inconsistent plot elements, Jumbled mood
The Basics: "The Doctor's Wife" is one of the best examples of inconsistency within an episode of Doctor Who.


One of the interesting aspects of going back to a series that has been around for a few years is discovering episodes that might not be as memorable as others. When it comes to Doctor Who, one of the most forgettable episodes of the new Doctor Who is "The Doctor's Wife." While "The Doctor's Wife" might generate a lot of interest in general fandom - as it was written by genre favorite author Neil Gaiman - it is a creepy little episode that has so little impact in the larger Doctor Who narrative that it becomes utterly unmemorable. That said, there are moments of brilliance in "The Doctor's Wife" that makes it interesting to watch. But the brilliant aspects are not consistently executed and the episode transitions with a painful awkwardness from quirky and interesting to generically horrifying and into an exceptionally predictable resolution. The Doctor makes it from delighted and intrigued to angered and offended before going into full-on problem solving mode and then longing for, essentially, his lost love. Yes, "The Doctor's Wife" is all over the map.

Following on the heels of the predictable "The Curse Of The Black Spot" (reviewed here!), "The Doctor's Wife" is another episode that includes a pocket universe or alternate dimension (which is essentially what the hospital ship in the prior episode was). Neil Gaiman presents an episode packed with so many different elements that he almost manages to disguise the fact that the episode serves a very simple purpose and is exceptionally predictable. Will the TARDIS fall to an evil new personality? Probably not. Will The Doctor actually get stranded in a pocket universe where he does not actually have the technical skills or raw resources to escape? Doubtful. Will the human personification of the TARDIS burn through its human body at a rate similar to Rose and Donna Noble? No, the plot requires her to be around for a bit longer than that. So, we get a high-concept execution of a very simple plot.

While Amy and Rory worry about telling The Doctor about his impending death, the TARDIS is visited by a little box. The Doctor recognizes the sigil on the box as the tattoo belonging to the Time Lord Corsair and when they bring the box aboard the TARDIS, the TARDIS is pulled out of the universe into a parallel dimension populated by three crazy people, at least one of whom appears to be a Time Lord (or regurgitating Time Lord regeneration energy). The TARDIS arrives at the scrapyard in an alternate universe, which is where the distress beacon from The Corsair took them. There, The Doctor and his Companions meet the three crazies, the lead of whom speaks in mixed tenses and warns The Doctor that the little boxes will make him angry.

When an Ood joins the trio of crazies, The Doctor repairs its translation device and it starts transmitting Time Lord distress beacons. The Doctor is freaked out by that and in communicating with House, the planet itself, The Doctor learns that many Time Lords have visited this particular planet. After sealing Amy and Rory into the TARDIS, The Doctor learns that the junkyard is essentially a trap. One of the women on the asteroid reveals herself to The Doctor as being the TARDIS, incarnated! While House takes over the TARDIS and takes it and the Companions back to the universe, The Doctor and Sexy (his name for the TARDIS before House identifies her as Idris) start construction on a TARDIS by cobbling together pieces from the wreckage from all of the other TARDIS's there. Amy finds herself trapped on the TARDIS with a temporally-deranged Rory, who exists in different times within the TARDIS after they get separated. The Doctor and Idris escape the pocket universe and have to reconnect with the TARDIS to stop House!

"The Doctor's Wife" is a prolonged, convoluted, explanation for a very simple premise. The essential purpose of "The Doctor's Wife" is to definitively explain what happened to every other Time Lord that was not on Gallifrey when The Doctor ended the Time War and, similarly, to explain why there are no other TARDIS's. The pocket universe is essentially a TARDIS graveyard and House is a predator that feeds on TARDIS's, which is a cool idea (though how would such a creature ever evolve?!). Even the TARDIS predator, though, is somewhat erratically-executed; if it so thoroughly consumed TARDIS's, how could there be enough functional parts left over to rebuild a working TARDIS? In analogous terms, if a creature feeds on something, the waste that is left over should be just waste; The Doctor is essentially attempting to make a cow based on the shit of a thousand hamburgers. So, the set-up in "The Doctor's Wife" is brilliant; the solution to the fix The Doctor and Sexy find themselves in, less so.

The other purpose of "The Doctor's Wife" is to present the TARDIS as a character and that is fun and an interesting idea. Idris (the TARDIS personified in a human body) is a fun character and she is played very well by Suranne Jones. Jones finds the right balance between humor and seriousness for her role, making for a compelling characterization of the TARDIS.

Unfortunately, Jones is something of an exception to the rule in "The Doctor's Wife." "The Doctor's Wife" has one of the most terrifying concepts of any Doctor Who episodes. House is a truly impressive and horrifying adversary (evolutionary requirements of it notwithstanding). The idea of an entity that feeds upon TARDIS's is creepy and the TARDIS graveyard is a well-executed image of desolation and destruction that implies the raw power and evil of House. Indeed, the wreckage plays off the feminine persona for the TARDIS with an expert sense of literary contrast.

But "The Doctor's Wife" is not presented as a horror episode; The Doctor jokes through the dire situation and he plays off a beautiful incarnation of the TARDIS that is completely unlike the two crazies cobbled together from Time Lord bodies. Yet, amid The Doctor delightfully interacting with Sexy, there are scenes of devastating psychological horror as Amy and Rory make their way through the House-infested TARDIS.

Which brings me to the writing problem for "The Doctor's Wife." "The Doctor's Wife" is a cobbled-together collection of scenes and ideas that awkwardly is strung together into a single narrative. When one steps back from the episode, it is easy to look at "The Doctor's Wife" and get the impression that the executive producers of Doctor Who said to Neil Gaiman, "We'll give you one episode of Doctor Who to do anything you want in the franchise" and Gaiman shot together every idea he ever had for Doctor Who. Cobbled together Time Lord bodies? Sure, throw those in, even if it is an idea that does not actually go anywhere. Creepy time hallway horror? Absolutely, but it's not an idea that can sustain a whole episode! Generic villain that is terrifying until it is no longer plot convenient? Sure, we have that right here! And hey, did Gaiman or Steven Moffat actually watch any of Russell T. Davies's Doctor Who?! Because in "Rise Of The Cybermen" (reviewed here!), Doctor Who became defined as being trapped within our universe, unable to travel between parallel universes.

Ultimately, "The Doctor's Wife" is an insular episode of Doctor Who that is hampered by its own inconsistencies and its own concept. It is packed with far too many tangents for a single episode to be a satisfying narrative and the ideas in the episode could have made for a compelling season of the show, if they were stretched out and developed better, but that is not what this season was going to be. So, instead, we are given an episode of Doctor Who that is more of a throwaway episode; the novelty of it wears poorly as the promise of the concept quickly fades to a jumble of ideas and generic villains and twists.

