When a pair of supercops (Dwayne Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson) fall victim to their own airborne arrogance, responsible desk jockey Allen Gamble (Will Ferrell) and his hotheaded partner Terry Hoitz (Mark Wahlberg) must step up to the plate to keep the streets safe. Taking on a complex case of financial fraud, the cops look to a shady moneyman (Steve Coogan) for answers, only to a find a wall of bruisers (including Ray Stevenson) and criminals out to block their questioning. Coming to grips with this impossible case, Terry and Allen grow to respect each other, dealing with past insecurities and office pranks while they try to maintain a sense of law enforcement composure.
With McKay and Ferrell in command, there's a certain expectation in place. These guys aren't ready for any drastic artistic detours just yet, still stuck blissfully in the weirdo comedy realm, interested solely in generating waves of laughter. However, it appears there are two sides to the goofballery: the more polished pinch of "Talladega Nights" and the scattered joke shotgun of "Anchorman." "The Other Guys" (IMDb listing) definitely registers on the "Anchorman" scale of monkey business, with the production throwing anything against the wall to see what sticks.
From the opening titles, it's clear that McKay has done his homework figuring out ways to pants the traditions of the genre, which typically encourage raging car chases, thunderous shootouts, and macho banter. "The Other Guys" turns up the volume on the inanity, staging action beats with an eye toward overkill to sufficiently extract the intended satire and work in a little of its own lunacy, arranging a complex plot of deception for Terry and Allen as they shred New York City and, more often, their dignity.
"The Other Guys" is a big silly creation with a lot of pep, but lacks considerably in the focus department. The grab bag style of jesting works wonders for the opening hour, with our heroes coming to grips with their police responsibilities and combustible communication skills. Once the pairing is solidified, McKay drags the movie out longer than it needs to be, winding the picture in stunts and exposition to such a degree, the film becomes exactly what it's satirizing. There's a wheezy mood to the feature that hinders its bellylaugh count, leading to a comedic desperation that results in a patchwork quilt of a movie, with jokes and jabs stitched together haphazardly.
The madness is well executed by the cast, with Ferrell and Wahlberg making for a marvelous comedic duo. Ferrell's lounging around his customary weirdness and decibel level, but that's always good for a few giggles, especially as such a gullible character. Better is Wahlberg, who slips into the straight man role with shocking ease, making a wonderful neurotic wall for McKay to bounce craziness off of. The boys carry the picture superbly, backed by a solid support effort, including Michael Keaton as an exhausted, TLC-quoting police captain (and part-time Bed Bath & Beyond manager) and Eva Mendes as Allen's gorgeous wife -- a fact he pays little attention to, while Terry can't stop staring. Of course, McKay's casting eye isn't perfect, with Damon Wayans Jr. and Rob Riggle receiving yawns and eye-rolls as blowhard precinct rivals, straining hard to steal scenes, but always coming up short.
"The Other Guys" is happily boisterous and always ready to entertain, but the effect wears off eventually, a feeling accelerated the more McKay reaches randomly to provide filler (Allen recalling his days as a college pimp named Gator is a DOA subplot emblematic of the scattered direction). Covering the action basics the Michael Bays of the industry have turned into dreary formula, "The Other Guys" has enough on its plate to sustain the jokes and noogies, offering plenty of laughs, but little panache in the editorial department.
Filmfodder Grade: B-
]]>Tim (Paul Rudd) is a financial wizard looking for his big corporate break. Hoping to impress his boss (Bruce Greenwood), Tim finds the perfect opportunity to join the inner managerial circle, when he's asked to prove his worth at a monthly dinner where the suits bring idiots as their guests, encouraging a night of mockery. Tim's sensitive girlfriend, Julie (Stephanie Szostak), disapproves, but the lackey can't turn down the invitation, especially after happening upon Barry (Steve Carell) by accident. A nervous architect of mouse dioramas with a compulsion to screw up any situation with his earnest behavior, Barry is the perfect choice for the gathering of morons. However, the more Tim gets to know his dinner date, the more he questions his decision to join the cruel party.
An update of the 1998 Francis Verber comedy, "The Dinner Game," "Dinner for Schmucks" attempts to funnel all that farcical French force into an American arena, where stupidity is often regarded as a form of tragedy. Taking directorial command is Jay Roach, who appears to have a firm grasp on silly behavior, having guided the "Austin Powers" franchise and a few of the "Meet the Parents" pictures. Roach is an odd man for the job, despite his comedy pedigree, as "Schmucks" requires a slightly devious mind that can work a tone hovering somewhere between merciless and affectionate. Roach only appears to be interested in sympathy, making the feature an uneven mess of bellylaughs and concern.
When "Schmucks" does dare to be funny, the cast is right there to summon the laughs through wise performances that tune into the picture's sporadic chaos. Rudd plays his umpteenth straight man here, but he's comfortable in the role, providing a welcome center of disbelief as Tim observes Barry and his dim-bulb sincerity, which often takes the form of a runaway train. Carell kills as the main moron, swallowing most of his semi-cynical, deadpan delivery to monkey masterfully, making Barry this ultimate machine of good intentions pointed in all the wrong directions. There's pure hilarity to be had when he winds all the way up.
Also amusing is Jemaine Clement as a womanizing, animalistic artist out to score Julie when Tim drops the ball, and Zach Galifianakis, who pops up as Barry's rival, a vicious IRS man who believes he's in possession of mind control. Actress Lucy Punch also hits a few high notes in a brief supporting turn as Tim's former one-night-stand-turned-obsessed-stalker. When Roach allows the movie to kick back and survey the destruction, the cast positively floats along, gleefully slopping around the silly business like unleashed kids on the first day of summer vacation.
Feeding the impulse to care about Tim and Barry, Roach lets all the air out of the film, dragging out the antics for far too long. The sympathetic strain of the picture is useless; a more skillful filmmaker could've easily found a way to ground the characters in emotional authenticity without slamming the brakes to tap for syrup. There's too much swirling around the film, from characters to backstory, and Roach can't handle the workload. The disorder leaves "Dinner for Schmucks" clogged up with needless distractions, electing to table the laughs for later. Now that's stupid.
