Movie Reviews
Star Trek
by J.J. Abrams
I first discovered Star Trek when I was in kindergarten via reruns of the original series. Later, I enjoyed the subsequent movies chronicling the further exploits of Kirk, Spock, et al. However, when Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered—I was in 6th grade at the time, I believe—it was like lightning out of the blue and I became as big a Star Trek geek as you could imagine.
How big, you ask? Well, for example, my friends and I would often get into discussions—in physics class, natch—over the nature and structure of dilithium crystals. We were completely talking out of our butts, of course, but it was great fun to have something that inspired us so much. It was, in some ways I suppose, a nearly religious experience, my first forays into true geek culture.
But notice I said “was”. Subsequent years took their toll on the once mighty franchise as well as my impressions of it. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was great, but with its darker tone and murkier political and religious plotlines, it felt like it was cut from a different franchise. Star Trek: Voyager had its moments, but after awhile, I just lost interest. The crew never galvanized me the way that Kirk’s or Picard’s had, nor did their plight. I couldn’t drum up any enthusiasm for Star Trek: Enterprise. It, along with the later films, felt like desperate attempts to simply bleed a turnip, to wring just a little more cash from the franchise.
Watchmen
by Zack Snyder
The event that comic book geeks and fanboys have been waiting for with equal amounts of dread and excitement has finally arrived: Watchmen, arguably one the most important and influential comic books of all time, has arrived on the silver screen.
It’s been an arduous journey, to be sure. Over the years, the film has passed from writer to writer, director to director, with nothing ever coming of the efforts but more frustration and doubt (Terry Gilliam once described Watchmen as unfilmable, which ought to tell you something). But that’s not really surprising: Watchmen is an incredibly complex work, full of deeply layered narratives and intricate visuals. That, combined with the cynicism, and even nihilism, that runs through its pages, as well as the alternate timeline setting, would be daunting for any filmmaker.
And so it was somewhat surprising when a relative newcomer—Zack Snyder—was eventually chosen to direct the film. Snyder burst onto the scene with the 2004 remake of George Romero’s Dawn Of The Dead and 2006’s 300, an adaptation of a Frank Miller comic. Given that he had just a few films (and music videos) under his belt, it was surprising that he, and not a more, shall we say, “experienced” director, had been selected.
With the hyper-stylish 300, Snyder proved that he had more than enough panache to pull off any of Watchmen‘s visuals. But 300 was all style, and little else, which just wouldn’t fly with Watchmen, with its convoluted plot-lines, philosophical ponderings, genre deconstructions, and moral dilemmas.
So how did Snyder do? From a technical standpoint, the film is a smash, full of dazzling visuals, impressive casting and production design, and plenty of Snyder’s trademark style.
But that doesn’t necessarily make Watchmen a good film.
The Rebel
by Charlie Nguyen
For the past several decades, whenever someone wanted to find the cream of the martial arts film crop, they (rightly) turned to China and Hong Kong. Shaw Brothers, Golden Harvest, Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chang Cheh, Gordon Liu, Sammo Hung, Yuen Biao—the list goes on and on, stretching back to form an unparalleled cinematic legacy.
However, within recent years, martial arts cinema has spread throughout the globe. Inspired by the aforementioned names, and the many films tied to them, other countries have begun their own vibrant, ass-kicking cinemas which blend together the influence of Hong Kong and China with each country’s own unique martial arts offerings.
Thailand immediately comes to mind, thanks to films such as Ong-Bak and Tom Yum Goong and people like Tony Jaa, Prachya Pinkaew, and Panna Rittikrai, which showed Muay Thai kickboxing in all of this bone-breaking glory. France burst on the scene thanks to Banlieue 13, Cyril Raffaelli, and the rise of parkour. Chile has contributed Kiltro and MirageMan. And now, with The Rebel, Vietnam is stepping up to the plate, and showing off some pretty impressive moves.
Speed Racer
by The Wachowski Brothers
I was as dazzled by the visuals in Speed Racer‘s initial promotional materials, teasers, and trailers as anyone. But as is always the case with such things, there’s the nagging suspicion that the film will be nothing more than such, and that the film won’t live up to the razzle-dazzle. And the fact that the Wachowski Brothers were behind Speed Racer‘s camera only made that suspicion worse. I don’t think the Matrix films were shallow by any means, but arguably, the brothers had definitely placed everything but sheer visual spectacle on the backburner by the trilogy’s end.
And when you’ve got the folks behind such films working on a children’s movie that is a remake of a Japanese anime series that, classic status notwithstanding, is more often the butt of jokes than anything else, well, let’s just say that I totally understand folks’ hesitation.
But the thing is, they’d be absolutely wrong.
Iron Man
by Jon Favreau
Iron Man is that rare summer blockbuster movie. It can certainly be taken at face value and enjoyed as a big budget popcorn-type of movie—the cinematic equivalent of a bacon double cheeseburger with a big side of greasy fries (to quote my review of Hot Fuzz). However, like Batman Begins and X-Men 2, there are deeper subtexts and themes that you can tease out if you so desire, and you can do so without ruining the pure, thrill-packed entertainment one bit.
Tony Stark (Robert Downey, Jr. in a bravura performance) is a brilliant inventor and, thanks to his company, Stark Industries, a multi-billionaire. When not showing off his company’s latest weapons, he’s bedding supermodels and living the playboy lifestyle—much to the chagrin of his close associates, such as personal assistant Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow) and military attaché James Rhodes (Terrence Howard). That all changes when, during a trip to Afghanistan to demo Stark Industries’ latest missile system, his convoy is attacked by terrorists.
