2/4 stars
Note: I don't believe that you can have "spoilers" for a historical drama, so I wrote this review without regard for those concerns. If it turns out I'm wrong, and you can have spoilers... then this review's got 'em.
My objection to Milk may seem a little strange. I thought, first of all, that Sean Penn was exceptional in the title role. Without hardly changing his appearance at all, Penn is nonetheless completely swallowed by the character, embodying a unique set of mannerisms, a new persona. He has impressed me in a number of movies so far, Mystic River, I Am Sam, 21 Grams… but it wasn’t until this one that I realized how completely new he is in each performance. Actors ranging from the dispensable Dane Cook to the formidable Al Pacino have a stage persona, a set of expectations that they will often fall back on. Those like Penn, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and Anthony Hopkins (to name a few) who always seem to manage a strong presence without one are impressive to me. Similarly, I’m impressed by the craft that goes into the creation of a successful period piece. A film set in the 1970s is as difficult in many ways to make convincing as one set in 1200, or in Middle Earth. Obviously my knowledge of the 70s is mostly based on movies, but still… In these areas, Milk is successful.
Nonetheless, I didn’t think it was a very good film. I’m a little more writer-centric, I think, than most reviewers you’re bound to read, but my problem with Milk was one I’ve never encountered before. The problem is that I don’t really think the story has a rising action and a falling action. In fact, I don’t think it has much dramatic structure at all. Yes, there is a brief denouement that follows Milk’s death, but this is so obviously necessary (and uninspired) that they get no credit for it. Essentially, Milk just happens until it’s done happening. The first scene is an arbitrary point in time; it almost feels like an in media res. From there, one thing follows another. There’s no change in pace, no dramatic tension, and as a consequence there are no stakes. Milk was a passionate man, and you’re interested in his struggle, but you don’t know what his goal within the context of the movie is. If you know the history behind the character of Harvey Milk then you already know that he will be elected to the board of supervisors and eventually assassinated by Dan White. I assume my knowledge on the subject is roughly average, and I didn’t know any more by way of details than that, but it was enough to rob the movie of any degree of suspense. This isn’t an inevitable feature of a historical drama, but when you make the whole question of the movie “Will he or won’t he do the thing that is the only reason he’s famous enough to have a movie,” you’re in a bad position.
This brings us to the summation, which seems to me to be the part of the review where I say good things about bad movies and vice versa. To that end: There’s a lot to like in Milk. Josh Brolin as Dan White is nearly as good as Penn, and I was glad that the movie resisted the easy temptation to play it as Milk being assassinated for being gay. The actors are excellent, the production is terrific, the dialogue snappy. For all I know, most people are likely to agree with all those rave reviews out there. But I don’t think that Milk works on a basic level, so I call it a failure. Last year, I wrote a 1 star review of No Country for Old Men, expecting to be shouted down by anyone I knew who cared enough to read it. What happened instead was that I heard, for the first time, from a lot of people who agreed with me. I’m looking forward to the feedback on this one…
Showing posts with label 2 stars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2 stars. Show all posts
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Max Payne
2/4 stars
How silly of me to think that as a gamer, my intelligence could be respected for 100 minutes straight by Hollywood. You see, Max Payne was a video game released in 2001, one of the first to utilize the "bullet time" concept seen in The Matrix and convert it to a playable experience. More importantly though, at its best, the game was a moody and atmospheric foray into gritty pulp storytelling that used characters' affected perceptions of reality to explore questions of genre and medium. Non-gamers will scoff (then again, at this date, some might not) but if I were reviewing a movie worthy of that game today, I might be giving it four stars.
The disturbing part is that Max Payne (the film) starts off so well. Aesthetically, it's almost dead on. Appropriately, it borrows heavily from The Matrix, and the result is smooth yet textured neo-noir. Mark Wahlberg himself doesn't characterize the motor-mouthed Hammett wannabe that the game provided, but he does alright at creating a new take on the character. Mila Kunis on the other hand plays Mona Sax as though... well, as though she actually played and liked the game, at least (When did Mila Kunis become so fucking good? She actually sort of steals the movie.) and several other actors turn in reasonably flavorful performances. The first hour of Max Payne is patient, intricate and mysterious.
However, when the film reaches its climax, it seems as though someone remembered that they were contractually obligated to deliver a brainless demolition derby to the video game players. We only like skilled genre exercises for the aesthetics anyway, when it comes down to it, we probably want action above all else, and anything we might need to use our heads to work out is swept under a rug easily enough... Right? It's a massive disappointment considering that the film has spent an hour by this time painstakingly setting up characters, clues and questions that are never resolved. Max gets high (perhaps the audience was expected to keep up) and the film never indulges in another coherent thought.
