The Next Great Fantasy World Is China?! The Great Wall

The Good: Special effects, Good performances, Interesting characters
The Bad: Very simple plot
The Basics: The Great Wall is a visually-engaging film that is very simple.


With the popularity of Game Of Thrones on HBO and the end of the marketable Middle Earth books, moviegoers are looking for the next big mythical world to emotionally invest in. The Great Wall implicitly makes the argument that ancient China is a setting worth exploring. The Great Wall blends history and mythology, character and special effects to create a story of heroism that is likely to appeal to those who love fantasy.

The Great Wall is not as sprawling or complicated as Warcraft (reviewed here!) and in some ways that makes it much more accessible. Despite the flash and physical scope of the film, The Great Wall is essentially a simple siege story with a very basic morality aspect thrown in. The lack of complexity does not make The Great Wall bad, though, but it is easy to get swept away by the armor and sprawling mountains and come to believe the film is bigger than it actually is.

Opening with the disclaimer that this is one of the legends of the Great Wall, William Garin is being chased on horseback through the desert with his comrades and are only able to evade their pursuers through luck and cunning. Garin and his team of six men (down by twenty from when the expedition began) are searching for gunpowder, which they have only heard of as rumor and at night, their camp is attacked by something they do not recognize and only see clearly in the amputated limb one leaves behind. Garin and Pero Tovar survive the fight with the creature and are scouting when they are attacked again by riders. They are corralled to the Great Wall, where military forces are defending China. After being interrogated by Lin Mei, a general who speaks English thanks to the tutelage of Sir Ballard, they are imprisoned and brought to the top of the Great Wall.

There, they witness an attack on the Wall by massive reptiles. Freed from their bonds during the fight, Garin and Tovar take down a couple of the creatures and earn the begrudging respect of Lin Mei. The Westerners learn of the Taotie, whose queen breeds an army that attacks every sixty years and whose legions now threaten the capital city. With its population, the military leaders believe that the Queen Taotie will be able to breed enough soldiers to cover the entire Earth, wiping out humanity. After a nighttime attack kills the leader of the army, Lin Mei is promoted and she agrees to try Garin's idea, which is to capture a Taotie to find the creatures' weaknesses. While the military captures a Taotie soldier, Sir Ballard and Tovar flee the Great Wall with a supply of "black powder." Despite immediately mistrusting Garin, Lin Mei is convinced that his desire to stay and fight the Taotie is legitimate. Together, Lin Mei and William Garin mount a daring expedition to find the queen and kill her to eliminate the threat the Taotie represent to Earth!'

The Great Wall very quickly sets up obvious dialectics. William Garin is a mercenary, while Lin Mei fights for the common good of her people; Garin distrusts everyone, Lin Mei survives because she can trust her soldiers and they trust her. Even the adversaries are set up as part of a very simple conflict; the emperor is using his army to protect China and the world; the Taotie Queen is an invader who fell from the sky and threatens to overwhelm the world with her mindless drones.

The plot of The Great Wall is similarly simple. The warriors must repel the Taotie in order to save the kingdom. William Garin and Pero Tovar must choose to join their fight or steal the black powder and flee the Wall with it. So, it is somewhat unsurprising that the film offers both options; Garin takes the high road, Tovar chooses avarice. Thematically, there is something very unsatisfying about the film's resolution, but in general terms, the dialectics are well-established and decently executed.

The characters in The Great Wall play out like very simple archetypes, but they are well-performed by Matt Damon (Garin), Tian Jing (Lin Mei), and Pedro Pascal (Pero Tovar). It is weird seeing Willem Dafoe in such a monolithic supporting role as he is in The Great Wall, where he plays Sir Ballard, but he makes the most of it. Tian Jing dominates the screen as Lin Mei; she plays the military leader with a precision and control of her body language and tone that make it entirely believable that she could rise to such a position of power. Damon is good as Garin, but he takes a back seat to Jing in every scene they share; he plays the mercenary fine (albeit without the charisma of, say, Han Solo), but she plays the military leader masterfully.

The effects in The Great Wall are good. I found the waves of Taotie attacking to get a bit repetitive-feeling, but they are well-rendered. Between the realistic rendition of the Taotie and the brightly colored armor for the various divisions within the army, The Great Wall looks wonderful.

The Great Wall is a stylish-looking film that makes a simple story seem exceptional and that makes for enjoyable, if not objectively incredible, movie.

For other movies currently in theaters, please check out my reviews of:
War On Everyone
Underworld: Blood Wars
La La Land
Passengers
Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

5/10

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

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
| | |

Easy To Look At . . . And Worth The Watch: Dangerous Beauty!

