A Bunch of Fiddly Bits: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (DVD) Review
Posted on
Friday, October 23, 2009
by Gary A. Ballard
There are times when I marvel at the movie-making business. After watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, this is one of those days, only the marveling is a reaction of pure horror and unadulterated confusion. I must inform you right up front that I entered this movie expecting to hate it. Not only did I hate the first Transformers movie, I have been extremely critical of Michael Bay's directorial style, if one can call man-crushing fellatio of U.S. military gear and copious, irrational explosions a "style." But as bad as Bay's previous films like Armageddon and the first Transformers movies are, they cannot hold a candle to the gob-smacking incompetence displayed in this edition of the franchise. What I marvel at the most, however, is how this movie ever got made.
Film studio producers and executives are nothing if not good businessmen. Michael Bay, for all his glaring flaws, is box office gold. The first Transformers grossed over $300 million in America alone, for a production budget of half that. With that in mind, I can understand why a studio would give him $200 million to make a sequel. What I cannot understand is how any of these good businessmen could look at what passes for this movie's script and think there is anything like a worthwhile project in it. The movie is an absolute mess, and not in the normal Michael Bay wants to blow up everything sort of way. No, this movie flails from one scene to the next without any sense of rhyme or reason, with no one coherent story to tie all its disparate elements together. There are the retarded premature fetuses of story ideas here, but none are ever developed enough to make up a 30-minute TV episode on public access, much less to make up a 2 1/2 hour movie.
There's the story of Sam Witwicky, the worst-named character in movie history outside of pornography, and his impossibly hot vapid girlfriend, played by Shia LeBouef and Megan Fox respectively. Sam goes off to college and his parents suffer empty nest syndrome, eat pot brownies and vacation in France, where we assume they are abducted by evil robots since they show up later in Egypt in the clutches of an evil bulldozer robot. We never actually see them be abducted. There's the story of Sam and Mikayla, who are in a committed relationship but refuse to say "I love you" to each other before the other says it first. Sam has a transforming robot car in his garage, but he can't take the robot to college. Sam gets flashing visions from a shard of the All-Spark Cube from the first movie that he never noticed was stuck to the shirt he wore during the climactic battle of the last movie. Sam's college roommate runs a web site dedicated to exposing the truth about the alien robots that the U.S. government is hiding. For some unfathomable reason, the Decepticons send a robot disguised as a slut to tempt Sam into a kiss with a metal tentacle tongue. The Autobots and the U.S. military have teamed up to gangfuck Decepticons that are still hiding on the planet. Some Decepticons steal one thing to resurrect Megatron, who then joins some other more powerful Decepticon to get some revenge on the planet Earth by blowing up the sun. Other Autobots and Decepticons have been on Earth for years and they are hidden in plain sight somehow. And there's a key in some hidden temple that really isn't hidden because we've seen this same temple in tons of movies, a key that powers the sun-eating machine buried beneath the pyramids of Giza but has never been discovered despite all the excavations done on the site.
And on and on and on. Story kernel after story kernel pile one on top of the other at breakneck speed with no rhyme or reason. Despite being over 2 1/2 hours long, I think there might have been three or four complete sentences total. Dialogue was at an all time low. Most characters just screamed sentence fragments over each other, and when a cogent thought was presented, it was then repeated over and over again. I got the impression of gaggles of chattering monkeys howling at each other while larger metallic gorillas tossed exploding shitballs at them. Everything explodes in this movie. EVERYTHING. Shit is constantly blowing up for no reason other than someone or something waved a gun at it. I am reminded of Danny McBride's pyrotechnic character from Tropic Thunder amped up on crystal meth and Rock Star mixed with vodka. As a matter of fact, this is who I picture for the dialogue writer.
You'll notice I've said very little about the robots. That's because the robots are so rarely featured. That's right, in a movie about giant robots battling each other, I'd estimate they get about 25-35% of the screen time. When they do manage to fit in between explosions, most of them are indistinguishable from each other and anonymous. I still can't tell the difference between Megatron or Starscream when they aren't speaking. Only five of the Autobots stand out at all: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ironhide, and the twins. Dear God, the twins, Mudflap and the other one. I'm sure you've heard about them by now, the racist stereotype Autobots who talk in hip hop slang. They are incredibly irritating. You could not have used more insulting dialogue if you had painted them in Al Jolson blackface. This is not a Jar-Jar sounds like a Jamaican type of stereotype, this is a full-blown thug life pantomime. I have named them the Thugobots, because that's what they sound like. Then there is the leg-humping, Joe Pesci Gangstacon, who farts fire - don't ask me why a robot farts. The final robotic insult comes when we are treated to the sight of Devestator's testicles in the form of two clanging wrecking balls. Why? Seriously, why was this considered a good idea? It paints the image in my mind of old man balls swinging from behind and that is hardly the image I want in my head.
But my final criticism is for the camera work. Even if the plot had been tight, the idiotic touches like Thugobots and robot testicles had been removed, the camera work is blatantly amateurish. The camera never rests. It is constantly moving, swinging around the characters in twirling 360 degree circles, images of characters running is accompanied by the camera moving in perpendicular directions. It's as if the director has no confidence in his director of photography's compositions or the story's impact, he feels the need to move the camera to add tension. All it does is make watching this shitfest even more tedious than it already is.