Various points in Max Payne stand out favorably in my memory. The camera lingering on the mouth of a soldier, which turns upward into a disturbingly gleeful smile as he describes the wonder drug that has made him a perfect killing machine. Police cruisers rolling through unplowed snow in the dead of the winter night. A femme fatale slipping out of her clothes in an attempt to evade a question she doesn't want to answer. What I wonder is, how did these moments come from the same filmmaker who gave us this disjointed, insulting climax? Max Payne feels like it was once a fine film, but was the victim of a profit driven editor and a set of unfortunately low expectations.
How silly of me to think that as a gamer, my intelligence could be respected for 100 minutes straight by Hollywood. You see, Max Payne was a video game released in 2001, one of the first to utilize the "bullet time" concept seen in The Matrix and convert it to a playable experience. More importantly though, at its best, the game was a moody and atmospheric foray into gritty pulp storytelling that used characters' affected perceptions of reality to explore questions of genre and medium. Non-gamers will scoff (then again, at this date, some might not) but if I were reviewing a movie worthy of that game today, I might be giving it four stars.
The disturbing part is that Max Payne (the film) starts off so well. Aesthetically, it's almost dead on. Appropriately, it borrows heavily from The Matrix, and the result is smooth yet textured neo-noir. Mark Wahlberg himself doesn't characterize the motor-mouthed Hammett wannabe that the game provided, but he does alright at creating a new take on the character. Mila Kunis on the other hand plays Mona Sax as though... well, as though she actually played and liked the game, at least (When did Mila Kunis become so fucking good? She actually sort of steals the movie.) and several other actors turn in reasonably flavorful performances. The first hour of Max Payne is patient, intricate and mysterious.
However, when the film reaches its climax, it seems as though someone remembered that they were contractually obligated to deliver a brainless demolition derby to the video game players. We only like skilled genre exercises for the aesthetics anyway, when it comes down to it, we probably want action above all else, and anything we might need to use our heads to work out is swept under a rug easily enough... Right? It's a massive disappointment considering that the film has spent an hour by this time painstakingly setting up characters, clues and questions that are never resolved. Max gets high (perhaps the audience was expected to keep up) and the film never indulges in another coherent thought.
Various points in Max Payne stand out favorably in my memory. The camera lingering on the mouth of a soldier, which turns upward into a disturbingly gleeful smile as he describes the wonder drug that has made him a perfect killing machine. Police cruisers rolling through unplowed snow in the dead of the winter night. A femme fatale slipping out of her clothes in an attempt to evade a question she doesn't want to answer. What I wonder is, how did these moments come from the same filmmaker who gave us this disjointed, insulting climax? Max Payne feels like it was once a fine film, but was the victim of a profit driven editor and a set of unfortunately low expectations.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
The Last Kiss
2/4 stars
This is the second film I've seen starring Zach Braff, and surprisingly is far inferior to his earlier work, 2004's Garden State. In that movie, Braff was writer, director and lead, and the result was a middling and formulaic "indie" genre film that seemed to confirm his status as a novice. I would have thought that a different director and a script by eminent writer Paul Haggis would be an improvement. Unfortunately for Braff fans and non-fans alike, this is not the case.
Like Garden State, this is an attempt at an introspective film that comes off as melodramatic due to a lack of veracity. Braff plays Michael, who is in a happy relationship but is bombarded (along with the audience) by images of couples who are unhappy more due to incivility than misunderstanding (as if happy couples ought to be worried by this). When he meets Kim (Rachel Bilson) the two of them have an affair seemingly because he is too passive to avoid it. The film attempts to remind us of the idea that new romances always seem more appealing than familiar ones at first, but is far too heavy-handed in doing so: the interior of each established relationship we see is hellish, whereas the escape represented by Kim crosses the line from idealistic into adolescent fantasy. The power of the film is in the sexual release that her character represents, but the film confuses it for an emotional one. I'm as big a fan of graphic sex and foul language as anyone, but I've never seen a film where they seem more obligatory than in The Last Kiss.
The real shame here is all the wasted talent. Braff and Bilson both have strong TV backgrounds, Tom Wilkinson and Blythe Danner are established veterans, and Casey Affleck has been highly acclaimed for his recent work in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Gone Baby Gone. Here they all read dialogue that insults them as actors, the worst I've ever seen from Paul Haggis. The soundtrack is good, but seems designed more to impress music geeks than to function as a part of the film (speaking as a music geek, we hate that) and in fact often clashes with the scenes where it is used. There is a shameless scene late in the film where Kim presents a mix cd in an attempt to impress Michael, and in that moment becomes a figure of foolishness and emotional immaturity. Braff designed this soundtrack (as he did the one for Garden State) in an attempt to impress a music savvy audience. What then, are we to think of him?
