The Big Fat Review Part I (Life of Pi, Lincoln & Django Unchained)

Story: It has been two months since I last posted a film review on this site. I just stopped writing, in the middle of the Oscar season. I had my reasons and I can come up with good excuses, but I also have something better. The Big Fat Review. Because the fact that I stopped writing about films, does not mean that I stopped watching them.

Life of Pi was astonishing. Mind-blowingly beautiful. I felt a bit uncomfortable at first with the entire religion subtext, but Oscar winning director Ang Lee solved this problem beautifully in the last act.  Central to this film is not, in my opinion, that this is a story that will make you believe in God. Life of Pi is a film that makes you understand why people, when confronted with circumstances wildly beyond their control, choose to believe in God. Curiously, the visual effects company that won the Life of Pi its second Oscar has gone bankrupt.

There is no director in the history of movies who can get away with a philosophical discussion in the middle of a dinosaur-movie for kids, and who also directs a political debate in a historical drama as if it were a nail biting action scene. Lincoln is a classic example of ‘pompous Spielberg’, following such films as Saving Private Ryan, Schindler’s List, Amistad and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. This does not mean that the film is not good. Because it quite clearly is. Daniel Day-Lewis is astonishing as Lincoln, but his thunderous performance does draw too much attention away from equally fantastic turns by Tommy Lee Jones, Sally Field and Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Curiously, while Lincoln was about the political fight for the abolition of slavery, it did not bother showing or pointing out what a terrible injustice and crime it was. That specific historical lesson is told by Quentin Tarantino in Django Unchained, his long-awaited ‘Southern’.  I have my issues with Tarantino, and these issues played up again during Django Unchained. I can do without the sadism. I don’t need to see a man being torn apart by dogs. It is enough for me if this cruelty is suggested. Tarantino films are almost always way too long. And too talky. And every character in it speaks like Quentin. But, and herein lies the great difference with the reprehensible Inglourious Basterds, I believe that Django Unchained has a clear moral centre. The sadism is inflicted by the bad guys, and is there to highlight the immorality of slavery.  It does help that the fantastic Christoph Waltz is this time one of the good guys. While Samuel L. Jackson, Jamie Foxx and Leonardo DiCaprio all put in good performances, they are blown away by mr. Waltz.

The Big Fat Review will continue this weekend, with discussions of Silver Linings Playbook, Robot & Frank, Pitch Perfect, Arbitrage and Zero Dark Thirty.

Review: Les Misérables (dir. Tom Hooper)

Story: In 1815 Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman), imprisoned for 19 years after stealing a loaf of bread, is released from jail by warden Javert (Russell Crowe). In the following 17 years Valjean tries to redeem his life, partially by becoming warden to the orphan Cosette (Amanda Seyfried). But his past, and Javert, follow Valjean wherever he goes.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is official. The first stinker of the year is in! It’s name is Les Misérables. It is directed by the guy who made the overrated The King’s Speech (2011) and stars everyone in the known universe (next to Jackman, Crowe and Seyfried we see Anne Hathaway, Sacha Baron Cohen, Helena Bonham Carter and Eddie Redmayne). It is adapted from the hugely successful stage show (in turn adapted from Victor Hugo’s epic novel), which is said to be ‘a musical for people who do not like musicals’. Unfortunately, in its screen adaptation, it has become a movie for people who do not like movies.

The problem is not that it is a musical. I like musicals. I like Evita, West Side Story, Singing in the Rain and Jesus Christ Superstar. But when we look at that list we can see where the problem with Les Mis lies. These other musicals have a sense of playfulness, joy or at least irony in them. Les Misérables has none of that. It is, simply put, no fun (apart from the bit where Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter run a fraudulent inn – that part is funny).

Also, I do not mind people singing in films. I love good songs. And, let’s be honest, there are some good songs in Les Misérables: Look Down, I Dreamed a Dream, Master of the House and Empty Chairs at Empty Tables are excellent songs. And they are performed excellently in this film. But I cannot properly enjoy these songs because every single line of dialogue surrounding them is sung. And not just sung: performed with an overkill of emphasis, sincerity and emotion. Seriously: what’s wrong with a bit of dialogue? You know, just people talking and only bursting into good songs at appropriate moments?