[Knowing that single episodes are an inefficient way to get episodes, it's worth looking into Doctor Who - The Complete Sixth Season on DVD or Blu-Ray, which is also a better economical choice than buying individual episodes. Read my review of the sophomore season of Matt Smith as The Doctor here!
Thanks!]

For other works with Michael Sheen, please visit my reviews of:
Alice Through The Looking Glass
The Twilight Saga
Jesus Henry Christ
Tron: Legacy
30 Rock - Season 4
Alice In Wonderland
Underworld: Rise Of The Lycans
Frost/Nixon
Blood Diamond
The Queen
Laws Of Attraction
Underworld

4/10

For other television reviews, please check out my Television Review Index Page where the reviews are organized!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Love Story At The End Of The Universe: Passengers Is Sweet And Delivers!

The Good: Acting, Tone, Special effects, Direction
The Bad: Predictable plot conceit
The Basics: Outside a generic character conflict that sets in motion a "ticking clock" that is painfully predictable, Passengers is a remarkably satisfying character study.


Say what you will about releasing films around the winter holidays for getting families out to theaters, but there is so much going on near the end of the year that it is virtually impossible to watch everything that is released in December. During the early months of 2017, I am playing catch-up and the first film I wanted to watch was Passengers.

Passengers was released at the end of 2016 during Oscar Pandering Season to offer Academy voters an alternative to Arrival (reviewed here!) to fill the genre niche that has made it to the Best Picture nominees the past few years (The Martian was last year's token genre work). Passengers has a lot in common with The Martian (reviewed here!) as both works start with characters who are fundamentally stranded in space before mixing it up. And while Arrival traded on a fairly strong science fiction premise, Passengers is more of a character study and it allows for Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence to show off their acting chops as opposed to working a plot gimmick.

Or, at least, that is how Passengers could have been. Passengers is a creative, science fiction, answer to the two classic hypothetical questions: "If you were stranded on a desert island and could bring one person with you, who would it be?" and "What would you do if you were the last person on Earth?" But the moment the protagonist makes a terrible decision and then lies about it, Passengers becomes a "ticking clock" movie as the viewer waits for the film's core relationship to fall apart from the truth being revealed. And, writer Jon Spaihts springs his storytelling trap in the most banal way possible (perhaps all that time spent with Ridley Scott made him unimaginative in that he uses the old trope that androids cannot be trusted). Beyond the use of tropes and a generic character conflict, Passengers manages to get a lot right.

The colony ship Avalon is headed for Homestead II when it encounters an asteroid field and one of its reactors is damaged. That leads to Jim Preston being awakened and told the ship is four months away from the new colony. It does not take long before Preston realizes that he is the only person to have been awakened and that the Avalon is not four months out of Homestead II. Learning that he is 90 years out from Homestead II, Jim tries to send a message to Earth, but learns it will be more than fifty years before he gets any reply. He is given hope that he might not be alone on the journey when he encounters an android bartender, Arthur. After taking Arthur's advice to enjoy where he is now, Jim breaks into an executive suite and does things like play basketball, have dance-offs against a hologram and even goes for a spacewalk.

Returning to the ship after a spacewalk, Preston finds the hibernation pod of Aurora Lane, a writer who is also a passenger. Preston learns how to wake Aurora up and has a moral debate over the ethics of taking her out of hibernation and stranding her aboard the ship with him. When his loneliness wins out, Preston wakes Aurora up and Preston feels immediate remorse, opting to hide from Aurora that he was responsible for waking her up. Preston finds Lane after she starts to wander around and quickly discovers the perk of her being awake, as she is a Gold Class Passenger and gets better meals than him (a lowly mechanic). Lane starts to interview Preston and he soon learns that Lane, as a journalist, actually had a round-trip ticket and his awakening her completely destroyed her life. When the truth comes out, Preston and Lane's relationship is shattered, which makes things complicated for them when the Avalon begins to break down and a member of the flight crew, Gus, is awakened.

Passengers is instantly notable for the quality of the acting and the tone. Passengers is intriguing and it opens as an intimate character study of a man suffering from unimaginable loneliness. That allows Chris Pratt to act alone, emoting only to the camera and primarily in reaction shots. Pratt, Jennifer Lawrence and Laurence Fishburne are masters of emoting with their eyes and with minimal facial expressions. The trio emotes so impressively that it is almost only through their ability to express emotions that one realizes just how masterfully Michael Sheen plays Arthur without betraying any emotions.

The relationship between Preston and Lane has all the makings of a contrived relationship; two people with nothing inherently in common being forced together by circumstance. But Lawrence and Pratt have such good on-screen chemistry and the questions Lane asks Preston are compelling enough to make the viewer invest in their relationship. The viability of Lane and Preston's relationship might not seem realistic or practical at all for a terrestrial, day to day relationship, but for the "two people stranded without anyone else" conceit, they make the relationship seem perfectly natural and plausible.

As one might expect from a big science fiction film, the special effects for Passengers are impressive. The sets are beautiful and the Avalon is a distinctive ship with a clean look and a very practical appearance (the fact that there are binders around filled with information makes perfect sense for an environment where computers could fail!). The costumes, computer-generated effects and spacescapes are impressive and help the viewer get immersed in a film that could otherwise seem very slow.

Passengers is smart and enjoyable and while it is on the big screen, it is a film that should be enjoyed there!

For other movies currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Underworld: Blood Wars
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
Doctor Strange

9.5/10

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.
| | |

Good-Looking Mess: Why Alice Through The Looking Glass Fizzles!

The Good: Good effects, Moments of theme, Sacha Baron Cohen
The Bad: Dull plot, Obvious character work, A number of terrible or inconsistent performances
The Basics: Even Johnny Depp's occasional energetic performance cannot save the dismal Alice Through The Looking Glass from its own issues.


Summer Blockbuster Season is, predictably, chock full of sequels. One of the more anticipated and direct sequels to drop in 2016 is Alice Through The Looking Glass, which is a sequel to the live-action Tim Burton film Alice In Wonderland (reviewed here!). Alice Through The Looking Glass has the honor of being the final credited film for the late Alan Rickman and his very minor role in the film bookends his career in an unfortunately mediocre way.

Alice Through The Looking Glass is directed by James Bobin instead of Tim Burton and it reunites most of the cast of Alice In Wonderland. Bobin's work retains the look and feel of Burton's work, at least after its initial straightforward set-up. Alice Through The Looking Glass relies heavily upon information from the first film and stands poorly on its own, making it feel very much like a sequel. Like its predecessor, Alice Through The Looking Glass prioritizes style over substance for the bulk of the film.

Opening in 1874 in the Straits Of Malacca, Alice Kingsleigh is commanding her father's ship as it outruns pursuing pirates. Her skillful maneuvers allow her ship to escape and they return to London safely. In London, Alice discovers that Hamish now runs the company that sent her on the expedition to China and he leverages her boat and home against the young woman. After Hamish's maneuver to get Alice to surrender her ship, Alice follows a butterfly through a mirror to a drawing room in the sky through which she enters Underland. In the magical world of Underland, she learns that the Mad Hatter is not well . . . in a way that is inconsistent with his usual madness.