This is the second film I've seen starring Zach Braff, and surprisingly is far inferior to his earlier work, 2004's Garden State. In that movie, Braff was writer, director and lead, and the result was a middling and formulaic "indie" genre film that seemed to confirm his status as a novice. I would have thought that a different director and a script by eminent writer Paul Haggis would be an improvement. Unfortunately for Braff fans and non-fans alike, this is not the case.
Like Garden State, this is an attempt at an introspective film that comes off as melodramatic due to a lack of veracity. Braff plays Michael, who is in a happy relationship but is bombarded (along with the audience) by images of couples who are unhappy more due to incivility than misunderstanding (as if happy couples ought to be worried by this). When he meets Kim (Rachel Bilson) the two of them have an affair seemingly because he is too passive to avoid it. The film attempts to remind us of the idea that new romances always seem more appealing than familiar ones at first, but is far too heavy-handed in doing so: the interior of each established relationship we see is hellish, whereas the escape represented by Kim crosses the line from idealistic into adolescent fantasy. The power of the film is in the sexual release that her character represents, but the film confuses it for an emotional one. I'm as big a fan of graphic sex and foul language as anyone, but I've never seen a film where they seem more obligatory than in The Last Kiss.
The real shame here is all the wasted talent. Braff and Bilson both have strong TV backgrounds, Tom Wilkinson and Blythe Danner are established veterans, and Casey Affleck has been highly acclaimed for his recent work in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Gone Baby Gone. Here they all read dialogue that insults them as actors, the worst I've ever seen from Paul Haggis. The soundtrack is good, but seems designed more to impress music geeks than to function as a part of the film (speaking as a music geek, we hate that) and in fact often clashes with the scenes where it is used. There is a shameless scene late in the film where Kim presents a mix cd in an attempt to impress Michael, and in that moment becomes a figure of foolishness and emotional immaturity. Braff designed this soundtrack (as he did the one for Garden State) in an attempt to impress a music savvy audience. What then, are we to think of him?
Monday, September 15, 2008
The Proposition
2/4 stars
The Proposition is a slowly building movie. It starts in the midst of a bloody gun battle, probably in an attempt to convey the misconception that it will be an eventful film. Shortly thereafter, we are witness to the proposition in question, and then spend most of the rest of the film waiting for the situation to unfold. Because it may have been only my curiosity about the nature of the proposition that tricked me into seeing this movie, because it turns out to be a fairly minor plot point, and because numerous summaries of the film that I've seen since have revealed it, I will do the same: Guy Pearce is asked, in exchange for the freedom of himself and his relatively innocent younger brother, to bring his villainous older brother to justice, dead or alive. This is the scenario, as Pearce's character is allowed to disappear into the desert.
And then it stews in the heat of the Australian outback for roughly an hour. This wouldn't have been such a bad thing, necessarily. The cinematography of the film portrays a sort of lovely ugliness to the landscape and its inhabitants. Nothing is frosted over in this film, nothing is romanticized or idealized about the situation or the characters. The film shows moments of powerful tragedy, and powerful emotion. However, not much of anything really happens. The time isn't devoted to revealing the subtleties of an intricate plot, nor really engaging the internal lives of the characters. Instead, the film keeps a close eye on the compelling harshness of the scene, and the tragedy that is unfolding. It does those things very well, but I wanted more from it.
There's a lot of talent here. I was drawn to the movie initially because its writer is Nick Cave, better known a rock musician whose songs are dark and dissonant, but with a rough and hidden beauty. Guy Pearce brings a strong presence to this role, even in his inactivity. He exudes a sense of turmoil which is brought on not by uncertainty, but by the presence of conflicting certainties. Ray Winstone plays a multi-faceted character who the script simply neglects to fully investigate. Director John Hillcoat displays great potential, and does a lot with what he's given. The problem with the film is that Cave's novice script is too content with mood and foreboding and not curious enough about the people involved.
The Proposition is a slowly building movie. It starts in the midst of a bloody gun battle, probably in an attempt to convey the misconception that it will be an eventful film. Shortly thereafter, we are witness to the proposition in question, and then spend most of the rest of the film waiting for the situation to unfold. Because it may have been only my curiosity about the nature of the proposition that tricked me into seeing this movie, because it turns out to be a fairly minor plot point, and because numerous summaries of the film that I've seen since have revealed it, I will do the same: Guy Pearce is asked, in exchange for the freedom of himself and his relatively innocent younger brother, to bring his villainous older brother to justice, dead or alive. This is the scenario, as Pearce's character is allowed to disappear into the desert.
