Forcing Humor Undermines Thor: Ragnarok

The Good: Hela and Heimdall have interesting arcs, One or two performance moments
The Bad: Forced humor, Simplistic plot, Obvious plot reversals, Light on character development, Special effects are surprisingly mediocre
The Basics: Thor: Ragnarok takes a surprisingly serious premise for a fantasy/action movie and undermines almost all of it with forced attempts at humor that often fall flat.


There is no real purpose in an American reviewer reviewing a Marvel Cinematic Universe film anymore. By the time a Marvel Studios film is released in the United States, it has been out in theaters in other countries for at least two weeks and die-hard fans who want spoilers have a tendency to look up the foreign press reviews while American reviewers are embargoed from publishing their reviews. So, when Thor: Ragnarok was released in theaters in the United States, I did not rush right out to see it. Instead, I waited for the first surge crowd to dissipate and then I saw the film a few days later. All of this in spite of me being generally psyched about Thor: Ragnarok from the latest preview trailers.

It was not long into Thor: Ragnarok, though, that I became certain that the best moments of the film had been put into the film's trailer. The big reveal of the Hulk was certainly gutted by the preview trailers, but what surprised me most was how much of the film's sense of menace was undermined by the near-constant attempts at humor. Ironically, the film's funniest moment was virtually buried by the reaction to the joke prior to it (in the full theater I was in, I found myself as the only one laughing when Tom Hiddleston's reaction shot - which was, admittedly, entirely dependent upon viewer's seeing The Avengers - at a key moment was focused on for too brief a moment after one of Chris Hemsworth's well-spoiled lines).

Thor: Ragnarok is a conceptual failure and one suspects after the hype for the film dies down, more and more fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe will be able to admit that the film is a painfully forced bridge movie. Despite the constant menace to Asgard, most of Thor: Ragnarok is actually about reconciling the final moments of Thor: The Dark World (reviewed here!) and re-integrating The Hulk and Thor into the narrative after the events of The Avengers: Age Of Ultron (reviewed here!). And to accomplish those rather simple goals, Thor meanders through his own film making dull jokes while the compelling original elements of Thor: Ragnarok are largely neglected.

The concept of Ragnarok is the end of the world, which in Thor: Ragnarok is supposed to come in the form of Surtur. So, in one of the few remarkably sensible plot points for Thor: Ragnarok, the first thing Thor does is kill Surtur and steal his magical helm so he cannot fulfill the prophecy of Ragnarok and destroy Asgard. Unfortunately, the menace of Ragnarok hangs over Asgard, but is quickly swept aside by a bevy of jokes that fall flat.

Thor, who had figured out how to prevent the prophesied end of Asgard had also already figured out that Odin had been replaced by Loki. But, alas, the big emotional moment of Thor somehow realizing that Loki is both still alive and has weakened Asgard's place in the Nine Realms through his decadence is not actually in Thor: Ragnarok. Thor and Loki take a brief trip to Earth where they search for Odin who promptly dies (or dies enough so that Asgard is now helpless).

And helpless Asgard is to the first-born of Odin, Hela: the Godess Of Death. Hela makes an excellent entrance, announcing herself to Thor and Loki and enlisting arguably the worst, most dimwitted d-rate sidekick villain of all time in the form of Scourge (poor Karl Urban!). Hela then immediately begins a campaign to take over Asgard and at this point, Thor: Ragnarok makes its fatal narrative divergence. Hela inadvertently knocks Thor and Loki out of Asgard by shoving them out of the Einstein-Rosenberg Bridge teleport. When that happens, Thor and Loki go on a grand comedic adventure and Hela and Heimdall are left holding the bag on the vastly more interesting and compelling Ragnarok plot.

Hela is an instantly intriguing villain and Cate Blanchett does the best she can with the material she is given for the firstborn of Odin. Hela reveals that Odin built Asgard on genocide and conquest, with Hela herself as Odin's executioner. The idea that something grand had some truly sinister origins is a distinctly American idea, yet the U.S. gets Thor: Ragnarok after most of the rest of the world. And in Thor: Ragnarok, the horror of how Odin built his empire is not given time within the narrative for reflection or emotional consequences for the characters. Instead, when Thor gets around to trying to stop Hela, he does so without any reflection on how his father betrayed him by not telling him the truth and/or making a philosophical argument to Hela that Odin evolved beyond his need for violence and conquest. Sadly, Thor: Ragnarok is all fisticuffs and little philosophy, which is truly disappointing because the inherent conflict between Hela and Heimdall is a compelling one.

Heimdall spends Thor: Ragnarok as a fugitive. He creates an underground railroad intended to save as many of the Asgardians as he possibly can from being murdered by Hela and her army of the undead. Heimdall does what he can to avoid direct conflict with Hela - despite the fact that the Asgardians are being hunted because of him and his theft of the sword that unlocks the bifrost - and instead concerns himself with actually trying to save Asgard. Heimdall is, easily, the smartest character in Thor: Ragnarok as he attempts to get people out of the way of the Goddess Of Death as opposed to *snicker* trying to find a way to kill her.

Seriously, when Thor comes back to Asgard and starts hacking and stabbing at Hela, the sequence is about as ridiculous as Wonder Woman trying to subdue the god of war by fighting him physically in Wonder Woman (reviewed here!). The Goddess Of Death cannot, logically, be killed by . . . well, death. Death empowers the Goddess Of Death; her demise would have to come from a nontraditional means, much like the only way to defeat a God Of War would be through creating a lasting peace.