Meeting with the Hatter, Alice learns that when he found his very first paper hat, the Mad Hatter leapt to the conclusion that if the hat could survive the Jabberwockey attack, then his family must have survived as well. The White Queen, Mirana, sends Alice to Time to use the Chronosphere to rescue the Hatter's family on the day they die and return them to the future to make the Mad Hatter sane and well again. Time rejects Alice's request and when the Red Queen, Iracebeth, arrives, Alice uses the distraction to steal the Chronosphere. Persued by Time into the past, Alice attempts to save the Hatter's family and then prevent the accident which made Iracebeth into a villainess.

Alice Through The Looking Glass is predicated largely on the idea that Alice has a deep love for the Hatter that was hardly indicated in the prior film. The character leap that viewers are asked to take initially is that Alice would risk life, death and the temporal ramifications of time travel to help save the life and, relative, sanity, of the Hatter based on how she feels for him. That emotional bond is not developed in the two films well-enough to be a realistic motivation at the outset.

The film is dominated by style, so the initial problem with character is quickly matched by problems on the acting front. Mia Wasikowska plays Alice and she delivers lines that are strong and emphatic, while having a physical performance based on the same wide-eyed disbelief and uncertainty, which is a troubling acting choice. While she gets eye-lines right for her interactions with virtual characters, she fails to bring anything new or significant to the role of Alice with her acting.

The usually amazing Anne Hathaway is surprisingly bland as Mirana. Hathaway resumes the body language of her prior part, without having the wonderful, strange, off-putting detachment the character had in the first film. While Hathaway's vitality and range of emotional expression play well and fine for the scenes in the past, the scenes in the "present" stand out as problematically incongruent with the established character. Johnny Depp's performance is one of his most bland, with him simply blithely lisping through his lines. With the themes of distant fathers being explored in Alice Through The Looking Glass, Depp's performance seems troublingly derivative of his portrayal of Willy Wonka in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (reviewed here!).

In fact, the most instantly energized performer in Alice Through The Looking Glass is Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen once again creates an entirely new and different persona for himself as Time. Cohen's Time is weird and awkward and he steals his scenes, even when they are not especially good. Cohen's Time quickly overshadows Helena Bonham Carter's Iracebe to draw the eye and capture the viewer's attention.

Amid lines that play off every cliche about time, Alice Through The Looking Glass tries to marvel the viewer with bright colors and generally-competent computer generated effects. The effects are one of the few things going for the film.

Unfortunately, it is not enough. Alice Through The Looking Glass attempts to blend past and present, reality and Underland, into a story that seeks to both reinvigorate wonder and illustrate the drastic consequences to attempting to change time. It fails to satisfactorily impress or entertain viewers. The result is a good-looking mess that is a poor end to the legacy of Alan Rickman.

For other works with Matt Lucas, please check out my reviews of:
"Thin Ice" - Doctor Who
"The Pilot" - Doctor Who
"The Return Of Doctor Mysterio" - Doctor Who
"The Husbands Of River Song" - Doctor Who
Paddington
Bridesmaids

2/10

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

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Less Than The Sum Of Its Parts, The Twilight Saga Holds Together Poorly.

| | | The Good: Moments of concept, Portrayal of young love, Cinematography
The Bad: Underdeveloped characters, Melodrama, Stiff acting, Belabored plot
The Basics: The Twilight Saga starts as a charming tale of love between a mortal and an undead individual and drags out a dismal series of conflicts for multiple movies.


There are few movie series’ that have been produced in recent memory that have both such loyal fans and such rabid detractors as The Twilight Saga. Based upon a tremendously popular book series that pretty much defined the contemporary teen paranormal romance genre, the cinematic Twilight Saga was one of the smartest bets by the studios in recent memory. It came with a build-in audience, had a sufficient franchise to draw out and had the potential for mass appeal. And it worked: the success of the first two films made household names of Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, and Taylor Lautner, as well as launched the career of a number of the secondary performers in the films, and inspired the studio to split the final film into two to milk the fan base for additional money and keep the “phenomenon” alive.

But the same things that made the series seem initially strong also gave so much for the detractors to rant about: the films, which feature vampire and werewolf characters, were remarkably bloodless and for a great romance epic, the main couple was shockingly sexless. The acting was mixed and the fact that the film could not keep a consistent director to maintain a singular vision for the films may have worked against it (especially on the press circuit). For my part, I look at what is directly in front of me. Having sat down and rewatched the entire cinematic rendition of The Twilight Saga, there are several things that stand out to me now, looking at the work as a whole. As it will inevitably be viewed as a solid Saga (shocking that when Breaking Dawn, Part 2 was announced for DVD and Blu-Ray, no collector’s series set was announced simultaneously!), it behooves one to consider the entire work.

The Twilight Saga is a rare example where the parts, when put together, make something significantly less than the films on their own. Allow me to explain.

First, The Twilight Saga consists of the films:
Twilight
New Moon
Eclipse
Breaking Dawn, Part I
Breaking Dawn, Part 2

For those unfamiliar with The Twilight Saga, the five films follow the exploits of Bella Swan, innocent, pale klutzy high school student who moves from Phoenix, Arizona to Forks, Washington when her mother wants to travel more with her new boyfriend. Forks, a mist-covered rural community, is where Bella’s father lives and works as a sheriff. There, Bella meets the mysterious Edward Cullen. Edward, she quickly learns, is a vampire, but a friendly one. Bella and Edward begin a romance, which puts them in danger when a roving trio of vampires comes through and starts killing humans and attacks Bella.

On Bella’s eighteenth birthday, there is an incident and Edward abandons her, ostensibly for her own safety. At that point, Bella rekindles her friendship with Jacob Black, a local who she slowly learns is a werewolf. Jacob’s protective instinct kicks in and while Bella prevents Edward from killing himself so he is no longer tormented by his love for Bella, the attempt draws the attention of the powerful Italian vampires, the Volturi. The Volturi come to Forks shortly thereafter when the villainous Victoria raises an army of vampires to destroy the Cullens and the werewolves and vampires work together to protect Bella and put down the threat of the rogue vampire clan.

After Bella graduates high school, she and Edward get married and during their honeymoon, the unthinkable happens: Bella gets pregnant from Edward and the spawn is something no one quite understands.

What struck me most about rewatching The Twilight Saga all together was what a weak link New Moon (which I rather enjoyed when it originally was released) was and just what a forced sense of conflict the Saga possesses. The initial villains are dispatched fairly quickly and make way for a far less sensible group of villains. The Volturi are visually menacing and creepy beyond belief, but they are basically superpower vampires who claim to be working to preserve the vampires and keep them off the humans’ radar while being the most obtrusive group of vampires: while the Cullens and the other vampires seen in the Saga generally blend in, the Volturi look like out-of-date elves who kill humans with startling regularity.

