Archive for July, 2011

The Marine

  • Written by Matthew Parkinson
  • Posted July 31, 2011 at 12:00 am

The Marine was one of the first films to be solely produced by WWE Studios, (after See No Evil), and it features one of the WWE’s biggest stars: John Cena. In an effort to cash-in on Cena’s popularity, they decided to have him attempt to act in a loud, obnoxious, silly action film. The result is likely just about what you’d expect.

Cena plays John Triton, a Marine, who begins the film on a mission. Ignoring a direct order to hold back, Triton rushes head-first into a combat zone, and frees prisoners who were about to be executed. His reward is a swift discharge from the Marine Corps. Not being able to cope with his home-life, he and his wife (Kelly Carlson) decide to pack their things and leave. Where do they want to go? It doesn’t matter.

His wife is quickly captured while John is inside of a gas station. She waits in the car, and as criminals pull up, led by a man named Rome (Robert Patrick), a police car also pulls up. The criminals feel threatened, and they disable the officers inside, and steal John’s girl. They also blow up the gas station for good measure, but John manages to survive the explosion and begin chasing them.

This is what the rest of the film consists of: explosions and chase sequences. John is now a man on a mission, as he loves his wife, and will stop at nothing to rescue her. He survives countless encounters with the criminals, and doesn’t sustain any serious damage at any point of the film. This ends up being one of the film’s many problems.

Action films don’t exactly have a history of being anywhere close to realistic, and The Marine is no exception. One of the things that separates, say, Die Hard, from The Marine, is the way their heroes actually feel the effects of the action scenes they are in. If John McClane is thrown to the ground, or punched in the face, he feels is. Conversely, John Triton doesn’t seem to feel anything. Even an explosion, set off almost directly beside him, doesn’t faze him. He’s seemingly impervious to any real damage, and it makes it really hard to make it empathize with him.

The other problem the film has is in its hand-to-hand combat scenes. They use a fast-cut type of editing, meaning that with every punch, the camera shifts or shakes. You don’t get to see much of the actual fisticuffs, and this seems odd for a film starring a professional wrestler. If there’s one thing Cena should be able to do–as he certainly isn’t a good actor–it should be that he can fight, or at least fake it. He’s used to throwing punches at people, and this type of editing is completely unnecessary, unless of course the fight scenes looked terrible without it.

If nothing else, at least The Marine can say it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Or, at least, its secondary cast doesn’t. John Cena thinks this is the most serious project ever made, and is determined to keep a serious face throughout the film. The other actors, the ones who are actually film actors, all seemed to know what the film was–a joke made to quickly make money off John Cena’s success.

Even the dialogue of the film makes it seem like it is trying to be as silly as possible. In the opening scene, after Cena rescues a trapped soldier, they come across a group of terrorists. The soldier asks John how they are going to get around the terrorists. John replies with the incredibly predictable and cheesy, “We don’t. We go through them.” There are many more moments in the film like this, where, even if you haven’t seen the film, you will be able to predict the next line of dialogue. It’s like it was all written as quickly as possible, with the writers attempting to see how many hilarious lines they could get away with.

Unfortunately, The Marine doesn’t quite venture into the “so bad it’s good” territory. That was the only hope it had at being a watchable film, and it didn’t quite make it that far. It comes close, and seemingly made a valiant effort, but it just wasn’t quite bad enough to be a riot while watching it. You can’t laugh at all of it, largely because of how serious Cena plays his role, and it loses a lot of its potential fun at this point.

For a film that’s sole purpose was to give wrestling fans a 90 minute film of John Cena blowing things up, I suppose that The Marine served its purpose. As a film taken out of that context, it is quite bad. The plot is simplified, the acting is poor and the action scenes are not all that well-made. It’s not a bad enough film to provide constant laughter, but it’s also not entertaining enough for non-WWE fans to get enjoyment out of it. Hardcore John Cena fans are the target audience, and they’re also the only ones that are likely to get entertainment from The Marine. And even then, I’m not so sure.

No Comments
Filed under: Action, Movies

V for Vendetta

  • Written by Matthew Parkinson
  • Posted July 30, 2011 at 12:00 am

V for Vendetta is a political thriller dressed up in a cape, top hat and Guy Fawkes mask that is calling itself an action film. All of the tropes involved in a political thriller are here: Government coverup and conspiracies are both on display here. But since the film opens with a bang — a quick fight scene leading to an explosion — and because there are a couple of neat fight scenes that involve guns and swords, it’s allowed to call itself an action film.

