As the movie that brought Hayao Miyazaki out of retirement, there’ll always be a soft spot in my heart for Howl’s Moving Castle. But something about the 2004 picture doesn’t quite carry the same flow and heart of Miyazaki’s other movies, even though the animation is still top quality and the film moves well enough. The creativity goes without saying, too, elevating what is “average Miyazaki” beyond the realm of normal animated feature films.

Based on Diana Wynne Jones’ novel of the same name, Howl’s Moving Castle is one of the most financially successful Japanese films in history. It was originally planned as a project for Digimon director Mamoru Hosoda, but it wound up in the hands of the retired Miyazaki after Hosoda dropped out. The movie differs from Jones’ novel considerably, but the author was still quoted as being rather found of the finished picture.

We are introduced to 18-year-old Sophie at the beginning of the film. She soon encounters the mysterious Howl, a wizard who happens to live in a castle that moves from place to place. Howl takes a liking to Sophie, which in turn manages to get the attention of the Witch of the Waste, a rather plump magical woman. The Witch turns Sophie into an old woman, which leads to Sophie running away from it all.

Sophie finds herself in Howl’s castle, rolling through various locations with Howl and other characters. When the Witch runs into Sophie again, the relationship changes with new information about Howl’s past and the king’s head sorceress, the villainous Madame Suliman. Howl’s personal issues come into play, especially his fearfulness and vainness, and Sophie soon realizes that all is not sweet perfection in the fantastical land.

Miyazaki places his world somewhere in 19^th century Europe, using the backdrops and architecture of the era to fill the film with amazing visuals. There is a war going on, too, which always presents a sense of dread and panic. Along with the shape-shifting objects and characters, Howl’s Moving Castle provides viewers with a lot to look at.

The plot of Howl’s Moving Castle increases in its convolution as the movie progresses. It gets a little weighed down in characters and subplots, often leaving the sheer majesty of it all in the dust. The invention and overall detail of Miyazaki’s film is soon overshadowed by constantly changing characters and surroundings.

The characters themselves are rather average, with Sophie being one of Miyazaki’s most uninteresting heroines. That’s not to say that there isn’t a lot to like about her, of course, and her transformation into an old woman is fantastic stuff. But when she is “herself,” things are decidedly less interesting. As an old woman, her interactions with the Witch are priceless. As young Sophie, however, similar situations feature far less spark.

Overall, Howl’s Moving Castle is still head and shoulders above most modern animation. It is, unfortunately, one of Studio Ghibli’s weakest pictures and certainly one of my least favourite films by Miyazaki. It is still impeccably drawn and features loads of creative design, but it lacks the heart and compelling plotlines of his other great works.

7.2/10

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There’s really no questioning Guillermo del Toro’s sense for visual storytelling. Pan’s Labyrinth was an amazing-looking motion picture that reached deep and told a vibrant, dark tale. His upcoming work on The Hobbit is sure to be more of the same, but it was 2004’s Hellboy that brought this Mexican director to the forefront in North America.

Based on Mike Mignola’s Hellboy series for Dark Horse Comics, Hellboy is a visual stunner that introduces us to a compelling world built on creativity and style. It is a bizarre picture, to be sure, but one that leaves an imprint of its charm after the credits roll. The plot is far-fetched (it is a comic book movie, after all) and a little convoluted at times, but the performers and effects give audiences who may not be familiar with the source material plenty to invest in.

Ron Perlman stars as Hellboy, a demon who fights for the United States government against a host of dark forces. The film sets up a story involving Nazis and Rasputin (Karel Roden). The Nazis are trying to use the undead Russian mystic to open a portal to another dimension, naturally, with hopes of unleashing the Ogdru Jahad to help destroy their enemies. Amazingly enough, Indiana Jones is nowhere to be found.

Unfortunately for the Nazis, Rasputin has other ideas and wants to destroy the world himself. Fair enough. Aided by a few Nazis, Rasputin ends up fighting with a small team from the U.S. Army. His aides, including Karl Ruprecht Kroenen (Ladislav Beran), manage to get away for the most part, but he’s absorbed by the portal in the ensuing battle. Of course, this also produces a young Hellboy, who emerges from the portal and into the custody of Professor Trevor Broom (John Hurt).

