Franchisacide: Vol. 2, Book One

I think I should preface this. This is sort of a difficult review to write. Since everyone has seen this movie, and seen it many times, every observation I make is going to be repetitive. But since I just spent two and a half hours watching this film, I feel like I should at least try and make that time count for something. Here's how I'll justify this to myself: America caught Pirate Fever(!) when this film came out, so much so that the sequels broke all kinds of records. But the overwhelming position on the sequels was that they couldn't begin to live up to the mythological greatness of the first film. So with a lifetime of disappointment sapping the youthful enthusiasm of yore from my eyes between my first viewing and my most recent viewing, I present you a revised perspective on one of America's least durable film franchises.

Let's start with the obvious stuff and get that out of the way. The fact that it took this film to make Johnny Depp a household name is about as alien to me as the mystery of Daniel Day-Lewis's strangely hypnotic hunchback. If Ed Wood had made him the star it should have made him, we could have had an extra ten years of Johnny Depp doing crazy shit and getting Oscar nominations for it. Thank you, filmgoing public, for only allowing us to see Johnny Depp at the tail-end of his peek.

And make no mistake about it: this is the Johnny Depp show. This film exists only to showcase his considerable, nay, monumentous, talent. It's a shame that there had to be other actors in this film, though, because most of them are pretty bad in their own right, but even the ones doing good work look like eight-year-olds trying to purchase alcohol compared to Johnny Depp.

For one, no one seems to have a handle on this accent they're weilding. They all come off as having just watched a lot of Masterpiece Theater in preperation for their roles, and they're confused when confronted with scenes that require them to do more than look windswept and swing swords around. Shit, they even look confused in those scenes. No one looks like they remember where they are. Even Johnny Depp looks confused, although he plays it to his advantage.

It must be nice to be Orlando Bloom. On the days that you don't feel like working, you can send a paper figure (probably fashioned from your deposit slips) taped to a Popsicle stick and not even your looking-windswept scenes will suffer.

Keira Knightly is similarly afflicted, although not quite as badly. Whereas Bloom is a terrible actor confronted with a virtually unplayable role, Knightly is simply an okay actor confronted with a virtually unplayable role.

About the only other actor that stacks up to Depp is Geoffery Rush, but even he can't hold a candle to Depp. He really is just that good. It's one of the great performances of recent Hollywood filmmaking, and it's the only reason that this film developed any kind of positive reputation.

Sure, the whole film is competent, but it's difficult to run a production this monumental and allow it to develop any personality of its own. I appreciate that Gore Verbinski tried, and there are times when this film becomes the rollicking good adventure yarn that you hope it will be, but it's never exactly sustained. All the best scenes end too fast and the worst scenes go on too long. Some of the fights are silly, but without the visual flair that allows someone like, oh, I don't know...Sam Raimi to operate that way.

As a whole, the film is nothing special. It's Johnny Depp's unpredictable and original vision that elevates this movie beyond typical Hollywood filmmaking, aside from being the first pirate movie worth seeing in god knows how long (I'm a big Crimson Pirate fan).

Drag Me to Hell

I have this nasty habit of hyperbole, but I think I'll just throw my inhibitions out the window for one second and declare that, by the power of Grayskull, Drag Me to Hell has the GREATEST ENDING OF ANY HORROR MOVIE EVER. I wish I could go into it, but I really don't want to spoil such a fantastic ending for all you dirty, confused little proles that need my recommendation before you see this film.

Now, you know that little cult that floats around Sam Raimi? The one that laments Bruce Campbell's position on the F-list of actors? The one that considers Evil Dead 2 one of the greatest horror films of all time? The one that considers Evil Dead 2 one of the greatest comedy films of all time? I'm one of those guys. Except, unlike the rest of those guys, I love the Spider-Man films. And unlike those guys, I love Spider-Man 3. And I happen to be the only person on the face of the Earth that likes Spider-Man 3.

There's no commercial director that possesses the creative energy necessary to push the action genre to its limit like Sam Raimi. The man could make Spider-Man films for the rest of his career and every one would be better than the last, but no one seems to appreciate the artistry of these films.

But that's neither here nor there. Perhaps I shall review all the Spider-Man films at some point and return to that discussion. For now, my point is that I'm a huge Sam Raimi fan.

While many Raimi fans seem to think that he's a sell-out for not doing horror films his whole career, the only thing that WOULD make him a sell-out is if he did horror films his whole career. It's easy to get good at one thing and do that forever, but it's a great deal harder to tackle so many different genres and styles, including making the most expensive film ever made (at that point), all with varying degrees of success.

But after the (undeserved) critical failure of Spider-Man 3, it was time for Mr. Raimi to show his devotees that he's still got it, that making big-budget action films hadn't sucked his soul out and replaced it with robotic endoskeleton powered by a coal engine modified to be fueled by money. And now that Raimi has shut up all the howling fanboys, he can go back to doing whatever the hell he wants to do.

Look at me, seven paragraphs in and I haven't even started reviewing the actual film. Sometimes I get carried away when I start talking about Sam Raimi.