The Good: Nice cinematography, Decent acting, Good costumes, Directing
The Bad: Somewhat predictable character arc, the Inquisition, Disappointing DVD extras
The Basics: In Venice, a courtesan finds herself unable to be with the man she loves, so she loves the one she's with.


Marshall Herskovitz, the brainchild behind ABC's under-supported and too short-lived drama Once And Again, seems to have a following of people who get disappointed by his DVDs. I am one of them. As with the Once And Again season one boxed set (reviewed here!), Dangerous Beauty has no significant or meaningful DVD extras. There's no commentary, there's not much outside the movie's trailer. At least the DVD is inexpensive enough. Maybe Herskovitz doesn't like talking about his works. It can't be that he's ashamed of directing Dangerous Beauty.

Dangerous Beauty tells the story of Veronica Franco, a Venetian courtesan (read: prostitute of legitimate social standing in Venice at the time) who falls in love with Marco Venier, a good-looking, charming nobleman. Actually, she starts out simply as a woman who loves a man, but Marco will not marry her because she does not come from the right social standing or wealth or some other such nonsense. Veronica then becomes a courtesan, which involves her having a good deal of sex without Marco. Veronica becomes powerful in Venice, Marco (despite marrying another woman) still pines for her, and there's a lot of tension around the whole romance. The tension between Marco and Veronica is complicated by Marco's jealous hack of a poet brother, Maffio, and by impending war which necessitates Veronica bedding the King of France.

What goes a long way to helping Dangerous Beauty is that the actors are all fabulous and the film looks good. The scenery looks good, the people look good, the costumes look good; this is an easy movie to sit and watch. Indeed, part of what makes it easy to watch is the casting. Despite the obvious Hollywood-style beauty of the film's star, Catherine McCormack, no one in the movie is over-the-top, ridiculously, out-of-reach beautiful. In fact, the men have a wide array of faces and bodytypes and Rufus Sewell has a character to his form that makes him seem less like the typical Hollywood male.

But in addition to McCormack and the non-threatening looks of Rufus Sewell, the film goes out of its way to have a diverse range of body types (if not ethnicities, a reality for a period piece). Oliver Platt rounds out the main cast with a look that is definitely not the Hollywood standard. Similarly, other stars in the movie, like Fred Ward (Domenico) and Jake Weber (King Henry), look different from the typical chiseled men in movies. The net result is that this is a movie that is very easy to watch because it feels very accessible. Because the people look more like people, it brings realism and humanity to them and their struggles. Moreover, it adds realism to many of the men utilizing the services of a courtesan. It's always harder to believe that someone who is the ideal of beauty (male or female) who looks like they could have anyone, would do such things. Here, the casting makes a huge difference to the viewer believing in the time and place of the story.

The lone drawback of Dangerous Beauty as a movie, is actually two things deeply intertwined. The story of Dangerous Beauty is basically that of just about any romantic drama: two people love one another, their love is either forbidden or impractical to maintain, they find themselves apart, they still love each other, they make a change to end up together (or, in the rarer story, something happens forever preventing them from being together). It's a pretty classic plot. Thus, as Marco goes to war for Venice, we wait for his return to wrap up the romance and - given the tenor of the rest of the movie - it seems unlikely that Marco and Veronica will not finish the movie together or, at least, still in love.

The problem here is with the method. The Inquisition ("Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!") suddenly pops up in Venice with all sorts of authority and tries Veronica as a witch. The problem here is that there was nothing in the story to suggest (other than actual history not relayed in the movie) that Venice was a terribly devout lot of Catholics to begin with or even interested in letting the Pope rule over anything. In fact, there is such utter disregard for the Church throughout the first three quarters of the film that when the Inquisition suddenly appears as the Plague begins to ravage Venice, it feels like a red herring in the story. And, in the end, all it truly serves to do is allow Marco to stand up and say the things to Veronica that the audience already knows about his love for her. In the end, there is no net gain from the Inquisition stuff, there is no genuine catharsis and there is no feeling that we have viewed anything miraculous, because we already knew how Marco felt.

Conversely, for the type of film this is, Maffio makes an excellent villain from the start. His character arc, which allows him to become affiliated with the Inquisition, seems very real and natural. The problem is, once the forces of the Inquisition are put to bay by Marco's heartfelt plea, Maffio and all of his character conflict disappears and it seems like it was never so impressive to begin with.

In the end, though, the film is worthwhile, not simply for its look, but for its substance. Herskovitz seems to attach himself to projects where the dialog is both sharp and witty and stunningly realistic. The writing credits on Dangerous Beauty go to Margaret Rosenthal and Jeannine Dominy, who have a keen ear for quick dialog; it's easy to see why Herskovitz would want to be associated with this project. If only he wanted to talk about it, though . . .

