A Better-Than-Average Alien Invasion Film, The Darkest Hour Is Only Ruined By The Previews!

The Good: Decent plot progression, Interesting alien designs, Decent acting
The Bad: Nothing terribly interesting about the characters, Somewhat inconsistent execution of alien abilities
The Basics: Fitting into a tough niche genre, The Darkest Hour tells a decent alien invasion/survivor chase story in Moscow, even if viewers are unlikely to actually care about the characters.


The alien invasion genre is a tough genre to make movies in these days. With so many films that have tackled the topic, it is hard to do something that feels new and fresh in the genre. These days, the genre tends to run into one of the two following problems: either the movie starts with a huge, dramatic beginning that makes the way humans overcome the alien menace utterly preposterous, like ID4: Independence Day (reviewed here!) or there is an appropriately nihilistic and ultimately unsatisfying resolution, much like Skyline (reviewed here!). The perspective is what makes most of the difference in the alien invasion genre these days: if the film involves people in-the-know, the alien invasion is usually filled with jargon to explain just how the invasion is occurring and works; if the film involves common people, they more often than not go through the process of discovering – through trial and error – exactly how the aliens operate and what their weaknesses actually are. In the latter case, the process of discovery usually makes the initial alien invasion seem less sensible or plausible. The Darkest Hour falls into the alien invasion films that follow common people.

And it would have been good, had I never seen any of the previews. Every major scene in The Darkest Hour is spoiled by the preview trailer. In fact, the trouble with The Darkest Hour is that because the preview trailers showed so many of the scenes from late in the film, I just kept waiting for the “bus scene” with Olivia Thirlby’s character and, frankly, I should not have known about it beforehand. That said, The Darkest Hour is a decent cinematic outing written by the co-writer of Prometheus (reviewed here!) and, despite having characters who have no real consequences for their survival, it feels surprisingly fresh.

Sean and Ben are American software designers working on a new app that they are trying to sell to a company in Moscow. There, however, they run into Skyler, who has stolen their idea and already is developing it. Leaving, feeling distraught, the two end up at a bar where they meet Natalie and Anne and Skyler as well. When the power goes out, the young people witness an alien invasion by bright lights that fall from the sky, knock out the power, and pulverize humans around them. After days in the bar’s stockroom, the quintet ventures out where they find Moscow in ruins and most of the population dead. The invaders, who are otherwise invisible, give themselves away from their proximity to electronic devices.

Meeting up with a Russian scientist and another survivor, the young people learn about the alien’s vulnerability to microwaves and discover there are submarines leaving Moscow the next morning. In trying to get to the submarine, Sean, Natalie, and their new friend Vika, meet up with Russian military officers and confront aliens, engineering the survival of humanity.

The Darkest Hour is a very typical alien invasion story, but the set-up is decent, the pace is wonderful and the progression is engaging enough to keep one enjoying the film. The film has one of the more sensible alien invasions in recent memory with aliens who have a creature design that is clever and interesting. The invisible aliens could have been a cheap cop-out; but director Chris Gorak utilizes the special effects to enhance the menace with frequent distortions and awesome designs when the aliens are revealed. Even better than the CG-effects for the aliens and the way they completely pulverize human beings, the music is utilized as a pretty wonderful special effect. In the beginning, with the world in its mundane form, the music is hip, contemporary, loud and intrusive. Following the invasion and the power getting knocked out, the soundtrack gets much quieter and haunting (instead of pop music).

The plot progression of The Darkest Hour is predictable, but occurs at a pace that is sensible. The characters are, for the most part, normal people and Sean is presented initially as clever enough to plausibly figure out that lightbulbs would be a good way to detect the otherwise invisible aliens. Given how many people are wiped out by the aliens, the lack of firm information and even military support is realistic and compellingly presented. And, as predictable as Skyler getting vaporized is, it is exactly as cathartic as it is supposed to be.

