Pirates: The Next Generation - Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales Is More Mediocre Than Awful.

The Good: Good performances, Kaya Scodelario is good, Effects are generally good
The Bad: Dull plot, Low on character development, Most of the humor falls flat, Thinly developed villain
The Basics: Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is about what one expects from the franchise at this point, a tired callback to the prior entertaining films.


I had no drive to see Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. In fact, Johnny Depp is off the list, much like Mel Gibson, at this point, so I would have been content to never see the latest Pirates Of The Caribbean film. But, the cheapskate in me won out and when Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales was part of a double feature locally, I justified watching Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales as a freebie while paying for the other film. Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales generally tries to ignore Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (reviewed here!) and hearken back to Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End (reviewed here!) instead. As such, Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is essentially the story of Henry Turner, Will Turner's son.

Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is, as one might expect, a film filled with chases and the fairly unrelenting nature of the pace is contrasted occasionally by attempts at humor and flashbacks filled with exposition. But, at its core, Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is a fantasy film that is Henry Turner's quest to rescue his father, played off the undead Captain Salazar hunting Jack Sparrow. The macguffin in this particular film is Poseidon's Trident and the quest for that is the excuse to have a new pirate chasing Jack Sparrow while Henry attempts to do his own thing.

As a child, Henry Turner rows out to sea and manages to locate the Flying Dutchman, home of his father, Will. Will urges Henry to give up his quest to rescue him, but advises him to enlist Jack Sparrow to help him. Nine years later, Henry is aboard a ship that is attacked by the undead Spanish Captain Salazar. Salazar asks Henry to deliver Sparrow a message, but Henry - as the lone survivor of the attack, accused of insubordination - is arrested by the British and taken to St. Martin. Jack Sparrow, as it happens, is on St. Martin, attempting to rob a bank by literally stealing the bank. Henry manages to slip away from his captors to the British jail, where he finds Carina Smyth. Carina is a scientist who is following her father's journal to a map that no man can read that will lead to Poseidon's Trident. Henry, Carina, and Sparrow escape execution and head for the seas on a quest to find the Trident Of Poseidon, which Henry believes will allow him to free Will from the Flying Dutchman because it will imbue Jack Sparrow with complete control over the seas.

With Jack Sparrow having given away his compass, Salazar and his ship are able to surface and they begin slaughtering various pirates, most of which are part of Barbossa's new fleet. When Salazar attacks Barbosa's main ship, Barbosa negotiates for his life. He begins a hunt for Jack Sparrow to save his own life (and in the hopes of getting his beloved ship, the Black Pearl, back from Sparrow). With Salazar hunting them, Barbosa and Sparrow search for the Trident Of Poseidon.

Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales feels like it is a pitch for future Pirates Of The Caribbean theme park rides the way it includes so many chase scenes. There's the stealing of the bank, the pirates and undead sharks on the island and, of course, the rescue of Sparrow, Smyth and Henry Turner; much of the movie feels like exactly what it is, a prolonged series of chases, as opposed to the protagonists actually hunting something.

The character relationships in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales suggest that Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides did not resonate as strongly with fans of the franchise. The first three Pirates Of The Caribbean films featured Jack Sparrow, Will Turner and Elizabeth Swann and while Sparrow flirted with Swann, the movies kept putting Turner and Swann together as they built a romantic relationship. Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales tries to replicate that chemistry by having Henry Turner and Carina Smyth at the start of their relationship, butting heads but clearly headed in the direction of a relationship. The film is complicated by putting Barbosa into Smyth's backstory, but the bulk of the film is Henry and Carina's story.

The irony here is twofold; for a franchise built upon Johnny Depp's charisma, celebrity and sense of comic timing, Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales avoids keeping the focus on Depp's Captain Sparrow for too long. Second, for all the press for Salazar as the villain, his appearance in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales acts as more of a secondary complication than the primary focus of the film. Salazar acts as a medium by which the film can present a bonanza of special effects.

To be fair, when it is lit in a way that the effects can actually be seen and appreciated, Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales looks amazing. The effects - while not linked to any sensible sense of physics - are visually impressive for their level of detail and creepiness.

The real winner in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is Kaya Scodelario. Scodelario follows Keira Knightly as a strong female character in the Pirates franchise who might appear at moments to be a damsel in distress, but is actually highly motivated and capable. Scodelario's Smyth is a scientist who is self-actualized and self-motivated, which allows her to play as headstrong, smart, articulate and fun for the bulk of Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.

Brenton Thwaites is well-cast as Will Turner's son, as he looks a lot like a young Orlando Bloom. Thwaites and Scodelario play off one another well and make Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales watchable, if not particularly good.

Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales moves to make Captain Sparrow the king of the seas, but it is other characters in the film who are resourceful and rise to heroic heights. As a result, odds are pretty good that Depp's Sparrow will easily be trumped by Amber Heard as the ruler of the seas when Justice League is released later this year. As it stands, Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales is a humorless continuation of the franchise where Jack Sparrow is minimized to lead to a potential continuation of the franchise that allows other characters to grow and take over when Depp no longer has the box office appeal the franchise needs to survive.

For other films currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
Wonder Woman
Baywatch
Alien: Covenant
Guardians Of The Galaxy, Volume 2

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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Exploit Stupidity: Yoga Hosers Is Awful.

The Good: Production design, Competent supporting performances
The Bad: Terrible characters, Astonishingly horrible plot, Most of the special effects, Lackluster acting, Exploitative quality. Most of the film is not funny at all.
The Basics: Kevin Smith's Yoga Hosers clogs the cinematic marketplace with garbage based on name recognition instead of anything approaching quality.


It used to be, as a cinephile, that when there was a new film written and directed by Kevin Smith, it was an event. Smith had a very interesting (as it turns out now, early) career arc as a darling of indie cinema and he hit a creative peak with Dogma (reviewed here!). But, when film distributors wanted to make more than ten million dollars at the box office for an opening weekend and Smith went commercial with Cop Out (reviewed here!) (it's funny how few people ever consider Mallrats a sell-out, as it was just a Kevin Smith film with an actual budget!), Smith quickly eroded his street cred. By the time he switched his storytelling focus with Red State (reviewed here!), he could barely open a film in wide release cinematically and he pretty much milked to death the cottage industry surrounding his name recognition (i.e. public appearances and DVDs of his public appearances talking about his past works). Around the time Red State was released, Kevin Smith publicly talked about how he was pretty much done with writing and directing - he announced that he had a "hockey movie" and Clerks III he wanted to do and then he was hanging up his spurs. His plans changed, apparently, and Tusk, various episodes of The Flash and Yoga Hosers were the result.

