Deadpool Makes For A Surprisingly Awesome Ornament!

The Good: Good sculpt of the character, Decent basic coloring, Good balance.
The Bad: No sound clip, Expensive
The Basics: Hallmark’s 2017 Deadpool ornament is a fitting tribute to the mercenary with a mouth . . . save that he is not outfitted with a sound chip, but is priced as if he was!


Every year, people inevitably complain about how some of the Hallmark ornaments are not Christmas-related. The argument is an old one and as a fan of genre ornaments, it is pretty tired. From the moment Hallmark produced ornaments of The Emperor from the Star Wars Saga (whose basically an allegory for Hitler) or Rhett Butler declaring "I don't give a damn" to a crying Scarlett, it was clear that the pop culture and genre ornaments were not at all intended to appeal to those looking for a traditional Christmas. So, when Hallmark announced the 2017 Deadpool ornament, the only argument I had about the crass bounty hunter being given ornament form was that it did not have a Santa hat upon it or that Hallmark did not go all out with the potentially-offensive subject matter and include a sound clip featuring Ryan Reynolds' dialogue from the film Deadpool.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, Deadpool made it to the big screen with the film Deadpool (reviewed here!), played by Ryan Reynolds. In Deadpool, the disfigured mutant mercenary swears and kills his way through a pretty average action-adventure film. And most fans seemed to like that.

It is Deadpool, mid-jump, reaching for his swords on his back, that is the subject of the 2017 Hallmark Deadpool ornament!

Basics

The Deadpool ornament recreates the mercenary in solid plastic. The ornament, released in 2017, is a pretty decent recreation of the popular character as he appeared in the film Deadpool or in the comic books. Deadpool comes outfitted with his weapons, but is essentially the character on his own without a backdrop or other scenery that would make it a diorama.

The Hallmark Deadpool ornament is made of a durable plastic and is rendered without any noticeable seams on the character. The Deadpool ornament measures out at 4 3/4" tall, 2" wide and 2 1/2” deep. His coloring is fairly monotonal, which makes sense because Deadpool has a hood covering his face. There are no pieces on the Deadpool ornament that features any hint of skin. As a result, the coloring manages to be realistic for the character and the darker red for Deadpool's outfit implies that it is the cinematic rendition of Deadpool.

The Deadpool ornament is sculpted with decent muscle details on the chest and abdomen of the character. Deadpool's various straps and weapons are sculpted accurately and good. This ornament looks exactly like who it is supposed to.

Features

As a Hallmark Keepsake ornament, the Deadpool ornament could have a sound chip and/or a light effect. Sadly, this ornament does not. This is just Deadpool, without any bonus features. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but with an original release price of $17.95, the ornament seems a bit expensive for not having a sound or light function.

Balance

As with all ornaments, the intent of the Hallmark Keepsake Deadpool ornament is to be hung on a Christmas Tree. For those creating the ultimate Marvel Universe Christmas Tree, a Deadpool ornament is pretty much essential and this is the only one of the character so far. The ornament has a steel hook loop embedded in the top of the character's back behind his swords. From that point, the Deadpool ornament hangs perfectly balanced!

Collectibility

Hallmark Keepsake began delving into the collectibles market in 1991 with Star Trek when it introduced the exceptionally limited edition original U.S.S. Enterprise ornament (reviewed here!). Since then, Hallmark has gotten into every major franchise from Disney to Twilight to the Marvel Comics universe. The Deadpool ornament was not at all limited, but given how good the ornament is and how popular Deadpool is, it is hard not to bet that it will sell-out before it is clearanced. Despite the initial expense of the Deadpool ornament, it seems like it would be a fair, at worst, investment piece.

Overview

The Deadpool ornament is all right, despite the lack of a sound clip and its initial price!

For other Marvel Hallmark ornaments, please check out my reviews of:
2017 Thor Thor: Ragnarok ornament
2017 Spider-Man: A New Kind Of Hero Spider-Man: Homecoming ornament
2016 Team Captain America ornament
2015 Potted Groot Guardians Of The Galaxy ornament
2014 War Machine Iron Man 3 ornament
2014 Captain America from Captain America: The Winter Soldier
2014 Web-Slinging Wonder The Amazing Spider-Man 2
2013 Iron Patriot Iron Man 3 ornament
2012 Captain America ornament
2012 Iron Man ornament
2012 Thor ornament
2012 The Amazing Spider-Man ornament
2011 Spider-Man ornament
2011 Thor ornament
2010 Defender Of Justice Iron Man 2 ornament

9/10

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

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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If There Had Been No Alien . . . Would Life Be Good?

The Good: Decent acting, Generally good direction
The Bad: Entirely formulaic, Light on genuine character development
The Basics: Life is exactly what the previews made it out to be: a remake of Alien with a slightly different setting and less sophistication.


One of the nice things for me about traveling is that, living in the middle of nowhere as I do, there are quite a few more opportunities to do things out and about than I have at home. To wit, the little movie theater in my town gets one movie, played once per night, for two to three weeks. So, we never got Life in town and when I resolved to drive the 75 miles to the nearest other theater, it was not playing there. But now, I'm in a big city . . . and one theater is still playing it! So, drawn in by a single movie trailer I saw two months ago and being vaguely interested in, I went today and saw Life.

Life is one of those films that is not bad, so much as it is entirely derivative. It's Alien (reviewed here!). Life is Alien without as extensive of a backstory, without the inherent character frictions, without the long-range. Life is not bad - though it took me about an hour of driving after I came out of the film to come to that conclusion - but it is pretty shocking that it was ever made. I mean, it's a walking intellectual property lawsuit waiting to happen. Specific details of Alien end up in Life in shockingly similar ways. In Alien, when the crew is down to four characters, one character is revealed to be working to keep the alien life form alive, for example, and Life mimics that exactly . . . albeit without an android or orders from The Company. No, whomever read Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick's script and thought Life was worth greenlighting either never saw Alien, didn't realize there was another Alien franchise film coming out in 2017, or was so desperate to capitalize on the hype for Alien: Covenant that they churned out this derivative work.

Opening with a sample collector from Mars getting knocked around by space debris and tiny asteroids, the International Space Station braces for the off-course vessel. Astronaut Rory Adams performs a daring (or reckless) spacewalk to use the station's arm to stop and retrieve the sample vessel. He is successful and the next day, scientist Hugh Derry begins studying the samples. In the martian dirt, he finds a single-celled life form and, against all odds, he manages to coax it back to life.

