Mediocrity In Rewriting, The Live-Action Sleeping Beauty Reimagining Maleficent Fails To Impress!

The Good: Moments of deepening the antagonist, Moments of effect
The Bad: Erratic special effects, Under-developed characters, Bland story
The Basics: More a reimagining of Sleeping Beauty than a film that truly explores Maleficent in a compelling and deep way, Maleficent goes for cheap laughs and big special effects sequences at the expense of character depth.


Considering how Disney movies – even the live-action ones – take years to make, it is odd to suggest that any one of them might have been rushed to theatrical release. On the story front, it is difficult to call any film based upon fairy tales that are hundreds of years old “rushed.” But, the longer Maleficent went on, the more the film felt under-developed, as it was failing to capitalize on its full potential. I refer not only to the story, which attempts to make the villain from Sleeping Beauty into a protagonist and a well-rounded character, but the effects as well. Intentional or not, the disproportionately large heads on the fairies Flittle, Knotgrass, and Thistlewit early in the film look ridiculous and create an erratic quality for the film’s effects which rob it of even perfection on that front.

Almost every actor will say that playing the villain is more fun than playing the hero. Angelina Jolie, who plays Maleficent for almost the entire film, has had plenty of experience playing antagonists, deuteragonists, and complicated, morally-ambiguous protagonists. So, the challenge for Jolie in Maleficent is for her to embody the villain in a way that humanizes and rounds out the antagonist of the Disney classic Sleeping Beauty (reviewed here!). It is a challenge the script does not give her much wiggle room to try to realize. Maleficent could have been rendered as a tragic figure in Maleficent, a defender betrayed by the one she trusted, but instead the film strips away its potential depth in favor of capitalizing on Jolie’s ability to play characters powerful and cold.

As a child, the fairy Maleficent, lives in the forest beyond the moor where the humans live. She encounters Stefan, a boy thief who is enamored with her and with whom she grows (though she sees him only occasionally). On his sixteenth birthday, Stefan kisses Maleficent and claims that it is true love’s kiss. But when the human forces of King Henry try to invade the magical forest, Maleficent raises an army of magical beings to defend the forest. Maleficent mortally wounds Henry and the king charges his potential successors to kill Maleficent with the offer that the one who succeeds in killing her will ascend to rule the kingdom following his death. Stefan, now an ambitious knight, poisons Maleficent and thinking better of killing her cuts off her wings to diminish her of her power as a fairy.

Saving a crow from death at the hands of humans, Diaval becomes Maleficent’s familiar. After Stefan ascends to be king and had a daughter, Aurora, Maleficent and Diaval crash the girl’s introduction to the kingdom. There, Maleficent curses the baby with a prophecy that she will prick her finger on her sixteenth birthday and fall into a sleep that can only be broken (after the king begs Maleficent for some mercy) by true love’s kiss. With Stefan paranoid and desperate, he sends Aurora to live with the three pixies while waging war on the moor and its magical inhabitants. As Aurora grows, Maleficent both torments her and the pixies and saves the girl’s life on numerous occasions (both from falling to her death off a cliff and from invading humans who work to penetrate the forest). But, as Aurora’s sixteenth birthday nears, the threat of the curse looms for both Stefan and the emotionally-conflicted Maleficent.

Maleficent fails largely because it does not succeed in making the title character into either a better villain or a misunderstood heroine. Maleficent’s willingness to help Aurora could have been a compelling character twist if this reimagined version of Sleeping Beauty actually had more punch (and willingness to truly reimagine the story). If Maleficent bonded with Aurora sufficiently that her curse on the young princess actually bore emotional consequences for her, the film might have come closer to succeeding. Sadly, Maleficent does not manage to be quite that clever. It treads near that when Aurora meets Maleficent and Diaval and believes that the fallen fairy is her fairy godmother. Alas, though, Maleficent strays back into the safe zone that makes Maleficent an over-reacting antagonist. After only two incidents, one of which is a pretty basic night of play, Maleficent tries to revoke her curse, but by that point, the character is more bland than complicated.

Stefan is actually recharacterized in an interesting way. He is driven pretty much insane by his daughter being kept in exile and living with the threat that Maleficent represents nearby. Unfortunately, he is not a particularly smart antagonist; for one who recalls Maleficent’s weakness to iron, one might think he would do more than simply hide the spinning wheels. Stefan could have easily waited until Aurora was fifteen, confiscated all of the spinning wheels and melted down the metal on them.

Aurora is played with surprising blandness by Elle Fanning. Capitalizing more on her childish looks and her ability to open her eyes wide, Fanning gives a monolithic performance as Aurora. The best that might be said of her in Maleficent is that she interacts with the virtual elements well.

As for Angelina Jolie, her performance seems more erratic than subtle. If Maleficent has a true change of heart over the curse, all she had to do was keep Aurora from spinning wheels until after her sixteenth birthday. Jolie could easily have sold Maleficent as a character smart-enough to realize that. Jolie sells the protective nature of Maleficent with her strong bearing and ability to emote with a steely gaze of resolve. The character’s vengeful nature is presented generically; Jolie does not reveal added depth or ability in playing Maleficent. In fact, when reacting to Brenton Thwaites’s Diaval, there are moments when Jolie actually breaks.

In the end, Maleficent feels underdeveloped. It is rushed in many places and fails to find its footing as either a reimagining of the classic tale or simple the story from a slightly different angle. In treading more toward the latter, Maleficent becomes a more generic live-action, special effects-driven fairy tale with erratic performances than a clever, worthwhile, or compelling film.

For other films with Elle Fanning, please check out my reviews of:
Super 8
Babel
i am sam

4.5/10

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.
| | |

Too Close To The Reference Sinks The Attempt At Nostalgia That Is Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow!

The Good: I like the title
The Bad: Characters and plot is canned, Effects, Acting
The Basics: When writer-director Kerry Conran created a parody or recreation of the 1930s sci-fi serials, like Flash Gordon, he fell short of either.


There is an episode of The Simpsons that I have loathed for quite some time. Quite early in the series, The Simpsons did an episode where they showed clips from upcoming spin-off series', the last of which was "The Simpson Smiletime Variety Hour." It was a parody of the Sonny and Cher or Lawrence Welk style shows. The reason I loathe the episode is because that act so closely imitates what it is parodying, it becomes it. That is, instead of being an effective gag on the concept, it becomes all the worst parts of that type of show. Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow is essentially the same thing, with the campy serialized sci-fi movies of the 30s as its subject.