And yet, it has made over $400 million domestically. Michael Bay could not have made this movie any worse if he tried (though I hope he doesn't take that as a challenge). Uwe Boll would have done a better job with this movie. It has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and I cannot fathom the degree to which one must quiet their logic centers in order to enjoy this movie. But there you go. If American audiences weren't completely stupid before, this movie should finish off their intellect for good. I cannot in good conscience recommend this movie to anyone. I believe this is the movie they showed Malcolm McDowell's character in A Clockwork Orange to burn out the violent parts of his brain. You have been warned. Watch at your own peril, preferably drunk with a crew of ranting movie talkers shouting at the screen. It's the only way this could be an enjoyable experience.
Film studio producers and executives are nothing if not good businessmen. Michael Bay, for all his glaring flaws, is box office gold. The first Transformers grossed over $300 million in America alone, for a production budget of half that. With that in mind, I can understand why a studio would give him $200 million to make a sequel. What I cannot understand is how any of these good businessmen could look at what passes for this movie's script and think there is anything like a worthwhile project in it. The movie is an absolute mess, and not in the normal Michael Bay wants to blow up everything sort of way. No, this movie flails from one scene to the next without any sense of rhyme or reason, with no one coherent story to tie all its disparate elements together. There are the retarded premature fetuses of story ideas here, but none are ever developed enough to make up a 30-minute TV episode on public access, much less to make up a 2 1/2 hour movie.
There's the story of Sam Witwicky, the worst-named character in movie history outside of pornography, and his impossibly hot vapid girlfriend, played by Shia LeBouef and Megan Fox respectively. Sam goes off to college and his parents suffer empty nest syndrome, eat pot brownies and vacation in France, where we assume they are abducted by evil robots since they show up later in Egypt in the clutches of an evil bulldozer robot. We never actually see them be abducted. There's the story of Sam and Mikayla, who are in a committed relationship but refuse to say "I love you" to each other before the other says it first. Sam has a transforming robot car in his garage, but he can't take the robot to college. Sam gets flashing visions from a shard of the All-Spark Cube from the first movie that he never noticed was stuck to the shirt he wore during the climactic battle of the last movie. Sam's college roommate runs a web site dedicated to exposing the truth about the alien robots that the U.S. government is hiding. For some unfathomable reason, the Decepticons send a robot disguised as a slut to tempt Sam into a kiss with a metal tentacle tongue. The Autobots and the U.S. military have teamed up to gangfuck Decepticons that are still hiding on the planet. Some Decepticons steal one thing to resurrect Megatron, who then joins some other more powerful Decepticon to get some revenge on the planet Earth by blowing up the sun. Other Autobots and Decepticons have been on Earth for years and they are hidden in plain sight somehow. And there's a key in some hidden temple that really isn't hidden because we've seen this same temple in tons of movies, a key that powers the sun-eating machine buried beneath the pyramids of Giza but has never been discovered despite all the excavations done on the site.
And on and on and on. Story kernel after story kernel pile one on top of the other at breakneck speed with no rhyme or reason. Despite being over 2 1/2 hours long, I think there might have been three or four complete sentences total. Dialogue was at an all time low. Most characters just screamed sentence fragments over each other, and when a cogent thought was presented, it was then repeated over and over again. I got the impression of gaggles of chattering monkeys howling at each other while larger metallic gorillas tossed exploding shitballs at them. Everything explodes in this movie. EVERYTHING. Shit is constantly blowing up for no reason other than someone or something waved a gun at it. I am reminded of Danny McBride's pyrotechnic character from Tropic Thunder amped up on crystal meth and Rock Star mixed with vodka. As a matter of fact, this is who I picture for the dialogue writer.
You'll notice I've said very little about the robots. That's because the robots are so rarely featured. That's right, in a movie about giant robots battling each other, I'd estimate they get about 25-35% of the screen time. When they do manage to fit in between explosions, most of them are indistinguishable from each other and anonymous. I still can't tell the difference between Megatron or Starscream when they aren't speaking. Only five of the Autobots stand out at all: Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Ironhide, and the twins. Dear God, the twins, Mudflap and the other one. I'm sure you've heard about them by now, the racist stereotype Autobots who talk in hip hop slang. They are incredibly irritating. You could not have used more insulting dialogue if you had painted them in Al Jolson blackface. This is not a Jar-Jar sounds like a Jamaican type of stereotype, this is a full-blown thug life pantomime. I have named them the Thugobots, because that's what they sound like. Then there is the leg-humping, Joe Pesci Gangstacon, who farts fire - don't ask me why a robot farts. The final robotic insult comes when we are treated to the sight of Devestator's testicles in the form of two clanging wrecking balls. Why? Seriously, why was this considered a good idea? It paints the image in my mind of old man balls swinging from behind and that is hardly the image I want in my head.
But my final criticism is for the camera work. Even if the plot had been tight, the idiotic touches like Thugobots and robot testicles had been removed, the camera work is blatantly amateurish. The camera never rests. It is constantly moving, swinging around the characters in twirling 360 degree circles, images of characters running is accompanied by the camera moving in perpendicular directions. It's as if the director has no confidence in his director of photography's compositions or the story's impact, he feels the need to move the camera to add tension. All it does is make watching this shitfest even more tedious than it already is.
