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Reviews
The Book of Eli (2010)
Forget all the quasi-religious "metaphors"... Book of Eli was just a bad read...
Imagine a zombie movie, starring Denzel Washington, with a cartoon-evil villain, a hot girl, and a plot you've seen a million times before, shot in the California desert, a location you've seen a million times before. Then throw in a quasi-religious, confused subtext laid on thick & cheesy, change the zombies back into humans who act like zombies, and you get the Book of Eli.
Apparently after we humans atom-bombed each other into oblivion, the remaining survivors were sufficiently focused and high-minded to organize a Bible burning, then immediately thereafter started killing, raping, and eating cats.
Despite the lack of proper sustenance, even water, the remaining humans are sufficient in number to organize into old-West-type settlements with plentiful stockpiles of guns AND ammo, even 30 years after apparently everything else in the world (including gun manufacturers?) is blown up.
A man emerges, equipped both with kick-ass fighting skills and invincibility power-ups he ostensibly acquired while roaming the land after the fall of humanity, AND an iPod, which still works after 30 YEARS (yayyy, Apple?!?!) and whose batteries only require a recharge when he nears a town.
This is just the first 5-10 minutes. The rest of the film progresses similarly. If your brain is completely warped from decades of meth usage, you might just find this film remotely plausible and entertaining.
To call the Book of Eli "propaganda" would give it more credit than it deserves. Here we see what spews from the poop chute of the Hollywood machine: a premise, cast, and shooting location generated at random from Mad Libs or a pod of manatees with idea balls, take your pick.
Picture Mila Kunis's agent: "Great news, Mila!! I got you the lead in feature film with Denzel!!" She must have been excited.
Would have been funnier as a Family Guy episode...
Gamer (2009)
Three films in one -- nuanced & stimulating in every way
The premise of "Gamer" is resoundingly simple: What if gamers could control actual people? Coming into the theater, due to the simple premise and embarrassingly poor marketing of the film, I was expecting a brainless, adolescently indulgent action flick. What I got was a mind-blowing surprise.
"Gamer" is three films in one: (1) Subculture examination of the gamer ethos; (2) Pulse-pounding action movie; (3) Thought-provoking science fiction piece.
As others have mentioned, this film truly brings the gamer experience to the big screen. The battle shots bring MMORPG first-person shooters to real life, and the Sims/Second Life-like scenes played just as true, right down to the robotic, singlemindedly determined motion of the characters. The directors obviously spent many long hours gaming in preparation for this film (or just for fun).
As an action film, "Gamer" holds its own, delivering plenty of fights, battle scenes, and adrenaline-soaked moments. Hollywood knows how to do action, and in "Gamer" you see some of what it has learned from films like "The Matrix", "Saving Private Ryan", and others. I won't say too much, but there's a particularly juicy scene involving some kind of giant snowplow.
"Gamer" shines most brightly, and most unexpectedly, as a science fiction piece. The film interweaves themes familiar to our 2009 reality, including economic desperation, prison overcrowding, the fallout of materialism, and technology naively promoted as a panacea for society's ills.
"Gamer" shows us a society addicted to technology at the expense of facing reality. Masses of gamers, locked in adolescence or enraptured by the promise of mindless self-indulgence without consequence, living solely through their avatars. Desperate segments of society, the poor and criminal, who have surrendered control of their bodies to the will of gamers. A populace that embraces televised war games as a solution to prison overcrowding, rather than addressing the true causes of mass imprisonment. The megalomaniacal pushers of technology running largely unchecked as the masses surrender control.
Michael C. Hall delivers a breakout silver screen performance as the multifaceted Ken Castle -- after his great work in Six Feet Under, this is another power move for his career. Kyra Sedgwick nails her cougar reporter character, who begins the film as another no-conscience profiteer but becomes more through the course of the film. And Gerard Butler plays the hero archetype admirably, as every bit of the man who his spoiled teenage gamer-puppeteer cannot become.
"Gamer" may end up as a cult classic, a slowly growing mainstream success, or could stay underrated indefinitely, but it's definitely worth a view.
