Archive for December, 2011

Remember Me

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

Remember Me is one of those films where not all that much happens in terms of plot. You get character arcs and storylines within the film, yes, but you don’t get a concrete plot that takes characters from place to place, goal to goal. I’ve heard them described as “life films” before, and I like that genre classification enough to take it and apply it to this film. Remember Me does something different from other films of this genre by having a really shocking and surprising ending, and if it is going to generate any type of long-lasting appeal or discussion, the ending is going to be the reason why.

This is unfortunate for me, because the ending isn’t something that I can openly discuss, because it’s the only big reason to watch the film. The revelation that occurs right near the film’s conclusion is one that will likely cause your eyes to widen and your brain to think back about what had happened for the past hour and a half. The ending is also going to be the way you figure out whether or not Remember Me was a successful film.

For the majority of the film’s runtime, you likely are going to feel bored. Life films are like this. You meet characters, deal with their daily lives, see some problems they have to overcome, watch them both succeed and fail with these problems, and that’s really it. They’re living lives that can be comparable to realistic people, and that means that many parts of the film are going to be boring. Your life doesn’t have random car chases, explosions and other action scenes on a day-to-day basis, so why would a film that is trying to mimic real life include those? It won’t.

The story primarily follows two people. Tyler Hawkins (Robert Pattinson) is the first. He has a kid sister, divorced parents and a roommate. He’s auditing classes at a local university, and doesn’t have much direction in life. It’s at school where he meets — or more importantly, is told to meet — the second main character, Ally Craig (Emili de Ravin). Her mother was murdered, and she lives with her father (Chris Cooper), a cop, who earlier in the film arrested Tyler for getting into a fight while intoxicated.

Tyler is told to meet up with Ally, as a revenge scheme created by his roommate, Aidan (Tate Ellington). Predictably, Tyler ends up falling for Ally, despite the fact that she is an incredibly annoying character, always trying to sound much smarter and deeper than she should. “Oh, I eat my desert first in case I end up dying before getting to finish my meal.” That’s a paraphrase of something she says on their first date. I instantly disliked her character.

Not that Tyler, or Aidan, was more likable. Aidan came up with the plan to potentially devastate this girl, and Tyler went along with it. All to take revenge upon a cop who did his job in breaking up a fight, and jailing the person who was talking back to him. And we don’t like Tyler much for other reasons too, like the fact that he talks back to and disrespects his father, played by Pierce Brosnan. His father bails him out of jail, being the wealthy businessman that he is, but doesn’t receive so much as a “thank you” from his son.

In a film emulating real life, you either need to like the characters from the start, or begin to like them as the film progresses. The latter somewhat happens in Remember Me, but not enough for my taste. The true test of this is in the mystery ending though; if the characters grew on you throughout the film enough, the ending will be a great payoff. If not, then you will feel like you’ve wasted two hours, and might even end up offended by what you’ve just witnessed.

If the intrigue surrounding what the ending is has piqued your curiosity enough to make you want to watch Remember Me, I suggest going into the film like the ending is a mystery, and you are trying to figure it out before your partner, (the film), tells you what it is. Look for clues throughout — the plotline is basic enough to not pay much attention to it — and if you manage to figure it out, you’ll get a great sense of accomplishment from when it is revealed in the film. Role-play for a moment here, as there are a lot of clues for you to discover, and you might just end up having fun.

Whether or not Remember Me is successful will be almost exclusively determined by how much the ending affects you. If you are still bored, it means the characters did not make you care about them, and you will feel like it was a waste of time. If you feel strong emotion, whatever it is, then I would say that the film did its job. For me, it was moderately successful, but if the characters started as better people, it probably would have been a greater watch. The ending was still shocking though, and I’m almost glad I watched it just for the feeling that caused.

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Filed under: Drama, Movies

Boot Camp

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

All throughout Boot Camp, I was trying to figure out what the purpose was in its creation. Was it trying to say that dragging teenagers from their houses, shipping them off to Fiji and keeping them there until they learned their lesson was a good thing, or a bad thing? I couldn’t tell until the end. For the most part, this is a film that is completely neutral about its main issue, even if the opening and closing text-over screens aren’t.

