I know that it’s been quite a while since I’ve written in this space and part of it has to do with a lack of ambition on my part to review movies that I’ve seen recently and part of it stemmed from the fact that the last movie I reviewed (Inception) was one of the best movies I’ve ever seen. I have ended my self-imposed exile to review the seventh movie (out of eight) to bear the Harry Potter name; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.
Before I delve too deeply into this movie, I should digress and say a few words about the series as a whole. I have read all 7 books multiple times and they are wonderfully written, some of the best books I’ve ever read. The most brilliant thing that author JK Rowling did is she wrote them to cater to an audience that was roughly the same age as the principal characters and this can be seen in the general tone of each book as well as the way each book ends.
Again, I have to say it…
SPOILER ALERT!
One more disclaimer before I get going, while some would say that these movies are worse if you’ve read the books, I say they are better because then you have an inkling of what is going on. However, if you don’t read the books and see all the movies, that will provide enough of a backstory that you can follow along.
In the first book, the three principal characters (Harry Potter, Hermione Granger, and Ron Weasley) are 11 years old, and you can tell by the way the book is written that that is Rowling’s target audience. In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, we are introduced to the fanciful world of magic which is mostly fun and games and learning to fly on a broomstick and so on and so forth. We do find out some detail about the reason Harry Potter is so famous in the Wizarding World but many of the details are left out.
Even as the first book reaches its climactic end, which includes a showdown that Harry should be woefully unprepared for, it still doesn’t feel like he’s in all that much danger. Sure enough, the first book ends with Potter victorious and the reader (and viewer for the movie version) feeling upbeat and happy.
The second book has a very similar feel to it, although the final showdown is a bit more disturbing. In the third book, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, the filmmakers went for a darker look and feel to the movie, both literally and figuratively. It is the story about the first man ever to break out of the Wizarding prison, Azkaban, after committing mass murder to get into prison (the movie only mentions one murder but in the book the total was 13). After escaping, he sets out to come after Harry and given his reasons for imprisonment, this causes everyone a lot of angst. Again, in the end, there is a decidedly happy resolution and it feels again like although Harry comes close to brushing shoulders with evil, he misses it yet again. At this point the principal cast and audience are 13 and that is when Rowling decides to change everything. Also, up until this point the movies have been quite faithful to the books. Yes, there have been differences but they were more along the lines of characters A, B, and C being involved in a scene when in the book it was A, B, and D. Unfortunately, this trend did not continue.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is a true tome, reaching 734 pages in length. To give you a little perspective, The Lord of the Rings was roughly 1,000 pages (give or take, according to my best recollection) and was made into about 10 hours of movie. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire went from 734 pages to two hours. They focused on the tournament which took place over the course of a year and disregarded all the day to day activity which was very good and also provided an excellent backdrop to the action sequences. Ironically, even though this was the first movie to leave out significant portions of stuff, to date it is the highest rated Harry Potter movie according to my ranking system. Mostly, it made up points in the audience section, where it is beginning to appeal to a larger fan base, and acting, where the principal cast is older and therefore better at acting and where they added a few choice people to the cast who were nothing short of fantastic.
This was also a point in the book and movie series where the tone completely changed. Up until this point, everything was happy at Hogwarts and no matter what odds were stacked against Harry, he always seemed to have the proper help lined up to help him get through it and at the end of the day, everything was going to be alright.
At the end of the fourth book, Harry Potter’s nemesis, Lord Voldemort, who hasn’t been seen in the Wizarding World for 13 years, returns to human form in full possession of his extraordinary magical ability and evil. Where the first three books end with Harry victorious and reveling in victory with his friends, this one ends with a feeling of despair after Harry witnesses a classmate being murdered, dueling with Voldemort and barely escaping, and then surviving another murder attempt by a deranged bad guy impersonating one of his teachers.
Yes, Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore.
Next was Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and while this was one of my favorite books in the series, the movie did a terrible job of living up to it. If you’re planning on watching all the movies in the series save one, this is the one to skip.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was a decent adaptation of the book, although in true Hollywood fashion, certain sequences were changed in order to make it a more interesting movie. The general audience trend continues though as this movie isn’t terribly appropriate for small children and the themes and storyline become more and more appealing to older and older audiences, including more violence and romantic themes than in the previous films.
And so, after those 1,000 words of drivel about six movies (I hope you at least skimmed it), we’ve finally reached the entire point of this post, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1.
RATING: PG-13 FOR SOME SEQUENCES OF INTENSE ACTION VIOLENCE, FRIGHTENING IMAGES AND BRIEF SENSUALITY
In short, this is the perfect rating for this movie. Children should not see it unless their parents are 110% sure they can handle it. You have to realize that at its (almost) deepest level, right above the struggle between good and evil, this series of books and movies is about a man who is middle aged in the Wizarding World doing nearly everything he can to kill a boy. Children should be exposed to such themes with caution.
AUDIENCE
CHILDREN – 4
YOUNG MALE – 7
YOUNG FEMALE – 8
ADULT MALE – 7
ADULT FEMALE – 8
While I don’t recommend this for children, it is a good action movie that will appeal to people of all ages.
GORE – 8
ROMANCE – 8
One of the things that is brought up often in the last two or three books and movies is the war that is in the background and moving towards the foreground and the lives that that war stands to affect. To a certain extent, you could say these books describe very well the sacrifice that one must make in order to defeat evil. While the filmmakers may have shied away from showing some of the violence present in the books before now, in my opinion they showed enough in this movie to make the viewer fully appreciate just what is at stake.
DIALOGUE – 9
SPECIAL EFFECTS – 8
STORY – 10
These rating pretty much stand on their own but I do have to say something about the “story” rating. This is not me saying that the movie was a good adaptation of the book. This is me doing my very best to separate the movie from the book because if I consider them linked, then the movie pales in comparison to the book, as they almost always do. Seriously, think of the last time you saw a book made into a movie where you were more impressed with the movie than the book. Sure, I can name a handful off the top of my head but they are few and far between. This was a good screenplay that was well executed and I found that they took relatively few liberties compared with the other Harry Potter movies.
ACTING – 8
INTANGIBLE – 10
The principal cast is getting better and better and the supporting cast is quite possibly one of the best ensembles I’ve ever seen. I give the production team infinite credit for being able to assemble this collection of actors and actresses for each and every movie so far.
On the intangible side, as far as I’m concerned, it’s Harry Potter and it’s nearing its climax. I remember being at the point when the seventh movie ends in the book and I remember not being able to put the book down, knowing what must be coming next. The final battle and all secrets revealed and explained.
Is it July yet?
TOTAL – 95/120
ADJUSTED – 79/100
As a matter of interest for those of you who care, this is how I rated the first six Harry Potter movies.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone – 74/100
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – 74/100
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban – 78/100
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire – 84/100
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix – 68/100
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince – 79/100
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Thursday, September 2, 2010
INCEPTION
“What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient… highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it’s almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed – fully understood – that sticks; right in there somewhere.”
Before seeing this movie, I hadn’t even realized just how much my movie-enjoying experience of the past few years had been shaped by Christopher Nolan; now I understand. Nolan has directed 9 films thus far in his relatively short career and an astonishing 5 of them have reached the IMDB.com “Top 250” list for highest rated films. To top it all off, he also wrote the screenplays for all five.
For me, he is reaching the rarified air that few directors have achieved for me. I remember seeing the first trailer for the first Transformers movie and thinking that some studio executives were sorely misguided by giving that film the green light. Then I saw that the executive producer (not director, but still involved) was Steven Spielberg. I decided, based on his reputation, to give the movie an open-minded chance. I am now a big fan of both movies, own both, and will one day own the third. Christopher Nolan is very close to reaching that level for me. This is a list of the five movies I mentioned previously and their respective ranks amongst the top rated movies on the Internet Movie DataBase (imdb.com).
Inception – 4th
Dark Knight – 11th
Memento – 29th
Prestige – 72nd
Batman Begins – 107th
In short, this is a truly excellent list of movies to come from one director. As much as I would love to gush about the character development and the shot in the arm he gave the Batman franchise or the mindtrip that is Memento, this post is all (well, mostly) about his most recent addition to the list. Inception has thus far received an average rating of 9.0/10 amongst over 175,000 voters and is bested only by The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, and the Godfather Part II.
PLOT (WITH AS FEW SPOILERS AS POSSIBLE)
At some point in the distant (or near, we don’t really know) future, we have the ability to enter the dreams of other people who can either be aware or unaware that they are dreaming. While there may be many legitimate uses for this technology, I can only assume that it was a very short period of time before some realized its potential for illegal uses.
For example, our story starts with the protagonist Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) attempting to commit corporate espionage. In essence, they attempt to break into the subject’s mind, gaining very valuable information from a very powerful and wealthy industrialist without him even knowing that anything was taken.
Something ends up going wrong and the team more or less gets caught by the industrialist who brings them an interesting proposal. Since the company that hired them would probably be out to kill them, they could either take their chances or they could accept his proposition. Inception. Normally all they would do is extract information while the subject was in their dream state but what this man wanted was for Cobb and his team to plant an idea within the mind of his chief competitor, who was on the brink of inheriting an energy conglomerate that could basically rules the world’s energy market. The tricky part was summed up perfectly by Arthur, played wonderfully by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Cobb: What do you want?
Saito (Wealthy Industrialist): Inception. Is it possible?
Arthur: Of course not.
Saito: If you can steal an idea, why can’t you plant one there instead?
Arthur: Okay, this is me, planting an idea in your mind. I say; don’t think about elephants. What are you thinking about?
Saito: Elephants.
Arthur: Right, but it’s not your idea. The dreamer can always remember the genesis of the idea. True inspiration is impossible to fake.
However, they take the job because Cobb says it can be done since, according to him, it has been done before. What follows is twisting and turning through multiple dreams (and dreams within dreams within dreams) in an attempt to plant their seed while attempting to stay grounded in reality. The problem that they all encounter through the course of this job is summed up by the simplest and most difficult question: what is real?
RATING
PG-13 FOR SEQUENCES OF VIOLENCE AND ACTION THROUGHOUT
That rating blurb really says it all. This is one of those movies that regardless of age, you need to know your children before letting them watch it. The violence is moderate and very tastefully done (not unlike Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, also from Christopher Nolan) but it is present. The most disturbing part to me is throughout the movie, the quickest way for them to wake up from a “dream infiltration” if you will, is to die. Once they die in the dream, their real world body will wake up.
In Inception, this concept leads to several blatantly intentional killings of both friends and selves since their goal is to wake up from the dream. I don’t think that movies and television and video games are responsible for the behavior of individuals but that doesn’t mean that they can’t plant the seed of an idea… and in this case, I felt the need to warn.
