Special Correspondents Is A Wonderful, Relevant, Satire!

The Good: Very funny, Wonderful plot development, Good performances
The Bad: Some pacing issues in the middle, Unlikable characters
The Basics: Special Correspondents is a Netflix Original Film that puts Ricky Gervais in the three major creative roles for a film . . . and he makes a smart success!


Netflix exclusive films have been a true mixed bag for me. Out of the six I have watched before today, three were flat-out terrible, two were all right and one was wonderful. So, sitting down to Special Correspondents and knowing only that it was a Netflix Original Film was not enough to get me to watch. But then, I found out it starred Ricky Gervais and Eric Bana and I figured, "it would be hard to produce something bad with the two of them!" Then, I saw that Ricky Gervais had written and directed the film and my thought was "How was this not a blockbuster comedy release?" Then I watched it and was left even more baffled.

Special Correspondents is apparently a rewrite/remake of a French film and it is worth noting that I've not seen the French version. As a result, this review is based entirely on Special Correspondents as its own work.

Frank is a radio reporter, sitting in a bar, listening to a police scanner when he hears about a crime going down at the nearby York Hotel. Gaining access to the crime scene, he gets enough details to go on the air with a puff piece. That makes his sound engineer, Ian Finch, happy, but dismays his co-worker Claire and pisses off his boss, Jeffrey Mallard. While at a radio event, Claire and Finch are given an assignment, which leaves Finch's wife, Eleanor, in the same room with Frank. Eleanor sleeps with Frank and he leaves afterward. The next morning, Frank is given an assignment in Equador and he wants to take Finch, who has just been left by his wife. The pair head off to the airport, but there they discover that Finch accidentally threw out their plane ticket and credentials instead of the note he was going to give his wife.

The two retreat to a local restaurant where they brainstorm with the Cafe's managers, Brigida and Domingo. Finch comes up with the idea that they can fake the report, so they set up in the room above the restaurant across from the radio station. Finch creates a sound scape to represent Ecuador and they begin making up the story. To that end, they create Emilia Santiago Alvarez as a man behind the coup in Ecuador. The State Department orders Mallard to get Finch and Bonneville to the U.S. embassy in Quito, as major media organizations run with the Alvarez story. When they fail to make it to the embassy, the story becomes how they have been captured. To play into that, they make a ransom film and their hostage story becomes giant news. Eleanor starts to exploit the story for herself and Claire is assigned to tell her story. To rectify the situation, the guys have to actually smuggle themselves into Ecuador to get to the embassy! Inadvertently, they learn the truth about the situation in Ecuador.

Special Correspondents is a comedy where the premise involves an absurd concept with a built-in obvious potential catastrophe. The film moves away from the obvious pressures of "will they get caught or not" to Eleanor exploiting the situation. That keeps Special Correspondents moving forward. The transition between the major plot elements develops very organically.

Ian Finch is characterized well at the outset as a man who has never accomplished anything. Finch dreams of doing something significant, but instead he plays video games and his life is augmented by a collectibles collection he cherishes. Special Correspondents is the story of how he finds himself out of his element and over his head. He is in a loveless marriage and Special Correspondents has him on the unfortunate emotional journey of getting over his broken marriage.

Frank Bonneville is a stereotypical arrogant local celebrity with delusions of grandeur. Frank is recognized on the street and bathes in the adoration of others. He is, however, not dumb and his ability to think quickly on his feet is quickly established. His observation skills make his affair seem pretty scummy, but his ability to talk his way out of the ethical ramifications of knowingly sleeping with another man's wife is a masterful work of characterization.

Special Correspondents takes a delightful twist when Eleanor Finch reveals her true colors. Eleanor exploits the situation and when she does, she is a terrible person. Eleanor is willing to sacrifice her husband and Frank to protect the money she has gotten out of the grieving American people. She is a reprehensible character and Vera Fermiga plays her exceptionally well.

Perhaps the greatest surprise of Special Correspondents is how funny America Ferrera is in it. What starts as a bit role blossoms into one of the most overtly humorous roles she has had.

Ricky Gervais finds the right balance between overt humor and satire in Special Correspondents. Special Correspondents is like Wag The Dog with more overt humor and it is more focused than American Dreamz (reviewed here!). Special Correspondents does a good job of illustrating just how gullible the American people are and how corruptible the media can be.

More than most movies I've seen lately, Special Correspondents knows when to end and the film returns to the characters for the climax in an effective way. As such, Special Correspondents does all it needs to without getting mired in the long-term ramifications of the deception of the three main characters. The movie does what it sets out to do in a solidly entertaining way and it is well worth watching.