Fast-forward 60 years and Hellboy is an adult working as a member of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense or B.P.R.D. F.B.I. agent John Myers (Rupert Evans) is sent to check them out and runs into Hellboy and a few other characters with supernatural abilities. Meanwhile, not willing to leave well enough alone, Kroenen attempts the whole Rasputin thing again with a plan to unleash Sammael, a hellhound. It’s up to Hellboy and the rest of the B.P.R.D., including Selma Blair as pyrokinetic Liz Sherman, to stop Rasputin, Kroenen and whatever supernatural devilry it is they’ve dreamt up.

Hellboy does well at introducing the relatively complicated story quickly and the ball gets rolling relatively well with the few usual comic book movie snags along the way. Director del Toro tosses us into the action quickly enough, developing a scheme of things that works with the usual supernatural bells and whistles. He pulls off some nice stuff here, but the action really isn’t mind-blowing and it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.

Where Hellboy succeeds is with its characters. Perlman’s ability to deliver something almost human from Hellboy is interesting to watch, as his natural charisma and ability to enjoy himself transcends the pounds of make-up and CGI he is doubtlessly buried under. As a little bit of trivia, Perlman played Vincent opposite Linda Hamilton’s character in the TV series for Beauty and the Beast back in the late 80s.

Despite the somewhat dark subject matter, Hellboy remains pretty light-hearted fare. The action is never overly violent, the mood never sombre or overly serious, and the performers bring enough energy and charisma to their roles to avoid getting bogged down too much in indulgent philosophy. Put succinctly, del Toro’s Hellboy is generally harmless fun. It isn’t a perfect comic book movie, of course, and it isn’t even one of the five best, but it does an admirable job spinning a difficult story into something entertaining and absolutely watchable.

7.5/10

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Kang Je-gyu’s Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War is jammed to the brim with melodrama, violence, and tears but it all works wonderfully in a film that borrows from the American war movie tradition and exceeds it in just about every way possible. Je-gyu, part of Korea’s set of “new cinema” masters, has carefully crafted this war epic and dispatches top Korean talent to get the job done. The film is one of the biggest successes in Korean film history.

Tae Guk Gi uses many classic cinema tricks, even framing the story in modern context as an access point for younger generations. The movie opens with a South Korean Army excavation team digging up remains on a battlefield from the Korean War. An elderly man, Jin-seok Lee (Min-ho Jang), is notified when the crew identifies some of the remains as his own. He drives over to the site with his granddaughter and we are taken back in time to where the story begins.

It is June in 1950 in Seoul. The young Jin-seok Lee (Won Bin) and his brother Jin-tae Lee (Jang Dong-gun) are inseparable. The entire Lee family works to help support Jin-seok as he goes to school, with Jin-tae operating a shoeshine stand and Jin-tae’s fiancée Young-shin (Lee Eun-ju) working the family noodle shop. On the 25th of June, however, North Korea invades South Korea and the nation is plunged into war. Jin-seok gets drafted, so Jin-tae attempts to get him out of duty. In the process, Jin-tae is also drafted and the two inseparable brothers are off to war.

It isn’t long before they are on the battlefield experiencing the chaos and brutality of war close-up. Je-gyu doesn’t spare the details or the violence, unfurling massive battle sequences with gory results. Jin-seok struggles because of a heart condition and almost goes into shock following a particularly violent experience, so Jin-tae strives to get his brother home at any cost. He takes on risky missions under the promise to send his brother home if he succeeds, but Jin-tae begins to change and he begins to love the accolades he receives from his work.

Jin-seok, not wanting to leave his brother alone on the battlefield, begins to resent who Jin-tae becomes as events stack up to reveal a greater violent nature in his brother. Continually frustrated by his brother, Jin-seok becomes confused and Jin-tae becomes even more violent, going so far as to kill a childhood friend in the heat of anger. The brothers deal with their emotions and the horrors of war as Je-gyu moves his narrative through the promises made between the brothers.

The massive scale of the battle sequences is impressive, with Park Gok-ji and Jeong Jin-hee’s incredible cinematography putting the viewer right in the middle of the situation. The dirt, blood, sweat, and brutality of the conflict is impossible to ignore. Some sequences are almost unwatchable, as the violence simply will not stop. Je-gyu’s motion picture really does immerse the viewer in the horrors of war and the movie can be a bit of an ordeal at times.