Soon, however, the life form is growing and when there is a minor accident in the lab, the life form - nicknamed "Cal" - goes back into hibernation. Using an electrical probe, Derry manages to reanimate the life form again. Threatened, however, by the device, the being grows again, snaps the probe and breaks out of its quarantine chamber. To rescue Derry, one of the other astronauts breaks quarantine and attempts to kill the alien. The casualties quickly begin to mount as Cal grows, adapts, and attacks the humans aboard the space station as they desperately try to prevent Cal from wiping them out . . . or leaving the station to attack Earth!

Life is one of those films that is less-good the more one analyzes it. Outside its derivative plot and characters who one might feel sorry for if only for the fact that their demise is so telegraphed, Life is actually all right. Daniel Espinosa directs the film competently enough - though the music is heavyhanded from the start and there are a couple of scenes where people talk over one another in a way that makes it feel like there are far more people on the station than there are. There's only one shot where there is no clear chain of events (a light stick is lit by a character, dropped and the next shot has them with another lit stick in their hand without any clear sense of where it came from), which is a pretty small flaw in the film.

The performers all do a decent job in Life. Jake Gyllenhaal dominates the cast as David Jordan, an astronaut who has been aboard the International Space Station longer than anyone else and, despite its adverse effect on his health, would rather remain there than return to Earth. Gyllenhaal plays Jordan with a competence that makes his character instantly credible, something that cannot truly be said of Ryan Reynolds's Rory Adams. Even Reynold's portrayal of Hal Jordan seemed more believable - that Jordan could actually be an able test pilot for the Air Force - whereas Adams seems more like a flaccid retread of other cocky, slightly sarcastic characters Reynold's played with more distinction.

Hiroyuki Sanada, Olga Dihovichnaya and Rebecca Ferguson each play their parts in ways that the viewer has moments they genuinely care about their characters. Ariyon Bakare gives a wonderful physical performance, making the process of a CG alien absolutely wrecking his character's hand seem entirely real and palpable. Dihovichnaya similarly proves an incredible physical actress in one of the film's most intense scenes. Ferguson is credible as a woman who gets very, very cold and Sanada interacts with the virtual elements flawlessly.

But the special effects and the performances aside, Life is far more dog than gem and today I find myself happier that I didn't drive seventy-five miles to see it, than the fact that I saw it at all.

For other movies currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Logan
The Great Wall
Underworld: Blood Wars

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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Animals Make Better People Than People: The Whale

The Good: Good photography, Engaging narrative
The Bad: Pacing, Sound issues (works better with subtitles on!)
The Basics: The Whale tells a surprisingly compelling story that explores multiple sides to an orca that was separated from his pod and became unnaturally engaged with humans.


My wife is definitely the documentary fan in the family. I got into documentaries that were primarily political, starting with Fahrenheit 9/11 (reviewed here!) and I had a phase where I was very interested in documentary films. My wife, however, is a big fan of documentaries. When I asked her for a recommendation today for a documentary to watch, she recommended The Whale.

The Whale is a seemingly straightforward documentary about an Orca that was separated from his pod in Canada. The nature documentary explores the effect of a single orca whale on a community as they fall in love with, fight for, and then abandon the friendly Luna.

Scientists documented the birth of an Orca Whale - L98 - in Canada and he was quickly nicknamed Luna. One day in Mooyah Bay, Luna got separated from his pod and abandoned. Shortly thereafter, locals on boats in Nootka Sound soon noticed Luna around constantly. Luna showed interest in contact with the humans who passed through Nootka Sound, even though he would call out underwater to try to find other Orcas or his own pod. When none responded to his call, the locals in Nootka Sound began to regularly interact with Luna - playing with him, petting him, even letting him work around the logging operations on the water.

The local native population, the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation, saw Luna as a reincarnation of their recently-deceased Chief. Members of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation saw it as a right to interact with Luna given they felt a spiritual connection to him. When Luna turned three years old, scientists became concerned about Luna's long-term health. They enacted a Stewardship program whereby a group of people stayed out on the water constantly driving humans away from him. But their efforts run into serious problems, ranging from people risking the $100,000 fine to the Stewards giving Luna inadvertent attention. Luna makes it hard for the citizens, as he tried desperately to interact with people and animals on boats. When Luna started to interact with float planes, immense political pressure was made to reunite Luna with his pod, 200 miles away. This sparks a conflict between Fisheries and the local natives over what is best for the social orca.

The Whale very smartly deals with the potential anthropomorphic feelings the residents of Nootka Sound and the scientists had when interacting with Luna. By very quickly eliminating the argument that Luna wanted contact with humans for food, the film establishes a surprisingly firm argument that Luna wanted human contact for companionship and affection, as opposed to meeting some physical need.

The documentary was shot over the course of several years and while much of it is unremarkable over-the-water shots, some of the photography is good underwater shots of both Luna and boats that he was interacting with. The story is instantly engaging, but it begins to drag and get somewhat repetitive in its final third. With so much emotional tension built up over the first two-thirds of the film, the viewer becomes eager to some sense of resolution to Luna's story and the conflicts involved in how various factions want to deal with the orca. Unfortunately, when resolution is reached it is - predictably, given the nature of so many documentaries - tragic and it is hard for viewers not to feel a sense of betrayal.

Ryan Reynolds does an excellent job narrating The Whale and he infuses some of his humor to his voice and some of the lines.

Ultimately, The Whale is an interesting exploration of a seemingly unique phenomenon and individual that makes it hard for everyone who watches it not to become an animal lover.

For other documentaries, please check out my reviews of:
I Know That Voice
Done The Impossible: The Fans' Tale Of "Firefly" And "Serenity"
PoliWood

8/10

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.
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Simplicity Causes Deadpool To Weather Poorly!

The Good: Acting is fine, Special effects, Some fun lines
The Bad: Ridiculously simplistic plot, Light on character development, Predictable character arcs
The Basics: Divorced from the hype, Deadpool is surprisingly disappointing.


March is a big Marvel month for me. With the return of Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Daredevil Season Two dropping on Netflix, I'll be reviewing a lot of Marvel works this month (which is fair, given how well-represented the DC Television Universe has been already this year!). I'm starting by catching up with Deadpool, a film I saw weeks ago and didn't quite get around to reviewing. Like many people, I was excited about Deadpool, but my enthusiasm was based more on Ryan Reynolds and the viral marketing campaign that had Reynolds as Deadpool commenting on current events than on the source material - it turns out I've only read and reviewed one Deadpool book (Deadpool Classics, Volume 1 is reviewed here!), which did not overly grab me.