For other Netflix exclusive films, please check out my reviews of:
Mascots
ARQ
XOXO
Tallulah
The Fundamentals Of Caring
The Ridiculous 6

7.5/10

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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Serious Sandler: Funny People (Mostly) Succeeds.

The Good: Good performances, Interesting characters, Moments of empathy/themes
The Bad: Mood is often oppressive, Pacing issues
The Basics: Adam Sandler effectively delves into his dramatic side with Funny People, a Judd Apatow flick that reasserts the writer/director’s ability to plumb the depths of drama . . . with mixed results.


Regardless of how both films might have underwhelmed at the box office, Judd Apatow’s Funny People owes quite a debt to P.T. Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love (reviewed here!). Punch-Drunk Love was the first major film to truly use Saturday Night Live alum Adam Sandler in a dramatic role with any real success. Funny People also explores Sandler’s ability to play a deeply serious role and had Punch-Drunk Love not softened American audiences up for such a twist from the comedian, it might have been even more off-putting than the film already was.

Unfortunately, Judd Apatow’s endeavor into getting a serious performance out of Adam Sandler feels more clogged and problematic than Anderson’s more compact, focused role for Sandler. Sandler’s ability to play rage in Punch-Drunk Love plays somewhat better than his character’s apathy in Funny People and the somewhat sprawling nature of this film. Even so, George Simmons is one of Sandler’s better performances and more memorable roles following his career in dippy comedy blockbusters. Sandler makes Simmons substantive and compelling to watch, even if he is not always interesting.

George Simmons is a highly successful comedian who came up from the stand-up circuit before he started making million-dollar blockbusters and became one of the highest grossing actors in America. Depressed and somewhat lethargic, Simmons encounters aspiring comedian Ira Wright and his roommate, Leo Koenig. Wright hates his job serving sandwiches and he leaps at the opportunity to write jokes for Simmons for a MySpace event – if for no other reason than to show up his hack roommate Mark. After the big event, Ira begins working for George and George admits to his new assistant that he is dying of leukemia. As George has Ira start selling off his stockpiles of swag, he starts pining for the woman who got away, Laura.

Ira finds working for Simmons to be a largely losing proposition. Working for George keeps him distracted, which gives Mark time to move in on his love interest, Daisy. It does, however, get him some exposure on the stand-up circuit, but he finds that hanging out with Simmons doesn’t get him laid and he gets mired in Simmons’ depression. But as Simmons wrestles with his own mortality, Ira helps him find Laura and George disrupts her unhappy marriage. The result makes Ira a witness to a life he has always dreamed of having and forces him to decide if it is the way he wants to live going forward.

Funny People departs from Judd Apatow’s other films by, despite the title, being anything but a comedy. The film reminds viewers of the more character-based, dramatic moments that made Apatow’s Freaks & Geeks (reviewed here!) a cult-smash. Unfortunately, while Seth Rogen has no trouble embodying a serious Apatow-written character (Rogen plays Ira), the role has him meandering around the much more cinematically-powerful Sandler. Even when Sandler’s Simmons is acting bored and depressed, Rogen is unable to steal the spotlight from him. The more significant character journey in Funny People is, arguably, Wright’s arc, but Rogen does not make the film feel like it is truly his.

To his credit, writer-director Judd Apatow manages to create a film where almost every significant (male, at least) stand-up comedian alive shows up. For sure, many – like Paul Reiser, Norm MacDonald, and Dave Attell – have roles that are little more than cameos, but the fact that they show up at all makes the world of Funny People feel very real and the drama within it compelling.

That said, Funny People takes far too long to get going. Apatow thoroughly develops the relationship between Simmons and Wright and by the time the viewer is bored with the two of them, the film makes the shift into the relationship between Simmons and Laura. When that transition is made, Wright becomes something of a hapless sidekick and his role as witness robs him of a character arc where he actually keeps real control over his life. Instead, he reacts to how Simmons throws a bombshell into Laura’s family and the result hardly makes Wright compelling. Apatow alum Leslie Mann plays a less-bitchy version of her prior characters and Apatow makes viewers wait for Eric Bana long past the point that he is able to carry any enthusiasm from seeing his name in the opening credits.