This is apparently based on true events, although how true they were is never said. More importantly, it doesn’t matter how real it is or claims to be, because films based on true stories are going to take whatever liberties they can get away with anyway. Boot Camp stars Mila Kunis as Sophie, a girl whose father died, and her mother remarried a man she hates. As a result, she acts out and ends up getting kidnapped, shipped to Fiji, etc.

She has a boyfriend, Ben (Gregory Smith), who is torn up about her leaving. So much so, that he decides to buy some sort of drug, not pay for it, and then inject himself with saline instead of the drug, just to get sent to the camp with her. Why? He has a plan to get her out of there. Camp Serenity, as it is called, is run by Dr. Hail (Peter Stormare). You know he’s credible because he got his PhD online. He supposedly has dedicated his life to helping troubled teens, although there doesn’t appear to be much psychological support for the teens on the island.

The first day at camp is the worst, we find out. Sophie and the other two new “recruits” are chained to a rock and forced to avoid being drowned by the incoming tide. I’m not exactly sure how they’re expected to work after having their body crushed all night, but that’s why I don’t have a PhD in, well, something. After that, they get a black shirt, some new shoes, and shorts, and get to labor all day, and then forced to eat what essentially amounts to table scraps for meals. Again, how they can work without proper nutrition — and how depriving them of proper nutrition in the first place is beneficial — is not explained.

Most of the film just follows Sophie living her days out at the camp. Months pass, as the handy text that appears every now and then tells us, and the camp actually seems to be doing its job. Maybe this doctor knows what he’s talking about after all. But then we also get to see the corruption from some of the staff, as well as the psychotic behavior from Dr. Hail himself, so we end up about even. You could question whether the ends justify the means, but that’s a question you’ll have to bring up, because Boot Camp sidesteps it like it’s a charging bull and it’s wearing a red shirt.

Sophie doesn’t have much personality, which is at least consistent with the other characters, who are all equally as lifeless. They’ve all got problems, otherwise they wouldn’t end up at this camp, but having a “tragic” back story isn’t enough to make a character interesting. This is especially true when that back story doesn’t even factor into how they act and think. They allow the characters to earn automatic sympathy, but that’s the only purpose they serve.

What’s refreshing, I suppose, about Boot Camp, is that it doesn’t follow the generic coming-of-age plot. By the end of the film, I’m not even sure whether or not the characters have learned anything at all; in fact, some of them might have regressed. Not following the “bad kid, learning, grown up” plot works in the film’s advantage, because it means it isn’t easily predictable.

With that said, the plot doesn’t exactly allow you to guess what’s going to happen next, as it jumps in whatever direction it wants at any given moment. It’ll go in some pretty strange directions too, and at times, you’ll never understand the logic behind director Christian Duguay’s decisions. Things often don’t make sense, and they also come out of nowhere, which at least keeps things fresh and interesting.

Boot Camp still feels like an amateurish movie though, and it’s no real surprise that it was released direct-to-DVD. There are times when the sound levels aren’t great, the cinematography felt off, and overall, the production values felt low. I looked, and the budget for this was $14 million, which felt really high, especially considering nobody in the cast would demand that high of a salary. I figure that moving everyone to Fiji for a few weeks ate up most of that money. (Filming then moved to my hometown of Calgary, which is one of the main reasons I wanted to see this.)

If there’s one thing to take away from this film, it’s seeing Mila Kunis playing against type. At this point in her career, she’d mostly been known for roles in comedies. Here, she gets to play a dead-serious teenager who knows much about the hardships of life. She actually does a good job in the role. Stormare plays a convincingly creepy camp owner, while everyone else gets to disappear into the background just fine.

Boot Camp isn’t all that great, but it’s a solid movie about what could happen if you’re forced to go to a boot camp in Fiji. It stays neutral for most of the time it plays about whether or not boot camps are beneficial, and it avoids falling into the clichés of the coming-of-age movie. It doesn’t feel all that professional though, and there also isn’t a lot going on with the plot — something that jumps around, going in whatever direction it feels like. It’s still an entertaining watch though, and it’s always nice to see Mila Kunis in a serious role.