And because every scene needs to be a song, and songs take time, Lés Miserables takes time. Too much time. Especially the bulk of the movie, which is set in Paris on the eve of the 1832 uprisings, is dreadfully long. And it is telling the story of the love triangle between three young people. The rivalry between Javert and Valjean – which in the beginning seemed to be the central plot line – is pushed in the background. Thereby the film loses its balance, its point and my interest. It appears in the end that Valjean’s character arc had already been completed halfway through the film!

On the plus side: a few good songs, decent performances (a truly outstanding Anne Hathaway being the exception) and gorgeous sets and costumes. On the downside: no balance, no fun, no irony, a glorification of revolution and death and Russell Crowe. Bless Russell, I think he is a terrific actor. But he is not up to the vocal challenges of his part. Hugh Jackman is (or once was) a musical performer, and he can do the singing. But put him next to Crowe and all I am seeing is a duet between Maximus and Wolverine.

Final verdict: After seeing Les Misérables this reviewer felt like Hugh Jackman’s character Jean Valjean near the end of the film: as if I’d wallowed through a stream of shit with a dead body on my shoulders. A preposterous exercise in grotesque grandstanding that offers no fun at all. And it just won’t end…

Review: Jack Reacher (dir. Christopher McQuarrie)

Story: The mysterious ex-soldier Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) is hired by a lawyer (Rosumand Pike) to investigate a shooting of which her client is suspected. Local law enforcement (personified by David Oyelowo and Richard Jenkins) as well as a mysterious third party are not too happy with Reacher’s presence.

Lee Child has by now written over a dozen novels about Jack Reacher – a mysterious and invincible ex-soldier who fights for justice wherever he turns up. These are typical airport novels: you pick them up if you’re waiting for a plane, or to kill time on a long flight. But you’d never buy them when you are shopping for a ‘proper’ book.

It comes as no surprise then that Jack Reacher, the film adaptation of the novel One Shot, feels exactly like a movie you would watch on an airplane. It is good enough. It does what it needs to do – entertain you as long as it lasts – but it does nothing more than that.

The character Jack Reacher reminds one of Clint Eastwood’s man with no name, in Sergio Leone’s dollar trilogy. Or of these typical hard boiled detectives from Raymond Chandler novels. Tough men, living on the borders of the law, but always fighting the good fight. The film Jack Reacher also invokes these sterotypes: it is set in a nameless city in the middle of the USA, with no apparent connections to the outside world – save a busline or two. There the two stereotypical women in this drama: an expendable whore and an angelic, blonde saint. And the bad guy is really, really bad.

Actually, he is perhaps the most enjoyable element of Jack Reacher. German renegade filmmaker Werner Herzog turns up with one glass eye, some chomped off fingers and a hell of story to tell. Unfortunately he feels like he did not just wander in from a different film, but from a different universe. For the other actors are awfully bland. Oyewolo, Jenkins and even the usually likable Pike turn in mediocre and uninspired performances. And in this film, Tom Cruise is a problem.

Fans of the Lee Child novels have complained about the casting off miniature actor Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher, who is described in the books as being enormously tall. My problem is not that Cruise is not Child’s Reacher. My problem is that Cruise is Cruise. I keep seeing Mission: Impossible’s Ethan Hunt, but the things that Reacher does do not comply with the image of Hunt. It pulls me out of the film more than it should. And I do not think that this is necessary, because in contrast to public perception: Cruise can act. And he can do not-so-nice guys. Just look at Magnolia or Collateral.

On the plus side: there is one good gag about hookers and there is a nice practical joke involving a baseball cap. Robert Duvall makes a nice, short appearance. Furthermore the film has a terrifying opening scene, a more-than-decent car chase in the middle and an exciting shoot-out in the end.

Final Verdict: With a little more effort this could have been very exciting and entertaining stuff. In its current state, it’s only just above the genre average.

Top 10 – the Best Ten Films of 2012

Hurray! An end-of-the-year list with good movies! Rejoice!*

10 The Descendants

A lovely portrait of middle-age. The rough edges and the cynicism that characterized director Alexander Payne’s earlier films are smoothed over – to a very satisfying effect. George Clooney delivers a career-high performance. Extra kudos for the gorgeous images of everyday Hawaii.

