Marvel Universe Consequences Compound In: Spider-Man: Homecoming

The Good: Sense of realism surrounding the protagonist, Sense of consequence for prior films
The Bad: Unremarkable protagonist, Light on great or even interesting performance moments, Familiar character arc
The Basics: A painfully mediocre Marvel Cinematic Universe work, Spider-Man: Homecoming smartly explores the enduring consequences of the Chituari invasion by blandly blending that with the story of a teenager figuring out a super-suit he was given.


As a genre fan and a reviewer, Marvel films are pretty much a staple. So, it is a testament to how little enthusiasm I had going into Spider-Man: Homecoming that it took me until today (almost a week after its initial release) to actually make time to watch the movie. I have never really been a fan of the character and source material for Spider-Man, though I did like Andrew Garfield and thought he did fine in The Amazing Spider-Man (reviewed here!). Despite not feeling compelled to rush right out and see Spider-Man: Homecoming, when I sat down to the film today, I did so with an open mind and a general excitement to take the movie in.

Spider-Man: Homecoming slowly became a difficult film to review because it actually did much of what it set out to do well, but I quickly discovered how little interest I had in that story. Spider-Man: Homecoming is very much the story of what would happen if a teenage boy suddenly got into the super hero business and had to figure out his own way through developing his abilities using unfamiliar technology and no training. And Spider-Man: Homecoming did that well, but with so many other works - The Flash Season 1 (reviewed here!) and Daredevil Season 1 (reviewed here!) - where long arcs have been done showing protagonists slowly developing their skills, Spider-Man: Homecoming feels very much like it is coming late to the party.

That said, from almost the first frames of the film, Spider-Man: Homecoming is obsessed with fleshing out the consequences of prior Marvel Cinematic Universe works. In the process, Spider-Man: Homecoming further undermines Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. and retcons S.H.I.E.L.D. to have been even more incompetant than it was overwhelmed. Like almost every Marvel Cinematic Universe work that followed it, Spider-Man: Homecoming explores the devastating consequences of the Battle Of New York from the climax of The Avengers (reviewed here!). When Peter Parker and Spider-Man were introduced in Captain America: Civil War (reviewed here!), there was a distracting quality to the boy's introduction to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it set Spider-Man: Homecoming to leap over the traditional super-hero origin story. Unfortunately, while bypassing the origin, Spider-Man: Homecoming gets mired in the training phase of the super hero arc and mixes that with a banal teen drama story.

Following the Battle Of New York, Adrian Toomes and his business are poised to grow from salvaging Chitauri technology when the salvage operations are taken over by a Stark subsidiary. Facing ruin, Toomes steals an artifact and - with his employees - quietly refuses to turn over technology they already recovered. Eight years later, Toomes and his crew have developed weapons based upon Chitauri technology and have begun to dominate the black market in New York selling their hybridized weaponry to criminals. Around that time, Peter Parker meets Tony Stark and is recruited for the Berlin mission. Following that, Parker is put under the guidance and observation of Happy Hogan and generally abandoned by Stark.

Peter starts cutting out his activities so he can be ready for Tony Stark's call, but it never comes. Parker takes up the mantle of Spider-Man to help people and fight street-level crime. When he encounters criminals robbing an ATM using Toomes's technology, Spider-Man inadvertently creates collateral damage in the form of a bodega Parker loves getting destroyed. Parker begins to track Toomes's crew, but quickly discovers that Tony Stark has put safeguards and tracking devices into his suit. With the help of his friend Ned, Parker deactivates the suit's safeguards and tracks Toomes's supplies to Washington, D.C. There, he is put in a position where his classmates are in danger and he has to save them.

Facing a loss of his supplies and his business, Toomes sets out to eliminate Spider-Man by finishing the development of his advanced flight suit. Toomes and his newly-promoted associate are about to be taken down by the FBI when Toomes reveals his flight suit and manages to elude Spider-Man's capture. But while Spider-Man is able to save the nearly-destroyed Staten Island Ferry that the Vulture sliced in half to escape, that draws the attention and active involvement of Tony Stark in his attempt to stop the criminal enterprise.

Spider-Man: Homecoming gets some things very right, primarily not relying excessively on special effects to make the movie work. Instead of being a fairly gross explosion of CG-effects, Spider-Man: Homecoming manages to be comparatively grounded, focusing more on the characters and the plot than big special effects sequences. And Toomes is a villain who manages to stay just on the right side of being over-the-top when he finally suits up to become Vulture.

The thing is, the pacing and tone of Spider-Man: Homecoming, having Peter Parker fumble through his early training while desperately waiting for Tony Stark's call and getting fobbed off on Happy Hogan makes the first hour and twenty minutes of the film feel like a particularly lame Iron Man spin-off. But right around the point where I was bored enough to not care, Spider-Man: Homecoming actually presents an effective reversal in the plot. When Peter Parker picks up his date for the school dance, he gets a decent surprise and Spider-Man: Homecoming finally presents a villain who is not outwitted by a fifteen year-old boy.

Unfortunately, Spider-Man: Homecoming rapidly develops a decent climax - which essentially puts Spider-Man and Vulture in a fight for a plane full of Stark Technologies crates that Happy was moving from Stark Tower to the Avengers facility in upstate New York - and then attempts a second "surprise" reversal that falls flat and feels desperate (much in the way putting "Robin" into The Dark Knight Rises felt forced).

Spider-Man: Homecoming is dominated on the acting front by Michael Keaton. Keaton plays Toomes and right off the bat, Toomes fits into the very pragmatic side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The grounding aspect of the MCU has been that characters are often limited by real-world aspects - Tony Stark making a clunky prototype suit with discarded missile pieces in a cave, the weak Steve Rogers not having any chance to join the traditional military, Scott Lang getting fired from Baskin-Robbins when they learn he is an ex-con, etc. - and Toomes starts right there. Toomes is looking to provide for his family and is willing to do anything he has to to take care of their needs. Toomes makes sense and his leap from trying to play by the rules to black market arms merchant needs no drawn-out transition. Toomes is a pragmatist whose sense of identity is maintained throughout Spider-Man: Homecoming and Michael Keaton does a good job at playing the villain, especially in a key moment when the character's sense of understanding is played entirely through Keaton's facial expressions.

For as good as Keaton is and as sensible as Toomes is as an adversary, he is not enough to save Spider-Man: Homecoming. Tom Holland plays Peter Parker as bland and Jacob Batalon, Laura Harrier, Zendaya and Tony Revolori all outshine Holland in the school scenes they share.

