Surrogates

Surrogates, based on the graphic novel of the same name by Robert Venditti, can be described as a mix of I, Robot, WALL-E, and Avatar but without the intelligence, emotion or beauty of the aforementioned. James Cromwell is even the father of this robotic technology once again, though I keep expecting him to say "that'll do, pig." In this futuristic science fiction thriller, Bruce Willis is Tom Greer, an FBI agent in a world where the societal norm is to let your real body decay at home while being out in the world as a nearly invincible robot avatar, I mean surrogate.

Crime rates are down and pretty much everything is hunky dorry, thanks to these surrogates.  Of course, nothing is perfect and it suddenly seems that it has become possible to kill a person through their surrogate.  As it is wont to do in situations like this, chaos begins to ensue as the search for the weapon, the killer, and the truth begins.

For all its shortcomings, Surrogates isn't boring.  It moves along at a brisk pace, sacrificing bits and pieces of plot along the way.  It's not that it doesn't make sense, but it feels like there could have been so much more.  There are a dozen moral/ethical dilemmas/situations introduced or hinted at and then just glossed over as Willis races to the quick end of the film. 

If you like science fiction action flicks and don't mind it when they're not District 9 or Avatar, this is worth a rent, but I can say that I'm glad I skipped this one in theatres.

***(3/5 stars)

The Simpsons Movie

It took some time, but television's favorite family finally got their own movie in 2007.  Starring the regular cast of Dan Castellanetta et al,  as well as Green Day and Tom Hanks, this was the Simpsons' first, and so far only, venture onto the big screen.

The basic premise is an environmental message.  Springfield has finally become the most polluted place in the country, prompting to President Schwarzenegger to allow the EPA to do with it as they want.  What they want is certainly not in the best interest of the town and chaos ensues.

This movie was worthy of a rewatch, as evidenced by the fact that I did, but it wasn't quite as good as it could have been.  I attribute that to the fact that it was, in fact, too good for its own good.  The plot was too well crafted - since when does the Simpsons start with a plot point and stick to it all the way through to the end of thirty minutes - much less an hour and a half?  The animation too was superb, especially when they utilized their special semi-3D skills.  And with a soundtrack by Hans Zimmer along with regular Danny Elfman?  It was just too good - it didn't feel like the Simpsons as much as it should have.

Don't get me wrong - there were some very funny parts, a few smart stabs of social commentary, and even some surprisingly touching moments.  Everything you would expect from the Simpsons.  But it just fell a little flat, felt a little too in control, and a little too crafted with Hollywood watching over their shoulders.

By no means do the shortcomings make this movie not worth watching - it's just worth noting that it could have been better and hopefully the sequel, if there is one, will pick up the extra 20% and be a five star affair.

**** (4/5 stars)

Moon

2009 saw a couple steps taken in the right direction in terms of real, good, science fiction, at least in the opinion of many critics.  The first step was District 9, which I agree was one of the best sci-fi movies in a long time.  The second was said to be Duncan Jones' directorial debut, Moon, starring Sam Rockwell and Kevin Spacey.

Sometime in the future, nearly all of Earth's energy is provided by mining on the moon.  Sam Bell (Rockwell) is an astronaut maintaining the mining operation on a three year mission, his only companion being the station's computer GERTY (voiced by Spacey).

The story opens up as the three long years are almost over.  As his lonely stint on the moon draws to a close, however, Sam begins doubting reality as he begins seeing things that are not there.  The last straw comes in the form of an astronaut he rescues from near death out on the Moon's surface.  For all he can tell, this mysterious stranger is Sam himself.

The "big reveal" comes along rather early in the film and it's hard to discuss anything further without giving away the majority of the meat this film has to over.  What follows is a psychological drama with some science fiction thriller mixed in and a whole lot of moral and ethical food for thought.

Moon is on the shorter end in terms of length, which works to its advantage, not allowing too much time for the tediousness a solitary lunar life is sure to bring.  Rockwell plays his parts, both of them, quite well, although there were a couple times he seemed a little too emotionless for what was happening.  Spacey portrays the computer GERTY in a rather surprisingly likable manner and feels like a real character in this sparsely inhabited story.