And yet, it has made over $400 million domestically. Michael Bay could not have made this movie any worse if he tried (though I hope he doesn't take that as a challenge). Uwe Boll would have done a better job with this movie. It has no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and I cannot fathom the degree to which one must quiet their logic centers in order to enjoy this movie. But there you go. If American audiences weren't completely stupid before, this movie should finish off their intellect for good. I cannot in good conscience recommend this movie to anyone. I believe this is the movie they showed Malcolm McDowell's character in A Clockwork Orange to burn out the violent parts of his brain. You have been warned. Watch at your own peril, preferably drunk with a crew of ranting movie talkers shouting at the screen. It's the only way this could be an enjoyable experience.
Labels: Media Corruption, Movies
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Meeting Expectations: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (Movie) Review
Posted on
Monday, August 10, 2009
by Gary A. Ballard
There will be much ink and many pixels spent dissecting the new Stephen Sommers' movie based on the G.I. Joe property. I'm entirely sure there will be many criticisms leveled at this movie because of the silly plot, over-the-top action or cheesiness. And the nerdrage will be strong from G.I. Joe purists who are offended by the changes to the characters that differ from the '80's cartoon. If you are in either camp, you should probably not even bother seeing this movie, because not only do you hate fun, but you are predestined to hate this movie. I feel your pain: my hatred of the Transformers movies starts with the dizzyingly overcomplicated robot design and ends with Michael Bay-splosions. For the rest of the world, me included, G.I. Joe is a fun, cheesy thrill ride, the absolute definition of meeting expectations.
I claim that this movie meets expectations because it does just that - it is exactly the kind of movie one should expect to see from a movie based on an '80's cartoon series that was designed to sell militaristic toys. While the G.I. Joe team has gone from an American team to an international N.A.T.O.-backed organization, the essence remains the same. This is the best of the best military unit that uses the coolest high-tech gadgets to fight "the bad guys" in secret wherever they appear. The plot is by the numbers: cartoony villains dream up an elaborate plot involving a highly sophisticated weapon system stolen from the forces of freedom and used for evil. Along the way there are personal vendettas (Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, the Baroness and Duke), romantic tensions (Ripcord and Snake-Eyes both vie for Scarlett's affections), hot babes kicking ass, samurai swords flashing, explody things explodifying, jets and tanks and jeeps and snowmobiles and hovercraft and exo-suits and all kinds of shit going on all over the screen. It is a great big, CGI-infused spectacle movie and the plot makes about as much sense as an episode of the cartoon did. I will give the writers some credit though - there is a twist in the tail of the overarching bad guy plot that was executed with a certain degree of subtlety that I did not expect.
The movie is far from perfect. The CGI is inconsistent, particularly in the beginning where some very routine CGI shots look horribly mismatched to the scene. Some of the cheesy lines from the original cartoon ("Yo! JOE!" and "Knowing is half the battle!") come across with deliberate cheesiness, mostly as service to the fans. But most of the gripes are minor. The movie is what it was meant to be, a popcorn flick chock full of Saturday morning pulpy goodness. It is what I expected it to be - fun. The movie ends wide open for a sequel, and I for one would welcome it. I give this movie 7 out of 10. It won't win any awards, but it is worth a watch unless you hate fun.
I claim that this movie meets expectations because it does just that - it is exactly the kind of movie one should expect to see from a movie based on an '80's cartoon series that was designed to sell militaristic toys. While the G.I. Joe team has gone from an American team to an international N.A.T.O.-backed organization, the essence remains the same. This is the best of the best military unit that uses the coolest high-tech gadgets to fight "the bad guys" in secret wherever they appear. The plot is by the numbers: cartoony villains dream up an elaborate plot involving a highly sophisticated weapon system stolen from the forces of freedom and used for evil. Along the way there are personal vendettas (Snake Eyes and Storm Shadow, the Baroness and Duke), romantic tensions (Ripcord and Snake-Eyes both vie for Scarlett's affections), hot babes kicking ass, samurai swords flashing, explody things explodifying, jets and tanks and jeeps and snowmobiles and hovercraft and exo-suits and all kinds of shit going on all over the screen. It is a great big, CGI-infused spectacle movie and the plot makes about as much sense as an episode of the cartoon did. I will give the writers some credit though - there is a twist in the tail of the overarching bad guy plot that was executed with a certain degree of subtlety that I did not expect.
The movie is far from perfect. The CGI is inconsistent, particularly in the beginning where some very routine CGI shots look horribly mismatched to the scene. Some of the cheesy lines from the original cartoon ("Yo! JOE!" and "Knowing is half the battle!") come across with deliberate cheesiness, mostly as service to the fans. But most of the gripes are minor. The movie is what it was meant to be, a popcorn flick chock full of Saturday morning pulpy goodness. It is what I expected it to be - fun. The movie ends wide open for a sequel, and I for one would welcome it. I give this movie 7 out of 10. It won't win any awards, but it is worth a watch unless you hate fun.
Labels: Movies
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 4:02 PM
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The Anakin Effect: Jumper (Movie) Review
Posted on
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
There are certain actors whose effect onscreen cannot be ignored, cannot be glossed over, and cannot be looked past. Hayden Christensen is one such actor. I've watched him play the teenage and adult Anakin/Darth Vader in the execrable Star Wars prequels and I've watched him play the young plagiarist in Shattered Glass. I've tried to give him the benefit of the doubt, chalking his horrible performance in the Star Wars movies up to George Lucas' terrible direction and piss-poor dialogue. I attributed his unlikeable nature in Glass to the very unlikeable nature of the character he was portraying. Having now seen his turn in Jumper, I can safely say, it's not just me, it's him.