AUDIENCE
CHILDREN – 2
The story, much like Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, is a bit on the dark side. While I think there are parts that children would enjoy (such as the Matrix type dream environment where buildings and cities can be built and destroyed much like a child playing in a sandbox) there are also parts that could cause problems for children. However, this movie does have a built in defense if you find yourself in the movie theater with your child and find yourself regretting the decision; the vast majority of the movie takes place within dreams. In more ways than one, it’s not real. However, use caution.
YOUNG MALE – 7
YOUNG FEMALE – 5
The themes of this movie don’t appeal to teenagers the way they do to adults in my opinion, hence the lower rating. This is still an action movie with very good special effects but the last time I checked, those are the qualities that young women look for in a movie.
ADULT MALE – 9
ADULT FEMALE – 9
I know, if I’m going to go all the way to saying that this movie appeals universally to men and women at a very high level, why not just go one step further and give both of these categories a “10”? Well, my answer to that question occurs right before the screen goes black and the credits start to roll at the end of the movie. Unfortunately for you if you haven’t seen this movie, I made a pact with myself not to say what happens. Go watch the movie.
What really struck me about this movie is the enormous power that the subconscious mind has and what can happen if that power is misused or allowed to run amok. It also makes me wonder and marvel at what the human brain might someday be capable of.
GORE – 10
To clarify, a rating of 10 here doesn’t mean that this movie is full of gore. On the contrary, what this rating signifies is that that violence in the film was very tastefully done and added to the overall movie-going experience as well as the story.
There are numerous shootouts throughout the movie as, according to the film, if a person is taught to fight off people attempting to penetrate their dreams, their subconscious projections of people in the dream world will actually fight off the infiltrators. The deeper you go into the subconscious, the more zealously the subject’s mind will defend itself. Therefore, we go from hired gunmen from what looks like a private security firm in one level to a veritable army of military personnel in the next level.
There are also a few hand-to-hand combat scenes which I will mention later that were choreographed amazingly.
ROMANCE – 7
There is a romantic subplot… of sorts. I hate to be tantalizingly vague, but if I open the can of worms that is this relationship, I’ll end up explaining every little complexity and give away three quarters of the movie while I’m at it. Sorry.
(NOTE: originally my rating for “Romance” was a 5 but after thinking about how much this subplot contributes to the overall plot, I decided to upgrade this rating to a 7.)
DIALOGUE – 7
This movie didn’t have a ton of awesome one-liners. In fact, I had to think long and hard before coming up with the quote which started off this post. However, the dialogue gets some bonus points for the way that it managed to keep the viewer up to speed without explaining everything all at once where the viewer can forget things.
In the story, one member of the team for the inception job is completely new to the concept of breaking into peoples’ dreams. Therefore, she actually has a similar level of knowledge to the audience. When the more experienced people start talking about something they have encountered or heard of before (such as limbo) Ariadne (played by Ellen Page) will ask what they’re talking about. In that way, the audience is able to stay up to speed with what’s going on without forgetting key plot devices.
SPECIAL EFFECTS – 10
The best thing that I can say about the special effects in this movie is they were not overdone. It would have been simple to allow the dream world to become much like the Matrix, where anything is possible and the characters begin molding the world to their liking, toppling building and erecting new ones very similar to a child in a sandbox. However, the special effects were used to orient the viewer, not necessarily to dazzle the viewer.
For instance, when you are in a dream, your body in the dream world is bound by the laws of physics in the real world. There is one scene where Arthur is in a dream but his body is actually asleep in the back of a van in the midst of a high speed chase (don’t ask, go watch the movie). Therefore, when the van takes a hard turn and begins to drift through it in the real world, the hotel that Arthur is in begins to pitch about as if it was undergoing that same maneuver.
The single most amazing scene of the movie was right around the same point. Arthur has to fight off one of the subject’s subconscious defense personnel… right when the van he’s sleeping in careens off the road and starts to roll.
What follows is a truly incredible fight scene where gravity shifts every fraction of a second and the fight goes from the floor to one wall to the ceiling to the other wall and then they have to hold on as “down” becomes down the hallway and they have to catch themselves from falling down the hallway.
If you haven’t seen the movie, I’m fairly sure that what I just wrote makes no sense. I have two suggestions; one, go see the movie. Two, read Orson Scott Card’s book Ender’s Game. The battle room in that novel has a similar lack of normalness when it comes to the laws of physics.
STORY – 10
I must admit that I can draw a lot of parallels between this movie and Memento. In a nutshell, the question that the characters keep asking themselves is ‘is this real?’ in an attempt to keep the difference between the dream world and the real world straight in their minds. The fact that you as the viewer have to keep asking yourself the same question means that this story succeeded on all counts.
ACTING – 8
For whatever reason, I don’t think this was one of Leonardo DiCaprio’s strongest roles. However, I’ve become a huge fan of his and he was still very good. The supporting cast was also tremendous, as it featured four Academy Award nominees (Tom Berenger, Pete Postlethwaite, Ken Watanabe, and Ellen Page) and two Academy Award winners (Michael Caine and Marion Cotillard).
Most importantly, Christopher Nolan wrote the playbook (screenplay) and then the cast went out and executed it perfectly. That will be the only sports metaphor of this post.
INTANGIBLES – 12
Yes, I know, I set a scale from 0-10 and then I throw out a rating of 12. Well, it’s my rating system so I can break the rules whenever I want. Without the little kicker at the end, the intangible rating for this movie would have been good, perhaps an 8. Any movie that makes the viewer question reality deserves some extra points. As for those last four points…
Go see the movie already!
TOTAL POINTS – 96/120
ADJUSTED – 80/100
A quick comment on my scoring system before I lose your attention until the next posting that you read. If you take time to peruse my system and its results, you’ll notice that it is skewed towards movies that have a broad audience base. For instance, in the five audience categories, the Godfather (quite possibly my favorite movie) scores just 29/50, since it isn’t terribly appealing for women and I don’t at all recommend it for children. On the flipside, WALL-E was rated at 45/50.
Inception struggled in the audience ratings again because I don’t think it’s a good movie for younger people (it received 32 of the possible 50 points). However, when you take audience out of the picture, Inception scored the second highest number of points of any movie that I’ve rated so far (second to Schindler’s List). Admittedly, I haven’t rated too many movies using this system yet, but for those of you who know me, it should say a lot when WALL-E received 58/70 points, the Godfather received 61/70, and Inception received 64/70.
Yes, it was that good.
GO SEE IT ALREADY!
Before seeing this movie, I hadn’t even realized just how much my movie-enjoying experience of the past few years had been shaped by Christopher Nolan; now I understand. Nolan has directed 9 films thus far in his relatively short career and an astonishing 5 of them have reached the IMDB.com “Top 250” list for highest rated films. To top it all off, he also wrote the screenplays for all five.
For me, he is reaching the rarified air that few directors have achieved for me. I remember seeing the first trailer for the first Transformers movie and thinking that some studio executives were sorely misguided by giving that film the green light. Then I saw that the executive producer (not director, but still involved) was Steven Spielberg. I decided, based on his reputation, to give the movie an open-minded chance. I am now a big fan of both movies, own both, and will one day own the third. Christopher Nolan is very close to reaching that level for me. This is a list of the five movies I mentioned previously and their respective ranks amongst the top rated movies on the Internet Movie DataBase (imdb.com).
Inception – 4th
Dark Knight – 11th
Memento – 29th
Prestige – 72nd
Batman Begins – 107th
In short, this is a truly excellent list of movies to come from one director. As much as I would love to gush about the character development and the shot in the arm he gave the Batman franchise or the mindtrip that is Memento, this post is all (well, mostly) about his most recent addition to the list. Inception has thus far received an average rating of 9.0/10 amongst over 175,000 voters and is bested only by The Shawshank Redemption, The Godfather, and the Godfather Part II.
PLOT (WITH AS FEW SPOILERS AS POSSIBLE)
At some point in the distant (or near, we don’t really know) future, we have the ability to enter the dreams of other people who can either be aware or unaware that they are dreaming. While there may be many legitimate uses for this technology, I can only assume that it was a very short period of time before some realized its potential for illegal uses.
For example, our story starts with the protagonist Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) attempting to commit corporate espionage. In essence, they attempt to break into the subject’s mind, gaining very valuable information from a very powerful and wealthy industrialist without him even knowing that anything was taken.
Something ends up going wrong and the team more or less gets caught by the industrialist who brings them an interesting proposal. Since the company that hired them would probably be out to kill them, they could either take their chances or they could accept his proposition. Inception. Normally all they would do is extract information while the subject was in their dream state but what this man wanted was for Cobb and his team to plant an idea within the mind of his chief competitor, who was on the brink of inheriting an energy conglomerate that could basically rules the world’s energy market. The tricky part was summed up perfectly by Arthur, played wonderfully by Joseph Gordon-Levitt.
Cobb: What do you want?
Saito (Wealthy Industrialist): Inception. Is it possible?
Arthur: Of course not.
Saito: If you can steal an idea, why can’t you plant one there instead?
Arthur: Okay, this is me, planting an idea in your mind. I say; don’t think about elephants. What are you thinking about?
Saito: Elephants.
Arthur: Right, but it’s not your idea. The dreamer can always remember the genesis of the idea. True inspiration is impossible to fake.
However, they take the job because Cobb says it can be done since, according to him, it has been done before. What follows is twisting and turning through multiple dreams (and dreams within dreams within dreams) in an attempt to plant their seed while attempting to stay grounded in reality. The problem that they all encounter through the course of this job is summed up by the simplest and most difficult question: what is real?
RATING
PG-13 FOR SEQUENCES OF VIOLENCE AND ACTION THROUGHOUT
That rating blurb really says it all. This is one of those movies that regardless of age, you need to know your children before letting them watch it. The violence is moderate and very tastefully done (not unlike Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, also from Christopher Nolan) but it is present. The most disturbing part to me is throughout the movie, the quickest way for them to wake up from a “dream infiltration” if you will, is to die. Once they die in the dream, their real world body will wake up.
In Inception, this concept leads to several blatantly intentional killings of both friends and selves since their goal is to wake up from the dream. I don’t think that movies and television and video games are responsible for the behavior of individuals but that doesn’t mean that they can’t plant the seed of an idea… and in this case, I felt the need to warn.
AUDIENCE
CHILDREN – 2
The story, much like Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, is a bit on the dark side. While I think there are parts that children would enjoy (such as the Matrix type dream environment where buildings and cities can be built and destroyed much like a child playing in a sandbox) there are also parts that could cause problems for children. However, this movie does have a built in defense if you find yourself in the movie theater with your child and find yourself regretting the decision; the vast majority of the movie takes place within dreams. In more ways than one, it’s not real. However, use caution.
YOUNG MALE – 7
YOUNG FEMALE – 5
The themes of this movie don’t appeal to teenagers the way they do to adults in my opinion, hence the lower rating. This is still an action movie with very good special effects but the last time I checked, those are the qualities that young women look for in a movie.