The love triangle (a term I loathe because it seldom is actually true – and is not in The Twilight Saga, as there is no emotional connection between Edward and Jacob) between Bella and Edward and Bella and Jacob seems increasingly forced as the film series goes on. In fact, outside of most of New Moon, it is painfully clear to everyone save Jacob that Bella has chosen Edward as her love interest. Even more than any problems with Kristen Stewart’s (who plays Bella) acting, Bella becomes a problematic character for the way she makes her choice, yet keeps stringing Jacob along.

Ironically, Eclipse, which might be the least-respected of the films, is a stronger link in the storytelling. With a compelling villain, a cool effect (the battles in this film are bigger and actually have significance) and a real test for the Edward/Bella relationship where Edward’s solution is not simply to run away, Eclipse actually stands up as a solid and engaging film. It is, when viewed as a whole Saga, also the high water mark of the films.

The final two films seem like much more of a coda comparatively. They seem like a necessary evil to the story, as opposed to a vital chapter, a simple fleshing out of the promise at the climax of Eclipse as opposed to an engaging end to the story. Here is why: the wedding is an inevitable, obvious plot point that was pretty much foreseeable the moment Edward returned to Bella in New Moon. The incident with the Volturi is a forced plot point – in a perfect world with the seemingly endless financial resources of the Cullens and the fact that the Volturi are in Italy, Bella and Edward could have easily avoided them for all eternity – and the conception of Renesmee seems an artful dodge for an audience obviously not prepared for an actual adult relationship. In other words, the first year of most real marriages is, frankly, hell (after the Honeymoon period wears off). It takes a real love and patience to survive the first year of a marriage as two people give up doing everything their own way and figure out how to do things “the Us way.” That, however, is not what the audience who wants to gush over an immortal love between a hundred plus year-old man and an eighteen year-old woman wants to watch. So, the writers and directors provide a much more literal hell (and a less-than-subtle admonishment about the dangers of sexuality!) when Bella’s first lovemaking produces a monstrous pregnancy that (among other things) shatters Bella’s spine and leaves her with becoming a vampire as her only viable chance of survival. Instead of taking the fantasy of immortal love and making it seem more real, The Twilight Saga makes love seem more preposterous and uncomfortable and dangerous.

The Twilight Saga has somewhat inconsistent direction but, oddly enough, a consistent sense of spectacle and quality of cinematography that makes the movies eminently watchable. The pacing for the Saga is off and the acting is inconsistent. However, while Kristen Stewart gets the awkward nature of Bella Swan right in Twilight, it is not until the Breaking Dawn movies that she is given more room to express range, so she goes through most of the Saga stiff and portraying boredom over passion. In rewatching the Saga, it is actually Robert Pattinson who stands out for the poor acting. Whereas Taylor Lautner portrays Jacob Black as an invested, interesting, and passionate guy, Pattinson’s role seems to be simply to show up. Edward Cullen is cold, passionless, and frightfully dull and Pattinson does not make the role any warmer. Instead, he is stiff, gives Stewart almost nothing to play off of and yet, when he smiles, that is supposed to substitute for actual personality.

It, alas, does not.

Ultimately, any one of the Twilight films is fine, but when viewed together as the complete Twilight Saga, it becomes tiresome and more of a mess than it ought to. Fans and moviegoers deserve quite a bit more.

For other film sagas, please check out my reviews of:
The Dark Knight Trilogy
The Harry Potter Saga
The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy

5/10

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.
| | |

More Action Than Romance, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 Ends The Saga In An Unremarkable Way.

The Good: Special effects, Most of the acting, Pacing, Direction
The Bad: Light on character development, Unimpressive plot
The Basics: Completing The Twilight Saga on screen, Breaking Dawn - Part 2 focuses on the conflict between the Cullens and Volturi without anything superlative.


Fantasy has been big in teen literature and cinema since the Harry Potter Saga (reviewed here!) and the franchise that has stepped most fully into the niche left by the completion of that movie series has been The Twilight Saga. As Breaking Dawn - Part 2 hits theaters, it is hard not to admit that some franchises work better than others. While I was not a fan of the Harry Potter films when they began, they developed into something I generally enjoyed. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 takes the franchise in the other direction. Like most final acts of a larger story, Breaking Dawn - Part 2 is exceptionally dependent upon the films that preceded it. That means that Breaking Dawn - Part 2 will mean almost nothing to those who have not seen Twilight, New Moon, Eclipse, and/or Breaking Dawn, Part I.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 does what it needs to in terms of completing the Twilight Saga, but fans of the teen-based, supernaturally-themed romance might be less impressed by this installment. Outside the fans of the books and films who are going to see it and praise it regardless of the objective quality, Breaking Dawn - Part 2 works far less to develop the characters and, instead, creates a plot thread that takes the focus well away from the intimate romance and tortured love triangle between the three main protagonists and instead refocuses the story on the conflict between most of the vampire clans and the villainous Volturi.

Following the birth of Renesmee and Bella Cullen (formerly Swan) being turned by Edward into a vampire to save her life, Bella begins exploring her newfound powers as a vampire. Annoyed at Jacob for imprinting upon Renesmee, Bella nevertheless finds some peace in her life as she accepts her new life as a vampire. With Jacob's help she even reveals herself - in a very limited fashion - to her father. As Renesmee ages rapidly, the Cullens work to understand the exact nature of the child. Their quest to understand what she is is cut short when Irina, a vampire who visited the Cullens, reports to the Volturi that Renesmee’s existence breaks the decrees of the Volturi.

Knowing that Aro and Jane, the powerful Volturi, are coming to Forks with the intent of passing lethal judgment on the Cullens, Bella and Edward work to protect their daughter. Enlisting Jacob Black, whose feelings for Bella have faded, the Cullens search for other vampire families around the world to aid them in protecting Renesmee. The forces of various vampire covens and Jacob’s werewolf allies band together to confront the Volturi. Unable to rely upon Jasper and Alice, Bella learns of her new powers as a shield and uses that training to prepare for the inevitable conflict with Aro and the Volturi!

Breaking Dawn - Part 2 is far less melodramatic and sappy than the prior installments in The Twilight Saga. Instead, Breaking Dawn - Part 2 is a pretty steady action movie that builds from the exploration of Bella’s newfound powers into what is essentially a battle film. The final conflict puts to shame the battle sequences from the prior movies as well. Director Bill Condon has a strong sense of vision for Breaking Dawn - Part 2. The action sequences and special effects are tighter and more refined than other films in The Twilight Saga. For those who were bored by the ponderous pace of New Moon (especially), will find that Breaking Dawn - Part 2 provides a more consistent sense of dramatic tension and movement.