Don't get me wrong, Jumper is by no means a terrible movie. In fact, it's a moderately enjoyable sci-fi adventure flick, with impressive special effects and workman cinematography. But Christensen exhibits classic symptoms of the Anakin Effect, a cinematic phenomenon formerly known as the Tom Cruise Effect. No matter what role he is placed in, nor how good the movie is, I just cannot stand this actor, and this repulsion affects my enjoyment of the the entire movie. It happened with Cruise in War of the Worlds, and it happens here. The actor just cannot extract any empathy from me. His first appearance makes me think he's a whiny, smug douchebag and my view of the character through the actor never changes. It's as if Anakin was reborn on Earth as another whiny twat with a different set of force powers.
As I said, the movie is not a bad one. The story is very loosely based on the Steven Gould novel of the same name, about a teenager, David Rice, who learns he can teleport to any place he has been or can picture in his mind. Upon gaining the power, he leaves his abusive father and moves to New York, where he robs a bank and starts a new life. Skip ahead eight years (which is incidentally the time period the book covers), and he's set up in a ritzy New York apartment, from which he teleports all over the world daily, living a life of luxurious hedonism. At this point, the white-haired Sam Jackson as the paladin Roland appears to kill Rice for being an abomination. We later learn that paladins are a centuries old religious organization dedicated to destroying jumpers, for they believe only God should have the power to be everywhere.
Here is where the movie begins to fail, thanks to the use of characters who act entirely too goddamn stupid. During the fight with Roland, David discovers that paladins know how to stop his jumping ability, by running 1000 volts through his body, using a taser-whip. Rice barely escapes back to his home town, where his first thought is to... hook up with the girl he had a crush on in high school (played by Rachel Bilson)? Now, we've already seen him jet across the world, banging a hot chick in London because he's rich and pretty, but I can accept that he wants that first love, a love he was never able to experience. She thinks he's dead, but accepts pretty easily that he isn't, even deciding to take him up on his offer to fly to Rome that very minute. Not only is Rice ignoring the fact that Roland was able to find him in New York, he apparently thinks Roland can't track him when he buys a commerical airline ticket to Rome. How did he manage to survive undiscovered for eight years being a complete dumbass? Millie, Bilson's character, also ignores the fact that her not-dead not-boyfriend has just showed up eight years later and stared at her across a room for 45 minutes, and decides that she really wants to go to Rome so badly, she'll do so with some guy who was sweet to her in high school. And of course, she'll lay him like bricks when they get to Rome. After all, a free trip to Rome isn't really free.
The movie gets better once the brain shuts down and stops thinking about the ridiculous nature of this set up, because we get some gosh wow fights in the Colosseum. Rice meets up with an English jumper named Griffin, who knows all about "the war" between jumpers and paladins. The war apparently consists of Griffin, some guy in some backwater jungle and now Rice. Griffin's character is the most entertaining character in the movie, and his control of the jumping ability makes for some impressive action sequences. But the movie never really recovers from those first blind leaps of logic the audience is required to make. It ambles along with Rice making repeatedly idiotic maneuvers to try to save Millie and keep her love, with a sideplot thrown in about Rice's long-lost mother thrown in to give the movie intrigue. It wraps up with a bangup action sequence, but unfortunately, the movie doesn't satisfactorily resolve any of the hanging plot threads. The whole resolution felt extremely rushed, as if the ending was written but some producer had the bright idea to cut it so as to leave an asston of room for a sequel. As a result, the movie feels incomplete.
Jumper is a movie I would recommend seeing on DVD. It's certainly not worth the regular price of admission, and only those who can stomach the Anakin Effect or are really eager to see the movie should see it on a matinee. I would give it 6 stars out of 10. Perhaps a sequel will end better, but I'm just not sure this movie deserves one.
Don't get me wrong, Jumper is by no means a terrible movie. In fact, it's a moderately enjoyable sci-fi adventure flick, with impressive special effects and workman cinematography. But Christensen exhibits classic symptoms of the Anakin Effect, a cinematic phenomenon formerly known as the Tom Cruise Effect. No matter what role he is placed in, nor how good the movie is, I just cannot stand this actor, and this repulsion affects my enjoyment of the the entire movie. It happened with Cruise in War of the Worlds, and it happens here. The actor just cannot extract any empathy from me. His first appearance makes me think he's a whiny, smug douchebag and my view of the character through the actor never changes. It's as if Anakin was reborn on Earth as another whiny twat with a different set of force powers.
As I said, the movie is not a bad one. The story is very loosely based on the Steven Gould novel of the same name, about a teenager, David Rice, who learns he can teleport to any place he has been or can picture in his mind. Upon gaining the power, he leaves his abusive father and moves to New York, where he robs a bank and starts a new life. Skip ahead eight years (which is incidentally the time period the book covers), and he's set up in a ritzy New York apartment, from which he teleports all over the world daily, living a life of luxurious hedonism. At this point, the white-haired Sam Jackson as the paladin Roland appears to kill Rice for being an abomination. We later learn that paladins are a centuries old religious organization dedicated to destroying jumpers, for they believe only God should have the power to be everywhere.