So, while Thor: Ragnarok has the seeds of a great, truly epic, story of the destruction of Asgard and the attempt to save its people, Eric Pearson, Craig Kyle, Christopher Yost and Taika Waititi instead send Thor and Loki into a comedic adventure on an alien world where they are reunited with the Hulk, meet the last surviving Valyrie (which is an elite fighting order, not an individual character) and meander their way back to Asgard. In the previous Thor films, the humor worked by contrast. Thor encountered humans who had very different views on the world compared to the arrogant God and humor resulted. In Thor: Ragnarok, Thor just runs around making jokes. And he plays them off an often humorless Loki and Bruce Banner, arguably the least funny character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

By the time Thor gets around to trying to interface with the true menace of Ragnarok on Asgard, Thor is a buffoon who is impossible to empathize with who hardly seems up to the task of fighting for his homeland. And given that Thor has lost his hammer and been granted super lightning powers by the time he has to take on Hela, the character the viewer has seen for four prior films is virtually unrecognizable.

For other Marvel Cinematic Universe works, please check out my reviews of:
"Havoc In The Hidden Land" - Inhumans
Spider-Man: Homecoming
Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Season 4
Marvel Cinematic Universe: Phase 1 - Avengers Assemble

4/10

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

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Seduction Of The Obvious: Sirens

The Good: Wonderful acting, Great direction, Decent character development, Engaging themes
The Bad: Sometimes thematically heavy-handed, Frequently very awkward
The Basics: Sirens explores well the conflict between art and religion when a young minister tries to convince an eccentric artist not to exhibit his most controversial work.


Tonight, I took the opportunity to return to some things I have not for many, many years. In the last place my wife and I lived, we had very limited kitchen access. So, for almost the first four years of our marriage, I did not cook her my extraordinary lasagna. Tonight, I did just that. While I was doing prep and after we ate, I put in a film that I have not seen since I was in high school: Sirens. Despite my wife looking at me with more than a little bit of shock that I saw this film – which had quite a bit of nudity in it – while in high school, I am pleased to say that Sirens is as good as I remember it being.

Actually, there were some additional elements that were enjoyable for me now that I did not catch as a younger person. While I have always enjoyed Sirens’s direct approach to exploring the conflict between art and religion, I had not seen Portia de Rossi in anything before this (there was nothing as it turns out) and it would be years after before I saw her in anything and I never made the correlation before tonight! Sirens is an explicit and potent exploration of the conflict between art and religion, with one woman ending up as the focal point of the attraction of several women, a man, and an artist’s eye. The film has a very slow build, but Sirens is ultimately very satisfying and it remains very relevant, even now.

Minister Anthony Campion and his repressed wife Estella arrive in Australia at the residence of the artist Norman Lindsay. Lindsay is a painter whose nudes and religiously-themed works have stirred up a great deal of controversy. Campion wants to convince the artist not to show his controversial piece depicting the crucifixion of a woman in an upcoming show. The Campions are shocked by how openly flirtatious Lindsay’s models, Sheela, Giddy, and Pru are. Lindsay tries to create a magical atmosphere for the children on the estate by having the models pretend to be fairies out in the garden.

In getting to know the three women and the help around the facility, Devlin, Estella slowly begins to shed her inhibitions and become a more well-rounded sexual being. In addition to becoming seduced by the modeler’s lifestyle, she has vivid fantasies about the other women, Devlin, and art and free-thought in general.

Sirens is not only thematically liberal and very straightforward with its presentation of how art is not inherently bad or good (that the viewers must judge and find what they believe to be art and what is offensive), it is occasionally heavy-handed. Sirens is wonderful in promoting the relationship between art and religion and it challenges viewers to not find its content – which has a lot of nudity and married people opening themselves up to fantasies and seductions by other people – offensive. But, amid the sophisticated argument in favor of artistic freedom, director John Duigan goes visually over-the-top with frequent uses of snakes in the imagery. We get it: Estella is being seduced by the potential of “evil.” Duigan has created an ideal, Eden-like setting, so the presence of snakes is just obvious, painfully so.

The characters of Anthony, Estella, and Norman Lindsay are memorable ones. Anthony Campion is a painfully awkward and somewhat ridiculous young minister and he is portrayed with surprising humor by Hugh Grant. This is one of Grant’s more subtle roles, one where he is not simply banking on his good looks or his smile in order to sell the character. In fact, I cannot think of a role where Hugh Grant has a more stiff body language to his character than in Sirens. Norman Lindsay is well-portrayed by Sam Neill, but his character is a somewhat generic mouthpiece for a lot of exposition and art theory.

Much of Sirens is really about Estella and she and Giddy (Portia de Rossi) play characters on converging arcs. Giddy is attracted to Anthony and yet wants to be more than just a model or an object of attraction. Estella has lived a very sheltered life and by actually talking with Giddy, she begins to open up to possibilities bigger than her prior experiences. The arc for the character is very realistic and takes an organic amount of time as Estella and Anthony find themselves continually unable to leave the Lindsay estate. Estella is played by Tara Fitzgerald and I was surprised by how this film, which allows her to play a decent range and a realistic amount of character growth, did not open a ton of doors for her.