When New York City is invaded by giant robots that steal a power generator, it appears the world is under attack by a force quite unlike anything the world has seen. In desperation, the military calls in the Sky Captain to fight off the robots and learn the truth behind them. With intrepid reporter Polly Perkins, technical sidekick Dex and his British counterpart Franky along, Joe - the Sky Captain - journeys from high in the sky to under the sea almost to outer space to discover the truth.

And it's not worth it.

Like that episode of The Simpsons, Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow creates something that exposes all the weaknesses of what it is calling back to by imitating them. And because the story needs to work, the writer/director Kerry Conran becomes trapped in the conventions of the story he is telling with the characters he is telling. The problem here is that the choice Conran is force to make is either to defy the conventions of the serialized hero movies and basically mortgage the audience on the idea that the first half of the movie was a parody or stick with the conventions and recreate a cinematic experience that is neither suspenseful nor unpredictable and basically subject the audience to an ultimately droll experience.

Conran seems unsure which way to go, in that on the story and character front, Conran takes the latter option. Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow is a modern-day 1930s serial. It's silly, it's campy, it's predictable. It is laced with cliches and the actors are forced to play within them in order to tell the story as it is written. It feels inorganic, none of the characters pop out of their molds and this is truly unspectacular. Add to that, the annoyance of the music (which, admittedly should be in the "effects" column). It is soaring and completely telegraphs the emotions the movie is trying to evoke (that is to say on its own, the story and characters are not creating an emotional resonance, so the music tells the viewer how they ought to be feeling). Down to the punchline ending of the movie, this film is a predictable, faithful recreation of a style of storytelling that we are well beyond. In short, our society (surprisingly) has become sophisticated enough where we can handle stories that are more intelligent, character driven, realistic and genuinely adventurous than what the '30s audiences seemed to go for in this genre.

The problem is that while Conran remains faithful in the story and characters to the genre, his attempts with the effects that the route of mortgaging the faithfulness of the look and feel of the serials. The movie opens with a wonderful grainy quality, as if the movie were a black and white film that had been colorized. There is a washed out quality to the lighting that instantly transforms recognizable actors and actresses into heroes from days of yore. The problem is that while the lighting and grain quality is generally consistent, the mold gets broken in some of the battle sequences with clearly current special effect techniques. Those moments wrench the viewer out of the experience and beg the question, if you were trying to update the 30s serials, why didn't you go all the way? That is, what is the point of recreating the look and feel (through effects) of the old serial movies when you're just going to throw in a clearly computer-generated skeleton of a scientist who was just electrocuted? Moreover, the final sequences are ludicrously current in look and feel, which then makes the hammy overacting of the principles troubling.

There is not much to say on the character front. The Sky Captain is the Hero, Polly Perkins is the independent woman who still needs the hero to matter, and Dex and Franky are just types that play off those two archetypes. Unfortunately, this also means that there is little to say on this movie on the acting front. Perhaps it would have worked better if the bit part Angelina Jolie had had been credited as a surprise cameo as opposed to one of the three top-billed actors in the movie. She is barely in the film. Jude Law plays Joe and the truth is, I'm just realizing I can't remember ever liking a part he's played. Here he plays the role, but it is not an excessive challenge, it's an extended schtick.

Gwyneth Paltrow just made me sad for taking this role. There are moments she seems to be having fun and perhaps that's a good enough reason to take the part; it's fun. I suppose when you're rich, you can take a couple of months to shoot a movie essentially as play. The problem is, this film makes no real use of her talents.

There's a moment midway through this catastrophe that Paltrow as Perkins glares at Joe in an annoyed fashion. That exact expression mirrored how I felt about the movie at that point.

For other works with Bai Ling, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Angel - Season 1
Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith
Southland Tales
Lost - Season 3

3/10

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

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

Even With Angelina Jolie Naked, Wanted Arrives As Summer's Most Mediocre Action Flick!

The Good: Moments of special effects, One or two moments of performance
The Bad: Low on character, Not much in the way of acting, Predictable plot
The Basics: Angelina Jolie's summer blockbuster outing, Wanted puts James McAvoy in yet another bland action-adventure flick that fails to satisfy.


This review was originally written for Summer Blockbuster Season 2008, which explains the dated qualities to the opening. Enjoy!

As Summer Blockbuster Season continues and I balance new movies with reviewing older material, I've become somewhat surprised about how few films starring Angelina Jolie I have actually seen. That is half true; I'm surprised that - as of this writing, according to the IMDB - including the new film Wanted, Jolie has only appeared in thirty-seven works that I might have caught her in on screen. Of those, I have only reviewed four and seen an additional two. What does not surprise me about that is that Jolie has been in some films of minimal interest to me, like the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider movies. So, with Jolie's live-action contribution to this summer's blockbuster season, Wanted, I had minimal expectations and draw based on Jolie's presence in the movie. Indeed, if anything, Wanted struck me from the previews as limited in what it might provide for Jolie, given her action-oriented performance in Mr. And Mrs. Smith (reviewed here!).

With Wanted, viewers get more of the same from Jolie and while there is little danger of her being typecast as a trained killer, this is very much an average action-adventure movie and by the time the flick is over, it's hard to say what one has seen that is actually new. This is, largely, because it isn't. That said, it is not the worst action adventure magnum violence to ever grace the big screen.

A mundane office worker, Wesley Gibson, trudges through his life with little ambition and even less respect from those around him when he is approached one day by Fox. Fox claims his long-dead father is actually only recently deceased and that he was part of a super-secret organization of assassins called the Fraternity. Fox has been sent to protect Gibson and recruit him into the Fraternity. She and Sloan, unlock Gibson's skill (the ability to alter the trajectory of bullets so they curve and otherwise do not travel in a straight line) and teach him their version of the history of the Fraternity and set him out to killing people.

Of course, nothing is quite that simple and the Fraternity is not the wholesome, honorable organization it initially appears to be and soon Gibson and Fox are caught in the crossfire. The mystery of the Fraternity and its targets pulls the last half of the movie into a constant action sequence gun battle that quickly becomes more blase than exciting.

Fans of pop culture will appreciate the recurring gag in Family Guy involving Peter's fight with the giant chicken. What does this have to do with Wanted? It's quite simple, the reason Family Guy's gag works so well is that it is ridiculous. It is nonstop escalating physical violence that becomes more and more extreme. The humor in it is in the endurance and duration of the sequence, the commentary on it is quite simple; the violence keeps escalating to the point that the combatants lose all sense of motivation. All the sequence becomes is pushing the envelope for more violence, more gore and a bigger sense of movement. And it works.