While the characters are not entirely compelling, the performances are actually wonderful. Olivia Thirlby’s Natalie is not the comic relief her character usually is and she illustrates quite a bit more range than she usually does. Emile Hirsch is given a smarter role than he was in other films in which he has appeared. All of the performers interact flawlessly with the virtual elements and they create a reality that mirrors what we see around us, making the alien invasion seem all the more horrific.

The Darkest Hour has its flaws – why do the aliens leave the cell phone network’s satellite network operational? And if they are after electroconductive minerals, why wouldn’t they attack the asteroid belt, Mars, or Venus first?! – and the initial design is very derivative of the aliens from Invasion (reviewed here!), but the sense of emptiness in the world and the infrequency of survivors that Sean and his friends encounter feels much more real than most big alien invasion stories.

For other alien invasion films, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Battlefield Lost Angeles
Signs
Cloverfield

7/10

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

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Even With Angelina Jolie Naked, Wanted Arrives As Summer's Most Mediocre Action Flick!

The Good: Moments of special effects, One or two moments of performance
The Bad: Low on character, Not much in the way of acting, Predictable plot
The Basics: Angelina Jolie's summer blockbuster outing, Wanted puts James McAvoy in yet another bland action-adventure flick that fails to satisfy.


This review was originally written for Summer Blockbuster Season 2008, which explains the dated qualities to the opening. Enjoy!

As Summer Blockbuster Season continues and I balance new movies with reviewing older material, I've become somewhat surprised about how few films starring Angelina Jolie I have actually seen. That is half true; I'm surprised that - as of this writing, according to the IMDB - including the new film Wanted, Jolie has only appeared in thirty-seven works that I might have caught her in on screen. Of those, I have only reviewed four and seen an additional two. What does not surprise me about that is that Jolie has been in some films of minimal interest to me, like the Lara Croft: Tomb Raider movies. So, with Jolie's live-action contribution to this summer's blockbuster season, Wanted, I had minimal expectations and draw based on Jolie's presence in the movie. Indeed, if anything, Wanted struck me from the previews as limited in what it might provide for Jolie, given her action-oriented performance in Mr. And Mrs. Smith (reviewed here!).

With Wanted, viewers get more of the same from Jolie and while there is little danger of her being typecast as a trained killer, this is very much an average action-adventure movie and by the time the flick is over, it's hard to say what one has seen that is actually new. This is, largely, because it isn't. That said, it is not the worst action adventure magnum violence to ever grace the big screen.

A mundane office worker, Wesley Gibson, trudges through his life with little ambition and even less respect from those around him when he is approached one day by Fox. Fox claims his long-dead father is actually only recently deceased and that he was part of a super-secret organization of assassins called the Fraternity. Fox has been sent to protect Gibson and recruit him into the Fraternity. She and Sloan, unlock Gibson's skill (the ability to alter the trajectory of bullets so they curve and otherwise do not travel in a straight line) and teach him their version of the history of the Fraternity and set him out to killing people.

Of course, nothing is quite that simple and the Fraternity is not the wholesome, honorable organization it initially appears to be and soon Gibson and Fox are caught in the crossfire. The mystery of the Fraternity and its targets pulls the last half of the movie into a constant action sequence gun battle that quickly becomes more blase than exciting.

Fans of pop culture will appreciate the recurring gag in Family Guy involving Peter's fight with the giant chicken. What does this have to do with Wanted? It's quite simple, the reason Family Guy's gag works so well is that it is ridiculous. It is nonstop escalating physical violence that becomes more and more extreme. The humor in it is in the endurance and duration of the sequence, the commentary on it is quite simple; the violence keeps escalating to the point that the combatants lose all sense of motivation. All the sequence becomes is pushing the envelope for more violence, more gore and a bigger sense of movement. And it works.