The film opens when we meet our two lead characters. The first is Evey (Natalie Portman), who decides to go out for the night. This isn’t allowed in this dystopian city, as a curfew is in effect. She gets surrounded by members of the secret police, who try to rape her. They don’t get that chance. They’re interrupted by our other lead character, a masked man going solely by the letter “V” (Hugo Weaving). He saves her, and then delivers the most impressive dialogue in the entire film. Proving that he knows how to use a thesaurus, giving us a monologue that contains 40+ words that begin with the letter “V”. Unfortunately, this talent is never touched upon again, but it still serves as an incredibly effective introduction to this person.

Like I described the film, V is armed with a mask, cape and top hat, as well as knives, which he uses effectively. There’s a reason for this explained to us in slightly muddled flashbacks, but thank goodness that we’re given a reason for his actions. If we didn’t get this back-story, and learn about what happened to V, he’d come off as just another serial killer who is unhappy with his current situation. but we’re given justification, and while going around killing people isn’t usually the best course of action, we still want to see V succeed because of the depth given to his character.

But this doesn’t make his actions right, and I can see why some people would be put off by the politics involved in this film. Essentially, we’re told for 2 hours that the government is terrible, and that anarchy is the best form of government (or lack thereof). Totalitarian governments have had questionable success in the past, but here they’re set-up as completely evil, even if they don’t really do all that much wrong. Okay, there’s a curfew and the media is censored, but compared to reports of lives under dictatorship rule in our history, they aren’t that bad. It’s not even completely clear if V is telling the truth in one of the conspiracies that he accuses them of.

However, this is part of the fun in a film like this. It gives you a lot to think about and it isn’t an easy watch. It’s not that you have to pay that much attention, because the basic story — one of a plot to kill select individuals and then blow up parliament buildings — is fairly simple. But you need to pay attention because then the themes and ideas, whether you agree with them or not, will stick with you and leave you thinking about the film later.

Another thing to keep you thinking is V himself. Thanks to his back-story, we can sympathize with him. But the way that Hugo Weaving plays him is an amazing feat. In a lot of superhero films, (or anti-hero, but that’s not that point), people wear masks to hide their true identities from other characters. That’s true here as well, but in other films, the audience sees the protagonist’s face as often as the plot allows, so that the actor can do what they do best. This doesn’t happen even once here. Weaving doesn’t get the luxury of showing us his facial expressions, so he has to use the tone of his voice and his body language to convey all of his emotions. He does this, and it’s incredible.

Even though most of the film is dialogue-oriented, there are a few action scenes scattered throughout. They’re fun to watch, but far too short and they fail to leave the same impact that the dialogue does. There are also two large-scale explosions throughout. The first fails to leave any impact whatsoever, at least, on the first viewing, because it occurs before we’re given any context. The second, however, serves as a symbolic explosion, one that, given proper context, would certainly provide the characters in the film a good feeling. And it gives us one too, because after sitting through two hours, we almost feel like part of the crowd. Well, you do if you don’t completely disagree with what the film preaches.

What’s most surprising about V for Vendetta is the fact that the most emotional scene didn’t actually come from our lead characters, or from any of their actions. It came in the form of an “autobiography”, which detailed a small portion of someone’s life. I can’t believe how the scene when it is read hit me, especially because we had never heard of this character before, and she’s only mentioned once afterward. But that’s what good writing can do for you.

The dystopian setting is also a joy to look at. It’s derivative of earlier dystopian films, but that’s generally okay. Since it looks so good, and none of the special effects get in the way of plot, there’s nothing to complain about when it comes to visuals.

V for Vendetta is a complete package without any glaring flaws. The back-story given to V was kind of silly, but I’m still glad it was included. The film is still visually impressive, and always engaging even when there are extended scenes where all the character do is talk. Don’t be fooled though, this isn’t a fast-paced action film — it’s more of a political thriller than anything else. And if you dislike a message preaching anarchy, you might end up hating this film. It’s possible to still enjoy it regardless, but it’s still a film that will stick with you.