Moon doesn't really offer anything new in terms of idea or story, but it presents it in a fresh and enjoyable way, and I was somewhat surprised with part of the ending, which was actually pretty satisfying for a nice change.

If you want to be reminded of a time science fiction didn't mean Michael Bay and CG, this is a great original nugget in a big bucket of manufactured Hollywood crap.

**** (4/5 stars)

Little Big Man

This 1970 oddball stars Dustin Hoffman in one of his earlier roles, Faye Dunaway, and pretty much nobody else.  Seriously, the credits last about 15 seconds.

I had to watch this movie for a history class some time ago and it must have made an impression on me as one of my NaNoWriMo novels was loosely inspired by it.  I though it was worth a revisit.

Little Big Man is the story of Jack Crabb's (Hoffman) life as he recounts it as a 121 year old.  Jack was, from the age of twelve, raised by Indians.  Throughout his life he is tossed back and forth between the white world and the Indian world, experiencing the good, the bad, and the weird of both in this off the wall western.  Jack meets all sorts of whackos including an adoptive preacher's wife turned prostitute (Dunaway).  It all culminates with the reason for his story - Custer's Last Stand.

This movie is weird.  That's a fact.  It seems that in the past 121 years, Jack's memories may be just a little distorted, or maybe Thomas Berger, author of the novel, is a little odd.  It's obviously satirical, using extremes and some nonsense to show how horrible people can be, showing the way native Americans were slaughtered by the whites.  This is indeed an odd vehicle for social commentary, but Little Big Man carries it fairly well.

The filmography does feel a bit dated with some shaky acting and the fakest blood I have ever seen, but it maintains good pacing throughout and you actually feel for the characters when they do start leaking ketchup.

This movie has its little moments that are worth paying attention to that come out of the blue, and the big picture benefits from that.  This is not standard Hollywood fare by any means, for any time period, but it is still worth going outside your box to see.

**** (4/5 stars)

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

This past weekend I had intended to go see The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus.  Sadly, with it's oddly limited release, there was only one theatre playing it in the area, and the showtimes conflicted with other plans of the day so that will have to wait until another time.  Instead, we turned to an old favorite, the film adaptation of Douglas Adams' treasured classic, The Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

This is probably the fourth time I've seen this movie which was a good thing since we didn't start it until sometime early morning and had decided to make it a drinking game on top of that - the catalyst being every time the narrator spoke.  This worked out a little too well and I stopped in the interest of keeping awake for the duration of the film.

Hitchiker's Guide, like probably everything, is not as good as the book.  The late Adams did have a hand in the screenplay, however, and this is evident in how true to the spirit and style of the distinctly British and hilariously funny five book trilogy.

The movie stars Martin Freeman (Shaun of the Dead) as the bumbling Arthur Dent, Zooey Deschanel (again) as Trillian, and Mos Def (another rapper who likes to act) as Ford Prefect.  The allstar cast is rounded out with Sam Rockwell, Bill Nighy - not to be confused with Bill Nye, Alan Rickman, John Malkovich, Bill Bailey - again not to be confused with Ben Bailey of Cash Cab infamy - and Warwick Davis.

More or less, Hitchiker's Guide is a satirical adventure set in outerspace after the Earth is destroyed to make room for an intergalactic bypass.  As a huge fan of the novels, I watched this in theatre's with high anticipation as well as trepidation.  While not perfect, it is nearly so.  The casting, too, is near perfect.  Deschanel here is the weakest link.  I usually like her, but in this role she was just annoying.  Freeman, though, was a great Arthur, and I agree with those who say Del Torro and Jackson would be wise to consider him for the role of the great Bilbo Baggins.

The story is a bit convoluted, but only in the most intentional of ways.  It flies across the galaxy at infinitely improbably speeds right along with our heroes.  Adam's flavour of humour is spot on and it is impossible to not laugh at least every few minutes.  In some ways this story has been updated for its 2005 audience as Rockwell seems to be channeling George W. with his portrayal of President of the Galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox.