Bana and Mann have pretty poor on-screen chemistry, but their characters are supposed to be estranged, so it is hard to complain too much about that. Unfortunately, Sandler and Mann have no real on-screen charm together and the result is that it is hard for viewers to be convinced that they have more of a chance than the married couple that seems set in every way, but the passion department. The problem with Funny People is that none of the characters have innate chemistry with the others: Jonah Hill and Jason Schwartzman lack real chemistry with Seth Rogen in Funny People, so it is off-putting at the beginning even to make the viewers believe that they are all actually roommates!

Despite the chemistry problems and the fact that Mann plays a very familiar type of character, Funny People is well-acted. Seth Rogen plays the up and coming, very awkward comedian well and Jason Schwartzman plays the jackass roommate with complete plausibility. Jonah hill is fine as Leo, though his character does not get nearly angry enough when Ira’s big secret is finally revealed to him.

But that is the way of Funny People: the film takes a long time setting up, developing, redirecting and expositing until, like life, if just goes nowhere. That makes it a film with so many winning elements, but an ultimately underwhelming resolution and execution.

For other works with Eric Bana, please visit my reviews of:
Hanna
The Time Traveler’s Wife
Star Trek
Hulk

6.5/10

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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At Long Last, The Time Traveler’s Wife Arrives As A Wonderful Romantic Story!

The Good: Good acting, Decent effects, Interesting characters, Good plot
The Bad: Glosses over a lot, Make-up effects
The Basics: Often funny, ultimately heartwrenching, The Time Traveler’s Wife is a fun film which truncates the essentials of the novel into a decent movie.


There are few books that I am blown away on the first read that they instantly enter my Top Ten Greatest Books Of All Time list and only one of them has been published within the last decade. That book was The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (reviewed here!) and I'll admit to a little bit of professional jealousy; Niffenegger achieved in her first novel what it took me three to get. That said, I've only read The Time Traveler’s Wife once and the reason was because no sooner had I finished reading it than the movie rights were bought up and the film went into preproduction and I thought, "If there is ever any hope of me seeing the film and reviewing it for only the movie it is, I must not reread the novel again!" After all, as I sit contemplating the cinematic version of The Time Traveler’s Wife, I am forced to remind readers that this is not the book, it is a movie and as such it ought to be judged independently of the novel.

That said, The Time Traveler’s Wife is a remarkable and original romantic drama that is a welcome addition to the end of Summer Blockbuster Season (and hopefully women - the target demographic for the film - will get out there this weekend and make sure that this film trumps District 9 at the box office!). Delayed because co-executive producer Brad Pitt did not want it to compete with his attempted Oscar grab The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button (both films were set to be released on Christmas Day 2008), The Time Traveler’s Wife is a warm romantic vision that puts a twist on the lonely housewife with a mild science fiction premise and a strong dramatic delivery. Screenwriter Bruce Joel Rubin adapted the novel - which was over five hundred pages - as best he could and the result is a romantic film complete with banter, Hollywood casting and true passion.

Henry is a young child when he is in a horrible car accident that kills his mother . . . only, he manages to escape the actual accident by dislocating himself in time. Coached by an older version of himself who appears just as magically, the confused child watches his mother die and begins a lonely life working as a research librarian in Chicago. One day, Claire Abshire finds herself in the library and she meets Henry, though Henry is shocked at how absolutely Claire insists she knows him. The young woman throws herself at Henry insisting she has known him her entire life and she insists that they have dinner that very night.

The dinner turns quickly into romance - though Henry is late to their dinner because of yet another inadvertent time travel incident - and soon Claire and Henry are seeing one another exclusively. While Henry works to reconcile with his estranged father, he continues to find himself in the past at moments when Claire is younger and he becomes her friend and mentor, sometimes arriving in the past frustrated with events in their future. Chief among these is Claire's desire to have a child, a problem that continues to uproot the lovers as the fetuses continue to dislodge in time. As Claire and Henry fall more in love, a shadow hangs over them both; neither has ever seen Henry older than forty, insinuating that he is either saved or dies within a few years of their meeting in real time!

The Time Traveler’s Wife is a complex story that is simplified in its cinematic presentation to such an extent that some of the elements that remain are confusing or downright pointless in the abridged version. Chief among these are peripheral characters, most notably Gomez, who appear in the film for only a scene or two, then are given strangely profound exits from the film. Henry's award-winning doctor, Kendricks, appears only briefly and Gomez is credited with being a great asset to Henry and Claire, despite only appearing on-screen long enough to be introduced to Henry, hear his story and then attempt to get Claire to not marry Henry! It is never made clear in the film how Gomez is able to be a help to Henry and this is likely to confuse viewers who have not read the novel.