No Comments
Filed under: Action, Comic Book, Movies, Science Fiction

Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

  • Written by Matthew Parkinson
  • Posted July 29, 2011 at 12:00 am

In Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, the titular character (played by Johnny Depp) indulges in a bloody massacre. There’s reason for it: He’s lost his mind! It doesn’t happen all at once though, as there is originally a reason he begins killing people. He starts out with a target, one Judge Turpin (Alan Rickman). We see in a flashback that the honorable one wrongfully arrests Mr. Todd with the intent of stealing his wife after jailing our protagonist.

The thing about jail is that it doesn’t last forever. We arrive back in London, 15 years after this travesty took place. Sweeney Todd is back and wants revenge on this judge. He goes to his former place of dwelling to find a woman named Mrs. Lovett (Helena Bonham Carter) residing there. She owns a meat shop that doesn’t have any meat. Meat’s expensive after all. He opens up a barber shop above the meat shop, hoping that one day, the judge will come for a shave. The plan is to murder him.

The plan goes awry when another barber comes up to the shop and recognizes Todd from 15 years prior. This man acts like an Italian, but when in Todd’s private quarters, we find out he’s native to London. In a surprising turn, this man is played by Sacha Baron Cohen, but it is a short lived role. Todd disposes of the man and then the story takes an interesting turn. Since meat’s expensive, why doesn’t Mrs. Lovett use them eat from the deceased barber’s body? And what if other people turn up to get a shave? What about using their bodies for meat too? And all the while, await the judge? It’s not the least logical plan I’ve ever heard.

This is more or less how most of the film goes. There’s also a subplot that involves a man named Anthony (Jamie Cambpell Bower) and the judge’s ward, Johanna (Jayne Wisener). Johanna is Todd’s daughter, so he assists Anthony in attempting to break her out. And since that will also put a crinkle in the life of Turpin, well, all the better then. Unfortunately, this subplot is underdeveloped and only serves as padding to the main story. I don’t support removing it, because it’s a good story and it definitely needs including, but I would have liked even more from it.

The main story is a simple one, but it’s well-told and kept me engaged. There are a couple of big twists — one of which you’ll probably see coming but leaves an impact regardless — and it’s well-paced and not difficult to follow along with. That’s pretty much all you want in a story like the one found here, because there’s nothing to complain about and nothing to keep you from sitting back and enjoying the experience.

And what an experience it ends up being. From the film’s opening moments, it draws you in. The opening scene, before we even meet any of our actors appear, is mostly CGI, but it sets the mood. Right off the get-go, we want to know more about the world that director Tim Burton crafts for us. Of course, we expect it to be weird, given the director. And it is, but never weird enough to make it seem surreal. This is a balancing act that is hard to pull off, but Burton does.

I should probably mention that Sweeny Todd is a musical, although to be honest, that shouldn’t affect whether or not you should see it, but if you absolutely cannot stand musicals, then I’ve at least forewarned you of that. However, I would implore you to see this anyway, because it is absolutely worth your time.

Speaking of the music, in a film like this, you have to make note of how well the actors did with their singing. They did fine. I’m not a music critic, but I could easily listen to the actors all day long. They all did their own singing too, which is nice because a lot of films dub over their actors with trained singers. Hearing the actual voices of our actors is refreshing, and since they all do a fine job, there’s nothing troubling about doing this. Oh, and also unlike many other films, the synchronizing of the sound and the lips of the actors matches up almost perfectly.

Sweeney Todd is not without its detractors though. Even though it creates a great atmosphere that almost instantly draws us in, we’re removed from the film at differing moments whenever obscene amounts of blood spray from the necks of Todd’s victims. The blood is laughable, and it made me sad that what was otherwise an almost perfect film would have such laughable blood effects. There is also one song in the middle of the film that made no sense to me, where Todd and Mrs. Lovett discuss the meat they will obtain, noting how the professions of the individual will alter the taste of the meat. As far as I know, that’s not how it works, and this song, while clever in relating personality clichés to flavor, fails to serve a true point. (This film is based on a play of the same title though, and I feel this criticism should be levied at the original play and not on the film itself. But then again, other songs from the play were left out, so it easily could have happened with this song in particular.)

Sweeney Todd is, in short, a great film. The way it’s set-up, crafted, presented and acted is all amazing. This is a film that draws you in from the opening sequence, and holds your attention until the credits role. And absolute wonder to behold and listen to, thanks to actors who are also talented singers. Unfortunately, the excessive gore does detract from the otherwise serious nature of the murders within. Give Sweeney Todd a watch, as it is well worth your time.