The performances are tremendous, too, with Won Bin and Jang Dong-gun pouring everything they have into the roles. Their passion, emotion, and energy is unfathomable, as sequences tug at the heartstrings despite all the tools of classic melodrama working right out in the open. Under a less capable director and less skilled performers, much of Tae Guk Gi might not have worked. As such, there is something about the honest approach to the material that creates damn near impeccable cinema.

Tae Guk Gi: The Brotherhood of War is certainly one of the finest war movies I have ever seen. It does not glorify the violence. It is not comprised of soldiers going on adventures in distant lands like many American pictures are. Instead, it tells the all-too-real tale of Koreans fighting in their own backyards, defending their own homes and families from the rigours of idealism. Is any idea worth killing or dying for? Perhaps it is easier to answer in the affirmative when the battle rages thousands of miles away. Tae Guk Gi puts the question and answer in more immediate terms.

9.4/10

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The affair of the four abandoned children of Sugamo gripped the headlines in the late 80s. The case involved a mother of five children: two boys and three girls. The youngest boy died from an illness shortly after his birth in 1984. The mother had not registered any of the births, so she wrapped the body in plastic sheets and hid it in a closet after spraying some deodorizer. Eventually, the mother left the remainder of her children to live with a new lover.

The oldest boy was left in charge. He began having friends over, but they took advantage of the situation and beat the youngest girl to death for eating a bowl of ramen he had brought over (she was two-years-old). The landlord eventually realized that the apartment seemed to be occupied only by children and called the police, finding the children malnourished. The police also found the body of the infant in the closet and located the body of the two-year-old near Chichibu City. The mother, who turned herself in after seeing the story on the news, spent three years in prison with an addition four of probation after her release. She regained custody of her two surviving daughters.

Hirokazu Kore-Eda’s Dare mo shiranai, known by its English title as Nobody Knows, is based on the story of the children of Sugamo. Kore-Eda’s telling of the tale is mercifully far less ghastly than the actual events, but his film is still incredibly difficult to watch. As good as it is, I truly do not wish to repeat the experience and can only help but feel physically ill at the notion that people can and do treat children in this fashion around the world.

We are introduced to Keiko, played by Japanese model and pop star You, and her oldest son Akira (Yūya Yagira) as they are moving in to yet another apartment. They haul some suitcases up to it and open them, unveiling two younger children that are kept a secret from the landlord. A third, the oldest girl Kyoko (Ayu Kitaura), waits downstairs until the coast is clear. The children are given rules by Keiko like “Don’t go outside” and “Don’t make too much noise.” She appears weird and juvenile.

Akira is distrustful of his mother from the moment we meet him and for good reason. It isn’t long before she takes off, leaving the kids for a night with money. When she comes back, she is extraordinarily blissful – probably high – and acts as though leaving her young children in such a fashion is the most natural thing to do in the entire world. Later, Keiko lets Akira in on a little secret: she’s met someone new. And soon enough, Keiko is off again for a longer time. And then a much longer time.

Kore-Eda’s approach to the story is gripping in its minimalism. It is not told as a tale of endurance or of sensationalistic child abandonment. Instead, it is told as a tale of ennui. We are shown various shots of the children, stuck indoors for days on end, and of Akira racing around town trying to stretch out the inadequate fiscal resources his flake of a mother has left him. Kore-Eda leaves the emotion for us to feel, allowing us to furiously bark and blub at the screen as these poor children attempt to paddle through the mess and sludge of these petrifying circumstances.

The kids in the motion picture, especially Yagira, are not just playing adorable for the cameras. They reside in the roles, logically, and demonstrate how children muddle through, make decisions, and pass the time. It does not feel as though they are reading lines or finding spots for one instant. The performances are as untreated as I’ve ever seen. Yagira, by the way, won the Best Actor Award at Cannes.

Dare mo shiranai is a difficult movie to watch. It is distressing and decided, moving often at a snail’s pace to lie bare the monotony and dreary subsistence that these kids have been saddled with. More than merely being bored, though, these children must learn to get by with what has happened. And as the movie reaches its conclusion and one event happens that truly tests the human spirit, we all will learn more about coping than we ever thought possible.

9.1/10

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The soiled streets of Calcutta ought to be no place for children, but sadly the reality has limitless kids diminishing and falling through the gaps of society in our modern world. Those of us who live half a world away from the grunge, foulness, and vulgarity of the slums cannot fully know the experiences of the inhabitants or their children. We cannot know the ache, the terror, the misery, and the gloom of the average day in the red light district of Calcutta.