Similarly, the scope of Claire and Henry's relationship in the past is so severely truncated as to make Claire's initial meeting with Henry seem more like a girlish fantasy than a well-constructed, meaningful relationship. In fact, much of Henry's time traveling occurs as montages where he simply disappears from Claire's present and she is forced to get on without him, without the viewer seeing where Henry has gone. This is often used humorously as a one-trick joke when Henry disappears from police or an older version appears in time to marry Claire when his present self becomes dislocated in time, but the fact the film is so short mortgages much of the emotional resonance between Claire and Henry.

With only three - that I recall - scenes set in Henry's past where he meets the younger Claire, The Time Traveler’s Wife is not only an example of how difficult it is to translate a novel into a film, but also an argument in how Hollywood is fearful about doing so. From the outset, The Time Traveler’s Wife would have been a challenge as many, many scenes would have forced a middle-aged man to play opposite a little girl and when one gets into child actors and sexual tension between young teens and middle aged men, this becomes problematic. The cinematic version of The Time Traveler’s Wife does this mostly by ignoring the source material; Brooklyn Proulx is cast and ably holds her own with Eric Bana as the young Claire Abshire in two scenes. A sixteen year-old Claire is included for a scene to illustrate the potential for sexual tension between them, but otherwise, young Claire is absent from the movie. This becomes a ridiculous translation to screen, then, because filmmakers knew that this was the thrust of much of the book.

Conversely, the movie focuses more on Henry and the daughter he and Claire have, which allows Henry to be more of a mentor than a creepy potential pedophile. The relationship between Alba and Henry is charming. What The Time Traveler’s Wife does have - outside of nostalgia for the book - is a charming love story that is well-acted and has a nice gimmick that is fun to watch. Those who love passion will find the quirky plot of the film to be fun and the dialogue is not stripped of all charm - which was a real fear for some viewers, like me. In this regard, the only real problem is the failure to keep Bana's hair and make-up consistent as he ages. The older Henry begins to gray, but in many of the later scenes of the movie, Henry still has his black hair, despite older, grayer versions of himself already appearing!

Moreover, while I would not have cast Eric Bana as Henry, he does an amazing job in the role. Distinctly different from his role as the monolithic villain in Star Trek (reviewed here!), Bana is levelheaded, quietly funny and plays Henry as more of a heavy than one might expect, but he makes it work. Bana has a screen presence similar to that of Christian Bale and fans of Bana will appreciate seeing him naked - only from the back - several times throughout the film.

It is Rachel McAdams, though, who comes into her own as Claire. McAdams has wonderful emotional range throughout the film and it is her performance which will sell and sway the naysayers. McAdams is funny when the film calls for it, playing Claire young and perky in her twenties when Claire and Henry first meet in real time. She is also able to carry the emotional resonance of scenes like Claire dealing with miscarriages and the attempts to keep herself serene during her ultimate pregnancy. She makes the movie worth watching.

And the movie is very much worth watching, even if it has a truncated feeling and could have been made longer, more edgy (I remember a lot more nudity in the novel!), and fleshed out the peripheral characters better. Still, it is a charming love story and one that ought to get people away from the big budget special effects flicks for a weekend and perhaps reading a book next weekend. What could be wrong with that?!

For other works with Rachel McAdams, please visit my review of Sherlock Holmes

7/10

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

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Waiting For The Potential, Hanna Is A Solid Adventure!

The Good: Interesting idea, Decent acting, Moments of character
The Bad: Pacing irregularities, Telegraphing soundtrack, Somewhat predictable.
The Basics: Hanna is a graphic, intriguing chase movie that is a little too predictable to be truly thrilling.


Hanna is one of those movies that came out earlier in the year that I missed, but did not actually feel like I missed. While the idea of it intrigued me, I did not feel like I missed it because the previews were so utterly revealing. With it out now on DVD, though, I felt like it was time to sit and watch it. Hanna seems to have a pretty simple and direct premise and my thought was that the way it could impress me would be to actually develop the characters so it was not just another chase film that was cut with the best parts in the trailer.

Hanna does have a bit more depth than I suspected, but it was pretty much what I expected. Despite the meeting Hanna has with the free and loose family and the reckless moments she shares with boys in Spain, the movie is pretty much a chase with narrowing focus. When it isn't a fast-paced chase across Europe, Hanna is a surprisingly slow character story that focuses on Hanna being amazed by the commonplace elements she has only heard of in stories.