ADULT MALE – 9
ADULT FEMALE – 9
I know, if I’m going to go all the way to saying that this movie appeals universally to men and women at a very high level, why not just go one step further and give both of these categories a “10”? Well, my answer to that question occurs right before the screen goes black and the credits start to roll at the end of the movie. Unfortunately for you if you haven’t seen this movie, I made a pact with myself not to say what happens. Go watch the movie.
What really struck me about this movie is the enormous power that the subconscious mind has and what can happen if that power is misused or allowed to run amok. It also makes me wonder and marvel at what the human brain might someday be capable of.
GORE – 10
To clarify, a rating of 10 here doesn’t mean that this movie is full of gore. On the contrary, what this rating signifies is that that violence in the film was very tastefully done and added to the overall movie-going experience as well as the story.
There are numerous shootouts throughout the movie as, according to the film, if a person is taught to fight off people attempting to penetrate their dreams, their subconscious projections of people in the dream world will actually fight off the infiltrators. The deeper you go into the subconscious, the more zealously the subject’s mind will defend itself. Therefore, we go from hired gunmen from what looks like a private security firm in one level to a veritable army of military personnel in the next level.
There are also a few hand-to-hand combat scenes which I will mention later that were choreographed amazingly.
ROMANCE – 7
There is a romantic subplot… of sorts. I hate to be tantalizingly vague, but if I open the can of worms that is this relationship, I’ll end up explaining every little complexity and give away three quarters of the movie while I’m at it. Sorry.
(NOTE: originally my rating for “Romance” was a 5 but after thinking about how much this subplot contributes to the overall plot, I decided to upgrade this rating to a 7.)
DIALOGUE – 7
This movie didn’t have a ton of awesome one-liners. In fact, I had to think long and hard before coming up with the quote which started off this post. However, the dialogue gets some bonus points for the way that it managed to keep the viewer up to speed without explaining everything all at once where the viewer can forget things.
In the story, one member of the team for the inception job is completely new to the concept of breaking into peoples’ dreams. Therefore, she actually has a similar level of knowledge to the audience. When the more experienced people start talking about something they have encountered or heard of before (such as limbo) Ariadne (played by Ellen Page) will ask what they’re talking about. In that way, the audience is able to stay up to speed with what’s going on without forgetting key plot devices.
SPECIAL EFFECTS – 10
The best thing that I can say about the special effects in this movie is they were not overdone. It would have been simple to allow the dream world to become much like the Matrix, where anything is possible and the characters begin molding the world to their liking, toppling building and erecting new ones very similar to a child in a sandbox. However, the special effects were used to orient the viewer, not necessarily to dazzle the viewer.
For instance, when you are in a dream, your body in the dream world is bound by the laws of physics in the real world. There is one scene where Arthur is in a dream but his body is actually asleep in the back of a van in the midst of a high speed chase (don’t ask, go watch the movie). Therefore, when the van takes a hard turn and begins to drift through it in the real world, the hotel that Arthur is in begins to pitch about as if it was undergoing that same maneuver.
The single most amazing scene of the movie was right around the same point. Arthur has to fight off one of the subject’s subconscious defense personnel… right when the van he’s sleeping in careens off the road and starts to roll.
What follows is a truly incredible fight scene where gravity shifts every fraction of a second and the fight goes from the floor to one wall to the ceiling to the other wall and then they have to hold on as “down” becomes down the hallway and they have to catch themselves from falling down the hallway.
If you haven’t seen the movie, I’m fairly sure that what I just wrote makes no sense. I have two suggestions; one, go see the movie. Two, read Orson Scott Card’s book Ender’s Game. The battle room in that novel has a similar lack of normalness when it comes to the laws of physics.
STORY – 10
I must admit that I can draw a lot of parallels between this movie and Memento. In a nutshell, the question that the characters keep asking themselves is ‘is this real?’ in an attempt to keep the difference between the dream world and the real world straight in their minds. The fact that you as the viewer have to keep asking yourself the same question means that this story succeeded on all counts.
ACTING – 8
For whatever reason, I don’t think this was one of Leonardo DiCaprio’s strongest roles. However, I’ve become a huge fan of his and he was still very good. The supporting cast was also tremendous, as it featured four Academy Award nominees (Tom Berenger, Pete Postlethwaite, Ken Watanabe, and Ellen Page) and two Academy Award winners (Michael Caine and Marion Cotillard).
Most importantly, Christopher Nolan wrote the playbook (screenplay) and then the cast went out and executed it perfectly. That will be the only sports metaphor of this post.
INTANGIBLES – 12
Yes, I know, I set a scale from 0-10 and then I throw out a rating of 12. Well, it’s my rating system so I can break the rules whenever I want. Without the little kicker at the end, the intangible rating for this movie would have been good, perhaps an 8. Any movie that makes the viewer question reality deserves some extra points. As for those last four points…
Go see the movie already!
TOTAL POINTS – 96/120
ADJUSTED – 80/100
A quick comment on my scoring system before I lose your attention until the next posting that you read. If you take time to peruse my system and its results, you’ll notice that it is skewed towards movies that have a broad audience base. For instance, in the five audience categories, the Godfather (quite possibly my favorite movie) scores just 29/50, since it isn’t terribly appealing for women and I don’t at all recommend it for children. On the flipside, WALL-E was rated at 45/50.
Inception struggled in the audience ratings again because I don’t think it’s a good movie for younger people (it received 32 of the possible 50 points). However, when you take audience out of the picture, Inception scored the second highest number of points of any movie that I’ve rated so far (second to Schindler’s List). Admittedly, I haven’t rated too many movies using this system yet, but for those of you who know me, it should say a lot when WALL-E received 58/70 points, the Godfather received 61/70, and Inception received 64/70.
Yes, it was that good.
GO SEE IT ALREADY!
Saturday, August 7, 2010
THE OTHER GUYS
Ok, I’m not going to be able to contain myself…
CONTAINS SPOILERS!
This movie tells the story of two detectives. One of them is looking for no excitement in his job and after getting transferred from forensic accounting, wants nothing more than to sit at his desk and do his paperwork… and since he can’t seem to handle confrontation, everyone else’s paperwork as well. The other was a rising star in the NYPD, sure to go straight to the top if he kept his nose clean. Then one night (right before game 7 of the World Series) he was handling security at Yankee Stadium, making sure nobody tried to slip into the Yankees clubhouse when a dark figure started approaching him carrying a baseball bat. He warned the man to stop, drew his weapon and warned him again. Receiving no response, he fired, hitting the man in the leg… only to realize that it was Derek Jeter listening to his iPod (actual cameo by Jeter, very cool…).
Detective Gamble (Will Farrell) finds out that an entrepreneur has several building permits around the city and hasn’t applied for a single scaffolding permit. Detective Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) is distraught at this development because everyone else is looking into high profile theft cases and Gamble wants to look into finable offenses.
True to policework (sometimes), the scaffolding permits get the detectives to look into this entrepreneur and they find a deep reaching conspiracy and then they proceed to bungle the investigation several times, incurring the wrath of their Captain, who works both at the precinct and at the local Bed, Bath, and Beyond… yes, it’s that kind of movie.
RATING
PG-13 for crude and sexual content, language, violence, and some drug material
Again, I have to say that the MPAA hit the nail on the head with this rating. It really says it all. Except one thing…
The “some drug material” line just made me think of the role drugs played in this movie and I had to mention it since I’ve already said that there are spoliers in this review. Detective Gamble (Farrell) drives his Prius to a crime scene as he and Hoitz are attempting to step into the void left by the death of the “top cops” (played by Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson). In his zeal to get to the crime scene, Gamble loses track of what he’s doing, driving his car into the crime scene, running over a corpse and a large amount of cocaine… which settles nicely all over his car. For the next few minutes, several references are made to a red Prius covered in cocaine.
CHILDREN – 2
I wouldn’t recommend that children see this movie. There are several wisecracks that are hilarious to mature adults but are not appropriate for children.
YOUNG MALE/FEMALE – 7/3
This is very much a guy movie. Action, drugs, (some) explicit language, and (lots of) crude jokes make this an enjoyable film. I’m just not sure that the 13-18 year old Twilight crowd will enjoy them as much as I did.
ADULT MALE/FEMALE – 10/6
So if this is such a guy movie, how did it get rated at 6 for adult women? Well, it’s hilarious. There are many scenes and many jokes that are still funny even if they are a little bit vulgar, uncouth, or uncivilized.
Will Farrell plays such a “square” cop for most of the movie and Mark Wahlberg desperately wants a bit of glory and also thinks that Farrell is a fake cop. The back and forth between the two of them is very well written and had me laughing throughout most of the movie.
GORE – 7
For this movie, this category really should be renamed violence because there was a fair amount of violence but very little blood. Even the violence was funny. There was a scene where the two detectives were going to play “good cop bad cop” on the businessman and were going to get him to talk. After Walhberg strong-arms him, he looks at Farrell and says that he would like to deal with him because he “seems more reasonable”. What follows actually what might happen if a forensic accountant tried to play the bad cop.
Essentially, he went nuts. He started by yelling the face of the businessman with a strange look on his face and then he proceeded to smash up the office a bit and he topped it all off by running across the room and leveling the suspect with a flying tackle.
ROMANCE – 5
Like the violence, the romantic subplots only exist to further the humor of the film. A running joke throughout the movie is that Detective Gamble has a strange ability to attract incredibly beautiful women (as evidenced by his wife, played by Eva Mendes). The first time Hoitz meets Sheila Gamble (Mendes) he doesn’t believe that they are actually married, going so far as to slip up and say “why are you with him?” before catching himself.
Even more hilarity ensues when Hoitz chases after his “one that got away”, finding her in a ballet studio (as the instructor) and he flips out when he sees her dancing with another man. Hoitz goes so far as to call her a stripper (dancing for money) at which point she points out that all the poles in the studio are horizontal. A minute later, Hoitz says that the dancing that they do isn’t too hard and that anyone can do it. Sure that he’s going to fall flat on his face, Wahlberg does the only thing that would be funnier; he executes several ballet dance moves perfectly (albeit for someone in jeans and a leather jacket) finishing with a pose that will cause you to spew your drink out from laughter (just warning you…).
DIALOGUE – 10
Unfortunately, I can’t remember all the one-liners so you’ll just have to watch the movie to hear them. A recurring line, however, related to Hoitz’s burning desire to be the alpha cop of the precinct and whenever someone is holding him back (usually Detective Gamble) he gets a sad/angry expression on his face and says something to the effect of “I’m a peacock! You gotta let me fly!” right before storming off.
SPECIAL EFFECTS – 7
The only reason this is rated so high is because the makers of this movie wanted it to be ridiculous and they got their wish. The opening chase scene featuring Detectives Highsmith (Jackson) and Danson (Johnson) was quite possibly one of the more ridiculous scenes I’ve ever seen… and I laughed throughout it.