With Born Into Brothels, the 2004 Oscar-nominated documentary, we are shown that humanness can exist in the most depressing and distressed of circumstances. The filmmakers, Zana Briski and Ross Kauffman, went to Calcutta to learn about and to film the lifestyles of the women who lived in the brothels. It wasn’t long before a more compelling story arose from the grime, as the children of these women, expected to exist in the dirt, emerged to the surface to breathe. Briski and Kauffman turned their attention and their cameras over to the kids and this brilliant documentary is the result.

Briski, an American photographer, found herself morally charged with the notion of providing some form of escape for the children of these prostitutes. She provided them with cameras to capture the world in which they lived, allowing a form of both escapism and confrontation behind the lens. The results are staggering, as we see the world underneath through the eyes of bright and charming kids.

Most of the children are amazingly capable and gifted. That is perhaps the most overwhelming aspect of Born Into Brothels, as we are faced with untutored, untouched children that still hold gifts of personality and wisdom that many educated, refined, “proper,” North American children lack. Perhaps life on the streets has been a forced education, as the process of avoiding a beating or chasing down money for dinner has provided more profound influence to the children than can be expected from any school or educational facility.

Through the eyes of the kids, we are able to see the pain and the squalor, but we are also able to see how desperately many of them cling to hope. Sadly, we are also able to see how quickly many of them can crumble into heaps of desolation and apathy.

With prostitution not a choice but rather a decided-upon way of life for many of the people in the red light district, most of the young girls we see simply lack a future. Prostitution is certainty; they will end up “on the line.” Yet the children remain buoyant, one way or another, in a world in which most of us would have long given up.

Born Into Brothels reminds us of optimism, but it also reminds us of the frantic cycle. While Briski and Kauffman are able to save some from their futures, there are countless others that are damned to their fate by cruel twist of being born in the wrong place. While individuals in North America argue over causes of poverty, the children in Calcutta and in similar regions are being beaten and turned into prostitutes. Would any of us dare look into the eyes of one of these precious children and actually blame them for their poverty?

A powerful, stirring documentary, Born Into Brothels will tell many of us what we already know. But for many others, it will illuminate a dreadful, disconcerting world in which the children simply exist. They have no choice, they do not live, and they do not even die. They are simply born into it.

9/10

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The last twelve days of Adolf Hitler are depicted in the potent German/Austrian film Downfall (Der Untergang) from director Oliver Hirschbiegel. Based upon a series of books and memoirs, this movie takes place almost entirely within the bunker in which Hitler would take his own life and highlights the demented passion of the crumple of the Nazi regime in Berlin.

Downfall broke one of the last remaining cinema taboos regarding the depiction of Nazism in its portrayal of Adolf Hitler in a central role by a German-speaking actor. In this case, Bruno Ganz played Hitler to great critical acclaim. Prior to Ganz’s rendering, footage of Hitler had greatly served to denote his presence for the most part. As news of the role came to light, the press began to fittingly question the idea behind the film. Much was made about whether or not Ganz had made Hitler too sensitive or, perhaps more precisely, too human.

As voyeurs, we are granted entrance into Hitler’s inner sanctum by Traudl Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara), a woman hired by Hitler to be a secretary. Junge wrote a memoir about her experiences with the Führer and is featured at the beginning and end of the film describing her sentiment that she should have done more to make herself aware as to what he was really up to. Instead, Junge was awed by the influence of her employer.

Downfall uses her interpretation of the swirling and paradoxical forces of insanity, psychosis, thoughtfulness, and modesty that comprised her vision of Adolf Hitler.

As we enter the world of the bunker, a claustrophobic sense of things sets in. The walls are gray, drab. The air feels stiff. Hitler is surrounded continuously by men of equal force to his and he struggles to maintain order among a crew of dissenters, liars, and realists. The Führer lost his war, but the film captures his continued attempts to wage it in daydream. Scenes unfold showing him trouncing on maps and forcing nameless troops to locations that no longer matter.

Downfall captures the devastation and the final plunge into lunacy of Adolf Hitler with care, relating a human story behind the history books that is sure to provide the viewer some discomposure. Here, the madman is given a human face. In an opening scene, we see him as a rather kind individual hiring a secretary. He is good to his dog. It all becomes rather provoking, as Hirschbiegel torments us with the illogicality: Adolf Hitler is a human being but at the same time he cannot be. Humans can’t be that wicked, can they?