For other works Marshall Herskovitz was involved in, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Love And Other Drugs
Once And Again - Season 2
I Am Sam

7/10

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

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

| | |

Partnerships In Transition: Once And Again Season Two

The Good: Excellent acting, nice character development, good balance, Good writing
The Bad: Awkward soap-opera moments, Dramas outside the family
The Basics: While Rick and Lily evolve their relationship, they run into many problems with their children, ex-spouses, and occupations in this realistic drama.


The original concept for Once And Again was a good one; two divorced parents meet, fall in love, and navigate the struggles of blending their families. In the first season of the television drama, Once And Again (first season DVD set is reviewed here!) fell out of balance, in the mid-season shifting abruptly from the new partnership of Lily Manning and Rick Sammler to the end of the partnership between Lily and her husband Jake. Rick falls out of play for much of the latter-half of the first season.

The producers of Once And Again apparently realized this and the second season of the show returns with the partnership of Lily and Rick front and center, evolving naturally through the second season. In fact, the show's best moments focus on Rick and Lily, though Rick's daughter Jessie gets some awesome developments and scenes. Conversely, the season's disappointing aspects come in the form of the larger than life issues that the show suddenly takes on. Allow me to explain.

The second season of Once And Again begins a few months after season one's finale, with Rick and Lily reconnecting following a summer mostly-apart. They take hesitant steps to move as a couple into the lives of their various children and those efforts are balanced with them taking time to be together. As Rick and Lily get closer, Eli becomes more rebellious and he starts a band, Grace finds herself hanging out with social misfits and outcasts, Jessie develops an eating disorder (cleverly alluded to in the first season), and Zoe goes through the usual struggles of a preteen. Lily finds new strength in her new job, though she must deal with sexual harassment and her sister Judy who revamps the bookstore she previously owned.

On the other end, Rick and Miles Drintell begin work on a mammoth development known as Atlantor. Atlantor makes Rick a public figure and the scope of the development puts him under attack by Karen, his ex-wife, who represents many community organizations that object to the Atlantor project.

Unfortunately, as much of the plot becomes consumed with Rick duking it out with Karen and Grace over the Atlantor project, the show gets away from the meat of the concept. Not the Lily/Rick relationship, which becomes deeply intertwined with the Atlantor issues, but rather the concept of a family drama that focuses on the realism of attempting to blend two families. The show takes on an overly dramatic quality at times with Rick and Karen ending up in court a few times, adding something of a fantastic quality to the show.

In stark contrast, the Jessie storyline, wherein her anorexia is exposed and treated, is brilliant for its realism. Once Jessie gets into counseling, the show has numerous scenes that are unlike anything else on television. Jessie talks, the therapist listens, we see a young woman working through problems. Nothing huge or earth-moving, but certainly leaps and bounds for the character.

And this is, ultimately, a show about characters, individuals who do things and grow in different directions. Here is how the second season finds them:

Lily Manning - Reconciled to divorcing Jake and getting on her life with Rick, Lily juggles her love for Rick, her children and her job. Her story is one of standing by her new man through troubles while she confronts difficulties of her own at work,

Rick Sammler - Unwittingly finds himself in the crosshairs of public debate when his project with Miles Drintell becomes a huge development that outrages local advocacy groups. He must deal with reaching out for his potential success and taking it, while dealing with his rebellious son, his adversarial ex-wife and his anorexic daughter. All this while maintaining and growing a relationship with Lily,

Jake Manning - Devoted to the restaurant, he works to be a better father to Grace and Zoe while moving on with his life. That is, until a Giant Plot Moment, which will shatter his life forever,

Karen Sammler - Now befriended to Judy, Karen must wrestle with issues of letting go of both Eli and Jessie. She develops the strength to make decisions completely independent of Rick, with results that radically change the family,

Eli - Suddenly starts a band, falls in with a troubled girl named Carla and rebels against everything as his academic and sports life suffers,

Grace - Befriends a social misfit named Carla, learns to drive, and starts to date a social outcast named Spence. As she spends time with Carla and Eli, she finds herself troubled to realize that her feelings are a lot more confused than she originally suspected,

Jessie - In denial about her parents' never reconciling, she develops an eating disorder. Her story is one of finding herself and growing up,

Zoe - Provides comic relief,

and Judy - No longer with Sam Blue, she befriends Karen and puts her struggle to find love into her bookstore, with brilliant results.