Filmfodder Grade: B-
]]>A CIA operative with a loving husband and a peaceful life, Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) is called into duty late one afternoon to deal with a boastful Russian defector. Calling out Salt as a covert Russian spy planted in America to take part in an uprising, the man triggers something within the woman that sends her on the run. Chased by her fellow agents (including Liev Schreiber and Chiwetel Ejiofor) throughout Washington D.C., Salt swiftly transforms into a sleek lethal weapon, capable of infiltrating any building and toppling any army. With a plan to assassinate the Russian President revealed, all eyes are on Salt, who suits up for an assault of indeterminate national loyalty, desperate to protect her clueless husband from harm.
Marking his return to the genre that served him well in the 1990s, director Phillip Noyce takes command of "Salt." Much like his work on the Jack Ryan adventures "Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger," Noyce again delves into matters of government espionage and betrayals, with special attention paid to paranoia. The difference here is the screenplay by Kurt Wimmer, noted craftsman of noisy malarkey ("Ultraviolet," "Law Abiding Citizen"), who endows "Salt" with a baroque action mentality, unleashing the film in the early going, insisting it never let up until the end credits.
The snowballing attitude of Wimmer’s writing is satisfying, but the details here are entirely on the far-fetched side. This is not a film of logic, but of movement, doing whatever it can to keep Salt on the run. Noyce’s action beats are inspired, imagining Salt as a tennis ball bounced in every single direction, tossed around cars and buildings as she stomps her way through waves of government goons, dodging bullets in a James Bond fashion as her combat skills and methods of disguise are put to the test. Realism isn’t the point, only thrills, which might leave more unprepared moviegoers cross-eyed as Salt rockets through Washington with the type of danger-avoidance skills typically assigned to Bugs Bunny. While the hyper-cartoon nature of "Salt" is disappointing and a little obnoxious, the film preserves its appeal by rarely dwelling on the details.
Is Salt a Russian spy? The picture provides a compelling depiction of the character’s predicament while coyly tinkering with her motivation, stretched out over the entire picture to keep the audience guessing. Jolie is a sharp choice for the puzzling role, blessed with a physicality that makes her pass for a punch-happy, raven-haired action hero and a sympathetic soldier. Leaping around the frame, Jolie makes a fabulous impression. Without much of a dimensional character to work with, the actress turns Salt into a feral beast of a warrior, able to defend herself from any threat while maintaining perfectly glossed lips. "Salt" has a tendency to get lost in the mayhem, but Jolie does an excellent job keeping the picture alert and compelling.
"Salt" steamrolls right on through to the end, which sets up a sequel and possible franchise for the character in a crass manner. A second helping wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world, but for it to cook properly, a screenwriter with some appreciation for gravity would be a great place to start. "Salt" is an exciting picture, but it’s a hollow experience, spinning madly to hold attention, forgoing the intriguing weight of a contemplative thriller to make a commotion with a disarming action icon.
Filmfodder Grade: B-
]]>"Inception" (IMDb listing) is Nolan's Fat Man mind-bomb. It's a lavishly byzantine thriller, dripping with layers upon layers of subconscious excavation, attempting to wrap viewers in a heist-like adventure to help swallow the complex dreamscape machinations. It's a bold, stunning feature of impossible technical virtuosity. It also has the tendency to be about as emotionally stimulating as a college lecture.
Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a mental "extractor," plugging into foreign minds through "shared dreaming" to retrieve items hidden deep within the folds of the subconscious. With Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), an evasive businessman who's heir to a financial kingdom, Dom is handed a difficult target to infect, requiring the services of a team to help him through the entangled dream world. With "point man" Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), "architect" Ariadne (Ellen Page), "forger" Eames (Tom Hardy), and "tourist" Saito (a barely intelligible Ken Watanabe), the group slips into their sleeping minds to manufacture a way to retrieve what's being kept inside of a safe in Fischer's head. For Dom, the job is especially difficult, with torturous memories and appearances from his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) helping to complicate the job at hand, placing the group in immense danger as new levels of the subconscious are accessed.
What is reality? It's a question "Inception" delights in picking apart, as Nolan forges a film directly devoted to expanding the finer points of perception. Ambitious doesn't even begin to describe the picture, and it's always interesting to observe the filmmaker working his way through a troublesome, strenuous concept, with "Inception" a kissing cousin to Nolan's 2000 picture, the time-twisting "Memento." Nolan's masterful with this type of psychological bath, delighted with the opportunity to bend reality and pull his writing inside out, manipulating screen elements to create a puzzling whole. "Inception" allows him 150 minutes to create as much uncertainty as he can.
Of course, there's also something approximating an action movie to tend to. Nolan conducts an explosive symphony of the unreal, setting Dom and the gang loose in an artificial world where anything is possible. Diving through levels of lucid dreaming, the spectacular highlights begin to pile up with astonishing usage of complex and superbly detailed special effects. They bring to life the gravity-defying work of the team, which jumps further into Fischer's head to elongate time (mere seconds in the real world lasts hours, months, and years in the dream world). Despite the screenplay's commitment to abstract arenas of confrontation, the visual elements here are expansive and inventive, taking cues from "The Matrix " and M.C. Escher to create a contorted enigma on a majestic widescreen scale.
To keep "Inception" at least approachable, Nolan maintains a steady influx of exposition to clarify the dreamland surroundings. This is a complex and charged feature, but it's also unbelievably verbose, electing to explain every trip to the brain in laborious detail. The chatter has a nasty way of disrupting the flow of the feature, with much, if not all of the first half devoted to discussion and uninspired explanation, keeping the picture dangerously monotone as everything is spilled in a clunky fashion that betrays the imposingly esoteric visual impression. Nolan aims to position viewers in a place of comfortable confusion, but to achieve that difficult posture, he robs "Inception" of outrageous pace and invigorating character transitions. It drains the story of emotional involvement (Dom's red-faced struggle with Mal is key here, but it doesn't reverberate as intended). Every character is saddled with nonstop questions in this script. After an hour of unbroken chatter, it seems as though Nolan might've fallen asleep as well.
"Inception" is a challenging film with a dynamic range of illusions, but it's utterly cold to the touch, paranoid about losing the audience, yet staying aloof to the bitter end. Nolan and puzzle purists should have a blast with the sheer intricacy of the film, but to anyone else about to strap in for what seems like a rocket sled of delicious bewilderment, keep in mind that "Inception" often prefers articulation to demonstration.
