Cine Blog

FILM REVIEW OF "SHADOW OF THE VAMPIRE" (2000)

2012-02-01T12:03:00.000-08:00

Bram Stoker's widow Florence would spin in her grave if she knew about "Shadow of the Vampire." "Begotten" director Edmund Elias Merhige's second film qualifies as an artsy fartsy account about the making of groundbreaking German filmmaker F.W. Murnau's silent chiller "Nosferatu" back in 1921. No sooner had "Nosferatu" been released to theaters than Florence Stoker sued Murnau and company for copyright infringement. She won the case, and the court ordered the destruction of all film prints and negatives. Happily, some bootleg copies escaped annihilation, and the Murnau's artistic legacy as well as the film's contribution to vampire films survived Florence's wrath. Not only did "Nosferatu" emerge as Murnau's greatest film, but it also exerted a considerable influence on vampire films. The greatest enemy of a vampire in "Nosferatu" was sunlight. Although Stoker's Dracula could cavort during the day, Murnau and company changed it so the sunlight proved to be the vampire's greatest enemy. Merhige helmed his first film, a silent opus entitled "Begotten," about 10 years before he embarked on this witty but wry epic that appropriates an urban legend about the actor who incarnated Count Orlock. The first forty-five minutes are flawless. Unfortunately, complications occur in the denouement, and cynicism undercuts what could have been a masterpiece of self-parody. Basically, the uneven "Shadow of a Vampire" concludes with an unhappy ending while it celebrates the monster that the film conjured up. An important question that you may find yourself asking is: who is the real monster in "Shadow of the Vampire?" Is it the vampire Count Orlock? Or is the real monster none other than Murnau himself? Essentially, Murnau abhorred working within the confines of his Berlin studio. Restless, he decided to take advantage of lensing on-location in both Czechoslovakia and Poland despite the protests of his producer Albin Grau (Udo Kier of "Andy Warhol's Dracula") about the mounting costs.

The clever premise of "Shadow of a Vampire" is that Murnau makes a Faustian deal with a genuine vampire to act in his film on the condition that he gets to drain film's leading lady. Ironically, Katz received the 2000 Bram Stoker Award as Best Screenwriter for "Shadow of the Vampire" for his script. Remember, this is a film about the very film that Florence Stoker sought to destroy entirely because the filmmakers had plagiarized it. There are really only two important characters in Mehrige's film. The mercurial John Malkovich inhabits the role of the eccentric Teutonic helmer who attained greater fame and fortune in Hollywood before an automobile crash claimed his life in 1931. Malkovich commands your attention throughout the story. Although he cannot stand to work within the controlled conditions of a studio, Murnau takes the film company on location because this is the only way that he can employ Court Orlock as an actor. As a film director, Murnau behaves like a tyrant. Meanwhile, Willem Dafoe of "Platoon" impersonates one of the world's most mysterious and repugnant looking real-life actors, Max Schreck. Little is known about Schreck and the role challenged Dafoe who settled on using the film as a means to guide his creation of Schreck. According to Dafoe, "The most important research tool was the footage. The only thing I could find out about Max was that a biographer of Murnau said he was 'an actor of no distinction.' But the script was very strong, and we had the actual "Nosferatu" film as a kind of touchstone and base. So much had to wait until I got into the prosthetic (the makeup). I didn't just have extreme makeup, but also a costume that was restricting. The shoes made me walk a particular way. The padding in the clothes also made me walk a particular way. It was great because it's a huge mask which frees you up so much." Ultimately, Dafoe received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Schreck. He spent three hours getting into make-up for the role and he wore platform shoes. Dafoe was so persuasive as Orlock that the producers of "Spider-man 2" hired him on the basis of his performance as Max Schreck. Indeed, "Shadow of a Vampire" went on to win several cinematic awards.

Watching "Shadow of a Vampire" as a companion piece to "Nosferatu" will furnish viewers with some insights not only into the silent original but also the nature of the working conditions in the early film industry. Mehrige supplies a commentary track with the DVD release that reveals certain things that occurred during the production of silent films that will enlighten moviegoers. Nevertheless, the actual Max Schreck was not a vampire and worked in 33 other films after he made "Nosferatu." Indeed, Schreck had played in four films before he played the world's most infamous vampire.

Indeed, "Shadow of the Vampire" doesn't qualify as an objective casework about either "Nosferatu" or Murnau. Ostensibly, Merhige's neat conceit of for picture suffers for being shallow and uneven with forgettable cardboard characters. Admirably, Mehrige and scenarist Steve Katz never stoop to lowest common denominator stunts in this somewhat amusing, sometimes pretentious, but rarely scary, 93-minute escapade. Merhige plays everything rather straight-up until Count Orlock kills his first victim. Orlock differs from most vampires because he doesn't create other vampires. He kills and his victims die. Mind you, Dafoe's acting as well as Malkovich's performance, Lou Bogue's atmospheric photography, and the real-life settings distinguish what really constitutes a one-note 'what if' gimmick film. Nevertheless, Merhige's concise direction, Dafoe's engrossing performance as the vampire coupled with Malkovich's monomaniac behavior make "Shadow of the Vampire" worth watching despite its obvious shortcomings. While he admires Murnau's films, Mehrige presents the master filmmaker in an unsympathetic light as a cold-blooded man who treats everybody collectively as pawns.

FILM REVIEW OF "NOSFERATU THE VAMPYRE" (GERMAN 1979)

2012-01-24T15:57:00.000-08:00

“Fitzcarraldo” director Werner Herzog “Nosferatu the Vampyre” (**** out of ****) pays tribute to F.W. Murnau’s classic chiller, but this 107-minute, color masterpiece departs from the original in many respects. Essentially, the narrative doesn’t deviate drastically until the second half after Count Dracula bids the ruins of his castle farewell and travels by ship to Varna. Of course, the names have been changed since Herzog didn’t have to worry about the issue of copyright infringement. Although “Nosferatu the Vampyre” ranks as a brilliant film and a reverential remake, this German production creeps along at a gradual pace but the sets are for the most part genuine. Produced for under a million dollars, this atmospheric chiller doesn’t generate the degree of horror that the Hammer “Dracula” franchise or even the Universal franchise boasted. You are not going to lose any sleep watching this painstakingly recreated film. Marginal amounts of blood appear. Unlike the traditional Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee Dracula, the eponymous villain here is a hideous Dracula. He is bald, cadaverous, with long fingernails and two fangs at the front of his mouth. Mind you, Klaus Kinski delivers a spellbinding performance, but he doesn’t eclipse the portrait of evil the Max Schreck forged for the unforgettable 1922 silent film. Nevertheless, Kinski’s Dracula differs in more respects from the Schreck incarnation. Schreck epitomized unadulterated evil, while Kinski evokes a measure of sympathy. The Kinski vampire qualifies as a post-modern vampire because he emerges as a tragic figure. At one point in the subtitles of the German language version, the Kinski Dracula confides in the heroine that “Cruel is when you can’t die even if you want to die.” Like the Murnau original, vampires are susceptible to the damning rays of sunlight. Unlike the Schreck vampire, Kinski’s vampire doesn’t dissolve when the sunlight strikes him. He goes into convulsions and wallows around on the floor until Dr. Van Helsing takes a stake to him. Reminiscent of “Dracula’s Daughter, Van Helsing is arrested at fadeout for the murder of Dracula. The irony is that the plague that has infested Wismar in the form of rats has killed off all the police as well as prison officials so Van Helsing’s arrest is purely a matter of form instead of substance.

The major departures “Nosferatu the Vampyre” makes occur after Dracula leaves his castle. The scenes aboard the ship remain intact with the crew dying, but you don’t see anybody diving off the ship. Whereas Murnau showed several rats in his film, Herzog displays no restrain. He bought eleven-thousand white rats from a laboratory and painted them gray. According to Herzog on the Anchor Bay commentary track, the production company didn’t lose a single rodent, but the sight of the rats made a customs official faint. Furthermore, Herzog took elaborate precautions on the set to ensure that none of the rodents escaped. The co-commentator observed that Herzog also neutered the rats so that they couldn’t reproduce. Not since either version of “Willard” have so many rats appeared on camera. One striking scene involving the rodents occurs toward the end of the story. A group of plague-infected friends attempt to prolong their happiness by dining on one final meal before they die. They are surrounded by literally hundreds of rats. Murnau’s film cannot compete with the vast horde of rats that Herzog used. If the sight of rats is terrifying, you might have a problem with this film.

Bruno Ganz doesn’t play Jonathan Harker with the gusto that Gustav von Wangenheim imbued Hutter in the silent epic. Harker travels to the remote mountains of Transylvania on a mission similar to Hutter’s. Indeed, Renfield (Roland Topor) dispatches him with the same promise that he might lose some blood. Harker slices his thumb up while carving bread during his dinner and Count Dracula attacks him. Far away, Lucy Harker (Isabelle Adjani of “The Story of Adele H”) reacts to the vampire’s attack on her husband. Later, Harker watches as Dracula loads up coffins (more than Schreck loaded) and departs from the castle by a horse-drawn wagon. Interestingly enough, Ganz’s Harker has to walk on foot from the inn, where he rode by horse, to reach the rendezvous point with Count Dracula’s carriage. More importantly, Harker is bitten by Dracula, escapes from the castle, spends time in a church hospital but returns to Wismar. Unlike Hutter, Harker is slowly turning into a vampire.

At this point, the character of Lucy assumes greater significance than her counterpart in the Murnau film. Isabelle Adjani’s Lucy is a real combatant. She has a scene in her bedroom where she confronts Dracula and spurns him. Of course, she is wearing a crucifix, but she makes it blatantly clear that she wants nothing to do with him. She claims that she is prepared to spurn the Lord, too. After Harker returns but fails to recognize her, Lucy dredges up the book of vampires from his belongings and reads about the fiends. She approaches Dr. Van Helsing, but he dismisses her warnings about the real plague in the town. When Mina (Martje Grohmann) dies, the town officials say that she died from the plague. Herzog doesn’t have a drum-beating official reading a warning to the town. Instead, he shows black-clad, top-hatted officials carrying coffins on their shoulders by the dozens. Anyway, Lucy exemplifies female empowerment. She crumbles up sacred crackers to keep her husband at bay and seduces the unwitting Dracula so that he will sup from her neck and forget the dawn that destroys him.

Herzog doesn’t rely on any special effects in his version of “Dracula.” All the effects were produced in camera. The scene when Dracula entered Lucy’s bedroom while she stared in the mirror and watched the door swing open and a shadow appear is an example. Indeed, Herzog made the most of his budget. This period piece is steeped in atmosphere. “Nosferatu the Vampyre” isn’t a scary movie. It amounts to more of a literary exercise. The environment creates a genuine sense of dread as does Herzog’s use of the original music by Popol Vuh. Herzog does some amazing things with his camera and he doesn’t rely on the usual snap editing so that “Nosferatu the Vampyre” is a film of remarkable cohesion.

FILM REVIEW OF "RED TAILS" (2012)

2012-01-22T21:46:00.000-08:00

Anybody who has seen enough World War II movies knows that Hollywood has to resort to elaborate artifice to conjure up equipment which no longer exists in vast quantities. Each year attrition depletes the number of Allied planes, tanks, and war ships used in combat. Worse, most of the Axis equipment has been destroyed. The Spanish Air Force furnished the filmmakers of “Battle of Britain” (1969) with scores of vintage Nazi-era aircraft. Most moviemakers aren’t that fortunate. Now, every time that you see a World War II relic fly, you wonder if they haven’t matted in additional models, or relied entirely on miniatures. Virtually no World War II movie since the 1950s has used a Sherman tank. They rely on either the Pentagon for Cold War era equipment or mock up something that resembles a Sherman.

Freshman director Anthony Hemingway’s aerial epic “Red Tails” (** out of ****) qualifies more as a showcase for the digital computer generated imagery which can forge greater authenticity than a salute to the famous Tuskegee Airmen of the 332nd Fighter Group. This is the kind of movie that gives history a bad name. Clocking in at a torturous 125 minutes, “Red Tails” shows flair when it’s in the air but crashes and burns on the ground. The biggest stars in its gallery—Terence Howard and Cuba Gooding, Jr.,--ride desks, while a flock of relative newcomers wing it. Of course, any movie that involves historical racism in our enlightened era has to fly in circles. For the record, “Three Kings” scenarist John Ridley and “The Boondocks” scribe Aaron McGruder deploy the dreaded N-word once and then fall back on clichés as creaky as a period World War II combat actioneer. Worse, they make the Tuskegee Airmen behave like stock characters. Occasionally, Hemingway and his writers go off on tangents which weren’t necessary, such as a “Great Escape” subplot. Indeed, most of what happens here is a predictable as any second-rate war film. Essentially, “Red Tails” is “Gettysburg” with wings. Nevertheless, whenever they show the aircraft and the settings, you have to admire the extraordinary CGI that producer George Lucas’ special effects outfit, Industrial Light and Magic, has wrought. Now, if they’d only made the melodrama look as genuine as the aircraft and other equipment. Mind you, the train that gets blown up looks terrific!

“Red Tails” opens in Italy in 1944 as the black aviators, who prefer to be called ‘Negros’ rather than ‘coloreds,’ are flying antiquated P-40 Tomahawks on behind the lines missions. The Pentagon doesn’t believe that African-Americans are courageous enough for the task at hand. In fact, the film quotes a racist excerpt from 1925 Army War College study that said blacks were not brainy enough, ambitious enough, or audacious enough to survive in combat. Consequently, our heroes fly custodial missions, literally mopping up what the Army has bypassed on the way to the front. If these guys are lucky, they get to shoot up a Nazi truck, and these fellows are itching to see some real action. Indeed, one of the pilots, reckless Lieutenant Joe 'Lightning' Little (David Oyelowo of “The Help”), disobeys his squadron leader, Captain Marty 'Easy' Julian (Nate Parker of “Pride”), when they strafe a Nazi transport train. Everybody else swoops in from the rear and riddles the train while the Germans gunners unleash a barrage of flak. Miraculously, nobody is wounded. Lightning decides to attack the train from the front, however, before it can enter the safety of a tunnel, and he blasts it to hell and gone. Watching the locomotive and freight cars buckle and explode makes you think that “Red Tails” is going to be a fiery ride.

Unfortunately, nothing really happens until the second hour when the Tuskegee Airmen join the fighting over Northern Europe. Interestingly enough, it seems that the white American fighter pilots who fly escort for the B-17 bombers on raids have a tendency to abandon them when they spot German fighters. What the American fighter pilots fail to recognize is the wily Germans are luring them off when the bulk of their fighters shoot the bombers to ribbons. USAAF Major General Luntz (Gerald McRaney of CBS-TV’s “Simon & Simon”) asks Colonel A.J. Bullard (Terence Howard of “Iron Man”) about using his men to fly escort. Primarily, Luntz wants them to protect his heavy bombers rather than leave them in an aerial lurch. When Luntz promises that he will put the Tuskegee Airmen into brand, spanking-new P-51 Mustangs, Bullard takes him up on it. Initially, the white American bomber pilots don’t have much faith when they see their first black pilot fly alongside them. Things change drastically when the Tuskegee guys stick to them and thwart the Germans.

Sadly, “Red Tails” seems designed for kids rather than armchair historians who have cut their teeth on History Channel documentaries. The subplots about an African-American pilot who wines and dines an Italian babe, while another struggles with his alcoholism are the embarrassing fluff of a soap opera. Mind you, these are dullest bunch of guys in uniform that you’ve ever seen. Not one single character stands out, and the Tuskegee Airmen were pretty outstanding individuals. Despite its glossy $58 million budget, “Red Tails” doesn’t muster the dramatic clout of the Golden Globe-nominated HBO made-for-cable movie “The Tuskegee Airman” (1995) with Laurence Fishburne and Cuba Gooding, Jr. Moreover, Terence Blanchard’s orchestral theme music keeps everything in snooze control for the duration. Not only the Tuskegee Airmen but also the audiences deserve best than “Red Tails” delivers.

FILM REVIEW OF ''BLADE" (1998)

2012-01-17T14:27:00.000-08:00

Actor & producer Wesley Snipes may have finally found himself an action movie franchise that he can sink his teeth into with British director Stephen Norrington's "Blade," (***1/2 out of ****)a well-made, imaginative, adrenaline-laced vampire chiller based on the Marvel Comics' super hero. Snipes heads a first-rate cast that includes Kris Kristofferson, Stephen Dorff, N' Bushe Wright, Udo Kier, and Traci Lords. "Blade" synthesizes the exotic swordplay of the "Highlander" epics, the double-digit body count of a John Woo thriller, and the martial arts pandemonium of a Jackie Chan opus to spawn a horror movie several cuts above your ordinary vampire fare. If the sight of blood, especially torrents of bogus blood, turns your stomach, avoid "Blade." "Blade" takes its cues from renegade vampire sags like Robert Rodriguez's "From Dusk Till Dawn" (1996) and Kathryn Bigelow's "Near Dark" (1987) rather than those venerable classics such as either Tod Browning's "Dracula" (1931) with Bela Lugosi or Neil Jordan's "Interview with a Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles" with Tom Cruise (1994). The Snipes hero must have chose the same guy who tailored "Mad Max" and "The Terminator" in what essentially constitutes an apocalyptic version of Fran Rubel Kuzui's "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (1992). "Blade" qualifies as a tour-de-fang chiller with darker humor than "Buffy," top drawer special effects, and an infectious techno-pop soundtrack. Lowbrow escapism that it ranks as, "Blade" benefits chiefly from scenarist David S. Goyer's solid, seasoned writing skills and atmospheric, innovative helming by sophomore director Stephen Norrington.

Scenarist David S. Goyer provides an invigorating screenplay. "Blade" bristles not only with lively action and adventure, but also an intelligible plot that the characters go to extreme lengths of describe and discuss. When you consider that Goyer has penned scripts for "Dark City," "The Crow 2: City of Angels," "Robert Heinlein's The Puppet Masters," "Demonic Toys," and "Kickboxer 2," then you know he qualified as the ideal choice to pen the script. Goyer's revenge fantasy script never leaves you in the dark about a bloody new world where its embattled but immortal hero Blade wages a perennial war against vampires. Goyer shows impressive flexibility in co-opting vampire mythology. At one point, a half-blooded vampire smears on sun screen lotion to shield himself from the sun. Jealous vampires put one of their vampire enemies to death by gradually exposing him to sunlight at dawn. Meanwhile, our hero uses an ultra-violet light to singe unruly fangsters. About the only vampire trait neglected by Goyer is the ability to shape-shift into a bat.