The biggest issues with Spider-Man: Homecoming come from its continuity in the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe. How did Toomes and his crew avoid falling victim to the microbes that were on Chitauri technology in the Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. episode "FZZT" (reviewed here!)? While the "Department Of Damage Control" seems like a pretty thin veil for S.H.I.E.L.D. teams recovering Chitauri technology in New York City, how is it that S.H.I.E.L.D. - before and after its fall from grace - never detected Toomes and his crew using Chitauri technology. While it is reasonable that a city as large as New York City would have multiple groups - Hammer Technologies, Toomes's salvage business, the New York Fire Department, and at least one privateer - that might end up with Chitauri technology, the more that new groups are retconned into having that technology, the more incompetant S.H.I.E.L.D. is made. In past Marvel Cinematic Universe works, S.H.I.E.L.D. had shit locked down - it took one man, Coulson, to investigate Thor's hammer falling to Earth and getting that (and Thor!) completely contained. Obviously, New York City is much larger and the Chituari invasion was much more massive, but the dependence within the Marvel Cinematic Universe of that invasion turning so many new-to-the-narrative characters bad reduces the effectiveness of S.H.I.E.L.D. and the magnitude of other attacks, like the Dark Elf attack on London.

Ultimately, Spider-Man: Homecoming is more forgettable than it is bad. Spider-Man: Homecoming does a decent job of exploring how big events in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have had consequences that resonate for years, but the teenager stumbling through using technology he was handed progresses with minimal flare and a comparatively low "wow" factor, making for a less-impressive cinematic outing.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Transformers: The Last Knight
Rough Night
The Mummy
Wonder Woman
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales

4/10

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

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Love Actually With Half The Charm, Cast, And Great Moments: Stuck In Love

The Good: Acting, Some good lines
The Bad: Very predictable plot and character arcs.
The Basics: Stuck In Love is an erratic romantic dramedy that has a family of writers and artists struggling to make sense of their lives after a divorce.


There are a number of different types of romantic comedies. I think the best ones tend to be romantic dramas, the dramedies with great lines, wonderful performances and interesting characters. I’m sure every writer aspires to create the next When Harry Met Sally . . . (reviewed here!) or Love Actually (reviewed here!), but in the world after the greats are written, it’s tough to make the next great romantic movie. Josh Boone’s attempt is Stuck In Love. Stuck In Love is more analogous to The Squid And The Whale (reviewed here!) than Love Actually.

To cut to the chase and eliminate all comparisons, Stuck In Love is a romantic dramedy that is plagued by being erratic and predictable. The film has some incredible highs which are muted by obvious seeding foreshadow elements that lead to the most predictable possible payoffs. The result is a film that is worth watching for about five truly incredible lines and character moments. They are, fortunately, spread out enough to not make the rest of the film entirely miserable, but Stuck In Love is not a satisfying film experience.

Bill Borgens, who is still obsessed with his ex-wife, gets together with his two children for Thanksgiving. His daughter, Sam, tells him that her novel is being published and Bill is upset when it is not the book that he helped her edit. Bill’s son, Rusty, is obsessed with a cute girl in his class, Kate. He spends Thanksgiving stoned, jealous of his sister and returns to school where he reads a poem in front of class that is obliquely about Kate, getting her attention. Rusty is also the only member of the family to visit Erica, Bill’s ex-wife, on Thanksgiving, but it is very awkward. Responding to his father’s advice, he pursues Kate to a party with a big bag of weed and discovers Kate is using coke. Rescuing her from her abusive boyfriend, they flee the party.

Over the course of the year that follows, the Borgens wrestle with the emotional issues that have plagued them since Bill and Erica divorced. Bill works to give up stalking Erica and his fuckbuddy Tricia helps get him registered on singles sites to get him dating again. Still, he clings to the hope of Erica returning. The jaded Samantha develops her first romantic relationship, with Louis. While Samantha steps out of her father’s literary shadow, she and Louis actually fall for one another. At the same time, Rusty works to be a good guy in Kate’s life to help her get off drugs. Events climax at Sam’s book release party when Kate gets champagne and falls off the wagon, sending the Borgens into a tailspin to find her . . . coming together in the process.

The revelation of why Bill is still obsessed with Erica is a remarkably satisfying moment in the film, but it comes almost too late for the viewer to care about or actually believe it. It is very hard to suspend one’s disbelief for a guy who claims to be still in love with his ex-wife, waiting for her to come back because his love and conviction are so strong, yet has casual (and athletic) sex with the neighbor down the street. Stuck In Love feels like a movie trimmed down for time; one line between Bill and Sam serves as the exit of Tricia from the narrative and the disappearance of Kristen Bell’s character from the story is somewhat abrupt. As one who has been rewatching Veronica Mars (reviewed here!), it’s hard not to see Bell’s Tricia as an unremarkable role for Bell, but how little she is in Stuck In Love makes one wish Josh Boone had found more to do with the character and actress.

In a similar way, the film’s resolution is entirely unsatisfying and completely undermines the relationship Erica and her husband, Martin, have. While audiences might cheer for the “happy” ending, to accept it, one has to completely neglect the idea that Erica has had a life of her own outside Bill and her children.

Greg Kinnear gives a solid, but familiar, performance as Bill Borgens. Jennifer Connelly, like Kristen Bell, is underused as Erica. Stuck In Love makes better use of its young cast. Lily Collins is unlike she has been in anything else in which I’ve seen her as the brassy, disillusioned Samantha. She and Logan Lerman have good on-screen chemistry and Collins sells Sam’s change of heart when her character starts looking for the classmate she never noticed before. Despite being cast to look a bit too much like Lerman’s character, Nat Wolff is decent as Rusty. Rusty is a somewhat understated role, but Wolff does well with it, with a casual body language that makes it realistic that a sensitive guy would take to heart his father’s advice to go out and live.

Ultimately, Stuck In Love is underwhelming with moments the viewer is likely to truly enjoy. The result is a movie worth watching, perhaps, once, but not much more than that.

For other works with Lily Collins, please visit my reviews of:
The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones
Mirror Mirror
Priest
The Blind Side

5/10

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

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

All Levels Of Human Suffering Make For Another Unwatchable Jennifer Connelly Film With Virginia!

The Good: Engaging story progression
The Bad: Universally unlikable characters, Better casting than acting, Mediocre direction, Utterly oppressive mood.
The Basics: After enduring it, I have absolutely no idea what the appeal of Virginia is.


One of the serious issues with going into a film blind is that one has absolutely no idea what they will get. The danger is that one ends up sitting through a movie that, properly prepared, they never would have subjected themselves to. Perhaps the very best thing that my review of Virginia can do is prevent anyone who reads the review from putting themselves through the experience of watching this particular movie.