I realized how little I enjoyed Deadpool when I was talking to a teller at my local credit union and she complained that the weekend went by again without her and her partner going to the theaters to see Deadpool. My reaction must have been extreme enough that she asked what I thought of the film and I was surprised by how quickly I came back with "It wasn't worth it." The reason for my lack of enthusiasm for Deadpool came from how uncomplicated the movie was. Outside the occasional fun lines, Deadpool is exceptionally simplistic; it is two fight scenes tied together with a protracted flashback that explains the point of the fight.

Opening with Deadpool in a cab, headed to a bridge in New York City, Wade Wilson gets out at a can of worms of multiple highways and waits. When Deadpool sees a motorcade en route, he leaps off the bridge and causes a traffic jam. Deadpool attacks the people in the motorcade, his target being Ajax. The attack on the highway draws the attention of the mutant Colossus. Colossus and his sidekick, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, head to intercept Deadpool.

The film flashes back to a year prior. At that time, Wilson was working as a mercenary in New York City when he met Vanessa at a bar. Vanessa was a prostitute and she and Wilson bond with sarcastic remarks before having sex. After multiple sexual encounters, Vanessa and Wilson fall in love, but then Wilson gets incredibly invasive cancer. Wilson leaves Vanessa to get involved with a secret experimental project that promises to cure his cancer. Using mutant genes and torture, Ajax manages to treat Wilson's cancer, mutilating him in the process. After a violent escape attempt, Ajax leaves Wilson for dead, but Wilson escapes to become Deadpool and he begins hunting Ajax. Back in the present, Colossus intervenes in Deadpool's attempt to kill Ajax, which allows the villain to escape. Ajax learns about Vanessa and captures her, forcing a conflict between himself and the mutant mercenary.

Deadpool has a couple of amusing lines - mostly between Deadpool and Negasonic Teenage Warhead and Wilson and Vanessa - but its incredibly basic plot makes for a film almost entirely lacking in flair. Ryan Reynolds lobbied for the role of Deadpool in a solo movie based, in no small part, on his success in portraying Wilson in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (reviewed here!). X-Men Origins: Wolverine certainly had its problems, but it had a more interesting dynamic and sense of style than Deadpool. Deadpool is entirely lacking in character development, deeper moments or even the simplistic reversals that its predecessor possessed. Deadpool entirely ignores Reynolds's first outing as Wade Wilson and replaces it with fourth-wall breaks, which are appropriate to the character, but hold up less-well in the film.

Ryan Reynolds, Morena Baccarin and the rest of the cast do an adequate job in their roles, but none of the performers are particularly challenged by their roles. Ajax (Francis) is a monolithic adversary and Ed Skrein plays it fine, though it is entirely uncomplicated. Similarly, Ryan Reynolds has done snarky and quick-witted plenty of times before. While he (and others) might want to disavow Green Lantern (reviewed here!), the role of Hal Jordan gave Reynolds more to play with and moments of greater range than Wade Wilson/Deadpool did.

The lack of stellar character moments or deep performances that employ or stretch any sense of range for the actors involved accent the simplistic plot. Two fight scenes with an extended expository scene makes for a predictable and dull movie that holds up poorly over multiple viewings. Like most comedies (and action movies), Deadpool hinges a lot on shock value and loses most of its punch over multiple viewings.

The result is a film that effectively used hype and as that hype dies down, viewers who want substance will likely tire of the weak results, no matter how stylish the results were.

For other works with Morena Baccarin, please check out my reviews of:
The Flash - Season 1
V - Season 2
V - Season 1
Serenity
Firefly - The Complete Series

4/10

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.
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Blending So Many Concepts Successfully, Ryan Reynolds Is Tormented Compellingly By The Voices!

The Good: Ryan Reynolds’s performance, Compelling exploration of mental, Incredibly well-directed
The Bad: All over the place with genres and styles that it is off-putting to an audience, Moments of gore are graphic and disturbing
The Basics: The Voices is one of the most difficult movies I’ve ever seen to get into . . . but it turns out to be an incredibly well-assembled, well-performed film that is well worth watching!


With this year’s Sundance Film Festival behind us, it seems like February, which is a historically bad month for movies (or a month of bad movies, depending on one’s perspective), is becoming a dumping ground for last year’s mediocre Sundance acquisitions. This weekend, The Voices comes out and when one has to ask “why would anyone hold back a Ryan Reynolds movie for an entire year?!” When one sees the troubling mix of romantic obsession and brutal stabbing that occurs in The Voices, the answer becomes pretty clear.

What is surprising is how the film, which initially seems like a deranged mix of Extract (reviewed here!) and The Cell (reviewed here!), is actually not bad; it’s just unclear who the intended audience is. Ryan Reynolds is actually impressive through most of The Voices for his performance and, despite a gruesome level of gore that comes from scenes involving dismembering a human body, the film is actually a very different performance for him.

Jerry is an unassuming, quiet, man who is working at Milton Fixtures & Faucet (where he is the new guy and as part of court-ordered psychotherapy, his psychiatrist checks in with his boss periodically. When the job throws its annual picnic for the employees, Jerry is volunteered to help organize the event and there he meets Fiona, from accounting. He has a great time at the picnic, supporting the idea Fiona has to do a conga line around the factory. But when Jerry returns home to his dog, Boscoe, and his cat, Mr. Whiskers, he hears them talking to him. Mr. Whiskers is very critical of him and puts him down, while Boscoe is supportive of him. Jerry’s psychiatrist worries that he might be hearing voices as part of his new medicine, but Jerry does not tell her about the voices he hears from his animals. When Jerry visits the Accounting Department, Lisa invites him to drinks with the women of accounting and Jerry misses all the clues that Lisa is interested in him as he fawns over Fiona.

When Fiona stands him up, Jerry finds her car, disables it, and makes sure to drive by to “rescue” her. But when she agrees to go out with him, feeling bad about standing him up, he accidentally hits a deer with the truck and has to put the suffering animal out of its misery. When Fiona runs off, Jerry chases her into the woods, tripping on her and accidentally stabbing her. He puts her out of her misery, too, and what follows is the tormented story of his animals giving him conflicting advice while the investigation for Fiona begins. Jerry starts a relationship with Lisa while the police search for a serial killer and Fiona’s disembodied head calls into question all Jerry knows and wants to believe about himself.

Given how The Voices has decent star power led by Ryan Reynolds and Anna Kendrick, it seems like Lionsgate might have the potential for a sleeper hit, but the movie is far too esoteric to find a mainstream audience. In fact, The Voices seems tailor made for an audience that enjoyed both Bernie (reviewed here!) and Dexter (season one is reviewed here!). But, The Voices is not bad.