Yoga Hosers is a Kevin Smith film - written and directed - that serves as a vehicle for young actresses Lily-Rose Depp and Harley Quinn Smith (Kevin Smith's daughter) to break out on their own . . . while still surrounded by the famous actors, directors, and other creative types who make the viewer care at all about giving these young actors a chance to dazzle us. Unfortunately for everyone involved - and those who bother to view Yoga Hosers - there is nothing dazzling about Yoga Hosers. Instead, Yoga Hosers implicitly makes the potent argument that Kevin Smith has already given us the best he had . . . and he has nothing significant left to give.

Colleen Collette and Colleen McKenzie work at the Eh-2-Zed convenience store in Canada, when they are not so busy on their phones taking pictures with Instacan 2.0 and rocking out in the store's back room. They are excited when one night seniors from their high school, Hunter Calloway and Gordon Greenleaf, visit the Eh-2-Zed and invite them to a grade 12 party. Colleen McKenzie is allowed to go to the party if she takes her mother's switchblade, The Moyle, with her for protection. Colleen Collette wants to go to the party, but the day of, her father's girlfriend Tabitha decides to take off from work, with Bob, forcing the Colleens to work that night.

In the days between, the Colleens attend Terry Fox Preparatory school where they learn of the Canadian Nazis, led by Andronicus Arcane. After briefly losing their cameraphones and meeting the ridiculous author Guy Lapointe, the Colleens go to work the night of the "grade 12 party." When Hunter calls McKenzie, the Colleens invite the seniors to the Eh-2-Zed to party and are surprised when the guys take them up on the offer and only the pair arrive at the convenience store. They are quickly put in mortal peril when it turns out the boys are Canadian satanists who want the Colleens for virgin sacrifices and then the store is besieged by a small army of sentient Nazi bratwursts who want to kill them.

Yes, Kevin Smith's latest magnum opus centers around fifteen (and a half) year-old girls fighting off Bratzis in between reminding viewers just how unpleasant and superficial teenage girls and their cameraphones can be.

Immediately, I had high hopes for Yoga Hosers in that five production companies were credited at the beginning with working together to produce the film and my thought was "even Kevin Smith couldn't bamboozle five companies to throw money at absolute shit" and there are a couple of funny lines in the film right up front. I was wrong. Kevin Smith must be the world's most convincing huckster in his spare time to have gotten so many people to fund this absolute piece of shit (and how is it that Terry Gilliam still cannot get the funding together for The Man Who Killed Don Quixote?!).

What Smith gets right in Yoga Hosers is the production design and the casting. Fans of Kevin Smith's View Askew productions will see a lot in Yoga Hosers that creates a similar sense of reality. Yoga Hosers is packed with visual gags - the cereal boxes and product designs for products on shelves at the Eh-2-Zed and similar iconography at The Gimli Slider, etc - that make the film feel like a Kevin Smith film. The supporting cast of Yoga Hosers is well-cast, though the film feels like a series of obscure cameos before the plot actually bothers to hit its stride and start going anywhere.

But therein the fun ends.

Yoga Hosers is populated by unlikable characters who are virtually impossible to empathize with. Smith makes a smart statement implicitly through the beginning of the film, that the current generation of young people is self-absorbed and caught on their phones rather than truly ever interacting. But, Smith undermines his own point by underlining it and making it explicit with a tirade from the physical education teacher, Ms. Wicklund. In a similar fashion, the Colleens are learning yoga from an incompetent poseur, Yogi Bayer, which is delightfully satirical until the Colleens mouth off to Ms. Wicklund about the yoga she is trying to teach in school. But unlike something like Clerks II (reviewed here!) where the protagonists transition out of their stagnating lives to make fundamental changes, Yoga Hosers simply glorifies the stupidity of the protagonists and invites the antagonists to buy into their ridiculousness. The Canadian Nazis want nothing more than to get their photo into the same stupid tabloid the Colleens love (does the Instagram/Facebook generation even know what magazines are?!) and the schlock horror of the Bratzis comes far too late in the film to be even remotely interesting.

And there is an exploitative quality to Yoga Hosers. Right after the 2016 Presidential election, Harley Quinn Smith went out protesting and Kevin Smith wrote a beautiful disclaimer when he shared photographs of her protesting via social media. Smith wanted to remind people who were going to react to the photos he posted that his daughter is a seventeen year-old minor and he was sharing the pictures because he was proud of her activism. When I read that, I applauded it; the last thing a seventeen year-old needs is death threats or to be exploited/commented upon for how she looks. Kevin Smith had the right idea with trying to remind his fans that his daughter is a minor who does not deserve to be exploited or be subjected to vicious comments.

But, it does not take long into Yoga Hosers to notice that Harley Quinn Smith is being exploited in a way that Lily-Rose Depp is not. Harley Quinn Smith is outfitted in short skirts and midriff baring costumes for the bulk of Yoga Hosers. And Harley Quinn Smith is outfitted in the low-cut shirts that showcase her breasts. Outside a single shot where Lily-Rose Depp is laying on her back after a battle and her shirt rides up to expose her stomach and one mid-yoga strech shot that is hard to see as anything but an ass-shot of a girl in tight yoga pants, Depp is fully covered the entirety of Yoga Hosers. Smith is, noticeably, not. For girls who share everything, the contrast between Depp's yoga stretch pants (black) and Smith's short shorts (white) is painfully obvious and more disturbing than Kevin Smith attempting to elicit humor by moving around the moles on Guy Lapointe's face (didn't a Rob Schneider flick do that already?!) between shots. For someone who works to protect his daughter in the one context, Kevin Smith seems very willing to exploit his daughter in the other.

And therein lays the problem with Yoga Hosers on the acting front. Harley Quinn Smith is not given any big opportunities to showcase any performance talents in Yoga Hosers. Kevin Smith is adept at presenting (in script and on screen) big, deep, compelling human moments - Alan Rickman's Metatron talking to Bethany about having to be the voice of god to talk to the confused, hurt, child Jesus in Dogma perfectly illustrates that! - and Yoga Hosers is noticeably lacking in any such depth. As a result, Harley Quinn Smith and Lily-Rose Depp pal around playing exactly what they are; teenage girls doing stupid teenage girl shit. There is little real acting involved and whatever differences between the performers and their characters is not substantive or interesting in a way that allows either to plumb any sort of acting depth.

The visual effects in Yoga Hosers are pretty horrible; the Bratzis are not integrated into the main photography well (and the physics of some of their movements are obviously off) and the explosions are supposed to be comical, but they look cheesy (not even campy). On the visual effects front, Kevin Smith aspires to get to Sharknado quality CG effects. The golem looks awesome and gross, but by the time it comes into play, most viewers will already have tapped out.