This movie doesn’t dissipate time attempting to explain what this distraught madman did. No film can cover that ground sufficiently and any attempt to do so would be discourteous. Instead, Downfall gives us the fall of the Third Reich as the story of the individuals who strove to hold it up. It is the story of Hitler, but it is also the story of Joseph (Ulrich Matthes) and Magda (Corinna Harfouch) Goebbels and their allegiance to National Socialism that is so strong that they kill their own children. It is the story of Eva Braun (Juliane Köhler) and her obsession with Hitler.

Downfall forces its audience to regard this lunatic and his operation without recoiling and without turning away. Ganz creates a Hitler that is so unspeakably authentic and so oddly human that it is truly a sight to behold. He inhabits the monster without uncertainty, replicating his tenor and speech with precision. It is true that Ganz’s Hitler looks older than the Führer was at the time of his death (Hitler was 56, Ganz was 62), but the aged look adds a more crippling sense of heaviness to the historical figure.

Hirschbiegel’s film is tough to watch because it ought to be. At a time in history in which the world faced profound malevolence and despondency, the disinclination to view the atrocity of the Third Reich as anything other than a sadistic force is comprehensible. But with the passage of time comes the passage of unprocessed emotion. While some wounds never heal, Downfall provides those of us with a curiosity through the sting to examine the figure of Adolf Hitler with steadfast eyes and open minds.

Here, he is not presented as a man to be understood. He is not presented as a man to commiserate with. Rather, he is presented here as a figure to be pitied for his wretched subsistence. And, perhaps most decisively of all, he is presented as a figure who most surely did not act alone. But for the tacit and fervent approval of many, the Third Reich and Nazism never would have risen in the world.

As Traudl Junge reminds us at the end of Downfall, there is no reason to be blind to history.

10/10

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2004’s Secret Window is a psychological thriller with twists, turns, and Johnny Depp! Based on the novella by Stephen King, this David Koepp directed film features an elegant musical score by the incredible Philip Glass. Secret Window has a few attempted Hitchcockian twists, but for the most part it’s simply far too average to make any significant dent in the genre.

Depp stars as successful writer Mort Rainey. Mort’s in the process of divorce with his wife, Amy (Maria Bello), and heads into his cabin in the woods to retreat from reality. He also hopes to get some writing done, of course. Mort’s wife had been cheating on him with Ted (Timothy Hutton) and the struggle to remain sane becomes overwhelming for Mort in his isolation. One day in the woods, Mort is confronted by a strange man named Shooter (John Turturro). Shooter claims that Mort stole his story and accuses the successful writer of plagiarism.

Secret Window follows Mort’s struggles with Shooter as he seeks to prove his innocence to the stranger from Mississippi. Events spiral out of control, as they often do in these types of movies, and people end up dying in the wake of Mort’s attempts at handling Shooter. Mort even hires a private investigator (Charles S. Dutton) to no avail. Eventually, it is up to Mort to find out the difference between myth and reality.

Depp is good in the film as Mort, as he heads into all sorts of quirky directions and even masters little facial ticks towards the end of the film. Despite his immersion in the role, the film never really is able to take off and it simply sputters and spouts as a tepid thriller with a predictable climax. Some will suggest that the film works better as an allegory for the creative process, especially the process known to us in the biz as “writing.” There is a whole lot of ground in the film that deals with writing and the art of going softly and succinctly insane inside another created world.

But that’s a cop-out. Secret Window is a thriller, plain and simple. The allegorical lines are so thin, as Koepp worked his damndest to edit and re-edit the “boring parts” to remove them from the film, choosing to spend little time on the tedium of writing (he says so in the DVD’s extras, in fact) and more time making things happen. Any allegory is thusly and quickly tossed aside in favour of more dramatic fare. So does it work? Is Koepp’s editing and direction more effective at turning the page as a straightforward thriller?

No.

Koepp, who has an ugly notch on his bedpost for the screenplay of Jurassic Park, chiselled and penned the screenplay out of solid granite here and the results are a less than human mishmash of dialogue and Doritos product placements. There’s such a lack of interesting lines and pieces of dialogue here that Koepp’s screenplay simply gives away the punch-line because the characters have nothing better to say. Depp, for all of his grandeur as a decent performer, struggles with most of the lines. Admittedly, though, his quirkiness comes in extremely handy when he says “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t on the verge of doing Snoopy dances.”