Filmfodder Grade: B
]]>Thrown onto a threatening alien planet, Royce (Brody) doesn't immediately comprehend where he is or why he's there. Also planted here are soldiers (Including Alice Braga and Oleg Taktarov), a doctor (Topher Grace), troublemakers (Walton Goggins and Danny Trejo), and a member of the Yakuza (Louis Ozawa Changchien). Studying their surroundings, Royce surmises the gang has been dropped inside of a game preserve, targets for a mysterious pack of hunting aliens on the prowl for human trophies. Winding through the arduous terrain, the group deals with issues of leadership and trust as the vicious Predators draw near, with Royce searching not only for a way to defeat his new enemy, but also for a ride off the deadly planet.
A box office smash and a critical step in the career of Arnold Schwarzenegger, 1987's "Predator" is widely considered these days to be a classic of action cinema. Its sequels are most certainly not. In fact, after two disastrous "Aliens vs. Predator" motion pictures, the heat-sensing thrill was pretty much gutted from the franchise, with any hope for the alien character to reign triumphantly once again squandered on filmmakers incapable of gruesome imagination.
Enter Robert Rodriguez, who assumes a shepherding role for "Predators," questing to get beastly matters back on track. He works from a script that understands the need for graphic violence, salty language, and burly men brandishing city-block-sized guns. "Predators" returns the franchise to the basics, once again observing an anxious group in a jungle setting, slowly coming to grips with the monster hunters stalking the area.
Cleverly, Rodriguez and director Nimrod Antal ("Vacancy," "Armored") rework the premise to shake Earth out of the equation, moving the action to a neutral planet the Predators use as a testing ground, sending packs of three at a time to hunt and kill whatever they've decided to parachute in. Outside of the fact that the new environment provides exotic, gorgeous locations (a mix of Hawaii and Texas) to survey, the fresh surroundings offer diverse elements of menace, as it's not only Predators after the team, but the flora and fauna as well.
For the first half, Antal mines the mystery superbly, cautiously developing the brutes and their weaknesses, bonding them together as they search for the upper hand. The dialogue is thickly cut and meaty (Brody growls his way through the film, barely containing his excitement), providing a righteous shot of testosterone that matches the original film's brawn. Even Braga gets in on the gun-stroking tension. Playing with primary colors, "Predators" nails a satisfying stride of violence and sleuthing, as the team comes to understand the Predator threat, looking for any possible way to defeat them.
Laurence Fishburne joins the festivities midway through the film, playing a disturbed survivor of the Predator hunts who's made a home inside a derelict spaceship. A whispering nutcase, the character is here to remind our heroes why they need to exit the planet as soon as possible, but Antal lingers on the protracted insanity, puncturing the pace of the film to stick to a subplot that adds little to the story. It's a longish diversion the film never quite recovers from, despite a final act that brings out the Predators in full force, hacking and blasting their way through what's left of the team. The creature work is expectedly seamless, modifying the monsters to represent three distinct tiers of hunter, including the "classic" design that slapped Arnold around 23 years ago. The multi-jawed ghouls aren't in the film for an extended amount of time, but when they hit, they hit magnificently. I only wish Antal and Rodriguez would've torched the chloroform second act to streamline the adventure.
Despite pacing problems, "Predators" is a wildly entertaining picture that bends the franchise back to more captivating quandaries, erasing much of the bad taste left behind by previous installments. It took a few too many years to reach this point, but thanks to Robert Rodriguez, the Predators have finally been restored to their original tribal roar.
Filmfodder Grade: B
]]>After a marriage proposal from Edward (Robert Pattinson) promises a chance for everlasting love and some needed time between the sheets with her chaste vampire boyfriend, Bella (Kristen Stewart) faces some hard domestic choices while contemplating life as bloodsucker. Standing in the way is Jacob (Taylor Lautner), Bella's irritable werewolf pal, who's desperately in love with the drowsy girl, yet can't turn her attention away from Edward for very long. As queen vampire Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard, thankfully replacing Rachelle Lefevre) prepares a legion of "newborns" for an attack on Forks with help from drone Riley (a vapid Xavier Samuel), Edward and Jacob must put aside their differences to protect Bella, who's caught between the humanity of the werewolves and the mystery of the vampires, with her future happiness on the line.
"Eclipse" should've been a thrill ride of a feature film. After all, Slade is handed perhaps the most volatile and cleanly mapped novel from author Stephenie Meyer's imagination, while building off Weitz' momentum, which propelled "New Moon" to an astronomical box office gross. "Eclipse" is a combat film of sorts, with a massive swing of romantic combustibility to tinker with, while allowing for potentially compelling character depth, as the Cullen clan is probed beyond the stares and lip-licking they were permitted in the previous features. Yet, the new film is a heartless, clumsy motion picture, returning matters to the pedestrian level of director Catherine Hardwicke, who worked deaf, dumb, and blind manufacturing the initial slab of "Twilight."
An erratic visual stylist, Slade ("Hard Candy," "30 Days of Night") tries mightily to color within the "Twilight" lines, but his grasp on the material's "Sweet Valley High" style of romantic aroma is tenuous, and he's unable to shake the actors out of their melodramatic comas. What should've been a heroic film of affection and protection is reduced to a dawdling, exposition-heavy slog, retracing several plot points from the first two films while barely making any headway of its own. Slade has his trusty cinematographic urges and the most action-intensive script of the three films, but the creative effort is indistinguishable -- the director is comfortable in studio employee mode, doing nothing to keep the performances from becoming tic-heavy embarrassments and the action a crunching blur of suspect special effects. Slade can't tame "Eclipse" or find an artful tone, instead crudely filling the film with a broken iPod of tuneless soundtrack cuts to provide atmosphere, while grinding the story down through a tedious routine of swoon and quarrel.
Love it or hate it, but "New Moon" maintained an intriguing sense that something epic loomed on the horizon for these characters. "Eclipse" turns that anticipation into unintentional comedy.
The storytelling's concrete boots are one thing, but "Eclipse" also manages to make Bella one of the most reprehensible characters of the film year, and yes, I've seen "Sex and the City 2." Nursing feelings of affection for both Jacob (he of gym rat abs and intense body heat) and Edward (he of locks and access to diamonds), Bella doesn't play the turmoil sly. Instead, the stammering high school graduate plays her monsters off each other, silently delighting in the war of flared-nostrils and graceless acting she's created. Bella often snuggles up Jacob in front of Edward during "Eclipse," making one feel sorry for the sparkly vampire, who wants to take a wife and spend eternity with his beloved girl. While she suffers through half-hearted commitment issues the script merely employs to display Lautner's body and Pattinson's pout. Considering her status as the main character of the franchise and the keeper of its heart, it's interesting to see each film make Bella into an even bigger creep than previously imagined, with "Eclipse" turning the indecisive heroine into a mean-spirited provocateur unworthy of all the attention lavished on her.
