About As Bad As The Rest Of The Franchise: Transformers: The Last Knight

The Good: Great cast, Most of the special effects
The Bad: Banal plot, Lack of real character development, Terrible lines delivered unconvincingly by great actors.
The Basics: Transformers: The Last Knight is not great, but it is more par for the course than being truly terrible.


Transformers: The Last Knight is out and the press for it has been pretty bad in general. I'm feeling like bucking that trend to argue that the cinematic Transformers has been pretty lousy in general and Transformers: The Last Knight is pretty much what one expects as opposed to being an all-out terrible film. Transformers: The Last Knight is bad, but lately I've seen far worse films.

Michael Bay has not been recreating Casablanca for the past ten years with the Transformers franchise. He makes films for Summer Blockbuster Season filled with explosions, computer-generated special effects, and direction that lasciviously passes the camera slowly over whatever female lead the film possesses. To be fair to Transformers: The Last Knight, there is far less of the camera exploiting women than in the four prior installments of the franchise. Unfortunately, there are more retcons that place Transformers and alien technology on Earth in the past and make the movie fit very poorly into any continuity with the others, despite the fact that more of the cast from the first three movies recurs in Transformers: The Last Knight.

Opening in Briton during Camelot, Merlin and Arthur enlist Transformers to thwart their enemies. Flashing forward to the present, some Transformers have taken refuge in other countries, while in America the teenager Izabella uncovers a downed Transformer in the ruins of a baseball stadium. Izabella is a homeless girl who is rescued by Cade Yeager. The pair are hunted back to Cade's junkyard by the American military. Colonel Lennox has become aware that the Decepticons under the newly resurfaced Megatron are hunting something that they believe Cade has.

Off Earth, Optimus Prime crashes into Cybertron, which is headed toward Earth with the planet's creator, Quintessa. Quintessa reprograms Optimus Prime to wipe out humanity and remake Earth into a new homeworld for the Transformers. The chase of Cade Yeager takes him to England where Sir Edmund Burton has been part of the line of humans working with Transformers to protect the Earth. Burton brings in Vivian Wembley, the last surviving descendant of Merlin, who has access to technology and information that sends her and Cade under the sea to recover an artifact that will allow them to thwart the Decepticons, Quintessa, and the ensorceled Optimus Prime.

Transformers: The Last Knight is exactly what one expects of a Transformers movie. The human characters are mundane, poorly characterized and deliver far more expository dialogue than anything that is clever and defines the characters in unique and interesting ways. Transformers: The Last Knight picks up after Transformers: The Age Of Extinction (reviewed here!), so it begins with the Transformers abandoned by Optimus Prime who flew off Earth at the end of that film.

Blending the main characters from the early Transformers films - Lennox, General Morshower, and Agent Simmons - with Cade Yeager and newer Transformers like Hound, Transformers: The Last Knight just continues the banal franchise with more explosions, more robot on robot fights and an absurd predicament that absolutely defies rational physics. Transformers: The Last Knight asks viewers to accept as credible that there is a scientist who denies the existence of magic and fantasy in a world with Transformers who fails to point out that a planet-sized object rushing toward Earth would completely destroy the Earth long before that object starts ripping apart the surface and extracting massive chunks of technology. Only the least-sophisticated viewer could believe that the Earth could survive in any recognizable way after the events of Transformers: The Last Knight.

Arguably the most disappointing aspect of Transformers: The Last Knight is that Jeff Bridges does not appear in the movie in any form. Astute fans will note that in Transformers: The Age Of Extinction one of the sound clips used as Bumblebee's dialogue was from The Big Lebowski. Transformers: The Last Knight is like a mini-reunion for The Big Lebowski (reviewed here!) with the return of John Turturro and John Goodman (albeit as a voice-only actor in the film) and the introduction of Steve Buscemi as the Autobot Daytrader. And that was the most exciting aspect of Transformers: The Last Knight.

Sir Anthony Hopkins is wasted as Sir Edmund Burton and it seems like the only reason he is in the film to get the venerable actor to call someone a dick and make other remarks that are well-below his usual level of diction. Stanley Tucci's cameo in the film is virtually unrecognizable and newcomers Laura Haddock and Isabela Moner add nothing significant to the mix. Marc Wahlberg is fine as Cade, but it seems like outside his physical performance, the main reason to have him in Transformers: The Last Knight is to pull off a scene where characters act amazed that Cade has been celibate for years.

The Transformers themselves are hapless robots in Transformers: The Last Knight with no clear sense of boundaries or sensibility. Optimus Prime is reprogrammed by his creator . . . but Bumblebee being willing to sacrifice himself and deliver lines in his own voice is enough to change his programming?! And Prime leaps back up to Cybertron with other Transformers not worrying that he'll simply be reprogrammed again and come back murderous again?!

So, Transformers: The Last Knight is just a pretty bad action adventure film that does the usual Summer Blockbuster Season thing that has been done by the franchise four other times and by far better movies many, many more times.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Rough Night
The Mummy
Wonder Woman
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales
Baywatch
Alien: Covenant
Guardians Of The Galaxy, Volume 2

3.5/10

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

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Spotlight Is Another Film Where The Effects Are More Disappointing Than The Movie!

The Good: Pacing, Plot development, Decent performances
The Bad: Light on character development
The Basics: Impressive and worthwhile, Spotlight is difficult to watch more because the viewer will know it did not destroy the Catholic Church as opposed to any flaws within the film!


Today, I'm watching my last Best Picture nominee (I'm foregoing Mad Max: Fury Road because genre films and sequels have virtually no representation in Best Picture Oscar winners and Bridge Of Spies because it seems more like a courtesy nomination to Steven Spielberg than a genuine contender for the big prize): Spotlight. Spotlight is this year's big issue-based controversy nominee, following in the footsteps of movies like Doubt and Selma (reviewed here!). The film has one of the best-nominated casts of the year and it has a simplistic plot (for a film) that follows in the cinematic history of films like All The President's Men (reviewed here!).

Spotlight is based on how the reporters at the Boston Globe did investigative work to expose the conspiracy within the local Catholic Church whereby it silenced complainants from molestation victims. While Spotlight is based upon real and historical events, it is a film. It is important to note that; that when I refer to characters in the film - and judge them - it is only the film's characters I am talking about, not the historic personas upon which the film is based.

Opening in a prison in Boston, Massachussets in 1975, a desk sergeant and a cop discuss a suspect and the complainant they have in a room. The beat cop is outside and surprised when the priest and the bishop walk out and there will be no arraignment. At the Boston Globe in 2001, Walter Robinson meets with the new editor, Marty Baron. Robinson works on the Spotlight team, a special investigative group that breaks controversial stories that take up to a year to investigate and break. At his first writer's meeting, Baron reacts to a column on the "Geoghan case," a three year-old priest molestation case, where it appears that the Cardinal and local Catholic church knew about a Boston priest molested eighty children going back at least fifteen years. Robinson and his team investigate the Church.

