Saturday, March 21, 2015

Insurgent

Woodley and friends act their butts off for a mediocre story

*Reminder* I still haven't read this book series. Still have no need to delve into it.

We continue the story of the last movie following Tris and Four (Shailene Woodley and Theo James) runnning as fugitives from their society. They have a new plan to bring the fight to their pursuers as they search for the rest of their friends in Dauntless. Four's mother appears and offers the aid of the faction-less to bolster the numbers, but four is not happy with her arrangement (given the history they share). With the appearance of a box that Tris' parents were hiding, and the hunt beginning for all Divergents, Tris and four must hold back the forces while trying to stay alive.

So, this was a bit of a hard movie to describe, and that is mainly because the storyline is so jumpy in this that you can't pay attention at one thing for too long. It is so erratic I feel that the writer must have had some form of ADD, but overall it is solid when you can get through everything. I don't hate the overall storyline in this, it serves as a descent enough allegory for Gay Rights, classicism, and racism, while giving today's youth a powerful woman protagonist. Not "Katniss Everdeen powerful," but still it is nice to see that her brother or boyfriend might not always have to come to the rescue; albeit, she does actually get rescued quite often in this.... maybe she isn't the best female role model, but she is okay. Okay. That's a word I would use to describe almost the entirety of this picture. It tries to be a tad bit different, but ends up bland. It is the most "meh" I have ever felt towards a "popular" series.  I like the factions, but hate the fact that they keep adding to the divergent mythos (now you can be a certain percentage Divergent, like a Divergent married into your family or something). Overall, my main problem with this movie is that everything seems so jumbled and forced. For example, two people having sex seems to be in the movie only to appease the fans, and doesn't seem to have much place in the scene. It is a good try, but their is a big problem when the best thing I can say about a story is "that the concept is still interesting" even though we were introduced to this concept last movie.

On the other hand the director seemed to take this project very seriously because everything looks and feels beautiful. It is surprising that the director of films like "R.I.P.D" and "Flightplan" could make something that looks this good, but I can't deny that everything seems to be well above my par. Given that I need more from a film than pretty things to look at, this compliment doesn't hold much water, but I was surprised none the less. Hopefully they give Robert Schwentke a better movie to sink his teeth into next time, and hopefully he can remain on this path.

Oh Shailene Woodley, I wish you would have gotten popular off of a better series, because you do have a great amount of talent. So, unsurprisingly Woodley did a great job in this, her emotions flowed off her like a waterfall, and she got the entire audience glued to the screen, while they empathized with her character. I can only hope that she gets better work. As for the rest of the cast... Miles Teller has fallen a long way from his performance in the amazing "Whiplash," but given the source material he did what he could. Theo James seems to be taking some acting classes, and I can't wait for them to start bearing more fruit... he did better than last time, but still needs some work. Kate Winslett was damn near flawless, and Jai Courtney surprised me with a pretty great performance.

Final Verdict: Netflix it Some pretty stellar performances and directing did a lot for this movie, but not enough to make up for the story. Here is hoping they find a way to keep me interested in the next two or three in the series. 

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Run All Night

Neeson picks up the slack for Kinnaman...some what

Retired hit-man Jimmy Conlon (Liam Neeson) has found himself in a bad situation. His son, Mike (Joel Kinnaman) has witnessed a murder committed by the son of his best friend and employer Shawn Maguire (Ed Harris). Chris runs and the son catches up to him, unfortunately Jimmy is there when he does. Jimmy kills the son, and has to get Chris and his family to safety before the night runs out.

This movie can join the seemingly endless cadre of films that Liam Neeson is being wrangled into in his ever quickening crusade to try and make sure elderly men are taken more seriously as action stars. The difference between this movie and the recent crop of shit that has been looming over our theater screens for the past couple of years is the the story here at least tried to be ambitious.  There were a lot of interesting points in this film, that made this seem like a different animal than Neeson's recent starring roles. The first thing I noticed was that Neeson's character was portrayed as pathetic, even when he went kill crazy, which was a pretty interesting turn. Another thing was the story between the main character and his adversary, who used to be his best friend; that was an interesting plot that added a bit more depth. All was going well (and most of the fault lies in some of the actors and the child like director at the helm), at least that would be the case, if the ending didn't seem to come out of no where, and feel anti-climatic. The story had me for a lock until the final act, then almost lost me completely. There is a lot of cliche nonsense in this that I was trying to overlook but a soft climax to an action movie is not a great selling point..... Also, not to nit-pick, but this really bothered me: I have dealt with my fair share of cabbies that don't care about who their fare is; but honestly, city wide man hunt and this guy is taking a lot of cabs, not one person is going to call?

