Reviews

This is probably the closest adaptation from the novel, slightly marred by a tendency to linger over scenes inspired by iconic illustrations of NC Wyeth and others. The pacing when establishing characters is like a too-slow striptease, especially Billy Bones (Oliver Reed), Blind Pew (Christopher Lee), and John Silver (Charleton Heston). Heston's delivery, like Christian Bale's (as Jack Hawkins) is understated, which removes a little of the fun and all of the mercurial affection established by Robert Newton and Bobby Driscoll in th e1950 version. Both Bale and Heston are just a bit too cold to perform the Tango of a sonless rogue and a fatherless boy, so their path to grudging admiration plays out more like a chess game. I'd rather have Reed and Heston exchange roles, but what's done is done. Lee's vocalizations, usually so plummy, are disappointingly squeaky, a surprising choice for such a sinister role, but his physical acting superb. Julian Glover as Dr Livesey, Richard Johnson as Squire Trelawny and Clive Wood as Captain Smollet all capture their characters, though again, Glover's expressiveness is a tad subtle. The Chieftains...well, certainly there are many points in the film where the strident fiddling is extremely appropriate, but but what's missing is a few melancholy bars and some strains of sober suspense. Surely the Chieftains had a plaintive flute or something that could have done the trick. A bit of thumping drums delightfully prefigures "the Battle" music from Master & Commander, but the gunnery work in the assault on the blockhouse is unconvincing visually, especially the recoil effects and explosions. This is a film that could benefit from a little CGI tinkering, since the special pyrotechnics budget was apparently so frugal. The locations are really quite good, and the Hispaniola looks good on the outside, sometimes appearing to be actually sailing. The interior scenes are a bit too stable and a bit roomier than they should be.

I've waited a long time for Scott to take up the reins of this franchise, patiently watched as it was bastardized, homogenized, and hybridized. Not a single sequel has risen to the superlative level of the first Alien film, and to some extent, neither does this prequel. But it captures something the sequels missed - mystery. Here we learn that the giant pilot of the crashed alien ship was not merely a previous victim of the titular creature, but a member of a master race much more intimately and physiologically linked to humanity than we ever suspected. Yet the answers to questions ignored in the sequels because of their focus on the creature, lead to more questions, and an reductio ad absurdum "who created the creator" possibility for unlimited serialization. This film is the first in the franchise to show us something we didn't already know about the creature from the first film, though I found a couple manifestations of its life cycle inconsistent with alien life cycle orthodoxy and others a bit implausible (zombie mode) or unexplained (rapid growth without food). Fassbender is a great David, though unlike Holm's Ash, he fails to appear innocuous in the opening sequence, coming off too sinister to make subsequent events surprising. Actually, the only surprise from his character is his apparent willingness in the final scene to set aside his own agenda in favor of that of Rapace's Shaw. Her heroics should eclipse those of Weaver's Ripley, considering the extent of her trauma, but somehow her character is too muted and epicentric to draw cheers at the moment of her coup. Enough puzzles remain to authorize a sequel: why did David choose Holloway to betray, why is Weyland played by such a young actor (okay that one is obvious), why didn't Charlize Theron turn aside when the Gale house was touching down from Kansas? Really, she can't be that disposable, considering Vickers' resemblance to Ripley. Will Shaw make it to the emerald city with only Toto in her duffle (I'll count the rest of David as the tin man, since the cowardly geologist and the brainless biologist already bought the farm). Guess we'll just have to wait for the next installment. And finally, I am SO glad this did not flaceplant like Robin Hood.

As the second installment in the rebooted "alternate reality" Star Trek universe, this film does a passable job of introducing a few new faces for some old characters. Plot wise, it does not follow very closely on the heels of the first installment. Like the original TV series, it could just as well be viewed independently from the first, though if you happen to have grown up in an alternate reality yourself, you may not understand who the principal characters are. But this isn't much of a disadvantage, because as an alternate reality project, the film deals somewhat unexpectedly with many of the characters. Christine Chappell is mentioned but not shown - maybe int ST3? Pike does not wind up in a wheelchair. And Khan, well, he doesn't quote Herman Melville, or do his own stunts, apparently. Cumberbatch is sadly just not as convincing as a super warrior as Montalban. He is as coldly calculating as you please, but just not physical, devious, or demonic as the role demands. Mostly he seems a little lost, a guest actor who is unsure of his welcome. As far as the rest of the film, there is one tribble, which kind of misses the point of tribbles. And the silly use of Khan's super blood raises the question of how Carol Marcus will be utilized in the next film. One thing for sure the next sequel will not be titled The Search for Kirk.