Hanna is raised in seclusion by Erik, taught to hunt, shoot, fight and survive under any circumstances. Amazed by such things as airplanes, Hanna has been trained to be an incredible soldier in seclusion. Feeling she is ready to face a woman who is supposed to want to kill her, she activates a homing beacon Erik provides her with and allows herself to be "rescued" by the CIA. As a former intelligence operative, Erik is sought by Marissa, though she quickly suspects Hanna is more than meets the eye. This is confirmed when Hanna requests a meeting with Marissa and the decoy who is sent in is killed by the girl.

From that point on, Hanna is on the run through the desert regions of Morocco. Marissa recalls how she, not Erik, killed Hanna's mother and set into motion the hunt that seems to suggest that she is part of an experiment. Hanna meets up with Sophie and her family while on the run as Marissa hires locals to find the girl. As they cut a swath of violence into Spain and across Europe, Erik moves in for a rendezvous in Germany. Hanna tries to normalize with Sophie and understand the test results she found in the CIA facility in Morocco as Marissa and Erik move toward a final showdown.

Director Joe Wright telegraphs Hanna with the soundtrack, eliminating any real surprise or mystery to what comes next in any given scene. For example, Erik will be walking along, clearly followed, but as he moves on, the soundtrack becomes an action theme in advance of the physical fight that comes. That guts the suspense quite a bit and leaves the viewer feeling like they are part of an emotional experiment as opposed to watching something truly engaging.

That said, much of Hanna actually is engaging. The film is extraordinarily well-acted, for example, despite having a very small cast. Eric Bana plays Erik and once again, the actor illustrates that he can provide a lot of depth for a character who is written fairly monolithically. Like his character in Star Trek (reviewed here!), Bana adds personality to Erik with faint smiles and occasionally ironic line deliveries.

Cate Blanchett is the first big surprise as Marissa. Blanchett as Marissa is far from the demur, whispy character she usually plays. Instead of playing the usual quiet, good character with a soft British accent, she plays a Texan CIA agent and her accent is flawless. She is cold, calculating and utterly ruthless as Marissa and the role is unlike any she has ever had. She nails it, though, presenting the menace of a spy in a way that makes her intriguing to watch and magnetic, regardless of how monolithic her character might be.

Much of the film, however, rests on the performance of Saoirse Ronan, who had bored me in ever role I had seen her in before now. But in Hanna she manages to be cold, distant and reserved without being boring or seeming like she couldn't act. Instead, she portrays dispassionate and well-trained to a "t," overcoming the apparent limitations of her age. In addition to playing brutal, Ronan is able to embody wonder in her eyes and facial expressions perfectly, which sells well scenes like her witnessing the washer women in the desert.

Ultimately, what slowly robs the film of higher consideration is the pacing and the lack of ability to empathize with the characters. Early on in the movie, it comes out that Hanna was a part of an experiment, though the nature of the experiment is not revealed until late in the picture. Her desire for freedom and self-determination is a decent quest, but ultimately, whether she kills Marissa, Marissa kills her or if either ends up with Erik does not matter to the viewer. The characters just fail to resonate enough to truly become invested in, especially when several of the characters abruptly fall out of the film.

Now on DVD, Hanna comes with an alternate ending, deleted scenes and a featurette on the making of one of the film's scenes. The bonus features are decent, but typical. The commentary track is mildly interesting, but does not solve the problems with the movie. Ultimately, Hanna is worth watching, but I can't see watching it more than the one time.

For other thrillers, please visit my reviews of:
The Tourist
Bound
Armored

7/10

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

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

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Big Green Suck - Hulk, The Movie That Makes Elektra Look Like Casablanca!

The Good: Jennifer Connelly's presence
The Bad: Effects, Directoral technique, Acting, Plot, Utter lack of real character, Pacing, Music
The Basics: With terrible acting, substandard effects, a ridiculous plot and characters that fall flat, Hulk is an incredible disappointment that should be seen only as punishment.


Wow. Usually, we use the utterance to exclaim something incredible. When we encounter something we cannot believe, when we're trying to describe recent ecstasy and run out of words, these are the positive uses of "Wow!" Then, there's "wow." As in, "how could something so bad get made?" Or "How is it people threw millions of dollars into making this when there are people starving in the world?" In that latter sense, when I finished the unending, ponderous flick Hulk, I said "wow." Then, to cheer myself up, I began to read more of Ralph Reed's book.

Hulk tells the story of Dr. David Banner, an unethical scientist working for the military on a project to make soldiers who will regenerate (back in the mid-60s). In the process, he begins to experiment on himself and while there appear to be no effects of his genetic manipulations, when his wife has a son, it does not take David Banner long to realize he has successfully passed something on to his child, Bruce.

