It's Never A Good Sign When A Cinephile Has Not Heard of Your Movie. . . The Last Kiss

The Good: Moments of decent acting
The Bad: Not funny, Not charming, Characters almost universally stink, First hour is terrible
The Basics: If you want to save time an not read this review, all you need to know about The Last Kiss is it's bad. Real bad. Of unacceptably poor quality. Blech!


Sometimes when I am reviewing a movie, I get caught up in the minutiae. I find myself thinking about how BAD a movie truly was and today while contemplating The Last Kiss, I decided my life is worth more than sitting and truly worrying about whether this was a 1 or 2 point movie. The first hour of The Last Kiss is absolutely terrible. The movie picks up near the end and I was debating for some time how much that ought to count for before I decided my life is worth more than that. Go figure.

Michael, a young man in his late twenties, is living his life with a girlfriend of three years, a great job and a generally nice place in the world when he decides he is unsatisfied about this state of affairs. Learning his girlfriend, Jenna, is pregnant, he appears ready to stand up but when he meets Kim, he allows his attention and devotion to wander. While Michael is having his crisis of lack of personality, Jenna's parents split, and Michael's circle of male friends begin to fall apart with their relationships.

There comes a point when one is doing something, watching or listening to something and they realize they are no longer in any way connected to the next generation. I officially hit that mark while watching the witless antics of Michael in The Last Kiss. There's a disconnect in me that fails to understand movies featuring young people with Hollywood-good looks and great relationships and stations in life who are simply miserable. The disconnect is tripped because for people of that younger age, which I apparently no longer am, the solution is always to change romantic partners. Sure, it's not cinematic for a guy who feels a lack in his life to take up a hobby or go back to school, but something other than simply screwing the first new woman who shows him affection would be nice. And, it seems, it's always a younger woman.

The thing is, none of the characters, save Jenna's father Stephen, say anything remotely interesting during the course of the entire movie. Michael feels anxiety. Okay. He's feeling anxious because there are no surprises left in his life. Wow. Boo hoo. I don't buy it. I don't buy that seeing one's future looking like one imagined it is such a bad thing. And if it is, it's his own fault; Michael laments that life looks exactly as he thought it would growing up. He never takes responsibility for the concept that HE DIRECTED HIS LIFE IN THE DIRECTION IT WENT!

The supplementary characters are equally witless and problematic. Izzy is an obsessed loser who cannot stay away from the woman he loved, who has dumped him. Kenny is sexually promiscuous and manages to find a woman who satisfies him completely until she wants him to meet her parents (I was seriously rooting for Kenny to have the awakening that getting everything he wanted was enough to want to stick with someone, but alas . . .). Sadly, it is Chris, who is waking up to the difficult realization that having a child has ruined his relationship with his wife, who I found myself rooting for. Even Anna, Jenna's mother, does not come across as sympathetic or realistic or even interesting as Chris.

As for Michael, he's bafflingly stupid for an architect. For a well-educated, fairly responsible guy he pretty much shoots rationality in the foot the moment he hits the first emotional obstacle. There is nothing especially distinctive or interesting about Kim, the college student who begins hitting on him. Sure, she looks good in a miniskirt, but she's so much more an object than a personality in this piece.

I could evaluate all of the performances, but for a movie of this quality, I am opting to not waste my time, nor yours. Zach Braff, who plays Michael, is convincing as a directionless, somewhat moronic adult. He plays witless and distressed well, even if his character's motivations are never fully explored. Casey Affleck gives an astonishingly deep performance as his character, Chris, wrestles with the emotional decision to abandon his wife. Affleck's story becomes more interesting than any of the others by the sheer magnitude of his performance.

The best acting, though, comes from the over 50 crowd in The Last Kiss. Harold Ramis's cameo steals that scene and Blythe Danner is easily the most interesting woman on screen in the course of the movie (and that includes the naked women having sex in a hammock). But the acting gravitas - when it is present in this lemon - comes exclusively from Tom Wilkinson, who plays Stephen. He is given the heaviest lines, especially near the end and he is up for the heavy lifting.