For exactly the same reason, Wanted does not work. Wanted is competing in a market where cinephiles and action-adventure fan have seen quite a bit. Indeed, we've seen it from Angelina Jolie in the intense violence and gun battles of Mr. And Mrs. Smith. Just as the moment Peter Jackson's WETA Workshop mastered digital characters with Gollum that became the cinematic standard to match for quality (as of my writing of this, it has yet to be beat), Wanted suffers because it pushes the envelope in no new or unfamiliar ways. We've seen gun battles, we've seen hitmen, we've seen the naive thrown into extraordinary circumstances. We get it, we've lived through it before. And this incarnation is hardly special and hardly engaging. In other words, (to tie the Peter vs. the chicken metaphor back) Wanted is like watching Peter's first encounter or second encounter with the chicken, after having seen the pair's duel crash an ocean liner. It's ho-hum, meh, we've seen something bigger and better.

That is not to say that an action-adventure movie must be bigger to work, but it does need to be better. You can have a more cerebral action-adventure or one that focuses more on character, but Wanted does not do that. Every aspect of character and each twist has been seen before in something that was holistically a better film. Indeed, despite the special effect style that mirrors is, anyone who has seen The Matrix (reviewed here!) is likely to be disappointed by Wanted. We've seen it before.

The characters are unsurprising for their monolithic nature, to the extent that there are moments where it seems that the writers didn't even try. This is not to say that Alias has an ironclad lock on having the leader of a super-secret cell of baddies named Sloan, but . . . given the success of Alias and the multitude of names out there, why did writers Mark Millar and J.G. Jones have to go with Sloan? Perhaps their comic book - from which this is adapted or based - predates Alias. The more problematic aspect is that the characters ring familiar from things we've seen before.

Wesley Gibson is, in many ways, a recast Anderson (better known as Neo). Similarly, Fox and Trinity have much in common. Sadly, it is Sloan that suffers the most on the character front based largely on the casting. I think Morgan Freeman is great; he's a wonderful actor but having him play Sloan was a huge mistake on the part of director Timur Bekmambetov. Why? We've seen Freeman in this role before. We've seen him in a similar role as Lucius Fox in Batman Begins (reviewed here!) and in an even more proper analogy, as the Boss in Lucky Number Slevin. Indeed, it would be nice to be able to end the review right there; Lucky Number Slevin is a vastly superior movie. Go, get that out on DVD, watch that instead, avoid the theaters.

This is not to say that Freeman is not good as Sloan, but it requires no acting that the viewer has not seen from him before now. We've seen it, we get it, we know it is well within his range and talents. Similarly, Angelina Jolie behind a big gun is no shock, surprise or - by the end of the flick - interest to the viewer. We've seen it, it offers her no new challenges or potential to expand her range.

One suspects that director Bekmambetov is covering for the casting of James McAvoy as Gibson. McAvoy is a very white bread actor and while Keanu Reeves pulled off a performance of the bland to the extraordinary in The Matrix, McAvoy fails to captivate as Wesley Gibson. Instead, he never becomes exciting to watch, he never makes the viewer care about his character and he never convinces the viewer of the reality of the situation.

Timur Bekmambetov, who directed the Russian science fiction-horror films Nightwatch (reviewed here!) and Day Watch (reviewed here!) directed Wanted. Like those films, he seems obsessed with special effects, though in this outing he seems to generally use them better than he did in his other adaptations. At least here, the effects make sense and fit the story as opposed to effects for effects sake.

On DVD, Wanted is packed with special features, mostly special effects-based that do little to actually enhance the movie. There is an extended scene as well as a featurette on the stars of the film, a featurette on the stunts and another on the special effects in general. As well, there is quite a bit in the way of discussions in interviews involving the translation of the graphic novel to the film that was created. This is interesting, but hardly enough to make the film worth buying on DVD unless one was already going to.