I picked up Virginia because I enjoy the works of Emma Roberts and Jennifer Connelly can usually be counted on for an amazing performance, too. All I knew about the film before it began was that those two actresses were in this indie film and I had heard, nor seen, anything about it. Perhaps the saving grace of this psychologically horrific film is that opens with an engaging enough sense of mystery before getting overcome with miserable characters, gunplay, incest, and bloody spit from cancer-ridden lungs.

One year before Virginia, a disturbed woman who hears voices, shoots up the local sheriff’s home, Virginia’s son Emmett begins a personal quest to find out who is real father is. Having figured out that Virginia has had a long affair with Sheriff Tipton, Emmett begins spending a lot of time with Tipton’s daughter, Jessie. Jessie is an idealistic young Mormon and Emmett is still figuring his life out, which is complicated by his mother getting a tumor in her lung. Virginia comes to believe she is pregnant with Richard’s child as Richard runs for State Senate.

When Emmett puts together that he is Tipton’s biological son, Richard cuts Jessie off from seeing him. Shortly thereafter, Tipton cuts off the hush money his campaign was paying Virginia and Virginia displays more signs of his schizophrenia. Virginia begins telling everyone in town that she is having Tipton’s baby and Emmett resolves to marry his half-sister. Faking a pregnancy and attempting to rob a bank, Virginia’s condition gets worse and worse as Richard’s bid for office becomes increasingly more tenuous based on her behaviors.

I love movies that expose the hypocrisy of characters who are supposed to be faith-driven as much as anyone, but Virginia is unrelenting. Richard keeps Virginia as his mistress and the process of his wife slowly learning the truth is agonizing. The moment Emmett realizes he is Richard’s son and continues pursuing Jessie, the movie becomes beyond creepy. Virginia is like Tideland (reviewed here!) without the whimsy and charm. There is a caper-like quality to the progression of Virginia, but it is a humorless caper and there is no real catharsis from the film.

Virginia moves too slowly back to the film’s beginning and by the time it gets there, it is virtually impossible to care about that. Virginia is not a likable character and while her mental illness goes a distance to explaining her actions, he is not at all enjoyable to watch as she progresses through her unfortunate madness.

On the acting front, Virginia is, by far, a by-product of good casting over great performing. Writer and director Dustin Lance Black no doubt saw Jennifer Connelly in either House Of Sand And Fog (reviewed here!) or Requiem For A Dream (reviewed here!), or both, when he cast her as Virginia. Her performance in this is entirely derivative of those roles. Emma Roberts is relegated to a distant supporting role (Jessie is almost entirely absent in the last act) and Amy Madigan essentially replays her part from Carnivale (reviewed here!) as the sheriff’s long-suffering wife.

Ed Harris is fine as Tipton and Harrison Gilbertson is all right as Emmett, though it seems inconceivable that he would be as cool as he is when Tipton draws his weapon on him in a public bathroom. I’m sure there are more sophisticated analyses of Virginia, but I do not want to devote the time or attention to writing them; that is how utterly unpleasant this movie was.

For other works with utterly miserable characters or faith-guided protagonists who get in over their heads, please check out my reviews of:
Bernie
The Soloist
An American Crime

1.5/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing.

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Blood Diamond: Another Socially Conscious Movie That Failed To Make A Difference

The Good: Well-written, Good characters, Decent direction, Social message, Acting
The Bad: Feels a little long/predictable, "The Market" did not "get" it
The Basics: With vivid characters played by some of the best actors in the industry, the true cost of the diamond trade is exposed with brutal clarity for the viewer.


When I saw V For Vendetta (reviewed here!) in theaters, I knew that the movie had essentially failed (despite bringing in oodles of money) because the Revolution did not come. When I spoke with a friend about it, she objected saying that if the Revolution came, she would drop everything in a heartbeat. She was offended when I told her that meant she didn't "get" the movie; the point of it was that WE are the Revolution and that each of us must rise up and lead it, we can't follow it. So, our corrupt government continues to exploit the people and women and men in the United States remain slaves to their jobs instead of the economy serving them. Blood Diamond, which is now out on DVD, is another movie that the American people simply did not "get." I say this because diamonds are still worn by Americans and cherished.

Solomon Bo is an African who is captured by militants and forced to mine diamonds at gunpoint. When he finds a giant diamond, he manages to hide it as a military strike saves him and several other enslaved men. In the holding cell, a guard who saw what Solomon pulled from the earth demands to know what happened to it and this gets the attention of Danny Archer, a diamond smuggler. Archer is sprung from jail by his wealthy patrons and he uses his influence to get Solomon free so they can recover the diamond.

With the aid of a plucky reporter, the two enter a war zone to track down the diamond, which Archer wants for profit, Maddy wants for the story and Solomon wants in order to get his family out of the refugee camp they are (essentially) imprisoned in.

I sat down to Blood Diamond because a friend of mine who pulls movies for me mistook my interest in seeing The Last King Of Scotland for Blood Diamond (don't ask). The thing is, I enjoyed Blood Diamond a bit, though a lot of the information was not new to me. The R.U.F. - the rebel forces - drive into Solomon's village and take his son (and many children) away, where they essentially brainwash the boy into a killing machine. This was something I knew before (and not just from the second season of Lost, reviewed here!) and have been troubled by. Blood Diamond presents the reality of youth enslavement and indoctrination into killing machines with the horror that is mirrored only by its truth. This happens every day while the world sits back and through apathy essentially abets the crimes.

I found myself enjoying the movie despite the humanization of the problem. I understand why writers Charles Leavitt and C. Gaby Mitchell needed to put a human face on the problem of blood diamonds (diamonds that are smuggled through war zones and laundered into the legal flow of diamonds). Most Americans don't know about the problems and carnage associated with the diamond trade, so it makes perfect sense to indoctrinate them with a story that resonates as personally as possible. When the credits came up and I saw the movie was directed by Edward Zwick, I found myself pleasantly surprised; it made sense the movie so effectively humanized the problem. Zwick is a master of relating stories about human relationships; his show Once And Again (season two reviewed here!) remains one of my favorite series'.

Central to the movie is the relationship between Solomon and Danny and Solomon and his family. Solomon manages the virtually impossible; finding his family in a refugee camp of one million people. The need to save them and rescue them from their status as citizens without nation gives him a compelling reason to go back for the diamond and risk his life. Solomon and Danny have an intriguing relationship as Danny's isolation with the world - his diamond market patron has essentially distanced himself from the smuggler - allows him to open up with Solomon and the probing questions the less morally relativistic man asks him weaken his acceptance in the way things are.

The movie works when it is a brutal social and political commentary on the diamond market with the foils of Danny's greed served opposite Solomon's desire to protect and recover his family and his homeland. Unfortunately, the story diverges for a while in a somewhat predictable and pointless romantic subplot between Danny and reporter Maddy. It makes the story more human and complicated, but not necessarily better. As it is, Blood Diamond clocks in at almost two and a half hours, so the romantic plot is not needed to fill time.