For exactly the same reason, Wanted does not work. Wanted is competing in a market where cinephiles and action-adventure fan have seen quite a bit. Indeed, we've seen it from Angelina Jolie in the intense violence and gun battles of Mr. And Mrs. Smith. Just as the moment Peter Jackson's WETA Workshop mastered digital characters with Gollum that became the cinematic standard to match for quality (as of my writing of this, it has yet to be beat), Wanted suffers because it pushes the envelope in no new or unfamiliar ways. We've seen gun battles, we've seen hitmen, we've seen the naive thrown into extraordinary circumstances. We get it, we've lived through it before. And this incarnation is hardly special and hardly engaging. In other words, (to tie the Peter vs. the chicken metaphor back) Wanted is like watching Peter's first encounter or second encounter with the chicken, after having seen the pair's duel crash an ocean liner. It's ho-hum, meh, we've seen something bigger and better.

That is not to say that an action-adventure movie must be bigger to work, but it does need to be better. You can have a more cerebral action-adventure or one that focuses more on character, but Wanted does not do that. Every aspect of character and each twist has been seen before in something that was holistically a better film. Indeed, despite the special effect style that mirrors is, anyone who has seen The Matrix (reviewed here!) is likely to be disappointed by Wanted. We've seen it before.

The characters are unsurprising for their monolithic nature, to the extent that there are moments where it seems that the writers didn't even try. This is not to say that Alias has an ironclad lock on having the leader of a super-secret cell of baddies named Sloan, but . . . given the success of Alias and the multitude of names out there, why did writers Mark Millar and J.G. Jones have to go with Sloan? Perhaps their comic book - from which this is adapted or based - predates Alias. The more problematic aspect is that the characters ring familiar from things we've seen before.

Wesley Gibson is, in many ways, a recast Anderson (better known as Neo). Similarly, Fox and Trinity have much in common. Sadly, it is Sloan that suffers the most on the character front based largely on the casting. I think Morgan Freeman is great; he's a wonderful actor but having him play Sloan was a huge mistake on the part of director Timur Bekmambetov. Why? We've seen Freeman in this role before. We've seen him in a similar role as Lucius Fox in Batman Begins (reviewed here!) and in an even more proper analogy, as the Boss in Lucky Number Slevin. Indeed, it would be nice to be able to end the review right there; Lucky Number Slevin is a vastly superior movie. Go, get that out on DVD, watch that instead, avoid the theaters.

This is not to say that Freeman is not good as Sloan, but it requires no acting that the viewer has not seen from him before now. We've seen it, we get it, we know it is well within his range and talents. Similarly, Angelina Jolie behind a big gun is no shock, surprise or - by the end of the flick - interest to the viewer. We've seen it, it offers her no new challenges or potential to expand her range.

One suspects that director Bekmambetov is covering for the casting of James McAvoy as Gibson. McAvoy is a very white bread actor and while Keanu Reeves pulled off a performance of the bland to the extraordinary in The Matrix, McAvoy fails to captivate as Wesley Gibson. Instead, he never becomes exciting to watch, he never makes the viewer care about his character and he never convinces the viewer of the reality of the situation.

Timur Bekmambetov, who directed the Russian science fiction-horror films Nightwatch (reviewed here!) and Day Watch (reviewed here!) directed Wanted. Like those films, he seems obsessed with special effects, though in this outing he seems to generally use them better than he did in his other adaptations. At least here, the effects make sense and fit the story as opposed to effects for effects sake.

On DVD, Wanted is packed with special features, mostly special effects-based that do little to actually enhance the movie. There is an extended scene as well as a featurette on the stars of the film, a featurette on the stunts and another on the special effects in general. As well, there is quite a bit in the way of discussions in interviews involving the translation of the graphic novel to the film that was created. This is interesting, but hardly enough to make the film worth buying on DVD unless one was already going to.

What pushes it up into even average territory? Quite simply, it does what it sets out to do. It makes a lot of movement, people run, they shoot guns, bodies fall, rah rah rah. Wanted only works as a popcorn movie for people who have no ambition to see anything smarter or more interesting that is in theaters currently. In reference to that, it is worth noting that I've rather surprisingly rated Wanted higher than Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. Is this a better movie? No. Both are remarkably average. The lower rating of the other film reflects the heightened expectations vs. the dismal reality. Wanted actually contains some more intriguing shots than the Harrison Ford film, but it was a huge disappointment given the quality of the franchise. Wanted is a simple film with a simple premise and even with lowered expectations, it resulted in an average flick that does what one expects from a movie of its type.

It does nothing more, though, and it's impossible to recommend as a result.

For other works with James McAvoy, please visit my reviews of:
X-Men: First Class
The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe

5/10

Check out how this movie stacks up against every other film I have seen and reviewed in my Movie Review Index Page where the reviews are organized from best film to worst with clickable links to take you from the name of the film to the review of it!

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

Eh, On The Action-Adventure Front: Mr. And Mrs. Smith Fizzles.

The Good: Everything looks good
The Bad: Lack of convincing characters or acting, Predictable plot twists
The Basics: Unfit for consumption by clever individuals, Mr. And Mrs. Smith is simply another Hollywood action-adventure with nothing truly to recommend it.


Sometimes we sit down to watch a movie with the hope, the barest hope, that it will not be as terrible as we suspect it can be. Mr. And Mrs. Smith, if you want the short answer, is just as terrible as you might expect of a big-budget Hollywood, action adventure movie staring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Unlike the far better Jersey Girl, which suffered because of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez's relationship off-camera, this piece of cinematic garbage apparently benefited from Jolie and Pitt's off-camera whatever.

John Smith and Jane Smith are bored with their marriage and in counseling to work on their problems. There, they recount what led them to counseling; they both learned that the other was lying to them about the same thing, in fact. Both John and Jane are hired assassins working for different companies. When one of Jane's missions is blown by John, he becomes her target and the two set out destroying just about everything in order to get to one another.

Along the way, they learn how much of their relationship was built on lies and how much genuine feeling they have for one another. And it all resolves itself in a feel-good Hallmark movie-of-the-week type way.

It's just crap. Save yourself the time and money. Better yet, watch a decent action adventure, one with brains. Spend a little more and get the first season of Alias on DVD. That's a vastly better use of your time and money. And I can say that without even knowing you. You can do better than this.