Given this director's history with horror I know he can build tension (which actually did help one of the scenes in this movie), but even the amount of tension that he built didn't give a lot of substance to this movie. The problem I have here is mainly with the dynamic camera shots he was trying to take through out the entire thing. He basically took me out of the movie completely when I had to look through about ninety different lenses for his point to finally come across in the film. I can blame this movie's pacing problems on the writer, but something tells me the director called for massive cuts in the script so he could get the shots he wanted. The shots in this were, again, ambitious; but, they all just felt so forced and annoying. Plus, this director can't seem to have Liam Neeson take someone down in a movie without the use of slow motion (see his last film "Non- Stop" to get that reference).

You all remember when Liam Neeson was an actor, and not an action star? I do, and I actually got to see some of that old-form Neeson in this film (praise be to whatever movie god made that possible). When he is portraying his character as helpless and pathetic you can really get a sense for the character's plight. You feel his embarrassment as he has to go and ask his best friend's son for a loan to get a new heater. You feel his pain as he looks for the answer to sleep at the bottom of a liqour bottle. This was a "Schindler's List" Neeson, or what I like to call "Pre-Taken Neeson." Sure he acts well in other projects, but this was a nice look at the Neeson audiences fell in love with. On the exact opposite end of the spectrum we have Joel Kinnaman. Is it possible to go back in time and abort this actor's career before he started to ruin movies? I mean it, he is so hard to watch. Annoyingly bad acting, that follows his abysmal performance in "Robocop" from last year. Please stop giving this guy work. Please. Ed Harris showed up, and he was the same intimidating mob boss we have come to know from some previous films, so no problem there. The children in this should probably have tried to take more classes for acting, because I know I can't count on the director to give them the correct guidance. This movie's actors were all over the map, but somewhat predictable sans Neeson. Kinnaman sucks again, Neeson is surprisingly fresh, Harris is standard, and the support varies.

Final Verdict: Rent It Not quite horrible, but some major draw backs held this movie from true greatness. I am only sorry that a movie with a good Neeson performance had to be this movie. 

Saturday, March 7, 2015

Chappie


Artificial Intelligence, Religion, Human Consciousness, cha-cha-cha 

Deon Wilson (Dev Patel) has revolutionized the police force by adding robots to their force. Crime is now down and thugs are running scared from the new mechanized officers; however Deon is not done creating. He has a dream of making a sentient machine, able to be the next step in robotic achievement. He goes against his bosses orders and makes a robot known as Chappie (Sharlto Copley). It is up to Deon to teach Chappie how to be more human, with the unasked for "aid" from street thugs, who have their own plans for the robot's upbringing. Throughout the robot's education the thugs and Deon must fend off another gang, and one of Deon's rivals, while trying not to kill each other.

Let me get some of the bad things about this movie out of the way right now, so I can start singing this film's praises. First off the character building felt forced and rushed, as the run time of the movie was unforgiving. Rushed is a really big word for this, because the pacing of the movie was all off. At points you wanted to know more about the characters, at the end you wanted them to pick an ending and stick with it. There were some blatant advertisements for Sony, but I don't think I can complain about that, as I have seat through "Transformers: Age of Extinction."

Now that we got that unpleasantness out of the way, let me tell you how awesome this movie is.

So, at first you are thinking this movie is going to be a revamped "Short Circuit." Then you realize there are about fifty subtle (not-so-subtle) messages in this. From religion to ethics this movie runs the gambit on awesome story telling. I loved that the entire thing can be equated to a theological discussion, while explosions sound off in the background. This movie could very well be used to teach classes about religion, or at the very least about acceptance. The character development may have failed with the side characters, but it picked up with the development of Chappie. It still felt rushed, but you felt for the character. You might have been able to feel more for the character if more time was given, but you still felt bad for him. Maybe it was because of the brilliant acting, maybe it was due to his naivety, but every time Chappie felt pain, you wanted it to stop. The villian's were well calculated to allow more hatred for them. The side characters were there enough for me to at least accept their presence. There are only a few minor details that could have been tweeked to make this movie perfect. This movie absolutely screamed to be turned into a sequel or trilogy.

