or: The Art and Joy of Film Criticism
The Amazing Spiderman
Dir. Marc Webb. Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans & Martin Sheen
Dutch release date: July 4, 2012
The Campaign
Dir. Jay Roach. Starring: Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis, Jason Sudeikis, Brian Cox, John Lithgow & Dan Aykroyd
Dutch release date: November 1, 2012
The Expendables 2
Dir. Simon West. Starring: The Eighties Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Liam Hemsworth, Jason Statham, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, Jet Li, Terry Crews, Randy Couture & Novak Djokovic (huh?) as himself…
Dutch release date: August 16
Killer Joe
Dir. William Friedkin (who, oh, he of The Exorcist). Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple & Thomas Haden Church
Dutch release date: August 2012
It might very well be that somewhere in the classic stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs (also the creator of Tarzan, by the way) about John Carter and his exploits there lurks a diamond of a sci-fi adventure movie. But John Carter (previously titled John Carter of Mars) is not it. I feel slightly uncomfortable trashing this film. Arguing that it is not very original is just unfair. Rice Burroughs’ science fiction stories are over a century old, and if this film seems like a cheap Star Wars rip-off, then it is only so because George Lucas was inspired by those stories when making his big break-through film.
But it does feel awfully familiar, and that is probably the reason it took so long before anyone dared to bring John Carter to the screen. Studios must have felt intuitively that a story about a displaced hero, a princess, warring factions, green aliens called Tharks and shape shifting blue baddies would, to modern audiences unacquainted with Rice Burroughs’ work, be a bit daft and at the same time terribly cliched. At best.
Basically, the one thing that Disney’s take on the material has to offer is its director. Andrew Stanton is a legend. He is the guy who wrote the Toy Story trilogy. Who made Wall-E, and Finding Nemo. Not just excellent kids’ or family films. Excellent films. The failure (artistically, financially John Carter will no doubt do as its meant to) of this film is all the more painful considering the CV on which it is a stain.
The story, for whoever cares, is as following: It is 1868 and disgruntled Civil War veteran John Carter (Taylor ‘what’s-in-a-name’ Kitsch) seeks for gold as he is mysteriously transported to the planet of ‘Barsoom’. There he is captured by tall green aliens, but he manages to save a human-like princess of a city that is at war with another city and he gets mixed up in the local affairs. Everyone wants him on their side, because John Carter is incredibly strong and agile on this strange planet with a lower gravity.
If that does not sound daft enough for you, the locals are called names such as Tars Tarkas, Dejah Soris, Tardors Mors and Sab Than. And there aren’t just Tharks, there are also Warhoons, Zodangans and (you won’t believe this) Heliumites. The latter, by the way, do not speak with an inexplicably high pitched voice, unfortunately. All these strange and uninteresting people are at war with themselves and each other, on a planet that for an unapparent reason is apparently dying. And the bad guys have a weapon that is based on the mysterious blue ‘ninth ray’ of something.
If that does not sound problematic enough for you than please do also consider that the film is a mess. The plotting is all over the place, the dialogue is heavy in tone yet meaningless in, well, meaning, and the action scenes are outright boring. Compared to this, Avatar was a text-book example of disciplined and swift storytelling.
But the most terrible thing is that the film is so ugly. The art director must have been on some nasty drugs when designing the world of Barsoom, and the color scheme is all over the place. I had to physically look away (!) from the screen regularly to protect my eyes. I am not even interested in criticizing the worst 3D I’ve seen as of yet, because however bad the 3D is, there is nothing there for it to ruin.
I feel sorry for the actors who, some way or another, found themselves in this train-wreck of a film. Ciaran Hinds at least shows that he knows he is in a drunken panto farce. But It is painful to see Dominic West, Mark Strong, Lynn Collins and the actually quite charismatic Taylor Kitsch trying so hard.
The Avengers
Dir. Joss Whedon. Starring: Everyone (Samuel L. Jackson, Robert Downey Jr. , Scarlett Johansson, Chris Evans, Chris Hemswort, Mark Ruffalo, Tom Hiddlestone & Jeremy Renner)
Release date NL: April 26, 2012
The Amazing Spiderman
Dir. Marc Webb. Starring: Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone, Rhys Ifans & Martin Sheen
Release date NL: July 4, 2012
John Carter
Dir. Andrew Stanton. Starring: everyone who is not already in The Avengers (Taylor Kitsch, Willem Dafoe, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, Dominic West, Polly Walker, James Purefoy, Lynn Collins & Thomas Haden Church)
Release date NL: March 8, 2012
This is happening to me, he. The first week after I start the ‘ Trailer Tuesday’ category, the web is flooded with new trailers. The big’ un is of course for The Dark Knight Rises (see below). I’m not going to show all the others on this site, so for the next films, I just give you the links:
ParaNorman, Lockout, Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance, Jack the Giant Killer, Plan C.