The best thing about Mr. And Mrs. Smith is that it looks good. The people are unnaturally attractive, their hair doesn't get messed up or singed off when giant explosions go off near them, and the explosions themselves look great on the DVD. This is a movie where things look good and Doug Liman, the director, hopes that will be enough.

He's wrong. First off, Simon Kinberg, the writer of this movie, should be forced to turn in his WGA card and spend the next five years selling ice cream. There was not a line of redeeming dialogue in this entire movie. The characters are utterly flat and it makes no sense whatsoever that they would spend minute after minute recounting all of the lies between them and then conclude that they should be together. This is stupid even for Hollywood fare.

The acting is all-around terrible as well. Brad Pitt supports the notion that he is simply good looking and can't act. There is none of his brilliance from 12 Monkeys (reviewed here!), none of his humor or charm from his guest appearance on Friends, nothing but a guy in a suit playing a part Keeanu Reeves could have covered just as insightfully. Angelina Jolie and Vince Vaughn (Pitt's sidekick and best friend in the movie) are dull and cringeworthy unfunny, respectively. Vaughn's appearances on screen are enough to make the viewer grab the remote to fast forward through his banal, predictable jokes and phrases.

The plot is predictable and all of the reversals that are executed, we've seen before in better works. I should try to say more that's bad about this film, but that's it. That's all there is. You have a terrible script with an inane plot, lousy dialogue delivered by actors who either can't or aren't performing and you have a lousy movie. This is it.

For other works with Michelle Monaghan, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Source Code
Mission: Impossible III
Constantine

2.5/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to visit my Movie Review Index Page for a complete, organized list of my movie reviews!

© 2012, 2006 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

An Urban Comedy Under The Sea: Shark Tale

The Good: I'm stretching here, so I'll say "moments of humor"
The Bad: Unimpressive Animation, Obvious overused story, one-dimensional characters, just dumb
The Basics: Shark Tale should be avoided for its gross racism and sexism that attempts to fly by as "family fare."


Some time ago, it became part of popular culture to refer to all things "black" as "urban." That is to say, when people want to use a polite euphemism for "black," they say "urban." Thus, it became something strangely appropriate to talk about the language of "urban music" as opposed to saying "man, people swear a lot in that newfangled black music." Or we started to talk about "urban crime" instead of "black on black crime." Sometimes, things are just plain ridiculous.

I preface this review this way because within five minutes of beginning Shark Tale, it became obvious to me that I was watching the same "urban comedy" I've seen before. I've seen such jokes and character types in such bla . . , er, "urban" movies as Barbershop and . . . well, others that aren't coming immediately to mind. All I know is that within a few minutes of watching the protagonist in Shark Tale, I felt that someone at Dreamworks, at some meeting somewhere, said "we need to do something to bring in more money. We need to target a new audience. What audience haven't we exploited yet?" "Well, there's a black audience we've neglected." "Phil! It's 'urban!' But good idea. We could make an urban film and use all sorts of urban actors to flesh out our world. Who's the most popular urban actor of our time?" "Well, there's Denzel . . ." "What about that Fresh Prince guy? He's kind of urban?" "Yeah, he's wildly popular! Call Will Smith! We'll need a good urban actress to star along side him. Who could that be?" "Well, how about Angela Bassett? Or Vivica A. Fox?" "No, Phil, we need someone even more Urban, you know with a capital B, er, U." "How about Renee Zellweger and Angelina Jolie?" "Well, they're pretty whi . . . er, suburban, but at least they'll let us draw them as fish." "Yeah, Jolie might even complain that we made her lips too small . . ." "Shut up, Phil."

All humor aside (and if that amused even one of you, it's more than Shark Tale would do), Shark Tale is a pretty pathetic and transparent tale of Black America set under the sea. The saddest part of this incorporation is that it lacks all of the genuine social commentary that could set it apart from a decent satire or an original urban comedy. Instead, in attempting to be a "family friendly" movie, Shark Tale incorporates and reinforces much of the worst stereotypes in American Ethnic relations today.

Enter Oscar, your slacker-type, minimum wage stereotype. He is the type of lazy fish that Conservatives like to characterize all urban fish as. He is a barely-working grunt, showing up late to his job at the Whale Wash. Like other urban fish, he has maxed out his credit to loan sharks and bookies on ridiculous get-rich-quick schemes because, as any Conservative will tell you, those urban fish can't be trusted to use credit responsibly. And they're always dreaming of something better. I wonder why they do that? Oscar, being a male urban fish, is completely oblivious to the affections of Angie, another urban fish working at the Whale Wash in an administrative capacity.

The Reef, the urban area where Oscar, Angie and others live, is plagued by sharks, who in this incarnation take the stereotypical role of the Italian-descended Americans. Naturally, then, the sharks are all into organized crime, led by Don Lino, who is trying to teach his pacifistic shark son Lenny how to be ruthless enough to run the racket on the Reef. When the Don's other (more vicious) son is killed in an accident while chasing Oscar, Oscar and Lenny become buddies (in a real Eddie Murphy/Judge Rienhold way). Oscar becomes the celebrity of the Reef, Lenny gets to go into hiding and Don Lino, believing his sons have been killed, goes off with murderous rage as we all know sharks are inclined to do.

Okay, first off, the positive. I laughed once during the movie. I don't remember even what the joke was. But there was a laugh involved. And it didn't come when the vaguely homophobic reference to Lenny as a dolphin was made (hey, if the movie is going to be pretty transparently anti-Italian and anti-Bl . . . urban, why not throw in a few anti-gay pokes, too?). I laughed once.

Beyond that, there's nothing impressive about Shark Tale. Indeed, just the opposite, this is an unremarkable movie. From the outset, the animation is nowhere near as impressive as previous Pixar or Disney-Pixar movies. In their new thrust to churn out some computer-generated animated fodder at least once a year, Pixar has lost its magic for detail. In Monsters, Inc., there was a real treat seeing the film on the big screen for the impressive details. At least on the big screen, the viewer could marvel at how distinct every one of Sully's hairs were. Shark Tale lacks that level of animation detail.

Shark Tale is also disappointingly humorless. It is hard to see how even a child would find Shark Tale funny. I suppose another reason for making a "children's movie" with an "urban flavor" is that a lot of music, fashion and popular culture is taking more from popular urban culture. Little children of all ethnicities have baggy jeans and basketball jerseys and know what "bling-bling" is (though the origins of the latter term, as a poignant moment on The Wayne Brady Show illustrated, has its origins in the early portions of the previous century's monied classes). Perhaps even whites do not get off scot-free in this movie if the slow, rich whales are the metaphor for caucasians.