In the end, though, even that is not enough for me to willingly recommend The Last Kiss or rate it above 1.5. The movie fails to ask too many integral questions. Chris's anxiety over leaving his wife is a story in itself that has unrealized potential because we never see the pair happy. None of the characters seem to believe they can truly change their fate, save the witless Izzy and his only solution is to run away to South America.

Just once, I'd like to see an intelligent movie involving the next generation that gives me hope that humanity will not only survive, but grow. This movie is not it.

For other works Harold Ramis was involved in, be sure to check out my reviews of:
Year One
The Ice Harvest
Orange County
Bedazzled
As Good As It Gets

1.5/10

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

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

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Quantum Of Solace The Latest James Bond Film Is Insufferably Average Bond.

The Good: Decent acting, Moments of theme
The Bad: Predictable plot, Not-so special effects, Light on character
The Basics: Quantum Of Solace is a disappointingly average James Bond action-adventure film less the heart and charm of earlier Bond works.


I had no plans to go see Quantum Of Solace. I know, there were a ton of Star Trek fans who will be flocking to the theaters in short order just to see the trailer for Star Trek (reviewed here!) attached to the prints of this film (FYI, It's not worth it - hold out to catch it on-line in a few days. The new Watchmen trailer, though . . .). But given I couldn't get into this - as I have so many other films lately - gratis, I was ready to pass on it. Having seen a number of trailers for it over the summer during Summer Blockbuster Season, I felt I had already seen it. Indeed, whomever made the Quantum Of Solace trailer belongs on the growing list of people who ought to be fired: I'm sick of seeing the entire movie in the trailer!

That said, my brother was at the mall the other day and saw an advertisement for the midnight showing of the movie and called to ask if it was going to be a big movie. When I told him it was, he bought me a ticket to the midnight showing, which was pretty sweet of him. It has been a while since I was a James Bond fan. I went through that phase, right before Star Trek became my thing, as I recall. In fact, when I watched Quantum Of Solace for the first time, I had not seen Casino Royale (which this is a sequel to and I have subsequently seen and reviewed here!) and the only recent one since Roger Moore left the franchise that I've seen is Die Another Day (reviewed here!). So, I went to the theater tonight with minimal expectations and the general impression that I had seen the bulk of the movie from the preview. That truth resonated the longer the movie went on and I saw more scenes and heard more dialogue that was familiar to me from the trailers.

James Bond is driving his car through a canyon being hunted by gunmen, following the apparent betrayal and death of Vesper, the woman Bond claims to have loved above all others. With the assailants he is fleeing dispatched, Bond drives his seriously damaged car into an MI-6 facility with Mr. White stuffed in his trunk. Mr. White, it seems, is the member of an ultra secret organization that has members infiltrating everywhere, a point that is immediately proven by M's private security guard turning on her and Bond and springing Mr. White.

Ordered to learn who Mitchell and White were working for, Bond begins a hunt with a rising body count to find Dominic Greene, an industrialist supervillain who is posing as an environmentalist to raise capital to execute his plans for world domination. Bond encounters Greene as he is disposing of Camille, a woman he soon learns is an agent herself. Like Bond, she is out for vengeance for the death of a loved one, vengeance she hopes to extract from a Bolivian general Greene is setting up to take over the South American country. Bond must thwart the plans of Greene while staying ahead of other agents who are out to stop him, lest their collaboration be uncovered.

Quantum Of Solace is essentially a collection of "The Best Of James Bond" coupled with a serious motivation for Bond coupled with a lot of chase sequences, less the gadgets. This James Bond is not a step ahead by cunning or equipment or even innate talent, he stays alive through sheer force. The only devices Bond employs are the state-of-the-art cell phone (which seems to work anywhere) and a communication's network provided by Greene's thugs. Everything that James Bond does to stay alive, then, becomes a function of physical dexterity and slightly greater speed than his adversaries.