The ones I’m featuring here are:
Rock of Ages
Dir. Adam Shankman. Starring: Tom Cruise, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Malin Akerman & Alec Baldwin
Release date NL: June 7 2012
Wrath of the Titans
Dir. Jonathan Liebesman. Starring: Sam Worthington, Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, Rosamund Pike & Bill Nighy
Release date NL: March 29, 2012
The Expendables 2
Dir. Simon West. Starring: Stallone, Statham, Willis, Schwarzenegger, Van Damme, Norris, Li, Lundgren. Everybody. Everybody? Everybody: Novak Djokovic.
Release date NL: August 16, 2012
The Dictator
Dir. Larry Charles. Starring: Sacha Baron Cohen, John C. Reilly, Anna Faris, Ben Kingsley & Megan Fox
Release date NL: May 10, 2012
Rowan Atkinson’s comedy types have always fared better on televsion than on the big screen. Mr. Bean was too anarchistic and chaotic to be the protagonist of a feature film, which is why even the mildly acceptable Bean was at its best as a string of comedy set pieces. The character development felt forced and unwanted, exactly because we don’t want Mr. Bean to change. The less is said about Mr. Bean’s Holiday, the better.
Atkinson’s other succesful television character, Edmund Blackadder, is more cinematic, and the complete opposite of Mr. Bean: he is the only mildly intelligent person in a room filled with nutjobs. But his tragedy, his increasing intelligence comes with decreasing social status over seven hundred years of British history, is unfilmable and needs the twelve hours of screentime the television series offers.
Atkinson is a great physical comedian: at his best he has the potential to be up there with Chaplin, Keaton and Laurel & Hardy. They, however, had the luxury of being silent film stars: they did not have to speak, they were not only able or allowed, but bound by necessity, to communicate through gestures and faces. Whenever Atkinson is in a film, he has to speak as well. And with the voice comes, indeed, the necessity for coherent plots, empathy and character development.
All of which are more present in Johnny English Reborn (dir. Oliver Parker) than in any previous cinematic outing starring Rowan Atkinson. Much more so than the movie to which it is a sequel, the slightly abysmal Johnny English, the film has a straightforward plot, with a bad guy and an evil plan that are not completely ridiculous. Rather than thwarting the plans of a French John Malkovich trying to become King of Britain, not-so-super spy English is now up against a trio of assasins plotting the murder of the Chinese PM.
Also, while Johnny English was basically Mr. Bean in a smoking and with a gun, Johnny English Returns offers a protagonist who more succesfully balances Bean and Blackadder: the smarts and the wits matching the stupidity and hot air.
Some of the jokes are quite bland. But the ones that do work work very well indeed. These are mostly the physical jokes: English fiddling with an office chair, English assaulting old ladies, English chasing a versatile Chinese killer on the rooftops of Hong Kong, and a hilarious scene involving mind control and dance moves. If such scenes seem boring on paper, Atkinson brings them to life with a skill and charm not seen in any other contemporary comedian. Even a childish running gag involving the kicking of well-trained testicles works.
Meanwhile considerable acting talent is wasted on a number of supporting characters. Dominic West, Rosamund Pike, Gillian Anderson and Richard Schiff get too little to do or are simply cashing cheques. And why not? This is Atkinson’s film, and so far the most succesfull one he has done.
These two films were released in cinemas earlier this year, but I’ve only now gotten around to seeing them. Also, neither of them merits a full scale review, so I’ll be taking together an exorcism thriller starring Anthony Hopkins and a shoot-em-up Jason Statham vehicle.
The Rite
Perhaps it would just be better if people stopped making films about sharks and exorcisms. In the same way that Jaws has never been surpassed, The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) was the first and ultimately the ultimate, best exorcism film ever. Also because the two sequels and the prequel are the stuff of really, really bad legends.
The Rite does not venture that deeply into the cesspool constituted by the wide corpus of films about demonic possession and unorthodox catholic priests. It actually is quite suspenseful most of the time. Director Mikael Hafstrom takes his time setting up the plot and introducing the characters of experienced exorcist Lucas (Hopkins) and young-priest-with-a-crisis-of-faith Colin O’Donoghue. And I must say it feels nice to see a Welshman and an Irishman starring in an American film directed by a Swede.