Imagine during a chase, the police car (which is actually a muscle car) jumps and gets stuck in a double decker bus. They take control of the bus and resume the chase when the bad guys decide not to run anymore and make their final stand. Detective Danson puts the bus into a skid and the rear end hits a parked car, vaulting the previously stuck police muscle car out of the bus like a projectile, right for the bad guys and their vehicle. (As if that wasn’t enough) the camera pans to the inside of the muscle car, where Detective Highsmith is still sitting, firing two handguns while Mirandizing the bad guys. The muscle car takes out the bad guy vehicle, goes into the building behind it, and explodes.
Ridiculous? Yes. Awesome? You bet.
STORY/ACTING – 9/7
I don’t think that Will Farrell is a particularly good actor and Mark Wahlberg is good (but not great). Together they feed off each other and get to a level that they probably wouldn’t have been able to achieve with another actor alongside them.
As for the story, it’s ridiculous comedy at its best, a Police Academy type movie for this generation.
INTANGIBLES – 10
I can’t list every little thing here so I’ll just highlight a few. After proving he’s not trustworthy with a real gun, Gamble is given a wooden one. During a peptalk to his employees at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Captain Mauch accidentally starts talking about a serial rapist before realizing he’s in the wrong crowd. Two other detectives vying for the spot of alpha cop go to an elementary school for a presentation about policework. When a call comes in that they have to take, they ask for their guns back since they had passed them to the students to look at. After Captain Mauch gets sick of Gamble and Hoitz, he reassigns them to walking the beat and traffic duty, respectively. At first, Hoitz is upset about being on traffic duty but eventually he gets into it, including a wonderful scene where he dances his way through his job. And of course, how could we forget…
“I’m a peacock! You gotta let me fly!”
TOTAL POINTS – 83/120
ADJUSTED – 69
Pretty good movie overall, just leave the kids at home.
CONTAINS SPOILERS!
This movie tells the story of two detectives. One of them is looking for no excitement in his job and after getting transferred from forensic accounting, wants nothing more than to sit at his desk and do his paperwork… and since he can’t seem to handle confrontation, everyone else’s paperwork as well. The other was a rising star in the NYPD, sure to go straight to the top if he kept his nose clean. Then one night (right before game 7 of the World Series) he was handling security at Yankee Stadium, making sure nobody tried to slip into the Yankees clubhouse when a dark figure started approaching him carrying a baseball bat. He warned the man to stop, drew his weapon and warned him again. Receiving no response, he fired, hitting the man in the leg… only to realize that it was Derek Jeter listening to his iPod (actual cameo by Jeter, very cool…).
Detective Gamble (Will Farrell) finds out that an entrepreneur has several building permits around the city and hasn’t applied for a single scaffolding permit. Detective Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) is distraught at this development because everyone else is looking into high profile theft cases and Gamble wants to look into finable offenses.
True to policework (sometimes), the scaffolding permits get the detectives to look into this entrepreneur and they find a deep reaching conspiracy and then they proceed to bungle the investigation several times, incurring the wrath of their Captain, who works both at the precinct and at the local Bed, Bath, and Beyond… yes, it’s that kind of movie.
RATING
PG-13 for crude and sexual content, language, violence, and some drug material
Again, I have to say that the MPAA hit the nail on the head with this rating. It really says it all. Except one thing…
The “some drug material” line just made me think of the role drugs played in this movie and I had to mention it since I’ve already said that there are spoliers in this review. Detective Gamble (Farrell) drives his Prius to a crime scene as he and Hoitz are attempting to step into the void left by the death of the “top cops” (played by Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson). In his zeal to get to the crime scene, Gamble loses track of what he’s doing, driving his car into the crime scene, running over a corpse and a large amount of cocaine… which settles nicely all over his car. For the next few minutes, several references are made to a red Prius covered in cocaine.
CHILDREN – 2
I wouldn’t recommend that children see this movie. There are several wisecracks that are hilarious to mature adults but are not appropriate for children.
YOUNG MALE/FEMALE – 7/3
This is very much a guy movie. Action, drugs, (some) explicit language, and (lots of) crude jokes make this an enjoyable film. I’m just not sure that the 13-18 year old Twilight crowd will enjoy them as much as I did.
ADULT MALE/FEMALE – 10/6
So if this is such a guy movie, how did it get rated at 6 for adult women? Well, it’s hilarious. There are many scenes and many jokes that are still funny even if they are a little bit vulgar, uncouth, or uncivilized.
Will Farrell plays such a “square” cop for most of the movie and Mark Wahlberg desperately wants a bit of glory and also thinks that Farrell is a fake cop. The back and forth between the two of them is very well written and had me laughing throughout most of the movie.
GORE – 7
For this movie, this category really should be renamed violence because there was a fair amount of violence but very little blood. Even the violence was funny. There was a scene where the two detectives were going to play “good cop bad cop” on the businessman and were going to get him to talk. After Walhberg strong-arms him, he looks at Farrell and says that he would like to deal with him because he “seems more reasonable”. What follows actually what might happen if a forensic accountant tried to play the bad cop.
Essentially, he went nuts. He started by yelling the face of the businessman with a strange look on his face and then he proceeded to smash up the office a bit and he topped it all off by running across the room and leveling the suspect with a flying tackle.
ROMANCE – 5
Like the violence, the romantic subplots only exist to further the humor of the film. A running joke throughout the movie is that Detective Gamble has a strange ability to attract incredibly beautiful women (as evidenced by his wife, played by Eva Mendes). The first time Hoitz meets Sheila Gamble (Mendes) he doesn’t believe that they are actually married, going so far as to slip up and say “why are you with him?” before catching himself.
Even more hilarity ensues when Hoitz chases after his “one that got away”, finding her in a ballet studio (as the instructor) and he flips out when he sees her dancing with another man. Hoitz goes so far as to call her a stripper (dancing for money) at which point she points out that all the poles in the studio are horizontal. A minute later, Hoitz says that the dancing that they do isn’t too hard and that anyone can do it. Sure that he’s going to fall flat on his face, Wahlberg does the only thing that would be funnier; he executes several ballet dance moves perfectly (albeit for someone in jeans and a leather jacket) finishing with a pose that will cause you to spew your drink out from laughter (just warning you…).
DIALOGUE – 10
Unfortunately, I can’t remember all the one-liners so you’ll just have to watch the movie to hear them. A recurring line, however, related to Hoitz’s burning desire to be the alpha cop of the precinct and whenever someone is holding him back (usually Detective Gamble) he gets a sad/angry expression on his face and says something to the effect of “I’m a peacock! You gotta let me fly!” right before storming off.
SPECIAL EFFECTS – 7
The only reason this is rated so high is because the makers of this movie wanted it to be ridiculous and they got their wish. The opening chase scene featuring Detectives Highsmith (Jackson) and Danson (Johnson) was quite possibly one of the more ridiculous scenes I’ve ever seen… and I laughed throughout it.
Imagine during a chase, the police car (which is actually a muscle car) jumps and gets stuck in a double decker bus. They take control of the bus and resume the chase when the bad guys decide not to run anymore and make their final stand. Detective Danson puts the bus into a skid and the rear end hits a parked car, vaulting the previously stuck police muscle car out of the bus like a projectile, right for the bad guys and their vehicle. (As if that wasn’t enough) the camera pans to the inside of the muscle car, where Detective Highsmith is still sitting, firing two handguns while Mirandizing the bad guys. The muscle car takes out the bad guy vehicle, goes into the building behind it, and explodes.
Ridiculous? Yes. Awesome? You bet.
STORY/ACTING – 9/7
I don’t think that Will Farrell is a particularly good actor and Mark Wahlberg is good (but not great). Together they feed off each other and get to a level that they probably wouldn’t have been able to achieve with another actor alongside them.
As for the story, it’s ridiculous comedy at its best, a Police Academy type movie for this generation.
INTANGIBLES – 10
I can’t list every little thing here so I’ll just highlight a few. After proving he’s not trustworthy with a real gun, Gamble is given a wooden one. During a peptalk to his employees at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Captain Mauch accidentally starts talking about a serial rapist before realizing he’s in the wrong crowd. Two other detectives vying for the spot of alpha cop go to an elementary school for a presentation about policework. When a call comes in that they have to take, they ask for their guns back since they had passed them to the students to look at. After Captain Mauch gets sick of Gamble and Hoitz, he reassigns them to walking the beat and traffic duty, respectively. At first, Hoitz is upset about being on traffic duty but eventually he gets into it, including a wonderful scene where he dances his way through his job. And of course, how could we forget…
“I’m a peacock! You gotta let me fly!”
TOTAL POINTS – 83/120
ADJUSTED – 69
Pretty good movie overall, just leave the kids at home.
SALT
This film was advertised in its run-up to release as a female Jason Bourne movie and while there are similarities, I don’t think that is a terribly good comparison.
This story starts by showing CIA agent Evelyn Salt being released from a North Korean prison, bailed out not by her Agency superiors, but rather by her husband, a German national that has nothing to do with the CIA.
After this we see shots of the boring everyday existence of Agent Salt as the world isn’t constantly going up in flames and needing the attention of every super-agent out there. For instance, a Russian man turns himself into the CIA and says he wishes to defect. Salt balks on taking the lead in the interrogation because she has anniversary plans with her husband. Her superior, Ted Winter (played by Liev Schreiber), also balks because he has a plane to catch and is tired at the end of a long day.
However, they both come back and help interrogate the potential defector and in the course of the interview/interrogation, he implicates Evelyn Salt as a Russian agent, not knowing that she was the one interviewing him.
The next hour and a half is almost pure action with a few breaks to take a breath as Salt tries to outrun (literally, then figuratively) the CIA agents trying to catch her and bring her in for questioning. Before I continue, isn’t it interesting that whenever a good guy agent is implicated in some huge conspiracy, they always run, citing the need to “clear their own name”? You never see implicated agents cooperating with the investigation and letting the proper due process clear their name for them. Well, the latter makes a terrible movie… maybe that’s the answer…
So, from this point on, I’m not sure I trust myself to keep everything under wraps so…
CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!
RATING
PG-13 for scenes of intense action and violence
This movie is intriguing to me because if I had to peg a movie franchise that it is closest to in terms of action, gore, and language, my first inclination would be James Bond. Some people might say the Bourne franchise but the action sequences ring totally differently to me.
There is a lot of violence in this movie (after all, it’s about spies and sleeper cells that are very well trained in the skill of killing people) but there’s not a whole lot of gore. In the Bourne trilogy, there is a fair amount of blood because no matter how well these agents are trained, they can’t teach them not to bleed. Bourne has a limp in one leg for most of the second and third movie and he comes out of nearly every fight scene with blood oozing from somewhere that is visible.