In fact, as The Voices weaves together Jerry’s current problems with his troubling backstory, involving a mother who is clearly mentally ill and a father who is emotionally abusive, it becomes clear why Reynolds would want to take on such a project. But what is unfortunately unclear in the Marjane Satrapi execution of Michael R. Perry’s script is whether Jerry is mentally disabled in addition to just mentally ill. Jerry is tormented by a past – which is presented mid-film as a pretty horrific incident in which his mother has him assist her in killing herself – that may well have triggered his schizophrenia, but things like the way Jerry moves in some scenes call into question whether he has capacity.

So, what makes The Voices worth watching? First, the blend of torment (which is like the Gollum/Smeagol moments of The Two Towers) and humor hits at just the right proportion. The performance by Ryan Reynolds truly is one of his best. Director Marjane Satrapi manages to include one of the most quirky-funny moments (Jerry standing outside his own bedroom door, politely asking for entrance) after one of the film’s most tense moments. Second, Anna Kendrick and Ryan Reynolds have surprisingly good on-screen chemistry. The scenes before Lisa discovers the true nature of Jerry have the two in a charming on-screen relationship.

Despite elements of The Voices that are painfully predictable, it has been a long time since I actually had no idea how the film would end. Jerry is a tormented character and The Voices, despite trying for entertaining, actually ends up playing as a remarkably good depiction of how mental illness and bad parenting can conspire to really screw a person up. At least as disturbing as the on-screen violence and gore are the vastly different perspectives between how Jerry sees his living environment and reality (the same locations as seen through the eyes of others).

While there are stretches where The Voices is anything but entertaining, the film is surprisingly engrossing and it is assembled in such a way that it keeps the audience guessing – even when they don’t know if they want to continue watching!

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
To Write Love On Her Arms
The Last Five Years
Love, Rosie
The Seventh Son
Song One
Vice
American Sniper
Project Almanac

6/10

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

© 2015 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Anatomy Of A Box Office Failure, Why Isn’t R.I.P.D. The Next Men In Black?

The Good: Decent acting, Moments of humor, Generally good effects.
The Bad: Very predictable plot/character arcs, Incredibly familiar to anyone who watched both Dead Like Me and Men In Black
The Basics: R.I.P.D. failed to make a splash not because it was bad, but because it was way too familiar to moviegoers.


When it comes to Summer Blockbuster Season, one of the big factors working for movies is hype. The power of hype makes otherwise mundane films into huge successes long before they can end up at gas stations everywhere on DVD in a $5 (or less) bin. The fascinating thing about hype is watching which movies live up to and which films fall completely based on the audience response once that hype is stripped away. Hype before the release, as it so often happens, has almost nothing on word of mouth after the product or film is widely available. One of this summer’s big films that might have been able to use some more hype and certainly did not get much regard from word of mouth, is R.I.P.D..

R.I.P.D. is a pretty simple concept film, based on a Dark Horse comic series. It is worth noting up front that I have not read this particular comic book series, so this review is a very pure one of only the film version of R.I.P.D.. R.I.P.D. is essentially a simple concept: Men In Black (reviewed here!) meets Dead Like Me (reviewed here!). Or, it’s Spawn (reviewed here!) where the protagonist is not a monster and with a bit more in the way of humor. Either way, the concept did not quite land, at least with the summer moviegoing audience. And I, for one, am at a bit of a loss as to explain why.

The Men In Black comparison is not at all a bad one. Ryan Reynolds plays Nick, a corrupt Boston cop who is given the chance to return to Earth after his death to collect runaway souls for the Rest In Peace Department. The R.I.P.D. is basically Men In Black for the undead, as opposed to alien life forms.

Opening with a chase, the protagonist Nick reveals that he now works for the Rest In Peace Department and is part of a world he never knew existed. Flashing back days before where Nick sweetly plants an orange tree for his wife, Nick and his corrupt partner Hayes have a discussion about how they buried some gold from a bust. The two Boston cops are called to take down a notorious drug dealer and cop killer, Garcia, when Hayes turns on his partner and kills him. Sent to, essentially, purgatory, Nick is introduced to the concept of the R.I.P.D. by Proctor, who gives him the choice of taking his chances with divine judgment or joining the R.I.P.D. and repenting for his corrupt ways. Nick joins the force, partners with Roy, an old Western sheriff, and he returns to Boston to execute the will of the R.I.P.D. After witnessing his own funeral, Nick gets to work with Roy.

When their first case turns up some gold, much like Nick buried, Nick becomes suspicious. His suspicions are confirmed that there is a conspiracy between the living and the dead when Hayes turns up to recover the gold Nick buried and he turns it over to a dead man that Roy and Nick then pursue. Recalled to the R.I.P.D. offices, Eternal Affairs reveals that the gold is part of the dismantled Staff Of Jericho. If the Staff Of Jericho is assembled, the dead will rain down upon the Earth and with only a day before Nick and Roy are erased from existence, they set about trying to expose the criminals on Earth who are trying to recover the artifacts to build the Staff.

R.I.P.D. includes several concepts instantly familiar to those who were fans of Dead Like Me. Roy is from a different time and he and Nick have avatars who look exceptionally different from themselves. Nick (Ryan Reynolds) and Roy (Jeff Bridges) look like an old Chinese man and a hot blonde starlet, respectively. They have the ability to see the undead (whom Roy refers to as “deadoes”) and the undead reveal themselves to the officers and are not particularly thrilled about being recalled to the afterdeath. The relationship between Nick and Roy is, sadly, remarkably like the one between Kay and Jay.

There are some nice differences between Men In Black and Dead Like Me and R.I.P.D., like the way Indian food (it’s probably the cumin!) exposes the deadoes and transforms them into monsters. The film has quite a bit more action than Dead Like Me and the main narrative of this film is much tighter than Men In Black. Instead of really rambling around the new, larger world that Nick discovers, his death is deeply tied to the world of the undead. Bobby Hayes is the mortal villain, something which Kevin Bacon almost instantly telegraphs with his performance, and his evolution into the undead villain occurs very organically, making for an enjoyable progression. The events leading up to the undead jailbreak happen in a reasonable progression that is very entertaining.

Also R.I.P.D. is smart enough to address some of the big questions viewers might have. When the exposition about the Staff Of Jericho is presented, Roy’s question is very smartly, “why would somebody make this thing?!” McGuffins are good, but so many of them make no rational sense for why they would exist. The only real question R.I.P.D. leaves dangling is why the Department would be so stupid as to store all of the recovered gold together (whatwith reassembling the Staff being the goal of the villains!).