What pushes it up into even average territory? Quite simply, it does what it sets out to do. It makes a lot of movement, people run, they shoot guns, bodies fall, rah rah rah. Wanted only works as a popcorn movie for people who have no ambition to see anything smarter or more interesting that is in theaters currently. In reference to that, it is worth noting that I've rather surprisingly rated Wanted higher than Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. Is this a better movie? No. Both are remarkably average. The lower rating of the other film reflects the heightened expectations vs. the dismal reality. Wanted actually contains some more intriguing shots than the Harrison Ford film, but it was a huge disappointment given the quality of the franchise. Wanted is a simple film with a simple premise and even with lowered expectations, it resulted in an average flick that does what one expects from a movie of its type.

It does nothing more, though, and it's impossible to recommend as a result.

For other works with James McAvoy, please visit my reviews of:
X-Men: First Class
The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe

5/10

Check out how this movie stacks up against every other film I have seen and reviewed in my Movie Review Index Page where the reviews are organized from best film to worst with clickable links to take you from the name of the film to the review of it!

© 2012, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Better Than Its First Part, Daywatch Still Disappoints With "The Chalk Of Fate"

The Good: Interesting concepts, Decent plot, Good acting
The Bad: Entirely dependent upon first movie - yet does not work with it, DVD bonus features
The Basics: Daywatch concludes the story from Nightwatch, almost completely divorced from that first episode (thankfully and unfortunately).


As I prepared to leave for my yearly trip to Las Vegas at the end of last month, I finally was able to get ahold of a DVD of Nightwatch, a movie I had been longing to see for quite some time. The last thing I did before hopping into my car to zip out to the West was write a review of Nightwatch (that's here!) and I cannot adequately describe my disappointment in that movie. After all of the good things I heard about it, it was visually confused, dull and poorly put together. And even more annoying than all that, the DVD features the director teasing the viewer by saying "I'm not going to explain it."

Thanks a lot Timur Bekmambetov!

So, when I returned home, my library had managed to get in a copy of Daywatch, the sequel to Nightwatch and a movie I now had a lot more trepidations about seeing. Daywatch resolves the story that was supposed to be a trilogy (fortunately) and the good news is that it is better than the first installment, both visually and as far as the story goes. Unfortunately, the climax to Daywatch makes absolutely no sense without having seen the first film. In other words, if you want to enjoy Daywatch, you have to suffer through the suck that is Nightwatch. On the balance, it's a serious cointoss as to whether it's worth it or not, but as a standalone movie, even if it doesn't make sense in the end, Daywatch is all right.

Having lost Yegor to the Dark Others, Anton has taken on an apprentice in his newly expanded role in the Nightwatch. His protege, Svetlana, is instantly more powerful than he is, chasing Yegor into the Second Level of Gloom (a dark territory that Anton himself is unable to breach). Inside, Svetlana is attacked, but she survives and in the process, Anton begins to consider what it might actually mean for the forces of good to lose the war. His supervisor, Geser, clues him in to the reality of a mystical artifact known as the Chalk of Fate, which appears to be in the hands of the Daywatch and the Dark Others.

Anton is targeted by the Daywatch, framed for killing Dark Others (which violates the rules of the truce from the bridge, which put the Others influencing the humans and not shooting at one another). To keep him safe, Geser compels Anton to switch bodies with a woman and it is only when trapped there that Anton is able to confess his love to Svetlana. The Dark Others exploit this and it all comes to a head with a challenge that pits Yegor and Svetlana against one another, with Anton caught in the middle!

If it doesn't make sense, I wish I could say that it would if you had seen Nightwatch, but the truth is that after multiple viewings of that movie, I had no idea that Yegor, the prophecy child, was Anton's son! In Daywatch it is obvious from almost the very beginning, but if it was in Nightwatch, I missed it completely.