By contrast, James Bond (before Daniel Craig that is) just didn’t seem to bleed. He would get in fights, he would get the you-know-what beaten out of him, and he would have bumps and bruises to show for it. I understand that make-up and choreography are much more believable now than they were in 1962 when Dr. No came out but still…
To wrap it all up, in this movie Salt does bleed after several fight scenes. However, if they had made the amount of blood seen more realistic like the Bourne trilogy, I have no problem believing that this movie would have been rated R. Did they reduce the visible blood to get a PG-13 rating? It would hardly be the first time…
Lastly, I would put this in the category of the James Bond films where Bond is played by Daniel Craig. This movie is suitable for a wide range of audiences but before you take your small child to see it, make sure they can handle it.
AUDIENCE
CHILDREN – 2
Some kids are advanced for their age and can handle the mature concepts and themes of this movie. As a rule, I think the rating system devised by the MPAA is pretty good at pegging when the average person is mature enough to handle the concepts of a movie. Therefore, children under 13 years old may not handle this material as well as older people.
What do I know though? I saw my first R-rated movie when I was 9 so to each his own.
YOUNG MALE/FEMALE – 7/5
Honestly, if this movie was made several years ago, the “male” side of this rating would have been a bit higher. Truth be told, in my mind, Angelina Jolie isn’t quite the movie star that she was a few years ago. She is still a good actress and a good many guys out there still think she’s one of the most attractive women in Hollywood and I can’t disagree but she seemed to inspire a flock of younger, very attractive actresses that are realizing the way into men’s imaginations is to do action movies (I’m talking to you, Scarlett Johansson).
Still, an action movie with Angelina Jolie as the lead is still a big draw for adolescent males and I’ve said it many times and I’ll say it many more; any movie that can be spun as showing how tough women can be and how they can compete in any field with men is going to go over well with a lot of women, young and old.
ADULT MALE/FEMALE – 8/6
Angelina Jolie is not getting any younger and the crop of men that have watched her become a movie star over the past ten years are aging with her, hence, the male rating goes up slightly.
My reasoning for these ratings are virtually the same as they were for the young male/female classes but were slightly higher because of the overall maturity level and the content of this movie that caters to more mature audiences.
GORE – 7
As I said before, Salt contained very James Bond type levels of gore; there was just enough to make it look real but not enough that it would bump the rating up to R. All in all, job well done.
ROMANCE – 3
There was sort of a romantic subplot and it didn’t quite ring true to me and after avoiding the subject for so long, this is when I can’t hold back the spoilers.
The main premise of the film is that Salt actually is a Russian agent but she has a change of heart and she has to “complete” her missions to make sure someone else doesn’t do it for her when she goes rogue. In other words, the only way to protect the targets that she is supposed to kill is to eliminate any potential threats around the targets. This leads to utter mayhem in which the principal targets sustain minor injuries.
The part that doesn’t ring true is why she eventually turns her back on her parent Russian organization. It appears outwardly that she did it because they killed her husband. This seems odd in movie terms at least because secret agents don’t fall in love and if they do and something happens, they never get that personal again (see, Casino Royale – 2006).
For some reason, Salt going on this rampage of death and destruction and bringing down the entire sleeper network partially because of her husband’s murder doesn’t sit quite right with me.
DIALOGUE/SPECIAL EFFECTS – 5/6
This movie wasn’t heavy on one-liners or complex special effects but the movie did seem pretty plausible, which is one of the best things I can say about a movie based on reality. Neither of these categories went out of their way to enhance the experience and neither of them got in the way of the experience; hence, middle-range ratings.
STORY – 7
This was a very odd twist on the usual rogue spy story. Traditionally, there is no truth to the rumors of being an enemy spy and after all is said and done, the superspy receives a medal for their efforts to save the world while their own parent agency was looking for them.
In this movie, she actually IS a Russian spy but has a change of heart and now has to go out of her way to avoid the good guys, find and kill the bad guys, and not get shot herself. In the end, when some of her efforts come to the attention of a particular agent, instead of getting her name cleared, which he knows will take forever, he aids in her escape right under the noses of two agents that have no job but to watch their prisoner (Salt).
In my humble opinion, this story would have been better as a 24 type TV show instead of a movie. One of the best aspects of this movie was the knowledge that enemy agents could be anywhere and you start to wonder who the next one is going to be. You especially start to wonder how high the infiltration can go if the main character turns out to be a “bad guy”. I can’t help but think that if they had turned that into a TV show, it would have been better. Of course, it also would have been compared to 24 for its entire run on TV… maybe a movie was a better idea…
ACTING – 7
Angelina Jolie is good. Liev Schreiber is good. Chiwetel Ejiofor is one of my favorite “supporting role” actors. While the plot seemed a bit farfetched, these three actors went a long way to making it much more believable.
INTANGIBLE – 8
A lot of these points come from chase scenes and escape scenes, both of which seemed to me to be the most unrealistic parts of this movie. However, they were something I’ve never seen before and when it comes to the spy genre; I can say that I’ve seen most of it. Jumping from semi to semi on a network of highway overpasses was a very novel idea even if it would have ended in catastrophe in real life. Salt’s frequent escapes from unwinnable situations start to wear thin but when it really comes down to it, nobody in Hollywood knows what an honest to god sleeper is capable of so they have plenty of latitude when it comes to an on-screen portrayal. Overall though, I enjoy a good chase scene and while this one doesn’t measure up to Bourne (any of the three movies), it was still very enjoyable.
TOTAL SCORE – 71/120
ADJUSTED – 59
All in all, it’s an action movie. It doesn’t appeal to all people but the people that it does appeal to will thoroughly enjoy it.
This story starts by showing CIA agent Evelyn Salt being released from a North Korean prison, bailed out not by her Agency superiors, but rather by her husband, a German national that has nothing to do with the CIA.
After this we see shots of the boring everyday existence of Agent Salt as the world isn’t constantly going up in flames and needing the attention of every super-agent out there. For instance, a Russian man turns himself into the CIA and says he wishes to defect. Salt balks on taking the lead in the interrogation because she has anniversary plans with her husband. Her superior, Ted Winter (played by Liev Schreiber), also balks because he has a plane to catch and is tired at the end of a long day.
However, they both come back and help interrogate the potential defector and in the course of the interview/interrogation, he implicates Evelyn Salt as a Russian agent, not knowing that she was the one interviewing him.
The next hour and a half is almost pure action with a few breaks to take a breath as Salt tries to outrun (literally, then figuratively) the CIA agents trying to catch her and bring her in for questioning. Before I continue, isn’t it interesting that whenever a good guy agent is implicated in some huge conspiracy, they always run, citing the need to “clear their own name”? You never see implicated agents cooperating with the investigation and letting the proper due process clear their name for them. Well, the latter makes a terrible movie… maybe that’s the answer…
So, from this point on, I’m not sure I trust myself to keep everything under wraps so…
CONTAINS SPOILERS!!!
RATING
PG-13 for scenes of intense action and violence
This movie is intriguing to me because if I had to peg a movie franchise that it is closest to in terms of action, gore, and language, my first inclination would be James Bond. Some people might say the Bourne franchise but the action sequences ring totally differently to me.
There is a lot of violence in this movie (after all, it’s about spies and sleeper cells that are very well trained in the skill of killing people) but there’s not a whole lot of gore. In the Bourne trilogy, there is a fair amount of blood because no matter how well these agents are trained, they can’t teach them not to bleed. Bourne has a limp in one leg for most of the second and third movie and he comes out of nearly every fight scene with blood oozing from somewhere that is visible.
By contrast, James Bond (before Daniel Craig that is) just didn’t seem to bleed. He would get in fights, he would get the you-know-what beaten out of him, and he would have bumps and bruises to show for it. I understand that make-up and choreography are much more believable now than they were in 1962 when Dr. No came out but still…
To wrap it all up, in this movie Salt does bleed after several fight scenes. However, if they had made the amount of blood seen more realistic like the Bourne trilogy, I have no problem believing that this movie would have been rated R. Did they reduce the visible blood to get a PG-13 rating? It would hardly be the first time…
Lastly, I would put this in the category of the James Bond films where Bond is played by Daniel Craig. This movie is suitable for a wide range of audiences but before you take your small child to see it, make sure they can handle it.
AUDIENCE
CHILDREN – 2
Some kids are advanced for their age and can handle the mature concepts and themes of this movie. As a rule, I think the rating system devised by the MPAA is pretty good at pegging when the average person is mature enough to handle the concepts of a movie. Therefore, children under 13 years old may not handle this material as well as older people.
What do I know though? I saw my first R-rated movie when I was 9 so to each his own.
YOUNG MALE/FEMALE – 7/5
Honestly, if this movie was made several years ago, the “male” side of this rating would have been a bit higher. Truth be told, in my mind, Angelina Jolie isn’t quite the movie star that she was a few years ago. She is still a good actress and a good many guys out there still think she’s one of the most attractive women in Hollywood and I can’t disagree but she seemed to inspire a flock of younger, very attractive actresses that are realizing the way into men’s imaginations is to do action movies (I’m talking to you, Scarlett Johansson).
Still, an action movie with Angelina Jolie as the lead is still a big draw for adolescent males and I’ve said it many times and I’ll say it many more; any movie that can be spun as showing how tough women can be and how they can compete in any field with men is going to go over well with a lot of women, young and old.
ADULT MALE/FEMALE – 8/6
Angelina Jolie is not getting any younger and the crop of men that have watched her become a movie star over the past ten years are aging with her, hence, the male rating goes up slightly.
My reasoning for these ratings are virtually the same as they were for the young male/female classes but were slightly higher because of the overall maturity level and the content of this movie that caters to more mature audiences.
GORE – 7
As I said before, Salt contained very James Bond type levels of gore; there was just enough to make it look real but not enough that it would bump the rating up to R. All in all, job well done.
ROMANCE – 3
There was sort of a romantic subplot and it didn’t quite ring true to me and after avoiding the subject for so long, this is when I can’t hold back the spoilers.
The main premise of the film is that Salt actually is a Russian agent but she has a change of heart and she has to “complete” her missions to make sure someone else doesn’t do it for her when she goes rogue. In other words, the only way to protect the targets that she is supposed to kill is to eliminate any potential threats around the targets. This leads to utter mayhem in which the principal targets sustain minor injuries.
The part that doesn’t ring true is why she eventually turns her back on her parent Russian organization. It appears outwardly that she did it because they killed her husband. This seems odd in movie terms at least because secret agents don’t fall in love and if they do and something happens, they never get that personal again (see, Casino Royale – 2006).
For some reason, Salt going on this rampage of death and destruction and bringing down the entire sleeper network partially because of her husband’s murder doesn’t sit quite right with me.
DIALOGUE/SPECIAL EFFECTS – 5/6
This movie wasn’t heavy on one-liners or complex special effects but the movie did seem pretty plausible, which is one of the best things I can say about a movie based on reality. Neither of these categories went out of their way to enhance the experience and neither of them got in the way of the experience; hence, middle-range ratings.