This is the second film version of the novel. I have not viewed the 1926 version, but since it is a silent film, and the novel is so chatty, I can hardly think it captures Fitzgerald's vision. The 1974 (3rd) version suffers from two or three problems that overwhelm the lovely props and costumes - an abysmal score, the debatable effect of Redford's grin, and casting mousy Mia Farrow as money-voiced Daisy - a role she cannot fill. Sam Waterson and Bruce Dern are well cast but then mostly have to stand around rather than play off their contrasting physical types. Karen Black perfectly embodies the excess vitality that motivates Tom's adultery. The 2000 A&E/Granada (4th) version comes closer with a more believable Daisy (Mira Sorvino) and an equally everyman Nick (Paul Rudd), but not a better Jay, and then focuses too much on the furniture of Gatsby's criminal activities. It boasts a real Owl Eyes, too. The 1949 version is not perfect either; we can only hope the 2012-oops!-2013 version finally nails it. The '49 version casts Nick as a bit of a dull boy, and fails most by insisting on "squaring" everything, losing in the process the essential melancholy, unfulfilled longing, and insulted morality of the novel. Perhaps it's an artifact of the period, America embracing a sanitized Freudian relativism, putting the Second WW behind it like the First, but this time too sober to try anything like the Roaring 20s. Betty Field is a convincing Daisy, though she falls pretty far from a Louisville débutante. Jordan is not nearly arch enough, Tom not nearly imposing enough. And Dr. TJ Eckleburg...well Gatsby's henchman can't resist explicating a symbol the audience should be allowed to figure out for itself. After an unsteady start, the pace of the film proceeds very well through most of the scenes of the novel, sadly failing to give Shelley Winters the screen time to better develop her Myrtle Wilson. And here's Howard da Silva suitably muted as Wilson, Ed Begley too muted as "Lupus"(Wolfsheim), and Elisha Cook, Jr in an expanded Klipspringer role. In fact, it's almost as if the film makers wanted to write Nick out and replace him with Klipsringer, but didn't dare. They should have, because Cook brings more to the screen than Macdonald Carey. All in all, a very workmanlike adaptation, making use of much of the novel's narration by transforming it into passable dialog, and though the shot composition is a bit straight-on, the camera-work is strong and the editing spot on.

Neill is engaging, and the topic is presented in a natural, conversational manner. But is this really an original series? The script seems in places at least to follow Carl Sagan's Cosmos series, which ran decades ago. I want to think it's a consequence of similar subject matter, but some of the phrases are identical - "star stuff", "billions and billions", etc.

Of course it's been some time since Cosmos aired, and today's audience may be too young to recall it, too lacking in attention span to sit through the statelier pace, and too critical of the dated visual effects. It seems this newer series achieves a brisker pace and wider audience by avoiding the pitfall of explaining how we "know," for instance, that life does not exist on other planets in our solar system.

This shorter series, presented by a professional actor (he should do a disclaimer "I'm not a scientist, but I've played one in cinema") in lieu of a genuine scientist like Sagan or Hawking (or a historian/journalist like James Burke) may better appeal to a younger crowd, with less interest in fussy details like actual evidence.

This film jettisons the essential tone and message of the original, while retaining the superficial elements of the characters and setting.

Having successfully manipulated the clichés of the mono-myth and countless references to action films into an original, funny and heart-warming masterpiece, the franchise loses its way with this dud. Here the writers become the tools of the story-we-all-know, every step predictable. Gary Oldman plays (as usual) the villain with a thousand faces, flawlessly, yes, but that's the problem. There's no humanity in the peacock to make it interesting. Only Dennis Hopper can project a villain less sympathetically. James Woods or Jeremy Irons? You know the type.