Reporter Mike Rezendes interviews lawyer Mitchell Garabedian about the cases (84 of them) involving Catholic priests who molested children. Garabedian is almost paranoid about the Church and the way it has hounded him since he first started representing molestation victims. As the Spotlight team begins to investigate, they discover how much blowback there is from the Church and the community. The team quickly realizes that the pattern that the support group leader told them about might actually be real. After interviewing molestation victims, clergy and lawyers, the team fights to break the story. When an analyst investigating the psychological phenomenon since the 1960s implies that the paper's number of 13 bad priests in Boston should be (statistically) 90, the Spotlight team realizes that they might have a much bigger story.

Spotlight accurately portrays and recreates the effects and stories of molestation victims. It is difficult to hear their stories, but viewers have to acknowledge that it must have been far more difficult to actually be a molestation victim. Spotlight expertly details how the abusive priests act as predators to children of low-income families. When the clues point in the direction of a vastly higher number, the investigative reporting aspect of the story takes priority in the film.

In addition to accurately giving voice to victims of sexual abuse, Spotlight illustrates how a tenacious team of reporters actually works. Much of the magic of the story of Spotlight is that the characters care and they fight to ask the important questions. As the story that the Spotlight team is working on is derailed by the September 11, 2001 attacks, its members become passionate about breaking the story. The characters are tenacious and they ask questions and fight to expose the truth.

Mike Rezendes, Walter Robinson, Sacha Pfeiffer, Matt Carroll, and Marty Baron are not overly complicated characters; they share many of the same traits. Garabedian and Macleish are bound by professional ethics, but still made attempts in their past to break the story - but no one listened to them. Carroll has children he is afraid might encounter one of the priests, Pfeiffer loses her faith and Robinson discovers that his Catholic school had priests who victimized people he knew.

While Spotlight is very much an ensemble piece, Mike Rezendes and Robinson dominate the character aspect of the narrative. Rezendes lost his faith long ago, but he always thought he might go back to church. Rezendes, as played by Mark Ruffalo, presents a level of anger that the audience feels long before he exhibits it. Robinson quickly realizes how the "code of silence" and the mechanisms of keeping people silent worked. The characters are generally focused and intense and their commitment to getting the story right is only momentarily trumped by the desire not to get scooped by another Boston newspaper.

The cast of Spotlight is predictably amazing. If there is any, even minor supporting, role that Stanley Tucci cannot absolutely rock, I don't yet know it. Tucci is amazing is impressive in his conflicted role of Mitchell Garabedian. Liev Schreiber might quietly growl his way through all of his lines in ways that are very familiar for the performer, but he makes the role of Marty Baron magnetic to watch. Brian D'Arcy James, John Slattery, Billy Crudup, Mark Ruffalo, Michael Keaton, and Michael Keaton are all wonderful in their very straightforward roles.

Spotlight is a film based on an issue and an investigation even more than the characters involved in it, so it is a triumph how captivating the film is when its results are already known to almost all viewers. The extent of the sexual abuse problem in the Catholic Church is presented as completely stunning and it is astonishing that the 2002 story the Boston Globe broke did not lead to massive systemic changes. Like The Big Short (reviewed here!), Spotlight explores a massive problem that was exposed and had the potential to change the world . . . but didn't.

Director Tom McCarthy directs Spotlight well, but the story is not a particularly flashy or cinematic one. Spotlight is like a play on screen, but McCarthy and the performers make it work well enough to be an engaging and enduring film.

For other works with Len Cariou, please visit my reviews of:
"Coda" - Star Trek: Voyager
Thirteen Days
About Schmidt

9/10

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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Carnage To Catharsis The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 Is A Dismal End!

The Good: Moments of theme and performance, Special effects
The Bad: Unlikable or under-developed characters, Plot oscillates between predictable and undeveloped, Resolution
The Basics: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 puts to rest a series that managed to get produced at the right time . . . but will not satisfy serious film buffs.


When it comes to The Hunger Games, the truth is, the franchise did not particularly grab me. I was pretty much repulsed by The Hunger Games (reviewed here!) and while I liked Catching Fire (reviewed here!) well-enough, Mockingjay - Part 1 (reviewed here!) pretty much lost me. I just don't care about Panem. So, I was in no rush to run out and see The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2. But, with it being a holiday and me being on the road alone, I figured it was time to pay my Hunger Games dues and take in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2.

Right off the bat, I've not read the books upon which the films in The Hunger Games Saga were based. This is a pure review of the film and the movie confirmed what I suspected the moment I saw The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1: Part 1 should have ended the moment the rescued Peeta Mellark reached up and began struggling Katniss Everdeen. Instead, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 begins with the potential of a young woman literally finding her voice and then rising up to raise a rebellion; instead, it is a movie about a mediocre woman using violence to solve her problems. Katniss Everdeen is supposed to be the hero fans root for, but Finnick made more substantive leaps in exposing the corruptions of President Snow, tyrant leader of Panem, in the prior film. Katniss does not follow Finnick's example in using logic, truth, and helping to turn the people of Panem against the corrupt President; as in the prior films, she mopes around until she shoots her problems away with her bow.

Having rescued Peeta from the Capitol, the rebels in District 13 are horrified to see how he has been brainwashed into an animal, intent on killing Katniss. Katniss, however, fights to keep Peeta alive and she is eager to end the conflict with Snow by getting support from other Districts. Her first attempt to shoot a propaganda film amid revolutionaries and refugees ends up with her getting shot. With the rebellion apparently crumbling, President Snow starts to weed out those close to him who might be political rivals, using poison like Finnick previously revealed. Despite being loathed now by Peeta, Katniss tries desperately to save him and be close to him, even though he is still violent from the venom that was used on him by the Capitol.

After Annie and Finnick marry, Katniss joins the squad being sent into the Capitol to disarm the traps that Snow has set. En route to Snow's mansion, Katniss and her companions are beset by creatures, weapons, and obstacles - much like the victors of the Hunger Games encountered during the games - and from Peeta's inability to control himself or overcome his programming. But as the resistance nears victory, Katniss gets information that suggests to her that Snow might not be the only villain in Panem and when someone close to Katniss is murdered as part of political theater, Katniss decides she alone must end it.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 failed to do what I've been waiting for in all of the films in The Hunger Games Saga: it did not make me care about the characters or Panem. Yes, oppression is absolutely terrible, but Panem in the films of The Hunger Games is a fiefdom of Districts serving the Capitol at a cost of two lives per District per year (one for the victor's district). The system has been working for 74 years at the beginning of The Hunger Games and, substantively, it is analogous to an unrestrained Capitalist system with an authoritarian government, so it was a hard dystopia for me to get into or care about (we have it as bad in real life; we just get to go to the movies and get a new smartphone once in a while). The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 fails to make the viewer invested in the world of Panem.

Even worse, in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 it is almost impossible to care what becomes of the film's protagonist. There is no allegory in the film, so Katniss heals until she acts, mopes until she rages and the journey is unsatisfying . . . especially when one considers it without the "wow" factor of the special visual effects. Add to that, the love triangle where Katniss's heart is pulled by both Gale and Peeta is expanded in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2, which feels like a time drain in an already packed film. The love triangle could have been left out and perhaps a scene could have been put in where Katniss sees evidence of the film's other primary villain, as opposed to simply taking other people's words for it.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 is notable in its underuse of performers Jena Malone (who, frankly, I can always stand to see more of in films) and Stanley Tucci. Elizabeth Banks plays Effie Trinket with less of an annoying quality than in the prior installment, so at least her talents are not as wasted this time around.