But there is something to the argument that Shark Tale is perpetrating dangerous stereotypes under the guise of the same old stupid "rags to riches" story. I was concerned that perhaps I was putting forward an argument that was not necessarily there, but the more I consider this movie, the more disturbing and dangerous I think it may be. Just about every subculture portrayed in Shark Tale is from a minority (save women) and none is portrayed positively. Here, in frank language, is how Shark Tale pervades and reinforces terrible ideas about how people who aren't white live:

Black Americans - characterized, or caricatured, by Oscar (voiced by Will Smith) are portrayed as lazy, poor, and not terribly cunning. Oscar is an opportunist who lies, is caught in his lie, lies some more, comes up with a crazy scheme to continue perpetrating his lies, until he is put in a situation where he is in danger and he folds like a cheap card table. And at the end of the character's journey from rags to riches, he is put back in his place, servicing the whales. The difference between Oscar at the beginning of the movie and at the end is that at the beginning he has real dreams for advancement and riches and living in the skyrise, and at the end, finding himself back at the Whale Wash as the new owner of the facility, he finds that he can dream, but only so far. In the greatest work of American Literature (my obviously unbiased opinion), Invisible Man (reviewed here!), Ellison writes the line of the Black Predicament in the business world, "Please hope him to death, and keep him running." The idea there is that the key to controlling the oppressed minorities (especially true of the economically disadvantaged) is to give them hope, but no real hope for progress. Shark Tale reinvents this idea that Ellison wrote about in 1947 through Oscar by dashing Oscar's dreams, but leaving him positive about where he is left. So, Oscar goes from the bottom of the sea, to the top of the Reef and ends up back at the bottom of the reef, but feels better about it because now he has slightly more of a stake in it. If the trend held, any Shark Tale sequel would have to, by necessity, begin with Oscar near to losing the Whale Wash (probably through his irresponsibility) and then ending with him reclaiming the small business. Shark Tale illustrates how complacent the masses of poor and predominantly Black Americans may be kept in their place by simply turning their dreams of equality into minority partners in the worst possible businesses in America. And that suits such ill-educated and lazy people anyway, if Shark Tale is any indication.

Women - fare no better in Shark Tale as characterized by three personas: Angie, Lola, and Katie Current. Angie (Zellweger) is intelligent but refuses to express herself. Indeed, she is characterized as demure, subservient (or at the very least deferential) to Oscar in all things and lacking in confidence in her own abilities and beauty. She has a crush on Oscar, wants to help him out, but only expresses her true love for him through violent, irrational outbursts when she has pushed him away. Moreover, her affections for Oscar compel her to remain silent when she learns of his duplicities rather than exposing him. Men, rejoice! Women won't turn you in if you pay them lip service from time to time. Show them the least amount of affection and they'll trail you like puppies. Except, that is, for the type like Lola (Angelina Jolie). Lola is a golddigger type explicitly (through music) characterized as a woman who is only after money. Of course, an urban fish like Oscar just sees good tail and will go after it, never thinking of the consequences. And then there's the annoying cameos by Katie Currant (Katie Couric), who is pushy and invasive as the lead reporter on the Reef. If her real shows are like the parody here, one wonders who watches her shows. So, to clarify, women in Shark Tale are either deferential, spineless and starved for attention or emotionless predators hungry for men's money or just plain annoying.

Italian-Americans - are simply brutish mobsters. The sharks in Shark Tale are the parody of Americans of Italian decent. Allow me to preface this by saying my view on the Italian-American Defamation League's problems with The Sopranos was an overreaction: "The Sopranos" never tried to characterize all Italian-Americans as gangsters, merely exploring that sect of Americans of Italian decent who happen to be mobsters and how they operate. Conversely, Shark Tale characterizes all sharks as mobsters (save Lenny, who is something of a pouf). Robert De Niro voices Don Lino and helps to perpetrate the stereotype of Italians as ruthless, family-loving mobsters who will terrorize those who they can hold any sort of power over, including their own assistants (characterized by an octopus in Shark Tale). The sharks solve their problems through asserting dominance and threats, respecting only strength and having a fiery temper.

Homosexuals - might be a bit of a stretch in Shark Tale, but Lenny (Jack Black) is played as an effeminate shark who disguises himself as a dolphin to leave the shark mob. The most obvious implication is that the pacifistic Lenny is somehow less of a man, a common stereotype about gays that the rabid homophobics never seem to spread when confronted with the athletic (and clearly masculine) sect of gays who place an emphasis on bodybuilding and fitness. Lenny is a caricature with a faint lisp, enthusiasm for dressing up and also happens to be an unmanly vegetarian.

Jews - what is far less opaque is the stereotype of Jews in Shark Tale. Since well before the time of Shakespeare, Jews have been characterized as the business-people, the money lenders, the people who are good with money and seem to have the financial advantage over everyone else. Martin Scorsese plays the pufferfish Sykes who is both an agent and a money lender. He is the common link between Don Lino and Oscar, the middleman between the Reef and the Mob. Which, if we've learned anything from the ethnic stereotypes in Shark Tale is appropriate. After all, who better to deal with the money of two vastly disparate groups as Blacks and Italians than a Jew?

And the final nail in the ethnic culture might well be Sykes' assistants. Two Rastafarian jellyfish who act as muscle for the Jewish accountant. Well, at least Shark Tale was smart enough to avoid any allegations of promoting hate crimes. After all, if a little urban fish is assaulted by Jamaican Immigrant jellyfish, it's not really a hate crime. It's "those people" doing it to themselves. And popular culture seems to have little problem with depictions of black on black crime, er, make that "urban on urban violence."

Shame on Shark Tale and those involved with it for their lack of foresight and transparent poor depictions of so many different ethnicities. For some of us, positive relations between all peoples - regardless of color, gender, sexuality or country of origin - is more than some fish story.

For other animated Dreamworks films, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Hoodwinked Too! Hood Vs. Evil
Shrek Forever After
Hoodwinked!
Shrek

1.5/10

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

© 2012, 2007, 2004 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

When Even Sex Won't Sell . . . Original Sin

The Good:?, Moments of Banderas' acting, Gregory Itzin
The Bad: Terrible plot, Idiotic characters, Mostly bad acting
The Basics: In an utterly forgettable movie about a con artist in Cuba, the only worthwhile moments come with glimpses of actors acting and, I suppose, breasts. Sigh. Original Sin is a waste.