Where is the REAL Jack Black? David Spade, Jay Baruchel, or Norm Macdonald might as well have voiced this cartoon panda with as vivaciously. The rest of the cast follow suit. Gone is any sense of play. The characters just plod along in the ruts left by countless re-tellings.

The one good line in the film indicates what's wrong - up and down the stairs every hero story follows - one step at a time, skipping few (there's no panda princess locked in the tower). It's just boring!

And then the ominous threat of another cliché-driven sequel tagged onto the end. I sincerely hope the franchise-holders reevaluate what they're doing, and resuscitate the life of the original, rather than clone another simulacrum to stagger blindly two hours.

Of course this film is directed toward a child audience, but there is plenty for adults to appreciate.

First, the excellent design. Every frame - credits too - is simply gorgeous. Then the casting. Jack Black is The big fat panda. James Hong, Randall Duk Kim, and Ian McShane are likewise irreplaceable. Seth Rogan and David Cross could have exchanged roles, as could Lucy Liu and Angelina Jolie, without significant alteration to the story. The rest of the voice actors - yes, even Hoffman (not quite filling the hole in the world left by Mako Iwamatsu's passing) - could have been anyone. (But that's almost the point!) The action, the visual jokes, the pace - all perfect.

But what really gets me is the sustained ironic take on the mono-myth formula. Again and again the implied allusions to the "foundling prince whose coming was foretold" are set up only to be shrugged off without explicit acknowledgment. The writers of this film get it: we all know that story - it's in our bones - so there's no need to waste a moment of dialog on it. What keeps it light and alive is the repeated thwarting of our anticipation that the clichés will take over. It never happens; the clichés remain pawns, the butts of jokes.

Finally, what makes this film great. This story doesn't merely put a new twist on a timeless tale, it turns the hero myth on its head: the chosen one can be Anyone, even an antihero can become a hero: "There is no secret ingredient." What an affirmation for the doubt-fettered children of our over-informed cynical age.

PS If you love this film for the same reasons, don't bother with the sequel.

The struggle of one man to make a new life for himself in an unfamiliar and uncompromising landscape. His infatuation with the high places and the hard life he finds there is presented as a series of episodes which would likely have devolved into formulaic tedium, despite Pollack's sure eye, but for the masterful writing of John Milius. Johnson progresses through initiation, testing, and mastery.

Though Johnson is accused at one point of having "gone native," this film does not stoop to the played-out whiteguiltmessiah trope of a renegade holding back the depredations of mechanization. This is not Fern Gully/Avatar or Dances With Wolves/Last Samurai.

True, Johnson is disaffected and turns his back on the servitude of life down in the flats to seek an imagined Independence as a beaver trapper. That this is a vanishing livelihood past its heyday entirely suits his purpose. This is a latter day knight questing for an elusive grail. Those who have cried "historical anachronism!" have missed this point. Johnson's quest is an affirmation that such a life could still be lived, as an act of will. Oddly, because the films are otherwise so different, the closest analog to his spiritual plight that comes to mind is Jerry McGuire. But this film is no romantic comedy.

This is a man's film. While it portrays relationships, they are not its essence. The main characters are all orphans of one sort or another, adrift in an uncaring if not purposefully hostile environment, taking occasional rest in the security of temporary alliances. The themes are manly abstractions like integrity, duty, territory. Femininity is portrayed as alien and inscrutable, both attractive and repellent. Violence is graphic and frequent, a necessity of life, sometimes an indulgence of vanity, and a consequence of carelessness.

The is no grand point to this Anglophile psychodrama, just a supposed glimpse into the private world of a man nearly annihilated by the theory he developed. Unresolved guilt divides him from the comforts of faith, friends, and family until a cathartic quack treatment allows him to grieve the loss of innocence personified in his daughter, and restores his libido.

Bettany's previous role as Dr. Stephen Maturin so resembles Darwin that this seems almost a sequel, though of a completely different genre. Connelly as his effectively estranged wife adds a voyeuristic piquancy to an otherwise ironically "supporting" role.