Ultimately, though, the time is wasted. Who lives? Who dies? It doesn't matter, so long as there's an Evangelical-friendly scene to cap off the movie with utter denial of the initial characterizations of the characters the corniest summing up of the events of the Saga. That, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 absolutely has.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
SPECTRE
Bleeding Heart
Hotel Transylvania 2

3.5/10

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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An Illustration Of Consequences For Those Who Do Not Understand Nuance: The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1.

The Good: Themes, Decent use of the expanded cast
The Bad: Unlikable characters, Plot is more set-up than substance
The Basics: More a tease for the final installment, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 is thematically heavy-handed and the film is surprisingly easy to skip!


Despite the fact that my review of Catching Fire (that’s here!) remains one of my most-read reviews, I am not what one might call an enthusiast of The Hunger Games franchise. In fact, when the cinematic rendition of The Hunger Games (reviewed here!) was released, I argued that even reviewing it was utterly pointless; the novel series had such a huge fanbase and Lionsgate had thrown so much advertising at the undecided masses that it was going to be a huge phenomenon regardless of critical analysis. At this point, there is little purpose to bothering to review The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1, either, except for those who might have soured on the franchise from the first two films and need a reason to go and see it or skip it.

My vote is actually in the “skip it” category. Not since 28 Weeks Later (reviewed here!) has there been such an unnecessary sequel. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 is entirely a transition movie and given where it begins (desperately hinging on seeing Catching Fire) and where is ends (with, presumably*, the initiating incident which will finally crystallize the budding rebellion in the world of Panem), it seems like it would be virtually impossible to watch The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 2 when it is released next year and not get everything that happens in Part 1 from context clues. Seriously; if anyone out there is on the fence and willing to try, I’d love to be proven right on this one! The reason for this is simple: despite the influx of characters into the universe of The Hunger Games, the ones who survive The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 are only incrementally moved in this film. And, on the plot front, what events do occur in the film have ramifications that will undeniably be self-evident in the second part . . . and the rest is just a dressed up version of what we saw in Catching Fire. [* I wrote “presumably” because I have not read the books, so perhaps the final film will take an abrupt right turn from the direction it has been going for the past three films, though I doubt it!]

The 28 Weeks Later analogy is not an inapt one; where 28 Days Later described the horror of uninfected people fleeing crowds of infected individuals and left it up to the viewer, like the protagonist of the film, to grasp the level of horror and change in the world, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 illustrates over and over and over again what Catching Fire began and showed quite enough of. In Catching Fire, President Snow’s tenuous grasp over the 12 Districts of Panem is slipping and he sends in faceless soldiers into the Districts to do things like beat insubordinate old men to death and shoot rebels and menace crowds with firearms just off camera from televised events. We get it; people are rebelling, Snow’s forces are pretty mercilessly killing them. When that, and the 75th Annual Hunger Games, fail utterly, Snow uses his military to bomb Katniss Everdeen’s home district right off the map. We get it.

So, where Catching Fire unfortunately repeated the plot conceit of The Hunger Games for its latter half, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 browbeats the audience with repetition of Snow’s desperate attempts to retain power and control over the districts that pay tribute to his Capital. Where Catching Fire had an old man getting his head blown off, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 ups the stakes with a line-up of children. Snow, apparently, is not the only one too stupid to realize that if fear failed to keep people in line, more fear won’t stop the rebellious forced; director Francis Lawrence and the screenwriters assume the audience needs to see more and more violent incidents to understand that.

We don’t.

Following her arrival in the subterranean District 13, Katniss Everdeen learns that the world of Panem is on the edge of full-scale revolution. Despite District 12 being obliterated, Katniss’s losses are remarkably small; she is reunited with her sister and Gale in District 13. There, she meets District 13’s “President,” Alma Coin. Coin and Plutarch Heavensbee want Katniss to become the symbolic leader of the revolution, a figurehead that will galvanize their movement. But Katniss is frustrated and determined that Peeta be rescued from the clutches of President Snow. When Peeta, who was captured after the arena was destroyed during the climax of the last Hunger Games, is shown on broadcasts as enemies to the Rebellion, Katniss is convinced that Peeta has been brainwashed and must be saved.

In exchange for committing forces to a rescue operation, Katniss allows Coin and Heavensbee to use her for their own propaganda machine. The result is a conflict that does not climax, a character whose heroic journey is stalled, and a film that seems much more like filler than flash.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 is thematically unsettling in that protagonist Katniss Everdeen, who worked very hard to resist being a part of Snow’s propaganda machine in the prior installment, is willing to be a part of Coin’s media blitz against Snow in this one. Either way, she’s just a tool and like Snow menacing her family in exchange for her campaigning and illustrating love for Peeta, Coin withholds resources to rescue Peeta until Katniss commits to help her cause.

Unfortunately, The Hunger Games: Mockingjay – Part 1 flops even more in-context of the larger Saga . . . for anyone who has a memory. Katniss Everdeen didn’t love Peeta in The Hunger Games, she did not particularly love him in Catching Fire (though she was protective of him). In Mockingjay – Part 1, Katniss is more obsessed with saving Peeta without having an emotional connection to him to back that up. Katniss seemed happiest in District 12 when she was with Gale and now she and Gale could be together; from the moment Peeta first appears in Mockingjay – Part 1, the damage he can do is done. He is Snow’s mouthpiece. For a character who has no genuine love for him, assassination should bear the same emotional effect as rescue (a loss to a rebel is a loss to a rebel; how one commits resources says a lot). In the simplest possible terms, Katniss feels more like she is going through the motions with pushing for a rescue attempt as opposed to a character who has a heartfelt love and genuinely likes the guy she is concerned with.

To that end, Jennifer Lawrence does what she can with the role that spends much more time being passive and lackluster than truly compelling. Katniss Everdeen is barely the hero in the process of becoming, as opposed to the “political pawn who realizes she’s actually a rook;” Lawrence has very little she can do with such a limited character.

The rest of the cast is as good as the writing allows them to be. Josh Hutcherson may be bland as a love interest, but as a brainwashed figurehead delivering Snow’s talking points, he seems to have found his niche. Jenna Malone’s time on screen makes no real use of the actress's talents; her character is an afterthought and her appearance is little more than a cameo near the climax of the film. Philip Seymour Hoffman, Woody Harrelson, and Donald Sutherland each return to their roles flawlessly. Julianne Moore, Mahershala Ali, and Robert Knepper join the cast and integrate well. Moore is given the most screentime of the new arrivals and she is exactly what she needs to be in order to sell the character of President Coin. She is dignified enough to be realistically presidential and she delivers the character’s strategies with a sense of pragmatism that makes her a good embodiment of a rebel. While Jeffrey Wright is simply continuing his role of Beetee, he is a pleasure to watch; the part of the intellectual with a grasp of both physical and political sciences suits him well.