Thirty years later, Dr. Bruce Banner is a scientist working on much the same thing his father was. He has just lost the affections of his girlfriend, Betty and an ambitious industrialist is pressuring Betty and Bruce to sell out, work for him and make super soldiers for a private company. While saving a friend from a machine that microwaves frogs, Bruce is exposed to radiation that unlocks the potential of his genes, causing him to transform from a mild-mannered person to an impossible huge green creature that kills, maims and destroys in a ridiculously plot-convenient way.

So, wow. Where to start on how bad this movie is? Actually, first, the good. Jennifer Connelly is in the movie and it is always a pleasure to watch her. Her acting here is nothing spectacular, largely because the character she is playing is rather monolithic, but it's always nice to see Connelly getting work.

I'm rushing the review in bullet points from here on out. Why? The movie was so bad that the time it is taking for me to write this review could be better spent contemplating what I personally could do to help bring about world peace. Hulk wasted over two hours of my life (it felt more like four) and writing about it only wastes more.

The directoral style is just plain terrible. Ang Lee breaks the movie up visually much like a comic book, so there are frequently multiple "panels" on the screen. This is not consistent throughout the movie, but at various places, the film basically resorts to picture in picture. And the size and shape of the various frames continue to change, creating a sense of movement that is lacking in the story. So, as the plot plods along, the movie tries to compensate with keeping the images rapidly changing. It is distracting and annoying. The piece feels like an art school project where a bunch of students got high and went wild on a mixing board. I kept waiting for a star wipe.

Danny Elfman creates a soundtrack that is both unmemorable and uncohesive. Unlike something like the Batman Returns (reviewed here!) soundtrack that works quite well independent of the movie as a creepy, moody orchestral piece, the music backing Hulk is utterly dependent on the movie or vice versa. The film uses the music, like the directoral transitions, to move along a plot that is not headed in a direction satisfactorily.

As for that plot, "just plain terrible" does not begin to describe this one. The time leading up to the first appearance of the Hulk is slow, meandering and feels pointless. Once Hulk arrives, it just descends into ridiculous movement by the greatest cast of military idiots since Beetle Bailey. The last section of the movie, where Hulk faces off against a rather new enemy caps the movie off with an idiotic sequence that is giant in terms of special effects but makes utterly no sense from a plot perspective.

The movie asks the viewer to believe that the U.S. Army, flawed as it might be, would be so stupid as to put two genetic mutants together in essentially a giant power plant without monitoring them when one is a known criminal and psychopath. And the psychopath is not the one locked to a chair. All this without any sort of monitoring.

Sigh.

It's that bad.

And the effects, oh my gosh, the effects. Hulk is just plain terrible, making the tigers from Gladiator look like quality CG. But beyond the Hulk monster, the effects are ridiculous and grandiose in a way that translates to the screen as just plain silly. Hulk begins to leap miles at a time and the viewer watches this preposterous green dot flailing across the desert and we ask, "What's the appeal?"

But to return to the idiot characters, after half an hour of big budget special effects involving shooting everything conceivable at Hulk, it never seems to occur to the characters that this approach is not working. At the movie's climax, there is a similar - though escalated - exchange. Yet, somehow, increased force manages to work there. It buggers all reason and it makes even the imagination say "this is stupid, not creative."

I almost did not finish Hulk. You know the phrase, "You couldn't pay me to watch this?" If I didn't think people might read my review and I might make a few cents off my words of disdain for this movie, I would not have finished it. You couldn't pay me to watch it again.

For other movies based upon the Marvel comic books, please check out my reviews of:
X-Men: First Class
Thor
Iron Man 2
Blade: Trinity
Elektra
Daredevil

1/10

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

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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It Might Not Be The Star Trek We Know, But Star Trek Is A Surprisingly Good Film!

The Good: Great acting, Cool story, Decent effects, Good character development
The Bad: Casting/Age issues
The Basics: When Star Trek reboots, an angry Romulan returns to the past on a mission of vengeance to make Spock and Vulcan suffer for the Federation's future ambivalence to the Empire!