A vampire infected our protagonist's pregnant mom, Vanessa Brooke (Sanaa Lathan of "Love & Basketball") with its venomous blood while she was carrying Blade in her womb. Delivered by Caesarean section from his dying mother, Blade emerges as neither totally human nor truly vampire. He can walk in sunlight without risk, and neither silver nor garlic can faze him. One villainous vampire admires Blade when he observes that Blade has "all of our strengths and none of our weaknesses." The filmmakers milk dramatic tension from Blade's growing tolerance to Whistler's (Kris Kristofferson of "Convoy") anti-venom serum. The chance that Blade may not revert to his vampire origins not only lurks in the background but also enhances the suspense. This element of uncertainty generates anxiety and endows the protagonist with an Achilles' heel that makes him seem more believable and charismatic. Blade cruises around in a 1968 Dodge Charger that looks very cool despite its late model make.

Legendary vampire hunter Abraham Whistler (a grouchy Kris Kristofferson with a gimpy leg) found Blade as a juvenile roaming the streets and living off the blood of derelicts. Transforming Blade into a super hero with injections of a blood substitute, he serves as Blade's stepfather and ordnance maker. Surprisingly, Whistler lasts longer than most sacrificial characters. Loosely modeled on the Roman god Vulcan who forged weapons for the deities, Whistler trains Blade to slay vampires with extreme prejudice. Blade approaches his crusade with the enthusiasm that Charles Bronson mustered for killing muggers in the quintet of "Death Wish" movies. Not surprisingly, more than enough vampires survive from other parts of the world for Blade to combat in the sequels. Wow, does "Blade" ever leave itself wide open in its wrap-up in Russia for a sequel! Anyhow, the vampires in "Blade" are not tooth fairies. Organized into a powerful, global underground syndicate, Dragonetti (Udo Kier) presides over them as a Corleonesque godfather. The scene in the shadowy conference room with vampires dressed in suits is effectively creepy. Kier's Dragonetti is a pure-blooded fangster in a world of full and half-blooded vampires.

In "Blade," the cities of the world have been practically undermined by vampires. Vampires have gained leverage in the business and politician arenas. These vampires own the police so they control the law. As the snotty, upstart Deacon Frost, actor Stephen Dorff plays the half-breed vampire who Dragonetti turned. Frost harbors greater ambitions than Dragonetti. The elder vampire prefers to co-exist with mortals and abide by their treaties. Frost demands that the vampires dominate humanity. Secretly, Frost has been translating the ancient vampire text, The Book of Erebus, which will enable him to resurrect vampire blood god La Magra. Frost wants to revive this demon, but he needs the missing link: Blade's blood. Frost calls Blade "day-walker," because the vampire bible has prophesied Blade's unique genetic make-up. If he can revive this blood god, Frost can control the House of Erebus that rules the undead, and vampires can emerge as the dominant force in the world. The splashy finale in a phantasmagoric vampire temple with skeletons bursting out of the mouths of vampires in a storm of jagged lightning bolts owes a little to "The Fifth Element" as well as "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" (1958), but this scene is fully and logically integrated in Goyer's script.

Sure, "Blade" amounts to nothing more than bloody pulp fiction. Nevertheless, Goyer and Norrington have reinvented vampire thrillers. "Blade" is entertaining, somewhat cheesy, but technically proficient hokum done with considerable technical prowess. Congratulations Stan Lee!

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE DEVIL INSIDE" (2012)

2012-01-16T12:25:00.000-08:00

The horror chiller "The Devil Inside" (O out of ****) gives movies about exorcism a bad name. Face it, William Friedkin's "The Exorcist" (1973) still ranks as the best exorcist movie of all time. Nothing made since then can match the impact of this landmark movie, least of all its lackluster sequels. Nevertheless, Hollywood continues to crank out new movies about exorcism as if time had eroded the demonic fury of "The Exorcist.” Warner Brothers did the next best thing; in 2000, they re-released Friedkin's frightening film in a revamped version that performed startlingly well at the box office. Lately, the studios have conjured up three exorcism movies. Sir Anthony Hopkins starred in the respectable hair-raiser "The Rite" back in the spring of 2011. Sadly, "The Rite" bore a PG-13 rating so it possessed little bite. The low-budget, Louisiana-set, yell-bent yarn "The Last Exorcism" preceded "The Rite" by several months, but it furnished more irony than chills. Now, Paramount Pictures has released writer & director William Brent Bell's micro-budget "The Devil Inside," another misguided entry in the pseudo-documentary, ‘found footage’ genre. Like “The Blair Witch Project,” “Cloverfield,” and the “Paranormal Activity” trilogy, "The Devil Inside" sets out to enhance its simulated verisimilitude by featuring a character who documents the action on video. Neither “The Blair Witch Project” nor “Cloverfield” exploited this approach with any success. Moreover, none of the subtlety and artistry which exemplified the "Paranormal Activity" epics augments this abrupt 87-minute gobbledygook. Worse, "The Devil Inside" regales us with lukewarm exorcism scenes and lackluster performances. You know an exorcism movie is in trouble when a barking dog provides its scariest moment.

Attractive Isabella Rossi (Brazilian-born actress Fernanda Andrade of "Why Am I Doing This?") is the daughter of Maria Rossi (Suzan Crowley of "Wild about Harry”) who went berserk back in 1989. "The Devil Inside" opens with Maria's cryptic phone conversation with a 911 operator and her confession that she killed two priests and a nun during an exorcism at her house. Afterward, we're treated to a behind-the-scenes peep at the gory crime scene; detectives wander through the blood-splattered residence in confidential footage mocked up to resemble grainy, decades old VHS tape. Ultimately, the court rules Maria is guilty by reason of insanity when she slew the three people. Eventually, Maria winds up heavily sedated in Rome, Italy, at the Centrino Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Director William Brent Bell fast-forwards to December 2009. A grown-up Isabella, who was only a child when her mother slaughtered the Catholics, hires documentary filmmaker Michael Schaefer (Ionut Grama of "The Whistleblower") to chronicle her mom's case. Basically, she wants to learn whether her mom is possessed by a demon or is mentally ill. Furthermore, she wants to convince herself that whatever happened to mom won’t happen to her. In other words, does demon possession or mental illness run in her family?

Isabella and Michael fly to Rome to visit Maria. While she is in the Eternal City, Isabella sits in on an exorcism lecture at a Catholic school. Afterward, she meets a couple of clerics, Father Ben Rawlings (Simon Quarterman of "The Scorpion King: Rise of a Warrior") and Father David Keane (Evan Helmuth of "Fever Pitch"), who are pretty liberal minded about exorcisms. If the Church refuses to countenance an exorcism, then this dynamic duo deliver the demons on the sly without the church’s blessing. Isabella wants to know more about exorcisms, and she is prepared to get a Ph.D. in demon possession. However, Rawlings advises Isabella to forgo any more exorcist classes. Instead, he invites her to witness an exorcist with David and him. Isabella's first exorcism occurs in the basement of a house in Rome. Rawlings and Keane use modern-day gadgets to support them. They outfit their patients with a heart monitor and photograph the size of the patient’s pupils to determine their actual condition. The young Italian girl, Rosa (Bonnie Morgan of “Piranha”), who they exorcise spews some profanity and has her period. At one point, she breaks her bonds and scuttles up a wall like a roach, but the priests cast out her demon. Isabella is now prepared to meet her mom.

Maria surprises Isabella when she reminds her daughter that an abortion she consented to years before won't put her in God's good graces. Naturally, Isabella is appalled by this revelation from somebody who hasn't seen her in twenty years. Later, the Fathers attach Maria to their gadgets, and she surprises them. Not only does she utter epithets in several tongues, but she also clobbers Father Rawlings and sends him flying across the room. Nothing that either Isabella or the Fathers discover about Maria convinces the Vatican to review Maria's case. As it turns out, the Vatican has long since washed its hands of Maria. This surprises our protagonists despite the fact that Maria killed three ordained exorcists back in 1989. Meantime, Father Keane experiences feelings of paranoia, and he has good reason. The devil inside Maria has taken residence up in him! Keane almost drowns an infant during a baptism. Later, he relieves a Roman cop of his firearm and finishes himself off. Of course, Michael is speechless. Unfortunately, this all this creates chaos of another kind which is more calculated to make you cackle rather than cringe.

"The Devil Inside" isn’t as scary as “The Exorcist.” The closest Bell's film comes to scary is creepy. Ultimately, however, creepy degenerates into campy. Nothing in this pedestrian horror movie will make you sleep with the lights on all night. The disclaimer at the outset that "the Vatican does not endorse this movie” shouldn’t surprise anybody. Worse, Bell and co-producer Michael Peterman wrap up everything far too quickly with an abrupt ending that sabotages any sense of closure. The last shot contains a website address (www.TheRossiFiles.com.)where all the answers are presumably available. Mind you, this is a terrible way to conclude a movie, but then “The Devil Inside” isn’t worth a Hail Mary.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO" (2011)

2012-01-05T08:08:00.000-08:00

If you saw both versions of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” side by side, you could spot the differences between the 2009 Swedish original and the 2011 American remake. Nevertheless, the revelations in the other won’t be as surprising. “Fight Club” director David Fincher brings his obsession with serial killers with him to this top-drawer adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s international bestseller. Fincher scored his first major cinematic success with the Brad Pitt & Morgan Freeman crime mystery “Se7en” (1995) about a cunning serial killer, and he explored similar subject matter in “Zodiac” (2007) a film about the real-life murders in San Francisco which spawned Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry” franchise. Considering that the gritty subject matter of Larsson’s novel concerns a man who rapes and then murders women, the pairing of “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” (**** out of ****) and Fincher seems ideal. Oscar winning “Schindler's List” scenarist Steven Zaillian, who received Oscar nods for “Awakenings” as well as “Gangs of New York,” brings his formidable skills to bear as the sole scribe. Indeed, little is amiss in the Fincher & Zaillian retread, except cat lovers probably won’t appreciate the headless feline that winds up on our hero’s door step. The cat was conspicuous by its absence in the Swedish version. Perhaps the biggest difference between the two films is the casting of Lisbeth Salander. Noomi Rapace registered brilliantly as the eponymous heroine in the original, but newcomer Rooney Mara is no slouch. Mara wears insanity as persuasively as her black, boot-polish Goth make-up and her punk rock coiffures. Any preference you have may boil down to your choice between either Ms. Rapace or Ms. Mara. Each deliver chilling performances, and the Lisbeth Salander character qualifies as a biggest milestone in the depiction of women in film since the female assassin in the 1990 French action yarn “La Femme Nikita.”

Aging Swedish business magnate Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer of “The Sound of Music”) fears that he has few years left. The mysterious disappearance of his niece Harriet is the one thing which has haunted him for 4o years. She vanished without a trace one day at a family reunion. Neither the authorities nor Henrik were ever able to find her. To add insult to injury, Henrik has received a framed picture of a flower annually on each birthday. Harriet gave him the first flower, but lately Henrik suspects that all subsequent flowers since she disappeared have been sent by Harriet’s killer. Henrik feels like he is being ridiculed and he has suffered from this torment long enough. He hires an illustrious Swedish political journalist who writes for the magazine “Millennium.” A reluctant Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig of “Casino Royale”) accepts Vanger’s job offer since he has just lost a highly publicized libel suit against a notorious Swedish billionaire investment banker, Hans-Erik Wennerström (Ulf Friberg of “Exit”), and the court settlement has wiped out his savings.

Henrik commissions Blomkvist to write his memoirs in part because he abhors the corrupt Wennerström. Moreover, he possesses files on Wennerström which will damage the billionaire’s reputation and he promises to give them to Blomkvist after he completes his assignment. What Blomkvist doesn’t know is that Henrik’s attorney, Dirch Frode (Steven Berkoff of “Octopussy”), has employed Milton Security to conduct a background check on Blomkvist. The individual who does the background check is a 23-year old girl, Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara of “Youth in Revolt”), and she leaves no stone unturned in her thorough investigation. Once Henrik hires Blomkvist, he explains that his family is pretty hideous bunch. Two of his brothers joined the Nazi Party in Sweden during World War II. Some don’t talk to each other even though they live in houses on an island linked to the mainland by a single bridge. Furthermore, Henrik suspects that one of them may have murdered poor Harriet. Henrik installs Blomkvist in a nearby cottage and provides him with every shred of evidence that the police relied on during their investigation of Harriet’s disappearance.

Later, things go awry when Henrik suffers a heart attack, and everybody but Frode expects him to die. At the hospital, some of Henrik’s relatives demand that Blomkvist be dismissed, but Martin Vanger (Stellan Skarsgård of “Thor”) convinces the family to allow Blomkvist to complete Henrik’s chronicle. Meantime, Lisbeth encounters her own woes when her guardian suffers a stroke, and the state replaces him. Lisbeth, it seems, has a life filled with tragedy. We learn that she burned her abusive father over eighty per cent of his body because he beat her mother without mercy. Since her assault on her father, Lisbeth has been in trouble and is now a ward of the state. The state transfers Lisbeth over to the villainous Bjurman (Yorick van Wageningen of “Soul Assassin”)who shows little sympathy to Lisbeth. He humiliates her with questions about her private life. Basically, they get off on the wrong foot, but Lisbeth manages to bring the evil Bjurman around to her way of thinking as suffering abuse at his hands. These scenes are the reason that "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" carries an R-rating for explicit sexuality.

Eventually, Blomkvist finds the mystery so overwhelming that he asks Frode for an assistant and Frode recommends Lisbeth. Together, they struggle to not only find clues but also to interpret those clues correctly. While Blomkvist interviews the Vanger family, Lisbeth performs the leg work. She turns out to be a genuis with computers, brazenly hacking into anybody's account to obtain information.

If anything differentiates the two films, the casting disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist does. Stockholm born actor Michael Nyqvist appears more believable in the original, but English born actor Daniel Craig holds his own in the remake. Actually, were it not for radical, off-beat character of Lisbeth, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” would amount to little more than a complex European whodunit set in a scenic, snow-swept wonderland. In fact, it is Lisbeth who gives the film its lurid but gripping quality. She assumes a role of greater significance in the Swedish sequels and probably will in the American sequels. She emerges as a female Rambo with a no-nonsense attitude. If she were a cat, she would claw more often than purr. Although “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” clocks in at a lengthy 158 minutes, director David Fincher doesn’t squander a second. He knows the right moment to cut away from one scene to another to heighten suspense. Furthermore, despite the graphic crime scene photos and the misogyny, Fincher is careful enough to never rub our noses in it.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE DARKEST HOUR" (2010)

2012-01-04T07:43:00.000-08:00

“Right at Your Door” director Chris Gorak’s apocalyptic science fiction actioneer “The Darkest Hour” (** out of ****) qualifies as initially provocative but incredibly anti-climactic. Freshman scenarist Jon Spaihts formulated his outlandish script about a “War of the Worlds” invasion of Earth by invisible predators from a story that “Dante's Peak” scribe Leslie Bohem and first-time writer M.T. Ahern penned with him. If you’ve caught the trailer for this half-baked hokum, you know it pits a quartet of trendy, American, twentysomething guys and gals in Moscow against aliens determined to wipe out civilization while they extract all of our mineral resources. Basically, humans cannot see these extraterrestrials, but they have no trouble seeing us. These elusive aliens atomize anybody in sight without warning. If they don’t outright zap you, they snare you with a neon-like electric bolt noose and then vaporize you in a shower of dust and sparks. Despite the lethal edge which they have over humanity, these anonymous antagonists aren’t invincible. “The Darkest Hour,” as its Winston Churchill inspired title insists, charts a catastrophic course for the future of mankind. Our handsome heroes and beautiful hellcats have to figure out how to make these extraterrestrials visible before they can terminate them with extreme prejudice. Sadly, Gorak and company don’t outline the parameter in this alien procedural about what these aliens either can or cannot do. After an impressive warm up act which introduces these unusual aliens, “The Darkest Hour” collapses in the middle and then at fade-out comes to a screeching anti-climax. Indeed, “The Darkest Hour” paints humanity into a corner similar to the 2010 alien invasion opus “Skyline,” but the survivors here stand a better chance in the long run. Fortunately, mankind proves that the aliens are not indestructible. Of course, it is far too early to determine whether or not a sequel for “The Darkest Hour” will materialize where humans triumph over the aliens.

Software designers Sean (Emile Hirsh of “Into the Wild”) and Ben (Max Minghella of “The Social Network”) have been pals since they met in elementary school. Their mothers served together on the same PTA, and Ben’s mom prompted her brainy son to associate with Sean. Now, Sean and Ben are business partners. They have developed a seminal social website that points out the best party places on the globe. Our heroes are flying into Moscow to pedal their software with the help of a shrewd Swedish businessman. They are about to land when smart aleck Sean tangles with a Russian flight attendant over the probability that his cell phone could disable the electronics of an aircraft and make it crash. No sooner do our internet entrepreneurs set foot in the conference where they plan to pitch their application to investors than their Swede partner Skyler (Joel Kinnaman of “Easy Money”) informs them he has stolen their idea. Summoning security, Skyler gives our guys the boot. Sean and Ben wind up in a bar to get sloshed when they encounter two American tourists, a photographer, Anne (Rachel Taylor of “Transformers”) and her assistant, Natalie (Olivia Thirlby of “Juno”), who have followed them on the Internet. Adding insult to injury, Skyler shows up at the same bar. No sooner have our heroes chugged a few drinks than the lights go out. Curiously, everybody ventures outside for a dazzling light show comparable to the aurora borealis. Objects that resemble shimmering golden jelly fish plummet to Earth by the millions. A Moscow cop probes one with his nightstick, and he disintegrates into a cloud of dust. The crowd scatters frantically as these jelly fish aliens explode other humans one-by-one. Sean, Ben, Anne, Natalie, and Skyler lock themselves inside a walk-in fridge at the bar.