Ultimately, though, none of the performances are so superlative that they become the “must see” embodiment of any of the actors’ talents, the characters are not drastically transformed in a way that the next film would not have to say (yet again) what happened to them and the themes are nothing new to the audience of the first two The Hunger Games. The result is a film that may be very safely skipped.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
To Write Love On Her Arms
The Seventh Son
Paddington
Inherent Vice
Selma
Still Alice
Predestination
The Interview
The Hobbit: The Battle Of The Five Armies
Expelled
Annie
Comet
Horrible Bosses 2
10,000 Days
Interstellar

4/10

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

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Michael Bay’s Latest Popcorn Blockbuster Is Everything One Expects . . . Except That It’s Not Terrible! Transformers: Age Of Extinction!

The Good: Decent new characters, Good special effects, Decent continuity and plot concept
The Bad: Formulaic plot, Ridiculous plot/character/directing conceits.
The Basics: More a predictable and unambitious continuation of the Transformers franchise, Transformers: Age Of Extinction is a mildly creative popcorn flick that undermines itself by playing to the worst conceits of the existing franchise.


Were it not for my place as a film reviewer, I never would have watched Transformers, much less all of the films in the recent cinematic empire that has made an obscene amount of cash in remarkably few years. Over the course of the past seven years, Michael Bay’s live-action, CG-effects loaded Transformers franchise has become one of the highest grossing cinematic franchises of all time and a staple of Summer Blockbuster Season. Regardless of my antipathy toward the franchise, Michael Bay’s latest endeavor into the Transformers Saga suffers more from an unimaginative script and a pathetic dependence on the more lascivious elements of the popcorn film than being actually, genuinely terrible.

In fact, outside the way Michael Bay uses the camera to virtually molest yet another female model – in this case one who is playing a minor child – and lamely recreates the familiar shots of convoys of hot, trendy cars that stick out wherever they go. Transformers: Age Of Extinction is actually the best of the franchise (so far), but the dependence on playing toward the lowest common denominator in terms of humor and style (are the only people who would appreciate a Transformers film really those who find a “whoo hoo girl” to be the ideal?!) undermine the quality elements that Transformers: Age Of Extinction possesses. And Transformers: Age Of Extinction actually has some worthwhile elements, most notably in the cast – which replaces Shia LaBeouf, Josh Duhamel, and Tyrese with higher caliber actors like Kelsey Grammer, Stanley Tucci, Titus Welliver, and Mark Wahlbrg (replacing Megan Fox and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley with Nicola Peltz and Sophia Myles is more an even swap-out than an upgrade of any sort) – and the overall plot concept that put it above the prior incarnations of Transformers.

Transformers: Age Of Extinction does what very few popcorn movies do: it is steeped in the consequences of the prior film(s) in a way that makes the continuation/reboot of the franchise surprisingly compelling. Transformers: Age Of Extinction is a direct sequel to Transformers: Dark Of The Moon (reviewed here!) and the wholesale destruction in Chicago and the robotic carnage that happened as a result forces a complete redirection of the franchise. The first half of Transformers: Age Of Extinction is spent introducing new characters and wrestling with the problems left over from Transformers: Dark Of The Moon before the second half progresses the story with how irresponsible humans have led to an unholy alliance and a military/industrial complex that has made a bad decision which “the market” pushes into action before adequate testing. While Transformers: Age Of Extinction predictably lacks compelling character development on the front of the virtual characters, the human characters in the film are more than catch phrase-spewing tools; they have motivations that are more well-rounded and realistic than in the prior movies.

In ancient times, a massive space ship floats over Earth and releases technology that obliterates the dinosaurs. Then, five years after the attack on Chicago (which was the subject of the climax of Transformers: Dark Of The Moon), an archaeology team discovers wreckage of an ancient Dinobot (dinosaur Transformer). In Texas, Cade Yeager and his lackey employee, Lucas, go on a salvage mission where they find wreckage from a failed operation in New Mexico in the middle of a defunct movie theater they are considering purchasing (but cannot possibly afford). Yeager’s daughter, Tessa, is embarrassed by her father as the family struggles to afford her imminent college bills (not to mention the mortgage). But in the wake of a U.S. government team flushing out and destroying the Autobot medic, Ratchet, the head of the task force hunting down Transformers in the U.S., the CIA’s special task force director Attinger, steps up his hunt for Optimus Prime.

Optimus Prime, unsurprisingly, is the truck Cade has stashed at Yeager Robotics. Attinger is working with a Transformer bounty hunter who is affiliated with neither the Autobots or the (now completely eliminated) Decepticons and after a disastrous raid on Yeager Robotics, Cade and his family (and Tessa’s boyfriend) are rescued by Optimus Prime. The Yeagers work with Optimus to find what has happened to the remaining Autobots on Earth and their search takes them to KSI, where Joshua Joyce is using the metal from which the Transformers are constructed and the frame of the deceased Megatron to build a whole new race of Transformers. Joyce’s Galvatron manages to hold Optimus Prime in check long enough for Attinger’s Lockdown to enter the fray. But when Lockdown abducts Tessa along with Optimus Prime (fulfilling the deal he had with Attinger), Cade and Tessa’s boyfriend – along with the remaining Autobots – infiltrate Lockdown’s ship on a rescue mission to try to save her and stop the Autobots from ending up as slaves for their original creators.

Transformers: Age Of Extinction is truly an example of “better ingredients, better product” in a lot of ways. For sure, the prior incarnations of Transformers featured acting and vocal talents from some respectable individuals – like John Turturro, Leonard Nimoy, Jon and John Malkovich – but the way Wahlberg, Grammer and Tucci are used in Transformers: Age Of Extinction illustrates a far better use of acting talent than the prior films.

For a film that deals with consequences of the prior movies, there is a strange disconnect between reason and the reality of the Transformers universe in Transformers: Age Of Extinction. Joyce is greedy and motivated by a desire to push ahead human technology using technology scrapped from downed Transformers. Oddly, Joyce is resource poor in Transformers: Age Of Extinction, which makes no reasonable sense. Devastator’s “corpse” alone should have given Joyce enough “Transformium” to build his new Transformers without ever having to hunt Cybertronian fugitives left on Earth.

The Transformers franchise is a film franchise built on the popularity of a toy line intended for boys from the early 1980s and the movies are generally considered “guy movies.” Unlike dramas that focus on deep emotions or romantic movies geared more toward women, “guy movies” tend to trade almost solely on spectacle. The men are manly (Wahlberg certainly fits the bill in Transformers: Age Of Extinction) and the ones who are not traditionally hot are traditionally powerful, which Grammer’s Attinger and Tucci’s Joyce easily embody. But the weakness of the “guy movie” paradigm continues in Transformers: Age Of Extinction with the role of Tessa Yeager.

Tessa is a generic damsel in distress and is something of a hot, idiotic “whoo hoo girl” who fills the requisite T&A component of the Transformers film. This is somewhat creepily executed in Transformers: Age Of Extinction because she is a minor, not particularly talented or smart in any useful way and spends her time in the film with older men, one of whom is her father. Tessa’s relationship with Shane Dyson is a generic plot point: Peltz (Tessa) and Reynor (Dyson) have no on-screen chemistry and their relationship is not presented with any sort or realistic passion or plot-based basis for a relationship. Attinger and Joyce have more on-screen chemistry and character-based reasons for their relationship than the film’s supposed romantic couple.