This film entertains while failing to enthrall as did its older brother, LOTR. I sat with a frown on my face for most of the running time, relieved by two or three chuckles.

It has been suggested that Tolkien's appeal lies not his story-telling, but in his ability to transport the reader to that alternate reality, Middle Earth. Jackson's LOTR films succeeded, despite various compromises, in that same effect. This film does not.

What went wrong?

Too much effort to integrate with established LOTR orthodoxy, I suspect. I was transported, not to Middle Earth, but to the sound stages of the previous films. I looked, not at characters, but at actors playing them. Freeman, Nesbit, and Armitage turn in real performances, but most of the actors reprising roles were wooden. Maybe because they so defined the characters in the earlier films, Jackson has been satisfied with takes wherein they simply get their lines right. Only Lee and Blachett add any dimension to their LOTR characters; the rest fall short.

It starts right away. Holm looks and sounds slightly embalmed as old Bilbo. Is it CGI makeup? Something not right in the eyebrows; lack of facial expression, intonation husky and flat with the intervening years. McKellen likewise turns in a diminished performance, his expressive range is nearly as narrow as Holm's.

Is Holm wearing contacts to match Freeman's eye color? If so, it's a mistake. We could instead infer that his eyes have been drained of color by the Ring - compare Gollum's watery orbs. Wood is no longer boyish, despite makeup, his voice more mature. Too bad he couldn't be digitally lifted from Huckleberry Finn or Oliver Twist.

Too much telling instead of showing. Can't show us Sackville-Bagginses stealing the silver? Then leave it out. Holm narrates a dwarve backstory so parallel to the "forging of the rings" flashback in Fellowship it's almost a parody, with Thorin a three-quarter-scale Isildur.

Does Jackson think audiences will watch only one of the trilogies? If some element is present in one, why duplicate it in the other? Chandeliers and moths - really?

Azog (does the name mean "little Sauron rip-off"?) is a recurring mistake throughout. Many of the iconic scenes from the novel are spoiled by this CGI construct, a sort of recombinant (WO)Khan/Ahab/Moby-Dick chimera. Why does this character exist? The Company does not need pursuit or a lurking enemy: it's is GOING to the Lonely Mountain, and will encounter plenty of obstacles to keep up the suspense.

Roast Mutton is hurried and under-acted as a result. The entrance to Rivendell recreates the Race to the Ford with Azog in the place of the pursuing Wraiths. I like the inclusion of Radagast, but here is another timewaster, with the brown wizard distracting the pursuing orcs, with every tedious element of a video game cut scene. The main characters stand idly by, waiting with the audience for it to end, so play can resume. Fortunately, the DVD release will allow us to skip the scene.

Then Rivendell, like Hobbitton, somehow larger and more elaborate, but curiously empty of inhabitants and stage business. Weaving, despite rumors that the elves would be jollier, looking more glum and fretful even than in LOTR, when there should be a knowing twinkle in his eye. La-la-la-lally, indeed...

Happiest moment was the Storm Giant battle, which might have wound up on the cutting room floor along with Tom Bombadil for all the difference it makes to the plot. Still, it's marred by referencing the collapsing stairs of Moria. And not enough lightning.

The goblins should still be isolated in the Misty Mountains, jealous of their borders, not yet under thrall to Sauron. Instead, they seem to have direct communication with other baddies. Humphries' Great Goblin sounds about halfway between Bruce and Dame Edna, a little too sarcastic, and not quite suspiciously enraged. The Great Goblin diminishes his own terrifying status by threatening to...turn them over to Azog. You've got to be joking!

With so much material added from outside the text of the Hobbit novel proper, how can the result be so unoriginal? In the novel, we get the sense of Bilbo slogging along, not really comprehending the magnitude of the journey. But the reader gets a sense of a vast, unknown world around him. Not in this film. Like Lucas before him, Jackson has created a prequel which diminishes the scope of the original, rather than augmenting it. Middle Earth grows smaller with each recreated set.

That this film, with its enormous budget and gifted pool of talent and technology, fails to supersede the humble Rankin-Bass animated production, is the most damning comment I can make. I liked, not loved, it.