Seven Pounds (2008)
Engaging, Well-Executed, but Perverse in Message *** Contains Spoilers ***
"Seven Pounds" chronicles the actions of Tim "Ben" Thomas, a troubled former aerospace engineer (Will Smith) racked by guilt after the death of seven people in an auto accident for which he blames himself.
Through various methods, he gains contact with seven individuals, including Emily Posa (Rosario Dawson), a cardiac patient who owes thousands of dollars in back taxes, with the aim of 'drastically altering their circumstances'. Ben and Emily end up falling in love, and much of the plot revolves around their courtship.
Conversely, while the film places heavy weight on Ben and Emily's romance, little time is spent developing Ben's efforts to "help people", and these remain primarily ancillary items in the context of the overall story.
Will Smith and Rosario Dawson have great chemistry. Their courtship is both believable and refreshing, and manages to tug heart strings without straying into chick-flick sappiness, which is quite an accomplishment. The actual kissing scenes were a little flat given the passionate buildup, but could also be plausible in the context of the characters' apprehension about their various deficiencies.
The other plot threads involve Ben attempting to help the seven individuals, as well as Ben's family and close friends, which grow increasingly concerned at his behavior. The concern of Ben's family and friends contrasts sharply with, and at times interrupts, Ben and Emily's touching, idyllic romantic arc, and leaves viewers wondering why Ben's family and friends are so concerned.
When the "surprise twist" (not that surprising -- I guessed it in the first ten minutes, and normally I don't see these things coming) finally occurs, the only true surprise for me was the message of the film implied by the ending, which I found incredibly perverse on several levels.
Revealing the message would also reveal the twist, so I won't mention specifics here, but suffice to say that despite my tolerance for nearly everything that regular people would normally find offensive or morally objectionable, the message of this film still managed to disgust me in a totally new way, and reach moral ground that could be considered questionable, even for Hollywood.
To clarify, this isn't the kind of 'perverse' that would embarrass you in front of Grandma, this is just perverse. Some will see things differently, and maybe the reason to see this film is ultimately the moral questions it raises, but I hope people won't take the ending as what's now normal, acceptable behavior in our culture.
Serenity (2005)
Excellent Though Over-Hyped
Serenity belongs in an elite category of films, those that when you finish watching, you think, "damn, I just saw something special". It starts the wheels turning in your head and may even steal a few hours of your sleep the night you see it.
It is not, however, in the same league as the first Matrix, or (insert your favorite most revolutionary film here). At times, it seems a little formulaic, a little too glib, even a little preachy. I wouldn't call it a "masterpiece", nor is it overwhelmingly groundbreaking.
That said, Serenity is thought-provoking, touching, laugh-out-loud funny, and complex enough to keep you interested. The universe created is both believable and engaging. As long as you don't expect to be blown away ala Matrix I or categorically detest sci-fi, you won't be disappointed.
Note: I have not seen "Firefly", though now I would like to.
Sheng huo xiu (2002)
Good from a distance, but falls apart up close
When viewed from afar, "Life Show" does well at probing problems (the socioeconomic chasm between rich and poor, the displacement brought on by "progress" of those who were in its way, the improved since Communism (yes, you read that correctly) but still relatively low position of women in society, and the desperate situation of rural workers who come into China's big cities) central to the "New China's" meteoric rise from destitute poverty to semi-prosperity. It also accurately shows the power of "guanxi" (personal connections and favor-trading) in Chinese society, played out in Shuang Yang's ploy to win a dispute over the ownership of an apartment by matching one of her female employees to marry the manager of the Records Bureau's presumably autistic son. Considering its low budget and the fact that most of this film was shot on a set, the visuals were impressive, displaying both the drabness of modern China and its unique, semi-perverse beauty, occasionally discoverable within its endless expanse of hastily constructed buildings, concrete, and smog. I particularly enjoyed the scenes shot in the cable car over the Yangzi River that distinguish the film as taking place in Chongqing, as opposed to China's innumerable other metropolises, and communicate both the visual richness and blandness simultaneously present in nearly every Chinese urban area.