But the movie works because at the end of the day, it can be reduced to the price of one (albeit huge) diamond. Consider the number of people killed, maimed (the opening scenes where the R.U.F. starts lopping off the hands of villagers begins the process of finding the diamond) and wounded combined with the material resources - planes, helicopters, etc. - destroyed to find and retrieve the diamond and the price tag gets truly astonishing. The moralizing that does not appear in the movie is the connection I shall now make:

Diamonds are worthless.

Because there is nothing backing our economy (we are not bound by a gold or silver standard), all that holds together the U.S. economy is faith. The belief in the strength of the dollar defines the value of the dollar. Thus, all $1.00 is worth is what you can buy with it and what you are willing to do for it. I frequently tell my students that working at their minimum wage jobs they are selling their souls for 4 Value Menu hamburgers and hour. None of them ever quit their jobs. But the point holds, which is the purpose behind collective bargaining. If Americans refused to work for less money, the uprising would declare a more balanced value to the dollar because the connection between the life people possess and the acquisition of material things would be made so apparent that only the most apathetic would slave their lives away for so few crumbs from the corporations. Diamonds are dirt. Dirt that is declared as pretty because it is clear and sparkley and . . . honestly I don't know why. Diamonds have value because greedy industries that thrive on them tell the masses they are valuable - one of the most poignant moments in Blood Diamond comes when a character reveals that the rebels want to flood the market with a billion dollars worth of diamonds in order to fund their war. In the face of evidence like that (where such quantity is available), diamonds are no longer valuable based on their rarity. Diamonds are worth what people are willing to pay and what people are willing to do for them.

And the question left unanswered by the audience of the movie is this: Will you have anything at all to do with diamonds, will you perpetrate the myth of their worth, with even the POSSIBILITY that the true cost of your diamond is at least one hundred human lives lost, the enslavement of a people and the perpetration of war and maiming of a less developed nation? As the market has not collapsed, I may only assume people either did not see Blood Diamond or it failed to carry its message in a way that was meaningful enough to resonate with Americans.

I'm not sure what more director Edward Zwick could do to make it resonate with Americans. When you show women and children being slaughtered by men with automatic weapons as part of the system that brings diamonds to the world, there's not much more that can be shown to connect humanity to the problems. I don't believe the failure is Zwick's.

For those considering taking in Blood Diamond, this is not just moralizing, it is an entertaining film. The journey of Solomon Bo is extraordinary and compelling. The characters are all interesting and Solomon and Danny are completely empathetic. This is a movie about how far people will go and they go far.

What makes the characters work is the acting. Stephen Collins has a brief, but memorable, cameo as an Ambassador who is crusading against conflict diamonds and he was well cast for the bit part. Jennifer Connelly gives a great performance here. Given about as much of a role as she had in Dark City (reviewed here!), Connelly gives a supporting performance that is compelling for the audience in that it confronts the issues directly that the other characters live around. Connelly manages to make Maddy slightly more than just a "type" by infusing her strong sense of confidence in her body language into the strong-willed reporter she is embodying. Connelly evokes the essence of a crusader to make Maddy professionally strong and softens to express an underlying loneliness to make Maddy human.

Connelly plays off Leonardo DiCaprio perfectly and DiCaprio is astoundingly good as Danny Archer. DiCaprio defines Danny with an angry expression and constant heat from his eyes that is piercing. The maintenance of this facade is impressive and it does not waver in this movie.

The movie hinges on the acting of Djimon Hounsou. Hounsou came to my attention in the third season of Alias (reviewed here!) where he had such a distinct and memorable role that it astounds me to find he was only in 3 episodes. His presence was much bigger than that. Hounsou reveals the depth of his acting ability in Blood Diamond by creating an essential human character with such decency and grace that there's not even the hint of the heavy he played on Alias. That's acting: to create two entirely opposite characters and make both vividly believable.

Blood Diamond is reminiscent of the truly amazing film The Mission from the 1980s. The Mission (reviewed here!) explored the church conflicts that resulted in the enslavement of natives in South America. One wonders if The Mission had been made while the events in it were current if it would have had an effect, if it would have stopped the carnage. The events in Blood Diamond are going on now. The question must be asked, can the exposure of these truths to the masses stand as the wake-up call to stop this carnage? I wait, astonished that the diamond industry continues to thrive; were I Zwick I would have hoped by the time the film was released on DVD, the industry would have collapsed.

For other works with Stephen Collins, be sure to check out my reviews of:
The Three Stooges
It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia - Seasons 1 & 2
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
All The President’s Men

8/10

Check out how this film stacks up against the others I have reviewed by visiting my ever-growing Movie Index Page where the reviews are organized from best film to worst!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Nightmares In Drug Addiction: A Great Film Not Worth Watching - Requiem For A Dream

The Good: Excellent direction, acting, presentation, themes
The Bad: Nightmarish, unredeeming characters
The Basics: Disturbing and horrific, Requiem For A Dream is well directed and well acted and an experience so miserable that it should not be watched. Ever.


This might end up as a short review and if it does, that should certainly say something significant about Requiem For A Dream. It's a rare thing that I rate a movie as high as this one and still give it a "not recommend." It might seem an oxymoron. I can and will acknowledge the technical achievement of Requiem For A Dream, but I can think of no good reason to subject other people to this film.

Sara Goldfarb is an old woman who is lonely and dreams only of appearing on an inspirational television show. When she is invited to be a part of the studio audience for the show, she becomes determined to fit into her old red dress, which means losing weight. To lose weight, Sara begins taking dieting pills (speed) and becomes horribly addicted. In the same summer, her son Harry begins working as a drug dealer with his friend Tyrone. His goal is to help his girlfriend, Marion, afford her own business.

Come fall, though, Tyrone is arrested and the drug market is drying up. Frantic, poorer and addicted, Harry, Tyrone and Marion begin to do whatever it takes to score drugs to get high and make money, ruining everything in their lives in the process.

Just when I thought I had seen Jennifer Connelly in the most depressing movie I could see her in, with The House Of Sand And Fog (reviewed here!) I find out about and witness Requiem For A Dream. Requiem For A Dream is an unrelenting movie that I can only describe as a psychologically horrific masterpiece by director and writer Darren Aronofsky and writer Hubert Selby Jr. Aronofsky reminds the viewer what great direction can do. Great direction TELLS the story the director wants to convey, using the full medium to its greatest advantage. Aronofsky does this masterfully by blending together the lives and drug use of Sara, Harry and Marion.

