Review: OBLIVION

Oblivion thinks it is much smarter than it really is. But the more you think about it after the credits start rolling, the stupider it gets. But I can compliment the film on two things: making an effort to channel Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, and being just another dumb Tom Cruise thriller at the same time. That is not an easy feat to pull off. Oblivion’s strengths and weakness lie in the fact that it attempted do so.

 The movie begins with an unnecessary narration by Jack (Tom Cruise), one of the few people left on Earth after an alien invasion destroyed most of the planet. In the narration we are informed that most humans have left for Titan, Saturn’s moon.  Jack and his partner Victoria (Andrea Riseborough) are there to give maintenance to drones in charge of cleaning up the Earth and killing off any remaining aliens. When they don’t fix drones they spend the time by enjoying candlelit dinners and skinny-dipping in a glass-bottomed pool that hangs 1,000 feet in the air. They live a pretty nifty life, while their boss, Sally (Melissa Leo) supervises them from a pyramid-shaped control center orbiting the Earth; she is awfully cheerful. And you know that, in a movie, when the boss can’t help but smile 24/7 something has to be off.

Oh, and I forgot to mention that Jack and Victoria had a routine memory wipe five years prior. The only think Jack can remember is a cheesy backlit dream of a beautiful woman when met in pre-invasion New York. One otherwise average day, a pre-war shuttle crash-lands on Earth. The only survivor is Julia (Olga Kurylenko), a Russian astronaut that looks exactly like the girl in Jack’s dream. And then we are off into a space-chase adventure; to figure out whom is this girl, and what does Morgan Freeman’s character know that nobody else does.

There are a lot of question, and not all of them are answered. But for the most part the ride is beautiful to look at. The opening is immersive, gradual, and even slow. But it is perfect to introduce us to the world of the film. We see stunning digital landscapes of buried cities, dried up rivers, and ocean-sized desserts. The film’s biggest problem is that this world is much more interesting than any of its characters, which are all – for the most part – flat cardboard cut outs.

Take for example the cheesy love story in Jack’s dream. Julia is an idealized woman that he can’t remember, but she claims to be his wife. Victoria is the sexy redhead he goes skinny-dipping in the sky with. Guess which one is the evil one. Meanwhile, down below on Earth’s broken surface, everybody but the audience has to learn that Morgan Freeman is always right.

Director Joseph Kosinski’s previous movie, TRON: Legacy, was also a visual smorgasm with very one-dimensional protagonists. But it didn’t lie to itself about that; TRON: Legacy’s target audience was much younger than Oblivion’s and they ended up with what they paid for going in. In Oblivion, those who paid for a brainy Sci Fi that could work as some political allegory will get Tom Cruise, while those who paid for Tom Cruise will get a slow brainy world building Sci Fi that still doesn’t work as a political allegory.

The best way to enjoy this film is to relax and not think about it too much, yet at the same time not to expect Mission Impossible, or any other noisy movie of the kind. If you do, like I did, this can be a very enjoyable film. At the very least it is a very beautiful film.

Having said all this, I do have two random musings:

1)   This is not the first movie where an unexplained affection for Olga Kurylenko drives the main character. This doesn’t work for me. Not because Kurylenko is a bad actress, but because the protagonist should have a reason to fall for her, other than “just ‘cause she is the love interest”.

2)   The film could have used some more female ass kicking. Tom Cruise’s character is all man; he’s a sharpshooter, a mechanic, a sports fan, and gets to drive a cool bike. Meanwhile the women just run and follow instructions. When Kurylenko finally picks up a gun, the Kingslayer from Game of Thrones kills off the badie that was threatening her, so she doesn’t get to use it.

3)   Had the movie ended 30 seconds before it did, it would have been wonderful. The extra 30 seconds and an unnecessary level of cheesiness and just ruin the whole thing for everybody.