This film far surpasses many of its Chinese peers in both TV and film in its attempt to "tell the truth." Many present-day Chinese productions showcase a lifestyle of gated communities, spotless skyscrapers, luxury cars, and American consumption patterns, a lifestyle that all but the top 1% of the top 1% of Chinese people can only imagine because they have seen it on TV or pirated DVDs. To its credit, "Life Show" largely avoids this fantasy world. Perhaps due to an adherence to the novel that spawned the film, "Life Show" deals with its central issues (see above) in an ostensibly honest fashion. Unfortunately, when you get down to the actual details, this film begins to fall apart. Despite the effort apparently made by the set designers towards realism, certain things, such as the food stand and Shuang Yang's apartment, are multiple times too big, and too clean-looking beyond all believability. However, the lack of realism in the details of this film seems mainly a consequence of casting Tao Hong as Shuang Yang (the female lead). Although Tao Hong is one of my favorite Chinese actresses because of an elusive quality she has (I haven't quite figured it out yet) that somehow makes her stand out from other Chinese actresses, I feel she was poorly suited to this role because she could not / did not perform a transformation similar to that of Charlize Theron in "Monster", namely that of discarding the bulk of her charm to play a character well beneath her in social status and grace. Judging by the dialogue and Shuang Yang's occupation, selling duck necks as street food, Shuang Yang should have been played as the very definition of "su" (a Chinese word roughly meaning "the opposite of elegant" with a semi-derogatory connotation halfway between "the masses" and "poor white trash"), as her lack of education and refinement is mentioned numerous times, especially in her conversations with Zhuo (the male lead). Having lived in China for two years, I have come into contact with hundreds of street vendors and small restaurant proprietors and seen thousands more on my walks through the streets. These types of eating establishments without exception are dirty places, with some even bordering on squalid, and their proprietors generally appear friendly but weathered, street-smart and not often bathed. Yes, we are told numerous times that Shuang Yang has "benshi" (the kind of talent that makes one successful), but that simply does not equal the grace and beauty that Tao Hong cannot dispose herself of in playing this role. Shuang Yang's face and nails should be dirtier, her hands should be roughened up, and her hair shouldn't be colored. She shouldn't be dining at a 20th floor luxury restaurant teaching her employee girl how to eat pizza with a knife and fork (since Chinese not of high social status typically do not know how to use a knife and fork). We should see the filthy water in which Shuang Yang dips the rag she uses to wipe the counter. While she is on the job, Shuang Yang should spit, as Chinese of lower social status commonly do. Can you even imagine Tao Hong spitting? I would laugh! Even that would probably be graceful. Ultimately, Tao Hong is far too attractive for the character she is playing. Food stand proprietors in China just don't look like her. EVER! (nor do 40-year-old Floridian prostitutes look like Charlize Theron w/o the age-producing makeup and the fat suit).
I cannot entirely blame Tao Hong for her performance in this movie or definitively call it poor acting on her part, mostly because I suspect she was just working with the set design and direction she was given (and what woman would want to look unattractive?). I understand nearly that every film includes some "dressing up" of its subjects to add interest, or for other reasons. However, I just wish everybody involved in the production of this film would have placed more value on closely emulating the style and substance of those whose plight they were trying to portray. This film could have been powerful, but in its over-elegance, ironically settles for the film equivalent of "su". (******6/10)
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
Some Endings Are Better Left Unfilmed...
Possible spoiler hints second-to-last paragraph only.
The first Matrix movie was fantastic because it framed an action film inside a cerebral one; it was special both for its revolutionary action sequences and for the novelty of such an engaging `what if
?' scenario. The movie had plenty of flaws, but they were easy to forgive because of the sheer originality of the movie's visuals and viewpoint. The Matrix's open ending allowed viewers to draw their own conclusions to all the questions raised.
Simply by making the sequels, the Wachowskis disobeyed one of the first rules of show biz: `Always leave em wanting more.' As soon as I heard they were going to make two sequels, I had a gut feeling, a fear that I would be sorely disappointed. I knew the sequels could never live up to the original, and going into Reloaded with that in mind, I was able to appreciate the movie for what it was, and I forgave its [this time more serious] flaws because I assumed (hoped) they would be resolved or rendered irrelevant in Revolutions.