For those who do not follow my many reviews, I am a huge fan of Star Trek, the franchise. The franchise lost me with Enterprise and I had spent the year and a half prior to its release dreading the theatrical release of the film Star Trek. I decried it at conventions to anyone who would listen in advance of its theatrical release, citing little known facts - mostly bugged by the absence of Gary Mitchell, Kirk's best friend and the first officer on the Enterprise before Spock took the post - and later by clips that showed Zachary Quinto as Spock strangling Kirk on the bridge of the Enterprise, a real mistake given the genius casting of Quinto as a young Spock. The reboot looked like a huge mistake and it reminded me of the rumors of Kirk and Spock at the Academy films that would have recast the Star Trek cast in the late '80's and early '90's, a proposed series of films fans rose up against and Gene Roddenberry despised the idea of. So, it might seem odd that I would get so excited about a screening of Star Trek I managed to get into and that I would drive a hundred fifty miles to attend said screening.

And this morning, I am proud to say: "I was wrong." Star Trek is amazing. The film flat-out impressed, despite a few serious flaws - mostly to do with casting. The story is surprisingly tight, the effects are generally amazing (they are big and occur at speeds which the eye has trouble keeping up with on the big screen), the character arcs are interesting and the movie is fun! In fact, even with the flaws that are left in Star Trek, this is easily one of the best cinematic endeavors in the Star Trek franchise and had it not been Star Trek, it would have been an even better science fiction work.

A singularity appears in space near where the Federation starship U.S.S. Kelvin is patrolling. Out of the singularity comes a massive Romulan starship, which destroys the Kelvin, though its first officer rescues most of the crew in an act of sacrifice after the captain is captured. One of the people successfully evacuated from the ship is Winona Kirk, who has just given birth to a boy named James. James Kirk grows up fatherless, a drifter in Iowa with a long rap sheet and a penchant for finding trouble. As Kirk grows up pushing the legal limits, on the planet Vulcan, a half-Vulcan boy named Spock is tormented by his classmates until he reaches an age that he is able to decide to join StarFleet as opposed to the Vulcan Science Academy. When Kirk gets into a bar fight in Iowa, while flirting with a StarFleet cadet named Uhura, he is pulled aside by Captain Christopher Pike who challenges him to join StarFleet.

Twenty-five years after the destruction of the Kelvin, Nero, the Romulan commander of the massive ship, resurfaces with his ship to capture another ship exiting the singularity. Shortly thereafter, Vulcan is attacked and StarFleet mobilizes its cadets into early service to save the Federation world. On academic probation for reprogramming the Kobayashi Maru scenario, Dr. McCoy sneaks cadet Kirk onto the Enterprise as Captain Pike and Spock lead the ship to try to save Vulcan. Recognizing the nature of the attack, Kirk attempts to prevent the Enterprise and the StarFleet squadron's destruction and when Pike is captured and Vulcan is destroyed, Spock exiles Kirk to a frozen planet with little hope of survival.

What makes Star Trek so wonderful is that Nero, the villain of the film, is only a peripheral character. This is not a movie about Nero, it is a film about Kirk and Spock and an alternate reality where they meet under very different circumstances from the "reality" of the original Star Trek. And herein lies my sole gripe with the film.

Star Trek is a remarkably sensible reboot, only the film gets the characters wrong as far as casting. Allow me to explain. Nero's appearance in our reality alters one major event: the destruction of the Kelvin. Outside that, before the incursion, there are no fundamental differences in the regular Star Trek universe and this new alternate universe created by the incursion. As a result, things like the Enterprise looking completely different can be explained only through the destruction of the Kelvin or peripheral events surrounding that (i.e. the guy who would later design the Enterprise was aboard the Kelvin and killed, so someone else designed it). What does not track are the character differences and, most importantly, the age differences. In its efforts to include all of the major characters, director J.J. Abrams and his writing partners Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman fudge a few important details; for example, Kirk is over ten years older than Chekov in the original Star Trek, here he is only eight years older (Nero says he has waited twenty-five years, making Kirk twenty-five, at a time when Chekov on the bridge mentions being seventeen). Between this and the utter gutting of Sarek, Spock's father who is vastly more accepting and emotionally connected in this incarnation, the details simply do not work out for the die hard fans. And yes, because Kirk met Mitchell at the Academy, his absence in the film will bug the three fans left who care that much.

Also problematic for those who love the optimistic vision of Star Trek in that it spells the end to capitalism in the form of an eager socialism where people work for the betterment of humanity are the product placements. Back in the day, Gene Roddenberry effectively fought to keep cigarettes out of Star Trek and promote the idea that peace, love, harmony and the betterment of humanity (along with handy things like food replicators) would put an end to overbearing capitalism. Still, Nokia and Budwiser get their product placements and there is something truly disturbing about that. On the flip side, the writers of the film make positive dated references to current events as well, most notably the subtle visual implication that Nero is waterboarding a hostage (which is far less subtle when one know what they are looking for!).