Daywatch is good for explaining itself more than its predecessor. As a result, things make a lot more sense, even if the appearance of the Chalk Of Fate seems a bit campy and abrupt. This is a powerful mystical artifact, never alluded to before, and it seems to have the power to undo everything that is wrong. Of course, coming off Nightwatch, viewers might assume that what is truly wrong (other than that movie being a mess) is that Yegor is now a Dark Other. After all, the first movie was set up with the idea that this is the defining cataclysmic event and that whichever way Yegor went, it would irrevocably turn the tide between the Dark and Light Others.

Fortunately, in Daywatch, there is the plot-convenient Chalk Of Fate that is even more powerful than the Prophecy Child and his supposed invincibility. Sigh.

Better than the sudden conflict within Anton which results in his not wanting to take on his child, Daywatch peppers the supporting characters with . . . well, character. Geser seems to have a little inappropriate relationship with one of his subordinates and his counterpart in the Daywatch, Zavulon, is jealous of Kostya, the young vampire, who seems to have a thing for his lover. Svetlana is motivated by love and Anton suddenly has a very significant stake in the war whatwith his child being the one who can bring about the apocalypse, at least to Moscow.

In other words, Daywatch makes more sense (in addition to visually) because the characters make more sense. They have a very classic sense of motivation to them and many of them are emotionally damaged or are trying to make the best of a bad situation. Kostya's father, the butcher, for example, is clearly feeling guilty over his son's condition and he does whatever he can as a father to try to make things right for the boy. There are people in this installment (Inquisitors) who the members of the Nightwatch and Daywatch are accountable to, as evidenced when Anton is hunted for his alleged crimes.

And Daywatch makes for a more sensible movie without sacrificing the distinct visual sense that defined the first film. Director Timur Bekmambetov does not seem as obsessed with proving that Russian cinema can keep up with special effects. Nightwatch sometimes seemed like it desperately wanted to be The Matrix (reviewed here!) and Daywatch seems like it might have gotten over that compulsion. Instead, it focuses on telling a story. In the commentary track, it Bekmambetov admits that the films were supposed to be a trilogy, but the last two movies were condensed into this single movie. As a result, the director seems like he is forced to tell the story as opposed to try to make a flashy movie.

This works well for him and for the viewer.

Unfortunately, much of the movie is still utterly ridiculous. The best example happens in the very first moments of the movie. Daywatch opens with the establishment of the Chalk of Fate. The little story is told of how the Chalk of Fate is a powerful artifact hidden in an impenetrable fortress. In this film, though "impenetrable" means "yields the first time a horse hits it." Yes, after being told how impossible the Chalk of Fate is to get to, the invading army simply rides through the walls of the fortress and takes it. There are no gimmicks, no magic; it would be laughable if the setup were not so melodramatic.

What Daywatch has as well is better acting than its predecessor. Mariya Poroshina shines as Svetlana, despite her character's initial wimpy characterization. Dmitry Martynov has grown up some as Yegor and he has some body to him that gives him more of a presence on screen than in the first film. He actually seems menacing, evil and substantial in Daywatch. Moreover, the supporting actors like Vladimir Menshov (Geser), Viktor Verzhbitsky (Zavulon), and Valeri Zolotukhin (Kostya's father) all seem much more comfortable in their roles. Indeed, they seem to understand the story that is being told and they bring that to bear in their performances.

Konstantin Khabensky who plays Anton likewise seems to get what he is doing. He presents Anton as a hero in the process of becoming and he is great in moments when he has to move more feminine or act drunk. Khabensky is responsible for grounding the film and making the characters make sense and he works perfectly for that.

On DVD there are theatrical trailers and one of the most worthless commentary tracks ever produced. On it, an unnamed individual tries (approximately every five minutes) to get Timur Bekmambetov to talk about the movie and it's like listening to him pull teeth. The director says one or two things, then clams up . . for significant amounts of time. It's dull and the director does not seem to want to talk about his masterpiece, making it seem almost like a parody of a commentary track.