Before Transformers: Age Of Extinction degenerates into yet another “Optimus Prime and his CG-robots must stop Megatron” film, Michael Bay’s latest entry into the Transformers mythos is intriguing enough to be entertaining and is hardly as misogynistic or slapstick as the prior three films. The result is a popcorn film that is more predictable than disappointing and is hardly as frustrating to admit one has watched than the prior movies in the franchise.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
The Expendables 3
Guardians Of The Galaxy
Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes
Behaving Badly
Some Velvet Morning
Happy Christmas
Snowpiercer
22 Jump Street
How To Train Your Dragon 2
Edge Of Tomorrow
Maleficent
X-Men: Days Of Future Past
Echo Dr.
The Double
Bad Neighbors
Making The Rules

5.5/10

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

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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On Some Velvet Morning, Stanley Tucci And Alice Eve Play Two Expert Manipulators!

The Good: Well-written, Amazingly well-acted, Decent direction
The Bad: Characters are uninteresting, Cinematically unremarkable
The Basics: Neil LaBute presents a play on film that is all about characters who are complicated and conflicted with Some Velvet Morning.


As I find myself with less and less time these days, I think it makes a statement when I make a choice to go to the movies to actually review new films. I’m not, for example, wasting my very limited time on Godzilla and my budget for indie films has been slashed. So, when I took the time to watch Some Velvet Morning based solely on the presence of Stanley Tucci in the film, it meant that I was, if anything, biased in favor of the film. The truth is, I think Stanley Tucci is one of the most underrated actors of our time. In Neil LaBute’s latest drama, Some Velvet Morning, Stanley Tucci is wonderful, even if the character he is playing is terrible.

That, though, is the essence of great acting; when an actor can completely disappear into a role and give viewers something completely different from what we’ve seen from them before. And in Some Velvet Morning, Stanley Tucci is unsettling and plays the role of Fred with a rage that is boiling just beneath the surface for much of the film that is unlike anything I have ever seen from him before. His character of Fred lacks the easygoing, loose body language charm of, for example, his character from Easy A (reviewed here!). He asserts himself as an actor who can truly do anything in Some Velvet Morning, which makes sense because of his strong theater background. Some Velvet Morning is essentially a play on film, so it is hardly extraordinary moviemaking, though anyone who enjoys character-driven, artsy movies or theatrical plays is likely to enjoy the experience.

Velvet is laying on her couch on a random morning, listening to music, when the doorbell rings repeatedly. She gets up and is shocked to see Fred standing in her doorway with all his luggage. Velvet cautiously invited him in and he reveals that he has left his wife of twenty-four years, Miriam, once and for all. Velvet suggests Fred call his wife, but he engages her in conversation, asking her for a glass of water and getting her to talk about where she is in life. She is reserved and tells him she has friends to meet. Fred draws out that his son, Chris, is still seeing Velvet, despite being married to a woman named Mandy. Fred begins to converse with and manipulate Velvet.

Upset when Fred refers to her as Velvet, ?? (we never learn Velvet's real name) insists that she is not the woman Fred remembers and she storms upstairs. Fred follows her and pushes her for the origins of the nickname “Velvet,” which is much darker than he ever imagined. But she quickly recants and insists she needs to go out. The two continue to verbally spar and when Velvet calls to let Chris know that she will be late, it makes Fred believe he can finally quit feeling love for his former mistress. But their conversation and their manipulations of one another continue, with Fred oscillating between anger and affection, disappointment and hopefulness.

What keeps Some Velvet Morning watchable is how the characters are layered and the film is not at all a monolithic or sterile as its setting (the entire movie occurs in a single house, in about three rooms and a stairway) would suggest. Fred is clearly a manipulator and long before his overt anger comes out, there is an impressive undertone of rage that he embodies early on as he simply insists that Velvet sit beside him. But while Tucci’s Fred is almost instantly characterized as a reprehensibly human being who is clearly manipulating Velvet, Velvet pushes Fred’s buttons and manipulates Fred as well.

To that end, Some Velvet Morning takes a bit of trust to keep watching. For the first half of the film, Some Velvet Morning is largely Fred working his game and his erratic nature makes it seem like he is emotionally beating the hell out of Velvet, but in the latter half, Velvet comes into her own. Velvet knows a game when she sees it and in the second half of the movie, she has moments of taking delight in the way she can push Fred and manipulate him. When Velvet details her history of prostitution with Fred, there are moments she clearly stabs at him with the intent to hurt him.

What surprised me most about Some Velvet Morning was Alice Eve. Eve seems to be typecast more often than not; indeed, she plays Velvet initially with a reserved quality that is virtually identical to her character from Star Trek Into Darkness (reviewed here!). But as Some Velvet Morning progresses, she starts giving a more layered performance. Velvet is smarter than she initially appears and she is onto Fred’s game. So, as Velvet begins to poke back at Fred, Eve manages to portray a similar level of deviousness. The moment Velvet first puts her hand on Fred’s knee, the viewer knows that she is playing Fred just as he is playing her. Alice Eve makes the move look effortless and she sells the “not by accident” body language, even as she delivers lines that make her character seem ignorant of her own power. Eve sell’s the film’s end and (without spoilers) when the movie takes a turn for the horrifying in the final nine minutes, it is her emotive abilities that unsettle and shake the viewer. For someone who has spent the film working another character into a boiling rage, Velvet becomes sympathetic when that yields a terrible result and Eve lands the moments in a way that jars the viewer.

Stanley Tucci is masterful in Some Velvet Morning. The only comparisons I have are that he plays the role of Fred as a cross between the intonations of Kevin Spacey and the body language of Brad Pitt. The combination is irresistible and it becomes distinctly Tucci’s own performance. In simpler terms, while there are moments that seemed familiar (Tucci’s moments of whimsy as Fred reminded me of Spacey’s performance in House Of Cards’s first season when Frank Underwood is on television and has an unexpected meltdown), it took so long for me to place why there was some familiarity to the film.

Neil LaBute fully redeems himself for The Wicker Man (reviewed here!) with Some Velvet Morning, though the scale of this film is much, much smaller. LaBute is an exceptional writer, but as a director, Some Velvet Morning makes him appear somewhat more mediocre. Some Velvet Morning is essentially a play on film and LaBute fails at some key moments to capitalize on the film medium. Most notably, he has the camera way too far back during a kiss late in the film. The moment lacks intimacy, he fails to capture the characters’ reactions and the moment lacks depth because LaBute keeps the full “stage” in shot as opposed to getting tight in on the characters.

That said, it has been a long time since I’ve seen a film with only two characters that actually held my attention and interest. Some Velvet Morning has some oddities to it (not the least of which is that the Production Designer gets third billing before the title in the opening credits!), but it manages to keep what could be a claustrophobic or unsettling film moving along in an entirely watchable way.