Unfortunately The Rite goes the same way as lesser fare in the genre in its last half hour. Have the possession scenes been relatively restricted, to great effect, until then, in the last act Hafstrom squishes in the ‘evil stuff’ that the studio probably wanted, and he letsHopkins go all the way. As a result the film, which opened so nicely, ends in a mess.
The Mechanic
This is a bloke’s film. The bloke is the kind of (young) man whose main interests are beer, tits, football, and Jason Statham stabbing people in the head. Very few men are full-time blokes, but almost all of us are a bit blokey, sometimes. So films like this, which have Jason Statham, and beautiful women, and strong violence, which can be understood even under influence, will always find an audience.
They are not ridiculously expensive, and they will always brake even. So why not, for a change, write it properly? The Mechanic (dir. Simon West), about a hit man (Statham) and his relation to his old mentor’s troubled son (Ben Foster), is unfortunately not written properly. There is no mystery and no tension, although the characters and their relation surely have the potential for it. Instead, there are just plenty of excessive killings.
Oh, and why would Jason Statham, the bloke’s ideal of action hero and girl magnet, have to pay for sex with a prostitute? Surely Jason Statham would get it for free?
Johnny English Reborn
Dir. Oliver Parker. Starring: Rown Atkinson, Rosamund Pike, Dominic West & Gillian Anderson
Dutch release date: October 13 0211
Spy Kids 4: All the Time in the World
Dir. Robert Rodriguez. Starring: Jessica Alba, Antonio Banderas, Jeremy Piven, Danny Trejo & Ricky Gervais
Dutch release date: October 13 2011
I like how these two competing films are released, in The Netherlands at least, on exactly the same day. That’s a major clusterfruitcake from the distribution companies’ part. Furthermore I’d like to point your attention to the fact that the new Spy Kids film will be in 4D. Which means they add ‘Aromascope’. So we actually get to smell the contents of the airplane sick bag. What a great idea (insert sarcasticsmiley here)..
As a non-professional reviewer I don’t go and see everything. There’s stuff I skip. Especially films that I know I won’t like. Garbage like Disaster Movie and Vampires Suck, of course. Twilight films, because I just can’t be arsed. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, because the trailer annoyed the hell out of me. 4.3.2.1, because it is a mysoginist disgrace.
The nice thing of not being a professional reviewer is that you can dismiss and dislike films without having seen them. There’s no code-of-honour that applies to me that says I can only judge films I’ve seen. So with painful memories of Lost in Translation in mind, I can tell you that Sofia Coppola’s new film Somewhere is really, really uninteresting rubble. And my conscious won’t bother me.
At the same time however, if you really want to write a scathing review of something you are disgusted by, you will have to go and see the film. Prejudice and all if you want to, but you’ll have to see it. Which is why, at the end of this year, I have only one real movie-related regret: That I did not go and see Sex and the City 2. What? Yes. Because judged by the reviews of others, I would have had a field day with that monstrous middle-aged-chick flick. Looking back on the summer, in these dark and snowy days before Christmas, I wish I’d taken 146 minutes of my time to be able to write THAT review, an opportunity now lost forever.
Just to show what my keyboard might have spitted out, had I made this sacrifice, I present to you the funniest, vilest and meanest responses to the film that I could find. SATC2 may not have been the film-event of the year, it was definitely the highlight of movie criticism.
Relatively mild is Rick Groen, Toronto Globe and Mail:
“Miley Cyrus […] pops up ostensibly to play Miley Cyrus but really as a sop to that more callow generation of women who might just look at this Gang of Four and wonder, ‘Like, who are these middle-aged narcissists, and did they used to be somebody?’”
Most critics are slightly more offended. Take for instance Walter Chaw, from Film Freak Central:
“Miranda and Charlotte toast all the women out there who somehow raise children without the aid of a full-time, live-in nanny. When Marie Antoinette did this, the people tore down the f*cking Bastille. When our Sex and the City girls do it, they slurp it up like box rosé and Häagen-Dazs.”
Rex Reed, in The New York Observer :
“It is to movies what fried dough is to nutrition.”
Mark Kermode, from BBC 5 Live, tries to avoid turning the review into one of his notorious rants, but is so disgusted by SATC2′s “consumer porn” that he bursts into a full force rendition of the Internationale (at approx. 7.12):
And finally, Lindy West, in an already notorious text for The Stranger, was most offended by the film’s corruption of feminist ideals. But in a really funny way:
“SATC2 takes everything that I hold dear as a woman and as a human—working hard, contributing to society, not being an entitled cunt like it’s my job—and rapes it to death with a stiletto that costs more than my car. [...] If this is what modern womanhood means, then just fucking veil me and sew up all my holes. Good night.”