Revolutions fails to provide any of the positive attributes the first two films. The visual style is no longer original, nor is the philosophical bent, and I found the action sequences to be profoundly uninteresting. Reloaded did one-up the original in its action sequences the many Smiths scene took martial arts to a whole new level, and the freeway scene delivered a masterfully done car chase, a key element in any quality action picture. What does Revolutions have? A bunch of computer-animated machines duking it out with one another. Most of the action scenes in Revolutions resemble a video game more closely than they do a kungfu or action movie. I doubt I am the only one who does not find watching video games all that interesting. The few non-video-game-like scenes that Revolutions did have were unimpressive, simply because I felt like I had seen them before. In the first film, they had full-throttle action and in the second, they turned on the afterburners. In the third, they just plain ran out of gas - the Wachowski brothers just could not top what they did in Reloaded.
Without originality or satisfying action sequences to fall back on, what does Revolutions have left? The dialogue is ridiculous, with almost as many cliches as Batman and Robin. There are numerous scenes that seem to serve no purpose watching it, I wondered how such a widely anticipated, expensively made film could be so flabby. There are also far too many characters in this movie to allow for any kind of character development or for us to care about any of them; besides, the acting was never a strong point for the first two Matrix films, either.
That leaves only the plot itself and its philosophical implications to redeem Revolutions. Once again, Revolutions failed to measure up to its predecessors. While the Matrix was simply revolutionary and Reloaded provided some interesting new twists, Revolutions was almost completely unintelligible. Maybe I missed something because I did not watch Anamatrix or play the Enter the Matrix video game, but most of what happened in the third movie made no sense! Instead of providing answers, which I and other audience members wanted, above all, from the final (God, I hope so) installment in the series, Revolutions delivers ambiguity. Was there a matrix within a matrix? Does the movie end with a new world order, or did we just view one `iteration' of the program? What happened to Neo? What was the point of anything that happened in all three movies? Of course, a good movie should leave the viewer with something to think about, but instead of thinking `what could happen next?' or contemplating the film's philosophical message, after watching Revolutions, I wondered `what the hell just happened?' and `what was any of it supposed to mean?' In my humble opinion, the Wachowskis could not figure out how to write the ending in a way that would tie everything together (without being so obvious as to be unsatisfying) that they just made it as confusing as possible so that there were no true answers and the Wachowskis were completely off the hook.
Bottom line a truly good movie like The Matrix did not need to have an `ending' as such, but the Wachowskis insisted on giving it one (`everything that has a beginning must have an end', more like `every film that could have a successful sequel should have two'), and they couldn't deliver the goods. They brought so much philosophy into the first two movies, especially the second movie, that viewers, myself included, expected a plausible, coherent closure from Revolutions. As intelligent as they are, the brothers could not provide it. Maybe they have the whole thing cooked up perfectly in their heads so that it all ties together logically, there are no `plot holes,' and everything makes sense, but even if that were the case, they did a terrible job communicating the conclusion and resolution (if there was resolution I'm not sure whether there was or not). 2 stars out of 10 for the remote possibility that the brothers actually had something in mind that they were unable to communicate.
Bowling for Columbine (2002)
Watch it for the thought-provoking parts, ignore the preachy ones (MINOR spoilers)
MINOR spoilers!
Moore makes some good points in this movie, and engages us by showing a side of America's gun-owning public whose beliefs about guns seem ridiculous to most people. Then, he does what many Americans did after the Columbine massacre: try to figure out who is to blame, why America has the highest murder rate with firearms of any developed country. At first, he eliminates sources: Violent movies and videogames (watched and played en masse around the world, especially in east Asia), violent history (Europe's whole history is wars and power struggles; most of Asia's is, too), and gun control (while gun control is prevalent in Europe and Australasia, what about Canada? They love to hunt! 7 million guns for 10 million people!).