Yoga Hosers is the second in a new trilogy of Kevin Smith films and viewers can only hope that his Canadian horror trilogy remains only three films (the View Askew films began as a New Jersey trilogy, but expanded beyond the three movies!) before Kevin Smith either calls it quits or creates a sequel to Dogma that rises to the level of greatness Smith has been shown to be capable of. But for those expecting anything of that quality of Yoga Hosers are only setting themselves up for disappointment.

For other works with Natasha Lyonne, please visit my reviews of:
Antibirth
Orange Is The New Black - Season 4
Orange Is The New Black - Season 3
Orange Is The New Black - Season 2
Orange Is The New Black - Season 1
Blade: Trinity
But I'm A Cheerleader

1/10

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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One Joke Is Beaten Absolutely To Death In Donald Trump's The Art Of The Deal: The Movie

The Good: Acting is decent, Ron Howard's part is funny
The Bad: Not very funny, No real plot or character development
The Basics: Funny Or Die presented Donald Trump's The Art Of The Deal: The Movie in an attempt to expose Donald Trump as a raging egoist who is more bluster than substance and the film falls far short of ever being clever.


With the election of Donald Trump to the Presidency (I, naively, did not bother watching any of Trump's speeches during the Primary or the Campaign because I figured it was unlikely he would ever become President legally), I figured it was time to watch something about Donald Trump. Rather than go for the literal, I opted to begin with the satirical and tonight I'm taking in Donald Trump's The Art Of The Deal: The Movie. Donald Trump's The Art Of The Deal: The Movie is a fifty minute film that is a parody of the business book that was ghost written for Trump in the 1980s.

Unfortunately, Donald Trump's The Art Of The Deal: The Movie essentially makes one joke over and over again. In Donald Trump's The Art Of The Deal: The Movie, Donald Trump is a self-promoting racist who uses bluster to intimidate others into getting what he wants. Presented as a "found footage" video, Donald Trump's The Art Of The Deal: The Movie has an impressive cast that is woefully underused as they each perform shtick that does not develop beyond the initial premise.

Opening with Ron Howard introducing the never-before-seen television movie from the late 1980s based upon The Art Of The Deal, which was preempted when it was supposed to air and was thought-destroyed. Howard found the video at a garage sale and then plays it for the viewer. In the film, the child steals a copy of The Art Of The Deal and runs into Donald Trump's office. Trump then tells the boy his rules for making deals, amid personal anecdotes of how he made his earliest deals with money from his father and with fights from cultural historians in New York City. Accompanied by his generic Jewish lawyer Jerry Schrager and his Nazi architect Der Scutt, Donald Trump discusses with the ever-changing child how he acquired the Taj Mahal Casino from Merv Griffin.

Johnny Depp leads the cast of Donald Trump's The Art Of The Deal: The Movie as Donald Trump and he nods his head repeatedly and delivers the swagger for the character consistently. But Depp seems much more like he is playing a parody of a parody of Donald Trump, as opposed to mimicking Donald Trump and any specific mannerisms he has. Alfred Molina, Patton Oswalt, Ron Howard, Jack McBrayer, Michaela Watkins, Stephen Merchant and others back up Depp as parodies of people in Trump's life, which allow Depp to deliver lines that characterize the parody of Trump as racist, misogynistic, and stupid. That's fine, but there's no subtlety or finesse to Donald Trump's The Art Of The Deal: The Movie; the portrayal of Trump is never truly clever, so most of the supporting actors steal their respective scenes, even when they have minimal lines because Depp's Trump character has already gotten old within the narrative.

Ultimately, Donald Trump's The Art Of The Deal: The Movie was never going to sway anyone who was a supporter of Donald Trump, but the tragedy of the film is that it fails to entertain those who loathe Trump. The result is a fifty minute timesuck that disappoints.

For other satirical documentaries, please check out my reviews of:
Mascots
Arrested Development
Talladega Nights: The Ricky Bobby Story

2/10

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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Good-Looking Mess: Why Alice Through The Looking Glass Fizzles!

The Good: Good effects, Moments of theme, Sacha Baron Cohen
The Bad: Dull plot, Obvious character work, A number of terrible or inconsistent performances
The Basics: Even Johnny Depp's occasional energetic performance cannot save the dismal Alice Through The Looking Glass from its own issues.


Summer Blockbuster Season is, predictably, chock full of sequels. One of the more anticipated and direct sequels to drop in 2016 is Alice Through The Looking Glass, which is a sequel to the live-action Tim Burton film Alice In Wonderland (reviewed here!). Alice Through The Looking Glass has the honor of being the final credited film for the late Alan Rickman and his very minor role in the film bookends his career in an unfortunately mediocre way.

Alice Through The Looking Glass is directed by James Bobin instead of Tim Burton and it reunites most of the cast of Alice In Wonderland. Bobin's work retains the look and feel of Burton's work, at least after its initial straightforward set-up. Alice Through The Looking Glass relies heavily upon information from the first film and stands poorly on its own, making it feel very much like a sequel. Like its predecessor, Alice Through The Looking Glass prioritizes style over substance for the bulk of the film.

Opening in 1874 in the Straits Of Malacca, Alice Kingsleigh is commanding her father's ship as it outruns pursuing pirates. Her skillful maneuvers allow her ship to escape and they return to London safely. In London, Alice discovers that Hamish now runs the company that sent her on the expedition to China and he leverages her boat and home against the young woman. After Hamish's maneuver to get Alice to surrender her ship, Alice follows a butterfly through a mirror to a drawing room in the sky through which she enters Underland. In the magical world of Underland, she learns that the Mad Hatter is not well . . . in a way that is inconsistent with his usual madness.

Meeting with the Hatter, Alice learns that when he found his very first paper hat, the Mad Hatter leapt to the conclusion that if the hat could survive the Jabberwockey attack, then his family must have survived as well. The White Queen, Mirana, sends Alice to Time to use the Chronosphere to rescue the Hatter's family on the day they die and return them to the future to make the Mad Hatter sane and well again. Time rejects Alice's request and when the Red Queen, Iracebeth, arrives, Alice uses the distraction to steal the Chronosphere. Persued by Time into the past, Alice attempts to save the Hatter's family and then prevent the accident which made Iracebeth into a villainess.

Alice Through The Looking Glass is predicated largely on the idea that Alice has a deep love for the Hatter that was hardly indicated in the prior film. The character leap that viewers are asked to take initially is that Alice would risk life, death and the temporal ramifications of time travel to help save the life and, relative, sanity, of the Hatter based on how she feels for him. That emotional bond is not developed in the two films well-enough to be a realistic motivation at the outset.