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Filed under: Drama, Movies

The Confessor

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

There’s a murder. A woman named Lucy Gallagher (Nancy Beatty) sees a man standing over the body. It turns out, this man is a priest named Father Andrews (Von Flores), and he gets charged in the murder. He claims that the murder told him in confession who the murderer actually is, but since confession is confidential — the film actually makes a point of explaining this to us, so that nobody is lost — he cannot say who it was.

Enter Daniel Clemens (Christian Slater), another priest. We find out through him, and Cardinal Ledesna (Gordon Pinsent) that Andrews actually can say who the supposed murder actually is, as it isn’t technically considered a mortal sin. Andrews is adamant and won’t say who confessed to him, and as a result, it kept in captivity. The next morning, we’re told that Andrews hanged himself in the showers. Clemens doesn’t believe this, and neither do we. If a man is so devoted to his faith that he won’t risk giving up a murderer, why would he commit suicide, something that might risk his entry into the gates of St. Peter.

Clemens decides to embark on a quest to try to clear Andrews’ name, although the exact reason isn’t particularly clear. The rest of the church is perfectly okay with calling him a bad seed and putting this event in their past. But Clemens doesn’t feel this way, and he’s going to do whatever he can in order to solve the mystery of a murder I didn’t really care about. Maybe Andrews didn’t do it, maybe he did, but what does it matter? Andrews is now dead, and unless resurrection is in the cards, it’ll never matter to him whether people believe that he did it or not. Besides, God certainly knows whether this man killed another or not.

What we end up getting is a fairly basic mystery film with the good priest trying to find out who is really a murderer. Again, I don’t think there’s much point to this, but if it makes sense to Clemens, that’s all that really matters. Along the way, a bunch of people are questioned, there are a ton of red herrings, and the ending will probably come out of nowhere. At least, it did to me. I didn’t suspect the person who is actually guilty, although that’s probably because that person isn’t really in the film much, giving us little reason to suspect him or her.

As a result, the conclusion to The Confessor comes as a surprise, almost like a twist ending. But it’s not effective because there haven’t been any clues for us to figure out who the killer is. There are a lot of times that make us question certain groups or individuals, but I’ll save you the trouble and tell you that they weren’t behind it. It’s a character you’ve barely seen and it makes little sense that he would be involved at all. There’s no motivation behind the killing, and when we eventually find out who it is, we find out that he’s killed “three times since [his] last confession.” Really now? And nobody has caught on? Why did you kill these people? We only find out about the first murder, and even then, it’s not a satisfactory explanation.

Even the investigation, which takes up the majority of the film, isn’t that involving for the audience. Maybe it’s because I didn’t believe it to be necessary in the first place, but every time Clemens would go talk to another character, I wanted him to get all of his answers so that he can get back to doing his job. And then he gets sidetracked a couple of times throughout, but those subplots don’t really lead anywhere.

The interesting parts of the film, like the corruption of the Catholic church, or possible abuse in shelters, are largely ignored. These are issues that could have been touched on or had statements made about them, but they get brought up used as a way to make us think about who is behind the murder, and then forgotten about. There’s also the suicide of Andrews, which Clemens believes was actually murder, which is never solved.

Clemens eventually asks for the help of his news reporter ex-wife, Madeline (Molly Parker), whose purpose is to follow him around and do nothing else. This is really a one-man show, and she basically just gets in the way, but allows him to portray his thoughts to the audience instead of talking to himself. There’s conflict between them, as he left her to become a priest a while ago, but that’s also a topic that is brought up but later ignored.

Are there parts of The Confessor that are any good? Not really. Christian Slater doesn’t make a believable priest while all of the other characters sink into the background because this is his show to run. If there is anything to take out of this film, it’s that it’s only an hour and a half, so it’s not like it’s going to waste all that much of your time. And since it’s not a deep movie or one that will require much work or participation from the audience, you can turn your brain off and watch a determined man try to solve something that doesn’t need solving in the first place.

There’s nothing to like about The Confessor, and there’s also no reason to give it a watch, unless you’re a rabid Christian Slater fan, because he’s in almost every frame of this film. The plot is mundane, the characters are lifeless, the twist at the end comes out of nowhere for the wrong reasons, and it sidesteps all of the interesting issues in favor of having Slater go around talking to random characters. This is a worthless murder mystery, and you have no reason to give it 90 minutes of your time.