Sirens may not be subtle, but it is a wonderful, memorable film and it makes philosophical arguments entirely enjoyable!

For other films about artists, please visit my reviews of:
Frida
Cradle Will Rock
The Girl With The Pearl Earring

7/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ready For An Upbeat Revolution Because Dr. Zhivago Isn’t One!

The Good: Decent soundtrack, Acting, Cinematography
The Bad: Characters, Unrelenting depressing story, Pacing
The Basics: What could be an evocative love story set during the Russian Revolution, ends up as a good looking, but unrewarding film.


On Babylon 5, Susan Ivonova repeatedly reports that her bleak outlook on life and the universe is because she is Russian. It becomes a somewhat tired joke even in the first season. Having sat through the Russian epic, Doctor Zhivago, I now see that she has something of a talent for understatement. Somewhere along the way, I must have stopped liking becoming mired in seas of disappointment and despair; Magnolia remains one of my favorite films and Brazil is my all time favorite, but Doctor Zhivago lacked something that allowed me to accept the other two. Vision? Imagination? Creativity? Something.

Andrey Zhivago, father of little Yury, kills himself after meeting with the nefarious Victor Komarovsky. Yury, now orphaned, is taken in by Gromykos and is raised as the brother of Tonya. Yury yearns to be a poet, but finds himself becoming more and more of a skilled surgeon as he grows up. Meanwhile, Komarovsky has married and finds himself actively pursuing his stepdaughter, Lara. Lara flees into a marriage with a young Red, as the Russian Revolution explodes. Lara, a nurse, meets Yury, who is now married to Tonya. Yury returns home to his family, finds himself thinking of Lara and leaves Tonya (now with a second child) to be with Lara. Lara, in turn, finds herself hounded through the years by Komarovsky, who does his best to rescue her from the bloodshed the country has become engulfed in.

Sigh.

It's longer than any one of the The Lord Of The Rings movies and feels about three times longer than that entire series. The truth of it is that Doctor Zhivago is not a bad film. In fact, there is quite a bit to recommend it.

The first worthwhile aspect of the movie is the cinematography. This is a movie that looks good. The lighting is fantastic, the scenery is beautiful and the color contrasts are wonderful.

As well, the acting is all quite good and convincing. Sam Neill is wonderfully menacing as Victor Komarovsky. Unlike anything else I've seen him in, where he is understated, subtle, and usually good-natured, in Doctor Zhivago, he is threatening, brooding and outright haunting. He plays the villain quite well and there are many points that it appears he is fully savoring the role, despite how despicable his character is.

Keira Knightly and Alexandra Maria Lara are superb as the two female leads. Knightly presents Lara as a competent, yet deeply traumatized woman who has a great deal of intelligence and cunning to accent her internal strength. Lara (Alexandra Maria, not the character played by Knightly), explodes into the film as more than simply a pretty face. She has a charisma to her that makes her instantly watchable and intriguing.

The lead actor, Hans Matheson, does an equally good job as Yuri. Matheson infuses a deep humanity into Zhivago that makes him empathetic throughout the war scenes. Matheson does an expert job of conveying emotions of loss and loneliness with his face and in subtle changes of his tone of voice. It is easy to dismiss him as a pretty boy when he first appears on screen, but much more difficult as the piece progresses. There is substance to Matheson's performance that makes the viewer believe the years are passing for his character.

Unfortunately for this version of Doctor Zhivago, with its awkward pacing, it feels like the years are passing for the viewer as well. I love epics, I honestly do. In high school, my friends and I would get together and watch all three Star Wars or Alien movies in a row. I sometimes contemplate a day long The Lord Of The Rings marathon. Epic can still move, but this movie does not.

What makes most great epics move is the characters. If there characters are interesting and continue to develop, hours worth of movies or television can just fly right by. For example, on Star Trek Deep Space Nine, there are six-episode and ten-episode story arcs wherein the characters are dealing with various war-related experiences and adventures. Because there is so much going on, with such vivid and intriguing characters, I can sit down and watch them (these large parts of the sixth and seventh seasons of Deep Space Nine) in one sitting.

Unfortunately, this version of Doctor Zhivago fails to pop on the character front. Zhivago seems quite likable and his attraction to Lara makes a great deal of sense when they are stranded at the battlefield hospital together. I'm not much of a prude, so I could have understood Zhivago straying from his marriage amid the loneliness and fear that pervades a war zone. It, then, seems ridiculous to me when he manages to avoid the temptation from simple proximity and their affair comes much later, when Zhivago's family life with Tonya is going quite well.

Equally inexplicable is the way Tonya simple disappears from the film in the latter half. I spent a large portion of the movie figuring Zhivago as a man of some character and concern for the woman he grew up with and loved that it seemed incomprehensible to me that Yuri does not look Tonya up after all of the fighting. Indeed, perhaps the greatest lesson of Doctor Zhivago could be "fidelity leads to longer, happier lives."

As it is, everyone in Doctor Zhivago is, was or ends up either completely miserable or dead. A very Russian movie, by Ivonnova's accounts and by ours. The final glaring problem is with the realism. The realism of the Russian Revolution is too accurately portrayed. No, not with the violence; I'm not a prude for that, either. It's in the costuming. The Red Army and the White Army are fighting each other in a pretty brutal civil war. The problem is, their uniforms are almost identical throughout, so if you walk out of the room to get a drink and come back and Yuri has fallen in with some soldiers, it's almost impossible to tell which side he's currently allied with.