For other films with Alice Eve, please check out my reviews of:
Men In Black 3
She's Out Of My League
Sex And The City 2

7/10

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

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Why Catching Fire Is Worth Watching (When The Hunger Games . . . Not So Much)!

The Good: Good story, Decent use of themes, Generally good acting, Decent effects
The Bad: Characters still fall a little flat
The Basics: Rectifying many of the issues that made The Hunger Games not worth watching, Catching Fire becomes a Fall film worth tuning in to!


Lionsgate has made a huge mistake. I write that as someone who is not a fan of The Hunger Games Trilogy, despite the fact that my wife has now read all three books. I was not impressed by The Hunger Games (reviewed here!) and I have noticed that the merchandising for The Hunger Games: Catching Fire has been pretty anemic. In fact, outside the limited edition Hallmark Mockingjay ornament (reviewed here!), Catching Fire has not had a big pre-release push on the merchandising front. There seems to be a good reason for that: Catching Fire is a far more cerebral film than its predecessor and a far better one.

That leads me to my opening assertion: Lionsgate has made a terrible mistake. I was not a fan of The Hunger Games but I get how Lionsgate felt compelled to make the movie and make it first. Viewers needed to be introduced to the universe of The Hunger Games and understand the brutal methods of power and control utilized by the Presidents of Panem, including the current one, Snow. But when my wife finished reading the books, she noted that Catching Fire was the longest of the books and she complained that nothing much happened in Mockingjay. The mistake Lionsgate made: cramming everything from the second book into a single movie. Instead of breaking the final book into two films, the second book has a very natural break in it that could have made it a far better movie. This is a film with a lot crammed into it.

As it stands, though, Catching Fire is ambitious, generally smart, and well-presented, living up beyond the potential of The Hunger Games to make for a vastly superior film. Unlike the first film, which essentially made the audience into the citizens of the corrupt Panem, rooting for Katniss Everdeen to slay her child opponents in a bizarrely orchestrated bloodsport, Catching Fire exposes the movement throughout Panem that is leading to a genuine revolution. For half the film, the consequences of the corruption embodied by President Snow is explored and the viewer is given a fairly decent (and entertaining) civics lesson on the power of the individual and the methods employed by corrupt individuals in the highest levels of government. The allegory is strong and worthwhile and it makes most of Catching Fire worthwhile. The latter half of Catching Fire develops nicely as a story of sacrifice and rebellion realized; a story that would have carried more weight if some of the characters involved in making the sacrifices (and orchestrating the rebellion) were characters the viewer cared about more.

Catching Fire picks up where The Hunger Games left off. Having been triumphant dual survivors of the 74th Annual Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark have become symbols of defiance throughout the Districts of Panem. Katniss realizes this while on tour in District 11, where the child, Rue, she worked to protect in the Hunger Games hailed from. Having seen Katniss defy the rulemakers in the Hunger Games, by threatening to kill herself with Peeta at the climax and rob the government of a victor to trot around, Katniss has inspired the rebels scattered throughout Panem to openly engage the government forces. When Katniss learns that the previously-destroyed District 13 may not be the abandoned wasteland the government claims it is, she becomes even more sympathetic to the anti-government forces.

To stop the growing insurrection and to psychologically devastate the Districts of Panem, President Snow uses the 75th Annual Hunger Games as a way to dispatch of the troublesome Katniss, Peeta, and other prior victors at the Hunger Games who have symbolic value to the Districts and the Rebellion. Traumatized from the moment she is forced back into the games, Katniss works to keep Peeta alive. But soon, other contestants in the Games begin to ally themselves with Katniss and it becomes clear that Snow may have botched his attempt to stop the rebellion.

Right off the bat, it is worth noting that President Snow is one of the lesser villains of modern cinema. How a man who expects to rule with an iron fist using fear and ritualized demoralization does not see the potential of prior victors slugging it out as a bad idea seems particularly lame. For sure, Snow is getting some bad advice from the new Game’s Master, Plutarch Heavensbee. Heavensbee’s role in Catching Fire might go over the head of Katniss, but it is unlikely to stymie fans of science fiction or political dramas. While there is almost always a Brutus in a political drama, it weakens the Caesar of the work for them to be so blind to it. As a result, President Snow’s miscalculations in pitting former victors against each other (which basically puts the people who have been most traumatized by the system in one place for days on end and seems like it would do little outside inspire further acts of televised resistance) weaken the President of Panem.

For her part, Katniss Everdeen comes across as less whiny in Catching Fire than she did in The Hunger Games. A lot of the credit for this has to go to Jennifer Lawrence. Lawrence portrays Katniss as a young woman who is ignorant of political intrigue, as opposed to just stupid. Despite having the tactical wherewithal at the climax of The Hunger Games to extort the Capitol for her and Peeta’s lives, Katniss is still just an inexperienced young woman whose tactical abilities largely come from hunting. While that is an asset inside the games, it does not realistically prepare her for clandestine approaches from rebels and Lawrence walks the fine line that makes Katniss seem reasonably ignorant as opposed to laughably daft.

Unfortunately, Josh Hutcherson is still thoroughly white bread as Peeta Mellark and Liam Hemsworth’s Gale is presented with so little substance as to not make him a viable romantic interest for Katniss. Hutcherson’s presence in the movie is undermined by the far more dynamic Sam Claflin as Finnick. Finnick seems instantly more interesting than Peeta and where Peeta bumbles through the film, Finnick actually is presented with all the seeds of being an able leader. Claflin plays Finnick well and the onscreen magnetism he possesses serves the character well. Also noteworthy of the Catching Fire cast is Jena Malone. Malone manages to make the acerbic Johanna Mason seem unlike any of the meek roles she has played in the past and she plays the rougher edges in Mason without any sort of hints at her Sucker Punch (reviewed here!) character.

Before Catching Fire degenerates into the choreographed blood sport – though this time there is so much more going on inside the arena than simple survival that the audience does not fall into the trap of being like the citizens of Panem and there is little entertainment in the deaths in the arena – the film manages to captivate. As the story of sacrifice and rebellion grows, the viewer actually begins to care what might come of Panem, if not Katniss.

Catching Fire is a strong middle act and the struggle of the twelve (or thirteen) Districts against the oppressive Capitol seems crammed into a film that moves along at a decent pace, but glosses over some of the subtlety that might have made Panem one of the more interesting dystopian realms. As it stands, Catching Fire might have a problematic antagonist and an ally hampered by lackluster acting, but it progresses The Hunger Games Saga in a direction that is enough to make viewers want to see how the Rebellion fares. What might have made the Saga, and this installment, more compelling is a fundamentally more interesting protagonist. Jennifer Lawrence does what she can with Katniss Everdeen, but for the bulk of Catching Fire, viewers are rooting for a pawn and that’s not an enviable place for a storyteller to hinge their success, nor an audience to hang its hopes.

For other action/science fiction second act films, please check out my reviews of:
The Empire Strikes Back
The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug
Thor: The Dark World

7.5/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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An Amazing Cast Helps Create A Surprisingly Good Family Comedy With Beethoven!

The Good: Decent cast, Moments of plot, performance, and theme
The Bad: Some hammy overacting/family movie conceits
The Basics: Despite its over-the-top silliness at points, Beethoven holds up as a strong family comedy!