Then, he starts on the offensive: He reminds Americans that nearly everything we see on TV and in print is controlled by a few major media conglomorates, and his depiction of the fearmongering from the news organizations is so apt, it is, well, scary. Fear makes people consume, especially pouring money into security systems and firearms. So far so good. The excursion to Canada was funny and thought-provoking, but it starts to get preachy, and the preachiness escalates from that point forward. Instead of allowing viewers to come to their own conclusions by showing them captivating film, Moore shifts tactics, and tries to ram his point home with anecdotal evidence, blaming welfare-to-work (because one welfare-to-work child was left alone and committed a crime as a result, welfare-to-work is bad?), and the lack of state-administered health care in America (where does this fit in with guns?). It seems like he is pushing for a welfare state, and he believes that it will solve America's problem with violence, although he never states this opinion explicitly.
Then, he goes from Moore the filmmaker to Moore the activist, with a publicity stunt to get K-Mart to stop selling ammo, and an interview with Charlton Heston. By the time the interview was over and Moore had left the picture of the little girl murdered by 6-year-old welfare-to-work boy, I wanted to grab my gun and shoot both of them. Well, seriously, I could not, because I am in China and NOBODY is allowed to own guns here. Even though Nanjing is a city of 5+ million people, most of them far poorer than any American, I still feel much safer walking the streets here than in the US. I think Moore is on to something with the media making Americans feel inadequate so that they will consume, but he overshadows the exposition of this sad truth by revealing himself as a preachy jerk and focusing on his own actions during the later part of the film. 7/10.
The Sum of All Fears (2002)
Nearly Completely Dreadful (Spoiler Warning)
Spoilers ahead!
This movie was terrible, with a few redeeming features. Aside for the nuke making it into Baltimore and actually blowing up (finally, I have been watching movies my whole life, waiting for a nuke to actually hit its target), none of the rest of the plot made sense. Not that the events themselves (old nuclear bomb found, stolen, converted, shipped to the US, detonated - nuclear standoff ensues) could/would never happen, but the way that the story connected all the events was simply preposterous. This should not have been a Jack Ryan story. In order to involve him in the story (i.e. allow him to save the day), they had to twist the plot around far too much. It simply did not work. I could not suspend my disbelief because it did not even make sense how one thing connected to another.
The worst thing about this movie, though, was the casting of Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan. He ruined the Jack Ryan character for me. When Harrison Ford played Jack Ryan, he was a MAN - a tough guy who took charge, stood up for his family and his principles, and kicked ass against the bad guys. In this movie, Ben Affleck (possibly the script, too) turns Jack Ryan into an office nerd who does not deserve or command respect, other than for the accuracy of a report he wrote back when he was an [even] younger agent. What kind of a hero is that? I felt like I may as well have been watching his character in Chasing Amy - he seemed that helpless and inconsequential. That is why it made even less sense when the screenwriters made him into the hero. But the best way they could come up with for him to save the world was by typing on text chat to the Russian President? I know it is 2003 and Instant Messenger is everywhere, but come on! How is this exciting? If I choose to see a standard Hollywood "thriller" about nukes and terrorism, I want it done right. They could have cast Adam Sandler and had him save the world by getting drunk and suggesting that we launch flaming poo instead of nukes at the Russians, and it would have been more interesting than this movie. 3/10 stars, and it gets 3 instead of 1 only because of Morgan Freeman's solid performance and because they actually had the guts to nuke a city.
Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever (2002)
I couldn't stop laughing... "Blow'd Up"
It is hard to believe that a movie with so much money put into it could be so badly put-together. I couldn't even tell what the "storyline" was or who was fighting whom until two-thirds of the way through the movie. The scenes did not seem to flow from one to the other. The action sequences were so overdone and completely unrealistic that they had me in fits of laughter. Not only that, but they were unoriginal and unremarkable in every other way, so they did not add much in the way of entertainment value. Antonio Banderas seems far too old for this role, and is not an action hero in this movie whatsoever. The acting is mostly awful, very forced; therefore, emotional interest and character development is completely nonexistent. About the only thing good that I can say about this movie is that Lucy Liu kicks some ass in the action scenes. Unfortunately, she uses only one facial expression throughout the entire movie and has less than 30 lines of dialogue, if you can call it that. Do you remember the E*Trade commercial that ran last year where this guy sees a trailer on TV for a fake movie called "Blow'd Up" and then sells his stock in the production company because the movie looks so horrible? This is the real thing.