2003

Archived Posts from this Category

May 4, 2009

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2003, action, adventure, entertainment, fantasy, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , |
[2] Comments 

pirates-of-the-caribbean

Were it not for the particularly lively and entertaining performances, Gore Verbinski’s 2003 Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl would have been right on par with Cutthroat Island as a craptastic pirate adventure. Let’s face it: for whatever reason, the pirate genre’s never really taken off in Hollywood. There’s something about what the mythos of the pirate has become, something about the way a talking parrot and buried treasure and rum have become less than impactful. This mythos leads to films and books that leave a lot to be desired.

The notion of a motion picture being built around the concept of an amusement park ride is essentially a symbol for disaster, yet somehow a gang of screenwriters managed to pull something out of the pile and came up with a supernatural take on pirates. Disney had a guy named Jay Wolper work up a script based on the Pirates ride in 2001. That script was based on a story by a trio of executives and a direct-to-video transition was considered.

Suddenly, however, Jerry Bruckheimer was brought aboard and director Gore Verbinski was signed and the thing began to take off. Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl was born and the secret weapon was the one and only Johnny Depp. Released in 2003, one has to imagine what a risk it was to cast Depp in the leading role in this family friendly motion picture. Depp was mostly known, at this point and time, for risky little cult pictures like From Hell, Ed Wood and Sleepy Hollow. But Tim Burton’s go-to guy was about to undergo some major changes.

Depp stars as Captain Jack Sparrow, a pirate arriving in Port Royal to commandeer a ship. He winds up right in the middle of a bit of a pickle after saving the lovely Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley) from drowning due to fainting via corset pressure. Elizabeth happens to be wearing a mysterious medallion, which she received when she was a little girl from an unconscious boy found in a shipwreck. The medallion begins to draw some attention from Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush), who believes the medallion is the key to releasing a deadly curse.

Will Turner (Orlando Bloom) loves Elizabeth from afar, but he is a lowly blacksmith. When Elizabeth is taken by Barbossa and his creepy crew, Will springs a plan into action to rescue her that involves Jack Sparrow and a whole lot of crackling pirate action. There is also Commodore Norrington (Jack Davenport) to contend with, as he is also in love with Elizabeth and hates pirates with a passion.

Now Depp really is the secret ingredient here, as the plot is incredibly convoluted and the effects sometimes leave an awful lot to be desired. Depp’s creation of Captain Jack Sparrow is a thing of beauty, as his pirate has become somewhat of a cult figure. The character was enough to sprout out two follow-up movies, too. Depp based part of Sparrow on Keith Richards, invoking a bit of swagger and confusing the hell out of Disney execs who couldn’t peg him in his role.

But the risk paid off and Depp’s Sparrow is now the stuff of legends. Rush is deliciously evil as Barbossa, too, but his performance is offset a bit too much by the effects which comprise the latter half of his characterization. The effects, done by the usually reliable Industrial Light & Magic, actually don’t look all that good in contrast to other effects-driven sagas. Some of the designs are kind of sloppy and the entire conception of the curse comes off looking amateurish and dull.

Regardless, there’s quite a bit of swashbuckling fun here and some of the sea battles between ships are entertaining. The Curse of the Black Pearl does run nearly an hour too long, clocking in at 143 minutes when around 90 would have done just fine. Instead of being a light little piece of fun escapist cinema, Verbinski goes the epic saga route and the story simply doesn’t have the guts to pull it off. As such, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is a bit like a fun dinner guest who simply stays too long.

5.9/10

Trailer:

 

May 1, 2009

The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2003, action, adventure, entertainment, fantasy, movies, trailers | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

the-return-of-the-king

Peter Jackson’s monstrous Lord of the Rings trilogy comes to a marvellous end with 2003’s The Return of the King. As has been broadly reported, the final film in the saga has become one of the highest-grossing motion pictures of all time. It also scooped all eleven Academy Awards for which it was nominated, tying it with Ben Hur and Titanic for the most Academy Awards ever won by a single movie. Among the awards, The Return of the King won the Best Picture Oscar and marked the first time a fantasy film won the big prize.

There is again some shuffling of the deck from Jackson for storyline purposes. Events from the middle of The Two Towers book were moved to the film version of The Return of the King. The portion with Shelob, for instance, occurs at the end of The Two Towers book but Jackson has placed it pretty snugly near the middle portion of the film. In my opinion, this was done to further impress the notion of trust on Gollum and save the revelation of his true intentions for the conclusion of the second film. This allows more tension to build within the Frodo and Sam storyline, too, and toys with the weight of the Ring to further effect from a cinematic perspective.

With a world designed by former Tolkien illustrators Alan Lee and John Howe, The Return of the King picks up where The Two Towers left off. We are granted some insight into Gollum (Andy Serkis) back when he was Sméagol. Sméagol murders his cousin Déagol for the One Ring and eventually falls into a lifetime of loneliness and despair, leading to his becoming the creature Gollum. Back in present time, Gollum is still taking Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin) to Minas Morgul. As we learned at the conclusion of The Two Towers, however, Gollum’s motivations have become more clouded and he has foul intentions.