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Filed under: Movies, Suspense

Stuck on You

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

Bob (Matt Damon) works as a burger flipper and part-owner at a Quickie Burger restaurant, where if your meal is not on your table 180 seconds after you order it, it’s free. Walt (Greg Kinnear) also works as a burger flipper and part owner at a Quickie Burger. We watch both characters live their lives for a few days, see how they enjoy living in their small town, and watch them do whatever it is they do. For a while, I thought this was going to be a life film, where plot is largely forgotten about to watch people just live life.

We end up getting a plot, although not much of one. See, the two characters I mentioned in the beginning are conjoined twins. I bet that threw you for a loop, didn’t it? They have to do everything together, which leads to some pretty humorous situations. I especially liked watching both of them standing on a pitcher’s mound and playing a baseball game. I think a life film would have been quite appropriate here, because watching these two going about their daily business has enough complications with it. We probably could watch them for a couple of hours and be entertained, because it’s both humorous to see them deal with life, while also kind of sad seeing them struggle the way they do, even while they put up such a happy face.

But that’s not what we get. See, Walt is an actor, and while he performs on the stage, Bob just gets dragged along in the background, trying to blend in so that Walt can have his moment in the spotlight. Being an actor, Walt decides that he wants to move to Hollywood. Since the only procedure to separate the pair only gives Walt a 50/50 shot of surviving, they can’t do that. Bob decides to be a good sport and allows Walt to pursue his dreams in Hollywood. This allows for more humorous situations, while also giving an excuse to have a ton of celebrity cameos.

Eventually, Walt does get a job on a television show which Cher is starring in. Yes, Oscar winner Cher is in this movie and apparently could be in a television show. She hates it, but since Walt is apparently such a good actor, he brings in ratings. Watching them try to film without having Bob enter the picture are probably the best parts of this film, and it’s too bad that there aren’t more of them. Suffice to say that if this was a real television show, it would be worth a watch just for the unintentional comedy that comes from a random nose or body part showing up every now and then.

This isn’t a movie that’s supposed to surprise you or throw a lot of twists your way. Instead, it’s going to tell you a contained story about a couple of people trying to live their lives with a huge handicap. I figured out how it was going to end near the middle, and despite being right, there was a sweetness to the entire experience that made it worthwhile.

I think this comes from both of the characters, as they’re both nice guys and (generally) get along quite well. They fight, as most brothers do, but their fights are kind of pathetic and meaningless, especially when you consider that they’ll be sleeping right next to one another come nighttime. It’s kind of hard to do any real damage to someone when you’ll be forced into the hospital and to undergo tests if you do. Winning such a fight wouldn’t feel like a victory.

There’s a subplot involving Bob and his girlfriend of three years. They’ve never actually met, as they’ve dealt strictly online, but after moving to California, conveniently where she lives, a meeting is inevitable. But Bob has neglected to tell her about his brother, let alone that they’re literally inseparable. Hiding this in an actual meeting is difficult, although as I learned, not impossible in the short term.

The brothers, despite supposedly being twins, are not alike as you’d expect. Their differing appearance is attributed to Bob having 80% of the liver, meaning he won’t age as quickly. Bob is also far more quiet and reserved, which makes me wonder if having most of a split liver impacts your personality too. Walt is the more outspoken and well-spoken of the two. Kinnear actually seemed far more comfortable than Damon did with his role, while Damon never seemed completely right with what was happening.

Supporting roles in Stuck on You come from Eva Mendes, as the stupid neighbor of the pair once arriving in Hollywood; Cher, who takes a self-parody turn here; Seymour Cassel, as the twins’ wheelchair using agent who at one point attempts to get them to star in a pornographic film; and Wen Yann Shih as Bob’s long-term internet girlfriend. The supporting cast is colorful and interesting, while also giving the two leads a lot of time to act silly.

I actually had a pretty good time with Stuck on You, which surprised me. The jokes were pretty funny, the characters endearing, and there was a plot. Not much of one, but at least the thought was there. Most importantly, I had fun while watching it, even if it does last too long and had a fair bit of redundancy. Still, since I was laughing fairly often at either the jokes of the ridiculousness of the entire premise, that’s still laughing which is the goal of a comedy.