Now, I’ll just virtua-whisper it, but secretly I really hope for a Sex and the City 3 so I can join the chorus of contempt.
Centurion is a nice and decent film. It successfully combines historical epic with thriller and horror elements in a story about seven survivors from an ambushed Roman legion in Scotland. Director Neil Marshall had his biggest success previously with horror flick The Descent, in which adventurous young women explore a cave only to be torn to pieces by cave creeps, and in Centurion the blood flows and splatters excessively and artistically again. Marshall certainly masters the art of the graceful decapitation. Protagonist Michael Fassbender is always sensational, even if he does not get to do much. Olga Kuryleno is nice and nasty as the wolf-like Pict scout hunting the Romans and Dominic West (The Wire) is the best thing on screen as the Roman general, who is unfortunately killed way too early in the film. The only drawbacks are an unnecessary voice-over by Fassbender and a rushed through last act. The film is pretty short, so Marshall could have taken more time here. Also: the film looks fabulous, from the credit sequence to the first shot of a half naked and wounded Fassbender, stumbling through a white shot. This is the achievement of cinematographer Sam McCurdy, who deserves the credit.
But what Centurion most clearly demonstrates are the lessons learned from Gladiator. It is by now ten years ago that Ridley Scott revived the swords-and-sandals epic, and his massive success has led to a growing list of ever failing attempts to top it. There are Scott’s own Kingdom of Heaven and Robin Hood, Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy, Oliver Stone’s Alexander, Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur, Zack Snyder’s 300 and now also Alejandro Amenábar’s Agora, which seems to be a complete film about the part of Gladiator that was the least interesting: the politicking in the forum (wake-up call Alejandro: ‘Agora’ is a Greek word, not Latin). Some of these films are decent, some are peculiar, and others are massive failures. The exact categorization changes per critic, but everyone agrees that Gladiator still stands out. Centurion is no Gladiator either, most of all because of the lack of scale and climax, but Marshall has taken a number of lessons at heart which make his film compelling and one of the little gems of my summer.
The first lesson concerns casting. Historic epics are not carried by poster-boy baby faces. No-one believes that Orloondo Bland (©Mark Kermode, 2007) can defend Jerusalem against the hordes of Saladin. And if you cast Colin Farrell – who is a fine actor – as Alexander, than you must not put a blond wig on him. Clive Owen and Gerard Butler however are convincing as war-weary or war-lusty old warriors, scarred and battered leaders of men. Troy, for al its faults, had Brad Pitt perfectly casted as Achilles: the larger than life indestructible hero. Neil Marshall has looked well at Russel Crowe in Gladiator, and saw in Michael Fassbender an aristocratic but human titular centurion
The second lesson concerns wide establishing shots taken from helicopters. These can be made over massive CGI generated armies (Alexander, Troy), armadas (Alexander) and cities (Rome, Robin Hood). But if you do not have an enormous CGI budget, like Marshall for Centurion, you take them of the landscape. So Centurion shows a lot of mountains and forests and plains covered in snow, through which from a great distance we see the heroes running from their enemies. At times a bit too Lord-of-the-Ringsy, but it looks great and Marshall makes great user of the landscape of the misty and snowy Scottish highlands. That he can do grim wilderness could of course already be seen from the final sequences of the European (read: the not-happy-end) cut of The Descent. Exploit the qualities you have, rather than aim for the unachievable.
The third and final lesson concerns battle. Gladiator opened with the incredibly intense mud-strewn battle between Romans and Barbarians. It had us at “on my signal, unleash hell!’. Centurion also offers battle from within, close to the soldiers, chaotic, frentic and extremely bloody. It hurts. It is frightening and brutal and real. Robin Hood, Alexander and King Arthur lacked greatly in this respect. Kingdom of Heaven got close, but 300 went of course over the top. But then that was an adaptation of a graphic novel.
So Centurion has the major lessons learned from Gladiator: lead actor, wide establishing shots and brutal battle: the basic ingredients of a modern swords-and-sandals epic. That supporting characters are not all equally well developed and that the third act climax disappoints are only minor drawbacks. What remains is the image of Fassbender, captured by the Picts, tortured and pissed off: “I’m a soldier of Rome, I will not yield!”