What Breaking Dawn - Part 2 lacks is a stronger romantic aspect than the prior installments. Those who are into The Twilight Saga for the angsty love story will find Breaking Dawn - Part 2 lacking. The on-screen chemistry between Kristen Stewart (Bella) and Robert Pattinson (Edward) is still alive and kicking, but Condon and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg do remarkably little with it. Ironically, given that The Twilight Saga is made for gushing teenage girls who want to believe in powerful romantic love, Breaking Dawn - Part 2 has a jaded masculine sensibility to it. Many men fear that the birth of a child will change their relationship with their spouse and, with the change in tone in Breaking Dawn - Part 2, that is essentially what the viewer gets. Bella’s priority becomes protecting Renesmee over expressing her undying (literally!) love for Edward. The shift in the movie’s energy when watched immediately after the other films in the Saga is noticeable.

Breaking Dawn - Part 2 re-establishes Bella and instead of truly developing her character, she is redefined in the beginning of the film and then sticks with the new iteration of the character through the rest of the movie. Breaking Dawn - Part 2 is more or less devoid of actual character development for the rest of the movie, though Bella is transformed into something of an action hero in this film. Edward is essentially his unchanging self and Jacob’s transference of emotions is understated, as opposed to creepy.

On the acting front, the ensemble cast is well-honed. Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner all expertly execute the roles they originated in Twilight and developed for the four prior movies. This film does not stretch them in any new directions, save Stewart illustrating a slightly more protective instinct. She has played Bella, in the past, as the character who needs protection and in this film, she steps up to play more protective with reasonable success. The real breakout for Breaking Dawn - Part 2 is Mackenzie Foy. Foy plays Renesmee and she has a serious demeanor that allows her to fit in with the more seasoned performers.

Ultimately, Breaking Dawn - Part 2 is much more average than in any way extraordinary. Breaking Dawn - Part 2 is not bad, but it does not pop, it lacks a hook that is at all intriguing. While the earlier films had a freshness to them, Breaking Dawn - Part 2 feels much more like a typical supernatural action-adventure story than a truly audacious or interesting vampire-themed romance. Fans will flock to see it, but those who are not already invested in the franchise may want to wait for it to hit DVD.

For other fantasy films, please check out my reviews of:
Snow White And The Huntsman
Beautiful Creatures
Labyrinth

5.5/10

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

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

Is Britain For Me? Not If The Dull The Queen Is Any Indication!

The Good: Acting
The Bad: Lack of compelling plot, Dull characters, Pacing is deathly slow
The Basics: Dull, plodding along and essentially British, The Queen has inspired performances but little else, including a lack of entertainment or educational value.


Every now and then I have a feeling I am watching a film that is too soon, too specific and too weird for my comprehension in relation to the rest of the world. When The Queen began to get rave reviews by almost every critic I could find, I began to wonder what was so great about the movie. All I knew about it was that the film was about Queen Elizabeth (II, the current one) and how she reacted to the death of Princess Diana when Di was killed in the late '90s in a car accident as a result of being chased by the paparazzi. Sadly, the plot is grossly overstated in such a phrasing.

Shortly after Tony Blair is elected Prime Minister of England and assumes the reins of government, he finds himself deeply intertwined with the royal family when Princess Diana abruptly dies in a car accident. Blair begins to express his sorrow for the nation's loss while the Queen remains publicly silent on the issue. The Queen decides that the grief the family feels ought to be kept private and that because Princess Diana no longer was a royal (following her divorce from Charles), she was not entitled to royal treatment and/or burial. While Blair and Prince Charles try to convince her to adapt to changing times, the Queen spends a week debating whether or not to address the public about the death of Diana.

The entire plot is the belaboring of a decision and as an American, it's terribly hard to see the appeal of a film where someone takes a week to make up their mind as to whether to speak or not. Already I envision the next Morgan/Frears hit wherein the Queen Mother spends a week deciding whether or not to eat a cookie. As cruel as it may sound, the belaboring of the decision feels analogous in The Queen. The Queen is clinging to tradition and the reticence that is befitting her post. I can dig that as a character aspect, but making a movie over people's reaction to grief seems dull and cheesy for a real-life event so close to it (and timed so appropriately to the descent of Tony Blair).

The reticence of the Queen makes the British people begin once again to doubt the necessity of the monarchy and, again, as an American, I find the whole debate pointless and silly. Even more unfortunate in both reality and in the film is the way decisions are all absolutes. I'm going to ignore reality from here on out (this is a historical fiction/drama, more than a documentary and simply by the way some of the scenes are filmed there are obvious extrapolations) and simply focus on the film, so when I talk about characters, live with it, please. The characters in The Queen are caught in ridiculous dialectics where everything is framed in black and white and the damage this does to the story is extensive.

The Queen is obsessed with maintaining tradition and the badge of office. Tony Blair is concerned with keeping the citizenry on his side and he savvily observes their moods and understands their need to express their grief. But the movie soon degenerates into ridiculous and pointless debates about protocol and the belaboring making a decision. Blair counsels the Queen to speak to the British people, she resists.

I suppose to the British, this sort of thing is important, but I tend to live with the idea that I do not need others to tell me how to feel (or suggest how I ought to cope). As a result, the hours it takes in real time and the days it takes cinematically for this decision to be made feels like a waste of time.

But then there's the real problem; the Queen goes through this immense and pointless debate for one reason: she is clinging to tradition and as such seeks to maintain the power of the throne. Why then does she eventually capitulate on all fronts? The people want a flag flown at half-mast above the palace; the flag is only flown when the royals are home. As a result, when they go on holiday in the country, there's no flag flown. Even if the Queen capitulates to appearing before the British people, why doesn't she just explain, "This is how the flag works. Live with it." Instead, the whole debate becomes pointless when what she seeks to protect through her reticence is gutted by her complete capitulation.

No wonder the British lost respect for their monarch.

The purpose of debating the entire lack of plot of The Queen is that the film is plot-heavy with no plot (decision belabored; that's what the movie is about) and to illustrate the fact that The Queen is not entertaining. It's not terribly enlightening; I could have read a magazine article, a newspaper article, or a one-paragraph blog that would have told me all of the key information presented in this film and lost nothing and saved a couple of hours.

But then, I would not have had the crazy-boring British experience.

I also would not have been able to watch Helen Mirren perform. Mirren plays The Queen and her performance outshines the character. I had recently seen Mirren in The Clearing (reviewed here!) and Painted Lady (reviewed here!) and what impressed me about this movie was that her portrayal of the Queen was so dramatically different from her performance in either other movie that it astonished me to think she was the same actress. If one must watch a woman working to make a decision on screen for a couple of hours, this would seem to be the actress to do it.

The real winner is actor Michael Sheen who plays Tony Blair and who holds his own opposite Mirren. In all honesty, all of the fuss over Mirren as the Queen led to a neglect of Sheen. I've seen a great deal of footage of Blair and Sheen has him pegged. He looks like him (enough), sounds like him and carries himself with the same posture and self-assured body language. The movie makes Blair out as the reasonable hero and Sheen embodies that perfectly. Sheen is so good in this that he redeems himself for appearing in Underworld (reviewed here!).