Drag Me to Hell, aside from having a great title, is one hell of a horror film. At least on par with (if not better than) Evil Dead and Evil Dead 2.

It concerns kindly young Christine Brown (Alison Lohman), a loan officer who makes the mistake of trying to be aggressive in the workplace and ends up being cursed by a surprisingly robust old lady. For three days, she will be haunted and tormented by a demon, and on the third day she will be dragged away by the demon to burn in hell for all of eternity.

Like the Evil Dead films, its atmosphere isn't about creeping out the audience or making the gore-hounds ovaries explode. It's more rousing. The feeling that accompanies this film is the feeling you associate with seeing a great action film rather than the feeling you associate with, say Alien or The Shining or Mulholland Dr.. Raimi's name for this kind of film, a "spook-a-blast" is more than accurate, and really underlines having spent the last seven years making action films, especially in the pacing. I can't think of many horror films that have scenes that can be described as "horror setpieces".

It's a simple, old-fashioned story of an innocent young woman cursed by something otherworldly that she lacks the resources or fortitude to combat, and it's all there for Sam Raimi to let loose all the little things he's come up with since the last time he made a horror film. The film essentially plays as a greatest hits of Sam Raimi's brain, which must be at least partially robotic.

In fact, I'm having a hard time imagining what the pitch meeting must have been like for this. I imagine Sam Raimi said something like "You know how much fun it is to see Bruce Campbell get the shit beaten out of him by demons? What if it was Alison Lohman getting the shit beaten out of her by demons?", at which point the executives gave him several briefcases filled with uncut diamonds and moon rocks.

Let me repeat something that I think is important. This film has the GREATEST ENDING IN HORROR MOVIE HISTORY. If you have no great love for horror films, see it just for the brilliant, balls-to-the-walls ending.

Satan bless you, Sam Raimi.

9/10

Star Trek

So I went into J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot thinking that there would be a lot of nerds to beat up and a lot of lunch money to collect. Unfortunately, in a "Pac-Man collects the little blue ball and eats all the goddamn ghosts" sort of moment, I was the one who ended up the brunt of this assault. Until my heart burst my tormentors goaded me and harassed me to their hearts content, and now I know what all the nerds felt like all those years. I would vow to turn over a new leaf, but this far exceeded any torture I ever subjected them to. No, now I must head out on a mission of revenge, collecting bloodied pocket protectors as proof of success.

Do you want to know the torment leveled against me? I pray your stomachs can withstand a tale so vile, for it was truly a malevolent assault.

Some cocksucker in front of me clapped at every fucking thing that happened in the film. When Anton Yelchin showed up sporting his native accent (although I don't know if that's Mr. Yelchin's real accent) the guy laughed so loud and clapped so hard that I couldn't hear the dialogue, try as I might. Later, he took out his cell phone and held it up to record the film. I had already complained to the management twice about other people in the theater (and gone to the restroom once) and missed enough of the film, so I decided I would put up with it.

For the first five minutes of the film, a group of people climbed over seats (including my seat and my friend's seat) so that they could reach the seats in the corner without disturbing the people in the aisle. They then proceeded to talk about their seating arrangement. And then talk through the rest of the fucking film.

And for the last 20 minutes of the film, a girl talked loudly on her cell phone. My friend attempted to get her attention, but to no avail. The girl simply proceeded to talk over my friend.

That, and the audience must have been gassed by something noxious before they walked into the theater because they laughed at everything. EVERYTHING. They laughed hysterically when Leonard Nimoy showed up.

But there's a film to be reviewed and I won't allow my distasteful experience soil my (un)professional obligations to my reader(s).

From the trailers, I gathered this would be a rollicking good space adventure film. I expected it to define, in my mind and at least for this summer, the concept of fun with an evil villain, a charismatic hero, huge space battles, awesome gun fights and exciting non-combat setpieces.

And it did. Excellent work, Abrams.

I suppose I shouldn't stop there, though and since I've already said such nice things about it, I think I'll start with the bad.

Chris Pine is good, but not great. He's got charisma but sort of comes off as a dick, and while I'm not against protagonists being assholes (as it's the ultimate cop-out for a critic who hasn't met their quota of films to bash for the month), it's not always a great idea for the hero in an action film to be a dick. It can make it hard to root for him. I really wish Matt Damon could have played this role (he was rumored for the part and actively sought it, but Abrams deemed him too old).

Also, the editing in the fight scenes tends to be a bit hectic and doesn't always serve the scenes well, particularly in an early bar fight.

Anyway, those are relatively small complaints and they're my biggest ones. This film is a well-oiled machine but doesn't move so fast that you don't get a feel for the universe. It's tight without being constricting, a lesson many summer movie helmers could learn from (no, I'm not referring to Christopher Nolan, dumbass).

I've heard a lot of complaints leveled against the film's use of lens flares, but that didn't bother me in the least. In fact, I thought it gave the film a unique and (dare I jump the gun) iconic look, making the Enterprise especially look ethereal.