Honestly, I have no idea why any of these creatures make such a fuss over this dead-eyed, dithering bore of a woman. We're talking werewolves and vampires. By now, you'd think the franchise would provide a decent reason as to why these fools put so much on the line for a girl who can barely wait to get out of her boyfriend's line of sight before cuddling with his rival. The delicate dance of romantic one-upmanship is given Crayola shadings by Slade, who turns the romantic trio into a Bermuda Triangle of relationship absurdity.
Hitting up "Eclipse" for Howard and her interpretation of the wicked Victoria? I'm sorry to report that the character has been reduced to a 10-minute cameo, with "Eclipse" spending more time with Riley and the growing vampire army. What a waste of a perfectly ridiculous red fright wig (heck, everyone seems to be ornately bewigged in the film). An appearance from Dakota Fanning and her mincing Volturi gang is also blessedly short. Without Michael Sheen to anchor the majesty of the fanged star chamber, the group is nothing more than a cruddy Cosplay effort, with Fanning about as intimidating as a Wet Seal cashier. Another new character is Bree, a tween newborn Edward's family takes pity on. Jodelle Ferland brings little to the role besides an unconvincing reading of fear, with the character's very introduction a mystery Slade isn't aware he needs to solve.
A few more helpings of "Twilight" remain (the final book, "Breaking Dawn," is being divided into two pictures), leaving the rather anticlimactic ambiance of "Eclipse" puzzling. The climax is a deafening clash of vampires and werewolves, with severed diamond limbs and vampiric gymnastics soaring around the frame, but a genuine build up to a prolonged grand finale arriving in 2011? Not on Slade's mind. It's for the best, really, as any sense of hope appears to hurt the "Twilight" saga more than it helps.
Filmfodder grade: D
]]>Crashing into each other inside a Wichita airport, Roy (Tom Cruise) and June (Cameron Diaz) spark up a peculiar chemistry, ending up on the same flight home. On the plane, Roy reveals himself to be a particularly skilled secret agent wrongly accused of going rogue, reluctantly taking June with him as he sets out to protect an energy-sustaining battery created by a teen genius (Paul Dano). Freaking out, June attempts to escape on several occasions and return to her normal life, but Roy's actions have triggered encounters with assassins and government agents (including Peter Sarsgaard and Viola Davis), leaving the frightened woman with no choice but to trust this mystery man. Chased around the globe, Roy fights to protect the battery, while June grows fond of her guardian, despite his shadowy history and inability to stay out of trouble.
"Knight and Day" has all the trimmings of a successful summer blockbuster, taking great care to organize intricate stunts, working a plot that encourages global warfare, and submits two attractive stars with an assured click of chemistry. It's hard to argue with the package, but Mangold doesn't seem to possess the proper vision for the actioner. The director is caught on the edge of teetering tonality, which touches on light rom-com basics of bickering and googly eyes, while filling the film with numerous shootouts and explosions. It should be free-throw stuff for any director, but the competing moods confuse Mangold. "Knight and Day" doesn't snowball into a rollicking good time; instead, it only energizes in small doses, failing to connect the pieces and build momentum.
Mangold bungles a few imperative comedic moments, most centered on Roy as he attempts to retrieve June from the clutches of evil -- a grasp she isn't exactly itching to leave at times, out of fear of Roy's unpredictable behavior. Cars flip and explode, bullets whiz around the frame, and the actors look suitably lathered. The elements do find a way to form a thrilling whole when leaning on Cruise to sell the outlandish set-pieces. Always a dedicated actor, Cruise throws himself right into the heat of the action, slamming into cars and flying through the air with A-list grace, doing his damnedest to create excitement wherever he can. Diaz is less impressive, with June mostly standing aside and squealing, but for what the role is, the actress makes what she can out of it. However, "Knight and Day" is far more engaging when Cruise slips into fractured hero mode, creating a fantastic sense of the impossible while keeping camp out of the equation.
The screenplay is more irritating than enthralling, with obvious villains and a cutesy method of globetrotting without actually covering the movement (June is frequently drugged, waking up in alien locations while Roy fends off the baddies). Also frustrating is June's lack of protest in the early going, basically sucked into a series of life or death adventures without ever stopping to ask why. June's gullibility is a bit of a cheat to get the characters into increasingly heated circumstances, but her reluctance to question anything in front of her comes off as ridiculous, even in a film that embraces the absurd now and again.
Growing increasingly labored the more it attempts to create suspense around the whereabouts of the battery, "Knight and Day" wheezes to a closer instead of delivering a fantastic killing blow. Of course, the rest of the film doesn't exactly promise a heart-stopping conclusion, but it's easy to feel some sense of hope when Tom Cruise springs into action, back in a genre he consistently elevates with his pinballing bravado.
Filmfodder Grade: C
]]>In the year 1954, U.S. Marshal Teddy Daniels (Leonardo DiCaprio) and new partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo) are making their way to Shutter Island, home of the Ashcliffe Hospital for the Criminally Insane. There to investigate the disappearance of a particularly violent offender, Daniels is instead drawn to the peculiarities of the hospital’s chief physician, Dr. Cawley (Ben Kingsley), and the secrets hidden amongst the patients. Suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder brought on by the death of his wife (Michelle Williams) and his time liberating Dachau during WWII, Daniels is already at a breaking point, finding his frustration with the staff’s lack of answers intensified as the island is walloped by a hurricane, making exit impossible.
“Shutter Island” is a gothic mystery piece, playing into Scorsese’s encyclopedic knowledge of film history; it’s somewhat of a Quentin Tarantino-type jag for the director, paying homage to the horror and psychological chillers of his childhood. Adapted by screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis (“Pathfinder”) from the novel by Dennis Lehane, the film is a dense, multi-character stroll into the screaming corners of the brain, leisurely wading into a mystery of minimal importance to support the wrathful confusion boiling inside of Daniels. It’s not a horror film or a whodunit. Heck, it’s not even much of a big screen riddle. “Shutter Island” merely pumps disease through its circulatory system, tracking the erosion of a mind fried by unspeakable trauma, set loose inside a loony bin where everyone has a special reservoir of psychosis waiting to be emptied.