On DVD, there was a commentary track and previews (sorry, I cannot say how decent the commentary was as I was so bored with the movie that I wasn't about to rewatch it to hear British people blather on more about it). The packaging is nice, though.

In all, though, The Queen benefited from the hype that surrounded it, but it ends up as a film that has great actors playing marginal characters in a situation so dull as to make it difficult to believe it was put on screen. It certainly did not deserve to be nominated for Best Picture; fortunately, it did not win.

For other works with Helen Mirren, check out my reviews of:
Glee - Season 3
Inkheart
The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy
Gosford Park

4/10

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

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

| | |

Blood Diamond: Another Socially Conscious Movie That Failed To Make A Difference

The Good: Well-written, Good characters, Decent direction, Social message, Acting
The Bad: Feels a little long/predictable, "The Market" did not "get" it
The Basics: With vivid characters played by some of the best actors in the industry, the true cost of the diamond trade is exposed with brutal clarity for the viewer.


When I saw V For Vendetta (reviewed here!) in theaters, I knew that the movie had essentially failed (despite bringing in oodles of money) because the Revolution did not come. When I spoke with a friend about it, she objected saying that if the Revolution came, she would drop everything in a heartbeat. She was offended when I told her that meant she didn't "get" the movie; the point of it was that WE are the Revolution and that each of us must rise up and lead it, we can't follow it. So, our corrupt government continues to exploit the people and women and men in the United States remain slaves to their jobs instead of the economy serving them. Blood Diamond, which is now out on DVD, is another movie that the American people simply did not "get." I say this because diamonds are still worn by Americans and cherished.

Solomon Bo is an African who is captured by militants and forced to mine diamonds at gunpoint. When he finds a giant diamond, he manages to hide it as a military strike saves him and several other enslaved men. In the holding cell, a guard who saw what Solomon pulled from the earth demands to know what happened to it and this gets the attention of Danny Archer, a diamond smuggler. Archer is sprung from jail by his wealthy patrons and he uses his influence to get Solomon free so they can recover the diamond.

With the aid of a plucky reporter, the two enter a war zone to track down the diamond, which Archer wants for profit, Maddy wants for the story and Solomon wants in order to get his family out of the refugee camp they are (essentially) imprisoned in.

I sat down to Blood Diamond because a friend of mine who pulls movies for me mistook my interest in seeing The Last King Of Scotland for Blood Diamond (don't ask). The thing is, I enjoyed Blood Diamond a bit, though a lot of the information was not new to me. The R.U.F. - the rebel forces - drive into Solomon's village and take his son (and many children) away, where they essentially brainwash the boy into a killing machine. This was something I knew before (and not just from the second season of Lost, reviewed here!) and have been troubled by. Blood Diamond presents the reality of youth enslavement and indoctrination into killing machines with the horror that is mirrored only by its truth. This happens every day while the world sits back and through apathy essentially abets the crimes.

I found myself enjoying the movie despite the humanization of the problem. I understand why writers Charles Leavitt and C. Gaby Mitchell needed to put a human face on the problem of blood diamonds (diamonds that are smuggled through war zones and laundered into the legal flow of diamonds). Most Americans don't know about the problems and carnage associated with the diamond trade, so it makes perfect sense to indoctrinate them with a story that resonates as personally as possible. When the credits came up and I saw the movie was directed by Edward Zwick, I found myself pleasantly surprised; it made sense the movie so effectively humanized the problem. Zwick is a master of relating stories about human relationships; his show Once And Again (season two reviewed here!) remains one of my favorite series'.

Central to the movie is the relationship between Solomon and Danny and Solomon and his family. Solomon manages the virtually impossible; finding his family in a refugee camp of one million people. The need to save them and rescue them from their status as citizens without nation gives him a compelling reason to go back for the diamond and risk his life. Solomon and Danny have an intriguing relationship as Danny's isolation with the world - his diamond market patron has essentially distanced himself from the smuggler - allows him to open up with Solomon and the probing questions the less morally relativistic man asks him weaken his acceptance in the way things are.

The movie works when it is a brutal social and political commentary on the diamond market with the foils of Danny's greed served opposite Solomon's desire to protect and recover his family and his homeland. Unfortunately, the story diverges for a while in a somewhat predictable and pointless romantic subplot between Danny and reporter Maddy. It makes the story more human and complicated, but not necessarily better. As it is, Blood Diamond clocks in at almost two and a half hours, so the romantic plot is not needed to fill time.

But the movie works because at the end of the day, it can be reduced to the price of one (albeit huge) diamond. Consider the number of people killed, maimed (the opening scenes where the R.U.F. starts lopping off the hands of villagers begins the process of finding the diamond) and wounded combined with the material resources - planes, helicopters, etc. - destroyed to find and retrieve the diamond and the price tag gets truly astonishing. The moralizing that does not appear in the movie is the connection I shall now make:

Diamonds are worthless.

Because there is nothing backing our economy (we are not bound by a gold or silver standard), all that holds together the U.S. economy is faith. The belief in the strength of the dollar defines the value of the dollar. Thus, all $1.00 is worth is what you can buy with it and what you are willing to do for it. I frequently tell my students that working at their minimum wage jobs they are selling their souls for 4 Value Menu hamburgers and hour. None of them ever quit their jobs. But the point holds, which is the purpose behind collective bargaining. If Americans refused to work for less money, the uprising would declare a more balanced value to the dollar because the connection between the life people possess and the acquisition of material things would be made so apparent that only the most apathetic would slave their lives away for so few crumbs from the corporations. Diamonds are dirt. Dirt that is declared as pretty because it is clear and sparkley and . . . honestly I don't know why. Diamonds have value because greedy industries that thrive on them tell the masses they are valuable - one of the most poignant moments in Blood Diamond comes when a character reveals that the rebels want to flood the market with a billion dollars worth of diamonds in order to fund their war. In the face of evidence like that (where such quantity is available), diamonds are no longer valuable based on their rarity. Diamonds are worth what people are willing to pay and what people are willing to do for them.

And the question left unanswered by the audience of the movie is this: Will you have anything at all to do with diamonds, will you perpetrate the myth of their worth, with even the POSSIBILITY that the true cost of your diamond is at least one hundred human lives lost, the enslavement of a people and the perpetration of war and maiming of a less developed nation? As the market has not collapsed, I may only assume people either did not see Blood Diamond or it failed to carry its message in a way that was meaningful enough to resonate with Americans.

I'm not sure what more director Edward Zwick could do to make it resonate with Americans. When you show women and children being slaughtered by men with automatic weapons as part of the system that brings diamonds to the world, there's not much more that can be shown to connect humanity to the problems. I don't believe the failure is Zwick's.