Though there was a scene near the end that I think the book's version handled much better in a more understated way, it did leave me - and probably everyone else - wishing I could get my hands on a point of view gun.

All in all this was A) hilarious, B) true to the spirit of the books, and C) worth watching if only for the whale and bowl of petunias.

***** (5/5 stars)

Angels and Demons

Angels and Demons is the sequel to The DaVinci Code, based on Dan Brown's best selling novel.  Of course Angels and Demons is actually the first in the series, but Hollywood decided to make it the sequel.  Sure.

Angels and Demons once again pits symbologist Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) against a mystery of biblical proportions - literally - with the clock ticking and lives at stake.  Ewan McGregor is introduces as the Camerlengo Patrick McKenna.

The Pope has died and someone claiming to be part of the Illuminati has kidnapped the four next hopefuls and is planning on killing one every hour as revenge for what the Catholic Church had done to them hundreds of years ago.  Oh, and they've stolen a canister of antimatter created by the Large Hadron Collider and at midnight it will explode like a bomb.  So Robert Langdon must battle dogma, science, and the clock as he races to unravel the secret path to the secret Illuminati church where the antimatter must be stored, along the way trying to save the pope hopefuls from certain death.  All in all, a very believable premise.

Despite the "against the clock" aspect of this movie, the film seemed to drag out it's 2.25 hours rather methodically, which was not a good thing in this case.

I found it unbelievable that the obvious connections and secret passages that Langdon came across in one evening were not ever noticed in all the years of Vatican City's existence.  The whole thing was mostly predictable.  The only thing that saved this movie was the ending.  With an impressive bang and a twist that I didn't see coming - though I feel like I should have - it somewhat made up for some of the other
shortcomings.

The overall message of the film tried to be insightful and controversial at the same time, talking about how science and faith need to unite and are not enemies.  They talk about how religion, like anything else, is flawed.  They were going for "wow, interesting," but got "meh, tired."

Consensus:  It was alright for what it was, but I think I liked National Treasure 2 better.  At least that was more fun.

*** (3/5 stars)

Avatar

Avatar.  Easily the most talked about movie of the year.  At this time it's past 1.4 billion dollars worldwide.  James Cameron is poised to overtake both the domestic and worldwide records that his Titanic has held for so long.  At this point, if you don't know what Avatar is you obviously live under a rock and don't know how to use the internet - which is obviously not the case.

Because how you see this film is a big part of what people think about it I will say that I had the privilege of seeing it in glorious Imax 3D.  I had to preorder week four tickets and stand in line for over an hour to get good seats to do so. I know some people have complained about headaches from the 3D and have been told to focus on what was in focus and not look around too much.  I ignored that advice since there was just too much I wanted to look at in the movie.  I think it cost me a slight headache later, but that was it.  I did also noticed that, at least for Imax, if you tilt and move your vision to much the picture does get distorted.  It only happened when I did it intentionally, however, and wasn't a problem at all.


This was easily, visually, the most beautiful movie I have ever seen.  The CG was as near perfection as you can imagine CG being at this point in time, which is good since 90%* of the film is pure CG.  *Not the actual percentage.  I'm a writing hamster, not a mathematician.  Thanks to some sort of motion capture that includes the actors' eyes, the uncanny valley was nearly completely avoided.  The only times there was some discongruence was when the CG Na'vi where right next to a live actor.  Cameron never did seem to decide just how big the Na'vi are.  The 3D was also excellent, creating a world more real than perhaps the real one.  During a scene where ash is falling through the air I could have sworn some fell on my nose.  And the depth of the world beyond the screen is immense.

The plot to this film is rather simple and really not all that original. It's probably the weakest link here. Some have made the comparison to the story of Pocahontas.  Basic premise:  Evil humans, led by Stephen Lang as the psycho Colonel Miles Quaritch, and Giovanni Ribisi (Phoebe's brother on Friends) as greedy corporate head Parker Selfridge, come to beautiful planet in search of something they want - Unobtanium - but the locals don't like it.  Too bad.