This ranges from the would-be tense (the opening battle between Bond and Mitchell is the one shown in all of the trailers, so it's more a waiting game through the falls for Bond to get his gun back) to the absurd. James Bond, we understand, is a clever, strong guy. Apparently, though, we are meant to believe he is the only one in MI-6 who has those qualities. As Bond's list of allies diminishes, he turns to a former MI-6 operative and an incorruptible American who both help him. One, though, isn't so good at his job. Neither are the four MI-6 operatives who have Bond in custody when he is bound and knocks them all out in an elevator. I'm all for suspension of disbelief, but come on! Was Bond the ONLY agent MI-6 bothered to train?!

The other exceptional failure of Quantum Of Solace comes in the special effects department. Special effects are special when they are rendered in such a way that they are comprehensible. Sadly, Quantum Of Solace has speed, but not sensibility. Many of the elements in the chase scene across the rooftop and the subsequent boating scene occur at such speeds, with such frenetic camera movements that it is both difficult to tell what is going on and who is the one getting hit/chased/blown up.

That said, Quantum Of Solace works best in its quiet moments and there is at least a passing attempt to give the characters character. Bond is moody and motivated by vengeance and that works surprisingly well for both the film and the character. Of course, it doesn't explain why his libido is still raging if he is still tied up on Vesper, but one supposes it wouldn't be a Bond film if James didn't get some.

Bond is played off by Camille, who is an excellent foil to Bond, providing a level of damage that Bond is not allowed to. Of course, one might argue that this is just another way of keeping women in their place - Bond is efficient and compartmentalizes, leaving a trail of bodies that is formidable to say the least, Camille flounders around and cries and ultimately needs James to get her in position to attempt to reap her vengeance. Camille is interesting, though, and perhaps the most refreshing aspect of the characters of Quantum Of Solace is that Camille is exactly who she appears to be, a woman out for vengeance.

Also working the favor of Quantum Of Solace is that Paul Haggis co-wrote the script. Haggis is the writer and director of the amazing film Crash (reviewed here!) which is easily one of the best films of this decade. In this film, Haggis avoids making the obvious mistake of too many reversals. Indeed, from the outset, the viewer is more or less waiting for Camille to join the list of people who will betray Bond because of their allegiance to Greene, but Haggis keeps her focused on her own agenda and her desire for vengeance quite well. Because I am running out of opportunities, I think I'd like to take a moment to blame Haggis for playing into the current political environment. Only in a time and place where arguments are defined by people like George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and their agendas would you have a Bond villain who everyone is describing as an "environmentalist." Shame on you Haggis! And for the record, Greene is a supervillain, using the environmentalists the way other Bond-villains used the military-industrial complex as part of the Cold War red scare!

Quantum Of Solace is directed by Marc Forster, who established a pretty powerful reputation with his film Monster's Ball. Quantum Of Solace lacks the subtlety that Forster was careful to create Monster's Ball with. This film is big, bright and everything is out there on the screen. He does, however, make a passing attempt at creating some of the emotional resonance that his other films seem to have and the Bond less-the-wisecracks helps make for a more serious and dark film.

It is the acting that is superlative in Quantum Of Solace, though. Dame Judi Dench appears as the stern and powerful M, instantly stealing every scene she is in (much more than the dazzling special effects mechanisms her character is surrounded by). Mathieu Amalric plays Dominic Greene as best he can given the monolithic Bond Villain that he is. But Olga Kurylenko plays Camille with a real sense of pathos and ability that make the viewer instantly believe that she is truly as damaged and emotionally fractured as she appears to be.

Finally, Daniel Craig does great as the moody and cold-blooded James Bond. Unlike prior Bonds who use charm to get themselves somewhere, Craig plays Bond almost like a brute and that works for making the viewer believe he has been reduced to a vengeful man. Craig almost never smiles in the role and as a result, he plays Bond with a cool efficiency that makes him seem as isolated and alone as the character claims to be.