All in all, a good looking, well acted piece that is much too slow with characters that are ultimately not empathetic enough to keep the viewer interested. An man, is it long. And depressing. It's so . . . Russian!

For other works with Sam Neill, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Vow
Daybreakers
Bicentennial Man
Jurassic Park
The Piano

5/10

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

© 2012, 2004 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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Channing Tatum’s Abs, Butt, And Legs Might Be All That Wow In The Vow.

The Good: Interesting plot device, Decent acting
The Bad: Predictable, Little distinctive on the character front.
The Basics: The Vow is a very typical romantic drama that tries a new conceit and ends up as a mostly-charmless, obvious film.


As risky as the gambit to re-release The Phantom Menace theatrically as a 3-D film, it seems to be a risk to go up against it. Screen Gems seems to be trying to take the safest road possible by appealing to the exact opposite demographic as the Star Wars market. Ready to be drowned out by the big special effects in the theater showing The Phantom Menace next door, Screen Gems is releasing the romantic drama The Vow and hoping that people on dates will outnumber geeks this Valentine’s Day. In the recent tradition of movies like Letters To Juliet (reviewed here!), The Vow arrives on the big screen as a simple gimmick love story that is pretty much ruined by knowing the premise or seeing the many previews.

While romantic dramas are hard to pull off with a sense of originality these days, The Vow makes the attempt by reconfigure an amnesia story in the context of a romantic drama. Unfortunately, The Vow falls into many of the conceits of a love story geared toward the moon-eyed female demographic that producers assume don’t understand movies. Yes, the first thing that annoyed me in The Vow was the use of a voiceover. When a car is crashing on screen, followed by flashbacks, we hardly need someone to tell us what is going on.

Paige and Leo are young lovers who are in a horrible car accident. While Leo pretty much walks away from the crash, Paige is seriously injured and put in a coma. While Leo waits by her side, he recalls how they fell in love, grew together, and got married. When Paige awakens, in her mind it is five years earlier. She is engaged to Jeremy, studying at law school, and is very close with her parents. She is initially alarmed by Leo, his attention, and his insistence that they are married.

The issue is not helped by Jeremy, who is still sore about how Paige left him and wants her back, nor by Paige’s parents who have not forgotten their disappointment over how Paige left law school to become an artist. Leo, refusing to give up on his love for Paige, tries to open her up to him and the art she fell in love with, trying desperately to save the life and wife he hoped for.

The Vow is, despite the set-up, a very typical romance movie. While it is based upon a true story, there are obvious licenses taken and viewed objectively, much of the movie follows the traditional romantic movie paradigm that forces a woman to choose between one of two men. The big problem I had with The Vow was that the characters were not so distinctive or interesting as to keep me guessing or engaged. While Paige has the two different professional views – split from law and art – there is little surprise to the idea that Paige is a character who was torn between what was expected of her and what she actually liked doing.

While The Vow remains focused on Leo and Paige, the nature of the story forces the inclusion of concerned friends. I had an easier time dealing with the whole disappointed parents subplot than I did the predictable “Paige gets overwhelmed by friends” bit where it becomes clear that many of the relationships she had changed over the five years between what she remembers and now. That aspect was about as predictable as the unwavering love and affection Leo has for Paige and in many ways both have to be written off as functions of That Kind Of Movie. The Vow, despite its set-up, is not going for anything terribly original. It wants to play off the heartstrings and the story of love and devotion that are so pure is frequently uplifting.

In a movie where the concept and mood are the key selling points where the characters are not the most incredible ever put on screen, The Vow relies heavily upon the actors. The Vow is, in many ways, Channing Tatum’s attempt to keep the Dear John (reviewed here!) fanbase alive and buying his tickets before he appears in the riskier 21 Jump Street or guy-themed G.I. Joe: Retalliation later this year. He is brooding, puppy-dogged in his devotion and easy on the eyes. There is, however, no satisfying explanation for why a musician is built like a small fortress, as Tatum is.

The supporting performances in The Vow are decent. Sam Neill makes good use of his brief role as Paige’s father, as does Jessica Lange who has a good run as Paige’s mother. Scott Speedman actually holds his own on camera with Channing Tatum, though he has less innate chemistry with Rachel McAdams than Tatum does, making the direction of the film more obvious than anything else. At the very least, none of the supporting performances distract or detract from the main thrust of the film.

That brings us to Rachel McAdams. McAdams is one of those rising stars who seems to be able to do just about anything and in The Vow, she does not disappoint. While the love scenes might be exactly what one expects of her, her ability to credibly play an amnesiac stretches her talents in a new direction. Fortunately, McAdams lives up and her performance – despite issues with the character – holds up quite nicely. She plays confident with the same skill as she does befuddled and she is a treat to watch in The Vow.

In the end, though, even Rachel McAdams is not quite enough to get me to recommend The Vow. The film is solidly average and not nearly as original as one might hope.

For other films with Channing Tatum, please check out my reviews of:
21 Jump Street
Haywire
Dear John
G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra

5/10

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

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

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Still Underwhelming Me, Jurassic Park Entertains, But Not Much More.