The film is dominated by style, so the initial problem with character is quickly matched by problems on the acting front. Mia Wasikowska plays Alice and she delivers lines that are strong and emphatic, while having a physical performance based on the same wide-eyed disbelief and uncertainty, which is a troubling acting choice. While she gets eye-lines right for her interactions with virtual characters, she fails to bring anything new or significant to the role of Alice with her acting.

The usually amazing Anne Hathaway is surprisingly bland as Mirana. Hathaway resumes the body language of her prior part, without having the wonderful, strange, off-putting detachment the character had in the first film. While Hathaway's vitality and range of emotional expression play well and fine for the scenes in the past, the scenes in the "present" stand out as problematically incongruent with the established character. Johnny Depp's performance is one of his most bland, with him simply blithely lisping through his lines. With the themes of distant fathers being explored in Alice Through The Looking Glass, Depp's performance seems troublingly derivative of his portrayal of Willy Wonka in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory (reviewed here!).

In fact, the most instantly energized performer in Alice Through The Looking Glass is Sacha Baron Cohen. Cohen once again creates an entirely new and different persona for himself as Time. Cohen's Time is weird and awkward and he steals his scenes, even when they are not especially good. Cohen's Time quickly overshadows Helena Bonham Carter's Iracebe to draw the eye and capture the viewer's attention.

Amid lines that play off every cliche about time, Alice Through The Looking Glass tries to marvel the viewer with bright colors and generally-competent computer generated effects. The effects are one of the few things going for the film.

Unfortunately, it is not enough. Alice Through The Looking Glass attempts to blend past and present, reality and Underland, into a story that seeks to both reinvigorate wonder and illustrate the drastic consequences to attempting to change time. It fails to satisfactorily impress or entertain viewers. The result is a good-looking mess that is a poor end to the legacy of Alan Rickman.

For other works with Matt Lucas, please check out my reviews of:
"Thin Ice" - Doctor Who
"The Pilot" - Doctor Who
"The Return Of Doctor Mysterio" - Doctor Who
"The Husbands Of River Song" - Doctor Who
Paddington
Bridesmaids

2/10

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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Rise Of The Machine: Transcendence Is A Gloomy Look At Human Potential At The Dawn Of The Matrix!

The Good: Moments of philosophy and character, The acting is good, Decent pacing
The Bad: Derivative plot concepts, Most of the characters are indistinct in such a way that the viewer does not truly care about them.
The Basics: Transcendence is an interesting, philosophically-based science fiction drama that utilizes a number of familiar elements so that it feels more stale than it (probably) is objectively.


Every now and then, I find myself surprised by what makes it into movie theaters, not for how audacious the ideas are, but rather for how those ideas have already been done years ago. In the case of the new film Transcendence, I found myself somewhat surprised because the central concepts of the film have been postulated to death in science fiction. In fact, while I want to suggest that Transcendence is little more than a sophisticated version of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Our Man Bashir” (reviewed here!) which used the conceit of storing brain patterns in a computer in order to present a James Bond holodeck parody episode, the film is much more an action-oriented upgrade to the original Star Trek episode “Spock’s Brain” (reviewed here!). Either way, when as a fan of science fiction, I can easily pull out two examples fifteen and forty-five years old out to compare the concept of a new film with, it’s hard to call that film audacious or groundbreaking.

To be fair to Transcendence, the film is a bit smarter and more complex than “Spock’s Brain,” but the essential premise is the same. However, instead of being motivated by the fear of losing one physical crewmember to a planet where he is enslaved to a machine, Transcendence follows a team of scientists split on the ethical issues surrounding an artificial intelligence that one prominent member of the team is concerned about becoming enslaved to. The political and psychological complexity of Transcendence makes it worth watching, but it is hardly an extraordinary drama or science fiction film.

Dr. Will Caster is a scientist and mathematician who has been working for years to develop an artificial intelligence that can develop a true consciousness. His partner, Max Waters, wants to use the technology the team is developing to cure cancer and benefit all of humanity. But during a public event, Caster is shot at and his main laboratory is attacked (using poison cake) with an anti-technology group taking credit. Caster (and his wife), Tagger, Waters, and FBI Agent Buchanan rendezvous at the least damaged of the A.I. research centers where they reveal to Buchanan the presence of their most comprehensive neural net, which may be a true artificial consciousness. But Will Caster soon collapses, whatwith the bullet that shot him being coated in a radioactive isotope that is killing him, and Waters and Evelyn Caster debate plugging Will into a machine that could duplicate and transfer his consciousness into an artificial neural net.

After embedding a card into his skull and working to copy his brain, Will Caster’s body dies. But soon, Max and Evelyn discover his consciousness is still operating within the computer system and the two begin to communicate with the disembodied Will. Waters finds himself concerned by the potential for Will’s artificial intelligence form to grow and develop in such a way that he tries to take over the world by digitally manipulating government and the economy, as well as aspects of technology and scientific development currently unrealized. To that end, he is approached by his former student, Bree, who shared Water’s fear of what an a.i. could become when she saw how the monkey brain a.i. reacted to disembodiment. Soon, the concerns Waters and the technophobes had are realized when Will begins expanding his influence in medical technology and his interface. Buchanan and Tagger witness the Will artificial intelligence curing a man’s blindness and their meeting with him leaves them unsettled. As Will begins to heal people, Tagger and Buchanan come to believe that the people he is healing are coming under Will’s control and they join forces with Waters and the terrorist group to try to bury the artificial intelligence army threat before it can be fully realized.

When I first heard about Transcendence, I thought it might be a blend of Revolution (the television series) and The Matrix. When Will Caster begins to raise an army of human drones whose bodies he creates, the film starts to take on a number of similarities to The Borg from the Star Trek franchise, though instead of devolving into a technozombie film, Transcendence works to keep focused on a tighter, more character-driven concept. Will Caster continues to show Evelyn her own dreams and that leads his very human wife to fear how deep Caster is inside her head. The film, despite having a very familiar science fiction premise, is entertaining and engaging because it acts as a somewhat natural precursor to popular and successful science fiction films that deal with humanity enslaved by artificial technologies. If The Matrix was about humanity’s desperate struggle to free themselves from machines, Transcendence is about a resistance that forms at the outset of the creation of the matrix (though not literally in the same universe). Amid talks of nanites and artificial intelligences that are sweeping through the very air around Will Caster’s subterranean facility, there is a smartly grounded human-focused story of people who just want to survive, untainted by the will of another.

Fortunately for those who are not as plugged into modern science fiction, Transcendence peppers enough easy-to-understand concepts in with all of the technobabble. Amid the jargon about artificial intelligences and nanites, the plan to keep humanity safe is boiled down to the simple idea that the computer code which keeps “Will” “alive” inside the mainframe must be infected with a virus, but that same virus would destroy the internet and all computers.