Meanwhile, Aragorn (Viggo Mortenson), Gandalf (Ian McKellen), Legolas (Orlando Bloom), Gimli (John Rhys-Davies), Merry (Dominic Monaghan), Théoden (Bernard Hill), Pippin (Billy Boyd), and Éomer (Karl Urban) meet up to discuss that the threat of Saruman is over. In the Extended Edition, we get to see what happened to Saruman and are treated to a sequence that, in my opinion, really should have made the theatrical release. Nevertheless, the mysterious palantír is discovered and Pippin looks into it, revealing that Sauron is planning to attack Minas Tirith. He and Gandalf ride there to warn the massive city.

The pair arrives at Minas Tirith to find Denethor (John Noble) fallen into madness after the death of his son Boromir. He is unfit to lead the city in a defence of what is to come, so Gandalf and Pippin must find a way to rally the troops while Frodo and Sam continue to move closer to Mount Doom. The impending battle also leads Aragorn, Legloas, and Gimli to seek some unlikely assistance. Frodo and Sam continue to Mount Doom, only to find out that Gollum has tricked them into a rather sticky and alarming situation.

The Return of the King rumbles with the finality that a saga of this magnitude deserves. It is also entirely conclusive, offering up what was, to many, far too much conclusion. Indeed, much of the criticism of the film lay with the “long ending.” A re-watching of these scenes, especially in the context of seeing the other two movies in relatively short succession, adds more weight to them and they feel necessary. It is necessary to see Sam get back to his normal life in The Shire, for instance, and it is necessary to see Aragorn’s story conclude in spectacular fashion.

Jackson’s final film in the trilogy features three times as many effects shots as in Fellowship and double the effects shots as in The Two Towers. The battle at Minas Tirith is staggering in its scope, matching the intensity of Helm’s Deep and often exceeding it. My only gripe would be the Army of the Dead, as I think Tolkien’s original idea of using them to defeat the Corsairs was far superior to Jackson’s final conclusion. It seems to almost cheapen the battle and quicken its conclusion, which I wasn’t overly pleased with.

Nevertheless, oversimplification of the final battle aside, The Return of the King really is a masterful piece of work. The effects are brilliant and it is terrific to see this saga come to such a rousing and satisfying conclusion. The Howard Shore score once again adds depth and the brilliant work from Weta is seamless in digital effects. The Return of the King ends the tremendous accomplishment of Jackson and Co. on a high note, concluding the story in ultimately rewarding fashion.

9.5/10

Trailer:

 

September 11, 2008

The Barbarian Invasions

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2003, comedy, drama, entertainment, foreign, movies | Tags: , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

Denys Arcand’s sequel to 1986’s The Decline of the American Empire is a conceited exercise in pomposity couched in a comedy/drama about the passage of time and the inexorableness of death. The Barbarian Invasions, winner of the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film at the 2004 Oscars, picks up the characters from the 1986 film as they grow older and face health problems.

Remy (Remy Girard) is battling terminal cancer in the careworn Canadian health care system. He is living out his final days in a hospital bed painfully. Remy’s ex-wife Louise (Dorothee Berryman) convinces Remy’s son, Sebastien (Stephane Rousseau) to visit from London. Sebastien is a successful businessman with a fragile, to say the least, relationship with his father. He half-heartedly arrives, only to take charge over the situation and ensure that his father receives better care and is able to live out his final days as he wishes.

Sebastien moves Remy to an unfilled floor at the crowded Quebec hospital because most of Canada’s hospitals are filled with unfilled floors and rooms. Remy’s son is then able to convince several of his father’s friends to come and pay him a visit. Familiar characters from The Decline of the American Empire show up and we see how their lives have changed (they really haven’t) and how they come to terms with Remy’s condition.

The strength of Arcand’s films comes with the dialogue and with the vanity that each character imposes upon us. By philosophizing incessantly about their lives and how significant their experiences are, Arcand’s characters give us a sense of slick approval like only French Canadians can. While The Decline of the American Empire focused on the characters entering their middle ages, The Barbarian Invasions gives us the characters entering the “wind down” phase of life.

Make no mistake about it, The Barbarian Invasions is a dialogue-driven picture. It is filled with musings about sex, politics, faith, and superiority. So devoid of any actual struggle are these characters that a lot of the clamour seems exceedingly empty. And that’s really where Arcand drops the ball.

Instead of granting us a story of how death’s succession impacts characters filled to the brim with themselves, Arcand gives us a story about how crappy Canada’s health care is and how those with money can buy whatever they want.