Jeff Bridges delivers a familiar performance as Roy. This role is remarkably similar to his performance in True Grit (reviewed here!) and Ryan Reynolds delivers nothing we have not already seen from him as Nick, but the two play off one another well for a good buddy action/comedy movie feel. Supporting parts from Robert Knepper, Mary-Louise Parker, Kevin Bacon and Stephanie Szostak are ably presented, though none stand out as exceptional for the talents involved.

The special effects do save R.I.P.D. from being considered completely mundane. The familiar narrative and performances do not look the same as in every other, similar, genre film. Still, it is easy to see why the film did not explode at the box office. R.I.P.D. is good, but hardly original and even during Summer Blockbuster Season, we want to see something that at least feels fresh.

For other works with Robert Knepper, check out my reviews of:
Heroes - Season Four
Prison Break - Season 1
Carnivale
"Dragons Teeth" - Star Trek: Voyager
“Haven” - Star Trek: The Next Generation

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.
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Predictable And Funny, Ted Helps Seth MacFarlane Make The Leap To (Almost) Live-Action Films!

The Good: Very funny, Decent acting, Excellent effects.
The Bad: Painfully predictable plot, Reused jokes.
The Basics: Ted is funny, but remarkably predictable, especially for fans of Seth MacFarlane’s wildly popular Family Guy.


When Seth MacFarlane alluded to a movie project in the opening scrawl to It’s A Trap! (reviewed here!) to a movie project he wanted to get released to pursue, I was a bit skeptical. After all, outside the three main animated projects MacFarlane has created and executive produced, the only other work of his I’d seen was Seth MacFarlane’s Cavalcade Of Cartoon Comedy (reviewed here!) and it was atrocious. In fact, the idea that MacFarlane could be a one-trick pony or might not be able to create sustained larger projects is not a particularly audacious one. Unfortunately, despite how entertaining Ted is, it only helps to reinforce the idea that the career of Seth MacFarlane may well have jumped the shark.

Fans of Family Guy, the very fans Seth MacFarlane is counting on to support Ted will recognize several jokes – like Ted complaining about the way pop singers sang vowels in the 1990s – from Family Guy. That there is an explicit reference to MacFarlane’s breakout animated series in the movie is similarly unfortunate, as is Seth MacFarlane voicing the title character. MacFarlane is a talented vocal actor, but the truth is he has pretty much shot his wad through Family Guy and American Dad!. With the distinctly different voices of Brian, Peter and Stewie Griffin and Quagmire coming from the same source (along with the similar voice of Carter Pewtershmidt and others), Ted might have worked better had Seth MacFarlane let someone else voice Ted.

All of that aside, Ted is a fairly innovative and fun concept for a comedy film. And Seth MacFarlane directed Ted at the right time in movie history; computer generated effects make the extraordinary premise look and feel entirely plausible. The basic premise is ridiculously simple: the main human character (John Bennett) has a sentient teddy bear (Ted) as a best friend. The film hinges entirely upon the virtual character interacting with the live-action characters absolutely seamlessly. In many ways, Ted is the film that Robert Zemeckis wanted to make with Who Framed Roger Rabbit? Any other issues with the writing and characters aside, Ted is arguably the best use of a computer-generated character in years. The effects are flawless and Mark Wahlberg, who does the lion’s share of acting opposite the virtual character, performs incredibly well, interacting with Ted as if the bear was actually there. As simplistic as it might seem, the ability to act well with entities that are not present and get things like eyelines and comedic timing right is a skill that very few performers get right, but Wahlberg does!

Opening with a childhood wish, John Bennett as a child is granted a talking teddy bear who becomes a real friend who will never leave him. John reveal Ted to his parents and overnight, the talking teddy bear becomes an instant celebrity. Years later, though, Ted is just a burnout who lives with John, who struggles at the rental car place where he hopes to become manager someday. John has been in a relationship with Lori for four years and when John fails to propose to her, she gives him an ultimatum. She wants Ted to move out so they can begin their life together for real.

John tries to push Ted away, which he has a vested interest in as Lori’s boss, Rex, hits on her relentlessly, but even as Ted gets a job at a grocery store, he pulls at John to continue their symbiotic relationship. On an important date night, Ted calls John to come visit him to meet their childhood hero, Sam Jones (who played Flash Gordon). That night effectively trashes the relationship between John and Lori, but in the ensuing fall-out, John pushes Ted away. On his own, Ted falls to the mercy of a man for whom Ted was a childhood hero and when Ted is kidnapped, he desperately calls upon John and Lori to save him.

Ted is basically a long collection of drug, poop, and sex jokes delivered during a fairly uncomplicated relationship struggle. The plot is very much a typical romantic comedy plot where the romantic interest does not like the best friend. Outside the CG character, there is nothing more sophisticated to Ted than that. As such, the plot progression is painfully predictable and MacFarlane telegraphs all of his moves, from having Giovanni Ribisi’s creepy Donny showing up early in the movie and John folding up his contact information to Frank responding to Ted being aggressively honest. That does not make Ted bad, it is just unsophisticated and more obvious than it is audacious.

Seth MacFarlane assembles what would otherwise be an impressive cast for Ted. For fans of MacFarlane’s other works, this is just an assemblage of the usual suspects. Mila Kunis, Alex Borstein, John Viener, and Patrick Warburton are instantly recognizable to fans of Family Guy who have watched all the many hours of DVD bonus features from the series. In fact, Ted makes tongue-in-cheek references to doing just that by presenting a fake DVD commentary from Ted Danson for the Cheers DVD set in the film (“Are there dicks in gay porn?” has become a pretty much instantaneous catch phrase around my house since my wife and I watched the film). The less-obvious performers from Family Guy are joined by Mark Wahlberg who joins the ensemble exceptionally well. Wahlberg is funny as John and he and Mila Kunis have great on-screen chemistry as Kunis plays Lori.

Ultimately, Ted is good geek date night material, but it is not much more than entertaining. It does what it sets out to do very well, but nothing more.

For other works with Giovanni Ribisi, please check out my reviews of:
Avatar
Public Enemies
Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow
Friends
Lost In Translation

7/10

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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A Number Of Very Funny People Come Together To Make A Quirky Drama With Adventureland

The Good: Moments of character, Moments of humor/concept
The Bad: No superlative performances, Universally unlikable characters.
The Basics: The more I contemplate the dramedy Adventureland, the more I think I did not like this story of pot-smoking, lying, sexually promiscuous and willfully dumb young people.