But ultimately, it feels like the most repetitive aspects of James Bond mixed with a new bevy of character elements that are distinctly not Bond. The spark isn't there and while this might be an average action-adventure film, it falls short of maintaining a level of quality one would hope would come from a James Bond film. If you have to see it, wait until it comes to DVD; on the big screen it is visually overwhelming/jumbled in a way that will agitate as well as disappoint.

For other films with Gemma Arterton, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time
Clash Of The Titans

5/10

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

© 2011, 2009, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Utterly Without The Thrill, The Next Three Days Is A Blase Thriller.

The Good: Pacing at the outset, Moments of performance.
The Bad: Utterly uninteresting characters, Pacing lags in the middle and beyond, Plot is stale.
The Basics: Having gone into The Next Three Days blind, I emerge completely unimpressed with Russell Crowe's latest "thriller."


The best thing I could come up with to day about how I spent my Thanksgiving afternoon at the movies was "Of course I have family, that's why I went to the movies!" I have a real issue with artifice and so holidays that force family together when that is not necessarily their organic state make me queasy. I mention this at the outset of my review for The Next Three Days because the thriller is full of artifice and is almost entirely contrived. I had the benefit of going to the movie without having seen any previews, without having read any reviews, nothing. All I knew was that it was a Russell Crowe film and I had no idea about anything else about it. For those in the same boat as I was a few hours ago: The Next Three Days is a prison break story.

It's also almost-typical Russell Crowe fair. I say "almost-typical" because this is actually one of Crowe's more emotive roles, but what ultimately sinks the film is the complete inability for the audience to empathize with the protagonist played by Crowe. Ultimately, The Next Three Days was a good idea with a minimal emotional resonance for the viewer and because it is so focused on Crowe's character, John, the film plods along and withers for almost two hours. And I write this as one who absolutely loved Paul Haggis' film Crash.

The morning after a night out together, John and Lara Brennan are shocked when the police break in and arrest Lara. Almost three years later, Lara is stuck in prison and John is raising their son, Luke, on his own while trying exceptionally hard to arrange appeals for Lara's case. Three months before his resolve wears out entirely, John meets with Damon Pennington, a former prison inmate and escape artist. He informs John of the basic requirements one needs to actually break out of a jail.

From that point on, John begins planning to break Lara out of Alleghany County Prison near Pittsburgh. Over the weeks leading up to his attempt, he attempts to make a master key for within the jail, keep his son safe and get the documents and money needed to make their escape afterward. As John juggles Luke and the plans, he finds himself in serious danger. As the police put together clues left about the case against Lara, John makes the attempt to break Lara out of prison and get her to safety so they can have their family together again.

The death knell of exactly this type of film is a failure for the audience to empathize with the protagonist and that is exactly what happens with The Next Three Days. There are a few moments when Russell Crowe's John is portrayed poorly, but beyond that there is simply nothing distinctive about John and Lara that make the viewer root for them. Lara might not be guilty of the murder she is accused of, but miscarriages of justice happen all of the time. Lara is convicted based upon circumstantial evidence and that leaves Lara in prison and distraught. Sadly, that happens and it is a shame. It's also the subject of many, many legal dramas. The Next Three Days uses it for the pretense for a breakout film and that is vastly less satisfying.

Given that only one anemic scene with Daniel Stern as Lara's lawyer, Meyer, defines the entire legal obstacle to Lara's freedom, The Next Three Days is built upon a pretty flimsy foundation. What follows is more boring than compelling. As a result, there is some intrigue with a scene that involves John trying to beef up his meager $1497 escape fund. John's solution? Take it off some drug dealers. The idea is a neat one and it is well-executed. Sadly for Haggis and his team, it comes in the film far after the viewer stops caring about John or Lara.