The Good: Interesting idea, A few good lines, Generally good acting, Good direction, Good DVD bonus features.
The Bad: Light on character development, Predictable reversals, Erratic special effects
The Basics: Jurassic Park is an action adventure film that milks a simple premise and fractures into a weird high-minded debate on science vs. commerce and people running in horror.


I remember when Jurassic Park was THE big special effects film of the summer. It was back in 1993 and I was working at a summer camp and most of my peers were excited about the movie. I saw it at a cheap theater on my day off and was unimpressed. I pretty much never gave the film or the franchise that sprouted up from it another thought until my wife and I were at the library looking for a movie to watch. I knew she was a fan and I suggested it when she was steering me toward inane comedies instead. What I was not prepared for was an afternoon where she asked me to hold her close and every five minutes asked, "Aren't you scared?!" I swear, she was less freaked out during A Nightmare On Elm Street and frankly I found the movie to be exactly as I had remembered it.

Jurassic Park is a very average summer blockbuster attempt that hopes audiences will be dazzled by the special effects, dramatic score and people running on screen to not notice the predictability of the character arcs and camera movements that telegraph virtually everything. I've found films resonate with me more when I actually care about the characters and Jurassic Park might have actors performing well, but there are no characters I empathize with for very long and frankly the film and franchise could have ended with the whole lot of them getting squished in a flung car and I am fairly sure I would not have felt cheated. That said, Jurassic Park is entertaining and for those looking for an entertaining popcorn movie they can watch and shut their brains off for, this certainly fits the bill.

After an incident on an island near Costa Rica that costs a man his life, an insurance agent is sent to get experts to testify to the safety of a new theme park. Shrouded in mystery, the creator of the theme park, John Hammond, journeys to a dig where he convinces doctors Alan Grant and Ellie Sattler to come with him to the island home of his new theme park. Flown with the lawyer and fellow scientist Ian Malcolm, the pair finds themselves on a remote island populated by genetically engineered dinosaurs! Amazed by the potential and impressed by the ambition, the scientists nevertheless resist the spectacle of Jurassic Park to do a real and thorough inspection of it.

However, when one of Hammond's workers is corrupted by greed and attempts to flee the island in advance of an impending storm with the genetic material used to clone the dinosaurs, Grant, Sattler, and Malcolm find themselves stranded in the park with Hammond's grandkids, Tim and Lex. While Sattler is able to return to the base to try to restore power to the malfunctioning theme park, Malcolm is wounded and Grant and the kids must brave a night where they are hunted in the wild by carnivorous dinosaurs like the Tyrannosaurus Rex and a trio of velociraptors.

Jurassic Park is two movies, unfortunately neither one is terribly extraordinary. The first is a high-minded debate on the limits of scientific enterprise, the second is an action-adventure film. The way the first Jurassic Park fails is that it comes out of nowhere. After seeing the first elements of the process of creating the dinosaurs, Dr. Malcolm suddenly starts spouting off about the irresponsibility of the endeavor. He makes accusations - like that the scientists did not earn the discoveries they employed to engineer the dinosaurs - that have no support in the context of the film. After all, in the appropriately hokey theme park film, the process of capturing dinosaur DNA is detailed and the process of making the dinosaurs from it is laid out. The way it is described is exactly how science works; discovery builds on discovery and the prior discoveries are applied to the current methods and the field is pushed forward.

This is not to say Malcolm - or writers Michael Crichton and David Koepp - does not make some good points, especially on how commerce is exploiting science for its own gain in the concept of Jurassic Park. The problem is how it comes up. Malcolm is far less an individual or a character as he is a random string of thesis lines. His mention of chaos theory and his philosophical arguments come with almost no backing within the movie and no real context. All of a sudden, Jeff Goldblum (who plays Malcolm) is speaking and he sounds smart and right, but his arguments are poorly supported - save by the action adventure that follows - and they come up at annoyingly random intervals.

As for the other half of Jurassic Park," the movie is very much a typical and uninspired action-adventure flick. That half of the movie features computer-generated dinosaurs chasing humans, cars getting flung and quick reversals. Unfortunately, while director Stephen Spielberg is usually able to make the shots look good, he hardly ever makes them surprising. As the kids run from velociraptors through a kitchen, the angles used to reveal where the dinosaurs are coming from are all the most predictable and cliche ones (most notably after featuring a kid looking left and right, the dinosaur is revealed to be above). There are the cliche reversals of people tripping and slipping in the rain while running and the usual last-minute rescues and quiet moments suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a new villain.

Almost as bad is the cliche character development. Dr. Grant is characterized as a man who does not like or want children and he is paired up with Tim and Lex. The result is that he spends most of the movie protecting the kids by putting himself in extreme danger. That the character does not swear off children for exactly the reasons he began the movie loathing them for is counterintuitive. In other words, Jurassic Park proves every liability Dr. Grant complained about, but he seems more open to children at the end than at the beginning!

The special effects are erratic, most notably in the computer generated dinosaurs. In Jurassic Park the technology was being pioneered to integrate computer generated beings into live-action films. It is not there yet in this movie and many of the CG-dinosaurs are lit with a poor sense of realism for the real world. Conversely, the actors in the film do a great job interacting with the virtual characters. Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum and the young actors Joseph Mazzello and Ariana Richards all have a strong ability to play opposite nothing real and convince the audience they are looking at real creatures! This is pretty wonderful, especially as many movies since have failed to have performers follow eyelines and such of virtual characters.