Several days later they emerge to find Moscow a place of desolation. Sean and Ben are plundering a police cruiser for equipment when an alien spots them. Any time they pass electrical devices, such as lights, car horns, cell phones, etc., the aliens activate them. Our heroes conceal themselves under the cop car, and the alien miraculously misses them. Afterward, our heroes venture out only during daylight. Naturally, they find the American Embassy in shambles, but they spot a life in a nearby skyscraper. A young Russian teenager, Vika (newcomer Veronika Ozerova), has holed up with an eccentric middle-aged Russian engineer, Sergei (Date Atbakhtadze of “Wanted”), who has constructed a cage of metal bars and chains inside his apartment to shield their own human electrical fields from the aliens. Moreover, he has also designed a “Ghostbusters” type microwave gun which can stun the aliens. Sadly, Sergei manages to prove that his weapon works, but the batteries don’t hold a charge long enough. Meanwhile, our heroes escape with the gun and head for a Russian submarine in the Moscow River which is broadcasting an evacuation signal. Sean and company link up with a militia group. The militia look like a bunch of medieval warriors with 21st century firepower. They wear makeshift suits of chain mail which consist of keys and car tags. They have even decked a horse out in similar regalia. Reluctantly, the militia agrees to escort our heroes and heroines to a rendezvous with the sub despite the heavy presence of the invisible aliens. Predictably, not everybody survives the gauntlet of aliens between them and the submarine. Ultimately, our heroes learn how to kill the aliens.

The best thing about “The Darkest Hour” is the aliens. The worse thing is we’re told squat about them. These extraterrestrials never communicate with humanity in the form of either warnings or ultimatums. Worst, since no friendly aliens live amongst us as in “Cowboys and Aliens,” we have no clue about why they have invaded Earth. A Russian militia leader speculates that the aliens have come to deplete our mineral resources and kill us in the process. Once the heroes create their microwave weapons, Gorak gives us little more than a glimpse of these enigmatic aliens. Essentially, they look like black shiny skulls with loops of chains gyrating around them. They cannot see through windows, and they have trouble operating over bodies of water. Gorak and his writers take their subject matter far too seriously and never take advantage of the goofy way the aliens appear or the crazy way that humans drape themselves with metal objects to shield the electrical energy. The 3-D version of “The Darkest Hour” has little edge over the flat, 2-D version. Meantime, neither breaks any ground where alien invasion movies are concerned.

FILM REVIEW OF ''VOODOO MAN" (1944)

2011-12-30T19:56:00.000-08:00

Prolific filmmaker William Beaudine and horror icon Bela Lugosi worked together on four films, and "Voodoo Man" (** out of ****) was the third. Previously, they collaborated on "Ghosts on the Loose" (1943) and "The Ape Man" (1943), while their final outing occurred on the madcap comedy "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" (1953). In "Voodoo Man," Lugosi plays a deluded doctor, Dr. Richard Marlowe, who wrestles with spousal issues similar to those in the 1942 chiller "The Corpse Vanishes." Whereas he endeavored to restore his wife's beauty in the latter movie, he struggles to restore his wife's life in "Voodoo Man." Actually, Evelyn (Ellen Hall of "Lumberjack") looks well-preserved to have been kaput for over two decades. She ambles around in a trance but looks as if she hasn't aged a day since she died.

Dr. Marlowe is in cahoots with a Mobil gas station owner, Nicholas (George Zucco of "The Black Raven") to bring his poor wife back to life. "Return of the Ape Man" scenarist Robert Charles doesn't bother to explain how Nicholas and Dr. Marlowe became so tight aside from their mutual love of all things voodoo. Indeed, many things are left up to our imagination in this modest little Monogram thriller. Nicholas helps Dr. Marlowe kidnap women when they pull into his station on Laurel Road for directions to Twin Falls. Nicholas' filling station is the only one for miles. After the gals cruise away, Nicolas calls Marlowe on the telephone and alerts him to their impending presence, and the sinister scientist dispatches his two half-witted dolts, Grego (Pat McKee of "Waterfront") and Toby (John Carradine of "Stagecoach"), to block the road with a sawhorse, creating an official looking detour so the female motorists will have to drive off the main drag onto a side road concealed by a movable hedge. Grego and Toby simply pull back a hedge to allow vehicles to pass.

Bt this point in "Voodoo Man," three women have disappeared without a trace, and the authorities are completely baffled. Moreover, Marlowe also possesses an ingenious device which enables him to shut down the engine of an automobile. While the helpless woman sits mystified in her stalled car, Grego and Toby sneak up, seize her, and then usher her down into a tunnel into Marlowe's underground laboratory. Marlowe decks the women out in flowing white dresses and keeps them locked up in closets. Marlowe maintains them in a state of hypnosis. Later, during a ritualistic ceremony, Nicholas utters a chant called the Ramboona so they can transfer the spirit of the living girl into Evelyn. Unfortunately, Marlowe and his minions have not been able to get the perfect match for Evelyn.

The Banner Motion Picture Company wants to capitalize on these incidents and produce a movie about these vanishing women, but scriptwriter Ralph Dawson (Tod Andrews of "Hang'em High") refuses to pen the screenplay. Instead, he plans to get married and take a two week honeymoon. Dawson drives off for Twin Falls and pulls into Nicholas' gas station to tank up. Ralph refuses to buy a can of car polish and gets so frustrated with the well-meaning attendant, Sam (Ralph Littlefield), that Sam doesn't get a chance to pump the six gallons of fuel into his car that Ralph has paid for. Consequently, Ralph runs out of gas, but he encounters one of his future wife's bridesmaids, Stella Saunders (Louise Currie) who gives him a lift. Predictably, they see the detour sawhorse and take the wrong road. Stella's car mysteriously stops operating and Ralph goes off to search for a house. While Ralph is banging on the door to Dr. Marlowe's house, Grego and Toby abduct Stella. Ralph feels doubly frustrated when he finds both Stella and her car gone. An attempt to transfer Stella's life into Evelyn fails. Things go awry when Toby lets Stella escape, and the sheriff picks her as she wanders down on the highway. The sheriff takes Stella to Ralph's fiancée's house. Later, Marlowe discovers Stella's disappearance and rushes to Betty's house to ensure her silence. When they aren't watching Stella, Nicholas chants and Marlowe is able to bring Stella back to his secluded residence.

Eventually, Marlowe and Nicholas use their voodoo powers to attract Betty (Wanda McKay) who is poised to marry Ralph. Nicholas conjures up a chant that works so well that they are able lure Betty out to their roadside detour. In fact, Betty drives her car out to Laurel Road. Ralph convinces a motorist to give him a lift and they drive out to the sight of the detour. Meantime, the Sheriff (Henry Hall) and his reluctant deputy Elmer (Dan White) have grown suspicious about the good doctor and decide to break into Marlowe's house. Earlier, after the motorist had dropped Ralph off, he tried to intervene, but Grego dropped him stone cold in his tracks with a single blow. Ironically, Betty turns out to be the perfect match for Evelyn, and Dr. Marlowe achieves his long sought-after dream, only to have the sheriff barge in on them. Marlowe threatens the lawman with a knife, and the sheriff shoots him once. During his final dying moments, Marlowe learns that the ritual using Betty has worked. When Marlowe dies, not only does Evelyn finally bite the dust, but the four girls are released from their hypnotic trances.

Afterward, Ralph submits a screenplay about his adventures with Marlowe and calls it "Voodoo Man." Nobody takes anything seriously because the producer asks Ralph about the ideal actor to play the role of the mad scientist, and Ralph recommends Bela Lugosi for the role. Clocking in at a trim 62 minutes, "Voodoo Man" is as brisk as it is elemental, but there isn't a shred of horror in it. John Carradine takes top honors as one of Dr. Marlowe's slow-witted goons who admires the women. George Zucco is good, too, as Marlowe's chief conspirator. "Voodoo Man" should have been called "Voodoo Men." Lugosi appears in an evening suit with a goatee, but he isn't in the least menacing. In fact, he seems rather urbane. Again, the Richard Charles screenplay is lean on details so we know little about why Marlowe has a house in the woods or how his wife died. Nothing memorable occurs aside from the oddball voodoo ceremony. Nevertheless, Lugosi's presence is what makes "Voodoo Man" worth watching

FILM REVIEW OF ''ALIEN ARMAGEDDON" (2011)

2011-12-23T19:58:00.001-08:00

"Battlespace" writer & director Neil Johnson’s derivative, low-budget science fiction thriller “Alien Armageddon” (* out of ****) chronicles a breed of Martian invaders, ‘the Nephilim,’ who dominate planet Earth for 67 historic days. These hostile intruders establish their headquarters in Los Angeles after subjugating the Earth and then rely on our own scientists to modify our DNA so that we become fodder for them. You see, these ravenous monsters had to abandon their famine-stricken world. Actually, the villainous Nephilim have been quietly infiltrating Earth for many decades, acquiring knowledge about our character and culture. The computer generated special effects imagery of the alien armada during the first ten minutes looks like something out of a black & white graphic novel. This fleet of spacecraft, which resemble naval vessels, hover as if they were vultures over every major city. The lackluster battle sequences are comprised of ersatz mushroom cloud explosions and flashes inserted in photographs of California and other overseas locales. Johnson shakes his camera to give the fake explosions some impact. The Nephilim infantry look like distant cousins of the "Star Wars" robot C3PO. Decked out in metal football shoulder pads and breast-plates bristling with hoses, these soldiers shoulder deadly automatic weapons but they aren't too bright. When humans are struck by Nephilim ordnance, they dissolve into a splatter of blood and momentarily obstruct the camera lens. Not surprisingly, the nefarious extraterrestrials conquer and enslave humanity by the forty-fourth day or roughly the first half-hour of the action. Some of the treacherous humans, desperate to survive, turn into quislings, while the incarcerated humans are fed a diet of contaminated food which makes them edible to the aliens.

Johnson begins the action with a quotation from the Book of Enoch (10:9-10:15) out of the Apocrypha. "The Lord said to Gabriel: Proceed against the bastards, and the reprobates, and the sons of the fornicators, and destroy the sons of the Watchers from amongst men . . . bind them for seventy generations . . . Semyaza, the leader, will be destroyed with them. And destroy the Nephilim for they have wronged men." Following this quotation, Johnson employs horror icon Christopher Lee to provide some dramatic voice-over narration: "In ages past, the Nephilim Empire ruled the Earth, but they fell from grace. Once their slaves, Humanity rose up and defeated their gods. The Nephilim were purged from the earth and banished to the darkness. For centuries, they watched and waited. The Nephilim Empire would one day rise again." Afterward, Johnson introduces the hero, Cowboy (Don Scribner of "Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity"), who wears hair long and speaks through a grizzled beard. Cowboy is a convict at Folsom State Prison where he is serving time for the murder of his son and twenty-eight passengers on a bus. When a television reporter asks why he killed his son, Cowboy replies cryptically, "Boy had to die. He was cancer." Johnson cross cuts between this TV interview with Cowboy and the blitzkreig attack launched by the Nephilim against Earth. Later, dressed in an orange prison jump suit, Cowboy appears without explanation outside Folsom and takes the keys to an SUV from the corpse of its driver.

Our heroine is a feisty Jewish red-head, Jodie Elliot (British actress Katharine McEwan of "Sinners"), who operates a printing shop in contemporary Los Angeles. She is contending with a disgruntled customers who wants a discount when the alien ships appear over the city. The customer describes the ships erroneously as hot-air balloons, but Jodie fears the worst is about to happen. After the aliens have taken over Los Angeles and built a wall around the metropolis, Jodie joins an underground resistance movement. Eventually, the Nephilim ferret out her hiding place and capture her. Jodie shares a skyscraper prison cell with an African-American soldier, Markus (Benjamin J. Cain Jr. of "Dogma") and white, Catholic, B-2 Spirit bomber pilot Sheen (William David Tulin of "KingBreaker") who nuked Chicago before the Nephilim could make it their headquarters. An electronic force field substitutes for iron bars on the entrance of their cell, and she suffers a jolt when she tries to penetrate it. They dine on slop out of black plastic buckets and relieve themselves into a small foot locker. The meat that they are given is so vile that they puke it up, but this is all they are allowed to eat.

Meantime, Cowboy links up with another resistance unit. He sports a duster now with a Stetson riding low on his forehead. The Nephilim capture him after a firefight in the desert. Not long afterward, he winds up in the same cell with Jodie. Our heroine wants desperately to break out and rejoin her daughter who resides in the small town of Little Rock, California. She watches in horror as her cell mates are dragged off to become brunch. At one point, Jodie manages to escape briefly and witnesses a harrowing scene when a pregnant female inmate strapped down to a bed gives birth to several chunks of flesh. All along, two scientists Franci (Rochelle Vallese of "Scar") and Dr. Brenna (Julia Parker of "Girl Crazy") have been collaborating with the Nephilim to make humanity more palatable for their extraterrestrial taste buds. Once the Nephilim have used Franci, they stick her in the same cell with our heroes. The Nephilim take Markus and feed him to a flesh eating zombie like creature. Jodie, Franci, and Cowboy escape when Jodie stages a bout of illness. The girls head for Little Rock, but Jodie doesn’t find her daughter. Cowboy later rejoins them after commandeering an alien interceptor aircraft.

Meantime, Franci injects Jodie with some strange serum so that she becomes a bio-medical weapon against the Nephilim. Franci rhapsodizes about the pleasures of masquerading as a human and all the feelings that life has evoked for her. Predictably, she dies. Eventually, humanity triumphs over the Martian invaders. Before this occurs, we get to see revolting shots of giant, beady, orange slugs with pincers gnawing on the flesh and bones of decaying humans. Before Franci dispatches Jodie on her sacrificial mission to save mankind, they indulging in a lingering lesbian lip-lock. Jodie neither pukes nor repels Franci. Johnson concludes with another quotation from Enoch 16:1. "And the death of the Nephilim, and wherever the spirits have left their bodies, their flesh will be destroyed, before the judgement. They will be banished until the Day of the Great Consumption and this also will stand against the Watchers and all those who are impious."

"Alien Armageddon" qualifies as an abominable opus with shoddy storytelling, sketchy characters, second-rate special effects, subpar dialogue, and shallow acting. Little about this below-average sci-fi saga is either groundbreaking or sensational. The occasional clashes between Nephilim infantry and earthlings enliven the exposition heavy narrative, and the few revelations in this predictable, standard-issue invasion flick lack impact. The Nephilim chieftain looks menacing enough with his cadaverous, predatory complexion, but Johnson doesn't permit him adequate screen time to create more than a fleeting impression. Basically, this sci-fi actioneer spends more time on Earth than in the heavens. Clocking in at 95 interminable minutes, “Alien Armageddon” makes “Wing Commander” look like “Star Wars.”

FILM REVIEW OF ''SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS" (2011)

2011-12-20T10:44:00.000-08:00

According to The Guinness World Records, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s illustrious literary detective Sherlock Holmes ranks as “the most portrayed movie character” in cinematic history. Indeed, Hollywood has been shooting movies about Sherlock Holmes since the initial one-reeler, “Sherlock Holmes Baffled,” appeared in 1900, as a 30-second silent epic. Since then a number of actors have taken up residence at 221 B Baker Street, ranging from the most vintage, Basil Rathbone during the 1940s, to the most bohemian, Robert Downey, Jr., who received a Golden Globe for his performance in director Guy Ritchie’s “Sherlock Holmes” (2009). Mind you, the Holmes character has made an enviable reputation for himself on television, too. Actor Jeremy Britt took top honors with the definitive interpretation of the notable consulting detective throughout 41 episodes of the Granada Television series. Most recently, the BBC-TV revived Doyle’s gumshoe for the contemporary series “Sherlock” with Benedict Cumberbatch making his deductions amid a modern-day London. Clearly, with as many as 211 movies featuring him, Sherlock Holmes qualifies as an enduring protagonist whose eternal popularity has not diminished in over a century.

Meanwhile, “Lethal Weapon” producer Joel Silver and Ritchie have brought back Holmes for a superior sequel, “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” (**** out of ****), and “Paper Man” scenarists Michele and Kieran Mulroney have pitted him against his most diabolical nemesis, that Napoleon of Crime, Professor James Moriarty. Nothing less than the fate of Western civilization hangs in the balance during this taut 129 minute melodrama which sends Dr. Watson with our eponymous protagonist globetrotting across Europe after “Sherlock Holmes” had confined them to London. Although Lord Blackwood proved an audacious adversary in “Sherlock Holmes,” Moriarty emerges as a far more stimulating opponent in a sequel that surpasses its predecessor. This Moriarty may be the best in any Holmes adventure. Ritchie and the Mulroneys have put the Victorian Era sleuth through the paces with several exciting sequences, including a bullet-riddled shoot-out on a railway train to a challenging chess match in a scenic castle in Switzerland posed on a waterfall. Happily, “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” preserves the formula of its predecessor in every detail and character, not only replaying the ingenious Holmes-O-Vision fisticuffs scenes but also ushering in new characters, such as Holmes’ brilliant elder brother Mycroft. My only complaint about this otherwise tour-de-force mystery thriller is the short shrift given to Holmes’ love interest, Irene Adler, who doesn’t garner her share of screen time.

“Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” takes place in the year 1891 as anarchy threatens to engulf Europe and ignite war between France and Germany. The press speculates either nationalists or anarchists are behind the violence, but Sherlock Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr. of “Iron Man”) believes Moriarty is to blame. Indeed, Moriarty is to blame! No sooner do his unwitting henchmen carry out a piece of his elaborate puzzle of murder and mayhem than a dishonorably discharged British sniper, Colonel Sebastian Moran (Paul Anderson of “A Lonely Place to Die”), kills them with extreme prejudice. Essentially, the sequel picks up where its predecessor more or less off as Dr. Watson is poised to wed Mary (Kelly Reilly of “Pride & Prejudice”) despite Holmes’ indefatigable efforts to derail matrimony. Holmes and Watson visit a London night club where Holmes was supposed to throw Watson’s stag party. Instead, Holmes runs into his brother Mycroft (Stephen Fry of “St. Trinian's”) and leaves a disgruntled Watson to gamble while he meets a gypsy woman, Madam Simza Heron (Noomi Rapace of the Swedish film “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”), who has been searching for her long lost brother named Rene. No sooner does Holmes read her fortune than a smelly Cossack warrior attacks them in an exhilarating scene. Later, after they escape, Holmes meets Moriarty at the university where he teaches mathematics. This is Holmes’ first encounter with Moriarty, and Moriarty tells him he plans to kill both Watson and his wife Mary on their honeymoon. Naturally, Holmes sets out to thwart him and all hell breaks loose.