The Next Three Days is hampered as well by some of its own casting. Brian Dennehy appears throughout most of the film without any lines and because the film is populated by an actor of such a caliber, the viewer is stuck waiting for his character to develop. But Dennehy's inevitable lines are almost as sparse as his scenes prior. Dennehy appears without speaking and that characterizes his role as John's estranged father quite well. But as we wait for him to speak, we hope that he will have something more than cliches to impart when he does. Sadly, that is not what we are graced with.

Elizabeth Banks is fine as Lara, but she is not given much to work with, outside letting her hair make a transition from blonde to brunette. Her superlative moment of acting comes near the climax of the film when she must wordlessly indicate to John that continuing on without their son is not an option. Banks says a lot with her body language and that scene works, but beyond that her character's arc is pretty much the stages of grief without any flair. Banks plays Lara's anger and numbness well, but that does not make her character any more interesting.

Similarly, Russell Crowe is limited both by his role and his acting abilities. The failure for Crowe's John to emote at all when Lara confesses to him (angry or not) is an unforgivable offense against the viewer. Crowe is able to portray quiet intelligence and cunning, but the emotional aspect of his character is sublimated and John never seems real enough with his passion to make the viewer believe his love is special enough that he would go to the lengths he prepares to go to.

As a result, The Next Three Days is too often a technical film about making a bump key, stealing money, getting a gun and avoiding potential romantic entanglements. And it's just boring. I love getting into a movie when I go into it without any expectations or knowledge, but The Next Three Days left me feeling bored and like I wasted my time.

For other movies with Russell Crowe, please check out my reviews of:
A Beautiful Mind
Gladiator
L.A. Confidential

3.5/10

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

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



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When Perfection Is Neither Enjoyable Nor Entertaining: Crash Wonderfully Explores Difficult Issues.

The Good: Excellent acting, Great characters, Direction - Ability to evoke mood, Thematic unity without simplicity
The Bad: Minor pacing issues (very much not an issue after multiple viewings!)
The Basics: In a difficult film that forthrightly explores interethnic relations in Los Angeles, a variety of characters relate or disjoint based on prejudice or tolerance.


When I was in college, I was not into sports so I derived great joy and a little profit from betting on award shows. Ever since then, I have picked my winners each year for the major award shows and kept score. I have a ridiculously high average for correctness when my average is factored using my "who ought to win/who will win" ratio. There were a string of years for the Oscars when the "Best Picture" category was unredeemably bad (a stretch following American Beauty to when Return of the King won) and I was frequently disappointed by either the nominees or the winners. A few years back, I bet (no longer literally) on Crash for Best Picture over Brokeback Mountain based on nothing more than the cast list and the movie poster. When I finally watched Crash, (I had been holding out to watch the Director's Cut for my first viewing, but I finally broke down and watched the theatrical release) I was pleased to see a movie that legitimately deserved the Best Picture award.

Detective Graham Waters is having a terrible yesterday. Flashing back to yesterday from his arrival at a crime scene tonight, Waters walks through a day that is filled with political pressure, intrigue and altercations all based on ethnic differences. After making a crack at his Latina partner, discovering his mother on crack and his brother missing, Waters is pressured by the Internal Affairs Department and the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office to put away a white cop who shot and killed a black police officer.

In the same proximate area, the D.A. and his wife are carjacked by two young black hoods, who then accidentally run over a Chinese man, a record executive and his wife are pulled over while driving by a racist cop and his progressive partner, and a hispanic locksmith runs into a Persian store owner whose shop is ransacked and covered in hate speech. Over the course of two days, a collection of complex events collide various characters in circumstances that are ethnically motivated, challenged or utterly out of control.

Crash is the best, most difficult movie I have ever watched that I would like to add to my personal library. Unlike something like The House of Sand and Fog that is unrelentingly depressing and terrible to watch, Crash challenges the viewer. Yes, there is a thematical unity in Crash; EVERYTHING in this movie comes back to ethnicity. Every action and reaction in the film is motivated by a conscious awareness of differences in ethnicity and/or skin color.