Every once in a long while, I let myself be swayed by a movie preview and I suddenly recall a preview for a film where I enjoyed the trailer, yet never actually got around to watching the film it was for, and I make an actual effort to take in the film. Tonight, that movie was Adventureland, a quirky drama whose preview made it seem like it would be a comedy. The Jesse Eisenberg/Kristen Stewart vehicle is one of those equally rare movies that falls apart the more I consider it. So, while I originally considered Adventureland about a 6 or 6.5, the more I wrote about it and thought about it, the less I realized I liked it.

It is also worth noting that while I do not judge the film negatively for the way it was sold to mass audiences (it really appears to be a lot funnier in the trailer and it is actually a much more serious film, like Almost Famous - reviewed here! – than it is a comedy), the more I think about the film, the less impressive its components are. In fact, while it initially reminded me of Freaks And Geeks (reviewed here!), it quickly becomes its own thing and it does a pretty unremarkable job at that.

In spring of 1987, after his girlfriend leaves him and his parents cut him off for the funding for the graduation gift they promised him, which would have allowed him to tour Europe with his best friend, James Brennan discovers he is not qualified for work anywhere. Armed with his Comparative Literature degree, he goes to work for the summer at Adventureland, a local amusement park. Relegated to running a game (which he quickly learns are all scams), James loafs his way through his job with the help of weed, beer and Joel. Rescued one day from a knife-wielding patron by Em (Emily), he finds himself instantly attracted to the young woman.

Despite James being a virgin, Em finds she is interested in James as well, though she is having an affair with Mike, Adventureland’s maintenance man. Playing the field in his own limited way with Lisa P., the rides operator all the guys at the park seem to want, James starts developing real feelings for Em. As the end of summer looms, disaster seems to be on the horizon for all of the workers at Adventureland.

Adventureland, for all of its problems, is not without its charms. James gives Em a mix tape of depressing music and has to constantly hide his erections from her (and her family). As well, there are some decent lines, like Em telling her stepmother that the friend her stepmother is talking up to Em once violated the family cat with a pen. The writing, done by director Greg Mottola, has a decent eye for irony – like the story of Em’s father’s relationships – but he fails to make any of the characters truly empathetic in Adventureland.

On the acting front, Adventureland is the product of decent casting more than anything even close to resembling good performances. The peak of the acting actually comes from Kristen Stewart, who is otherwise utterly uninspired in the film. However, during an early scene as she (as Em) drives James, listening in silence to the song on the mix tape he made, she expressed with her body language a vast depth of turmoil and longing and she nails it. The rest of the time, she is stiff or presents nothing viewers did not already see from her as the angsty Bella Swan in New Moon (reviewed here!).

Similarly, Jesse Eisenberg, whose work I usually enjoy, is essentially playing the same character he did in The Squid And The Whale (reviewed here!). He is uncharacteristically stiff as James and he exhibits little real passion on screen in Adventureland. His on-screen chemistry with Kristen Stewart is very hard to gauge as both seem standoffish on their own and that does not change in the scenes they share. Also surprisingly lukewarm is Ryan Reynolds. Usually charismatic, Reynolds phones in his performance as the lothario Mike. Even Kristen Wiig seems to be off her game as the co-manager of Adventureland.

Adventureland is an inconsistent period piece that never commits to being funny or presenting any of its characters in a light that one really wants to root for them. In the end, Adventureland is like the summer job it portrays; you spend your time watching it, but it doesn’t add up to anything of consequence in the grand scheme of things.

For other works that Josh Pais is in, please visit my reviews of:
Gentlemen Broncos
A Beautiful Mind
Rounders
“The Magnificent Ferengi” - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
“Business As Usual” - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

5/10

Check out how this movie stacks up against others that I have reviewed by visiting my Movie Review Index Page for a listing of my films based on ratings!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Recognizable, But Utterly Cheesy, The 2012 “Beware My Power” Green Lantern Hallmark Ornament Is A Real Split!

The Good: Good sculpt, Decent balance, Good sound effect
The Bad: Overproduced, Cheesy light effect, Somewhat animated look
The Basics: The 2012 Hallmark Keepsake “Beware My Power” Green Lantern ornament is an unfortunate blend of classy and oversimplified.


Green Lantern is a very popular comic book franchise and over the last year, I have come to understand why. I am still at a loss to explain why the film version of Green Lantern did not do nearly as well as some of the other films based upon comic books. I am one of the (few) fans of the cinematic Green Lantern and so I was actually excited to see how Hallmark would make a new ornament based on thie film for 2012. That ornament is the “Beware My Power” Green Lantern ornament and it is a really split piece.

For those unfamiliar with the film Green Lantern (reviewed here!), it is the origin story of Hal Jordan as Green Lantern. Starring Ryan Reynolds, Green Lantern is chosen by a willpower-based ring to become the heroic member of the Green Lantern Corps. Recharging the power ring involves holding the power lantern and saying the Green Lantern Oath.

It is that moment, as Jordan raises the lantern and recites the Oath that is the subject of the “Beware My Power” Green Lantern ornament.

Basics

The “Beware My Power” Green Lantern ornament faithfully presents the Ryan Reynold version of Hal Jordan, the iconic DC super hero in his green and black outfit. The facial sculpt is clearly intended to be Ryan Reynolds and in the broad strokes, it certainly looks like him in the role of Hal Jordan. The ornament features Hal Jordan in his green and black outfit with green gloves and the green power ring.

The ornament, released in 2012, is small and inconsistent. The sculpt looks amazing. The hair is even sculpted to look spiky and the build is a heroic, muscular build. But then, the coloring is terribly simplistic. Measuring four inches tall and two one quarter inches wide and deep, the “Beware My Power” Green Lantern ornament is one of only three DC super hero-based ornaments released by Hallmark for 2012. “Beware My Power” Green Lantern came with an original retail price of $19.95 and given its lack of detailing and the cheesy light effect, it seems terribly overpriced.

The Hallmark “Beware My Power” Green Lantern ornament is made of durable plastic. Green Lantern's costume is colored in matte green and deep black. He is ripped, including detailing on the stomach area. “Beware My Power” Green Lantern has the white circle with the “Beware My Power” Green Lantern symbol on his chest. He is wearing his mask and his green gloves have real contrast to the black of the pants, sleeves, and green of his boots. But what is an irksome coloring issue is that Green Lantern is not sparkling, like the costume in the film was. . . but the power lantern is. “Beware My Power” has Green Lantern standing on a stand that is the Green Lantern symbol, identical to the symbol on the character’s chest.