The thing is, because it starts so tech-heavy and because it covers so much ground on establishing its premises, the characters in Transcendence do not have time to become viable characters that the viewer cares about. As a result, the plot speeds along with the characters knowing what is coming (the plot progresses entirely based upon the fears of those who opposed Will Caster’s work) without any of them having any stunning epiphanies or intense moments that make the viewer care about their predicament. While that might not be the death knell of Transcendence, it’s enough to keep it from being easy to recommend or champion. So, while the themes of human resilience and human ingenuity in the face of possible extinction make for potentially engaging character moments, none of the characters in Transcendence are well-rounded enough to rise to the occasion to make the viewer care about them.

On the acting front, Johnny Depp gets top billing and it is unfortunate that Transcendence has him playing one of his least memorable characters ever. As Dr. Will Caster, Depp is unable to bring to bear any of the charisma or talent that has made him a household name. Depp is adept and serious (as appropriate for the role) as Caster, but he also comes across as bland and dry throughout Transcendence. In a similar way, Morgan Freeman is completely wasted as Tagger and Rebecca Hall could have been swapped out for virtually any other actress working in Hollywood today given how little she is asked to do as Evelyn and how little on-screen chemistry she has with Depp.

Ultimately, Transcendence is an overly simple presentation of a complicated philosophical and technological idea. It is an attempted blockbuster for a philosophy lesson and, as such, it is unsurprising that it largely underwhelms.

For other works with Rebecca Hall, please check out my reviews of:
Transcendence
Iron Man 3
A Bag Of Hammers
Everything Must Go
Frost/Nixon
The Prestige

6/10

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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Disney Tries (Again) To Maintain Their Pirates Audience With The Lone Ranger!

The Good: Visually enjoyable, William Fichtner
The Bad: Unimaginative performances, Dull plot, Feels long
The Basics: With The Lone Ranger, Disney and Gore Verbinski prove that successful Disney live action adventure movies need more than Johnny Depp and special effects to succeed.


Disney has a strong history of finding what works and milking it until it is bone dry (and the remnants bear little resemblance to the once-noteworthy original work that spawned the franchise). When they hit it big with Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl (reviewed here!), they created a franchise that it is virtually certain they are not done tapping. But, shrewd as they were, the executives at Disney could not duplicate the successful elements of the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise with either Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time (reviewed here!) or John Carter (reviewed here!). So, in going back to the well, it is somewhat unsurprising that they would try for a new franchise that reteams Gore Verbinski (the Pirates director) and Johnny Depp (the franchise’s star). The result is The Lone Ranger.

Even more than the thin plot unified that drags the viewer from one exceedingly bloody encounter to another (very hard PG-13 here!), The Lone Ranger seems like a particularly desperate attempt to make something that viewers might want to keep returning to. They fail. There is nothing particularly original about The Lone Ranger, the peril Tonto is put in is undermined entirely by the narrative technique (which has an aged Tonto telling his story to a boy from a point many years in the future) and it lacks a zest or spark to set it apart from other, already beloved films that have Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter acting goofy. Given the comparatively short resume of Armie Hammer, who plays the title role, it is unsurprising that Tonto dominates the film in order to capitalize on the celebrity of Johnny Depp.

Unfortunately, Depp’s performance has more in common with his character from Dead Man (reviewed here!) than the quotable and wacky Jack Sparrow.

Recounted by Tonto, John Reid – a Harvard lawyer who has come out to the frontier – is with his brother and a group of Rangers when they are ambushed by Butch Cavendish. Cavendish is brutal and rumored to be a cannibal and his attack on Reid and his party confirms his reputation. It is Tonto who rescues John Reid and convinces the young man to don a mask to protect himself and those close to him if he insists on pursuing Cavendish (which Reid does). With his brother dead, nephew and sister-in-law captured, Reid has strong motivation to track down Cavendish. Together, Tonto and the Lone Ranger begin a hunt for Cavendish and his gang.

On the way, they get clues and meet with minor obstacles from Latham Cole and Red Harrington as the negotiate the wild frontier. In avoiding both U.S. military forces and native warriors, Tonto and the Lone Ranger, with their trusty steed Silver, are put on the path to avenge the wronged and save Reid’s remaining family.

The Lone Ranger suffers – in addition from being excessively, often needlessly, bloody – in that it rambles along feeling every minute of the two and a half hours that it is. It lacks real social commentary, despite having the greedy railroad tycoon (Cole, played plausibly enough by master Tom Wilkinson)and a budding conflict between the U.S. and natives. Instead, it focuses on making cheap shots at the inexperienced Reid and occasionally reminding the viewer just how ruthless Cavendish is (he is not one who would team up with the allies in a sequel a la Barbosa in Pirates).

Therein lies one of the few saving graces in The Lone Ranger: William Fichtner as Butch Cavendish. Fichtner is a wonderful character actor and in The Lone Ranger, he presents scene-stealing villainy as the antagonist. Fichtner has a way of setting his eyes that makes them cold and embody evil in a way few actors can. As Cavendish, Fichtner illustrates just how creepy and mean his performances can be and there is not a moment that he appears on screen that the viewer does not fully believe they are watching a stone-cold killer at work.

By contrast, Armie Hammer gives a very white bread performance as John Reid. While he seems fine for the fight sequences, he is bland otherwise as the Lone Ranger. Similarly, Verbinski all but labels Johnny Depp as the point of The Lone Ranger remake by giving him frequent moments that have the actor emoting his disdain, surprise or disappointment with his eyes (mostly for comic effect). The Lone Ranger is a somewhat less talkative Jack Sparrow stuck in the desert and Depp’s performance is not only unsurprising, it is largely uninteresting.

Sadly, that is the state of the entire film The Lone Ranger.

For other Disney live-action works, please check out my reviews of:
Oz The Great And Powerful
The Odd Life Of Timothy Green
Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
Tron: Legacy
Oceans
Alice In Wonderland
Old Dogs
G-Force
Pirates Of The Caribbean: At World's End
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe
The Princess Diaries 2: A Royal Engagement
The Princess Diaries
Tron

3.5/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Not The Most Compelling Story Backs An Incredibly-Animated Film With Rango!

The Good: Decent animation, Good voice performances
The Bad: Predictable plot, Very obvious character arcs
The Basics: Rango is a surprise winner for Best Animated Film, considering it is a very obvious Western.