Oh wait, one of the humans (Jake Sully, played by Sam Worthington) learns the ways of the locals, falls in love with the chief's daugther (Neytiri, played by Star Trek's Zoe Saldana) and changes sides.  That is Avatar in a nutshell.

The movie also stars Sigourney Weaver as Dr. Grace Augustine, Michelle Rodriguez as the marine pilot (in a role much more likable than Ana Lucia of Lost infamy) along with a host of lesser known names.

The simple plot, though, allows you to easily follow it and let yourself get completely sucked into the stunning world of Pandora.  I've read some reviews that claim the characters are never fleshed out enough for you to care about what happens to them.  There may be some truth to that, but they're forgetting the most important character - the planet.  Pandora is presented in such detail, such beauty, that you cannot help but care what happens to it.  That brings us to the next important subject to touch upon.  The subtext.

Yes this movie is an obvious allegory for the times when Westerners have let greed lead their decisions to ignore another people and take what they want, whether it be North America or oil.  Yes it has an obvious Leftist, environmentalist agenda telling you that you should take care of the planet and respect other cultures.  If you don't, you're evil.  Supposedly it has also been condemned as encouraging nature worship through the Mother Earth figure of Eywa (by the way, am I the only one to notice a connection of this name with the Hebrew name for God, Yahweh?)This is a PG-13 movie.  If you're seeing it you should either be old enough to have already made up your mind about where you stand on such things or at least not allow yourself to be completely influenced by a work of fiction.  It's a movie, and a good one at that, and take or leave the message as you see fit.

For a massive blockbuster, on the surface this movie seems to have a lot of cons to the list:  The writing isn't spectacular, the plot is mostly unoriginal, the message may be offensive or controversial, and some may find almost three hours too long for a movie.  All of that and more are completely made up for, however, by how gorgeous this film is, how massively epic the world becomes, and how much fun it is to watch.  Avatar accomplishes what Transformers 2 failed so completely miserably at doing.  No amount of pretty pictures could make up for that excuse for a movie, even if ticket sales said otherwise.



Consensus:  Awesome.  See it on a big screen before it's too late.
***** (5/5 stars)

Demolition Man

I like this movie.  Hailing from that long time ago era, the early '90s, this is not the first time I've seen this 1993 film, though, surprisingly, it's only the second.  I first watched it when one of my college roommates proclaimed it to be one of his favorites.  Recently I convinced my wife that she would enjoy it too so, via the joy of streaming Netflix, we had ourselves a good time.

Starring action aficionados Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes at the top of their game, this is a science fiction comedy masquerading as an action flick.  Demolition Man tells the story of bad-ass cop, Sergeant John Spartan (Stallone) - who is known as the Demolition Man because when he gets involved, things tend to get demolished - and his arch nemesis, insanely violent and cruel crime lord, Simon Phoenix (Snipes).

Through a series of events that have to do with the plot, both Spartan and Phoenix are frozen in CryoPrison until further events have them at each other's throats once again in 2032.  Because by 1996, when this movie starts, we apparently have cryo prisons.

California in 2032 is a perfect society, though a dystopian one to anyone who knows better.  Anything "bad" is illegal, including salt, swearing, and the swapping of bodily fluids.  Half the fun of the movie is the constant references to the '90s, but in bizarre ways, like what they consider "oldies."  One of my favorite quotes is when they mention Arnold Schwarzenegger having been President of the United States - in a time long before anyone had even suspected he would become the "Governator" of California.

The aptly named Spartan teams up with Lieutenant Lenina Huxley (Sandra Bullock) who, though something of a nutcase herself, seems to be one of the only people left with any sense at all.  Much witty banter, unbelievable action, and akward moments ensue.