 

9 The Hunger Games

The big surprise of the year. I, for one, would never have thought that anything that seems knock-off Twilight on the surface could make this good a film. Jennifer Lawrence proves herself to be a true leading lady, one like Hollywood has not seen in years.

 

8 Moonrise Kingdom

A film that much resembles The Descendants, in that it is the softest, cuddliest film in the corpus of its director. Many people are annoyed by Wes Anderson’s blend of depressed Bill Murrays and high concept stylization, but this is a film with a warm and true heart. Excellent performance all around, especially by the kids, and the best soundtrack of the year.

 

7 Cloud Atlas

Arguably the greatest filmmaking achievement of the year. A film project that seemed most likely to be made fun off, or at least provoke some raised eyebrows. But Tykwer and the Wachowski’s adapt an apparently unadaptable book and deliver a movie with a point as well as six climaxes. That it never feels too long is a credit to the excellent editing.

 

6 The Dark Knight Rises

Especially upon repeated viewing it becomes clear that Nolan’s final Batman film is not as good as the two films preceding it. There is some shoddy editing, and the lack of substantial politics disappointed me. But one cannot deny that this is still really good stuff. A mature superhero film on an unprecedented scale.

 

5 End of Watch

An incredibly tense police film with fantastic performances by Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena. The original cinematography – a blend of found footage and first-person shooter games – is its characterizing feature, but there is much substance to all this surface. There is no space for nuance here – the bad guys are very bad indeed – but what the hell? Who cares?

 

4 Anna Karenina

Its first half hour is the best half hour of cinema I’ve seen this year. No film can look like this and still tell a good story about interesting characters, so it is good that after that half hour Anna Karenina slows down to focus on its drama. Joe Wright’s second big achievement with this film is that Tolstoy’s outdated ethics actually do seem quite sensible.

 

3 Martha Marcy May Marlene

Already in 2011 this was the darling of the Sundance festival. We had to wait for a long time to get to see it here in The Netherlands, but boy, was it worth the wait! An outstanding debut for both director Sean Durkin and leading lady Elizabeth Olsen, who has more than twice the talent of her two older siblings combined.

 

2 The Muppets

A surprise choice perhaps. Not the choice made by any esteemed critic with proper taste. But hell, The Muppets made me happier than any other film this year. I laughed, I cried, and back at home I was still singing along with the lyrics.

 

1 Bir Zamanlar Anadolu’da

Aka Once Upon a Time in Anatolia. Completely overwhelming drama about modern-day Turkey and the burdens it carries from its history. The tracking shot of a half-eaten apple rolling down a hill and into a little stream is an example of filmmaking machismo by one of the art’s masters; Nuri Bilge Ceylan. But more crucial is the shot of the doctor, seeing the wife and son of the murder victim walking home. It left me breathless.

 

* Circumstance prevented me from seeing Ang Lee’s The Life of Pi before the close of the year. So it will be a 2013 contender.

The Flop 10 – the Worst Ten Films of 2012

Upon me falls the sad duty to take stock and tell you, honestly, what were the worst or most disappointing ten films of 2012. So here we go.

 

10 To Rome With Love

Some films feature on this list, not because they were objectively amongst the worst films of the year, but because they were very disappointing in comparison to a precursor. After the surprisingly ironic and thoughtful Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen’s return to farce and stereotype – even though not without some good jokes – is one of these disappointments.

 

9 Wrath of the Titans

Wrath of the Titans is the opposite of To Rome With Love: An equally clear and unexpected improvement on the first film of the franchise. However, when that first film is the abismal Clash of the Titans, this by no means indicates that Wrath… is any good. At least it did feature an actual titan…

 

8 Man on a Ledge

Poor Sam Worthington stars in two movies on this list. Bu unlike Wrath of the Titans, Man on a Ledge actually had the balls to pretend it was a smart and sophisticated thriller. Something that was finally disproved when Genesis Rodriguez (that’s her actual name) strips down with no apparent reason in the plot. Nice to look at, but utterly stupid. Much like the film then.