Here is where the movie begins to fail, thanks to the use of characters who act entirely too goddamn stupid. During the fight with Roland, David discovers that paladins know how to stop his jumping ability, by running 1000 volts through his body, using a taser-whip. Rice barely escapes back to his home town, where his first thought is to... hook up with the girl he had a crush on in high school (played by Rachel Bilson)? Now, we've already seen him jet across the world, banging a hot chick in London because he's rich and pretty, but I can accept that he wants that first love, a love he was never able to experience. She thinks he's dead, but accepts pretty easily that he isn't, even deciding to take him up on his offer to fly to Rome that very minute. Not only is Rice ignoring the fact that Roland was able to find him in New York, he apparently thinks Roland can't track him when he buys a commerical airline ticket to Rome. How did he manage to survive undiscovered for eight years being a complete dumbass? Millie, Bilson's character, also ignores the fact that her not-dead not-boyfriend has just showed up eight years later and stared at her across a room for 45 minutes, and decides that she really wants to go to Rome so badly, she'll do so with some guy who was sweet to her in high school. And of course, she'll lay him like bricks when they get to Rome. After all, a free trip to Rome isn't really free.
The movie gets better once the brain shuts down and stops thinking about the ridiculous nature of this set up, because we get some gosh wow fights in the Colosseum. Rice meets up with an English jumper named Griffin, who knows all about "the war" between jumpers and paladins. The war apparently consists of Griffin, some guy in some backwater jungle and now Rice. Griffin's character is the most entertaining character in the movie, and his control of the jumping ability makes for some impressive action sequences. But the movie never really recovers from those first blind leaps of logic the audience is required to make. It ambles along with Rice making repeatedly idiotic maneuvers to try to save Millie and keep her love, with a sideplot thrown in about Rice's long-lost mother thrown in to give the movie intrigue. It wraps up with a bangup action sequence, but unfortunately, the movie doesn't satisfactorily resolve any of the hanging plot threads. The whole resolution felt extremely rushed, as if the ending was written but some producer had the bright idea to cut it so as to leave an asston of room for a sequel. As a result, the movie feels incomplete.
Jumper is a movie I would recommend seeing on DVD. It's certainly not worth the regular price of admission, and only those who can stomach the Anakin Effect or are really eager to see the movie should see it on a matinee. I would give it 6 stars out of 10. Perhaps a sequel will end better, but I'm just not sure this movie deserves one.
Labels: Movies, Science-Fiction
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 9:30 AM
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A Field of OMG!!!! Cloverfield (Movie) Review
Posted on
Sunday, January 20, 2008
by Gary A. Ballard
Cloverfield is not a film. Sure, it's being shown in a theater, and you have to pay movie prices for it. It's filmed like a movie, and you can even get popcorn. But it's not a film. Cloverfield is an experience, a theme-park ride on the big-screen and I loved just about every minute of it.
First off, let's dispense with the caveats. This is not something one should expect to watch for plot, character development or any of the things one normally sees in a movie. The plot is paper-thin. J.J. Abrams, the producer, describes the movie as "Godzilla meets the Blair Witch Project" and it is vital that this is taken into account when experiencing the movie. I'm not spoiling anything by explaining that the plot is as simple as simple can be. Gigantic, unexplained monster beats the ever-living monkey fuck out of New York. Said city-beating is filmed by a bunch of impossibly beautiful, extremely lucky twenty-somethings with questionable logical faculties and a handheld camera. That's it. There's nothing more to it. There are no grandiose explanations about the origins of the monster, no Braveheart-esque jingoist proclamations exhorting hordes of red-shirts to victory, just lots of "OMFGIT'SCOMINGRIGHTTOWARDSUS" broken up by lots of "BOOMSMASHRAAARRRRGURGLESQUISH." There will likely be cult movements built up around trying to explain all the unexplained things in the film, but none of it will be necessary.
Cloverfield isn't about story. It's about the visceral reactions to impossible situations. The audience is invited to experience insanity alongside the characters by way of the very immediate stylistic viewpoint of the handheld camera. The audience almost becomes a fifth main character, so immersive is the atmosphere afforded by this choice of cinematography. That's why I term the movie a theme-park ride. It's not a movie to be analyzed, it's a movie to be experienced. Were this movie filmed any other way, it'd fall flat on its face. The characters are either irritating, such as the camera man, Hud, or at best, archetypal automatons in service of limited motivations. They could be any man or woman on the street fleeing from a gigantic monster eating the city. Filmed in typical style, they just wouldn't be that interesting. But in handycam world, the audience is running right alongside them, ducking their heads as tank shells and tracer fire goes overhead. It's one of the few movies that actually made me move around in my seat, straining to find a better angle to see the monster, or reacting to something that happened to the side of the camera. The digital work done on the movie's effects is something extraordinary, probably aided by the low-quality of the handheld camera. Everything meshed seamlessly, from ruined buildings in New York to giant monster standing directly over the cameraman.
The movie will sadly lose something significant in the translation to DVD. The combination of an excellent surround sound design and the gigantic film screen make the movie immersive. On a smaller television screen, even with the best surround sound system, I think the movie will lose a huge amount of impact. In that sense, it fails as a movie. But it is worth watching in the theater. Just don't expect loose narrative ends to be tied up, or to have any idea of what exactly happened once it's over. Just sit back and soak in the atmosphere, let yourself react on instinct instead of thinking on it too much, just like you would on a rollercoaster.