As for the rest of “Beware My Power” Green Lantern, he looks like an animated character. His coloring for the skin tones are monotonal and bland. His eyes are oddly detailed with flesh tones and black dots. Hallmark does not have properly colored lips, either.

Features

As a Hallmark Keepsake ornament, the “Beware My Power” Green Lantern has both a sound chip and a light-up function. The light function is one of the very lamest ones of any of the Hallmark ornaments. When the button on the base is pressed, a very simple LED lights up on the top of the base and while it is bright, it is a single source that is underwhelming and barely lights up his arm between the Lantern and Hal Jordan’s body.

At the same time that the light effect is going off, the ornament plays a sound clip from Green Lantern. Ryan Reynolds’ voice goes through the entire Green Lantern Oath and it plays through the top of the base. The base is, essentially, a speaker. The sound is loud enough to be easily heard and it comes with the batteries needed to operate the “Beware My Power” Green Lantern ornament.

Balance

As with all ornaments, the intent of the Hallmark Keepsake “Beware My Power” Green Lantern ornament is to be hung on a Christmas Tree. And for those creating the ultimate super hero Christmas Tree, the “Beware My Power” Green Lantern ornament is not as good as last year’s Green Lantern ornament. The ornament has the standard brass hook loop embedded into the top of Green Lantern's head. As a result, the ornament, when affixed to a tree with a hook, hangs well balanced from that loop. The loop is fairly obvious, but does not distract from the overall look of the ornament. Hung in this fashion, he looks like he is standing heroically, recharging his ring.

Collectibility

Hallmark Keepsake began delving into the collectibles market in 1991 with Star Trek when it introduced the exceptionally limited edition U.S.S. Enterprise ornament (reviewed here!). Since then, they have made ornament replicas of almost all major franchises like DC comics, The Wizard Of Oz and Harry Potter. The “Beware My Power” Green Lantern ornament was not an exceptional commercial draw its first two weeks and given how unimpressive the light effect and face coloring are, I suspect this will be available even after Christmas. I would not be surprised, given how overpriced it seems, for them to be one of the last genre ornament on the clearance rack after the season passes. In other words, this is not an ideal investment piece!

Overview

Fans of Green Lantern and DC comics characters are likely to be disappointed when they see the “Beware My Power” Green Lantern ornament in real life. Despite the sculpt and sound effect it is, quite simply, not worth picking up.

For other DC Universe superhero Hallmark ornaments, please check out my reviews of:
2012 The Dark Knight Rises
2011 Batman Takes Flight
2011 Green Lantern
2010 Limited Edition Harley Quinn
2009 Wonder Woman ornament

3.5/10

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

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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There Ought To Be A Special Division Of The Bomb Squad For Movies Like This: Just Friends Flops.

The Good: Nothing I can think of
The Bad: Terrible acting, plot, characters, everything
The Basics: In a series of increasingly inane events, Chris Brander lamely attempts to woo his high school friend, Jamie, with unhilarious results.


I finally figured out why I hate juvenile comedies as much as I do when watching Just Friends; everything in them is manic. There's nothing level, calm, rational or reasonable about them. Everything is over the top, manic, frenetic. I'm not. I can live with movies that include such things, but the idiot teen comedies that come out these days are all manic. It wears thin. Quickly. I was tired of Just Friends within minutes.

Chris Brander, humiliated in high school by being overweight and pining for the girl of his dreams - Jamie -, loses weight, becomes financially successful and begins to womanize. While courting a superstar who is attempting to start a music career, Chris ends up back in New Jersey where he sees an opportunity to reunite with Jamie. Jamie is impressed with the weight Chris has lost, but disenchanted with his new, snobby personality. Jamie is courted as well by Dusty, another previously rejected suitor whose interest in Jamie is solely based in revenge.

This is a dumb movie. It's stupid from beginning to end with pretty much nonstop movement intended to make the audience laugh. There are cars driving off the road, people smacking one another, and the requisite number of people falling down in the attempt of a cheap laugh. It is PG-13, though I can't imagine anyone over thirteen finding anything funny in this. I didn't even smile once while watching this movie. Nothing was laughable, nothing was clever, it was all just dumb. There ought to be a special division of the bomb squad to take copies of this movie out into the desert and safely detonate it. There ought to be a special division of the CIA that tracks down people who buy this disc for their personal collection and takes them out. I can imagine prison inmates who would not sit through the extras on this disc because they would rather return to their cell and look at the wall. That's how dumb, boring and unredeemably bad this movie is.

Anna Faris, who plays starlet Samantha James and is best known for her roles in the Scary Movie series, either has the best agent (who continues to find work for a talentless hack) or ought to fire her agent (if she's a talented actress and continually ends up only in lame, frenetic comedies with terrible scripts that don't utilize any objective standard of talent). Just Friends continues her trend of playing vacuous characters who rely on raw stupidity for laughs and fails even then.

Amy Smart and lead Ryan Reynolds play equally vacuous characters, poorly.

I hope if you read any of this review and were entertained you'll understand that this experience was more enjoyable than the last ninety-three minutes I spent watching this dreck. You only have so much time on this planet; don't waste it on this movie.

That's all.

For other works with Anna Faris, check out my reviews of:
Scary Movie 4
Brokeback Mountain
Waiting. . .
Friends - Season Ten

0/10

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

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Spy Movie That Remembers The Humanity, Safe House Is Astonishingly Good!

The Good: Character, Action, Acting! Most of the plot.
The Bad: A few obvious plot/character moments.
The Basics: For the first time (maybe ever?!) a film depicts intelligence operatives who make decisions as if they were real, emotionally aware, human beings! Safe House is every bit as impressive as I’d hoped!


Every now and then, I learn something important about movies. Yesterday, I learned two exceptionally important things. The first thing is that movie previews have dramatically changed. It used to be that when one went to the movies, they were treated to two to four movies that might appeal to the same demographic as those watching the film they were about to see. But yesterday, as I sat in the theater waiting for Safe House to begin – and I had a similar experience to this when seeing Chronicle a few weeks back! – I sat through eight previews, most of which were for movies that would not appeal to the Safe House audience. I mean, I was jazzed to see the preview for Prometheus on the big screen (I cannot wait for one that actually has dialogue in it!), but I highly doubt that the audience that might appreciate the smart, tense, sophisticated Safe House is really the audience that is going to see Project X, Battleship and 21 Jump Street. No, it appears that advertisers are going with a shotgun approach and they aren’t even trying to make reasonable associations with the movie one goes to see and the previews shown before it. I suppose I am beginning with this rant because it’s true and because I tend to like to have something concrete to complain about, lest it seems I have gone soft and write a thoroughly gushing review.