Stark is critically wounded in the attack—by one of his own weapons, ironically—and captured. An emergency and unorthodox surgery saves his life and he is put to work building weapons for his captors. There, Stark undergoes a startling revelation, that the weapons he so blindly assumed were being used to defend America have actually ended up in the hands of its enemies.
This, combined with some soul-searching brought on by the man who saved his life, a fellow captor named Yinsen, propels Stark to seek a new direction in life. But first he has to escape, and being the brilliant inventor that he is, he does so with the aid of a giant suit of powered armor complete with rocket launcher, flame thrower, and jet engines (natch).
5 Centimeters Per Second
by Makoto Shinkai
Makoto Shinkai only has three proper titles (or four, if you count 1999’s She And Her Cat) under his belt, and only one of those is a true full-length film, but he’s already been announced as the new Hayao Miyazaki.
I’ll admit, I’ve done my fair share of stoking that particular fire, due my effusive praise for Voices From A Distant Star (2000) and The Place Promised In Our Early Days (2004). But when you consider Shinkai’s work, with its lush and evocative animation and artwork, and its equally emotional storylines, the only name that readily comes to mind is that of anime’s grand master.
That being said, I get the sense after watching 5 Centimeters Per Second that Shinkai is at something of a crossroads. Though barely an hour in length, 5 Centimeters Per Second is such a perfect encapsulation of the themes that Shinkai has been exploring in his work to date that one can’t help but wonder what’s left there for him to explore, and wonder where he’ll go from here.
Appleseed Ex Machina
by Shinji Aramaki
Shinji Aramaki’s previous Appleseed movie (my review) was much more than met the eyes. On the surface, it was an ultra-flashy, CG-powered anime movie that utilized motion capture and facial imaging to give the animation—and the countless explosions and mecha battles—a greater degree of realism.
Below the surface, however, was a surprisingly engaging storyline that blended tragedy and melodrama with the exploration of some thorny ethical issus such as cloning. In other words, you could enjoy it simply for the mechanized mayhem, of which there was an awful lot, but there was no need to call it a guilty pleasure on that part.
Appleseed Ex Machina, on the other hand, is a completely different kind of film. And no, that’s not a positive thing. Not at all.
Stardust
by Matthew Vaughn
I often find that I need to give a movie a “break” before I see it, if I’ve heard too much about it beforehand. Perhaps I’ve heard so many good things about the movie, and I worry that my expectations are too high. Or maybe I’ve heard so many troubling things that I worry that my opinion may be predisposed to be negative. Whatever the case, it often means that I miss out on seeing it in the theatre and have to settle for DVD, but I feel it’s the only way that I can give the movie a fair shake, that I can judge it on its own merits.
I suppose it’s an odd little quirk of mine, but it’s served me well in the past. And so I did it for Stardust, an adaptation of what is most certainly my favorite of Neil Gaiman’s works. I had read some troubling things—e.g., negative reviews that pointed towards disturbing changes to the storyline—but I resolved to watch the film as fairly as possible, keeping in mind all of the usual caveats concerning literary adaptations. It was an endeavor that proved pointless about thirty minutes into the film: Stardust was much worse than anything I had steeled myself for.
No Country For Old Men
by Ethan & Joel Coen
I suppose that, had I seen No Country For Old Men on any other day, its unrelenting bleakness would have seemed unnecessarily maudlin—or even worse, comically absurd. But just a few hours before my wife and I walked into the theatre, we read news stories about two shootings in Colorado that ultimately left four people dead. And just a few days earlier, a troubled young man walked into a posh shopping center in my old hometown of Omaha and killed eight people before turning the gun on himself.
Suddenly, No Country For Old Men‘s vision of humanity caught in the clutches of an unstoppable and incomprehensible evil that leaves its few survivors—if you can call them that—reeling and shocked seemed less absurd and all too real. The world depicted on the silver screen looked a little too much like the world I’d left outside the theatre walls.
The latest film from the Coen Brothers—adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s acclaimed novel—bears many similarities to their previous films. There’s that ear for quirky dialog, the obvious love for characters’ idiosyncrasies, the brief flashes of absurdist humor, and so on. But those are merely on the surface. Arguably, they’ve never done anything this unremittingly bleak. Not even Fargo with its wood chipper wanders this far into the wasteland.
Paprika
by Satoshi Kon
In their January/February 2007 issue, the long running anime magazine Protoculture Addicts published an article titled “Top 9 Anime Directors (Who Aren’t Hayao Miyazaki). The list included a number of noteworthy names, including Mamoru Oshii (Ghost In The Shell) and Shinichiro Watanabe (Cowboy Bebop). However, the name at the top of the list—Satoshi Kon—might have taken some readers by surprise.
But the fact is that, with the possible exception of Oshii, no one is currently making anime that’s as intelligent, unique, and, well, adult, as Satoshi Kon. He’s made a career out of constantly pushing the boundaries of the artform, and with none of the usual clichés that tend to permeate it. And Paprika is yet another example of this.
If you’ve seen any of Kon’s other words—specifically Perfect Blue, Millennium Actress, and Paranoia Agent—than you know that his pet themes include exploring the boundaries between truth and reality, fact and fiction, dreams and waking life. (If Hayao Miyazaki is to be considered the Walt Disney of anime, than Kon is surely the David Lynch.)
He loves to explore how they shape and influence each other, how we as humans try to differentiate between them, and what happens when the usually clear lines delineating begin to blur and shift. And it doesn’t hurt that he usually also adds in some social commentary about materialism, modern society’s tendency to alienate, and the role that art and media play in shaping society.
With Paprika, he’s taken that exploration to an entirely new level.