Oscar-nominated actor Robert Downey, Jr., has another field day playing Sherlock Holmes. Some of his disguises make him virtually invisible. What may irritate die-hard Baker Street regulars are Downey’s undignified antics, particularly when he appears in drag to thwart the villains on the railroad out to murder Watson and his wife. Downey’s funniest scene has Holmes straddling a Shetland pony to the hilarious strains of Ennio Morricone’s music from the Clint Eastwood & Shirley MacLaine oater “Two Mules for Sister Sara.” Undoubtedly, Downey’s best dramatic scene occurs when he crosses analytical swords with Jared Harris’ Machiavellian Professor Moriarty. Mind you, Downey displays more personality than Harris. Nevertheless, Harris makes an undeniably menacing impression with a grand scheme to start a war. Jude Law reprises his role as Dr. Watson, and the chemistry between Law and Downey is still as charismatic as ever. Watson isn’t the bumbling oaf that Nigel Bruce was in the memorable Basil Rathbone outings in the 1940s. The mustached Law is as sharp with his wardrobe as he is with his revolver. For that matter, he is pretty good with military artillery. As Watson’s future wife, Kelly Reilly acquires more screen time here. Other supporting characters from the original, such as Inspector Lestrade (Eddie Marsan) and Holmes’ landlady Mrs. Hudson (Geraldine James), are back. One of producer Joel Silver’s better characteristics is his predilection for retaining the same characters as well as actors as he did in his quartet of “Lethal Weapon” blockbusters.

As usual, despite his revisionist handling of Holmes as a knuckle-smashing action hero, Ritchie makes sure that this lavishly produced thriller never wears out its welcome. Holmes and Watson find themselves up to their respective necks in danger. Happily, Ritchie and the Mulroney never fall back on the formulaic endangered woman plot with regard to Madam Simza and her part in the action. Unlike the first Ritchie “Holmes,” the sequel boasts a couple of tragic moments, but they don’t slow down the pace. Thanks to a lot of gorgeous computer-generated imagery and “Sommersby” lenser Philippe Rousselot photography, everything looks convincingly Victorian. Nothing about “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” is merely elementary, but everything is wholly entertaining.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE SITTER" (2011)

2011-12-13T14:08:00.000-08:00

Comedian Jonah Hill usually plays a goof-off in a group of guys. He appeared in director Judd Apatow's "Knocked Up" as well as "Funny People" as part of a bunch of guys. Although Hill took top billing in "Superbad," Michael Cera attracted the lion's share of attention in that Judd Apatow produced teen comedy. Hill shared the screen with Russell Brand in another Judd Apatow produced laffer "Get Him to the Greek," but Brand dominated that comedy with his hopelessly eccentric persona. Now, in "Pineapple Express" director David Gordon Greene's "The Sitter," Jonah Hill plays top dog. Not only does he star as the protagonist, but he also is the butt of most of the humorous jokes.

Anybody who has seen the wonderful Christopher Columbus comedy "Adventures in Babysitting" (1987) might discern the palatable resemblance between "The Sitter"
(**** out of ****) and the former film. Freshman scribes Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka must have seen "Adventures in Babysitting," too, because Gordon's film involves a similar sequence of events. Circumstances compel our reluctant hero to serve as a babysitter. Later, he finds himself trapped between a rock and a hard place. Meaning, our hero must break rule number one of babysitting and leave the house. He must also break rule number two and take the children with him. Next, he breaks rule number three; he endangers their lives when he takes them in harm's way. The pay-off is that the kids learn some of life's harsh truths and experience a change in attitude about themselves. In fact, everybody, including the hero, learn something about themselves that they didn't know. The resemblance between the Chris Columbus movie and David Gordon Greene's movie ends at this point. "Adventures in Babysitting" qualified a mild PG-13 that skirted an R-rating, but kids and adults both can enjoy it. On the contrary, "The Sitter" deserves its R-rating for all of its profanity,
sexuality, and intense situations.

"The Sitter" is about the madcap misadventures of Noah Griffith (Jonah Hill of "Accepted"), a college drop-out slacker living at home with his single mom. Noah is such a pathetic character that he doesn't own a car and has to pedal around on his bicycle to visit his whiny blond girlfriend Marisa Lewis (Ari Graynor of "Mystic River") who is on the rebound. Our selfish hero winds up helping out his mother, Sandy Griffith (Jessica Hecht of "Sideways"), when he agrees to babysit three children for her. It seems that Sandy's dear friend Mrs. Pedulla (Erin Daniels of "One Hour Photo") has arranged a dinner date for her so Sandy can meet a bachelor surgeon. The backstory is that Noah's estranged father, Jim Griffith (Bruce Altman of "Matchstick Men"), who is a wealthy diamond salesman, divorced Sandy and wrangled a legal way out of paying her alimony. In fact, Jim left Sandy because he was cheating on her with the girl who he hired to babysit Noah. Now, Sandy has a shot at finding a husband, but there is a catch. When Mrs. Padilla's regular babysitter winds up with a urinary tract infection and cannot watch the kids, it looks like Pedullas will have to cancel the dinner date. Initially, Sandy tries to persuade Noah to substitute for the regular babysitter, but Noah objects. He argues that he is a grown man and grown men do not babysit. Noah realizes, however, that he is being self-centered and depriving his single mom of a chance to find happiness.

The wild and chaotic evening which ensues is one of the most traumatic in Noah's life. Everything looks pretty simple until he encounters the Pedulla kids. First, 9-year-old Blithe (newcomer Landry Bender) wants to grow up to become a media 'celebutante' like either Paris Hilton oLindsay Lohan. She copious amounts of make-up. Second, Blithe's 13-year old brother Slater (Max Records of "Where the Wild Things Are") suffers from a sexual identity crisis. As a result, his psychiatrist keeps him heavily medicated. What Max refuses to recognize is he is a latent gay
tendencies. The Pedulla's third child is an El Salvadoran refugee, Rodrigo (newcomer Kevin Hernandez) with an anger management problem. Whereas Slater is mild-manner and repressed, Rodrigo is a full-tilt anus who loves to toy with explosives. Rodrigo's favorite pastime is tossing cherry bombs into toilets. Rodrigo isn't happy because he keeps getting foisted off on one foster home after another because of his
destructive antics.

No sooner have the Pedullas and Noah's mom embarked on their dinner date than Marisa phones Noah. She informs him she is finally prepared to have sex with him if he can score some coke for a friend. Impulsively, Noah throws caution to the wind. He piles the Pedulla children into their mini-van and cruises into New York City with them to buy cocaine from a psychotic dealer, Karl (Sam Rockwell of "Cowboys and Aliens"), who surrounds himself with muscle-bound bodybuilders. Rodrigo purloins one of Karl's prized dinosaur eggs packed with $10-thousand worth of coke. When Rodrigo and Noah tangle in a tug of war over the egg, they crack it and cocaine covers Noah's face. Later, a group of African-American gangstas steal the Pedullas' mini-van that Noah
commandeered for their Manhattan melodrama. Now, Karl wants to ice Noah if our hero doesn't pay for the cocaine, and Noah still wants to hook-up with Maria.

Essentially, "The Sitter" constitutes a fish-out-of-water comedy where characters find themselves off their home turf at the mercy of merciless minions. Everything that can go wrong for Noah does go wrong. Miraculously, he manages to keep his bacon from getting fried, but in the process winds up running an incredibly hilarious gauntlet. The often profane but imaginative dialogue is as memorable as the diverse characters are crazy. These are the most grown-up urchins that you will ever see in a mainstream movie. Mind you, this is neither the kind of movie that you should take a child to see nor is it the kind you should watch if you like to sympathize with the
protagonist. Aside from our Noah's mother and one of his college friends, virtually every character in "The Sitter" is fairly obnoxious. Our hero is the kind of guy who is not entirely trustworthy but he owns up to his mistakes and "The Sitter" ends on a positive note.

FILM REVIEW OF "THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN, PART ONE"

2011-12-06T07:37:00.000-08:00

Superior sequels develop the plot of their predecessors rather than simply imitate them. "Gods and Monsters" director Bill Condon and "Twilight" scenarist Melissa Rosenberg have taken producer Stephenie Meyer's fourth novel "Twilight: Breaking Dawn" and raised the stakes as well as the rivalry. The rivalry here is not confined to just Edward and Jacob, but rather Jacob and his tribe. Mind you, if you've read the novels, you're in better shape to understand the storyline. Anybody walking into "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part One," however, may find themselves overwhelmed by a surplus of plot which is only comprehensible if they've seen the previous three outings. This holds true particularly for people who find vampire movies irresistible. Ostensibly, Meyers has rewritten the rules that govern conventional vampire conduct to the point that the "Twilight" movies emerge as vampire epics in name only. In "Breaking Dawn, Part One," vampires swim in streams as well as oceans. They can procreate like humans and sire offspring. They can cavort about in the daylight without any deleterious effects to their dermatology. They can admire their immortal beauty in a mirror. They even keep a cross in their house! Although their mortal enemies the werewolves can shape-shift from Native Americans to wolves, Meyer's vampires cannot convert themselves into either bats or wolves like Bela Lugosi's Count Dracula and his kind. Meyer's vampires can read minds, foresee the future, and race hither and yon in a flash, but they remain pretty much grounded. At one point in "Breaking Dawn," the vampires must run a gauntlet of werewolves so that they can feed, and the fleet-footed wolves make it nip and tuck the whole way. You'd think Edward and the Cullen clan would scale the trees and hurdle from one to the next, but then the werewolves wouldn't pose much of a problem? All nitpicking aside, "Breaking Dawn" is just as entertaining as "Twilight," "New Moon," and "Eclipse." Indeed, the characters continue to grow. Personally, I still prefer "Eclipse," because the villainous Victoria finally bit the dust. Mind you, "Breaking Dawn" is still splendid stuff with surprises galore for anybody who has enjoyed the franchise.

"Breaking Dawn, Part One" (**** out of ****) is just what "Twilight" fans have been dying for from the start. Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson of "Water for Elephants") and Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart of "Adventureland") finally tie the knot. They exchange vows in the woods surrounded by their friends and family. Unlike some franchises which whittle down the number of characters reprising their roles, the "Twilight" sagas keep bringing the principals as well as the peripherals back. Unfortunately, the lesser Cullens, who had bigger scenes in "Eclipse," merge with the background this time. The same is true for Bella's high school peers who show up for the beautiful wedding in the woods. Happily, the character of Jane who is a member of the Volturi, played by Dakota Fanning, doesn’t make appearance in this entry. Sadly, she will be back in the finale. The action unfolds with an angry and obviously jealous Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner of "Abduction") charging off into the wilderness to change into a werewolf when he receives his wedding invitation. Remember, the werewolves here look like overgrown wolves, not the genuinely ghastly creatures in the "Underworld" franchise. Meanwhile, Bella struggles to maintain her equilibrium in high heels as Alice (Ashley Greene of "Skateland") chides her about getting enough beauty sleep. No sooner have they wed than our couple caper off to Brazil and then Edward takes Bella for a boat ride to a gorgeous private island paradise that Dr. Carlisle Cullen has given to them as a wedding present. Talk about wish fulfillment! Edward's fangs are so pointy by this time that he literally tears the bed apart on their wedding night. Afterward, they play several games of chess until Bella gets the hang of it and defeats him. Meantime, Edward isn't proud of himself. Bella bears the bruises of his love tussling,but she isn't complaining. While Edward is away on the mainland assuaging his appetite for animal blood, our heroine finds it difficult to keep down her own. Oh, no, not morning sickness! This improbable turn of events surprises even Edward. Bella gets sick, and Edward flies her back to Forks so Dr. Carlisle Cullen (Peter Facinelli of "Can't Hardly Wait") can examine her. At the same time, Bella’s father Sheriff Charlie Swan (Billy Burke of “Drive Angry”) is worried about her, too. As it turns out, Carlisle has no solution, and the fetus is growing at such an alarming pace that it drains the life out of Bella.

Clocking in at 117 minutes, "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part One" spends the first hour getting the action underway with the wedding and then the comic honeymoon antics before Condon and Rosenberg take things to the dark side. The special effects that shrink poor Bella until she resembles a Nazi death camp inmate are truly groundbreaking. Nothing about the way that she deteriorates looks spurious. Since the "Twilight" saga is rated PG-13, the honeymoon and the battle with the werewolves isn't as horrific as it might have been in an R-rated opus. The werewolves look a little more believable, and they even get to drool saliva. Keep in mind, the "Twilight" franchise is a romantic fantasy so gravity rarely interferes with these shenanigans. Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart still qualify as a sympathetic Romeo and Juliet couple, but the real surprise of "Breaking Dawn" is Taylor Lautner who brings more gravitas to his role than in previous "Twilights" or the abysmal "Abduction" that he starred in earlier this year. Of course, Jacob came to Bella's aid in "Eclipse" when he wasn't competing with Edward for her affection. Jacob's character assumes greater significance in "Breaking Dawn." The fourth entry in the "Twilight" franchise packs a wallop, particularly near the end. True "Twilight" fans shouldn't bolt when the end credits roll because more comes after the end credits with the evil Volturi savoring the final moments.

FILM REVIEW OF ''TOWER HEIST'' (2011)

2011-11-23T07:12:00.000-08:00

The Ben Stiller & Eddie Murphy thriller “Tower Heist” (**1/2 out of ****) amounts to an entertaining but harebrained morality play about a gang of amateur thieves. Mind you, “Rush Hour” director Brett Ratner’s ninth film is a splendid example of contemporary class rivalry; responsible working class city dwellers tangle with a ruthless irresponsible millionaire who uses the system to shield himself. This shallow often silly snapshot of our times makes it plain that the have-nots want everything that they can haul off from the haves. Although Ratner and “Ocean’s Eleven” scenarist Ted Griffin & “Rush Hour 2” scribe Jeff Nathanson have contrived an innocuous, occasionally suspenseful caper with a few surprises, the overall result remains is bland and colorless. Sometimes, the filmmakers contradict themselves with psychic FBI agents who are easily fooled by the most obvious prank. Happily, despite its clumsy narrative lurches, “Tower Heist” doesn’t wear out its welcome. Ratner and company have done a good job of establishing the characters and setting up the heist. At one point, Casey Affleck concisely summarizes the predicament that they find themselves in and the gauntlet of obstacles that they must negotiate. Stealing what they wind up stealing turns out to be no picnic for our intrepid heroes. In some ways, “Tower Heist” is reminiscent of last summer’s hit comedy “Horrible Bosses” where amateur murderers sought advice from a professional hit man. The heist that our heroes plan during the Thanksgiving Day Parade under everybody’s noses recalls a similarly audacious crime committed in New York City during Labor Day in director Sidney Lumet’s “The Anderson Tapes” (1971) with Sean Connery. Meantime, the production values of “Tower Heist,” itself budgeted at a hefty $75 million, are impeccable. “Heat” lenser Dante Spinotti’s dazzling cinematography makes Ratner’s Manhattan based melodrama a feast for the eyes. The opening aerial shot atop a skyscraper looking down at Benjamin Franklin’s face on a $100 dollar bill at the bottom of a huge swimming pool is something to remember! Incidentally, the actual edifice itself is The Trump International Hotel & Tower overlooking Central Park.

Hardworking Josh Kovacs (Ben Stiller of “Meet the Parents”) serves as the general manager of the Tower where he reigns as the top gofer who ensures that all his residents enjoy the best of everything. The owner of the Tower, Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda of TV’s “M.A.S.H.”) , is an investment mogul who attended the same public school that Josh attended in Astoria. Josh and Shaw play chess on a regular basis with Shaw teaching him about the minutiae of the game. During the opening moments, Ratner provides us with a tour of the Tower and some of its notable workers and residents. We meet Josh as well as the adored doorman Lester (Stephen Henderson of “Everyday People”), the harried concierge Charlie (Casey Affleck of “Drowning Mona”), Josh’s immediate superior Mr. Simon (Judd Hirsh of “Independence Day”), new elevator operator Enrique (Michael Peña of “Shooter”) and a destitute stockholder, Mr. Fitzhugh (Matthew Broderick of “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”), who Josh must evict. Aside from Mr. Fitzhugh, Josh keeps everything under control, until he learns the Feds have charged his old friend Shaw with securities fraud. Poor Lester tries to throw himself under a subway train because he has lost everything. An angry Josh storms into Shaw’s penthouse apartment and smashes Shaw’s most prized possession, a red Ferrari that Steve McQueen once drove. Later, Josh meets FBI Special Agent Claire Denham (Téa Leoni of “Bad Boys”) in a bar. She mentions that bigwigs like Shaw have a contingency safety net of millions to fall back on in case of a contingency. Josh assembles a motley crew of disgruntled employees who Shaw took to the cleaners, and they decide to ransack Shaw’s apartment for the loot. Josh enlists the aid of a former school mate, Slide (Eddie Murphy of “48 Hrs”), who knows something about committing crime. Predictably, nothing goes as planned, and our heroes find themselves in a real quandary when they discover where Shaw has stashed his money.