And then it stews in the heat of the Australian outback for roughly an hour. This wouldn't have been such a bad thing, necessarily. The cinematography of the film portrays a sort of lovely ugliness to the landscape and its inhabitants. Nothing is frosted over in this film, nothing is romanticized or idealized about the situation or the characters. The film shows moments of powerful tragedy, and powerful emotion. However, not much of anything really happens. The time isn't devoted to revealing the subtleties of an intricate plot, nor really engaging the internal lives of the characters. Instead, the film keeps a close eye on the compelling harshness of the scene, and the tragedy that is unfolding. It does those things very well, but I wanted more from it.
There's a lot of talent here. I was drawn to the movie initially because its writer is Nick Cave, better known a rock musician whose songs are dark and dissonant, but with a rough and hidden beauty. Guy Pearce brings a strong presence to this role, even in his inactivity. He exudes a sense of turmoil which is brought on not by uncertainty, but by the presence of conflicting certainties. Ray Winstone plays a multi-faceted character who the script simply neglects to fully investigate. Director John Hillcoat displays great potential, and does a lot with what he's given. The problem with the film is that Cave's novice script is too content with mood and foreboding and not curious enough about the people involved.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Resident Evil
2/4 stars
A fairly competent action film. The biggest disappointment is the two dimensional characters. For those who don't know, the game series has a large cast of well developed and iconic characters that would have been awesome if faithfully realized on the big screen.
Written June 30, 2007.
A fairly competent action film. The biggest disappointment is the two dimensional characters. For those who don't know, the game series has a large cast of well developed and iconic characters that would have been awesome if faithfully realized on the big screen.
Written June 30, 2007.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
Superman Returns
2/4 stars
Superman is a character whose greatness and stature tend to distract from the need for personality. The more iconic and reverent a Superman story tries to be, the more boring it gets. This is the sad fact with this film. Almost too dull to sit through, and even if you have the endurance, it's a joyless experience. They should try making Death and Return of Superman into a movie. The crazy cast of characters might introduce some fun into the mix.
Written June 29, 2008.
Superman is a character whose greatness and stature tend to distract from the need for personality. The more iconic and reverent a Superman story tries to be, the more boring it gets. This is the sad fact with this film. Almost too dull to sit through, and even if you have the endurance, it's a joyless experience. They should try making Death and Return of Superman into a movie. The crazy cast of characters might introduce some fun into the mix.
Written June 29, 2008.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
2/4 stars
Way too fast paced, the script seemed to have no attention span. You know the little "previously" segment on the front of a TV show? This is the only movie I've ever seen that reminded me of watching one of those for two hours, a result of trying to cram too much into too short a time.
Written July 1, 2007.
Way too fast paced, the script seemed to have no attention span. You know the little "previously" segment on the front of a TV show? This is the only movie I've ever seen that reminded me of watching one of those for two hours, a result of trying to cram too much into too short a time.
Written July 1, 2007.
Gladiator
2/4 stars
A mediocre Braveheart knockoff whose undue praise was a symptom of the Academy's incomprehensible love affair with Russell Crowe.
Written September 8, 2007.
A mediocre Braveheart knockoff whose undue praise was a symptom of the Academy's incomprehensible love affair with Russell Crowe.
Written September 8, 2007.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
A Lot Like Love
2/4 stars
The least literate script I've ever seen. None of the characters apparently have any interests or anything to say. Shows a fairly pessimistic view of humanity on the part of the writer, that he believes these hollow constructions could pass for human beings. I'd score it lower, only the movie isn't really painful to watch so much as dull and needless. Beyond the writing, it's okay, but is that really saying anything? The actors and the director are painting by numbers without making too much of a mess. Also, the movie is crammed with songs that deserve to be in better movies (well... the best of them do) and cue scenes that have nothing to do with what they express. Somebody probably guessed somewhere along the way that this was the only chance this movie had of achieving any emotional resonance whatsoever.
Written May 24, 2008.
The least literate script I've ever seen. None of the characters apparently have any interests or anything to say. Shows a fairly pessimistic view of humanity on the part of the writer, that he believes these hollow constructions could pass for human beings. I'd score it lower, only the movie isn't really painful to watch so much as dull and needless. Beyond the writing, it's okay, but is that really saying anything? The actors and the director are painting by numbers without making too much of a mess. Also, the movie is crammed with songs that deserve to be in better movies (well... the best of them do) and cue scenes that have nothing to do with what they express. Somebody probably guessed somewhere along the way that this was the only chance this movie had of achieving any emotional resonance whatsoever.
Written May 24, 2008.
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