The film opens terribly with small, fast-scrolling revisionist history in an ersatz medieval script superimposed on a nearly featureless map of a northern coastline, presumably somewhere in Europe. French place names compete for our attention as blood seeps over the obscure territory, presumably representing English invasion. All this when a simple date would tell us as much as we need to know. Then there is a wonderful series of establishing shots, rendering all the previous text unnecessary. Here is medieval agrarian France, here is the title character, here, her conflicted relationships with the Church & God, the ambiguity of what is real, what is visionary. A melange of differing accents alerts us that we are dealing with an ensemble cast. Then John Malkovich, Faye Dunaway, and Dustin Hoffman remind us again. Americans in medieval France...hmmm. Of the three, Dunaway seems the most at home in her role. Hoffman...does anyone ever forget he is watching Hoffman? Jack Crabb is the last role I saw as a character and not Hoffman-in-a-role. My point isn't to disparage his acting, but that the casting director has placed too-high-profile actors in supporting roles. With Hoffman, the question is never what will the character do next, but rather, what will Hoffman do with the character. Milla is nearly perfect for the part - wild eyed volatile delusional virginal zealot, not much different from her roles in other films (Fifth Element). But one almost waits for her to go off on a rant in Ukrainian. Has a French actress ever played this role in an English language film? I liked the props and most of the sets. Much of the photography is beautiful, but there is a visually disturbing lack of roads leading to some of the castles. And in the end, the story runs down without reaching a memorable conclusion. Or maybe I dozed off.

I saw this in a theater when it was first released. I've been watching it at least annually ever since. I own both the VHS theatrical cut and the DVD director's cut. I've purchased both the soundtrack album and two Clannad albums, downloaded and read the original novel and the Mann script, reread the Classics Illustrated version, viewed the WWII era b/w film upon which Mann based his script, read the rest of Coopers Leatherstocking Tales, taken a course in longrifle building, taken up deer hunting, and read historical accounts of the frontier conflicts that form the backdrop to this magnificent film.

I can tell you, it is the best version of the story. Unlike many adaptations, this one improves upon the original novel by a degree of magnitude. The elaborate bigotry is gone while preserving the constellation of cultures and races. The prudery vanishes but virtue remains. And the jarring silliness of some episodes from the novel is mercifully extinguished in favor of dry wit. And it improves upon every previous adaptation. Magically, much of the dialog and structure from the b/w version, is preserved but the delivery leaves no doubt that the British and French are at war, carelessly using Native and Colonial Americans as pawns - a subtext that was in expedient in the time of the b/w version.

Some experts have criticized the film for historical inaccuracies, including details of the props and costumes, but the fact that the film stimulates interest enough to discover the inaccuracies seems to me to overturn that criticism. There is an internal confusion of place, apparently a half-carried out attempt to reconcile the historical location of the events in the colony of New York with the filming location in the state of North Carolina. Hawkeye states his intention to head west to Kantuckee. And for reasons I cannot explain the great Lenape sachem Tamenand becomes a Huron.

The thrilling and memorable score should have won the Oscar, but was ineligible for nomination because of a confused parentage, I guess. The soundtrack album is not the same recording as in the film, and introduces a slightly irritating adagio quality missing in the purposeful score. The director's cut restores a somewhat obvious and therefore unnecessary prognostication to Chingachgook at the end, and edits down an exchange between Hawkeye and a recruiter that does a better job of establishing his character's wit in the theatrical release. Finally, the director's cut eliminates the "I Will Find You" Clannad song that accompanies the trailing/tracking scene in the theatrical release, though the end credits still acknowledge it.

I place this film right up with Dr Zhivago in cinematographic power, Only a bobbing steadycam long shot of Fort William Henry under siege (was that supposed to be edited in as though from a canoe?) and a questionable green fill light during a nocturnal scene inside the fort mar the otherwise sumptuous camera-work. I acknowledge that it falls slightly short of Titannic in establishing sexual chemistry, but triumphs as a historical action film standing shoulder to shoulder with subsequent genre leaders like Gladiator and Master & Commander, is less tedious than Braveheart or The Patriot, and avoids the juvenile testosterone orgy of 300.