I'm not quite sure why I sat down and watched Original Sin, the box was labeled as a thriller that would keep me guessing. They never do. Moreover, it was listed as an "erotic thriller" and they almost never are. I mean, really; either it's a complete tease where it's not actually erotic or it's a movie that shows everything, but has no plot or character and is not erotic. The last truly erotic thing I watched was an episode of Angel wherein Cordelia and Angel find themselves under a spell and they come close the making love. Real tension, characters I care about, genuine eroticism. Original Sin was a colossal waste of time.

A young con artist named Julia, posing as a mail-order bride for Luis, arrives in Cuba and promptly robs Luis blind. Luis becomes obsessed with tracking down his duplicitous wife and discovers her living under a different name working over other marks. Luis and Julia team up for a time until, lo and behold, Julia's psychopathic pimp comes looking for her. Luis is again betrayed, Julia again flees and this keeps happening. The thing is, Luis keeps going back to Julia with love and is each time betrayed because he never sees her as the con-artist she actually is, believing - quite blindly - that the love he has for her could not be faked. Through a series of double crosses and reversals, Julia and Luis grow together and we, the audience, could not care less.

There are moments when Antonio Banderas glows as an actor in Original Sin. His rage at being betrayed is a great illustration of human passion and his ability to perform makes his wretchedly stupid character almost sympathetic at some moments. The other bright spot is the presence of Gregory Itzin. Itzin is a character actor who appears in things (last I saw him, he was in a cellular phone commercial) and he's an all around nice guy. I met him a few years ago and he was friendly, humble and likable. I like seeing him get work and even his minor role as the lovestruck Colonel Worth made me happy in this movie.

The fundamental problem with Original Sin is that it is not terribly original, nor are any of the characters interesting or likable. Luis is an idiot who takes what could be an emotively reasonable quest for revenge and turns it into a recurring nightmare of a dimwit too proud to see or know when he is beaten and used. His pathetic desire to be loved by Julia is almost as mystifying as his belief that he loves this con-artist he never truly knew. That he is so moronic in his devotion to a woman who clearly has a sinister agenda - a fact she makes abundantly clear to even the stupidest individual - makes him boring and nonsensical. Much of his character reads as a parody of the lovestruck mark. Unfortunately, this is not a parody of an erotic thriller.

Which leads us to Julia herself. Julia is a character that is hard to like and the lone moment the audience feels any real pathos for her is when she is about to be gang raped and she surrenders with body language that makes it implicit that she has been so violated in her past. Outside that moment of acceptance, Julia is a flat-out con who the viewer knows better than to trust. Unfortunately, none of the other characters in Original Sin are as smart as we are. Julia is unlikable, made more so by the fact that she has several opportunities throughout Original Sin to reform herself into a heroic character and instead, she simply makes Luis into a worse man.

Who wants to watch Original Sin? Not me. I suppose if you're looking to see Angelina Jolie naked, this is a fine place for it. The sex scenes are fairly explicit and Jolie's tattoos proclaiming her love for Billy Bob Thorton make it clear that they are not using a body double. But if you're in the mood for something more than that, a real thriller, there are better outlets with actual characters that are worth watching, I highly recommend The Usual Suspects or Bound instead. They are worth your time.

This is not.

For other works with Gregory Itzin, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Ides Of March
The Change-Up
“Dax”

1/10

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

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

More Average Than Astonishingly Wonderful With The Girl Power, Foxfire Is Still Cool.

The Good: Moments of performance, Decent general story
The Bad: Some character leaps just don't work, Light on DVD bonus features.
The Basics: Teen violence and teen nudity make Foxfire more than just the average girl empowerment flick.


When it comes to movies on my partner's shelf, there are very few that I have been enthusiastic to watch. Before I saw it there, I had never heard of Foxfire, one of the earliest cinematic outings for Angelina Jolie. But when I looked at the DVD case, my hopes rose. Foxfire was based upon a novel by Joyce Carol Oates and I remember loving Oates's novel Because It Is Bitter And Because It Is My Heart (reviewed here!). My wife promised me I would love the movie and she told me it was one of the most influential on her life, so I sat down eager for it.

It did not take long in watching Foxfire before I started thinking about the film Robert A. Heinlein's "The Puppet Masters" (reviewed here!). The memory has little to do with the actual film, but more an experience I had of watching it. I saw The Puppet Masters the day it made its debut in theaters and it was the only time I recall ever doing anything alone with one of my friends from school who traveled in the same clique as me. We went after school and saw it and I loved it. Years later, I was watching it with my family and becoming more and more embarrassed by it. At that point, my dad smiled and noted that he could see why I liked the movie and that I probably liked the movie more for where I was in life when I first saw it than any inherent quality of the film itself. I suspect that Foxfire is like that for my partner. It's good, but it's campy, predictable and some of the character leaps do not fit, minimizing the individuality of the girls the story is about.

Maddy is a high school senior working on her photography portfolio and getting by in high school with her white bread boyfriend and life. She empathizes with Rita, who is made increasingly uncomfortable by the proximity of her biology teacher, who publicly humiliates her. When Rita breaks down, other girls come forward with stories of him taking advantage of them as well. Rather than go to the authorities, they take the advice of a new stranger who walks into the school one day, Legs. With Legs they beat up abusive biology teacher and earn themselves a suspension from school.

In their time away from high school, Maddy, Legs, Rita, Violet and Goldie bond in an abandoned house where they decorate, swap stories, get drunk and become close friends. But soon, Goldie's drug problem and a group of dumb jocks threaten their idyllic friendship and Legs' past catches up to her.

Foxfire is not as bad as your average Lifetime made-for cable movie, but it does have similarly obvious themes and monolithic male characters. The girls rule in this movie, but they soon trade in their individual quirks for participation in the cult of personality surrounding Legs. This is one of those movies where the outsider girl comes in and shakes up the placid, suburban existence of the other girls, but rather than growing strong, independent and smart as a result, the others just become pretty dependent upon the new girl.

And Legs is a terrible role model. She drinks, smokes and rather unsafely gives herself tattoos with her own needles. That scene actually made me lose most of my respect for both the movie and the characters in it. Foxfire isn't so much about nonconformity, it is about the joy of the squares, sluts, artists, and druggies finding something to conform to, namely the bad girl role. After they beat Mr. Buttinger, the girls each get a tattoo on their breast from Legs and none of the girls seems to have the wherewithal or inner strength to say "Yeah, no, that's not for me." None of them has the character to say "I'm just as much a member of this group" or "I'll remember this day just fine" without the tattoo. So, the tattoo scene plays as plot-convenient and in opposition to the characterizations established less than half an hour prior in the film.