I'd give the movie 3.5 stars out of 4, but only if viewed in the theater. Outside of that venue, it would probably rate 3 stars. It's still an impressive achievement, especially the CGI/real person mesh and sound design, but lacking the in-your-face immersion of the big screen and being thin on narrative.
First off, let's dispense with the caveats. This is not something one should expect to watch for plot, character development or any of the things one normally sees in a movie. The plot is paper-thin. J.J. Abrams, the producer, describes the movie as "Godzilla meets the Blair Witch Project" and it is vital that this is taken into account when experiencing the movie. I'm not spoiling anything by explaining that the plot is as simple as simple can be. Gigantic, unexplained monster beats the ever-living monkey fuck out of New York. Said city-beating is filmed by a bunch of impossibly beautiful, extremely lucky twenty-somethings with questionable logical faculties and a handheld camera. That's it. There's nothing more to it. There are no grandiose explanations about the origins of the monster, no Braveheart-esque jingoist proclamations exhorting hordes of red-shirts to victory, just lots of "OMFGIT'SCOMINGRIGHTTOWARDSUS" broken up by lots of "BOOMSMASHRAAARRRRGURGLESQUISH." There will likely be cult movements built up around trying to explain all the unexplained things in the film, but none of it will be necessary.
Cloverfield isn't about story. It's about the visceral reactions to impossible situations. The audience is invited to experience insanity alongside the characters by way of the very immediate stylistic viewpoint of the handheld camera. The audience almost becomes a fifth main character, so immersive is the atmosphere afforded by this choice of cinematography. That's why I term the movie a theme-park ride. It's not a movie to be analyzed, it's a movie to be experienced. Were this movie filmed any other way, it'd fall flat on its face. The characters are either irritating, such as the camera man, Hud, or at best, archetypal automatons in service of limited motivations. They could be any man or woman on the street fleeing from a gigantic monster eating the city. Filmed in typical style, they just wouldn't be that interesting. But in handycam world, the audience is running right alongside them, ducking their heads as tank shells and tracer fire goes overhead. It's one of the few movies that actually made me move around in my seat, straining to find a better angle to see the monster, or reacting to something that happened to the side of the camera. The digital work done on the movie's effects is something extraordinary, probably aided by the low-quality of the handheld camera. Everything meshed seamlessly, from ruined buildings in New York to giant monster standing directly over the cameraman.
The movie will sadly lose something significant in the translation to DVD. The combination of an excellent surround sound design and the gigantic film screen make the movie immersive. On a smaller television screen, even with the best surround sound system, I think the movie will lose a huge amount of impact. In that sense, it fails as a movie. But it is worth watching in the theater. Just don't expect loose narrative ends to be tied up, or to have any idea of what exactly happened once it's over. Just sit back and soak in the atmosphere, let yourself react on instinct instead of thinking on it too much, just like you would on a rollercoaster.
I'd give the movie 3.5 stars out of 4, but only if viewed in the theater. Outside of that venue, it would probably rate 3 stars. It's still an impressive achievement, especially the CGI/real person mesh and sound design, but lacking the in-your-face immersion of the big screen and being thin on narrative.
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posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 10:39 AM
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Spider-Man 3 and the Problem with Comic Book Movie Sequels
Posted on
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
by Gary A. Ballard
Comic books have been a part of my life since my first copy of some Batman comic my mom bought me back in the '70's for a dime. Yes, I am that old and comics used to cost about the same as a piece of bubble gum. You can still get bubble gum for that price, but now you can't get one page from a comic for 10 cents, and the beloved and treasured characters from my four-color days of yore are now gracing the movie screens in multi-million dollar productions. The trend for comic book movies has cooled in recent years, as both Marvel and DC have saturated the market with complete cockups like Ghost Rider and The Punisher and moderate cockups like Superman Returns. The first two Spider-Man movies directed by Sam Raimi were fantastic successes, both creatively and financially, and despite the inclusion of Venom, one of the worst Spider-Man villains ever created, I had high hopes for the third installment. Unfortunately, Spider-Man 3 highlighted a very significant problem with comic book movie sequels. The problem is that namely, Hollywood never knows when to quit.
Spider-Man 3 was a long movie, almost two and a half hours long in fact (139 minutes). While I initially applauded Hollywood's embrace of longer running times due to the success of epics like Lord of the Rings, that success has gone to its collective head. Directors are allowed to go past two hours now, whether the movie actually calls for it or not. M. Night Shamalamadingdong is one of the worst offenders of this principle, dragging movies like Lady in the Water out into excruciating cures of insomnia. Spider-Man 3 needed every minute of that 139 minutes, and about two more hours beyond that. The movie was so crammed full of plots and subplots and new characters that they easily could have made three really good, 90-minute movies. Instead, five different plots are wedged into the movie like smelly hippies in a VW van at Burning Man. Nothing is given room to breathe, no characters are allowed enough time for more than a cursory amount of development, and all catharsis is finally drained because things happen just to get them in within the running time without any rhyme or reason.
WARNING: There will be spoilers below this point. If you haven't seen the movie or had the plot spoiled for you, go read one of my other articles.