Take when Sebastien bribes the union (?) at the hospital to open up the floor for his father, paint the walls, and basically complete a little suite for his all of his dad’s bumptious friends to hang out in and drink wine. Sebastien’s nature of throwing money at his problems and finding solutions deserved far more examination, but instead Arcand treats the subornment like a predetermined conclusion. In the same way, the director undercuts the use of heroin to ease Remy’s pain and, as an alternative, uses it as a progressive plot point.

In that way, the director certainly emulates his characters (or is it the other way around?). While we aren’t looking for a way to rise above the narcissism of Remy and his friends, we are looking for some strand of civilization. Instead, we follow chilly vessels through comic routines (such as the cutting of a television wire in the hospital) and we wind down outlandish subplots involving narcotics cops and laptop theft. Arcand, as writer and director, seems noticeably more impressed with the task of floating his philosophies than letting his characters exhale. As such, Remy, Sebastien, and everyone else plainly become loudspeakers for the sensibilities of the director.

So instead of progressing his characters in any distinguished fashion or impressing upon us the idea of loss in the midst of a sea of self-important assholes, Denys Arcand is more content to merely let his own interpretations of Canadian health care, politics, religion, and conceit fill the mouths of his characters.

What was once charming is now musty, insipid, and insignificant. And for a film such as The Barbarian Invasions, inconsequentiality is perhaps the greatest sin of them all.

3/10

 

April 7, 2008

The Fog of War

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2003, documentaries, entertainment, movies, trailers, war | Tags: , |
Leave a Comment 

Errol Morris creates fascinating documentaries. He doesn’t often use a narrative style, choosing instead to tell stories through the interview process. His first film was 1978’s Gates of Heaven, a film about pet cemeteries. Since then, Morris released several critically acclaimed documentaries. Perhaps the best known is 1988’s The Thin Blue Line. Much was made about a lack of Academy Award nomination for the film, but the Academy argued that the movie was “non-fiction” but not a documentary. Go figure. With 2003’s The Fog of War, there was no doubt and Morris picked up the Oscar for the documentary.

The film covers the life and times of former United States Secretary of Defence Robert S. McNamara. It uses archival footage, White House recordings, and an interview with the 85-year-old McNamara to construct its story. Lesser documentaries would have buzzed around collecting extra sources and other interview subjects to flesh the story out, but Morris uses a simplistic approach that helps create a concise narrative.

The Fog of War covers McNamara’s work during World War II as one of the “Whiz Kids,” a group of information managers who wound up becoming Ford executives in 1946. The film goes on to detail McNamara’s work at Ford, then follows through to his appointment by JFK to the position of Secretary of Defence. McNamara served under Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. The brutality of the Vietnam War and the complications of the conflict are explained by McNamara in the interview segment.

The movie uses the framework of eleven “lessons” as outlined by McNamara to guide the proceedings. McNamara’s lessons were created by Morris through various statements the former made in the interviews. Morris interviewed McNamara for over 20 hours, filing the footage down extensively for the piece. In the end, McNamara complimented Morris on the eleven lessons and added ten more for the DVD release of the film.

Errol Morris uses an interesting technique to interview McNamara here. For those who know Morris’ work, you likely have heard of the “Interrotron.” The Interrotron is a video device that allows Morris to look into his subject’s eyes during the interview and also look directly at the camera’s lens. It is a similar device to a teleprompter and further descriptions of it can be found on the illustrious Wikipedia. The beauty of The Fog of War lies in its process, as the interview seems genuine and yet at times intimidating. Morris is even-handed and his voice comes from a distance, adding to the effect.

McNamara makes for one hell of an interesting subject. He is a spry 85-year-old, that’s for sure. Still fit and alert, McNamara continued to ski the hills at Aspen. He has the supernatural sensation of a man thinking before he speaks, choosing his words but never running out of what to say. McNamara is well-spoken, compelling, and introspective. He wonders aloud about the choices he’s made, but he doesn’t speak regretfully or mournfully. His thoughts are organized, hence the eleven lessons, and his backtracking always makes sense and deliberately leads to what he is about to say. The seemingly unnecessary tangents always lead somewhere.

The visuals of the film are fantastic and they move with Philip Glass’ score beautifully. Morris conducts the images carefully, adding a chart here or a dizzying array of Vietnam War images there to aid in the formation of the overall palette. Despite some parlour tricks, Morris’ film moves smoothly and is never forced. We never feel manipulated into a corner or as the victims of an over-baked hypothesis. It is a concise and careful documentary, constructed with care and simplicity. The Fog of War presents its subject clearly and allows McNamara the chance to say what he wishes as he wishes. That the documentary remains true to its own form throughout its runtime is a testament to Morris’ professionalism and to the quality of the film.