“Tower Heist” benefits from Alan Alda’s stellar performance as a slippery Bernie Madoff-style Wall Street villain. He steals a fortune from his gullible clients who have no clue that they’ve been defrauded. The supporting cast, including Matthew Broderick, Casey Affleck, Stephen Henderson, Judd Hirsh, Gabourey Sidibe, Téa Leoni, and Michael Peña, has flawless timing. Michael Peña is particularly funny. The flaw in the ointment of “Tower Heist” is the incompatible casting of Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy. These two are accomplished comedians but their comedic styles and rhythms clash. Indeed, Stiller makes a sympathetic protagonist who commits an unfortunate mistake which not only costs his employees but also himself their life savings. Essentially, Stiller is playing a variation of his “A Night in the Museum” hero. Meanwhile, a hammy Murphy chews the scenery. The former “Saturday Night Live” comic emphasizes caricature over character in a role that Martin Lawrence could easily have pulled off without the histrionic antics. Murphy acts like he is in a “Norbit” spin-off, while everybody else plays it straight and narrow. The best comics behave as if they don’t know that they are being hilarious. Inexplicably, the producers delay the integration of Murphy into the action for about 40 minutes. Meantime, “Tower Heist” suffers from a bad ending that punishes our hero, apparently for his good intentions. The villain’s utter treachery, however, sanctions the efforts of our woebegone heroes to recover their stolen money. Shrewdly, the filmmakers have confined the larceny strictly to the characters who the villain has duped. No innocent bystanders are caught up in the calamity, and nothing in the PG-13 rated “Tower Heist” comes off as offensive. As polished as “Tower Heist” appears, the plot stumbles through its paces after everything has been carefully set up during the opening forty-five minutes. Nothing about "Tower Heist" qualifies it as a towering heist caper.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE THREE MUSKETEERS"

2011-10-30T15:41:00.000-07:00

"Resident Evil" producer & director Paul W.S. Anderson should stick to making either science fiction horror chillers, like "Event Horizon" and "The Soldier," or brawny actioneers, like "Mortal Combat," and "Death Race." These genres thrive on larger-than-life characters performing heavy-handed histrionics in over-the-top situations. Gadgets and gimmicks proliferate in both genres, typically with the combatants defeating their enemy because they display greater competence with their weapons. Now, Anderson has ventured outside of his usual bailiwick with "The Three Musketeers." The immortal Alexander Dumas novel emphasized court intrigue, chivalrous romance, and colorful swordplay in a 17th century setting. Indeed, "The Three Musketeers" has been a favorite of filmmakers since the French produced the first cinematic version in 1903. Since that long lost classic appeared over a century ago, more than 30 remakes and various sequels have followed. Hollywood conjured up two unusual adaptations. First, Mascot Pictures released a serial in 1933 which cast ten-gallon hero John Wayne as a one of the three eponymous protagonists in the Arabian Desert as French Foreign Legionnaires. Second, Universal Studios shifted the storyline to the Texas-Mexican border for the short-lived 1960s’ western television series "Laredo" which swapped six-guns for swords, but captured the essence of the Musketeers' tongue-in-cheek shenanigans. Anderson and scenarists Alex Litvak and Andrew Davies have tried to update “The Three Musketeers” (** OUT OF ****) for contemporary audiences by adding anachronistic elements which are often found in steampunk science fiction and fantasy. Instead, had Anderson imitated the latest literary trend that Quirk Books launched with Seth Grahame-Smith in 2009 in his parody of Jane Austin’s “Pride and Prejudice” entitled “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies,” he might have fared better.

“The Three Musketeers” boasts an opening gambit which is half James Bond and half “Resident Evil.” Athos (Matthew Macfadyen of “Robin Hood”), Porthos (Ray Stevenson of “Punisher: War Games”), and Aramis (Luke Evans of “Blitz”) are on a secret mission in Venice, Italy, accompanied by Athos’ girlfriend Milady de Winter (Milla Jovovich of “Ultraviolet”) to steal Leonardo da Vinci’s plans for an airborne galleon. They have to filch three keys to break into a well-guarded vault that houses the blueprints, and it amounts to an impossible mission. Nevertheless, they pull off the impossible, only to have the treacherous Milady double-cross them with drugged drinks. She hands the plans over to their English enemy, the obnoxious Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy”), and Buckingham and Milady leave our heroes passed out of the floor. A year elapses, and young D'Artagnan (Logan Lerman of “The Butterfly Effect”) rides to Paris with the blessings of his parents, one a former Musketeer, to join the elite King’s guard. During the journey, he encounters the evil Captain Rochefort (Mads Mikkelsen of “Casino Royale”), the chief of Cardinal Richelieu's guard. Rochefort insults D'Artagnan’s horse Buttercup, and our hero challenges the best swordsman in Europe to a swordfight. Instead, Rochefort whips out pistols, and D'Artagnan avoids death narrowly because the guns misfire. Miraculously, Milady intercedes for D'Artagnan since she thinks he is handsome.

Once he arrives in Paris, the tenacious D'Artagnan pursues Rochefort. During his pursuit, he encounters Athos, Porthos, and Aramis separately and each challenge him to a duel. Eventually, when they meet to clash swords, forty of Richelieu's guards interrupt them. Athos, Porthos, and Aramis join D'Artagnan, and they whip the guards. Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz of “Inglourious Basterds”) insists that young King Louis XIII (Freddie Fox of “St Trinian's II: The Legend of Fritton's Gold”) discipline them for their behavior. Louis XIII sends them on their way with little more than a verbal reprimand. Like Milady, Louis feels sympathetic to D'Artagnan. Later, in an effort to humiliate Buckingham and force Louis XIII to have his wife, Queen Anne (Juno Temple), executed for cuckolding him with Lord Buckingham, Richelieu has Milady steal diamond necklace and hide it in the Tower of London. D'Artagnan and the Musketeers make it their business to steal back the diamonds.

The best "Musketeer" movies have been frivolous, light-hearted swashbucklers with nimble swordplay and charismatic characters. “A Hard Day’s Night” director Richard Lester made the most memorable remake that emerged as two films “The Three Musketeers” (1973) and “The Four Musketeers” (1974). Although Anderson's take on the chivalrous Dumas tale qualifies as ambitious with impressive costumes and production values, the overall treatment is nevertheless uneven and ultimately uninspired. Anderson lacks the light touch and helms this period outing with a heavy hand. In a misguided effort to revitalize this venerable yarn of derring-do for contemporary audiences, he has resorted to outlandish gadgets such as scuba gear, complex vaults, and airborne galleons. Basically, Anderson seems to be imitating swashbucklers like Terry Gilliam's "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen" (1988) and Mathew Vaughn's "Stardust" (2007). Meantime, he has forsaken the essence of any good "Musketeer" movie, the camaraderie among Athos, Aramis, Porthos, and D'Artagnan.

Mind you, Anderson's "Three Musketeers" doesn't qualify as a complete fiasco. This $90-million international production is a triumph of Pierre-Yves Gayraud's extravagant costumes and Paul Denham Austerberry's sophisticated production designs. Although Anderson filmed this epic on location in Germany, the sprawling Castle Herrenchiemsee in Bavaria stands in splendidly for the actual Palace of Versailles. If showy costumes, production values, and a handsome cast constituted a good movie, then this "Three Musketeers" would qualify as a stunner. Unfortunately, this is simply not the case. Sadly, nothing about the use of 3-D distinguishes "Rambo" lenser Glen MacPherson's impeccable widescreen cinematography. Meantime, Anderson must have been tugged in two directions by his writers who were as different as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Alex Litvak, who penned the horror opus "Predators," and Andrew Davies, who wrote the two chick flick "Brigit Jones" romancers, seem to alternate between a diamond heist and sword fighting without any time out for romantic interludes. The chief differences between this “Three Musketeers” and previous remakes is the use of airships to accelerate the momentum of the plot. Whereas our heroes galloped on horseback in the earlier epics, Anderson and his scenarists rely on gimmicks to speed up the action. Anderson doesn’t have a clue about how to wield comedy and all the jokes and pranks fall flat, particularly with Planchet who serves as the butt of the humor. Matters aren't helped that the actors cast as the leads. They are hopelessly overshadowed by a stronger supporting cast, principally Milla Jovovich, Orlando Bloom, Mads Mikkelsen, and Oscar-winner Christoph Waltz who are better known to audiences. “The Three Musketeers” never generates the zest that either the silent Douglas Fairbanks’ classic or the famous Richard Lester version with Michael York, Richard Chamberlain, and Oliver Reed had. Altogether, “The Three Musketeers” buckles because it doesn’t swash!

FILM REVIEW OF ''BEVERLY HILLS COP 3" (1994)

2011-10-25T08:34:00.000-07:00

This uninspired sequel about a counterfeit ring operating in a Walt Disney look-alike amusement park qualifies as the least entertaining entry in the "Beverly Hills Cop" franchise. After producing "Beverly Hills Cop" and "Beverly Hills Cop 2," Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer had nothing to do with this pathetic Paramount release that unimaginatively drags Detroit Detective Axel Foley (Eddie Murphy of "48 HRS") back to California for the third time. You can tell when a franchise has run
out of momentum because it starts knocking off its own characters. Further, neither Taggart (John Ashton of the first two "Beverly Hills Cop" movies) nor Capt. Bogamill (Ronny Cox of the first two Beverly Hills Cop" movies) return. Nothing is ever said about Bogamill's absence, but we're told that Taggart has retired. (Actually, in the Special Features on the DVD release, a producer mentions that John Austin was not available so his character had to be replaced.) Nevertheless, nobody replaces Captain Bogamill, but franchise newcomer Hector Elizondo appears as John Ashton's replacement. Let's not forget Paul Reiser's character Detective Jeffrey Friedman who is conspicuous by his absence. Not even witty Bronson Pinchot can rekindle the magic with his English-language challenged foreigner, Serge, who no longer works at an art gallery, has concocted what he refers to as a firearms boutique.

Sadly, this is one sequel that shouldn't have been made. Although the stunt work is exemplary in the Spider Ride park scene, the recurring firefights between our hero and the trigger happy villains conjure up neither suspense nor tension. "Beverly Hills Cop 3" (*1/2 out of ****) recycles one of the most deplorable movie clichés. Specifically, the well-armed villains cannot hit the side of a barn with their machine guns. Axel's one-liners and the dialogue are both forgettable. Murphy doesn't field many laughs and looks pretty idiotic wandering around in an elephant costume. In all fairness to the filmmakers, at least they did not have another foreign villain with a heavy accent like they had in the first two entries.

"Animal House" helmer John Landis doesn't let the derivative action bog down in complications, but the contrived Steven E. de Souza screenplay yields few surprises. Axel doesn't suffer any setbacks on the scale that he did in the first two outings. Simply said, Landis and Souza develop few things that haven't done before with greater polish. It is interesting to note the change in settings where Axel is concerned during his time off. In "Beverly Hills Cop," he stayed in the Beverly Palms. In the sequel, he hung out at an plush house with a pool. In "Beverly Hills Cop 3," he has a room at the Sunset Motel. The only exciting scene occurs early in the action when the bad guys riddle the sports car that Axel appropriates when he chases them through the streets. The multitude of bullets that the ruffians pour into Axel's car wind up dismantling it piecemeal until it falls apart. Director John Bonito would borrow this gag for his 2006 thriller "The Marine" with wrestling sensation John Cena. Worse, Axel seems to have lost his ability to clown around with everybody as he did in the first two. Murphy grins a lot but nothing he does boasts a glimmer of spontaneity. Meanwhile, this abysmal second sequel looks like utter hack work.

Meanwhile "Innocent Blood" lenser Mac Ahlberg doesn't make the shoot'em up scenes look cool like they were in the original and the first sequel. Despite the profane language, this ignominious R-rated crime thriller qualifies as a by-the-numbers, cookie cutter actioneer. Clearly, the franchise had lost its agility by this time that Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer had shed themselves of it, and nothing Murphy does resuscitates it. While he is investigating the chief villain, Ellis De Wald (Timothy Carhart of "Thelma & Louise"), Axel flirts with Janice (Theresa Randle of "Junge Fever") who works for everybody's favorite uncle, Uncle Dave Thornton (Alan Young of TV's "Mr. Ed") who cannot figure out what is happening in his theme park.

"Beverly Hills Cop 3" resembles the original only in the narrative respect that our protagonist leaves Detroit and heads back to Beverly Hills to arrest the cold-blooded murderer that shot his boss, Inspector Douglas Todd (Gilbert R. Hill of "Beverly Hills Cop"), three times during a Tuesday morning raid on an auto chop-shop in the Motor City. (Incidentally, there is a flaw here because when Axel confronts Ellis DeWald in Wonder World, he accuses DeWald of shooting Todd on a weekend.)The complication here is that Axel goes into the operation with the idea that the mechanics won't be armed with machine guns, so he doesn't summon S.W.A.T. for back-up. While Axel is justifying his decision to Todd, De Wald and his machine gun wielding gunmen shoot up the garage, killing all the chop shop personnel so De Wald can get a Ford delivery van filled with U.S. Government stamped boxes. Once Axel enters Wonder World, the film degenerates into claustrophobic mediocrity. The scene when Axel brandishes the Annihilator 2000 gun is one of the worst. Of course, our hero cannot get the elaborate firearm with a CD-player and other gadgets work properly when he faces down a couple of villains with machine guns. Timothy Carhart makes a smug enough villain, but he never really poses a real threat to Axel. Incidentally, Landis indulges himself by inserting Hollywood directors in cameos throughout his movies. If you look closely, you will spot George Lucas, John Singleton, Joe Dante, Barbet Schroeder, Peter Medak, Arthur Hiller, George Schaefer and Martha Coolidge in some of the scenes. Sadly, the third time is not the charm for either the "Beverly Hills Cop" franchise or Landis and Murphy who teamed up again after "Trading Places" and "Coming to America."

Eddie Murphy has gone on the record and called "Beverly Hills Cop 3" "ill-fated." What more do you need to know???

FILM REVIEW OF ''REAL STEEL" (2011)

2011-10-24T14:16:00.000-07:00

The exuberant Hugh Jackson robotic slug-fest "Real Steel" (*** OUT OF ****) punches all the right buttons. Synthesize two classic boxing epics like "Rocky" (1976) and "The Champ" (1931), and you’ll have a fair idea what to expect from this feel-good, formulaic, PG-13 rated, fodder about an estranged father and son who rescue a robot from the scrap heap. "Real Steel" takes place in the near future when crowds prefer to watch colossal, cybernetic palookas pummel each other into spare parts. The concept that man can no longer participate in simulated violence via sports is a tantalizing prospect, but "Night at the Museum" director Shawn Levy doesn't preoccupy himself with such lofty ideas. Instead, he focuses primarily on a troubled father and son relationship. Meantime, Levy reminds us that a better human always stands behind every good 20-foot metal behemoth in the ring. Inspired partially by the Marx Toy Company game ‘Rock'em Sock'em Robots’ marketed in 1964, "Coach Carter" scribe John Gatins also drew on "I Am Legend" sci-fi author Richard Matheson’s 1956 short story "Steel." Mind you, this isn’t the first time Matheson’s tale has been adapted. Lee Marvin played the boxing robot’s owner in an episode of Rod Serling's landmark television series "The Twilight Zone." In Matheson’s tale as well as the “Twilight Zone” episode, the robot’s manager had no son, and he masqueraded as the robot after it malfunctioned before the match. Consequently, Levy and his scenarists have made some major changes. Nevertheless, the charisma of the “Real Steel” cast stokes this tearjerker with so much sentiment that you’ll shadow box with our hero and tear up as father and son bond. What makes this reversal of character so dramatic is the change that sweeps over our repellent hero and makes him sympathetic.

Charlie Kenton (Hugh Jackman of “Swordfish”) is a washed-up pugilist who is his own worst enemy. He owes gambling debts to more people than he can remember. Charlie makes bets that he cannot cover with his robot named ‘Ambush’ because he believes “Ambush” will triumph. Naturally, Charlie has to dodge obnoxious louts, especially Ricky (Kevin Durand of “Legion”), a shady promoter, who lures our hero to a rural country fair. Charlie pits ‘Ambush’ against Ricky’s prize bull Black Thunder. Imagine Charlie’s incredulity when Black Thunder pulverizes ‘Ambush.’ Not only is Charlie out of a bot, but also he owes Ricky $20-thousand that he doesn’t have. If things weren’t appalling enough for him, Charlie must contend with another problem in the person of his 11-year old son Max (Dakota Goyo of “Thor”), who he walked out on when he split from his wife. Max lives to play video games and chug Dr. Pepper. Yes, “Real Steel” features some of the most blatant product placement in a long time. Irresponsible as Charlie is, the former heavyweight is prepared to sign away custody of Max to the latter’s Aunt Debra (Hope Davis of “Arlington Road”) and Uncle Marvin (James Rebhorn of “Independence Day”), but only for a price. Charlie negotiates with Marvin for $100-thousand, with half of the loot up front. The catch is Charlie must take care of Max for three months, while Marvin and Debra enjoy a second honeymoon.

Initially, neither Charlie nor Max has much use for each other. Charlie squanders Marvin’s cash on a second-hand World Robot Boxing league automaton, ‘Noisy Boy,’ who predictably gets the robotics beaten out of him by another bot called ‘Midas.’ Charlie tucks his tail between his legs along with the ‘Noisy Boy’s’ remains, and Max and he slink away. Later, they sneak into a robot junkyard which Charlie plans to plunder for anything worthwhile. During their search, Max literally stumbles upon a Generation 2 robot named Atom that saves his life when the youth stumbles off a ledge. Reluctantly, Charlie helps Max unearth what is nothing more than a sparring robot. Actually, this bot bears an amazing resemblance to “Star Wars” bots on planet Tatooine. Our protagonists cannibalize ‘Noisy Boy’ and convert the scrap-heap android into a contender. Actually, Atom emerges as a “Rocky” type because it can absorb as much punishment as a sadomasochistic maniac. After Atom wins several bouts that nobody thought it would survive, Max challenges the WRB’s undefeated champ Zeus. This sinister black android is the property of a wealthy Russian babe, Farra Lemkova (Olga Fonda of “Little Fockers”), and an arrogant Japanese designer, Tak Mashido (Karl Yune of “Freezerburn”), who abhor having terms dictated to them. Initially, they ignore Max’s challenge, but pressure forces them to cave. During the big fight, Atom is battered so badly that our heroes cannot communicate with him, so they have to fall back on visual communication. Literally, Charlie must show the underdog bot when and where to land his blows for maximum impact.

The chemistry between Hugh Jackman and Dakota Goyo is so genuine that you believe they are father and son. Not since Mickey Rourke played a similar role in “The Wrestler” has a hero so risen from the depths of degeneracy. Basically, Charlie deserves everything rotten that wrecks his life until he meets Max. Indeed, the last thing our hard-bitten hero learns is that he is a sucker for his long lost son. Of course, anybody who has seen this kind of melodramatic nonsense knows that it is strictly formula from fade-in to fade-out: father finds son, father loses son, father wins son back. Atom brings these two together for a common cause, and they respect each other as equals while they struggle to make their bot the best. Surprisingly, the Generation 2 robot that they rebuild as they rebuild their own relationship never acquires sentience. In one scene, Atom seems to recognize itself as it gazes into a mirror, but Levy does nothing with this subplot. Meantime, he undercuts the romance between Evangeline Lilly and Jackman because "Real Steel" concentrates on Charlie, Max, and Atom. Kevin Durand stands out as the villainous Rick who eventually gets his comeuppance. “Real Steel” will keep you rooting throughout its exhilarating 127 minutes.