As a matter of sharing parts of herself, my wife will periodically have me get out movies I either missed that she watched and enjoyed or films from her past that I have never had the impetus to watch before. A few weekends back, I had a taste from each category when she got out Game Change (reviewed here!) and Beethoven. The irony for me was that the film I expected to appreciate more - Game Change - did not hold up nearly as well as the family flick my wife recalled from her childhood and wanted to see again.

From the opening shots of Beethoven, as I realized I was watching a young(er) Oliver Platt and Stanley Tucci and that this family film that spawned several sequels actually had an impressive cast (mostly talent before they hit it big), Beethoven actually manages to entertain and tell a family friendly story in a way that makes it reasonable that it would start a franchise. Beethoven is hampered by the conceits that make it feel like a Disney live-action film (it is not!); hammy overacting, reversals that are larger than life and a plot progression so predictable that only children will not see the end coming in the opening frames of the film. Even so, for a movie hampered by such obvious conceits and employing both child and animal actors (neither is overly recommended by most directors), Beethoven manages to tell a decent story and, to be fair to it with all of the genre problems it possesses, is not a film I felt like I’ve seen a thousand times over.

The patriarch of the Newton family, George, is a reticent business-focused man who has worked hard to provide for his wife and three children (two daughters, one son). One morning, after the witless criminals Harvey and Vernon rob a pet shop of its puppies and two of them escape, a cute St. Bernard puppy, wanders into George’s home and wakes up little Emily with dog kisses. Pressured into keeping the puppy by the family that sees him as inhuman, George suddenly starts spending an inordinate amount of time and money on providing for the dog, who is soon named Beethoven. While George struggles to win new corporate patrons for his air fresheners, the family falls in love with Beethoven.

But Harvey and Vernon were not working alone. They were employed by the nefarious veterinarian, Dr. Varnick. Varnick has taken money from a gun manufacturer who wants small animals in order to test its new bullets. When Varnick discovers Beethoven (who by that time has grown to have a skull density that a bullet manufacturer would really appreciate!), he orchestrates a kidnapping that could result in the dog’s death. George has to choose between believing the authoritative vet and his daughter, who witnessed the set-up; it is a choice between mounting a dangerous rescue or allowing Beethoven to be put to death!

Beethoven makes good use of the talent involved and it is easy to see how David Duchovny, Patricia Heaton, Oliver Platt, Stanley Tucci and even Charles Grodin (who plays George unfortunately like a boss I once had who was a complete and total ass!) were eager to take the project. Despite Heaton and Duchovny being tossed about and forced to do the screams one might expect out of a Little Rascals short, they have the chance to play villains who are stiff and eager to take advantage of Grodin’s George. The roles are different from anything else I have seen them play, so it does give them something completely different to play.

The child actors in Beethoven are surprisingly not horrible, which is a rare thing for me to find. Led by Nicholle Tom (Ryce), the Newton children seem like a viable family and they are presented in a professional and realistic way. Sarah Rose Karr brings more to Emily than a cute face – she plays determined and hurt well and when her character, neglected, falls in a pool, the viewer actually believes she is drowning. Even Christopher Castile does fine as Ted.

What was unsurprising to me was that the actor who played the title character, Beethoven, was only in this film. Chris is a big dog and what shocked me was that director Brian Levant included scenes where Chris was clearly limping! Regardless of the disclaimers at the end of the credits, it does not seem like Chris was in the best of health when Beethoven was shot.

And the main plot conceit – testing new bullets on dogs – is absurd and monstrous enough to add menace to the film. It is probably enough to scare children, but as an adult, I was more surprised that the film was audacious enough to present such a strong stance on animal cruelty and testing. Such plots are usually relegated to a b-plot in an animated film, but Beethoven puts it up front as the a-plot in the live-action film. Color me impressed.

Not to be taken overly seriously as a work of great cinema, Beethoven nevertheless impresses in that it has an impressive cast working in ways I had never seen.

For other works featuring Melora Walters, please check out my reviews of:
The Master
Cold Mountain
Matchstick Men
Magnolia
Boogie Nights
Hard Eight

6.5/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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March Rushes In Like A Lion With Jack The Giant Slayer And An Army Of Giants!

The Good: Special effects, Acting, Moments of character
The Bad: Very predictable plot, Obvious romantic subplot, Generally light on interesting character development.
The Basics: Bryan Singer taps into the current fairy tale fad with Jack The Giant Slayer, which is bigger on effect than originality.


Nicholas Hoult is having a good year so far and it is bound to get better for the young man. It seems like his career had a slow burn following X-Men: First Class (reviewed here!), but he seems to have found his audience with Warm Bodies. That audience is likely to grow with Jack The Giant Slayer. The draw for me in Jack The Giant Slayer was the combination of Christopher McQuarrie and Bryan Singer, who wowed me so many years ago with The Usual Suspects (reviewed here!). Singer has had a pretty impressive career since, arguably kicking off the current run of blockbuster super hero films with his X-Men (reviewed here!). With Jack The Giant Slayer, he seems to be much more content to follow the current trends, as opposed to lead the charge. Jack The Giant Slayer is very obviously attempting to capitalize on the current market for re-imagined fairy tales. Fortunately for viewers, Singer, and Hoult’s career, Jack The Giant Slayer is much more analogous to Snow White And The Huntsman (reviewed here!) than it is to Mirror Mirror (reviewed here!).

Jack The Giant Slayer takes the relatively simple fairy tale of Jack And The Bean Stalk and fleshes it out with a romantic subplot, palace intrigue and a feisty princess. While Jack The Giant Slayer is very likely to be analogized by most to Snow White And The Huntsman, there are a number of similarities between it and Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl (reviewed here!), most notably in the character arc of Princess Isabelle. Just as in the Pirates Of The Caribbean film, the initially feisty woman of high social standing goes on an adventure, becomes a damsel in distress and ends up romantically entangled with the less-desirable (from her social standing) character who, in turn gives men without money an absolutely unrealistic idea of what kind of woman they might actually draw out here in reality. That said, Jack The Giant Slayer is fun, even though it is hardly original or as substantial as one might hope. While the original fairy tale had a purpose of sharing a moral, Jack The Giant Slayer focuses on spectacle and adventure, as opposed to developing truly deep or important themes.

Jack is a peasant, raised on adventure stories, living in a small hovel. One dark and stormy night, he gives shelter to Princess Isabelle, whom he recognized from a prior gathering in the nearby city. The storm feeds the magic bean underneath Jack’s hut and while he is knocked out of his home, the massive vine that sprouts up, whisks Isabelle up into the clouds and the floating city of the giants. When King Brahmwell investigates and discovers what has happened, he assigns the knight, Elmont, to rescue his daughter from the giants. Jack volunteers to accompany him and Elmont, Jack, and a squadron of knights ascend to the fantastic land of the giants.

In the giant’s realm, there is unrest from the capture of Isabelle; her presence in their realm and the subsequent appearance of the knights, leads the Giants to believe the peace between the Giants and the humans is at an end. Further manipulated by the villainous Roderick, the Giants prepare to invade the human portions of Earth to conquer it. As Jack and Elmont recover and work to keep Isabelle alive, the Giants assemble and Isabelle and Jack begin to grow closer. Fleeing the realm of the Giants, the kingdom faces an attack they cannot hope to repel.