It is a rare thing for me to sit down to a film from Nickelodeon Films, despite the fact that I truly enjoyed Hotel For Dogs (reviewed here!) from the company. So, when my wife’s family came for a visit, it was somewhat surprising to all of us that I had Rango out from the library. I got out Rango for my wife, who tends to like animated films. I was unsurprised when she told me she actually watched Rango over the summer, but I was surprised when she informed me she did not actually enjoy it. But, given that she and I have different tastes in movies, I decided to watch the movie with my in-laws while she was at work anyway.

My wife was right.

Rango is a remarkably underwhelming, average-at-its-peak, movie that might have impressive animation, but not enough to back it up on the character and plot fronts. The animated film is a Western populated by animal characters and it is surprisingly unoriginal and lacking in humor needed to sustain an animated film.

As part of a move, a domesticated lizard is keeping himself occupied in his aquarium, making theatrical presentations to keep himself entertained, when the car swerves and the aquarium goes flying. The lizard ends up on the road, then after a near-death experience, lost in the desert. Chased by a redtail hawk, the lizard ends up running into the small town of Dirt. There, he begins bragging about how he has killed the local villainous gang (with one bullet) and he takes the name Rango. Having befriended a lonely woman named Beans, Rango’s bragging and posturing earns him the role of Sherriff in the town of Dirt.

As Sherriff, Rango vows to discover how the bank is running out of water. He quickly uncovers a plot by a family of thieves. After riding out and thwarting their plans, Rango is replaced by Rattlesnake Jake and he must come to rescue Dirt. Exposing the corrupt Mayor, Rango risks life and limb to bring water back to Dirt.

Rango is a Johnny Depp vehicle and it is hard to see how the film did any business outside his fan base. The animation is well-rendered and all of the animals look good and move with a surprisingly realistic sense of physics. The character designs are very cool for the lizards, scorpions, turtle, cat, and bats; Rango has a vivid visual palate.

Unfortunately, effects are a small portion of evaluating a film and Rango is not backed up by an interesting series of characters or a remotely good plot. Movies like this usually trade on having great lines that are enough to amuse adults, but Rango lacks anything so clever. The characters are unmemorable and the plot is predictable.

The vocal performances are decent, though Johnny Depp does not present anything that viewers have not seen or heard from him before. Backed by talents like Isla Fisher, Ned Beatty, Bill Nighy, Abigail Breslin, and Alfred Molina, the characters in Rango are expressive, if not impressive.

Now on DVD and Blu-Ray, Rango includes an alternate ending, two different versions, and ten deleted scenes. None of that makes it worth buying.

For other works with Isla Fisher, please check out my reviews of:
Rise Of The Guardians
Confessions Of A Shopaholic
Definitely, Maybe
Scooby-Doo

3/10

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

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Ooh, Johnny Depp And Christian Bale Play Opposing Moody Men In Public Enemies!

The Good: Moments of acting and plot
The Bad: Predictable plot, Unlikable characters, Direction
The Basics: In a strikingly average (at best) film, Johnny Depp and Christian Bale face off as Dillinger and Purvis in the dull crime drama Public Enemies.


It was less than halfway through Public Enemies when I realized that writers Ronan Bennett, Ann Biderman, and Michael Mann (who directed the film) had completely failed with the film because I found myself not caring at all who would live or die in the film. This is a pretty critical flaw in a film involving gangsters; one ought to either find themselves secretly rooting for the criminal - with whom they have found a basis for empathy - or eagerly awaiting for the law to prevail and social order to be maintained. It is the death knell of such films to have viewers not care either way. But with the two hour twenty minute adaptation of the Bryan Burrough's history is anything but engaging and clever. Even on the big screen, it is a surprisingly dull film.

As is my usual caveat for films based upon books, having not read the book upon which this is based, I am not evaluating how well this translates the book to the big screen. Nor, because this is based upon a historical text, am I evaluating how well the film stacks up against reality. In fact, I've no knowledge of the real story of John Dillinger, so I came to Public Enemies remarkably free of prejudice. I also went into this having seen no previews; I had only seen the standee of Johnny Depp in the movie theater, noted that Christian Bale was in the film, too and made the crack to my partner, "Do you suppose they got the 'Moody Man Two-for-one Special?'" Sadly, this is about the depth and breadth of the acting in Public Enemies.

In 1933, as the Great Depression trudges into its fourth year, John Dillinger has made a career for himself as a bank robber in the Midwest. Dillinger makes good on a promise to some prison friends of his in Michigan City, Indiana, by springing them from the state penitentiary there. After fleeing to the safe haven of Chicago, Dillinger meets a coatcheck woman - Billie Frechette - and he falls in love. Elsewhere, FBI agent Melvin Purvis literally hunts down gangster Pretty Boy Floyd and his actions in not-quite-apprehending him earn him the notice of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover. Hoover immediately assigns Purvis to Chicago to head the Dillinger Squad.

As Dillinger and his henchmen rob banks and elude Purvis, Purvis tries to tighten the net around Dillinger using scientific methodology. When his generally-appropriate techniques fail to net Dillinger - or his more dimwitted associates - Purvis requests aid through Hoover of more thuggish law enforcement officers. As Purvis leads his task force, he allows others to make more brutal decisions which put Dillinger and organized crime on the run.

Public Enemies is arguably one of those films which seeks to ask the tough questions in the viewer's mind about what levels of force are appropriate and who we become in hunting down our criminals, but the fundamental problem is that there is almost nothing within the film which we haven't seen before. Having survived a time when known associates of people suspected of crimes have been deprived their civil liberties, there is little surprising or audacious in Public Enemies and the rougher techniques Purvis's associates utilize. More than that, their brutal tactics - while making viewers empathetic toward Billie - seldom make the viewer care more about Dillinger. After all, unlike the real-life "suspects" in contemporary criminal investigations, in Public Enemies, there is ample evidence illustrated on-screen that Dillinger and his associates kill when necessary.

And beyond that, this is a pretty basic law-and-order versus the criminal where early on the woman is established as the linchpin. Dillinger's weak spot is always Billie and throughout the film, the viewer tends to find themself waiting for the inevitable, more than expecting this to be a film that defies our expectations. Unfortunately for us, the wait is still a long one.

Director Michael Mann subjects the viewer to multiple bank robberies which become less-smooth operations as Dillinger is compelled to work with different people. The problem is in the form; he frames them similarly from the entrance of the antagonists through the escape in and on cars down long roads. One knows it's a pretty mediocre movie one is watching when they start pulling the performers out of the film, as I found myself doing too frequently with notes to myself like, "It's nice to see Emile de Ravin in something new!," "Is that Giovanni Ribisi?" (it was, by the by, in what amounts to little more than a cameo as a fellow robber, Alvin Karpis, in a role very different to his Friends persona that I've seen him as lately), or "Why does that guy playing Hoover seem so familiar?" (The answer to the last one is that it is Billy Crudup playing Hoover and he is decked out to look and act pretty much like his pre-transformation character from Watchmen, reviewed here!) So what viewers have not seen elsewhere they see multiple times within Public Enemies.