9/10

Trailer:

 

March 12, 2008

Beyond Borders

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2003, drama, entertainment, movies, romance, trailers, war | Tags: , , , |
Leave a Comment 

Beyond Borders

2003’s Beyond Borders is beyond boring. Directed by Martin Campbell (Casino Royale, The Mask of Zorro), this film about humanitarian aid workers and their turbulent romance is set against the backdrop of some of the world’s most horrific and tragic locales. The movie has good enough intentions, I suppose, as it is based on lead actress Angelina Jolie’s own experiences as a Goodwill Ambassador for the UN. From her experiences, Jolie wrote Notes from My Travels, a collection of journal entries detailing her experiences traveling to troubled Third World countries.

Many likely chided Beyond Borders for being little more than a public service announcement for the “dark corners” of the world. Yet it is so much more than that! It is also a romance that shamelessly uses the backdrops of tragedy and genocide to push the two leads together. While it focuses somewhat on the humanitarian causes, the majority of the film spends time denigrating into action-adventure-romance territory and derails completely by the final scenes. Looking at the film as a pure romantic adventure story, it’s awfully bland. Looking at it for much more than that is simple futility.

The idea here is to put the spotlight on those brave humanitarian workers that put their lives on the line each day in troubled corners of the world. That these people need our attention, support, and admiration is obvious. I do not doubt the sincerity of Angelina Jolie, either, and I refuse to judge her as an individual. I believe that she means well and I also believe that the media and a celebrity-obsessed culture in the West often miss the point with star-crossed eyes. Having that said, a film like Beyond Borders does nothing to further any cause but the cause of bad filmmaking.

Jolie stars as Sarah Jordan, an American living in London sometime in the 1980s. She is married to the son of a wealthy British industrialist. Eventually, she encounters handsome rogue doctor Nick Callahan (Clive Owen) and not only is his name really cool, but he helps dying people in Third World countries. Feeling instantly smitten by either his powerful message or his smouldering eyes, Sarah heads to Africa to find out what all the fuss is about. While there, her eyes are opened and she sets off on a life-changing journey of self-discovery and danger. Naturally, Sarah and Nick fall in love.

The movie takes us from Africa to Cambodia to Chechnya as a way of expressing that this relationship between Nick and Sarah is timeless and has no limitation to the historical backdrop it can use. The relationship is treated like an entity here, as it serves to remind us that love knows no borders. Beyond Borders, get it? Sarah and Nick’s romance is an attempt to capitalize on the sweeping epics of bygone days, as we get to see this couple meet, leave each other, meet again, leave each other again, meet again, and get into all sorts of adventures along the way. Instead of being sweeping, Beyond Borders is simply being cheeky.

Jolie is pretty terrible here. I want to like her as an actress, I really do, but I haven’t been able to find that niche in which she fits quite yet. When I do, I’ll call her up and tell her what kind of role she should play. Until then, we’re bound to see her struggling like this. Jolie’s Sarah arrives in Africa bathed in white like some sort of angelic glamour demigod from Beverly Hills, which isn’t so far off the part she plays. It plays nicely off of the point that a rich woman wants to do well and isn’t quite prepared for what she must do. In that respect, the choice (accidental or not) of focusing in on her lips throughout the film seems an interesting distraction for the supposed real purpose. What is the supposed real purpose? Damned if I know.

Clive Owen works well, but the framework of the film is just so hollow and pretentious that it becomes hard to bear. I read one poor chap’s review over on IMBD that claimed that the people who hadn’t enjoyed this movie lacked appreciation for “subtlety.” As far as I’m concerned, Beyond Borders has the subtlety of a shovel to the face. The idea that real infants and starving children are utilized as a backdrop for what is essentially a romance is hardly subtle. It’s hardly good. It’s hardly decent. Instead, Beyond Borders serves to want it both ways, pursuing a tone of glamour and romance up front and pestilence, starvation, and death in the background. The idea that the backdrop would lend the foreground a sort of poignancy is the worst kind of vulgarity that Hollywood twaddle can muster.

The direction highlights this point a little bit more, showing us when it’s okay to ditch our concerns for the starving people and dig in to a juicy bit of romance. The shots that reveal the film’s gaudy priorities chime in right away, as we experience long and medium shots for the first bit and then suddenly sink in to close-ups of our doting pair as they begin to realize they’re in love. When the film realizes that it is a romance, things become a lot closer and the distance of being in this desolate world is pulled back in. It’s effective and the difference in cinematography technique is clear.

Beyond Borders sacrifices good taste for what it believes to be a sweeping romance. Its ability to do so is tempered, luckily, with Clive Owen’s good performance. The manipulation of the backdrops to augment what’s happening in the foreground is among the most shameful I’ve seen recently, but I’m sure it’s been done in a far worse way before people knew better. Beyond that point, the film is simply rather boring. The romance, try as I might to offer it criticism, is insanely hollow and poorly written. Jolie’s performance is cold and the rest of the film is simply flimsy. Beyond Borders is, as one reviewer put it, “beyond bad.”