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Filed under: Comedy, Movies

Drive Angry

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

Drive Angry could have easily be marketed as a Terminator sequel, and I don’t think I would have batted an eye. Here is a film about a man named John Milton (Nicolas Cage) who is going around killing people all while looking for a specific target. Said target is Jonah King (Billy Burke), who has the MacGuffin that Milton wants — in this case, it’s his granddaughter, but it really doesn’t matter what it is.

John Milton is a character that shows little emotion throughout the entire film, despite being fairly polite most of the time. Sure, he’s determined and he is technically a pretty good guy, but he’s channeling about as much Arnold Schwarzenegger as you can without copying the infamous accent. He’s even got the sunglasses to match. Unfortunately, he never gets a motorcycle, instead preferring classic cars like a ‘69 Charger and a ‘71 Chevelle.

He is picked up by a foul-mouthed waitress named Piper (Amber Heard), who, after being rescued by Milton from her cheating, abusive boyfriend, decides to go on the journey with him. These two people have no chemistry whatsoever, although you’ll be glad to hear that they don’t become love interests. Why she stays isn’t all that clear to me, although after killing a couple of police officers, I guess there wasn’t any turning back.

The duo is chased at all times by a man called the Accountant (William Fichtner), who is almost always a step or two behind them, interrogating any and all survivors of the action scenes they participate in. He also proves himself to be able to handle himself quite well, moving as quickly as the agents in The Matrix, while also being just as strong. Oh, and he has a coin that he flips occasionally just to get some use out of the 3D effect.

I mentioned action scenes. There are many of them and they are sometimes inventive, although often they just degenerate into shootouts and car chases. In terms of creativity, there is one that stands out, and it involves a sex scene crossed with a shootout. If you previously hadn’t realized that Drive Angry wasn’t taking itself too seriously, you will now.

That’s a mistake that’s easy to make though, especially with how serious Cage plays his role. He doesn’t smile or even smirk, and emotion is something that gets thrown out the window right away. The comparison to Schwarzenegger’s Terminator is completely valid here, and it’s difficult to tell right off the bat that this film is going to turn into an over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek, B-movie.

If all you want out of Drive Angry are a bunch of violent action scenes that have guns and cars both firing on all cylinders, than you might not be disappointed. The longest pause in the action lasts for maybe 10 minutes, if that, and there will almost always be something to focus on. If that’s all you want, then you should probably stop reading the review right now, because the rest of the things that I have to say are not going to be all that positive. More importantly, if all you want is the action movie described above, anything negative I have to say after this point won’t matter to you.

People wanting a plot that deviates from formula won’t be happy with Drive Angry. There aren’t any surprises, you’ll see everything coming, and the big “twist” of the film — one that has every attempt made to hide it for as long as possible — is given away in the trailers and the posters, and also doesn’t make any difference to the plot, except to set-up the protagonist as invincible. After the twist happens, and you probably already know what it is, there isn’t any tension to the action scenes, and I stopped caring altogether, even if Milton’s actions are noble and good and what have you.

If you’re also wanting good, or at least memorable performances, you’re going to have to look elsewhere. Cage isn’t as hammy as you’d hope, while Heard doesn’t do much apart from run around looking confused. Stealing the show in every scene that he’s in is Fichtner as the Accountant, but he basically just chases our leads, rarely interacting with anyone worthwhile. His character is the best part of the film, but he’s underutilized and needed far more to do. A movie just about him and his job probably would have been more entertaining.

Drive Angry is also a film that takes too long to get where it wants to go. There are stops off at random places where the only thing that happens are random action scenes, as well as a few car chases that could have been cut. It isn’t a long film by any stretch of the imagination, but for what it offers, it sure does feel like it takes its sweet time to deliver. I got bored at around the half-way point, meaning the second half, while slightly more engaging, was difficult to endure.

If all you want out of a movie is over-the-top action, then Drive Angry might not disappoint. If you want more substance, then you’ll want to avoid this film like the plague, and go search out something else. Since it feels like a Terminator movie anyway, why don’t you go watch one of those? At least they didn’t completely rely on formula plotting or 3D gimmicks.

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Filed under: Action, Movies
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