Jurassic Park also has a pretty wonderful supporting cast with actors like Wayne Knight and Samuel L. Jackson having memorable (if small) roles in the overall story. And if one shuts their brain off, Jurassic Park is fun, but it is hardly the greatest movie of all time or even a masterwork that is smarter than a popcorn movie.

For other epic science fiction or fantasy film series', be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Star Wars Saga
The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy
The Back To The Future Trilogy

5.5/10

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

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

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More Average Than Anything Else, Daybreakers Is A Decent Science Fiction/Horror Distraction.

The Good: Good effects, Decent premise, Moments of performance
The Bad: Pacing issues, Light on character development
The Basics: Fun but underwhelming, Daybreakers entertainingly explores a world where vampires have taken over and are on the verge of eating themselves into extinction!


I think one of the weaknesses of the average reviewer is that the middle is inadequately represented. For sure, we want to have a firm up or down, yes or no, buy or not buy to everything and ultimately here we get that with the “recommend” or “not recommend.” But when we watch movie previews and wonder if we should go see the film, more often than not, readers want to know that the film is either the best or worst film ever and they want to know why. Sadly, for those looking into seeing Daybreakers, I can’t give you that catharsis of the extremes. Ultimately, the movie is good and worth watching for anyone who likes science fiction or horror, but beyond that, it’s a fairly predictable, underwhelming and . . . well, typical Hollywood special effects film that seems more familiar than it does audacious.

That said, Daybreakers is thrilling escapism and it plays well for those who enjoy the current popularity of vampires in mainstream U.S. culture. This film has a more classic interpretation of vampires and as a result, it also capitalizes on the current obsession with contagions (as represented by the prevalence of zombie films in recent years) and treats vampirism as something of a disease. The kicker is, most of the world in Daybreakers is comprised of vampires and they are not friendly, morally stand-up vampires like in Angel. There is nothing sexy or fun about these vampires; they are ruthless, they control the world and they are desperate for human blood.

In 2019, Earth is run by vampires. They seem generally happy on Earth, feeding when they want, owning everything and looking at immortality as a gift that leaves them the chosen ones over the few remaining humans. But scientists at Bromley Marks understand that the dominance of the vampire is dependent upon a plentiful human blood supply, as evidenced by the emergence of subsiders, monstrous creatures that resemble bats and are what unfed vampires turn into when they starve. Looking to prevent the bulk of the population from devolving into crazed animals, Charles Bromley charges his scientists, most notably Edward Dalton, with finding a substitute to human blood that vampires can live on.

Fighting for the survival of humanity is Elvis, who has been cured of his vampirism, and Audrey, who is a human who Edward has feelings for. Elvis represents what Edward truly needs, though, as a cure to vampirism would prevent the population from becoming animals and the two fight as the human population – most of it kept on ice for vampire consumption – dwindles.

Daybreakers is a decent concept for a film, but it feels familiar in some ways and probably because of the prevalence of contagion films in recent years, this seems more a variation on the medical experiment vein than the vampire or zombie flick. To that end, Edward Dalton seems familiar to anyone who has seen I Am Legend and the film seems more obsessed with maintaining the conventions of contemporary film than actually defying them. To wit, the romantic subplot between Edward and Audrey seems forced and the antagonistic aspect of Charles Bromley seems generic.

Charles Bromley, Edward and even Elvis have some of the same goals and rather than becoming a piece that rises above the stereotypes and is about accepting the consequences of eliminating a contagion against humanity, Daybreakers devolves into a “kill the villain” film. In this way, the film adequately illustrates that no matter what appetites may change for humanity, greed will still reign and that controlling the food supply truly does mean controlling the world. Even so, while the film starts with a compelling conflict that could actually have disparate elements coming together in unforeseen ways, the movie instead falls into routines and patterns that seem more familiar and banal than truly groundbreaking.

Similarly, the special effects in Daybreakers are nothing we haven’t seen before. The morphs for the subsiders are familiar, though the effects department does a decent job of keeping the “reality” of the unreal creatures in the film consistent. Make-up effects throughout the film are decent and hold the interest of viewers and fortunately, the vampires are not “Twilight” style cuddly, underwhelming vampires. Daybreakers has fangs, blood and a sense of menace. Human are the snacks and the film is consistently harrowing for the human characters, even if the soundtrack occasionally telegraphs that menace.

The best acting in the film comes from Willem Dafoe, who plays Elvis. Dafoe plays desperate well and in Daybreakers, he gets to mix the vulnerable with the dangerous and he does that masterfully. Outside him, the acting is pretty blasé. Ethan Hawke is very white bread as Edward, though to be fair, it seems to be in the writing of the character more than the actor’s performance. Similarly, Sam Neill plays Bromley with a monolithic quality that seems entirely familiar. I cannot think of a film I’ve seen where Neill has played a villain, but his performance in this did not surprise me at all. Instead, it seemed like a very limited emotional range for the character.