Jack The Giant Slayer is fun and seeing it on the big screen is really the only way to get the most out of it. Director Bryan Singer and co-writer Christopher McQuarrie seem to have capitalized on a winning formula, though it is unfortunate that they stoop to something so formulaic. The treachery of Roderick and the burgeoning romance of Jack and Isabelle seem much more obvious than original and clever. And while Jack The Giant Slayer is as visually impressive as film buffs have hoped for, the movie lacks a sense of thematic importance that make it into something more than a popcorn movie.

That said, the acting in Jack The Giant Slayer is decidedly above average. Nicholas Hoult continues to expand his on-screen range and give viewers something they have not seen from him yet. In Jack The Giant Slayer, he portrays Jack with a sense of responsibility and a quiet, geeky, sense of heroism that is very endearing. He manages to play Jack as somewhat quiet and withheld in a way that is different from how he played Hank McCoy in X-Men: First Class and given how similar the characters could have been, that is a testament to Hoult’s performance.

While Eleanor Tomlinson is pretty much a generic Hollywood beauty (sure, she plays Isabelle up as adventurous and rebellious initially, but she ends up as a damsel in distress for a troubling portion of the film where she is not given as much to do but react), Tomlinson, Stanley Tucci (Roderick), Ewan McGregor, and Hoult all play incredibly well off the virtual settings, objects and characters they encounter in the land of the giants and in the subsequent battle on Earth. Tucci plays Roderick as over-the-top and there is little to his character and performance that does not make the viewer think he is hamming it up and playing the role as something of a parody of a megalomaniacal villain. But, even with those limitations of character, Tucci is fun to watch. Ewan McGregor is all right as Jack, but the over-confident, somewhat arrogant Elmont is not a role that capitalized on his usual range or depth of his charisma.

Fans of fairy tales will undoubtedly flock to Jack The Giant Slayer and while it is easy to predict that it will do well in theaters, it is a movie that seems virtually impossible to bank on the movie doing well after it leaves theaters. Jack The Giant Slayer is a big movie, banking on spectacle and I don’t believe it would play nearly as well on a smaller screen.

For other works with Ian McShane, please visit my reviews of:
Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Coraline
Death Race
Scoop
Babylon 5: River Of Souls

5.5/10

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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The Quiet Death Of Rampant Capitalism: Margin Call

The Good: Great acting, Engaging plot, Moments of character, Mood
The Bad: Largely lacking in character development
The Basics: Margin Call traces an analyst’s discovery of a severe flaw at an investment bank through the early attempts to save the company at all costs.


It takes a lot to create a quiet, tense and engaging drama where almost nothing happens. It is hard to make one successful when it is about a group of people widely regarded as the enemy of the working class. Before tonight, the last film I saw that did that successfully was Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (reviewed here!). Tonight, the film that similarly engrossed me was Margin Call. I knew of Margin Call only from it popping up during award season last year and I picked it up from the library because I wanted something smart. It was exactly what I was looking for.

Margin Call is a financial drama. Margin Call is Wall Street (reviewed here!) without the charismatic villain. What it lacks in a memorable antagonist, it makes up for with realism and an incredible, largely male cast working at the top of their game. As an anti-capitalist, it is easy to fall in love with Margin Call.

The day a senior risk analyst is fired from the investment bank he works for, he hands off a flash drive with his last project to the only guy who seems to care, a junior analyst, Peter Sullivan. After the survivors of the round of firings go out to party, Peter stays and completes the work done by Eric Dale. Peter quickly discovers that the risk investments the firm has invested in are not holding their value. Realizing that the collapse of the investments is not imminent, but rather is in process (and has been for almost two weeks prior), Peter calls in his manager, Will Emerson.

Will, Seth, and their boss Sam Rogers quickly analyze the data and conclude that the numbers are valid. Calling the head of the company, John Tuld, in, the executive committee of the investment bank quickly determines the course of action: the next morning, the bank will try to sell off as many of the mortgages as they can and be the first out of the riskiest market. As the company scrambles to find and get Eric Dale back in the building, the people involved wrestle with the magnitude their decisions will have on the American and world economies.

Paired with Capitalism: A Love Story (reviewed here!), Margin Call American cinema seems willing to finally indict the institutions of capitalism in the United States. Both films point out the folly of the system in its disparities and acknowledge the human nature flaw that keeps it going: more than wanting to change the system, those who suffer the most at a result of capitalism want to simply become the ones who control it. It’s a dark and problematic flaw, but one that – largely – allows the corrupt system to remain intact. The 1% maintain control over the 99% because of the mass delusion among the majority that they might join the ranks of the 1%. Margin Call is a film that explores one “oh, shit!” moment of the 1%.

Blissfully, Margin Call is largely lacking in jargon. While a very telling and sharp drama, the recurring joke of Margin Call is that the higher up the executive chain Peter Sullivan brings his findings, the more simply the executives want him to explain things. As a result, viewers who are patient enough to sit through the horrified looks on the faces of Seth (Penn Badgley), Will Emerson (Paul Bettany), Sam Rogers (Kevin Spacey), and Jared Cohen (Simon Baker) before Jeremy Irons’s John Tuld enters the film to have Zachary Quinto’s Peter explain the problem sufficiently and in simple terms, will be rewarded with a full understanding of the scope of the impending financial disaster. For those who do not fully comprehend it, the film’s final moments, wherein Will’s phone calls are shared during the sell-off, make it perfectly clear.

Margin Call is like 12 Angry Men without the deeper character studies. Instead it is a plot-based film where a pretty amazing cast acting with complete credibility. Quinto, Bettany (it’s weird seeing him in a film where he isn’t shooting someone or punching them in the face!), Spacey, Irons, and Badgley all seem believable as financial managers. Quinto, whose character is actually a rocket scientist, absolutely sells the notion that he could be in risk analysis. Simon Baker is similarly good and Stanley Tucci, who plays Eric Dale, is his usual wonderful self. He has a way of taking a bit role and dominating every scene he has with it.

Kevin Spacey is similarly wonderful as Sam, the lone executive to initially take a real stand against the executive board’s plan. Ironically, his best performance is a bit of facial expression acting in one of the deleted scenes.

On DVD, Margin Call features two deleted scenes – which would have served to further humanize one character and the other that would have given Jeremy Irons a more obviously adversarial role in the piece -, two featurettes, a commentary track, and a photo gallery. They are pretty typical for this type of drama (it’s never one of the actors in a featurette who says, “I hated working on this film and I disagree with the premise!” so there are no real surprises here).

As financial times get tougher for the majority get tougher, perhaps our education should come in sharing a progression of movies. It is hard to imagine who would not be ready for revolt after watching, in close succession, Margin Call, Capitalism: A Love Story and V For Vendetta (reviewed here!).

For other works with Simon Baker, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Devil Wears Prada
Something New
The Affair Of The Necklace
L.A. Confidential

7/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the movie reviews I have written.

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