The movie has plot threads on top of plot threads. Peter Parker has decided he wants to ask Mary Jane Watson to marry him. Mary Jane is starring on Broadway, but is soon fired for being mediocre. Why she's fired after one mediocre review isn't made clear, because that would take a few minutes of exposition and the movie doesn't have time for that. Harry Osborn, Jr., son of the Green Goblin from the original movie, attacks Peter using upgrades on his dad's gear (and thankfully without the inexpressive statue mask from the first movie) to enact revenge on Spider-Man. In the ensuing battle, Harry gets gobsmacked by a pipe and forgets most of the last few movies, including Spider-Man's identity and the circumstances of his father's death, turning him into a coherent Forrest Gump. Cain Marko, some small-time crook with bad taste in striped shirts is chased by police and turned into a sentient pile of sand, a power he uses as the Sandman to steal money to help his sick kid. Eddie Brock, a lying, over-cologned douchebag of a photographer, is trying to steal Peter's job at the Daily Bugle. An unexplained meteor crashes to earth, oozing a dark, oily, living substance onto Peter's scooter; it's later discovered to be a living being that wants to attach itself to a host like a parasite. Peter meets hot blonde and vacuous lump Gwen Stacy, who is somehow a ditzy model but also in Peter's class in physics. Finally, Peter is being a completely self-absorbed douchebag because Spider-Man is being lauded by the citizens of New York and most of the papers not named Daily Bugle.
That's the first 30 minutes of the movie in a nutshell. The plot only gets worse from there.
Peter becomes even more of a douche, ignoring Mary Jane and blathering about Spider-Man, kissing Gwen Stacy in public as Spider-Man even though he KNOWS his girlfriend is standing in the audience watching. The symbiote bonds with Peter, making a black costume and turning Peter into a floppy-haired emo goth douche that disco-dances in the middle of the goddamned street. I only wish I was kidding about the dancing part. Sam Raimi must have a secret desire to make a musical, because there are at least two dance scenes in this movie, both laughably out of place. Forrest Osborn gets his memory back and forces Mary Jane to ditch Peter. Somewhere in this mess, Emo Douche Peter tries to make MJ jealous and ends up bitchslapping her, driving him to realize the black suit is like, bad, mmmkay? Meanwhile, Eddie Brock steals Peter's job at the Bugle, then gets exposed as a plagiarizer, and when Peter finally rids himself of the black suit symbiote, it latches onto Brock and becomes Venom. But during all that, Black Spidey kills the Sandman by turning him into mud. Emo Douche Peter and Not-Forrest Harry fight, the result being that Harry gets a pumpkin bomb to the face, leaving him scarred even though we've been shown that the Goblin Gas which gives him his powers heals him incredibly quickly. Venom then convinces Sandman that Spider-Man is keeping the Sandman from getting the money to save the sick kid. Now, if the symbiote had all of Spider-Man's memories, he still wouldn't know anything about Cain Marko's sick kid, because I'm not sure that was ever revealed to Peter. Regardless, Venom and Sandman team up to kidnap Mary Jane, luring Spider-Man to a battle royale at a construction site. Not-Goblin Harry joins Peter, they save the girl, kill Venom, let the Sandman go because he tells a sob story and get Not-Invincible Harry killed. Peter and Mary Jane make up at the end, despite his Emo Douche Persona having participated in a bit of "Smack My Bitch Up."
If the preceding paragraphs sounded like a complete cluster fuck, that's the best I can do to make sense of all the plot threads in the movie. The first rule of comic book sequels is that there must be more: more villains, more blowups, more plots and more danger. By the third episode in the series, the combined continuity is more oppressive than most comic books. No one in Hollywood has ever heard of the overkill that was Two-Face and the Riddler in Batman Forever, or the still-twitching abortion that was Mr. Freeze, Bane and Poison Ivy in Batman and Robin. I'm not completely against adding more villains in comic sequels. Most movie-worthy comic franchises have a wealth of great villains to choose from. But the accepted practice seems to be that if more than one villain is included in a sequel, all the villains must tie together, must be connected somehow no matter how illogical. Cain Marko is made to be Uncle Ben's killer from the first movie, in a ham-fisted flashback sequence that makes little sense in light of the first movie. Sandman teams up with Venom to kill Spider-Man, even though it will do nothing to help his dying daughter. Dealing with multiple villains in a superhero comic movie could be handled as separate incidents in the life of a superhero, since that is the format for the monthly comics. What's wrong with Spider-Man defeating Sandman, then having a climactic battle with Venom at the end with no crossover? Or better yet, just having one main villain per movie and shortening the running time?
Spider-Man 3 had all the ingredients for a great Spider-Man movie. Unfortunately, it had too many of those good elements, all of which merged into a confused stew of half-baked plot developments and unrealized potential. If they decide to continue the franchise, I hope that they choose to simplify. Spider-Man stories are about struggles with super-villains and the inequities of life. The ones who struggle shouldn't be the audience. Read more!
Spider-Man 3 was a long movie, almost two and a half hours long in fact (139 minutes). While I initially applauded Hollywood's embrace of longer running times due to the success of epics like Lord of the Rings, that success has gone to its collective head. Directors are allowed to go past two hours now, whether the movie actually calls for it or not. M. Night Shamalamadingdong is one of the worst offenders of this principle, dragging movies like Lady in the Water out into excruciating cures of insomnia. Spider-Man 3 needed every minute of that 139 minutes, and about two more hours beyond that. The movie was so crammed full of plots and subplots and new characters that they easily could have made three really good, 90-minute movies. Instead, five different plots are wedged into the movie like smelly hippies in a VW van at Burning Man. Nothing is given room to breathe, no characters are allowed enough time for more than a cursory amount of development, and all catharsis is finally drained because things happen just to get them in within the running time without any rhyme or reason.