But there is the difficult aspect of Daybreakers; none of the characters truly pop. It is hard to empathize with the characters as they are either “types” or they are so far removed from their humanity that the viewer does not identify with them. Because most of the human population is either transformed or awaiting exsanguination, there is a bleakness that none of the characters overcome. Even so, Daybreakers is entertaining. I was tempted to write “solidly entertaining,” but even there, the movie is not all it could be. The middle drags and when the inevitable action resurges, Daybreakers picks back up, but the pacing is erratic.

But for those looking for entertainment and nothing deeper, Daybreakers will fit the bill. It has decent action-adventure and enough excitement to keep the blood running in your veins. But it does not transcend the genre; it’s not great filmmaking or storytelling by any means.

For other vampire films, please check out my reviews of:
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Blade: Trinity
Let The Right One In

5/10

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

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




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Neglected Perfection: How Bicentennial Man Was Overlooked By Audiences (Who, Hopefully, Are Smart Enough To Pick It Up Now!)

The Good: Character development, Plot development, Thematic richness, Pacing
The Bad: I could stand to have some bonus features for the DVD presentation, especially a commentary track!
The Basics: Bicentennial Man is an engaging film which illustrates well the complicated nature of freedom and humanity as a robot makes the journey from machine to man.


A few months ago, I struck upon a pretty brilliant plan. While I was comparatively debtless, I joined a movie club to stock up on gifts for my wife and that worked out great on one front. I now have a stash of gifts to filter out to her on special occasions and I am very much prepared for them. Unfortunately, I have also discovered that this makes me less attentive to the actual dates of those significant events and the first one I missed was our 25 month anniversary (it's silly, I know, but I celebrate my love for my wife every day, so once a month is not a bad thing!). To make up for it, two nights ago, I went into the box and got out the appropriate gift and presented it to her. That gift was Bicentennial Man and it was a real hit with her. She was thrilled that I had actually listened to her and had picked a gift that was truly one she wanted for her permanent collection. It was such a hit that my plans for the night were instantly disrupted and I was compelled to sit and watch it.

And I am exceptionally glad I did! Those who follow my many reviews might know that I have a profound loathing for the movie A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. I have serious issues with it and Bicentennial Man has a similar premise. Fortunately, Chris Columbus's Bicentennial Man is light years better than A.I.: Artificial Intelligence and I was left baffled at how American audiences had failed to make Bicentennial Man one of the most respected and highest grossing films of all time. So, for those going back and considering such things, I proudly add Bicentennial Man to my list of perfect films.

Bicentennial Man is an epic film and a surprisingly intimate character study, both at the same time. It is cerebral, clever and charming enough to be entertaining without being schmaltzy. It is a powerful work and while there is some simplicity in the plot development, at least for fans of science fiction, it is not unwelcome for its directness. And I appreciated that the movie never insulted my intelligence, which made me respect it more and suspect that most audiences a decade ago simply didn't "get" it. After enduring the flash and sparkle of The Matrix and Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (reviewed here!) earlier that year, perhaps audiences were not prepared for anything so cerebral as Bicentennial Man. This makes the film one of the best, most neglected endeavors in cinematic history.

In 2005, the Martin family receives a robot from NorthAm Robotics, which Richard Martin thinks is a cool gift for his family. Richard treats the robot, which "Little Miss" calls Andrew, like a household appliance. The spiteful older daughter in the Martin family, Grace, encourages Andrew to throw himself out the window, an act which damages Andrew and sets him on a journey of self-actualization. While repaired physically, Andrew begins to express desires of his own. Given the task of building clocks by Richard, Amanda ("Little Miss") argues that Andrew should receive compensation for his work and over the decades Andrew achieves great wealth. Throughout her young adulthood, Amanda grows to appreciate Andrew more and more, despite the fact that he is a robot.

Decades later, Andrew purchases his freedom, gets an upgrade that allows him to be more expressive with his facial expressions and goes on a search for other NorthAm robots. Through his search, he discovers that he is unique; that most of the other NorthAm robots were used as simple tools and never evolved beyond their initial programming. Returning to the Martin family, he finds Amanda an old lady and her granddaughter Portia to be antagonistic and bearing a troubling resemblance to Amanda. Having met the descendant of one of the NorthAm designers, Rupert Burns, Andrew begins to design the means to make himself more and more human in his quest to be recognized as a true life form.

Honestly, I'm at a loss as to why this film did not do better in the theater. It is not a big special effects film, but it is deep, complex and thoroughly enjoyable. As I pointed out to my wife, I had seen the much shorter film Priest (reviewed here!) the night before, but the much longer Bicentennial Man felt much shorter! This moves along at a decent clip and there is constantly the feeling that the movie is going somewhere. In fact, the only reason I can think that fans of science fiction didn't leap upon Bicentennial Man was that they had a similar character arc in Data through the seven years of Star Trek: The Next Generation (reviewed here!).

And that is what Bicentennial Man truly is, a character study. Andrew is a viable, interesting life form and the complicated relationship he has with Amanda and then Portia is compelling to watch. His journey of self-discovery is funny and heartwrenching and it is executed on a scale that is appropriate. What makes Bicentennial Man work as well as it does is that the changes in Andrew do not happen instantly; they develop over the course of decades as the little changes - getting paid, getting actual freedom, upgrading his body - compound to have more serious consequences and reactions. This is well-illustrated in Bicentennial Man as Andrew grows through the three primary relationships: his relationships with Richard, Amanda and then Portia/Rupert. Bicentennial Man does not rush the character development and it entertains while it moves at a realistic pace.