I finished watching Requiem For A Dream approximately fifteen minutes ago and I'm writing my review now because I do not want to ruminate on the film. I intend to erase it from my memory. That's how powerful the imagery was. Aronofsky is explicit with the drug-use imagery and the repetition of it combined with the mixing of the scenes of legal and illegal drug use create a nightmarish cinematic landscape that is boring into my brain.

The acting in Requiem For A Dream is utterly convincing. Ellen Burstyn, who I loved in the inspirational The Spitfire Grill (reviewed here!), is captivating in her descent as Sara. She makes full use of her body language and facial expressions to convey paranoia and loneliness. Her acting is tremendous here; there is not a shred of strength of character in her that she has used in other characters she has played.

Jared Leto is creepy and good as Harry. Perhaps the big acting surprise was Marlon Wayans. The Wayans brothers are most known for comedy and Marlon here has no humor as Tyrone. He's cold, calculating and dramatically heavy. That he did not win any awards for his portrayal (he was nominated for several) is too bad.

Jennifer Connelly . . . sigh. I suppose once you've watched Connelly play a character who degenerates into a crackwhore, you've pretty much seen everything an actor can do. Watching Connelly made me sad. There's no other way to say it. Her performance is wrenching and depressing.

I can take depressing movies, but I want there to be something to come back to, something to make it worthwhile. Something that catches me. The direction here is good, but all of the characters are unredeemably miserable. I feel foul having watched this movie and that's why I know it was well-made.

I think this movie is suitable only as part of a "scared straight" program for 12 year-olds with reinforcement with clips from the latter half of the movie every six months until they are terrified adults who never use drugs. Outside that, no one deserves to be subjected to this movie.

For something far more entertaining and overall better, try Magnolia (reviewed here!). Now I'm off to take a shower and have some ice cream and forget I ever saw this movie.

Honestly, though, I doubt I'll be able to sleep.

For other films that are well-made, but not worth watching, check out my reviews of:
Hard Candy
An American Crime
The Other Woman

8/10 (Not recommended!)

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

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Movie That Makes Magnolia Look Like Beach Blanket Bingo: House Of Sand And Fog

The Good: Well shot, Decent acting
The Bad: Unbearably depressing plot, Unsympathetic characters, Narrative technique, Repetitive soundtrack
The Basics: In this dull, slow, mind-numbingly disappointing story, two cardboard characters fight over a house and everyone ends up miserable. Especially the viewer.


I am a person who enjoys a decent, depressing movie as much as the next person. I honestly do. I like movies that don't necessarily have a happy ending and that challenge me and that make me feel sympathetic to the characters and the struggles they are going through. That said, I hated House Of Sand And Fog. If there was ever a movie with Jennifer Connelly that I was to give a low rating to, this would be it.

House Of Sand And Fog is a dismal epic that is ruined in its first moment. In the opening shots of the film, we meet Kathy, who is standing on the balcony of a house on a foggy, mysterious night with police cars below. The movie flashes back immediately after that shot to introduce the viewer to the house and Kathy. Kathy is a working-class woman who inherited a small house when her father died. She has lived there and struggles to keep up payments on it by working as a housecleaner for wealthier people. She is evicted from the house when the state of California mistakenly claims she has failed to pay business taxes on the residence.

Enter Behrani, an immigrant from the Middle East who has become a citizen with his family. Behrani buys the house from the bank before Kathy can legally challenge the State and with his wife, they make improvements to try to sell the house at a profit. Then everything goes to hell as Kathy becomes obsessed with getting the house back, Behrani becomes obstinate about making a profit and an over-the-line cop tries to intervene on behalf of Kathy.

It is amazing how quickly a film may lose momentum, plummet in terms of character development, and sink into a depressing and disappointing waste of time. I can save you a few hours of your life; there is no happy ending in this one. Everyone gets screwed. And it's not fun to watch it happen. Instead, we watch as the characters become more and more miserable and they make bad decision after bad decision.

In Magnolia (reviewed here!), people suffer. People suffer throughout the film and there is almost no emotional payoff for it. But there, the characters are intriguing and the way the stories weave together makes it engrossing. House Of Sand And Fog is devoid of those interesting characters. Instead, the characters are all archetypes. Kathy is the working woman, Lester is the corrupt police officer who has crossed the line, and Behrani is the archetypal immigrant clinging to his own culture until he suddenly does something completely contrary to his heritage.

It is difficult to sit and watch this movie with how it fails to create or portray interesting or empathetic characters. Instead, everyone comes across as bland and like a cheap stereotype. All are devoid of any real individuality. Kathy is a cookie-cutter image of the poor working class person we see in other, more successful movies. She is a pale shadow of Violet from Cradle Will Rock.

The only things that make this movie bearable are the cinematography and the acting. In fact, the cinematography ruins much of the film in the first moments of the movie. The night that we first see Kathy is so distinctly lit and shot that the viewer waits the entire movie for the same lighting to come up. It eliminates any menace to Kathy's character. The shots of the fog at night are beautiful, though.

The acting, then, is pretty impressive and the movie hinges on the performances of Jennifer Connelly and Ben Kingsley. Connelly plays Kathy and she works hard to keep the character interesting, but is not given enough material to work with. Instead, she succeeds in making Kathy seem like she could be real through her body language and facial expressions. As the movie wears on, Connelly plays Kathy as more beleaguered, slumping more and that makes her seem quite credible.

Kingsley, though, fills Behrani's shoes with presence. Kingsley has a dignity to him that makes him instantly credible as Behrani and the ways he changes his bearing between the scenes where he is working and when he is home give his realism. Kingsley is given perhaps the widest emotional range to portray and he plays Behrani with stoicism, love and heart wrenching anguish.

In the end, though, it is not enough to save House Of Sand And Fog. It still is a drawn out tale of two people fighting over a house and being far more obstinate than interesting. And watching them slug it out (metaphorically) loses its charm quickly. There are real people with similar struggles every day in America and around the world; it's not entertaining there, either.

For other works with Kim Dickens, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Footloose
The Blind Side
Lost
Thank You For Smoking

3/10

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

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

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The Length Of Drowning Is What Dark Water Feels Like!

The Good: A decent cast
The Bad: Terrible script, Acting, Characters, Pacing!
The Basics: Despite the presence of Jennifer Connelly, Dark Water sinks with poor characters and a story that is more jumbled than scary.


There are performers who are almost universally worth the price of admission, especially if one is offered the opportunity to see them perform for free. So, for example, one need not be a fan of basketball or golf to take advantage of an opportunity to see Michael Jordan or Tiger Woods play. If they showed up, were performing for free, and one had the time, odds are most people would go to see them play. In the acting world, each of us develops artists we enjoy watching perform, even when we learn they are in dubious works. Jennifer Connelly is one such performer in my world. Despite her appearance in the utterly awful Hulk (reviewed here!), she remains one of my favorite people to watch. So, despite never having been grabbed by any of the previews for Dark Water, I decided to give it a shot.