FILM REVIEW OF ''THE THING" (2011)

2011-10-17T11:30:00.000-07:00

First-time Danish helmer Matthijs van Heijningen’s remake of the legendary 1951 creature-feature “The Thing from Another World” qualifies as formulaic but respectable nonsense. The original “Thing” preserved only vestiges of author John W. Campbell’s vintage 1938 short story “Who Goes There?” Instead, producer Howard Hawks, “His Girl Friday” scenarist Charles Lederer, and Hawks’ long-time editor Christian Nyby created the conventional alien-on-the-rampage plot at an isolated, snow-swept, scientific outpost in the Arctic. Not only did “The Thing from Another World” constitute one of Hollywood’s earliest epics to depict extraterrestrials, but it also was the first with a hostile alien devoid of compassion. The original “Thing” alien was a towering homicidal humanoid with the cellular structure of a vegetable who gave the scientists and the U.S.A.F personnel a royal headache before they manage to isolate its weakness and electrocute it.

In 1982, “Halloween” director John Carpenter and writer Bill Lancaster produced a sequel where survivors from the initial tragedy encountered a nearby community of scientists. The shape-shifting alien invader entered their camp as a Yukon husky and mayhem ensued. Instead of contending with a humanoid creature, the guys in “The Thing” confronted an ugly beast with tentacles, huge teeth, and a bad attitude that absorbed its victims and then impersonated them. The monster remained in one body until he shifted to another host. Consequently, nobody trusted anybody. Trapped in a remote outpost in Antarctica, the characters suffered from extreme paranoia. Principally, they suspected that one of their own had been cloned and threatened to not only kill them but also clone them. Van Heijningen and “Final Destination 5” scenarist Eric Heisserer have appropriated the complicated Carpenter and Lancaster approach rather than the straightforward, single alien invasion plot. Nevertheless, Heijningen and Heisserer have altered a thing or two. First, the hero of the new “Thing” (*** out of ****) is a woman. Second, the way our heroes test to determine the presence of the alien differs. Third, no equivalent to Dr. Carrington in the original exists in the group of scientists. If you recall, Dr. Carrington represented the fraction of scientists who did not want to destroy the Thing. Instead, they wanted to reason with it and learn from it. Mind you, the new “Thing” isn’t as creepy as Carpenter’s masterpiece with its abundant atmosphere, memorable Ennio Morricone score, and charismatic cast. Nevertheless, Heijningen and Heisserer deserve recognition for their fidelity to the source material and the sequel. Of course, it doesn’t hurt matters that two of the producers on Carpenter’s “Thing” also produced this remake.

“The Thing” takes place in Antarctica during the winter of 1982. Arrogant Dr. Sander Halvorson (Ulrich Thomsen of “Season of the Witch”) persuades a top-notch graduate student, American paleontologist Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead of “Black Christmas”), into joining his Norwegian geological expedition. She accepts and finds herself freezing her toes off while the guys show her their top-secret discovery. They have found a gigantic alien spacecraft entombed in the ice for possibly a hundred-thousand years. The first scene shows how they plunged a snow-plow into a crevasse and found it. Unlike the original film, these scientists stumble onto the spacecraft deep in the ice, but they do not blow it up accidentally. Like the original, they locate the mysterious body of an alien that ejected from the crashed spaceship only to freeze. Carefully, they remove it from the ice and stash it in their research facility for examination. Eventually, the ice thaws, and the monster escapes. Our heroes realize that they are contending with a deadly alien and wield flame-throwers. They start to worry during an early autopsy when it becomes apparent that the creature can spit out replicas of their colleagues. Things reach a crisis point, and nobody trusts anybody, until the savvy Kate figures out that the alien cannot replicate inanimate objects. If an individual wears jewelry, has metal appliances surgically attached to their bones, or/and silver fillings in their teeth, the Thing cannot replicate these items. Unfortunately, some of the scientists don’t have silver fillings. They have porcelain ones. Ultimately, everything boils down to a suspenseful game of cat and mouse. Happily, Van Heijningen and Heisserer drum up an adequate number of scares to keep you poised on the edge. Moviegoers who don’t do horror movies might find “The Thing” a bit more demanding. In one scene, a gash appears in one character’s face, runs down his chest toward his stomach as both open wide like a mouth and elephant tusk-sized teeth sprout accompanied by a hideous howl.

Creature designer Michael Broom of “The Mist” and “Predators” has conjured up several memorable creatures. At one point, the alien absorbs two men so that it looks like a two-headed transplant walking on its arms and legs like a wolf. During another scene, a forearm detaches from one individual and attaches itself by the forearm to another fellow’s face and starts to graft itself onto the man’s face! When the monster is in its own ghastly form, it can project a slimy-looking tentacle that penetrates flesh and bone like a spear. Once the tentacle has perforated an individual’s back, its tip emerges from the chest and deploys into a four-pronged, grappling hook that retracts its victim into its voracious maw. The worst thing that you can say about the new “Thing” is that nobody delivers any memorable lines of dialogue, and the cast lacks the charisma of the first two movies. Suffice to say, all those Norwegian fellows look and sound identical with little individuality among them. Happily, they don’t turn Mary Elizabeth Winstead into a sexy Ripley from “Alien” clone. Joel Edgerton plays a resilient helicopter pilot who is reminiscent of Kurt Russell’s hero in the sequel. Shrewdly, Heijningen paces the appearance of the alien for maximum impact and predictably ratchets up the action in the final quarter. Like the Carpenter classic, the remake shuns humor. Ultimately, although it is a remake of the 1951 “Thing,” the new “Thing” shares more in common with Carpenter’s “Thing.” Despite the sense of déjà vu that accompanies this polished production, “The Thing” lacks the turbo-driven fright of Carpenter’s sequel, but it scores major points with its impressive CGI creature designs.

FILM REVIEW OF ''ABDUCTION" (2011)

2011-10-03T20:42:00.000-07:00

You know a movie is in trouble when its title has no relevance to its subject matter. Webster’s defines abduction as “to carry off (as a person) by force.” The second part of the definition clarifies abduction as “the unlawful carrying away of a woman for marriage or intercourse.” For the record, nobody abducts anybody in the straightforward but derivative John Singleton pursuit procedural thriller “Abduction.” “Twilight” heartthrob Taylor Lautner carries the picture on his shoulders as a sympathetic hero who takes it on the lam when he discovers his parents are not related to him by blood. If you’ve seen the “Abduction” trailers, you know that our handsome high school hero discovers his face at a missing persons website equipped with software which enables users to see what the person would appear now as an adult. Our heroine and the heroine realize their worst fears when the resemblance between the computer generated image and he are virtually identical. Not only does “Abduction” (** out of ****) qualify as a lackluster white-knuckled suspense saga, but also it is far less entertaining than a similar thriller “Hanna” about an adolescent girl on the run. Furthermore, the Taylor Lautner hero is far from being a lethal weapon. He doesn’t kill as many people as Hanna, and he isn’t as comfortable with his transient lifestyle as Hanna. Lautner the actor manages to hold his own around a substantially heavyweight supporting cast that includes Sigourney Weaver, Alfred Molina, Maria Bellow, and Michael Nyqvist. The target audience for this PG-13 rated road trip ranges between ages 10 and 16. Lautner sheds his shirt often enough for his female fans, and he acquits himself adequately in all his close-quarters combat scenes. Nevertheless, “Abduction” will not carry you away.

Nathan Harper (Taylor Lautner of the “Twilight” franchise) feels like something is wrong with his parents. They strike him as being strange, but he has no clue about how strange that they ultimately turn out to be. Otherwise, Nathan is no different than any other high school junior. He is the kind of athlete who never loses a wrestling match. He lives across the street from a drop-dead-gorgeous cutie, Karen (young Elizabeth Taylor look-alike Lily Collins of “The Blind Side”), who he has not dated since the eighth grade. Currently, Karen is involved with a college-age clown, but she eventually gives him the boot. Meanwhile, when Nathan isn’t in school or partying hardy at a neighbor’s house, he attends therapy sessions with his shrink, Geraldine Bennett (Sigourney Weaver of “Alien”), who seems genuinely concerned about his welfare. Nathan has trouble sleeping. He has had a history of violence, but the authorities haven't had to take him into custody. Further, he has a recurring nightmare about seeing a woman in a Parisian motel being killed. Nathan witnesses this cold-bloodied murder as a child beneath a bed. No matter what Nathan does, however, he cannot seem to please his pugnacious father, Kevin (Jason Issacs of the “Harry Potter” franchise) who constantly picks fights with him. Little does poor Nathan know that his mixed martial arts clashes with Kevin will come in handy.

One day his high school teacher, Mr. Miles (Roger Guenveur Smith of “American Gangster”), assigns Nathan to research a project involving missing persons. The catch is that Mr. Miles assigns Karen as Nathan's partner. Initially, they begin their project at Nathan’s house in his bedroom. They stumble onto a website with a juvenile photograph of a kid who is the dead ringer for Nathan. Nathan is troubled when he finds a shirt that corresponds with the one that the kid is wearing in the picture. Karen tries to argue that the shirt is merely similar to the one in the photo, until Nathan points out that the stain on the shoulder is identical. Nathan discusses the subject with his mother, Mara (Mario Bello of NBC-TV’s “Prime Suspect”), and she breaks down and confesses that neither Kevin nor she are his blood relations. No sooner has this cat slipped out of the bag than two plainclothes government agents invade the premises and gundown Kevin and Mara. Karen walks in while all this mayhem is transpiring, and Nathan struggles to protect her from these lethal louts. A dying assailant warns them about a bomb in the oven, and an obvious CGI explosion blows their house to smithereens and hurls our hero and heroine into a swimming pool. Later, Nathan catches a television news story about the explosion, and the newscaster reports that nobody died. Apparently, according to the authorities, nobody was at home during the explosion. Nathan calls 911 from a pay phone. Before he grasps what is happened, he finds himself talking to CIA agent Burton (Alfred Molina of “Spider-Man 3”) who wants to help him. Nathan and Karen do their best to dodge the CIA, but the company catches up with them after Nathan kills an assailant on an Amtrak train. Freshman scenarist Shawn Christensen raises the stakes even higher as a group of foreigners armed with sophisticated gear and exotic sniper rifles arrive as if on safari to locate him.

Sadly, the twists and turns in the Christensen screenplay won’t have you performing impossible contortions like a first-rate thriller would have you do. John Singleton makes this realistic but far-fetched thriller into a tolerable potboiler. Beyond that “Abduction” is not very abducting. There is a fight on an Amtrak that has been compared with the Sean Connery & Robert Shaw brawl on the Orient Express in “From Russia with Love.” There is no comparison. The finale at the Pittsburgh Pirates stadium is nothing special. Indeed, one villain calls it quits too easily while another is simply shot down in the street. “Abduction” is the first film that “Boyz n the Hood” director Singleton has made in six years. Singleton’s last movie “Four Brothers” was misfire remake of the John Wayne classic “The Sons of Katie Elder.” The way that Singleton is going, he may not make another movie is another six years. Taylor Lautner should be happy playing third-string in the “Trinity” franchise.

FILM REVIEW OF THE REMAKE OF "STRAW DOGS" (2011)

2011-09-25T20:05:00.000-07:00

Imitation, Mohandas Gandhi said, is the sincerest form of flattery. The ghost of Sam Peckinpah would be flattered by the new tricks that “Deterrence” writer & director Rod Lurie has taught the old “Straw Dogs” for contemporary audiences. Although it isn’t a carbon copy of the volatile 1971 melodrama, the new “Straw Dogs” (*** out of ****) replicates the original in many respects. Mind you, nobody could set aside Peckinpah’s gritty epic which still sparks controversy for its misogynistic sexual politics for feminists. Nevertheless, Lurie’s politically-correct remake polishes off the rough edges and makes everything objectionable in this frightening story palatable. In the process, he sacrifices some of the ambiguity that made Peckinpah’s messy masterpiece a more memorable movie. Naturally, the new “Straw Dogs” lacks the rabid ferocity of the Peckinpah picture. Nevertheless, the original and the remake both wound up with an R-rating for violence, sexuality, nudity, and profane language. Like the original, the remake features a vicious rape sequence, but Lurie depicts the assault with virtually no nudity. Specifically, the heroine’s private parts are not displayed. What may sicken some otherwise stout-hearted spectators more than the man versus man violence is the mysterious strangulation death of a white cat. Yes, the original had a similar scene where our protagonists found their pet cat dangling from their closet light cord. Otherwise, the new “Straw Dogs” boasts a gripping story, interesting characters, and some surprises that ought to keep audiences guessing throughout this unsavory saga. Along the way, Lurie has implemented some alterations. First, he shifted the setting to rural Mississippi and takes advantage of the tradition of southern violence. One of the few problems with the original was the lack of familiarity with the English setting. Hollywood has not made as many movies about sadistic English vigilantes as it has about xenophobic Mississippi racists. Second, the hero is a film scenarist rather than an astrophysicist. Third, the mentally handicapped supporting character is not as unsavory. Fourth, David and Amy have a stronger marriage. At the end of Peckinpah’s “Straw Dogs,” the husband abandoned the wife because she had betrayed him during the home invasion.

Hollywood scenarist David Sumner (James Marsden of “X-Men”) and his gorgeous young wife Amy (Kate Bosworth of “Blue Crush”) return to her hometown of Blackwater, Mississippi. Sumner has to pen a screenplay about the landmark twentieth century battle of Stalingrad, one of the turning points of World War II, and he wants to write it in the bucolic backwoods of the south. David and Amy met during a television series that he wrote for her, but the show has been canceled. Unfortunately, the Harvard educated David isn’t prepared for the reception that he encounters. Essentially, David is a fish-out-of-water. Not only does he discover that his debit card is worthless, but he doesn’t share the same relish for fried pickles as a delicacy that Amy’s friends do. One of Amy’s friends, Charlie (Alexander Skarsgård of HBO’s “True Blood”), wants to resume their former relationship as lovers. She was a cheerleader, and Charlie was the star football quarterback under the guidance of old school coach Tom Heddon (James Woods of “Ghosts of Mississippi”) who made his players grovel. When he meets Charlie at the local watering hole, David makes the mistake of hiring Charlie and his redneck hillbilly pals to rebuild a garage on Amy’s property that Hurricane Katrina ravaged.

Charlie and his pals start work too early for David and things deteriorate from that point. One of Charlie’s crew, Bic (Drew Powell of “The Marine”), ambles into Amy’s house without an invitation and helps himself to a beer from the fridge. Amy thinks coming home is a vacation, but David is serious about his work. Amy aggravates matters when she jogs around the property without a bra. She reminds David that she dresses for him and he reminds her that he knows what she looks like without a bra. Meantime, Charlie interprets Amy’s behavior as solicitation, and he invites David—who knows little about firearms—to join them for a hunt. Charlie slips away and rapes Amy while David is occupied in the woods. Later, one of the town citizens, a mentally challenged man, Henry Niles (Dominic Purcell of “Prison Break”), accidentally kills Tom Heddon’s daughter. All chaos breaks loose. David shields Niles from a vengeful Heddon who demands that David relinquish him. Heddon persuades Charlie and his friends to help him storm the farmhouse and take Niles. Suffice to say; what ensues isn’t a picnic for anybody.

Lurie has done a splendid job of fleshing out the heroes and villains in a different locale. He lets the antagonism smolder, and then he orchestrates a savage finale where our hero takes no prisoners. One weapon that our hero wields was not available to the English yahoos who assaulted Dustin Hoffman. James Marsden wields an automatic nail gun with devastating results. Similarly, the English yahoos didn’t smash through the farmhouse with a pick-up truck. Comparatively, the Englishmen were armed with only one shotgun rather than an arsenal of high-powered hunting rifles. Marsden plays a different kind of nerd from the Hoffman hero. Lurie rewrote the Kate Bosworth damsel-in-distress role so that she possesses more maturity than Susan George’s petulant Lolita-like wife. Unlike the Hoffman-George marriage that strained credibility, everything about the Marsden-Bosworth union seems believable. As a couple, their characters seem far more compatible. We are told more about their back story than Peckinpah revealed about the Hoffman-George marriage. Meantime, Alexander Skarsgård and James Woods emerge as stronger villains than Peter Vaughn and Del Henney in the original. While the film relied on Gordon Williams’ novel “The Siege of Trencher’s Farm” for its source material, Lurie derived most of his inspiration from the David Zelag Goodman & Sam Peckinpah script. Lurie lifted several lines straight from the original, though he left out Hoffman’s memorable line: “I will not allow violence against this house!” For the record, although the action occurs in Mississippi, the filmmakers lensed the story in Shreveport, Louisiana. Nevertheless, as remakes rate, “Straw Dogs” qualifies as a breed apart.

A FILM REVIEW OF "STRAW DOGS" (1971)

2011-09-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

Controversial filmmaker Sam Peckinpah forsook his traditional Old West setting for his sixth film "Straw Dogs" (***1/2 out of ****) to show how the most harmless milquetoast in the twentieth century could metamorphose into a man of extreme violence. Basically, Peckinpah explores the theme of survival of the fittest. British author Gordon Williams' novel "The Siege at the Trencher's Farm" served as the literary source. According to Peckinpah biographer David Weddle," Peckinpah did not like the Williams title so he changed it to "Straw Dogs." The Peckinpah title came from a quote in Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu's "The Book of 5,0000 Characters." The passage that Peckinpah cited was: "Heaven and Earth are ruthless, and treat the myriad creatures as straw dogs: the sage is ruthless and treated the people as straw dogs. ... Is not the space between Heaven and Earth like a bellows?" According to Marshal Fine and Garner Simmons in their respective Peckinpah biographies "Blood Sam" and "Peckinpah: A Portrait in Montage," actor Walter Kelly gave the director Tzu's quote. More than just the title changed as the filmmakers adapted the Williams novel. Initially, wrote Simmons, "Logan's Run" scenarist David Zelag Goodman penned two early drafts of the script. Goodman told Simmons about some of the differences between the novel and the film. Two of the minor changes concerned the protagonist; George Magruder was an English professor in the novel rather than an astrophysicist like David Sumner. The biggest change, however, was that no rape occurred in the novel. Furthermore, according to Simmons, Williams distanced himself from “Straw Dogs” because he hated Peckinpah's use of sex, not violence. Sex emerges as the stimulus for the conflict since two females in “Straw Dogs” are such nymphs that they are prepared to die for it.