1/10

Trailer:

 

February 16, 2008

Just Married

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2003, comedy, entertainment, movies, romance | Tags: , , , |
Leave a Comment 

Just Married

Every so often I encounter a film that can only be described by one word: excremental. Just Married is the latest film to have earned that honour, but there is room for merriment for it shall likely not be the last. This 2003 Ashton Kutcher vehicle was running on the “music video channel” because that’s what all music video channels do these days, they play bad movies aimed at the pre-teen to teen demographic. Just Married, directed by Shawn Levy, ties perfectly into that precious demographic and captivates the doe-eyed individuals with Kutcher’s sycophantic looks and senseless countenance. Somehow Mr. Kutcher has become a star among this group of ignorant young people and Just Married aims to exploit this capitulation of good sense for about 90 minutes.

It’s no wonder that Just Married trotted its idiotic wares out to audiences in January of 2003, for that’s usually the time that film studios dump their dead weight. This year is no exception, of course. Behold Jessica Alba’s The Eye or Fool’s Gold or Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins or Meet the Spartans or 27 Dresses. I think you get my drift. So it stands to reason that the Mensa members at Twentieth Century Fox should drop this one on audiences in January and that it should live on in syndication hell on MTV and other similar “kiddie” networks for years to come. The sadomasochist in me, then, decided watching this one would be a good idea.

Kutcher stars as Tom Leezak, a brainless and witless young man with rage issues that are emphasized with humorous glee. Consider him a sort of Adam Sandler-lite. Leezak and Sarah McNerny (Brittany Murphy) are coming back from their honeymoon in Europe and are verbally abusing one another. Obviously the relationship is in shambles and we are about to find out why (yippee!). Leezak generates a flashback and we’re off to the meeting of the couple, the wedding, and the honeymoon. The film traipses its audience around Europe as our loving couple dotingly look into one another’s eyes and try to have a good time. Of course, we’re to believe that all manner of catastrophe keeps on befalling the poor couple, but the reality is that there is much more to this chaos than meets the eye.

Leezak fortuitously killed Sarah’s dog and Sarah fortuitously slept with Peter Prentiss (Christian Kane). Of course, like any good couple in Hollywood films about love and marriage, they don’t tell each other any part of this and merely get married. With the foundation of dishonesty firmly undamaged, it’s off on the honeymoon where Sarah and Tom personify every ferocious and dim-witted stereotype of an American overseas as can be imagined. Their obnoxiousness is played up as comic relief and their tastelessness towards each other and those that happen to be in this train wreck of a film is supposed to be raucously hilarious.

It’s not hilarious. The repetition of head injuries or head impact “jokes” is beyond belief, as we begin and end the film with a multitude of “object meets head” gags that represent just how endowed Kutcher is at corporeal farce. This provided me with some reprieve from the psychosis, as I began praying for a concussion. Nonetheless, the film’s ennui with its gags is detestable and cheap. The characters build on this skeleton of stylized physical jesting by assembling a brat pack of idiot friends and counterparts. Each friend each character has in the film gives them objectionable counsel, from Tom’s father (“Live from one happy snapshot to the next, son”) to Sarah’s maid-of-honour (“If you feel like quitting, just pass out”). These idiots are not only played up to be pragmatic advice-givers, but the affecting and sappy music that accompanies their “words of translucent wisdom” drives the point home with the nuance of, well, an Ashton Kutcher performance.

Just Married presses things too far without fail, outrunning the running gags by miles. Having sex in a tiny bathroom on an airplane is set up as a gag, for instance, but instead of playing the moment for what it is, we’re treated to an incongruous attempt at physical comedy and maltreatment towards a stewardess, causing any prospective for laughter to flush itself right down the toilet of the plane. The stupidity simply keeps on coming and it reminded me of the drunk at the bar that starts out being placidly entertaining but very quickly pushes things too far and becomes xenophobic, racist, and homophobic, turning the delight to dread. That’s what Kutcher and Co. manage to do with this atrocity. It’s bad enough that it’s not original, that it’s lackadaisical, and that it’s not amusing. It’s worse when they push things to the limits and expect audiences to swallow it hook, line, and stinker.

The film’s polluted definition of love and marriage covers all manner of loathsome and abusive wrongs that these characters (mostly Tom) do to one another. Tom and Sarah are dense, they deserve each other and they deserve what they get. The comedy here is not about what happens to these people in Europe and how incidents occur to put a damper on things. Instead, the comedy attempts to worthlessly mine the idea that a couple should suffer all manner of abuses, rage explosions, assaults, and other insensitive situations all in the name of Hollywood “love.” That notion, quite frankly, is odious and so is Just Married. It’s a brainless, stupid film.