Dahlia and her daughter Ceci have moved into a real dive of an apartment following a bitter divorce proceeding. Dahlia is lonely and her ex-husband accuses her of mental illness, though we suspect this is mostly his jerkish personality. Ceci soon develops an imaginary friend as Dahlia becomes plagued by water dripping in the apartment she is now renting. The water is coming from the apartment above hers, where the occupants are absent, looters invade and apparently a ghost haunts. As the days progress, Dahlia is caught between her fears that she is going mad and her good-faith belief in a supernatural force above her and her daughter.

Dark Water is another in a string of remakes of Japanese horror movies which became popularized in the United States with the cinematic success of The Ring (reviewed here!). That Dark Water is following in this tradition comes as absolutely no surprise when the lawyer Jeff Platzer enters the movie midway through and in the film's resolution. Platzer is more helpful and interventionist than any successful lawyer in the Manhattan area ever would be. And, as for the resolution to the movie, all I can say is that the choice Dahlia makes reflects a very different set of values than the traditional American values.

My point with this is that Dark Water ultimately does not work. It just does not work. If one sets a movie in the United States, it ought to feel like the people are from the United States. The world has different nations filled with different cultures and subcultures and they are, quite simply, not interchangeable. The cumulative effect of the characters in terms of culture and decisions they make is analogous to one making a film about New York City with an all Southern cast.

But the characters themselves suffer from the writing. There is no chemistry, no remnant of anything remotely emotional between Dahlia and her ex-husband Kyle. Kyle is a jerk to such an extent that there is nothing in any of the exchanges between him and Dahlia that suggest they ever had anything that would have resulted in a daughter.

Because the majority of the film dwells on Dahlia, she bears the brunt of the problems of character and of the movie in general. Dahlia suffers from migraines and some serious depression, stemming in part from an abusive childhood. The problem here is that because the first person to accuse her of any form of illness is her ex-husband in the context of a nasty divorce proceeding, we don't take it so seriously. That is, Kyle has no authority or emotional credibility with the audience so when Dahlia begins to become symptomatic of anything other than depression, we are somewhat dubious.

But more than that, this addition feels forced. Dahlia seems like she is trying hard in difficult circumstances and the psychological issues only confuse the plot. The movie stops making sense and the audience never truly feels like they are unsure if this is a ghost story or a psychological horror. It's a ghost story; one of the earliest shots of the movie (Veeck watching Ceci in the elevator) establishes that. The attempt to add depth to the film with the addition of Dahlia's psychological issues feels forced.

Similarly, I was surprised to find Dark Water clocked in at 105 minutes. The pacing of the movie is so off it felt about twice as long. But more importantly, early on in the movie there are a number of scenes with Dahlia and Ceci where the two are established as a normal family, complete with fairly inane and common dialogue. In all honesty, as I watched those early scenes, I felt like the movie was simply killing time waiting for the plot to get started. Those scenes, more than establishing character, feel like filler.

The sole thing Dark Water has going for it is its cast. Jennifer Connelly leads the cast with John C. Reilly and Pete Postlethwaite giving strong supporting performances. Tim Roth ends up in the movie as Dahlia's lawyer and some of the acting burden is dropped on young Ariel Gade, who spends much of her time acting like a disturbed little girl, which is the character she is playing.

The problem is the acting this cast is pulling off is based on a poor script. John C. Reilly adds nothing to the role of the slum lord and Pete Postlethwaite, who I've been impressed with in The Usual Suspects and Alien 3, is put in a role where he is treated like he could be exchanged with anyone. In short, he is not used for any of his talents and he could have been swapped out with any other actor in the world and not have affected the movie.

My sadness here is that Jennifer Connelly appears in this mess, that's two strikes. Connelly has played some awesome, strong women. Indeed, her breakthrough role in Labyrinth was about using her brain and being strong. She was cool. Her role of Emma in Dark City is a positive role model working through difficult circumstances. My point is, I'm used to seeing Connelly in strong female roles where she is in control. In Dark Water, Dahlia is utterly dependent upon men. Whether it is her ex-husband, her landlord, her super or her lawyer, the men make all but two decisions for her in this movie (her daughter makes one of the two the men don't make).

None of the actors give performances to recommend them and the movie often does not work. Finally, the movie is poorly shot and that is what ultimately made me decide to rate it as low as I did. There are several scenes that the lighting is too dark, making it impossible to tell what is going on.

I gave Dark Water a chance and there simply wasn't enough to keep my interest or recommend this movie. Far better than this, for fans of Japanese psychological horror, is Perfect Blue.

For other works with John C. Reilly, be sure to read my reviews of:
Cedar Rapids
Cyrus
Zombieland
9
Step Brothers
Chicago
Magnolia
Nightwatch
Hard Eight

2.5/10

Check out how this movie stacks up against others by visiting my specialized Movie Review Index Page!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Even For A Kid's Movie, Inkheart Underwhelms.

The Good: Moments of character and acting, Special effects
The Bad: Pacing issues, Plot holes, Continuity/editing errors
The Basics: An imaginative concept for a fantasy movie falls flat with a lack of attention to details as Inkheart disappoints.


Note: This review was originally written after a sneak preview of “Inkheart.” I retained all of the original language of the review because this stands as something of a commemoration. A librarian who was one of the few friends I made as an adult went to the preview with me. He and I talked movies all the time and we swapped DVDs. For all of our talk of going out to movies, this remains the only one we actually made it to the theaters to see. He died rather abruptly a little over a year ago and it has taken me this long to get around to do doing some form of commemoration. Pete, you are missed!
-W.L.

There are remarkably few children's movies that I watch, know and love. No, far more often, I find myself cringing because the precepts of the children's movie is better than its execution. There are a few exceptions to this, of course, and in my life, I find I enjoy most the fantasy films that are toned down for children. So, for example, I am a fan of The Princess Bride, Labyrinth (reviewed here!), and I recall liking The Never-ending Story back in the day. But given a chance to attend a screening of Inkheart, I took it because it's what I do as a reviewer.

Now I remember why I so seldom take in movies like this! Inkheart is a good and interesting idea, but it is poorly presented, at least in this version. Based upon a novel (series) by Cornelia Funke and it is worth noting that I have not read the book(s), so this is a very pure review of just the movie. Directed by Iain Softley, Inkheart is an average-at-best children's movie and a thoroughly mediocre film riddled with problematic editing, interesting but derivative special effects, and acting and character development that is good, but ultimately unremarkable.