Who will like Daywatch? I'm a big science fiction/fantasy fan and I'm not sure it's an easy sell even for genre fans. Horror fans won't find it scary or dark enough, science fiction fans will find it too amateurish or obvious and fans of straightforward dramas are likely to find the supernatural elements offputting and confusing. I enjoyed it more than Nightwatch, but given the choice, I would not recommend it more than something that made a lot more sense on its own, like The City Of Lost Children (reviewed here!).

Ultimately, this is a decent little Russian action-adventure film that only makes sense if one has suffered through the first part. And I'm not one to recommend suffering.

For other dark fantasy or science fiction films, please visit my reviews of:
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows, Part 2
Passengers

6/10

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

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

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Nightwatch: A Strange Disappointment.

The Good: Visually intriguing, Moments of concept
The Bad: More frenetic than sensible, DVD bonus features, Somewhat obvious plot, Acting
The Basics: After two viewings, I give up and accept that maybe Night Watch truly is just a bad film where style is put ahead of substance.


Have you ever watched a movie and when it was done, you just sat up and asked yourself, "What the hell was that that I just watched?!" It's tough to evaluate a movie like that, one where it might be stylish and visually different, but it lacks substance or sensibility. I know I felt that way about Mullholland Drive, one of the few movies I am aching to see a fifth time before I review it. Right now, in the wake of my second viewing of Night Watch, I am feeling the same way.

Night Watch is a Russian film, a fantasy/science fiction/horror epic defined as the first in a trilogy by director Timur Bekmambetov, based upon the novels of Sergei Lukyenenko. One must assume that Lukyenenko is an especially gifted writer to have inspired a movie like Night Watch; in order for this to be an adaptation, one assumes the novelist must have had it all together in a way director Bekmembetov does not. Throughout much of the movie, dubbed into English on the DVD for us ugly Americans, things happen at a ridiculous speed and without a strong sense of logic guiding it.

In short, this is a movie that looks real good, but it does not make a lot of sense.

In the world, there are Others. The Others look human, but they are actually ancient warriors in the battle of good versus evil. Following a truce that is forged on the eve of mutual Armageddon between the forces of good and evil, the Light Others, establish the Night Watch to make sure the Dark Others do not directly influence the humans. In Moscow, the Night Watch unit is active and eagerly awaiting an Other of immense power who will tip the balance between good and evil forever by either joining the Night Watch or the Dark Others.

Anton Gorodetsky is a guy that comes to realize that he is an Other when he tries to have his ex-girlfriend killed using a sorceress. Anton does contract work for the Night Watch (it seems) because he has the ability to see inside people, tell which side they are on and a host of other powers that come up as needed in the course of the movie. Soon, Anton is tracking a boy, who might well be the Prophecy Child as well as a woman who has been cursed and somehow relates to the prophecy.

Along the way, Anton encounters vampires, killers, Dark Others and weird calamities. There are invisible menaces, an owl doll that turns into a woman - having been trapped for years in the form of the owl for quite some time - and women that look remarkably alike. He is rescued by the Night Watch, killing a vampire whose lover hunts him and the child of prophecy for most of the rest of the movie. And as Prophecy Kid gets closer to her, his mother - who bears a curse - has a massive vortex of flying birds over her head.

Writing all of that out makes Night Watch actually sound pretty darn cool, but the problem with it is that all of that stuff that I just wrote came while taking copious notes during the SECOND viewing. In the first, things went along so very fast that they made little or no sense. Indeed, often enough so much is happening and with such frenetic camera movements that the viewer has absolutely no idea what is actually happening.

Fundamentally, the problem with Night Watch is that much that happens seems to be more for style as opposed to substance. So, for example, a screw falls out of a plane and does a minute long descent into a drain pipe, into a home, into a cup of coffee held by . . . the mother or the one worker for Night Watch. Yes, that's another problem. First, the style thing. What is the point of illustrating that the screw falls from the plane as a way to introduce the one character? There is none. Neither is there a point to many of the disappearances and visions that Anton has while looking around at the world. When looking at the child of destiny, he is able to see him just as a collection of blood vessels, then the kid goes invisible and he has a vision of the vortex over the woman.