Lastly, it works on multiple intellectual levels. The characters can be viewed literally, acting on their personal motivations, but also function allegorically, representing the cultural forces motivating the nations contesting for control of the North American continent. And the camera-work supports this beautifully. Major Heyward, bearing the ambition of England, gazes at a small idealized portrait of Cora, the "heart" of Colonial America, as he crosses a perfectly symmetrical brick bridge representing the transplanted English civilization. Soon we see Cora framed in another symmetrical shot, surrounded by the abundant harvest of the fecund American soil. Heyward reveals his intention to transport this bounty, in the form of Cora, back to England, arrogantly assuming she could have no other plans for her future. Later, we see an alternate option in the form of Hawkeye, who has turned his back on his European heritage, intending to head west and live unbeholden to mother England. It doesn't really take Chingachgook's ending speech to see to what nationalistic future that path leads. And all of that is value-added by Mann to rather flat characters trapped in a wordy tangle by Cooper, who seemingly never recognized the substantive potential of his own novel.

Beautiful, exciting, deep. What more could you ask for in a film?

This installment does not make the impact that Casino Royale did, but it does better than Quantum. On the upside, the stunts are lovely, the scenery, too. Then the clichés take over, and struggle against an almost too ardent attempt to humanize these characters, to give them depth and dimension. Why? Even Severine, the disposable.woman in this film, is held in bondage to the villain by fear, we are told, as though this longstanding device needs explanation. Layers of insulating mystery are removed from M as her unquestioned power and backstory are examined and revealed. And the central mystery that seemingly brings us back to the theater each time, Bond's own backstory, is laid out in far too specific detail and comicbook psychological rationalization. I had no idea Bond had once resided in Wayne Manor, EC, nor that Alfred was still the caretaker there. Did Fleming really write any of that? Finally, we see that what drives the film is not really internal story logic, but a convergence of seemingly smart career moves, and really, an abandonment of innovation. The film drives inexorably toward an integration with the Connery era films. Smart recasting is done before our eyes - good for you, Lord Voldemort, Lady Calypso! Nothing pays the bills like a serial. But with the Bond backstory so well documented, will Bond intrigue us enough to justify a fourth film? Will Craig be up for another, or will Bond have to have facial reconstruction?

Filled with accomplished acting, but like everything else about it, uneven. The multiple roles played by the principle actors seem to have been given varying attention, and the mediocre makeup does not conceal the poor casting for some of the roles. Sadly, Tom Hanks never vanished into any of his roles. He remains the American Everyman whether playing the post apocalyptic Hawaiian tribesman with the Beyond Thunderdome dialect, or the despicable physician with the Austen Powers teeth. Then there's a bewildering mashup of Fu Manchu makeup, Bert the chimney sweep accent, and Caponean efficacy (where's the baseball bat?). Hanks remains. Hugo Weaving essentially reprises his Matrix Agent twice, once with heavy makeup and once without. He does a campy turn as a Cuckoos Nest nurse, and a mesmerizing and convincingly diabolical job as an Elm Streetesque phantom, marred not by his acting, but by some of his lines, seemingly lifted from the recent Exocist Begins (or is it Xorcist Origins?) film. Still a stunningly creepy performance. Hugh Grant does a fair James Caan for a Brit, vanishes into exotic tribesman makeup, but then the olderizing makeup fails poolside - wierdly, he didn't even appear British in that scene... I am not a Halle Berry fan, but her work in this film is refined, maybe the understatement makes her stand out alongside the Tarantino- infused characters. I believed her characters, despite the transforming makeup. The rest of the film is just good. There is some real emotional poignancy to the Do Androids Dream of Logan's Run segment and the closet melodrama about the music (I swear I've seen that before, but I can't place it). Cloud Atlas is not an original, but an assemblage of homages to other films, unfortunately of several genres, ranking from camp to high art. The uneven application of talent - script, acting, makeup - is not an achievement worthy of praise. Nevertheless, the good pieces shine through, and are worth watching. If one wasn't constantly distracted trying to remember where one had seen each scene in another film, it would rank somewhere above Waterworld and on a par with Fifth Element, somewhat below 12 Monkeys, and half an order of magnitude below Inception.