The void disorients Scorsese to a certain extent, as he works full-steam to lend the picture the aura of a crackin’ genre picture, teeming with banked turns of suspense. The effort is appreciable, with haunting screen details and concentrated, Technicolor-flirtatious cinematography from Robert Richardson (making the feature a future film school favorite), not to mention masterful editorial trickery from longtime Scorsese collaborator Thelma Schoonmaker. At its best, “Shutter Island” is a multifaceted demon of a picture, piecing together Daniels’s burgeoning mental breakdown through a precise architecture of confusion, rippling with an assortment of film tricks that permit the viewer a front-row seat to insanity. These specific segments are stupendous, representing some of the tightest, most surreal craftsmanship from Scorsese since his thickly-bearded “Taxi Driver” heyday.
The mix of the macabre and the mental could work with a restrictive running time, forcing Scorsese to tighten the copious amounts of exposition presented in the film, which, in turn, would dial up the suspense immensely. Something around 80 minutes would be perfect for “Shutter Island” to dutifully expand and retract. The film actually runs 135 minutes, falling into a repetitive grind of explanation to fully flesh out the rain-slicked ordeal. There’s too little gas in the narrative tank to sustain such an extravagant running time, leaving much of “Shutter Island” frustratingly desperate to fill the gaps, with some help from a diverse supporting cast (including Patricia Clarkson, Jackie Earle Haley, Ted Levine, Emily Mortimer, and Max von Sydow).
Sure to be controversial is the conclusion of the picture, which some might label a twist ending to cut to the chase. I don’t agree. “Shutter Island” isn’t about the plunge of the knife, but the shape of the blade, studying something obvious to most moviegoers without explicitly stating the reality of the situation until the very end. Scorsese doesn’t hit the viewer with a shovel, but draws the curious in with pronounced strands of dementia, leaving the final thunderstruck reveal for Daniels, not the audience. It’s more of a natural confirmation than a rug-pulling twist, ruined immensely by the verbal diarrhea that floods the finale, where the script feels the urge to explain the obvious in painstaking detail (Scorsese actually includes a chart to help sort things out), adding useless minutes and about four endings too many to the picture.
The ornate visual design of “Shutter Island” and its various tributes to the cinema of yesteryear make it ideal porn for film fanatics (and I assume most film critics), who would be wise to comb through this gorgeous picture for every last frame of poison. Surprisingly, “Shutter Island” leaves much to be desired, limping around this mad world instead of running at the usual Scorsese-encouraged full gallop.
Filmfodder Grade: C+]]>
A high school student with dyslexia problems, an abusive stepfather, and a strange comfort with water, Percy Jackson (Logan Lerman) doesn’t quite have a grasp on his potential. When an encounter with a demon nearly kills him, satyr Grover (Brandon T. Jackson) and centaur Chiron (Pierce Brosnan, pulling off the half-man/half-horse bit gracefully) reveal to the bewildered young man that he’s the son of Poseidon (Kevin McKidd), and that trouble has come to Earth because someone has stolen Zeus’s thunderbolt, urging the Gods of Olympus into war if the bolt is not returned. Coming to grips with his powers and this new world, Percy heads across the country with Grover and demigod Annabeth (Alexandra Daddario) to the underworld of Hades, hoping to retrieve his kidnapped mortal mother (Catherine Keener) and solve the thunderbolt mystery, saving the world in the process.
Adapted from the popular book series by author Rick Riordan, “Percy Jackson” has all the working parts necessary for a rousing fantasy franchise, using the golden “Harry Potter” template of sensitive teen development and fantastical sights to help butter the bread. It’s all so familiar by now, leaving the true potential of the material in the hands of a mighty director capable of avoiding easy comparisons to the Hogwarts juggernaut, which is why Columbus is an inspired choice from a safe distance. Here’s a man who knows a thing or two about pubescent troubles, complex visual effects, and works well with actors, bringing out age-appropriate performances with little in the way of obvious manipulation.
Unfortunately, Columbus’s instincts fail him with “Percy Jackson,” which pushes and shoves its way to illuminate acts of amazement instead of allowing the viewer to come to these same conclusions. The problem lies mainly in the direction, which encourages the semi-young cast to broadly bray astonishment at visual effects that were laid in months later, with Lerman’s entire performance angled around his numerous “woooooah!” reactions. The whole cast is guilty of overplaying their responses, as Columbus urges everyone to go bug-eyed and tongue-crazy at every turn of the script, ruining the specialness of the various effects. Why even show up when Columbus has already extracted his needed levels of reaction from the characters? The “Harry Potter” films were more measured in this regard. They were still pushy, but permitted a few moments of genuine awe before Columbus started stroking his own wand.
The performances aren’t inspiring, from Lerman’s grating hyperactivity to Jackson’s jive-talkin’ sidekick character. Better is the supporting cast the trio meets as they speed across the country on the hunt for magical blue pearls that will grant quick access out of Hades. Uma Thurman has a nice glammy turn as Medusa, who Percy fights off using a clickable pen/sword device and the power of reflection stolen from the back of his iPod. Steve Coogan shows up as Hades, who takes the form of either a winged demon of scorching hellfire or a burned-out classic rocker -- a predictable visual gag that leans for cleverness in a film with little use for such extravagance. Rosario Dawson is aptly cast as temptress Persephone, ushering in some needed sex appeal to combat the chaste teen adventuring.
Truthfully, all the actors are merely action figures to weave around the visual effects, with our heroes battling a fire-breathing Hydra, a hulking Minotaur, and Medusa’s stone-forming gaze to liven up the road trip premise. Also adding visual heft is Percy’s control of water and his winged Chuck Taylors, taking him skyward when the moment calls for flight.
Greek mythology is an amusing starting point for “Percy Jackson,” with the material merging famous landmarks with earthbound locations (e.g. The Parthenon in Nashville, Olympus via the Empire State Building, and Hades in Los Angeles) in a playful manner, along with a towering depiction of godly presence. It’s more “Clash of the Titans” than scholastic, but hey, it may just turn younger viewers into fans of this stuff, which is always a good thing.
Taking its time to land a comfortable ending, “Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief” is intended to kick-start a new franchise, in the vein of “Harry Potter” and the recently revived “Chronicles of Narnia.” Thankfully, Columbus doesn’t end the picture with a cliffhanger, but he doesn’t exactly inspire much hope for future installments. I trust the filmmaker, if faced with an opportunity for a second chapter, will remain relaxed enough to leave the awe to the audience and let the actors take care of the rest through body language.