STORY – 7
This was a very odd twist on the usual rogue spy story. Traditionally, there is no truth to the rumors of being an enemy spy and after all is said and done, the superspy receives a medal for their efforts to save the world while their own parent agency was looking for them.
In this movie, she actually IS a Russian spy but has a change of heart and now has to go out of her way to avoid the good guys, find and kill the bad guys, and not get shot herself. In the end, when some of her efforts come to the attention of a particular agent, instead of getting her name cleared, which he knows will take forever, he aids in her escape right under the noses of two agents that have no job but to watch their prisoner (Salt).
In my humble opinion, this story would have been better as a 24 type TV show instead of a movie. One of the best aspects of this movie was the knowledge that enemy agents could be anywhere and you start to wonder who the next one is going to be. You especially start to wonder how high the infiltration can go if the main character turns out to be a “bad guy”. I can’t help but think that if they had turned that into a TV show, it would have been better. Of course, it also would have been compared to 24 for its entire run on TV… maybe a movie was a better idea…
ACTING – 7
Angelina Jolie is good. Liev Schreiber is good. Chiwetel Ejiofor is one of my favorite “supporting role” actors. While the plot seemed a bit farfetched, these three actors went a long way to making it much more believable.
INTANGIBLE – 8
A lot of these points come from chase scenes and escape scenes, both of which seemed to me to be the most unrealistic parts of this movie. However, they were something I’ve never seen before and when it comes to the spy genre; I can say that I’ve seen most of it. Jumping from semi to semi on a network of highway overpasses was a very novel idea even if it would have ended in catastrophe in real life. Salt’s frequent escapes from unwinnable situations start to wear thin but when it really comes down to it, nobody in Hollywood knows what an honest to god sleeper is capable of so they have plenty of latitude when it comes to an on-screen portrayal. Overall though, I enjoy a good chase scene and while this one doesn’t measure up to Bourne (any of the three movies), it was still very enjoyable.
TOTAL SCORE – 71/120
ADJUSTED – 59
All in all, it’s an action movie. It doesn’t appeal to all people but the people that it does appeal to will thoroughly enjoy it.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT
Before delving into this movie, I just have to say that neither one of them is my favorite actress but every time I find myself doubting Annette Bening and Julianne Moore, they always remind me just how good they are.
This movie tells a very interesting story of a middle-aged lesbian couple with two teenaged children born with the help of a sperm donor. As their 18 year old daughter Joni is on the verge of going off to college, her 15 year old brother Laser (not kidding, that’s his name) asks her to contact the sperm bank for information about their biological father.
What follows is a well woven tale about an unconventional family coming to grips with choices made in the past and present and coming through a difficult time of everyone’s life with a positive outlook on life. Yes, indeed, you may not think so while watching the movie but in the end, it certainly lives up to its title.
I hate doing it but I have to just in case someone wants to yell at me for giving something away…
MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!!
RATING
R for strong sexual content, nudity, language, and some teen drug and alcohol use.
First of all, I have to say that it very much intrigues me that the word “teen” is in that sentence. I understand that we don’t want the youth of America to see teens in movies doing drugs and drinking and driving and to think it’s all ok but still, I object to the fact that it appears that when adults do drugs and drink (and sometimes drive) on screen, it’s somehow not as bad as when kids do it.
If you want to send a message, MPAA, send it.
I was watching Back to the Future recently and there is a classic scene where Biff totals George McFly’s car, saying that he had no idea that the car had a “blind spot”. He goes on to ask who is going to pay for the cleaning of his jacket because he spilled beer on it during the accident. I understand that this movie was made in 1985 but the MPAA rated Back to the Future PG.
All I’m saying is if you want to send a message about drug and alcohol use, it shouldn’t matter which character in the movie is doing it.
Anyways, back to the rating; yes, this movie has very adult content in it and comes very close on several occasions to having scenes that could be described as hardcore pornography. Is it overdone? I don’t think so. This movie is very sexually charged and I think it was tastefully done.
Still, not for kids…
AUDIENCE
CHILDREN – 0
Instead of blathering on here, just reread the above section on RATING and you should understand why I don’t recommend this movie for children.
YOUNG MALE/FEMALE – 2/7
This movie is about empowered women. First of all, the main characters fell in love and got married and have a (mostly) happy marriage and family unit in a country that is still coming to grips with people of the same sex doing that. A supporting character in this movie is an 18 year old girl who, while naïve, stretches her wings to see how far she can go. All of these are admirable things to look up to and aspire to for young women in this country. I guess what I’m trying to say is this movie is not about being straight or gay; it’s (partially) about taking control of your life, finding out what you want, grabbing hold of it and never letting it go.
ADULT MALE/FEMALE – 8/10
If you can get past the sex scenes and the innuendo and if you can get over the fact that two women kiss on screen several times, you can learn a lot from this movie (yes, if you haven’t figured it out, I’m just going to build on the point I just made). One of the things that I liked a lot about this movie is these people aren’t perfect and there aren’t too many arguments within the movie where someone is absolutely right and someone else is absolutely wrong.
This movie depicts a family, for better or worse, ‘til death do us part. I can fill volumes with times where I have gotten into an argument with a family member and despite being right (which happened a lot less than I like to admit) I still completely mishandle the situation. Nobody is perfect but I think the key point that this movie tries to get across is that you have to work at being a family and in the majority of cases, that work can pay enormous dividends.
GORE – 5
There was no gore or violence. If you’re hoping for violence out of this movie, you’ve obviously wandered into the wrong theater.
ROMANCE – 8
This is one of the more unconventional love stories within a movie that I have experienced. In most of the movies I watch (which admittedly, do not usually span a wide range of genres) if a married person had an affair, then there would almost certainly be a separation; usually of the married couple, sometimes of the unfaithful person from their head.
In this story, a lesbian has an affair with a man (which causes its own delicious awkwardness in and of itself). However, after shouting and arguing and hurt, Nic (Annette Bening) decides to stay with Jules (Julianne Moore) and make it work. Their marriage is far from a Romeo and Juliet fairy tale romance, but in some way, it’s actually better because they have to work at it and then they get to enjoy the fruits of that labor.
DIALOGUE – 10
This movie had some fantastic one-liners, most notably a wonderful scene where two lesbian parents have to “have the talk” with their 15 year old son whom they suspect might be gay. Hilarity ensues.
Another fantastic play on words was done by Mark Ruffalo’s character. Instead of saying “shut the %#&@ up” in a “no way, get outta here” sense, the writers gave Ruffalo the line “shut the front door”. It was said with the same inflection and was pulled off brilliantly by the actor. It was a very small thing and he said it perhaps two or three times but it was a nice little quirk of the character, much like the quirks that people have in real life that makes them so interesting…
SPECIAL EFFECTS – 5
There weren’t really any that I can think of…
STORY – 10
I think I’ve made my point about why this was a good movie and why the story is poignant to all people (of appropriate ages). I just hope that people who see it are able to look past the relative vulgarity and see the underlying message of the film because if you can’t, in my opinion, you have some issues.
ACTING/INTANGIBLES – 10/10
I’m lumping these together because the intangibles are the lead actresses, Annette Bening and Julianne Moore. Bening plays a doctor, a lifelong professional with a very well-paying job and enormous responsibility. Moore plays a hippie who is still searching for her professional calling and has gone through many jobs over the years.
Most importantly, these two actresses were able to convey (to me, at least) that they were a married couple first and a gay couple second. They bickered just like male-female married couples in other movies and they faced similar issues (their given sexual preferences did set up some good comic relief though).
TOTAL SCORE – 85/120
ADJUSTED – 71
This was a good movie and definitely worth a watch if you’re open-minded. The only reason it wasn’t rated higher is there is a lot of explicit content.
Until next time, enjoy the movies!
This movie tells a very interesting story of a middle-aged lesbian couple with two teenaged children born with the help of a sperm donor. As their 18 year old daughter Joni is on the verge of going off to college, her 15 year old brother Laser (not kidding, that’s his name) asks her to contact the sperm bank for information about their biological father.
What follows is a well woven tale about an unconventional family coming to grips with choices made in the past and present and coming through a difficult time of everyone’s life with a positive outlook on life. Yes, indeed, you may not think so while watching the movie but in the end, it certainly lives up to its title.
I hate doing it but I have to just in case someone wants to yell at me for giving something away…
MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!!
RATING
R for strong sexual content, nudity, language, and some teen drug and alcohol use.
First of all, I have to say that it very much intrigues me that the word “teen” is in that sentence. I understand that we don’t want the youth of America to see teens in movies doing drugs and drinking and driving and to think it’s all ok but still, I object to the fact that it appears that when adults do drugs and drink (and sometimes drive) on screen, it’s somehow not as bad as when kids do it.
If you want to send a message, MPAA, send it.
I was watching Back to the Future recently and there is a classic scene where Biff totals George McFly’s car, saying that he had no idea that the car had a “blind spot”. He goes on to ask who is going to pay for the cleaning of his jacket because he spilled beer on it during the accident. I understand that this movie was made in 1985 but the MPAA rated Back to the Future PG.
All I’m saying is if you want to send a message about drug and alcohol use, it shouldn’t matter which character in the movie is doing it.
Anyways, back to the rating; yes, this movie has very adult content in it and comes very close on several occasions to having scenes that could be described as hardcore pornography. Is it overdone? I don’t think so. This movie is very sexually charged and I think it was tastefully done.
Still, not for kids…
AUDIENCE
CHILDREN – 0
Instead of blathering on here, just reread the above section on RATING and you should understand why I don’t recommend this movie for children.
YOUNG MALE/FEMALE – 2/7
This movie is about empowered women. First of all, the main characters fell in love and got married and have a (mostly) happy marriage and family unit in a country that is still coming to grips with people of the same sex doing that. A supporting character in this movie is an 18 year old girl who, while naïve, stretches her wings to see how far she can go. All of these are admirable things to look up to and aspire to for young women in this country. I guess what I’m trying to say is this movie is not about being straight or gay; it’s (partially) about taking control of your life, finding out what you want, grabbing hold of it and never letting it go.
ADULT MALE/FEMALE – 8/10
If you can get past the sex scenes and the innuendo and if you can get over the fact that two women kiss on screen several times, you can learn a lot from this movie (yes, if you haven’t figured it out, I’m just going to build on the point I just made). One of the things that I liked a lot about this movie is these people aren’t perfect and there aren’t too many arguments within the movie where someone is absolutely right and someone else is absolutely wrong.
This movie depicts a family, for better or worse, ‘til death do us part. I can fill volumes with times where I have gotten into an argument with a family member and despite being right (which happened a lot less than I like to admit) I still completely mishandle the situation. Nobody is perfect but I think the key point that this movie tries to get across is that you have to work at being a family and in the majority of cases, that work can pay enormous dividends.