WARNING: There will be spoilers below this point. If you haven't seen the movie or had the plot spoiled for you, go read one of my other articles.
The movie has plot threads on top of plot threads. Peter Parker has decided he wants to ask Mary Jane Watson to marry him. Mary Jane is starring on Broadway, but is soon fired for being mediocre. Why she's fired after one mediocre review isn't made clear, because that would take a few minutes of exposition and the movie doesn't have time for that. Harry Osborn, Jr., son of the Green Goblin from the original movie, attacks Peter using upgrades on his dad's gear (and thankfully without the inexpressive statue mask from the first movie) to enact revenge on Spider-Man. In the ensuing battle, Harry gets gobsmacked by a pipe and forgets most of the last few movies, including Spider-Man's identity and the circumstances of his father's death, turning him into a coherent Forrest Gump. Cain Marko, some small-time crook with bad taste in striped shirts is chased by police and turned into a sentient pile of sand, a power he uses as the Sandman to steal money to help his sick kid. Eddie Brock, a lying, over-cologned douchebag of a photographer, is trying to steal Peter's job at the Daily Bugle. An unexplained meteor crashes to earth, oozing a dark, oily, living substance onto Peter's scooter; it's later discovered to be a living being that wants to attach itself to a host like a parasite. Peter meets hot blonde and vacuous lump Gwen Stacy, who is somehow a ditzy model but also in Peter's class in physics. Finally, Peter is being a completely self-absorbed douchebag because Spider-Man is being lauded by the citizens of New York and most of the papers not named Daily Bugle.
That's the first 30 minutes of the movie in a nutshell. The plot only gets worse from there.
Peter becomes even more of a douche, ignoring Mary Jane and blathering about Spider-Man, kissing Gwen Stacy in public as Spider-Man even though he KNOWS his girlfriend is standing in the audience watching. The symbiote bonds with Peter, making a black costume and turning Peter into a floppy-haired emo goth douche that disco-dances in the middle of the goddamned street. I only wish I was kidding about the dancing part. Sam Raimi must have a secret desire to make a musical, because there are at least two dance scenes in this movie, both laughably out of place. Forrest Osborn gets his memory back and forces Mary Jane to ditch Peter. Somewhere in this mess, Emo Douche Peter tries to make MJ jealous and ends up bitchslapping her, driving him to realize the black suit is like, bad, mmmkay? Meanwhile, Eddie Brock steals Peter's job at the Bugle, then gets exposed as a plagiarizer, and when Peter finally rids himself of the black suit symbiote, it latches onto Brock and becomes Venom. But during all that, Black Spidey kills the Sandman by turning him into mud. Emo Douche Peter and Not-Forrest Harry fight, the result being that Harry gets a pumpkin bomb to the face, leaving him scarred even though we've been shown that the Goblin Gas which gives him his powers heals him incredibly quickly. Venom then convinces Sandman that Spider-Man is keeping the Sandman from getting the money to save the sick kid. Now, if the symbiote had all of Spider-Man's memories, he still wouldn't know anything about Cain Marko's sick kid, because I'm not sure that was ever revealed to Peter. Regardless, Venom and Sandman team up to kidnap Mary Jane, luring Spider-Man to a battle royale at a construction site. Not-Goblin Harry joins Peter, they save the girl, kill Venom, let the Sandman go because he tells a sob story and get Not-Invincible Harry killed. Peter and Mary Jane make up at the end, despite his Emo Douche Persona having participated in a bit of "Smack My Bitch Up."
If the preceding paragraphs sounded like a complete cluster fuck, that's the best I can do to make sense of all the plot threads in the movie. The first rule of comic book sequels is that there must be more: more villains, more blowups, more plots and more danger. By the third episode in the series, the combined continuity is more oppressive than most comic books. No one in Hollywood has ever heard of the overkill that was Two-Face and the Riddler in Batman Forever, or the still-twitching abortion that was Mr. Freeze, Bane and Poison Ivy in Batman and Robin. I'm not completely against adding more villains in comic sequels. Most movie-worthy comic franchises have a wealth of great villains to choose from. But the accepted practice seems to be that if more than one villain is included in a sequel, all the villains must tie together, must be connected somehow no matter how illogical. Cain Marko is made to be Uncle Ben's killer from the first movie, in a ham-fisted flashback sequence that makes little sense in light of the first movie. Sandman teams up with Venom to kill Spider-Man, even though it will do nothing to help his dying daughter. Dealing with multiple villains in a superhero comic movie could be handled as separate incidents in the life of a superhero, since that is the format for the monthly comics. What's wrong with Spider-Man defeating Sandman, then having a climactic battle with Venom at the end with no crossover? Or better yet, just having one main villain per movie and shortening the running time?
Spider-Man 3 had all the ingredients for a great Spider-Man movie. Unfortunately, it had too many of those good elements, all of which merged into a confused stew of half-baked plot developments and unrealized potential. If they decide to continue the franchise, I hope that they choose to simplify. Spider-Man stories are about struggles with super-villains and the inequities of life. The ones who struggle shouldn't be the audience. Read more!
posted by Gary A. Ballard @ 10:47 AM
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Save This Page
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