 

7 Dark Shadows

Perhaps we should give Tim Burton some credit for actually trying to adapt a crap soap opera. Perhaps. But Burton has a reputation. He has talent – as he showed later in the year with the gorgeous Frankenweenie. For a film maker of Burton’s stature there is simply no excuse for making something so boring and incoherent.

 

6 The Watch

Alien invasion films are so 2011. Vince Vaughn was never funny in the first place. Stiller must be expected to deliver more. Jonah Hill was supposed to have grown up a bit after Moneyball. And the fabulous Richard Ayoade deserves a much better Hollywood debut. Extra dislikes for ruining an apparently original set-up.

 

5 On the Road

It is good that we now know for certain that Jack Kerouac’s famous beatnik novel does not translate well to film. And is genuinely outdated. Terribly unlikable characters are a stallwart of the worst fiolms of 2012, and On the Road is no example. Especially the talented female actors in this film (Kristen Stewart and Kirsten Dunst) are particularly badly treated.

 

4 Rock of Ages

Really. These 1980 wannabe rock songs did not need sugarcoating. Nor did they need to be performed by kids who appear to have wandered straightaway from the Disney channel. Good supporting roles by Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin and Russell Brand cannot save this trainwreck of a musical.

 

3 John Carter

Missing all your marks, looking like a drug addicts fever dream, being utterly silly and failing massively at the box office (Disney reportedly lost some 200 million dollars on this single film) are not enough to be called the worst film of the year. But it does get Andrew Stanton’s trainwreck of a blockbuster on third spot.

 

2 Alles is Familie

Another film that is here because it utterly fails to live up to the standards of a precursor. 2007′s Alles is Liefde was a delightful romantic comedy – even better than Love Actually, from which it stole its concept. But this ‘semi-sequel’ has no likable characters, nothing ot no-one to relate to, no balance or structure, and – most importantly – no good jokes.

 

1 Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter

A ‘film’ that looks and sounds like a computer game. Like there are so many out there – every summer. But this one (produced by Tim Burton and directed by none less than Timur Bekmambetov) had the guts to sideline the sad history of slavery as something invented by fantasy monsters. Shocking.

Review: Anna Karenina (dir. Joe Wright)

Story: Czarist Russia in the 1850s. Anna Karenina (Keira Knightley), the wife of a high government official (Jude Law), strikes up an affair with a dashing young cavalry captain (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). However, nineteenth-century Russian society – not to mention the law – does not look kindly at such frivolities.

One could be forgiven for thinking that Joe Wright is a show-off. Staging Anna Karenina in a theater and all. To actually adapt one of the great novels of the nineteenth century and setting most of its scenes – including a horse race with living, breathing horses! – in a theater. Fortunately, Wright has admitted that this was actually a necessity: using a multitude of ‘normal’ sets and real locations would have been too expensive.

Fortunately, also, Wright (Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, Hanna) uses his theatrical setting very effectively. Without it being said by any character, it is very clear to what extent society life in czarist Russia was a matter of acting, of sticking to the script, of knowing very well the important differences between on stage and behind the scenes. Wright thus sticks to that most important of film truisms: show, don’t tell. If Wright is showing off, at least he is not telling us off.

Wright’s signature is the long take. The long take in which the camera follows James McAvoy strolling down a hellish Dunkirk beach in Atonement. Or the long take in which it follows Eric Bana through a Berlin train station, being assulted by thugs, in Hanna. In Anna Karenina there are again many of such long takes. The most beautiful one follows Keira Knightley and Aaron Taylor-Johnson while they dance for the first time. They twist and twirl while – around them – other pairs of dancers freeze and unfreeze. This scene, much like the whole first half hour, appears to be not so much directed as choreographed. And the camera dances along. A stunning feat. And if it wasn’t so effective in sharing with the audience the excitement and emotion of falling in love, one would be forgiven for saying that Joe Wright is just showing off.

After that fabulous first half-hour – probably the best half hour of cinema of this year – the narrative and the camera necessarily slow down to show the destruction of Anna Karenina’s character in painful detail. Keira Knightley – although still scarily thin – is very good. So is Taylor-Johnson. But the real stars of this film are Jude Law as the cold but loving Karenin and Domhnall Gleeson as Levin – a young aristocrat whose romantic fortunes are directly (if unintentedly) influenced by Karenina’s.