As well, Foxfire is appropriately predictable in its plot and character elements. A gun is introduced fairly early, so when the movie degenerates into a hostage situation with said gun, only the people who slept through English 101 are likely to be even remotely surprised. Similarly, Maddy's big fear at the beginning is of heights, as characterized by an early scene where her portfolio falls off a bridge and is rescued by a precariously hanging Legs. So, when the movie is winding down, it is no surprise that Maddy will end up back at the bridge to show viewers just how much she has grown.

But there's less growth in less positive ways that I would have liked. Ultimately, Foxfire degenerates from a story of female empowerment (which I was enjoying) to one of stupid gang violence where women who are smart become idiots following a bad element.

That said, what makes Foxfire work more on the balance than the failures of plot and character is the acting. Hedy Burress is excellent as Maddy. She takes the frumpy girl and establishes her as a character of intelligence and creativity, which makes her moral core realistic when it finally reasserts itself. Similarly, it is easy to see why Angelina Jolie would be cast as outsider chicks from this point on. She plays Legs as moody, dangerous and stylish, which becomes a characteristic many casting directors would fall in love with Jolie for. And for the horn dogs reading, yes, this is an early film featuring Angelina Jolie's breasts.

The real acting surprise for me was the performance by Jenny Lewis. Lewis plays Rita and she was an actress whose work I was entirely unfamiliar with before this. Lewis plays mousy excellently when Rita is being groped by her teacher and her performance lends credibility to the scene and makes it nauseating to watch. But as Rita becomes empowered, Lewis makes it believable by maintaining a sense of strength and shyness that ultimately becomes the performance to watch.

On DVD, Foxfire has minimal extras, like the theatrical trailer for the movie as well as filmmographies of the major performers.

Good for fans of drama, Foxfire does tell a story where women take charge of their lives and it is admirable for that; the methods they use, though, are not so wonderful and that makes the movie tougher to recommend in the long run.

For other works with Angelina Jolie or Chris Mulkey, be sure to check out:
The Tourist
Salt
Cloverfield

5.5/10

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

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

Angelina Jolie Does What She Has Done Far Too Often In Salt, Another Film Trailers Ruined!

The Good: Decent pacing, Moments where the plot is engaging, Acting.
The Bad: Characters make little real-world sense, Too familiar, Largely unsurprising.
The Basics: Average-at-best, Salt is another political thriller which is less-than-thrilling.


I am so tired of movies where virtually the entire film is shown in the trailer. I mention this at the outset of the review of Salt because the movie feels remarkably familiar after the first half hour and it is largely because, once again, Columbia Pictures ruins the movie by putting far, far too much of the movie's best moments in the trailer. This leaves remarkably little for film enthusiasts to enjoy in the film and even less to be wowed by. In fact, Salt is almost entirely ruined by knowing anything about the film, but the latest Angelina Jolie vehicle is pretty much the banal action-adventure film fans have come to expect from Jolie for her Summer Blockbuster Season outing. Salt was last year's Wanted, but Angelina Jolie doesn't bare all and the film lacks the intriguing hook (Wanted at least had the nifty curving bullets thing and some decent direction).

But more than the faults of the promotion, Salt flops in a world where Alias was popular for years. The female spy thing is something we've seen before. As well, the whole "mistaken identity political thriller" has been done before and with Salt the movie just feels stale. If one wants to reinvent the genre, it might still be possible. But Salt doesn't do it. Kurt Wimmer and Phillip Royce wrote and directed a movie that hinges on all of the typical reversals one expects from a spy thriller.

Evelyn Salt is a CIA agent working in Washington, D.C. when a Russian defector walks in and is captured by the Agency. Because of her expertise, Salt and her partner, Ted Winter, are assigned to debrief him. The CIA is disturbed when the defector reveals that there is a Russia sleeper agent who is going to kill the President later in the day. They are even more alarmed when the sleeper agent's name is revealed to be Evelyn Salt. Salt's peers, seeing that the defector is telling the truth, look to detain Salt while they sort out the truth from the lies. Unwilling to be detained, Salt goes on the run to try to learn the truth herself.

Immediately, she begins to look for her steadfast ally, her husband, but when she discovers him missing, she is forced to flee on his trail. Stealing vehicles, eluding capture and searching for her husband and the truth leads her to New York City, which only causes Ted and Agent Peabody to suspect something more is going on. While Ted believes in Evelyn, Peabody just wants to protect the President and he becomes more determined to stop the crime. But as Evelyn nears the place where the President is, it becomes evident that the machinations are not what they seem.

Salt follows in a long tradition of chase movies from The Fugitive through less popular films, like 16 Blocks, but the basic premise is a ticking clock film where the truth is being sorted out on the fly. Unfortunately for Salt, the viewer is hardly able to care because the movie makes no real sense from a pragmatic point of view. Evelyn Salt is characterized immediately as being both a patriot and exceptionally intelligent. As a spy, she has a natural disbelief that she could be a sleeper agent, but as a patriot and an intelligence operative she has to see the potential threat she would represent if the accusation were true. So, it is utterly unfathomable that she begins running and sets off the whole chase that becomes the rest of the movie. Instead of being a team player, letting Ted and Peabody find out the truth, she does exactly what the villains of the film want by heading toward New York City.

This, then, seems more a function of ego for the protagonist of the film. Evelyn Salt is the type of character who quickly comes to believe that if she is not going to kill the President, only she can prevent it. This, like most spy thrillers, becomes a parody of the realism of a spy's work. The team effort that is the actual CIA has more than just one qualified agent, despite what movies like Salt would have you believe. There is a strangely distorted view of law enforcement in Salt.

But beyond that, the movie is not as entertaining as the trailers make it seem. Sure, there are the usual banal car and motorcycle chases, there is gunplay and there are stunts (Jolie herself got hurt while filming the movie). But there is nothing particularly fresh. We've seen car crashes where the prisoner gets away again and we've seen the fast movement through the impossible New York City streets.

What sinks Salt, then, is that the characters have little to empathize with. Instead, we ultimately do not care who Evelyn Salt is and what her part is in an alleged plan to kill the President. Instead, the loyalty Ted shows Evelyn seems more generic, just as Salt's desire to run seems nonsensical. In fact, only Peabody feels like a truly realized character, the way he questions both Salt's allegiance and then her actions during the chase. He might not have Ted's blind appreciation for her and her talents, but as he begins to come around on the bigger picture, his arc is the most realistic and easiest to empathize with.