Filmfodder Grade: C]]>
It’s Valentine’s Day in Los Angeles, and the locals are gearing up for all the romantic potential of the day. Florist Reed (Ashton Kutcher) has proposed to hesitant girlfriend Morley (Jessica Alba); schoolteacher Julia (Jennifer Garner) is hoping to surprise her doctor boyfriend (Patrick Dempsey), who she thinks is away on business; football legend Sean (Eric Dane) is considering the next step of his career after a bad breakup; Holden (Bradley Cooper) and Kate (Julia Roberts) bond over a long plane ride; Liz (Anne Hathaway) struggles to maintain her moonlighting gig as a phone sex employee as she enters a new relationship with Midwestern boy Jake (Topher Grace); sports reporter Kelvin (Jamie Foxx) snuggles up to publicist Kara (Jessica Biel) on a day she openly bemoans; Grace (Emma Roberts) considers losing her virginity before college; and Estelle (Shirley MacLaine) and Edgar (Hector Elizondo) encounter a brush with infidelity after 50 years of marriage.
“Valentine’s Day” features a plethora of subplots and a cast of plenty, and the film feels fittingly endless. Considering how much this picture dances around from place to place, juggling four emotional speeds at once, it’s astonishing how quickly Marshall’s comedic death grip can render a slam-dunk concept utterly lifeless. I suppose if you’ve already seen the dramatically bonkers “Georgia Rule,” maybe the curdled execution of “Valentine’s Day” isn’t such a surprise.
Marshall sets out to mold a benevolent movie on the unpredictable nature of love, and how the holiday is set up strictly to remind people of their romantic personal inventory, often in the cruelest manner possible. It’s a bizarre volley of woe and bliss, which is suitably tangled up in Katherine Fugate’s breathless screenplay, shuttling a horde of characters around the City of Angels as they spar with fate. It’s a sitcom script, with every role given a singular emotional beat; the writing seems more attracted to caricature than realism, which is precisely why the film it’s blatantly ripping off, 2003’s “Love Actually,” was a tonal whirlwind marvel. Fugate invents undemanding lay-ups of meet cutes and Hollywood neuroses to stitch together her screenplay, with lasting, morally introspective characters getting in the way of the syrup.
Of course, if it’s simple-minded and open to broad comedic cutaways, it’s catnip to Marshall. More an observer than a leader, the director barely breaks a sweat with “Valentine’s Day,” keeping the characters implausibly riled up while he sorts out his beloved Borscht Belt routines. Strangely, while the film is reaching out to the audience for a hug, almost none of the characters deserve such a warm reception. “Valentine’s Day” deals with infidelity and broken hearts, but it’s all superficial exploration, creating grating personalities that fall into loathsome, smug Los Angeles stereotypes. Marshall tries to warm up the picture with travelogue cinematography and snippets of babies kissing babies, but the bitterness is hard to scrape away, including a weirdly hateful attitude toward Jake and his Indiana origins. It’s hard to sympathize with these characters when most act like total irredeemable boobs, while the rest only remain onscreen for mere minutes.
And laughs? Forget it. Marshall’s idea of wit is to pump Foreigner’s “Feels Like the First Time” while one of the virgin characters prepares for their first sexual odyssey. Casting Taylor Swift in a small role as a smitten teen only accelerates the headache, with the embryonic singer given free range to test out her deplorable improvisational skills.
Save for Garner and her possibly demonic skill of making any line of dialogue sincere, “Valentine’s Day” plods along, assuming it’s imparting critical lessons on life and love. Instead, it reduces romance to a four-letter word. Save your money and valuable time (the picture runs 122 minutes) and treat your loved one to an exceptional Valentine’s Day experience. Handing precious life and coin over to Garry Marshall feels downright perverse by comparison.
Filmfodder Grade: D]]>
Hearing of his brothers brutal murder at the hands of a wild beast, Lawrence Talbot (Benicio Del Toro, woefully miscast) has returned to his family estate in Blackmoor to investigate, reuniting with his estranged father, John (a sleepwalking Anthony Hopkins), and consoling Gwen (Emily Blunt), his brothers fiance. During an attack by the vicious creature, Lawrence is bitten, soon cursed to become a Wolfman with every full moon. Called in to thwart the growing monster threat is Inspector Aberline (Hugo Weaving), who suspects Lawrence of evildoing when more bodies begin to pile up. Caught between the urges of his new animal instincts and his developing feelings for Gwen, Lawrence is forced to confront his savagery, which can only be stopped by true love or the taste of a silver bullet.
Movies spin out of control all the time. Its the nature of Hollywood, with all of its numerous idiotic opinions and positions of ruthless power. But how did Universal Studios, the birthplace of horror for goodness sake, screw up The Wolfman? Its seems a simple enough recipe: a Wolfman, unattainable love, a couple of full moons, and the long arm of the law. Boom, done. Bake until crisp, serves millions.
This Wolfman is a more complex endeavor. At least it once was, before Universal wrapped their paws around the picture, shaving it down to a 100-minute-long highlight reel of whatever Andrew Kevin Walker and David Self dreamed up in their screenplays. The Wolfman burns through its story in a hurry, eager to arrive at the bone-cracking transformation sequences to give chiller fans what they crave. Trouble is, the plot appears to be a heavily considered meditation on the dual nature of man and hostile familial devotion, making Lawrence a tortured soul cursed to ride out his worst nightmare of murder, carried away by his brutal prison of lycanthropy. The finished film only lightly touches on Lawrences curse and Johns cruelty, pushing aside coherent characterizations to make room for bloodshed and the business of being hairy.
The Wolfman isnt an action-packed picture, with only a small corner of the run time set aside to watch Lawrence rip bodies in half or snack on his victims. Whats here is memorably extreme, and the picture is certainly at its most virile when showcasing the Wolfman rampage, using a mix of outstanding make-up effects and lesser CG-enhanced monster mayhem, which assumes a major role in the transformation sequences. The film earns its R-rating with images of limb-snatching carnage, but most, if not all of these money shots are over before they receive a chance to sink in. Director Joe Johnston pushes the film along instead of lingering in the moment, which will surely disappoint monster movie fans looking for wall-to-wall Wolfman.