As the story moves on, meandering its way through the life of (perhaps a few too many) Russian aristocrats, one cannot help but yearning for an twist of luck or an easy way out for the characters. But Tolstoy’s novel offers no easy escapes or happy endings. We must and shall witness the unhappiness that love brings about. Director Wright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard succeed admirably in rendering Tolstoy very old-fashioned morale code relevant and sensible to modern audiences.

Final verdict: Anna Karenina might not be for everyone. But then, so is the novel on which it is based. It is a stunning piece of work by a director on the top of his game and a cast devoted to the material and the director’s vision. For all the shiny surfaces it can boast about, its major achievement is making the (admittedly) dusty morale of the story completely believable.

Review: The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey (dir. Peter Jackson)

Story: 13 dwarves led by Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage) set out on a quest to reclaim the mountain under which they lived (and the gold in it) from the dragon Smaug. The wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen) insists that the hobbit Bilbo Bagins (Martin Freeman) joins them. Bilbo is not directly that keen for an adventure, but joins the dwarves nonetheless. Meanwhile, dark powers seem to awaken in Middle Earth.

The Hobbit did nothing but confirm to me that, when it concerns everything Tolkien, I am right and the rest of the world is wrong. I’ve made this argument several times, so in this review I will not mention the plodding storytelling, the painfully dull and slow dialogues and the bloated self-importance that characterized the Lord of the Rings movies and also this new franchise outing. Nor will I go on and on about the fetishistic, alsmost fascist escapism these fantasy epics offer to the deluded masses.

So let’s get past all that and discuss elements of The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey in their own light.

First of all, I must say that I disliked it less than I did The Return of the King. Most important is that The Hobbit has a lighter tone. The book on which it is based is a children’s book, and that is clear from the film adaptation as well. Even though this is clearly a 12+ film (don’t bring little children!)  The story is still a bit too serious for my tastes – I do not think that any film featuring dwarves, elves, ‘wargs’ and albino orcs should take itself serious at all – but there is definitely a move in the right direction.

Of course the film looks gorgeous again. This is the one quality of the LOTR films that I recognize as well. Unfortunately, due to the 3D and the 48fps technology (by which the number of still images you see in one second of film is doubled) the sets and even the gorgeous natural backdrops have a slightly artificial shine on them. Also, whenever there are quick movements in the frame or sweeping camera moves it seems as if the film is projected too fast.

Actually, that might have been an idea! For with 2 hours and 45 minutes The Hobbit is much, much too long. Entire sequences could easily have been scrapped. Especially in the painfully dragging first hour-and-a-half. Only in the action-packed last hour the film picks up pace. Crucially, this is also the hour in which the single outstanding scene takes place: the fateful meeting between Bilbo and the creature Gollem (Andy Serkis).

With Bilbo we arrive on a plus for The Hobbit. Martin Freeman is one of my favourite television and film actors, and his Bilbo Bagins is a nice bloke. Much more so than Elijah Wood’s Frodo (who makes an entirely unnecessary cameo appearance together with Ian Holm). I actually like watching Bilbo doing stuff. Whatever that stuff might be.

The dwarves are with too many. Even Gandalf, on several moments in the film, has to count to find out whether or not they are all still there. They could have had slightly more outspoken and specific characters as well. Onle Armitage’s Thorin and Ken Stott’s Balin stand out. The others are nothing but ‘the fat one’ or ‘the young one’.

Finally (BIG SPOILER): it is entirely impossible to put a group of fifteen characters through so many perils and come out on the other hand without a single casualty. What is the point of having thousands of goblins attacking our company if they can simply be pushed from a bridge?

Final verdict: Jackson’s Tolkien movies will never win me over. I’ll just have to get used to the fact that they do enchant most of the global audience nonetheless. The Hobbit – An Unexpected Journey does nothing to change that. It has its pluses and its minuses, but in the end it leaves me entirely cold. The only good thing is that it will make a global super star out of Martin Freeman.