For those considering taking in Blood Diamond, this is not just moralizing, it is an entertaining film. The journey of Solomon Bo is extraordinary and compelling. The characters are all interesting and Solomon and Danny are completely empathetic. This is a movie about how far people will go and they go far.

What makes the characters work is the acting. Stephen Collins has a brief, but memorable, cameo as an Ambassador who is crusading against conflict diamonds and he was well cast for the bit part. Jennifer Connelly gives a great performance here. Given about as much of a role as she had in Dark City (reviewed here!), Connelly gives a supporting performance that is compelling for the audience in that it confronts the issues directly that the other characters live around. Connelly manages to make Maddy slightly more than just a "type" by infusing her strong sense of confidence in her body language into the strong-willed reporter she is embodying. Connelly evokes the essence of a crusader to make Maddy professionally strong and softens to express an underlying loneliness to make Maddy human.

Connelly plays off Leonardo DiCaprio perfectly and DiCaprio is astoundingly good as Danny Archer. DiCaprio defines Danny with an angry expression and constant heat from his eyes that is piercing. The maintenance of this facade is impressive and it does not waver in this movie.

The movie hinges on the acting of Djimon Hounsou. Hounsou came to my attention in the third season of Alias (reviewed here!) where he had such a distinct and memorable role that it astounds me to find he was only in 3 episodes. His presence was much bigger than that. Hounsou reveals the depth of his acting ability in Blood Diamond by creating an essential human character with such decency and grace that there's not even the hint of the heavy he played on Alias. That's acting: to create two entirely opposite characters and make both vividly believable.

Blood Diamond is reminiscent of the truly amazing film The Mission from the 1980s. The Mission (reviewed here!) explored the church conflicts that resulted in the enslavement of natives in South America. One wonders if The Mission had been made while the events in it were current if it would have had an effect, if it would have stopped the carnage. The events in Blood Diamond are going on now. The question must be asked, can the exposure of these truths to the masses stand as the wake-up call to stop this carnage? I wait, astonished that the diamond industry continues to thrive; were I Zwick I would have hoped by the time the film was released on DVD, the industry would have collapsed.

For other works with Stephen Collins, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Three Stooges
It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia - Seasons 1 & 2
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
All The President’s Men

8/10

Check out how this film stacks up against the others I have reviewed by visiting my ever-growing Movie Index Page where the reviews are organized from best film to worst!

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

Everything You Would Expect From A Romantic Comedy. Except Humor. Or Real Romance.

The Good: I suppose the acting; I had not seen Bronson or Moore as lawyers before...
The Bad: Ghastly predictable plot, No genuine character development, Not funny, Not romantic.
The Basics: Tired, predictable and pathetic, Laws Of Attraction offers the viewer nothing genuinely new.


There should be a new word coined to describe a movie whose trailer not only presents the best moments of a movie, but offers a condensed version of the entire film, including scenes at or near the end. Also, people who make movie posters that reveal climactic moments of a film, they should be fired (I'm looking at YOU, people who made the DVD cover to The Notebook!, reviewed here!). I recall seeing a preview of Laws Of Attraction in the theaters, thinking that looked alshone (I'm trying coining now, that's how desperate I am to get this review up to a respectable length!), I don't truly need to see it. Well, the library was closing early today for the holiday and it came down to Laws Of Attraction and the Ashton Kutcher movie Guess Who, so I grabbed this because I have a respect for Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan.

I respect them both a little less now.

Audrey Woods is a successful divorce lawyer who has never lost a case. She is working along in court when one day Daniel Rafferty pops up as opposing counsel. He, too, has never lost a case and his disheveled appearance causes Audrey to be caught off guard when he turns out to be an amazing lawyer. Soon, they are going head to hear in every major divorce in New York City. As they work the divorce of a rock star and fashion designer, Audrey and Daniel supposedly fall in love and accidentally get married.

Of course, if you've seen the alshone preview, you know how it ends, in fact, there are no real surprises. If you haven't seen the trailer, you can probably figure the movie out based upon the plot summary I wrote above. Being completely predictable is one of this film's chief faults. This film offers nothing in the way of surprises, even for those who have not seen any footage from it.

Sadly, for two respectable actors like Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore, the movie continues to suffer either from execution or idea. If it suffers from execution, it is about a romance with alcohol. All of the important events between Daniel and Audrey occur when they are under the influence of alcohol. They make love for the first time and get married both while falling-down drunk. In fact, the only time Audrey seems romantically interested in Daniel is when she is completely wasted. I mean, completely.

If the movie suffers from idea, then it fails because Audrey and Daniel are never genuinely romantic with one another. To hold Laws Of Attraction up as a love story is pretty scary when one looks at it objectively. Two people get drunk, have sex, get drunk again and get married and while that seems fine with Daniel, it's clearly a huge trauma for Audrey. That's not truly romantic no matter what stripe someone is.

So, an especially jaded - but less biased by concept than actuality - interpretation of Laws Of Attraction would be that this is the most successful film about a sexually predatory man to come down the pike in a long time. After all, when they are sober, Daniel is determined, manipulative and goal-oriented. When Audrey is drunk, he achieves all of his goals. You don't get much more predatory than the whole "get a woman drunk to shag her" thing. And yet, it is Daniel who gets everything he wants in this movie while Audrey is mostly just subjected to the machinations that work against her.

The thing that people might want to cling to, then, is the end. They might cry out "Audrey really loves Daniel!" Well, that's true. All of a sudden, Audrey is used to Daniel and literally over the course of a scene decides she loves him. The problem here is completely in suspension of disbelief. I can believe opposing counsel falling in love, I can buy the whole hate hate hate hate love thing, but here it's just a hyperbole. Audrey has lived her life with certain goals that she has wanted and suddenly, in a moment of epiphany she gives them all up. Maybe I'd buy it more if she wasn't a divorce lawyer. After all, with her extensive career as a divorce lawyer, in addition to her recent experiences of apparently making bad decisions while drunk, no one would seem to know the consequences of not thinking through a decision better than her. But then she just makes the leap.

The audience does not.

All that keeps the movie bearable - not even watchable - is the acting. While Audrey and Daniel are inconsistent, poorly-written characters, Julianne Moore and Pierce Brosnan do the best with what is written on the page. As a result, they do their best to play along with what is written and the film works when it is establishing their characters.

Moore, especially, is completely convincing as Audrey as a strong, professional woman. She has the bearing of a woman who is in charge, has worked hard to get where she is and who has a mindset for success. Moore plays her well as a strong woman and so when Audrey has to get angry for sleeping with Daniel and later for getting drunk and marrying him, she plays that with appropriate fury and frustration. Moore's performance is so good that it makes the viewer wonder why Audrey has anything to do with Daniel outside court after the first time they have sex and better yet, why she blindly drinks with him.