One of the clever aspects of Bicentennial Man on the character front is how it also gets rid of the characters when they are no longer necessary. Little Miss's sister, Grace, is bratty and unpleasant and after the early scenes where she resents Andrew and then grows into a pretty skanky annoyance, she and her whole line of the Martin family disappear from the narrative.

Then there is the acting. Bicentennial Man is the Robin Williams film for anyone who does not like Robin Williams. His acting is impeccable and truly great. This is the performance of his career. His sense of comic timing is wonderful in the scenes where he must be funny and Williams actually acts because he is not performing anywhere close to his usual manic stage presence. Instead, Williams succeeds by showing amazing restraint and he embodies a truly different character from any he played before or has played since. There is not a single moment in the film where the viewer feels they are watching Robin Williams instead of Andrew.

Williams has a lot of support from an amazing cast, which includes Sam Neill in the role of Richard, which allows him to subtly develop and loosen his stiff character into one who can foster Andrew's growing ambitions. Oliver Platt enters the narrative late as Rupert and he gives his usual solid supporting performance. Even Hallie Kate Eisenberg, whose only other work I was aware of were the Pepsi commercials (she was the cute little girl in the late-'90's who would sip Pepsi and smirk in a way that was supposed to be adorable, but most of us found overplayed and annoying), is great at the young Little Miss. She nails the humanity and excitement of being a young girl and gives Embeth Davidtz - who plays both the older Amanda and Portia - a solid foundation to work from. Davidtz's performance was so good that after seeing Bicentennial Man, I wanted to see what else she has done.

The only real drawback of Bicentennial Man is that the DVD is exceptionally light on bonus features. The barebones version has a single short featurette and two previews. A film this wonderful deserves more, like a deluxe Criterion Collection treatment.

Some films are commercials flops because they are terrible movies and they deserve to be forgotten. Some movies fail because they are released at the wrong time and simply do not find their audience. Those movies often come back when they are discovered or recovered years later and amply plugged by people who point out that the movie deserves time and attention which it lacked in the initial release. Right now, I am raising my voice to say that Bicentennial Man deserves the audience is did not get before. Pick it up and watch it; you'll want to share the movie with others once you do!

For other films that ask great, existential questions, check out my reviews of:
Inception
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
The Truman Show

10/10

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

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



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A Musical Instrument That Sinks: The Piano

The Good: Beautifully shot, Well-acted
The Bad: Bland characters, Non-existent plot, Murky message, Tone
The Basics: Good looking, but The Piano is otherwise a film not worth your time and effort. Unrelentingly depressing and pointless. Unsatisfying in almost every way.


Having just seen the truly magnificent film The Red Violin, I decided to try my luck with another critically acclaimed movie revolving around a musical instrument. If I've concluded anything today, it's that violins are vastly superior to pianos. At least where independent films are concerned.

The Piano follows the brief adventure of Ada (played by Holly Hunter), an apparently mute woman for whom the word "adventure" is certainly relative. She arrives at the beginning of the film in New Zealand, apparently, with her traveling supplies, her daughter, and her piano. Ada defines herself as someone who simply does not want to talk and her daughter is quickly characterized as young and impish enough to spread rumors about her silence.

Ada communicates through her sign language and mostly through her piano. The notes and chords she plays are indicative of her moods. Her sole form of emotive self expression is through the piano. Why? Your guess is as good as mine, it's one of the many holes the film leaves at the end.

Ada arrives in the states for an arranged marriage to a typically arrogant colonist played by Sam Neill. He employs George (played by Harvey Kietel) as an intermediary between himself and the natives. George becomes instantly fascinated with Ada and her piano.

What results is Ada's frustrations with her new husband are released upon George. The film then proceeds into a fairly pointless series of escapades and encounters between Ada and George and Ada and her husband. It doesn't take terribly long for her hate for George to waver and passions to ignite. It's truly as cheesy and romance-novel themed as I made it sound. And yes, there is a ripped bodice.

When Ada's husband finds out, bad things happen and it's sufficiently disturbing enough for me to never want to see the film again. And I'm not terribly squeamish.

Where The Piano fails is in almost every way. The plot is non-existent or so dumbed down as to feel that way. It views like a dime store romance novel. None of the characters are particularly compelling either. They are all reacting, not acting. That is they don't create situations, they react to what happens to them only. It's a common enough character flaw. It's disturbing though in this context because so many bad things happen.

In fact, The Piano is a study in bad things happening. There are no bright spots, there is no redemption, bad things just keep happening. Everyone seems motivated by power. They all want to control each other and in the most base ways. It's disappointing. Sad.

What works is the acting. Holly Hunter and Sam Neill give their usual wonderful performances. The true gem of the film is Anna Paquin, who plays Ada's daughter. She steals the show and she won an academy award for it. The acting is fine, the characters are worthless, bland, vacuous. They're pathetic.

The only other reason to watch this film is the look of it. It is beautifully filmed. The costumes are gorgeous. It's a shame that nothing decent happens in the amazing vistas and the characters in the costumes are almost non-existent.

For other dramas, please check out my reviews of:
American Beauty
Magnolia
Flash Of Genius

3.5/10

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

© 2010, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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