Overall, though, Secret Window is just too sluggish to get anything done by way of thrills, chills, or even spills. Turturro does okay in his role, although it’s much too much of a caricature to develop anything of interest (and rightly so, given the context). The twist, as mentioned, is pretty clear from the outlines left by Depp’s internal monologues and the unravelling of the thing is less than satisfying. Still, it’s a relatively harmless film and some might find some fun in watching Depp do his thing as a nutty writer in a cabin in the woods.

3.5/10

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There have been a slew of variations, but never before has the 1986 Andrew Lloyd Webber and Charles Hart musical been put to screen. The Phantom of the Opera, produced by Webber, hit theatres in 2004. Directed by Joel Schumacher, the screenplay was penned by Webber and the director and was a USA/UK co-production. It had various distributors worldwide, too, and did rather well at the box office despite rather limited release but scored moderately amongst critics.

Enough of the niceties, though, and on with the review. The Phantom of the Opera is quite a terrible film. With the always indulgent Schumacher at the helm, Phantom struggles out of the gate and never quite gets anything right. It is an over-directed hodgepodge of visuals that should have been stunning but weren’t. Everything is underwhelming, the performers are shot with little interest or precision, and almost every shot in the film is obstructed by something in the foreground. The cinematography is not unique; it is awful.

The original vision of the “phantom,” as envisioned long ago through the magic of Lon Chaney’s 1925 performance, was one of legitimate fright and horror. Times have changed, however, and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s infinite taste for schlock has transformed a disfigured masterwork of horror into a kinky babe magnet with a slight rash. The original idea, that of a hopeless love, was much more compelling. Instead, we have some muscled anti-hero traipsing through an opera house inflicting pseudo-terror on people and dropping gaudy chandeliers. Oh, the horror! Naturally, we can blame Webber for that all day long, but we’ve got a movie to review.

The film version takes the already neutered prospect of Webber’s imagination and drops it down a few more levels. While Webber didn’t write a very good musical (and probably never has), Schumacher and Webber didn’t write anything close to a good movie. The final product is a gaudy mess of a film, leaking from the outset with poor colours, awful direction, and messy sequences that lead nowhere and make no sense. One scene has Raoul (Patrick Wilson) run off to get his sword and come back to fall into the hole the “phantom” made. Instead of looking heroic, it looks like the guy ran off to take a piss and we catch him coming back to the scene doing up his trousers.

Emmy Rossum, who was a whopping 17 at the time of filming, stars as Christine. Originally there were several actresses in the running for the role, as the process to cast this beast was quite significant and probably more fun than the finished product. Charlotte Church, Katie Holmes, and Keira Knightley were all in the running for the role of Christine. Hottie Anne Hathaway was offered the part, as she was noted for her soprano, but she was tied down with Disney stuff and was unable to make it work. In the end, Christine went to Rossum and she did an admirable job with the less than admirable material. I liked her and found her enjoyable.

The coveted role of the “phantom” went to Gerard Butler. John Travolta was considered, but in a rare smart move he turned the role down thinking the film version wouldn’t work. Also considered was Hugh Jackman, who apparently had the right look (Wolverine with a half-mask?) for the role but was turned away after Schumacher heard him singing. Antonio Banderas was also considered, but he was eventually turned down for unknown reasons. In the end, it was Butler who won out.

Most of us know the basic plot of The Phantom of the Opera, but I’ll sum it up for those unaware of the magic. The plot centers on a musical genius who is disfigured (or in the case of Webber’s vision, has some mild skin affliction). The “phantom,” as he is known, inhabits a Paris opera house and commits several murders because he is tormented by his mild skin affliction. He obsesses for quite some time over the voice of Christine, who he hears deep in the catacombs of his secret lair. The “phantom” plots to put Christine center stage through threats to management and eventually a love triangle begins with Christine, the “phantom,” and her meddling childhood sweetheart Raoul. Naturally, because the “phantom” is a killer and has skin issues, Christine’s choice is much more complicated.