Because that was the second thing I learned yesterday: February is no longer exclusively the dumping ground of crap movies. Sure, Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance (link below) is working desperately hard to disprove that theory, but Safe House is all the proof I need that movie distributors suddenly realized that if you release a truly great movie in February, you can have a memorable winner, as opposed to leaving audiences unenthusiastic about an entire month of February. Safe House, like Defiance a few years back, reminds viewers how great movies do not have to be released only during the Early Push (my new term for the late-August, early-September Oscar Buzz Grab Season) or Oscar Pandering Season (Thanksgiving through the end of the nominating season because, as it turns out, Oscar voters and nominators have the world’s shortest attention span). Will nominators remember Ryan Reynolds, Denzel Washington, director Daniel Espinosa and writer David Guggenheim when next year’s award season begins? Probably not. But they should.

Matt Weston is a housekeeper working at a quiet safe house in Cape Town, trying hard to get transferred from his dull post to France so he and his girlfriend won’t have to break up. Weston is friends with David Barlow, a high-ranking CIA operative, who has the ear of the Assistant Director. When a rogue operative, Tobin Frost, acquires some devastating data in an encrypted file worth millions and is chased by thugs, he makes a tactical decision to enter the U.S. consulate in South Africa. Cooperative and almost eager, Tobin allows himself to be transported to the safe house Weston operates and even allows himself to be interrogated brutally by Kiefer.

But when the same goons attack the safe house, Weston and Frost are the only agents to make it out alive. Fleeing for their lives, Matt follows protocol and tries to keep Tobin Frost safe while keeping Ana, his girlfriend, out of a potential firefight as well. But Tobin Frost soon gets into Weston’s head with the simple question, how did the goons know about the safe house and how to breach it? As Matt runs for his life with Tobin in tow, Barlow and Linklater intellectually duke it out in Washington to try to get Frost and Weston back into the fold. Following their directions, Weston ends up at a stadium where Frost has an opportunity to escape his custody, multiplying his problems!

Safe House is smart, tense and above all, it is character driven. I recall when I saw The Negotiator with my dad and he and I talked about it afterwards. One of the things he liked about it – and I agreed with him – was how both Kevin Spacey and Samuel L. Jackson were so plausible as crisis negotiators. At the time, I think I might have brushed it off as great casting, but the truth is, both actors truly rose to the roles. In a similar way, Ryan Reynolds and Denzel Washington are amazing as Matt Weston and Tobin Frost, respectively. The moment I realized how perfectly cast they were and how they were both playing at the top of their game was when the pair has a surprisingly brutal fight while driving the car away from the safe house. In that fight, both make tactical decisions and there are moments where the viewer can see them calculating behind their eyes, reasoning exactly what they can afford to give up and what they believe they can get out of certain moves. That’s brilliant acting and both seem utterly believable as they make their moves.

While a lot of credit has to go to writer David Guggenheim, the actors truly rose to the wonderful script. Even so, Guggenheim wrote characters who are essentially human and that is why Safe House works so unbelievably well. The characters in Safe House react absolutely like real people. There is almost no suspension of disbelief required and the film is smart enough to not insult the viewers. Even so, it is ridiculously smart. For this, I credit Guggenheim. David Guggenheim has a clear understanding of human psychology and he plays with it very well in Safe House. The relationship between Matt and Ana seems very real. Matt is still young, he is lying to Ana about his profession (which is reasonable in the case of a spy) and he actually seems to love her. So, when his safe house is attacked and he realizes that someone on the inside of the CIA is connected, his first call is to Ana. He tries to get her as far from the impending bloodbath as he can. That’s human.

Matt is not the only deeply human character in Safe House. The film plays out as well as it does because while Tobin Frost is introduced as an antagonist, he is almost immediately revealed to be a patriot. Weston watches in deep discomfort as Frost is tortured by Kiefer, but Frost’s resistance is not bravado. He comes to the situation with realistic expectations and a strong knowledge of the techniques that Kiefer is employing upon him. Frost is presented as more than just a former asset who went rogue, he still has things he deeply cares about. At the same time, he is willing to shoot a man in the face (and he does, several times). Still, one of the best scenes in the film comes late when Tobin meets up with Carlos Villar. That, admittedly, is a treat of watching two great actors – Denzel Washington and Ruben Blades – play off one another.

So, what is there not to like about Safe House? It has an engaging plot, amazing acting, interesting characters and amazing action sequences (I cannot remember the last time I actually enjoyed a car chase in movies). First, for all of the things director Daniel Espinosa does right in Safe House, he goes a bit over-the-top during many of the chase and fight sequences. Using a handheld camera for the fights and chases is supposed to make a moment seem more immediate and real, but it’s passé. It’s been done, we’ve seen it, I’m bored by it. Safe House suffers at a few points because Espinosa is worrying too much about the flash while smearing the substance. Safe House is urgent, tense and exciting; there were moments I wanted to actually see that better. In other words, when all sorts of guns are going off, I know that it’s a dangerous chaotic moment and at this point in filmmaking, I want to be able to enjoy it as opposed to simply feeling like I am watching a movie while on a moving roller coaster. Similarly, if you are going to have two young white guys who look virtually identical duke it out and the only real distinguishing thing about them as they grapple is that one is wearing a flannel with a pattern, for the love of all that is good and holy, light the damn scene so we can see who is who!

And don’t have my favorite actor in the piece be the villain. Seriously. I loved Safe House, but the moment I saw the mole, I knew exactly who it was. And I wanted so much to be surprised!

That said, Safe House is legitimately great. Vera Farmiga gets to move around a bit more as Agent Linklater than she did playing a similar character in Source Code (reviewed here!) and she plays off Brendan Gleeson (Barlow) and Sam Shepard (Assistant Director Whitford) very well. Farmiga, like Reynolds, Gleeson, Shepard and Washington, seems like an absolute professional and entirely plausible as a high-ranking CIA agent. Safe House also features notable supporting performances by Robert Patrick (Kiefer) and Ruben Blades (Villar).

So far in 2012, theatergoers have been bombarded with spy movies and it doesn’t look like that is about to stop this weekend. So far, hands down, the best spy film of the year – and the best film of 2012 this early in – is Safe House. It is worthy of your attention and your dollars and the time to enjoy it on the big screen.

For other works with Ryan Reynolds, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Change-Up
Green Lantern
The Proposal
X-Men: Wolverine
Definitely, Maybe
Smokin' Aces
Just Friends
Waiting . . .
Blade: Trinity

8.5/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for a complete listing of all the movies I have reviewed! Thanks!

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