Then there is the other - and this is a fundamental - problem: the casting. I'm not one who would argue for affirmative action in casting; you tell the story with the people who best serve the story. But Night Watch has some serious problems in that too many of the main characters are cast to look like one another. So, for example, Prophecy Boy's mother (referred to because none of the IMDB listings have pictures next to them AND in the movie the names are not given with any frequency - if I had to guess, though, I'd say Prophecy Boy is Yegor and Cursed Mother is Irina) and the one woman who works for Night Watch look virtually identical, wear their hair the same way and are basically the same frame, hair color and length. This becomes terribly problematic in telling who is who when both share a scene. At least the vampire woman is a brunette and she's pretty distinctive.

Similarly, Anton looks nothing like he does after the opening scene, making one wonder if the guy in the first scene is just a random guy trying to illustrate how the Night Watch works to take out Dark Others.

In fact, the whole concept is severely undermined because of the style issues. What, for example, is the point of the Night Watch bus being flipped over a guy by his psychic powers other than to remind us that the Others are out there? We don't need the reminder: the van is on the way to rescue Anton! Is it to illustrate another unique power of the Others? Everyone has a power - they come up at plot convenient moments! So, for example, when Yegor is killed, Anton reveals he has the ability to resurrect him.

The only seemingly consistent power is that they are all immortal, as evidenced by most of the Others seen later in the film being shown during the prologue.

The acting is nothing to write home about either. Often lead actor Konstantin Khabensky looks just as confused as the viewer.

The only thing more annoying than the actual movie is the DVD presentation. There is no commentary track. Instead, when discussing the Night Watch Trilogy, the director appears to smugly tell the viewer that the next movie makes a lot more sense and he is not going to explain this one. There is an extended ending, but it is much the same as the rest of the film; frenetic, bloody and pointless.

I came to Night Watch eager, ready, engaged and coming away from it, all I am is disappointed in how lame it ended up being and annoyed because I'm a smart person and I feel like my time was wasted trying to figure this movie out.

For other weird films, please check out my reviews of:
The City Of Lost Children
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
Inception

3.5/10

For other film reviews, please click here to visit my index page!

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

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Angelina Jolie Does What She Has Done Far Too Often In Salt, Another Film Trailers Ruined!

The Good: Decent pacing, Moments where the plot is engaging, Acting.
The Bad: Characters make little real-world sense, Too familiar, Largely unsurprising.
The Basics: Average-at-best, Salt is another political thriller which is less-than-thrilling.


I am so tired of movies where virtually the entire film is shown in the trailer. I mention this at the outset of the review of Salt because the movie feels remarkably familiar after the first half hour and it is largely because, once again, Columbia Pictures ruins the movie by putting far, far too much of the movie's best moments in the trailer. This leaves remarkably little for film enthusiasts to enjoy in the film and even less to be wowed by. In fact, Salt is almost entirely ruined by knowing anything about the film, but the latest Angelina Jolie vehicle is pretty much the banal action-adventure film fans have come to expect from Jolie for her Summer Blockbuster Season outing. Salt was last year's Wanted, but Angelina Jolie doesn't bare all and the film lacks the intriguing hook (Wanted at least had the nifty curving bullets thing and some decent direction).

But more than the faults of the promotion, Salt flops in a world where Alias was popular for years. The female spy thing is something we've seen before. As well, the whole "mistaken identity political thriller" has been done before and with Salt the movie just feels stale. If one wants to reinvent the genre, it might still be possible. But Salt doesn't do it. Kurt Wimmer and Phillip Royce wrote and directed a movie that hinges on all of the typical reversals one expects from a spy thriller.