Film Review: MAMA

Well... it looks like we are starting 2013 with a rather fun ride. Mama, the new presentation by Guillermo del Toro, might not be breaking any new ground in the genre he helped define, but it follows the tradition of the twisted fairytale with full satisfaction. It provides a couple of nightmarish sequences, a handful  of good shock scares, and a chilling feeling running down your spine for most of the film, and a few good laughs - most of them nervous laughs. Could you ask of anything more from a film like this? 

Film Review: CLOUD ATLAS

Oh boy, where can I begin? Reviews have been mixed, and for a good reason; Cloud Atlas is a love it or hate it movie. I do not expect to find a middle ground. The great thing about movies like this is that they get people talking, debating, and thinking. So even if you are on the hate it crowd, this movie affected you in someway or other. Generally speaking, I’d say this is a good thing in any art form. Luckily for me, I am in the LOVE IT crowd. 

Cloud Atlas tells six stories interwoven to various degrees, all with the same thematic elements: primarily the search for freedom and the human desire to be together. Individually each piece is engaging enough, it would have made a good short story. But the editing turns all six into a thematic concerto that only film as an art medium can provide. To think that the novel was considered “un-filmable” means there is a lack of creativity out there. If anything Cloud Atlas proves the vast versatility of film as a story telling medium.

The six stories that we see are:

Review: SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS

I can safely say you won’t see this one coming. Not because there is an unexpected twist at the end - or some other kind of cop-out - but because the characters in this movie are so unpredictable there is really no way of knowing what direction they are pointing their gun at, or when they might pull the trigger - accidentally or otherwise. This is a richly self aware movie, where the characters are literally writing the movie on the go. In an age where most movie characters - and writers - lack freewill and subscribe to common genre conventions a script like this might appear to lack direction or cohesion. But that is not the case here; it is just rare to see a movie where the characters truly have control of the events that surround them. Writer / director Martin McDonagh has done what many writers aspire to by breathing freewill into his characters.  

Review: THE PAPERBOY

Popular trash movies are sometimes compared to fast-food; they are manufactured to provide immediate satisfaction without little to no concern about the consumer’s health. The Paperboy is trash, but is has more in common with the juicy mess of grease cheese that fills the street-cart burrito you have at 4am in the morning after a long night of drinking than a McBurger cooked up in a sterilized kitchen. Like the burrito, this film has no care, no substance, and no shame but every single moment of it is delicious, rich in texture, and a unique experience.

Review: ARGO

Every now and then there comes a story so preposterous and incredible that you know it has to be true; no Hollywood screenwriter could have come up with it. Ben Affleck’s new film, in which he stars and directed, is one of those cases. The film opens with an animated intro covering the events that led to the Iranian Revolution; “This is the land of The Persian Empire”, it begins - as if this were going to be a large fantasy epic. But Argo is no fantasy and the film is ten times more gripping because of it. 

Like most average movie goers, I am not particularly fond of modern day political thrillers. They involve a lot of characters sitting around, discussing “stuff” in complex jargon as if they were playing chess. Even the acclaimed Syriana was a bit of a bore. There is some chess playing in Argo but it is mostly for a set characters to pass the time; most of the film is all show business. 

Review: Looper

Any conversation dealing with time travel it can easily become an endless debate  about the technicalities, ethics, paradoxes and impossibilities of practicing time travel. Time travel is messy and because of this it is a bit of a cheat when used as a literary device. It can get the writers into very tricky situations when the impossibilities begin to pile up, or it can be used to completely wipe a slate and start anew. Few writers have ever gotten it right, but when they do it is usually beautiful. Rian Johnson’s Looper gets it right within its own world. Unlike most time travel stories, Looper embraces the paradoxes. But more surprisingly it wipes them away in a rather clever - and intense - conclusion.

Review: RESIDENT EVIL: RETRIBUTION

One has to know what type of movie your going into when you walk into Resident Evil: Retribution, the fifth part of Paul W.S. Anderson’s adaptation of the zombie survival video game. Essentially it is going to be wall to wall action, zero-to-none character development, and Milla Jovovich prancing around in near-S&M gear. I could essentially end the review here, the film won’t be any deeper than that but, as far as bad action movies go, the Resident Evil franchise has always been a guilty pleasure of mine. So I will indulge a bit more. 