This is, at its best, a family drama with character at its center. The advantage of Once And Again is that its characters are brought to life by an immensely talented cast. One of the ironies of the casting for Once And Again is that it is an adult show that gave rise to Shane West, a teenage heartthrob. Those who moon over West are far too young to "get" this show. Shane West is, however, remarkably talented as Eli and he plays off Billy Campbell brilliantly.

The real winners in the second season of Once And Again are the women. Susanna Thompson evolves her character of Karen from a somewhat monolithic antagonist to Rick in season one into a fully developed, complex, emotive character. Thompson's brilliance is that she manages to make the transformation through her body language, her expressions a softening of her tone, a movement of her eyes. She is brilliant and it is clear the actress is contributing a lot to the character's intricacies.

Julia Whelan, who plays Grace Manning is similarly brilliant. Clearly classically trained, Whelan is a rising star whose talent will take her very far. She plays the average and disaffected young woman perfectly, portraying Grace with something more than what is in the lines and words she delivers. Whelan is brilliant at exploding the potential of Grace with her soulful eyes and passionate deliveries.

The hands-down best performances in the second season of Once And Again are delivered by young actress Evan Rachel Wood. She is brilliant in her character struggles as she - in the course of the season - transforms Jessie from a girl into a young woman. Wood is charismatic, never pushing Jessie from angsty realism into melodrama. She is a pro and her scenes, especially the counseling scenes which have the potential to be gruesomely awkward, radiate with intrigue and nuance that is far beyond anything any other young actor or actress is doing on screen today. She is, frankly, awesome and her performances are worth the price of the boxed set DVD alone!

As for the DVD set, it's nice (a lot thinner than the originally-released Season 1 boxed set). Unfortunately, fans of the series are likely to remain disappointed with the way Buena Vista fails to support this title. One episode has commentary. That's it. No deleted scenes, no behind-the-scenes, nothing. One episode with commentary. Is the commentary good? Yes. Could fans of the show hope for more? Yes.

On the plus side, there is still one more season that could be packed with extras. This is a show that deserves them. A wonderful show for anyone who has been divorced, struggles with relationship issues or anyone who wants to watch talented people act like individuals going through (mostly) realistic struggles in life, love, parenting and/or growing up.

For other dramas focused on families, please check out my reviews of:
Veronica Mars
Freaks And Geeks
Parenthood Season One

10/10

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

© 2011, 2008, 2005 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



| | |

Family Drama At Its Best: Once And Again Season One Succeeds!

The Good: Amazing character work, Great acting, Nice plots
The Bad: Imbalance in the use of cast and characters, No DVD bonus features!
The Basics: Once And Again tells the story of two families that are coming together when their single parents fall in love, and all of the repercussions of that!


Every now and again, a television show comes along that is just plain fabulous and it deserves the acclaim it receives. They are few and far between and at the end of the 1990s, the only one that actually achieved its acclaim and deserved it was arguably NYPD Blue. My favorite, Star Trek Deep Space Nine, never received the praise it deserved and so until Once And Again came along, there was not a show that was both purely great and recognized by the critics that lasted long enough to find its audience (Sports Night, for example dying a horrible death right around the same time Once And Again was on). Once And Again deserved the praise it received and it never deserved the lack of audience it suffered.

Once And Again tells the story of the Sammlers and the Mannings, two families that are marred by divorce and have resulted in two children a piece being raised by two parents separately. Rick Sammler is father to Jessie and Eli, ex-husband to Karen. Lily is in the process of divorcing her cheating husband Jake and takes pride in being the mother of Grace and Zoe. In the pilot episode, Rick and Lily meet and fall in love.

Their love, it seems, is continually complicated by the various factors in their lives. Rick's son Eli has a learning disability and his ex-wife Karen is almost as demanding with Rick as she is with Eli. Jessie faces self-confidence issues and the youthful fantasy of having the whole family she was born into together. But the bulk of the complications come on Lily's side. Lily and Jake are not yet divorced and as the season goes on, Lily has to face that and she does, with an indiscretion with Jake. Their one night fling sickens Lily and taints her relationship with Rick. As the two slowly work back to one another, the divorce with Jake gets ugly over the restaurant Jake and Lily are part owners in. To complicate things more, family crisis after family crisis arises to strain their relationship.

But through it all, there is this love.

At the end of the day, this is a drama about love, how people love and how it works in complicated, modern-day family situations. The coming together of two different families is something that has not been explored well in the film media and Once And Again is pretty much the best exploration of it out there. Why? Such blended families, those where there are children from prior marriages in both adults' life, are complicated and therefore need more than simply ninety minutes to tell the story with all of the variables well. Therefore, to do a story about a blended family, one needs a television series, not just a film.