0/10

 

February 4, 2008

Tears of the Sun

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2003, action, drama, entertainment, movies, thrillers, trailers, war | Tags: , , , |
1 Comment 

Tears of the Sun

2003’s Tears of the Sun is a war-action film depicting a mission by United States Navy SEALs in the middle of a fictional contemporary Nigerian civil war. Directed by Antoine Fuqua and produced through Bruce Willis’ Cheyenne Enterprises production company, the film took its title from an early name for one of the Die Hard sequels. Willis actually agreed to do Live Free or Die Hard on the basis that he could still use Tears of the Sun for the title for this film. Cheyenne Enterprises is also owned by producer Arnold Rifkin. Cheyenne Enterprises produced other Bruce Willis films, including Hostage, Hart’s War, and The Whole Ten Yards, as well as the most recent Die Hard film.

Bruce Willis stars in Tears of the Sun as Lieutenant A.K. Waters, a Navy SEAL with a team of loyal soldiers. He is forced to choose between orders and humanity as he arrives in Nigeria amidst a fictional conflict. According to the storyline, Nigeria has a new dictatorship government and bloodthirsty rebels are exacting genocide. Waters and his team are dispatched to a remote area to rescue Dr. Lena Kendricks (Monica Bellucci) and a few other doctors and volunteers from a Catholic mission. When Waters and his team show up, however, things change and Waters wants to rescue some of the refugees as well. He experiences his change of heart upon viewing some of the atrocities by helicopter. Waters and his team move a fleet of Nigerian refugees to safety at the Cameroon border, taking a significant trek through the deep jungles.

Of course, rudimentary knowledge of what happens in regions like Nigeria can’t be expected by all viewers. With Fuqua’s film, he seems to have focused in on Nigeria as the location for this civil war and says, on the DVD commentary, that he hopes to “draw attention” to the conflicts in Africa. Certainly there are many conflicts in Africa and have been for quite some time, but what is happening in Nigeria now is indeed very different from Fuqua’s vision. Without being too specific or getting too far off track, the idea of making heroes out of Americans in Nigeria is a little ironic. There is no mention of Shell Oil or its notorious role in the destabilization of the region. Fuqua’s examination and microscopic intentions towards Africa seem to leave out valid and important parts of the equation.

The reality of Tears of the Sun is that this is simply another action-propaganda film that backdrops “real” conflicts to make a big show of it all. A simple test will bear this out, I believe. Tough American action star? Check! Damsel in distress? Check! Colour-coded villainy? Check! Rah-rah conclusion? Check! Oversimplification of factual background? Check! Tears of the Sun owes much to Black Hawk Down and other similar films, demonstrating once again that there’s no better medium by which to defy historical context and moral aptitude than a Hollywood movie. Call me a cynic, but I don’t think it’s any secret why FOX News anchors loved this film.

The beautiful Monica Bellucci most certainly had my sympathy throughout this one. She doesn’t have a lot to do, but she displays some good emotional range and some genuine attachment to “her people.” Acting alongside Bruce “Steely Gaze” Willis has got to be a bit of a challenge, especially in this case and with this screenplay, so it’s good to see that Bellucci does an admirable job. Bellucci is the voice of conscience here, somewhat, as she keeps interfering with the “rescue operation” to alert Willis’ character that they’re doing something wrong. Willis’ character has to keep things moving, however, or they’ll all be killed by the black enemy lurking in the jungles. I don’t think it’s any small wonder that the target demographic for the film found Bellucci’s character “annoying” and “interfering.” Bellucci’s a lot like the U.N., but hotter.

The film looks good and the cinematography is rather neat in some places. There are some well-shot action sequences, although they seem formulaic in style, and a lot of the night-time photography is quite lovely. Unfortunately, the script is abysmal. There are typical clichéd bits of dialogue to hype the events and the soulless attitudes of some of the combatants. There are the lamely ironic lines delivered by the grunts and there are the rousing speeches and manipulative dialogue segments that aim to make the audience imagine that it’s all a mistake and that we really, really should care. It’s all there.

Tears of the Sun is the type of movie that simply irks me. I often don’t know why I feel so strongly about propaganda action films like this, but it may have something to do with the fact that I’ve seen this type of thing done better, with more sympathy, and with less clichéd nonsense. The film is a bore and had it not been for Bellucci, all would have been lost.

3/10

Trailer:

 

November 6, 2007

21 Grams

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2003, drama, entertainment, trailers | Tags: , , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

21 Grams

Alejandro González Iñárritu directs 21 Grams, a beautiful and heart-rending 2003 drama. Like Amores perros from 2000, this Iñárritu film features a disjointed narrative and was written by Guillermo Arriaga. Arriaga and Iñárritu are also the team behind the magnificent 2007 film Babel. It is said that Amores perros, 21 Grams, and Babel form a sort of unofficial trilogy from Iñárritu in that they are all somewhat related thematically. Iñárritu is one of the best directors working today, in my view, and has a real vision for the screen and for storytelling. His films are spectacular pieces about seemingly interconnected events and consequences of human action. 21 Grams is no different.