As well, when the camerawork is not frenetic and busy, it is boring. Mann tries to mimic the conditions of the time fairly frequently by lighting shots with flares and having handheld cameras at about neck level in crowds to shake things up. These shots - and one black and white shot that is just grainy enough to make viewers believe it is archived footage of Dillinger's prison transfer plane landing - come amidst long, steady shots of courtrooms and bedroom scenes, which lose any energy Mann might have created in the other shots. The only style shots that actually seem to work are a pair of shots - one of Billie, one of Purvis - shot at ridiculously low angles with them looking down which look like they might have been shot using a laptop computer's camera. Mann gets no real style points for Public Enemies.

In fact, Mann is strangely fearful as a director of making a film with real impact with this movie. There is surprisingly little gore to the gun battles - and there are a slew throughout the film -, the language is tame and the film's lone sex scene lacks nudity. I'm not saying that the movie would be better with more gore or some t&a, but Mann creates a film that feels more like a PG-13 gangster drama than the "R" it received. I suspect this is more because no one under thirteen could sit through the film without being bored more than actually warranting the "R" rating.

Of course, the real issue for me more than the style and MPAA rating comes in the form of the plot, character and acting issues. The plot is entirely predictable, the characters are either obvious (Dillinger), unlikable (Baby Face Nelson), or bland (Purvis, Billie). Dillinger and Purvis are set up more as types than actual characters in the film and neither one makes the viewer care about them or the outcome of their series of cat and mouse hunts.

Part of the problem here is in the acting. Johnny Depp and Christian Bale lead the cast as Dillinger and Purvis, respectively. Depp's performance is strikingly familiar; he plays Dillinger almost like he played George Jung in Blow (reviewed here!). Similarly, Bale plays Purvis with the same unsmiling moodiness he brought to Bruce Wayne in The Dark Knight (reviewed here!). Depp and Bale are both the function of adequate casting here more than anything resembling inspired acting. We've seen performances like these from both men before and here they give us nothing new. This is well within the expected range of both actors and as a result, the film falls flat on the acting front. I'm not saying Michael Cera ought to have been cast as Dillinger, but if he had and he'd managed to pull it off, it would have illustrated inspired use of an actor. Bale and Depp in Public Enemies calls to mind a snarky remark from the Just Shoot Me episode "King Lear Jet" wherein (in response to a photographer bragging about a picture he took of a supermodel) a character notes, "You took a picture of one of the hottest women in the world and somehow made her look beautiful. What's your secret - are you using some kind of film?" What we see from both men is obvious for their talents and is less an asset to the film than one might think.

The only one who leaps off the screen - and she does it by being more subtle than over-the-top - is actress Marion Cotillard as Billie. Cotillard oozes sexuality without ever being in-your-face with it. She has a delivery that is striking and makes her character's sense of force stick. It's too bad so much of the film passes without her getting a scene and when she does, the scenes are often marred by predictable elements, like a slap that fails to be delivered to her by the timely arrival of more upright law officers.

At the end of the day, though, Public Enemies deserves its criticism for being boring. It is and when one acknowledges that, there is truly little more to write.

For other works with Marion Cotillard, please check out my reviews of:
The Dark Knight Rises
Contagion
Inception
Big Fish

5/10

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

© 2012, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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So Close To The Ideal, The “On Stranger Tides” Pirates Of The Caribbean 2012 Hallmark Ornament Gets Everything But The Skin Right!

The Good: Great sculpt, Generally good coloring detail, Good balance
The Bad: Slight coloring issue for the skin
The Basics: The 2012 "On Stranger Tides" ornament is amazing and right on the border of being value priced, but the monotonal skin coloring robs it of perfection.


As I have been eagerly reviewing the brand new line of Hallmark ornaments, I have the vain hope that my loyal readers are eagerly awaiting the review of one of the perfect ornaments from Hallmark. As one who took some flack for not simply blindly praising the 2011 Captain Jack Sparrow ornament (reviewed here!), I was pleased by how nice the new On Stranger Tides ornament actually is. But it is not a perfect ornament – though to most fans, it will probably come close enough to overlook the flaw which, objectively I cannot. The On Stranger Tides ornament is so close to perfect, but not quite there and if, later in the season, it does not appear to be selling out, this could be one of the very best investment ornaments of a basic character from the 2012 Hallmark line at half price.

For those unfamiliar with the idea of the ornament, On Stranger Tides features a moment from Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (reviewed here!). Jack Sparrow has found that many of the pirates have been magically entrapped in bottles, most notably his Black Pearl. Peering into one of the bottles with the pirate ship, Jack Sparrow looks on in amusement. This is the subject of the On Stranger Tides ornament.

Basics

The "On Stranger Tides" ornament recreates Jack Sparrow holding the bottle with the pirate ship, though it is unclear if it is a specific moment from On Stranger Tides. The ornament is just Jack Sparrow, with the bottle in his raised left hand. The ornament, released in 2012, is a very cool and accurate sculpt of Jack Sparrow standing in a surprisingly neutral pose. He has a bandanna on his head and that masks much of his hair, though the ornament features the character's braids on the sides of his face.

Hallmark clearly made quite an effort on Jack Sparrow as he has decent detailing like the buckle on the belt he has going across his chest like a bandoleer and each and every ring on his fingers. I was super impressed by the inclusion of the cut near Sparrow’s right eye both molded and painted there. Measuring four and one-half inches tall, three inches wide and one and three-quarter inches deep, the "On Stranger Tides" ornament is one of the larger Hallmark character ornaments this year. For me, it is hard to see how Hallmark is able to add $3.00 to the initial issue price year over year, though. For sure, On Stranger Tides is a better ornament than the Captain Jack Sparrow ornament, but for $17.95 (as opposed to $14.95 for last year’s ornament), I think I want it to be perfect. Were it $14.95, the On Stranger Tides ornament would not solve the coloring issue with the skin tones, but it would not compel me to be more cautious in my recommendation of the ornament.

The Hallmark "On Stranger Tides" ornament is made of a durable plastic and the translucent bottle in Jack’s hand is a masterwork of detailing that helps set a new standard for what Hallmark is capable of accomplishing. The ornament is incredibly detailed in the sculpted details and the colored details are fabulous, outside Jack Sparrow’s skin tones, which are monotonally tanned, lacking in realistic depth and shading. Considering how Hallmark got the depth and shading right on every strip of leather, the fabrics and boots, and even making the metals on the buckles and weapons look worn, it is astonishing that the ornament did not land the skin tones. Unlike the Captain Jack Sparrow ornament, On Stranger Tides has decent detailing to the eyes.