Review: Seven Psychopaths (dir. Martin McDonaugh)

Story: Irish screenwriter Marty (Colin Farrell) struggles with his new script. He has a title – Seven Psychopaths – but no psychopaths. Luckily, his best friend is a dog-napping failed actor (Sam Rockwell). And he and his partner (Christopher Walken) bring plenty psychopaths into Marty’s life. If only he’d be willing to write a violent action film, rather than a peace-loving Gandhi-quoting French flick.

There is much wrong with Martin McDonaugh’s Seven Psychopaths. The director of the simply brilliant In Bruges has a traditionally difficult ‘second album’. It is self-referential to the point of being self-obsessed. It has too many characters, too complicated a story line and in general, it is much, much too long.

Individual actors shine (Christopher Walken, Tom Waits, Linda Bright Clay) while others falter (Sam Rockwell’s Billy is funny but without substance; Colin Farrell isn’t even acting). Dialogues are stunningly funny, but the storytelling is plodding. Monological flashbacks are fascinating, but they seem to exist in a different universe from the main story.

Comparisons are easily drawn with the Charlie Kauffman-written and Spike Jonze-directed Adaptation. But added to that must the influence of a later-career Quentin Tarantino. You know, the Tarantino of Kill Bill, Death Proof and Inglourious Basterds, who simply lacked any discipline to tell a simple, proper story.

However, Seven Psychopaths does leave me with satisfaction. ‘Cause all things taken together, I believe it. I believe that a writer-director who was succesfull with a European flick has difficulties adjusting to Hollywood. And to the expectations Hollywood has of him. I believe that McDonaugh, like Marty, did not want to make another bloody gangster movie (however enjoyable In Bruges was). I believe that this is a genuine argument against the inherently hypocritical attitude to violence in American cinema.

As it turns out in the end, it is the story of the fourth psychopath – the Vietcong priest – that is the most important. Event though it seems, for a long time, that his story has nothing to do with the rest of the film. Is his quest for revenge on the American agressors simply that – a quest for revenge – or is there more to his story? I believe that it can very well be understood as a metaphor for Seven Psychopaths itself: A film that is terribly violent exactly in order to question the violence.

Final verdict: Funny, violent, well acted but also unbalanced, plodding and self-obsessed. Seven Psychopaths will not fail to entertain you, but if the central message does not get through (which might very well happen with so much other stuff going on) this may be quite a disappointment after In Bruges.

Review: Cloud Atlas (dir. Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski & Tom Tykwer)

Story: A mosaique of six interrelated stories, set in different times and places. A journal written by a dying American lawyer (Jim Sturgess) is the inspiration for a young composer (Ben Whishaw). His letters to a lover are found and read by an ambitious journalist (Halle Berry), whose neighbour kid will later write a book that inspires a British publisher (Jim Broadbent) to write his own memoirs. The film adaptation of these inspire a clone (Doona Bae) to start a revolution and she becomes a divine figure to a post-apocalyptic society in which Tom Hanks is a goat herder.

Based on David Mitchell’s presumably unfilmable book, Cloud Atlas is a treatise more than that it is a film. It has a point, rather than a climax or a confrontation: Society is rotten. People do the utmost terrible things to each other. “The weak are the meat that the strong eat” is a line repeated by the malicious doctor Henry Goose (also Tom Hanks). Yet in all this cruelty there is still space for kindness, friendship and love. Oh, and everything is connected.

Supposedly unfilmable then. But brother and sister Wachowski (who wrote and directed the Matrix trilogy) and the German director Tom Tykwer (Lola Rennt, Perfume) decided to take a gamble and try an adaptation. Especially for the Wachowskis this was quite a risk. They’re more ‘high profile’ than Tykwer, their Matrix sequels were (not entirely justifiable) derided by critics and their last film, Speed Racer (2008) was a complete flop. Which should only make them more satisfied with the end result of Cloud Atlas. The film is by no means perfect, but it is a success.

Not perfect? No. The episode about Jim Broadbent’s publisher, who is locked up against his will in an abusive old-age pensioner’s home is farcical, slightly ridiculous and tonally out of touch with the other episodes. And while it is completely sensible to have a limited number of actors play a large number of roles (Hanks, Berry, Sturgess, Hugo Weaving and Bae have six roles, Whishaw and Broadbent have five) – in the context of this movie and its point – it does feel strange to see Hugo Weaving in drag.