The Phantom of the Opera obviously takes some liberties with Webber’s musical, but this was all done under his watchful eye and his suggestion so it was probably intentional. The famed crashing of the chandelier, for instance, was moved to the end of the film and serves as a climax point. The grand unmasking of the “phantom” is also done differently and with greater attempted dramatic effect, although one wonders how he hid his growing skin affliction under the masquerade mask we saw him in a mere few scenes prior to the unveiling. No matter, perhaps he has cover-up crème.

Without Emmy Rossum, all would have been lost with this film. The Phantom of the Opera is a convoluted mess, the songs are essentially all riffs off of one basic foundation (I could go into more detail, but I won’t), most of the performances are hollow and uninteresting, and the direction is awful and crowded. Scenes that should flow simply don’t flow and obscured views of the actors are never good during key moments. All in all, The Phantom of the Opera is a terrible film.

1/10

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Tony Scott ruins another potentially good film with his over-direction in 2004’s Man on Fire. Tony Scott, the brother of Ridley Scott (American Gangster, Gladiator), has an impressive filmography in his own right with films like True Romance and Top Gun. Unfortunately, much of Tony Scott’s career has been marred by his obsession with music-video style directing techniques, quick cuts, edits, montages, and other parlour tricks. Some directors can do this style with efficiency, while others cannot. Tony Scott falls into the latter category.

Man on Fire has a solid story going for it as a remake of a 1987 film of the same name. It was also based on a series of books by A.J. Quinnell about a former Marine turned mercenary. Scott’s movie sets up a Mexico City in which children go missing frequently and criminal gangs run kidnapping rings to extort money out of wealthy families. It’s treated like a daily occurrence and Mexico is given classic hellhole treatment as these murky gang members abduct the children of the affluent.

Enter Mexican businessman Samuel Ramos (Marc Anthony, yes that Marc Anthony). Ramos, like other wealthy people, hires a bodyguard to help watch over his precocious blonde daughter (Dakota Fanning, of course). On the advice of his lawyer (Mickey Rourke), Ramos takes out something called ransom insurance. The head of a security firm, Paul Rayburn (Christopher Walken), suggests that Ramos hires John Creasy (Denzel Washington) and the fun begins. Creasy and the little girl develop a slow attachment to one another and she “shows him how to live again” after untold events have haunted Creasy for years and turned him into the prototypical brooding alcoholic anti-hero.

Just as things start looking good and just as Creasy has traded the Jack Daniels for the Bible, the little girl is abducted by thugs and Creasy’s world is turned upside down. A gang member works with Ramos to arrange a drop, but something goes wrong and the girl is thought dead. Creasy turns to revenge, which coincides perfectly with his newfound Bible reading, and tears apart Mexico City one limb at a time as he unearths the kidnapping gang to put them under ground for good.

Washington and Fanning are strong in the movie and their relationship is worth watching, but it unravels too quickly and comes together too quickly to be all that believable. While the actors seem to be doing what they can, a weak script and Scott’s frenetic directing seem destined to steal the spotlight. Scott directs his actors like he has ADHD, spinning and splicing around with all sorts of music video tricks. He uses murky idiotic subtitles that seem cool at first, but fail to work when they appear as white text on a white background. The effects used by Scott to film an otherwise interesting story are overbearing and, at times, obnoxious.

Scott also fails to bring a lot of conclusiveness to his film, despite every best effort to do so. There are three or four false finishes to the film, making Return of the King look concise. Man on Fire desperately searches for a “happy ending” despite giving us well over two hours of doom and gloom. Referring to Mexico City, after denigrating it shamelessly for hours, as a “very special place” seems to be the icing on the cake for this masturbatory piece of work.

Man on Fire is essentially a revenge picture that was released around the same time as two other revenge pictures, Kill Bill Vol. 2 and The Punisher. Man on Fire obviously lacks the punch and fun of Kill Bill Vol. 2 and it’s actually not much better than The Punisher, which at least knew it was a comic book adaptation. Man on Fire blows through the revenge issues with little class or thought, instead turning Washington’s Creasy into a vengeful monster in mere minutes. We are given little insight into where this comes from, too, which makes the rage all the more unsettling. His merciless anti-hero is well-acted, but not always well-suited. Washington brings the heat, but there’s little to back him up once Fanning is taken off-screen.