No Comments
Filed under: Horror, Movies, Musical

Centurion

  • Written by Matthew Parkinson
  • Posted July 28, 2011 at 12:00 am

Centurion comes to from writer-director Neil Marshall, who is someone who likes his movies to be bloody. After his previous three films, Dog Soldiers, The Descent and Doomsday, we’ve come to learn and expect this from him. Now comes Centurion, the first of his films not to begin with the letter “D”, (excluding definite articles, of course), where the blood is ramped up and is even more noticeable thanks to the limited palette of colours that it is splattered upon.

The story, and I use the term loosely, follows a small group of Roman soldiers, who, after being ambushed by the Picts, end up going on an adventure to avoid being killed themselves. Our lead is Michael Fassbender, playing someone named Dias. He survives a couple of times, more or less by chance, and therefore becomes the main character. There is also a mute girl, Etain (Olga Kurylenko), who had her tongue removed before the film starts. Her role is actually fairly central, and despite being mute, Kurylenko makes her character stand-out.

All of the other characters, apart from the two I mentioned, are indistinguishable from one another. During the combat scenes, I couldn’t tell who was who. I couldn’t even, for most of the time, determine if the person getting their head cut off or taking an arrow to the eye was a Roman or Pict, which makes all of the fight sequences lose purpose. There are times when these parts actually become boring, not because nothing is happening, but because you can’t determine who’s getting bludgeoned. You try to stay around for the ride, but it’s too difficult to stay focused when each side may as well be filled with generic soldiers that we have absolutely no attachment to.

Also, in regards to the action scenes, the excess blood comes off looking silly. It’s clear that there’s a lot of CGI blood being used, and when it squirts out of extremities in ways that are unrealistic, we notice. Setting these fights against a gray-blue background, and the blood stands out like a sore thumb. There are more than a few moments where this took me out of the film, and since this isn’t a b-movie like a couple of Marshall’s other efforts, but instead a semi-serious period piece, these types of blood effects don’t work.

I say “semi-serious” because I’m not sure that Marshall took the source material and gave it all of the respect that it deserves. The people who we follow are supposed to be the missing “Ninth Legion”, but little indication is given of that in the film. But the fable is turned into a film that plays out like an extended chase sequence. The opening isn’t like this, but after the ambush I talked about earlier, almost all of the film is like this.

And then there is the dialogue, which doesn’t reflect the time period at all. Obviously I can’t be completely sure of this, but I’m fairly certain that the Romans didn’t speak like we do in the modern-day. In fact, considering how taboo certain four letter words were just a century ago, I sincerely doubt that they would go around saying such “blasphemy” in AD 117. But, this is where the “semi-serious” part of the film comes in again. If Marshall was trying for a completely faithful re-telling of, well, anything, then he failed. But I don’t believe that to be the case, because his past history shows that this isn’t the type of writer or director that he is.

The actors are fine, but are nothing special. Everyone does a decent job, because they kept a straight face despite all of the foolishness that is going on around them, but there isn’t any depth to their performances. Since none of the characters are given anything to stand-out from the rest of the crowd, it’s hard to even notice the actors playing them. The exception to this is Kurylenko, who stands out because she is female. But she brings some life to her character, even though she doesn’t get a single line of dialogue. (Not even in a flashback that I was almost certain would appear, but didn’t.)

The biggest shame about Centurion is that it gets off to a good start, but ends up degenerating into a long, drawn-out chase sequence. The first 20 or so minutes are actually really engaging and fun to watch. We open strong, with a beat-up Dias trying to escape. We then learn of the two weeks that lead up to this moment. But as soon as we return to present time, the film becomes boring and I stopped caring. Dias also has almost no personality after what’s shown in the first few minutes, which makes it hard to care about him.

I like Neil Marshall, but this is his weakest film though. There were points were it was a fun watch, but the majority of the film is a chase sequence revolving around indistinguishable characters that I cared so very little about. The action scenes are not good enough to save the uninteresting plot, because they riddled with noticeable CGI blood and the fact that it’s hard to tell if the characters you’re watching fight are ones you’ve even seen before. Centurion is a mess of a film, and isn’t one you should seek out, even if you’re a fan of Neil Marshall.