21 Grams stars Sean Penn as Paul Rivers, a mathematics professor with a deteriorating heart condition. His relationship life is in shambles because of his view of life and his bleakness. As we find Paul, he is less than a month away from death and certainly will die if he cannot find a new heart donor. Paul is badgered by his wife, Mary (Charlotte Gainsbourg) to donate his sperm so that she can have a baby. The relationship between Paul and Mary is civil, but progressively more distant as Paul becomes acquainted with his understated reality.

Naomi Watts stars as Cristina Peck, a woman who is recovering from drug addiction and lives a customary suburban life with her family, a husband and two young girls. One fateful day, her husband and girls are taken away from her and Cristina finds herself in a throbbing world of lament and anguish. Cristina has become a loving mother and has recovered from her past life of booze and drugs, only to have her new life snatched away from her in an ostensibly fateful moment. She suffers with her new reality and attempts to cope with how to live her life with her husband and her daughters instantaneously taken from her life as a result of her death. Her loss is excruciating.

Benicio del Toro is the final piece of the puzzle here, starring as Jack Jordan. Jack is a former convict who is attempting recovery from alcohol and drug addiction. He finds himself in frequent spirals of fate and attempts to use his newfound Christianity as a way to escape what seems to be the inexorable slide of his life. Jack continues to experience cruel twists of fate and cannot seem to keep out of trouble, while at the same time he attempts to uneasily love and exist with his family. Jack is a man wracked with guilt and the agony of his existence and he attempts to end his life many times.

These three characters are brought together through a series of interlocking events, each one more driven by providence than the last. Iñárritu’s use of disjointed narrative lends itself to the story in a number of ways, but seems to have disenchanted a large portion of the viewing public from what I can tell. This disjointed narrative, while fashionable in films like Pulp Fiction, appears to be besmirched here to the point of perplexity by many people. Instead, I posit that the disjointed narrative of 21 Grams enables the audience to see events unfold in their natural states rather than in their linear states. Iñárritu’s story is about outwardly distinct events and about twists of fate. The impact of these situations unravels best when it actually does unravel effectively, so his direction allows this by providing the audience a chance to get involved with the story and piece these fateful occurrences together mentally before and sometimes after they actually occur in the story.

With that in mind, 21 Grams is an effective film about the events that drive us and that create who we are inside. A rarity in films, Iñárritu ably trusts his audience to unravel his puzzle. While many Hollywood oriented films construct essential linear stories and require simple viewing to provide the experience, films like 21 Grams ask for more and pray that the audience attempts engagement with the material. Iñárritu has crafted a film that requires attention to detail and gives us an immense reward if we do so. The film reveals little pieces of its story at a time, purposefully engaging us to attempt to discern the effects of reality on these characters. With lesser characters, 21 Grams would not have worked so well.

The performances here are astounding. It is Naomi Watts that digs in deep, as her role requires the absolute destruction and reconstruction of her character. She breaks down several times, emotionally drains herself, and constructs herself again to recover some semblance of strength and resolve. Watts’ Cristina is a character that needs hope to exist, yet has so little of it around her that it’s like watching her move through a desert. Penn and del Toro are restrained somewhat here, poignantly playing out their roles with a quiet dignity and allowing Watts’ power reign them both in to the middle of the narrative. It’s one of the best pieces of performance between a trio of actors that I’ve seen, as it guides the film so effortlessly and yet belies its complexity without sacrificing integrity. It’s stunning.

Make no mistake about it, 21 Grams is a complicated and needy film. It will likely alienate the viewer or draw the viewer right in to the core of Iñárritu’s vision. Luckily for me it was the latter and I was enthralled from start to finish at the engagement of this mystery and at the wonder of life, as it can be created anew from loss. The film is powerful, subtle, and explosive all at once. 21 Grams is the best film I have seen from 2003 thus far.

9.5/10

Trailer:

 

July 5, 2007

Anger Management

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2003, comedy, drama, entertainment, romance | Tags: , , , , |
Leave a Comment 

Anger Management

Ugh, where to begin. The 2003 film Anger Management is so terrible because it is so ripe with potential to be something grand and downright hilarious. Instead, every single setup with the potential for great humor is blown to bits and many of the scene selections and dialogue feels downright idiotic (and not in a good way). All of the talent is wasted on this moronic and gutless script.

The film stars Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson, one of the more interesting “odd couple” pairings I’ve seen. The potential, once again, for a comedy based around tremendous chemistry is there. Nicholson and Sandler appear to have the acting ability to build a solid foundation around their characters and bring out the best in one another, providing classic comic timing and work if given a workable script. Of course, Anger Management doesn’t have a workable script nor does it have generous situations with which Sandler and Nicholson could work. I don’t so much blame Sandler and Nicholson here, as I really do dig them both, although it’s hard to fathom why they’d select to work on this stinker of a film.

David Buznik (Sandler) is a businessman who works for a pet clothing company out of New York City. He gets stepped on and taken advantage of by everyone, especially his boss. Buznik’s girlfriend, Linda (Marisa Tomei) is also somewhat (unintentionally mind you) taking advantage of him by having a continuous friendship with one of her well-endowed ex-boyfriends from college. When a misunderstanding aboard a plane goes haywire for Buznik, he finds himself in court ordered anger management classes taught by Dr. Buddy Rydell (Nicholson) and the “fun” begins.