But a success? Certainly! First of all, the film is almost three hours long, and although one of my most repeated criticism is that a films are too long, Cloud Atlas by no means is. It definitely does not feel like three hours. Second, the overarching philosophy of the film could easily be mocked or derided as ‘Hinduism for dummies’ or ‘esoteric claptrap’. And some reviewers have done exactly that. But in my opinion, the movie has a heart and a genuine point and it is made with enough bravoura and skill to withstand such accusations. Cloud Atlas is most of all a labour of and about love, and only a cynical, cold-hearted bastard would not recognize this.

And it is so beautiful. Especially the episode about the clone, set in a futuristic New Seoul (an episode directed by the Wachowskis) is gorgeous. Considering a relatively modest buddget for a film this scale (estimated at 100 million dollars), the directors and their crew have done a wonderful job.

Final verdict: Cloud Atlas is not a guaranteed blockbuster. It would do well if it breaks even. It is probably to weird and different for large audiences, and for award nominations. But the film is a gorgeous labour of love. By no means perfect, but a delight to watch and one of the absolute highlights of the film year 2012.

Review: Looper (dir. Rian Johnson)

Story: Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a ‘looper’: he assasinates people who are sent back, by criminals, from the future. He is pretty happy with this until one day, the person being sent back is his older self (Bruce Willis). Joe fails to make the kill, and subsequently both Joe’s are on the run from their criminal employers. But old Joe has a plan to make sure that all of this will actually never happen…

Time travel films are tricky. They are necessarily filled with inconsistencies. Take for example this scenario. Person A travels back in time to prevent disaster X from happening. However, if he succeeds, then there will be no need, in the future, for person A to travel back and prevent disaster X from happening. So it will happen, prompting person A, in the future, to travel back in time and prevent it from happening. The big question is always, if someone from the future travels back in time, is his past (the future) than past or future? And what is that that you are changing? The past or the future?

The only film I ever saw getting it right was Back to the Future. And that film took two guys three years to write! So, considering that we quite enjoy time travel films, we must necessarily accept that there are often loopholes in them. Plotholes. Inconsistencies. Mistakes. Actually, part of the fun of the time travel film is trying to figure out where they went wrong…

Of course, not too much time doing that must be spent while the film is still playing. It is best if you only start puzzling after the end credits roll. As was for instance the case with last year’s Source Code. This film certainly wasn’t flawless in its time-travelling logic, but I only noticed that after the film. While it was playing I was completely involved in the action and the story.

Unfortunately, Looper had me puzzling throughout the film. Which is not to say that it is more inconsistent or illogical than other time travelling films. It is just too complex. Too tricky. Back in the middle ages an English monk called William of Ockham proposed the following: if two explanations of the same phenomenon explain that phenomenon well, than the simplest explanation must be right. ‘Ockham’s Razor’ this is called. And Looper would benefit from a close shave by old William. Why, for instance, must future loopers always be killed by their past selves? Isn’t that unnecessarily complex, and asking for problems?

All of which is, again, not to say that Looper isn’t a good film. Quite the contrary. It is well acted. Joseph Gordon-Levitt carries the film, proving himself as a confident and grown-up lead actor. Bruce Willis does a good job, especially in a devastating scene with a little kid that will have you on the tip of your seat. And Emily Blunt, Paul Dano and Jeff Daniels have interesting supporting roles.

Director Rian Johnson previously made equally stylish (if not equally succesfull) films with Brick and The Brothers Bloom. Johnson is a bit of an oddball director. His earlier films had an air of cold detachment to them. This worked very well for Brick, but less so for The Brothers Bloom. In Looper, there is hardly any detachment. In the shocking finale, there is no lack of engagement. You are there, with the characters, in their world and their story. And yet you do keep puzzling: “Wait, if he does this now, than what will yet to have been happening in the future…?”

Final verdict: Although a bit too complex for its own good, Looper is an engaging and thrilling action adventure. A plot like a Moebius strip does not get in the way of caring for the characters, which is central to making a succesfull film.