Wimpy American mathematician David Sumner (a bespectacled Dustin Hoffman of "The Graduate") settles on a sabbatical in serene Cornwall, England, far away from the violence and unrest raging in America so he can work on a grant. When the villagers ask him if he has witnessed any of the turmoil in America, David replies that he only glimpsed the violence between the commercials on television. David's cryptic response and his subtle indictment of the media speaks volumes. The rustic British hamlet, where "Straw Dogs" takes place, was the hometown of David’s promiscuous wife Amy (Susan George of "Lola"), and their marriage appears to be deteriorating because his Lolita-type spouse wants him to pay more attention to her than the work with his equations on a blackboard in his study. Simmons quotes Hoffman who wasn't entirely sold on either the casting of Susan George as well as the notion that David would have wed such a selfish, shallow-minded dame. Indeed, the first time that we see Amy, she is traipsing through the village with no bra with an adolescent boy and girl following in her footsteps toting what appears to be huge steel-jawed animal trap. Apparently, Amy bought the trap as a birthday gift for her husband. Amy excites the locals with her no-bra-look. As it turns out, one of these locals is none other than her old boyfriend Charlie Venner (Del Henney of "Brannigan") who Amy hasn't seen in six years. Charlie helps David load the man-trap into their convertible Triumph coupe. Ironically, Charlie will later on have a close encounter with the unwieldy contraption before fade-out. Moreover, Charlie foreshadows the use that the bear-trap is put to when he observes that it was designed to catch poachers.

David hires Charlie to help Norman Scutt (Ken Hutchison of "Ladyhawke") complete the work on the roof of his garage on the basis that he knows Amy. What David has no way of knowing is that Amy and Charlie have a history as a couple. When Charlie makes a pass at Amy in the village, Amy deflects his advances, little knowing that David is watching them from the pub where he went to buy cigarettes. Meantime, these ruffians are more intent on watching Amy parade around bare-chested than perform their chores. At one point, Amy appears bare-chested so that they can see her and then she complains to David about how they practically licked her body. David's response is to acknowledge their good taste in women. Simultaneously, the locals are not sure about how to deal with David. They aren't too excited by David's preppy look, his white tennis shoes, and his glasses. Peckinpah makes a point of showing David's wardrobe from the perspective of one of the villagers. Of course, the local constable, Major John Scott (T.P. McKenna of "Red Scorpion"), and the Reverend Barney Hood (Colin Welland of "Villain"), treat David with kindness, but rough-hewn Tom Hedden (Peter Vaughan of "The Mackintosh Man") and his relatives reserve nothing but contempt for him. Eventually, Tom's evil relatives and their friends take David on a duck hunting trip. Basically, the hunt amounts to a snipe hunt, such as in the classic Robert Mitchum movie "Home from the Hill," and they abandon him in the wilderness. During this subterfuge, Charlie and his mate, ex-convict Norman rape Amy. Earlier, Chris Cawsey (Jim Norton of "Hidden Agenda") stole a pair of Amy's panties and flaunted them like a trophy in front of Norman. Norman observed that he had no use for her panties. Instead, he preferred to have what was in them. First, Charlie rapes Amy in a lovingly tender fashion. Second, Amy looks like she is enjoying the experience. This is the part of "Straw Dogs" that outraged feminists. Later, when Norman gets his hands on Amy, Norman shares none of Charlie's tender sentiments. A conflicted Charlie finds himself holding down Amy so Norman can sodomize Amy while she shrieks in agony. Amy doesn’t forget the humiliation of being raped and suffers through it flashbacks during the church party. Meantime, a simpleton, Henry Niles (David Warner of "The Omen") arouses trouble because he was not jailed for a sex crime. Charlie mentioned to Amy that they take care of their own, and Henry is allowed to roam the streets as long as he stays out of trouble. Nevertheless, Henry is seen playing with the children at different times during the action. Everything comes to a head during the church party when Tom's slutty daughter Janice Hedden (Sally Thomsett of "Baxter!") tries to take advantage of Henry after David wants nothing to do with her. Repeatedly, Tom has warned Henry's brother John Niles (Peter Arne of “The Pink Panther”) to keep an eye on his slow-witted brother. Says Tom, "Your brother; been hangin' around the girls again. You'd better keep a closer watch or we'll be puttin' him away!" This subplot is part of the narrative that Peckinpah and Goodman never provide much clarification about so that we know what Henry did that made him emerge as a threat to Tom.

The simple-minded Henry and Janice retire to a barn for their assignation. Clearly, poor Janice doesn’t realize that she is playing with fire. Henry kills her in a scene straight out of "Of Mice and Men" with a conspicuous lack of remorse. Later, on their way home from the church party, David collides with Henry because the road is shrouded in fog. Amy isn’t happy with David because he brings the injured Henry into their house. A drunken Tom and his mates show up at David's house and demand that he hand over Henry. David refuses and chaos ensues. When Major Scott tries to intervene, Tom kills him by accident and things degenerate into chaos. Amy wants David to hand over Henry to Tom and company, but our hero refuses. At the same time, he tries to maintain his nonviolence, but Tom and company sorely try him until he retaliates. David warns them in no uncertain terms. He says, "I will not allow violence against this house." By the time that the dust settles, Tom Hedden has blasted his own foot off with his shotgun. Charlie winds up killing Norman with Tom's shotgun, and Charlie stumbles into the man-trap as he is giving David a thorough thrashing. Indeed, everybody but David, Amy, and Henry survive this nightmarish fracas. Dustin Hoffman delivers a dynamic performance as a meek, mild-mannered man who achieves manhood during a baptism by fire. Peter Vaughn makes a nefarious villain. Vaughn's scene in the pub when David runs into him for the first time foreshadows Tom Hedden's sadism.

Several scenes stand out individually. First, Peter Vaughan's scene in the pub when he calls for another pint before the pub closes and then raises hell until he gets it sets him up as the chief thug. He doesn’t like David Sumner for the first moment that he sees him. The next interesting scene occurs when David careens in his Triumph between a truck and a bull dozer as the two approach each other. The villagers driving the truck flag David to pass them but then they accelerate so that he has to step on the gas to avoid hitting the bulldozer. Momentary though it is, this scene is exciting. Repeatedly, throughout the action, the villagers test David’s mettle. Peckinpah orchestrates the final quarter-hour for maximum suspense and tension. At this point, Peckinpah has established who the thugs are and their agenda. David has emerged as an individual who goes out of the way to avoid violence. When Tom and his mates launch their home invasion, David finds himself in a corner with his irritating wife goading him on to retaliate. The bloodiest that "Straw Dogs" gets is when a lout blows his foot to smithereens with his own double-barreled shotgun. Peckinpah foreshadows the use of a giant steel mantrap and his use of violence is still grisly but it seems toned-down but realistic compared with his classic western "The Wild Bunch." The ambiguous ending will prompt many interpretations. As David is driving the retarded Niles home, Niles says, "I don't know my way home." David replies, "That's okay, neither do I."

In some ways, "Straw Dogs" is reminiscent of those western movies where vigilantes storm a jail, abduct a prisoner from a lawman powerless to thwart them, and then lynch him. Watching Dustin Hoffman miraculously outsmart these five dastards makes this movie a sight to behold. Unfortunately, despite its lyricism, “Straw Dogs” was not a major Hollywood hit. Nevertheless, it showed that Peckinpah could make more than just westerns.

FILM REVIEW OF "CONTAGION" (2011)

2011-09-13T04:44:00.000-07:00

Marion Cotillard, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Elliot Gould, Sanaa Lathan, and Jennifer Ehle all contend with a mysterious global virus in "Traffic" director Steven Soderbergh's nimble global disease thriller "Contagion" (*** out of ****) that Gwyneth Paltrow precipitates. Mind you, "Contagion" is nothing like director Wolfgang Petersen's germ warfare thriller "Outbreak"(1995) with Dustin Hoffman. Soderbergh and "Bourne Ultimatum" scribe Scott Z. Brown maintain an impersonal rather than a glamorous tone as this international medical procedural maps the spread of a pandemic which can kill an individual in three days. Researchers christen the virus, MEV-1, and stare in horror as the virus wraps its lethal tentacles around the globe, killing one in every four people and terrifying everybody else. Not long after the viral outbreak, people become leery of mingling in public. The policemen and hospital workers strike. Society and the rules which govern it collapse, and pandemonium engulfs everyone. Indeed, Soderbergh has assembled an impressive celebrity cast, but limits their presence throughout the matter-of-fact 105 minutes so nobody stands out like in his "Ocean's" franchise. The characters belong to one of three groups: first, the field agents who encounter the disease first hand; second, those behind the scenes who struggle to develop a vaccine; and the administrators who must control the hysteria. Unfortunately, despite his admiral efforts to give "Contagion” a documentary flavor like the classic 1965 "Battle of Algiers," Soderbergh sacrifices the usual Hollywood heroics which would make the action appear charismatic. Doctors and researchers disobey their superiors and take chances that they are ordered not to take. Predictably, mankind survives but the pandemic takes the world to the brink. Watching "Contagion" is like watching the anatomy of a disaster on Public Television. You will exit “Contagion” knowing that you touch your face 2-thousand times a day. When you aren’t touching your face, you are touching something else or somebody else who may be infected with germs. Inevitably, as liberal-minded as Soderbergh is, "Contagion" boils down to a cautionary yarn about tampering with Mother Nature. While the Asians play a major role in the virus, the virus come about as the result of an American corporation that destroys the wilderness with no thought about the consequences. You might not want to dine out at an Asian restaurant after you watch this atmospheric thriller.

“Contagion” opens during the second day that the pandemic has spread. Traveling business executive Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow of “Country Strong”) has attended a groundbreaking for a new factory in Hong Kong. Afterward, she celebrates with several colleagues at a casino in Macau. What poor Beth has no way of knowing is that she has become infected with a virus that came about as a result of the construction of a new factory. The company bulldozers drove huge bats out of their nesting area, and the bats relocated to a swine farm where they infect the pigs with their guano. Beth flies back to the U.S. and squeezes in enough time for an extra-marital fling in Chicago before she goes home to her dutiful husband Mitch (Matt Damon of “Hereafter”) in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Meanwhile, other people that Beth came into contact with in Hong Kong are dropping like flies. A waiter collapses, and one of Beth’s colleagues dies aboard a commuter train in Japan. Initially, when Beth left the casino bar, she forgot her drink. A Ukrainian woman hands Beth her cell phone that Beth had forgotten. The woman is found dead in her motel room later by motel authorities. Eventually, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, investigate and suspect that Beth is patient zero for the epidemic. Meantime, things worsen for Mitch when his elementary school age son Clark (newcomer Griffin Kane) dies from the virus, too. Incredibly, Mitch learns that he is immune from the disease and he takes his daughter Joy (first-time actress Anna Jacoby-Heron) out of school and refuses to let her boyfriend visit her for fear that he may contaminate her.

In Atlanta, Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne of “The Matrix”) sends Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet of “Titanic”), an Epidemic Intelligence Service officer, to fly to Minneapolis to supervise the investigation. Meantime, the World Health Organization in Geneva dispatches its top epidemiologist Dr. Leonora Orantes (Marion Cotillard of “Inception”) to China to search for the origins of the disease. Not long afterward Mears comes down with the virus via infected motel workers. A brilliant civilian scientist, Professor Ian Sussman (Elliott Gould of “Ocean’s Eleven”), at Stanford becomes the first to create the virus in his laboratory, while one of Cheever’s own CDC staff physicians Dr. Ally Hextall (two-time Tony-winner Jennifer Ehle of “The Adjustment Bureau”), concocts a vaccine by experimenting on herself rather than waiting. Ironically, both Sussman and Hextall achieve their discoveries because they violate CDC policy. They discover that the disease contains genetic elements from bat and swine viruses. At this point, virtually everybody around the world is wearing a mask for safety’s sake. Cheever confides in his wife that she must leave Chicago and come to Washington. Thieves break into Cheever’s home and threaten his wife Aubrey Cheever (Sanaa Latham of “Love and Basketball”) while they ransack the premises vainly for the vaccine. The CDC establishes a lottery to determine who gets the first vaccine shots. Throughout this global crisis, a lone-wolf journalist, Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law of “Cold Mountain”) who believes in criminal conspiracies has been blogging about the disease. He claims that he came down with it and used another prescription drug to cure himself. Homeland Security officials eventually arrest him for spreading rumors.

Although Soderbergh and Burns do an exemplary job of covering all the points on the compass of the global pandemic, they end up giving their one-dimensional characters the short shrift, especially the WHO epidemiologist in China. We never get to know any of the characters beyond the glimpses that we are given. Laurence Fishburne, Kate Winslet, and Matt Damon fare better than Jude Law, Elliot Gould, and Marion Cotillard. Indeed, Soderbergh shows us the frightening logistics that complicate finding a cure for an unknown virus, but “Contagion” never generates any charisma.

"SHARK NIGHT 3-D" (2011)

2011-09-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

"Shark Night 3-D" (* out of ****) bites!

Unfortunately, "Snakes on a Plane" director David R. Ellis plays everything straight in "Shark Night 3-D." Meaning, you had better prepare yourself for clichés galore without a smirk in sight. This derivative, PG-13 rated, 91-minute, yarn concerns three stereotypical, mean-spirited rednecks who drool at the chance to feed stuck-up college kids to ravenous sharks of all sizes. Of course, most of the ocean's deadly predators prefer to prowl the briny blue, but these three rednecks own a stunning device that enables them to paralyze these predators, attach mini-cams to them, relocate them to a Louisiana salt-lake, and wait for them to start chomping. Furthermore, they plan to make big bucks by selling their shark snuff videos to die-hard “Shark Week” addicts after the real thing. Think of "Shark Night 3-D" as "Jaws" trying to meet “8MM." Everybody sports serious expressions because everything is serious. Nevertheless, everybody behaves like idiots, too. A one-armed college jock with a spear wades into a shark-infested lake with revenge in his heart. Hammerheads, threshers, cookie cutters and bull sharks assemble to make munch-meat of him. Sadly, not only are these sharks either digitally concocted or animatronic, but they also act like SyFy Channel sharks. These synthetic sharks swim with such speed that our heroes, when the latter have either a boat with an outboard motor or water bike at their disposal, cannot out leave them in their wake!

An academically challenged Tulane University athlete, Malik (Sinqa Walls of “Choose Connor”), makes a B+ on a test and no longer fears flunking out of college. Malik rewards his dutiful tutor, Nick (Dustin Milligan of “Final Destination 3”), along with Nick’s nerdy roommate Gordon (Joel David Moore of “Avatar”) to join his friends for a good time at a remote lakeside estate. The wealthy parents of Sara (Sara Paxton of “Superhero Movie”) own a beautiful cottage secluded on an island which a sprawling salt-water lake surrounds. Naturally, nobody with a cell phone can raise a signal at Lake Crosby. Furthermore, the nearest hospital lies about two hours away. Little do our recreationally minded heroes know the ill-fate which awaits them. Meantime, Malik tries to play Cupid and get Nick and Sara together. As Malik tells Nick, Sara has not been on a date in three years. Later we learn why. Anyway, Nick and Sara grow chummy and Nick winds up steering Sara’s launch. While Nick is playing admiral, he has show-off Malik at the end of a tether skiing around the lake on a board. Malik impresses everything with his incredible gymnastic feats. He loves to perform flips. Suddenly, Malik feels something ram his board, and he takes a tumble. A shark attacks Malik and tears off his right arm at the bicep. Our heroes bandage Malik and rush him to the hospital. Malik’s blood drips into the lake and another shark slams into the launch so that Malik’s soon-to-be wife, Maya (Alyssa Diaz of TV’s “Southland”), topples into the water and gets gobbled up. Later, Malik storms into the lake with a spear and accomplishes nothing, except dying. The two river rednecks, Sara's ex-boyfriend, Dennis (Chris Carmack of “Into the Blue 2: The Reef), and his sidekick, Red (Joshua Leonard of “Hatchet”), offer to help Sara and her friends. Beth is so sickened by the tragic turn of events that she wants to ride with Dennis and Red back to the mainland. Gordon refuses to let Beth travel alone with them. Before it is all over with heroic Nick has to tangle with Sara’s ex-boyfriend and a shark.

Basically, "Shark Night 3-D" amounts to a complicated but predictable revenge thriller with nothing to recommend it either as top-notch entertainment or so bad it’s good. Freshmen scenarists Will Hayes and Jesse Studenberg neither do Ellis nor the audience any favors with their shallow screenplay that borrows extensively from other shark movies. Their dialogue is flat without any flair. The characters emerge as one-dimensional nitwits waiting for their moment to be eaten. Ellis deserves credit for keeping the action moving at a brisk pace. Nevertheless, he fails to generate any sympathy for our clueless heroes. The villains could be cousins of the rednecks in “Deliverance.” All of the ersatz shark attacks have been lensed before with greater realism in better movies. The 3-D delivers in only two scenes. The first involves an exploding boat flinging shrapnel, and the second shows a shark as its gory innards are blasted out of it. Considering the $28-million budget, you’d think they could have made more than one shark appear convincing. A bull shark does look supremely menacing in a scene straight out of the James Bond feature "License to Kill," but the rest look simulated and swim like torpedoes. Two sharks literally defy gravity by leaping out of the lake to chomp. A first girl caught alone in the lake is straight out of the original "Jaws" as well as the attack on a hapless skier is straight out of the "Jaws 2." If you want to watch a good shark thriller, and you cannot find "Jaws," then you might try "Deep Blue Sea" (1999), or the straight-to-video, outlandish "Shark Attack 3: Megalodon" (2002) and "Shark Swarm" (2008). The PG-13 rating rules out any chance of nudity, and the ability of sharks that can race through the water after speedboats eliminates any sense of credibility. Ellis generates a modicum of suspense when swimmers struggle to out-swim the sharks, but not enough to scare the daylights out of you.

"Shark Night 3-D" is munch-ado-about-gnaw-thing!