An unpredictable character, Buddy takes a special interest in his newest patient by virtually taking over his life – living with him, following him around, and constantly embarrassing him in public. As the relationship between David and Buddy becomes more tense, it’s David that may seriously need to look at himself, and Buddy might be the only one who can save him from a problem that’s only getting worse.

Every single comic setup in the film is either forced or so loosely constructed that it falls apart. There are some humorous moments in the first bit of the film, as the plane sequence is a funny take on the nature of post-9/11 America and some of the dialogue is quite fun. It doesn’t take long to derail it all, however, and director Peter Segal (Tommy Boy, 50 First Dates) seems hellbent on doing just that. Scenes are awkwardly shot and constructed, with poor setup after poor setup and useless scene after useless scene (the Buddhist monastery scene is particularly stupid). It spoils the fun, quite frankly, when each “joke” setup in the film is revealed as being a joke. The “I was just kidding” line is played again and again, as the whole thing begins to smell like we’re being setup and not just the main character.

Anger Management is a waste of time, plain and simple. The laughs were forced and pretty much confined to the first five or so minutes of the film. After that, it’s all downhill. I wish I had a more eloquent way to describe this steaming turd of a comedy but I really don’t. It’s terrible and it’s mostly so bad because of the tremendous wasted opportunity delivered by these generally good actors. Yes, I said Sandler was a generally good actor……sue me.

0/10

 

June 12, 2007

Tokyo Godfathers

Posted by Jordan Richardson under 2003, adventure, animated, comedy, crime, drama, entertainment, foreign | Tags: , |
Leave a Comment 

Tokyo Godfathers

Tokyo Godfathers is a visually stunning and arresting 2003 film that contains elegant and detailed animation and a script that is both poignant and hilarious. Directed by Satoshi Kon (Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress), Tokyo Godfathers is a clever and sweet story involving a creative cast of characters and tremendously surreal situations. Kon brings us these situations with delicate style, manic humour and depressing moments of extraordinary sadness and pain. Tokyo Godfathers is certainly an anime that has a little bit of everything.

The film opens on Christmas Eve as our three main characters, three homeless people, are foraging through some trash. They find an abandoned baby and instantly become attached to it. One of the three, a transvestite named Hana, begins to feel instincts of mothering and wants to show the child love. With the baby, the group finds a bag with some supplies and a note attached, asking the finder to take good care of the child. The trio sets out and, using a few clues, tries to track down the parents of the abandoned child. The adventure that follows is one of the most remarkably entertaining and colourful adventures I have seen on film, animated or not.

The trio, believing the child is a gift from God, begins to experience a great number of coincidences related to the child. Gin, one of the group who is a middle-aged alcoholic gambler, meets his daughter again and begins to develop communication with her. High school runaway Miyuki begins to find purpose for herself and Hana also finds a sense of belonging and purpose with the child under the care of the group. The film utilizes many modern aspects of “controversial” life, including suicide and homosexuality, to provide a realistic backstory to the characters and to develop a real sense of grit as we journey through the streets and see things through the perceptions of three homeless people.

Some scenes are tremendously funny and other scenes are painfully hard to watch, such as the scene in which some teenage punks decide to beat up Gin and an older homeless man who had previously passed away. Satoshi Kon never shies away from showing the darkness and never fails to provide enough light to go with it, leaving the audience in a constant state of something mirroring perpetual bliss and insanity, just like the characters of the film. We are given the street life in all of its rawness and gruesome appeal, yet we find heroes there in these three people. They are coarse, gruff, dirty and they love to squabble. Yet, they are as heroic a trio as envisioned on film in a very long time.

Tokyo Godfathers was adapted loosely from John Ford’s 1948 western, Three Godfathers. In Ford’s film, a trio of thieves must take care of a child that is found. Tokyo Godfathers is a strongly narrated film that contains a lot of twists and turns along the way, including several surprises to place emphasis on the notion that this child has brought great fortune to the three.

The animation is stellar and colourful, representing all of the variations of the locales provided in the film and the differences between the characters. We are shown several sides of life throughout the film’s 92 minute runtime, creating such a broad sense with the storytelling that it becomes difficult to keep track of time. The film’s plot is not only excellent in propelling the characters through these circumstances, but it also serves as a bit of a social commentary on how homeless people are treated and what people of all types and backgrounds are capable of.

All in all, Tokyo Godfathers is one of the most superb anime features I have ever seen. It is a wonder to behold and a beautiful film from start to finish. If the visuals aren’t enough to captivate you, the detailed plot and the creative, engaging characters surely will suffice. Tokyo Godfathers is a gem of a film, whether you like anime or not.

8/10

 

Next Page »