But unlike many movies where there is thematic unity, Crash works because it refuses to simplify the problems, conflicts or characters. So, for example, Anthony goes on a tirade about how as a young black man in a very white neighborhood he ought to feel insecure and berates a white woman for getting nervous upon seeing him there, then he whips out a gun and steals her SUV. So, while everything is about ethnicity here, the movie both challenges and embodies some of the worst stereotypes and fears about ethnic differences, sometimes even within a single character.

Writer/director Paul Haggis makes it work and he does so by creating characters who are multifaceted. So, for example, racist Officer John Ryan would be an easy "type." He's a racist white cop in the LAPD. Talk about a stereotype. Haggis fleshes him out, though. Ryan's father is aging poorly and might have a serious illness that his HMO will not cover and in trying to relate to the workers at the HMO, who are people of color, he relates that his father was progressive, hiring minorities before it was required by law and he lost everything when the city changed the way it awarded contracts. Ryan wrongly blames people of color, but Haggis rightly makes the ethnic prejudice less monolithic.

And this is a drama in the highest sense of the word. Officer Hansen, for example, who offers the film some catharsis by rejecting the methods (and person) of Officer Ryan becomes something of a tragic figure when he tries to live up to his ideals. On the flip side, Jean comes to realize that her fear and hatred are irrational and Anthony's ideology puts him at odds with Cameron in a way that forces him to compromise.

This is a clever film, but it is not easy to watch. Not by a long shot. Early on in the movie, after being primed with a bit of speech that indicates this is a film that is going to deal a lot with ethnic issues, there is a grueling scene between Officer Ryan and Karen that is so difficult to watch it will make the viewer's stomach clench and ill. The movie is somewhat unrelenting, though there does come some catharsis. Though, even those are not simple.

Like Magnolia, there are a slew of characters who fade in and out of the movie, intersecting and crashing with one another. Most of them are given enough screentime for us to care about them and the picture works well for a film that has approximately twenty principle characters stuffed into 113 minutes.

And the acting is great. There is not a single character that is not believable portrayed. The top named stars like Sandra Bullock and Brendan Fraser are relegated to roles that do not dominate the story or the screentime, leaving lesser-known actors to shine. Jennifer Esposito gives a great supporting performance that almost instantly defines the tone of the movie. Terrence Howard portrays Cameron with a dignity that is perfect for his character.

Ryan Phillippe is great as Hansen adding subtlety with body language and eye movement in a role that could have easily devolved into a "type" as opposed to a character. Phillippe's facial expression following his ultimate character action is almost worth the price of admission to the film.

Matt Dillon is perfect as John Ryan. Dillon is creepy when appropriate, cold and mean when he is most brutal and strikes an amazing balance with humanity when forced to. Dillon wisely does not play any anger or frustration in scenes where Ryan is charged with aiding his ill father. And Dillon is utterly convincing in his portrayal of Ryan when resolving his conflict with Christine.

Chris Bridges, best known to the world as the rapper Ludacris is nothing short of amazing as Anthony. He is dynamic, articulate and delivers his lines perfectly. More than that, he embodies a character that is both educated and streetwise, carrying himself with a body language of a student and a thug alternately. Bridges has a flexibility that makes the viewer believe in the dynamics of his character.

But it is Don Cheadle who moves Crash. With the most screentime, Cheadle bears the brunt of the acting work as his character is the most consistent thread in this tapestry. Cheadle gives a performance that is consistent in the mellow tone his character portrays while encountering ingratitude, intrigue, relationship dysfunctions and problematic ethnic relations. Cheadle is emotive and believable and he is a pleasure to watch here.

Crash is a great drama that is a must-see, but it's hard to say who would enjoy watching it. It's not an enjoyable or entertaining film to watch. But it is important. It's important to watch and it's important to talk about afterward.

As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this film is part of W.L.'s Best Picture Project, which is available by clicking here! Please check it out!

For other movies with an emphasis on social conflict, please check out my reviews of:
Strawberry And Chocolate
Memoirs Of A Geisha
Easy A

10/10

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

© 2010, 2009, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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