Once And Again is an adult television show. The adults are dealing with adult problems like love, children, divorce, infidelity, and death. There's nothing childish about the series, though some of the episodes do focus on the problems and perils encountered by the children in their schools and life outside. The episodes are written with a keen insight for the way people interact and live their lives. The dialog in Once And Again is tight and realistic. The people speak more as real people we might know or as people in the situations they find themselves in than individuals in a drama series. And Once And Again is serialized, requiring an adult commitment to the show week after week to build the characters up and progress them forward.

That is not to say that the series is not entertaining. The realism only makes it more entertaining. It fills a void in television that existed before the series came on and has existed since it was canceled. The characters are interesting and they find themselves in difficult situations and how they get themselves out of them are worthy of attention. Part of this is entertainment is created by what I call the "honesty rooms." The characters speak directly to the viewer at different points, articulating their deepest, most honest thoughts. Some of them are desperately painful, like admissions of deep wounds, some are hilarious, such as when Grace notes that "boys are so dumb. It's amazing they survive."

The only real problem with the first season of Once And Again is the imbalance in the show toward Lily's character. As the season goes on, she dominates in a way that almost buries the Rick character. Still, all of the characters are intriguing. The main stories involve:

Lily, who opens the series with an inner strength that causes her to separate from her cheating husband, Jake. Lily falls in love and experiences a rebirth, which empowers her to take charge of her own life, live without fear and strike out against Jake and pursue a new profession all while exploring a relationship with Rick.

Rick Sammler is a somewhat depressed divorcee who comes alive when he meets Lily. He is plagued by his ex-wife Karen and as his personal life gets better and better, he falls into a destructive work relationship with a crazy advertising mogul named Miles Drentell to the detriment of his partnership with fellow architect David, who is perpetually single.

Karen Sammler is a perpetual worrier who wants what's best for Jessie and Eli, but finds her position in their lives threatened by Lily. As a result, she opens up to love again, first to a kind, but dull man, then to a much younger man who challenges her in every way.

Jake Manning is the owner of Phil's, the restaurant founded by Lily's father and now managed by Jake. Stressed by his extramarital affairs and complications with the restaurant, Jake works hard to be a decent father, but usually comes across as a jerk.

Eli Sammler, a basically good young man who comes to sexual maturity in the first season and is forced to prioritize his life when his learning disability makes him choose between doing what he wants and being knocked off the basketball team where he thrives.

Grace Manning, a young woman mired deeply in fear of everything that surrounds her. In the first season, she faces the dissolving of her family and in the process opens up to the consequences of truth and her first love. She's perhaps the most realistic and intriguing character in the series and her process of coming out of her isolation is compelling and wonderful to watch.

While Jessie, Zoe and Lily's sister Judy all have character arcs and growth throughout the season, they are primarily supporting players in the first season of Once And Again. They tend to live in the orbits of the primary characters listed above. At least in the first season.

The acting in Once And Again is magnificent. While Sela Ward won awards for playing Lily, Billy Campbell, who plays Rick is just as good. Both have subtle, emotive performances that traverse the whole range of human emotion. As the series progresses, we see them loving, whimsical, angry, hurt, and impassioned. Add to that, Ward and Campbell have wonderful screen chemistry that makes their relationship believable.

But the real acting winners come in the supporting performances of Susanna Thompson and Julia Whelan. Thompson plays Karen with so much longing and hurt that it is sometimes difficult to watch her. Yet, she is compelling and strong as an actress consistently delivering empathetic performances that are worthy of awards. As her character must face the loss of the potential with her ex-husband, Thompson continues to deepen her performance with subtlety and nuance.

Julia Whelan plays Grace and the actress has a presence to her that is impressive for such a young person. She dominates her scenes as a character that begins as a scared brat and quickly deepens into an individual that has layers of fear that are being pulled back to reveal a confused, vulnerable, intelligent and loving young woman. Whelan is an expert at using her face and body language to portray the changes in confidence Grace undergoes in the first season.

Over three DVDs, the 22 stories of the first year of the Sammlers and Mannings is told wonderfully with realism and compassion and a clear understanding of how humans work. The only real disappointment in the DVD collection is that there are no extras. And this is certainly a show that deserves as much commentary as it has critical acclaim and loyal fans.

While not a perfect show, this is possibly the strongest first season of any television show I've ever seen (right up there with Sports Night), making it a great value in DVD form.

For other family dramas, please check out my reviews of:
Parenthood - Season 1
Gilmore Girls
Six Feet Under

9.5/10

For other television or film reviews, please check out my index pages on the subject by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007, 2003 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



| | |