Evelyn Salt is a CIA agent working in Washington, D.C. when a Russian defector walks in and is captured by the Agency. Because of her expertise, Salt and her partner, Ted Winter, are assigned to debrief him. The CIA is disturbed when the defector reveals that there is a Russia sleeper agent who is going to kill the President later in the day. They are even more alarmed when the sleeper agent's name is revealed to be Evelyn Salt. Salt's peers, seeing that the defector is telling the truth, look to detain Salt while they sort out the truth from the lies. Unwilling to be detained, Salt goes on the run to try to learn the truth herself.

Immediately, she begins to look for her steadfast ally, her husband, but when she discovers him missing, she is forced to flee on his trail. Stealing vehicles, eluding capture and searching for her husband and the truth leads her to New York City, which only causes Ted and Agent Peabody to suspect something more is going on. While Ted believes in Evelyn, Peabody just wants to protect the President and he becomes more determined to stop the crime. But as Evelyn nears the place where the President is, it becomes evident that the machinations are not what they seem.

Salt follows in a long tradition of chase movies from The Fugitive through less popular films, like 16 Blocks, but the basic premise is a ticking clock film where the truth is being sorted out on the fly. Unfortunately for Salt, the viewer is hardly able to care because the movie makes no real sense from a pragmatic point of view. Evelyn Salt is characterized immediately as being both a patriot and exceptionally intelligent. As a spy, she has a natural disbelief that she could be a sleeper agent, but as a patriot and an intelligence operative she has to see the potential threat she would represent if the accusation were true. So, it is utterly unfathomable that she begins running and sets off the whole chase that becomes the rest of the movie. Instead of being a team player, letting Ted and Peabody find out the truth, she does exactly what the villains of the film want by heading toward New York City.

This, then, seems more a function of ego for the protagonist of the film. Evelyn Salt is the type of character who quickly comes to believe that if she is not going to kill the President, only she can prevent it. This, like most spy thrillers, becomes a parody of the realism of a spy's work. The team effort that is the actual CIA has more than just one qualified agent, despite what movies like Salt would have you believe. There is a strangely distorted view of law enforcement in Salt.

But beyond that, the movie is not as entertaining as the trailers make it seem. Sure, there are the usual banal car and motorcycle chases, there is gunplay and there are stunts (Jolie herself got hurt while filming the movie). But there is nothing particularly fresh. We've seen car crashes where the prisoner gets away again and we've seen the fast movement through the impossible New York City streets.

What sinks Salt, then, is that the characters have little to empathize with. Instead, we ultimately do not care who Evelyn Salt is and what her part is in an alleged plan to kill the President. Instead, the loyalty Ted shows Evelyn seems more generic, just as Salt's desire to run seems nonsensical. In fact, only Peabody feels like a truly realized character, the way he questions both Salt's allegiance and then her actions during the chase. He might not have Ted's blind appreciation for her and her talents, but as he begins to come around on the bigger picture, his arc is the most realistic and easiest to empathize with.

That said, the acting is pretty extraordinary. Angelina Jolie gives an action-packed performance that proves she can still thrill by running, jumping and shooting. Liev Schreiber is plausible as Ted and Chiwetel Ejiofor steals every scene he is in as the methodical and brilliant Peabody. In fact, Schreiber and Ejiofor give performances unlike what is in their repertoirs. They are both strong actors who have the ability to emote and to sublimate their obvious emotions to make them both seem like they would be CIA Agents and have loyalty, patriotism and humanity within them.

Unfortunately, it is not quite enough to save Salt. Salt stops being sensible or even fun too quickly and the result is a remarkably blase action thriller that feels like what it is: Angelina Jolie's attempt to keep relevant in genre works through the summer so her name will still be remembered when she does a classy film around Oscar Pandering Season.

For other films featuring Chiwetel Ejiofor, be sure to see my reviews of:
2012
Serenity
Love Actually

4.5/10

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

© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts.  May not be reprinted without permission.


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