Most of the performances are very good. I'm a big fan of Simon Pegg and he nearly steals the film as Scotty, while Eric Bana does a great job as the very sinister Captain Nero, an over-the-top role that he nails like nothing he's done since Munich four years ago.

I highly recommend this film, and it's the one to beat as far as summer action films (I imagine I'll like Up more). I hope they only get better from here.

9/10

Franchisicide Vol. 1, Book Four

X-Men Origins: Wolverine leads me to one, and only one conclusion: Gavin Hood has never seen an action film. I don't think there's anything really wrong with hiring a journeyman to helm an action film. I'd much prefer to see someone like Zack Snyder or Bryan Singer behind the camera on this, but one misguided hack is probably worse than a journeyman who will do what the producers and star tell him to do. Probably.

I guess I'll come out and say that this is probably a better film than the first and third X-Men films, but I'm still way fucking disappointed. A character as awesome as Wolverine, played by an actor as great and perfectly cast as Hugh Jackman, throw in some big action setpieces and start exploring his tragic backstory and relationship with his psychopathic brother Sabretooth, how in the shit can you go wrong? Well, I imagine it took about thirty men in labcoats, some test tubes and at least one Tesla coil, but they got a formula going.

Here's the solution to the problem of "this movie is absolutely guaranteed to be good with this awesome plot": plot the shit out of that motherfucker.

Now, dear uneducated reader, let me explain something to you. There's a big difference between "plot" and "story". Every film has to have a story, but not every film has to have a plot. And since this is a very abstract concept, I'm going to explain it as simply as I can so that you don't get bogged down in vague extrapolations. A plot is a sequence of events, causes and effects, that lead to a climax that is the dramatic culmination of everything that's happened in the film. A film without a plot (although every film has a plot, I'm just coming up with two different words for the sake of simplicity) has a series of causes and effects, but not everything is reliant on the cause-effect nonsense. There will be many scenes with no effect on the storyline, things that may explore characters and setting, but don't help Nancy Drew solve the mystery.

See what I mean? Of course you don't.

My point is that Wolverine falls somewhere between these two. Covering a series of events that stretch over hundreds of years, the best way to do this is to have it be a series of events that shape Wolverine into the person we know him in the X-Men films.

And they do this. Sort of. For the first hour or so. And then they decide that they need more plot. So it become a race against the clock(!) for Wolverine to stop the evil Colonel Stryker for creating the ultimate mutant killing machine(!). Meanwhile, there's a twist ending, a feel-good moment that got me to put my head in my hands, a very, very, very contrived set-up for a showdown with the villain on top of something very tall and an attempt to make the events of this film mesh with the events of the other X-Men films that made my brain punch its way out of my skull and attack the screen.

My point is that if you're going to do a meandering, Scorsese-style narrative, awesome! If not, awesome! But don't pine for one and fuck the other. These two portions of the film mesh with a loud scraping sound and some sparks. And it doesn't help that characters are introduced and discarded like we're reading a J.K. Rowling book (or watching the third X-Men film) and some characters are inexplicably given an extra scene, just to turn the fanboy vaginas into swimming pools.

But all that can be ignored if the film delivers on the biggest promise of a summer action film: the action. When I saw the shots in the trailer of Wolverine duking it out with a helicopter and propelling himself onto the roof of it by vaulting off an exploding humvee, it was appropriately death-defying and exciting in the manner of old 80's action films. And when I saw the shot of him walking away from the exploding helicopter (which was apparently delivering a metric ton of plutonium to the needy farmers in the area), I was excited for a big action setpiece that was a throwback to the classic action setpieces of the 80's.

Unfortunately, this is the only successful action setpiece in the whole film, so it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, like the filmmakers weren't winking and nudging the audience, they just genuinely thought that this is how action films should look. The whole film gets stamped as cheesy because it's the only memorable action scene.

But the biggest problem, the worst sin the film commits is when Wolverine finds his way out of the Weapon X facility. In X-Men 2, Wolverine has a flashback to this moment where he remembers sprinting out of the building, naked and covered in blood before Wolverine wakes up screaming in his bed. Truly horrific. But when he escapes the Weapon X facility in this film, he seems positively enamored of his new toys and triumphantly dashes out of the building as if he just won a...naked contest. Or something.

And there are a few parts where the CGI is quite awful and where the A/V isn't synced. If I go see a $125 million film, I expect to see some synced A/V.

That's not to say the film is all bad. Well...it sort of is. But Hugh Jackman is fantastic in this. His presence is invaluable to the film, and Liev Schrieber seems like he's having a lot of fun as Sabretooth. And, while I'm a big Danny Huston fan, he's not really at the top of his game here.

Ultimately, I can't figure out what went wrong here. Someone like Hugh Jackman should know how to make a good Wolverine film. I think the entire thing could have been saved if Zack Snyder or Bryan Singer or Len Wiseman (who was rumored for the job before Gavin Hood came on) had directed. I'm not familiar with Gavin Hood's work, but I know he wasn't familiar with the Wolverine character when he was signed on and according to people whose opinions I trust, both Tsotsi and Rendition are quite mediocre. As far as I can tell, Gavin Hood's signature style is bland mediocrity.