But beyond the nitpickers, Star Trek is impressive, amazing science fiction fun. The character interactions and differences are fun to watch and the appearances of each major character from the series is welcome. The film includes wonderful one-liners - my partner especially enjoyed Kirk mentioning his sexual activities are not limited exclusively to farm animals - and impressive action scenes. There are red shirts who bite the dust, there is the appearance of Leonard Nimoy as Spock from "our" universe and the villain is interesting enough to keep our attention. But more than that, Star Trek is about a young man rising to the challenge of simply being great and it is about the struggle within people during tough times.

As a result, there are some pretty wonderful character moments. The writers of Star Trek wisely resurrected a concept insinuated early on in the first episodes of the series that was never followed up on; a relationship between Uhura and Spock. In Star Trek, Spock and Uhura have real chemistry and Spock's emotional outburst on the bridge is an important character and plot point that comes to make sense. In fact, the character that doesn't make sense is Sarek, but the others work, especially the delinquent James T. Kirk. Kirk is adventurous, clever and resourceful in a way that makes him a perfectly realized character early on in the movie.

As well, Star Trek makes the viewer mourn the original series, as Gene Roddenberry intended it. I refer to the first pilot of Star Trek, "The Cage" (click here for that review!). While the cinematic endeavors of the starships Enterprise are arguably different (click here for my review of those!), Roddenberry's original vision had Captain Pike, a moody captain in charge of the Enterprise and he did not test market so well. In Star Trek, Captain Christopher Pike is well-realized and interesting to watch. In this incarnation, one finds themselves wishing to see more of his adventures.

Similarly, for those who are looking for the next Khan quality villain, Star Trek is likely to disappoint. Nero is hardly featured and his reasons within the context of the film are explained only enough to make him make sense. Still, he makes perfect sense; he is out to make the galaxy a Romulan territory by wiping out all the Empire's enemies before they become enough of a threat to contain the Romulans in their paltry territory. For a greater sense of who Nero is, though, viewers will want to prepare for the film with the graphic novel Star Trek: Countdown (click here for that review!). Readers of that will only be miffed about the failure of Spock Prime in the film to mention he worked intimately with Nero, though the book is detailed enough in its setup to include things like Nero learning about James T. Kirk.

Star Trek is a decent action adventure film in its own right as Kirk and Spock struggle to understand one another and thwart a villain who is technologically advanced to a point that even attempting to stop him is ridiculous. This, too, is a detail the writers and director got very right; the idea that any ship from Star Trek (the original series) would even slow down a ship as advanced as Nero's is more or less a joke. Still, as movie viewers, it is hard not to enjoy the conceit of the Enterprise blazing with phasers and enduring multiple blasts and mines from the enemy ship.

Finally, the acting in Star Trek is impressive. While Simon Pegg and Karl Urban may have been poorly cast as far as ages in relation to their characters (McCoy is supposed to be six years older than Kirk and Scotty is supposed to be eleven years older and the actors hardly seem older than Kirk, especially after Urban cleans up), they nail the type and character once they are there. Chris Pine is inspired as the young James T. Kirk and I return to my assertion that Zachary Quinto is genius casting for Spock. Quinto is able to pull off most effectively the non-emotional aspects of Spock and make a well-realized character. Quinto's facial expressions connote far more than his words and he takes the mantle from Nimoy with impressive grace.

But the one who steals the show is Zoe Saldana as Uhura (who finally gets a first name in this film!). Saldana is sassy, forthright and she takes a character who was too-often relegated to the background and runs with her. Saldana portrays Uhura as educated, fun and powerful in realistic ways. It is a pleasure to watch her work.

Fans of the original Star Trek will enjoy a few very subtle gags, though, most notably the presence of a Tribble when Scotty first appears in the movie! (For those looking, when Scotty is first introduced, listen closely and you'll hear a Tribble purring and if you check out the right side of the screen, you'll see a cage with a Tribble or two in it!)

So, for all of the naysayers and for those who do not know Star Trek, this was THE science fiction film to watch last summer. It is funny, action-packed and well-conceived, despite a few problems that cannot be written off due to temporal anomalies. Fans of the franchise will enjoy the catchphrases and those who have never seen Trek will enjoy the way it all comes together independent of the in-jokes. It is a well-put together film and worth seeing on the big screen.

For other time-travel or alternate universe movies, please visit my reviews of:
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban
Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time
Donnie Darko


8.5/10

For other Star Trek reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2009, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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