Revenge fantasies are big business in a world filled with injustice. Audiences may well cheer at Washington’s crusade here, but they’ll likely have to check logic at the door. When on the verge of taking down a whole child abduction operation, Washington makes a choice that sacrifices the life of one white blonde girl for the lives of thousands of other children waiting to be abducted. The overtones are clear and as obnoxious as Scott’s ridiculous “tribute” to Mexico City during the end credits. Scott simply lets everything go too far here and fails to produce a solid narrative, making Man on Fire a heavily disappointing film despite the best efforts of its stars.

3/10

2004’s A Very Long Engagement takes a very long road to get to its point. Meandering through various plot arches and side-stories, this film lacks the cohesiveness to properly back up its often-gorgeous look. Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who is renowned for his idiosyncratic style of direction, the film was based on a 1993 book of the same name by Sebastien Japrisot, a French author and screenwriter. A Very Long Engagement was denied State financial aid because the film was being produced by Warner Bros., disqualifying it from receiving the normal financial aid set aside for French films produced by French companies.

A Very Long Engagement stars Audrey Tautou as Mathilde Donnay, a young French woman. Her fiancé, Manech Langonnet (Gaspard Ulliel) is convicted of self-mutilation on the front of the French-German conflict of World War I. Along with four other soldiers, Manech is marched to death in “no man’s land” and is to be killed in the crossfire of the ensuing battle as punishment for his war crimes of self-mutilation. The film follows the journey of Mathilde as she never gives up hope that Manech is still alive, travelling through various places and meeting various people along the way. Jeunet’s film criss-crosses Mathilde’s narrative with other narratives as well, telling some of the stories of some of the other soldiers that were also to have met their doom in no man’s land.

A Very Long Engagement also stars Jean-Pierre Becker as Sergeant Daniel Esperanza, Jodie Foster as Elodie Gordes, Clovis Cornillac as Benoit Notre-Dame, Marion Cotillard as Tina Lombardi, and Jean-Pierre Darroussin as Biscotte. There are several other characters as well, many of who are followed suddenly and without discernable reason. Jeunet seems interested in just about everyone he meets along the way in telling his story, which causes the film to become very perplexing very quickly. The characterizations are flawed not because of bad acting, but rather because of one-dimensional characterizations that leave us wanting more or, in many cases, leave us wanting far less.

The problem with A Very Long Engagement lies in its inability to tell a proper story. While the idea behind the film is compelling enough and the journey taken by Mathilde to find Manech is suitably epic, it seems that Jeunet’s methods of telling that story and expressing that idea are sorely mistaken for enjoyable storytelling. The characters swirl around one another, often leading to dead ends in the plot or long-winded explanations. There is no urgency to Mathilde’s search, as she often seems more interested in finding out what happened to the four other soldiers than her beloved Manech. The story unfolds in such a way that we are not introduced pragmatically to Mathilde’s grief, but are rather told of it in passing.

A Very Long Engagement is a good-looking film, but that, too, seems to be a part of its downfall. It’s almost as though Jeunet has various scenes and characters compete for airtime, giving them just a glimpse of compelling story and then pulling the rug out from under them to never be heard from again. This leaves the gorgeous visuals in the lurch as byproducts of bad storytelling. The film is shot in unrealistic tones to add to the fantastical journey of it all, often telling its story in sepia, gold, or gray tones. The scenes involving trench warfare in World War I are especially interesting with the violence and brutality of the situation fully encapsulated by the cinematography. As with most everything else in the film, however, the war scenes left me wanting more…or less.

One of the biggest problems with the film is that Mathilde’s search for Manech parallels a search by Tina Lombardi, the prostitute, to find her own man. The two searches are almost given equal airtime and are intermittently cast over one another, as we become confused as to whom we’re really looking for here and, moreover, why we really care. Each story is given such a sense of reverence, too, as though we’re supposed to get caught up in these little moments. The Jodie Foster storyline, in which her character sleeps with another man and falls in love with him, is given more airtime than necessary and, as such, disintegrates the central plot. A Very Long Engagement is filled with these distractions and, eventually, I forgot all about Mathilde and Manech. Their great love had been vanquished by dragons of bad storytelling.

So while the style of A Very Long Engagement is often very impressive, it still does little to make up for the muddled concepts, overblown storytelling, and one-dimensional characters. Audrey Tautou is decent enough here, but her melancholy approach to her performance is underwhelming and leaves little to notice in such a crowded story. Sadly, A Very Long Engagement didn’t hold up very well upon my second viewing, either, and remains a cluttered, confounding, and zigzagging bit of cinema.

3/10

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