Mortimer Folchart is a silvertongue, a person born with an innate ability to make what he reads come into reality. Twelve years after discovering he has this talent - with apparently disastrous results - Mo and his daughter Meggie find themselves surviving by wandering Europe fixing books as Mo searches every bookstore he can find for a rare book. And Mo finds the book he is searching for, Inkheart, moments before he is met by Dustfinger, one of the characters from the novel Mo just acquired.

Unsurprised by Dustfinger's appearance, Mo and Meggie ditch him and escape to Italy to meet with Meggie's great aunt Eleanor, a woman obsessed with books. But Mo is tracked there and goons hired by the mysterious and dangerous Capricorn soon descend upon the manor and capture Meggie, Mo and Eleanor. Taken to Capricorn's castle, faced with a menagerie of creatures from works of fiction, Mo is forced to confess his nature and what happened to Meggie's mother, Resa. It soon becomes clear that Capricorn is as diabolical as the author originally created him to be as he wants Mo to summon an unspeakably powerful creature from Inkheart to help him take over the world!

Inkheart is established with a guiding principle very quickly: Mortimer witlessly reads books and conjures individuals from them without any conscious effort. Unfortunately for him, this "gift" does not come without a price. Resa disappears, sucked into the book Inkheart as Capricorn, Dustfinger and another goon come to life from it. We learn right away that this is the price: no one comes out of a book without someone else going in. As a result, when Mortimer is forced to read to Capricorn to materialize some treasure - and an unfortunate thief - one of Capricorn's goons is actually transported to the world of "Arabian Nights." The problem is that while the consequence is shown some of the time, it does not happen all of the times and as a result, there is a sloppy execution of this principle.

This sloppy execution works with split results. In one of the climactic scenes of the film, there is no consequence to a powerful creature - the Shadow - being summoned and that reads as ridiculous given the magnitude of it. However, it also makes one of the more predictable elements not occur. Inkheart has a second Silvertongue - a man who stutters - and as a result of Darius's speech impediment, characters he attempts to summon from books are released incomplete, often with writing on their bodies. Thus, it makes sense that Capricorn needs Mortimer. Unfortunately, there is someone of import that Darius has summoned incomplete and as the final battle raged, I waited for that person to be sucked into a book as the consequence for the Shadow's appearance. At least there was a surprise for me. Also on the unfortunate end, though, is that the resolution of one of the characters makes no real sense given that there is nothing said that would restore an incomplete character Darius summoned. Come to think of it, arguably the most significant summoning of the film is done without any apparent consequence to it.

Inkheart seems determined to survive based on the idea that - as a movie marketed toward children - it will not be viewed as strictly or seriously as other films. In addition to the lack of attention to story details, like making sure each summoning has a consequence, the editing is terrible and the special effects, while good, are thoroughly derivative. So, for example, the editing is so bad that the very first chase that occurs occurs with apparent time lapse photography. Mo pushes Dustfinger to the ground and it is day and he turns and begins to run and it is suddenly evening and when he hops in the car and drives away, it is suddenly dark night. The editing is choppy at parts and the director made a very poor choice for one of the most significant visual effects of the film.

When a Silvertongue summons a character from a book, director Softley used a bright light and blurring effect to denote the teleportation. This would be fine, save that when Dustfinger remembers his wife (who is played in a cameo by actress Jennifer Connelley) he used the exact same visual effect. As well, the final scene is presented in a washed out light much like that, adding some question of the reality of it (in context). As for the rest of the effects, they are good, but they are not anything that has not been seen before. The Shadow - which seemed reminiscent of the Nothing in The Never-ending Story - looks remarkably like a stripped down version of the Balrog from Peter Jackson's The Fellowship Of The Ring (reviewed here!). The effects are good, but they look like things we have seen elsewhere before.

That said, Inkheart deserves some praise. The concept is a good one and there are details that make the story richer, like Mo being a book doctor who uses his profession to get access to try to find a copy of Inkheart. As well, while it is obvious after the twelve years pass between the first and second scenes that something has happened to Resa, the film is quite good about taking the time to let that develop and be explained. It is well alluded to by mentions early in the movie of how Mo does not read to Meggie.

Mo and Resa have a compelling story and they work wonderfully as a couple. Dustfinger is a decent rogue whose presence in the film makes much of the action believable by establishing the concept that we are not all trapped with our initial characterization. Dustfinger grows past his established knavish nature. His arc is compelling and emotional. Unfortunately for Inkheart, it is hampered by a monolithic villain - Capricorn is hardly menacing or even a full step ahead of the heroes, a largely unnecessary character - Eleanor becomes a point of exposition which is unnecessary - and characters who are not nearly as smart as the audience.

This is most notable in the character of Meggie, which I suppose is understandable, because she is a child. However, faced with the knowledge that she will be asked to bring an unspeakable evil into the film, none of the characters suggest that she go along with it and screw it up purposely. Almost all of Capricorn's goons are defective, walking around, addle brained with writing upon them. They are hardly effective or impressive. All Meggie had to do to bugger Capricorn's plans was to seriously stutter and it becomes a giant creature that is hampered by its own body.

One hopes that the book addressed this better than the film. And while the characters are decent or mediocre, the acting works fairly well to embody those characters. Helen Mirren, for example, plays Eleanor quite differently from how she portrayed the title character in The Queen. Young Eliza Bennett holds her own with Mirren and lead Brandon Fraser, as well as with Andy Serkis doing his villainous best as Capricorn.

And while it would seem like Brandon Fraser would be responsible for holding together Inkheart, he shows up and performs well, but it is Paul Bettany who steals the show. As Dustfinger, Bettany energizes every scene he is in and he has the most compelling range of emotions to work from as his character goes from desperate to fearful to resigned. Bettany plays each emotion with a real resonance that makes it clear his character is conflicted internally, even from the very beginning.

Still, Bettany's acting is not enough to put this average-at-best film over the top. It is slow to start and nothing pops as well as it ought to in a fantasy film in this one. For the kids, there are some classics worth revisiting before taking this one in.

For other works featuring Paul Bettany, please be sure to check out my reviews of:
Priest
The Tourist
Iron Man 2
Legion
Iron Man
A Beautiful Mind

5/10

For other movie reviews, please be sure to visit my Movies Index Page!

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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A Good Cast And Scarlett Johansson Naked Cannot Save He's Just Not That Into You!

The Good: One or two decent lines
The Bad: Generally poor acting, Stupid stereotyped characters, Largely not funny, Predictable, Dumb.
The Basics: Skip this movie. If you want the best of He's Just Not That Into You, watch the trailer, all of the best is there.