So I have been a fan of Neil Blomkamp, and I have asked for nothing but his success, because he likes to take risks on new storytelling. Every movie he makes has a something interesting about it, and a pedestal to stand on. Not only is he an extremely talented writer, but he is also an extremely talented director. The man makes his scenery feel alive to the point that you can taste the grit from a battle in your mouth. You can feel the cold of a city lost to violence, or smell the garbage waft over your nostrils as if you were in New York or Detroit. The man can make anything feel like the real deal, and that is a highly sought after talent. This movie follows in his line of beautifully crafted films, and I cannot wait to see what he does with "Alien."
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What's that? Oh yes, his balls do feel good in my mouth, thanks for asking. Asshole.

There was a familiar voice featured in this. A Blomkamp veteran. It always surprises me to see how much talent Sharlto Copley displays in these pictures, how much range he has. The man ate this role, the man slept this role, the man bled this role, the man was Chappie. I know I have a "hard-on" for voice acting, but this was truly remarkable. He brought out the child-like naivety in Chappie, and made it easy for the audience to relate to the character. If I had to give one tip of the hat to anyone in this movie, it would have to be to Mr. Copley. No one really turned in a bad performance, but the A-listers in this were put through the ringer by new talent. None more so than Dev Patel. I think the fans can finally forgive him for 'The Last Airbender" because he is truly remarkable in this.... oh yeah, Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver were in this. They were good too.

Final Verdict: See it in Theaters Some obvious mis-steps in the character development made this movie a bit hard to handle at times, but it was just flat out fun. If you are a movie lover in any sense there will be something here for you. 

Sunday, March 1, 2015

Focus


Do Will Smith and Margot Robbie have good chemistry?

Our story follows expert con-man Nicky (Will Smith) as he leads his enterprise of other con-artists into stealing from everyone they can. A girl, Jess (Margot Robbie), walks into the organization. The girl has Nicky feeling things that he has never let himself feel before; however, we need to find out who is playing who. In a world of cons, you can trust no one.

So the story is solid, albeit a bit cliche. Now, I'm not saying that it repeats what every other movie does, it is only a bit cliche. The overall arc of bad boy, meets bad girl, and tries to go straight, has been done; but, it was done very well here. The story isn't the real winner here, the dialogue is. The slight remarks, and sarcasm is delivered expertly by the cast, and in that sense this movie tends to be a bit enjoyable in the writing department. I couldn't tell if it was the lines that were written, or who was delivering them, but I did like what was hearing. The main thing holding this movie back from joining the pantheon of great crime movies is the ending. I won't spoil anything for you so lets just say that it was a nice effort; but, there are so many things wrong with it, and so many blatant contradictions that I'm surprised the rest of the movie held together as well as it did. Another part of the story that didn't seem to quite work is that it fell into that same old trap that most "con-artist movies" fall into by not knowing where to hold back on the deception. So, a lot of the romance gets lost in translation, which comes back to hurt the ending even more, and unravels a lot of the good points from the movie.

The thing about this movie is that the gems weren't in the writing, they were found in the cinematography. The camera tricks utilized here weren't anything really new, but they were surprising. Some of the camera work seemed to be taken from the horror genre, using mirror tricks, and misdirection tactics. Some were taken from the romance genre, knowing exactly what part of the body to draw focus (yeah....ha!) on and when. It was brilliantly done, and all of it fell into this nice, crisp and clean background, allowing us to escape into their world more easily. Absolutely stunning.

Now for the acting, which is the only reason I was anticipating this movie at all. Will Smith's more recent movie decisions have left a bad taste in my mouth in regards to his acting credibility. From his cameo in "Winter's Tale," to the god-awful movie with his son "After Earth," he just hasn't been bringing the same flavor we all knew him for; however, Will wasn't the only one that needed to bring his A-game in this. Margot Robbie is a brand new face that acted well in a role written for a know-nothing model, so I needed to see if it was just the perfect part for her, or if she actually had some skill. Luckily, both of the main actors were damn near flawless in this. The role of a con-man is perfect for Will Smith, he can (and did) use his charm and bravado to sell the entire audience on whatever game he was trying to play. Margot Robbie showed me that she could be more than an attractive girl, that can use a convincing accent. She played a more gullible protege con, while remaining to seem elegant, and graceful through out the run time. In an effort to not be out-shined by the two A-listers, the supporting cast brought their game up to a level that kept everyone at their best.

Final Verdict: Rent it Some major story problems significantly hold this picture back from greatness, but the actors and cinematography bring this movie up a couple of notches. If you were wondering about the two future members of the "Suicide Squad," I would say it is safe to assume they will be great in the movie.