That said, the acting is pretty extraordinary. Angelina Jolie gives an action-packed performance that proves she can still thrill by running, jumping and shooting. Liev Schreiber is plausible as Ted and Chiwetel Ejiofor steals every scene he is in as the methodical and brilliant Peabody. In fact, Schreiber and Ejiofor give performances unlike what is in their repertoirs. They are both strong actors who have the ability to emote and to sublimate their obvious emotions to make them both seem like they would be CIA Agents and have loyalty, patriotism and humanity within them.

Unfortunately, it is not quite enough to save Salt. Salt stops being sensible or even fun too quickly and the result is a remarkably blase action thriller that feels like what it is: Angelina Jolie's attempt to keep relevant in genre works through the summer so her name will still be remembered when she does a classy film around Oscar Pandering Season.

For other films featuring Chiwetel Ejiofor, be sure to see my reviews of:
2012
Serenity
Love Actually

4.5/10

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

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


| | |

Johnny Depp And Angelina Jolie In The Tourist: A Thriller That Actually Thrills!

The Good: Clever, Decent pacing, Great acting, Moments of character.
The Bad: Obvious to fans of The Usual Suspects, Moments the soundtrack is overbearing.
The Basics: A bit too close to The Usual Suspects with the twist, The Tourist gives Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp a chance to show off their acting skills.


Every now and then, I go into a movie blind. I don't watch any previews, I don't read any reviews and I do not spend any time investigating it in any way beforehand. Because so many opportunities for screenings come to me, knowing nothing about a film in advance is a very rare thing indeed for me. But tonight, as I prepared to take in The Tourist, I relished in the fact that I knew nothing about the movie.

In fact, as I listened to chatter about the film as I waited for the lights to go down, I learned only two things about The Tourist. The first was that this is the latest film written (or co-written) by Christopher McQuarrie. McQuarrie wrote the perfect film The Usual Suspects and that gives him a pretty high street cred with me. In retrospect, I think I would have enjoyed The Tourist more if I had never seen his masterwork. There are too many similarities with this and The Usual Suspects for my liking and it shows a distinctive lack of imagination on McQuarrie's part. The other thing I learned was that The Tourist is opening opposite The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader and I can only presume that the studio is hoping to have a more adult picture to compete with that with. In that regard, The Tourist is a success.

The Tourist is a suspense thriller with a case of mistaken identity and layers to it, but it is a far less subtle work than The Usual Suspects. Even so, it is enjoyable and director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck deserves a lot of credit for getting a very different performance out of Johnny Depp than, say, Tim Burton does. In this, Depp is cool, collected and not at all strange, which makes the argument that he still retains the talent for acting, not just fitting perfectly into typecast roles.

Elise Ward is being followed by a police investigation unit in Paris, led by Acheson. There, she receives a letter from Pearce that instructs her to be on a specific train and to burn the letter. Elise complies and she flees the police to take the train to Venice. On the train, she meets Frank, choosing him - as the letter insisted she do - because of his resemblance is height and stature to Pearce, who has had his body altered with the billions he has stolen from a businessman. But the British police are not fools and before the train arrives, they have recovered enough of the letter to know that they have been set up and Acheson calls off the INTERPOL agents on site.

The failure of Frank to be arrested at that point forces Ward to adapt and she brings Frank back to her hotel, which has accommodations lavishly presented by Pearce. She is also given a directive from Pearce to meet him at a ball two days later. While Ward waits meeting the man she loves, Frank is hunted ruthlessly by the man Pearce took for his billions. Ward's story becomes more complicated, but Frank is put in the crosshairs of the police and the mob, which forces the hands of all involved.

The Tourist is actually astonishingly well-paced and is actually enjoyable. While fans of thrillers might bemoan the attempt on the part of the writers to actually insert character into the movie, it works quite well. Ward is layered and Frank Tupelo is distinct, more so by the fact that he is fairly normal and not at all what one might expect of Johnny Depp these days. But what makes the movie worth seeing at least once is the fact that it is populated by characters who are fairly smart. The police in The Tourist are smart, hard-working and generally clever. They have tools at their disposal and they are equipped to make the tough decision. So, for example, when Acheson makes a call on letting Frank die because he recognizes that Ward has put the agents in a situation where Frank will act, even unwittingly, as a decoy for her, that is impressive. Moreover, the conversation Acheson has with his agents about jurisdiction while Frank is under fire is both realistic and something I've never seen in film before.

The acting in The Tourist is homogeneously wonderful. The film starts as Angelina Jolie's picture, but most of her role in the beginning is posturing. She is cool and collected and what separates Ward from the other vixens Jolie has played is that the viewer can see the wheels constantly turning in her head. We know from the outset that Ward is smart and that she is always looking for an angle. There is no doubt in the mind of the viewer that she is setting Frank up and she does it with a far more subtle use of her sex appeal than is customary when Jolie is cast. As a result, she has an impressive presence.

But from the moment Johnny Depp arrives on screen, the film is his. Depp plays first with just his eyes and he does that masterfully, but not in a way that is off-the-wall or even significant. While watching Frank, one feels like they are watching Frank, not Depp as Frank. The only real exception to this is when Depp is on a Venice rooftop running; there his physical movement is very familiar to those who have seen Johnny Depp in other things. But considering it is only one real slip the whole movie, it is very hard to complain.

The supporting performances are great as well. Paul Bettany gives a performance nothing like his role in Legion (click here for my review of that film!). He is cool, collected and above all smart here. And for his brief time on screen, Timothy Dalton is good as his boss. Sadly, Rufus Sewell's shot early in the movie gives away far too much to seasoned viewers and it makes it very easy to call the end of the movie.

While the film diverges for a strange dance scene and Ward's character is not entirely who she appears, the film works well for the most part.

Ultimately, The Tourist is paced well and is clever, but before too long, I was able to accurately call the end and that left me feeling somewhat disappointed. As well, the soundtrack, which as an abstract is wonderful, is too often intrusive. Even so, this is a fun film on a gut level and the acting is good all the way around. This truly is one of the most adult and interesting films in theaters now.

For other films featuring Johnny Depp, please visit my reviews of:
Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Alice In Wonderland
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber Of Fleet Street
Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Corpse Bride
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl
Blow
Dead Man
Edward Scissorhands

7/10

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

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




| | |