Were left with a Wolfman that sprints from scene to scene, picking up the basic narrative information as it goes, but little else. Johns maliciousness is vague at best, the romance between Lawrence and Gwen far-fetched and scarcely developed, and the oddball Gypsy fortune telling (embodied by Geraldine Chaplin) that struggles to explain monster motives is half-baked and quickly scrubbed away. Whats left is a gorgeously photographed (by Shelly Johnson) picture of imposing moonlit danger and ornate Victorian production polish, but no energizing cohesiveness. The Wolfman feels like its been gutted and sewn back together, stripped down to the basics to appeal to the widest, least discriminating audience. Its a lousy situation of bruised artistic accomplishment, leaving little in the film worthy of a rooftop howl.
Filmfodder Grade: D+]]>
Derek (Dwayne Johnson) is a minor league hockey titan who earns his nickname Tooth Fairy for the way he smashes into his opponents on the ice. A loudmouth cynic whos seen his own dreams crushed by injury, Derek spreads his bile to Tess (Destiny Whitlock), explaining to the six-year-old girl that theres no such thing as a Tooth Fairy, horrifying her mother/Dereks girlfriend, Carly (Ashley Judd). Summoned to the land of fairies for the crime of disbelief, Derek is fitted for wings and sent into service as a Tooth Fairy, under the guidance of bosses Lily (Julie Andrews) and Tracy (Stephen Merchant). On assignment to retrieve various loose teeth, armed with a magic pouch of tricks, Derek is required to consider real magic and the power of dreams as he furiously attempts to balance life as a fairy with his hockey hopes.
I blame The Game Plan for this junk. The Disney hit gave Johnson the confidence to take on more lucrative family entertainment, assuming this was his core demographic after all his action bonanzas fizzled at the box office. Fortunately, Tooth Fairy is not a Disney film, its a Fox release, meaning its simply idiotic and shoddily produced rather than maliciously sentimental. Overall, the movies share the same idea: ego-drenched sports hero finds salvation in the purity of kids. The twist here is magic, the fairy kind that lends the former Rock a pair of CG wings, dresses him up in powder blue silk pajamas, and has the former professional wrestler trading punchlines with a perennially regal Julie Andrews. Its a fantasy-comedy that shines a blinding slapstick spotlight on Johnson thats completely undeserved, but man-oh-man does the actor ever enjoy his ample screen time mugging like a lunatic for the camera.
The screenplay for Tooth Fairy is credited to five writers, which is an insane notion if one considers how banal the jokes are and how pre-digested the emotion is in the film. Its a feature built around the high-concept idea of a burly jerk sentenced to a fairy world, but theres nothing even remotely clever here to feast upon, blowing a perfect opportunity to razz the conventions of masculinity with a few puckish jokes that didnt involve Johnson making bug-eyed faces or subjecting himself to some sort of VFX humiliation. Perhaps I was expecting too much from something this unsophisticated and pun-crazy, but with Andrews and Merchant in supporting roles (Seth MacFarlane cameos, as does Billy Crystal, reminding the world that his eight-year-long exile from movies was justified), Tooth Fairy couldve made a few left turns to engage older viewers. The effort is always appreciated. Instead, the film remains in a comedy coma.
The plot is smudged Crayola, structured like every other family film around. Derek is mean, Derek learns some lessons, Derek is nice again -- its a terribly tedious road map the film follows without fail, hitting comedic beats anyone can see coming a mile away, while director Michael Lembeck (Santa Clause 3) kicks back and allows his star free rein to display whatever hacky bit of funny business he chooses. Your kids may spend 100 minutes enjoying what Tooth Fairy has to offer, but dont be surprised if they immediately request a bath afterwards. The stench of a Dwayne Johnson stinker can be overpowering even to the smallest noses.
Filmfodder Grade: D]]>
John Crowley (Brendan Fraser) is a harried businessman and father of two children stricken with Pompe disease, an affliction of muscle deterioration with an age expectancy of nine years. With critical birthdays on the horizon, Crowley decides to take a chance and pursue research scientist Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford), a renegade thinker in the field of Pompe with radical ideas on enzyme therapy. Promising money he doesnt necessarily have, Crowley talks Stonehill into a business venture, pushing the irascible scientist into research while he worries about the cash flow. With the clock ticking, Stonehill presents challenging theories, piquing the interest of pharmaceutical giants, who demand results practically overnight. With Stonehill feeling the heat during this demoralizing process, Crowley fights to maintain the face of Pompe, to keep the cure from becoming just another compromised drug on the market.
Based on a true story (from the book, The Cure, by Geeta Anand), Extraordinary Measures seems almost retro in its gentle approach. Its a medical drama with a human slant, engorged by director Tom Vaughn (he of the reprehensible What Happens in Vegas) to a friendly melodramatic tempo, making for a comforting matinee diversion. There are no extreme acts of violence, swearing is more decorative than punishing, and Pompe is depicted with a firm hand of respect, offering center stage to a medical situation thats never received this sort of spotlight. Extraordinary Measures is safe and ready for consumption, and while thats traditionally a recipe for mediocrity, the film avoids a severe case of the blahs due to its strong casting and the introduction of some cold-blooded business world reality.
To get a Pompe drug to market, Stonehill and Crowley arent just combating lab trial and error, theyre also forced to play a cruel game of financial dependence. The screenplay by Robert Nelson Jacobs balances the reality of fundraising with the heated interior battles between the Pompe men; the feature ventures into the chilling arena of drug promotion, as Crowley is desperate to keep the financial engine moving forward. Crowley and Stonehill face harsh compromise and boardroom humiliations, and they find their partnership strained and theories put prematurely to the test. Its a quest for the almighty dollar that the script doesnt shy away from, calmly introducing the unsavory elements of drug development into the flow, providing peculiar dramatic tension from an unexpected source.
Its not all unique storytelling challenges for Extraordinary Measures. The film doesnt keep away from a few saccharine tangents with Crowley and his family (wife Aileen is played by Keri Russell), and Fords Stonehill is an oddly one-note character of perpetual growl. Its a convincing performance of frustration, and Vaughn sells the stuffing out of the characters nonconformist attitude, but Stonehill remains an emotional question mark throughout the film. Its fantastic to see Ford in a role that bends his established screen persona, but theres little nuance to Stonehill that encourages a closer inspection from the audience.