The plot to this film is utterly ridiculous - something that will usually turn me against a movie.  It is preposterous that people will have the technology, as well as the attitude that they have a mere 22 years from now.  Even in '93 this movie made no sense.  To enjoy it though you just have to accept that fact, realize that it is all a farce and tells the story of an alternate reality where those things happen.  It helps that the movie never really takes itself seriously enough for you to get upset with it.

One of the most impressive things about this movie is that for the most part it stays consistent within it's own world.  There are very few "shh, ignore this blatant contradiction to an earlier plot point" moments that so often plague this type of film.  Above all, this movie is just plain fun - it's hard not to enjoy it.

**** (4/5 stars)

Public Enemies

With a pairing like Johnny Depp and Christian Bale, how could this film be anything short of awesome?  The fact that it is based on the true life tale of FBI agent Melvin Purvis (Bale) and how he tracked down infamous modern day Robin Hood gangster, John Dillinger (Depp) seems just an added bonus.  No, that was a legitimate question, not a statement.  How could a lineup like that fall so completely short?

Despite the promising setup, Public Enemies was, in my opinion, boring.  Plain and simple.  I kept telling myself that it was a portrayal of a fascinating group of characters in a fascinating time period and that I should be finding this interesting, but I didn't.  The movie was either predictable or disjointed the entire time.  I know that Dillinger had something of a short criminal career, the bulk of the "interesting stuff" took place over the course of a year - which seems a reasonable time frame for a movie to work with.  That year, for all I could tell while watching the movie, took place over the course of maybe a week or two as people in his life were imploded into one another, along with the days, creating a jerky, rushed, story that was probably about as accurate to the real events as Disney's Pocahontas.  (Wow, was that really fifteen years ago already?). 

Bale's performance was nothing special, though not unpleasent.  Depp's classy portrayal of the infamous character was probably the only enjoyable things about this movie.  Other than that, the only thing that really stood out was how odd the camera work was, moving around and zooming in somewhat randomly in a style that much better suited Cloverfield.

Between the rushed, confusing story, the boring portrayal of what must have been an exciting piece of history - or at least that could have been entertainingly presented as such - a police force that was shown as laughably idiotic, I enjoyed this movie only slightly more than going about some daily chore that I don't really mind doing.  I didn't hate it, but I don't feel I could ever reccomend it to anyone in good conscience when there are so many much better movies out there.

** (2/5 stars)

500 Days of Summer

Ok, let's get one thing out of the way off the bat.  If you don't like Zooey, you probably won't like this movie.  She's in it a lot and is very Zooeyish the whole time.  You know what I mean.  I happen to like her quirky, indie oddgirl kind of style.  Yes, she is about as versatile as one of those one button Apple mice, but, like those mice, she does the one thing she does consistently, and looks good doing it.  This movie is no exception.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt's heartfelt and energetic performance, however, might just be good enough to win over even the most vehement Zooey basher.

500 Days of Summer is "not a love story," as you will be told at the beginning of the film.  Make no mistake, though, this is a story about love.

The movie starts off somewhere in the middle as Tom (Levitt) laments what seems to be the end of his relationship with Summer (Deschanel).  Through flashbacks to previous days in the 500 we are treated to an odd, but genuine, story of boy meets girl.  From playing house in Ikea to a full blown musical number complete with a requisite animated songbird, each day shown feels fresh and offers something new.

Because of the choppy, back and forth kind of storytelling, this movie does require a bit more attention than some others, though I can't say I got lost anywhere through it.

The acting throughout is spot on, each character's very individual personality never wavering for a second, reflecting the excellent screenwriting.  Though a minor character, I found my favorite to be Tom's sister, Rachel played by young Chloë Moretz.  Her performance here makes me all the more excited for the upcoming Kick-Ass where she plays Hit Girl. 

I enjoyed this movie and was happy to find that the ending, while something of a bitter sweet one, was satisfying and didn't leave me flummoxed and disappointed like, say, the ending to Wanted.

Don't watch this if you are expecting a romantic comedy.  That's not what it is.  It is a story about two people, their encounter with each other, and how they feel about love.  And sometimes it's funny too.

**** (4/5 stars)