GORE – 5
There was no gore or violence. If you’re hoping for violence out of this movie, you’ve obviously wandered into the wrong theater.
ROMANCE – 8
This is one of the more unconventional love stories within a movie that I have experienced. In most of the movies I watch (which admittedly, do not usually span a wide range of genres) if a married person had an affair, then there would almost certainly be a separation; usually of the married couple, sometimes of the unfaithful person from their head.
In this story, a lesbian has an affair with a man (which causes its own delicious awkwardness in and of itself). However, after shouting and arguing and hurt, Nic (Annette Bening) decides to stay with Jules (Julianne Moore) and make it work. Their marriage is far from a Romeo and Juliet fairy tale romance, but in some way, it’s actually better because they have to work at it and then they get to enjoy the fruits of that labor.
DIALOGUE – 10
This movie had some fantastic one-liners, most notably a wonderful scene where two lesbian parents have to “have the talk” with their 15 year old son whom they suspect might be gay. Hilarity ensues.
Another fantastic play on words was done by Mark Ruffalo’s character. Instead of saying “shut the %#&@ up” in a “no way, get outta here” sense, the writers gave Ruffalo the line “shut the front door”. It was said with the same inflection and was pulled off brilliantly by the actor. It was a very small thing and he said it perhaps two or three times but it was a nice little quirk of the character, much like the quirks that people have in real life that makes them so interesting…
SPECIAL EFFECTS – 5
There weren’t really any that I can think of…
STORY – 10
I think I’ve made my point about why this was a good movie and why the story is poignant to all people (of appropriate ages). I just hope that people who see it are able to look past the relative vulgarity and see the underlying message of the film because if you can’t, in my opinion, you have some issues.
ACTING/INTANGIBLES – 10/10
I’m lumping these together because the intangibles are the lead actresses, Annette Bening and Julianne Moore. Bening plays a doctor, a lifelong professional with a very well-paying job and enormous responsibility. Moore plays a hippie who is still searching for her professional calling and has gone through many jobs over the years.
Most importantly, these two actresses were able to convey (to me, at least) that they were a married couple first and a gay couple second. They bickered just like male-female married couples in other movies and they faced similar issues (their given sexual preferences did set up some good comic relief though).
TOTAL SCORE – 85/120
ADJUSTED – 71
This was a good movie and definitely worth a watch if you’re open-minded. The only reason it wasn’t rated higher is there is a lot of explicit content.
Until next time, enjoy the movies!
Saturday, July 3, 2010
TOY STORY 3
There is only so much I can say about the franchise that has been Pixar’s best. Toy Story was great in 1995, Toy Story 2 was somehow better in 1999 and after 11 years off, this one picks up right where the sequel left off, introducing enough new characters while bringing back all those that you fell in love with long ago.
In essence, when longtime playmate Andy is set to go to college, he has to decide what to do with all the toys that have stood by him for all those years. A misunderstanding places them in the back of a garbage truck where Woody manages to get them out of the frying pan to a daycare center, not knowing that he unwittingly put the rest of the toys straight into the fire under the thumb of a dictatorial purple teddy bear. Hilarity ensues as Woody does everything he can to rescue his friends while at the same time getting back to his owner. In the end, difficult decisions are made about what is best for everyone involved; the toys as well as Andy.
Ok, I’ll say it again; THERE MIGHT BE SPOILERS AHEAD.
RATING – G
There is one scene which children might have some difficulty with. In essence, all of our protagonists end up at a junkyard on a conveyer belt heading to a giant incinerator. The main antagonist, Lotso, has a chance to save them by shutting down the conveyer and doesn’t, making a snide comment with an evil laugh.
However, this scene is short and I am of the opinion that any child would be able to weather this brief storm either in the lap of their parent or perhaps simply by holding a hand. It is entirely possible though that after watching this movie, children may not look at teddy bears the same way again…
CHILDREN – 10
The intended audience; children. Pixar has had repeated success at making movies that are very good for children and this is no exception. It is yet another extension of the common childhood fantasy that when you are gone, your toys play with each other rather than sitting around in some box waiting to be played with.
YOUNG MEN – 7
YOUNG WOMEN – 9
This movie has less to offer to the adolescent male than the adolescent female. After all, this is a movie about toys and in my experience adolescent males don’t do the best work for their credibility by doing anything associated with toys. Still, this movie has good action sequences, just like the first two, and wonderfully written dialogue that appeals to all age groups.
ADULT MEN – 9
ADULT WOMEN – 10
Like it or not, women are more sentimental than men and this movie (along with more or less every Pixar product) plays right into it. Having said that, it is still a wonderfully enjoyable movie for anyone with a heart; I do not recommend this movie for serial killers.
GORE – 8
As with the first two, there is a fair amount of “violence” that you would expect from toys fighting. Limbs get contorted into unnatural positions (not a big deal for a toy, just for a human), Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head lose parts regularly, and at one point Buzz Lightyear is reprogrammed from his lucid self into the Space Ranger that we first met 15 years ago with amusing consequences.
There is enough violence to make you believe that this is real and it’s not all that different from what people would do if they were thrust into similar situations but it’s also done in a tasteful way that accents the movie and doesn’t detract from it.
ACTING – 6
ROMANCE – 5
With all due respect to Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, and all the others that provided voices for this movie, there’s only so much you can add to an animated movie by providing the voice. Yes, some people are better than others at doing voice work but in this movie it added a small amount. In my opinion, the voice actors did the single best thing that they can do in an animated film; they didn’t distract you from the movie.
This movie didn’t have much of a romantic subplot with the exception of the Buzz Lightyear/Jessie relationship continued (and slightly furthered) from Toy Story 2. Didn’t add much, didn’t detract much, although it did give us one of the best scenes from all three movies (more on that later).
DIALOGUE – 8
Like every other Pixar movie I’ve seen, the writing is witty and good for all age groups. The vocabulary level is low enough that small children can follow what’s going on and occasionally there are snide references to more adult themes that small kids won’t understand and adults find hilarious.
SPECIAL EFFECTS/STORY – 10
The best thing I can say about the story is the writers somehow took the same characters, wrote three separate stories that have very little to do with each other. I know this is a drastic example but in the original Star Wars trilogy, the plot of the second and third movies built upon their predecessors. In the Toy Story franchise, these three stories are completely unrelated with the exception of the common characters.
Again, all I can say about the special effects is the highest praise I can say for an animated film; the effects were amazing but they still didn’t look too real. This isn’t a video game where the better the resolution the better and this isn’t an IMAX film where we have to see every single pixel in excruciating detail. As Nintendo found out with some of their titles for the Wii, sometimes slightly lower resolution with a great plot is better than the other way around.
INTANGIBLES – 10
Tom Hanks plus good animation plus good story equals great movie. Most importantly, they added one of the greatest sequences in all three movies with Buzz Lightyear. Part of the way through the movie, Buzz is reprogrammed by the evil toys and he reverts back to the Space Ranger from the original movie who thinks that he is still battling Zurg’s evil forces. When the good toys recapture him and attempt to reverse the process, they accidentally switch him to his “Spanish Mode”. In the ensuing few minutes, a salsa remix of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” comes on and Buzz and Jessie go bonkers for each other and have a spicy dancing scene. The scene was absolutely hilarious and provided just one more example of the writer’s brilliance.
TOTAL SCORE – 102
ADJUSTED SCORE – 85/100
All in all, this is another home run by Pixar and I highly recommend it for all ages and occasions.
In essence, when longtime playmate Andy is set to go to college, he has to decide what to do with all the toys that have stood by him for all those years. A misunderstanding places them in the back of a garbage truck where Woody manages to get them out of the frying pan to a daycare center, not knowing that he unwittingly put the rest of the toys straight into the fire under the thumb of a dictatorial purple teddy bear. Hilarity ensues as Woody does everything he can to rescue his friends while at the same time getting back to his owner. In the end, difficult decisions are made about what is best for everyone involved; the toys as well as Andy.
Ok, I’ll say it again; THERE MIGHT BE SPOILERS AHEAD.
RATING – G
There is one scene which children might have some difficulty with. In essence, all of our protagonists end up at a junkyard on a conveyer belt heading to a giant incinerator. The main antagonist, Lotso, has a chance to save them by shutting down the conveyer and doesn’t, making a snide comment with an evil laugh.
However, this scene is short and I am of the opinion that any child would be able to weather this brief storm either in the lap of their parent or perhaps simply by holding a hand. It is entirely possible though that after watching this movie, children may not look at teddy bears the same way again…
CHILDREN – 10
The intended audience; children. Pixar has had repeated success at making movies that are very good for children and this is no exception. It is yet another extension of the common childhood fantasy that when you are gone, your toys play with each other rather than sitting around in some box waiting to be played with.
YOUNG MEN – 7
YOUNG WOMEN – 9
This movie has less to offer to the adolescent male than the adolescent female. After all, this is a movie about toys and in my experience adolescent males don’t do the best work for their credibility by doing anything associated with toys. Still, this movie has good action sequences, just like the first two, and wonderfully written dialogue that appeals to all age groups.
ADULT MEN – 9
ADULT WOMEN – 10
Like it or not, women are more sentimental than men and this movie (along with more or less every Pixar product) plays right into it. Having said that, it is still a wonderfully enjoyable movie for anyone with a heart; I do not recommend this movie for serial killers.
GORE – 8
As with the first two, there is a fair amount of “violence” that you would expect from toys fighting. Limbs get contorted into unnatural positions (not a big deal for a toy, just for a human), Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head lose parts regularly, and at one point Buzz Lightyear is reprogrammed from his lucid self into the Space Ranger that we first met 15 years ago with amusing consequences.
There is enough violence to make you believe that this is real and it’s not all that different from what people would do if they were thrust into similar situations but it’s also done in a tasteful way that accents the movie and doesn’t detract from it.
ACTING – 6
ROMANCE – 5
With all due respect to Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, and all the others that provided voices for this movie, there’s only so much you can add to an animated movie by providing the voice. Yes, some people are better than others at doing voice work but in this movie it added a small amount. In my opinion, the voice actors did the single best thing that they can do in an animated film; they didn’t distract you from the movie.
This movie didn’t have much of a romantic subplot with the exception of the Buzz Lightyear/Jessie relationship continued (and slightly furthered) from Toy Story 2. Didn’t add much, didn’t detract much, although it did give us one of the best scenes from all three movies (more on that later).
DIALOGUE – 8
Like every other Pixar movie I’ve seen, the writing is witty and good for all age groups. The vocabulary level is low enough that small children can follow what’s going on and occasionally there are snide references to more adult themes that small kids won’t understand and adults find hilarious.
SPECIAL EFFECTS/STORY – 10
The best thing I can say about the story is the writers somehow took the same characters, wrote three separate stories that have very little to do with each other. I know this is a drastic example but in the original Star Wars trilogy, the plot of the second and third movies built upon their predecessors. In the Toy Story franchise, these three stories are completely unrelated with the exception of the common characters.