Extraordinary Measures is far from perfect, but I was pulled into the journey of the Pompe drug, from heartland hopes to the leap-of-faith test trials. Its not a film staged in an Earth-shattering manner, merely coasting along on a gentle hum of featherweight medical and domestic urgency; its more pleasingly reassuring and solidly constructed than dynamic, reaching its emotional goals comfortably.
Filmfodder Grade: B-]]>
After God loses faith in humankind, he summons a swarm of destruction to wipe out Earth, with special attention placed on the unborn child of a truck stop waitress named Charlie (Adrianne Palicki, TVs Friday Night Lights). Michael (Paul Bettany) is a rogue archangel whos arrived to protect the fetus, making his way to Charlies remote location armed to the teeth. Corralling the locals (Dennis Quaid, Charles Dutton, Lucas Black), some patrons (including Kate Walsh), and a passer-by (Tyrese Gibson) into the fight, Michael and the gang turn the truck stop into a bunker, while waves of angels, demons, and plagues violently arrive, on the hunt for the baby. Fearing the arrival of rival archangel Gabriel (Kevin Durand), Michael pushes Charlie into labor, hoping whatever she gives birth to will be the key to stop the obliteration of humanity.
Legion marks the directorial debut of visual effects craftsman Scott Stewart, and the inexperience shows all the way through the motion picture. Legion is divided up into two parts: one half devoted to fancy effects depicting the evil angel onslaught, and the other set aside for a team of unlikable characters to endlessly drill exposition into the picture. The screenplay by Peter Schink and Stewart is one of the clumsiest, most awkward pieces of filmic writing Ive heard in a long time, clueless where to comfortably take this wild Armageddon premise. All these angels, machine guns, and B-list faces, and Legion ends up astronomically tiresome, teeming with idiotic dialogue bluntly performed by a limited cast visibly unable to compute if the material is high camp or gothic catnip.
Legion is slow and unnecessarily verbal, spending more time developing characters than getting down to machine-gun business. Perhaps its a budget issue (everyone knows angels are expensive), or maybe Stewart is just that green a filmmaker. Either way, Legion takes an eternity to go nowhere, occasionally stopping to stage an attack sequence or a gore moment. Its just not enough. Also lacking is the films religious overtones, which read more Marvel Comics than biblical. Here, the angels have metallic, bulletproof wings and blow holes in walls that leave the flaming outline of a cross -- not really the stuff one might find in the average King James. Stewart isnt out to offend, but the shortage of truly daring Jesus-fu is disappointing.
I ask, dear reader, what would you rather see: majestic angels tearing through the sky, raining fire from the heavens or acting-impaired Tyrese Gibson stumble through a lumbering monologue about his days as a shorty?
The problem with Scott Stewart? Hed rather watch Gibson.
Legion is dreadfully edited, seemingly lit by a single book of matches (its impossible to decode long stretches of the film), and bravely sets up a sequel in the finale. Something tells me itll take a miracle from heaven for that to happen. Its a dopey horror-action mishmash, but Legion doesnt quite understand its own potential. Instead of causing divine damage, the movie commits the ultimate sin of tedium.
Filmfodder Grade: D]]>
A bright, inquisitive 14-year-old girl, Susie Salmon (Saoirse Ronan) is ready to embark on her first romance with a sensitive classmate, eager to leap into womanhood. On her way home from school, Susie is cajoled into visiting an underground hideaway built by neighborhood loner, George (Stanley Tucci). Drawn into his trap and brutally murdered, Susies spirit enters a colorful purgatory where she hopes to console her grieving family. Parents Jack (Mark Wahlberg) and Abigail (Rachel Weisz), are left a wreck, with boozy grandmother Lynn (Susan Sarandon) coming in to salvage the family, including Susies questioning little sister, Lindsey (Rose McIver). Years pass, but eventually Jack and Susie begin to sniff around George for clues, sending the killer into a panic, with Susie eager to reach out from beyond the grave to help bring her killer to justice.
Continuing his interest in otherworldly actions, Peter Jackson finds an abundance of inspiration with Bones. The story is a buffet of dynamic heavenly vistas, ghoulish acts of murder, and portals between life and death; its a snug fit for Jacksons sensibilities, though packaged in a tempting literary riff that pries the filmmaker away from the intensive genre work thats consumed his life over the last decade (with the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the bloat of King Kong). Bones is actually quite reminiscent of Jacksons 1994 humdinger Heavenly Creatures, addressing unspeakable acts of violation through elaborate fantasy worlds and hysterical teen girl viewpoints.
Now a filmmaking giant, Jackson employs slick building blocks of CGI to imagine Susies purgatory stay, dialing the iconography of her life into the fantasy, exaggerated to bewilder the girl as she confronts her own murder and the devastating grief its left behind. The smooth surfaces and New Zealand vistas are impressively built, but they tend to come across as the films rodeo clown, keeping the audience busy while Jackson and the production shave down Sebolds narrative to a sensible size, muting the terror to a proper PG-13 rating. The grit has been yanked out of this story to help it dance a radiant spiritual ballet, yet the emotions ring hollow in the face of such synthetic wonderment. Though brightly acted by the gifted Ronan, Susies excellent adventure into paradise is surprisingly soulless, offering bountiful eye candy and chirpy teenage puzzlement, but little in the way of a secure emotional bond.
Bones feels more alive while on the hunt for George, switching from a family drama into thriller mode in the films second half. Again, the story feels compromised and reworked to fit Jacksons vision, but hes always been able to kick up some convincing unrest when called upon. The race to uncover clues to snatch George leads to some primo suspense sequences, making smart use of Jacksons editorial control and the films obsession with macro photography. While Wahlberg is miscast as Susies thunderstruck father (try as he might, sensitivity from his tongue feels like lashes from a bullwhip), the rest of the cast falls into place adequately, even while Jackson rushes characterizations to get to the meat of the matter. Clad in wild period costuming (giving off a distinct That 70s Show vibe), the ensemble still grabs the senses with their generous performances, searching to develop a pool of poignancy beyond the dull heartstring tugging Jackson relies upon.
Perhaps its unfair to compare the two films, but 1998s What Dreams May Come traveled down the same route of afterlife consciousness, and achieved a more forbidding tone to match its eventual tear-jerking. Bones doesnt share the same concentration, messily bonding two halves of a tale that share little chemistry. A splendid film in small doses, The Lovely Bones fails as an epic odyssey of soulful yearn, in the end looking to blend the real and the fantastic in ways it doesnt earn.
Filmfodder Grade: C]]>