Review: RED LIGHTS

Red Lights provides us with an interesting thriller about the debunking of paranormal activities by a team of university physicists. And then the debunking of physics, and rational thinking, by that irksome thought in the back of everyone’s head that maybe, there just might be something unexplainable out there. All good horror movies depend on the exploitation of this feeling. Red Lights is the first movie, I’ve seen, that explores it through its characters. For the most part it is effective; the movie will keep you on its grip until everything falls apart in the last few scenes.

Review: TOTAL RECALL

This new version of Total Recall succeeds in many ways. It has all the necessary ingredients to make a great contemporary action Sci-Fi: it is based off a cult classic based off a Philip K. Dick story, has a great action-class cast with a few British A-listers on the side, it includes three or four exhilarating action sequences, and some incredibly rich production design, packed with lost of juicy details. Unfortunately, for the film, its characters, plot, and - most importantly- logic get drowned by the opulent production that surrounds them. What comes out is a bit of a mess, but a fun mess nonetheless. 

Lets start with the good stuff. 

Review: THE DARK KNIGHT RISES

So finally here it is; the epic conclusion to Christopher Nolan’s Batman re-imaging delivers both an incredibly good movie and a well rounded third part for a trilogy that has been all about deconstructing the hero myth. Usually, the third part of a trilogy - or any extended franchise - tends to be an underwhelming mess, as if no one knew where to take the story or what to do with the characters. Whether or not Nolan had a plan since the beginning is hard to tell, but The Dark Knight Rises could convince me that he did. Nolan tells a long coherent story across three films; amazingly all three films  could work by themselves, but together they form an almost perfect three-act opera.

Review: RUBY SPARKS

Recently there’s been a literary trend in film and TV to portray quirky and somewhat broken women as the ideal partner in a relationship. I partially blame (500) Days of Summer for it. Like that movie, Ruby Sparks has something interesting to say about this cultural ideal and the men who write it in their minds. The ideal is only ideal in theory and never in practice. Calvin (Paul Dano) a young novelist from Los Angeles stumbles upon this truth by writing his ideal quirky girlfriend and having her appear in flesh and blood, and living in his apartment.

Review: THE AMAZING SPIDERMAN

            I will confess; I was not a fan of Raimi’s Spiderman trilogy. The first movie was all right; the second movie – despite the critical acclaim – felt too much like a telenovela that I couldn't properly enjoy; and the third movie… well, we can all agree that movie was an incomprehensible mess of CGI and not much more. Comparisons between the old and the new are inevitable - it has only been five years since the Spiderman 3 fiasco - but I will try to avoid them and speak for The Amazing Spiderman as a stand-alone film.

           With that in mind, The Amazing Spiderman is a highly enjoyable film. You feel a sense of déjà-vu through out it, not necessarily because it is a rebooted Spiderman, but because since then, we have grown accustomed to the origin story of superheros. In effect, "been-there-seen-that" is the best way to describe The Amazing Spiderman. But think about all the things you've done and seen and enjoyed more the second time; I bet there are quite a few instances. The Amazing Spiderman is like that. You have seen it but are thankful that enough has changed that you can still enjoy. More attention has placed to detail, and the back-story is extended and made deeper, and best of all, Peter Parker is actually interesting even before he becomes Spiderman. Against all odds there are still some refreshing moments in the film.

Review: TED

It is going to be hard to convince you -or anyone for that matter - that Ted, a movie about a foulmouthed pot-smoking teddy bear, is a relevant work of literature that should have your critical consideration. But, please, indulge me as I try to do so. 

As you would expect from the creator of Family Guy, Ted is an avalanche of raunchy comedy, politically incorrect humor, and four-letter one liners that could put any other comedy of the kind to shame. But aside from its superficial humor, Ted is also one of the most honest movies about buddy-bro-hood and arrested adolescence out there. Add these together and you realize that Ted is mostly funny because its true. 