No Comments
Filed under: Action, Movies, War

Lady in the Water

  • Written by Matthew Parkinson
  • Posted July 27, 2011 at 12:00 am

Lady in the Water is even more ridiculous when you consider how easily its characters go along with the story. A woman (Bryce Dallas Howard) appears in a pool of water near the beginning of the film. The handyman of an apartment complex finds her, and immediately believes that she is some sort of magical being that comes right out of a fairy tale — a fairy tale that is told to him over the course of the film, whenever he’s unsure of what to do.

He’s not the only one either. All of the other members of this appointment complex believe that she is special. There is not one hint of skepticism to be found here, as all of the secondary characters play along whenever they are called upon. There’s one moment in the film where a large group of characters, are told that they need to be involved in some sort of ceremony. None of them say anything about how preposterous this ceremony is, but instead just relish all of their roles and perform their tasks just like they’re told. I know that a suspension of disbelief is required in fantasy films like this, but this is just a little too ridiculous for me to accept.

This is how the plot of Lady in the Water sets up. The handyman is named Cleveland, and is played by Paul Giamatti. He finds this woman, named Story, and immediately accepts that she requires his assistance in getting home. Why does she need to get home in the first place? What would happen if she fails? It’s never explained, or if it is, I didn’t care. It seemed like the better option would be to ignore her and kick her out of the complex. But I guess that wouldn’t result in a good movie now, would it?

Which isn’t to say that it resulted in a good movie anyway, and by the end, I hoped that Gimatti’s character would have just forgotten about the lady, and then I wouldn’t have been put through what felt like 2 hours of torture. Or maybe the creature that inexplicably lurks in the tall grass would finish them off. It comes close a couple of times, but the worst it does is give some scratches to the legs of Story. It looks like a green wolf, or at least, would if the CGI wasn’t terrible.

Given the budget of this film, the CGI should actually look perfect. $75 million was the final budget for a film like this, and since there’s no way that the actors involved demanded an exorbitant salary, and apart from a couple of CGI creatures, there are no special effects, $75 million seems excessive. The money went into actually building an entire apartment complex, because director M. Night Shyamalan wanted to. And since this movie came out when Shyamalan could do almost whatever he wanted with his films, he was allowed to do this.

Also at this point in Shyamalan’s career was the belief that he would finish his films with a twist ending. So yeah, that happens. But twist endings fail to hold any importance when they happen just for the sake of happening. The multiple twists that occur in this film involve characters that we’ve only interacted with once or twice, and are only surprising because we’ve forgotten about them. And the twist only actually comes to fruition because of a mistake made by one of the characters to begin with. It’s contrived and made me disappointed that we had to be tricked in order to be surprised.

Apart from Cleveland, the handyman, none of the characters get sufficient time to develop or becoming fully fleshed out characters. Here’s something else that’s odd: Story, the character in the title of the film, gets less time on-screen that the one that Shyamalan himself plays. I get that she needs to be somewhat of a mystery, and since she may or may not actually be human, she might not actually have much of a personality, but she needed to be present far more often that she was. She mostly just lies around on a couch or bed for most of the film.

And then there are some characters that appear for a specific purpose, but are used for nothing other than that. An elderly woman named Mrs. Choi (June Kyoto Lu) is who ends up reciting most of the fairy tale to Cleveland. But since she doesn’t speak English, she was given a daughter who can. These two characters serve that one purpose, and nothing else. This is true of other characters too, like a film critic (Bob Balabam) who talks down to everyone, supposedly symbolizing what Shyamalan thinks of film critics. (At least, if everything in this film is supposed to be symbolic, that’s my guess.)

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the parts I liked about the film, so let’s do that. One of the scenes involving the film critic was funny. One of the scenes near the beginning when Cleveland finds Story also made me laugh. The first scene was actually intended to be humorous, while the latter was unintentionally hilarious. Quite a lot of the film is unintentionally funny, either because it’s just terrible or because the situations are so preposterous. But you’ll probably laugh a fair bit at the film’s expense.

But that’s all I liked. Most of the film is mundane and an unenjoyable experience. The actors are poor, the plot is ridiculous and felt contrived, and the twists near the end are only twists because the film cheats. Lady in the Water may be trying to represent a children’s fairy tale, but instead of watching it, you’d have more fun reading a real fairy tale. Although if you need something to put you to bed, this might be for you.

No Comments
Filed under: Uncategorized
?>