Bronsan is fine as Daniel, though the character he plays is the predictable disheveled genius. In fact, Laws Of Attraction makes me wish that Hollywood would stop producing more "Odd Couple" comedies. We get it, "opposites attract!" We're not dumb, we've seen it so many times, we get it. Bronsan does his part fine oscillating between unkempt and beautifully Brosnan.

It's a shame that they give such competent performances in such an otherwise terrible movie. Save yourself the time and just watch the alshone preview trailer; everything is in it.

For other works with Parker Posey, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Boston Legal
Superman Returns
Blade: Trinity
Best In Show

3/10

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

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

Dennis Lee Makes A Wes Anderson Film: Jesus Henry Christ

The Good: Amazing acting, Moments of humor, Interesting characters.
The Bad: Light on plot, Lack of spark, Pacing issues.
The Basics: Jesus Henry Christ is an incredibly funny film that puts a boy on a quest to find his father and, in the process, discovers his family is much more eclectic than he ever knew.


Wes Anderson is one of the writers and directors whose works I generally enjoy, but it is hard not to admit that he has a pretty specific niche that he mines pretty heavily. Wes Anderson writes and directs drama films that he populates with quirky characters and interesting actors playing roles that are usually unconventional for them. He has awkward moments between the characters and he may well be the king of the anticlimax. Ultimately, Wes Anderson films are mostly about how characters relate and interact, as opposed to something actually happening.

Dennis Lee, the writer and director of Jesus Henry Christ, is clearly following the Wes Anderson mold with his new film. Jesus Henry Christ is currently in theaters in limited release and it has the look, feel and many other elements of Wes Anderson’s works, like The Royal Tenenbaums (reviewed here!). Unfortunately, Lee’s work, while stylish, often funny and amazingly well-acted does not have the spark of greatness that The Royal Tenenbaums did. Even so, Jesus Henry Christ is very much worth seeing.

After a series of personal disasters when she was ten years-old, Patricia Herman grows into being a social activist. While at a rally, she has an epiphany and is artificially inseminated shortly thereafter, much to her father’s chagrin. Soon after, Henry James Herman is born and he remembers everything he sees. At ten years old, Henry becomes curious about his father and his grandfather, Stan, provides him with some useful information. Stan does not know the identity of Henry’s father, but he does know who Henry’s half-sister is.

Henry encounters the morose Audrey, subject of her father’s book which outs her long before she even knows if she is a lesbian, and uses logic to determine they share a mutual father. As Henry and Audrey start establishing an awkward friendship, Henry spends time with college professor and author Dr. Slavkin O’Hara. Slavkin quickly realizes Henry is a protégé and sees him as a potential subject for his next book, until Henry introduces Slavkin to Patricia and they work to sort out their odd relationships.

Jesus Henry Christ is a lot more enjoyable than it is objectively good. The film is clever and often laugh-out-loud funny, but it still lacks a certain spark. Wes Anderson, for example, enhances the mood of key scenes within many of his movies through the use of popular music. Dennis Lee does not do that – and I give him a lot of credit for not mimicking Anderson in every way – but the result is that the film is populated by awkward characters in an incredibly awkward string of events with more of a pace that seems like real life, as opposed to something fantastical or incredible.

The stylistic elements that Dennis Lee uses in Jesus Henry Christ are fun, though. So, for example, when Stan and Henry have a covert meeting, the colors shift and the movie begins to feel a lot like Tarantino’s Kill Bill movies. They speak in Spanish in that scene and it has a very different – and interesting to watch – flavor to it. Moreover, the opening narration is very engaging as the story of the deaths of most of Patricia’s family is detailed. Jesus Henry Christ is very easy to watch, but because it is often slow and does not appear to be moving toward any sort of profound resolution, it is hard to get excited about watching.

Even so, Jesus Henry Christ is a wonderful movie for what is there. In addition to being very stylish, the movie is funny. As Henry and Slavkin sit burning copies of the book that ostensibly ruined his daughter’s life, the movie takes on a weird buddy comedy type feel that allows the characters to feel out their chemistry for one another. In a similar fashion, when Audrey and Henry interact, the scenes have a darkness – Audrey is a seriously depressed and maligned character – that quickly evolves into something a lot deeper. The longer they interact, the more Henry and Audrey seem to find what both of them have been missing: a sense of family.

As well, Jesus Henry Christ manages to include some seriously formulaic elements without feeling forced or formulaic. At the outset of Jesus Henry Christ, Patricia’s mother dies on Patricia’s tenth birthday, the result of Stan’s lighter (and his alcohol). Now, Henry is turning ten and Patricia finds herself paralyzed when it comes time to light the candles on his birthday cake. So, if the film is going to have character growth and development for Patricia, it makes sense that by the end of Jesus Henry Christ, Patricia will overcome her fear and use the lighter to light the candles. Lee’s actual resolution to this problem is surprisingly smart and symbolic of how Patricia’s life has been full of forced change. In other words, the circumstances by which the formulaic plot element is satisfied hardly seems like a formulaic plot moment.

Jesus Henry Christ is also an amazing achievement on the acting front. Toni Collette gives a solid performance as Patricia and Frank Moore’s portrayal of Stan was so good that I was absolutely shocked to discover that I had never seen him in any other movie before this! But more than those two veterans of film, Jesus Henry Christ goes a long way to disproving the old notion that child actors are the death knell of a production. Samantha Weinstein is amazing as Audrey. Playing a bullied twelve year-old, Audrey delivers some of the film’s wittiest lines (“Not for me it isn’t.”) and Weinstein makes the character seem entirely viable. Weinstein’s tightrope is to play a deeply sarcastic young person without ever seeming bratty and she manages to land it perfectly.

Weinstein plays frequently opposite Jason Spevack, who is the young star of Jesus Henry Christ. As Henry, Spevack has to play a child prodigy and that means he has to speak in an articulate manner well beyond his years. Spevack gets his mouth around all the tough dialogue and manages not to come across as stiff in most of the film, which is makes him a real treat to watch.

The real knockout on the acting front in Jesus Henry Christ is Michael Sheen. Sheen has long illustrated an ability to play comedic roles, one of the most notable ones being Wesley Snipes in the fourth season of 30 Rock (reviewed here!). But as Slavkin in Jesus Henry Christ, Sheen taps into an entirely different sense of wit and he delivers some hilarious lines and great reaction shots that are entirely different from his prior performances, like that of Wesley Snipes. Sheen is so distinct from any other character he has played in the role of Slavkin that my wife continued to disbelieve that it was Sheen performing until the closing credits!

Ultimately, Jesus Henry Christ is a very easy movie to recommend for audiences to watch. It is smart and surprisingly fun. But, it is not the type of film that is going to light the world – or the box office – on fire.

For other works with Toni Collette, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Towelhead
Little Miss Sunshine
In Her Shoes
About A Boy
Changing Lanes

6.5/10

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

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