You know you have a true lemon on your hands when the best one might say about one's movie is "all of the best moments are in the trailer." Sadly, for He's Just Not That Into You, this is true; the best moments of the film are edited into an enjoyable two minute presentation that is far, far better than the excruciating two plus hours the full film is. Instead, He's Just Not That Into You is not as witty, clever, funny or meaningful as the previews might have made it seem. Of course, the previews for this did manage to ruin several of the arcs by showing far too much, but . . .

. . .This is something of a moot point. It did not take long before He's Just Not That Into You began to unravel in the worst possible way. There was a joke in the first season of Family Guy (reviewed here!) that was a brilliant cutaway (which I had been saving on anticipation of loathing Confessions Of A Shopaholic) that simply stated: "Lifetime: Television For Idiots." The joke was not meant to call women idiots, but it was intended to call out Lifetime for treating all women like idiots. To the same extent, in He's Just Not That Into You, the women are giggling morons who are virtually all hormone driven and operate at the extremes of human behavior. They are clingy and needy and desperate for anything that does not leave them alone. Sadly, the men are not much better. They are cheaters, idiots or ultimately end up lacking in the principles that defined their character as even momentarily worthwhile. As a result, He's Just Not That Into You is a collection of supposed gems of relationship wisdom presented in the most emotionally immature ways by a collection of flat characters who are largely poorly acted. And let me tell you, I wish I could leave it at that.

Opening with the musing that women seek out men who will treat them badly because of how they are raised as children, Conor and Gigi find themselves on a date and when it is over, Gigi obsesses on Conor not calling her. Gigi works with Beth (unmarried, in a relationship for seven years) and Janine (married) and Conor pines for Anna (yoga instructor who wants to have a music career) and is friends with Alex, who owns a bar and dispenses pearls of wisdom. As Gigi obsesses on Conor, she stumbles upon Alex, who tells her to let Conor go because he is not interested in her. As Alex gives Gigi a reality check and wake-up call, Anna finds herself playing the vixen to Ben, who is married to Janine. And Beth gives her boyfriend Neil an ultimatum, which results in them parting ways.

So, as Gigi learns to stop obsessing over any man who comes her way, Ben begins cheating on his wife with Anna, Neil takes to living on a boat and Conor desperately tries to improve his career by making his real estate business more gay friendly. . .

He's Just Not That Into You is broken into sections, like ". . . if he's not calling you," ". . . if he's not marrying you," ". . . if she's not sleeping with you," and ". . . if he's having sex with someone else" and those loose chapters serve as silent moments to let the viewer know that there is still more of the pointless melodrama yet to come. As I stretch to find anything to say about this film, one might note that in the poster-credited cast, there is one missing: that would be Drew Barrymore's Mary and her character appears for approximately five minutes and the best moments are in the trailer.

Similarly, Ben Affleck and Jennifer Aniston give little more than cameos and their scenes are brief and sublimated to the more outrageous and convoluted stories involving the characters of Gigi, Anna and Ben. From this, the viewer infers that emotionally married couples are nowhere near as interesting as chaotic twentysomethings who have a serious deficiency of emotional intelligence.

He's Just Not That Into You is truly a limited concept and the title says it all. As Alex struggles to inform Gigi, men who are interested will let that fact be known in direct ways. If they aren't, they let that be known by avoiding the woman. Beyond the idea that men are somehow poor at communicating about relationships and that that whole responsibility it their domain or fault, the flick is a terrible representation of women. Women are almost exclusively giggling idiots in this movie and it contains such blisteringly stupid conversations as one on "code words" wherein several otherwise intelligent female characters attempt to decipher the meaning of various male phrases. It is idiotic and diminutive and it reduces the complexities of relationships into some of the most ridiculous notions shown on film.

It seems like every romantic comedy wants to be the next When Harry Met Sally, but this is not it. Instead, He's Just Not That Into You is a collection of types - not genuine characters - who lurch through their jobs and relationships without any real understanding or sense of realism. For example, throughout the film, Janine nags Ben about smoking (her father died of lung cancer). Janine nags and nags and Ben tells her he is having an affair. It was only because someone else in the theater had yelled something else out (to the effect of "Come on!") that when Janine eventually breaks down about the possibility of Ben smoking, I myself restrained my reaction of "Oh my gosh! A man would NEVER lie about TWO things! That's just crazy!" Instead, Janine seems caught off guard by the concept and instead of feeling pity or empathy for her character, the viewer just waits for her to become an adult.

In addition to having flat characters, He's Just Not That Into You is an utter waste of an otherwise wonderful cast. Drew Barrymore appears to be a cameo based - one suspects - on the fact that she was a co-producer of the film. Her character is onscreen for perhaps five minutes total and has all of the emotional resonance of any of her other sweet, quiet cameo performances and it all falls largely in predictable ways that virtually anyone who has seen the trailer would be able to guess at. Ben Affleck plays Neil the way Kevin Smith had him play Holden and Jennifer Aniston is just reprising Rachel from Friends as Beth. Jennifer Connelly, Bradley Cooper, and Kevin Connolly are all wasted by squeezing into the niches they have already been in before or should never have been stuck in. And this performance does nothing for my general lack of respect for the bland performances of Scarlett Johansson (again, if you've seen the previews, you've gotten all the Johansson nudity the flick has to offer).

Justin Long, who gave a magnificent performance in the obscure but brilliant Dreamland, is relegated to about the same role he has on the popular Mac commercials he plays the Mac on. That is to say, he delivers one-liners and waits for the audience to care. I am more likely to buy a Mac than follow Alex's advice based upon Long's deliveries.

But it is Ginnifer Goodwin who seems to get the most screentime and who appears to be the character He's Just Not That Into You revolves around most. Goodwin has the "cute as a button" thing going on, but she fails to hold the viewer's interest as Gigi. Her character is so emotionally immature that the viewer almost screams "grow up!" The thing is, we don't want to watch it happen. Goodwin does nothing to make the viewer care about her character's struggles. Instead, she seems like a girl (yes, a girl, not a woman) trapped back in a high school level of maturity who somehow made it over the fence into the adult world. Goodwin illustrates no potential and in scenes with actors of established caliber - like Connelly - who might be used poorly, she does not hold her own. Instead, her jokes fall flat and the viewer is left not caring a whiff about her or her struggles.

And that's it. And for a change, I know I was not alone, for as I sat in the packed theater, people were not laughing. The men were looking bored, the women were looking disappointed and I was left wishing I had simply reviewed the film based upon the trailer as opposed to wasting two hours of my life on it. But I survived my three movie day, even if this one tried my patience.

For other works with Bradley Cooper, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
The Hangover Part II
The A-Team
Valentine's Day
The Hangover
Yes Man

2/10

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

© 2011, 2010, 2009 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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