FILM REVIEW OF ''COLOMBIANA" (2011)

2011-08-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

French writer, producer, and director Luc Besson reinvented the killer chick flick genre back in 1990 with his stylist shoot’em up “La Femme Nikita.” Before “La Femme Nikita” illuminated screens, the best killer chick flicks came from a variety of directors, actresses, and genres. Low-budget, indie director Ted V. Mikels helmed “The Doll Squad” (1973) and “Ten Violent Women” (1982). African-American actress Pam Grier empowered women in such B-movie classics as “Big Doll House” (1971), “Coffy” (1973), “Foxy Brown” (1974), and “Friday Foster” (1975). In 1973, future Nancy Reagan astrologer Joyce Jillson starred in “Super Chick” as an airline attendant named Tara B. True who held a black belt in karate and thwarted a jet hijacking. Another African-American actress Tamara Dobson headlined “Cleopatra Jones” (1973) and Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold” (1975). Most of these movies drew their inspiration from Asian actioneers where women wielded lethal weapons without a qualm, like “Female Demon Ohyaku” (1968), “Okatsu the Fugitive” (1969), “Quick-draw Okatsu” (1969), “Blind Woman's Curse” (1970) and “Lady Snowblood” (1971). At the same time, the Japanese produced the “Zero Woman” cycle of shoot’em ups in the Pinky Violence Collection featuring: “Delinquent Girl Boss: Worthless To Confess” (1971) “Girl Boss Guerilla” (1972) , “Criminal Woman: Killing Melody” (1973), and "Terrifying Girls' High School: Lynch Law Classroom" (1973). Before these Asian costume thrillers and the occasional American crime melodrama, like "The Violent Years," only denim-clad dames in horse opera such as “Johnny Guitar” (1954), “Two-Gun Lady” (1955), “Gunslinger” (1956), and “Forty Guns” (1957) were allowed to shoot and kill if the occasion required.

“La Femme Nikita” propelled the genre into the 1990s, but focused primarily on contemporary professional women armed to the hilt with modern firepower. Not-surprisingly, clones proliferated: “Tank Girl” (1995), “Cherry” (2000), “The Silencer” (2000), and “Thelma and Louise (1991). In “La Femme Nikita,” the eponymous anti-heroine was a convicted dame slated for execution who received a second chance at life if she performed executions for the government. Besson’s charismatic thriller starred newcomer Anne Parillaud and spawned a Hollywood remake, “Point of No Return” with Bridget Fonda as well as a Hong Kong version in director Stephen Shin's “Black Cat” (1991) and its sequel "Black Cat 2" (1997) with Jade Leung. Later, Besson made “The Professional” (1994) where an expert hit man, Jean Reno, taught a young girl, Natalie Portman, to how to kill the dastards who had murdered her parents. A cable television series “La Femme Nikita” with Peta Wilson followed; it aired from 1997 to 2001. In 2010, another version of “La Femme Nikita” hit the small screen with Maggie Q cast in “Nikita.”

Cleverly, Besson has recycled some of the best scenes from both “La Femme Nikita” and “The Professional” to make “Colombiana” (***1/2 out of ****), starring Zoe Saldana of "Avatar" as a sympathetic but indestructible female assassin. As one thug warns his companions, when Colombiana materializes, it is too late to take action and survive. Make no mistake; the filmmakers treat the theme of female empowerment in this seasoned but Spartan saga with few surprises but a surplus of sizzle. If you’ve seen either “La Femme Nikita” and/or “The Professional,” you can spot the inspiration for “Colombiana.” An early scene in “La Femme Nikita” depicts the heroine plunging a pencil into a policeman’s hand. Similarly, an early scene in “Colombiana” shows our young heroine stabbing a scumbag villain and pinning his hand to a table while she makes good her escape. No matter how derivative this suspenseful, high-octane, white-knuckled epic is, “Transporter 3” director Olivier Megaton compensates with picturesque staging, a cast with provocative faces, and atmospheric locales. "Colombiana" is grueling, gritty, with a lot of get-up-and-go.

Initially, “Colombiana” opens in Bogotá, Columbia, 1992. Ten-year old Cataleya Restrepo (newcomer Amanda Stenberg) watches as the henchmen of a Colombian crime cartel murder her mother and father. It seems that her father tries to retire from the syndicate. Treacherous Don Luis (Beto Benites of "Hermano") allows him to leave his heavily-guarded premises before he issues a contract. Luis’ right-hand man, Marco (Jordi Molla of “Blow”), tries to capture Cataleya because she possesses a microchip crammed with incriminating evidence that her father gave her as a bargaining chip for a passport. Cataleya's father tells her that the microchip is her passport to America. The agile girl leads the slimy Marco and his machine-gun toting mob on an adrenaline-laced foot chase through Bogotá. When she isn't scaling buildings, Cataleya crashes through flimsy roof-tops and recovers in the nick of time. Ultimately, she scrambles away from Marco and his army by diving into an underground sewer. The elusive Cataleya enters the United States, cuts a deal with the U.S. authorities, and hands them all the information on the Luis’ gang. Not long afterward, she escapes from U.S. authorities and catches a bus for Chicago, Illinois, to see her Uncle Emilio (Cliff Curtis of “Training Day”) explore revenge as an option. When she meets Emilio, Cataleya confides in him that she once wanted to be a warrior princess like the TV heroine Xena. Now, she wants only to be a killer.

A criminal himself, Emilio lets the young girl sleep in his late son’s room. He trains her to be a contract assassin. In one great scene, Emilio explains that even contract assassins—if they plan to survive more than five years—must attend public school. Emilio assures her that he can make a top-notch assassin out of her, but she has got to have the intelligence level of a high school graduate. Besson and "Transporter" co-scripter Robert Mark Kamen fast-forward the plot 15 years later. Cataleya has become a svelte killing machine who loves to dress in skimpy clothing. She has discovered to her chagrin that the CIA has taken Don Luis into protective custody. Besson and Kamen make sure that nobody is too easy for their heroine. Nevertheless, the Central Intelligence Agency allows Luis to continue his business as usual. Neither the CIA nor the FBI, however, can thwart Cataleya when she goes into action against them.

This PG-13 rated, 108-minute epic boils down to a episodic narrative with Cataleya icing one individual at a time until she works her way down to Marco. After she kills a victim, our heroine uses lipstick to sketch a native South American orchid called 'cattleya' on the corpse's chest to remind Don Luis that he is her prime target. Actually, Cataleya was named after this flower. The elaborate hit that our heroine carries out in a high security jail resembles the kind of far-fetched antics that occur in Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible" franchise. The way that Cataleya lands behind bar to terminate her prey is blunt and to the point. When Cataleya isn’t dodging Don Luis’ trigger-happy henchmen, she must keep a step ahead of a tenacious FBI agent, Ross (Lennie James of “The Next Three Days”) who believes that a man is responsible for the murder rampage. Cataleya lets her romantic relationship with an artist, Danny (Michael Vartan of “Alias”), interfere with her plans. Danny has no clue about her line of work, until he exposes her quite by accident to the villains. The scene where the FBI and a SWAT team surround Cataleya’s safe house generates considerable tension.

“Colombiana” qualifies as an outlandish, audacious exercise in suspense and tension that benefits from Zoe Saldana’s gravity-defying performance and helmer Olivier Megaton’s slam-bang action scenes.

FILM REVIEW OF ''FIGHT CLUB'' (1999)

2011-08-13T11:32:00.000-07:00

"Fight Club" (**** out of ****) is a knock-out!

Brad Pitt and Edward Norton co-star and spar in this bizarre but insightful bare-knuckled, no-holds-barred, pugilistic parable. "Fight Club" takes some mighty savage but satirical swings at consumerism, anarchy, and male impotence. "Se7en" & Alien 3" director David Fincher delivers another of his kinetically super-charged, darkly lensed, adrenaline-laced epics about guys gelded by a gilded society who come to life when they stain their fists with blood. At one point, Brad Pitt tells Edward Norton: Penned by "Jumper" scenarist Jim Uhls from Chuck Palahniuk's first novel, "Fight Club" appears to glorify violence, promote fascism, and degrade women. Instead, "Fight Club" denigrates the first, shows contempt for the second, and give Helen Bonham Carter her juiciest role in years.

"Fight Club" spins a yarn every bit as audacious, manipulative and exhilarating as Fincher's earlier opus "The Game." Edward Norton of "Rounders" serves as our narrator for this 140-minute marathon that goes the distance. Caged in a dead-end job, Norton files reams of car accident statistics for a major automaker. Essentially, he must calculate when the best interests of the company are served by paying off car crash survivors rather than demanding a recall. As the narrator states: "A new car built by my company leaves somewhere traveling at 60 mph. The rear differential locks up. The car crashes and burns with everyone trapped inside. Now, should we initiate a recall? Take the number of vehicles in the field, A, multiply by the probable rate of failure, B, multiply by the average out-of-court settlement, C. A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one." Anyway, the narrator flies everywhere to inspect these wrecks and begins to suffer from more than occupational jet lag.

Inevitably, our anonymous narrator turns into a depressed white-collar insomniac. Lack of sleep drives him to the hospital. Incredibly, his doctor refuses to give him any drugs. He suggests instead that our narrator attend a support group for survivors of testicular cancer so that he can appreciate what constitutes real pain. Surprisingly, Norton discovers that he can purge himself emotionally without fear of humiliation. Afterward, his burden sloughed off, he goes home to his luxuriously appointed condo, hits the sack and sleeps like a baby. Franz Kafka couldn't have captured the malaise of modern society as crisply as Jim Uhls has in "Fight Club." Soon our unnamed narrator begins to gleefully orchestrate his life around these 12-step meetings and support groups for habits and diseases that he doesn't have. He is hooked and happy about until Marla Singer (Helen Bonham Carter of "Hamlet") spoils these gatherings. He knows that she is a fraud and fears she will expose him. They snarl at each other but call a truce and form an uneasy alliance. They will alternate nights at different groups so they won't collide with each other.

Marla poses few problems compared with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt of "The Score"), a mysterious maverick of a man encountered by our hero during a bumpy plane ride. Durden epitomizes cool; he has everything our narrator lacks. Self-assured, scruffily clad, with all the hypnotic charm of a snake, Durden lurks around the narrator. When they form Fight Club, Tyler lists the rules: "The first rule of Fight Club is: you do not talk about Fight Club. The second rule of Fight Club is: you DO NOT talk about Fight Club! Third rule of Fight Club: someone yells "stop!", goes limp, taps out, the fight is over. Fourth rule: only two guys to a fight. Fifth rule: one fight at a time, fellas. Sixth rule: No shirts, no shoes. Seventh rule: fights will go on as long as they have to. And the eighth and final rule: if this is your first time at Fight Club, you have to fight." Tyler attracts followers like a magnet. After an unknown arsonist destroys our narrator's condo, he hooks up with Tyler. They create "Fight Club," a form of underground tough man boxing.

Remember "Every Which Way But Loose," with Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson in "Hard Times?" They fight in dark, dank basements. Fincher pulls no punches when the combatants start swinging at each other. Quite simply, these fights are brutal, especially when a pretty boy (Jared Leto of "Urban Legend") is battered to a pulp until he resembles the elephant kid. Only the knuckle-headed will exit "Fight Club" looking for an excuse to scrap. The friendship between Tyler and our hero takes some wildly out-of-control turns. Tyler takes "Fight Club" to other cities, and then movies to the next level with "Project Mayhem," a demolitionist's fantasy that involves destroying credit card corporations. Our hero balks at Tyler's outlandish aims and the mindless, skin-headed idiots that he recruits for his cause. But it isn't until the third act, so to speak, when "Fight Club" decks you with a shocking revelation: Tyler Durden may not be who we think he is.

"Fight Club" will send some audiences reeling in disgust at its sicko shenanigans—like when Durden urinates in the soap at an expensive restaurant where he waits tables. Don't ask what he puts in the clam chowder. When Tyler works as a projectionist at a movie theatre, he splices frames of male genitalia into family movies! If you cannot handle a film poling fun at you, you probably won't appreciate some of the subversive humor. Twentieth Century Fox appears to have gone out of its way to sanitize "Fight Club," but Fincher is such a good director that his visuals contain more bite than his narrative. Like in "The Game," where Michael Douglas' snotty rich guy had to run a grueling gauntlet—a present of sorts for the man who has everything—"Fight Club" lowers the boom on hypocrisy. The Uhls script brims with several snappy and quotable one-liners.

"Fight Club" will strike some people as pretty strange, too. Any movie that never reveals its hero's name, especially when he provides the narration, is probably too pretentious for its own good. Nevertheless, the performances are flawless, particularly the two leads as well as Meatloaf as Robert 'Bob' Paulson. Meatloaf plays the most outlandish character and milks the role for everything that it is worth. As Marla Singer, Helena Bonham Carter is equally as funny and brilliant as both Pitt and Norton. "Fight Club" emerges as an abrasive movie, and Fincher digs his satirical claws in deep. We live in a media jungle, and "Fight Club" smirks at the notion that we would want to destroy it to return to lives of quiet destitution. With "Fight Club," Fincher matches anything that Stanley Kubrick helmed in his prime and shows Terry Gilliam a trick or two.

"Fight Club" ranks as the main event of the millennium.

FILM REVIEW OF ''ESCAPE FROM L.A." (1996)

2011-08-08T17:18:00.000-07:00

If the one-eyed Snake Plissken had an attitude problem in “Escape from New York,” wait until you behold the havoc Snake wrecks in the long-awaited, slam-bang sequel “Escape from L.A.,” a memorable apocalyptic science fiction satire that more than compensates for many of the shortcomings in the original “Escape.” “Halloween” director John Carpenter never lets the story slow down so we can catch our breath. Just when you think you have it all sorted out, he pulls a fast one that enlivens this “Escape.” “Escape from Los Angeles” (***1/2 out of ****) pushes the envelope further. Carpenter penned the script with producer Debra Hill and Kurt Russell. Snake’s mission is no picnic. The filmmakers deploy Snake into one rigorous, hair-raising adventure after another. Snake spends the nine and a half hours of the literal story line leaping through one flaming hoop after another in his quest for a black box. The fate of mankind lies in that box. Of course, Carpenter has wisely compressed time and super-charged the action so the movie hurtles along at a breakneck pace.

By 1998, an earthquake has separated Los Angeles from the California mainland. An ultra-conservative Jerry Falwell-type politician, who predicted the earthquake, takes advantage of his good fortune to win the presidency in the next election. He rewrites laws so that he can hang on to the post for life and then relocates the nation’s capital to Lynchburg, Virginia. A new morally white-washed America has emerged by the year 2013. Cursing, smoking, pre-marital as well as extra-marital sex, and eating red meat now constitutes crimes. The government deports anybody who refuses to conform to this new order and sends them to the gang-infested cesspool of Los Angeles. The U.S. Police Force maintains a chain of forts along the coastline to repel the efforts of a South American revolutionary, Cuervo Jones (George Corraface of “Christopher Columbus”), who plans to spearhead a Third World invasion to reclaim America.

Things take a turn for the worse when the President’s naïve daughter Utopia (A.J. Langer) steals the black box. The black box contains the remote control to activate a necklace of lethal satellites designated ‘the Sword of Damocles.’ These satellites encircle Earth, and they can fire a magnetic pulse beam with pinpoint accuracy that can disable any kind of electric engine. Utopia hijacks Air Force 3 and the jetliner crashes in L.A. She allies herself with Cuervo Jones who threatens to use the weapon against America. The U.S. Police Force dispatches a rescue team, but they all die. Enter ‘war hero’ Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell of “Tombstone”), unshaven, sporting a black patch over his left eye and an undimished but surly attitude toward authority as ever, in handcuff with a police escort. The only thing that Snake seems to be interested in is where he can get his next cigarette. The police infect Snake with a deadly virus that gives him less than ten hours to retrieve the black box. Reluctantly, Snake agrees to take the mission and rides a nuclear mini-sub into Los Angeles.

Snake shares the sentiments of Marlon Brando’s motorcycle maverick from “The Wild One.” When asked what he rebels against, Brando’s black-leather clad biker replies: “What have you got?” Whatever it is, Snake is against it. Snake thumbs his nose at the rules and the rule makers. He is the ultimate anti-hero, sent to save a civilization that he abhors. Former Disney star Kurt Russell reprises the tough guy tongue-in-cheek role he created in “Escape from New York.” No, you don’t have to have seen the original to appreciate “Escape from Los Angeles.” His fastidious performance boasts equal amounts of put-on and posturing. Russell delivers his dialogue in a low, rasping monotone that parodies Clint Eastwood’s ‘Man with No Name” bounty hunter character. Snake resembles a fashionably rode-hard but put-up-wet Marvel Comic super hero clad in skin-tight, black garb, with matching pistols. Nevertheless, Snake hardly qualifies as a super hero. The filmmakers have a great time poking fun at their one-eyed protagonist. Instead of calling him ‘blue eyes,’ they refer to him as ‘blue eye.’ Everybody who comes into contact with Snake for the first time expresses surprise that Snake isn’t taller. Snake acts rather gullible on occasions when he has to depend on characters who double-cross him.

While the first “Escape” represented a triumph of style over substance, the “Escape” sequel triumphs both in style and substance. “Escape from New York” attained classic cult status as a darkly comic, industrial-strength escapade where Snake rescued a U.S. President from a grim maximum security prison on Manhattan Island. The story generated at least a modicum of tension because Snake had to contend with the severe time restriction. He had been injected with a poison that would kill him if he failed to accomplish his mission by its deadline. Strictly a follow-the-numbers formula melodrama, “Escape” benefitted from its gritty looks, fantastic orchestral score, and the eerie atmosphere.

The beauty of “Escape from Los Angeles” lies in the producer’s refusal to stray from its formulaic origins. Happily, the filmmakers have beefed up the budget, broadened the scope, and pumped up the story. Once again Snake battles the clock to recover a device that can trigger world-wide destruction. This “Escape” generates a far greater sense of urgency as we see Snake cutting corners and blowing away the opposition at every turn to conserve time. In the first “Escape,” Snake sought a cassette tape to bring about world peace, but in “Escape from L.A,” he searches for a mini-disc to neutralize an invasion. The first “Escape” suffered because the scenes between the inventive opening and concluding set-pieces were synthetic and forgettable. It’s like Carpenter and company exhausted their creativity and had to pad out the story to produce a feature length film.

Several familiar faces pad out the cast. Stacy Keach of “Mike Hammer” fame plays the same role Lee Van Cleef had in the original. Keach ranks as the top cop who coordinates between Snake and Cliff Robertson’s scene-chewing president. “Rain Man” co-star Valerie Golino ande “Pulp Fiction’s” Steve Buscemi help Snake navigate through the rubble of Los Angeles. The only thing “Escape from Los Angeles” doesn’t do better is repeat the same orchestral music score. John Carpenter received credit for the music, but Shirley Walker of “Batman”) puts a spin on the theme that doesn’t compare favorably to the original. If you found the first “Escape” remotely entertaining, “Escape from Los Angeles” should blow your mind, if you can handle the violence and the profanity.