Again, all I can say about the special effects is the highest praise I can say for an animated film; the effects were amazing but they still didn’t look too real. This isn’t a video game where the better the resolution the better and this isn’t an IMAX film where we have to see every single pixel in excruciating detail. As Nintendo found out with some of their titles for the Wii, sometimes slightly lower resolution with a great plot is better than the other way around.
INTANGIBLES – 10
Tom Hanks plus good animation plus good story equals great movie. Most importantly, they added one of the greatest sequences in all three movies with Buzz Lightyear. Part of the way through the movie, Buzz is reprogrammed by the evil toys and he reverts back to the Space Ranger from the original movie who thinks that he is still battling Zurg’s evil forces. When the good toys recapture him and attempt to reverse the process, they accidentally switch him to his “Spanish Mode”. In the ensuing few minutes, a salsa remix of “You’ve Got a Friend in Me” comes on and Buzz and Jessie go bonkers for each other and have a spicy dancing scene. The scene was absolutely hilarious and provided just one more example of the writer’s brilliance.
TOTAL SCORE – 102
ADJUSTED SCORE – 85/100
All in all, this is another home run by Pixar and I highly recommend it for all ages and occasions.
Friday, July 2, 2010
TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE
I’m sure those of you who know me would wonder why I would review this movie because the natural assumption is that I watched it. Well, I did. I’ve now seen all three movies in the Twilight Saga. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing; just a thing.
At this point, I’m going to insert the disclaimer and I’m not going to say it ever again… THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. Ah, got that out of the way.
Anyways, without further adieu…
RATING – PG-13
Intense sequences of action and violence, and some sensuality
CHILDREN – 0
No, I do not recommend this movie for children. First of all, the subject matter is fairly dark. Secondly, the Motion Picture Association of America decided that for children under the age of 13, they should be accompanied. That should say a lot. Honestly, the rating description says it all as to why this movie isn’t the best choice for small children.
YOUNG WOMEN – 10
Ah, the target audience. This movie has it all for the teenage girl age bracket. As a friend of a friend said on Facebook, Harry Potter was a story about a kid defying the odds and coming into his own when the whole world was against him while the Twilight Saga is mostly about how important it is to have a boyfriend. I believe this is a fairly good assessment of the average American teenage girl. It’s not a bad thing or a good thing; just a thing.
For the young women this movie has everything; the heartthrob vampire that they think is hot (no idea why), the werewolf who compensates for his unusual condition by having no body hair, and a young girl with lots of free time on her hands stuck in the middle. To be the center (or very near to it) of a four-book, five movie universe is a perfect fantasy for this age group.
YOUNG MEN – 1
Take everything I said in the Young Women category and take the exact opposite. The only reason I gave this movie a 1 and not a 0 is a guy who has the intestinal fortitude to see this movie might be able to score some points with the Young Women group.
ADULT WOMEN – 7
The adult categories are quite similar to the younger categories but both are closer to the middle. This movie still appeals to women because it’s the story about a girl being chased (sometimes literally) by everyone but most especially two attractive suitors, one of whom presents the potential for eternal life.
I marked it down a bit because I think that when we reach adulthood, our dreams and fantasies take a bit of a back seat to reality and the lives that we actually lead.
ADULT MEN – 2
Adult men who go to see the Twilight movies will probably have a very good reason to and for a great many of them, it probably has to do with a daughter that fits into the “Young Women” grouping. Having a daughter that wants to see this movie and begs and pleads for you to take them to it is a much better reason to be there than a significant other. So, the daughter aspect is good for another point. Still, not a movie aimed at guys.
GORE – 7
There wasn’t too much gore in this movie which is relatively unusual for a film that centers on vampires and werewolves. There are scenes where a vampire is basically creating a vampire army and according to the story, people who were recently changed have an insatiable appetite for human blood. However, in the scenes where this is evident, the camera is either angled away from where gore would be or is far enough away that you can’t see much (if any) blood.
In the climactic battle of this movie, where the previously mentioned army of vampires attacks a family of vampires (who have the backing of a pack of werewolves), there is actually no blood. According to the mythology of the series (as well as the mythology of vampires), the vampires have no heartbeat and also, no blood.
In my opinion, the amount of violence/gore was quite tastefully done. There was enough to convince the viewer that these fights and battles were going on but little enough explicitly shown for this movie to be appropriate for younger viewers.
ROMANCE – 8
This movie is full of romantic plots and subplots. The protagonist, Isabella Swan, accepts the marriage proposal of vampire Edward Cullen and then shortly after, she professes her love for werewolf Jacob… but she loves Edward more and is prepared to spend eternity with him (literally).
If that doesn’t spell romance, I don’t know what does.
DIALOGUE – 4
The script writing doesn’t add too much to this movie and at times detracts. Some lines seem forced and don’t seem to fit well with the rest of the storyline. Also, I didn’t notice until it was pointed out by Riff Trax (absolutely hilarious if you get a chance) but there are sometimes large pauses in the middle of sentences. This isn’t exactly dialogue (more direction than writing) but it can get really distracting.
SPECIAL EFFECTS – 5
The Special Effects are terribly done but sometimes when the werewolves are running, they don’t look natural, especially when they are bounding over objects on the ground in the forest. It just looks weird and unnatural at times.
STORY – 5
I’m sure that this value would be higher if I had read the books but I haven’t yet so in this vampire-saturated entertainment market, I can’t get overly excited about another series of books and movies about vampires. Yes, the mythology is interesting but we as a country are a bit too obsessed with vampirism for my taste right now.
ACTING – 2
Ah, the one I’ve been waiting for. The stories center around characters played by Robert Pattinson (Edward), Kristen Stewart (Bella), and Taylor Lautner (Jacob). Unfortunately, none of these three are particularly adept at delivering lines or portraying a given emotion. In my opinion, they were picked much more for their looks than their acting ability.
INTANGIBLES – 0
There really wasn’t anything, other than what I’ve discussed, that called to me and said that this movie deserved anymore points towards its total score.
TOTAL SCORE – 52 POINTS
FINAL RATING – 43
WOULD I RECOMMEND THIS MOVIE?
For some people, yes, for most people no.
At this point, I’m going to insert the disclaimer and I’m not going to say it ever again… THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. Ah, got that out of the way.
Anyways, without further adieu…
RATING – PG-13
Intense sequences of action and violence, and some sensuality
CHILDREN – 0
No, I do not recommend this movie for children. First of all, the subject matter is fairly dark. Secondly, the Motion Picture Association of America decided that for children under the age of 13, they should be accompanied. That should say a lot. Honestly, the rating description says it all as to why this movie isn’t the best choice for small children.
YOUNG WOMEN – 10
Ah, the target audience. This movie has it all for the teenage girl age bracket. As a friend of a friend said on Facebook, Harry Potter was a story about a kid defying the odds and coming into his own when the whole world was against him while the Twilight Saga is mostly about how important it is to have a boyfriend. I believe this is a fairly good assessment of the average American teenage girl. It’s not a bad thing or a good thing; just a thing.
For the young women this movie has everything; the heartthrob vampire that they think is hot (no idea why), the werewolf who compensates for his unusual condition by having no body hair, and a young girl with lots of free time on her hands stuck in the middle. To be the center (or very near to it) of a four-book, five movie universe is a perfect fantasy for this age group.
YOUNG MEN – 1
Take everything I said in the Young Women category and take the exact opposite. The only reason I gave this movie a 1 and not a 0 is a guy who has the intestinal fortitude to see this movie might be able to score some points with the Young Women group.
ADULT WOMEN – 7
The adult categories are quite similar to the younger categories but both are closer to the middle. This movie still appeals to women because it’s the story about a girl being chased (sometimes literally) by everyone but most especially two attractive suitors, one of whom presents the potential for eternal life.
I marked it down a bit because I think that when we reach adulthood, our dreams and fantasies take a bit of a back seat to reality and the lives that we actually lead.
ADULT MEN – 2
Adult men who go to see the Twilight movies will probably have a very good reason to and for a great many of them, it probably has to do with a daughter that fits into the “Young Women” grouping. Having a daughter that wants to see this movie and begs and pleads for you to take them to it is a much better reason to be there than a significant other. So, the daughter aspect is good for another point. Still, not a movie aimed at guys.
GORE – 7
There wasn’t too much gore in this movie which is relatively unusual for a film that centers on vampires and werewolves. There are scenes where a vampire is basically creating a vampire army and according to the story, people who were recently changed have an insatiable appetite for human blood. However, in the scenes where this is evident, the camera is either angled away from where gore would be or is far enough away that you can’t see much (if any) blood.
In the climactic battle of this movie, where the previously mentioned army of vampires attacks a family of vampires (who have the backing of a pack of werewolves), there is actually no blood. According to the mythology of the series (as well as the mythology of vampires), the vampires have no heartbeat and also, no blood.
In my opinion, the amount of violence/gore was quite tastefully done. There was enough to convince the viewer that these fights and battles were going on but little enough explicitly shown for this movie to be appropriate for younger viewers.
ROMANCE – 8
This movie is full of romantic plots and subplots. The protagonist, Isabella Swan, accepts the marriage proposal of vampire Edward Cullen and then shortly after, she professes her love for werewolf Jacob… but she loves Edward more and is prepared to spend eternity with him (literally).
If that doesn’t spell romance, I don’t know what does.
DIALOGUE – 4
The script writing doesn’t add too much to this movie and at times detracts. Some lines seem forced and don’t seem to fit well with the rest of the storyline. Also, I didn’t notice until it was pointed out by Riff Trax (absolutely hilarious if you get a chance) but there are sometimes large pauses in the middle of sentences. This isn’t exactly dialogue (more direction than writing) but it can get really distracting.
SPECIAL EFFECTS – 5
The Special Effects are terribly done but sometimes when the werewolves are running, they don’t look natural, especially when they are bounding over objects on the ground in the forest. It just looks weird and unnatural at times.
STORY – 5
I’m sure that this value would be higher if I had read the books but I haven’t yet so in this vampire-saturated entertainment market, I can’t get overly excited about another series of books and movies about vampires. Yes, the mythology is interesting but we as a country are a bit too obsessed with vampirism for my taste right now.
ACTING – 2
Ah, the one I’ve been waiting for. The stories center around characters played by Robert Pattinson (Edward), Kristen Stewart (Bella), and Taylor Lautner (Jacob). Unfortunately, none of these three are particularly adept at delivering lines or portraying a given emotion. In my opinion, they were picked much more for their looks than their acting ability.
INTANGIBLES – 0
There really wasn’t anything, other than what I’ve discussed, that called to me and said that this movie deserved anymore points towards its total score.
TOTAL SCORE – 52 POINTS
FINAL RATING – 43
WOULD I RECOMMEND THIS MOVIE?
For some people, yes, for most people no.
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