Features

As a Hallmark Keepsake ornament, "On Stranger Tides" could have a sound effect, but it does not. Instead, this is a less-expensive option that is just the character.

Balance

As with all ornaments, the intent of the Hallmark Keepsake "On Stranger Tides" ornament is to be hung on a Christmas Tree. And for those creating the ultimate movie nostalgia Christmas Tree, the "On Stranger Tides" ornament is a great option that can only enhance the tree of those who love pirates. The ornament has the standard brass hook loop embedded into the top center of Jack Sparrow's head. This is fairly obvious and necessary for the ornament. Hanging there, the ornament is absolutely perfectly balanced. The cool sword he has hanging from his belt helps keep the ornament in right balance and On Stranger Tides is well-engineered in that regard.

Collectibility

Hallmark Keepsake began delving into the collectibles market in 1991 with Star Trek when it introduced the exceptionally limited edition original U.S.S. Enterprise ornament (click here for that review!). Within a few years, every major franchise from Star Wars to A Nightmare Before Christmas to Indiana Jones started making Hallmark ornaments. "On Stranger Tides" is one of only a few Pirates Of The Caribbean ornaments on the market and at least the third of Jack Sparrow. Johnny Depp fans and fans of the Pirates movies are very happy about the "On Stranger Tides" ornament. They have a lot to be happy with with this one. Given its slightly higher starting price, it seems difficult to assume that it would be an initially worthwhile investment ornament.

Overview

Fans of the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise, Johnny Depp, and Hallmark ornaments are likely to be thrilled by this ornament, despite its minor problem. On Stranger Tides might well be the best ornament of Captain Jack Sparrow and it makes for a worthwhile ornament that is easily one of the very best ornaments from Hallmark in 2012.

For other Hallmark genre ornaments released in 2012, please check out my reviews of:
The Final Battle Harry Potter ornament
Momaw Nadon Star Wars Limited Edition ornament
Edward And Bella’s Wedding Twilight ornament

9.5/10

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

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Forgettable Depp, The Libertine Almost Works

The Good: Decent acting, Interesting story, Intriguing characters
The Bad: Unlikable characters, Monologues to camera, Disconnect from audience
The Basics: With its strongly unlikable protagonist, The Libertine offers Johnny Depp a chance to create an amazing performance, too late for the viewer to care.


Johnny Depp seems to be one of those actors who will do something designed to make him a boatload of cash, so he can spend time doing artistic projects when his basic needs are met. I say this because after Edward Scissorhands (reviewed here!) and Ed Wood he did Dead Man (reviewed here!), and after Pirates Of The Caribbean, he did Finding Neverland and The Libertine. I think that's pretty cool; Kevin Spacey does something similar to help aspiring directors and fellow actors. Unfortunately, Depp's efforts to do something more substantial than Captain Jack Sparrow put him in a role that is by definition unlikable, as Depp attempts to convince the audience of from the outset.

John Wilmont, the second Earl of Rochester, is brought out of exile by King Charles II when Charles needs a poet and fall guy. Wilmont surrounds himself with less reputable associates like a thieving servant and whoremonger like himself with the improbable name Alcock. When Charles II becomes dependent on allying himself with or fighting the French to save his monarchy, Charles enlists Wilmont to entertain the French ambassador. Wilmont, who is hopelessly in love with a starlet of his own creation, creates a pornographic satire that enrages the king and sends him scurrying.

Wilmont is, from the first moments, an arrogant character - anyone who implores the viewer to think of him when having sex is a bit over-the-top - and he applies our moral code to himself. That is to say that Wilmont tells the viewer that we will not like him, which seems to be more a modern take on his lack of ethics and his tendencies toward promiscuity than his own moral code. Or with a somewhat retrospective view of his own life, Wilmont is admitting he does not like himself that much. Either way, the result is the same; the viewer does not like the Second Earl of Rochester.

This effectively kills the movie. Wilmont, and Depp, are in almost every scene of the movie, making it difficult to watch after a time. Depp so convincingly makes Wilmont an unlikable character - not so much for his promiscuity as his casual use of his friends and lovers, the way he discards all life around him, including his own - that it makes The Libertine virtually unwatchable. We don't care what happens to Rochester, we just want the movie to end.

The feelings Rochester (as a titled lord, he is addressed as "Rochester" rather than "Wilmont" throughout the film) expresses toward Elizabeth Barry - the actress - seem belated and forced and uncharacteristic. For those looking for Johnny Depp in a sexy performance, look elsewhere; Rochester ends up horribly disfigured by syphilis and loping around the screen on crutches, blind in one eye. This is not a character who lives smart and he suffers very real repercussions of his lifestyle.

What works is the direction/cinematography and the acting. Laurence Dunmore, who directed The Libertine, uses a green wash to make it a black and green movie (not quite black and white) which creates a darker mood from the opening and drenches the film quite effectively in misery. The visual cues from the opening are that this is a place in decay. We are watching the decay of a free spirit. It works on that front quite well and I salute the director for doing something creative to make the movie more palatable or interesting to watch - though "yea" for orgy scenes, too!

Samantha Morton gives a decent supporting performance as Elizabeth Barry. She is convincing as an actress desiring roles and affection. She has a strong screen presence that easily rivals Depp when she appears on screen. Similarly, John Malkovich takes on another period piece, as Charles II and manages to steal the screen every time he's on it. He keeps the movie flowing with a sense of presence that dominates his character's arc and makes the viewer wish for him to do a movie focusing on the trials and tribulations of Charles II - the b-story with his difficulties in maintaining the monarchy are more interesting than Rochester's debaucheries. Malkovich takes the supporting role and rules with it.

Depp gives a great performance near the end of The Libertine. In the beginning, he is presenting an arrogant, somewhat roguish and attractive character that we've seen from Depp before. We get that he can do such a role. We want to see something new, different and better from him. The Libertine gives us that, but far too late for us to care. Depp's portrayal of Rochester as a syphilitic quasi-invalid is brilliant. Perhaps the movie would have been more engaging had we begun with him in his deteriorated state and flashed back to his reckless years. Rochester might appear more human that way. Either way, Depp's performance of Rochester's later life is worthy of attention.

Sadly, it's not enough to recommend this film. The mood, the narrative and the sheer unlikability of the principle characters makes it difficult to watch The Libertine once, much less more than once.

For other works with Rosamund Pike, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Wrath Of The Titans
The Big Year
Pride and Prejudice
Die Another Day

4/10

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

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