Review: BEATS OF THE SOUTHERN WILD

“Daddy says the people who built the levees are afraid of the water”, the fierce and wild six year-old girl named Hushpuppy (Quevanzhené Wallis) explains. “Daddy says we live in the prettiest place on Earth”. This is a swamp-island off the coast of New Orleans that the locals, fittingly, call The Bathtub. Isolated from the world by the levees the keep New Orleans from sinking, the inhabitants of The Bathtub live as close to the earth as possible, existing on their own terms, and surviving from the seafood the floods the landlubbers fear provide. They might be poor by suburban standards but the floods and swamp are abundant enough for them not to starve to spend their days enjoying life. 

Review: PROMETHEUS

If a Facehugger from the Alien franchise ever face-raped 2001: A Space Odyssey, the resulting Xenomorph bastard would not be unlike Prometheus, Ridley Scott’s long awaited return to the genre many claim he revolutionized. Prometheus is an ambitious science-fiction film with the lofty goal of presenting questions about the origins of life. Like all great science-fiction literature, it is a blend of thoughtful speculation, great story, awe-inspiring effects, and wonder. And because the Alien franchise is its predecessor the package also includes chilling rape allegories, a nauseating birth scene, and a good amount fetal imagery. All in the name of brilliant filmmaking. 

Review: TO ROME WITH LOVE

I believe it was Socrates who said, the unexamined life is not worth living; at 76 and with over forty films attributed to his name, Woody Allen has now examined his life and then examined himself examining his life. After Midnight in Paris -his most successful film in terms of revenue- Woody Allen takes a step back and returns to his more traditional depiction of neurotic characters observing, describing, philosophizing about, and suffering because of love, life, universal inconsequence, and - for the first time - Rome. 

To Rome With Love, is a collection of four vignettes all set in Rome. Each vignette could have been separate stand alone film. And some of them would have likely been more enjoyable that way. We are introduced to the four vignettes by a traffic cop; who from his pedestal in the middle of the road observes everything. Or so he claims. 

Traditionalist may criticize Allen for abandoning New York and “selling” to tourism boards that want to show off the most beautiful cities in the world - London (Match Point, Cassandra’s Dream), Barcelona (Vicky, Cristina, Barcelona) and Midnight in Paris (Paris)- but, personally, I like how my pseudo-intellectual self can relax and enjoy a Roman holiday alongside my giddy low-brow tourist self, while enjoying these romantic Euro locales, and conversing with characters as neurotic as... my neurotic self. 

Review: BRAVE

Can Pixar beat Disney, its parent company and corporate partner, at its own game? That is, could Pixar create en emotional fairy tale with a moral core that will survive beyond its current generation? That was probably the question in every creative and executive working for Pixar during the production of Brave. The answer is not simple; Brave is a lovely film, with endearing characters. And like most of Pixar’s it is at its core strength is being a well-told story, but it is also missing a certain oomph for a Pixar film.

Review: THAT'S MY BOY

Most people, including myself, can appreciate a dumb joke. Hell, every now and then they are even refreshing. But for Adam Sandler there is no such thing as too dumb a joke or too low an audience. By now I suspect that his movies are conceived by team drunken twelve year olds and afterwards typed by the laziest intern at Happy Maddison. Sandler’s movies are the lowest common denominator of humor; to which I’ll admit I laughed, though most of the time I didn’t feel good about myself afterwards. 

Review: ROCK OF AGES

Well, this is one silly movie. I never quite understood if I was laughing with the movie, at the movie, or if the movie was some sort of joke being pulled on me. Was I supposed to sing along? 

At the opening, Sherrie (Julianne Hough) rides a bus with her headphones on listening to Sister Christian; she starts singing out loud and soon enough the entire bus joins in. Once again, was I supposed to sing along? Most of the audience laughed but didn’t join. It is understandable; in real life singing along is only acceptable if said song happened to be Bohemian Rhapsody. But in a musical film like this it could be any song. And it could have been any song for that matter; the number is not really memorable. Actually, none of the numbers are particularly memorable. But, at the very least, they do happen to zesty and entertaining while they last. With an extra punch they might have gotten someone in the audience to sing along.